In the wake of a 215-190 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives this week defeating a bill by Rep. Barbara Lee to rename the main Berkeley Post Office after former Berkeley Councilmember Maudelle Shirek, a spokesperson for Lee said that she has not given up on the idea. -more-
While the world-wide proletariat struggle may have seen better days, there is a museum in Oakland making sure socialism’s bygone era will never be forgotten. -more-
While not conceding that Christopher Hollis fired the bullet that killed his friend and former Berkeley High School classmate Meleia Willis-Starbuck, his attorney John Burris said the 21-year-old Berkeley native had confirmed earlier press accounts of the shooting. -more-
Despite a signed agreement barring schools and day care centers on a toxics-laden South Richmond site, minority students of the Making Waves academic preparation program meet regularly on the site. -more-
Ignoring the wishes of several city commissions, the City Council gave itself the task Tuesday of forming an advisory committee to oversee the development of new downtown zoning laws. -more-
An article in the Sept. 27 issue mistakenly reported that Abdulalaziz Saleh, Behjat Yahyavi and Johnny Shokouh were owners of Dwight Way Liquor. According to Shokouh, he and Yahjavi own the property at 2440 Sacramento St. and Saleh owns the store. -more-
The Draft Ron Dellums For Oakland Mayor Campaign played its last act this week, with members hoping that next week there will soon be a political campaign to work on. -more-
Berkeley planning commissioners looked at three thorny issues Wednesday night and decided they didn’t have enough information to make a decision. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
Following Norway’s Sept. 12 elections that saw a green-red coalition turn out a pro-business, anti-immigrant center-right government, the German daily, Die Tageszeitung, mused that “perhaps people in Germany could learn something from this.” It appears they did, and what they learned is likely to be repeated in Italy and France next spring. -more-
“Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble…” -more-
There are countless examples of media word-storms but the deluge from Hurricane Katrina in sound and print copiously illustrated is over the top, the coverage pushing aside a newly named chief justice of the Supreme Court and also the violence in Iraq. Every conceivable point of view floods the perspective leftward and rightward far beyond previous limits. Katrina and her aftermath aroused sympathy and outrage, finger pointing and frustration; it created a swirl of passions that changed an ordinary word-storm into a rampaging tornado. Everyone with access to viewer/reader no matter how poorly or well qualified, close or distant, illiterate or eloquent contributed; the word-twister touched down, cleared existing terrain and revealed along with its real debris a bounty of dumb observations and idiotic pronouncements. -more-
The anti-war movement continues to put up great resistance to the reactionary cannon balls constantly being lobbed into our lives. However, a larger, more visionary action plan has been lacking. As a result of no apparent handle to organize around a comprehensive, inspiring political agenda, the anti-war movement has steadily spiraled into a strategic dead end. -more-
Karen and Tom Klaber started what is now known as The East Bay Monthly in their home 35 years ago. -more-
Forget moveable feasts. How about a moveable gallery? -more-
As part of a city effort to crack down on liquor store violations, Dwight Way Liquor may soon sell its last bottle of booze. -more-
With former Congressmember Ron Dellums setting a self-imposed deadline of Oct. 1 to announce whether or not he will run for mayor of Oakland in next year’s elections, organizers of a “Draft Dellums” campaign have announced that they will conclude their petition drive at a Wednesday morning press conference at the Ron Dellums Federal Building in Oakland. -more-
The suspected shooter in the July 17 killing of Meleia Willis-Starbuck was captured in a Fresno apartment Friday as he hid in a bedroom closet. -more-
The owner of the two-story plywood shell with a house atop that South Berkeley neighbors call “The Flying Cottage” has won a major battle in her fight to resume construction on the building. -more-
For the second time in less than a week, UC Berkeley officers have ripped apart the latest incarnation of a long-standing clothing donation box at People’s Park. -more-
A compromise to keep Berkeley Iceland open hit a snag last week when the skating rink reported that a temporary outdoor refrigeration system the city ordered it to install would be too noisy for neighbors. -more-
With conversion to the new PeopleSoft management software causing problems in an overworked Peralta Community College payroll office, Peralta trustees have called for an update on the PeopleSoft conversion at tonight’s (Tuesday) trustee meeting. -more-
A gala dinner at HS Lordship’s Restaurant Sunday evening raised an estimated $83,000 for victims of Hurricane Katrina both in Berkeley and across the country. -more-
The Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees meets Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the district administrative headquarters, 333 E. 8th St., Oakland. Items on the agenda include: -more-
After a brief respite from his work of recovering the bodies of victims of Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Miss., Berkeley Fire Department Lt. Darren Bobrosky is at it again. -more-
The spirit of Katrina—accompanied by anger that government foresight and dollars could have blunted much of the hurricane’s damage—blew into San Francisco Saturday, stirring passions at the anti-war march and rally. -more-
One of the many nice things about Berkeley is our town’s neighborhood shopping districts. Their linear form is a legacy of the city’s early twentieth century development as a streetcar suburb. Their distinctiveness is a holdover of another sort: unlike much American retail, this city still abounds in unique mercantile enterprise, a lot of it locally owned and operated. -more-
Last weekend I took care of my 3 1/2-year-old nephew, Bryce. It was party, party, party for 49 hours straight. We went to three parks and several places of business. We threw a small tantrum in Ross Dress for Less, and we forgot (several times) how to share while playing with Clyiesha, Maynard, and Lil’ Bobby. But all in all we had a pretty good time. -more-
The agreement signed by the City and the University earlier this year provides a historic opportunity to work together on a range of community issues—from summer literacy programs to economic and urban development plans. -more-
On Tuesday night, Sept. 27, the Berkeley City Council will take up the planning process for a new Downtown Area Plan. The concept of a new Downtown Area Plan has generated quite a few letters and commentaries on the pages of the Berkeley Daily Planet, and also one lawsuit by Berkeley residents, (including the authors) against city officials and the Regents. We thought you might like a few facts about the Downtown Area Plan as envisioned by the City of Berkeley/UC regents Settlement Agreement: -more-
All across the nation people are collecting clothes for the needy. But in Berkeley they're throwing clean, freshly laundered clothing in dumpsters, locking the dumpsters, and threatening potential donors with misdemeanor tickets. -more-
A casual chat between a customer and the proprietor of a butcher shop about spousal murder ... an aggressive real estate investor torn between evicting a pregnant woman and her passive husband, (former neighbors), or reinstituting her old affair with the husband instead ... a suicide-prone go-fercum-hit-man in an amorous clinch with the monstrous realty lady while her butcher husband watches a strip-show in a seamy club. -more-
A documentary that takes aim at the business of genetically modified food will debut Friday at Shattuck Cinemas. -more-
In his 80s, George Stewart was a tall, slender gentleman with white hair and white moustache carefully trimmed, in a businessman’s style. I thought his observant blue eyes were his most interesting feature. He wore his years elegantly and spoke carefully, with a great concern for accuracy. In his speech, as in his writing, he was clearly not a man given to verbal extravagance. -more-
George Stewart changed my life. -more-
OK, it’s autumn. The warblers are migrating through town—Joe saw two yellow warblers and a Wilson’s, another yellow and an orange-crowned, two more yellows and a Townsend’s; we’ve seen Townsend’s and hermit warblers with gangs of Wilson’s warblers and the usual chickadees and bushtits in Tilden Park. The fog has a colder, Arctic-flavored edge to it in the evenings. The trees are starting to fall into step, the mulberries tossing leaves to the ground with an audible whack. -more-
Congressman Steve King is the yokel who has organized the successful Republican effort to prevent the Berkeley Post Office from being named after Berkeley’s revered Maudelle Shirek. We won’t waste much space here delineating exactly how annoyed the people of Berkeley are at his presumption, because they’ll certainly make their opinions known in our letter columns. Instead, let’s take a good look at who King is, and what we might do from here to make sure the people in his district are suitably embarrassed by him. First, he’s been quoted speaking admiringly of old Joe McCarthy (dean of the Congressional witchhunters in the ‘50s, for those young readers who were shortchanged in their U.S. history class.) His website does a candid job of describing his other politics: -more-
A few weeks ago we received an email from a member of the Downtown Berkeley Association’s design committee asking if the Planet’s opinion pages would be available for a forum on the future of downtown Berkeley. The idea, not yet adopted A few weeks ago we received an email from a member of the Downtown Berkeley Association’s design committee asking if the Planet’s opinion pages would be available for a forum on the future of downtown Berkeley. The idea, not yet adopted by the DBA or fully fleshed out, was that there would be a two-part process. First, the public would be asked to submit ideas in writing for publication: a kind of “civic visioning exercise” to tap the creativity of Berkeley citizens to think about what Berkeley Downtown might be. That would be followed by a well-conceived scientific phone poll to gauge citizens’ preference for what should be happening downtown. -more-
