“I’m 77 now, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said UCB Professor Donald Glaser. “I’ve never gotten so involved with politics before. I’ve given money to candidates in the past, but this year we’ve stretched ourselves financially.” 

In addition to digging into his wallet to support John Kerry’s run for the White House, Glaser also reached for his pen—joining 47 other Nobel Prize “hard science” recipients as signatories of a passionate plea on behalf of the Democratic candidate. 

“I was happy to sign, because the present administration—to put it politely—is leading us in the wrong direction. They’ve done a lot of damage to us, both to us here at home and to our standing in the international community,” Glaser said. 

Awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1960 for his invention of the bubble chamber, a critical tool in the exploration of subatomic particles, Glaser now serves as a Professor of Physics and of Neurobiology of the Graduate School, working in the department of Molecular & Cell Biology to create a computational model of the human visual system. 

“Both as a citizen and as a scientist, I am horrified at Bush’s attitude toward stem cell research,” he said. “This has become a main field of medical research, and the Koreans are now well ahead of us with several significant discoveries and the British are now building a new lab. 

“At the urging of Nancy Reagan, 58 senators, including members of his own party, signed a letter begging him to allow research to continue. But so far, nothing.” 

But Glaser’s reasons for opposing Bush go far beyond the realms of pure science. 

“I could give you 40 reasons,” he quipped. “We were led into the war with Iraq based on misleading and incorrect statements, either deliberate lies or the C.I.A. is as bad as they say—though I don’t so,” Glaser said, adding that he does believe the nation’s intelligence agencies are badly organized.  

“By attacking the wrong country, [the president] has made us less safe. We should have gone after al-Queda decisively, but instead, by fighting the wrong war, we are creating terrorists,” he said. 

Glaser also blasted Bush for his “absolutely irresponsible” fiscal policies, which have created a record national debt and a massive deficit. 

He also took off after Attorney General John Ashcroft, adding that “together, he and Bush created the PATRIOT Act, which has endangered our civil liberties.” 

The soft-spoken scientist also deplores what he calls the administration’s “special preference for special interests, mainly large corporations. The most egregious instance is Halliburton, but there are many others which are given special preference over the needs of the public.” 

Glaser has had personal experience with another of reasons for opposing Bush. “He has wrecked our reputation in the world. Almost everywhere I go outside the U.S., people ask me, ‘I don’t blame you, but what the hell has happened to your country?” 

Also prominent on Glaser’s worries is the adverse impact of Bush environmental policies. 

“First he tried to ease the safety limits on arsenic, but there was such a hue and cry he had to back off. Now he’s trying it with mercury, and who knows what the outcome will be?” said the physicist.  

“He’s also allowing roads to built into wilderness areas, the obvious precursor to massive logging operations.” 

Glaser also faults Bush for creating a climate of enormous hatred between Democrats and Republicans unlike anything he’s seen in his lifetime. 

“I’m also bothered by the way he often seems to lie and to say things that turn out to be lies,” Glaser said, “and all these things I observe as an ordinary guy. 

“It’s simply awful. In almost every sphere his policies have sent us in the wrong direction. And the use of torture is immensely damaging to our world standing.  

‘Worst of all, it all seems to be ideologically motivated. He didn’t consult with his own father before he decided to invade Iraq—the only living former President to have waged a war. 

“But one thing I know a lot about, and that’s the way he’s damaging science in our country. His scientific advisory committees are becoming subject to an ideological litmus test,” Glaser said. 

“The worst example I know of is Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, a highly respected professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UC San Francisco.” 

Without warning, on Feb. 27 the White House dismissed Blackburn and another scientist from the President’s Committee on Bioethics, to which Bush had appointed her two years earlier. 

Blackburn, a proponent of abortion, was replaced by an anti-abortion conservative. 

“Considering the circumstances,” Glaser said, “it’s hard not to get involved.” 

Glaser is also saddened that the press has devoted only minimal attention to the Nobel laureates’ letter. “So much seems to get buried these days,” he said. 

Asked if he thought the administration might pay attention to the letter, the Berkeley scientist recalls another petition he signed back in the Reagan years. “He went on the tube and said, ‘What I don’t need is advice from a bunch of Nobel laureates.’” 

Another Berkeley Nobel reicipient also signed the letter, physicist Charles Townes, who won the award in 1964 for pioneering research that led to the development of the laser. 

Professor of Economics George Akerlof, a third Berkeley Nobelist, has also raised his voice against the administration. Because the petition was restricted to the hard sciences of physics, chemistry and medicine, Akerlof, a practitioner of the dismal science, wasn’t included in the letter.›

Kimberly Sellers says that one of her most vivid memories from childhood is of helping her father, every year, track the number of African Americans graduating with doctorates from American universities. She remembers it so well, she says, because the nu mbers were always dismally low, usually in the single digits. 

Ever since, Sellers has wanted to help change those numbers and just recently, she did. In 2001, Sellers graduated from George Washington University in Washington D.C., with her Ph.D. in Statistics. 

Today, she is a visiting professor of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University, and this week she was in Berkeley for part of the tenth annual African American Researchers Conference sponsored by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) and Lawrence Berkeley Labs. Along with almost 80 other African American math professors and Ph.D. students, Sellers spent the week attending and giving lectures as part of the conference originally developed to sustain and increase the number of African Americans working at the highest levels of mathematics. 

As the only African American in her undergraduate department, the only African American in her Masters program, the only African American in her Ph.D. program, and now the only African American facu lty member in the Statistics Department, Sellers said it’s been readily apparent that she’s “very much a minority” in the field of mathematics. That’s where conferences like the one held at MSRI fit in, she said.  

MSRI is housed at UC Berkeley, but is no t officially part of the campus. 

Sellers attended the first conference, held ten years ago in Berkeley. Subsequent conferences were held around the country before returning to Berkeley. She came a decade ago as what she described as a “little graduate st udent,” an experience she said helped give her the boost and support she needed to continue. According to conference organizers, there are 50 other success stories like Sellers where graduate students have attended the conference and gone on to complete their doctorates in mathematics and subsequently secured important research and teaching jobs. 

Besides teaching, Sellers is working on a project that uses statistics to map changes in proteins attacked by diseases like cancer. 

According to Bob Megginson, the deputy director of MSRI, conference organizers started the conference because, like Sellers, they noticed that low numbers of African Americans with doctorates in mathematics was a pervasive problem. Conference organizers said African Americans recei ve about two percent of the doctorates earned in mathematics every year. African Americans make up more than 10 percent of the American population. 

Since the conference started, organizers have seen the numbers increase for African Americans graduating w ith doctorates in mathematics. And while they don’t take all the credit, they do take some, said Megginson. 

“What’s great about this is you take a look at the first group photo of graduate students who are now back as solid professionals who are giving p rofessional talks,” said Megginson. 

On top of generally being discouraged because of low numbers already in the field, socio-economic problems are also pervasive, said organizers. Students who come from low-income areas find that they are behind by the t ime they get to college and are immediately discouraged. Other times, students just don’t have the time or the money to pursue math.  

“They have to look around for a major that they can handle in the time they have money for,” said Megginson.  

Mathemati cs, which often takes more than four years, and at least on the surface doesn’t seem like a major that will produce an immediate job, is not one of the majors these students choose, he said. 

For African Americans, said Bill Massey, the main organizer for the conference and a mathematics professor at Princeton University, math is like the reality show on MTV where a group of kids tried to audition with P. Diddy for a new band. 

“Every kid was black, except for one white kid,” said Massey. “Someone asked h im, ‘What’s it like to be a white rapper?’ He said, ‘It’s like heaven and hell. Because I’m white, I’m the first one everyone notices. It’s bad because I’m white and I’m the last one everyone respects.’ It’s similar but reversed in math.” 

But even with a ll the limitations, say organizers, there are plenty of success stories, even for those that came before the conference. Organizers say that J. Earnest Wilkins, Jr., a conference participant for the past ten years, is by far one of the most important cont ributors to the field of mathematics, even at the age of 80. Wilkins earned the title “the Negro Genius” because he entered the University of Chicago at 13. By 19, he had his Ph.D. He said he regrets not getting it by 18, but explained that he temporarily had a love interest that delayed things till just after his 19th birthday. At the time, he was the first African American to get his Ph.D. in math, and only the eighth African American to get a Ph.D., period. 

Wilkins said he comes to the conference because he feels he has “an obligation to the younger folks to show them they can succeed.”  

Other presentations this year also included a project by Juan E. Gilbert, a newly-appointed professor at Auburn University, which uses a special algorithm to aid in admission departments’ comprehensive review programs. The project, which grew out of the Supreme Court cases concerning diversity at the University of Michigan, groups students into clusters based on their application information. Diversity is then achiev ed by a selection from the various clusters. 

“It doesn’t tell them who gets in, it just helps them make better judgment calls,” said Gilbert.  

›

The City Council Tuesday easily adopted a budget that erases Berkeley’s $10.3 million general fund deficit without laying off a single employee.  

But in spreading the pain around, the city had to strong-arm concessions out of two unions, both of which have threatened to take the city to arbitration. 

Also Tuesday, the council signaled its intent to seek voter approval for four tax hikes in November, rejected a last ditch effort to save a 19th century West Berkeley cottage, and took a stand against noisy motorized scooters. 

The council has debated the budget for weeks, trying to figure out a formula to plug the shortfall caused by shrinking tax revenues, decreasing state aid, and spiraling employee retirement benefits. 

With nearly every budgetary issue agreed upon weeks ago, the council was waiting to see if its six unions would concede to a roughly three percent deferral of salary increases this year to save the city $2.8 million, of which $1.4 million would go to the general fund.  

Three unions negotiated agreements with the city. The Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Locals 790 and 535 agreed to reduce salaries by 2.54 percent for 10.5 months and the Berkeley Police Association agreed to a three percent salary reduction for six months and an additional $646 cut per employee. 

The city had different remedies for the three holdout unions. For the Public Employees Union, Local One, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Engineers, Local 1245, the city invoked a clause in their contracts forcing them to accept the same concessions agreed to by SEIU employees.  

For the Berkeley Fire Fighters Association, Local 1227, whose contract didn’t include the clause allowing the city to unilaterally impose givebacks, the council voted to cut $300,000 from the fire department’s budget—the amount the city would have received in salary savings. Fire services targeted for cuts won’t be decided until October, City Manager Phil Kamlarz said. 

Eight councilmembers hailed the deal and praised the unions who chose to cooperate. 

“It feels good to me and right that we’re weathering the storm together as a group,” Councilmember Linda Maio said before the 8-1 vote in favor of adopting the budget. 

However, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, the lone opponent of the budget plan, called the proposal a “slap in the face to Local One,” and chastised the council for not considering the unions’ proposals to save money, including their suggestion of taking voluntary unpaid time off. 

“It’s a sad day in Berkeley that this is being treated in the media as politicians standing up to unions when in actuality the employees have made the most suggestions to save money,” he said. 

In return for extracting concessions from the three unions, the city has promised not to lay off their members this year or invoke the fiscal emergency clause for the remainder of their contracts. The police contract expires in 2007, while deals for the other unions expire in 2008. 

To erase the $10.3 million debt, the city’s plan calls for using $1.3 million in reserve funds, $300,000 in new revenues, and $1.7 million in cost restructuring, as well as slashing $6.7 million in program reductions, including a $300,000 cut to community nonprofits. 

The budget does eliminate six vacant police officer positions, but nearly all of the most controversial cuts, including school crossing guards and a fire engine company, were spared in earlier negotiations. 

Next year the city will face an estimated $5 million deficit. However, a deal brokered between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the League of California Cities promises to restore several million in state dollars to Berkeley in fiscal year 2007. 

Ballot Measures 

Berkeley voters will be asked this November to approve $8 million in new taxes to compensate for deficits in city funds and to add new programs.  

In a non-binding voice vote to give direction to city staff, the council approved a $1.2 million property tax increase for the city’s paramedic fund, costing the average homeowner $30, and a $1.9 million property tax increase for the library fund, costing the average homeowner $41. 

The council also approved an increase in the property transfer tax to raise $2.2 million for youth services cut from the general fund and a 1.5 percent increase in the Utility Users Tax to fund $2.7 million worth of programs also slated for general fund cuts. 

Fifth Street Cottage 

By a 6-3 vote (Maio, Worthington, Spring, voting no) the council gave the green light to tear down a 126-year-old, two-bedroom cottage at 2211 Fifth Street in favor of a six unit, three story development. Preservationists had appealed a 5-4 decision of the Landmarks Preservation Commission not to declare the building a Structure of Merit.  

Had the council approved the appeal, the owners of the home might have been required to produce an environmental impact report studying regarding whether it would be legal to destroy a historic resource. 

Motor Scooters 

The council voted unanimously on consent to ask the city attorney for a list of options to consider regulating or banning motorized scooters. 

The machines don’t travel faster than 16 mph, but because their young owners often tinker with the engines to amplify noise, they break the sound barrier for neighbors. Councilmember Dona Spring, who requested the referral, said she decided to seek relief because the gas-powered machines are polluters and dangerous for the youth who ride them. 

Earlier this year, 15-year-old Berkeley resident Miguel Caicedo was killed when he drove a friend’s motorized go-cart into oncoming traffic in West Berkeley and was struck by a truck. 

In 2000, the U.S. Consumer Protection Commission reported that there were an estimated 4,390 hospital emergency room treated injuries associated with motorized scooters.  

Spring also has a personal gripe against the machines. “I get awakened on a regular basis because someone goes down Channing Street [on a scooter] at 1 a.m.,” she said. “Think of the hundreds of people awakened by it as it blasts its way down the street.” 

Neighbors in both South and West Berkeley have signed petitions calling for the city to ban scooters. 

The backlash against the machines has even reached Sacramento. The State Assembly recently passed a bill (61-16) authored by Wilma Chan (D-Oakland) to slap new regulations on scooters. 

The bill would require scooter riders to have at least a learner’s permit and prohibit the scooters from being driven at night or modified to amplify noise. 

Rachel Richman, an aide to Assemblymember Chan, said the bill would also allow cities to regulate scooters, a right currently reserved for the state. However, Richman did not think Chan’s proposed law would allow the cities to ban scooters from city streets altogether. 

Spring had originally called for an outright ban on scooters, but changed her recommendation after conferring with Richman. 

w

Three West Berkeley businesses say that recent changes in the signage, traffic signals and road striping at three Berkeley intersections—Ashby and 7th, Ashby and 9th and 7th and Murray—have created hazards for drivers and pedestrians and at the same time made it extremely difficult to get to their stores without breaking the law. 

The three businesses—Urban Ore, MacBeath Hardwood and Artisan Burlwood—are all located just southeast of Ashby and 7th Street [see map]. 

Until about a month ago, the businesse s could be reached by turning left off 7th Street onto Murray Street, a passage facilitated by the KEEP CLEAR sign that was painted on 7th just west of Murray. In late May, however, the KEEP CLEAR sign was replaced by double yellow lines that made it ille gal to turn left off 7th into Murray. At the same time, at the intersection of Ashby and 9th, a sign was hung over westbound Ashby forbidding left-hand turns onto Ninth.  

These changes were part of a larger, $1.3 million project that involved restriping Ashby, widening 7th at Ashby and Potter, and installing pedestrian-oriented signals at Ashby and Potter, Ashby and 7th, and Ashby and 9th. The purpose, say staff from both the City of Berkeley’s Transportation Office and Public Works Department, was to ease traffic flow onto and off of the freeway and Ashby and to make the area generally safer. The Transportation Office and Public Works Department are jointly responsible for the project. 

By “encourag[ing] left-turn movement in and out of Murray at 7th,” says Supervising Traffic Engineer Hamid Mostowfi of the Transportation Office, the old KEEP CLEAR sign “was either causing collisions or potentially hazardous, especially as it would impact Ashby….The current design is one which should operate safely.”  

Not so, says Urban Ore Operations Manager Mary Lou Van Deventer.  

“Murray St. is now far more congested and dangerous than before,” wrote Van Deventer in a May 25 letter to Peter Hillier, Director of the City’s Office of Transportation. “During deliver ies to MacBeath Hardwood, for example, large industrial trucks, forklifts, and public traffic mix in a narrow street, blocking access while creating new safety problems….We have never seen an accident at 7th and Ashby resulting from the previous access co nfiguration.” 

Safety issues aside, Van Deventer and her neighbors say that the new design is interfering with business.  

“People looking for us can see us,” wrote Van Deventer—and indeed, it’s hard to miss Urban Ore’s big sign on its very big building—“but can’t get in.”  

Van Deventer’s concerns are echoed by Jim Parodi, whose Artisan Burlwood has occupied its Ashby location for 28 years. “We lure customers in by showing our wares”, he observes. “Now that same guy (who would have pulled over in the past) is going to find it very difficult to stop.”  

That, says MacBeath Hardwood manager Rick McDaniel, is partly because when Ashby was restriped, “they moved the center line toward our side of the sidewalk about three feet.” Parking on Ashby in fron t of MacBeath is still legal but in McDaniel’s view now unsafe. True to his trade, McDaniel measured the precise distance from the new center line to the curb. “It’s 15 feet, 8 inches,” he reports. “If you put two cars side by side, they would barely fit.” 

Since the changes, Urban Ore and Artisan Burlwood have both seen traffic and revenue fall. The first Saturday after removal of the KEEP CLEAR sign and the new striping on 7th, “we took in $4200,” says Van Deventer, “when $6500 is what we would expect.” Parodi’s sales have declined 65%. During the Memorial Day holiday, ordinarily a big weekend for him, “we were just dead….we didn’t do any business because people can’t stop.”  

At MacBeath, business hasn’t dropped, but McDaniel says that his customers a re talking about “how they got here and what laws they broke to do it. The majority are actually just breaking the law to get here. When somebody gets a ticket, it’ll have an adverse effect.” 

Van Deventer, McDaniel and Parodi say they were not notified a bout the problematic changes, much less consulted in the planning stages. In her letter to Hillier, Van Deventer asked that the City immediately install a left-hand run lane for westbound drivers on Ashby at 9th, reinstall the KEEP CLEAR text on the 7th S t. roadway where Murray enters, and provide a break in the double double yellow lines on 7th so drivers can turn left from southbound 7th through the KEEP CLEAR zone onto Murray. 

On June 24, a month after Van Deventer hand-delivered her letter to Hillier’s office, she, McDaniel, Parodi, and MacBeath assistant manager Alan Ross met at Ashby and 9th with Mostowfi and three CalTrans staff. Also present were four representatives of the West Berkeley Association of Industrial Companies (WeBAIC). The CalTrans staff and Mostowfi said that CalTrans has verbally approved the installation of a left-hand turn lane and signal at westbound Ashby at 9th. It should take about two more weeks for the modifications to work their way through the CalTrans bureaucracy; then the City’s Public Works Department will set up a contract to implement the changes. After a final safety inspection, the new signal and signs will be activated.  

“I’m trying to get this result as quickly as possible,” Mostowfi said. 

The group then walk ed over to Ashby and 7th/Murray. WeBAIC Board member John Curl asked if restoring the KEEP CLEAR sign and removing the double double yellow lines as requested was a possibility. Mostowfi was not encouraging. “This intersection has one of the highest acci dent rates in the city,” he said, “60 accidents in five years.” When pressed, however, Mostowfi allowed that the data doesn’t indicate whether those accidents happened at 7th and Ashby or at 7th and Murray. He observed that the restoration “wouldn’t be cheap.”  

“What about the lost business taxes?” wondered McDaniel.  

“That needs to be taken into consideration,” said Mostowfi. 

It was agreed that he and WeBAIC consultant Christopher Krohn would stay in contact while Mostowfi evaluates the situation. 

Even while the group surveyed the scene, several vehicles drove across the double double yellow lines. One driver turned left off westbound Ashby into the northbound lane of 7th and then into the westbound lane of Murray in order to reach Urban Ore’s front entrance. 

“KEEP CLEAR would be the best way to go, and provide a break in the double double yellow,” said CalTrans staffer Steve Simmons, perhaps unaware that that was what had existed before.?r

The Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees, still reeling from allegations made by outgoing Vista College President John Garmon that he was ousted by a black racial conspiracy, named a district veteran to replace Garmon on an interim basis. 

Judy Walters, the district’s Senior Vice Chancellor of Education Services since 1999 and a finalist for the Vista President job in 2001, will take the reigns of the Berkeley school for the next two years as Vista prepares to move into its new downtown Berkeley campus.  

Vista has secured public bond money to build the $67 million building on Center Street between Shattuck Avenue and Milvia Street, but staff had expressed concerns that, under Garmon, the school was falling behind on its fundraising drive to raise $2.1 million to properly outfit and staff the complex. 

Garmon argues he had gotten the fundraising effort off to a strong start and that the board’s decision last month not to renew his contract was retribution by the board’s black majority for his proposal to reassign two African American administrators. Although he can’t prove his charges, Garmon said he plans to file a lawsuit against the district. 

Walters, who like Garmon is white, won the board’s unanimous support based, in part, on her involvement in the plans for a new building both during her ten-year stint at California Community Colleges and at Peralta. 

“She knows the building and the city’s role in the building,” said Peralta Trustee Susan Duncan. “We need to have continuity right now. This isn’t the time to have someone brought up to date.” 

Walters, who has worked at state community colleges for over 25 years, beat out Vista Vice President for Instruction Jackie Shadko for the job. Walters said if asked she would “probably” be interested in the permanent position. 

The role of a college president involves heavy community outreach, and Walters said she planned to continue the Friends of Vista fundraising campaign, co-chaired by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates. 

“I’m going to work hard to build relationships,” she said. “It’s absolutely critical to have communication with everybody in the city and the district.” 

Inside Vista, Walters acknowledged she will have to heal wounds over Garmon’s controversial firing. 

Faculty members interviewed, many of whom questioned Garmon’s competence as a leader, were quick to voice their support for Walters. They said she has a reputation as a staunch supporter of Vista, which they believe has historically been shortchanged in favor of the district’s three other campuses, Laney College, Merritt College and the College of Alameda. 

“The perception is that she’s fair, she’s efficient, she’s sympathetic to the school and she doesn’t play political games,” said Professor Chuck Wollenberg. 

Joan Berezin, co-chair of the Faculty Senate called Walters “a true leader, who will be a good advocate for the college.” 

However, the school’s classified employees were generally supportive of Garmon, who was said to be more affable with employees than his predecessor Barbara Beno, a reputed taskmaster. 

Beno and Walters are close friends, but Walters said she had her own management style. “I think I’m considered a warm and friendly person,” she said. “I’m very task and goal oriented. Titles are not particularly impressive to me.” 

Garmon praised Walters as a “competent woman,” but wondered how she could get the job three years after being “roundly rejected by the faculty and staff of Vista.” Noting that (like Peralta Chancellor Elihu Harris) Walters doesn’t have a doctorate, he labeled her appointment, “part of the continuing dumbing down of the Peralta District.” 

Peralta, which is in the process of trying to devolve power from the district office to the college campuses, is not expected to replace Walters.›

It is clear that important new evidence about al Qaeda has been gathered and released by the 9/11 Commission. But it is also clear that the commission did nothing when a Justice Department official, in commission testimony last week, brazenly covered up the embarrassing relationship of the FBI to a senior al Qaeda operative, Ali Mohamed. By telling the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to release Mohamed in 1993, the FBI may have contributed to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya five years later. 

The official testifying was Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, who prosecuted two terrorism cases involving Mohamed. As Fitzgerald told the commission, Ali Mohamed was an important al Qaeda agent who "trained most of al Qaeda's top leadership," including "persons who would later carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing." 

As for Ali Mohamed's long-known relationship to the FBI, Fitzgerald said only that, "From 1994 until his arrest in 1998, he lived as an American citizen in California, applying for jobs as an FBI translator and working as a security guard for a defense contractor." 

Whatever the exact relationship of Mohamed to the FBI, it is clear from the public record that it was much more intimate than simply sending in job applications. Three years ago, Larry C. Johnson, a former State Department and CIA official, faulted the FBI publicly for using Mohamed as an informant, when it should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist plotting against the United States. In Johnson's words, ""It's possible that the FBI thought they had control of him and were trying to use him, but what's clear is that they did not have control." (San Francisco Chronicle, 11/04/01) 

Ali Mohamed faced trial in New York in 2000 for his role in the 1998 Nairobi Embassy bombing. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiracy and avoided a jury trial. While pleading guilty, Mohamed admitted he had trained some of the persons in New York who had been responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. 

In Mohamed's plea-bargain testimony, as summarized on a U.S. State Department Web site, he revealed that in late 1994 the FBI ordered him to fly from Kenya to New York, and he obeyed. "I received a call from an FBI agent who wanted to speak to me about the upcoming trial of United States v. Abdel Rahman (in connection with the 1993 WTC bombing). I flew back to the United States, spoke to the FBI, but didn't disclose everything that I knew." 

One year earlier, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail, Ali Mohamed had been picked up by the RCMP in Canada in the company of an al Qaeda terrorist. Mohamed immediately told the RCMP to make a phone call to his FBI handler. The call quickly secured his release. 

The Globe and Mail later concluded that Mohamed "was working with U.S. counter-terrorist agents, playing a double or triple game, when he was questioned in 1993." His companion, Essam Marzouk, is now serving 15 years of hard labor in Egypt after having been arrested in Azerbaijan, according to Canada's National Post newspaper. As of November 2001, Mohamed had still not been sentenced, and was still believed to be supplying information from his prison cell. 

The RCMP's release of Mohamed may have affected history. The encounter apparently took place before Mohamed flew to Nairobi, photographed the U.S. Embassy, and took the photo or photos to bin Laden. (According to Mohamed's confession, "Bin Laden looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber.") 

The 9/11 Commission should have had a serious discussion of the U.S. intelligence agencies' relationship to Mohamed. It has been widely reported, and never denied, that after he first came to the United States from Egypt he worked first for the CIA and then the U.S. Army Special Forces. 

Mohamed trained the WTC bombers at an Islamist center in Brooklyn, N.Y, where earlier he had been recruiting and training Arabs for the U.S.-supported Afghan War. A British newspaper, the London Independent, has charged that he was on the U.S. payroll at the time he was training the Arab Afghans, and that the CIA, reviewing the case five years after the 1993 WTC bombing, concluded in an internal document that it was "partly culpable" for the World Trade Center bomb. 

The commission may have failed to explore these matters for the same reason it suppressed testimony from a former FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds. She said a foreign organization had penetrated the FBI's translator program. Attorney General John Ashcroft has since ordered Edmonds not to speak further about the matter, asserting "state secrets" privilege. 

Peter Dale Scott (pdscott@socrates.berkeley.edu) is a former Canadian diplomat and professor of English at U.C. Berkeley. Ali Mohamed is treated in Scott's forthcoming book, an examination of off-the-books U.S. forces from 1950 to Iraq. His Web site is http://www.peterdalescott.net.

SAN FRANCISCO--She's been called "The Good Jailer" by the New York Times and hailed as a reformer.  

Jeanne Woodford, the former San Quentin warden, was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in February to run the California Department of Corrections (CDC) the nation's largest -- and possibly most troubled -- prison system. 

"I look forward to working with [the governor] to re-establish public confidence in California's prison system through real reform," she is quoted as saying on a Schwarzenegger Web site. 

During 25 years at San Quentin State Prison, Woodford emphasized rehabilitating prisoners, not just warehousing them.  

But all is not perfect in Woodford's old fiefdom. 

Behind the iron gate of picturesque San Quentin, which from outside has the appearance of a Camelot-by-the-Sea, quiet testimony has been taking place since April, in hearings stemming from a 2002 lawsuit alleging whistleblower retaliation against inmate case analyst Kathy DeoCampo. Testimony from San Quentin staff members is providing a look inside an administration plagued by problems.  

While Woodford was warden in 2002, there was a tremendous backlog of incoming inmates. Staff counselors and analysts have testified that some processing steps required by the department manual were bypassed in order to speed inmate transfers into the "mainline" of the prison -- with potentially dangerous results. 

According to staff testimony, high-security prisoners were accidentally mixed with lower security inmates in San Quentin's reception center, putting the safety of prisoners and staff at risk. Inmates were also processed into San Quentin's lower-security H unit without seeing a counselor or receiving a security level classification. 

Medical and psychological records were often missing from files, delaying inmates' classification and transfer to appropriate facilities. 

Early in the hearings, a prison official testified that the problem of unclassified inmates turning up in San Quentin's "mainline" had been quickly identified and resolved in 2002. 

But others say it's still going on.  

As if to prove the point, on June 10 a counselor testified that during the previous day's hearing she learned that one of her as-yet-unprocessed inmates was found in San Quentin's H unit. 

At best, the DeoCampo hearing testimony points to a system in disarray. At worst, it may be exposing serious mismanagement and violation of regulations. 

The contradictory testimony certainly invites deeper investigation from outside the prison walls. 

If allegations by staff prove true, "this is very serious," says Richard Steffen, an aide and investigator for Sen. Jackie Speier. He has spent the year digging into problems of the state's prison system for the Senate's government oversight committee.  

Woodford has been subpoenaed to testify in the San Quentin hearings, but according to the state's attorney in the case, she couldn't appear in June due to a heavy schedule before her June 23 state senate confirmation. She has declined repeated requests for interviews on this subject. 

PNS contributor Julia Reynolds is a California-based investigative reporter specializing in criminal justice. 

›

Berkeley voters will likely face landmark ballot initiatives that would make the city the friendliest place in California for medical cannabis users, sex workers and some trees. 

City Clerk Sherry Kelly verified that supporters of the Angel Initiative, t he Patient Access to Medical Cannabis Act and the Berkeley Tree Act of 2004 had gathered more than the 2,077 valid signatures to place their measures on the November ballot. 

The Angel Initiative, sponsored by the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), woul d make enforcing prostitution laws in the city a low police priority and put the city on record asking the state to decriminalize prostitution. 

SWOP founder Robyn Few said Berkeley will be the first city in the state to vote on decriminalizing prostitution. 

Last month the City Council rejected a compromise that would have put the council on record supporting decriminalization, but would not have made enforcement of prostitution laws a low priority. 

The Medical Cannabis Act would give Berkeley the most liberal marijuana plant laws in the state, if voters approve the measure. Licensed patients would be allowed to grow as many plants as they deemed necessary, instead of the city’s current ten plant limit. Also, if the federal government cracked down on th e practice, the city would be required to distribute the cannabis. 

The measure would also codify a peer review group to oversee the city’s four pot clubs and would amend the zoning ordinance to require that permits be granted for qualified applicants. The Cannabis Buyers Cooperative recently gave up a fight to move their operation from Shattuck Avenue to Sacramento Street amid fierce neighborhood objections. 

Like the Sex Worker advocates, cannabis liberalization supporters had offered to withdraw their initiative in return for a compromise deal that would have set the plant limit at 72 plants. However, the City Council rejected that proposal in April. 

Somewhat less controversial is the Berkeley Tree Act, which would create a new board to encourage the planting of healthy trees and regulate changes to trees on public land. Anyone who wanted to work on a public tree would have to get a license from the tree board, said the measure’s author, Elliot Cohen. In addition, any development that might affect a p ublic tree would require a “tree impact report.” 

The council is scheduled to consider the measures July 13 and is expected to mount a campaign opposing the sex worker and cannabis measures in November. All measures require a simple majority to pass. ›

Berkeley real estate agent and developer John Gordon is floating before the Zoning Adjustments Board the notion of relocating two landmarked buildings onto a lot he owns. Whether the two buildings will actually fit on the small lot remains an open question. 

Gordon proposed moving both the Ellen Blood House, an 1891 Queen Anne Victorian now at 2526 Durant Ave., and the 1876 John Woolley House, now at 2509 Haste Street, to his lot at the southwest corner of Regent Street and Dwight Way. 

To assist him with the project, Gordon retained Burton Edwards, an architect who until recently served on the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. 

When a Daily Planet reporter measured the houses and Gordon’s lot, a question surfaced: Would both structures fit on a lot that seemed to be comfortably suited only for one structure? 

“We haven’t figured it out yet,” Edwards said Wednesday. “We’re just beginning to look into it. Theoretically, it might be a good idea, but what I’m doing right now amounts to a feasibility study. 

“I can’t say yet what actually fits. I don’t have any preconceived idea, but it’s worth looking at.” 

One question Edwards is considering is what part of each structure is original and what was added later. Old photos show the Blood House was extended along part of the front, though not as far as the porch—which may or may not be original. 

Moving the Blood House is an alternative to what developers Ruegg & Ellsworth originally sought, which was permission to demolish the 113-year-old dwelling to make room for a five-story, 44-unit apartment building. 

UC Berkeley owns the Woolley House, which has already been moved once. The university apparently decided to do nothing to preserve the historic structure, which hasn’t been painted in years and has rotted eaves. 

“There’s nothing that can’t be restored” at the Woolley House, Edwards said. “There’s nothing unexpected.” 

One big question remains: What fate awaits the historic structures if only one can fit on the lot?  

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WASHINGTON (NNPA) – The overall cancer death rate has decreased slightly over the past decade, but African-Americans continue to suffer higher rates of death from every major form of cancer than their white counterparts, according to a joint report issued this week by four leading health agencies. 

“Death rates from all cancers have been decreasing since the early 1990s,” the report states. It declined by 1.1 percent. “But, by 2001, death rates for white populations were substantially lower than those for black populations, an indication that black men and women may not have experienced the same benefits from screening and/or treatment as white men and women.” 

“Black men were at higher risk of dying of 12 cancers compared to white men, with the increased risk ranging from 9 percent for lung cancer to a high of 67 percent for oral cavity cancers, such as the lips and mouth,” states the report.  

Black women experienced higher risks of death from 12 cancers with the increase ranging from 7 percent for lung cancer to 82 percent for uterine cancer and melanoma, an aggressive skin cancer. 

The study was scheduled to be released Thursday by the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Findings (per 100,000) show:  

• For lung and bronchus cancer, the rate for blacks is 79.8 of which 65.2 die; the rate for whites is 62.4 of which 56.2 die. 

• For colon and rectum cancer, the rate for blacks is 63 of which 28.3 die; the rate for whites is 53.3 of which 20.3 died. 

• For breast cancer, the rate for black women is 119.9 of which 35.4 die; the rate for white women is 141.7 of which 26.4 die. 

• For prostate cancer, the rate for black men is 271.3 of which 70.4 die; the rate for white men is 167.4 of which 28.8 die. 

The report provides updated information on cancer rates and trends in the U. S. by comparing five-year survival rates of cancer patients diagnosed during two time periods, 1975-1979 and 1995-2000.  

Not only access to screening and treatment, but quality of care, screening and treatment could be key reasons for the higher death rates among blacks, says Brenda Edwards, a bio-statistician for the National Cancer Institute and one of the researchers for the study. 

“We actually tried to characterize what kind of work is ongoing that we think is targeted to helping us understand these differences and also try to mitigate or reduce the disparities that are there,” says Edwards.  

“Clearly, by putting this report out, by having the information out there by these different groups and having organizations such as [the NNPA News Service] pick up on it and make this information available, that increases awareness, helps people seek information about what they can do to lower their risk or to get the questions answered about seeking health care.” 

Edwards says the organizations started releasing information jointly six years ago in order to avoid conflicting reports. 

Dr. Alfred R. Ashford, an oncologist and director of medicine at Harlem Hospital Center in New York, knows first hand many of the reasons for the health disparities. 

“Sadly, it’s come out over the last number of years that the treatment of cancer for many people, including and especially of Blacks and poor people, is not as good as is available in the country,” explains Ashford.  

“There are gaps. There are breaches in the type, the quality of care and access to this care that further detract from the outcomes that we’re looking for here. Too often there are breaks and breaches in the delivery of complex care. There is a lack of coordination and lack of communication. Patients suffer even more fear than ever before. And it turns out to be rather disastrous all too often.” 

Ashford says people could do more to help themselves. 

“In terms of things that could decrease risk, smoking is one of the things at the very top,” he says. “The problem is still too great among African-Americans; especially in some communities, such as the one that I practice in, where the smoking rate is almost twice what it is elsewhere either in African-American or in white communities.” 

In Harlem, Ashford says, 45 percent of all adults smoke, compared to 23.6 percent of adult black people around the country. About 23.8 percent of all whites smoke. 

Experts outlined the following ways to fight cancer: 

• Getting regular checkups and knowing the early warning signs; 

• Quitting smoking; 

• Losing weight because obesity and lack of exercise are risk-factors for cancers as well as other diseases such as diabetes and heart disease;  

• Establishing a good relationship with a primary care physician or a regular doctor who would be a constant source of information on personal health and cancer risks; and 

• Getting cancer education materials to all segments of the community and holding public forums to answer questions and dispel fears. 

The key is also dispelling the myths about cancer, Ashford says. He recalled that at one time in the black community, black people didn’t think cancer was a disease that was pervasive among African-Americans.  

“And if they got it, they didn’t want to know about it because it was a death sentence,'' he says.›

When I first heard the Gwo-Ka Masters debut album, Yonn-dé, I was, in a manner of speaking, blindfolded, even hoodwinked. A friend played it without showing me the cover and I said, with a bittersweet feeling, “Now we have to go to the West Indies to hear great jazz saxophonists.” I’m always lamenting the death of jazz. In this case I was wrong. The remarkable tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist embedded within the olla podrida of jazz players and Guadeloupean musicians was Berkeley’s own David Murray, among the greatest of all living jazz musicians. 

Born here in Berkeley in 1955, Murray studied ragtime and stride piano before picking up the alto saxophone at the age of nine. Almost immediately, he began accompanying his gospel pianist mother in church. After graduating from Berkeley High School and a number of local swing, bop and soul ensembles, he attended Pomona College. At that time, the Pomona jazz faculty included Stanley Crouch—now a renowned jazz critic—and free jazz players Arthur Blythe and Bobby Bradford. Saxophonist Blythe and cornetist Bradford were part of the intermediate group of avant garde jazz musicians that followed Coltrane, Ornette, Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra. Indeed, Bradford was playing with Ornette and Eric Dolphy in the early fifties in Los Angeles. By the early ‘70s, when Murray got to college, this second line was passing the jazz mantle on to Murray’s generation of teenagers. Murray’s lifetime of exposure to all forms of African-American music made him a uniquely receptive vessel for the cutting edge jazz of the ‘70s. 

By 1975, he had moved to New York and within a year had joined with fellow reed players Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett and the late Julius Hemphill to form the World Saxophone Quartet. He still performs and records with the WSQ, whose Plays Duke Ellington album set a standard for what great free jazz playing could be. I was lucky enough to catch their all Ellington show at the Great American Music Hall in 1986 and it remains among the half dozen greatest musical events I have ever witnessed. Murray, in particular, was by turns galvanic, lyrical, raw, funky, tender. At one moment you were floating along on the most ravishing tenor saxophone tone imaginable and at the next being dragged through the melody by your heels in a slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners advance that left you limp. 

Great players like Murray understand that free jazz is not just a matter of sounding freaky or of learning the rules of playing outside conventional chord progressions any more than bebop was merely learning to improvise on the higher intervals of the chords of pop tunes. Real jazz, of any era, is about finding an inner place within the space of the music in which to play freely. “Space is the place,” as Sun Ra said. That is the simple secret of improvisation whether practiced by Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker or Archie Shepp. As Murray says in the liner notes to his just released second album with the Gwo-Ka Masters, Gwotet (Justin Time 200-2), “When I reach the point of paroxysm in a piece I’m sure that I must be in contact with the Holy Spirit, like the Santerîa priests. That state goes beyond the word jazz, beyond notes….It goes very deep, down to an unattainable point around which we all turn, a point which we all try to touch without ever quite managing it.” 

Murray’s current group, a mix of U.S. and West Indian players, is Creole Project III, which, through interface, reveals the common African roots of blues, gospel and jazz and the gwo-ka music of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, one of the centers of Creole culture in the Caribbean. Gwo-ka takes its name from the hand-held gwo-ka drums whose origins date back to the early slave period. David Murray is absolutely contemporary in his post-modern, post-colonial approach to the music generated by Africa, but what brings us back to hear him again and again is the authority, sweep, inventiveness, heartfelt emotion and stunning technique that fill every note he plays.  

David Murray’s Creole Project appears at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, CA, from Monday, June 28 through Wednesday, June 30, with shows at 8 and 10 pm. For more information call 510-238-9200

For Farmers’ Market shoppers who have been wondering what to cook with the array of interesting and unusual produce to be found at the Berkeley Ecology Center Farmers’ Market, the Market will present the first program in its Ethnic Food Festival, Latin American Cuisine, this Saturday, June 26. Three popular market food purveyors will demonstrate the tricks of their trade. Amigas, a Mexican caterer, Flaco’s, with vegan Mexican food, and Sofrito Puerto Rican Cuisine will give cooking demonstrations at the market, located next to the Berkeley City Hall on Center St. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way.  

At 11 a.m., Amigas, a family owned business, will be preparing traditional Mexican cuisine with a personal touch. Then at 11:30, Sofrito will make Puerto Rican Caribbean food, the Latin side of Caribbean food, which is more sabroso (savory) than spicy hot. At noon, Antonio Magaña of Flacos Vegan Mexican Food will create vegetarian Mexican dishes using a variety of organic ingredients indigenous to the Americas. 

The second program, on July 7, will feature cuisine of India.›

Pistol-packin’ Bandit Robs Pair of Purses 

A gun-wielding robber confronted two women near the intersection of Hearst Avenue and Second Street minutes before 3:30 p.m. Monday and demanded their purses. 

He grabbed up the loot and jumped into a dark, late model car—possibly a Saturn—which then sped away from the scene. 

Bump and Dip Artist Walk off with Cell Phone 

A thief bumped into a woman near the corner of 62nd Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way about 10:45 Monday night, departing with her cellphone. 

Hate Crime at Graduate Theological Library 

Berkeley Police were summoned to the Flora Lamson Hewlitt Library at the Graduate Theological Union at 2400 Ridge Road after racist flyers were discovered stuffed into some of the library’s books, said Officer Joe Okies, BPD spokesperson. 

Several books had also been vandalized, with pages torn out.›

School Board Backs Community Park 

Solving one of the final disputes over the long-contested move of the Berkeley Adult School to the former Franklin School site in West Berkeley, the school board Wednesday unanimously pledged to contribute to a planned playground and community garden at the northeast corner of the campus. 

The school board didn’t commit a specific sum to the park, but indicated they would meet neighbors’ request of about $120,000 towards its development. Neighbors estimate the park will cost about $225,000, although district officials believe the price tag will ultimately be higher. The district will provide maintenance and landscaping at the facility. 

Neighbors of the school, which is bounded by San Pablo Avenue to the west and Virginia Street to the north, had protested the district’s decision to move the Adult School to the Franklin site. 

After the district agreed to neighborhood demands for changes to the site plan for the Adult School, district officials had warned that Berkeley Unified not might have enough money to redevelop the park, which had been a part of the Franklin School, until it fell into disrepair. 

The last main dispute between neighbors and the district involves the nighttime use of a parking lot on the eastern side of the campus. 

Still Hope for Willard AmeriCorps Program 

AmeriCorps, the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps, might still be willing to work with Berkeley Unified despite years of late and insufficient payments by the district, said Martin Weinstein, the Executive Director of the Bay Area Community Resources (BACR), a nonprofit that operates the program for AmeriCorps. 

Weinstein had set a June 15 deadline for the district to make $11,000 in back payments and pay next year’s cost of $30,000 up front for BACR to continue the program. 

AmeriCorps provides three volunteers to assist with the Willard Greening Project that teaches students to grow their own food and cook it. 

While Weinstein declined to talk dollars, he said the district had come through with “a proposal and had shown some leadership, so we hope to reach an agreement and continue with the program next year.” 

District Spokesperson Mark Coplan had blamed the late payments on confusion between the district office and Willard. 

-Matthew Artz›

Mr. John Protopappas, the President of the Port of Oakland Commission, informs us of an interesting new math being practiced over there at the commission’s glass palace by the bay. The new executive director for the port started this week. Meanwhile, the outgoing executive director—Mr. Tay Yoshitani—will be allowed to stay on the payroll for three more months as something called “Extra Position No. 1” (no, I am not making this up) at his regular salary of $20,650 per month, complete with full benefits and an office of his own, even though Mr. Yoshitani may actually have left Oakland and is already on his way back to Baltimore. 

The arrangement, Mr. Protopappas informs us through the Tribune, “will actually save the port money.” 

How can that be, the average local citizen and taxpayer wonders. Well, we’ll tell you. 

Mr. Yoshitani, it seems, has a contract with the port that runs through the end of September, but decided to leave early and return to Maryland for family reasons. His contract has a severance clause which requires the port to pay him for an extra six months if the contract is terminated. “So it is a lot cheaper to allow his contract to finish,” Mr. Protopappas cheerfully tells the Tribune. Three months’ cheaper, apparently. 

We wait, patiently, for the question to form in your head. 

If Mr. Yoshitani is leaving early on his own, why should the port (or, to be more precise, the local taxpayers) be required to pay a severance fee? That’s because, again according to the Tribune, “Yoshitani’s current contract calls for him to receive six months’ pay if the contract is terminated by either side” (emphasis helpfully added). 

Like my grandmother used to say, nothing beats government work. Or government contracts. 

We also learn this week of another Oakland government contract that is going to cost us considerably more…some $61 million more. That is the amount of subsidy—in the form of donated land, tax breaks, hazardous waste cleanups, and $15 and a half million in cash—that the City of Oakland is expected to kick in to the developers to get the proposed Uptown Project built. The Uptown Project, which includes the Forest City development and a separate condominium tower, is supposed to eventually put 1,000 new apartment units in the area along Telegraph and San Pablo Avenues just north of downtown. 

"It’s a tremendous subsidy,” City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente said unnecessarily in announcing the council committee vote to approve the package. “But no subsidy, no project.” 

The massive developer subsidy program—where the city essentially bribes a developer to please, please come build something in our town—was a staple of the old Oakland landscape under Mayor Elihu Harris, and was supposed to have ended when Jerry Brown came to town. In its place, we were told, Mr. Brown was going to use his star power to get developers so interested in Oakland that they would want to build here without incentive; in effect, Mr. Brown would “put Oakland on the map.” 

In fact, map-putting is what Mr. Protoppapas (who is also a local developer and an ally of Mr. Brown) said the mayor had already done in a 2001 interview with the New York Times: “Five years ago, downtown was occupied by hostile forces,” Mr. Protopappas said back then. (By terrorists? Alien invaders? He doesn’t elaborate.) “What Jerry Brown is creating is an environment that has people walking around downtown with disposable income,” Mr. Protopappas goes on to explain. “Jerry Brown has been a very effective leader. He’s been a visionary who deals well with the bureaucracy and has put the city on the map.” 

A pirate map, presumably, with a big red “X” marked in the territory along the bay between San Leandro and Berkeley, and the notation, scrawled in drunken script, “Here (Still) Be Suckers.” 

We should consider the Uptown Project as something of Oakland’s involuntary campaign contribution to Mr. Brown as he begins his announced run for the office of Attorney General of the State of California. Downtown development was supposed to be one of the key elements of Mr. Brown’s administration, with friends and boosters like Mr. Protopappas boasting that the mayor “has people walking downtown with disposable income.” True, but perhaps it was a different mayor who did the doing. Following the devastation of the ‘89 Loma Prieta Earthquake, the real Oakland downtown revival came under the regime of Mr. Harris. It was in those years that City Hall was restored and the state and federal buildings built. Without those government workers walking around with disposable income there would be no City Center, and without those shops and restaurants at City Center, the heart of downtown Oakland would be dead. Same is true for the loft development surrounding the downtown area, both to the north along Telegraph Avenue and to the south near Jack London Square. Brown supporters tend to claim all of that for the new mayor, but the truth is, the Jack London Square lofts were mostly (if not all) approved while Mr. Harris was still in office. 

And so Mr. Brown must have a signature project of his own to show that he can actually deliver on his promises, and so Oakland will be stuck with the Uptown Project, and its $61 million subsidy, on down through the ages of our children and our grandchildren and beyond. 

There were other alternatives, of course. When Oakland lost its downtown vibrancy many years ago, it turned back to its neighborhoods for retail centers. Some of them have been remarkably successful. Business is steady in the Grand Lake area, along College Avenue and Piedmont, and up in Montclair. You can hardly walk or drive through Chinatown for the crowds, day and night, and even before the Transit Village the Fruitvale was beginning to take off. Even Foothill Square—remote and generally-overlooked up in the far corner of MacArthur Boulevard—is generally full of shoppers. These districts are made up primarily of business owners who have risked their fortunes to operate in Oakland, without being paid by the government to do so. A more creative mayor—a mayor more in touch with the life of the city—might have spent more time supporting what we already have, instead of wooing developers who need a subsidy to make up for the apparent shame of being seen with us. 

That will have to be the job of the next mayor. Let’s hope Mr. Brown and his friends leave enough for her, or him, to work with. Right now, they seem to be rapidly giving away the store. 

›

It’s a safe bet there weren’t many buses of Reagan mourners leaving Berkeley for Simi Valley or Washington the other week. We understand that behind the soaring rhetoric was a cruel reality, an indifference to people in need, foreign policy by death squad.  

And yet... 

Some of those who stood in line were there to worship at the coffin, traveling from redoubts where neoconservatives breed and hatch their filthy plots. But I suspect many others were there because there’s something people in this country need from their politicians (local and beyond) right now, something Reagan provided, something Bush doesn’t, something the mourners needed to relive, something John Kerry had better work on, and quick. 

People need hope and optimism; they want to hear a call to the future. We vote for candidates who make that clarion call and who like people, who can talk to them, touch them. 

We do this even though change is often no change at all, even though those who’ve already got will always get the lion’s share of any new bounty, even though we know politicians of all stripes regularly do stupid, sometimes terrible, things. 

No longer a young country, we still act as though we are. Americans don’t suffer fate very well. We fidget in history class. Lessons of illusions that led to disaster are for other nations. We believe we can keep reinventing ourselves, ever leaping forward.  

Of course, all politicians—from our own battle-weary cast of local characters to the candidates for the White House—promise a better future. But sometimes the words are actually heartfelt and the caring real.  

How do you tell what’s real in a time when every word is focus-grouped and body language is so programmed, when every official just swears he or she cares about us so damn much? It takes practice. 

A little local lesson: during the recent Adult School fight, some of us fell into a briar patch of process, promises and detail. After a while, we didn’t know whom to believe. Sometimes it seemed everyone was right, every argument was equal, none could just be crap, not here. 

This over-intellectualizing, this unnaturally strict civility (sort of public discussion by Barney or some other genial dominatrix), often led to more confusion, while of course the powers that be just went on with their schemes and their winking and nodding. Some of us had lost our instincts for people, for knowing when an official or school board member was dissembling (dissembling in Berkeley? Say it ain’t so!).  

And so a couple of us began practicing a simple mantra of “after a while, you know it (intellectual honesty, goodwill) when you see it.” We pulled back a little from the details. We listened to the tone and watched the faces and the body language. We rediscovered common sense and instinct. It helped. 

And when a person’s instincts tell him that a politician (please let it be a progressive politician) is being earnest and relatively truthful, then the talk of a better future suddenly becomes a potent political tool, as real and as effective as precinct work or walk-around money.  

Which brings us back to John Kerry (certainly not a real progressive, but just think “Supreme Court” and it gets easier to swallow).  

Kerry will never be a happy warrior. There are executioners who are more fun.  

But he apparently does care, in his gruff, fierce way. If he finds a way to let people know he understands the need to cast off our gloom, to take control of things, to look forward, if he can just understand why so many people lined up at the coffin, and learn from that understanding, then the man who offers us only a grim, dark vision (is it something in Bush’s religion, or just a really bad hangover?) will be sent back to Texas. 

And then maybe we can get out of this hellish, dangerous mess we’ve dragged everyone into. 

James Day is a local landscaper and writer. 

›

Virtually everyone agrees on the goal of getting more people to take public transit. And this past March voters passed Regional Measure 2 to fund more mass transit projects. However, when it comes to how and where there are some differences of opinion. 

AC Transit has been working for years on the concept of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to enhance public transit in the East Bay, and recently settled on Route 41 Telegraph Avenue-International Boulevard as the optimal route. Additionally, AC Transit recently implemented Rapid Bus Service (RBS) service along San Pablo Avenue speeding transit times 30 percent, and boosting ridership 66 percent during peak periods. 

At a February public hearing, neighbors and merchants expressed to AC Transit serious concerns regarding the Environmental Impact Review (EIR) that would evaluate BRT as the only enhanced transit alternative for Telegraph Avenue. One month later the community was relieved to see their pleas were heeded, and the EIR scope had been revised to evaluate both BRT and RBS alternatives for Telegraph Avenue. 

RBS improves bus service by synchronizing traffic lights with transponders on buses, reducing number of bus stops, and providing real-time electronic time of arrival information at each bus stop. BRT further enhances bus service by dedicating a lane of traffic to exclusive use of buses in each direction, and new elevated bus stop stations.  

Concerns regarding BRT are several. For neighbors the greatest concern is the reduction of Telegraph to one lane of traffic in each direction thus adversely affecting drive times, parking, and congestion, and diversion of traffic into neighborhoods. Merchants are additionally concerned regarding BRT plans to turn Telegraph Avenue commercial area into a dedicated transit mall (private vehicle traffic would be diverted to alternative routes), and the impact of less eyes and ears on an already fragile economic and social situation on the Avenue. There are also concerns regarding how BRT would be routed and terminated in downtown Berkeley. 

The EIR will now include cost/benefit analysis of both the BRT and RBS alternatives, so the community and City of Berkeley can make an informed decision regarding the best alternative. Benefit analysis should include improved transit commute times, increased ridership, and quality of service. Cost analysis should include dollars, drive times, traffic diversion, parking impacts, and economic and social impact on commercial areas.  

AC Transit is currently in the process of building a computer model to analyze the two alternatives. The EIR is expected to be completed around year-end, and then must be submitted to the federal government for review before it is released to the public sometime early next year. At that time it will be important for neighbors, merchants, UC, City of Berkeley, and other interested parties to weigh in on the analysis, and decide on what is the best path forward for our community. 

John Caner is president of Willard Neighborhood Association, and a board member of the Telegraph Area Association.›

At first, to the doctor who checked her over, the illness that struck my daughter, Cora, looked like a virus. Even the blood test suggested a virus. That was because I had taken her in so quickly when she started shaking with chills.  

Twenty-four hours later, her head was splitting and her body stiffening. I took her into the large pediatric practice that has taken care of her for years. It was the end of the workday, but by chance her own doctor was still there. 

She took one look at my lanky high school senior, nearly passed out on the high, too-short bed, and started the spinal test for meningitis. As soon as she finished that, she started antibiotics and fluids flowing into her veins. 

Then she called an ambulance to take Cora to our local hospital. That, too, happened quickly. Cora had barely arrived when another doctor from the practice, already in the hospital, entered the room where nurses were working to attach more i.v.’s and hook up her to monitoring machines.  

“This is a good hospital,” the doctor said, “but Cora deserves the best care available.” She was sending Cora to Indianapolis, an hour up the road. 

An ambulance was coming to take her to the Riley Hospital for Children, a major university teaching hospital. A Riley doctor and nursing team would be on board to accompany her.  

That night was the grimmest I have ever experienced. There was too strong a possibility that she might die (as do approximately one in 13 victims of the meningitis strain that attacked her).  

If she did not die, would she be irreparably harmed? Meningitis attacks the tissues around the spinal column and travels to the brain. It inflames the tissues around the brain and causes swelling. If the disease is not blocked quickly, brain damage can occur. 

Our story had a happy outcome. After a day and night in intensive care, Cora spent eight more days at Riley, treated with antibiotics and nursed back to health by a superb staff.  

Nine days after Cora stood at the door of death, she and I drove home together. 

Two days later, Cora walked across the stage at graduation. Once four weeks have passed, she’ll have the meningitis vaccination recommended for college students. 

A few days after we came home, I was telling this story to a physician friend who knew Cora. “She was lucky,” she said. A fast medical response had saved her life and restored her to health and wholeness. 

And then my friend added this grim thought: that if Cora had been one of millions of American children without medical insurance, she might not have survived.  

Our insurance had bought her fast, top-notch care. Without insurance, some parents might have hesitated to seek care until it was too late. Medical personnel might have delayed responding to a disease that does not brook delays. 

My physician friend had just returned from the local Bridge the Gap walk over our newest bridge in Bloomington—part of last Saturday’s nationwide push for health care for the uninsured.  

I gave her my e-mail address to add to the list: The next time there’s a bridge to walk, I want to be on it. 

Carol Polsgrove is a former East Bay resident who lives in Bloomington, Indiana. 

f

MEANS TESTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Keith Winnard’s June 11 letter proposing that Berkeley renters submit to means testing—to determine whether or not an individual renter can qualify for the city’s rent stabilization program—profoundly misunderstands the purpose and nature of California’s scores of community rent stabilization ordinances, which regulate nearly a million tenant households statewide. 

Mr. Winnard suggests that a parallel can be drawn between federal and state entitlement program means testing and local rent stabilization ordinances. 

This parallel is false: unlike federal welfare support, student financial support, or the state’s MediCal program, which, as Mr. Winnard correctly notes, require means testing documentation, Berkeley rental property owners operate as private businesses. 

For owners operating three or more units, a City of Berkeley business license (and adherence to corresponding health and safety regulations) is required. Rental units are also subject to the city’s voter-approved Rent Stabilization Ordinance regulations. 

As private operators controlling a fixed supply of housing units—and a corresponding high renter demand for housing—the city’s rent stabilization program regulates unit rent levels as a universal program. 

This same notion of universal participation also applies to other regulated private (or semi-private) markets/monopolies: i.e. electricity, natural gas, water, telephone service, etc. Given how critical housing and other regulated services are for California’s population, universal—not arbitrary income-based participation is vital. 

Chris Kavanagh  

• 

BLAMING CAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am deeply troubled that the City of Berkeley wants to blame Cal for its money problems. Cal is the reason why many people come to Berkeley. I work at a small shop a block away from the campus and I can tell you if it weren’t for the Cal students and staff we (and other shops) would go out of business. I’ve seen this town go down the gutter through the years and many people are struggling to get by. Sadly it seems that the homeless are taking over and cops are slow to respond when needed and nothing is getting done to fix it. 

If we want to blame the Cal campus for Berkeley it’s the students that will suffer, with more fees on top of an already expensive education, resulting in them going deeper into debt. These are our children and it’s time to stop asking them to carry our state’s problems on their already overloaded backs. 

Melissa Brown 

Alameda 

• 

IMMIGRATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kenneth Theisen decries the fact that illegal immigrants are being “forced” into inhospitable terrain by the Border Patrol (“U.S.-Mexico Border Patrol Abuses Greater Than Abu Ghraib,” Daily Planet, June 11-14). 

Fundamental questions: 

1. What is your idea of the optimum population of the U.S.? 

2. Do you favor unlimited immigration? (Easy question. No evasions, just yes or no.) 

3. If yes, go back to question No. 1. If no, what annual immigration limit should be adopted, and what means would be appropriate to enforce it? 

Peter B. Jansen 

• 

INDIAN FISHING GROUNDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Scottish Power, one of Scotland’s leading multinationals, is destroying the traditional fishing grounds of California Indians—the Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa and Klamath—by killing off the salmon by building dams on the Klamath River. At one time, the Klamath River—winding through Northern California and southern Oregon—was once the third largest salmon river in this country.  

California Indians had lived along the river for millennia, relying on the salmon for sustenance. However, when PacifiCorp came in, it built these dams which prevented the salmon from reaching their natural grounds river. As a result, two species of salmon are extinct. Scottish Power needs to be held accountable for the action taken by its subsidiary.  

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland›

A few weeks ago my friend Jernae and I attended a tea party in the middle of Addison Street in downtown Berkeley. This wasn’t just any tea party. This was a tea party with an environmental agenda. Entitled “A Tea Cup Give Away Storytelling Tea Party,” it was sponsored by the Berkeley Art Commission’s Addison Street Windows Gallery. In association with the Urban Creeks Council, local interdisciplinary artist/performer Patricia Bulitt has put together the current window exhibit that includes photo imagery, text, poetic prose, costumes, hats, and recycled kettles. 

The tea party, held on June 6, was a kick-off to the exhibit which celebrates Bulitt’s 13 years of “Creek Dancer” events in Codornices Park, and her accompanying women’s and girls’ tea party and storytelling ceremony, “There’s A Tree Whistling Its Message Through the Kettle.” 

We registered for the event beforehand, and were told to bring a teacup and story to exchange. On the appointed day we dropped by the corner of Milvia and Addison Streets where we were given a glittery tea bag pin and a tea bag for later use. The event began with volunteers holding large, colorful umbrellas, forming an arch, which the participants walked through while listening to the sounds of singer/performer Rhiannon. Then Taiko drummer Janet Koike pounded out some beats and Patricia performed a dance poem about an elderly woman hiking through the woods. This was followed by several youngsters dancing with a variety of old teapots and then a performance by the “Fishhead Dancers,” three young women dressed in black leotards, green pants and large fish masks. When they finished, the Fishhead Dancers served us hot water for our tea, but before indulging, Patricia instructed us to exchange our cups with someone we didn’t know, and during the swap we were encouraged to share a story about a person we admired.  

Jernae and I wandered over to the long tables set up on the sidewalk and helped ourselves to gummy fish and cookies, beautifully presented, in part, by Gianna’s Handmade Baked Goods. While sipping herbal tea and nibbling on delicious pink and green ladybug and frog-shaped shortbread cookies, Jernae and I studied the windows of the Addison Street Gallery which Patricia had filled with sparkly button-studded teapots, shimmering tea bags, lace, dolls, dresses, “floating words,” and photographs of herself dancing in Cordornices Creek.  

Later, Patricia explained that we were standing above Strawberry Creek and that the waters flowed from the Berkeley hills out to the San Francisco Bay and then on through the Golden Gate to the Pacific. In the same way, said Patricia, the stories we had shared would also flow with the water, intermingle out into the universe and then come back to us, like the tides of the ocean. We wer e encouraged to find someone new to share the story we had just learned during our teacup swap. But Jernae had insisted on wearing high heels, and she complained to me “that her dogs were killing her” so before exchanging a second story we decided to he a d home. We returned to North Oakland with a renewed appreciation for the hidden creeks of the East Bay. With my re-found water-as-precious-resource awareness, I tried not to waste a drop as I made dinner and washed clothes. I thought more about Patricia’s exhibit, and wondered how I could supe-up my dull, boring-but-functional teapot. And since I hadn’t exchanged a second story with anyone, I decided to share this anecdote with you.µ

Playwright Doug Wright, who won this year’s Tony, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his current Broadway hit, “I Am My Own Wife,” apparently has learned a lot about playwriting in the years since he wrote the play, which is currently being perf ormed at the Julia Morgan Theatre. 

At two hours and forty minutes, Shotgun Players’ production of “Quills” may require more time than some of us would care to spend with this version of the Marquis de Sade’s carryings on. 

One of the highest points of th is production is Richard Louis James’ chilling portrayal of the 18th century Frenchman whose name has come to define the term “sadism.” James gives a totally believable portrayal of the brilliant and hopelessly distorted Marquis: a man whose genius was devoted to the creation of a body of writing which is, even now, horrendous. 

De Sade’s behavior caused him to spend more than 29 years in first, a prison, then—after a break caused by the French Revolution—an insane asylum, where he finished out his life. Wright’s play is set in the Charenton Insane Asylum, where de Sade is maintained in relative comfort at the expense of his wife’s bribery of the sleazy director, Dr. Royer-Collard (a believable David Cramer). The wife’s motivation is simple; she wants him locked away in the asylum and is quite prepared to pay to keep him there.  

It is with the entrance of the very competent Judy Phillips, who plays Madame deSade, that the question of the play’s direction arises. Phillips’ role is performed with an extrav agant artificiality which is basically comic in style. However, both the dialogue and the plot lack humor. (In all fairness, it should be admitted that there were a few audience members who did find material to laugh about from time to time.) 

What appear s to be going on is a rather erratic attempt to introduce elements of the “Grande Guignol” into the production. Those popular, wildly exaggerated, Punch and Judy puppet shows wallowed in over-done guillotines and such like. The idea behind the otherwise b ewildering “horror film” sound effects in this production is apparently an effort to graft some of the Grande Guignol appeal onto Wright’s text.  

A (perhaps “the”) major theme in the play is the struggle faced by the idealistic young priest, Abbe de Coulmier (touchingly played by Taylor Valentine), who is caught between the disreputable Dr. Royer-Collard, and the evil de Sade. The Abbe is the immediate contact with de Sade and is responsible for the actual enforcement of restrictions upon his behavior. 

As the play progresses, de Sade finds increasingly disgusting, if increasingly ingenious, ways of doing his writing (he has long established ways of smuggling his works out of his cell with the aid of an earthy laundress well played by Lisa Jenai Hernande z). When they take away his quills and paper, he writes in blood on his clothes. When he is stripped naked, he writes in feces upon his cell’s walls. As de Sade beats each move, the Abbe becomes increasingly obsessed: his spirituality seeming to fail alon g with his sanity. 

When Wright wrote the script for the film “Quills,” he didn’t use the play’s second act (there doesn’t seem to be any information readily available to determine whether this was really his own idea or whether some more sensible type ha d to intervene). There could be an idea there worth considering. 

Actually, in this production, the second act appeared to move better than did the first. However, the ending was remarkable in that there were a series of short scenes, each of which seemed to carry all the marks of a conclusion. And then, Oops! Here comes another one. 

It was a rather long evening. 

“Quills” is at the Julia Morgan Theater, Thurs. through Sat. at 8 p.m., and Sun at 7 p.m. to July 3. Free admission with pass-the-hat donation after the show. For reservations call 704-8210. www.shotgunplayers.org

FRIDAY, JUNE 25 

CHILDREN 

Costume Character Special Guest “Little Critter” at Barnes and Noble at 10:30 a.m. 644-3635. 

FILM 

Readings on Cinema: “Alice in Wonderland” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Betrayal,” by Harold Pinter, directed by Tom Ross. Runs through July 25. 843-4822.  

www.auroratheatre.org  

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

Berkeley Rep, “21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com” Thurs., Sun. at 7:30 p.m. and Fri. and Sat. at 8:30 p.m. through July 2. Tickets are $25-$35. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group Theatre “Come Back Annie Gray” June 25, 26 and 27 at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $15-$20, available from 408-615-1194. 

www.comebackanniegray.com 

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 

Prescott-Joseph Center, “Raisin” an adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” Fri. and Sat. at 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. to July 11, at the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, 920 Peralta St., West Oakland. Theater is outdoors, dress for cooler temperatures. Tickets are $5-$15. 208-5651. 

Shotgun Players, “Quills” by Doug Wright at the Julia Morgan Theater. Runs Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through July 3. Free, donations accepted. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Wilde Irish Productions, “Eclipsed” by Patricia Burke Brogan, 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 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“We Do: A Celebration of Gay and Lesbian Marriage” with editor Amy Rennart at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter describes “How Israel Lost: The Four Questions” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Harmonies du Soir” with Esther Chan, solo pianist at 7:45 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 848-7800. www.berkeleycityclub.com  

Bill Horvitz, improv jazz guitar at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Rafael Manriquez & Quijerema in a concert celebrating the 100th birthday of Pablo Neruda at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Peter Mulvey, contemporary folk innovator, 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 

Aphrodesia at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Danny Caron, jazz and blues guitarist, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Ilene Adar and Mario Desio, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

www.nomadcafe.net 

Crater, Odd Bodkins at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

www.starryplough.com 

Forward, Desolation, Strung Up, Get it Away 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. 

Mundaze at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Stephen Kent An evening of solo didjeridu at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204.  

www.epicarts.org 

SATURDAY, JUNE 26 

FILM 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “The Long Goodbye”at 7 p.m., “The Outside Man” at 9:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“High Fiber” a conversation with artists exploring the intersection of digital technology and fiber-based artworks at 2 p.m. 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 

Alex Cramer introduces his new novel, “The Coma” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MIUSIC AND DANCE 

“We Invite You to Dream” dance with rap, poetry, and live music performed by artists with Destiny Arts Center at 8 p.m. at The Linen Life, 6635 Hollis St. at 67th St., Emeryville. Tickets are $10-$25. 597-1619.  

www.destinyarts.org 

Tom Russell, southwestern singer-songwriter, at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Avenida Sao Paulo, Latin jazz, at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Marley’s Ghost, one-band music festival, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Son Borikua & Venezuelan Music Project at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Humble Soul and Native Groove at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Andreas Willers, improv guitar, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Scott Amendola Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Kirk Keeler, singer song-writer, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Naked Barbies at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Benumb, Catheter, Entrails Massacre, Wasteoid 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. 

Quddus, one-man hip hop, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204.  

www.epicarts.org 

SUNDAY, JUNE 27 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Sacred Spaces,” an exhibition of installation works by Seyed Alavi, Taraneh Hemami, Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman, Rhoda London, and Rene Yung, through August 7 at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut Street in Live Oak Park Gallery hours are Wed. - Sun. noon to 5 pm. 

FILM 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “Water and Power”at 5:30 p.m., “Chinatown” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Kim Addonizio, Dorothy Barresi and Susan Browne at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Music Cooperative Players, “An Evening in Paris” featuring the music of Faure, Poulenc, Ravel and Debussy at 7 p.m. in the Valley Center, Holy Names College, 3500 Mountain Blvd. Oakland. Tickets are $5-$20 sliding scale at the door. 845-2232. 

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers and The Moodswing Orchestra and a floorshow by the San Francisco Jitterbugs in a Swing Benefit for Ashkenaz at 8 p.m. Ashkenaz. Cost is $20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Lucas Niggli’s Zoom, drum heavy jazz/rock improv, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $10.  

www.thejazzhouse.com 

Darryl Henriques, satire and social commentary, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazz Club Afternoon, featuring DJ Buffalo and friends at 2 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Steven Pile and Sara Shansky, alt-country bluesy folk, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204.  

www.epicarts.org 

MONDAY, JUNE 28 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theater Lab “Four Echoes” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Free, sugggested donation up to $15. 841-6500.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“An Evening with Maxine Hong Kingston” at 7:30 p.m. at Aurora Theater, 2081 Addison St. $20 suggested donation. 843-4822.  

www.auroratheatre.org 

Steven Saylor reads from his new historical mystery, “The Judgment of Caesar” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express Theme Night “Nature” from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

David Murray’s Creole Project at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Wed. Cost is $10-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Lucas Niggli’s Zoom, drum heavy jazz/rock improv, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $10. www.thejazzhouse.com 

TUESDAY, JUNE 29 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theater Lab “Four Echoes” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Free, sugggested donation up to $15. 841-6500.  

FILM 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “The Decay of Fiction” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bill Clinton will sign copies of his memoir “My Life” at noon at Cody’s Books. Admission by ticket only. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Lee Stringer remembers his life at a school for children at risk in “Sleepaway School: Stories from a Boy’s Life” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poets Gone Wild, open mic, at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

REV.99 and Andrew Hayleck at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Box, 1923 Telegraph Ave.  

www.oaklandbox.com 

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

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30 

FILM 

All-Comedy Shorts presented by Independent Exposure at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand, Oakland. Cost is $5-$10 sliding scale. 415-864-0660.  

www.microcinema.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ed Cray reads from his new biography, “Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com 

Kay Jones and Anthony Pan explain “Culture Shock! Beijing At Your Door” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose. 843-3533. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam, contest with the winners performing at the AIDS Walk in San Francisco, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryplough.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Potingue, contemporary flamenco-Latin ensemble, at the Crowden Music Center, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $6, free for children. 559-6910.  

www.thecrowdenschool.org 

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

Gator Beat at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun zydeco dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.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. 642-0808. 

Whiskey Brothers, old time at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

www.albatrosspub.com 

Jeb Brady Band, history of the blues, part II, 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 

The Upsidedown, ‘80s meets ‘60s psychedelic synth-rock at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 1 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Tanaka Ryohei, “Japanese Etchings” opens at the Schurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. 524-0623. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Terry Ehret is the featured poet at the Albany Public Library at 7 p.m. at the Albany Public Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 20. 

Puerto Rican Obituary: A Tribute to Pedro Pietri at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Noon Concert with the Capoeira Arts Café at the Berkeley BART. Sponsored by the Downtown Berkeley Association. 

Art Maxwell and Tonal Gravity, jazz and world music fusion, 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 

George Pederson and His Pretty Good Band at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitar, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Tim Buckley’s Influx, avant-garde jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $8-$15. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Kenny Rankin at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sat. Cost is $16-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, JULY 2. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Works by Ellen Russell opens at ACCI gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Betrayal,” by Harold Pinter, directed by Tom Ross, opens at 8 p.m. and runs through July 25. Tickets are $28-$36. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org  

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

Berkeley Rep, “21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com” Thurs., Sun. at 7:30 p.m. and Fri. and Sat. at 8:30 p.m. through July 2. Tickets are $25-$35. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Shotgun Players, “Quills” by Doug Wright at the Julia Morgan Theater. Runs Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through July 3. Free, donations accepted. 841-6500.  

www.shotgunplayers.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Johnny Talbot & De Thangs, blues band, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Kaki King 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 

Flair, Mojo Apostles, Collisionville, Jules Worsley at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

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

Marcus Selby Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Jason Broome and Emaline Delapaix at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

www.nomadcafe.net 

Kenny Rankin at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sat. Cost is $16-$20. 238-9200.  

www.yoshis.com 

Off Minor, Strong Intention, Amanda Woodard, Navies 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. 

ª

Even non-railroad buffs of all ages will find adventure at the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento State Historic Park. 

To make the trip as authentic and thorough as possible, take Amtrak’s “Capitol Corridor” train from Oakland or Martinez and avoid supporting profiteering oil companies more than necessary. The train stops the equivalent of about two blocks from the California State Railroad Museum. Follow the striped walkway under a green bridge to Old Sacramento. 

Operated by California State Parks with assistance from the museum’s foundation, the air-conditioned museum shows an extensive collection of railroad cars built and used between 1874 and 1950.  

Visitors can climb into many of the cars, which range from a modest, working caboose to Gov. Leland Stanford’s wildly lavish private railroad car. 

Gov. Stanford turned the first spade of dirt to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad on Jan. 8, 1863. After Chinese laborers toiled for six years in unbearable conditions and gave lives to build the railroad, the Central Pacific met the Union Pacific Railroad coming from the east, at Promontory, Utah. On that occasion, Stanford pounded in the famed gold spike to “complete” the United States’ transcontinental railroad. The Central Pacific was the forerunner of the Southern Pacific. 

Ironically and purposefully, Stanford’s elegant once-moving personal monument stands very close to the oddly realistic stationary exhibit honoring the Chinese laborers who toiled and gave lives to actually build the railroad from which Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins made their fortunes. 

The museum also owns and rotates into its exhibits of “rolling stock” 17 “maintenance-of-way” cars used from 1905-1974. These cars include cranes, scale test cars, tool and outfit cars, flangers, snowplows, dynamometer cars, and a fascinating fire truck on rails. 

Be sure to walk through Canadian National Railways Sleeping Car No. 1683, the “Hyacinthe,” where a museum docent acts as pretend steward and security person. The car simulates sounds, motion, light changes, and for a few moments one can fantasize about being on a true cross-country trip in a fairly elegant sleeping car. 

Kids enjoy hiding and imagining a ride in a freight car. Other car favorites include an Atcheson, Topeka, and Santa Fe dining car, a Fruit Growers Express Company refrigerator car, a Great Northern Railway Company Post Office car, and a Union Pacific caboose. Indoors, these railroad cars look absolutely massive. 

Through August, there’s a fabulous display called “Where to Go, What to See: The Art of the American Railroad Poster.” Dating from the 1890s-1950s, the posters highlight railroad travel and train destinations across the country, and emphasize the era when railroad posters reached their peak as communication vehicles in the 1920s and 1930s. 

A special exhibit of toy trains and scale models, which is a preview of the Thomas W. Sefton collection, is on display on the museum’s first floor. Mr. Sefton recently donated his enormous collection to the California State Railroad Museum Foundation, including pieces from Buddy L. Ives, American Flyer, Marklin, Marx, and Lionel. The museum will open its 3,300-square-foot Thomas W. Sefton Gallery Aug. 14 for a permanent rotating exhibit of this extraordinary collection. 

Other exhibits include historic photographs of the railroad building industry, maps, shop machinery, and other products from the Southern Pacific Sacramento Shops, once the largest industrial complex west of the Mississippi and largest employer in the Central Valley. 

On weekends try the steam powered excursion trains departing from Central Pacific Freight Depot and Public Market (two blocks south of the museum) every hour on the hour from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The museum’s vintage Sacramento Southern Railroad makes a 40-minute, six-mile roundtrip ride along the Sacramento River, pulling passenger coaches and freight cars along what was a Southern Pacific line. Passengers can either ride in enclosed cars with cushy seats or on open-air wooden seats. 

The Railroad Museum and Old Sacramento hold special events for crowd lovers, including “Gold Rush Days” on Labor Day weekend, a fire department safety fair (this year labeled “Prevention 2004”), the fun Halloween “Spookomotive” train rides, loads of theme train excursions for Thanksgiving, a Toy Train Holiday, and a Yuletide Express with Santa aboard. 

Don’t miss the museum store, with one of the most extensive collections anywhere of books about trains and train lore, Thomas the Train toys and trinkets, and the rare train poster and memorabilia. 

Some of the dusty, dirty food joints close to the Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento are worth passing by. To contribute to the museum’s foundation, soak in a little history and have lunch or dinner at the same time, try the Foundation’s Silver Palace Restaurant at the Central Pacific Railroad Passenger Station, a legacy of the Silver Palace Eating Stand that served passengers of the first arriving trains in Sacramento. Everything here is super casual, and the simple menu includes Transcontinental stew, Steam Whistle chili, hot and cold sandwiches, burgers, fries, and salads. 

›

June 21, 2004 

Presidential elections present us with choices about our nation's future. We support John Kerry for President and urge you to join us. 

The prosperity, health, environment, and security of Americans depend on Presidential leadership to sustain our vibrant science and technology; to encourage education at home and attract talented scientists and engineers from abroad; and to nurture a business environment that transforms new knowledge into new opportunities for creating quality jobs and reaching shared goals. 

President Bush and his administration are compromising our future on each of these counts. By reducing funding for scientific research, they are undermining the foundation of America's future. By setting unwarranted restrictions on stem cell research, they are impeding medical advances. By employing inappropriate immigration practices, they are turning critical scientific talent away from our shores. And by ignoring scientific consensus on critical issues such as global warming, they are threatening the earth's future. Unlike previous administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, the Bush administration has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the policy-making that is so important to our collective welfare. 

John Kerry will change all this. He will support strong investments in science and technology as he restores fiscal responsibility. He will stimulate the development and deployment of technologies to meet our economic, energy, environmental, health, and security needs. He will recreate an America that provides opportunity to all at home or abroad who can help us make progress together. 

John Kerry will restore science to its appropriate place in government and bring it back into the White House. He is the clear choice for America's next President.  

Signed, 

48 Nobel Laureates›

FRIDAY, JUNE 25 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Joseph Lifschutz, M.D. on “A Psychoanalyst’s Career.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

Chinese Dragon Boat Festival at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center with refreshements and entertainment. 981-5190. 

Remembering Homeless Youth at the Grove Street Park on the corner of Oregon and Martin Luther King Street from noon to 4 p.m. with food, games and entertainment.  

Tilden Sunset Hike through southern Tilden Park with panoramic evening views from the Seaview trail. Meet at Inspiration Point at 6 p.m. with very warm, layered clothing, flashlight, snack to share. Sponsored by Solo Sierrans. 601-1211.  

Send Off for Cuba Caravan, a dinner and program hosted by Pastors for Peace at 6 p.m., 1606 Bonita. 527-2522. 

“A Night of Ferocious Joy,” a film of the first concert against the war with Ozomatli, Blackalicious, Dilated Peoples, Mystic, Saul Williams, Jerry Quickley, Hassan Hakmoun, Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra. At 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall in Oakland at 390 27th St. Cost is $5-$15, and helps send youth and activists to the Republican National Convention Protest in NYC. 601-8000.  

bayarea.notinourname.net 

“The End of Suburbia” a film exploring our way of life as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. At 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donation sliding scale $5-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 547-8313. 

“Evoking the Divine” A look at the kolams of South India with Dianne E. Jenett at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $5. 650-483-1179. 

Queerosity Celebrating LGBTQ youth with spoken word and open mic, from 6 to 10 p.m. at SMAAC Youth Center, 1608 Webster St. at 16th, Oakland. Sponsored by Youth Speaks and the Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County. 834-9578. www.smaacyouthcenter.org 

Shabbat Potluck Share the joy of Shabbat at a festive Shabbat potluck for singles, ages 30 through 40, at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center. Please RSVP to 839-2900, ext. 208.  

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

SATURDAY, JUNE 26 

Berkeley Fire Station Open House from 1 to 4 p.m. at Station 1, 2442 8th St. Tour the station, see a safety presentation, and historical display and enjoy hot dogs and cake. Families and children especially welcome. 981-5506. 

Meet the Locals at the Little Farm in Tilden Park from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Learn about these helpful animals while helping out by mucking out the pens, collecting eggs, and even grooming a goat. Wear boots and prepare to get dirty. For ages 6 and up. 525-2233. 

Floral Foray at Tilden Nature Center from 2 to 3:30 p.m. for all ages. Come on down to relax and smell the flowers. We’ll go on a short walk around the nature center and Little Farm to discover flower anatomy, names and their role in nature. 525-2233. 

Introduction to Permaculture Energy Flow, Pattern Observation and Design. A workshop with Bear Kaufman and Salvador Velasco from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

San Pablo Creek Watershed Plan Workshop Participate in a community plan to protect, en- 

hance, and restore San Pablo Creek, its tributaries, and natural resources. Includes children’s environmental education. From 10 a.m. to noon in San Pablo. 231-9566. 

The Water Garden Learn how to design and maintain a water garden at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Latin American Cuisine at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. Chef demonstrations and presentations starting at 11 a.m. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. For reservations call 238-3234. 

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. 

“Jews of the Sephardic Eastern World” with Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of Humanistic Judaism, on Sat. and Sun. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Cost is $100 plus $8 for lunch. To register call 415-543-4595.  

“You can be a Woman Moviemaker” with Maureen Gosling at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

SUNDAY, JUNE 27 

Guided Trails Hiking Challenge at Tilden Park’s Inspiration Point from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wonderful views to the east and west will reward you as we hike along the ridge. Pack your lunch; we will eat at the half-way point. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Wet and Wild Water for all ages. Join us for a morning of water discovery, as we tour the watershed, conduct water experiments, and maybe even play in it, if the weather’s hot. From 10:30 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

“Kick-off” Event for Ride the Revolution 2004 A cycling adventure benefiting disabled athletes, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Berkeley Ironworks, 800 Potter St. at 7th St. Featuring disabled and non-disabled cyclists, and other disabled athletes including the winners of the National Junior Wheelchair Basketball Championship. www.borp.org 

Spiral Gardens Celebrates Its Grand Opening from 2 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Sts. Activities will include food, music, words from George Galvis, Latino and native community activist and leader, garden center tours, and creative ways to get involved with Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Berkeley Music Ensemble on Mt. Tamalpais and Walk Join Solo Sierrans for a jaunt to the Alpine Club on Mount Tam for a concert, from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Cost is $12. For reservations and to arrange carpools call 524-1090. 

Bay Area Negro Spirituals Heritage Keepers Day Spirituals heritage and some of its contemporary keepers will be honored from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline Street, Oakland. 

Campaign to Ban Electro- 

shock Treatments with Lee Coleman, MD, and Ted Chbasinski, JD at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Main Library, 3rd flr. meeting room. Part of a series on Critical Perspective in Psychiatry. www.mindfreedom.com 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations call 848-7800. 

“Venezuela,” a film presentation at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. 525-0302.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Meditation for Ease and Clarity” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JUNE 28 

“Why You Should Give a Damn about Gay Rights and Marriage” at 7 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5366 College Ave. Sponsored by the ACLU, Paul Robeson Chapter. 846-4195. 

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. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 29 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang explore Wildcat Canyon. Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. Meet at 10 a.m. at the staging area off of Park Ave. in Richmond. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Birding by Bicycle at the MLK Shoreline, Arrowhead Marsh. Now that the migrants are gone, see who stayed behind to raise their babies. We’ll look for Clapper Rails at the pier, then ride around the marsh to search for elusive owls. Bring your bike and a helmet. Meet at at 4 p.m. in the last parking lot, by the observation deck at the end of the driveway off Swan Way. Phone 525-2233 for information or to reserve binoculars. 

“Stop the War on the Black Community” at 7 p.m. at The Fellowship of Humanity, 390 27th St. 393-5685. 

“Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948” with dissident Israeli author Tanya Reinhart at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph The Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Tickets are $20. Benefit for Jewish Voice for Peace and International Solidarity Movement. 465-1777. www.norcalism.org or www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org  

“Report from Israel” An evening with Marcia Freedman, former Knesset member and national president of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Co-sponsored with Brit Tzedek V’Shalom. Cost is $5. www.brjcc.org 

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. This is a project of BOSS Urban Gardening Institute and Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Yosemite Day Hikes and Backpacking A slide presentation with Ann Marie Brown 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. 233-2144. dan@redefeatbush.com 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Mary Ellen Taylor from the FDA will speak on food safety. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672 for information or check our web page, http://home.comcast.net/~teachme99/tildenwalkers.html or email teachme99@comcast.net 

Families Dealing with Dementia A workshop offered by Mercy Retirement & Care Center at 5:30 p.m. at 3431 Foothill Boulevard in Oakland. 534-8547, ext. 660. www.mercyretirementcenter.org 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30 

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. 

Downtown Oakland Walking Tours every Wednesday and Saturday at 10 a.m to 11:30 a.m. Discover the changing skyline, landmarks and churches. For details on the different itineraries call 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours 

“Local Futures” films on golablization and theories of development, at 7 p.m. at the Fellowship of Humanity, 390 27th St., Oakland. 393-5685. 

Bayswater Book Club Monthly dinner meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Liu’s Kitchen, 1593 Solano Ave. We will discuss “The Jesus Mysteries” and “Jesus and the Lost Goddess.” 433-2911. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

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, JULY 1 

Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Restoration Program at 5:30 p.m. at the Planning Dept., 2118 Milvia St. 1st floor conference room. Dr. Iraj Javandel will present an update on the Lab’s soil and groundwater cleanup activities being done with the oversight of the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control. For more information see www.lbl.gov/community 

“Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory” with Maureen Musdock at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

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 

Tea Dancing and Dance Lessons with Barbara and Jerry August from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Cost is $5, includes refreshments. 925-376-6345. 

FRIDAY, JULY 2 

West Coast Contact Improvisation Dance Festival, with five days of classes, discussions and jams at 8th St. Studios. Cost is $350 for a 5-day pass, or $75 per day. For information call 415-789-7677. www.wccif.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. 

ONGOING 

Vista College Study Abroad in Mexico Live with a family and learn language skill in a two-week session in July in Guadalajara. For information please 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 

Luna Kids Dance Summer Camp for ages 9 - 13, from July 12 - 16. For information call 644-3629. www.lunakidsdance.com 

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. 

www.ecologycenter.org 

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

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

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

CITY MEETINGS 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., June 28, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Deborah Chernin, 981-6715.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/parksandrecreation 

Solid Waste Management Commission Mon., June 28, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., July 1, 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., July 1, 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., July 1, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks 

ª

Social services organizations and welfare recipients from around Alameda County helped pack the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Monday morning meeting to protest proposed budget cuts that might leave almost 1,500 people cut off from their General Assistance (GA) welfare benefits for nine months out of the year. 

Under a proposal released by the Social Services Agency at the beginning of the month, recipients who do not qualify for an exemption will be limited to GA benefits for three months a year. Those who will qualify for an exemption include people over 60, people who can document that they have a disability, and people with a major functional barrier such as a drug or alcohol problem or a developmental disability. 

The cuts, according to the agency, will save $5.2 million. They would go into effect July 1, with enforcement starting Sept. 1. 

Those who came out to protest the cuts have asked the supervisors and agency to reconsider their options before slicing what they called the last resort for Alameda County’s most destitute residents. 

The cuts are part of a multi-million dollar deficit that the Alameda County Social Services Agency is trying to close after its funding was cut in the proposed 2004-05 fiscal year county budget. Monday’s meeting was part of on-going budget hearings in front of the board which continue today (Tuesday, June 22) and culminate in a final approval vote next Monday. Overall, Alameda County faces a $98.4 million budget deficit.  

According to County Administrator Susan Muranishi, the county is facing steep budget cuts primarily because of state actions and a slumping national economy. In particular, she said, almost $1.9 billion in county money has been captured by the state since 1992 through the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF) which siphons off local property tax.  

Currently, General Assistance (GA) benefits are set aside for single residents who do not have dependents and who do not qualify for any other type of benefits. The maximum benefit is $336 per month for those who have a place to stay. For the homeless, the maximum amount is $28. Those who have housing receive more because the program is set up to keep them housed while they participate in a mandated employment services program, which trains them to re-enter the work force. 

“GA is a benefit of last resort,” said Patricia Wall, executive director of the Homeless Action Center, a Berkeley-based advocacy law firm. “You have to be absolutely destitute to be eligible for the benefit. Frankly, I don’t know what they are going to do. It’s going to create a whole lot of homeless people which is something we don’t need. It’s the last thing we need.” 

At the meeting, GA recipients and their advocates learned of a partial reprieve being proposed by the Social Services Agency that might delay the cuts. Since releasing their initial proposal on June 3, agency director Chet P. Hewitt said the agency reconvened and came up with a way to extend the deadline for when the cuts will be enforced.  

Instead of a July 1 starting date, Hewitt proposed moving the starting date to Oct. 1, which would push the enforcement date back to Jan. 1, 2005. The proposal, he said, would allow GA recipients more time to either qualify for an exemption or find other means of help. 

The new proposal is still not enough said many recipients. During public testimony, groups of recipients got up to jointly discuss the consequences of eventually losing their benefits. 

“I’ll be homeless,” was the quick answer for those asked what they would do if they don’t have GA benefits year round. 

“I don’t have any family where I could go, I can’t sleep under the overpass, I’m sick,” said Vera Carter, tears in her eyes.  

Carter was one of a group of volunteers from the Alameda County Food Bank who came to protest the cuts. She—along with others—is currently participating in the employment services program. She said if GA is cut off for most of the year, she and others will have no way to stay in employment programs and will have to dedicate all their time and resources to meeting their basic necessities.  

“These are people who are trying really hard to work,” said Wall from the Homeless Action Center. “This is a welfare department that is particularly focused on work. We are now going to punish the people who are trying very hard. It’s a mixed message.” 

Judy Jackson, who will be exempt from the cuts because she has a documented disability, said GA has been an enormous help while she navigated other social service programs in an attempt to get back on her feet. A two-time cancer survivor and former teacher, Jackson has a Section 8 voucher and is waiting for SSI but said she could have never applied for these program if she didn’t have GA. 

She said GA was the only way she could eat while she spent all her time shuttling between social service offices and applying for permanent housing. 

“They are making an awful lot of demands on the poor, and very few on people who can afford it,” she said. 

Before the public comment period, Supervisor Keith Carson expressed his regret for the proposed cuts and also expressed his frustration with what he said is the county’s inability to change federal tax and spending policy. 

“We prefer not to be here to make cuts, but we have been fighting every day to protect the safety net,” he said. “As a county family we’re trying to figure out how to balance all the programs that should rightfully exist.” 

Carson told the audience that they should be at the meeting to protest, and that they should also be following the federal government as they “spend most of our money outside the country to destroy another government, money that should spent here.” 

Besides pushing people to the streets, protesters said the cuts will overburden other county shelter and health care services as people scramble to survive. They also warned that crime levels could increase, citing a study done in Alameda County in 1997 that found a 15 percent increase in arrests for people after they left the GA program. 

Advocacy groups said the cuts will also disproportionately affect workers whose primary language is not English. According to agency data, 17 percent of the current “employable” GA caseload are limited English proficient (LEP). Advocates said three months is not enough to participate in employment services programs, look for work and enroll in English classes. 

As a possible solution, advocates asked the Board of Supervisors to dip into the county’s contingency fund, which this year is a proposed $32.96 million. They said that although this is usually not an option, such drastic cuts should merit use of the money. 

Anne Arkush, a law intern at the East Bay Community Law Center, also presented the commissioners with a chart detailing the Available Fund Balance (AFB), or the unspent part of the budget every year. Using the chart, Arkush documented a trend that showed tight fiscal years usually create substantial AFBs because the county cuts more than necessary. As a result, she said, the county should not cut Social Services so drastically because more than likely there will be money left over.  

Berkeley Police homicide investigators dispute an Alameda County deputy district attorney who said they lacked sufficient evidence to charge two sisters as accessories to the 1970 murder of a Berkeley policeman.  

“We strongly disagree with that statement,” said Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes, who is spearheading the “cold case” investigation into the slaying of Officer Ronald Tsukamoto. 

Three times in four weeks, Alameda County prosecutors have decided not to charge suspects arrested by the Berkeley Police Department in connection with the city’s first-ever cop killing. 

“We elected not to charge based on insufficient evidence,” said Assistant District Attorney Max Jacobson. 

Asked why two sisters and a man with alleged ties to the Black Panthers had been arrested in the first place, Jacobson replied, “You’d have to ask the Berkeley Police Department.” 

Jacobson’s office declined to charge sisters Joyce Gaskin and Joy Hall last Friday, three days after the two women surrendered themselves to Berkeley officers. The officers had a judicial warrant for Gaskin’s and Hall’s arrests on suspicion of being accessories after the fact to the Aug. 20, 1970, murder of Officer Ronald Tsukamoto, the first Asian American to wear a Berkeley Police badge. 

Tsukamoto had been on the job less than a year when he was gunned down by a man who approached him after Tsukamoto made a routine traffic stop of a motorcyclist. 

The first aborted arrest in the case came on May 24, when Berkeley officers arrested Don Juan Warren Graphenreed in the Fresno jail where he was being held pending trial on an unrelated burglary charge. 

Police announced the Graph-enreed arrest, only to agree to his release two days later when the district attorney’s office declined to press charges. 

“They presented paperwork on all three cases, and in each case were determined there was insufficient evidence to charge at this time,” Jacobson said. 

Asked if the D.A.’s office had played any part in the investigation, Jacobson said, “This is, was and always has been a Berkeley Police Department investigation.” 

“The decision to serve the warrant on Graphenreed was made at our request,” countered Lopes, “and the decision not to charge was made jointly by us and the district attorney’s office. There was every reason to serve the warrant and bring him here, and he can be charged at any time.” 

“It’s inappropriate to lump all three cases together,” said Lopes, explaining that the decision not to charge the sisters was an entirely different matter, “as different as day and night” from the Graphenreed decision. 

“To get the warrants, you have to determine to a judge’s satisfaction that a crime was committed and that there is probable cause for the arrest—and a well-qualified judge of the Alameda County Superior Court said there was reasonable cause to issue the warrant.” 

While defense attorneys for the sisters argued that their arrests took place decades after the statute of on accessory charges had lapsed, Lopes said he “vehemently disagreed.” 

The detective said the three-year statute of limitations started tolling when Berkeley Police reopened the case two years ago and first interviewed the sisters. 

“We concentrated on them because they were intimate witnesses to what happened,” Lopes said. “They’ve lied and made up fabrications,” which he said established the basis for the charges police sought to press. 

“It’s a complex case. It’s 34 years old and all of the witnesses are dead,” Lopes said. “Obviously, we have a battle with the district attorney’s office.”  

Lopes acknowledged that prosecutors need more evidence to bring a case to trial than police need to make an arrest. “We’ll go back and get what they need,” he said. “We will not be deterred on this case.”›

With battles raging over how much and in what form city workers will contribute to erasing Berkeley’s $10.3 million budget shortfall, the City Council will consider adoption of the city manager’s Budget Reduction Plan for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 at tonight’s (Tuesday, June 22) regular meeting. 

The city’s three largest unions—the Berkeley Police Association and Service Employees International Union Locals 535 and 790—have already agreed to giving back a percentage of workers’ salaries to the city for a one-year period. These three unions represent more than 60 percent of city employees. 

But unions representing city firefighters, managers, and electrical workers are balking at the deal. 

Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna said the city is threatening to invoke a clause in the contracts of the Public Employees Union, Local 1 and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245 which allows the city to unilaterally implement the giveback plan. 

While the firefighters’ union is the only city union that does not have such a unilateral salary giveback clause, City Councilmember Dona Spring has proposed that the council cut $300,000 in firefighters overtime pay for next year to make up the difference. The last minute cut would come after the city and fire department worked throughout the spring to realize savings in the department without cutting fire services. 

City staff officials were emphatic that the city could make the cuts without union approval. 

“The union contracts give the council rights to make reductions,” City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said. Deputy City Manager Caronna added that a clause in the contracts of Local One and IBEW Local 1245 states that the city can implement salary reductions as part of a “general curtailment program.” 

The unions, however, are disputing the legality of any unilateral move from the city and have threatened to file a grievance or lawsuit should the city take action, according to a notice for a closed meeting of the City Council scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. 

Representatives for local unions did not return phone calls for this story. Local One and IBEW, Local 1245 have both pushed for the city to allow them to take unpaid voluntary time off to achieve savings rather than the one-year salary reduction, Councilmember Kriss Worthington said. 

As an incentive for its unions to accept the giveback, the city has agreed not to invoke the fiscal emergency clause again for the remainder of their contracts. 

The fire fighters are in a better negotiating position than other unions. They have the only contract among city unions that lacks the clause allowing the city to unilaterally implement salary reductions in times of fiscal crisis. 

Aware of its strong negotiating leverage, the firefighters union last week alerted the city that it wouldn’t discuss a giveback unless the city “reached mutual signed agreements” with its other five unions. 

Throughout the negotiations, the council had threatened to take the unpopular move of closing non-essential services once a month to save money if any of the unions refused to agree to the giveback.  

However, Councilmember Spring said that with three unions on board, and the city confident it can legally compel Local One and IBEW Local 1245 to accept the same deal, City Manager Phil Kamlarz told her he would ask the council Tuesday to consider reducing the fire department budget by $300,000—the same amount the city stood to gain had the union accepted the giveback. 

“We have to pass a budget and we can’t pass it with a $300,000 deficit. Something has to give,” Spring said. 

This is not the first time the city and the firefighters union have butted heads. Last year union opposition helped kill a planned $7 million parcel tax for fire services that sought to free up money in the general fund to pay for city services in danger of being cut. After that, the union took out advertisements and distributed fliers urging residents to oppose any cuts in fire services. 

Meanwhile, the other pieces of the city budget appear to have fallen into place.  

Mayor Tom Bates has retooled his proposal to use $192,000 in one-time money to partially restore funding to numerous community nonprofits for six months.  

Responding to requests from councilmembers, his plan now includes more money for civic arts programs including the Center for Innovative Technology which offers arts classes for disabled residents.  

Should the council adopt his plan, as expected, the funding would be sustained if voters pass ballot measures in November to increase the tax on property transfers to pay for youth programs and increase the Utility Users Tax to add $2.7 million to the general fund. 

A plea to save a home built the year Berkeley became a city goes before the City Council tonight (Tuesday, June 22), more than two months after the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) voted to permit demolition of the Amos Cottage at 2211 Fifth St. 

Fans of the Amos Cottage face an uphill struggle, since City Manager Phil Kamlarz has issued a formal recommendation urging the council to uphold the decision not to spare the 126-year old Italianate structure. 

The crucial factor in Kamlarz’ rationale is the failure of preservationists to appeal a March 11 ruling by ZAB that approved the plan by Berkeley architect Timothy Rempel and his partner Elizabeth Miranda to tear down the 917-square-foot cottage and replace it with an 8,897-square-foot, six-unit, three-story structure. 

Because no one appealed the ZAB ruling, Kamlarz wrote in a memorandum to the council, “the ZAB’s decision is now final as to the city; for the same reason any further challenge to the ZAB’s decision is barred. The city therefore must follow this decision, which is binding on it.” 

The day before the ZAB vote, neighbor Stan Huncilman submitted a petition to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to designate the Amos Cottage as a structure of merit or landmark. ZAB voted for demolition knowing of Huncilman’s action. 

When the petition went for action to the LPC at their April 12 meeting, one commissioner was absent and the motion stalled on a 4-4 vote. The petition was then put over to the May 10 meeting, where the vote was 5-4 to deny Huncilman’s plea. 

It is an appeal of that decision which faces the council tonight. 

Submitted by Berkeley activist Carol Denney on behalf of the Friends of the 1878 Amos Cottage, the appeal was accompanied by letters from neighbors, historians and preservationists. 

Preservation proponents argue that special consideration should be given the Mary Amos Cottage in part because it was built by a widowed working woman and mother of two, unusual for 1878. 

Rempel and Miranda submitted their own response, including architectural professionals and academics, designers, a banker, and the president of the San Francisco Landmarks Advisory Board. One signatory, developer Gary Feiner has a controversial project a block away up for review by the LPC. 

One signer said recognition of Amos could be accomplished by the installation of a plaque on the site.  

Louis Rossetto, a founder of WIRED magazine, used his declaration of support to denounce “spurious neighborhood ‘leaders’ abusing City regulations in order to stymie needed construction, harass people who are trying to improve the city, and otherwise terrorize law abiding citizens for their own misguided and/or selfish reasons.” He singled out “Denney and her ilk’s stupidity.” 

Denney’s supporters include local historians Richard Schwartz and Susan Cerny, several historical societies from across the state and the neighborhood activists who pushed for creation of the nearby Sisterna Tract Historic District—the site of the property Feiner seeks to develop. 

While a fair number of pro-development submissions ri-diculed the preservationists and Berkeley politics in general, the submissions by those in favor of saving the house focused on the structure and its meaning to the community. 

The pro-preservation petition contends that the ZAB and city staff wrongly exempted the property from compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. Kamlarz declared in response that they acted properly because the development was exempt as an infill project. 

The petition also contends that city staff failed to inform ZAB before their meeting that an appeal had been filed contesting the LPC denial. Kamlarz, however, said that ZAB had been notified. 

Preservationists said that relocation and preservation options were either distorted or omitted for the developers’ presentations to both ZAB and the LPC—points also denied by the city manager. 

The final outcome of tonight’s meeting may be foreshadowed in the package submitted to councilmembers in advance of tonight’s meeting—which includes a proposed two-page resolution denying Denney’s petition.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Paul Johnson’s beheading sent a shiver of disgust throughout the world. Except the Arab world, that is.  

As I scan the Arab satellite channels and Arabic newspapers over the last 24 hours, I find a strange silence about the brutal act. A few columnists, such as the Saudi Abdul Rahman al-Rashed and the Kuwaiti Ahmed al-Rubai, condemned the killing. But most who were outraged by the murder are afraid to express their feelings for fear of being killed. 

The beheading of the American contractor from New Jersey and the Saudi response to it point to a broad and dangerous trend: Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world are swimming in a sea of violent language that justifies terrorism and makes it acceptable, especially to the young. Terrorism will not be defeated before its justification in Arab newspapers and Arab TVs and mosques is eliminated. For example, when an Al-Jazeera anchor adopts the language of al Qaeda and refers to Saudi Arabia as “Jazeerat al-Arab” (the Arabian Island), as if the current Saudi state never existed, terrorism wins. 

Terror starts in the mind, is expressed through language, and then materializes in brutal acts such as the beheading of Mr. Johnson.  

I recently traveled to Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In each of these places I noticed that al Qaeda and its ideas are no longer perceived as extreme. Indeed, they have become mainstream. Being a part of this movement has become “cool” in the eyes of young people. One Kuwaiti who graduated from a school in Pennsylvania told me, “Don’t believe them when they say it is al Qaeda that is slaying Americans. It is Americans who are killing Americans to justify their presence in the Arab world and to control Arab oil.” Such conspiracies are rampant among Arab youth. 

An Egyptian student told me the Americans “deserve it for their support to Israel and their occupation of Iraq.” Discuss the topic and you end up listening to a litany of excuses focusing on America as the source of Arab misery, from Palestine to Iraq. There are those who denounce such thinking, like the Imam of the grand mosque in Mecca, but he does so only when the government pressures him.  

Many in the Arab world think that killing Americans does not carry a price. Unlike killing someone from a neighboring tribe, a situation in which revenge is expected, Americans seem not to exact revenge after the assassination of their citizens. Like most Arab regimes, the American state appears ill-equipped to deal with non-state actors. 

Violent movements seem to overwhelm and confuse state leaders. One may look to Lebanon, where Hizbullah is much more important than the Lebanese state, and its sheikh Hassan Nasrallah more prominent than Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri. In the occupied territories, Hamas has enveloped the PLO. Hamas leaders such as Maumoud al-Zahar are much more important than Yassir Arafat. In Sudan, Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi and his movement took over the state.  

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have not yet reached this point. But they could move in the same direction very soon.  

America should help Saudi Arabia improve security in the kingdom. The Saudi regime has many problems. But Osama bin Laden’s primary objective, before bringing down America, is the destruction of the Saudi ruling family. The Saudis and the United States have no choice but to support each other. When we criticize the kingdom the Saudi elite is put on the spot, and they respond by criticizing America, which leads to even more support for bin Laden among the people.  

Security is not the whole story. We need to make it possible for Arabs to condemn this act of barbarism unequivocally. We need to tip the balance in favor of those who condemn terrorism, but so far have been afraid to do it publicly.  

Arabs should stop deceiving themselves by confusing the suffering of Arabs in Iraq and the occupied territories in Israel with the slaying of innocent people broadcast on the Internet. Arab heads of state, Imams of mosques and community leaders must make it clear that such acts are unacceptable. Unless Arabs themselves muster the courage to speak out against these heinous acts and those who perpetrate them, they will be the next victims of the Islamic radicals. 

Arabic newspapers, television and Internets sites should make it clear that they will not publish hate speech against Americans or non-Muslims. Thus far, Arab media are full of speech that anywhere else in the world would be considered libelous.  

American media, likewise, should refrain from giving newspaper space and television airtime to these barbaric thugs, their pronouncements and their acts. They are not killing for Allah, but for publicity. These are the kind of men who should be confronted in their hiding places, ferreted out and captured without media coverage. Only then will the numbers of killings decrease. 

Mamoun Fandy is a columnist for the two largest Arab-language dailies, Cairo-based Al Ahram and London-based Asharq Al-Awsat. }

Berkeley firefighters summoned to 1275 San Pablo Ave. early Monday morning found a laundry room ablaze behind the recently opened Meal Ticket restaurant. 

The fire began in a rear stairwell and spread to the laundry room of the owner’s living quarters above the restaurant. The blaze was extinguished before it could damage the eatery, said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. 

Damage to the structure was estimated at $30,000, with $2,000 more attributable to the loss of laundry room equipment. 

Investigators are looking into the cause of the fire, which is listed as a “suspicious circumstances” event. 

—Richard Brenneman

Strongarm Bandits Create Wednesday Woes 

A strongarm heister grabbed the purse of a hapless pedestrian walking near the corner of Deakin and Woolsey streets shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday and ran off with both the bag and its contents. 

Two strongarm types turned a cyclist into a pedestrian after they braced him at 4 p.m. near the corner of Regent Street and Dwight Way and relieved him of his wheels. 

Arson Try Fails When Molotov Proves a Dud 

Shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday, a would-be arsonist tossed a cocktail through the window of Steps House at 1545 Dwight Way, an institution dedicated to sobriety. 

The cocktail wasn’t the alcoholic sort but the incendiary variety, the gas-in-a-bottle devices named after former Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and used so successfully by Russian partisans against German tanks during World War II. 

The Berkeley bomb failed to detonate, however, and police now seeking the flame-thrower, who faces serious felony charges. 

Teenager Bandits Threaten Knife Attack  

Two teenagers approached a pedestrian near the intersection of Adeline and Stuart streets about 9:30 Thursday evening and threatened to stab the man unless he turned over his cash. 

He did, and the duo departed. 

Another Arson Try Under Investigation 

Berkeley Police are looking into another arson attempt, this one occurring about 1:30 a.m. Friday someone tried to ignite a deck near the corner of Acton Street and Channing Way. The fire was extinguished before any serious damage was done. 

Police Seek Man in Attempted Rape  

UC Berkeley Police summoned city police to the 2700 block of Channing Way at 3:49 a.m. Wednesday after a student called to report that she’d been attacked by a would-be sexual assailant, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Officers from both departments scoured the area in search of a blond, blue-eyed man the victim said was 19 years old, about 5’6” tall and weighing an estimated 150 pounds. He was wearing blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt. 

The sexual assault was unsuccessful and woman sustained minor injuries in the attack, Okies said. 

UC police handed the case over to Berkeley officers for the follow-up investigation. 

Would-be Victim Foils Rat Pack Robbers 

A gang of four or five young adults tried to rob a pedestrian at Eighth Street and Channing Way Friday afternoon. The would-be victim managed to escape with his wallet intact. 

Paper-hanging Pair Busted 

A Berkeley Bowl security officer detained a young couple outside the store shortly before 7 p.m. Friday after they purchased a load of groceries with what proved to be a forged check. 

The officer, who said he had recognized them from an earlier attempt, held the duo until Berkeley Police arrived. Officer Okies said further investigation revealed they had passed other bad paper at the grocery store, and another bad check earlier that day at Walgreens. 

The couple was charged with conspiracy and multiple forgery charges. 

Police Seek Suspects in Shotgun Heists 

Berkeley Police arrested a teenager about 1 a.m. Saturday after five young men, one brandishing a shotgun, confronted a woman on College Avenue near its intersection with Channing Way and relieved her of her bag. 

Then, 17 hours later, a trio of young men, one packing a shotgun, confronted a man at Dwight Way near Prospect Street and forced him to hand over his wallet. 

Officer Okies said detectives are investigating to see if the two crimes are related. 

Man Brandishes Note, Robs Bank 

A young man walked into the Washington Savings branch at Solano and Fresno avenues and presented a note demanding cash. 

The teller complied and the bandit stuffed the loot into a black plastic bag and fled. 

Police are seeking an African American male of medium build in his twenties with a short Afro who is described at standing between 5’6” and 5’8”. He was wearing glasses and a bandage over he nose, a blue denim jacket, a yellow shirt and baggy blue jeans.›

Last week I was playing Scrabble with my three friends, the Scrabblettes. At 52-years-old I was the youngster in the room by over two decades. Louise, Pearl and Rose lived through the tail-end of the Depression, World War II, the Korean Conflict, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the terms of 13 United States presidents. Rose’s family was interned during World War II, taken from their farm in the California Central Valley and sent to a camp for Japanese-Americans in Arkansas in 1942. Louise’s family moved from Louisiana to Berkeley at around the same time period, a part of the great migration of southern blacks seeking work on the West Coast. Pearl recently returned to the Bay Area after a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan. 

When these single, independent women talk about anything, I listen. Collectively, they have more than 210 years of first-hand, worldly experience. Don’t get on their wrong side, and refrain from arguing with them. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t recommend playing Scrabble a gainst the Scrabblettes, unless you have a strong ego, and don’t mind getting the stuffing beat out of you. 

Naturally, during our game the conversation turned to Ronald Reagan’s death and funeral. “Jeez,” said Pearl. “Can you believe they want to put that guy’s picture on a 10-dollar bill? What on earth for?” 

“Ridiculous,” murmured Louise, as she laid out “qiviut” (yarn spun from the fine, soft hair of a musk ox), on a double word score and took the lead with 36 points. 

“You know the lady I deliver Meals on Wheels to?” asked Rose as she realigned her letters on the plastic holder in front of her. This got my attention. What senior citizen was 73-year-old Rose delivering meals to in her spiffy new Mini Cooper? I pictured her driving the way she plays tennis, capably spinning around Berkeley streets, taking curves and corners at an expeditious, no-nonsense clip. Rose once told me that the Mini Cooper could reach speeds of 150 mph. 

“I don’t know her,” I said. 

“Well,” said Rose, peering at me from be hind her bifocals. “She asked me if I was going to deliver her lunch last Friday, the Holy Day. I said ‘What Holy Day?’ and she said, ‘You know, the Reagan funeral.’ I said ‘That’s not a holy day,’ and she said, ‘I know, but they’re sure acting like it is, aren’t they?’” Rose shook her head. “I told her I’d be delivering her lunch come hell or high water, and she said, ‘Good, cuz I didn’t vote for him and I’m not taking a holiday myself.’” 

Louise chuckled and fiddled with her lettered tiles. 

“More coffee?” asked Pearl.  

“Just a little,” said Rose. “But don’t get up, I’ll get it myself.” 

“I think that the best thing Reagan ever did was to admit that he had Alzheimer’s,” said Pearl. 

“I agree,” said Louise. “At least he made the public more aware of it.” 

“I’m glad Nancy came out for stem cell research,” said Rose. “Good strong coffee, by the way, Pearl.” 

“Thanks,” said Pearl. “If it doesn’t put hair on your chest, it’s not worth drinking.” 

“Yes, on stem cell research,” I said, finally speaking up. “But I wish Nancy had done more for the caregivers of this world. Of course, she’s rich and old, and I’m sure she didn’t have much to do with Ronnie’s actual physical care. Still, spending 10 years planning a state funeral with taxpayers’ money is not what most people tending an elderly shut-in have time for.” 

“I’ll say,” said Louise, getting ready to spell another 30-pointer. 

Pearl rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to take away from Nancy’s pain, because we all know it’s real and it’s sad and Alzheimer’s is not something to joke about. It must have been hard for her to realize that she couldn’t ‘Just say no’ to Alzheimer’s and make it disappear. Let’s hope she’ll have enough generosity left, after the funeral, to help those suffering from Alzheimer’s, and t hose that take care of them.”› 

As a Jew who is critical of Israeli policy, I am no stranger to confrontation. Despite the strain I’ve placed on my personal relationships, despite having to stand alone in political debates, I have always been vocal in my defense of the cause of Palestine. A few weeks ago, however, I began to feel as though I was fighting a losing battle. It began to seem natural that everyone sticks by their group, right or wrong, as a simple matter of survival. Who was I to defy this basic law of human relations? This feeling nagged me until June 2, when I picked up an article entitled “Hooray for Bill Cosby.” 

Cosby’s comments at the May 17 commemoration of Brown vs. the Board of Education have received widespread attention. “The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal,” he said. Referring to a black youth shot to death by police for stealing a piece of pound cake, he remarked “what the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?”  

Cosby’s statements implying that the ills of poor blacks are self-inflicted were met with virtually unanimous applause from the media. Dick Myer of CBSNews.com, in his May 26 piece praising Cosby, wrote that he expected to report on the controversy, but found that “there was no chorus of criticism.” DeWayne Wickham of USA Today wrote an article entitled “Cosby Isn’t Alone in Asking Blacks to Own Up to Problems.” Syndicated columnist Brent Bozell III wrote “An Ovation for Bill Cosby.” 

What an amazing double standard! When blacks criticize other blacks, they are praised for their “tough love” and for their courage in telling hard truths about their race. When Jews criticize Israel, however, they are ridiculed, labeled “self-hating Jews,” and even threatened with death. 

Though I find it disgraceful that successful writers should so unhesitatingly agree that institutional racism is dead, my purpose here is not to address that issue. Rather, I want to contrast media reaction when blacks and Jews, respectively, criticize other members of their race.  

Statements such as Cosby’s are unexceptional. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume commented: “Much of what he said I’ve been saying in my speeches.” 

Compare this with the treatment of “self-hating Jews.” Most often our activities are ignored by the media. When we do receive public attention, our views are mocked or obscured.  

Noam Chomsky, the most prominent Jewish critic of Israeli policy, has made note of Israel’s frequent disregard of U.N. resolutions and continuing illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. While Chomsky’s opinions on this complex issue are open to debate, the press rarely even engages his actual statements. Take Deborah Solomon’s interview with Chomsky in the November 2, 2003 issue of the New York Times Magazine. After some opening questions about Chomsky’s non-political work in linguistics, Solomon goes on the offensive:  

“Your father was a respected Hebraic scholar, and sometimes you sound like a self-hating Jew.”  

Chomsky responds: 

“It is a shame that critics of Israeli policies are seen as either anti-Semites or self-hating Jews. It’s grotesque. If an Italian criticized Italian policies, would he be seen as a self-hating Italian?”  

Solomon’s next question: “Have you ever been psychoanalyzed?” She ends the interview shortly by asking “Have you considered leaving the United States permanently?”  

Solomon doesn’t even do Chomsky the courtesy of criticizing his position. She goes straight into a personal attack, first calling him a “self-hating Jew,” then questioning his sanity, and finally implying that he should leave the country. A more striking contrast with the media’s uncritical approval of Cosby’s remarks could not be imagined. 

Opponents of Rabbi Michael Lerner, another critic of Israel’s policies, were not content with name-calling. In the July/August 2001 issue of Lerner’s publication Tikkun, he wrote: 

“…an Israeli website called “self-hate” has identified me as one of the five enemies of the Jewish people, and printed my home address and driving instructions on how to get to my home. We reported this to the police, the Israeli Consulate, and to the Anti Defamation League. The ADL said this was not a ‘hate crime’…” 

To date the ADL has not taken any action on Lerner’s behalf. Again, contrast with this the NAACP’s support of Bill Cosby, with Mfume even going so far as to echo Cosby’s statements. 

What are the reasons for this astonishing divergence? Cosby and Chomsky have both made roughly parallel statements criticizing other members of their ethnicity. Blacks and Jews both share a legacy of persecution. Both groups have a history of being betrayed by their own, and are leery of traitors. Cosby’s remarks establish that it’s well within the bounds of mainstream discourse to criticize one’s own race. Why, then, are American Jews prohibited from criticizing the State of Israel? 

The simplest explanation is that the powerless are easy to criticize and the powerful are not. Poor blacks make a soft target. Many of them are probably unaware of Cosby’s statements entirely, and none are in a position to bring any consequences down on him. The Israeli government, represented by the lobbying muscle of AIPAC, on the other hand, can make things very uncomfortable for its critics. 

Furthermore, it is in the interests of the business elites who hire and fire America’s pundits to discourage a costly effort to right systemic wrongs against people of color. Likewise, these elites surely want to safeguard their profitable relationship with the Israeli state, with its billions of dollars in defense and industrial contracts. 

As a Jew, I feel I have not only the right but the responsibility to speak out against injustices committed in my name.  

Oakland resident David Siegel is a writer and musician. He graduated from Columbia University in 2000.

Editors, Daily Planet: 

David Trachtenberg’s handsome new building at Solano Avenue and Colusa remains ominously empty, its elegant storefront windows waiting to come to life. By now, many people are puzzled by this seemingly paralyzed project. 

Months back, we were promised a perfect starter occupant in the form of La Farine bakery, a proven success up on College Avenue near Claremont, which, after a protracted battle with the city over two traditional tables and missing parking, was finally given approval. 

Now, one lone letter of protest received on the last day of the objections period will extend further the already absurd wait for this ideal use of the new building’s dramatic rounded corners. Now the City Council cannot review this matter until late July, or if that date is missed, in September after the council’s summer recess. Maybe we can have it for next Christmas! 

Parking is no longer the issue. Neither are the “occasional” short-stay tables. The real argument seems to be that there are too many eating establishments on upper Solano. Too Many? Who says? How arbitrary can we get? 

For better or worse, upper Solano has evolved somewhat into another Fourth Street—dedicated to book-browsing, coffee-sipping, greeting-card-buying and movie-going. There are also banks, a supermarket and a post-office, so the area does have its workaday use, but it would seem perverse, if not stupid, to put, say, a bike-shop, and appliance store, or even a real estate office in this inviting new building. 

Such obsessive control of the commercial/leisure environment makes living in Berkeley a bit like living in Oliver Cromwell’s England. Emeryville looks more attractive every day. 

John Kenyon 

›

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was somewhat surprised to see your report in the Daily Planet that Daniel Silverstein “came up with the idea” of using digital cryptography to sign paper ballots that could be used to check against electronic vote totals. This is certainly NOT at all a new idea, in fact I reported on it back in 2002 in 

my article (linked at www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html) for IEEE Spectrum “A Better Ballot Box.” There I said, “Cryptography can, though, be effectively used along with a voter-verifiable ballot to prevent ballot-box stuffing, and to make certain that the paper tallies match the electronic results. David Chaum, a Palo Alto, Calif., cryptologist who, 20 years ago, invented electronic cash, has a technique that provides the best of all possible worlds: a computer-generated, voter-verified physical ballot that also gives the voter a receipt that can be used to determine that his or her vote was tabulated correctly, without revealing its contents.” 

You did also report, though, that Silverstein sent links to his papers to me for review, but he knows that I have not yet had time to look at them. It is most inappropriate that he (and you) use my name in his publicity until I have vetted his work. I would appreciate it if he and you would refrain from doing so in the future, unless you check with me (and receive a response in the affirmative) first. 

Rebecca Mercuri. 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please accept my apologies for my role in this debacle. As Dr. Mercuri states, using digital cryptography to sign paper ballots that could later be checked against electronic totals is not a new idea. My paper proposes a possible implementation for such a system, but I do not claim to have originated the idea. If I left Mr. Schiller, the article's author, with the wrong impression, I must apologize as this had not been my intent. 

Furthermore, I owe Dr. Mercuri a personal apology for the use of her name in connection with my work. Mr. Schiller asked me if he could state that Mercuri was reviewing my work and I told him that he could.  

I exercised poor judgment in this matter, and gave permission that was not mine to give. For this, I offer my most humble apologies. 

Daniel C. Silverstein›

DEDICATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last Wednesday I went to a Citizens Humane Commission meeting at the North Berkeley Senior Center as a requirement for a merit badge for Boy Scouts. I was impressed by their commitment to making Berkeley a better place t o live. I learned how hard the commissioners work and how they keep in mind all the people not just the dog owners. I’m proud to live in a city where people are so dedicated to making their city a better place. 

Patrick Georgi, Troop 24  

• 

WORLD MUSIC FE S TIVAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This weekend’s World Music Festival was a fabulous event—thanks to the organizers! We were to have gone to Mill Valley today but instead decided to stick around and I recalled something about music on Telegraph. Glad we sta ye d.  

From 11 a.m. until late in the afternoon there was exceptional music in every nook and cranny on the street. We saw Big Bones (great harp and bass) at the Durant Food Court between wafts of King Pin’s finest, The Shots (this group should perform at the Grammys or at least the Bammies or whatever it’s called now) on Telegraph and Crying High at Raleigh’s.  

At first it seemed a shame that some of these musicians had only enough space around them to accommodate 20 listeners, but as the day evolved it was clear that nobody minded, and it allowed all passers-by opportunities they otherwise might have missed. Foresightful planning! The woman who looked in charge of things was somehow everywhere at once. She did an incredible job.  

The band at Raleigh’s was tight, playing Brazilian music with a bit of music education for good measure. People could have stayed there all day listening and joining in. I had never set foot in this place before but ended up having a late lunch there—a wonderful find. 

In s um, a great afternoon—Berkeley showing off and deservedly so.  

Thanks to the organizers and all the musicians!! 

Jen Larson 

• 

ALTA BATES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I would like to make a comment regarding your article, “Unions Continue Heated Dispute With A lta Bates Medical Center” (Daily Planet, June 11-14). The article states that, according to Local 250 President Sal Rosselli, “Alta Bates Summit has a high number of traveling employees that temporarily fill their open positions. According to a SEIU stu dy, temporary positions place financial burdens on hospitals because traveling employees are often paid more than permanent employees. Traveling employees also result in inferior care, they said, because employees don’t have the chance to form experienced teams.” As a “traveling” (registered) nurse, I am appalled and basically insulted by the implication that I give “inferior care.” Maybe “the chance of forming experience teams” is not an option because there are no “experienced teams” to join (meaning th ey lack the permanent staff.) Which leads me to wonder why Alta Bates (Summit) is unable to procure permanent employees. As for the comment that we’re “paid more than permanent employees,” this is pure hogwash. Every assignment I have had I have made less or the same as the permanent staff nurses. How do I know? Because I tell them up front what I make in order to help break the ongoing myth. If hospitals treat nurses with greater respect, pay them a reasonable wage for their knowledge, education and expe rti se, and offer them safe working conditions my position would be filled.  

Mary Willock  

• 

FALSE ARRESTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Am I in Oakland? Am I in another time when the police were openly called pigs because of their racism and railroading of Af rica n Americans and the poor? Is Ashcroft’s America seeping into Berkeley? I refer to the embarrassing to them, and revealing to us, police arrest of Berkeley residents, twin sisters, Joyce Gaskin and Joy Hall as accessories to the murder of Berkeley Pol ice O fficer Tsukamoto in 1970.  

The sisters were released from jail to a crowd of family and friends June 18 for lack of evidence, after spending four days in jail. Since the police know they must have at least a shred of evidence in even a probable cau se cha rge, not just wishful thinking, this case is pure police harassment.  

It seems the sisters were associated with the Black Panthers in 1970. That was the sole basis for plucking them from their lives, charging them with probable cause, putting them in jai l, and smearing their names. Take your choice: Racism is alive and well in Berkeley or we have a totally inept police department.  

Note to the Berkeley Police: There are many of us in Berkeley knowledgeable about what the panthers were trying to accompli sh. The name “Black Panther” doesn’t have a negative connotation to us. Radical baiting isn’t going to work.  

Upon the sisters’ release Officer Okies said that the police department will continue to thoroughly investigate this case to its conclu sion. However, there is no thoroughness to continue on with. But the police can start now.  

This deplorable incident seems to indicate that the police department isn’t under quality control. If they’re not harassing the homeless, they’re falsely arresting people.  

Who was responsible for the terrible decision to arrest the two women?  

In addition, the City of Berkeley is likely to be hit with a law suit for false arrest. That money could pay for a very conscientious senior center van driver soon to be laid off.  

At the very least, Ms. Gaskin and Ms. Hall deserve an apology from our City Council. As a citizen of Berkeley, I deserve an apology as well because my belief in Berkeley as a fair and just city just took a direct hit. 

If Berkeley wants to co ntinue being thought of as a beacon of sanity and a center of social justice issues, especially in these dangerous times, it must ensure their police department is lining up with its values. Who’s overseeing the police?  

There is one thing I’m glad about in this case: that the police didn’t have attack dogs when they went to arrest Ms. Gaskin and Ms. Hall.  

Maris Arnold  

• 

HOUSING AUTHORITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Matt Artz did well to get the details of the Tuesday, June 15 Berkeley Housing Authority meeting in to organized print (“Housing Authority Passes Reorganization Plan,” Daily Planet, June 18-21)! The one major omission was the departure of yet another Housing Authority commissioner who represents the public—Section 8 tenant Zelda Clark. (Clark and public housing tenant Pinky Payne, as accurately noted, represent BHA tenants on the board, which otherwise consists of the City Council.) Seated at the outskirts and without recorder buttons, it is difficult for these two to get the chair’s attention. 

At 6:30 (or whenever!) on July 20, the BHA will hold a public hearing to solicit comment on the Agency’s Annual Plan to be submitted to HUD. Copies are said to be available for prior review at the BHA office. Why not a copy at the Berkeley Public Centr al Library Reference Desk? 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

• 

UC LONG RANGE PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I appreciated your editorial today (‘The Local Press Takes On the Big U,” Daily Planet, June 18-21) in which you referenced Chris Thompson’s interview with me a bout our o pposition to the high-density housing complex at Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Centennial Drive, proposed by the university in its 2020 Long-Range Development Plan. I have also thanked Mr. Thompson for the exposure as well, but, in concurrence wit h your comm entary, have disabused him of the notion that he needed to protect me from what he referred to as “that tireless group of hysterics who endlessly carp about Lawrence Berkeley Lab” (the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste). Those of us who live d ownwind (and those winds have been clocked at my home at 70 mph) and in close proximity to the lab’s various buildings pray that the Hayward fault continues to hold and that the lab buildings housing toxics and radioactive waste are secure and well-insulated. To my t hinking, planning for the safe and unimpeded egress of our neighborhood during any kind of disaster is no exercise in hysteria. A Sanskrit saying comes to mind: “Heyam Duhkham Anagatam.” Translation: “Avert the Danger that Has Not Yet Come.”  

Andrea Pflau mer 

Summit Road/Grizzly Peak Boulevard Watch 

• 

GOOD VS. EVIL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Leading the news last Friday was the story of the decapitation in Saudi Arabia of Mr. Johnson, a U.S. helicopter mechanic, by al Qaeda. The next day the me dia reported that two missiles killed quite a few residents of Fallujah. 

If the forces driving the violence in the Middle East represent a global contest between good and evil, as President Bush and his followers claim, then which is which, pray tell. 

A beheading is savage, repugnant and personal. A missile explosion that kills women and children is savage, repugnant and impersonal. Can anyone deny that both are evil? Jesus wept.  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo Èe

What began as a seemingly simple request to city planning staff turned the June 12 Zoning Adjustment Board meeting into a spirited debate about the future of Berkeley’s Elmwood Commercial District. It ended with a sharply-divided ZAB unable to reach a conclusion on what direction Elmwood should take. 

Berkeley residents voted to form the Elmwood Commercial District in 1981, troubled by the influx of restaurants that many feared would drive out the host of locally owned businesses that catered to the needs of the surrounding community. Adopted at the same time was a system of rent control and eviction protections for neighborhood merchants. 

A judicial ruling axed the rent control seven years later, but the commercial district and its system for allocating business slots by a system of quotas remains.  

But economic pressures, driven in part by landlords eager for the higher rents they can collect from restaurants and high-end clothiers, are threatening to transform the neighborhood into something far different from what exists today. 

All parties agree that the quota system has serious flaws, not least because the city had no system for keeping up with the changes in the neighborhood centered on the intersection of College and Ashby avenues.  

For months before the ZAB meeting, city planners Debra Sanderson and Stephen Ford had been rethinking the quota system in cooperation with the Elmwood Merchants Association and its president, Jon Moriarty. From that process emerged the four-page memorandum Sanderson and Ford submitted to ZAB before this month’s meeting, evaluating the status of the quotas and actual uses of commercial space, and offering recommendations to update and clarify the existing system. 

Beyond the limits on business types, any attempt to expand a business must first win city approval—though just how and through what process remains ambiguous. 

While Elmwood area supporters of the existing system admit it needs revision, College Avenue clothier Jeremy Kidson, the owner of Jeremys, told ZAB members “I disagree with the quota system entirely. It’s nonsense. It doesn’t work. At the most there should be restaurants or no restaurants, like on Solano” Avenue. 

Jeremys has been an Elmwood staple since 1990, steadily expanding into one vacant space after another in the building Kidson owns at the southeast corner of College and Ashby avenues. 

His attempt to swallow up yet another space played a part in the attempt to revise the neighborhood system snarl.  

Kidson started his highly successful discount business in San Francisco, where he still maintains his largest store in the South of Market district. His steadily-expanding Berkeley outlet has proven a big hit, with long lines gathering outside the store when new merchandise arrives. 

But to merchants like Moriarty, whose 14 Karats jewelry store at 2910 College makes all the jewelry it sells, the key issue is diversity. 

The push for the creation of the Elmwood Commercial District was prompted by merchants and neighbors who hoped to preserve a shopping hub that served the surrounding community by providing both goods and essential services. 

“When the district was created, we had a watchmaker, a show repair shop, a tailor, a Christian Science Reading Room—none of which can afford rents of $3 a square foot with triple net,” Moriarty said, adding that he’s not resistant to change. “A lot of people want to keep the quotas as they are, but they have to change.” 

John Gordon, Berkeley’s major broker of commercial rentals, agrees. “I live here in the neighborhood, and none of us want to see any significant changes. But something has to be done to reevaluate the way the system works.” 

Gordon is the leasing agent for the largest bloc of vacant space in the Elmwood, the two-story Victorian shop building at the northwest corner of College and Ashby and two adjoining buildings. The smaller two structures both need retrofitting. 

He has tenants eager to rent, but none qualifies under the existing system. 

“If someone sells cookware and wants to sell coffee to customers so they can drink while they shop and offer cooking classes where the food is consumed when it’s finished, then they are listed as food service, and all those slots are filled. And if a store that sells baby furniture also wants to offer sleepware, then it’s a clothing store and can’t qualify because those slots are filled,” Gordon said. “I also have someone who wants to move an existing business up from Telegraph, but their quota is also filled—so you can’t even retain a business in the city without having to go through a four- to eight-month permit process.” 

Gordon concludes, “There are good reasons to have quotas, but something has to be done to streamline the process.” 

Further complicating the Elmwood picture are the limited available parking, the frequent traffic snarls on Ashby, and the maze of barricaded streets the city has created in the surrounding neighborhood. 

“We’ve had people who live nearby tell us it’s taken them 20 minutes to drive here and 20 more to find a parking space,” Moriarty said. 

Berkeley zoning ordinances limit the Elmwood Commercial District to two banks or savings and loans, seven full-service restaurants, 10 service businesses, seven barber and beauty shops, 10 clothiers, four book and magazine stands, two copy stores, 12 jewelry or crafts shops, three carry-out food vendors, seven quick-serve restaurants, and six full service restaurants. 

Ordinances similarly ban from Elmwood: 

• Department stores 

• Pawn shops 

• Auction venues (though a firm selling customer goods over eBay is operating in the district)  

• Medical/health practices 

• Adult-oriented businesses 

• Amusement arcades 

• Nightclubs 

• Motels 

• Gas stations 

• Drive-ins 

• Amplified live entertainment 

• Hospitals 

• ATMs (except in banks) 

• Cemeteries and mortuaries 

• Dry-cleaning and laundry plants 

• Kennels 

• Testing labs 

• Warehouses, and 

• Any type of automotive businesses other than parts stores. 

“The way it is,” said Gordon, “we don’t know who we can put in there.” 

“The quota system is ineffective,” Kidson said. “It protects the merchants at the expense of the consumer. When the city comes in and imposes all these controls, the quality goes down and fewer people come to shop. As a result, the whole area suffers. Look at the area around the Safeway in Rockridge. There’s a butcher, a baker, and a number of other merchants, and they’re all thriving. Look at Fourth Street; it’s thriving. And neither area has quota.” 

Kidson added that the one thing the city can do to promote small businesses and mom-and-pop stores “is to say there can’t be any chain stores there, because a chain can put in a store that loses money while it drives out other businesses.”  

Moriarty, who opened his Elmwood shop 26 years ago, said he and his fellow merchants are “busting our asses to try to make our neighborhood work. There’ve been a lot of changes, and a lot of the merchants who were here when I started are gone, and now you can get a hard drink here for the first time since the 1930s. It’s not like we’re fighting tooth and nail to keep things the way they were.” 

But for all the work by city staffers and Elmwood merchants, ZAB members split 4-4 on suggestions for revising the quota system. 

The one member who abstained, Laurie Capitelli, did so because he owns property in the district and has a business there. 

The opponents all expressed interest in tossing the quota system altogether. 

“I guess that means the staff is on its own,” Sanderson said. “We’re obligated to make the best interpretation we can.” 

In the end, any changes will rest with the Planning Commission and City Council. 

Another proponent of change in Elmwood testified before ZAB after the vote—developer Patrick Kennedy, whose projects are changing the face of downtown Berkeley and University Avenue. 

“It’s important for the city commissions and the City Council to do everything possible to make business work here,” Kennedy said. “I was a little surprised to see that a locally owned business like the clothing store mentioned here earlier has to fight the city in order to succeed. And I have to wonder what kind of city the city wants.” 

Moriarty and his fellow merchants want a vibrant neighborhood. “If it’s just restaurants, people will only come in the evening to eat—the hours when the rest of us are closed. If it’s restaurants and clothiers, then the rents will drive most of us out.” 

And it was the merchants who rallied to save the neighborhood’s economic anchor, the Elmwood Theater at 2966 College Ave., after a fire forced owner United Artists to close the venerable institution in 1988. 

Built in 1918 and remodeled 32 years later, the theater had been a cornerstone of the Elmwood district, bringing in customers to neighboring merchants. 

Faced with the loss of a critical part of their community, the Elmwood Merchants Association created the non-profit Elmwood Theater Foundation to raise money to buy and renovate the landmark. 

Though contributions provided most of the necessary funding, an additional $215,000 was needed. To provide the city with a guaranteed system for repayment, the merchants and the city created the Elmwood Business Improvement District on July 20, 1993 to fund repayments through a system of annual assessments. 

The Elmwood Theater reopened on October 20, 1994, and the merchants’ efforts have paid off. The theater has proven a success, mixing first run and children’s fare with a solid core of art house films, and the loans are being paid off. 

“Imagine that! Someday we’ll actually own the theater,” Moriarty said. 

ZAB member Laurie Capitelli sits on the theater foundation’s board, as does Moriarty’s spouse. 

Moriarty and his colleagues have also stepped up their marketing campaign with a website—www.shopelmwood.com—that offers a virtual tour of neighborhood shops, complete with descriptions. “Restaurants will be able to post their daily specials, and retailers can list their sales items. It also includes an e-mail system so we can all stay in touch with each other,” he says. 

Moriarty came up with the idea for the site while web-surfing for places to see in London, where he and his wife were celebrating her fortieth birthday. 

Kidson says he won’t give up the fight. “I intend to spearhead a drive to get rid of this quota system. It just doesn’t work.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 22 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theater Lab “Four Echoes” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Free, sugggested donation up to $15. 841-6500.  

FILM 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “Los” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Greg Behrman describes “The Invisible People: How the U.S. Has Slept Throught the Global AIDS Pandemic, and Greatest Humanitarian Catastrophe of Our Time” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Joel L. Widzer reveals “The Penny Pinchers Passport to Luxury Travel” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

The Whole Note Poetry Series, in rememberance of Richard “dixi” Cohen, at 7 p.m. at The Beanery, 2925 College Ave. 549-9093. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Courtableu at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Tom Dimuzio at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Box, 1923 Telegraph Ave. www.oaklandbox.com 

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

Steve Smith & Buddy’s Buddies in a tribute to Buddy Rich at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Wed. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

E.J. Dionne instructs us how to “Stand Up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politcs of Revenge” at 12:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Dan Chaon reads from his new novel, “You Remind Me of Me” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Thomas Frank discusses “What is the Matter with Kansas? Middle America’s Thirty-Year War with Liberalism” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

Israel Powerhouse, Culture Canute, Mr. Major P at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

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

Roy Book Binder, Del Ray and Steve James at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

THURSDAY, JUNE 24 

THEATER 

“18 Mighty Mountain Warriors” an Asian-American comedy at 8 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Also on Fri. at 8 p.m. 547-2662. www.museumca.org 

FILM 

“Lula, a Jounada de un Vencedor” at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $6-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “Bush Mama” at 7 p.m., “Bless Their Little Hearts” at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Art as Poetry” “Art and Meaning Series” with artists Mildred Howard and Richard Berger, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Kala Salon Series with artists Nathaniel Russell and Justin Walsh at 7:30 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org  

Tim Gautreaux reads from his novel, “The Clearing” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-5900. www.codysbooks.com 

“Messages from Amma” A reading with editor Janine Canan at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured reader Wordslanger, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985, 205-1749.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Noon Concert with Pamela Rose and Danny Caron at the Berkeley BART. Sponsored by Downtown Berkeley Assoc.  

Tom Russell with Andrew Hardin, roots country originals, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Eric McFadden Trio at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Dee Dee Bridgewater at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

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

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

FRIDAY, JUNE 25 

CHILDREN 

Costume Character Special Guest “Little Critter” at Barnes and Noble at 10:30 a.m. 644-3635. 

FILM 

Readings on Cinema: “Alice in Wonderland” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Betrayal,” by Harold Pinter, directed by Tom Ross. Runs through July 25. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org  

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

Berkeley Rep, “21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com” Thurs., Sun. at 7:30 p.m. and Fri. and Sat. at 8:30 p.m. through July 2. Tickets are $25-$35. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group Theatre “Come Back Annie Gray” June 25, 26 and 27 at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $15-$20, available from 408-615-1194 or ultimatejesse@yahoo.com www.comebackanniegray.com 

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 

Prescott-Joseph Center, “Raisin” an adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” Fri. and Sat. at 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. to July 11, at the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, 920 Peralta St., West Oakland. Theater is outdoors, dress for cooler temperatures. Tickets are $5-$15. 208-5651. 

Shotgun Players, “Quills” by Doug Wright at the Julia Morgan Theater. Runs Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through July 3. Free, donations accepted. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Wilde Irish Productions, “Eclipsed” by Patricia Burke Brogan, 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 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“We Do: A Celebration of Gay and Lesbian Marriage” with editor Amy Rennart at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Richard Ben Cramer, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter describes “How Israel Lost: The Four Questions” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Harmonies du Soir” with Esther Chan, solo pianist at 7:45 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club. 848-7800. www.berkeleycityclub.com  

Bill Horvitz, improv jazz guitar at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Rafael Manriquez & Quijerema in a concert celebrating the 100th birthday of Pablo Neruda at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Peter Mulvey, contemporary folk innovator, 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 

Aphrodesia at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Danny Caron, jazz and blues guitarist, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Ilene Adar and Mario Desio, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Crater, Odd Bodkins at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Forward, Desolation, Strung Up, Get it Away 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. 

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

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

SATURDAY, JUNE 26 

FILM 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “The Long Goodbye”at 7 p.m., “The Outside Man” at 9:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“High Fiber” a conversation with artists exploring the intersection of digital technology and fiber-based artworks at 2 p.m. 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 

Alex Cramer introduces his new novel, “The Coma” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MIUSIC AND DANCE 

“We Invite You to Dream” dance with rap, poetry, and live music performed by artists with Destiny Arts Center at 8 p.m. at The Linen Life, 6635 Hollis St. at 67th St., Emeryville. Tickets are $10-$25. 597-1619. www.destinyarts.org 

Tom Russell, southwestern singer-songwriter, at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Avenida Sao Paulo, Latin jazz, at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Marley’s Ghost, one-band music festival, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Son Borikua & Venezuelan Music Project at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Humble Soul and Native Groove at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Andreas Willers, improv guitar, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Scott Amendola Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Kirk Keeler, singer song-writer, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Naked Barbies at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Benumb, Catheter, Entrails Massacre, Wasteoid 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. 

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

SUNDAY, JUNE 27 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Sacred Spaces,” an exhibition of installation works by Seyed Alavi, Taraneh Hemami, Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman, Rhoda London, and Rene Yung, through August 7 at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut Street in Live Oak Park Gallery hours are Wed. - Sun. noon to 5 pm. 

FILM 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “Water and Power”at 5:30 p.m., “Chinatown” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Kim Addonizio, Dorothy Barresi and Susan Browne at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Music Cooperative Players, “An Evening in Paris” featuring the music of Faure, Poulenc, Ravel and Debussy at 7 p.m. in the Valley Center, Holy Names College, 3500 Mountain Blvd. Oakland. Tickets are $5-$20 sliding scale at the door. 845-2232. 

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers and The Moodswing Orchestra and a floorshow by the San Francisco Jitterbugs in a Swing Benefit for Ashkenaz at 8 p.m. Ashkenaz. Cost is $20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Lucas Niggli’s Zoom, drum heavy jazz/rock improv, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $10. www.thejazz- 

house.com 

Darryl Henriques, satire and social commentary, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazz Club Afternoon, featuring DJ Buffalo and friends at 2 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Steven Pile and Sara Shansky, alt-country bluesy folk, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

MONDAY, JUNE 28 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theater Lab “Four Echoes” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Free, sugggested donation up to $15. 841-6500.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“An Evening with Maxine Hong Kingston” at 7:30 p.m. at Aurora Theater, 2081 Addison St. $20 suggested donation. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Steven Saylor reads from his new historical mystery, “The Judgment of Caesar” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express Theme Night “Nature” from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

David Murray’s Creole Project at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Wed. Cost is $10-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Lucas Niggli’s Zoom, drum heavy jazz/rock improv, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $10. www.thejazzhouse.com 

TUESDAY, JUNE 29 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theater Lab “Four Echoes” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Free, sugggested donation up to $15. 841-6500.  

FILM 

Los Angeles Plays Itself: “The Decay of Fiction” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bill Clinton will sign copies of his memoir “My Life” at noon at Cody’s Books. Admission by ticket only. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Lee Stringer remembers his life at a school for children at risk in “Sleepaway School: Stories from a Boy’s Life” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poets Gone Wild, open mic, at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

REV.99 and Andrew Hayleck at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Box, 1923 Telegraph Ave. www.oaklandbox.com 

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

We’ve almost missed the jacaranda show in Berkeley, especially with a few recent windy days that knocked down a lot of flowers. We have only a token representation of the species anyway, with a short row on Gilman a few blocks east of Westbrae Nursery, a few scattered on other streets and in private yards. They’re hard to miss right now; just look for a mass of grape-sherbet color. 

What we have is a sort of minor delegation from more tropical places. Jacarandas are originally from Argentina and Brazil, but they’ve been spread all over the world as street trees. Cities that have the right climate sometimes plant jacaranda in great masses. If you’ve ever driven on the 210 through the hills above Los Angeles in late May or early June, you might have seen the dazzling, Disney effect those plantings have. The amorphous pale purple masses floating above the smog-smudged streets below look a bit cartoony, inked from an entirely different palette. 

Other places, in Mediterranean and more tropical climates, make an even bigger deal of their jacarandas. Pretoria, South Africa calls itself the “Jacaranda City,” and Grafton in New South Wales, Australia has a Jacaranda Festival starting in late October every year, just for example. I hear Addis Ababa is full of them, like sever other big African cities. 

They have a few problems as street trees: They like good drainage (which they don’t get here) and tend to grow brittle branches that are relatively thick compared to their trunks, and tend to break. A homeowner with a jacaranda might want to keep it pruned to a lacy canopy, to let the wind pass through. Their biggest problem here is the occasional freeze, which kills them back partially and makes them look sickly for a year or two afterwards. 

Our species is the best known one for landscaping: Jacaranda mimosifolia. The leaves do look like a mimosa’s, all ferny and feathery and compound. Most of them drop off in late winter or early spring, and the tree re-leafs after it has started flowering. With the right sequence of weather and conditions, you can briefly get a spectacular all-lavender tree. 

Jacarandas have a few cousins in Berkeley, fellow members of the family Bignoniaceae. There are a couple of pawlonias and catalpas—both trees with spectacular, upright pale-purple flower clusters. Catalpas—called “Indian cigar trees” for their long dangling fruit—are ambassadors, too, from the southeastern US. I spent early May in Arkansas, and had to pull off the road several times to enjoy a huge, stately, ladylike catalpa in bloom. Like that of jacarandas, catalpas’ flowers are a translucent, unearthy (if not quite unearthly) lavender, showy against the deep-green heart-shaped leaves. Unlike jacarandas’, they’re intensely fragrant. In their home range, they host sphinx moth caterpillars called catalpa or catawba worms. This is a vice and a virtue: The “worms” are pretty showy themselves, more than the cryptic brown adults. They’re marked in various patterns of black and white, grow to nearly four inches long—and have a habit of dropping into your lemonade or down your collar. On the other hook, they make great fishbait, and some folks grow catalpas just for that. 

Showy seems to be a theme in this family. Another couple of cousins found around town are the red trumpetvines, both the big, woody Distictis buccinatoria (the one in Trumpetvine Court) and the more refined, locally less common Campsis radicans. I’ve actually seen the latter sheared into a hedge—interesting effect with the finely dissected leaves, though a lot of the flowers were lost. You won’t be surprised to hear that hummingbirds love them both. 

Of course, there has to be a drawback to jacaranda. People who park under them find out one problem, when the leaves fall: They can be sticky and hard to remove. The fallen flowers keep their color and look like so much confetti, but there are some situations like poolsides where that might be resented. And, like many easy and popular landscape plants, they’re invasive in parts of Hawaii, Africa, and Australia, usually via windblown seeds. I wonder if catalpa worms would like jacaranda leaves. As biocontrol goes, they’d be pretty spectacular themselves.›

TUESDAY, JUNE 22 

Project BUILD Summer Reading Program, with Clifford, the big red dog, at 11 a.m. at James Kenny Park, corner of Delaware and 8th Sts. 981-7103. 

Insects and Crawling Creatures Educators Workshop From Tues. though Thurs. Discover the world of insects and their relatives by visiting Tilden and Briones parks where you will collect, observe and release insects. You’ll get 101 new ideas for K-5th grade classes and outdoor activities. Credit available from Cal State, Hayward for additional fee. Cost is $100-$110. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Mini-Rangers Join us for an active afternoon of nature study, conservation and rambling through woods and waters. Dress to get dirty; bring a healthy snack to share. For 8-12 year olds, unaccompanied by their parents, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Environmental (In)Justice in South Africa Today Join four visiting South African activists in a discussion about South Africa today. At 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cosponsored by GroundWork: Environmental Justice Action in Southern Africa and Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Defeating George Bush A conversation with Walter Riley, Matthew Hallinan and Vicki Cosgrove at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club. 418-2760. 

East Bay Communities Against the War presents a video of Michael Moore on his book tour promoting “Dude, Where’s My Country?” at 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Neighborhood Center, 530 Lake Park Ave. $1 suggested donation. www.ebcaw.org 

“Medicare Drug Discount Cards” with HICAP volunteer, Alex Esparza at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

“Weight-Loss Surgery: Is it for You?” a free presentation by the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center at 6 p.m. at the Health Education Center, Bechtel Room, 400 Hawthorne Ave., Oakland. 869-8972. 

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. 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. Charles Fitch will show travel slides at 11 a.m. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

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 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23 

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. 

Downtown Oakland Walking Tours every Wednesday and Saturday at 10 a.m to 11:30 a.m. Discover the changing skyline, landmarks and churches. For details on the different itineraries call 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours 

“Gangs of America: The Rise in Corporate Power and Disabling of Democracy” with author Ted Nance, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

Bay Area Writing Project presents “Teachers as Writers” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

“Paradise with Side Effects” a film describing the lives of two Ladakhi women in England, at 7 p.m. at the Fellowship of Humanity, 390 27th St., Oakland. 393-5685.  

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

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JUNE 24 

“The End of Suburbia, Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream” A film presentation, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. Co-sponsored by the Post Carbon Institute 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Livable Berkeley hosts Green Building pioneer and author David Gottfried at 6:30 p.m. at the Downtown Berkeley Public Library Community room. Refreshments will be served. 898-8777.  

Bash Bush Bash A fundraising event for John Kerry at the Kress Building, 2036 Shattuck Ave. from 7 to 10 p.m. Speakers include Daniel Ellsberg, David Harris, Michael Lewis and others. $50 minimum donation. 

BBQ and Marinade Taste Fair, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Whole Foods Market, 3000 Telegraph Ave. 649-1333, ext. 261. 

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 

Appreciating Diversity Film Series presents “You Don't Know Dick,” followed by a community dialogue at 6:30 p.m. at Ellen Driscoll Theater, Frank Havens Elementary School, 325 Highland Ave., Piedmont. 763-9301. www.diversityworks.org  

Travel Photography, a seminar with Jerry Dodrill at 7 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose. Cost is $20. 843-3533. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 25 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Joseph Lifschutz, M.D. on “A Psychoanalyst’s Career.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

Chinese Dragon Boat Festival at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center with refreshements and entertainment. 981-5190. 

Remembering Homeless Youth at the Grove Street Park on the corner of Oregon and Martin Luther King Street from noon to 4 p.m. with food, games and entertainment.  

Tilden Sunset Hike through southern Tilden Park with panoramic evening views from the Seaview trail. Meet at Inspiration Point at 6 p.m. with very warm, layered clothing, flashlight, snack to share. Sponsored by Solo Sierrans. 601-1211.  

“A Night of Ferocious Joy,” a film of the first concert against the war with Ozomatli, Blackalicious, Dilated Peoples, Mystic, Saul Williams, Jerry Quickley, Hassan Hakmoun, Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra. At 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall in Oakland at 390 27th St. Cost is $5-$15, and helps send youth and activists to the Republican National Convention Protest in NYC. 601-8000. bayarea.notinourname.net 

“The End of Suburbia” a film exploring our way of life as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. At 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donation sliding scale $5-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 547-8313. 

“Evoking the Divine” A look at the kolams of South India with Dianne E. Jenett at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $5. 650-483-1179. 

Queerosity Celebrating LGBTQ youth with spoken word and open mic, from 6 to 10 p.m. at SMAAC Youth Center, 1608 Webster St. at 16th, Oakland. Sponsored by Youth Speaks and the Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County. 834-9578. www.smaacyouthcenter.org 

Shabbat Potluck Share the joy of Shabbat at a festive Shabbat potluck for singles, ages 30 through 40, at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center. Please RSVP to 839-2900, ext. 208.  

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

SATURDAY, JUNE 26 

Berkeley Fire Station Open House from 1 to 4 p.m. at Station 1, 2442 8th St. Tour the station, see a safety presentation, and historical display and enjoy hot dogs and cake. Families and children especially welcome. 981-5506. 

Meet the Locals at the Little Farm in Tilden Park from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Learn about these helpful animals while helping out by mucking out the pens, collecting eggs, and even grooming a goat. Wear boots and prepare to get dirty. For ages 6 and up. 525-2233. 

Floral Foray at Tilden Nature Center from 2 to 3:30 p.m. for all ages. Come on down to relax and smell the flowers. We’ll go on a short walk around the nature center and Little Farm to discover flower anatomy, names and their role in nature. 525-2233. 

Introduction to Permaculture Energy Flow, Pattern Observation and Design. A workshop with Bear Kaufman and Salvador Velasco from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

San Pablo Creek Watershed Plan Workshop Participate in a community plan to protect, en- 

hance, and restore San Pablo Creek, its tributaries, and natural resources. Includes children’s environmental education. From 10 a.m. to noon in San Pablo. 231-9566. 

The Water Garden Learn how to design and maintain a water garden at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Latin American Cuisine at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. Chef demonstrations and presentations starting at 11 a.m. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. For reservations call 238-3234. 

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. 

“Jews of the Sephardic Eastern World” with Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of Humanistic Judaism, on Sat. and Sun. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Cost is $100 plus $8 for lunch. To register call 415-543-4595.  

“You can be a Woman Moviemaker” with Maureen Gosling at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

SUNDAY, JUNE 27 

Guided Trails Hiking Challenge at Tilden Park’s Inspiration Point from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wonderful views to the east and west will reward you as we hike along the ridge. Pack your lunch; we will eat at the half-way point. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Wet and Wild Water for all ages. Join us for a morning of water discovery, as we tour the watershed, conduct water experiments, and maybe even play in it, if the weather’s hot. From 10:30 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Spiral Gardens Celebrates Its Grand Opening from 2 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Sts. Activities will include food, music, words from George Galvis, Latino and native community activist and leader, garden center tours, and creative ways to get involved with Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Berkeley Music Ensemble on Mt. Tamalpais and Walk Join Solo Sierrans for a jaunt to the Alpine Club on Mount Tam for a concert, from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Cost is $12. For reservations and to arrange carpools call 524-1090. 

Bay Area Negro Spirituals Heritage Keepers Day Spirituals heritage and some of its contemporary keepers will be honored from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline Street, Oakland. 

Campaign to Ban Electro- 

shock Treatments with Lee Coleman, MD, and Ted Chbasinski, JD at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Main Library, 3rd flr. meeting room. Part of a series on Critical Perspective in Psychiatry. www.mindfreedom.com 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations call 848-7800. 

“Venezuela,” a film presentation at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. 525-0302.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Meditation for Ease and Clarity” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JUNE 28 

“Why You Should Give a Damn about Gay Rights and Marriage” at 7 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5366 College Ave. Sponsored by the ACLU, Paul Robeson Chapter. 846-4195. 

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. 548-0425. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., June 22 at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Budget Review Commission meets Wed., June 23, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7041. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/budget 

Disaster Council meets Wed., June 23, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Carol Lopes, 981-5514. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Energy Commission meets Wed., June 23, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., June 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Barbara Attard, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Planning Commission meets Wed., June 23, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., June 24 at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., June 28, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Deborah Chernin, 981-6715. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/parksandrecreation 

Solid Waste Management Commission Mon., June 28, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwasteª

A couple of weeks ago metropolitan papers carried a story about a North Beach incident in which a gallery owner reported that she had been spat on (punched in the face in some accounts) because her shop window displayed a painting derived from photographs, which depicts in graphic comic-book style the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military. The painter was a fairly well-known Berkeley figure, and we intended to report on the incident or perhaps comment on it in this space, but we never got around to it. 

Boy, are we glad we didn’t! If you believe the bloggers, and that’s never completely wise, a stew of controversy about what actually happened and why has been brewing ever since. Of course, the usual assortment of Internet foulmouths have denounced the painter for anti-American sentiments, which prompts the usual suspects, us among them, to defend his right to express his views, and to support his depiction of torture as being revolting. 

But some bloggers point to the gallery owner’s previous role in controversial lawsuits, and hint strongly that something is not right about the reported occurrence. A self-described witness claims that the artist tried to make television reporters shut off their cameras at a hastily organized supportive rally in front of the store. The word “hoax” has appeared on some sites, not all of them of the hyper-patriotic persuasion. We have no way of knowing what’s true and what’s false, since there were no witnesses to whatever happened. 

What we do know is that the painter has chosen an unfortunate way of trying to protect himself from the consequences of having his work displayed as it was. The Daily Planet, which had never reported on the incident or commented on it in any way, received this “URGENT MESSAGE TO THE PUBLISHER” from him this week: 

“I have an urgent legal concern that my address not appear on the web. I find that I can locate my address on the Planet site at [web link omitted]. Please act quickly to remove my address from your website so that it will not appear in search engine results pages. If necessary I will seek legal assistance to get this done.” 

The web link he included didn’t work, but by googling his name we found that the Planet, under its previous ownership, had twice put listings of shows at his Berkeley gallery in its arts calendar. The search also turned up many other references to him, and quite a few mentions of his gallery’s address in various contexts. Because of technical problems having to do with the change in ownership, we don’t really know how to remove old data from the archives that we inherited, and we told him that. We also told him that we weren’t impressed by his threat of getting “legal assistance,” based on our knowledge of the First Amendment. 

Big mistake. He seems to have found himself a lawyer who (a) disagrees with our legal analysis and (b) is willing to make extra-legal personal threats in case his analysis is wrong. We got an e-mail letter from a San Francisco lawyer who claims to represent him, saying in part that the painter “has received threats against himself and his family and, for that reason, wants to minimize the availability of information as to his whereabouts to those who might do harm to him or his family.” The letter asks us to “delete any references to him or links to his location” and goes on to say that “should he receive any threats, or should any harm come to him or his family, and the source of such misconduct be traced back to you, we shall not hesitate to bring all legal action, civil and criminal, that the law would permit against the Daily Planet and individuals there who did not cooperate in this request.” 

Whew! Heavvvy! Based on our knowledge of torts law, we’re pretty sure that leaving a two-year-old gallery listing in the archives of the old Planet’s arts calendar won’t expose us to much in the way of legal sanctions. But wait, there’s more. The lawyer goes on: “...alternatively, we can research your home addresses and publish them so that anyone who does not like what you are doing can know where to find you and your family. How does that sound?” 

That sounds like a personal threat to me, and it’s disgraceful. It’s been 25 years since I passed the ethics part of the State Bar exam, but I bet that kind of personal threat is still against the rules. The artist is doing his credibility no good by hiring someone who writes letters like that. Needless to say, the Planet would be wise never to publish the painter’s name (Guy Colwell) or list his local gallery again, just to be on the safe side. (Small sacrifice. I’ve never liked his work anyway, politics aside.) 

But the public does need to be protected from the lawyer, whose name is David M. Zeff, and who’s listed in the San Francisco directory. I hope the State Bar takes notice of this behavior, and at least raps his knuckles for such inappropriate bullying.  

—Becky O’Malley 

Women Voters Reverse at Convention 

The League of Women Voters of the United States (LWVUS) organization recently rescinded its support for touchscreen voting machines that don’t create paper trails, but not without an uncharacteristic internal fight led by several member from the Bay Area. 

Last week’s LWVUS national convention held in Washington D.C. produced a heated debate between national league leaders who support touch screen machines, and groups of members who say that such machines are vulnerable to tampering unless equipped with a machine that produces a voter verified paper receipt. 

National leaders, including president Kay Maxwell, have been known as supporters of paperless touchscreens, and previous league statements had called paper confirmation “unnecessary” and “counterproductive.” 

In an open letter to Maxwell circulated by Oakland League member Genevieve Katz and signed by more than 900 members, dissenters told the leadership they were “stifling” research and debate, and that they had “exceeded their authority.” 

As a result, last week’s convention produced a widely-supported vote that amended the LWV’s touch screen stance, officially making the organization neutral on the issue. “In order to ensure integrity and voter confidence in elections,” the resolution reads, “the LWVUS supports the implementation of voting systems and procedures that are secure, accurate, recountable and accessible.” 

Alameda County Touchscreen Update 

After having its touch screen machines temporarily decertified by the California Secretary of State, Alameda County is racing to be sure to meet the requirements to re-certify its machines in time for the November election. 

According to Brad Clark, the Registrar of Voters (ROV) for Alameda county, good progress is being made to meet the new requirements set forth by the Secretary of State Kevin Shelley after touch screen machines caused a number of serious problems during the recall and primary elections. 

Clark said currently the county is most pressed to install new software and firmware upgrades that are unavailable because they have not yet received state testing and certification. 

And while the county still plans to use their touch screens if everything stays on schedule, said Clark, the county is also looking at possibly having to use central count optical scan machines. If Alameda Count has to resort to optical scans, Clark said, the county will need between 50-100 new central machines, which will be placed at the ROV central office and will be used for counting the paper ballots filled out at polling places. Currently, the county only has eight optical scan machines. 

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