If you’ve put in your eight-plus hours at the office, fought the traffic home, picked up your kids from childcare, no way are you going home to prepare a gourmet meal.  

Like millions of others, you may just head for the McDonald’s just down the street—it’ll fill up the kids, even if it’s not the healthiest food, and you won’t even have to leave the comfort of your car. 

But if you’re among those whose youngsters attend one of four Berkeley sites where Farm Fresh Choice has a stand at your daycare door, you may snag some squash or broccoli that you can throw in a pan with a little leftover rice, or toss onto a pizza crust—and skip that happy meal.  

“We try to combine convenience and access” to fresh fruit and vegetables, said Tiffany Golden, co-manager of Farm Fresh Choice, an Ecology Center project that grew out of the Berkeley Food Policy Council a few years ago.  

In south and west Berkeley “there’s not enough access to nutritious foods,” Golden said, pointing to a study the city did a few years ago showing a critical disparity in health between African Americans living in the flatlands and Caucasians living in the hills. African Americans suffer disproportionately from hypertension and diabetes, diseases that access to healthy food can impact, Golden said. 

Farm Fresh Choice workers do not ask customers to make radical changes in their diet. 

“We honor the cultures of the people that we serve,” Golden said. 

Recipes are available such as Joanna’s West African Greens or Martha’s Mayan Dumpling Soup and staff will often cook up a delicious-looking dish that comes with enticing, familiar smells, to encourage people to take advantage of the fresh produce.  

The low-cost veggies—they’re from the Farmers’ Markets, but generally cost less because of arrangements with the farmers—won’t be accompanied by lectures about McDonalds. There’s no judging here. 

“People know McDonalds is going to kill them,” Golden said, underscoring that what people need is access to healthy choices and ideas for healthy easy-to-make meals. 

Farm Fresh Choice is not the only option: Spiral Gardens operates a fresh produce stand each Tuesday and Saturday at Oregon and Sacramento streets. The produce also comes from the Farmers’ Market and is sold at cost. 

Daniel Miller, one of its founders, agrees with Golden: “Many of the health issues (in South and West Berkeley) are caused by a lack of access to fresh, affordable food,” he said. 

Spiral Gardens is more than a produce stand. It’s a nursery where volunteers and a couple of employees grow seedlings—and even raise chickens. When people come by to choose a plant—most are edible and grown organically—they get their gardening and compost questions answered. 

There’s also a mini-farm where gardeners grow vegetables and herbs. They split the bounty between volunteers and the seniors who live next door. Spiral Garden volunteers also pick the fruit from residential trees, sharing it with the owner and homeless shelters. 

Programs such as Farm Fresh Choice and Spiral Gardens are important tools in the battle against local hunger, said Kate Clayton, chronic disease program manager with Berkeley’s Public Health Department. 

There “definitely” is food insecurity in Berkeley, Clayton said. Food insecurity, as defined by the Alameda County Foodbank is “the lack of nutritionally adequate, safe and culturally acceptable food, available through non-emergency sources at all times.” 

Poverty is relatively invisible in Berkeley because the very poor are spread out in the flatlands, Clayton said. 

“We don’t see extreme pockets of poverty,” she said, but added that in southwest Berkeley “there’s not access to grocery stores for miles. And with housing prices, low-income folks are living on the edge.”  

At the end of the month, a lot of people have to choose between buying food or paying the rent. Alameda County Food Bank fills in the gap with bags of groceries and free meals for some 40,000 people in Alameda County every week, according to Allison Pratt, director of policy and services at the Alameda County Food Bank.  

Wednesday afternoon neighbors and daycare moms came by artful display of fruits and vegetables at the Farm Fresh Choice stand at San Pablo Park that Martha Briceno and Joanna Kuunivor had put together. Sung Makawatsakul, pushing her toddler in a stroller, got a basket of ripe, organic strawberries. She lives nearby and also shops at Spiral Gardens. Solange Bainbrige was picking up her son from childcare and took home some fresh fruit. 

Then there were the five youngsters 7- to 9-years-old from the summer park program, about to make stir-fry. The kids picked out zucchini, garlic, potatoes, cilantro, cabbage, celery and, uh, mushrooms. (They didn’t really want the mushrooms, but their instructor convinced them to give it a try.) 

Before heading inside the center to prepare their feast, one of the children, Carrington Williams, declared proudly: “We’re going to cook it for all of the children.”  

Low-cost fresh food and vegetables can be found at the following locations:  

Fresh Farm Choice on Tuesdays: 

Bay Area Hispanic Institute for Advancement: 3:30-6 p.m., Eighth and Virginia streets 

Berkeley Youth Alternatives: 3-6 p.m., Bonar Street and Allston Way 

Young Adult Project: 3-5:30 p.m. Oregon and Grant streets 

Fresh Farm Choice on Wednesdays: 

San Pablo Park, Frances Albrier Center 3-6 p.m., Park and Oregon streets 

Sprial Gardens, Sacramento and Oregon streets. 

Wednesdays: 3-7 p.m. 

Saturdays: 1-5 p.m. 

The San Francisco Chronicle reported last October that “eight lucky families,” all victims of Hurricane Katrina, would move into a 48-unit apartment complex in West Berkeley under the auspices of a non-profit affordable housing agency. 

“The carpet will be new, the walls freshly painted, and there will be clean sheets on the beds, clothes in the closet, and red beans and rice in the cupboard,” the article said. 

Nine months later, one of those units lays claim to off-color patches that have seeped up through the carpet, releasing a stench, which the tenant, a hurricane victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, believes to be mold. “I’m concerned about it,” the tenant said. “But what can you do?” 

Another resident, also a Katrina victim, bemoaned the prominence of drug-dealers loitering in and around the building. She expected that kind of living environment on the East Coast, she said, where projects feature prominently, but not in Berkeley. 

“I’m a working single parent. I’m a college graduate,” she said. “I didn’t expect to be moved here.” 

Residents living at and near 2121 Seventh St., also known as the Allston House apartments, are raising concerns over safety and hygiene at the affordable housing complex, long considered a problem location in the largely quiet, residential West Berkeley neighborhood. 

Affordable Housing Associates (AHA), a Berkeley-based non-profit housing agency, entered into a lease option-to-purchase agreement for the Allston House two years ago, and has managed the building since. The organization is expected to buy the property from private owners this fall. Unit rents are between $900 and $1,200. 

Tenants, some of whom are Section 8 recipients, have reported sewage water flooding the building or coming up through the kitchen sink, unkempt laundry facilities and community space, delayed maintenance calls and other problems, including crime in and around the property. 

AHA staff said they are addressing tenants’ concerns and said they received just one complaint about mold, which was dealt with. Since taking the reins, the organization has spent roughly $120,000 on repairing and maintaining the building, said AHA Executive Director Susan Friedland. 

“At any given time, you can’t satisfy everybody,” said Friedland. “It’s difficult for our staff to hear public criticism. We’re not slumlords, we don’t do this for gain.” 

Lighting fixtures, locks, replaced sewer lines, new doors and laundry machines are among the upgrades. Most recently, management installed new security cameras, on the heels of an incident Labor Day, when a tenant was attacked at gunpoint in the building’s parking lot. 

“In terms of health and safety, I feel we’ve been extremely responsive, because everyone should feel safe,” said Erin Patch, off-site property manager for AHA. 

Residents hoped new supervision would improve living conditions. It hasn’t, some say. 

A homeowner across the street from Allston House, who has lived in the neighborhood for 26 years, says she has seen circumstances worsen since AHA took over. 

“There was a noticeable downward trend,” she said. “More trash around the building, an odd, unfinished paint job, the beginnings of construction but no follow-up, rotted wood on some of the balcony areas, generally more noise, a lot more hanging out on the corners—groups of young men hanging out with no purpose except possibly drug deals.” 

One tenant, 19, says she and her family won’t take the garbage out at night for fear of getting attacked. 

Elias Rodriquez, 12, who spoke to the Daily Planet on behalf of his Spanish-speaking parents, said the family cars have been broken into four times since they moved into the complex three years ago. Three of those incidents occurred in the gated parking lot. 

According to the Berkeley Police Department, reported criminal activity at the apartment complex is on the decline. Just one incident was reported at the building since January, said public information officer Ed Galvan, though he did not have older statistics available, which would show trends before and after AHA assumed management. 

April Green, who has lived in the complex for 13 years, says there need to be more security cameras, more vigilance with known drug dealers, better locks, better gates and brighter lights. In February, Green and a band of other residents lobbied the city for help. Their complaints have fallen, largely, on deaf ears. 

Representatives from the offices of both the mayor and District 2 City Councilmember Darryl Moore say AHA has taken enormous strides toward cleaning up the building. 

“As far as I understand the situation, when AHA took it over, there were quite a few issues with crime and habitability,” said Ryan Lau, aide to Councilmember Moore. “But ever since then … they’ve addressed as many problems as financially viable.” 

AHA staff say they will make major refurbishments, like flooring replacement, security upgrades, new countertops and other features, once they secure funding to do so this fall. 

AHA owns 450 affordable housing units in the Bay Area and manages an additional 75, owned by Berkeley Housing Authority. In recent years, the non-profit agency has been the subject of other tenant grievances. Residents of the Shattuck Senior Homes complained in 2004 about negligent upkeep, a lack of on-site management, dirty floors and trash buildup. Last year, the Tri-City Post reported on mold infestation in an AHA-operated apartment unit, at 1305 Ashby Ave.  

“I think AHA is a wonderful organization and it’s providing an extraordinary resource,” said City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who has assisted residents of the Allston House lobby the city. “But like any organization, they seem to have problems with specific cases that need some attention.” 

While the City Council is set to resolve one battle of that structural war known as the Gaia Building, other conflagrations still confront city officials and citizen commissioners. 

The council is scheduled to act Tuesday on a request by city planning and legal staff to approve an agreement resolving a long conflict over the use of the first two floors of the high-rise at 2116 Allston Way. 

But once that’s done, there’s still work ahead for a multi-agency task force and for the panel that’s hammering out a new plan for downtown Berkeley. 

While other questions remain, the most immediate issue—the rules governing use of the building’s “cultural bonus space”—will end should the City Council adopt the compromise worked out with developer Patrick Kennedy. 

The cultural bonus, a vaguely worded provision of the current Downtown Plan, was created to encourage developers to create venues for cultural events in new downtown buildings in exchange for the right to make their projects taller than current height limits would otherwise allow. 

Kennedy was the first to use the bonus, aided by a City Council eager both for more culture and more housing to revitalize an ailing city center. 

In return for creating 10,000 square feet of cultural space, he won the right to add two additional floors to the building, making it the tallest structure built in Berkeley since the Power Bar building. 

But the project has been controversial from the start, as documented in hundreds of emails and letters to and from city officials obtained by this newspaper by a request under the California Public Records Act. 

When critics and city officials questioned the way he was using the space, Kennedy (a graduate of Harvard Law School) adroitly contested every point, causing Deputy Planning Director Wednesday Cosin to lament in a February email, “Kennedy is trying to work the system again and is not forthcoming.” 

But sharp lawyering, perhaps aided by pointed questions from city councilmembers with relatives eager to use the space, has forced a resolution that would end efforts by the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to hold hearings that could have revoked a city use permits for the space. 

It is that settlement the City Council will consider Tuesday. 

This article looks at some of the highlights of the long-running dispute. For a fuller account of the documents, see the newspaper’s web site at www.berkeleydailyplanet.com. 

Key issues 

Two key issues may have foreordained the conflict-ridden morass from which the city is working to extricate itself: the city’s failure to implement specific cultural bonus policies and the pressure to allow for-profit businesses to occupy the space in the Allston Way edifice. 

While the 1990 downtown plan created the concept of the bonus, it also called on the city to adopt enabling legislation to spell out the specific requirement in city zoning code amendments. 

While the Civic Arts Commission adopted a set of provisions, the Planning Commission and City Council failed to follow up. 

Though at least one member of the citizen panel that drafted the 1990 plan has said that the intent was to create space for non-profits, city staff specifically approved the use of the Gaia Building space for a profit-making organization, the Gaia bookstore that gave the structure its name. 

A New Age retailer, the store offered author lectures and classes that drew on a passionate base of supporters who flooded ZAB and the city with letters urging approval of the project and appeared to testify on its behalf. 

The loudest opposition came from preservationists, who fought to save much-altered historic buildings on the property, including the original home of Berkeley Farms creamery. They sought and won a structure of merit designation by the Landmarks Preservation Commission which was overruled by the City Council. 

One of the project’s supporters was City Councilmember Dona Spring, who represents the downtown. She has since emerged as one of the project’s most vocal critics, along with Anna de Leon, another Gaia cultural space tenant and graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law. 

Before the building’s opening, changing economics of retailing had driven Gaia Books out of business, leaving the bonus space vacant and unfinished. 

The space remained vacant as a series of potential non-profit tenants proved unable to raise the funds needed to fit out and furnish the unfinished interior shell. 

Kennedy, the owners of a catering company and de Leon were able to craft the uneasy compromise that exists today, with de Leon in control part of the ground floor and Glass Onion Catering owners Gloria and Tom Atherstone in control of the rest of the two-floor cultural space. 

De Leon had been a tenant at a Kennedy building on University Avenue when her landlord invited her to move to his new Allston Way building. But a series of delays, the last resulting from an objection to her liquor license by a Gaia apartment dweller, blocked her move until she was able to open her for-profit Anna’s Jazz Island in May 2005 in the eastern part of the ground floor. 

The Atherstones created a new for-profit entity, Gaia Arts Management, to lease and operate the remainder of the space, finding their first part-time tenant in The Marsh, a San Francisco theatrical troupe looking to expand its operations into the East Bay. 

Kennedy fitted out the remainder of the ground floor as a theater with movable seating so dinners and other events could be held, and The Marsh began an irregular performances schedule in August, with the catering company also using the venue for dinners, parties and other events. 

The first troubles surfaced Nov. 10, when Fire Marshal Gil Dong contacted Kennedy after learning that events were being held on the second floor, despite the fact he hadn’t applied for the requisite city permits. 

Missing permits 

As recounted in a subsequent memo by City Manager Phil Kamlarz, Dong ordered a “fire watch” for the five upcoming scheduled events on the mezzanine. “Patrick was also advised that after December 16, 2005, he would be required to possess the proper Assembly Permits and obtain a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy to use the second floor for events.” 

On Nov. 14, Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin emailed Dong, Planning Director Dan Marks, Deputy Fire Marshal Wayne Inouye, Planning Manager Mark Rhoades and Building Official Joan MacQuarrie that Clif Bar, a Berkeley-based company, was planning a Dec. 2 reception in an area without permit, presumably the mezzanine, on Dec. 2. 

Another event, a reception for Berkeley Repertory Theater, was scheduled that weekend. 

While Dong would allow a fire watch for the Berkeley Rep event, the city wasn’t inclined to allow further events without providing accurate second-floor plans and applications for the permits, as well as a detailed account of a specific performance standard for the space. 

Kennedy submitted vague plans in an improper format three days later, meeting with MacQuarrie’s prompt rejection. 

A day later, Cosin emailed Dong to urge him to allow events to continue until the permits were obtained: “When I head about proposals for a benefit for Hop-a-long [sic] Animal Rescue and a holiday party for Clif Bar, a business that we are desperately trying to keep in Berkeley, I see a lot of pressure to make it work as long as he does what we tell him to do.” (Emphasis added.) 

While Kennedy wanted an occupancy rating of 300 for the second floor, Dong fired back, calling the number “not appropriate,” and declaring that 31 was the proper figure. Kennedy had also never responded to the order to post fire watches and, as a bottom line, no events could be held without the fire department-issued assembly permit. 

There was also the matter of an illegal fire exit sign posted at a too-narrow stairway and the lack of required fire extinguishers. 

On Nov. 21, Kennedy emailed Cosin claiming “we had approval of plans showing assembly use all along,” approved by the Fire, Building and Planning departments with an approved capacity of 320 in the mezzanine. 

Nonetheless, he promised new plans. 

The next day, Kennedy filed to modify his use permit so he could change the plans submitted with a June 2003 letter by de Leon and signed by then-Planning Director Carol Barrett, outlining the performance standard that remains in force today. The revision would allow conversion of a never-built office for classroom purposes and create a food preparation and utility room for catered events. 

The following day, Kennedy emailed Dong a list of four upcoming events, a bar mitzvah and the Hopalong and Clif Bar parties planned for both the main floor and the mezzanine and a Dec. 16 corporate party on the main floor only. 

Kennedy noncompliance 

Kamlarz described what happened next in a March memorandum: Kennedy “was notified that a ‘fire watch’ was required for the remaining events; that he needed to email Fire Marshal Gil Dong the security company that was hired to provide the fire watch, and to post the occupancy load of 133 on the 2nd floor for the events. Patrick did not complete any of the requests.” 

Instead of hiring the legally required trained fire watch, the developer had an employee of his management company attend the events. In a later email he contended he didn’t know of the special requirement. 

As the battle over permits continued, conflict arose on another front. 

On Jan. 7, police were summoned to the theater space after a private party for a 15-year-old turned into a debacle with unruly youths climbing out the second-floor level windows. As police shut it down, an angry guest hurled a bottle at police as they tried to control the angry crowd eager to get in. 

Two days later, de Leon would file a four-page complaint with the Zoning Adjustments Board, laying out the her complaints about Kennedy and Gaia Arts Management. 

On the Jan. 10, de Leon emailed Councilmember Spring, asking for help in protecting her business from unruliness next door, and the Daily Planet ran excerpts of de Leon’s complaint. 

The next morning, Kennedy emailed Cosin to complain about the article, and to ask why the city had failed to respond to complaints he’d made about de Leon’s permits. 

That same afternoon, Aurora Theater Development Director Daria Hepps emailed Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, saying the story “heightens our concern about having our big fundraiser there March 27. Could you please look into this with the appropriate people at City Hall and let me know if this is something I need to be concerned about ... It would be really devastating if we had to cancel or move the event at the last minute.” 

Left unstated was the fact that Wozniak’s spouse, Evie, is a member of the theater’s board of directors. 

Eight minutes after the Hepps email, MacQuarrie emailed Cosin with an even more critical announcement. Building Inspector Malcolm Prince had just discovered that no temporary certificate of occupancy “had been issued or requested (for the first floor performance space), so he (Kennedy) is occupying the space in violation of the code.” 

Sixteen minutes later, Fire Marshal Dong emailed Kennedy, writing that he didn’t have a fire permit because he hadn’t requested the inspections needed to get it—and which he couldn’t receive anyway because he lacked temporary or permanent certificates of occupancy for either of the floors. 

Further, Kennedy had listed different occupancy figures in his applications for his fire assembly permit than he did on the other permit applications he had filed with Cosin’s department. 

A fire inspection would also reveal that standpipe for an emergency fire department hookup on the second floor was in a location inaccessible in the event of a fire. Kennedy denied that it was problem, though Dong would warn on Feb. 8, “Essentially, there is no hookup to fight a fire on the 2nd floor.” 

Noisy concert 

Meanwhile, Mario Capitelli, a nephew of City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli booked space on the ground floor to hold a series of youth rock concerts. 

On the morning of Feb. 12 after the first concert, Kennedy emailed Cosin to say “Event a success with no major incident. No cop or fire calls ... Laurie [Capitelli] apparently drop [sic] in. Can give you more details.” 

Cosin replied: “Very glad to hear it ... Now you have to wrap up details with the first floor FAST!” 

Minutes later de Leon emailed Cosin and Mark Rhoades to report that rock bands had drowned out the jazz musicians performing in her club with noise far louder than had been permitted at her old club on University Avenue. 

Three minutes later, Cosin emailed Kennedy. “I must report now that I did get an email from Anna complaining again ... I have a difficult time weighing the merits of her argument, but I will continue to work with her.” 

Kennedy forwarded a report from his building manager, Steve Walker, who had reported on “a significant noise bleed that travels up the elevator shaft and also through the building. Mario mentioned that he has dealt with noise reduction successfully at every venue he has worked at. But unless we can come up with an alternative solution, this issue will continue [sic] arise with the Gaia tenants.” 

The noise problems led Councilmember Spring to ask city staff to see if a noise meter could be installed in the apartment area courtyard which would enable tenants to call the city when noise exceeded appropriate levels. 

De Leon emailed Rhoades and Cosin on Monday, Feb. 13, that “without volume controls for the rock and roll shows, I will be unable to book quality music in my venue.’ With two more concerts booked for Feb. 25 and March 5, she wanted to know how the city regulated noise levels. 

The city, however, has no ordinance governing indoor noise, she learned. 

Councilmember Linda Maio emailed Marks with her comments on de Leon’s pre-concert email to Kennedy. “Dan, this description ... is not what we gave a cultural bonus for ... Can you tell me how we are proceeding with clearing up what use is permitted, not permitted, in the cultural space.”  

Cosin replied to Maio that live bands were a cultural use, open to the public. 

Resolution 

The complaints from de Leon had led concerned ZAB members to hold the first of a series of discussion about the Gaia Building’s use of the cultural space, raising the specter of revoking its use permit and reopening just what could and couldn’t be done with the space. 

Kennedy threatened legal action, citing the now-three-year-old letters signed by Carol Barrett and Anna de Leon and a deed restriction he had filed at the city’s insistence that specifically stated that for-profit uses were allowed in the space. 

Kennedy initially interpreted the performance standard in the letters as mandating that 30 percent of the time the space would be used for performance-related uses, which could include rehearsals and set-up time, with for-profit private parties and events allowed the rest of the time. 

De Leon, the author of the letters, insisted that the 30 percent was actually just performance time, with rehearsals and preparation requiring additional time. Though he initially objected, Kennedy has conceded the point in the proposed agreement now before the council. 

In the meantime, the developer has submitted the required plans and applied for the needed permits to bring the performance space into compliance with city ordinances. He has also agreed to relocate the standpipe for safe firefighter access. 

Whatever happens next will be closely watched from many quarters, including two city bodies. 

The question of bonuses is still under consideration by a joint task force of ZAB and the Planning and Housing Advisory commissions, and the issue will be on the minds of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, which is now preparing an update of the 1990 plan, which will cover an expanded downtown area. 

Finally, construction of the second building to incorporate the cultural bonus, the Berkeley Arpeggio (nee Seagate Building), is scheduled to commence at the end of August across from the new Berkeley City College Building on Center Street. 

Because of the lessons learned from the Gaia Building, city staff, commissioners and the council imposed conditions that restrict the space to performance-related use—with the nonprofit Berkeley Repertory Theatre as the occupant, with the obligation to allow other community groups to make use of the space. 

Deangelo Wilson, an aspiring basketball player, is learning a valuable lesson this summer: plies and jump shots are remarkably similar. 

Basketball is like dance, because, “you learn footwork, endurance, stamina, all that,” he said. 

The 12-year-old seventh-grader at Cal Prep in Oakland participates in AileyCamp, a free, intensive, six-week camp, where 90 middle school students are taught jazz, ballet, African and modern dance, in addition to personal growth lessons. The camp, a production of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, is in its fifth year in Berkeley. Cal Performances raises funding for the program.  

Monday through Thursday, students attend dance classes at Zellerbach Hall with renowned, professional instructors. Among them Willie Anderson, a principal dancer with Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley; Derrick Minter, a rehearsal director for Ailey II; Naomi Diouf, Berkeley High School dance teacher; and Alicia Zakon, creative director of Zari Le’on Dance Theater. 

On Fridays, students venture beyond the Cal campus for field trips. Last week, they sailed boats at the Berkeley Marina. 

“[The camp] really gives youngsters structure,” said David McCauley, camp director and former Ailey dancer. “We do it in the guise of dance, because it has a proscribed way of happening, though it teaches them life skills.” 

Students enter the program from all walks of life. Most are underserved; they come from single-parent households, foster care and homeless shelters. They learn about the camp through McCauley, who gives presentations to East Bay schools during the school year, and invites those interested in the program to submit an application. 

Some, like Tiana Watson, a seventh-grade student at Frick Middle School in Oakland who has taken African and Caribbean dancing, have extensive experience in dance, while others, like Ascend seventh-grader John M. Alba-Cerritos, have none. Before AileyCamp, Alba- 

Cerritos, 12, never slipped on a pair of dance shoes. Now, when he discusses career goals, modern dance and jazz feature prominently. 

Campers are bound to a strict dress code. In class, girls wear black tights and a leotard; boys wear white T-shirts and shorts. Outside of class, all wear AileyCamp T-shirts and shorts. No earrings. No nail polish. No distractions. 

This year, an unprecedented 22 boys attend classes, compared with the program’s first year, when just two boys participated, said Cal Performances spokesperson Christina Kellogg. Boys are drawn to the program, in part, because it is analogous to athletics. 

“It really is a physical activity that is as demanding as sports,” said McCauley. 

“And you have to be graceful,” Kellogg added. 

By many accounts, the class regarded as the least restrictive, African dance, is accorded the most popularity. 

“Look ridiculous,” the students say they are told. On Wednesday, they took heed, twirling around, flapping their arms and abandoning the rigid posture their ballet instructor insisted upon earlier in the day.  

Students break from dancing to eat meals—they are served breakfast and lunch—and to attend a personal development session, where they discuss violence, sex, drugs, hygiene, body image and communication skills. 

Instructor Tina Banchero, a former dancer, relates to students via pop culture—she quoted rapper 50-cent in a discussion about violence—which sets the stage for them to feel comfortable sharing their opinions and personal experiences.  

Several former students have gone on to attend schools with emphases in the arts, McCauley said. Others return to camp as helpers. Yejide Najee-Ullah, 18, a recent Berkeley High School graduate, has volunteered since in 2003. She was a student in 2002. 

“Initially, I didn’t want to go (to camp). It was my summer before high school, but I ended up loving it,” she said. “I feel like I’ve needed to give back because I got so much out of it.” 

Diouf, who has taught West African dance and culture at Berkeley High School for 16 years, has seen students transform through AileyCamp. 

They come in “bandana-wearing—really rough and tough,” she said. “By the end of the camp, a beautiful person emerges, and they become a spokesperson for the camp.” 

AileyCamp started in Kansas City, Mo., in 1989. The program also operates in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Bridgeport, Conn., and Kansas City, Ks., 

This year’s Berkeley camp will close with a performance Thursday, Aug. 3, at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall. Admission is free. To obtain tickets, go to the Cal Performances Ticket Office at Zellerbach in advance or the night of the show. 

Students practice their ballet moves at the AileyCamp at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus on Wednesday. The camp, offering free dance classes to 90 middle school students, is in its fifth year. Photograph by Suzanne Le Barre.

Lies, lawsuits and chalk marks: It’s politics as usual on the UC Berkeley campus. 

The Associated Students of UC Berkeley (ASUC), the governing body representing Cal’s 33,000 students, held elections in April, but the new batch of executive officers remains a mystery, following allegations—and a ruling—that the dominant party engaged in illegal campaigning then lied about it. 

In early June, four members of Student Action, the university’s largest political party, were disqualified from the election after sweeping the executive slate, composed of a president and three vice presidents. 

Cal’s nine-member student Judicial Council ruled that Student Action party chair Suken Vakil had committed perjury when he gave dishonest testimony when questioned, in an earlier trial, about his party chalking slogans near six campus polling sites. 

Campaigning within 100 feet of the polls, provided that the polls are properly marked off, is a violation of ASUC by-laws. Vakil is currently out of the country and could not be reached for comment. 

Now, Student Action is appealing that decision. A hearing is set for July 15. 

In the meantime, outgoing ASUC President Manny Buenrostro, of Student Action, who did not return a call for comment, has issued an executive order temporarily placing the disqualified candidates in office, an order that was quickly contested. (He rescinded an earlier order to unilaterally recognize the candidates, which was also challenged.) 

Complicating matters are the new/ disqualified officers, who, according to the conservative blog Cal Patriot, are wielding executive power by issuing orders and making appointments. 

Cal students contribute monthly fees to ASUC, which is charged with allocating funding to student groups. Elected ASUC officials include a president, three vice presidents, an apolitical student advocate and 20 senators. Student Action is the major party, followed by CalSERVE and the Defend Affirmative Action Party, neither of which ran an executive slate this year, then SQUELCH!. 

What happens next is anyone’s guess. If the Student Action appeal were successful, the four disqualified candidates, Oren Gabriel, Vishal Gupta, Joyce Liu and Jason Chu, would be reinstated and eventually sworn into their respective seats, according to Election Council Chair Jessica Wren. 

If not, the Judicial Council could mandate a recount, she said. However, the League of Women voters, which acts as a third party to ASUC elections, has called the legality of such an event into question, Wren said. Another option is to hold a new race in the fall. Elections typically cost about $50,000, she said. 

Student Action could also threaten to take the case to state or federal court. According to Ben Narodick, SQUELCH! candidate for external vice president, this could affect ASUC’s autonomy, because the court may rule the fate of the elections away to the university. A court case could also incur major costs, he said.  

ASUC “would have to hire a lawyer, and that would come out of money that student groups would get,” he said. 

Vishal Gupta, the spokesperson for Student Action, who also ran for external vice president, declined to respond to specific questions about the election.  

The last UC Berkeley student government case to go to trial was in 1984, Narodick said, though according to Sonya Banjeree, Judicial Council Chair, it is not unprecedented for a party to get disqualified. A similar case came up in 2004 with the Defend Affirmative Action Party, and was settled out of court, she said.  

The election saga has unfolded on Cal blogs like CalStuff, Beetle Beat and the Cal Patriot, where some pundits are calling the reputation of the ASUC into question. 

“The people who truly care about the ASUC are worried about its credibility as an organization,” writes Chris Page on Cal Patriot. “They know if the situation goes to court, the ASUC’s autonomy will take a hit.” 

ASUC Auxiliary Director Nadesan Permaul, who advises students, says the election is a valuable learning experience for students, comparing it with the presidential election showdown in 2000, the recent Supreme Court ruling in Vermont over campaign financing and the evergreen political hullabaloo closer to home. 

He said, “While others may think it’s unusual, just look at Berkeley city politics.”

Neighbors of Bateman Mall met with Berkeley city officials for the third time on Thursday to discuss the city’s conceptual plan for the restoration of the grassy mall.  

Residents of Prince and Dana streets said they were irked by the city’s failure to honor the agreements over the restoration of Bateman Mall Park. made with the Bateman-Prince-Colby community at a May 15 meeting. 

According to the neighbors, time is running short for the restoration project and the situation has been made worse by the city’s inability to get the plans to the residents for review by the middle of June, as they had been promised at the May meeting. 

The neighbors said they still expect the city to finish the restoration by the start of the rainy season around the middle of October regardless of what needs to be done to make it happen. 

Peter B. Eakland, associate city traffic engineer, along with Loren Jensen, the city’s drainage engineer, apologized for the delay and presented a project plan to the neighbors. After discussion about various drainage possibilities, it was decided that a grass crete acting as drainage would give the best aesthetics and also act as efficient drainage. 

The neighbors however were against open drainage on the sidewalk as it would couse problems for those using strollers and wheelchairs. 

“We also need to keep in mind that the current in the open drains during the rains is strong enough to wash away a 1-year-old playing in the Bateman tot-lot,” said Jocelyn Bale Glickman, a resident of Prince Street. “We would therefore like it if the water when it gets to the sidewalk, goes under the sidewalk.”  

In the end neighbors and city officials both decided that a grass crete road acting as a drain, with the possibility of a verm, ultimately leading to drainage under the sidewalk instead of over it, would be the best option. 

Regarding sinage, it was decided that there would be “No Through Access” signs placed on both ends of the cul-de-sac but that the mall itself would remain sign-free. The curb would be chamfered to give firetrucks access during emergency operations and would be painted red. 

Eakland also informed the residents that after survey work was completed, expected by the end of July, a plan would be sent to Alta Bates Hospital by Aug. 15 for a review. Following that, negotiations between Alta Bates and the contractor would continue for two weeks. Restoration work is scheduled to begin Sept. 1. 

The neighbors were informed that Alta Bates would not be spending any more money on the restoration than what was initially budgeted. The project cost at present comes up to approximately $16,000. 

The neighbors stressed the fact that maintenance of the mall was also an important issue, as the city has neglected to clear clogged drains in the past, creating the flooding problems. 

Eakland and Jenson outlined their long-range plans, which included a detailed survey of the Dana and Prince streets drainage problem with plans to improve it in fiscal year 2008.

SAN JOSE—If this city were a person, it would be a middle-aged man on the tail end of a spiraling career who, having just gone through a mid-life crisis, buys a glitzy new house and tries to hook up with younger women, then lies to his family about it. In other words, San Jose would be our current mayor, Ron Gonzales.  

Until recently, most of San Jose associated scandal with Gonzales due to his soap opera-like affair with a young intern. Now Gonzales has been indicted on charges of felony bribery, conspiracy and misuse of public funds for a deal he made with Norcal Waste Systems, a garbage company. This latest scandal fits right into the narrative of San Jose in the post-dot-com era. Just like that mid-life crisis guy who still goes to dance clubs to reclaim a lost past, our city was destined for public disgrace.  

Before the dot-come crash, we were the storied city that had moved from orchards to computer chips. Every region in the world seemed to want to be at our speed. There was Silicon Alley in New York, Silicon Forest in Portland, Ore., even Silicon Hills in Texas. Back then, in the late ‘90s, our new Latino mayor was addressing the Democratic National Convention and being talked about to succeed Gray Davis as governor of California.  

After the crash, our economic and political blueprint lost its allure, and so did our mayor. But once famous, it’s hard to go back to being known as a San Francisco suburb (as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom called us at a mayors’ conference earlier this year). We have been desperate to save face ever since.  

The Norcal deal with Gonzales was a result of the obsession with appearances that has become a strategy for governance in San Jose. In 2000, Gonzales and his aide struck a private deal with Norcal Waste Systems—the mayor would help get the city to pay an extra $11.25 million to Norcal to cover Teamster wages. Investigations say that Gonzales later convinced the city council, which did not know of his agreements with Norcal, to raise garbage rates to cover the cost.  

Gonzales originally denied any previous talks with Norcal, but acknowledged last summer that he made the agreement to support a future pay increase. But even after having been indicted by a grand jury, Gonzales refuses to leave office. What the district attorney’s office is calling bribery, he calls an attempt at “labor peace.” According to Gonzales, he was doing what he could to avoid the most publicly embarrassing of labor conflicts—a garbage strike.  

People seemed shocked by his audacity, but I can see why Gonzales feels justified in staying on as mayor. He got caught reaching for an end he and the rest of the city’s leadership has been pushing since the dot-com bust—maintaining San Jose’s appearance as utopian and conflict-free, regardless of the means or the cost.  

Take, for example, our new City Hall. A $380 million Star Wars-esque monstrosity planted in the heart of downtown, it is a domed structure walled mainly by glass, with a constantly running spray of water in the entryway. It was built as the city was cutting millions in spending, having been decimated by the dot-com gamble, and we now owe $25 million a year for the foreseeable future to pay off the construction. 

That construction was marked by a scandal similar to the current one—city officials worked a secret deal with Cisco Systems to ensure that Cisco would win an $8 million dollar contract for the telephone and wireless systems used in the building. 

But even after that initial hiccup, San Jose got back on track to build the most futuristic City Hall/Death Star replica it could. Now the city council is trying to approve a $300,000 subsidy to build a Starbucks inside its walls.  

Consider also the new moniker that we have taken on, now that “The heart of Silicon Valley” has lost its cache: “The safest big city in America.” We won the title four years in a row, making us some sort of safety dynasty. Every year the mayor puts out a press release on the topic, which our local paper embraces as front-page news.  

To maintain such a title, we tolerate disturbingly high reports of conflict between the police and community. We had so many cases of officer-involved shootings that we became one of the first cities in the nation to give all officers tasers in 2005, a supposedly non-lethal option that had the added advantage of contributing to the whole high-tech look. 

After implementation, reports found a disproportionate usage of tasers on people of color, and the rate of officer-involved shootings only got higher. And as the city goes for our fifth straight victory in the safest-city contest, we have ever increasing rates of racial profiling and complaints of overstepping by police—a 33 percent increase since 2003, according to the Independent Police Audit.  

In the end, Gonzales likely will not do any time, and will be able to finish his term, which ends in December. Last week, the City Council—after having put on a fiery display in the media about forcing the mayor to resign—ended up only taking away roughly 6 percent of his budget and asking him to disclose his appointments calendar and phone logs. A lengthy attempt to force him out would result in more city dysfunction being talked about all over the country, and no one in San Jose leadership wants that.  

But the damage has already been done. We have become a city that no longer has any confidence in its leadership. The two candidates who are battling to succeed Gonzales, Cindy Chavez and Chuck Reed, have shrunken their campaign promises to meet lowered expectations—“I won’t make backroom deals.”  

Critics of the mayor say that it was pride—the same characteristic that brought him success in his early years—that led to his downfall. San Jose as a city has fallen on the same sword. We were a city that once seemed to be the future; now we’re stumbling as we reach back toward that once-glorious past.

Rapists sought 

UC Police are looking for two men suspected of raping an intoxicated student in People’s Park on the night of June 25. 

The 20-year-old victim told investigators she was assaulted by two acquaintances while she was unconscious, according to an alert issued by campus police Chief Victoria L. Harrison. 

Officers found the woman in the park at 10:14 p.m.  

Chief Harrison asked anyone with information about the assault to call Detective Norma Caro of the department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau at 642-0472 during business hours and 642-6760 during nights and evenings. 

Berkeley police received a report of another rape just after midnight on June 30. The incident happened in the 1900 block of Channing Way, but no further details were available.  

Rat pack robbery 

A 23-year-old pedestrian was robbed by a gang of six teenagers as he walked across the northern end of Sproul Plaza shortly before 7 p.m. June 27. 

According to UC Berkeley Police Chief Harrison’s crime alert, the pedestrian was struck in the back of the head and knocked to the ground after the gang surrounded him. 

The 17-year-old who landed the blow scooped up the fellow’s skateboard and the gang ran off, with their victim in pursuit. 

Campus officers spotted the chase and managed to arrest the skateboard-toting assailant, who turned out to be the 17-year-old they had arrested the night before for an assault that had occurred in the Dwinelle Hall parking lot.

Last Poetry Reading at Cody’s Books  

Dale and I are late  

hurrying up Haste St.  

toward Cody’s  

after attending a UC Berkeley  

graduation party in the Elmwood  

where abundant middle eastern  

food flowed  

and beautiful young women  

of various hues  

wore red, white, and blue  

slinky dresses to celebrate  

Kate’s sail out  

into the world  

At Telegraph and Haste  

Dale and I suddenly sail  

into medieval times  

A street couple  

the woman with crazy eyes  

is arranging a whole row  

of belongings  

on the edge of Haste  

It’s almost as if  

the two were evicted  

from a full room  

and they had their possessions  

delivered to their new address— 

Haste at Telegraph— 

Cody’s Books  

Did this dispossessed couple  

read the news?  

Learn Andy Ross partially  

blamed his loss  

of one million dollars  

on the riffraff of Telegraph  

so here they were  

to prove him right?  

Ready to move into  

his soon-to-be-vacated store?  

I sink back into  

medieval Paris  

The beadle is about to close  

the cathedral  

Lock its doors with his large key  

Soon the dark figures  

huddled nearby  

in the twilight  

will construct their lean-tos  

against the stone walls  

light their night fires  

pull out a few foraged hunks  

of bread  

from their filthy cloaks  

before they bed down  

on a heap of rags  

That was the look of it  

the night of the last poetry  

reading at Cody’s—  

a now-growing ring of street people  

surrounding “Cody’s Sidewalk”  

ready to build their own empire  

as Cody’s crumbled— 

a legend disappearing  

into dust  

The book cathedral  

closed  

Judy Wells 

June 2006 

Cody’s Books on Telegraph Avenue will close on Monday.

Editor’s Note: Between 1995 and 2001, according to the Federal Reserve bank, the average family of color saw their net worth fall 7 percent to $17,000 while the average white family's net worth rose 37 percent to $120,000. Meizhu Lui is one of the co-authors of “The Color of Wealth,” and the executive director of United For a Fair Economy.  

Sandip Roy: A quick definition: what do you mean by wealth? 

Meizhu Lui: Wealth and income are different in that income is more like a stream; it comes in and then it runs out. Wealth is more like a pool or a lake that you can draw from, and it’s really important these days, especially when jobs are not so secure. It helps you weather a rainy day of unemployment, a medical emergency, provides for your retirement, and something to pass along to your children. By wealth, we don’t mean massive amounts of money. We really just mean enough to feel economically secure. 

SR: You write housing accounts for only 32 percent of their net worth of a white family, while for blacks, it accounts for 62 percent of their net worth. What’s the significance of a statistic like that? 

ML: In the United States after a savings account and a car, the home is the next big thing that gives you a bit of a cushion. You can sell it and it will give you some return. But the interesting thing about that statistic is that the value of the home is quite different. African American homes are worth about $45,000—that’s the median value—whereas for whites it’s $142,000. So, there’s a disparity there as well. 

SR: Would you say that each ethnic group has its own particular roadblock to the accumulation of wealth, or is it pretty much a common problem across the board?  

ML: There is a common problem, which is that people from Europe defined themselves very early on as a superior group, the only group really eligible to be full American citizens and therefore eligible for the benefits thereof. However there were different barriers for each group. 

Native people’s philosophy about land was that it was not to be privately owned, that it was something that was commonly held not only for the next seven generations, but for plants and animals. But when the Europeans came, their idea of land was that you had to divide it into little parcels, owned by private individuals, and if you didn’t have a fence around it, it wasn’t worth anything. 

So, the expropriation of Indian land was really the first vast transfer of wealth from one group of color to another. 

Of course, for African Americans it is the expropriation of their labor, and if they were to be paid wages, not necessarily high wages, just wages for their labor, there would be about $1.4 trillion circulating in the African American community today. 

For Latinos, it’s mostly about foreign policy, that was considered the US backyard, and it still is, so under the guise of protecting Mexico and other countries from European powers, the US created policies that kept the resources at the beck and call of the US. 

As for Asians, the Naturalization Act of 1790, one of the first acts of Congress, said that in order to become naturalized as an immigrant, you had to live here for two years, you had to be an upstanding character, you had to be loyal to the constitution, and you had to be white. So that was the first introduction for this word white, and when the Chinese and these other groups sued for the right to be white and lost, what it meant was there was no protection for their property, they were subject to discriminatory laws.  

So, for example, the Foreign Miners Tax during the Gold Rush that the Chinese miners paid but not European miners, accounted for about 25 percent of California’s budget. But not having the benefits of citizenship, if somebody stole their claim to a mine, there was no legal protection for them. 

SR: But even for white Americans, there are many more Walmart clerks than Bill Gates but their average assets would be $30 billion which unfairly skews the numbers. Why not tackle poverty across race instead of focusing on race? 

ML: We really can’t talk about equality if we don’t look at racial equality at every period of U.S. history. There has been an alarming gap that still exists today, and, at every step of history, the government has given boosts to white families. So I think the myth that we’re trying to debunk is that it’s only because of your own hard work that you get ahead in society. The invisible, dirty little secret is that government policies and government subsidies have helped whites and have put barriers in front of people of color at every period of U.S. history, and that makes a big difference. For example, in the ‘30s when Social Security was first implemented domestic workers and agricultural workers were left out of that legislation, and those were the two occupations that were held most heavily by African Americans and Latinos. 

SR: But given that we do live in a capitalist society, what is White America’s interest in narrowing this gap? 

ML: First of all, just to give an example about class, when the G.I. bill was first passed, which gave free college tuition to working class, white GIs--not explicitly limited to white, but that was the way the program ended up being implemented—there were people who said these working class guys, they’re just going to mess up our educational system because they don’t have the brains to do it. 

Clearly that wasn’t true, and for every dollar spent on a white GI’s education, there has been about a $12.50 return in terms of the growth of our economy.  

So if we think of all the people that we are not investing in today, and not allowing them to develop their skills and talents, how are we going to compete in the global marketplace? It will boost everyone, it will boost white people as well, if we allow more resources to go to people of color. 

Sandip Roy interviewed Lui for “UpFront,” a NAM weekly radio program on 91.7FM, San Francisco. Roy is an editor for New America Media.

Al Gore need not advertise his recently released documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, in Berkeley—a group of high school students are doing it for him.  

For more than a week, 35 hand-drawn posters, each promoting the movie, have adorned the site of the late Eddie Bauer store on Shattuck Avenue at Allston Way. 

Rendered in markers on butcher paper and tacked up with layers of tape, the posters urge onlookers to view the critically acclaimed documentary, which features Gore in his crusade against global warming. 

“Hey you. Yeah, you,” one poster says. “Do you care about our future? Watch! An Inconvenient Truth.” An arrow points to a drawing of Earth with the words, “Find out how to save this.” 

None of the posters is signed and no two are the same.  

There are scholarly renditions: “By burning fossil fuels, such as coal, gas and oil, and clearing forests, we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxides in the Earth’s atmosphere, and temperatures are rising,” a text-laden poster says. “I would encourage people to see ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ because I want them to understand it’s time to use the energy saving.” 

There are plugs for alternative transportation: Hybrid cars “can save over 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year,” one poster says, while another, featuring an image of a bicycle, declares, “Ride me and save the world.” 

The doomsday variety features prominently: One poster depicts an underwater world and forebodingly asks, “Where will you be in 50 years?” 

The posters were a project of Matt Fishbach’s advanced biology course at Berkeley High School last semester when students learned about environmental issues, including global warming. 

“It pretty much goes along the precept of ‘think globally, act locally,’” Fishbach said in a phone message. (He was out of town this week and could not be reached for further comment.) 

Berkeley Unified School District public information officer Mark Coplan touted the project as “an outstanding effort by Berkeley young people to do grassroots advertising.”  

The building’s owner, a private bank trust, probably did not sanction the posting of the signs, said John Gordon, of Gordon Commercial Real Estate Services, the property’s broker. 

“My guess is it is not authorized. Banks generally don’t take political viewpoints,” he said Friday.  

Still, the signs remain. They’ve survived wind, sun, destructive passers-by and other wear and tear.  

They’ve had help. Sympathetic observers like Bonnie Hughes have mended the posters when they’ve torn or been swept away. Hughes now traverses Shattuck Avenue with a roll of packing tape in tow and urges others do the same. “I recommend that everyone carry tape with them,” she said.  

An Inconvenient Truth opened in theaters in late May. The film interweaves Gore’s personal history with a crash course in global warming, and has been described by critics as “highly persuasive,” “informative and enlightening” and “for a doomsday lecture … shockingly entertaining.” 

The film sold out the first weekend it opened at California Theatre on Kittredge Street, around the corner from the collection of student posters, and continues to play on two screens, an employee said.

Two conflicting revisions of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) made significant advances last week—the first an ordinance from Mayor Tom Bates and the second an initiative for the November ballot. 

On a 6-2 vote late Thursday night, Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) approved the mayor’s developer-backed ordinance, which would make major changes in the city’s existing law governing historic properties. 

The next day, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters declared that supporters of a rival, preservationist-backed measure had gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. 

That initiative seeks to preserve the existing law while making minor changes designed to bring it fully into line with state law. 

City Clerk Sherry Kelly said she is preparing a report on the LPO initiative, which will go to the City Council on July 18 or 25. 

“They can either adopt the initiative then or place it on the ballot,” she said. 

Only Lesley Emmington, the LPC’s most uncompromising preservationist, and former Chair Jill Korte voted against the Bates ordinance at Thursday’s LPO meeting. 

Korte had announced her vote early in the meeting, saying she could not vote on a draft she and her fellow commissioners had only received that day. 

The commission’s newest members, realtor and developer Miriam Ng and architect Burton Edwards, voted with the majority. 

Edwards had been appointed to fill the seat vacated by Councilmember Max Anderson’s ouster of Patti Dacey, a Maudelle Shirek appointee and another staunch preservationist who had repeatedly slammed the Bates proposal. Ng was appointed by Darryl Moore to fill a seat which had been vacant for months.  

The mayor’s measure will go to the City Council for a first hearing and vote July 11, with a solid majority likely to approve, if previous discussions are any guideline. 

That measure, created by Bates and City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, includes a key provision critics say will make it easier for developers to level potential landmarks—the so-called Request for Determination (RFD.) 

That section allows developers and property owners to force the LPC to rule on whether or not a site qualifies as a landmark, based on a report prepared by a private consultant selected from a list approved by the commission. 

If the LPC passes on the property, developers are given a two-year “safe harbor” during which any attempt to landmark the property is barred. References to a five-year span in the previous draft had been removed by city staff, said Planning Director Dan Marks. 

Developers sought changes in the existing law, which had been used to delay their projects, sometimes fatally. 

Confronted with neighborhood-changing projects, activists have filed petitions to initiate the landmarking process for structures that would be demolished to make way for the developments. 

But in recent instances when the LPC has approved the landmarks, the decisions were overruled by a City Council that has grown increasingly impatient with the use of preservation law to block development. 

The particular bane of developers has been the structure of merit, a category that extends the protections to historic structures that been altered to an extent greater than those which are granted the “landmark” designation. Confusingly, both classes are landmarks in the sense of legal protections. 

The original draft of the Bates-Capitelli ordinance eliminated the category except with historic districts, which drew praise from developers and Rena Rickles, an Oakland attorney who frequently represents them before the city. 

Korte objected to the name given the process in the draft before the commission Thursday, and her colleagues agreed the older name was a more accurate description of the process. 

“I really don’t think an Assessment of Historic Significance is the outcome here,” she said. “It is really an opportunity for the LPC to review and initiate, and it is not an Assessment of Historic Significance.” 

The process sets up two roughly parallel tracks for looking at potentially historic properties—the initiation of the landmarks process and the RFD. 

But an RFD—unless acted on by the LPC—blocks the public from filing a landmark application for the two-year period, a move that would have block the public landmark application that stalled a condominium conversion project at 2901 Otis St. 

Developers had filed for a use permit to turn the Victorian cottage into a three-story popup with a condo on each floor. Neighbors who learned of the project were able to convince the LPC top declare the building a structure of merit. 

By the time the City Council overturned the designation, the developers had called off their project and later sold the building to a neighbor who wanted to preserve the existing structure. 

The house “was a cornerstone to its neighborhood,” Roger Marquis told the LPC Thursday. “I don’t think it would’ve been save under the revision you guys are looking at.” 

Marquis is one of the two principal sponsors of the LPC initiative voters will decide on in November. Also present Thursday was the measure’s second principal proponent, Laurie Bright. 

“We are seeing a full court press by developers,” Bright said. 

Most of the audience was composed of opponents of the mayor’s revisions. Alan Tobey of Livable Berkeley was the principal supporter. Also present were Calvin Fong, an aide to the mayor, and Deputy City Attorney Zac Cowan. 

City Planner Marks found himself repeatedly at loggerheads with Emmington, who frequently interposed objections and questions as he guided the commission through the latest draft. 

When it came time for a vote, Steven Winkel made the motion, with a second from Burton Edwards. Carrie Olson, who worked closely with the mayor in trying to find a compromise the LPC could live with, added an amendment directing the commission to take another look at the ordinance in a year and perform any necessary tweaking. 

“I’m going to vote no,” said Korte. “I just got the draft tonight, and if each of us is honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we really don’t know what we’re voting on.” 

The next move is up to the City Council, and, after them, the voters in November.

Critics of the city’s handling of proposed development at the Ashby BART station have launched an effort to start their own planning process. 

The South Berkeley Community Visioning Project has filed for a $60,000 grant from the UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund. 

Meanwhile, the City Council allocated $40,000 for its own planning process when it adopted the 2006-2007 budget Tuesday night. Winners of the UC Berkeley grants won’t be announced until August. 

The chancellor’s fund, which will disperse $200,000 this year, was set up under terms of the settlement of a city lawsuit filed against the university’s Long Range Development Plan for the years through 2020. 

The lead organization for the grant application is the Long Range Education, Empowerment and Action Project—LEAP, headed by Kenoli Oleari, one of the leading critics of the Ashby BART Task Force. 

The task force was selected by the South Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation (SBNDC), designated by the city as the lead agent in the preliminary planning of a mixed-use housing project to be built over the BART station’s main parking lot between Adeline Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

That process was contingent on a $120,000 grant from the California Department of Transportation, which was denied by the agency in late May. 

The task force has continued to meet, despite initial and subsequently withdrawn objections from its principal sponsors, Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmember Max Anderson. 

Bates said Thursday that he hopes an expanded planning process will look at the entire Adeline Street corridor. 

“The money will go to the city manager to come back with ideas, ways to set up a process, “ Bates said. “Max will also come back with policy guidance for the council to consider.” 

Asked if the existing task force would be involved, the mayor said “The council did ask the SBNDC to come up with a task force, but I don’t know what Max will ask for.” 

Oleari and other critics charged that the task force was selected through a secret process, with no set number of members nor qualifications for membership spelled out in advance.  

“People don’t want a process run by some guy they don’t know and who doesn’t even smile,” Oleari said, referring to Ed Church, the professional consultant working with SBNDC. 

The initial task force public meetings were raucous affairs, frequently interrupted by shouts and, on one occasion, a chant. 

“The next time we hold a meeting, I think I’ll ask a mental health expert to come along,” said Bates. 

Two city officials serve on the nine-member board of the Chancellor’s fund, Jim Hynes, an assistant city manager, and Julie Sinai, senior aide to Mayor Bates. 

The mayor said he won’t be making any suggestions about the grants, either pro or con. “Whatever comes out of the process is fine,” he said, adding that requests for $900,000 in grants had been received, more than four times the available funds.  

Other non-university members include Berkeley Alliance Executive Director Tracey Schear (an organization which is chaired by Sinai), Chamber of Commerce board Chair Carolyn Henry-Godolphin and Pastor Rodney Yee, chair of Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action. 

UCB members include Associate Chancellor John Cummins, Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor Marthinsen, Community Relations Director Irene Hegarty, and Heather Hood, director of the Institute of Urban & Regional Development’s Center for Community Innovation. 

Grants from the Chancellor’s fund require participants from the university, and the South Berkeley Community Visioning Project has two: Dr. Alan Steinbach of the School of Health’s Joint Medical Program-Community Health and Development Program and Susan A Shaheen, of the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH), which is based at the university. 

Other participants in the community group are Tony Hill of the Prince Street Group, Ozzie Vincent of the South Berkeley Crime Prevention Council, Martin Vargas of United We Stand and Deliver, Laura Menard of the ROC Neighborhood Association, Don Link of the Shattuck Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council, and Sam Dyke of People’s Bazaar, an Adeline Street merchant. 

Oleari is a professional community facilitator who has worked on projects across the globe. In the Bay Area, he is currently working with a community organization in Bayview/Hunter’s Point. 

He also worked with the Novato school system, starting with a series of racial incidents at San Marin High School a decade ago. One result of that process is the district’s Equity Action Plan, which his been used in instances of homophobic outbreaks ands other diversity issues, Oleari said. 

Oleari said that the group’s first task would be to organize a group of community members who will be charged with reaching out to make certain that a broader range of community members and views are involved before the planning process begins. 

The entire process, from initial organizing to concrete proposals, could take as little as a year, he said. “Of course having a pot of money would help,” he said. 

Many who support Oleari’s efforts were organized through Neighbors of Ashby BART, and its web site, the creation of local land use activist Robert Lauriston, a supporter of Oleari’s grant application. 

Another supporter is Osha Neumann, the activist attorney and Ashby BART neighbor who represents Community Services United, the coalition of nonprofits that administers the Berkeley Flea Market held at the at the BART parking lot on weekends. 

Another supporter is Ashley Berkowitz, a director and founder of EPIC Arts. 

Oleari’s group has a web site, Imagine South Berkeley, at southberkeley.longrange.org.

In Berkeley, it seems most everyone wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stop global warming, but few want to stop driving, eating refrigerated food, reading by electric lights and watching TV. 

Which is why the City Council wants to engage the community in a process to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, created mostly by burning fossil fuel, by putting the Berkeley Climate Protection Measure on the November ballot. 

The council approved the measure by unanimous vote last month—despite comments by Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring who would have preferred stronger language—to name 2007 as Stop Global Warming Year, “support aggressive efforts to reduce climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions,” and create a community process to meet a goal of reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

The council will vote on final language before the summer recess that begins at the end of the month. 

Cisco DeVries, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Bates, said the simple act of voting for the measure will make Berkeleyans more conscious of their personal responsibility to combat global warning. 

“It gets people to make a public commitment,” said DeVries, who helped craft the referendum. 

If approved, the measure will also give the green light to the city to write forceful policy to attack the problem, he said. For example, the city could raise the RECO (Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance) standards that mandate energy-saving measures, DeVries said, underscoring that this is an example of what the city could do and not contained in the ballot measure. 

“There is little time to save the planet,” DeVries said. 

Environmentalist and East Bay Regional Parks Board Member Nancy Skinner, who also helped put together the measure, points to the importance of its “community process.” 

While the ballot language does not spell out what that process will be, it could mean setting up a task force of limited duration—this would be less costly than creating a new commission—or combining several commissions to work on the issue, she said.  

Skinner points to Seattle where the mayor created a “green-ribbon task force,” combining the efforts of the city, residents and businesses. One result was that key businesses, such as Seattle-based REI (Recreation Equipment, Inc.) set internal goals for reducing emissions. 

Worthington said he intends to try to strengthen the measure when it comes back to the council on July 12 or July 19. He said he would like to see it include a way to broker financing for solar energy and also include making the city’s fleet of vehicles run on biodiesel.  

Many city vehicles had run on biodiesal until January 2004. The program was halted when bacteria mold from the biodiesel fuel was found to have clogged engine filters and fuel injection. 

Worthington said the problems encountered have been fixed and that he hopes through this measure the city will “recommit to a better version of biodiesel.” 

Worthington noted, however, that the present version of the ballot measure was much improved over previous ones that lacked the specific goal of emission reduction of 80 percent by 2050. “It gives it a bit of substance, something to work toward,” he said. 

Despite opposition by those who believe lockers for the homeless are a nuisance, Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) opened its new locker service for the homeless on Friday. 

“It’s important because people need to have a safe, secure place to store their belongings,” said Robert Long, program coordinator for the BOSS-run Multi-Service Agency Center at the Center Street Veterans Building, where the lockers were installed. 

Three years ago, when fees were raised for lockers the city was renting for the homeless at the Shattuck Self Storage at Shattuck Avenue and Ward Street, the city put the program on hold and began to look for an agency that would sponsor the program. 

“Finally, we decided to give it a try,” Long said. 

Long, who has worked with BOSS for more than 30 years, said he understands the issues. The Shattuck Avenue locker program was plagued by people storing drugs, alcohol and weapons. 

“People were assigned a locker and others were using it,” he said. 

Options Recovery Services shares the Veterans Building with the Multi-Service Agency shelter. Options Executive and Medical Director Dr. Davida Coady says she has worked hard to keep the space drug-and-alcohol free for her clients, many of whom are just beginning the road to sobriety.  

“I feel the money should be spent for solutions to homelessness, rather than making homelessness more comfortable,” she said. “I don’t feel people are choosing to remain homeless.” 

The city allocated about $45,000 annually for staffing and $20,000 for the lockers. 

Long said he plans to address the problems. The program BOSS is calling Lockers to Housing will be part of the continuum of services, designed to house homeless persons. Each person who gets a locker also gets mandatory case-management services. In order to keep the locker, the individual must meet at least monthly with the caseworker. 

“People will have to have a plan for permanent housing; that is part of their growth,” Long said. 

There are a total of 60 lockers, each about the size of a school locker. They will be distributed over time in batches of 20 and will be available only during working hours. 

“We’ll have the right to open the lockers,” Long said. 

Coady said she hopes Options’ protests and concerns were heard by those running the new program. “The police will help us, too,” she said.

After 15 years as lead administrator for Berkeley Arts Magnet Elementary School (BAM), longtime educator Lorna Skantze-Niell has retired. 

Skantze-Niell, 64, a Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) employee for 40 years, took leave of her position June 30. The district has selected King Middle School teacher Kristin Collins to serve as her replacement.  

Skantze-Niell counts developing the school’s arts curriculum, improving student literacy and honing in on professional development among her successes at BAM. 

She got her start in the Berkeley Unified School District as a student teacher trainer in 1966, before landing her first administration position as a summer school principal for Columbus Elementary School (now Rosa Parks) in 1984. After a short stint as vice principal at Columbus, she moved up to head administrator, a position she held for six years.  

In 1991, she moved on to Berkeley Arts Magnet, a 363-student K-6 elementary school focusing on arts education, where students receive training in each of the major art forms.  

Skantze-Niell earned undergraduate and graduate degrees, in addition to educator credentials, from San Francisco State University. 

She retires from school administration to care for her husband, who fell ill with multiple myeloma last year. She plans to pursue hobbies like knitting, calligraphy and training her new puppy—all those activities for which she had little time when she was working 12- to 15-hour days, she said.  

Collins, who has taught English and history at King for 15 years, takes the reins as chief BAM administrator this fall. 

“I love teaching, but throughout my teaching career, I’ve been involved in teacher leadership roles and I have a business background and this seems like a point in my career to combine those experiences in my life,” she said. 

Collins, 52, a graduate of Georgetown University, worked in the shipping industry for 14 years before securing a teaching position at King. 

She has served as a representative to the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project’s Planning and Oversight Committee, which oversees school parcel tax funds, and recently co-chaired Friends of BUSD Libraries. 

She considers school libraries a central professional interest: 

“I’ve been a really strong school library advocate,” she said. “That’s one of my passions because it’s directly related to student achievement.” 

Collins has also worked as a teacher researcher for the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project. She received teaching and administrator credentials from CSU East Bay. Her two children attend Berkeley schools. 

“I’m very excited,” she said of her new position at Berkeley Arts Magnet. “I’m very much looking forward to it.”

Out of the 124 workers projected to be eliminated at the Alameda County Medical Center in the $419 million budget approved this week by trustees, Service Employees International Union Local 616 representative Brad Cleveland estimates that some 90 positions belong to SEIU bargaining units  

Those 90 positions are divided between 616, which represents 1,300 registered nurses, hospital clerical staff, and allied health care professionals at the medical center, and the United Health Care Workers. 

Calling it the easiest budget deliberations in years, elated trustees unanimously accepted a budget submitted by ACMC CEO Wright Lassiter that included a $3.8 million operating deficit but did not include $8 million in set-aside monies earlier approved by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors at the request of Supervisors Board President Keith Carson. 

Lassiter said that the $8 million set-aside money was specifically not intended to close the medical center’s budget gap, and was set up on a request-as-you-go basis for which request guidelines had not yet been established. 

Lassiter’s $3.8 million submitted deficit had been whittled down by a million dollars from the $4.8 million deficit he had been predicting only a week ago. 

Lassiter told trustees the deficit reduction had come from one million dollars in “non-labor expenses,” which had been identified by center management officials and taken out of the budget. 

Writing in his budget message, “I am confident … that ACMC can achieve break-even or better operating performance during the upcoming fiscal year,” Lassiter included between $3.1 million and $5.9 million in projected supplemental revenue or cost savings that could bring the budget into balance by the end of the year.  

Among those projected dollars are between $1 million and $2 million extra in Measure A tax revenue (Measure A revenue has been consistently running above expectations), and the elimination of $400,000 in the operating loss coming from the medical center’s clinic at the Alameda County Juvenile Detention Center. 

Lassiter has said that if the medical center cannot renegotiate its contract with Alameda County so that the center is fully paid for the cost of its operation of the detention center clinic, the medical center will cease operation of the clinic in January. 

“So one way or the other,” Lassiter said, “the operating loss will be eliminated.” 

Because the medical center, by state law, could not approve an unbalanced budget, on the motion of trustee board finance chair Stanley M. Schiffman trustees made up the $3.8 million deficit on paper by eliminating the $400,000 projected detention center clinic loss and adding $1.7 million in revenue apiece from Measure A funds and additional MediCal supplemental revenue. 

Lassiter said that because the Measure A and MediCal money was not under the medical center’s control, he would monitor its collection “on a month-to-month basis” and report back to the board if further budget adjustments are needed.

With construction winding up on the $65 million Berkeley City College new facility and with $519 million in voter-approved facilities bond money in its pocket, the Peralta Community College District moved quickly last week to plan for its next round of facilities maintenance and construction action. 

Students, faculty, and administrators are scheduled to move into the new Center Street campus of Berkeley City (formerly Vista) College in time for the fall semester. 

Meanwhile, the district is also expecting to complete this year construction of a $14.3 million Art Building on the Laney College campus to replace the old art annex which had to be vacated because the property was needed by Caltrans to help build a new I-880 on-ramp. 

The Laney Art Building was paid for largely by Caltrans, and the BCC facility was financed for the most part through Peralta’s $153 million construction bond Measure E passed by voters in 2000. 

A portion of the Measure E money remains unspent. 

At last week’s district meeting, trustees approved a new five-year construction plan that committed $137.8 million of the $519 Measure A Peralta facilities bond money approved by local voters in last month’s election. 

Peralta officials said they have listed another five years of Measure A projects, but projects scheduled for completion in 2013 and beyond were not released at last week’s trustees’ meeting. 

Measure A bond projects differ significantly from those that came under Measure E. Under the 2000 construction bond measure, specific construction projects were not listed in the bond language, and the district could use the money for any qualified school construction project. 

Over the past year, this led to some discontent among Peralta trustees who complained that they were sometimes asked by district administration officials to approve new bond projects without letting trustees know what remaining, unfinished projects their action might knock off the waiting list. 

By contrast, Measure A was passed under the authority of Proposition 39, which required that projects using the bond money be limited to those projects listed in the ballot language and approved by voters. 

In addition, Proposition 39 requires districts to set up a citizens oversight committee to monitor the spending of the bond money. 

At last week’s meeting, trustees approved by-laws for the Measure A bond committee, calling for a seven-member committee made up of one representative apiece of local business, senior citizens, and taxpayers organizations, one enrolled student, one individual active in an organization supporting the community college district, and two members selected at-large. 

All of the oversight members will be recommended by the chancellor and approved by the trustees. 

Unlike the Berkeley Unified School District Measure B committee, the Peralta Measure A committee will not recommend projects on which to spend the bond money, but will be limited to reviewing actions approved or taken by the district trustees or administration. 

The district did not release a timetable for soliciting members to the oversight committee or for the committee’s formation. 

Meanwhile, with Berkeley City College having eaten up the lion’s share of recent Peralta bond money, BCC had no projects listed under the five-year construction plan, while the remaining three district colleges—College of Alameda, Laney and Merritt—listed roughly $50 million apiece in projects. 

Laney College has scheduled renovation of its Student Services Building and Multi-Purpose Room for 2007 and 2008, and is set to complete a modernization of its theater and an $18.4 million modernization of its library in 2011. 

Merritt has scheduled renovations of three buildings in 2007 and 2008, renovation of a fourth building in 2011, and construction of a Child Development Center in 2012. 

The College of Alameda has scheduled renovation of its Student Services Building in 2007 and modernization of three buildings, including the campus library, for completion in 2011. 

A 22-year-old Hayward man died late Friday night after he was gunned down in the parking lot of an apartment building in the 1100 block of 62nd Street. 

The site is just south of the Berkeley/Oakland border and a block from Emeryville. 

Oakland Police Department spokesperson Officer Roland Holmgren said Angelo Lewis was struck by multiple bullets just before 11:33 p.m. 

By the time police arrived at the scene, a woman was rushing Lewis to Kaiser Hospital in a car. 

Police followed, and less than 20 minutes after they arrived at the hospital, Lewis was pronounced dead of his injuries. 

Few details of the crime were available Monday. 

While early weekend news reports said three young men had been arrested for the murder after officers spotted and chased down a car matching the description of a vehicle seen leaving the scene of the shooting, Officer Holmgren said they were not charged with the death. 

“Two of them were arrested for unrelated crimes,” said Holmgren. 

He was unable to provide any description of a suspect in the shooting, and asked anyone with any possible information about the crime to call detectives at 238-3821. 

Signs of the crime were very much in evidence at the scene Monday. 

A makeshift memorial, complete with empty liquor bottles and candles, had been created at the base of the wall of one of the apartments in the two-building complex at 1126-30 62nd St. 

Above them were taped two sheets of poster board and a large, heart-shaped mylar balloon, adorned with “I Love You.” 

The poster board had been filled with tributes, as well as a photo of the slain man alongside a young woman. 

Taped to one of the posters was a lament penned on a sheet of notebook paper adorned with a single red rose. It read: 

Why is my friend gone? 

I don’t know 

How did my friend Die? 

He was Shot. Gun down like a dog in the Streets. 

But he was no dog. 

He was a rose growing in the concreet jungul. 

Peace I heard him say moments befor he was Killed. 

Did God hear his call for peace. I Think so, I did. 

Do you want Peace? I Do 

I pray for you, hope you make it home tonight. 

Peace My Brothers. 

A few feet away was a utility panel, scrawled with gang graffiti. “Fuck B-Town,” declared one, referring to youths of the city just across the border to the north. 

In the parking lot along the 62nd Street side of the complex, yellow chalk circles marked the sites where police had noted evidence, and the young man’s blood was still plainly visible Monday afternoon. 

The crime scene is a half-block south of San Pablo, and the site of the Maynard Academy just across the thoroughfare. 

Two blocks to the north on San Pablo, a small forest of wooden crosses flanks a larger concrete cross in front of St. Columba Catholic Church. 

Each of the smaller crosses bears a first name and a date. A larger sign fixed to the concrete cross declares, “These crosses represent those killed by homicide in Oakland this year.” 

There isn’t a cross yet for Anthony Lewis.

Three men were arrested and 152 marijuana plants seized when a major growing operation was discovered in a remote section of the Berkeley hills. 

A UC Berkeley patrol discovered the growing operation early last week, and a subsequent stakeout led to the arrest of one man Wednesday, which in turn led to the arrests of two others. 

The growing operation was located on rugged terrain several hundred yards west of the Claremont Avenue/Grizzly Peak Boulevard intersection, said UCB Police Lt. Doug Wing. 

“We have patrols in the hills during the summer,” said Lt. Wing. “One of them found it.” 

The plants were too young to harvest yet, he said. 

“The suspects all gave the same name at first,” said the officer, though eventually they were able to determine that the men were Jose Diaz-Mendez, 45, Jose Diaz-Nieto, 27 and Jose Diaz III. 

All are Mexican nationals, and Diaz-Mendez has been identified as the father of the other two. 

The trio was taken to the Berkeley city lockup and booked on suspicion of felony marijuana cultivation. 

Asked for further details about the growing operation, Lt. Wing declined to comment beyond stating that the case is still under active investigation.

An Oakland man was critically injured in an I-580 car crash as he tried to evade a gunman firing at his car from a Richmond freeway overpass minutes before midnight Sunday. 

Darrell Gospel, 22, was behind the wheel of a 1989 Buick Regal driving eastbound when his wife, Magdalena, also 22, saw a figure standing on the Regatta Boulevard overcrossing, said Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan. 

Accompanying them was their 11-month-old child. 

When the man began firing, Gospel lost control of his car as he tried to evade the bullets, striking a large commercial truck. 

“He rolled three times and was critically injured when his arm was crushed,” said Gagan “He was airlifted to a trauma center.” 

Gospel’s spouse and child were not hurt, Gagan said. While their car was struck by several bullets, none of the rounds struck an occupant—despite an account published in a local wire service. 

Both Richmond police and the California Highway Patrol responded to the crime scene when they were notified of the shooting moments later, and were unable to identify a suspect—though shell casings were recovered form the overpass. 

“Because of the volume of traffic at the time and the distance involved, we don’t believe these victims were specifically targeted,” Gagan said. 

The officer said he didn’t know if any other vehicles had been shot at, though no other reports had been received. 

Gagan declined to release the nature of the weapon used in the shooting. 

The lieutenant asked anyone with any possible information about the crime to call the Richmond Police Detective Division at 629-6160. 

Gospel remained in critical condition Monday following surgery to repair his arm, which had been nearly severed in the rollover.

Shoplift to robbery 

What began as the simple shoplifting of a bottle of hooch from the Safeway store at Shattuck Avenue and Rose Street turned into an armed robbery on the afternoon of June 20 when a store clerk confronted the booster in the store’s doorway. 

At that moment the shoplifter, a fellow with long, braided hair, revealed the butt of the gun stuck into his waistband, transforming a misdemeanor into a felony. “Go ahead,” said the clerk. 

The bandit rendezvoused with another fellow outside and the pair departed, according to Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan. 

Coldstone creamed 

A masked gunman burst into Coldstone Creamery in the 2200 block of Shattuck Avenue about 10:20 p.m. on June 20, flashed a shiny silver pistol and demanded the contents of the cash register and the safe. 

Store clerks complied, and the bandit fled with hard, cold cash. 

Brick banditry 

Three teens, one wielding a brick, robbed a 40-year-old Berkeley woman of her wallet when they confronted her on Allston Way near the corner of  

Roosevelt Street shortly after midnight on June 22.  

Rape alleged 

The Alameda County District Attorney’s office is examining allegations filed by a Berkeley woman who told police investigators that she was sexually assaulted by a long-time acquaintance on June 23. The woman said the latest incident was the latest in a series of similar assaults. 

Rat pack attack 

A gang of five young males on bicycles assaulted a 28-year-old Berkeley man and stole his wallet and keys near the corner of Adeline and Essex streets just after 2 a.m. June 25, reports Officer Galvan. 

Moustachioed gunman 

A gunman packing a pistol robbed a 24-year-old woman of her wallet, cell phone and car keys in the 2100 block of Grant Street at 1 a.m. June 26. 

Tully’s robbed 

A diminutive woman armed with a pistol walked into Tully’s coffee shop in the 2100 block of Shattuck Avenue on June 26, collected three blue bags of currency and receipts and departed. 

Wrestles robber 

Confronted with a a bandit in the 1300 block of Delaware Street who demanded her wallet and cell phone, a 30-year-old Berkeley woman wrestled with the bandit in an attempt to save her belongings during the 2:30 a.m. heist June 27. 

The bewildered bandit cried out for help and was saved from his victim by an accomplice. The pair departed with the woman’s valuables, including a small amount of cash, said Officer  

Galvan

The office of Oakland Unified School District administrator Randolph Ward has revealed that one of the developers who lost out in the bid to purchase the OUSD Lake Merritt properties was a familiar figure in Lake Merritt development issues: Oakland developer Alan Dones. 

Dones was one of two developers who lost out to the joint bid of Terramark of Stamford, Conn., and Urban America of New York City. Providence, Rhode Island-based Gilbane Development Company also submitted a bid. 

OUSD officials did not release details of the two losing firms’ development plans for the 8.25 acre parcel that includes the Paul Robeson Administration Building and five schools. Terramark/Urban America is proposing a mixed commercial-housing development that includes at least 1,000 housing units spread across five high-rise towers. 

Dones, whose Strategic Urban Development Alliance (SUDA) company is currently completing construction of the Thomas L. Berkley Square project in the Oakland uptown area, signed a highly-publicized and highly-controversial exclusive negotiating agreement with the Peralta Community College District in November of 2004 to put together a development plan for the Peralta Administration building and Laney College properties. 

The Peralta and Laney properties are on the opposite side of the Lake Merritt Channel from the OUSD properties. 

Under intense lobbying against the development proposal from Laney College faculty, staff, and union representatives, Peralta Chancellor Elihu Harris delayed contract negotiations with Dones, and Dones eventually withdrew his proposal. 

Similar opposition to the OUSD property sale may be developing, with the Oakland Education Association teachers union calling for a delay in any sale until local control is returned to the Oakland Unified School District. 

Incoming OEA president Betty Olsen-Jones said that while the OEA Executive Committee vote against the proposed property sale was not unanimous, it had the “overwhelming support” of committee members. 

At least one OUSD trustee has already called for suspension of the negotiations with Terramark/Urban America until outgoing state-appointed administrator Randolph Ward is replaced. Ward announced last week that he is taking the job of Superintendent of the San Diego County schools beginning Aug. 14. 

And the proposed sale is expected to get close scrutiny and possible opposition from local environmentalists. Oakland Heritage Alliance president Naomi Schiff recently informed a local parents group in an email that “as Oakland Heritage Alliance wrote to the school district a couple of years ago, be aware that two buildings on the OUSD 2nd Avenue site may be considered cultural resources under [the California Environmental Quality Act], as historic buildings.” 

“In general,” Schiff continued, “our organization favors reusing historic buildings rather than demolishing them. The site also adjoins the environmentally sensitive channel between Lake Merritt, which is a National Historic Landmark, and the estuary. Such a project would require a sensitive and creative design.” 

And Oakland City Councilmember Pat Kerningham, who represents the district that houses the OUSD Lake Merritt properties, says that she intends to involve the City of Oakland in the process of scrutinizing the proposed sale.  

“I, too, am very concerned about both the process and the substance of the proposal to sell the district property for development,” Kerningham emailed the local parents group last week. “In addition to whatever community meetings the District is proposing, I want to let you know that the City of Oakland also will have its own review and approval process, as the City has land use control over all development within its borders, regardless of who owns the property.”  

Kerningham continued that “The city’s land use process will focus more on the question of what should be built there, in the event that the decision is made to go forward with a sale to a developer. What happens on this piece of land is obviously very important for the surrounding neighborhoods and also to the nearby parks and trails along the Lake Merritt Channel. I will make sure that there is a meaningful community planning process for the site.” 

Meanwhile, the district is moving forward with plans for its own public hearings on the proposed property sale, currently scheduled for July 12, Aug. 16, and Sept. 6. 

Board President David Kakishiba expects by July 12 to receive presentations from district staff members on the exact cost of relocating the three schools and two early childhood development centers from the Lake Merritt properties, as well as the cost of relocating the administrative offices.

OK, the basics on the flap: the New York Times discovered that the administration has been trying to figure out how suspected terrorists move their money around, running something called the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program. The title may be just wishful thinking, but the fact is that government snoops have been looking into all kinds of banking transactions, which might include yours and mine, in their attempt to find something fishy. After a reasonable amount of checking facts followed by a large dose of introspection, the Times printed the story. Whammo! The Republicans in Congress, egged on by the right flank of the Blogsville flamers, came down on them like a ton of bricks. On Thursday the House passed a resolution condemning news organizations for outing the program because it had “placed the lives of Americans in danger.” The vote was 227-183, along party lines for the most part. Some Republicans started hollering treason. Clearly, as Nancy Pelosi charged, the Repugs are trying to turn this one into a campaign issue. 

What is a bit more surprising is that the relatively sober Wall Street Journal joined the chorus on its editorial page, in fact all over its editorial page. An unsigned and almost unreadable full-page editorial essay lambasted the Times for running such a story “in wartime.” Granted, the editorial page of the WSJ is famously silly, just as famous for being clueless as its news pages are respected for being incisive and intelligent. One casualty of this tale is the reputation of Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, who was working on the same story that the Times broke, but who was burdened with an embargoed government disclosure of selected facts about the program which represented administration attempts to spin the Times version. The Journal’s editorial patted itself on the back for dutifully withholding publication until the powers-that-be came up with the official story and gave the go-ahead for its publication.  

The next chapter of the tale was on Saturday, when Dean Baquet, editor of the Los Angeles Times, and Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, published a joint editorial (unusual and perhaps unprecedented) explaining that their papers (the L.A. Times also carried the story) really were responsible corporate citizens who knew when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em when national security was on the line. The New York paper, which had previously taken heat from the left for holding back a story about government surveillance of phone systems for almost a year, clearly thinks it’s found the golden mean for such situations. 

The corporate press unfortunately more often chooses to go along to get along—to embargo stories that might annoy someone until a convenient time, and not just on heavy-duty matters of national security. Here at our little paper we are sometimes amazed at the stories we print that other papers must be deliberately holding back.  

A couple of summers ago our reporter Richard Brenneman found out that developer Jim Levine, with the assistance of a passel of folks inside and outside government, was planning a big casino development at Point Molate. Levine asked him to hold the story until a future date, but he (and the paper) declined to wait, and the story came out early. Not a word of it appeared in other papers in the area, however, until the appointed date for Levine’s announcement, though their reporters had every chance to find out what was in the works, by reading the Planet among other ways. Recently our reporter J. Douglas Allen-Taylor got wind of plans to sell off buildings belonging to the Oakland school district, which he documented in these pages. Other media waited for the official announcement, and then simply reported what was in the official press release, even though by that time outraged critics had become vocal and easily found.  

So why are we all gathered here together today talking about this? Well, a friend, an experienced journalist, strongly suggested that the Berkeley Daily Planet ought to take a stand on the side of the press’s responsibility to tell the truth in a timely way when something the public needs to know comes to light. His plea was made even weightier by his suggestion that after all, this is the Fourth of July issue. He’s a naturalized citizen, which is possibly why he takes the idea that a free and independent press is a cornerstone of true patriotism more seriously than many who are currently holding down corporate editorial jobs. It might sound like a corny, old-fashioned notion, but we’re sticking with it. 

The good news is that suggestions by Dick Cheney and New York congressman Peter King that journalists should be jailed for publishing the story has already goaded papers all over the country into responding. “Beating the Press Hurts Democracy” is the headline on a Madison, Wisconsin, State Journal editorial, and similar sentiments can be found on the Internet from places as diverse as Enid, Oklahoma, and Augusta, Georgia. The smug, deferential Wall Street Journal editorial has gotten its share of criticism in the process. 

The bad news is that even when the press blows the trumpet like Joshua in the biblical Battle of Jericho, most of the time the walls don’t “come tumbling down,” as they did in the Bible story. We’ve had a year or more of revelation upon revelation on the national scene, but atrocity continues to be piled upon atrocity. Last month’s story about U.S. military personnel gratuitously killing unarmed villagers is followed by yesterday’s story of U.S. soldiers raping an Iraqi girl and slaughtering her whole family to cover it up. Every week brings a new tale of a different shadowy sinister person within the Bush administration who is determined to destroy cherished American freedoms—this week’s New Yorker has a chilling profile of some guy named Addison in Cheney’s office who is single-handedly re-inventing the imperial presidency or perhaps has re-discovered fascism itself. 

But how we as citizens can take the process from exposure of government misdeeds to stopping them is a whole new topic which must be for another day. Today, Independence Day, we should just take the time, between the barbecues and the fireworks, to appreciate the fact that we’ve still got a relatively free press which can help out with the job if it continues to do its own job as it should. 

QUIBBLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

May I second Brian Hill’s semantic quibble over the phrase “confined to a wheelchair” used more than once by Susan Parker. A wheelchair is not an obstacle, it is a tool, and a very useful one if you can’t walk. Like Brian and Ralph, I’m good and crippled, but the chair isn’t the problem, it’s part of the solution, and I wish the Daily Planet wouldn’t use language implying otherwise.  

Try “wheelchair user,” or “uses a wheelchair.” That’s not so hard, is it? 

Ann Sieck 

• 

FEAR OF PECAUT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Christian Pecaut (Daily Planet, July 4) gives us all the data we need to decide the suitability of this mayoral candidate for that office. 

Pecaut offers a “Paradigm from California,” and asks: “What does the paradigm prove?” 

Lets look at a few of the candidate’s claims: 

(1) “Nature and...human behavior are geared for work out well for every” one. Pecaut apparently got to Stanford without reading “The Ant and the Grasshopper.” Nature rewards thrift and abhors lazy consumers. Nature also has many species in which sexual behavior does not “work out well for every” player. 

(2) “Protection is supposed to flow...downwards in hierarchies.” Hear the deafening laughter of queen and drone bees. Or read Fritjof Capra’s The Web of Life, which notes that Earth is not a hierarchy, but an interdependent network. “Implication?” When the United States enacted Social Security, our personal savings rate dropped to less than one per cent, banks had less to loan to businesspeople, less stuff got made and fewer jobs were created, and we owe a trillion dollars to China and Japan. 

(3) The notion of a single, fully knowable, real objective truth defies most current responsible scientific research into the human perceptual system. 

(4) “Demand what you want” is a mantra for adolescents, sociopaths, and people with insufficient education to acknowledge we live as community. 

Pecaut’s clear philosophical statement allows us to decide with our eyes open. In the words of the great American philosopher Geena Davis, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” 

David Altschul 

• 

‘PERMANENT COLLECTION’ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Ken Bullock’s June 30 review of Permanent Collection: I, too, came away aware that the author had focused more on characters’ points of view than developing Aristotle’s “dramatic action.” But on the drive home, my wife and I interrupted one another as we examined how the play made us feel and analyzed what the author had to say about how some racial issues stay the same and some evolve. Finally, what we learned from this production of Collection was that the excellent acting put the audience in the characters’ position so well that the dramatic action could go on in a Honda Civic hours after the curtain had fallen. 

Paul Heller 

• 

SAD OLD LEFTISTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A half-century ago, when I had exiled myself from my native California to get a sense of East Coast life in Philadelphia, I dated a girl who was not just an art student, but a member of the Communist Party. Those were heady times, politically and intellectually, and through the intervening decades my political position has drifted between liberal and libertarian. Is it due just to my aging pragmatism that I now find myself looking with some impatience at Berkeley’s sad old leftists, still dragging their tattered red flags behind them? 

I asked myself this after reading two items in the Daily Planet of June 27. First, John Curl again warns us that opening West Berkeley to real business (Capitalism!) will drive out artists and artisans because, as he rightly points out, many of them can’t afford the higher rents that would result from competitive use of that area. The question he doesn’t ask is why they should be practicing their arts and crafts in one of the most densely populated and costly cities in the state. Or why the other residents of the city should subsidize their choice to do that, by carrying the tax burden that West Berkeley should share. In the past, artists and craftsfolk formed their communities in rural enclaves where space was cheap and living was easy. Why not now? The hard question is this: do we owe them a livelihood just because they choose to spend their days at pleasant pursuits that the rest of us have to squeeze into hobby time? 

Then, in his article on the Arpeggio condo project, Richard Brenneman reports that Councilmember Dona Spring is irked that none of the inclusionary condos available to buyers with limited incomes are on the top floors. “Inclusionary units are supposed to be the same as any others,” she said, “but these units are the inside units that don’t have the views. That’s wrong.” So it’s not enough that those with lower incomes can purchase condos in a new luxury building at reduced (subsidized) prices— they should be entitled to the same views that attract premium buyers. Oh, those poor oppressed masses... Give me a break! 

Jerry Landis 

• 

NO BUSINESS SENSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I thought Tom Bates was doing a lousy job as mayor, especially after he left the city’s taxpayers with most of the cost of University expansion. Then I read Zelda Bronstein’s “A Pro-Business Pro-Berkeley Agenda” (Daily Planet, June 30) and realized that the city’s finances could get worse. Much worse. 

It’s clear Ms. Bronstein, as well-meaning as she might be, knows nothing about business, and would move the city further toward financial crisis. 

For instance, she declares the importance of keeping auto dealers in Berkeley, then supports locking in the industrial zoning that prevents dealerships from locating near the freeway, their natural setting. She believes she can help solve parking problems by boosting meters to 90 minutes, not understanding that such a move would choke turnover, making parking problems worse. 

Bronstein says we need to debunk the myth that Berkeley industry is dead. No one is saying it’s dead. What people are saying is that new growth in manufacturing in Berkeley is practically dead, and pretending otherwise is hallucinatory. She believes that “a rich array of light industry, artists and artisans” can provide the new growth in sales tax the city needs to avoid big budget cuts. Does anybody else truly believe that fantasy? 

She wants to revive the Office of Economic Development. That’s all we need—more bureacracy. 

Why can’t somebody run for mayor that will survey the needs of business and potential businesses in Berkeley, and adjust policies to attract them? I feel sure the top priority will be cutting bureaucratic red tape, not adding more of it. 

Next time the city asks for property or parcel tax hikes, remember that our representatives are doing next to nothing to bring in business revenue. 

Tom Case 

• 

CANDIDATE’S RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Swiftboating of John Kerry during the last presidential election had an important lesson: Respond to smears in a timely and forceful manner. It is with that lesson in mind that I reply to Harry Pollack’s attack (letters, July 4) on my “Pro-Business, Pro-Berkeley Agenda” commentary. Pollack asserts that my actions, unlike my words, show that I am “anti-business” and anti- neighborhood. 

Actions do speak louder than words. Indeed, my actions refute Pollack’s claims, which in almost every instance grossly misrepresent my record. He does get two things right: As he states, I chaired the Planning Commission for two years (2002-2004) and was president of the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association (TONA). What follows are some of the facts he distorted or simply ignored. 

While on the Planning Commission for nearly seven years, I co-chaired the commission subcommittee that oversaw downtown streetscape improvements. In recognition of that work, I received the Downtown Berkeley Association’s 1998 President’s Award “for exceptional leadership and consensus building.” Joining with merchants and city staff, I helped start the Main Street Alliance in support of Berkeley’s independent, locally owned and operated businesses. I initiated and then helped guide the community-based planning process that led to the city’s first new General Plan in 25 years. I drafted the plan’s Economic Development Element, which was adopted in 2002 with only minor revisions by the City Council. I teamed up with planning commissioners Gene Poschman and John Curl to present the Planning Commission with a detailed proposal protecting West Berkeley artists and industry. And I helped convene and then served on the UC Hotel/ Conference Center Citizens Advisory Group, whose recommendations have been praised by the project’s developer. 

In West Berkeley, I’ve worked with the Traffic and Safety Coalition (TASC), composed of West Berkeley businesses and residents, for a neighborhood-friendly Berkeley Bowl. Thanks to TASC, an environmental impact report was done for the new store, which will be twice as large as the existing Bowl and generate 50,000 vehicle trips a week. 

Finally, contrary to Pollack’s claim, TONA and I welcomed La Farine Bakery onto Solano Avenue. We did ask La Farine and city officials to respect the Solano Avenue Commercial Ordinance, which promotes a diverse, neighborhood-serving business district. (I trust that Pollack, a lawyer, and the mayoral candidate he’s endorsed, the incumbent, think it’s a good idea to follow the law.) 

Zelda Bronstein 

• 

RECONSIDER, PLEASE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If politicians won’t work for you, make them pay for it! This week the Berkeley City Council declined to place a measure on the November ballot to publicly finance our elections for mayor and City Council. They ignored the fact that the Berkeley Fair Campaign Practices Commission (FCPC) appointed by them had just voted overwhelmingly in favor of the measure. They ignored the fact that there will be a similar (but not anywhere near as good) measure on the statewide ballot this fall. They ignored their own certain knowledge that corporations and developers control Congress and virtually every state and local elected body. They ignored the fact that publicly financed elections benefit everyone running for office, by giving candidates complete freedom to talk to and work with their constituents rather than raising money. 

The United States is the only industrial nation that allows legalized bribery in the form of “campaign contributions.” That’s why we had Enron, it’s why we are paying triple for our energy bills compared to seven years ago, it’s why our taxes go to war and corporate subsidies, and it’s why we have developers who run roughshod over our citizens’ wishes and city plans whenever they feel the need to make a buck. It’s why the Legislature, and even our own City Council, go along with whatever the wealthy and powerful want. 

You can do something to stop this evil system. Don’t support candidates who don’t work for you! If your elected officials won’t vote to eliminate legalized bribery, then don’t vote for them, and don’t give them money! Make them pay for their own campaign out of their own pocket. 

Take this pledge now: Raise your right hand and read aloud, “I pledge to make politicians pay. I will not donate money to any candidate who does not work for me. I will not give my money to anyone who does not support a civilized system of publicly financed elections.” 

Then call, write or e-mail your mayor and councilmember to tell to reconsider next week, or else pay for their own election. 

Bob Marsh 

• 

CLEAN ELECTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The heading of the June 30 article “Council Rejects ‘Clean Money’ Measure, Adopts New Budget” is a tad misleading. Twice as many councilmembers voted for the clean elections (Bates, Moore, Spring and Worthington) than opposed it (Capitelli and Olds), indicating it wasn’t rejected. The problem is the council simply didn’t decide, because three members hadn’t made up their minds and abstained from the issue. 

This indicates that the council need revisit the idea. It does a disservice to the voters of Berkeley when the legislative process is derailed by withholding votes through abstention. There are three weeks left to get clean elections on the ballot, and decision time has arrived. If the abstaining members oppose clean elections in Berkeley, I ask them to say so, affirmatively, and decide on the issue by voting no. But, if they are truly for clean elections, as several have indicated both publicly and privately; if they stand with the League of Women Voters, the Sierra Club and the Fair Campaign Practices Commission; if they believe in better, participatory, accessible local government; if they recognize that your political worth is not tied to your net worth, I ask them to vote to place clean elections on the November ballot at the July 11 City Council meeting. 

The time is right for clean elections in Berkeley. While Measure H failed to garner enough support, much in 2006 is different. The League of Women Voters is now an active member of our coalition. The city is in better financial condition than it was in 2004. The scarcity of local ballot initiatives will allow voters to concentrate and consider this issue on its merits. And, most importantly, the state clean money efforts have gained tremendous momentum, both increasing voter awareness of clean money, and providing an opportunity to seize the day by simultaneously cleaning up California (Yes on 89!) and cleaning up Berkeley. 

We sent the members of the City Council to office to make decisions. It’s time to make a decision. Are you for or against clean elections? 

Sam Ferguson 

Chair, Berkeley Clean Elections Coalition 

• 

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So Tom Bates supported public financing for the mayor’s race when he was campaigning but now opposes it? He’s concerned that 600 people would have to give $5. And the majority of the City Council is also opposed. 

Could the Daily Planet list the amount of contributions each candidate collected in the last race and who the big contributors were? 

Nancy Ward 

• 

CALDECOTT TUNNEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding “More Cars for Berkeley with New Caldecott Tunnel” (Daily Planet, July 4): I have enormous respect and admiration for Roy Nakadegawa, who has throughout his professional career as a transportation engineer espoused and advocated environmentally-friendly solutions, not least as an elected member of the boards of directors of, first, AC Transit and then BART. But I feel that he has got the issue of the fourth Caldecott Tunnel wrong. Let me explain while also stating that I am not enthusiastic about building this project. 

The congestion that the new tunnel is intended to alleviate is that experienced by the counter commute; i.e., east to the suburbs in the morning and west in the afternoon. At present, this traffic has available only one tunnel (two lanes), and backs up a mile or more for several hours each weekday. The major commute (westward in the morning, eastward in the afternoon) is allocated four lanes in two tunnels. The fourth tunnel would add two more lanes to the counter-commute direction, while the highway capacity for the major commute direction—and therefore traffic volume—would not change. 

Mr. Nakadegawa states that there “needs to be development in the east as dense as destinations in San Francisco.” Present conditions are not likely to attract large numbers of additional workers from west of the Berkeley Hills to central Contra Costa County; it would require the capacity of two more lanes on Highway 24, which the fourth tunnel would provide, to serve a much denser job concentration. Without the fourth tunnel, there would be reluctance by developers to build to higher work-place densities in and around Walnut Creek and Concord. 

My ambivalence about the fourth tunnel stems from the feeling that congestion, while bad for air quality and fuel consumption, serves to convince some travelers to switch to transit, and that this project would result in some loss of BART passengers going in the counter-commute direction. In the evening this probably includes persons heading to San Francisco for dinner, theater, etc., who prefer BART to the double challenge of the Caldecott Tunnel and the Bay Bridge. Also, I am somewhat skeptical about the likelihood that dense development will occur in an era in which it is often stopped by local opposition. 

Wolfgang Homburger 

Kensington  

This is the week when, in between barbecues and fireworks, we sometimes spare a few thoughts about our founding dead white guys. Guys like Thomas Jefferson, who’s had a hard run recently. 

Last year this time, Jefferson’s name almost fell off a Berkeley school. Before the Berkeley School Board narrowly blocked them, students, families, and staff of Jefferson Elementary School voted to disassociate themselves from the old slaveholder.  

In Los Angeles, a Jefferson High School has become a closely-watched shorthand for all inner-city schools’ burdens: underfunding, overcrowding, underachievement, and racial brawling. 

The first of these tales out of school speaks to Jefferson’s failings; the second to our own. 

Our third president was a famous bundle of contradictions. In drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson “crafted the most inspiring egalitarian promise in modern history while living his entire life among 200 slaves,” wrote prominent biographer Joseph J. Ellis in American Sphinx.  

Jefferson was a wealthy planter who died virtually bankrupt. A master organizer of nations who crammed an estate with disorganized clutter. A Deist—like other prominent founders, a dissenter from organized religion—who led a society animated by religious fervor.  

But although Jefferson has plenty to answer for, we shouldn’t understate his, and his fellow rebels’, radical achievement in establishing a nation pledged to the Declaration’s principles: 

that all men are created equal, that they are endowed...with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ... That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government...to effect their safety and happiness. 

Of course, it took centuries to invest those noble words about equality and unalienable rights with real meaning. We don’t even know yet how many centuries. When our nation really lives up to Jefferson’s democratic ideals, we’ll know. 

Jefferson didn’t originate these principles: Natural rights were in the air of his Enlightenment 18th century. He even copped the general phrasing from George Mason, an uncompromising freethinker who was sort of Jefferson’s Jefferson. Mason’s remarkable Virginia Declaration of Rights also prefigured much of the eventual U.S. Bill of Rights. 

But Jefferson made it all sing. He also added an extended denunciation of the slave trade—which the Continental Congress removed from the final Declaration, to appease Georgia and South Carolina. 

And Jefferson and company did something genuinely new in declaring that their new nation’s government should bow to human happiness, rather than the reverse. Official utterances in those days were all about obligations upward, to crown and heaven: God save the King. I pledge allegiance to the Flag...one nation under God.  

Sorry, that last bit of backsliding wouldn’t be drafted until 1892, by a Socialist. Congress wouldn’t drag in God until 1954. 

And backsliding was on my mind this July 4, because we’re back in the yoke of old and regressive ideas. Jefferson’s most cherished values are in retreat, along with him, these 230 years later: Restraints on the power of absolute rulers named George. The flourishing of reason. The legitimacy of scientific evidence. Secularism. Free immigration. The cultivation of public education. Perhaps the whole Enlightenment project itself.  

Especially endangered is the pursuit of happiness. The hornet’s nest of reaction and religious zeal that’s stung at Jefferson’s America for the last generation has been consistent about precisely one thing: They want to save us all from our happiness.  

Today’s oppressors would save gay Americans from enjoying the loving marriages they themselves can’t achieve. (And they have the nerve to call their lobbies “Liberty Institute” and “Defense of Marriage.”) They’ve long insisted on dictating which stimulants we may consume. Now they would also dictate just what we may read, write, say, and even believe—and what official abuses and atrocities we may know.  

They would free our children from the adequately funded public education that leads to a happy, productive life. They would free us all from the happiness of a secure, dignified retirement.  

The Tories who now run Congress—descendants of the slaveholding planter elite that Jefferson and Mason tried to destroy from within—even refused to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. 

Their moralistic fervor has a common result: promoting isolation and unhappiness. Just as the original Puritans transformed Massachusetts from a sanctuary into an oppressive colony of witch-burners, modern-day Puritans’ good intentions have the odd result of serving the Devil. 

So how are we doing on happiness? Apparently, not so well. In the 2005 World Values Survey—a fascinating international poll—the U.S. ranked only 15th in respondents’ self-declared happiness. Beating us were several Latin American countries with more sunshine than transparent government (corrupt, war-ravaged Colombia was No. 8) and northern democracies with better social policy than weather (Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada). 

Five of the same northerly democracies helped edge us to No. 10 in last year’s U.N. Human Development Index—an annual ranking of countries’ “livability” based on objective criteria like life expectancy, literacy, educational enrollment, and per capita income. 

The cool northern societies that beat us in both subjective and objective measures of well-being share an organizing principle: Limit the economic advantages of those at the top, through progressive taxation and generous income supports; but maximize the freedom that those on the bottom have to determine their own lifestyles, expressions, and beliefs. This model is too pragmatic to even be summarized by an ideology—unless you want to call it Jeffersonian. 

Meanwhile, Jefferson’s new nation has moved toward a model that one might call Singaporization, after the city-state that combines vigorous capitalism with repressive dictatorship: Maximize the economic prerogatives of those at the top, by compounding soaring executive pay with tax giveaways; minimize the economic, political, and behavioral freedoms of those on the bottom. 

Singapore, which some American wag once dubbed a “fascist Disneyland,” is infamous for imprisoning political dissidents, fining gum-chewers, and caning petty vandals. How far are we from that? Several U.S. employers will now fire you for smoking, or for even refusing a random tobacco test. And you can bet that Wal-Mart, now America’s largest employer, will fire you for trying to organize a union. 

Singapore’s mix of economic openness and political control is an explicit model for the dictators running nearby China. So Jefferson’s heirs, and the emerging superpower that now makes most of our stuff, are converging on a model Jefferson would abhor. 

Except, the Chinese dictatorship hardly represents China’s 1.3 billion people. And the Bible-thumpers who covet and confiscate others’ happiness don’t represent all Americans. Their fevered moralism is fundamentally a Southern thing, dutifully legislated into policy by a GOP repaying the Bible Belt’s solid allegiance. 

While lecturing blue states about “defending marriage,” much of Dixie has a divorce rate 50 percent higher than the national average. Several other Southern social indicators don’t look much better. The rest of us are largely innocent victims, caught in the crossfire of the South’s own endless cycle of moral scolding and moral failure. Like its distinguished son Jefferson, the nation’s most eloquent region has never quite gotten itself under control or lived up to its own ideals. 

WWJD (What would Jefferson do) about a nation backsliding into inequality and “monkish ignorance and superstition"? That last phrase comes from Jefferson’s letter to the Declaration of Independence’s 50th anniversary celebration. After acknowledging the world’s unfree and unhappy, he hopefully addressed their prospects: 

All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately… . 

Each July 4, Jefferson hoped, would “forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.” That was his last public statement. Remarkably, he and fellow founder John Adams both became dead white guys on July 4, 1826. 

Michael Katz is a charter member of the Anti-Federalist Society. 

Last year while making the rounds at various budget-related events, Mayor Bates made a point of asking the community to help prioritize how City of Berkeley funds should be spent. Needless to say, the activities presented to choose among were skewed towards validating the “usual suspects” favored by the mayor, which one supposes was the reason for the survey to begin with. All the same, residents managed to sift down to the lower reaches of the mayor’s list to find public safety (police and fire services), which they identified as their overall top priority. Despite making their priorities clear, the community has been largely ignored by the City Council.  

This year the city’s actual revenues were more than $7 million above projections. With that amount of unexpected revenues, there is simply no excuse for undercutting public safety. Yet infuriatingly, the City Council continues to put the public at risk by leaving fire stations unmanned 286 days out of 330 under so-called “Flexible Deployment.” Why are we back at square one insisting that the City Council fund public safety first?  

Here are some pertinent aspects of the problem: 

• Fire season was officially declared as of Monday, June 12.  

• The heavy, late rains this year have yielded abnormally abundant fuels in City Council Districts 5, 6, 7 and 8.  

• Every precaution must be taken to avoid the devastation of another firestorm.  

• Engine companies were closed for 286 (24-hour periods) out of 330 days.  

• In council Districts 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8, whenever an engine company is closed under Flexible Deployment, its fire station is unmanned and closed for that 24 hour period.  

• Four of Berkeley’s seven fire stations (3, 4, 6 and 7) are left unmanned when that station’s engine company is closed under the Flexible Deployment program. 

• Property insurance rates are likely to increase as insurers learn that the city continues to take resources from the Fire Department.  

Already this fire season, the cities of Livermore, Napa and Antioch have had wildfires. Tragically, a residential fire in Richmond claimed the lives of three children due to a delay in the arrival of emergency personnel because of inadequate staffing (see San Francisco Chronicle, June 12).  

No city ever wants to experience disasters. Having a prepared Fire Department with adequate resources is the best way to reduce loss of life and property. Fires and other life threatening emergencies will continue to occur in our city, regardless of budget concerns or staffing levels.  

The City Council needs to stop playing Russian roulette with our safety and reject the false security of the Flexible Deployment program. It shouldn’t take a disaster to make the council realize that public safety benefits everyone. 

Marie Bowman is a member of Berkeleyans Against Soaring Taxes (BASTA). 

TAKING THE LEAD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I welcome the news that the Berkeley City Council has again taken the lead in addressing current situations of injustice by voting to impeach the president. It did so by calling for an end to our involvement in Vietnam and later by calling for a boycott of South Africa because of apartheid. In both those cases it was the beginning of the turning point in American public opinion, which ultimately led to the proper resolution of the unjust situations. Let us hope this most recent step is as successful. 

Connie de la Vega 

Oakland 

• 

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I applaud the Berkeley Public Library Board of Trustees for removing Ms. Griffith from her post as library director, and hope this same board will fully realize that they had a part to play in this directorial disaster, and should formally apologize to the staff and patrons of the library for their mismanaged mess. This would instill some much needed confidence by all concerned, and show all that in Berkeley there is still some decency left in those that direct to those they serve—that there are consequences for mistakes, and can begin to rebuild with a better footing for all in the years to come...with an apology.  

Mark Bayless 

• 

CLEAN MONEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While City Councilmembers who voted against adopting “clean money” public financing (“Council Rejects ‘Clean Money’ Measure,” June 30) may believe it an unnecessary expense in Berkeley, where all politicians are as pure as new fallen snow, this is not the case statewide and nationally, where entrenched “pay to play” politics gets us into wars and channels hundreds of billions of dollars to special interests and away from the public good. Let’s hope they come to their senses this fall, and support the public financing measure on the November ballot for statewide offices. It will cost us about the same as the Berkeley measure ($5 per voter), and, if passed, the pay to players who have fed at the public trough for so long will find themselves beggars at the door.  

Tom Miller 

• 

ANTI-BUSINESS BRONSTEIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I can’t sit back and let Zelda Bronstein, perhaps the most unfriendly person to business in the city, run down the city and the mayor and not place her comments in perspective. One look at Bronstein’s actions demonstrate her true beliefs. She is anti-business. She does not listen to the neighborhoods but rather tries to impose her personal views on neighborhoods. 

Zelda Bronstein was the Planning Commission chair for two years. During her term she brought no business-supportive issues to the Planning Commission.  

After leaving the Planning Commission, Bronstein promptly began leading the opposition to the West Berkeley Bowl, holding up the project for nearly a year and almost killing it with delays. She ignored the strong collective voices of West Berkeley residents (Bronstein lives in North Berkeley) who repeatedly requested and deserve a full-service market with reasonably priced fresh organic fruits and vegetables.  

Further proof of Bronstein’s deafness to the real desires of a neighborhood was her opposition to La Farine Bakery on Solano Avenue. As head of her local neighborhood association (TONA) at the time, she manipulated TONA into opposing La Farine’s effort to have outdoor seating or, in fact having any seating at all. TONA finally held a truly open meeting, reversed the position she had been representing as the neighborhood’s position, and voted in support of the La Farine’s seating. If Bronstein had her way, the bakery wouldn’t be the neighborhood asset that it is today. 

Bronstein’s actions on the Planning Commission and since her departure belie her words. Her actions speak louder. 

Harry Pollack  

• 

SHE DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mayoral Candidate Zelda Bronstein was shocked (but not surprised) that Mayor Bates told the New York Times “it was a shock” that Cody’s Books was closing (Daily Planet, June 30). Apparently Zelda Bronstein is the only person in Berkeley who wasn’t greatly shocked and greatly saddened that Cody’s is closing. In her defense, it should be noted that she also wasn’t shocked by Sept. 11, or even by the assassination of John Kennedy way back when. That’s what we need around here, a mayor who can see it all coming, and just takes it all in stride. Unruffleable.  

Anyway, she then goes on for over 34 inches of steel-cold typeface saying why it’s all Tom Bates’ fault, not only for that, but for everything else as well. Everything. She goes on and on and on about all of the things that she would do if only she were mayor . . . just about all of which the mayor does not have the power to do. Clearly, her warped perception of the Great Evil that Tom Bates has wrought, and the Great Good that she would accomplish, bespeaks a marked lack of understanding and good judgment at best. Proving yet again, that it is difficult to make much political hay out of a load, even a very large load, of horse manure.  

The simple tragic fact is that independents are going out of business in droves all over the country, unable to compete with mega-chains and the Internet. Sadly, A Clean Well Lighted For Books on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco has just announced that it is closing its doors due to lack of sales. Spiffy, bustling Van Ness—no hordes of drug dealers, no boarded up stores, no urban blight, and no Tom Bates. I really would have had more respect for Bronstein’s political agenda if it consisted merely of politely asking everyone to go out and buy a few books at Black Oak or Pegasus. That I could support. Absent that, I fear that the lady doth protest way too much. In fact, I am shocked!  

Ken Stein 

• 

SLOPPY PLANET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor writes that Ignacio De La Fuente, Jr. was arresting for “raping” Fruitvale area prostitutes. 

Shouldn’t “allegedly” be put in front of “raping”? This is sloppy writing and sloppy editing. 

Michael Hardesty 

Oakland 

• 

MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In two articles in the June 27 edition of the Daily Planet, Richard Brenneman makes numerous mentions of the area median income. You talk about people earning 120 percent of it, less than half of it, up to 81 percent of it—but never tell us what that figure is. Could you please let me know? It would clarify my understanding of the issues involved. 

Also, in May 19 edition of the Daily Planet, this headline caught my eye: “Markos Speaks: Berkeley Blogger’s Daily Kos Makes National Waves.” I thought I was going to learn why it’s making waves! The headline on the “continued on” page says “Berkeley Blogger’s Site Stirs National Sensation." But nowhere in the article does Brenneman explain why. Nor does it support the author’s claim that dailykos.com has become “one of the world’s most popular blogs” and the claim in the picture caption that “(Kos) runs the world’s most popular political blog.” Instead, I felt as though I were reading a People magazine article about a celebrity—lots of mundane and irrelevant info on this guy’s personal life, info on how he’s making money indirectly off his blog, and about his personal political passions. I know the author didn’t write the headlines, but shouldn’t the article address the claims made in them and in the article itself?  

Jessie West 

• 

CONTEXT, PLEASE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Nowhere in Richard Brenneman’s coverage of the Planning Commission’s OK of “in-lieu condo fees” (Daily Planet, June 30) is there any mention of how this decision will directly affect Berkeley residents seeking affordable housing units. Instead, the article is full of numbers and percentages and technical terms known best to developers and planning commissioners, without one example, one reference to what a condo might cost a buyer in actual dollars. Is it verboten to quote a range of actual or proposed prices? The overall tenor of the article serves to further mystify the proceedings of the Planning Commission for residents who would like to understand what the (bleep) is going on in the Berkeley housing arena and its impact on us as potential customers (I use the word advisedly) for the new housing. What’s missing in the mix of such terms as “in-lieu,” “inclusionary units,” “density bonus,” and “market rate” is any reference to what an condo/unit/apartment might actually cost a Berkeley resident in the market for housing. There is also a need to inform low-income buyers or renters of new units how and where to apply for apartments or condos in the ongoing construction of large developments. A friend of mine was told by the developer he should apply for a unit in one building, only to find that applications had closed the week before. Will this be another discouraging bureaucratic mess, or do planners and developers really want to sell/rent new units? 

Marianne Robinson 

• 

INNACCURATE PHRASING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I usually enjoy Susan Parker’s column. In the June 20-22 installment, however, she (or your copy desk) used a tired and inaccurate phrase. The column states that her husband is “...confined to an electric wheelchair...” But he’s not chained to it, with padlocks. And I bet he sleeps on a bed. 

Don’t get me wrong. As a disabled person who uses an electric wheelchair (“...uses a wheelchair,” hmm..."), I don’t mind being called crippled, or lame. I am a lame cripple. I don’t claim to represent Parker’s husband: His opinion is his own. This is mine: As a former journalist, I do mind lazy semantics, and keyboards disconnected from the brain. 

Brian Hill 

Albany 

• 

TRASH TALK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ken Lock (letters, June 23) complains about garbage collectors who get paid a full day’s pay when they complete their daily route, even if they finish it in under eight hours. News flash! Any work based on driving has variable hours due to traffic, weather, detours, and employee efficiency. Garbage collectors are paid a flat daily rate because to do otherwise would reward the inefficient who take longer on their routes, while penalizing those who are efficient, talented workers who finish their routes more quickly.  

If this wasn’t the case, Mr. Lock would be hollering about our city “rewarding slackers” instead of “paying an assumed work day.” I guess you can have it both ways! 

Jesse Townley 

• 

TRADER JOE’S PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Under veiled threats by Hudson McDonald to take their ball and go home by withdrawing their offer to bring Trader Joe’s to near-downtown, the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) reluctantly referred the Trader Joe’s project at University and MLK on to the Design Review Committee (July 20) for a “shave and a haircut.” Meanwhile ZAB readies itself to take public comments July 13 on the adequacy of the project’s CEQA Initial Study that—surprise, surprise—found no significant impacts anywhere they looked; 1,600 extra cars through the University-MLK intersection and onto Berkeley Way every day? No problem there, put in another traffic light and everything will be just like before, or even better. 

After repeated requests by ZAB members the applicant and staff finally conceded that a zoning/density bonus analysis of the proposed project results in 123-unit project rather than the proposed 148-unit project, an “inconvenient truth” that neighbors have been pointing out for a year. This “inconvenient” project shortfall has called forth the resourcefulness of city staff and the applicant. Standard procedures determine that the applicant has no right to the project they want? Time to call in those imaginative, creative types from the Planning Department and the city attorney’s office who will dice, slice and chop city and state law until, voila—25 additional density bonus units will appear like magic after a laying on of (barely visible) hands by staff and the City Council. Normally a project’s density bonus entitlement under the city’s arcane procedures is constructed on a base of our zoning ordinance’s development standards and only then modified to accommodate state mandated density bonus units—here Planning staff starts their analysis from the applicant’s proposed project and through creative back-solving and vigorous back-scratching make the project just happen to be what the applicant is demanding. Will miracles never cease? 

What makes it particularly galling to ZAB and the neighbors is that we have been repeatedly told that this project absolutely, positively, must follow procedures in place at the time the original project was deemed complete (December 2004). Maybe our ever resourceful city staff will find a way to back-date their miraculous solution to the problem of how to bring Two-Buck-Shuck to the teeming downtown masses. But before writing your shopping list stop and think about precedent that will be set by the circuitous and curious path this project trail blazes through our zoning ordinance and think about all the questions a judge might be prompted to ask. 

Stephen Wollmer 

Neighbors for a Livable Berkeley Way 

• 

TELEGRAPH AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I listened to an interesting discussion on the radio about the problems on Telegraph Avenue but found one remarkable hole in the conversation. When you walk the street and see garbage, broken glass, vomit, food scraps and sticky sidewalks from soda pop spills, citizens are inclined to blames the homeless and itinerant youths. When you read about shootings, car crimes, assaults and girlfriend bashing, you never think of the university. Nobody wants to discuss a prominent source of the southside ugliness; students. Homeless people do not have the kind of disposable income to throw away half a pizza or dump Coca-Cola on the sidewalk, the students do. 

On any Monday morning, the streets are filled with the leftover trash from a Saturday night without adult supervision. Check out the streets in Southside around graduation or winter break, the students dump their dorm room throwaways on the curb and the city has to go on double shifts to pick up all the junk. The best suggestion I heard on the radio was not a free box but an entire free store. However, nobody mentioned the student contribution to the Avenue’s seediness. 

Hank Chapot 

• 

KAREN GRASSLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was searching the Internet for information on Karen Grassle’s recent play, Open Secrets, which is now playing at The Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, when I came across a wonderful article called, A Note of Thanks To Karen Grassle. Wow! What a story! 

I am a big fan of Karen’s and I have been since I was 8 years old. I am now almost 39 years of age. How wonderful that someone at the height of her fame— “Little House on the Prairie” was number one in the ratings at the time—took the time to personally answer fan mail, and help a fan in need. That was such a loving thing for her to do. 

Karen Grassle is one of a kind! What a rare talent she is! 

I wish Karen all the success in this world! 

God Bless you, Karen. 

Maggie Kennedy 

Alexandria, Virginia 

• 

TOLERATING INTOLERANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The gay bashing minister at the Berkeley High School African American graduation ceremony prompts me to wonder how a group suffering as much repression as does African America can tolerate this, and other ministerial spouters of hate, who condemn one of the major groups in the United States that has kept the issue of equal treatment and inclusion on the front burner since the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Perhaps it is that some ministers in the black church see their bread buttered by brow beating their captive congregations that want some black culture, which the ministers define in stereotypes of “ghetto life,” i.e. drugs, violence, unwed mothers and rowdy behavior in general. The minister who badgered the Berkeley High students was in the middle of such a rant when he added gay behavior to his list of sinful activities. 

Black ministers who yell and shout about gays can be contrasted with black American elected public servants, who are mosty liberal minded individuals who seek to bridge differences rather than cement them. The ministerial gay bashing seems akin to the tirades against gays given by the Republicans in Congress. Are the ministers GOP? 

Ted Vincent 

• 

ANTI-GAY SPEECH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

First of all, let me state that the minister who expressed bigotry against gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, and other like-minded, was expressing his own opinions of GLBTs, not those of God. God/Goddess/Spirit is inclusive of all people, of all sexual orientations, races, colors, political bents, and opinions. I, Linda, pray that all us GLBTs learn to love ourselves and each other, regardless of what our sexual inclinations are. Everybody’s sexual, and everybody’s going to find somebody or something to be a turn-on. We might as well build a world where everybody is loved and everybody is included, respected, and nurtured. 

Second, I don’t believe that there aren’t any fairy tales or other cultural stories and myths from Africa. I betcha anything there are. We, and Disneyworld, probably just haven’t heard any yet. 

I’d be willing to volunteer to write a story about a little African Princess. My mind is busy on inventing a name and a plot, etc. I wonder, are there any other people out there, be they of African ancestry or any other “flavor” (as my 6th grade teacher, Ms. Mikova, referred to diversity in people), who know anything about African stories, myths, deities, and religion? 

I read somewhere, that traditionally, most African tribes didn’t write down their stories. Instead, they probably told them around a fire or in a circle, or they used masks, dancing, music making, singing, etc., to tell their creation myths. 

There is an African religion. It’s called Santeria, or Yoruba, or something. While I am certainly not an expert at African storytelling or myth, I have read stories of Orishas (deities or the main characters) such as Yemaya, Oluddamarre, Oshun, Chang-O, and even animals such as Tiger, Bre’r Rabbit, and other colorful characters. Why not research those tales, and write stories based on that? 

I’d be happy to help Disney or somebody do that. If nothing else, it’s one heck of writing exercise. 

You do realize, don’t you, that a culture’s stories and myths, tend to color our imaginations, our religions, and even our sexuality? Christianity is filled with stories, and so is every religion, culture, and tribe. Heck, Sponge Bob Square Pants might be elevated to mythological level someday. We tend to treat our Hollywood and rock star celebrities like they were Gods or mythological figures, even though they’re real, live human beings who resent invasive photographers or people who make an Olympic sport of bad-mouthing them. 

Linda M. Smith 

• 

PLANNING EXPERTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Where did Joanne Kowalski get the idea that city planners ought to pay attention to the everyday living experiences of real people? In her June 23 commentary, “Noise + Traffic = Flight: Saving Urban Neighborhoods” Ms. Kowalski makes the startling claim that “we should strive to retain residents already in the city by working with neighborhoods to determine what they need and want.” Does she really believe that Berkeley citizens have enough knowledge and experience to decide what living conditions suit them? Oh, please. 

No, today’s Berkeley city planners know what people really want, because they are very good at listening carefully to developers’ grandiose claims—and are equally adept at pushing little colored rectangles around on city grid maps. They have thought these things through, believe me. Wall-to wall high-rise buildings creating permanent shade on every major street? Perfect—just think of the money we’ll save on sunglasses! Constant gridlock as traffic is pushed onto fewer and fewer streets? How nice—we’ll finally drive out those irritating families who resist using bicycles to drop their kids at day care on the way to work! Replace trees downtown with concrete bus platforms? It’s about time! After all, trees require water, pruning, and raking—all of which significantly drain our city budget. Allow UC to control development in our downtown? What harm could that do? Less green space and more buildings and concrete everywhere? Of course, that’s what being a green city means now! Build the biggest damn building you can get away with today so that your profiteering buddies can build even bigger ones tomorrow! 

Joanne, honey, get with the program—quality of life is yesterday’s news. Today it’s all about social engineering. 

Doug Buckwald 

• 

TAKE CARE OF PETS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Every year the Fourth of July celebration of explosive fireworks reverberating from the bay to the hills results in hundreds of runaway pets. Berkeley Animal Care Services alone reports the collection of more than 20 dogs each year, frightened and separated from their owners. Many of these beloved family pets are never reclaimed; many others end up in shelters already overcrowded from the spring puppy and kitten season, and are ultimately euthanized. 

Please leave your pets at home in a safe place if you go out and celebrate; better yet, stay at home and celebrate with friends and family, comfort your pets, and watch the displays on television. 

Alice La Pierre 

Hi, I’m Christian “The Kid” Pecaut. At Stanford University in 2003, I created a class called “The Science of Social Problem Solving.” The main lecturer was Neil Robert Miller, a San Francisco public high school teacher, who passed away early in 2005. In late 1984, he and a team of dedicated student researchers completed the Paradigm from California, www.imaginenine.com, a full-scale scientific understanding that describes why things have gone so badly for 10,000 years, what a world-going-well looks like, and how to put things right, world-wide and forever. Since he died, I have been working tirelessly to share this discovery with the leadership of the Democratic Party, particularly the Clintons, who received exclusive ownership of the copyrights in accord with Neil’s explicit last wishes. 

So what does the Paradigm prove that is relevant to the citizens of Berkeley?  

1. Nature, and basic human behavior within it, are geared for work out well for every person.  

Implications: human-harming problems, such as poverty, violence, rape, deception, and homelessness, can and must be solved, for everyone, permanently; claims otherwise (such as “It is inevitable within nature that things will work out poorly for some, most, or all people”) are inaccurate, harmful, and deliberate lies. 

2. Protection is supposed to flow mainly downwards in hierarchies, and anxiety mainly upwards.  

Implications: Principled behavior involves primarily focusing our attention and resources on the more vulnerable—downwards in a hierarchy. Anxieties are absorbed by the powerful, combined with resources, and solved for everyone. It is unprincipled, deadly, anti-nature theft to primarily serve more powerful people, while blaming and punishing those with less power than you have. 

3. This bioecosystem works on a singular reality system, fully knowable to every human being. Implications: the difference between those who accurately report and those who deliberately misreport what they perceive or understand, is an absolute, same-for-everyone, distinction. Widely held, inaccurate ideas such as No Real Truth, Multi-Truth, or Unknowable Truth are the primary means that deceptive people remain influential and believed. 

Sounds philosophical? Well, let’s look at the City of Berkeley in this light. UC Berkeley has its claws so far into Tom Bates and the Planning Department, they are a fused unity. And that means your mayor, and a substantial portion of your city government, take direct orders from a consortium of developers, corporations and financiers—headed up by U.S. Republican Party tacticians. Sure, they’ll let Tom choose who to commemorate at the beginning of every council meeting (maybe), but for the real decisions (downtown, taxes, People’s Park, 9/11) the big boys up top know they’ve got a mayor who will “play ball” when instructed.  

Not Christian “The Kid” Pecaut. I saw with my own eyes at Stanford University exactly how the highest-level finance capital spooks get what they want: fake “environmental” groups that mask real estate speculation, “psychology” courses that dupe cure-seeking young girls into testing and marketing suicide-creating psychotropic medications, “technology innovation competitions” that coerce young boys into engineering unmanned U.S. military vehicles for Iraq. And worse. UC Berkeley, I regretfully report, is almost no different. So, what can we do? Well, once you read the Paradigm, and begin looking at your environment with an accuracy-based, solving-human-harm framework, the power of participatory democracy comes into focus. 

You see, the only way these deceivers maintain power is through the unnecessary and tragically mistaken protection they receive from caretakers at every level of society. The caretakers, the liberals, the good guys, make up 90 percent of every human group. The bullies, the reactionaries, the bad guys, are less than 10 percent of every human group, and yet they rule, everywhere—even here in Berkeley. To see this 90/10 Law in effect, a citizen needs look no further than DAPAC, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, or the Ashby Transit Village Task Force. It is the same cohort of real estate flunkies, paid planning stooges, and fake democracy “facilitators” that run every group. And it is the well-meaning but naively compliant general public that ends up helping them to steal, bleed, and kill our livelihood, intelligence, and dignity. 

These 10 percent tyrants require the 90 percent general public consent to carry out their hidden designs. Between the Fair Representation Ordinance and the Brown Act, we have the power to bind the City of Berkeley in a standstill whenever its officials, elected or otherwise, violate the public trust. We must pass strong, unequivocal motions in our appointed commissions, and force the City Council and mayor to obey our will. 

Don’t fall into the trap of respecting the carefully guarded expertise of the Planning Department or city attorneys. The law is for the people, not the lawyers. Propose daring, intelligent motions, and then sway your more timid and subservient peers into decisive, correct votes. Demand what you want, and let our elected representatives and staff figure out how to get it done. That’s why we pay them. During the recent public hearing on the budget, I rose to speak against a proposed increase in sewer fees. I explained how Tom Bates had negotiated a discounted sewer fee, in secret, with UC Berkeley last year. To my surprise and delight, the City Council resoundingly rejected the residential fee increase 5-0-4. (The mayor quickly changed his vote from “No” to “Abstain” once he realized he was the only vote against the now popular tax relief). 

This $300-$500 victory for every Berkeley household encouraged me to look even more closely at the city manager’s plan to spend our citizens’ hard-earned tax money. Thanks to the common sense insight and hard work of my volunteer staff, we uncovered the core of the financial-political control in the city: shadow appropriations. As I explained to the City Council and viewing public last Tuesday, “the way it works is that the city manager and their staff, they don’t do the job they are paid to do; and then, after not doing the job, they appropriate more money in order to pay other people to do their job.” The example I provided was street maintenance, where the painted markings were allowed to deteriorate, over years, under the paid watch of 200-plus assistants and supervisors in the Public Works Department. Then, a private contractor was hired at $400,000 per year, for three years, in order to do the same job that we, the citizen tax payers, have already paid for. 

If your head starts to spin when you try to understand how these “shadow appropriations” work, don’t be dismayed; the whole technique was designed to confuse, mislead, and steal from the public. And we’re not just talking about faded curbs. Look at Telegraph. Look at the Housing Authority. Look at the (please, don’t shoot) Police Department. The city budget is glutted with double appropriations, double spending, and triple talk—costing $10 million, cumulatively, every year. 

Tom Bates has a “winning” plan: buy his way back into office, stay quiet about his friends’ kickbacks, and lie a whole lot about what he understands. 

Unfortunately, the current City Council doesn’t yet have the courage or the confidence to point out these high-level financial schemes. “Just get along…” they whispered with their smiles, when they approved another year of unnecessary theft last Tuesday, right before approving an impeachment resolution that conceals the president’s deliberate mass murder of thousands of U.S. citizens at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 

Not Christian “The Kid” Pecaut. And not Berkeley. 

All you silent citizens, overflow the halls of government with your public comment—and insist on being heard! Almost alone I forced the City Council to reject Tom Bates’ proposed residential sewer hikes. Almost alone I exposed the hidden developer cabal pulling the strings behind DAPAC, thereby swaying the commissioners to demand transparent, public meetings. The human voice, spoken with determination and righteousness in a public forum, is the most powerful force on Earth. We can seize power in Berkeley—legally—and forge the charter along with our $300 million budget into a city that can solve the problems of its citizens, and serve as a model for the United States and the world. Vote for “The Kid,” the next mayor of Berkeley, in November.  

Hi, I’m Christian “The Kid” Pecaut. At Stanford University in 2003, I created a class called “The Science of Social Problem Solving.” The main lecturer was Neil Robert Miller, a San Francisco public high school teacher, who passed away early in 2005. In late 1984, he and a team of dedicated student researchers completed the Paradigm from California, www.imaginenine.com, a full-scale scientific understanding that describes why things have gone so badly for 10,000 years, what a world-going-well looks like, and how to put things right, world-wide and forever. Since he died, I have been working tirelessly to share this discovery with the leadership of the Democratic Party, particularly the Clintons, who received exclusive ownership of the copyrights in accord with Neil’s explicit last wishes. 

So what does the Paradigm prove that is relevant to the citizens of Berkeley?  

1. Nature, and basic human behavior within it, are geared for work out well for every person.  

Implications: human-harming problems, such as poverty, violence, rape, deception, and homelessness, can and must be solved, for everyone, permanently; claims otherwise (such as “It is inevitable within nature that things will work out poorly for some, most, or all people”) are inaccurate, harmful, and deliberate lies. 

2. Protection is supposed to flow mainly downwards in hierarchies, and anxiety mainly upwards.  

Implications: Principled behavior involves primarily focusing our attention and resources on the more vulnerable—downwards in a hierarchy. Anxieties are absorbed by the powerful, combined with resources, and solved for everyone. It is unprincipled, deadly, anti-nature theft to primarily serve more powerful people, while blaming and punishing those with less power than you have. 

3. This bioecosystem works on a singular reality system, fully knowable to every human being. Implications: the difference between those who accurately report and those who deliberately misreport what they perceive or understand, is an absolute, same-for-everyone, distinction. Widely held, inaccurate ideas such as No Real Truth, Multi-Truth, or Unknowable Truth are the primary means that deceptive people remain influential and believed. 

Sounds philosophical? Well, let’s look at the City of Berkeley in this light. UC Berkeley has its claws so far into Tom Bates and the Planning Department, they are a fused unity. And that means your mayor, and a substantial portion of your city government, take direct orders from a consortium of developers, corporations and financiers—headed up by U.S. Republican Party tacticians. Sure, they’ll let Tom choose who to commemorate at the beginning of every council meeting (maybe), but for the real decisions (downtown, taxes, People’s Park, 9/11) the big boys up top know they’ve got a mayor who will “play ball” when instructed.  

Not Christian “The Kid” Pecaut. I saw with my own eyes at Stanford University exactly how the highest-level finance capital spooks get what they want: fake “environmental” groups that mask real estate speculation, “psychology” courses that dupe cure-seeking young girls into testing and marketing suicide-creating psychotropic medications, “technology innovation competitions” that coerce young boys into engineering unmanned U.S. military vehicles for Iraq. And worse. UC Berkeley, I regretfully report, is almost no different. So, what can we do? Well, once you read the Paradigm, and begin looking at your environment with an accuracy-based, solving-human-harm framework, the power of participatory democracy comes into focus. 

You see, the only way these deceivers maintain power is through the unnecessary and tragically mistaken protection they receive from caretakers at every level of society. The caretakers, the liberals, the good guys, make up 90 percent of every human group. The bullies, the reactionaries, the bad guys, are less than 10 percent of every human group, and yet they rule, everywhere—even here in Berkeley. To see this 90/10 Law in effect, a citizen needs look no further than DAPAC, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, or the Ashby Transit Village Task Force. It is the same cohort of real estate flunkies, paid planning stooges, and fake democracy “facilitators” that run every group. And it is the well-meaning but naively compliant general public that ends up helping them to steal, bleed, and kill our livelihood, intelligence, and dignity. 

These 10 percent tyrants require the 90 percent general public consent to carry out their hidden designs. Between the Fair Representation Ordinance and the Brown Act, we have the power to bind the City of Berkeley in a standstill whenever its officials, elected or otherwise, violate the public trust. We must pass strong, unequivocal motions in our appointed commissions, and force the City Council and mayor to obey our will. 

Don’t fall into the trap of respecting the carefully guarded expertise of the Planning Department or city attorneys. The law is for the people, not the lawyers. Propose daring, intelligent motions, and then sway your more timid and subservient peers into decisive, correct votes. Demand what you want, and let our elected representatives and staff figure out how to get it done. That’s why we pay them. During the recent public hearing on the budget, I rose to speak against a proposed increase in sewer fees. I explained how Tom Bates had negotiated a discounted sewer fee, in secret, with UC Berkeley last year. To my surprise and delight, the City Council resoundingly rejected the residential fee increase 5-0-4. (The mayor quickly changed his vote from “No” to “Abstain” once he realized he was the only vote against the now popular tax relief). 

This $300-$500 victory for every Berkeley household encouraged me to look even more closely at the city manager’s plan to spend our citizens’ hard-earned tax money. Thanks to the common sense insight and hard work of my volunteer staff, we uncovered the core of the financial-political control in the city: shadow appropriations. As I explained to the City Council and viewing public last Tuesday, “the way it works is that the city manager and their staff, they don’t do the job they are paid to do; and then, after not doing the job, they appropriate more money in order to pay other people to do their job.” The example I provided was street maintenance, where the painted markings were allowed to deteriorate, over years, under the paid watch of 200-plus assistants and supervisors in the Public Works Department. Then, a private contractor was hired at $400,000 per year, for three years, in order to do the same job that we, the citizen tax payers, have already paid for. 

If your head starts to spin when you try to understand how these “shadow appropriations” work, don’t be dismayed; the whole technique was designed to confuse, mislead, and steal from the public. And we’re not just talking about faded curbs. Look at Telegraph. Look at the Housing Authority. Look at the (please, don’t shoot) Police Department. The city budget is glutted with double appropriations, double spending, and triple talk—costing $10 million, cumulatively, every year. 

Tom Bates has a “winning” plan: buy his way back into office, stay quiet about his friends’ kickbacks, and lie a whole lot about what he understands. 

Unfortunately, the current City Council doesn’t yet have the courage or the confidence to point out these high-level financial schemes. “Just get along…” they whispered with their smiles, when they approved another year of unnecessary theft last Tuesday, right before approving an impeachment resolution that conceals the president’s deliberate mass murder of thousands of U.S. citizens at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 

Not Christian “The Kid” Pecaut. And not Berkeley. 

All you silent citizens, overflow the halls of government with your public comment—and insist on being heard! Almost alone I forced the City Council to reject Tom Bates’ proposed residential sewer hikes. Almost alone I exposed the hidden developer cabal pulling the strings behind DAPAC, thereby swaying the commissioners to demand transparent, public meetings. The human voice, spoken with determination and righteousness in a public forum, is the most powerful force on Earth. We can seize power in Berkeley—legally—and forge the charter along with our $300 million budget into a city that can solve the problems of its citizens, and serve as a model for the United States and the world. Vote for “The Kid,” the next mayor of Berkeley, in November.  

Christian Pecaut is a candidate for mayor of Berkeley (www.BerkeleyMayor.org). 

EDITOR’S NOTE: 

The Daily Planet encourages all mayoral and City Council candidates to send commentaries to opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com.

The Planning Commission and City Council will soon be considering recommendations regarding revisions to the Creeks Ordinance. I am writing about what I believe is a core issue, the right to rebuild, affecting everyone in our city, but especially residents of properties with open creeks.  

It is fair to say that I have had a more than usual involvement in the workings of our government. Even with that deep involvement, I was shocked to learn that almost every homeowner in Berkeley cannot rebuild without going through a public hearing and use permit process when their property is destroyed 50 percent or more. 

This means that home owners have to pay $6,000 just for starters and wait a minimum of six months before you can get a hearing date. Six months is very optimistic. Anyone who has had any experience with zoning matters knows that the process often takes a year or more. Yet our city requires all of this just to rebuild what probably existed for 50 years or more. At the public hearing anyone in the city can object to your request to rebuild even if you are replacing the same structure that originally existed! 

This is especially a problem for properties with open creeks. In examining such properties, the city’s consultant found that around 60 percent of properties sampled in the hills and 80 percent of properties sampled in the flats, do not conform to the 30-foot creek setback, 60 feet if measured on both sides of the creek. It seems reasonable that those percentages can be applied to all 1,000 plus properties with open creeks. Can anyone state that objections about being too near the creek will not be the central issue raised during a public hearing to rebuild a destroyed property? Can anyone guarantee that the city will give permission to rebuild the same home in the face of such objections? I sincerely doubt it. 

Imagine the agony for both the homeowner and the city if the city’s currently clogged zoning process had to deal with any number of properties destroyed in an earthquake or a wildfire. Let’s face it, even one destroyed home is a nightmare of red tape, requirements, and back breaking effort. One homeowner said it all when he told the Creeks Task Force that the requirement for a use permit public hearing process in order to rebuild would be to add “horror upon horror” for the homeowner. 

What property owners want is very simple: First, to be able to rebuild a destroyed structure that is on the same footprint, to the same height and size as what formerly existed, as a matter of right, with no public hearing. The only requirement should be to meet current building and engineering codes. These provisions should apply to everyone in Berkeley, including properties with open creeks, and they don’t mean that a homeowner would have to build the exact same interior layout.  

Second: If the person wants to re-build something that is bigger or higher than what formerly existed, that proposal should undergo full zoning review. The Creeks Task Force has suggested granting increases to the height, or moving the structure into the front and side yard setbacks as an incentive to move a home away from a creek. Neighbors on Urban Creeks objects to this because of the likely significant impact on neighboring properties. If an incentive is to be given to encourage owners to build away from the creek, the fee for zoning review of a structure that is different from what existed should be waived. 

How does Neighbors on Urban Creeks know what owners want? We asked them. We mailed a survey out to more than 2,000 owners affected by the Ordinance. With a 17.5 percent return, 94 percent felt that the Use Permit requirement to rebuild destroyed properties was wrong. 

The right to rebuild is a property value issue that affects mortgages, insurance and resale when there is no guarantee that you can replace what you worked so hard to own. I urge the Planning Commission and City Council to begin the process to amend the Zoning Ordinance as described above.  

Shirley Dean is the former mayor of Berkeley. 

On June 25, the Women’s Employment Resources Corporation (WERC), located at 3356 Adeline St., turned 22 years old. With a very small budget, this agency has consistently and successfully served and placed into jobs, thousands of single parent families, individuals (male and female), and youth from the Berkeley community. With an emphasis on South Berkeley, where it has operated since 1989, it is a beacon of light for the most oppressed members of our beautiful city. 

What sets this agency apart from others is its unique ability to reach out, assess, and develop the essence of each and every client’s untapped skills and potential. Yet, it’s not just clients who are helped, but other agencies with whom WERC interacts. As a client, and present volunteer employee of this agency I have personally witnessed many success stories. These stories include single mothers going from welfare to entering the workforce for the first time, as well as homeless and jobless people finding jobs and housing. I myself, have first-hand experience with WERC’s services, and believe me, I represent only one of thousands of others who can verify how this agency operates. My family found ourselves homeless, me without a job, but with the assistance of WERC and the true devotion of its staff and its director, Carole Brown, a tenacious graduate of UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, my family and I were able to find employment and housing. Frankly, I don’t know where I would be today if it were not for this agency. The public needs to know that my story only echoes those stories I’ve heard with my own ears from many, many other clients of the agency. If gainful employment is a solution to our community’s crime and dysfunctioning, why is it that we are under threat of losing an agency that tackles these problems?  

Past support from the City of Berkeley is no longer forthcoming and several of the agency’s employees are no longer receiving pay checks, but are still working on a volunteer basis with the faith that funding will return. The agency is operating on funds from the community, board members and the director’s own money. This is not the first time that the agency has faced major budget cuts. As you can imagine, the past 22 years have been eventful with many cuts, yet there has always been one constant i.e., to keep the doors open and serve the community. However, without funds, the agency is in danger of folding. The impact of this vital agency closing will be detrimental to many families and individuals in the entire Berkeley community. Although I am speaking as an individual, I only represent one voice amongst thousands who have benefited from WERC today, and in past years. Any one in the community is welcome to come and visit WERC to see first hand how we benefit the community.  

Any donations made to this agency would be a tax write off and would greatly benefit our community. 

Phil McKinney is a volunteer at the Women’s Employment Resources Corporation.

“True power lies not with those who cast the votes, but rather with those who count the vote.” 

—Joseph Stalin 

Last month, I experienced a truly disgraceful display of ignorance and arrogance from a majority of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the staff of the Registrar of Voters office. The supervisors held a public hearing on June 8th to decide on voting equipment for our future elections. Dozens of concerned citizens were treated to a pathetic example of the breakdown of responsible representative government that today plagues our nation at every level of our system. These citizens felt compelled to spend the day giving informed testimony and impassioned pleas for a return to honest and verifiable elections, only to be ignored by three of the five supervisors. Instead of having the decency to honor the desire of their constituents to eliminate potential election fraud, they instead chose to squander $13.25 million taxpayer dollars for a touch screen voting system by Sequoia. This system, like its counterparts from Diebold, employs secret software codes, which cannot be trusted to deliver honest vote counts. This system is perhaps slightly better than the now illegal 4,300 touch-screen voting devices our taxpayer dollars purchased from Diebold in 2002 for $12 million. Those machines are now sitting in a warehouse collecting dust, deemed unusable. (Diebold, in its great benevolence, will reimburse Alameda County taxpayers $3 million as a return credit on those machines.) 

The Sequoia so called “paper trail” system emits a printout on a tiny roll of thermal paper that is virtually useless for any large-scale recounts and does not allow the voter to verify his or her choices. The voter cannot see how the selections were reported. 

With public testimony from over 50 citizens, all but two speakers begged the supervisors to reject any system that incorporates hackable and pre-programmable secret source code software. There was an option to negotiate a purchase of ESS equipment, which also uses a touch-screen computer, but then prints out a paper ballot that the voter can review for accuracy before turning it into poll workers. These paper ballots can then be counted by computerized optical scanners, or better yet, counted by hand. 

I personally believe that ballots should be hand counted with observers from any interested party monitoring the count from a location where the validity of the process can be guaranteed. The optical scanning procedure that is currently in use is still vulnerable to vote switching and fraud as any computer’s software program can be preset to deliver a specific result. Most European nations and Canada employ a full paper vote and hand counting process and their elections are conducted honestly. 

Shamefully however the board’s majority ignored hours of testimony from highly informed and alarmed citizens and instead chose to vote in accordance with the advice of the two opposing speakers, one from Diebold, the other from Sequoia! The system that was approved for purchase was a secret source code software Sequoia computer that has been proved to be vulnerable to hacking and could be secretly programmed by the vendor to deliver a predetermined outcome of any election! The board added a last minute amendment, in response to the furious outcry of betrayal by those citizens in the hearing room, that the systems be checked for accuracy and a hacking test be performed. It is important to note that these vendors have a well-established history of failing to follow through on promises or even to allow testing of this sort.  

To their credit, Supervisors Nate Miley and Keith Carson asked all the right questions of the various speakers and seemed to understand the dangers of allowing the purchase of a secret software black box voting system. The staff on the other hand, seemed intent on steering the decision in only one direction…to Sequoia! Important questions were improperly answered and on several occasions false information was given to the supervisors to the amazement and consternation of the hearing’s audience. 

When it came time to vote, Supervisor Gail Steele stated that she was “feeling like I am in the Twilight Zone.” She admitted to never using her computer and to not understanding most of the four hours of testimony she had witnessed. After making this stunning admission, she chose to ignore all of the public comment and voted to purchase the insecure Sequoia system. Supervisors Alice Lai Bitker and Scott Haggerty also cast their votes for the Sequoia system. Any elected official who is so unconcerned with the sanctity of our votes, in the face of the enormous body of evidence regarding electronic voting and unanimous public comment, does not deserve to remain in office! 

It should be noted that in Washington State litigation was conducted to render unlawful the use of these Sequoia computer election systems. That lawsuit was successful.  

The turnout of this last election was one of the lowest on record. The American people have lost faith in our election system and nearly half of all Americans now believe it to be fraudulent. It is no surprise that citizens don’t bother to vote if they believe that the outcome can be manipulated. Tremendous evidence of election fraud can be seen at www.blackboxvoting.org and www.freepress.org.  

The question for history is now whether “We the People” will passively accept the demise of representative government or instead use all means at our disposal to send a clear message to elected and fraudulently elected officials alike that our votes are worth fighting for.  

Let’s reclaim our democracy now. If we fail to protect our freedom then we will surely lose it. 

Allen C. Michaan is the owner of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. 

In August 1999, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) began the Route 24/Caldecott Tunnel Corridor Study, for which I served on the Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) as an alternate representing BART. I attended most of the numerous meetings held. The Final Summary Report was presented on November 2000. It was never accepted by the Policy Advisory Committee, and MTC basically threw up its hands and did not pursue the report’s conclusions. 

All the cities to the west of the hill who were represented on PAC objected to the construction of the fourth bore and, if I recall correctly, one of the cities to the east did as well, with another expressing some reservations. 

I was critical of several points in the report. First, the study was based on a projection of only 20 years into the future, whereas the tunnel, being major infrastructure similar to the Bay Bridge, will function for a far longer period, so the study should have extended over a longer period. If it had been done for a 50-year period it is very likely that the tunnel would by that time become congested again. So are we to build a fifth, or beyond that, a sixth tunnel? 

Another point I found troubling was that most of the study was focused on capacity and congestion, and little on land use and development, which determines the number of cars used for mobility. The current development pattern currently generates a peak use of BART that is obtuse, in that the morning peak westbound is five times greater than eastbound. The reason for this is simply the density of development around stations to the west versus development to the east which is not conducive to transit use and relies on auto access. The report to some degree acknowledges this by considering an alternative of building more parking for BART, which encourages greater auto use, which leads to a need for more and more highways and tunnels. This points out the lack of consideration for real land use and development issues. 

Overall, the environmental impact of the new bore will be detrimental to livability, air quality and health, our climate and our resources. 

The social equity implications of major mega-projects such as the new bore are generally that those who benefit are the more affluent living in low density areas. They are the ones with more auto trips, which create the problems of congestion. 

The cost effectiveness of a $400 million tunnel being built to increase capacity primarily for peak hours is negative. The new tunnel will add capacity for only 3,800 cars, so the cost per car will be over $15 per trip for 20 years. 

Transit Alternative: Before BART started operation across the bay, AC Transit during peak period was carrying the same number of people as all the vehicles or 8-9,000 per hour. Admittedly it took time to build up to this volume. There needs to be development to the east as dense as destinations in San Francisco. There is a total lack of this kind of concentration especially to the east of the tunnel. 

I recall I-710 down in Southern California was held back by Caltrans for 25-plus years because of the objection of the communities through which it would pass. Now Caltrans is proposing a long tunnel through this section through Alhambra and South Pasadena. Will Caltrans recognize the significant objections from cities such as Berkeley, which will get added traffic when the congestion on Route 24 is relieved, encouraging commuters to continue driving? Berkeley is already troubled by congestion on its local streets, so will Caltrans build a tunnel through Oakland/Berkeley to I-80?  

All that this project is doing is encouraging more auto use. 

Roy Nakadegawa is a Berkeley resident.

There is a whiff of “regime change” in the air these days, but not where you might expect it. Not in Iraq, where the conservative United States-backed Shiites are already in power. Not in Iran, where White House threats have served to unite, rather than divide, that country. But in Pakistan, and for reasons that go back to a 1992 document that maps out a strategy for a new Cold War. 

Consider the following developments: 

The Bush administration’s Man in Kabul, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, recently fingered Pakistan as the source of the current fighting in the southern part of his country. “The world should go where terrorism is nourished, where it is provided money and ideology,” he told a Kabul press conference this past June, “The war in Afghanistan should not be limited to Afghanistan.” 

When President Bush visited Pakistan in March, he lectured President Pervez Musharraf about the need to be more aggressive in the “war on terrorism”—Pakistan has lost more soldiers fighting the Taliban in its northwestern tribal areas than the entire NATO coalition has lost in Afghanistan—and refused to discuss the issue of Kashmir, the major flashpoint in Pakistan-India relations, one that has brought the two nuclear armed powers to the brink of war on several occasions. 

Indeed, when Musharraf asked for the same nuclear agreement that Washington had just handed New Delhi, Bush openly insulted his Islamabad hosts. With the Pakistani President standing stiffly beside him, the U.S. president told the press, “I explained that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and hi`stories.” 

The nuclear deal—which was favorably voted out of House and Senate committees—would let India bypass Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty sanctions slapped on it for secretly developing atomic weapons, thus allowing it to buy uranium for its civilian reactors. That in turn would let the Indians divert their meager domestic uranium supplies into constructing more nuclear weapons.  

The Bush administration also cut $350 million in civilian and military aid to Pakistan because of a “failure” to improve democracy and human rights.  

And according to Syad Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan bureau chief for the Asia Times, “Western intelligence” has helped funnel money through Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and London to insurgents in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province. 

So if the Pakistanis are starting to feel like they are in someone’s crosshairs, one can hardly blame them. The question is why? Musharraf has basically done everything the White House wanted him to do, including breaking with the Taliban and sending 90,000 troops to seal the border with Afghanistan. 

The answer is not that Pakistan has fallen out of favor, but that it is a pawn that has outlived its usefulness in a global chess match aimed at China.  

Back in 1992 the Clinton administration drew up a Defense Planning Guidance document that laid out a blueprint for a post-Cold War world: “The United States will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive or other capabilities that could enable regional hegemony or hostile action against the United States,” the document read, continuing, “Of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States.” 

Jump ahead to the year 2000 and a Foreign Affairs article by soon-to-be National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice: “China is not a ‘status quo’ power, but one that would like to alter Asia’s balance of power in its own favor…The United States must deepen its cooperation with Japan and South Korea and maintain its commitment to a robust military presence in the region,” she wrote, adding that the United States had to “pay close attention to India’s role in the regional balance” if the latter was to be recruited into an anti-China alliance. 

While Sept. 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq derailed this grand scheme, recent developments suggest it is back on track. 

The anti-China alliance is already well underway. 

Japan and Australia have agreed to field U.S.-supplied anti-ballistic missiles, and the Administration is wooing India to do the same. While the rationale for the ABMs is North Korea, the real target in China’s 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

Japan—which has one of the largest navies in the world—is stepping up its military coordination with the United States, and has agreed to support the United States in case it intervenes in a war between China and Taiwan. 

In the meantime, the United States is pouring men and materials into Asia and beefing up bases in Japan and Guam. It is also conducting war games with India, and jointly patrolling the Malacca Straits with the Indian Navy. 

Add to this the U.S. bases in Central Asia—Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan—plus recent attacks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on China’s military (using some of the same language as in the 1992 document) and one can only conclude that the Defense Guidance Plan is alive and well. 

But while chess is a supremely logical game, diplomacy is considerably messier, and the grand scheme to corner the dragon is stirring up some dangerous regional furies. 

For instance, to get Japan on board, the United States has encouraged a more muscular foreign policy by Tokyo, including sending troops to Iraq and dumping Article Nine of the Japanese constitution renouncing war as a “sovereign right of the nation.”  

But this resurgent Japanese nationalism has angered and frightened nations in the region, many of which have vivid memories of World War II. South Korea, which suffered through more than three decades of brutal Japanese occupation, is barely on speaking terms with Tokyo, and has come close to blows with Japan over the Tokodo Islands claimed by both nations.  

This is hardly the atmosphere for a grand alliance. 

The law of unintended consequences may be playing itself out with Indian and Pakistan as well. 

India’s central strategy has always been to insure control of Kashmir and to weaken the Pakistani Army, two goals that the Bush Administration seems to share. 

According to the Asia Times, a CIA official told the Indians that weakening the Pakistani Army was central to the United States’ goal of bringing “democracy” to Pakistan, though the lack of it never bothered Washington in the past. The Times also reports that the CIA has been meeting with exiled former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who recently formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy. 

General Hamid Gul, former head of the Pakistani InterService Intelligence organization, told the PakTribune that he thought the U.S. was aiming to replace Musharraf. 

If the United States sides with India on Kashmir, Pakistan could be looking at a strategic defeat in the long-running dispute that would not only weaken the army, but might destabilize the country.  

Are the nuclear deal and the Kashmir policy a quid pro quo for India joining the anti-China alliance? It is hard to fathom what else might explain Washington’s relentless criticism of Pakistan for not doing enough in the “war on terrorism,” or the recent cut in aid. 

Washington’s obsession with China is unleashing some particularly malevolent forms of nationalism that threaten to destabilize a broad swath of the region from South Asia to the north Pacific. In this chess match, India, with its enormous population and economic potential, is a major piece on the board. Pakistan, with a sixth the population and a tenth the economic potential, is a pawn.  

An expendable one it would appear. 

It’s important to remember these days that during the events that led to the 2003 takeover of the Oakland Unified School District by the State of California, there was never an allegation the district’s budget shortfall occurred because someone in the administration of Superintendent Dennis Chaconas or on the OUSD Board of Trustees was either stealing or misappropriating district money. 

Don’t take my word for it. SB39, the state law that mandated the takeover, reads at Section I(e): “While in need of a loan from the State of California, there have not been any accusations of intentional mismanagement or fraud in the Oakland Unified School District.” 

So what caused the shortfall? Former Superintendent Dennis Chaconas proposed, and the school board approved, a teacher pay raise that the district could not afford. From everything we’ve heard, the district’s antiquated computer financial software did anticipate the full financial effect of the pay raise and, therefore, did not detect the looming budget shortfall until it was too late to patch it over. 

The state Legislature looking into the Oakland “problem” in 2003 also found that fiscal problems aside, Oakland schools were moving on the right track under the Chaconas administration. SB39’s Section I(f) reads that “[t]he Oakland Unified School District has made demonstrable academic improvements over the last few years, witnessed by test score improvements, more fully credentialed teachers in Oakland classrooms, and increased parental and community involvement.” 

How Oakland was supposed to attract “more fully credentialed teachers” to our school district without that massive raise in teacher salaries is a fiscal management trick not explained by the state legislature either in its deliberations back in 2003 nor by anyone else in state government, to this day. 

In any event, as a result of the 2003 OUSD budget crisis, it is widely believed that the State of California took three actions under SB39 to help the district get its fiscal house back in order. The first step was to provide enough money—a $100 million line-of-credit loan—for the district to balance its budget and weather the 2003 crisis. All of that loan has now been appropriated to Oakland. 

The second state action was to authorize a state-appointed administrator—Randolph Ward, in this case—to take over the district and reorganize it so that the district maintained its “demonstrable academic improvements” and “continue[d] the key educational reforms that have benefited Oakland public school pupils in the last three years” during the Chaconas administration (as pointed out in Section I(g) of SB39) while putting in place sound fiscal policies and systems. 

Despite the fact that some local commentators have already declared the soon-to-be-over Randolph Ward administration a smashing success in that area (see San Francisco Chronicle writer Chip Johnson’s July 4 column “Oakland Owes Debt To Randy Ward”), it is too soon to tell—and we’re still too much in the dark to know—whether Mr. Ward is leaving Oakland in good fiscal shape. 

But there was a third, implied state mandate in SB39, the widely-believed understanding that while the state was putting the Oakland schools back on the right track, the state would simultaneously train Oakland school officials in sound fiscal management policies so that once the schools were returned to our control, we wouldn’t make the same mistake again. SB39, after all, was never intended as either a permanent state takeover or as a revolving door in which the state would have to permanently withdraw and intervene again, as Oakland continued to fumble our own educational ball. 

So who was supposed to provide the “sound fiscal management” training? Here we begin to stretch out into the area of quantum physics, where the normal rules of logic start to break down, and we find a case of the dogs teaching the dogs not to bark. 

In the months that led up to the fiscal decisions that ended in OUSD’s 2003 fiscal crisis, the district’s finances were being closely monitored by four separate agencies or organizations: the OUSD Board of Trustees, the office of the Alameda County Superintendent (Sheila Jordan), the semi-public Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), and the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction (Jack O’Connell). All of them looked at the massive teacher pay hike proposed by Mr. Chaconas’ administration, and none of them said that the pay hike would bust Oakland’s budget. 

Three of these four entities—the county superintendent, FCMAT, and the state superintendent—had their own, independent staff auditing teams to monitor and evaluate the budget figures supplied by the OUSD staff. Only one of them—the OUSD board—had no independent staff of their own. OUSD trustees had to rely completely on the staff presentations and assertions made by the OUSD fiscal office. 

So guess which one of the four got blamed for failure of oversight in 2003, and whose authority got taken away by the state legislature under SB39. The OUSD Board of Trustees, of course. The local guys. 

Under SB39, the same state superintendent who missed the fiscal problems that came close to bankrupting the district was rewarded, for his vigilance or lack thereof, with direct control over Oakland Unified. FCMAT was given broad and largely-undefined powers to decide when the district was “ready” to be returned to local control. And Alameda County Superintendent Sheila Jordan…? Well, SB39 devotes a whole section making sure she didn’t lose any of her powers, with Section 12 mandating that “The Alameda County Superintendent of Schools maintains the responsibility to superintend school districts under its jurisdiction. This act does not remove any statutory or regulatory rights, duties, or obligations from the county superintendent of school.” 

There is some irony, therefore, in the slightly paternalistic implication in SB39 that three of the four entities that dropped the ball on Oakland’s 2003 school budget crisis—the state and county superintendents and FCMAT—should instruct the fourth—the OUSD Board of Trustees—on how to do things properly. Still, it’s a fair question to ask, just for the sake of the discussion, how well have the elected trustees been kept informed along the way so that they are properly prepared to take over once state control has ended? 

Not very well, apparently. 

We already know that after local trustees authorized a request for qualifications (RFQ) in February of 2005 for the possible sale of the OUSD downtown properties, Mr. Ward and Mr. O’Connell kept local trustees in the dark for a year while they selected a firm for final negotiations. That’s significant in part because at least one of the trustees who was initially in support of the property sale—Gary Yee—says he did so only in the belief that the money for the sale could be used to immediately pay off the state loan and possibly lead to a quick return to local control. Mr. Yee only learned when the letter of intent was released last month that under the initial terms negotiated with TerraMark/Urban America, the bulk of the money for the downtown OUSD properties is not scheduled to be paid by the developer to the district for five years. Not so immediate as Mr. Yee had envisioned when he voted for the RFQ back in 2005. 

Another revelation of how much OUSD trustees have been kept in the loop—or not been kept in the loop—came during the emergency board meeting called by Trustee President David Kakishiba following the sudden announcement that Mr. Ward was leaving for San Diego. Several trustees complained that State Superintendent O’Connell had not been communicating with the board in general—and Mr. Kakishiba in particular—about much of anything over the three years of the state takeover. “O’Connell has never responded to David [Kakishiba] even out of courtesy,” the longest-sitting trustee, Noel Gallo, said, a little bitterly. “We’re still not informed.” To which Alice Spearman, the trustee with the least tenure, replied that she did not understand the problem, since she talked with Mr. O’Connell on a regular basis, and he always returned her calls. 

Taking all of the trustees at their word on this, and conceding the fact that Mr. O’Connell has a perfect right to speak with Ms. Spearman any time he wants, and she to him, what does it tell us about the superintendent’s intent about local preparation for local control when Mr. O’Connell “regularly” speaks with the trustees’ juniorist member, and no-one else? That the purpose of this whole exercise was never to help Oakland succeed at local control? 

If so, then what was the purpose? That, my friends, continues to be the real mystery of the Oakland school takeover.

Snowy egrets and coal-black cormorants roosting in trees—in Oakland? Hansel and Gretel along with the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, brought to life with a Magic Key—in Oakland? A Daimyo oak bonsai, in cultivation since Abraham Lincoln’s term as President—in Oakland? Venetian gondolas gliding across sparkling waters under fairy lights—in Oakland? Discover these wonders and more, in Oakland’s Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt. 

A combination of fresh and salt-water covering 155 acres, Lake Merritt is the largest man-made lake in the United States and a delightful focal point smack in the middle of urban Oakland. Thanks go to Dr. Samuel Merritt who donated dammed tidal water from the headwaters of Indian Slough for its creation. As part of well-maintained Lakeside Park, it’s a welcome oasis of green surrounded by expansive lawns and shade-giving trees, and offering a host of possibilities to add fun to any day of the week. 

After a long absence, I rediscovered Lake Merritt on a crisp, brilliantly sunny Saturday morning. The park and most of its inhabitants were in a mellow mood. It wasn’t too early for enthusiasts cruising the level, paved 3.4-mile path around the lake. A mixed bag of joggers, walkers and cyclists passed across my field of vision. All ages, solo, in pairs and small groups, chatting, attached to cell phone or iPod, attired in the latest techno fitness garb, comfortable sweats or everyday wear, they circled the perimeter, not even pausing to partake of appealing lake-view benches. 

Being on a fact-finding mission, I set out to investigate the activities at hand and was drawn to the least mellow area of the park, the Wildlife Refuge. A cacophony of bird conversations filled the air—shrieks, cries, honks and coos—a just representation of the wealth of bird life inhabiting two islands and the lakeside refuge. A population surge of Canada geese, not satisfied with only one settlement area, roamed everywhere in the park. More selective avians restricted themselves to occupying island tree-side perches. Fan-like white plumage marked nestled egrets while cormorants masquerading as black-clad sentinels staked out the highest branches. 

A National Historic Landmark and the nation’s oldest wildlife refuge, the mixture of tributary fresh water and tidal salt water provides seasonal and permanent homes to birds, fish and invertebrates. Much of this wildlife is well represented inside the Rotary Science Center, which aims to bring people and nature together learning about estuary ecology. The faces of three school-age boys didn’t move far from the glass fronting a buzzing beehive on the day of my visit. I was more interested in the wall-length display of bird life and a case full of skulls within this rustic, but informative center. 

Outside young children focused their interest on the pint-size playground, all bright colors, wood and molded plastic, atop a sand base perfect for digging and building. What birds? Turquoise slide, purple bars, yellow rings and a lavender fire pole like delicious candies were waiting to be sampled.  

My next stop was the Boating Center, where aquatic choices for multiple visits lay in wait. Whether you fancy sailing an El Toro, windsurfing, kayaking, paddling a canoe, rowing a boat or exercising your feet with a paddleboat, this would be the right place. And the next time you need to impress that special someone, what could be more romantic than a moonlight gondola ride? Who needs Italy? 

In the Demonstration Gardens I was greeted with a placard announcing composting classes and another signifying this as a Bay Friendly Garden. Much like a work-in-progress, there is plenty here to please the eye and tingle those green thumbs. Well defined paths wander among mature growth and newly planted beds. Among the eclectic combinations thrive fuchsias, cacti, lilies, herbs and palms. In the raised vegetable beds of artichoke, Swiss chard and arugula, I was cheered by the profusion of sweet peas in reds, pinks and violets, as well as bright yellow marigolds. 

A peaceful haven surrounds the koi pond where the soothing sounds of cascading water, orange bird-of-paradise, blue agapanthus, and an orange torii gate dedicated to the memory of Frank Ogawa abide. A mallard couple lay almost hidden on the banks. 

Within the grounds of the Lakeside Garden Center, behind a traditional wood fence capped in steel-gray is located another tranquil refuge, the Bonsai Garden. Over 100 bonsai and suiseki of amazing quality and beauty are lovingly displayed on raised wood platforms in the setting of a simple Japanese garden. Coast live oak, Monterey cypress, Chinese quince, shrunken in an Alice In Wonderland world yet perfect in form and detail, rest among a dry riverbed and stone ornaments. Equally admirable to the oak bonsai given to Lincoln’s ambassador to China was a trident maple, identical to a park-side shade tree, yet only three feet tall. 

Saturday morning was too early to see action at the Lawn Bowling Greens but the rectangles of neatly trimmed lawn bordered by benches appeared poised for future matches. At the Edoff Memorial Bandstand music was a faint memory, perhaps still heard by the gentleman practicing tai chi. Even without a concert, this 1923 multi-columned platform topped with red-tiled roof and trimmed in coppery patina is a handsome sight. 

Ahead a stream of strollers and wide-eyed toddlers all seemed to be heading in one direction, the music of the calliope a Pied Piper drawing them forth. I caught up with them at the Shoe—the one with so many children and the entrance to Children’s Fairyland, around since 1950. What child could resist a magic kingdom where beloved stories and imagination come to life, where gentle farm animals await their attention, where adults are not admitted unless accompanied by children? 

Saturday morning was not too early for action here. The line was long; birthday party guests were arriving in pastel dresses and white Mary Janes and the child-sized Ferris wheel’s enclosed cages were slowly rotating. Though paint colors may have faded, the magic remains. 

In 1925, 126 lampposts with 3,400 bulbs lit up the circumference of Lake Merritt for the first time. Any visit is incomplete without following this Necklace of Lights. Glancing from the water’s blue expanse toward buildings fronting the lake, one notes the presence of Oakland’s past through its architecture. Bas reliefs and carved moldings on stately stucco and brick, brimming flower boxes reflecting the park’s natural setting, a curved edifice with aqua tinted glass carrying the water skyward, high rise businesses with faceless windows and smooth lines. 

From park settings to open expanses, the circle of lights leads you. Sample the benches, sit and take in aqua depths, great cityscapes, joyous fountains, feasting Canada geese and fellow outdoor enthusiasts. Egrets, cormorants, gondolas, bonsai, Cinderella, fairy lights. In Oakland? Yes, making Lake Merritt much more than the sum of its parts. 

Lakeside Park/Lake Merritt 

Lakeside Drive, Oakland 

Rotary Science Center 

600 Bellevue Ave., 238-3738 

Lake Merritt Boating Center  

568 Bellevue Ave., 238-2196 

Lakeside Demonstration Gardens  

666 Bellevue Ave., 238-2197 

Bonsai Garden  

666 Bellevue Ave., 763-8409 

Lawn Bowling Greens  

660 Bellevue Ave., 625-9937 

Children’s Fairyland  

699 Bellevue Ave., www.fairyland.org

For those of you who are regular readers of this column, it will come as no surprise that today’s topic is one related to energy efficiency. Keeping our globe cool means generating less heat in all of our pursuits—or at least burning less oil or gas.  

It’s very exciting being alive today. So many things are changing and there is such promise in new technologies and ways of thinking. I can certainly understand and have great compassion for the argument that all of our answers do not lie in science. 

Sometimes, science and technology take us in the wrong direction. But given our obsession with having fast travel, ready resources and instant everything, it, at very least, behooves us to buy these marvels with pennies and to make them with plentiful resources.  

It is in this spirit that I present the notion of lighting our houses with our little friend the Light Emitting Diode—the LED. LED’s have been around for decades, lighting up the panels on Lieutenant Uhura’s Command Panel and flashing at you from your alarm clock and VCR. 

They’ve been doing these things because they are cheap, cool and very long lasting for low wattage applications. But they haven’t been considered for big lighting jobs until the very recent past when LED’s have become capable of providing higher luminosities. 

There’s a revolution raging in backwaters that we don’t often hear about and it involves a great race to produce a LED that can complete with the incandescent or fluorescent light bulb. Though the race may not be won, the lager has some major advantages to offer and it may be time to put your feet in the water right now. 

I bought two devices this summer. One was a book-light. I saw this at a client’s house and decided I just had to have one. It has a single LED in a spring loaded arm and provides enough light to read by without waking the wife. It will also be fine for reading to the kiddies at camp, if I’m not too embarrassing or stupid to be seen or heard from this year. 

The second device is a flashlight. It has 24 LED’s and is good enough to do my job examining things under houses or in attics as long as I don’t have to look way across to the other side. 

A year ago, I would not have considered such a purchase but these things are getting cheaper and more effective at a measurable pace. 

Now we’re starting to see LED lighting designed specifically for houses and commercial buildings and not surprisingly, it’s starting with bulbs that can replace typical incandescent or halogen ones. 

The cost of these is currently very high but before you say no to them, consider what we pay for the electricity to run our 25 cent incandescent bulbs. 

Here’s a general breakdown of the efficiency of LED’s compared to our current methods: 

A conventional light bulb (incandescent) is about 16 lumens per watt (lm/W) and a tungsten bulb is about 22 lm/W. A fluorescent lamp may range from 50-100 (average of 60) lm/W so it’s not hard to see why we like the fluorescent so well. 

LED’s have gotten about 22 lm/W in the past but in 2003 bulbs were tested at 65 lm/W and this last year we saw a test of an LED that was at 131 lm/W. This means that you will soon be able to get as much light out of an LED for about 1/7th the cost. 

This technology is clearly growing quickly and if I were much on investing, I’d be looking to major developers of LED home lighting as an investment. You see, in today’s homes, lighting is a major power user. The reason is that incandescent lamps are little heaters.  

When you leave a 100 watt bulb going, it just like leaving a tiny oven going (those Easy Bake ovens of the past were heated with a light bulb, but I wouldn’t know anything about those since I never played with them or baked any cupcakes in them no matter what my sister or any of her friends say). 

A LED has a number of advantages over both conventional bulbs as well as fluorescents. The first is, of course, the low cost of operation. 

They’ve already overtaken fluorescents on that but they are also simpler than the fluorescents to install because they don’t require a ballast. Fluorescents have to control the flow of current. 

LEDs can be shaken, stirred or used to beat your electrician over the head and they won’t stop working. Very tough little light source, the LED, so you won’t be replacing them because you banged into it while looking for your ski goggles in the closet. 

LEDs last a very, very long time and their cost should be seriously adjusted for their longevity. An LED will typically last 10 years and you’re probably going to find that light fixture ugly before then and want to change it so once again, the little LED races to the finish line. 

Now, there are a few problems. They’re not cheap. The equivalent of a common bulb is currently about 20 bucks so that’s 20-80 times the cost of bulbs down at ACE but I guarantee that these will be dropping rapidly. 

If you consider that it costs about 25 cents a day to run a 100 watt light bulb and that it will cost about 4 cents a day to run a similar LED lamp, it’s not too hard to figure out that you’re going to save the cost of the bulb in a fairly short time and go on to saving loads over the twenty years that it’s running. 

My final argument (for now) in favor of my little friend the LED is that it’s cool. Remember the Easy Bake oven story. These will not qualify. 

You can generate hundred of lumens and not have your lamp get warm enough to burn anything. This means much greater home safety since hot bulbs and the hot wires that are feeding these hungry beasts won’t be inside your house. 

I know that I tend to beat the global warming drum quite a bit but here’s one more way that we can produce less CO2 without giving up the amount of light you’re used to. 

LED’s, by virtue of their generating light through the excitation of various substrates, can come in a range of colors (and, of course, white) and so there are lots of architectural and artistic possibilities waiting to burst forth so keep your eyes peeled for rings, ribbons and fabrics of LED lighting to illuminate and color your world.  

Last week I left my readers with a newly installed plant, in its hole of the right size and (shallow) depth, with soil amendments, if any, added on top to be worked in gradually by our ancient allies, the earthworms and other burrowers in the soil.  

Suppose this fresh new plant is a tree. Suppose you’re beginning to get over how puny it looks—and it does, because you’ve been smart enough to buy a small youngster which will suffer less from transplant shock and require less digging on your part, and because it just lost a quarter or so of its height when you took it out of the pot in which it stood tiptoe on its roots. And the trunk is a pitiful whip compared to the might thing you have in mind.  

You might want to stake that tree. It’s often a good idea, and like most good ideas it works better if you know why you’re doing it. 

What you want to do is support that reedy little trunk until—only until—it can reliably support itself and the canopy of leaves above it. 

Don’t stake a tree to keep the neighbors’ overly enthusiastic skateboarder kids or your beloved klutzy dog from breaking the new tree in half. That requires a different sort of thing—a fence or guardrail around the tree, not touching it, and well below the first branches.  

The best time to stake is when planting, so you don’t traumatize any exploratory roots. I like big fat wooden stakes which will rot underground eventually. Those single stakes with a jughandle gizmo I see on the streets might work in a pinch, but they’re a compromise.  

You want two stakes, and something padded and a little flexible to tie the tree. The things that look like bits of used tire and wire are fine. 

Drive the stakes in as deep as you can, with at least a fist’s width between each and the tree in the middle.  

Here’s the subtlety: arrange the trio so they face as a chorus line into the prevailing wind. Here, that’s usually from the west, so the stakes would go north and south of the tree.  

Trees build up trunk tissue faster when the trunk gets some “exercise” by flexing in the wind. Some Cal professor reportedly got a bunch of grad students to untie half a set of firmly pinioned trees daily and sway them by hand for half an hour, then retie them. 

Those trees got fat faster than their peers who were kept immobile. Amazing what can be done with academic indenture.  

The stakes should be below the lowest branches, so those don’t get beaten up on them when it’s windy. 

Leave branches on as low as possible for a couple of years; that beefs up the trunk too. Remove them before you’d need a saw for that.  

Work the ties in a figure-8, around the trunk, crossed, and then affixed to the stakes. 

Be sure everything that contacts the tree is padded. Don’t garrotte your tree; leave space. Don’t let the stakes rub the bark and injure it. 

And remember to take the things off the tree! Check yearly at least. 

Nothing’s sadder than a tree with its stakes embedded in its bark and cambium, choking off its circulation and introducing pathogens.  

Have You Talked to Your Kids? 

Years ago, after a big quake, a couple, fearing aftershocks, sent their young son to stay with his uncle in another town. 

A day later, they received this telegram: “Am returning your boy. Send earthquake.” 

Seriously, though, we should do what we can to prepare our kids for a serious quake. Here’s a few suggestions: 

1. Install bumper pads in cribs to protect babies during shaking 

2. Show older kids the safest places to be in each room  

3. Teach children what to do wherever they are during a quake (at school, in a tall building, outdoors) 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service in the east bay. 558-3299, www.quakeprepare.com.

Years ago I took a writing class from Adair Lara, a former columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of several books, including Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, a memoir about her relationship with her teenage daughter, Morgan. 

There were 13 wannabe scribes in the nine-week course. Most of us were middle-class baby boomers interested in recording our personal histories. One woman was writing a book on midwifery, another was penning essays about her father, and a third was musing on the difficulties of motherhood. There were editors, computer sales people, a chef, and one lone man in the group. He was writing about the accidental death of his young son.  

On the first day of class we introduced ourselves and discussed our goals. The man wanted to compose op-ed pieces on gun control. The chef was interested in publishing a cookbook. The midwife had many funny, bizarre, and poignant tales to tell about delivering babies in liberal, quirky Berkeley. But the person who had me sitting on the edge of my seat in rapt, voyeuristic attention was a statuesque, glamorous blonde from Marin County. 

She told us she intended to write a memoir about juggling her professional career with the day-to-day humdrum activities of her family. 

Her husband directed hardcore pornographic films in the basement of their mansion. She’d met him many years ago while hitchhiking through Sausalito. He’d slammed on the brakes of his new silver and black Porsche 911, driven onto the sidewalk where she was standing in a miniskirt, taken her back to his villa, and turned on the charm. She didn’t leave the confines of his bedroom for the next three years.  

She helped out with the porn. She was a make-up artist, applying foundation to actors’ noses, chins, and private parts. She was also a Marin County matron, a member of the PTA. She had two circles of friends: soccer moms and porn stars. In other words, she had a lot of really good stuff to write about. 

Each week Adair shared with us tips and exercises on writing personal essays. We talked about gripping starts and flashy endings, about content and syntax, epiphanies and grammar. We tried writing pieces that were humorous and newsworthy, and that captured small, everyday details reflecting and confirming the human condition. All the while I secretly looked at the PTA/porn expert, hoping she would divulge more about her double life. 

One week Adair concentrated on what makes an interesting story. “People don’t want to hear about how wonderful your life is,” she said. “They want to read about despair and heartbreak. They want to know how you overcame a problem. They want to learn from your mistakes, your struggles, and your failures. 

“Pull out all the stops,” continued Adair. “Make us laugh and weep; confide your deepest, darkest secrets.” Unfortunately, the woman from Marin wasn’t in class that night. I hoped Adair would let her know what she missed. 

In addition to teaching us the basics, Adair had each of us share with the class an essay we’d written. I was looking forward to the day the make-up artist/soccer mom would share her pathos. I was hoping for something revealing, juicy, and kind of pornographic. 

But on the evening Ms. Marin read aloud to us, she disclosed the pain and heartbreak of losing her luggage while on a two-week vacation in Greece. It was not scandalous, salacious, or sensational; it was not even interesting. She’d missed class on the day Adair instructed us to spill our guts because she had been living it up somewhere along the Aegean. 

I left class disappointed, but I took away an important lesson: Don’t share your fabulous vacation stories with your readers; save them for your friends and family who might, out of polite resignation, feign interest.  

This is a long-winded explanation for why I didn’t have a column last week. I was out of the country, having a good time. No pathos, no problems, no porn, and no epiphanies. Just a little sunburn, jetlag, and a very empty wallet. 

For more information on writing classes taught by Adair Lara see www.adairlara.com.

Last summer, shortly after reviewing the wonderful water-saving gardening book published by EBMUD, Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates, I felt a complete hypocrite dragging my garden hose from shrub to shrub, so much so that I decided then and there to stop watering everything except the vegetable plot and the raspberries. 

If this shock treatment resulted in casualties, I would replace them with plants adapted to drought. 

I did not expect the roses and fuchsias to survive, or the violets. Surely the primrose path that leads to the gas meter would never again delight the eye in early spring. In particular, of all the numerous kinds of primula, would not P. vulgaris, native to Atlantic isles of mists and showers, languish? 

To my astonishment, practically everything not only survived, but seemed to do better than usual, helped perhaps by our extended rainy season. The roses blasted forth in May, by the size of their blossoms the apple and pear had evidently not missed a beat, the fuchsias hung in through last year’s customary dry hot fall and turned into a picture. Admittedly, the water table in my garden is high. Given more than our usual rainfall, the so-called meadow turns into a lake. The only losses I could find were two azaleas transplanted from pots, and they had not done well from the start. 

Such freedom from watering is a keen joy, but how to taste it to the full? Since my favorite activity, doing nothing, is conducted supine, preferably in warm dappled shade with a non-challenging mystery in hand, a review of my reclining options seemed in order. 

Outside my scrap-wood teahouse is an old wooden reclining chair with wheels and metal slats. This is fairly comfortable with the appropriate cushions, which have to be brought in every evening to keep them dry. One of my cats is attached to these cushions, some would say proprietorially so. 

Hauling this chair to catch the sun is tedious, especially as one wheel is missing so that the seat must be propped on a concrete block. An alternative is an equally cumbersome, solid-wood reclining chair under a tree that now provides dense rather than dappled shade. Finally, my metal and plastic beach-type lounger, so easy to fold up and carry about, has deteriorated to the point that it requires a heavy board across it to prevent anyone intent on lounging from falling through. 

Having completed this dismal survey, I thought wistfully of hammocks. A tropical image of hammock slung between date palms popped into my mind. As I looked round the garden for a possible location for one, the distance between a rickety gatepost and a sturdy plum branch seemed about right, including the sun/shade orientation. I telephoned various local sporting goods stores. The kind I wanted, made of strong cord, easy to put up, and with spreader bars at each end, seemed either unavailable or beyond my wallet. 

At that point I put the idea out of my mind since houseguests were due to arrive for a lengthy visit, the weather had turned cold, and no one would want to sit outside, let alone lie down on or above wet grass. 

I had forgotten one characteristic of my guests, the avidity with which they shop. I can assure every shopowner in Berkeley that their inventory has had an extreme going-over in the past month. This forced me to fall into browsing mode too, and while we were in REI, I noticed in the camping section an elegant, simple-looking roll of white netting with shocking-pink nylon lines at each end. The label said this was a Camper’s Compact Hammock, and furthermore, it was EZ. The price was extraordinarily reasonable, and before I could give it serious thought, like  

the best houseguests the world over, mine had purchased it and presented  

it to me. 

Less graciously, I rushed us all home. Fastening the hammock to gate post and plum branch with a round turn and two half-hitches took seconds. Accompanied by a book, I cautiously lowered myself into the hammock. It was like floating on air. The hammock’s gentle rocking motion lulled me into a meditative state never achieved in yoga class. I felt I had endless time to gaze at nature’s hose-less work. The book simply fell from my fingers. 

This instant tension-reducer can stay outside all summer. I might install one indoors, too, for the unexpected guest.

We’re fortunate to have rather a large number of Hawaiians living in the Bay Area. I’ve visited the Islands only a couple of times, but I fall in love fast (if selectively) and it wasn’t just the climate, the heartstopping beauty of the place, or even the beautiful, increasingly elusive native flora and fauna that won my flinty, suspicious old heart. 

Aloha is for real, and I’ve been warmed by its glow there and, lucky me, here too.  

One Hawaiian of note, the organizer of a mainland hula halau, was caught on film marveling at seeing ohi’a trees on his street in San Francisco. ‘Ohi’a (Metrosideros polymorpha) is ubiquitous on the Islands, and its flower, known as ohi’a lehua, for the pair of lovers it unites—and if you pick the flower, it’ll rain because they weep at being separated again—is a nectar source for several of the native honeycreepers. 

These unique (and, no surprise, endangered or even extinct) birds are well worth seeing, even if you have to clamber over rough ground and thick brush for just a glimpse. I’ve bragged truthfully about the thrill of seeing an ‘apapane and, a year later, an ‘i’iwi feeding on ohi’a lehua, and the pleasure of just pronouncing that enhances the memory.  

But the fact is, what’s on the streets here is an ancestor species of the ‘ohi’a. It looks very similar, and ‘ohi’a is called polymorpha because it takes so many shapes anyway, so it’s easy to mistake them. 

Both have softly fuzzed gray-green leaves and flowers that are basically red (or occasionally yellow or orange) bristles of stamens, like a powderpuff or pincushion. Both exist here, if at all, as smallish trees, unless they’re in an arboretum or a sheltered garden. Both get bigger in their home ranges—and ‘ohi’a also gets shrubbier depending on where it’s growing.  

New Zealand Christmas tree (Metrosideros excelsa) is burdened with one of the more awkward common names I know. In New Zealand, they call it “pohutukawa,” which is long but at least only one word, and it makes more sense to me. One reference says it means “splashed by spray”—I’m taking their word for it because my Maori vocabulary is about nonexistent—and it’s typically a seaside tree there 

Picnickers sit in its shade, birds feed on its nectar, and sometimes oysters anchor themselves on its roots. 

There’s a story about its flowers, too, but less romantic, and its moral is “Finders keepers, losers weepers.” A canoe of founders sighted the pohutukawa-clad shoreline and the chief tossed his red feathers overboard, I guess thinking there were plenty to be had on shore. But what he found was red flowers that wilted when picked. Someone else had picked up his discarded feathers and wouldn’t give them back. 

Where it grows suggests a tough tree, tolerant of lots of salt in the air and around its roots, and indeed it is. It’s also tough enough to handle city life with aplomb. 

I’ve seen individuals out on the Berkeley marina, on Main Street in Half Moon Bay, and as grizzled old urban warriors on the nastiest parts of Sansome Street in San Francisco. (Nastiest for a street tree: windy, dirty, heavily trafficked, and tightly bound in concrete; I suppose it’s a respectable address for a business.)  

I’ve seen the Sansome Street trees doing something their Hawaiian cousins do, too. I looked up into one and saw a fibrous mass hanging from the trunk, like some odd broom. These were aerial roots.  

‘Ohi’a will throw bundles of these roots out into the air to capture supplemental moisture; I can see why pohutukawa would have that ability too, with dehydrating salt to contend with, and it’s certainly appropriate in foggy San Francisco, where I doubt these trees get any summer irrigation—and if they do get a drink, it’s bound to miss their feeder roots. Heaven knows what they’re finding under all that pavement: maybe groundwater, maybe leaky pipes.  

It’s an odd place to see a bit of the tropical shore, but then our median strips and curbsides host lots of New Zealand flax, another Kiwi expatriate. What with plants and all those new Hawaiian barbecue joints, we’re growing a bit of the South pPacific in North California, and hooray for that. 

Flowers and leaves of the New Zealand native Metrosideros excelsa look a lot like the tree’s Hawaiian cousin, ‘ohi’a. Photograph by Ron Sullivan

FRIDAY, JULY 7 

THEATER 

Ambitious Theatre Company “As You Like It” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, Alameda. Tickets are $8-$15. 800-838-3006. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Permanent Collection” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 23. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatere.org 

Central Works “The Inspector General” a new comedy, Thurs., Fri., and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 30. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Footloose” at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Contra Costa Civic Theater, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through August 5. Tickets are $12-$20. 524-9132.  

Crowded Fire Theater Company “We Are Not These Hands” a comedy about the friendship between two teenaged girls in a fictional third-world nation, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. through July 16 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10- $20. www.crowdedfire.org 

Kids Take the Stage “Annie” Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 7:30 p.m. at Chabot College Arts Center, 25555 Hesperian Blvd., Hayward. Tickets are $10-$20. 864-7061. 

Masquers Playhouse “The Fantasticks” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sunday Matinees at 2:30 p.m. on July 9 and 16, at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through July 22. Tickets are $18. 232-4031.  

Pinole Community Players “Oliver!” the musical, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sun. at 2 p.m., at the Community Playhouse, 601 Tennent Ave., Pinole, through July 15. Tickets are $14-$17. 724-3669, 223-3598.  

Woodminster Summer Musicals “Ragtime” Fri.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., through July 16. Tickets are $21.50-$34.50. 531-9597.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Overhung Award: Kyle Mock and Josh Keyes” Reception at 7 p.m. at Boontling Gallery, 4224 Telegraph Ave. Exhibition runs to July 30. www.boontlinggallery.com 

“Realities: Picture Stories of the Modern World” by Guy Colwell and Mural Drawings by Rocky Baird. Reception for the artists at 5 p.m. at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., at Telegraph, Oakland. http://estebansabar.com/index.htm  

FILM 

Labor’s Love Lost: The Films of Vittorio de Seta “Bandits of Orgosolo” at 7 p.m. and “Half a Man” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Anodea Judith with Dr. Leonard Shlain, Dawson Church and Allan Hardman on “Waking the Global Heart” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Marta Acosta reads from her novel “Happy Hour at Casa Dracula” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The David Thom Band, The Billy Boys at 5:30 p.m. at Park Place and Washington Ave., Pt. Richmond. 237-9375.  

Forrofiando from Brazil at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Eric Swinderman Sextet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, East Coast swing, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Walter Pope Trio at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Audrey Auld Mezera & Nina Gerber at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jim Grantham Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146.  

Wayblonde and Vanessa VerLee, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Bunny Numpkins and the Kill Blow-up Reaction, Anton Barbeau, Mandrake at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. 

Rogue Jazz Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Phenomenauts, Onion Flavored Rings, Ghengis Khan at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Outformation, Spindrift at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886.  

Diane Schurr at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 8 

CHILDREN  

Peruvian, Columbian & Mexican Music, an introduction to maracas, cajon and guitar music at noon at the Lakeview Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 550 El Embarcadero. 238-7344. 

Puppet Art Theater “Tommy’s Pirate Adventure” at 2 p.m. at the Montclair Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 1687 Mountain Blvd. 482-7810. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Microcosm” Group exhibition of artists inspired by patterns in nature. Reception at 2 p.m. at Richmond Art Center, 240 Barrett Ave., entrance at 25th St. 620-6772.  

“And All That Jazz” Works by artists relocated from the Gulf Coast after Katrina. Reception at 6 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m., Wed.-Sat. Exhibition runs to July 27. 644-4930. 

“Creation Ground” Paintings by Diane Williams and Chuck Potter, and ceramic sculpture by Ari Lyckberg opens at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave. and runs through Sept. 8. 204-1667.  

Paintings From The Gaia Pelt Series by Audrey Wallace-Taylor on display in the student lounge, University YWCA on Bancroft at Bowditch, weekdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through July. 848-6370. 

THEATER 

Everyday Theatre “Dreaming in a Firestorm” by Tim Barsky at 8 p.m. at 2232 MLK, Oakland. Tickets are $12-$20. 644-2204. www.everdaytheatre.org 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Godfellas” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose St. 415-285-1717. 

Women’s Will “Twelfth Night” Sat. and Sun. at 1 p.m. at John Hinkle Park. Free. 420-0813.  

FILM 

Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum “The Little American” at 7:30 p.m. at 37417 Niles Blvd., Fremont. Cost $5. 494-1411. www.nilesfilmmuseum.org 

Rhythms on Screen “Mahaleo” at 6:30 p.m. and “Woman in the Dunes” at 8:40 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Talcott Memorial Reading at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Robin Meyers explains “Why the Christian Right is Wrong” at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Donation of $10 is suggested. 559-9500. 

Rhythm & Muse with Rashna Owen and The Winds of Mercy at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice and Rose. 644-6893. 

Artemio Rodriguez, printmaker and author at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. www.kala.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alameda Civic Light Opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Kofman Auditorium, 2200 Central Ave., Alameda. Tickets are $27-$31. 864-2256. www.aclo.com 

Snake Trio and Leo Blanco Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ.  

A Celebration of Guinean Music and Dance at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 9 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

José Roberts & Friends “América en Mi Sangre”at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568.  

Elizabeth August, Aireene Espiritu and Rick DiDia at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

John Keawe, Hawaiian music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Charmless, Pebble Theory, Kaura at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100.  

Carolyn Chung Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Odori Simcha with Neal Cronin, at 7:30 p.m. at A Cuppa Tea, 3200 College Ave. 654-1904. 

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146.  

Green Lemon at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886.  

Carl Sonny Leland Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

The Lost Cats, jazz and swing, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. All ages. Cost is $7-$10. 558-0881. 

Future Pilgrim, Famous Last Words, Rick DiDia, at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Wil Blades Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Verbal Abuse, Decry, America’s Dirty Thirtys at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JULY 9 

CHILDREN 

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

EXHIBITIONS 

“Photographic Images of Migrant Women” By Saundra Sturdevant. Reception at 5 p.m. at La Peña. Exhibition runs through August 31. 849-2568.  

“Form and Light” Photographs by Eric Nurse. Reception at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

FILM 

Labor’s Love Lost: The Films of Vittorio de Seta “Diary of a Schoolmaster” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Karen Shepard reads from her new novel “Don’t I Know You?” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Len and Aya Brackett on “Building the Japanese House Today” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Eric Bibb, contemporary blues and gospel, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50- $19.50. 548-1761.  

Ben Stolerow Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Jason Armstrong and Joe Kenny at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Carola Zertuche and Sara Ayala, flamenco, at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Dick Conte Trio at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Americana Unplugged: Ragged But Right at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mister Loveless Monolaturs, The Tuesday Club at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, JULY 10 

CHILDREN 

Magic with Timothy James for all ages at 7 p.m. at the Piedmont Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 160 41st St. 597-5017. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dale Pendell reads from “Pharmako/Gnosis: Plant Teachers and the Poison Path” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Randall Balmar examines “Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America” at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10. 559-9500.  

Script Club Reading of “Art” by Yasmina Reza, at 7:30 p.m. at Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. 

Actors Reading Writers “Critters,” stories by Isak Dinesen, Gerald Durrell, James Herriot and James Thurber, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Free.  

Poetry Express with Judy Wells at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dubconscious, reggae, at 11 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Parlor Tango at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 7:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Street to Nowhere, Audrye Sessions, Broken Dolls at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146.  

Roomful of Blues at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, JULY 11 

CHILDREN 

Prescott Circus Theater Stilts, juggling, and clowns at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

Flute Sweets & Tickletoons A muscial introduction to the flute and classical music at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext 17. 

FILM 

Screenagers: Documents from the Teenage Years “Rockaway” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Works In Progress” Women’s open mic at 7:30 p.m. at Montclair Women’s Cultural Center, 1650 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Donation $5.  

Bay Area Writing Project Young Writers Group Reading at 6 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave.  

The Blue Candle, spoken word and open mic at 7 p.m. at Dorsey’s Locker Soul Food Cafe, 5817 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. 428-1935.  

Eric Davis, author, and Michael Rimar, photographer, present “Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Barbara Traub, photographer, introduces “Desert to Dream: A Decade of Burning Man Photography” 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Swamp Coolers, cajun, western swing, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

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

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

Jazz Jam with Michael Coleman Trio at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Free, bring your instrument. 451-8100.  

André Bush at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200.  

WEDNESDAY, JULY 12 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep “Ennio” A comedy written and performed by Ennio Marchetto through July 21 at 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $20-$45. 647-2949.  

FILM 

Global Rhythms on Screen “A Tickle in the Heart” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Café Poetry hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

Caroline Paul will read from her new novel “East Wind, Rain” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Desert Arts Preview, fire arts, from 7 to 11 p.m. at The Crucible, 1260 7th St., Oakland. Free. 444-0919.  

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” satirical songs, Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way. 800-838-3006.  

Dani Thompson at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Daby Touré, African, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $16. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Pepe y Su Orchestra, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

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

Bag of Toys at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Patrice Bushen Benefit for the Young Musician’s Project at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $30. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, JULY 13 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Bay in Bloom” A Group Show by the artists of The Artful Steps Program. Reception at 4 p.m. at the LunchStop Cafe, MetroCenter, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. 817-5773. 

FILM 

Beyond Bollywood “John & Jane Toll-Free” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India” Guided tour at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. 

Hans Kemp, photographer, introduces his tribute to the motorcycles of Vietnam, “Bikes of Burden” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Noon Concert with Times 4 at the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Free.  

The Crucible Fire Arts Festival “Fire and Light” Benefit at 7 p.m. at 1260 7th St., Oakland. Cost is $100-$125. 444-0919. www.thecrucible.org 

Ancient Vision reggae showcase, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Anne Feeney, Dave Lippman, and George Shrub at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568.  

Kitka & Davka “Old and New World Jewish Music” at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Sinai, 2808 Summit St., Oakland. 848-0237. 

Jazz Function at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473.  

Rory Block, country blues, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Steve Gannon’s Monday Blues Band at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Blurred Entities, Dream Nefra at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $7. 524-9220.  

Joe Paquin, swing blues guitar and vocals, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Fuse at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Hiroshima at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s, through Sun. Cost is $20-24. 238-9200.

Last month’s San Francisco International Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Film Festival screened more than 250 films, an overwhelming bounty featuring a wide array of topics and genres, from documentaries about adoption and AIDS to narratives about love, loss and life. Nearly every facet of sexual and gender politics was explored in a month’s worth of presentations. 

It wasn’t always this way of course. The growth of the festival, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, reflects mainstream America’s gradual awakening to the realities of gay life, a process reflected in film since the medium’s origins at the turn of the last century. 

Granted this is the Bay Area, and there are few, if any, communities more open to gays. But the success of the festival, paired with the success of last year’s Brokeback Mountain, provide an opportunity to take a look at how far the movies have come, and a great place to start is the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet. 

The Celluloid Closet (1995) is based on the book of the same title by Vito Russo. However, the book, like many books on the history of film, can be tough going if you haven’t seen the hundreds of films discussed; brief descriptions never quite do a scene justice. The documentary version then is a good place to start, with the book as a companion piece, providing in-depth discussion of topics and films of particular interest.  

The earliest celluloid image featured in the film is Dickson Experimental Sound Film, an 1895 production by W. L. Dickson, an employee of Thomas Edison and one of the seminal figures in the history of the medium. In his attempt to meld music and pictures to create the first sound film, Dickson played violin while two assistants danced to the music, thereby making it easier to later synchronize sound and image by timing the music to the movements of the dancers. 

The film is erroneously identified in Russo’s book as The Gay Brothers when in reality the film had nothing at all to do with homosexuality, and in fact was not even a commercial release; it was a simple in-house experiment, never intended for public consumption. But the film provides a compelling metaphoric image for the documentary as it becomes a sort of gentle and ghostly refrain, with two men dancing blissfully to a song played just for them—a private performance in a dreamlike environment, just dancers and musician against a black backdrop, a moment captured forever but never meant to see the light of day. 

From there the documentary moves chronologically through the 20th century, tracking the depictions of gays from the silent era through the early ’90s. The earliest images in silent film were stereotypes of the fairy, the effeminate gay man, usually employed merely for comic relief. 

But as the medium matured the depictions of gays likewise matured, with both men and women openly showing affection for members of the same sex, portrayals that were often sensitive and meaningful. Stereotypes still abounded of course, especially in the comedies, but as film came into its own as an art form, reaching a creative peak in the mid to late ’20s, so too did its depiction of homosexuality, be it in the compassionate and loving exchanges between two World War I pilots in Wings (1927) or in Marlene Dietrich’s seductive performance in top hot and tails in Morocco (1930). 

The sound era arrived in 1929, and a few years later the Production Code came into effect, clamping down on material deemed immoral, including depictions of homosexuality. But gays did not vanish from Hollywood; they simply went underground.  

This era of repression gave rise to a series of stunted versions of homosexuals in the movies. The first was the sissy, dandified and limp-wristed, usually featured as a foil for the leading man, reinforcing the masculinity of the hero. And then things took an even darker turn as gays began to be represented by creepcases, by strange, perverse figures, menacing in tone but ultimately proven impotent and harmless. 

The Maltese Falcon (1941) provides an excellent example, with Peter Lorre as the sleepy-voiced Joel Cairo, who enters the office of Humphrey Bogart’s Detective Sam Spade and promptly begins suggestively fondling his walking stick. Later Cairo’s threats are ridiculed by Spade, who easily overpowers the smaller man and slaps him around, leading to one of Bogart’s most famous lines: “You’ll take it and like it!” 

The stifled celluloid homosexual had emerged as a grotesque, as a twisted, two-dimensional caricature. But this was just the beginning.  

Later incarnations became increasingly absurd. For years they were portrayed as self-destructive, suicidal figures, often with the implication that their grisly fates were well deserved. And this in turn gave rise to the gay as aggressor, with any number of films depicting homicidal gay men and vampire lesbians, dangerous derelicts luring wholesome heteros to their deaths, Basic Instinct providing perhaps the most well-known recent example along these lines. 

The Celluloid Closet closes on an optimistic note with Philadelphia (1993), starring Tom Hanks as a man dying of AIDS. However, this was really just a gentle nudge for the mainstream audience, as the filmmakers declined to depict a physical relationship between the Hanks character and his lover, the rationale being that such graphic content would hinder the effort to preach beyond the choir. 

Last year’s Brokeback Mountain can then be seen as the next step in a long and ongoing process, having reintroduced sympathetic, humanistic gay love to mainstream Hollywood filmmaking. But it also contains traces of the influence of the repression of the early 1930s, for the process that stunted the gay character and transformed him from a simple human being to, by turns, a grotesque, a coward, a suicide and a psychopath, has pushed him toward overcompensation, rendering him now as that most masculine and macho of Hollywood archetypes, the cowboy.  

Sure, the movies have come a long way, but they’ve still got a ways to go.

Snowy egrets and coal-black cormorants roosting in trees—in Oakland? Hansel and Gretel along with the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, brought to life with a Magic Key—in Oakland? A Daimyo oak bonsai, in cultivation since Abraham Lincoln’s term as President—in Oakland? Venetian gondolas gliding across sparkling waters under fairy lights—in Oakland? Discover these wonders and more, in Oakland’s Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt. 

A combination of fresh and salt-water covering 155 acres, Lake Merritt is the largest man-made lake in the United States and a delightful focal point smack in the middle of urban Oakland. Thanks go to Dr. Samuel Merritt who donated dammed tidal water from the headwaters of Indian Slough for its creation. As part of well-maintained Lakeside Park, it’s a welcome oasis of green surrounded by expansive lawns and shade-giving trees, and offering a host of possibilities to add fun to any day of the week. 

After a long absence, I rediscovered Lake Merritt on a crisp, brilliantly sunny Saturday morning. The park and most of its inhabitants were in a mellow mood. It wasn’t too early for enthusiasts cruising the level, paved 3.4-mile path around the lake. A mixed bag of joggers, walkers and cyclists passed across my field of vision. All ages, solo, in pairs and small groups, chatting, attached to cell phone or iPod, attired in the latest techno fitness garb, comfortable sweats or everyday wear, they circled the perimeter, not even pausing to partake of appealing lake-view benches. 

Being on a fact-finding mission, I set out to investigate the activities at hand and was drawn to the least mellow area of the park, the Wildlife Refuge. A cacophony of bird conversations filled the air—shrieks, cries, honks and coos—a just representation of the wealth of bird life inhabiting two islands and the lakeside refuge. A population surge of Canada geese, not satisfied with only one settlement area, roamed everywhere in the park. More selective avians restricted themselves to occupying island tree-side perches. Fan-like white plumage marked nestled egrets while cormorants masquerading as black-clad sentinels staked out the highest branches. 

A National Historic Landmark and the nation’s oldest wildlife refuge, the mixture of tributary fresh water and tidal salt water provides seasonal and permanent homes to birds, fish and invertebrates. Much of this wildlife is well represented inside the Rotary Science Center, which aims to bring people and nature together learning about estuary ecology. The faces of three school-age boys didn’t move far from the glass fronting a buzzing beehive on the day of my visit. I was more interested in the wall-length display of bird life and a case full of skulls within this rustic, but informative center. 

Outside young children focused their interest on the pint-size playground, all bright colors, wood and molded plastic, atop a sand base perfect for digging and building. What birds? Turquoise slide, purple bars, yellow rings and a lavender fire pole like delicious candies were waiting to be sampled.  

My next stop was the Boating Center, where aquatic choices for multiple visits lay in wait. Whether you fancy sailing an El Toro, windsurfing, kayaking, paddling a canoe, rowing a boat or exercising your feet with a paddleboat, this would be the right place. And the next time you need to impress that special someone, what could be more romantic than a moonlight gondola ride? Who needs Italy? 

In the Demonstration Gardens I was greeted with a placard announcing composting classes and another signifying this as a Bay Friendly Garden. Much like a work-in-progress, there is plenty here to please the eye and tingle those green thumbs. Well defined paths wander among mature growth and newly planted beds. Among the eclectic combinations thrive fuchsias, cacti, lilies, herbs and palms. In the raised vegetable beds of artichoke, Swiss chard and arugula, I was cheered by the profusion of sweet peas in reds, pinks and violets, as well as bright yellow marigolds. 

A peaceful haven surrounds the koi pond where the soothing sounds of cascading water, orange bird-of-paradise, blue agapanthus, and an orange torii gate dedicated to the memory of Frank Ogawa abide. A mallard couple lay almost hidden on the banks. 

Within the grounds of the Lakeside Garden Center, behind a traditional wood fence capped in steel-gray is located another tranquil refuge, the Bonsai Garden. Over 100 bonsai and suiseki of amazing quality and beauty are lovingly displayed on raised wood platforms in the setting of a simple Japanese garden. Coast live oak, Monterey cypress, Chinese quince, shrunken in an Alice In Wonderland world yet perfect in form and detail, rest among a dry riverbed and stone ornaments. Equally admirable to the oak bonsai given to Lincoln’s ambassador to China was a trident maple, identical to a park-side shade tree, yet only three feet tall. 

Saturday morning was too early to see action at the Lawn Bowling Greens but the rectangles of neatly trimmed lawn bordered by benches appeared poised for future matches. At the Edoff Memorial Bandstand music was a faint memory, perhaps still heard by the gentleman practicing tai chi. Even without a concert, this 1923 multi-columned platform topped with red-tiled roof and trimmed in coppery patina is a handsome sight. 

Ahead a stream of strollers and wide-eyed toddlers all seemed to be heading in one direction, the music of the calliope a Pied Piper drawing them forth. I caught up with them at the Shoe—the one with so many children and the entrance to Children’s Fairyland, around since 1950. What child could resist a magic kingdom where beloved stories and imagination come to life, where gentle farm animals await their attention, where adults are not admitted unless accompanied by children? 

Saturday morning was not too early for action here. The line was long; birthday party guests were arriving in pastel dresses and white Mary Janes and the child-sized Ferris wheel’s enclosed cages were slowly rotating. Though paint colors may have faded, the magic remains. 

In 1925, 126 lampposts with 3,400 bulbs lit up the circumference of Lake Merritt for the first time. Any visit is incomplete without following this Necklace of Lights. Glancing from the water’s blue expanse toward buildings fronting the lake, one notes the presence of Oakland’s past through its architecture. Bas reliefs and carved moldings on stately stucco and brick, brimming flower boxes reflecting the park’s natural setting, a curved edifice with aqua tinted glass carrying the water skyward, high rise businesses with faceless windows and smooth lines. 

From park settings to open expanses, the circle of lights leads you. Sample the benches, sit and take in aqua depths, great cityscapes, joyous fountains, feasting Canada geese and fellow outdoor enthusiasts. Egrets, cormorants, gondolas, bonsai, Cinderella, fairy lights. In Oakland? Yes, making Lake Merritt much more than the sum of its parts. 

Lakeside Park/Lake Merritt 

Lakeside Drive, Oakland 

Rotary Science Center 

600 Bellevue Ave., 238-3738 

Lake Merritt Boating Center  

568 Bellevue Ave., 238-2196 

Lakeside Demonstration Gardens  

666 Bellevue Ave., 238-2197 

Bonsai Garden  

666 Bellevue Ave., 763-8409 

Lawn Bowling Greens  

660 Bellevue Ave., 625-9937 

Children’s Fairyland  

699 Bellevue Ave., www.fairyland.org

For those of you who are regular readers of this column, it will come as no surprise that today’s topic is one related to energy efficiency. Keeping our globe cool means generating less heat in all of our pursuits—or at least burning less oil or gas.  

It’s very exciting being alive today. So many things are changing and there is such promise in new technologies and ways of thinking. I can certainly understand and have great compassion for the argument that all of our answers do not lie in science. 

Sometimes, science and technology take us in the wrong direction. But given our obsession with having fast travel, ready resources and instant everything, it, at very least, behooves us to buy these marvels with pennies and to make them with plentiful resources.  

It is in this spirit that I present the notion of lighting our houses with our little friend the Light Emitting Diode—the LED. LED’s have been around for decades, lighting up the panels on Lieutenant Uhura’s Command Panel and flashing at you from your alarm clock and VCR. 

They’ve been doing these things because they are cheap, cool and very long lasting for low wattage applications. But they haven’t been considered for big lighting jobs until the very recent past when LED’s have become capable of providing higher luminosities. 

There’s a revolution raging in backwaters that we don’t often hear about and it involves a great race to produce a LED that can complete with the incandescent or fluorescent light bulb. Though the race may not be won, the lager has some major advantages to offer and it may be time to put your feet in the water right now. 

I bought two devices this summer. One was a book-light. I saw this at a client’s house and decided I just had to have one. It has a single LED in a spring loaded arm and provides enough light to read by without waking the wife. It will also be fine for reading to the kiddies at camp, if I’m not too embarrassing or stupid to be seen or heard from this year. 

The second device is a flashlight. It has 24 LED’s and is good enough to do my job examining things under houses or in attics as long as I don’t have to look way across to the other side. 

A year ago, I would not have considered such a purchase but these things are getting cheaper and more effective at a measurable pace. 

Now we’re starting to see LED lighting designed specifically for houses and commercial buildings and not surprisingly, it’s starting with bulbs that can replace typical incandescent or halogen ones. 

The cost of these is currently very high but before you say no to them, consider what we pay for the electricity to run our 25 cent incandescent bulbs. 

Here’s a general breakdown of the efficiency of LED’s compared to our current methods: 

A conventional light bulb (incandescent) is about 16 lumens per watt (lm/W) and a tungsten bulb is about 22 lm/W. A fluorescent lamp may range from 50-100 (average of 60) lm/W so it’s not hard to see why we like the fluorescent so well. 

LED’s have gotten about 22 lm/W in the past but in 2003 bulbs were tested at 65 lm/W and this last year we saw a test of an LED that was at 131 lm/W. This means that you will soon be able to get as much light out of an LED for about 1/7th the cost. 

This technology is clearly growing quickly and if I were much on investing, I’d be looking to major developers of LED home lighting as an investment. You see, in today’s homes, lighting is a major power user. The reason is that incandescent lamps are little heaters.  

When you leave a 100 watt bulb going, it just like leaving a tiny oven going (those Easy Bake ovens of the past were heated with a light bulb, but I wouldn’t know anything about those since I never played with them or baked any cupcakes in them no matter what my sister or any of her friends say). 

A LED has a number of advantages over both conventional bulbs as well as fluorescents. The first is, of course, the low cost of operation. 

They’ve already overtaken fluorescents on that but they are also simpler than the fluorescents to install because they don’t require a ballast. Fluorescents have to control the flow of current. 

LEDs can be shaken, stirred or used to beat your electrician over the head and they won’t stop working. Very tough little light source, the LED, so you won’t be replacing them because you banged into it while looking for your ski goggles in the closet. 

LEDs last a very, very long time and their cost should be seriously adjusted for their longevity. An LED will typically last 10 years and you’re probably going to find that light fixture ugly before then and want to change it so once again, the little LED races to the finish line. 

Now, there are a few problems. They’re not cheap. The equivalent of a common bulb is currently about 20 bucks so that’s 20-80 times the cost of bulbs down at ACE but I guarantee that these will be dropping rapidly. 

If you consider that it costs about 25 cents a day to run a 100 watt light bulb and that it will cost about 4 cents a day to run a similar LED lamp, it’s not too hard to figure out that you’re going to save the cost of the bulb in a fairly short time and go on to saving loads over the twenty years that it’s running. 

My final argument (for now) in favor of my little friend the LED is that it’s cool. Remember the Easy Bake oven story. These will not qualify. 

You can generate hundred of lumens and not have your lamp get warm enough to burn anything. This means much greater home safety since hot bulbs and the hot wires that are feeding these hungry beasts won’t be inside your house. 

I know that I tend to beat the global warming drum quite a bit but here’s one more way that we can produce less CO2 without giving up the amount of light you’re used to. 

LED’s, by virtue of their generating light through the excitation of various substrates, can come in a range of colors (and, of course, white) and so there are lots of architectural and artistic possibilities waiting to burst forth so keep your eyes peeled for rings, ribbons and fabrics of LED lighting to illuminate and color your world.  

Last week I left my readers with a newly installed plant, in its hole of the right size and (shallow) depth, with soil amendments, if any, added on top to be worked in gradually by our ancient allies, the earthworms and other burrowers in the soil.  

Suppose this fresh new plant is a tree. Suppose you’re beginning to get over how puny it looks—and it does, because you’ve been smart enough to buy a small youngster which will suffer less from transplant shock and require less digging on your part, and because it just lost a quarter or so of its height when you took it out of the pot in which it stood tiptoe on its roots. And the trunk is a pitiful whip compared to the might thing you have in mind.  

You might want to stake that tree. It’s often a good idea, and like most good ideas it works better if you know why you’re doing it. 

What you want to do is support that reedy little trunk until—only until—it can reliably support itself and the canopy of leaves above it. 

Don’t stake a tree to keep the neighbors’ overly enthusiastic skateboarder kids or your beloved klutzy dog from breaking the new tree in half. That requires a different sort of thing—a fence or guardrail around the tree, not touching it, and well below the first branches.  

The best time to stake is when planting, so you don’t traumatize any exploratory roots. I like big fat wooden stakes which will rot underground eventually. Those single stakes with a jughandle gizmo I see on the streets might work in a pinch, but they’re a compromise.  

You want two stakes, and something padded and a little flexible to tie the tree. The things that look like bits of used tire and wire are fine. 

Drive the stakes in as deep as you can, with at least a fist’s width between each and the tree in the middle.  

Here’s the subtlety: arrange the trio so they face as a chorus line into the prevailing wind. Here, that’s usually from the west, so the stakes would go north and south of the tree.  

Trees build up trunk tissue faster when the trunk gets some “exercise” by flexing in the wind. Some Cal professor reportedly got a bunch of grad students to untie half a set of firmly pinioned trees daily and sway them by hand for half an hour, then retie them. 

Those trees got fat faster than their peers who were kept immobile. Amazing what can be done with academic indenture.  

The stakes should be below the lowest branches, so those don’t get beaten up on them when it’s windy. 

Leave branches on as low as possible for a couple of years; that beefs up the trunk too. Remove them before you’d need a saw for that.  

Work the ties in a figure-8, around the trunk, crossed, and then affixed to the stakes. 

Be sure everything that contacts the tree is padded. Don’t garrotte your tree; leave space. Don’t let the stakes rub the bark and injure it. 

And remember to take the things off the tree! Check yearly at least. 

Nothing’s sadder than a tree with its stakes embedded in its bark and cambium, choking off its circulation and introducing pathogens.  

Have You Talked to Your Kids? 

Years ago, after a big quake, a couple, fearing aftershocks, sent their young son to stay with his uncle in another town. 

A day later, they received this telegram: “Am returning your boy. Send earthquake.” 

Seriously, though, we should do what we can to prepare our kids for a serious quake. Here’s a few suggestions: 

1. Install bumper pads in cribs to protect babies during shaking 

2. Show older kids the safest places to be in each room  

3. Teach children what to do wherever they are during a quake (at school, in a tall building, outdoors) 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service in the east bay. 558-3299, www.quakeprepare.com.

FRIDAY, JULY 7 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

“Keep the A’s in Oakland” Tailgate Party from 5 to 7 p.m. at the B parking lot tailgate area on the Hegenberger side. Entertaintment and speeches from local leaders. chooseorlooseoakland@yahoo.com 

Stagebridge Story Workshop with local storytellers on Fridays in July from 10 a.m. to noon at Arts First Oakland Center, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Bring a bag lunch. Cost is $10 per workshop, or $25 for the series. 444-4755.  

Celebración: Food and Music of Peru at 6:30 p.m. at Crowden Center for Music, 1475 Rose St. Suggested donation $15. Please RSVP to 526-5194. 

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

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

SATURDAY, JULY 8 

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. 

Crown Beach Clean-up in the aftermath of the 4th from 9 a.m. to noon at Crown Beach, Alameda. Trash bags, gloves and other equipment provided by Save the Bay. 452-9261, ext. 109. www.saveSFbay.org 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of the F. M. “Borax” Smith Estate from 10 a.m. to noon. Meet at the redwood tree, corner of McKinley Ave. and Home Place East, one block off Park Blvd. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/ 

walkingtours 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

Guide Dogs for the Blind Meet a puppy in-training at 2 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Sushi Basics Learn the natural and cultural history of sushi as you prepare and taste several different types. Fee is $25-$39. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Himalayan Cooking Class from 3 to 5 p.m. at Taste of the Himalayas. Cost is $50. Registration required. 849-4983. 

ChiRunning/ChiWalking A talk at 3 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

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, JULY 9 

Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Social Justice Picnic from noon on, at Emeryville Marina Park. Take Powell St. exit off I-80 all the away to the end. Bring your own choice of meat or veggies to grill or main dish, a side dish, salad or dessert to share. 436-6125. 

Toddler Nature Walk for two and three-year-olds to look for butterflies and other insects at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of the Mountain View Cemetery from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Meet at Chapel of the Chimes, 4400 Peidmont Ave. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Green Sunday: Oakland’s Oak to Ninth Street Scandal Can we stop this massive give away of our waterfront? From 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland. 

New Farmers’ Market Opens in Kensington, and will run year-round on Sun. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the parking lot behind ACE Hardware at 303 Arlington Ave. at Amherst. 528-4346. 

Summer Sunday Forum: Wold Vision with Angela Mason at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to keep your bike in excellent working condition through safety inspections, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Twilight Tour to Learn Botanical ABC’s at 5:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $8-$12. Registration required. 643-2755.  

Miksang Contemplative Photography A talk at noon at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Visualization and Sacred Art” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JULY 10 

National Organization for Women Oakland/East Bay Chapter meets at 6 p.m. at the Oakland YWCA, 1515 Webster St. The speaker will be Yvonne Cooks, executive director of the CA Coalition for Women Prisoners. 287-8948. 

Center for Independent Living Relationship Workshop for disabled youth age 14-22 at 3 p.m. at 2539 Telegraph Ave. Registration required. 841-4776 ext. 128 or email movingon@cilberkeley.org 

Full Moon Walk at John Miur National Historic Site See nocturnal animal and plant life and walk the same trail John Muir walked with his daughters. For reservations and details of meeting time and location, call 925-228-8860. 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60+ years old meets at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $3. 524-9122.  

An Introduction to Meditation at 6:45 p.m. at Bay Zen Center, 315 Alcatraz near College Ave. Donation $10. Registration required. 596-3087. 

Stress Less Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

TUESDAY, JULY 11 

Tuesday is for the Birds A tranquil early morning walk through the park. Meet at 7 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Bring water, sunscreen binoculars and a snack. 525-2233. 

Moe’s Bookstore 47th Birthday Party Celebrate with this independent bookstore on Telegraph at noon at 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Civil Liberties Fim Series “Religious Freedom” followed by a talk by Rev. Phil Lawson, Greater Richmond Interfaith Project, at 7 p.m. in the Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza. Free. 620-6561. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

“How to See Your Health: A talk on diagnostic techniques in Chinese medicine at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to join us from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. to sing, or write outrageously political lyrics to old familiar tunes, and have fun at Berkeley Gray Panthers office, 1403 Addison St., in Andronico’s mall. 548-9696. 

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. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 12  

Walking Tour of Oakland City Center Meet at 10 a.m. in front Oakland City Hall at Frank Ogawa Plaza. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

“Five Factories: Workers Control in Venezuela” a documentary at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. “Stories from an American Mill” will also be shown. Donations of $5 accepted. 

“Spirit of the Rainforest” An introduction to wild animals for children at 10 a.m. at the Martin Luther King Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 6833 International Blvd. 615-5728. 

“Uncommon Conifers” A twilight tour at 5:30 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $8-$12. Registration required. 643-2755.  

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Sleep Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

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

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

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 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. www.geo 

cities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JULY 13 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll study butterflies from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park.Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Insect Discovery Lab Learn to appreciate insects and nature by meeting giant millipedes, hissing cockroaches, whip scorpions and others at 2 p.m. at the Montclair Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 1687 Mountain Blvd. 482-7810. 

Richmond Southeast Shoreline Area Community Advisory Group meets to discuss the cleanup at the Zeneca/Stauffer Cemical site, at 6:30 p.m. at the Bermuda Room, Richmond Convention Center, 403 Civic Center Plaza at Nevin and 25th Sts., Richmond. 540-3923. 

“Understanding Chinese Herbal Prescriptions” A talk at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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

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. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. July 10 at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., July 10, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/peaceandjustice 

City Council meets Tues., July 11, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www. 

ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., July 12, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/disability 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., July 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Planning Commission meets Wed., July 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., July 12, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/policereview 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs. July 13, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Angellique De Cloud, 981-5428. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., July 13, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Kristin Tehrani, 981-5356. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/health 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., July 13, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., July 13, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning  

TUESDAY, JULY 4 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jazz Jam with Michael Coleman Trio at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Free, bring your instrument. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Regina Pontillo at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Mal Sharpe’s Big Money in Jazz Band, featuring Faye Carol, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $5. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 5 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Bay in Bloom” A Group Show by the artists of The Artful Steps Program, opens at the LunchStop Cafe, MetroCenter, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. 817-5773. 

FILM 

Global Rhythms on Screen: “Step Across the Border” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Hadai Ditmars will talk about “Dancing in the No-FLy Zone: A Woman’s Journey Through Iraq” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” An evening of satirical songs, Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way, through July 27. 800-838-3006.  

Calvin Keys Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $6. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Cajun/Zydeco Benefit for Agi Ban at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10.. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Saoco, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

The Look, The Static Rising, Antioquia at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

Vital Information at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 6 

FILM 

Beyond Bollywood: “Kumar Talkies” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free first Thursday. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India” Guided tour at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Free First Thursday. 642-0808. 

Word Beat Reading Series with Marc Elihu Hofstadter and Dian Gillmar at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. 526-5985. 

Poetry at the Albany Library with Robert Lipton, followed by an open reading, at 7 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Noon Concert with Pamela Rose at the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Free. www.downtownberkeley.org 

Junior Reid, reggae, at 10 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $17-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Jim Grantham Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Trillium, harps and vocals, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

All One Thing, The Fair Saints at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Tremendo, Ise Lyfe, Got it Boys at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $7. 524-9220. www.ivyroom.com 

Torrettes Without Regrets at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $7. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Jump/Cut, live organic electronica, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Vital Information at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, JULY 7 

THEATER 

Ambitious Theatre Company “As You Like It” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, Alameda. Tickets are $8-$15. 800-838-3006. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Permanent Collection” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 23. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatere.org 

Central Works “The Inspector General” a new comedy, Thurs., Fri., and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 30. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Footloose” the musical based on the 1984 film at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Contra Costa Civic Theater, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through August 5. Tickets are $12-$20. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Crowded Fire Theater Company “We Are Not These Hands” a comedy about the friendship between two teenaged girls in a fictional third-world nation, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. through July 16 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10- $20. www.crowdedfire.org 

Kids Take the Stage “Annie” Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 7:30 p.m. at Chabot College Arts Center, 25555 Hesperian Blvd., Hayward. Tickets are $10-$20. 864-7061. 

Masquers Playhouse “The Fantasticks” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sunday Matinees at 2:30 p.m. on July 9 and 16, at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through July 22. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Pinole Community Players “Oliver!” the musical, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sun. at 2 p.m., at the Community Playhouse, 601 Tennent Ave., Pinole, through July 15. Tickets are $14-$17. 724-3669, 223-3598.  

Woodminster Summer Musicals “Ragtime” Fri.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., through July 16. Tickets are $21.50-$34.50. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Overhung Award: Kyle Mock and Josh Keyes” Reception at 7 p.m. at Boontling Gallery, 4224 Telegraph Ave. Exhibition runs to July 30. www.boontlinggallery.com 

“Realities: Picture Stories of the Modern World” by Guy Colwell and Mural Drawings by Rocky Baird. Reception for the artists at 5 p.m. at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., at Telegraph, Oakland. http://estebansabar.com/index.htm  

FILM 

Labor’s Love Lost: The Films of Vittorio de Seta “Bandits of Orgosolo” at 7 p.m. and “Half a Man” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Anodea Judith with Dr. Leonard Shlain, Dawson Church and Allan Hardman on “Waking the Global Heart” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Marta Acosta reads from her novel “Happy Hour at Casa Dracula” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The David Thom Band, The Billy Boys at 5:30 p.m. at Park Place and Washington Ave., Pt. Richmond. 237-9375. www. 

pointrichmond.com/prmusic  

Forrofiando from Brazil at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Eric Swinderman Sextet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, East Coast swing, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Walter Pope Trio at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Audrey Auld Mezera & Nina Gerber at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jim Grantham Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Wayblonde and Vanessa VerLee, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Bunny Numpkins and the Kill Blow-up Reaction, Anton Barbeau, Mandrake at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. 

Rogue Jazz Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Phenomenauts, Onion Flavored Rings, Ghengis Khan at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Outformation, Spindrift at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Diane Schurr at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 8 

CHILDREN  

Peruvian, Columbian & Mexican Music, an introduction to maracas, cajon and guitar music with Lina Ortiz and Anthony at noon at the Lakeview Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 550 El Embarcadero. 238-7344. 

Puppet Art Theater “Tommy’s Pirate Adventure” at 2 p.m. at the Montclair Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 1687 Mountain Blvd. 482-7810. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Microcosm” Group exhibition of artists inspired by patterns in nature. Reception at 2 p.m. at Richmond Art Center, 240 Barrett Ave., entrance at 25th St. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“And All That Jazz” Works by artists relocated from the Gulf Coast after Katrina. Reception at 6 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m., Wed.-Sat. Exhibition runs to July 27. 644-4930. 

“Creation Ground” Paintings by Diane Williams and Chuck Potter, and ceramic sculpture by Ari Lyckberg opens at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave. and runs through Sept. 8. 204-1667.  

THEATER 

Everyday Theatre “Dreaming in a Firestorm” by Tim Barsky at 8 p.m. at 2232 MLK, Oakland. Tickets are $12-$20. 644-2204. www.everdaytheatre.org 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Godfellas” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose St. 415-285-1717. 

Women’s Will “Twelfth Night” Sat. and Sun. at 1 p.m. at John Hinkle Park. Free. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

FILM 

Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum “The Little American” at 7:30 p.m. at 37417 Niles Blvd., Fremont. Cost $5. 494-1411. www.nilesfilmmuseum.org 

Rhythms on Screen “Mahaleo” at 6:30 p.m. and “Woman in the Dunes” at 8:40 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Talcott Memorial Reading at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Robin Meyers explains “Why the Christian Right is Wrong” at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Donation of $10 is suggested. 559-9500. 

Rhythm & Muse with Rashna Owen and The Winds of Mercy at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice and Rose. 644-6893. 

Artemio Rodriguez, printmaker and author at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. www.kala.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alameda Civic Light Opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Kofman Auditorium, 2200 Central Ave., Alameda. Tickets are $27-$31. 864-2256. www.aclo.com 

Snake Trio and Leo Blanco Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

A Celebration of Guinean Music and Dance at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 9 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

José Roberts & Friends “América en Mi Sangre”at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568.  

Elizabeth August, Aireene Espiritu and Rick DiDia at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

John Keawe, Hawaiian music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Charmless, Pebble Theory, Kaura at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Carolyn Chung Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Odori Simcha with Neal Cronin, at 7:30 p.m. at A Cuppa Tea, 3200 College Ave. 654-1904. 

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Green Lemon at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Carl Sonny Leland Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

The Lost Cats, jazz and swing, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. All ages. Cost is $7-$10. 558-0881. 

Future Pilgrim, Famous Last Words, Rick DiDia, at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Wil Blades Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Verbal Abuse, Decry, America’s Dirty Thirtys 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. 

SUNDAY, JULY 9 

CHILDREN 

Asheba, Caribbean music, at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Photographic Images of Migrant Women” By Saundra Sturdevant. Reception at 5 p.m. at La Peña. Exhibition runs through August 31. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Form and Light” Photographs by Eric Nurse. Reception at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

FILM 

Labor’s Love Lost: The Films of Vittorio de Seta “Diary of a Schoolmaster” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India” Guided tour at 2 pm. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. 

Karen Shepard reads from her new novel “Don’t I Know You?” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Len and Aya Brackett on “Building the Japanese House Today” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave. www.mrsdalloways.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Eric Bibb, contemporary blues and gospel, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50- $19.50. 548-1761.  

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

Jason Armstrong and Joe Kenny at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Carola Zertuche and Sara Ayala, flamenco, at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Dick Conte Trio at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Americana Unplugged: Ragged But Right at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mister Loveless Monolaturs, The Tuesday Club at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, JULY 10 

CHILDREN 

Magic with Timothy James for all ages at 7 p.m. at the Piedmont Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 160 41st St. 597-5017. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Randall Balmar examines “Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America” at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Donation of $10 is suggested. 559-9500.  

Dale Pendell reads from “Pharmako/Gnosis: Plant Teachers and the Poison Path” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Script Club Reading of “Art” by by Yasmina Reza, at 7:30 p.m. at Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. 

Poetry Express with Judy Wells at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dubconscious, reggae, at 11 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Parlor Tango at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 7:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Street to Nowhere, Audrye Sessions, Broken Dolls at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146.  

Roomful of Blues at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Somewhere, across the river from ... somewhere else ... there’s a cyber-cafe with two strange young women peering in, in hysterics over what they see and trying to get inside. 

That’s how We Are Not These Hands, Sheila Callaghan’s play as produced by San Francisco’s noted Crowded Fire Theater Co., opens in its world premiere at the Ashby Stage.  

Callaghan, who’s achieved recognition in New York for pieces like Dead City, a Joycean Bloomsday in the Big Apple that starred singer Patti Smith and others, said of her new play, “I wanted to write about the challenges of third world countries, but I didn’t know how. So instead I wrote a love story.” 

The genesis of her play came during a trip to China, where in poor villages along the Yangtze, she noted illicit cyber-cafes hidden down side alleys. In news stories at home, she read of the death of 41 students, blown up while assembling firecrackers in their eastern China school, and of 24 people dying in Beijing when two teenagers set fire to an unlicensed cyber-cafe from which they’d been 86ed. 

Those anecdotes all figure in We Are Not These Hands, reset from specific locales to a kind of nowhere in between, and acted out by Cassie Beck and Juliet Tanner as local teenagers, Belly and Moth. 

The two also express themselves in the dialect of their zone, a clipped, racy idiom stuck together more expressionistically than grammatically. It settles into a kind of run-down rube jargon. At just about the point when the locals become comprehensible, a man in a sports coat and carrying a briefcase (Paul Lancour) appears inside the cafe, where he types up a storm in academese (visible on a big screen where, otherwise, media and advertising images rush). The girls immediately dub him “Leather.” 

Leather later delivers a monologue into a pocket tape recorder while in the restroom; he speaks as if to his mother, who he later declares is dead. A good deal of the play’s hook is in the disparity between the girls’ slangy dialogues and Leather’s soliloquies into his machine. 

In one of the funniest scenes, the two teenagers, outlandishly dolled up, accost Leather at his computer screen and pantomime puerile sex acts. He tries ignoring them, then treats them as panhandlers until he finally gets the idea and propositions Moth. 

In his all-but flophouse room above, Leather loquaciously explains to the wide-eyed, uncomprehending Moth why he came to their backwater, and about the social economics manuscript he’s researching and writing there that’ll make him big back home. 

His rambling circumlocutions are almost as thick as the girls’ jumbled-up speech. Moth mostly answers “okay” to everything, until Leather starts to make love to her, when she bubbles over in a fount of words, a little like Molly Bloom at the end of Ulysses. 

Later Moth tells Belly of her orgasm and Belly wants the same treatment. The two scheme how to get Leather to take them with him when he leaves; when they realize he’s digging in for a long haul, and uninterested in a menage à trois, they retaliate on what started it all: the cyber-cafe.  

A play like this depends on the exuberance of the performers, and the cast pulls it off, inhabiting strangeness quite naturally. Tanner gives a sensitive and nuanced performance as Moth, following Leather and his endless stream of words with her “big, wild eyes,” punctuated by an occasional “okay.” 

In fact, some of the best moments are the silent ones, the girls staring into the cafe or when the characters’ mostly self-absorbed speech breaks down and actions take over. 

Kent Nicholson, a specialist in new play development, has directed We Are Not These Hands well, lending rhythm and atmosphere to a text that is groping, even threadbare at times, a one-trick pony that neither takes off from its sources nor explores them in depth, analogizing them into limbo. 

It’s an old device to juxtapose characters from different backgrounds to examine reality, but the characters in We Are Not These Hands never achieves the binocular vision of Don Quixote and Sancho, or Robinson Crusoe and Friday, not to mention the wealth of examples in Paul Bowles. 

The primitiveness of the language is amusing but not particularly inventive. The equation of the childlike (or childish) and the primitive sometimes becomes cloying, too close to babytalk. 

Science fiction writers have long juxtaposed unlikely environments and exotic characters to cast light on things closer to home. The living science fiction of the New World Order goes a lot further than cyber-cafes: A few years ago in places around east Asia, peasants would go out at dawn to a cafe for a latte, dressed in Italian suits and shoes, then return home to change into overalls and drive a tractor in the fields where a few decades previous life was green tea and ox, or hand-pulled plows.  

We Are Not These Hands tries to hold onto a sense of wonder, both childlike and eccentric, a funny valentine to intercultural mix ’n’ match. Its intimate naivete misses the speechless awe of a composite, self-involved world that could only dub itself “postmodern” and the astonishment of taking a step back and looking at it.

We’re fortunate to have rather a large number of Hawaiians living in the Bay Area. I’ve visited the Islands only a couple of times, but I fall in love fast (if selectively) and it wasn’t just the climate, the heartstopping beauty of the place, or even the beautiful, increasingly elusive native flora and fauna that won my flinty, suspicious old heart. 

Aloha is for real, and I’ve been warmed by its glow there and, lucky me, here too.  

One Hawaiian of note, the organizer of a mainland hula halau, was caught on film marveling at seeing ohi’a trees on his street in San Francisco. ‘Ohi’a (Metrosideros polymorpha) is ubiquitous on the Islands, and its flower, known as ohi’a lehua, for the pair of lovers it unites—and if you pick the flower, it’ll rain because they weep at being separated again—is a nectar source for several of the native honeycreepers. 

These unique (and, no surprise, endangered or even extinct) birds are well worth seeing, even if you have to clamber over rough ground and thick brush for just a glimpse. I’ve bragged truthfully about the thrill of seeing an ‘apapane and, a year later, an ‘i’iwi feeding on ohi’a lehua, and the pleasure of just pronouncing that enhances the memory.  

But the fact is, what’s on the streets here is an ancestor species of the ‘ohi’a. It looks very similar, and ‘ohi’a is called polymorpha because it takes so many shapes anyway, so it’s easy to mistake them. 

Both have softly fuzzed gray-green leaves and flowers that are basically red (or occasionally yellow or orange) bristles of stamens, like a powderpuff or pincushion. Both exist here, if at all, as smallish trees, unless they’re in an arboretum or a sheltered garden. Both get bigger in their home ranges—and ‘ohi’a also gets shrubbier depending on where it’s growing.  

New Zealand Christmas tree (Metrosideros excelsa) is burdened with one of the more awkward common names I know. In New Zealand, they call it “pohutukawa,” which is long but at least only one word, and it makes more sense to me. One reference says it means “splashed by spray”—I’m taking their word for it because my Maori vocabulary is about nonexistent—and it’s typically a seaside tree there 

Picnickers sit in its shade, birds feed on its nectar, and sometimes oysters anchor themselves on its roots. 

There’s a story about its flowers, too, but less romantic, and its moral is “Finders keepers, losers weepers.” A canoe of founders sighted the pohutukawa-clad shoreline and the chief tossed his red feathers overboard, I guess thinking there were plenty to be had on shore. But what he found was red flowers that wilted when picked. Someone else had picked up his discarded feathers and wouldn’t give them back. 

Where it grows suggests a tough tree, tolerant of lots of salt in the air and around its roots, and indeed it is. It’s also tough enough to handle city life with aplomb. 

I’ve seen individuals out on the Berkeley marina, on Main Street in Half Moon Bay, and as grizzled old urban warriors on the nastiest parts of Sansome Street in San Francisco. (Nastiest for a street tree: windy, dirty, heavily trafficked, and tightly bound in concrete; I suppose it’s a respectable address for a business.)  

I’ve seen the Sansome Street trees doing something their Hawaiian cousins do, too. I looked up into one and saw a fibrous mass hanging from the trunk, like some odd broom. These were aerial roots.  

‘Ohi’a will throw bundles of these roots out into the air to capture supplemental moisture; I can see why pohutukawa would have that ability too, with dehydrating salt to contend with, and it’s certainly appropriate in foggy San Francisco, where I doubt these trees get any summer irrigation—and if they do get a drink, it’s bound to miss their feeder roots. Heaven knows what they’re finding under all that pavement: maybe groundwater, maybe leaky pipes.  

It’s an odd place to see a bit of the tropical shore, but then our median strips and curbsides host lots of New Zealand flax, another Kiwi expatriate. What with plants and all those new Hawaiian barbecue joints, we’re growing a bit of the South pPacific in North California, and hooray for that. 

Flowers and leaves of the New Zealand native Metrosideros excelsa look a lot like the tree’s Hawaiian cousin, ‘ohi’a. Photograph by Ron Sullivan

TUESDAY, JULY 4 

Fourth of July at the Berkeley Marina, from noon to 9:30 p.m. A free admission, alcohol-free event, with live entertainment, arts & crafts, food, and activities for children. Fireworks at 9:30 p.m. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us.  

Fourth of July Open House at Tilden Park Visit the Nature Center from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to meet critters, make nature crafts and have fun. 525-2233. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring change of clothes, windbreaker, sneakers. For ages 5 and up. cal-sailing.org  

Red Oak Victory Ship 4th of July BBQ at 6 p.m. Music, tour of the ship and a great view of fireworks around the Bay. Cost is $20. Located in Richmond harbor, Berth # 6, off Canal Blvd. Reservations required. 237-2933. 

Save the Bay Fireworks Paddle Enjoy the Bay Area Fireworks by canoe off Arrowhead Marsh, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. Minimum age 10, children 10-12 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Cost is $30-$40. Registration required. 452-9261, ext. 109. www.saveSFbay.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 5 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“Super Size Me” a documentary on the physical, legal and financial costs of Americans and fast food, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 

“Predators and Their Prey” An introduction to live wild animals by Wildlife Associates at 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 10 a.m. to noon. Help is needed to support the more than 40 blood drives held each month all over the East Bay. For information call 594-5165.  

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Herrick Campus, Maffley Auditorium, 2001 Dwight Way. To make an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. www.BeADonor.com 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Sleep Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

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

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JULY 6 

First Thursdays at Fruitvale Village A street fair and farmer’s market from 5 to 8 p.m. with music, tastings, and children’s activities. Sponsored by Los Cantaros Taqueria and the Unity Council. 534-6900.  

Teen Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Club will discuss Poul Anderson’s “The Broken Sword” and J.R.R. Tolkein’s Ring trilogy at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6133. 

East Bay Vivarium An introduction to insects, lizards, amphibians and reptiles at 11 a.m. at the Brookfield Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 9255 Edes Ave. 615-5725. 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. jstansby@yahoo.com 

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

FRIDAY, JULY 7 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

“Keep the A’s in Oakland” Tailgate Party from 5 to 7 p.m. at the B parking lot tailgate area on the Hegenberger side. Entertaintment and speeches fromlocal leaders. chooseorlooseoakland@yahoo.com 

Stagebridge Story Workshop with local storytellers on Fridays in July from 10 a.m. to noon at Arts First Oakland Center, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Bring a bag lunch. Cost is $10 per workshop, or $25 for the series. 444-4755.  

Celebración: Food and Music of Peru at 6:30 p.m. at Crowden Center for Music, 1475 Rose St. Suggested donation $15. Please RSVP to 526-5194. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m.  

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

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

SATURDAY, JULY 8 

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. 

Crown Beach Clean-up in the aftermath of the 4th from 9 a.m. to noon at Crown Beach, Alameda. Trash bags, gloves and other equipment provided by Save the Bay. 452-9261, ext. 109. www.saveSFbay.org 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of the F. M. “Borax” Smith Estate from 10 a.m. to noon. Meet at the redwood tree, corner of McKinley Ave. and Home Place East, one block off Park Blvd. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/ 

walkingtours 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

Guide Dogs for the Blind Meet a puppy in-training at 2 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Sushi Basics Learn the natural and cultural history of sushi as you prepare and taste several different types.Fee is $25-$39. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Himalayan Cooking Class from 3 to 5 p.m. at Taste of the Himalayas. Cost is $50. Registration required. 849-4983. 

ChiRunning/ChiWalking A talk at 3 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

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, JULY 9 

Toddler Nature Walk for two and three-year-olds to look for butterflies and other inscets at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of the Mountain View Cemetery from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Meet at Chapel of the Chimes, 4400 Peidmont Ave. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Green Sunday: Oakland’s Oak to Ninth Street Scandal Can we stop this massive give away of our waterfront? From 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland. 

New Farmers’ Market Opens in Kensington, and will run year-round on Sun. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the parking lot behind ACE Hardware at 303 Arlington Ave. at Amherst. 528-4346. 

Summer Sunday Forum: Wold Vision with Angela Mason at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to keep your bike in excellent working condition through safety inspections, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Twilight Tour to Learn Botanical ABC’s at 5:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $8-$12. Registration required. 643-2755.  

Miksang Contemplative Photography A talk at noon at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Visualization and Sacred Art” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., July 5, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Tasha Tervelon, 981-5190. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/women 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., July 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/housing 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs. July 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/landmarks 

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., July 6, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks