Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas (SOJA) staged a rally on the UC Berkeley campus Wednesday clad in “Sweat-free UC” signs—and little else. -more-

It was with a small nod to irony that Willi Paul, a professional community builder, admitted he made a name for himself in Berkeley by splitting a community group in two. -more-

Foes of a proposed shopping mall at Albany’s Golden Gate Fields race track filed notice Monday that they’ll begin circulating an initiative that would temporarily halt waterfront development. -more-

Egrets, coots, cyclists, Frisbee players, rowers, bat rays, leopard sharks, rats, squirrels—Aquatic Park offers something for the many species who live or hang out there. -more-

If you’ve been out recently for a walk beside the large lagoon at Aquatic Park —especially around the little wharf that extends into the water on the east side— you may have been struck by a very distinct, very bad odor. -more-

In what is quickly becoming a running political soap opera, the ouster of Alameda County Medical Center trustee Gwen Sykes took a new turn this week when Sykes participated in this week’s trustee meeting, insisting that she was still one of the 11 board members. -more-

Some members of the Berkeley Fire Department may be operating with expired paramedic certification. -more-

Think “transportation” and you’ll probably imagine trains, buses, cars and such. But the city’s Pedestrian Master Plan is focused on a more elemental method of travel. -more-

The Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees unanimously approved a massive $390 million construction bond measure Tuesday night, voting to place the issue before area voters on the June ballot. -more-

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: We have recently received more than letters than we can possible print. Therefore the following letters appear only on our website. -more-

I believe that the real disease, the root causes for the imbalance around the Ashby BART station are two-fold—both due to the design of BART done 50 years ago. The first is the six-lane section of Adeline, like a freeway in the heart of a residential area with the disastrous angled intersection of Adeline and Ashby, which has plagued us for a long time, long before BART, and is all the more intractable because Ashby is a state highway, necessarily involving the State of California. Adeline and this inters ection contribute, more than anything else, to the unfriendly feeling of the area, particularly to pedestrians. The second is the damage incurred when healthy neighborhoods were destroyed for BART parking. There has been no attempt to repair any of that damage. -more-

Now that Assemblymember Hancock’s “Fair Elections and Clean Money” legislation (AB 583) has passed the Assembly and is on its way to the Senate, it’s time to get beyond the supporters’ slogans and hype and discuss the actual contents of this bill. -more-

When two U.S. Marine helicopters recently went down off Djibouti, a tiny slice of desert at the entrance to the Red Sea, they exposed a low-profile program that has poured money and troops into a broad swath of northern Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic oceans, which encompasses some nine nations in the region. -more-

Extremis malis extrema remedia—from the Latin: literally “extreme remedies for extreme ills,” or the more familiar “desperate times call for desperate measures.” -more-

Who’s ready to try something new? Want to track wildlife, plant heirloom potatoes, cast your line in that perfect loop, team up with your favorite llama or discover the culture of the Tuibun Ohlone? Sound compelling? Read on. -more-

Rounding the bend from La Loma Avenue onto Le Conte Avenue on Berkeley’s Northside, the eye can’t miss a large brown-shingle structure in mid-block. Crowned by cascades of steep overlapping gables, this quintessentially Arts & Crafts building sports a curious appendage on its southeast corner: an octagonal turret with a domed roof previously covered with mosaics but now bare. -more-

Writing this column is going to be harder than usual. It’s no fun. I like talking about how people screw things up and sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s just exasperating but what I have to talk about today is genuinely tragic. Please bear with me because it’s extremely important. -more-

Some of us like plants from all over the world in out gardens. Some of us like native Californians. (Some of us, like me, mix them.) Some of us take that native thing to apparent extremes, and people like that have the perfect place in Berkeley: Native Here Nursery. -more-

A spate of German-themed films has made and continues to make its way to Berkeley theaters, from last year’s Downfall, about the final days of Adolph Hitler, to current and upcoming releases such as Fateless, about the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Summer Storm, the story of a young German boy’s sexual awakening, and Before the Fall, a coming-of-age film set in one of Hitler’s schools for the elite. (Before the Fall will be reviewed in this space next week.) -more-