Features

BORDER PATROL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

White guys with guns, volunteers patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border, smacks of the rebirth of old west vigilantes. Extremists with guns patrolling our southern border—since when did this become law? It sounds like immigrant hunters being allowed to act out their racism. Where are their white robes? President Bush called this one right by saying “I’m against vigilantes in the United States of America.” 

Ron Lowe 

Nevada City 

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DUE PROCESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If I were to ask you, Becky O’Malley, or you, Russ Mitchell, if you believe in due process, I am sure that your answer would be, “Of Course!” Yet both of you seem to support it for everyone except for teachers, the individuals who need to impart an understanding of this very important right to the next generation. Public school teachers have no due process rights during their first two years in a district. At that point, they gain what is popularly called tenure but is, in fact, the right to due process (university tenure is substantially different). Tenured teachers can be (and are) fired. The Education Code of the State of California lists some fourteen reasons for firing a tenured teacher; these include incompetence, unprofessional conduct, and failure to obey reasonable administrative directives. Tenured teachers are, however, entitled to a hearing at which the charges against them must be substantiated. The Berkeley Federation of Teachers is legally required to defend the right of a member to due process; it does this. It does not defend the actions (or inactions) of a teacher who has been charged under any of the 14 listed causes. Furthermore, the BFT works with the district (under BPAR) to help teachers who are having problems to either improve or, failing that, to understand that perhaps a quiet resignation would be in their interest. Finally, action against a tenured teacher must be filed by the district; it is not within the legal power of the union to initiate charges. Unfortunately, the district does not always act in situations in which a teacher should be fired. We all suffer as a result. 

Judith Bodenhausen 

BHS teacher 

Past president, BFT 

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TERRY SCHIAVO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One perspective of the Terry Schiavo incident that has not been addressed by the media nor the disabled community is whether the government or the individual has the right to make family health care decisions. No matter how well intended government, religion or society may be, the right to decide whether you or your family members are immunized, given chemotherapy or force fed through a tube is a personal responsibility and birthright. Have we become so irresponsible, so ignorant, so fearful that we are ready to allow others make these important decisions for us?  

Michael Bauce 

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TEACHERS’ UNION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Russ Mitchell is dead wrong in suggesting, in his recent letter to the editor, that the Berkeley Federation of Teachers is somehow an obstacle in dealing with the very serious issue of teacher quality.  

In fact, the BFT was the driving force in the establishment of a peer assistance and review program in our district. This program provides struggling teachers with a year of coaching and assistance. At the end of this year a panel made up of both union and district representatives makes recommendations to the Superintendent as to what further steps, if any, are needed to assist the referred teacher. The panel can also recommend to the superintendent that the teacher be dismissed.  

This panel of eight people takes its responsibilities very seriously, and an incredible amount of effort has been put forth in the last five years to create a program with integrity and substance, even in the face of very limited resources. The BFT is committed, as is the district, to directly confront the need to hold all teachers to very high standards of performance. To do any less is a disservice to our common mission.  

In addition, as was pointed out by another commentator in last week’s Daily Planet, the BFT has argued for more evaluations by principals of teachers, while the district has argued for fewer. Clearly, it is unfair to say that the teachers of Berkeley have a union that “stubbornly resists” efforts to hold all teachers to high standards.  

Cathy Campbell  

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DEATH WITH DIGNITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many of the disabled oppose AB 654 which would give Californians the same right to die with dignity that mentally competent, terminally people have in Oregon. They believe that such a law would enable HMOs to pressure handicapped people into suicide. 

There is no evidence that anything of the kind has happened in Oregon. In the several years since the bill was passed about 130 people have actually been helped to die, but many others have said that knowing that they had that option was a great comfort. 

One thing we should all be able to agree on is the need for durable power of attorney for health care.  

Nancy Ward 

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IMMIGRATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What’s wrong with this picture? We already have millions of American citizens who are already homeless, and yet at the same time, we’re inviting millions of mostly poverty-level immigrants to make their homes here. But don’t expect any of these liberal “homeless activists” to address this obvious issue. Likewise, we’re paving endless miles of open land to try and provide housing for these endless immigrants, its the biggest single threat to what’s left of America’s environment. But don’t expect any of these liberal Sierra Club “environmental activists” to address this obvious issue. These liberals are so hilarious. They’ve got it completely backwards: They put their pea-brained liberal rhetoric ahead of the actual reality. And then they wonder why their end-result is so useless. i.e. more homeless and less of our natural environment every year. Liberalism truly is a mental disorder. Followed by conservativism, which may be even crazier. Surely there’s a third way.  

Peter Labriola 

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GORE TV 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Al Gore’s latest brainstorm, the coming “Current” cable television news/culture network, which is scheduled to debut on Aug. 1, may turn out to be just another bump in the road in the increasingly irrelevant corporate mainstream media. The Gore plan is to take over and eviscerate the Newsworld International channel offerings broadcast from Canada, which is the best and the most thoughtful of the corporate news channels, and to replace it with a hip MTV-like version of cable news with snippets and “pods” of short and oh-so-hip news clips.  

Al Gore freely admits that he is not trying to create a television version of the brilliantly successful progressive liberal Air America radio network. No, the chronically unhip Al Gore is trying to create a nebulous new hip youth-oriented cable network show modeled after MTV. Well, thanks, but no thanks. MTV and its imitators such as VH-1 and BET have almost single-handedly destroyed whatever political relevance that rock-and-roll music ever had in the late 1960s and early 1970s and have replaced it with vile vulgar voyeuristic entertainment along the lines of “hip-grinding” for corporate greed.  

What we do need is a national progressive liberal cable news network that would be a television version of the brilliant successful Air America Radio Network, which is growing by leaps and bounds, recently completed its first year of operation and which currently broadcasts to a majority of the country’s major media markets. I fail to understand the motivation of Al Gore and his financial backers with their “Current” cable television project in its plan to ape the vulgar MTV music video format. Like Al Gore’s short and lame attempt to grow and sport a gray beard, this “Current” project may also come over as lame and ill-fitting.  

Al Gore is a brilliant progressive thinker, writer and speaker; he would undoubtedly do very well at hosting a cable news discussion program that would focus on recent events. It is too bad that he and his backers seem to be going off on a tangent with MTV-style programming adventure. 

There certainly is a crying need to create a progressive liberal cable television news network to act as an antidote and as an alternative to the present awful mainstream corporate cable television lineup of Fox (faux), CNN (the second-most distrusted name (after faux)) and MSNBC (Microsoft monopoly filters information to keep you safe from reality), which almost always parrot the reactionary bush regime line. 

Maybe Air America will take the plunge into producing a progressive cable television news network in the near future. Here’s hoping.  

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

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RFID 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Knowing that the Berkeley Public Library is implementing an RFID tracking system, I found it useful to read Robert O. Harrow’s book No Place to Hide. It documents the growing reliance on high tech surveillance methods and potentials for abuse, including RFIDs. More specific to libraries is the new blog website: www.libraryrfid.net, a resource of current published material on the use of RFIDs in libraries.  

Josephine Arasteh 

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TEACHER PAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On April 6 at the Berkeley School Board meeting, Berkeley teachers, parents, and community severely criticized the school board and the superintendent on their proposal to cut teacher pay and their refusal to honor maximum class sizes. I find it ironic that the board members were upset that many of the parents and teachers left before they could respond to the criticism when: 

1) The school board has been unilaterally mailing and e-mailing district propaganda and preventing any response from the community that is in support of the teacher positions. 

2) The district has stonewalled any positive communication by stalling negotiations for over two years with its employees. 

I would urge the school board members to listen to their own words and compare them to the rhetoric given by any large corporation exploiting its workers. “We’d love to compensate you properly but we have to cut your pay because we don’t have enough money,” “the workers have the numbers wrong” and “It’s not fair to threaten to strike even if we aren’t paying you properly!” 

If the board is so sincere and is committed to equitable compensation, as they vehemently claim, why do they not address the request that the pay cut for teachers would only be suspended if increased funding actually materializes?  

Berkeley teachers work hard and don’t deserve a pay cut as the board proposes. I understand that money is tight, but it seems reasonable that if increased funding actually comes from the state, some of the money is used to offset increased healthcare premiums the teachers will be paying over the next several years. 

I would like to thank the many parents and community members who came out to support the teacher protests and actions against the proposed pay cut. Teachers are doing everything they can to avoid a strike, which would be devastating for students and teachers alike, but ultimately, teachers have families to support and will not work if the district insists on cutting their pay even as the cost of living in the Bay Area continues to rise every day. I invite the board to drop their polemics and really address the issue—are they willing to drop the pay cut if increased money materializes from Sacramento. 

Gen Kogure 

Berkeley teacher 

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CUTTING DOWN TREES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After buying two lots facing both Oregon and M.L.K, the Thai Buddhists, like Pacific Lumber, have clear cut their land, taking down trees, bushes, plants and three Coastal Live Oaks. Where there was once green beauty, producing much needed oxygen for our neighbors, habitat for small creatures, and food for urban farmers, there is now a flat, ugly plain. It’s said they plan to landscape, but if their other lots are any indication, that means rose bushes in wine barrels which will hardly hide the parking lot and temple they apparently plan. 

Oregon Street is zoned residential and an enlargement of their restaurant, parking and another temple hardly seem residential. One wonders where their plans are—in the Planning Department, floating around the Zoning Department, still with the architects? 

The neighbors are dismayed both about what has happened and what may happen and want some answers from those in charge at the Temple. 

Jeanne Burdette 

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JEFFERSON SCHOOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am shocked regarding the renaming of schools bearing the name of Thomas Jefferson who was probably our greatest American patriot. 

Out third president’s literary skills created the Declaration of Independence. Her was a proponent of freedom of worship, public education, reform of the penal code, and civil rights. Yes, he was a slave owner as were most wealthy land owners of that era, including George Washington. (Will the names of those schools also be considered for change?) Jefferson was one of the first to propose the emancipation of slaves. His greatest accomplishments as president were the Louisiana Purchase and support of the Lewis and Clark expedition which brought about national expansion. He was a true intellectual, a fine musician and architect who promoted those causes. He was committed to peaceful diplomacy, education and belief in the rights of man. 

It is a disgrace that this great man’s reputation is being questioned. Haven’t the parents and student been taught about his great accomplishment and devotion to his country and its people? 

Bonnie McPherson Killip 

Oakland 

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POPE’S DENVER VISIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

With world attention focused on the pope, I thought your readers might possibly be interested in my own personal papal experience. My big chance came in 1993 when I had an opportunity to be blessed by the pope in Denver. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.  

Although the pope would manage to arrive on my birthday, I felt obliged to miss the occasion because I was too emotionally torn up by what I perceived to be a Serious Gopher Situation prior his arrival.  

It was decided that the best location to accommodate the crowds would be an area out near Chatfield Dam. The only disadvantage to this choice was a huge colony of gophers which had lived there peacefully for years. The city fathers gave up any idea of exterminating the gophers, fearing demonstrations by animal rights groups and environmentalists might mar the solemnity of the papal visit. 

Accordingly, somebody located a specially qualified gopher expert who assured the city that he could deal with the gophers in a humane manner that didn’t require extermination. 

Sitting at the breakfast table reading the morning paper, I was amazed at the gopher expert’s plan. It seems that he owned a special gopher vacuum cleaner which would suck all the gophers out of their tunnels. The gophers would then be caged and transported to a less holy place where they would be released. 

Then, after the pope departed and the gophers meanwhile had become fairly comfortable and adjusted to the new location, this same humane gopher expert would once again suck his little friends out of their new homes and return them to the heavily trampled field near Chatfield Dam. There, presumably, he would attach the hose to the other end of the vacuum cleaner and blast them all back into their former tunnels. 

I completely lost my appetite for breakfast. All I could think of was those poor innocent gophers. Undoubtedly, many of them would develop BGS (Battered Gopher Syndrome). I could visualize their little bodies all aching and wracked with pain—known in the vernacular as “gopher broke.”  

I wondered how this self-styled “humane” gopher expert could avoid blowing them all into the wrong burrows. Mothers might be cut off from their helpless little ones, devoted couples could be separated forever, and innocent young gopher females might accidentally be blown into a tunnel of dirty old male gophers.  

No matter how helpful being blessed by the pope might be for the sinful person that I am, I could not see myself standing in that field to make it happen. 

Anne Folsom 

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