Features

CORRECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet  

Although the Aug. 12 commentary on Maria King and the mental health system (“Chemical Therapy Endangers Psychiatric Patients”) bears my byline, it was not written by me. It was written by Randy Busang, a Bay Area activist and member of the organization I founded in 1989, the Network Against Coercive Psychiatry. Ms. Busang misinterpreted my praise of the draft of the article she sent me as authorization to submit it for publication under my name. For the record, the letter is not written by me nor in my style. I did not attend Maria King’s funeral, as I have not been in the Bay Area since 1985. 

While I agree with most of Ms. Busang’s criticisms, I think her explanation for why the mental health system fails to help its clients is inaccurate. She attributes its failure both to ignorance on the part of the federal government and to the fact that it is financially profitable both to the drug companies and to the psychiatric establishment. While I agree that the profitability of the mental health industry explains its extraordinary growth in spite of its destructiveness, I do not think ignorance on the part of the government explains why the system has been shielded from oversight. Rather I would argue the mental health system is protected because it is designed not merely to be profitable but to control and contain the perceived threat of “deviation” from dominant social norms. Since it succeeds fairly well, albeit imperfectly, at achieving the latter goal, few people, least of all politicians, are inclined to discern that it does not serve the interests of its clients or contribute to the greater social good. 

Thank you for rectifying the misattribution of the article on Maria King to me. 

Seth Farber, Ph.D. 

New York City 

• 

WORDS OF WISDOM 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Kudos to Rabbi Sara Schendelman for her temperate words of wisdom. She tells it exactly like it is. 

As a former, three-time resident of Berkeley over the past 40 years, I found this comment by the Rabbi to be especially pertinent: “We may be the home of the Free Speech Movement but we are probably the most intolerant place in the U.S. when faced with a differing view.” This was even more true when I moved to the Midwest in 2003 then it had been when I entered Cal in 1965. 

I recently spent a week at a convention in Salt Lake City and took various opportunities to explore the local Mormon culture. Much to my surprise and delight, I discovered quite a few extremely conservative Republican folks—who undoubtedly viewed me as “far left”—who managed to debate politics and even theology with grace and good humor, and who listened to my consistently opposing viewpoints without getting defensive, hostile or contemptuous. For some reason, that doesn’t happen in Utopia By The Bay. 

I’ve read some pretty embarrassing stuff related to Middle East questions in the past few months. It would be nice if some of you folks—of all opinions—would grow up and act your age. 

Michael Stephens 

Chicago 

• 

BLATANT VIOLATIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Becky O’Malley’s Aug. 12 editorial makes clear her proposition that public opposition to the pressures of construction and parking should not be seen as animosity toward the institutions attempting to expand their facilities. 

But she inadvertently raises a larger question: “Religious institutions in Berkeley...should remember that they are guests in this city which is our home, and that we are supporting their religious mission, even if we’re not ourselves believers, by providing them with streets to park on while exempting them from paying property taxes.”  

Why should many of us who are not believers, who in fact see all religious institutions as purveyors of mythology and deception, as well as the cause of endless cultural wars and disputes (even here in the Peaceable Kingdom of Berkeley), bear the tax burden that those institutions evade? 

What more blatant violation can there be of the separation of church and state, and why should we tolerate it in Berkeley? 

Jerry Landis 

• 

IDIOTS AND WOLVES 

Editors, Daily Planet 

It only goes to show what an idiot you are. The little boy who cried wolf. Your paper is one of the most anti-Israel and anti-Semitic papers around. Under the name of liberalism and showing all sides. The only side that shows in the newspaper is your bottom side. If you remember Germany in the ‘30s the Nazis weren’t anti-Semitic when they started out. Then they started burning books, then Jew-owned stores, then synagogues, then finally people. All along the little Jewish boy was crying wolf and no one even came. All your Arab pals were siding with Adolph including the Arafat clan. Wake up and realize what you’re saying. Beth El did expose the creek, tore down a bunch of firetrap shacks, cleared the brush and fire hazard property and made a synagogue, school and improved the property values of the neighbors’ land. So give it up. If it was up to the neighbors, UC Berkeley would have been run out of town in 1868 because it was developing unspoiled land.  

David Spieler 

• 

PREDATOR 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Becky O’Malley correctly notes in her Aug. 12 editorial that: “Anti-Semitism and racism are real, living evils, existing in the world and even in Berkeley at this very moment.” And she cites the Beth El controversy as exemplary of crying wolf over what some call anti-Semitism, saying that by so doing, “the public will react as villagers did to the boy who cried wolf and ignore them.” 

Although I am not sufficiently conversant with the Beth El situation to take a stand on it, I can say that O’Malley is in an excellent position to acknowledge that “Anti-Semitism (exists in) Berkeley at this very moment,” as her paper and some members of the Peace and Justice Commission have served as a catalyst for the local metastasis of this ancient cauldron of hate. 

How so? Instead of focusing upon local matters, as a good municipal paper should do, O’Malley has been obsessed with castigating Israel. And while a local publication shouldn’t waste time and space on international matters which can be found elsewhere, it is telling that O’Malley should, week after week, run biased reportage, op-eds, and editorials bashing the sole democracy in the Middle East. But even if one were to run commentary about international issues, why this overwhelming emphasis upon Israel rather than the planet’s genuine tyrannies, including all Arab nations, which violate human rights in the most egregious ways? What reason other than anti-Semitism can one discern for this constant spotlight on Israel? 

And this issue, until recently, was reflected in a so-called Peace and Justice Commission which was likewise obsessed with castigating Israel while refusing to examine either local incidents of rights abuses or dictatorships like that darling of the Left, Cuba. Here, too, there can be but one rationale. Fortunately, those honorable members of the City Council and Mayor Tom Bates have recently appointed unbiased members to the commission, thereby defusing it an incubator of bigotry. 

Years before he took power, Adolf Hitler clearly delineated in Mein Kamph what his intentions were for the Jewish people. As Hitler continued to make gains politically, a number of astute observers pointed out both to the German people and the world what a clear and present danger he was. And to be sure, they were accused of crying wolf by the Becky O’Malleys of their time. 

Ms. O’Malley, by your incessant Israel bashing, you have identified yourself likewise a predator in our community and those of us who have expressed this are hardly crying wolf. If you are to garner any genuine notices of merit for your publication, please cease and desist from letting it serve as a springboard for anti-Semitism. 

Dan Spitzer 

Kensington 

• 

FREE SPEECH 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Your editorial about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” could have been about Johnathan Wornick’s whining commentary “Is Free Speech Dead in Berkeley.” 

In “Opposed to Department of Peace” he was hostile. His taunting of Department of Peace supporters with slogans like “call it peace, puppies and chocolate” was bizarre. He even attacked citizens for participating in democracy by lobbying the City Council, something that is an essential part of free speech. 

Now he claims free speech is dead in Berkeley. That’s odd, how many people heard of this character before the Daily Planet published his writings?  

His opinions are out of character with your editorial position, so how did he manage to get it published in a community that lacks free speech? 

He goes on to say that he thought people in Berkeley would stand up for his right to free speech but found he was mistaken. But he gives not one example of anyone infringing on his right to free speech. Was his right to express himself denied? No, I learned about it by his whimpering on the pages of the Daily Planet, despite the fact you are under no obligation to publish it. 

Apparently what interfered with his right to free speech is that the Planet dared print responses disagreeing with his childish rant. Imagine someone writing a letter expressing disagreement with Wornick’s viewpoint! My, my, no one should have to put up with such repression!  

What could be more threatening to free speech than that? 

Elliot Cohen 

Peace and Justice Commissioner 

• 

SINS OF THE FATHER 

Editors, Daily Planet 

I often agree with Elliott Cohen, but when he is wrong he can be very wrong. In his Aug. 12 commentary he attacks Johnathan Wornick for “deceitfully [omitting] his father’s role as founder of . . . the largest supplier of military food rations" as a reason for opposing a resolution supporting a department of peace. 

One would think that an army must eat, whether at peace or at war, and we are not about to disband our army, department of peace or not. So logic eludes Mr. Cohen’s argument. 

But more to the point, are we reduced to visiting the (supposed) sins of the father on the son? I would have thought that guilt by association was something we left wingers eschewed—having been the victims of it for far too long. Mr. Cohen needs a (recent) history lesson. Mr. Cohen is far better (and far more effective) sticking to the validity of the arguments for his position than using these essentially right-wing tactics against his opponents. 

Mr. Wornick, on the other hand, needs to stop classifying everything with which he disagrees as “the radical left” in order to be taken seriously. I dare say that I fall under his criteria for far left, yet here I am defending his right to say his piece. Perhaps he needs to do some reflecting on his debating style and start talking more about issues than about classifying his opponents. The left in this country is marginalized and I know few left-leaning people who think that, because they are marginally more numerous in Berkeley than other cities, they have any serious power. 

John Gertz is far more subtle in his attacks on the left, but his arguments lack validity. There are many of us on the left who neither want the destruction of Israel nor the transformation of it into an aggressive, land-grabbing, colonialist power. If Mr. Gertz truly wants to get out of the West Bank as he implies, let him join the rest of us fighting the policy of U.S. government tacit (or active) support for an Israeli government policy of retention of the West Bank settlements. If he does not support that position of withdrawal to the Green Line, he needs to be clear and say so, and say why.  

All in all, the debate is healthy and democratic but each side needs to stop trying to silence the other side or so demonize it that everybody in this debate will soon lack credibility. I know that Mr. Cohen and Mr. Gertz are both intelligent, charming people; no doubt, so is Mr. Wornick. I just wish they would stick to the facts in the debate. 

Mal Burnstein 

• 

DISHONESTY AND DECEIT 

Editors, Daily Planet 

About the Peace and Justice Commission controversy. 

Mr. Wornick, we get it. Apparently you are planning to run for office one day and want to appeal to a new demographic whose opinions may be less “radical.” 

Fine. You have that right. But why the dishonesty and deceit? 

In two commentaries in a row you claimed your vote against peace related proposals was because it made no difference what Berkeley said, so the vote was a waste of our tax dollars.  

Get real. City councilmembers are paid the same salary no matter how many things they debate or vote on, so it does not waste money to have the City Council act on peace resolutions.  

So that must mean your complaining about the cost of implementing the recommendation. Let’s see, that would be the cost of four postage stamps to mail copies of the resolution and a cover letter to Barbara Lee and Senators Boxer and Feinstein. A tremendous burden on our tax payers. Sure glad we have a fiscal watch dog like WAR-nick on the case. 

Why all the fuss? Were you really worried about the cost of a few postage stamps? Then we learn from another commentary (“Don’t Let Conservatives Silence Berkeley’s Voice,” Elliot Cohen, Aug. 12) that Wornick’s ability to buy a house in Berkeley’s expensive market is the result of money made selling food rations to soldiers who Wornick voted against withdrawing from mortal danger in Iraq!  

But wait. He’s a vegetarian. Even if Wornick gets rich while people die in far off places eating food rations that make him rich at least we can take comfort in the notion they eat vegetarian foods! 

Wornick is nothing but a self-serving hypocrite out to make a name for himself, hoping he can one day represent a new demographic base. Wornick no doubt has a good future, following the pattern of Bush, who also supported a war while sitting safely at home building a political future and belittling people who called for peace. Berkeley has room for conservative viewpoints; there are already several conservative democrats, as well as a vegetarian, on our City Council. What we don’t need are war profiteers that lie about their motives for voting against peace.  

Since Wornick voted against bring troops home from Iraq maybe he should put his money where his food rations are and volunteer to go there himself. I doubt he’ll do it, a coward like him would much rather bully people with deceitful lies and insults then ever fight in a war he votes to let others fight for him.  

Alan Reisse 

• 

DECEITFUL CLAIMS 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Jonathan Wornick, in an effort to establish his liberal credentials, attacks those who oppose abortion for repackaging the anti-abortion movement as the pro-life movement. He claims this was an effort to infer that if one wasn’t pro-life, they must be pro-death. But he knows as well as I do that the anti-abortion movement started calling itself pro-life in response to the repackaging of the pro-abortion movement as the pro-choice movement, which was indeed an effort to portray those who opposed abortion as being against making choices. Wornick argues that he should be respected for expressing his views, but I that believe that no community is well served by honoring and respecting those whose views are based on deceitful claims. 

Bill McGregor 

• 

COHEN’S DESPERATION 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Elliot Cohen’s Aug. 12 commentary, “Don’t Let Conservatives Silence Berkeley’s Voice,” succinctly revealed his true intentions and his desperation.  

Plainly and simply, his flailing attempt to discredit me with a slanderous accusation falls flat. It also shows the weakness of his arguments and his inflated opinion of the power of Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission. 

Plainly and simply, he accused me of having a secret agenda to support the war in Iraq, or rather, all wars in order to line my and my family’s pockets. He could have solved his concern with a simple phone call to me. It is true that there is a company named the Wornick Company that does produce military rations. It is also true that my father created the company—something I am quite proud of. I wonder what Cohen has created, besides flimsy accusations? Feeding our military in the field during war and training is not exactly equivalent to making bombs. Furthermore, the Wornick Company also produces relief rations for the United Nations, food for the space program and a number of other commercial products. But most importantly, our family hasn’t owned the company for nearly a decade.  

Perhaps Elliot is smoking a little too much of his favorite substance—something he always manages to proudly bring up at our commission meetings.  

I look forward to real debate when the Peace and Justice Commission resumes in September.  

Jonathan Wornick 

• 

BLOODY OCCUPATION 

Editors, Daily Planet 

The Daily Planet has published a spate of fulminations from the local Israel State apologists that exceed even their usual flatulent bombast. Lawrence W. White’s hysterical op-ed is a textbook case. 

First, he libels Mark Ritchey as equivalent to the KKK for correctly pointing the tactics used by one of Israel’s zealots. Only someone ignorant of the bloody history of the Klan could make such a ludicrous statement. 

Second, White ignores totally the 40 years of Israel’s terroristic occupation of the Palestinians and only condemns their reactions, not the original crimes against them. Spare us your crocodile tears, White.  

Third, in 1956 Eygpt was invaded by Israel, Britain and France after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Which is in Eygpt last time I looked. But in the White fantasy world the “Arabs” launched that war too! 

In fact in 1967 Israel launched what it termed a preventative war against Eygpt and Syria, but White again credits the “Arabs” with launching that one too! 

In 1948 five Arab Armies did enter what had been Arab Palestine to stop the expulsion of the Palestinians that had been occurring months before Israel’s unilateral declaration of state on May 15. In the White fantasy world this is all the “Arabs” fault. 

Fourth, there were never anywhere near one million Jews expelled from Arab countries. Several hundred thousand Jews were recruited by Israel to leave Iraq, Morocco and Yemen, from where 95 percent of all Arab Jews originated. Alfred Lilenthal’s The Other Side of The Coin (1965) documents this. 

Fifth, where are there any “security’ fences anywhere in the world matching the horror wall that Israel is building? None since the Berlin Wall went down. 

Sixth, many of us are fed up of the obnoxious Holocaust exploitation used by Israel’s apologists to try to silence legitimate criticism of Israel. Why is this crime so much more publicized than the tens of millions killed in China, Russia, etc.? Or even the millions of victims of American imperialism here in the U.S. (slaves, Indians) or abroad (Indochina, Indonesia, etc.) 

Seventh, if White thinks that Arabs have anything like an equal situation inside Israel itself he needs to talk to some who live there. It is of course much better inside the Green Line than in the Occupied Territories but that should hardly be the standard! 

Eighth, it’s hardly Arafat’s personal corruption that has kept the Palestinians in poverty but the Israeli rejectionist policy of occupation underwritten by the U.S. government. 

White’s mentality is the reason this conflict has persisted for so long. But fewer people are being intimidated the longer this bloody occupation goes on. 

Michael Hardesty 

Oakland 

• 

LET’S DO LUNCH 

Editors, Daily Planet 

I’ll treat Michael Hardesty, Robert Lipton and Mark Richey to a Friday lunch at Saul’s Delicatessen if they can only prove that three of the following 10 events “has its root cause” in the acts of the Israeli government since 1967: 

• The British decision to give 77 percent of the land mandated as a Jewish national home to Emir Abdullah, creating what we call Jordan and what the PLO recognizes as Palestine. 

• The 1920-1921 anti-Jewish riots in Palestine. 

• The 1929 slaughter of 133 Jews by Arabs in Hebron. 

• The 1936-1939 riots in Palestine, in which anti-Jewish mobs carried signs reading “Palestine for Arabs.” 

• The Arab rejection of partition plans in the 1930s and the 1940s. 

• The 1941 meeting between Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem to discuss what the Mufti called their shared purpose. 

• The Mufti’s 1948 proclamation of a holy war to murder all Jews. 

• The May 14, 1948 declaration, by the secretary general of the Arab League, of “a war of extermination” against Israel. 

• The May 15, 1948 order by the Mufti of Jerusalem telling Israel’s 600,000 Arabs to abandon their homes so that Arab armies could invade their land and fight in their stead. 

• The Jan. 9, 1954 statement by the King of Saudi Arabia that “the Arab nations should sacrifice up to 10 million of their...people...to wipe out Israel.” 

If our local paragons of unemotional historical literacy decline my invitation, we can only infer it’s because they are already out to lunch. 

David Altschul 

• 

SOURCE OF AMUSEMENT 

How unfortunate that some members of the Peace and Justice Commission have chosen to waste their talent and energy on international issues when they could be making a difference by thinking locally. As it is, they are a source of irritation and divisiveness in Berkeley and some amusement nationally. 

Could be that this is precisely the kind of commission that belongs on the list of those that never would be missed.  

Hopefully, none of its members collect the $40 per meeting available in some situations. That would truly be a case of money misspent. 

Rhoda Levinson 

• 

88 TICKETS 

In an attempt to illustrate the vast worldwide conspiracy against tiny Israel (the fifth-largest military power with 200 nuclear bombs), a writer to this paper states that the United Nations General Assembly has passed 88 resolutions against Israel. Following this reasoning, would getting 88 speeding tickets make one a good driver? 

Barbara Henninger 

• 

THE BALL 

Concering the Brower sculpture: 

Install the Ball! 

New York City might have the Big Apple, but we have the Behemoth Blueberry! 

Richard List 

• 

ALTA BATES 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Alta Bates-Summit has problems other than just those mentioned in your paper. The organization has refused for many years to state which reproductive services they provide. Vasectomies, tubal ligations, abortions? They won’t say. 

Nancy Ward 

Co-chair 

Oakland/East Bay 

National Organization for Women 

• 

RFID 

Editors, Daily Planet 

The employees of Berkeley Public Library say that the future plan/intention is to have all library people checking out books replaced by the RFID machines. I was told this by five employees—none wanted to have their names used. 

As it is now, the one machine does not work. I asked, “Has there been a public notice of this plan?” The answer was, “After the machines are the only way to check out library materials.” 

No one has discussed the serious computer security problems with RFID. The Berkeley Public Library is vulnerable because of lack of security protocols. How far away from the library can RFID be read by unscrupulous pirates seeking private data? 

Alexandra Andrews 

• 

REAL BLACK PEOPLE 

Editors, Daily Planet 

What a joy to read a story that represents how real black people live. I have almost stopped reading and watching mainstream media coverage of anything, especially when it concerns black folks. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor report on the free concerts in Arroyo Park was the type of news coverage that is missing in the media. Outside of a few black-owned newspapers you would never hear anything positive in regards to the Honorable Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam nor an event that didn’t include any anti-social behavior. The district council women, Dwayne Wiggins and all those that put on the event should be commended and their model should be taken on a U.S. tour.  

Since I’m here in Houston Texas, I think I’ll go and enjoy a red soda-water. 

Laurence Woods  

Houston 

• 

BERKELY HONDA 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Let me get this straight: 

Berkeley voters have made clear property taxes are too high. 

Car dealers are the biggest business tax producers in Berkeley. 

The Berkeley City Council is officially supporting a boycott of the local Honda dealer. 

I am neutral on the contract dispute between workers and the owner at the Honda dealership. Certainly, people have the right to boycott the dealer. But the city should be neutral. 

As it is, the City of Berkeley is signaling yet again that it is aggressively, and needlessly, anti-business.  

Just where does the City Council expect the expect to get the money to provide city services? 

Tom Case 

• 

IF YOU WERE THEM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Imagine waking up one morning to learn that you are out of work and that the new owners of your workplace replaced you with recent school graduates. Or imagine that your pension plan after 20 years of seniority with the firm was suddenly canceled. But also imagine to your delight that many people, all strangers to you, are morally outraged at how you have been treated, and as a result they publicly protest to defend your rights as a working person. 

At Berkeley Honda, these wonderful idealists and Berkeley Honda strikers have been protesting every Thursday from 4:30-6 p.m., and Saturday, 1-2 p.m. The East Bay Labor Committee for Peace and Justice is sponsoring these neighbor to labor events until the labor dispute is resolved. These striking workers deserve our support. We must send a message to the new owners that union busting will not be tolerated in Berkeley. Please join us, and bring along members of your family and friends.  

Harry Brill  

El Cerrito 

• 

BERKELEY NIGHT OUT 

Editors, Daily Planet 

As a citizen of Berkeley since 1961, I am delighted to have the Berkeley Night Out to see our fire and police officials come out and talk with us—they see the public at their worst—and we the public see them at their best most of the time. They’re terrific, for the most part. But can we make Berkeley a better place with the same budgets and constraints? We can and it is a simple solution—stop funding the homeless—and give the money to the fire stations (to cease brown-outs) and to the Police Department to buy a dog for K-9 duty. The city simply cannot afford to pay these homeless their free medical prescriptions, their free Viagra, their free coffee, their mental health any longer. The city does not pay for my prescription meds! Hell, the homeless use the bathroom on a city street and in our school yards!! The fire and police serve all the people of Berkeley, and who do the homeless serve? Nobody; they just take take take from a resource that cannot repair their streets, keep their libraries open, fix their buildings, and clean their streets. Which is more important? I say fire and police before a person who takes a dump in a school yard! Thanks Berkeley Fire Department and Berkeley Police Department. No thanks homeless people.  

Mark Bayless 

• 

TAKING ISSUE 

Editors, Daily Planet 

I must take issue with Barbara Lee. She says in her recent commentary: “Most Americans are unaware that the right to vote is not explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution.” 

I think it is explicitly stated in the first three words and first 52 words of the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” 

Although the bulk of the Constitution establishes representative democracy, the introduction implies more. It implies what is stated explicitly in the Brown Act and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act in California. It implies participatory democracy. All of the powers of the representative government emanate from “We the People,” and we do not by establishing representatives relinquish our control over them. They are to act as our delegates, enacting our will, and not as surrogates for us, substituting their own will for our will. The will of God resides in the will of the People, not in the will of their rulers or even their representatives. That is the profound idea stated explicitly in our Constitution. 

Peter J. Mutnick 

• 

ATOMIC BOMBING 

Editors, Daily Planet 

I had some additional comments to Tuesday letter about the atomic bombing. On that day, several of my relatives died in Hiroshima and my grandmother who went into the city soon after, died several years later from a “blood disorder.” Because of the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the world’s first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the media has discussed both pros and cons of this action. Japanese militarism with its accompanying brutality and atrocities committed upon many during World War II needed to be defeated. American lives were probably saved from having to make a landing in Japan. Any people will fight much harder on their own soil.  

But I don’t want to get into the whys or who suffered more. I quietly mourn the loss of hundreds of thousands of civilians whose lives were lost with two bombs. I mourn for those who have died in the process of making the bomb, from the miners of the radioactive material to our solders and scientists who were exposed during testing to Americans exposed to the radioactive fallout after the testing, and for the devastated Pacific islands where the testing was done. Aug. 6 and 9 remind me to continue to oppose the proliferation of nuclear weapons and Bush’s plans for mini nuke bunker busting bombs and to worry about the security surrounding nuclear power plants. As my uncle once told me, “War makes everyone crazy. In war, everyone suffers.” 

Diane Tokugawa  

• 

GALLO BOYCOTT 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Thank you for printing the letter about the Gallo wine boycott. For those readers who want to support the farm workers, it is important to know the brands to boycott. These include Anapamu; Andre; Ballatore Spumante; Bartles & Jaymes Coolers; Bella Sera; Black Swan; Boone’s Farm; Bridlewood Winery; Burlwood; Carlo Rossi; Cask & Cream; Copperidge; Da VINCI; E&J Brandy; Ecco Domani; Frei Brothers; Gossamer Bay; Indigo Hills; Liberty Creek; Livingston Cellars; Louis M. Martini; MacMurray Ranch; Marcelina; McWilliams Hanwood Estate; Mirassou; Napa Valley Vineyards; Peter Vella; Rancho Zabaco; Red Bicyclette; Redwood Creek; Tott’s; Turning Leaf; as well as anything including the name Gallo. 

I have attended the United Farm Workers (UFW) meetings in Oakland, and I am amazed at the number of people this has affected. As the UFW and Gallo return to the table this month, we as the consumers have the power to finish this. By supporting the UFW’s boycott, we can succeed. Join us in the fight against Gallo.  

Jessica Cervano 

• 

RIGHT OF PROTEST 

Editors, Daily Planet 

As a citizen, I exercised my right of protest by phoning the White House switchboard (202-456-1414) to tell them that President Bush was wrong to push through a recess appointment of John Bolton to be the United Nations ambassador for the United States. The White House operator said “OK” and was ready to hang up on me, when I replied: “Aren’t you going to take down my contact information?” The operator replied that she “already has it.” I was confused, because my phone number is a blocked number. Me, being curious, said, “How do you have my phone number?” The operator was quick to say, “Sir, I’m sorry. I can’t discuss that.” And as I started to say something else, the operator rudely hung up on me (maybe because I was from Berkeley).  

Apparently, the Bush administration has installed a “defense” system that reveals blocked information. So residents, beware, President Bush knows where you live and how to contact you. He’s watching you! 

Rio Bauce 

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