Prosecutors plan to file murder charges in a brutal attack that left a Berkeley homeless woman dead. 

Mary Katherine King, 45, died of blunt trauma to the head at Highland Hospital Sunday afternoon, said Dan Apperson, Alameda County supervising coroner. She had remained in a coma since being attacked early on Feb. 8 while sleeping alone near the corner of University Avenue and California Street. 

Berkeley police arrived on the scene to find King bleeding and unconscious, said police spokesperson Joe Okies. An area search turned up three suspects and police are searching for another suspected attacker who remains at large. 

Jarell Johnson, 18, who authorities charge stomped King to death, will face murder charges, a spokesperson for Assistant District Attorney John Adams said. Johnson was arrested blocks from the crime scene along with two others the night King was attacked. The other two have not been charged in the crime. King’s death is Berkeley’s first homicide of 2005. Last year the city had four. 

“It was a crime of really unbelievable brutality,” said Richard Lysakowski, King’s brother. “Basically she was sleeping and four men came up to her and two decided to repeatedly kick her to the head.” 

Police did not offer possible motives for the attack. 

Lysakowski said his sister suffered from bi-polar disorder that took root after she injured her back trying to move a desk while working as a paralegal in Marin County. 

The injury, sustained in the mid-1980s, he said, made it impossible for King to sit for long periods of time. As her mental illness grew worse, King, who collected federal disability insurance, bounced around between her native Chicago and the Bay Area, spending much of her time on the streets. 

“We tried on a number of occasions to find her housing,” Lysakowski said. Twice, he added, King left housing accommodations, complaining that the living arrangements were substandard. 

“It was her choice to live in the street,” he said. 

Spencer LaViolette, a Berkeley homeless person, counted King, whom he knew as “Maria” as one of his closest friends. “She was one of the kindest, most generous people you could ever know,” he said. “If you were cold she’d find you a shirt or she’d go into the store and get you a cup of noodles.” 

LaViolette said King didn’t feel comfortable in shelters, and typically slept alone along University Avenue, around the area where she was killed. 

When he heard about the attack, LaViolette and another friend visited her at the hospital where she was on life support. “I put my hand on her and said, ‘I love you Maria. I hope you get better.’” 

Before descending into mental illness, King, who received a master’s degree in history, also worked as a teacher and an editor. By the time LaViolette met her, King claimed numerous professions including nun, linguist, paralegal, teacher and nurse. 

“We always took her claims with a grain of salt,” he said. “But I do believe she was a nurse, because she had that caring quality about her.” 

King’s family is scheduling a memorial service for her at Saint Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley. Afterwards, Lysakowski said the family will spread her ashes in Berkeley, Chicago and Scotland, where their family lived for generations. 

King, who was a widow, is survived by her father Richard, her brothers Richard and Peter and her sister Anna. 

Lawrence Dillon, 19, and a juvenile, who had previously been arrested in the case along with Johnson, were not charged.›

Berkeley filed suit Wednesday against UC Berkeley, charging that the university’s Long Range Development Plan violated state law and would sanction a university building boom, leaving residents to pay for strained city services and clogged roads. 

“The university asked us to sign the equivalent of a blank check that would allow it to build wherever, whenever, and however it would like,” said Mayor Tom Bates. “This lawsuit firmly states that we are not signing anything until we know what we are buying.” 

The university’s plan, which guides future development on and off campus through 2020, projects 2,600 new dormitory beds, between 1,800 and 2.300 new parking spaces and 2.2 million square feet in new academic and administrative space. 

The city contends that the plan violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because the university willfully withheld information about specific projects it plans to build and failed to offer adequate measures to lessen the impact of university growth on the city. 

Antonio Rossman, a land use attorney who teaches at Boalt Hall, said he likes the city’s chances to prevail. In 1978, he successfully sued UCLA in a similar case. 

“At the moment, my sense is that the city has the advantage on the merits of the case,” Rossman said. 

The city is asking the judge to throw out the current environmental study of the plan and make the university provide further analyses and mitigations. Should Berkeley seek and receive an injunction, the university would be barred from beginning construction on any projects under the plan. 

Central to the city’s argument is that days after the UC Board of Regents certified the plan’s environmental impact report last month, the university released new plans for renovating Memorial Stadium and building a new academic building nearby. Neither of the projects were identified in the long range plan. 

“The record is so unfortunate for the university on how they handled the stadium issue,” Rossmann said. “That’s an easy handle for a judge to grab.” 

The city also charges that the university stonewalled on turning over public documents about the two projects. According to the pleading, the city requested materials on Nov. 29, 2004, but didn’t receive them until after the Regents had certified the plan’s environmental document. 

University spokesperson Janet Gilmore said neither project had reached the level of detail for inclusion in the long range plan. 

Gilmore said the university has offered to pay the city $1.2 million for city services as part of deal to forego the lawsuit. The city, according to UC officials, had asked for between $3 and $5 million to cover the cost of city services which the university is exempt from paying. 

Bates said he had spoken with UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau on Tuesday, and that he was still hopeful the two sides could work out a deal when they meet at a court-mandated settlement meeting, expected to come in March. 

The lawsuit filed Wednesday does not seek repayment for past city services. However a judge could stipulate a settlement calling on the university to pay a set amount to mitigate the effects of its plan, Rossmann said. 

City officials say they have already spent $70,000 on the lawsuit and have budgeted $250,000 should the case go to trial. Additionally, the city is considering future lawsuits to compel the university to pay city sewer and parking fees. 

Neighborhood leaders, who have pushed the city to proceed with litigation over the long range plan, remained wary that the city would not aggressively pursue the case. 

“Even with the lawsuit I still feel a bit uncomfortable,” said Roger Van Ouytsel, who lives just north of campus. “I know the city really wants to work with UC and I fear that we’ll be left out of the process and the neighbors will suffer. For us,” he added, “It’s important that some of the money will go to protect the quality of life in the neighborhoods.” 

Dean Metzger, head of the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association just south of campus, urged the city to proceed with an injunction to put pressure on the university. 

“The lawsuit doesn’t do anything but put the university on notice that they have to file a response,” he said. 

To receive an injunction, Rossmann said the city would have to move beyond the pleadings and prove the merits of the case.  

The most interesting argument offered by the city, Rossmann added, is its contention that UC’s system-wide master plan used by UC Berkeley to justify its enrollment increase violated state environmental law and required a separate environmental review. The city argues that the master plan, which calls for 63,000 new students system-wide and 4,000 at UC Berkeley by 2010, divided what was essentially a system-wide undertaking in to separate pieces.  

“Such segmentation,” the city’s pleading reads, “avoids full disclosure of its environmental impacts and thus, violates CEQA’s mandate that environmental analysis be carried out for the project as a whole.” 

The pleadings neglect prior concerns raised by the city that the university offered no guarantees that it would abide by the city’s general plan. Also left out is the city’s contention that the university, in order to minimize the stated neighborhood impacts, had illegally separated out other long-term planning projects, including the long range plan for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Richmond Field Station. 

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A former El Cerrito mayor’s small claims court action has ended in a ruling that the city has been collecting an illegal tax for the last seven years. 

Contra Costa County Superior Court Commissioner Clare M. Maier upheld Kenneth Berndt’s suit to reclaim $191.41 in utility user taxes paid between November 2003 and August 2004. 

The ruling was Berndt’s second victory against collection of what he argued was an improperly collected tax. His first victory early last year forced the city to bring the assessment to a popular vote. 

“I know the city needs the money,” said the plaintiff, who retired after 21 years with Central Bank in El Cerrito, the last 17 as manager. “All I was looking for was for them to get it legally.” 

El Cerrito City Attorney Janet Coleson downplayed the decision, and faulted Maier for “erroneous assumptions” in her decision, including an analysis of “the wrong part of the constitution” and for calling the Utility Users Tax a property-related fee instead of a tax. 

“This doesn’t set a precedent for anyone else,” Coleson said, noting that Maier is an attorney in private practice who was serving as a temporary commissioner when she heard the case last November. 

What marked the ruling as unusual, Coleson said, was that Maier took three months to reach her decision and then she presented it in the form of an eight-page written opinion. 

What the decision means for other El Cerrito tax payers is uncertain, but it’s enough to worry the City Council, which is scheduled to review it in a closed-door executive session Monday night. 

“I can’t tell you if an appeal will be considered,” she said. “You have to remember that legal fees are expensive, and we have to weigh that against the $221.41 judgment.”  

After his first victory, Berndt said, “I had assumed the city would stop collecting the taxes until the November vote, and when they didn’t I sued again.” 

Maier’s decision in his latest case declares illegal a portion of Measure K, passed by voters Nov. 2, that retroactively “legalized” the previous collection of the illegal assessment.  

“There had been discussions at City Council meetings last year where they expressed the thought that if it was illegal, they would make it legal in November,” Berndt said. 

When the council voted to limit recoveries to a one-year period, he filed another action to recover his taxes collected in the ten months ending in August, 2004.  

“I’m not interested in the money,” he said. “I’m interested in my politicians being honest with me.” Berndt gave the money he recovered from his first suit to the city’s Senior Center. 

Just what the ruling means to the city remains uncertain. City Manager Scott Hanin was out of town and unavailable for comment Thursday, and Assistant City Manager Karen Pinkos referred calls to Coleson. Mayor Sandi Potter didn’t return a call. 

Maier held that the city collected the fees illegally between July 1, 1997, and November 2, 2004. 

The first date marked the deadline imposed by Proposition 218, passed by California voters in 1996, for cities, counties and other local government bodies to win voter approvals of most current property-based fees and assessments not previously subjected to a popular vote. It was designed an extension of Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot measure which imposed strict limits on property tax increase. 

The measure required local governments to submit to voter approval by July 1, 1997 all taxes that had been previously imposed by legislative bodies rather than by a citizen vote. One such fee, Maier ruled, was El Cerrito’s Utility User Tax, approved by a vote of the City Council effective in 1991, imposing fees for telephone, electricity, gas and cable and video services. 

The utility tax wasn’t put to El Cerrito voters until last year, in the form of local ballot Measure K, which not only ratified the tax as required, but also provided that “The voters of the City of El Cerrito hereby ratify and approve the past collection of the Utility Users Tax. . .as it has existed since its effective date of June 24, 1991.” 

That measure was forced by Berndt’s victory in an earlier small claims action in which he recovered utility taxes paid in 2002-2003. Maier ruled that the retroactivity section was invalid, a “fiction [that] must not be allowed” because “it attempts to validate a previously illegally imposed tax through ratification, essentially trying to impose an ex post facto law on the citizens of El Cerrito.” 

“For Court to accept the City of El Cerrito’s ratification argument,” wrote the commissioner, “would be to allow California’s prohibition on taxes without prior voter approval to fall victim to a municipality’s ‘one-two punch,’ i.e., permitting municipalities to circumvent the clear prohibition of its first low blow as long as it is followed by another.” 

Beyond the patent illegality of imposing a tax retroactively, Maier noted that the electorate which voted for the provision can’t have been the same electorate the city began taxing seven years earlier. 

The 2000 census noted that of the city’s 23,171 residents that year, only 58.2 percent were living at the same address five years earlier. 

Given that Measure K reached back seven years, Maier wrote, “and the population growth of residents of El Cerrito and the more transient population of renters is not accounted for, clearly the voters of 2004 are enormously different from the potential voters (and the actual taxpayers) of 1997, 1998, 1999, etc.” 

Berndt said if he were in the city manager’s shoes, he’d blame the council and the city attorney for inserting the retroactivity provisions of the measure. 

“I’d say you have lost the faith of the people,” he said. “You should step down.” 

Maier’s ruling was the second setback for an El Cerrito city tax. A real estate property transfer tax has been struck down after a similar suit and that case is up for appeal in March, Berndt said

Federal housing officials have given Berkeley-based non-profit developer Jubilee Restoration a March 1 deadline to show how it will repay approximately $200,000 in misspent federal funds. 

“If Jubilee doesn’t comply a number of actions could be taken, including denying them future funding,” said Larry Bush, spokesperson for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He added that HUD could still contemplate additional penalties for Jubilee even if it repays the money in full. 

HUD and Berkeley officials have charged that Jubilee illegally transferred the federal grants designated for its homeless youth program to its housing development operations. The two grants in question were for $97,305 and $102,171. 

Jubilee Executive Director Gordon W. Choyce maintained Wednesday that his organization had not violated HUD rules, but would repay the money if it could not persuade HUD that it acted legally. 

“I think that is the only thing we can do,” Choyce said. He would not say if Jubilee could survive should it have to return the funds. 

“Anything like this would cripple the organization,” he said, adding that Jubilee’s future would be part of repayment negotiations with HUD. 

Jubilee is the charitable arm of Berkeley’s Missionary Church of God in Christ, also headed by Choyce. 

Last December, Berkeley froze funding to Jubilee after the organization submitted statements showing that it billed the HUD grants $19,780 for work done by Housing Project Manager Todd Harvey and $55,483 for work done by Deputy Director Gordon Choyce II.  

In its contract with the city, Jubilee stated that both employees were fully dedicated to housing development. HUD, which has also frozen funds to the organization, began monitoring Jubilee last year after receiving tips from former employees. 

Choyce said that Jubilee has continued to offer services for homeless youth despite losing its funding sources. 

›

The battle over a tribe’s plan to build a Las Vegas-size casino in San Pablo heated up this week in City Council chambers and competing press conferences. 

On Tuesday night, the San Pablo City Council voted unanimously to urge state legislators to pass the required enabling act while a few miles away, Albany councilmembers voted their opposition with equal unanimity. 

At 10 the following morning the battle rejoined, this time in the form of rival press conferences. 

Casino San Pablo—the existing card room where the 2,500-slot-machine tribal casino would rise—offered a press conference where California labor leaders touted the jobs that would be created. 

Meanwhile, the Albany City Council Chambers played host to a media conference where a mixed group of opponents, including an academic, two elected officials, a Richmond political activist and a San Pablo business consultant unveiled a study that claims the casino would drain a minimum of $173 million annually from the East Bay and result in a net job loss. 

During the leadup to the San Pablo vote, city officials hailed the casino as a financial savior redeeming the city from the threat of dissolution and a boon for the local business community. 

Most of the public who spoke prior to the council vote raised the specters of crime, moral bankruptcy and the victimization of those least able to afford it. 

The resolution the council adopted urged the Legislature to endorse the compact already signed by the Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Lytton Rancheria Band which would authorize construction of the casino on San Pablo Avenue west of Interstate 80 “so that the residents of West Contra Costa County can receive the much needed jobs that would result in a Type III casino. . .” 

A Type III casino is one that features slot machines and card tables, but no dice or roulette. 

The Albany City Council resolution cited traffic and parking problems, increases in crime, personal bankruptcies, economic blight, proliferating pawn shops, “homelessness, domestic violence, child abuse and fraud,” as well as potential negative impacts to Doctors Hospital, the only regional medical facility offering public emergency room. 

Two San Pablo councilmembers reserved the harshest criticism for Loni Hancock, the Democratic State Assemblymember who represent the city and other East Bay communities. 

“Loni Hancock is spreading misinformation and myths because she has her own agenda,” declared Councilmember Paul V. Morris, while Councilmember Leonard McNeil cited “opposition from a very slanted forum that Loni Hancock put together.” 

McNeil’s comment referred to a Jan. 22 gathering called by the legislator that brought an overflow crowd to the Knox Center for the Performing Arts at Contra Costa Community College. 

Though Lytton Tribal Chair Margie Mejia, San Pablo Mayor Joseph M. Gomes and City Manager Brocker Arner were among the panelists, the speakers were heavily weighted toward casino foes. 

One of those foes was the central figure at the Wednesday morning press conference in Albany City Hall. Dr. William N. Thompson, a leading gambling expert witness and a professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, unveiled a 28-page analysis of the likely impacts of the casino for San Pablo and the Bay Area. 

Because, unlike the gambling parlors of the Las Vegas Strip and Glitter Gulch, Casino San Pablo won’t bring customers in from out of state, Thompson estimated that 55 percent of the dollars wagered there would come from pockets in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, with another 35 percent from the East and South Bays and only 10 percent from beyond the Bay Area. 

With 4.98 million visits yearly from gamblers losing an average of $100.20 each, the casino would take in $499 million, he estimated. 

Thompson estimated the operation’s annual costs, including payments to state and local governments, out-of-area operators, and Nevada slot machine makers, at $329.5 million—with only 47 percent going to the East Bay economy. 

Included in the losses was a figure of $54.9 million annually in losses caused by problem and compulsive gamblers, who lose jobs, run up unpayable debts and consume social services as a result of their problems. 

One of the primary sources of economic losses is the fact that money lost at the table and distributed outside the region won’t be spent with local businesses, Thompson said, resulting in further job losses as well. 

At the same time Thompson was addressing journalists, California Labor Federation Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski was praising the Lyttons for their “commitment to be a good partner in bringing good jobs to a community that has been too often left behind.” 

Joining Pulaski was Jack Gribbon, state political director for UNITE! HERE, affiliated with the Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union, which represents workers at the card room. 

“These are the kind of jobs that lift workers from barely making ends meet to a living wage and takes the dependent health care obligations off the backs of the state taxpayers and put them where they belong,” Gribbon said in a prepared statement. 

Dale Peterson, recording secretary for the Contra Costa Building Trades unions, praised the casino as a source of 6,800 jobs while the 342,000-square-foot structure is built. 

Meanwhile in Albany, Thompson was joined by Alameda County Supervisor Alice Lai-Bitker, a staunch urban gambling foes. A clinical social worker, Lai-Bitker singled out her experience in treating victims of compulsive gambling as a major reason for her opposition. 

Andres Soto, a co-founder of the Richmond Progressive Alliance, faulted the casino for preying on the Laotian and Latino residents of Richmond and San Pablo. 

“I have a couple of friends on the San Pablo City Council, Leonard McNeil and [Vice Mayor] Genoveva Garcia Calloway, and we call on them to reassess their position,” Soto said. 

“Solving our problems on the backs of those who can least afford it is no solution,” said Albany City Councilmember Robert Leiber. “I understand that many local cities are under tremendous pressure, but none of the [economic benefits to San Pablo] can offset the damage to our neighbors.” 

Both sides of the fight have been heavily funded by gambling interests and have recruited high-priced consultants and media advisors to marshal evidence and argue their cases. 

Some of the supporters of the San Pablo proposal belong to the Maloof family of Sacramento and Las Vegas, owners of the Sacramento Kings NBA team and of the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The Maloofs reportedly raised $2 million for Schwarzenegger’s successful gubernatorial run, and it was Schwarzenegger who signed a pact with the Lytton Tribe to build the San Pablo casino. 

The Maloofs are partners with three other entities that have signed on to manage the reincarnated Casino San Pablo, two casino operating tribes—the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians which owns and operates the Cache Creek Casino in Yolo County and the Pala Band of Mission Indians—and former Las Vegas casino owner Jerry Turk, who manages the Pala’s casino in San Diego County. 

In exchange for running Casino San Pablo, the four managing partners will receive a quarter of the net profit. 

Those opposed to the casino include the owners and operators of Bay Area cardrooms, which, along with the state lottery and charity bingo games, offered the only forms of gambling allowed in California on non-tribal lands. 

The next moves are in the hands of the legislature and of the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee, where Chair John McCain is holding hearings on the legality of legislation that gave the Lyttons a retroactive title to the land after the cutoff date that allowed automatic entitlement to a casino.

Despite a plea by the Berkeley High men’s baseball coach for opening the discussion of a baseball field on Derby Street, Berkeley Unified School District officials continue to keep that issue off the table until the City Council weighs in. 

Meanwhile, private planners hired by the district are preparing a second community meeting on the Derby Street properties for next Monday, Feb. 28, 7 p.m., at the Berkeley Alternative High School. 

At the close of last week’s Berkeley school board meeting, which lasted until 1:30 a.m., Berkeley High men’s baseball coach Tim Moellering asked the board “on behalf of Berkeley High school and the baseball team” to change the directions to the Derby Street developers “so that the closing of Derby Street can be discussed at the community meetings.” 

But less than seven hours after Moellering’s plea, Superintendent Michele Lawrence told members of the 2 X 2 Committee (represented by the City of Berkeley and the school district) that until the district receives a response from city officials regarding the Derby Street closure, the district will continue to exclude that issue from its community discussions surrounding the future of the Derby Street site. 

The Berkeley High men’s baseball team currently plays and practices at the city-owned San Pablo Park on Russell and Mabel streets. Some baseball team supporters have been pushing for the district to build a regulation-sized high school baseball field on two district-owned blocks surrounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Milvia Street, Ward Street, and Carleton Street. 

One of the blocks currently houses the Berkeley Alternative High School, the other holds abandoned classrooms and other buildings formerly used by the district. Building a full-sized baseball field on the two blocks would require the closing of Derby Street between MLK and Milvia, a site presently used by the Berkeley Farmer’s Market. 

While the school district controls the two blocks of Derby Street properties, the closure of Derby Street can only be done by the Berkeley City Council. The council has yet to take a position on the Derby closure. 

Berkeley City Councilmember Max Anderson said last month that he was working on a “land-swapping” proposal between the city and the school district that would provide for non-school use of athletic fields on the Derby Street properties in return for some form of increased use by the high school baseball team of the baseball diamond at San Pablo Park. Details of that proposal have yet to be released. 

Although Anderson said at the time that he was certain the Berkeley Alternative High School meeting would spark a discussion of the Derby Street closure by the Berkeley City Council, no such discussion has been held by the Council in its public sessions in the past month. 

Last month, under contract from BUSD, WLC Architects of Emeryville held the first of three community meetings at the Alternative High School to try to work out what they call a “temporary” solution to the use of the district’s BUSD Derby Street property while the issue of the street closure is being settled. Under the guidance of WLC staff, area residents and BHS athletics advocates jointly worked out four possible proposals for the use of the block holding the unused district properties. 

All of the plans involved leaving Derby Street intact, keeping the Berkeley Alternative High School in its present location, and included some combination of multi-purpose grass fields for use by Berkeley High School teams—though not a full-sized baseball field—as well as basketball courts. 

Marcia Vallier, principal of Vallier Design Associates of Richmond which is collaborating with WLC Architects on the Derby fields project, said that the planning group will present two alternatives based upon the four plans developed by the community at Monday’s meeting. Vallier said that planners will also answer numerous questions raised at last month’s community meeting about specific uses of the Derby Street fields by Berkeley High School sports teams.›

The City Council gave the final go ahead for a first-of-its-kind disability services center, but not before a last-second scare. 

In a unanimous vote the council rejected an appeal of a use permit granted for the Ed Roberts Campus, set to rise at the Ashby BART station along Adeline Street. 

In other matters, the council passed a grant application to study the cost of opening up a section of Strawberry Creek, approved a site plan for new athletic fields in West Berkeley and sent a three-inch thick binder full of working agreements between the Berkeley Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to the Police Review Commission for study. 

When complete, the Ed Roberts Campus, a two-story, 86,057-square-foot complex, will be home to eight disability service organizations. After receiving its use permit, the consortium will be in a better position to raise additional funds to cover construction costs. 

Councilmembers lauded the project, which has been in the planning stages for nine years. The only sliver of concern came from Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. He asked whether an unnamed creek that appeared on a geo-technical report resided within 30 feet of the future building site, placing the property under the city’s restrictive creek ordinance. 

Immediately, Planning Manager Mark Rhoades began rifling through his report. Unable to give a quick answer, Rhoades leaned over the press table to find the waiting ear of Ed Roberts representative Caleb Dardick. 

“How far is your building from the property line,” he whispered. 

“Thirty, forty feet,” Dardick replied. 

Since the underground waterway—believed to be a former tributary of Derby Creek—runs outside the property line that was enough distance, Rhoades explained, to shield the project from the creeks law, which prohibits new construction within 30 feet of the centerline of a creek. 

The appellates chose not to attend the public hearing. In their appeal of the use permit, granted by the city’s Zoning Adjustment Board, they directed their concerns towards how the planning process unfolded, not the design of the complex. 

Strawberry Creek Grant 

The council unanimously approved a $953,216 grant application for determining the cost of unearthing one block of Strawberry Creek between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

The project, which would redirect a portion of the creek’s waterflow from an underground culvert below Allston Way to the open air above Center Street, has long been advocated by supporters of opening up Berkeley’s creeks. 

Playing Fields 

If all goes according to plan, Berkeley will have two new athletic fields by September 2006, but three fewer than originally anticipated. 

The council approved a site plan for a new field complex at Gilman Street and Frontage Road. The plan, which must still undergo environmental review, calls for eventually building five fields—two for softball, two all purpose fields and one baseball diamond. 

The cost for the full project is estimated at over $6 million, and the East Bay Regional Park District, which owns the site, has raised $3 million. Last year, the park district lost out on a $2.5 million grant, and is now applying for a separate $1 million dollar grant.  

If it receives the grant, Doug Fielding, chairperson of the Association of Sports Field Users, said the district would have enough money to build two multi-purpose fields and grade the rest of the property so that more fields can be built when money becomes available.  

The parks district bought the property from the Magna Corporation two years ago as part of a deal to keep athletic fields out of Eastshore State Park. 

Police Agreements 

For the first time since 1986, the city will review the Berkeley Police Department’s agreements with other law enforcement agencies. By an 8-0-1 vote (Wozniak abstain) the council sent the issue to the Police Review Commission for review. 

Under a voter-approved ordinance, the city is supposed to review the agreements every year, but the obligation has slipped through the cracks over the past 18 years. 

Former Police Review Commissioner Jim Chanin brought the matter to city officials last year and threatened to file suit if the council refused to comply. 

“My main concern was that this was passed by voters and what right did the city have to ignore it,” Chanin said. He added: “In light of the Patriot Act and the erosion of civil liberties under the Bush Administration, we need to take a look at what the police are doing.” 

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The Oakland-based developer seeking to develop portions of Laney College and Peralta Community College District properties has apparently neglected one of the most powerful stakeholders in the area: the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. 

Oakland developer Alan Dones, trying to win support for his plans to redesign portions of Laney Community College, met with Laney staff and students this month, but has left out, and angered, BART officials. 

Late last year, Peralta Board of Trustees gave Chancellor Elihu Harris the ability to negotiate an exclusive one-year contract with Dones and his Strategic Urban Development Alliance (SUDA) to form a development plan for the Laney Faculty and Student Parking Lot and the Peralta Colleges District Office, both on East Eighth Street, as well as other undefined Laney properties. 

Because of controversies raised concerning the proposal, Harris has never executed the contract. Dones, meanwhile, has worked to build community support for his plans. 

But this week, in a presentation to Peralta Trustees on development plans for BART’s Lake Merritt Station, BART Director Carole Ward Allen said, “I have not talked to Alan Dones. The only thing I know about his proposals are what I’ve heard in the media.” 

Allen said later, “My concern is that when Alan began jumping out on his proposal, he should have contacted all of the agencies concerned. He did the opposite, and that leads to making enemies, instead of making friends. [BART] staff is angry about this.” 

Ward Allen has two level of interest in the Dones’ proposal. She represents the Oakland flatlands area on the BART Board of Directors. In addition, she is a professor in Laney College’s Black Studies Department. 

Dones’ oversight is significant because the underground BART tracks between the Lake Merritt and Fruitvale stations run directly underneath Laney College. BART has veto power over what can be built on top of its tracks. 

“BART owns subsurface easement within which the system operates,” said BART Property Development Real Estate Manager Jeffrey Ordway in an e-mail. “When the subsurface easements were conveyed to BART, we also secured approval rights of anything built above our system. We can’t stop something from being built, but we can control what is built so that it doesn’t interfere with our system. So, although we don’t own the property and air rights above the BART system, we do have fairly strong control over what gets built above us.” 

For instance, Ordway wrote, BART has the right to consider how much load stress any development would put on underground BART train lines. 

At press time, BART public information officials were unsure as to how much of Laney and Peralta property is affected by these BART rights. 

Dones did not answer telephone messages left in connection with this story. 

BART officials said they did not necessarily mean they opposed Dones’ plans, but want to work with him on the project. 

BART wants to increase the number of parking spaces at its Oak Street parking lot, which sits between Eighth and Ninth avenues directly across Fallon Street from the entrance to Laney College. Dones’ development proposal includes a plan to increase parking for Laney faculty and staff. Ward Allen said that one solution would be the construction of a high-rise parking structure on the BART parking lot as a joint venture of BART, Laney, and Peralta. 

She said that it seems so obvious that she is puzzled why Dones didn’t initially approach BART with the idea. Meanwhile, BART is moving forward with its own development plans for the area. 

One long-range proposal on the transit agency’s list is the development of a transit village at the Lake Merritt Station site, modeled after the successful village at BART’s Fruitvale Station, but with differences in the two locations. The Oakland Main Library, the Oakland Museum, and Laney College, are all within walking distance of the Lake Merritt station. 

“Fruitvale is in the middle of a thriving commercial district,” she said. “In the Lake Merritt BART Station area, you are in the middle of a public service area. Any transit village plan should work in conjunction with these existing facilities in some manner.” 

How those plans are finalized, according to Ward Allen, depends upon a series of meetings planned in upcoming months between BART and various stakeholders surrounding the Lake Merritt Station. The first meeting is scheduled in March.›

Getting some time to eat in the middle of the workday sounds simple. In reality, many restaurant workers put in their entire shifts without stopping.  

That’s a violation of California labor protection laws. But the state Chamber of Commerce and the restaurant industry would like to brush those laws aside. Now Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed changes to state regulations that would help them. The proposal would allow employers to simply inform workers of their right to a lunch break, rather than actually provide one. Further, it would eliminate a requirement that employers pay an hour’s pay for every break they fail to provide.  

Nationally, 12 million people work in restaurants—over 40,000 in San Francisco alone. While some labor in family-owned businesses, many work for chains owned by huge corporations. One in 15 adults in the United States has worked at McDonalds at some time in his or her life.  

According to a cook at one famous San Francisco restaurant (afraid he’d be fired if his name was used), “there’s a lot of work, and they don’t let you take a break, even when you’re hungry. From the time I began here, I never had any time to eat. If I tried to take a meal break, they’d come up after five minutes and tell me to go back.”  

In the last couple of years, restaurant workers have begun filing cases against their employers for not providing lunch breaks. One big chain, The Cheesecake Factory, has been the target of many such complaints. Patty Senecal, a former Cheesecake Factory worker in San Francisco, says that “in the two years I was there, they never gave us breaks.”  

Once people like Senecal began filing complaints, however, the company found a way to keep people working for hours without stopping. “The Cheesecake Factory had us come in an hour before our scheduled shift,” Senecal recalls. “If you had to be at work at five, you’d come in at four. You’d get in your uniform, and you’d fold napkins for half an hour. Then you would clock out for a break, and then work your 8-hour shift. You were not allowed to eat during these eight hours, or leave the vicinity. If you did, you’d get reprimanded and written up. Technically, they’d say your break was during your shift, because you’d come in an hour earlier to fold napkins.”  

Working for hours without a break can be dangerous. “It’s very exhausting to work a full shift without eating,” Senecal explains, “and if you look at the health of people in the restaurant industry, it’s terrible...Once, after working all day I just sat in this chair out of my customers’ view, because I was so tired. I immediately got lectured and yelled at.”  

Marilyn Smith, who helped Cheesecake Factory workers fill out the state complaint forms, says she faced retaliation from her employer for doing so. She was suspended, and her shifts reassigned. “They were angry, and they’re still angry,” she says. “From the start, the company moved against me. I have to watch my back. I know that every move that I make is a big deal now.”  

Deby Zurzolo, general counsel for the Cheesecake Factory, says that the company “takes its obligations as an employer seriously and believes it has been in compliance with California law concerning meal and rest breaks.”  

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposal would make it much more difficult for workers to sue for violations of the lunch-break regulation and others like it. In just one legal settlement, the owners of the Chili’s restaurant chain Brinker International had to pay $10 million to its workers.  

At the same time, resources for enforcing existing law are shrinking in the budget morass, and some of the governor’s proposals to streamline government would make enforcement even harder. Schwarzenegger proposed last year to abolish the Industrial Welfare Commission, which sets the state regulations for lunch breaks, minimum wage and overtime. California currently has better protections than what the federal government provides, but the new proposals would eliminate the state agency that writes these protections. And under the Bush administration, the federal protections are likely to be weakened as well.  

Like restaurant workers, low wage workers in the retail and janitorial industries also have a long record of complaining that they don’t get mandated lunch breaks. Schwarzenegger’s proposals benefit all these industries that employ large numbers of workers dependent on state protections. And those industries have been generous to the governor. Funds set up for his initiative campaigns have received hefty donations. Target and Wal-Mart each gave over $200,000, and The Gap was close behind. Schwarzenegger received over $20,000 from the California Restaurant Association, as well as individual restaurant and hotel owners.  

The state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement has held a series of hearings around California in preparation for adopting the governor’s recommendation. The Chamber of Commerce organized large delegations of restaurant owners to testify in support. Without a widespread public outcry, however, there is little doubt that the change will be implemented.  

So the next time you sit down in a restaurant to eat, ask yourself if you could work an entire shift without eating or sitting down. And, if your boss cheated you or violated the law, would you have the courage to protest?  

David Bacon is a photographer and writer specializing in labor issues.  

Dame Stella Rimington finds the whole idea of a “war on terror” a little puzzling, and when Stella Rimington is confused the intelligence community should pay attention.  

With her pastel pink jacket and a demure single strand of pearls, Rimington might look like a typical society matron in Masterpiece Theater, but she’s actually the real-life M. As the first woman to head MI5, Britain’s domestic secret service, from 1992-96, she was the direct inspiration for the character Judi Dench plays in the James Bond movies.  

“I’d tell Judi Dench to not get too directly involved in the operation,” says Rimington, who is promoting her first novel, At Risk, about counterterrorism in a post-9/11 world. “The director general needs to be at home directing things, not captured and sitting in some horrible prison like she was.” After three decades in the secret service, Rimington is now retired but keeps up with new threats to global security.  

“This era is different because we are dealing with suicide bombers,” she says. “When people are willing to lose their lives, it means you cannot rely on there being a limit on any sort of attack they might carry out.” But she’s not sure the right counter-attack is a “war on terror.”  

“It gives the impression you will know when you have won it and then there will be no terrorism,” she says. “But people will always resort to terrorism because it is so effective in drawing the world’s attention.”  

In her days she had to deal with terrorism, too, but the security landscape was different. A diplomat’s wife in New Delhi, bored with thrift sales and amateur dramatics, Rimington wandered into MI5 as a part-time clerk typist and found herself in the middle of the Cold War. When she joined the secret service, women could only hope to be assistants. When she later became the first woman to head MI5 and the first one whose name was publicly announced, her friends and neighbors were stunned.  

“All of a sudden the neighbors realized this quiet lady who lived on their street might present a bit of risk, “ she laughs. “I remember one neighbor telling me I wish you wouldn’t go to work just when I am taking my children to school.”  

The danger at the time for her and her neighbors came mostly from the threat of IRA attacks. But in the middle of the Cold War the first order of business was espionage. The advantage her generation had, says Rimington, was they knew where their enemy lived. “We knew where the KGB headquarters were, we knew what they were trying to do. Now who knows where the (terrorist) headquarters are.”  

It’s an extremely tough challenge for today’s intelligence officers. “The best intelligence comes from human beings, sources deep in the heart of organizations,” says Rimington. Today, intelligence services seem to be fishing in the dark for reliable sources, ending up with embarrassing episodes like the faulty warning about a ring of Chinese nationals smuggling a dirty bomb into Massachusetts.  

“I was surprised that was made public seemingly before it had been fully investigated,” says Rimington. She fears that hasty warnings can backfire, making people paranoid with constant orange alerts.  

It also results, says Rimington, in sweeping measures like the now-discontinued special registration in the U.S. of men from mostly Muslim countries after 9/11. “A blanket security measure like that is not a particularly effective tool,” she says. “Security needs to be much more related to specific intelligence, not racial analysis.”  

Although close allies in the war on terror, the U.S. and U.K. don’t always see eye to eye. Four British citizens held for years at Guantanamo Bay were released soon after their return to the U.K. for lack of evidence. Rimington says she doesn’t know the details of the case, but “on my side of the Atlantic you cannot be arrested and tried unless you can actually be shown to have done something or are planning to do something.”  

At the same time, Rimington says there’s tremendous pressure on the intelligence community post-9/11. No one wants to be the intelligence officer who allows the next suicide bomber to slip through. Some of that pressure, she says, can lead to a breakdown in the critical assessment of intelligence, as “in the war on Iraq where we were all led to believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.”  

“In my opinion the purpose of intelligence is to inform governments so they can form their policies, not to help governments justify policies they have already formed,” she says, adding that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was not the easiest place to get reliable intelligence.  

While the WMDs seem to have been a fiction, the threats in the new world are very real. “But we have to allow people to live with their civil liberties intact,” says Rimington. “Otherwise we are really giving in to terrorism by turning our democracies into police states.”  

›

RADIO FREQUENCY  

IDENTITY DEVICES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When I use the ATM at the Berkeley Community Credit Union and Diebold is stamped on my receipt, I think about the CEO promising Ohio to Bush and I feel bad. I have bad feelings about Diebold and I have bad feelings about RFID as well. RFID will be used for bad things by marketers and possibly by government agencies bent on supressing dissent. Why should the Berkeley Public Library spearhead this technology? Who is Jackie Griffin anyways, really? Is she sensitive to our locale? I call for her resignation! 

Jack Finzel 

• 

PEOPLE VS. MACHINES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a longtime resident of Berkeley and a longtime library lover. What I love most besides the books and movies I check out regularly are the interactions I have with the friendly staff at my local branch. Now the director wants to spend our limited money on automating the checkout and replacing the workers with machines? Why should I trust her when she couldn’t even get Berkeley to pass the tax measure? Why don’t they replace the director with a machine instead? 

Beatrice Stuart 

• 

WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks to Doug Loranger for his letter in Feb. 18-21 Daily Planet, regarding the radiation from RFID devices. This is a fact that people should certainly know: Wireless devices and radio frequency radiation are bad for health. However, wireless providers never let this fact reach the public. The Telecommunication Act of 1996 forbids the public to use health risks of wireless sources to stop wireless facilities. The public should be blamed too, for it welcomes wireless devices, such as cell phones, base station antennas, WI-FI systems. For instance, you see how much people are addicted to their cell phones, or how they jam pack coffee shops where there are WI-FI connections to the Internet. Go to any coffee shop in Berkeley to see the place has become like a computer lab; almost everyone is at a lap-top. On the campus of UC Berkeley, there are more than 400 WI-FI antennas in every library, on every floor of buildings, and other locations, which provide wireless connection to the Internet. They call this system the AirBears. Users on campus rush to use the AirBears without paying any attention that they are under constant radiation. Also, hundreds or thousands of base-station antennas are installed in cities to provide connection to cell phones. 

There are surely health hazards due to radio frequency radiation as reported in hundreds of scientific documents. For instance, in the December issue of the Spectrum Magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), there is a report that links cell phones to Acoustic Neuroma tumor in the brain. According to this report, people who use cell phones for more than 10 years have a good chance to develop the tumor. The report estimates that by the year 2017, 200 million Americans have used cell phones for more than 10 years. Are little cell phones becoming the weapons of mass destruction? Also, there was a study in Spain in 2003 that shows those who live close to wireless base station antennas suffer from certain diseases. 

The sad part of the wireless technology is that choice has been eroded. If you see someone is smoking a cigarette, you can choose to stay away from the smoker. However, you cannot exempt yourself from the radio frequency radiation by not using a cell phone or a wireless lap-top computer. The radiation is there no matter what. Anywhere you go you are bombarded by the radiation 24/7. Also, those who had hoped to fight wireless corporations cannot do any longer. Mr. George W. Bush signed a law on Feb. 18 according to which we the people cannot file class action lawsuits against corporations. 

Afrida Freeman 

• 

LAWSUIT AGAINST UC 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I believe it is a perfect time to take UC Berkeley to court. In this process we can establish perhaps a 100-year agreement—one that specifically states the law and the consequences of what is to happen when the law is not followed correctly. 

When I was a young child growing up in the East Bay, I understood the law and procedure as follows: 

1. An environmental impact report is to be on file. 

2. Input from the community and responsible agents. 

3. Licenses/ clean-up cost and clean up in a timely manner. 

4. Payment of total cost incurred from said violations, plus 75 percent of total cost. 

This is a reasonable interpretation of the law and how it should be followed. I believe we should make a 100-year agreement with UC Berkeley, and stick it to them every time they feel its OK to simply dump toxins and nuclear waste water into our urban creeks. 

Jeff Vasconcellos 

• 

TEACHERS AND EDUCATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Teachers in California are the highest paid in the United States at an average of $56,000 per vacation filled year. They are paid $45 per hour for their seven-hour day. Some make a little less and some make a lot more. If they don’t feel like teaching...pop in a movie. Don’t feel like teaching...indoctrinate the class with your own personal view of the world in subjects other than the one you are supposed to be teaching. But that is OK because you most likely do not have a degree in the subject which are trying to teach, anyway.  

Switzerland is the only on country on Earth which spends more per student then the U.S., yet American students score far below most Industrialized nations on standardized tests. The main reason for this is that most other countries make their teachers have a degree in the subject which they teach. Class size is a red herring. Teachers are unable to control the classroom in our politically correct system. 

Teachers in the U.S.A. graduate in the lowest third of their class in both high school and college. I am willing to pay teachers more, but not this current crop. “Those that cannot do, teach” Let them prove themselves worthy. 

Teachers hate any “test” which might try to measure their competency. The high school exit exam was postponed because it was determined that 80 percent of Oakland seniors would have failed the test which is at a tenth grade learning level. “No child left behind” seeks some form of standards after decades of educational decline and they cry like babies. 

Give each teacher a year off to work in the real world and they may be more thankful upon returning. Remember nearly every teacher has never left the security, protection and comfort of the classroom their whole life. Open up teaching to those who have lived a life. The teachers’ unions only protect jobs, It does not foster education. Famed physicist Edward Teller was not allowed to teach physics in San Francisco public schools after he retired because he did not have a teaching credential. He then taught in parochial school. Teaching degrees are not required for private schools. Allow school vouchers and bring in competition. Stop throwing more money at a failing system. 

Michael Larrick 

• 

PRESERVATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Gale Garcia’s letter in defense of historic preservation sets up a false alternative that does not help the preservationist cause most of us espouse (Daily Planet, Feb. 22-24). 

The type of developer Ms. Garcia so passionately denounces (interested only in private profit at the expense of all public virtues) is just as much the enemy of smart growth advocates as it is of preservationists. Development of insensitive buildings unrelated to their neighborhoods that don’t support local businesses and transit do indeed need to be vigorously opposed. But that opposition can’t be maintained at the expense of all attempts to add urban density where such development improves our collective quality of life—even when some “creative destruction” of non-landmark older buildings may be required. Mere size, though sometimes seeming threatening, is not the only measure by which proposed projects should be judged. 

As a preservationist and a smart growth advocate, I hope we can do better in terms of future debate. The real dialog cannot happen between “mindless NIMBY preservationists” on one side and “insensitive profiteer developers” on the other. But those of us a bit closer to the center should have common cause: preserving what is truly distinctive from our past while being unafraid to attempt some “landmarks of tomorrow” that require courage, sensitivity to local concerns, and confidence in the city’s dynamic future. 

Alan Tobey 

• 

DEVELOPMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The loss of the Westbrae sculpture gallery as a quiet place is unfortunate, even though too often the pieces felt derivative and were too big and expensive for the average home.  

But what’s worrisome about all the recent construction projects—whether they are retail-only or include retail space or are purely residential but are expected to spur new businesses in the area—is whether these projects and new businesses can be sustainable over the long run. Are we reaching some critical mass of retail development, and what affect would that have on growth and density? 

Developers may be relying on ground-floor spaces to help make a project profitable, or perhaps they’ve been nudged (if that’s the word) by the city to include such space in their designs. 

In any case, some spots are flourishing, but one gets the impression that too many other first-floor retail spaces are either empty or contain businesses or organizations that don’t seem to be attracting many people—another kind of soft-story building. 

The Daily Planet says there’s an “insatiable” appetite for building new projects in Berkeley, a hot-button term better applied to Alamo than here and better used in op-ed commentary than in front-page articles. But if we are gorging ourselves, the market will make sure we choke on our ambitions soon enough.  

James Day 

• 

PESTICIDES IN OAKLAND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Oakland councilmembers promoting using pesticides in the Oakland Hills are either misinformed or have a total disregard for the environment and its inhabitants. Pesticides kill birds and wildlife and pose dangers to humans. The pesticide residue ultimately ends up in our drinking water. Fish have decreased in areas polluted with pesticides. We need to stop these politicos from promoting dangerous pesticides.  

Tori Thompson 

Oakland 

• 

CAMPUS BAY REPORTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’d like to thank the Daily Planet’s management staff for publishing Richard Brenneman’s continuing “saga” of the Campus Bay (toxic) Superfund site in Richmond. No other newspaper has taken on this “tiger” as you have. And I especially congratulate Mr. Brenneman for his consistent and outstanding coverage of this complex issue. The property itself has a lengthy and murky history which he has navigated with clear reporting. He cites important issues and then provides substantiation. The City of Richmond, who’s idea it was to push a 1330-unit residential complex onto this site (without removing major toxics), is essentially working for the developer and against Richmond’s residents. (I perhaps should state here that I have a personal stake in the toxics outcome on this site. For 30 years now I’ve lived a mile-and-a-half and down-wind from it. Was I aware there was a Superfund site nearby? Not until Zeneca sold to the current developers and the toxic cleanup began. Last year I was diagnosed with cancer.) The council’s motivation, whose budget oversight in recent years has been miserable, now needs to get some quick,” big bucks” for the city’s coffers or face possible bankruptcy. Mr. Brenneman covers the City Council’s facet of this story also, with appropriate reportorial detachment, but it’s accurate reporting. Keep it up!  

Linda Grant 

• 

SMOKESCREEN 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Regarding your Feb. 15-17 editorial (“Smoking Candy in the Back Room”): Right on target! Let’s stop all this pretension about “public involvement.” As the editorial so aptly says, so-called “public involvement” is a smokescreen for public relations and public massaging. 

Ray O’Brien 

• 

DERBY STREET BALLFIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Berkeley School District should be commended for planning a ballfield on the Adult School property on Derby Street. The city has a desperate shortage of playing fields. Here’s why. 

In the last 15 years, the University of California closed access to its Strawberry Canyon ball fields and turned them into private property for varsity sports teams. The University eliminated a heavily-used astroturf playing field, when, post-earthquake, it tore down the garage at College Avenue and Channing Way. The East Bay Park District converted the large softball field in Tilden Park, near the pony rides, to a grassy meadow, usable for picnics, only. The remodeling at King Junior High filled much of the baseball field with portable classrooms. And now the University threatens to eliminate the Little League baseball fields at Albany Village.  

Almost half the kids who play in that league are from Berkeley. 

In the last 15 years the number of children using ballfields has greatly increased, because of the expansion of youth sports. Girls’ leagues in softball and soccer now need ballfields as much as boys’ leagues in soccer, football, baseball, and lacrosse. 

There have been many days in the last few years when I had to travel to four or five fields in El Cerrito, Albany, and Berkeley, in order to find even a part of a field to play ball on with my school-age son. 

San Pablo Park, the largest ballfield in Berkeley, is the center of a fine residential neighborhood, and a pleasant place to stroll at night when games are going on, but there is never enough play space. Little League teams compete for time and space with high school baseball and adult softball teams for both men and women, and with adult pickup soccer games. Someone always gets squeezed out. Usually that means the youngest and smallest, not because anyone is mean, but simply because they have lower priority. 

So what will it mean if we have a new ballfield on the Derby Street site?  

It will mean that the high school teams will have a place to play. It will mean that the children’s baseball, softball, football, and soccer teams won’t get squeezed out of San Pablo Park by the high school teams. It will mean that some kids will actually play at parks, all by themselves, because they won’t get squeezed out by organized teams.  

It will be a victory for every child, and for every parent, and for every adult who likes to play ball, or who just likes to sit on the grass. 

A few days ago your paper printed a letter from a NIMBY (not in my backyard) opponent of the Derby St. park, who complained about “special interest groups of sports enthusiasts.” Who are these so-called “special interests?” They include every boy and girl who ever wanted to chase after a ball or a Frisbee, every soccer mom, and every baseball or football dad. Bravo to all of them, and bravo to the school district’s and city’s effort to give them a place to play. 

Steve Bedrick 

• 

MORE ON DERBY FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I support a multi-use fenced field at the Derby Street site for the following reasons; We live a block from the field and it is the only open space within reasonable walking distance where my son and I can play ball, fly a kite or any other field activity. We used to have pick-up softball games at the field across Derby before half the block was developed for housing. We continued with just a few broken windows but then the MLK center was built and that field was over forever. We had been hoping that the ugly little buildings on the adjacent field at the East Campus would fall down or move over but no such luck. Now we discover that the buildings are leaving but will be replaced by a locked facility for several small groups of Berkeley High School students and possibly rented to others. This will force the wonderful Farmers’ Market to relocate to some undisclosed location on MLK Way.  

As the main access road for the hill communities this road is always busy and problematic for a stop-shop open market. I do not understand why this is fair to the neighborhood or those who live next to the site who may have to deal with large organized events there, sooner or later with amplified sound and lights. 

Berkeley High has a track and football field that used to be open to the public when not in use before they installed an unnecessary and expensive Astro turf field. The costs included a huge initial purchase and installation fee, expensive annual maintenance, higher insurance costs for the greater number of injuries and total replacement every ten years or so. I played school football for 3 years and though I understand there are problems with a grass field I don’t agree with this choice made by the School board. Now the board wants to lock the public out of our last neighborhood field. I say make a field other groups can use too including Berkeley High students and let the baseball team use it for practice. Nobody who knows me will ever accuse me of being anti-baseball. I played Little League and others all my life but the reason I only played football and track while in school is because these sports maintain large teams and kept the unfantastic athletes like myself, unlike baseball or my other favorite hockey whose nature calls for smaller squads and cut most of the kids who sign up. 

Finally, I understand there are different funding pools involved here but I still don’t understand a school system that is always in hoc and cuts the arts and music programs including the once famous world class Berkeley Jazz class and yet always has bucks for huge projects for the small and vocal sports squads. The school itself just finished a major reconstruction. Enough! 

Mark McDonald 

• 

BUSHSPEAK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As part of his column (“The War in Iraq: Roll Over, George Orwell,” Daily Planet, Feb. 15-17) which understandably decries the “Orwellian system of mind control being used by the Bush administration,” commentator Bob Burnett makes the unfortunate mistake of completely buying into one of the most egregious examples of such “Bushspeak.” 

We are not actually in a “war in Iraq” today, either in the conventional sense of the word or in relation to the sorts of missions around which our military is fundamentally organized and trained. If the bungled occupation of Iraq, which followed the relatively swift conquest of 2003, is defined as a “war,” because that occupation has been marked by lawlessness, non-functioning civil services, widespread violence, and frequent deadly encounters with organized uniformed forces, then America has been “at war” with itself in crime-ridden and impoverished urban areas across our own country for decades. 

An endless propaganda-driven “war” against a vaguely-defined and constantly shifting “enemy” is a technique straight out of 1984. Much of the so-called “antiwar movement” has flung itself headlong into a Rovian trap by accepting wholesale this framing of the current administration’s blunder-ridden Iraq misadventure. If we are “in a war” today in Iraq, then tens of millions of Americans are easily led to believe that there is no fundamental alternative but to accept unquestionably the “policies” of the “commander-in-chief”, even if those “policies” are neither well-conceived nor well-explained nor well-executed. 

Thus, while I completely concur with the thrust of Mr. Burnett’s piece, I hope that he, or at least his local emulators, will read these observations, accept them 

as constructive criticism, and do a better job in the future of practicing their preaching. 

Drew Keeling 

S

Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas

Like a train on a one-way track, the Oakland Unified School District is barreling down what seems to be a pre-determined course, with the faces of worried passengers appearing at every window, wondering where all of this is supposed to end up. 

The end-up, my friends, appears pretty obvious, and should have been from the moment we left the station. 

This week, a neighbor stops me in the driveway as I am getting out of my car, asking me if I will sign a petition to save Highland Elementary, our neighborhood school in our far East Oakland community. The petition is something put together by the community organization ACORN, asking state Sen. Don Perata to intervene to stop the Oakland school closures. “They’re going to close Highland,” my neighbor tells me, in some anguish. “Where are we supposed to send out kids?” 

Where, indeed? Only recently renovated with the money of Oakland taxpayers, Highland sits across 86th Avenue from our houses, the only elementary school within any reasonable walking distance (to get to any other schools, kids would have to pass liquor stores, open air drug markets, and daytime working prostitutes). Highland is also a neighborhood institution. 

When I started at Highland we had to walk past a long-demolished paint factory to get to school, a reminder of an era when residential environmental protections were often nonexistent in these outskirt areas. 

When I started at Highland, the Italian family across the street kept a wine cellar, the next door neighbor—from what we surmised in later years—buried his wife in their front yard in the Old World way after she passed away of natural causes, and another family just down the street—another group of Old World immigrants—had a full truck farm with rows of cabbage and lettuce where industrial buildings now stand. East Oakland was a different world when I started at Highland. 

When I started at Highland, many of my fellow students were Navy brats, living in military housing on 85th Avenue left over from the old World War II-era projects. But then, of course, that is hardly unusual, as I started at Highland only eight years following the end of World War II. 

When I started at Highland, a catacomb of creeks ran open and free-flowing through our streets, and a kid could walk the creekbanks from the foot of the hills to the estuary, collecting pollywogs and salamanders along the way, without ever having to go up on the streetside. 

When I started at Highland, we played baseball in the middle of the street throughout the weekend and summertime days, and rarely were bothered by the passage of cars. 

When I started at Highland, we knew the names of all the neighbors in the blocks surrounding. Now we know almost nobody. 

When I started at Highland, Allen Temple was just a little shack of a church, a refuge for black Southern immigrants, huddled across the street from the school. Allen Temple, of course, is now a full-block religious compound, one of the centers of black religious and political life in the city, where big-time politicians—the governors, the congressmembers, the presidential candidates—and big-time preachers come to spread their words, where funeral services are held for historical icons like Huey Newton. 

Highland saw all of that. Highland watched our little neighborhood roll over from white to black to Latino-and-black and then Latino-and-Southeast-Asian-and-black, educating the children of each. It is not just the local school. It is also the repository of the neighborhood’s history, an anchor tenant that has remained through all the flux and flow. A block from some of International Boulevard’s rawest spots, buffetted between open air drug corners, our neighborhood wavers on the brink of disintegration. The closing of Highland School could push it over the edge. 

But, then, I wouldn’t expect state-appointed Oakland School Administrator Randolph Ward nor his boss, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, to know anything about the history of the little neighborhood surrounding Highland School or, if they knew, to care. The preservation of Oakland neighborhoods is not high on their list of concerns. 

Meanwhile, we learn that despite operating with a balanced budget, Oakland Unified’s 25,000-30,000 student adult education program is in danger of being closed down by Mr. Ward, an interesting social experiment in a time when Oakland is struggling to get adults off the streets and into meaningful positions. In announcing his reasons for the closure, Mr. Ward cites the high price of teacher pay, and says, “I will not allow adult ed to take away from K-through-12 education.” I suppose being a jealous warden, he reserves that particular task for himself. 

The rounds of Oakland school shufflings and school closures are beginning to whirl faster and faster at dizzying speed, the next round announced before we have caught our breaths over the last, so that we can hardly remember the names of the schools on the chopping block list, much less the stated reasons for the cuts. And perhaps that is purposeful from Mr. Ward’s perspective, the idea being that the community cannot stop what is coming by too fast to see. 

But two things are becoming clear in the crumbling away of the Oakland Unified School District, if they have not been clear to some all along. 

The first is that by the time Mr. Ward is finished, the Oakland Unified School District is going to be a very different entity from what it was when he took over under state seizure, though we cannot yet be certain of what that new entity will look like. And this is a very different vision from what we were led to believe Mr. Ward’s mission was when he took over. We were led to believe, back then, that he was merely to correct the budget overspending that took place under the watch of former OUSD Superintendent Dennis Chaconas and the old school board. 

Instead, under Mr. Ward, the district is rapidly unraveling, like a ball of twine destined to wind down to nothing but the end of the string. 

The second thing that is becoming clearer and clearer about Mr. Ward’s tenure? As far as I can tell, he has yet to propose a plan and a timetable to pay back the state line of credit so that the Oakland schools can be turned back over to the people of Oakland. Where there is no plan, friends, one can only conclude that there is no intent. We are stuck with this rock in our shoe, apparently, until we reach down and fish it out. 

Less than a week after being elected chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Howard Dean met with a group of activists in San Francisco. 

Two months earlier, many of the same Democratic stalwarts had dinner with the outgoing DNC chair, Terry McAuliffe. Despite John Kerry’s loss in the presidential race, McAuliffe’s message was remarkably upbeat: For the first time in 30 years, the DNC had raised more money than did the RNC. They had built an impressive Washington headquarters, housing shiny new technology.  

McAuliffe’s ebullient demeanor soured during the question and answer session. Many of the activists had worked outside California getting out the vote. They were distressed by what they had encountered: Republican dirty tricks; voting irregularities; dysfunctional systems; antagonism between DNC staff and local Democrats. As one difficult question followed another, McAuliffe seemed to bristle. Finally, he exclaimed, “I didn’t come here to listen to whining!” 

There were remnants of this anger in the audience that met with Howard Dean. Unlike McAuliffe, Dean chose to listen to every question, no matter how difficult, and then to propose solutions. Affirming that the national DNC made progress under Terry McAuliffe, Dean plans now to build a functional Democratic committee in every state, no matter how red. He emphasized the necessity for Democrats to create a viable grassroots organization in every community, and from that base to “rebuild the party from the ground up.” 

The new DNC chair made two distinctions between the Republican way of doing things and what he sees as the Democratic way. The first is that the Republican Party is hierarchical and controlling; everything is run from Washington—these days by Karl Rove—and states, counties, and precincts obediently follow party directives. (Some have likened this organizational model to the multi-level marketing approach used by Amway.) In contrast, Dean argued, Democrats, at their best, are democratic; therefore, they must begin the rebuilding process at the precinct level by listening to locals and thereby motivating them to take responsibility for the get-out-the-vote organization. Over time, this will result in a new Democratic consensus. 

The second distinction that Dean made is between the fundamental process of the two parties: Republicans seek to control their volunteers, while Democrats opt to “empower” theirs. The new DNC leader recognized that it takes more time to empower than it does to dictate, remarking that his approach would take at least four years to bear fruit. 

While the main focus of Dean’s remarks, and of the questions from the audience, was on building a better system for the party, he also touched on the core Democratic message. He began by observing that many Americans don’t understand what the Democrats stand for. His solution is not for the party to change its positions, but rather to modify the way that it delivers them. (Here, it seemed, he had been strongly influenced by the “messaging” ideas of UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff.) For example, Dean observed that Democrats have been backed into a corner where they are “framed” as being in favor of “abortion on demand.” 

“Nobody wants more abortions,” he observed, adding that the party must clarify that it is not “for” abortion, but rather for protecting the right of a woman to make her own medical decisions. 

Of course, the Democratic message suffers from more than stylistic problems. Howard Dean noted that most Americans understand what the Republican Party stands for: cutting taxes; shrinking the size of government; and having a strong national defense. In contrast, he remarked, the average voter doesn’t know what the Democrats stand for. Dean observed that rather than proffer three or four key objectives, today’s party offers a laundry list of 30 or more “bullet points.”  

The new DNC chair believes that the party needs to go through a process where it decides what its three or four most important objectives are and then broadcasts these to the electorate. Rather than have these dictated by some elite group of Washington Beltway insiders, Dean proposes that this new foundation be generated “from the ground up.” He suggests that the party should go through a prolonged exercise where it asks its adherents what they think is most important and then take the top three or four items: health care, homeland security, education, or whatever. 

Dean’s talk marked the one-year anniversary of his withdrawal from the race for the Democratic nomination. During that twelve-month period, he and Democrats in general have learned a lot. They have arrived at a new understanding of the changes they must make in order to effectively compete with the Republicans.  

While it remains to be seen if the national party is willing to undergo the process “makeover” that Dean is suggesting, those in attendance at the San Francisco meeting were energized by his presentation. He had managed to bring the clear thinking and vigor that characterized his initial presidential campaign to the arduous task of rebuilding the party. 

Clearly, Howard Dean has hit the ground running. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net. 

?

Hooker Sting 

Responding to numerous complaints from residents along the San Pablo Avenue corridor, Berkeley Police mounted a sting operation Wednesday that ended in the arrests of 10 women on prostitution-related charges. 

“Their ages ranged from 13 to 50,” said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Each of the suspects solicited undercover officers for sex acts to be performed for cash. 

Special Enforcement Unit officers found one 48-year-old suspect in possession of eight Valium tablets, eight methadone tabs, and 38 oxycontins, otherwise known as “Hillbilly Heroin.” 

Other suspects faced additional charges for probation violations stemming from earlier arrests. 

Cranked-up Road Rager 

Berkeley Police arrested a 37-year-old driver Feb. 17 for a host of charges, ranging from brandishing a deadly weapon (a knife), driving on a suspended license, driving without insurance, possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. 

The incident began as a case of road rage, during which the suspect flashed a knife at another driver near the corner of Vicente and Tunnel roads. 

The offended party followed the flasher to the 2900 block of Ashby Avenue, where he was arrested by Berkeley’s finest. 

Peeper 

A 19-year-old woman called police after she spotted a man peer through her bedroom window just before 2 a.m. last Friday. 

By the time officers arrived in the 2500 block of Ellsworth Street, all that was left of his presence was a description, to wit, a gray-haired bearded gaper wearing an orange jacket and khaki hat. 

Another Peeper 

Police were summoned 14 hours later to the 2200 block of Carleton Street, where another 19-year-old woman had spotted a man masturbating. The man had blondish hair and a dark jacket and was toting a bag. 

Like the first, he, too, had vanished when the black-and-whites arrived. 

Lovers Looted 

Police were called to Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Centennial Way shortly after 8:30 p.m. Friday after a couple stopped in a popular parking spot were robbed by three young gunmen who made off with a purse, a wallet and a cell phone. 

Both victims were 21 years old, said Officer Okies. 

Pocketed Threat 

Two men making like they were packing pistols in the pockets robbed a 29-year-old pedestrian of his wallet near the corner of Gilman Street and San Pablo Avenue just before 1 p.m. Saturday. 

Bottle Basher Bust 

Berkeley Police arrested a Berkeley teenager on charges of assault with a deadly weapon after he bashed a 31-year-old man over the head with a bottle in the Center Street garage. 

Gunman Grabs Jewelry 

A 23-year-old Berkeley resident was relieved of his personal jewelry by a a hooded gunman who accosted him at the corner of Oxford Street and University Avenue at 9:44 p.m. Sunday. No arrest has been made, said Officer Okies. 

Automotive Arson? 

Because there’s no sign of a natural cause, police are trying to determine if a car that went up in flames at the Ingle Company at 2000 Carleton Street was destroyed as the result of malicious human activity. 

Another Wallet Heist 

Two teenage gunman relieved a 22-year-old pedestrian of his wallet near the corner of Alcatraz Avenue and Ellis Street around 10:45 Monday night and departed in a black import. 

Third Peeper 

Officers are looking for a man who was spotted masturbating across the street from the Claremont Day Nursery in the 2800 block of Woolsey Street Tuesday. 

He was spotted by a pedestrian, who described the fellow as male in his late 30s with dark short hair and a medium to heavy build. He was sitting in a black Ford when spotted. Police have no suspects, in part because the pedestrian didn’t call until a day later, said Officer Okies. ›

The Feb. 22 article “City Wants to tax University, File Lawsuit on LRDP” incorrectly reported the reason why Jim Chanin requested that the City Council review memorandums of understanding between Berkeley police and other law enforcement agencies. He requested the review because they are required by law, not because he feared that the Berkeley department was sharing information about his clients. Chanin has had those concerns involving the Oakland Police Department. 

An article in the Feb. 22 issue incorrectly stated that Nicole Galland, author of The Fool’s Tale, traveled to Japan a year ago to become a Buddhist nun. She made the trip 19 years ago..

Berkeley and Albany share a friendly border in our northern corner of Alameda County. The border zig zags through multiple residential, commercial, mixed use/light industrial, and industrial neighborhoods. Usually a “Welcome to ____” sign is the only obvious marker of a change in municipality. Many of North Berkeley’s residents are immediately adjacent to Albany to the north and west. We share friends, favorite restaurants, and cherished artists with Albany residents. 

However, the story at the city government level is completely different. There’s no obvious sharing of long-range planning capabilities or short-term dispute resolution processes between Albany and Berkeley. This means issues and developments go forward in one city while wreaking havoc in the other city. This has got to end.  

When I walked Berkeley City Council District 5 in my campaign for Berkeley City Council last year, a number of neglected, resentment-producing issues along the border became clear to me. One major on-going one is the parking, traffic, and expansion issues surrounding St. Mary’s, the high school whose campus is wholly in Albany but whose main entrance and main parking/traffic issues are in Berkeley. Another is the new Target in Albany, which has an entrance/exit into Berkeley but whose tax receipts and mitigation fees go solely to Albany. A third is the controversy over bicycle lanes and traffic/pedestrian safety on Marin Avenue. Going back in history, a fourth contentious cross-border issue in the mid-1990s was the card room proposal at Golden Gate Fields. This issue galvanized Berkeley neighborhoods to band together and fight the Albany city government of the time.  

Early in my campaign, I asked Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz what the legal way to have our two cities coordinate such issues is. He replied that a task force is the only method available on the municipal government level.  

We—the citizens and city workers of Albany and Berkeley—need to form an Albany/Berkeley Task Force to coordinate various border issues that affect both of our cities. Cross-border issues must be dealt with democratically, efficiently, and publicly. They should be a priority issue for Berkeley’s City Council, especially Councilmember Linda Maio (District 1) and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli (District 5), as District 1 and 5 share a border with Albany.  

The task force’s role would be to help resolve current border issues. It would offer an open, cooperative forum in which future developments, restriping, rezoning, or other possible controversies could be proposed, discussed, amended, fine-tuned, and either perfected or rejected by a team of Albany and Berkeley residents and officials before one city or the other go too far to turn back on a project or initiative. The task force would meet publicly, much like a city commission, and public participation would be strongly encouraged. The task force would report to each City Council directly, which would then have the collaborative information, reports, and recommendations of the two-city task force in hand when making decisions. 

The task force could be made up of one City Councilmember from each city, one member of the planning or zoning department from each city, perhaps one or two interested commissioners, and between four and eight interested residents of both cities (evenly divided).  

In terms of budget, the costs of the task force, especially when split between both cities, should be no more than one or two regular Berkeley commissions. The savings, in staff time and in costs associated with law suits, project appeals, paperwork, and so on, would be astronomical. Perhaps some of the benefits of development in one city can be shared with the other city, providing more savings. How much staff, City Council, commission, and community member time and effort did the recent Marin Avenue restriping issue cost? Hundreds of hours? Thousands of hours? If this task force or an equivalent had been in place before Albany made the decision to go ahead with the restriping, then much more information would’ve been available a lot sooner to the entire community. 

We need to, as Berkeley community members and government officials, step across the street to our neighbors in Albany and set this task force in motion. The details of membership and the exact role of the task force can certainly be tweaked, but it’s vital that this get done as soon as possible. The sooner we do this, the sooner long-time controversies like the St. Mary’s issue will be resolved. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can avoid future controversies like the Marin Avenue reconfiguration. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can move forward, as neighbors, to plan our shared future.  

Jesse Townley is a member of the Disaster Council and was a candidate for City Council in Berkeley’s District 5.›

Public libraries in the United States stand on three principles: The first is patron confidentiality, the idea that every one may use the library in privacy, that everything you read is personal and private. The second is intellectual freedom, the idea t hat you may read, view and listen broadly: that all ideas should be available to discuss and to learn from, even those which are repugnant to society as a whole. The third principle is equal access to information. In the U.S., this means that public libra ries are free, that all may use the library regardless of economic, social or other barriers. Librarians and library supporters have felt so strongly about these ideas that we have written them into state law. In California, libraries are forbidden from sharing information about a library user’s record unless presented with a subpoena; and libraries may not charge fees for basic services. 

Recently, Berkeley has been talking a lot about Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFID) in the public library and the very real concerns that the library’s users have about their right to privacy when checking out material. The library staff began these same discussions well over a year ago when considering the purchase of RFID technology. A staff committee, consisti ng of line staff, union stewards, supervisors, and managers, learned all that they could about RFID. When questions about privacy were raised, the committee asked Lee Tien of the Electronic Freedom Foundation to speak to staff about his concerns. They tal ked to specialists in the field of technology and privacy. When preparing the RFID bid specification, they emphasized the need for privacy protection of library users. The selected vendor’s chip holds only a bar code for each book, with no information about the book; and no library user can search the library database by barcode. The tags themselves are small; their signal is weak, not able to be read at more than 18 inches. 

Berkeley Public Library has been holding positions vacant as staff have retired or resigned, thus avoiding more cuts to the book budget and reducing the level of potential staff layoffs. However, with reduced staffing, it is sometimes difficult to keep libraries opened, even at current, reduced hours. The RFID system will help the li brary to keep its current hours. It will also help to minimize repetitive stress injury and allow staff to focus on its users. All of this will provide significant value, consistent with the three principles of the U.S. public libraries, to Berkeley’s cit izens, and the system costs will be spread over five years, paying $120,000 annually. 

While we have focused on the first principle, confidentiality, of public libraries, we need to look at the other principles, intellectual freedom and access. In the past year, the Berkeley Public Library has had to reduce its collection budget—for books and other materials—by $300,000. We have also had to reduce hours at all five library facilities.  

These actions can have tremendous impact on those principles and the library’s users. A commitment to intellectual freedom requires that the library purchase widely in all subject areas, which the Berkeley community has allowed. When a library reduces its collection budget, the less popular materials are likely to be bypas sed in purchases—those items are the ones that reflect interests or beliefs held by a minority of people. Some ideas will be left unexplored because the resources are not available and collection gaps thus created are almost never refilled. As a result, l ibrary users will find less choice and depth when they want to explore ideas. 

Equal access to information, the third principle, means, at the least, that public libraries do not charge for basic services so, no matter what your income, you are a sovereig n in the world of public library information. It also means that public libraries, along with public schools, are the most immediate and effective responses to the very real concern about a digital divide. With access to good collections of books and unfi ltered access to the Internet and databases, no adult or child is less fortunate than another when it comes to the world of information. However, when the only access to that information is cut, as it has been here in Berkeley, by shortened hours and reduced acquisitions, that divide looms large and the ideals of intellectual freedom and access to information are threatened.  

I would like to thank the Berkeley community for vigilance in support of patron confidentiality. The Board of Library Trustees of the Berkeley Public Library now asks you to join us in finding solutions that preserve the intellectual freedom and library access principles that keep libraries alive in Berkeley. 

Laura Anderson is president of the Berkeley Public Library Board of Trus tees.›

“The hope for success in promoting the whole truth about our race lies with open-minded school administrators.” 

This statement, spoken over 70 years ago by Carter G. Woodson (the father of Negro history), still rings true today. 

When I attended Berkeley High School in 1981, we had the only African-American Studies Department on a public high school campus in the country. When I think about Black History Month, my experiences at Berkeley High make me realize how fortunate I was to be exposed to African American Studies. I’m a rare individual and so was Carter G. Woodson. 

Carter G. Woodson educated himself so he could educate others. His own schooling proceeded slowly, because he had to work to support himself. However, throughout his life Dr. Woodson interspersed work as a coal miner with education and traveling the world. 

Woodson was born on Dec. 19, 1875, in the rural town of New Canton, Va. As a youngster he taught himself fundamental education until he was on a par with public school students. After high school, he spent summers studying at the University of Chicago, where he obtained a B.A. in 1907. 

In 1908 he traveled and studied in Asia and Europe, including one semester at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he gained fluency in French. He finished his formal education with a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912. 

Woodson’s major was history and the historical role played by black people. He wrote of a long hidden history and hoped to lift the veil of ignorance from all people. For this purpose he published the Journal of Negro History and The Negro Bulletin as well as several books. His most popular was The Miseducation of the Negro. 

In 1926, with his organization, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Carter G. Woodson inaugurated Negro History Week, which today has evolved into Black History Month. We owe this time of celebrating black accomplishments to the contribution of this singular scholar. 

Black history is American history and all Americans should participate in learning about a people and culture that is still largely missing from our school history books. This learning process should not be limited to one month, but 365 days a year.

“At the foundation of every culture,” composer William Bolcom insists, “is how words and music marry. It’s our patrimony, it’s ours—it’s what makes us.” 

Bolcom and his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, will be presenting the Ernest Bloch Lectures In Music as a series of recitals of American popular song, 1800 to the present, starting Monday, 8 p.m. at UC’s Hertz Hall, with “Golden Slippers, 1800-1920.” Admission is free. 

Fresh from the success of his opera A Wedding (adapted from Robert Altman’s 1978 movie—with the filmmaker as stage director) at the Chicago Lyric Opera, Bolcom is presiding over a weekly seminar this semester at UC Berkeley. The class, in collaboration with Robert Hass, brings together several poets and composers to find “words that can be sung; music that can deal with words,” as Balcom puts it. 

“We try to create a climate,” Bolcom says. “Previous seminars have ended in ongoing collaborations.” 

The lecture-recitals Bolcom and Morris will perform as part of the Bloch series are something else again, but their concerns dovetail with those of the seminars: the rediscovery of, Bolcom says, “How American songs should be sung with authenticity, not as an example of Italian opera technique ... I couldn’t talk to a troubadour, but I could talk to Irving Berlin... about what’s not on the music page.” 

The Bloch Lecture series will be performed by Bolcom and Morris in the style they’ve “concertized” since 1972—and will draw on the themes and research of Morris’ forthcoming book, provisionally titled An Actress Who Sings. 

(“The biggest trouble with books like that,” quipped Bolcom, “Is that you end up following your own precepts. It killed Hindemuth.”) 

Bolcom, a native of Seattle, Wash., (Morris is from Portland, Ore.) began studying composition at age 11. He was a student of Darius Milhaud at Mills College. His “12 Etudes for Piano” won the Pulitzer in 1988. Like his mentor Milhaud, Bolcom’s compositions cut across formal lines, going beyond pastiche. 

Having “honed his craft in opera, musicals, concert song and cabaret” (in the words of the New Yorker’s Alex Ross), Bolcom has drawn his texts from film, plays (the late Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge), novels (Frank Norris’ San Francisco story McTeague—the basis for Erich Von Stroheim’s film Greed) and poetry (William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience). 

Enthused by the reception of A Wedding, Bolcom energetically stated his willingness “to educate people from the start about the landscape of popular song, like how a Rogers and Hart song is made, the shape and the form of it.” He said he was even entertaining the possibility of performing his and Morris’ signature tune, “Lime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise.” 

Bolcom explains, “Years ago, we were at a restaurant in Portland, and I saw all the ladies in pillbox hats eating chicken crouquettes with white sauce. I’d had plenty of that kind of food, going around playing piano at women’s clubs when I was young. I thought of the lyrics, later gave it to Joan as a present; she said it was too silly, she’d never perform it—we’ve done it thousands of times. People request it; there’re squeals of recognition. In Ann Arbor we even invited the audience to wear their most outrageous hats.” 

The second lecture-recital, “Stairway To Paradise: Flowering of the Song  

Jewelers (Gershwin, Kern & co.)” will be on March 14, and the last, “I’m A Stranger Here Myself: An Argument For An American Cabaret Style—1940 to the present,” on April 18. 

The Impact Theatre company, housed in the tiny black basement of La Val’s Pizza and encouraging their audiences to bring “a slice and a pint” downstairs to munch on during their shows, bills itself as offering “Theatre that doesn’t suck.” 

It doesn’t.  

Their usual works are absurd and very funny bubbles. But once every season they seem to like to show off the full range of their skills by presenting a heavy-duty Shakespearean drama. They do it with a straight face, but with remarkable originality. This year, the play is Othello and the short version of this review is that it’s great. Everybody should go to see it. (No kids, though. This is an R-rated version of Shakespeare). 

However, it’s quite possible that Impact’s brash production is going to be best remembered for their impudence in, first, presenting the tragic Moor as a black Lesbian and, second, for the lap dancer who entertains the soldiers in a great bar scene. For this viewer, both changes to the hallowed text make perfect sense. 

We are, after all, in the epicenter of a tide of controversy about same-sex marriages which leaves the similar, but out-dated, uproar about inter-racial marriages far behind. (Look up an old version of the California State Constitution if you think our own state has always been free of such invasive bias). So Impact has simply updated the old controversy regarding racial intermarriage to the current version of the issue. If there is a problem with this idea for the famous tragedy, it lies primarily in the substitution of a woman’s voice for the masculine bellowing one could expect for a number of the lines. 

Same song; second verse.  

As for the lap dancer, Othello, in this production, is set in modern times with the presence of war shadowing the whole story. A bunch of soldiers out on a drunk would probably be quite happy to head for a bar featuring live entertainment. More important, Othello—after all, a play about (presumed) adultery, multiple murders, and suicide—is hardly designed for children’s entertainment.  

A powerful cast turns in a first-rate performance under the imaginative and impressive direction of director Melissa Hillman. She has created mesmerizing scenes with the top-notch work of the supporting as well as the leading characters. 

Skyler Cooper’s physical presence alone would qualify her for the role of Othello. Although not a massive woman, she has the build that you might expect from the top trainer at a gym that is actually her day job. A dedicated actress, she dreams of being the first woman to play the same role on the New York stage.  

Cooper is well paired with Marissa Keltie’s Desdemona. Keltie plays a gentle , intelligent and poised woman whose murder is a real loss. It is a character that can easily be dismissed as being “nothing but the victim,” but Keltie makes the role much more than that.  

It is in the enigmatic Iago, brilliantly played by Casey Jackson, that the real gift of the play may be for those of us who have never quite been able to understand the depth of his villainy. Yes, Othello passed him over for a promotion that he seemingly had every reason to anticipate was a shoo-in. Yes, he very probably is a racist. Yes, he may even have had mixed feelings about his own wife’s role as lady-in-waiting—played by the very competent Bernadette Quattrone—to Othello’s wife.  

But none of these have ever seemed enough to prompt the persistent, single-minded effort Iago makes to destroy Othello. It just never seemed quite believable. Jackson’s interpretation, however, makes total sense. He creates so effective a portrayal of a sociopath that the university could require their psychology majors to come see one in action; it is a totally chilling presentation. The warmth of his smile and “good-guy” charm radiates believability even as he single-mindedly pursues the destruction of the tragedy. 

Wow. Just plain “Wow.” 

›

FRIDAY, FEB. 25 

THEATER 

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.  

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

Black Repertory Group “Thurgood Marshall” a play by Dr. Lenneal Hendersen, with Faye Carol and The Dru-Band at 7 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $7-$15. 

Central Works, “Enemy Combatant” 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 

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.  

Un-Scripted Theater Company “You Bet Your Improvisor!” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through March 26 at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.unscripted.com 

FILM 

Films of Nicholas Philbert: “In the Land of the Deaf” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jim Wallis looks at “God’s Politics: Why the Rights Gets It Wrong, and the Left Doesn’t Get It” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com  

Nicholas Philbert in Conversation discussing his films at 1:30 p.m. at at Pacific Film Archive. Free. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Sir Roger Penrose discusses “The Road to Reality: The Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony performs Mahler, Bunch and Beethven at 8 p.m. at the Parmount Theater, 2025 Broadway. Pre-concert lecture at 7:05 p.m. Tickets are $15-$60. 625-8497. www.oebs.org 

Trisha Brown Dance Company, 35th Anniversary Celebration, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jaranón y Bochinche, Afro-Peruvian music and dance at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

The Moodswing Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. with Nick & Shanna. Cost is $18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Erika Luckett at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

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

Sabrina Stewart, Inspect Her Gadget, Stiletta, rock, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7-$9. 848-0886.  

Monsters are not Myths, indie rock, at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Lemon Lime Lights, The Unravellers, The Kissers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. 841-2082.  

Josh Workman Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Thomas Faut at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Vinyl, funk jazz at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Unbound, io, Minipop, Push to Talk and Chelsey Fasano, rock, at 7 p.m. at Imusicast 5429 Telegraph Ave Cost is $8. 601-1029. www.imusicast.com 

Cuarteto Sonando, Afro-Cuban jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Unseen, Ramallah, Pistol Grip, Brain Failure at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Plot Against Rachel, Lowly at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

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

SATURDAY, FEB. 26 

CHILDREN  

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

EXHIBITIONS 

“Serving the People - Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party Photographs” at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Reception at 2 p.m. with Billy X. Jennings and other BPP members in the Community Room. Exhibition runs to March 19. 981-6100. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

“Potters for Peace, the Road to Hope” an exhibition of Nicaraguan Pottery and fim screening at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Potters Guild, 731 Jones St. 524-7031. www.berkeleypotters.com 

“The Art of Living Black” Ninth Annual Bay Area Black Artists Art Tour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sat. and Sun. at various locations throughout the Bay Area. Call the Richmond Art Center for a directory. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

FILM 

Films of Nicholas Philbert: “Every Little Thing” at 7 p.m. and “Animals” at 9:25 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm & Muse featuring performance poet Paradise at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Free. Berkeley Art Center. 527-9753. 

Robert MacNeil discusses “Do You Speak American?” his new book on American English at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

East Bay Poets, “Painting With Words” a reading and open mic at 2 p.m. at the Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave.at Ashby. Julia@juliamontrond.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kensington Symphony with Florence Kline and Nancy Hunt, flutes, and Dana Kemp, trumpet at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Donation $8-$10, children free. 524-4335.  

Trisha Brown Dance Company, 35th Anniversary Celebration, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988.  

Four Seasons Concerts presents “Triangulo” in a program of Latin American music at 7:30 p.m. at the Calvin Simmons Theater, 10 Tenth St., Oakland. Tickets are $25-$35. 601-7919. www.fourseasonsconcerts.com 

Bay Area Classical Harmonies with Presidio Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at Arlington Community, 52 Arlington, Kensington. 

Jim Hudak, piano at 1 p.m. at Hear Music, 1809 Fourth St. 204-9595.  

Dream Kitchen, with John Schott and music of the twenties, at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Zydeco Flames at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. with Dana De Simone. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Ken Mahru with Loyalty Day at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Matt Berkeley Group, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Suzy Thompson with Del Ray, Larry Hanks & Thompson’s String Ticklers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Larry Stefl Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Desoto Reds, Safety First, Imogene, indie, pop, rock, at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886.  

Homenagem Brasileira at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz 

school.com  

Pyeng Threadgill at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. at 8th. Cost is $10. www.pyeng.com 

Eastbay Rats Benefit with Turks, Hobogoblin and Resistaleros at 9 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Grapefruit Ed at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Matt Renzi Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Helen Chaya’s Acoustic Showcase at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

All Bets Off, Time for Livin’ Killing the Dream, Lights Out at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 27 

CHILDREN 

The Sippy Cups, a musical performance for children at 4 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $5-$10. 925-798-1300.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Haiga Paintings” and “Photographs of Japan” by Kazumi and Kim Cranney. Reception at 1 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-12288. www.giorgigallery.com 

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 

Films of Nicholas Philbert: “Louvre City” at 12:30 p.m. and “Animals” at 2:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Let the People Speak” a celebration of Black History Month with Kokomon Clottey and Aeeshah Ababio-Clottey at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

“Stalking the Folk Art of Mexico” with Marion Oettinger of the San Antonio Museum of Art at 2 p.m. at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft Way at College. 643-7648. 

“Oakland Beat” An evening with young Oakland poets at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Sponsored by California Shakespeare Theater, Campo Santo and Intersection for the Arts.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pacific Mozart Ensemble “Voices from Farther East” a concert of Eastern-influenced choral music at 5 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way at Durant. Tickets are $15-$20. 415-705-0848. www.pacificmozart.org 

The Maybeck Trio at 3 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. 548-3121.  

Sun String Quartet plays Haydn’s “Quinten Quartet” at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Sliding scale donation $10-24. 701-1787. 

“Reflections: Music to Soothe and Uplift the Spirit” Celtic, medieval and traditional melodies with Eileen Hadidian, recorder and flute, Patrice Haan, Celtic harp at 7 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Donations $10, children free, no one turned away. 213-3122. www.gracenorthchurch.org 

Songs for the Hard Times The 67th Annual Reunion of the Veterans and Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade with Utah Phillips at 1 p.m. at the Calvin Simmons Theater, 10 Tenth St., Oakland. Tickets are $40. 548-3088. 

Bay Area Classical Harmonies with the Presidio Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 

Community Women’s Orchestra Winter Concert at 4 p.m. at Zion Lutheran Church, 5201 Park Blvd., Piedmont. Donations $5-$10. 689-0202. 

Masters of Persian Classical Music “A Journey into the Heart of the Middle East” at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Ethel, 20th century music and beyond, at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Persia in Motion” with Shahrzad Dance Academy at 4 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. 

Papa Gianni and the North Beach Band at 2 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Bart Davenport and The Jonah Kit at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761.  

Flamenco Open Stage with Adela Clara and Antonia & Virgina Juan at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Jaya Lakshmi accompanied by Jason Parmar on Tabla at 7:30 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Donation $14. 843-2787.  

Color Black, Blair Hansen, Hands of Time at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. 

MONDAY, FEB. 28 

FILM 

Seeing Through the Screen: Buddhism and Film “Enlightenment Guaranteed” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“American Popular Song, 1800-2005” An historical and styistic overview with William Bolcom, composer and Joan Morris, mezzo-soprano, at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. http://music.berkeley.edu/bloch 

Kate Coleman describes “The Secret Wars of Judi Bari: A Car Bomb, the Fight for the Redwoods and the End of Earth First” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Kevin Canty reads from his new novel “Winslow in Love” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Poetry Express theme night “stars,” with special guest Sonya Renee, the 2004 National Poetry Slam Champion, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Songwriters Symposium at 8:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Trovatore, traditional Italian songs, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

CSUH Benefit with the CSUH Jazz Ensembles at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, MARCH 1 

FILM 

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

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Steve Erickson reads from his new novel “Our Ecstatic Days” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Ross Tobia, El Cerrito author reads from “Grand Unified Theory, Physics for a New Age” at 7 p.m. at the Friends of the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Anoush & Smyrna Time Machine at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Balkan dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Long Lonesome Road, bluegrass, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $18.50- $19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Marcos Silva Brazilian Piano Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Bob Harp, Danny Allen, Americana, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Omar Sosa Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Skteches by Peter Paul Rubens” opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. and runs through May 15. 642-1295. www.banpfa.berkeley.edu 

“Mapping the Landscape of Learning” artwork by Bay Area youth and CCA students, opens at the Tecoah Bruce Gallery, Oliver Art Center, California College of the Arts, 5212 Broadway. Reception from 5 to 7 p.m. 594-3754.  

FILM 

Film 50: History of Cinema “The Lady From Shanghai” at 3 p.m. and “Tron” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Andrew Sean Greer reads from his novel “The Confessions of Max Tivoli” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Donna Henes reads from “The Queen of Myself: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife” at 7 p.m. at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. 655-2405. www. 

changemakersforwomen.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 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra 4th Annual Choral Festival, benefitting the Musicians’ Pension Fund at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$49 available from 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

The Marcus Shelby Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Fundraiser for Joe Paquin with Tom Rigney & The Sundogs at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Zydeco dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ledward Ka’apana, Hawaiian slack key guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

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

Ubzorb, Dead Sea Scribes, Daddy Axe at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Omar Sosa Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 



Vintage Berkeley refills the wine-store niche that ran dry in the North Shattuck district a couple of years ago when North Berkeley Wine moved west to Martin Luther King Jr. Way. But this new arrival may be a bit different from any wine store the Bay Area has seen before. 

The owners select wines for both flavor and value, with almost nothing on the floor costing more than $20. They also open something different for tasting every weekday from 4-7 p.m. and Saturdays from 2-4 p.m. 

For bottles that you can’t try-before-you-buy on a given day, there’s a complete, and opinionated, description card. Premium, higher-priced wines can be chosen from a cabinet at the back of the store. 

Out front, the finds include $8 wines made from delicious but little-known Spanish grape varietals (whose kissing cousins fetch many times the price when crushed in France or California). Co-owner Peter Eastlake boasts of a stock that ranges from a “cheapo Puglian for pizza” to some sweetly “sinful ice wine.” His partner Michael Werther says they emphasize “small-production vineyards, artisan offerings.” 

Eastlake managed similarly value-oriented wine stores in New York and Boston, then became a national wine buyer for Cost Plus World Market in Oakland. Werther is a former investment banker. The two have been friends since “the first day of pre-kindergarten” outside Philadelphia, says Eastlake. 

To uncork a value-priced wine boutique in Berkeley, they’ve appropriately chosen a location on Vine Street. It’s in the former East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) pump house, opposite Peet’s Coffee and Tea—an elegant water temple from 1930 now converted to dispense a whole different kind of liquid. 

“I see the store as our neighborhood wine cellar,” says Eastlake. “It’s a public utility station.” 

Why a mostly-under-$20 wine store? 

“Because wine is such an esoteric product,” says Werther, some customers have “an expectation or fear that this lack of knowledge will be exploited by retailers. By setting a price cap at $20, we allow the customer to experiment with our wines with confidence—remember that this is a handpicked selection—and without breaking the bank.” 

Eastlake adds, “We love wines that...deliver sheer pleasure without costing too much.” 

His education included a year studying wine and winemaking in South Africa, and his enthusiasm for sharing good vintages is contagious. 

“We buy only what we love,” he says, “stuff that has good regional and varietal character, is made in limited quantities, and above all offers terrific value.” 

It took the partners about a year to secure the permits they needed to open the store. Hurdles included seeming last-minute demands from a Zoning Department that they perceived as understaffed. But they have praise for the Zoning Adjustments Board and for the support they received from neighbors and City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli. They especially acknowledge Landmarks Commissioner Carrie Olson, who had initiated the pump house’s landmarking and who enthusiastically endorsed their application. 

“This was the first pumping plant [the Utility District] built in Berkeley,” says Olson. “It was fascinating researching the 70 years that preceded the formation of EBMUD. Water companies came and went. One early company was near a slaughterhouse, and when the company finally made sure the water supply was free of the ‘residue’ from the nearby business, their customers complained—they had gotten used to the taste of the blood in their water.” 

Olson said she was excited by Vintage Berkeley’s potential to “make use of the existing building in such a unique way—customers will come and appreciate that the building is special, and see that it was worth saving.” 

She said she sees the store as a promising reuse that will be “good for community building.” 

Eastlake suggests that she’s right. 

“Vintage Berkeley happened because this neighborhood and its residents, merchants, and band of wandering poets are truly special,” he says. “The support from those who we met on the sidewalk during construction kept us going. The neighbors are the benefactors.” 

FRIDAY, FEB. 25 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Ludmilla Kutsak on “The Fabergé Egg.” 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. 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” resecheduled to March 10 with Carolyn Scarr and Dr. Marc Sapir at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 528-5403. 

“The 9/11 Omission Report: What the Commission Didn’t Answer” with John Judge at 7 p.m. at Fellowship of Humanity, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations requested. 625-1106. 

“Constitutional Actions in Mexico” with Justice José Ramón Cossío Díaz of the Mexican Supreme Court at 4 p.m. in the Faculty Lounge, Boalt Hall, UC Campus. 642-2088.  

Special Character Storytime for children with Arthur the Aardvark, at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

Berkeley Youth Alternatives Crab Feed at 7 p.m. at 1255 Allston Way. Cost is $35. Reservations required. 845-9010. www.byaonline.org 

“Three Beats for Nothing” meets at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice. No charge. 655-8863, 843-7610.  

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. 

Humanistic Shabbat with Kol Hadash at 7:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. 428-1492. info@kolhadash.org 

SATURDAY, FEB. 26 

Wet & Wild Come walk in the rain or shine and see who is out in Tilden Park. Meet at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233.  

Giddy for Goats Come meet Lola and Princess and the kids and learn how to care for goats, at 3 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Let Worms Eat Your Garbage Learn about the benefits of composting at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351.  

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.  

“Serving the People - Body and Soul” A Black Panther Party history lecture and video screening with Billy X. Jennings, Richard Aoki, Sister Sheba and James Buford at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Library Community Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100.  

“Election Rigging 101” A teach-in on the 2004 election and what we must do to restore democracy, with Bob Fitrakis, Editor, Columbus Free Press and others, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Donation $10. Please bring lunch. www.democraticrenewal.us 

“Harriet Jacobs: A Black Woman’s Fight to Smash Slavery” with Carla Wilson, Spartacist League at 3 p.m. at the YWCA, 1515 Webster St., Oakland. 839-0851. 

“Bringing the Hip Hop Youth into the Struggle for Reparations” a conference with Fred Hampton, Jr. and Pedro Noguera, held in the Valley Life Science Building, UC Campus. struggle4reparations.com  

Emergency Response Training Class on “Basic Personal Preparedness” from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Fire Dept. Training Center, 997 Cedar St. To register call 981-5606. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/fire/oes.html 

Friends of the Albany Library Book Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave, Albany. 536-3720. 

From Tsunami Relief to Creative Rebuilding Performance, silent auction, bake sale at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Tickets are $15-$50. Proceeds benefit Sarvodaya. 444-8511, ext. 15. www.artsfirstoakland.org 

UC Berkeley Asia Business Conference on “Asia’s Global Leadership” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Haas School of Business, at UC Campus. Cost is $50, $20 students. cochairs@berkeleyabc.org 

California College of the Arts Open House from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 5212 Broadway. Prospective students can tour studios, meet faculty and current students and view student work. 415-703-9523. 

“Ashenazic Jews: History and Culture,” a conference sponsored by Kol Hadash, with visiting Scholar-in-Residence Rabbi Sherwin Wine. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sat. and to 12:30 p.m. on Sun. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. To register call 428-1492.  

Kol Hadash Chai (18th) Anniversary with a dinner and entertainment at 6:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. For reservations call 428-1492. info@KolHadash.org 

SUNDAY, FEB. 27 

All Things Fungal Considered from 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. We’ll search for mushrooms and lichens and learn the science of fungi. Bring your lunch. 525-2233. 

Laurel Canyon Cryptogram Slog We’ll look for plants without flowers and learn about their life cycles. Be prepared for lots of mud. Meet at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

“Casinos in your Neighborhood-Good, Bad or What?” A panel discission to hear all sides from 4 to 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by Berkeley Citizens Action. 

Benefit for the Oakland GI Rights Hotline/CCCO, from 3 to 6:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. The program will present three decades of anti-war activism, from Vietnam to Iraq. Donations requested, $5 and up. 465-1607. www.girights.org 

Yonatan Shapira, Israeli refuser pilot at 3 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $5. 524-1993 www.refusersolidarity.net 

Songs for the Hard Times The 67th Annual Reunion of the Veterans and Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade with Utah Phillips at 1 p.m. at the Calvin Simmons Theater, 10 Tenth St., Oakland. Tickets are $40. 548-3088. 

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

Analysis of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” with Terry Wilson at 6 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Supper will be served at 5 p.m. for a $4 donation. 526-3805. 

Celebrate KerBlooms 52nd Issue at a benefit dinner for the Anarchy Magazine Collective. Vegan dinner at 7:30 p.m. and readings at 8:30 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-8705. www.thelonghaul.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 

The TaKeTiNa Rhythm Process A workshop from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Interplayce, 2273 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $85-$110. 650-493-8046. www.villageheartbeat.com/registration.php 

“Mysticism and the Inner Path to Enlightenment” Tea and discussion with Mother Clare Watts, a nondemoninational priest, at 1 p.m. at the Rose Garden Inn. Cost is $15. RSVP to 635-4286. 

“The Rise of the Jewish Doctor” with John Efron at 3 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 845-6420. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Abbe Blum on “The Tibetan Wheel of Life” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, FEB. 28 

Tea and Hike at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed by a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Berkeley High School Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. in the school library to discuss WASC process and the role of the School Site Council, South of Bancroft facilities plan report, and Freshman Seminar report. bhssitecouncil@berkeley.k12.ca.us, bhs.berkeleypta.org/ssc 

BUSD East Campus Planning Meeting at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Alternative High School Multipurpose Room, 2701 MLK Jr. WAy. 644-6066. 

“Critical Viewing” an ongoing group that examines the craft(iness) of short film, TV drama, and commercials. Free. co-sponsored by the Berkeley Adult School and BRJCC. New members always welcome. Mon. from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

“The Jewish-American World of Philip Roth” at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 845-6420. 

TUESDAY, MARCH 1 

“Great Day Hikes in California’s Desert Parks” a slide presentation with Steve Tabor at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Mid-Day Meander for budding botany at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden at 2:30 p.m. 525-2233.  

Mini-Rangers for ages 8-12 for an afternoon of nature study, conservation and rambling through the woods and waters. Meet at 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Fee is $6-$8, reservations required. 525-2233. 

“How and How Not to Fight Terrorism” with Michael Scheuer, “anonymous” author of “Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror” at 6:30 p.m. at The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $15-$40. 632-1366. www.independent.org 

“Sustainable Seas: The Vision and the Reality” with Sylvia A. Earle, oceanographer, at 7 p.m. at The College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway, north. 658-5202. 

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group meets to discuss “Travel” 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. 

“Thirst” a documentary on water management, at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237, ext. 110. 

“All Together Now: Building Bridges to Our Future” a fundraiser at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Pacific Renaissance Plaza, 388 Ninth St., Oakland. Cost is $50. 637-0455. www.oacc.cc 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

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

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Gerry Arko will return to lead us on a bird walk right here in our neighborhood at 10 a.m. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 

Great Decisions 2005: “Outsourcing Jobs” with Ashok Bardhan, Haas School of Business, 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. 

“9/11: The Road to Tyranny” An Axex Jones documentary at at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, $5 donations accepted. 393-5685. 

“Pollution in a Promised Land: How Zionism Launched Israel into its Current Environmental Crisis, and How It Can Save It” with Alon Tal, founding director of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, at 8 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 839-2900 ext. 214. 

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. 

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. 

Chanting Circle for Women Wed. at 7 p.m. through April 6, at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Tuition is $160. For information see www.edgeofwonder.com 

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. 

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, MARCH 3 

Early Morning Bird Walk to look for early spring arrivals. Meet at 7:30 a.m. at far parking lot of the Bear Creek entrance of Briones. 525-2233. 

Bird Walk along the Martin Luther King Shoreline to see marsh birds at 3:30 p.m. for information call 525-2233. 

“Managing Garden Pests and Diseases” with UC Plant Pathologist Dr. Robert Raabe at 7 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $10-$12, registration required. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

“The Future of Industry, Artisans, and Crafts in West Berkeley and the Future of the West Berkeley Plan” a public forum on the protection of industrial space through zoning at 7 p.m. at Alliance Graphics, 905 Parker, at 7th St.  

BUSD West Campus Site Planning Meeting at 7 p.m. at 1222 University Ave., in the Cafeteria. 644-6066.  

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., senior attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council, will speak on “Environment, Health and Democracy,” at 7 p.m., Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. 

“Cascadia Cob: The Healthiest Housing in the World” A lecture and slide presentation on building housing from earth, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“Native Land and Water in Jeopardy” A documentary on the Winnemem sacred sites at 7 p.m. at the Grand Lake Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $15. 415-452-3556. 

“Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict in Historical Context” with Rosemary Radford Ruether, Prof. GTU, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker School, 2125 Jefferson St., behind the church. Free. This location is not wheelchair accessible. 482-1062. 

“Confronting Power: A Century of Struggle and Movements” a 3-day Empowering Women of Color Conference at UCB, with workshops, book-signings and cultural performances. 642-2876, ext. 5. ewocc.berkeley.edu 

American Red Cross Mobile Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Berkeley Civic Center, 2180 Milvia St. To reserve a place please call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE (1-800-448-3543) or visit www.BeADonor.com 

Creating Harmony in our Lives, a workshop at Changemakers, 6536 Alcatraz, with Bonita Ford to learn to connect to your whole self through movement, artwork and visualization. Cost is $25. No one will be turned away. To register call 286-7915 or email bford@jfku.edu  

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping in Berkeley Public schools at 7 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

ONGOING 

Nature Journal Writing with fieldtrips offered at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, Vets Memorial Building at Grand Ave and Harrison, next to Lake Merritt. Meets Mon., 10 a.m. to noon and Thurs. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free. To register call 238-3284. 

Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour Seeks Host Gardens The tour, which will be held in the spring of 2005, will showcase Alameda and Contra Costa County gardens that contain at least 30% native plants, don’t use synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and provide habitat for wildlife. To receive a host application, contact Kathy Kramer at Kathy@KathyKramerConsulting.net or 236-9558.  

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 

All Net Basketball for boys and girls ages 9 to 11, begins Tues. Mar. 8, from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and runs for five weeks. Fee is $10-$15. For information call Berkeley Youth Alternatives, 845-9066. sports@byaonline.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. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/creeks 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., Feb. 28, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Virginia Aiello, 981-5158. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/parksandrecreation 

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

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., Mar. 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Tasha Tervelon, 981-5347. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/women 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Mar. 2, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. William Greulich, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 3, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/housing 

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 3, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks›

Hungry for revenue, Berkeley is seeking to charge the University of California for millions in unpaid city services as it also plans to challenge the university’s Long Range Development Plan for being too massive and too vague. 

In a closed-door meeting Tuesday night, the City Council will discuss the legal implications of sending its largest landowner bills for sewer hook-ups and parking lot operations. 

Mayor Tom Bates said the issue of sewer fees will come to a head in March when the city recalculates fees for residents and businesses. “We will send UC a bill in March and we will pursue legal action if they don’t pay us,” he said. 

The prime hope for a legal triumph, councilmembers said, is a lawsuit by the East Bay Municipal Utilities District (EBMUD) against UC Berkeley over how much it can charge the university for sewer treatment. The case, Bates said, is currently before the State Court of Appeals. 

“If East Bay MUD wins it seems pretty guaranteed that the city would have a good case too when it comes to sewers,” Councilmember Kriss Worthington said.  

“They’re not going to give us any money unless they’re forced to,” said Councilmember Dona Spring. 

As a state entity, UC has held that it is exempt from city taxes and fees. Currently, UC Berkeley pays the city $450,000 a year for sewer services as part of a 15-year deal that expires this year. According to a report last year by city consultant Economic & Planning Systems, Inc., providing sewer service to the university will cost Berkeley over $2.6 million this year and $3.8 million by 2014. However, city leaders are only asking for between $1.4 and $2.1 million in sewer fees. 

“We think that’s a range we could go to court with,” Bates said. 

He said city staff was still calculating an estimate of parking lot revenues it believed UC Berkeley owes the city. Berkeley taxes private parking lot operators ten percent of their revenues. Bates believes the university should pay the same tax on nights and weekends when university lots are primarily used for recreational events like football games and performances rather than for the university’s educational mission. 

“Clearly for those events they should pay what every other parking lot operator pays,” Bates said. 

With the city facing multi-million dollar budget shortfalls in upcoming years, an annual payment from the university approaching $2 million could help lift the city out of the red.  

On Wednesday, in a separate action, the city is scheduled file a lawsuit against the university, challenging the adequacy of its Long Range Development Plan. City officials contend the plan is purposely vague about specific developments and fails to deal properly with the impact of further growth on surrounding neighborhoods. 

Since December, city leaders have sought to extract payments from the university in return for not going ahead with the lawsuit challenging the university’s development plan. But with no further negotiations scheduled and the city facing a Wednesday deadline to file suit, Bates said a lawsuit was inevitable. 

A lawsuit would please neighborhood leaders who fear that a settlement would not provide enough money to lessen the effects of a university building boom. 

“Money isn’t the only thing,” said Wendy Alfsen of Berkeleyans For a Livable University Environment. “UC’s plan would have significant and severe impact on neighborhoods.” 

UC’s plan projects 2,600 new dormitory beds, between 1,800 and 2,300 new parking spaces and 2.2 million square feet of new academic and administrative space—three times more than called for in its 1990 plan. 

The city is planning to sue under the California Environmental Quality Act, on the grounds that the university has not identified the specific projects it plans to build and therefore couldn’t adequately provide mitigations to lessen their impact. 

If the city were to prevail in court, UC Berkeley could be compelled to redo its analysis, although once the judge approved the revised report the university could proceed with its development plans. 

While the council will discuss potential conflicts in closed session, Tuesday’s regular council meeting contains mostly items that appear likely to win broad support among councilmembers. 

Spring has proposed that the city apply to a $953,216 state grant program for a final feasibility study on the cost of opening up Strawberry Creek between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue. The long-discussed project would coincide with the possible construction of a hotel and convention center on the site of the current Bank of America office at the corner of Shattuck and Center Street.  

Mayor Bates is proposing a resolution calling on the state to proceed with the original design for the new east span of the Bay Bridge. Last month, Governor Schwarzenegger, citing over $2 billion in cost overruns on the project, proposed scrapping the design for a simpler version. 

The council is also expected to give final approval to the Ed Roberts Campus, a two story complex which will contain offices to serve disabled residents. Neighbors have appealed the 86,057-square-foot project, slated to rise at the Ashby BART station fronting Adeline Street. The appellates wrote that they aren’t seeking to stop the project, but want to make sure that it includes measures to mitigate its effects on nearby residents, and they want to correct what they see as mistakes in the planning process. 

Also Tuesday, the council will conduct a public hearing on the Berkeley Police Department’s agreements with other law enforcement agencies and private security organizations. Under Berkeley law the city is supposed to conduct such public hearings every year, but hasn’t done so since 1986. Councilmember Spring said local attorney Jim Chanin, a former Police Review Commissioner, sought the hearing for fear that the BPD was sharing private information about his clients with other law enforcement agencies.›

With a Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) “work to rule” labor action scheduled to officially begin this week, meaning teachers refusing to work off the clock, the first effect Berkeley Unified School District parents and students are likely to see is a drop in homework. 

“But if that’s what parents are concerned about,” a high school math teacher told the Daily Planet in a telephone interview, “then maybe what it says is that parents don’t understand what it is that teachers do.” 

Last week, the BFT announced the work slowdown in response to Berkeley Unified’s latest contract proposal. Berkeley teachers have been working without a contract for two years, and contract negotiations are currently being coordinated through a state-appointed mediator. 

In an e-mail to union members, the BFT Executive Board said that work to rule “means that all work related to our jobs is completed during the duty day or during hourly paid time.” The duty day was describe as “7 hours 10 minutes...unless you are being paid extra for an after-school activity.” Teachers were encouraged to continue the work slowdown “until further notice.” 

Berkeley public school teachers said that means homework is going to be severely curtailed or eliminated altogether. At the request of BFT officials, who arranged the interviews, the teachers were to remain anonymous. 

A kindergarten teacher said that teachers at her school had decided to eliminate any homework that involves paperwork on the part of teachers. 

“That means no assignments that require preparation by the teachers, and nothing that requires grading,” she said. “There’s no time in the normal school day to complete those types of tasks.” 

A second grade teacher said that the homework action at his school was “a compromise between those teachers who favored no homework at all, and those teachers who said to assign homework, but not to grade it. We decided to simply give a generic form of homework, with teachers providing a minimum of feedback.” 

He said that he normally assigns a weekly homework packet to his students on Monday that consists of spelling words, math problems, and reading assignments. 

“I generally spend two to three hours over the weekend correcting the packets after they’re turned in on Friday, so that I can have them back to the students on Monday,” he said. 

He said that he planned to eliminate that form of homework, and instead would simply tell students to “read 20 minutes, write 20 minutes, and practice math problems. And when I get it back on Monday, I’m just going to check done, done, done, and that will be it.” 

A middle school English teacher said that homework involves three parts: planning it, using class time to explain it, and grading it. 

“I’ll continue to be able to give home reading assignments to my students,” she said, “but the type of homework that involves a collaboration between the student and the teacher—the type that is a vehicle for individual instruction—is going to be put on hold.” 

She explained the time constraints. 

“I teach 180 students during the course of my day,” she said. “If I assign essay homework that requires me to spend 3 minutes with each of them evaluating their drafts, that alone adds up to 9 hours of work. If I spend 5 minutes with each of them, that adds up to 16 hours. Assigning homework that involves that amount of my time is not possible to complete during the course of my contracted day.”  

But a high school math teacher called the curtailed homework policy the least important of the job action’s effects. 

“Nobody grades homework at the high school level,” she said. “The only thing we do is check off whether it’s done or not.” 

She said that the preparation of lesson plans will be the major loss to educational quality from the job action. 

“Many of the lessons are going to be cobbled together, rather than being well-planned,” she said. 

She explained that she typically spends 2 and a half hours per day on classroom work outside of her contracted time, “and I don’t spend it twiddling my thumbs. I plan lessons. I grade papers. I contact parents who have called me with questions about classroom work or their children’s performance. I have an hour of prep period per day to make out tests, run copies of them off, record grades on the computer, and deliver attendance logs to the office or complete other school business. Normally I spend my lunch hour tutoring students. Now I’m going to have to figure out how to do all of that within the confines of my duty day. So some of it will be cut.” 

She said that while she does most of her after-hours work at home, it is not unusual for teachers to work at the high school until 6 p.m. 

In its instruction letter to BFT members, the BFT Executive Board said that with the exception of Open House participation, which is mandated under the expired BFT-BUSD contract, all job-related work was to be completed during the 7-hour day. The board said that policy included parent-student conferences and participation in such committees as those formed through the Berkeley School Excellence Project and the various school site councils. 

In an interview with the Daily Planet last week, BFT President Barry Fike said that it was his belief that during the “work to rule” slowdown, some Berkeley teachers would continue to honor long-time commitments to after-school projects that are already in the works.?

With a Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) “work to rule” labor action scheduled to officially begin this week, meaning teachers refusing to work off the clock, the first effect Berkeley Unified School District parents and students are likely to see is a drop in homework. 

“But if that’s what parents are concerned about,” a high school math teacher told the Daily Planet in a telephone interview, “then maybe what it says is that parents don’t understand what it is that teachers do.” 

Last week, the BFT announced the work slowdown in response to Berkeley Unified’s latest contract proposal. Berkeley teachers have been working without a contract for two years, and contract negotiations are currently being coordinated through a state-appointed mediator. 

In an e-mail to union members, the BFT Executive Board said that work to rule “means that all work related to our jobs is completed during the duty day or during hourly paid time.” The duty day was describe as “7 hours 10 minutes...unless you are being paid extra for an after-school activity.” Teachers were encouraged to continue the work slowdown “until further notice.” 

Berkeley public school teachers said that means homework is going to be severely curtailed or eliminated altogether. At the request of BFT officials, who arranged the interviews, the teachers were to remain anonymous. 

A kindergarten teacher said that teachers at her school had decided to eliminate any homework that involves paperwork on the part of teachers. 

“That means no assignments that require preparation by the teachers, and nothing that requires grading,” she said. “There’s no time in the normal school day to complete those types of tasks.” 

A second grade teacher said that the homework action at his school was “a compromise between those teachers who favored no homework at all, and those teachers who said to assign homework, but not to grade it. We decided to simply give a generic form of homework, with teachers providing a minimum of feedback.” 

He said that he normally assigns a weekly homework packet to his students on Monday that consists of spelling words, math problems, and reading assignments. 

“I generally spend two to three hours over the weekend correcting the packets after they’re turned in on Friday, so that I can have them back to the students on Monday,” he said. 

He said that he planned to eliminate that form of homework, and instead would simply tell students to “read 20 minutes, write 20 minutes, and practice math problems. And when I get it back on Monday, I’m just going to check done, done, done, and that will be it.” 

A middle school English teacher said that homework involves three parts: planning it, using class time to explain it, and grading it. 

“I’ll continue to be able to give home reading assignments to my students,” she said, “but the type of homework that involves a collaboration between the student and the teacher—the type that is a vehicle for individual instruction—is going to be put on hold.” 

She explained the time constraints. 

“I teach 180 students during the course of my day,” she said. “If I assign essay homework that requires me to spend 3 minutes with each of them evaluating their drafts, that alone adds up to 9 hours of work. If I spend 5 minutes with each of them, that adds up to 16 hours. Assigning homework that involves that amount of my time is not possible to complete during the course of my contracted day.”  

But a high school math teacher called the curtailed homework policy the least important of the job action’s effects. 

“Nobody grades homework at the high school level,” she said. “The only thing we do is check off whether it’s done or not.” 

She said that the preparation of lesson plans will be the major loss to educational quality from the job action. 

“Many of the lessons are going to be cobbled together, rather than being well-planned,” she said. 

She explained that she typically spends 2 and a half hours per day on classroom work outside of her contracted time, “and I don’t spend it twiddling my thumbs. I plan lessons. I grade papers. I contact parents who have called me with questions about classroom work or their children’s performance. I have an hour of prep period per day to make out tests, run copies of them off, record grades on the computer, and deliver attendance logs to the office or complete other school business. Normally I spend my lunch hour tutoring students. Now I’m going to have to figure out how to do all of that within the confines of my duty day. So some of it will be cut.” 

She said that while she does most of her after-hours work at home, it is not unusual for teachers to work at the high school until 6 p.m. 

In its instruction letter to BFT members, the BFT Executive Board said that with the exception of Open House participation, which is mandated under the expired BFT-BUSD contract, all job-related work was to be completed during the 7-hour day. The board said that policy included parent-student conferences and participation in such committees as those formed through the Berkeley School Excellence Project and the various school site councils. 

In an interview with the Daily Planet last week, BFT President Barry Fike said that it was his belief that during the “work to rule” slowdown, some Berkeley teachers would continue to honor long-time commitments to after-school projects that are already in the works.?

Berkeley’s insatiable appetite for new buildings is about to claim one of its most charming victims, a Gilman Street garden of earthly delights. 

Though there’s little to see from the road other than a fence shrouded with greenery, visitors who chance upon A New Leaf Gallery will discover a beautifully crafted landscape, filled with charming surprises and spectacular sculpture. 

The grounds are carefully laid out along a serpentine path paved with stones and lined with trees and other plantings. Grapestakes and partial walls create settings within settings, each a unique setting for a unique artwork. 

While it may be one of Berkeley’s best-kept secrets, the outdoor gallery at 1286 Gilman has earned an international reputation and draws visitors from across the country—in part because the vast inventory of artists and works they offer on the Internet at www.sculpturesite.com. 

“People have been reacting with a sense of grief to word of the move,” said Brigitte Micmacker, who founded the gallery 15 years ago with spouse/sculptor John Denning. “Neighbors have been telling us that they can’t imagine living without it, and we’re discovering that it’s become intensely involved as a part of people’s lives.” 

But the gallery owners had little choice. The man who owns the 90-foot-by-100-foot lot at Gilman and Curtis streets notified them six months ago that he intended to build on the property, the long-time site of the nursery memorialized in the greenhouse-turned-gallery at the rear of the lot. 

“The idea originally was to separate the back 40 feet of the lot and build a three-story building with two stories of apartments above. We would have had to share the ground floor with two other retail businesses and we would have had a much smaller outdoor space,” Micmacker said. 

“And even then we would have had to move to another location off-site for a year during construction.” 

With a move already mandated and a long closing in the offing, it seemed logical to make a permanent move and keep the closure to a minimum. 

They found what they were looking for during their first foraging expedition across the Bay Bridge. 

Micmacker, Denning and gallery director and full partner Stephanie Everett will be moving to a radically new setting in San Francisco in April, when they open at 201 Third St., a block from the Museum of Modern Art and across the street from Moscone Center. 

“It’s an indoor gallery, so we won’t have the garden feeling we have here,” she said. 

The gallery’s unique Berkeley setting has made A New Leaf a favorite of both art students and gardeners.  

“Teachers send students here all the time,” said Micmacker. “A high school ceramics class comes every year, and we regularly have other classes coming through, from first-graders to graduate students.” 

Gardening and horticultural classes also pay frequent visits, as do gardening clubs, drawn by the immaculately laid out and carefully tended plantings and landscaping that took five years to create. 

“It all has to go. The trees, the rocks, everything. The landlord wants the land restored to the way it was when we first rented it,” Micmacker said. 

The gallery’s’ prices aren’t for the faint of wallet. Though many of the works in the current, final showing are reduced by 10 to 25 percent, that still leaves prices ranging from just over $500 to more than $32,000. 

That top price isn’t the highest aficionados can pay. Their website features truly monumental works commissioned from some of the 100-plus artists the gallery currently represents. 

Some of the most interesting works now on display—including the most expensive—are Denning’s human figures, including the remarkable “Poet,” a life-size cast metal figure with a hollowed-out chest pierced by a hummingbird. 

The gallery opened its gate in Berkeley on June 1, 1990, and will close in April, as soon as their new quarters are ready. For hard core fans, a hand-bound linen hardcover photographic book—A New Leaf Gallery: The Berkeley Years (1990-2005)—is in the offing. Dedicated and signed copies will be available for $300, $250 with advance payment. 

The gallery remains open until a closing date is fixed. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends, “rain or shine,” Micmacker adds.Ë

Oakland Councilmember Jane Brunner has called for a city manager’s report to study transferring control of the much criticized Oakland Animal Shelter from police to civilian hands. 

“I was struck by the fact that Berkeley’s kill rate [for shelter animals] is around 10 percent and ours is 54 percent,” she said. “We have to ask what are the policies they put in place there.” 

Brunner’s request came after about 200 animal lovers packed City Council Chambers Thursday to decry what they said was poor leadership and systematic abuse of shelter animals. 

“I’ve seen a lot,” said Kate Beck, who as a rescue worker at the Oakland shelter two years ago recalled employees violating euthanasia procedures by carting several dogs at a time to the euthanasia room and not properly sedating them. “One day I saw five dogs piled up on the trailer, and the dog on top which should have been sedated was alert and wagging its tail,” she said. 

Oakland police opened an investigation of the shelter last month following detailed accounts of mismanagement and abuse from former shelter employee Lori Barnabe. 

Recently appointed Police Chief Wayne Tucker said of the shelter: “We’ve got minor problems, some major, and we want to work on eliminating them quickly.” Last week, in light of new allegations of mismanagement, Tucker placed Acting Shelter Director RaeShon McClarty on administrative leave. McClarty is still a candidate to become the permanent shelter director. 

Brunner and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente called Thursday’s town hall meeting to address complaints about the shelter and seek citizen input as the city prepares to name a new shelter director. The position has been vacant since longtime director Glenn Howell left last June to take over animal control services in Contra Costa County. 

“We need to find someone who is committed to the ethical treatment of animals and who makes sure no healthy animal is euthanized,” said Cathy Marks at Thursday’s meeting. 

According to Barnabe, among a long list of violations, the shelter euthanized dogs that were cleared for adoption, and euthanized dogs without sedatives. In one case it mistakenly left a live dog in a freezer in a barrel with dead dogs. 

Although the city closed the application process last week with 14 applicants, Brunner said Oakland officials were considering upgrading the shelter manager’s classification and salary to draw more applicants.  

Currently the job pays $65,000—far below the salary offered by other large cities, said San Francisco Director of Animal Care and Control Carl Friedman in a Friday interview. “With the money they’re offering it would be hard to attract people with good knowledge and a proven history in field,” said Friedman, who earns approximately $130,000. 

Four years ago Berkeley joined San Francisco as one of the few U.S. cities to completely separate its police department from its animal shelter. Many of those in attendance Thursday wanted Oakland to follow suit. 

“We don’t need police officers there,” said Jacquee Castain, who echoed the sentiments of those who argued that police control hindered shelters from teaming up with civilians to find homes for sheltered animals. “We need to put police officers back in the police department.” 

“It’s very difficult for an animal shelter to be under the police,” said Friedman. “If you’re under another agency it just quadruples the bureaucracy and makes it harder to have the authority to hire and fire people.”  

Still nearly every municipal animal shelter in California is operated by local police departments, and Deputy City Manager Niccolo De Luca didn’t foresee Oakland going to civilian control. 

“It’s basically a public safety responsibility,” he said. “I don’t see where else it could go.” 

One prominent animal rescue worker, who declined to give her name, said that for now Oakland animal control officers could face physical danger if they weren’t affiliated with the police department. “The relationship protects the animal control officers when they have to confiscate an animal,” she said. “If they didn’t have that badge, people would lash out at them.” 

Berkeley, which switched to civilian oversight in 2001, has seen the kill rate for sheltered cats and dogs sink from approximately 66 percent in 1997, when the shelter admitted 2,904 dogs and cats to about 7 percent last year, when 1,651 were admitted. 

In San Francisco, 21 percent of the 11,877 animals taken to the shelter last year were euthanized, nearly all of which were classified as “unadoptable” due to illness, Friedman said. Nine years earlier, he said, the shelter took in 18,064 animals and killed 6,720 of them, about 40 percent. 

Officials at both shelters credited the reduced intake and kill rates on aggressive spay and neuter policies and strengthened ties with rescue organizations that take many of the animals that don’t get adopted. 

By contrast, at the Oakland Shelter, roughly 48 percent (2,227) of the 4,623 animals impounded last year were euthanized, according to a shelter report. Of the 2,455 dogs impounded, 1,338 (54 percent) were euthanized. 

OPD Sergeant Dave Cronin, the shelter’s interim director, acknowledged the statistics were troubling, but said at least when it came to dogs, Oakland is at a disadvantage. “Other shelters usually receive a more adoptable type of dog,” he said. “Sadly Oakland ends up with a lot of pit bulls and pit bull mixes that society is less willing to adopt.” 

Michael Cohen, 9, runs along the Berkeley pier on Monday afternoon. Cohen had come to play in the rain with his dad, brother and friends..

Another major player will drop a piece on the Laney land development chessboard this week when representatives of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District make a presentation to the Peralta Community College Trustees on plans to develop BART’s Lake Merritt Station. 

The presentation by BART Director Carol Ward Allen, Alameda County Planning Manager Val Menotti, and Property Development Real Estate Manager Jeffrey Ordway will take place at the Peralta Trustees’ regular board meeting today (Tuesday). 7 p.m., at the Peralta Administration Building, 333 East Eighth St., in Oakland. 

BART’s immediate plans are to increase pedestrian and bicycle access to the Lake Merritt station, and to provide security improvements. 

But more long-range goals, as outlined in its November 2004 Lake Merritt Bart Station Access Plan (available at www.bart.gov/about/planning/alameda.asp) are to take a look at the station’s parking situation, and a possible demolition of the BART administrative headquarters building replacing it with a transit village. 

With one of the two Lake Merritt BART parking lots sitting directly across Fallon Street from the entrance to Laney College, and with the BART headquarters only two blocks away from Madison, any changes to those two properties would have immediate impact on the community college. 

One such impact might be on the controversial plans of Oakland developer Alan Dones for commercial development on the Laney faculty and staff parking lot across East 8th Street from the college. Last year, the outgoing Peralta Trustee Board authorized Peralta Chancellor Elihu Harris to enter into a contract with Dones to prepare a plan for the property, but Harris has yet to execute such a contract. Earlier this month, Dones told a meeting of Laney faculty, staff, and students that he was exploring putting a multi-story parking structure at the college tennis court site where the new art annex is scheduled to be built. With BART including a future goal of “share parking facilities off BART property” in its Lake Merritt Plan, some sort of coordinated parking development by Dones, Laney, and BART may be a possibility.›

Two months after BUSD Board Director Joaquin Rivera said “it’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything positive” about the district’s budget, district board members have learned that they are going to wait a little bit longer—the district has revised the “positive” certification of last year’s budget back down to “qualified.” 

A positive designation means that a district projects that it will meet its financial obligations over the next two years, a qualified designation means that it may not without “significant expenditure reductions and revenue enhancements.” 

Last December, district finance managers announced that its 2004-05 first interim budget report was $743,000 in the black and had been approved by the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE). But because “we had to revise these numbers because some of our assumptions were unrealized,” according to Deputy Superintendent Glenston Thompson, the district is now projecting a $1.58 million deficit in its general fund. 

If the projections were to hold true, without any added revenue or budget cutting by the district, the general fund deficit would drop to $780,000 in the 2006-07 budget year. The drop in the expected deficit comes in part because, while district expenditures are expected to rise $1.3 million in the next two years, total revenues are projected to rise $2.2 million. 

“I’m sure the county will have some questions about this,” Thompson told district directors at the board’s Feb. 16 meeting. “We’re prepared to go down and answer them.” 

The first interim report uses budget figures only through last October 31, and is designed to ensure that the district is able to meet its ongoing financial responsibilities. 

The district also had to lower its projected 300-student average daily attendance increase, although that will not add to BUSD’s budget problems this year. District officials said they made their original projections based on an increase in enrollment in the district, but because that increase was centered in the high school—where the daily attendance rate is slightly lower than in the district as a whole—the actual attendance was lower than they thought. But because the state allows a district to use last year’s ADA figures in a period of declining enrollment, Berkeley will be able to put off the revenue loss for a year.

Glen Yasuda is asking city planning commissioners to put his plans for a new Berkeley Bowl on hold for a month while he prepares a new application. 

The hitch for Yasuda is his proposal to use a new warehouse at the proposed Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue location to keep foods for both the new store and for his existing location at Oregon Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

It all boils down to a matter of zoning. 

To build his new grocery store, Yasuda needs the commission to rezone the West Berkeley site from manufacturing and light industrial (MU-LI) to West Berkeley Commercial (C-W). 

The only problem is that warehouses, while permitted under the existing zoning, aren’t allowed in C-W zones. 

In a memorandum to planning commissioners, city Land Use Planning Manager Mark Rhoades wrote that Yasuda’s solution is to divide the property into two zoning parcels, C-W for the store and MU-LI for the warehouse section. 

“The amended application will also request an amendment” to the MU-LI uses to allow a warehouse exemption for food product stores. 

Yasuda now needs to prepare a revised application, a new environmental initial study and a revised project map. 

The revision would also trigger a new public hearing. 

Yasuda’s rezoning plans and the traffic his new store would generate have drawn mixed reactions in West Berkeley, where some residents welcome the store as filling a neighborhood need while others fear the loss of the MU-LI uses which are mandated in the existing West Berkeley Plan. 

If Yasuda has his way, commissioners will pull the project from their agenda when they meet Wednesday night at 7 o’clock in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Yasuda has asked that the hearing be rescheduled for the commission’s March 23 meeting. 

Å

There’s a 350,000-pound spaceship headed straight for Berkeley, and the only questions left are where and when the big blue ball is going to land. 

Its first landing effort, in the city across the Bay Bridge, was foiled, so it recharted its course after finding signs of a friendlier reception in these parts.  

But when it arrives in Berkeley, the craft’s lone occupant, a bronze humanoid, won’t have to utter that ancient “Take me to your leader” chestnut because he and his craft are the invitees of Mayor Tom Bates. 

The craft itself is compromised of wedges of blue Brazilian metamorphic quartzite, sandstone transformed under heat and pressure—the same forces some have accused Bates of applying to bring the hefty creation here. 

The cerulean craft and its occupant are, of course, “Spaceship Earth,” commissioned by Power Bar founders Brian and Jennifer Maxwell before the former’s death last year. 

Bates and the Maxwells were good friends of the man memorialized in bronze, noted Berkeley-born environmentalist David Brower. 

If all goes as planned, the massive creation of Finno-American sculptor Eino will be in place before Brower’s second and even grander memorial rises on an already selected site. 

The four-story David Brower Center, to be built at Fulton Street and Allston Way, unlike the spaceship, has drawn nearly unanimous praise, both for its unique design and for its embodiment of green building principles. 

The center will house the offices of environmental organizations as well as ground floor eco-friendly retailers and restaurants. 

The spaceship, by contrast, has elicited a distinctly different response. The mass of the artwork is a 12-foot sphere composed of wedges of bolted-together quartzite, with continents and islands formed from 1,426 pieces of bronze bolted to the exterior. 

The Maxwells originally intended that the weighty work would be installed in San Francisco, and they enlisted some potent supporters on the Board of Supervisors to plead their case. 

But the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Visual Arts Committee saw things differently, rejecting the piece as “extremely grand and flamboyant” and lacking in “sensitivity to environmental issues.” 

But, like it or not, Spaceship Earth is coming, and the Civic Arts Commission (CAC) has been entrusted with picking the landing zone. 

Though there’s no final decision, a CAC panel has picked a short list of sites, most near the waterfront, said David Snippen, the group’s chair. 

The CAC gave the sculpture its conditional endorsement after Mayor Bates plied members with calls urging its adoption. 

But commissioners had grave misgivings about Eino’s original version, which featured a life-sized bronze Brower atop the quartzite globe and reaching for the stars. 

After critics blasted that depiction as “another white man dominating the earth,” Eino agreed to place Brower on a nearby bench as though contemplating the statue. 

Though other sites may be considered, the current list focuses on the Berkeley waterfront, with possible sites in Aquatic Park, at the intersection of University Avenue and Marina Boulevard, and two in the lawn area near the transition of Marina Boulevard into Spinnaker Way. 

Those locations would require the respective approvals of the city’s waterfronts and parks commissions. 

Other possible locations include Cedar Rose Park and at the westernmost end of Ohlone Park—which would require approvals from parks and neighborhood groups, something Snippen acknowledges could prove problematic. 

Another site, at Tilden Park, was rejected after a negative response from the University of California, but Snippen said the panel is looking at another UC site at the Lawrence Hall of Science, “but we need to talk to the university.” 

“We started with over 30 locations, and it’s still up in the air,” Snippen said. “We have done a good job of examining all the realities, and each site has its specific issues.” 

CAC panelists will hold discussions with the Waterfront Commission next Monday, followed by a consultation with the Parks Commission on March 8, he said. 

“We’ll get input from them, and then we’ll narrow down the choices for presentation to the City Council in May, or by June at the latest,” he said. 

The CAC will hold its next meeting Wednesday evening from 6:30 to 8:30 in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave.

City officials have called a Thursday night session to address what could become a major problem in Berkeley—“soft story” apartment buildings. 

With one in four Berkeley residents living in apartment buildings with ground floor parking or open commercial spaces, up to 95 percent of them could be rendered homeless by a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault. 

The soft story seminar, with Mayor Tom Bates presiding, begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Among those scheduled to speak are: 

• David Bonowitz, chair of the Existing Buildings Committee of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California. 

• Jeanne Perkins, Earthquake and Hazards Program Manager for the Association of Bay Area Governments. 

• Tom Tobin, of the city Seismic Technical Advisory Group. 

• City Building Official Joan McQuarrie. 

A 1996 survey identified many of the city’s soft story structures, designated because the ground floor is devoted to parking, open commercial spaces or both. 

Because earthquake forces tend to concentrate on the ground floor, buildings with fewer internal walls and support tend to be more susceptible to powerful seismic waves. 

A 2001 survey of a sampling of Berkeley’s soft story buildings found that most could be adequately retrofitted to reduce major damage. 

The team estimated that 46 percent had severe or considerable vulnerability and were likely to be red-tagged after a major quake—requiring demolition or extensive repairs—and an additional 49 percent would be yellow-tagged, rendered uninhabitable pending lesser repairs. 

City staff members will also present possible solutions, said city project manager Dan Lambert, who said the session is the first step in formulating a soft story program for the city.›

TEACHER PAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As one of the many long-time Berkeley teachers beginning to work contract-only hours this week, I was extremely disturbed by the remarks of school board members quoted in the Daily Planet. They suggest that teachers are asking for money that doesn’t exist.  

In fact, our team has asked for a fair share of any new money that the district receives, while at the same time accepting the fact that employees are going to need to pay some of the health care increases. The district’s own advisors have indicated that there will be some, though nowhere near enough, new money from the state. We are only asking that the district recognize that teachers need a fair share of that new money.  

We know their PG&E bills have gone up—so have ours.  

Louise Rosenkrantz 

• 

RFID TECHNOLOGY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s reassuring that Library Director Jackie Griffin tells us not to worry about the new RFID technology she is introducing to our libraries. 

Of course, we all know that no one in government would ever attempt to violate our privacy with this new system. The fears of the ACLU are groundless, she maintains. Anyway, no one in Berkeley pays attention to the ACLU. I’ll sleep more soundly knowing that “Big Sister” Griffin is there to protect us from any abuses of her new system. Now if only those “outside agitators” would quietly leave Berkeley and stop interfering with Jackie’s spending sprees for new technology. The poor director has apparently not gotten the message the voters sent her last November. 

Further, it’s good to know that Griffin is following the honored American managerial policy of firing those staff members who receive the lowest pay and benefits. God forbid if she had to let go her high salary—benefit cronies on the management level. These folks, who never see the library patrons and never experience their wants, must be preserved in their new building adjacent to the main library. 

It’s time to realize that libraries are too precious a resource to be left solely in the hands of librarians. It’s time for the Board of Library Trustees to start representing the citizens of Berkeley and stop being a rubber stamp for Jackie Griffin. 

Don McKay 

• 

WHO COUNTS? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The advertisement featuring your recent readership survey trumpets in large type, “In Greater Berkeley, almost everybody who counts reads the Planet.” At the bottom of the page, in very small type, we find that the people who count are people “who were out and about and shopping” at Fourth Street, the Gourmet Ghetto, the Berkeley Bowl, the Farmers’ Market, or the Elmwood Shopping District. It seems to me that you missed a lot of people here. Are we to presume that people who aren’t inclined—or can’t afford—to shop in the above areas, don’t count? 

I expect to hear this advertising line from the Wall Street Journal, not from the Daily Planet. Please put more thought into your advertising taglines. 

Francisco Dóñez 

• 

FINANCIAL HOLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The City Council has identified “business retention” as a top budget priority. Meanwhile, business attraction tops priority lists in nearby cities; their leaders aim to grow their city economies, while Berkeley contents itself with attempts to staunch losses. 

The result is rising budget deficits and over-reliance on residential taxes, which already are too high. Perhaps most Berkeley residents don’t want Emeryville-style shopping malls to turn their city déclassé. But when even a popular organic grocer cant get a store built in Berkeley, it becomes clear that economic growth wont help dig the city out of its financial hole. 

Russ Mitchell 

• 

FATHER CRESPIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As St. Joseph’s parishioners respond to the allegations regarding Father Crespin’s forced resignation (“Parishoners Confront Diocese Over Fate of Accused Pastor,” Feb. 18-21) I urge an open mind. There is more to George Crespin than perhaps meets the eye. 

First, the Bishop of Oakland believes the accusation is credible. That hurdle is significant. 

Second, Crespin has caused the Oakland Diocese to be sued. In order for such a suit to move forward, I understand a civil court must find that the lawsuit has merit. Civil authorities must believe it has merit because his alleged victim is part of the massive Clergy III coordinated action against the Roman Catholic Church. 

Third, Crespin was featured in a Dallas Morning News editorial just four days ago (“Games Bishops Play, Why DA Hill Should Be Wary, Feb. 15. The Morning News noted that when Crespin was chancellor of the Oakland Diocese, Crespin admitted that the Diocese did not put sex abuse allegations into a priest’s file. As chancellor, his job was to investigate sex abuse claims. Perhaps his own file was misplaced? We might never know. 

George Crespin surely did some very good things while a pastor at St. Joseph’s. But his legacy is mixed. To wit: From 1966 to 1994 he successively served on the Clergy Review Board, as Diocese chancellor and as Diocese vicar general. He was a very powerful man within the Oakland Diocese. 

With the depositions of Crespin and others because of Clergy III, it is irrefutable that during Crespin’s time in power, numerous reports of sex abuse involving a number of priests were made to the diocese, many to him. Not once did Rev. Crespin call the police or child protective services in order to protect a child. 41 priests are accused of abuse while serving in Oakland. George Crespin never turned in any of those priests while he had the ability to do so.  

These shortcomings don’t mean George Crespin is guilty of the accusation. However, the Diocese is doing the right thing. It is moving to protect children in the event the allegation is credible. Had the Diocese behaved that way while Crespin was in charge, dozens of catholic kids surely would not have been victims of child sexual abuse. 

Dan McNevin 

Emeryville 

• 

CLEAR JUDGMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s an old story. A beloved Catholic pastor is accused of sexual abuse. Loyal parishioners rush to his defense, with no more knowledge of the situation than their personal affection for their leader. 

Yet, as we have seen time and time again, many abusive clergy are well-liked, charismatic spiritual and organizational leaders with impressive curriculum vitae.  

Parishioners should not confuse their personal affection for the public persona to cloud their judgment regarding private behavior. Plenty of beloved leaders have lead dual lives or carried dark secrets.  

Tom Fike and Carolyn Scarr mistake an internal, personnel disciplinary investigation for the sort of standards of proof and judicial bias adhered to by the American legal system. I would point out that such a standard of proof is not required between an employer and an employee. In the end, Crespin’s employer will have to decide who they believe. 

This is not a new accusation; as long ago as Dec. 18, 2003, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests named Crespin as an accused abuser still in ministry. There has been more than a year for Crespin’s employer to avail themselves of “due process.” One must believe, then, that the suspension comes after due diligence and is not a knee-jerk reaction. 

Where the legal system will come in is in the aggregated civil case in which Crespin is now a defendant. That standard of proof will rely upon ‘a preponderance of the evidence’ as such is the standard in civil cases. 

Guilty or innocent, Crespin to a great extent finds himself in a bed of his own making. As chancellor of the Diocese, he participated in and perpetuated a system which did everything possible to protect priests from allegations of sexual misconduct and to suppress victims who might go to the authorities. It is for that very reason that it has taken accusers like his three decades to feel free to tell their stories. 

The St. Joseph the Worker community prides itself upon its concerns for social justice and the rights of the weak and oppressed. Will they show the same concern for an alleged victim of sexual abuse under color of great power when the alleged abuser is their beloved leader, one who has historically and for decades been one of the most powerful figures in the Diocese of Oakland? 

Greg Bullough 

• 

LANDMARKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I write in response to two letters on the topic of Berkeley landmarks (Daily Planet, Feb. 15-17). Ignacio Dayrit expresses concern that the landmark process might be used “to stop development of any kind”, rather than for historic preservation. Alan Tobey takes exception to the designation of the Celia’s building as a structure of merit, and to the very existence of this category of designation. 

Those of us who study local history and prepare landmark applications at our own expense (it isn’t cheap), do so because we desire to preserve the atmosphere of Berkeley, and its charming, distinctive buildings. Pro-growth enthusiasts seem to find it inconceivable that some of us actually love Berkeley, rather than wish to profit from it. Although I grew up over a mile away from the Celia’s building, all the children in my neighborhood knew it as “The Boy Scout Building”, a magical and treasured place we all admired. Whether one finds it beautiful or not (and I do), it is a part of our history. 

Mr. Dayrit’s reference to “development of any kind” surprised me. I am unaware of any developer proposing to build an ice skating rink, a park, a swimming pool, a night life entertainment district (as suggested by Elliot Cohen)—or any other amenity for the public. The recent projects endangering historic buildings all seem to be five story condo/rental blocks because these are perceived, in the prevailing real estate bubble, to be profitable ventures. 

In fact, the need to build big blocks of condos in Berkeley for teachers and firefighters is a myth. Our existing large condo buildings serve mainly as rentals, and are advertised as such daily, because the rental market has tanked. It is therefore unlikely that additional boxes, whether rentals or condos, will be a financial success. 

There is nothing salutary or “smart” about destroying our local environment—the existing Berkeley—to produce defective new buildings (see the Gaia, still shrouded after all these years). Moreover, flawed construction practices continue, such as leaving chipboard out in the rain (see Durant Avenue and Fulton Street), where it becomes a rich growth medium for mold. Considering that further new buildings are likely to have serious vacancy problems (in addition to mold), the pressure to expunge historic buildings for them boggles my mind. 

In conclusion, our Landmark Preservation Ordinance and its structure of merit designation are not the problem. While Berkeley needs many things, five story condo/rental blocks just aren’t on the list. I can only hope that the Zoning Adjustments Board, the City Council and the Planning Commission will wake up before they completely destroy the vitality of this town. 

Gale Garcia 

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Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas

I’m not an expert on movies that feature quadriplegics as protagonists, but recently there seems to be a glut on the market. I’m referring specifically to Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside, one a Hollywood blockbuster nominated for seven Academy Awards and the other a lesser known foreign film from the Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar. 

There aren’t many movies that explore quadriplegia, so my list of flicks that cover this theme is short. In 1994, while my husband Ralph was in the Spinal Cord Rehabilitation Center in Vallejo, I was shown two videos dealing with spinal cord disabilities. One was a how-to flick on the subject of catherization and the other was a graphically explicit film depicting the sex lives of wheelchair users. I watched both late at night in Ralph’s hospital room while he and his roommates slept. I didn’t retain much of the documented information as I was just beginning my new persona. That would be the “this-couldn’t-really-be-my-life” theme that I have maintained for the past decade. And as it turned out the films didn’t pertain to my new life anyway. A nurse had mistakenly given me a video on female self-catherization, and the second flick didn’t cover high injury quadriplegia. Everyone in that film was able to move their arms and bend at the waist, actions my husband cannot perform.  

When we got home from rehab a friend dropped off the only movie she could find on the subject, a cinematic adaptation of Jill Kinmont’s memoir, The Other Side of the Mountain. The 1975 movie tells the story of an eighteen-year-old competitive skier (a shoo-in for the 1956 Winter Olympics) who takes a near fatal fall during the last race of the season. Paralyzed below the shoulders, she and her supportive family cope with her disability and she eventually finds a new world and calling when she becomes a teacher on an Indian reservation. Although poorly acted and filmed, the movie made me cry. It was before I was given a prescription for Zoloft. Back then, everything made me cry.  

I rented a few documentaries covering spinal cord disabilities but it wasn’t until four years later that a new movie with a quadriplegic theme hit the big screen. Breaking the Waves, a Lars Von Trier directed film starring Emily Watson, was promoted as a life affirming account of dealing with disability. Upbeat and realistic is not how I would describe it. The starring quad recovers but his wife dies in the process of trying to save him.  

Flash forward nine years to the current Academy Awards race. Clint Eastwood directs and stars in Million Dollar Baby, a movie that explores assisted suicide. He is both hailed and derided as a realist broaching a taboo subject. But it’s The Sea Inside that gets the ethical ambiguities right. Based on a true story, Ramón Sampedro, a quadriplegic bedridden for 28 years, petitions the Spanish government to allow him to die. His petition is denied. He is visited by supporters and detractors. He daydreams about his life before his diving accident, and he spends many hours alone in his bedroom waiting for family members to feed, bath and dress him. One does not need to read the English subtitles to know the pain that Ramon and his caregivers experience. 

It’s a realistic, sensitive look at a difficult moral quagmire. Ramon’s older brother shouts in frustration that he hasn’t sacrificed his entire life for Ramon’s care in order to have him give up and take it away. Ramon’s elderly father ruminates on losing a son to an accident and losing him again to suicide. As Ramon’s sister-in-law gently clips her brother-in-law’s overgrown, unused fingernails, the camera closes in on both their faces. Ramon appears sad, resigned, and grateful. She looks overwhelmingly wrinkled and tired. No subtitles flash at the bottom of the screen, and with good reason. At that moment, not a single word of explanation is necessary.  

›

On Jan. 28, HBO aired a somber BBC film, “Dirty War,” about a hypothetical terrorist attack on central London. Using a small amount of Cesium wrapped in a few pounds of TNT, a group similar to Al Qaeda manages to render several miles of Central London uninhabitable, killing hundreds immediately and subjecting thousands more to the cancerous effects of a radiation dispersal device. 

Unfortunately for us, this is not science fiction, but a chilling possibility. In the past several years, a series of articles have described the same scenario; a prescient, January 2001, report co-authored by former Republican Senator Howard Baker observed, “the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home.” [a uthor’s italics] Most experts believe that it only a matter of time before there is another major terrorist attack on the United States; many fear that biological, chemical, or nuclear bombs will cause a horrendous number of casualties. 

The Bush Administration has, effectively, ignored the problem of loose nukes. Several observers have described this decision as, “the worst failure of government in modern times,” and most experts, Republicans and Democrats, are astonished that the Administration has maintained such a cavalier attitude about this looming catastrophe. More than a dozen years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States still lacks a comprehensive plan to secure the more than 30,000 nuclear warheads, and many tons of radioactive waste, that remain in the former USSR. 

Meanwhile, terrorists appear determined to carry their war into our country. Osama bin Laden and the other leaders of Al Qaeda have issued written threats (Fatwa’s) against us, pledging to kill millions of civilians.  

Sipping a cappuccino in a Berkeley cafe, some may shrug and say, “It won’t happen here,” but no one who reads Richard Clarke’s February Atlantic Monthly article, “Ten Years Later,” will remain sanguine. Based upon his experience as the national coordinator for security and counter-terrorism for Presidents Clinton and Bush, Clarke imagines a ten-year scenario featuring a series of low-tech terrorist attacks on casinos, amusement parks, malls, public-transit systems, and chlorine-gas facilities. In each case, the initial assaults result in horrendous civilian casualties. However, the real intent of the terrorists is to terrify the American public and to punch a hole in a significant sector of the American economy; simultaneous attacks on half-a-dozen shopping malls, scattered throughout the United States, would cause consumer panic and shut down retail shopping throughout the country. 

Could this happen in Berkeley? I interviewed Bill Greulich, Emergency Services Manager for the City of Berkeley Fire Department, to find an answer to this and the related question of what we should be doing to better protect ourselves. Greulich indicated that he, and his compatriots, takes these threats seriously, as do his counterparts at the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, Alta-Bates Summit Hospitals, and Bayer Laboratories. Since 9/11, the five organizations have been working together to prepare for the terrorist attack that they hope will never happen here. Twice they have conducted full-scale “event” simulations, the latest occurring last summer. 

According to Greulich, the results of these simulations, while sobering, contained some good news for Berkeley residents. There is a wealth of relevant expertise in the greater Berkeley area—for example, on the subject of decontamination after exposure to radioactive material—and our systems are, in general, more sophisticated than those of the neighboring jurisdictions. The fact that we live in an area exposed to earthquakes and fires works to our advantage, as many of the systems needed for these catastrophes are directly applicable. For example, we already have neighborhood emergency preparedness groups in place, and many Berkeley residents have received preparedness training—on Jan. 22 the Community Emergency Response Training group gave a class on “Responding to Terrorism.” 

But, of course, a terrorist attack on Berkeley, or one of its neighbors, would be horrendous; how we would respond depends, to a great extent, on the nature of the event. In Greulich’s view there are several different sizes of “weapons of mass disturbance,” they differ in their long-term consequences. 

The least severe would be a terrorist attack featuring conventional weapons, such as anti-personnel bombs or sub-machine guns. Imagine that fanatics disrupted the annual Big Game with a suicide bomb attack. There would be hundreds of casualties, and thousands would suffer varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder; nonetheless, there would not be permanent damage to the economy of Berkeley, or to the operations of the university. 

Both an attack of medium and maximum severity are predicated on events that once would be unthinkable, but now must be considered. Last summer, the Berkeley Fire Department, and the four other local agencies, simulated the effects on Berkeley of the detonation of a dirty-bomb on the roof of a parking-garage near Shattuck and Center. The blast would result in the deaths of dozens of civilians and severe property damage. The radioactive particle dispersion would have dreadful, but less immediate, consequences, as the radioactive cloud would, most likely, drift east over the UC campus and into the foothills containing the Lawrence Berkeley laboratory. Such an event would expose several thousand civilians in the downtown area, and students on campus, to large areas of varying contamination, creating a long-term health risk. A significant portion of the lower UC campus, and the adjacent area between Oxford and Shattuck avenues, could be uninhabitable for years. Obviously, this would cause great damage to the Berkeley economy and the University. 

The most severe attack would use biological weapons. A year after 9/11, the Bush Administration decided that Americans should be vaccinated against smallpox, because they believed the nation to be vulnerable to bio-terror assault. 

Unlike a bomb-based attack, which would immediately cause substantial casualties, a biological weapon does not have an immediate impact—indeed it might not be noticed, at first. Smallpox, or the equivalent, is readily transmitted from one person to another, and it usually is unclear who is carrying it. The disease has a subtle incubation period, which results in severe illness and, if untreated, death. A bio-terror attack in Berkeley might produce thousands of deaths, and spread throughout the Bay Area. The results, to say the least, would be catastrophic. 

These are difficult to scenarios to face, but they are no more difficult than the prospects of a major earthquake followed by a devastating fire. Berkeley residents have long been aware that we live in the shadow of impending disaster. 

Given our new reality, what Berkeleyites need to do is to broaden the scope of our individual and collective emergency preparations. If you haven’t done this already you should go to www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html, the City of Berkeley Emergency Services web page, and download the relevant information. First, discuss this with your family, and then with your neighbors. If you don’t have an emergency preparedness group in your neighborhood, start one. As the name suggests, “homeland security” begins at home. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.

PRO-ACTIVE, PRO-CHOICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In a democracy it is always healthy to have an honest debate on issues of moment. In that spirit we welcome the article by Monika Rodman, et al (“Coming Out on Abortion,” Daily Planet, Feb.15-17). Let us begin by conceding that 1) no one, including pro-choice adherents, have a monopoly on truth; 2) our opponents’ views are as strongly held as ours; 3) they are as moral humans as we are. In fact, we applaud their social justice record of defending immigrants, supporting health care, opposing war, fighting apartheid and opposing the death penalty. Unlike some of their cohorts, these are consistent, moral people. We therefore welcome a dialogue to see if we can find common ground in addition to our strong differences. 

But there are indeed great differences between what many of us pro-choice folks believe and the assertions of many of those in the anti-choice movement.  

Does human life begin at conception? We say no (which is why we can oppose the death penalty but support choice); they say yes. It is this difference that prevents us from adopting their own term, “pro-life,” as if we believe we are against life! And it is that difference that invalidates Ms. Rodman’s analogy between slavery and choice. One involves a human being; the other does not.  

The march on Jan. 22 by Ms. Rodman and her cohorts used as one of its themes “Women Deserve Better.” But better than what? They believe that abortions harm women and should be prohibited. We have seen no proof that abortion harms women more than it helps them.  

Legal abortion, after all, prevents death or sterility from back alley abortions or unsanitary coat hangers, a teenager from being ostracized (or worse) by her parents for getting pregnant, the never-ending cycle of poverty for many poor families, a woman (often a teenager) from carrying or raising an unwanted child born of rape or incest, etc. Before Roe v. Wade rich and middle class women could get abortions that were relatively safe; poor women could not.  

We know no one who think that abortions are fun, or that it is cool to have one. But, in the spirit of finding common ground to minimize abortions, to make them less necessary for the women that seek them now, could we not agree on certain obvious public policy objectives to reduce the need for abortions? We refer to such things as age appropriate sex education not limited to abstinence only, free family planning for people without health insurance or means, and access to emergency contraceptives. Equally importantly, we have to work to remove the financial pressures that lead women to choose an abortion. If women had free prenatal and post-partum care, subsidized day care, and free health insurance for their children, they would feel less financial pressure to have an abortion.  

All these strategies would reduce the need for abortions, and thus make choice unnecessary for many women and anti-choice irrelevant. Both sides could cooperate to make a better world for women and families by working to achieve these programs, yet no one would be forced to abandon strongly held beliefs. How about it? 

Catherine Trimbur  

and Mal Burnstein 

• 

NOT SO ALONE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After reading the commentary “Coming Out on Abortion” I feel less strange and alone living in the Berkeley area. 

Abortion is the “ultimate exploitation of women.” I witnessed it close up when I was 13 and learned my mother was pregnant. The prospect of a sibling thrilled me. But my older sister and my father insisted that mother have an abortion. Mother wept at the idea. She did not want to be “dismembered.” She thought that defying the designs of nature would bring harm to her body. To keep harmony in the family, she acquiesced to their wishes and made an appointment with a doctor to discuss ending her pregnancy. 

The appointment never came. Shortly before the consultation was to occur, this respected and beloved doctor, wrapped his head in a wet towel and fatally shot himself. His tragic suicide strengthened my mother’s resolve to protect her own body and to follow her convictions. 

Each time my fun, interesting and wonderfully unique 36-year-old little brother calls on the phone, and I hear his voice, happy and full of life, I am sadly reminded of the disturbing events surrounding his birth. 

I hope you let the writers know how much I appreciate them. 

Regina Pettus 

Albany 

• 

PRE-BORN, PRE-DEAD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The guest commentary by Monika Rodman et al. was sad and funny. The question at the foundation of every argument on the issue of abortion (but which is usually skirted) is: “When does human life begin?” But the question behind that particular gorilla-in-the-room is a much more complicated one that is avoided altogether: “What is life?” Fetuses are clearly sentient. So are amoebas. Rodman et al., sadly, cannot bring themselves to break new ground in their presentation, preferring the usual approach of abortion foes—tugging at heartstrings, this time with the addition of trying to establish some kind of social justice credentials for themselves in a vain attempt to sway the local progressive crowd. 

The only thing readers know for certain is that Rodman et al. believe that human life begins significantly sooner than birth, hence the deliberately misleading and accidentally hilarious term “pre-born children” in place of the more accurate and descriptive “fetus.” Obfuscating terminology is the evil twin of Politically Correct Speech, which has also resulted in (mostly unintentionally) confusing language. As an exercise in clarity, I suggest that the absurd phrase “pre-born children” be replaced with “fetuses,” yielding the meaningless sentence: “None of us are outsiders in the cause of justice toward fetuses.” Justice toward fetuses must certainly have to do with making sure that pre-mothers have access to the best pre-natal medical care possible, since the health of the fetus is completely dependent on the health of the mother. 

Not all fetuses are born. Not all newborns survive. But all life ends. Compassionate people focus on the life that already exists around them, and for good reason; the puzzle and wonder of actual existing life is where compassion lies because we all will die eventually. Compassionate people don’t refer to life as “pre-death” regardless of the inevitability of death. Fetuses are no more “pre-born children” than living breathing people are “pre-dead humans.”  

C. Boles 

• 

LEARNING VIOLENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you so much for printing Monika Rodman et. al.’s article on pro-lifers in the Bay Area. She hit the nail on the head: Simply because a pre-born child is not wanted at the moment is no excuse for destroying him/her. Having witnessed my birth mother’s horrific mental illness that was a direct result of her two abortions, I can honestly say that abortion, the violent ending to an unwanted pregnancy, is no more a solution than the death penalty is to our burgeoning crime rate in America. Destroying life isn’t the answer. The next time that people become aghast at the American violence in Iraq, they should ask themselves where such violence was learned. Well, it was learned right here at home, where we are “taught” that abortion is simply the removal of a few unwanted cells, that human life doesn’t count, and that if someone is in your way, destroy him/her! 

Martin Bickerstaff 

Alameda

During the November, 2004 election, both Gayle McLaughlin and Lynda Deschambault provided a crucial political breakthrough of sorts for the Green Party of California: Both women surprised local observers by becoming the first Green Party candidates ever to win municipal offices in Contra Costa County. 

Ms. McLaughlin, a first grade teacher and local environmental activist, won election to the Richmond City Council despite a crowded field of 15 candidates, including several incumbents. Ms. Deschambault, a local citizen activist, captured a seat on the Moraga Town Council. 

Both first-time candidates pursued a determined “do-it-yourself” approach to the election process: campaign door-to-door across their neighborhoods and articulate a strong alternative vision for their respective communities. 

Both women represent the very best of the Green Party’s evolving maturity and political sensibility: step forward—confidently—into the local political process, impart the Green Party’s core values, and make a difference at the community/public policy level.  

Tapping into the latent frustration and malaise of voters weary of local Democratic and Republican Party politics-as-usual, Ms. McLaughlin’s and Ms. Deschambault’s election successes were underscored by veteran Contra Costa County Supervisor (and Democrat) John Gioia’s telling remark to the San Francisco Chronicle: “There’s no doubt to me this is a clear message from the voters.”  

Across California—and nationally—the Green Party has steadily achieved important electoral successes at the local, municipal, county and state levels by building a viable party infrastructure to compete against local, entrenched political establishments.  

In California, the Green Party now holds 67 elected offices including two City Council majorities in Sebastopol and Arcata, six Green mayors (including Sonoma, Sebastopol, Fairfax and Truckee), and scores of city council and county supervisor seats statewide.  

During the 2004 election cycle, the Green Party of California fielded 89 candidates for office, including U.S. Congress, state Senate, state Assembly, school boards, open space districts, water districts, etc. 

All of the above totals represent the largest number of elected Greens and Green candidates since the state party’s founding 15 years ago—by any measure, an impressive accomplishment for a nascent third party (nationwide, the Green Party holds 220 elected offices across 27 states). 

The precursor to the Green Party of California’s recent election successes and candidate numbers was gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo’s 2002 election campaign run: Camejo received California’s highest third party vote total since 1934, capturing significant percentages in a dozen counties across Northern California (15 percent in San Francisco, 17 percent in Mendocino, 14 percent in Sonoma, 12 percent in Santa Cruz and Marin). 

Former Green San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzales successfully harnessed this voter energy by nearly toppling Democrat Gavin Newsom during San Francisco’s 2003 razor-thin mayoral run-off election. 

With newly elected Contra Costa Greens Gayle McLaughlin and Lynda Decshambault in mind, the Green Party’s attention is now focused on the Oakland City Council special election set for May 17. 

Aimee Allison, a Stanford-educated non-profit business consultant, former Oakland schoolteacher, mother and African-American Gulf War veteran who became a conscientious objector is the Green Party’s candidate for Oakland’s District 2 City Council seat (Lakeshore/Lake Merrit). 

Ms. Allison’s decision to step forward as a City Council candidate has generated enormous excitement. Her candidacy reflects the Green Party’s strong commitment to local neighborhoods and a progressive public policy vision for Oakland. 

Steadily—and perhaps not that quietly—the Green Party is making noise.  

Chris Kavanagh is a member of the Green Party of Alameda County. 

›

Out of the darkness, Capt. Rachel Radcliff (Jan Zvaifler) steps, in fatigues with a Big Red One patch on her shoulder, briefcase in tow, wearily reeling off the dizzy details, in operations jargon and military time, of a journey to yet another Middle Eas tern backwater under fire. 

“Hours waiting on tarmac ... transport snafu ... Is THAT a McDonald’s? ... so this’s what an invasion looks like ... 24 coffins to be shipped home.” The opening of Central Works’ Enemy Combatant at the City Club is ominous, a dream of the recent past, or is it a nightmarish continuation, the future bringing more of the same? 

“Welcome to the Ice House!” A greeting yelled in hoarse voice by Col. Lester Kaye (Keith Cox), an old colleague of her father. Capt. Radcliff was invited to look out from this old Turkish fortress on the heights in Yemen over the baked sands of the Saudi desert from 8,500 feet. “That’s why it’s called the Ice House.”  

Asked by Rachel why she’s been summoned to such a place (“I don’t know what my mission is.”), Col. Kaye reveals there’s something on ice in the Ice House. “There’s a ghost here, do you read me?” he says, an “enemy combatant” charged with killing a CIA interrogator--an American citizen to be tried in situ by a military commission for treason. 

Capt. Radcliff is a Judge Advocate General, brought to defend the Enemy Combatant, a Mr. Morehouse, Marvin Samuel (played by David Alan Moss). She finds him in a cell on the tile floor, a black American in orange prison jumpsuit, reading a dog-earred po cketbook Qu’ran, prostrating himself, praying, but otherwise silent, refusing help, not responding to his name. He tells her she’s not wanted, he’s at peace—and she’s CIA, she’s a Jew. 

Explaining military law (“They can convict on a 2/3 majority, even on sentence of death; hearsay is admissible”) she asks, “Does any of this make sense to you?” He giggles. “Shall I file for an alternative?” He responds, “Do what you will.” And he asks Allah to wash away his sins “with ice water and frost.” 

So begins the triangle of dialogues and monologues that define the action of Enemy Combatant. Rachel reports to Col. Kaye what Marvin/Farid’s said—and that her mother’s a Jew. “Really!”—”Do you have a problem with that?”—”What was it like?” Her father a military man, m other a liberal—there were arguments. And Rachel wonders about the new protocols. Farid asks her if he can write a letter to his mother; he can’t have a pen since it could be a weapon. “The pen’s mightier than the sword?”—“How did you get here?” 

Farid op ens up in a tour-de-force series of monologues on his translation from gospel church in Oakland to Nation of Islam to Malcolm X’s autobiography to true Islam and a one-way ticket to Yemen, where he avows he got caught in the middle of the anti-terrorist invasion, and was tortured into a confession. 

Intercut with Farid’s one-man theater of moods, gestures of ecstasy and terrors, Col. Kaye addresses the audience with material from the CIA KUBARK document on coercive interrogation: “I can’t teach anyone to be an interrogator ... only teach guidelines ... conducted under duress, it will probably involve legality ... Remember this—time is on your side.” 

Gary Graves’ play obviously takes off from the John Lindh treason case, and reels in concerns from what’s happened since, including Abu Ghraib and the background to the confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzalez. Graves’ script is ambitious, endeavoring to embody the upshot of a densely tangled controversy into an innovative chamber play. 

His stage direction takes the text out onto the floor of this chamber by the City Club patio and uses every square inch with an economy that highlights David Alan Moss’s ecstatsies and terrors, his wounded dignity dissolving in a pantomime of being stripped of all human dig nity. 

Central Works is a company founded on collaboration in order to make a performance, and it shows: all three performers are at the top of their game, especially working together, with Graves’ direction. 

But more than the ancient mountain fortress i s haunted. Something in the text rings hollow. Marvin/Farid’s character is presented too much as an innocent victim. The ambiguities attendant on the Lindh case and the arguments over measures to fight the “War on Terror” are passed over or only hinted a t too late. 

A maze of questions opens out into a melodrama, where Moss’ remarkable monologues become histrionics. Jan Zvaifler’s Capt. Rachel Radcliff (who covers her own ambivalence with adherence to duty) is sometimes displaced into ingenuousness and p assivity. And Keith Cox’s Col. Kaye is too much the bad guy—almost omniscient, like Iago replying “You know what you know.”  

This gap in a script that essays into difficult territory undercuts the production’s effectiveness, but—seen as a work-in-progres s—Enemy Combatant is effective nonetheless, and a platform for the excellence of the cast and the director.  

The last image especially sticks: Farid in raw cotton mufti and knit cap, sitting on the tile floor in a patch of light, barred with shadow—remot e, silent, peaceful. Such memories it recounts and triggers, the very image of what another American citizen charged with treason may have been evoking when—freed from 13 years custody, a journalist remarked he must be enjoying the peace and quiet of free dom—poet Ezra Pound replied, “Peace and quiet are two completely different things,” then returned to his own haunted silence. 

Nicole Galland is living the life of most writers’ dreams. Her first novel, The Fool’s Tale, was published last month and she has since signed a deal with her publisher for two more. 

The six-figure two-book deal made it possible for her to leave her job last week as literary manager at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre to make time for a full-time writing life. After spending most of her career in theater—as an actor, director and screenwriter—she is changing course and devoting her life, for at least a ti me, to novels. 

Galland, 39, grew up on Martha’s Vineyard and has lived in the Bay Area on and off since 1989. She began the book that became The Fool’s Tale, a story of love and political intrigue in medieval Wales, when she was 23. 

Over the followi ng 15 years she worked on it in fits and starts, leaving it for years at a stretch. One night three years ago she decided to purge her unused computer files and start fresh. A moment away from deleting the stalled manuscript, something made her give it on e last shot. 

“I was bound and determined to let go of things and I hesitated to let go of it,” she said. 

She stayed up all night in her Oakland home rereading the manuscript and found her way out of her writing block. She took a two-week research trip to Wales and ended up staying four months, long enough to finish a first draft. The final book was complete within a year. 

On a whim, Galland chose Wales as the setting for her novel after traveling there with a friend following her college graduation. 

“I wasn’t thinking about my book,” she said, “but I noticed that the way people spoke, the cadence of their language, reminded me of my narrative whenever I tried to write my book.” 

Medieval Wales was an ideal setting for two reasons, she said. First, the disputed border between Wales and England at the time fit her story, and second, it was a place where she could explore the relationship between a jester and a king. Galland has always been intrigued by the unique status of the fool—a man of lowly birth, but with the right to speak frankly to the monarch.  

“All my life I’ve had this fascination with fools. I think it was because when I was a kid I felt like I was never allowed to act out,” Galland said. “I was raised between various different households, so it was never safe to play the fool because I never knew what the rules were. On the other hand, my grandmother always called me her little rascal.” 

She admits that she has an uneasy relationship with authority. One example she gave was a year ago wh en she went to Japan to become a Buddhist nun. An argument with the abbot forced her to leave the monastery and return to the United States. She said her tendency to have confrontations with those in positions of power led her, from an early age, to ident ify with literary figures who challenge authority. 

“When I was introduced to Shakespeare in high school I fell in love with all the fool characters,” she said. “Of them all, the one that played that role the easiest was Lear’s Fool, because his best scen es are with the king, and it’s just the two of them.” 

Gwirion, the king’s jester and confidant in The Fool’s Tale, gets into a bind when his adversarial relationship with the queen becomes a love affair. This treachery leads to a confrontation between th e king and the fool. The book’s showdown is a reworking of a confrontation that Galland herself had 13 years ago on a Berkeley street, transported to 12th-century Wales. Galland was walking home from campus one night when a man grabbed her. 

“There’s a ve ry intense moment in the end of the book that is an idealized reconstruction of that night I was almost murdered,” she said, recalling how she verbally challenged the man as he held a gun to her chest. “I call it my Arthur Miller moment, which was basical ly forfeiting my life for doing what I believed was the right thing. That event is the end of the book, but in a completely different way.” 

Last month, at a book signing at Cody’s bookstore, Galland said she realized her story had strangely come full circle.  

“I had a realization that Berkeley had given me an experience that allowed me to finish the book and now I was kind of returning it to Berkeley by appearing at Cody’s,” she said.  

Galland has just finished a second novel and is beginning a third. The second is set in the same period as The Fool’s Tale but in a different part of Europe. The third book will connect the characters from the first two books. 

Galland said she regrets leaving Berkeley Rep, which she joined a year and a half ago, but found herself pulled in too many directions with promoting The Fool’s Tale while researching and writing her other books. 

“My plate is very full right now for the next five to six years, in terms of writing projects,” she said. “I know what I need to write about. It’s a new chapter in that, for a while—maybe not forever, but for a while—I get to be a full-time writer.” 

Galland’s new life has yet to fully sink in. 

“It’s an American dream and it’s happening, but I’m not experiencing it that way right now,” she said. “I know I will soon, in a week or two, when my life has finished shifting its patterns and I’m not trying to split my attention in so many ways. Maybe then I’ll feel it all, but right now it’s just an enormous amount of transition.” 

THE FOOL’S TALE 

By Nicole Galland 

William Morrow, 523 pages,  

$25.95›

We’ve all had the experience of rereading a book after many years and discovering a different book from the one we remember. The knock-out stunner has become a simplistic dud, or the ho-hum classic has been transformed into a profound statement touching our deepest hopes or fears. What’s actually changed, of course, are the times, and the reader’s experience. 

It just happened to me again, rereading Albert Camus’ The Plague after 40-odd years. 

Back then, Camus was most famous for The Stranger. I read The Plague after he won the Nobel Prize (1957), and shortly before he was killed in a auto accident (1960) at age 47. The book had come out just after World War II, when devastated Europe was still full of refugees and holocaust survivors, stuck in border camps or wandering, in search of lost loved ones. The U.S.A. was comparatively unscathed. Moreover, we were the good guys, the Marshall Plan saviors of foreign friends and ex-enemies. We weren’t about to call ourselves war criminals for dropping atom bombs on Japan, but we already had a healthy peace movement against ever doing it again. When I read The Plague, we were beginning to come up out of the McCarthy witch hunts, having avoided fatal persecutions. The Cold War dragged on, but we were prosperous, and had not yet heard of a place called Vietnam. 

Living in that climate (and still under age 30), I saw The Plague as an allegory of World War II, an indictment of previous wars, and a protest against any future war, which, we feared, would surely turn atomic. 

I took note of the various characters and their symbolic roles: Dr. Rieux, the narrator and soft-spoken healer; Father Paneloux, the priest who gives the usual sermon explaining the epidemic as God’s punishment for unspecified sins, then loses his faith; the visiting journalist, Lambert, outraged, trying to escape when the town is quarantined; and the one happy citizen as the death count rises, Cottard, a criminal on the run, who delights in seeing everyone else feeling just as he does in normal times—scared, suspicious of everyone, isolated, grieving, cornered, hopeless.  

In that first reading, what had I made of the newcomer to town, the enigmatic, self-exiled Jean Tarrou? 

Jean who? I had completely forgotten Tarrou. Even though Dr. Rieux bases much of his narrative on notes from Tarrou’s journal. Even though Tarrou and Rieux become friends and co-workers in plague relief. Even though, near the end of the novel, the two men have a conversation in which, from Tarrou, comes the uncompromisingly moral voice of Camus spelling out his disturbing challenge to us. Had I forgotten Tarrou because the times and my age made me unable or unwilling to take in his words? 

Let me quote just a few bits of Tarrou’s statement to Rieux (not enough to spoil the book if you haven’t read it.) “When I was young I lived with the idea of my innocence.” He describes his sudden realization of institutionalized evil in the world—a plague he is determined to devote his life to fighting. Only after many years had passed, he says, he lost his illusions about his innocence and about the true effects of his actions. “I came to understand that I, anyhow, had had plague through all those long years in which paradoxically enough, I’d believed with all my soul that I was fighting it . . . I have realized that we all have the plague . . . I have lost my peace. And today I am still trying to find it . . . each of us has the plague within him; no one, no one on earth is free from it. We must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in a careless moment we breathe in somebody’s face and fasten the infection on him . . . it’s a wearying business, being plague-stricken. But it’s still more wearying to refuse to be. The good man is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention. “ 

I’m older, feeling less “innocent” in my intentions or actions, and living in different times. Above all I am living in what seems to be a very different U.S.A. Perhaps I’m simply able to take in more of what Camus is telling me. 

Read The Plague. I’m not saying it’ll give you any comfort. Read it anyway.  

TUESDAY, FEB. 22 

FILM 

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

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Laxmi Hiremath introduces “The Dance of Spices: Classic Indian Cooking for Today’s Home Kitchen” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Gator Beat at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Solas, Irish folk ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50- $23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

James Colley, Grant Langston and the Supermodels, Toshio Hirano, Americana country, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Danny Caron, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Chris Von Sneidern, Adrianne Serna, Kyle Vincent, singer, songwriters, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Randy Craig Trio, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

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

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 23 

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Haiga Paintings” and “Photographs of Japan” by Kazumi and Kim Cranney at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. www.giorgigallery.com 

FILM 

Cine Contemporaneo: “Cenizas del Paraíso” by Marcelo Piñeyro, at 7 p.m. in the CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. In Spanish with English subtitles. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Film 50: History of Cinema: “My Darling Clementine” at 3 p.m. and Video Games and Contemporary Art Practice at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Kala Fellows Talk with Kin Kwok, Gwen Meyer, and Katherin McInnis at 7 p.m. at Kala Gallery, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

Natalie Robins describes “Copeland’s Cure: Homeopathy and the War Between Conventional and Alternative Medicine” at 7:30 p.m. at at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Andrew Schelling reads from “Erotic Love Poems from India: A Translation of the Amarnshataka” 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. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with In Black and White, music by Jorge Liderman, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Dhol Patrol with SoulSalaam, Bhangra/Pan-Arabic beats, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Salsa Caliente All Stars at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Brian Girard Soul Jazz Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Le Flange Du Mal, underground music, at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. at Solano Ave. 524-9220.  

Fabulous Disaster, Oc Toons, Riot A Go-Go, punk, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886.  

The Tuna Helpers, God of Shamisen at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

THURSDAY, FEB. 24 

FILM 

Films of Nicholas Philbert: “To Be and To Have” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Melissa Boyle Mahle discusses “Denial and Deception: An Insider’s View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11” at 7:30 p.m. at at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Under Her Skin: How Girls Experience Race in America” with editor Pooja Makhijani and contributors at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Leah Steinberg and Lavender Fogg at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

“Academy Awards Night” with film historian Harry Chotiner and film producer Ron Yerxa at 7:30 p.m. at College Prep School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $5-$10. 658-5202. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bill Tapia, 97-year-old ‘ukulele maestro at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Randy Paufve Dance at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Michael Wilcox Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Kronkite, Big Band, Lesser Lights at 8 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

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

FRIDAY, FEB. 25 

THEATER 

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.  

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

Black Repertory Group “Thurgood Marshall” a play by Dr. Lenneal Hendersen, with Faye Carol and The Dru-Band at 7 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $7-$15. 

Central Works, “Enemy Combatant” 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 

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.  

Un-Scripted Theater Company “You Bet Your Improvisor!” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through March 26 at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.unscripted.com 

FILM 

Films of Nicholas Philbert: “In the Land of the Deaf” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jim Wallis looks at “God’s Politics: Why the Rights Gets It Wrong, and the Left Doesn’t Get It” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com  

Nicholas Philbert in Conversation discussing his films at 1:30 p.m. at at Pacific Film Archive. Free. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Sir Roger Penrose discusses “The Road to Reality: The Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony performs Mahler, Bunch and Beethven at 8 p.m. at the Parmount Theater, 2025 Broadway. Pre-concert lecture at 7:05 p.m. Tickets are $15-$60. 625-8497. www.oebs.org 

Trisha Brown Dance Company, 35th Anniversary Celebration, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jaranón y Bochinche, Afro-Peruvian music and dance at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

The Moodswing Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. with Nick & Shanna. Cost is $18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Erika Luckett at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

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

Sabrina Stewart, Inspect Her Gadget, Stiletta, rock, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7-$9. 848-0886.  

Lemon Lime Lights, The Unravellers, The Kissers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. 841-2082.  

Josh Workman Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Thomas Faut at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Vinyl, funk jazz at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Unbound, io, Minipop, Push to Talk and Chelsey Fasano, rock, at 7 p.m. at Imusicast 5429 Telegraph Ave Cost is $8. 601-1029. www.imusicast.com 

Cuarteto Sonando, Afro-Cuban jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Unseen, Ramallah, Pistol Grip, Brain Failure at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Plot Against Rachel, Lowly at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

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

SATURDAY, FEB. 26 

CHILDREN  

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

EXHIBITIONS 

“Serving the People - Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party Photographs” at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Reception at 2 p.m. with Billy X. Jennings and other BPP members in the Community Room. Exhibition runs to March 19. 981-6100. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

“Potters for Peace, the Road to Hope” an exhibition of Nicaraguan Pottery and fim screening at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Potters Guild, 731 Jones St. 524-7031. www.berkeleypotters.com 

“The Art of Living Black” Ninth Annual Bay Area Black Artists Art Tour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sat. and Sun. at various locations throughout the Bay Area. Call the Richmond Art Center for a directory of participating artists and locations. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

FILM 

Films of Nicholas Philbert: “Every Little Thing” at 7 p.m. and “Animals” at 9:25 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm & Muse featuring performance poet Paradise at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Free. Berkeley Art Center. 527-9753. 

Robert MacNeil discusses “Do You Speak American?” his new book on American English at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

East Bay Poets, “Painting With Words” a reading and open mic at 2 p.m. at the Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave.at Ashby. Julia@juliamontrond.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kensington Symphony with Florence Kline and Nancy Hunt, flutes, and Dana Kemp, trumpet performs Hayden and Beethoven at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Suggested donation $8-$10, children free. 524-4335.  

Trisha Brown Dance Company, 35th Anniversary Celebration, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988.  

Four Seasons Concerts presents “Triangulo” in a program of Latin American music at 7:30 p.m. at the Calvin Simmons Theater, 10 Tenth St., Oakland. Tickets are $25-$35. 601-7919. www.fourseasonsconcerts.com 

Bay Area Classical Harmonies with Presidio Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at Arlington Community, 52 Arlington, Kensington. 

Jim Hudak, piano at 1 p.m. at Hear Music, 1809 Fourth St. 204-9595.  

Dream Kitchen, with John Schott and music of the twenties, at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Zydeco Flames at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. with Dana De Simone. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Ken Mahru with Loyalty Day at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Matt Berkeley Group, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Suzy Thompson with Del Ray, Larry Hanks & Thompspn’s String ticklers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Larry Stefl Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Desoto Reds, Safety First, Imogene, indie, pop, rock, at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886.  

Homenagem Brasileira at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz 

school.com  

Pyeng Threadgill at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. at 8th. Cost is $10. www.pyeng.com 

Eastbay Rats Benefit with Turks, Hobogoblin and Resistaleros at 9 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Grapefruit Ed at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Matt Renzi Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

All Bets Off, Time for Livin’ Killing the Dream, Lights Out at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 27 

CHILDREN 

The Sippy Cups, a musical performance for children at 4 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $5-$10. 925-798-1300.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Haiga Paintings” and “Photographs of Japan” by Kazumi and Kim Cranney. Reception at 1 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-12288. www.giorgigallery.com 

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 

Films of Nicholas Philbert: “Louvre City” at 12:30 p.m. and “Animals” at 2:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Let the People Speak” a celebration of Black History Month with Kokomon Clottey and Aeeshah Ababio-Clottey at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

“Stalking the Folk Art of Mexico” with Marion Oettinger of the San Antonio Museum of Art at 2 p.m. at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft Way at College. 643-7648. 

“Oakland Beat” An evening with young Oakland poets at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Sponsored by California Shakespeare Theater, Campo Santo and Intersection for the Arts.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pacific Mozart Ensemble “Voices from Farther East” a concert of Eastern-influenced choral music at 5 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way at Durant. Tickets are $15-$20. 415-705-0848. www.pacificmozart.org 

The Maybeck Trio at 3 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. 548-3121.  

Sun String Quartet plays Haydn’s “Quinten Quartet” at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Sliding scale donation $10-24. 701-1787. 

“Reflections: Music to Soothe and Uplift the Spirit” Celtic, medieval and traditional melodies with Eileen Hadidian, recorder and flute, Patrice Haan, Celtic harp at 7 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Donations $10, children free, no one turned away. 213-3122. www.gracenorthchurch.org 

Songs for the Hard Times The 67th Annual Reunion of the Veterans and Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade with Utah Phillips at 1 p.m. at the Calvin Simmons Theater, 10 Tenth St., Oakland. Tickets are $40. 548-3088. 

Bay Area Classical Harmonies with the Presidio Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 

Community Women’s Orchestra Winter Concert at 4 p.m. at Zion Lutheran Church, 5201 Park Blvd., Piedmont. Donations $5-$10. 689-0202. 

Masters of Persian Classical Music “A Journey into the Heart of the Middle East” at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Ethel, 20th century music and beyond, at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Persia in Motion” with Shahrzad Dance Academy at 4 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. 

Papa Gianni and the North Beach Band at 2 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Bart Davenport and The Jonah Kit at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761.  

Flamenco Open Stage with Adela Clara and Antonia& Virgina Juan at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Jaya Lakshmi accompanied by Jason Parmar on Tabla at 7:30 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Donation $14. 843-2787.  

Color Black, Blair Hansen, Hands of Time at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. |

Like many things called “California,” California pepper trees aren’t. Schinus molle comes from the inter-Andean valleys of Peru. The tree, a broadleafed evergreen, is distributed all over the world now, used as a landscape and street tree in arid and semiarid areas. Those broad leaves aren’t so broad in appearance; they just aren’t quite conifer needles, but finely divided compound leaves like soft miniature palm fronds. The “peppers” are clusters of pink to red berries that persist long enough to be a decorative asset, and are small enough not to be too much of a mess when they do fall.  

The story is that the ones in California originated from a handful of seeds given to Father Antonio Peyri, first superior of Mission San Luis Rey near San Diego, by a sailor who could say only that they were from South America. Father Peyri planted the seeds and they grew, and there’s one still alive at the Mission in an enclosed garden. Whether that’s true or not, pepper trees are strongly associated with the missions.  

I’ve always liked elder specimens of this tree, with their gnarled black trunks and graceful feathery leaves. You can see a nice set of examples around the tennis courts at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Russell Street, though they’re aging past the point of grace in some ways. Part of the problem is pests and disease. Pepper trees are susceptible to root rot, other fungi, phytophthora, and insects including scale and thrips. Severe scale infections have done in a few trees I knew, and others have limped along just looking sickly and feeble for years. I have to admire their toughness in surviving this long, but the sick ones start looking ghastly after a decade or so, poor things. 

They are tough in other ways, including drought tolerance. This isn’t always a virtue. Schinus molle, and to an even greater extent its cousin Schinus terebinthifolius, Brazilian pepper tree, are unfortunately invasive—in California, mostly in riparian habitats, but S. terebinthifolius is a villain in other places like Florida. In fact, that one’s on the list of the hundred worst invaders worldwide that was published in the current issue of National Geographic. It’s right up there with Dutch elm disease, zebra mussel, and the Argentine ant.  

S. terebinthifolius gets planted here as a substitute for S. molle because it’s a little less susceptible to some of the latter’s pests and diseases. It looks rangier, possibly because most of the ones I meet are younger.  

Both the Peruvian and Brazilian pepper trees are sources for the “gourmet” pink peppercorns, hence the Spanish name “falso pimentero.” Beware of scarfing those up, though. They’re in the family Anacardiaceae, along with cashews and sumacs, and some people are wildly allergic to them. I do wonder if sending hordes of ambitious market harvesters into seriously Schinus-infested areas might not be a good solution to the invasion, though.  

Now if we could also convince them to go for the kudzu in the Southeast… its roots are much like arrowroot, after all, source of a delicate and useful cooking starch. And somewhere in the archives of Audubon magazine, there’s a recipe for starling gumbo. As for biological controls, I have to wonder if the water hyacinth-choked waterways of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are really too cold for manatees. Isn’t there a warm-water power-plant outfall or two where they could hang out? Just askin’.  

The berries, as well as other plant parts, contain a variety of chemicals (Don’t we all?), some of which are tingly or aromatic enough to have been used for herbal medicines. Various actions are ascribed to these chemicals—most of which exist in more concentrated form in other plants—and the list is confusing and vague enough to persuade me that, as they say, “more research is needed.”  

Meanwhile, if you’re going to wildcraft your own spring tonic, please leave the struggling city pepper trees unmolested—they probably contain hazardous levels of assorted exhaust components anyway—and find an invading population along a creek somewhere. Give our green urban neighbors a hand for their grace and toughness, and let their existence be a tonic for your spirit.

TUESDAY, FEB. 22 

Early Morning Bird Walk Meet at 7:30 a.m. at Inspiration Point to look for birds of the grassland and chaparral. 525-2233. 

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

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

“Sea Kayaking in the Bay Area and Baja” a slide presentation with Mitch Powers, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

El Cerrito Democratic Club “The Social Security Debate” with Prof. J. Bradford DeLong, Economics Dept., UCB, at 7:30 p.m. in the sanctuary, Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito.  

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 

“Christianity, Islam and Ecology” Forum with Rosemary Radford Ruether and Ibrahim Farajaje at 7 p.m. at the Richard S. Dinner Boardroom, Graduate Theological Union, Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Part of The Graduate Theological Union’s Theological Roundtable on Ecological Ethics and Spirituality. 649-2560.  

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

Black History Celebration with Keith Carson, Alameda County Board of Supervisors and Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, entertainment and refreshments, at noon at the County Admin. Bldg, 1221 Oak St. Oakland.  

Reverse Annuity Mortgages with Cherisse Baptiste from ECHO Housing at 1:15 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.  

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets from 3 to 6 p.m. 843-1307. 

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

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 23 

Tilden Tots A nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll search for amphibians from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Wildlife Careers for Teens with information on zoo keeping, wildlife biology and wildlife education, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo. Free, but reservations required. 632-9525, ext. 202. www.oaklandzoo.org 

The Oakland Bird Club “Sierra Birds: A Hiker’s Guide” with author Jack Laws at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, Upstairs Meeting Room, 5366 College Ave. Free and open to the public. 444-0355, 654-4830. 

Great Decisions 2005: “Russia” with Jordan Gans-Morse, Grad student, Political Science, UCB, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. Cost is $5, $40 for the series. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“South Berkeley Expo” from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Staff from Public Works, Police, Fire, Parks, and Health and Human Services will present information on community services and opportunities for residents to work together. 981-7071. 

“Indictment: Bush and Company’s Violations of the Constitution” with Doris Walker, attorney with the National Lawyers Guild at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

“American Dictators” A documentary of Alex Jones and the staged “election” of 2004, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390  27th St., midtown Oakland. Free, $5 donation requested. 910-0696. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “The Templar Revelation by Picknett and Prince at 6:30 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble Coffee Shop, El Cerrito Plaza. 433-2911. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, FEB. 24 

Early Morning Bird Walk Meet at 7:30 a.m. at Golf Course Road turnout, Tilden Park, to look for nuthatches. 525-2233. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll search for amphibians from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Tilden Explorers An after school nature adventure for 5-7 year olds who may be accompanied by an adult. No younger siblings please. We’ll search for amphibians. From 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

District 2 Town Hall Meeting with Councilmember Darryl Moore at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Youth Alternatives, 1255 Allston Way. Come discuss current neighborhood issues and concerns. 981-7120. 

Black History Celebration with dance, poetry, skits and light refreshments, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Frances Albrier Community Center, 2800 Parker St. 981-6640. 

Community Forum on Soft Story Builings and Reducing Risk, with presentations by local and national experts, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7406. TDD 981-7474. 

“Devastation for Democracy” The Future of the Iraqi People, Culture and Politics, with Dahr Jamail and Medea Benjamin at 7 p.m. at the Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland. Donation $10, no one turned away. www.vituous.com 

“Confronting Empire: Hope, Fear & U.S. Intervention in El Salvador’s Presidential Elections” A documentary screening followed by discussion, at 7 p.m. at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. 415-648-8222. 

“Gaza Strip” A free film screening at 6:30 p.m. at the 3rd flr. Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Public Library Central Branch, 2090 Kittredge St. 

“Rhetorics of Holy War” a conference covering contemporary Islam, the crusades, contemporary evangelicalism, Buddhism, medieval Byzantium, and more. Thurs. and Fri. at 9:30 a.m. at the Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 415-451-2876. ocker@sfts.edu 

Easy Does It Disability Assistance Board of Directors Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Classrooms A/B. Meeting is accessible and open to the public, with time for public comment. 967-4003. 

Older People United, a discussion group for elders over 75 at 1:30 p.m. at the Gray Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping in Berkeley Public Schools at 1:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Caleb and Ting Tango Classes Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Tango Studio. Cost is $20 for one class or $60 for four. To register call 655-3585. stellatango.com. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 25 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Ludmilla Kutsak on “The Fabergé Egg.” 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. 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Carolyn Scarr and Dr. Marc Sapir at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 528-5403. 

“The 9/11 Omission Report: What the Commission Didn’t Answer” with John Judge at 7 p.m. at Fellowship of Humanity, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations requested. 625-1106. 

“Constitutional Actions in Mexico” with Justice José Ramón Cossío Díaz of the Mexican Supreme Court at 4 p.m. in the Faculty Lounge, Boalt Hall, UC Campus. 642-2088.  

Special Character Storytime for children with Arthur the Aardvark, at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

Berkeley Youth Alternatives Crab Feed at 7 p.m. at 1255 Allston Way. Cost is $35. Reservations required. 845-9010. www.byaonline.org 

“Three Beats for Nothing” meets at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice. No charge. 655-8863, 843-7610.  

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. 

Humanistic Shabbat with Kol Hadash at 7:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. 428-1492. info@kolhadash.org 

SATURDAY, FEB. 26 

Wet & Wild Come walk in the rain or shine and see who is out in Tilden Park. Meet at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233.  

Giddy for Goats Come meet Lola and Princess and the kids and learn how to care for goats, at 3 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Let Worms Eat Your Garbage Learn about the benefits of composting at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351.  

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.  

“Serving the People - Body and Soul” A Black Panther Party history lecture and video screening with Billy X. Jennings, Richard Aoki, Sister Sheba and James Buford at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Library Community Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100.  

“Election Rigging 101” A teach-in on the 2004 election and what we must do to restore democracy, with Bob Fitrakis, Editor, Columbus Free Press and others, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Donation $10. Please bring lunch. www.democraticrenewal.us 

“Harriet Jacobs: A Black Woman’s Fight to Smash Slavery” with Carla Wilson, Spartacist League at 3 p.m. at the YWCA, 1515 Webster St., Oakland. 839-0851. 

“Bringing the Hip Hop Youth into the Struggle for Reparations” a conference with Fred Hampton, Jr. and Pedro Noguera, held in the Valley Life Science Building, UC Campus. struggle4reparations.com  

Emergency Response Training Class on “Basic Personal Preparedness” from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Fire Dept. Training Center, 997 Cedar St. To register call 981-5606. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/fire/oes.html 

Friends of the Albany Library Book Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Most items are priced at just 50 cents and include fiction, mysteries, children’s books, magazines, records, and a special “white elephant” table. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave, Albany. 536-3720, ext. 5. 

From Tsunami Relief to Creative Rebuilding Performance, silent auction, bake sale at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Tickets are $15-$50. Proceeds benefit Sarvodaya. 444-8511, ext. 15. www.artsfirstoakland.org 

UC Berkeley Asia Business Conference on “Asia’s Global Leadership” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Haas School of Business, at UC Campus. Cost is $50, $20 students. cochairs@berkeleyabc.org 

California College of the Arts Open House from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 5212 Broadway. Prospective students can tour studios, meet faculty and current students and view student work. 415-703-9523. 

Kol Hadash Chai (18th) Anniversary with a dinner and entertainment at 6:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. For reservations call 428-1492. info@KolHadash.org 

SUNDAY, FEB. 27 

All Things Fungal Considered from 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. We’ll seach for mushrooms and lichens and learn the science of fungi. Bring your lunch. 525-2233. 

Laurel Canyon Cryptogram Slog We’ll look for plants without flowers and learn about their life cycles. Be prepared for lots of mud. Meet at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

“Casinos in your Neighborhood-Good, Bad or What?” A panel discission to hear all sides from 4 to 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by Berkeley Citizens Action. 

Benefit for the Oakland GI Rights Hotline/CCCO, from 3 to 6:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. The program will present three decades of anti-war activism, from Vietnam to Iraq. Donations requested, $5 and up. 465-1607. www.girights.org 

Yonatan Shapira, Israeli refuser pilot at 3 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $5. 524-1993 www.refusersolidarity.net 

Songs for the Hard Times The 67th Annual Reunion of the Veterans and Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade with Utah Phillips at 1 p.m. at the Calvin Simmons Theater, 10 Tenth St., Oakland. Tickets are $40. 548-3088. 

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

Analysis of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” with Terry Wilson at 6 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. A lasagna and salad supper will be served at 5 p.m. for a $4.00 donation. 526-3805. 

Celebrate KerBlooms 52nd Issue at a benefit dinner for the Anarchy Magazine Collective. Vegan dinner at 7:30 p.m. and readings at 8:30 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-8705. www.thelonghaul.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 

The TaKeTiNa Rhythm Process A workshop from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Interplayce, 2273 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $85-$110. 650-493-8046. www.villageheartbeat.com/registration.php 

“Ashenazic Jews: History and Culture,” a conference sponsored by Kol Hadash, with visiting Scholar-in-Residence Rabbi Sherwin Wine. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sat. and to 12:30 p.m. on Sun. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. For registration information 428-1492. info@KolHadash.org 

“Mysticism and the Inner Path to Enlightenment” Tea and discussion with Mother Clare Watts, a nondemoninational priest, at 1 p.m. at the Rose Garden Inn. Cost is $15. RSVP to 635-4286. 

“The Rise of the Jewish Doctor” with John Efron at 3 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 845-6420. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Abbe Blum on “The Tibetan Wheel of Life” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, FEB. 28 

Tea and Hike at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed by a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Berkeley High School Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. to discuss WASC process and the role of the School Site Council, South of Bancroft facilities plan report, and Freshman Seminar report. bhssitecouncil@berkeley.k12.ca.us, bhs.berkeleypta.org/ssc 

BUSD East Campus Planning Meeting at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Alternative High School Multipurpose Room, 2701 MLK Jr. WAy. 644-6066. 

“Critical Viewing” an ongoing group that examines the craft(iness) of short film, TV drama, and commercials. Free. co-sponsored by the Berkeley Adult School and BRJCC. New members always welcome. Mon. from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

“The Jewish-American World of Philip Roth” at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 845-6420. 

ONGOING 

Nature Journal Writing with fieldtrips offered at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, Vets Memorial Building at Grand Ave and Harrison, next to Lake Merritt. Meets Mon., 10 a.m. to noon and Thurs. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free. To register call 238-3284. 

Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour Seeks Host Gardens The tour, which will be held in the spring of 2005, will showcase Alameda and Contra Costa County gardens that contain at least 30% native plants, don’t use synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and provide habitat for wildlife. To receive a host application, contact Kathy Kramer at Kathy@KathyKramerConsulting.net or 236-9558.  

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Feb. 22, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Budget Review Commission meets Wed., Feb. 23, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7041. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/budget 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Feb. 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/civicarts 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Feb. 23, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. William Greulich, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Feb. 23, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed. Feb. 23, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Kristen Lee, 981-5427. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/welfare 

Planning Commission meets Wed. Feb. 23 at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed. Feb. 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs. Feb. 24, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/zoning  ™

In the olden days, when women used to hang their laundry in the back yard on clotheslines, a lot of neighborhood news was spread over the back fence. The telephone increased the range of gossip transmission, and made it possible for eager consumers to find out what was going on in the next town as well. The contemporary substitute for the back fence is e-mail, a way of finding out what’s become of friends and acquaintances in distant places with little effort. 

A forwarded e-mail this week told me that an old high school friend had become a bone of contention between two high-powered movers and shakers, in a war of words that evidently has been burning up the blogs for the last couple of weeks. It seems that Susan Estrich (Friend of Bill and USC law prof) sent out a mass mailing on Valentine’s Day—be careful when you press that send button—excoriating her sometime friend and Co-Shaker Michael Kinsley (once editor of The New Republic, then Microsoft’s on-line Slate, and now the editorial and opinion editor at the Los Angeles Times) for including so few women among the L.A. Times’ op-ed stable. She called it “blatant sex discrimination” and since she has students she has numbers to back up her opinions. They’ve been counting for three years, and find an overwhelming preponderance of male voices. Fine. Almost certainly true. Who’d argue? But then Estrich stepped a bit off the rails. She complained that a recent discussion of gender in the Times’ op-ed section had included a piece by “a feminist-hater I have never heard of, nor probably have you, by the name of Charlotte Allen.”  

Well, as it happens, I have heard of Charlotte, and in fact I went to high school with her. She is, as she’s always been, a smart, witty person, quite a good writer, well-educated at famous schools, both law and graduate. I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with her in the last few years after many years’ hiatus. And no, we don’t usually talk politics, including feminism, because we’d like to remain friends. But still—she’s just as qualified as anyone, including Susan Estrich, to express her admittedly challengeable opinions in the august precincts of the op-ed pages of the L.A. Times. And when I looked up her piece to see why Estrich found it outrageous, her thesis was actually pretty tame: Smart women are wasting their time talking about feminism when they could be public intellectuals like the late Susan Sontag. She gave examples: I could give counter-examples. I think she’s wrong, and I might even like to get into it sometime with her over a glass of wine. 

But there are just too many things wrong in the political universe right now for women like Estrich to waste their time and their accumulated prestige on attacking other women with ad feminam arguments. She says that she’s been recommending good women writers like Arianna Huffington to the L.A.Times for years and they’ve been ignoring her advice. She’d be on much firmer ground if she’d continued in that vein. She should have started by acknowledging Allen’s valid point that having women public intellectuals is important. Then she could have gone on to list the large number of female public intellectuals that we actually do have. To name just a few good ones: Naomi Klein, Robin Lakoff, Katha Pollitt, Ellen Goodman, Patricia Williams, Molly Ivins, Amy Wilentz, Arlie Russell Hochschild...none of these women confine their analytic gifts to feminist topics, though all are feminists. Allen missed all of these because they’re all leftish, appearing most often in left opinion journals which she probably doesn’t read.  

A more interesting question for both Estrich and Kinsley is why they hang around so much with the kind of slippery neo-cons to be found in the pages of The New Republic, on the Democratic Leadership Council and among the long-time FOBs. Estrich’s latest version of her complaint can be found on her Creator’s Syndicate web page, where she complains that her column (everyone’s a columnist) isn’t picked up in papers that already have Molly Ivins and/or Ellen Goodman. One answer could be that balloon-pricking outsiders like Molly or true-blue liberals like Ellen add more spice to over-corporate op-ed pages than more conformist insiders like Estrich. They’re also—sorry—better writers, if her sample columns on the web are representative.  

None of this, however, refutes her original complaint, which I have no reason to challenge: that the L.A. Times op-ed pages print many more pieces by men than by women. It would be interesting to try to figure out if there’s a more complex reason for this phenomenon than flat-out conscious discrimination. The two Timeses, east and west, solicit op-ed pieces and even re-write them if they don’t like what the writer offers; the Planet doesn’t do any of that. Our op-ed section isn’t solicited or mediated—we take what people send us, almost everything. We haven’t counted up how many of our excellent opinion contributors belong to which gender, but perhaps we should. Anyone out there have anything to say on this topic? 

—Becky O’Malley

A reader’s letter in this issue chastises the Daily Planet’s business side for a tongue-in-cheek headline on the latest house ad: “In Greater Berkeley, almost everyone who counts reads the Planet.” The same question was raised in the newsroom by a staffer who thought that the line might seem elitist to some, as it in fact did to this reader.  

Our house ads, we confess, are directed primarily at advertisers, not at readers, and for advertisers shoppers are what they're looking for. We know that we have more than 24,000 readers because they pick up their free papers, and of course not all of them can afford to shop in the shopping areas where we polled. But keep in mind that the Daily Planet has been supporting readers with free news for close to two years now. The paper continues to come closer to breaking even, but it’s not there yet. No one has come up with a better idea for how to pay for newspapers, one that wouldn't involve appealing to advertisers, who of course want to appeal to shoppers.  

Could we be charging for the paper? Probably not. Each copy of the paper costs more than 50 cents to produce, and mail delivery of subscriptions adds more than $1 per issue. Readers who can’t afford to shop in Berkeley probably can’t afford to pay that much for their papers either. 

Is Internet publication the answer? Salon, the first and still almost the only real online magazine, finally turned a profit for the first time in ten years, just in time to salute founder David Talbot on retirement. Many more have come and gone without breaking even. News on most of the rest of the Internet is thin, except for what’s reprinted from newspapers. And no one has figured out how to pay for it. 

Yesterday’s Washington Post carried an article about the woes of the major papers: Daily circulation across the industry has declined every year since 1987. It’s a complicated picture, because despite declining circulation profits are still healthy for the media conglomerates. On the one hand, papers face competition for the attention of information consumers from broadcast media and the Internet. On the other hand, newspaper advertising is still a much better source of revenue than online publishing. The article notes that “for the first nine months of 2004, the Post booked $433 million in ad revenue. For the same period, Washingtonpost.com reported $45 million in revenue, hardly enough to support a newsgathering staff the size of the Post’s.” 

Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide on Sunday marked the end of an era when journalists hoped to use edgy writing as a way of delivering social commentary, though serious newsgathering was generally left to the mainstream press. Others of yesterday’s “new journalism” heros have fallen on hard times. Ken Kelley, sometimes a fine writer and once a golden-haired boy wonder who edited a lively underground paper in the early ‘70s, was picked up last week by federal agents on charges of having child pornography on his computer in what was described in the San Francisco Chronicle as “a small apartment over a South of Market muffler shop.” Many papers like his, once heralded as the way to attract younger readers to print, have been swallowed up by national chains more interested in sensationalism than in news.  

Most of the news in broadcast media is cribbed, one way and another, from print media. It’s rare that any broadcast outlet does serious sustained reporting on a story. Newspapers, big and small, are still the primary medium for in-depth reporting. Community papers like the Planet cover the local news that the big dailies miss, and when we do a good job our stories are picked up by the mainstream press. And newspapers, small and large, are mostly supported by advertisers, who in turn are supported by shoppers. We’re very grateful to our advertisers, many of them small merchants who are trying to make a decent living by giving good value to their customers, and who support an independent press with their advertising dollars. We do believe that almost everyone who counts reads the Planet, both the shoppers that our poll contacted around town and the non-shoppers that we see reading the paper on park benches, in cafes and on buses all over town. We’re proud to have them all as readers. 

—Becky O’Malley 

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