Zelda Bronstein: Members of Congregation Beth El celebrated their new home at 1301 Oxford St. Friday evening after making a procession from their old home on Vine Street to the new one. Several hundred congregants and well-wishers attended the event..
Zelda Bronstein: Members of Congregation Beth El celebrated their new home at 1301 Oxford St. Friday evening after making a procession from their old home on Vine Street to the new one. Several hundred congregants and well-wishers attended the event..

Page One

Council Takes Aim At Elmwood Quotas By MATTHEW ARTZ

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Shortly after John Moriarty opened his Elmwood District jewelry shop nearly three decades ago, the two-block shopping district on College Avenue had a cobbler, pharmacy, gun store and the most restrictive business regulations in Berkeley. -more-



Union Calls Off Alta Bates Strike By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Plans for a strike at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center hospitals in Berkeley and Oakland were canceled Monday morning. -more-



Berkeley Firefighters Return With Hurricane Katrina Rescue Stories By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Two Berkeley firefighters are back from emergency duty in hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, while a third remains on duty in New Orleans, following a dramatic rescue of a young girl. -more-



Berkeley Plans to Provide Aid To Hurricane Katrina Evacuees By MATTHEW ARTZ

Tuesday September 13, 2005

As families from the Gulf Coast continue arriving in the Bay Area, Berkeley began mobilizing Friday to provide hurricane victims with homes and services. -more-



Tame Election This Year for Berkeley High Site Council By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Tuesday September 13, 2005

With concerns over Berkeley High School’s Academic Choice program not quite the hot-button issue it was a year ago, elections to this year’s School Site Council (SSC) last week were decidedly less volatile than they were last September. -more-



Features

Brower Center Permits Win ZAB Endorsement By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Members of Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board approved the use permits that would allow construction of the David Brower Center on the city’s Oxford Street parking lot. -more-


Peralta Board Starts Year With Old Issues Still on the Table By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Tuesday September 13, 2005

If the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees were a college football team, we would be saying that “Peralta’s crop of rookie recruits enters its second season tonight with high hopes, after a tumultuous year filled with both fumbles and mastering team fundamentals.” -more-


Study Shows City Has Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions By MATTHEW ARTZ

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Berkeley announced Monday that it has reduced emissions of greenhouse gases from city operations by 14 percent since 2002. -more-


Improved Berkeley Path Maps Could Prove Vital in Earthquake By ZELDA BRONSTEIN Special to the Planet

Tuesday September 13, 2005

In the last two weeks, getting ready for the Big One has suddenly engaged many Bay Area residents. With the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina serving as a heads-up, people are replenishing their stock of water, batteries, canned foodstuffs and first aid kits. Those who live in or frequent the Berkeley hills would do well to add another item to their earthquake preparedness lists: the recently published third edition of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association’s popular map of all city-owned footpaths and stairways. -more-


Editorial Cartoon By JUSTIN DEFREITAS

Tuesday September 13, 2005

http://www.jfdefreitas.com/index.php?path=/00_Latest%20Work -more-


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday September 13, 2005

THE HAND OF GOOD -more-


Letters to the Editor: Category Five News

Tuesday September 13, 2005

If we measured news coverage the way we measure hurricanes then Katrina’s Category 4 destruction of New Orleans would rate a Category 5. Everything imaginable and much that is not imaginable is said, repeated and illustrated. Print and electronic media stuff the public with countless graphic morsels of courage, fortitude, resilience, tenacity, evil, looting, anger, neglect, mendacity, incompetence, finger pointing and blame aplenty—a full rainbow of emotions, a microcosm of the American psyche, a mesmerizing surreal orgy of humanity in extremis. -more-


News Analysis: Al Gore: Where There is No Vision, The People Perish By BOB BURNETTSpecial to the Planet

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Friday morning, when they arrived at the opening plenary session of the first-ever Sierra Club convention held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, several thousand activists got a surprise. Instead of an address by Executive Director Carl Pope, they heard a rousing speech from former Vice President Al Gore. (The schedule change arose because Gore was to have given a speech to state insurance commissioners in New Orleans.) -more-


News Analysis: Those Peaceniks Are At It Again! Kucinich Brings Department of Peace Bill Before Congress By Christopher Krohn Special to the Planet

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Washington, D.C.—As an in-tractable and hopeless war in Iraq continues, a nightmare famine in Darfur lingers, and a post-hurricane catastrophe scenario plays itself out at home along comes a campaign to initiate a United States cabinet-level Department of Peace (DOP). -more-


Police Blotter By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Former Berkeley student slain -more-


Column: The Public Eye: Councilmember Maio Spins The UC Settlement Debacle By ZELDA BRONSTEIN

Staff
Tuesday September 13, 2005

For a few days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the Bush White House doled out the sort of upbeat rhetoric with which it customarily responds to disasters that are at least partly of its own making. The public was advised by Vice President Cheney that “tremendous progress” was being made in Louisiana. On Sept. 2, the president told FEMA Director Michael Brown, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” -more-


Column: The Little Miracle of Collard Greens By SUSAN PARKER

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Last Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of the death of my neighbor Mrs. Gerstine Scott. I think about her a great deal, but during this time of year she is especially on my mind. -more-


Commentary: KPFA Workers Call for Violence-Free Station, No Harassment By KPFA UNION STEWARDS

Tuesday September 13, 2005

Marc Sapir’s op-ed in defense of KPFA’s General Manager Roy Campanella II (“Coup Crystallizes Inside KPFA—Again?” Aug. 19) abandons reasoned analysis for a one-sided polemic, riddled with errors and hyperbole. Sapir appears to be singularly misinformed about the facts of the disturbing labor dispute at KPFA—a conflict that should concern all who care about this crucial 56-year-old institution and the vitality of the left in the Bay Area and Central Valley. If Sapir had bothered to check his facts, instead of repeating Campanella’s spin almost verbatim, he would have found that he was being sold a bill of goods. -more-


Commentary: Advocating for My Foster Daughter By ANNIE KASSOF

Tuesday September 13, 2005

This is the story of my foster child who I’ll call “Katrina.” Like many of the hurricane victims, she too has been jerked around by a bureaucratic system rife with finger-pointing and incompetence. -more-


Election Section

Arts: Old Time Music Festival Comes to Berkeley By LAWRENCE KAY Special to the Planet

Tuesday September 13, 2005

As summer comes to a close, musicians from up and down the Pacific coast will converge on Berkeley for a series of shows at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, Jupiter, Ashkenaz and the downtown Saturday farmer’s market. -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday September 13, 2005

TUESDAY, SEPT. 13 -more-


Autumn Color Comes Early To East Bay Street Trees By RON SULLIVAN Special to the Planet

Tuesday September 13, 2005

The informal consensus among the plant folks I know is that we’re having an unusually early autumn. That might be true; that poor plum tree that hangs over our fence is bald already, and started dropping leaves in early August. It’s been badly stressed though, since it was butchered so ineptly last year, so I’d thought it was an exception. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday September 13, 2005

TUESDAY, SEPT. 13 -more-


Editorial

Editorial: The World Sees America Laid Bare By BECKY O'MALLEY

Tuesday September 13, 2005

The cover photo of this week’s issue of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur shows an armored vehicle labeled “state police tactical unit,” manned by grim-faced booted and helmeted figures with clenched jaws, wearing dark glasses, and carrying big guns, staring straight ahead. In the lower right-hand corner, we see two middle-aged African-American women looking up at the truck. One, wearing a red floral muu-muu, hair in curlers, raises her arm in supplication to the men, who ignore her. The headline is stark: “L’Amérique mise a nu”—America laid bare (literally, nude). The sub-head says that “The hurricane reveals the fissures in the society of everyone for himself.” -more-


Back Stories

Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: The World Sees America Laid Bare By BECKY O'MALLEY 09-13-2005

Editorial: Does Berkeley Still Believe in Diversity? By BECKY O'MALLEY 09-09-2005

News

Council Takes Aim At Elmwood Quotas By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-13-2005

Union Calls Off Alta Bates Strike By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-13-2005

Berkeley Firefighters Return With Hurricane Katrina Rescue Stories By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-13-2005

Berkeley Plans to Provide Aid To Hurricane Katrina Evacuees By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-13-2005

Tame Election This Year for Berkeley High Site Council By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 09-13-2005

Brower Center Permits Win ZAB Endorsement By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-13-2005

Peralta Board Starts Year With Old Issues Still on the Table By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 09-13-2005

Study Shows City Has Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-13-2005

Improved Berkeley Path Maps Could Prove Vital in Earthquake By ZELDA BRONSTEIN Special to the Planet 09-13-2005

Editorial Cartoon By JUSTIN DEFREITAS 09-13-2005

Letters to the Editor 09-13-2005

Letters to the Editor: Category Five News 09-13-2005

News Analysis: Al Gore: Where There is No Vision, The People Perish By BOB BURNETTSpecial to the Planet 09-13-2005

News Analysis: Those Peaceniks Are At It Again! Kucinich Brings Department of Peace Bill Before Congress By Christopher Krohn Special to the Planet 09-13-2005

Police Blotter By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-13-2005

Column: The Public Eye: Councilmember Maio Spins The UC Settlement Debacle By ZELDA BRONSTEIN Staff 09-13-2005

Column: The Little Miracle of Collard Greens By SUSAN PARKER 09-13-2005

Commentary: KPFA Workers Call for Violence-Free Station, No Harassment By KPFA UNION STEWARDS 09-13-2005

Commentary: Advocating for My Foster Daughter By ANNIE KASSOF 09-13-2005

Arts: Old Time Music Festival Comes to Berkeley By LAWRENCE KAY Special to the Planet 09-13-2005

Arts Calendar 09-13-2005

Autumn Color Comes Early To East Bay Street Trees By RON SULLIVAN Special to the Planet 09-13-2005

Berkeley This Week 09-13-2005

East Bay Rallies for Katrina Aid By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 09-09-2005

New Orleans Family Finds Refuge in Berkeley By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-09-2005

Hurdles Still Confront Proposal to Turn UC Theatre Into a Jazz Club By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-09-2005

Rising Costs Derail Civic Center Park Renovation By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-09-2005

City Council Resumes Meetings By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-09-2005

City Considers Fee for Grocery Bags By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-09-2005

Chemical Pollution Kills Strawberry Creek Fish By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-09-2005

Union Dispute Keeps Bayer Workers From Voting on Contract By MATTHEW ARTZ 09-09-2005

BUSD Pledges to Maintain Fiscal Guidelines By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 09-09-2005

Assembly Targets Sutter as Alta Bates Strike Date Nears By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-09-2005

Berkeley’s Katrina: Not If, But When By JESSE TOWNLEY Special to the Planet 09-09-2005

Hurricane Katrina and the Mumbai Floods By Siddharth SrivastavaSpecial to the Planet 09-09-2005

Editorial Cartoon By JUSTIN DEFREITAS 09-09-2005

Letters to the Editor 09-09-2005

Column: Four Days Late and Millions of Dollars Short By P.M. PRICE 09-09-2005

Column: The Public Eye: Three Strikes and Counting By BOB BURNETT 09-09-2005

Column: New Orleans: Do You Know What it Means? By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 09-09-2005

Police Blotter By RICHARD BRENNEMAN 09-09-2005

Commentary: The Berkeley Progressive Alliance Wants YOU! By Laurence Schechtman 09-09-2005

Commentary: Housing Dilemmas and the Greater Good By PETER LEVITT 09-09-2005

Commentary: Peace and Justice Needs Citizen Input By ALAN MOORE 09-09-2005

Arts: Ron Jones Brings His One-Man Show to the Marsh By KEN BULLOCK Special to the Planet 09-09-2005

Arts Calendar 09-09-2005

Summer’s End in Wildcat Canyon By MARTA YAMAMOTO Special to the Planet 09-09-2005

Berkeley This Week 09-09-2005