Features

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PAPER TRAIL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Great! Berkeley has new parking meters that have a paper trail, but our Diebold voting machines still do not. 

Anne Wagley 

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STYLE OFFENSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Does Richard Brenneman own the Daily Planet, or just know where the proverbial body is buried? Why else, after numerous reader complaints is he allowed to continue to report serious crime in his “Snidely Whiplash/Dastardly Deed” style? 

As the victim of a violent assault and robbery, and as a citizen deeply concerned with the quality of life these crimes jeopardize, it is offensive to me to read of any crime reported in such a manner. Mr. Brenneman’s reporting style is beneath your otherwise intelligent standards. He should indulge himself in a creative writing class ASAP and leave the crime reporting to a more professional journalist. 

C. Hooper 

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PARKING PROPOSAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While I live in Oakland, I enjoy shopping the Saturday Farmers’ Market. Having gotten a ticket in a white zone, I would suggest a Saturday exemption. The school and government offices served by the white curb aren’t open during market hours and parking is tight.  

Roger Radius  

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SPIRAL GARDENS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m shocked that any “Religious Society” would destroy a valuable neighborhood asset such as the Spiral Community Gardens. Now, if they had bought the lot and then offered to help raise food there, I could have imagined Buddha’s principles in action. Besides, the extra organic produce could then have been included in the Temple’s Sunday Brunch or given where it was needed most.  

Karl Reeh 

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LIBRARY WEEDING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was interested to see the article about the incompetent library weeding recently conducted at the Berkeley Library because I have already written two letters to Library Director Jackie Griffin. Of course, she did not reply. 

My first letter was to Mayor Bates, complaining that it was impossible to communicate with Ms. Griffin and outlining my concerns. Apparently, his office forwarded my message to Ms. Griffin, since she did send me an e-mail saying that all I had to do was contact her directly and she would reply—copying the mayor, of course. I did this in December, but received no reply. In January, I sent Ms. Griffin a second message, but have as yet heard nothing from her. 

Of course all libraries have to discard books, but the recent weeding was not handled in an intelligent and informed way using the American Library Association guidelines for discarding books. It is clear that the librarians making the decisions about which books to discard were not subject experts. 

Just one example of several possibilities that I know about: All three volumes of the Pax Britanica Trilogy—a major historical work by the great British historian and travel writer Jan/James Morris—were in the catalogue and on the shelves last fall. When I returned the first volume and tried to check out the second, I discovered that (although it was listed in the catalogue and supposedly on the shelf) it was missing. At the reference desk, the librarian looked up the trilogy and told me that it was being discarded. She told me that she would tell the librarian weeding that section that this was an important set of books by a major writer and that it was still being used by patrons, but also suggested to me that this particular librarian had no background in the subject area she was weeding. Apparently, the staff was under pressure to simply get rid of as many books as possible. Of course, the three volumes now are no longer part of the library collection—and are not available at either the Alameda County system or the Contra Costa County system . 

I do not believe that the weeding practice “mostly targets books that are out of date or so worn that they are no longer of value.” The weeding at Berkeley’s library seems to have been erratic, at best, and incompetent at worst. 

Bruce Reeves 

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TORTURE TACTICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Shocked and surprised by our use of terror tactics on prisoners in Iraq? You shouldn’t be. Torture while interrogating prisoners is standard government policy and its procedures are spelled out. 

How do I know this? Two years ago, on Dec. 26, 2002, the Washington Post ran an article which detailed the torture methods that were used. 

They quoted security officials who defended “the use of violence against captives as just and necessary.” 

The newspaper article, written by Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, was written because of a photograph that embarrassed our government. It was taken in Afghanistan. 

Remember the picture of a naked and shackled prisoner of war in a metal tube who was being transported to our base in Cuba? 

When that picture was published, there was no apology. Just the promise to find and punish the person who released the photograph. 

Quoting from the article on the use of terror on prisoners of was in Afghanistan, it was reported that prisoners are “kept standing or kneeling for hours in black hoods” and are “at times held in awkward positions and deprived of sleep with a 48 hour bombardment of lights —subject to what are known as ‘stress and duress’ techniques.” 

Had enough? It gets worse. Read on. “Some who do not cooperate are turned over, rendered, in official parlance, to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government and human rights organizations.” 

There are three more columns which end with, “according to one official who has been directly involved in rendering captives into foreign hands,” that the understanding is that “we don’t kick the (expletive) out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the (expletive) out of them.” 

So, when our government claims torture “is not official policy, not systematic,” the government is lying. 

The press talks of “cruel American captors. And they are being held accountable.” Rightly so. 

But they were trained in methods of torture. And they were not the major culprits. Punishing them will not keep terror tactics from being used again. 

I can only hope that the exposure of the real culprits (those who established torture as acceptable policy) will help change that policy. 

Should not the originators of that policy be charged and punished for what President Bush has accurately labeled “reprehensible” and “outrageous” behavior? 

Bernice Turoff 

Stockton 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Marguerite Hughes is a very misguided and uninformed individual and so are the people of Berkeley. Please tell her that if it was not for Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founding fathers she would not have the right of freedom of speech. I do not think she is fully informed on the impact that Thomas Jefferson had on this country. If they do not want Thomas Jefferson’s name on the school maybe they should rename it after Abraham Lincoln. Oh, that’s right you all already renamed a school that once was named after President Lincoln to Malcolm X Elementary. What a contrast in views of human rights. Lincoln held this union together during its darkest hours and Malcolm X wanted to ‘by any means necessary’ kill the white man. What a wonderful place to live Berkeley must be to have such a skewed out look on American history.  

David W. Craig, SSgt, USAF  

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m very curious about developments in the story of the Oakland girl who slashed the elderly woman’s throat as she was walking in the Berkeley hills. It appears that the suspect was in the company of an adult county social worker. And that the suspect and the county worker fled the scene of the attempted murder together without giving aid to the victim or even calling the police. 

The police will not give the press the county worker’s name or place her under arrest. 

This strikes me as highly suspicious, and an even more compelling story than the horrible attack.  

Is anyone reporting this case?  

Tom Murray 

San Francisco  

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hello, my name is Cody Newcomb. I go to school at West Ridge Elementary. I am in fifth grade. In our Social Studies class we are studying our country. I got California for my state. I would appreciate if you could give me some information about your state, so I can learn some things about California. I would like to have a car license plate if possible. I would appreciate your time and effort. Thank you! 

(Please send letters, postcards, or historical information to West Ridge Elementary, 1401 19th Street, Harlan, IA 51537) 

Cody Newcomb 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I truly appreciated Joe Eaton’s article “Endangered Opposums Really Do Play Dead” (Daily Planet, Feb. 1-3). For years I have been volleyed between neurologists and psychiatrists and neuropsychiatrists and psychopharmocologists because I “display” seizure-like behaviors and experiences. I have experienced grand mal seizures, absense seizures, partial complex seizures, and depression. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on EEGs, video EEGs, and neuropsych evaluations. All indications suggest I have epilepsy, except for the EEGs. Because the EEGs do not pick up the spiking brainwaves indicative of epilepsy, the epileptologist sent me to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist successfully treated my depression, but I have yet to have successful treatment for my seizures! The most recent study you refer to was an EEG performed at the Children’s Hospital in the mid-1960s. Your article suggests that the possum is experiencing a psychiatric reaction to an adverse stimuli rather than a neurological reaction? Such is my lot in life...and I have yet to have adequate treatment for my seizures. I propose finding a research facility that will perform a SPECT on a critter...I hear UCLA has a high resolution SPECT that is being used on mice and monkeys for medical research. Hmmmm... 

Patricia K. Stinner 

Rockwall, TX 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

While I suppose I should be pleased to be labeled a “preservation activist” (”Developer Will Move Forward”, Daily Planet, April 1-4), I would emphasize the importance of preservation planning in the case of this large block (700 University Avenue) that includes Celia’s, Brennan’s and the “Train Station”.  

In particular, the Train Station is a well documented City of Berkeley Landmark as well as being on the State Historic Resources Inventory. The Train Station (built around 1913 by Southern Pacific, after an extended public battle to secure better passenger service for Berkeley) is the incredible resource on the site, and should be the focus of whatever development is proposed. The 700 University Avenue property is large, being bounded by Fourth, Addison, & Third Streets; it could easily accommodate a public plaza, with traffic circulation for the project, in front of the Station. Furthermore, to the north on University Avenue, the City of Berkeley, through its Redevelopment Agency, is spending a considerable sum to develop a transit hub linking AC Transit to the Capitol Corridor Rail. 

As a member (and now Chair) of the West Berkeley Project Area Commission (advisory to the Redevelopment Agency), I have seen the work put 

in by my fellow commissioners and City staff on this transit project over the last eight years. At the very least, this development needs to link up with those efforts. So, in this case, preservation planning is really just another and critical facet of good urban and transportation planning. 

John McBride 

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Editors, Daily Planet::  

In response to the anti-Al Gore comment by letter writer James K. Sayre in the Planet (April 8-11), I’ve been studying this peculiar Anti-Gore subculture since before the 2000 Selection. These kinds of personal taunts against Gore were echoed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and other Rapture Right sympathizing journalists in print and on T.V. during the 2000 campaign. This has been well documented by the distinguished media critic for The Nation, Eric Alterman in his book “What Liberal Media”. In fact Al Gore was the first victim of the propaganda machine we’ve come to see now, starkly, in the likes of the Affaire Guckert-Gannon. 

During the 2000 Selection the Anti Al Gore chorus was joined by “progressives” who picked up the banner of the Bushies, repeating the lies, even repeating the trivia about his weight and his looks, despite somber team players asking them not to. Later, contrary to the facts, they blamed Gore for “losing” the Election. Who needs the Right Wing? This “jumping gene” of lies seems like a classic example of the pitiful brainwashing Air America is trying to address. 

Despite this horrible media distortion, Gore was the first person to vehemently speak out against the War in Iraq on Sept. 23, 2002 in San Francisco. Gore’s series of Move-On lectures leading up to the ‘04 Election were a great contribution to trying to stop Bush in ‘04. John Judis, a distinguished Democratic theorist writing in a post-election analysis in the American Prospect, said that Al Gore would have been a better candidate than John Kerry. There certainly would have been closer scrutiny of the Bushies stealing votes in Ohio. Al Gore has been teaching college students to be discerning consumers of media since he left office and his legendary lectures concerning the perils of Global Warming are memorable experiences to those who have been lucky enough to attend. 

So, when Al Gore is collaborating with Google to re-frame aspects of media, tired old put-downs of Gore seem “retro”. He is one of the Democratic Party’s leaders for the future, and Howard Dean knows that. The Gore’s have been one of the greatest American political progressive families. Like Al Gore says: “Politics is a team sport.” I hope Mr. Sayre can re-examine his thinking and quit validating the Right and join the team. 

Instead of calling Al Gore’s “Current” venture a mere “brainstorm”, Sayre should go to the Current website htt://www.current.tv/, and watch some of the award winning short videos. They are great politics. I’m still thinking about one I watched about young people in Iran. 

Maureen L. Farrell 

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HIGH CRIMES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The 2004 Budget proposed by the Governor and passed by over 2/3 of the Legislature of the great State of California was unconstitutional. 

In 1988 the electorate amended the Constitution of the State of California guaranteeing that the State of California will contribute no less than 48 percent of the total budget in any year to public education. The 2004 budget did not implement this requirement. It was two billion dollars short. 

The unconstitutional budget proposed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, approved by the State of California Legislature, accepted so far by the Secretary of State, the Attorney General of the State, and the State Supreme Court, has caused a public education disaster. 

It seems that under the current California State Government (as well as the current United States Government) a constitution is not worth the blood spilled for it. 

Fellow citizens, this must stop! Every person who becomes a public servant in California is made to swear to do only one thing: “To protect and defend the California State Constitution as well as the United States Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” Apparently they are too busy ignoring the Constitution to defend it. 

Please, gently, remind your public officials of their duty. If they can’t be bothered to do that one simple and critical thing, they really can’t be trusted to do anything positive for the state.  

Harry Wiener 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was very troubled by Judith Clancy’s attack letter printed in your April 1 edition, and I appreciate the chance to reply. I honestly cannot tell if Ms. Clancy completely misunderstands (and thus misrepresents) my position, or if she is engaged in deliberate character assassination. 

If she is in good faith, I will again attempt an explanation through analogy: Let us say there is a murder in Berkeley. This is a horrible thing and a great tragedy for the family and friends of the victim. Should, say, the City of Los Angeles respond by reporting Berkeley and Mayor Bates to the United Nations for violating the victim’s human rights? If a member of the Los Angeles City Council did not favor such an action would she/he be supporting murder? No, crimes by individuals against individuals, no matter how heinous, are not human rights violations by the governing body of the place in which the crime occurred. Otherwise, since human crime exists everywhere, all governments—local, regional, national—would be guilty of human rights violations. 

The proper response to the crime is for the Berkeley Police Department to apprehend the culprit and for the justice system of the State of California to convict the culprit. Does this mean that only murderers in Berkeley or California should be caught and convicted? No, just that these are the appropriate agencies to deal with this particular crime, and the United Nations really has no part in this, since it is not a human rights violation. 

Now what if murder is committed by militants against civilians as a deliberate tactic of combat? That is a human rights violation, which should be reported to the United Nations and eventually prosecuted as a war crime by the World Court. Both the hypothetical individual crime in Berkeley and the deliberate military policy of killing civilians are murders, they are both horrible and leave a wake of pain and suffering, but only one is a human rights violation under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. It is the nature of the perpetrator, not the nature of the crime that determines this. I hope this clarifies any misunderstanding Ms. Clancy might have. 

If instead Ms. Clancy is engaged in character assassination, I can only say that I think it is very sad when public discourse descends to this Swift Boat Veterans kind of disinformation. When I was the chair of the Southern California Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, I was subjected to numerous personal attacks by anti-choice militants. When I was the rabbi of a gay outreach synagogue, I was no stranger to hateful personal tirades by anti-gay extremists. It may be that Ms. Clancy merely misunderstood my position and I hope that she now understands it correctly. However, if she is attacking my “decency” as a cynical way of discrediting my politics, then she is in very poor company indeed. 

Jane Litman 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

A lot of people in Berkeley are hurting because of the cuts in spending, but none more than those of us who depend on the city’s swimming pools. The announcement that all of the pools are to be closed this winter is a shock, especially to those of us who have fought to keep at least some of them open all year, raising money, and volunteering to clean up and rehabilitate the most neglected pools.  

For many of us, swimming is more than recreation; we are people who for various reasons can’t jog or do most other kinds of beneficial exercise, for whom swimming at affordable prices is a lifeline. We need to have one pool, at least, open year-round. 

Tonight’s City Council meeting will consider a one-time expenditure to save one program or asset from extinction. Some have proposed that the fountain in City Hall Plaza be the lucky winner; well, nobody can swim in a fountain. It’s been dry for decades, and can stay that way while we save a pool for those who badly need it. Please come to the council meeting tonight and show your support for swimming, the best hope for health for many of our citizens. 

John Spier 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Pope who chose to live and die on TV and the 200 world leaders who appeared for the final show deserve more criticism than praise. 

The Pope was correct in seeing abortion as the murder of a living organism and to condemn the loose, pleasure-oriented sexual behavior of our time, as aberrant. But much suffering was caused by his dogmatic inflexibility forbidding all abortions, including those where reason and compassion would command their execution, and his prohibition of the use of contraceptives. To forbid all sexual intercourse between men and women when they have no intention to create offspring, was, in our instant gratification culture, too steep a hill to climb. The defective and unwanted children resulting from this dogmatic inflexibility are a sad burden on our community. 

The Pope engaged in Revisionism when he pushed the historic support of Nazi-Germany from the Catholic Church and the historic hostility between Christianity and Judaism under the rug. By doing that he put the Church in the political arena on the side of America and Israel in their conflict with the Muslims. New American language usage, also surreptitiously rewriting history, today is calling Western Civilization a “Judeo-Christian Civilization” instead of what it is correctly: a “Greco-Christian Civilization.” Let us be very clear about this. There never was a Judeo-Christian Civilization. Jews, who have not converted to Christianity, are not Christians. 

The 200 world leaders at the funeral are all hypocrites and philistines, monkeys dancing on the stage of the circus of the century. They have no business being there. Are they not all leaders of secular states founded on the separation of (a rational) State and (an irrational) Church, commercial cultures where the material body lives separately from the spiritual soul? 

May he rest in peace now. He was a simple man of faith, unenlightened and unprepared for the role that Fate bestowed on him. 

Jan Visser 

Kensington 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Robert Birgeneau, the new UC Berkeley Chancellor, considers diversity on campus to be in crisis and places it at the top of his Things To Do list. He thinks the people of California who followed Ward Connerly and rejected Affirmative Action may now be willing to correct the unintended consequences and stop “underserving” a large and important part of the state’s multicultural population. 

I am no admirer of Connerly but I thought at the time he had a point: Eliminating race will lead to a racially blind society just as eliminating gender will achieve a gender blind society. He has now risen up against the new chancellor with typically self-serving ferocity (but being now retired with less bite) and again I think he has a point. 

Granted that diversity is loaded with political value it can hardly be a substantive matter for one of the world’s great universities for it is at best superficial, rooted in appearances, and at worse illusory, based on race, a societal construct of fraudulent intent. Universities are supposed to be places where young minds grow and each mind is by nature endowed with its own uniqueness, like fingerprints or DNA. No two are alike; all student communities are therefore comprised of diverse minds. Thumping for diversity is nonsense.  

It is no surprise that in addition to race Birgeneau includes gender in his perceived crisis for he thereby rides the political tsunami initiated by his Harvard counterpart, Lawrence H. Summers. 

Such gaffs are natural because all university presidents come from the professoriate with no training whatsoever in the administration of large corporations. The great Columbia University scholar Jacque Barzun concluded, after a short stint on the job, that only two professions may be entered with no prior training—training must be acquired on the job—one profession is that of the university administrator and the other is “the world’s oldest profession”. Certification in both is achieved only as long as one is able to maintain one’s position, so to speak. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your recent article about worker overtime by Matthew Artz shows how glamorous it is to print W2’s, but why should anyone care? People working in private companies don’t have to share their W2’s.  

City employees working overtime are not wrong. They are just picking up hours that could be worked by their fellow employees. In the private sector overtime is used due to a labor shortage or to complete a job due to time constraints. No manager likes to pay it; they do it for business needs. Many workers I know stay away from overtime. They just like to put in their work week and go home. Others work OT whenever they can. I know many people on salary who put in 60 hour weeks. They don’t get overtime, they do a job.  

Next time instead of publishing dirty laundry why not do a more in depth examination of city management. Are the staffing requirements the city has really necessary? PERS is a great pension plan. Does its cost reflect an over extension of public money, or a realistic plan in an unreal world? How many managers does the city have per employee?  

Examination of issues like these might get more savings than publishing officer Jones’ overtime and salary.  

James Mullesch  

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Are we really talking about the firefighter overtime issue again? Ho-hum. I'll try not to bore you with the fact that firefighters regularly die in the course of doing their duty. I'll also not go too deeply into the fact that firefighters have life expectancies decades shorter than their civilian counterparts. 

Instead I'll stick to the money issue and lay it out as cleanly as I can. OVERTIME SAVES MONEY. A firefighter's total compensation package is equal to 

about 65 percent on top of his base salary. An overtime firefighter gets paid time and a half. So if a firefighter gets paid one hundred dollars a day for regular time, then letting him work overtime costs 150 dollars. Hiring a person to permanently fill that vacancy costs 165, not just on a day when there is a 

vacancy, but every day until he retires. 

"Overtime" is an ugly word; chiefs and managers stake their reputations on bringing down the OT budget. But often overtime is a cheaper way to fill 

temporary gaps than hiring permanent replacements. 

I think the real issue is the fact that firefighters are one of the few public servants to be justly compensated for their labors. They don't deserve less; others deserve more. The unpleasant truth is that people don't like to see blue collar men and women, many with no education beyond high school, earning $100,000 a year. 

Is it just chance or some sort of editorial statement that you followed a front page story on spiralling overtime with a front page story on a three-fire day? 

There's no doubt about it: A great way to save a pile of money would be to eliminate the fire department entirely. Of course, then the fires wouldn't go out, but for many people that seems to be a totally irrelevant issue. 

Zac Unger