Opinion

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Monday morning I sat down at the computer to do my duty by writing an editorial telling our (very few) clueless readers how to vote in the ridiculous special election. Before I wrote it, I checked my e-mail, and mirabile dictu, my friend Kim in Santa Cruz had already forwarded to me this excellent AlterNet piece on the very same topic. I took this as a sign from on high that I could skip my usual two hours of work, since I had nothing to add—except one thing. Here in Greater Berkeley a few of us have a tendency to think we’re so advanced we don’t need to vote anymore, and that our votes might not be counted right anyhow. This one’s different. We don’t just need to win, we need to rack up really big majorities to put Schwarzenegger in his place once and for all. Vote early and often, and tell your friends. -more-

The recent report on diversity on Berkeley’s commissions, which was sparked by Councilmember Kriss Worthington with colleagues Darryl Moore and Max Anderson as allies, will provide food for thought for a long time in the city. I’ve only seen the news accounts, but haven’t read the report myself, or even seen a tight statistical analysis of its data or methodology, so I’m not in a position to comment intelligently on its results per se. But the question of whether students in a college town should be represented on civic bodies in proportion to their numbers in the population is an interesting one which lends itself to a bit of blue-sky analysis. -more-