Sutter Health carried out its threat against nurses and other union members who staged a one-day walkout Wednesday and refused to let them go back to work Thursday morning, the start of a four-day lockout. -more-
Over the strong objections of the Laney College president, Laney College staff representatives, and Trustee-elect Nicky González Yuen, a lame-duck session of the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees has authorized a free-of-charge, one-year agreement with an Oakland development firm to negotiate possible commercial development of certain Laney College and Peralta District properties. -more-
Richmond residents, business folk, environmental activists and newly elected City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin braved the 40-degree cold Wednesday morning to picket one of the entrances to Campus Bay, protesting ongoing operations at the site. -more-
City officials Tuesday froze funds to Jubilee Restoration Inc., its third largest non-profit housing developer, after reports submitted by the organization in response to a federal probe revealed that the organization had diverted federal funds. -more-
Problems with renovation work are expected to delay opening of Berkeley’s Elmwood Theater until past the first of the year, but a local engineer involved in seismic retrofit of the theater building says his portion of the project is not to blame. -more-
Longtime Berkeley Police Review Commission Director Barbara Attard announced her resignation this week to become San Jose’s police auditor. -more-
Balloons made of Mylar and aluminum don’t mix too well with power lines, as more than 4,000 South Berkeley customers of PG&E’s electric service discovered abruptly at 9:06 Saturday morning. -more-
T-Rex, 25, says he has been living on Berkeley streets since he was eight. Wednesday night, however, he and his dog escaped the bitter winds blowing through their wooded hillside squat to take refuge in the city’s shelter for homeless youth. -more-
Linda Olivenbaum, spouse of newly elected Berkeley City Councilmember Max Anderson, Jr., made a gruesome discovery in her back yard when she went to move her car recently. -more-
In a hotly contested election race that ends Monday, two groups are vying for nine open seats on KPFA 94.1 FM’s Listener Station Board. -more-
Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board members greenlighted a five-story University Avenue condominium project Monday, saying they were delighted that the developer would be offering units to low-income residents. -more-
Twenty years down the road, if anything good has come from the terrible gas leak in Bhopal, India, it is the birthing of a new generation of unlikely heroes. -more-
Four weeks after the presidential election, there continues to be a controversy about the difference between the exit poll projections and the actual results. Almost daily, conspiracy theories surface on Internet blogs, only to be refuted a few hours later. -more-
The Oakland chips are beginning to fall in place for Mayor Jerry Brown’s run for California attorney general in 2006, and if you thought the whole purpose of the effort was for the Oakland chips to fall in place for the rest of us in Oakland, you went and slept through part of this production, didn’t you? -more-
Against Thomas Lynch’s set of “life on this sorry sawmill camp”—great beams hold up roof and sidings of rusted metal, flanked by a two-story tall iron wheel, with a ragged line of treetops painted on the backdrop—Lonnie (Kevin Jackson) comes out at dawn and sings the Shack Rouser Song “Wake up . . . Day’s breakin’.” -more-
On Tuesday, Dec. 7, the City Council will vote on the Foothill Bridge, which UC Berkeley proposes building on upper Hearst Avenue, at the intersection of La Loma, Hearst, and Gayley Road. To build this bridge, UC Berkeley must obtain an encroachment permit (airspace approval), from the city. -more-
Since there is no worldwide religious consensus, the belief in divine revelation produces this devastating dichotomy: Either God is not almighty because He was incapable of making Himself clear regarding the existence of one true religion, or the Almighty created mostly defective people who can’t recognize His clear message. Consequently, faiths based on a revelation by a god who claims to be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent must either inculcate a prejudice against nonbelievers or an aversion to impartial consideration. -more-
Go West, ye seekers of gifts. To be precise, go to San Pablo Avenue, to Fourth Street, and to venues nearby and in between. Here are some choice possibilities that turned up on a recent random tour of shops on the west side of town. -more-
Berkeley Repertory is joining in a production called Polk County with Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, and here it is, the East Coast cast, same director, same staging, same everything. It sounds as if the Rep is getting off pretty easy. But it turns out that it isn’t all that easy at all, as we’ll get into later. The question now is, what’s the reason for all the hoopla? -more-
It’s a beautiful, crisp morning in the town of Sonoma. Sunlight reflects off color-saturated autumn foliage and whitewashed adobe buildings. From the park in Sonoma Plaza, a pleasant walk leads you past Sonoma State Historic Park, charming boutiques, enticing eateries and beautifully restored Victorian homes. A perfect day for an extended “paseo” in the heart of wine country. -more-
With its $67 million Center Street campus construction project on schedule for completion in January 2006, Berkeley’s Vista Community College is planning a birthday bash this week to celebrate its 30th anniversary. -more-
Jubilee Restoration Inc., in response to a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) investigation into misuse of funds, released records last week showing that it spent federal grant money designated for a homeless youth outreach program to pay employees working for its housing development arm. -more-
A small but vocal group of demonstrators rallied for an hour in front of the KGO-TV offices in San Francisco on Monday morning, protesting what they called “media silence on 2004 election irregularities.” Demonstrators later marched to the San Francisco offices of United States Senator Barbara Boxer where organizers met with Boxer’s staff. -more-
A one-day strike at Berkeley’s Alta Bates Medical Center and 12 other Sutter Health hospitals in Northern California commencing at 6 a.m. Wednesday will cost strikers five days of pay. -more-
With battles still raging over new development in Berkeley, the three newly elected Berkeley City Councilmembers are facing plenty of scrutiny as they prepare to name members to commissions that have a big say on the future face of the city. -more-
Cal graduates: Did you, like me, get your MBNA/MasterCard though membership in the California Alumni Association? -more-
President George Bush’s re-election has some European politicians on the far right and the far left scrambling to rethink the role of faith in the daily life their constituencies, as well as their position on Christian values. -more-
My wife and I hosted one of the over 1,600 house meetings held Sunday night to chart the future of MoveOn PAC. The tightly structured event asked participants to select their top issue and strategy for the next two to four years, but left no time for the larger questions about how people can get involved in grassroots activism in between elections or how the group should prioritize its funds. -more-
“Purses, clothing, weavings, holiday décor” and jewelry, with many items priced $10 or less, are among the gifts offered at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Holiday Craft Fair Dec. 11-12 at the First Congregational Church. Most crafts for sale are made by indigenous women in cooperatives in Central America, Asia, Haiti, and Africa. -more-
Berkeley, Vallejo Men Slain in Emeryville -more-
Two years ago my husband and I waited, with others, for an AC Transit bus on the corner of 55th Street and Telegraph Avenue. When the bus came, the driver stopped and allowed the able-bodied people on. Then he closed the doors. “I’m running late,” he sho uted at us. “You’ll have to wait for the next bus.” -more-
With the election over it is distressing to hear our City Council and staff continue to distort the citizens’ reasons for voting down all of the city’s tax proposals. The latest example is Kriss Worthington’s Nov. 16 condemnation of the groups opposed to eliminating one of the city’s fire truck companies. He accused them of “spreading hate and lies.” -more-
Progressives and Democrats (not always the same thing) are still licking our wounds from Nov. 2. But we’ve begun a vigorous discussion about how to rebuild our capacity to win elections and influence people. Some of us debated this with a few thousand of our closest friends on Sunday, Nov. 21, courtesy of MoveOn.org’s national house party and online discussion board. Here’s my contribution to the fray: -more-
The colorful, vivid imagery born in the West Berkeley studio of artist Juana Alicia that graces buildings across the nation may soon appear on the walls of a five-story building on University Avenue. -more-
In this history of the American experience of free speech during war time, Geoffrey Stone explodes the myth that elite professors cannot write compelling prose. Stone’s narrative of the ups and downs of the First Amendment in times of national emergency is a gripping read, full of free speech heroes and villains, victories and defeats. -more-
Many of us come to understand the Iraq War through the lens of newspaper and TV journalists who track our forces on the battlefield and in Pentagon briefings. -more-
There aren’t many native live oaks on our streets, though we can see them easily enough up in Tilden Regional Park, in private yards, and in some public places like the UC Berkeley campus. The ones on campus are survivors (so far) of an unfortunate rash of deaths caused not by Sudden Oak Death Syndrome but by landscape errors. -more-
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The March Issue and
The February Issue and
The January Issue and
The December Issue and
The November Issue and
The bit old October Issue
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