The Week

Several new projects, including a major hotel, a changed BART plaza and street closures, are being considered for the Shattuck Avenue/Center Street intersection. Photograph by Richard Brenneman.
Several new projects, including a major hotel, a changed BART plaza and street closures, are being considered for the Shattuck Avenue/Center Street intersection. Photograph by Richard Brenneman.
 

News

Flash: Council Kills Landmark Law Revisions Pending Election

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday July 25, 2006

In an abrupt reversal, the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to table the revised Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) it had passed on first reading July 11. -more-


Flash: Fast Action Douses Blaze in Tilden Park

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Thanks to alert citizens and a prompt response by Berkeley firefighters, a Tilden Park hills fire was extinguished before it could spread Tuesday night. -more-


Flash: Movement Begins to Draft Shirley Dean for Mayor

Judith Scherr
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Shirley Dean’s name popped up late Friday on the City Clerk’s list of candidates who have taken out mayoral papers. -more-


Downtown Plan Panel Revolts Over UC Project

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday July 25, 2006

The citizens guiding the shape of Berkeley’s new downtown plan staged a second revolt last week—this one focusing on UC Berkeley’s planned hotel complex. -more-


Objections To OUSD Land Deal Increase

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday July 25, 2006

The growing battle over Oakland’s valuable waterfront property development sharply escalated this week, with the coalition opposing the sale of the OUSD downtown properties moving their target from the powerless OUSD Board of Trustees to the powerful Oakland City Council and opponents of the massive nearby Oak-to-Ninth development filing a lawsuit against the project as well as launching a petition drive for a ballot measure to block its implementation. -more-


Parking Reversal on Telegraph

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Removing Telegraph Avenue parking last fall to correct substandard bike lanes was a “colossal blunder,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. -more-


Council Looks at UC Student Election

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak says getting the City Council involved in controversial student elections at UC Berkeley is council business as usual, but others say it is an attack on the independence of student government. -more-


News Analysis: Why So Many Public Opinion Polls?

By Marc Sapir, Special to the Planet
Tuesday July 25, 2006

They are everywhere, trying to grab our attention. And they succeed. Public opinion polls claim to adapt statistical research methods to the measuring of beliefs. Scientific? Perhaps, but polling also operates with hidden goals because it is part of the marketplace. -more-


Kitchen Democracy Donation Draws Scrutiny

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday July 25, 2006

A proposed $3,000 donation on today’s (Tuesday) City Council agenda to Kitchen Democracy from Councilmember Gordon Wozniak’s council office budget has provoked questions on the appropriate use of city funds. -more-


Embattled Housing Authority To Review Status Update

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday July 25, 2006

The Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) board meets tonight (Tuesday) for an update on the status of the troubled local housing agency. -more-


Piedmont Avenue Closure Planned

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Major repairs and renovations will keep alternating lanes closed on Piedmont Avenue for the next three weeks, said Kenneth Emeziem, supervising civil engineer for Berkeley’s Public Works Department. -more-


Selawsky Considers Bid for City Auditor

By Suzanne La Barre
Tuesday July 25, 2006

The race for Berkeley’s city auditor has gone uncontested for eight years. School Board Director John Selawsky wants to change that. -more-


Evictions for Condo Conversion Targeted

By Judith Scherr
Friday July 21, 2006

Marcia Levenson treasures her Williard neighborhood and the apartment she has rented for two decades in the area. Because she’s living with a chronic disease, Levenson’s only income is disability payments. Her Section 8 voucher allows her to stay in the neighborhood and limits her share of the rent to 30 percent of her income. -more-


News Analysis: Winning OUSD Proposal Failed to Meet Goals

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

While two rejected proposals for the Oakland Unified School District administrative properties substantially meet several district “baseline expectations and intentions,” the winning proposal by TerraMark/UrbanAmerica does not, an analysis by the Daily Planet has found. -more-


Developer Declares Albany Mall Plan Dead

By Richard Brenneman
Friday July 21, 2006

Though an angry Rick Caruso said early Tuesday that he’s pulled the plug on his plans for a $300 million Albany waterfront mall, project foes say they expect him back. -more-


UC’s Plans to Remove Trees from People’s Park Raise Concerns

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday July 21, 2006

Users of People’s Park met with UC Berkeley officials on Thursday for a park walk-through and discussion of some upcoming projects. -more-


Council Hears Project Appeal, In-Lieu Fees, New LPO

By Judith Scherr
Friday July 21, 2006

The Berkeley City Council dealt with three development issues Tuesday: a citizen appeal of housing-retail project at 1201 San Pablo Ave., a proposal to charge developers in-lieu fees rather than requiring inclusionary units and the second reading of the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. -more-


Warm Pool Replacement Will Not Make November Ballot

By Judith Scherr
Friday July 21, 2006

Not many disabled people chose to stand up in public and talk about their handicaps. But that’s what Ben Rivers did at the City Council meeting Tuesday. -more-


Berkeley Man Wins Honor For Penning Awful Prose

By Suzanne La Barre
Friday July 21, 2006

In describing a tear’s journey from a cheek to the Long Beach Harbor, one Berkeley man sealed his fate as an inductee into the hall of literary infamy. -more-


PRC Begins Investigating Case of Cop Stealing Drugs

By Judith Scherr
Friday July 21, 2006

The sergeant in charge of Berkeley’s drug evidence room copped a plea earlier this year, admitting he stole drug evidence in his charge. -more-


UC Berkeley Unions Plan Rally Against Transportation Fee Hikes

By Rio Bauce, Special to the Planet
Friday July 21, 2006

On Wednesday, UC Berkeley unions plan to rally against what they call “drastic changes” in the parking fees for disabled employees, carpool permits, and Bear passes that the university has unilaterally imposed upon their employees. -more-


Suit Served Against Pacific Steel

By Suzanne La Barre
Friday July 21, 2006

Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), an Oakland-based environmental health and justice non-profit, has served Pacific Steel Casting with a federal lawsuit, the organization announced Wednesday. -more-


HUD Renews Redwood Garden Senior Housing Subsidy

By Rio Bauce, Special to the Planet
Friday July 21, 2006

Denise Fore, maintenance director of Redwood Gardens, a senior housing complex near Clark Kerr Campus that is home to around 200 senior citizens, said this week that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will renew their subsidies for the Redwood Gardens complex. -more-


Phantom Paintball Attacks Continue for Second Month

By Richard Brenneman
Friday July 21, 2006

Berkeley’s phantom paintballer is at it again, and police are asking for the public’s help in nailing the serial splatterer. -more-


Stolen Car Chase Ends in Hills With Possibly Another Stolen Car

By Richard Brenneman
Friday July 21, 2006

A Richmond police pursuit ended near the Claremont Hotel Tuesday night but not before a helicopter search and prowling patrol cars alarmed nearby residents. -more-


Harrison Announces Intention To Run For School Board Seat

By Suzanne La Barre
Friday July 21, 2006

Norma Harrison, a communist and active member of the Peace and Freedom Party, has announced a bid for school board. -more-


Berkeley Housing Authority Names New Acting Manager

By Suzanne La Barre
Friday July 21, 2006

The embattled Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) has a new acting manager, Housing Department Director Stephen Barton announced Thursday. -more-


Mall Foes Face Legal Battle with Initiative

By Richard Brenneman
Friday July 21, 2006

While foes of the upscale mall planned for the Albany shoreline have apparently won one battle before the City Council, there’s another struggle in the courts. -more-


Fire Department Log

By Richard Brenneman
Friday July 21, 2006

Porch arson -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Mysterious Telephone Poll Targets New Landmarks Law

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Someone is polling Berkeley residents by phone, targeting issues revolving around competing landmark ordinances and the upcoming mayoral election. -more-


Editorial: Ignoring The Geneva Conventions

By Becky O’Malley
Friday July 21, 2006

It seems simplistic, but let’s just go over it one more time. Until the time of the First World War, it was an accepted shared belief, at least among the “civilized” (European-influenced) countries that deliberately killing non-combatants (“civilians”) was an immoral way to conduct a war, even a “just” war. This is a topic that necessarily requires quotation marks, since even supposedly shared beliefs are questioned by some. -more-


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday July 25, 2006

BUSD -more-


Commentary: From Tehran: Lebanon Bombing Prelude to Iran Action

By Homayon
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Two weeks ago marked the beginning of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian violence due to which a neighboring country, Lebanon, soon became the victim of this confrontation. -more-


Commentary: Library Director Should Not Act As Trustee Board Secretary

By Shirley Stuart
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Berkeley relies on the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) to safeguard its library system, and we, the citizens and taxpayers of Berkeley, along with the people who staff our libraries, should have some influence on their decisions. -more-


Commentary: Declaration of Human Rights Should Be Law

By Jacqueline Sokolinsky
Tuesday July 25, 2006

What exactly is the United States’ position in national and international laws of peace and human rights? -more-


Letters to the Editor

Friday July 21, 2006

RADKIDS -more-


Commentary: One Nation Indy-Visible

By Raymond A. Chamberlin
Friday July 21, 2006

Forget the fireworks, the chase is on again—turn on your TV to find out the latest casualties of your monthly police high-speed chase. Although never having been personally impacted by this very American institution, I have long considered it the grossest, most damning hallmark of this nation. -more-


Commentary: Keeping the Arts In the Public Eye Proves Challenging Every Year

By Robbin Henderson
Friday July 21, 2006

It has been a challenging year for the Berkeley Art Center. In fact, the past few years have increasingly tested our ingenuity and resilience. While we offered professionally mounted exhibitions, undertook lots of adjunct programming, presented opportunities to attend performances of music, spoken word, films and theater performances, our funding decreased. Rising costs accompanied this decline. We have been told that the oil “crisis,” brewing since the 1970s, is the reason postage, maintenance and printing costs increased. Insurance rates skyrocketed; both Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina are blamed for the rise. We watched our communications costs soar, as we increased our use of the Internet to mitigate rising postal rates. Our small staff is dedicated and offers the BAC many volunteer hours without a cost-of-living raise. -more-


Columns

Column: The Public Eye: Take Me To Our Leader

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday July 25, 2006

It’s a famous cartoon setup: Aliens descend from a space ship, walk up to a human, and demand, “Take me to your leader.” If aliens actually did land in Washington D.C., they’d probably be taken to meet George Bush. After all, he’s the nominally elected president of the United States. Ah, but is he our leader? -more-


Column: Thank You for the Opportunity

By Susan Parker
Tuesday July 25, 2006

I’m not a spokesperson for anyone, but myself. I once thought I might have some insights to share with and about the disabled community but this has turned out not to be true. When an organization that represents this community was looking for local authors to speak at a fundraising event, I imagined I was the perfect candidate. -more-


Mockingbird Jazz: The Evolutionary Roots of Bird Song

By Joe Eaton, Special to the Planet
Tuesday July 25, 2006

I just finished a book called Why Men Won’t Ask for Directions, which despite the title is not another pop-psychology tract about gender differences. The author, Richard Francis, is an evolutionary neurobiologist, and the book is a rousing polemic against the sociobiologists and their intellectual heirs, the evolutionary psychologists: scientists who believe that just about every aspect of human behavior is an adaptation to something or other. -more-


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-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday July 25, 2006

TUESDAY, JULY 25 -more-


Books: Max Brand: The Agatha Christie of the B Western

By Phil McArdle, Special to the Planet
Tuesday July 25, 2006

Max Brand was the pseudonym of Frederick Faust, a pulp writer who had ambitions as a serious poet. Or as he preferred, a serious poet whose day job was spinning cowboy yarns. -more-


Mockingbird Jazz: The Evolutionary Roots of Bird Song

By Joe Eaton, Special to the Planet
Tuesday July 25, 2006

I just finished a book called Why Men Won’t Ask for Directions, which despite the title is not another pop-psychology tract about gender differences. The author, Richard Francis, is an evolutionary neurobiologist, and the book is a rousing polemic against the sociobiologists and their intellectual heirs, the evolutionary psychologists: scientists who believe that just about every aspect of human behavior is an adaptation to something or other. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday July 25, 2006

TUESDAY, JULY 25 -more-


Arts Calendar

Friday July 21, 2006

FRIDAY, JULY 21 -more-


Moving Pictures: Tributes to Gaynor, Borzage at PFA

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday July 21, 2006

Two retrospectives starting today (Friday) at Pacific Film Archive will illuminate the work of actress Janet Gaynor and director Frank Borzage, both sterling talents in their day but unjustly overlooked in ours. -more-


Moving Pictures: When Soccer Almost Conquered America

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday July 21, 2006

If you’re a soccer fan still looking for a way to get the poisonous image of Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt out of your mind, the solution may have arrived in the form of a new documentary. Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos tells the story of soccer’s arrival in the United States in the late 1970s, when media mogul Steve Ross set out to make the “the beautiful game” a national phenomenon. -more-


The Theater: ‘Human Paper Doll’ a Real Cut-Up at the Berkeley Rep

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday July 21, 2006

The metamorphoses of Madonna, or Elton John changing fashions and overburdening specs ... Judy Garland as Dorothy, belting out “Over The Rainbow” while absent-mindedly petting a pinwheel-headed Toto ... and just how does a paraplegic Venus De Milo line-dance to Zorba The Greek ? -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-


Berkeley This Week

Friday July 21, 2006

FRIDAY, JULY 21 -more-


Correction

Friday July 21, 2006

The Berkeley Alcohol Policy Advocacy Coalition was misidentified in Tuesday’s Daily Planet. While nonprofit organizations participate in the coalition, BAPAC itself is not a nonprofit organization, as stated in the article. -more-