Beneath its tranquil surface, the Berkeley Public Library is rife with tension. 

With management moving full speed ahead to install a controversial automated checkout system at the same time it has proposed laying off 12 mostly low-level employees, privacy advocates fear Big Brother will soon be lurking behind the checkout desk and library workers are wondering if they will have a place in the fully automated library of the future. 

“The library is a place for people to connect and communicate,” said Nick Nastick, a Berkeley library assistant for the past 16 years. “If we lose that we become just another industrial machine.” 

Nastick is one of several librarians who doesn’t know if he will have a job come July when the layoff proposal, now before the library’s board of trustees, would take effect. 

Facing a $1 million shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year and having reduced operating hours last year, Library Director Jackie Griffin has suggested overhauling Berkeley libraries. To cut down on workers compensation claims and close the deficit, Griffin has proposed layoffs targeted primarily at library aides and assistants—the employees who spend the most time checking out books and stacking them on shelves. 

Griffin assumes that check-out staff will be in low demand thanks to the introduction of Radio Frequency Identity Devices (RFID), scheduled to be implemented in July.  

Nearly every day for the past several months library employees have sat behind glass doors on the third floor of the main branch sticking palm-size antennae on the library’s 500,000 volume collection. 

When the roll-out is complete, instead of waiting for an employee to swipe each book through a barcode detector, patrons will be able to check out their items in one simple motion by sweeping them over a table top reader. 

“It’s state of the art,” said Doug Karp of New Jersey-based Checkpoint Systems, the largest producer of RFID technology to libraries and the supplier to Berkeley and about 140 other libraries worldwide. Checkpoint products use proprietary technology, only functional with Checkpoint systems, meaning that Berkeley could face risks if the company raises prices or goes out of business. 

And hi-tech doesn’t come cheap. Berkeley is paying $650,000 for the system at a time when budget constraints are being blamed for lost jobs. 

The library, which operates independent of the city administration, has seen the cost of employee benefits surge. And after voters rejected a tax hike on the ballot last November, there is little hope for a sudden infusion of revenue. 

“The intent of RFID was never to take people’s jobs,” said Griffin. “People don’t want to hear this, but the reality is either we cut staff positions or cut back the book budget, those are the only things that are left.” 

Without RFID to improve workplace efficiency, Griffin added, the library would still have to lay off employees and further reduce hours. 

RFID, first used by farmers to track cattle, has been around for over 30 years. However, the recent mushrooming of applications, including tagging prisoners in Michigan, luggage on airplanes, merchandise in Wal-Mart warehouses, and possibly middle school students in Sutter, Calif., has sparked concerns from privacy advocates. 

“We don’t argue that the use of RFID right away is a humongous privacy invasion. We are worried about the society we will end up with 20 years down the road when the technology is ubiquitous,” said Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.  

RFID tags encode items that can then be tracked by specially made devices. In libraries, the system speeds up checkouts and makes inventory easier, library officials say.  

Proponents of RFID say that privacy concerns about the systems are exaggerated. They argue that the reading devices function only if they are within about a foot of the tag and that even if someone managed to read the tag all he would see is an insignificant serial number. 

“The number is meaningless,” said Mark Roberti, editor of RFID Journal, an independent publication. “Unless you have access to the library database and know what book corresponds to the serial number, there is no privacy breach.  

But Tien and other opponents including the American Civil Liberties Union, fear that once a patron leaves the library, authorities could use the tag to track them instead of the book. Someone with a powerful reader, even if he doesn’t know the title of the book, Tien postulated, could follow the patron to other locations with reading devices, like Wal-Mart, the airport or an ATM, and gather more information about the patron. 

Tien also questioned industry claims about the limited power of reading devices and fears that future devices will have longer range. 

“The trajectory of the technology is what we ought to be concerned about,” he said. 

Peter Warfield, head of the Library Users Association in San Francisco, fears that if progressive cities like Berkeley and San Francisco move ahead with RFID, the industry will use it to deflect concerns of privacy advocates. 

“They want to push their way here so they can turn around and tell other cities, ‘Look, there’s no need to worry,’” he said. 

The battle against RFID in San Francisco led the Board of Supervisors to hold up that city’s purchase of an RFID system. Now with the issue returning to the fore this week as the Library Commission reviews its budget for next year, Berkeley’s Griffin thinks out-of-town privacy advocates are using Berkeley as a proxy in their battle to keep RFID out of San Francisco. 

“They’re trying to discredit Berkeley before San Francisco votes,” she said. “For Peter Warfield and Lee Tien, the real issue is the San Francisco Public Library, not us.” 

Griffin, who was library director in Eugene, Ore. when that city started down the road to RFID, pushed, with the backing of a volunteer employee committee, for Berkeley to adopt the system two years ago as it was opening a larger central branch with no money for new hires.  

Griffin has high hopes for Berkeley’s system. She expects self-checkouts to jump from 15 percent to 90 percent and worker’s compensation claims to decline. 

While library directors who instituted the system in other cities rave about its performance, the results have varied. In Santa Clara, which in 2000 became the first city on the West Coast to switch to RFID, but has not yet attached tags to CDs and DVDs, Library Director Karen Saunders said they have achieved a self-checkout rate of 45 percent.  

In Eugene, Ore., which like Berkeley has RFID installed on all its items, self-checkout rates hover just below 100 percent, said Margaret Hazel, the library’s technology manager. 

Neither library laid off workers when it implemented RFID. “What we did in Eugene was reallocate the staff to give them more challenging tasks and more interaction with the public,” Hazel said. 

As far as reducing workers’ compensation claims for repetitive stress syndrome, neither Eugene nor Santa Clara had significant claims prior to implementing RFID, their managers said. In Berkeley, however, Griffin maintains that workers’ compensation claims have costs the library and the city roughly $2 million every five years. 

A 2002 city report lists the library’s year total workers’ compensation costs at just over $1 million. Repetitive motion injuries accounted for three of the 130 claims, while 66 claims were listed as caused by the cumulative impact of various tasks, according to the report. 

Griffin insisted the report only accounts for direct costs and that the library faced an extra million in indirect costs to replace the injured workers. 

Under her reorganization plan, Griffin has called for eliminating positions held by 31 employees and replacing them with 22 new positions, most of which will be filled by current staff now holding the eliminated positions. 

The goal, she said, was to create a more flexible workforce by training several of the remaining library aides and assistants to do more varied work that involved more personal interaction with patrons. 

Eventually, Griffin would like to see the library buy a conveyer belt system that uses RFID technology to intake books and move them to the proper stack for shelving. The system, also made by Checkpoint, is already in place in Santa Clara and Eugene.  

To save jobs, the library workers’ union, SEIU Local 535, has offered to accept mandatory and voluntary time off and reduce a full work week from 40 to 37.5 hours. 

Nastick fears that with 12 fewer employees, the library, currently staffed by 157 full- and part-time workers, will struggle to serve those patrons not wired for the digital age. 

“Now if someone wants to reserve a book we encourage them to do it through the computer,” he said. “It seems like a small thing, but it’s part of the human touch.” 

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Freedom of information advocates got a boost this week when national media company Bloomberg Financial Markets joined the Berkeley Daily Planet’s action to unseal California Wal-Mart records filed in a class action lawsuit. 

In what is described by the law.com website as “the biggest single [class action] case in the nation,” a group of Wal-Mart workers are suing the giant retailer, in Savaglio v. Wal-Mart Stores, for denying pay for missed lunch and rest breaks to 204,000 current and former California employees. 

Last August, the Daily Planet joined the action as an intervenor after it learned that many of the documents filed by Wal-Mart in the case had been placed under “conditional seal,” making them unavailable to the public. The Planet is being represented by the Oakland law firm of Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld in its motion to open all of the Wal-Mart documents to the public. 

Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld attorney M. Suzanne Murphy said that Bloomberg would bring “considerable clout” to the lawsuit. Bloomberg formally entered the case Friday. 

On Monday, a Bloomberg representative sat in the back of an Oakland courtroom and took notes as Daily Planet attorneys argued against a tentative ruling by Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sabraw that some of the Wal-Mart documents would remain under wraps. 

At issue are nine volumes of documents filed by Wal-Mart which include labor guidelines, pay and incentive guidelines, timekeeping system records, and store operational reviews. 

On Monday morning, Judge Sabraw listened to Murphy and attorney Jessica Grant of the Furth Firm, representing the Savaglio plaintiffs, try to convince him of the defectiveness of his preliminary order that at least one of those nine volumes remain sealed. At times the proceedings resembled more of a conversation than a hearing, with Sabraw breaking into the attorneys’ presentations to ask devil’s-advocate questions or counter their assertions. At one point, the judge apologized to Murphy for “continuing to interrupt your argument.” 

Wal-Mart attorney William Edlund said he was satisfied with the judge’s preliminary ruling, and offered only token argument. He said that the amount of material to remain sealed “is only a small number,” and said that he would go through documents with Daily Planet attorneys to make sure any information was not “improperly redacted.” 

It was a feisty Grant who provided the only zinger of the hearing. In answer to the judge’s written ruling that many of the at-issue documents are protectable trade secrets, Grant said that “the documents show that Wal-Mart has a competitive edge because they’re breaking the law. They’re exploiting their hourly employees.” 

When Judge Sabraw admitted that he had not read many of the documents at issue but was relying on the affidavits of Wal-Mart officials that the requested documents were “confidential material,” Grant called the affidavits “boilerplate documents” that offered only the officials’ word, but no details as to how the documents were handled. She said that many of the requested documents were available to all Wal-Mart employees on the company website, and the company had not shown it had taken steps to keep employees from distributing that information. “Any one of these workers could download these same documents and pass it on to a newspaper,” Grant said. 

“All the court can do is control the documents in this case,” Sabraw replied. “The Daily Planet could get these documents off the Internet themselves and publish them, and as far as I’m concerned that would not be a violation of this order to seal.” 

Daily Planet attorney Murphy said in reply that this put the burden on plaintiffs to try to search for the documents. “Our office spent a tremendous amount of research time trying to determine if any of these documents were already in the public domain, either on the Internet or in cases in other states. We have the resources to do that. Many of the news outlets do not.” 

In the end, Sabraw told attorneys for both sides that “even if I seal these records, such an order is not necessarily permanent. It’s always possible to bring a motion to unseal the documents at another time, as circumstances dictate.” 

Sabraw left open the possibility that the sealed documents could still be introduced at trial, which is scheduled to begin in June. “At that point, I’ll rule again on whether the documents can be made public,” he said. “If not, I can order the courtroom closed during the time when those sealed documents are introduced and argued.” 

Murphy and Grant said they expected the judge’s final ruling on the sealed documents within a week.›

A Berkeley High School student accused of inadvertently bringing a gun on campus in her backpack is entitled to an expulsion hearing before the school board which could limit her punishment, expel her for a full year, or find her innocent, according to a youth rights expert. 

Two weeks ago, a BHS student, whose name has not been released, was detained by school safety officers and then arrested by Berkeley police after classmates saw the gun in her backpack. BHS Vice Principal of Discipline and Safety Denise Brown said that the student’s father told Brown that he had given the girl the gun for “safekeeping.” 

The gun had one bullet in the chamber, although the student told school officials she thought she had emptied the gun. 

Public Information Officer Joe Okies of the Berkeley Police Department said that the case is still under investigation. “No decision has yet been made on possible charges, or who is going to be charged,” Okies said. 

That left open the possibility that criminal charges could be brought against either the student or the parent. 

Abigail Trillin, managing attorney for the San Francisco-based Legal Services for Children, a non-profit law firm, said in a telephone interview that a principal can only recommend expulsion, but expulsion can only be ordered by the district school board after holding an evidentiary hearing. She said that the purpose of the board’s expulsion hearing is first to determine if the student is guilty of knowingly bringing a weapon on campus. 

“The standard is that she was knowingly in possession of the weapon,” Trillin said. “One question would be if she put the weapon in her backpack herself, or if it was put there by someone else. And if she did put the weapon in the backpack, there’s the question of if she actually forgot that it was there. That would be one of the issues of whether she ‘knowingly’ brought the weapon on campus.” 

And even though state law mandates that the school board uphold expulsion under the weapons possession statute, the board has wide latitude on the actual period of punishment. 

Trillin said that while the period of expulsion for a weapons possession charge is listed in state law as a year from the date of the occurrence, California school boards have the ability to shorten that time or, “if they find extenuating circumstances,” waive it altogether. In such a waiver, the student is expelled from school, but the expulsion is suspended.  

Trillin has not been in touch with the student or parent in question, but only learned the details of the case from the Daily Planet. 

BUSD Public Information Officer Mark Coplan said he knew of one such recent case in Davis, “where a student had been hunting over the weekend, left his rifle in the gunrack on his truck, and drove to school without realizing the gun was there. In that case, the district expelled him, but then immediately suspended the expulsion.” 

Coplan had earlier told the Daily Planet that the student had been expelled by BHS administration officials, but corrected that statement this week, saying that state law makes it mandatory that a student be recommended for expulsion if found with a gun on a public school campus. “It’s up to the board to make the decision on expulsion and punishment,” Coplan said. 

The board expulsion hearing must be held within 30 days of the date the expulsion was recommended by the school principal. 

Coplan said that Gerald Harrick of the BUSD Office of Student Services—who is in charge of district student disciplinary matters—met with the student and her father this week to discuss the situation. Harrick was not available for comment.›

Blocked from showing first-run art films by the collective clout of Berkeley’s two major theater operators, Allen Michaan has given up the Oaks Theater at 1875 Solano Ave. 

“Metropolitan Theaters of Los Angles bought out my lease, and they’re taking over as of Friday,” said Michaan, a Berkeleyan best known as the owner of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland and the author of the pointedly political messages that adorn its marquee. 

“The Oaks is the best theater in Berkeley in the best neighborhood in Berkeley,” said Michaan. “The problem is that we were not able to get the first-run art films we wanted.” 

He said he was unable to get the movies he wanted in the Oaks because of the power Regal Entertainment and Landmark Theatres have over movie distribution in the city.  

Landmark Theatres, which bills itself as “the nation’s largest art house chain,” controls 204 screens in 14 states, including those at three downtown Berkeley locations: Shattuck Cinemas, the California Theater and Act 1 & 2.  

The chain also owns a near neighbor of the Oaks—the Albany Twin at 1115 Solano Ave. 

“Landmark has succeeded in dominating the art film market,” Michaan said, effectively shutting his four theaters out of the market for first-run features. 

Regal Entertainment, which owns the UA Berkeley 7 multiplex on Shattuck Avenue, also owns two other East Bay multiplexes, the UA Emery Bay Stadium 10 and the Regal Jack London at 100 Washington St. in Oakland. 

The 6,000-screen chain is the nation’s largest and wields tremendous clout in locking up first-run films. 

The Oaks’ new operators, Los Angles-based Metropolitan Theatres Corporation, have been a family-owned business since its inception in 1923. The firm is now run by David Corwin, the fourth generation of his family to serve as president of the firm. 

“We don’t plan any dramatic changes,” Corwin said of his Berkeley acquisition. “We have access to a bit more films that Allen did, and we hope to expand the offerings.” 

With 115 screens across North America, Metropolitan has its strongest presence in San Barbara County, home of its flagship theater, the Arlington in Santa Barbara, a 2,000-seat venue featuring live performances and films. 

“There are similarities in the marketplace and demographics” of San Barbara and Berkeley, Corwin said. 

“With better film offerings, we will be a very viable alternative to the more crowded Shattuck Avenue theaters,” he said. 

The Oaks will also include more family fare on its bill to draw in residents of the local neighborhood, he said. 

Michaan’s Renaissance Rialto, Inc., has been widely praised for restoring classic movie houses in the East Bay and was honored last year by the Art Deco Society of California “for preserving extant art deco theaters as first-run enterprises and creating a new repertory house to showcase vintage film.” 

The revival house, run from the base theater at the former Alameda Naval Air Station at 2700 Saratoga St., closed earlier this year due to small turnouts. Michaan retains the lease and uses the theater as an auction room for his Auctions by the Bay business. 

While the Grand Lake at 3200 Grand Ave. is Michaan’s best-known showcase, he also controls the Orinda at 2 Theater Square in Orinda and the Park Theater, which remains a single screen venue in Lafayette.  

Michaan said he will certainly retain control over the Grand Lake, but he was less emphatic about the other two houses. 

“Right now, I’m concentrating on the auction business,” he said. 

Michaan came to Berkeley in the late 1960s, showing classic films on the UC Berkeley campus and in the Berkeley High School Auditorium. 

He was 20 when he opened his first theater, the Rialto, in a vacant warehouse on Gilman Street in 1970. In the following years, he offered films in as many as 19 locations. 

He acquired the Grand Lake in 1980, and has turned the 1926 movie palace into one of the Bay Area’s best-loved theaters, repeatedly voted “Best Theater” by readers of the San Francisco Chronicle and named as one of America’s 10 great venues for classic films by USA Today in 2001.›

UC Berkeley Monday asked the Richmond City Council to derail a proposed council resolution that calls for stricter oversight of the ongoing toxic waste cleanup at the Richmond Field Station (RFS). 

Irene Hegarty, campus director of community relations, dispatched an e-mail Monday afternoon to the full City Council objecting to provisions in a measure on Tuesday night’s agenda. 

The resolution by Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin calls for a transfer of full oversight of both the RFS and adjoining Campus Bay site into the hands of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. 

“We believe the university’s field station property is listed in the draft resolution as a result of confusion with the neighboring ‘Campus Bay’ (Zeneca) site—a separate and distinct site remediation project being conducted by others,” Hegarty wrote. “We request that the draft resolution be modified to remove the field station from its scope.” 

But it’s no mistake, said McLaughlin, whose resolution comes up for consideration at Tuesday’s council meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in Richmond City Council chambers, 1401 Marina Way South. 

McLaughlin said she intends to push for the more stringent control which the DTSC can provide over the cleanup at both the university-owned field station and at Campus Bay. 

Both sites were under the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board until critics of activities at Campus Bay triggered a state legislative hearing called by East Bay Assemblymember Loni Hancock that resulted in the water board ceding control of the upland portion of Campus Bay to the DTSC in December. 

The water board has limited scientific expertise because of funding cuts and the agency has no toxicologists on staff. The DTSC, on the other hand, is well staffed with toxics experts. 

Hegarty told the councilmembers that the university “is conducting an aggressive and closely monitored cleanup of contamination caused by historic industrial activities.” 

To date, UC Berkeley has spent $15 million on cleaning up RFS pollution, some of which stems from a century of chemical manufacturing at the Campus Bay site and some from the field station’s earlier incarnation as a manufacturing plant for blasting caps made of fulminate of mercury. 

Mercury is a dangerous pollutant linked to severe nerve and brain damage in fetuses and insanity in adults. 

“Our concern is that a change in the lead agency for this project could cause a significant delay in the remaining cleanup and eventual development of the field station with no added benefit to the university or community,” Hegarty said. 

She said the university will send an official to testify at the meetings, and offered to make officials available to councilmembers before the meeting. 

Richmond Councilmember Tom Butt issued his own reply to Hegarty, noting that the city has repeatedly attempted to open talks with the university about the future of the field station. 

“Unfortunately,” he wrote, “these discussions have met with little or no interest from UC Berkeley. 

“Now we have a major problem with our constituents who have uncovered negligence by the (San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board) in managing the cleanup of the Zeneca/Campus Bay site, and they are interested in not only Campus Bay but also the Field Station, since the two sites have much in common. 

“Perhaps this is a good time to reopen the discussions. . .about the Field Station so that there is some consideration of mutual interests.” 

Sherry Padgett, the most vocal critic of cleanup operations at the two sites, praised McLaughlin’s resolution. 

“We want DTSC to determine what the UC Field Station can or cannot be used for,” she said. “DTSC is the appropriate agency to determine if areas of the property should never have buildings constructed because the hazardous waste will never reach full remediation. DTSC is the agency to continue multiple lifetime monitoring. 

“UC will be better served over the long run if they welcome the top toxic cop to oversee their cleanup operations.” 

Just last week, DTSC issued a new order governing the Campus Bay site, ordering a new survey of toxins on site, removal of excavated soils dredged from a shoreline marsh and installation of a fence surrounding most of the property, replete with hazardous waste warning signs. 

Padgett and other members of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development say they are also concerned that both sites are slated for development by the same firm, Cherokee-Simeon Ventures. 

UC Berkeley plans to turn the field station into a corporate/academic research park, to be known as Bayside Research Campus, while Cherokee-Simeon hopes to turn Campus Bay into a 1,330-unit housing project. 

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Question: How can an election in which women are not allowed to run or vote, which is restricted to the municipal level and in which voters are allowed to elect only half of their city councils be vitally important?  

Answer: When it’s held in Saudi Arabia.  

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2005, will enter the history books as the day of the very first election in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a land that has been ruled with a tight fist by its namesake royal family since its establishment 80 years ago. Elections in the Palestinian territories and in Iraq last month did not in any way diminish the importance of the Saudi election. It was front-page news in the Arab press, including in Saudi newspapers, and was the subject of commentaries and columns throughout the region.  

A leading Saudi daily published in London, Asharq Al-Awsat, dedicated four front-page columns to a photo of a Saudi man holding up his son to drop his voting paper in the ballot box. Usually photos on this page are reserved for royal family members in routine acts of governing.  

In a commentary in the same paper, Amir Taheri called the election a significant historical day for the Kingdom on three levels. First, because it proved that people are capable of choosing for themselves. Second, because there was no public opposition to the election. And third, because the election gave a snapshot of the middle class in Saudi society, which is forging new cultural and social structures and overcoming the old tribal limits. Taheri concludes optimistically, predicting more reform and democracy in the near future.  

The Al-Watan daily in the capital city of Riyadh, where the first installment of voting took place, ran comprehensive coverage of the elections. Some of the headlines, stories, and comments could not have been published in a Saudi paper even just the day before. Along with the usual beat reporting, coverage included such reports as, “A Minister Couldn’t Vote When He Arrived Late,” “Candidates Blow Kisses to Get Votes,” “Candidates Picked for Wealth or Kinship, But Plans and Reputations Came First,” and “Mosques Became Campaigning Sites.” A reporter in the paper noted in his article that an election culture is beginning to “run in the blood of citizens.”  

The English language daily Arab News led its coverage with headlines such as, “High Hopes Abound for Fledgling Reforms,” “Saudis Vote in Historic Election” and “Women Can’t Be Left Far Behind.” Al-Hayat, another daily, reflected on the historic meaning of the municipal election.  

Beirut’s newspapers were no less excited. The headline in the Al-Mustaqbal daily, published in Beirut and distributed heavily in Saudi Arabia, called the elections a historic day passed in peace and order. As-Safir Daily wrote, “Saudi Arabia broke a psychological barrier with the ballot box.” But An-Nahar, Beirut’s leading daily, underscored the absence of women from the electorate, calling the elections “a first step waiting for the women’s vote.”  

In Kuwait, Al-Qabas’ headline read, “Saudis voted for reform in historic elections...and women are sad.” It quoted a Saudi official and member of the royal family, Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, who promised some form of national elections based on the success of the municipal one.  

However, the excitement was not enough to dismiss the forced absence of women. While most reports included some vague promises of women’s future participation, other columnists attacked the issue head-on. In her column titled, “For Men Only,” Sahar Ba’aseeri of An-Nahar Beirut called the election deficient and asserted that any reform that does not include women is doomed to fail.  

Karim Albedani of Al-Badeel in Baghdad, Iraq, labeled the election, “Men’s democracy of extremism.” He wrote that religion was no excuse for excluding women from the polls and saw this justification as pure dictatorial tactics.  

The municipal elections in Saudi Arabia will be conducted in three stages. The first was held in the capital Alreyad and the surrounding areas. The next election, on March 3, will cover the eastern provinces of the kingdom. The final stage will take place in the western regions on April 17.  

There were 1,818 candidates competing for 127 seats in yesterday’s elections.  

Veteran Arab journalist and New California Media associate Mohamad Ozeir is a former editor of the Arab American Journal. ›

Small schools, diversity, and the achievement gap between white and minority students—issues that have been driving Berkeley public school policy for several years—will be highlighted Wednesday at the Berkeley Unified School District board meeting. 

The board will consider proposals to refine and expand Academic Choice at Berkeley High and to add a small school for the arts to the BHS campus. In addition, the board will take a look at the state of the district’s finances, as well as respond to contract amendment proposals by its classified employees. 

The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

The 600-student Academic Choice (AC) Program functions as a sort of hybrid small school-large school program at Berkeley High, with participants taking specialized, accelerated AC courses while also eligible for the high school’s diverse elective classes. The AC design team is asking for board approval to expand to the ninth grade—it currently operates grades 10 to12—and to address concerns that minority groups are poorly represented in the program. 

In his recommendation of the AC proposal, BHS principal Jim Slemp writes that the high school administration “believe(s) that diversity in (the) program along with the high academic expectations will help reduce the achievement gap at BHS.” 

Shortly before it considers the AC proposal, the board will be asked to approve Berkeley High’s fourth small school: the Arts and Humanities Academy (AHA). If approved, AHA will join the high school’s existing Communications Arts and Science and Community Partnership Academy and the recently-approved School of Social Justice and Ecology. 

In its proposal, AHA insists that it will not detract from Berkeley High’s “finely developed” Visual and Performing Arts program, and will create a “national model for small schools of the arts.” 

On the financial front, the board will consider a revised fiscal report that assigns a “qualified” status to the district: that based on current projections, Berkeley Unified “may not” be able to meet its financial obligations through fiscal year 2006-07. 

The “qualified” designation was expected, with board members in recent weeks saying that while the district is on the right track financially after several difficult years, they did not think it was out of the woods yet. 

After having discussed the matter during several weeks of closed sessions, the board will be asked to ratify responses to the Berkeley Council of Classified Employees’ proposals to amend its three-year contract with the district. BCCE presented its proposals to BUSD in early December. Superintendent Michele Lawrence has said that such amendment proposals are common within a three-year labor contract cycle.

The Berkeley City Council meets today (Tuesday) with a single-minded focus on how to deal with the city’s estimated $7.5 million deficit. 

As part of Mayor Bates’ strategy for attacking the deficit, every month until June the council will devote one full meeting a month solely to the budget, with the first such meeting this week. 

No city manager’s report to the council was available at press time Monday. City Manager Phil Kamlarz’s recommendations, as listed on the meeting agenda, include authorizing one-day-a-month closure of non-essential city services and beginning talks with city unions about layoffs and other strategies to save money. Last year, the city compelled most of its unions to give back a portion of their scheduled raises to help close a $10.3 million deficit. 

With $3.5 million in unanticipated revenue, mostly from higher than expected revenue from a city tax on property transfers, Kamlarz is proposing that the council approve using the money for capital improvements like repairing roads and one-time expenditures such as a new police dispatch system. 

Kamlarz is also seeking the council’s permission to allocate reserves from the city’s general fund to offset negative balances in special funds, and is asking for feedback on a proposal to streamline city boards and commissions and reduce the staff support they receive.  

Last week, in preparation for finalizing the budget, councilmembers ranked their top 25 priorities and projects in a paper poll. The non-binding results, compiled by Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna, showed that the four highest vote getters, with votes from several councilmembers, included affordable housing, business retention, rebuilding the Center Street garage and updating the West Berkeley Plan.  

Receiving six votes apiece were the proposed downtown hotel and convention center, school-linked health services, creating an arts district in South Berkeley, improving the streetscape of San Pablo Avenue, increasing support for environmentally friendly buildings and improving the city’s ability to collect fines for parking violations. 

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A group of local environmentalists kicked off their bid Tuesday to pressure U.S. Congress and the Bush administration to ratify the Kyoto Protocol one city at a time. 

“Our hope is that people will step up as citizens and as city residents to do what the federal government refuses to do,” said Juliet Lamont of Kyoto USA. 

The group, founded last December by Berkeley residents Tom and Jane Kelly, has already won the support of the Berkeley City Council and friends in far away places. 

“Time is not on our side,” said Enele Sopoaga, United Nations Representative from the Island nation of Tuvalu, who flew in from New York for the Berkeley event this week. 

Sopoaga said that Tuvalu, a South Pacific island with 10,000 inhabitants, that rises no higher than four meters above the Pacific, has seen advancing sea levels, which he attributes to the effects of global warming, dump salt on its limited arable land. 

As the quality of its soil erodes from salt intrusion, Tuvalu has few options and has considered evacuating the island, Sopoaga said. 

“For us in Tuvalu and small island nations already suffering from climate change, this initiative is the best valentine that our global island and community could ever have,” he said. 

The Kyoto Protocol, which goes into effect Wednesday, requires signatories to reduce the levels of greenhouse gas emissions that are believed to result in global warming. 

The U.S., responsible for 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, is joined by Australia as the only two major industrialized nations not to sign the accord. Both nations have expressed concern that the restrictions required by Kyoto could harm domestic industry. 

Kyoto USA asks cities to effectively implement the protocol by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by between five to seven percent. 

“By acting individually and collectively, we clean our air and water, improve our health, create economic activity and leave a vibrant place for all the world’s children,” Tom Kelly said. 

Berkeley has initiated numerous programs aimed at reducing the city’s consumption of greenhouse gases. Among them, the city has converted its entire fleet of diesel trucks to non-polluting bio-diesel fuel, installed energy-saving light bulbs that reduce the need for natural gas, implemented a car share program where residents can use city cars during non-business hours, and hired students to give free home energy saving installations that have eliminated an estimated 281 tons of greenhouse gases.

“Everything happened so quickly,” says Pradeep, a tall, trim real estate agent based in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, recalling his first nervous meeting with Madhu, his bride-to-be, at a four-star hotel in New Delhi on Christmas 2002.  

He didn’t feel entirely comfortable with her, at first, he says. “She just sat there, biting her nails.” But Pradeep was impressed by something she said. “I asked, ‘What are you looking for in a husband?’ and she said, ‘He should be nice and caring.’ Usually, they ask how much money you make!”  

Pradeep and Madhu were married three weeks later, and she came to live with him in California in May 2003. In some ways, their story is typical—an Indian man who settles in the United States, earns some money, and goes back to India to choose a bride.  

But what happened next illustrates a dark side of the Indian marriage story. Pradeep, 31, a naturalized U.S. citizen, says he became the victim of extortion, embezzlement and immigration fraud.  

Pradeep and Madhu returned to India in January 2004 at her insistence so that she could see her family. According to documents Pradeep filed with U.S. immigration authorities, once they arrived at her family’s house, he was drugged, held at gunpoint, and held captive for weeks in an attempt to extort $60,000 and help in obtaining visas to the U.S. for the rest of the family.  

Only after his family in the U.S. contacted the FBI’s office in New Delhi, the Diplomatic Security Services, and the New Delhi police, was he able to escape.  

Ajay, a 27-year-old H1-B high tech worker in New Jersey, told India-West in a phone interview that he met his bride on Shaadi.com, a leading matrimonial Web site. After two years of marriage in the United States, she said she wanted to return to India to be with her parents.  

Back in India, she accused him of demanding a dowry and filed a complaint against him under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. Commonly called “498A,” the section defines the offense of “matrimonial cruelty” and makes demanding dowry a crime.  

The law has been a lifesaver for women who have faced harassment or torture at the hands of their husband or his family. Offenders face up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine.  

But 498A has become a nightmare for many husbands as well.  

In some cases where the accused husband has left India, judges have refused bail unless his family deposits a sum of money in his name as a precondition to the grant of bail; some men say their parents have been taken into custody as well. Ajay says he has had to pay a total of $10,000 in legal expenses to keep his own parents in India out of jail.  

The number of false dowry claims against men is still overshadowed by the number of dowry deaths and other dowry-related crimes against women in India. A BBC report last year stated that Indian government statistics showed that nearly 7,000 women were killed in 2001 by their husbands and in-laws over inadequate dowry payments.  

But the abuse of anti-dowry laws has become serious enough that the United States Department of State has published a travel warning about “Dowry/Visa Demands” for travelers to India. The warning states in part: “A number of U.S. citizen men who have come to India to marry Indian nationals have been arrested and charged with crimes related to dowry extraction ... The courts sometimes order the U.S. citizen to pay large sums of money to his spouse in exchange for the dismissal of charges. The courts normally confiscate the American’s passport, and he must remain in India until the case has been settled.”  

The State Department cannot say how many false complaints are filed each year. However, “The fact that we issued a warning should be an indication of how widespread the problem is,” says John Peters, the department’s citizen services specialist for India.  

Still, as in any case where an American citizen is accused of breaking local laws overseas, there is not much that the State Department can do, says Angela Aggeler, a State Department spokesperson.  

Just as the U.S. State Department’s ability to get involved is limited, so too is that of the Indian Embassy here in the U.S. Akhilesh Mishra, deputy consul general for the Consulate General of India in San Francisco, told India-West: “The Consulate has no specific role or comment on the issue, which has to be addressed through usual legal means.”  

Many Indian men who immigrate to the United States would never think to be concerned over whether a “slim, fair” bride advertised in the Times of India or on a marriage website might try to extort money or visas out of him.  

Deepak is a 28-year-old computational engineer in the East Bay who has spent his life savings battling 498A legal woes.  

“I see these guys at the airport on their way to India, and I think, ‘They look like poultry going to be slaughtered,’” he says with a melancholy laugh.  

Lisa Tsering is a staff reporter for India West, a San Leandro, Calif.-based news weekly. The names of the men who were allegedly victimized have been changed for their protection. 

›

NIGHT LIFE DISTRICT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Elliot Cohen wrote in his commentary “Why Not Create a Berkeley Night Life District?” (Daily Planet, Feb. 4-7) of issuing 24-hour operations permits to businesses in downtown Berkeley and promoting the developme nt of bars and clubs. “A night life entertainment district will add vibrancy to our city [and] help grow and support locally owned businesses” he said. I agree with Cohen, there should be 24-hour spots in Berkeley. Bars and clubs would be okay in moderation, but what about a few spots for people who just want to get out of the cold or maybe do a little late night studying? There is a distinct absence of 24-hour cafes and diners in Berkeley with no good reason. Such businesses would generate more money in the local economy with little worry of the problems that may accompany bars and night clubs, and they would contribute to the “vibrancy”—as Mr. Cohen puts—it which is sorely lacking in Berkeley currently. 

Ben Ditch 

• 

DERBY FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

T he only and last plan I saw for the proposed baseball field at Derby Street, the field orientation was not correct in relation to the batter/pitcher/sun relationship. If need be I will go to court (get it, sue) to enforce the proper orientation to protect the batter and the BUSD. 

Silly to build a new baseball field that is sub-standard. I only want the best baseball field that our public can buy. 

Richard Splenda 

• 

SAN PABLO CASINO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I really don’t see what’s so bad about the San Pablo Casino. The only real problem is competition for the card clubs and Nevada. People want to gamble, so let them—and tax them. 

If public morality is such a big issue, we then shouldn’t have so many liquor stores. We can’t even have a bus stop taking up in-and-out parking in front of a liquor store. 

At least the proposed casino will be on a main bus line. I’d be a big supporter of the casino if it paid a tax to support public transit, like the bridge tolls. I’d even ride the bus to play the slots onc e in a while. 

Steve Geller 

• 

LANDMARKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It seems that in Berkeley, the Landmark process is used to stop development of any kind. This cheapens the designation and is unfair to property owners. Many citizens appreciate the restoration of buildings of historic or architectural merit. However, Landmark designation should not be done without compensation to property owners that do not seek (and are saddled with additional costs) by it. It costs more to renovate landmark buildings (for seismic, ADA, building and fire code issues, etc.).  

If Berkeley truly values the landmarks it wishes to preserve, it should do several things. First, Berkeley should grant every property owner of a new landmark the right to sell the development rights that were taken as a result of the designation (i.e., a Transfer of Development Rights), a density bonus or other incentive. Secondly, Berkeley should provide not just the mandate, but also financial and technical assistance to rehabilitate such buildings. Lastly, Berkeley should institute a policy where the landmark process cannot begin after the development process on a property has begun (i.e., a credible project application). Absent these measures, the landmarks process will only be viewed as a tool of NIMBYs, rather than a tool for preservation.  

Ignacio Dayrit 

• 

CELIA’S  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The story on the granting of “structure of merit” status to Celia’s restaurant contained one error, and the decision itself highlights the main problem with this little-understood provision of the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance.  

Contrary to what the story claimed, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has not recommended the elimination of this category in the forthcoming revised LPO. During the preparat ion of its recommendations for changes to the ordinance, the LPC deliberately ducked: It concluded that structure of merit was too “huge” a public policy issue even to be considered, and its proposal was therefore silent on the issue. However, the State H istoric Preservation Office, the Mayor’s Task Force on Permitting, and local group Livable Berkeley have all recommended that this “largely redundant” category of protection be eliminated.  

The actual Celia’s decision shows how structure of merit has con sistently been used to distort desirable landmarking processes. The ordinance says that if a structure “does not currently meet the criteria as set out for a landmark, but it is worthy of preservation as part of a neighborhood, a block or a street frontag e, or as part of a group of buildings which includes landmarks, that structure may be designated a structure of merit.” That language is not meant to establish structure of merit as a “consolation prize,” although that’s clearly what was done with Celia’s. A structure of merit must contribute to a scene or neighborhood containing landmarked or landmark-worthy buildings. The isolated Celia’s, sitting alone on an expansive parking lot, is not “part of” anything in the sense that the ordinance requires. The fact that such a politically motivated designation could be passed without regard to the ordinance’s requirements shows that the useful life of this portion of the LPO has clearly passed.  

Alan Tobey  

• 

WEST BERKELEY BOWL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I genuinely appreciate Dale Smith’s saying he respects my opinions, but I am afraid that I cannot agree with his arguments for the West Berkeley Bowl (“Weighing in on West Berkeley Bowl,” Daily Planet, Feb. 11-14). 

It is certainly true that many people have to drive to buy groceries, as Smith says, given the way that cities are now built. 

It is also true that many people cannot drive to buy groceries, because they cannot afford cars or because they are too elderly to drive. This group will become larger as the population continues to age.  

Both these groups are served by traditional-sized neighborhood supermarkets of 27,000 or 28,000 square feet, such as Andronico’s and Whole Foods. But the people who cannot drive are not served by freeway-oriented mega-marke ts.  

The West Berkeley Mega-Bowl obviously will draw many shoppers who now use the University Avenue Andronico’s, and it may threaten that store’s economic viability. That Andronico’s serves people who walk to it from Strawberry Creek Lodge, many of whom are too elderly to drive and would not have access to a supermarket if Andronico’s failed.  

Doesn’t Smith remember how hard it was to get a replacement for the Safeway that used to be at the current Berkeley Bowl site? The city almost gave up and let a McFrugals move in, which would have left the neighborhood without a supermarket permanently. That Safeway was economically viable for decades, but it failed because of competition from freeway-oriented stores—and its failure was a real hardship for poor and elderly people in its neighborhood.  

More freeway-oriented supermarkets will mean more failures of neighborhood supermarkets, causing more hardship.  

Trucks delivering groceries to neighborhood stores are a bit of a nuisance, as Smith says (though I expect this nuisance will diminish as hybrid diesel trucks replace conventional diesel). However, in environmental terms, it is much better for trucks to bring groceries to the neighborhoods where people live than it is for people to abandon local superma rkets and drive further to freeway-oriented supermarkets.  

The current Bowl is already a regional draw, as Smith says. But there will be a much bigger regional draw that will destroy more local shopping if we have two Bowls instead of one—with the second Bowl 25 percent larger than the existing one and right on the freeway, where it is most convenient to regional shoppers.  

Charles Siegel  

• 

BIKING TO THE BOWL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In discussing the traffic problems that might result from a new Berkeley Bowl in southwest Berkeley, Dale Smith says it’s not possible to use a bike for grocery shopping when you have a family of four. That’s not true. I’ve been shopping for years for a family of five using a bike, just like any able-bodied person can. You put a rack and two large baskets over the back wheel, and a basket on the handlebars, and use a backpack if needed. If you take these simple steps, you might even end up spending less time shopping because you’ll never get stuck in our city’s increasingly vile gridlock or sit there burning fossil fuel while you wait for a parking spot.  

It’s a damn shame that every time people want to construct a useful building in this town there’s a hassle about cars and parking. Quit driving everywhere and the whole problem evaporates, plus you do the environment a favor. And when you bike to the Bowl, remember those reusable bags.  

Bob Schildgen 

• 

LEFT-WING ROVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One evening, after a meeting of local Democrats, we adjourned to the coffee shop to discuss the question of why we Dems always seem to be responding rather than being on the offensive. 

By the second latte, we had it nailed. What we need is a Democrat version of Karl Rove. So we asked ourselves, “What would Karl Rove do in our present state of affairs if he were a Democrat?” Halfway through the third latte we had him analyzed and categorized. Here’s what we came up with. 

When there is a serious issue, like Social Security or the war in Iraq, pick a diversionary topic and go on the attack. Pick something salacious, with strong overtones of self-righteous morality, but at the same time something really quite trivial and inconsequential in the general scheme of things. Frame it as a question, and then go on an all-out offensive with i t. 

For example, “Why, unlike her predecessor Madeline Albright, has Condoleezza Rice refused to come out of the closet? Why doesn’t she support gay rights? What is she afraid of?” And then for a snappy closer, use something with the phrase “American peo ple” in it, like. “The American people have a right to know who their secretary of state is.” 

We think that’s Rove to a T. What do you think Karl Rove would do if he were a Democrat? 

James Ritz 

El Cerrito 

• 

DOMESTIC ABUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I grea tly enjoy your newspaper and am especially gratified by its sensible combination of critical thinking and political awareness. It is therefore with some disappointment that I saw an egregious error in the Feb. 4 issue by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor (“Mayor Br own Takes Wrong Turn with Parolee Curfew”). Admittedly, it was not the central point of his column, but it is nevertheless galling to read regarding domestic violence calls for assistance: “The report did not specify whether the victims of the violence were wives or children.” Let’s see now, who is the author missing here?  

Many human beings struck by domestic violence, in fact almost certainly the majority of adult victims are not “wives.” Non-married women can of course be victims of domestic violence. And, as the Department of Justice has acknowledged, males constitute a significant percentage of domestic violence victims. Exact figures vary, as they inevitably will, but somewhere between 36 and 60 percent of all adult victims of domestic violence car ry a Y chromosome. If there ever was an excuse for willfully ignoring male victims, it disappeared with the 1997 publication of Philip Cook’s seminal book Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence. Dr. Martin S. Fiebert, psychology professor at Cal ifornia State University, Long Beach, has tabulated no fewer than 155 studies documenting the substantial levels of male victimization in domestic violence.  

Sure, males are on average stronger than females, but there are many exceptions, and the elements of surprise and weapons can easily flip the advantage to a female against even the brawniest male. As best-selling author Dr. Warren Farrell has repeatedly, tirelessly pointed out, out of well over 50 studies using randomly chosen subjects and studying both male and female violence, not a single one has concluded that males commit a substantial majority of domestic violence. Most studies find that, when we compare male and female, violence is an equal opportunity atrocity. At the National Coalition of F ree Men, the world’s largest and oldest membership organization devoted to public education regarding gender discrimination against males, we deplore all violence equally. We only seek to set the record, and Mr. Allen-Taylor, straight. 

J. Steven Svoboda 

P ublic Relations Director 

National Coalition of Free Men 

• 

ENOUGH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Richard Brenneman, please, please stop your strained attempts at humor and cleverness in the Daily Planet’s Police Blotter column. Please. 

You appear to be trying t o self-consciously recreate the well-loved oddball tone of small-town crime reports (”woman reported man cooing like dove; when officers arrived, he was cawing like a crow; citation issued for disturbing the peace”) while at the same time giving your very considerable vocabulary and store of cop clichés a workout. That’s all very nice for you. 

But think of those who have been victims of the crimes you write about. It’s simply inappropriate to turn these items into little entertainment nuggets. (The curre nt crop of items (Feb. 11-14) includes several examples of what I’m talking about: “When Girlfriends Collide,” “Painful Pier Pounding,” ‘Assault with Deadly Phone.’ All are marked by an overdose of arch attitude and a dearth of basic facts). 

And think of your readers. The reason the small-town crime reports are well-loved is because less is more: The incidents are related in a straightforward way. The humor and irony in them, if there is any, lies in understatement, in letting the oddness of the facts sp eak to the reader with the minimum of editorial intervention. Beyond the matter of tone is the issue of substance: In a place like Berkeley where serious, big-city crime can and does happen, the police blotter has a serious role to play as a public service; that role is only undercut by well-meaning but misguided attempts to turn crime reporting into humor writing. 

Dan Brekke 

• 

THANKS FOR THE LAUGHS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am now firmly convinced that the high point of Richard Brenneman’s week is when he gets to write the headlines and details of the Police Blotter. This week, a “Painful Pier Pounding” and “When Girlfriends Collide” made for entertaining reading, reminiscent of old Rocky and Bullwinkel episodes. Thanks for the laughs! 

Tim Cannon 

• 

WAR M WATER POOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After fighting many battles for over a decade to retain and rehab the Berkeley High School warm water pool, the community finds the pool’s existence is in crisis once again. The warm water pool is used by students of B USD, Vista College and is prescribed by medical practitioners as physical therapy for the disabled and elderly. For the past decade, there have been attempts from various quarters to divest the Berkeley High School campus of the warm water pool. Even thou gh the BUSD board has previously voted to keep the warm water pool in the south campus of BHS and the Berkeley voters passed Measure R in 2000 which provided $3 million to rehab the warm water pool at its current location; there are now renewed attempts to derail the pool. 

The BUSD hired consultants to guide a BHS South Campus Master Plans planning process with a series of meetings over the past several months. The major proposed change for the south campus to emerge from this process was the relocation of the Berkeley warm water pool to the former tennis courts on Milvia St., which the district is currently using to park employees cars. In order to accommodate the parking spaces that would be displaced by the warm water pool facility, the consultants al so recommended a three-story parking structure. 

Problems with this scenario were articulated by myself and others at the meetings: 1) the City of Berkeley has conducted a study of the tennis court site for a parking structure and found that it was infeas ible even using the whole site (the BUSD consultants recommendation uses only half the site for parking); 2) the school district has no funding in the bond measure for construction of a parking structure which would only replace the same number of existing parking spaces on the site; 3) the cost to relocate the pool plumbing and utilities connection to a new location on Milvia Street could surpass the money allotted in the $3 million bond measure. 

Warm water pool users are not adverse to moving the warm water pool to the Milvia St. site; but is it a real proposal or is it a bait and switch proposal to allow the go ahead with the South Berkeley High School campus plan without the warm water pool and once it comes to actually putting the warm water pool on the Milvia Street parking lot it will be found to be infeasible and pool users will be left high and dry? All I know is I’m once again hearing from high-level people with the city and the BUSD that the YMCA could provide a warm water pool. (Every five years or so this idea is floated until it sinks.) The small pool the YMCA has for warm water use is not deep or large enough. The Y also has a long-term contract with multiple sclerosis groups for use of their pool at a considerably lesser temperature than what is needed by those who use the BHS warm water pool.  

Despite all the previous attempts by various parties to scuttle the warm water pool from the Berkeley High School campus, hundreds of pool users and their family and friends have managed (through petitions and attending meetings) to convince the Berkeley Board of Education that the pool should stay where it is. Two thirds of Berkeley voters solidified this decision in 2000 with Measure R. A majority of school board members are on record saying the y support the current location of the warm water pool.  

It’s critical that we move forward now without further delay in rehabbing the “Fred Lupke” warm water pool especially since we’ve already lost 15% of the value of the bond measure due to inflation i n the past four years of waiting. On Thursday, Feb. 17, the 2 X 2 Committee will meet at 8:30 a.m. at 2180 Milvia St. in the sixth floor conference room and on its agenda is the South Berkeley High School campus plan. If members of the community would like to help on this issue, please send your name and phone number to me at dspring@ci.berkeley.ca.us . 

Councilmember Dona Spring?

Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas 

Í

Now that the movie Million Dollar Baby has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, and conservative groups and some members of the disabled community are openly criticizing the subject matter covered within the film, I think it’s safe to talk about its plot in this column. However, if you haven’t seen this flick and would like to be surprised by the ending, read no further. I’m about to disclose the final moments of the film and my reaction to it.  

My husband Ralph and I went to see Million Dollar Baby a few weeks ago, unaware of the entire storyline. We’d read the reviews and knew that the film was garnering acting and directing acclaim, including Golden Globe awards and Oscar nominations. Hilary Swank has a starring role in Million Dollar Baby and we think she’s a terrific actress. Last year we saw and liked Mystic River, a Clint Eastwood-directed film. We’re big fans of any movie in which Morgan Freeman appears. 

We knew that the movie was about female boxing and this interested us as well. The only person we know who boxes is our friend Rachel. For years she trained at King’s Gym in East Oakland before moving to New Jersey to attend Princeton University. We got together with Rachel’s parents, Harvey and Lynn, and made a date to view Million Dollar Baby together at the AMC Multiplex Theater in Emeryville.  

Million Dollar Baby begins like many boxing movies: seedy gym, crotchety trainer (played by Eastwood), determined, naïve young fighter (Swank), and wise, but down on his luck, former almost-champ-turned-janitor-turned-narrator, Morgan Freeman. The beginning of the movie reminded me of Rocky, except that it isn’t set in Philadelphia, Swank isn’t Italian, and she doesn’t run up the steps of the art museum to the sounds of triumph. Million Dollar Baby takes place in Los Angeles. Swank is Midwestern trailer park trash. She’s a waitress, a loner who saves money for boxing gear by eating other people’s leftovers. She jogs on the beach, rides city buses, and like Rocky, she has a heart of gold. 

Where the movie’s plot diverges from Rocky is that in the end Swank doesn’t win the big bout. In the last fight, in which she competes for the Women’s Middle Weight World Championship, she is knocked out by an illegal punch and ends up with a severed spinal chord, unable to breathe on her own, paralyzed from the neck down, confined to a hospital bed and wheelchair. 

Oh boy. Try going to a movie like this with a husband who uses an electric wheelchair, who is paralyzed below the shoulders and hooked to an oxygen tank at night. The film pushed some buttons with Ralph and me, and in the final scenes, when Swank begs Eastwood to kill her, I was uncomfortable and disappointed. This is the part of the movie that has disability rights groups upset, particularly those who represent people with spinal chord injuries, and those who take care of them. I understand why. Assisted death is not a happy topic. The young fighter’s decision to die sends a message to viewers that life with a spinal chord injury is not worth living. On the other hand, it broaches a topic that many quads and their caregivers have had to confront. My husband, of course, does not agree with the disabled boxer’s decision, and I don’t think I could do what the Eastwood character finally does. But this is Hollywood’s sanitized, sentimental version of the real thing. Swank gets her wish and dies a seemingly satisfied, peaceful, physically attractive woman. Eastwood walks stoically out of the hospital and off into the sunset, and Freeman inherits the gym. 

Million Dollar Baby is not at the top of my list as this year’s favorite movie. I prefer two other Academy nominated Best Pictures: Ray, because I loved the music, and Sideways, because it made me smile. I enjoy motion pictures that make me snap my fingers and laugh. I don’t need to think anymore about the issues examined in Million Dollar Baby. But that’s because I already have. ?

Do you think Strom Thurmond loved his baby mama? Did he love her gentleness, her sense of humor, the look of her luscious brown skin or the feel of her soft, cottony hair? Or was she just a booty call? No, those are generally consensual. And how could a poor, black, teenaged maid consent to have sex with her wealthy, white, adult employer in the 1920s, and in South Carolina, no less? If it wasn’t statutory rape, perhaps it was just another case of American family values, Southern Christian style. 

This was the South of many of my ancestors. I remember clearly my grandmother recalling her own grandmother, who had been a slave, stating emphatically that there was nothing on God’s earth lower than a man who would sell his own child. But, many so-called Christian American white men did just that. Strom didn’t sell his daughter but he did banish her from public view. She became reborn after his death, his “legitimate” family acknowledged that yes, she was their daddy’s outside chile. I wonder whether they would have claimed her had she not been so genteel, so fair-skinned, wellspoken and eddicated. Suppose Strom’s chile had been of a darker hue with wild, nappy hair, splittin’ verbs, on welfare, perhaps a baby mama herself. Would they have claimed her then?  

According to George Bush—well, according to his inaugural speech writers: “From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and Earth.” 

Uh, excuse me? Hello? Are we invisible? Do we not count any more today than we did then? (Condi, are you hearing this?) 

The same Southern belles who sipped mint juleps, daintily dabbing sweat from their milky brows while reciting favorite Bible verses to their gentlemen callers, are the same “Christian” white women who packed plentiful picnic baskets lest their little darlings become cranky while attending community lynchings of innocent black men.  

Sometimes, those lynched were innocent black women. And sometimes, those women were pregnant. And sometimes, the fathers of those innocent unborn babies were white men exercising the rights granted to them by this country’s slave-owning Founding Fathers. Talk about family values. Talk about being pro-life. 

But that was then, you say. This is now. Get over it. I didn’t do it. 

Well, I haven’t committed any crimes either, yet brown-skinned Americans like me are routinely subjected to racial profiling whether we’re walking, shopping or driving and we are still denied equal opportunities when seeking jobs, financing, education, housing, health care, you name it. Do you object equally to that? Even saxophone blowin’, Harlem livin’ Bill Clinton couldn’t muster enough courage and honesty to lead this country in apologizing to African Americans for the holocaust on our soil and the continuing vestiges of American racism. Is the melanin in our skin so repellant? (Note to self: essay re tanning salons and how much is too much.) 

Bush did make one reference to racism which—coincidentally?—directly followed the sentence: “Americans…must always remember that even the unwanted have worth.” The reference was as follows: “…our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.” I would have loved to have heard exactly what Bush meant by “habits” and “baggage,” what he acknowledges is left over from slavery days. Apparently, fellow Southerner Trent Lott, loyal supporter of segregationist-by-day Strom Thurmond, doesn’t represent something left over, seeing as he was the honored emcee of Bush’s inaugural evening and all. 

Bush further stated that “(Our) public interest depends on private character, on integrity and tolerance toward others,” and that “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.” 

What? One of my father’s favorite Shakespeare quotes is: “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” We are left to wonder exactly which Americans and whose family values, beliefs and interests are to be fully tolerated and by whom. I have to wonder if Jesus himself were alive today and had run for the presidency on the platform that because we are all brothers and sisters in the eyes of God, we are obligated to put first the needs of the poor, the sick and the outcasts, how many Christian-Family-Values-Republicans would have voted for him? 

This is my America. Some of my ancestors were caretakers of this stolen land. Some of my ancestors were thieves. (Although the writers of my children’s textbooks prefer the word “settled” to “stole.”) Some of my ancestors were kidnapped and raped. Some of my ancestors kidnapped and raped. It is all part of our collective history. We’re stuck with it and it’s high time we owned up to it, all of it, the good and the bad. 

We can’t move on until we do. 

›

In 1984 George Orwell described a Ministry of Truth, which operated a system of mind control, Newspeak, used to keep the citizens of Oceania under the thumb of a totalitarian regime headed by the ubiquitous Big Brother. The slogans of the Ministry were: “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength.” 

It’s not clear whether George W. Bush ever encountered 1984—he often appears to have read only the Bible and My Pet Goat—but Orwell’s ideas about mind control have found a home in the Bush administration. This is a regime that delights in its own version of newspeak, “Bushspeak.” Through its own Ministry of Truth, the administration parades a series of illusions before an ever more gullible public; for example, the same George Bush who was asleep at the wheel before 9/11 and who responded to the threat of Al Qaeda by diverting our resources into a disastrous war in Iraq, is portrayed as a strong leader who will keep us safe; the administration “balances” the budget by leaving out the cost of the war. 

Make no mistake, Bushspeak is working: The 2004 presidential exit polls revealed that Bush supporters believed that Iraq supported the 9/11 attacks (75 percent) and had weapons of mass destruction (73 percent). They saw the war in Iraq as directly connected to the war on terror, and they trusted President Bush to do the right thing to win. In a trenchant analysis in the New York Review of Books, UC Professor Mark Danner observed that in the election Bush voters, “faced a stark choice: either discard the facts, or give up the clear and comforting worldview that they contradicted. They chose to disregard the facts.” 

Cloistered in the bookstores and coffee houses of Berkeley, it is easy for many of us to dismiss these Bush supporters as witless lemmings eager to follow their leader into the abyss. But their sheer numbers, more than 60 million, makes them impossible to ignore. More critically, our security is tied to theirs; whether we like it or not, we have a stake in the outcome of the war on terror—whether an American is “blue” and “red” may be important distinctions to us, but not to jihadis. 

If we are to change the direction of the war in Iraq, take steps to increase our national security, it is vital that we understand the Orwellian system of mind control being used by the Bush administration, that we dissect Bushspeak, the system that has convinced so many that “Freedom is Slavery.”  

Operating out of the White House, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes skillfully coordinate the administration message. Once decided upon, a particular theme—for example, that the Iraqi elections must be held on Jan. 30—is relentlessly communicated through the network of conservative media outlets. Many Bush supporters believe that we are winning the war on terrorism, despite objective evidence to the contrary, because they are told this daily by commentators such as radio’s Rush Limbaugh and Fox TV’s Bill O’Reilly. (The documentary Outfoxed detailed the vital role that Fox News plays in disseminating Bushspeak. 

Although Americans take pride in having a free press, the media has generally been content to pass on the official Bush version of the status of the Iraq war. There are two reasons for this: The administration has relentlessly bullied the press by, for example, denying critical access to all but the most “loyal” reporters. And, the situation in Iraq is so dangerous that most U.S. correspondents can’t get anywhere near the actual fighting; in September, a Wall Street Journal reporter, Farnaz Fassihi, complained from Baghdad that her life, “is like being under virtual house arrest…[I] can’t look for stories, can’t drive in anything but a full armored car, can’t go to scenes of breaking news...” 

The Bush version of the Ministry of Truth is constantly in attack mode, ready to pillory anyone who disagrees with the administration, to question a critic’s sanity, patriotism, and manhood; it is commonplace for decorated veterans, such as Max Cleland and John Kerry to be ridiculed by the president and his advisers—none of whom have ever been in battle—and described as cowards, appeasers, or collaborators with Osama bin Laden.  

It’s not unique in American politics to disparage your opponent; dreadful mud slinging has been a characteristic of American politics since our first elections. What is different about the Bush administration is the discipline and coordination that characterize their negative campaigns, and their understanding of how to play to fear. Bushspeak works because those in charge of the Ministry of Truth are skilled and believe that their ends justify any means. 

The success of the Bush Ministry of Truth produced the paradoxical situation where, although a majority of Americans feel the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, they still expect George W. Bush to lead the nation to victory. Meanwhile, the rest of the world watches in astonishment as the U.S. swirls slowly down the toilet. Of course, foreigners haven’t fallen under the spell of Bushspeak, and therefore, don’t understand our new mottos: “In George we trust,” and “Ignorance is strength.” 

›

Middle School Stoners 

Berkeley Police are looking for the 10 or so youths who hurled stones at a motorist just before 8:30 a.m. Thursday from the ground of Willard Middle School. 

According to Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies, the rocks shattered the vehicle’s rear window. 

The case remains under investigation. 

iPod Grabber Nabbed 

Police arrested a 20-year-old fellow on robbery charges early Thursday afternoon after he grabbed a pedestrian’s music player near the corner of Benvenue Avenue and Parker Street. 

Rape Under Investigation 

Citing an ongoing investigation, Officer Okies declined to offer details of a rape that occurred near the corner of Delaware Street and San Pablo Avenue just before 7 a.m. Friday. 

Signed Off to Jail 

A man wielding a wooden sign like a cudgel earned himself a hefty set of criminal charges following a Friday evening dustup outside the Nomad Cafe on Shattuck Avenue. 

Officer Okies said the fellow slammed the sign into the front of the cafe shortly before 9:30 p.m. 

When cafe employees stepped outside to investigate, the brazen basher charged them, swinging the sign. 

The workers retreated inside the eatery, calling police and barricading the door until officers arrived. 

Still the suspect refused to let go of his weapon of choice, earning him a charge of resisting arrest in addition to counts of assault with a deadly weapon and vandalism. 

Bottle Bashers 

Emergency room workers at Alta Bates hospital called Berkeley police at 1:44 a.m. Saturday after a young man arrived, bleeding from a head wound inflicted by a quartet of hooligans who accosted him outside his frat house at 2728 Bancroft Way. 

The victim said his assailants were all in their late teens to early 20s. 

Punched for Cell 

A young man in a dark hooded sweatshirt slugged a 33-year-old man in the head near the corner of California Street and Alcatraz Avenue shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday.›

MONTREAL— Before last year’s election, lots of blue-state Americans said they'd leave for Canada if Bush was re-elected. Then the unthinkable happened. But the word on the street is that few have left. 

I think that’s too bad, speaking as a U.S./Canadian dual citizen. (Binationality isn’t just for Ahnold anymore.) More Americans really should head north—at least for a few days’ visit. Canadians don’t brag as well as Texans, but they do some other things better. Run a country, for example. 

Just after the State of the Union speech, in which Bush and his cohorts formally sharpened their knives to carve up Social Security and progressive taxation, I flew up here for a scheduled trip. In Canada’s centrist national newspaper, I found a column saluting Canada as “one of only three countries (the others are Britain and Australia) whose citizens can have full confidence that their pensions will be available for them.” 

“Canadian business and Canadian workers accepted that their payroll taxes were going to have to go up” in 1998, wrote the Toronto Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson, “and now we enjoy both the security and the competitive advantage of a fully funded pension scheme. ... Good on us.”  

Even better when you consider that Canada’s payroll-tax rates are still a good deal lower than their U.S. counterparts. And they phase out at sharply lower income levels. (Canada’s equivalent of Social Security is actually several programs, some funded out of general tax revenues.) So even if the core Canada Pension Plan turns out not to be fully endowed through the Baby Boomers’ retirement, Canadian officials have plenty of room for relatively painless maneuver. 

While solving fiscal issues that seem insoluble in the U.S., Canada has also dodged U.S.-style circular culture wars. The country is about to legislatively extend marriage rights to gays in the same way that it permanently abolished capital punishment in 1976: with the support (active or tacit) of most national party leaders. Marijuana decriminalization is on a similar track. On global warming, Canada signed the Kyoto accord years ago. 

While U.S. broadcasters self-censor Saving Private Ryan lest the FCC fine them for a stray naughty word buried in the soundtrack, Canadian networks feel no pressure to snip incidental nudity out of prime-time movies. Late at night, lots of over-the-air stations show adult flicks. Public radio unblushingly runs risque spoken-word pieces. When Canada’s answer to CNN rehashes the Janet Jackson controversy from last year’s Super Bowl, it shows the “wardrobe-malfunction” footage again—unaltered and uncut. It’s basically Europe, eh? 

The cover girls on my Air Canada seat-back magazine were three mass-media sex educators. After the in-flight movie, where U.S. carriers would run cheesy network infomercials, we enjoyed Canadian-produced indie animation shorts whose tone ranged from edgy to pleasantly macabre. The weather report included Cuba, a popular vacation spot for snowbound Canadians. 

Mark Twain once wrote that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” And it’s our red-staters who really deserve a trip up north. 

Tens of millions of them fervently believe that government-run health care is unthinkable—despite living just south of a country where free, universal health care works pretty well, thank you. Canada’s national budget has been in surplus every year since 1998. 

Despite its liberal social policies, or because of them, Canada has a lower crime rate than the U.S. And it scores substantially better on most social indicators. 

U.S.-Canadian cultural differences can’t be reduced to simply abstemious versus unrestrained. While the U.S. diligently curbs sexual expression, it runs persistently huge budget deficits and maintains one of the industrial world’s lowest savings rates. The Canadian ethos is to tolerate higher income-tax rates, save up for your retirement, then get jiggy all you want (but please be careful). Who’s more responsible here? 

Canada certainly isn’t paradise, and red-state tourists deserve to see its lows as well as its, um, highs. GOP radicals who salivate about replacing the income tax with a national sales tax should experience first-hand the displeasure of paying Canada’s national “goods and services tax.” Combined with local sales taxes, it imposes a premium of up to 15 percent on everything from fun to funerals. 

Where Canadians dully do right, it’s not because they’re a nation of angels. Nor is there LSD in the water supply. Gay marriage and Kyoto have been—and remain—Canadian controversies. But you’ll find the same basic social tolerance and respect for public enterprise in Minnesota, Vermont, Sweden, or Norway. Cold weather tends to bring people together. 

Another influence on Canadians: If travel kills prejudice, so does migration. Canada’s percentage of residents born abroad is about twice that in the U.S., and Canada seeks out immigrants with advanced degrees. Those well-educated transplants help leaven a more cosmopolitan country. So does a higher urbanization rate. 

Canada is far from a classless society, but you have to look hard to find either the gated palaces or the crumbling slums that define U.S. cities’ extremes. You’ll look even harder to find the rigid segregation, deep despair, alienation, or lethal rage that afflict U.S. or European ethnic ghettos. 

I can’t make a good case for Californians to visit Canada this time of year for the weather. But Quebec City’s festive Winter Carnival certainly shows how to make lemonade from lemons (or at least ice sculptures from frozen water), with a backdrop of postcard-ready 17th-century architecture. 

Montreal is hosting an exhibition of Egyptian antiquities from the renowned British Museum. Ottawa and Vancouver museums have 1960s retrospectives. North of Vancouver, there’s world-class powder skiing at Whistler’s European-style resort. And plenty is always hopping in Toronto. 

So come on, all you would-be blue-state expatriates: Put your blue noses where your mouths are. At least for a few days. By the way, you’ll need about 10 years of Canadian residence to qualify for Canada’s Old Age Security Pension, so don’t put off requesting those threatened immigration papers too much longer. 

Michael Katz lives in Berkeley when he’s not soaking up the winter sun in eastern Canada. 

Saturday, Jan. 22 marked the 32nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which abortion rights supporters celebrated as necessary for women’s equality and well-being. Here in the Bay Area, a new Roe tradition began on that day—a first ever Walk for Life in honor of those whose lives were ended before birth, and in support of women and men who bear the scars of abortion.  

We who walked did not do so in judgment of any individual who has been through abortion; we walked for justice toward the most vulnerable members of our human family, calling our neighbors to embrace a better choice: Non-violent response to unplanned pregnancy. Together with Alice Paul, author of the original Equal Rights Amendment, we view abortion as “the ultimate exploitation of women.” 

As Bay Area residents, we know we represent a minority opinion on abortion. We are not surprised that abortion rights proponents were threatened by our incursion on their perceived territory. A local Planned Parenthood spokesperson fretted, “(w)e couldn’t believe that they had the nerve to come to San Francisco.” What did surprise us was that our own elected officials in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland “unwelcomed” us in no uncertain terms by declaring our cities “pro-choice and proud.” Remarkably, those who otherwise celebrate diversity are unable to imagine any diversity of opinion on abortion.  

While “pro-lifers” may be a Bay Area minority—portrayed by abortion rights activists as exotic and fearsome creatures—we are everywhere. We’re behind you waiting to pay our bridge toll, on the mat next to yours at yoga class, ahead of you in line at the Berkeley Bowl or Farmers’ Market. We actually lead pretty normal lives, juggling work and home responsibilities. We send relief money to Asia and sponsor children in Africa. Some of us have worked in teen sexuality education or helped those experiencing unplanned pregnancy.  

We who pen this piece include a single, adoptive mother, two San Francisco natives (one of whom serves on the city’s fire department), and a homeless shelter volunteer. We were happy to march with farmers from Fresno, blue-haired grandmothers from Modesto, and students from UCSF, Stanford and UC Berkeley. None of us are outsiders in the cause of justice toward preborn children. 

For each of us our anti-abortion commitment represents part of a broader vision of social justice. We have agitated for health care and immigrant rights and demonstrated against wars, apartheid and the death penalty. It is natural for us publicly to oppose a violence carried out daily much closer to home, in medical facilities we pass on our way to work.  

Some of us have had abortions or paid for them. Many of us only realized the destructiveness of abortion after making the choice. Others have lost a sibling to abortion or were ourselves at risk of abortion due to the circumstances of our own conception. Understandably, we are uneasy with any assertion that our lives had value before birth only if someone else wanted us.  

Just 150 years ago the rhetoric of personal choice was employed to uphold the institution of slavery: slaves were judged to be the personal property of their owners—not unlike today’s judgment that preborn children are the property of their mothers, to be discarded if she or someone influencing her does not want the child.  

“Pro-lifers” are here to stay. On Jan. 22 we walked to challenge our neighbors to a higher ideal than that embodied by Roe. On the remaining 364 days of the year we will work in quiet, largely hidden ways, so that one day soon each and every child may be both protected by law and welcomed into life. 

Monika Rodman is a Berkeley resident. Her co-authors are residents of Oakland, San Francisco and Marin County, respectively. 

›

Gov. Schwarzenegger has broken his promise to protect schools and students from harmful budget cuts. His recent budget proposals undermine the education funding protections California voters supported through Proposition 98. We cannot allow this to happen. Just in the last several years, California schools have suffered more than $9.8 billion in cuts. This means that schools across the state have had to shut down, increase their class sizes, layoff many wonderful teachers and support staff They suffer from a shortage of needed librarians, counselors, nurses, custodians, and grounds keepers. Gov. Schwarzenegger is content with California’s ranking 43rd in the nation for per-pupil funding. By under funding our education he is forcing our schools to go without basic supplies and instructional materials, cut art and music programs, extracurricular activities and, after-school programs.  

As the student director of Berkeley’s Board of Education, I know firsthand how difficult it is for California school districts to stretch ever shrinking state dollars and attempt to provide quality education to our students. Here in Berkeley we are fortunate that our community has been willing, time and time again to vote for local taxes to make up for some of what state funding has failed to provide for public education, but many communities are not so fortunate. 

California voters approved Proposition 98 to protect schools and students. The governor shouldn’t ignore the voters, our students or our schools. I am calling on everyone in the state to speak out in defense of public education funding, but I am calling most specifically on students across the state. We must stand up and be counted. Our educational resources continue to be taken away from us by both state and national politicians, who continue to call themselves supporters of education.  

Gov. Schwarzenegger has sent a clear message that he does not want to invest in our education and more importantly California’s future. Our quality of life is at risk and we cannot just stand by quietly while our right to a quality education is taken from us.  

Join me in sending a clear message to Gov. Schwarzenegger that we will not stand by while he fails to honor his promise, and that we will not be satisfied with the under funding of our schools. We must remind our governor that 930,754 California juniors and seniors will be of voting age by the next election, and we will make our first vote count. 

Before then there are many other things we can do. I urge all supporters of education to write letters to the governor and your state legislators. You can also meet with local officials, school board members, city councilmembers, and mayors and ask them to join us in confronting this state wide problem. What ever you choose to do, it is critical that you do it now.  

Lily Dorman-Colby is the student director of the Berkeley Unified School District’s Board of Education.›

When Rita Kimball became the principal of Washington Elementary School seven years ago, she says, it was an institution in crisis. Morale was low, test scores were down and teachers argued bitterly in staff meetings. 

“It was the most dysfunctional schoo l I’ve ever worked in,” says Kimball, an educator for 30 years in Albuquerque, N.M., and the Bay Area. In her first year, she let six teachers go. 

Since then, she has brought in a core of young and committed instructors. Of 15 teachers currently on staff, only two remain from before her tenure; no new teachers were hired this year.  

At the height of the state’s budget crisis two years ago, however, more than half of Washington’s teachers were slated to lose their jobs because they lacked seniority. 

After district-wide retirements and leaves were tabulated, all but one of the positions were restored.  

Nonetheless, Kimball says, after hiring a new staff, “it was rather a shock to think that we’d lose them all.”  

The crisis brought into sharp focus the investment in the school of those close to it. 

Marlene Cornelius, co-secretary of the school’s PTA, recalls marching to the school district’s headquarters after the layoffs were announced with other parents, students and school staff to demand that Super intendent Michele Lawrence restore the positions. 

Cornelius, a former teacher, says that the sense of community at the school, a boxy two-story structure at 2300 Martin Luther King Jr. Way with sun-drenched classrooms, is unique. Faustus, her third-grade son, asks to be taken to the playground after school and during the summer to be with his classmates. 

“You can’t buy that,” she says. 

Joel Scholefield, a second grade teacher hired by Kimball, agrees, saying that if the cuts had gone through, “everything Rita had done would have been lost.” 

Teachers now draw up lesson plans together and give each other ideas on what does and doesn’t work in the classroom. 

While federal funding for the communications and technology magnet program ran out this fall, the school remains a magnet, incorporating themes such as storytelling, drama and video production into the curriculum of all 310 students. 

Bruce Simon, who is in charge of curriculum at the school, says that one of the challenges Washington faces is teaching a diverse student body. 

Washington’s students are predominantly African American and Hispanic and come mainly from western and southern Berkeley. More than 56 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunches; district-wide, the average is 5 0 percent. 

Washington is also the only school in the district using the CARE program, which educates teachers on ways to make minority students more comfortable and successful in school.  

Although funding remains tight throughout the district, Kimball h as confidence that she will not again be faced with the prospect of mass layoffs at Washington. 

“Superintendent Lawrence will make sure it doesn’t happen,” says Kimball.  

Lawrence confirms that the district’s budget is now stable. 

While “everyone has b ought into Rita’s vision 100 percent,” Cornelius says, the reputation of the school among parents deciding where to send their children is lower than it should be, likely because of its troubled past. 

“If people took a better look at what was going on at the school,” Cornelius says, “they’d be happy with what they saw.” 

This is the ninth in a series profiling the Berkeley elementary schools. The reports are written by students of the UC Berkeley Journalism School. 

›

The May Flower 

2156 University Ave. 

883-9788 

I frequent many of the restaurants in the Downtown/University Avenue area and I believe the May Flower is a top notch option but unfortunately not well known because of a very discrete store front set back a bit from the street. 

The May Flower has excellent quality ingredients, good variety on the menu, very affordable pricing and a very clean, friendly professional ambiance. You will really like the owners/staff, a Chinese immigrant couple working exceptionally hard (seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.) to stay in America and provide their young children with an opportunity to better themselves. 

Nice story, nice people, very good restaurant that deserves some attention from local diners looking for very good quality at a very fair price. I frequent the place once or twice a week and really enjoy my meals and speaking with the couple that runs the place. 

—Roy A. Lettieri  

If you have a nomination for Berkeley’s Best, an occasional Daily Planet feature based on reader submissions, send it to: best@berkeleydailyplanet.com 

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Fledgling theater troupe Ragged Wing Ensemble has plucked a triumph from a famous exercise in physical theater in their first production, Jean Claude Van Itallie’s The Serpent, originally created for The Open Theater (Joe Chaikin’s group) in New York, 1968. 

True to the ensemble in their name, Ragged Wing has made a show that runs with a smooth yet ecstatic kinesis, gestures and voices falling into place, moving alongside and with each other like the pistons of a driving engine. 

The breadth and depth of what they’ve accomplished with this initial sally onstage involves measuring the clean, constantly moving lines of what they’ve delineated of The Serpent against the overtones of director Amy Sass’ comment, introducing the show, that the text—a collaboration between playwright, the Open Theater company and director developed during rehearsal from Van Itallie’s scenario—is overwhelmingly one of stage directions. 

It shows in the fluid staging Sass and the troupe have laid out for a story that’s “a collage” (in Sass’ words), from the miming of a firing squad to a spinal tap to look inside the skull of the victim (“the brain is cream-colored; if we press here, we get fear ... if the patient survives, she’ll live for weeks, or months—or years ... no limit to what the mind receives—or dreams”) to the JFK assassination, played and rewound and replayed from different angles (the President’s wife, reaching back to his shattered head, is Anna Schneiderman, co-founder of Ragged Wing—and production manager) while the chorus (recently masked in mournful tragic style) reacts, smiling and waving, or with horrified faces, curbside. 

“I no longer live in the beginning ... I’m in the middle ... Knowing neither beginning nor end ... Going away from the beginning towards the end.” The biggest surprise of the evening is perhaps that this freely-developed, associational text then settles down into the most linear of accounts, the chapters of Genesis immediately after the creation of man and woman: the temptation and fall and the first murder, Cain and Abel. 

Andrea Hart, Jeffrey Hoffman and Frank Turco form a tripartite well-oiled, provocatively hissing serpent—the title role!—insinuatingly questioning the original couple (“Is it true you may do anything in the garden you choose? Not even touch? Not touch? Why?”) until Eve gets the message and chews the fruit forbidden—and passes it on. “Then [Adam (Keith C. Davis)] began to examine his ears, eyes nose, mouth—his own mind ... He couldn’t spit out the fruit or swallow it.” Clearly, much for a contemporary audience to identify with. 

The dawn of time is thus recapitulated, with ‘60s soul-searching. Man blames woman, woman the snake (who asks God, “Why did they obey me and not you?”) Adam and Eve do an athletic ballet of “original sin.” The chorus recites the generations of Genesis from great tomes—which then snap shut. “If God exists, it is through me; he’ll protect me”; Cain’s murder of Abel is, like the Kennedy assassination, played over and over as Cain’s thoughts are intoned and echoed after his sacrifice is rejected: “It occurred to Cain the that world is ruled by arbitrary force ... And it occurred to Cain to kill his brother—but it did not occur to Cain that killing his brother would cause his brother’s death.” 

Saturated with schematic commentary and psychodrama, the script is more than a little faded. The fabulous aspect of these stories of origin were realized with greater artistry by some of America’s original tale-tellers: Hawthorne and Melville—and poet Emily Dickinson. All were sensitive to the antinomianism of modern moral speculations on Genesis—an adaptation of their stories would better frame the excellence of Ragged Wing’s precise energies in staging a show. Or what about that grandfather of Expressionism, and all modern “symbolic” drama, Strindberg’s Dream Play? This company could explore the expanses and intensities of such real stage poetry in depth, as well as with the brilliance they bring to the scales of The Serpent. 

For the real measure of their potential is how they’ve made Van Itallie’s somewhat passé text come alive with excitement—their own brand of excitement. A young troupe, they’re nonetheless veterans of a variety of projects and of seminal physical theater troupes (from Bread and Puppet to Dell’ Arte); they’re able to pool their talents for a collective effect that’s enhanced by the expression of each individual.  

The strongest image is saved till the end: after the waste of countless generations of strife is bewailed, and that old frontier number, “Wayfaring Stranger” is given a fine choral treatment, a saurian skull, ribcage, tailbones are borne out and joined together above the cast’s heads into a skeletal serpent (Sarah Samonsky, also a company founder, designed it) that glides to gasping, sighing, hissing sounds through the audience to where the masked chorus (Magi Belknap, Rose Cohen-Westbrook, Georgia Henley, Natalia Kaminska-Palarczyk, Mirit Markowitz) offer it the bundles of swaddling they’ve been holding to their breasts.  

It’s the inauguration of a new theater company with much promise. Their staging reenacts much of the history of modern physical theater style (mime, pantomime, Commedia revival, etc.) without surrendering to the glib clichés too often extracted from these pioneering efforts. They deserve support—and are already finding an audience. ›

TUESDAY, FEB. 15 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Empathy” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Brian Green describes “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” Einstein’s impact on science, in conversation with Dr. Moira Gunn, host of public radio’s “Tech Nation” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Brad Reynolds discusses “Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

“Word Tripping: Literature for the Quantum Age” with author Roy Doughty at 7 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Cost is $10. 528-8844. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sauce Piquante, Cajun/zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Gary Rowe, solo piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Madera Road, Motel Fresno, Bob Harp, Americana country, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Bill Charlap Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$14. 238-9200.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 16 

THEATER 

“Bright River” A hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, every Wed. through March 16 at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $12-$35 available from 415-256-8499. www.inhousetickets.com 

“Bridge & Tunnel” workshop performance by Sarah Jones at 7 p.m. Sun. at Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $40. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

FILM 

Film 50: History of Cinema: “The Love Parade” at 3 p.m. and Games People Play: “Westworld” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Elisabeth Robinson introduces her novel “The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Laura Splan Artist’s talk and slide lecture at 6:30 p.m. at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

Marc Sapir reads from his novel “The Last Tale of Mendel Abbe: Sonny Bush and the Wise Men of Chelm” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

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

Café Poetry with Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with the Chamber Chorus at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Del Sol String Quartet, contemporary chamber miusic, at 8 p.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. 415-831-5672. www.delsolquartet.com  

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

La Verdada at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Wil Blades Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $6. 525-5054.  

Carla Kihlstedt’s 2 Foot Yard at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Hobo Gobbelins, underground music, at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. at Solano Ave. 524-9220. www.ivyroom.com 

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

Mixed Signals, Mister Loveless, The Catholic Comb, indie rock, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886.  

Tribute to Jimmy Smith featuring Joey DeFrancesco, James Moody and others at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s, Jack London Square, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$22. 238-9200. 

THURSDAY, FEB. 17 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, “Seduced” by Sam Shepard special show at 8 p.m. at the Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck at Berryman. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

“Rhythm & Blues, with a Little Bit of Soul” A musical tribute of the contributions of African Americans to the art of music. A Longfellow Stars EDP Annual After School Scholarship Program Fundraiser. Thurs. and Fri. at 6:30 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School Theater, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $2-$7. 883-5258. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Remembering” an installation by Judy Spiegel. Reception at 6 p.m. at ProArts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. The gallery is open Wed.-Sat. noon to 6 p.m., Sun. noon to 5 p.m. www.proartsgallery.org 

FILM 

Blind at the Museum: “Blue” by Derek Jarman at 5:30 p.m. and “A History of Color” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

NPR’s “Wait, Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” will be taped before a live audience at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$42. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Cultura Brasileira Contemporanea” with Gilberto Gil, Brazilian Minister of Culture at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. 642-2088.  

Masha Hamilton reads from her new novel “The Distance Between Us” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Alvaro Vargas Llosa discusses “Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression” at 7:30 p.m. at at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Roberta Johnson discusses “Struggle Against Corruption” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Christina Continelli and Charselle followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley High Talent Revue with The Evans and Amy Farina at 7:30 p.m. at the Little Theater at Berkeley High. Cost is $5, benefits the arts programs at Berkeley High. mstahl@berkeley.k12.ca.us 

Palm Wine Boys at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Art of Romance, music, dance and poetry from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, Harris State Bldg Atrium, 1515 Clay St. Free. 622-8190. www.oaklandculturalarts.org 

Jessie Brewster & His Band, Gentry Bronson & the Night Watchmen at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. Benefit of the East Bay Conservation Core Charter School. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Debbie Poryes and Charles McNeal at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Lonnie Tuck, r&b, at 7 p.m. at 17th Club, 510 17th St., Oakland. www.at17th.com 

Tribute to Jimmy Smith featuring Joey DeFrancesco, James Moody and others at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s, Jack London Square, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$22. 238-9200. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 18 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, “Seduced” by Sam Shepard Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck at Berryman, through Feb. 19. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Albany High School, “Oklahoma!” at 8 p.m. at Albany High Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Also on Sat. and 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $5-$10. 558-2575. 

Alchemy Works “The Wisdom of Eve” A tale of an ingenue understudy gone bad. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. Runs through Feb. 20. 845-5576. 

Aurora Theatre, “Dublin Carol” by Conor McPherson Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun at 2 and 7 p.m. through March 6 at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Fetes de la Nuit” at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Runs through Feb. 27. Tickets are $43-$55. 647-2949.  

“Bridge & Tunnel” workshop performances by Sarah Jones at 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. through Feb. 20 at Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $30-$40. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “The Mousetrap” Agatha Christie’s classic mystery Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Feb. 19 at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $10-$15. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theatre, “Othello” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Thurs.- Sat. through March 19. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The Serpent” theater with movement, masks and puppetry, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., through Feb. 19, at the Eighth Street Studios, 2525 8th St. Tickets are $10-$20 sliding scale. 527-8119. www.raggedwing.org 

“Rhythm & Blues, with a Little Bit of Soul” A musical tribute of the contributions of African Americans to the art of music. A Longfellow Stars EDP Annual After School Scholarship Program Fundraiser. At 6:30 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School Theater, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $2-$7. 883-5258. 

FILM 

Film Preservation: “A Farewell to Arms” at 7 p.m. and “Paths of Glory” at 9:15 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

9th Annual Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Finalists will go on the the Grand Slam Finals, Feb. 26th, at Herbst Theater in SF. Cost is $4-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

Robert Burns Celebration, his songs, his letters, his life, at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., at Curtis, Albany. Tickets are $10-$15.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Country Joe” McDonald at 7:30 p.m. at at the Fellowship Café and Open Mic, at Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita. Suggested donation $5-$10. 841-4824. 

Groundation Celebrates Bob Marley at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Sight Unseen” featuring size-diverse dancers from around the Bay Area at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St., at Telegraph, Oakland. Free. www.bigmoves.org 

Judy Wexler at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Claudia Russell, Lowen & Navarro, contemporary acoustic folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50-$17.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

FourMinuteMile, Electric Badness, rock, at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Toychestra, Conspiracy of Beards, Hall Flowers, at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Som’ma, Persian beat freedom concert at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand, 449B 23rd St., Oakland. www.sommamusic.com 

Shimshai & the Natural Mystiquensemble at 9 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Cost is $14. www.studiorasa.org 

George Kahn Quintet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Stephen Yerkey, singer-songwriter, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The People, Aphrodesia, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Hugh Schick Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Born/Dead, Deadfall, This Is My Fist at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Tribute to Jimmy Smith featuring Joey DeFrancesco, James Moody and others at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s, Jack London Square, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$22. 238-9200. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 19 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Gerry Tenney at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568.  

THEATER 

Central Works, “Enemy Combatant” opens at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Performances are Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

FILM 

Film Preservation: “No Way Out” at 7 p.m. and “Counsellor at Law” at 9:20 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Morrie Turner, cartooning legend, celebrates his 40th year as a syndicated comic strip artist at 1 p.m. at Dr Comics and Mr Games, 4014 Piedmont Ave. in Oakland. 601-7800. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Unversity Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Philharmonia Baroque “Mighty Samson” by Handel at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Dana and Durant. Tickets are $28-$62. 415-392-4400. www.philharmonia.org 

“A Night with Ustad Shujaat Khan,” North Indian classical music, at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Theater. Tickets are $10-$50, available at the door only. www.juliamorgan.org 

Kotoja, Afro-Beat, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

TOK, Jamaica’s dancehall artist at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $20. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Yair Dalal, Israeli composer and oud player at 7 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Tickets are $11.50-$16.50. 415-276-1511.  

Scarth Locke, singer-songwriter, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Frank Wakefield Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Ghost Next Door, The SIck, The Rivals hard rock, punk, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Ben Goldberg at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Moot Davis with Pete Anserson, The Cowlicks at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Sara Leib Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Times 4, jazz-funk quartet, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Allegiance, Life Long Tragedy, Go It Alone at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 20 

EXHIBITION 

“Interpolations,” works by Jennifer Foxley at the Albany Community Center Foyer Gallery 1249 Marin Ave., Albany to April 29. Reception for the artist from 4 to 5 p.m. The gallery is open Mon.-Fri. 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., to 5 p.m. on Sat.  

THEATER 

“Beowulf” The epic translated and performed by Philip Wharton at 7:30 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Sun. nights through Mar. 20. Tickets are $10-$15. 415-608-9683. 

FILM 

Film Preservation: “The Scarlet Letter” at 3 p.m., “Vitaphone Shorts” at 5:30 p.m. and “The Second Floor Mystery” at 8 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash, poetry and dance with Alan Bern and Lucinda Weaver & Richard Beban at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Philharmonia Baroque “Mighty Samson” by Handel at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Dana and Durant. Tickets are $28-$62. 415-392-4400. www.philharmonia.org 

Chamber Music Sundays presents San Francisco Symphony musicians and friends at 3:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $7-$19 at the door. 415-584-5946. 

Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Markus James and The Wassonrai, music and a film from northern Mali, at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ace of Spades acoustic series at 1 p.m. at MamaBuzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. fFee for all ages. 289-2272. 

Linda Tillery and The Cultural Heritage Choir celebrating black history month at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $14-$16. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mingus Amungus at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

Todd Denman, Leo Rickard & Patrick Sky, uillean pipers, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Facing New York, Desa, rock, at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com

It’s still mid February, but by some measures it’s already spring. The wildflowers are popping up—half a dozen species on the coastal bluffs at Point Reyes last week, and fetid adder’s-tongues and trilliums among the redwoods. I’ve seen reports of returning swallows in the East Bay: not just the predictably early tree swallows, but a couple of barn and cliff swallows as well. And some birds are well into their nesting seasons, the calendar be damned. 

Last month Daily Planet contributor Steven Finacom alerted me to a nesting Anna’s hummingbird in the courtyard of an office building on University Avenue. I found her as directed, on a branch of a Tibouschina bush in a well-trafficked part of the building, sitting tight on her small cup-shaped nest. January isn’t exceptionally early for an Anna’s hummer to be incubating eggs; some start in December. Along with the great horned owl, they’re among the first Bay Area birds to begin breeding. 

The female’s mate was nowhere in sight, of course. Male hummingbirds typically eschew nest construction, incubation, and child care. Hummer courtship is a brief encounter, males mating with multiple females attracted by their spectacular display flights. The males of some tropical hummers, like prairie grouse or birds of paradise, gather at display grounds called leks. But male Anna’s hummers have individual display territories, sometimes proximate to but not overlapping the nesting territories of females.  

I said “typically” because there’s always a counterexample. In 1970, a woman named Dale Peters Clyde was following the progress of an Anna’s hummingbird nest at her summer home in the Napa Valley. The female hummer disappeared—likely the victim of a predator—late in June, leaving two nestlings. After one fledgling had also left the nest, a hummer with the flashy red crown and throat of an adult male showed up and fed the remaining youngster. The interaction was interrupted by the chick’s fall to the patio below the nest, after which Clyde apparently tended it until it was able to fly away five days later. Granted, that’s just one anecdote; but along with scattered accounts involving tropical species, it suggests that male hummers are capable of parental behavior. 

It’s not unusual for a female hummer’s nesting activity to stretch from December or January into June. Multiple broods are insurance against the high mortality to which small birds are prone. Some overachieving females may build a second nest, lay their eggs and begin to incubate them while still feeding their first batch of nestlings.  

The nest is an impressive piece of avian architecture, a cup of plant down held together with spider silk. Like most Anna’s nests I’ve seen, the one on University had an outer coating of flakes of lichen; I had to wonder how far the bird had to go for them. 

A tiny bird that nests during the cold, rainy end of the year faces major thermoregulatory challenges. Hummingbirds have the highest metabolic rates among animals—12 times that of a pigeon, a hundred times that of an elephant. A hummer’s normal body temperature is around 104 to 111 F, its resting heart rate 250 beats per minute (the active rate can be 1,250). But in cold weather it can conserve energy by entering a torpid state, with heart rate dropping to 50 beats per minute and temperature to 55 F. This option isn’t available to nesting female hummers, though; they have to keep the eggs warm through the night. They manage this by an optimum combination of nest site selection, construction technique, and foraging behavior. 

In a study done 33 years ago, W. K. Smith at UCLA and S. W. Roberts and P. C. Miller at San Diego State rigged thermocouples to an Anna’s hummingbird nest in a Southern California oak tree in April to measure the nest’s microclimate, and monitored the female’s behavior at and around it. An overhanging limb provided protection from the cool night air (as would the walls of that building on University Avenue). The nest itself had been built to conserve heat, either by selecting material with low conductivity or by creating insulated air spaces in the nest walls. As the biologists measured it, the thermal conductivity of the nest material approximated that of polar bear fur. And the bird’s daily activity pattern included an intense bout of feeding from 2 to 6 p.m., to stock up energy reserves for the night’s expenditure of up to 2.5 kilocalories. All this enabled her to maintain an average nest temperature of 27.5 C (82 F) during the night. 

In addition to all the nectar she needs to power her metabolic furnace and the occasional insect, a nesting hummer has other cravings: females have been observed eating sand, mud, and campfire and barbecue ashes. The calcium in the shell of a hummingbird’s egg is likely borrowed from structural bone. Nectar feeders don’t get much calcium, so female hummers go for mineral supplements to replenish what is lost in egg-making. 

Very little that these improbable creatures do would surprise me. You’d expect hummers to live fast and die young, like shrews and other small mammals with high metabolic rates. But some hummingbirds have made it to the ripe old age of 12—a short span from the perspective of a 70-year-old albatross, but not bad for a little guy. 

›

TUESDAY, FEB. 15 

Early Morning Bird Walk on the Albany Bulb meet at the end of Buchanan St. at 7:30 a.m. 525-2233.  

Bird Walk on the Martin Luther King Shoreline from 3 to 5 p.m. Dress for wind and rain. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Garden Club “Aesthetic Pruning of Trees and Shrubs” with Bill Castellon, Instructor at Merritt Horticulture Dept. Meeting at 1 p.m., program at 2 p.m. at Epworth MethodistChurch, 1953 Hopkins St. 524-4374. 

The Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Low Cost Spay/Neuter Day, in recognition of the 11th annual Spay Day. Spay/neuter costs are $5-$10. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

“What’s Really Happening in Iraq” A report-back from the humanitarian aid mission that delivered over $650,000 in aid to Falluja refugees, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 415-255-7296. www.globalexchange.org 

Embracing Diversity Films “Not in our Town II” A documentary on positive community solutions to hate violence and the resurgence of Ku Klux Klan activity. At 7 p.m. at Albany High School, 603 Key Route Blvd. Enter through the main doors on Key Route Blvd., turn left and walk down the hall to Room 109 on the right. Please arrive early as space is limited. Admission is free, donations are welcome. Screening will be followed by a facilitated discussion. 527-1328. 

“Adventure in Alaska: Climbing Denali & More” with professional photographer Jeff Pfluger at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed 594-5165. 

Black History Celebration with a showing of “Roots” at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

School Age Storytime for ages 5 and up at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext.17.  

Family Story Time at the Kensington Branch Library, Tues. evenings at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Tap Into It Jazz and Rhythm Tap classes at Montclair Recreation Center, 6300 Moraga Ave., Oakland. Experienced at 6:30 p.m., beginners at 7:30 p.m. 482-7812. 

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group discusses “Love and Sex: A Valentine Special” from 7 to 9 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Please bring snacks and soft drinks to share. No peanuts please. 601-6690. 

Teen Book Group meets to discuss “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

“Healthy Ways to Learn from Emotional Experiences” with Pete Walker, Marriage and Family Therapist, at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512.  

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 6 p.m. This is a project of Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Sing-A-Long every Tues. from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. All ages welcome. 524-9122. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 16 

Great Decisions 2005: “U.S. Intelligence” with Prof. Emeritus Marshall Windmiller, SF State, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. Cost is $5, $40 for the series. The Great Decisions program will meet for eight Wednesdays. Briefing booklets are available. For information and reservations call 526-2925. 

“Hands Off Social Security” with the Gray Panthers at 7 p.m. at 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Imaging the Voices of the Past” Using Physics to Restore Early Sound Recordings with Dr. Carl Haber, Senior Scientist, Berkeley Lab Physics Division at 5:30 p.m. at the Berkeley High School Library, Allston Way at Milvia St. 

“Making Governments Provide Better Safety and Accessibility for Bicycle Riders” A panel discussion with the directors of all the Bay Area bicycle coalitions at 8:15 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 527-0450.  

“In The Beginning Were Stories, Not Texts,” with Dr. Choan-Seng Song exploring the idea that life begins with stories and that God is both the “story-teller and story-listener” at 7:30 p.m. in the Richard S. Dinner Boardroom, GTU, Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2420. 

Women’s Health Lecture on “Mood & Menopause” at 6:15 p.m. at the Claremont Resort, 41 Tunnel Rd. Cost is $10-$15. 527-3010. ww.afwh.org/about/ 

claremontlectures.htm 

AARP Free Tax Assistance for taxpayers with middle and low incomes, with special attention to those 60 years and older. From 12:15 to 4:15 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Appointments must be made in advance. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets at 7:15 a.m. at Au Cocolait, 200 University Ave. at Milvia. 524-3765. 

WriterCoach Connection Volunteer Training Help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills. Training session from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. Other Trainings on Mar. 8, 15. www.writercoachconnection.org 

Winter Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Artify Ashby Muralist Group meets every Wed. from 5 to 8 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, to plan a new mural. New artists are welcome. Call Bonnie at 704-0803. 

Prospective Seminary Students Church Divinity School of the Pacific Open House Feb. 16-18 at 2451 Ridge Rd. To register call 204-0715. www.cdsp.edu 

Argosy University Information Sessions for degree programs in Psychology, Education and Business at 6 p.m. at 999-A Canal Blvd., Point Richmond. To RSVP or for directions to the school, call 215-0277. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch Bring your knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts from 6 to 9 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, FEB. 17 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Susan Schwartz, head of Friends of Five Creeks, shows slides of new and upcoming nature restorations you can explore on city walks, at Berkeley Path Wanderers’ meeting at 7 p.m. at Live Oak Park Recreation Center, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 848-9358. f5creeks@aol.com 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets with Councilmember Max Anderson of District Three at 7:30 p.m. in the LeConte School Cafeteria. 843-2602. 

School Choices at Berkeley High An informational night on the school and program choices students have. Current 8th-10th graders and families invited. At 7 p.m. in the Berkeley High Community Theater. 644-6320. 

“Winemaker’s Dance” a lecture by David G. Howell on the influence of the earth in producing good wine at 12:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Golden Gate Audubon Society “Sights and Sounds of Kenya” Slides and sound recordings with Peter Headland at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, between Marin and Solano. 843-2222. 

“Contemporary Brazilian Culture” with Gilberto Gil, Brazilian singer and composer at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Free, but tickets must be picked up at Wheeler box office beginning at 6 p.m. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Bridge to Babylon” Judeo-Arabic music in the Middle East at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $20. 845-6420. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 18 

Berkeley Fire Dept. vs. Berkeley Police Dept. Charity Basketball Game at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley High School Donahue Gym. Tickets are $5, $2 for BHS students with i.d. Proceeds will go to scholarships and youth programs. 981-5506. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Edward Norse, Prof., UCB, on “The Promise of Fusion and Solar Power.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

“Judaism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe” with Johannes Heil, visiting scholar at the Erasmus Institute at the Univ. of Notre Dame at 4 p.m. at the Badè Museum, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 415-451-2876. 

“Drought and Corruption in Northeastern Brazil” with Nicholas Arons discussing the impact of drought and the phenomenon of drought politics at 4 p.m. in the Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu  

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

“Three Beats for Nothing” meets at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice, mostly 16th century harmony. 655-8863, 843-7610. dann@netwiz.net 

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 

SATURDAY, FEB. 19 

Historical and Botanical Tour of Chapel of the Chimes, a Julia Morgan landmark, every third Sunday at 10 a.m. at 4499 Piedmont Ave. at Pleasant Valley. Reservations required 228-3207. www.chapelofthechimes.com 

Kids Garden Club For children 7-12 years old to explore the world of gardening. We plant, harvest, build, make crafts, cook and get dirty! From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

Sushi Workshop Learn the natural history and how to make seven types of sushi. From 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $25-$40. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Help Bring Back the Wild Join the Bayshore Stewards as we restore a rare tidal marsh on the UC Richmond Field Station, near the Bay Trail in Richmond, from 9 a.m. to noon. We will provide tools, gloves, rain gear and refreshments. We will also provide some instruction on planting and an overview of the project. Heavy rain will cancel the event. For more information call Elizabeth 231-9566. 

Water is Life Workshop on water problems and solutions for a sustainable future, including water pollution in the Bay Area, creek restoration, and greywater systems. Sat. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free.548-2220, ext. 233.  

Explore the Alternatives of Demanding, Thirsty Lawns with Gail Yelland on ecological and turf free ground coverings at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

“War and Fleece: How Economic Shock Therapy Backfired in Iraq” with journalist Naomi Klein, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., in a benefit for the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Tickets are $20 or $50 including reception with Naomi. No one turned away. 548-0542. www.mecaforpeace.org 

New Parents and Babies Community Center Open House from 1 to 3 p.m. at the PRAM Fieldhouse, 110 E. Richmond Ave., Point Richmond. www.pram.net 

“The Mystery of the Heart” Community drumming and chanting at 7 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Donation $10-$20. 528-0304. www.unityofberkeley.org 

West Knitting Group for all levels and ages at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

Intercollegiate Bhangra Competition at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Community Theater, 1930 Allston Way. Portions of the night’s proceeds will be donated to The American Red Cross to help the victims of the tsunami tragedy. For registration details and ticket information see www.dholdiawaz.com  

Emergency Response Training Class on “Fire Supression” from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Fire Dept. Training Center, 997 Cedar St. To register call 981-5606. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html 

California Writers Club with Madeline DiMaggio speaking on “Selling Your Story to Hollywood” at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square, Oakland. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Pre-School Storytime for ages 3-5 at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext.17.  

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meets at 9:15 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Sproul Conference Room, 1st Floor, 2727 College Ave. www.berkeleycna.com  

SUNDAY, FEB. 20 

Early Morning Bird Walk to look for early spring arrivals. Meet at 7:30 .m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Glorious Mud For ages 7 to 11 to explore the soggy grounds, identify animal tracks. Come prepared to get dirty. From 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Community Peace Labyrinth, on blacktop next to the gardens at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. Enter by the dirt road on Derby. Free. Wheelchair accessible. Sponsored by the East Bay Labyrinth Project. 526-7377.  

“Parrot Care 101” A free class on the care, feeding and daily play needs of your parrots, at 1 p.m. at Pet Food Express, 6398 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Please do not bring your bird to the class. Donations to the Oasis Exotic Bird Sanctuary accepted. www.squawkandhowl.com 

“African American Veterans: Voices from the Vietnam Experience” a panel discussion at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“California African American Jazz” a family exploration afternoon from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Celebrate Black History Month with African textile collage at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-111. www.habitot.org 

Haiku and Renga: Poetry and Nature Walk around the park with stops for creative writing of Japanese-inspired poetry. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Cybersalon “TV Goes Online” with panelists from LinkTV, INdTV, Google, Yahoo, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation at 6 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10. 527-0450.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park, Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Jack Petranker on “Milking the Painted Cow” a new book by Trathang Tulku, at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, FEB. 21 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets Mondays at 9:45 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Join at any time. Cost is $2.50 with refreshments. 524-9122. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

ONGOING 

Collect Cleats for All Feet Donate your cleats and other sports equipment to Sports4kids Swap Shop, which works to make sports equipment available to all children who want to play. Donation barrels for cleats at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. Other locations at www.sports4kids.org 

Beginning Tai Chi Class starts Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Large Assembly Room of the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. 415-864-0899. www.taichicalifornia.org 

“Half Pint Library” Book Drive Donate children’s books to benefit Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland. Donations accepted at 1849 Solano Ave. through March 31. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., Feb. 15, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. ww.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/housingauthority 

City Council meets Tues., Feb. 15, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Feb. 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/humane 

Commission on Aging meets Wed. Feb. 16, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/aging 

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Feb. 16, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Delfina M. Geiken, 981-7550. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/labor 

Homeless Commission meets Wed. Feb. 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed. Feb. 16, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Kristen Lee, 981-5427. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/welfare 

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Prasanna Rasaih, 981-6950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/faircampaign 

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 17, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Peter Hillier, 981-7000. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/transportationÅ

As Jimmy Rogers, 67, sat through a screening of the landmark civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize Tuesday night in Berkeley, he was quick to point out the faces and names of the people he recognized from the time he spent in the south as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. 

Next to him on the floor, David Ozer, 9, sat with his mom Sumi, watching footage of Montgomery bus boycott for the first time. 

Both Rogers, who now lives in Oakland, and Ozer, who came from Moraga, had gathered at the Berkeley house of Don Jelinek, a lawyer and civil rights activist, to watch the 14-part film which has been out of circulation for 10 years because of dispute with copyright licensing. 

Along with some 35 other people, they huddled around Jelinek’s desktop PC to watch a pirated digital copy as a way to protest the copyright laws and demand access to what they say is one of the most authoritative accounts of the civil rights movement. 

“I think our story needs to be told and we should have access to it,” said Rogers, who registered voters in Alabama along side Stokely Carmichael. “We should have some control over our history.” 

According to a story that first appeared in Wired News, the film’s production company, Blackside, Inc., has been unable to re-release the film because its temporary lease on copyrighted newsreel footage, photographs and songs, expired. Blackside is trying to raise the money needed to re-license them, but it’s slow going because the cost is high. One estimate put it somewhere around $500,000.  

The illegal screening in Berkeley was one of around 100 around the country that were organized in part by Downhill Battle, a non-profit based in Massachusetts which says its main purpose is to promote “participatory culture.” They had the idea after reading the article in Wired and posted a digital copy of the documentary on their website available for download through a peer-to-peer sharing technique called BitTorrent. That’s how Tom Hunt, one of the organizers of the Berkeley screening, got the copy shown at Jelinek’s house. 

The screenings, described by organizers as acts of civil disobedience, were meant to coincide with Black History month. 

Downhill Battle eventually took the file off their website after being approached by a lawyer from Blackside, but that didn’t stop the screenings across the country, as well as some internationally. Other screenings used copies of the documentary on file at public libraries. 

“I think probably the issue of the 20th century was race. The issue of the 21st century is going to be access to information,” said Bruce Hartford, a former staff member of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a co-organizer of the Berkeley event. “Without access to information, democracy is a myth.” 

Both Hartford and Jelinek belong to an organization called Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. After hearing about the screenings, they passed a resolution during their monthly meeting in support of the events and decided to have their own. 

“To us, knowledge is a human right every bit as important as the right to vote and the right to be treated with courtesy and respect. Therefore, we do not believe that reading, or viewing, or listening is, or should ever become, a crime. Nor should access to information become a luxury sold only to the wealthy,” part of the statement reads. 

After the screening, Rogers spoke, recounting several of the more harrowing events he participated in, such as the picket he marched to protest a segregated restaurant in Alabama. Even though he and others were met by a gang of counter-protestors wielding weapons, Rogers continued to picket and was eventually arrested.  

“I still feel that what I did wasn’t that significant. Other people gave their lives, like Martin Luther King,” he said. 

Next to him, David sat bug-eyed. He was shocked by the footage he saw of the murder of Emmett Till and the stories he was hearing. 

“This will be a good discussion point,” to say the least, said his mom Sumi.

Charging that the Lytton Band of Pomos acquired Casino San Pablo “the wrong way,” maverick Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain announced Thursday evening that he’ll hold hearings on a law that would reverse part of the tribe’s special status. 

According to the Associated Press, McCain will hold special hearings on the casino in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee which he now chairs and take up legislation by California Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein that would reverse an earlier law written by East Bay Congressional Rep. George Miller. 

California Assemblymember Loni Hancock, whose district encompasses San Pablo, welcomed the decision. 

“I fully support the hearings being held by Sen. McCain and I fully support the legislation by [Feinstein]” which seeks to reverse the tribe’s special status, Hancock said. 

A leading opponent of the casino proposal, Hancock said, “It’s great to hear that we’re finally going to sit down and have a serious conversation about urban gambling in California.” 

Feinstein’s legislation would nullify legislation by Rep. George Miller that bestowed a unique legal status on the tribe, allowing them to acquire the land under conditions that would ease the way to building a Las Vegas-style casino. 

Miller tacked on a rider to the Omnibus Indian Advancement Act of 2000, backdating the Lytton Rancheria of Pomos’ claim on land they purchased that year to 1988, making it immediately eligible for a tribal casino. 

McCain’s announcement came the day after the Lyttons’ presented San Pablo City officials and councilmembers with their first look Wednesday at plans for the downscaled casino the Lyttons plan to build at the site of their Casino San Pablo cardroom. 

The mayor, City Council and city manager have embraced the 2,500-slot gambling parlor as the only possible economic salvation for their city, which they say would be forced to disincorporate without it. 

The new plans don’t cut back on the number of slots negotiated between the tribe and the governor, but they do scale back the overall size of the building, which won’t have a separate showroom, swimming pool and other amenities. 

The 9.53-acre San Pablo site only obtained official recognition as a Lytton reservation last June 29, when Aurene M. Martin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, issued the official proclamation. 

Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry S. Reid, sponsor of the initial federal legislation authorizing Indian gambling legislation, led the fight to reverse the Miller amendment in the 2001 Congress, charging that his law never intended for tribes to be allowed to run casinos on land that was out of their historic areas. 

Sen. Feinstein opposed the measure in the Senate, where it was strongly supported by Pennsylvania Republican Senators Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter. 

Reid withdrew his opposition in October 2001, reportedly under pressure from Senate leaders eager to pass a funding bill for the Department of the Interior, according to stories in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

Hancock said the case of Casino San Pablo demonstrates the fatal flaws in Proposition IA, the tribal gambling measure passed by California voters in March 2000. 

Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy warned at the time that the measure would open the gate to urban casinos in California, a claim the measure’s backers had denied.ú

The states’ leading toxics agency has ruled that Campus Bay poses “an imminent or substantial endangerment to the public health or welfare or to the environment because of a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance.” 

The finding is contained in a 33-page site investigation order issued late Wednesday by Barbara J. Cook, the Berkeley-based regional branch chief for the State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). 

One of the first tangible results of the order will be a new fence going up around the site in the next 15 days marked by signs declaring “Caution: Hazardous Substances Area. Unauthorized Persons Keep Out.” 

The order also calls for: 

• Removal by April 30 of all contaminated marsh soils now stockpiled on the site along with any other sediments left there in 2004. 

• Repairs to the thin cement-and-shredded-wastepaper cap covering the 350,000 yards of contaminated ash and soil already buried on the site. 

• Thorough examinations of past site conditions and remediation efforts.  

• Preparation of a new site assessment to include toxins and contaminants now present on the site. 

• Risk and potential exposure assessments. 

• Implementation of a public participation program. 

Cook’s action comes just as Richmond City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin is putting the finishing touches on a proposed Feb. 15 City Council resolution calling on the state to give the DTSC jurisdiction over all of Campus Bay as well as the seriously contaminated Richmond Field Station immediately to the west. 

“This order reinforces the urgency of the need for one agency alone to take the lead on both sites because of the profound nature of the toxicity,” McLaughlin said.  

“It’s an outstanding step toward figuring out what happened in the past, what’s actually there now, and whether remediation steps already taken are adequate,” said Sherry Padgett. 

The chief financial officer for Kray Cabling, Padgett works immediately to the east of the site and is a member of Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development, the group which has led the charge of more regulation. 

“They’re asking questions which should have been asked a long time ago,” she said.  

Ethel Dotson, a Richmond resident and a critic of Campus Bay, has already obtained 80 signatures from the community calling for formation of a Community Advisory Group, the public participation spelled out in DTSC regulations. 

Dotson is scheduled to present the list at the same Richmond City Council meeting that will consider McLaughlin’s resolution.  

“We welcome the DTSC’s action,” said Doug Mosteller, a project manager for Cherokee Investment Partners—the financial firm which has teamed with Marin County developer Russ Pitto to develop the South Richmond site and has proposed to build a 1330-unit housing project at Campus Bay. 

Noting that “the Campus Bay site is highly contaminated,” said East Bay Democratic Assemblymember Loni Hancock, “to protect human health, the site must be cleaned up to a standard that fits the proposed use. 

“The public must have confidence in DTSC to make decisions which will lead to an acceptable cleanup. If DTSC needs a site investigation to achieve this goal, then I support this order.” 

The toxics agency’s order reinforces the suspicions of activists who have been protesting the conduct of ongoing work at the site, as well as the plans to build housing directly above a buried hazardous waste dump on the site. 

According to the order, “The public at risk includes those people who work at or visit the site, those who excavate into contaminated soil or groundwater, and/or persons who otherwise come into contact with, inhale or ingest contaminated air, soil or groundwater” including those who work at business near the suit, San Francisco Bay Trail users and pupils and employees at the Making Waves program.  

Cook said there was no evidence of any exposure for the Making Waves pupils, who meet in a building at the site that formerly served as offices of one of the chemical manufacturing companies that heavily polluted the site over a hundred-year span that ended in 1997.  

The widely acclaimed after-school program is immediately adjacent to the 350,000-cubic-yard concrete-and-paper-pulp-capped hazardous waste dump where Cherokee-Simeon Ventures proposes to build the high-rise condo complex. 

“A lot of things happened at the site, and we need to know what are the current soil and water conditions so we can understand how the site can be restored to a condition safe for development,” Cook said 

The order spells out levels of contaminants identified at the site before the commencement of site remediation efforts. The new DTSC order requires a reexamination of the site to determine the present levels of hazardous substances. 

“This order is the first step,” said Cook, “looking at what’s there now and creating a basic risk assessment. We don’t know what remains and what’s been hauled offsite.” 

The original survey found well over 100 hazardous compounds, including:  

Soil Contaminants 

• Arsenic, which is both a lethal poison and a carcinogen at lower doses, at levels up to 3.4 times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s baseline standards defining the threshold for classification as hazardous waste. 

• DDD, a pesticide and a poison when consumed, at levels up to 2,800 times the baseline. 

• DDT, an illegal pesticide and known carcinogen which can be fatal when swallowed, at up to 2100 times the federal baseline. 

• Lead, a metal linked to a whole range of neurological problems in children and a poison with wide-ranging effects, at up to 18 times the federal baseline. 

• Toxaphene, a lethal insecticide which can be absorbed through the skin as well as swallowed and inhaled, at levels up to 46 times the baseline. 

Water Contaminants 

• Arsenic, at up to 4,500 times the acceptable groundwater baseline. 

• Chloroform, a carcinogen lethal at high exposures, at levels up to 340 times baseline. 

• Copper, a possible carcinogen and potential cause of birth defects, at up to 29.2 times baseline. 

• Cis-1,2-dichloroethene, a chemical with anesthetic properties, at up to 146.7 times baseline. 

• Mercury, a neurotoxin known to cause birth defects, at up to 2.9 times baseline. 

• Nickel, a metal known to cause cancer and other health problems, at up to 54 times baseline. 

• 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane, a carcinogen, narcotic and liver poison, at up to 120 times baseline. 

• Tetrachloroethene (also known as perchloroethene, or PCE), a known carcinogen and live and kidney poison at levels of up to 20 times baseline. 

• Toluene, a known carcinogen used in paints, thinners, nail polish and adhesives and other products, at levels 47.3 times baseline. 

• Tricholorethene (TCE), a known carcinogen that also causes liver and kidney damage, at 1,140 times the water table baseline, and 

• Vinyl chloride, which causes both cancer and genetic mutations, at 108 times baseline. 

No definitive site examination has occurred since the ensuing cleanup of upland soils under the supervision of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, which handed site jurisdiction to DTSC following scathing criticisms at a Nov. 6 legislative hearing called by Assemblymember Hancock. 

The board retains supervision over the cleanup of the site’s shoreline marsh area and for all of UC Berkeley’s Field Station immediately to the west.  

“A lot of the insecticide and other hot spots have been cleaned up,” said Doug Mosteller, engineering project manager for Cherokee, a venture capital firm that specializes in restoring contaminated sites—so-called brownfields—to conditions where they are safe for development. 

Cherokee and Simeon Properties, a development and property company headed by Russell Pitto of Marin County, created Cherokee-Simeon, a special purpose company for brownfield development in the Bay Area. 

Cherokee-Simeon is also the developer picked by the UC Berkeley to develop the university’s seriously contaminated Richmond Field Station as a corporate/academic research facility featuring two million square feet of new buildings. 

DTSC will have the final say on whether the housing project can go through. 

Asked about the future of site, Mosteller said Cherokee-Simeon is concentrating on the current site remediation efforts and will consider development projects only after the DTSC’s concerns are fully addressed. ›

Berkeley’s newest landmark—technically a structure of merit—poses a potential hitch in plans to build a square block of condos at the University Avenue gateway to the city. 

Prominent Bay Area architect Irwin Johnson designed the building at 2040 Fourth St. in 1946 as the offices of the long-defunct Irwin (no relation) Paint Company. Later, the building was home to the Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts of America and currently houses Celia’s, a Mexican restaurant. 

The Landmarks Preservation Commission decision to designate Celia’s, reached on a 5-4 vote Monday, throws into question the future of a quarter of the site Urban Housing Group (UHG) had picked for a four-story condominium project that would include retail and parking on the ground floor. 

UHG, a recently formed development arm of Marcus & Millichap Co., the nation’s largest real estate investment brokerage, co-founded by University of California Regent George M. Marcus, specializes in developing mixed use housing projects at transportation hubs. 

Landmarks commissioners split on applications to landmark two buildings now standing in the block between Addison Street and University between Fourth Street on the east and the Union Pacific railroad tracks on the west. They approved protection for Celia’s, but denied it for Brennan’s Irish Pub at 720 University Ave. The pub remains as the same business for which the boxy green structure was originally built in 1959 by Berkeley contractor-turned-tavern-keeper John Brennan. 

UHG Director of Devel opment Daniel M. Deibel, backed up by his own architectural historian and allies, argued against both designations, as did his attorney, Rena Rickles of Oakland, whose court stenographer took down a verbatim transcript of the hearing. 

Rickles and her ste nographer are getting to be regular features at the commission, and were there on behalf of Louis Rossetto during the battle over landmarking the Wurster Cottage in January. 

Landmarks commissioners refused to designate Brennan’s, whose owners opposed the landmarking and declared that such a move would mean the end of their business. Margaret Wade, founder John Brennan’s daughter, said the building would require expensive structural renovation and equipment replacement were it forced to remain in the old building. 

Commissioners Lesley Emmington and Patricia Dacey argued for the Brennan’s landmarking, but the seven other commissioners voted against designation. 

For the Celia’s designation, chair Jill Korte, and commissioners Robert Johnson and Carrie Ols on joined Dacey and Emmington in voting for the designation. 

Commissioners Aran Kaufer, Fran Packard, Steven Winkel and James Samuels voted against both designations. 

Landmarking proponents, most drawn from the immediate neighborhood, offered strong sup port for both designations, but it was Brennan’s—a neighborhood as well as a citywide institution—that drew the most emotional support. One fan of the hofbrau-style tavern with the central bar said three generations of his family had been eating at Brennan’s since it first opened. 

Only one speaker mentioned patronizing Celia’s, which has operated in the building in 1977 and is now preparing to move to Hayward, said property owner Stephen Block, who decried the designation of his property. 

The structure of merit designation bestowed on Celia’s is a step down from the full landmark designation, but imposes the same strictures on development. 

Commissioner OIson moved for the lesser designation—one that would be eliminated under the commission’s proposed revisions to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance now pending before the city Planning Commission. 

Block, who owns the entire block, said he had been blindsided by the designation proposals, since no one informed him when he bought two properties from the railroad four years ago that any properties on the block other than the previously landmarked railroad station had any potential landmark status. 

Preservationist Gale Garcia, who wrote the landmark applications for both structures, said that to her, Brennan’s will always be a landmark in the classical sense of the term, a prominent symbol of both Berkeley and the neighborhood. 

“Celia’s is a beautiful building,” she said, one she has loved since her childhood in the 1950s, when it was known as “the Boy Scout Building.” 

Garcia also wondered why a major developer would be willing to risk so much money “in a market already glutted with multi-unit housing, much of it going vacant.” 

Reached at his San Mateo office late Thursday, Deibel said he’s no t sure what his next step will be. 

“We haven’t finalized any decisions, though I expect we’ll do that sometime next week,” he said.›

Barring a sustained surge in the stock market, city leaders said Tuesday that Berkeley’s employee pension fund will continue to drain the city’s budget. 

“The outlook is pretty dim,” City Manager Phil Kamlarz said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. 

CalPERS, the state retirement system, is closely tied to Wall Street, and when stocks tanked four years ago, Berkeley’s contributions to its employees’ pension funds soared to make up the difference. For police officers, Berkeley went from paying CalPERS four percent of the officers’ base salary in 2001 to a projected 40 percent this year. The price of pension contributions for non-uniform employees has jumped from nothing in 2001 to 17 percent of base pay this year. 

In all, the city estimates it has lost $78 million from the stock collapse, said David Hodgkins, the acting director of human resources. 

This past year, CalPERS netted a 16 percent gain, but that alone won’t be enough to reduce the city’s pension costs, according to a city actuarial report. Assuming that CalPERS meets its expectations of a 7.75 percent investment return through 2011, Berkeley will have to pay CalPERS about 15 percent of wages for each non-uniformed employee, 40 percent for police and 28 percent for firefighters. 

“We can deal with a cost of around 10 to 15 percent,” Hodgkins said. “But when it gets to 30 percent, it’s devastating.” 

Historically, Berkeley faced similarly high rates in the early and mid 1980s. By the 1990s the city’s pension contributions averaged 13 percent of wages for all employees. 

“It will take years of double digit returns to reduce employers contribution rates,” CalPERS spokesperson Darren Hall said Thursday. He said to smoothe the rates which employers pay, CalPERS is spreading this year’s gains over several years. 

Contribution rates which the city pays police and fire department employees have soared, Kamlarz said, in part, because of improved benefits the city offered them in their latest contract allowing them to retire at age 50 with an annual pension equal to a percentage of their highest salary, calculated by multiplying three percentage points by number of years worked. At the time when the state retirement system was well funded, Kamlarz said, CalPERS approved the new retirement deal the city made. 

“They were saying our contribution rates would be zero for 30 years and if we took the new benefit they would be zero for 20 years,” Kamlarz said. With a surge of early retirements for safety officers stemming from the new benefit package, CalPERS raised the city’s rates.  

Numerous cities find themselves in the same bind as Berkeley, although several comparable cities are paying somewhat lower rates, according to CalPERS. While in 2004 Berkeley faced rates of 12.6 percent for non-uniform employees, 40 percent for police and 25 percent for fire; Palo Alto paid 6.44 percent for non-uniform, 21 percent for police and 33 percent for fire; Davis spent 3 percent for non-uniform, 20 percent for police and 22 percent for fire; and Santa Cruz paid 10 percent for non-uniform, 31 percent for police and 39 percent for fire. 

How to compensate for past mistakes was the crux of Tuesday’s meeting. A report from city staff showed that Berkeley has $157 million in unfunded liabilities—obligations which the city doesn’t have enough cash in the bank to cover if they came due all at once. 

In a typical year, payout of unfunded liabilities comprises between $20 to $30 million of the city’s budget Kamlarz said. 

Last year the city paid $1.6 million out of its general fund to 87 disabled former employees who had registered for the now discontinued Supplemental Retirement Income Plan. Established in 1983 as a benefit option to withdraw the city from Social Security, SRIP included a disability benefit that city leaders said gave employees a “huge incentive” to claim disability.  

Under the plan, which was discontinued in 1988, city employees who qualified for a disability benefit, received a monthly benefit equal to 60 percent of the highest average salary until death. Employees contributed $324 a year to the plan—not nearly enough to cover the long-term costs, Kamlarz said. 

In more welcome news, the council praised staff for reducing the number of hours and money lost to workers compensation claims. Last year, Berkeley lost 46.7 days due to injury down from 89.5 days the year before. 

“There’s really been a dramatic improvement,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. 

Councilmembers, however, questioned why over the past three years 132 employees filed three or more claims apiece. 

As part of its effort to reduce claims, the city and several unions have agreed on a program to give union employees $535 apiece if their union meets goals for reducing claims. Hodgkins said at the current rate of injury claims affected employees appear set to win the bonus. 

Casino Resolution 

With local television news crews filming, councilmembers took turns blasting casinos as they passed a resolution opposing the gaming industry moving into the Bay Area, specifically targeting a proposed mega-casino in San Pablo. 

The only member not to support the resolution was Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who abstained on the grounds that opposing any casino in the Bay Area was too wide-ranging a statement.

The battle of the Berkeley Bowl—centered on the proposed cloning of the city’s most popular grocery store—heads to yet another round before the city Planning Commission. 

Commissioners voted Wednesday night to add a final Feb. 23 public comment period to cap off a series of combined public workshops and hearings to determine if and how the Berkeley Bowl expands to a second location in West Berkeley. 

Owner Glen Yasuda is seeking amendments to city zoning codes and the West Berkeley Plan to allow him to build a new, larger store and warehouse at Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue. 

Before he can build, Yasuda needs official approval to breach existing regulations and policies that would keep the land zoned for manufacturing and light industrial use. 

While all sides generally agree that a supermarket is needed in West Berkeley, where residents now must leave the area to buy groceries, they divide into four main camps. 

The first offers basically unqualified support for the expansion; the second is willing to accept the proposed site but wants more action to address what they feel will be serious traffic problems; and the third says no to the location altogether and asks for no reduction in manufacturing/industrial property, while the fourth is willing to accept the site but not rezoning and plan amendments. 

But many nearby business owners and others fear that traffic generated by the larger, freeway-close Bowl would cause serious delays on thoroughfares, increase the demand for already scarce parking spaces and imperil the children who attend the Ecole Bilingue (often called the French School), which is located at Ninth and Heinz catercorner from the proposed site. 

A new face at the Wednesday’s workshop was Chris Barlow, a co-owner of much of the land immediately adjacent to the site. 

Though city codes mandate notifications to nearby property owners and residents, Barlow said he was unaware of the expansion plans until he read about them in the Daily Planet. 

“This is the first meeting we’ve been noticed of as a major stakeholder,” Barlow said, “which I find very unfortunate.” 

While he supports the Bowl’s move, he said he has serious concerns about increased traffic which could block access to his own property, which includes the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker building at 914 Heinz Ave. 

Eugenia Thomson, a traffic engineer hired by Urban Ore, said that traffic estimates reached by the Berkeley Bowl’s consultant underestimated the probable traffic flow by not accounting for the store’s power to draw a clientele from across the East Bay and beyond. 

Traffic to and from the store could total half again as much as the store’s consultants predicted, she said. 

A collection of other major property owners offered strong support for Yasuda’s plans, while former Planning Commissioner Zelda Bronstein, accompanied by attorney Stuart Flashman, had challenged the city’s handling of the proposal. 

John Curl, a West Berkeley cabinetmaker who is a strong supporter of maintaining West Berkeley as a district for light industry, manufacturing and artists, urged the commission to hand the proposal over to the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB). 

ZAB could then issue a conditional use permit that tightly restricts the use of the site and would revert to the current zoning if a new owner bought the site and abandoned or attempted to alter the permitted use. 

Curl also pointed out that city staff had failed to note that an actively used 8,500-square-foot warehouse on the site can’t be demolished unless the owner provides for a similar use elsewhere, which city Planning Director Dan Marks admitted might pose a problem. 

Marks said his staff will prepare a report examining the comments and documents presented during the hearings and making policy recommendations in time for the Feb. 23 meeting. Whatever action the commission takes, the proposal will then head to ZAB for more hearings, fine tuning and final action—barring an appeal, a near-inevitability in controversial land use matters in Berkeley of late. 

t

For months they stood before the City Council trading barbs and doing battle.  

On Monday proponents for doing the utmost to protect Berkeley’s 75,000 feet of creeks and creekside homeowners intent on defending their property rights sat side-by-side to begin the task of forging a consensus on one of Berkeley’s most heated turf wars. 

The first meeting of Berkeley’s 15-member Creeks Task Force Monday ushered in at least the appearance that a cooperative effort is underway to regulate city creeks. 

“I think we all have the city’s best interests at heart,” said Task Force member Diane Crowley, a member of Neighbors on Urban Creeks. “This is not a conspiracy of eco-people versus property owners.”  

Neighbors on Urban Creeks sprang into existence last year after the city released maps showing that an estimated 2,400 homeowners fell under a little-understood ordinance, passed 15 years prior, regulating creekside properties. Notice that their homes fell under the law’s jurisdiction came in the mail to property owners, many of whom never knew that a creek flowed below their home. 

The law, as amended in 2002, forbade homeowners living within 30 feet of an open or underground creek from adding on to their homes, or, as interpreted by city officials, from rebuilding them in the event of an earthquake or fire. Those who live above creeks that have been re-directed away from their natural course are not regulated under the ordinance. Last November, the council amended the law to allow homeowners to rebuild after a disaster, but left other outstanding issues to the task force.  

For the next two months the task force will gather information and present a work plan and budget for council approval to devise a new ordinance. Among numerous issues, they will have to determine which waterways qualify as creeks, how far from open and culverted creeks should development be curtailed, whether creeks that run underground should continue to be regulated as stringently as open creeks, how to best safeguard creek habitat and whether to propose a new creek map to ease the uncertainty for some homeowners who do not definitively know if their property falls under the ordinance. 

Currently residents must pay for a study to determine the exact location of underground creeks. 

Finding a way to balance the concerns of homeowners and creek advocates has proved a difficult task in several California cities. After two years of staff work, Santa Barbara tabled its recommendation for an ordinance when homeowners opposed the proposal they feared would impinge on their property rights. The Santa Barbara plan called for limits on new construction up to 100 feet from a creek bank. 

“Not having public input from the get-go was our big mistake,” said Jill Zachary, Santa Barbara’s Creeks Restoration Manager. 

However, pending litigation will keep the Berkeley task force silent on perhaps the biggest creek issue in the city: Who should pay for the millions in needed repair work for the city’s network of collapsing underground culverts? The city maintains that culverts built in the first three decades of the 20th century by private developers underneath private homes are the responsibility of the homeowners. But neighbors whose homes are at risk of falling into a damaged culvert have filed suit claiming the city must pay for repairs because many culverts are part of the city’s stormwater system. 

The task force also faces monetary constraints. Ditching the city’s current rule—prohibiting new roofed construction within 30-feet from the centerline of a creek—for one based on actual information about the watershed in question would require the city to hire consultants at an estimated cost of $600,000. 

Many task force members have a personal interest in the outcome of their work. Seven of the 15 members live within 30 feet of a creek and are affected by the current rule.  

Each member of the council made one appointment to the task force. Neighbors on Urban Creeks, a collection of creek advocate organizations, and four city commissions also appointed members.  

Four task force members have strong ties to creeks organizations: Phil Price, appointed by the Parks and Recreation Commission; Joshua Brandt appointed by Councilmember Max Anderson; Doug Goetting, appointed by Councilmember Dona Spring; and Tom Kelly, appointed by the creeks groups. Neighbors On Urban Creeks account for three members on the task force: Jana Olson, appointed by Betty Olds; Crowley, appointed by Gordon Wozniak; and Mischa Lorraine, appointed by the group itself. 

While other task force members might not have been active during last year’s battles, most are no strangers to water issues. Mary Selkirk, appointed by Councilmember Linda Maio, is a water policy analyst with a focus in watershed preservation; John Roberts, appointed by Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, works as a landscape architect specializing in creek restoration; Richard Harris, appointed by the Community Environmental Advisory Commission, is the water conservation manager for East Bay Municipal Utilities District; Carlene St. John, appointed by the Public Works Commission is an engineer; and Helen Burke, the commission chair appointed by the Planning Commission, worked for the Regional Water Quality Control Board. 

“The most important thing is that everyone understand where we’re coming from,” Burke said. She proposed that next week task force members detail their key issues and then invite experts to lecture on different subjects. 

Assuming the council approves the task force’s work plan and budget, it then has until May 2006 to propose a new ordinance. If it fails to meet the deadline, the rules barring new construction within 30 feet of a creek that runs underground will expire. 

For Jana Olson, who lives in a historic home beside Codornices Creek, the creek ordinance needs to respect the value of her home as much as the creek that flows beside it. “Berkeley is a city with a rich architectural heritage that adds to the ambiance of the city,” she said. “The current ordinance is written as if it’s dealing with a city that isn’t already developed.” 

Olson and others in Neighbors on Urban Creeks had opposed formation of the task force out of fear that councilmembers and commissions would stack it with creek advocates. Despite the congenial tone of Monday’s meeting, Olson said it was too soon to determine if the commission was balanced. 

Selkirk said the current creek law has served the city well, but she would like to see rules relaxed for homeowners living above culverted creeks. Jon Streeter, a partner at the law firm of Keker and Van Nest, appointed to the task force by Mayor Bates, also raised concerns about the rules for culverted creeks. He thought the current law only needed to be tinkered with to make it more equitable. 

Brandt, the restoration director for Berkeley’s Urban Creeks Council, opposed reducing restrictions on culverts. “Creeks and culverts are all part of one system that we can’t control even if we think we can.” 

Most of the task force members interviewed were hesitant to state policy preferences. “A good number of us don’t fully understand what the ordinance really does,” said Roberts, who lives beside Blackberry Creek. 

“An empty mind is a wonderful thing to have,” said Ted Gartner, Councilmember Darryl Moore’s appointment to the commission. “I don’t know anything about creeks. I have no agenda on this issue.” 

The Creeks Task Force will meet next at 7 p.m. Monday at the North Berkeley Senior Center. The group will meet each Monday until April 14, with the exception of Feb. 21.L

During a week when steel foundation girders had only reached the second of floor above the gaping construction hole on Center Street in downtown Berkeley, Vista College president Judy Walters announced the kickoff of a five-year $10 million fundraising drive for money projected to be used in Vista’s new headquarters. 

Named Foundations of Our Future: Keeping the Promise of Excellence, Vista’s drive kicks off on March 19 with a $50-a-head performance “conversation” with actor Danny Glover at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Another $50 buys entrance to a smaller affair with Glover following the performance. 

Walters told Peralta Community College District Trustees this week that the first 18 months of the campaign, which will include a digital film festival and the Milvia Street Literary Magazine launch in May, will culminate with a grand opening of the new college during the summer of next year. 

Walters said in a following interview that the date of the actual move from Vista’s Milvia Street headquarters and surrounding facilities to the new campus is still being debated. Originally set for January of next year, the move may be delayed until the first of the summer. 

“Construction was slightly set back over the winter because of the rains,” Walters said. “And since we will be moving classes, we think it would be very disruptive to transfer over in mid-semester.” 

Whatever the date, Walters said she was excited that the college will be tripling its present square footage when it moves onto the new campus. 

The actual square footage of the new building—one floor below ground and four above—will be 160,000, but only 88,000 of that will be initially usable by the college. 

“The state sets the assignable square footage based on your anticipated enrollment,” she said. “Normally a college is not allowed to build so much over that enrollment as we were, because they are on campuses that allow them to put up new buildings as they need to expand. We aren’t. Because our campus is in the middle of downtown, with buildings all around it, this is the maximum we’re going to be able to build, and it was more cost effective to put it up all at once.” 

Walters said that until enrollment at the college grows into all of the new space, excess square footage will be leased out to tenants. 

Walters told Peralta Trustees this week that she thought $10 million was a modest goal, given what she has seen other local colleges accomplish. “The president of Mills College raised something like $150 million in one year for Mills, so I think what we proposed is just a modest beginning,” Walters said. “It’s doable over a five-year period.” 

Of the total goal, $2.1 million is earmarked for furniture and equipment for the new campus building since, according to Walters, “the state gives some money for that purpose, but not enough.” Another $2.6 million will be set aside for scholarships and programs, such as the publication of the Milvia Street Literary Magazine, the Digital Arts Film Festival, and various ethnic festivals. The remaining $5.3 million will be used for specialized equipment in the hi-tec areas of the college’s program. 

Aside from sponsoring fund-raising events, the college is seeking contributions from individuals and corporations. 

Peralta Trustee Nicky González Yuen praised the effort at this week’s trustee meeting, saying, “I hope it becomes a model for the district for private fundraising.” 

›

Motorists speeding down Telegraph Avenue, beware. Officer Bob Rollins and, on occasion, his partners are lurking on side streets, their radar guns firing. 

Wednesday afternoon found Rollins, a Berkeley motorcycle officer, on Carleton Street where he has stationed himself for the better part of the last month. 

“If I find a place where I see a lot of violations, I’m going to stay there until they stop,” he said. 

Rollins’ work on Telegraph, just blocks from Willard Middle School, hasn’t just aggravated lawbreakers. 

“There are sirens going on all day long,” said Thomas Cooper, a Telegraph restaurant owner. 

What angered Cooper most was that the sign alerting northbound motorists that they are approaching a school zone is partially blocked by a tree. 

“Obviously they have to enforce the law because there’s a middle school here, but instead of bleeding money out of people they could do something about the signage,” he said. 

Despite a new sign warning drivers that fines are doubled in the school zone surrounding Willard, Lt. Bruce Agnew said the rule was not yet in effect while city and county officials hammered out accounting procedures.  

Last October, the City Council approved double fine zones for the five school campus determined as the most dangerous for students walking to class: Willard, Malcolm X Elementary, Berkeley High, Berkeley Alternative, and Longfellow Middle. 

Once the double fine rule is in effect, Agnew said police would more actively patrol the school zones. One day last week, he added, all five Berkeley traffic officers performed a sting on Telegraph between Ashby Avenue and Dwight Way citing drivers for numerous violations, including speeding, failing to yield to pedestrians and making illegal U-turns or left turns over double yellow lines. 

Not everyone around Telegraph was upset to learn of the stepped up traffic enforcement. “It sounds like a good idea to me,” said Patricia Dacey, a member of the Willard Neighborhood Association. “Bad drivers and middle school kids don’t mix.” 

Pam Webster, a member of the school district’s traffic safety committee, also supported stepped up enforcement near Willard. “Although I haven’t seen the individual incidents, in theory enforcing traffic laws will make streets safer for pedestrians.” 

Officer Rollins said he came to Telegraph after a woman he pulled over in a different neighborhood told him about bad drivers on the street. Just today, he said, someone he pulled over said a lot of people were running red lights at Woolsey and Telegraph. “That’s where I’m going to go next.”

OAKLAND ANIMAL SHELTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kudos to Matt Artz and the Daily Planet for being among the first to write about the systemic abuses at the Oakland Animal Shelter (Feb. 8-10). Across California, similar abuses against animals are being carried out at our taxpayer funded animal shelters. As recently as 1999, our local animal shelter was described as “Berkeley’s dirty little secret” by an employee. It took political will, citizen action and staff buy-in to complete the transformation we now see at Berkeley’s little cinderblock building on Second Street. 

The word shelter means “a place of refuge.” But in California’s municipal animal shelters, run mostly by law enforcement agencies, that description is laughable. The lesson we can take from Oakland is this: Police departments should get out of the business of running animal shelters—now. Cities need to forge stronger cooperative agreements with local non-profit humane organizations, and politicians should be listening harder—to the citizens who have been yelling about these abuses for years, and to the staff who work in these death houses, who are sick and tired of covering for bad management and political inaction. It isn’t nice to plunge a needle full of fatal drugs into healthy animals.  

Civilian management, transparency in operations, a safe working environment for staff, citizen oversight, and a commitment to end pet overpopulation through spay neuter instead of euthanasia—these are the lessons—when will we ever learn? 

Jill Posener 

• 

FIREARM AT SCHOOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Daily Planet’s account of the expulsion of a Berkeley High School student for bringing a firearm to school in her backpack raises troubling questions about the facts, and about school officials’ response to the discovery. In concluding the student did not intend to use the weapon, the officials appear to have accepted stories of the student and father at face value. Campus safety required more.  

The father’s claim of entrusting the teenager with a firearm to safeguard the weapon strikes me as an incredibly poor choice for a parent to make. But I don’t believe it happened that way myself. The student’s story of depositing the weapon in her backpack, and then forgetting about it, strikes me as equally undeserving of belief as the father’s story. If she had not shown the weapon to other students in some way, they would not have known of its presence inside the backpack. As for not intending its use, a firearm can be used by its mere display without discharging the bullet. “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” 

District officials with responsibility for campus safety should have viewed the situation from the perspective of the community which this student’s actions endangered. Even if the excuse offered were not fabricated, the student’s actions showed extreme disregard for the resulting danger to others. As presented in the paper’s columns, the district officials’ sympathy appears misdirected. 

John McDougall 

• 

GET IT IN WRITING! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dear residents of the Derby Street/MLK neighborhood: Regardless of the outcome of the debate regarding closure of Derby Street, I can’t emphasize strongly enough that you get in writing some kind of agreement about the use of the new ballpark facilities. 

I live adjacent to the Ohlone Park ballpark. In the late ‘70s before its existence, I worked for five years with city officials and a neighborhood group to create the kind of park we wanted. It was to be a peaceful, quiet green area in the heart of the flatlands. Since the ballpark was an afterthought and it did not fit within the model of the type of park agreed upon, we were promised that it would only be used for neighborhood use and small pick-up games. Signs were posted stating “No League Play.” 

Beginning in the late ‘90s, the Little League suddenly started to appear. For another five years, I struggled with five different agencies and nine different individuals to restore the “No League Play” policy. It is only thanks to Marc Seleznow (now director of parks) that we currently have a moratorium on future growth of ASFU programs in our park. BUT—we still have spring and fall soccer and softball practice five days a week, making parking and quiet activities impossible in this neighborhood. 

Mr. Doug Fielding is to be commended on his dedication to youth sports programs, but let me assure you that he has no respect for promises made or for the concerns of the residents in the communities that adjoin ballparks. 

Carolyn Sell 

• 

DERBY STREET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Residents of Berkeley who do not live in the East Campus area may well wonder why they should be concerned about the controversy over the proposed hardball field (see op-ed page exchange in recent editions of the Daily Planet).  

The answer: If, despite the protests of the overwhelming majority of neighbors, this field goes through, the city and the School Board cannot help but regard it as carte blanche to do what they want in any neighborhood in Berkeley. That is the real issue here: Does the city and the School Board have the right to force a non-essential public facility on an unwilling neighborhood that has already made a major public contribution (In this case, by being the site of the East Campus and the Farmers’ Market)? 

Residents who think it is not a good idea for the city and School Board to be given such carte blanche should write or phone their councilmember and state clearly and firmly: If the member votes for the closing of Derby Street (and hence for the hardball field) the resident will vote for the defeat of the councilmember when he or she is next up for election. 

Berkeley residents, beware: They’re coming for your neighborhood next. 

Peter Schorer 

• 

APOLOGIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I want to offer my apologies to Terry Doran if any of my comments on the Derby Field seemed “inflammatory,” certainly not my intention.  

I must also correct his assertion that “both writers constantly refer to ‘a member of the school board’ without giving a name. I can only assume they are referring to me.”  

I have searched the published copy of my commentary and find no such statement, no reference to any individuals except the Daily Planet writer Allen-Taylor, and my City Council representative, Max Anderson, both of whom I name. Furthermore, I do not know Mr. Doran, nor, to my recollection, have I ever seen him or heard him speak. 

However, his error is unimportant, since he goes on to say, “We also do not want anyone to build a ‘fenced, locked, hardball field with night lights and electronic sound system.’” Assuming that the use of the pronoun “We” means that he speaks officially for the entire School Board, it seems clear that I got it all wrong. 

No lights means no night games. No fence means no hardball. No regulation-sized hardball field means no need to close Derby. In other words, no problem. 

My thanks to Mr. Doran for correcting my misunderstanding. My thanks to the Daily Planet for printing his official statement for the entire community to read. 

Dorothy Bryant 

• 

SPECIAL INTERESTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your one-sided commentary page on closing Derby Street for a hardball field illustrates how this special interest group of sports enthusiasts have been able to shut neighborhood interests out while advancing their back-door plans. Mr. Doran insists that he has no such agenda, yet he (and others) write a commentary piece attacking my neighbors for even questioning the closure of a city street in an already overly crowded neighborhood. So called “meetings” held were nothing more than rallying events organized by the very architects eager to build and profit from these plans. They came with plans drawn long before any neighbors were included. Does this sound like healthy community inter-action to anyone? If you are so community minded, Mr. Doran, why have you no respect for neighborhoods? Our neighborhood is already littered, congested, noisy and getting more so as time goes on. The school district cannot even maintain the area around King Child Development Center now. We have had to deal with rats and unkempt grounds for years; calls to BUSD maintenance have been unreturned. Why should we trust that you would suddenly recognize your responsibility after a field is built? 

Additionally, Mr. Doran knows very well that night games and bright lights will come next; he’s not about to be honest with us quite yet. He’s learned, in his many years as a seasoned politician, how to get his foot in the door. As neighbors of East Campus, we look to the City Council to again show our neighborhood support in keeping Derby Street open. The school board should be ashamed for not understanding that respecting community includes respect for neighborhoods. 

Michael Bauce 

EDITOR’S NOTE: What the letter-writer refers to as a “one-sided” op-ed page was actually a response to a series of previously published commentaries from neighborhood opponents of the Derby Street plan. We have published every letter we’ve received on the topic in an attempt to air all sides of the issue. 

• 

CORRECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

David Snippen may wish to deny it, given the company he keeps, but he did indeed apologize publicly for the behavior of Sherry Smith, the previous chair of the Arts Commission, after she angrily tore up hundreds of fliers in the “arts district.” Many others witnessed his public apology. 

The Pepper Spray Times, which takes great pride in its accuracy, will be sure to note for the record Snippen’s subsequent reversal, his enthusiastic support for flier destruction, and his clarification of free speech policies in the “arts district”. As for my “privileged” background, I do feel privileged to be of mountain Appalachian heritage, and to have been born in what many consider to be a slum in East L.A. Snippen’s excuse for making assumptions about my background, when I called and asked him about it, was that the writing was just too good. 

Carol Denney  

AKA Grace Underpressure, 

Pepper Spray Times 

• 

BANK SCHEMES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding your Feb. 4-7 editorial (“How Wells Fargo Took Betty Bunton’s SSI Money Before She Died”): The PBS Frontline program about credit cards that aired this week (and can be accessed online) dealt very explicitly with the current scams and excesses being perpetrated by the banking industry and went on to explain how this was possible. There were two significant court decisions paving the way for this. One allowed rates established in one state to be applied to transactions within another state even though that state’s law forbids such application. The other permitted fee imposition with no caps. The program went on to establish that the office of the comptroller of the currency within the U.S. Treasury Department has total regulatory power over federal banks, but is disinclined to reign them in even when malfeasance is called to its attention. The program includes a conversation with New York’s Elliot Spitzer (my hero) affirming his own frustration with these abuses. 

I am not saying that this program goes directly to Ms. Bunton’s issue, but it provides the context for it. 

In passing, I want to aver that I am a devoted reader of the Daily Planet, and of your editorials. 

Marilyn Talcott 

• 

MORAL BANKRUPTCY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley is outraged by Wells Fargo’s alleged misuse of the late Betty Bunton’s bank account, but Ms. O’Malley is not particularly upset about a government which gives SSI checks to homeless people and does nothing to ensure that that the recipients do not spend the money on alcohol and illegal drugs. Ms. O’Malley fails to address a couple of obvious questions: Why doesn’t the federal government require drug testing of SSI recipients before sending them checks? If drug treatment had been readily available, would Betty Bunton have voluntarily enrolled in and completed a treatment program? Anybody who bothers to make even a cursory examination of the scientific literature on substance abuse treatment will learn that client non-compliance is the number one obstacle to implementing successful treatment programs. Liberals and progressives must accept the reality that that much of the money spent on the homeless will be wasted if federal and local programs do not apply a strong does of coercion. You can’t blame Wells Fargo for the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of current government homeless programs. 

Eric Tremont 

• 

CALIFORNIA MONTHLY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As I am quoted in Gray Brechin’s generally accurate and useful exposé of recent events at California Monthly, since 1923 the official alumni magazine of the University of California at Berkeley, I would like to correct a couple of understandable misapprehensions.  

The Editorial Advisory Committee to the magazine (now dissolved), which I chaired for the past three years, was never a standing committee of the California Alumni Association, and had no official status either in its by-laws or the minds of its officials. In fact, just last summer the CAA ended the official status of all of its alumni-volunteer committees, both statutory and ad hoc—some of them after many decades of service—in order to focus decision-making power in a small, more efficient number of salaried staff, supported by a few elected officials.  

Our committee, made up primarily of respected professional journalists with major magazine experience, and spanning the political spectrum, was formed at the request of former editor Russell Schoch, and our critiques of each issue and of the magazine’s policy in general were directed specifically to him. Our goals were to insure that what we regarded as the highest journalistic standards were maintained by the Monthly—we criticized its contents almost as often as we praised them—and to serve, insofar as possible, as a guardian of the magazine’s editorial independence and integrity against what we occasionally regarded as misguided and threatening attacks of readers from both inside and outside the Alumni Association and the university. We were also able to take a stand, on occasion, against prior censorship of the magazine’s contents by CAA or university officials.  

But because of our ad hoc, editor-advising status, there was no reason for CAA Executive Director Randy Parent to consult with or inform us about his decision to fire Mr. Schoch. As Mr. Shoch’s direct supervisors, Randy Parent and his deputy Mark Appel were acting within their rights in dismissing him, for whatever reasons they choose to offer. As it turns out, all seven members of the Editorial Advisory Committee—UC professors W. K. Muir and Cynthia Gorney (and myself), and professional editors and reporters Tracy Johnston, Mark Gladstone, Charles Petit and Tim Reiterman—disagreed with the decision to fire and the manner of firing Mr. Schoch, whose work as an editor and spokesman for Cal over almost thirty years we greatly respect. We have received many letters of support for Mr. Schoch and the Monthly from UC faculty and alumni. Some of us (like Mr. Brechin) have severe misgivings about the new, profit-making, general-interest magazine (“from Cal but not about Cal”) intended to replace the California Monthly, proposed and to be edited by Mr. Schoch’s former assistant.  

But members of former editor Russell Schoch’s former Advisory Committee cannot formally criticize the decision of Randy Parent and Mark Appel to fire our founder, since we had no official standing in their eyes.  

David Littlejohn  

Professor Emeritus of Journalism  

Kensington 

• 

KARL LINN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Karl Linn’s life was focused on creating beauty as well as community, by envisioning peaceful spaces. I feel fortunate to have known him for a short time. He was the first community member to introduce himself to me as a newly appointed arts commissioner, extending an invitation to participate in the beautiful Ohlone Greenway Dedication ceremony. The Ohlone Greenway is an extension of his original work, the Peralta Community Art Garden, which houses sculptures and gardens that are created by loving hands and thoughtful people. I will never forget the air of inclusiveness that permeated the event and how wonderful that felt.  

In the Peralta Garden after the event, Karl’s passionate dedication to his work was as evident as the twinkle in his eye, as we shared the Native American inspired soup. The multi-colored peace pole with its various colored flags flew overhead, reflecting the diversity of the group gathered below and the convictions that he lived by, melding diversity and beauty by creating peaceful spaces.  

Karl enjoyed promoting cultural awareness and enhancing community engagement on many levels. His work is a testament to the inclusion possibilities of Public Art Projects when they include historic, artistic, educational, and humanitarian aspects. He enjoyed specifically recognizing and involving all people who were related in any way to the projects he was working on. Their lives were then enriched by the beauty, art, and appreciation of living things within the community. He made a particularly dedicated effort to include the California Native American community in his last project on the Ohlone Greenway. As a Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibway tribal member, I am especially appreciative of his inclusive invitation. 

I, as well as many other community members, will treasure the memory of Karl’s talent and the humanitarian commitment he expressed while creating thoughtful beauty. His work will live on, continuing to inspire me, as well as others, for generations. Working in the garden will serve to connect my heart with my mind, and then with the earth, and I will think of his generosity.  

Lori Taguma 

• 

MORE ON KARL LINN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My son, John Hawkridge, a member of the Peralta/Northside Gardens, sent me the sad news of Karl Linn’s passing. It was a year ago that I went to visit my son in Berkeley (I’m from the East Coast). 

He invited me to go with him to the garden and see how wonderful it was and to meet Karl. I was fortunate enough to be there that day when Karl called for a meeting. Everyone introduced themselves and volunteered their ideas and services. 

As I sat there listening to everyone, I thought what a wonderful, warm, friendly intelligent person this Karl Linn is. 

I felt an immediate connection and wished I could have stayed in California and joined the garden club. And most of all, after the meeting was over, he personally walked over to me to introduce himself. We had a nice chat and he told me some things about his life. 

Although I only met him that day, I felt I’d known him forever. I only hope there will be more Karl Linns in this world. We need them! My heartfelt prayers go out to his family. 

Jeanne Douglas 

New Jersey 

• 

PROPOSITION 71 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Proposition 71 should have contained a provision that the results of its publicly funded research be placed in the public domain and not patented. After being paid for doing the research, companies will hold patents on the discoveries, and the public will pay once more to benefit from them. 

If the pious hopes of Barglow, Lowe, and Schiffenbauer (“Proposition 71’s Medical Research Will Be in the Public Interest,” Daily Planet, Jan. 28-31) are borne out, the research won’t involve excessive profits and CEO salaries. Still, the public will end up paying twice for whatever it gets. 

Richard Wiebe 

• 

SOCIAL SECURITY REVENGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many people wonder why Bush is so rabid about attacking our eminently successful Social Security program and replacing it with a privatized program that would eventually be nibbled to death by stockbroker commissions, management fees and churning. 

There may be an element of payback and revenge in this seeming Bush lunacy of attacking the Social Security legacy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), for, back in 1942, FDR stopped Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush and Bush’s great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker, from doing any further business with Nazi Germany by invoking the “Trading with the Enemy Act.” Just do a Google search on the terms, “Prescott Bush” or “Bush family links to Nazi Germany” and you will find many details about the sordid Bush family infatuation with and unsavory support for Hitler and Nazi Germany. This information may help put the present actions of Bush into better perspective.  

James K. Sayre 

Oakland

Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas

Berkeley High’s new small-school SSJE (School of Social Justice and Ecology) is scheduled to open this fall with a curriculum that emphasizes “critical thinking.” Though it’s a good idea, “critical thinking” is one of those terms that has lost all meaning by repeated overuse. Plainly put, it simply means not necessarily accepting the conclusions put before you, but assembling (or re-assembling) the available facts, looking for the “contradictions” (another useful but much abused word), and making up your own mind as to what it all might mean. 

Given all that, a good morning exercise in “critical thinking” for SSJE teachers might be just to get their students to open the daily newspapers. 

Begin the lesson. 

This week, a San Francisco Chronicle headline under an “Oakland” banner announced that a “Man With Pregnant Wife Killed In Sideshow Shooting.” The story reported that 23-year-old Eric Ramon Baeza was “fatally shot early Sunday [Feb. 6] in the vicinity of a sideshow, the name commonly used to refer to illegal car rallies that often feature reckless driving. The killing occurred about 1 a.m. on Foothill Boulevard at Havenscourt Boulevard on a stretch of road where numerous intersections bear the black arcing marks of squealing tires from drivers spinning in circles.” 

If you read this headline and paragraph quickly, you are lead to a specific conclusion: Eric Baeza was shot and killed at 1 a.m. at a sideshow in which drivers were spinning their squealing cars in circles. And so, if you’ve been to a “sideshow” or seen “sideshow” footage on the news, you have already gotten a picture of the scene in your mind. At least, you think you do. 

There’s a bit of a “contradiction” in the Chronicle headline and story—the part that stays the shooting actually happened in the “vicinity of a sideshow”—but that goes by so fast the average reader might miss it, and not stop to ask does that mean the shooting happened at a sideshow or during a sideshow or simply down the street from a sideshow? It does make a difference, after all. 

It also leaves out a longstanding problem often pointed out in this column: What exactly is a sideshow? Like Alice in the rabbit hole, the definition seems to expand or contract, depending on the needs of the definer at the time. 

But for the purposes of this discussion, I will use the working definition e-mailed to me in 2002 by Oakland Police Department Lt. David Kozicki, who often acts as the OPD spokesperson on this issue: “Here is the general definition that I use,” Lt. Kozicki wrote, in answer to my question. “Sideshows are gatherings of pedestrians and vehicles for the purpose of engaging in and watching incidents of reckless driving and exhibitions of speed.” In its Baeza shooting story, the Chronicle expands on that idea, calling sideshows “illegal car rallies” and “impromptu, late-night convergences of motorists that frequently draw thousands of people and feature high-speed and stunt driving.” 

Let us move on to the Oakland Tribune account of the Baeza shooting, which the Tribune described as having been caused by “a minor accident tied to ‘sideshow’ traffic.” (The Tribune often puts “sideshow” in quotation marks, an odd habit that may indicate that the newspaper itself has trouble defining the term.) 

According to Oakland Homicide Sgt. Phil Green, Baeza got “caught up in sideshow activity”—apparently unintentionally—while driving some friends home in his van. Quoting from the Tribune: “[A]nother van pulled alongside the van Baeza and his friends were in while the traffic light was red. According to Green, some of Baeza’s passengers said the other van was ‘dipping,’ a street term meaning the driver would ‘hit the gas, then brake, then swerve to make it rock.’ [Sgt.] Green said the other van then apparently pulled in front of the van Baeza and the others were in when the traffic light turned green. Baeza did not react immediately and sideswiped the other van’s driver’s door, traveling no more than 10 mph, Green said. For the next few feet, the driver of the other van tried to block the van Baeza was driving. He then pulled out a pistol and fired several shots at Baeza and the others, Green said.” This is slightly different from the Chronicle’s account, also attributed to Sgt. Green, which said that the shooting occurred after “another van swerved past and clipped the vehicle Baeza was in.” 

But disregarding who hit who, we see that the Baeza shooting began with two vans stopped at a traffic light—one of the drivers repeatedly braking to make his van dip and rock while they waited—and then proceeded to a “minor” traffic accident at 10 miles per hour. 

“Dipping” as described in the Tribune account happens at sideshows, but it is not exclusive to sideshows (same thing for spinning donuts in a car). Concluding that because somebody was “dipping” or spinning donuts means that a sideshow must have been going on is like saying that because someone was eating a hotdog, a baseball game must have been going on. Not necessarily. 

And while the description of the shooter’s dipping and rocking his van might be described as “reckless” and “stunt driving” by some, where was the “exhibition of speed” or “high-speed” driving, the other elements of the sideshow definition? And where was the “rally” or “convergence of motorists” as described in the Chronicle? If those things were happening either before or during the Baeza shooting, they didn’t get reported in the newspaper accounts. 

Maybe there was a sideshow going on during the time Mr. Baeza was shot and killed at Havenscourt and Foothill this weekend. Maybe not. But a reasonable question to ask is why the shooting wasn’t attributed to possible road rage—which happens unrelated to sideshows—or, since Baeza was identified as an ex-gang member, why not to possible gang violence? Could there be unstated reasons why bad happenings keep getting blamed on whatever it is that we call “sideshows?” 

I don’t know, friends. To answer those questions, you’re going to have to do your own critical thinking. That sounds like a homework assignment. 

o

Murder Attempt Charged 

Two men were charged with the attempted murder of a 49-year-old Berkeley woman following a brutal assault on the sidewalk in the 1900 block of University Avenue, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Police were summoned to the scene shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday, where they found the woman bleeding and critically injured. 

An area search turned up three suspects—two adults and a juvenile. 

Jarell Maurice Johnson, 18, and Lawrence Allen Dillon were each charged with attempted murder. Additional charges of giving a false identification to and interfering with a police officer were filed against Dillon, Okies said. 

The juvenile suspect was charged with interfering with an officer. 

The victim remains in the hospital is serious condition, he said. 

When Girlfriends Collide 

When two woman collided early Tuesday evening at the Grocery Outlet in the 2000 block of Fourth Street—one the current flame of that special guy and the other his ex-girlfriend—more than sparks flew, said Officer Shira Warren. 

The girlfriend of the moment produced a can of chemical Mace and sprayed her putative rival with a blast of the nasty compound and officers were quickly summoned. 

The sprayer and sprayee both earned free rides to the cop shop, where sprayee was photographed for evidence and the alleged sprayer was booked on suspicion of violating Section 244 of the California Penal code, assault by acid or a disfiguring chemical. 

Painful Pier Pounding 

Police arrested a 23-year-old man and a juvenile on the Berkeley Pier late Tuesday for an assault on two fishermen, said Officer Warren. 

The attack involved fists and a knife, which could lead to some serious hard time for the adult and a long stretch in juvie for the minor. 

Assault with Deadly Phone 

Police booked a Berkeley man in his 20s on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon after he battered his roommate with a cell phone and charger and then attempted to choke her. 

Summoned to the residence near the corner of Russell Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, officers clamped irons on the man and led him away.  

The roommate is now sleeping on a much softer mattress than her ex-housemate.

On Feb. 1, King Gyanendra of Nepal dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency, and claimed absolute power. Political opponents were arrested, including Prime Minister Deuba who was placed under house arrest. Army troops are patrolling the st reets and have occupied the parliament building, radio stations and newspaper offices. Freedom of the press and other forms of free speech, such as the right of assembly and the right to criticize the government, no longer exist according to announcements from the palace.  

What does this mean for people in the U.S. who may not be planning on climbing Mount Everest, located in Nepal? Does it really matter to the average American? It should matter to all who care about justice. 

Unfortunately our governmen t has been supporting the Nepalese government and army with millions of dollars in aid and weapons ever since the president declared war on “terrorism.” Over 12,000 have died in this war in Nepal.  

In the last month, Bush has stated that he wants to spre ad democracy and freedom throughout the world. He now has the chance to let his actions speak as loud as his words by cutting off military aid to Nepal. But do not hold your breath while waiting for this to happen. Nepal has been caught up in the war of t error. In the war of terror we have supported many other non-democratic governments such as Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, just to mention a few. Will Nepal be an exception? 

Military aid has been flowing to Nepal since then Secretary of State Colin Po well visited the country in January 2002, the first visit of a secretary of state to that country in over 30 years. Powell held a series of meetings with the king, the now arrested prime minister, and Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) leaders before pledging significant military aid to combat Maoist rebels fighting a civil war against the government. After Powell’s visit, the prime minister met with Bush in the White House. The U.S. also put the Maoist rebels on its official terrorist list. 

Since then the U. S. has supplied money, weapons, and military advisors to the government of Nepal. In addition, Britain, India, Russia and China, have also supplied military aid. But this international aid has not led to success for the government of Nepal. By many accounts, the Maoist rebels control a majority of the countryside. Last year the rebels called for a blockade of Kathmandu, the capital, and without firing a shot brought traffic to a standstill.  

Meanwhile, while the army had not beaten the rebels, it has raised its human rights abuses to new levels. Massacres, torture, rape, imprisonment, and over 2000 extra-judicial executions and disappearances, have all been charges made against the army by human rights groups. Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission has documented many of these atrocities, as have groups such as Amnesty International. The record of abuse has been so bad that late last year Congress passed a bill linking military aid to Nepal to improvements in human rights. But aid continues to flow. 

But despite the record of abuse, then-U.S. Ambassador to Nepal Michael Malinowski spoke to the BBC last year and defended U.S. support for Nepal. He stated, “It’s a long way from the United States, but were concerned that areas in Nepal don’t get out of contr ol, don’t become a vacuum where terrorists groups can move into and use Nepal for whatever.” He conceded, “The RNA has a lot more to do, a long way to go, especially on human rights. But progress is being made and I don’t think we should apologize for tha t. I think we should be proud of it.” 

But I am not proud. If the U.S. is really concerned about human rights, freedom, democracy and all the other code words used by the Bush administration to justify intervention around the world, now is the time to put up or shut up. There can be no justification for supporting a feudal monarch who has just taken dictatorial powers into his hands. All aid, particularly military assistance, to Nepal must cease immediately. 

Kenneth J. Theisen writes on many issues of government waste and abuse.  

o

President Bush’s program to privatize Social Security gives progressives an opportunity to advocate for an alternative approach, one which will instead increase the economic security of working people rather than fan their anxieties. It would also lift the benefits for all retirees without undermining the soundness of the social security trust fund. Indeed, rather than our energies being completely absorbed in defensive battles, it is incumbent upon us to project a progressive vision. Otherwise, we are allowing conservatives to define the issues, which lock us into a poverty of low expectations. 

The main problem with how the social security program is funded is the regressive character of its taxes. In contrast to the federal income tax, in which all sources of income are supposed to be subject to taxation no matter how high, social security tax policy favors the well-to-do as well as employers, who must match the contributions made by working people. Only earnings from work are subject to taxes, and to an annual limit of $90,000. Income from rent, dividends, and other investments are excluded 

The ceiling on social security should be lifted, and all income should be subjected to the social security tax. The social security trust fund will then be able to achieve an even larger surplus, and will be able to afford better pension benefits for all retirees. The objection frequently made is that social security was never meant to provide the only source of income for retirees. Well, that view deserves to be challenged. Currently, the great majority of retirees depend on social security for more than half their income. For those who had earned lower wages, their entire income depends upon social security. Women particularly suffer from woefully inadequate pensions. Moreover, as pension rights in the private sector are evaporating, more retirees will need social security to sustain themselves. 

In recent years, over one hundred municipalities have required some employers to pay their workers a living wage rather than the poverty level minimum wage. Just as all workers should be receiving a living wage, they should be entitled to a living pension. In a society with our abundant resources, the hardship and economic deprivation that many of our senior citizens endure is shameful. If progressive people like ourselves fail to address these issues, then who else will?  

Harry Brill is a member of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club’s Social Security Committee.P

I don’t normally comment on projects in other neighborhoods, as I don’t like people outside my neighborhood telling me what’s best for mine. I feel we each know our area the best. However, with the “expansion” of the Berkeley Bowl I will take an exception. 

I worked many years ago with the West Berkeley neighborhood Development Corporation members Willie Smith, Margaret Breland and Betsy Morris to develop their PrideGuide. At that time my neighborhood was loosing its only grocery store and the community was actively trying to work with the company to persuade them to stay (it turned out the city had set the stage for their departure years earlier). Willie and Betsy were very interested in our progress or lack thereof because they wanted a full-service grocery store in West Berkeley. 

It’s fashionable to trash the Economic Development Office as a bunch of political/developer wannabes. But thanks to Dave Forgarty, the Berkeley Bowl agreed to move into the old Safeway store and expand to a full-service grocery store. It was a big undertaking for the Yasudas; one that gave them many sleepless nights and worries. 

Of course, we now know it’s a huge success. But there are problems with the new site. It’s so popular that shopper parking is impacting the surrounding streets and people come from out of town to buy the unusual and organic items sold only at the Bowl. Warehousing is also a problem. The parking lot is the loading dock for the store and delivery trucks arrive almost all day long. 

The need for a nearby place to warehouse items for the store, the need to be near the freeway for easy delivery of goods and the need for West Berkeley to have a grocery store neatly dovetailed into a plan to accomplish all goals. 

I have respected and taken the advice of Charles Siegel seriously for many years. But in this case I feel he is missing the point. There needs to be a better system and place for warehousing goods than the parking lot at the existing Bowl and judging from the success of the first Bowl, it would be foolhardy to build a small store. The current Bowl could be even bigger judging from all the shoppers who come. By being near the freeway, the new store will cut down on semis driving through. People gotta eat but semis don’t have to roam through town. The Bowl already is a regional draw (one woman I chatted with in the checkout line was from Fairfield). The new Bowl, hopefully, will be used by those who come by freeway and lessen the impact on the Oregon store. 

Yes, it’s possible to grocery shop on a bicycle, but not when you’re feeding a family of four. A lot of those who propose public transit or bicycle for an exclusive means of travel don’t have families and have extra time to go to the store three or four times a week. This is a luxury working families lack. And, IF you feel parents of families should be shopping by bus, take the 51 through Alameda to see how horrible an experience THAT is for both the shopper (watch the eggs) and fellow riders. 

Lastly, I served many years on the Environmental Commission and the Ecole Billingue would occasionally complain about development in that part of town. Unfortunately, the school should not be located in the area. It is highly polluted by the manufacturing/industrial residents and exhaust from the freeway. That this project will add more traffic and exhaust is inevitable, but for the sake of a part of town that has been wanting a grocery store for over ten years and a green grocer who succeeded in providing quality, low cost food beyond his wildest dreams, the school should not be allowed to derail this project because they located in the wrong place. 

b

With a little more than a week to go before their biggest challenge of the school year, members of the Berkeley High Debate Squad sit through their lunch period in an upstairs classroom, munch sandwiches, and plot strategy for the 32nd Annual Cal Berkeley Invitational Debate Tournament. 

Over four days next weekend, Jan. 19 through 22, students representing some 300 high schools from as far away as Utah and Iowa will compete through eight preliminary rounds, hoping to be among the 32 debate teams making it to the elimination round on the last day. 

“It’s the biggest and best tournament in the country,” says BHS Debate Squad advisor and BHS teacher Josephine Balakrishnan. “Most tournaments we enter are for one day and last only four rounds. But this one is pretty rough. Next week, we’re going to be meeting every day to get them ready.” 

Sitting with a handful of students in a near-empty science class (there are eight active members of the team), Balakrishnan’s preparation for the UC Berkeley tournament seems every bit as intricate as Bill Belichek getting the Patriots ready for the Superbowl. 

Josh Gagan, a member of the UC Berkeley debate team who is helping the BHS squad as a coach, passes on research tips to the students on the debate topic: “Should the United States support the United Nations peacekeeping efforts?” He rattles off points to be made on both sides of the issue, interspersed with Internet URLs to be accessed. 

“The reason U.N. peacekeeping isn’t working now is because it’s not being funded properly,” he says, “but you need to find examples of that.” 

He mentions civil wars in the Congo and Sudan in a sort of shorthand which the students appear to understand. Still, Balakrishnan breaks in every few moments to ask, “Did you understand that? Did you get that?” 

She explains that she’s been monitoring websites where competing schools have been refining their debate points. “You’re going against people who are not novices at this,” she tells the students. “Everybody’s going to have to clear their plates in the next week, and figure out what you’re going to do so we don’t get our backs broken.” 

The students nod, ask quiet questions, and munch on. The introduction of a new line of argument, suggested by Gagan, is quickly rejected on the grounds that it is too late to prepare. To an outside observer, it goes by almost too fast to be intelligible, but the students seem unfazed. 

The 45-minute lunch period goes quickly. After the students leave, Balakrishnan explains her concerns. 

“We’re really just getting the debate team back started,” she says. “And we’re going to be competing with teams who spend the summer going to debate camps, getting ready for these events. But it will be good for the kids. They’re going to be moving up a big step.” 

Balakrishnan says that Berkeley High has a “long and distinguished record as one of the top forensic teams in the country”—forensics, she explains, is the proper name for debating, even though current popular use conjures images of Crime Scene Investigators and dead bodies. But the school’s debate program disappeared for some 20 years, and was only revived this fall by BHS principal Jim Slemp. Balakrishnan, a speech and language teacher who once competed on the UC Berkeley debate squad herself, was brought in to coach, and it is clearly a labor of love. 

“John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Jane Paley, and Lee Iacoca all said that forensics was the foundation of their success,” she writes in a promotional e-mail for the program. She says that in addition to teaching students how to present arguments in a public forum—something that will be useful to them in later life—participation on the debate squad also sharpens their research skills. 

“It gives them the ability to find resources quickly, as well as exposing them to information that most adults don’t access,” she said, explaining that on some topics, as an example, students pull the text of Congressional floor debates from the Internet. “They’re forced to get their information from diverse areas, in order to compete with the other teams.” 

She adds that the word “diverse” raises another concern, a need for more diversity on the squad. While six of the eight BHS debate team members are women, it is short on minority students. 

“It used to be that mostly males participated on debate squads, at least back in the ‘50s,” says coach Josh Gagan. “In fact, it was dominated not just by males, but by white males.” He said that the trend is changing on the college scene, with some teams introducing hip hop into their debate arguments, and other colleges taking on the challenge of women and minority participation as a debate topic itself. 

“It’s a little unusual for a high school debate team to have so many women,” Balakrishnan said. “But in Berkeley, I suppose women don’t feel intimidated about speaking out.” 

She said that one of the factors holding back more participation in the debate squad is the lack of a public speaking course at Berkeley High, and setting up such a course is one of her goals. “A lot of kids are very nervous about getting up and speaking,” she said, “even though it is clear that they have the skills and talent to do so.” 

Following next weekend’s UC Berkeley tournament, the BHS debate squad will have little time to rest. On Saturday, Feb. 26, Berkeley High holds its own one day debate tournament, inviting schools from the Golden Gate Speech Association where the BHS squad is a member. Following that will be preparation for the California State Championship Tournament sponsored by the California High School Speech Association during the last weekend in April, and the national tournament sponsored by the National Forensic League in late June. The six day June tournament is considered the Superbowl of high school debate contests. 

›

It may appear small-minded to dwell on the point, but it does feel good to know that in Berkeley, you can actually see live drama for 10 (count’em 10!) bucks in a perfectly charming, completely traditional, theater. This seeming piece of magic occurs with absolute regularity in the Actors Ensemble productions at the Live Oak Theater in the Arts Building at 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. 

Now, to add to the glow, you can even feel civic-minded when you pay for the ticket. Starting with the current production, Sam Shepard’s Seduced, every play will benefit a local charity, either by a donation or by service, or both. Fifty percent of all proceeds from the Sunday, Feb. 13 matinee (2 p.m.) will go to Berkeley Meals on Wheels which takes food to housebound Senior Citizens. 

The secret behind AE’s position is longevity. By far the oldest theater company in Berkeley, they have an unbroken production record going back to the 1957-1958 season. In 1967, the company began performing at the City’s Live Oak Theatre, which their volunteers now manage. In 1978, the theater was saved from closure when AE assumed responsibility for its management. (The city was unable to continue meeting the costs of operating the theater due to the budget cuts necessitated by the passage of Proposition 13). 

Clearly, volunteers are the lifeblood of this company. That does not mean that either the quality of the productions, or their selection, lack sophistication. Sam Shepard, the author of AE’s current production, Seduced, is the darling of both New York and Hollywood. Even a very condensed account of Shepherd’s stature has to note that before he was thirty years old over thirty of his plays had been produced in New York. He’s received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and both his screenplays and his acting have been successful in Hollywood. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as an actor in The Right Stuff. 

Seduced reached the New York stage three years after Howard Hughes’ death had brought public attention to the bizarre extremes of the ga-zillionaire’s lifestyle during the final decades of his life. Although the play calls the dominating character Henry Hackamore and makes no claim to historical accuracy, it doesn’t stray far from the extraordinary behaviors detailed in the national press after Hughes’ death.  

Both acts take place in the claustrophobic, barren room somewhere outside of the United States, where Hackamore has withdrawn into a life of absolute isolation, confined to a quasi/wheelchair/table, totally dependent upon the assistance of his servant, Raul. 

Duane Schirmer is literally stage center throughout both acts as he embodies the terrified, totally dependent, and totally arrogant Hackamore, swinging back and forth from one extreme to another. 

It is a demanding role, which he does well.  

Hackamore’s servant, Raul (effectively played by AE veteran David Fenerty) is, of course, the absolute rock maintaining the pair’s lifestyle, the quiet, seemingly subservient person who appears to have no purpose other than to exist for Hughes’ needs. He is the one person whom the paranoid Hughes trusts to any degree; and his behavior is critical to the major action of the plot. 

AE has been able to locate two actresses whose physical appearance alone, quite aside from their unquestioned talent, make them fully believable as old flames of the man who once seemed to be one of the best “catches” in the world. Wendy Welch plays Luna, the more polished of the two, and the first to respond to Hackamore’s invitation to re-enter his life.  

It does become a bit startling when Welch is then given the task of creating a fairly intelligent and sound woman who seems unrelated to the character who originally comes on stage. She does both well; but should she have to? 

Suraya Keating, a veteran actress who deserves better, has been cast as Miami a “blonde bombshell.” It’s a role which she handles well, if you’re willing to believe in the blonde bombshell stereotype.  

Ultimately one must fault Shepard, not the four person ensemble, for any weaknesses in this production. It seems to be a classic case of good actors doing the best that can be done with basically unwieldy materials. Quite aside from Shepard’s seeming lack of acquaintance with real live women, he appears to have mistaken a case study of Howard Hughes’ for a drama.  

Even Pulitzer Prize winners don’t always win them all.  

Actors Ensemble’s production of Sam Shepard’s Seduced runs Fridays and Saturdays through Feb. 19 a the Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 649/5999. www.aeofberkeley.org.l

Lovers of Caribbean sounds, and world music listeners in general, are in for a pre-Valentine’s Day treat when Andy Narell brings the 14-piece steel drum band Calypsociation from Paris to the Chabot College Little Theater in Hayward for two shows Sun. Feb. 13 (at 2 p.m. and 7 p. m.) with local steel drummers The Chabot Panhandlers, under Jim Munzenrider’s direction, opening. 

Narell, a Berkeley resident for 20-some years, has been in Paris the past three, working with Calypsociation (said with a French pronunciation). “They play what Andy’d play if he could play all 14 drums by himself,” says Munzenrider. Narell and his brother Jeff (leader of the popular Berkeley band Rhythm ‘n Steel) learned to play the “pans” while still boys when their father, Brooklyn social worker Murray Narell, encouraged steel drum pioneer Ellie Mannette to come to the United States to help found bands for socially at-risk youth. 

Andy Narell performed with Bay Area groups (like Mel Martin’s Listen!) in the ‘70s, and has recorded a series of about a dozen albums as a leader (Stickman perhaps the most famous), with the participation of internationally-known jazz players. Calypsociation’s first CD, The Passage, on Heads Up label, features saxophonists Michael Brecker and Paquito D’Rivera, as well as trumpeter Hugh Masekela. 

Narell was also the first non-Trinidadian to arrange for competition in 1999 at “Panorama,” the international festival of steel drumming held just before Carnival every year at Port-of-Spain. Besides his credits as composer, arranger, player and bandleader, Narell has pioneered using recording techniques like surround-sound to capture the notoriously elusive sound of pans on disk. 

Founded by Jim Munzenrider in 1987, The Chabot Panhandlers is a 25-plus player community steel drum orchestra, with members from around the Bay Area. Youngest of The Panhandlers—and player of the 6-bass pan—is Berkeley High sophomore Antonio Beroldo, whose mother teaches science at the Berkeley Montessori School. Other Berkeley residents include Anna Talamo (double tenor), a case worker with Alameda County Social Services, and Helen Finkelstein (double second), who teaches English at San Francisco State. 

“That’s what I like about The Panhandlers,” says Gail Morrison (lead), Richmond resident and retired horticulturalist, “It really is a community band, with a smattering of professional musicians, but mostly other people with other jobs who just love the sounds of it.” 

Sticks, the latest Chabot Panhandlers CD (they have four out) from last year, on Oakland’s Ramajay Records, includes tunes by Narell and Ray Holman, one of the most famed composer-arrangers for steel drum bands. Holman has worked directly with The Panhandlers, as has legendary pan player and composer Len “Boogsie” Sharpe. 

Munzenrider maintains musical association and friendship with Calypsonians like David Rudder, and plans to produce a show in the near future with Barbados singer Crazy (Edwin Ayoung)—whose hit recording, Nani Wine, is only second to Arrow’s Hot Hot Hot as an international Calypso hit—performing with The Panhandlers. Crazy, who’s performed around the East Bay (occasionally with Jeff Narell) over the past two decades, is now a San Jose resident and is frequently in the audience at Panhandlers’ shows, where “he’s been known to jump up and sing a song from time to time.” 

Listening to Calypsociation’s The Passage and Chabot Panhandlers’ Sticks, the piquant clangor of the metal reminds the listener that steel bands are both primitive (the instrument was made out of a 55-gallon oil drum from a Naval base—possibly first by Ellie Mannette—in the late 1930s to early ‘40s) and yet harmonically sophisticated, sharing their unique, metallic orchestral sound only distantly with Indonesian gamelans and Filipino kulingtang (and, maybe by analogy, New Orleans Brass bands). 

“It’s a humbling thing for a trained musician like me,” says Jim Munzenrider, “To work with these great players and composers—and I consider Boogsie Sharpe the Charlie Parker of this music—knowing they can come up with all this harmonic complexity, yet mostly can’t read. Ray Holman, when he worked with us, came in with great arrangements, not as charts, but written out like descriptions of what we were to play. When I’ve praised the great things they do in music theory terms, they say, ‘So that’s what you call it!’ In any case, all I do anymore is teach and play the steel drums. Only that.” 

Andy Narell and Calypsociation 

with The Chabot Panhandlers 

2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13. 

$18 general, $15 seniors & $12 

for children under 12. 

Chabot College Little Theater 

25555 Hesperian Blvd, Hayward. 

843-4342 

www.chabotsteeldrums.com.

FRIDAY, FEB. 11 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Lithography of Toko Shinoda” Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Schurman Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. Exhibition runs through Mar. 31. 524-0623. www.schurmanfineartgallery.com 

Chantal de Felice and Morgan Wick, narrative portraits in acrylic and ink, opens at 7 p.m. at auto3321 art gallery, 3321 Telegraph Ave., through Feb. 25. 593-8489. 

“Ritz and Stewart: Two Artists of the Courtroom” sketches from trials in the 1970s and 1980s at Doe Library, UC Campus. Exhibit runs through March 31. 643-5651. 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, “Seduced” by Sam Shepard opens at 8 p.m. at the Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck at Berryman, and runs Fri. and Sat. through Feb. 19. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Albany High School, “Oklahoma!” at 8 p.m. at Albany High Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Also on Sat. and 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5-$10. 558-2575. 

Alchemy Works “The Wisdom of Eve” A tale of an ingenue understudy gone bad. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. Runs through Feb. 20. 845-5576. 

"Bridge & Tunnel" workshop performances by Sarah Jones at 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. through Feb. 20 at Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $30-$40. 647-2949.  

Aurora Theatre, “Dublin Carol” by Conor McPherson, Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun at 2 and 7 p.m. through March 6 at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Fêtes de la Nuit” at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Runs through Feb. 27. Tickets are $43-$55. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “The Mousetrap” Agatha Christie’s classic mystery Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Feb. 19 at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $10-$15. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theatre, “Othello” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Thurs.- Sat. through March 19. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Laney College Theater, “Knockers,” a candid look at breasts, with partial proceeds donated to the Breast Cancer Fund, at 8 p.m. at 900 Fallon St. Tickets are $10. 415-281-0547. 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The Serpent” theater with movement, masks and puppetry, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., through Feb. 19, at the Eighth Street Studios, 2525 8th St. Tickets are $10-$20 sliding scale. 527-8119. www.raggedwing.org 

“The Vagina Monologues” at 7 p.m. at Dwinelle Hall, Room 155, UC Campus. Also Feb. 12 at 6 p.m., and Mon. Feb. 14 at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium. Cost is $10. Sponsored by Gender Equity Resource Center. berkeleyVM2005@lists.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

African Film Festival: “Moolaadé” at 7 p.m. and “Waiting for Happiness” at 9:25 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

De Rompe y Raja, Afro-Peruvian music and dance at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Slammin’ body music, beatboxing and a cappella at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Tracy Grammer, post-modern American music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50-$17.50. 548-1761.  

Jill Knight at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Nagg, The Look, The Sort Outs, Ride the Blinds at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886.  

Tempest, Druid Sister’s Tea Party at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082.  

Dan Barrett & Friends at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

DJ & Brook, jazz trio, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Brown Baggin’ at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Joshi Marshall and Friends at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Monster Squad, Try Failing, Whiskey Sunday, Giant Haystacks at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Abbey Lincoln at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Mon. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 12 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Dan Goldensohn at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $3-$4. 849-2568.  

THEATER 

Laney College Theater, “Knockers,” a candid look at breasts, with partial proceeds donated to the Breast Cancer Fund, at 8 p.m. at 900 Fallon St. Tickets are $10. 415-281-0547. 

Traveling Jewish Theater, “The Wonders” at 8 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Also on Sun. at 2 p.m. Tickets are $22-$35. 415-285-8080. www.atjt.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

Mary Robinson will discuss her technique of paint layering and use of a variety of tools. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Group Show at the Gallery of Urban Art, with works by Alena Rudolph, Hillary Kantmann, Gina Gaiser, Teresa Clark, Joso Vidal and John Holland. Reception from 5 to 8 p.m. at 1266 66th St., Emeryville. 596-0020. www.thegalleryofurbanart.com 

“The Art of Cappuccino” photographs by Arden Petrov, at the French Hotel Cafe/Gallery, 1538 Shattuck Ave., to March 26. 524-0646. 

FILM 

African Film Festival: “Moolaadé” at 6:30 p.m. and “Faat-Kine” at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rosemary Gong introduces “The Good Luck Life” a guide to Chinese American celebrations and culture at 4 p.m. at Eastwind Books, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trinity Chamber Concert with Davide Verotta, piano, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St., between Bancroft and Durant. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. http://trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Sacred & Profane Song of Solomon Choral Settings from Medieval to Modern at 8 p.m. at St. Ambrose Church, 1145 Gilman St. at Cornell. Tickets are $12-$18. 524-3611. www.sacredprofane.org 

Tsunami Relief Benefit Concert with Patti Weiss, Francis Lockwood, Katya Roemer, Miles Graber and others at 7 p.m. at the Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. Donation $20-$30, all of which will go to the Red Cross. 333-0474. 

Early Chamber Music with Jeanne Johnson, violin; Joanna Blendulf, cello, Yuko Tanaka, harpsichord at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 528-1725. www.sfems.org  

Open Hearts Benefit for Tsumani Relief with music by Ancent Future, Sasha Butterfly, Soulsalaam and others at 7 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Donation $15-$100 benefits the Seva South Asia Emergency Fund. RSVP to 843-2787. www.seva.org 

Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $28-$56. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Valentine’s Day Cabaret at 7 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $30-$35. 845-8542. www.juliamorgan.org 

Yaelisa & Caminos Flamencos at 7 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Also on Feb. 13-14. Cost is $55-$85. 287-8700.  

Ramona the Pest, Nellie Bly, TaraLinda & Friends at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Juju Stars, African, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Forthmorning, Sleep in Fame, Omissa, hard rock, metal at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886.  

Mariospeedwagon and Lemon Juju at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Beatropolis at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Chookasian Armenian Concert Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

pickPocket Ensemble at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Beatsauce, turntablism, at 10 p.m. at Club Oasis, 135 12th St., Oakland. Cost is $10. 763-0404. 

Aya de León’s Love Fest at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Steven Bernstein, “Direct from NYC” at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Mardi Gras Celebration with Lady Mem’fis and Mal Sharpe’s Big Money in Jazz New Orleans Band at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Iron Lung, Lords of Light, Takaru, Laudanum at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 13 

EXHIBITIONS 

Reception for New Exhibitions at 1 p.m. at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

FILM 

African Film Festival: “Moolaadé” at 3 p.m. and “Enthusiasm” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“More Binding Ties: The Migration Suite” a spoken-word performance by Michael Copeland Sydnor about Bay Area African Americans who worked as Pullman porters and maids at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200.  

Poetry Flash with Rusty Morrison, Devin Johnston and Martha Ronk at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

“The People and the Book” a panel discussion in conjunction with the exhibition of paintings and rare books at 2 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $7-$10. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $28-$56. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Daniel Müller-Schott, cello at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $46. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra “Schubertiade” at 3 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Free admission. 415-248-1640. www.sfchamberorchestra.org 

Wei He, violinist, Yun-Jie Liu, violist, at 4 p.m. at the Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12, free for children. 559-6910. www.crowdenmusiccenter.org 

Yaelisa & Caminos Flamencos at 6 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Also on Feb. 14. Cost is $55-$85. 287-8700.  

The Gospel Hummingbirds at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054.  

Dan K. Harvest, hip hop, at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5-$7. 848-0886.  

Wayne Wallace 4th Dimension at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Papa Gianni and the North Beach Band at 2 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Hurricane Sam Rudin, boogie, blues and jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50-$17.50. 548-1761.  

Eric Van James, solo jazz piano, at 6 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

MONDAY, FEB. 14 

FILM 

Seeing Through the Screen: Buddhism and Film: “Fearless” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Maggie Morley and Friends, poetry reading, followed by an open mic, at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Buzzy Jackson describes “A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sing Them” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express, featuring The Poet JC, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Yaelisa & Caminos Flamencos at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Four shows beginning at 5:30 p.m. Cost is $55-$85. 287-8700. www.cafedelapaz.net 

Trovatore, traditional Italian songs, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Songwriters Symposium at 8:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Sylvia & The Silvertones at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 15 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Empathy” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Brian Green describes “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” Einstein’s impact on science, in conversation with Dr. Moira Gunn, host of public radio’s “Tech Nation” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Brad Reynolds discusses “Embracing Reality: The Integral Vision of Ken Wilber” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

“Word Tripping: Literature for the Quantum Age” with author Roy Doughty at 7 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Cost is $10. 528-8844. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sauce Piquante, Cajun/zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Gary Rowe, solo piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Madera Road, Motel Fresno, Bob Harp, Americana country, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Bill Charlap Trio plays the music of Leonard Bernstein at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Also on Wed. Cost is $8-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 16 

THEATER 

“Bright River” A hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, every Wed. through March 16 at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $12-$35 available from 415-256-8499. www.inhousetickets.com 

FILM 

Film 50: History of Cinema: “The Love Parade” at 3 p.m. and Games People Play: “Westworld” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Elisabeth Robinson introduces her novel “The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Laura Splan Artist’s talk and slide lecture at 6:30 p.m. at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

Marc Sapir reads from his novel “The Last Tale of Mendel Abbe: Sonny Bush and the Wise Men of Chelm” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

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

Café Poetry with Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with the Chamber Chorus at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Del Sol String Quartet, contemporary chamber miusic, at 8 p.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. 415-831-5672. www.delsolquartet.com  

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

La Verdada, salsa, at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Wil Blades Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Carla Kihlstedt’s 2 Foot Yard at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Hobo Gobbelins, underground music, at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. at Solano Ave. 524-9220. www.ivyroom.com 

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

Mixed Signals, Mister Loveless,The Catholic Comb, indie rock, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 



It’s a tantalizingly warm winter day. I’m walking toward the sound of power—water tumbling down, around and across a series of rocks. Is this a canyon at 6,000 feet in the Sierras? No, I’m just one hour from home, approaching Little Yosemite, one of many natural wonders to discover at Sunol Regional Wilderness. 

Somehow, after a lifetime enjoying the outdoors, this is my first trip to this remote hidden wilderness in Alameda County, and now is the season to visit. Plan to come on a dry day following some serious rain and enjoy all the benefits—velvet-green carpeted grasslands and hillsides, water-kissed foliage, swollen creeks, fresh-smelling air—signs of renewed life will surround you. 

East of Highway 680, the 6,580 acres of the Sunol Wilderness landscape were formed by the action of erosion and the Calaveras fault system creating high-rising escarpments and deep-cut canyons and valleys. From Rose Peak, at 3,800 feet, sandstone and basalt outcrops and huge boulders of greenstone, schist and metachart provide evidence of massive land movement. 

Sunol’s cultural history reads like a story often heard in Northern California: Taucan Indian villages along Alameda Creek, Spanish missionaries and Mexican rancheros grazing cattle and post Gold Rush homesteaders farming the land. Though lifestyle and the environment have changed over time, much of the landscape, flora and fauna remain the same, preserved as wilderness. 

To put these new sites in context I begin at the Old Green Barn Visitor Center, quaint and unassuming, nestled below graceful oaks. Inside, well prepared illustrated exhibits and some hands-on activities give me an overview. Subjects range from the requisite size of wilderness, as large as the San Francisco Bay to a mere drop of water; the natural communities of grassland, chaparral, oak woodland and streamside within the park; resident species like the acorn woodpecker, fence lizard and long-horned beetle, and introduced species such as feral pigs and the wild turkeys who greeted me at the gate. 

The Old Green Barn is a valuable resource center providing lists for birders anxious to add the 20 to 40 species visible throughout the year, a Wildflower ID Kit for budding botanists and a booklet for the Indian Joe Creek Self-Guided Nature Trail. 

Like most kids or those young at heart, I’m a sucker for numbered posts. “You’re never too old to learn” holds true here. The one-mile nature loop along Alameda Creek to Indian Joe Creek winds through grassland and wooded canyon. Twelve numbered posts corresponding to booklet narratives are a perfect introduction to Sunol’s history and landscape. 

The amazing western sycamore, a stately tree with patchy white bark standing out like a beacon in the low creek-side light, can lose up to 50 gallons of water on a warm day, explaining why its habitat must be near water, neighbor to white alder and willow. Home to red-breasted sapsucker, acorn woodpecker, bluebird, kestrel, starling and yellow-billed magpies, the sycamore would be sorely missed. 

Along the trail I pass only a few walkers though two cows graze happily on the hillside. Sounds of modern life are far away, only the water moving through the creek and the rustling leaves overhead. Thickets of blue oak and coast live oak cluster in carved canyons, dressed in soft-hued lichens, while the fuzzy leaves of chaparral hold on to all available moisture. At Flag Hill, formed from a slab of ancient seafloor, the south and north canyon walls are a study in contrast. On the dryer south slope, only grass and chaparral can survive, while trees thrive on the moisture-rich north.  

The nature trail is ideal for a short hike through a beautiful, tranquil landscape, easily accessible and moderate in difficulty, with few inclines. Just the place to introduce visitors, children or yourself to a new wilderness experience. 

From the close at hand, I switch my focus to unmatched views of open country, as far as the eye can see. Canyon View Trail, 1.4 miles to Little Yosemite, stretches my focal length as I follow the trail up and along the canyon rim, feasting on rolling green contours, cliffs of weathered serpentine, massive oaks with exposed branches harboring huge balls of mistletoe and water rushing along creeks and their tributaries. Contrasting colors shimmer in bright sunlight: vivid orange lichen crusting dark gray stones jutting from the ground, mustard liverworts slimy against a downed log, the season’s first sunny yellow buttercups against emerald moss and the stark-white sycamore bark against cerulean sky. 

Reaching Little Yosemite through an ancient tree-cloaked hill, I marvel at the gorge before me where huge boulders appear to have been tossed down by a giant. 

What violent force created their arrangement? Sound echoes off the walls as the waterfall courses through a series of pools and shoots. You can access the creek in several places but most require a steep scramble. Following Camp Ohlone fire road back to the trailhead offers much visual and audible access and creates a loop hike rather than backtracking. 

Little Yosemite is the park’s main draw and Camp Ohlone Road the most populous trail. Wide, gravel and level, this option appeals to a broad range of visitors. Many smaller trails lead off toward the creek offering more of a wilderness experience but may not lead all the way to the trailhead. 

Following the road back to the Old Green Barn, you pass a lovely spot, the Alameda Grove Picnic Area. Extensive in size with widely spaced picnic tables and grills, many creek-side and almost all shaded by broad sweeping trees, you’ll find it hard to not linger. Make sure to allow time for a picnic, a cookout or a short rest to enjoy the scenery. 

With a park of this size, one day just isn’t enough. On my visit, touring the Old Green Barn and nature trail and the loop hike to Little Yosemite with a stop for lunch was just right for a moderate hiking day. I look forward to other hikes in the future. Indian Joe Creek Nature Trail climbs to the impressive Cave Rocks, natural formations in basalt outcroppings. Eagles’ View Trail, as the name implies, climbs through the Valley of the Giants to an eagle’s view of the park. 

What can be better than a day of discovery? Discovering wilderness in an unexpected place—all 6,580 acres of it. Discovering Yosemite so much closer to home. Discovering saturated color—orange lichen, yellow buttercups and liverworts, green moss and miner’s lettuce, blue water and sky. The time for this discovery is now when water is plentiful and the sun is kind. Don’t put it off—and don’t forget those hot dogs! 

Getting There: Drive east on I-580 to the junction with I-680 in Pleasanton. At the junction, go south on I-680 and exit at Calaveras Road/Hwy 84 just south of the town of Pleasanton. Turn left onto Calaveras Road and proceed to Geary Road, which leads directly into the park. 

Sunol Regional Wilderness: $4. Day use, dog fee $1. 

Sunol Wilderness : 

(925) 862-2244  

Sunol Interpretive Center: 

(925) 862-2601  

Camping also available: (510) 636-1684; $12/night. 

Hours: 7 a.m. to dusk 

www.ebparks.org/parks/sunol.htm 

For free brochure/map, phone East Bay Parks District at 562-7275 ext. 2 X

FRIDAY, FEB. 11 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Robert Scalapino, Prof. emeritus, UCB, on “Developments in Far Eastern Asia, and Challenges.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

Fundraiser for Tsunami Victims with music and speeches from 5 to 7 p.m. at Lower Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. ahopeforrecovery.org 

“Maestro: Tom Dowd and the Language of Music” a free screening followed by discussion at 7 p.m. at The College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway, north. 658-5202. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 12 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program from 10 to 11 a.m., for ages 4-6 years; accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $5-$7. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Animal Amore! Annual adult only walking tour of the Oakland Zoo to learn the courting and mating habits of the residents. From 9 to 11 a.m. Sat. and Sun. Cost is $10 and registration is required. 632-9525, ext. 142. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Gondwanaland in the Garden Explore the UCBG’s plants from the ancestral range of Gondwanaland, the giant southern landmass which began drifting apart during the Eocene epoch. From 1 to 2 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Cost is $8-$12. Registration required. 643-2755. 

The Wonderful World of Camilias with Garth Jacober on planting, care and pruning at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Berkeley Public Library Foundation’s 3rd Annual Authors Dinner Reception at 7 p.m. Tickets for reception still available for $125. 981-6115. www.bplf.org/events.html  

Lunar New Year Festival from noon to 4 p.m. at Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St., Oakland. www.oacc.cc 

Service Dogs for the Blind and the Deaf A special presentation for all ages at 11 a.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. http://ccclib.org  

Tsunami Relief Garage and Bake Sale from 9 a.m. to noon, rain or shine at 1809 Bancroft Ave. at Grant. All proceeds will go to the relief effort. Sponsored by Berkwood Hedge School. 

Emergency Response Training Class on “Light Search and Rescue” from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Fire Dept. Training Center, 997 Cedar St. To register call 981-5606. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html 

5K Run for Tsunami Victims at 10 a.m. beginning at Sather Gate, UC Campus. 502-7995. ahopeforrecovery.org 

Pre-School Storytime for ages 3-5 at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext.17.  

Winter Color in the Garden at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 13 

Valentine’s Day History Hike to look for mating activity at 10 a.m. in Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

See Our Snakes We’ll look at our resident snakes and learn about their behavior at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Valentine’s Day for Your Dog A special salon with a bath, combing and nail trimming for your dog, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society, 2700 Ninth St. Benefit for homeless dogs and cats. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

Singing Valentine Grams with the UC Choral Ensembles today and Mon. Cost is $20-$50. For information and reservations call 642-3880. 

“More Binding Ties: The Migration Suite” a spoken-word performance by Michael Copeland Sydnor about Bay Area African Americans who worked as Pullman porters and maids at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

A Bridge to Babylon: Judeo-Arabic Music in the Middle East workshop with YairDalal at Epic Arts Studios, 1923 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $15. All ages welcome. Advance tickets available through InhouseTickets.com 

57th Annual Festival of the Oaks, International Folk Dance Festival, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with workshops, open folk dancing and exhibition dancing, at Laney College Gym, 901 Fallon St., Oakland. Donation requested. 527-2177. meldancing@aol.com 

Valentine’s Day Card Workshop Make a card or two and learn about the cultural history of Valentine’s Day. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Materials provided. Cost is $5-$7. 525-2233. 

Celebrate Black History Month with African mask making at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-111. www.habitot.org 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

“Follow Me Home” a film exploring race and identity at 3 and 6 p.m. at the Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Post-screening discussion with Lakota Henderson. Cost is $7. Benefits eighth graders at Melrose Leadership Academy. 967-8799. 

Green Sunday, on steps cities can take to select renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency at 5 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Family Film Sunday Series “The Love Bug” at 11 a.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $5 at the door. 845-8542. www.juliamorgan.org 

“Raising Your Child in an Interfaith Home” at 11:30 a.m. at Temple Sinai, 2808 Summit Street, Oakland. 547-2250. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Using the Mind to Relieve Pain” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, FEB. 14 

“Porter! In Our Own Words” a lecture by Dr. P. Christiaan Klieger on the oral histories of members of The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters at 10:30 a.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping in Berkeley Public Schools at 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

“Franz Kafka: Exemplary Jewish Writer” meets Mon. through March 21 at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $20. 845-6420. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 15 

Early Morning Bird Walk on the Albany Bulb meet at the end of Buchanan St. at 7:30 a.m. 525-2233.  

Bird Walk on the Martin Luther King Shoreline from 3 to 5 p.m. Dress for wind and rain. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Garden Club “Aesthetic Pruning of Trees and Shrubs” with Bill Castellon, Instructor at Merritt Horticulture Dept. Meeting at 1 p.m., program at 2 p.m. at Epworth MethodistChurch, 1953 Hopkins St. 524-4374. 

The Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Low Cost Spay/Neuter Day, in recognition of the 11th annual Spay Day. Spay/neuter costs are $5-$10. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

“What’s Really Happening in Iraq” A report-back from the humanitarian aid mission that delivered over $650,000 in aid to Falluja refugees, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 415-255-7296. www.globalexchange.org 

Embracing Diversity Films “Not in our Town II” A documentary on positive community solutions to hate violence and the resurgence of Ku Klux Klan activity. At 7 p.m. at Albany High School, 603 Key Route Blvd. Enter through the main doors on Key Route Blvd., turn left and walk down the hall to Room 109 on the right. Please arrive early as space is limited. Admission is free, donations are welcome. Screening will be followed by a facilitated discussion. 527-1328. 

“Adventure in Alaska: Climbing Denali & More” with professional photographer Jeff Pfluger at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed 594-5165. 

Black History Celebration with a showing of “Roots” at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

School Age Storytime for ages 5 and up at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext.17.  

Family Story Time at the Kensington Branch Library, Tues. evenings at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Tap Into It Jazz and Rhythm Tap classes at Montclair Recreation Center, 6300 Moraga Ave., Oakland. Experienced at 6:30 p.m., beginners at 7:30 p.m. 482-7812. 

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group discusses “Love and Sex: A Valentine Special” from 7 to 9 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Please bring snacks and soft drinks to share. No peanuts please. 601-6690. 

Teen Book Group meets to discuss “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

“Healthy Ways to Learn from Emotional Experiences” with Pete Walker, Marriage and Family Therapist, at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512.  

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 6 p.m. This is a project of Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Sing-A-Long every Tues. from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. All ages welcome. 524-9122. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 16 

Great Decisions 2005: “U.S. Intelligence” with Prof. Emeritus Marshall Windmiller, SF State, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. Cost is $5, $40 for the series. The Great Decisions program will meet for eight Wednesdays. Briefing booklets are available. For information and reservations call 526-2925. 

“Hands Off Social Security” with the Gray Panthers at 7 p.m. at 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Imaging the Voices of the Past” Using Physics to Restore Early Sound Recordings with Dr. Carl Haber, Senior Scientist, Berkeley Lab Physics Division at 5:30 p.m. at the Berkeley High School Library, Allston Way at Milvia St. 

“Making Governments Provide Better Safety and Accessibility for Bicycle Riders” A panel discussion with the directors of all the Bay Area bicycle coalitions at 8:15 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 527-0450.  

“In The Beginning Were Stories, Not Texts,” with Dr. Choan-Seng Song exploring the idea that life begins with stories and that God is both the “story-teller and story-listener” at 7:30 p.m. in the Richard S. Dinner Boardroom, GTU, Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2420. 

Women’s Health Lecture on “Mood & Menopause” at 6:15 p.m. at the Claremont Resort, 41 Tunnel Rd. Cost is $10-$15. 527-3010. ww.afwh.org/about/ 

claremontlectures.htm 

AARP Free Tax Assistance for taxpayers with middle and low incomes, with special attention to those 60 years and older. From 12:15 to 4:15 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. This service will continue through April. Appointments must be made in advance. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets at 7:15 a.m. at Au Cocolait, 200 University Ave. at Milvia. 524-3765. 

WriterCoach Connection Volunteer Training Help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills. Training session from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. Other Trainings on Mar. 8, 15. www.writercoachconnection.org 

Winter Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Artify Ashby Muralist Group meets every Wed. from 5 to 8 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, to plan a new mural. New artists are welcome. Call Bonnie at 704-0803. 

Prospective Seminary Students Church Divinity School of the Pacific Open House Feb. 16-18 at 2451 Ridge Rd. To register call 204-0715. www.cdsp.edu 

Argosy University Information Sessions for degree programs in Psychology, Education and Business at 6 p.m. at 999-A Canal Blvd., Point Richmond. To RSVP or for directions to the school, call 215-0277. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch Bring your knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts from 6 to 9 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, FEB. 17 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Susan Schwartz, head of Friends of Five Creeks, shows slides of new and upcoming nature restorations you can explore on city walks, at Berkeley Path Wanderers’ meeting at 7 p.m. at Live Oak Park Recreation Center, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 848-9358. f5creeks@aol.com 

School Choices at Berkeley High An informational night on the school and program choices students have. Current 8th-10th graders and families invited. At 7 p.m. in the Berkeley High Community Theater. 644-6320. 

“Winemaker’s Dance” a lecture by David G. Howell on the influence of the earth in producing good wine at 12:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Golden Gate Audubon Society “Sights and Sounds of Kenya” Slides and sound recordings with Peter Headland at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, between Marin and Solano. 843-2222. 

“Contemporary Brazilian Culture” with Gilberto Gil, Brazilian singer and composer at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Free, but tickets must be picked up at Wheeler box office beginning at 6 p.m. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Bridge to Babylon” Judeo-Arabic music in the Middle East at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $20. 845-6420. 

ONGOING 

Collect Cleats for All Feet Donate your cleats and other sports equipment to Sports4kids Swap Shop, which works to make sports equipment available to all children who want to play. Donation barrels for cleats at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. Other locations at www.sports4kids.org 

Beginning Tai Chi Class starts Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Large Assembly Room of the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. 415-864-0899. www.taichicalifornia.org 

“Half Pint Library” Book Drive Donate children’s books to benefit Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland. Donations accepted at 1849 Solano Ave. through March 31. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Creeks Task Force meets every Monday at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center through April 4. Erin Dando, 981-7410. 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Feb. 14, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Mon. Feb. 14, at 5 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. ww.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/zoning   

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., Feb. 15, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. ww.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/housingauthority 

City Council meets Tues., Feb. 15, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Feb. 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/humane 

Commission on Aging meets Wed. Feb. 16, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/aging 

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Feb. 16, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Delfina M. Geiken, 981-7550. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/labor 

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Prasanna Rasaih, 981-6950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/faircampaign 

Homeless Commission meets Wed. Feb. 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed. Feb. 16, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Kristen Lee, 981-5427. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/welfare 

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 17, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Peter Hillier, 981-7000. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/transportation™

“This is the story of a thousand people drinking Shirley Temples and smoking candy cigarettes, and they all think they’re in a back room with their Scotch and cigars.” 

Today’s exemplary text, spoken by an unnamed cynic, is from a new book by Phillip Nobel, Sixteen Acres, Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero. It refers to something called 21st Century Town Meetings, organized by a well-meaning non-profit called AmericaSpeaks, whose uplifting charter can be found on the Internet.  

Martin Filler includes the quote in a dispiriting piece in the latest New York Review about four books which try to explain what’s been going on—and hasn’t been going on—with the Ground Zero site. The bottom line seems to be, in the prophetic words of Ada Louise Huxable written less than a week after the World Trade Center was bombed, that the debate has led to a “solution” in which “principle is lost and an epic opportunity is squandered.”  

One such town meeting was put on by some well-meaning organization, perhaps AmericaSpeaks, in the Morrison Room on the UC campus not too long after the bombing. The room was filled, standing room only, with articulate and creative people, many of whom had wonderful ideas about what to do with the site. We got into a very stimulating discussion with San Francisco landscape architect Topher Delany, who has designed some successful memorial gardens in places like hospitals. Excellent ideas, deeply relevant, were exchanged, along with business cards. Nothing came of it. Nothing ever comes of meetings like this, as the anonymous cynic knows well. 

Such assemblies have become the 21st century’s substitute for real democracy. Jesse Unruh, once speaker of the California Assembly, used to say that “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Now “town meetings,” “charettes,” “scoping sessions,” “workshops” and “task forces” have become the soy milk of politics, a more accessible metaphor for Berkeley types than Shirley Temples and Scotch. They look a lot like the real thing, satisfying a lot of people that they’re taking part in the political process, but in the end what used to be called “the interests” always get what they want. 

The struggle over Berkeley’s Seagate Building is a good local example. Many well-meaning (there’s that word again) citizens labored for years over the Downtown Plan, which among other things created design standards for downtown Berkeley. Many more labored over the General Plan, which among other things was supposed to limit building height. The final design, which flouts the rules for both, was shamelessly promoted by the staff of the Planning Department of the City of Berkeley and by Mayor Bates, who met privately with Seagate’s builders for more than an hour on at least one occasion, but seems to have discussed only the weather and the pennant race. Citizen activists appealed, and were ignored. It’s easy to be deaf to the voice of the people when serious money is on the table. 

Or how about UC’s Long Range Development Plans? The public is given a limited subset of UC’s agenda to chew over, and while they’re at the table the real action is going on elsewhere. It’s pretty clear now that there’s some kind of big deal being cooked up by the conjunction of the University of California, which owns the valuable bayfront acreage known the Richmond Field Station, and Simeon Properties, which owns the adjacent parcel now known as Campus Bay. It’s also obvious that these two parties have been colluding in some way to try to duck supervision of cleanup of the two polluted sites by the state Division of Toxic Substances Control, which makes a good faith effort to get citizen input. And residents who have been going to the meetings which are supposed to be discussions of UC Berkeley’s long range development plans were never even told about the bay site projects. Nor, for that matter, were they told about the lavish new football stadium being snuck in under the rubric of “rehabilitating” the old one. (If it goes through as planned the team will have to change its name from the Bears to the Trojan Horses.)  

On the national level, pro-democracy activists (yes, we have them, just like they do in Ukraine) see a ray of hope in the election of Howard Dean as chair of the Democratic National Committee. Dean’s presidential campaign had many of the trappings of a genuine citizen effort, and the fact that it was eventually squelched by the DNC’s official candidate led even cynics to think that it might have been for real. Does Dean’s ascendancy to DNC chair mean that there might be power for citizen activists at last?  

Or does it mean that Dean has decided that if you can’t beat the establishment you might as well join it? The big success of the Dean campaign was raising money, which is why he got the DNC job. Citizen meetings (or “meet-ups”) which give grass-roots people the chance to express their opinions are a great fundraising device, but do participants get a real chance to influence public policy? Are participants just drinking Shirley Temples and smoking candy cigarettes? We’ll have to wait and see what the “new” DNC does. 

—Becky O’Malley›

Ash Wednesday was this week, the traditional opening day of six weeks of reflection for Christians. And today an old friend e-mailed a link to a website, rememberthesechildren.org, which lists the names and ages of children killed in the ongoing dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The numbers alone are sobering. Since the first of this year, one Israeli child and 16 Palestinian children have died. Since September of 2000, dead Palestinian children number 671, with 118 Israeli kids dead. We’ll get letters, undoubtedly, pointing out that more children have probably died in Darfur, and in the tsunamis, and the letter writers will perhaps therefore try to minimize the impact of the deaths of the children in Israel. Or perhaps they will try to blame the adults who are associated with the dead children, and accuse them of negligence or of fomenting the strife which produced the deaths, or even of sending children on suicide missions. Such partisan argument misses the point: As long as the rest of us in the rest of the world acquiesce in the death of any child anywhere, we are participating in some way in causing these deaths. And in the words of John Dunne, “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”  

A well-meaning Berkeleyan has been working on arranging a meeting for us with religious leaders from his community to discuss the Israel-Palestine situation and what they think about how the Daily Planet has presented it on our opinion pages. He’s pretty sure in his own mind that we’re wrong, but he wants us all to discuss it. We have agreed to meet them at any time and place of their choosing, because we think that what’s going on, particularly as innocent children (and adults) are affected, is something that all of us should be concerned about. We’d like to have a similar meeting with religious leaders whose co-religionists are “on the other side” in the controversy. All of us, whether religious or not, need to re-dedicate ourselves to doing all we can to bring an end to the killing.  

One way of doing this is to talk to one another. Karl Linn, a European Jew who narrowly escaped the Holocaust by going to Palestine in the 1930s, participated in Jewish-Palestinian dialogue groups in recent years before his death. As far as we’ve heard, these talks haven’t succeeded in ending the strife, but they are a beginning. The best way to honor Karl’s memory will be for community members who care about what’s going on in the Middle East to keep trying, even though it can often be painful, to talk to one another about our differences, and also, especially, about what we agree on. We can’t afford not to.  

—Becky O’Malleyi