Fourteen Berkeley firefighters took home more than $30,000 in overtime last year, while six earned more than $50,000 over their base salary, city records show. 

While Fire Department overtime is projected to cost the city $2.4 million this fiscal year—about 25 percent higher than original projections—city officials contend that soaring overtime costs are the product of bad breaks, not bad management. 

“It’s just a number of bad circumstances coming together,” said City Manager Phil Kamlarz. He said an unusually high number of retirements and military, parental and sick leaves had left the department undermanned since the second half of 2004. 

The City of Berkeley projects spending $6.5 million on overtime this fiscal year, 75 percent of which will go to police and fire, according to a city report. Police overtime, also slated to cost $2.4 million this fiscal year, is in line with budget projections. Most of the remaining overtime costs is in the Public Works Department for emergency repair jobs, Kamlarz said. 

“Overtime is a serious concern,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “When firefighters make over $2 million a year, that’s a substantial chunk of change.” 

In order to reduce $1.2 million fire overtime expenses next fiscal year, Berkeley’s Fire Department is preparing to shut down up to two fire companies at a time and reduce minimum staffing levels from 34 to 28 beginning in July. 

The Fire Department’s top overtime earner for 2004 was Firefighter/EMT Mark Caldwell, who pulled in $77,042 on top of his base pay of $81,642. Following Caldwell was Firefighter/EMT Sheppard Lewis at $72,177 and Fire Apparatus Operator/EMT Charles Wong at $69,952. Wong topped the department’s salary scale last year, taking home $176,322. By comparison, in 2003, City Manager Phil Kamlarz made $173,733, according to city records. 

“For fire it’s a difficult question of how do you staff for keeping companies open,” Kamlarz said. Current city policy, he added, is to recruit new firefighters after five retirements. Soaring pension benefits have made relying on overtime more cost effective, Kamlarz said. This year, pension contributions will cost Berkeley 40 percent on top of salaries for every police officer and 25 percent on top of salaries for firefighters. 

Last September the department had 18 firefighters on leave and seven job openings, Deputy Fire Chief David Orth previously told the Planet. Since January, the department hired six new firefighters and returned several others from leave, but the department remains understaffed, Chief Debra Pryor said. Due to more retirements and promotions, the department currently has six vacancies and four employees on workers compensation. 

Pryor said city budget issues have so far kept the department from filling vacancies. If she gets approval, Pryor said new recruits would take three months to train. Pryor added that between $100,000 and $150,000 in overtime expenses would be reimbursed through a training grant with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

Much of the overtime worked last year was forced on firefighters, said Gil Dong, president of the firefighters union. From July 2004 through this January, he said there were 270 instances when a firefighter was ordered to work because of a staffing shortage. For the previous year, Dong said there were only 27 such cases. He attributed much of the forced overtime to the lag in training new firefighters to replace those who retired last year. 

“If we want to get out of the overtime issue, we need to hire people as soon as we get vacancies,” he said. 

The Fire Department uses a volunteer list for overtime sign-ups, with priority going to firefighters who have logged the fewest overtime hours, Dong said. When nobody volunteers, the department orders firefighters back to work. The maximum shift is 72 hours. 

Dong added that several injuries sustained by firefighters last year were caused by collapsed gurneys carrying injured people. In one rescue, Dong said, two firefighters needed shoulder surgery after the gurney collapsed. The gurney issue has since been resolved, Pryor said. 

Despite the system which seeks to disperse overtime hours, Caldwell, Sheppard and Lewis have been among the top five department overtime recipients every year since 2000, according to city reports.  

Overall, police and fire overtime hours are down, city reports show. Police worked 19.5 percent fewer overtime hours last year than they did in fiscal year 1999. And, until this year, firefighter overtime hours had also been on the decline from just under 40,000 hours in fiscal year 2002 to just over 25,000 hours last fiscal year.  

However pay increases for both departments have increased costs. In 2004, of the city’s 116 firefighters employed throughout the year, 90 earned over $100,000. In 2000, only 38 firefighters earned more than $100,000. For police, 85 out of 180 officers who worked the full year earned over 100,000 in 2004, compared to 32 in 2000. 

Four police officers earned over $30,000 in overtime last year. The top recipient was Sergeant Edward Spiller, who took home $40,686 in overtime pay. According to city reports, 38 percent of police overtime is attributable to shift extensions and backfilling for officers on leave. Other main causes for police overtime are holidays, special events, vacation, and court appearances.  

This year’s fire department overtime bill pales in comparison to 2001 when 14 firefighters earned more than $40,000 for extra work. That year, Fire Prevention Inspector Richard Ellison topped the department by earning $120,860 in overtime over a base salary of $73,439, followed by Lewis with $101,945 and Caldwell at $96,103 in overtime pay. 

Foes and fans of a Berkeley developer’s plans for a Las Vegas-style casino resort pleaded their cases before federal and Richmond officials last week. 

Formally called a scoping session, the public forum served as a vehicle for gathering concerns to be addressed in a joint state and federal environmental document that will be used to decide if Point Molate should become a tribal reservation eligible for Indian gaming. 

A final decision on the project is expected in about a year. 

Thursday’s gathering yielded 27 speakers opposing the project, compared to 16 supporters. 

Looking for economic salvation, the Richmond City Council agreed to sell the former naval refueling base to a consortium assembled by James D. Levine, a Berkeleyan who made his fortune at the helm of one of the nation’s leading private toxic cleanup firms. 

Richmond bought the land for a dollar under federally mandated terms that require the city to use the property to generate jobs and new economic activity to replace the losses caused by the base closure. 

The city eventually had two suitors for the site, Levine’s Upstream Development and ChevronTexaco, the petro-giant whose Richmond refinery is the community’s dominant economic force. 

The oil firm entered late in the game, offering $80 million deal with delivery of $55 million within days of inking a deal, as opposed to Upstream, which was promising only $20 million up front backed by the promise of additional payments city officials said would be worth over $350 million, if. . . 

If the 4-3 council majority was right in its belief that the Guidiville Rancheria of Lyttons—the tribe chosen by Levine—could win reservation status for the land and clear the federal and state gambling approval. 

Thursday’s meeting, convened by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the City of Richmond, marked the first step in the greenlighting process.  

Before the transfer can begin, the project must pass through both the state and the federal environmental review processes, to see how the project looks through the lenses of the California Environmental Quality Act and the National Environmental Protection Act. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), which has the ultimate say, will base its decision on the combined federal Environmental Impact Statement and state Environmental Impact Report. The BIA, in turn, hired Sacramento consultant William C. Allan to oversee the process. 

Allan is playing the same role in another local casino evaluation, the Scotts Valley Pomos’ proposed Sugar Bowl casino in unincorporated North Richmond. He presided over a similar scoping session for that project last July. 

“We’re here to find out what the environmental issues are and what reasonable alternatives the public may want us to review,” he said. 

If the BIA bestows its blessings on the casino, the National Indian Gaming Commission must also approve the contract between the tribe and the company it chooses to manage gambling operations, said John Rydzik, chief of the Environmental Resource Management and Safety Division of the BIA’s Pacific Division. 

The first five speakers represented the core of the environmentalist opposition to the casino project. Arthur Feinstein, conservation director for the Golden Gate Audubon Society, led off. 

“It’s naive to think that the number of people this will attract will not impact the adjacent natural resources on the site,” he declared, referring not only to the shoreline environment but the offshore eel grass beds—the Bay Area’s largest. “This is growth-inducing and will encourage development all along the shoreline and the remaining wildlife will disappear from the North Bay. 

Robert Cheasty, chair of Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP), challenged the legitimacy of the scoping session itself in light of two ongoing lawsuits which have challenged the legitimacy of the city’s sale of the property to the Levine consortium. 

“It’s an abominable project,” Cheasty declared, bringing unwanted urban gambling. “It’s a bad use of the BIA. It’s simply a device by which Nevada gaming interests get around California law.” Cheasty also faulted the project for not including dedicated public park space and wildlife habitat protection. 

“The Sierra Club opposes this project and will do everything it can to defeat it,” said Norman LaForce, the club’s statewide coordinator on gambling issues. 

“If it goes into (BIA) trust, there will be an utter and complete loss of further control by local government on any new projects on the land,” he said, adding that the Sugar Bowl site is a much more appropriate casino location. 

CESP member Sylvia McLaughlin, a Berkeley resident best known as a founder of Save The Bay, declared the site “totally inappropriate.” 

Margaret Hanlon Grady of the Coalition to Save Point Molate raised the issue of the casino resort’s impact on the oft-congested Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, adding, “We don’t need this blight in our community.” 

Unlike most speakers, she asked for specific issues to be addressed in the Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report, including full details on the ongoing toxic waste cleanup of the site—“We want our kids to be able to eat that dirt”—and asked for a listing of other potential casino sites explored by the tribe and the developers. 

“I understand that the tribe and Upstream have been reservation shopping for quite some time,” said Thomas Grady. “I understand they looked at Antioch and Hercules. Why didn’t they look at wealthy communities like Danville and Blackhawk?” 

Many opponents came from the ranks of the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), including City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin, who took her seat after the council had already voted to approve the Upstream accord. 

“I am here because I have huge concerns,” McLaughlin said. “The public was not consulted on this sale, and it is flat-out wrong to continue. I am personally opposed to casinos because they don’t create any products and they create no wealth. They simply move money around.” 

Other RPA opponents offered their testimony against the project, including Andres Soto, Soula Culver, Tarnel Abbott, Mary Oshima and Jerome Smith—who appeared briefly in a tiger mask and read a Native American poem before he launched into his critique. 

Fairfax City Councilmember Frank Egger also spoke against the project, citing traffic pressure on the bridge generated by Marin County residents headed across the Bay to gamble. “Who is going to pay to widen the bridge? Who will reimburse Marin County for the roadway and service impacts?” 

Egger also asked the environmental impact document authors to address the visual and environmental impacts, as well as the impact of shoreline lights at night. 

Michael Ali, a Richmond resident and a Cherokee, led off the proponents, declaring, “There is no more time for fighting. Your people must learn to give up your arrogance. You have the gift of material power. Can you share it?” 

“The Indians deserve the land at Point Molate to get out of poverty and uncertainty,” said Rita Oliver, who said she was speaking on behalf of six neighborhood councils representing 18,000 residents. “Urban gambling is not new to California, so why not give Richmond a piece of the pie?” 

The one issue that did concern her was traffic. “I wonder if it will run all day and will the (bridge) be accessible to commuters?,” she asked. 

While Richmond Planning Commissioner Zachary Harris offered no position on the project itself, he asked if the environmental impact documents would discuss traffic alternatives. “I also want to know the level of detail incorporated into any design documents.” 

Jim Russey, president of the Richmond Firefighters Association Local 188, based his support for the project on public safety grounds: “Richmond is the number one most dangerous city in California and it won’t get any better by keeping it a shoreline park. The city needs the revenue.” 

Richmond Parks and Recreation Commissioner Mel Davis praised the project as an antidote to Richmond’s economic depression and the source of jobs and recreation opportunities. Addressing critics who charged that the casino would prey on those least able to afford to gamble, Davis said, “I don’t think the developer will put this much money into a project that relies on poor people to support it.” 

Mike Padilla praised the project, while expressing concerns about environmental impacts. “I believe it’s a good project, and I support the return of ferry service” which developers have promised when the project opens. 

“Gambling is not new to the Bay Area,” he said. “In case you haven’t seen, there’s a very large race track right down the road.” 

Lee Jones said he was offering support for the casino on the part of 3,500 North Richmond residents and 17 churches. 

“A lot of my friends have been losing jobs, and the city is in dire straits,”” he said. “I’m looking for the casino to bring in new jobs and some revenue to fix our potholes and build new recreational facilities.” 

“It’s nice to talk about alternative uses,” said supporter Susan McHarg, “but we don’t have people with money in hand talking about alternative uses. (The developers) have been very up front, and they have shown us their plans in detail.” 

Marshall Walker III, a 55-year city resident, said he had solicited over 200 signatures from men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 who support the casino. 

“They all said that if it’s going to bring jobs, let them bring jobs,” he said. 

Others said they wanted to open businesses to supply the daily needs of the casino and hotel complex. 

Ted Smith, an African American supporter of both the Point Molate and Sugar Bowl projects, ridiculed opponents, declaring that “most of them don’t even look like me.” Levine’s project, he said, “will be the greatest thing to happen to this community since World War II. It will put us on the map like World War II.” 

Entwine Cloird, a lifetime resident of Richmond’s Iron Triangle neighborhood, said the project would offer an positive alternative to young people’s “coke dreams and pipe dreams. Upstream is giving us hope.” 

With the end of the testimony, Richmond Principal Planner Lori Reese Brown said the draft EIR documents should be ready in late September, followed by a 60-day public comment period, with the final report due 90 days after the close of comments, sometime in March 2006.

Environmental activists and North Berkeley residents told Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory officials Thursday night to leave intact an unused building full of toxic and low-level nuclear wastes on its present four-acre site atop the Hayward Fault in the Berkeley hills. 

The activists and neighbors said the alternative—tearing down its long-abandoned particle accelerator and carting the waste out of Berkeley in tarp-covered trucks—was unacceptable. 

That was the conclusion of a public scoping session held by the lab last week at the North Berkeley Senior Center as a first step in a long-in-the-planning process to demolish the Bevatron and its surrounding building. 

The largest machine in the world at the time of its construction in 1954, the 180-foot diameter, 11,000-ton Bevatron was used for the next 40 years for atomic and subatomic experiments and discoveries. Use of the Bevatron ended in 1993, and LBNL officials say they have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get federal money for the demolition project. 

Terry Powell, LBNL community relations officer, said that Bevatron demolition money was recently released by the Department of Energy and placed in this year’s department budget. 

LBNL literature says that it no longer has any use for the building or the accelerator itself, and says that because of “the significant contributions in the fields of particle and nuclear physics that were made there,” the building is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. 

Under California law, the LBNL has the authority to approve the demolition project itself, but must first complete an environmental impact report (EIR) after giving the public the chance to give information, raise questions, and suggest alternatives. Last week’s scoping session was the first in that series of mandated public input processes. 

Margaret Goglia, Project Manager for the Bevatron demolition, said Thursday night that the accelerator and its surrounding building contain such toxic wastes as asbestos, PCBs, mercury, lead, and machine oil, as well as low level radioactive waste, which she called “low even for this category.” She said the lab would “address the specific level of radioactive waste in detail in the EIR.” 

If the demolition project is approved, Goglia said the lab plans to remove several tons of concrete blocking surrounding the accelerator, dismantle the Bevatron, demolish the surrounding building, remove layers of soil from the site, and re-soil with fresh earth. 

Goglia said that “a lot of the demolition work will taken place indoors,” inside Building 51 that houses the accelerator, and that the waste and soil would be removed in “several thousand one-way truck trips” on a route from Hearst to Oxford to University Avenue and then to Interstate 880. Goglia said this route was “preferred by the City of Berkeley.” 

She also said that the demolition project would operate with 50 employees at its peak, far fewer for most of its duration. The project is scheduled to last between four and six years. 

While Goglia said that the lab has no new plans for building on the site, Community Relations Officer Powell said, following the meeting, that this does not necessarily mean there won’t be such plans in the future. 

“We’re moving forward now because we have the money from DOE and we feel the site needs to be demolished,” Powell said. 

But a string of community speakers told LBNL officials Thursday that leaving the Bevatron intact was preferable to demolition. 

Jim Cunningham, a North Berkeley resident who said he has taught at the university, said that a further discussion was needed “on the alternatives of demolition versus allowing the radioactive material to decay in place.” Cunningham also said he wanted verification of the level of the radioactive waste on the site to be done by “someone other than lab officials.” 

Mark McDonald, a member of the Berkeley-based Committee To Minimize Toxic Waste, said he was “concerned about the airborne contaminants” that would be released during the demolition. 

“LBNL should be on the cutting edge on demolition and disposal of these types of structures,” he said, “but they’re still doing this in the same old sloppy way.” 

A leaflet put out by the Toxic Waste Committee prior to the scoping session criticized the demolition, stating that “an alternative to demolition and removal would be to allow the Bevatron and its containment to remain onsite in relative containment.” The leaflet called on residents to express their concerns to the LBNL “if you don’t want Radioactive Asbestos Dust in your neighborhood, stores, or at bus stops, or in a truck next to your car on the street.” 

Berkeley resident L.A. Wood criticized the lab for moving the Bevatron demolition ahead of its long range development plans, suggesting that “maybe it’s being rushed ahead to duck” the added scrutiny called for in a formal LRDP.  

“Maybe the Bevatron should be preserved and made a shrine to the 1950s when the lab put these things in place in our community, with no community involvement, because they could,” Wood said. 

Speakers suggested various measures should the demolition be approved, such as, “leave the site fallow after demolition so it can heal itself,” use an alternate route for trucks up Grizzly Peak to Highway 24 rather than going through the heart of the city, restore the network of creeks presently running under the structures in culverts, hire an independent agency to supervise the cleanup, and organize a field trip so that residents and activists can view the Bevatron site itself while the EIR process is going forward. 

LBNL officials said public comment on the project would be accepted through April 16, and all questions raised would be addressed in the draft EIR, which will then be presented to the public. Documents concerning the proposed demolition have been placed on the LBNL’s website at www.lbl.gov/Community/env-rev-docs.html. 

A noon rally of angry UC Berkeley workers in front of California Hall last Friday had a surprise result—a chance sidewalk encounter between union leaders and Chancellor Robert Birgenau in which Birgenau agreed to a formal, fact-finding meeting with worker representatives. 

The Coalition of University Employees (CUE, clerical workers), University Professional and Technical Workers (UPTE), and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME, service workers) called the joint rally to protest what it called the university’s “stalling” on contract negotiations with the three unions. 

A CUE representative said that the union’s representatives are still negotiating the 2003-04 contract, and have filed unfair labor practices charges against the university over its tactics in negotiating the still-unsigned 2004-05 contract. 

Birgenau did not attend the rally but happened up just as it was ending on his way to another meeting at California Hall. He spoke for about 10 minutes to a semi-circle of union leaders and rally participants until he was hustled away to his meeting by a security officer. He fielded questions and asked some of his own about pay and working conditions for UC Berkeley support workers, and eventually agreed to a meeting after union representatives told him “your people are badly misinforming you about the facts.” 

Birgenau said that the meeting would be for informational purposes only. “I’m not authorized to negotiate with you and I’m not going to negotiate,” he said. 

One worker told the chancellor that she had been employed at UC Berkeley for three years “and factoring in inflation, I’m making less now than I did when I was first hired.” 

Union leaders later called the encounter “a stroke of luck.” 

Earlier, a crowd of some hundred workers and student supporters marched in a circle in the hot sun in front of California Hall, chanting “UC, UC you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side,” holding signs reading “[UC President] Dynes takes a pay cut—library workers get 17 percent raise—April Fool!,” “It is not a budget crisis—it is a distribution crisis,” and, simply, “UC Sucks.” Some protesters wore UC blue-and-gold colored dunce caps, and one man appeared in a paper-maché pig’s head with dollars bills dribbling off of his tongue. 

Several rally speakers criticized the university for giving bonuses to department heads and administrative officials while freezing pay for support staff. 

Stephanie Dorton, a CUE member and an administrative assistant at the UC Law School, said told marchers that she had two children, “one of them a 17 year old who is just graduating from high school, and I can’t afford to send her to the school where I work. That’s unacceptable.” 

Kathryn Lybarger, a UC Berkeley gardener and an AFSCME member, said that “university workers have to take second jobs or even pick up cans to make ends meet.” She said that “92 percent of AFSCME members across the state voted in favor of a strike if negotiations break down.” 

She said that an AFSCME strike is a possibility. 

CUE Local 3 Executive Board member Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie, a Law School legal assistant, said following the rally that if one of the three unions strike, “the rest have pledged to honor their picket lines.” 

“UC’s profit margin is going up; they had a $786 million profit last year, and they have $5.2 billion in reserve,” Alaji-Sabrie charged. “They’re telling us that they can’t give us raises because of the state budget problems, but only 16 percent of the university’s money comes from the state budget. The rest comes from research and other outside money that isn’t subject to the state budget crisis and cutbacks.” 

Alaji-Sabrie said the three unions plan to send a delegation to legislative budget hearings in Sacramento on April 7 “to inform legislators of the current situation in our contract talks, and to ask them to put in place more processes to hold the university accountable in their negotiations and in their budgeting.” 

Another pro-union rally is planned for April 14 in Sproul Plaza. 

A hydraulic crane pulled a runaway construction truck out of the side of a house in the Berkeley hills Monday afternoon. No one was in the house when the driverless vehicle went barreling into the side of the structure. The 17,000-pound truck held equipment for a crew that was re-paving part of a private driveway about 100 feet up the hill. Although Berkeley police found that the parking brake was engaged and the truck was in gear, it managed to roll several feet before it went over a curb and into the house. Neighbors on the two streets below the house were evacuated until the truck was pulled out. One room of the house was destroyed. The damage was estimated at $50,000 to $100,000..

“Reuniting families, protecting refugees, encouraging diversity and cultural exchange—that’s what our country is supposed to be about.” 

This was Congresswoman Barbara Lee talking about immigration policies. About 60 people gathered at St. Joseph the Worker Church last Saturday to hear from immigration experts and to get one-on-one help with their immigration problems from a panel of lawyers who volunteered for the event. 

Motivated by Rep. Lee (D-Oakland), the meeting was organized by BOCA, Berkeley Organizing Congregations For Action, an organization of 12 congregations of different faiths to develop grass roots action on issues of, in their words, “justice, equity, dignity and democracy for every member of our community.” 

Of the many requests for help Congresswoman Lee gets from constituents, an overwhelming number of them, she said, come from people asking for assistance with immigration problems. The meeting brought together the people who needed help with teams of lawyers specializing in immigration and dedicated to this kind of community service. 

Lawyer Julia Markus explained, “I’m fascinated by people from different cultures and I wanted to make a difference,” she said. “Here you deal with one person at a time.”  

Another lawyer, Fariba Faiz, said, “I came here because I love community meetings, that is the time that as an attorney I get to help people who otherwise wouldn’t go to an attorney because they find the cost prohibitive. But at a community meeting you get to see actual people. Sometimes it’s a small problem easy to help.” 

Mark Silverman, with the Immigrant Legal Resources Center, frequently organizes and participates in meetings like this one. 

“We do meetings with two goals in mind,” he said, “to provide people with information about their immigration options so that if they have options they pursue them under current law and to warn people away from scams where they end up spending thousands of dollars and exposing themselves to getting deported. And the other reason ... is to draw people to the meetings so the people can get involved in actively changing immigration laws. I think we’re in a critical point in U.S. history where immigrants for the first time can play a key role in changing the laws that affect and often separate their families.”  

Separation from their families is a big issue for many immigrants. Marta Higuera has been trying to get a green card (permanent residence) for seven years. The mother of a 8-year-old son in school here, she works, pays taxes, has a Social Security number. She said she would like to take her boy to visit family in Mexico but without a green card she would not be able to come back into the U.S. once she left. She said she has gotten no response to her appeals to the immigration service. 

Mac Jatto came to Berkeley from Nigeria 9 years ago on a student visa. He too, has family abroad. He has been studying for the ministry and will graduate with his doctorate this May. He had been able to travel back and forth to see his family in London but, he said, “Since 9/11 it has become a problem.” 

Jatto said he would like to regularize his immigration status and his pastor at the McGee Avenue Baptist Church applied on his behalf almost three years ago but he said he has gotten no response. He said he knows of several other ministerial students from Africa who are in the same situation. 

“People who came to study and after study they want to be a part of America,” Jatto said. 

In spite of streamlining, with the United States immigration service, formerly INS, now USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services), promising easier access, people are finding themselves in limbo for long periods of time. From observations made by lawyers and clients at Saturday’s forum, it was apparent that the fear of terrorism since 9-11 has made things much more difficult. 

Too often, immigrants are being dealt with almost as though they are suspected terrorists, many said. There is legislation before Congress, legislation that would extend principles of fairness and justice to immigrants, Barbara Lee pointed out, but there are also several bills being proposed that she called mean spirited and contrary to what our nation stands for. 

Lee said she hoped that the conference, and others like it, not only help those with individual immigration problems, but also encouraged immigrants to participate in community actions to reform immigration policies.(

The University Students Cooperative Association voted last week to appeal a small claims judgment won by neighbors of the student co-op, Le Chateau. 

The appeal will be heard in Alameda County State Court. Last month, commissioner John Rantzman awarded 15 neighbors a total of $63,250 in damages for, among other things, “The loss of the right to quiet enjoyment.” 

On the same night as the board vote, Berkeley police cited the co-op for excessive noise during a party. Since it was the second such citation within 60 days, police issued a citation that calls for a $500 fine, Officer Steve Rego said. 

Meanwhile, at 6:30 p.m. tonight (Tuesday) the USCA is holding a town hall meeting at the International House to discuss neighborhood concerns regarding student cooperatives. 

“I don’t think anyone can argue that there are problems between Le Chateau and its neighbors,” Proper said. “The verdict doesn’t solve the problems. This meeting gives us a chance to get people talking to remedy the situation.” 

Proper said he didn’t know of problems with neighbors at any of the association’s 19 other cooperatives. 

George Lewinsky, the lead plaintiff in the Le Chateau case, said he would not attend the town hall meeting now that the USCA was appealing the verdict. 

“I’ve had 15 years of meetings and I see no point in having another one until the USCA lives up to the court decision,” he said. “Until they give us indication that they plan to change management of Le Chateau, this is pointless.” 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Michele Lawrence joined religious and health leaders and education and children’s activists at a downtown press conference Monday to announce support for a statewide California for Healthy Kids (CHK) campaign. 

CHK is a collaboration of the 100% Campaign (Children’s Now, Children’s Defense Fund, and The Children’s Partnership) and the Pacific Institute for Community Organization California Project. Legislation supporting the group’s goals were introduced in the state legislature this year by State Senator Martha Escutia (D-Norwalk) and State Assemblymember Wilma Chan (D-Oakland) under the respective numbers SB437 and AB772. 

At the time she introduced the legislation, Chan called it an “innovative, practical solution to save taxpayer dollars and help insure our children.” 

The campaign seeks to extend health care coverage to children of working class families who are not covered through their employers, and for low-income children who are eligible for state coverage but who have been unable to receive it for bureaucratic reasons. 

“With the support of statewide efforts like Californians for Healthy Kids and our local community agencies, we can provide access to health insurance for every Berkeley child,” Bates said. 

Berkeley Unified representatives say they are seeking federal funds currently available for health insurance outreach, as well as looking to take advantage of recent state legislation making it easier for school districts to enroll students in public health insurance programs. 

With Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Michele Lawrence calling the district’s budget situation “precarious,” the Berkeley public will get its first look at the possibility of a slightly leaner face of public education in the city when the district directors consider “Anticipated Budget Reductions and Program Modifications” at the school board’s meeting Wednesday night. 

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

BUSD is in the midst of contract negotiations with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers union, which is holding a “work to rule” action in the schools in a demand for increased compensation. Union representatives plan to make a presentation to the Board Directors at the meeting. 

In addition—like every other school district in the state—Berkeley is facing cutbacks in state school funding. 

To meet those competing fiscal demands, as well as to bring the district up from its present “qualified” budget status, Superintendent Michele Lawrence says that “another round of budget cuts are inevitable.” 

Lawrence has planned a board discussion Wednesday night on possible “reductions in services or cuts in programs to [BUSD] students or schools.” Lawrence has not yet made a recommendation on areas for cuts, but included in the budget-balancing discussions will be the possibility of: 

• Reduction in the high school athletic program; 

• One year closure of the Community Theater to outside users during an assessment of costs; 

• Expanding the school walking zone beyond its present one mile; 

• Eliminating the hiring of substitute classified workers until the second or third day that a classified worker is off the job; 

• Reducing the number of classroom instructional assistants and high school campus security officers; 

• Assigning one principal to two small schools; 

• Increasing the cost of student and teacher daily lunch meals. 

In her message to the board calling for the discussion, Lawrence said that the listed budget cut suggestions “each require greater analysis in order to assess the true on-going savings and the strategies to implement the reductions.” 

Two major East Bay casino debates are scheduled for today (Tuesday), one in Washington D.C. and the other in Martinez. 

In the capital, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, is conducting a hearing on legislation by Sen. Diane Feinstein that would force a reconsideration of the proposed Las Vegas-scale Casino San Pablo. 

Closer to home, Assistant Contra Costa County Administrator Sara Hoffman told city and federal officials gathered for a hearing on the Point Molate Casino that County Supervisors would meet today to discuss a resolution that calls for a ban on any new tribal reservations with casinos in the county. 

Written by board members John Gioia and Gayle B. Uilkema, who represent the board’s two easternmost districts, the measure wouldn’t have binding effect on the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has final say on new reservation lands. 

Hoffman said the board would provide the city and the Bureau of Indian Affairs with written comments after the vote. 

East Bay Assemblymember Loni Hancock, who has led the opposition to the San Pablo, is scheduled to testify at today’s Washington hearing, as is Sen. Feinstein. 

At issue is legislation by East Bay Rep. George Miller, which bestowed retroactive status on the Lytton Rancheria band of Pomo Indians’ acquisition of the Casino San Pablo card room. 

By backdating the acquisition, the tribe was allowed to develop a casino without undergoing the hurdles faced by two other tribes planning casinos in Richmond and North Richmond. 

McCain has been strongly critical of Miller’s legislation, and Feinstein legislation (Senate Bill 113) would force the Lyttons to undergo the same review as the other two projects.

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas9

AIR QUALITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is nice after a rain to clear the air. I have asthma and ride a bike to and from work. Riding up Delaware is an experience akin to being downwind from a chimney. Please people, don’t burn wood. There is enough pollution from vehicles, cars and trucks which have in adequate emission controls. Woodsmoke has triggered asthmatic reactions. It is not a healthy practice to burn. Not everyone travels around in a climate-controlled bubble, Arnold. 

BC Martin 

Alameda 

• 

CHOICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Portugal, seven women went on trial for having self-inflicted abortions. This is a glimpse of BushAmerica if he and Congressional Republicans have their way and eliminate Roe vs. Wade. Criminalization of a whole gender thanks to home grown religious fanatics. How can any woman support George W. Bush and his insidious goal? European anti-choice forces are taking after inquisitors in America.  

Choice is the basic ingredient of life; choice is the right of every human being. Religious right-wingers want to take this essential freedom away from half of the American population. There is a good old fashion Middle Ages crusade going on in America. Wake up! 

Ron Lowe 

Nevada City 

• 

NURSE STAFFING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Unbelievable! California nurses are under attack again. The hospital owner’s lobby (the California Hospital Association) and their shills are again cranking-out propaganda trying to convince you that safe staffing won’t work. These TV ads and newspaper articles, written by slick ad agencies, are designed to inject cold fear deep into your heart. Do they really think we are so stupid that we’ll see their commercials and start clamoring for the return of unsafe staffing? They cry about California’s nursing shortage but will never admit that their own greed caused it or that the ratio law is rapidly curing it.  

The hospital owner’s are worried because the 5:1 patient ratio law is so simple their high-priced lawyers can’t get around it. That’s why this powerful lobby and their hired-gun governor are trying so hard to kill it. Many hospital owners will undoubtedly cut the nurses’ support staff, again putting their bonuses before patients’ lives; and Gov. Schwarzenegger, not yet used to being typecast as the “loser,” will surely put the full force of state agencies to task trying to save face. Unless you own a hospital, these people are not your friends.  

As always, trust your nurse. 

Mike Kirchubel 

Fairfield 

• 

CRITICAL THINKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

March 29 Critical Thinkers Day on the Left. First, Commondreams prints two thoughtful pieces by Naomi Jaffe and Mark Polit dissenting from that herd of independent minds on the Party Line Left as regards the slow, drawn murder of Terri Schiavo. Then a nuanced piece on Counterpunch by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst warning of a downside for the Left on this despite current opinion polls. I’m an atheist and pro-abortion choice but I’m with the pro-life crowd on this one. I have no desire to see ACLU type Judges promote some nefarious “right to die.” Nature already takes care of that, thank you. 

Nor am I sympathetic to many of my fellow libertarians and Objectivists with their usual Party Line No Government Intervention mantra. We are supposed to be protected from arbitrary killing once we leave the womb and I cheer on whomever does it, private or public. 

I can’t even really discuss this with my partner, and I was getting SO depressed with the formulaic crap on Air America and KPFA on this issue. 

Keep on thinking ! 

Michael Hardesty 

Oakland 

• 

NEVER AGAIN — AGAIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here we go again with the “never again” cycle.  

Because we, the world community, have decided that a mournful, post-facto “never again” pledge is simply more convenient than the action required, Darfur will take its place in history. History textbooks will find “Sudan” between “Rwanda” and whatever site the next genocide will ravage as we busy ourselves watering these most recent killing fields with our crocodile tears, long after the chance to save a single life has passed. 

Although Sudan has been plagued by civil war since its independence in 1956, this most recent outbreak of violence in Darfur dates back only to February 2003, when rebel groups began to instigate attacks against the government in Khartoum, which, in turn, dispatched the Janjaweed militia as a counter rebellion force. 

The wrinkle in the conflict that is so deeply divisive for the Sudanese is the racism that divides the two sides. Since February 2003, a militia known as Janjaweed (men on horseback) has been engaging in a genocidal campaign to displace and wipe out communities of African tribal farmers in Darfur, Sudan. More than one and a half million people have been displaced, forced from their homes as their villages are torched, water supplies poisoned or destroyed, livestock stolen or killed, and women raped and murdered. Government air raids have frequently preceded or followed militia attacks. This is the stark reality created by the international community’s refusal to act in this crisis. 

Unfortunately, most of the discussion surrounding Darfur revolves around what we should call the crisis, rather than what is actually happening. In September, the US government labeled the crisis genocide, but the international community has done little more than to call on the government in Khartoum to end the conflict and threaten the use of sanctions. Thus, while the international community wastes time on semantics, genocide continues.  

Certainly we could be doing more to end this violence, but many governments, with the U.S. at the forefront, seem content merely to label the situation as genocide. Even invoking the Genocide Convention has not spurred the rest of the world to take decisive action. Could this mean that the US views the Genocide Convention as just another meaningless agreement?  

But in the end, the burden is, and can only be, on the leadership of the international community. The U.S. resolution is certainly a step in the right direction, and the Bush administration must take even further stewardship on the issue by publicly and openly pressuring member nations to take action. 

What’s going on in Sudan isn’t only Sudan’s problem. It is humanity’s problem, and certainly it doesn’t hurt to remind our elected officials of this fact. 

Each orphan that starves in a refugee camp, each woman that survives a brutal rape, each family that is destroyed by the murder, displacement and savagery that has enveloped Sudan underscores the hypocrisy, the cruel mockery of the “never again” memorials we place on the headstone of each holocaust past. The time for “never again” is too far in the past, and too far in the future. If the day eventually comes and genocide in Sudan ends, will we regret our inaction? “Never again” means to act now, in the present.  

Sandra Murcia 

Antioch 

• 

JEFFERSON SCHOOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read the article regarding Jefferson School with great interest. Several issues seemed important for us all to consider. 

The school community is defined as the current parents, students and staff of the school. Who has defined it this way? Who else might be appropriately considered part of the school community whose voice should be heard? Those of us who are alumni? Those of us who are neighbors? Perhaps most pertinent, those of us who fund the school through our taxes? Jefferson school is part of our larger community and I disagree with the exclusionary assumption that we are not part of its community. 

The comment is made that students are likely to choose the name of Cesar Chavez because “they’ve all studied him, it’s a name they are all familiar with.” If the students are being treated seriously as voters then it seems to me they should be treated seriously as thinkers. We don’t hold elections in which only one of the candidates has been allowed to campaign. Time should be taken to educate students about each person being considered, including Thomas Jefferson. 

The key issue though is Dora Dean Bradley’s statement that Jefferson didn’t write the Declaration of Independence for her. I think every reader must recognize and sympathize with the pain reflected in that statement—the sense of injustice and exclusion.  

I want to encourage a broader perspective which might lessen that pain. As we know, when Jefferson wrote that document the assumption was deeply embedded that a very few would, as a matter of course, rule the majority around them. That practice had held for generation upon generation, century upon century. Thomas Jefferson was one of a handful proposing a huge change. Jefferson spent his life working to disseminate power more equally. He supported immigrants’ rights in Virginia and worked tirelessly for religious freedoms. He was not just a liberal but a radical in his time. Yes, we can look at him and see that he did not fully embody his own principles but what he did accomplish is more astonishing and more enduring. And it is his work upon which others would later stand in order to bring about broader freedoms such as emancipation and suffrage. Without that first compelling statement of essential rights on what would others have based their efforts? It is not fair to someone taking the first step to accuse him of not having taken all the steps we would like. He opened the way for so many others to follow. The ideas he articulated have served not just our country but the world; countries in South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa have used his document to call for their own freedom from repression. Consider the amazing force of the sprout bursting through the hard seed case and out of the darkness into the light and you will not denigrate it because it has not yet flowered fully.  

Every citizen benefits from that Declaration and from our Constitution. Our parents and our grandparents have as well. And yes, those documents were written, as it turns out, equally for each one of us now living.  

Kathleen Davis 

• 

CLEAN MONEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

With all the discussion and debate around reform in Sacramento, it stands out to me that an essential element is missing from both the executive and legislative agendas: Clean Money. 

Clean Money is full public financing of election campaigns. Clean Money is real reform that reduces the fundraising pressures on politicians, and restores control of politics to people. Voters, rather than special interests, pay for campaigns. This is a proven and effective way to bring real change to California’s government. The Governor said it best himself during his campaign: 

“Special interests have a stranglehold on Sacramento. Here’s how it works. Money comes in, favors go out. The people lose.” 

• Real reform efforts must include Clean Money public financing of election campaigns. 

• Without Clean Money, reform efforts are just “moving the boxes around.” 

• If the governor for whatever reason cannot make good on his campaign promises to get special interest money out of Sacramento, then the Legislature has got to pass AB 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections bill. 

And actually, as a matter of good policy, the Legislature should pass AB 583 in any event. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. 

David Jaber 

• 

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I enjoyed the piece on Edward Rowland Sill. There are those among us who remember having to read or even memorize poems such as “Opportunity” or “The Fool’s Prayer.” I had almost forgotten him and had no idea he figured in local history. 

Jenifer Steele 

• 

DOWNTOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I recall how back in 1993 near the beginning of our building frenzy, I heard planners, pundits and politicians talk about a “revitalized downtown” where renovated/retrofitted older buildings would be interspersed with new, well designed, built-to-scale (three to five stories) infills with quality shops and services at ground level, apartments and offices above. With trees and green space, public art and sidewalk cafes, downtown would be a pleasant place to bike or walk and would be designed to serve the carless downtown residents, public transit commuters (both to The City and UC and from the neighborhoods) and visitors and tourists via BART. A kind of Fourth Street for the masses. 

For the past 10 years, downtown has been in a state of permanent construction. Virtually every east/west street between Oxford and MLK has been closed or one-laned more than once for months at a time in order for building to take place. This has created an ever-shifting maze that combined with a constant shrinkage in parking, short term meters and increased congestion on feeder streets like Shattuck and University frustrates drivers. Walking is even worse since you have to either make long detours to avoid construction or pick your way alongside building sites and be assaulted by the din of the jackhammers and fumes and dust from the concrete and tar that burns the eyes and coats the lungs.  

It is no surprise that downtown businesses are failing. Downtown, with car or without, is not a pleasant place to be. Many small merchants near construction zones where I used to shop have closed defeated by a drop in foot traffic on their blocks along with the parking problems and high rents. There are more and more empty storefronts, fewer shops, less variety. And while many of the renovated buildings are nicely done and there are jewels among the new ones, they are hard to enjoy. Green space (along with parking) has disappeared. Trees have been replaced by concrete. And the new behemoths which received extra height because of ground floor commercial and/or cultural use manage to block the sun and funnel the wind while contributing little to street level life. Downtown Berkeley with its empty, darkened storefronts, its narrow streets, construction zones and cavernous walls has become an eerie place, particularly at night.  

Nor will the new downtown be completed anytime soon. With all the new projects in the pipeline, it looks like at least another 10 years of life in a construction zone. (Particularly vulnerable to the next spate of activity will be businesses in some of our most recently completed sections like the Arts District and Center Street.) At the rate we’re going, when construction is completed, all of the businesses except for fast food chains will have moved out. Despite our Brower Centers and eco-friendly rhetoric, it looks like we are recreating simply another urban downtown. 

Joanne Kowalski 

• 

PACIFIC STEEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the Pacific Steel story: This is exactly what this paper needs. A story like this really needs to be told. I’ve had many experiences in the West Berkeley area relating to the odor with major concern. I can’t wait to see what will happen next. Credit to you, Daily Planet. 

Brant Bellamon 

• 

THE BIG LIE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Letter-writer Helen Burke (March 29-31 edition) echoes the Big Lie that there is a conspiracy of “outsiders” trying to take over the Sierra Club. Far from it. The real conspiracy is that of club insiders led by Director Carl Pope to keep the organization from dealing with the country’s population explosion and environmental decline caused by runaway immigration. Here, in California, we are paving over the finest agricultural land on the planet for stripmalls and highways and driving to extinction species as we bulldoze habitat to provide for 600,000 immigrants and their children each year. 

I urge Sierra Club members to cast their vote for the independent petition candidates with real courage: 

James McDonald, Alan Kuper, Gregory Bungo, Robert Roy van de Hoek. 

In doing so they will honor the memory of David Brower, the late giant of the environmental movement who resigned from the Sierra Club board because of its craven refusal to confront population problems. At that time he admonished, “Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed.” 

Tim Aaronson 

El Cerrito 

• 

SIERRA CLUB ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mark Johnson’s letter in response to Helen Burke’s letter on the Sierra Club elections misstates and mischaracterizes the issue on the Sierra Club ballot in this election. The ballot initiative would change Sierra Club policy to support further restrictions on legal immigration. It does not change existing Sierra Club policy on population, which supports population reduction and the need to reduce birthrates but is neutral on immigration levels. 

Restrictions on immigration do nothing to reduce the root causes of overpopulation or worldwide population levels.  

I urge Sierra Club members to vote no on the initiative to change Sierra Club policy to support reductions in legal immigration and to vote for candidates Bosh, Catlin, Ferenstin, McGrady, and Frank, who oppose the initiative and are committed to the club’s core conservation agenda supporting parks and open space, clean air, clean water, and clean and efficient energy. 

Alan Carlton 

Alameda 

• 

AC TRANSIT BUSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Planet correspondents have covered most complaints about the new AC Transit busses, but so far none have mentioned the Velcro upholstery. Once one recovers from negotiating the alp to senior seating, it is time to prepare to alight. This means pinpointing the whereabouts of a nearby button to punch for a stop, and analysis of attendant contortions to attain it. Unfortunately, the upholstery now has one in its death grip. Can one achieve the button and be released from the clutches of the seat in time to get off at one’s stop? Suspense mounts. Will the driver allow one to simply holler out one’s street? Pleasant drivers will, but I know of a sullen female who insists on correct protocol and doesn’t care how many extra blocks you have to walk back. A lot of civic agony could be eliminated if designers had to actually use their designs and the bureaucrats who order them had to personally try them out first. 

Nancy Chirich 

• 

WORK TO RULE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been very saddened over the feuding between the Berkeley Federation of Teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District. While I fully support the teachers in this battle, it is very disheartening to see the harmful effects of the “work-to-rule” action on both the teachers and the students. Teachers are slower at grading our tests or are not available to help us with our questions before-school, during lunch, or after-school. It is very frustrating for the student who can’t get back the results of his/her tests for several weeks and who can’t see teachers regarding a confusion they have with their course. Teachers also suffer from this. They come to work very stressed out and feel that they can not teach to their full potential. 

The school district initially said that they have no money for a teacher raise. However, a couple weeks ago they came up with money to offer senior teachers a 1.2 percent raise. Where did this money come from? I do not believe that the school district is intentionally holding back a cost of living wage increase to the teachers. It is just as the school district says. The money is just not there. However, I believe that if BUSD spent their money more wisely and efficiently, we would not be in such a mess. I think that a great solution to this problem would be to set the salary of an administrator to be no higher than that of a teacher.  

I encourage everyone to e-mail and call the school board directors at 644-6550 and encourage them to offer the teachers what they deserve. Only then will the students be able to learn in the best environment possible. 

Rio Bauce 

• 

TEACHERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Russ Mitchell, in an April 1 letter, states that “The main issue is why the union goes to such great lengths to protect the job of the all-time worst teacher.” 

The reason why is very simple, and is founded in very basic principles both of civics and of labor-unionism: In a world where there are plenty of people who will beat up on the worker, it is the role of the union to advocate for that worker. This is exactly as it should be. 

The union sees too it that when someone such as Ms. O’Malley makes up her mind that a teacher is the “all-time worst” she has known, and perhaps takes that opinion forward, there is someone to tell that teacher’s side of the story. 

After all, people have all sorts of reasons for deciding that a teacher is “bad” and should be fired.  

Maybe he is, indeed, a bad teacher. But perhaps she simply gave the little darling of someone influential the failing grade that he deserved. Perhaps he talked back to a school board member. Or she wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Planet that wasn’t very popular. Perhaps, like Dr. Churchill out in Colorado, he expressed an unpopular academic opinion using rhetoric that irked many taxpayers. Perhaps she insists on discipline in the classroom, even from those students who don’t get it at home. Maybe he just looks funny. Maybe some parent doesn’t agree with the teacher’s sexual orientation. Then again, maybe she really is a bad teacher. 

Like a good defense attorney, who doesn’t help the prosecution make the case against her client, the role of the union is not to take the side of the forces that would see one of their members fired. Their role is to stand with their dues-paying member. Their role is also is to negotiate processes that make it very difficult for the ‘squeaky wheel’ or the tide of public opinion to get one of their members fired based on subjective criteria. 

There are, as we’ve seen in the rhetoric of the past week, plenty of other individuals and bodies to say bad things about a given teacher or about teachers in general, without the union taking on that role.  

Indeed, Mr. Mitchell should fear ever getting that for which he appears to be asking. Because it would mean the end of academic freedom, it would mean the end of teachers being in charge of their own classrooms, and it would turn the academic world, from top to bottom, into a popularity contest. 

Solidarity means solidarity. 

Greg Bullough 

Pennsylvania 

• 

TUPPER & REED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Sorry to sound a sour note on your article on Tupper & Reed, but some of the reason they are closing may be bad service. BUSD re-instituted its music program and it has stayed active, although your article only mentioned their cutting it. When I tried to rent a cello there for my daughter, they would not accept my credit; the cards were shared with my husband and only his name showed on their computer, so they required him to be there to sign the rental agreement. Later on, I had no trouble renting a cello from Ifshin. 

More recently, I had tried to order sheet music through Tupper & Reed. About half the time they did not notify me when the item arrived (once I found it in the public sale area), nor did they notify me when they found out that they were unable to order it. 

Berkeley is blessed with a number of music stores: Ifshin and Forrest on University, 5th String and Musical Instrument Exchange on Adeline, and checking addresses in the phone book, one new to me, Starving Musician on Shattuck. For sheet music, SheetMusicPlus.com has not let me down. Berkeley is also home to many musicians working in many styles, and many people making instruments. Although one store did not make it, music is alive and well in Berkeley. 

Barbara Judd 

›

It was by coincidence that I was catching up with Eleanor Vincent a day after Terri Schiavo passed away and at the start of National Donate Life Month, but the significance was not lost on either of us. Thirteen years ago Eleanor’s daughter Maya was declared brain dead by her doctors after a freak accident left her in an irreversible coma. At the request of Maya’s neurosurgeon, Eleanor made the life affirming decision to donate Maya’s organs to others in need. Last year her memoir, Swimming with Maya: A Mother’s Story was published by Capital Books. In it, she describes this heart wrenching event, and the repercussions Maya’s death has had on her, Maya’s younger sister, Meghan, family members, friends, and the recipients of Maya’s organs.  

At Roos Café on upper Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, Eleanor and I sat down and discussed her book and the recent news on the Schiavos, the Schindlers, the pope, the right to lifers, and how a devastating accident can forever change many lives. 

Since the publication of her memoir Eleanor has become a national spokesperson on the affirmative effect of her decision to donate Maya’s organs. Her appearances include transplantation symposiums at Stanford University, in-service transplantation seminars for nurses and doctors, and keynote speeches at donor recognition events, as well as appearances at bookstores and libraries. She has received a Community Service Award from the California Transplant Donor Network for her work raising awareness of the healing impact of organ donation. 

In 1992 Eleanor was a single, working mother, living in a small apartment in Lafayette. High-spirited, talented 19-year-old Maya had just been accepted into the Theater Arts program at UCLA and she was home from Santa Barbara City College to celebrate. While Eleanor was at work and Meghan at school, Maya and three friends drove to Morgan Territory in Eastern Contra Costa where, on a dare, Maya climbed a fence and jumped on the back of a grazing horse. The animal reared, Maya fell, hit her head and never regained consciousness. For several days she lay in a coma at John Muir Hospital where Eleanor agonized by her bedside. When she learned that Maya was brain dead, and doctors were withdrawing life support, Eleanor’s decision to donate her daughter’s organs provided her with a bittersweet sense of solace. “Organ donation was an opportunity to make something good come out of this tragedy,” she says softly. “The cycle of life would continue.” 

Maya’s heart was given to a man with a wife and two young children. As time went by Eleanor struck up a relationship with the recipient and his family. “Meeting them made my grief bearable,” says Eleanor. “It gave a larger meaning to what had happened. A family was able to stay together because of Maya’s heart. I would have done anything to keep another family from going through the terrible loss our family experienced.”  

Approximately 83,000 Americans are awaiting organ transplants. By telling her story, Eleanor Vincent illustrates the unique relationship between organ donors and the recipients of their gifts, and the healing power of that connection. Since Maya’s death Eleanor has completed the MFA program in Creative Writing at Mills College and gone on to teach a graduate level class there entitled the Craft of Creative Non-Fiction. “We examine how the writer confronts and structures strong and often ambiguous or conflicting emotions in a skillful way,” says Eleanor. Having read her book, and met the woman in person, I can attest to Eleanor’s firm grasp of this subject matter. Swimming With Maya is a memoir that confronts controversial subjects, reflects upon difficult situations, and deals with issues that are currently capturing our national collective conscious.  

Eleanor Vincent will give a presentation on the healing impact of organ donation and sign books on Wednesday, April 13, 6 p.m., at the First Church of Religious Science, 5000 Clarewood Dr., Oakland. For more information on Swimming With Maya and for an extensive list of links to organ donation, transplantation, grief and bereavement organizations, go to www.swimmingwithmaya.com. ?

Theater Heist 

Police arrested a 20-year-old employee of the Oaks Theater at 1875 Solano Ave. minutes after midnight Thursday morning on suspicion of grand theft. Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Steve Rego said the man had $500 in his possession, the amount reportedly taken from the till. 

Slow Crooks 

An alert Blake Street resident called police Thursday afternoon after spotting two men, one armed with a pistol, near the corner of Blake and San Pablo Avenue. 

Police set up an area perimeter and conducted a search, finally spotting the suspects, who started running with the officers in close pursuit. 

The folks with the badges proved fleeter of foot, and nabbed both suspects. A quick frisk turned up not only the pistol but some loot that had been stolen in a Piedmont burglary two hours earlier, said Officer Rego. 

The not-so-dynamic duo was escorted to the local lockup, where they were booked on charges of receiving stolen property and resisting arrest. 

Robbed or Not? 

Police were called to the corner of Shattuck and Durant avenues at 1:17 p.m. Thursday, where a very confused woman reported that she had been assaulted by person or persons unknown, and who may or may not have stolen her wallet. 

Purse Snatch 

A 22-year-old woman called police Friday morning to report that another woman about her own age had shoved her and grabbed her purse. 

Boom Box Bust 

Police arrested a 44-year-old man on suspicion of larceny and parole violation after he walked out of the 2058 University Ave. Goodwill store in possession of a boom box not his own. 

Register, Clerk Hit 

The clerk working the midnight shift at a business in the 2800 block of College Avenue called police at a minute after midnight Saturday to report that a middle-aged man wearing a dark hoodie had slugged him in the chest, then scooped up the contents of the cash register before fleeing westbound on College. 

King Pin Donut Theft 

The owner of King Pin Donuts at 2521 Durant Ave. called police Just after midnight Saturday after he discovered that $7,000 had vanished from his cash register over the past three months. 

Heistus Interruptus 

An anxious clerk at Ledger Liquor, 1399 University Ave., told police the timely entrance of a customer at 8:37 Saturday evening may have discouraged a robber before he could begin his dastardly deed. 

The clerk smelled foul deeds when a man started to walk into the store with his face hidden behind a black ski mask. At the very same moment, a customer walked in, frightening the masked man, who turned around and beat pavement westbound on University. 

Police searched the area and were able to learn the identity of the masked man, said Officer Rego. 

Homeless Slasher 

A dispute between two homeless men took a nasty turn late Saturday night when one produced a box cutter and tried to slash the other’s throat. 

The victim, a 49-year-old transient, received a non-life-threatening wound, and his 52-year-old assailant was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and escorted to new accommodations. 

Home Invaders 

Residents of an apartment in the 2600 block of Ridge Road called police Sunday morning after two masked men forced their way into the dwelling and proceeded to rob them. 

The bandits were gone by the time police arrived, along with the three marijuana plants the apartment dwellers had been carefully cultivating.  

No arrests have been made, said Officer Rego. 

Drayage Pellet Gunner 

Police raided the Drayage late Monday afternoon after someone fired a pellet gun at firefighters who are conducting a fire watch at the site, said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. 

No one was injured, and police were unable to find the shooter or the weapon, Orth said. 

The illegal apartment and live/work complex at Third and Addison streets is the scene of a dispute between residents and city officials, who have ordered the tenants to vacate a structure Orth has declared an extreme fire hazard. 

Fire and city building inspectors found more than 255 code violations at the building. The final eviction date has been set for April 15. 

I appreciated reading your article on the laptop computer that was stolen from UC Berkeley’s Grad Division—it answered some questions I had that the UC-generated press releases and web info lacked, such as if there was any encryption/password protection on the computer at all. I am a graduate student at UCB, and received a notice from the university that my data was among that stolen with the laptop. 

It is very disturbing to me that my data was not better protected by the university, and now that this computer is floating out there, with press coverage about the importance of the data stored there, it seems it would not take much to get at it if someone wants. With nearly 100,000 people’s addresses, Social Security numbers, and birthdates listed, we are now relatively easy pickings for identity fraud at any time in the future, since most of that ID data stays with us for life. 

It seems cavalier to me that the university highlighted that they were required by law to contact us after this breach of security; I wish that they had done more to proactively ensure it was not stolen and moved quickly to inform us once it was. Waiting two weeks to inform us that our data is out there seems very callous, as if the two weeks gives a thief plenty of time to steal in our names. The time and effort it takes to recover after identity fraud occurs could be a real hardship for someone hoping to focus on finishing their degree fast, especially in this climate of drastic fee increases. Thank god for that law—who knows how quietly UC would have released the news (if at all) without it! 

I still have questions for UC: 

With encryption software so common and cheap, why was encryption not yet installed on these computers? It seems a rather suspect coincidence that the computer was only days away from getting encryption, as your reporter was told. If it was known that this computer wasn’t yet encrypted, why wasn’t it locked up until it could have its data encrypted? When I worked in the Graduate Division, my impression was that sensitive student data was stored on a central server with password access that I assume was locked away somewhere in Sproul Hall, not on portable equipment. 

Why was all this information stored on a laptop that was unsecured? I own a laptop, and for $35 I bought a thick metal cable lock that secures it to tables, desks, etc. via a security slot. I use this lock all the time- when my computer is at home and if I go to a cafe or the library. You can buy similar locks for about $10 on eBay virtually anytime lately. 

If an employee saw the person walk out of the area with the computer, why wasn’t the person stopped sooner? The Graduate Division is three floors above the UC Police offices—couldn’t the response time have been almost immediate if a call was made? 

Are those desktop computers/servers currently storing student information locked to furniture or otherwise secured so they can’t walk off? If staff are not willing to stop someone if they witness stealing, it seems perhaps the equipment should be made harder to remove. 

Given that the computer stored people’s information that was up to 30 years old and UC is finding it hard to contact them since addresses have changed, are they going to provide an easy way for graduates to update their current contact information after graduation, in case there is some security issue they need to inform us of in the future? Perhaps a few secure and encrypted archival storage drives would be a good idea rather than keeping all that data on a laptop that’s in use. Does the Grad Division access 30-year records very often? 

Given all the measures that it seems weren’t taken, it looks to me like this was an accident waiting to happen. Paradoxically, I believe I keep my own personal computer’s data more securely than UC did theirs, and the stakes for the loss of my own machine are much lower. I’ve met many competent and knowledgeable tech people while working on campus, and surely there is a lot of knowledge that could be better harnessed to prevent this kind of impact on students. 

AGSE, the grad student union, is looking into this issue, and my hope is that they aren’t the only campus-related group that has swung into action. My sense of the information I’ve seen from the university is that they are putting a lot of the burden for mitigating the damage on students. It seems to me the university could act much more accountably in this situation. 

If I were a friend to someone and lost their wallet with their driver’s license and Social Security card, I wouldn’t wait two weeks before letting them know. 

Irene Nexica is a graduate student at UC Berkeley. 

I, Zachary Running Wolf, provide leadership and effort on behalf of 85,000 Native Americans here in the Bay Area (the second largest urban native population after Oklahoma City). 

Gaming is a sovereign right, dating back thousands of years in historical and cultural connections, because my people traditionally used gaming to hone their intuition in hunting. 

California has a unique situation like no other state: The tribes have compacts with the governor, that the tribes will donate 8.5 percent of the profits from gaming to the state. I applaud the tribes, since they do not have an obligation to negotiate with the governor, nor are they required to pay taxes on the gaming profits, because the tribes are sovereign states. 

The fact is that California Native Americans are offering to pay these self-taxes, which will amount to billions of dollars to state coffers. This is a gift and should be appreciated, since the federal government is removing billions of dollars by either corporatizing or financially starving basic resources such as schools, libraries, hospitals, clinics, and other badly need institutions. 

I realize that there are arguments and concerns regarding gaming, which are weak at best (no one is forced to patronized a gaming casino), and seem downright racist (white-operated casinos have flourished without interference for a very long time in this country). 

Furthermore, the argument that gaming is going to be brought to the urban environment is specious. I have to inform you that your concern is too late: There are scratchers and the state lottery in every corner store, as well as the race track in the East Bay, and many card rooms dot the Bay Area.  

As for the specter of increased crime, let me ask: When you are at South Lake Tahoe, or the Oaks Card Room, do you see people getting mugged, or robberies being staged? What makes you think such activities are going to be permitted at Indian casinos? As a matter of fact, Indian gaming places across the country have an excellent safety record. 

Impoverishing poor people is another argument raised against Indian casinos. Why are poor people going to be any more impoverished by Indian gaming than by gaming clubs run by white people—to say nothing of the lottery? I have not seen crowds of poor people at casinos—it is usually middle-income and wealthy people who patronize them. The large donations to the state, to be used for the deteriorating public institutions, and the many jobs provided by gaming will aid the poor people in the long run.  

With regard to the concern about addiction, one of the latest surveys concludes that 3 percent of gamblers have a serious addiction problem. That is too many—any addicted persons are too many. California Indian gaming makes major contributions to Gamblers Anonymous and does commercials warning against addiction. Addiction is regarded medically and psychiatrically as a disease, to be treated—and that includes addiction to alcohol, drugs, fatty foods, sugar, anorexia, and other substances and behaviors. Why are critics suddenly picking on gaming, especially Indian gaming, as a topic of major concern? 

Finally, increased traffic has been cited as a problem with some Indian gaming locations. If you’ve ever tried to drive on 80 or 580 when racing season is on, you can understand the concern. But the race track has not been closed down because of traffic problems. An offer by a Native American tribe of $25 million to push forward the already-planned highway and traffic improvement project should be accepted, rather than using the already existing traffic problems as an excuse to deny the establishment of the gaming site—which would also be reachable by public transportation. 

By the way, this country has not kept its side of almost any treaty made with Native Americans in some 450 years—a pathetic and scandalous record. And now that Native Americans have found a way to get a small piece of the pie, through gaming, there is every effort being made to deprive them of even that. 

I put it to the discerning reader that Indian-owned gaming casinos are a boon to California (the fifth-largest economy in the world). And as California goes, so goes the nation. 

Zachary Running Wolf is a Berkeley resident.›

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As a handsome young man, Karol Wojtyla was a playwright and an actor. In the course of his life, Wojtyla sensed as much about the role of the actor as Chaplin or Garbo or Winston Churchill. He was one of the great theatricals of the century.  

During the final years of his role as Pope John Paul II, he lost a great deal of control of his person, but he never lost control of his performance, or of the attention of his audience.  

No one is a pope through and through. It is a role to be played in any of several ways. Karol Wojtyla took the role in a robust way, manly, more warrior than ascetic; never fussed with his skirts.  

He played the pope for the age of television, and fully one half of the people alive on the earth remember no other in the role. Cardinals and diplomats as stage supernumeraries; the planet his audience. He seemed never without an intuition of the camera. Kissing the tarmacs of airports!  

Puritans, who do not trust the value of the theatrical, scorned the pop vulgarity of some of the trappings of his papacy—the “pope-mobile,” for example. It didn’t matter. The pope-mobile served him, as did the pop music, the lights, the robes, the staging—religious convocations modeled upon rock concerts. Indeed, the other night, Peter Jennings said of him, “he is not only the pope, he is a rock star.”  

Jennings, of course, meant Superstar—the concept formulated by the pope’s fellow Slavic genius, Andy Warhol. The pope was famous everywhere.  

John Paul was a much better pope to the world-at-large than he was to his Church. He was such a vast contradiction, this fiercely conservative pope (within his own church) who was also a liberal regarding the affairs of the world.  

We knew John Paul was critical of Jesuits in Latin America (we saw him wag his finger at an offending priest on camera) for confusing the mission of the church with politics. We must set that example alongside John Paul’s own astonishing role in undermining the Soviet Union’s grip on Eastern Europe.  

The anti-totalitarian pope worked within the Vatican to centralize his own power. He silenced dissident voices within the clergy as efficiently as any dictator.  

The church flourished under his patrimony, especially in Africa and Asia. The church suffered and repined under his paternalistic rule, especially in Western Europe and North America. Indeed, he was a more effective pope to the Third World than to the materialistic and secular West; much more at ease in his televised meeting with Castro (a man who smelled like a man, in a country that smelled like a country), than he was with Clinton or Bush.  

Like the shrewdest of modern celebrities, he fully comprehended the uses of the curtain. He did not grant interviews. He never responded to questions from journalists. He spoke when he wanted to speak. When he spoke, there was silence.  

He understood better than any of his pop rivals—better than Jagger or Bono—that the young are in pain for lack of hope. He addressed young people seriously, never pandered. But neither did he spook them; they drew near.  

During his reign, as more and more churches in Europe emptied and slipped into museum status, Pope John Paul II looked to the South to find the future. He brooded over the advance of Islam into Europe and the spread of evangelical Protestantism in Latin America.  

He defended the world’s poor at the conferences of international foundations and First-World leaders who imagined birth control to be the answer to all the world’s ills. He defended the sanctity of work, of every sort of work. He criticized capitalism.  

He enchanted stadiums full of believers and non-believers. He disappointed more nuns and priests and Vatican-II Catholics than the secular press ever reported or understood.  

He could not reverse the declining numbers of men entering the priesthood—even in Ireland, the seminaries emptied. A priest friend of mine believes John Paul would sooner have watched the Church fall down around him than ordain women.  

He criticized the West. He spoke out against abortion and birth control and homosexuality. And yet, when sexual scandal in the rectory was exposed in Europe and North America, this pope was silent.  

The theologically conservative bishops he had appointed proved themselves incompetent and worse, moving molesting priests from parish to parish, then covering up their mistakes, then selling off parish properties to meet court settlements.  

And, after 40 years of Vatican II blather—You are the church, this is your church... —the contraption of the Church slammed shut in our faces. The bishops would take no advisement on the scandal. When the chairman of a U.S. investigatory committee accused the hierarchy of obfuscating, the chairman was replaced.  

And yet: The cameras watched as he entered the synagogue of Rome to pray; watched him approach the Wailing Wall. The cameras watched when the pope was shot in St. Peter’s Square. The cameras watched when, months later, the pope visited the cell of his would-be assassin.  

As pope to the world, John Paul II spoke words of apology: to Jews for the Church’s anti-Semitism; to the Islamic world for the excesses of the Crusades. He apologized for the persecutions of Luther and Galileo and the forced conversions of Indians in the Americas.  

In her last decade, when her famous legs failed her, and her famous beauty was all unstrung, Marlene Dietrich hid herself from the sight of the world in her Paris apartment. She foolishly attempted to protect her role from her humanity.  

Pope John Paul II was a cannier theatrical. He was willing to portray himself even in suffering, to the bitterest end. He showed the world what it means to be old and dying. Ecce homo. Even when he was dragged in on a wagon, drooling, he found the spotlight. The only comparable public suffering I can think of was that of another anointed Superstar, Princess Diana.  

The pope’s last stage was his bedroom window, a perfect proscenium: The curtain opens. The old man is wheeled into the light of the open window to utter a benediction—his arm flailing uncontrollably, clutching his forehead in a simian gesture, his mouth opening and closing in tortured silence. The microphone is quickly withdrawn. The curtain begins to close as the figure recedes.  

Here was Lear; here was Olivier; here was Samuel Beckett; here was life as theatre, here was something more real than anything we see on a public stage—real suffering.  

When word of his death was broadcast, the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, at first hesitated in silence and then began to applaud—that ancient Roman gesture under that mild Roman sky. The applause continued for more than 10 minutes.  

Even those of us who harbored misgiving and bitterness in our souls concerning the state of our Church could, in the face of his extraordinary understanding of his role, claim this old actor, and join the prayer: Bravo.  

Richard Rodriguez is an essayist and author of, most recently, Brown: The Last Discovery of America (Viking, 2003). Rodriguez is working on a book about religion.  

Closing April 16 at the California Historical Society (678 Mission, at Third, San Francisco), “Poetry and its Arts, Bay Area Interactions 1954-2004,” celebrates the visual arts wrapped around the poetry heard at the San Francisco State University Poetry Center. 

Ruth Witt-Diamant founded the Center in 1954 in the midst of The San Francisco Renaissance, a scene of poets such as Kenneth Rexroth, William Everson (aka Brother Antoninus), Philip Lamantia, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Helen Adam, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Weldon Kees. Yet to come was the marketing of the Beat Scene, that wave of the arriving easterners (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso) and the other youths (Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen et al). 

The Poetry Center presented a broad range of poets both academic and uncoventional—Auden, Roethke, and later Bunting and Oppen, to name a very few. The list is both long and steady; usually, the reading was taped. Hence the center has one of the great archives of recorded poetry in the U.S. 

This show emphasizes the visuals amongst the poems. Opening with Kenneth Patchen paintings and Rexroth pastels, it features the complex work of Jesse Collins, the longtime companion of Robert Duncan, the photos of Harry Redl, the paintings of Fran Herndon, and the assemblages of George Herms, Bruce Connor and Wallace Berman. Especially poignant is the poster Jack Spicer assembled for his book Billy the Kid; quite amusing is the lame but expressive calligraphy Lew Welch committed with “a poorly prepared quill.” Secure within special collections, these unique items are rarely seen or published. 

The show occupies three rooms and involves some 100 artists, from Juvenal Acosta to Will Yackulic, including Helen Adam, Frances Butler, John Cage, Barbara Guest, Lou Harrison, Clarence Major, Arthur Okamura, Mary Oppen and Philip Whalen. Steve Dickison, formerly of Small Press Distribution (one of Berkeley’s invaluable publishing resources) and now director of the Poetry Center, curated the exhibit.  

Norma Cole, poet and translator, prepared “Collective Memory,” a three-part installation. At the front of the lobby she has furnished “Living Room Circa 1950s”: sofa, chairs, shelves with excellent and varied books, and a desk where she presides during the show’s hours (Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 4:30 p.m.). A slide show of her local photos runs quietly and continuously. It’s a delight to stop and chat, see the exhibition, and then return for conversation; the first day I went, I met Robert Bertholf, professor at SUNY (Buffalo) who has helped preserve the Duncan/Jess “household” at his university. 

At the front of the exhibit is the wall installation, “Archive Tableau,” a bank of tapes and audio/visual equipment miming the modestly funded, but precious archive at San Francisco State. Further to the right and making a graceful exit from the show is the installation, “House of Hope,” consisting of 426 strips of cloth with a line of poetry printed on each. Norma Cole chose these poets; Suzanne Stein organized the assemblage of the frame and the hanging of the strips. You’re invited to move amongst the strips and read the poetry. A printed broadside (in smaller type) containing all the lines is free at the door. Last Thursday when I photographed the installation, I pulled up a strip to drape around Norma. Quite curiously it was the line by Robert Creeley who had died two days earlier: “Nothing will fit if we assume a place for it.” 

TUESDAY, APRIL 5 

CHILDREN 

Puppet Company “Trickster Tales” at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Betwen Dimensions” Large sculptural paintings of the atmosphere by Ruth von Jahnke Waters, opens at Gallery 940, 940 Dwight Way at Ninth St.  

Contemporary Japanese Calligraphy with Keiji Onodera at 5 p.m. at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St. 642-2809. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “A Darkness Swallowed” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ronald Wright discusses “A Short History of Progress” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Keith Devlin describes “The Math Instinct: Why You’re a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats and Dogs)” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“American Labor and the Cold War” with authors William Issel, Kenneth Burt and Don Watson at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Claudia Schmidt at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Mudbath, Aroarah, alt pop rock, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886.  

“Bright River” A hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $12-$35. 415-256-8499.  

Baby Buck, Cowpokes for Peace, Bob Harp, alt country, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Maria Muldaur at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

Brian Kane, jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 

THEATER 

Laney College Theater, “Legacy for LoEshe” in memory of a girl slain in West Oakland, Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., through April 21, at 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$9. 464-3544. 

FILM 

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

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Zac Unger describes “Working Fire: The Making of An Accidental Fireman” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Cara Black reads from her new mystery novel, “Murder in Clichy” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Josh Kearns, UC student and contributing author reads from “What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out” at 2:30 p.m. at the Cal Student Store. 642-7294. 

Ross Tobia reads from his new book “Grand Unified Theory, Physics for a New Age” at 7 p.m. at the Albany Public Library Meeting Room, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert “Jazz and Vocal” at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Za’Bava! Izvorno at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Ravi Abcarian Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Claudia Schmidt at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

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

Julio Bravo, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159. 

Dave Holland Big Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Fri. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“North by Northwest” new and experimental works on paper by members of Seattle Print Arts. Reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.oeg 

“Jewish Life and Culture in Norway: Wergeland's Legacy” Reception at 7 p.m. with Jo Benkow, former President of the Norwegian Parliament, at Townsend Center for the Humanities, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Campus. RSVP to 642-5355. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater “Wit” and “Benefactor” Thurs. at 7 p.m., Fri. at 8 p.m. and Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. through April 16, at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10. 558-2500, ext. 2579.  

FILM 

Marina Goldovskaya: “The Prince is Back” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free screening. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with Suji Kwock Kim at 12:10 p.m. at Morrison Library in Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137.  

“A Mirror of Threads: Weaving and Self-Representation in Mexico” with Alejandro de Avila from Oaxaca at 5 p.m. at Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft Way at College. 643-7648. 

Grace Marie Grafton reads her poetry at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Amy Prior reads from “Lost on Purpose: Women in the City” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Prof. Robert Ogilvie discusses “Voluntarism, Community Life, and the American Ethic” at 1:30 p.m. at the Cal Student Store. 642-7294.  

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with Nancy Wakeman and Jeanne Powell at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

Stan Goldberg explains “Ready to Learn: How to Help Your Preschooler Succeed” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Berkeley Live and Unplugged Open mic featuring music and spoken word at 7 p.m. at 1924 Cedar Str. 703-9350. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Emam & Friends, world music, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Kelly Joe Phelps at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Old Time Square Dance with Amy and Karen, and the Barnburners at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Peter Barshay & Weber Iago at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Between Dimensions” Large sculptural paintings of the atmosphere by Ruth von Jahnke Waters. Reception at 5 p.m. Gallery 940, 940 Dwight Way at Ninth St. 

“Color-Full” works by Jane Norling, Renata Gray, Aiko Kobayashi Gray, Susie Wallerstein and Charlotte Tall Mountain. Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at WCRC Gallery, 5741 Telegraph Ave. 601-4040 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, “Working,” inspired by Studs Terkel, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Through May 7. Tickets are $13-$15. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Albany High School Theater “Wit” and “Benefactor” Thurs. at 7 p.m., Fri. at 8 p.m. and Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. through April 16, at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10. 558-2500, ext. 2579.  

Aurora Theatre, “Blue/Orange” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m., 2081 Addison St. through May 15. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.aurora.theatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater “For Better or Worse” at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. and runs through April 24. Tickets are $20-$55. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Laney College Theater, “Legacy for LoEshe” in memory of a girl slain in West Oakland, Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., through April 21, at 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$9. 464-3544. 

“Proof” by David Auburn, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through May 7 at The Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $13. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

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

“Side-By-Side by Sondheim” by Theater on the Hill, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Reservations required. Tickets are $20-$40. 525-0302.  

FILM 

An Evening with Frederick Wiseman: “Central Park” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Oriah Mountain Dreamer describes “What We Ache For” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Free. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sweet Honey in the Rock at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$46. 642-9988.  

UC Jazz Spring Concert at 8 p.m. at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. Tickets are $5-$10. 642-5062. 

Bustin’ Out, the best of hip hop, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $17-$20 at the door. www.juliamorgan.org  

Bobby N. Barrett Night of Music at St. Mary’s College High School, 1294 Albina Ave. Reception at 6:30 p.m., performance at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30. 526-9242.  

Rythms in Reason A collaboration with Naked Souls Artist Alliance at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Samba Da and Universal Language, Latin dance groove at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Uday Bhawalker with Manik Munde at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Jill Knight at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

The Cheat, Foreign Telegram, Barefoot Bride, rock, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5-$7. 848-0886.  

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

Sasha Dobson Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

DJ & Brook, jazz trio, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Blowfly at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$10. 548-1159.  

Will Bernard & Motherbug at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Light’s Out, Our Turn, The First Step, Right On at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Dave Holland Big Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Fri. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, APRIL 9 

CHILDREN  

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

EXHIBITIONS 

“Plant Portraits: The California Legacy of A. R. Valentien” An exhibition of watercolors at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.  

“Memories of Southeast Asia” by Andrea Fumagalli, at 4 p.m. at 4th Street Studio, 1717D Fourth St. 527-0600.  

THEATER 

Cuentos: Voices for (Our) Stories: “Poch@” with Madmedia at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Tickets are $7-$10. 849-2568.  

FILM 

Crying in Color: “Moulin Rouge” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Oriah Mountain Dreamer discusses her book “What We Ache For” at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St.  

“Julia Morgan: The Paris Years” with Ph.D. candidate Karen McNeill at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Cost is $15. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kirov Orchestra “Russian Spectacular” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$72. 642-9988.  

Trinity Chamber Concert “Three Trapped Tigers” recorder music at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Cost is $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Philharmonia Baroque “Cathedral of Toledo” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Dana and Durant. Tickets are $28-$62. 415-392-4400. 

Pacific Boychoir Academy Spring Concert at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $20. 452-4722.  

Piedmont Choirs, early music concert at 8 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. 547-4441.  

Bustin’ Out, the best of hip hop, at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $17-$20 at the door.  

Barbara Higbie at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Shiftless Rounders, Naked Barbies at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Sister I-Live, Razorblade, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Jaime Wyatt, West Grand, Abandon Theory, rock, pop, alt at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Angel Magik at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 548-1159.  

Brindl, singer-songwriter, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Fred Zimmerman at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Rio Thing at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473.  

Gospel Extravaganza at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373.  

Flaming Fire, Faun Fable, Sevenly Virtues at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway at 2nd St. Cost is $10. 763-1146.  

Meli at 7 and 9 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $5. 597-0795. 

Peter Barshay’s Pit of Fashion Orchestra at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Kill Your Idols, Forward to Death, All or Nothing at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Andy Bey Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $15-$18. 238-9200.  

SUNDAY, APRIL 10 

CHILDREN  

Charity Kahn and the JamJamJam Band at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

“The World in My Neighborhood: Asian Cultures” family day from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft Way at College Ave. Cost is $3-$4. 642-7648. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Narrating Moral Models” Lecture at 2 p.m., guided tour at 3:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808.  

“Berkeley Police Department: A Century of Innovation” reception at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. 848-0181.  

“Space is the Place” Installations by Sarah Cain, Christian Maycheck and others. Reception from 2 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893.  

FILM 

“For the Love of It” Annual Festival of Amateur FIlmmaking at 8:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Alan Williamson and Jeanne Foster at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

The Berkeley Literary Women’s Revolution at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Philharmonia Baroque “Cathedral of Toledo” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Dana and Durant. Tickets are $28-$62. 415-392-4400.  

Tekla Cummingham and Jonathan Rhodes Lee perform music by J.S. Bach and sons at 2 p.m. at Music Sources, 1000 The Alameda. Tickets are $10-$15. 

Organ Recital with Jason Abel at 6:10 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way at Ellsworth. 845-0888. 

Wayne Shorter Acoutic Quartet at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$46. 642-9988.  

Four Seasons Concerts, Mauricio Nader, piano, at 4 p.m. at Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $25-$35. 601-7919.  

East Bay School for Girls Concert “Inspiration” at 3 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25. 849-9444.  

Jyota Kala Mandir at 5 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15.  

Sara Ayala & Los Flamenquitos at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Horacio Salinas at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Faye Carol at 6 and 8 p.m. at Black Rep, 3201 Adeline St. Donation $20 benefits Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. 465-1617. 

Noxa, Lowki, Maxwell Adams at 4 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. All ages show. 848-0886.  

Jazzschool Big Band at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373.  

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

Champion, Blue Monday at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926.

Earlier this year, PBS ran (in its usual annoying fashion, all three episodes back to back) a documentary about American English, with Robert MacNeill traveling around the country and reporting on the state of the language. It was in part an elegy for dy ing dialects (Southern Appalachian, Gullah) and in part a forecast of linguistic change (the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, the lingo of rappers, skateboarders, text-messagers). 

Americans aren’t unique in having dialects, of course—I learned that hitchhiki ng around Britain years ago, and having mutually unintelligible conversations with Scots, Welsh, Yorkshiremen, and Londoners. Nor are humans. The existence of local song dialects in birds has been documented for quite a while. Much of what we know about t he phenomenon comes from the work of Luis Baptista, who was curator of birds and mammals at the California Academy of Sciences until his untimely death in 2002. 

I only met Baptista once, at one of the Academy’s open house nights when members get to go be hind the scenes, meet the scientists, and smell the formaldehyde. But he must have been a remarkable individual. He had emigrated from Macau in 1961 to study at the University of San Francisco and UC Berkeley, and it was at Berkeley that he discovered his key research subject, the white-crowned sparrow. More than half his 120-odd technical publications dealt with the sparrow and its song dialects.  

He had an amazing ear for birdsong. “Luis could stand in [Golden Gate Park], hear a call, and declare that ‘the white-crown had a Canadian father and a California mother.’” a colleague remembered. “It has half an Alberta accent and half a Monterey accent. The parents probably met at the Tioga Pass near Yosemite.” Baptista’s love of music—he was an early fan of Astor Piazzolla—meshed seamlessly with his research interests; his last project was a study of the biology of music and its relationship to bird song.  

Baptista (and other researchers like Donald Kroodsma) found that white-crowns have to learn their loc al version of the species’ song. Their “song tutors” are either their own fathers or males holding neighboring territories. Biologists believe that like other songbirds, they’re born with a built-in auditory template, a generalized sketch of what their so ng should sound like. But there’s a critical period, from 10 to 50 days after hatching, during which they need to hear an appropriate model in order to get it right. White-crowns reared in isolation or exposed only to the songs of other species never prod uce a normal song. In the wild, they begin practicing at about 5 months of age, playing with variations but eventually settling down to the version they heard from Dad. 

It turns out that dialects can be highly localized, with audible differences in sparrow populations only a few yards apart in the same patch of habitat. Males with territories on a dialect boundary can be bilingual. Getting the song right makes a big difference in their social lives, since females are more responsive to the local dialect. And genetic differences seem to mirror song differences. Since song “inheritance” seems to be patrilineal, I have to wonder about Baptista’s bird with the half-Monterey/half-Alberta accent; maybe he was just pulling his colleague’s leg. 

I thought of Luis Baptista and his white-crowned sparrows when I heard a National Public Radio report on some new research by Gary Rose at the University of Utah at Salt Lake City, and later tracked down the report in Nature. Rose and his colleagues set out to study the mechanics of song learning. They knew that sparrows that had been exposed to only isolated phrases of their species’ song were unable to produce a normal song. But when they broke the song into pairs of phrases (AB, BC, CD, DE), they found that sparrows exposed to the sequence of pairs were able to put them together in the right order. And if the sequence was reversed (e.g., BA, CB, DC, ED), the sparrows assembled a “backwards” version of the song (EDCBA), which, as played on NPR, sounded decidedly odd. 

How does this all work in the sparrow’s brain? Earlier research had identified specialized cell groups in the forebrains of songbirds that were associated with song learning and production—the “song system.” Neurons in the song system light up when a bird hears its own song played back. And there is a stronger response to paired song phrases in the correct order than to phrases in isolation. 

It’s not clear at this point whether the neural pathways are laid down when the bird first hears a “song tutor,” o r when it practices its own song during the developmental period.  

Donald Kroodsma’s research on Bewick’s wrens in Oregon suggests that the song tutor may be a neighbor rather than a parent. After leaving the nest, a young male wren abandons his father’s song and picks up the prevailing dialect surrounding his new territory.  

All this has interesting implications beyond the world of sparrows and wrens. There may be commonalities between the neural architecture of learning in songbirds and in humans. And without getting too Chomskyan, we may have our own innate templates for language. Maybe someday I’ll be able to explain, on a scientific basic, how I got out of Arkansas without acquiring an accent, except for that tendency to pronounce “greasy” with a Z, and “Baptist” with two B’s.PA

TUESDAY, APRIL 5 

Mid-Day Meander in Briones to see the spring migratory birds. From 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. For details call 525-2233. 

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

“California Wild” A slide presentation with author and photographer Tim Palmer at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Free. 527-4140. 

Robert Reich on “How Unequal Can America Get Before We Snap?” at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Free, but tickets required. 642-9988. 

“American Labor and the Cold War: Grassroots Politics and Postwar Political Culture” with authors William Issel, Kenneth Burt and Don Watson at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Central Library, Community Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100.  

“Advice for Small Business Owners” with Susan Urquhart-Brown, author of “The Accidental Entrepreneur: Practical Wisdom for People Who Never Expected to Work for Themselves” at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. 

“Resolving Conflicts Through Dialogue” with Drs Jerry Diller and Meshulam Plaves, Tues. April 5, 12, 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC. Cost is $40. 848-0237, ext. 110. 

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group meets to discuss Tax Reform from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Please bring snacks and soft drinks to share. No peanuts please. 601-6690.     

“Will Your Bones Carry You into the Future?” with Beverley Tracewell, CCRC, at 4 p.m. at Jewish Family & Children’s Services, 828 San Pablo Ave., Suite 104, Albany. To register call 558-7800. 

Introductory Buddhist Meditation Class at 7 p.m. at Dzalandhara Buddhist Center, in Berkeley. Suggested donation $7-$10. For directions call 559-8183. www.kadampas.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 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. Introduction to Legal Assistance at 11 a.m. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll discover plant parts from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Bring a plain, light-colored t-shirt. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Great Decisions 2005: “Global Water Issues” with Prof. Isha Ray, Energy and Resources Group, UCB from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. Cost is $5. For information and reservations call 526-2925. 

“The Forest for the Trees: Judi Bari vs. the FBI” a new documentary at 7:30 p.m. at La Pena, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. Benefits Forest Defenders’ Pepper Spray Q-tip lawsuit. 849-2568. 

“When Hate Happens Here” a screening and community discussion of a new documentary at 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Theater, Oakland. Sponsored by KQED and The Working Group. Free, but please RSVP to 415-553-3338. ylee@kqued.org 

Quit Smoking Class from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. and April 20 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 2326 Tolman Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley. to register call 981-5330. 

St. Paul’s Episcopal School Community Outreach Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. at 116 Moncito Ave., Oakland. Reservations required. 285-9613. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

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

WomenFirst Open House and introduction for volunteers to assist women in transition to self-sufficiency, from noon to 2 p.m. at 7200 Bancroft Ave., Suite 260, Oakland. Please RSVP to Yasmeen at 729-6236. 

Home Buyer Assistance Information Session at 6 p.m. at 1504 Franklin St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Home Buyer Assistance Center. Reservations required. 832-6925, ext. 100. www.hbac.org 

AARP Free Tax Assistance for taxpayers with middle and low incomes, with special attention to those 60 years and older. From 12:15 to 4:15 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. This service will continue through April. Appointments required. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

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

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

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station at 6:30 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

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

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 

Early Morning Bird Walk in Tilden Meet at 7 a.m. opposite the Pony Ride for a Gorge Trail tramp. 525-2233. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult. We’ll discover plant parts from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Bring a plain, light-colored t-shirt. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“Seafood Watch” a lecture with Jennifer Dianot of the Monterey Bay Aquarium on depletion of fish stocks around the world and health of the oceans at 7 p.m. at the Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo. Cost is $8-$10. 632-9525, ext. 142. 

“Know Your Soil” with Richard Strong, soil scientist, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Salvemos Nuestros Pueblos at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $5-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

BUSD West Campus Site Planning Meeting on “Alternatives to Development” at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria, 1222 University Ave. 644-6066. 

Berkeley Partners for Parks meets at 7:30 p.m. at The City of Berkeley’s Corporation Yard, 1326 Allston Way, Assembly Room-The Green Room. All welcome. 649-9874. 

Diversity Films: “Beauty Before Age” at 6:30 p.m. at Ellen Driscoll Theater, Frank Havens Elementary School, 325 Highland Ave., Piedmont. Discussion follows. Free. 599-9227. www.diversityworks.org 

“Invest in Yourself and Your Community” Information on credit unions, loan funds and other financial services that help local communities at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Free. 839-2900, ext. 261. 

Commemorate Oakland Docks Anti-War Picket A benefit for Willow Rosenthal injured on April 7, 2003, at 7 p.m. at Café Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 

“The Future of the U.S. and Mexico: The Role of Education” with Juan Ramón de la Fuente of the National Autonomous University of Mexico at 4 p.m. in the Lounge, Women’s Faculty Club, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Medicare, MediCal & Long-Term Insurance?” with Bruce Feder, attorney, at 7 p.m. at Jewish Family & Children’s Services, 828 San Pablo Ave., Suite 104, Albany. To register call 558-7800. 

National Alcohol Screening Day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Options Recovery Services, 2020 Milvia St., fourth floor. Call Ellen or Celeste for an appointment 666-9900. 

“The Rhythm of Life’s Transitions” Learn exercises and ritual at 7 p.m. at Changemakers for Women, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $15-$25. RSVP to 286-7915. 

East Bay Mac User Group from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St. http://ebmug.org 

FRIDAY, APRIL 8 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Toru Kumimatsu on “The Current Japanese Economy and Culture” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

Communities of Color and New Models of Organizing Labor A Symposium, sponsored by the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law & Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Booth Auditorium, Boalt Hall, UC Campus. To register, see http://boalt.org/BJELL/activities.html 

Bay Area African-American Health Summit from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Downs Memorial Church, 6026 Idaho St., near 60th & San Pablo, Oakland. Cost is $10. 654 5858 ext. 10. 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Matt Gonzalez and Steve Jacobson at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 528-5403. 

“Forces of Nature: Earthquakes in Turkey” a lecture and film screening with Ross Stein, geophysicist, at 7:30 p.m. at Chabot Space and Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $12-$15. 336-7373. www.chabotspace.org 

Helmet Safety Day for Toddlers with helmet decorating and fitting at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Radio Camp Build an FM trasmitter and learn the fundamentals of micropower broadcasting in this 4-day workshop in Oakland. Class runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., April 8-11. Cost is $150-$200 sliding scale. For information and to register call 625-0314. www.freeradio.org 

“Remaking Economic Strengths in East Asia” a two-day conference at the Lipman Room, Barrows Hall, UC Campus. For details see http://ieas. 

berkeley.edu/events/eac2005 

Ministry as a Vocation A conference at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Senic Ave. To register call 800-999-0528, ext. 1253. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m. 

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

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, APRIL 9 

Spring Ponds We’ll learn about srping life cycles and capture and release naiads and nymphs, at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Gardening with East Bay Native Plants, with Lyn Talkovsky, landscape gardener, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Cost is $15-$25. Registration required. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“Gardening from the Ground Up” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bay-Friendly Demonstration Garden, 3589 Pacific Ave., Oakland. To register call 444-7645. www.bayfriendly.org 

Spring Veggies and the Edible Landscape with Novella Carpenter at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Transportation and Land Use Summit Strategy and training sessions on a wide range of topics, including promoting transit villages, bicycle and pedestrian issues, and stopping unjust fare hikes and service cuts. From 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Laney College Forum, 900 Fallon St. at 9th. Cost is $10, includes breakfast, lunch and materials. Register at www.transcoalition.org  

“The Ambassador” A documentary film account of the nefarious career of John Dimitri Negroponte as Ambassador to Honduras, 1981-85. With discussion and musical performance at 7:30 p.m., at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St.  

Eggster Hunt and Learning Festival with arts and crafts, learning booths and entertainment. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Strawberry Creek Lawn in front of Valley Life Sciences Bldg., UC Campus. Free and open to all families and children. www.eggster.org 

“Qi, Feng Shui & Life” with Professor Lin-Yun of the Yun-Lin Temple at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, Community Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6136. 

Women of Wisdom Health Walk at 11 a.m. at Cesar Chavez shoreline parking lot, Berkeley Marina. 704-0565. 

Philosophers Forum on “Humble Greatness: Neo-Existentialist Zen” with UCB lecturer Americ Azevedo at 2 to 5 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Free. http://philosophersforum.net/ 

“Hotel/Hospitality Overview” from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Vista Community College. 2020 Milvia St. Cost is $13. RSVP to 981-2931. 

Acupuncture & Integrative Medicine College Open House from noon to 6 p.m. at 2550 Shattuck Ave. RSVP to 666-8248, ext. 106. 

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 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 10 

Early Morning Bird Walk Meet at 7 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center to learn about what is new in the science of birdsong. 525-2233. 

Life Underground Meet at 1 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park to learn about what goes on below the soil surface. 525-2233. 

Thank You Party for Senator Barbara Boxer for her courageous leadership on the election challenge, ANWR fight and more from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Montclair Women’s Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Hosted by NWPC, Wellstone Club, EB for Democracy. All welcome, $50 benefits Senator Boxer’s PAC. www.nwpcan.org, ncskinner@earthlink.net 

Green Sunday: The Climate Change Crisis and You With Tom and Jane Kelly from KyotoUSA and Danielle Fugere with Blue Water Network at 5 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th. 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

Hands-on Bicycle Maintenance Class from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $85-$100. 527-4140. 

“The World in My Neighborhood: Celebrating the Diversity of Asian Cultures” in a program created for all ages. Activities from 1 to 3 p.m. at Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Bancroft at College. Cost is $1-$4. 643-7648. http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu  

“Thinking of Becoming a Doula?” at 2 p.m. at Change Makers, 6536 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. www.changemakersforwomen.com 

“The Children of Chabannes” a film about a village in France that saved the lives of 400 Jewish refugee children, at 2 p.m. at the BRJCC. 848-0237. 

“A Taste of Judaism: Are You Curious?” Learn about Jewish spirituality, Jewish ethics, and Jewish community. Held in Richmond. Free, but registration required. 839-2900, ext. 347. 

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 Donna Morgan on “Tibetan Yoga Outdoors” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, APRIL 11 

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 

The 5th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival “Values of Tolerance” with two documentaries “In Rwanda We Say” and “Talk Mogadishu: Media Under Fire.” Reception at 6:30 p.m., films at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft. Tickets are $8-$10 at the door. 849-1752 www.unausaeastbay.org, www.unaff.org 

“Neo-Liberal Economic Policies in Latin America” with Prof. Beatriz Magaloni, Stanford Univ., at 1:15 p.m. at CLAS conference room, 2334 Bowditch St. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping in Berkeley Public Schools at 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

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

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

ONGOING 

Bike Chain Response is organizing an interfaith bike ride from the Nevada Test Site to Los Alamos National Laboratory, June 19 to July 17, to raise awareness of alternative modes of transportation and the tragedy of the nuclear weapons industry. 505-870-2-ASK. www.lovarchy.org/ride/ 

Find a Loving Animal Companion at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society, open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tues. through Sun. 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., April 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Tasha Tervelon, 981-5347. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/women 

Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., April 6, at 7:30 p.m. at 997 Cedar St. David Orth, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/firesafety 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., April 7, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/environmentaladvisory 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., April 7 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., April 7, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., April 11, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

citycouncil/agenda-committee?

Local regulators have cited West Berkeley’s Pacific Steel Casting for releasing foul smelling air from its factories, plant General Manager Joe Emmerichs confirmed Thursday. 

The citation, issued by the Bay Area Regional Air Quality Management District, came after the district’s inspector traced seven confirmed reports of a burning plastic smell last Wednesday to the plant. Air district rules require five confirmed reports within 24 hours to issue a violation notice. 

The surge in complaints comes at a time when local residents and workers have begun mobilizing people to contact the air district with complaints. 

Sarah Simonet, an elementary school teacher and renter, started the drive a year ago going door-to-door with flyers she printed. “I’m not convinced that the particles coming out of there are not toxic,” she said. “A lot of children breath the air out of that factory.” 

“This is a major deal for us,” said Councilmember Linda Maio, who represents the affected area. “Now we are on the map with the air district.”  

The citation includes a $1,000 fine and the threat of escalating fines if more violations follow. Although a citation does not require that the air district step up regulation of a plant, Maio said she has learned that because of the recent findings, the air district will perform a long-awaited air quality study at the plant. 

Air district spokesperson Emily Hopkins confirmed that a study of Pacific Steel is scheduled, but added that it remained uncertain if it would include on-site testing or an analysis of past tests. 

“There is definitely an odor problem in that area,” Hopkins said. “We are aware of it and we will proceed with deliberate speed.” 

Complaint calls to the air district over Pacific Steel have been on the rise in recent years, air district records show. Last year the district received 112 smell complaints directed at Pacific Steel, compared to 49 in 2003 and 18 in 2001. Pacific Steel has topped the air district’s complaint list in Berkeley every year since 2000. 

Emmerichs acknowledged that Pacific Steel was responsible for the odor, neighbors complained about Wednesday, but insisted that a foul smell was not tantamount to foul air. “Our emissions are not toxic,” he said. “We’ve been checked out before and we’ve passed every test.” 

Located over three blocks at Second Street, just south of Gilman Street, Pacific Steel operates three factories that heat metal to a molten state and then pour it into molds. The melting and pouring process release compounds that neighbors for years have compared to the smell of burning pot handles. 

After receiving 46 notices of violation from the air district between 1981 and 1985, Pacific Steel installed carbon filters at two of its factories. They determined that the third and newest factory, built in 1981, did not have enough activity to require the filter. 

Emmerichs said that work had increased at the third factory, but held that it was not responsible for the reports of foul air. 

The City Council has previously called for air studies at the plant. A 2000 city air monitoring report with a monitoring station near the plant did not provide a large enough sample to capture and analyze the smell, said city Hazardous Materials Manager Nabil Al-Hadithy. In addition to air monitoring studies, Al-Hadithy has asked the air district to require an independent analysis of the plant’s air filtration systems. 

“We are waiting for the air district to give us a definitive answer to the risks,” he said. “Considering that they haven’t jumped at our requests, I assume they have determined this is not a high risk area.” 

Al-Hadithy said previous air district studies have shown that plant emissions for cancer-causing substances have always just barely passed state standards. He added that the influx of new residential and park space in the area has spurred the city to seek updated studies. 

Even if air studies show that the plant is not a health risk, the air district could come down on Pacific Steel for creating a nuisance. In 1982, the district issued an abatement order against the plant, “to cease and desist from discharging to the atmosphere odorous or annoying compounds generated in the course of melting and pouring operations.” 

Over citizen objections, an air district hearing board in 2000 voted to lift the abatement order. 

Alex Cox, an engineer at a firm five blocks from the station, was one of the seven people last Wednesday to register a confirmed complaint. 

“I’m concerned about my health,” he said. “I don’t care about the smell. I just want to know that the air I’m breathing is clean.” Cox said he smells the “burning pot handle” smell on days when the wind blows east, and that several of his complaint calls have gone unconfirmed, because by the time the inspector arrives, the wind has changed direction. 

Cox and Simonet said they wanted to press Pacific Steel to improve its air quality not chase it out of town. But L.A. Wood, an environmental activist who has opposed the plant for years, doesn’t see how it can remain in the face of the influx of residents and recreation-seekers to West Berkeley. 

“It’s like two freight trains running into each other,” he said. “People aren’t willing to admit that the two uses are incompatible.” 

Tupper & Reed Music—downtown Berkeley’s oldest business—is closing its doors after 99 years. 

“I desperately wanted to make it to 100,” says owner Wayne Anderson, “but I feel sort of relieved that I’ve finally made a decision I should’ve made five years ago.” 

“It’s really a shame,” said Deborah Badhia, executive director of the Downtown Berkeley Association. “It’s an important part of downtown Berkeley.” 

It’s especially hard for Anderson, who came to Berkeley in 1967 to study at the American Baptist Seminary of the West, paying his way by teaching piano and working part-time as a church musician. 

Then one day he walked into Tupper & Reed Music at 2277 Shattuck Ave. to buy a guitar. Four months later, he owned a piece of the business. 

“It changed the course of my life,” he said. 

And now, 99 years after the business first opened its doors, Anderson is presiding over its demise. 

Tupper & Reed has played a vital role in the musical life of Berkeley. Take the clerk who sold Anderson the six-stringer—Thomas Rarick, who two years later became the founding conductor of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. 

Owner Richard Cartano, another symphony founder, liked Anderson and offered him the job. Rarick, who had taken a leave to study under the great English conductor Sir Adrian Boult, returned to find that his one-time customer had become his boss. 

Generations of Berkeley residents have patronized the store, buying everything from Edison Talking Machines to Steinway grand pianos and taking lessons in the basement sound rooms on all manner of instruments. 

A diminishing customer base 

Founded in the same year as the great San Francisco earthquake, the Shattuck Avenue retailer has been felled by a variety of forces, some national in scale and others specific to doing business in downtown Berkeley. 

To begin with, Anderson explains, music stores have a very small potential market—the 5 percent of the population who buy and continue to play musical instruments.  

“There are only 9,000 music stores in the United States, and they are dropping like flies,” Anderson said. “Five or six stores within an hour’s drive of here have failed this year.” Stores that do survive are starting to open up space for other in-store businesses, most notably coffee shops. 

The number of music stores continues to diminish as cash-strapped schools across the country eliminate music programs. Anderson said it didn’t help his business when Berkeley’s school board eliminated music programs for the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. 

Then there are the profit margins, especially for sheet music, which Anderson said are notoriously slender. 

Despite its numerous vulnerabilities, Anderson’s not giving up on the music business. Though he’s shuttering his Berkeley store, he will continue to operate Stanroy Music Center in Santa Rosa, a 58-year old business he bought from its founder in 1980. He once owned a third store, in Walnut Creek, which closed when the landlord decided to replace his building with a bigger one. 

While his Berkeley store drowned in red ink, the Santa Rosa business continues to thrive, and Anderson has given a lot of thought to the reasons why. At the top of his list are contrasting city policies toward downtown development. 

Downtown Berkeley’s Downturn 

Downtown Berkeley was an entirely different creature when Anderson first walked into Tupper & Reed. The scene was one of a vibrant commercial culture that drew residents in search of major purchases. 

“When I started, there were nice shops downtown,” he said, including a furniture store with five full floors of offerings, a full service hardware store, top-line clothiers and a major department store. “The list is endless.” 

“Now you can see a movie, get a cup of coffee, eat a meal and buy a book in downtown Berkeley, and that’s about it,” Anderson said. “And I’m not sure how much longer the bookstores will last.” 

Stores complement each other in a strong commercial center, where customers drawn by one store stay to browse and buy at others, he said. But if stores close and landlords can’t replace them, the remaining stores find it harder to survive. 

“Ross is our biggest retailer, and you can tell they’re not doing well when you walk through the store,” Anderson said. “I went in to buy shoes last week, and they didn’t have anything in my size. When they first opened, you could barely get in. Their shelves were always full and there were long lines at the checkout counter. But take a look now.” 

Anderson points to the shuttered storefronts in his own block, where “we’ve had them continuously since 1980.” 

Badhia acknowledges that the lack of concentration of retailers in today’s downtown makes it difficult to create the synergies on which small retailers thrive. 

“We have good retail, but it’s spread out,” she said. 

Why should Santa Rosa retain a vibrant commercial core while Berkeley’s has fallen to decline? Anderson thinks city parking policies have played a major role in both cases. 

“The most difficult thing in Berkeley over the last decade has been the rise in parking rates and the decline in places to park. When the old Hink’s parking lot closed on Kittredge Street last year, our volume dropped by 25 percent,” Anderson said. “That was the final straw.” 

“Charging more for parking and raising fines is a quick fix to a city’s financial problems,” Anderson said, “but it risks killing the goose that lays the golden egg.”  

While parking spaces became fewer and costlier in downtown Berkeley, they became more numerous and mostly free in Santa Rosa. 

“They decided in Santa Rosa that they would rely on sales and business taxes instead of parking fees,” building a large free parking structure downtown to encourage patrons of local merchants, Anderson said. 

But the unrelenting economic pressures on California cities, created in part by Proposition 13 limits on property taxes and in part by dwindling contributions from state and federal coffers, have started a reevaluation of Santa Rosa’s policies. 

“There’s talk of raising parking rates,” Anderson acknowledges. “So Berkeley is just a few years ahead of the curve than Santa Rosa.” 

Badhia, of the downtown association, said she had no reason to doubt Anderson’s conclusions about the effect of parking on his business, and was particularly struck by the downturn in his clientele after the Kittredge Street parking structure was closed. 

A possible future on-line 

Anderson is contemplating one more major change in his business practices. As with so many other businesses, the rise of the Internet also played its role in the music business, and Anderson is the first to admit he should’ve jumped onto the e-tailing bandwagon. 

“I stayed out mostly because I don’t like the experience of buying online,” he said, “but I recognize that others don’t feel the same way.” 

While he presides over the closing of his Berkeley business, he’s also planning an increased web presence for Stanroy, complete with online ordering. His initial focus will be on sheet music orders. 

He also hopes to revive the Tupper & Reed name in the East Bay at some future date, though it won’t be in downtown Berkeley. Anderson said he will finally shutter the Shattuck Avenue store after most of the major items have moved. Then he’ll ship the remaining inventory to Santa Rosa. He estimates the process should take about two months. 

“I hate to close, but it was either that or to throw my house and my other store into the business,” he said.

When it came down to whether or not Terri Schiavo should live or die, many in Berkeley’s famously left-wing disabled community found themselves in lock step with the Christian Right. 

“There’s a rift between the able-bodied Left and the disability movement over this,” said Ruthanne Shpiner, who has been confined to a wheelchair since a bicycle accident 20 years ago. “Jeb Bush might be wrong 99 percent of the time, but I don’t think he missed the boat here.” 

On Thursday Schiavo, a severely brain damaged woman, died at a Florida hospice, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed. While Christian conservatives leaders fought to restore the tube as a right-to life issue, many local disabled residents viewed her plight as a matter of disability rights. 

“Basically they’re saying that it’s OK to starve people with disabilities who can’t communicate and must be fed through a tub. It’s quite frightening,” said Nicholas Feldman, whose cerebral palsy causes a speech impediment. “For someone like me it’s especially frightening, because there’s a risk my wishes could be misunderstood by doctors.” 

Disabled rights groups are particularly upset with the American Civil Liberties Union, a traditional ally, which represented Michael Schiavo in his effort to remove his wife’s feeding tube over the objection of her parents. 

“The ACLU is giving more weight for a person on death row than they would for Terri Schiavo,” Shpiner said. 

Schiavo was an able-bodied woman until she suffered cardiac arrest 15 years ago that deprived her brain of oxygen and left her in what doctors called “a persistently vegetative state.” According to the National Institute of Health, people in such a state cannot think, speak or respond to commands and are unaware of their surroundings. Schiavo could breath under her own power, but couldn’t swallow without the feeding tube. 

Her condition was not as hopeless as some would assume, said those interviewed. “Even if she was in a vegetative state, she’s still alive,” said Blaine Beckwith, who was born with a spinal condition. “I use a breathing tube every second, but I have a productive life.” 

“A feeding tube is not life support,” Shpiner said. “It’s just how she got her nourishment.” 

The Schiavo case made headlines at a time when many disabled people fear that popular culture has pushed the notion that death is a respectable alternative to living with a disability. This winter several disabled rights groups protested the Oscar-winning film Million Dollar Baby, over its ending that portrayed the assisted suicide of the lead character as an act of mercy after she became disabled. 

Several people interviewed drew parallels with Schiavo. “The idea that they’re doing this woman a favor by ending her life is deplorable,” Beckwith said. “I’m offended that this woman is viewed as someone in abject misery that needs to be relieved from her suffering.” 

While disabled residents interviewed all favored restoring Schiavo’s feeding tube, they differed on the wider subject of assisted suicide. Leading disability rights organizations have long opposed the right to die. The Berkeley-based Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund strenuously objected to a failed euthanasia bill in 1999 drafted by former Berkeley Assemblywoman Dion Aroner. 

“With profit-driven managed health care, there’s a serious risk that HMOs will overrule the patient’s wishes,” said Marilyn Golden, a disabled woman and police analyst for DREDF. 

Michael Pachovas, who became disabled after an injury he suffered while in the Peace Corps, said, “Of all the exemptions we could have to improve our lives, the right to kill ourselves shouldn’t be at the top of the list.” 

But Ron Washington, a quadriplegic, fears that the federal government’s interference to save Terri Schiavo could herald a drive to keep him from having the final say over his life. 

“I don’t want to offend anyone in the disabled community, but personally for me I would not want to have my life extended if I was unconscious for a number of years,” he said. 

When it came to Schiavo, most of those interviewed would have sanctioned her death had she made her wishes clear in writing and her entire family was in agreement. The case has spurred many of them to consider drafting living wills and determine at what point, if tragedy struck or their condition worsened, they might want their life ended.  

For Feldman, who also approves of physician assisted suicide, he wanted to remain alive as long as his brain functioned, but didn’t want to be on life support for more than 48 hours. Shpiner said she would direct her loved ones to keep her on life support for at least six months if doctors agreed other treatments would not revive her. Pachovas said he would want to be kept alive. “If I can still enjoy the feel of a woman’s breath against my cheek, they better keep me breathing.”

The task force charged with rewriting Berkeley’s contentious creeks law is scheduled to approve a plan Monday that will ask the city to grant it up to $200,000. 

Last year, the city’s 15-year-old creek law that restricted new construction along creekside properties erupted into a political maelstrom when the city released maps showing that roughly 2,400 property owners were affected. 

The law, as amended in 2002, forbade property owners living within 30 feet of an open or culverted creek from adding on to their homes or buildings, or, as interpreted by city officials, from rebuilding them in the event of an earthquake or fire. The council amended the law last November to allow property owners to rebuild after a disaster, but left other outstanding issues to the task force to resolve.  

The draft plan calls on the task force to begin its work by determining which waterways will be regulated as creeks, how far new construction should be set aside from the waterways, and what type of structures should be permitted. After a consensus is reached on those issues, the plan calls for the task force to consider opportunities for unearthing creeks that have been driven underground in concrete culverts and establishing policies to manage creek watersheds. 

The proposed $200,000 funding request is only a third of the amount first proposed by city officials to pay for consultants to research setback requirements that would better reflect the watersheds surrounding 75,000 feet of creeks in the city. 

With Berkeley facing an $8.3 structural budget deficit for the coming year and no money budgeted for the creeks effort, Planning Director Dan Marks urged the task force to keep expectations low. 

“There should be some assessment of existing conditions,” Marks said. “As far as in depth studies, that would cost far more than what the council is thinking.” 

Much of the technical data the task force will use will come from studies done in other cities and past city reports, said task force member Tom Kelly. Although the task force will seek to recommend more flexible guidelines on setbacks required for construction along creeks, task force chair Helen Burke said that any new rules would be somewhat arbitrary. 

On the budget question, the task force is still debating whether to devote all of its allotted money to consultant work or whether it should spend $100,000 on a creeks coordinator position to amass data and oversee the implementation of the new law. 

The task force’s current plan is ambitious. Although it contains provisions for the task force to scale back the scope of work as it learns more about creeks, a few members last week unsuccessfully pushed for it to focus its concerns more narrowly on the issues of setbacks and building requirements. 

“To me it looks overwhelming. I would like to see a document we could actually do,” said task force member Jana Olson.  

The task force is also considering whether to study several Berkeley creek watersheds or just study one as a sample case. 

If the work plan is approved by both the Planning Commission and the City Council, the task force will reconvene in May to begin collecting data.  

The Berkeley Historical Society announced the winning photographers for its Life Magazine-Style Photo Essay Competition this week. 

The contest, held to coincide with Berkeley’s 127th birthday on April 1, was open to any photographs, as long as they had some connection to the city of Berkeley. 

Thirty-eight photographers submitted panels of up to six photographs. Twenty-five Berkeley High School students entered work. 

The winning entries will be displayed during the Historical Society meeting at the Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St., on Sunday, April 10 from 3-5 p.m. All entries will become part of the Historical Society archives. 

The photographers were divided into four categories: adult, seniors, college and high school. In the high school category, two students won second place and two students won third. Since there were only two entries from college students, only one was awarded a third prize. 

Winners were awarded $127 for first place (in honor of the city’s 127th birthday), $75 for second place, and $50 for third place.  

The Daily Planet, which was a co-sponsor of the contest, will run a selection of the winning photographs in the coming weeks. 

Photo Essay Winners 

Adults: First place, Jim Hair; second place, Brian Shiratsuki; third place, Miki Jurcan. 

Seniors: First place, John Jekabson; second place, Lawrence Wolfley; third place, Lea Delson. 

College: Third place, Brittany Nickerson. 

High School: First place, Rosa Rangel; second place, Tito Rodriquez and Jennifer Wheelerstein; third place, Rachel Koslofsky and Misha Yerlick. 

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City-mandated upgrades to Berkeley Iceland will be delayed by six months, according to rink owners, after city officials rejected the rink’s initial proposal to upgrade its facility. 

In response, Iceland requested Tuesday that they have until next April to fix code violations that city officials deemed serious enough to threaten shutting down the rink last January. 

A city audit of Iceland last year found 36 violations, the most serious connected to the rink’s ammonia-based system used to chill the ice surface. 

While Iceland’s submittal included three major ammonia system safeguards, required by the Fire Department, it didn’t provide enough detail about their specifications and it didn’t integrate them with other code upgrades requested by the city, according to a letter from Planning Director Dan Marks. 

“The city has determined that the submittal is not comprehensive or detailed enough to meet the minimum requirements...,” he wrote. Without more details, he wrote, the city would not forward the plan to a consultant for further review. 

Marks said that the city has not yet had time to review Iceland’s latest submission. 

Iceland officials were not available for comment at press time. 

Despite the recent city decision to landmark one of the buildings he plans to demolish, developer Dan Deibel is pushing ahead with plans for a major residential and commercial block in West Berkeley. 

Deibel told a small gathering of interested residents Wednesday that he intends to tear down two of the three structures now on the site, including Celia’s restaurant, a structure recently declared a structure of merit by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). 

Also destined for the wrecking ball is Brennan’s Irish Pub, which the LPC declined to landmark. The popular watering hole and dining spot would move into the third structure on site, the now vacant 1913 Southern Pacific Railroad Station, which was declared a full city landmark four years ago. 

Because of Celia’s new designation, Deibel can’t demolish the building without City Council approval. His Urban Housing Group (UHG) has appealed the designation, and the council is scheduled an April 26 hearing on the matter, LPC secretary Giselle Sorensen said Thursday. 

Meanwhile, Deibel said he will present a project overview to the city Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) on April 14, where he will request the creation of a work group of ZAB and community members to help shape the final proposal. 

Deibel’s firm is a subsidiary of Marcus & Millichap Co.—the nation’s largest real estate investment brokerage, co-founded by University of California Regent George M. Marcus—and specializes in building mixed-use projects at transportation hubs. The University Avenue site was chosen because of the proximity of rail, bus and freeway service. 

Deibel said he hasn’t decided on a final plan, having rejected an earlier design by Berkeley architect Kava Massih, who has worked on other Urban Housing Group projects. 

“His design wasn’t met with very much pleasure,” Deibel said. “Everybody hated it basically. I love Kava, but nothing nice was said about it.” 

To replace Massih, Deibel has retained Christiani/Johnson, a firm formed by a pair of Berkeley architects, one of whom was present for Wednesday’s gathering.  

“We’re hear to listen with fresh ears,” said David Johnson. 

Deibel said the biggest concerns with Massih’s design were the sheer mass of the project and its lack of permeability. Other concerns included the design’s lack of relationship to nearby Aquatic Park and the pedestrian bridge over Interstate 80. 

While the presence of ground-floor business and parking spaces along with the mandatory units for rental to lower-income tenants would give UHG the right to build 256 units of housing, UGH opted for 212 units in the Massih plan, and Deibel said the new design will probably include fewer units. 

As currently envisioned, the project will consist of two new structures, a larger building along Fourth Street extending well down Addison and University, and a smaller structure near the train station. Whatever its final form, a significant part of the larger building will reach five stories, though some parts may be lower, especially near the old railroad station. 

Unlike most of Berkeley’s recent apartment construction, which Deibel characterized as buildings with small units catering to college students, his project will offer full-size market rate one- and two-bedroom apartments with rents estimated between $1,400 and $2,600 per unit. 

Unlike many of the newer projects, which offer less than one parking space for every three apartments, Deibel said his project will offer one space for every unit. He said the commercial spaces will also be larger than the shallow and frequently unrented “window dressing spaces” in other recent mixed use projects. 

John McBride, a preservation activist, in the audience immediately thought of one such developer. 

“There are people like Patrick Kennedy who did the minimum to get the maximum, and they were approved as long as they had ground floor retail, and in many cases the retail has just been window dressing,” he said. 

“You’ll notice I never mentioned the name Patrick Kennedy,” Deibel told a reporter after the meeting ending, referring to Berkeley’s most controversial developer of mixed-use projects.  

Deibel’s presentation met with a fair share of skepticism from his audience of 14, the total response to the 600 announcements he said he had distributed to owners and residents within a 1,600-foot radius of the project site. For the previous meeting, a mailing of 175 announcements within a 900-foot radius had generated a turnout of 13. 

As trains rumbled and whistled by on the track that forms the western border of the project, one audience member asked, “Who would want to rent an apartment with all this noise?”  

Deibel said his firm had commissioned a noise and vibration study to determine the best strategies for overcoming a very real problem. 

“There are various ways to accomplish a minimal noise level,” he said, adding that the final structure will offer an interior ventilation system so residents on the track side of the project can keep their windows closed when they are home. 

Builder and preservationist Richard Schwartz told Deibel that people he had talked to “said this project is out of proportion with the rest of West Berkeley, totally overwhelming this building (the station) which is national landmark eligible.” 

Deibel said that if parts of the buildings near the station were reduced in height, other parts would have to be increased to keep the whole economically viable. 

Schwartz also worried that one parking space per unit might not be sufficient, leading residents to park second and third cars on already congested streets. 

One West Berkeley resident complained that city staff “dumps on” West Berkeley residents, adding, “They don’t want us to live here.” 

“It’s a very attractive place,” Deibel countered. “There’s transportation and what’s going on Fourth Street. It’s a very convenient place to live.” 

“No, it’s inconvenient,” McBride said. “There’s not a lot of services.” 

“And most of what was here has been driven out,” added Bart Selden. 

Architect Johnson offered the example of a similar UHG project near the main rail station in Mountain View. “It was rented right away,” he said. “And here, once you get above the first floor, you have fantastic views of the bay.” 

The meeting ended with no firm conclusions, though Deibel said he will continue to seek public input on the project.Ã

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas9

SPECIAL ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s call for a special election in November is ill conceived and self-serving. We don’t need an election which will cost up to $70 million, when a regularly scheduled election will take place only six months later. What’s the rush? Arnold is trying to make an end run around election laws by bringing his agenda before the voters in 2005. In that way, he can continue to raise funds from his base of millionaire supporters, something he would not be able to do once he declares his candidacy for re-election in 2006. Equally important is the fact that in 2006, California law will require a voter verified paper trail. A special election in 2005 will have no paper trail and no way to validate the results if they are questioned. We don’t want what happened in Ohio to happen in California. 

Michael Marchant  

Albany 

• 

TEACHERS’ UNION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley writes in her March 22 editorial that “there’s no easy answer to the question of whether a teachers’ union is good or bad for students,” pointing out that the all-time worst and two of the best Berkeley teachers she’s known were all high officials in the teachers’ union. 

But the main issue is not whether good teachers or bad teachers belong to teachers’ unions. Naturally, both do. The main issue is why the union goes to such great lengths to protect the job of the all-time worst teacher. 

Our teachers, most of whom are excellent, ought to ask themselves whether they would enjoy far more public support for higher pay and benefits if their union didn’t so stubbornly resist getting rid of the bad ones. 

Russ Mitchell 

• 

SILENT VIGIL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last Saturday, I spent several hours participating in a silent vigil for our military (and Iraqi) dead at UN plaza in San Francisco. We sat among 1,525 pairs of combat boots and countless civilian shoes representing fallen soldiers and civilians. Each pair of boots was tagged with a soldiers name, age and home state. It was a very powerful experience to read the individual names and chilling to realize that most of these people are the age of my own children. As I sat there, I thought about how disgraceful and disrespectful it is that the war makers and their media ignore this reality and try to hide it from public view. What if Terri Schiavo were a combat casualty? I wish every US citizen could visit this display. This war would be popular no more. 

Robert MacConnell 

• 

JEFFERSON SCHOOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To the first-grade teacher and others who think it would be insensitive to leave the name of a slave holder on a building with a large black student population, I can only wonder how there can be so much ignorance in any American school system. Who do you think inspired Lincoln and the abolitionist movement? Who do you think inspired the world to believe that everyone should be equal before the law? With a little research, your teachers could uncover the agony of Jefferson and Washington in having to live with slavery and uncover their writings that led to its abolition. 

Howard Bull 

Mountain View 

• 

ANOTHER SUGGESTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Now that the enlightened citizens of Berkeley are considering renaming Jefferson School, and are contemplating calling the post office the Maudelle Shirek Post Office, will we soon be entertaining the idea of putting Johnnie Cochran’s name on the Hall of Justice?  

Steve Schneider 

• 

ONE BAD MOVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One lesson for the children at Jefferson school, if their school is renamed, is that one bad move in life negates positive achievement, even if the achievement is writing the Declaration of Independence. Conservatives play this game when they denounce Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for being an adulterer. Played consistently, the lesson for children is that all people are no damned good.  

Rather than outright rejection of Jefferson, students could be taught that while he showed his allegiance to the hideous institution of slavery, there was a brief moment in his life when he rose above his putrid environment, as occasionally happens with individuals of the exploiter class. Sometimes, they even switch sides in the eternal battle between power and justice. When our young people grow up, the social crisis of the day may be so strong that humanity would be greatly helped if some in power could be coaxed to switch. Our young people will be poorly prepared to coax if they have been taught that the men in the big house are without redemption. 

Ted Vincent 

• 

CHANGE ALL THE NAMES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a native of Berkeley, I know how passionate people are about everything from fire danger signs that “lower property values” to designs for ergonomic wheelchair-accessible curbs. It should come as no surprise then that some in the city have taken on a new passion to wipe Berkeley of the shameful memory of slavery. The move to rename Jefferson School should really only be the beginning. A few years ago a fellow journalist, her name now gratefully sought by this correspondent, suggested Berkeley give a nod to its strong, vibrant lesbian heritage by re-naming Berkeley “Sister City.” Berkeley’s own name comes from that of George Berkeley; while he was an eminent Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop of Cloyne (Ireland) he also was for a short period a farmer in Rhode Island (1728-31) and perhaps had slaves himself. This should raise enormous concern for those who seek to completely abolish slavery’s legacy in Berkeley.  

It is time for a complete analysis of all of Berkeley’s place and official names and solicit the public and the intellectual community in Berkeley to re-name the city and its integral boulevards for future generations to enjoy and know they are free from civic commemoration of slavery’s violent past.  

I would suggest we rename Jefferson School for the comments of Dora Dean Bradley, the parent of a third-grader who said succinctly that the Declaration of Independence was not written for her benefit. Despite seeming to enjoy the finer points of the First Amendment, which Jefferson drafted. Perhaps we can name it after all the activists in Berkeley who feel so full of zeal they must waste the city’s and public’s time in needless reviews of something so frivolous as this. We could rename the school after all of the people over the years whose public passions have made Berkeley a laughing stock for the rest of the state and nation.  

It is sad that Ms. Dean Bradley forgets about the thousands of graduates of Jefferson School who will lose out on the chance to cement their memories of the school by the continued use of its name. I only hope that whatever actions are taken by the school board, it does make a point to remember Jefferson’s own legacy and how free speech and its, in my opinion, sad use lead to the name change in the first place. 

John Parman 

Birmingham, England 

• 

CITY SWIMMING POOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the city’s proposal to close all public swimming pools for six months this coming fall and winter: This is a bad idea.  

I disagree with this proposal on a number of grounds: 

1. As a health professional I see the ill-effects of obesity and overall declining health of Americans every day. With obesity, diabetes and hypertension rates rising exponentially, this is a time to commit more funds to exercise programs—not less. Poor health is a financial liability to every community. 

2. Losing swimmers = losing revenue. There are many, many committed swimmers who choose Berkeley’s pools. If pools close, swimmers will be compelled to go elsewhere and pay their fees to surrounding cities’ pools or the YMCA—and they and their steady fees may not return. 

3. Good faith: City pools are part of basic city services. Why do we pay some of the highest property taxes in the Bay Area if we can’t keep (for example) these beautiful, oft-used pools going year round? 

Recommendations for raising money for the pools: 

• Raise the fees, if only temporarily.  

• Raise the age of the senior discount from 55 to 65. 

• Expand pool hours. Longer lap and family swim hours. For historical support: “Pre-masters,” a relatively new program at King Pool, is always packed.  

Thank you for your time. I strongly urge the city to keep all pools open the entire year.  

Carey Kozuszek 

• 

SIERRA CLUB ELECTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Helen Burke’s letter on the Sierra Club elections is long on innuendo but short on substance. Prior to a 1996 board decision, the club called for reduced immigration as part of a comprehensive population stabilization campaign. 

In support of her position that rampant population growth in California and the United States is not a problem, Burke cites environmental heavyweights Robert Redford and Robert (“I only have four children”) Kennedy, Jr. Those who have called for reduced immigration as part of a comprehensive population policy include local hero David Brower, Greenpeace founder Paul Watson, Earth First founder Dave Foreman, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, Worldwatch Institute founder Lester Brown, and Earth Day founder Sen. Gaylord Nelson. 

When Brower resigned from the club’s board over its failure to confront crucial environmental issues, he said, “Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed.” 

Burke is right that there is the threat of a takeover at the Sierra Club. It might be taken over by environmentalists. (For more information, go to www.sustainablesierra.org .) 

Members who want to get the club back on the conservation track should vote for the population stabilization ballot question in favor of reduced birthrates and immigration and for the following environmentalist candidates: Gregory Bungo, Alan Kuper, James McDonald, Robert Roy van de Hoek. 

Mark Johnson 

• 

JEANNETTE RANKIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to Michael Steinberg’s assertion, in a letter to the Planet, that Jeannette Rankin’s vote against U.S. entry into WWII was “an expression of rigid ideology”: 

On Dec. 8, 1941, Jeannette Rankin asked that the War Resolution be sent to committee. Hers was a lawful request made by a duly elected member of the House of Representatives. She had many concerns about the resolution that she believed should have been addressed before the vote was taken. The speaker, Sam Rayburn, broke the law by choosing not to recognize her on the floor that day. She voted appropriately. A shamefully dishonest history paints her as nothing but a wide-eyed pacifist. Jeannette Rankin was a great, pragmatic, clear-headed stateswoman whose role in American history has been jaded by jingoistic, reductive nonsense. 

Jeanmarie Simpson 

Reno, Nevada 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ms. Simpson is the artistic director of the Nevada Shakespeare Company and the author of A Single Woman, in which she plays the role of Rankin. The final local performance is 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Claremont House, 4500 Gilbert St., Oakland. For tickets, write to Loma64@yahoo.com or call 587-3228. 

• 

THE HORROR OF RAPE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a feminist and single mom I was disturbed to read Ms. Litman’s attack on Ms. Delaney (Daily Planet, March 25-29). No matter how she parses her words it is evident Rabbi Litman is seeking to minimize the horror of rape. Ms. Litman says we should only worry about women being raped in Berkeley. According to Ms. Litman rape is a “terrible crime,” but voicing complaint about the failure to punish U.S. military personnel who engage in rape is, for some reason, not something Berkeley should not waste our time on. Berkeley takes stands on many issues. We opposed the war with Iraq, we support Tibet and we oppose casinos in San Pablo, but somehow, in Ms. Litman’s opinion, the rape of women is not worthy of our efforts. 

I was also taken aback by the hostile tone of Ms. Litman’s letter. Such hostility seems inappropriate for a woman addressing another woman who did nothing more then express concern about Ms. Litman’s comments. It’s almost as if Ms. Litman was telling Ms. Delaney that she was above criticism, and that she had no right to be concerned about comments indicating rape was not a violation of a woman’s human rights. If Ms. Litman resents people speculating about her experience with rape then perhaps she ought not to use her position as a rabbi or commissioner to say—in any circumstances—that rape is somehow less of a human right’s violation than crimes such as torture. I myself doubt the decency of any person, regardless of their rape history, who would make such a foolish and insensitive statement. All Ms. Litman’s talk about her feminist credentials means nothing if she spends her time urging the Berkeley City Council to be any less critical of rape then it is about other issues.  

As a single mother of a school daughter I was doubly shocked when I learned that in addition to being associated with Beth-El, Ms. Litman is School Board Director Shirley Issel’s appointee. Is this the type of attitude Ms. Issel promotes? Does she favor hiring teachers that would have our children learn rape does not violate a woman’s human rights? Are these the type of moral teachings that rabbis are promoting at Beth-El? Both Beth-El and Shirley Issel owe the people of Berkeley an apology for the comments of their representative. 

Judith Clancy 

• 

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mickey Howley, here, in Khao Lak, Thailand. An article in the Daily Planet in which I was mentioned was just brought to my attention by one of my fellow volunteers here at the Tsunami Volunteer Center. I must say that the article was an accurate representation of the goings-on in the area, although there is much less of the “eerie” side of things now than there was back when I arrived at the end of January. I’ll just say that some events in those earlier days caused me to rethink some of my formerly-held spiritual beliefs. I wanted to let you know that I have been invited to speak at NYU upon my return in mid-April to foster the volunteer spirit (no pun intended). This will be the initial engagement of a U.S. major university tour to include a multimedia presentation, talk and question and answer session about volunteering at the Tsunami Volunteer Center in Khao Lak. It has been a wonderful opportunity that those who have been here have experienced, without exception. Not offering that opportunity to others would be doing them and the affected peoples here a grave disservice. A presentation fee will be solicited to offset costs. Major universities are considering a $2,500 fee per engagement, with proceeds going to benefit the affected people of this area. I am working with a former six-figure San Francisco Graphic Design and Multimedia expert (whose former clients include the Caesars Group), and a former New York producer (both volunteers here—it is amazing the resources that become available in the name of goodwill!) to put this together. Please let me know if Berkeley will be interested to be a part of this tour. On a side note, my landlord in Bellingham, WA is a retired Berkeley Engineering Dept. Librarian. Ask some of the older set (Gordon is 73 now) if they remember Nathan “Gordon” McClure. And keep up the good work with the Daily Planet! 

Mickey Howley 

Project Coordinator,  

The 100-Days Tsunami Memorial 

• 

PACIFIC STEEL CASING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Friday March 25, I called in a complaint to the BAAQMD about Pacific Steel Casing. This was the first time I have complained about PSC. 

My companions and I were overtaken by the odor while exercising out at Cesar Chavez Park. When the wind blows a certain way, all the people at Cesar Chavez Park, “out for a breath of fresh air,” get PSC instead. We have been inhaling this periodically for years. 

I wanted to let you know what the field agent from BAAQMD told me, upon my pressing for some answers. 

He said that the odor is simply “unpleasant” to some people and that it has been deemed “not toxic” by some sort of authority. I told him that it seemed like it was actually some sort of particulate matter that was sticking in people’s throats, and he said that if I felt that way I should go to my doctor and be tested to see if I was personally having a problem. As if this was my problem only and not an air pollution problem. 

Furthermore, he said that PSC had just been cited in the last few days, and that they are cited periodically. If this is the case, then it seems to me that any fines they pay are not high enough to deter the polluting. 

The BAAQMD agent also told me that my complaint would not “count” very much because it was not affecting me in my residence, but instead in a public space. Huh? It’s okay to pollute public parks? 

Catherine Courtenaye 

• 

ACRID CLOUD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read with great interest the commentary by L.A. Wood on the air quality problems caused by the Pacific Steel Casting company. For years I have wondered how, in this otherwise green community, a source of wretchedly foul-smelling, if not toxic odors could continue with seeming impunity, and now with his article I finally have some clarity on the issue. 

I have called the Air Quality Board on several occasions with unsatisfactory results, and I am aware of the city’s plan to retain manufacturing jobs in west Berkeley and how it is that local politicians might dodge the issue, but this acrid cloud is often more than one can reasonably tolerate. 

It is my hope that Woods’ piece will stimulate some action towards solving this problem. 

G. B. Carson 

• 

POLARIZATION, EXPLOITATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Terri dies: Now politicians and religious pontificators can’t use and crucify her for their gains and agendas any longer. Would you like to have been kept alive in a vegetative state for 15 years to bankrupt your parents or children and become a trinket in the hands of the polarizing forces of America?  

I am sure our Gracious God said to Terri, it’s time to come home and play in the bliss of true love. You’ve been used and exploited long enough. 

Ron Lowe 

Nevada City  

• 

OIL IN ALASKA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is up to people who are concerned about indigenous people’s rights and the environment to fight an attempt to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The Senate recently approved the deal. It is a victory for President Bush, who wants to please his oil buddies. 

The Senate used a back-door plan, attaching the bill to a budget bill. The refuge is home of the Gwich’in people. They live in their own way of life there and they should be left alone.  

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland 

• 

GLASS ON THE STREETS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I take the bus to work every day. I walk six blocks on my way to the bus stop. On every corner I notice broken bottles and splinters of sharp glass. Who are the people tossing glass on the pavement that children and youngsters and elders walk on? Who are the people who don’t know any better? Is there a way to include them so that they feel they are one of us? How can we transform their anti-social behavior into care for our community? 

Romila Khanna] 

Albany 

• 

THE ENGLISH PATIENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Just a word of thanks for your wonderful paper which I devour word for word! 

Are we in trouble or what with this “English Patient” in the Big House? Puppet Regime R Us. 

Loved Bob Burnett’s “Bush’s Decision-Making Style” article which added to the fire of the book I’m currently absorbed with (Bush on the Couch by Justin A. Frank). 

Incredible information. Our people are starving, losing their jobs due to many reasons, food is getting so expensive, no medical coverage for most while the fat cats are filling their bottomless pockets. Not too much hope for a disabled elderly person like me. The past seems like a dream for which I have gratitude to have experienced. 

Grushenka Vicari 

• 

LIBRARY WORKERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If workable money-saving alternatives exist to doing so, then laying off library workers, thus thrusting them into a bleak job market, is unjust and unnecessary. Replacing the human face, voice and warmth of our library with technology is a heartless and unwise move.  

Countless times in my long-time daily use of the library, the smiles, humor and gentle spirit of the workers checking my books out to me has eased my woes and given me hope. No machine will ever do that for me. 

The threat of job loss looms for library workers. This continued demoralization of library workers, and further alienation of concerned patrons seems a foolish path to tread. 

Sue Pector 

• 

ANIMAL CARE SERVICES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley has financial difficulties, like most cities. Berkeley’s City Council wants to reduce one staff member of the Berkeley Animal Care Services and I think that would be dreadful. Recently, the city has taken away two staff members of Animal Care Services and now the staffing is at a minimal level to function. If they take away more Animal Control officers, Animal Care Services will close for one day per week. That means nobody will adopt dogs, cats or other animals that are home there on that day. The volunteers will not walk dogs or pet cats on that day. The owner/guardians will not look for their lost animals on that day. There would be no intervention for potential animal abuse, pick up of dead animals, and a whole lot of other things that the Animal Care Services staff is there for on that day. 

If the volunteer coordinator position were eliminated, adoption website postings will suffer, which will severely hinder animal adoptions. The volunteer coordinator enables all those extra hands to make the adoption process work.  

As a Berkeley citizen, I am finally proud of the animal shelter because it’s a humane and caring place for dogs and cats. If you feel like I do, that it is essential what we keep the staff in place, please write to your city councilmember, the mayor and newspapers to make your feelings known and attend the budget meetings this spring to protest the elimination of any more Animal Staff Services staff members. Berkeley citizens and animals thank you for your help. 

Cindi Goldberg 

• 

BRINK OF EXTINCTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are living in the sixth great extinction on Planet Earth. This time it is being caused by the human race and its destruction of habitat. It is estimated that 50 percent of all species will be extinct in the next 100 years. 

We have already fished out 90 percent of the large fish in the oceans. Endangered wild game in Africa is being killed for food. The hole in the ozone layer is growing each year, allowing UV radiation to kill off krill in the southern oceans which is the basis of the food chain for fishes. Tropical forests are being torched to clear land for cattle, soybeans and corn. The carbon dioxide released into the air each year is overwhelming the planet’s ability to absorb it and is causing global warming and major climate changes worldwide. There is little we can do about this because we are too many and our lifestyles are incompatible with the rest of the planet’s ecosystems. 

The human race will survive, but it will have evolved into a different species, fewer in numbers, with more respect for other life forms on Planet Earth, on which it is dependent. 

Stephen Jory 

• 

PINCHING PENNIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley’s city manager, pinching away at unspent funds, has spotted our pennies committed to city fathers and mothers for roof repairs, BHS warm pools. Our little piggy bank was given to us six or seven years ago; last year we saved it from his, the manager’s, clutches with a dramatic last-minute appeal to the City Council. This year he simply pulled the plug on the drafting machine churning out the drawings for the roof contractor. Yanking on a cord, a pig’s tail, pinching away, he makes us squeal and shout. (We’re used to it, but it’s still no fun.) 

The city fathers and mothers continuously supported swim programs for seniors and the disabled for many years, uninterrupted at BHS south warm pool, threatened now by a rotten, leaky roof gushing a waterfall or two indoors, the repair of which, to save a few pennies, might be delayed indefinitely. Is this pound-foolish? 

Cynics whose numbers grow daily in this swim community now believe the school district will be happy to close the doors forever on our tacky, ancient, crumbling, unsafe, ugly, unloved (except by us) building, attached to the old gym that is scheduled or planned to be demolished. BUSD recently grandly announced the gift of a vacant lot where a new warm pool might someday be constructed with funds from unknown sources (some funds were collected from voters for repairs at the existing building, but far from adequate for a new pool and enclosure of any quality). Washing their hands of the old building(s) and the communities that depend on them surely will permit them, BUSD, at long last once again to focus their full attention on their true calling: education of their charges. 

The beneficence of their gift overwhelms them and us. All we have to do now is stand on street corners, cups in hand, all 300 of us, and collect pennies for a new building. This will take far less than 70 years, the life of the building we now use. Working hard at begging will make us good, strong and hardworking, and teach us the value of piggy banks. 

We deeply appreciated this lesson in the enduring, selfless beneficence of our city mothers and fathers. Learning self-sufficiency and independence from large handouts and from a building and from a therapy pool will give us all a stiff upper lip. 

Terry Cochrell 

™

In this small, sad space where the overwhelming emotions seem to have temporarily waned with the death of Terri Schiavo, and before we have forgotten this issue entirely and moved onto other things, it seems appropriate to take some time to talk calmly and quietly about the issues that have been raised. This is an issue which ought to rise above partisan politics. 

Unfortunately, far too many of my liberal-or-progressive friends both began and ended their Schiavo discussions with a denunciation of what they call the hypocrisy of Mr. Bush and his allies on the conservative Christian right. It is certainly an easy target, going after a president who urges us to “err on the side of life” while in the midst of conducting a war of choice that has cost thousands upon thousands of deaths. But while taking public delight at the misery of political enemies may be attractive, it misses the point that this is a thoughtful time that requires a more serious discussion. 

But it is also unfair to say, as conservative columnist David Brooks wrote last week in a New York Times op-ed piece, that “the socially liberal argument is pragmatic, but lacks moral force.” Reacting to the position—advanced by many on the left—that Schiavo (through the assertions of her husband, since Schiavo can no longer speak for herself) should be allowed to decide her own fate rather than the medical community or the various branches of government, Brooks called that advocacy “morally thin. Once you say that it is up to individuals or families to draw their own lines separating life from existence, and reasonable people will differ, then you are taking a fundamental issue out of the realm of morality and into the realm of relativism and mere taste. … You end up exactly where many liberals ended up this week, trying to shift arguments away from morality and on to process.” 

The point Mr. Brooks misses, I believe, that if we as a common society were to make a decision on who is to live and who is to die on moral grounds, we would first have to decide on a common morality. And that, of course, is more difficult than some commentators would have us believe. 

One of the great liberating factors of the American experiment was the decision to divorce government from religious tests. Without such a division, both African-Americans and American women in general might still be living in second class subservience, since the conditions of both were declared unconstitutional by the courts at the same time it was argued by some religious believers that those conditions were sanctioned and encouraged by God. 

But the same thing make you laugh, make you cry, as they say back South. And so the division of church and state in America left Americans without a common moral denominator, remanding it to citizens to make the decision of what is right and what is wrong on our own, using our various religious beliefs as a personal guide, if we so choose, but eliminating religion as the ultimate authority. 

My conservative Christian friends argue that this was never actually intended by the Founding Folks, and the moral authority of God ought to be the ultimate standard by which the decisions of our government are judged. 

But even amongst Christians, agreement on even the simplest of God’s words seems difficult to come by. 

For me, for example, the dictum that “thou shalt not kill” always seemed plain enough. Never. Under any circumstances. It was, after all, the one backsliding act that kept the great Moses out of the Promised Land, if I read that part of the story right. 

But I have many friends—good, practicing Christians, all—who feel quite comfortable in the belief that God did not intend that ban to be applied to soldiers at war, or police officers shooting suspects, or hangmen at the gallows. Or that, while God’s condemnation of killing might have applied to the old covenant established at the time of Exodus, it was superceded by a new covenant that came with the birth and death of Jesus. And so to them, “thou shalt not kill” is a qualified commandment, appended by a “depending.” 

If Christians by themselves cannot agree on the meaning of what seems to be the clearest out of 10 simple laws passed down to the Jewish exiles at Mount Sinai, how can the great diversity of America religious and non-religious beliefs—atheists, Muslims, agnostics, Jews, wiccans, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Ifans, and more—find some sort of religious common ground on the complex issues raised by the impending death of Terri Schiavo? 

Assuming, for a moment, that Michael Schiavo and the courts are correct, and Terri Schiavo long ago expressed her will not to continue live in her present condition, it seems ghastly that the only recourse is to be starved and deprived of liquids until she dies of malnutrition. Even if she does not feel any pain from the procedure, as her doctors contend, we do in watching her waste away from day to day, regardless of which side of the issue on which we stand. But as a society, we have outlawed the alternatives. By law, her doctors can withdraw the feeding tubes from Ms. Schiavo that we all know will bring her to death, but the doctors themselves cannot legally inject an overdose of morphine or other drug that would hasten that death in a more humane manner. Neither can her husband nor any agent nor even Ms. Schiavo herself, were she able, which has always seemed to me to be the oddest of circumstances, since the ban against suicide is the one law impossible to punish if the perpetrator actually succeeds in the breaking it. Perhaps those laws need some more thought. 

Just as disturbing, as well, is the question raised by the Schiavo case of who makes the decisions of who is to live and who is to die when the individuals themselves are not in a position to speak on the matter. The legislature? The medical professionals? The parents? The spouse? In a nation of laws, it is the courts which often decide these fates, necessarily taking it out of the hands of the people we love and trust the most, putting it in the hands of strangers. If we do not wish those strangers to decide, how would we change the laws to make it so? 

We should not try to abandon our religious, or non-religious, or political or ideological beliefs in approaching these issues. That is how we interpret the world. But we also should accept the fact that others of equal but different moral views—whether those morals are derived from a religious foundation or flow from some other fount-might properly come to different conclusions. We might agree, for a starter, that it is reasonable to assume that Michael Schiavo and Robert and Mary Schindler have equal love for Terri Schiavo, but based upon that love, had an honest, understandable, and wrenching disagreement on how and if her life should have continued. It is a familiar tragedy often played out in other lives. If nothing else, that assumption might at least stop the shouting as we debate the life and death of Terri Schiavo, and what it means for the fate of the rest of us. Let us have some dignity about ourselves while we’re doing it, friends. A woman in the next room has died, after all. 

The defining moment for me in the O.J. Simpson trial was not Simpson’s acquittal and the firestorm that it ignited nationally. It was a note I got from an associate in Johnnie Cochran’s law firm. He said that Johnnie wanted me to know that he admired my comments about the case. I was one of the legion of talking heads during the trial, and like many of the other analysts, I was critical of some of Cochran’s legal maneuvers.  

I thought he badly overplayed the race card, and deliberately played to the anti-police sentiments of some of the black jurors. But Cochran still went out of his way to pay me the compliment. I then paid even closer attention to Cochran’s arguments and presentation in the trial. By the end, Cochran convinced me that there was more than enough reasonable doubt to acquit Simpson.  

Most legal experts who worked with him and battled against him in major criminal and civil cases in the more than four decades of his legal career agreed that Cochran was more than a flamboyant, race-conscious courtroom showman. He was a consummate legal professional who sought to use his prodigious legal talent to defend the rights of the poor and the dispossessed. Cochran set a lofty standard for advocacy law that influenced a generation of criminal and public advocacy attorneys.  

He was deeply influenced by the monumental legal battles that civil rights legends Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall fought against segregation and police violence. Cochran publicly credited them with inspiring him to champion civil rights causes in the courtroom.  

Cochran stamped his biggest imprint on the volatile issue of police abuse. In 1966, he defended Leonard Deadwyler, an unarmed black motorist shot by an LAPD officer while he was taking his pregnant wife to the hospital. The LAPD had long been recognized by many as America’s poster police department for brutal treatment of blacks. Deadwyler was the latest in a legion of blacks who had been shot by the police under dubious circumstances.  

During the coroner’s inquest into the Deadwyler killing, which was televised, Cochran riveted public attention on the LAPD’s policies and practices. The officer was exonerated, but Cochran’s skill at fingering police abuse heightened public awareness of racism, police violence and the need for major reforms in police practices.  

Over the years, Cochran’s fame and reputation grew, and he got richer in the process. Yet, he still continued to battle police abuse. He waged a quarter-century fight to free Black Panther Elmer Geronimo Pratt, who was falsely convicted of murdering a white woman in 1972. Cochran exposed how the government used paid agents to frame black militants and disrupt black organizations. Pratt was released in 1997. Cochran repeatedly called the Pratt victory the defining moment of his career. But the case was an extension of his relentless fight for justice in the courts.  

To Cochran, the Simpson case was yet another example of how a black defendant, even a rich black celebrity defendant, could be victimized by the criminal justice system. The issues again were racism and police misconduct. Cochran did not, as I mistakenly believed, play on race to manipulate the jurors and get Simpson off. He meticulously picked apart the flaws, contradictions and inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case. The case was won on the evidence, or lack thereof, and not race.  

But Cochran paid a steep price for his skill. Much of the public, enraged at the verdict, blamed him for letting a murderer skip away free. Cochran would spend the next decade explaining his actions in the case in speeches, two autobiographies and several articles.  

In those years I would occasionally see Cochran at different functions, and each time he did not duck the thorny issues in the Pratt, Simpson and the other police abuse cases in which he had been involved. The audiences always sat in rapt attention, and when he finished they would leap to their feet in sustained applause.  

In his final years, Cochran railed at the Bush administration for trampling on civil rights in the war on terrorism. In one of his last major speeches at the mostly white, upper-crust Commonwealth Club in Los Angeles in 2002, Cochran blasted then-Attorney General John Ashcroft for eroding civil rights. He warned, “They’re not going to say later, hey, you know, we’re just taking those for a little while until we work this little problem out.” Cochran understood that civil rights were not a “little problem,” but were precious commodities that had to be safeguarded at all costs. That’s why we should remember Johnnie Cochran for much more than O.J.  

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a political analyst and social issues commentator, and the author of The Crisis in Black and Black (Middle Passage Press).?

Cellular Intimidation 

A bandit threatened a Berkeley woman into handing over her cell phone about 4:50 p.m. Monday as she was walking along California Street near the University Avenue intersection, reports Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Shira Warren. 

Library Tree Vandal 

Police were called to the Berkeley Public Library shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday after a witness reported that someone had vandalized a street tree near the building’s entrance at 2090 Kittredge St. 

Good Place for Crash 

A woman was trapped in her car after a collision near the corner of Russell Street and College Avenue at 1 p.m. Tuesday, said Officer Warren. 

Fortunately, the crash happened within feet of Fire Station No. 3, so help was right at hand. 

According to a firefighter, the woman’s car was driven up a utility pole support wire and flipped over, trapping the driver inside until the jaws of life arrived. 

The woman was taken to a local hospital for treatment of her injuries. 

Rat Pack Stick-up 

A gang of five young males forced an 18-year-old Berkeley resident to fork over his wallet after they braced him near the corner of Woolsey and Ellis streets a few minutes before midnight Tuesday. 

Rape Reported 

Officer Warren said she was unable to offer any additional information about a rape that was reported at 4 p.m. Wednesday near the corner of Spaulding Avenue and Addison Street.a

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands—After a 19-year-old man of Moroccan descent was run down and killed in January by a Dutch woman driver trying to recover her stolen purse, mourners blamed Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk for the death.  

Gathered at a makeshift m emorial here earlier this winter, the mourners said Verdonk’s tough immigration reforms have increased Dutch xenophobia against Muslims, spurring the woman’s violent reaction against the alleged thief.  

Yet some voices here say that it is, ironically, the famous Dutch tolerance —euthanasia, gay marriage and soft-drug use are allowed here—that may have laid the foundation for current ethnic tensions.  

“The problem is we have been tolerant of the intolerant, and now we are paying the bill,” says Bart Jan Spruyt, director of the conservative Edmund Burke Foundation in The Hague.  

In a nation of 16 million, 1 million residents are Muslim. But according to Spruyt, cultural relativism has reigned so long that there has been little, if any, push to integrate immigrants from Morocco and Turkey into Dutch society.  

As a result, he says, “Muslim immigrants...developed their own parallel society” that is not only alienated from the Dutch mainstream, but also has a “hatred of the modern West” that led, Spruyt says, to the execution-style murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh last November.  

Van Gogh, a descendant of the painter Vincent van Gogh, was shot, stabbed and had his throat slit in Amsterdam by an alleged Islamic radical with Dutch and Moroccan citizenship.  

The murder was in apparent retribution for Van Gogh’s criticism of Islam in a film that depicted Muslim women with texts from the Koran written on their bodies. The implication was that Islam tolerates violence against women.  

A January screening of th e film was canceled due to threats, which have become commonplace and have forced several politicians to live in secret locations under constant guard.  

Among those is Geert Wilders, a member of Parliament and one of the most outspoken figures in Dutch p olitics.  

“Islam and democracy are fully incompatible,” Wilders told the Washington Post in February. “They will never be compatible—not today, and not in a million years.”  

Wilders has called for a five-year ban on all non-Western immigrants as well as the pre-emptive arrest of those considered to be Islamic radicals.  

Yassin Hartog, coordinator of Islam & Citizenship, a nonprofit that promotes active Muslim citizenship in Dutch society, says that such measures would only aggravate tensions and increase separation.  

Hartog, who is native Dutch but converted to Islam in the early 1990s, says “increased interaction” is the only solution.  

“Muslims will have to move about in Dutch society more, and Dutch people will have to learn that they cannot have a one-sided debate which only serves to give Muslims a message,” he says.  

Indeed, Muslims and Dutch share core democratic values and there “is no empirical ground for an often assumed incompatibility of Islam with democratic rights and liberties in the Netherlands,” wrote Karen Phalet, a research fellow with the Utrecht-based European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations, in a report called “Muslim in the Netherlands.”  

But conservatives such as Spruyt argue that Islam prevents a division between secular and religious law.  

“That is at the heart of the matter,” Spruyt says. “You have to understand that the rules of your personal faith are not the rules of your country.”  

In the Netherlands, those rules are becoming increasingly tough on immigrants.  

Efforts are underway to require non-Western immigrants to pass an integration exam. The test would compel an estimated 14,000 annual applicants to demonstrate competency in the Dutch language as well as an understanding of societal norms, su ch as acceptance of topless sunbathing and gay marriage.  

Such initiatives are the result of a shift in the political climate in the Netherlands that started with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and was strengthened by the slaying of politician Pim Fortuyn.  

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Fortuyn gained popularity by declaring that “Holland is full,” referring to the nation’s status as the most densely populated country in Europe.  

He pointed the finger at Muslims, saying they were “busy conquering Western Europe” and called for a “Cold War against Islam.”  

The message resonated with many native Dutch, particularly in cities such as Rotterdam and Amsterdam where many immigrants live.  

When Fortuyn was gunned down by an animal rights activist in May 2002, the country was shocked. Nine days later, his party took second place in the national elections and was ultimately included in the centre-right coalition government that was formed.  

Still in power, the coalition pushed through nearly 100 new anti-terror measures in February. In airports and train stations, police will be allowed to search anyone at any time. Terror suspects not yet tried in a court of law can be banned from public places and from doing certain jobs, and will be requir ed to report to police regularly.  

In the meantime, the trial for the alleged killer of van Gogh is getting underway. And for the first time, Hartog notes, the defendant’s picture has been released to the public. Traditionally, defendant identities are k ept private.  

The woman driver who killed the alleged purse thief will not be charged, and her identity has not been made public.  

“In the minds of many young Moroccans,” says Hartog, “all Dutchmen are equal, but some are more equal than others.”  

Jennifer Hamm is a freelance journalist based in the Netherlands, and can be reached through her website, www.JenniferHamm.com.  

American culture is driven by consumerism. As a result, from time to time our favorite brands get new packaging: the Coca-Cola can features a new paint job; the New York Times gets a facelift; Cadillac introduces an SUV. This process has even affected that venerable institution, Christianity.  

Over the past two decades a new form of the religion of Jesus has made its presence known in the marketplace: Christianity Lite. This is a watered-down version of America’s favorite religion specially packaged for today’s narcissistic consumer. It’s Jerry Springer’s introduction to the teachings of Jesus complete with talk-show preachers, rock ‘n’ roll hymns, and saccharine homilies for every occasion. Stripped of the ethical framework laid down by Jesus, devoid of the hard personal work that leads to deep religious devotion, this decaffeinated version of Christian doctrine picks and chooses from the Old and New Testament to support its positions; thus, capital punishment is good, while euthanasia is bad. In the place of personal revelation it offers rote memorization; rather than serious ethical discussion, it substitutes sensationalism. A sad example of this process is the Terri Schiavo case, which Christianity Lite has made its cause célèbre and, thereby, turned a family tragedy into a media festival. 

The struggle over the right of Schiavo to die in dignity illustrates the three weaknesses in Christianity Lite, the problems that arise when erstwhile Christians are relentlessly fed a diet of pop theology. The first weakness is that this updated version of the teachings of Jesus focuses almost exclusively on the endpoints of the continuum of life. Christianity Lite is obsessed with the subject of abortion, demanding that any fetus be carried to term, regardless of the surrounding circumstances: whether the mother was raped or her life placed in peril by the pregnancy. Once the baby is born, Christianity Lite abruptly loses interest; it cannot be bothered with issues such as the desperate lives of children born into poverty or those who are subjected to physical or psychological abuse.  

At the other end of the spectrum of life, Christianity Lite is fixated on euthanasia. In the process, it ignores the many problems of our aging population: their lack of access to adequate housing and medical care, the reality that many nursing homes and residences for the elderly are dreadful. In essence, Christianity Lite believes that it is acceptable for an octogenarian to live a lonely, marginal existence; it becomes interested only if she should be beset with painful, terminal cancer and wish to end her life. 

Jesus, however, focused on the full range of human life and preached a message of compassion that extends to all of us. In the Sermon on the Mount, and other teachings, he exhorted his followers to care for the poor, the helpless, the scapegoated, and the outcast. 

The second weakness evident in Christianity Lite’s handling of the Schiavo case is that it ignores the history of the Christian church. Freedom of religion is a relatively new phenomenon in Western History. It dates from a proclamation in 1689 by England’s King William and Queen Mary. Even in modern times, freedom of religion has been an issue in the European Community; for example, many religious practices were banned in Nazi Germany (and the cross was replaced by the swastika.) Because of this difficult history, mainstream Christianity has typically kept government at arms length—welcomed the separation between Church and State. Christianity Lite, on the other hand, has formed an unholy alliance with self-serving factions within the Republican Party and seems all too willing to transform what have been theological questions into judicial ones. But no system of jurisprudence can determine when life begins or ends; these are questions that are spiritual, not secular. Forcing their deliberation in the court system weakens the separation between church and state that has been such a vital component of American democracy. This new form of Christianity asks the state to determine who lives and who dies, who can be married, and what texts our children read at school. One can only imagine what is next on their agenda: probably strict censorship of the media. 

Finally, the third weakness of Christianity Lite is its willingness to make public what historically have been deeply personal matters: whom we choose to marry, whether to carry a damaged fetus to term, or how to attend to a loved one trapped in a painful slide to death. This assault on the right of privacy is consistent with a subculture that has developed a pathological love for public confession, particularly if it is in front of a national television audience.  

The decline of Terri Schiavo is a tragedy, but it is a personal, family drama that involves only her husband, Michael, and her parents. With its insistence on sensationalizing this sad affair, Christianity Lite reveals it dark attraction to religious voyeurism. In doing so it betrays the most elemental teaching of Jesus, his admonition that we treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves. 

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

In the March 25-28 Daily Planet, Heath Maddox, a city staffer and union member, replies to my query—given that the city’s current contracts with unionized employees grant salary increases of 28.5 percent or (for fire and police) 31.5 percent over six yea rs, how is budgeting zero raises for two years after the current contracts expire asking city workers, in the words of a Planet reporter, “to sacrifice”?  

First off, Mr. Maddox says that the “managers at the city were given their raise[s] (27 percent) al l at once,” while “union rank and file were promised raises over a six-year period.” If this is true, it’s totally unfair. But even if it is true, how does it involve a sacrifice on the part of the rank and file?  

The larger question remains: Where’s the sacrifice in asking all city staff to forgo increases in the two years following the expiration of their current six-year contracts, given the terms of those contracts?  

My initial letter to the Planet mentioned only the 28.5 percent and 31.5 percent sa lary raises. When benefits are factored in, the increases in compensation assume truly amazing proportions, considering the state of the economy and the city’s finances. Salaries and benefits per each full-time employee in 2001 averaged $71,174. As adopted for fiscal year 2005, they averaged $101,330—an increase of 42.4 percent. For Berkeley police, the percentage change was only slightly greater—42.6 percent—but the average total compensation per full-time employee was substantially higher: from $87,561 to $124,894. A major factor in these figures is that Berkeley city employees contribute nothing toward their pensions.  

Mr. Maddox also states that “[m]embers of the city’s various employee unions voluntarily deferred 2.26 percent of our cost of living a djustment (COLA) for the last fiscal year.” Acknowledging that this “deferred adjustment will be restored later this year,” he observes that “union members will not receive retroactive pay for the 11 months that we sacrificed our COLA.”  

Again, these sta tements—all true—need to be viewed in a larger context. Between 2000 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers in the Bay Area went up by only 11.1 percent. Between 2001 and 2005, Berkeley’ s General Fund revenues increased by only 9 percent. The total fiscal year 2006 General Fund deficit is now projected at $8.9 million. For fiscal years 2007 through 2009, the projected General Fund deficit ranges from $8.4 million to $9.5 million.  

Despite these conditions, in return for the 11-month COLA giveback, the unions got the council to promise that the city would not ask them for further concessions.  

“It is citizens like Ms. Bronstein,” Mr. Maddox concludes, “who will make major sacrifices in reduced quality of city services if the wages o ffered by the city are allowed to sink significantly behind those of neighboring cities and Berkeley’s qualified and competent workers respond by seeking employment that will allow them to support their families.”  

Yes, the departure of qualified and com petent workers (the staff of the city clerk’s office leap to mind) for better-paying jobs would be a serious loss.  

On the other hand, citizens like myself feel that our quality of life is already being diminished by ill-advised projects such as the Offi ce of Transportation’s scheme for Marin Avenue and by the arbitrary administration of the city’s Zoning Ordinance by the Planning Department, the Housing Department and the city attorney’s office. In these cases, absent basic reforms, a change of personne l might be a boon.  

There are more fundamental issues than ensuring that City of Berkeley salaries are commensurate with those of other municipalities. When we’re looking at annual deficits of $8-9 million, can we really afford to pay city staff 42 perce nt more than what they made in 2001 without making the ultimate sacrifice—radically altering the character of our city?  

Before Mayor Bates and the City Council go along with City Manager Kamlarz’s recommendations for cutting even more services or the mayor’s plans for turning Berkeley into Emeryville, these questions need to be answered. But first, somebody in City Hall has to ask them.  

Zelda Bronstein is a former chair of the Berkeley Planning Commission.

I hope you assign some of your reporters to follow up on the statements summarized below made in a letter by SEIU union member Heath Maddox published in your March 25-28 issue. In his letter, Mr. Maddox lists a number of “sacrifices” city employees have made to reduce city expenses. 

1. Mr. Maddox wrote that the current labor contract with union members gives them a 28.5 percent raise over a six-year period, while city managers were given a 27 percent raise all at once. I’m not sure why he refers to this in the context of sacrifices by unionized employees, but it does seem to me that a 27 percent raise in one year is excessive. Which city managers received such generous raises, and what did they do to deserve such large increases? 

2. According to Mr. Maddox, some city employees have to take time off without pay during office closures. I thought that since full-time city employees get from two to six weeks of paid vacation annually, 13 scheduled and three personal paid holidays a year, and can carry over up to eight weeks of unused vacation days, no full time employee would actually see a reduction in their monthly pay check as a result of city office closures. What percentage of full-time city employees will actually see a reduction in their monthly take-home pay as a result of these office closures? How are part-time employees affected by these closures? Are their work-schedules adjusted so as to prevent reductions in their take-home pay too? 

3. Mr. Maddox concludes that the failure of Berkeley to keep up with other cities in wages offered to its employees will result in an exodus of many of these employees to greener pastures. This would be a problem if the positions they vacated could not be filled by qualified replacements. What is the percentage of positions Berkeley has open for which it is having difficulty attracting qualified applicants (i.e. for which it has received fewer than four applications in a month from candidates who meet the minimum requirements of the job)? I recently spoke to an analyst in the city’s Human Resources Department who indicated that his department does not keep track of the number of qualified applicants per open position. Perhaps his department should do so. 

It is my understanding that none of the “sacrifices” Mr. Maddox mentioned and none of the proposed cuts to city services would be necessary if city employees simply agreed to contribute the same proportion of their wages and salaries to their own pension plan as those of us in the private sector do through Social Security taxes. Currently, union employees contribute nothing to their own publicly funded retirement plan. This allows them to retire totally at the Berkeley property tax payers’ expense with pensions that are better than many of these taxpayers will ever receive themselves. Could one of your reporters verify whether my perceptions are correct? 

Keith Winnard is a Berkeley resident.?

The commentary by Bill Hamilton (“Disarming Violence: Three Choices,” March 29-31) presents a nice convenient package for commenting, but fails to accurately portray important aspects of the situation. It is but the latest from among the people who pontificate between lattes, cop-bashing, and massage appointments. Far from being illuminating, it muddles the controversy by framing incongruous circumstances as the same. It also shows a bit too much of the self-righteousness hypocrisy the Bay Area is renowned for. Much like other cases of officious largesse, the choices proffered don’t fit the actual situation. I’m getting used to people who, by age alone, should know better. More than one professional writer, among them inappropriately anointed and self-appointed spokespersons for the Black community, have wrongly referred to my act of self-defense as vigilantism, in spite of the fact that the word choice is obviously incorrect and that I have publicly criticized vigilante acts. 

We needn’t spend much time analyzing his unexplained conclusion that everyone is very lucky Ms. Smith did not try to use a gun. Apparently under the circumstances reported in the press, she had no opportunity or need to defend herself with physical force. Indeed she was literally at the mercy of her remorseful assailant, who, luckily, was amenable to her merciful plea. 

My family has never felt we were held hostage, but presumptuous Bill feels comfortable making his statement for us. To the contrary, I feel free as a bird and have always been bemused by those whom presume I haven’t taken the Emancipation Proclamation to heart. I feel so free that I look with disdain upon those who would so forsake their responsibilities to the law-abiding neighbors of his workplace who live in—rather than visit—“war zones,” that rather than report the malignant criminal behavior of drug dealers, they would unashamedly say about their relationship: “We made a deal.” 

Unlike some visitors, it didn’t take a period “over time” for me to recognize the plight of my brothers and sisters in the streets, for I was born among them. A neighbor and I have talked with many of the youth and offered help over the years. We’ve met with youth organizers and have offered to teach electrical, carpentry, and other building trades at the recreation center from which drugs were sold. I have helped several youngsters repair their vehicles and even given some of them my home number to call if they need legal help. I haven’t been a visitor or interloper, but someone whose life has been formed in the black community. I know all about the pathos and aspirations, hope and possibilities; far better, I dare say, than a person who visits the neighborhood to cut wood. Certainly using a cheap labor pool of entrepreneurial pushers is in the spirit of capitalism and down right convenient to boot, but I wonder how many West Oakland residents can claim their lives have been improved by folks who make deals with thuggish drug dealers. 

In his exposition, like many officious liberals, he fails to deal with the important aspect of race. Ms. Smith, and I’ll bet Mr. Hamilton, are whites dealing with black criminals. In reality, black people are far more likely than whites to be the victim of black criminals perpetrating violence. It’s easy to choose to be unarmed if your choices also include simply not going to the dangerous area. It seems all too easy, but fashionable, for some to impute their choices to others whose lives are different. Bill only had to deal with property damage and apparently left after office hours. In my case, after having survived one ambush beating by three thugs upset that I reported them to the police, I had to deal with one gun about to be pointed at me from among a mob that had at least one other gun. Yes, there could have been another outcome: I could have been the subject of a chalk outline on the sidewalk. 

Patrick McCullough is a City of Berkeley employee and a North Oakland resident. 

If you’d like a preview of the university’s expanded future—the big dog that already wags the tail that is Berkeley, drive or walk up to Channing Way and Bowditch, stand on the end of the grand old Anna Head site, and take in the dramatic transformation from a sea of boring temporaries to gleaming, state-of-the-art architecture. 

Immediately across the street sits Crossroads, the spanking new Student Dining Facility, a dazzling assemblage of architectonic shapes and effects, backed-up by the larger mass of Residential and Student Services to make one assertive all-or-nothing statement. Left and ahead, further up Channing, a huge new wall of strident colors and dramatic forms announces just-completed residential in-fill on the old late ‘50s student dormitory sites. Finally turn around and enjoy the equally new but refreshingly low-key residential complex across Channing immediately south of Bowditch, an attractive composition of three to four story wood-shingled pavilions that seems positively therapeutic after the above shock and awe. 

If you haven’t much followed Cal’s grand designs, you might not know that these dramatic developments are the result of seemingly rational planning that ranks central control, economic advantage and seismic safety way above gentle change. Not necessarily bad in the right location, such military planning has been particularly destructive here, in this vulnerable strip of Southside, a shared UC and city environment graced with many distinguished buildings, among them Bernard Maybeck’s Christian Science Church, and his Town and Gown Club, Julia Morgan’s Berkeley City Club and Baptist Seminary, and in more recent time Joseph Esherick’s graceful YWCA, and Mario Ciampi’s University Art Museum. 

The above mentioned late ‘50s dormitories immediately below College Avenue were the first big university assault on this gentle neighborhood. Rapidly increasing enrollment, plus pressure from parents for UC-provided accommodation, led in 1956 to a design competition, won by the San Francisco firm of Warneke and Associates. Their solution, strongly influenced by European Modern Movement apartment buildings, consisted of two superblocks, each with four identical nine-story towers pushed out to the corners, leaving the center areas free for playful, low-rise dining pavilions with lavishly landscaped garden-terraces. Initially appealing as a concept—toylike models usually are—these bland but invasive buildings amounted to a disruptive assault on the old tree-lined streets, shingled villas, and gracious community structures. Forty-five years later, it still jars the senses to see those mediocre towers making an uninvited backdrop to Maybeck’s splendid church. 

Now alas, the invasion has intensified. Justified by a bigger-than-ever student population, a stronger than ever concern for seismic safety, and buildable land free from City of Berkeley interference, the university’s “Underhill Plan” has rumbled into action. The landscaped dining rooms, the nicest feature of these superblocks, have been demolished, and replaced by residential in-fill structures designed to co-exist with the Warneke towers. Upper Durant and Dwight Way feel walled-in, the original neighborhood openness is lost, and the on-site density is 50 percent higher than that of Manhattan! 

Simultaneously, demolition of the dining rooms has led to the creation of a long-desired central restaurant facility on the nearby site of the temporaries, while the displaced activities housed in those dismal huts have found a more glamorous home in a big new Residential and Student Services Building. Presumably, for lack of space and seismic advantage, these two very different facilities have been piggy-backed into one strange architectural tour-de-force—the Jewel in the Crown of the Underhill Empire! 

When we recoil from such dramatic change, we tend to blame the architects, but in reality those hard-working professionals have little power to control development. Usually both program and site are handed to them by others, and the most they can do is make the buildings work well and look interesting. 

“Interesting” if not downright novel describes the residential infill designed by EHDD, Joe Esherick’s old firm in San Francisco. More like apartments than traditional dormitories, the new buildings step-up from four to eight stories between the old nine-floor towers, leaving a comfortable gap at their low end, and at the high end, almost joining the existing structures. The two blocks step-up in opposite directions, creating pleasing variety within the garden court. To further emphasize this novel stepping, the facades are treated almost like independent buildings, differentiated by bold color—orange, soft yellow, pale green, deep blue, white— and enlivened at their upper levels by bold, projecting metal-clas window bays. Most striking here is the powerful contrast between the workday double-hung windows and the high tech boxed-out bays. Indeed, despite their looking at fist glance like something facing the harbor in Rotterdam, they still at heart possess a certain non-slick Bay Area character. 

This homey quality is particularly successful from inside the new enclosed gardens, the first of which, between Haste and Dwight, is now completed and accessible to the public. This elegant landscaped court, just below sidewalk level at the College Avenue end, is actually a lid covering a big basement of impressive student amenities—recreation and music lounges, study areas, computer center, etc.—all pleasantly daylit around the perimeter, where glass walls look out at stands of bamboo. Up at garden level, surrounded by handsome paving, raised planters containing infant trees will soon overflow with groundcover and flowering bushes, while one area with deeper soil already nurtures a stand of redwoods. Big stainless steel ventilators add a nautical touch. Two matching little steel-framed pavilions shelter bicycles and wood decks. In total contract to the “English Romantic Landscape” of the original UC campus, this is a truly modern garden, an integral part of the architecture rather than a setting for it. 

At present the new frontages on Channing Way and Haste face each other across an enormous hole in the ground, site of a future three-level parking structure with a recreational field on top. Preliminary designs show a park-like expanse, stepping gently down from an expanded landscaped sidewalk at College Avenue to the swathe of planting already installed below the east front to the new Student Affairs Building. This huge, visually-public open space, defined on three sides by new buildings, deserved development by world-class designers. If most of it must remain rather two-dimensional, except for street trees along the flanking avenues, there could be at least bold, vine covered loggias across the step-down points, particularly at the area’s westerly end, which at this juncture seem insufficiently dramatized by architecture. 

What a pity, after all this expensive effort, that the building which forms the back half of the ambitious complex fronting Bowditch should appear so unheroic on its long easterly front—in urban design terms, not a success. 

The new facility does come alive however at its northerly end. This main entrance facade, set back from Channing, is easily the most elegant and understated part of the whole twin complex, while the office-levels within, with their spacious lounges, splendid views and state-of-the-art air conditioning, are as luxurious a work setting as any corporate management person could desire. 

As for the much-trumpeted Central Dining Facility next door, understated is the one thing it is not. Novel and impressive on first encounter, the trendy but confused design puzzles and irritates on closer inspection. Look at it carefully from across Bowditch. Set against the long more sober backdrop of Student Services, two glassy pavilions with dramatically swooping roofs are separated by a low connecting structure that projects forward almost to the sidewalk, enclosing on its left a raised garden-terrace and the building’s main entrance. Further south along Bowditch, immediately past the second pavilion, another projecting “box” completes the strung-out frontage. The curved roofs shelter separate dining halls, the lower structure houses kitchens, cafeteria-counters, etc. while white box-like projections contain a smaller dining room and a future coffee chop. 

There’s something dramatically appealing about the white cubist cutout set against the green glass of the corner dining hall, the crossways opposition of curving roofs, and the way the long frontage jogs around big existing redwoods. In the merged Los Angeles Practices of Cannon-Dworsky, some courageous designer tried. Perhaps others failed to guide this playful vision into a real-live good building. We’ll never know. 

For flaws detract on all sides. The white wall of the “coffee chop” collides clumsily into the elegant glass grid instead of sliding past it. The terrace is a confusion of stairs, railings and a ramp masked by flimsy looking wood boards. An impressive vine trellis nearby supports neither a vine nor a planter for a future one. At Channing and Bowditch, what should be a friendly public corner seems barricaded by huge stone planters reminiscent of some anti-tank barrier, while the dining hall’s glassy north side is marred by yet more baffling boxes. 

As for the Student Affairs building being a backdrop to the more flamboyant dining hall, its flimsy sunshade “eyebrow,” colliding visually with the over-thick fascia of the big curved roof, creates even more chaos. Any one of John Galen Howard’s original campus buildings has a strength and simplicity way beyond this picturesque assemblage, which, in spite of acres of glass, reveals almost nothing of the noisy, youthful activity within. It’s to be fervently hoped that, if built, the proposed joint UC-City hotel, conference center and art museum on the edge of Shattuck Square will be equally bold, equally lively, but better. 

The last of these three Underhill projects, the Channing-Bowditch Apartments facing the north side of Anna Head, couldn’t be more different that the flawed “Masterpiece” described above. An impressive exercise in the flexible and ever-functional Shingle Style—the residential Arts and Crafts movement of the late 1900s, it looks at first glance to have been designed in 1901 and built 95 years later. Under big sheltering roofs, three-story wings project toward the street from a long four-level spine, creating pleasant shady courts in-between. The design ‘vocabulary’ is very familiar, and easier to handle than the more dramatic ‘all-glass-all-blank’ collisions of the dining commons. 

Traditional features dominate—generous overhangs with exposed rafters, cozily-enclosed balconies, and the old “alpine chalet” device of a recessed under-the-eaves attic. The exterior colors are a refreshing modern touch. Bold orange at the base, dark blue and sea-green elements above, and lots of white trim, all help to enliven the bland stained shingles that will weather over time to a darker more gutsy tone. 

Sad to say, in the presence of all this happy creating, the repetition throughout of small ungenerous double-hung windows diminishes much of the poetry. The designers have made a heroic effort to achieve some variety, to group, combine or space-out these prosaic “high-performance” openings, now mandated by the university for all its residential projects, yet they still look sadly institutional compared with the huge studio-windows and welcoming casements of the original full-blown Shingle Style. 

Michael Pyatok, the project’s talented name-architect, seems to have become the darling of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association and the conservation brigade, thus specially useful to the PR-conscious bureaucrats of UC. His gently retro student dorms are better than bad modern any day, yet I can’t help wondering how his very competent design-team would have handled the more prestigious, higher budget statement across the corner. I’d love to see them given such a chance!?

“From the Hills to the Bay” might have been an appropriate theme for the Berkeley Historical Society’s spring series of history walking tours starting this weekend. 

The tours range over Berkeley from the edge of West Berkeley’s railroad tracks to the hillside heights above the UC campus. The tour season begins Saturday morning, April 2, with a steep climb up the still verdant slopes of Charter Hill above the Greek Theatre.  

Looking down on spectacular views of Berkeley, the by, and Strawberry Canyon, the tour (led by the author) leads to the big “C,” the yellow-painted concrete letter above the campus. 

This is a momentous year for the C. It turned exactly a century old on March 23.  

Back in 1905, Cal freshmen and sophomores cooperatively constructed the monumental letter to symbolically bury “The Rush,” an annual hillside conflict between rival classes that had taken place for several years in increasingly boisterous circumstances, until banned by university officials. 

The spirit symbol caught on, not only at Cal but in other locations. In the 1980s, research by UC Professor of Geography James Parsons and colleagues established that the C is not only the oldest of all the hillside letters that are now found throughout the Western American landscape, but also the clear progenitor of similar letters at several other colleges. 

The story of the building of the C, which also provoked one of Berkeley’s first conservation conflicts, will be told on the trail, along with other tales from UC and local history, including an account of annual Thanksgiving services held in the Berkeley hills early in the 20th century by and for members of the Sierra Club. 

Each tour in the Berkeley Historical Society series is led by a different volunteer guide recruited by the group. All take place on Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to approximately noon. 

Individual tickets cost $10 for the general public, $8 for Historical Society members. Anyone who goes on at least three tours gets to participate in a bonus sixth tour at the end of the series. 

On Saturday, April 16, the series focus descends to the west Berkeley flatlands when local historical researcher Bruce Goodell leads a tour past several of Berkeley’s “Glass Block Buildings.”  

Also known as “Concrete Grid Form” buildings, these structures are easily identifiable by their distinct diamond-shaped patterns of glass blocks set in concrete. About half of the two dozen known buildings of the type in the East Bay are found in Berkeley.  

They represent a distinctive design that originated locally and involved architects as prominent as Bernard Maybeck who used the style to design a distinctive community house on University Avenue for the Mobilized Women of Berkeley organization (the structure is now the middle part of the Amsterdam Art complex). Goodell, a West Berkeley resident, has sleuthed out the locations and history of several of these once industrial structures, now used for a variety of purposes. 

The mid-point of the tour season comes on Saturday, April 30, when Historical Society Board member and photographer Allen Stross will lead a walk around Berkeley’s “Holy Hill,” the site of several seminaries and religious schools north of the UC campus. Stops will include the Bade Museum of archaeological artifacts unearthed in Palestine by Pacific School of Religion president (and Sierra Club enthusiast) William Frederic Bade, as well as the last building designed by architect Louis Kahn. 

On Sunday, May 15, the tour route goes “Around the World in 80 Minutes” at the University’s Botanical Garden in Strawberry Canyon. The tour, led by volunteer Garden docents, will travel through much of the 36-acre Garden visiting plant collections representing regions from Australia to the Mediterranean. 

Ashby Station—not the BART Station, but the rail stop and community that preceded it—will be the subject of the fifth and last regular tour on Saturday, May 21. Historic preservationist Dale Smith will guide tour-goers through the site and numerous historic 19th and early 20th century streetscapes and buildings of the old Mark Ashby Farm, near the intersection of Ashby and Adeline in South Berkeley. Events of the 1960s and ‘70s in the neighborhood and planned new buildings will also be described. 

Finally, those who have attended at least three tours can sign up for a free “bonus tour” on Saturday, June 4 (with slightly altered hours of 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.) This tour will focus on a square block of much interest to present-day Berkeleyans, the area just south of Spenger’s Restaurant and the University Avenue viaduct, where a large new development is proposed. 

Current buildings on the site include the old Southern Pacific railroad station, and Celia’s and Brennan’s Restaurants. Part of 19th century Oceanview, Berkeley’s first American-era settlement, this is also part of Berkeley’s oldest “neighborhood,” with research underway to see what remnants of the Berkeley Shellmound might be buried in the vicinity.  

Steven Finacom is a Board member of the Berkeley Historical Society and will be leading the Big C tour on April 2.c

To attend the 10 a.m. tour this Saturday morning, gather at Founder’s Rock—Gayley Road and Hearst Avenue—and purchase tickets then. Wear good climbing shoes for the steep hike. 

To reserve for future tours, send your name, address, and telephone number to the Berkeley Historical Society at P.O. Box 1190, Berkeley, 94701-1190, listing the tours you want to attend. Keep a copy of your order and enclose a check—payable to Berkeley Historical Society—totaling $10 per individual for each tour you’d like to attend ($8 for BHS members). 

If you’d like to join the BHS, the membership cost is $20 for individuals, $25 for families. BHS members can also purchase a “season ticket” for all five tours at a discounted $30 price. Call 848-0181 for further information. If you call between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Thursday or Friday before a tour, you can find out if space is still available. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Woodblock Prints by Paul Jacoulet” opens at the Schurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. 524-0623. www.schurmanfineartgallery.com 

“Irish Crochet Lace: 150 Years of a Tradition” Reception at 6 p.m. at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles, 2982 Adeline St. 843-7290. www.lacismuseum.org 

FILM 

“EarthDance: The Short-Attention-Span Film Festival” at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. After-party at 9 p.m. Tickets are $5-$8. Reservations recommended. 238-3818. www.museumca.org 

Edgar G. Ulmer: “Bluebeard” at 7 p.m, and “The Strange Woman” at 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Berkeley Repertory Theater “For Better or Worse” at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. and runs through April 24. Tickets are $20-$55. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

“The Motown Story” Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 6 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$38. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

“Proof” by David Auburn, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through May 7 at The Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $13. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

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 $10-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Iris Stewart introduces “Sacred Women, Sacred Dance” at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. www.belladonna.ws 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Cudamani, Balinese music and dance, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$56. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

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

All-Oakland Talent Show at 7 p.m. at the Malonga Casquelourd Arts Center, 1428 Alice St. Tickets are $10. www.oaklandleaf.org 

Rafael Manríquez & Duamuxa at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Erik Aliana and Korongo Jam, African, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Sherry Austin & The Hog Ranch Rounders at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

David K. Matthews Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Lost Cats, jazz at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Bottom Dwellers, Real Sippin’ Whiskeys, A.J. Roach at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082.  

Tragedy, Nightmare, Riistetyt at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Monkey, The Struts, The Barbary Coasters, ska, rock n’ roll, at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5-$7. 848-0886.  

Vinyl, Brown Baggin’ at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Grand Groovement at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Kenny Garrett at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $14-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, APRIL 2 

CHILDREN 

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Kevin Griffin and Alisa Peres, songs from traditional folk to Latin America, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5. 849-2568.  

Paper Characters with Elisa Kleven, author of “Abuela, The Paper Princess” at 2 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Interlude” Reception and book signing from 2 to 4 p.m. at A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 525-7621. 

“Trouble Man” in homage to Marvin Gaye. Reception from 1 to 4 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to May 28. 637-0200.  

FILM 

Edgar G. Ulmer “American Matchmaker” at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

“A Single Woman” the story of Jeannette Rankin at 2:30 p.m. at Claremont House, 4500 Gilbert St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20. RSVP to 587-3228. loma64@yahoo.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading from 3 to 5 p.m., at Strawberry Creek Lodge Dining Hall, 1320 Addison St. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jazz House Tribute to Mingus and Dolphy with saxophonist Howard Wiley at 9 p.m. at 21 Grand Art Gallery, 449B 23rd St., Oakland. Cost is $10. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Trinity Chamber Concert “Duo Terra Antiqua” with Zoe Vandermeer, soprano, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Cost is $8-$12. 549-3864. http://trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Vox Populi “Mother and Son,” devotional music from 15th cent. England at 8 p.m. at the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, 2316 Bowditch St. Free. www.vox-pop.org 

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

Larry Karush, jazz pianist and composer, at 8 p.m., at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $10-20 at the door. 527-0450. 

“Bare Bones” Randee Paufve Dance at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2547 Eighth St. Tickets are $12, available one hour before the show. www.paufvedance.org 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Mujeres: Rebeca Mauleón & Quintet at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Aux Cajunals, Cajun, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Eric Crystal Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

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

Monkey Knife Fight at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

Moore Brothers, Mandarin, Thread at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Joe Rut, Jason Kleinberg, indy rock, at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10.  

Meli at 7 and 9 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $5. 597-0795. 

Tape, Pomegranate, The Wearies at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $4-$7. 848-0886.  

Love Songs, Angry for Life, Darlington at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 3 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808.  

FILM 

Crying in Color: “How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died” at 4:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Sophie Cabot Black and David Breskin at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Painting Out of Conflict: Velasquez, Rubens, and the Dutch in Time of War” with Svetlana Alpers, Prof. Emerita, Art History, at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Takacs Quartet at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $42. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

San Francisco City Chorus and Berkeley Chancel Choir with California Chamber Symphony performing Mozart’s Requiem, at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $13-$20. 415-701-SONG. www.sfcitychorus.org 

Klezmatics with guest Joshua Nelson at 4 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Followed by party at BRJCC. Tickets are $23-$50. www.brjcc.org 

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Imagining Peace with Betsy Rose, Edie Hartshorne, Nicole Milner and others at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Green and Root, James Lee Stanley, acoustic folk pop, at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10.  

Darin Schaffer at 10 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

RU36, Fuller at 4 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. All ages show. 848-0886.  

7 Seconds, Groovie Ghoulies, Whiskey Rebels at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, APRIL 4 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore” at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St., through July 31. 549-6950.  

FILM 

Buddhism and Film: “My Dinner with André” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robert Richter describes “The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Sidra Stich will show slides and introduce “art-SITES- Northern Italy” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Actors Reading Writers “Russian Masters” stories by Sholom Aleichem and Anton Chekhov, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave.  

Poetry Express, 3rd Anniversary featuring Nazelah Jamison from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

The Last Word Poetry reading with Carlye Archibeque and Scott Wannberg at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dimitri Matheny’s “Nocturnes” at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, APRIL 5 

CHILDREN 

Puppet Company “Trickster Tales” at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Betwen Dimensions” Large sculptural paintings of the atmosphere by Ruth von Jahnke Waters, opens at Gallery 940, 940 Dwight Way at Ninth St.  

Contemporary Japanese Calligraphy with Keiji Onodera at 5 p.m. at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St. 642-2809. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “A Darkness Swallowed” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ronald Wright discusses “A Short History of Progress” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Keith Devlin describes “The Math Instinct: Why You’re a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats and Dogs)” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“American Labor and the Cold War” with authors William Issel, Kenneth Burt and Don Watson at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Claudia Schmidt at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Mudbath, Aroarah, alt pop rock, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886.  

“Bright River” A hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $12-$35. 415-256-8499.  

Baby Buck, Cowpokes for Peace, Bob Harp, alt country, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Maria Muldaur at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

Brian Kane, solo jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 

THEATER 

Laney College Theater, “Legacy for LoEshe” in memory of a girl slain in West Oakland, Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., through April 21, at 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$9. 464-3544. 

FILM 

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

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Zac Unger describes “Working Fire: The Making of An Accidental Fireman” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Cara Black reads from her new mystery novel, “Murder in Clichy” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Josh Kearns, UC student and contributing author reads from “What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out” at 2:30 p.m. at the Cal Student Store. 642-7294. 

Ross Tobia reads from his new book “Grand Unified Theory, Physics for a New Age” at 7 p.m. at the Albany Public Library Meeting Room, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert “Jazz and Vocal” at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Za’Bava! Izvorno at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Ravi Abcarian Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Claudia Schmidt at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

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

Julio Bravo, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159. 

Dave Holland Big Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Fri. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“North by Northwest” new and experimental works on paper by members of Seattle Print Arts. Reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.oeg 

“Jewish Life and Culture in Norway: Wergeland's Legacy” Reception at 7 p.m. with Jo Benkow, former President of the Norwegian Parliament, at Townsend Center for the Humanities, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Campus. RSVP to 642-5355. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater “Wit” and “Benefactor” Thurs. at 7 p.m., Fri. at 8 p.m. and Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. through April 16, at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10. 558-2500, ext. 2579.  

FILM 

Marina Goldovskaya: “The Prince is Back” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free screening. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with Suji Kwock Kim at 12:10 p.m. at Morrison Library in Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137.  

“A Mirror of Threads: Weaving and Self-Representation in Mexico” with Alejandro de Avila from Oaxaca at 5 p.m. at Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft Way at College. 643-7648. 

Grace Marie Grafton reads her poetry at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Amy Prior reads from “Lost on Purpose: Women in the City” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Prof. Robert Ogilvie discusses “Voluntarism, Community Life, and the American Ethic” at 1:30 p.m. at the Cal Student Store. 642-7294.  

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with Nancy Wakeman and Jeanne Powell at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

Stan Goldberg explains “Ready to Learn: How to Help Your Preschooler Succeed” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Emam & Friends, world music, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Kelly Joe Phelps at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Old Time Square Dance with Amy and Karen, and the Barnburners at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Peter Barshay & Weber Iago at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.ª

Warm spring days beckon us out of our homes like monarchs emerging from their cocoons. Time to brighten our views and feel the touch of the sun. Time to renew our dreams of travel to destinations far and away. 

Distant travel may be beyond our immediate reach but botanic travel is close at hand in three locations right outside our doors in the East Bay hills. Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, in Oakland, Regional Parks Botanic Garden, in Tilden Park, and the UC Botanical Garden in Berkeley each offer a unique sense of place and a welcome outdoor adventure. Visit them to walk through a primordial north coast landscape, tour a living museum of California’s native plants and enjoy a trip around the world on footpaths leading you among the flora of Southern Africa, Asia and Central America. 

Devote a day to all three or escape on a quiet morning to spend just one blissful hour witnessing the renewable cycle of life.  

What you see at Huckleberry Preserve you won’t see anywhere else in the East Bay. The collection of California natives on 235 acres of ocean floor strata laid down 12 million years ago is a reminder of a cooler, moister climate, a landscape caught in time. 

Huckleberry Path, a 1.69-mile loop along a self-guided nature trail, traverses a wide range of landscapes as it meanders along the canyon. You’ll get a good workout on this leaf-littered footpath with its series of steep undulations down to a mature bay forest and back to the upper trail. 

The nature path brochure, available at the trailhead, draws your attention to unique vegetation in the densely wooded canyon and contrasts it with chaparral thickets on the rocky knolls, while providing lessons on ecological succession and competition for resources, especially water and light. Between coast huckleberry, ceonothus, chinquapin, madrone, and a wide variety of flowering shrubs, there is a year-round display of color in leaves, branches and blooms. 

My visit in early spring was timed perfectly with emerging blossoms and tender new growth: tiny leaves forming from velvety buds on the bare branches of western leatherwood, dangling clusters of pink and white flowers on flowering current, delicate green uncurling fronds of sword and wood fern, tiny white milkmaids and violet Douglas iris.  

Walking through the steep canyon terrain I saw unusual growth in the dense forest of California bay and oaks. Down-slope branches arched almost horizontally across the canyon while those on the up-slope stretched vertically toward the light. I felt far away—on Oregon’s beautiful coast or in a Tolkien dream—not just a few miles from home.  

When does a botanic garden feel like a wooded retreat? When you walk through California at Regional Parks Botanic Garden. Here it’s difficult to tell where nature ends and the garden begins. From natural pathways of gravel and stone to hand painted illustrated signs identifying each section, from secret rustic benches to towering trees, this is truly a natural outdoor experience.  

Established in 1940 for the growth and preservation of California’s native plants, the park can boast of displaying the entire botanical range of all 160,000 square miles of the state. Native specimens from seacoast bluffs, interior valleys, alpine mountains and sun-scorched deserts, all contained in just ten acres.  

Learn the names of your favorites from color-coded labels or follow pathways, listening to bird life and the sound of Strawberry Creek running its course through the garden. Keep a mental list of botanic wonders and observe their cycle of life next season. You really need to visit at least four times a year in order to enjoy the monthly succession of blooms. 

My recent visit left these lasting memories: the tiny flowers of ceonothus (wild lilac) bushes in clusters of blue, pink, and white; a pink flowering current framed against the patchy white trunk of a western sycamore; small groves of slender quaking aspen brightly coated with orange lichen, sentinels amid a field of bright green; the smooth, satiny bark of the brittleleaf manzanita, it’s sculptured branches as lovely as the finest piece of art. Toward the top of the garden I came upon a towering grove of redwoods, below them the ground carpeted with soft tri-leafed sorrel abloom in pale pink. On this foggy morning, faint shafts of light slanted down through the branches onto a weathered bench where I sat. Within this natural cathedral, I took a quiet moment to reflect on the soothing beauty of nature and the wisdom of subtle maintenance amid a natural landscape.  

Broaden your floral horizons at the UC Botanical Garden where specimens from across the globe thrive in a Mediterranean climate. Photographers, artists, gardeners, lovers of nature or those seeking beautiful surroundings will want to return time and again.  

Established in 1890, the oldest campus botanical garden in the United States’ 34 acres contains over 13,000 species attractively landscaped in nine geographical regions and several special collections. Amble along the main route in one hour, take two to explore the web of footpaths leading you through each area or spend an afternoon with a picnic and a book on the lawn or at one of the many sheltered benches throughout the park. 

The Garden brochures direct you to specific sections and tours. A seasonal tour pamphlet describes garden highlights on a 45-minute self-guided circuit. The California Natives brochure connects the plants in this diverse section with the indigenous people of 250 years ago. Another pamphlet leads you to the Chinese Medicinal Herb Garden providing instruction in traditional Chinese medicine as it points out over one hundred herbs.  

My recent ramble through the garden was a flower lovers dream. My eyes were immediately drawn to the Southern Africa section, a palette of soft pastels in orange, yellow, blue and lavender. The entire hillside glowed with specimens of oxalis, cape cowslip and homeria. This area is heavily featured in the “water wise” garden tour, the plants well adapted to our Bay Area climate. To my right resided the guardians of the garden in the New World Desert, where some of the oldest specimens are found. Stately cacti, yucca and agave, formidably adorned with needles, thorns and early blooms, were highlighted by the sun.  

More flower profusion met me on the path to the Japanese pool, a scene of beauty with its massive stones, snow lantern, pond lilies, camellias and dogwoods. Rhododendron, magnolia and tree peonies, festooned with multi-sized blooms in Easter-egg colors, decorated the path approaching the central lawn and the Tropical House. Inside, the warm humidity soaked into my pores while the fronds of palms and banana trees dripped overhead. Don’t pass up the Fern and Carnivorous Plant House where you can dream about ridding the world of those pesky flies with a giant forest of Venus Fly traps and Pitcher Plants. 

The largest section of the garden represents California’s native plants, organized by plant community. Here you will see old favorites from the Regional Botanic as well as many others, such as those stunted trees in the Pigmy Forest and the aquatics in the vernal pool. One of my favorites is the giant coreopsis, its whimsical feathery stalks with large yellow flowers right out of a Dr.Seuss book. 

Complete your visit across from the main garden at the redwood grove, always quiet and mystical. Often forgotten, here you will find the giants of California’s coast, ramrod straight, filtering the light and creating an environment unique unto itself. Consider their years of growth and hope that it’s merely a fraction of their time in this living museum.  

Travel complete, return home inspired and infused with plans for a personal garden, an adventure afar or another visit among the botanic landscapes of the East Bay hills.  

Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve: Take Grizzly Peak Blvd. and cross Fish Ranch Road. Continue on Grizzly Peak 0.24-miles to Skyline Blvd. Turn left onto Skyline and drive 0.8 miles to the park entrance on the left, just past Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve. Chemical toilet and one picnic table at parking lot. Dogs allowed off leash. 

Regional Parks Botanic Garden: Located in Tilden Park on Wildcat Canyon Road, near its intersection with South Park Drive. Open daily 8:30-5 p.m., free. Classes and lectures offered through the Visitor Center. 

www.ebparks.org. 

UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley: 200 Centennial Dr., midway between the UC Berkeley Memorial Stadium and Lawrence hall of Science. Open from 9-5 p.m. Adults $3, children $1. 643 2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu.

FRIDAY, APRIL 1 

Outings on Fridays with Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association Tour of the Cohen-Bray House (1884) in Fruitvale, at 11 a.m. Cost is $15. Reservations required. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with VIncent H. Resh, on “Rivers Over the World”. Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925. 

Bear Swimming Open House for ages 5 to 11, at 4 p.m. at the West Campus Pool, 2100 Browning at Addison. Bring your swim suit and towel. 287-9010. bearswimming.com 

“Citizenship and Power” A conference hosted by the Center for Popular Education, UCB, at First Unitarian Church, Oakland. For details see www.cpepr.net  

First Friday at St. Joseph the Worker with the film “Romero” honoring the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free. 482-1062. 

“Fifty Years in Science and Religion: Ian G. Barbour and His Legacy” panel discussion and reception at 7:30 p.m. at Badé Museum, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 848-8152. www.ctns.org 

“Three Beats for Nothing” a small group meeting weekly at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice, mostly 16th century harmony. 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. 

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

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, APRIL 2 

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.  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour of Charter Hill and the Centennial of the Big “C” led by Steve Finacom, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

Ponds, Creeks and Puddles An introduction to water chemistry to discover what is there besides bugs and algae, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Visitor Center, Botanical Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $30-$35. 845-4116. www.nativeplants.org 

Spring Rhododendron Walk with Elaine Sedlack, horticulturist, at 10 a.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $8-$12, registration required. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Succulents for Bold Garden Effects with Hank Jenkins at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Tilden Toddlers An afternoon of exploration to look for amphibians, for ages 2-3 with adult companions, at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

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. 

“Gardening from the Ground Up” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bay-Friendly Demonstration Garden, Lakeside Park, 666 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. To register call 444-7645. www.bayfriendly.org 

Landscape Watering Systems Learn how to conserve water with proper design and installation of drip irrigation, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $50. 525-7610.  

Building with Books: Garage Sale Sat. and Sun. at 2728 Elmwood Ave. All funds raised will go to building a schoolhouse in Nepal. Sponsored by The Global Action Club at Berkeley High School. To donate items call 387-861, 776-9686. 

Alameda County Criminal Records Expungement Summit Find out about your rights, what you do and don’t need to tell employers, and learn about possible court remedies, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Laney College, 900 Fallon St. Sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and the East Bay Community Law Center. 548-4040, ext. 373. www.ebclc.org 

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 

“AAUP and Women in the Academy” with Mary Burgan, past president of the American Assoc of University Professors, and Debra Rolinson on “Time to Thrive, not Just Survive” at 1:30 p.m. at 180 Tan Hall, UC Campus. www.wage.org 

Progressive Democrats of the East Bay meets at 1 p.m. at the Temescal Oakland Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave. 526-4632. wjlawler@hotmail.com 

“Visualization for Health” with LauraLynn Jansen at 4 p.m. at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. at 58th St., Oakland. Free, pre-registration requested. 420-7900, ext. 111. margo@wcrc.org 

“Why Study Theology?” Panel discussion for prospective students with all nine GTU schools, from 9 a.m. to noon at Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2460. gtuadm@gtu.edu 

Church Divinity School of the Pacific Open House from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 2451 Ridge Rd. Faculty seminars, tours, and discussions. To register call 204-0755. www.cdsp.edu 

SUNDAY, APRIL 3 

Alan Rinzler’s Writer’s Workshop First-come, first-served at 3 p.m. at Cody’s on Telegraph Ave. 845-7852. 

Hands-on Bicycle Clinic: Safety at 10 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Free. 527-4140. 

The Light and Dark of Life Learn about biological clocks, and how plants tell time, from 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Six-Legged Sex: The Erotic Lives of Insects from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Alternative Materials: Cob and Strawbale A workshop on two natural building methods from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610.  

Cuba Solidarity Event including a report on the Cuban 5 case at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10 sliding scale. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

War Tax Resistance Workshop from 1 to 4 p.m. at 3122 Shattuck Ave. Sponsored by California War Tax Resistance. 843-9877. www.nowartax.org 

Tour of the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library at 3:30 p.m. at the Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. Reservations required. 649-2420. 

Family Film Sunday “The Music Man” at 11 a.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $5.  

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 

Elderflower WomanSpirit Festival with entertainment, workshops, food, and crafts, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Cost is $25-$40. http://elderflower.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Erika Rosenberg on “Heart Practices for Daily Life” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, APRIL 4 

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.  

Bird Watching Basics with Dennis Wolff, Audubon Society member, Mondays through April 25, from 9:30 a.m. to noon at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $65-$75, registration required. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Jumping Jupiter! You’ll have to wait to 2010 to get a better view of Jupiter than right now. Meet at Inspiration Point, Tilden Park, and we’ll walk down Nimitz Way to see this gas giant and other worlds and stars. 525-2233. 

Romero Presente! A week-long celebration of the life of Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, at the Graduate Theological Union. For details contact RomeroPresente@fst.gtulink.edu 

National Organization for Women Oakland/East Bay Chapter meets at 6 p.m. at the Oakland YWCA, 1515 Webster St. The speaker will be Melanie Sweeney Griffith, from Black Women Organized for Political Action. 

“The U.S. and Mexico: A View from Zacatecas” with Amalia García Medina, governor of the state of Zacatecas, Mexico at 4 p.m. in the Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

TUESDAY, APRIL 5 

Mid-Day Meander in Briones to see the spring migratory birds. From 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. For details call 525-2233. 

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

“California Wild” A slide presentation with author and photographer Tim Palmer at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Free. 527-4140. 

Robert Reich on “How Unequal Can America Get Before We Snap?” at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Free, but tickets required. 642-9988. 

“American Labor and the Cold War: Grassroots Politics and Postwar Political Culture” with authors William Issel, Kenneth Burt and Don Watson at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Central Library, Community Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100.  

“Advice for Small Business Owners” with Susan Urquhart-Brown, author of “The Accidental Entrepreneur: Practical Wisdom for People Who Never Expected to Work for Themselves” at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. 

“Resolving Conflicts Through Dialogue” with Drs Jerry Diller and Meshulam Plaves, Tues. April 5, 12, 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC. Cost is $40. 848-0237, ext. 110. 

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group meets to discuss Tax Reform from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Please bring snacks and soft drinks to share. No peanuts please. 601-6690.     

“Will Your Bones Carry You into the Future?” with Beverley Tracewell, CCRC, at 4 p.m. at Jewish Family & Children’s Services, 828 San Pablo Ave., Suite 104, Albany. To register call 558-7800. 

Introductory Buddhist Meditation Class at 7 p.m. at Dzalandhara Buddhist Center, in Berkeley. Suggested donation $7-$10. For directions call 559-8183. www.kadampas.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 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. Introduction to Legal Assistance at 11 a.m. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll discover plant parts from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Bring a plain, light-colored t-shirt. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Great Decisions 2005: “Global Water Issues” with Prof. Isha Ray, Energy and Resources Group, UCB from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. Cost is $5. For information and reservations call 526-2925. 

“The Forest for the Trees: Judi Bari vs. the FBI” a new documentary at 7:30 p.m. at La Pena, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. Benefits Forest Defenders’ Pepper Spray Q-tip lawsuit. 849-2568. 

“When Hate Happens Here” a screening and community discussion of a new documentary at 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Theater, Oakland. Sponsored by KQED and The Working Group. Free, but please RSVP to 415-553-3338. ylee@kqued.org 

Quit Smoking Class from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. and April 20 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 2326 Tolman Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley. to register call 981-5330. 

“Unprecedented” and “Votergate” two documentaries at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. 393-5685. 

St. Paul’s Episcopal School Community Outreach Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. at 116 Moncito Ave., Oakland. Reservations required. 285-9613. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

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

WomenFirst Open House and introduction for volunteers to assist women in transition to self-sufficiency, from noon to 2 p.m. at 7200 Bancroft Ave., Suite 260, Oakland. Please RSVP to Yasmeen at 729-6236. 

Home Buyer Assistance Information Session at 6 p.m. at 1504 Franklin St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Home Buyer Assistance Center. Reservations required. 832-6925, ext. 100. www.hbac.org 

AARP Free Tax Assistance for taxpayers with middle and low incomes, with special attention to those 60 years and older. From 12:15 to 4:15 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. This service will continue through April. Appointments required. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

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

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

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station at 6:30 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

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

THURSDAY, APRIL 7 

Early Morning Bird Walk in Tilden Meet at 7 a.m. opposite the Pony Ride for a Gorge Trail tramp. 525-2233. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult. We’ll discover plant parts from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Bring a plain, light-colored t-shirt. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“Seafood Watch” a lecture with Jennifer Dianot of the Monterey Bay Aquarium on depletion of fish stocks around the world and health of the oceans at 7 p.m. at the Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo. Cost is $8-$10. 632-9525, ext. 142. 

“Know Your Soil” with Richard Strong, soil scientist, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Salvemos Nuestros Pueblos at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $5-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

BUSD West Campus Site Planning Meeting on “Alternatives to Development” at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria, 1222 University Ave. 644-6066. 

Berkeley Partners for Parks meets at 7:30 p.m. at The City of Berkeley's Corporation Yard, 1326 Allston Way, Assembly Room-The Green Room. All welcome. 649-9874. 

Diversity Films: “Beauty Before Age” at 6:30 p.m. at Ellen Driscoll Theater, Frank Havens Elementary School, 325 Highland Ave., Piedmont. Discussion follows. Free. 599-9227. www.diversityworks.org 

“Invest in Yourself and Your Community” Information on credit unions, loan funds and other financial services that help local communities at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Free. 839-2900, ext. 261. 

Commemorate Oakland Docks Anti-War Picket A benefit for Willow Rosenthal injured on April 7, 2003, at 7 p.m. at Café Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 

“The Future of the U.S. and Mexico: The Role of Education” with Juan Ramón de la Fuente of the National Autonomous University of Mexico at 4 p.m. in the Lounge, Women’s Faculty CLub, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Medicare, MediCal & Long-Term Insurance?” with Bruce Feder, attorney, at 7 p.m. at Jewish Family & Children’s Services, 828 San Pablo Ave., Suite 104, Albany. To register call 558-7800. 

National Alcohol Screening Day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Options Recovery Services, 2020 Milvia St., fourth floor. Call Ellen or Celeste for an appointment 666-9900. 

“The Rhythm of Life’s Transitions” Learn exercises and ritual at 7 p.m. at Changemakers for Women, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $15-$25. RSVP to 286-7915. 

East Bay Mac User Group from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St. http://ebmug.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Creeks Task Force meets Mon. April 4, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Erin Dando, 981-7410. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/creeks 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., April 4, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon. April 4, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., April 4, 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., April 4, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/peaceandjustice 

Solid Waste Management Commission Mon., April 4, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Tania Levy, 981-6368. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste 

Youth Commission meets Mon., April 4, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/youthô

A page 2 headline in the March 29-31 issue for an article on a hazardous waste pickup contained errors. The program is not free, but requires a $10 copay. Also, it is a door-to-door program, not a curbside program.

A lovely spring weekend sparked an impromptu trip to see wildflowers last Sunday. Pinnacles National Monument is about an hour and a half south of the Santa Cruz grandchildren, so it seemed like the right destination. We spent Saturday night in Santa Cruz in order to leave by 7 a.m. on Sunday, though daylight saving and the five-minute rule (add five minutes to departure time for every person in the party) got us going with our five adults and four children at about 10 instead. While we were waiting for everyone to get organized, we had an unusual opportunity to read the fat Sunday edition of the metro daily, something we usually skip because the ratio of ads to interesting content is unappealing.  

Prominently featured on the front page of the travel se ction was—what luck!—a major piece on a trip to Pinnacles to see wildflowers. But although it contained some interesting information on the program which is releasing captivity-bred California condors in the area, the title (“Luxury inn softens journey to see condors soar over wildflowers at Pinnacles”) indicated that the piece wasn’t exactly a guide to the trip we were planning. The travel writer enthused that the inn where he stayed “has whirlpool tubs and gas fireplaces in nearly every room, and seems custom-made for those seeking outdoor adventure by day and high-thread-count sheets at night—the aging baby-boomer ‘soft adventure’ market…” Our motley assortment of flower-fans was variously too old, too young, or too poor to be part of that ideal demogr aphic, so we would have to forego the inn part of the program.  

The drive south, when we finally got started, provided a good chance to see what was happening in the region which used to be just south of the San Jose sprawl. Our family (great-grandparent s on both sides) moved to Santa Cruz with the University of California in the mid-’60s, so we’re accustomed to thinking about the Gilroy-Salinas-Watsonville triangle served by highways 101 and 1 as farm country. Pinnacles is reached from the west by heading due east on Highway 146 from Soledad, a dusty town on 101 which is surrounded by agribusiness lettuce fields and supported mainly by the state prisons which are located there.  

On 146, as we headed east, we could see that the new agribusiness in the area was commercial wine-grapes, covering hillsides in martial rows with scorched bare earth between the vines. We saw one attractive vineyard which the agricultural expert in our party identified as organic because grass was allowed to grow between the v ines, but most were clearly factory-style monocrop outfits. Our expert told us that California’s fabled wildflowers have survived mainly in areas which aren’t much good for farming. On the lush valley floors, herbicides have long-since wiped out natives in favor of food crops.  

As the rocky spires of the Pinnacles’ volcanic geology came into view, regimented vineyards gave way to horse ranches. The terrain changed from flat valley floor to rocky hills with interesting trees, lots of wildflowers and the promise of fauna in arroyos running with spring water--an interesting and unusual ecosystem. The road changed from two-lane to one-lane with bumps and potholes. But then, at the end of the one-lane road, just before we expected to arrive at the park’s wes tern entrance, there was another stretch of marching grapevines and metal fences, with a new pseudo-Spanish structure on a hill beside the road, complete with paved parking lot. We were passing the inn which was written up in the Sunday paper.  

The write r had described it as adjacent to a vineyard, which we’d looked up on the Internet before we left the house. The vineyard’s website said it is “perched in the remote Gavilan Mountain Range, 1,800 feet above California's Salinas Valley, at the base of an extinct volcano bordering the Pinnacles National Monument… one of the few wineries in the U.S. growing grapes in limestone-based soils, the same as in Burgundy” with “ spare, well-drained ground, limited rainfall and low crop levels” all in service of the company slogan: “Producing some of the worlds’ [sic]most hedonistic [sic] wines.”  

Exactly. Hedonism is the philosophy which says that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. That little voice which started up in my head when I read the travel ar ticle began to nag again.  

Line of thought: There’s nothing wrong with comfortable beds near parks, especially for the older folks. Yosemite has the Ahwanee Hotel, after all. There’s nothing wrong with nice wine. But here’s where it gets complicated.  

At the park we discovered that our government no longer thinks it can afford the little printed leaflets that correspond to the numbers on the interpretive trail. And a substantial percentage of the visitors we saw on the trails were speakers of languages other than English: many of Spanish, but also of Japanese, Korean, German. The few signs and the one small pamphlet available were all English-only. Small things, perhaps, but symptoms of the way this country is being re-organized: for the pleasure-seekin g of those who can pay their way at luxury inns, while regular citizens get less and less for their tax dollars, and foreign guests are not welcomed hospitably.  

And is it really right to destroy obviously unusual ecological terrain at the foot of a unique volcanic park just to produce “hedonistic wines” for a few wealthy palates? Fine, even excellent wine grapes can be grown in less-sensitive environments, leaving room for wildflowers. 

On the trip back from Pinnacles, we noticed that Salinas, formerly a shabby market-town not unlike Soledad, is booming, with farm fields replaced by big housing developments for commuters to Silicon Valley, vast shopping malls with all the major chains, even its very own Walmart. But what Salinas thinks it can no longer afford, despite this apparent prosperity, is a public library. Priorities—we’re getting them all wrong lately. 

If the front page looks a bit brighter to you today, it’s because we’ve made a few small changes to what’s called “the flag” by newspapers insiders. The dictionary and many civilians still call it the masthead, but these days the pros seem to reserve that term for the place on the inside that lists the address and the staff. In any event, it’s that strip across the top of the paper that lets you know what you’re getting when you pick the paper up.  

We’ve made it a bit smaller, because these days we’ve got so many stories for the front pages, and so many fine photos, that we’ve been having trouble fitting everything in. That’s heresy in some press circles, where the tendency is for newspapers to contain ever-less copy under ever-larger headlines, but then we pride ourselves on doing things differently. We’ve lightened the lines in the flag, called “rules,” added color to our Planet Earth icon, and moved it up a bit so that it intersects a rule, causing, of course, bad jokes around the newsroom about how we like to “break the rules.”  

The change is timed to coincide with our second anniversary of publication, discussed at some length in this space just a week ago. We thought Saving the Planet was a big job when we launched this venture, but Running the Planet, twice a week whether you need it or not, turns out to be an even bigger job. Sometimes under pressure of just getting papers out on the stands we’re tempted to lose sight of why we’re doing this, so we thought it would be a good idea to re-visit what we said when we started.  

Here are the last few paragraphs of our April 1 editorial of two years ago: 

“Our agenda is a simple one: Tell people what’s going on, give them a paper to discuss it in, and trust that they’ll make the right decisions. The last few months have tested our belief in the wisdom of an informed public. One of the most discouraging aspects of the country’s turn toward the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive aggression is not how poorly it’s been covered in print. In fact, the failed effort to head off the Iraq war has produced an outpouring of some of the best prose this country has ever seen. Molly Ivins, Norman Mailer, Henrick Hertzberg, Tony Lewis, Jon Carroll. There’s a seemingly endless supply of cogent argument from articulate writers, and it doesn’t seem to have worked. 

“But we still want to do what we can with what we’ve got. Local coverage well done can still give local citizens the information they need to take responsibility for the actions of local government. How this translates to the national and international levels is a discussion that should be going on right now. It can take place in a newspaper like this, among other places. Joe Liebling, a cynical commentator on the press in the middle of the last century, used to say that the press was free for those who owned one. Now that we seem to own one, we want to share it with Berkeley citizens, so that together we might be able to figure out how to save the world. 

“And what better place for a free press than Berkeley? Berkeley was chartered on April Fools’ Day and named for a philosopher. Carol Denney likes to remind us that Berkeley was the home of the Free Speech Movement because of the University of California’s determined opposition to free speech, not because free speech was protected here. Berkeley needs a newspaper which remembers its complex and paradoxical past, and which understands and accepts its responsibility for shaping the future.”  

Have we done what we set out to do? Well, we haven’t gotten any further in stopping the federal government’s insane Iraq expedition. We do think we’ve held to the course described in the last paragraph. 

We’re particularly proud of having just about ended the Beserkely-only coverage of Berkeley which two years ago was a staple of the metro dailies. We’ve printed the real news about what’s going on around here, and the big dailies have been shamed into picking up our stories—often, of course, a few days later and with their own slant.  

But we weren’t aware when we started of all the unreported news outside of Berkeley. As the megalopolis expands, stories about what goes on in Richmond and San Pablo and El Cerrito and Albany and all of Oakland’s neighborhoods are increasingly important to all of our readers, no matter where they live. We’ve spotlighted casino frenzy and building on toxic waste to the north, school mismanagement to the south, and bending zoning rules to enrich speculators all over the East Bay, especially right here in Berkeley. Has coverage changed anything? It’s too early to tell—citizens throughout our readership area are taking responsibility for the actions of local government, but successful change is never quick. 

What’s next? Well, we’re still hoping to break even financially. We expect our new real estate insert to make a big splash. Our “Dining Out” advertising section has become a colorful and appealing addition to the center of the paper. Retail advertising depends to a certain extent on the health of local retail, and conversely local merchants should take advantage of advertising in papers like ours. We’re sorry to see a well-stocked music store closing its Berkeley downtown location, but we can’t help thinking that if they’d advertised in the Planet they might have had more customers. When you shop, tell the stores that they should be advertising in the Planet, for their own sake as well as ours.  

As always, keep those cards and letters coming. The difference between our opinion pages and most blogs is that our writers seem to take considerably more care with their writing than bloggers. We’re very proud of the high quality of our opinion contributors, and we thank you for your support.