Patrons Petition For Additional Postal Workers -more-

Berkeley government agencies scored far above other government agencies in the area, according to a Berkeley Daily Planet review of online accessibility to local government meeting information. -more-

Anna de Leon, owner of Anna’s Jazz Island in the Gaia Building on Allston Way, filed a complaint with the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board Monday, charging the neighboring catering business with hosting illegal and dangerous events. -more-

Legal Action Begun by Environmentalists Ends With Amendment -more-

Last week California Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell said all high school seniors must pass the California exit exam in order to receive their diplomas in June. -more-

Berkeley City Councilmember Darryl Moore and other city officials will meet with West Berkeley residents tonight (Tuesday) to discuss flooding problems resulting from the recent storms. -more-

More than a year after his election, Berkeley City Councilmember Darryl Moore has named his appointment to the Planning Commission. -more-

Berkeley, along with other local governments such Oakland, Emeryville, San Francisco and Marin, wants to have local control over energy and how it affects our communities. -more-

To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-

PROFESSOR JOHN YOO -more-

Box cutter attack -more-

I make a New Year’s resolution that I will be a kinder, gentler person. I will listen more and talk less. I will be sincere and philosophical. I will be deep. -more-

I’m in with the In Crowd -more-

He was out for some refreshment, an ice cream on a warm summer evening in Philadelphia, and on his way home. We didn’t start out looking for trouble. We were bored and had nothing to do. In some ways we were just like Fat Albert and the Cosby kids. We were all decent athletes and loved to play sports. We all wore weird hats and had different nicknames. We played football in the street, used milk crates for basketball, and broomsticks as baseball bats. Usually we were all about fun. But that night the school yard was locked, the playground was gang turf and the only fields of dreams in our neighborhood were a cemetery and a junkyard. The idle mind can be the playground for the devil! -more-

“Daddy-ooo! I know you didn’t disappear on me again ... How was that impression? You’re always movin’ and groovin’, slidin’ and glidin’ ...” -more-

TUESDAY, JAN. 10 -more-

Instead of trees this week, I’m going to talk about something bigger: mushrooms.They’re popping up all over since the major rains, and in bewildering variety. For pete’s sake, don’t be inspired to go on a mushroom-eating binge because they look so pastry-pretty. The old saw goes; “There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.” Think agonizing death in a pool of your own various wastes. Think liver transplant. Think never being able to have another beer if you do survive. Got that? -more-

TUESDAY, JAN. 10 -more-

A surreptitious stalker slashed the robust rodent outside Berkeley Honda at high noon Thursday, briefly deflating the colorful symbol of striking union members. -more-

A publicly-financed election reform concept introduced two years ago to Berkeley voters by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates—and soundly rejected by those voters in the 2004 election—has been reintroduced in the state Legislature by Assemblymember Loni Hancock, with Hancock’s chief of staff saying that “the time is now right” for the issue. -more-

January -more-

Planning commissioners will take a West Berkeley tour Saturday morning, looking at sites close to the freeway that could house car dealerships. -more-

The fate of a popular after-school tutoring program housed at a contaminated former chemical plant site dominated a Wednesday night meeting in Richmond. -more-

Revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has engaged in warrantless eavesdropping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act prompted President Bush to admit last month that in 2002 he directly authorized the activity in the wake of 9/11. -more-

www.jfdefreitas.com? -more-

UC PARKING -more-

At the end of each year, Dispatches gives out its annual IDBIAART (I Don’t Believe I Am Actually Reading This) Awards for special contributions to international relations during the past year. -more-

The Oakland Tribune published an interesting story earlier this week on Oakland police foot patrols. -more-

Police Sting Captures Taggers, -more-

Many of us in the peace movement are praying for Ariel Sharon’s recovery even though we still see him as an obstacle to peace in the Middle East in the long run. While we would never wish for the death of anyone, even our enemies, we might have hoped that people like the president of Iran, or Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, or even President Bush would be peacefully removed from office quickly. Yet the developments of recent months have made many peaceniks hope that Sharon would stay in office at least through the completion of the next half-year. -more-

Just as a stone dropped into the middle of a calm lake produces concentric waves one after the other, so press reports emanate from Katrina. They range from the mundane like the effect of dislocation on Tulane’s football season to the momentous like the tens of billions of dollars needed to remake the levee system so as to restore the wetlands. Daily news ripples of culpable neglect and blatant hypocrisy reduce me to tears. -more-

Our planet’s climate is changing rapidly as greenhouse gas pollution accumulates in the Earth’s atmosphere. There is no longer any doubt that human activity (i.e., the production of gases from the combustion of fossil fuels, combined with an increasingly consumption-oriented human population and rampant deforestation) lies at the heart of climate change. All of us—from individuals to governments, and everyone and every institution in-between—must drastically reduce the greenhouse gases that we are responsible for producing, or we will experience increasing changes in the climate that will cause significant ecological, economic, and social upheaval. -more-

My friend and fellow former Berkeley City Councilmember Ira Simmons recently forwarded me the Daily Planet story from last summer on the return to the City Council Chambers of the mural by famed artist Romare Bearden. I appreciate the story in noting the genesis of the Bearden project when Ira and I challenged the council to modify its all-white picture display in the council chambers. We did this shortly after we were elected in 1971. -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 6 -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 6 -more-

When winter skies open up and drench the ground, thoughts of an outdoor weekend getaway pale. That’s the time for an indoor adventure—one that will take you places far removed from everyday life. Journey to other cultures, other times, while being awed by incredible architecture and outstanding art. In short, visit San Francisco’s de Young Museum. -more-

One of the reasons our house is somewhat crowded is that we are reluctant to throw away perfectly good magazines which are just a bit old. The New Yorker in particular is a living reproach, because it comes every week and (since the departure of airhead editor Tina Brown) is again full of good stuff which we can’t necessarily consume on a timely basis. It’s instant history: a pity to waste it. -more-

Once in a while the New Times chain allows a good article which doesn’t follow the company line of cowboy libertarianism to slip past the editors of one of its magazines. The latest East Bay Express has a piece that’s well worth a read, even though it could have benefited from the services of a fact-checker in spots. Writer Eliza Strickland has capably documented the sad fate of the much-publicized Fruitvale Transit Village, where not much in the way of retail commerce has managed to take root, despite attractive design and millions of dollars in government subsidy. It should be a lesson to everyone who has hallelujah’d for the gospel of smart growth, one of whose tenets is that we can bring back the apartments-cum-retail design that worked pretty well in the streetcar suburbs at the turn of the 20th century. -more-