Columnists

Column: Dispatches from the Edge: Poverty, Aid and Africa: A Devil’s Brew

By Conn Hallinan
Friday July 21, 2006

Once or so a year, the topic of poverty climbs on the agenda for the developed world. This past weekend it barely surfaced at the meeting of the Group of Eight in St. Petersburg, where energy policy (and the Middle East) held center stage. Poverty was a theme at last year’s G8 meeting, and it will likely come up again next year when the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, Russia, Germany, France, and Italy sit down in Berlin to divvy up the global economy. -more-


Column: Undercurrents: Doing ‘Something’ About Violence in Oakland

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday July 21, 2006

Forgive me, y’all, but I am always a little skeptical when a politician announces that one of their public policy initiatives has nothing to do with politics but, then, you’ve got to find the timing of this one is a little curious, as well. -more-


Calatrava’s Sundial Bridge Puts Redding on the Map

By Dorothy Bryant, Special to the Planet
Friday July 21, 2006

Choosing Not to Play the Updating Game

By Jane Powell
Friday July 21, 2006

Imagining a Berkeley Under Water

By Matt Cantor
Friday July 21, 2006

Matt, We need to reinforce the cripple walls in our 1906 one-story house. But we live in the Berkeley flats and we are worried about potential flooding. We are not that far above sea level and we don’t think that global warming is a fairy tale. -more-


Think Twice Before You Reach for the Bug Spray

By Ron Sullivan
Friday July 21, 2006

It’s midsummer, more or less, and the other inhabitants of the garden are showing up in numbers. Aphids and whiteflies and thrips, oh my! The first flush in spring gave rise to another generation or two, multiplying all the way, and most of the birds have about finished raising their first and maybe second broods for the year, so fewer insects are being turned into babyfood. -more-


Quake Tip of the Week

By Larry Guillot
Friday July 21, 2006

Are You Inside or Out? -more-


Column: Lame, Crippled, Insensitive And Politically Incorrect

By Susan Parker
Tuesday July 18, 2006

I was criticized by letter writers in the last three issues of the Daily Planet for stating that my husband Ralph is confined to a wheelchair. Brian Hill of Albany said he didn’t “mind being called crippled or lame” but “confined to a wheelchair” implied Ralph was “chained to it, with padlocks.” Ann Sieck seconded Brian’s opinion and said she, too, was “good and crippled.” Ruthanne Shpiner stated, “Language and its use or misuse is critical in forming how the public perceives everyone. Such terminology as ‘confined to a wheelchair’ is not only inaccurate, it is offensive.” -more-


Red Alert Issued for The Yellow Dodder

By Ron Sullivan, Special to the Planet
Tuesday July 18, 2006

One more scary invasive exotic plant has shown up in the East Bay. Susan Schwartz of Friends of Five Creeks issued a bulletin: -more-