City officials are threatening to shut down Iceland, Berkeley’s World War II-era ice skating rink, if the rink’s management doesn’t act fast to address dozens of code violations. -more-
Was 2004 the East Bay’s Year of the Casino? -more-
Followers of Berkeley news over the past year might rightly conclude that town suffers from an edifice complex. -more-
New Year’s Eve, the biggest party night of the year, and UC Berkeley Junior Adam Weiss knows where he’ll be hours before the clock strikes midnight. -more-
I know where old sportswriters go when they die. They become the creative muses of publicity writers for college football teams. -more-
Debra Smith, 55, has watched over Thousand Oaks Elementary for 16 years. As cafeteria supervisor, she keeps the school’s kitchen and dining area polished to an immaculate gleam. She also teaches a cooking class to kids in the after-school program, and puts flowers on the tables in the warmly elegant, oak-paneled cafeteria. -more-
Workers in the Sacramento area will soon be voting to ratify a new union contract at three large California supermarkets, but Bay Area markets are still in doubt, according to Matthew Hardy, a spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers’ union. -more-
Christmas day at our house. Sixteen adults, one 7-year-old, a toddler, and two babies gather around a food-laden table in the dining room. Kanna Jo Nakamura-Parker, six weeks old, and smaller than a bread basket, lies quietly in her mother’s arms. It is her first visit to our home, her first Christmas, her first time competing for attention with an overcooked, over-stuffed turkey. -more-
In Silicon Valley folklore, a typical project goes through five stages: unwarranted enthusiasm, unmitigated disaster, search for the guilty, persecution of the innocent, and promotion of the uninvolved. Evidently, the Kerry-Edwards “project” has advanced to the fourth stage where many, including Berkeley’s MoveOn.org, are being blamed for the Nov. 2 loss. -more-
Two weeks ago I was elected to KPFA’s Local Station Board (LSB) with 43 percent of the KPFA staff’s first-place votes—more than twice what any other candidate received—in an election that, though unquestionably flawed, had the second-highest staff turnout in the five-station Pacifica Network. This Saturday, at what was to be the first meeting of the newly-constituted LSB, I was kept from assuming my position by what I believe to be an illegal move by the majority faction of the old LSB. -more-
It was a rare moment in modern Arab political history. Earlier this month in Egypt, 1,000 demonstrators gathered in front of the country’s Supreme Judicial Court, protesting President Hosni Mubarak’s plans to run for a fifth six-year term. -more-
The saddest thing about California has to be its pathetic winters. Winter here is virtually meaningless. Whatever we may say about the East, at least there winter meant something: Crashing to the ground on ice-coated sidewalks, skidding happily across tractionless freeways, freezing to faintness as the bitter early morning cold cut off circulation to fingers and toes, friends calling from apartment windows before dropping snowballs in our faces, long hard afternoons of snow shoveling, Santa Claus hurtling through the slush in a one-horse open sleigh to Grandmother’s house to munch potato latkes. Like everything back East, there was so much to relish in retrospect, no matter how hard it may have been to take at the time. -more-
If you think being locked in an aluminum shack on a hot afternoon with a life insurance salesman sounds more interesting than celebrating New Year’s Eve by going to a classical music concert, you don’t know Benjamin Simon, the music director of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. He wants people to feel that “Classical music is fun, accessible and not stuffy.” -more-
Chris Odell’s created the perfect job. -more-
“Why do you have four books by Bukowski?” She seemed disturbed as she closed The Most Beautiful Woman In Town. -more-
I’d been hearing it all day, as I worked: an odd, low, chuckling call, from somewhere outside my house. Not a bird, or at least none I could remember hearing; a dyspeptic cat? A toy? A really odd phone? A musical instrument, played badly? -more-
As you should know by now, in the current political vernacular, California is a Blue state. And as reported by Rob Wrenn in the Daily Planet (Dec. 7–9) the Bluest spot in our Golden state was Berkeley—where a full 90 percent of the citizenry voted Blue. -more-
I want to use the mountain top of the Berkeley Daily Planet to shout two things that not enough people will otherwise hear or read: Richard Alan Wenzel helped save the world and Pumpsie Green single-handedly lifted the curse of the Bambino! -more-
A Vermont Christmas -more-
From the crest of a hill off Grizzly Peak Boulevard in North Berkeley, the bayshore suburbs twinkled in the creeping twilight as the tour bus left the East Bay for the charismatic magic of The City at night, especially during the holiday season. My thoughts flashed back—really, was it 70 years ago? -more-
From a letter dated August 10, 2002 -more-
(pronounced cured after three years of leukemia) -more-
We’re Senior Slowpokes who’ve been walking the trails of Tilden Park for over 10 years. And before us we counted on Jeanette Weiss who led us to see Jewel Lake, the Nature trail, the Sylvan Trail and the upper and lower packrat. -more-
Christmas came early for some well-deserving, needy Berkeley residents. Appearing in over 750 mailboxes last week were checks from the Berkeley Holiday Fund, a 92-year-old institution that makes Scrooge look bad. The amount of each check will be modest, but it will be enough to make the holidays a bit brighter for the recipients. It will enable a grandmother to buy a present for her grandchild, a single parent to add something special to a holiday meal, a homeless man to buy a pair of shoes. -more-
Every day I awake hoping that my dream for peace will have come true, magically in the night as I slept. Each of us is living a dream. Part of my dream took me to a land far away. A land where the people are mostly like you and me. People who want to enjoy the beauty of the moist morning dew on the ground and the colors of the tranquil sunset at night. -more-
I have been reading a book called Lonely Planets and the other night as I looked up in the sky in the country where the stars are so numerous and bright, I wondered if another conscious being on another planet was wondering about me. I felt sorry that we would never meet the way we regret two lonely people looking out of the window at night in the same town may never get to know each other. -more-
For many it is a far journey to that legendary Place, -more-
An advertising plane flying a banner passed over Berkeley. In the streets below, throngs of people turned their faces upward and smiled with delight as they read: LET A THOUSAND PARKS BLOOM. It was Memorial Day 1969 in Berkeley, California, where People’s Park—a patch of sunny garden and shaded lawn—had just six weeks earlier been a vacant lot of rubble and mud. -more-
Can you imagine dying because a company didn’t properly label their food product? Would you want to eat food that raises your risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancer by 400 percent? Could you support a type of biotechnology that has the potential to introduce a new allergen to the human race? You may be asking yourself, “What could this biotechnology be and what’s the likelihood that I am purchasing these sorts of things?” In fact, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are present in our food supply, predominately in our major staples, like corn, wheat, soybean, and cotton, and pose serious hazards to both our health and our food supply, as well as the environment. -more-
We, the folk- and blues-singing, poetry-writing and/or -slamming, truth-as-we-see-it telling people of this city called Berkeley by its proud residents, and called other things by other people, are beginning a campaign to name a street in this town after one of our most favorite people: Malvina Reynolds. Malvina was born in 1900 in San Francisco and came to Berkeley to earn “all the degrees possible” [FOOTNOTE 2] at the University of California. -more-
I’ve been a substitute teacher for 23 years. I could practically do the daily routine with my eyes shut; Go to the office and get the key and sub folder with timesheet, ICM numbers, referral/detention forms. Go to the room, put your name on the board, check for lesson plans and materials. You might have time to warm up the room unless you have yard duty (about 75 percent of the time). Then you pick the kids up on the yard, or welcome the Middle School kids at the door. The kids take down the chairs and put their things away. Then it’s Attendance and SHOWTIME! -more-
In a world where we war over oil, the development and implementation of solar electricity is the true path to peace. We are in a race with the polluters and our world is the prize! -more-
“Your typical platoon has never experienced house-to-house combat, where you kick in the door and toss in a grenade, and then see who’s in there. You don’t yell “Come out with your hands up” because by then you’re dead... -more-
As a new year steps closer I hear my mother’s haunting voice in the air, “First, clean up the mess!” -more-
Once again it’s come to that time of year when mental lists become more frequently made. Lists of challenges overcome and of opportunities never seized over these past twelve months. The year is so close to its end now that your only choice is to look back in retrospect... and hopefully without too much regret. I do have a tendency to focus on the negative though, and so on these bleak gray and dreary days I often find myself dwelling on sore spots like all the chances to go swimming I passed up on this summer, rather than goals set and accomplished. -more-
I am most grateful to my 17-year-old granddaughter, Mischa Minkler, because if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be living in Berkeley today. -more-
Last December, Santa came to a shop on Solano Avenue. This poor guy didn’t know what to do when I sat my “child” in his lap! In the end they took a nice photo together. -more-
For my holiday wish for Berkeley, I propose a reform to put more power to the people, more accountable governance, and a more efficient and equitable collection of public revenue. -more-
News of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Asia has shocked and scared those of us who live with the knowledge that it could happen here. When 3,000 Americans died suddenly in the World Trade Center, it seemed like an unimaginable number of deaths, but in Southeast Asia 23,000 deaths had been counted by Monday morning, with more to come as information continues to trickle in from remoter regions. For many Berkeley residents who have come here as students and stayed to become citizens, the fate of friends and family members back home caused immediate anxiety. Others of us have made friends through our travels to these countries and are worried about them now. Former Berkeleyans have settled in the affected countries, too—a good friend now lives in Bangkok, but often goes to beach resorts for vacations, and we haven’t heard from him yet. We heard from another friend who was on an island off the coast of Thailand that she was safe because she was on the landward side of the island, and we didn’t even know she’d gone there for a vacation until she e-mailed that she was all right. -more-
Last December, songwriter John McCutcheon (the man the Oakland Tribune calls “the Bruce Springsteen of folk music”) slowly approached a microphone at Berkeley’s Freight and Salvage and announced a special song. Those who knew the song grew silent. Those who heard it for the first time were soon nodding their heads in quiet affirmation. Some wept. -more-
As a program officer with UNICEF Uzbekistan, I contributed to UNICEF’s work on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I was responsible for developing a child protection program that encompassed disabled children, the issue of education, juvenile justice, youth development, and disaster preparedness. -more-
When the winds blow from the south, when my bedroom curtains billow inward over the open window, I hear the train whistles bouncing their way east from the bay shores, from way down below in the flatlands of Berkeley. I hear the whistles of Thomas Wolfe’s train in You Can’t Go Home Again. I see him looking out his window in the dark of night, I see myself looking out at the prairies and watching the lights of the farmers’ houses flash by. -more-
I live near strawberry creek and one of my favorite events is the daily comedy show put on by the resident crows that descend upon the giant eucalyptus and evergreens there. As I sat lazily watching them from my office recently land on branches one at a time at first, then almost on top of each other, yelling, and provoking each other I couldn’t help but recognize the correlation between those aviary ambassadors of attitude and the human variety of black suits. -more-
Kokoro’s name means “heart,” and indeed her loving heart is continually opening and unfolding like a lotus blossom. But she has not been easy to place in the perfect “forever” home. She needs someone to be her patient “pack leader,” cherishing her courageous heart and soul, taking joy in her high spirits, respecting her sensitive emotional nature, and delighting in helping her reach her full potential. -more-
A most millennial and controversial gift of the holiday season was a software called Glossolalia. And some say it may also explain the bulge in Dubya’s back in that second debate. -more-
There’s a ghost in my house. It’s not the Ebenezer Scrooge or Bela Lugosi scary type; it’s my cat, Zeke. He died last Christmas when he thought he could outrun a car up on Sunnyhills Road. -more-
I walk old trails this morning, bittersweet -more-
“In collective work, performed with a light heart to attain a desired end...each will find an incentive and the necessary relaxation that makes life pleasant.” -more-
The three-spined stickleback is back -more-
Pixie dust. That’s what its called. I know it well, for I have spent many a night in the forest. I’m a woodsman by trade. I do what I must to earn a living and stay close to the trees that I love. But I have learned to be leery of the dark past midnight. That is the time of the fairies—your people, the pixies. They think they own the wood and everything that grows within. They do not take kindly to a woodsman in their midst. But I have been clever and have not fallen under their spells. I have avoided the dust till now, for they say you never quite recover from it. -more-
“If we could just get through to spring, we’ll be fine,” said Daniel Miller, the mainstay and director of the Urban Garden Center. There was concern in this wonderful man’s voice and so I write a little to explain. -more-
You wear on your sleeve your disdain for me -more-
It’s an early October Tuesday, late afternoon, and most of Berkeley’s elementary students are plopped down in front of Spongebob, Lizzie McGuire, or That’s So Raven. A few may even be playing some kind of ball game outside. But not Renee Mattson. This fifth grader is selling candy and gift wrap to whomever she can buttonhole. First she starts with the obvious, after all this is a “school” fundraiser. Before she leaves the building she has begun to contact almost every adult with a checking account. Sometimes she drags along one of her friends like Jade for support, or perhaps Jade knows the potential buyer just a little bit better than she does. Mostly though she’s just out there with her confident manner and fierce determination. -more-
Last night, Sekou Sundiata said it was -more-
I am always ready for them. You never know -more-
