At 3:30 on a blustery Friday afternoon a group of Cragmont Elementary fourth graders are lining up in the hallway in front of Room 209 for the second part of their educational day. 

For the next two hours—while most Bay Area elementary school students are already deep into their weekends, wearing out their fingers on XBox keys or engaged in other leisurely pursuits—13 members of the Cragmont Scholars program are honing up on their state testing skills or learning how to write science reports. 

The teacher for the first hour is Cragmont’s principal, Jason Lustig, who hears groans as he passes out a pile of thick Spectrum California Test Practice Books. 

“Are we going to do all of this today?” one girl asks, flipping through the hundred or so pages. 

“I love your ambition,” Lustig answers in quiet deadpan. “Maybe you should hold a sleepover and stay until we finish it.” 

There are general shouts of “yeah!” around the room, but Lustig dampens their enthusiasm. “No,” he says, “we don’t want to do these too fast. The purpose is to learn how to do it, not to rush through it.” 

It is not until later that the reporter learns that the program actually does hold sleepovers for its students, but just not for this particular night. We are learning already that this is not your regular classroom. 

“Will we get graded on this?” another girl asks. 

“On practice?” Lustig answers. “Do you get graded on anything in Scholars?” 

He gets nods all around. One boy gives him a serious stare and says, “But it will help us with our education.” 

“You don’t sound convinced,” Lustig says. 

But, actually, they do seem convinced and for the next hour—instead of nodding off in their seats, hitting each other with wadded paper, or staring out the window at Cragmont’s spectacular view of sunset over the San Francisco Bay—the Scholars (as Lustig refers to them) follow along, clearly engaged. That engagement takes them over regular weekly and Saturday sessions, as well as three to four week sessions during the summer. 

At 4:30 fourth grade teacher Kathy Freeburg takes over, starting with jumping jacks, toe-touchings, and a deep breath.  

The planned calisthenics are hardly necessary. Periodically the room lights suddenly go out during Freeburg’s portion of the program, the children all leap from their seats as if making for the light switch, and then, just as suddenly, the lights go back on, and the children jump back in their seats and continue the work as if nothing had happened. It is not until later that the reporter is told that the lights are on motion sensors, and some movement is needed every now and then to keep them going. 

As Freeburg arranges the students in a circle on the floor and begins leading them in preparation for upcoming astronomy reports, the reporter makes another discovery while making a head count. Of the 13 Cragmont Scholars in the day’s session, four are African-American, nine are Latino. 

It’s not by accident. The Cragmont Scholars program is aimed specifically at African-American and Latino students, and closing the education gap with whites and Asians that has occupied so much of Berkeley’s public education debate and policy. The difference at Cragmont is that—if state test scores are any indication—they have fashioned a solution. 

Between 2003 and 2004, state performance scores for African-American students at Cragmont rose 66 points; Latino students’ scores rose 110 points. The closest African-American score gain in the rest of Berkeley’s elementary schools in the same period was 60 points at Jefferson; the closest Latino gain was 27 points at Thousand Oaks. In fact, leaving out Cragmont, the remaining 10 Berkeley elementary schools witnessed an average gain of 9.1 points in African-American API scores; the Latino average actually dropped close to half a point. 

While Freeburg helps the Scholars find out how to come up with good research questions (“If the sun blows up, what will happen to the earth?” is better than “Do you like the sun?”), the program’s other teacher—Mary Martin—explains the rationale behind Cragmont Scholars. 

“We don’t want these students just to think about getting out of school and getting a job,” she says. “But we want them to see being a student as their job. We don’t want them to think that average is all right. We want them to think about going to college. In fact, everything we do is geared towards college, college, college. We want to create a tightly-knit peer group where the focus is on raising expectations.” 

The Scholars program had its genesis in a long-term project put together several years ago by UC Berkeley’s Stiles Hall at Cragmont and three other Berkeley Unified elementary schools. That project—which is following four groups of students from grade to grade—was geared towards “at-risk students with social or emotional problems,” according to Cragmont principal Lustig. 

In contrast, he says, the two-year Cragmont Scholars program “targets African-American and Latino students who we believe should be going to top-tier colleges based upon their test scores, but who might drop off in middle school or high school if they don’t get support. We’re not just telling these students that they’re smart. Of course they’re smart. Everybody’s smart. We’re telling them that they need to work.” 

When the Scholars program was started for fourth graders last year, participants were picked on three criteria: grades, teacher recommendation, and scores on their third grade achievement tests. According to Martin, most of last year’s participants remained to form the core of this year’s 5th grade group, and new students are added “by word of mouth. I was talking to one student about our Saturday program, and they said, ‘why would I want to come to school on Saturday?’ And one of the Scholars said, ‘you want to come on Saturday because we have a good time.’ And so the student ended up coming.” 

Lustig says that while the Scholars functions as an accelerated learning program, it also “goes back to basics when gaps in academic knowledge gets exposed. So it’s essentially a hybrid program.” 

And the key to its success at Cragmont, he said, is that the Scholars program does not close the gap by focusing on African-Americans and Latinos at the expense of whites and Asian-Americans. 

“The first thing we did was bring the scores of the entire student population up in the years before the Scholars program got started,” he said. “You can’t run this kind of program unless you’re at a certain academic level.” 

Back in Room 209, the students in Ms. Freeburg’s class learn that they are writing their own small books to be produced in a few weeks, each one with her or his own individual astronomy topic. They call out the subjects: Neptune, Saturn, black holes, Jupiter, stars. High in the hills above Berkeley, the real stars are being developed.›

With a week-long teacher work slowdown “having an effect,” according to Berkeley Unified School District Public Information Officer Mark Coplan, Superintendent Michele Lawrence has sent out a letter to teachers and community residents explaining the district’s position in the dispute. 

Berkeley teachers have worked without a contract for the past two years, and contract negotiations are now being handled through a state-appointed mediator. Two weeks ago, to enforce their demands for a contract and a pay raise, members of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers union announced a district-wide “work to rule” action in which most teachers are refusing to work outside their contracted 7 hour work day. 

A bargaining session with the state mediator is scheduled for next week. 

Word of the slowdown has spread rapidly in Berkeley, and Coplan said that the superintendent’s office is “getting a lot of calls and e-mails from parents asking questions.” 

In response, Lawrence sent out a prepared statement to Berkeley residents late Monday night as a “community version” of a letter placed in teachers and staff pay envelopes on Monday morning. In it, Lawrence called the “work to rule” action a “legal activity” growing out of unresolved contract issues over “class size caps and total compensation.” 

Lawrence tells residents that the work action “could mean alternative plans will have to be made for special evening events, field trips or some meetings.” 

On the salary issue, Lawrence holds out little hope for a raise in the near future, saying that “the district budget is very precarious, and has little room for maneuvering.” She adds that “at the time of the signing of the last BFT contract, the goal was to achieve teacher compensation comparable to other districts. This goal continues to be met; compensation is similar to other districts.” 

On class sizes, she writes that “the district is committed to the class size ratios we promised in Measure B. The class size averages will be 20:1 in grades K-3, 26:1 in grades 4-5, and 28:1 in grades 6-12.” 

In her letter, as she has done in her public pronouncements and interviews on the action, Lawrence walks a tightrope, acknowledging that Berkeley teachers deserve a raise and sympathizing with their frustration at the lack of a raise while making the case that the money isn’t there in the budget. Instead of fighting on the local level, she says that Berkeley citizens should turn their attention to Sacramento. 

“I am asking you and members of our community to write the governor and our legislators to help them understand the necessity of ‘guaranteed’ funding for public education, and the need for revenue increases, not cuts, to balance the state budget,” she writes. “The education of California’s children should not be tossed aside in an effort to maintain ill-considered tax cuts. Now is the time to tell our state and federal lawmakers that we value public education and the people who dedicate their lives to educating children.” 

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Residents gathered Saturday in a meeting room in a building named for one of the heroes of the African American struggle for freedom and equality to dine and celebrate Black History Month. 

Convened by the Residents Council of Harriet Tubman Terrace Apartments, the gathering featured addresses by poets, a psychologist and Max Anderson, the city councilmember whose district includes the apartments. 

Berry Gardner, president of the residents council, hailed Anderson’s presence.  

“I don’t remember our city councilmember ever coming here three times,” said Gardner. In addition to his most recent appearance, Anderson attended the complex for a Christmas party in December and again last month when the building’s new owners unveiled their remodeling plans. 

Anderson’s address focused on African Americans who were part of the troops who battled the Axis in World War II. 

“Black Americans were denied the full blessings of liberty” during the war, he said. 

The civil rights movement, he said, was driven in large measure by those such as slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers who had had played their parts in the great war effort. 

“Black soldiers wanted to be involved,” Anderson said, “and they helped liberate the Nazi death camps.” 

Anderson contrasted the roles of African American soldiers as portrayed in two memorable films, A Soldier’s Story and Patton. 

The background of the first story was a Louisiana military base where highly visible African American soldiers in a segregated army were chomping at the bit to get into combat. 

In Patton, conversely, the film’s opening depicts Gen. George S. Patton delivering a stirring address praising the soldiers before him, who remain invisible to the camera. 

The address was real, “but he was actually talking to these same units from Louisiana who had finally been called up,” Anderson said. “Yet there was only one black person shown in the movie, and that was his aide.” 

One of those soldiers in the unseen audience is a neighbor of Anderson’s, who commanded a tank battalion in Patton’s Third Army that later played a major role in the breakthrough that relieved Bastogne in Nazi Germany’s last great gamble, the Battle of the Bulge. 

“Both movies had their lessons for me,” Anderson said, “when I understood the intersection between these two realities.” 

Black American soldiers developed their own gesture to signify their place in the historical moment, the double-V sign, with one V symbolizing victory over Germany and the other symbolizing victory over the institutionalized repression at home. 

It was also World War II that sparked the great migration of African Americans to the factories and shipyards in California where jobs once reserved for whites were suddenly thrown open to people of color. 

Anderson also singled out the mass of African Americans who formed the backbone of the civil rights movement. 

“For every Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, there were thousands of people like you who ran off the flyers and cooked the meals,” he said. 

After Anderson finished and the applause died down, Gardner recalled an uncle stationed in Louisiana when one of the African American troopers was arrested and lynched the night before his unit was scheduled to ship out. 

Following the program, residents and guests settled down for a dinner of Louisiana soul food cooked by Gardner and fellow resident Bill Chapple.3

Before setting out to buy groceries for his wife and 8-year-old son two Fridays ago, North Oakland resident Patrick McCullough made sure he had his wallet, keys and pistol. 

It was the gun, a Sig Sauer 230 semi-automatic pistol, he would use first.  

McCullough, 49, said that as he headed to his car parked in his driveway that day, about 15 youths appeared outside his house and one yelled, “There’s the snitch.” 

A fight ensued, McCullough said, recounting that the young male who called him a snitch punched him, while others pelted him with whatever they could find. Then, he said, the youth raced to where five friends were standing and told one, “Give me the pistol.” 

“As soon as I saw the one guy lift up his jersey and the other reach for a handle that’s when I shot him,” McCullough said. “I was aiming for his torso.” 

McCullough said he struck the juvenile in the arm. After the gunfire, McCullough said, the victim and his friends fled from his house to the adjacent corner of 59th Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

District Attorney James Lee said he has completed his investigation, but has not decided whether to press charges against McCullough, who was arrested and spent Friday night in jail. Lee said McCullough could be charged with assault with a firearm, carrying a concealed weapon in a public place or carrying a loaded weapon in a public place. 

Oakland police are urging Lee not to prosecute McCullough, who they say is a vital ally in their efforts to squelch drug dealing on 59th Street, right next to Bushrod Park. 

“The reason that Patrick was assaulted by these suspects is that he stands up to drug dealers in a way that normal citizens do not,” said Lt. Lawrence Green of the OPD. Through his Yahoo! discussion group, Green has mobilized members of the North Central Oakland Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) to pressure Lee not to prosecute McCullough.  

“I just have zero tolerance for this thug life,” said McCullough, who grew up on the southside of Chicago, served in the Navy for seven years and now works for the City of Berkeley as an electronics technician. “I just don’t think it’s acceptable at all.” 

McCullough said he often takes pictures of drug dealers in action and is quick to call the police and talk to officers in view of dealers. 

“I don’t hide it like a lot of people do around here,” he said. “If they call the police they won’t give their name or be seen talking to them in public.” 

Most of McCullough’s neighbors interviewed Sunday supported his action. “He’s been a positive activist for the neighborhood,” said Michael Frayne. “I can understand his frustration with seeing drug dealing at his corner.” 

But Tor Berg, who lives on McCullough’s block, said he was bothered by any form of gunplay in his neighborhood whether the shooter was a neighbor or a dealer. 

“If he misses the guy, then there’s a bullet flying down 59th Street and my daughter plays here,” he said. 

McCullough said he bought his gun after being attacked outside his home in 2003 by another local youth, Wayne Camper, and two associates. Months after the fight, Camper, whom police arrested for assault, was gunned down in what Oakland police believe was part of a border war between North Oakland and South Berkeley drug dealers. 

McCullough doesn’t have a permit for his gun. State law prohibits carrying a concealed or a loaded gun in a public place, but allows homeowners to carry a gun on their property, Lee said.  

“Realistically, given the threats he’s had, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to carry a weapon,” Lt. Green said. 

Don Link, chairperson of the NCPC, said no one in his group has ever suggested that members carry weapons. “Our strength is in the support neighbors give to each other and our partnership with the police,” he said. 

Link said 59th Street has long been considered a hot spot for drug dealing and rowdy behavior and that McCullough has been front and center in combating it since he moved there in 1994. McCullough has twice sued the city to make sure that officials didn’t remove a traffic barrier at 59th Street and Shattuck Avenue that kept motorists from speeding down the street. 

In recent years, neighbors have filed nuisance suits against two properties believed to be connected to the drug trade, neither of which McCullough joined. A second nuisance suit against one of the properties is now pending.  

Violent crime is on the decline in North Oakland, Lt. Green said. Last year, he said, there were two murders in the beat, compared to 12 in 2003 and 11 in 2002. 

Although other members of the NCPC photograph drug dealers and call the police, Link thinks drug dealers have singled out McCullough because he is African-American. 

“I’ve never known anyone else to be called a snitch,” he said. “Snitch means that you’re one of us and you’re snitching on us.” 

McCullough said that in addition to the two attacks, local youths whom he believe are connected to the drug trade have shot bullets into his house and his car, tossed a brick through his window, and yelled threats outside his home. 

Last week a man who went by the name Cornbread knocked on his door. “He told me that guys were talking about doing stuff to my family, but that he wanted to hear my side of the story,” McCullough said. 

Moving, he added, is currently out of the question. McCullough bought his home through a shared equity loan offered by Oakland that would require him to surrender a portion of the sale price to the city if he puts the house on the market before 2014.  

“We’re trapped,” McCullough said. “I’m not going to have those punks put me into the poorhouse.” He is planning to demand the city let him out of the contract. 

Since the attack, McCullough said he has been more vigilant in scoping out his block before he and his family leave the house and has received help from neighbors who keep an eye on his home. 

Green said the OPD has responded to the attack by making 59th Street the number one police priority for the western section of Oakland. McCullough said he has noticed stepped-up police presence, but understands there is only so much the police can do for him. 

“They can’t be here all the time,” he said. “It’s those critical few-minute periods when I’m vulnerable.” 

Facing the loss of one quarter of its four-person staff, Berkeley’s Police Review Commission (PRC) is positioning itself for a fight. 

“There’s tremendous concern that it will be next to impossible for the PRC to operate with three people,” said Commissioner Michael Sherman. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz has proposed across the board staffing cuts to city departments to reduce a $7.5 million structural budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year. 

The PRC, established by a voter-approved initiative 32 years ago, conducts public hearings on charges of police misconduct and considers policies to govern police protocol. 

Under Kamlarz’ proposal first issued last year, the commission would lose one of its two administrative positions, leaving it with a secretary, an investigator and an administrator. The plan must still be approved by the council when it finalizes next year’s budget this June. Sherman said he and fellow commissioners would lobby hard against the cut. 

“I feel like four is the bare minimum that office can survive with,” said Former PRC Secretary Barbara Attard. “What you’re going to do is burn out the staff and lose the institutional memory.” 

PRC administrators are responsible for, among other things, preparing transcripts of commission hearings, a time-consuming task, according to Attard. “It’s going to bog down cases because the transcript won’t be ready.” 

“There will definitely be some lag time,” said acting PRC Secretary Dan Silva. The PRC receives an average of 50 complaints against the police every year, according to commission records. Until the mid 1990s, the commission was staffed with three investigators, two administrators and a secretary. 

Since the city has been slow to look for a replacement for Attard who left in December, the PRC has been operating with three staffers, with Silva doing double duty as investigator and secretary. 

“There’s no way he will be able to deal with police policy issues if he’s also the investigator,” Attard said. She questioned why the city has hesitated to look for her replacement. 

“They’ve already saved about $30,000 this year by not filling the position,” she said. “That’s almost as much as they could save by eliminating a staff position. 

Kamlarz said city policy is to hold off on filling positions until the department and the city determine how to complete its tasks most efficiently. “We’re looking at every vacancy as an opportunity to reorganize,” he said. 

As one measure to ease the commission’s load, Kamlarz has struck a deal to outsource police appeals of PRC findings to an Oakland-based hearing board. Kamlarz said the appeals, which are being heard by a panel of city staffers, were backlogged. He anticipated the new arrangement would cost the city about $40,000. 

Kamlarz has proposed cutting 35.3 city staff positions by the start of the 2006 fiscal year in July. Besides the PRC, other departments that face the loss of positions currently filled include the city clerk’s office, one position; Finance, one position; Health and Human Services, three positions; Housing, 0.5 positions; Parks, one position; Planning 0.75 positions; Police, 7.5 crossing guard positions; Public Works, one disability services specialist position; and Fire, the equivalent of 10.5 positions from the closure of a fire truck. 

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For the second time, city Design Review Commissioners have expressed their unanimous disapproval of designs for South Berkeley’s “Flying Cottage.’ 

Architect Andus Brandt’s earlier version of the three-story structure at 3045 Shattuck Ave. was rejected unanimously by the DRC in December. 

Owner/builder Christina Sun elevated an existing cottage atop a plywood shell in 2003 and was stopped after neighbors complained that the ungainly structure was out of character with the neighborhood and that Sun hadn’t taken out the necessary permits. 

Architect Andus Brandt’s revisions of his earlier plans failed to pass DRC muster again on Feb. 17. 

Commissioner Carrie Olson called the structure “a very odd building,” and described the proposed windows and “hideous.” 

Brandt was asked if he was willing to submit another set of revisions, but he chose outright rejection instead so he could take his proposal directly to the Zoning Adjustments Board.  

Olson said the unanimous rejection was the first vote of its kind she could remember. 

West Berkeley Land Use Disputed 

Stirred by the incursion of retail and other development into land once reserved for industry, arts and crafts in West Berkeley, the West Berkeley Association of Industrial Companies has convened a Thursday night public forum to discuss the issue. 

Moderated by West Berkeley woodworker John Curl, the meeting will feature a panel discussion featuring City Councilmembers Linda Maio and Darryl Moore, Susan Libby of Libby Laboratories, Mary Lou Van De Venter of Urban Ore, Don Yost of Norheim & Yost realty, economic analyst Neil Mayer and Sharon Cornu, Political Director of the Central Labor Council of Alameda County. 

The two-hour meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Alliance Graphics, 905 Parker St. (at Seventh Street). 

The West Berkeley Plan, which calls for protection of existing industrial space, is up for reconsideration this year.  

Fuzz Get Charity Clipping 

Officers and civilian staff members from Berkeley’s finest gave up their hair Monday for the best reason of all—so that it can be woven into wigs for indigent children suffering from cancer and other ailments that lead to hair loss. 

The lengths of lost tresses ranged from seven to 14 inches, and the lone male contributor was a dispatcher, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

The event was organized by Officer Jessica Navozny. 

“I’ve had several friends and coworkers who have been afflicted with cancer and I felt it was time to step up to the plate and do something for people suffering from these kinds of ailments,” she said. 

The Hermosa Salon at 2703 College Ave. donated their services for the drive. The hair will go to the Locks of Love program, which weaves the locks into wigs and distributes them to afflicted youngsters.  

Ripped Off, But When? 

Weatherford BMW called police late Thursday afternoon that they’d been ripped off for a sizable amount of cash, but they could only date the theft to sometime during the previous ten days, reports Berkeley Police Spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Family Dispute Escalates 

What started as a case of battery involving two members of the same family took a more serious turn at 5 p.m. Thursday when one of the disputants pulled a pistol on the other and threatened to shoot. 

By the time police arrived at the Russell Street residence, the pistol-packer had departed. 

Branch Beating 

Berkeley Police arrested a 41-year-old Berkeley man on charges of assault with a deadly weapon after he battered a 21-year-old man with a tree branch near the corner of Piedmont Avenue and Stuart Street Friday afternoon. 

Stabbing Heist 

Two men in their thirties confronted a Berkeley man in the street in front of the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in the 2100 block of San Pablo Avenue shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday. 

One of the pair stabbed the victim, after which the robbers fled with his cash, said Officer Okies. 

No information was available on the victim’s condition, he said. 

Student Injured in Accident 

As a UC Berkeley student lies in Highland Hospital in critical condition, the vice president of the Berkeley Chinese Students and Scholars Association is seeking witnesses to the Wednesday evening accident. 

Jai Wang, a chemistry student from Shanghai, was broadsided by a car fleeing from Albany Police as he attempted to drive across the intersection of San Pablo and Ashby avenues. 

Renbin Yan, of the Chinese students organization, said witnesses are needed to confirm what happened when Wang was broadsided by a 1996 Honda driven by Adam K. Jones of Albany. 

According to Albany Police, Jones fled when officers attempted to question him about a drug deal they believed they had witnessed inside the Honda as it was parked near the Albany waterfront. 

Officers set out in pursuit, following the Honda onto Interstate 80. A police spokesperson said they soon lost sight of the vehicle. 

The pursuing officer took the Ashby Avenue freeway exit, where he soon spotted what he believed to be the suspect vehicle. 

Albany police said their officer was not involved in a chase when the accident happened, a position endorsed by the California Highway Patrol officers investigation the crash. 

Jones’s vehicle ran through the red light as it was traveling eastbound on Ashby, striking Wang’s car. 

Yan is not convinced it wasn’t a chase. 

“We want to know if the car was being chased when it struck Jai Wang’s car,” he said. 

Yan asked anyone with information about the crash to call him at 847-6929. 

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Israeli Air Force pilot Yonatan Shapira calls himself a patriot. After 11 years as part of a elite helicopter unit, he though he had proved his commitment to his country. Yet since 2003, Shapira has more often referred to as a traitor, than a patriot. 

That year Shapira was one of 27 Air Force pilots who signed a letter refusing to fly missions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, especially those that could harm innocent civilians.  

Citing a rule in the Israeli military that says soldiers can refuse a mission if it is illegal or unjust, the pilots went public with their decision and were immediately discharged. 

“We are willing to sacrifice our lives to stop a suicide bomber, but that has nothing to do with sending bombs and missiles into heavily populated Palestinian territories,” Shapira told a receptive crowd in Berkeley who had gathered at the Berkeley/Richmond Jewish Community Center on Sunday afternoon to hear his presentation. 

Shapira, who is on a nation-wide tour, was brought to Berkeley by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, a national Jewish organization dedicated to finding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Shapira is part of a growing number of Israelis who are refusing to serve in the Israeli Defense Force. Many of them are now in jail because military service is mandatory in Israel.  

According to Shapira, the breaking point came in July 2002. Late that month an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb in the Gaza Strip that killed the leader of Hamas. The bomb also killed 14 civilians, including nine children. The next day, Shapira said, he remembered reading an article that quoted an Air Force commander urging the Air Force pilots to sleep well at night because the mission was “perfectly executed.”  

Shapira said he was shocked by the statement and realized that the Air Force too often was provoking violence instead of preventing it. Although he only flew rescue missions, Shapira decided he had to speak up. 

“To me it was clear that we were not flying missions to protect our country, it was revenge,” Shapira said. “Of course if you hit someone with a one ton bomb in the most crowded area in the world you will kill innocents.” 

At first Shapira thought he was alone. Then he approached other pilots, almost all of whom said they felt the same way. Many refused to sign the letter, however, even though they supported the idea. Those that did sign, appeared with Shapira to publicly announce the intent. 

Today Shapira works as a civilian helicopter pilot. He had two contracts broken by companies that found out about his refusal to serve. Shapira said he has also run into considerable opposition on his speaking tour, but invites people to question his decision.  

He wanted to come to the United States, he said, because he thinks the country is also responsible for provoking violence through its blind support for Israel. All his criticism, he said, is because he loves his country and wants to find a just solution. 

“As a rescue pilot,” he said, “I feel this is the most important rescue mission I can take upon myself.” 

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Two weeks after the Berkeley Unified School District dropped its budget rating from positive to qualified and the announced start of a teacher work slowdown over a pay raise dispute, fiscal issues dominate this week’s BUSD board meeting. 

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Wednesday night, at the Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Looking backward, the board will be asked to approve the Audit Report by independent auditors Vavrinek, Trine, Day & Co. for the 2003-04 fiscal year. The audit was due to be filed with county and state educational officials last December, but the district was granted an audit extension until the end of this month. Details of the report were not available at presstime. 

Looking forward, board members will hear a report by Deputy Superintendent Glenston Thompson on the expected effects of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s state budget recommendations on the Berkeley Unified schools. Schwarzenegger has proposed severe cuts in state money available to local districts under Proposition 98, the state constitutional initiative that was supposed to provide a base level of educational money. 

One item that will not be on Wednesday’s agenda is the decision on the expulsion of the Berkeley High student caught on campus earlier this month with a gun in her backpack. The student, who has not been named, has not been on campus since a legally-mandated recommendation of expulsion by BHS principal Jim Slemp. 

BHS officials have said the girl told them that the gun belonged to her father, who gave it to her for safekeeping from her siblings. 

BUSD Public Information Officer Mark Coplan said that an expulsion panel has held a hearing on the student’s expulsion, and will present its recommendation to the BUSD Board at the board’s March 8 meeting. Coplan said he did not know the panel’s recommendation and, by law, could not reveal it even if he did. 

“All of this is being conducted in secret,” he explained. Coplan said that the expulsion panel will present its findings to the board in closed session, and while no details will be revealed, the board will announce its decision on the recommendation in open session. 

Meanwhile, Berkeley Police Information Officer Joe Okies said that the police will turn over its findings in the BHS student gun case today (Tuesday) or Wednesday to the Alameda County district attorney’s office. 

D.A. officials will then decide whether or not to bring charges against either the student or her father, or both.

It’s been more than 30 years since the Free Speech Movement and the battle over People’s Park, but in the eyes of conservative pundits, Berkeley has once again become the center of the progressive universe. Just ask New York Times columnist, David Brooks, who in his Feb. 5 column deplored the ascension of Howard Dean to the position of chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and argued that it’s Berkeley’s fault. 

Brooks blamed Dean’s victory on the increasing power of the “university-town elite,” who, he said, “dominate the Democratic Party not just intellectually, but financially as well.” He concluded, “The energy and the dough is in the MoveOn.org wing, which is not even a wing of the party, but the head and the wallet.” Brooks opined that if the party follows Dean, in the next election Democrats would carry Berkeley but lose the rest of the nation. 

If Brooks’ column is a reliable indicator, conservatives have shifted their focus from the “media elite,” the denizens of tinsel-town who are accused of lavishing their ill-gotten money on the Democratic Party, to the “university-town elite,” those of us who live in towns such as Berkeley, Cambridge, or Ann Arbor, where we can hang out with smart people, read subversive literature, and partake of all things French. Because we happen to have birthed MoveOn.org, Berkeley is held up as the epitome of these progressive university towns. Hallelujah, we’re number one! 

As usual, Brooks made a few factual errors along the way to reaching his conclusion: While it is true that folks who are well educated preferred Kerry over Bush in the last election, it is also true that lots of folks who have lesser degrees of education voted for the Democratic nominee. In fact, poor folks, who typically have a high-school degree, at best, preferred Kerry to Bush. Apparently, the ability to see the awfulness of the administration requires that you either be literate or thoroughly screwed over. 

And, while it is true that university-town folks gave a lot of money to the Kerry campaign, and the associated Democratic and “527” groups, it is more accurate to report that donations were made by people from all parts of the country, regardless of means. For example, MoveOn.org—which I donate to, by the way—has 3 million names on their e-mail list; they received donations from all 50 states, from the rich as well as those who are struggling. 

What conservative pundits are afraid of, what their ranting seeks to conceal, is the fact that 2004 changed the demographics of political fundraising: the Republicans were funded, as usual, by conservative fat cats, corporate PACs, and “independent” organizations such as the NRA, Chamber of Commerce, and the Christian Coalition. However, Democratic funding shifted away from corporate PACS—which, in the main, were bullied into donating only to Bush—to individual donors. In this sense, rank-and-file Democrats took control of the Party. 

So when Brooks observed that, in 2004, MoveOn.org became the “head and the wallet” of the party, he’s not far off because the MoveOn.org variety of fundraising did make a huge difference to the party. Some of this is due to the success of the Internet model for reaching out and soliciting money. But, unlike the Republican Party, the Democratic fundraising process has grown beyond “show me the money.” 

MoveOn.org, and the Dean campaign, asked rank-and-file Democrats for their opinions, and then listened to what they have to say. (It is probably more accurate to say that they asked, and listened to, progressives, as many of their constituents are not card-carrying Democrats.) 

MoveOn.org features a process where they ask their constituents what they think, and then reflect this in what they do. This is the same process that is employed by successful Congress people, like Barbara Lee and Barney Frank, but seems to have been lost in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. (One exception would be Senator Barbara Boxer, who recently has taken very strong stands on the legitimacy of the 2004 vote, the war in Iraq, and the nomination of Condoleezza Rice, because of feedback she got from her constituents.) 

In a democracy it’s a good thing to listen to the people. To David Brooks and his brothers in the conservative punditocracy, this may seem like a radical notion spread by the university-town elite, but to those of us who believe in the promise of America, who believe that grass-roots democracy, as opposed to big-money democracy, is the best and fairest form of government, this seems like common sense. 

Maybe, despite his tortured logic, David Brooks has stumbled onto the truth. Maybe MoveOn.org is providing fresh inspiration to the progressive movement. Maybe the election of Howard Dean as chair of the DNC is a reflection of this insight and energy. Maybe Berkeley, as the number one university-town in America, has once again taken its rightful place as the center of the progressive universe. Maybe, just maybe, these are good tidings, for the Democratic Party, and for our country. 

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

Most observers of the Middle East sensed that the U.S. invasion of Iraq, instead of bringing stability, would bring chaos to the region. The most recent signal of this unraveling was the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni billionaire with ties to Washington and Riyadh, who had been credited with much of Beirut’s reconstruction. Popular protests have now led to the resignation of the country’s pro-Syrian government.  

Although Syria is being blamed for the killing—Hariri was a staunch opponent the Syrian presence in Lebanon—the crime is most likely the extension of the Sunni-Shiite conflict that is coming to a boil in Iraq.  

The killing has been claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself “Victory and Jihad in Bilad as-Shan.” Bilad as-Shah could be translated as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine.  

This should be enough to convince even the most skeptical observer that the demon of Shiite-Sunni tension has escaped the Iraqi Pandora’s Box. It is now spilling into neighboring countries, reviving a religious schism that dates back to the seventh century, to the death of the prophet Mohammed and the rise of his cousin and son-in-law Ali as one of Fourth Rightly Guided Caliphs.  

That the fire of the Shiite-Sunni divide would take root so promptly in relatively calm Lebanon is an even more worrisome sign that the chaos may spread quickly to unexpected latitudes in the Middle East.  

Lebanon is a pivotal element in the pacification of the Middle East for a number of reasons. First, its geopolitical position makes it a key factor in the unfolding Israeli-Palestinian saga. Second, its governmental instability is the weakest link in the U.S.-led effort to spread democracy in the whole region, its government unable to assert central control of its territory since 1958, making it the best avenue for foreign meddlers.  

According to Clement Moore Henry, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, who spent four years in the 1980s teaching at the American University of Beirut, Hariri’s killing should be read as part of an increasingly unstable Middle East.  

“I’m not at all convinced that Syrians per se are behind this attack,” Henry explains. Hariri’s assassination was a sign that the power structure in Syria was weakening and that President Bashar was no longer totally in control.  

“If a Syrian hand has to be found behind this attack it must be found with the separate faction that operates inside the country’s secret service, like those linked to Lebanon’s Amal and Hezbollah,” Henry says.  

The two Shiite resistance organizations both enjoy Syria’s support but are often at each other’s throat. Amal, an indigenous Islamic group, operates mostly in southern Lebanon and some urban areas like Beirut. The Hezbollah is dominant in the Beqaa Valley and the southern districts of Beirut. It was formed in 1982 when Syria, in a horse-trade with Iran for its oil, allowed some 1,000 Pasdran-Iranian revolutionary guards to set up shop in the Syrian occupied eastern part of the country.  

The anti-American and anti-Western European Hezbollah is active in southern Lebanon. Iran recruited hundreds of young members of Lebanon’s Al-Da’wa—a Shiite fundamentalist group—and members of Islamic Amal, an offshoot of Amal. In 1985 the leadership of Hezbollah pledged allegiance to Khomeini and to the ideal of an Islamic state in Lebanon. Hezbollah was also responsible for a series of bombings in Beirut, which killed hundreds of French and American Marines and led to the withdrawal of the U.S. and French peace contingents from that country.  

The idea that Shiites are trying to muscle in on Lebanon is not new even to King Abdullah of Jordan. Talking to the Washington Post last December, the Hashemite ruler affirmed that Iran was attempting to “create a Shiite crescent from Iran to Syria, and Lebanon.” Although he immediately retracted his remarks following a firestorm unleashed by the Iranians, the monarch gave voice to an unspoken regional concern: Shiite control of Iraq could jump-start militant Shiite-based alliances in other countries in the Middle East.  

Even as he tries to disprove King Abdullah’s theory, Mourhaf Jouejati, a Syrian foreign policy expert and director of the Middle East program at George Washington University, admits the king’s thesis isn’t far-fetched. Jouejati writes in an online periodical that Shiite dominance in Iraq could fill the divide—political and geographical —that runs between Iran and Syria, where the Allawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, still holds power and has been wary of the transition of power from Hafiz el-Assad to his son Bashar.  

The extent of Iran’s Shiite reach could be bolstered by Lebanese Shiites and the Damascus-backed Hezbollahs. The specter of Iranian-Shiite influence is so credible, says Jouejati, that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait—which all have a sizeable and repressed Shiite communities -- tried unsuccessfully to delay the Iraqi elections.  

Lebanon, where Shiites are among the poorest of the poor, is a fertile ground for the “Shiite crescent.” In a country famous as an international tax haven, poor people are hit with an overbearing gasoline tax—40 percent of the consumer price.  

Last May, reacting to a government announcement of a new tax hike on gasoline, Shiites of Beirut’s southern neighborhoods took to the streets, triggering a riot that led to the death of six people and left the neighborhood of Hay al-Soulom ablaze. The speed with which the riot spread, like that of burning oil on water, led many observers to believe a hidden hand was directing it. Then came the Hariri assassination.  

Paolo Pontoniere is the San Francisco-based correspondent of Focus, Italy’s leading monthly magazine. e

The short-lived labor action at the Oaks Theater has ended in a settlement, and the picket line has vanished outside the Art Deco showcase at 1875 Solano Ave. 

The pickets stopped Friday evening, after the theater’s new operator and a union representative reached an accord that will end the job of one union member and enable the other, Richard Graves, to work the final year needed to achieve full retirement benefits. 

The settlement will go to union members for ratification at a meeting tonight (Tuesday).  

The dispute began after Allen Michaan, owner of Renaissance Rialto Inc., sold his lease to Metropolitan Theatres of Los Angeles. 

David Corwin, the fourth generation of Corwins to serve as president of the 115-screen family-owned Metropolitan chain, began operations with the intent of eliminating both union positions, though Corwin said he planned to retain one of the workers for the time being. 

“We’re pleased,” said Corwin, president of Metropolitan. “We tried from the beginning to take care of Richard Graves, and he’ll be able to retire with full union benefits.” 

“They wanted us to promise that we’d go away at the end of the year,” said Jason Mottley, business agent for Local 169 of The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada (IATSE). 

“There’s no way we would agree to that,” he said. 

It remains to be seen whether the job will remain a union position after Graves’ retirement. 

“I wish we’d had more time before we took over,” Corwin said, lamenting beginning his ownership at the Oaks amidst labor strife. “As it was, we ran out of time.” 

“When they found out we were going to picket, they made a ridiculous offer,” Mottley said. “We could fight, but they said they would rather close than continue” with both union workers. 

“It’s a matter of economics,” said Corwin. “The economics of the business have changed.” 

Like other unions, IATSE has been losing ground since former President Ronald Reagan smashed the air traffic controllers union early in his administration, Mottley said. 

IATSE, which is still strong in Hollywood despite the increasing number of films and television shows shot in non-union locales and in Canada, where wages are lower, has lost ground in the projectionists’ booth. 

“Before, we represented only the projectionists in theaters, but now we’re doing manager/operators and technicians and workers at specialty art centers,” Mottley said. 

Local 169 represents projectionists at the Saul Zaentz Film Center and at two locations on the UC Berkeley campus—the Pacific Film archive and Wheeler Auditorium—as well as some workers at the Landmarks Theater on Shattuck, the California Theater and Act I & 2 in downtown Berkeley. 

Giant chains like Regal Theaters, the largest motion picture exhibitor in the country and the operators of the UA Berkeley 7 multiplex on Shattuck Avenue, have no unions in their shops except at those in Chicago and New York, where unions remain relatively strong. 

Mottley said he was pleased with the enthusiastic response to the pickets, but feared the union would have been unable to maintain the enthusiasm if the labor dispute stretched from days into months.  

“Jason was reasonable,” said Corwin. “We all had a common goal in hand and we were glad to be able to reach an agreement.”

In Michelle Carter’s San Francisco State workshop entitled “Writing in the Public Context,” we are to develop a project that requires us to step out of our daily routines and do something we wouldn’t normally do. 

For example, we might sit weekly in the same seat at the Oakland airport and watch what goes on around us. We can volunteer at a nursing home or rehab center, attend a Log Cabin Republican meeting, or take up sky diving. We are not to do anything dangerous, but at the same time we should take a few non-threatening risks, by going somewhere physically or mentally that is unfamiliar. 

Each week we are to report to the class about our findings. Eventually we are to go further and deeper into our subject matter to mine the material and, in the end, to discover things about ourselves and the world around us.  

I decided to hang out at the barbecue joint where my husband’s attendant works part-time. My plan was to sit and observe and then report back to my classmates what I had learned. A barbecue restaurant on San Pablo Avenue is not a place I would normally patronize, but when I walked down there with Willie several weeks ago I discovered that there was no table service. Customers stroll in, order, wait, and then leave. It’s a serious, no-nonsense take-out establishment, not the kind of eatery that emphasizes atmosphere or leisurely dining service. Food arrives at the counter packaged in Styrofoam and plastic or covered in paper and foil.  

I had to change my strategy. Instead of observing where Willie works, I would file reports on my walk with him. The two-mile hike that meanders southwest from my house in North Oakland to the edge of Emeryville takes about 30 minutes, plenty of time for me to get into trouble.  

But Willie is doing his best to keep me in line. We start by turning left at 54th and then cutting over to West Street. At 40th we turn right, then left onto Market until it temporarily dead ends at the freeway. From there it’s only a block to San Pablo Avenue and Doug’s B.B.Q.  

I’ve driven most of the route before but walking it with Willie is a different experience altogether. He insists on staying streetside, protecting me from falling off the curb and into the gutter. He says hello to everyone we pass by and in return we receive good wishes and blessings. On the way to Doug’s we pass six churches and several nail and hair braiding salons. We also pass a bright yellow Mexican restaurant and a car wash that offers barbecue, sodas and recorded music under colorful flapping plastic flags.  

Last Friday we stopped at the Fair Deal Meat Company, a place I’d never been before. While Willie ordered sliced American cheese and cooked ham, I peered inside long refrigerated display cases that held pig’s feet, ham hocks, rabbit, and quail. The proprietor insisted that I try some head cheese, and when I demurred he wrapped up a slice and instructed me to eat it later. 

Willie and I walked around the corner to Doug’s where I met his bosses and co-workers. Then I headed back home, exactly the way Willie and I had come, passing by 37th Street Baptist Church, Hot Dog’s B.B.Q., R A Carwash, Lyna’s Nails and Kinks Hair Salon. 

When I got home I unwrapped the head cheese from its wax paper package and took a small bite. It was hot and spicy and if I hadn’t known what it was composed of, I might have consumed all of it. But something about pig’s brains got in the way of my enjoyment and I rewrapped it and put it in the refrigerator. 

I have 12 more weeks of class, I reasoned, before I have to do the full-on, out-of-body experience. Maybe I’ll get my hair done at Kinks, wash a few cars at R A’s, or flip some burgers at Hot Dog’s. At any rate, I’ve got some time to think about it. n

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas

TEACHERS’ CONTRACT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Like other parents with children in the Berkeley Unified School District, I am saddened to see the teachers engage in a work action in retaliation for the continued absence of a work contract. The teachers must be helped to understand what the parents and taxpayers observe daily, that the school system is engaged in an unprecedented behavior that keeps Berkeley taxes high, its schools troubled and its teachers under-compensated. Rather than guard access to Berkeley schools as all other districts do, a third to a half of each class is made up of free-riders drawn as far away as Hayward and Hercules but mostly from Oakland and Richmond. Berkeley engages in this costly behavior as its own protest against the injustice of the existence of impoverished districts. While Berkeley’s unique stand against enforcing residency is understandable as an expression of our city’s politics, it saddles all participants with an unfair burden. Albany, Piedmont and Orinda have better teaching and learning conditions because they are not using the schools to make a political stand. Teachers cannot thoughtfully protest the effects of Berkeley policies without considering the wisdom of those policies.  

David Baggins 

• 

SOCIAL SECURITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Some of my fellow Berkeley residents are Republicans. I know, so I try to be open minded. 

But recently, my tolerance was attenuated when I heard that outside Sen. Rick Santorum’s Social Security town hall meeting in Philadelphia, some Republicans were doing a Berkeley-style protest, chanting:  

“Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Social Security has got to go.” 

Evidently some Republicans want to go beyond the foolishness of “privatizing” Social Security (i.e. selling it to Wall Street, home of the Enron scam). They actually want to eliminate the program. 

I heard about that protest after recently attending a slide show on campus about all the New Deal construction projects. (Local examples: the former Farm Credit Building and our Rose Garden.) 

Eliminate Social Security? Sure, how about getting rid of Medicare too? Privatize all the schools. Get rid of the buses, along with AMTRAK. 

What on earth is the matter with these Republicans? Do they live in the same country, let alone on the same planet? Perhaps not; they don’t see global warming as a problem. 

It sure is hard to be “liberal” about Bush’s Republicans. I wish they’d just stick to being anti-choice, anti-gay, pro-oil and pro-war.  

Steve Geller 

• 

PRESERVING WHAT? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mr. Alan Tobey wrote that Gale Garcia’s defense of preservation did not “help the preservationist cause most of us espouse” (Daily Planet, Feb. 25-28). Though Mr. Tobey has opined on subjects as diverse as 30-year-old wines, West Berkeley Bowl expansion, and his African safari, he remains silent on preservation. While he suggests we must compromise with “creative destruction,” he gives no clue as to what he means when he calls himself a preservationist, and therefore what he would preserve. It’s easy to criticize, but far more difficult to actually take a stand and adopt a position on a development. His use of qualifying adjectives is not reassuring—if we only preserve what is “truly distinctive,” don’t we lose the underlying historical and cultural context that our national, state and local preservation laws were especially drafted to protect? 

Jerry Sulliger 

• 

BRENNAN’S, CELIA’S 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was perplexed by Alan Tobey’s response to an earlier letter of mine—there was no hint that he’d actually read it. I did not “passionately denounce” any particular type of developer (although that might be a fine idea). Since Mr. Tobey introduced the topic of developer types, I’ll say a word about the corporation behind the proposal to demolish Brennan’s and Celia’s. 

The Urban Housing Group is a recently formed development arm of Marcus & Millichap, the largest real estate investment brokerage company in the nation. A survey of their investors was conducted in 2004, and published in a report called 2005 Real Estate Investor Outlook, offering insight into the values of the company. The report details how many billions of dollars of property transactions the company closed in years 2003 and 2004, and concludes with a tion entitled, “A Vote of Confidence for Bush.” 

The report repeatedly refers to disturbing vacancy rates in commercial and residential real estate. “’What is surprising is the level of optimism among respondents, particularly at a point when pricing is at an all-time high and property fundamentals have not improved all that much,’ says Hessam Nadji, managing director of research services at Marcus & Millichap. ‘One explanation is that a dearth of alternative investments is driving capital to real estate at a feverish pace’, Nadji says.” 

What a relief—no danger of insensitive profiteer developers here! 

Gale Garcia 

• 

SMART GROWTH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been following with interest the ongoing debate about preservation and “Smart Growth” but need some clarification on the terminology. I know what preservation means, but am a little fuzzy on “Smart Growth.” Sounds like a buzz-phrase to me, reminiscent of “Clean Air Act,” “Healthy Forests Initiative” and “No Child Left Behind.” (Perhaps Emeryville could advise us.) 

Christopher Osborn 

• 

BIG BUILDING PLANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There is a mania going on right now. Big plans for big building and we need to take a hard look at why that is a dumb idea. 

  Casinos on the Wetlands, Wal-Marts, downtown Oakland and Jack London Square, UC Berkeley’s expansion plan including Gill Tract and downtown Berkeley, and the Bay Bridge. 

  Take the Bay Bridge debacle for example. The plan was bad to begin with. Retrofitting the old bridge made more sense. The new bridge had no good plan, has been loud, expensive and completely devastating to the bay and it probably won’t save any lives. It should never have been started!  

  All of the above plans are short sighted and destructive. They will use incredible resources, ultimately draining the public with little in return, unless you are the building industry. They are detrimental to the environmental, economic and historical characters of our communities. Most people have little information on exactly what is being planned! These projects are trying to attract a customer base that is harmed by their very construction. Bad planning. There are hundreds of “for rent” and” for lease” signs out there now. We don’t need more construction! Certainly not to be locked into these mega plans. 

We should be using our resources on positive improvements to the actual lives of the people in the Bay Area; caring for people, education, sustainable agriculture, real green science and upkeep and use of our existing buildings. The planners do us a dis-service with these mega building plans. 

Tierra Dulce 

Oakland 

• 

NOTE TO PETER HILLIER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

At the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association meeting of Feb. 24, Transportation Manager Peter Hilllier was invited to hear and respond to issues of traffic and parking. The moderator posed rather pointed questions about past difficulties in getting timely information from the Transportation Department. Rather than respond, Mr. Hillier left the meeting in a snit, reinforcing the perception that communication with the department is problematic. I would like to say to Mr. Hillier: We, the residents of Berkeley, pay your salary; you work for us and answer to us. If your brittle ego can’t stand the pressures of public office, please retire and make way for someone with more open communication skills. Council member Laurie Capitelli was also a guest at the meeting, and in marked contrast, he was open, receptive, and helpful in other discussion. Our thanks to him. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

AGAIN WITH THE  

POLICE BLOTTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m convinced that when or if Richard Brenneman or a member of his family becomes the victim of a violent crime, his very next Police Blotter will not contain as much “entertaining reading.” Your editorial response to letter writer Dan Brekke (Feb. 15-17) is exactly the same as when other concerned people have written to criticize Brenneman’s crudity: you mirror it with a letter from somebody who thinks it’s funny. There will always be somebody like that. By responding in this fashion, you’re like a pendulum. Is that what mindful judgment is really all about—a mechanical display of tit for tat? Personal crime is not the same as a parking issue or a building dispute. You must look at it for what it is—a very personal loss—and you need to show respect to victims. That isn’t done by making a funny story out of it. This is what Dan Brekke was trying to tell you, and he did it well. To Dan and the others who’ve written the Daily Planet with the same criticism and been treated this way: Unfortunately, most journalists simply cannot be wrong; they might admit errors of fact (begrudgingly), but not of judgment. For them, presenting differing opinions is enough. Sadly, we just have to live with it. This particular situation may not change until the writer or perhaps his publisher friend suffers a personal loss of some sort and very quickly sees the light. Or maybe until somebody of better judgment they respect convinces them to “tone it down,” as they seemed to do for an issue or two awhile back. 

Sandy Rothman 

This March marks the beginning of a third year of negotiations between the Berkeley Federation of Teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District, and we have yet to reach a settlement. Over 25 negotiations sessions occurred before impasse was declared in June of 2004, and now the process is directed by a state mediator. Because progress has been minimal, extremely slow and frustrating, Berkeley teachers have worked without a salary increase for the past two years. At the same time, our working conditions have deteriorated. Class sizes have increased dramatically in grades 4-12, as has the amount of assessments and paperwork that we are required to submit. Despite limited and inadequate instructional supplies, we have been asked to assume a range of new responsibilities, well beyond our workday.  

The Berkeley Federation of Teachers has bargained with the utmost integrity and believe that we have not made unreasonable demands. It is true that the district is recovering from a large deficit. This is why Berkeley teachers have not asked for a retroactive increase. We are asking for no more than our fair share of increased revenues that the district will receive for the school year 2005-06 and beyond. Teachers should not be the district’s last priority for spending.  

Our union is also aware that the cost of health benefits has increased significantly over the past few years. This is why we have offered to shoulder a fair share of the increase.  

We are thrilled that Berkeley’s taxpayers approved Measure B; this will result in smaller classes for the next two years in BUSD. This is why we are proposing class size maximums in grades K-12, for as long as smaller classes are funded by the local parcel tax. Most school districts have class size maximums in their teacher contracts, but there are currently no class size limits at the secondary level in BUSD. Meanwhile, teachers face more than 40 students in some academic classes and over 50 students in some physical education classes at BHS.  

Our superintendent is justifiably concerned that our district maintain financial sustainability into the future and we support her interests in this area. However, we believe that it is unfair to ask employees to shoulder increased health care costs while, at the same time, receive no salary increase. This would result in a net effect pay cut were we to accept it.  

We maintain that with proper budgeting and planning, the district could afford to fund salary increases for certificated and classified employees with at least a portion of the over 4 percent cost of living allocation that the District will receive from the state for the 2005-06 school year. We also maintain that our class size proposal will not hurt the district financially.  

The Berkeley Federation of Teachers is committed to getting a fair settlement and avoiding a strike if at all possible. However, we cannot continue to conduct “business as usual” within the district, given the progress of negotiations. Therefore, after receiving feedback from all schools in the district, our executive board has voted to “work to contract” until further notice. This means that teachers will work only the hours specified as our duty day rather than the 50- to 60-hour weeks that we often work to plan curriculum and homework, produce materials for students, evaluate student work, communicate with families, serve on committees, coordinate special events and provide extra help well beyond the school day and on weekends. We hope that parents and guardians will understand our position and support us as negotiations continue. 

I have proudly worked in Berkeley Unified School District for the past 10 years. I was the principal of Jefferson School, a teacher at King Middle School, and now, as a teacher on special assignment, coordinate beginning teacher support for the district, in addition to my work with the teachers’ Union. In order for Berkeley to recruit and maintain high quality teachers, we must remain competitive in salary with other Bay Area districts and provide working conditions that support optimum student achievement. I sincerely hope that BFT and BUSD reach agreement very soon. Until that time, teachers will continue to work to contract and wear red armbands to symbolize our anger at the lack of progress in negotiations and also our passion for teaching. We want the contract to be settled so that only our passion remains. 

Jan Goodman is a teacher in the Berkeley Unified School District. 



During the last four years I have believed it inappropriate, as superintendent of Berkeley schools, to engage in newspaper debates, so I have refrained from ever responding to letters to the editor. However, because the recent attack by Michael Larrick (Letters, Feb. 25-28) on public education and Berkeley teachers was so ill considered and uninformed, I am compelled to respond. 

In a state where students have to sue the government in order to receive access to books and bathrooms, the disdain that Mr. Larrick shows for teachers and public education is not surprising. Surveys indicate that teachers feel less respected by society as a whole than they do by their students. This lack of respect is manifested in the vulgar belief that anyone can teach, an attitude that in part has helped contribute to the consistently low pay and status for teachers.  

Perhaps the question is, if anyone can teach, why don’t they? One reason is teachers’ salaries. While it is true that California teachers receive the highest salary of all teachers nationwide, California teachers actually place 32nd on the national salary index when adjusted for the cost of living and earn 8.4 percent less than the national average. Lack of a salary increase and the money to support such is the current anguish and conflict in our own District. The governor’s budget proposal robs Berkeley of $1.5 million this year and last.  

In 1998, U.S. teachers ages 22-28 earned an average of $7,894 less per year than other college-educated adults of the same age. From 1994-1998, salaries for master’s degree holders outside teaching increased 32 percent, or $17,505, while the average salary for teachers increased less than $200. In 2002, new teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area earned an average annual salary of $34,580. This works out to be approximately $7,700 less than the state estimates it actually takes to live in the Bay area. 

Contrary to Mr. Larrick’s contention, the “real world” does not send teachers scurrying to classrooms; more teachers leave the profession each year than enter it. With urban, high-poverty schools losing nearly 20 percent of their workforce each year, it should come as no surprise that almost half of all first- and second-year California teachers are unqualified. Yet, this “current crop” of teachers is arguably the most qualified of any to date. It should please our community to know that Berkeley has the highest percentage of fully credential teachers in the County, and the highest number holding a National Board Certification. The standards set by No Child Left Behind require that all teachers be certified and hold a degree in their subject specialty. Such a requirement is laudable, but it would still exclude non-credentialed physicists, like Edward Teller, from teaching in our public schools. Why? Because being an effective teacher requires more than subject matter knowledge. It requires an understanding of learning and pedagogical theories, of lesson plan design and classroom management, of second-language acquisition, of how best to attend to the needs of as many as 200 different students every day, many of whom enter our schools ill-prepared, hungry, and neglected. Do all teachers currently employed in our public schools possess this knowledge? Hardly. But lowering professional standards will not raise the quality of the profession or the quality of our schools. Neither will complaining about the quality while simultaneously cutting financial support for teacher training and staff development programs, which is exactly what initiating vouchers and the Governor’s proposals would do. 

The National Center for Educational statistics and a recent Harris poll of urban teachers supplies these additional facts: 

• Teacher certification and experience have been found to be two of the strongest and most consistent predictors of student achievement. 

• The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that requires a licensure examination in addition to the examinations given by the teacher education institution. 

• More teachers leave private or charter schools than public. 

• Over half (54 percent) of science teachers report that they do not have enough equipment and materials necessary to do science lab work, such as lab stations, lab tools and materials. 

• Nearly a third (32 percent) of teachers report that there are not enough copies of textbooks for all students to take home.  

• Nearly a third (29 percent) of teachers report that they have seen evidence of cockroaches, rats, or mice in their school.  

• Over a third (39 nine percent) of teachers rate their facilities as only fair or poor. 

I am honored to work in a community that has generously demonstrated that it values and supports education by approving several local tax measures. However, after working 34 years in California public schools, I can say without reservation that the decline of state funding for public education has reached its nadir, and local measures cannot sustain Berkeley for long. Moreover, the governor’s new proposals are certain to make matters worse and are, to my mind, morally reprehensible.  

It saddens me that individuals like Mr. Larrick cannot see how their misdirected contempt is helping to dismantle public education as an institution that has been the cornerstone of our democracy.  

Michele Lawrence is superintendent of the Berkeley Unified School District. 



Although not a Christo groupie, when I got the offer of a free place to crash on Manhattan’s Upper East Side I couldn’t resist Jet Blueing to the Big Apple to take in “The Gates.” I wasn’t the only Berkeleyite who made the pilgrimage to the Central Park saffron spectacle staged by Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude. In my week-long whirlwind adventure of Gates-gazing and copious noshing, I kept bumping into Berkeley folks—at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the Stage Deli, on Broadway and in the park itself. 

While in New York I heard mostly positive comments about “The Gates,” from natives and visiting out-of-towners alike. But, being New York City, there was of course no lack of complaining. Quite a few deplored the $20 million cost of the 7,500 gates, calling it an obscene waste of money. Others grouched that Christo had desecrated Frederick Law Olmsted’s perfect park. Then there’s the Greek cab driver who transported me and a friend from JFK airport to the City. A self-described poet and not one to mince words, he ridiculed Christo’s creation as “a bunch of shower curtains.” 

Well, sure, they were indeed that, but much, much more. 

My personal break down of “The Gates” is that they managed to be both wonderfully idiotic and surprisingly beautiful at the same time. Certainly, Christo and Jeanne-Claude deserve kudos for luring hundreds of thousands to Central Park for a huge Be-In on each of the 16 days “The Gates” stood. And the faces of those I saw parading under the orange arches were almost always happy ones. “The Gates” began to be dismantled yesterday (Monday). 

“The Gates” also worked in other ways. Just the thought of the colossal chutzpah it took for Christo and Jeanne-Claude to conceive of and actually pull off their insane idea had me chuckling more than once. And whether you loved or hated “The Gates,” they compelled you to think and talk about the meaning and function of art. My lefty buddies, in particular, should be grateful they gave us something less depressing to discuss besides the daily horrors of the Bush reign. 

On yet a further level, by colorfully highlighting the contours of the park paths, “The Gates” forced you to appreciate Olmstead’s grand design from a unique perspective. This was especially true after the park was covered by snowfall, producing stunning white and bright orange contrasts. And watching a procession of “The Gates” when a gust of wind got their fabrics flapping in unison or catching a glimpse of saffron through the leafless tree branches was really neat. 

In addition, “The Gates” were a tremendous financial success. Entrepreneurial geniuses as much as artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude earned back the millions they personally fronted to pay for their cost by selling the sketches and plans for the project to collectors. So, essentially, the rich guys who bought their stuff paid for the whole deal. Plus, all the substantial profits from sales of hats, T-shirts, post cards, posters, books and assorted memorabilia will go to support the Central Park Conservancy and other local parks. It’s also been estimated “The Gates” will bring in close to $100 million in extra tourist dollars to the New York City, a windfall for hotels, restaurants and retailers, not to mention the chauffeurs of the famed Central Park horse-drawn carriages. 

Given my favorable impression of “The Gates,” I’ll definitely make an effort to check out Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s next artistic enterprise. And, hey, since they have loads of Berkeley fans, maybe we can convince them that following Central Park, People’s Park is the natural choice. 

o

Deep in the recesses of LaVal’s Subterranean, Philip Wharton is about to unlock his word-hoard. Dressed simply as a scop or scald, ancient bard and reciter, he begins alliteratively in Anglo-Saxon, then switches seamlessly into Modern English, his translation of Beowulf, heroes and monsters sketched in with graceful gestures and quick grimaces. 

From above, the Sunday night noise of LaVal’s becomes that of a rude mead-hall in the tale spun out before us. 

Beowulf, the story of the hero of the Geats (seafaring people of southeastern Sweden) on a mission of monster-abatement to the Danes, long a staple of English Lit surveys, has garnered new interest by the translation of Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. 

In sinewy, rhythmic verse, the hero-tale tells of Beowulf’s triumph over the anthropomorphous yet man-devouring Grendel (“the master-butcher”) and his even more ferocious mother, bent on revenge (“She took her son’s bloody arm away, and sorrow returned to the house”), and of his Pyrrhic victory over the more conventional treasure-guarding dragon (a.k.a. worm, firedrake) in old age (“So must every man give up his borrowed days.”) 

Replete with epithets—“whale road” or “swan’s road” for sea, “sea-treader” for ship—that remind one of Homer’s “wine-dark sea” and “rosy fingers of dawn,” Beowulf alternates between extremes: of a rough existence on the edge of brutality with bright moments of celebration (“the hearth rang out and the poet sang”), of chivalric boasts and bloody street-fighting tactics, of appeals to Christian belief (“Now his soul awaits the terrible brightness of God’s judgment”) with pagan tribal customs (the hero’s cremated and interred in a barrow he commissioned). 

Indeed, the turnaround is swift—“The world’s candle was shining, the mighty sun from the south—until in the dark night something else began to wield power ...” 

Besides the alliterative rolling of the verse, and the stark portrayal of a remote time and way of life, Beowulf’s attraction comes from the clarity of that picture, of the little vignettes and details of that life. In Philip Wharton’s telling, there’s not a slack moment nor hazy word. His smooth transitions (assisted by light changes and blackouts, his daughter at the board) and movements syncopate the rippling verbal flow, and set up the cameo portrayals of men and monsters, a flicker of the eye or swift gesture. 

Wharton’s an exponent of the acting technique of Michael Chekhov (nephew of the great playwright) , and its subtlety shows in the breadth and range of expression, all modulated to a storyteller’s presence, one the audience immediately responds to and follows throughout. The only scenic element, besides what the teller provides, is a stool—appropriately, Danish Modern.  

Commenting on his translation—“no pretensions at scholarship, but with hope that it has some value as poetry and theatre”—Wharton noted he began with Heaney’s translation, but was unable to get permission to perform it. He wondered whether he should follow the text from Julian Glover’s Beowulf , which took off in part from Edwin Morgan’s translation. 

(In the thick of the praise over Heaney’s, Edwin Morgan’s version stands out as supple and clear, tinged with the grimness of struggle in WW II Britain. Morgan, now 80, is being hailed as the greatest living Scots poet; his translation was published by UC Press, and is now available through Carcanet). 

Finally deciding to do his own, Wharton originally wrote in prose, but “I couldn’t get away from the rhythms of the alliteration.” 

There have been fine translations made for telling orally before. The fluidity of Wharton’s translation and delivery just accent the quaintness of the strange Classical echoes (and Scriptural confusions) in a Nordic landscape—Grendel, reminiscent of Polyphemus the Cyclops in The Odyssey, is of the race of Cain, from which also sprang giants who did battle with God. (An Old English poet once referred to “Christ, the gentle shepherd of Greece.”) 

And, like the Homeric epics, it seems Beowulf was told a thousand years ago about a time long before its telling, even then a quaint, twilit antiquity for the time of Charlemagne. Hearing Philip Wharton bring it—and the storyteller’s art—to life again makes it plain why Ezra Pound began his Cantos with Odysseus’ voyage to the underworld in a style drawn from his translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem “The Seafarer.” Both are our heritage, completely different and irretrievably mixed together in our speech. 



After that long siege of rain, it’s been warm enough this week for the turtles to be out basking. You can see them at Jewel Lake in Tilden Regional Park: the larger, darker ones are western pond turtles, the Bay Area’s only native chelonians; the green stripy ones with red patches on their necks are red-eared sliders, the descendants of inconvenient pets who were released in the lake. (“Slider” here pertains to a group of freshwater turtles, not to a curving fastball or a small hamburger.) Their lives appear peaceful, apart from the occasional jostle over the best spot on the log. 

Overall, though, western pond turtles aren’t doing so well. Like most freshwater creatures in California, they’ve lost a lot of habitat to farmland and urban sprawl. The streams they favor have been drowned by reservoirs; their hatchlings have been eaten by exotic bullfrogs. In the 19th century, thousands were harvested for the tables of San Francisco, selling for $3 to $6 a dozen; you could order local turtle at the Palace Hotel. Our resident subspecies, Clemmys marmorata pallida, is a California Species of Special Concern, and both it and the northern C. m. marmorata have been proposed for federal endangered status.  

According to the Turtle Conservation Fund, two-thirds of the world’s 270-odd land and freshwater turtle species are at risk of extinction. The Asian food and traditional medicine market takes a heavy toll, with wild-caught turtles from Burma and Indonesia shipped by the ton to China. And there’s a brisk and often illegal international pet trade: like parrots and orchids, some turtle species have been prized to the point of extinction. 

But all that may just be prelude to the big hit. Turtles, it seems, are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Global warming could throw the sex ratios of turtle populations out of whack, leading to a terminal demographic crisis. 

We tend to think of sex determination as being all in the chromosomes. In most mammals (and in some insects, oddly enough), the X’s and Y’s dictate an offspring’s sex. If you get an X chromosome from your father, you become female; if you get Dad’s Y, you’re male. I say “most” because of the duck-billed platypus, which was recently discovered to have a set of 10 sex-determining chromosomes, and the howler monkey, which has 4. Birds have an analogous “ZW” system, in which a ZZ combination creates a male while ZW makes for a female. 

But reptiles are different. In almost all turtles, as well as alligators and crocodiles, some lizards, and the lizardlike tuataras of New Zealand, temperature during the first trimester of incubation dictates sex. At temperatures below approximately 30 C (86 F), turtle embryos develop into males; above 30, into females. I haven’t found specific studies of western pond turtles, but the phenomenon has been documented in many of their relatives, including the European pond turtle, painted turtles, map turtles, and sliders. The exceptions to the rule are snapping turtles, which produce females at warm or cool incubation temperatures and males at intermediate temperatures, and softshell turtles, whose eggs seem unaffected by temperature. Crocodilians show a reverse pattern: females at lower temperatures, males at higher.  

And fish are something else again. The sex of a juvenile Australian coral goby becomes the opposite of that of its first adult partner. This might not seem unusual to a visitor from Ursula LeGuin’s planet Gethen, but it’s fairly strange by Terran standards. 

Back to the turtles, though. Two French biologists, C. Pieau and M. Dorrizi at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris, have worked out the mechanism for temperature-dependent sex determination in European pond turtles and two sea turtle species. At higher temperatures, the enzyme aromatase floods the gonads of the turtle embryos with estrogens. Experimental treatment with aromatase inhibitors and anti-estrogens turns off the temperature effect, producing male hatchlings at higher temperatures. 

And real-world studies have reinforced the lab work. Frederic Janzen of the University of Chicago spent five years monitoring a population of painted turtles on an island on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. He found a strong correlation between average air temperatures in July—the critical period for sex determination, when incubation begins—and the sex of the hatchlings. In one year, 1992, all the hatchlings Janzen censused were female; in 1988, all were male. 

You see where this is going. Janzen projects that with an increase of four degrees in July mean temperatures over the next century—well within the parameters of climate change models—the result will be “an eventual extinction of this painted turtle population because no males will be produced.” The only hope would be a shift to earlier nesting dates. And although some creatures, notably migratory birds have already shown signs of adaptation to a warming earth, turtles are not known for their behavioral flexibility.  

It’s been speculated that skewed sex ratios driven by climate change may have contributed to the decline of the dinosaurs before the meteor finished them off. Maybe so, if their sex-determination system was more like that of alligators than that of their probable surviving next of kin, the birds.  

Granted, the extinction of turtles is not the first consequence of global warming you’re going to worry about if you’re a tropical medicine specialist, or a resident of New Orleans or Bangladesh.  

But the danger appears to be real. And what an ironic way to lose creatures that have become such icons of durability. In a drawer in UC’s Museum of Paleontology, there’s the shell of a western pond turtle from the Blackhawk Ranch fossil quarry. It’s about 10 million years old, and it looks like it could have come from Jewel Lake last week. It would be a shame if a species that outlived the four-tusked gomphotheres and sabertoothed nimravids finally succumbed to an excess of carbon dioxide. e

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.  

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.  

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

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

THURSDAY, MARCH 3 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Outside the Box” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free First Thursdays. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems Reading Series with Eugene Ostashevsky at 12:10 p.m. at the Morrison Library in Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137. http://lunchpoems.berkeley.edu 

Georgina Kleege and Katherine Sherwood Gallery Conversation in conjuction with the exhibition “Blind at the Museum” at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

Gillian Conoley, featured poet at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Morteza Baharloo reads from his novel of Iran “The Quince Seed Potion” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Elz J. Cuya and Myron Hardy Jr. with Sonya Renee at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mutabaraka, DUB poet, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054.  

Against the Empire A night of radical folk legends with Robb Johnson, David Rovics and Folk This! at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674-A 23rd St. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

Celtic Fiddle Festival, with Kevin Burke, Christian Lemaitre and Andre Brunet at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761.  

Charming Hostess, Dina Maccabee at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Sebastien Lanson, solo jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Adoration Machine, Evacuee, The New Usual at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Pat Martino Quartet in a tribute to Wes Montgomery at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, MARCH 4 

EXHIBITIONS 

Jeremy Kirsch Photographic Portraits. Reception at 8 p.m. at Auto 3321 Gallery, 3321 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Exhibition runs to March 31. www.freewebs.com/ 

autoartgallery 

Boontling Gallery “Overhung,” Works by over 50 Bay Area artists. Opening reception at 7:30 p.m. Exhibition runs to March 15, at 4224 Telegraph Ave. www.4leagueindustries.com 

“The Journey of Staying,” mobile sculpture by Stan Huncilman. Reception at 5:30 p.m. at Atelier Gallery, 1812B Sixth St. Exhibition runs to March 25. 486-1485. www.ateliergallery.com  

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Bending the Beat” at 7:30 p.m at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

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. www.auroratheatre.org 

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 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “Buried Child” on the disintigration of the American Dream, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through March 13, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $10. 524-9132. www.CCCT.org 

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

Shotgun Players “The Just” by Albert Camus. Thurs.- Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through April 10. Tickets are sliding scale $10-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

UC Theater, “Three Sisters” a contemporary staging of Chekhov’s drama, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. Mar. 6 at 7 p.m., Sun. Mar. 13 at 2 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14. 642-9925. http://theater.berkeley.edu 

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 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ward Churchill talks about “Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

The Great Night of Soul Poetry at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

California Bach Society “Schütz Cantiones Sacrae” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $10-$25. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org  

Dance IS Festival at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violin, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$56. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jenna Mammina, in a celebration of International Women’s Day at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Prefixo de Verão, Brazilian, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Lee Waterman’s Shake/Silver Moon Band at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Liesl’s Wet Dress at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Luke Janela with Sam Stearns at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

The J. Byrd Hosch Trio, Jug Free America, Audrey Auld Mezera, at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Phenomenauts, Rasputin, Sheephead, Stiletta at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

3 Hours Old, Alia for Release at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Richard Bitch, The Absentee, Scissor for Lefty at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Brown Baggin, funk, jazz, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Pat Martino Quartet in a tribute to Wes Montgomery at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, MARCH 5 

CHILDREN 

Jeff Smith visits with “Bone” at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Art of Living Black Art Tour” Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Richmond Convention Center. For information call 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Exhibitions of Expression” a conference and forum for Asian Americans in art, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. 643-5497. httpp://multicultural.berkeley.edu/apasd/conference2005 

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Our Cosmos, Our Chaos” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Smug Shift, a night of underground stand-up comedy at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 444-6174. 

John Cho, Asian American actor, on his career at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. 643-5497.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Festival at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

New Millenium Strings with Christa Pfeiffer, soprano, at 8 p.m. at the Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Donation $10-$20. 528-4633. 

Trinity Chamber Concert “Brassiosaurus” at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. http://trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Nayo Ulloa, Andean flute virtuoso at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra Recital featuring Elspeth Franks, mezzo-soprano with Daniel Lockert, piano at 8 p.m. at Crowden School Auditorium, 1475 Rose St. 601-1718.  

Marley’s Ghost at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound at 8 p.m. at the Jazz- 

school. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Beausoleil at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $20. 525-5054.  

Earl Howard and David Wessel at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Tickets are $5-$10. www.cnmat.berkeley.edu 

Vince Lateano Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

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

Braziu at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159.  

Charmless, Collisionville, The Cushion Theory at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Nasty Breeze, Kung Fu Vampire, World Wide Sickness, hip hop, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. 

Wayward Monks at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org  

Fleshies, Veronica Lipgloss & The Evil Eyes at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 6 

CHILDREN  

Gayle Schmitt & The Toodala Ramblers at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.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. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Quilt Self-Protraits” by students of Peralta Elementary School. Reception at 2 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Querida Familia” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

“Imagining Brightly Colored Flowers I Rise” The late Neala Haze’s look at a dancer’s artistic process, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mills College Music Building Concert Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Tickets are $25-$75.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Women’s History Month Lecture with JoAnn Levy discussing “Unsettling the West: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby in Frontier California” at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200.  

“Picturing Pain in Rubens’ Time and Our Own,” a panel discussion at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

“Folk and the Tales They Tell” with African-American artist and storyteller, Karen McKie at 2 p.m. at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft at College. 643-7648. 

Mildred S. Barish will discuss her book, “Tamalpais Tales: A Berkeley Neighborhood Remembers,” at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 527-0450. 

Poetry Flash with Cathy Coleman and David St. John at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pacific Boychoir with organist William Ludtke at 8 p.m. at First Church of Christ Scientist, Dwight Way at Bowditch. Tickets are $25-$30, to raise funds to replace the roof of this historic 1910 landmark. 925-376-3908. www.friendsoffirstchurch.org 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra performs “A World of Melodies” at 2:30 p.m. at the Laney College Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $5 at the door. 663-3296.  

Dance IS Festival at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Chamber Music Sundaes with Catherine Payne, flute, at 3:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets at the door $7-$19. 415-584-5946.  

Musicians from Marlboro at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $38. 642-9988.  

Volti “Left Turn @ Albuquerque” a cappella music of Cuba, Peru, Argentina and Mexico at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $8-$20. 415-771-3352. www.voltisf.org 

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series With Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand, 441B 23 St. Cost is $6-$10 sliding scale. http://music.acme.com 

Montclair Women’s Big Band at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Potential Threat at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Twang Café at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Steve Gillette & Cindy Mangsen, contemporary folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Mikey Dread, Pacific Vibrations at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $12-$15. 848-0886.  

ª

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. 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. www.edgeofwonder.com 

“Faith and Sexuality” at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Parish, 2220 Cedar St. Part of the Journey of Faith Lenten Series. 848-1755. 

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. 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 for the Natural Resources Defense Council will speak on “Environment, Health and Democracy,” at 7 p.m. at 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. 

“Fighting for Our Schools, Fighting Against Imperialism” A panel discussion on the the movements against the military, the prison-industrial complex, and school closures at 6:30 p.m. at the Oaklandish Gallery, 411 Second St., Oakland. 451-2677. www.oaklandish.org 

“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 

“Empire’s Embedded Intellectuals” with Dr. Hatem Bazian, Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies, at 7 p.m. at 110 Barrows Hall, UC Campus.  

Creating Harmony in our Lives, a workshop at Changemakers, 6536 Alcatraz, with Bonita Ford. Cost is $25. No one 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. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 4 

Annual Seed Swap Bring and get locally saved seeds and learn about BASIL, the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Outings on Fridays with Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association Tour of The Pardee House in Oakland’s City Center, at 11 a.m. Cost is $15. Reservations required. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Steve Heminger, Exec. Dir., MTC on “Improving Traffic in the East Bay.” 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.  

Trees for Haiti Benefit from 5 to 7 p.m. at What the Traveller Saw, 1880 Solano Ave. For reservations call 524-7989.  

The Berkeley Forum “Reframing the Progressive Movement” with Prof. George Lakoff at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 525-0391, ext. 376. admin@berkeleyforum.org 

“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. 

World Day of Prayer at 9:30 a.m. at McGee Avenue Baptist Church, 1640 Stuart St.  

Womansong Circle, a monthly participatory singing evening for women, celebrates Women’s History Month at 7:15 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10-$15. 525-7082. 

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

Alternative Lifelong Learning presents “Globalization and Its Impact on Iranian Culture,” with Maryam Javanshir at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center.  

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

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 5 

Sick Plant Clinic UC plant pathologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants from 9 a.m. to noon at the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

Introduction to Herbs Learn simple herbal alternatives for the cold and allergy season, on a walk to identify the plants. At 1:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

“Waterwise Gardening with California Natives,” a slide lecture with Nathan Smith at 12:30 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $20-$25, registration required. 643-2755.  

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7-12 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

Healthy Gardening at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Origami with artist, teacher and storyteller Margo Wecksler from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Bring your own wrapping paper, or use paper provided. Free. 526-3720 ext 17. 

Reports Back from the World Social Forum and the Women and Water Forum at 10 a.m. at Gray Panther Office, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Exhibitions of Expression” a conference and forum for Asian Americans in art, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. 643-5497.  

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

Hands-on Cob Workshop Get your hands dirty and learn about building houses and other structures from earth, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $20-$30, registration required. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Progressive Democrats of America, East Bay Chapter, general meeting, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Temescal Library, 5205 Telegraph, Oakland. 526-4632. 

Berkeley Forum Workshop: “Reframing Progressive Issues” from 2 to 5 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Cost is $10. 525-0391, ext 376.  

“Closing the Achievement Gap” a seminar for parents and educators, with David Berg, educational therapist, at 9 a.m. at Black Pine Circle Upper School, 2016 Seventh Ave. Pre-registration required. info@makingmathreal.org 

Women in Leadership Conference “Reflecting Forward-Celebrating Progress and Inspiring the Future” from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Haas School of Business, UC Campus. www.wilconference.org 

Osh, by Gosh! A party for Oakland Zoo’s young elephant from 9 a.m. to noon at the Oakland Zoo. Free with Zoo admission. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sun. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 333 Lancaster St., Oakland. 238-2200. 

Dr. Seuss Birthday Party with games and stories at 11 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Tickets required. 524-3043. 

“Write for Your Life: Unmasking Sorrow, Living Joy” A writing workshop with Beth Glick-Rieman from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Cost is $35. 524-2858. 

“The Bhagavad Ghita - The Mystery of Human Soul and its Symbols” at 7:30 p.m. at the New Acropolis Cultural Center, 1700 Dwight Way. Tickets are $ 7-$10. 665-3740. www.acropolis.org  

SUNDAY, MARCH 6 

Breakfast with the Birds Bring your own beverage and we’ll share pastries and wander down to the lake to see who is nesting, flirting and feeding. Binoculars available for loan. Cost is $3, registration required. 525-2233. 

Spinning Demonstration Watch the wool from the Little Farm’s sheep turn into yarn on our spinning wheel, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Work in the Garden We needs lots of help weeding, planting and preparing the garden for spring and the butterflies. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Strawberry Creek Work Party from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Please wear sturdy shoes and bring work gloves. RSVP to kateholum@yahoo.com 

Sunset Walk with the Solo Sierrans through the Emeryville Marina with quiet views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge. Paved trail, wheel chair accessible. Meet at 4 p.m. behind Chevy’s Restaurant at small parking lot. 234-8949. 

Alan Rinzler’s Writer’s Workshop at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Seating is first-come, first-served. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Institute for World Religions Book Study Group meets at 2 p.m. at Vara Healing Arts, 850 Talbot at Solano. 548-4517. 

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

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Amdo on “Entering the Bodhisattva Path” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MARCH 7 

“Returning the Tides” to Salt Ponds Briggs Nisbet, Restoration Campaigns Manager for Save the Bay, will speak on restoring nature to more than 16,000 acres of San Francisco Bay salt ponds at Friends of Five Creeks’ monthly meeting at 7 p.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin. 848-9358. f5creeks@aol.com 

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.  

Mercury in View The best views of the planet Mercury are during the next two weeks. Join us at Tilden’s Inspiration Point at 6:30 p.m. and we’ll walk down Nimitz Way. 525-2233. 

National Organization for Women, Oakland/East Bay Chapter with Lucy Sells on “The Future of the Democratic Party” at 6 p.m. at the Oakland YWCA, 1515 Webster St. 287-8948.  

Richard A. Walker, author of “The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California,” will speak on agriculture in California at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St.  

“Critical Viewing” examines the craft of short film, TV drama, and commercials from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

ONGOING 

Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour Seeks Host Gardens The tour 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. Kathy@KathyKramerConsulting.net or 236-9558.  

Collect Cleats for All Feet Donate your cleats and other sports equipment to Sports4kids Swap Shop. Donation barrels at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 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. Donations accepted at 1849 Solano Ave. through March 31. 

CITY MEETINGS 

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 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon. Mar. 7, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., Mar. 7, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

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 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., Mar. 7, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/landmarks 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Mar. 7, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/peaceandjustice 

Youth Commission meets Mon., Mar. 7, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. www.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/youthª

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. 

ª

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.” 

›

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. 

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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›

A margarine commercial of yore featured the catch phrase “you can’t fool Mother Nature.” We can no longer remember why this was supposed to prompt viewers to buy the featured brand of margarine—perhaps it contained some butter—but the concept seemed true then, and it still does.  

Take squirrels, for example. Someone years ago gave us a very fancy bird feeder as a present. It features a handsome spherical cage of metal grillwork wrapped around a mesh cylinder which holds the birdseed. The device, called “The Nuttery,” comes in a box with illustrations and prose claiming that birds could get in, but squirrels, greedy little beggars that they are, would be foiled.  

We’ve just gotten around to putting it up, and it does indeed provide an excellent opportunity for nature study, though not the one the manufacturers intended. When we opened the box, we found a plastic envelope containing “The Nuttery Extra-Protection Brackets,” with an explanation that “for those of you who have persistent and pesky ‘super’ squirrels and raccoons, we are offering these Extra-Protection Brackets to deter them.” We put them on as directed to secure the lid—no measure was too much to ensure the safety of our birdseed. We hung the feeder from a wire on the branch outside the window by my desk. 

The first day it was up no birds visited. The squirrels, however, who have become quite numerous in a yard devoted mainly to free-range oak trees, found it right away. They jumped out on to the cylinder and hung from it at every angle, trying to figure out a way to get to the seed. Within two hours one of them had gotten his teeth on the edge of the lid and learned how to pry it up a few inches, Extra-Protection Brackets and all. Perhaps we’d made some mistake in putting it together, we thought.  

The manufacturer, in England, has a lovely website, explaining the concept in detail, showing even more specific installation tips, and repeating the claim that squirrels would be foiled. Ha! Wimpy British squirrels, perhaps, but not red-blooded Berkeley squirrels. 

By the second day, the lid, which was attached not only by the Extra-Protection Brackets but by a chain, was hanging off to the side, and a clever squirrel had gotten his head in the top and was gobbling seeds. Another one had mastered a technique for hanging upside down and shaking the cage until seeds fell out into his mouth. Still no birds.  

On day three, a couple of plain titmouses, little birds with cute tufts of feathers on their heads, had finally figured out how to get inside the cage to eat the seeds. The squirrels had detached the lid completely, chain, brackets and all, and had hurled it ignominiously to the ground. They were enjoying eating the seed they’d managed to shake out.  

Today, a week later, squirrels and birds (chickadees have joined the tits) are cheerfully co-existing, sharing the seed that’s left in the feeder. And the lesson Mother Nature is teaching us here? Well, there’s no such thing as total security. 

We took a short airplane trip a couple of weeks ago, after not having flown for almost a year. We were stuck on the freeway behind an accident, so we got to the airport very late and feared that we were going to miss our plane. We raced into the terminal, thinking that we’d surely be held up in the security line. Not to worry. People were being rushed through, without even having to take off their shoes as they did on our last flight. Our check-in procedure was perfunctory, with boarding passes printed on home computers and passed over a simple bar-code reader. We were, of course, exactly who we said we were, harmless middle-aged travelers, but if we hadn’t been, who would have known? 

Nevertheless, when we sent a friend off to the airport to go back to Martinique last night we made sure he left early, because we feared that his combination of dark skin and French accent would make him a target of special scrutiny. Harassing “suspicious-looking” travelers is the “Extra-Protection Bracket” of homeland security—a pointless measure intended to impress, but adding nothing to ensure real protection.  

And there are more extreme and very serious infringements of civil liberties which are just as ineffective. In New York, lawyer Lynne Stewart is facing 35 years in jail for a minor breach of court rules in defending an accused terrorist, an act which normally would result at most in sanctions from the Bar. In Los Angeles, four Iranian brothers are in jail because they were members of an Iranian exile organization opposed to the current regime in Iran, which is also opposed by Condoleezza Rice, among others.  

Neither of these cases poses any real threat to public safety, but they are being vigorously prosecuted by the thugs who have gotten control of the federal department of justice. At the same time, countless real danger zones like chemical manufacturing plants and railroad crossings continue to be exposed to potential terrorist assault, if anyone really cared. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, while the U.S. government’s attention is diverted in Iraq.  

All of this proves once again the vanity of much that humans foolishly think we can control. If we can’t outwit squirrels for more than a couple of days, why should we think we can fool human would-be terrorists for longer?  

—Becky O’Malley 

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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