By Riya Bhattacharjee 

“We can’t say anything. We haven’t received any recent updates from the control office.” 

My heart sank at the control officer’s words when I asked her about the next outbound Richmond train scheduled to leave the 24th and Mission Street BART station last Tuesday morning. 

I had a deadline in two hours and the only information available was that there had been a trash fire on the BART tracks right below San Francisco’s Market Street that morning, causing all services to the East Bay to be closed. 

Standing 12 stations away from the place where I was supposed to have been an hour ago, I felt I was not in another city but in another country. 

And like thousands of others who had been stranded there that morning, I panicked. 

Panic is exactly what BART commuters are discouraged from doing during emergency situations, says BART Chief of Police Gary Gee.  

In this case, passengers began pushing their way to the back of the Pittsburg Bay Point-bound train, jumping over seats, prying open a door, and trying to evacuate while the train operator was still walking over to the rear cab. After the power on the train was shut down, the remaining passengers were asked to evacuate. Reportedly, the operator’s exact words to them were: “A couple of fools have decided to jump off the train, so now we’re all going to have to evacuate.” Once the doors opened, the brakes stopped moving, making it impossible to drive the train. 

Had it been a terrorist attack, the situation could have been fatal.  

Chief Gary Gee agrees. “We cannot stress enough how important it is for passengers to follow instructions given by train operators or BART officials instead of taking matters into their own hands.” 

However, Chief Gee acknowledged that there had been a communication breach in certain stations on Tuesday morning which left many people confused. “During chaotic situations such as these, communication often suffers a setback,” he told the Daily Planet. “Mass transit systems like the BART definitely need to be concerned about this. Thursday’s fire was a good lesson learned.”  

The chief added that officials are often ordered to give passengers minimal information, as some passengers just keep on asking for more, leading to further confusion. 

According to a testimony on “Enhancing Emergency Preparedness in California” provided by Michael A. Wermuth (a senior policy Analyst at Rand Corp.) to the California Little Hoover Commission on Jan. 26, “establishing a comprehensive public information system” is an important managerial strategy for excellence in emergency preparedness. The report states: 

“Conventional wisdom has been that governments cannot be open with citizens about the threats they face, because such activities may cause heightened fear. Practical experience has taught that the more informed citizens are prior to a disaster, the less likely they are to panic and the closer they will listen to and trust government pronouncements about actions to be taken. This is specially true in the event of a biological incident—natural or intentionally perpetrated. Programs should be expanded to include more comprehensive public information and education before, during and after an incident, and should be exercised for refinement.” 

Chief Gee further explained that in case of a major emergency, such as a bomb or shooting terrorist threat, the first step would be to close down all the 43 BART stations. “There is no one formula that applies to all situations,” he said. “First we would need to do a systemwide evacuation, then our canine patrols would be brought in to do a sweep. We are definitely on the radar for an attack. It is not a matter of if but when.”  

It would, however, take a very severe situation to bring the SWAT Team in. When asked if BART faced a threat from terrorist hijacking, Chief Gee said it was possible but not too likely. “The driver does not control the speed of the train. The actual speed is controlled from a central place. But yes, there could be someone with a gun giving orders to the driver while attempting a hijack.”  

BART recently hired Aaron Cohen, a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces Special Forces Counterterrorist Unit, to train members of the BART SWAT Team on how to tackle suicide bombers without weapons. “The time factor is also very important when bringing in a SWAT Team. Officers are usually at another station or off-duty when an emergency strikes and have to be mobilized immediately,” Chief Gee told the Daily Planet. 

“We had a hostage situation at MacArthur station six months ago when the SWAT Team responded in 10 minutes. Although the situation turned out to be a false alarm, the team was able to make it there that fast because of low traffic at night.” 

BART has also assigned one of its officers to the FBI Special Joint Task Force in Oakland in order to monitor terrorist intelligence. In case of a terrorist attack in New York or even London, BART police use its own intelligence and works with the FBI as well as the Department of Homeland Security to get maximum information and determine a possible shutdown of the entire BART system. BART also holds monthly meetings to discuss security measures and analyze threat levels. 

According to Lt. John Conneely (in-charge of the evening patrol bureau for Zone 2, which includes the North Berkeley, Berkeley, and Ashby BART stations), BART officials are concerned about the safety of all BART stations, irrespective of the threat levels involved. “The stations in Berkeley could very well be a soft target,” he said. “What’s not to say that someone gets up from the North Berkeley BART station or the MacArthur transfer point and makes his way into San Francisco?”  

San Francisco is currently one of the four cities in the United States which is most likely to face a terrorist attack, with the Golden Gate Bridge being a high-visibility target. (According to a RAND Corp. report, the other three targets are New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) 

Lt. Conneely says that BART police have so far been extremely successful in protecting its stations, and although the system has been identified as a possible target for terrorist attacks, it has not received any credible threats to date. “Commuters might think they are not being watched, but that person discussing the weather next to you could very well be a plain-clothes officer.”  

Lt. Conneely says a minimum of two police officers are present at stations at any given point, but acknowledged that BART does not have the resources to have a full-fledged team present all day long.  

After the 1995 sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway, BART closed down its underground bathrooms for fear of possible chemical or biological poisons spreading through the bathroom’s ventilation system. 

What about stations like North Berkeley or Ashby which are located in residential neighborhoods and become deserted by 6 p.m.? 

“Although Berkeley has UC and the Lawrence Labs, we don’t really expect it to be a target. But yes, we could definitely use brighter lights at the Ashby Station,” acknowledged Chief Gee. Bart officials told the Daily Planet that the Berkeley stations have surveillance cameras in the control booths but no device to record activities at the station. 

March 11 marked the second anniversary of the Madrid bombing when 191 people died and 1,741 more were injured by terrorist attacks on Madrid’s commuter trains. Ironically BART shares its birthday—Sept. 11—with the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.  

“We have 326,500 passengers on weekdays, around 92 million people every year,” said Chief Gee. “Sometimes we also need to rely on the 6,000 or more eyes and ears that use our service everyday. Safety is not something we can achieve alone.”.”ª

By J. Douglas  

Allen-Taylor 

With the city of Oakland reeling from an explosion of violent street crime, city council members have scheduled a closed session meeting for this morning (Tuesday, March 14) to learn whether they will have to declare a state of emergency to invoke a new police deployment plan. 

At a People United for a Better Oakland (PUEBLO) police-community meeting at Frisk Middle School in Oakland a week ago, Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker confirmed that he had developed a plan to immediately triple the number of patrol officers on Oakland streets at peak crime times, with no new hiring needed and a decrease in overtime costs. The increased police presence would be managed by assigning officers to overlapping shifts of eight hours (for five days a week), 10 hours (for four days a week), and 12 hours (for three days a week), all to be paid at straight time. 

Tucker is currently negotiating implementation of the plan with the powerful Oakland Police Officers Association union, which is balking at the plan’s projected loss of overtime for its members. But last Tuesday night, with Tucker reporting increases in the city since this time last year of 300 percent for homicides, 127 percent for assaults with a deadly weapon, 100 percent for robberies, and 47 percent for sexual assaults, the council unanimously passed a resolution by District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks (East Oakland) to give the police union a week to agree to Tucker’s proposal. Declaring a state of emergency would allow the city to implement the chief’s deployment plan unilaterally, without union agreement.  

“We talk to our constituents and we hear what you’re saying,” Brooks told a council chamber packed with citizens demanding more police on the streets. “I’m sorry it’s taken this long, but I think we’re going to move fairly quickly from here on in.”  

Last weekend, another group of neighborhood residents rallied in the Fruitvale district—which has also been hard hit by the crime wave—to call for increased police patrols. 

At the earlier PUEBLO meeting, Brooks had charged that Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown—who is running for California attorney general—and Council President Ignacio De La Fuente—who is running to succeed Brown as mayor—had helped to hold up implementation of Tucker’s redeployment plan in order to gain the support of the police officers’ union in their political races. De La Fuente was absent from last Tuesday’s council meeting but spoke at the Saturday Fruitvale area rally. Under the strong mayor law, Brown is not required to attend council meetings. He rarely does and was also not present at Tuesday’s session. 

Tucker is scheduled to report back to councilmembers on the results of those negotiations this morning (Tuesday, March 14) at the 11 a.m. closed session. According to District 2 Councilmember Jane Brunner (North Oakland), councilmembers may hold a special open noon council session “depending on what we get in the report.” Presumably, if no agreement has been reached between the chief and the union, the council will vote on the emergency declaration at the noon session. 

Brunner, who sponsored a separate resolution at last Tuesday’s meeting—also passed unanimously by council—that called for the police department to fill the 89 patrol officer vacancies “absolutely no later than Jan. 1, 2007,” said that the shortage of patrol officers and the current police deployment plan was causing critical police services to be taken out of her district. “I’m tired of fighting for my crime reduction teams not to be taken out of North Oakland,” Brunner said. “Once again, they took them out this week. That’s unacceptable. We should have enough officers on the street that every district has a crime reduction team.” 

The crime reduction teams are small squads of officers that crack down on known crime hot spots. Two years ago, when the CRT was temporarily pulled out of North Oakland to conduct sideshow patrols in East Oakland, the murder rate in North Oakland tripled. 

The Oakland City Council is scheduled to go over details of Brunner’s “full staffing” resolution at its regular March 21 meeting. 

With neighborhood residents rallying outside the council meeting in support of increased police patrols, citizens inside supported the chief’s deployment plan. 

Preston Turner, chair of the Neighborhood Community Police Committee of Beat 27X (Melrose and Maxwell Park), one of the areas heaviest hit by the recent violent crime wave, told councilmembers, “We feel that Chief Tucker’s hands have been tied because of politics. We’d like the mayor, the president of the council [Ignacio De La Fuente], and all of the councilmembers to embrace the chief’s plan and roll it out as soon as possible. The bullets have no eyes.” 

Turner said that recent homicides in the Melrose/Maxwell Park area were “only two or three blocks from my house.” 

Former Oakland School Board member Toni Cook, who had attended the PUEBLO meeting where Brooks and Tucker originally announced the deployment plan, said that she was “horrified to learn that we have to bribe our police officers to do their job.” 

And PUEBLO Executive Director Rashidah Grinage, who has been holding weekly meetings with Tucker on police-community issues, added that “the chief is a professional who has done this type of work for many years. Folks who are looking at their own bank accounts, their own wallets, and their own political careers are putting that over the safety of the citizens of Oakland. We need to look at who is behind blocking this plan, and why.” 

Jim Hynes, assistant to the city manager, has told the Daily Planet that the city is not considering baiting the rats in Willard Park at this moment. “We have an integrated pest control policy according to which we have to look at the least toxic way of getting rid of the rats,” he said. Presently the city is only setting traps to catch the rodents at Willard Park. 

The city was able to trap up to 11 rats on its first attempt and the number went down to three the next day. “This is a positive sign. Therefore, we have decided to continue with trapping, as the situation is not that extreme.” 

Hynes also said that the matter would hopefully be under control within the next week. The team which is in charge of the inspection at Willard Park will reconvene there on Thursday to analyze the work done and decide on future action..

By SUZANNE LA BARRE 

Students at UC Berkeley are lashing out against a conservative campus publication that reprinted two Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muham-med. 

The March issue of the 5,000-circulation California Patriot magazine, released Monday, features two controversial images initially published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. One portrays the Prophet Muhammed with a lit bomb for a turban. The other depicts a student pointing to a blackboard that calls Jyllands-Posten journalists “reactionary provocateurs.” 

Islamic law forbids images of the prophet.  

“I think it’s really outrageous that they have the audacity to print it,” said Dena Takruri, a senior, and member of the Cal Muslim Student Association. “Not only are they insulting a community, they’re defaming a religion.” 

A total of 12 cartoons printed by the Danish newspaper, and reprinted elsewhere, have triggered massive unrest in the Islamic world. Rioting claimed the lives of dozens, and Danish embassies in some Muslim countries were attacked.  

In an unsigned editorial, the California Patriot said it reprinted the cartoons to register its support for free speech.  

To shore up the argument, it cites a 1989 incident when an artist created a photograph of a crucifix immersed in human urine.  

“Being offended occasionally is the price of living in a diverse, tolerant, pluralistic society,” the editorial says.  

Ethan Lutske, opinion editor of the California Patriot, said it was his decision to print the cartoons.  

“We figured that as a journalistic entity, we felt it was our duty and an honor to free speech to put it out there,” he said in a phone interview Monday.  

Many Muslim students on campus are deeply angered by the decision. 

“The Cal Patriot is not an intellectual publication and does not merit an intellectual response,” Takruri retorted. “(They) printed the cartoons to be audacious and to instigate an angered response. They should know, however, that our community will not stoop to their level.” 

Scott Lucas, president of the Cal Berkeley Democrats, said he supports free speech, “but the cartoons were published in such an inflammatory manner.” 

The Cal Berkeley Democrats have not taken an official position on the matter. 

The magazine’s publisher, Amaury Gallais, insisted the point was not to shock. 

“We’re not trying to be offensive, we’re not trying to insult, we’re not trying to provoke,” he said. “We’re trying to make a statement. It’s a free speech issue.” 

While Gallais spoke with the Daily Planet in front of Sather Gate Monday, a student grabbed a copy of the magazine and said, “I can’t believe the Cal Patriot published this. That’s bullshit.” Moments later, a student absconded with a stack of magazines, ostensibly to dispose of them, Gallais said. 

The cartoon controversy has made its way onto other college campuses. Groups at both UC Irvine and UCLA publicly displayed all 12 of the cartoons initially printed in Jyllands-Posten, to vehement—but peaceful—student pro-test. 

The unofficial university news blog CalStuff posted rumors last week that student protests are in the works. No organized rallies were reported by press time.  

The Cal Muslim Student Association held a meeting Monday to discuss political action in response to the reprinting of the cartoons.  

“I think it’s quite disappointing,” said Rafay Khalil, treasurer of the Cal Muslim Student Association. “[Muhammed] is one of the most beloved figures for Muslims. Unfortunately, this is only going to increase Islam-phobia and racism on campus.”ª

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) meets this Wednesday at 7 p.m. to examine current land use conditions and policy in downtown Berkeley. 

The committee will look at the relationship between major downtown destinations and different retail shops, employment and residential densities, zoning issues, property values, ownership patterns and projects that have been approved or are pending. 

DAPAC has been meeting since November to discuss downtown Berkeley, following a settlement forged between the city and UC Berkeley over developing the area. 

Other topics for consideration Wednesday include the discussion of committee goals and setting up workshops on conceptual options, transportation, historic preservation and environmental quality.  

On April 22, DAPAC is expected to explore concepts for downtown Berkeley. Between May and September, the committee will develop these options. 

Tomorrow’s meeting will be held at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

—

Proponents, opponents and concerned citizens have their last chance Wednesday to speak out on the report the Bureau of Indians Affairs (BIA) will consider when they decide whether or not to allow a casino in North Richmond. 

While Contra Costa County officials oppose the opening of the Scott’s Valley Band of Pomos’ proposed Sugar Bowl Casino in unincorporated North Richmond, the city itself is backing another casino proposal on Point Molate, and both proposals have drawn strong support in the African American community because of the promise of jobs. 

A leading casino opponent is East Bay Assembly Democrat Loni Hancock, who represents the city in the state Legislature and has called on casino opponents to come out in force for Wednesday’s meeting. 

“Join your voice and help us put an end to the deception that urban casinos bring prosperity and not crime,” she urged constituents Friday. 

The session, which will begin at 6 p.m. in Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza at the corner of 27th Street and Nevin Avenue, will last until the final speaker is heard. 

The hearing is formally a call for comments on the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS), a document required under the National Environmental Quality Act. 

If the proposal is granted by the BIA, the tribe will be allowed to designate 299.9 acres along the eastern side of Richmond Parkway north of Parr Boulevard as a reservation for the Scott’s Valley Band. 

Backed by Noram Richmond LLC, a special purpose corporation formed by Maitland, FL., developer Alan H. Ginsburg—a major player in the tribal casino industry—the tribe proposes a 225-square-foot building with a casino, showroom, buffet and sports bar, along with a four-story parking structure and a 1,305-space lot. 

The DEIS also outlines four alternatives, two with smaller casinos and two without. 

The developers say the project would bring prosperity for an impoverished 181-member tribe and bring 1,885 new jobs to the city. 

The tribe has also promised compensatory payments to cover law enforcement and emergency services costs that would be incurred by the county. 

A copy of the DEIS is available on line at www.analyticalcorp.com, the Internet site of Analytical Environmental Services, the consulting firm which prepared the report. To access the document, click on “Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians” under the heading “Current Environmental Documents.” 

Though Wednesday is the last chance to comment from the lectern, the BIA will continue to accept written comments through April 28. They may be mailed to Regional Director Clay Gregory, care of the BIA’s Pacific Regional Office, 2800 Cottage Way, Sacramento 95825. 

Hancock and county officials have opposed the project in part on the grounds that gambling tends to increase as income rate declines.  

The DEIS for Richmond’s other casino project at Point Molate is still in preparation. That project is backed by Berkeley developer James D. Levine, Harrah’s Corp. and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. The Guidiville Rancheria Band of Pomos is the tribal applicant..

The Berkeley Board of Education will consider funneling $800,000 into developing an open East Campus/ Derby Street field tomorrow. 

The funding would cover the cost of turning the district-run vacant site into an interim athletics field while the board considers building a more permanent standard baseball diamond there.  

The East Campus field, hemmed in by Ward and Carleton streets, and Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street, has long been a bone of contention for the Berkeley Unified School District. 

Some say it should be converted into a baseball field to meet the needs of the Berkeley High School men’s baseball team, which currently practices at San Pablo Park, a driving distance from campus. To make the diamond regulation size, the Berkeley City Council would have to grant the district permission to close Derby Street between MLK and Milvia. The Berkeley Farmer’s Market is held there. 

Others say Derby Street should stay open and the site should host a multi-use playing field.  

The $800,000 board directors will consider allocating tomorrow would fund basic demolition and development of an open field, including the cost of removing electric transformers and parking areas, fixing drainage problems, re-irrigating the site, planting grass and installing a fence.  

The approval of funding would not preclude the board from deciding to build a baseball diamond at a later date. The board still plans to move forward analyzing the environmental impacts of closing Derby Street. 

S

Local anti-war activists, who say government agencies collected data on their meetings, demonstrations and events, filed suit last week to force the Department of Defense to disclose the contents of documents it has on file. 

The data, the existence of which was uncovered by an MSNBC report in December, were collected as part of the government’s Threat and Observation Notice program. TALON’s goal is to compile information on threats to military bases, according to Lisa Sitkin, an Emeryville-based attorney joining the ACLU complaint on behalf of the UC Berkeley Stop the War Coalition, the UC Santa Cruz Students Against War and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.  

The anti-war activities “seemed so far afield from collecting threats to military bases,” Sitkin said. In addition to getting the specific data collected by the government, attorneys hope to get a better idea of what the secretive TALON program is about. 

The UC Berkeley demonstration of April 2005, described in the DOD database, targeted military recruiters on campus, according to Matthew Taylor, a fourth-year UC Berkeley student in Peace and Conflict studies and a member of the Stop the War Coalition.  

In March, the student government had approved a resolution “condemning the immoral occupation of Iraq and banning the presence of military recruiters (on campus),” Taylor said. However, the resolution was ignored by the administration and recruitment continued. In reaction, the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition held a peaceful protest on campus in April.  

TALON collected data on the demonstration. 

The DOD’s spying on the students is part of the bigger picture where citizen rights have been under attack over the last few years, Taylor said. “They don’t want anyone who speaks out to be heard.”  

The complaint, filed March 7 in U.S. District Court, names the DOD as well as its component departments, the Army, Navy and Air Force, and calls on these entities to release the data due to the need to inform the public about the government’s domestic surveillance activities and the “imminent loss of substantial due process rights, including the right to privacy.” 

Filing suit at this time “is significant because there’s a huge national dispute on the extent to which there should be intelligence gathering,” said ACLU attorney Mark Schlosberg. “There’s a lot of public concern about government overreaching that targets groups engaged in political dissent.” 

Not only do such counterintelligence activities violate privacy rights, they are counterproductive, Schlosberg added. In casting a net “far too wide and not delineating between peaceful protests and acts of terrorism, they end up overwhelming law-enforcement officials,” he said. 

A long-time defender of open government, the Bay Guardian, is also a plaintiff. Defendants have 30 days from the time of filing to respond..

The Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District will hold public hearings next Wednesday, March 22, on bus and service changes in North Alameda and West Contra Costa counties.  

The public will have the opportunity to weigh in on major AC Transit policy, including the Service Deployment Plan and the Fleet Composition Plan. 

The Service Deployment Plan is a long-range plan that defines bus routes and schedules in the East Bay. Service changes were implemented in 2003 that affect Berkeley, Albany, San Pablo, Richmond and El Cerrito.  

The Fleet Composition Plan called for diesel buses to replace gasoline-powered vans. 

Changes put forth by both plans already went into effect in 2003, but because of a lawsuit filed by community groups, AC Transit was ordered to draft additional impact reports.  

Livable Streets Network, an ad hoc group based in Berkeley, and Neighbors Against Big Diesel challenged AC Transit in court after the agency adopted a draft initial study/negative declaration for the Service Deployment Plan without adequate public notice. The suit also calls for AC Transit to study the environmental impacts of the Fleet Composition Plan. 

Comments on the plans are accepted online at www.actransit.org through March 22, or at the hearings, slated for 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., at the AC Transit General Offices, 1600 Franklin St., in Oakland. 

—

Strangers saved the lives of Annette Herskovits and her sister in occupied France almost a half-century ago.  

And so when Herskovits learned that Muslims in France had kept some 1,700 strangers—many of them Jews—from the Nazi death camps, she began que stioning today’s animosity between Muslims and Jews and discovered that there is a history of the two peoples—cousins, some say—living harmoniously.  

Herskovits found a documentary that tells some of that story. She will show Derri Berkani’s 1991 film, T heir Children Are Like Our Own Children, A Forgotten Resistance: The Mosque of Paris tonight (Tuesday), 7:30 p.m., International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave.  

At the screening, Herskovits will share her personal Holocaust story.  

Herskovits’ parents, Roman ian Jews, came to France in 1923, she told the Daily Planet in an interview in her Berkeley home last week. “They mistrusted Jews in Transylvania (part of Romania),” she said. 

Her father worked as a typesetter. With the rise of Hitler, he joined the Fren ch army, even though, as a foreigner, he was refused French citizenship. “He wanted to fight the Nazis anyway,” Herskovits said.  

France declared war on Germany in September 1939 and the following year surrendered to Germany. Soon Jews began to be picked up by the occupying forces and the French collaborators. However, Romanian Jews were not rounded up until the fall of 1942, having initially been protected by their Romanian citizenship.  

Fearing for their children, Herskovits’ parents sent 3-year-old Annette and her 13-year-old sister to a foster home away from Paris. They found work on a farm for their 17-year-old son near the younger girls.  

Though it was so long ago, it’s still very painful for Herskovits to talk about those times. “It still makes me nervous, I cannot tell it,” she said, stopping for a moment. Pushing on, Herskovits shared memories of her father’s last visit: “He came on my fourth birthday. He came to see me and brought me a present, a dress.”  

Soon after, both parents were arre sted and taken to Auschwitz. “I don’t know what happened to them after that,” she said.  

Life became complicated. There was no one to pay for the sisters’ care at the foster home and their presence there became an increasing danger to the caregiver. Herskovits’ brother was hiding in a hotel in Paris and working at night cleaning presses in the same shop where his father had worked. He did not dare give his employers his real name. He arranged for his two sisters to stay with him.  

“He didn’t know what to do with me,” Herskovits said. “He knew very well he didn’t want to entrust me to the orphanages, which were official orphanages run by the official Jewish organization under German control. I was four and a half. He was hiding himself; he had false pap ers.”  

Her brother was able to speak with someone he thought he could trust and learned of a well-organized network of communists, Catholics, Protestants and Jews that worked to save children.  

During the Holocaust, this group saved some 500 children, H erskovits said. Sometimes they would go and literally kidnap children from the state-controlled orphanages.  

Once they got the children, they would place them in safe, clandestine shelters. Herskovits was placed in one of these, a sanatorium for children with tuberculosis run by Catholic nuns.  

After finding safe hiding places for the children, the network had to give the child a new identity by procuring false papers; they also had to raise funds to pay for upkeep, and send the payments to the secret hiding place without attracting attention.  

“They had to keep records, in code, of the children’s true and false names and whereabouts, bring the children to their hiding places in small groups, and visit them regularly to ascertain that they were well treated,” Herskovits wrote in a winter 2004 article published in the Buddhist Peace Fellowship journal Turning Wheel. “Many who participated in this work—both Jews and non-Jews—perished,”  

Once she had papers, Herskovits was able to live more openly in foster homes until the end of the war. She was then adopted by a French family.  

Herskovits’ survival had depended on strangers and so she was moved when she learned the story of the Paris Mosque  

“In these times of mutual hatred, a hatred that is sust ained by distorted views of the ‘other,’ the story of Muslims saving Jewish children struck me as one Jews and Arabs especially should hear,” Herskovits wrote in the Turning Wheel article. “This history strengthens my sense that mutuality and harmony make up the natural fabric of human relations. Division and cruelty are like torn places in that fabric. Surely, at certain times and places the tearing can be so thorough that it seems the fabric is not there. But that is an illusion.”  

The story of the mos que begins in 1926. The French government had it built to thank the half-million Muslims who had fought alongside the French in World War I—including the 100,000 who lost their lives.  

During the German occupation, the Paris mosque sheltered French resis tance fighters and North Africans who had escaped from German POW camps—340,000 African/North African troops in the Free French army in 1939 out of 550,000 were there. When the occupation began rounding up Jews, they were also hidden in the mosque—especia lly children, Herskovits said.  

French Filmmaker Derri Berkani, whose documentary tells the story of the Paris Mosque, is of Algerian ancestry. While his father was fighting in the Resistance, Berkani was in the south of France, hiding among Jewish child ren.  

Herskovits shared a letter to her from the Muslim filmmaker, translated from the French: “My distress about all this [Jewish-Muslim tensions] is made more intense because my own personal history could be that of a Jewish child of my age. I recogniz e the fears and the obsession of the return to the possible nightmare…. I would so much like to be a link between the two communities.”  

Herskovits also seeks to serve as a link between Muslims and Jews; showing Berkani’s film is one step toward becoming that link.  

f

A drive to put the four college Peralta Community College District in the forefront of the Bay Area’s environmental movement was kicked off last week with a one-day mini-conference at Laney College in Oakland. 

District leaders are hoping that the conference will spark a Sustainable Peralta Colleges Initiative designed to integrate environmental curriculum with an overhaul of the district’s physical plant into energy efficient units. They also have an eye on the district’s upcoming $390 million construction bond measure, currently scheduled for the June ballot. District officials believe the bond measure’s chance passage may be increased if the projected construction projects are tied in to environmentally sound building practices.  

Peralta Trustee Nicky Gonzalez Yuen, who began promoting the Peralta sustainable initiative even before he was elected to the trustee board, said during a break in the conference that “environmental sustainability is going to be a major part of the bond measure campaign.”  

Pointing out a brisk wind coming through the closed doorway of a classroom where one of the conference sessions was being held, Yuen said that “eventually, this classroom is going to have to be renovated using the money from the June bond measure. We need to make sure that when those renovations are done, the windows have double panes and the doors have enough insulation to make them energy efficient.”  

Yuen said part of the initiative will coordinate what he called “mini-grants” of $500 to $1,000 to provide materials or sponsor grant-writing activities to promote environmental movement projects throughout the district. Another goal of the initiative will be to develop environmental-protection project partnerships with community groups, foundations, businesses, and non-profits. 

The trustee added that he is not sure that existing new building construction going on throughout the college includes solar panels and physical orientation to take advantage of sound heating and cooling principles. “But from now on,” he added, “that’s what we must do.” 

During a morning slide show presentation, local physicist and solar energy expert Donald Aitken painted a bleak picture of what might happen if American builders do not follow sustainable energy practices. 

“We’ve got 40 years of oil reserves left, but 5.5 billion years of sunlight,” Aitken said. “Choose it wisely.” Aitken said that power generated from solar energy, wind, and waste products could meet the country’s energy needs immediately, while oil, coal, and nuclear power were only contributing to the destruction of the planet’s environmental balance. “While there’s plenty of nuclear energy available,” he added that “it’s completely unethical to pass on nuclear waste to our children.” 

Aitken has installed solar energy units at a number of colleges throughout the Bay Area, including UC Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Student Center, Cal State East Bay, and the South Bay’s San Jose State, De Anza College, and Foothill College. At Napa Valley College, he said he has installed a solar energy unit that “provides 40 percent of the energy needs for the entire college.” 

Oakland mayoral candidate Ron Dellums, who delivered the keynote address to the collection of college professors, students, and local environmental activists, told participants that the ecological movement provides a vehicle to unite citizens over racial and economic boundaries. 

“The world is small and we are dependent upon each other,” Dellums said. “We can die equally in environmental disasters, so we should learn how to live equally. If a tsunami were to come to Oakland, it wouldn’t sidestep black folks or poor folks—it would hit everybody. The former Oakland/Berkeley congressmember added that “however ecologically sound we are in our practices, we have to do it in the context of sustaining human beings. Ending poverty. Providing universal health care. These are all elements of sustainability.” 

Taking a jab at the Bush Administration’s rejection of various environmental treaties, Dellums said, “It staggers me that we have an administration that won’t sign a treaty because they might lose a few jobs. Lose a few jobs? We might lose the whole planet.” 

Another speaker, panelist Reg Duhe of the Environmental Careers Organization, told an “Opportunities for Students” panel that environmentalism has entered the mainstream and was no longer what he called “just a bugs and bunnies field.” Saying that he wasn’t an environmentalist, a statement that brought “ooohs” from the audience, Duhe explained that “I think the term “environmentalist” is becoming irrelevant. Environmental jobs used to be the most low-paying, at a nonprofit somewhere. That’s all changed. Now, everything relates to protecting the environment. Making money and having an environmental job are no longer incompatible.” 

Also speaking on one of the conference panel’s was Oakland Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nancy Nadel, a licensed engineer and former EBMUD Commissioner who has been active in the Bay Area’s environmental movement for years, and is an advisor to the Merritt College Environmental Center/Self Reliant House. 

In a letter promoting the conference and the Sustainable Peralta Initiative, Peralta Chancellor Elihu Harris said that “for years throughout the District various people have worked hard to promote environmental consciousness. From recycling programs and courses in environmental sciences to green-building apprenticeships and water conservation projects, many people have labored (often in the wilderness) to promote responsible environmental stewardship at Peralta. I believe it’s time that we pulled all of our past efforts together and dramatically escalate our green profile. … The public is clamoring for solutions to our environmental challenges and the community colleges are perfectly positioned to take leadership in promoting these solutions.” 

A followup meeting has been planned for March 24, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. in the Laney Administration Building to develop committees and working groups to “put the ideas in motion that were suggested at the conference,” according to Peralta’s Sustainability Coordinator Robin Freeman. “We’ve already started to send groups out to other colleges and universities to see what projects they have been working on, as well as take a survey of what is already going on within the Peralta district itself.” Freeman said that “a lot of us have been participating in environmentally-sound activities and education without each other knowing it. One of the goals of the Sustainable Initiative is to coordinate those efforts.” 

Worried about the impending earthquake in the Berkeley area? There has been a series of lectures at Stanford and at UC Berkeley for the centennial of the 1906 earthquake. Kathleen Tierney spoke March 1 on “Preparedness for catastrophic and near-catastrophic events: Issues and challenges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” Professor Tierney is director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, professor of sociology, author of works on hazards and disasters, and a member of many committees on disaster research. Her appearances on NPR and PBS discussing catastrophe planning can be found on the Internet. 

She advocated planning for a catastrophe like another earthquake at the national, state, local government, neighborhood, business, and household levels. In catastrophes, because of infrastructure destruction, household or office water and food supplies and citizen rescue groups may be necessary. During the discussion the issue of mandatory preparations, similar to mandatory smoke alarms, was suggested in the audience. 

In the case of Katrina, scientists had already predicted the Category 4 hurricane the preceding week and given accurate descriptions of what eventually happened. The levees were known to be good only up to Category 3, yet Homeland Security did not prepare for transportation, food, and housing for evacuees, or evacuation of the poor and disabled. Katrina ranks with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the Galveston 1900 storm as one of the worst natural catastrophes in United States history because of such poor preparation and response. 

Dr. Tierney differentiated emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes in the area affected, the range and level of official response systems required, infrastructure damage, public involvement as first responders, and cascading long- term effects on health and the environment. Local authorities like police and fire departments can handle emergencies, but in disasters—like the Berkeley 1923 fire—neighboring cities or the state provide aid. At present, she said, the United States has no catastrophic response plan but only hastily prepared and impractical proposals that are more like fantasies than realistic plans.  

A detailed report on FEMA in 1993 after Hurricane Andrew suggested improvements, but instead of the optimal integration of mitigation, preparation, response, and restoration they have been separated. Many functions, and associated funds, have been given to the military. The trained civilian experts brought in by the Clinton administration began leaving FEMA for private contracting companies as political appointees took over. Many experts believe that such changes have made the U.S. more vulnerable to catastrophes like an earthquake in California. 

Social scientists have identified several heuristics which have been observed when people think they are planning for ambiguous future events, including myopia—too short-range views—or focusing on similar past events that in fact were not as grave as what actually could happen, providing poor models.  

One of the novel features of reactions in natural catastrophes is a process called “elite panic” in which persons with prestige and property become fearful of social disorder. Their response is to become obsessed with looting and civil disorder, to the point of fearing the poor and minorities, arming themselves, issuing shoot-on-sight orders, and developing rumors like the stories about rapes and murders in the Superdome after Katrina. When speaking on the Lehrer News Hour about Katrina, Professor Tierney commented that “looting in natural disasters in the United States has been extremely vanishingly rare. Looting is almost never a problem in natural disasters.” In New Orleans, people trying to rescue neighbors were arrested by armed veterans, workers were removed from rescue operations to control looting instead, and some citizens were prevented from crossing onto higher land because of these fears. Right now, discussions in the national government about planning for a bird flu epidemic include whether to issue shoot-to-kill orders, despite the experience of orderly civil behavior during the 1918 flu epidemic.  

The last lecture in the series will be “Designing for disaster: UC Berkeley looks ahead” by Mary Comerio at 7:30 p.m., March 15 in Sibley Auditorium..

Add this to your list of things to worry about: Native California earthworms. Like many native California creatures, they’re not doing well. 

Scientists aren’t even sure how many species of earthworms we have here, or what roles they play in the complex ecology of the soil. Oligochaetology—the study of the class within the phylum Annelida that includes night crawlers, red wigglers, and the little black tubifex worms you feed to tropical fish—would appear to be a wide-open field. There are just a couple of practicing earthworm taxonomists in the United States, and the technical literature is sparse. A Southern California survey in 1990-91, the first ever in that region, turned up several undescribed species and a new genus. I don’t know whether anything comparable has been done for the Bay Area. 

The only comprehensive collection of native California earthworms was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and never rebuilt. I’m assuming this was in the California Academy of Science’s old downtown quarters. The intrepid botanist Alice Eastwood ventured into the ruins of the building to retrieve rare plant specimens before it burned, but it appears that no one went for the worms; they may have been in glass jars that were irretrievably smashed.  

The worms in your garden, or your worm bed if you’re that serious about them, are aliens. Lumbricus terrestris, the classic earthworm of the biology textbooks, is native to Europe. Like other weedy species, exotic earthworms thrive in disturbed environments. When they encounter native worms, the invaders generally outcompete them. 

It’s not clear what impact the exotics have had on our native vegetation, but studies in the Great Lakes region indicate they may be contributing to the decline of the rare goblin fern.  

Functionally, there are three kinds of earthworms: epigeic worms that live in the uppermost layers of soil and feed on undecomposed plant litter; endogeic worms that make horizontal tunnels further down; and anecic worms that inhabit deep vertical burrows from which they come to the surface in search of leaf litter, manure, and other organic matter. Lumbricus terrestris is one of the anecic types, the worms that do the bulk of the work of soil formation. But its relative L. rubellus and the red wiggler Eisenia foetida are considered to be better composting worms.  

From what little is known of their habits, most of the native Californian species are endogeic, with an activity pattern that peaks in the rainy season. Tolerant of drier, leaner soil than the exotics, they’re most abundant in oak-savanna habitats, but also occur in chaparral and wet coastal forest. The natives, sensitive to disturbance, disappear where soil has been tilled or tree cover cut down.  

Although California native earthworms are on the small side, there are or were giants in the earth to the north of our borders. Driloleirus macelfreshi, found in riparian woodlands in Oregon’s Willamete Valley, attained a length of three feet and smelled of lilies. Its relative in the Palouse Valley of Washington, D. americanus, was of similar dimensions. I use the past tense here since the Oregon giant earthworm was last seen in 1981 and is most likely no longer with us, although people are still looking. (Just for the record, the world-champion earthworm is the 10–foot-long Megascolides australis of Gippsland, Australia, rare but still extant). 

Charles Darwin was the first to appreciate the ecological importance of earthworms. He had addressed the subject in a short paper in 1837, just after his return from the Beagle voyage, concluding: “It will be difficult to deny the probability, that every particle of earth forming the bed from which the turf in old pasture land springs, has passed through the intestines of worms…” He returned to earthworm studies late in life, and the last book he wrote, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Actions of Worms, was a surprise bestseller.  

As with all his other projects—the pigeons, the insectivorous plants, the orchids—the whole Darwin family was drawn into the worm research. He was curious about their sensory apparatus and tested their reaction to tobacco fumes and the proximity of a red-hot poker. To determine whether they had a sense of hearing, he had his son Francis play the bassoon to a pot of earthworms. He also set worm pots on top of the piano and asked his wife Emma to play fortissimo. Emma remarked to one of her correspondents that Charles “has taken to training earthworms, but does not make much progress, as they can neither see nor hear.” 

The worm work became for Darwin yet another example of what gradual processes can accomplish given enough time. He calculated that earthworms had completely buried the ruins of a Roman villa in Surrey, their castings—the pellets of soil that passed through their guts—accumulating at the rate of one inch every 12 years. This fit nicely with his view of natural selection working slowly through deep time to create the multifarious living world. 

Ironically, the worm species Darwin studied may now be in trouble at home, even if it’s thriving in North America. Two flatworms introduced to western Europe from Australia and New Zealand have been found to prey on Lumbricus terrestris, reducing some populations to the point of local endangerment—the kind of thing that can all too easily happen as biological globalization scatters exotic species around the world.  

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Bad week for cooks 

Berkeley firefighters responded to three residential fires over the past week, each of them caused when a meal went awry. 

Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth said the fire was already out by the time firefighters arrived at the scene of a stove fire report at 2707 Stuart St. a week ago Monday. 

“The only thing lost was the meal,” said Orth. 

Not so with the second fire just before 4:30 p.m. Saturday, which did an estimated $30,000 in structural damage and another $10,000 in damage to the contents of a residence at 3011 Hillegass Ave.  

Orth said a short circuit in a conduit to a built-in oven caused a fire that destroyed the oven and did major damage to the kitchen. Firefighters also had to chop a small hole in the roof to control the blaze. 

The third blaze, reported at 6:27 p.m. Sunday at 1831 Woolsey St., did about $15,000 in structural damage and $500 to the range. 

That fire, too, had been largely extinguished by the time firefighters arrived. 

“On the bright side, we didn’t have any reports of damage from the snow,” said Orth, referring to the light dusting of that freezy skid stuff that was reported in parts of Berkeley Saturday.›

More kidnap info 

Police have released more information on last Wednesday’s kidnap of a woman near the corner of Atherton Street and Channing Way. 

Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan confirmed a report received by the Daily Planet that in addition to the Berkeley woman who was driving the car commandeered by the kidnapper, the vehicle was also occupied by two children. 

“We always conceal some details,” said the officer. 

The woman was approached by a gunman outside the UC Berkeley Child Study Center at 2425 Atherton about 6 p.m. after she had just secured two children she had picked up into their seat belts. 

He then forced the woman to drive at gunpoint to a location near the freeway in Albany, where he robbed her, then forced her to drive him back to People’s Park, not far from the scene of the original abduction. 

Neither the woman, a caregiver, nor the children were injured. 

Galvan said a sketch of the suspect will be ready for release perhaps as early as this afternoon (Tuesday). 

Round Table robbers 

Police arrested two teenagers Thursday after they allegedly robbed another teen of her purse at the 2017 University Ave. Round Table Pizza just before 12:15 p.m. 

Officer Galvan said the suspects were booked on suspicion of robbery and sexual battery (groping). A third suspect has been identified, he said. 

Road rage attack 

Police are looking for the Mercedes driver who vented his road rage by attacking an 18-year-old Oakland woman’s car with a baseball bat after she had stopped in front of Ashby Lumber. 

A 911 caller alerted the Highway Patrol—911 cell phone calls go to the CHP; cell callers who want Berkeley emergency dispatchers should call 981-5911—and officers arrived to find the woman shaken but not in need of hospitalization. 

The Mercedes had fled the scene before they arrived, said Officer Galvan. 

The woman and the driver of the Mercedes had been involved in an incident on Interstate 80 as both cars had been headed westbound toward the Bay Bridge. 

After the incident, the woman took the Ashby Avenue exit, and the driver of the other car followed, launching his attack after the woman had stopped in front of the lumber store at Ashby and Seventh Street.

In the past three years Iraqi guerrillas worked with al Qaeda fighters, or Arab Afghans, in attacking U.S. occupation forces and undermining the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government. There are now reports in Arab media, however, that al Qaeda fighters are leaving Iraq because the resistance has turned against them.  

Al-Watan Al-Arabi magazine reported that Arab Afghans fighting in Iraq are now returning to Afghanistan and the tribal areas in Pakistan by the hundreds. They are settling in areas under Taliban control in preparation for increasing the number of attacks to more than 500 a month on Afghan government and NATO forces in the spring.  

Mullah Muhammad Atta, an Afghani Mujahdeen leader, told the Al-Watan Al-Arabi that leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban will coordinate their attacks under a new strategy aimed at expanding their influence to new areas in Afghanistan, instead of hit-and-run guerrilla tactics.  

According to Atta, Al-Zawahiri, who personally called on Arab Afghani fighters to return to Afghanistan, has formed alliances with tribes in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region through a series of meetings. According to Al Watan Al Arabi, the U.S. air strike that targeted Al-Zawahiri on Jan. 13, 2006, in Pakistan, was in fact was aimed at one of those meetings. Al-Zawahiri was supposed to meet with tribal leaders to get their help in ensuring the free movement of al Qaeda fighters, especially those returning from Iraq.  

The arrival of al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan may explain the sudden increase of suicide bombings there which, according to Abu Dhabi television, totaled 14 in the past three months.  

Why is al Qaeda leaving Iraq?  

Riyad Alam Dean wrote in Al-Watan Al-Arabi that the American administration has decided to turn its strategy in Iraq “180 degrees” by dropping previous plans to hand Iraq to the Shiites. Instead, the United States has decided to empower Sunnis and use them to undermine Iran’s role in Iraq.  

Dean’s article, published on Feb. 10, claims that the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has finally persuaded the Sunni resistance, including senior Baathists in the former Iraqi army, to get rid of al Qaeda fighters in Iraq in exchange for 1) the reappointment of Baathist officials to sensitive political positions and 2) the removal of Shiite militias, especially the Badr Corps from the interior ministry. These militias were implicated in torture and reprisal killings of Sunnis.  

Two days later, on Feb. 20, Khalilzad publicly threatened to cut off funding to the Iraqi government if the ministries of defense and interior remained under “sectarian” control.  

To fulfill their part of the deal, Bsathists, Sunni religious scholars and religious resistance groups launched coordinated and comprehensive efforts to cleanse Iraq of al Qaeda fighters. Imams called on worshipers in mosques to expel al Qaeda, and Iraqi tribes formed committees especially designed to expel armed groups sympathetic to Al-Zarqawi from Al Ramadi, Samara and the Sunni triangle.  

The Sunnis’ efforts in tracking and attacking al Qaeda fighters led to the arrest of 400 suspects and forced hundreds to flee Nenawa and Anbar provinces, which were the strongest al Qaeda strongholds in Iraq. Many, including Al-Zarqawi, are believed to have escaped from Iraq. Simultaneously, U.S. forces also trained new Iraqi troops especially for the purpose of eliminating Al Qaeda and expelling its members from cities under their control.  

This, of course, could have negative consequences on neighboring countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as escaped al Qaeda fighters might, upon return, target vital civilian institutions to destabilize the two kingdoms.  

According to Dean, secret meetings have been held between American and Sunni representatives almost every week since Dec. 15, 2005. American generals then started to meet directly with leaders from the armed Iraqi resistance groups in Anbar province in Iraq and in Jordan since January 2006.  

Leaders from more than 12 armed Baathist and religious resistance organizations (excluding al Qaeda) have been at these meetings, including senior Baathists from the Republican Guards and Saddam’s intelligence agency, as well as senior Baathist officials who organized and financed resistance operations from outside Iraq. At least two senior Baathists who attended the meetings were recently released from U.S. prisons in Iraq and were very close to Saddam. 

Why did the American administration decide to empower the Sunnis?  

First, the U.S. forces have simply failed to quell the resistance, which has managed to kill 2,300 American soldiers and inflict severe injuries to thousands of others, utilizing innovations such as using laundry detergent to maximize burns caused by roadside bombs.  

Second, Dean believes that the United States has given up plans to establish an independent Shiite government in Iraq because Iran has simply managed to advance its favorite loyal candidates and parties in all the Iraqi elections, thus transforming the toppling of Saddam’s regime into a great Iranian victory.  

Third, the United States feared that Iran would act on its threats to use its influence over Iraq’s Shiite militias to incite them into attacking U.S. soldiers. The head of the Iranian Expediency Council, Ali Rafsanjani, made the threat clear when he said, “The 150,000 American soldiers in Iraq are in the mouth of the lion.”  

The threat was further confirmed when the leader of the Shiite Mahdi army in Iraq, Muqtada Al-Sadr, made his famous statement while he was visiting Tehran that he would defend Iran. The United States decided to empower the Sunni resistance, including Baathists, to counterbalance Iran’s threat to turn Iraq’s Shiites against American soldiers.  

After three years of war, the Bush administration has come to the conclusion that it should empower the same group it toppled three years ago. The United States might also have to make a similar deal with the Taliban as the only way to isolate al Qaeda fighters and eliminate them from Afghanistan.  

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It starts like any other lo-fi college radio production. 

The host introduces himself and his colleagues, all decorated with important titles. One is the executive producer or the production manager—he hasn’t quite decided yet.  

There’s a cursory nod to the recording room, the basement of somebody’s dorm. The host proclaims a lofty mission: “My show is about whatever I find interesting in life.” 

Then he gets down to business. 

“Affirmative action sounds like a great idea, gun control sounds like a great idea, high minimum wage and peace in the Middle East both sound like these nice, fluffy, flowery ideas,” he says. “But the bottom line is that affirmative action slows the growth of the black middle class, gun control has a direct relationship to increased crime rates, a higher wage has a correlation to greater job loss, and peace in the Middle East fails to acknowledge that there are evil people who feel that virgins are waiting for them in heaven if they kill Americans.” 

Meet Alex Marlow, UC Berkeley sophomore, political science major, unabashed conservative. 

On Feb. 27, Marlow, 20, and a team of five fellow students recorded the first podcast of The Alex Marlow Show, a production of the newly formed campus group California Patriot Radio. Patriot Radio is affiliated with UC Berkeley’s conservative publication, the California Patriot. 

The show finds Marlow, a self-declared “Republitarian” with a gift for bluster, opining on everything from liberal bias on the UC campus to the absurdity of student health flyers that prioritize body image over healthy eating.  

He fearlessly calls out professors for presenting single-sided debates in the classroom. In one course, an instructor uses the term “African-American” to describe people of Haitian descent. Marlow insists the label is patronizing and incorrect.  

“When are the prefixes going to stop, ladies and gentlemen?” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with calling someone black, but the suggestion that African-Americans, so to speak, are anything less than full-fledged Americans is totally condescending.…  

“It’s stupidity. It’s political correctness and it’s the exact kind of thing going on here at the University of California Berkeley.” 

Marlow is not your typical conservative. Raised by ex-hippies-turned-Republicans in liberal West Los Angeles, Marlow is fittingly “soft” on social issues. He doesn’t think abortion should be banned, and he’s convinced the war on drugs would do best to wave a white flag. 

Still, his penchant for blasting affirmative action, body image discourse and the use of university dues for financial aid is enough to send most liberal Cal students running for their dog-eared copy of A People’s History of the United States.  

It doesn’t look like they’re tuning in anyway. 

Of 13 comments posted on the California Patriot website, 13 on the radio program’s MySpace.com page and four on Marlow’s blog, alexmarlow.blogspot.com, feedback has come entirely from fellow conservatives offering unflinching support. 

Many are outside Berkeley’s ivory tower. 

Among natives who are well aware that UC Berkeley harbors a 600- to 650-member strong Republican club, Patriot Radio should raise few eyebrows. But elsewhere in the country, where the color red features prominently, a conservative voice in the People’s Republic is downright revolutionary.  

“What you guys are doing is so totally amazing,” wrote Audrey, 19, a student at Middle Tennessee State University, on the show’s MySpace page. “I’m just so impressed. I mean to be broadcasting a CONSERVATIVE talk show from BERKLEY… come on that’s amazing. I’ve downloaded your podcast and can’t wait to hear your show! Good luck in your endeavors and God Bless America!” 

Audrey is one of 232 “friends” on the MySpace page. Friends hail from all over the country including Georgia, Texas and Pennsylvania to name a few. 

Marlow and his radio cohorts revel in their cult status as People’s Republic Republicans. 

“It fuels the fire,” Marlow said. “It gives me ammo to talk about on my show and to write about on my blog.” 

“I love being a Republican in Berkeley,” echoed Ethan Lutske, opinion editor of the California Patriot, and aforementioned radio producer and/or manager. “You get the sense that you’re in the club, that you’re on an island on the campus.” 

Lutske, 21, co-founded Patriot Radio with freshman Kyle Tibbitts. Their aim is to channel the university’s growing conservative voice with an underutilized media form.  

“The ultimate goal here is that there’s a medium we have that is untapped,” Lutske said. “A one- or two-hour dialogue is a way to tease out opinions in a more fluid fashion, that’s what radio provides.” 

He added that the production is still in its infancy stage but that there are big plans ahead. Two other talk shows are in the works, one focused on culture and humor, the other a forum for debate. As the programs gain a wider audience, Lutske hopes Patriot Radio takes a seat on live radio. 

“It is lo-fi now,” he said, “but the type of people that we are, we don’t want it to stay that way.” 

Berkeley’s decision to cut off subsidies to the Sea Scouts because they refused to guarantee they wouldn’t discriminate against gays and atheists was perfectly legal, a unanimous California Supreme Court ruled Thursday. 

In the opinion written by Associate Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, the seven justices said that the city council’s May 5, 1998 vote to stop subsidizing free berths at the Berkeley Marina did not interfere with the Sea Scouts members’ constitutional rights of association, free speech and equal protection. 

“I’m soaring,” said Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque, who argued the case before the court on Jan. 10. Her opposing counsel was Jonathan D. Gordon of Pleasant Hill. 

A reporter was unable to reach Gordon by the Daily Planet’s deadline 

“It’s a wonderful opinion,” Albuquerque said. “It’s a really important civil rights case.” 

While the Sea Scouts have 90 days to file for a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, Albuquerque said she doubts the high court would take the case because the California court relied in key points on that court’s precedents. 

Asked if the increasingly conservative nature of the court might lead the justices to take the case, Albuquerque said the key cases cited by the state justices were relatively recent decisions written by conservative justices, including the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist. 

The state Supreme Court also held that reported comments that Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Diane Woolley intended to punish the scouts for the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) discriminatory policies against gays and unbelievers were irrelevant because the scouts refused to guarantee that they wouldn’t discriminate in the future. 

“[A]llegations suggesting merely that individual council members voted for the action because of their personal hostility to BSA’s views do not state a claim for a constitutional violation” because they don’t alter “the undisputed grounds upon which the council, as a body, acted.” 

Reached Thursday, Worthington said he was delighted with the ruling. 

“I hadn’t sought a fight with the Boy Scouts,” he said. “It would have been so much healthier if they had spent their money on the kids instead of fighting for the right to discriminate.” 

The ruling marks the city’s third victory in the case. The council action was upheld at trial in Alameda County Superior Court In November 2002, and again a year later by the state Court of Appeal. 

The city had been providing free berths to the Sea Scouts starting in the late 1930s. 

The issue of discrimination was raised after other nonprofit organizations requested free berths in 1997, and the city manager’s office recommended adoption of a uniform policy which would guide the awarding of the scare slots. 

The council adopted rules mandating that groups receiving the free spaces had to promote ethnic and cultural diversity and were barred from discriminating “on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, political affiliation, disability or medical condition.” 

When the Sea Scout berths came up for review a year later, on April 9, 1998, the organization refused to state that they would end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation because “we believe sexual orientation is a private matter, and we do not ask either adults or youths to divulge this information at any time.” 

While the Waterfront Commission recommended continuing the subsidized slots, the city attorney’s office concluded their promise on sexual orientation wasn’t enough to comply with the city’s ordinance. 

But the courts consistently ruled that the city had the right to demand compliance in exchange for receiving what was effectively a taxpayer subsidy. 

The Boy Scouts of America, the national organization of which Sea Scouts is a part, has consistently refused to abandon its policies that bar homosexuals and atheists from membership, a fact that the court noted. 

Albuquerque said she was delighted that the court consistently rejected the notion that the city ordinance was a violation of the civil rights of the scouts. 

“The city is not trying to regulate private clubs,” she said. “It is only saying that they don’t get to discriminate on the taxpayer’s dime.” 

One of the ironies of the case was that there were no allegations that the Sea Scouts had actually discriminated against any gays or atheists. 

But the salient point from a legal perspective was the group’s inability to promise that they wouldn’t do so if directly ordered to by the national organization. 

Albuquerque said the decision had additional significance because it is the first time the court has specifically upheld the imposition of the specific non-discriminatory conditions in publicly funded programs. 

“They are many similar conditions on state and local programs up and down the state. I expect the decision will be cited throughout the country,” she said. ›

State officials have ordered extensive new tests at Richmond’s Campus Bay, looking for radiation, dioxin, asbestos, hexavalent chromium, cyanide, methyl mercury and other hazardous substances. 

The edicts were included in a 23-page document that raises new questions about the waterfront site in south Richmond where plans for a major residential development atop a hazardous waste dump have been placed on hold. 

The letters were triggered by a review of documents and recent meetings with the developers and the hazardous waste cleanup consultants hired by the site’s previous owners to design and conduct the environmental remediation of the site which held an 86-acre chemical manufacturing complex for 100 years, ending in 1997. 

The testing was ordered by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), which was given jurisdiction over polluted sites along the Richmond shoreline after protests by local environmentalists and a vote by the Richmond City Council. 

Meanwhile, site development partner Cherokee Investment Partners, a venture capital fund based in Raleigh, NC, that specializes in projects on rehabilitated toxic sites, has taken a new and highly conciliatory stance towards project critics, as revealed at a Monday morning meeting in the Richmond Public Library. 

Cherokee has teamed with Simeon Properties, a development firm based in San Francisco, in Cherokee-Simeon Ventures (CSV), a limited liability corporation. In early 2004, the consortium announced plans for a 1,300-unit housing project on the site atop a buried mound of hazardous waste. 

Retention of hazardous waste on the site was permitted under a plan developed by the consultants and approved by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, an agency that has since been relieved of its role as primary regulator of the site. 

The developer originally planned to fill the site with a corporate research park, but switched to housing after the collapse of the market for dotcom stocks cooled the Northern California office park market. Housing plans included installation of fans beneath the buildings to prevent the buildup of any noxious compounds emitted from the soil below. 

That project has been on hold, along with any other development on the site pending the review by DTSC. 

Monday’s meeting was a sit-down attended by Steven J. Levitas, a Raleigh, NC, attorney who represents Cherokee, Doug Mosteller, the firm’s project manager for the site, and members of the Community Advisory Group (CAG) which is advising DTSC on the cleanup. 

Levitas concluded the meeting on an unusually conciliatory note, considering the somewhat tempestuous relationship between the firm and some of the CAG members in the past. “If I have done anything offensive to date, I apologize. The reason I am here is that I was feeling that much could be improved in terms of dialogue. 

“We really appreciate it,” said Peter Weiner, the San Francisco attorney who has been representing Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development (BAARD)—in which CAG member Sherry Padgett is the most prominent member. 

Levitas told CAG members “I really hope that if there are any problems and concerns you will call Doug or me or Dwight Stenseth,” who is Cherokee’s Managing Director. 

Throughout the meeting, the corporate representatives were noticeably cordial toward Padgett, whom Mosteller had accused in a Feb. 13 e-mail to DTSC officials of “[c]ontinued, unfounded accusations that waste state agency time, money, [CQ] and resources.” 

Padgett—perhaps the leading figure in the fight to change regulatory authority at the site—said she was glad the company had come, but she said many questions remain, including the idea of conducting tests before there was full knowledge of where all the potential pollution sites had been identified and located from historical data. 

CAG suspicions 

Padgett has been stricken with a series of rare cancers which she believes may have resulted from exposures sustained since she has been working as Chief Financial Officer of Kray Cabling, a business located next to the site. 

Levitas said Cherokee “hoped to prove to you” that the firm would approach the site in line with its “very strong commitment” to environmentally responsible community service. 

“Our major concern with the whole site is public health, the health of the community. Both for people who work at the Zeneca site and the Richmond Field Station and who have lived here, both now and then—and what is there, what has been done there and what will be done there,” replied CAG member and retired toxicologist Jean Rabovsky. 

CAG members who attended Monday’s gathering brought plenty of skepticism to the table. 

One is Gayle McLaughlin, the Richmond City Council member who sponsored the resolution calling for jurisdictional change. On Sunday, she had announced her candidacy for mayor—citing in part her concerns about developments on toxic sites. 

Two CAG members who work for UC Berkeley were also on hand—Richmond Field Station employee David Kim and Joan Lichterman, who represents six employee unions. The DTSC has exerted control over cleanup efforts at the field station over the university’s objections. 

Kim and fellow CAG member Joe Robinson are residents of Marina Bay, a nearby subdivision built on another site with residual toxins remaining in the soil resulting from the presence of a former shipyard on the site. 

Marina Bay home buyers must sign deeds forbidding them to eat fruits and vegetables grown in their yards. A similar covenant was planned for buyers at the now-stalled Campus Bay housing project. 

Three other CAG members at the table—CAG Chair Whitney Dotson and his sister, Ethel, and Pauline Reed—grew up in Seaport, a complex of apartment buildings erected next to the site in 1944 and demolished 12 years later to make room for Interstate 80 and the collection of buildings that now house what their present occupants—Padgett being one—describe as the “downwind businesses.” 

African Americans, the Reeds and the Dotsons lived with their families in racially segregated buildings. Others were white-only. 

Whitney Dotson is a long-time environmental activist, and his sister suffers from cancer which she believes is linked to growing up next to a chemical manufacturing complex. 

New investigators  

The February DTSC document, a series of letters addressed to Mosteller, raises serious questions about the adequacy of cleanup work done at the site conducted by LFR-Levine Fricke, an Emeryville-based firm. 

The DTSC, which took over jurisdiction early last year after California Assemblymember Loni Hancock joined with the environmentalists and McLaughlin’s resolution passed, is well-staffed with scientific experts, and has also brought in the state Department of Health Services to provide more medical expertise. 

LFR-Levine Fricke’s work was conducted under the oversight of the water board, a state agency which didn’t have a toxicologist on its staff during the cleanup. (A toxicologist is a scientist trained in identifying hazardous substances and evaluating their risks to humans.) 

While Mosteller said the company had gathered a large amount of information about the site, the developers are bringing in new consultants to conduct their own tests on the site. 

Erler & Kalinowski Inc. (EKI) is an environmental consulting firm with offices in Burlingame, Los Angeles and Denver . Their site examination will include both an area-wide grid search as well as concentrated tests at known or suspected toxics hot spots. 

“Some of us have the impression that when the previous (restoration) work was done on the site, a whole lot of stuff was smooshed around and may not longer be in the places where it was reported,” Weiner said. “Because of that we would like to see a pretty broad sampling plan.” 

Mosteller said that detection of contaminants at any testing site would result in more tests in a tighter grid in the surrounding area. 

CAG member and retired toxicologist Jean Rabovsky asked the developers to conduct a more detailed historical investigation, including records searches and interviews with former employees, to determine the locations of other, still unreported chemical facilities that may have been located on the property. She also asked that health data be collected about former workers and residents. 

“The documents to date have overlooked a whole lot of stuff,” said Padgett. “We only learned about the battery plant after DTSC became the lead agency.” 

“We want to be careful,” said Levitas. “We don’t want to say something publicly about what someone may or may not have done in the past.” 

“I have no faith in LFR,” said CAG member Eric Blum, a business owner whose firm is located near the site. 

“He’s not the only one,” said CAG member Joe Robinson. Fellow member Steven Linsley agreed. 

DTSC concerns 

The waste intentionally buried on site—consisting largely of burned iron pyrite (fool’s gold) cinders—had accumulated during the century the site housed a massive chemical manufacturing complex, which included extensive production of sulfuric acid derived from the pyrite. 

Rather than truck the 350,000 cubic yards of debris to a hazardous waste dump, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board approved its burial at the site. 

The DTSC letters, written in late February, are critical of the work and documents prepared by LFR-Levine Fricke for failing to provide adequate information about the location of chemical sites and waste storage areas, failure to use appropriate testing standards and failure to provide adequate data on current site conditions. 

It was LFR Levine-Fricke which proposed the waste burial on site, saving an estimated $80 million of the $100 million AstraZeneca had budgeted for the cleanup. 

That cleanup was designed to restore the site to conditions suitable for commercial and industrial use, but not to levels judged suitable for housing. 

One of the most emotionally charged concerns involves the possibility of radioactive contaminants at the site from a source not mentioned previously by the developer (see sidebar).  

There’s no question that the site abounds in carcinogens—substances known to cause cancer—and other hazardous compounds and metals, and there’s no question that many remain in the soil and water. At one site adjacent to the Richmond Field Station, recent tests have discovered carcinogenic PCBs in the soil at 120 times the permissible level, Mosteller said. 

The principal questions are three:  

• Just where—and what—are the other toxins? And,  

• Are they safely contained? 

The short answer to both questions seems to be: Nobody knows. 

“There is super phosphate area we have recently discovered,” said Mosteller, referring to a fertilizer plant that used radioactive ore in a process that yielded both fertilizer and a waste slag that concentrated some of the radioactive elements for which the DTSC has ordered new tests. 

“We have always known there were high concentrations of TCE and PCE in the groundwater,” he said, referring to two chemicals, members of a class known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are both suspected carcinogens. 

The site also includes hot spots laced with some of the pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. At the locations where PCBs—polychlorinated biphenyls—have been found at the site, the DTSC is also questioning whether the target reduction goal of one part per million, a standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is adequate to protect human health. 

Tests ordered 

Tests ordered 

The DTSC has ordered new tests to determine if the site contains everything from dioxin to cyanide, asbestos, methyl mecury, hexavalent chromium and groundwater radioactivity.  

The agency has also ordered tests at areas of the site that contained chemical and industrial drainage lines, and at the site of a 50,000 gallon sump which has apparently never been tested for contaminants.  

The report also asks why the LFR Levine-Fricke report on the site initially raised, then dropped the issue that pollutants from the site could potentially reach humans through the consumption of marine organisms from the shoreline marsh and the Bay and why the firm’s water board-approved cleanup didn’t require the cleanup of pyrite cinder deposits less than two feet deep. The cinders turn water acidic and are the source of various metal contaminants. 

It also asked why more tests weren’t conducted near a site where the soil was found to contain high levels of lead—7 milligrams per kilogram. 

Klein found particular fault with the cleanup firm’s reports on current site conditions, which she said make it difficult “to correlate current condition sample data with former process areas and remedial actions.” She also faulted “a plethora of naming conventions” for the same sites that make it difficult to interpret the data. 

“The current conditions report for Lot 3 (the largest portion of the site) indicate that significantly elevated concentrations remain in the soil for numerous inorganic chemicals of concern over much of the area, including arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium. There are elevated levels of many VOCs in soil gas, including benzene, tetrachloroethylene [PCE], trichlorethylene [TCE] and vinyl chloride. Shallow groundwater is also similarly contaminated with VOCs.” Klein wrote. 

Faced with the impossibility of purchasing electronic touch-screen voting machines that meet federal, state, and county guidelines in time for the June primary election, the Alameda County Registrar’s office has come up with a novel solution: paper ballots. 

With the exception of disabled voters who cannot cast a private ballot without the aid of a machine, all votes at Alameda County precincts this June will be cast on paper ballots, with the counting done by electronic scanning at a single location in the Alameda County Administration Building. 

According to County Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold, results on election night “will not be quick. It will probably take all night. We are going to need extra staff. We’ve already put out a call to various county offices for volunteers.” 

No new purchases will be needed for the June election. 

The county already has on hand eight Diebold optical scanners, and will lease the approximately 40 additional scanners needed. Ginnold said that the two disabled-accessible electronic touchscreen voting machines needed for each county precinct will be “borrowed” from San Diego County. 

The county operated a paper ballot/electronic scanning system during Tuesday’s Piedmont municipal elections. Because the number of voters in the Piedmont election was so small, the vote counting was able to be done at the precincts themselves. 

For voters, the difference between the two systems is that in the Piedmont election, voters physically put their marked paper ballot into the scanner. In the June elections, voters will deposit their marked paper ballots into a locked box, with the scanning itself later done by county election workers. 

“The Piedmont election went well,” Ginnold said. “The poll workers all said they liked it.” 

A “perfect storm” confluence of deadlines and legal requirements caused the county to have to back away from the touchscreen voting devices it has used since the 2000 elections. 

Beginning last January, a new state law required that all electronic voting machines in California include a provision for verifying the electronic vote count by paper. The Diebold machines used by Alameda County did not contain a paper trail, making it impossible to verify whether the machines’ electronic vote count was accurate. 

In addition, federal law requires that any precincts operated in a federal election contain voting machines which can be operated without assistance by disabled persons. The law is directed primarily at voters who are blind or do not have the use of their arms, and so cannot mark paper ballots on their own. 

Last year, Alameda County began the process of screening new touchscreen voting machines that could meet the new paper trail requirements, but was hampered by the fact that only two such machines—those manufactured by Diebold and ES&S—were only recently certified by California state regulators. 

“We need three to four months from the time we decide on the machines to purchase to the time we need them for the election itself,” Ginnold said. “Part of the time needed is for our own acceptance testing. We have to test each individual voting machine that we receive to make sure that it actually works.” 

Ginnold said that while continuing the paper ballot/optical scanning system is being considered for the November elections, she added that it is “not really practical to do all of the counting at one central location.” 

If such a system is operated in November, the county will obtain enough optical scanners so that the counting can be done at each precinct, with the results then transported to a central collection station in Oakland. 

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The City of Berkeley has announced that the Willard Park Tot-Lot will be closed from March 9 to March 17 in order to bring the park’s current rat infestation under control.  

City staff as well as exterminators will be brought in to carry out an extermination. Traps to catch the rodents will also be set underneath the platform and the ramp at the tot-lot and underground baiting will be carried out. Baiting is a way of killing the rats by poisoning them.  

The bushes around the park will also be trimmed, especially the agapanthus. The city has also decided to replace the trash cans since they do not have secure locks. Contractors will be employed to look into long-term possibilities of eliminating rat harborage in the park since they are bound to reoccur.  

Speaking to the Daily Planet, Councilmember Kriss Worthington commented that “rat harborage posed a serious problem to the community and it should be dealt with promptly.” Worthington also stressed that the least toxic way of getting rid of the rats should be looked into in order to preserve the environment. 

The park will however remain open for those who walk their dogs there. 

The Daily Planet first reported on the Willard Park rat infestation problem March 7. ›

While Councilmember Laurie Capitelli lauded the proposal for a new Landmarks Preservation Ordinance which was approved by the City Council Tuesday night, saying it will give people more power to preserve their neighborhoods, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, argued that the revised law will open the door for “a whole bunch of developers who want to steamroll over historic resources.” 

On Tuesday, the council approved in concept Mayor Bates’ most recent proposal for a revised landmarks’ ordinance, including two more last-minute changes added during the council meeting by Bates and Capitelli. 

Bates’s last modification, brought forward for the first time during the meeting, further redefined “structure of meri,” a concept retained from the current ordinance to designate a historic resource which is not important enough on its own to become a designated landmark. In Berkeley, buildings in this category, which are seldom designed by famous architects, are often found in the flatlands. They have sometimes been modified over the years, but retain historical significance.  

This redefinition, passed on a slim 5-4 vote, with councilmembers Dona Spring, Kriss Worthington, Linda Maio and Betty Olds in opposition, added that the qualification that to be designated as a structure of merit a building would also have to be located in a city historic district, of which there are fewer than half a dozen at present. (Already-designated structures of merit would be grandfathered in.)  

Another set of amendments was proffered by Councilmember Laurie Capitelli in the form of a two-page handout which had not been included in the council packet, but was distributed during the meeting. His proposal added a new category, Neighborhood Conservation Districts, further restricted the definition of structure of merit, and provided for marking “historical points of interest.” It was accepted without a vote by Bates as the maker of the main motion. 

The mayor’s proposal, as posted on the Internet on the afternoon of March 3 plus the two revisions, passed in a 7-2 vote, with only Spring and Worthington opposing. 

Other provisions establish a Historic Preservation Officer within the Planning Department, and refer most projects involving older buildings to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for evaluation. 

Staff will draft ordinance language for the proposal as approved, send the draft to the Planning and Landmarks Commissions for comment, then bring it back to the council for a public hearing July 11, at which time the City Council will probably take its final vote. However according to Bates Capitelli’s amendments will “take a long time to figure out” and will probably be added after the enactment of the rest of the ordinance. 

Addressing the revamped structure of merit process at the meeting, Worthington said it discriminates against lower-income people in the flatlands, because that is where most structures of merit are located. Further, he argued in a phone interview, “historic preservation is one of the forces that has maintained rental housing in Berkeley,” having slowed the conversion of rental housing to condos.  

Capitelli said in a phone interview Thursday that Worthington’s argument is based on a fear that the proposed ordinance will allow development such as occurred in the ‘60s and ‘70s, where developers came in and “dramatically increased density,” with structures he calls “aircraft carriers.” 

In fact, Capitelli said, his amendment will bring even greater protection to the neighborhoods. He said that in the Neighborhood Conservation Districts he’s proposing, residents will come together and decide that their area must adhere to certain design and preservation guidelines. 

“People don’t have to worry,” Bates said by telephone Thursday, noting that his ordinance will counter overdevelopment. His proposal allows for the creation of “buffer zones,” which could reduce density requirements in areas situated between commercial and residential areas. 

Veteran Landmarks Commissioner Carrie Olson left Tuesday’s meeting so angry that she was unable to talk to a reporter. In a later phone interview, she blasted the mayor for having substituted a new formula for designating structures of merit. 

“Why not include it in the proposal that came out on Friday?” she said. “Tom slid it in at the last minute.” Olson pointed out that there can be two significant structures in a row that would not constitute a district but that should be preserved. 

Olson further argued against Capitelli’s amendments, saying that his redefinition of structure of merit “raised the bar,” making the protection of these structures more difficult. 

And she questioned Capitelli’s concept of historical points of interest, saying it could mean that all that would remain of these structures is a plaque. 

Berkeley resident Sharon Hudson cautions that the impact of the new ordinance is still unknown. 

“A lot will depend on how the Landmarks Preservation Commission modifies the concept of ‘integrity’ to fit local definitions,” she said. (Integrity means the degree to which a structure still reflects the original design.) “The devil is in the details,” she added. 

The new ordinance will include hiring a Historic Preservation Officer. Bates says that person, who will staff the Landmarks Preservation Commission, will be able to facilitate the commission’s work, but Councilmember Spring argues that, because the officer will report to the director of the Planning Department, and because the planning department has not supported preservation of buildings as structures of merit, the officer will play a negative role in the preservation of Berkeley’s history. 

The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association had already registered its opposition to the proposal, which, it said in a March 7 letter to the council, would “continue to reduce significant landmark preservation provisions and protections that are currently established in Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance.” 



Progress on the West Berkeley Bowl project has stalled due to a case of mistaken identity—of a traffic report. 

Two draft environmental impact reports for the 90,060-square-foot supermarket plan were accidentally released to the public, Planning Department staff announced Wednesday, though just one paints an accurate portrait of projected weekend car congestion.  

The official traffic report was posted on the city’s website, in public libraries and delivered to the state clearinghouse. It logged traffic patterns in January surrounding the Heinz Avenue site, where the marketplace is slated for development. 

The other report, circulated to the Planning Commission, the Zoning Adjustments Board and members of the public, tracked December traffic. Staff said it is not applicable to the study at hand.  

In a letter of explanation, Principal Planner Allan Gatzke claimed that holiday shopping skewed traffic counts in December, and because alas, it isn’t Christmas all the time, staff omitted the data from the final report.  

Such an omission is consistent with traffic impact analyses in California and the United States, he said. 

The reports follow up on a traffic analysis presented in October that failed to account for Saturday peak-hour jams.  

The major difference between the reports is in the marketplace’s maximum square footage allowance if traffic is to maintain current flow. 

In December, that amounted to 5,474 square feet for a grocery, 2,881 square feet for a warehouse and 412 square feet for an office. In January, the figures more than doubled: 15,325 square feet for the grocery, 8,642 for the warehouse and 4,120 square feet for the office. 

By comparison, the proposed grocery measures in at 83,990 square feet, including a dual-level marketplace, storage space and offices. A neighboring food service building tacks on an additional 7,070 square feet.  

The reports further disagree on traffic buildup at the intersection of Seventh Street and Ashby Avenue, two blocks from where shoppers would predominantly gain access to the compound. In December, the traffic impact would be significant but open to mitigation. In January, it would be less than significant.  

Both December and January reports agree on one point: The project at its proposed size cannot avoid traffic buildup at the intersection of Ashby Avenue and San Pablo Avenue. 

But shrinking the new Bowl could do the trick, the report says. 

Some speakers at Wednesday’s regularly scheduled Planning Commission meeting agreed downsizing is the way to go. 

“I’m appalled by this project, as an architect and builder since 1960,” said Edward Levitch, 81. “To see a project of these proportions—it’s unconscionable to me. This is a small neighborhood that needs to be preserved in the nature it was intended.” 

The West Berkeley district is a melange of residences, artisan lofts and light industrial buildings.  

Others said size isn’t much of an issue, so long as West Berkeley reaps its long sought-after grocery store. An existing Berkeley Bowl on Oregon Street offers fresh, inexpensive food. Its popularity is evidenced by constant gridlock in the parking lot and surrounding streets.  

“Please build the store for the good of our neighborhood,” resident Christine Staples entreated the Planning Commission. “And please, build it to size.” 

Planning commissioners will hold a hearing for the recirculated draft environmental impact report April 5. The public viewing period for the report, initially scheduled to end March 17, has been extended to April 24. 

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With a shiny red truck and neon green T-shirts, protesters descended on the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) office Wednesday to demand fair contracts for teachers. 

The rally gathered more than 300 teachers, parents, students and community supporters, who donned blindingly bright union T-shirts, and brandished signs calling for an end to the bitter battle over contract negotiations. 

Oakland Board of Education president David Kakishiba, Oakland City Council candidate Aimee Allison and representatives from other labor unions, including the president of the United Teachers of San Francisco, were in attendance.  

Thornhill Elementary School student Theresa Bagby Underwood, 10, mounted the proxy podium—a union board member’s cherry red pickup truck —and called out to the audience, her fist raised in the air “I’m here to support the teachers!” 

Uproarious applause ensued. 

The rally came just a day after district and union representatives agreed to a formal bargaining session next week, for the first time since Jan. 31. 

The district, run by state administrator Randy Ward since 2003, has been negotiating with the teachers’ union for two years. 

It last offered the union a three-year contract with a 4 percent raise doled out over two years, and a cap on healthcare after two years. 

The union wants a 3 percent raise on top of the 4 percent, the latter of which only restores a salary cut teachers took several years ago, the union says. Other demands include increased pay for substitute teachers, restored prep periods and a guarantee that teachers won’t suffer involuntarily transfers to other schools. 

But one of the chief concerns is healthcare. 

Oakland Education Association President Ben Visnick said Thursday the union has already accepted concessions in the bargaining process—namely the piecemeal salary increase—but it won’t budge on healthcare. 

“We don’t want a cap, that’s the bottom line,” he said. 

OUSD Spokesman Alex Katz said the district expends $76 million of a $436 million General Fund budget on benefits, an expense it can no longer afford.  

The association, representing 3,200 district employees, has used a neutral fact-finding report to support its position that the district can indeed shoulder healthcare costs and salary raises. 

But letters issued by the State Department of Education and two other agencies have called the report’s legitimacy into question. 

The letters, released March 6, came from State Superintendent Jack O’Connell, the nonprofit Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, and School Services of California Inc., a private company. They concluded that the district is not financially stable enough to grant all of the union’s demands. 

“In fact, the district is unable to afford a salary increase beyond that which has already been offered,” O’Connell wrote. 

Visnick called the letters “propaganda.” 

“These agencies are biased agencies,” he said, and should not undermine the veracity of the fact-finding report, which was chaired by a Public Employment Relations Board appointee.  

Visnick fears the district could use the letters to vie for a retrogressive deal at next week’s bargaining session. 

Katz said the letters could affect negotiations. 

“If the top three educational agencies are saying (the report) is very flawed, then it might change the discussion,” he said. 

Both sides hope the upcoming talks will yield a tentative agreement. 

Still, the threat of a strike looms. 

Union members will vote March 22 on whether to authorize a strike, which could go into effect 48 hours later.  

A strike that soon isn’t likely, Visnick said.  

All sides concur that a strike is a last resort. 

“I really believe that no one wants to strike,” Katz said. “I know Randy Ward doesn’t want a strike. I know teachers don’t want to strike. Parents certainly don’t want a strike.” 

Parent Amy Tessler agreed.  

“If it ends in a strike it’s going to be very sad,” she said. “But we’ll continue to support our teachers. We won’t send our children to school.” 

ô

With University of California officials announcing plans to appeal this week’s professional fee hike lawsuit loss in Superior Court in San Francisco, attorneys for the victorious students are already looking ahead to a second lawsuit now making its way through the courts. 

This week, Superior Court Judge James Warren ruled that the university had broken its contract with professional school students. The university promised that their school fees would remain the same throughout their enrollment, but later raised professional student fees to make up for budget shortfalls. The university must return $33.8 million in fees to some 40,000 students. 

The university has 60 days to appeal the ruling. 

Late last year, the Los Angeles Daily Journal quoted university lead attorney Ethan P. Schulman as saying that “students can’t close their eyes to reality and try to rely on narrow language to hold the university liable to a fictional contract.” 

But Jonathan Weissglass of the Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Rubin & Demain public interest law firm of San Francisco, one of the two firms representing the professional students, said that there was a “written contract” between students and the university at the time the students enrolled. “It was listed in the student catalogue and in fee statements,” Weissglass said. The Superior Court judge agreed. 

This week’s ruling involved professional students who enrolled at the university prior to the end of December, 2002. 

A second lawsuit was filed last July by students enrolled in 2003 and afterwards. Plaintiffs in that lawsuit included UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law student Freeda Yllana of San Jose, UC Berkeley joint Ph.D and J.D. candidate Ross Astoria of Berkeley, and a UCLA Law School student and UCSF School of Medicine student. Weissglass, who represents the students in the second lawsuit as well, says that the two lawsuits were filed on “basically very similar issues.” Weissglass said that the second lawsuit is in the early stages, with “only some low-level discovery” having taken place. 

This week’s ruling was the second time the Superior Court had ruled against the university in the 2002 student case. 

In 2003, the court granted the students an injunction, preventing the university from collecting the additional fees, a decision the university said cost them $22.5 million between 2003 and 2005. In the summer of 2005, university regents narrowly approved what they called a “temporary” two year professional school fee increase—$770 in the first year and $1,050 in the second year—to make up for the money the university could not collect because of the judge’s injunction ruling.  

According to the Los Angeles Daily Journal article, Judge Warren rejected a similar fee rollback injunction for the 2003 students, ruling last September that because those plaintiffs did not file their lawsuit until more than a year after the fee increase took place, the students cast “substantial doubt on their attempts to characterize the May 2004 fee increase as irreparable injury.”  

The vote on the temporary fee increase by UC Regents came on top of a 7 percent professional school fee increase voted on by regents at the same July 2005 meeting. At the regents’ November 2005 meeting, mandatory systemwide fees for professional school students were increased by another 5 percent, effective beginning the summer of 2006. 

At the time of the July 2005 professional fee increase vote , the Office of the President of the university issued a statement saying that “the increases [were] a reflection of the major impact state budget cuts have had on the University of California over the last several years. As a result of these cuts, UC has lost 15 percent of its state funding at a time when population-driven enrollments have increased 19 percent. Additionally, the 2004-05 state budget cut professional school budgets by more than $42 million with the expectation that professional school fees would be increased to offset the cuts. However, fees could only be increased by $37 million, leaving a funding gap of $5 million. The result has been program cutbacks, erosion in the competitiveness of faculty and staff salaries, and substantial student fee increases for students without desirable levels of financial aid.” 

But after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a 2006-07 state budget that would use $75 million in state funding to rescind some of the UC student fee increases, the university’s office of the president issued a statement reading that if the governor’s proposals are approved by the legislature this year, “professional students would still see a one-year, temporary $350 increase in the Educational Fee, approved by the Regents last July to help cover lost revenue associated with [the professional fee] lawsuit...” And while the professional fee increases adopted at the July 2005 regents meeting would remain in place, the president’s office said that “the further fee increases adopted in November for 2006-07 would not occur. Total fees for professional students in 2006-07 would range from about $12,000 for nursing to about $25,000 for law.” 

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Berkeley School Board members at Wednesday’s meeting were in favor of introducing a fire science curriculum at Berkeley High School. 

Hank Silver, a member of the Berkeley Personnel Board, said that students would benefit greatly from this program. 

“It will help develop students’ academic and technical skills and prepare them for entry-level employment, college, as well as advanced training,” he said. “It’s good exposure for high school students and will help explain the complexities of this particular profession.” 

Berkeley Fire Chief Deborah Pryor also attended the meeting to show her support for the program that includes courses on fire science, use of fire fighting equipment, rescue methods, and emergency procedures. It is a regional occupational program. 

The proposal was moved to the consent calendar from the action items agenda by Director John Selawsky. 

Year-round school 

The topic that sparked debate at the meeting was the allocation and use of time in improving student achievement. 

Neil Smith, director of Educational Services, told that board that according to a research by the Educational Priorities Workgroup, “a reallocation and/or extension of time within the school day and/or year can be an effective component to improving student achievement.” 

According to the workgroup report, “the district should extend the K-12 school day,” and that in order “to implement a high-impact, high quality professional development program, school sites will need more time than they currently have.” 

The board deemed this as a viable approach but acknowledged that a longer school day and year would mean additional expenses.  

Shirley Issel, director, said that she “would not recommend a proposition for year-round school at this moment.” 

Issel further said that since student achievement had gone down in the last three years, she approved of changes that had immediate effect on professional development and in the classroom. 

District Superintendent Michele Lawrence commented that although year-round schools had some merit, lack of a sequential curriculum or solid staff would mean that “poor teaching would remain poor teaching.” 

School Board President Terry S. Doran acknowledged that “talking about change is difficult not only in this community but in all communities.” 

He lauded the fact that carving small schools from Berkeley High School had benefited students who had moved there. 

“Moving to year-round schools would be worthwhile and I welcome it. I hope that the reports presented would stimulate further discussion on this subject,” he said. 

Clarifications about the BHS Small Schools Lottery process were also made with regards to the ranking system. The board asked BHS Principal Jim Slemp why students were asked to rank up to six schools when most of them were admitted to any of their top three choices or did not even want to attend most of them in the first place. 

“It is always students who are the least engaged and whose parents are marginally involved who are the most confused by these choices,” the board said. 

According to the board, the two school choices, academic or international, which students had to select when they chose a small school were also confusing and they hoped that it would be cleared by next year. 

Other matters  

The board also approved the schematic for landscape design at Berkeley Arts Magnet’s playground project. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer. 

Toward the end of the meeting Nancy Riddle stated that it was important to understand that the state educational budget was in crisis and that the board was required by law to declare fiscal emergency for the 2006-07 fiscal years as had been the case in the last few years. 

A school parcel tax is likely to grace the ballot this November, as the Berkeley Unified District (BUSD) struggles to offset a projected $19 million deficit.  

Two local sources of revenue are scheduled to run out the following June, and if voters fail to approve a replacement measure, district officials say BUSD will have to slash its budget—or risk bankruptcy.  

“If we cannot pass this measure, drastic cuts will have to be made,” said Berkeley Board of Education President Terry Doran.  

Both the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP) and Measure B of 2004 levy taxes on local properties. Set to expire this fall—the funding will run out shortly thereafter—the combined taxes cover almost 20 percent of the district’s expenses. They support reduced class sizes, music classes, libraries, school enrichment and other programs.  

Board of Education directors and district staff are currently seeking input from the public to ascertain the shape and form of an impending tax. The measure would require a two-thirds majority vote in November.  

Dan Lindheim, chair of the BSEP Planning and Oversight Committee, said officials are considering different replacement options. 

One option would roll BSEP and Measure B into one tax and maintain existing allocations. Another scenario would combine the measures, but redistribute funding according to updated priorities. A third option would hike up the tax rate.  

Doran said many residents are inclined to leave the rate as is. Currently, the district reaps approximately $19 million from BSEP and Measure B combined.  

Voters passed Measure B 72.2 percent to 27.8 percent in 2004 as a stopgap when diminished state support threatened the solvency of Berkeley’s schools. In the current school year, it’s plumped district coffers by $8 million. 

The measure supplemented the BSEP, which has funneled parcel tax dollars into specific school programs since 1986. It has contributed more than $10 million this year.  

The district also collects a local school facilities and maintenance tax, passed in 2000. 

Some fear local measures are becoming increasingly difficult to pass, given the barrage of taxes voters have shouldered in recent years. For this reason, Lindheim said, school officials are wary of raising the current rate. 

“Most of the insiders are very reluctant to do that, because you need a two-thirds majority vote,” he said. “There’s some concern that Berkeley voters are maxed out.” 

Regional trends appear to support that conclusion. 

Last March, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Bay Area voters rejected nine of 17 parcel taxes, while other measures passed by a sliver. On Tuesday, Piedmont voters approved a school bond with 58.31 percent of the votes; a narrow margin of victory over the needed 55 percent, when just months earlier, the city passed two parcel taxes with flying colors.  

Berkeley resident Stephanie Corcos has opposed school parcel taxes on other grounds. As a member of Berkeleyans for Responsible School Funding during the 2004 campaign for Measure B, she complained that funds don’t trickle down to students, a concern she holds today.  

“The money that’s given most of the time does not get to the children,” she said. “Any measure going to the schools should be carefully looked at that it goes into the classroom.” 

Lindheim insisted the money does go to classrooms. Together BSEP and Measure B fund about a third of the district’s teachers, ensuring 20-to-1 student-to-teacher ratios in grades kindergarten through three. 

The measures provide music education for all fourth and fifth grade students, and many sixth to eighth grade students. Art, science, PE, after-school tutoring, sports and other enrichment programs also receive significant parcel tax monies.  

Besides, Lindheim said, there is no other option. The state of California—the primary source of funding for K-12 schools—is failing to offer adequate support, he said, adding that so long that’s the case, districts will turn to their constituents. 

“The whole logic of (parcel taxes) was meant to be a temporary thing until the state got its act together,” he said. “But the state never did get its act together.” 

The Board of Education will hold special meetings March 22, April 26 and May 24 to allow the public to weigh in on the upcoming measure. The board will take a vote May 24.  

›

A plan that would allow Berkeley residents to pull the plug on PG&E, with its nuclear power plant and investor-driven mindset—and replace it with a community-owned power provider—may be too good to be true, some city officials say. 

“We could be embarking on something that is high-risk,” Mayor Tom Bates warned in a Tuesday evening workshop on Community Choice Aggregation, a concept approved by the state Legislature in 2002 that allows municipalities to join together to generate power for their residents. 

Under discussion at the council workshop were the benefits and risks of creating a Berkeley-Oakland-Emeryville entity to provide power. 

Despite uncertainties, the council voted 8-0 with Councilmember Betty Olds abstaining, to spend $164,000 for the second phase of a study whose purpose would be to analyze legal risks and costs of a CCA. 

Some councilmembers wanted voters to weigh in on the project, though no decision was made on how that would happen. 

Councilmember Betty Olds said the council shouldn’t bear the blame if the project doesn’t work. “Let (voters) help decide,” she said. 

While some spoke of the project as a “pioneering” effort, Councilmember Kriss Worthington pointed out that healthy CCAs already exist in Massachusetts, New York and Ohio. 

“We’re not going to be the first in the world,” he said. 

The benefit, especially in the early years of the project, will be environmental, not savings to ratepayers. 

“We hope to get a higher percentage of green energy,” Worthington said, referring to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. 

A panel of experts, with differing views, advised the council. The project’s likely cost sparked discussion. Berkeley resident and energy consultant Bill Roberts warned that high capital costs would make the CCA prohibitive, estimating it would need an annual subsidy of $8 million. He further pointed to the uncertainty in revenues. 

“CCA will never know with certainty what its customer base will be,” Roberts argued, pointing out that legislation permitting CCAs gives customers the right to opt out of them for a fee. 

Sean Casey, of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission—San Francisco is somewhat ahead of Berkeley in exploring the CCA—pointed out that PG&E would soon make large capital investments, including a $700 million upgrade for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant, which could be passed on to the ratepayers. 

Over time, perhaps 30 years, CCA ratepayers will experience savings, Casey argued. 

Worthington further contended that CCA would not have to set rates to satisfy investors or pay exaggerated executive salaries. 

Gerry Adams, of the city’s Energy Commission, sat on the panel and conveyed the commission’s unanimous recommendation for further study.  

At the same time, Adams urged caution. 

“Doing better than PG&E takes doing. They have resources and experience,” he said. “We have good intentions.” 

›

Directors of the East Bay Regional Parks will meet this afternoon (Tuesday) to pick one of the six finalists to fill the seat left empty by the death of Jean Siri, who represented Ward 1. 

The district, one of seven, includes parts of North Oakland and Pinole and the cities of Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond, El Sobrante, Kensington and San Pablo. 

Siri, a San Pablo resident, died Jan. 20 at the age of 85. An environmental activist who has served as president and later a director of the Sierra Club, she was one of the founders of Save the Bay. 

Siri was first elected to the parks board in 1992 after serving several terms as a city councilmembers and later mayor of El Cerrito. 

The candidate named to replace her will have the advantage of running as an incumbent for a full four-year term in the November election. 

The open seat attracted 13 applicants, of whom the board selected six as finalists during their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. 

Finalists are: 

• Former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, who served 24 years on that city’s council, including 8 as mayor, until she was unseated by Tom Bates in 2002. 

• Sierra Club attorney/activist and former El Cerrito City Councilmember Norman La Force who has been active in parks issues and spearheaded the successful opposition to a group campground in the parks district’s Sibley Regional Preserve. 

• Whitney Dotson, a Richmond environmentalist and parks activist who also serves as chair of the Community Advisory Group working with the state Department of Toxic Substances Control on the cleanup of the controversial Campus Bay site in Richmond. 

• Former Berkeley City Councilmember Nancy Skinner, one of the founders of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and the U.S. director of the Climate Group, a non-profit organization rallying governmental and corporate support on climate change issues. 

• Oakland Deputy City Attorney Richard Illgen, a former Berkeley planning commissioner and rent stabilization board commissioner. 

• Former Berkeley school board member Carroll Williams, who represented Ward 1 until Siri unseated him in 1992. 

The selection meeting is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. in the district’s Headquarters Building, 2950 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. 

The district administers more than 95,000 acres of parks, including 65 regional parks and recreation, wilderness, shoreline, preserve and land bank areas in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties. 

The district’s 2005-2006 fiscal budget is $159 million and its staff includes 596 full-time and up to 80 seasonal and temporary employees. 

Berkeley voters approved instant runoff voting (IRV) with a 72 percent vote two years ago. Advocates came to Tuesday night’s council meeting to lobby the lawmakers to make it happen. 

“It’s a fair process,” Jesse Townley told the council, noting that savings can add up to $100,000 by eliminating runoffs. Runoffs are often undemocratic, since low numbers of voters show up at the polls, he said.  

Voting in an IRV race means people can vote for the person they really want to see win, said Dave Wilner, a Berkeley resident and board member of Fair Vote, a Maryland-based nonprofit that advocates for more democratic election processes.  

“Now, we can’t go into the polling place and express ourselves,” he said in an interview in the Daily Planet offices. 

The way IRV works is that voters indicate their first, second and third (or more, depending on the particular jurisdiction) choices when they vote – they can, however, choose fewer. If no winner emerges in the first round, the losing candidate is eliminated. People who voted for the loser will then have their votes transferred to their second choice. This continues until a winner emerges. 

Fair Vote Executive Director Rob Richie said the fairness of the process can be seen when Mr. X gets 46 percent of the vote, Ms. Y gets 46 percent, and Ms. Z gets 7 percent in the first round of voting. Since Ms. Y and Ms. Z express similar political values, Ms. Z’s supporters vote for Ms. Y and she wins in the second round. “Should 47 percent win when the 7 percent person is everyone’s second choice?” he asked. 

While Berkeley voters have already called for IRV elections, the process is not yet in place. The question that Interim Alameda County Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold faces is which electronic voting vendor is able and certified by the state to run the elections. The state certified the electronic voting vendor, Election Systems and Software, Inc. for San Francisco only, but there is no qualified vendor certified for Alameda County at the present time.  

IRV “is designed to revitalize democracy,” Wilner said. 

Richie added that IRV encourages positive campaigning. For example, in the IRV elections in San Francisco, candidates would encourage supporters to vote for a person with similar ideas as their second choice. 

San Francisco has used IRV in two elections and Burlington, Vt. just had a successful mayor election using IRV. 

The County Board of Supervisors will discuss types of voting systems to use in Alameda County at a hearing March 13, beginning at 6 p.m., in the County Administrative Building, 1221 Oak St. 

?

Concerns about the possible presence of radioactive waste at the Campus Bay site in south Richmond have prompted the state to order new tests for the controversial site. 

Previous concerns about radiation hazards at Campus Bay involved the possible contamination by uranium testing in which the radioactive metal was melted with electron beams. 

But Campus Bay Project Manager and Cherokee Investment Partners engineer Doug Mosteller also hinted that radioactivity materials tests or experiments may have been conducted at a super phosphate plant that occupied part of the site. 

“We don’t know what they were doing for the government,” he said. “It was supposed to be secret. We are also concerned that testing may have been done at different places.” 

Simeon Properties—the San Francisco firm which has partnered with Cherokee Investment Properties to develop the site—responded by hiring MACTEC Development Corporation of Grand Junction, CO, to conduct a site radiation survey. 

The firm specializes in decommissioning and demolition of former nuclear power plants and nuclear weapon manufacturing facilities. 

MACTEC conducted a surface walkover of the sites of five demolished buildings, using a detector held at two to six inches above the ground. 

The device used, a sodium-iodide detection system, was capable of detecting only gamma radiation—which has the ability the penetrate several feet of concrete. 

“[O]ur survey found no indication of radioactive material at the site in excess of normal background level,” wrote Steven D. Rima, the firm’s radiological engineering manager, in an Aug. 13, 2003 letter to Simeon Vice President Susan J. Cronk. 

Cherokee Simeon posted the results at the Campus Bay website, www.campusbay.info, but the study has since been removed, a Wednesday afternoon website search revealed. 

MACTEC’s report noted that the tests weren’t capable of detecting beta rays, which can be stopped by a layer of clothing, or alpha rays—which are stopped by a sheet of paper. 

But alpha radiation can be the most dangerous, especially when inhaled or ingested—and it is alpha radiation which makes plutonium the world’s most toxic substance. 

In a Feb. 21 letter to Cherokee-Simeon, Barbara J. Cook, chief of DTSC’s Northern California Coastal Cleanup Operations Branch, specifically noted the inability of the MACTEC survey to detect the presence of plutonium at the site. 

DTSC is now demanding tests for all three types of radiation, not only at the site of the uranium melting experiments, but at a potentially much more hazardous site—the location of the plant that made phosphate fertilizers and so-called super phosphate from ore mined in Idaho. 

According to GeoNote 40, a publication of the Idaho Geological Survey, those ores contain uranium as well as selenium, another hazardous but nonradioactive metal. (Selenium has been identified as the cause of bird deaths and birth defects in the Kesterton Wildlife Preserve in California’s Central Valley.) 

Radioactive compounds (radionucleides) identified in phosphate ores include two forms of uranium, U-238 and U-234, thorium-230, radium-226, radon-222, lead-210 and polonium-210, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Emissions Factors and Policy Applications Center. 

In a letter written Feb. 22, Kimiko Klein, a toxicologist with DTSC’s Human and Ecological Risk Division, wrote that phosphate production could have produced increased concentrations of radioactive compounds in the slag (waste) generated by the process, which “may still be present on the site.” 

Even before concentration by processing, the radioactive elements present in the ore are found at levels up to 100 times the normal background level, according to the EPA. 

The tests won’t offer any means of assessing the exposures to those who lived and worked nearby when the fertilizer plant was operating. 

Cook has also ordered Cherokee-Simeon to produce any radioactive licenses held by former site owner Stauffer Chemical prior to 1977 and to identify where the firm stored radioactive materials. 

Staffer owned the chemical manufacturing complex between 1949 and 1986, when it was sold to Zeneca—now Astra-Zeneca—a Swiss pharmaceutical and agricultural manufacturing giant. 

It was during Stauffer’s control that the electron beam uranium tests were conducted.

Arson arrest 

Berkeley police arrested an 18-year-old Berkeley High School student Tuesday on suspicion of setting a Saturday night fire that did more than $80,000 damage to a home at 1154 Keeler Ave. 

Police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan said the arrest resulted from a joint investigation by Berkeley Fire Department arson investigators and his department’s property crimes investigators. 

The blaze was set in a storage area beneath the carport of the hillside home and caused $80,000 in structural damage and $5,000 in damage to the home’s contents. 

Galvan said the suspect was a neighbor of the home he allegedly torched. The officer asked anyone with additional information on the crime to call the Property Crimes Unit at 981-5900. 

Hooded heister 

A short man of indeterminate age robbed the 7-Eleven store at 2887 College Ave. shortly about 9:40 p.m. Sunday night, reports Officer Galvan. 

The man, who was wearing black pants and a black hooded sweatshirt—a “hoodie”—and may have been hidden behind a ski mask, walked into the store behind a black semi-automatic pistol, which was more than enough to convince the clerk to hand over cash and coins. 

Galvan said the same individual may have been involved in a similar heist two weeks earlier at another merchant. 

Kidnap for meager haul 

A gunman accosted a Berkeley woman outside her car Wednesday night, forced her to drive him to Albany, where he then robbed her and forced her to drive him back to a spot in Berkeley about two blocks from where the crime began. 

In the process, the felon not only terrified his victim but earned himself a charge of kidnaping when—or if—he is finally apprehended. 

The incident began about 6 p.m. near the corner of Channing Way and Atherton Street and ended near the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Haste Street, where the suspect released the woman and her car and fled on foot. 

“It was crazy,” said Officer Galvan, “and he could’ve got more money by stealing a tip jar.” 

The suspect was described as a white man with graying hair who may have been in his 40s. He stands about 5’10”, has a medium build and was wearing a blue baseball cap, a black jacket and gray jeans. 

Lately we’ve been privileged to get some short letters from Pat Cody, someone who has always been in the forefront of doing what needs to be done around here. She founded Cody’s Books with her husband Fred, the first bookstore in the Bay Area if not in the country to feature quality paperback books and to stay open for those of us who needed a reading fix late at night. My memory is that the original Cody’s, on the north side of campus, was open 24 hours a day, but that might be an exaggeration. 

Later Pat founded DES Action, a non-profit organization dedicated to informing the public about the dangers of DES (diethylstilbestrol) when taken during pregnancy, and to helping DES-exposed individuals. It’s had international impact.  

Pat’s always been a pioneer, always two steps ahead of everyone else identifying needs and filling them. Now she’s going boldly towards old age, and in the process creating a road map for those of us who hope to follow her there with pointers on what we’re all going to need as we get older. A February letter to the Planet commented that among the deficiencies of the Adeline post office was a lack of seats for older patrons: “South Berkeley has NO numbers system and only ONE chair. Many of the patrons are elderly and will appreciate bringing the station up to date with a numbers system and more chairs.”  

This week she’s sent a similar suggestion: “Many of us elders walk daily for our health and for errands, as we no longer drive. I want to advocate more resting stops, like the ones found at bus stops, but scattered through neighborhoods where buses do not go. Lack of such benches keeps many elders virtually housebound.” 

A place to sit and rest—it’s a simple thing, but much missed if it’s not there when it’s needed. If we’re ever going to be able to give people a real option of getting around without cars, we need to make sure that public places are accommodating for pedestrians whose mobility is limited. 

It’s not just old folks, either. I had a knee injury a few years ago, and was unable to stand for very long even though I could walk pretty well, and it seriously limited my activities. Much of Berkeley is designed for the convenience of people in two wildly disparate categories, bicycle riders and wheelchair users, but there are a lot of folks in between, and their needs are seldom considered.  

In one of the many expensive and pointless remodels of the downtown streetscape a few years ago, some seats were even removed, and others made more uncomfortable, with the stated objective of making it harder for homeless people to hang out there. And also for the rest of us, of course. (The re-done Union Square in San Francisco is the ugliest recent example of this inhospitable theory.)  

Would it be possible to convince whoever makes the decisions about Berkeley streetscapes to install a few benches in our walking neighborhoods? It seems highly unlikely, since the main priority of civic spending these days seems to be bigger and better pensions for civil servants. What if the benches were donated? Would the city allow them to be installed on the strips between the sidewalk and the curb? For a few years there was an inexpensive park bench cemented in next to a bus stop on Ashby near Telegraph, clearly donated by the residents for the convenience of bus riders, but now it’s gone. Did The Authorities make them take it out?  

Here’s a radical idea: What if homeowners and tenants just put benches in our own front yards and invited passers-by to sit down when they needed to? Benches in public places, especially in England, often bear commemorative plaques; this would be a fine way of honoring the memory of departed friends. The East Bay has quite a few local merchants who sell nice garden furniture: Each of these might be persuaded to designate a sturdy, inexpensive model from their stock as an appropriate bench for front yards. (Sadly, these would probably have to be very heavy or else chained down—we put an old metal garden bench in our front yard once and it eventually wandered off.)  

We could start, for example, with the Norine Smith Memorial Bench, to honor another woman who walked everywhere and was never afraid to tackle whatever needed to be done. A do-it-ourselves plan like this one seems much more likely to succeed than any campaign to persuade city mothers and fathers that they should install some seats along our sidewalks. This is an administration, don’t forget, which thought that what the venerable, genteel and cozy Le Bateau Ivre Restaurant on Telegraph really needed was some motorcycle parking spaces out front. We can do better than that on our own. Let’s get on it. 

—

An article in the March 7 issue incorrectly stated that a Bus Rapid Transit line would transport passengers through Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro in 12 minutes or less. The line will transport passengers with 12-minute headways or less, meaning that buses along the line will trail each other by no more than 12 minutes.

FAST FOOD TAX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I want to express my views about taxing fast food restaurants for the enormous litter of aluminum foil and plastic wraps generated by their customers. I understand that the city faces the financial burden of emptying garbage cans and keeping the streets clean but I feel responsibility should be learned by customers of fast food places. We should devote our energy to developing civic responsibility. Why shouldn’t individual customers have the sense to keep streets clean for their neighbors? We need to be a civic-minded society not just because of taxes and laws but because we have a strong feeling about the welfare of our neighbors. 

Romila Khanna 

• 

RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your March 7 article on bus “rapid” transit beside the Berkeley-to-San Leandro BART tracks got a few things wrong. But the region’s clueless Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) got one big thing wrong in proposing to fund this AC Transit boondoggle by killing a really worthwhile rapid-bus route on MacArthur, Foothill, and Hesperian Boulevards—where BART doesn’t run. 

First, your March 10 correction helpfully acknowledged that the MTC-favored Telegraph/East 14th St. bus route will not “speed commuters through Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro in 12 minutes or less,” as the original article mistakenly said. (Those 12 minutes are the proposed intervals between buses.) 

Worse, though, AC Transit’s own figures show that if you rode its whole proposed 30-mile route, you’d save just 10 minutes over current bus service. That’s minimal time savings on an hour-long ride that no one’s going to take. BART will always be much faster—and BART lies just one to six blocks west of AC Transit’s whole absurd route.  

In other words, the Telegraph/East 14th route is completely redundant: an obscene waste of good technology and taxpayers’ money, both of which would be better spent on MacArthur/Foothill. 

Second, your article acknowledged opposition in Southside Berkeley to removing lanes from Telegraph Avenue for this project. But it quoted only a flak from an Oakland-based lobby defending that notion. 

A Berkeley opponent should have been easy to find, because our town’s opposition to narrowing Telegraph Ave. is overwhelming. Literally thousands of people have signed petitions at Cody’s and Caffe Strada opposing the bus project. The Berkeley leg’s nearly sole supporter is Commissioner-for-Life Rob Wrenn, who’s carefully wired it to stay on life support despite public opposition. Until the City Council kills it. 

May that day come soon. Better to speed up buses on the BART-deprived MacArthur corridor, so that fewer commuters will feel compelled to drive into Berkeley. 

Marcia Lau 

• 

RENT CONTROL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his Feb. 28 response to my earlier Feb. 17 letter, I was pleased that Mike Mitschang apparently supports the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Program’s rent level monitoring/database system rather than seeking its dismantlement and elimination. As I have advocated, it is critical that all Berkeley renters and property owners have unlimited access to the correct, legal rent amount for their respective rental units. 

With respect to Mr. Mitschang’s concern that the Rent Stabilization Program undergo an audit, in point of fact, this has been the program’s continuous policy since 1981: The program’s most recent audit was conducted by the firm of C.G. Uhlenberg LLP. The program also maintains a balanced operational budget. 

At another point in his letter, Mr. Mitschang claims that “market rents in Berkeley are dropping.” According to the rent program’s data, Berkeley rent levels have changed only very slightly over the last several years. 

For example, for new tenancies during 2003, the median rent for a one bedroom apartment was $1,100. At the start of 2006, the median was about $1,095.  

For new tenants moving in, Berkeley rent levels have essentially remained unchanged over the last three years. New Berkeley renters still pay some of the highest rent levels in the entire nation. 

As to Mr. Mitschang’s concern about rent program expenditures, to reiterate, the program’s primary budget operations include the following components: 

• A comprehensive, computerized rent level database system monitoring the city’s nearly 19,000 regulated units, and corresponding notices mailed to all renters and property owners. 

• Staff servicing of more than 10,000 annual client inquiries/contacts. 

•An agency mediation/hearing examiner process to resolve property owner/tenant issues or disagreements. 

• An agency legal counseling service for tenant and owner clients. 

Berkeley’s voter-approved Rent Stabilization Ordinance remains the city’s single most important affordable housing public policy program providing stable, predictable rent levels and housing security for the city’s majority renter community. 

Chris Kavanagh 

• 

TRANSIT VILLAGES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There was a time when I believed in transit villages and infill housing. Lately the luster has fallen off. They come with a price, they offer benefits. The balance is where it is all at. For a long time I have been supporting them as the only game in town. After all, bad tools are better than none. It is time we reconsider. 

Transit villages are justified as a way to facilitate the use of mass transportation. It is taken as a given that people are going to commute and transit villages are an attempt to have the commute go by public transit rather than by auto. The costs associated with commuting are personal time and money, and degradation of the environment by the consumption of energy, much of which produce green house gases and result in global warming. Transit villages accept commuting as a given and just try to reduce the undesired consequences of it without looking at the bigger picture. Wouldn’t it be better to simply try to reduce the need for commuting? What good is a Transit Village in an area with more workers than jobs?  

Commuting will probably always be necessary for some, but overall it can be managed and reduced—provided we make it a priority. It is not enough that the number of jobs offered in a community roughly matches the number of workers. The type of jobs have to be appropriate for the residents also. If a community tries to create retail to get sales tax revenue, it should also consider the community need for the retail and where the retail clerks will live. If the retail is at the expense of other kinds of jobs—like light industrial—then the community must ask itself if these are the kinds of jobs it can afford to lose or not let be created. Greed driven development, whether by a developer out to make the big bucks, or by a politician out to create revenue streams for a community, are not likely to create the balance we need to reduce commuting—to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—to reduce global warming.  

Infill Housing was tooted as a method of stopping the spread of suburbia. Most agree that it has not worked simply because many people want their own home and yard instead of living in dense infill apartment complexes. Infill can be justified when a community has more jobs than housing and the housing created matches the needs of those who have to commute in. However, it might make much more sense to move the jobs to where the people are. Covering some grass in the suburbs to reduce commuting is probably much better for the environment than continuing to create ever increasing congestion.  

Community modeling to better understand the effects of rezoning and large developments on commuting and the worker/job ratio is necessary for rational decisions about where we want to go as a community. The modeling should be a required part of many environmental impact reports. Since it will be relatively expensive, the city should oversee the development of the computer modeling and pay for it through development fees and/or grants. Too much is at stake to be running blind.  

Tim Hansen  

ª

I am a BART bike theft victim. Both my wife and I bike to the North Berkeley BART station every day. Between us, we have had no fewer than four occasions over the past 18 months where our property was stolen from this BART station. Three of the four incidents involved the entire bike getting stolen, the fourth was a seat and rear tire. We do what we can to avoid these situations; we use thick Kryptonite U-Locks, and lock both the front wheel and the frame to the bike rack. We promptly upgraded to Kryptonite’s new locking system after the Bic pen loophole was publicized. We even make an extra effort to lock our bikes within view of the station agent’s booth whenever possible. It makes no difference. Three of four times, the bikes were stolen in broad daylight, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Bike thieves have taken to using car jacks to pry open Kryptonite locks. I can tell you as a victim, this method works very well.  

It doesn’t take a victim to know there is a problem here. Walk by any bike rack at a BART station and you will find a graveyard of stripped frames among the locked up bikes. There is one stripped down TREK road bike frame at North Berkeley BART that has been there for over three months. The car jack is still wedged in the U-Lock, which is bent somewhat out of shape. Leaving these violated frames in the rack for such an extended period reduces the number of available spots for other bikers and suggests that BART doesn’t care enough about its bike-riders to maintain this area. 

When is BART going to start taking steps to safeguard the property of their riders? BART police have told me point blank that bike theft is not a priority for them. They do not have any security cameras trained on the bike rack area; even a fake camera serves as a visual deterrent. When the most recent theft occurred, after waiting 20 minutes for the BART police to arrive, the station agent asked my wife if she still wanted them to come and file a report. Just because 20 minutes have passed doesn’t mean the crime, or its impact, is no longer significant. 

BART is sending a clear message to their riders that they do not care about safety and security around the bike racks, or about customer satisfaction. 

Here are some basic, inexpensive steps BART can take to address this situation: 

• Post signs that the bike racks are under surveillance and crimes will be punished to the full extent of the law.  

• Install security cameras. Whether they are on or not, they are an important visual deterrent.  

• Remove the ransacked frames of bikes that have been vandalized or partially stolen after a reasonable period of time (one to two weeks). 

Once these initial steps are taken, BART can step up and take even more action that will have an impact: 

• Install bike racks inside the stations, within the turnstiles. Some stations have a surplus of available space for this.  

• Raise the priority of these crimes for the BART police force. I’m not suggesting this is more important than human safety, but property theft is a common issue at BART stations. Having an officer focus on bike theft prevention for even a portion of their time is bound to have an impact. 

Bikes are a critical component of the commute for many BART riders. When will BART realize this and take action? 

Justin Lehrer is a Berkeley resident.›

We couldn’t help but notice that just a few weeks after Joe Eaton’s Daily Planet piece on barn owls in Berkeley, there have been two front page stories—March 7 and March 10—about the rat infestation in Willard Park.  

Understandably, neighbors, parents of young children, and Willard students are worried and want to see the rat population vastly decreased.  

At first we thought that baiting with poison was going to be used as one of the strategies, but upon contacting the officials in charge, we learned that they are following the city’s Integrated Pest Management policy, and would only use poison “as a last resort,” and with written advance notice. 

They have temporarily closed the Willard Park Tot-Lot to allow for removal of wood planks which provide harborage, and they are trimming plants, installing more rodent-proof trash receptacles, and as of Monday, March 13, have already trapped close to a dozen rats. 

This news made us very happy, since poisoning rodents can kill or seriously injure not only owls and hawks (from eating poisoned rats) but also dogs and cats. Just the other day we witnessed a distraught dog owner paying an emergency visit to the vet—the dog had almost died from eating rat poison.  

It also made us proud to be residents of Berkeley, which uses a more enlightened approach. 

And it gave us hope that the city might also try out another idea we think could be a really exciting and educational “win-win” part of the solution.  

As researcher Bruce Colvin was quoted in Eaton’s article, barn owl nestlings can consume their own weight in rodents each night! Our group, Keep Barn Owls in Berkeley, has been working to protect the thriving population of barn owls Berkeley has, and to increase their numbers. We find it amazing that barn owls have been living in Berkeley for several decades, and we would like to keep them here. 

To encourage these remarkable rodent-eating machines, farmers in the Central Valley have put up nest boxes in which the owls can raise their young and catch the rodents that eat the farmers’ grain. We, too, can take advantage of these marvelous — and natural — rat-killing machines. 

Barn owl nest boxes (available through the non-profit Hungry Owl Project) are carefully sited and designed and safe for fledglings, which all too often fall out of the palm trees chosen by their cavity-nesting parents, who lack barns or the old-growth trees they might otherwise choose. 

We’d like the city to erect a “pilot” nest box somewhere in Willard Park. We realize that this more ecologically friendly approach will take time. So it’s important to note that it is utterly compatible with all the other approaches to the problem city staff and exterminators are currently using. 

We think it would be exciting to try and to see if owls do come and join our efforts as free rodent-control agents! And there’s a bonus, too: Anyone who joined the impromptu evening gatherings on California Street near Allston Way last spring and summer, observing the barn owl parents sallying forth to catch and feed rats and mice to their young, will know how exciting and educational having these interesting creatures in our city can be. 

In Central Valley and Berkeley schools, children are studying owl pellets in science classes-an activity that engages kids who are often bored with less hands-on types of science. You’d be amazed how much they know about owls and the (mostly rodents) that they eat! 

We’ll bet before long some of those Willard neighbors and parents might find themselves on a wonderful local “field trip” that provides far more than pest control. 

For more information about barn owls and how to provide habitat for them, please see our web site (www.kboib.org) and that of the Hungry Owl Project (www.hungryowl.org). 

ª

In the obfuscation facts about Pacific Steel Casting’s (PSC) toxic air emissions, the City of Berkeley has a fine partner with Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). While Berkeley continues its history of favoring commercial interests over our health, PSC’s flagrant emission violations have become the norm. 

The public meeting on Feb. 15 at the West Berkeley Senior Center was graced by the presence of BAAQMD’s CEO, Jack P. Broadbent, as well as its director of engineering, Brian Bateman. At that meeting BAAQMD was asked if dioxin—actually a large group of similar chemicals—is listed as one of PSC’s toxic air pollutants billowing out of its foundry and associated incinerator that is deceptively renamed a “sand recycler.”  

Bateman explained that dioxin will not be monitored because they found no chlorine source at PSC, which is needed in order to produce dioxins. However, BAAQMD was not sure if the PSC’s “Non-Waste Hazardous Materials Inventory Spreadsheet” (NHMIS) had been studied yet. 

In any case, without even looking at the NHMIS, multiple sources of chlorine are easily found in and around PSC. All we need now is someone charged with the task of regulation to admit that they see them.  

Let’s remember that the $648,950 loan to help purchase the incinerator was facilitated by California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) as a means of reducing waste. Any residence caught burning such stuff in a backyard barrel would be fined, but it should be assumed that they burn anything and everything in their incinerator with the state’s permission. And don’t be duped into thinking that incinerators actually exist that can burn chlorine-containing objects without creating dioxin.  

Almost any scientist who is intimate with incinerators knows that dioxin is inevitable unless all sources of chlorine are eliminated. No amount of public relations hype will convince this writer that PSC’s incinerator is operated as a scientific lab in a way that eliminates chlorine sources. 

First, many industrial supplies come wrapped in plastic, paper or cardboard that are bundled atop wooden pallets and in turn wrapped extensively with polyvinylchloride (PVC) shrink wrap, which is composed of large amounts of chlorine. Much of this stuff—paper, wood, some plastic—become sources for dioxin when burned in an incinerator.  

Then, any city water used to mix and dilute PSC’s chemicals and production inputs is loaded with either chloramine or chlorine, depending on which city the water is from. Here in Berkeley, EBMUD uses chloramine and it shows up as a residual chemical at the Orinda Water Treatment Plant. 

Furthermore, being located almost directly on the San Francisco Bay, PSC is bathed on a 24/7 basis with its ocean mist and vapor. Since PSC insists that they will not close the big doors, we can assume that the interior spaces are also filled with that ocean breeze. Saltwater (brine) is what chlorine is made from. And top soil—think dust—contains goodly amounts of sodium chloride. In other words, there are limitless supplies of chlorine at PSC. And all of these sources are well-known to the EPA.  

EPA lists foundries and incinerators as sources of dioxin in many of its studies and documents. Just prior to joining BAAQMD, Broadbent spent more than two and a half years as the director of the Air Division at EPA Region IX. In that position, he was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Clean Air Act. He and his chief engineer should know better than to state for the record that they can’t find a source of chlorine. Of course, if they don’t look, they won’t see it.  

And while dioxin is far from our only worry, it is one of the most potent poisons known to EPA. Amazingly, dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) is more hormonally toxic at extremely low doses than at higher ones. While detectable in one’s blood, it is not traceable back to PSC production and incinerator stacks.  

The health effects from exposures that are probable from PSC would not be immediately perceivable, but would emerge over more than one generation and could include a very wide range of physical and psychological health problems. One quick example is that dioxin contributes to spontaneous abortions during the first four to eight weeks of pregnancy. During those first weeks, a woman might confuse a spontaneous abortion with a missed period, never knowing that she was pregnant at all. Because such incidences are not realized by women or their doctors, no record is kept. 

Perhaps these regulators honestly can’t find dioxin sources because they need everything presented on neat little lists. But BAAQMD’s avoidance of monitoring dioxin is just one more important example of the deception that passes for regulatory enforcement. Adding insult to injury, we taxpayers are expected to pay for this regulatory work as well as be thankful for it.  

Those who are most threatened by these unnoticeable dioxin emissions are young children, those yet-to-be-born and mothers-to-be. This unmonitored pollutant is most dangerous when bodies are still being formed within mothers. Even before pregnancy, dioxin can affect future children because it builds up in the fatty tissues of mothers. Dioxin can also be passed on to the fetus by fathers because it damages and coats their sperm. Ask Vietnam veterans about this. 

If PSC were properly registered as the single facility that it truly is rather than multiple facilities, then the sum of its emissions would classify it as a major polluter and force it to operate under Title V of the Clean Air Act, which contains much stricter requirements than it presently faces. Clearly, all of PSC is in this one large multiple-block site on Gilman Street and should be registered as a single facility. 

Instead of blowing more smoke at us with “royal” appearances of high-level people from BAAQMD, as well as with idle promises of full disclosure, what is sorely needed at this time is enforcement of PSC’s emissions as the single facility that it most obviously is, by an agency such as EPA that has adequate financial backing and that hopefully possesses the will to do the job properly.  

Paul Goettlich is a Berkeley resident. He writes and speaks on the health and socio-economic effects of technologies. Find more of his work at Mindfully.org. 

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SWEATSHOP LABOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What exactly is a sweatshop? Our college students’ aversion to sweat must apply only when the sweat results from productive labor, but not when it results from unproductive labor, as happens at the gym. Is the Cal Rec facility a sweatshop or not? The students want Cal merchandise produced in a “sweat-free” factory. What does that mean? Maybe they think everyone should sit comfortably at a computer terminal in an air-conditioned office, but that isn’t how clothes are made. 

As long as most of us keep demanding both low prices and high wages, U.S. factories will continue to close and move production to cheaper places. In most of those places one will find high temperatures, high population density, low wages and low employment rates. These features combine to motivate workers to work very fast and sweat. If they’re not sweating, we’re not saving money. It would be good if we could again produce most of our own clothing, but we probably won’t, and whoever does will sweat. They will have to. 

Paul Wooton 

Emeryville 

P.S. Great cover photo! 

• 

A PLACE TO REST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many of us elders walk daily for our health and for errands, as we no longer drive. I want to advocate more resting stops, like the ones found at bus stops, but scattered through neighborhoods where buses do not go. Lack of such benches keeps many elders virtually housebound. 

Pat Cody 

• 

DIEBOLD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just found out that the secretary of state has certified the use of the entire Diebold line of voting machines in California despite the ample research findings that these machines are not reliable.  

As a 10-year resident of California, a low-income but high-bracket taxpayer, and an escapee from Ohio, the state Diebold makes its home, this action taken by the secretary of state is an affront to everything that I believe in and have supported in California. 

As a member of the Rules Committee Sen. Don Perata should subpoena the voting machine manufacturers, the ITA testers, and other relevant insiders. (For example: Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, and Hart Intercivic; Ciber labs, Wyle labs, and the voting system examiners.) 

These folks are openly Republican, and, like other very well-known Republicans, have a habit of disregarding regulations with impunity. They should be required to testify under oath in response to questions put by the Senate Elections Committee.  

There are a lot of unanswered questions about voting machine programming, examination and certification, and these people need to be held to account to citizens and voters for their actions and decisions. 

California should be a trendsetter state, not an extension of the Bush administration’s Banana Republic. 

Heather Merriam 

• 

RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Suzanne La Barre’s article on the forthcoming Bus Rapid Transit improvements says that “the line will speed through” three towns and 18 miles in 12 minutes—an average of 90 miles per hour, counting over 30 stops. Rapid indeed! 

At last we get some transit improvements that will make a real difference. But let’s hope the buses come equipped with seatbelts.  

Alan Tobey 

EDITOR’S NOTE: See correction, Page Two. 

• 

DOMESTIC TALIBAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

South Dakota has passed a law outlawing most abortions for any reason. The governor stated he is doing this for the purpose of forcing a challenge to Roe. So now we know why President Bush lost interest in his war in Afghanistan. He’s planning to bring the Taliban to the United States. 

Jeff Paularino 

• 

SCIENTOLOGY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hopefully this letter will get printed as the trickle of letters on this subject turns into a torrent. 

Two points about the matter of the Daily Planet accepting advertising from the “Church” of Scientology: 

First, the First Amendment issue: I recognize that this paper has the right to decide which advertising to accept. I also recognize that running ads for an organization doesn’t necessarily mean that the paper supports the aims of that organization. However, if Executive Editor Becky O’Malley has any doubt about whether refusing Scientology’s advertising might be seen as, or might in fact be, suppression of anyone’s freedom of religion, that doubt is very easily allayed. Because Scientology is not a religion. It says it’s a religion. It puts on airs as if it were a religion. It tries to assume the trappings of a religion. But it’s not; it’s a scam, perpetrated by a well-known science fiction writer with a bizarre imagination, and taken up zealously by his minions. 

By the way, please don’t take my word for any of this. One place you ought to look for starters is Wikipedia. Go there and look up their entry on “Xenu.” That’s right—just type this in and see what they have to say about this subject, which forms one of the core beliefs of this “religion.” Then decide for yourself whether this “church” ought to be accorded respect. (While you’re there at Wikipedia, there are lots more articles on the subject. I recommend reading them.) 

While you may think this is just a disagreement about whether people ought to be able to believe in whatever they want (in this case, space aliens—I kid you not), it’s much more than that. The Cult of Scientology is actually quite dangerous. One of the things imparted by their founder was a propensity to be absolutely vicious when attacked, and to attack their critics back harder. This is much different from a debate, say, over whether the Falun Gong ought to be allowed to march in the Chinese New Year parade. These people fight dirty. And yes, they are after your money. 

To sum: I won’t stop reading the paper even if they continue running Scientology ads. But if it were me, I’d pull that plug in a nanosecond with nary a pang of conscience. 

David Nebenzahl 

North Oakland 

• 

AWARDS AND MORE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On the Academy Awards post-mortem, regarding the shameless baring of boobs to every eye in the place, plus the uncounted others across the globe: I guess they served the purpose of keeping the audience alert to a possible peek at some renegade nipple when the program waned. 

The whole business leads me to ask about the possibility of adding the Peek-a-Boobs award to the person sighting the first nipple of the evening. Other awards for successive sightings could follow along with one for the most daring cleavage not providing nipple sighting. 

There there are the men to consider, men in jock straps: Now there’s a bonanza for you. Oh, it could go on and on, and think how the ratings would go up. 

Dorothy V. Benson 

• 

ZEALOTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

You have to ask yourself who are religious zealots and inquisitors going to target once they strike down Roe vs. Wade? It’s kind of a loaded question. We all know who these Biblical hypocrits have had their sights on. Are you now or have you ever been gay? 

Ron Lowe 

Nevada City 

• 

BERKELEY ZONING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My 25-year-old software programmer nephew was visiting the other day. We were talking about the Berkeley economy, and when I told him about all the land zoned for light manufacturing, he cracked up laughing and almost fell to the floor. 

Your recent story about the proposed West Berkeley Bowl quotes one of your columnists, Zelda Bronstein, wondering whether the city is really committed to manufacturing and affordable living for artists. 

Given sky-high taxes and long-term budget woes, maybe the city would be better off commiting itself to supporting growing businesses that hire workers and pay taxes. 

If Berkeley can’t find a way to accommodate a popular organic grocery store, it’s hard to imagine that Berkeley is bound for anything other than declining 

prosperity. 

Tom Case 

• 

MORE ON RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was pleased to see Rob Wrenn advocate for authentic citizen participation in development planning in Berkeley (“Brower Center, Ashby BART: A Right Way, A Wrong Way,” Feb. 28). Directly criticizing the way the city recently began the process of planning for the Ashby BART site, Mr. Wrenn argues that it is essential for such development plans to be “worked out in an extensive public process, not predetermined. There are many options to be considered. Let’s stand with Berkeley’s tradition of participatory democracy.” Elsewhere in his commentary, he lauds planning processes in which the public has “extensive and meaningful involvement.” It is clear that Mr. Wrenn holds this principle in very high regard.  

Therefore, I fully expect him to promote an extensive public process in considering the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan proposed by AC Transit (“Inter-City Rapid Bus Transit on the Fast Track,” March 7). In case you are not aware of this project, it would turn Telegraph Avenue—our last functioning north-south thoroughfare—into a road with one single lane in each direction. That is because one of the traffic lanes in each direction would be used for buses only at all times. In addition, Telegraph Avenue would become a virtual dead end for drivers where it reaches Dwight Way, because Telegraph from Dwight to Bancroft would be completely closed to automobile traffic. These proposed changes would dramatically increase traffic congestion on Telegraph, cause increased traffic flow into the neighborhoods adjacent to Telegraph, and result in substantial restrictions on motorists’ ability to enter and exit Telegraph Avenue due to turning restrictions. The BRT would also result in lane reductions on other streets because the buses need to travel on a route to connect with Berkeley’s downtown bus transit center. This proposal would have a dramatic impact on all residents and business owners throughout the Southside.  

Unfortunately, the public has been excluded from any meaningful involvement in the planning process for this major project. Knowing of Mr. Wrenn’s strong commitment to public participation, I anticipate that he will do everything he can to further an authentic public process to consider all of the implications of the BRT proposal as soon as possible. 

Doug Buckwald  

• 

PROGRESSIVE COALITION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley progressives are invited to plan a Coalition Convention for city elections.  

Berkeley’s progressive mission is to promote a more equitable economic and social life in our city and beyond, and to enhance social justice and democratic co-operation on every level. If this sounds like you, or your organization, then you are invited to help us plan at 2:45 p.m. Sunday, March 12 in the third-floor meeting room of the Berkeley Public Library at Kittredege Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

We will be planning two Coalition Conventions for Berkeley progressives for next November’s city election; first for platform and principles, and second for candidates. This is an opportunity to build a coalition which will include your priorities and those of your organization in its founding document. 

We can apply our progressive principles to every level of life; and we have been talking in our meetings so far about the following (alphabetically): 

Art; city planning and land use; economic development; disability; election reform; environment and ecology; ethnic and racial diversity; gay and lesbian concerns; health; homelessness and poverty; housing (affordable); labor; media; neighborhood and community; open public process; peace and international affiars; political clubs; public schools; religious life; seniors; women; university life.  

Yes, you’re right, you can’t talk about all of these in one session, and you can’t include it all in one platform (certainly not in the time we have available). But this list (and more) are what we mean when we talk about the progressive movement. If any of these are your passion, or the passion of your organization, then you are invited. Especially if you want to move in the direction of greater liberty, equality, justice and co-operation. Yes the words are old, but still unfulfilled. 

We have been talking about a Convention for Platform and Principles on the last weekend of April, and Candidate selection perhaps the next weekend. Both principles and candidates (and which city offices we contest) will be up to you and your organizations. We hope after March 12 that various groups may want to meet together according to type: ecology, students, neighborhood, etc., to work out common ideas. 

We expect that this convention and the following election will be only the beginning. Can we forge a progressive coalition which will further the goals of each individual and organization, and also enhance our ability to communicate and work for common ideals? It is up to all of us.  

Laurence Schectman 

Berkeley Coalition for a  

Progressive Convention  

• 

UNIFORM FOOD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Congress could vote as early as today (Wednesday, March 8), or very soon thereafter. This time, they are trying to vote in a bill titled “National Uniformity for Food Act.” My understanding is that they wish to stop labeling foods that contain allergy-inducing ingredients such as dairy, wheat, nuts, or other things, as well as not tell us whether a food is genetically modified. Guys, genetically modified foods are very very bad for the planet. Monsanto and the other corporate thugs-that-be aren’t telling us the full story on GM foods. We could be eating genetically modified foods at our favorite fast-food restaurants, or food bought at conventional big supermarkets like Safeway or Albertson’s. We may never know it! This is horrendous. I have food allergies which have very uncomfortable effects on me if I happen to accidentally ingest allergy-foods. So do many of us. Please call or e-mail your representatives and tell them to oppose HR 4167, the so-called “National Uniformity! for Food Act.”  

And kudos to the Berkeley Daily Planet for publishing online letters to the editor which can’t be printed in the paper edition. I am a very frequent and loyal reader of the Berkeley Daily Planet. You guys have exposed to me—and all of us—political corruptions that we may never have known about otherwise.  

Thanks, Becky O’Malley and everybody. 

Linda Smith 

• 

ALLEGORY OF THE SHIP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The ship of state is adrift and sinking.  

One hundred and 17 years ago its architects designed a stout new hull, laminating civil liberty with due process to carry legislative, executive and judicial functions above a completely new creation called “balance of powers.”  

For over two centuries the ship made it through some severe storms—a war on board and attacks from abroad. To survive it was necessary from time to time to amend and renovate but on the whole the ship has served us passengers remarkably well—until now.  

At the controls the Bush/Cheney crew operates in secrecy in pursuit of global hegemony. Officers in the wheel house, against all reason, attend more to leaked revelations about their conduct than to leaks occurring in the hull of the ship itself.  

The falsely named Patriot Act breaches the civil liberty hull while wiretaps on passengers drown their due process protections. Ballast born of laziness and covered in “enemy combatants” and “terrorist suspects” compel the crew to jettison prohibitions against torture along with respects for human rights. The most critical damage, however, comes from structural imbalance.  

Executive power currently outweighs the combined powers of the legislature and the judiciary creating a precarious tilt further aggravated by heavily militarized cargo.  

If the leaks are to be repaired and the ship of state saved from sinking we passengers must oust the officials in control. The first chance we have to do it will come next November.  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been in Berkeley two years and have experienced continuous problems at the public library—which never occur in other local systems—concerning the computer department. This is true of nearby libraries and overseas, too. 

Forgetting the fact that the computer system is down far more than any other system I have ever encountered, there are problems with about four sites which I can get but cannot get sections within them—all are chatrooms. 

I have brought this to the attention of the north branch staff and also of the central staff. The central staff sent a person out over a year ago and confirmed I was right (north branch had already done that). I was sloughed off with “we will get back to you.”  

They never did and they studiously ignore my communications asking for status—unbelievable arrogance!! 

One other thing I have brought to their attention is laughable-—always whining about not enough funding but north branch is frequently with heat blasting out and all windows and door wide open! Again I am studiously ignored. 

What a third world community you have here. 

Brian C Waters 

• 

INCOMPETENCE OR TREASON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Was it due to incompetence or treason that Bush failed to heed the warnings about the attack on 9/11? Was it incompetence, or treason, when Cheney and Rumsfeld fabricated the assertion that Iraq had WMDs in order to start the war? Was it incompetence, or treason, that Bush’s administration has drained our national wealth with this endless, unwinable war, killing tens of thousands? Is it incompetence or treason that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove are using the endless war as an excuse for curtailing our civil liberties and for torturing people in American gulags? Was it incompetence that Bush’s administration cut funding to rebuild the levees in New Orleans before Katrina, and Chertoff prevented a coordinated emergency response to the flood? Or was it treason that Bush lost New Orleans, the major port to our heartland? 

And now, as Bush and Chertoff want to let the Dubai Ports World company, from United Arab Emirates, run the six largest ports on our East and Gulf coasts, is it incompetence or treason, to risk Al Qaeda sneaking a bomb into our cities? Connect the dots, America, before Bush looses our entire country. 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

GOP CONVENTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please, please bring the Republican convention to San Francisco in 2008. It will be the political TV entertainment of the decade. Ideally all the San Francisco freaks will turn out. They can protest the war, tout gay marriage and wear out their favorite buzz words like education, environment, health care, corporations, oil, profit and developer, none of which have any meaning from the mouth of a San Francisco Democrat. The ‘48 (Goldwater) and ‘56 (Eisenhower) conventions were great, but this would be the best. There is a downside risk. The freaks may refuse to play and sit home with their yoga. We could invite 90 percent of the Berkeley voters as imitators. Another by-product: a really good performance could ensure conservative victory for 30 years.  

W. O. Locke 

Emeryville 

• 

NUCLEAR MADNESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The American public and Congress should oppose the Bush administration’s ill-considered nuclear treaty with India. This treaty violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) by allowing sales of nuclear fuel and reactor components to India and allowing India to increase its nuclear weapons production. The NPT forbids providing nuclear technological assistance to governments which haven’t signed it. India’s government is one of only three that has never signed the NPT.  

Meanwhile, President Bush wants North Korea and Iran not to develop nuclear weapons while he lets India make them. Don’t forget that Bush still sits on one of the world’s biggest stockpiles of nukes. Bush’s message to the international community is clear: “Do as we say, not as we do.” This hypocritical behavior makes other nations distrust us, and encourages the proliferation of nuclear weapons. “If you can have them, we can too!” 

Congress has the power to stop this. Voters should urge their senators and representatives to vote against treaty ratification and to cosponsor H.Con.Res. 318, introduced by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA). Voters should also demand that Congress reduce America’s nuclear weapon stockpile. We need to halt the nuclear madness, not encourage it. 

David Mitchell 

• 

WIRETAPS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I would like to leave politics out of this request, for an investigation on the wiretaps, FISA issue. No matter if the president is a Democrat, Republican, male, female, Jewish, Christian, etc. etc. I would still ask the question, “Are you spying on U.S. citizens? Wiretapping their phones? Reading their e-mails? What and where is the evidence for your cause?” 

Just the truth is all I am seeking. 

Michael Shemchuk 

Albany.

David Wilson, in his Feb. 28 letter, supports the conversion of rental units to condos, as a way of improving the opportunity for home ownership, reducing the rental vacancy rate, and rehabilitating dilapidated rent-controlled units.  

Mr. Wilson suggests that condos are the solution for “persons who want to put down roots in the community.” This reveals that Mr. Wilson does not understand or value the tenant community. About 60 percent of Berkeleyans are renters, and about half of renters are students (and young enough to be “short-term”), so that means that up to a quarter of Berkeley residents are long-term renters. I certainly hope that Mr. Wilson does not think that these 25,000 people do not have “roots in the community.”  

I have been a renter in Berkeley since 1971; I have lived in my current location for 26 years. My “roots in the community” match most of the homeowners in my neighborhood. As for our contribution to the community, long-term renters struggle much harder than most homeowners to maintain the livability of Berkeley, because almost all detriments are directed toward high-density parts of town where most renters live. 

I agree with Mr. Wilson that more condos could fill a needed housing niche in Berkeley. However, I strongly disagree that this should be accomplished through rental conversions. It should be accomplished through new construction of high-quality condos in appropriate locations. 

Tenants have limited housing options. About 40 percent of renters spend more than 35 percent of their income on rent, and probably most of these spend much more. Most of these people will never be able to afford condos. Tenants in all the newly constructed rental units around town are not protected by rent ceilings under rent control. Their rents can be raised by any amount every year. It was this untenable situation that brought about rent control in 1979.  

Such housing insecurity makes these units undesirable for long-term residents, and almost guarantees that they will be rented by short-termers. If we can, we should bring these new units under rent control, but if not, then building condos instead might improve the community “roots,” at least in areas where student demand is not high. 

On the other hand, we need to do everything we can to protect the existing supply of rent-controlled units in Berkeley, which enable “roots” to grow. Rent-controlled units (especially large ones) are in short supply, and will not be replaced. The worst thing for Berkeley’s housing stock would be for the cream of the rent-controlled units to be skimmed off for condos, which will surely happen if not thoroughly discouraged by strong policies.  

Although I generally oppose the removal of rent-controlled units from the market, if we truly have an excess of small rental units, we might consider permitting some of them to be refashioned into condos. A formula could be developed to permit limited condoization of some rental units, if there has been a certain vacancy rate for a certain number of years among a particular unit size. This is an option the Planning Commission might consider. 

Meanwhile, once Mr. Wilson realizes that rent control fosters long-term residency, thus providing the “roots” that he seeks, and that long-term renters contribute to the health of Berkeley’s neighborhoods and the homeowners that share them, I’m sure he will become an enthusiastic proponent of rent control.  

Sharon Hudson is a long-time resident of Berkeley’s Southside. 

There is a move afoot for Berkeley to weaken its restrictions on the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums. This would be the worst possible move for the city’s future. We need only look at San Francisco and New York City to see how condo conversions displace elderly and long-term tenants, gentrify neighborhoods, and ultimately destroy a city’s economic diversity. 

Proponents of increased condo conversions have framed their case around the indisputable need for more affordable homeownership. But as both San Francisco and New York City show, conversions exact an acute human and social and human cost while sharply reducing a city’s supply of affordable housing. 

San Francisco restricts condo conversions to 200 rental units per year, and to buildings of six units or less. These regulations appear restrictive, but they have failed to prevent the displacement of hundreds of tenants each year by real estate speculators using the state Ellis Act to preempt local eviction protections. 

While the Ellis Act does not preempt local condo conversion controls, speculators have found a market for tenancies in common (TICs). TIC owners purchase a share of the building without having the right to own a specific unit, as occurs with a condo. Speculators buy small buildings with long-term tenants paying below-market rents, evict the tenants under Ellis, and then sell the building as TICs. 

Three years later, the TIC owners can apply to convert to condominiums. 

Without the ultimate ability to convert to condos, the Ellis Act eviction wave in San Francisco would not exist. That’s why San Francisco tenant activists have pushed to break the link between evictions for profit and condo conversions, with two pieces of legislation passing the Board of Supervisors only to be vetoed by Mayor Gavin Newsom. 

Activists are readying a third, more stringent limitation on condo conversions that will go to the November 2006 ballot after its likely veto by the mayor. 

It does not matter how many eviction protections are enacted in a city’s condo or rent control laws; the Ellis Act preempts all. That’s why the economic motive for the eviction—the eventual conversion to condos—must be curtailed. 

In San Francisco, the sales prices of these converted units often differ little from newly constructed units. The difference in price between a four-unit rental building with long-term tenants and its sale as individual TICs is significant, but this money goes to the speculator. Buyers of the TICs get no discount, and the resulting housing fits no commonly understood definition of “affordable.” 

If Berkeley city officials believe more condos are needed, they should encourage their construction, rather than the conversion of the city’s already scarce rental housing supply. In addition, new units are likely to be built in more affordable areas, whereas conversions will target long-term tenants in more expensive areas like North Berkeley and Thousand Oaks, where the greatest profit from TIC sales can be made (that’s why North Beach has been the chief venue in San Francisco for Ellis evictions). 

A story in the Feb. 27 New York Times, “With Condo Conversions Back in Favor, Renters Are Frustrated by a Lack of Leverage,” describes what happened to tenants in New York City when conversion restrictions were lifted. It is not a happy story. The number of rental units converted to condos in New York City has quadrupled since 2003, even victimizing tenants living in buildings of over 100 units 

The Times story described the impact of these weakened condo-conversion protections. For example, a middle-class rental building of more than 100 residents was almost completely emptied after the owner announced plans in December 2004 to convert the building to luxury condominiums. Those remaining on the premises live amidst a construction zone, as the once affordable apartments are “upgraded” for sale. 

As we know from the epidemic of Ellis Act evictions in North Beach, speculators can reap quick and easy profits from converting rental housing to condominiums. The Times story describes how one NYC investment group will double its money once the conversion is approved, with two-bedroom units selling for $2.37 million. 

New York City once had a law that gave tenants under rent-control veto power over conversions, and this often led converters to sell units to these tenants at bargain prices to win their support for the conversion. But now only 15 percent of tenants must approve a conversion plan, outweighing opposition from the other 85 percent. 

The “business plan” used in New York City—“throw everyone out of the building, enlarge the apartments, renovate them and get the money”—sounds much like that of San Francisco’s speculators. 

We must keep such a “plan” out of Berkeley. This means strengthening, rather than weakening, restrictions on condo conversions. 

Randy Shaw is the director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and editor of BeyondChron.org, where a portion of this story first appeared. He can be reached at randy@thclinic.org. 

Ã

We of Anna’s Jazz Island were excited to move into downtown Berkeley where there has been a push to create a vital Arts District. We were thrilled to be part of a genuine arts center, with a live theater, arts organizations and our jazz venue—10,000 square feet of cultural use. The Gaia Building has a mission for cultural use that originated in a “cultural density bonus” agreement made between the developer, Patrick Kennedy, and the city. In this current real estate market, new downtown cultural spaces can come into being only with such agreements. After lots of community discussion, our Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) voted to give Mr. Kennedy two extra floors of apartments from which he generates extra revenue. In exchange, ZAB also voted, and he agreed, that he would place the ground floor in cultural use and that he would divide the huge mezzanine into four spaces for arts organizations. Anna’s Jazz Island opened in late May of 2005; we use only 15 percent of all the promised cultural use space.  

Mr. Kennedy has already received more than two million dollars in revenue from the extra floors of apartments. However, instead of placing the rest of the ground floor and mezzanine in cultural use, Mr. Kennedy is now in business with an upscale for-profit caterer who throws expensive private parties. The city did not subsidize this project for cultural use so that a few people could financially benefit from exclusive or private events. These events have included huge private dinners for several hundred people and raucous parties, one recently closed by the police. 

Because of the for-profit enterprise currently controlling the Gaia, there have been many code violations in order to generate more revenue. A concert for more than 200 was held where occupancy is only 96. A concert promoter recently told ZAB he has Mr. Kennedy’s approval to hold rock concerts for 400 teenagers at the Gaia. 

The caterer rents the theater space to The Marsh theater on Wednesdays and Thursdays until July 2006, keeping the more desirable weekends for their own profitable private events. Under these terms, it is likely The Marsh will not renew their lease. In addition, the caterer rents the theater to a church on Sundays, which staff says is a religious, not a cultural use. Due to Alcoholic Beverage Control licensing regulations regarding proximate churches, this may place our alcohol license at risk. It also places at grave risk any license the future David Brower Center would want for a restaurant in the new facility. Cultural spaces often need the option of selling alcoholic beverages to financially survive. 

So what happened at the Gaia Building? 

Although ZAB voted only for cultural use, the city staff has decided that 30-percent cultural use of the facility is sufficient to honor the cultural density bonus agreement. City staff has allowed the mezzanine to be used as a huge open space for parties rather than for the four separate spaces for arts organizations that ZAB voted for. Staff admits that the private parties and church use are not cultural. Even so, staff has not even required Mr. Kennedy to come before ZAB for a use permit modification so the large concerts, the parties and the church use can be discussed in public. Until now, these use approvals have been done privately by city staff, with no public scrutiny and no discussion even by ZAB. The impact of a rock and roll venue for 400 teenagers has had no input either from citizens or from the Police Department. All these new uses with large numbers of people, chaos and noise severely impact all of us. 

ZAB is made up of citizens who offer their time and dedication to protect community land use needs. As a citizen board, ZAB must be able to rely on staff to implement their votes and directives. Many of us feel betrayed by this unilateral staff action. 

What will become of the cultural density bonus? 

This bonus should be a good thing for our community, a way to enrich our lives. After lengthy community discussion and debate, ZAB voted what should have been a win-win at the Gaia. The staff has no confusion about what constitutes “cultural use.” They agree the private parties and the church are not cultural use. The central issue is that staff have arbitrarily decided that 70 percent non-cultural use by the developer is just fine. There are many arts organizations who can provide cultural activities and who need space. The cultural density bonus assumes that the cultural use space will not be rented for market value to these organizations. Of course Mr. Kennedy can get much more rent from a for-profit caterer than from a community arts organization.  

Now, Mr. Kennedy gets paid twice because staff will not implement the requirement for cultural use. First, he receives rents from the two extra floors of apartments; again, because he has a commercial tenant in a space that was promised for culture. Who can be surprised that The Marsh is given only Wednesdays and Thursdays? The caterer takes the profitable weekends and the community suffers the denial of the culture we were promised. 

Finally, we call on ZAB to direct the staff to carry out their vote of long ago: 100 percent cultural use and the mezzanine divided into four spaces for arts organizations. This building is a pilot partnership agreement between the arts and real estate development. If city staff will only enforce 30 percent cultural use, the cultural density bonus becomes a sham. It will be a cultural density bonus with almost no culture and a big bonus to Mr. Kennedy. 

Anna de Leon is the proprietor of Anna’s Jazz Island in the Gaia Building.›

My friend Taffy called me Tuesday night to tell me Dana Reeve had died. “Get a pedicure,” she said. “You need to do something for yourself. Don’t let life pass you by.” 

That I needed to do something for myself was probably true. Going to bed and getting a good night’s sleep was a possible option. Getting a pedicure wasn’t. 

Don’t get me wrong, I understand Taffy’s intentions. She’s always been concerned about my health and well-being. Since my husband’s bicycling accident 12 years ago, she’s kept in touch from far away, urging me to visit her in New York, suggesting I do things I don’t necessarily know I want to do, such as jumping off a 35-foot cliff in Jamaica and taking a mid-winter kayak trip in the ice-clogged, frigid Long Island Sound. But getting my toes painted as an act of celebrating life? Sorry, it ain’t gonna happen. 

Maybe the reason for my reluctance to indulge myself had to do with timing. It was 8 p.m., and I was already in my pajamas, ready for bed. Ralph had been in the hospital for seven days and his condition was not improving. My niece had just been released from a five-day stay in Oakland’s Children’s Hospital. She’d gone in with an unusually high fever, but she was now, thankfully, recovered. That very same evening Ralph’s daughter had escaped with only a few belongings after a fire ravaged her Oakland apartment building. 

I had heard that Dana Reeve was sick, but I hadn’t followed the progression of her illness. I knew she had given some upbeat interviews recently, similar to the ones she and her husband Christopher had made after his horseback riding accident. She was always positive, buoyant, and downright cheery in front of the camera. I wondered how she did it. 

I’d developed a mild obsession with Dana Reeve. I studied her photographs in numerous women’s magazines, watched her banter with talk show hosts during daytime TV. I went to hear her speak when her book Care Packages : Letters to Christopher Reeve from Strangers and Other Friends, was published. I marveled at how she stayed so optimistic. Her smile was dazzling, her lipstick faultless, her fingernails and hair perfect, her eyes bright and sparkling. 

A year after Christopher Reeve’s accident, he wrote a book, then Dana wrote her book, then he wrote another book. They attended the Oscars, they spoke before Congress, they started a foundation. Christopher directed a movie, and starred in another, a remake of Rear Window, in which Darryl Hannah, reprising the role of Grace Kelly, tells the Jimmy Stewart character (played by Reeve), that she loves him even if he can’t put his arms around her and give her a hug. The movie’s ending implies they will live happily ever after together, but I had to wonder who was going to brush and floss the hero’s teeth, pick his nose, and empty his leg bag. Darryl Hannah? I don’t think so. 

After viewing the film, I gave up my fixation with the Reeves. I didn’t think they were painting an accurate picture for the public of what their life together was really like. But maybe they were candid and I was the one dishonest about my true feelings. I realized I was insanely jealous of their lifestyle, envious of a man who couldn’t breath without the aid of a machine, resentful of his adoring wife who looked directly into the photographer’s lens and smiled. 

But now they are both dead, and I’m returning to the hospital to watch over my husband as he struggles to keep a grasp on reality. He isn’t aware of Dana Reeve’s death. I may not bother to tell him. ª

Today is Osama bin Laden’s birthday, his 49th. A good time to consider the strange similarities between the world’s most notorious fugitive and the president of the United States. 

Bin Laden is a rich guy, the 17th son of Muhammed Awad bin Laden, a fabulously wealthy contractor close to the Saudi royal family. In his twenties, Osama converted to Islamic fundamentalism and became involved in radical politics. In 1979 he joined the Afghani fight against the Russians. In 1988 bin Laden founded Al Qaeda. Since 9/11, he’s had a $25 million bounty on his head. 

Osama is unusually tall for an Arab, at least 6’4”. He’s believed to have a variety of medical problems, including kidney disease, which requires dialysis. Most experts say he’s hiding in Waziristan, a wild region in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border. 

Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, George Bush invoked images of American frontier justice when he discussed the hunt for bin Laden, “When I was a kid I remember that they used to put out there in the old West, a wanted poster. It said: ‘Wanted, Dead or Alive.’ All I want and America wants him brought to justice.” Bush declared, “The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.” 

Late in November 2001, bin Laden and many Al Qaeda fighters were cornered in the remote Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. Then the United States made the decision to capture bin Laden by relying upon Afghani mercenaries. They were not up to the job. By the time regular American forces arrived, bin Laden and most of his companions slipped across the border into northwest Pakistan. 

In March 2002, George W. Bush abruptly changed his story: “I don’t know where bin Laden is,” Bush said. “I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” Bush has a short attention span; his focus shifted from bin Laden in Afghanistan-Pakistan to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. 

There are striking similarities between Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush: Both grew up in privileged circumstances. Both had strained relationships with their fathers. As young adults, both men were seen as disappointments. 

Both fell under the spell of radical religion: Osama was swept up in Islamic Sunni fundamentalism, Wahhabism. This argues that the Koran is literally true, that life should be lived by puritanical rules, and that women are second-class citizens. In his late thirties, George W. converted to fundamentalist Christianity; he was “born again.” Bush’s version of Christianity believes that the Bible is literally true, that life should be lived by puritanical rules, and that women are second-class citizens. Both men swear by ultra-conservative forms of their religion. It’s a characteristic of their extremism that the world is inhabited by two kinds of people: believers and infidels. Paradoxically, both believe in a God of love who commands them to kill non-believers. 

Those who have met Osama and George say that neither is very swift. Two things account for their success: They have very clever advisers and they have a knack for saying things that the man in the street wants to hear. bin Laden has been greatly influenced by Ayman Zawahir, Bush by Karl Rove. 

Bin Laden tells the Arab man on the street that Muslims need a new military-spiritual leader who will throw the United States out of the Middle East, liberate Palestine, and get government to help them. Bush tells the American man on the street that Christians need a new military-spiritual leader who will ensure that America rules the world, protects Israel, and gets government off their backs. 

The accomplishments of both men have been greatly exaggerated. Osama’s Al Qaeda didn’t play a big role in the Russian defeat in Afghanistan. His leadership was often ill considered. bin Laden is touted as the head of a huge terrorist network, but his connection to groups such as the Zarqawi-led Iraqi insurgents is tenuous at best. Bush was never a successful CEO. His accomplishments as governor of Texas were greatly exaggerated. His tenure as president has been characterized by a series of epic blunders. 

The formal and informal speeches of both Osama and George are rambling and disjointed. Both men twist history and use faulty analogies. Both have trouble speaking in complete sentences and cannot clearly elucidate their positions. While both have goals, neither has a coherent plan to accomplish them. Public opinion polls taken in Saudi Arabia and America indicate that their respective populations admire each man but don’t think much of them as leaders. 

There you have it: Osama and George, two peas in a pod. People in America hate bin Laden. Folks in the Middle East hate Bush. Neither Osama nor George can travel without a large coterie of bodyguards. Neither will make it to Disneyland in the near future. 

So on bin Laden’s birthday, let’s make a deal with the Muslim world, a straight player exchange. They’ll hand over Osama bin Laden and we’ll deliver George W. Bush. No questions asked. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net. 

›

Opportunities either mishandled or long left neglected during the Jerry Brown administration are now rapidly catching up with the mayor, threatening to give him a rocky send-off on his way out of Oakland’s door. (If you don’t get the pun, ask somebody.) 

One of these mishandled opportunities is a downtown entertainment district, which Mr. Brown has said was one of his administrative goals. 

When Mr. Brown took office in January of 1999, he was presented with a great chance to solidify an already-existing downtown entertainment center. Starting with Sweet Jimmy’s on 17th and San Pablo, there was a string of popular nightclubs within walking distance to Lake Merritt, running down 14th Street from Geoffrey’s Inner Circle to the old Club Caribé to several Southeast Asian clubs down around the Oak Street area. That is in addition to the city-run Alice Street Center (later renamed the Malonga Casquelord Center), which was regularly holding Friday and Saturday night cultural programs in its theater. San Pablo Avenue/14th Street at the turn of 2000 was nothing like the legendary Seventh Street during the war years, but it was a solid start, a multicultural scene that had started to get the feel of New Orleans to it, certainly in keeping with what Mr. Brown has always said he wanted to prevent the downtown area from being “dead” after dark. Entrepreneurs had done most of this on their own. All they needed was a little city help for it to take off. 

Why that San Pablo Avenue/14th Street downtown entertainment district never fully materialized is a story too long to tell in a single column. Some have suggested race (the San Pablo Avenue/14th Street venues all attracted a darker clientele into the downtown area); some said it was that in his drive to create a “legacy” in Oakland on which he could run for statewide or national office again, Mr. Brown generally promoted things that he could say he initiated on his own, rather than supporting things which Oaklanders had already developed. But it was always clear that for whatever reason, the Brown Administration never warmed up to the concept of an entertainment center along lower San Pablo and 14th Street, and so a partnership between the city and the entertainment business owners in that area never seemed to develop. Instead, we have seen an adversarial relationship, in which the city has repeatedly criticized the owners of those entertainment venues and sought to shut a number of them down, rather than help them solve their problems. In addition, Mr. Brown once sought to break up the successful Casquelord Center and replace it with his Arts School, a maneuver which was opposed by cultural groups across the city, and eventually defeated by City Council in one of its rare oppositions to the mayor’s proposals. 

A snapshot look at how sour the relationship between the Brown administration and the San Pablo/14th Street entertainment business owners was evident in an Oakland Tribune article two Sundays ago, which reported that police had to be called to break up disturbances outside of Geoffrey’s Inner Circle. (For the purpose of full disclosure, Geoffrey Pete is my cousin.) 

“A sideshow was reported around midnight Sunday morning at Club Planet Soule at 14th and Franklin streets,” the Tribune article reported. (Club Planet Soule is a venue inside Geoffrey’s Inner Circle.) “Police said Oakland-based rapper Too Short was performing at the venue, and his act attracted a crowd of at least 550 people. Several hundred others were standing outside the club and surrounding areas when the sideshows started. All of the city’s sideshow units were needed to silence the crowd, stop the reckless driving and lighten up traffic in the area. Shortly after the nightclub closed, sideshow activity resumed in the area.” The article reported that “sideshow activity” later spread to the Jack London Square area, and then out to High Street in East Oakland. 

But according to Mr. Pete, there was no “sideshow activity” outside of his club during the Too Short concert. 

In an open letter released in the week after the Tribune article appeared, Mr. Pete wrote that “the entire Too Short concert … was totally without incident. When capacity was reached at approximately 11:30, there was a line that numbered a maximum of 100 people who were informed that we had reached capacity and were no longer allowing entry. Within 15 minutes of said announcement approximately 70 percent of the individuals waiting in line dispersed while the other 30 percent lingered in hope of being admitted. There were not 200 people loitering outside. … There was no sideshow at anytime during the course of the evening. … If everything is a sideshow, then nothing is a sideshow, thus nullifying the very definition and accuracy of what a sideshow is. Any correlation between Geoffrey’s Inner Circle and sideshows is preposterous.” 

Mr. Pete has always been notoriously fussy about decorum and security at his club, which is a regular stopping ground for entertainers and sports figures when they come to Oakland, the modern replacement for the legendary Slim Jenkins’ club (one popular story—who knows how true it is—is that his security personnel once turned away a white guy who showed up at the club with a posse of enormous black men because the white guy had on sneakers and khaki pants; according to the story, Mr. Pete had to later explain to his security that the next time then-Warriors coach Don Nelson showed up at the door with team members, they should be allowed in regardless of how the coach’s attire violated the club’s dress code; apparently, the security men had not recognized Mr. Nelson).  

One would think, therefore, that both Mr. Pete and the Brown administration would have a common interest in a solution to the problems of holding violence-free downtown entertainment events. 

But maybe the problem is that Mr. Brown doesn’t really want these particular clubs in this particular area, and so has done little to help them out. 

This week, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross political columnists reported on an incident with the mayor outside of @17, a club near Telegraph Avenue not far from Sweet Jimmy’s (both @17 and Jimmy’s, just like Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, attract a predominantly African-American clientele). Mr. Brown had gone to the area of the club, apparently, to see what happened when the club let out for the night, and got there just after a disturbance had occurred. According to the Chronicle columnists, Mr. Brown reportedly remarked to a woman who had been injured in the disturbance “that is what happens when you come to a place like this.” When a friend of the injured woman said she asked the mayor “You really think that an innocent bystander who comes to a club deserves to get hit?” the friend says Mr. Brown replied, “What do you want us to do when you people come to a place like this?” 

It is not clear what Mr. Brown may have meant by “a place like this.” 

A Brown spokesperson denied in the column that this is the way the conversation went, but the column did not offer the mayor’s version of what was said. 

There has been trouble outside of downtown entertainment venues. But because of confused reports coming out of Tribune articles and the police department and the mayor’s office, it’s often hard to tell how much trouble is actually going on, how much of the actual trouble is the fault of the entertainment venues themselves, and how much of it is completely out of their control. 

Sorting all of that out is going to be one of the (many) unfinished tasks left by Mr. Brown for the new mayor to tackle. 

Although the closest I’ve been to Nepal is the Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park, I’ve come to like Nepalese food—at least as represented by Kathmandu on Solano Avenue and Little Nepal on Cortland Street in San Francisco. 

Nepal is a smallish country with a rich and varied culinary tradition, blending elements from North India, via the ruling Ranas, and Tibet, and big enough to have ethnic (like Sherpa and Gurkha) and regional specialties. The Nepalese appear to take their food seriously. One of the major temples, dedicated to the goddess Kali, has charcoal grills going all day so worshippers can turn their sacrificial chickens and goats into a picnic.  

So I had reasonable expectations for Mount Everest, a fairly new Nepalese restaurant at University and Shattuck. Otherwise, my dining partner and I encountered the place cold: no word of mouth, no reviews. As it turns out, the food at Mount Everest is really really good.  

I knew we were in reliable hands when the momos arrived. Momos, which entered Nepalese cuisine by way of Tibet, are the Tibetan avatar of the East/Central Asian stuffed dumpling family: shiu mai, har gow, and all the other dim sum variants; Japanese gyoza, Afghani mantwo, and so on. 

Watching the momo assembly line is one of the highlights of the Himalayan Fair. According to Rinjing Dorje’s Food in Tibetan Life, the over-talkative are reminded: “Keep your mouth like a momo”—that is, closed. Momos can be meat-filled or vegetarian; we had the veggie option, with a filling of minced cabbage, chiles, cilantro, and ginger. They came with a brick-orange dipping sauce, tart and moderately spiced and reminiscent of the sauce in the chicken dish I keep ordering at Little Nepal, which is a very good thing. 

What followed was equally satisfying. A lamb dish, beda ko choila from the Nepalese Specials section of the menu, consisted of little cubes of lamb, seared crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, which had been marinated in something interesting and cooked in a clay oven. Fresh ginger was also involved, and more of the orange sauce came with it. 

As if Nepalese wasn’t exotic enough, we also tried the Bhutanese chili chicken. It was only the second Bhutanese dish I’d ever run into, the first being something involving pork and cheese at a place in Seattle’s university district about five years ago, and my strongest memory of that meal is that I was hungry enough after a long drive back from the San Juans that I could have eaten curried styrofoam.  

In contrast to Nepal, which has been going through a bad patch lately—the palace massacre, the new king’s power grab, the Maoist insurgency—Bhutan is a small peaceful mostly-Buddhist kingdom with a thunder dragon on its flag and a government that has been trying to quantify the Gross National Happiness. Well, if the Bhutanese get to eat chili chicken a lot, I would think they would be reasonably happy. The marinated chicken appeared to have been stir-fried with chunks of red onion and fresh medium-hot chilis, a felicitous combination. 

But maybe they don’t. Copeland Marks, whose Indian & Chinese Cooking from the Himalayan Rim has a chapter on Bhutan, says chicken is mostly an elite dish there. Pork, with or without cheese, is more widely eaten, and so is yak. Marks says the cooking is big on onion, ginger, garlic, and chili, fresh or dried. (I’ve always wondered about Marks: is he a real person or just a front for a syndicate of globe-trotting cookbook writers? How could one guy be an authority on Indonesian, Malaysian, Burmese, Himalayan, Sephardic, Maghrebi, Guatemalan and Peruvian cooking? Good recipes, though.)  

On a second visit, at lunchtime, we experimented with fish and vegetable dishes, and both were winners. Macha ko sekuwa gets you two fat catfish steaks (in Nepal, this would have been carp) that had spent just enough time in the tandoori oven. Aloo baigun is a tasty combination of cooked-to-pieces eggplant and tender potatoes in a complicated spice mix.  

What else? Good garlic and onion-mint naans. Four Indian beers are available: we passed up Karma and the oddly Scandinavian-sounding Dansberg (brewed with Himalayan water, though) for the known-quantity Golden Eagle, a decent lager that goes well with the spicy stuff. There’s also the yogurt drink lassi, sweet or salty. No wine. 

Mount Everest is in a fairly large space (formerly a Burger King, then Curry in Hurry, then something else) sparsely decorated with Himalayan landscapes and prayer flags along with what look like the original BK booths. 

The rest of the menu includes tandoori dishes, basmati-rice biryanis, a respectable number of vegetarian choices, and Indian style desserts: kheer (rice pudding) and gulab jamun (doughballs in syrup). Service, friendly but not so attentive that it gets on your nerves, is a bit slower at lunchtime. Princes range from $4.99 for most of the vegetarian options to $8.99 for the fish and seafood dishes. 

Mount Everest 

2011 Shattuck Ave. 665-6035. 

Open 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday; noon-10 p.m. Sunday. Credit cards accepted.

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 

FILM 

Vantage Points: New Documentaries by Women “States of UnBelonging” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Issue of Icons Once Again” with Prof. Constantine Scouteris, University of Athens, at 7:30 p.m. at Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, 2311 Hearst Ave. 649-3450. 

Lola Vollen talks about “Surviving Justice: America’s Wrongly Convicted and Exonerated” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Orpheus Supertones with Walt Koken, Claire Milliner, Pete Peterson, and Kellie Allen at 8 p.m. in Berkeley near College and Ashby. Donation to performers $10-$20 sliding scale. For reservations and directions, please send an email to Cleoma@aol.com 

Creole Belles with Andrew Carriere at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Debbie Poryes & Friends at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazz- 

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

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 

FILM 

Latino Film Festival “Habana, Havana” at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $6. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Film 50: History of Cinema “East of Eden” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Edward Rutherford continues his history of Ireland in “The Rebels of Ireland” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Café Poetry hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Joshua Beckman and Matthew Rohrer, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with the Rimsky-Korsakov String Quartet at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Boradway. 444-3555. 

Dave Brubeck Quartet & Ramsey Lewis Trio at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$72. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Beyond Words: An Interfaith Ritual for Peace” A dance performance that transcends the barriers of words and dogma at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St. 540-7227. 

Calvin Keys Trio 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.  

Whiskey Brothers, old time and bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Blue Roots at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Lost and Found” Wearable art made from found or recycled materials, by NIAD and Piedmont High students. Reception at 5:30 p.m. at the NIAD Art Center, 551 23rd St., Richmond. www.niadart.org 

FILM 

Film and Video Makers at Cal at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Nahid Rachlin, Iranian-born writer, reads from her works at 5:30 p.m. at Mills Hall, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. Part of the Contemporary Writers Series. 430-2236. 

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

Greg Mortenson describes “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations One School at a Time” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Word Beat Reading Series with Jamey Genna and Jeffrey Grossman at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jewish Music Festival with Paul Dresher, Daniel David Feinsmith, Sarah Cahill and John Schott at 7:30 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, Berkeley Rep. Tickets are $22-$26. 415-276-1511. 

The Black Brothers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Cathy Felter Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

With River, Philip Rodriguez at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Glen Washington, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $20-$22. 548-1159.  

Jonathan Alford Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

FRIDAY, MARCH 17 

THEATER 

Central Works “Shadow Crossing” Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

Impact Theatre, “Hamlet” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 18. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

FILM 

Asian American Film Festival “Letter from an Unknown Woman” at 7 p.m. and “Linda Linda Linda” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tony Kushner in Conversation with Michael Krasney on Arthur Miller at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble and Combos Spring Jazz Concert at 7 p.m. at Florence Schwimley Little Theater, on the Berkeley High School campus. Tickets are $10, BHS students, teachers and staff free. 527-8245. 

Frederica Von Stade, mezzo soprano, with jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti at 8 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $125. Benefit for the Jazzschool. 845-5373. 

Junior Bach Festival at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $7-$12. 843-2224. 

Saoco, dance band mixture of reggae and ricos ritmos cubanos at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Blind Duck, traditonal Irish music at 7:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $4. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Hal Stein Quartet CD Release Party at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Stomp the Stumps Benefit for Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters with Gary Gates Band, Funky Nixons, Day Late Fool’s Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Blame Sally at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Darryl Henriques at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

George Cotsirilos Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Mariospeedwagon and Lemon Juju at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Instant Asshole, Skinned Alive, Dog Assassin at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Glen Washington, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $20-$22. 548-1159.  

Loretta Lynch, Oaktown country, Bob Wiseman & Leah Abramson at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

The San Pablo Project at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 18 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Orange Sherbert, songs for children, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

East Bay Children’s Theater, “Cinderella’s Glass Slipper” at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m at James Moore Theatre, Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Tickets are $7. 655-7285. 

“Strega Nona Festival” and ice cream social presented by Stagebridge Senior Theatre Company, based on characters from Tomie dePaola’s books, at 3 p.m. Sat. and Sun. at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison, at 27th St. Oakland. Tickets are $10 general, $5 children. www.stagebridge.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

New Works by Ben Belknap, Mike Simpson & Derek Weisberg. New expressions of the figure in ceramics, wood sculpture, and pen. Reception at 7 p.m. at M.C. Artworks Gallery, 10344 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 703- 6621. 

THEATER 

“Oracles From the Living Tarot” at 2 and 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Tickets are $20-$30. Benefit for Magical Arts Ritual Theater. 523-7754. www.ticketweb.com 

FILM 

Asian American Film Festival “Memories in the Mist” at 4:40 p.m., “Punching at the Sun” at 7 p.m. and “Citizen Dog” at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Buddhism at Dunhuang” Panel discussions on the manuscripts and artifacts found at the cave site, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Toll Room, Alumni House, UC Campus. 642-2809. http://ieas.berkeley.edu/events/dunhuang 

Poetry Flash with Andrew Zawacki, Andrew Joron, Maxine Chernoff and Gelorge Albon and others at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Parlor Tango, Argentine Tango music composed between 1910 and 1950, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. bet. Durant and Bancroft. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. http://trinity 

chamberconcerts.com 

Bach Collegium Japan at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. TIckets are $42. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jillian Khuner, soprano, in a benefit recital for the Berkeley Community Chorus, at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $30, includes reception. 601-1718, 549-1336.  

Noitada Brasileira “The Carnivals of Brazil” with Dandara, Beto Guimaraes, and Bateria Lucha at 8 p.m. at The Beat, Eddie Brown Center for the Arts, 2560 9th St. Tickets are $15-$20. 548-5348. 

Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20-$32. 642-4864.  

“Jazz at the Chimes” with Vince Wallace at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Donation of $15 requested. 228-3207. 

Annie Sprinkle in “A Public Cervix Announcement” with drummers, dancers and singers at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $20-$35. 925-798-1300. 

Robin Gregory and her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. 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  

Jesu Diaz y su QBA, Cuban Timba music at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Pillows, She Mob and David Enos at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

The Ravines and Dave Lionelli at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Melanie O’Reilly & Aising Ghear at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Sol Bebelz, The Attik, Ill Adapted at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886.  

Kudisan Kai at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Eric Muhler Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Steve Smulian at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Sonando Quintet An Afro-Caribbean Tribute to Stevie Wonder at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 19 

CHILDREN 

Charity Kahn & The Jamband at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

“Illustrating Nature” A family workshop on biological illustrattions from the exhibition “The Art of Seeing: Nature Revealed Through Illustration” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Phenomenal Photogaphy” A family workshop on creating a photo transfer inspired by the exhibition of Edward Weston’s photography from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

THEATER 

Culture Clash’s “Zorro in Hell” A Benefit for KPFA and the Middle East Children’s Alliance at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St., followed by reception. Tickets are $75. 548-0542. www.mecaforpeace.org 

FILM 

“China’s Contemporary Documentary Films” from 11:15 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $5 per screening. 643-6321. www.ticketweb.com 

Asian American Film Festival “Grain in Ear” at 4:45 p.m., “Walk Like a Dragon” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Java and Bali: Art, Religion, and Folk Tradition” A lecture with Joseph Fischer at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6151. 

Poetry Flash with Kurt Brown and Geoffrey Brock at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

Island Literary Series, jazz and poetry at 3 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $2-$4. 841-JAZZ. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Mozart and the Search for the Missing Children” a concert at 4 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. Tickets are $15-$20. Benefit for Pro Busqueda, a non-governmental organization in El Salvador whose mission is to locate children who had been abducted by the Salvadoran military during the war, from 1980 - 1992. 650-579-5568.  

Junior Bach Festival at 3:30 p.m. at the Crowden Music Center and at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $7-$12. 843-2224. 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra “Bernstein Bash” at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way.  

Cantible Chorale “Mass Transit” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $6-$25. www.cantabile.org  

University Chorus and Chamber Chorus “St. Matthew Passion” at 5 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $$5-$15. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Organ Music with David Hunsberger at 4 p.m. at St. Johns, 2727 College Ave. Donation of $15 requested. Reception follows. 845-6830. 

Marvin Sanders, flute, Lena Lubotsky, piano at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Tickets are $10. 644- 6893. 

Dick Hindman, jazz pianist, at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina Ave., at W. Richmond Ave., Point Richmond. $10 suggested donation. 236-0527. www.pointrichmond.com/methodist 

Jewish Music Festival with Yahudice at 7:30 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, Berkeley Rep. Tickets are $22-$26. 415-276-1511. 

Jon Fromer at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Tina Marzell and her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Four Schillings Short at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Bay Area Middle School Jazz Showcase at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $5-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Bob Marley Student Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at the Jazz- 

school. Free. 845-5373.  

April Verch at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Look Back and Laugh, The Pedestrians at 2 p.m. and Park and Amity at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, MARCH 20 

THEATER 

Woman’s Will’s 24-Hour Playfest at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25. 420-0813. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“China’s Contemporary Documentary Films” Panel discussion at 4 p.m. at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Flr. 643-6321.  

Story Tells, a storytelling swap, at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square, Oakland.  

Elizabeth Kolbert describes “Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Poetry Express with Tom Odegard at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sista Kee aka Kito Gamble CD release concert at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s. Tickets are $10-$15. 238-9200.  

Zilber-Muscarella Quartet & Invitational at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198. ª

You can buy a toy helicopter at the Dollar Store, but Ten Red Hen Productions has beaten that price and delivered the goods in the form of The 99-cent Miss Saigon at the Willard Middle School Metalshop Theater, with much, much more (although the program c over displays a tiny ‘copter propelled by big chopsticks into a wide-open mouth as its proud logo). 

“99-cent” refers to the stripped-down look of this splendid on-the-cheap production, not the suggested donation (a sliding scale that starts at movie rates but “no one turned away”). It has the feel, the real value of a rich, glitz-free show. “As a director of mostly experimental and community based theater, I wanted to see what would happen if I took a big musical and did it without even the pretense of production values,” writes Ten Red Hen’s Maya Gurantz in the program notes, “to do the Broadway musical without the Broadway.” To make it doubly problematic, Gurantz and her able cohorts have taken what’s “essentially, a splashy rockin’ musical about sexual exploitation during the Vietnam War,” and turned it into a running series of pointed, if unvoiced, questions about the spectacle of it all, without losing a penny of entertainment value. It’s great, heady fun, a showcase of talent and exuberance. 

The dozen-member cast troops through the sometimes cynical, sometimes maudlin Madame Butterfly story, which “veers from white male colonialist fantasy to fairly accurate social critiques and back again.” Some double as musicians in the on-the-floor “pit.” M usical Director and pianist Dave Malloy plays Chris, the male lead (a Marine from the American Embassy, who finds love—where else?—in a brothel), at one point playing the keyboard with one hand while pantomiming a phonecall to his buddy John (George Michael, an excellent vocalist.) He confesses to being bit by the lovebug, only to be told to hustle back to the Embassy as the capital falls to the North Viets. 

Brittany Bexton, a recent Pacific Conservatory graduate, ups the ante as a triple threat: a fine-singing Ellen (Chris’s stateside wife, clueless at first about Chris’s ‘Dalliance En Nam’), a clarinetist and a tap-dancing cheerleader during a fantasy song by The Engineer, a pimp played with gusto by Mark Romyn: “I’m too good for small-time hustles/Wha t’s that smell in the air?/The American Dream!” A brassy blonde, Fred Astaire and The Statue of Liberty on roller skates fill out this chorus extolling what The States holds in trust for the wretched of the earth. 

In the midst of a plethora of 99-cent ef fects, the lid of Malloy’s upright piano plays multiple roles. It serves as an elevated playing area, and then is slammed down for the sound of gunshots: the first when the heroine shoots, with pointed finger, her menacing cousin Thuy, played by Erick Ca sanova, who both sings and moves well as this pathetic villain who comes back to haunt in dreams. Finally, it’s the top to a cradle for the balloon-headed bundle that somehow perfectly signifies the love-child of Marine and bargirl. Later, there’s a rus h of balloons for all the children dashing hopefully to safety as the—yes—toy helicopter takes off with the Embassy’s charges.  

The biggest ovation by rights goes to lead Jane Chen, as Kim, the young woman fleeing her devastated village, lost in the ste ws of the big city, later transformed into a courtesan with an almost hieroglyphic leer, as she waits for word of Chris in Bangkok, caring for their son. A very talented comedienne, trained in physical theater, Chen toured the country with her brilliant o ne-woman show, The Chinese Clown Cabaret, also directed by Gurantz, her friend from Yale. In The 99-Cent Miss Saigon, she extends the deft touch she showed in comic vaudeville to an exceptional dramatic portrayal, singing and acting out a role that’s obse ssed her since seventh grade.  

“Jane found there was a difference between singing Kim’s songs, and having to play Kim, who is written so often as a stereotype,” comments Gurantz. “And yet...the possibilities of magic contained in the show kept me enthralled—I didn’t want to make it a satire. That would be too easy.” Chen ends the notes with, “What you see tonight is a combination of what we have found in the musical, and what we decided to make our own.” 

All this is staged with brio—very much their own—in the industrial multi-purpose room that was once Willard School’s Metalshop, which Ten Red Hen is helping to convert into a black box theater for school and community use: the Metalshop Theater Project (for info, contact drama teacher George_Rose@berkel ey.k12.ca.us). The program itself is worth at least 99 cents; the plot is clearly and helpfully laid out, followed by a cost breakdown: “How Much Does A 99-Cent Show Cost, Anyway?” 

“A lot, surprisingly,” is the answer (though special effects, “including, variously, beet juice and balloons,” came in at $100.) The conclusion: “it is more expensive to make a show ‘look’ cheap ... than to just have a mish-mash of some nice and some poor things ... brought in from cast and crew closets ...” As at least one R ed Hen from the fairy tale could tell you, sometimes the nicest gifts come in the plainest packages. 

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This year’s SFJAZZ Spring Season 2006, which jumps the gun on spring this Friday, March 17 and continues through June 17, offers nearly 50 imaginatively conceived programs in venues all over San Francisco. The events take place at beautiful locations like the Palace of the Legion of Honor’s Florence Gould Theatre where admission to the museum is included in the ticket price, Grace Cathedral, the War Memorial Opera House, the Masonic Center, the Great American Music Hall, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, and Herbst Theatre with its magnificent autumnal (thus Herbst) murals by Sir Frank Brangwyn. Besides straight ahead musical performances that range through mainstream, New Orleans, avant-garde, Latin, African and Bulgarian music, there are also classes, pre-concert talks, jam sessions, films and cartoons that can broaden and enhance the experience of the music. The following eight shows are just the cream of a consistently great festival: 

Saturday, March 18, 8 p.m., Masonic Center: Eartha Kitt, a five-foot four-inch giant, was an illegitimate child from South Carolina who transformed herself into an international singing and dancing star. She made films, was friends with Orson Welles and James Dean, had hit records including “Santa Baby,” sang in a dozen languages, was the second Catwoman on television’s Batman, wrote three autobiographies with no ghost, and was twice nominated for Tony’s, most recently for her powerful performance in 2000 in The Wild Party based on the brutal poetic masterpiece by Joseph Moncure March. Never chary of offering her opinion, she found herself blacklisted in 1968 because of anti-war statements she made at a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson. Although she seemed to be going down in flames, she fooled everyone and persisted until she was reborn phoenix-like from those very flames. Still going strong at 79, she is a living legend. 

Saturday, April 1, 8 p.m., Palace of Fine Arts Theatre: Alto saxophonist, flutist and composer Henry Threadgill is the last survivor of the classic free jazz trio Air. His current group Zooid mixes jazz, blues, gospel, funk, marching band, Middle Eastern, classical and tango elements to address the mythic themes that inspire Threadgill to create his freely improvised but intricately structured pieces. This acoustic band includes guitar, cello, oud, tuba and drums plus Henry’s horns. Although his composition and playing is eccentric, it proceeds from a particularly interesting mind, one that can play at the edges of freedom and come back with something deliriously lyrical and timeless.  

Friday, April 28, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Randy Weston studied with Thelonious Monk at Monk’s apartment in the late 1940s. He plays closer to Monk’s manner than any other jazz pianist, but with his own personal rhythmic and harmonic take on that style. For the last 45 years he has applied it to his study and work with African musicians following a long residence in Morocco in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. To celebrate his 80th birthday, he brings the Gnawa Master Musicians of Morocco with him to this year’s festival to combine the power of Islamic Sufi mysticism with the jazz musicians’ voodoo mysticism.  

Sunday, April 30, 7 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Dewey Redman brings his quartet to town to help celebrate his 75th birthday. The big-toned Oklahoma tenor saxophonist became well-known as a sidekick of Ornette Coleman’s and solidified his position as a major player with his group Old and New Dreams. He also has a claim to fame as the father of tenor saxophonist Josh Redman. Like his old friends Charlie Haden and Don Cherry, he loves to bring together funky blues, muscular bebop and free-form jazz with innovative sounds from world music. 

Saturday, May 6, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Kenny Barron and Danilo Pérez offer up dueling jazz piano trios. In this corner, Danilo Pérez, 40-year old Panamanian piano wizard wearing maroon trunks; and in this corner, Kenny Barron, one of the greatest living jazz musicians who has spent the last half century playing with everyone from Lionel Hampton, Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Scott, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy and Tootie Heath, John Lewis, Milt Jackson, James Moody, Benny Golson, Abbey Lincoln, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, Roy Haynes, Johnny Griffin, Elvin Jones, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden, Marion Brown, John Hicks and Chico Freeman to Teresa Brewer, Maria Muldaur, Manhattan Transfer, Larry Coryell, Jane Monheit, Regina Carter, Paquito D’Rivera and Danilo Perez. The reason they all want to work with him is because he is remarkable. 

Sunday, May 14, 7 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Jimmy Scott has an intuitive mastery of phrasing the likes of which has not been heard since Billie Holiday or Mabel Mercer. The timbre of his unique voice drips with smoke, romance, heartbreak and androgyny. A perfect fit for Mother’s Day.  

Saturday, June 10, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Savion Glover is the greatest living tap dancer because he is the most innovative and contemporary. The last time he was in the area, at the Marin Center Veterans Memorial Auditorium in November, he presented a program of tapping to the classics. This could easily have been effete, but Savion had me convinced during Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, K.136, that he was right and everyone else had missed Mozart’s rhythmic and percussive genius. His remarkable grace, energy and improvisational genius are not to be missed. 

Sunday, June 11, 7 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Alto saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, a child prodigy in his native Cuba, went on to be a founding member of Irakere. After defecting in 1980, he moved to New York and was soon playing with Dizzy Gillespie, a musician who adored Cuban music and was adored in Cuba. Paquito, who brings his quintet to the festival, is certainly the greatest Latin alto player of all time, combining Cuban roots, bebop and his own personal lyricism.  

ª

A passion for beauty impels Changming Meng to create his ink paintings on paper, 20 of which are on view in the public areas of UC’s Institute of East Asian Studies through March 24. The overall effects of these expressive reductive works—in the artist’s 51st solo exhibition!—are twofold. They free viewers of their preconceptions, cleansing their eyes and spirits, and they nourish them with a fresh energy, not just for confronting art, but life, as well.  

Born in 1961, Meng began at the age of five to study traditional Chinese calligraphy. Later he simultaneously studied the disciplines of socialist realism and traditional Chinese painting at the Nanjing Art School. The curriculum, as a matter of course, also included calligraphy and martial arts.  

The profound spirituality that Meng experienced during a sojourn of six months in Tibet awakened in him a sense that here was the authentic source of Chinese culture. It also awakened him to the limitations of socialist realism, influencing him to abandon it as a mode of expression for himself while he painted two hundred abstractions. Of this period Meng comments that his response to Tibet was what he imagines Paul Gauguin must have felt when he visited Tahiti, feelings that the French artist conveys in Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? During the following years Meng traveled intermittently throughout China. “Your culture,” he learned, “runs in your blood.”  

The artist then spent two years (1987-1989) reading the works of weste rn philosophers and novelists, favoring, in particular, German philosophy and French literature. He waxes enthusiastic about philosophers Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche and novelists James Joyce and Marcel Proust, as much for the challenges they po se to his own attitudes as for the insights they offer to the human condition. 

In 1990, Meng, having only three phrases in English and 80 dollars in his pocket, moved to the United States. Commercial success gave him the means to travel. Everywhere he we nt—Greece, Egypt, Russia, France, Israel, the United States, Kenya, Sudan, etc.—he visited art museums, adding to his personal visual encyclopedia. In America he was particularly drawn to the works of Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.  

From 1996 to 20 00 he painted his Heaven and Earth series, which was characterized by eclecticism in materials, imagery and forms. He paused to reflect, concluding that the Heaven and Earth series was too philosophical. Simply put, “Art is not philosophy.” Its proper con cern is beauty and he wants to make art that is original with himself and organic in spirit. “There is too much mechanical stuff in contemporary art,” he says. 

He turned to the traditional materials, imagery and forms of his Chinese heritage. A solo exhi bition at the National Museum of China in Nanjing in 2001 at the age of 41 made him the youngest artist as yet so honored  

Upon entering the exhibition space, a visitor sees two vertical panels whose abstract forms, in black, gray and red on white repres ent lotuses and goldfish in a pond. An essential lesson, when looking at this art, is to recognize that white space is not empty. In these panels, as elsewhere, it is essential to the overall composition—as much as the white space on a printed page of a p oem by Stéphane Mallarmé. Symbolically, Meng uses red to represent human life, black to represent earth, and white to represent the sky.  

Happy Fish, for all the ostensible naïeveté of its title, is a compositional tour de force with vertical red strokes ascending the right-hand side of the panel—Meng painted them intuitively to suggest an infinite number of fish—and one black stroke in a broad band of white on the left-hand side. Painting it was “like writing a poem,” he says. As with his other works, i t told him “when it was finished.”  

In Lotus No. 4 fish appear to be channeling themselves between two black forms. The composition was not so important to Meng in painting this work as was the spirit of play. This spirit predominates in other works usin g abstracted fish imagery, as well. Two mostly black Ink Works, dating from 2004, though non-referential abstractions convey muscular tension, bringing to mind some of the works of Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning. Expressionism also characterizes Fish, a very complexly composed work in red, black, gray and white that looks like reductive music made visible. (Music of Mozart, in fact, accompanies Meng as he works in his studio.) In four works on view, Meng has appropriated images from Henri Matisse: an odalisque, of course; a woman in puffy sleeves; two women in a patio with a guitar; and a still life of fish bowls. The artist explains: “I want ordinary people to be able to enjoy what is in museums and private collections.” Other vertical panels, with the addition of green ink, suggest gourds and vines. The most mirthful painting exhibited is Crane No. 1 crowded with solid black images of long-necked waterfowl. Their startling red eyes are essential to the synesthetic experience of their squaking. It is no coincidence that the artist, his wife and two sons live near Oakland’s Lake Merritt. Thus the incidents of everyday life, unique and organic, nourish the inspiration of Changming Meng. ªt

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 

Empty Bowls Dinner Benefit for Alameda County Community Food Bank. Enjoy a bowl of soup and a handmade soup bowl to take home at 5:30 p.m. at at LOCATION. Tickets are $15, or $30 for a family of four. 653-3663, ext. 328. 

“The Invaded Estuary: Exotic Species in San Francisco Bay” with Andrew Cohen of the San Francisco Estuary Institute at 5:30 p.m. at the Goldman School of Public Policy, Room 250, corner of Hearst and LeRoy, UC Campus. 642-2666. 

“A Forgotten Resistance: The Mosque of Paris” A documentary by Derri Berkani at 7:30 p.m. in the Homeroom, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Dr. Annette Herskovits, who survived the holocaust as a child in France thanks to a clandestine rescue network, will present the film. 

“Guatemala: The Struggle to End Impunity” with Aisha Brown of NISGUA’s Guatemala Accompaniment Project at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $5-$10, no one turned away. 415-924-3227. 

“Mental Training for the Endurance Athlete” with former professional triathlete Terri Schneider at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Design and Print T-Shirts Workshop with Alliance Graphics in conjunction with the Berkeley Youth Arts Festival from 3 to 5 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Also on Wed. Registration required. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

American Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Tau Beta Pi, Leroy St., next to Soda Hall, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVELIFE. www.BeADonor.com 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Spring Decluttering Organize your mind, home, office and life at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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. 

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

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. 

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. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about the water cycle, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Bird Walk on Mt. Wanda led by Park Ranger Cheryl Able. Meet at 8:30 a.m. at the Park and Ride lot at the corner of Alhabra Ave. and Franklin Canyon Rd., Martinez. Wear sturdy shoes and bring water and binoculars. Rain cancels. 925-228-8860. 

Great Decisions Foreign Policy Association Lecture “Energy” with Prof. Daniel Kammen, UCB, at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Cost is $40 for the eight lecture series. 526-2925. 

Sugar Bowl Casino Public Hearing on the Draft EIS for the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indian Casino at Richmond Parkway at 6 p.m. at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. This is a chance for all East Bay residents concerned about the impact of the casino to be heard. 271-0640, ext. 103.  

“Ommissions and Distortions in the 9/11 Commission Report” Films by David Ray Griffin at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation of $5. 

“Lead-Safe Painting & Remodeling” Free introductory class to learn about lead safe renovations for your older home, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Tool Lending Library 1901 Russell St. Presented by Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org 

“Top Ten Healing Foods” a lecture, cooking demonstration and meal from 2 to 5 p.m. at Bauman College, 901 Grayson St., Ste. 201. Cost is $15. Registration required. 540-7041. 

American Red Cross Blood Drive from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Mills College Student Union, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVELIFE. www.BeADonor.com 

Parents and Providers Childcare discussion at 6:30 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. To register call 658-7853. www.bananasinc.org  

Basic Balkan Singing Workshop led by Juliana Graffagna, Wed. evenings in March at 7:30 p.m. at KITKA/Children’s Advocates, 1201 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, at 12th, Oakland. Cost for the series is $60. Registration encouraged. 444-0323. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters welcomes curious guests and new members at 7:15 a.m. at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. at Milvia. 435-5863.  

Entrepreneurs Networking at 8 a.m. at A’Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcatraz. Cost is $5. For more information contact JB, 562-9431.  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton 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. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

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

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about the water cycle, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“The Making of a Wildlife Refuge” Leora Feeney will describe the current efforts on the site of the former US Navy Air Station at the western end of Alameda. At 7:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Sponsored by the Golden Gate Audubon Society. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

“Reflections Ten Years After the Vision Fire” at Point Reyes, with Jennifer Chapman of the National Park Service, at 12 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Women’s Rights, Warlords and the US Occupation of Afghanistan” with 27-year old Afghan Parliamentarian, Malalai Joya at 4 p.m. in Room 270, Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. www. 

afghanwomensmission.org 

“China-Silenced” a KQED/ 

Frontline documentary on the Uighurs at 7:30 p.m. at International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $5. 642-9460. 

Corporate Accountability International Tap Water Challenge Taste the difference between expensive between bottled water and tap water at 11 a.m. at Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. 310-562-5017. 

Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, will speak to the striking workers at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Honda, Parker and Shattuck. 548-9334. 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets at 7:30 p.m. in the LeConte School cafeteria. Agenda items include recent crime patterns and the new Community Crime View web site, Black & White Liquor restrictions and Neighborhood Watch. KarlReeh@aol.com 

Living with Ones and Twos at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Donation of $4 suggested. To register call 658-7853. www.bananasinc.org  

“Benevolence, Compassion, Joyousness and Equanimity” with Mudagamuwe Maithri- 

murthi, Visiting Lecturer of Buddhist Studies, at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. Sponsored by the Center for Buddhist Studies. http://ieas.berkeley.edu/ 

Berkeley Public Library’s Teen Services invite teen readers to come and discuss classic and contemporary science fiction and fantasy titles, at 4 p.m. at the Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6133. 

“Spice it Nice: Culinary Secrets” at 5:30 p.m. at Parmaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

Historical & Current Times Book Group meets on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1249 Marin Ave. 548-4517. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 17 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Pierre Miege on “Social Pressures in China.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 665-9020.  

“Transparency in Government” A workshop for citizens on the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at San Lorenzo Community Hall, 377 Paseo Grande, San Lorenzo. Sponsored by the Leagues of Women Voters of Alameda County. Cost is $20-$25. For reservations call 538-9678. lwvsun@comcast.net 

“Darfur Diaries” Film and discussion with filmmaker Adam Shapiro at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Part of the Conscientious Projector film series. Donation $5 and up, no one turned away. 528-5403. 

Berkeley Chess School classes for students in grades 1-8 from 5 to 7 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave., room 17. 843-0150. 

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

Women in Black Vigi noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 18 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7-12 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Restore Rare Coastal Prarie in Richmond Volunteers are needed to assist in this on-going effort to restore a portion of West Stege marsh, its surrounding uplands, and adjacent grassland, on the University of California’s Richmond Field Station. To register and far directions call 665-3689. www.thewatershedproject.org 

Bay-Friendly Gardening Basics This workshop provides an overview of design and maintenance considerations to help you make smart choices in the nursery. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. Free, registration required. 444-7645. www.BayFriendly.org  

Berkeley Elementary School Resource Fair for parents at 10 a.m. at LeConte Elementary School, 2241 Russell St. Fair includes information about Berkeley summer camps, children’s sports leagues and financial aid, free consultations with lawyers and healthcare experts and information about Berkeley Special Education services. Spanish translation and refreshments provided. 883-5244. 

Shamrock Day at Habitot Children’s Museum Green art activities and a hunt for hidden pots of gold from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with music at 3:30 p.m. at 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

March and Rally “Stop the War on Iraq!” on the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq at 11 a.m. at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza. 415-821-6545. www.actionsf.org 

“Tibet in Pictures” An educational presentation by Tamdin Wangdu of the Tibetan Village Project, at 3 p.m. at Tibet Books and Design, 1201C Solano Ave., Albany. Please RSVP as seating is limited. 525-1989. 

Lead-Safety for Remodeling, repair and painting of older homes. AHUD & EPA approved class held in Oakland from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. To register, call Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class Journey to India from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $45. Register in advance online at www.compassionatecooks.com 531-COOK.  

East Bay Atheists meets to discuss “Fundamentalism and Communication” at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd floor meeting room. 222-7580. 

“Breastapalooza” A Breast Health Fair for young women from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Alta Bates Summit Health Education Center, 400 Hawthorne Rd., Oakland. To register call 1-800-870-8705. 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meets at 9:15 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Sproul Conference Room, 1st Floor, 2727 College Ave. www.berkeleycna.com 

“Real Estate Investing” A free seminar from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Berkeley Association of Relators, 1553 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Berkeley Rep’s Teen Theater Conference from 1 to 5:45 p.m. at Berkeley Rep School of Theater, 2071 Addison St. 647-2971. www.berkeleyrep.org 

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. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Palznag and Pema Gellek on “Cutting Off Negative Thoughts” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

SUNDAY, MARCH 19 

Brooks Island Boating Voyage Paddle the rising tides across the Richmond Harbor Channel to Brooks Island. For experienced boaters who can provide their own canoe or kayak, and safety gear. Parent participation required. Ages 14 and up. Cost is $20-$22. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Spring in the Garden Celebrate the season by preparing the garden for warmer weather and learn about local butterflies, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Richmond Museum of History inaugurates a new museum on board the Red Oak Victory Ship at 2 p.m. at the end of Canal Blvd, Richmond. Reception and tour of the ship included. Coast is $5. 222-9200. 

Berkeley Cyber Salon with bloggers and podcasters, moderated by Andrew Keen, founder of the AfterTV.com podcast, at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Donation of $10 requested. 559-9774. 

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

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 

“Illustrating Nature” A family workshop on biological illustrattions from the exhibition “The Art of Seeing: Nature Revealed Through Illustration” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Phenomenal Photography” A family workshop on creating a photo transfer inspired by the exhibition of Edward Weston’s photography from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Parent First Aid & Emergency Care for Babies at 4 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Cost is $30, $50 for couples. To register call 658-7853. www.bananasinc.org 

“Spinoza, Maria and Excommunication” a reading of Rabbi Milton Matz’s play at Kol Hadash Sunday Brunch at 10 a.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Donation of $5 requested. 

Alexander Technique for Pain Free Necks at 11:30 a.m. at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Yoga and Meditation Every Sun. in March from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

MONDAY, MARCH 20 

Gold Star Mother Celeste Zappala from Philadelphia will speak at an Interfaith Service “Remembrance and Resistance: The Third Anniversary of the Iraq War” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. 848-3696, ext 20. 

Spring Equinox Gathering at 5:45 to 6:45 p.m. at the Interim Solar Calendar, Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. 

American Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at MLK Student Union, 5th Floor Tilden Room, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVELIFE.  

“How to Expand Your Mind- Body Connection” Bring your grocery receipts and learn how to phase in new eating habits at 5:30 pm. in the Rose Room at Mercy Retirement Center, 3431 Foothill Blvd., Oakland. Cos tis $30 or $120 for the entire series. 534-8547, ext. 666. 

World Affairs Discussion Group for seniors at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center. Cost is $2.50.  

McGee Avenue Toastmasters meets at 7:30 p.m. at McGee Ave Baptist Church, 1640 Stuart St. 501-7005. 

Free Business Loan and Business Plan Writing Boot Camp Mon. and Fri. from 9 a.m. to noon at 519 17th St., 2nd Floor, Ste. 200, Oakland, through March 31. 395-6003. 

ONGOING 

Free Tax Help—United Way’s Earn it! Keep It! Save It! program provides free filing assistance to households that earned less than $38,000 in 2005. To find a free tax site near you, call 800-358-8832 or visit www.EarnitKeepitSaveit.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Mar. 15, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601.  

Commission on Aging meets Wed., Mar. 15, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344.  

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Mar. 15 at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Delfina M. Geiken, 981-7550.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. Mar. 15 at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed. Mar. 15, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Kristen Lee, 981-5427.  

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed. March 15, at 7 p.m. at South Berkeley Senior Center., Jackie Y. Griffin, 981-6195.  

School Board meets Wed., March 15, at 7:30 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. 644-6320. 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., Mar. 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Disaster Council meets Wed., Mar. 16, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. 981-5502.  

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Prasanna Rasaih, 981-6950.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7000. ª

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “The Master Builder” Wed. through Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through March 12. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Central Works “Shadow Crossing” Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381.  

Impact Theatre, “Hamlet” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 18. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468.  

Traveling Jewish Theater “Family Alchemy” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through March 12. Tickets are $12-$35. 415-522-0786.  

UCB Dept. of Theater, “Seven Lears” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun at 2 p.m. at the Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. TIckets are $8-$14. 642-9925.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Three Figure Painters” works by Prabin Badhia, Steve Skaar, and Inna Jane Ray. Reception at 6 p.m. at Nexus Gallery, 2707 Eighth St. 655-7374. 

FILM 

The Wide Angle Cinema of Michael Brault “Orders” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

New Orleans Zine Reading A benefit and book release event for “Stories Care Forgot,” at 7 p.m. at Rock Paper Scissors Collective, 2278 Telegraph Ave. 238-9171. 

Anthony Hawley & Tanya Brolaski, poets at 8 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Leo Kottke in a solo concert at 8 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $30. 642-9988.  

“Pacific Arts Trio” at 8 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington, Kensington. Tickets are $15 at the door. 843-7745. 

“KITKA: Stories From Chernobyl,” A Celebration of Survival at 8 p.m. at Bishop O’Dowd High School, 9500 Stearns Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20. www.bishopodowd.org 

Rafael Manriquez in a musical tribute to women songwriters and poets from the Americas at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568.  

The Jazz Express Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Native Elements and Razorblade at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. 

Jill Knight, singer-songwriter, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

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

Bobbe Norris with the Larry Dunlap Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

DJ & Brook at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Steve Taylor, songwriter for Cowpokes for Peace, at 7 p.m. at A Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. Oakland. 420-0196.  

Whiskey Sunday, Love Songs, Pink Black at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Swoop Unit at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 11 

FILM 

The Wide Angle Cinema of Michael Brault “Drifting Upstream” at 6:30 p.m. and “Good Riddance” at 9:05 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Youth of Colored Ink, in coordination with Berkeley Art Center’s Youth Arts Festival, open mic at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893.  

“Still Present Pasts” A collaborative exhibition on Korean Americans and the “Forgotten War” Artists’ talk at 1 p.m. at Pro Arts, 550 Second St., Oakland. 763-4361. 

Chris Hedges and Hamza Yusuf discuss “Does God Love War? The Fine Line Between Faith and Fanatacism” at 7 p.m. at Martin Luther King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Recorder Performances at 11 a.m. at A Cheerfull Noyse, 1228 Solano Ave., Albany. 524-0411. 

Maria del Mar & Monica Salmaso at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$40. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jewish Music Festival with Septeto Rodrigues and Irving Fields at 8 p.m. at the First Congregational Church Oakland. Tickets are $22-$26. 415-276-1511. 

Mexican Mariachi Fest featuring Juanita Ulloa, at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

Gaucho, gypsy jazz, at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Babtunde Lea Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Waybacks at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

David Rovics with Attila the Stockbrocker, Ryan Harvey and Folk This, in a benefit for the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans at 7:30 p.m. at AK Press, 674-A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. 

Stephen Swiss & Peter Frankel, Latin jazz funk fusion, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7 per family. 558-0881. 

Chase Michaels at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Sila & The Afrofunk Experience at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Bobbe Norris with the Larry Dunlap Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Jared Karol and Cas Lucas at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Plan 9, Monster Squad, Static Thought, Cell Block 5 at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $3. 525-9926. 

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

SUNDAY, MARCH 12 

FILM 

Irish Film Festival at 3 and 6 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Wide Angle Cinema of Michael Brault “Chronicle of a Summer” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ken Foster offers a memoir and guidebook “The Dogs Who Found Me” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Flash with Kate Braverman and Diane di Prima at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

Elaine Taylor will speak on the feminist aspects in the suspense novel “Final Betrayal” at 2 p.m. at Change Makers, 6536 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 655-2405.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Songs Against the War: Voices of Anti-warriors” with Barbara Dane and the San Francisco Mime Troupe Band, in honor of the Veterans and Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Veterans for Peace at 1 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High School, 1980 Allston Way. Reception follows. Tickets are $35. 582-7699. www.alba-valb.org 

Organ Recital by Jonathan Dimmock at 6:10 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Donations accepted. 845-0888.  

Sounds New Contemporary American classic music at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Donation $10-$15. 524-2912.  

Takács Quartet, chamber music, at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Pre-concert talk at 2 p.m. Tickets are $42. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Masters of Persian Classical Music at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988.  

Jewish Music Festival with Cantors Alberto Mizrahi and Jack Mendelson at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Sinai, 2808 Summit St., Oakland. Tickets are $22-$26. 415-276-1511. 

Chamber Music, featuring Karla Donehew, violin, and Miles Graber, piano, at 4 p.m. at the Crowden Music Center Rose at Sacramento. Tickets are $12, children free. 559-2941. www.crowdenmusiccenter.org 

College of Alameda Jazz Band at 2 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Free, families welcome. 748-2213. 

All-request Beatles Sing-a-Long Fundraiser at 6 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. All proceeds will go to benefit The Future Leaders Institute. Donation $10, with $10 donation per song. 649-9878. www. 

thefutureleadersinstitute.org  

Carlos Oliveira and Brazilian Origins, featuring Harvey Wainapel, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Steve Erquiga & Brian Pardo at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Chris Hillman & Herb Pedersen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Vintage Tea Dance with Frederick Hodges at 2 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Gift Horse at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Shook Ones, Legit at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, MARCH 13 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Lost and Found” Wearble art made from found or recycled materials, by NIAD students with disablities and Piedmont High students, opens at the NIAD Art Center, 551 23rd St., Richmond. www.niadart.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Mark Anthony Thomas will read from “The Poetic Repercussion: A Poetic & Musical Narrative” at 3 p.m. at MLK Student Union, #4504, UC Campus. 642-9000. 

“Painting on Location in Italy and Mexico” A slide lecture with Anthony Holdsworth at 6:30 p.m. at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8, includes reception. 843-2527. www.accigallery.org 

Poetry Express with Mary Milton at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Adama Purim Party at 6:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Zilber-Muscarella Quartet & Invitational at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Parlor Tango at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 

FILM 

Vantage Points: New Documentaries by Women “States of UnBelonging” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Issue of Icons Once Again” with Prof. Constantine Scouteris, University of Athens, at 7:30 p.m. at Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, 2311 Hearst Ave. 649-3450. 

Lola Vollen talks about “Surviving Justice: America’s Wrongly Convicted and Exonerated” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Orpheus Supertones with Walt Koken, Claire Milliner, Pete Peterson, and Kellie Allen at 8 p.m. in Berkeley near College and Ashby. Donation to performers $10-$20 sliding scale. For reservations and directions, please send an email to Cleoma@aol.com 

Creole Belles with Andrew Carriere at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Debbie Poryes & Friends at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazz- 

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

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 

FILM 

Latino Film Festival “Habana, Havana” at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $6. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Film 50: History of Cinema “East of Eden” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Edward Rutherford continues his history of Ireland in “The Rebels of Ireland” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Café Poetry hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

Joshua Beckman and Matthew Rohrer, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with the Rimsky-Korsakov String Quartet at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Boradway. 444-3555. 

Dave Brubeck Quartet & Ramsey Lewis Trio at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$72. 642-9988.  

“Beyond Words: An Interfaith Ritual for Peace” A dance performance that transcends the barriers of words and dogma at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St. 540-7227. 

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

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

Whiskey Brothers, old time and bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Blue Roots at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Lost and Found” Wearable art made from found or recycled materials, by NIAD and Piedmont High students. Reception at 5:30 p.m. at the NIAD Art Center, 551 23rd St., Richmond. www.niadart.org 

FILM 

Film and Video Makers at Cal at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Nahid Rachlin, Iranian-born writer, reads from her works at 5:30 p.m. at Mills Hall, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. Part of the Contemporary Writers Series. 430-2236. 

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

Greg Mortenson describes “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations One School at a Time” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Word Beat Reading Series with Jamey Genna and Jeffrey Grossman at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jewish Music Festival with Paul Dresher, Daniel David Feinsmith, Sarah Cahill and John Schott at 7:30 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, Berkeley Rep. Tickets are $22-$26. 415-276-1511. 

The Black Brothers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Cathy Felter Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

With River, Philip Rodriguez at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Glen Washington, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $20-$22. 548-1159.  

Jonathan Alford Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

FRIDAY, MARCH 17 

THEATER 

Central Works “Shadow Crossing” Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381.  

Impact Theatre, “Hamlet” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 18. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468.  

FILM 

Asian American Film Festival “Letter from an Unknown Woman” at 7 p.m. and “Linda Linda Linda” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tony Kushner in Conversation with Michael Krasney on Arthur Miller at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble and Combos Spring Jazz Concert at 7 p.m. at Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High School. Tickets are $10, BHS students, teachers and staff free. 527-8245. 

Frederica Von Stade, mezzo soprano, with jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti at 8 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $125. Benefit for the Jazzschool. 845-5373. 

Saoco, dance band mixture of reggae and ricos ritmos cubanos at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Blind Duck, traditonal Irish music at 7:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $4. 843-2473.  

Hal Stein Quartet CD Release Party at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Stomp the Stumps Benefit for Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters with Gary Gates Band, Funky Nixons, Day Late Fool’s Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Blame Sally at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Darryl Henriques at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

George Cotsirilos Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Mariospeedwagon and Lemon Juju at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Instant Asshole, Skinned Alive, Dog Assassin at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Glen Washington, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $20-$22. 548-1159.  

Loretta Lynch, Oaktown country, Bob Wiseman & Leah Abramson at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

The San Pablo Project at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277.

If you thought America’s victory over Germany in World War II was only a political/militaristic one, check out Before The Fall, opening today (Friday) at Landmark’s Act 1&2 theater in downtown Berkeley. Apparenty we won the culture war, too. The film may be German, made with German actors speaking the German language, but it is a purely American film, from the opening shots down to the score’s final notes.  

The movie is set in one of Hitler’s napolas, the elite schools created to cultivate future leaders of the Third Reich. Friedrich is a boy from humble origins whose boxing talents grant him entry to the school. He is Aryan in appearance, strong, blonde and handsome, and his German schoolmasters delight in this perfect specimen joining their ranks. 

In a couple of nicely understated scenes, it is made clear though that the boy is something of a genetic fluke, for his parents have dark hair and dark eyes. It is not clearly stated that they are Jewish, and in fact it doesn’t matter whether they are or not; it only matters that they are distinctly not Aryan, making the point that the boy’s ascension to Nazi paragon is simply a matter of chance. 

This sense of opportunities that come and go quickly and arbitrarily informs one of the film’s central motifs: Doors open and slam shut abruptly throughout the film. Early on, Friedrich’s father slams a door in his face as he refuses his son permission to enroll in the napola. A similar moment concludes the film, bookending the story with mirror images of opportunity and denial. And tellingly, it is not Friedrich himself who opens and closes these doors; it is always another who ushers him through or shuts him out. 

Such straight-from-the-textbook symbols permeate the film. None of them are subtle or unique but all are used simply and efficiently to convey the film’s intended messages: freshly fallen snow to connote youth and purity; a red, sweltering cellar to demonstrate a descent into the inferno of violence and disloyalty; cold, icy waters signifying Nazi cruelty and detachment. 

Before The Fall is a coming-of-age film, distinguished primarily because of its dramatic setting and strong acting. Otherwise, it’s really the same old formula, with all its attendant devices: domineering fathers; quietly suffering mothers; and a young son determined to see the world, finding solace and growth in newfound frienships as his naiveté is shattered en route to the realization that maybe, just maybe, mean old dad was right after all. What is impressive about the film is how affecting it is despite its by-the-book structure. It is a testament to the skill and talent of the director and his cast that we still care, even when we know exactly what is coming.  

The film is essentially a collection of artfully rendered cliches, full of stock characters and stock devices. Which is not to say that it isn’t effective, entertaining and fully engrossing. It is all of these. Yet there is a certain dissatisfaction that comes from viewing a German film dressed up as a Hollywood production dressed up as an indie.  

It is in the craft of the film that we most plainly see its American roots. Director Dennis Gansel has apparently steeped himself in American mainstream movies. He employs well-framed compositions and lovely photography—photography that is, however, somewhat shallow. It’s lovely in the way that a Thomas Kinkade painting is lovely: Sure there’s light and fog and a well-sculpted garden, but what the hell does it say? Nothing, of course, but it looks good with the new drapes.  

Before The Fall is full of this sort of imagery; the shots are well-crafted and often beautiful, and though you really can’t find fault with them, you know there’s really nothing unique about them. There is no bold, new vision here. It is art for the masses; accessible and competent, but rote.  

The music too is straight out of the Hollywood textbook: that plaintive, poignant sound of a delicate piano with its tinkling, poignant notes followed by somber, sometimes soaring, strings. This is the soundtrack to virtually every Hollywood film made in the past 15 years, and if you haven’t noticed it yet it will drive you crazy once you do. Again, it’s hard to find fault with it; it is neither jarring nor innocuous. It is Kinkade put to music: pleasing enough, but ultimately meaningless.  

Too often, the film slips into ready-made Hollywood sentiment. For instance, there is a scene where the two boys talk and start to express their disappointment with one another. Words give way to violence as they start to punch each other and eventually wrestle each other to the floor, where the emotionally laden punches give way to tears and an embrace on the cold tile floor. You can see it coming, and you can predict easily enough how it ends: The camera pulls slowly back, framing the boys between shower stalls while the music swells, all to convey to you, as if you didn’t know already, that this is a Poignant Moment. Spielberg couldn’t have hit us over the head any harder.  

The film shows remarkable restraint in one instance: There is no love interest. At one point the boys focus their attention on a lovely young girl who works at the school, and it looks as though the film is about to step off the cliff into pure Hollywood inanity. But fortunately, nothing comes of it. In fact, the girl is introduced, given a name even, and then is gone, only appearing once more, as the object of the boys’ giggling voyeurism. It leaves the distinct impression that the film had in fact featured a romantic subplot, perhaps a love triangle, but that it was left on the cutting room floor, leaving just a few awkward scenes behind as evidence.  

Gansel and his crew have taken a familiar set of ingredients and created a clean, polished product by sheer skill and craftsmanship. It is well-directed, well-written and completely engaging. But it’s a safe movie, one that plays by all the well-worn rules. Gansel has made an all-American, paint-by-numbers Hollywood tear-jerker, and there’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s all you want to make. But paint-by-numbers won’t get you the artistry and agony of a Van Gogh, nor the bold, striking colors of a Matisse.  

But if you’re good—well, it just might get you a Kinkade.  

BEFORE THE FALL 

Director: Dennis Gansel 

Cast: Max Reimelt, Tom Schilling, Justus von Dohnanyi 

Rated R, 110 minutes 

In German with English subtitles 

Playing: Act 1&2›

The 21st annual Berkeley Jewish Music Festival got off to a sizzling start last Saturday with a soul-stirring concert by the New Orleans Klezmer All Stars at Oakland’s First Congregational Church.  

The group combines the celebratory sounds of klezmer with the distinctive styles of their native city and musical genres from as far away as Morocco. Along with electrifying music that got the packed house dancing, the concert included heartfelt appeals for support of ongoing Hurricane Katrina relief and to close the concert, a marriage proposal from drummer David Sobel to his sweetheart at the foot of the stage. 

If that sounds like a show that can’t be topped, you haven’t yet looked at the festival’s amazing schedule of concerts. 

This Berkeley event is admired throughout the world, but its stature hasn’t stopped the festival from booking an adventurous lineup each year. 

This year’s program features “Bagels and Bongos: A Tribute to Irving Fields,” with top New York percussionist Roberto Rodriguez and his Septeto Rodriguez presenting their innovative mix of Cuban and Jewish traditions at Oakland’s First Congregational Church Saturday at 8 p.m.  

Whether you want to dance to the sounds of klezmer or the Cuban styles of son and danzon, or just love great music, this is well worth exploring. Concert dedicatee Irving Fields is, at age 90, one of the last of the Tin Pan Alley generation of songwriters, and is the creator of the 1959 classic album Bagels and Bongos, one of the first attempts at Jewish-Latin fusion. A special guest will be leading New York jazz pianist Anthony Coleman. 

Sunday night’s concert at Temple Sinai in Oakland celebrates the Jewish cantorial tradition with two of the world’s most renowned performers of Jewish liturgical music: Chicago’s Alberto Mizrahi, a featured performer in PBS’s “Three Cantors” special, and New York’s Jack Mendelson, subject of the recent hit documentary film “A Cantor’s Tale.” 

Again giving a twist to tradition, the program will feature Coleman accompanying Mendelson and a trio of leading performers of Middle Eastern Jewish music joining the Greek-born Mizrahi.  

The festival has always introduced new artists to the Bay Area and even to the United States, and this continues with first American performance by Yahudice at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St, at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 19. 

Led by vocalist Hadass Pal Yarden, this virtuoso group of Turkish classical musicians will perform the music of Turkey’s Sephardic Jews. 

Festival Director Ellie Shapiro discovered the group on a trip to Turkey, and explains, “Hadass is the leading authority on this music, and she’s put out an album that’s become an underground hit in the U.S. This is a genre that’s dying out, and she’s made it her life’s work to perpetuate it. That’s part of our work too, to make sure this culture continues to live and to thrive.”  

There’s also no shortage of local artists. The March 16 program, “Jewish Fringes,” features music by four East Bay composers exploring Jewish themes. Presented at the Berkeley Rep at 7:30 p.m., the program features world premiere works commissioned for this concert by renowned composers Paul Dresher, Daniel David Feinsmith, Amy X Neuberg and John Schott. 

Dresher’s work will feature his self-designed instrument the Quadrachord, a hybrid electronic string instrument more than 13 feet long. Other performers include pianist Sarah Cahill, a female vocal sextet singing Neuberg’s music, and Schott leading his own jazz trio, Dream Kitchen.  

The festival’s family focus will be celebrated with the return of Community Music Day on March 26 at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center. 

Hosted by Berkeley’s own Josh Kornbluth, the all-day event features an instrument petting zoo, a children’s concert, a dozen music workshops, concerts all afternoon, and a klezmer/Roma dance party to finish off the celebration. 

Shapiro said, “It’s not just about sitting and watching a concert, it’s meant to get people actively engaged in participating and creating.”  

Two programs spotlight the Yiddish song tradition. On March 23 at 2 p.m., the Berkeley JCC will present Bayle Schaechter-Gottesman. 

The singer, performer, and poet, Shapiro says, “is the reigning Yiddish poet laureate of the US, who won an NEA award as a National Treasure last year. 

She creates contemporary poetry and songs in Yiddish with a very original sensibility, and younger performers in the Yiddish song revival all sing her songs. She and her son will also be doing a workshop on Community Music Day on Yiddish children’s folklore.” 

Across the bay on March 25 at 8 p.m., the San Francisco Jewish Community Center will host “Three Yiddish Divas,” with singers Joanne Borts, Theresa Tova, and Adrienne Cooper. 

All three are fiery and versatile performers who will explore Yiddish jazz, cabaret and theater songs. Listeners will find a link to the golden age of Yiddish song, and discover the artists who influenced the great Broadway songwriters. 

The 21st Annual Berkeley Jewish Music Festival includes numerous events in various locations. For more information see www.jewishmusicfestival.org. (415) 276-1511. 

Photograph of Roberto Rodriguez.

End the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs! Yes, they mean it and no, they don’t lack a sense of humor. They’re serious, not solemn. Their website features a gallery of pruning atrocities, and some are hilarious. 

They might be accused of having a prejudice against topiary, but when you see their examples of silly pruning you have to laugh and agree that topiary (like “cloud” pruning, or the mow-n-blow powershears special) can be excuses for some really silly green things in the landscape.  

They’re Plant Amnesty. They’re based in Seattle, and as far as I know their attempt to colonize the Bay Area with a separate chapter has been futile, but they do have members here: I’m one. 

What I fell for is their determination to spread the word about what seems to be a little-known problem threatening the urban “forest”—criminally bad pruning—with verve and good works. If you have a tree, you need to hear from them before you lay a hand on it—or let anyone else do so.  

It’s not just the looks of your tree that’s at stake. Bad pruning, including topping, stubbing, and just plain overdoing, can cost you serious money and worse. 

If the sentence “When done properly, branches are cut back to a lateral branch at least one-third the diameter of the limb being removed and large enough to outgrow lateral branches directly below,” sounds confusing, stop right there. You’re no more ready to use that saw than you are to do amateur brain surgery. 

You’re also in danger of paying to let someone who doesn’t know any more than you do to vandalize your trees and set you up for a lawsuit, as well as lowering your property’s value. How’s that for concrete results?  

Here’s my advice, free: If a tree service even advertises topping, don’t hire them. If your landscapers can’t explain why topping’s wrong, don’t let them mess with your tree. And if you have a neighbor who lets anyone top a tree or cut branches to stubs, contact Plant Amnesty for aid in warning them. They’re threatening everyone in reach to the tree.  

Topped trees often die slow deaths, as their formidable power to ward off rot—trees don’t heal the way animals do—can’t catch up with infections from such massive wounds. 

Badly pruned trees do, too, and when they don’t, they grow branches that aren’t as strongly attached as the originals, and tend to fall off to the detriment of the tree and whoever or whatever’s underneath it. 

Whoever hired the bad pruner can be sued for damages, and so can future owners, like one Florida landlord whose insurance carrier paid $500,000.00 to a 12-year-old for the landlord’s share of responsibility—less than half—for the tree-climbing accident that paralyzed the boy.  

Topping trees in actually illegal in some places, including San Francisco. If you have a neighbor who allows topping or ugly pruning, contact Plant Amnesty for useful materials to persuade otherwise.  

›

If you missed the Jazzschool’s 2004 benefit concert featuring the Heath Brothers, you missed a major jazz event. The music went from great to unforgettable when 81-year-old bassist Percy Heath, who died last April 28, sat down to pluck out unaccompanied piccolo bass solos on Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite,” Fats Navarro’s “Nostalgia” and the Johnny Green/Edward Heyman standard “Out of Nowhere.” It was like hearing cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich performing with the lyricism, grace and inspiration of an improvising jazz musician.  

This year’s Jazzschool benefit, March 17, promises to be just as intriguing with the imaginative pairing of opera diva Frederica von Stade with jazz piano sensation Taylor Eigsti. 

At 21, Eigsti is already a veteran jazz performer. He grew up in Menlo Park and began taking lessons at four. By the age of eight he was opening for David Benoit. At 13, he was performing with Dave Brubeck and not long after was opening for Al Jarreau and Diana Krall. His first recording was in 1999. At 15, he was teaching at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. After his freshman year as a jazz studies major at the University of Southern California, he dropped out to go pro. No longer a prodigy, but with the same incredible chops, he comes to the jazz scene as an adult with the equivalent of two decades of dues-paying behind him. 

His work with Dave Brubeck led to frequent shows with the Brubeck Brothers Band. When Michael Morgan and the East Bay Symphony performed Chris Brubeck’s “River of Song” for orchestra and voice, Taylor was an obvious choice for pianist. He had previously met the vocalist for that piece, Frederica von Stade, at a Music in the Schools benefit. Since then, they have worked together on other occasions performing from both the jazz and classical repertoire. 

Observing the history of pairing long hair performers with pop material is a little like looking at a stretch of highway littered with car wrecks. Often when opera singers wrap their vocal chords around standards, they act like they are jumping into the Concorde for a quick hop from San Francisco to Oakland. They forget Noel Coward’s dictum: “Strange how potent cheap music is.” 

These tunes stop working their emotional magic if you overpower them with too much that is conventionally or inappropriately beautiful. It can be like drinking from Wedgwood at a Japanese tea ceremony.  

Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade is skilled at avoiding these errors in decorum. She has the ability to shift musical gears so that she can apply one kind of superb treatment to Mozart’s “Parto, parto” aria from La Clemenza de Tito, another to Magnolia singing “Make Believe” in Kern/Hammerstein’s Showboat, and yet another to Irving Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” from Annie Get Your Gun. 

In fact, she began as a singer of standards and Broadway material who, although she loved opera from childhood, did not consider it as a career until she was in her early twenties. Her talents as both singer and dramatic actress led to her debut at the Metropolitan just a few years later when she was 25.  

Known to her fans as “Flicka,” she has excelled in the classic operas of Mozart and Rossini, especially in trouser roles, revived interest in works by Rameau and Monteverdi, and championed new, experimental operas like Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. She has also appeared in and made albums of operettas and musicals including The Sound of Music, The Merry Widow and A Little Night Music. 

What makes her art so compelling is not just her gorgeous voice with its range, power and control, but her dramatic ability. She is a consummate actress who infuses every role, every song, with a persona in whom we can believe. This is what allows her to do, in her own way, what jazz vocalists do when they invest songs with their personalities. 

These are two exciting performers with Bay Area connections and international reputations who have the potential to inspire each other beyond even their usual level of excellence. 

Although the ticket price may seem steep at $125, it is actually a bargain when you consider the intimate nature of the event, the complimentary food and beverages provided by some of the most esteemed names in Bay Area gourmandaise, the chance for some fascinating conversation with the performers, and the promise of brilliant music from the artists. 

In coming up with a program to benefit itself, the Jazzschool has again found a way to give back more to its benefactors than it receives.  

The fourth annual benefit for Berkeley’s Jazzschool will take place on Friday, March 17 at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. The music starts at 8 p.m. followed by dessert, wine and a chance to meet the artists at 9:30 p.m. Admission is $125 per person, tax-deductible, and all of the proceeds go to benefit the Jazzschool. For more information call 845-5373 or see www.jazzschool.com. o

Although the closest I’ve been to Nepal is the Himalayan Fair in Live Oak Park, I’ve come to like Nepalese food—at least as represented by Kathmandu on Solano Avenue and Little Nepal on Cortland Street in San Francisco. 

Nepal is a smallish country with a rich and varied culinary tradition, blending elements from North India, via the ruling Ranas, and Tibet, and big enough to have ethnic (like Sherpa and Gurkha) and regional specialties. The Nepalese appear to take their food seriously. One of the major temples, dedicated to the goddess Kali, has charcoal grills going all day so worshippers can turn their sacrificial chickens and goats into a picnic.  

So I had reasonable expectations for Mount Everest, a fairly new Nepalese restaurant at University and Shattuck. Otherwise, my dining partner and I encountered the place cold: no word of mouth, no reviews. As it turns out, the food at Mount Everest is really really good.  

I knew we were in reliable hands when the momos arrived. Momos, which entered Nepalese cuisine by way of Tibet, are the Tibetan avatar of the East/Central Asian stuffed dumpling family: shiu mai, har gow, and all the other dim sum variants; Japanese gyoza, Afghani mantwo, and so on. 

Watching the momo assembly line is one of the highlights of the Himalayan Fair. According to Rinjing Dorje’s Food in Tibetan Life, the over-talkative are reminded: “Keep your mouth like a momo”—that is, closed. Momos can be meat-filled or vegetarian; we had the veggie option, with a filling of minced cabbage, chiles, cilantro, and ginger. They came with a brick-orange dipping sauce, tart and moderately spiced and reminiscent of the sauce in the chicken dish I keep ordering at Little Nepal, which is a very good thing. 

What followed was equally satisfying. A lamb dish, beda ko choila from the Nepalese Specials section of the menu, consisted of little cubes of lamb, seared crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, which had been marinated in something interesting and cooked in a clay oven. Fresh ginger was also involved, and more of the orange sauce came with it. 

As if Nepalese wasn’t exotic enough, we also tried the Bhutanese chili chicken. It was only the second Bhutanese dish I’d ever run into, the first being something involving pork and cheese at a place in Seattle’s university district about five years ago, and my strongest memory of that meal is that I was hungry enough after a long drive back from the San Juans that I could have eaten curried styrofoam.  

In contrast to Nepal, which has been going through a bad patch lately—the palace massacre, the new king’s power grab, the Maoist insurgency—Bhutan is a small peaceful mostly-Buddhist kingdom with a thunder dragon on its flag and a government that has been trying to quantify the Gross National Happiness. Well, if the Bhutanese get to eat chili chicken a lot, I would think they would be reasonably happy. The marinated chicken appeared to have been stir-fried with chunks of red onion and fresh medium-hot chilis, a felicitous combination. 

But maybe they don’t. Copeland Marks, whose Indian & Chinese Cooking from the Himalayan Rim has a chapter on Bhutan, says chicken is mostly an elite dish there. Pork, with or without cheese, is more widely eaten, and so is yak. Marks says the cooking is big on onion, ginger, garlic, and chili, fresh or dried. (I’ve always wondered about Marks: is he a real person or just a front for a syndicate of globe-trotting cookbook writers? How could one guy be an authority on Indonesian, Malaysian, Burmese, Himalayan, Sephardic, Maghrebi, Guatemalan and Peruvian cooking? Good recipes, though.)  

On a second visit, at lunchtime, we experimented with fish and vegetable dishes, and both were winners. Macha ko sekuwa gets you two fat catfish steaks (in Nepal, this would have been carp) that had spent just enough time in the tandoori oven. Aloo baigun is a tasty combination of cooked-to-pieces eggplant and tender potatoes in a complicated spice mix.  

What else? Good garlic and onion-mint naans. Four Indian beers are available: we passed up Karma and the oddly Scandinavian-sounding Dansberg (brewed with Himalayan water, though) for the known-quantity Golden Eagle, a decent lager that goes well with the spicy stuff. There’s also the yogurt drink lassi, sweet or salty. No wine. 

Mount Everest is in a fairly large space (formerly a Burger King, then Curry in Hurry, then something else) sparsely decorated with Himalayan landscapes and prayer flags along with what look like the original BK booths. 

The rest of the menu includes tandoori dishes, basmati-rice biryanis, a respectable number of vegetarian choices, and Indian style desserts: kheer (rice pudding) and gulab jamun (doughballs in syrup). Service, friendly but not so attentive that it gets on your nerves, is a bit slower at lunchtime. Princes range from $4.99 for most of the vegetarian options to $8.99 for the fish and seafood dishes. 

Mount Everest 

2011 Shattuck Ave. 665-6035. 

Open 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday; noon-10 p.m. Sunday. Credit cards accepted.

FRIDAY, MARCH 10 

Tibetan March for Freedom beginning at 9 a.m. at Berkeley City Hall and ending at 12:30 p.m. at the Chinese Consulate, Laguna and Geary, SF. www.tanc.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Kevin Tellis, engineer, on “The Delta Levees.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925 

“9/11 Guilt: The Proof is in Your Hands” a documentary at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. Followed by discussion with the film makers. Cost is $5-$10, no one turned away. 527-7543. 

Piedmont Choirs’ 2006 Gala Celebration at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Rotunda. Tickets are $135. 547-4441.  

Womansong Circle Participa- 

tory singing for women at 6:45 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $15-$20. 525-7082. 

Trinity Poets, a poetry writing group, meets at 11 a.m. at Trinity Church, 2362 Bancroft Way. southberkeleypoet@yahoo.com  

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m.  

Berkeley Chess School classes for students in grades 1-8 from 5 to 7 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave., room 17. 843-0150. 

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

Kol Hadash Family Purim Potluck and Shabbat at 6 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. RSVP with food choice to info@kolhadash.org 

SATURDAY, MARCH 11 

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. 

Stream Bioengineering Workshop Learn how to use natural materials and non-structural techniques to combat soil erosion and restore creeks, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Codornices Creek Restoration Site, 5th and Harrison. Cost is $25. To register call 452-0901.  

Free Worm Composting Workshop Find out how to compost kitchen scraps into free, nutritious fertilizer using red wiggler worms, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Mt. Wanda Wildflower Walk in the hills where John Muir took his daughters. Meet at 9 a.m. in the Park and Ride lot at the corner of Alhambra Ave. and Franklin Canyon Rd., Martinez. Wear walking shoes and bring water. 925-228-8860. 

Weed-Out at MLK Jr HS Track & Field from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., enter on Hopkins St. Sponsored by the Kiwanis Family of Clubs. 527-8652.  

“Does God Love War?” Does religion offer a way toward reconciliation? Or has it instead become part of the problem? Discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges and American-Muslim Hamza Yusuf at 6:15 p.m. at Martin Luther King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. 582-1979. www.zaytuna.org 

Burma Human Rights Day with a screening of “Our Cause,” speeches by former political prisoners and a Burmese dinner at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. Proceeds benefit Burmese American Democratic Alliance. 220-1323.  

Repainting Willard Community Peace Labyrinth from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart, Berkeley. Rain date March 18. Volunteers needed. 526-7377. 

Progressive Democrats of the East Bay with Stefanie L. Faucher from Death Penalty Focus, at 2 p.m. at Temescal Library, 5205 Telegraph, Oakland. All welcome. 524-4424.  

“Current Land Struggles in Brazil” with Andreia Ferreira of the Landless Worker’s Movement at 4 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Fashion Extravaganza with fashion show, vendors and designer displays to benefit Katrina victims at 5 p.m. at Black Repertory Theater, 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $15-$20. 652-8030. 

Used Book Sale to benefit the scholarship fund from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway, Oakland. 528-7070. 

School Readiness Fun Fair Learn about quality child care and pre-school programs, register your children for kindergarten. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Beebe Memorial Cathedral, 3900 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. The event is free and everyone is invited to attend. 272-6686. 

East Bay “Birth” Day with information, resources, food and entertainment on pregnancy and birth, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Performance of “Birth” at 3:30 p.m. Cost is $20-$40, sliding scale. Child care is available during performance. 540-7210. 

Heart Truth: What Women with Different Abilities Need to Know A workshop for women with mobility limitations at 2:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 326-8718. 

American Red Cross Free CPR and Preparedness classes at 8:30 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., and in Spanish at 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. Patten University, 2433 Coolidge Ave., Oakland. 1-888-686-3600.  

Alameda’s Altarena Playhouse 68th Anniversary at 6 p.m. at the Grandview Pavillion, Alameda, with dinner and music. For reservations call 523-1553.  

“Puttin’ on the Ritz” Benefit for California Shakespeare Theater at 6 p.m. at the Rotunda Building, 300 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. Tickets are $185. www.calshakes.org 

“Jewish Literature - Identity and Imagination” Discussion led by Dr. Naomi Seidman of the Graduate Theological Union at 2 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Registration is recommended. 524-3043. 

Preschool Storytime for 3-5 year olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

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, MARCH 12 

Weather Whizzes Make your own tools to measure the wild weather and test them outside, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Frog Chorus Learn about their life cycle and where they live and thrive, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Songs Against the War: Voices of Anti-warriors” with Barbara Dane and the San Francisco Mime Troupe Band, in honor of the Veterans and Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Veterans for Peace at 1 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High School, 1980 Allston Way. Reception follows. Tickets are $35. 582-7699.  

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk to rededicate the Willard Community Peace Labyrinth at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Guided by Margie Adam. Rain reschedules to March 19. 526-7377. 

Tap Jam A tribute and fundraiser for tappers and street jammers of New Orleans from 3 to 5 p.m. at Montclair Recreation Center, 6300 Moraga Ave., Oakland. Donations requested. 548-9840. 

African/African Diaspora Film Society presents “Le Silence de la Foret” at 2 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. Tickets are $5. OurFilms@aol.com 

Iranian New Year Celebration at 2 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Sponsored by the Iranian Student Cultural Organization. Tickets are $5-$15 at the door. 

Oakland Voters Meet the Candidates, hosted by The MGO Democratic Club from 4 to 7 p.m. at 170 Roble Rd., Oakland. Tickets are $25. 834-9198. www.mgoclub.org  

Berkeley Progressive Coalition Help us plan a spring convention for November’s city election, at 2:45 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, Third flr. meeting room, Kittredge at Shattuck. 540-1975. 

“Confronting Anti-Semitism” Town Hall Forum at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito High School, 7007 Moeser Lane, El Cerrito. 839-2900, ext. 217. 

Music for Babies at 9 a.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Donation of $4 suggested. To register call 658-7853.  

Creating a Family for LGBT Parents at 3 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. To register call 658-7853.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Lee Nichol on “Dialog of Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MARCH 13 

Parenting Class in Spanish at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. To register call 658-7853. www.bananasinc.org  

Feng Shui for Health & Vitality at 7 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Cost is $27. 925-287-9594.  

Introduction to Meditation with Diane Eshin Rizzetto at 6:45 p.m. at Bay Zen Center, 315 Alcatraz Ave. Suggested donation $10. Registration required. 596-3087. www.bayzen.org 

“Timbrels and Torahs: A Celebration of Wisdom” with local filmmaker Miriam Chaya at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043.  

Yoga and Meditation Every Sun. in March from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Natural Solutions for Depression & Insomnia at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

World Affairs Discussion Group for seniors at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center. Cost is $2.50.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, MARCH 14 

Empty Bowls Dinner Benefit for Alameda County Community Food Bank. Enjoy a bowl of soup and a handmade soup bowl to take home at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $15, or $30 for a family of four. For deatils and location call 653-3663, ext. 328. 

“The Invaded Estuary: Exotic Species in San Francisco Bay” with Andrew Cohen of the SF Estuary Institute at 5:30 p.m. at the Goldman School of Public Policy, Room 250, UC Campus. 642-2666. 

“A Forgotten Resistance: The Mosque of Paris” A documentary by Derri Berkani at 7:30 p.m. in the Homeroom, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Dr. Annette Herskovits, who survived the holocaust as a child in France thanks to a clandestine rescue network, will present the film. 

“Guatemala: The Struggle to End Impunity” with Aisha Brown of NISGUA’s Guatemala Accompaniment Project at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $5-$10, no one turned away. 415-924-3227. 

“Mental Training for the Endurance Athlete” with former professional triathlete Terri Schneider at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Design and Print T-Shirts Workshop with Alliance Graphics in conjunction with the Berkeley Youth Arts Festival from 3 to 5 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Also on Wed. Registration required. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

American Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Tau Beta Pi, Leroy St., next to Soda Hall, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVELIFE. www.BeADonor.com 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Spring Decluttering Organize your mind, home, office and life at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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. 

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

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. 

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

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 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about the water cycle, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Bird Walk on Mt. Wanda led by Park Ranger Cheryl Able. Meet at 8:30 a.m. at the Park and Ride lot at the corner of Alhabra Ave. and Franklin Canyon Rd., Martinez. Wear sturdy shoes and bring water and binoculars. Rain cancels. 925-228-8860. 

Great Decisions Foreign Policy Association Lecture “Energy” with Prof. Daniel Kammen, UCB, at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Cost is $40 for the eight lecture series. 526-2925. 

Sugar Bowl Casino Public Hearing on the Draft EIS for the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indian Casino at Richmond Parkway at 6 p.m. at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. This is a chance for all East Bay residents concerned about the impact of the casino to be heard. 271-0640, ext. 103.  

“Ommissions and Distortions in the 9/11 Commission Report” Films by David Ray Griffin at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation of $5. 

“Lead-Safe Painting & Remodeling” Free introductory class to learn about lead safe renovations for your older home, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Tool Lending Library 1901 Russell St. Presented by Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org 

“Top Ten Healing Foods” a lecture, cooking demonstration and meal from 2 to 5 p.m. at Bauman College, 901 Grayson St., Ste. 201. Cost is $15. Registration required. 540-7041. 

American Red Cross Blood Drive from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Mills College Student Union, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVELIFE. www.BeADonor.com 

Parents and Providers Childcare discussion at 6:30 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. To register call 658-7853. www.bananasinc.org  

Basic Balkan Singing Workshop led by Juliana Graffagna, Wed. evenings in March at 7:30 p.m. at KITKA/Children’s Advocates, 1201 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, at 12th, Oakland. Cost for the series is $60. Registration encouraged. 444-0323. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters welcomes curious guests and new members at 7:15 a.m. at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. 435-5863.  

Entrepreneurs Networking at 8 a.m. at A’Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcatraz. Cost is $5. 562-9431.  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton 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. 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.  

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. 

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about the water cycle, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“The Making of a Wildlife Refuge” with Leora Feeney who will describe the current efforts on the site of the former US Navy Air Station at the western end of Alameda. At 7:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Sponsored by the Golden Gate Audubon Society. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

“Reflections Ten Years After the Vision Fire” at Point Reyes, with Jennifer Chapman of the National Park Service, at 12 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Women’s Rights, Warlords and the US Occupation of Afghanistan” with 27-year old Afghan Parliamentarian, Malalai Joya at 4 p.m. in Room 270, Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. www. 

afghanwomensmission.org 

“China-Silenced” a KQED/ 

Frontline documentary on the Uighurs at 7:30 p.m. at International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $5. 642-9460. 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets at 7:30 p.m. in the LeConte School cafeteria. Agenda items include recent crime patterns and the new Community Crime View web site, Black & White Liquor restrictions and Neighborhood Watch. KarlReeh@aol.com 

Living with Ones and Twos at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Donation of $4 suggested. To register call 658-7853. www.bananasinc.org  

“Benevolence, Compassion, Joyousness and Equanimity” with Mudagamuwe Maithrimurthi, Visiting Lecturer of Buddhist Studies, at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor Colloquium Sponsored by the Center for Buddhist Studies http://ieas.berkeley.edu/events/2006.03.16.html 

Berkeley Public Library’s Teen Services invite teen readers to come and discuss classic and contemporary science fiction and fantasy titles, at 4 p.m. at the Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6133. 

“Spice it Nice: Culinary Secrets” at 5:30 p.m. at Parmaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

Ask a Union Mechanic at 4:30 p.m. at Parker and Shattuck, until the strike is settled. They will offer advice on all makes of car. 

Historical & Current Times Book Group meets on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1249 Marin Ave. 548-4517. 

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.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Mar. 13, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

Youth Commission meets Mon., Mar. 13, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. ò

Once again, cheapness costs lives. This time it has to do with the skyrocketing cost of copper in the 1960s. If you’re my age, which I’m not going to reveal, you may remember when copper shot way up around 1965. Metal futures were all the rage and wire makers were freaking big time. Nobody wanted to pay twice the price for wire, but buildings had to be built, added onto or rewired. 

So aluminum was the solution. It was known even at this time that aluminum was a poor conductor when compared to copper but it was assumed that the difference was negligible (at least that’s what the marketing department told the legal department) and that aluminum would do the job until copper came down in price. 

What the manufacturers, the electricians and the public didn’t know was that aluminum wiring (especially the first generation made between 1965 and 1972) was going to end up causing a lot of fires. The early wiring is considered by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to be 55 times more likely to cause a fire than copper wiring. The later aluminum alloy is somewhat less dangerous but I can’t find any figures on just how much less scary it’s supposed to be. 

So what’s going on with aluminum wiring? Why does it cause more fires? It has to do with two effects, thermal expansion and oxidation and it looks like the oxidation is the more serious culprit.  

When wires have electricity running through them, they heat up somewhat. In fact, a basic principle in wiring is to size the wire as well as the switches, outlets and lamps so that they don’t overheat. A tiny amount of heat is OK, but toaster-hot or waffle-iron-hot is clearly not a good thing because these wires are running through the walls of your house and can start a fire if they get too hot.  

When wires are well connected to one another the power flows nicely through the system. When there’s something constricting the flow, the power tries to jump over the gap or heats up at the point of marginal contact and can actually start melting metal or plastic or throwing off sparks. 

This sort of resistance is the thing that makes the little wires in the toaster glow and look what that can do. Aluminum connections are more apt to have these things happen as a result of those two effects.  

Thermal expansion with aluminum wire is so great that it can push the contact screw outward as it heats up and then leaves a gap as it cools down. That gap can become one of the areas of poor contact that causes sparking and leads to a fire. It can also create a gap at a connection with another wire inside of a junction box, even when a tightly bound “wire nut” is holding them together. 

The other effect, oxidation, begins to occur as soon as the aluminum wiring is stripped for installation. Aluminum oxide is a really good insulator (unlike the corrosion that occurs on copper) and over time can cause the resistance at a connection to get high enough to make a nice little electric heater out of an outlet. 

One way to know that you have a problem is that you may actual smell burning plastic at an outlet or switch. If you see sparks, charring or hear sizzling, this is a very bad sign. If an outlet or switch feels warm to the touch you may be feeling the effects of aluminum wiring. If you’re experiencing any of the above or seeing lights dim when you operate small appliances, you may have aluminum wiring (although other electrical deficiencies can cause this as well). 

The only way to be sure that you have or don’t have aluminum wiring is to have someone (such as an electrician or building inspector) look and see. 

Aluminum is still used for very large “feeders” and seems to function well for these. They may be the main wires leading from your outside panel to an inside panel or the “dedicated” wiring to the stove or dryer. Wiring leading to outlets and switches should not use aluminum if at all possible and you may want to simply replace it with copper, cutting and abandoning the old wiring in the walls. 

An alternative is to have a certified installer place “Copalum” connectors in every junction box of the house that uses aluminum. This is the only method that the Consumer Product Safety Commission sanctions other than replacement of wiring. 

It’s not cheap either but it’s probably a lot cheaper than replacement, especially if you live in a two-story house. It’s also a lot cheaper than the tragedy of a fire, whose expense may not be measurable in dollars. 

If you have aluminum wiring from after 1972, it’s a little safer because the wire alloy was changed and the devices (outlets, switches, etc.) were improved. I’d still be very concerned if it were my house. Aside from having kids, I’m just plain afraid of fire. 

While the data is sketchy, there are some nasty news reports. The Pittsburgh Channel reports that 165 people were killed at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Kentucky in 1977 as a result of aluminum wiring. A fire in New Jersey in 2001 killed a family of five including 3 children. Aluminum wiring was blamed. 

These aren’t the only stories I’ve found but it’s so unpleasant that I think I’ll stop there. We may have to wait a few years to have better data, but the scientific research is very clear that fires start much more easily with aluminum branch wiring than with copper. 

Wiring is not the most expensive thing in your home to fix or upgrade and electrical fires are anything but rare so it’s worth taking action if you have aluminum. If your house was built prior to 1965 or after 1973 and wasn’t rewired or remodeled, you probably don’t have any. If you’re not sure, have someone check. 

If you have determined that you have aluminum wiring leading to your outlets and lights and you want to go the Copalum connector route, you can contact Tyco at (800) 522-6752. Only certified Copalum installers can put them in and if you want to know more, the CPSC can send you a copy of Repairing Aluminum Wiring by writing to them at CPSC, Washington, DC 20207. 

And may only your thoughts and your heart be warm tonight.