A Berkeley-based bike messenger cooperative appears to be the latest organization to suffer from Berkeley’s budgetary woes. -more-
They came. They saw. They scoffed. -more-
After two hung juries punctuated by appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court, the third “pepper spray trial” finally brought resolution, with a victory of sorts, for the plaintiffs. -more-
South Berkeley’s “Flying Cottage,” the controversial three-story pop-up at 3045 Shattuck Ave., seems to be headed for a soft landing—with only a question of parking yet to be decided. -more-
Electro-shock, unmuzzled dogs, extreme temperatures, sexual humiliation, sodomy—U.S. torture didn’t begin or end with the abuse portrayed in shocking photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib one year ago, nor has U.S. torture been restricted to prisons on foreign soil, according to speakers at Thursday’s Teach-in on Torture, sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies, Asian Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies departments. -more-
For those whose exposure to hip hop and rap is the occasional video seen while flipping channels, or a gold-toothed face on a magazine at the supermarket checkout counter, the scene at Laney College this weekend would have been unrecognizable. Two rap legends showed up at the third annual Malcolm X Consciousness Conference with no entourages in sight, and an emphasis on think-think rather than bling-bling. -more-
Barring further appeals, the long-running battle that has pitted neighbors against would-be neighbors in a contest over views from the Berkeley hills has come to an end. -more-
Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany death camps, Berkeley will hold its third annual ceremony Friday to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day. -more-
A Berkeley police lieutenant who ordered officers to ticket motorists who honked in support of a late night union rally last summer did not abuse his discretion, a three-member panel of the Police Review Commission ruled Thursday. -more-
Just months before its new synagogue is set to debut, another rift has opened between Berkeley’s largest Jewish congregation and its soon-to-be neighbors. -more-
A participant in last Tuesday’s rally of City of Berkeley union employees has informed the Daily Planet that some employees attended during their regular break time, and that her division staggered attendance in order to keep their desks covered. -more-
If you are a Monty Python fan, you will remember the famous restaurant scene from The Meaning of Life. In it a fawning waiter begs his grossly over-weight client, who has just finished a meal of obscene proportions, to have “just one thin mint.” The diner’s gut is already strained to the breaking point, and when he finally ingests the mint, his body explodes. -more-
Ralph needed a shower chair. The old one we’d purchased five years ago was broken. A wheel had fallen off and a metal support rod snapped. I had to get a new one ASAP. -more-
Electrical Blaze Damages Church -more-
In all of the arguing of which cuts to make and which projects to fund, it’s easy to lose sight of the long-range effects of cuts in service and in the commissions which oversee them. -more-
Last week the Daily Planet published an article by Zelda Bronstein regarding parking in Downtown Berkeley. Unlike Ms. Bronstein I am a resident of the downtown and I have worked downtown for the past nine years. -more-
“Nazis are bad; nuns are good.” That was my friend’s synopsis of The Sound of Music. The sentence could just as easily summarize much of the popular -more-
Is the Diebold Corporation, famous for hackable, paperless voting machines, trying to strangle election reform in Berkeley? Or are they merely greedy, lazy and incompetent? -more-
To a packed audience that over flowed into the corridors of an embarrassingly small venue, Antanas Mockus, the innovative two-term mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, spoke April 15 at the conference on “Violence and the Americas,” hosted by the Center for Latin American Studies. His talk on “Law Enforcement and Citizenship Building” focused largely on enlisting collective social disapproval and participatory stake holding—instead of legal penalties—to help shape civic behavior. While obviously proud of the reduction in violence experienced in the unruly capital city during his tenure, the ever humble and self-mocking former mayor gave only a hint of how his creative strategies have empowered Bogotá’s 7 million inhabitants—and how these ideas might be applied to beleaguered urban areas here in the US. -more-
LONDON—As U.S. and British forces entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and the Saddam Hussein regime crumbled, those who had been driven underground by Hussein’s rule began to breathe again. From Syria, Britain, Scandinavia and elsewhere, exiled trade union radicals began to make the long journey home. -more-
“The plain fact is that we are members one of another and that we are not living in accordance with the nature of things—That is, we are not living in accordance with the facts, if we think only our own thoughts, and sit nowhere ever except upon the lonesome throne of our own outlook,” University of California President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, told Berkeley students in 1907. -more-
The Eastenders Repertory Company is back on the boards in the East Bay at the Ashby Stage, after producing last year’s One Hundred Years of Political Theater at the Eureka Theater across the Bridge, with the premiere of WWJD? Some Good Old Medieval Morality Play Motor Oil, by San Jose playwright Scott Munson, running alternately with Eastenders Founding Artistic Director Charles Polly’s new play, A Knight’s Escape. -more-
Participants in a UC Berkeley “Words and Music” seminar led by composer William Bolcom, visiting Ernest Bloch lecturer in music, and poet (and UC professor) Robert Hass will present performances of their completed projects of what Bolcom has referred to as “the way words and music marry” in a Wed. May 4 afternoon reading and workshop, 2-5 p.m. at the recital hall in Morrison 125, and in a recital setting, incorporating more material (including electronic media), 8 p.m. Sat. May 14 at Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT), 1750 Arch St. The performances are open to the public; admission is free. -more-
Walking across the UC campus in mid-April, I noticed a couple of cliff swallows orbiting Hertz Hall and spotted a jug-shaped mud nest under the building’s eaves. I seem to recall a long-running battle between the swallows and the university’s maintenance crews which involved blasting the nests away with hoses. But the persistent birds keep coming back. -more-
The Alameda County Board of Education is asking its 18 school districts to take a more aggressive stand concerning military recruiters, encouraging them to adopt a controversial “opt in” policy to inform students, parents and legal guardians “of their rights to withhold their child’s name and contact information to the military recruiters.” -more-
Shortly after the clock struck midnight Wednesday, the City Council breathed new life into a pedestrian bridge proposed to rise 21 feet above Hearst Avenue. -more-
The struggle over Berkeley’s landmarks generated lots of heat for city planning commissioners Wednesday night during a spirited three-and-a-half-hour hearing in the North Berkeley Senior Center. -more-
Hoping to rid themselves of a neighbor whose home has been targeted by police for over two decades as a drug hot spot, 15 South Berkeley residents filed suit Monday charging the homeowner has created a neighborhood nuisance. -more-
On Sunday afternoon, architecture and history buffs will have the chance for a unique first-hand look at some works by the most famous names in architecture from Bernard Maybeck to Frank Lloyd Wright. -more-
Berkeley’s two largest public employee unions blocked traffic outside city offices Tuesday to protest a cost-savings proposal requiring them to take mandatory time off without pay. -more-
In a scene resembling a high school pep rally more than a library board meeting, the Library Board of Trustees Wednesday remained far apart on a new budget and the public feud between some library employees and library director Jackie Griffin remained far from settled. -more-
Two bills designed to change the way California handles hazardous waste sites won the approval Tuesday of the state Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials. -more-
Peralta Community College District Trustees gave the unanimous go-ahead Tuesday to the construction of the Laney College New Art Building by a San Joaquin County modular building firm. Meanwhile, with consideration of the long-delayed proposed contract to developer Alan Dones for a Laney-Peralta development plan failing to make the trustee’s agenda, opponents came out to oppose the proposal anyway. -more-
The suicide hijackers behind the 9/11 attacks were reportedly each promised “70 virgins in Paradise.” But would they have proceeded if they’d realized that their recruiters might only be offering 70 white raisins? -more-
Poor, bleeding Oakland. In addition to losing its rights to run its own schools—two years and counting, now—it is now being blamed in the media for school district actions over which it has absolutely no control. -more-
UC Davis and the City of Davis are like Siamese twins who share one body but have two heads. The interests of the two heads are not always the same. If one wants to grow and the other doesn’t, they’ve got a problem. -more-
While much attention and concern has been rightly directed towards the Bush administration’s erosion of civil liberties, the federal government is not alone. In fact, the City of Berkeley is in the midst of denying a number of its citizens their constitutionally guaranteed due process rights under the law. -more-
Editors, Daily Planet: -more-
For a brief respite from the present era of posturing machismo in politics and public life, as well as a thoughtful tour through California’s past, a new exhibit, “Our Collective Voice: The Extraordinary Work of Women in California,” is well worth visiting on the University of California campus. -more-
It’s hard to recall, to represent the atmosphere—the immediate sense, much less any deeper one—of the scandals and violent deaths in November 1978, in the Bay Area and Guyana. The People’s Temple, now in its world premiere at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, in association with San Francisco’s Z Space, which originally commissioned and developed the piece, begins with traces, voices and images. -more-
Metamorphosis. Dull caterpillar, easily overlooked, to striking butterfly. Insect Biology 101? No—Dublin. Now a vibrant, energized city, moving forward economically and culturally. Today visitors are buffeted by stimuli—masses of people, miles of traffic, a cacophony of sounds. So much to do: museums, galleries, historic sites, cafes, pubs, and clubs. -more-
Facing a $30 million deficit, BART is considering charging passengers up to $5 a day for parking, and the stations most likely to see parking fees are in Berkeley and Oakland. -more-
The central political question at this point in time is not what to do when your candidate loses elections—it’s what to do when your candidate wins. -more-
