Richard Brenneman: 
              Residents of a home at 2137 Ashby Ave. offer a botanical-cum-iconic political message aimed at the upcoming presidential election. The universal symbol for “No” affixed to a shrub offers a counterpoint to the bush-concealed Kerry/Edwards poster in the front window.r
Richard Brenneman: Residents of a home at 2137 Ashby Ave. offer a botanical-cum-iconic political message aimed at the upcoming presidential election. The universal symbol for “No” affixed to a shrub offers a counterpoint to the bush-concealed Kerry/Edwards poster in the front window.r

Page One

Signature Snafu Knocks Councilmember Shirek Off November Ballot: By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Tuesday August 10, 2004

In what one prominent Berkeley progressive—Jaqueline DeBose—angrily said “appears to be a gentrified left-wing conspiracy,” the 20-year City Council career of Berkeley legend Maudelle Shirek may have come to an abrupt end last week when her campaign for re-election was disqualified by the Berkeley city clerk’s office. -more-



Incumbents Challenged In City Races: By J DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Tuesday August 10, 2004

Three challengers will be taking on two incumbents for two seats on the school board for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) in the November elections. Norine Smith, a San Francisco native and 33-year-resident of Berkeley, will repeat her 2000 challenge to longtime incumbent Councilmember Betty Olds for the District 6 Berkeley City Council seat. Filing remains open until Wednesday evening for council districts 2, 3, and 5, and for four seats on the nine-member Rent Stabilization Board. -more-



Librarians Win Battle Against Ashcroft’s Edict to Censor Statute Documents: By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday August 10, 2004

Following howls of protest from libraries across the nation, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has rescinded a controversial order demanding that libraries destroy copies of a federal statute and accompanying regulations and documents. -more-



SF Chronicle Cracks Down on Liberal Staffers: By SARAH NORR Beyond Chron

Tuesday August 10, 2004

Why are progressive staffers disappearing from San Francisco’s leading paper? In the past month, two staffers at the San Francisco Chronicle have quietly disappeared from their posts. Ruth Rosen, a progressive opinion columnist, was suspended without pay after she wrote a column criticizing the CEO of Curves for Women for supporting anti-abortion groups. Her supervisors accused her of spreading misinformation and of “disloyalty,” and Rosen eventually agreed to leave the paper. Two weeks later, William Pa tes was taken off his job as editor of the letters page after management learned that he had donated $400 to John Kerry. -more-



Faces of Racism: By KAREN POJMANN Pacific News Service

News Analysis
Tuesday August 10, 2004

OWERRI, Nigeria—All summer long I’ve been a celebrity. Schoolboys clamor to greet me. Housewives invite me to their homes. Teenage girls scoop up and kiss my children. Burly security guards open doors for me. Thin roadside hawkers, confidently balancing on their heads baskets of eggs or consumer electronics, cluster excitedly around my car window. Everyone smiles, waves, shouts, “Oyibo! (Foreigner!) Welcome!” -more-



Features

Three-Ton Limit: by JAKOB SCHILLER

Tuesday August 10, 2004

Mayor Tom Bates, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, LeConte neighborhood resident Paul Rabinow and two city employees toast the new sign on Derby advertising the City of Berkeley’s ban on heavy vehicles, which applies to more than three dozen small residential streets. -more-


Police Blotter: By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday August 10, 2004

Gunshots Hit Homes, Cars on Ashby -more-


Parrots, Pointers and Reading Partners: From SUSAN PARKER

Column
Tuesday August 10, 2004

I received an e-mail about a column I wrote several weeks ago. The writer said, “Tell your friends, the Scrabblettes, that they’re not following Scrabble rules. The first player must start with a four-letter word. Unless my ability to count is off, kea, a word your co-player Louise used, does not have four letters. Plus, you left out an important part of the definition of a kea. It is a green New Zealand parrot that kills sheep by TEARING AT THEIR BACKS TO EAT THE FAT THERE (Webster’s New Universal Unabr idged Dictionary, page 996). If you want to lead off with an acceptable parrot, try the kakapo, also green, and also from New Zealand. It does not have a breastbone and so it is the only bird of the parrot species (psittaciformes) that cannot fly. It is o ften misidentified as an owl, eats only at night, and stays in holes in the ground during the day.” -more-


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday August 10, 2004

NATURE ARTICLES -more-


Some Reflections on the Berkeley-Novartis Report: By ANDREW PAUL GUTIERREZ and MIGUEL A. ALTIERI

Commentary
Tuesday August 10, 2004

We have read the report of the external review of the collaborative research agreement between Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute, Inc. (NADI) and the Regents of the University of California. We were pleased to learn the history of the “bidding approach” suggested for selecting corporate partners for the university. We were also pleased to receive assurance from the reviewers that the UCB agreement (the UCB-N deal) had minimal direct impacts on the university, but not excluding the College of Natural Resources (CNR). This conclusion was reached without asking the question “what would have happen if the UBC-N deal had not been brought to light?” by a courageous CNR Executive Committee (EXCOM) ably chaired by a vulnerable untenured Assistant Professor Ignacio Chapela. EXCOM (one of us was a member, APG) enabled a faculty review despite excessive pressure from the dean’s office to rapidly ratify the agreement. The report also assumes at Berkeley that the rise of biotechnology and the fall of applied agricultural fields such as biological control, plant pathology, soils and others is just part of the natural progress of science; a mere part of the process of modernization. In fact, according to the review, the “deal” appears consistent with the universities adjusting to the emerging norms of university-based economic development” and gives the impression that science at Berkeley is protected from the influence of politics and corporate power. -more-


Clinic Cutbacks Jeopardize Public Health: By MARC SAPIR

Commentary
Tuesday August 10, 2004

On Aug. 3, about 120 staff from the remaining three county community medical clinics in Newark, Hayward and Oakland walked off the job and confronted the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. The supervisors were holding a retreat in an off-site location and the workers let them know what they think of planned new and deep cuts in staffing and services for the public. At that event I handed the following letter to each member of the board individually. -more-


Northern Coast Offers Vistas of a Vanished Era: By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday August 10, 2004

While Bay Area folks often claim that California is two states, with a virtual political border crossing the state on an East/West line somewhere south of San Jose, perhaps the real second state begins north of Marin County—dividing the sparsely settled rural California of decades past from today’s postmodern urban landscape. -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday August 10, 2004

TUESDAY, AUGUST 10 -more-


Sticklebacks Still in Strawberry Creek? Maybe...: By JOE EATON

Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 10, 2004

If you’ve been on the UC campus lately, you may have noticed the oval blue plaques warning against dumping waste into Strawberry Creek, and their logo: a truculent-looking fish with three spines along its back. That’s a three-spined stickleback, part of the creek’s original fauna, and maybe still there. I’ve found conflicting sources on that point. A Strawberry Creek walking tour guide says the sticklebacks were reintroduced during restoration efforts, but were flushed downstream and now congregate where the creek enters the bay, near the Berkeley Marina; another site, though, suggests that some remain. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday August 10, 2004

TUESDAY, AUGUST 10 -more-


Editorial

Welcome to River City, Part II: by BECKY O'MALLEY

Editorial
Tuesday August 10, 2004

The ongoing plans to turn the Richmond area into Vegas-by-the-Bay last appeared in this space around the middle of June. This was right after our intrepid reporter had uncovered a hither-to-secret scheme to put a massive tribal gaming complex right smack in the middle of Point Molate, a former Navy fuel depot with gorgeous bay views, charming historic buildings, and lots of open space. The property was transferred to the City of Richmond a few years ago, with Navy promises to clean up serious on-site toxic waste problems. -more-


Back Stories

Opinion

Editorials

Welcome to River City, Part II: by BECKY O'MALLEY 08-10-2004

Editorial: Analyzing the Conventional Wisdom by Becky O’Malley 08-06-2004

News

Signature Snafu Knocks Councilmember Shirek Off November Ballot: By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 08-10-2004

Incumbents Challenged In City Races: By J DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 08-10-2004

Librarians Win Battle Against Ashcroft’s Edict to Censor Statute Documents: By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-10-2004

SF Chronicle Cracks Down on Liberal Staffers: By SARAH NORR Beyond Chron 08-10-2004

Faces of Racism: By KAREN POJMANN Pacific News Service News Analysis 08-10-2004

Three-Ton Limit: by JAKOB SCHILLER 08-10-2004

Police Blotter: By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-10-2004

Parrots, Pointers and Reading Partners: From SUSAN PARKER Column 08-10-2004

Letters to the Editor 08-10-2004

Some Reflections on the Berkeley-Novartis Report: By ANDREW PAUL GUTIERREZ and MIGUEL A. ALTIERI Commentary 08-10-2004

Clinic Cutbacks Jeopardize Public Health: By MARC SAPIR Commentary 08-10-2004

Northern Coast Offers Vistas of a Vanished Era: By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-10-2004

Arts Calendar 08-10-2004

Sticklebacks Still in Strawberry Creek? Maybe...: By JOE EATON Special to the Planet 08-10-2004

Berkeley This Week 08-10-2004

Berkeley Bowl Employees Win Right to Unionize By JAKOB SCHILLER 08-06-2004

Reports Cite Chill Between Developer, UC Prof Backer By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-06-2004

Plans for Massive Richmond Casinos Move Forward at Civic Center Meetings By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-06-2004

Formerly Incarcerated People Fight for Their Rights By JAKOB SCHILLER 08-06-2004

State Toxics Experts Analyzing Report on LBNL Contamination By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-06-2004

Berkeley’s Second Homicide Follows 14 Days After First By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-06-2004

Cities, County Look to November Vote for Funds By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 08-06-2004

Serial Armed Robber Sought: by Richard Brenneman 08-06-2004

Briefly Noted Bay City News and City of Berkeley press release 08-06-2004

An Interview With Michael Lysobey,Democratic Delegate from Berkeley By CHRISTOPHER KROHN Special to the Planet 08-06-2004

Maxine Waters: Seasoned Leader or Leftist Pariah? By CHRISTOPHER KROHN Special to the Planet 08-06-2004

COMMENTARY Searching for the Democrats: Candidate Kerry By BOB BURNETT Special to the Planet 08-06-2004

COMMENTARY The Good, The Bad and the Ugly By CHRISTOPHER KROHN Special to the Planet 08-06-2004

Penultimate Pundit Ponders Interconvention Tension By PETER SOLOMON 08-06-2004

David Teece: Big Building Backer, Academic Guru, Political Power Player and a Corporate Tycoon By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 08-06-2004

UnderCurrents: The Amazing Ending to the Brown-Barzaghi Story by J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 08-06-2004

From Susan Parker: A Tireless Disabilities Advocate Ships Out Staff 08-06-2004

Letters to the Editor 08-06-2004

COMMENTARY 350,000 Pounds of ‘Spaceship Earth’ By PETER SELZ 08-06-2004

COMMENTARY Medea Benjamin Should Have Chosen A Better Venue for Protest By CAROL DeWITT 08-06-2004

COMMENTARY Time to Hit the Streets By LIZA GRANDIA 08-06-2004

Shotgun Stages Brecht Play in Bucolic Setting By BETSY M. HUNTON Special to the Planet 08-06-2004

Putting Up the Produce of Summer’s Fruitfulness By SHIRLEY BARKER Special to the Planet 08-06-2004

Arts Calendar 08-06-2004

Not All Eucalypts Are Invasive Culprits By RON SULLIVAN Special to the Planet 08-06-2004

Berkeley This Week 08-06-2004

Letters on the Middle East 08-06-2004