A public-private partnership proposal put together by the Peralta Community College District and a Chicago sports and entertainment developer may be Oakland’s only chance to keep the city’s longstanding Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center from imminent closure. 

An aide to Peralta Chancellor Elihu Harris said that the partnership came from a discussion between Peralta and the International Facilities Group (IFG) while both organizations were attending a bidding meeting for proposals to save the Convention Center. 

“We’re pretty excited about this,” said Harris Special Assistant Alton Jelks. “We believe it will be a tremendous showcase for the performing arts departments of the four Peralta colleges. And we’re very optimistic that something can be worked out with the city.” 

Under the proposal, IFG would be responsible for managing the two-venue center, bringing in whatever local, national, and international acts it could generate to make money, with Peralta using the center for performances generated by students from Laney, Merritt, Vista, and College of Alameda. The colleges also hope to operate a public speakers’ series in the auditorium portion of the Center. The City of Oakland would retain ownership of the Convention Center. 

IFG, which works on building sports and entertainment facilities nationwide, had roles in developing stadiums for the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox. In the Bay Area, the firm operates the Bob Hope Theater in Stockton and manages the new Stockton Event Center, slated to open in December 2005, according to the city administrator’s report. 

Jelks said that there is a possibility that the Bill Graham Presents production organization, now owned by national giant Clear Channel, Inc., might also be brought into the operation in some manner. 

Karen Boyd, an assistant to Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, said that the IFG/Peralta proposal was “our only real, viable proposal.” 

She said that Edgerly had initially recommended against the proposal because it involved a larger subsidy from the city than city officials were prepared to make. But she said that after City Councilmembers expressed interest in the proposal, IFG representatives and city officials entered negotiations to try to reduce the proposed city allocation. 

“They’re trying to see if they can get the city allocation down to $175,000 a year,” Boyd said, adding that members of City Council’s Finance and Management Committee had noted that this would only be slightly larger than the estimated $95,000 a year it would cost the city to mothball the facility.” 

Boyd said that the City Administrator’s office would make a report on the negotiations to the full City Council at Council’s December 6 meeting, at which the Council is expected to make a decision on the IFG/Peralta proposal. 

The Convention Center has operated for years as Oakland’s mid-level public events and entertainment facility, with an auditorium and adjoining Calvin Simmons Theater. The center is used for such activities as the city’s annual public school holiday extravaganza, circuses, school graduations, and performances by such city organizations as the Oakland Ballet. 

But facing yearly operating losses of a half a million dollars, the cash-strapped Oakland City Council decided this year to close down the facility as of Dec. 31. In addition, the council authorized the city administrator’s office to issue RFP’s for organizations who wanted to take over management of the facility. 

Both IFG and Peralta put in separate proposals. 

“But during the time we were meeting with city officials, IFG suggested that we might work together on a joint proposal,” Jelks said. “It makes sense for Peralta to make this attempt to use the Kaiser as a performing arts center. A lot of community college districts have their own centers. We would like to have one of our own, but there’s not much chance that we could ever come up with the $30 million to $40 million that would be needed to build one from the ground. But here we’ve got one right next door to one of our facilities.” 

Jelks said that the Peralta colleges would not be expected to provide money for the venture, but would contribute staff support, as well as provide acts and potential audience for many performance dates. 

The Kaiser Convention Center proposal was developed out of Chancellor Harris’ office. Trustees have not yet publicly discussed the proposal. In addition, the proposal does not appear to have gone through Peralta’s shared governance procedure, which requires that it be vetted through the district’s administrative, faculty, and student groups. 

This is not the first time that the Peralta Colleges have been mentioned as a possible partner in saving the Kaiser Convention Center. 

Last summer, Gerry Garzon, Administrative Librarian with the Oakland Public Library, told Peralta trustees his agency is looking at the Kaiser Convention Center as a possible site for a new main library, and was interested in partnering with Laney College to use a portion of the space for the Laney College Library. 

The proposal won praise from some of the trustees, but after representatives of the Laney College Library and the Laney College Faculty Senate threw cold water on the idea, saying that the mission of the college library was incompatible with the mission of the Oakland Public Library, the proposal was quietly dropped. 

A plan that would have turned Berkeley’s Corporation Yard into a housing project collapsed Wednesday when the would-be developer pulled the plug. 

City officials and Pulte Homes, one of the country’s leading housing developers, had been working quietly for almost a year on a project that would have relocated the Corporation Yard from the heart of a residential neighborhood to a vacant industrial site in West Berkeley. 

The announcement came in an email sent to city officials and neighbors late Wednesday morning. 

“The reason is fundamentally financial,” wrote Mike Kim of Pulte Homes, who works in the acquisitions and entitlements department of the firm’s regional office in Pleasanton.  

That sentence was followed by this somewhat more cryptic offering: “In reevaluating Pulte’s financial and entitlement assumptions based on what we know, the deal is stressed. It is not in Pulte’s character to push through a stressed deal because in doing so the merits of the projects is [sic] compromised and the stakehold ers (Pulte, City Hall, Neighbors) involved may be asked to make concessions that they would otherwise be unwilling to make.” 

The proposal by Pulte, a high-flying firm based in Bloomfield, Mich., would have relocated the yard to the site of the old McCaul ey Foundry, located at Seventh and Carleton streets in the industrial area of West Berkeley. 

In presentation to Corporation Yard neighbors last week, Kim offered a tentative proposal that would have placed 70 bungalow-style single-family residences at th e Corporation Yard site, though he stressed that the concept was only preliminary.  

Judith Sager, a neighbor of the yard, said she had hoped the project would finally end the long and often contentious relationship between the yard and the surrounding neighborhood. 

“I am not surprised that they pulled out, but I am disappointed,” she said. “I’ve been here more than fifteen years, and some of us much longer, and we’ve seen a lot of scenarios floated, torpedoed, put on hold and put out of mind,” she said. 

“It’s unfortunate that they pulled out,” said Mayor Tom Bates. “It was an opportunity to move the Corporation Yard from what is clearly an inappropriate site.” 

Kamlarz and Bates both criticized Pulte officials for raising the hopes of neighbors before they had fully committed to the project. 

“It’s unfortunate,” said Bates. 

“I’m sorry they got everyone fired up,” said Kamlarz. “These guys walk away and we’re left to deal with the community.” 

Major issues 

At approximately 180,000 square feet, compared to the existing yard’s 200,000, the foundry site is about 10 percent smaller, and one issue that had yet to be resolved was whether the smaller site could have met all the city’s needs. 

But the biggest issue was the cost of the foundry property, said Bates and City Manager Phil Kamlarz. 

“As I understand it, the owners were asking $60 a square foot,” said Kamlarz. 

“We have a public trust,” said Bates. “We have to sell at fair market value and we can only pay fair market value. They (the owners of the foundry) have a very steep price.” 

The mayor said the value of the corporate yard site as residential land is far greater than the value of industrially zoned property. 

Earlier in the week, Kamlarz told a reporter that other potential problems also con fronted the project. 

The Berkeley Corporation Yard is an official city landmark, designated as such on July 1, 2002. The yard’s central building, built in 1916, was designed by architect Walter Ratcliff, who created many of the city’s other landmark buil dings. 

Though not an official landmark, the McCauley Foundry has been carried on the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission’s list of “potential initiation” since April 3, 2000. No formal application has followed since. 

Another issue is the potenti al presence of hazardous wastes remaining in the soils at both sites, which might have to be remedied before development could take place. The standards would be stricter for a residential project than for an industrial site. 

Troubled neighbors 

For decades, the 4.8-acre Corporation Yard has been the source of complaints from neighbors, who aren’t fond of the noise and traffic the facility produces in the heart of a residential neighborhood. 

Not only does the facility house more than 170 city vehicles, ranging from trucks to street-sweepers and other heavy equipment, but it employs a large number of workers from the city’s Public Works, Parks and Recreation and Waterfront departments who work on a variety of projects. 

The property occupies most of the center of the block bounded by Allston Way on the north, Bancroft Way on the south and Acton Street on the east and Bonar Street on the west. 

To the east and south, the property borders streets lined with single family homes, while the southern edge of t he block is edged with a row of lawn bowling courts behind a single row of multifamily apartments which, in turn, face single family homes across Bonar. 

Half of the Allston Way frontage is single family homes, the rest being multi-family housing and Stra wberry Creek Park. 

It might be hard to find anyone in Berkeley who favors keeping an industrial facility in the heart of a neighborhood consisting mainly of single family homes. 

“The neighborhood has evolved to wish (the yard and its activities) weren’t there to impact them, and the corporation yard people are wanting to move, but they have no place to go and no money,” Sager said. 

Many city officials would like to see the yard moved, too, as evidenced during a Dec. 9, 2003 city council discussion abou t mandated seismic improvements to the facility, when several councilmembers said they’d like to move the yard to an industrial area—which the Pulte proposal would do.  

“For years Margaret Breland worked with neighbors around the corporation yard about noise, parking and other issues,” said City Councilmember Darryl Moore, speaking of his predecessor as the district’s council representative. 

Sager, for one is glad to have Moore on the council “because he lives just a couple of blocks away and he’s been very active on the issue, even before he ran for council.” 

The proposal 

Sager and fellow neighbor Anna Natille, who lives on West Street near the site (West dead-ends on the site to the north and south), were among the neighbors who met with Kim on Nov. 16, when he presented his pitch. 

Both emerged with favorable impressions. 

“He told us some ideas, but nothing is set in stone. He said he wanted to develop the project with the neighbors,” Natille said. “The main idea was to build 70 single-family bung alow-style dwellings.” 

“He seems to have an idea that fits,” said Sager. “Bungalow-style single-family residences that fit with the neighborhood. 

One thing neighbors say they don’t want is high density, something Moore also doesn’t want to see. 

Interviewed before the deal collapsed, Moore cautiously allowed that he liked what he’d seen, though he stressed the project was very preliminary—a term repeated by Kamlarz and neighbors in earlier interviews. 

The developer 

In its May 14 issue, Business Week magazine ranked Pulte Home number 12 on its list of the country’s top 15 corporate performers. 

The firm has taken a strong stake in the East Bay, with projects in Emeryville and Richmond.  

The Richmond City Council overturned Oct. 30 a planning commissi on vote that would have denied Pulte the right to build 280 homes on land zoned for commercial use in the Marina Bay neighborhood 

Photograph by Richard Brenneman  

Heavy equipment in the Berkeley Corporation Yard stood idle Wednesday afternoon on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday—the same day a national developer killed a plan to transform the yard into a residential housing project.

While the attention of the media, the Oakland City Council, and the Oakland Mayor’s office’s continues to center around the proposed $65 million Forest City retail-housing development project in Oakland’s uptown area, a rich development prize awaits in the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center area a few miles to the southeast. 

The reason? While projects like Forest City are dependent on subsidies from Oakland’s scarce redevelopment funds, there is a deep pool of public development money for the Kaiser Convention Center already in place and waiting to be tapped. 

Part of that public money would come through the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, whose Lake Merritt Station is only a few blocks away from the Kaiser Center. In 1999, BART entered into a partnership with the Unity Council of Oakland’s Fruitvale District to break ground on the $100 million Fruitvale Transit District, a mixed-used development adjacent to the Fruitvale BART station. Funding for the development came, in part, from federal transportation money funneled through BART. 

The selling point for the transit village plan for the federal government was that when shops and houses are concentrated around an area that is an existing transportation hub, such as a BART station, any new money allocated enhances the effect of the federal transportation money already given to the area. 

With the success of the Fruitvale Transit Village, BART is seriously pursuing such transit village development projects in other parts of its system, including the MacArthur, West Oakland, and Lake Merritt BART stations. 

But the bulk of the public development money available around the Kaiser Convention Center would come from Measure DD, the massive 2002 bond measure passed by Oakland voters in part to clean up Lake Merritt and its surrounding area. About $27 million of that Measure DD bond money is slated for restoration of the Lake Merritt Channel, a creek which connects Lake Merritt to the estuary, and which is adjacent to the Kaiser Convention Center. 

At the time of Oakland’s founding as a city in the nineteenth century, Lake Merritt was a tidal slough which drained several creeks through a large marshland into the estuary and, eventually, the bay. A drawing of the city in 1882, taken from Oakland, The Story Of A City by Beth Bagwell, shows that at that time, the mouth of the channel at the estuary was actually wider than the lake itself. 

In 1870, according to Bagwell’s book, Oakland Mayor Samuel Merritt persuaded the California legislature to designate the lake as a wildfowl refuge, which Bagwell calls “the first wildlife refuge declared by any legislative body in North America.” 

Shortly afterwards, the city fought off plans by the Central Pacific Railroad to fill in the lake to build a train station. The city acquired the lake in 1891, designating it as public park space, and in the early years of the 20th century built the 14th Street/12th Street interchange at the foot of Lake Merritt proper that partially covered the Lake Merritt Channel. 

The part of the creek which was still open was for the next hundred years in a a narrow strip of public parkland near the Convention Center, the Oakland Public Schools Administration Building, and the grounds presently occupied by Laney Community College, little known and little used by most of Oakland’s population. 

That all changed with the passage of Measure DD. Part of the $27 million Lake Merritt Channel restoration money will go towards removing the 14th Street/12th Street interchange cover, daylighting the channel from the foot of Lake Merritt to the estuary. The City of Oakland is also seeking another $9.5 million in California Coastal Conservancy money to supplement the daylighting project. 

When the project is completed, the Measure DD money is slated to restore the Lake Merritt Channel to its original configuration as the lower portion of a larger Lake Merritt, making it instantly one of Oakland’s most desirable and valuable waterfront properties. That property is surrounded by public parkland and public institutions. 

A project description on the City of Oakland Measure DD website says that under what the city calls the 12th Street Project “12th Street will be redesigned into a tree-lined boulevard with signalized intersections and crosswalks and a landscaped median. The redesign would create significant new parkland at the south end of Lake Merritt Park, remove unsafe and unsightly pedestrian tunnels, provide safer and continuous access for pedestrians and bicyclists along the perimeter of Lake Merritt, and improved access between the Kaiser Convention Center and Laney College.” 

Construction on the 12th Street Project of Measure DD is currently scheduled to begin in 2006, with completion in 2008. 

Acknowledgment of the potential value of the Lake Merritt Channel area began to surface this year when state appointed Oakland Unified School District Administrator Randolph Ward put out a proposal for OUSD to move out of its administration building,suddenly potentially profitable, and lease it to private developers. 

In the meantime, Oakland developer Alan Dones won approval from the outgoing Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees to put together a commercial development plan for the Peralta administrative lands and Laney College properties closest to the Lake Merritt Channel area. Dones later voluntarily withdrew his proposal from consideration after several months of contention and controversy. 

A large number of community organizations have been regularly meeting since 2004 under the heading of the Measure DD Community Coalition to share and receive information about projects under the bond measure. Included in those organizations are Urban Ecology of Oakland, the Jack London Aquatic Center, the Oakland Heritage Alliance, the Oakland Museum of California Foundation, and the Oakland Parks Coalition. The Measure DD Community Coalition is advisory in nature only, and actual decision-making on the Measure DD expenditures is being made by the Oakland City Council, with implementation by an Executive Team put together by the City of Oakland. 

After the new committee charged with charting a new plan for downtown Berkeley held its first meeting Monday night, many of the participants said that they wondered just how they could accomplish their tasks in the comparatively little time they have. 

The tables accommodating Berkeley’s new 21-member Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) and its supporting city staff circled nearly halfway around the commodious general purpose room of the North Berkeley Senior Center Monday night. 

Most of the 21 appointees were on hand, and all had something to say—as did many in the audience. In the words of committee Chair Will Travis at the end of the three-and-a-half hour session, “We’ve covered about everything but dogs off leash.” 

But the biggest player—UC Berkeley, itself the reason for the committee’s existence—was conspicuous for its silence. 

Jennifer Lawrence, the university planner who represents the school’s interests in the process, is not a committee member. She spent the meeting mostly in silence, sitting with Berkeley city staff. She commented briefly during the introductions, including the statement, “I’m excited by all of the energy in the room.” 

No university officials sits on the panel itself, though they have been invited to participate in the discussions on a non-voting basis, a fact that bothered panelist and former City Councilmember Mim Hawley. 

“One of the first things we should do is have a dialogue with the university about their plans,” she said. 

UC Berkeley is the reason for DAPAC’s existence. Creation of a new downtown plan—covering more land than the city’s existing plan for the city center—was mandated in the settlement agreement ending the city’s suit against the university after the school unveiled its Long Range Development Plan through 2020 which included more than a million square feet of development within the city proper, most of it downtown. 

Travis drew nearly unanimous applause when, near the end of the meeting, he declared: “I view our role as not finding out what UC Berkeley wants to do but telling them where they can do it. Our challenge is to find a way to work with the university and the city.” 

Matt Taecker, the principal planner hired by the city with university funding to shepherd the process, spent most of the meeting standing before large sheets of paper taped to the wall, marking down points raised by panelists for consideration in the planning process. 

By the end of the meeting, his sheets had ticked off a laundry list of concerns, with check marks added to denote how many times the points had been raised. 

The most frequent cited issues had already been raised before the panelists spoke, during the extended public comment period at the start of the meeting. These included: 

• Preservation of historic buildings to preserve the unique character of the downtown. 

• Maintaining the base allowable heights of buildings in the current downtown plan. 

• Daylighting Strawberry Creek, at least along Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue and possibly all the way to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. 

• Transportation management to reduce car traffic and encourage downtown workers to use public transit. 

• Measures to encourage the development of affordable housing. 

• Incentives to bring more services for residents of downtown Berkeley, especially a grocery store. 

• More green spaces and other amenities to encourage pedestrian traffic. 

• Adoption of measures to enhance the existing Arts District. 

• Adoption of new parking measures, though opinions were split on whether to encourage more or less parking. 

• Provisions to encourage more economic vitality. 

Panelists also addressed the bonuses included in city codes that allow developers to exceed the height limits specific in the existing Downtown Plan and zoning codes. 

Rob Wrenn, who serves on both the Planning and Transportation commissions, called for the elimination of the cultural arts bonus, which allows developers to exceed building height limits if they create space in their buildings dedicated to housing cultural events. 

In its place, Wrenn called for a “green” building bonus, which would grant extra space if developers designed environmentally sensitive structures that reduced energy consumption. 

The green bonus won wide endorsement, in part because of the existence of national recognized standards—the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System—eliminated the ambiguities that have troubled the application of the cultural bonus in Berkeley. 

“The arts bonus is badly broken,” said panelist and Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman. “The ways in which it has functioned are bad and worse.” 

Though without naming the project—the so-called Seagate building planned for Center Street—Poschman observed that “one downtown development took a 12,000-square-foot arts space and turned into an additional 52,000 square feet of residential. It’s obvious that it has to be looked at again.” 

Another panelist suggested implementing a program that would instead create living spaces downtown for lower income artists. 

One significant action that resulted from Monday’s meeting was an agreement on when the group would hold its monthly meetings—the third Wednesdays of each month, the only date that didn’t pose conflicts with the other city commissions, on which many members serve. 

Another issue resolved concerned the presence on DAPAC of five members of the nine-member Planning Commission, which triggers the requirement under the state’s Brown Act that the meeting be legally noticed as a meeting of the Planning Commission. The ruling was that the remaining four Planning Commissioners may also attend and participate in discussions, but they will not be allowed to vote. 

Another issue apparently resolved was the pronunciation of the new group’s acronym, “daw-pack,” a coinage used by Taecker. q

Robert Norton Nichols, 52, passed away at his home in Berkeley after a brief illness. He was born May 14, 1953 in New Bedford, Mass., to Oliver (Nick) Winslow Nichols and Elizabeth Norton Nichols, now deceased. He attended Pennsylvania State College before moving west and becoming a union stagehand with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 107, working theatrical events Bay Area wide. 

He was active in his union, helping others move into and through the union ranks, and equally active on other unions’ picket lines. He worked tirelessly for housing rights, even taking dying homeless people into his home, so they would at least have a place to die. 

He acted as payee for people who couldn’t manage their checks, and handed out hundreds of dollars worth of wool blankets personally to people in need on the streets at Christmas. Nichols helped battered women obtain restraining orders, and was a birthing coach and surrogate parent to a friend who was a single mother. 

When local papers failed to cover what Nichols considered to be the corruption of local politicians, he started the Hard Times, a forerunner of the current Pepper Spray Times, anonymously writing, publishing, and distributing the paper with friends. 

Bob Nichols was an exceptional writer and musician, who played drums, bass, guitar, and sang in local rock and folk bands. He wrote poetry, songs, radio skits for Free Radio Berkeley, political satire, and unfailingly original letters and opinion pieces in the local press. 

Nichols was a civil libertarian and People’s Park advocate, one of the original 36 arrestees who stopped the bulldozers when the university tried to designate the park as a volleyball court. He arranged a silent vigil with a group, holding candles on the sidewalk near People’s Park to contest the legality of the inevitable arrests, which the courts, inexplicably, upheld. 

Nichols leaves a legacy of unparalleled compassion, incisive writing, and good humor. He is survived by three brothers: his twin brother Harry Nichols of Lancaster, Pa., and wife Jeane Nichols; Duncan Nichols of Lancaster, Pa.; and Thomas Nichols and wife Kim Nichols of Lancaster. 

A public memorial service will be held Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 6 p.m. at the Union Hall at 8130 Baldwin St., Suite 124, Oakland (main hall in the back). 

Letters of condolence may be sent to his family care of Carol Denney, 1970 San Pablo Avenue #4, Berkeley, CA 94702, and donations in Bob’s remembrance may be made to Project Open Hand, 730 Polk St., San Francisco, CA 94109, (415) 447-2419. 

Unlike the United States, where affirmative action has been debated for decades, the argument over it has only just begun in France.  

It is currently illegal for institutions to collect data regarding a person’s ethnic origins. The law dates back to the end of World War II and was inspired by the persecution of the Jews, explains Dejane Ereau, deputy chief editor of Respect, a quarterly magazine dedicated to acceptance and diversity.  

But in France, with its roots and pride in Gallic culture, a name betrays a person’s origins far quicker than any survey.  

“It is against the law to ask one’s nationality or to count ethnicities in the census,” Ereau says. “So they have now begun to discuss using anonymous resumes with no name or age, to avoid discriminating against any applicant who doesn’t have a French name.”  

The French government itself employs only one minister with a North African name, though it is estimated that North Africans make up nearly 10 percent of the population (no official statistics exist).  

While the government has been behind on this issue wracking nearly every sector, French business has taken a leap ahead. A syndicate of advocacy groups developed a charter in 2004, “La Charte de la Diversité.”  

There are currently 175 signatories to the charter, including some French business and industry giants, as well as SNCF, the powerful national French rail association.  

The charter is not legally binding but is simply a call for awareness to avoid discriminatory hiring and promotion practices at the expense of ethnic minorities. It doesn’t call for quotas, either.  

“Ethnic origins will never be the criteria for employment. Our action seeks to fight discrimination, not to add new forms of discrimination,” the charter states.  

Despite these tentative steps, the sting of discrimination is felt in no uncertain terms in the ethnically diverse low-income suburbs of nearly all of France’s cities.  

On a recent night in the southern city of Toulouse, one of the cities most damaged by the recent rioting, nearly a dozen police officers descend on a small group of young men whose skin color and street corner betray them as children of North African parentage. They’ve been asked by visiting reporters to come down from their apartments in a monolith that resembles so many of the tenements that house minorities. A community leader steps in to explain to the police that the youths are only talking with the journalists.  

“You see, we have no right to gather on the street even to talk,” explains Riad Zeghab, an organizer in the low-income neighborhood where he resolves disputes between neighbors. There are more than five buildings each, housing more than 200 families.  

He has spent his whole life in this community and says the recent bout of violence was not the first. He’s certain it will not be the last in the minorities’ fight for equal treatment in France.  

Zeghab recalls an incident when police killed a young man and, trying to keep the peace, he stood between 50 police on one side and 50 angry youths on the other.  

Munir, a 20-year-old of Algerian descent who would only give his first name, tells the reporters that it’s not just the joblessness that affects him and his friends, but “it’s the way that people look at you in the train. Look how I’m dressed,” he says, pointing at his wool jacket with buttons up the front. “Do I look like someone who is going to attack you?”  

Munir attests to what has been shown by a well-publicized investigative research project: That youths like him have used false names to respond to hundreds of job announcements. “If my name is Jacques or Pierre, I can get a job, but if my name is Mohammed or Karim, it’s a lost cause,” he says.  

Though the recent violence and vandalism in the low-income suburbs of nearly every major French city have triggered a national dialogue and lighted a spark of hope among minority citizens, a certain cynicism persists.  

Even as President Jacques Chirac called for all of France to remember that the youths involved in the violence are “sons and daughters of the Republic,” he also made it clear that punishment will be meted out to those who have broken the laws of the nation.  

While French business and industry have taken a step forward with the Diversity Charter, the French government took another step backward in Feb. 2005 by passing a law in the National Assembly that called for French public education to teach the “positive role” of France’s history in the colonies.  

The new law further incensed minority communities that already feel disenfranchised and underrepresented. While the Diversity Charter is a step in the right direction, many feel that without popular education and social re-examination nothing will change the exclusive attitudes of the French mainstream.  

“Even if we institute affirmative action, there will still be problems in schools,” says Hortense Nouvion, founder and publisher of Cité Black, a biweekly magazine covering news and culture from a black French perspective.  

Nouvion, who is French-born and is raising her two sons in Paris, says that in France, “black equals foreigner. People ask me, ‘Where are you from? How did you learn to speak French?’”  

“The solution is to teach kids who they are, why they’re here, that they didn’t drop from a parachute,” she says. “They have to be included in the history.”  

Brahmani Houston works for New California Media, an association of over 700 print, broadcast and online ethnic media organizations and a PNS project.

PLAYING FIELDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last I looked, the fields at Hearst weren’t even regulation fast pitch. Gilman Street is even further away than San Pablo Park. Having played softball at San Pablo Park for 20 years, I’ve witnessed the overuse of the fields and underutilization of the fields by the community. Please build the field at Derby and get it right this time. It will be worth it. 

Alan Roselius 

Hayward 

DERBY STREET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have to agree with Rio Bauce when he questions the hysteria surrounding closing one block of Derby for a much larger park with many more features. It does seem like a no-brainer to me too. Who would not want the best park possible? 

Another member of the vocal minority opposing the park points out that Ohlone Park is “underutilized.” Perhaps we could replace it with a street. Any park in our community is always a benefit, even one that is not packed with people or events. Derby Street between Milvia and MLK is an example of “underutilized.” There is nothing on that street that could not be better accessed from a park setting. Driving a half block out of your way is not a big deal. We neighbors of the park do it every Tuesday during the Farmers’ Market and have been for years. 

The Farmers’ Market management is against closing the street, mainly because of money to pay for the upgrades. Understandably, they don’t want to pay for a move they didn’t ask for, regardless of how much better it will be for the farmers trying to sell product. The School District has always made it clear that the Farmers’ Market is an important part of the new park. They should be in the new improved area at no additional costs. What difference does it make whether the city or the school district owns the land the Farmers’ Market is on? 

I encourage everyone to take a look at Derby Street from Milvia or MLK. Try to imagine a park there instead of thousands of square feet of concrete. Please contact the mayor and the Berkeley City Council and urge them to close Derby Street between Milvia and MLK, Jr. Way. Let’s build the best park possible. 

Bart Schult 

• 

DOWNTOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Over the past few months we have seen two historical and important street corners in downtown Berkeley revitalize with new tenants. The Kress Building on the corner of Shattuck and Addison now is occupied with Half Price Books, and the Corder Building on the corner of Shattuck and Bancroft now is occupied with Longs Pharmacy. Both of these historical sites have been vacant for over a decade. Now they are busy with new tenants and customers bringing new life to important areas of our downtown that have been vacant for much too long. As a ground floor retailer and a resident of the downtown I am very happy to add these new stores to my shopping possibilities. Half Price Books has a large selection of books, CDs, DVDs, and many more related items for sale. I have found the staff and supervisors to be friendly and very helpful. A lot of people thought that Half Price couldn’t survive in the downtown because of our ongoing parking issues. However, the loyal customers of Half Price and their new base of customers continue to patronize the store. I have witnessed customers bringing in box after box of books they want to sell to the store. Longs Pharmacy has finally opened after many months of anticipation. They have not only done a very nice job of improving the interior of their space, the exterior of the building looks wonderful and received a much-needed paint job. Though they are not the grocery store that our downtown needs, they do provide a small selection of dry goods and dairy products. I have also been impressed with the friendliness of their staff and supervisors. 

Raudel Wilson 

President 

Downtown Berkeley  

Association 

• 

PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I live in Permit Parking area B which, along with areas A & D, include Saturdays as restricted parking days. This, I assume, is to include the CAL football games, of which there are only six or seven a year (depending if the Big Game is home). On Saturday, Nov. 12, as everyone in Berkeley was fully aware, whether they be a football fan or not, was the Cal vs. USC game. Now USC, being the No. 1 rank college football team in the nation, one would expect to fine a huge crowd in town, which we did. Apparently everyone was expecting this except the Berkeley Police Dept. as they had only 8 “meter maids” working (their usual Saturday work crew) as opposed to the 15 workers they have during the weekdays.  

At noon I wandered from my house over to the ASUC and found no parking enforcers at all in area B. When I returned home, I called the Berkeley Police Department and was told my concern would be reported. Nothing happened. So at 4 p.m. I walked my square block (Stuart Street) and counted 28 cars parked with no permits and no tickets, seven with temporary permits, others with permanent permits and no empty parking spaces.  

I have called again to both the BPD and to Councilmember Wozniak and voiced my concern. Why have the farce of the signage stating this is a two-hour area when it is not? Why do the residents need to purchase temporary permits for Saturdays when no one comes by to check? Why have Saturdays on the permits at all? Both took down my concern.  

To my memory, no “meter maid” has come by during any of the six CAL home games this year. But they surely do come by during the weekdays, when Stuart Street is empty of cars, except for the occasional contractor’s car that does get ticketed because I forgot to give them one of my temporary permits! 

The irony of this whole situation is obvious.  

Barbara Scheifler  

• 

PARKING METERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A Transportation Commissioner has suggested raising Berkeley’s parking-meter rates so they are in line with the rates in other cities of the Bay Area.  

The city should look at the studies by UCLA Planning Professor Donald Shoup, which show that parking works best when parking-meter rates are higher than the rates for nearby off-street parking. Shoup says that rates should be high enough that about 15 percent of metered parking spaces are vacant at any time, making it easy to find metered parking.  

If a city sets parking meter rates too low, then commuters will park and feed the meter all day, so there is no metered parking for short-term shoppers. In addition, longer-term shoppers will drive around and around the block looking for a meter rather than using the more expensive off-street parking, increasing congestion.  

If you set meter rates higher than off-street parking rates, these problems disappear, and there is convenient metered parking for short-term shoppers who just want to stop and pick something up quickly.  

Shoup found that merchants resisted plans to raise parking-meter rates, fearing that the higher cost would keep away shoppers, but that he could address merchants’ concerns by investing a significant part of the meter revenues in improving the streetscape of the shopping neighborhoods where the revenue was raised, to make these neighborhoods more attractive and draw more shoppers, rather than putting this revenue in the city’s general fund.  

This strategy has been tried in Old Pasadena and in San Diego, and it has been very successful. The extra meter revenues have been used to make these shopping neighborhoods so attractive that they have drawn much more business, despite the higher cost of parking meters.  

We should try the same thing in downtown Berkeley, in South Campus, and in other Berkeley shopping neighborhoods.  

Charles Siegel 

• 

RAP SHEETS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I loved Susan Parker’s column about hiring the guy with the rap sheet. Mainly, I loved it because I work regularly with guys (and women, too) with rap sheets who aren’t so lucky. You wouldn’t believe how many jobs these days involve a background check—not just good jobs, but minimum wage nurses’ aide jobs, driving jobs, anything that involves kids or old people or requires a license—and the background check can turn up even ancient criminal cases. People with records, even those who have put their bad times behind them, usually find themselves unemployable. Few employers (and no bureaucracies) recognize the beauty you and your helper saw in turning around a life gone wrong. 

For some of these people, help is available. It is often possible to get these old cases dismissed, once probation is completed. The rap sheet doesn’t disappear—the conviction still shows up on it—but it shows up with an order from the judge at the end of the case history, saying “dismissed.” This stamp of judicial approval can make a huge difference in getting a job or a license. It’s sort of an official gold star, saying “You did turn it around!” And getting that gold star can be as simple as filing a petition in court. To talk to a lawyer about a petition, come to the East Bay Community Law Center’s Criminal Records Clinic. It’s at the Wiley Manuel Courthouse Self Help Center, on Sixth and Washington in Oakland, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. 

Kathleen Kahn  

• 

DOING THE JOB 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I highly recommend that everyone follow the advice of Joanna Graham’s letter in the Nov. 11 Planet, in which she encourages readers to check out an exhibit entitled “Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine” on display through Dec. 7 at the Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park. Because as many people as possible should see these paintings which glorify mass murder (er, excuse me, suicide bombing), which repeat the anti-Semitic themes of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and which call for the destruction of Israel. (If you can’t make it to the show, Google the phrase “Gallery Exhibit at the Berkeley Art Center” for excellent photos of the art.) I applaud the Berkeley Art Center, MECA and Joanna Graham for drawing our attention to the vitriolic hate and veiled calls for violence amongst Palestinian supporters on the Left. Bravo! The more people that see the truth about the anti-Israel movement, the quicker it can be discredited. Thank you for your work in this matter, Joanna. 

Paul Norland 

• 

BERKELEY HONDA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My wife, Jane, and I had an unpleasant experience at Berkeley Honda tonight that we thought might serve as a warning to anyone thinking about doing business with Berkeley Honda. 

We have been quietly walking the picket line at Berkeley Honda for the past several months in solidarity with the long-time union workers who were not re-hired when the new owners took over. Jane has occasionally exchanged small talk with some of the current employees during our picket, but has never been confrontational—in fact, she had hoped that by remaining pleasant and human, this unfortunate situation would somehow be resolved more quickly and fairly. 

Tonight, however, one of the Honda sales people, either through frustration at the lack of business or just plain ugliness, decided it was time to get tough. As Jane and I walked past the window with our signs, one of the salesmen, rapped on the window to get Jane’s attention. When she turned in response, he leered at her and then began gesticulating with his tongue in a manner that most people would consider both offensive and juvenile. That event led to a confrontation on the sidewalk in which the salesman told Jane to get her ass back to her communist homeland (England), and that I was both an asshole and an old man—said while he was standing much too close to me. His not-so-veiled threats (“you won’t see me if I come to your workplace” and “why don’t you and I meet someplace away from the dealership?”) now seem, in retrospect, much more menacing than I first thought. 

The situation at the dealership appears to be deteriorating. Other picketers have reported similar taunts. Berkeley Honda should settle with the strikers before their employees frustrations boil over and someone gets hurt. In the meantime, I would urge Berkeleyans to stay away from Berkeley Honda, their new and used car sales departments (where the salesman works), their service department, and their parts department. There are good union dealerships in Oakland and El Cerrito where you can buy or service a car, as well as many reputable Honda mechanics throughout the city. 

Tom Kelly 

• 

A FEW THOUGHTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

“General Webster is right,” Mr. Bush’s text said. “And so long as I am commander in chief, our strategy in Iraq will be driven by the sober judgment of our military commanders on the ground.” 

Now let me paraphrase that in an imaginary quote from the head of our local cult of the personality: “The City Attorney is right,” Mayor Bates said. “And so long as I am the commanding personality in this city, our strategy in the LRDP lawsuit (or substitute any other legal matter) will be driven by the sober judgment of our professionally trained attorneys on the case.” 

Hey Democrats and other hypocrites, “They that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.” (Job 4:8, KJV.) 

On another note, Councilmember Max Anderson was quoted as saying that the decision of the Landmarks Commission on 1901 Otis St. did not “pass the smell test” and that the commission should apply proper “standards.” No, I am afraid it is the City Council that does not pass the smell test. The Landmarks Commission was obviously making a statement on the lack of genuine standards applied by the Zoning Adjustments Board and by the City Council. We all know that these bodies have become bureaucratic institutions incapable of responding genuinely to any matter that is put before them. God bless the Landmarks Commission for trying to make a statement, and I hope all the citizens of Berkeley are not fooled for one minute by the spin doctors on the City Council or in the office of the city manager. 

On yet another note, the acting Health Office for the City of Berkeley was apparently relieved of her position for making a statement supporting my appeal before the City Council concerning the proposed “renovation” at 2235 Derby St. The city manager tried to put a spin on it, as though she was supporting him rather than my appeal, but apparently even he didn’t believe that, because apparently he had her fired. Now, do you begin to understand what kind of government we now have in this fair city? Don’t be fooled by the past—look at the present—look at what is right before your eyes. 

Peter J. Mutnick 

• 

PREJUDICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor in his “opinion” column of Nov. 18-21, said “the legislative redistricting process is like taking our car to the mechanic. We know we’re getting screwed. We’re just not sure exactly how.” As the leading alarmist in print locally, who looks (and seems to find) racism behind every conflict in the east bay, I expected better. 

In three short sentences Mr. Allen-Taylor revealed his propensity to lump all practitioners of a difficult and demanding trade into one allegedly rotten barrel. Talk about preconceived notions (rank prejudice)! 

This is the sort of blanket, uninformed prejudicial condemnation that Mr. Allen-Taylor rails against week in and week out in his opinion columns. Look in the mirror Mr. Allen-Taylor, and see if the shame you deserve can be seen on your face. 

How does this statement sound to you sir: “One is about as likely to find truth and integrity in the local print media opinion pages as when looking for competency and honesty in a politician”? 

Statistics from public and private agencies show that the incidence of fraud in the auto repair field is lower than in home remodeling, auto body repair, used car sales, Internet sales, lending, moving, real estate, and many other forms of commerce. 

Evan Meyer 

Former auto mechanic 

• 

REDISTRICTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To J. Douglas Allen-Taylor: You would actually be funny, if only you weren’t so stupid. You actually think it was “conservatives and Republicans” who made the most noise wanting redistricting. Let’s set aside the fact that you are totally unaware that conservatives are Republicans. Let’s just go to the terrified faces of David Drier et all who made such a noise against redistricting, they completely obfuscated the governor’s trip to D.C. earlier this year. This was a trip where he was supposed to get a refund from the feds, not advance his consultants’ agenda (if you think Arnold personally give’s a shit about redistricting, you’re too stupid to live). And why the hell wouldn’t Perata and Nunez address re-districting now? Enough people—not to mention media geniuses like you—are pissed off about our districts that the Democrats—yes, even Perata and Nunez—realize judgment day is just around the corner on this issue. Just because it didn’t pass a couple weeks ago, doesn’t mean people don’t want it. They just didn’t want judges—or Arnold’s consultants—doing it.  

It would nice if, for a change, you got off your “Let’s beat the shit out of anyone who advances farther in life” wailing wall and instead just reported the truth. You have such a hard-on for Perata you kick him on all the wrong things, watering down the items that he should rightfully answer for. Get your head out of the pro tem’s ass for a minute and write about what’s really wrong with our state. Although I doubt any of it will have to do with hot button realities like too many illegal immigrants bankrupting our schools and hospitals. That’s more important to me than freaking redistricting. Or how about taking on the teachers—yes, they do have too much power. Or the pensions of public employees. Do we really think it’s appropriate someone should get their salary for the rest of their life, even 20 years after they leave their job? Just because they were a cop or firefighter? God forbid we should accept the fact that most firefighters will never actually come close to a life and death situation, and frankly if they do, it’s the choice they made. I don’t feel like paying them and their widows 100 percent of their pay til death do we all part. 

But I guess it’s sexier to go after Perata, and now Nunez. Who gives a shit about those two?! Except you! 

Page McKane 

• 

NEIGHBORHOOD 

TROUBLES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We live behind the house in Berkeley were there was an incident which drew the police to surround the block and cut off traffic. The incident was some kind of domestic dispute. Both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Berkeley Daily Planet ran similar short stories. As we heard disturbance and corroborated the story with other immediate neighbors, an AK-47 was used and a great number of shots (20-60 by various first hand reports) were fired. The news reports merely said: “A man came out with a gun and began firing at the officers” If it is true that an automatic weapon was used in a domestic dispute, some critical questions are raised. How was the weapon obtained? What kind of controls are there on selling or possessing this kind of weapon? What is being done to enforce pertinent regulations?  

Some follow up work in your paper is called for. The citizens have a right to know if this kind of illegal weapon was used. Perhaps that awareness could lead to Berkeley, Alameda County, and the State of California following San Francisco's lead in prohibiting private gun ownership until the rest of the nation is ready to do so. 

Names withheld?

It would be easy to make fun of President Bush’s recent fiasco at the fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina. His grand plan for a free trade zone reaching from the Arctic Circle to Terra del Fuego was soundly rejected by nations fed up with the economic and social chaos wrought by neo-liberalism. At a press conference, South American journalists were rude about Karl Rove. And the president ended the whole debacle by uttering what may be the most trenchant observation the man has ever made on Latin America: “Wow! Brazil is big!” 

But there is nothing amusing about an enormous U.S. base less than 120 miles from the Bolivian border, or the explosive growth of U.S. financed mercenary armies that are doing everything from training the military in Paraguay and Ecuador to calling in air attacks against guerillas in Colombia. Indeed, it is feeling a little like the run up to the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Washington-sponsored military dictatorships and dark armies ruled the continent. 

U.S. Special Forces began arriving this past summer at Paraguay’s Mariscasl Estigarriba air base, a sprawling complex built in 1982 during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessnerr. The airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes, and house up to 16,000 troops. Some 500 U.S. special forces are conducting a three-month counterterrorism training exercise, code named Operation Commando Force 6.  

Paraguayan denials that Mariscal Estigarriba is now a U.S. base have met with considerable skepticism by Brazil and Argentina. There is a disturbing similarity between U.S. denials about Mariscal Estigarriba and similar disclaimers made by the Pentagon about Eloy Alfaro airbase in Manta, Ecuador. The U.S. claimed Manta base was a “dirt strip” used for weather surveillance. When local journalists revealed its size, however, the U.S. admitted the base harbored thousands of mercenaries and hundreds of U.S. troops, and Washington had signed a 10-year basing agreement with Ecuador. 

The Eloy Alfaro base is used to rotate U.S. troops in and out of Columbia, and to house an immense network of private corporations who do most of the military’s dirty work in Columbia. According to the Miami Herald, U.S. mercenaries have fought guerrillas in southern Columbia, and American civilians working for Air Scan International of Florida called in air strikes that killed 19 civilians and wounded 25 others in the town of Santo Domingo. 

It was U.S. intelligence agents working out of Manta who fingered Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia leader Ricardo Palmera last year, and several leaders of the U.S. supported coup against Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide spent several months there before launching the 2004 coup that exiled Aristide to South Africa. 

“Privatizing” war is not only the logical extension of the Bush administration’s mania for contracting everything out to the private sector; it also shields the White House’s activities from the U.S. Congress. 

The role that Manta is playing in the northern part of the continent is what so worries countries in the southern cone about Mariscasl Estigarriba. “Once the United States arrives,” Argentinean Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aldolfo Perez commented about the Paraguay base, “it takes a long time to leave.” 

The Bush Administration has made the “Triple Frontier Region” where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet into the South American equivalent of Iraq’s Sunni Triangle.  

According to William Pope, U.S. State Department Counterterrorist Coordinator, the United States has evidence that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed spent several months in the area in 1995. The U.S. military also says it seized documents in Afghanistan with pictures of Paraguay and letters from Arabs living in Cuidad del Este, a city of some 150,000 people in the tri-border region. 

The Defense Department has not revealed what the letters contained, but claims that the area is a hotbed of Middle East terrorism have been widely debunked. The U.S. State Department’s analysis of the region—“Patterns of Terrorism”—found no evidence for the charge 

It is the base’s proximity to Bolivia that causes the most concern, particularly given the Bush Administration’s charges that Cuba and Venezuela are stirring up trouble in that Andean nation. 

Bolivia has seen a series of political upheavals, starting with a revolt against the privatization of water supplies. The water revolt, which spread to IMF-enforced taxes, and the privatization of gas and oil reserves, forced three presidents to resign.  

The country is increasingly polarized between its majority Indian population and an elite minority, which has dominated the nation for hundreds of years. Six out of 10 people live below the poverty line, a statistic that rises to nine in 10 in rural areas. 

For the Bush administration, however, Bolivia is all about subversion, not poverty and powerlessness. 

When U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Paraguay this past August, he told reporters that, “There certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways.”  

A major focus of the unrest in Bolivia is who controls its vast natural gas deposits, the second largest in the Western Hemisphere. Under pressure from the U.S. and the IMF, Bolivia sold off its oil and gas to Enron and Shell in 1995 for $263.5 million, less than 1 percent of what the deposits are worth. 

The Movement Toward Socialism’s presidential candidate Evo Morales, a Quechuan Indian who is running first in the polls, wants to re-nationalize the deposits. Polls indicate that 75 percent of Bolivians agree with him. 

But the political crisis has the United States muttering dark threats about “failed states.” 

U.S. General Bantz J. Craddock, commander of Southern Command, told the House Armed Services Committee: “In Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, distrust and loss of faith in failed institutions fuel the emergence of anti-U.S., anti-globalization, and anti-free trade demagogues.” 

This is scary talk for Latin American countries. 

Would the United States invade Bolivia? Given the present state of the U.S. military, unlikely.  

Would the U.S. try to destabilize Bolivia’s economy while training people how to use military force to insure Enron, Shell, British Gas, Total, Repsol, and the United States continues to get Bolivian gas for pennies on the dollar? Quite likely.  

And would the White House like to use such a coup as a way to send a message to other countries? You bet. President Bush may be clueless on geography, but he is not bad at overthrowing governments and killing people. 

But if the U.S. tries something in Bolivia (or Venezuela), it will find that the old days when proxy armies and economic destabilization could bring down governments are gone, replaced by countries and people who no longer curtsy to the colossus from the north. 

• • •  

Grinch Award of the week goes to the U.S. State Department for denying a visa to Cuban vaccine expert, Vicente Verez-Bencomo. Verez-Bencomo was to receive an award from the San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation for inventing a low-cost vaccine for meningitis and pneumonia that, according to Science Magazine, “may someday save millions of lives.” 

• • •  

Orville Faubus Award for Cultural and Racial Sensitivity goes to Gerard Larcher, France’s Employment Minister. Larcher told the press that the riots were due to “overly large polygamous families” which led to “anti-social behavior among youths who lacked a father figure.”

Shortly after I returned from the war in Vietnam, I was invited to speak to a small church-sponsored audience about my experiences, as well as my opposition to the war. I had been a conscientious objector and had served as an Army medic in Vietnam. After my talk, a man who identified himself as a World War II veteran, approached me. He said that he had come to raise objections to my position, but had decided not to. Although he still did not agree with me, he said that he respected the consistency of my position. In response to his question, “What will happen if we leave South Vietnam?” I had answered that I fully expected the North Vietnamese to conquer the country. I added that I was opposed to the communist regime, and believed that the Vietnamese people would be better off with a democratically elected government. However, I did not believe that we could win the war we were fighting. Moreover, we were not creating a free and democratic society in South Vietnam, which would have been the only justification for the harm we were causing to millions of Vietnamese, as well as to tens of thousands of American soldiers. In my view, withdrawing American troops from Vietnam was a painful decision, but a simple one. 

The current war in Iraq is often compared to the war in Vietnam. However it is not Vietnam—it is Yugoslavia. Saddam Hussein used force and terror to unify the many ethnic and religious factions that comprise Iraq, much as Tito did in Yugoslavia. Removing Saddam Hussein had much the same effect as the death of Tito. It created a political situation that caused the many religious, ethnic and geographic groups that make up Iraq to begin to compete for control. 

As in the former Yugoslavia, the motivations are varied. The Shiite majority see the current situation as an opportunity to regain the power they lost under the previous regime. The Sunnis are struggling politically and militarily to protect themselves from anticipated oppression by the Shiite majority. The Kurds are struggling to overcome decades of oppression by the Arab majority. Many individuals, groups and communities see the absence of a strong central government as an opportunity to get even for past abuses. Finally, the chaotic political and security situation has attracted Muslim extremists from all over the world who are motivated by a desire to impose their particular brands of religion and politics on the people of Iraq. This is a complex problem. 

The difficulty with a complex problem is that it is not amenable to a straightforward stay-or-leave solution. The history of the former Yugoslavia is an example of the terrible consequences of inter-community conflict arising from ancient and contemporary religious, ethnic and geographical rivalries. Sen. John Kerry’s “nuanced position” on the war in Iraq during last year’s presidential election, as well as the current unwillingness of most Democratic representatives and senators to support an immediate withdrawal, is a reflection of that complexity. By invading Iraq, we have created a problem with no simple solutions. If we stay in Iraq, the violence and instability are likely to continue at present levels well into the future. If we leave, the violence and instability will not end, and they are likely to increase. 

The Republican majority is equally burdened by the complexity of the problem. In planning for the war, the administration chose not to answer critical questions outlined in the Powell Doctrine that explicitly address the issue of complexity: 1) Do we have a clear attainable objective? 2) Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? 3) Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? 4) Have the consequences of our action been fully considered? As a result, Republicans are faced with the political necessity of justifying our “endless entanglement,” even though a successful outcome would have been much easier to justify and much more beneficial to the interests of Republican representatives and senators. 

The war in Iraq has resulted in, among other things, political polarization in American politics. We find ourselves taking up simplistic political positions and engaging in aggressive criticism of those with whom we disagree. Those who question continuing the present course, as well as those who insist on continuing it, are viewed as insincere political opportunists by their political opponents. 

We are faced with the challenge of solving a complex problem that requires subtlety, critical thinking and dialogue. Neither a precipitous, unilateral withdrawal from the war, nor staying on our present course is likely to bring about a peaceful, free and happy Iraq within the next few years. It is possible that no course of action taken by the United States will lead to that outcome. However, we are there, and as a society, we are responsible for our actions. It is time to begin talking about this complex problem in a way that will increase our chances of getting it right, and will minimize the harm we cause for the people of Iraq and our own service men and women. 

El Cerrito resident Ken Stanton works in Berkeley as a registered nurse. 

Arnold screwed up. That’s the bottom line. He bungled the chance he was given this year to move California in the right direction. The most important issue on the special election ballot was the redistricting initiative.  

California is stuck with a dysfunctional state government. The Legislature is a complete failure and is incapable of dealing with the massive problems that face California. This is so because of the cynical redistricting that took place after the 2000 census. Both parties are guilty of the sin of assassinating competitive democracy in California. Both parties wanted this deal—for the Democrats it was a chance to cement their numerical advantage in both the state Legislature and among the California congressional delegation. For the GOP, it was a chance to keep the seats they had and provide some kind of stability in the midst of a very blue state. The problems that this has caused are obvious. Election contests for the state Assembly and the state Senate are simply not competitive. Not a single seat in either body turned over at the last general election. What this means is that in a democratic district, for instance, the Democrats can’t lose. Therefore, who dominates the process of choosing and electing state Assembly members? The extreme groups of the democratic base, that’s who, the special interest groups, the identity politics groups, the public employee unions, etc. These groups are mainly interested in more funding for their members or narrow legislative action not in the common welfare. The same is true on the Republican side. The result of all this is to elect a Legislature that is made up of members that represent the most extreme elements of each party’s base. This is why the Legislature is so polarized. This is why there is no bipartisan cooperation in Sacramento. This is why the Legislature is far, far more liberal than the general voting public of California. 

The governor needed to focus his “Year of Reform” on this problem like a laser beam. He could have put his energy into one important issue and shown voters that it was not a partisan issue but a campaign on behalf of all voters and all citizens for better government in California. Instead, he wasted time, his staff was lax in organizing his campaign and he allowed himself to sidetracked and distracted by the various other issues that he decided to add to the special election that didn’t need to be there. Yes, it is important to get a handle on the teachers union as a first step to improving the schools, but not now, not when getting this powerful interest group inflamed will distract the voters and dog his campaign for months. Yes, it is probably important to get a handle on the budget problem by giving the governor more power over spending, but it is a distraction from the basic problem of a Legislature that doesn’t work. Obviously, he couldn’t even convince Maria, who evidently had enough doubts about strategy that she refused to campaign with him even though she was needed desperately. 

I can only conclude that Arnold does not have the necessary political skills to solve the very difficult problems facing California. He had a chance, but he bungled it. He may not get another chance and California just can’t wait. This presents a problem for conservatives and for all of California—should Arnold be reelected next year? The state Assembly is so dysfunctional and so far to the left of the general voting public that it is overwhelmingly important to have a Republican governor who can ride herd on the worst tendencies of the Assembly Democrats. Should a Democrat be elected governor—watch out—it will be a case of Gray Davis redux, and the monkeys will be running the zoo, again! On the other hand, we need someone who can lead a reform effort and if Arnold is not that person, who is? Maybe California will have to suffer through another crisis like blackouts or a Gray Davis-style collapse to get the reform rolling.  

Alan Christie Swain holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University..

Let me count the ways your tax dollars are being utilized by the folks at Berkeley Honda. We’ll just take one day: Friday, Nov. 4. 

1. Misuse of city services 

At 8:06 a.m., a police officer comes slowly down Parker Street, appraising the canopy the strikers have erected against the drizzle. The canopy did not impede pedestrians, who were able to walk under it without difficulty. But Berkeley Honda called the police anyway—as they so often do.  

“Listen,” I begin, but the officer waves me off. “Oh, that’s not a problem,” he says, nodding at the canopy, and a few minutes later he’s gone.  

2. Misuse of court system—not to  

mention misuse of the sheriff’s office—to perpetrate a frivolous action 

Around 11 a.m., Gary and the union reps come back from court. Gary is one of the strikers, and he was in court to fight a temporary restraining order issued by the county sheriff at the request of Berkeley Honda’s service manager, Barry Strock. Why? That’s what the judge wanted to know. And the judge was not impressed with Barry’s answer, that Gary posed a threat to his family. How was that, the judge asked, considering that Gary didn’t know where Barry lived? And how come Barry hadn’t told the court that Gary was a party in a strike action, which completely changes the criteria for a restraining order?  

Well, we’ll never know. But here’s what we do know: Barry had to pay for the union’s lawyer, as well as his own lawyer. And guess who Barry’s lawyer was? A woman from Berkeley Honda’s very own union-busting law firm, Littler Mendelson. Her presence confirms that in initiating the restraining order, Barry Strock was acting as an agent of Berkeley Honda rather than as an individual. But never mind that, that isn’t an abuse of city or county services; that’s only a violation of labor law. Just forget I mentioned it. 

More misuse of city services 

Alrighty, it’s around 1 p.m., and here comes another of Berkeley’s finest. He parks, walks up to the picket captain, glances at the canopy, and says, “Look, the truth is, your canopy is not breaking any laws that we know of. But we’ve received so many calls from Berkeley Honda about this, could you please take it down?” 

All that happened on just one day. Here’s a look at what’s coming: 

Future misuse of city agencies, services, and possibly the office of the  

city attorney 

Now, thanks to Berkeley Honda’s repeated calls to the police about our canopy, we’ll have to research laws about the use of temporary structures on city property, and in so doing we’ll need the help of various City of Berkeley departments. More money down the drain. And Honda will surely call the police many, many more times before this strike is done, for the same silly reasons they’ve called them in the past: We’ve harassed (i.e., talked to) one of their customers, or we’re blocking the street when we walk up to a car. 

Yep, those are your tax dollars at work. 

Judy Shelton is a Berkeley resident. h

School Board Member Terry Doran stakes out the high ground in “We Want It for the Kids,” his Nov. 15 Daily Planet commentary, and we have to agree with his basic points. Berkeley kids need better sports facilities, and they need them now. They need good multi-purpose fields that will take the pressure off of existing fields such as San Pablo Park. Central Berkeley is short on open space and the Derby Street site is a unique opportunity to address this need. Decisions regarding the future of this site should be based first and foremost on meeting the recreational and athletic needs of the full range of the Berkeley Unified School District kids. 

So far so good, but let’s be clear that the only purpose for closing Derby Street is to make the geometry work for a full sized hardball baseball field with 320-foot-long foul lines.  

Closing Derby Street does not create more green space or increase the size of the multi-purpose field. To accommodate the continued operation of the Farmers’ Market, the closed-street plan requires construction of a new paved area equal to the existing street, resulting in a field area no larger than what would exist in an open-street plan.  

Closing Derby Street does not provide good multi-use facilities. The baseball field requires a large dirt infield and wide foul areas. Due to the limited space and mismatched geometry, the proposed multi-purpose field—which would be used for soccer, lacrosse and field hockey for most of the year—overlaps the dirt infield, creating an unworkable situation for sports other than baseball.  

And finally, closing Derby Street and building a regulation baseball field is a major public works project which cannot be done on the cheap. When all the soft costs and contingencies are included, the school district’s own estimates indicate the closed-street plan will cost approximately 2.5 million more than an open-street plan, and quite possibly more.  

Certainly the students who play baseball could use better, more reliable facilities, and there are cost-effective alternatives for accommodating Berkeley High home games, notably the new single-use, night-lit baseball field planned as part of the Gilman Fields, a project spearheaded by Mayor Bates. The Open Derby Street Plan developed by the community and school district earlier this year provides an excellent multi-purpose field for soccer, lacrosse, filed hockey, and club sports as well as practice facilities for the baseball team while maintaining much of the green open space along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, all without closing Derby Street. This open-street, multi-use facility can be designed and constructed for something close to the actual BUSD funds available for the project, without any additional funding from the city.  

Mr. Doran’s letter suggests that closing Derby Street is the best way to provide a “beautiful park” in central Berkeley. That should definitely be the goal. But the reality of the Closed Derby Street Plan will be a playing field hemmed in by tall fences and bordered by 36,000 square feet of concrete and asphalt running the length of the frontage on MLK Jr. Way—also surrounded by fencing to keep basketballs out of the street. On the other hand, the Open Derby Street Plan provides a multi-purpose field with lower fences, a single basketball court on MLK, and space left over for community amenities or passive open space. In our view, the Open Derby Street Plan yields a much more beautiful result. 

Pursuit of a baseball field has stalled improvements of this site for a number of years. Berkeley students have grown to adulthood during the delay. As neighbors, as architects and as parents of Berkeley students we respectfully encourage the School Board members and the City Council to carefully examine the proposals for this site and consider which alternative makes the most effective use of limited resources, produces the greatest benefit for the most students, and is the better plan for the neighborhood in the context of the whole city. We believe that consideration points toward construction of an affordable, truly multi-purpose facility that leaves Derby Street open. 

Peter Waller and Susi Marzuola are Berkeley residents.

Just about everyone supports the troops. It has become taboo not to. They are, after all, not making the decisions, just following orders. So whether you agree with the war effort or are opposed to it, it has become unpatriotic, unsympathetic, and even seen as a disregard for life to not support them. They are just troops, just soldiers, sailors, and airmen carrying out their duties, but willing to sacrifice their lives. They come back emotionally and physically bruised and battered. Officially, more than 15,500 military personnel have been physically wounded in action. With Veterans’ Day sparking the country’s memory, discussions about the returning veterans, who will be forever changed regardless of their physical condition, are only now entering into the mainstream discourse. The 2,057 bodies that return, hidden by the blackness of night and the darkness of our own indifference are only remembered by their loved ones; the honor of their life and the dignity of their duty repressed and concealed by a fearful government. 

The executive branch has taken hegemony to a whole new level, strategizing and succeeding at injecting its ideology into the legislature and the courts, but especially into the faithful. This executive team has a plan. They play religion like a prodigal pianist plays the piano; the notes of their instrument carefully selected to win the hearts and minds of the masses. Faith is a powerful instrument and is proving to be more powerful than the higher power in which the faith has been placed. Faith and religion guide actions and provide companionship in the search for a moral authority. For some, the exploration of morality is solitary; others seek companionship in the journey from other sources. The leaders of this country, our country, have twisted faith and religion; they have designated themselves as the moral authority, guided by God, and so many of us have accepted. Those of us who have not accepted the connection between our government and God have accepted our role as just a citizen. Government has not taken our authority; we have given it, along with our responsibility. Our job has become only to listen. The instrument they play either sounds good to our ears (it is after all God’s music) or is too complicated and we criticize the musician. We have disempowered ourselves and have lost confidence in our ability to act. If we do anything at all, we criticize, passively reacting, again leaving the proactive approaches to others. Government has taken the authority and accepts the criticism. It is a small price to pay for the power and authority handed to them. 

We are sympathetic to the troops and support them because they are just troops, just as we are only citizens. How can we not support them; it was our lack of action, our sedentary state, that has sent someone else’s, and our own, children in harm’s way in order to build the businesses and fill the coffers of the men at the apex of our government all in the name of freedom and peace. We have become observers rather than players. Subject to the whims of the empowered government, we disempower ourselves and become victims. 

The troops sacrifice their lives. What are we as citizens willing to sacrifice? Often without the luxury of doubt or the ability to postpone action, the troops march on, for us. We sit, and critique, and victimize ourselves. We are ashamed. 

Oakland resident Jon Kidde is a concerned citizen interested in social justice through civic engagement. He is struggling to become more active as just a citizen. 

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I told my son David a few years back, when he was just starting out as a music video director and working with lesser-known rap groups I’d never heard of, to give me a call if he ever hooked up with someone I could relate to, like maybe one of the Big Three from my generation—The Beatles, The Stones, or Bobbie D. 

Well, he called. (In between, he directed videos featuring younger talent--a group of one-name wonders that includes Creed, Usher, and that cutie Pink, not to mention a bunch of hot J’s: Janet Jackson, Ja Rule, and J. Lo.) When he dropped the name “Mick,” I, of course, dropped my real life and pushed the pedal to the metal on a pilgrimage to L.A. Though Mick would be sans Stones, wild horses couldn’t have kept me away. 

On the “Visions of Paradise” video set, I snagged a position as an extra in the elevator scene. I thank the heavens it wasn’t the elephant scene. The gorgeous young starlet who sat atop that beast had to endure being sprayed with icky water recycled through its playful trunk. I attempted to banter with the other extras, but they were a grim lot. One guy dimmed my enthusiasm with, “My job is to suit up, show up, and shut up.” And that’s exactly what he did, even when I was in the elevator with him later and he heard the unseen director holler Chorus Line-style, “Hey Ma, look up at the monitor.”  

Who among us is prepared for the moment when marvelous Mick walks up from behind and embraces you for a photo op? My tag-along “little” sister nervously squealed, “What do we do?” (It’s a good thing he didn’t approach from the front, or we might have fainted from sensory overload. Mick wore a dapper pin-stripe suit and heartthrob-red shirt accessorized with a tasteful version of “rapper’s ice” jewelry. At 60-something, he’s sure looking good.) All lips and teeth and blue eyes and charm, Mick replied in his melodic voice, “Just smile, ladies.” And in the snap of a shutter, we had an ultimate rock trophy. 

Between takes, as I reclined into one of those tall canvas director’s chairs set up under a portable VIP tent, it blew my mind to see my baby boy rolling his monster of a camera and telling this rock ‘n roll legend what to do. My son chuckled with satisfaction as he looked into his monitor and saw that Mick had gesticulated at the camera and done his moves so well that the camera caught not only what he needed, but what he wanted. 

It was also while sitting in this chair that my mind was blown yet again when I saw teeny boppers on the sidelines jumping up and down with delight as they caught sight of not Mick, but Dave. Even though he ain’t no Rolling Stone, my son was recognized by these kids from his many “Making of the Video” appearances on MTV.  

On the second day of the three-day shoot, while we were sitting out in that warm L.A. sun at the trendy, trendy Brentwood Coffee Bean, sipping our caramel lattes before heading to the set downtown, my husband caught up with us on my daughter’s cell phone. “Daddy who?” I asked her as she handed me the phone. 

Since this video shoot, Director Dave has been talking to one of the other two Big Three (the cute one). Pop divas Jennifer Lopez, Pink, and Gwen Stefani of No Doubt have all thanked him from the stage as they accepted their awards at the MTV Music Video Awards. Mick has been knighted, received a Golden Globe, and is on tour again with his mates. The world spins faster in Hollywood. 

Unfortunately, the track bombed and “our” video didn’t get much play on MTV, VH1, or anywhere else. Though Mick was digitally enhanced in post-production by Hollywood’s best--to the point of smoothing his trademark cheek crags—and though he knows how to croon a fabulous love tune and spit out the world’s best rock ‘n roll, he’s been firmly placed into the “old rocker” category. And so, even though “Visions of Paradise” is a song you can listen to over and over and the video has a sense of humor and is fun to watch, few have heard or seen it. I must carry The Photograph in my purse so people will believe my tale. On one occasion, someone viewing it suggested Mick was a cardboard cutout. It seems to be just too much for a mind to take in that someone you know has hung with Mick. 

But this regrettable bias against aging rock stars isn’t deterring me. A need still exists for “mature” extras. This journey got me daydreaming about quitting my day job, joining SAG, and getting into The Business full time. Perhaps I’ll have a little work done, or maybe I’ll beg my son for some of that fabulous digital enhancement, or maybe I’ll just let gravity do its thing and settle for character parts. 

I guess I’m as ready for my close-up as I’ll ever be Mr. DeMille, I mean ... son. 

Carole Terwilliger Meyers is the author of Weekend Adventures in San Francisco & Northern California (Mick has a copy) and the editor of Dream Sleeps: Castle & Palace Hotels of Europe (both published by Carousel Press: www.carousel-press.com). She lives in Berkeley. 

Director Dave Meyers is a graduate of Berkeley High School. His people are talking with Mick’s people about doing another video. His current project is a collaboration with Steven Tyler and Santana. 

Like an enormous pop-up book, the production design by famed illustrator and children’s book author Maurice Sendak takes three-dimensional form on the Berkeley Rep’s Roda Stage, bringing to life two mid-20th century Czech light operas adapted to English by playwright (and friend to Sendak) Tony Kushner, Comedy on the Bridge and Brundibar. Both are charming and witty, yet darkened by the ensuing tragedies of war and genocide that contribute their own ironic chiaroscuro and vanishing points. 

Directed by the Rep’s artistic director, Tony Taccone, with the music conducted by Valerie Gebert (featuring members of the Berkeley Symphony), the two operettas are comedies of poor children banding together at the behest of friendly animals to defeat a bully, and of the perils and antics of an unlikely band of adults trapped between lines as a ceasefire ends and their exit visas are refused for entry or re-entry. 

Comedy on the Bridge, based on a 19th-century play by Vaclav Kliment Klicpera with music by Bohuslav Martinu, is played first. Popelka (“Cinderella” in Czech, played and sung by Anjali Bhimani with tart charm) is the first to get stuck on the bridge between two sentries accoutered like toy soldiers, though brandishing automatic weapons with menace. 

The others begin to stack up: first brewer Bedronyi (excellent Martin Vidnovic), then Popelka’s jealous boyfriend Sykos (Matt Farnsworth), followed by the brewer’s even more jealous wife Eva (Angelina Reaux, with brilliant voice and manner) and finally the schoolteacher, Professor Ucitelli (William Youmans, who displays some comic body language), who’s trying to get the answer to a riddle from Capt. Ladinsky (Henry DiGiovanni), who finally arrives in the gondola of a dirigible atop a column of clouds on a pedestal of churning waves with fish, and delivers the answer, with an irony that would give closure to Oedipus’ sphinx. 

The cast sings and performs delightfully on Sendak’s bridge—at one point underpinned by enormous-eyed, big-footed fish, frustrated as they wait to eat a would-be jumper; at another, falling into jagged pieces with the shelling following the end of the truce. Martinu’s music is piquant and well supports the ridiculous action in the midst of cataclysm. 

Brundibar is Czech for “bumblebee”—maybe from the humming of a hurdy-gurdy, for it’s the title character’s name, a leering, surly organ-grinder (played very effectively by Euan Morton) who professedly hates children, especially Pepicek (Aaron Simon Gross) and his little sister Aninku (Devynn Pedell), who come to beg on his turf for money to bring home milk and food for their ailing mother. 

A bird, a cat and a dog, well-portrayed by the women of the first piece, and Geoff Hoyle, one of the sentries at the bridge, as the dog, help summon a crowd of children, who shame Brundibar and drive him away. 

It’s a triumph, but Sendak, who has said that children’s courage comes from “enormous innocence to really not know how evil the world can be,” suggests “turn the page.” Brundibar adds his P.S. to the children’s song: “Our friends will make us strong. Bullies don’t give up completely. One departs. The next appears. And we shall meet again, my dears.” 

Composer Hans Krasa, confined to the concentration camp at Terezin, performed Brundibar 55 times with casts of children held there, before he was transferred to Auschwitz, where he was killed in 1944. Among the many ironies is the exploitation of the shows by the Nazis to demonstrate to the world how well treated were the denizens of the “model ghetto.” 

Adolf Hoffmeister’s libretto is full of both sophisticated irony and folk wisdom. Tony Kushner’s adaptation develops its own comic vocabulary, though sometimes comes up a little flat in rendering the subtler shades behind the innocence of a not-so-false naivete. 

The unfolding of the story is marvelously depicted by Sendak’s unfolding town and background landscape, with a backdrop at one point of children riding blackbirds, which Sendak says are “both pro the kids and against the kids. Just like fate ... And also a blackbird is from my passion for Schubert songs and his blackbirds and his birds of doom or birds of good.” 

Those who’ve been charmed, or who can be charmed, by Sendak’s books won’t be disappointed by the show at the Rep. It portrays both the humor and pathos in the little things of everyday, translated into fantasy and dream. It is told in a form which, like children’s books, is considered minor, light, but, as Sendak says of his own career, “I was gonna hide somewhere where nobody would find me and express myself entirely. I’m like a guerrilla warfarer in my best books.” 

This by the same author/illustrator who also said, “You’re really fighting yourself all the way along the line. And I don’t know ... I never set out to write books for children.” 

The Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents Comedy on the Bridge and Brundibar through Dec. 28. $15-$64. Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 or see www.berkleleyrep.org. 

Berkeley Rep advises parents not to bring children age 7 or younger. |

Three special buildings—including two historic houses and a really fine art museum—provide appealing destinations for a day or weekend trip to Sacramento this winter, especially when rainy or cold weather argues in favor of indoor activities. 

First up is the newly opened Stanford Mansion, a solid Italianate Victorian near the Capitol. Both family home and official residence for Leland Stanford when he became Governor in 1862, it is now a State Historic Park. Just opened to the public after a lengthy and meticulous restoration, assisted by private donors, the house doubles as an official State reception venue. 

Built by Sacramento merchant Shelton Fogus in 1856-57, it was expanded several times by the Stanfords. They raised the house a full story after a flood and added a mansard-roofed upper floor and an office wing, which ballooned the building from an original 4,000 to some 19,000 square feet.  

Donated by the widowed Jane Stanford to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sacramento in 1900 and used for decades as a “home for friendless children” then a social work headquarters, the mansion was purchased by the State of California in 1978. 

Inside, the restored house gleams with original polished woodwork, rich carpeting, and original or replicated period furnishings, including a massive wooden sideboard carved to look like the front end of a locomotive. The large and ornate public rooms recall the Stanford family era, documented in 1872 in Eadweard Muybridge photos.  

One upstairs bedroom is equipped with furnishings, including small, white-painted, iron bedsteads, which recall the orphanage use. The ground floor ballroom is now an event space and art gallery with changing exhibits; currently there is a very impressive show of plein air paintings of California scenes.  

Leland Stanford, Jr., the only child of Leland and Jane, was born at this house in May, 1868. His death at age 15 would later inspire his parents to create Stanford University in his memory. Stanfordites may venerate the second floor bedroom where he was born, and the room next door touchingly filled with little Leland’s toys.  

However, a more important Blessed Event took place in the Governor’s Office that Stanford appended to the east side of the building and later made available to two of his successors. It was there that Governor Henry Haight had his office when he signed the Organic Act creating the University of California on March 23, 1868.  

The office and house were also used by Governor Frederick Low, Haight’s predecessor, who helped gestate the public University by suggesting the combination of the private College of California and State efforts.  

Thus, in a symbolic way at least, both the University of California and Stanford University were born in the same place.  

Around the house are newly refurbished grounds and a gift shop and visitor center, the latter handsomely equipped with interesting visual and video displays and a clever, take-apart, model showing the structure through several stages of remodeling and expansion.  

Tired of too much Stanford? Head on over to the other old Governor’s Mansion, a wooden wedding-cake white Victorian Italinate built by hardware merchant Albert Gallatin in 1877.  

The East Bay has strong historic connections to this house, although they’re not that apparent in the displays or the guided tour of two floors. Purchased by the State, it served from 1903 through 1967 as official residence for 13 Governors.  

Two governors from Berkeley, Friend W. Richardson and C.C. Young, made this their Sacramento home, as did Oaklanders George Pardee and Earl Warren. Governor Pat Brown also had close UC connections, and several gubernatorial children attended UC campuses. This was also the home of the parents of crusading journalist and Berkeley alumnus Lincoln Steffens whom our guide identified vaguely as a “magazine writer.” 

The interior of the house is festooned with elaborate painted plasterwork, including allegorical heads. Original Gallatin stained woodwork and murals were painted over during various remodels.  

While the main floor retains its late Victorian/early 20th century character and appointments, the resident families placed an early modern stamp on much of the interior from the 1940s through the 1960s, and elements of their improvised décor, from wallpaper to table lamps to linoleum, remain. 

There’s a clawfoot tub with painted red toenails, and another tub wallpapered on the outside (really). Other modernizations include a “Scandinavian” kitchen featuring a huge copper range hood, and early TV’s and air conditioners. 

Much of the furniture and feel of the families is still in the house, including a dark wooden plum upholstered parlor set purchased by the Hiram Johnsons, the piano bought by Mrs. Pardee that J.F.K. supposedly played during a visit, and the kitchen table where Earl Warren read the morning paper.  

Up on the third floor (currently not accessible to visitors) Teddy Roosevelt plotted campaign strategy in the Hiram Johnson era and Governor “Sunny Jim” Rolph reportedly hosted discrete card games. Examples of various formal silver, crystal, and china services are on display, some of the silver decorated with little raised-relief California bears. 

Upstairs in one of the front bedrooms is a curving recliner or chaise lounge where, our guide said, Pat Brown would lie down on nights he couldn’t fall comfortably asleep in bed because of death penalty cases that were troubling him. Downstairs, a dynamite bomb shattered part of the kitchen in 1917, with I.W.W. activists blamed for the attack. 

Happier stories include Governor Goodwin Knight carrying his new bride over the threshold no less than twice for photographers, then once for himself, children sliding down the banister of the wonderfully curving stairs, and a young Kathleen Brown (Jerry’s sister) throwing water balloons from the cupola on Halloween. 

With the house museums behind you, recross downtown to the Sacramento River edge to one of the finest regional art museums I’ve seen. The Crocker Art Museum—one of the oldest in California, given in 1885 as a public trust to the City of Sacramento—is certainly worth a two or three hour visit.  

Portions of the complex date back to 1872 and the main, early, wing retains much of its original handsome character, including richly tiled floors, a fantastic double staircase, and a steamboat shaped gallery overlooking an ornate ballroom.  

The old gallery is tied by various additions to an original Crocker family mansion, restored on the exterior but sadly rebuilt inside in a modern “white box” modernist character in 1989. These Crockers—relatives of Charles Crocker, one of the railroad “Big Four”—benefited from a flood of railroad money in the 19th century and amassed on their European travels what was, at one time, the largest private art collection in the United States.  

As early as the 1870s they also started collecting significant California artists, so the Museum has good Hills, Bierdstadts, Keiths and Nahls, among others. 

The upper galleries are divided between an inner display of largely scenic and allegorical California painting—overlooked by a gigantic, “Yosemite” by Thomas Hill—and an outer gallery of eclectic European treasures.  

Elsewhere there’s a not-too-extensive sampling of Asian art, a nice selection of modern sculpture and painting, and changing exhibit space.  

One gallery currently displays (through Jan. 29, 2006) a rather remarkable survey of the work of Marsden Hartley, who seems to have eclectically mastered and practiced most of the avant garde painting and drawing styles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  

My one disappointment with these visits that the Stanford Mansion exhibits and descriptions treat Leland Stanford with almost saintly reverence, with no mention I could find of the more controversial aspects of his business and political life. The Crockers are similarly, but not as ostentatiously, venerated in the Crocker Gallery.  

Both these families grew massively rich, in a frequent California way, not just from hard work and commercial acumen but from political connections, large sole-source government contracts, and preferentially favorable attention from well-cultivated legislative and legal bodies. 

Although they commendably left much of their property to charitable purposes, I could not help wondering if a century hence Americans will be viewing the former mansions and benefactions of the executives and major stockholders of Halliburton, Chevron, and the like, and learning about their business past in a similarly sanitized manner. 

IF YOU GO 

The old Governor’s Mansion is at 1526 H St. several blocks northeast of the capitol. Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Access to the house is only by guided tour on the hour, $4 per adult. 

The Leland Stanford Mansion State Historic Park stands at 800 N St., corner of 8th Street, two blocks west of the Capitol building. 

Definitely double-check if the house is open for tours when you plan to visit, since it closes irregularly for special events. (916) 324-0575. www.lelandstanfordmansion.org 

The Crocker Museum is down near the river at 216 0 St. at 3rd Street, south of “Old Sacramento” but separated from it and the water by the sunken I-5 freeway. Hours are Tue.-Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Thursdays until 9 p.m. Sundays are free before 1 p.m. Admission is $6 adults, $4 seniors, $3 students. (916) 264-5423 crockerartmuseum.org 

The Crocker and Stanford interiors are wheelchair accessible; the old Governor’s Mansion tour climbs two steep flights of stairs.?

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Marius” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Dec. 18. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822.  

Berkeley Rep “Brundibár” A musical fable staged by Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak at the Roda Theater through Dec. 28. Ticekts are $15-$64. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group “Dance with my Father Again” a musical biography of Luther Vandross. Fr. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 4. Tickets are $7-$15. 652-2120. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Noises Off” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through Dec. 10. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theatre “Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)” Thurs. through Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468.  

Splash Circus “The Snow Queen” Fri. at 7 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Masquers Playhouse “Dear World” Jerry Herman’s musical, Fri. and Sat at 8 p.m. through Dec. 17 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

ACCI Gallery Holiday Exhibition opens with works by over 100 people at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Holiday Art Show with works by Rik Olson, Soo Noga, Julian Shaw and Mylette Welch at Nexus Gallery, 2701 Eighth St., from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Nov. 29. 

“Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine” An evening with Ziad Abbas at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893. 

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Provence “Harvest” at 7 p.m., “The Baker’s Wife” at 9:25 p.m. at 9:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yaelisa with Caminos Flamencos Dance Company at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Gery Tinkelenberg and Deborah Crooks at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344. 

Propagandhi, Greg MacPherson at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Inspector Double Negative, funk, hip hop, soul at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Du Uy Quintet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 26 

THEATER 

Woman’s Will “Happy End” by Bertolt Brecht, Thurs. and Sat. at 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Luka’s Lounge, 2221 Broadway at Grand Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$25. 420-0813.  

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts” at 5:20 p.m., “Wife! Be Like a Rose” at 7:30 p.m. and “Kageroza” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ibdaa Dance Troupe from Palestine with Loco Bloco and Melanie DeMore at 7 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $25. www.mecaforpeace.org/IbdaaNational.html 

Hal Stein Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Aux Cajunals at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

The Mixers at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 524-9220.  

Naughty by Nature at 9 p.m. at @17th, 510 17th St., Oakland. www.at17th.com 

Mario DeSio, Jessie Turner & Kenny Dinkin at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Don’t Look Back at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yaelisa with Caminos Flamencos Dance Company at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Allene’s B-day Bash, The Biddy & Buddy Show at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Will Bernard and Motherbug at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Iron Lung, Reagan SS, Hostile Takeover at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 27 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Provence “Angele” at 2 p.m. and Taisho Chic on Screen “Women of Tokyo” at 5 p.m., “Foghorn” at 6:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Island Literary Series with poets Maria Espinosa and Adam David Miller at 3 p.,m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $2-$4. 841-JAZZ.  

Poetry Flash with Anne Coray and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Michael Golds & Misturada at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Golden Gate Bellringers Holiday bell ringing concert at 1 p.m. at C’era Una Volta, 1332 Park St., Alameda 

“Back to the Land” A benefit for City Slicker Farms, backyard organic gardens in West Oakland, with music by Sweet Briar, Joel Robinow and Texas Ben, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph Ave. Donation $5-$15. 763-4241. 

Helping Hands Benefit for Musicians in Need at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$8.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, NOV. 28 

FILM 

Special Screening: Focus Features Presentation at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon in Pen West’s annual Freedom to Write evening at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Paul Pierson explains “Off Center: The Republican Revolution & the Erosion of American Democracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com  

Poetry Express Theme Night: Erotic Poetry at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

West Coast Songwriters Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5.50. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

TUESDAY, NOV. 29 

CHILDREN 

First Stage Children’s Theater “The Great Book Conspiracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $5 at the door. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: Re(collections): Three Short Films at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeffrey Schnapp describes “Revolutionary Tides: The Art of the Political Poster 1914-1989” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffmaan with Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Drew Emmitt Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. www.jazzschool.com 

Larry Vuckovich, solo jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 30 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine” An evening with Mona & David Halaby at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893.  

THEATER 

Unconditional Theatre “Voices of Activism: Crawford” Members of Unconditional Theatre traveled to Crawford, Texas, to interview people on both sides of the Camp Casey anti-war protest. At 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Suggested donation $2-$20. www.juliamorgan.org 

FILM 

Busy Signals: Telephonic Art in Motion “Touchtone” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dave Lippman “Star of Goliath” Slides, song and sound from a visit to Palestine and Israel at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

Hella Winston describes “Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Peter Goin and Paul F. Starrs in conversation about their new book “Black Rock” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with Lilly Gordis, young harpsichord student, at noon at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. www.firstchurchoakland.org 

Calvin Keys Trio Invitational Jam at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Dub Station, with Shaka Black and Tom O’Brien, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054.  

Orquestra Bakan, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low.Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Flowtilla at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

THURSDAY, DEC. 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Art from the Heart” featuring works by artists from the National Institute of Art and Disabilities opens at 551 23rd St., Richmond. 620-0290. www.niadart.org  

“Jim Bauer: Whimsical Illuminated Sculpture” Creations of dogs, cats and other fanciful figures made from recycled kitchenware, opens at The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

“Natural History of César Chávez Park, Berkeley Marina” with works by various artists opens at The Bonnafont Gallery, 946a Greenwich St., SF. 415-441-4182. 

FILM 

Luna Fest Films by, for and about women, at 6:30 p.m. at 145 Dwinelle, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$7. crystal435@yahoo.com 

“The Greater Circulation” by Antero Alli at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Tickets are $7. 644-6893. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Thinking Outside the Boxes: Nesting Reliquary Caskets from a 9th Century Chinese Monastic Crypt” at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Flr. 643-6492. 

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Word Beat Reading Series with Don Brennan and Ed Mycue at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wawa Sylvestre & The Oneness Kingdom, Kalbass at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Girl Talk Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Peter Rowan at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Fishtank, The Toids at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082.  

Eric Swinderman, solo jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Taj Mahal at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com?

Thanksgiving dinner has been eaten and re-eaten. The turkey’s been picked down to the bones. Endorphins lulled you to sleep with that slightly “full” feeling. Your house seems rather full too, with family and friends occupying every seat. What’s next on the agenda? 

Getting everyone outdoors for the day may be the best solution. Forget about the Mall Sales and invest your time in nature and her resources. As close by as out your back door or within an easy drive, here are 10 destinations guaranteed to make you forget about making turkey soup. 

CLOSE TO HOME: 

1. Tilden Regional Park 

From hiking to flowers, there’s something for everyone in Tilden Park. The hours of the day will quickly fade before you have time to access all the possibilities. Children, and adults, will love the Little Farm and Nature Area—farm animals on display and an easy walk on the endless bridge leading to a small pond where ducks quack and an elegant heron makes his home. Take the same group onward to the antique merry-go-round of hand carved animals and Tilden’s own steam train. Anglers and walkers won’t be disappointed with a stroll around Lake Anza whose beauty reigns regardless of the weather. With the last bit of light, tour California’s floral districts at the Botanic Garden, boasting an amazing collection of California natives. www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden.htm 

2. Berkeley Marina 

Celebrate childhood at Adventure Playground, instruct yourself regarding bay ecology and sustainable architecture at the Straw Bale Visitor Center or relax in the shelter of Shorebird Park, watching birds and windsurfers expend energy. Walk the paved paths circling the marina and dream of far-off tropical jaunts abroad your yacht. After exhausting the southern end of the marina head north to Cesar Chavez Park watching kites soar in the fierce winds and happy dogs romp with glee. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/marina. 

3. Historic Oakand 

Oakland’s historic neighborhoods are an ideal walking destination, from Old Oakland and City Center to Chinatown, Lake Merritt and the waterfront. Rich in ethnic heritage and the culture it supports, architecture, specialty shops and enticing eateries will glide you along. At the colorful waterfront you can trace Jack London’s early career in fishing and prospecting amid eye-catching scenery. Honor America’s longest term President with a tour of the USS Potomac, Roosevelt’s “Floating White House” where expert docents bring this imposing figure to life. www.oaklandnet.com, www.usspotomac.org. 

NORTHWARD: 

4. Historic Sonoma 

Divide your day between 19th century California and present day merchants and you won’t be disappointed. Sonoma’s park-like plaza is central to almost all its vintage attractions, and just the spot to sample the edible ones. Sonoma State Historic Park consists of California’s northernmost mission, furnished army barracks, a workingman’s hotel and the near-by home of General Vallejo. An easy walk sets the scene for the famous “Bear Flag Revolt”. Even the non-shoppers in your group won’t rebel at a wander around Sonoma’s boutiques and food shops. Local cheeses, olives, wine and bread never tasted so good. www.parks.ca.gov, www.sonomavalley.com. 

5. Jack London State Historic Park 

“A quiet place in the country to write and loaf” is what Jack London desired. That’s what he had in Glen Ellen, an estate as much his legacy as his books. His spirit may follow your footsteps along quiet, oak-wooded trails from the House of Happy Walls, built to commemorate his work, to the tragic ruins of Wolf House, never inhabited. You’ll marvel at his innovative thinking as you tour Beauty Ranch, aptly named. Make sure to save time for the short hike up to the lake and bathhouse. End your day in quiet appreciation of a lovely spot and a complex icon. www.parks.sonoma.net/JLPark.html. 

EASTWARD: 

6. Sunol Regional Wilderness 

Far removed in space and time from bustling Alameda County, Sunol’s wild, open spaces will transport you far beyond. This is a land of soaring raptors, sandstone and basalt outcrops and our own Little Yosemite, where huge boulders line the gorge and create stepping-stones for a rushing creek. Plan your day around the Old Green Barn Visitor Center and the Indian Joe Creek Self-Guided Nature Trail. Follow the numbered markers to explore creek-side communities and Flag Hill. Then challenge yourself to breathtaking vistas on Canyon View Trail heading to Little Yosemite, a site you’ll hear long before it appears to view. 

End the day at Alameda Grove Picnic Area, reflecting on this hidden treasure. www.ebparks.org/parks/sunol.htm. 

WESTWARD: 

7. Muir Woods National Monument 

Walking below coast redwoods 250 feet in height, the last old growth forest left in the Bay Area, tends to put a different slant on life. In the cool dense shade, light filtering down, it’s difficult not to be awed by their majesty. Follow the boardwalk or venture farther afield on well-marked trails, slip into the café or browse the well-stocked gift shop. Hope for needle-clinging mist or a gentle rain to swell the waters of the creek. There are no bad days in the midst of this cathedral of nature. www.nps.gov/muwo/home.htm. 

8. Point Reyes National Seashore 

To fully explore Point Reyes requires several adventures. This time head west to Chimney Rock and the Lighthouse, before the annual whale and elephant seal migration and the mandatory shuttle. The rocky peninsula, 300 steps and expansive ocean views will seem your own. Follow meandering footpaths that edge the headland and explore the lifeboat station cove, keeping an eye out for the mammals of the sea. Save time to stroll the long, level sands of Drake’s Beach, discover the displays in the Visitor Center and savor hot soup or an oyster sandwich at Drake’s Beach Café. 

9. Samuel P. Taylor State Park 

Certain destinations are old friends, welcoming you back in every season. Camp Taylor qualifies as one of my favorite places. I never tire of a gentle stroll beneath the redwood canopy, the gurgle of Papermill Creek at my side. Winter brings its own excitement, the spawning of silver salmon and steelhead trout. By foot or bike, ten miles of trails meander the canyon and open hillsides; pamphlets are available for two self-guided walks. Bundle up for some hot chili and dogs at the Azalea Picnic Area, next to a wood fire in the old stone fire pits. Whatever you eat will taste delicious. www.parks.ca.gov. 

FARTHEST SOUTH: 

10. Pacific Grove 

Requiring an early rising, Pacific Grove is still worth a visit, if only for one day. Walk the town past Victorian beauties and clapboard cottages to Lovers Point Park along Ocean View Blvd. Look for basking sea lions on the rocks and otters foraging in the kelp. Stroll the sands at Asilomar Beach. Back in town, check out the latest exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, then relax at Juice N’ Java or enjoy the great food at Peppers. Though there’s too much to do in just one day, you’ll leave wanting to return. www.pacifcigrove.org. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

Demonstration at “The Dead Mall,” Bay Street Emeryville built on the Ohlone burial ground, from noon to 6 p.m. 841-8562. 

“Native Americans and Thanksgiving” with Zachary Running Wolf and Thunder at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $10. 528-5403.  

Three Beats for Nothing sings early music for fun and practice at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, NOV. 26 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Women of Color Arts and Crafts Show from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at La Penna Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

“Playing With Fire” Berkeley Potters Guild Holiday Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 731 Jones St. at Fourth St. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For a map of locations see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Spirit Walking Aqua Chi (TM) A gentle water exercise class at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $3.50 per session. 526-0312. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 27 

Turkey “Trot” Come to the Little Farm in Tilden Park at 1 p.m. to see the resident turkeys, then enjoy a brisk walk to explore seasonal changes. 525-2233. 

“Back to the Land” A benefit for City Slicker Farms, backyard organic gardens in West Oakland, with music by Sweet Briar, Joel Robinow and Texas Ben, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph Ave. Donation $5-$15. 763-4241. 

“Mayan Women Speak Out” Members of the Jolom Mayaetik Mayan weavers cooperative from Chiapas, Mexico will show slides and discuss the work of the cooperative and the challenges that face indigenous women in Mexico, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Bay Area Vintage Base Ball League Meet members of the League, and learn the rules and customs of the games as it was played in Oakland in 1886, at noon at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

MONDAY, NOV. 28 

Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon in Pen West’s annual Freedom to Write evening at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

“When Bodies Remember: Surviving in South Africa” Colloquium at noon in the Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-3391. 

Kensington Library Book Club meets to discuss Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is Illuminated” at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 534-3043.  

Sing-A-Long from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

Beginning Bridge Lessons at 11:10 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $1. 524-9122. 

Critical Viewing An ongoing group to examine the art/craft(iness) of short films and television productions and its effects on our daily lives, at 1 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Free. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, NOV. 29 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. Meets at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area. For information and to register call 525-2233.  

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the shorebirds here for the winter. Beginnners welcome, binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

Women’s Snowshoe Workshop, covering all the essentials fro getting started in the sport at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

20th Anniversary of Star Alliance at 5:30 p.m. at Taste of the Himalayas, 1700 Shattuck Ave. With food, music, traditional Nepalese youth dancing, and a Sing-A-Long. Tickets are $20 at the door. 848-1818. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. For information call 981-5300. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

“AIDS and the Mbeki Controversy” at 3:30 p.m. at 155 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-3391. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Introduction to Buddhist Meditation at 7 p.m. at the Dzalandhara Buddhist Center in Berkeley. Cost is $7-$10. Call for directions. 559-8183. www.kadampas.org 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Judy Kuften, gerontologist, will speak on issues in aging. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

“Ask the Social Worker” free consultations for older adults and their families from 10 a.m. to noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. To schedule an appointment call 558-7800, ext. 716. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 30 

“Elephants of Northwestern Namibia” with Dr. Keith Leggett at 6:30 p.m. at the Marian Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. Cost is $10-$20. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Berkeley Gray Panthers “Drugs Under Medicare” with representatives from Social Security, Kaiser and HiCAP at 1:30 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center. 548-9696. 

“The Shift to China: Sweatshops, Labor Rights, and Wal-Mart” with Prof. Brad DeLong and Dara O’Rourke at 5:45 p.m. at Free Speech Movement Cafe, Moffitt Library, UC Campus. fsm-info@library.berkeley.edu 

“James McGregor, One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China” A colloquium at noon at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. 642-2809. 

“The Veil of Beta” a documentary of a 88-year old indigenious woman opposing a dam project in Chile, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, donations of $5 accepted. 393-5685.  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

Healthy Eating Habits A seminar with hypnosis at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 465-2524. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Sing your Way Home A free sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. every Wed. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Prose Writer’s Workshop An ongoing group made up of friendly writers who are serious about our craft. All levels welcome. At 7 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Stitch ‘n Bitch Bring your knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts from 6 to 9 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, DEC. 1 

An Evening of Solidarity with the Zapatistas with music by the La Peña Community Chorus, slides from EZLN’s Other Campaign and holiday gifts, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $7-$15. Benefits Zapatista Autonomous Health Care. 654-9587. 

Luna Fest Films by, for and about women, at 6:30 p.m. at 145 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$7. crystal435@yahoo.com 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

ONGOING 

We Give Thanks Month Dine at a participating restaurant, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Berkeley Food and Housing. Restaurants include Bendean, Poulet, Rose Garden Inn, La Note, Skates on the Bay and Oliveto’s. www.bfhp.org 

Warm Coat Drive Donate a coat for distribution in the community, at Bay St., Emeryville. Sponsored by the Girl Scouts. www.onewarmcoat.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Nov. 28, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

Solid Waste Management Commission Mon., Nov. 28, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Tania Levy, 981-6368.  

City Council meets Tues., Nov. 29 at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

›

New Orleans native Victor Lewis sat in an Oakland hotel lobby Sunday afternoon wondering when he would finally catch a break. His post-Hurricane Katrina westward migration began with five grim nights in the New Orleans Superdome, followed by 20 days shelter in Dallas’ Reunion Arena, four nights sleeping on Dallas streets, and finally a bus ride to Oakland, and a Red Cross-subsidized hotel room a few blocks from Jack London Square. In less than two weeks, he may be forced to move his few belongings again.  

“Man, I’m so tired,” he said, clutching a container of donated pastries. “I’ve been sawing plenty of wood, but the blade has gotten dull.”  

The clock is ticking for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina living in 116 East Bay hotel rooms with a Dec. 1 FEMA deadline approaching that will end the direct payment program subsidizing their transitional accommodations. FEMA officials have said they are working closely with state and local officials to avoid a shelter crisis for the 150,000 evacuees who still live in hotel rooms nationwide, but local health and human service workers are bracing for a crunch of homelessness.  

Lewis, who taught black history and coached football at New Orleans high schools, says he might move to a nearby freeway underpass if he cannot find an affordable apartment by the end of the month. 

“Looks like I’m back behind the eight ball,” he said.  

Local social workers and charity organizations are scrambling to place evacuees, following the sudden announcement of the deadline. David Wee, head of Crisis and Specialized Services for the City of Berkeley, said 110 evacuees have sought housing assistance in Berkeley, and about a third are currently living in local hotels. The FEMA statement, issued Nov. 15, announcing the coming deadline surprised Wee who thought the city had until later in December to help evacuees secure more permanent housing.  

“We really do not have much time until these people will have to pay their own hotel bills or face homelessness during the holidays,” said Wee. “I hope that FEMA reconsiders and extends this deadline.” 

Jean Baker, spokesperson for the California FEMA regional office, said the decision serves the goal of helping evacuees become self-reliant and regain normalcy in their lives. 

“This is part of an ongoing process of moving people from interim to long-term housing and helping them get back on their feet,” she said. “We are making every effort to get all the evacuees in long-term housing by Dec. 1.” 

But local housing advocates caution that in the East Bay’s tight rental market, the proposed FEMA package of $2,350 to cover the first three months of rent is insufficient. 

Eden Information and Referral, a non-profit clearinghouse for emergency and low-cost housing for Alameda County, has identified 135 rental units with landlords willing to lower rents for evacuees. But while a landlord might lower the rent of an apartment from $1,500 to $900, said Eden spokesperson Ollie Arnold, that is still too expensive given the resources made available through FEMA.  

The Red Cross, which still has 691 open Katrina cases in Alameda County, is gearing up for an influx of housing seekers. 

“We are very concerned about all the people that might fall through the cracks,” said Greg Smith, of the Bay Area Chapter. 

FEMA is partnering with the Red Cross and community-based housing resource centers in a massive outreach campaign, said Baker. She urged evacuees to call FEMA’s assistance line, 1-800-762-8740. 

But the staff of Berkeley’s Hurricane Katrina Resource Center, which opened Sept. 16 to provide case management to families and individuals fleeing the Gulf Coast, has reported tremendous difficulty getting through to FEMA.  

“The last two or three weeks, it’s been virtually impossible to talk to a live person at FEMA,” said Spence Casey, of the Berkeley Hurricane Resource Center. 

Several evacuees who have still not received their “bridge fund,” the $2,000 immediate relief amount, as well as coordinate health services, employment, and referrals to permanent housing. Berkeley is tapped out of affordable housing and placing all his cases in the next two weeks will be impossible, Casey said.  

“This crisis has been so unpredictable, but with this deadline, the results are very predictable,” he said. “This could be another man-made disaster that follows the natural one, but it can be mitigated by an extension of this deadline.” 

“We are already stretched to the limits by the issue of homelessness in the region,” said Julie Sinai, senior aide to Mayor Tom Bates. “There is no concrete plan on the table to solve this problem with the Katrina evacuees, but it should not be left to local responsibility. The feds really need to come through with the proper resources and timeline.” 

Rep. Barbara Lee’s office confirmed that she is heading up a California delegation that will issue a plea this week to President Bush to postpone the FEMA hotel compensation deadline. 

“I’ve practically given up, but I think that’s what they’re banking on,” said Lewis in his hotel near Jack London Square. “It’s simply amazing to me that they would put us back out in the street.”›

Complaints about alcohol sales and possible city code violations have raised new questions about the Gaia Building, the tallest structure built in downtown Berkeley in recent years. 

At the very least, developer Patrick Kennedy, whose Panoramic Interests built and owns the structure at 2116-2120 Allston Way, will have to apply for a modification of the city use permit issued before construction began. 

On a broader policy level, the latest developments at the Gaia Building raise new questions about the bonuses that allow developers to erect structures larger than city codes and plans would otherwise allow.  

The problems surfaced after Anna De Leon, proprietor of Anna’s Jazz Island, a jazz club on the building’s first floor, contacted state and city officials to raise objections to a series of events at the building. 

According to the use permit on file with the city, said Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin, one room on the mezzanine level should have been reserved for an administrator’s office, and two more rooms were supposed to be used for literary events by the Gaia Bookstore, which was slated to be the original tenant. But instead the mezzanine is now used by a commercial food service, Glass Onion Catering, for various group events. Glass Onion also leases a section of the first floor where San Francisco’s The Marsh theater group has recently staged some productions. 

“We told Mr. Kennedy he needs to go to ZAB to amend his use permit. He needs to tell us exactly how he intends to use that area, and that needs to be reflected in his use permit,” said Cosin on learning of the discrepancy after De Leon raised her protest. “We have never approved a catering use in that area.” 

The ZAB Kennedy will face is a different body from the one that approved his original plans. The board’s nine current members are taking a much harder look at the bonuses that have allowed buildings to grow more massive and taller than would otherwise be allowed by city plans and codes. 

“We’ll have a lot of questions,” said ZAB member David Blake. 

Dinner, drinks, fires 

What triggered De Leon’s letters was the announcement that The Marsh intended to serve wine and other refreshments before and after their performances, with Glass Onion doing the catering. 

The jazz club owner said she raised objections with Kennedy, in part because she thought she had an agreement with him that her club would have the exclusive right to serve alcoholic beverages for cultural events in the building, including those in the Gaia Cultural Center, as the ground floor theater and upstairs spaces are now called. 

De Leon also complained to the state bureau of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) after a woman holding a glass of wine she’d been served at a theater event walked into Anna’s on Aug. 26. 

Karyn Nielsen, supervising investigator for licensing with the ABC’s Oakland office, said she investigated de Leon’s complaint and discovered that the theater had not asked for or received the kind of one-day special liquor sales license often granted to non-profit organizations for fund-raising events. 

“They were supposed to get permission from the police department and they didn’t,” she said. 

As a result, Nielsen said, she sent the theater a letter notifying them that they could not obtain one-day licenses for any events held in the building.  

De Leon also asked city officials if the theater and mezzanine areas met fire safety and disability access codes. Fire Marshal Gil Dong, who met with Kennedy and toured the areas in question, concluded that while the building itself met all the relevant codes, group events in the mezzanine still required the presence of a fire department official unless gatherings there were officially approved by ZAB. 

“The intended use was not included in the plans, which call for offices with a maximum occupancy load of 21. When it’s changed to a dining hall, we need to have occupancy numbers to determine the exiting requirements” in case of an emergency, said Dong. 

Bonuses and buildings 

The Gaia Building got to be as tall as it is in part because developer Patrick Kennedy took advantage of a section of city code that allowed developers to qualify for more size than would otherwise be allowed in exchange for providing space for otherwise undefined cultural uses. 

The so-called cultural density bonus, combined with another bonus that allows for increased size in exchange for providing reduced rent “inclusionary” units for lower-income tenants, allowed the Allston Way structure to rise above the five-floor limit codes called for in the downtown area. 

But the ground floor and mezzanine levels of the building stood empty long after tenants had filled the apartment spaces in the floors above. 

Gaia Books, a small New Age bookstore in Kensington, was looking for new quarters and agreed to act as the cultural tenant when Kennedy proposed the building. The store gave the building its name, and its promised presence sold ZAB and city councilmembers on the height. But by the time the new building opened, the store had gone out of business. 

A succession of prospective tenants looked at the stark, unfinished interiors and found they couldn’t afford the substantial costs required to ready the space for occupancy. 

Finally, Kennedy invited de Leon, who operated Anna’s Jazz Cafe in a building he had constructed on University Avenue, to move in. She closed the restaurant in February 2003, hoping to be opening in her new quarters in a few months. 

But delays, including negotiations over the transfer of her liquor license, delayed the opening for 13 months until May of this year. 

While many in the arts community thought that “cultural space” should mean that tenants would be non-profits, city code specified only cultural use, not corporate structure, which still rankles City Councilmember Dona Spring, who had supported Kennedy’s plans. 

Two years ago, Spring tried to change the bonus law to restrict its application to non-profit cultural institutions, “but the Mayor resisted,” she said. 

And while Spring said she likes de Leon and her club, “What’s the difference between what she’s doing and a microbrewery that has music? We have lots of bars with music, and what makes that a cultural use? But it was approved by the ZAB and it’s done now.” 

“There was never a requirement that the entire area” of the bonus space “would be restricted to non-profit use,” Cosin said. “We did require that the theater be in use at least 30 percent of the month, with a requirement of 15 days per month for cultural use of the remainder of the ground floor and mezzanine.” 

Developer Kennedy dismissed the incident as a dispute between tenants. 

“It’s more growing pains than anything else,” he said. 

As for De Leon, he said, “I believe there’s some confusion.” 

De Leon, in turn, points to a letter signed by city Planning Manager Mark Rhoades in June 2003, allowing her club “to serve all permitted food and beverages to all entities in the cultural center ... both on the main floor and the mezzanine. These spaces will not be used for cooking or be part of the cooking or bar facility in any formal sense, but food and alcoholic beverages may be brought to and consumed in the theater and mezzanine spaces.” 

Spring says the whole affair leaves a bad taste, especially about the city’s application of the cultural bonus. “All it’s resulted in is bad buildings and bad feelings,” she said. And, she says, community members are talking about dealing away with the cultural bonus altogether..›

Demonstrators crowded the narrow street leading to the east entrance to San Quentin Prison on Saturday morning to demand clemency for convicted murderer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley “Tookie” Williams. 

Both police representatives and rally organizers unofficially estimated the size of the crowd at about a thousand people. 

One veteran anti-death penalty advocate said that it was the largest anti-death penalty rally he had seen this far from the scheduled execution date. Williams is scheduled to be executed in San Quentin’s death chamber on Dec. 13. His legal appeals have run out, and he has submitted a petition for clemency to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

The 51-year-old Williams is the co-founder of the Crips African-American street gang which fought years of bloody warfare with the rival Bloods during the 1970s and ’80s. In 1981 he was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1979 murders of a convenience store clerk and two motel owners and their daughter during separate robberies. Williams continues to maintain that he was innocent of those crimes. In the last 10 years, he has renounced gang violence and has spent much of his time in his Death Row cell working to turn inner-city youth to positive directions. 

While a handful of San Quentin guards watched from the prison gates a hundred yards away, demonstrators listened to speeches by students, community and prison activists, and religious leaders. The rally was highlighted by a brief, soft-spoken appearance by rapper Snoop Dogg, who spoke wearing a white “Save Tookie.org” T-shirt. 

Demonstrators holding banners proclaiming “Free Tookie!” entered the rally area at the prison entrance to the beat of Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” blaring from loudspeakers. Members of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam were spread throughout the crowd, and Highway Patrol officers and Marin County Sheriff’s Deputies watched the roadway leading up to the prison. A Highway Patrol helicopter circled the air above the demonstration. 

The rally went smoothly, with no incidents and no confrontations. 

Snoop Dogg, once a member of the Los Angeles street gang co-founded by Williams and known in his early years as one of the main promoters of the “gangsta rap,” has recently been cited for his positive youth work, including sponsoring a Southern California youth football team. 

The rapper called Williams an “inspirator” whose life of reform in the last decade “showed me that I should be contacting kids with a positive message. He inspired me, and I inspire millions, so you see what kind of effect he has.” 

Directing his closing remarks to Williams, who is inside San Quentin Prison on Death Row, Dogg said, “We love you, Stanley. Keep your head up, OG.” 

During the rally, Barbara Becnel, the Richmond community activist who has spent the past several years working on Williams’ legal appeals, told the crowd, “Saving Stan’s life saves lives. He has already saved tens of thousands of young people’s lives by inspiring them through his teachings. If we don’t want to save his life, it means we don’t want to save the lives of those tens of thousands of youths. That’s an immoral position.” 

Appealing directly to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Becnel said, “I have to believe that the governor is a moral man and will do the moral thing.” 

Minister Tony Muhammad of Los Angeles, a representative of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam organization, said, “The Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams I know is a redeemed man. It’s not how you start in life, but how you finish. Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams can be more of a help alive to people in the streets of LA, Chicago, New York, England.” 

Vicky Linsey, a representative of the Los Angeles-based Cry No More organization made up of mothers of victims of street violence, said that she “grew up in the ’60s and ’70s in Los Angeles. I know all about the Crips and the Bloods. I was there. A lot of the members of our organization find it hard to support Tookie Williams.... If there is an ounce of doubt about his guilt, we can’t kill him. Not for his wonderful book. Not for the movie about his life or the Nobel Peace nomination. But because there is doubt.” 

Willams is the author of several children’s books as well the memoir “Blue Rage, Black Redemption,” which chronicles his path from gang organizer to Death Row resident and peace activist (“blue” represents the color associated with the Crips gang). He was the subject of the 2003 made-for-television movie “Redemption” starring Jaimie Foxx, who played Williams in the movie. 

?

Among the kids playing basketball, the folks bringing food, the gardeners, the chess players and the homeless people who all fill some sort of niche in their lives in People’s Park, there’s been another creature hanging out there—a wild turkey. 

I first saw her when I stopped by the park almost two weeks ago. (It was determined by someone who seemed knowledgeable about turkeys that it was a female.) Alan, a homeless man who often rests there during the day, pointed her out to me. 

“We have to do something,” he said urgently, worrying that some hungry predator—human or otherwise—would hurt her. My first thought, admittedly not a very compassionate one, was that if turkeys are supposed to be so smart, what possessed this one to wander into town just two weeks before Thanksgiving. Then I went for my camera.  

The turkey hung around the park until some time on Saturday when crowds, noise and specifically one uncouth individual scared her off. The regular park denizens were sad that she was gone. Wednesday she was back and as I write this she’s still there. 

To many of the park regulars she is just another lonely soul finding temporary sustenance from the nearness of other creatures. Jessica declared that she “liked having a turkey in the Park.” She had grown up in the country where her family raised turkeys and other livestock. She gave the turkey some crusts of bread and observed that other people had also seen to it that the bird got food.  

Jerry, not to be accused of being sentimental, quipped, “Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of turkeys in People’s Park but this is the first one with feathers.” 

Deborah was inspired to weave all sorts of stories around its appearance. “Maybe it’s telling us all to be vegetarians for Thanksgiving,” she said. Deborah herself isn’t a vegetarian now but that could change, she said. 

“Or,” she declared, “this could be the reincarnation of somebody important to the park, maybe Mario Savio.” Or since it’s a female, “how about Rosebud,” she suggested tentatively.  

Even Devin Woolridge, long-time park supervisor who has seen just about everything that could go on in the park, was surprised and delighted to see the bird. At Alan’s urging to do something to protect her, he phoned Berkeley animal control. 

Well, it seems that wild turkeys periodically show up in areas of north Berkeley , and there’s no reason to try to capture them unless they’re threatened. There’s a “gaggle of them up near the Greek theater,” an animal control officer told me in a subsequent conversation. 

“If he’s being fed and cared for, then he’s smart,” she said. “He’s just hanging out where the pickings are good.” She assured me that “we’ve never picked up a diseased turkey in the city of Berkeley.” 

My research took me to the website of the NWTF, the National Wild Turkey Federation. There are 7 million wild turkeys in the United States and 3 million turkey hunters. I hope none of them are in Berkeley. 

Julie Burkhart at the Lindsey Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek turned out to be a font of information. She has studied them intensely and was happy to give me a detailed description of their habits and lifestyle. 

In the spring, during mating season, large numbers of the birds will gather, but for most of the year the males go off together into the hills and the females stay around for a while after the babies are hatched, then they tend to disperse. So it’s not very surprising to find a lone female and, Julie says, as long as she’s getting food and water she’s likely to stay. 

She shouldn’t be fed bread, she warns. As a matter of fact, Julie says, it’s probably best not to feed her at all. Grain and small insects are the turkeys’ normal diet. 

Julie talked about some interesting research that has been done on the behavior of the wild turkeys. They have been found to have “an incredible social structure.” Turkeys might be found together in large or small groups and then go off in different directions for a time. When they get together again, according to the studies done on them, they all remember each other. 

And she described how hens will adopt orphan chicks and raise them. She emphasized that wild turkeys are “a totally different animal than the turkeys we put on our thanksgiving table. . . . They’re smart. They’re very good at being turkeys.” 

As for the little turkey in People’s Park, it’s pretty clear she isn’t going to end up on anybody’s dinner table. Besides the fact that she’s small and she’s smart, most of the park folks like having her around. 

“More power to her,” says Daniel, and others agree that it’s only right that she is free to roam. Park supervisor Devin observes that “sometimes we get so far removed from nature, it’s good to have a bit of it here.”Ü

Smiling and brimming with upbeat assessments, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau last week gave the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce rosy views of the future of town and gown cooperation. 

Chamber members gathered last Tuesday at the Doubletree Hotel in the Berkeley Marina to hear the pair discuss crucial issues facing the city and the university. 

The discussions, in which Bates and Birgeneau were given equal time, centered on the university’s controversial Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) for 2020, economic development opportunities in the city, physical development of downtown Berkeley and the opportunities for city and university partnership in youth programs. 

“The city and the university have faced some challenges around the LRDP,” said Bates. “They (UC Berkeley) have a lot of freedom to do anything they want.” 

The LRDP’s provisions calling for more than a million square feet of development within the city limits, most in downtown Berkeley, sparked a city lawsuit against the university and a settlement calling for a joint approach to development. 

“In spite of what you may have heard from the press, discussions with the city and the mayor have been open, friendly and fair,” said Birgeneau. “We have to work hard on both sides toward a compromise.” 

While acknowledging that the university is a major factor in shaping the city, Bates defined one of the key issues for Berkeley: “Are we being justly compensated for the services we provide” to the university, including police, fire and other services funded by taxpayers, as well as for the costs of traffic congestion arising from the 40,000 commuters who come to the university daily? 

With 16,000 full-time employees, the university is Berkeley’s largest employer, Birgeneau said, and the presence of the university also attracts other businesses to the city—most recently the Yahoo center. 

Bates agreed, adding that the university also creates environmentally-friendly business. 

The mayor said he was pleased that the university has agreed to provide the city with a “heads up on new products coming down the line so we can look at available office space in the city to keep them in town.” 

Bates said he was enthusiastic about public and private partnerships that would keep new business on the property tax rolls—in contrast to university-only programs that are tax-exempt. 

Both officials also noted that plans for a university-endorsed private hotel at the northeast corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street remain a possibility, as does an expanded museum complex and convention center in the same area bounded by Shattuck on the west, Oxford Street on the east, Center Street on the south and University Avenue on the north. 

If built, the hotel would remain on the tax rolls, and generate property, sales and room occupancy taxes for the city, Bates said. 

Birgeneau said the university is negotiating with the same developer who built a similar university-supported complex in Cambridge, Mass. while he served as Dean of Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Both officials offered their praises of the joint planning process that will create a new Downtown Area Plan. 

“Ultimately, this plan by the citizens and staff will go to the Planning Commission,” and will be “heard to death” before its final adoption, said Bates. “I don’t think we’re going to have a problem. I hope not. I think our downtown will be so wonderful when we get through,” creating a “gateway edge of really exciting world class buildings, green buildings.” 

When it came time for questions and answers, one audience member asked the officials to comment on panhandling on Telegraph Avenue and the People’s Park Free Box. 

Bates said the panhandling issue would be best resolved by a commitment from the state and federal governments to provide adequate detox facilities,  

housing and support services for those in need. 

Birgeneau said he encountered the same problems while he was serving as president at the University of Toronto. 

“One third were not getting proper medical care, one third were drug addicts, and one third were genuinely poor and had fallen through the cracks,” he said. “There is not a simple solution.” 

When another audience member asked about a commitment from the university to buy from local merchants, Birgeneau said he was limited by the UC Board of Regents’ Strategic Sourcing Initiative, which dictates that campuses must buy in the most efficient manner. 

“The question is, how can local merchants compete?” Birgeneau said.h

For the third time in as many months, UC Police have torn down the freebox at People’s Park. 

Volunteers erected a new steel free exchange bin on Nov. 12 after police dismantled a temporary structure to replace one damaged by fire earlier this year. Despite warnings from university officials that they would not allow a new freebox at the park, supporters were hopeful that the new box would last.  

But those hopes were dashed as police entered the park under the cover of darkness early Wednesday morning to dismantle the eight-by-four foot metal structure.  

“The freebox is probably one of the noblest and coolest ideas the city of Berkeley ever had,” said Dan McMullan, a volunteer with Friends of People’s Park, an organization that has championed for the freebox. “We could be spending more time on helping people who really need help. It’s a big waste of energy. They’re just sucking up our resources.” 

UC officials said they see it differently.  

“The box has more symbolic value than meeting a true need,” said Irene Hegarty, director of community relations for the university. “We can come up with better ways of getting clothing to the homeless.” 

According to Hegarty, clothes from the freebox end up strewn about the park and that university employees are left with the clean up. “It’s expensive and time consuming,” she said.  

But supporters like McMullan point out the success of the freebox idea in other locations around Berkeley, and say the university is not being honest about its intentions. 

“The university doesn’t want students to mix with what they consider poor people,” suggested McMullan, who said the freebox serves as an important gathering spot for many different kinds of people. 

Others agreed, including Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district includes People’s Park. 

“I don’t know why they’re spending so much time and effort being antagonistic with the community,” said Worthington. “Coordinating with community members would have better results.” 

Worthington also complained about the university’s secretive way of dealing with park issues, citing their predawn raid on the freebox, the decision to cancel the park’s advisory board last year and the recent unannounced removal of two trees at the park.  

While the university has decided to reinstate the advisory board next month, observers say they’re concerned that the university will try to stack the board with appointees friendly to their positions.  

Hegarty responded to the criticism by saying she has reached out to park advocates on “three to four” occasions. “Whether we can find common ground, I don’t know, but I have offered to set up a meeting so we can talk about it,” she said. 

Even were there to be such a meeting, Hegarty said that the freebox was a “violation of the university’s rules that govern People’s Park,” adding, “There is no ambiguity about the rules. You need a permit to build any permanent structure.”  

She also said freebox advocates were given notice of the university’s intentions. 

“Police warned them that if they continued to build it would get taken out,” Hegarty said. “How long will that go on, I have no idea.” 

For their part, park advocates have vowed to reconstruct the freebox each time the university takes it down. Friends of People’s Park volunteers are also planning a variety of events to raise interest in their cause, including a freebox poetry contest and a competition to see who can build a freebox that lasts the longest. 

“People’s Park has been there for 37 years, the current chancellor for two,” quipped McMullan. “We’ll outlast them. We have more energy and we care more.”›

Police are seeking clues in the mysterious Nov. 10 disappearance of a 23-year-old Berkeley man who left home that morning to drive a friend to work and hasn’t been seen since. 

Wallace Richards was driving another friend’s Mercedes Benz, which turned in San Lorenzo up five days after he vanished, said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

“At this point, we are handling the matter as a missing persons case, though we treat all such cases as potential criminal cases,” Okies said. 

Neither the recovered car or other leads have turned up evidence of a criminal act, the officer added. 

Wallace is an African American with a medium complexion who is 6’3” tall and weighs about 235 pounds, according to the website wallacerichards.com, which is posting information about the disappearance. 

Friends and family members told police that Wallace met with friends in Pinole before a trip to San Francisco. He planned to return to the East Bay afterwards, they said. 

“He’s a great person, very caring and very giving,” said Paul Rose, Richards’ best friend and the creator of the website. 

When last seen, Richards was wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a lightweight Hunter Green Northface jacket and driving the golden 2002 Mercedes Benz C240 which was recovered near the corner of Embers Way and Hesperian Boulevard in San Lorenzo. 

Anyone with information is requested to call Berkeley Police at 981-5900 or e-mail the department at police@ci.berkeley.ca.us. Information may be provided anonymously.m

Transportation commissioners voted Thursday night to raise the cost of evening parking at the Oxford Street lot and extend the time limits on the new pay and display meters downtown to 90 minutes. 

The final decision on both actions rests with the City Council, which Assistant City Manager for Transportation Peter Hillier said will probably take up the issues at its Feb. 21 meeting. 

The Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA) raised the issue of extending the time cars could park at the city’s new “pay and display” meters downtown, which have so far managed to avoid the best efforts of the Berkeley saboteurs who kept so many of the older meters out of action. 

While a maximum limit of two hours had been suggested, DBA Executive Director Deborah Badhia took no formal position on the length of the extension, and commissioners opted for 90 minutes. 

Commission chair Rob Wrenn had proposed hiking the $2 after 5 p.m. fee for parking at the Oxford Street lot to the $5 charged at the city’s Center Street garage. 

He said the Oxford lot rate had simply been overlooked when the commission voter to raise the fee at Center Street. 

Commissioners approved the 90-minute meter time only in the downtown area, and not for other areas where the new meters are being installed. 

While city staff can extend meter time limits in limited areas, such as along a single city block, extensions over a broader area require approval by the commission and City Council, Wrenn said. 

Hiller said that extending the meter time limit to 90 minutes seemed more in keeping with the changed nature of downtown businesses. 

Wrenn said the increasing numbers of restaurants in the downtown also played a role in the call for extending the limits.a

The walking tour of the area to be included in the new Downtown Area Plan will be held Dec. 3, and not Nov. 26 as reported in Friday’s Daily Planet. 

Members of the public are welcome to join members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, who will gather at the Aurora Theater at 2081 Addison St. before the downtown tour begins at 9 a.m.

Pizza guy robbed 

A strong-arm bandit robbed a pizza delivery person of cash and a pie as he was attempting a delivery near the corner of Alcatraz Avenue and Idaho Street just before 1 a.m. last Monday. 

Strong-arm pair 

A caller told Berkeley police at 5:37 p.m. last Monday that two bandits in their late teens had just robbed a pedestrian on Shattuck Avenue just outside the Shattuck Cinemas. 

The robbers were last seen fleeing into the gym area of the Berkeley High School campus, said Officer Okies. 

Masked rat pack 

A gang consisting of at least eight teenagers wearing hockey and ski masks attempted to rob a 39-year-old man of his bike and backpack near the corner of Prince and Ellis streets just after 6 p.m. last Monday. They also tried to rob two others, but may have been scared off when neighbors noted the attack. 

Tall armed robbers 

Two men, one 6’2” tall and the other 6’11”, both about 20 years of age, robbed a pedestrian of his wallet near the corner of Francisco and Chestnut streets at about 6:20 p.m. the same evening. 

They were last seen running eastbound on Francisco Street, said Officer Okies. 

Tall carjacker 

A 6’4” bandit weighting about 240 pounds staged the strong-arm carjacking of a blue Kia driving by a 27-year-old man near the corner of Fifth Street and Hearst Avenue just before 8 p.m. Monday evening. 

Armed duo 

Two men in their early 20s robbed a 24-year-old woman and a 21-year old man in the 1500 block of Prince Street just before 12:45 a.m. last Tuesday, said Officer Okies. 

The duo made off with a cell phone and a wallet. 

Wallet stolen 

Two strong-arm robbers in their teens robbed a man of his wallet in the 2100 block of Oxford Street at 2:15 p.m. last Tuesday. 

Ice pick carjack 

Two men, one wielding an ice pick, approached a 25-year-old man in his Saab sedan in the 600 block of Bancroft Way just after 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and forced him to hand over his vehicle. 

Alert caller 

A citizen called police at 4:15 a.m. Wednesday to report that a man was attempting to steal a car in the 2900 block of Garber Street. 

Equipped with a description of the stolen vehicle, officers were able to stop the car near People’s Park on Dwight Way and apprehend the 29-year-old driver, who turned out to be holding computer equipment stolen in a home burglary. 

Hoodie heisters 

Two robbers, both clad in dark hooded sweatshirts, approached a 22-year-old woman from behind as she was walking along the 2800 block of Ellsworth Street Wednesday morning and robbed her of her canvas shoulder bag. 

Masked rat pack redux 

Police arrested five juveniles wearing hockey masks who robbed a man in the 3100 block of Shattuck Avenue at 7:41 p.m. Wednesday. 

In addition to robbery charges, they were also booked on suspicion of harassment based on race, religion or sexual orientation. 

Officer Okies said the suspects may include some of the same crew who staged the botched rat pack robbery two days earlier.

To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit  

www.jfdefreitas.com To search for previous cartoons by date of publication, click on the Daily Planet Archive.



DRUG HOUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet 

I applaud the efforts of Paul Rauber and 13 of his neighbors to rid their neighborhood once and for all of a drug house. 

With all due respect to Ms. Prichett, while it is certainly true that racism does still exist towards blacks in our society, and there are educationally and economically disadvantaged black youths in South Berkeley and a lot of other places, Paul Rauber and his neighbors have the right to live in a neighborhood free of all the elements a drug house brings on the scene. We have heard so much about the racism and the economic and educational disadvantage, but there is absolutely no reason for Mr. Rauber and his neighbors to have to wait for social solutions to their problem when they have obviously waited too long as it is! 

Frank Rivers 

Oakland 

• 

ANOTHER VIEW 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Maybe Paul Rauber should sell his house and move. Just a thought. 

Annie Kassof 

• 

HALFWAY HOUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet 

A major point that has been overlooked in all the arguments about the Moores and their neighbors is this: When someone who has been using drugs decides it’s time to get clean and live a healthy, productive life one of the first requirements is that (s)he avoid all association with the friends and family they did drugs with. The same holds true for ex-convicts. If anyone is serious about going straight it is vitally important to give up all associations with those who are still criminals. 

So why are we encouraging the Moores to run an open house for ex-convicts and ex addicts? Are they really trying to run a halfway house for these people? 

If so, then let them register as such and follow all the rules set down, including establishing 12 step programs and job retraining. If not then close the house down.  

The rest of us who are working, paying taxes to the City of Berkeley and obeying the law want to live in peace in our neighborhood. 

Joan Modzelewski 

• 

A JUST SOCIETY 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Larry Hendel of the SEIU (“Time to Kick Butt,” Nov. 16) has it right when he says the Democrats “suck at the same corporate teat for campaign funds as the Republicans,” and therefore, remain unable to move forward on a meaningful agenda for working people. Now that we have managed to fend off the latest corporate attacks that Schwarzenegger enabled, let’s not fall back into the same trap that we just came out of. Labor unions must break away from the corporate two-party system in a hurry. 

As a nurse activist who sees how piecemeal reforms championed by Democrats have let millions of Californians fall through the cracks of health care “system,” I believe the hope for the future of working class America lies in the building of independent political organizations like the Green Party. We simply cannot be satisfied to wait for corporate politicians to dole out crumbs so we can thank them for not starving us. 

We need proportional representation or at least instant run-off voting, public financing of political campaigns, single-payer healthcare, and a reinvigorated economy based on social and ecological justice principles. Labor leaders should unite around these principles and join with the Greens to build a livable, just society for the next generation. 

Kevin Reilly, RN 

Oakland 

• 

DERBY STREET FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Responding to Terry Doran’s Nov. 15 piece, he states that the costs for closing Derby Street and building a “big-league baseball field” for the boys varsity baseball team will be $2.7 million, despite the fact that at our Oct. 5 School Board meeting, BUSD staff clearly stated that estimate does not include soft costs (planning, architectural expenses, permitting, and a contingency fund, which typically run 30-40 percent of construction fees), fencing, buffer zones, landscaping, and any future as yet unknown costs of mitigating the closed-Derby project. Not to mention ongoing and unestimated, very expensive maintenance costs for a baseball field versus a turf field available for soccer, softball, baseball practice, rugby, lacrosse, and other turf sports, which all could share an open-Derby plan. 

BUSD has barely enough to embark upon an open-Derby Street playing field right now. A closed-Derby project will cost BUSD and the city between $4 and $6 million. Those costs will only increase over time. We could have a multi-use playing field, with an open-Derby project, by 2007 if we decided to do that right now. Instead, with uncertain funding and a complicated street closure nothing will be done for years. 

The Berkeley School Board has worked diligently over the past four years to rebuild our financial and operational systems, our integrity, and our reputation. It disappoints me that a Board member would quote and publicize financial projections that are not accurate, nor what staff has reported to us. Whatever the merits of a closed-Derby project might be, the community and our citizens deserve to know the real costs, the sources of any funding, and what they can expect in return.  

John Selawsky 

Director, Berkeley School Board 

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THE PARTY OF FDR 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Bob Burnett ignores history in his Nov. 18 romantic reference to “the party of FDR” as a contrast to the current liar in the White House.  

Readers of Eric Alterman’s exhaustively footnoted When Presidents Lie know: 

At Yalta, FDR gave Stalin carte blanche to control Eastern Europe, and didn’t even tell his own vice president (Truman) about it. Harriman lied to Truman about it. (When we got the bomb, Truman started the tradition of “We’re strong enough to blow off our allies.”) 

JFK lied to the public about the secret deal that helped end the Cuban missile crisis. RFK lied about his personal role in brokering that deal when he came out as a Vietnam hawk. The truth could have been acknowledged as proof of U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation towards peace. The lie led to the ouster of Khrushchev and the arms race. 

JFK’s team spoke out about the government’s right to lie. 

LBJ and Robert McNamara lied consistently about Vietnam. This not only destroyed the nation’s faith in the presidency and the press, but led to a “we-can-get-away-with it” White House that gave us Watergate and Iran/Contra. 

(The book also covers Reagan’s lying, and refers to the current occupant as caretaker of “the post-truth presidency”.) 

Jimmy Carter was criticized for his honesty. He was also the least effective full-term president of the last 70 years. 

David Altschul 

• 

PRESIDENT BUSH 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Bush has called on China to be more tolerant of dissidents, while at the same time his administration labels any opposition to Bush’s policies in Iraq as unpatriotic. 

Bush attends church in Beijing and calls on China to be more open to religion. Could Christianity (and/or Islam) bring peace to Iraq? Has this even been tried? Ideology sure hasn’t worked. 

Bush says that a quick withdrawal from Iraq now would hand the country over to the suicide bombers. I remember, during Vietnam, when protesting monks burned themselves alive. What stopped those suicides? 

Can’t any of Bush’s advisors find a “faith-based initiative” which could make the insurgents want to stay alive and build a peaceful and prosperous Iraq? Or are the insurgents in despair, too sure that the new Iraq will remain a puppet, supplying the US with cheap oil? 

Steve Geller 

I got my first personal impression of UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau last Tuesday, when he and Mayor Bates were the featured speakers at the City Lunch sponsored by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Up to then, I’d only encountered Robert Birgeneau in print—through quotes in many newspaper articles, and through the admirable speech he delivered when he was inaugurated as the campus’s ninth chancellor last April. I was curious to see how he and the mayor would address their announced theme, “The City and the University Partnership for Berkeley’s Future.” 

I left the Doubletree Hotel thinking that the newly arrived head of UC Berkeley, a Canadian no less, grasps this city’s distinctive character better than the mayor who’s lived here for over half a century.  

Up on the dais with Bates, Birgeneau told how on Nov. 12, the day of the Cal-USC football game, he and his party had showed up at Downtown Restaurant around supper time without a reservation. They couldn’t get a table, even though, he said, “I think they knew that I was the chancellor at UC.” He sounded bemused, not resentful. I liked him better for that.  

But what I liked even more was the behavior of the Downtown Restaurant staff. In honoring their commitments to those who’d called ahead, they said, in effect: We have our democratic principles and procedures, and we’re going to hold to them, even if it means disappointing a powerful individual. To cite Mayor Bates’ campaign slogan, that’s Berkeley at its best.  

Unfortunately, in his three years in office, the mayor has mainly honored Berkeley’s democratic principles and procedures in the breach. He truckles to power like a moth drawn to flame. The most egregious result of this toadying is the Bates-brokered May 2005 agreement that settled the city’s lawsuit over the university’s latest Long-Range Development Plan. As a friend remarked after reading the document, if you didn’t know otherwise, you’d think that the university had sued the city, because the city made all the concessions.  

“As far as I know,” Tom Bates told the 80-odd Chamber lunchers, “there’s not one city in the United States that has planned together for the expansion of their university, and I’ve talked to a lot of mayors. But we’re doing it.”  

He needs to talk to some more mayors. As documented in the 2005 book The University as Urban Developer, numerous cities have worked with the expanding institutions of higher education in their midst. On the other hand, no other city I know of has agreed to terms like the ones in the 2020 LRDP settlement, and for good reason: Municipal officials who took their oaths of office seriously would never surrender their town’s legal authority to regulate development, including private development, within its boundaries—which is the gist of the May 2005 agreement.  

To be sure, Chancellor Birgeneau also signed the settlement agreement. But his primary obligation is to the UC regents, not the public. Unlike the city, the university gave up none of its own legal prerogatives. Indeed, the agreement explicitly states: “The Regents will reserve their autonomy from local land use regulation.”  

Yet to hear Tom Bates at the lunch, the agreement was all gain for the city. It couldn’t be otherwise, given the mayor’s perspective, from which poor little Berkeley appears as a supplicant to UC. “What’s made Berkeley great and will continue to make Berkeley great,” Bates told his listeners, “is the innovation and creativity in our community. A lot of that innovation and creativity are due to the university.” True enough, and it befits the city’s mayor to say so. 

But a mayor who saw Berkeley as more than an appendage to the eminent local university would also pay tribute to the community’s indigenous (if you will) achievements and institutions, manifest in its vibrant political life, numerous environmental and human services organizations, rich artisanal and artistic sector, numerous one-of-a-kind shops and diverse light industrial enterprises, which produce “world-class” (the mayor’s favorite adjective) products ranging from chocolate to harpsichords to pharmaceuticals. None of these got even a nod from Tom Bates. Nor did the mayor allude to Berkeley’s extraordinary physical charms—its superb location, fine residential neighborhoods, lovely gardens and distinguished architecture.  

Instead, it was Chancellor Birgeneau who lauded Berkeley’s “beautiful setting” and “livability.” “The quality of life in the city of Berkeley,” he said, “matters to the university as much as it does to the citizens of Berkeley.” That’s because the campus’s ability to attract top-notch personnel depends in part on the city’s appeal. “If we don’t have Berkeley as a flourishing urban community,” the chancellor explained, prospective faculty members who are being offered 25 percent higher salaries at private schools such as Stanford and Harvard will “go elsewhere.”  

The irony, of course, is that the greatest threat to the city’s quality of life is the massive expansion—the 2.2. million new square feet, more than in the entire Empire State Building, with 1.1 million of those feet slated for somewhere in downtown—contemplated in UC’s 2020 Long-Range Development Plan and its environmental impact report.  

Mayor Bates put it well at the Feb. 23 press conference announcing the city’s lawsuit against UC. “The university,” he said, “asked us to sign the equivalent of blank check that would allow it to build wherever, whenever, and however it would like. The lawsuit firmly states that we are not signing anything until we know what we are buying.”  

But when the mayor and five councilmembers voted to settle the lawsuit, they agreed to sign the same blank check they’d spurned three months earlier. The LRDP and its environmental impact report read in May exactly as they did in February. Nevertheless, in mind-boggling fashion, the Bates-led council reversed course and effectively endorsed the university’s plans. At the same time, they abandoned their demand that the tax-exempt university fairly compensate the city for police, fire and sewer services, thereby further burdening those of us who do pay taxes.  

I don’t have room to detail the ways in which the settlement agreement compromises Berkeley’s welfare and independence. (For a succinct and comprehensive critique, see Anne Wagley’s essay, “Mayor Bates Drops the Ball,” in the June 24, 2005 issue of the Daily Planet. ) But in the context of the Chamber lunch, one item that has major implications for Berkeley businesses deserves immediate attention: local procurement.  

The new town and gown partnership, Bates said, will lead to “more local purchasing.” Maybe so. But the relevant language of the settlement agreement is not reassuring. Section V.C. states that the campus will “[d]evelop and implement within a reasonable time a local-purchasing program for prioritizing the purchase of goods and services in Berkeley, to the extent feasible.” As you might guess, the operative words are “to the extent feasible.” Like the other “Additional Joint Initiatives” in the agreement, this one ties campus participation to “existing law and UC practices.” In other words, the Bates council underwrote the university’s right to do as it pleases.  

To get an idea of how existing UC practices are already affecting the purchase of goods and services in Berkeley, consider the Sept. 28, 2005 letter sent to Associate Vice Chancellor Ron Coley by Gary Shows, the longtime owner of ALKO Office Supply. Shows wonders why UC Berkeley has been “actively encouraging, and in some case insisting that UCB Departments (our customers) buy supplies from Office Max instead of us” [emphasis in original]. The university, Shows writes, is ALKO’s “most important customer. We maintain a special low price list that we tailor to UC[,] and constantly work on how we can remain competitive and do a better job for this customer.” UC has been buying from ALKO for decades. Last week Shows told me that “some departments at UC have begged to be able to buy” from ALKO, citing the store’s special services to them. “There’s all this talk about supporting small business” he said, “but it’s all talk, even in a liberal town.”  

City officials should walk the talk. But it looks as if the settlement agreement requires them to acquiesce in UC’s practices, and not just with respect to the purchase of office supplies. This is the reality of the “new era” of town and gown relations that Tom Bates has been puffing since last May. Anyone who prizes Berkeley’s integrity should demand that the city withdraw from the May agreement and seek a relationship that benefits both UC and the larger community.  

X

This semester at San Francisco State, I’m taking classes with several excellent, talented instructors. Nona Caspers is the recipient of the 2005 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction. Toni Mirosevitch is the author of Queer Street and My Oblique Strategies, winner of the 2005 Frank O’Hara Chapbook Award. Michelle Carter’s play, Ted Kaczinski Killed People With Bombs, has won a slew of prestigious prizes including a 2003 Pen Award, a commission from the Mark Taper Forum, and a 2005 residency for the playwright at London’s Donmar Warehouse. 

Additionally, I’m enrolled in a playwriting workshop with Roy Conboy, Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at SFSU and head of the graduate playwriting program. If this isn’t enough, Roy is currently performing in his solo show, Drive My Coche, at the Black Box Theatre, El Teatro de la Esperanza on 16th Street in the Mission. 

The Black Box Theatre is a small, square, black room three flights up a narrow staircase in the building that is also home to Theatre Rhinoceros. The Drive My Coche set is decorated with flowers, candles, and graffiti. At curtain time, Roy strides to center stage in flannel shirt and jeans, a guitar draped around his neck, his shoulder length hair appropriate for the story that is about to unfold. 

Conboy starts with a song about a man lost in a fog-shrouded San Francisco evening who suddenly finds himself transported back to Los Angeles, circa 1970. No longer a family guy driving a KIA, he is an 18-year-old Chicano, a college dropout who has lost his way, and his student deferment. He is nervously counting down the days before his draft board hearing. While working as a busboy, cruising with his on again-off-again girlfriend in his tricked out Chevy, experimenting with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, the Vietnam War moves from backdrop to foreground as combat intensifies, napalm shipments increase, and the body counts escalate. 

Originally created and performed in 1999 at San Francisco’s Tu Solo Tu Festival, and again at the New Works Festival in Los Angeles, and Teatro Vision de San Jose, this one-man show combines music, poetry, and movement, and is just as relevant today as it was pre-9/11. Conboy is regarded as one of the leading Chicano playwrights in the country, but Drive My Coche, though set within the Los Angeles Hispanic community, explores universal and everyday themes of unrequited love, violence, and highway driving. That wars are instigated by the rich and powerful, but fought by the young and disenfranchised may be familiar and recurring subject matter, but it is, regrettably, current and needs to be kept in the forefront of public conscious. One leaves the theater mindful of this premise, cognizant of how history repeats itself. 

Several of my creative writing classmates were at the production last Friday night. Just minutes before curtain call, one of them received a cell phone message from her mother, informing her that the U.S. Congress was still in session, heatedly debating the pros and cons of troop withdrawal from Iraq. 

After Roy’s performance, we reconnoitered to discuss the play, the Congressional debates, and to decide where to go next. Several younger, more energetic individuals rushed off for a late night performance by The Funky Meters at the Fillmore, but I took a solo BART ride home, lost in memories of 1970, hoping, as I hoped then, that the war would end soon, the troops would come home safe, and peace would be given another chance. 

Subconsciously, a decade-appropriate soundtrack played in my head, including 

a tune from the show: “Baby You Can Drive My Car,” or as Roy sang it, “Baby You Can Drive My Coche.” 

Roy Conboy performs Drive My Coche at 8 p.m. Dec. 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, and 17 at the Black Box Theatre, El Teatro de la Esperanza, 2940 16th St. (at Capp Street), San Francisco. $15 general/$12 students, seniors, and groups. Online ticket sales at www.ticketweb.com or by phone: (415) 240-9594. For more information see www.collegeofcreativearts.org.

So the lord sent down the rainbow sign, no more water the fire next time.  

—Langston Hughes 

People of color have been talking for years of the inequalities and injustice in the United States, but mainstream America constantly counters with “You’re just paranoid.” They say slavery was in the past and racism hardly exists anymore. Their forefathers were poor, came from Europe and made a good life for themselves and families through hard work! They never take in to account that our U.S government legalized and supported discrimination against people of color, and separate but equal was the law of the land.  

But I’m paranoid! 

We’ve been telling people for years that there can be no peace without justice. The struggle is not just about race, class, sex and color, but mainly the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Remember Enron, World Com and especially those preachers like Jimmy Swaggert and Jim Baker spouting the scriptures, ripping off poor folks and pocketing the money.  

A black man was sodomized with a two-foot broomstick by members of the New York Police Department for no apparent reason, and another shot 42 times. What crime did they commit? Have you ever heard of a person of color accidentally shooting a police officer and getting off?! But there have been hundreds of people accidentally shot by the police with no consequence. I wonder how many of them were wealthy. Listen up people! 

But I guess I’m just paranoid! 

The levees break, the houses shake, the whole damn thing is a big mistake! 

Mistake? The Army Corp of Engineers predicted years ago it could happen, but there was no money. Would it have made a difference if it was Hollywood or Crawford, Texas below sea level? Recently, during images of the water this time, the news media portrayed black folks looting while white folks salvaged food. How about showing the looting when thousands of homeowners and businesses turn in inflated insurance claims? 

But I’m paranoid! 

A radio talk show host said, “Why should millions of our tax dollars be wasted repairing homes destroyed by an act of nature? Maybe they shouldn’t be living there!” How about the billions of taxpayer dollars we spend blowing up houses in other countries? Meanwhile, rich people’s homes outside of Los Angeles are threatened by the fire this time. I wonder how many of them will have to stay in a homeless shelter! 

Finally, William Bennett, who supposedly represents the American mainstream, the “moral majority,” says, “You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” He says his words were misconstrued. He was merely musing about a hypothetical argument. Who even thinks like that?! 

Paranoid? I’m mad as hell! 

We’ve been talking forever about the injustice around us. What will it finally take for America to take heed? Maybe they are listening, but their favorite TV show is on, their iPod is blasting and they really won’t care until the fire next time!  

Winston Burton is a Berkeley resident.  

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The environmental impact report (EIR) procedure is far from perfect (see “West Berkeley Bowl EIR Conceals the Truth,” Daily Planet, Nov. 18), but the beauty of this legal process is that it permits the public to examine potential impacts of a development prior to its approval. 

The 173-unit housing project at 700 University Ave., proposed to replace the beloved Brennan’s and Celia’s buildings, is undergoing environmental analysis for an EIR. Investigation by the public has revealed many interesting aspects of this site. I am now convinced this might be the most preposterous place in town to put a big block of housing. 

With subterranean parking in the plans, 700 University appears to be right over an historic creek bed. Archival newspapers report that this area flooded each winter in the early days of Berkeley, with water up to five feet deep. Creek experts tell me that under the thin layer of asphalt, the site may qualify as wetlands.  

The proposed project is in a seismic liquefaction hazard zone, as is much of West Berkeley. Given the area’s origin as a marshland, I wonder how the builders will satisfy the state’s stringent seismic safety standards—or even if they can. 

Underground jet fuel lines reside in the railroad right-of-way a few feet from the property line shared by this proposed “luxury” condo-apartment block. Fuel pipelines were originally placed in such locations partly because housing was not built right next to the railroads, for a host of reasons which are obvious to those of us not employed in the “planning” or development fields.  

The owner of the pipelines is the Kinder Morgan Company, formed in 1997 by Richard Kinder and Bill Morgan, former executives of Enron. In August, the company received an order from the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to review its operating procedures because of the 44 pipeline accidents in its West Coast operations since January 2003, including the fatal explosion in Walnut Creek a year ago. 

These issues are coming to light only because 700 University Ave. was required to undergo analysis for an EIR, mandated by state law whenever a project may have a significant impact on the environment. Except for this proposal, Berkeley’s condo-rental boom has been virtually EIR-free. 

The nine-story Seagate project—I think its new name is “Arpeggio of Emeryville-in-Berkeley”—was deemed by city planning staff and the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to have no significant impact on the environment, even though maps show that it, too, may be over a creek. The builders might be in for a big surprise while executing their three stories of underground parking. 

At 2700 San Pablo Ave., a project was approved by ZAB as four stories of rentals, without an EIR, extending up to a property line shared with a modest single-family home. Neighbors sued. The judge ruled in favor of the city, because charter cities can pretty much make it up as they go along. The land was sold, at a profit to the original owner and permit applicant (Patrick Kennedy), with the zoning approvals as part of the package. The project then morphed into five stories of condos—with a smattering of lofts—which just happens to reduce the requirement for “inclusionary” (supposedly affordable) units.  

Taller than allowed by the Zoning Code, the new project should have gone back to ZAB for a fresh new set of approvals, but was not required to. The new architect for the new project changed its design significantly, to the further detriment of the neighbors. It is a different project, and should receive zoning review as such. 

The pro-construction bias of our Planning and Development Department would be laughable if not for its devastating impact on real people. The small home next to 2700 San Pablo is owned by an artist who needs the light which will be stolen by a wall of concrete. Phony “live-work” condos are sprouting everywhere, with the obligatory “granite kitchens”, even as it becomes obvious that the house party is almost over. 

The mother of all housing bubbles, fed by a long spell of low interest rates and a lending industry gone mad, has begun to deflate. In a rising market, developers go into a feeding frenzy (see Emeryville). In a falling market, condos generally fall harder than real houses (I don’t want to hear any whining from developers who get caught with their condos down). In the meantime, each big box of environmental impact working its way through Berkeley’s “planning” process deserves the public scrutiny afforded by an EIR. 

Gale Garcia is a long-time Berkeley resident. 

The unrest in France provides us with the opportunity, even the necessity, to think about our world in some new ways. While the various sociological analyses about poverty and racism are important, a longer view may tell us even more. What happens when we hit the “zoom out” key and, instead of a perspective spanning a few years, or even decades, we look over a period of centuries? 

Before the era of colonialism and industrialization, there were no great disparities of wealth between the various regions of the world. The disparities were more local, limited by the reach of armies that brought wealth and slaves back to the center of the empire. With the colonial era, this process of uneven distribution the world’s wealth accelerated greatly. The colonial powers were able to extend their reach to far off lands, and to invest the stolen natural resources, wealth and labor in industrial and technological development, which in turn made a further projection of power possible. This is the process through which, at the cost of millions of lives and through centuries of cruelty and misery, the developed world came to be developed and the underdeveloped world came to be underdeveloped. 

This process, of course is not yet finished. The United States and Great Britain have been asserting their power over the entire Islamic world for well over a century, claiming its resources as their own. The continued attempt to colonize these countries is actively underway today. Today, much of the world’s wealth is concentrated in the banks, stock markets and infrastructure of just a few countries. This extremely unbalanced state of affairs was created by and is maintained by equally extreme coercive measures. 

By any objective standards, the actions of the colonial countries were colossal crimes. Murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and genocide on grand scales. It was a deeply embedded racism that blinded people to the criminality of all this and that continues to do so. The very same Americans who would take up arms in an instant if a foreign army were to intrude upon our land, can’t fathom why the Iraqis are fighting us. How to explain this other than through some modern version of the “white man’s burden”? The idea that somehow darker skinned people are destined to be governed by light skinned people who of course are acting only in the utmost magnanimity in the interests of higher civilization. 

Perhaps history has laws, much like the laws of thermodynamics or gravity. Maybe simple ideas like “water seeks its own level”, or “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” apply to history as well. What we need to look at is the massive state of planetary imbalance, of disequilibreum brought about in this colonial era. The division of the world into developed and undeveloped isn’t just a static fact, a simple reality: it is a continuing dynamic brought about by extreme force. Paralleling this unequal development is a racism of unequal humanity. Is it possible for such a state of imbalance to simply continue indefinitely? Apparently not. Just like a dam that needs to be continually reinforced in order to hold back the growing buildup of water behind it, the centers of power are having to invest ever more money into the coercive machinery necessary to hold in place the monumental imbalances they have created.  

This is what all well-meaning people need to think about when we ponder the motives of these young people in France. Short term amelioration will not solve the problem, in France or anywhere else. We have to consider the health of the planet as a whole. If the well-being of some depends on the non-well-being of the many, sooner of later something will give way and there will be no well-being at all. This is why these few days of unrest call upon us to search for a new planetary model for this human family. 

Carl Shames is a Kensington resident.

A few weeks ago I called the City of Berkeley about a mattress illegally dumped in front of my apartment, which was promptly removed within eight hours. In late October Berkeley fixed another problem after neighbors complained—the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) declared Dwight Way Liquors a public nuisance and ordered its closure (‘Liquor Store Declared Public Nuisance, Ordered to Close,” Daily Planet, Nov. 1). Cited for 32 violations, this alcohol outlet was disciplined for operating after hours, selling alcohol to intoxicated persons, public drinking by minors, excessive littering, prostitution, vandalism, illegal drug activity, noise, the harassment of passersby, double-parking, and loitering.  

Only this time, the problem wasn’t fixed in a day. Resident complaints to police, city council members, and other city employees began at least four years ago. By some resident accounts, neighbors contacted the city about this problem as early as 1997. In addition to the calls, written complaint forms were submitted to the city no fewer than four times between the summer of 2001 and the present. Had the residents’ calls been about mattresses, hundreds of them would have been removed in the time it took for decisive legal action to be taken against this store. 

Dwight Way Liquors is not unique in fostering havoc in south Berkeley neighborhoods. Black and White Liquors’ night clerk was recently arrested for buying stolen liquor, and a cache of illegal weapons was found in the apartment above the store. On Oct. 27, 2001 (the four-year anniversary of last week’s vote), ZAB voted for strict regulations of Brother’s Liquor, which had been a neighborhood magnet for criminal activity for years. Within the six-month period prior to this vote, police had received 200 calls from residents, and arrests were made at or near the store for drug-dealing, public drunkenness, and creating a disturbance. According to some residents, regular calls to the police that began in 1992 were stepped up 1999 along with petitions and at least 150 complaints to council members, police, and the mayor. During this period retaliatory behavior was not uncommon; one resident’s garden was ruined. 

In addition to attracting problem behaviors, these businesses have in common their close proximity to other liquor stores. Dwight Way Liquors, for example, lies across the street from another alcohol outlet on Sacramento Avenue at Ashby. Walk southward down the street and you’ll count about ten liquor stores before reaching Alcatraz Avenue.  

Studies show that high concentrations of alcohol outlets are related to high rates of assaultive violence, violent crime, accidents, drunk driving, traffic crashes, and other problems. Nationwide, liquor stores are overly concentrated in lower-income, predominately African American communities which bear a disproportionate burden of problems that come with the proliferation of these businesses. The high density of alcohol outlets in these neighborhoods is a symptom of economic decline, and the problems that accumulate around these outlets exacerbate this decline. According to Oakland’s Prevention Institute, easy access to alcohol provided at high-density alcohol outlets can result in increased alcohol consumption, often leading to problem behaviors. “Problem” alcohol outlets directly or indirectly contribute to social disorganization and residential instability. 

It is not “pro-business” to allow the continued operation of liquor stores that attract criminal behavior. The disturbances associated with these public nuisances can create blight, cause people to move away, make areas less attractive to new businesses. Beaten down by the seemingly futile quest to transform their neighborhood into a safer, healthier place to live, four ex-neighbors of Dwight Way Liquors have moved away since 2003. The exodus continues. Four others who were around for last week’s vote expect to leave the neighborhood within the next two years. Despite the order of closure, residents express scant optimism that Dwight Way Liquors will close anytime soon. On the day that I write this, the store is still selling alcohol. 

To be fair, the City of Berkeley is making a concerted effort with limited resources to maneuver through a Byzantine web of state and local zoning, business use, and nuisance abatement laws to go after problem alcohol outlets and help residents take back their communities. However, the city currently relies on a resident-driven complaint system which seems to require an avalanche of calls to police and others before decisive disciplinary actions are taken and enforced.  

It’s time for the city to move away from a complaint-driven process to a proactive regulation, monitoring, and enforcement framework for dealing with these public nuisances. The city council should adopt a streamlined policy using zoning law to regulate alcohol retailers. The policy would require alcohol outlets to operate under transparent and enforceable operating standards that businesses and residents can easily understand. A unit comprised of police and other government staff should be solely dedicated to enforce this policy. Rather than relying on community members as complaint-generators, the process would include an active role for residents in the decision-making and enforcement process. This proposed regulation would provide for the assessment of annual fees to alcohol retailers to fund enforcement, outreach, education, and monitoring activities. Overall, this policy would allow the city to move more quickly to discipline problem alcohol outlets. 

The next time a resident places a call to the city about alcohol outlet sales to minors or other liquor store-related public disturbances, we cannot afford to wait another decade for the city to take definitive, substantive disciplinary action. It’s now time for the Berkeley City Council to put a comprehensive policy in place that effectively disciplines alcohol outlets that are public nuisances. Let’s turn the vision of living in a peaceful, safe, and healthy neighborhood into a reality for each and every Berkeley resident.  

Robin Dean is a Berkeley resident and candidate for a master’s degree in Public Health at UC Berkeley. 

After 25 years of community pressure to stop polluting Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito and Kensington neighborhoods, Pacific Steel Casting is finally planning to take steps to curb its levels of emissions. We appreciate the recent announcement that Pacific Steel will take additional steps to reduce toxic air pollution from its West Berkeley plant but more needs to be done. 

A long-standing source of community complaints, Pacific Steel Casting is a remnant of Berkeley’s industrial past. Operating for over 74 years, Pacific Steel Casting is one of the last remaining steel foundries on the West Coast. When it was built, Berkeley’s Oceanview neighborhood was a manufacturing district but today the area is undergoing rapid change as old industrial buildings are converted to residential housing and artist studios. Despite these demographic changes, PSC operates today as if the environmental protection revolution of the 1970s never occurred, with one of its three casting facilities operating WITHOUT pollution abatement equipment. That it has been a source of irritation to its neighbors is understandable. 

By its own admission, Pacific Steel releases some serious pollutants including manganese, nickel, formaldehyde, benzene, and phenol, chemicals that are both known and suspected carcinogens as well responsible for adverse neurological, respiratory, and reproductive health effects. Reducing or eliminating these emissions is a matter of extreme importance. 

Until PSC’s recent announcement, the reduction of these toxic emissions awaited the results of a health risk assessment (HRA) required by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). Citizens were dubious that the HRA would have much of an effect since risk assessment is historically associated with regulatory inaction. For example, in over three decades since the passage of a federal law to control the thousands of toxic chemicals manufactured in the U.S., only a handful have been regulated.  

So, it made sense for PSC to take common-sense steps now to address the problem, among them: 

• Improving general housekeeping, such as closing factory doors during production hours, and training employees in these procedures. 

• Substituting less toxic chemicals for more toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing process. 

• Re-engineering manufacturing processes to reduce waste and pollution. 

• Installing pollution control equipment on parts of the plant not currently controlled. 

• Making sure existing equipment is operating properly. 

None of these are exotic or unreasonable steps in light of the high number of complaints about PSC. In fact, they are considered best management practices by industry because they not only result in better community relations, but also improve the bottom line by making operations more efficient and reducing the potential liabilities associated with worker and community exposure to toxic chemicals. 

Let’s look at the specifics: 

First, PSC is improving its housekeeping by closing doors on one of its facilities. While this is a step in the right direction, PSC should be required to close all of its doors while operating. Continuing to keep some doors open allows the wind to carry out pollutants before they can be captured by pollution control equipment. 

Second, ventilation fans will be shut down after hours. While this will reduce the release of pollutants into the environment, it does not reduce the pollutants themselves. Eventually, they will be released if not controlled. Turning off fans only delays the release of the pollutants to the time when the fans are turned on. 

Third, bringing additional fresh air into the facility also does little to solve the problem. In the 1970s environmentalists used to say “dilution is not the solution.” The solution is ending the pollution in the first place, period. 

Fourth, training employees on these new housekeeping procedures is good. Employees also need to be held accountable for implementing them consistently. 

Fifth, installing an “odor neutralizer” could be a good thing or it could be cosmetic. If it involves perfuming pollutants, then it should not be allowed. If it involves reducing pollutants, then that’s good. BAAQMD should make sure it’s the latter. 

Sixth, testing alternative, less toxic chemicals to use in the manufacturing process is good. However, PSC shouldn’t give up due to initial disappointing results. It should continue to look at less toxic alternatives. “Green Chemistry” is a booming field; in fact, a recent Noble Prize went to three green chemists. 

Finally, installing pollution control equipment on parts of the plant currently without them is long overdue and a significant step in the right direction. It is unclear, however, whether this equipment will only reduce odors or reduce particulate emissions as well. As anyone who lives in West Berkeley or the other affected communities knows, a grimy dust settles on everything left outside. Particulates are a culprit in asthma and other respiratory disorders. Efforts need to be undertaken to also reduce particulate emissions. 

As its recent announcement indicates, PSC can be a better neighbor. After all, among its clients are you and I—the taxpayers of California—who are paying PSC to cast parts for the Bay Bridge retrofit. We deserve a good neighbor in exchange. PSC should continue working with BAAQMD to identify further steps it can take to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment. 

Peter F. Guerrero is a member of the West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs, a community group seeking to clean up Pacific Steel. 

With a fine mural of Marseilles’s Vieux Port as backdrop for César’s airy cafe right down on the quais—Greg Dunham’s set—the players are positioned to begin their round of Provençal comedy and passion. 

Marius is leaning on the bar, listening to a solitary pair of customers talk. A sailor and a girl grapple, then clinch outside, where Fanny and Honorine set up their shellfish pushcart. Fanny is posing in vain to attract Marius’ glance. As the noonday siren is wailing over the docks, ferry captain Escartefigue at his table sounds his bosun’s pipe to rouse Cesar, stretched out on a bench with a bar towel over his face.  

Thus is introduced the ménage—with highly visible attitudes—of this very public house that will see daily business with its comings and goings, and the greater arrivals and departures of commerce afloat, scene of Marcel Pagnol’s first great signature play from the late ‘20s, Marius, now playing at the Aurora, in a new translation—the first in 70 years—by Jack Rogow. 

Pagnol came along after decades of revivalism of Provençal language and culture, an identity once so separate from the Northern French that the young Jean Racine remarked, in the 17th century while on a trip to the Midi, he had difficulty understanding people’s talk by the time he arrived in Lyons, and when he arrived in Marseilles, couldn’t comprehend a word. 

Marius was written in French, not Provençal, but Pierre Fresnay, who first essayed the title role, spent a few weeks tending bar in Marseilles to understand his character’s work—and to learn the tactile Marsellais patois of the dialogue. 

And it’s in the thick of it, the rapid-fire counterpoint of everybody talking at once about the latest news or personal tragedy, or arguing over a card game, that Rogow’s translation proves itself, sleek and colloquially American enough to handle the riotous exchanges, yet supple in its allowance of the idiomatic gem brought over by sleight of hand into English. 

“When the idiots dance, you won’t be playing in the orchestra,” César expounds to Marius, or, in comparing him to his sedentary uncle Emile, “He didn’t like to go out in the sun and drag his shadow around.” 

After the traditionalism of the Provençal revival, Marius sports clean, modern lines in its racy speech and in the strange poetry of its treatment of what seems at first just a loose rendition of a Boulevard comedy about a love triangle set among working people rather than comic bohemians. Fanny loves Marius, who in turn has cared for her since childhood, but Marius is passionately in love with the sea, with the call of distance. 

He says, “I long for Elsewhere.” 

Feigning an affair with an older woman, Marius is able to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes for awhile, but not Fanny’s. And it’s her despair over Marius’ conflicting temptation that makes her initiative to turn over the cart at her moment of triumph. 

Director Tom Ross presides over a very capable cast, with troupers like Robert Ernst as César (whose nuanced exits are a delight) and George Maguire as the vain, well-to-do widower Panisse (declared an old cuckold, but “There’re no cuckolds in heaven; the horns get in the way of the halos!”). 

These actors understand the humor of their characters very well, and the scenes of contention between Cesar and Panisse, and Marius with Panisse, are very funny as well as touching. The young lovers are well-portrayed by Daniel Hart Donoghue and Jessa Brie Berkner, especially Berkner’s body language as the still-teenaged Fanny playing the coquette a little uneasily, aiming at Marius’ attention and getting that of the old widower instead. 

Jordan Lund makes a florid, impressive Captain Escartefigue. And the principals are ably supported by two players who each juggle dual roles. 

“I’m saying that I have nothing to say,” sputters César to jibes from all as he sets out to see his mistress secretly, or so he thinks. Life’s little ongoing melodramas are burlesqued with charm in Marius, but its real dilemmas and elemental passions are seen in their harrowing immediacy. “Honor’s like a match,” says César to his son, “You can only use it once.” 

Marcel Pagnol’s characters in Marius are, of course, the inspiration for Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse and Cesar, as well as Café Fanny. 

His great trilogy—Marius, Fanny and César—has also been a favorite bill for Berkeley audiences in the cinema. Pagnol quickly took the director’s chair, founding his own studio to commit his plays to celluloid, almost as soon as there were talkies for his dialogue with all its flavor. Cesar was made as a film before it was rewritten for the stage. 

In the ‘80s, Claude Berri’s movie adaptations of Pagnol, Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, were big hits here, a decade after the author’s death. Whether on stage, screen or the page, Pagnol, along with Jean Giono, served as introduction to the Midi for Anglophones before M. F. K. Fisher’s charming memoirs of Marseilles and Aix—and all their successors and the knock-offs that have followed ever since. 

Aurora Theatre presents Marius at 8 p.m. Wednesday.-Saturdays and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday. 2081 Addison St. thought Dec. 18. Tickets $28-$45. 843-4822. 

Photograph by David Allen:  

Jessa Brie Berkner and Daniel Hart Donoghue star in Marius.v

TUESDAY, NOV. 22 

CHILDREN 

Flute Sweets & Tickletoons “I Hopped Out of Bed and Jumped for Joy” An evening of songs and stories at 7 p,.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “Group Hallucinations: Anger, Jacobs, Snow” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Harrington explains “The Challenge to Power: Money, Investing and Democracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. 

Ellen Hoffmaan with Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Crooked Still at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with Lenora Mathias, flute, at noon at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555.  

Calvin Keys Trio Invitational Jam at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lessons at 7 p.m. Cost is $7. 525-5054.  

La Verdad, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Marius” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Dec. 18. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822.  

Berkeley Rep “Brundibár” A musical fable staged by Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak at the Roda Theater through Dec. 28. Ticekts are $15-$64. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group “Dance with my Father Again” a musical biography of Luther Vandross. Fr. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 4. Tickets are $7-$15. 652-2120. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Noises Off” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through Dec. 10. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theatre “Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)” Thurs. through Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468.  

Splash Circus “The Snow Queen” Fri. at 7 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Masquers Playhouse “Dear World” Jerry Herman’s musical, Fri. and Sat at 8 p.m. through Dec. 17 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

ACCI Gallery Holiday Exhibition opens with works by over 100 people at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Holiday Art Show with works by Rik Olson, Soo Noga, Julian Shaw and Mylette Welch at Nexus Gallery, 2701 Eighth St., from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Nov. 29. 

“Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine” An evening with Ziad Abbas at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893. 

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Provence “Harvest” at 7 p.m., “The Baker’s Wife” at 9:25 p.m. at 9:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yaelisa with Caminos Flamencos Dance Company at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Gery Tinkelenberg and Deborah Crooks at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344. 

Propagandhi, Greg MacPherson at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Inspector Double Negative, funk, hip hop, soul at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Du Uy Quintet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 26 

THEATER 

Woman’s Will “Happy End” by Bertolt Brecht, Thurs. and Sat. at 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Luka’s Lounge, 2221 Broadway at Grand Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$25. 420-0813.  

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts” at 5:20 p.m., “Wife! Be Like a Rose” at 7:30 p.m. and “Kageroza” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ibdaa Dance Troupe from Palestine with Loco Bloco and Melanie DeMore at 7 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $25. www.mecaforpeace.org/IbdaaNational.html 

Hal Stein Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Aux Cajunals at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

The Mixers at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 524-9220.  

Naughty by Nature at 9 p.m. at @17th, 510 17th St., Oakland. www.at17th.com 

Mario DeSio, Jessie Turner & Kenny Dinkin at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Don’t Look Back at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yaelisa with Caminos Flamencos Dance Company at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Allene’s B-day Bash, The Biddy & Buddy Show at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Will Bernard and Motherbug at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Iron Lung, Reagan SS, Hostile Takeover at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 27 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Provence “Angele” at 2 p.m. and Taisho Chic on Screen “Women of Tokyo” at 5 p.m., “Foghorn” at 6:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Island Literary Series with poets Maria Espinosa and Adam David Miller at 3 p.,m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $2-$4. 841-JAZZ.  

Poetry Flash with Anne Coray and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Michael Golds & Misturada at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Golden Gate Bellringers Holiday bell ringing concert at 1 p.m. at C’era Una Volta, 1332 Park St., Alameda 

“Back to the Land” A benefit for City Slicker Farms, backyard organic gardens in West Oakland, with music by Sweet Briar, Joel Robinow and Texas Ben, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph Ave. Donation $5-$15. 763-4241. 

Helping Hands Benefit for Musicians in Need at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$8.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, NOV. 28 

FILM 

Special Screening: Focus Features Presentation at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon in Pen West’s annual Freedom to Write evening at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Paul Pierson explains “Off Center: The Republican Revolution & the Erosion of American Democracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com  

Poetry Express Theme Night: Erotic Poetry at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

West Coast Songwriters Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5.50. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

TUESDAY, NOV. 29 

CHILDREN 

First Stage Children’s Theater “The Great Book Conspiracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $5 at the door. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: Re(collections): Three Short Films at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeffrey Schnapp describes “Revolutionary Tides: The Art of the Political Poster 1914-1989” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffmaan with Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Drew Emmitt Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Larry Vuckovich, solo jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.›

When conservationists talk about biodiversity hotspots, the association is usually with remote, exotic places: Madagascar, Yunnan, the tepuis of Venezuela, the Western Ghats of India. That’s not always the case, though; in fact, we live in one. The biodiversity of California is astounding. An island on the land, cordoned off from the rest of North America by mountains and deserts, our state is full of plants and animals that have gone their own evolutionary ways. Of a total of 5,500 California species, just over a quarter occur nowhere else in the world. 

“Hotspots: California on the Edge,” which opened last weekend at the California Academy of Science’s temporary quarters on Howard Street in San Francisco, is a fitting celebration of these unique species and natural communities. The exhibit spotlights six regions and/or habitats: Mediterranean shrublands, coast redwood forest, Central Valley vernal pools, the High Sierra, the volcanoes of the Cascades, the Klamath-Siskiyou wilderness. They could easily have doubled that without exhausting the possibilities. 

Designed and curated in-house, “Hotspots” combines specimens from the Academy’s collection, live plants and animals, and multi-media. The exhibit space is dominated by a huge fire-scarred manzanita, emblematic of the chaparral that evolved with and is renewed by fire. Each area has a “hotspot tower” showcasing an endangered organism and a “collection wall” with animals and artifacts from the museum’s vaults. 

“It’s an exhibit for all the senses,” says the museum’s Roberta Brett. You can smell the essence of native sage plants (both Salvia and Artemisia), handle the skull of a California grizzly or a chunk of volcanic rock from Lassen, take a virtual-reality tour of a redwood grove. Images of the changing seasons at Jepson Prairie are projected on a giant screen, and videos show the belching mudpots of Bumpass Hell. Monarch, the badly-stuffed California grizzly who was once the star of Woodward’s Gardens, has been brought out of storage for the occasion. An ammonite the size of a truck tire represents the region’s rich fossil history.  

There’s a focus not just on species, but on communities and interactions. A Clark’s nutcracker perches above a typical winter’s cache of 32,000 pine nuts; nutcrackers and whitebark pines have co-evolved a seed-dispersal system that benefits both bird and tree. The life of a small native bee revolves around a single vernal-pool wildflower. Two hundred species of butterfly depend on specific Mediterranean-shrubland plants.  

The living exhibits provide glimpses into natural worlds most of us will never encounter. 

There’s a garden of insectivorous cobra lilies from the bogs of the Klamath country, a couple of mountain yellow-legged frogs (which reputedly smell of garlic), a gaudy California tiger salamander. A vernal pool tadpole shrimp, looking for all the world like a tiny trilobite, bumbles along the bottom of an aquarium; in the wild, it waits out the dry season in a cyst buried in the mud. Nebria beetles, nocturnal foragers on alpine snowfields, are housed in a modified wine refrigerator. The redwood region is represented by our state mollusk, the banana slug. (California’s state rock, mineral, gem, and soil series are also on display). 

Then there are the Jerusalem crickets, alarming-looking insects that you may have seen in your garden. 

“It’s the most queried insect in our entomology department,” says Roberta Brett. “People find them and they’re either fascinated or repulsed by them.” 

Seven California species are currently recognized, but Academy research associate David Weissman believes there may be as many as 50, distinguished by the drumming patterns they use to attract mates. You can hear samples of five cricket drumrolls. The courtship of Jerusalem crickets often ends with the female devouring the male, mantis-style. 

The academy has a series of special “Hotspots” events and programs planned through next summer. Pomo-Miwok basketmakers Julia and Lucy Parker were on hand for the opening to demonstrate traditional uses of sedge, soaproot, and other native plant materials. Artist-naturalist Jack Laws will be an ongoing part of the exhibit, working on his forthcoming field guide to everything in the Sierra and giving classes in scientific illustration. Brett says wine and food tastings (featuring produce from the Berkeley Bowl) are planned. The bookstore has a fine selection of California natural history books available, including titles from Berkeley’s Heyday Books.  

Academy Executive Director Patick Kociolek sees the exhibit as “a way to open up Californians’ eyes” to the extraordinary biodiversity all around them, and to provoke action to save what’s left of it. It also highlights the work of Academy scientists—like ornithologist Jack Dumbacher, who’s studying competition between the endangered spotted owl and the barred owl, a newcomer to the West Coast—in documenting the diversity of California habitats. Jack Laws describes what he’s after with his field guide: “I want to help people love what they see and become better stewards.” 

“Hotspots” serves that goal admirably. 

Photograph by Joe Eaton: 

An exhibit in “Hotspots” at the California Academy of Science in San Francisco, celebrating California’s unique species and natural communities..

TUESDAY, NOV. 22 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds, who may be accompanied by an adult. We will hunt for spiders if the weatheris nice, if not we’ll learn about the water cycle, from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the shorebirds here for the winter. Beginnners welcome, binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

“Becoming Hevajra” An overview of the meditative and ritual practice with Prof. Harunaga Isaacson, Univ. of Penn. at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 6th flr., 2223 Fulton St. 643-6492. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. For information call 981-5300. 

Introduction to Buddhist Meditation at 7 p.m. at the Dzalandhara Buddhist Center in Berkeley. Cost is $7-$10. Call for directions. 559-8183. www.kadampas.org 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also, Mon. noon to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

“Ask the Social Worker” free consultations for older adults and their families from 10 a.m. to noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. To schedule an appointment call 558-7800, ext. 716. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23 

“Chavez, Venezuela and the New Latin America” A documentary at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 393-5685. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Healthy Eating Habits A seminar with hypnosis at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 465-2524. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Sing your Way Home A free sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. every Wed. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Prose Writer’s Workshop An ongoing group made up of friendly writers who are serious about our craft. All levels welcome. At 7 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Stitch ‘n Bitch Bring your knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts from 6 to 9 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, NOV. 24 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

East Bay Food Not Bombs Give Thanks Vegetarian Potluck Feast from 6 to 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Free. Please bring donations and a vegetarian dish to share. 658-9178. 

Vegan Potluck at 4:30 p.m. Bring vegan (no eggs or dairy) food to share. For location and to RSVP, call 562-9934.  

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

Demonstration at “The Dead Mall,” Bay Street Emeryville built on the Ohlone burial ground, from noon to 6 p.m. 841-8562. 

“Native Americans and Thanksgiving” with Zachary Running Wolf and Thunder at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $10. 528-5403.  

Three Beats for Nothing sings early music for fun and practice at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, NOV. 26 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Women of Color Arts and Crafts Show from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at La Penna Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

“Playing With Fire” Berkeley Potters Guild Holiday Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 731 Jones St. at Fourth St. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For a map of locations see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Spirit Walking Aqua Chi (TM) A gentle water exercise class at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $3.50 per session. 526-0312. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 27 

Turkey “Trot” Come to the Little Farm in Tilden Park at 1 p.m. to see the resident turkeys, then enjoy a brisk walk to explore seasonal changes. 525-2233. 

“Back to the Land” A benefit for City Slicker Farms, backyard organic gardens in West Oakland, with music by Sweet Briar, Joel Robinow and Texas Ben, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph Ave. Donation $5-$15. 763-4241. 

“Mayan Women Speak Out” Members of the Jolom Mayaetik Mayan weavers cooperative from Chiapas, Mexico will show slides and discuss the work of the cooperative and the challenges that face indigenous women in Mexico, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. 

Bay Area Vintage Base Ball League Meet members of the League, and learn the rules and customs of the games as it was played in Oakland in 1886, at noon at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

MONDAY, NOV. 28 

“When Bodies Remember: Surviving in South Africa” Colloquium at noon in the Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-3391. 

Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon in Pen West’s annual Freedom to Write evening at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Kensington Library Book Club meets to discuss Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is Illuminated” at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 534-3043.  

Sing-A-Long from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

Beginning Bridge Lessons at 11:10 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $1. 524-9122. 

Critical Viewing An ongoing group to examine the art/craft(iness) of short films and television at 1 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Free. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, NOV. 29 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. Meets at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area. For information and to register call 525-2233.  

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the shorebirds here for the winter. Beginnners welcome, binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

Women’s Snowshoe Workshop, covering all the essentials for getting started in the sport, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

20th Anniversary of Star Alliance at 5:30 p.m. at Taste of the Himalayas, 1700 Shattuck Ave. With food, music, traditional Nepalese youth dancing, and a Sing-A-Long. Tickets are $20 at the door. 848-1818. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. For information call 981-5300. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

“AIDS and the Mbeki Controversy” at 3:30 p.m. at 155 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-3391. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also, Mon. noon to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

Introduction to Buddhist Meditation at 7 p.m. at the Dzalandhara Buddhist Center in Berkeley. Cost is $7-$10. Call for directions. 559-8183. www.kadampas.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Judy Kuften, gerontologist, will speak on issues in aging. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

“Ask the Social Worker” free consultations for older adults and their families from 10 a.m. to noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. To schedule an appointment call 558-7800, ext. 716. 

ONGOING 

We Give Thanks Month Dine at a participating restaurant, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Berkeley Food and Housing. Restaurants include Bendean, Poulet, Rose Garden Inn, La Note, Skates on the Bay and Oliveto’s. www.bfhp.org 

Warm Coat Drive Donate a coat for distribution in the community, at Bay St., Emeryville. Sponsored by the Girl Scouts. www.onewarmcoat.org 

Albany Berkeley Girls Softball League is looking for girls in grades 1-9 to play softball. Season runs March 4-June 3. To register, email registrar@abgsl.org or call 869-4277. Early Bird registration ends Dec. 31. Registration closes Feb. 1. Scholarships available. www.abgsl.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Nov. 28, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900.www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Solid Waste Management Commission Mon., Nov. 28, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Tania Levy, 981-6368. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste 

City Council meets Tues., Nov. 29 at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

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Behavior most fowl 

Berkeley Police, members of Berkeley Boosters and other community volunteers gathered at 6 a.m. Tuesday to prepare Thanksgiving baskets. 

By 8 a.m. current and retired Berkeley Police officers were on their way to deliver them, each complete with a turkey, to 280 disadvantaged households. 

Money for the seasonal bounty is raised by Berkeley’s finest during their annual 216-mile bike ride from Berkeley to Lake Tahoe.  

This year, officers raised $10,880, enough to prepare 500 baskets. A second round of deliveries at Christmas time will end this year’s deliveries. 

Y robbery 

A young woman called police last Thursday evening to report that she had been robbed by four strongarm acquaintances at the Berkeley YMCA at 2001 Allston Way. 

All are juveniles, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

GOA 

That’s police code for “gone on arrival,” which is what happened to both parties in an event a caller described as a possible carjacking in the 2300 block of Fourth Street at 6:44 p.m. last Thursday. 

Armed robbers 

Two men who fled in a dark four-door car approached a man in the 1100 block of Cornell Avenue just after 8 p.m. last Thursday, produced a pistol and then robbed him of his cell phone and wallet before speeding off. 

Hoodies 

Two teenagers, at least one of them armed and both clad in dark hooded sweatshirts (AKA “hoodies”), robbed a 25-year-old woman of a shoulder bag and contents as she walked along the 2700 block of McGee Avenue at 7:30 p.m. Friday. 

Drive-by purse heist 

A pedestrian walking near the corner of Milvia and Dwight Way at 10 p.m. Friday was approached by a young man who grabbed at her purse. Her resistance turned the crime into robbery, though it didn’t save the purse from the bandit, who hopped into a dark compact car, complete with a wheelman who sped him away from the scene. 

Flees by thumb 

A domestic dispute took a nasty turned Saturday morning when a woman smashed her 44-year-old male companion in the head with a bottle. 

She managed to flee by thumbing a ride from the scene—the 1200 block of Ashby Avenue—and remains at large, said Officer Okies. 

Sneaker heist 

A tall, thin bandit accompanied by two cohorts punched a pedestrian in the 1500 block of Hillegass Avenue shortly before noon, then robbed him of three pairs of sneakers.

Thanksgiving is upon us, and the traditional jocular soft news press releases about the president’s annual pardoning of a turkey are being prepared for distribution. Particularly with the current president, believed by many to be the real turkey, the subject lends itself to a lot of levity in the media, but this year a serious story about a human facing death at the hands of fellow humans has dominated the news instead. 

The state of California plans to kill a man in cold blood on Dec. 13. It won’t be self-defense, because the man is safely locked up, so he poses no threat to anyone. War is not the excuse—here in California we’re still a civil society, at peace at home if not abroad. And it’s well established that capital punishment does not reduce the murder rate. It’s not even certain that vengeance is involved in this case, since the man whom the state plans to kill denies having killed the victims, but for the purposes of this discussion let’s say that murders took place, he’s a likely suspect, and a jury convicted him. Stanley Tookie Williams freely admits that he has committed many crimes, if not the ones for which he faces being killed. So retribution is the last remaining putative justification for killing him. 

Most of the world now believes that government-sponsored retributive killing is morally wrong, even in cases where the criminal does not admit guilt or show remorse. The United States, as one of the last bastions of capital punishment, is regarded with horror by most of what is commonly called the civilized world, as well as most of the rest of the world, countries which have shown themselves to be more civilized than we are by renouncing the death penalty. 

Last week we saw the San Francisco Opera’s production of Beethoven’s Fidelio, an uplifting saga about a prisoner who escapes execution at the last minute through the heroism of his wife and the timely arrival of a government minister who saves him. It’s especially relevant at a time when Americans are learning about all the jailing and torture being done in our name. 

The jailer, Rocco, is a good-humored man of the people who reluctantly agrees to dig the grave for a man he’s come to know and like, but refuses to do the actual killing himself. The part was played by a singer named Arthur Woodley, who has a gorgeous voice and is also a fine actor. Rocco’s ambivalence is sometimes played for laughs, but Woodley managed to humanize Rocco’s moral dilemma effectively with no slapstick.  

Over the weekend we were lucky to be invited to a party where we got a chance to meet Arthur Woodley in person. We talked about how he got where he is today. He told us that he’d been raised in the South Bronx in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, back when it was considered a trackless wasteland. “But we had programs,” he said, all kinds of programs, the noble endeavors that grew out of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda. As a black youth, he was supposed to be headed for trouble, but instead he was drawn first into theater and then into music, and he hasn’t looked back. He mentioned in particular the South Bronx Community Theater as a home away from home for a kid looking for excitement.  

Someone in one of his programs steered him to the city of Bologna, in Italy, at that time run by Communists who believed in government support for the arts, and he spent ten years getting his musical training at the conservatory there. When he came back to the United States, he expected to step right on to the opera stage, but he learned that parts for African-American singers were still few and far between. He spent a few years at the Dance Theater of Harlem, where the legendary Arthur Mitchell insisted that everyone learn to dance and act. Now he’s finally gotten to be a regular on the opera circuit, one of the increasingly small number of singers who fly around the world to take roles in major opera houses.  

Arthur Woodley is about the same age as Tookie Williams, or perhaps a bit older. The programs he remembers so fondly and his gift for singing put him on a different path. For Williams then, and for most of today’s kids in the South Bronx, in California and in the rest of the U.S., there were and are no such programs.  

This is not to excuse murder, if indeed Williams did commit murder, but we all share responsibility for a society that is now geared to produce more criminals like Williams than educated and productive citizens like Woodley. And killing Williams won’t change that. It will be nothing more than another murder, this one state-sponsored. 

Like the government minister in Fidelio, Arnold Schwarzenegger has it in his power to prevent a death. Like the jailer Rocco, he probably believes in his heart that state killing is morally wrong. His wife Maria Shriver certainly knows this, and perhaps she has some influence over him. They both claim to be Catholics, educated as such and now church-going. The teaching of the church they profess to believe in is clear: Capital punishment is wrong.  

They might ponder an e-mail which my cousin forwarded to me this morning. It was written by William J. Phelan, an ex-Jesuit seminarian, after he took part in the recent protest at the School of the Americas, which has trained hundreds of jailers, torturers and killers: 

I realized that I am proud to have been educated in Catholic schools (kindergarten through 1st year of graduate school) and to find that the lessons learned stay with me.  

And I was almost tearful remembering that commitment to social justice was the way I was brought up in the Catholic faith. It was a major emphasis at LeMoyne, and at Fordham, but I also remember it from high school. This was the church I knew and loved—a radical caring for the downtrodden, the poor, the vulnerable, for working families. But this was before the church took that all-consuming, energy-sapping, money-draining detour into matters reproductive, or non-reproductive. (Jesus, as you know, said nothing about abortion, birth control, homosexuality or heterosexuality, but had plenty to say about loving one’s neighbor and one’s enemy, and about social justice.)  

“Who would Jesus bomb?” said one bumper sticker I saw. Another said: “When Jesus said ‘Love your enemies,’ he probably meant not to kill them.” Pro-life is not limited to fetal life for some Catholics. 

Something for Arnold and Maria to think about when they go to church this week. And they should catch the last production of Fidelio over the weekend too.