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EDC Parent Floriana Santos talks with Monique Moss and her daughter Alliya, a student in the program, in front of the former home of the program last week. The site is now being renovated for use by Berkeley High students, leaving the day care program to share space with Washington Elementary School. Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee.
EDC Parent Floriana Santos talks with Monique Moss and her daughter Alliya, a student in the program, in front of the former home of the program last week. The site is now being renovated for use by Berkeley High students, leaving the day care program to share space with Washington Elementary School. Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee.
 

News

Classroom Shuffle Outrages Parents

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 29, 2006

Parents of students attending the Extended Day Care (EDC) program at Washington Elementary School in Berkeley are furious that their children had to sit outside in the cold last week because of a mix-up over moving to a new space.  

The children spent the entire day outdoors while the EDC relocated to the kindergarten classroom across the street from the program site. Since the school year begins Wednesday, the children had no regular classes to attend during the day. 

According to a letter parents received from the Berkeley Unified School District on Aug. 22, the reason behind this sudden relocation was a decision made in August to allow Berkeley High School to occupy the portable classrooms that had been used by the EDC program. 

The letter further stated that beginning Aug. 29, Washington EDC would be operating out of Washington Elementary School and that the two EDC classes would be sharing classrooms with the elementary school students.  

“I am furious that my son had to sit outside from 7:30 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday,” said Tracy Matthews, whose son attends EDC. “It was freezing when I dropped him off in the morning on Thursday. Why did they have to sit outside during the move? Is it because these are kids from lower-income families that nobody cares where they sit?” 

Paula Robertson, another parent, echoed her thoughts. 

John Santoro, principal of the program, said that the children had been given alternate accommodation in the elementary classrooms at Washington School during the move. 

“They didn’t have to spend the day outside,” he said. “Principal Rita Kimball has been very supportive in helping us coordinate services during this move. However, I understand that the teachers hadn’t spoken to her on Wednesday and this resulted in the kids having to sit outside.”  

Monique Moss, expressed her displeasure at the whole arrangement, when she picked up her daughter Alliya from EDC on Friday evening. 

“I think the teachers had like a week’s notice to pack up stuff and put them in storage,” she said. “Mr. Neil Smith from BUSD told us that they had to do this at the last minute. In the end it’s the kids who suffer ... who have to sit outside in the cold.” 

Six-year-old Alliya described her whereabouts in school on Friday: “We go outside, then eat breakfast, go outside, then eat lunch, and then go outside again. We only came in to keep our stuff.” 

When asked about the move, teachers of the EDC program told the Planet that they had been asked by school authorities to make no comment about the situation to the media. 

BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan said that the increase in the number of the students at Berkeley High was the principal reason for having to move some classes to the bungalows.  

“There are currently 3,200 students at Berkeley High and they are increasing constantly,” Coplan said. “The move mainly has to do with the need for space and expansion. I understand that the kids had to sit outside for a certain period of time last week but that was because of the whole relocation phase. They will be sharing space with the elementary classes for this school year but other than last week’s disruption there will be no further changes in the Washington EDC program.” 

Coplan added that it was rare for EDC programs to have dedicated space because of space issues in the schools they operate out of. 

“Most EDC programs share spaces with other classrooms,” he said. “The program at Washington was one of the few to have been allocated its own space. But now that space needs to be used by the high school students when classes start on Wednesday. There is nowhere else for the high school students to go.” 

To day-care parents, however, last week’s disruption continues to be a frustrating experience. Floriana Santos, whose husband suffered a heart attack last week, said that the EDC program at Washington was the only place she could send her daughter Zoe to during the crisis. 

“When I called on Monday and told them that I had to take my husband to the hospital and needed to drop my daughter off at EDC, they said that things were very chaotic and this was not a good time,” she said. “This program has really helped parents like me in a lot of ways. They help with tutoring the kids and in taking care of them. I am worried about what’s going to happen from Wednesday onwards. How are they going to fit in all the stuff from EDC into those two elementary classrooms? Will my daughter have to go without all the artwork and puzzles she loves working on every afternoon?” 

Santoro said that all the materials from the EDC classrooms were being put into storage and teachers would be bringing out materials relevant to the day’s activities once the EDC program began. 

“We hope that there will be no overlapping in schedules but if there is, we can always move the EDC kids to the cafeteria,” he said. 

The portable classrooms are being cleaned before school starts on Wednesday. 

“My teacher told me that they are painting the rooms, shampooing the carpets and vacuuming the floors so that they can get everything ready for the Berkeley High students before school starts,” said 9-year-old Zoe. “The toilets used to stink earlier, but they are cleaning them up now.”


Landmarks Measure Gets Day in Court

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday August 29, 2006

A Superior Court hearing on the ballot language for Berkeley’s landmark preservation initiative Measure J will be held on an expedited basis Sept. 5 for a decision to be made by the Sept. 7 deadline for finalizing the November ballot. 

A Superior Court judge changed the hearing this week from its originally scheduled Sept. 13 date after Tom Brown, the outside counsel representing the City of Berkeley in the appeal, agreed to the new date. Brown called expediting the date “routine in these types of matters.” 

A spokesperson for Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said that Brown, a former Napa City attorney and staff attorney with the Berkeley City Attorney’s office, was hired because Albuquerque is tied up with a federal court brief and the assistant city attorney is on vacation. 

The judge is expected to make a ruling on the appeal immediately following the Sept. 5 hearing. 

Following the rescheduling of the hearing, Berkeley resident Laurie Bright, who co-sponsored the Measure J initiative along with Roger Marquis, said, “Now we’ll have our day in court.”  

Bright and Marquis are representing themselves in the appeal. 

Measure J seeks to amend Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance and Demolition Permit Application for Non-Residential Buildings Ordinance. 

Bright and Marquis requested the Superior Court to overturn the descriptive language that will appear on the November ballot after the Berkeley City Council approved the controversial language on a 6-3 vote at the Aug. 1 City Council meeting. The ballot language was written by the city attorney’s office but not submitted to councilmembers or the public until shortly before the vote. 

Councilmember Betty Olds, who voted against the ballot language, complained during the Aug. 1 debate that “City staff is continuing their line of giving us the facts so late that we don’t have time to make an informed decision.” 

The fight over the ballot language cut across Berkeley’s traditional progressive/moderate political lines. Former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, one of the longtime leaders of the moderate wing of Berkeley politics, spoke at the Aug. 1 council meeting against the original ballot language proposed for the measure, and progressives Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring joined the moderate Olds in voting against it. 

In addition to Dean, mayoral candidate Christian Pecaut, Landmarks Preservation Commission member Jill Korte, former LPC member Patti Dacey and Daily Planet Executive Editor Becky O’Malley, also a former LPC member, all spoke against the ballot language, along with several members of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. 

Deputy City Attorney Zack Cowan defended the ballot language at the meeting, saying, “We’re obligated to give you the full picture [on the ballot statement], warts and all, the good points and the bad points.” 

But in their appeal, Bright and Marquis charge that the ballot measure language drafted by the city attorney’s office misrepresents the measure in several instances, making it more likely that voters would cast their ballots against the measure. 

Brown has not yet filed the city’s answer to the appeal.


Alta Bates Neighbors Complain Of Traffic, Construction Noise

By Rio Bauce
Tuesday August 29, 2006

On Friday, the Inter-Neighborhood Hospital Review Committee (IHRC) met with Alta Bates administrators and city officials, regarding traffic issues, construction, and the Bateman Mall. 

Many concerns had been raised about the hospital’s difficulties in dealing with traffic problems. Under the environmental impact report for proposed construction at the hospital, Alta Bates promised that they would keep the number of vehicles on-site at 519. 

A June 2006 Fehrs and Peers annual traffic report found that Alta Bates had 562 employee cars on-site. Additionally, daily traffic around the hospital had grown by less than 1 percent and parking had grown by 8 percent, both increased for a second year.  

Deborah Pitts-Cameron, director of public affairs for Alta Bates Summit Medical Center (ABSMC), didn’t think that Alta Bates was entirely responsible for the increased traffic. 

“I am not saying that the numbers haven’t changed, but I don’t think that anyone can say that all the numbers are in fact associated with the medical center,” said Pitts-Cameron.  

Several ideas to reduce traffic were suggested at the meeting, including preferential parking for carpools and vanpools, carpool matching service, bicycle lockers and showers, more convenient remote parking in Oakland, increased shuttle service and transit subsidies for employees for BART and AC Transit. 

“In February, we purchased 150 spaces of additional parking off-site,” said Pitts-Cameron. “We also started to pay for 50 percent of a BART ticket for the employees.” 

Alta Bates must reduce traffic to the level it had originally proposed or must return to the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) for a public hearing. However, Wendy Cosin, deputy planning director for Berkeley, said intervention by the ZAB probably won’t be necessary. 

“The goal is a significant increase in mitigation,” said Cosin. “We hope to see a significant improvement.” 

Neighbors have been complaining about the loud noise from construction, mainly from a compressor, and have leveled accusations that Alta Bates violated their use permit. After an article was published in the Planet, a 24-hour contact sign for information and complaints was posted on-site, a concession that neighbors of the project had been seeking for months. 

The other big issue discussed at the meeting was the fate of the Bateman Mall, a grassy-area which has been turned into a temporary emergency access road to the chagrin of many area residents. 

The hospital hopes to finish construction of phase one for the Bateman Mall area between late October and early December, depending on the rain. A meeting is scheduled for Oct. 17 from 7-9 p.m. on the first floor of Alta Bates to discuss the Bateman mall situation. 

Another issue raised was the subject of the park benches at the Huntmont Park. Alta Bates has recently replaced park benches in the park. 

“I got a call from some neighbors who reported that people were sleeping on benches,” reported Pitts-Cameron. “The benches are not on our property, but we put some new benches there anyway. We maintain that area. There has been a big problem with people sleeping on the benches and making the place dirty. There was a lot of discussion around putting bars on the benches to discourage people from using the space to sleep.” 

 

Doctor speaks out 

Dr. John Friedberg, a neurologist at Alta Bates, said that the disruption from the construction has affected more than just the area residents, and that it has been difficult on the hospital staff as well. He said he has had to contend with the high levels of construction noise, which he called “upsetting.” 

“The noise is so bad, I’m on the third floor and I have to retreat to the bathroom to dictate reports,” said Friedberg. “I practice neurology and we can’t do this with noise so loud.” 

He says that the hospital has not been very responsive to his requests to curb the noise. 

“There’s nothing they can do,” Friedberg said. “I was told by Ms. Cosin that construction can’t be over 85 decibels rating. It must be above that, but I’m totally guessing. I just get so upset.” 

On Aug. 22, the Berkeley Health Department conducted a noise study on the Alta Bates property and found the noise levels were under the limit, said Cosin. 

“When it was measured at the compressor, the reading was between 79-81 dba (decibels),” she said. “When measured at residential neighborhoods, the readings were around 60 dba.”


Disabled Sue Caltrans Over Dangerous Highways

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday August 29, 2006

Whenever Mark Hendrix, who lives near Telegraph Avenue and uses a wheelchair to get around, wants to go down Ashby Avenue to browse at Urban Ore on Seventh Street, he takes the bus.  

Others who use wheelchairs or who have low vision should do the same, Hendrix counsels, calling attention to the multiple hazards for the disabled as they walk or roll down Ashby. 

Berkeley-based Disability Rights Advocates has taken the issue a step further by filing a lawsuit last week in United States Federal Court, Northern District of California under Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit is aimed at the California Department of Transportation, better known as Caltrans, which is responsible for Ashby, State Highway 13, San Pablo Avenue, State Highway 123, and other streets around the state that are state highways.  

Many of these highways are fraught with danger for the disabled, says the class action lawsuit, which names Dmitiri Belser of Berkeley and Ben Rockwell of Southern California as plaintiffs, suing Caltrans in the name of all disabled people who use California state highways and park-and-ride facilities. 

In a phone interview Monday, Belser, chair of the Commission on Disability and executive director of Center for Accessible Technology, pointed to the lack of “detectable warnings” for visually-impaired persons. Belser has some vision, but is legally blind.  

“For blind people, curbs are important,” Belser said. They delineate the sidewalk from the street. Curb cuts can be dangerous to visually impaired people. 

The solution is the bright yellow plates that warn Belser that he’s at a curb cut and about to go into a street. The raised dots on the plates indicate to people with little or no vision that they are approaching the street. 

Many crossings on Ashby are not painted as crosswalks. No crosswalk traverses the intersection of Ashby and Stanton Street, near the South Berkeley Senior Center, for example. 

Belser pointed out that the number of hazards for disabled people on Ashby near the senior center is particularly egregious, given that many seniors gradually lose their sight and mobility and need especially good sidewalk access—without large cracks, poles, and cars blocking the sidewalk. 

Before filing the lawsuit, DRA attorney Mary-Lee Kimber said she had tried to work with Caltrans. 

“They were uncooperative,” she said. “We sent a letter saying what the problem is and asking for a meeting—they refused. We felt forced into this.” 

In response to quer-ies, David Anderson, Caltrans’ spokesperson, sent an email to the Daily Planet saying its legal division “has not been served with the lawsuit at this time, and therefore, has not had an opportunity to review it. It is the Department’s long-standing policy not to comment on any pending lawsuit.” 

Kimber noted additional problems on Ash-by. “At some points because of bus signs or light poles, the width is too small for a wheelchair,” Kimber said, noting that there are places where there is “uneven, crumbled pave-ment.” 

For example, down near Seventh Street, an apparently new sidewalk ends in dirt, weeds and trash at the former Santa Fe railroad crossing. 

City Councilmember Dona Spring, who uses a wheelchair, said some of the curb cuts on San Pablo Avenue are extremely dangerous. “They are too narrow and too steep for most electric wheelchairs,” she said. 

And Kimber pointed out that with a lot of construction on San Pablo, there is no warning that there is no sidewalk access ahead. 

Thoughts of many of the people interviewed for this story were with the two disabled people killed on Ashby Avenue. In 1999 Sharon Spencer was struck by a car as she was crossing Ashby at Piedmont Avenue in her wheelchair and died from her injuries a month after the accident.  

Fred Lupke was struck and killed while riding in his wheelchair in the street on the north side of Ashby Avenue between Martin Luther King Way and Ellis Street in order to avoid hazards on the sidewalk. 

“We had to wait until someone got killed to get Santa Rosa lights,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, speaking of the flashing lights activated by pedestrians and wheelchair users, installed at Ashby and Piedmont after Spencer’s death.  

“The city paid for the Santa Rosa lights,” Spring said. “Caltrans has been extra stingy.”  

Spring recalled the state of the sidewalk that Lupke avoided by using the street. “That stretch of Ashby on the north side of the street to the senior center was in terrible condition. It was impassible. There was a big hole in the sidewalk.” 

Hendrix, who said that the sidewalk has since been repaired, recalled that in addition to other problems the sidewalk near where Lupke was out in the street slanted downward toward the street and was difficult for people using wheelchairs to manipulate. 

“I always knew it would take a lawsuit to make Caltrans responsive,” Spring said. “It will help every pedestrian.” 

 

 

 

The disabled community would like raised yellow dots like these at Ninth Street and Ashby Avenue at every intersection. Photograph by Judith Scherr.


City Officials Take Blame for Housing Authority Mess

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 29, 2006

Members of the Save Berkeley Housing Authority (Save BHA), low-income Berkeley residents and city officials got together at the South Berkeley Senior Center on Saturday to discuss the future of public housing and the Section 8 program in Berkeley. 

Currently in its fourth year of being listed as a “troubled agency” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the BHA was dropped from being listed as a standard performer because of errors in reports submitted to HUD and also because of its numerous errors in running the public housing and Section 8 programs. 

The Berkeley City Council sits as the governing board of the Berkeley Housing Authority. Councilmember Kriss Worthington acknowledged that the City Council has made mistakes with managing the BHA. 

“We should not have got the Housing Authority into trouble,” Worthington said. “We should have spent more than five to 10 minutes at each meeting to learn about what was going on with the Housing Authority. We definitely weren’t doing a good job of supervising the BHA. We need to spend at least an hour or two every month on supervising the management.” 

Councilmembers Max Anderson and Laurie Capitelli echoed his thoughts. 

“We need to make a major longterm commitment,” said Anderson. “We haven’t spent the kind of time we need to spend on oversight. We need to have a body which is dedicated full time to overseeing the BHA.” 

Steve Barton, BHA director, discussed some of the implications of HUD’s position. 

“Because of our troubled status, HUD has given us the following alternatives: We should consider abandoning BHA and merge our resources with the Alameda County Housing Authority or keep it in Berkeley and give it a separate board of directors and better management,” he said. 

The majority of the tenants who want to save the BHA seemed in favor of the latter suggestion.  

Members of Save BHA put forward their demands to the City of Berkeley: city replacement of all future HUD funding shortfalls out of the city general fund to properly maintain BHA, timely re-certifications and contract renewals, and a six month notice to tenants of any change in Section 8 vouchers. 

Tia Ingram, acting BHA manager, said BHA had scored 90 points out of 145 in a Section 8 Management Assessment Program (SEMAP) report that had been submitted to HUD on Friday. (SEMAP scores how well the Housing Authority is doing in running the Section 8 program and public housing operations.) BHA’s current score gives it the minimum 60 percent required for a passing grade on the report. 

Lower-income tenants were distressed when they heard from Barton that one-third of the more than 1,800 families in the BHA faced a reduction in Section 8 rent payments to their landlords beginning April 2007. As a result of this reduction, tenants might have to pay more rent or move into cheaper apartments. 

“We haven’t sent out a notice to the tenants or the landlords yet because we will know about HUD’s decision on this by the end of this year,” Barton said. “That gives us plenty of time to let people know. We don’t want people to start reacting from fear as if it’s definitely going to happen. We are trying our best to make sure that it does not happen.” 

Both tenants and city officials agreed to work to implement some changes. These included: 

• Promising that calls to BHA from Section 8 tenants would be acknowledged within 24 hours. (If not then complaints would be accepted at 981-5470.) 

• Publishing a newsletter by tenants containing contact numbers of BHA officials and other relevant information. (This would be separate from the BHA newsletter.) 

• Letting HUD know when BHS has “done it right.” 

• Putting development money towards vouchers. 

• Agreeing that inspections that would be confirmed in writing to tenants. 

It was also decided that tenants would: 

• Attend City Council meetings or BHA board meetings when it was time to vote on important issues. 

• Be prepared to submit correct paperwork for income verification at the right time. 

• Sign up for the BHA board meetings which meet the third Tuesday of each month. 

Jesse Arreguin, commissioner of Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Board, said that Section 8 tenants should continue to work to lobby city officials and federal officials to save the Section 8 program. 

“We need to have an active Section 8 tenant’s movement which will address some of these issues,” he said. “Something like a citizen’s advisory commission which is separate from the ten members who are already on the BHA.” 

 

 

 


Clifton Files Tardy Financial Disclosure

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday August 29, 2006

Peralta Community College District Trustee Alona Clifton moved to diffuse a potentially embarrassing campaign issue this week, filing a year’s worth of delinquent, semi-annual campaign finance disclosure reports with the Alameda County Registrar’s Office only days after a newly-formed citizens group had filed a complaint over the issue with the California Fair Political Practices Commission. 

Gary Bell of Richmond, treasurer of the Alona Clifton For Trustee Committee, said that the failure to file the two reports prior to this week was “my fault. There wasn’t a lot of campaign activity or money being raised, so I just neglected to file them. But once the questions and concerns started coming up, we got right on it.” 

The two-term incumbent Clifton is being challenged in the November election by school bond consultant Abel Guillen. 

In his August 25 letter to the FPPC, Berkeley attorney Myron Moskovitz wrote that the complaint was being filed “because Ms. Clifton might be attempting to conceal the possible receipt of donations from parties with business before the Board of Trustees … During the past year, she has participated in land-use decisions regarding the development of certain District properties. There has been considerable controversy about Ms. Clifton’s relationship with one of the developers who had a proposal before the Board. Peralta Watch would like to know if she received any donations from that developer.” 

The statement was a clear reference to Oakland developer Alan Dones, who won the exclusive right to negotiate a contract for the development of Peralta Administration and Laney properties in November of 2005  

While the contract negotiations were pending, Laney faculty representatives presented a resolution calling on board members to recuse themselves from the vote on the contract if they had a conflict of interest. 

Though Clifton was not named publicly in the statement, faculty and labor representatives said privately that she was the object of concern. Clifton is the president of the non-profit North County Center for Self Sufficiency Corporation (NCCSSC), which was scheduled to have its headquarters located in Dones’ $70 million downtown Oakland Thomas L. Berkeley Square project. 

Clifton consistently denied that she had a conflict of interest in the Dones matter, and was backed in that opinion by both the Peralta General Counsel and the FPPC. 

An August 2005 opinion by the FPPC in response to a query from Clifton concluded “that the facts you provided does not indicate that there is a substantial likelihood that North County Center for Self Sufficiency Corporation will incur any material financial effect as a result of the governmental decision you would like to make. Therefore, [state law] does not require you to disqualify yourself from making the decision in question and we do not further analyze your potential economic interest in NCCSSC.” 

Dones later voluntarily withdrew from the Peralta/Laney development plan contract negotiations after controversy caused Peralta Chancellor Elihu Harris to put the negotiations on hold. 

Clifton’s two campaign donation reports filed this week did not reveal any money from Dones among the $4,470 in campaign contributions during the last six months of 2005 and $6,060 during the first six months of 2006. But they did show contributions from other developers doing business with Peralta. 

Clifton’s campaign received $1,000 from Davillier-Sloan of Oakland, a consultant company under contract with Peralta to assure company compliance with the Project Labor Agreement of the Berkeley City College construction project. 

She received $500 from Carl Hackney, president of the MSE Group that is managing the construction of the Laney College Art Building, and another $500 from the Alley Group & Associaties, a construction management firm that has worked on several contracts with the Peralta district.  

Speaking before the Clifton contribution reports were filed with the registrar’s office, Berkeley resident and former Peralta student trustee Peter Tannenbaum, founder of the Peralta Watch group that filed the FPPC complaint, said that there was “nothing illegal” about trustees getting contributions from developers. “The only impropriety is failure to file the reports,” he said. 

Tannenbaum added that his group was founded “to monitor the activities of the Peralta Community College Board” and to promote “campaign finance reform,” with the first project “specifically to look at the relationship with developers and Peralta.” 

He added that “Peralta Watch is not investigating [Clifton] to determine the nature of her relationship with Dones.” 

Tannenbaum said that he had not looked at any of the Peralta trustee filings himself and did not know if any other trustees had missed filings as well. He said that Clifton’s missing statements were “flagged” by a researcher for the organization. 

Tannenbaum also said that Peralta Watch had no affiliation with the campaign of Abel Guillen, who is running against Clifton. He said the group has no headquarters as yet, and about 10 members from Berkeley and Oakland.


First Human Death from West Nile in Contra Costa County

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday August 29, 2006

An elderly woman died Thursday in central Contra Costa County from West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne disease transmitted to humans and animals through mosquito bites.  

Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds or squirrels. 

“The death is unfortunate,” said Wendel Brunner, director of public health for Contra Costa County. 

There have been three known cases this year in Contra Costa County. To date there have been two deaths in California and 96 human cases reported. The state’s first death this year was reported earlier this month in Butte County. 

There have been no human cases detected in Alameda County, though 10 birds were found with the virus, nine of them in the warmer Tri-Valley area of Livermore, Pleasanton and Dublin. The mosquito carrying the virus has also been detected in the city of Alameda. 

Two years ago, the virus was detected in a dead American Crow in Berkeley, but Berkeley has had no signs of the virus since that time, said Linda Rudolph, Berkeley’s public health officer. 

In Contra Costa 24 sentinel chickens in three flocks located in Martinez, Holland Tract, and Oakley tested positive for the virus. In response, the county sprayed adult mosquitoes from the air last week from Martinez to Pittsburg along the waterfront. Spraying was done by helicopter using pyrenone 25-5, applied at a rate of 0.75 ounces per acre, according to a press statement issued by the Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District. 

“Spraying is less risky than the virus,” Brunner said. 

To date, spraying has not been necessary in Alameda County, said John Rusmisel, director of the Alameda County Mosquito Abatement District. He said the district is able to control the mosquito population by killing or disabling the mosquito larvae in catch basins.  

Aerial spraying in Alameda County would be a last resort, Rusmisel said. If they had to spray, the mosquito district would also use pyrenone 25-5, which Rusmisel said is less toxic to non-targeted organisms than pyrethreum, which is sometimes used, 

The Mosquito Abatement Board, with one representative from each city, “decided if we do use aerial fogging, we will have a community meeting first,” he said, noting this delays the process, but gives people the information they need and allows them to make plans to leave the area for the day if they choose.  

Over the 12 years he’s managed the district, Rusmisel said he’s used less than five gallons of the substance. “One county used over 100 gallons in a three-week period,” he said, declining to name the county. 

The elderly and those with impaired immune systems are at the highest risk of West Nile Virus. “80 percent of those infected don’t have any symptoms at all,” Brunner said.  

People experiencing severe headache, high fever, stiff neck, confusion, tremors, convulsions or muscle weakness should contact their health care provider right away, Susan Farley, public health nurse for Contra Costa County said in a press statement. She said coma and paralysis are other possible symptoms. Symptoms generally appear three to 15 days from a bite of an infected mosquito.  

 

There are a number of things people can do to reduce the mosquito population and lessen the risk of being bitten: 

• Get mosquito-larvae eating fish for ponds (Rusmisel noted there are a lot of backyard fish ponds in Berkeley); 

• Report dead birds or squirrels: 1-877-WNV-BIRD; www.westnile. ca.gov; 

• Drain standing water that can support mosquito breeding; 

• Avoid spending time outside when mosquitoes are most active, especially at dawn and the first two hours after sunset;  

• Apply insect repellent.


Gates Foundation Taps Local Entrepreneur

Tuesday August 29, 2006

Fay Twersky was not looking to leave BTW informing change, the West Berkeley consulting firm she co-founded eight years ago. But in a June meeting with her staff, she surprised them—and, to some extent, herself—with unexpected news: In September she would be packing up and moving to Seattle to join the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

She hadn’t sought the job; she was more than content to stay put, at least for the time being, continuing to lead the company she and her life partner Jill Blair had nurtured since 1998. But when presented with the opportunity to sign on with the world’s largest philanthropic organization, she simply couldn’t say no.  

Blair, Twersky and Paul Wisotzky co-founded BTW with the goal of doing their part to effect social change by providing consultation services for the non-profit and philanthropic sectors.  

“We wanted to have a values-based firm which would blend good data with good planning,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “BTW helps foundations and nonprofits of all sizes on program and initiative evaluation in the areas of community economic development, social enterpreneurship, public health, education, adolescent services, educational media and organizational capacity building.” 

“We work with nonprofits and philanthropic foundations to inform change through a variety of strategies including evaluation, strategic planning [and] applied research,” explained Kim Ammann Howard, BTW’s director of evaluation and organizational learning. 

The company provides a number of services, from helping foundations and nonprofits to craft and articulate their missions, to setting up evaluation processes by which the organizations can get an accurate measurement of their progress, thereby better enabling them to meet their intended goals and ensure that the services they provide are reaching their targeted populations. 

Other companies provide similar services but Twersky and Blair sought to bring another dimension to their work by making it more of a collaborative process. They didn’t want to simply write up a report and hand it to a client only to have it filed away and forgotten; instead, they work with their clients to interpret the data and to develop methods for applying the lessons learned.  

“Fay has been an integral part in shaping our company culture,” said BTW Senior Associate Rayna Caplan. “[M]any of her innovations are now BTW signature products.”  

After spending more than a decade helping others plan for change, the dramatic and sudden personal change sparked by the Gates offer caught Twersky by surprise.  

“I got a phone call from the Gates Foundation saying that they were looking for someone to head up their impact assessment department,” Twersky recounted. “I initially referred them to someone else. But then they expressed an interest in my work and wanted to know more about it … [O]nce I got to know more about their work and their level of commitment, I was really impressed with who they were and what they did. The opportunity became very compelling and I decided that I was ready for a change.” 

Twersky will serve as the foundation’s impact assessment and improvement officer. 

“I will be there to make sure that their grant-making system is working in the best possible way and to put in place a system of measurement,” she said. “It is exciting to think that these strategies will be affecting lives at a global level, which makes them all the more important.” 

A double major in Middle Eastern studies and rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley, Twersky took a year off after graduation in 1981 to visit Israel. Upon her return, she worked for the Red Cross in Richmond. 

“It was then that I realized that I wanted to do something for social change,” she said. 

She then went on to pursue a master’s degree in city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after which she consulted for nonprofits and philanthropic organizations while working for the Center for Applied Local Research in Richmond and later for Harder+Company Community Research in San Francisco. She also co-edited the 1998 book New Social Entrepreneurs: The Success, Challenge and Lessons of Non-Profit Enterprise Creation.  

It was while working for Harder+Company that Wisotzky, Twersky and Blair all came together and set out to create BTW, founding the company on three core principles: intelligence, integrity and compassion.  

Wisotzky retired from consulting in 2002 to devote his time to volunteer work for global HIV/AIDS issues.  

It’s no insult to Twersky when her staff says the company will do fine without her. Indeed, it was her confidence in her employees that allowed her to ultimately decide to take the job with the Gates Foundation. In the June meeting, she praised the BTW staff as the strongest team the company has ever assembled, giving her the confidence to leave the business in their hands. And the staff, in turn, gives all the credit to Twersky. 

“Fay is a true mentor and role model,” said BTW Associate Kris Helé. “She inspires her colleagues with her passion, knowledge, wit and respect for our clients and the important work they are engaged in. Fay is one of the brightest minds in the field … She has certainly left her mark on BTW, and she will be an incredible asset to the Gates Foundation.” 

While Jill Blair will continue her role as principal, working from the couple’s new Seattle home, Ellen Irie has been promoted from vice president to managing partner. Irie too has nothing but praise for Twersky. 

“She is an enduring optimist,” said Irie, “who firmly believes that individuals and organizations, given the right tools and supports, can make positive change.” 

 

Photograph: Fay Twersky and Jill Blair founded BTW informing change in Berkeley in 1998.


In Brazil, Lula’s Supporters Find an End to Absolutes

By Marlene Nadle, New America Media
Tuesday August 29, 2006

RIO DE JANEIRO—In dingy Brazilian offices and outdoor cafes, President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s disappointed supporters are huddling around their moment of truth. People are trying to figure out how to relate to a man and political party that were supposed to represent them but have failed to do so on many levels. Conversations often begin, but do not end, with the question of whether to vote for Lula again in October. 

Marcus Arruda, stuffed between pamphlets and posters in the back room of the Institute for Policy Alternatives, is arriving at a decision different from that of American activists who sit out elections and sulk. 

“Withholding my vote wouldn’t just be punishing Lula. It would be punishing the Brazilian poor,” he begins, unwilling, from the comfort of his middle-class life, to deny those living in the shamble of favelas the marginal ease a Lula victory would bring. 

Even some who had hoped Lula’s election in 2002 would begin a major transformation of society are willing to put their disillusion on hold. Mario Goldman, an anthropologist working with a poor black community in the Northeast, says with slouched resignation, “What we have now is the Americanization of Brazilian politics. It is a choice between small differences.” But, he concedes, “I will chose the small differences.” 

Those small differences could be the envy of liberals and progressives in the rest of the world. The Brazilian legislature passed a law requiring public universities to set a quota of 40 percent for students who are black, Indian or poor. All tuition is free. A new mandate requires the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture even in elementary grades. 

Luiz Magalhaes, an instructor at a Protestant school, waited for the first day of class with wicked glee, imagining some of his evangelical colleagues forced to explain the African gods of the Candomble religion. These gestures of Lula, along with a strong black movement, are forcing Brazil to finally face issues of race and poverty. 

The debate on Lula’s accomplishments and what to do about him has taken to the newsstands. Epoca, a glossy magazine comparable to Time, rates the president on his 20 main promises and gives him a score of 57 percent on promise-keeping. Jazzy graphics show that he created 4 million new jobs instead of 10 million. He settled 235,000 landless families on farmland, not 400,000. He raised the minimum wage only 25 percent, not the 50 percent he pledged. By the end of his term, Lula was expected to provide health care for 85 million people, not his original promise of 120 million. 

The most passionate and legitimate complaint of Lula’s critics on the left is his failure to challenge the economic policy demanded by Washington and foreign investors, leaving few financial resources for human equity. There’s wistful talk of the might-have-beens had Lula used his mandate and the social movements allied with his Workers’ Party to fight for better terms on debt repayment. It was a bit strange for all these grassroots organizers to have put so much faith in a leader. It seemed like a 12-step program with everyone wanting to turn their power over to a higher authority. 

It is only late in conversations around draft beers and salty fried snacks that activists get past the issue of Lula to look at their own responsibility for how little basic change was made. Francisco Whitaker, a wiry founder of the World Social Forum, says loyalty restrained their criticism of the president. There was also co-option through government subsidies and jobs. “The Workers’ Party took much of the leadership of the social movements and that was a disaster for us,” he confesses. “They also tried to involve us in protecting the government by lessening pressure on it. We began to lose the power to control our movement and our way.” 

To find a new direction and decide what to do about Lula’s re-election, Whitaker and 15,000 activists held a Brazilian Social Forum in the late spring. It was a ritual end to the blurred line between the social movements and the government, an untangling of identities. There will be a qualitatively different relationship with a second Lula administration, promised Jaime Amorim, a leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST). This new view sees Lula as neither a brave nor a confrontational man. Instead, he always was a negotiator. They would have to assertively and publicly present their demands to force Lula to negotiate issues with them. 

It was fitting that Amorim was the one to talk about taking a more rambunctious approach. After being quiescent during the first year of the administration, MST was the first to break from the role of cheerleader for Lula. It began pressing him for change by occupying farmland. The black movement also recognized that a good president caught up in the logic of elections needs organizers to push him further than he wants to go. In 2005, they ignored Lula’s pleas to stay home and brought 20,000 demonstrators to the capital. The march was ostensibly to celebrate a black hero, but the display of defiant, independent politics led to the passage of the quota bill. 

For most of the other people at the forum and in the months that followed, it was catch-up time, a belated move away from their oxymoronic position as passive activists. Instead of waiting for Lula to clean up government corruption, 200 groups created the Citizens Network for Political Reform to push for public financing of elections and a reduction of the 20,000 patronage jobs the president controls. Instead of hoping he would change his economic policy, labor leaders began to develop an alternative economic plan to be presented to whoever wins the election. 

In the excitement of trying to reshape the future, however, these activists never forgot the immediate question of Lula’s re-election. By the time of the forum plenary and in the months of the campaign, the consensus of the discontented was that the re-election of Lula was the best option.  

It was more than the lesser of two evils. It was about consciously deromanticizing both politicians and elections. They no longer see a leader like Lula as a savior, but as just one part of the effort to alter society. The election is only a starting point, the thing that opens more hospitable political space in which independent activists can do the essential work. 

Today, the Brazilian movement is becoming too sophisticated to choose between electing a perfect president or working only in protest vehicles. It is putting an end to simple absolutes and offering a new model of change to the disillusioned around the world. 

 

 

Marlene Nadle is a foreign affairs journalist and an associate of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.


Contra Costa County Candidates Nights

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday August 29, 2006

The following is a list of upcoming meetings with candidates for various public offices in Contra Costa County. 

 

August 29 

El Cerrito Democratic Club 

Members will listen to and question candidates for the El Cerrito City Council, Kensington Police Protection and Community Services Board, and the East Bay Regional Parks Board, then decide whether to endorse any among them. 

 

 

NorthMinster Presbyterian Church Sanctuary, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. 7 p.m. 

 

Sept. 13 

Marina Bay Neighborhood Council 

Harbor Master’s Building, 1340 Marina Way South. 7:15 p.m. 

 

Sept. 27 and Oct. 29 

Point Richmond Neighborhood Council 

Point Richmond Community Center.  

8 p.m.


Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Tuesday August 29, 2006

Larceny 

On Aug. 23, just after midnight, a group of four males beat up a Larkspur man. The perpetrators took his watch and wallet. The suspects have not been identified. 

 

Sex with a minor 

At 3 a.m. on Aug. 21, police squad cars making rounds in Aquatic Park discovered a minor and an adult having sex in a car. 

 

Assault with a deadly paintball 

On Aug. 20, at 12:42 p.m., a 56-year-old Berkeley woman was walking down the 1800 block of University Avenue when a dark car, heading westbound, shot a paintball gun at her. The suspects have not been identified, and the victim is reported to be in good condition. 

 

Red car on fire 

The Berkeley Fire Department reported that a red car was set on fire at 1287 University Ave. across from the Shell gas station after midnight on Aug. 20. No suspects have been identified. 

 

Sexual assault reported 

A woman called in at 5 a.m. on Aug. 19 to report that she had been sexually assaulted by a male acquaintance two hours prior, reported Ed Galvan, Berkeley police spokesperson. 

 

Another paintball conflict 

A Berkeley male in a Blazer or an Explorer was driving eastbound on University Avenue at California Street just after 4 p.m. on Aug. 16 when he shot a paintball at a Berkeley resident. The next day the victim came to the police station to file a report. 

 

Attempted kidnapping 

Almost near midnight on Aug. 14, a grandmother called in to report that her grandchild’s father threatened to kidnap the child, of whom he did not have custody. The father did not follow through on his threat. 

 

Knife threat 

A homeless man reportedly threatened another man with a piece of pipe and a knife at around 4:50 p.m. on Aug. 11. Nobody was hurt and the suspect has not been identified.


Angelides Woos Berkeley In Backyard Pow-Wow

By Judith Scherr
Friday August 25, 2006

The 80 or so people that packed a sunny south Berkeley backyard Thursday morning didn’t seem to need convincing that Phil Angelides, 53, would be their pick for governor on Nov. 7. 

Angelides spoke after accolades by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Rep. Barbara Lee, (D-Oakland-Berkeley), Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton and now Berkeley resident and professor at UC Berkeley, and Mark Coplan, Berkeley schools spokesperson but here acting as a private citizen, in whose backyard the event took place. 

The Democratic candidate drew rounds of applause as he linked the Terminator, still popular in some parts of the state, to the president, whose popularity continues to sink according to polls. 

“Bush and Schwarzenegger have the same agenda—some refer to it as the B.S. agenda,” quipped Angelides. 

Presently state treasurer, Angelides said that, like Bush, Schwarzenegger wants to grow the economy for the wealthy. 

“The economy is good for only some,” he said pointing to the oil companies, which he says are profiting at $350 million each day. 

Angelides would plug up the corporate loopholes for corporations such as oil companies and HMOs and, while cutting taxes on those earning less than $100,000, raise taxes on the very wealthy. 

He would also tax the oil companies on oil they extract in California. “We are the only jurisdiction in the world that does not tax for taking oil out of the ground,” Angelides said. “Our economy is being devastated over the long-term by the pernicious drain on our wealth.” 

The new money would go to schools, universities and public libraries, he said, noting that under Schwarzenegger a state university degree costs $2,000 more and a University of California degree costs $5,000 more than it did under the previous governor. 

On the question of support for the war in Iraq, Angelides was clear: “I oppose the war. I have never been for it.”


Maio Faces Mitchell In District 1 Race

By Judith Scherr
Friday August 25, 2006

Fourteen-year District 1 Councilmember Linda Maio might have thought she’d breeze through the fall election without a challenge: She’s off on vacation without having put a penny into a campaign account. 

But political gadfly Merrilie Mitchell—the same activist who slipped Shirley Dean’s name into the pre-election fray by taking out preliminary candidacy papers for the ex-mayor without informing her of it—tossed her name into the District 1 mix just a week before the nomination period was to close. 

District 1 is roughly west of Grant Street to the Bay and North of University Avenue to Albany. 

“Linda used to be my role model and friend,” Mitchell said in a phone interview, adding that was in the 1980s when Maio chaired the Council of Neighborhood Associations. 

“When trees were cut wrong in the flatlands, Linda helped,” Mitchell said, underscoring Maio’s community work before she got on the council.  

But then Mitchell said Maio joined forces with those who want to overdevelop the city. Most recently, Mitchell said, Maio voted for a measure that permits parking in side yards, something Mitchell opposes. “It would remove the greenery. It’s outrageous,” Mitchell said. 

With Maio out of town and unavailable for an interview, her aide Brad Smith stepped in to defend the councilmember’s work in the community.  

“Linda sees herself as a neighborhood person,” he said, pointing to her role mediating between dog park users and residents living next to the Hearst Avenue park. 

Maio “worked with staff, the community and dog park users to make up a set of rules that accommodated all,” he said. “It was a long process.” 

Smith offered another example of Maio’s work with the community. The neighborhood wanted to develop a walkway/bikeway on the former Santa Fe right-of-way between Delaware Street and University Avenue. But some neighbors wanted to be sure there was a gate that could be locked in the evening so that drug dealers would not hang out in the passage way. Maio worked with neighbors to get the gate approved, he said. 

Local activist and Berkeley newcomer Willi Paul had threatened several months ago to run for the District 1 seat because of what he said was Maio’s lack of action around putting an end to the noxious emissions produced by West Berkeley foundry Pacific Steel Castings (PSC). He has since decided not to run in order to devote more of his time to his business. But he continues to have strong criticisms of Maio. 

“Maio is a non-leader, causing others to step up,” said Paul, who founded the Clean Air Coalition to fight aggressively against PSC. “She was sitting on the fence.” 

Smith argued, however, that Maio has worked for a solution to the odors emitted by PSC. Some people, however, wanted to get rid of the plant altogether. “She’s rejected that position,” he said. 

Paul said Maio is a council ally of Mayor Tom Bates, whom he accused of trying to develop Berkeley into a “megalopolis.”  

But Smith argued that Maio subscribes to development along transit corridors, which is consistent with the General Plan. “Building along transit corridors is protecting the neighborhoods,” Smith said. 

In her campaign statement, Mitchell calls herself a “whistle-blower” and “do-gooder.” Speaking to her strengths, she said: “I tend to see details and put them together. If something is wrong, I’ll go to bat for the people.”


Book Alleges Mob Ties to Jerry Brown

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 25, 2006

A book scheduled to be released next month revives decades-old charges that California attorney general candidate and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown had close ties with individuals related to organized crime during Brown’s tenure in the 1970s as governor of California. 

Written by respected investigative journalist Gus Russo and published by the American division of British publishers Bloomsbury, the book, Supermob—How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers, charges in part that during the 1970s, Brown took campaign contributions from mob figures and, in return, granted them political favors. 

Russo has written several books on organized crime, including The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America, Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, and Gangsters and Goodfellas: The Mob, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run.  

It is unclear what effect the release of the book will have on the November state attorney general’s race, where Brown has a comfortable lead both in the polls and in fund-raising over Republican challenger state Senator Chuck Poochigian. It does not appear that Bloomsbury is attempting to capitalize on the Brown allegations to sell the book; mention of Brown does not appear anywhere in the publisher’s publicity releases. 

Ace Smith, a campaign consultant for the Brown campaign, called the allegations “wacky and nutty” and “laughably idiotic.” When the Daily Planet offered to fax the Brown campaign copies of the passages from Russo’s book that make reference to Brown, Smith said, “I don’t need to see any passages from the book to make a comment. This is like talking about Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. These allegations have about as much credibility as Al Capone’s vault.” 

Kevin Spillane, a representative of the Poochigian campaign, had not heard of Russo’s book until called by the Daily Planet for comment. Spillane said that the Poochigian campaign “is declining comment at this time, until we’ve had time to take a look at the allegations and do our own independent research.” 

In his upcoming book, Russo repeats  

allegations that Brown ran for governor in 1974 with the help of several figures with alleged organized crime ties, including the powerful Hollywood attorney Sidney Korshak, whom the Bloomsbury book describes as “the underworld’s primary link to the corporate upperworld” and “according to the FBI, [the] player behind countless 20th century power mergers, political deals, and organized crime chicaneries.” 

Korshak, who died in 1996 and is described by Russo as a “pal” of Brown’s father, Governor Pat Brown, has a thick online file on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s website that alleges extensive ties to organized crime. Russo writes that a 1978 report on California’s Organized Crime Control Commission issued by then-California Attorney General Evelle Younger called Korshak “the key link between organized crime and big business … A U.S. Justice Department official has described Korshak as a ‘senior advisor’ to organized crime groups” in several states, including California. 

“When Brown enlisted electronics mogul Richard Silberman … as his chief fund-raiser [for the 1974 campaign],” Russo writes in Supermob, “it quickly became apparent that the same Chicago money that had transformed California in the forties would continue to play a key role in the seventies. (Silberman would be convicted in a 1991 FBI drug-ring money-laundering scheme.) Thus, with a brilliant media campaign, massive contributions from the likes of Lew Wasserman, Jake ‘the Barber’ Factor, and later Sidney Korshak, Brown defeated [Republican State Controller Houston] Flournoy by 175,000 votes.”  

In return, Russo alleges in his book that Brown gave favors back to alleged mob figures, including appointing the brother-in-law of Teamsters union leader and Korshak associate Edward Hanley as one of the directors of the California Agricultural Association, which Russo says “named the concessionaires at all the state’s racetracks and county fairs.” 

Russo alleges that profits from these concessions were later “skimmed” off and sent to reported mob figures. In addition, Russo alleges that Brown once tried to close down the Hollywood Park racetrack as a favor to Korshak, who Russo says “was … trying to pave the way for an organized crime takeover of the facility.” 

The racetrack allegations were so widely reported in California at the time that they later became the subject of a series of Doonesbury cartoons by Gary Trudeau. In one Doonesbury strip reprinted in Supermob, Trudeau depicts a reporter talking on the telephone to a Brown associate only named “Gray,” a reference to then-Jerry Brown Chief of Staff Gray Davis. “Let me get this straight, Gray—who exactly did Jerry solicit the contribution from?” the reporter asks. “A guy named Sidney Korshak,” ‘Gray’ answers. “He’s the local low-life, an alumnus from the Capone mob.” 

Brown was quoted in Time Magazine in July of 1979 that he thought the Doonesbury cartoons were “false and libelous, but I’m flattered by the attention.” 

When Gray Davis ran for governor in 1998, the San Francisco Chronicle made reference to the old allegations, with political reporter Robert Gunnison writing that “Brown … appointed [Davis] to the California Horse Racing Board in 1979. It was a particularly volatile time for the panel. Critics said he was appointed to help Service Employees International Union clerks during a strike at Golden Gate Fields. The union’s lawyer, Sidney Korshak, was alleged by the state attorney general to be an organized crime figure.” 

In his upcoming book, Russo alleges that Korshak’s influence on California governors was not limited to Brown and his father, but also included Ronald Reagan. Russo also alleges that Korshak sought to help Brown achieve higher office past the California governship, writing that “Korshak’s Service Employees Union … dispatched workers and cars” to New Hamphsire in 1979 “to assist Brown’s effort” in the primary against Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. 

Some of Russo’s information concerning the allegations of the Brown-organized crime connection came from the Berkeley Daily Planet reporter Richard Brenneman, who wrote news articles on the issue in the 1970s while a reporter with the Santa Monica Evening Outlook. Brenneman is listed in the book as a source.


School Board Gets Back to Work After Summer Recess

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 25, 2006

The Berkeley school board met Wednesday for the first time after summer vacation. Mateo Aceves took the oath of office as the new student school board director for the coming school year. 

 

Warm water pool 

Advocates of the warm water pool urged the board to work with the city manager’s office to build a new pool for the city. 

The City Council has authorized the city manager’s office to look at developing a project for the relocation of the warm pool to the Milvia Tennis Court site, which belongs to the school district. Superintendent Michele Lawrence said that she has given the city an outline of the steps the district must take before it can consider handing over the property to the city. 

Anne Marks, a user of the warm water pool in Berkeley, told the board that community members as well as users of the pool were ready to be part of the solution in order to prevent the pool from being demolished in the next two years. Tom Ross, a disabled advocate and user of the warm pool, read aloud a poem he had composed on the warm pool. 

Mark Hendrix told the board that he was concerned about rumors that said that the community might end up without a warm pool and requested the board to look into the financial issues involved. 

Terry Doran, board president, reminded the public about the school board’s vote for the improvement of the Berkeley High South Campus, which included half of the land on which the warm pool exists. 

“We want to build a stadium on the property and not touch any of the buildings, which includes the building that houses the warm pool,” he said. “But this is a three-step program and it will take time. We are currently in the second step where we need to hire an architect, get a budget and do all kinds of planning. However, there are other issues to this—such as the safety issues of the building which houses the warm pool and how stable it is— which need to be considered.” 

Doran added that although he would be stepping down from the board in November he would remain committed on working with the community on solving the warm water pool issue. 

 

Student issues 

Francisco Martinez, manager of enrollment and attendance, read aloud from a student assignment report and discussed with the board such issues as student assignment, residency requirements and permits. 

Recently there has been a lot of talk about students who are illegally registering as Berkeley residents to get into Berkeley Schools. 

“Berkeley schools are viewed by East Bay parents as one of the last opportunities for their children to succeed and so it’s understood why they want to send their children there,” said school board member Shirley Issel. “But it is not possible to give a child a successful education if it is based on lies. Registering your child illegally breaks the chain of trust among the parents, the child and the school itself. I urge everyone to be honest and to go through a legitimate process.” 

The school district has stepped up efforts to verify proof of Berkeley residency. Currently, the parent or guardian must submit three documents showing residency in the city out of the following four options: 

• a California Driver’s License or ID; 

• a current bank statement; 

• an action letter from Social Services, a letter from the State Office for Medi-Cal, a letter from the employer on company letter head or a paycheck stub; 

• a PG&E bill, phone bill (non-cellular), EBMUD bill, garbage bill or cable bill. 

Martinez informed the board that lease agreements were not accepted as proof as they are easily forged. He also added that asking for additional forms of proof proved to be cumbersome for a lot of parents in this electronic age since most made bill payments online which did not leave a paper trail. 

A district employee will look into whether students reside at the addresses where they are listed during the year. Superintendent Michele Lawrence said that while the school district did not want to be an INS-sort of system, it was important to maintain a balanced check on the students. 

“We do not respond to anonymous calls because we don’t want families to snitch on one another,” she said. “Only if the caller leaves her name with us do we follow up the case.” 

School board member Joaquin Rivera said that main problem was whether there was any kind of overdue strain on the system as a result of the illegal students. BUSD currently has around 400 approved inter-district students, of which a third go to Berkeley High School. District officials said there was no way of gauging how many students were attending city schools illegally. 

 

Other matters 

Barry Fike, president of Berkeley Federation of Teachers, urged the board to better regulate how teachers are paid. 

“Restoring the Reserve Fund in order to use any further new money for compensation of teachers would put to rest the suspicion that it was being used for discretionary funding purposes instead of teacher compensation,” he said. 

The board also passed a motion to authorize Board President Doran to sign ballot arguments for Measure A. Measure A involves the renewal of two existing special taxes in the November elections that fund a large number of Berkeley teachers as well as other school activities.


Incoming Freshman Take First Look at BHS

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 25, 2006

Photo I.D.s, brand-new textbooks and lots of good advice marked Tuesday’s freshman orientation at Berkeley High for the Class of 2010. 

The air was thick with anticipation as the students trooped into the community theater, some excited, others nervous. 

“I have been here for only 30 minutes but I can already vouch for the fact that it’s going to be a great school year,” said Alex Niemeyer, 14, incoming freshman. “I am really looking forward to joining the rugby team.”  

Thaxter Ransom, who was entering Berkeley High from Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, listened as Dean of Students Alejandro Ramos informed students about the school’s cell phone policy. 

“Students can use cell phones before and after school and during their break,” Ramos told them. “If we find students talking on their phones during class hours then their cell phones will be taken away.” 

Cell phone use in Berkeley schools had been the topic of an earlier debate at the Berkeley school board, according to BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan. A lot of parents feel students should be allowed to use cell phones during school hours. 

Ramos also advised students not to use iPods on the school premises since it was possible to lose them.  

Long registration lines were a thing of the past at this year’s freshman orientation, thanks to the student volunteers who helped the incoming students register quickly.  

Ivory McKnight, director of student activities, said this has been one of the smoothest registrations she has seen in years. 

“We have had more volunteers than ever before,” she said. “The kids have been just great.” 

Besides registering, students also had their freshman pictures taken and received their schedules, new textbooks, I.D.s, badges and organizers. 

“We used to do this on the first day of school,” said district spokesman Mark Coplan. “But after Principal Jim Slemp took over he did not want students to waste three precious hours on the first day itself. So we get done with all this on orientation day, which works out just fine.” 

The freshmen were also taken on a tour of the classrooms, food court, football field, gym, library and other sections of the campus. 

“We got to know all the different letters of the buildings,” said Rachel Cherwick. “Our seniors pointed out all the good bathrooms to us.” 

Cherwich, who comes to Berkeley High from Prospect Sierra middle school in El Cerrito, said she is excited about attending a public school. “I wanted a change from my private school. Berkeley High is one of the top public schools in the country and I am glad I came here.” 

Rachel Chazin-Gray, who had also attended Prospect Sierra with her, echoed her thoughts. “I wanted to be part of something bigger. I am excited that I have, like, 800 classmates. It was awesome meeting them all today. I can’t wait to start school on August 30,” she said. 

Caprice Haverty, mother of an incoming Berkeley High freshman, said she was proud to be a Berkeley High parent. 

“She’s my first child in the Berkeley public school system and I think it’s a wonderful opportunity,” Haverty said. “She will get to learn new social skills and navigate the different complex systems. I feel that this is part of the education that she was missing out on in a private school ... We want to be part of the system and participate in it. The BUSD Is like a city within a city and we want to support it, not break it down.” 

Mateo Aceves, Berkeley High’s new student school board director, encouraged the freshmen to take part in student activities. 

“I love Berkeley High,” he said. “What is so great about being in a public school is that if you want to do something, be it debating, dramatics or even student government, it’s all there for you. Students should make the most of the great jazz club we have here and take advantage of our excellent arts and sports facilities. If you sit back and let Berkeley High happen to you then you are going to miss out on a lot. It’s important to seize the moment.” 

Mateo, a senior, also talked about some of the issues he wanted to take up as the student representative on the school board. “I want to discuss campus security, student accessibility and freedom of mobility.” 

Currently the policy at Berkeley High requires students to be either in the classroom or in the library, a counselor’s office or a specific area when not in class. Students are not allowed to hang around in public areas when they have no classes. 

Mateo said he also wants more gates to remain open during school hours. 

“Right now only the front gate on Allston and Milvia remains open after school starts in the morning,” he said. “More gates staying open would help in better mobility and allow students to enter from other directions as well.” 

 

Vincent Malmrose poses for his freshman class picture in the Berkeley High gym on Tuesday afternoon. Photo by Riya Bhattacharjee.


Berkeley City College Opens, Ready or Not

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 25, 2006

With hallways and classrooms still filled with construction tools and rubble and workers only taking a short break to make way for brief speeches and a hurried open house public tour, the Peralta Community College District cut the ribbon this week on the new $65 million downtown Berkeley City College campus a day before fall semester classes were scheduled to begin. 

“It’s been a long gestation process, burdened with broken promises, polemics and an awful lot of politics,” Peralta Trustee Cy Gulassa told a crowd of some 250 gatherers on a narrowed portion of Center Street blocked off for the continuing construction. “But at long last, thanks to the midwifery of a team of visionary leaders, Peralta has finally delivered.” 

Gulassa called the new college “one big beautiful baby, 65,000 square feet from head to toe and weighing thousands of tons, … ready to shout ‘I’m here!’ to the community and its big Berkeley sister just down the street.” 

With workers in hard hats listening as they lounged on nearby cranes, eating an early lunch, trustee Nicky Gonzalez Yuen paid tribute to “the men and women of the building trades field who put hand to stone, laid the tile, and poured the foundation. Keep those folks in mind as well as the dignitaries.” 

City College President Judy Walters, who recently received her doctorate and quipped that she can “now be called Dr. Judy,” said the opening “represents over 30 years of hopes, aspirations, obstacles, and dreams. The cutting of the ribbon symbolically releases all those energies.” 

Berkeley City Councilmember Daryl Moore, who served as a Peralta trustee during the time the Berkeley City College construction was being planned, said in an interview following the ceremonies that the opening was “an exciting event that was a long time coming. It’s too bad we had to fight that long. But we certainly feel vindicated.” 

Dale Bartlett, a former aid to Berkeley City Councilmember Maudelle Shirek and now a Peralta consultant, said the building was a tribute to Shirek, who he said was “really the spirit and force behind the school.” 

Bartlett said it was “too chaotic” to bring the elderly Shirek to the opening, but promised she would appear sometime at the end of the year for the planned grand opening for the new City College facilities and the naming of the auditorium in her honor. 

The genesis for the new building came several years ago when several Berkeley leaders, including Shirek and now-Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, threatened to split the college—then named Vista—away from the Peralta District because of allegations that Peralta was not funneling a fair share of resources into the college. A citizen lawsuit was filed containing the same allegations, and settlement negotiations between the plaintiffs and the district eventually led to the promise to build the new Berkeley campus. 

Bates told gatherers at the opening ceremony that he “took pleasure in sitting across the street in his office, watching the college rise beam by beam, day by day.” 

But despite the enthusiastic words at the opening, much work is left to be done at the college, with Walters telling the crowd that “we are not occupying all of the areas [of the college] at this time.” 

In the ground floor reception area, concrete dust still covered the unfinished floor, a wooden barrier with a notation “Stair Closed” blocked one stairway to the lower floor, and standing at the bottom of the central atrium, silver-wrapped heating ducts were clearly visible through the open ceilings of the floors above. Several shelves in the library were still empty of books, and in one computer laboratory, only half of the tables had been put up, with no computers in sight. Stepladders, extension cords, unattached molding, and boxes of construction equipment were strewn everywhere. 

In a side hallway off the reception area, a series of work tables with signs indicating “Financial Aid,” “Admissions & Records,” “Drop-In Counseling,” and “Assessment & Orientation,” were busy with students trying to sign up for the new semester. 

Computer instructor Carolyn Jarvis dropped in to survey the room, saying that she had a class scheduled there for 9 a.m the next morning. “I’m going to give a lecture,” Jarvis said. “Obviously, we won’t be able to use the computers.” 

Peralta Chief Financial Officer Tom Smith wandered in, and to a remark that the premises “seemed unfinished” replied that “you should have seen it last week. They’ve made amazing progress in a short time.” 

Even as visitors toured the computer lab, workers filed in behind them, picking up their tools and getting back to their work of assembling the desks and tables. 

Some people were upbeat and optimistic. Dolores Harshaw, a student worker, said that “I think [the new college facilities are] great,” adding that even with the disruption, the new college was a decided improvement “from where we were” in the old and crowded Vista College rented facilities a block away. 

Still, Harshaw conceded that “we haven’t been able to get into our offices, yet. I don’t even know if we’re going to be able to do it tomorrow,” the first day of class. 

In the bathroom, some teachers were decidedly more disgruntled, grumbling among themselves about the unfinished state of affairs, saying, “Judy’s [Walters] dreaming if she thinks this will be ready.” 

Flushing the urinal, one of the teachers remarked, “Anyway, at least one thing works.” 


Equity and Inclusion Chancellor Post Created for UC

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 25, 2006

At the UC Berkeley back-to-school media briefing on Wednesday, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau made the announcement of a new position in the UC system—vice chancellor for equity and inclusion—deemed to be one of the first such cabinet level positions in the country. 

Chancellor Birgeneau said that the new post would “enhance significantly” his administrative goal. He added that unlike high-level equity advisers at other colleges and universities who often have no staff or authority, Berkeley’s new vice chancellor would have minorities, people with disabilities and the LGBT community as “tools to enhance access, climate, and inclusion.” 

“We need to prize our diversity and learn from it and to appreciate people for being part of the whole but also for what they as individuals bring to Berkeley.” Birgeneau said. 

The chancellor is currently in the process of putting together a committee to begin a national search for the vice-chancellor position after Labor Day. No candidates have been short-listed so far, according to Janet Gilmore, UC Media Relations. 

The chancellor also announced a consortium, led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), that will respond to the U.S. Department of Energy’s call for bio-energy proposals. 

According to Lynn Arris, spokeperson for LBNL, the project is called the Joint Bio-Energy Initiative (JBEI).  

“The Joint BioEnergy Institute is a proposal in response to the U.S. Department of Energy’s announcement that it will provide $250 million in funding for two new Bioenergy Research Centers,” he said. “The goals of JBEI are two-fold. First is to develop the science and technology needed to convert cellulose into fuels, especially ethanol for transportation; the second goal is to explore and develop other means of producing biofuels. The lead institute for JBEI is Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Other partners will include UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and UC Davis, Stanford University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory.” 

The JBEI proposal is led by Jay Keasling, director of Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division, and a professor of chemical engineering with UC Berkeley’s Chemical Engineering Department. Keasling is regarded as a pioneer and one of the world’s leading authorities in the field of synthetic biology.  

Chancellor Birgeneau also announced that the campus had raised just under $348 million in gifts and pledges in the past year. It is “by far the largest amount ever raised at Berkeley” and “at or very near the top” among public universities (excluding medical-school contributions), he said. He described this accomplishment as “frankly extraordinary.”  

The chancellor, however, added a caveat with respect to the increasing burden that financially disadvantaged students have to bear, which is usually more than $30,000, supplied through work and loans by the time they earn their bachelor’s degree. 

He said that he was hoping that the state would come up with a new financial-aid program that looks at a mix of private and public funds and added that he was holding discussions about this with interested parties in Sacramento. 

The chancellor also talked about a “slow but sure” rise in under-represented minorities in the incoming class of 2010; he explained that over the past several years the percentage of under-represented minorities had been “creeping up” from 12 to 16 percent in incoming classes.


Democratic Clubs Debate Over a Place for Greens

By Judith Scherr
Friday August 25, 2006

While the Democratic Party tent might be big enough for hawks such as Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton and radicals like Cynthia McKinney and Maxine Waters, there’s no room for people of other political stripes, most notably Green Party members. 

Locally, most Democratic clubs refuse to endorse non-Democrats. (One exception is the Cal Berkeley Democrats who endorse Greens in non-partisan races, according to club president Suzanne Reucker.) 

Most local clubs welcome Green contenders to their candidates’ events but will not endorse them.  

“State Party bylaws say you can only endorse Democrats,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, president of the East Bay Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Democratic Club. 

“There have been no heated debates over the issue” in the LGBT club, Worthington said. 

One Oakland-Berkeley-based club, however, may challenge party rules. The Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club has invited to its Sept. 7 endorsement meeting. Oakland District 2 incumbent Pat Kernigan, a Democrat, and challenger Aimee Allison, a Green. 

In keeping with the club’s tradition of hearing from Democrats and non-Democrats, both candidates will address club members. Then, according to Jack Kurzweil, one of the club’s seven co-coordinators, the members could opt to endorse one or the other candidate. Kurzweil believes that many will wish to endorse Allison, though others—even supporters—will not. He predicts that a debate will ensue over whether or not to challenge the party rules and endorse a Green. 

If the club were to endorse the Green candidate, Kurzweil says that among the Wellstone members, “there are many political judgments as to the possible consequences,” including revocation of the club charter. 

And some people believe this is not the right fight to pick with the Democratic Party, Kurzweil said. The decision will be made collectively: “We are a ‘small d’ democratic club,” he noted. 

While most of the Democratic Clubs endorse strictly Democrats, individuals are free to endorse whomever they choose, according to Jack Lucero Fleck, newsletter editor for the John George Democratic Club. In fact, attorney Walter Riley, who co-chairs the John George club, has been devoting much time and energy in recent months to campaigning for Allison. 

Similarly, LGBT Democratic Club president Worthington is endorsing Green Party stalwart Councilmember Dona Spring, his most consistent City Council ally; he has also endorsed Allison in the Oakland race. 

While they don’t endorse non-Democrats, many clubs, such as the affiliated clubs that put on candidates’ events together—John George, the LGBT club, the Niagara Democratic Movement, and others—invite candidates from other parties in the non-partisan races to speak. Whether to do so is a question debated among East Bay Young Democrat members, said Edie Irons, president of the club that serves people mostly in their 20s and 30s. 

“We’re still figuring out how to get an accurate picture of the races,” Irons said. 

Allison said she appreciates being asked to appear at Democratic club endorsement meetings. “The high murder rate among young people, the lack of affordable housing—these are bread and butter issues that transcend party issues,” she said.  

Allison is supported by traditional Greens such as Spring and former Oakland Councilmember Wilson Riles. But she also points to her support among Democrats such as Board of Supervisors President Keith Carson and Berkeley Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, as well as organizations that traditionally endorse Democrats such as the Alameda Council Central Labor Committee and the Sierra Club. 

Spring criticized the Democratic Party endorsement rules: “It’s absurd for clubs to have a rule (to endorse Democrats only) for the non-partisan races,” she said. “All these Democratic Clubs are shut to me. What really counts is someone’s politics, not their political affiliation.” 

Spring noted, on the other hand, that the Green Party endorsed Democrat Ron Dellums for mayor of Oakland and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland-Berkeley, for Congress. “The party affiliation is not as important as the candidate’s record,” she said. 

A member of the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, Maggie Gee, defended the rule that clubs endorse Democrats only. If the Democrats started endorsing people from other parties “we’d be all over the map,” she said. “If there are good Green candidates, we’d like them to become Democrats.”


Upcoming Political Candidate Events

Friday August 25, 2006

August 26  

Black Women Organized for Political Action, East Bay Lesbian/Gay/ Bisexual/Transgender Democratic Club, John George Democratic Club, Niagara Democratic Movement, Oakland East Bay Democratic Club 

Interviews with candidates. 

10 a.m., Prescott Joseph Center, 920 Peralta, Oakland. 510-436-7682 

 

August 31 

Berkeley Democratic Club 

Endorsement meeting for mayor, city council, EBMUD and school board 

7:30 p.m., Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 510-843-3219 

 

August 31  

Berkeley Chamber of Commerce 

Meet the Candidates: Council districts 1, 4, 7, 8 

Members $15 with RSVP; nonmembers $30 with RSVP; $40 at door 

8 a.m., Skates on the Bay, 100 Seawall Dr. 510-549-7000 

 

September 7  

Wellstone Club  

Discussion and vote on candidates and propositions not yet endorsed: 

• Berkeley: Council Dist. 8, auditor, rent board, mayor 

• EBMUD and Regional Parks boards 

• Oakland: Council Dist. 2 (discussion of endorsing a non-Democrat); Peralta Dist. 7 

6 p.m. potluck; 6:45 meeting. Humanist Hall, 390 27th St. 510-548-7645 

 

September 11 

East Bay Young Democratic Club 

Interview: Berkeley City Council District 7 and 8, Peralta  

7-9 p.m. Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline Ave. 510-334-1344 

 

September 17 

Berkeley Progressive Coalition Convention 

Debating and endorsing local candidates and measures and some state propositions. 

2 p.m. Washington School Auditorium, 2300 Martin Luther King Jr. Way; enter McKinley. 510-540-1975 

 

September 18 

East Bay for Democracy Candidate Night  

Interviews and endorsements for the following: Oakland auditor, Berkeley Mayor, Peralta Trustee Dist. 7, Berkeley City Council Dist. 7 and Albany City Council. 

6:30 p.m., pizza; 7 p.m., program. Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. 

 

September 24 

Berkeley Citizen’s Action 

Endorsement meeting 

3 p.m. North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 510-549-1208 

 

September 28 

Berkeley Chamber of Commerce 

Meet the Candidates – mayor’s race 

Members $15 with RSVP; nonmembers $30 with RSVP; $40 at door 

8 a.m. Skates on the Bay: 100 Seawall Dr. 

510-549-7000 

 

October 19 

Le Conte Neighborhood Association 

Candidates Night  

7:30 pm. Le Conte School, 2221 Russell St.


Column: Undercurrents: ‘Sydewayz’ Video Celebrates Sideshow Culture

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 25, 2006

By the time I finally learned how to pronounce Oakland documentary filmmaker Yakpazua Zazaboi’s name without stumbling over it, he had dropped out of sight and I lost contact with him for a couple of years. Yap, as he’s called on the streets, was the premier videographer of Oakland’s Sideshow Movement in the years between 1999 and 2004, recording hours of footage at the immense after hours gatherings at the Pac ‘N Save parking lot on Hegenberger and then, when the police chased the events into the neighborhoods, following them into the heart of the neighborhoods of Deep East Oakland.  

The Oakland sideshows gave birth to an entire video genre. Yap’s 2001 Sydewayz Volume I documentary was far and above the best of the group, an effort to both celebrate and explain rather than to sensationalize. The film captured the reality of the gatherings so well that once Oakland police played excerpts at a public meeting at Eastmont Mall set up by Oakland Councilmember Larry Reid to try to build public support for the first of a series of police and political crackdowns on the events. Yap didn’t so much mind the use of his footage without his permission as he did the fact that the police had shown only the provocative parts with drivers doing donouts in the middle of the street, while leaving out the portions that showed incidents of police misconduct, or the interviews of participants telling why they were out there. When Zazaboi objected to this slanted editing, he was hustled out of the meeting by police officers. 

That wasn’t the only time he met resistance from Oakland authorities for his efforts. At another meeting on the sideshows at Frick Middle School, Councilmember Reid publicly accused him of using his videotaping activities as a cover for drug dealing. Though Yap readily admits that he had once briefly slung dope while growing up in San Francisco—like many other young African-American men of this era—he had been out of the game for years, long ago giving up dealing crack for developing creative arts. For a while after the release of Sidewayz Volume I, however, he was forced to leave town to keep the heat off of him from the Oakland police. 

In this, Yap’s experiences were reminiscent of another Oakland journalist and creative artist a hundred years before, who made a living as a young man stealing oysters from the rich, privately owned beds up and down the bay, and was once arrested for making a speech endorsing socialism in the square in front of Oakland City Hall. That young Oaklander later went on to some fame as the novelist, Jack London, for which we named both a square and the tree in City Hall Plaza in front of which he was arrested. 

Like London, Zazaboi is both provocative, doggedly persistent, and a perfectionist. Despite the fact that Sydewayz Volume I was universally praised as a first effort and was good enough to win a Black Filmmakers Hall Of Fame award for community film, it wasn’t good enough for Yap himself. Around 2003 he began slowing down his shooting of raw footage, telling friends and supporters that he was spending time paring down his vast collection of sideshow videotape footage into a second volume that would be “of more professional quality.” He continued to perfect his editing as a student in the Media Department at Laney College, getting so good craft that teacher Oji Blackston eventually gave him the virtual run of the department and its equipment, often calling on Yap to help tutor other students who needed special attention. In the two years between 2004 and 2006, associates passed on the word that he was hard at work editing Volume II, taking so long because he wanted to get it right. 

On Tuesday night of this week, Yap showed up at the Grand Lake Theater and threw his newly-released Sydewayz—Get Hypy video on the screen to show what he’s been doing all these long months. It was worth the wait. 

Where Sydewayz Part I showed the potential of an up-and-coming local talent, Sydewayz—Get Hyphy is talent realized, a polished, professional, incredibly brilliant effort that does what every documentary filmmaker dreams of: it puts the viewer in the middle of a world—on its own terms, in its own words, with its own views and visions and pulsing energy—that most of us could never, otherwise, possibly enter. 

Backed by a driving, infectious soundtrack, the opening shot of the video shows the standard sideshow scene, a car doing intricate maneuvers in the middle of an East Oakland parking lot, tires squealing, yellow smoke all but obscuring a single young man who bounces and waves his hands in the air as he steps effortlessly in and out of the auto’s path. 

Seeing this scene—so similar to what we’ve watched in television news footage for the past five years—most adults will shake their heads and wonder “what the hell?” and “why?” 

Without lecturing, using the participants’ own words and impressive footage sometimes shot from inside the spinning cars themselves, Zazaboi’s new documentary shows how unnecessary and unanswerable that question really is. Sideshow driving—when done by the best performers—is a combination of bucking bronco riding and dancing, intricate, rhythmic maneuvering on the back of a powerful, wild animal. Why do people stop their cars in the middle of an intersection to spin a donut? You might as well ask why men become rodeo cowboys, or people dance the tango or do the electric slide. Sometimes, things are done for the thing itself, and for no other reason. 

For those who either don’t have the high-performance cars needed to perform the sideshow street maneuvers, or else don’t have the skills or “handles” to pull them off, there is the option of playing the matador, standing in the middle of the spinning circles and letting the bumpers miss you by inches. Sometimes the bumpers don’t miss, and the new Sydewayz video shows two spectacular pedestrian collisions. Dangerous? Certainly. Dumb? Some would say most definitely. But then, it is no more dumb and dangerous than the men who annually get out in the streets of Pamplona and run with the bulls, risking getting tossed and gored in an event celebrated in literature—Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises—and venerated as an example of Spanish culture. 

Sideshows are not part of Spanish culture, and that is part of the problem with why Oakland has not made a serious effort to find a place for them that satisfies their need for release and recreation and does not disturb our neighborhoods. Sideshows are not of Mexican origin, either, though many of Oakland’s Chicano youth have participated in the events and are some of the most proficient drivers. But shown through the eye of Zazaboi’s lens, you immediately see the distinctly African roots of the sideshow phenomenon, from the hyphy head-bobbing to the rhythmic car maneuvers reminiscent of the calling up of primeval beasts. And not the polite, Europeanized Africa so often seen in some of the larger, coastal cities, full of pretty prints and proper ways, but the heart of the continent, the deep bush, Congo Africa, what the author Joseph Conrad castigated as the heart of darkness, and what the rap group Public Enemy said made some people fear a black planet, but also the symbolic spot within where so many young African-Americans now retreat inside themselves to find form their own communities and find comfort and non-judgmental acceptance. It is the part of Oakland many of us—black, white, or other—don’t like to talk about, or even acknowledge. 

But the new Sydewayz video allows Oakland to stop, for a moment, the unproductive debate on whether or not we should allow sideshows on our streets, instead to focus on the incredible talent hidden in our midst. With the release of this video, Yakpazua Zazaboi has broken through that veil of obscurity and proven himself as a creative powerhouse. He’s on his way. But there are others out there, still nameless, passing us by in anonymous waves, staring at us out of deep, dark eyes, wondering when they will be noticed, and what they must do to be seen. We may find them annoying and even frightening and we may not like or even understand how they express themselves. But then, many of them probably feel the same way about us. 

Sydewayz—Get Hyphy is the opening sentence in a new Oakland dialogue. The question is, what will we say back?  

[For sake of full disclosure, I appear in the video in a small, non-driving role. I hope that doesn’t stop anybody from seeing it.] 

 


Ethnic Media Share Survival Stories One Year after Katrina

By Donal Brown, New America Media
Friday August 25, 2006

The men in the office slept on the floor, had to forego bathing and ate rations provided by the National Guard, but they were able to broadcast nonstop after the devastating hurricane. The men were five dee jays for 1540 Radio Tropical Caliente, some of the workers for the ethnic media of New Orleans that survived Katrina to provide first response services and eventually overcome financial blows and play a role in the rebirth of the city. 

Upon the one year anniversary of hurricane Katrina ethnic media shared their survival stories. 

After a two-day evacuation, the dee jays returned to their offices in New Orleans to provide critical survival information in Spanish and help Latino residents connect with loved ones. 

As business owners canceled ads, severely cutting the station’s revenue, radio host Azucena Viaz said people from the community came to their rescue. They donated gasoline for their generator, some even bringing it from Houston. Viaz said the station played a crucial role for the Spanish-language community. 

“We established a beachhead of good will,” she said. 

One day, Viaz and her editor, Ernesto Schweikert, received a call that 300 people, including children, were living in a warehouse with two bathrooms and no kitchen. 

When they reached the site that housed laborers, security guards were angry with them. Schweikert and Viaz argued that the laborers were promised $10 and were paid $7 and were living in these filthy conditions. 

Rather than risk further exposure, the security guards then told the people in the warehouse that immigration was coming, a de facto firing of all 300 workers. 

As the workers rushed out of the warehouse, Viaz was in tears. “What can you do now,” she asked some of them. But her station helped call attention to the situation of unequal pay. One of the workers told her, “Don’t worry. We are just happy you came and demonstrated that Spanish people are not alone.” 

Viaz said the station is now doing great financially. She said the Hispanic community had grown substantially with new restaurants, discos, and stores opening. 

After fleeing to Atlanta, Terry Jones, publisher of the 40-year-old New Orleans Data News Weekly rounded up writers who lived in Atlanta, sent reporters down to New Orleans and found a printer in Atlanta to replace the one in New Orleans that was wiped out. With the help of associate Cheryl Mainor, he was able to go beyond CNN coverage to give information on the location of displaced people, salvaging property and dealing with FEMA. 

They called friends in Houston; Jackson, Mississippi; Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Alexandra and arranged to ship the newspapers to New Orleans for distribution in shelters. They effectively became the “voice of the black diaspora” in the year following Katrina. 

Their crowning achievement came with the election season. With editors, photographers, sales people and reporters in a temporary office in New Orleans, they reported on the New Orleans election and facilitated the participation of displaced residents. 

The election was good for business but even better for people threatened by disenfranchisement while mired in temporary housing in distant cities. As one of the major conduits to the displaced, the Data News Weekly ran six and seven pages of ads with voting information paid for by the state of Louisiana. Jones put the entire newspaper online so that people could download it and stay informed about how to vote. 

“Everything was at stake,” said Mainor, “how the city was to be rebuilt and whether people were to be able to return.” 

With the information from the Data News Weekly, thousands displaced by natural catastrophe were able to vote. They came by bus to New Orleans to vote or faxed or mailed their ballots. 

Mainor said the future looks bright for the Data News Weekly. They are rebuilding in New Orleans and slowly regaining their ad base. 

The Vietnamese Americans displaced by the hurricane received essential information and support from the Vietnamese media. Thuy Vu, CEO of Vietnamese-language Radio Saigon Houston, said the day after Katrina hit, the station directed Vietnamese to a shopping mall in Houston where they could find food and shelter and other information in Vietnamese. 

The radio also went on the air to search for residents in Houston who could take in these displaced as well as provided a bulletin board to unite children with parents. 

Other ethnic media did not fare so well after the hurricane. The 21-year-old Vocero News of Kenner, Louisiana serving the Hispanic population of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans and Mississippi has ceased publication. The vibrant weekly had a circulation of 60,000. Their telephone service was disconnected and the last posting on their website was for their weekly of May 20-27, 2005. So too, the telephone service for the editors of Little Saigon News of New Orleans is disconnected. 

The Louisiana Weekly, a proud family-run newspaper since 1925, also had a difficult time. Executive Editor Renette Dejoie Hall, whose grandfather founded the operation, said the two days after the Katrina hit they returned to take down the server and computers and move everything to Houston. 

By Oct. 24 the Louisiana Weekly was publishing on-line and print editions. Unable to hire back her staff, Hall said people worked as volunteers. 

“They donated their time and effort while they had other jobs and were trying to deal with the quagmire,” she said. 

It took until this past Aug. 18 for Hall to make her first payroll in 11 months, down from 21 to four employees. 

Before Katrina, the weekly had a press run of 25,000. Hall said they were down from this but that the exodus of blacks from New Orleans was exaggerated by the mainstream press. She was hopeful for a regeneration of the black businesses and their ad revenue even though businesses have found it difficult to obtain loans. 

“Banking has not been forgiving. To get an FDA loan, they want the business owners to provide tax records back to 1993, but the records were under 10 feet of water and no longer exist,” said Hall. 


Back to Berkeley: East Bay Celebrates Diversity With Festivals, Fairs, Parades

By Joe Eaton, Special to the Planet
Friday August 25, 2006

Diversity is not just a lofty abstraction: it tastes great, and you can dance to it. With the exception of the wet months, the Bay Area calendar is full of street fairs, music festivals, parades, and other events where you can hear everything from mariachi to taiko and sample endless variations on grilled-meat-on-a-stick. 

A sampling follows, and my apologies to anyone whose favorite event I’ve inadvertently omitted; write to the Planet if you have suggestions. Once again I tried really hard to find a local observance of Loy Krathong, the Thai celebration where you apologize to the spirit of the waters, but no luck. 

 

Oakland Chinatown StreetFest, Aug. 26-27: A pan-Asian event, bigger than anything in San Francisco; martial arts demonstrations, music, food. (510)893-8988. 

 

Art and Soul Festival, Sept. 2-4: A multi-block Labor Day weekend party in downtown Oakland. Rickie Lee Jones headlines. http://www.artandsouloakland.com 

 

Scottish Gathering and Games, Sept. 2-3: Watch out for the caber! Food (haggis at your own risk), music, dancing, sheep dog trials, falconry exhibits. Alameda County Fairgrounds, Pleasanton. www.caledonian.org 

 

Arab Cultural Festival, Sept. 17: Food, dance, crafts, with a side of politics. San Francisco County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. (415) 664-2200. 

 

How Berkeley?! Parade and Festival, Sept. 17: Is Berkeleyan an ethnic group? A philosophy? A cult? You decide. The parade down University Avenue ends at Martin Luther King Park with more entertainment (hip hop, samba, and cosmic rockabilly), Interactive Theme Villages, and a beer festival. 644-2204. 

 

Ardenwood Cajun/Zydeco Festival, Sept. 23: Local and Louisiana talent perform at Fremont’s historic Ardenwood Farm. Zydeco matriarch Queen Ida Guillory heads the bill. There’ll be gumbo and crawfish, of course. www.ebparks.org/events/zydeco_06.htm 

 

Sebastopol Celtic Festival, Sept. 21-24: Mostly music—Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Celto-Spanish, Cape Breton, Quebecois—in a great outdoor venue. Sebastopol Community Center. (707) 823-1511. 

 

Reggae in the Park, Oct. 1-2: Legendary bands, tasty Caribbean food and culture. Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. (866) 384-3060. 

 

Indigenous Peoples Day, Oct. 7: Pow-wow dancing and drumming, traditional and modern arts and crafts, frybread, bison burgers. Martin Luther King Park, Berkeley. 595-5520. 

 

San Francisco Italian Heritage Parade, Oct. 8: Columbus and Queen Isabella preside over North Beach’s big day, with wine tasting in Washington Square Park. http://sfcolumbusday.org/parade 

 

Oktoberfest by the Bay, Oct. 12-15: Closer than Munich. Organizers promise “nonstop music, dancing, and singing”; the Chico Bavarian Band headlines. Fort Mason, San Francisco. (888) 746-7522. 

 

Vietnamese Tet Festival, January 2007: Celebrate the Lunar New Year in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district with the people who brought us banh mi. (415) 351-1038. 

 

Cherry Blossom Festival, April 2007: For two successive weekends, taiko and tako in Nihonmachi; classical and folk dances, martial arts. Remember, it’s a good thing if the lion bites you. Japantown (Post and Buchanan), San Francisco. (415) 563-2307. 

 

Ukulele Festival of Northern California, April 2007: All ukuleles, all day, with occasional hula. Kalua pig and other island treats available. 

Hayward Adult School, 22100 Princeton St., Hayward. (415) 281-0221.  

 

Portuguese Pentecostal Festival, seven weeks after Easter, 2007: Not a fiesta—a festa. Half Moon Bay. (650) 726-2729. 

 

Oakland Cinco de Mayo Festival, May 2007: Celebrate the end of one of Napoleon III’s really bad ideas, when Mexico defeated French imperial troops in the battle of Puebla. International Boulevard between 34th and 41st Avenues, 535-0389. Other Cinco de Mayo events in San Francisco, Berkeley and elsewhere. 

 

Polish Festival, May 2007: Polka til you drop. Folk dance and choral performances, art exhibits, food. County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. (408) 396-3023.  

 

Norway Day Festival, May 2007: Experience Norwegian culture and cuisine at Crissy Field, San Francisco. www.norwayday.org 

 

Festival of Greece, May 2007: Souvlaki, bouzouki, maybe ouzo in the Oakland Hills; dancing with and without tables. Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, 4700 Lincoln Ave., Oakland. 531- 

3400. 

 

Himalayan Fair, May 2007: Safer than Katmandu—music, dancing, arts, and crafts from the Roof of the World, plus curries and handmade momos. Live Oak Park, Berkeley. 869-3995. 

 

Carnaval San Francisco, May 2007: A couple of months later than the rest of the world, but it’s colder here in February than it is in Rio or Trinidad. San Francisco’s version centers on a huge parade through the Mission District. (415) 920-0125. 

 

Fiesta Filipina, June 2007: This Independence Day bash at San Francisco’s Civic Center is the biggest event of its kind in the United States, with cultural events and a beauty pageant. www.fiestafilipinausa.com. 

 

Israel in the Gardens, June 2007: More than just falafel; this year’s event featured Israeli pop stars, a fashion show, and a backgammon tournament. Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco. (415) 512-6423. 

 

Juneteenth, June 2007: Commemorating the day that word of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas, this celebration of African American heritage also features music, food, and crafts from Africa and the Caribbean. Adeline Street, Berkeley. 655-8008. 

 

Japantown Bon Festival, July 2007: Another Nihonmachi event, this one marking the Festival of the Souls. Don’t miss the sake barrel cracking ceremony. www.sfjapantown.org 

 

Eritrean Western USA Festival, August 2007: Listen to exotic Red Sea beats and learn how to handle your injera. Wood Middle High School, 420 Grand Ave., Alameda. 986-1991. 

 

Nihonmachi Street Fair, August 2007: Japantown hosts a celebration of Asian and Pacific cultures, with great street food. Post Street between Laguna and Fillmore San Francisco. (415) 771-9861. 

 

San Francisco Aloha Festival, August 2007: Polynesia (and Micronesia) at the Presidio. Hula, slack key guitar, canoe races, island-style plate lunches, miles of vendors. Parade Grounds, Presidio of San Francisco. (415) 281-0221. 

 

International Dragon Boat Festival, August 2007: Drums propel the rowers at Oakland’s Jack London Square. 452-4272. 

 

Pistahan Festival, August 2007: The Bay Area’s Filipino community follows a parade down Market Street with music, traditional dancing and hip hop, art exhibits, and an adobo cook-off. Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco. (415) 777-6950. 

 

Festival of India, August 2007: Fremont’s Indian community hosts a two-day event with Bollywood celebrities and a dance competition.  

www.fiaonline.org. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Is ‘Berkeley for the Berkeleyans’ Good Public Policy?

By Becky O’Malley
Friday August 25, 2006

The ever-estimable Nation magazine’s latest issue highlights, among other things, what the cover calls “the new nativism”—the most recent episode in the “America for the Americans” tendency that has been with this nation since its founding. One article traces its historic roots: all the way from Ben Franklin in the 18th century inveighing against German immigrants to Pennsylvania (now the belovedly quaint Pennsylvania “Dutch”) through anti-Irish riots at the beginning of the 19th century at the time of the Potato Famine immigration, on to the Chinese exclusion advocated by the Irish-American Dennis Kearney’s Workingmen’s Party in the West during the last part of that century, culminating in the 20th century charge against “hyphenated-Americans” led first by Theodore Roosevelt, followed by the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The 1965 immigration law reform was supposed to have put an end to national-origins quotas, but now all over the U.S. there’s a revival of crusades against Spanish-speaking immigrants both legal and undocumented. Xenophobia—the pathological distrust of outsiders—in other words is as American as cherry pie, as Stokely Carmichael was once castigated for saying about violence. 

Another piece in the same Nation might seem to be about a different topic, but is just another side of the same coin. African-American law professor Patricia Williams, a regular columnist, describes a nice camp which brings together children from war-torn areas to live together so that “they can learn about the humanity of those they have been raised to fear or kill.” But she contrasts this program with a couple of current cases now in the courts in which plaintiffs challenge the idea of diversity as a necessary coping skill which the public schools should be teaching. She characterizes this anti-integration rationale as “very dangerously circular—minorities have chosen their lot, so it’s entirely rational not to let them move into your neighborhood or mix with them in your schools…” Her own contention is that “schools…are a highly effective way to teach children to see past stereotype, if only we had the sustained will to mix them up—thoughtfully, consciously and across established social divisions.” Well said. 

But now a version of the new nativism seems to be surfacing in Berkeley, of all places. A “Berkeley for the Berkeleyans” policy is being enunciated in conjunction with the upcoming school board election. Here’s candidate David Baggins, Ph.D., a PoliSci professor at the school formerly known as Hayward State: 

“The heart of my campaign is a call to keep what’s wonderful about Berkeley schools while admitting honestly what is not. I particularly hope to address the issues of violence in the schools, the problem of historic under-enforcement of residency for registration, and the need to help low-performing students without holding back the other bright and inquisitive youths of Berkeley.”  

If that’s not clear enough for you, in July he wrote in a letter to the Planet saying that “…basic policies create both the achievement gap and the high violence rate… Of course African American students in Berkeley reflect Oakland under-achievement rates. They are, as anyone who observes after school traffic knows, substantially from Oakland. Berkeley is 13 percent African American. Berkeley schools climb to one-third African American substantially because of the unique BUSD policy of not enforcing legal residency. To some this unique policy is an extension of Berkeley’s quest for social change. To others it is yet another local government betrayal of the taxpayers and residential quality of life. Either way to word this unprecedented generosity as a curricular indictment is simply wrong.”  

In other words, if Berkeley’s test scores are bad and there’s violence in the schools, it’s because we’ve let in too many African-American kids from Oakland. And conversely, if we could keep those bad kids on the outside looking in, our own deserving kids would get an even bigger piece of pie. 

School board member John Selawsky and others have been quick to respond by defending the rigor of the current school administration’s efforts to exclude un-Berkeley students, though some think enough is still not being done. But what doesn’t seem to be playing a big part in the discussion is whether Berkeley-for-the-Berkeleyans as applied to our schools is good public policy.  

Baggins’ campaign slogan is “The Best Schools for Berkeley’s Kids.” Maybe I’m old-school, but I don’t think Berkeley kids would be getting the best schools if their schools were only 13 percent African-American. And it wouldn’t even be that high a percentage, because many if not most of Berkeley’s African-American residents these days are getting on in years, so the percentage of school-age African-American kids who meet strict residency requirements is probably a lot smaller. Living in Berkeley these days is much pricier that it used to be, and fewer African-American families can afford it. 

My three daughters got excellent educations in the Berkeley public schools in the ’70s and ’80s—not free from conflict or anxiety, but academically on a par with any in the country. They got in to fine colleges to boot. What they got at Berkeley High that they wouldn’t have gotten in Orinda or even Albany is the sense that they can be at home and okay anywhere in the world—that they can engage in dialogue with anyone without fear. The same teen-age divisions by race and class and academic track which existed then at Berkeley High still exist everywhere, even in all-white suburbs, but my kids benefited from many friendships which crossed lines. Because of this, they’ve been able to travel all over the place and do all sorts of interesting and exciting things with confidence.  

Parents are tempted to draw some sort of invisible line around their own homes and their homogeneous neighborhoods to keep their kids safe, but in the long run it won’t work. The parents who want to make sure that their children are firmly inside the Berkeley Bubble, that they always associate only with kids of a certain socionomic level much like their own, are not doing the kids any good in the long run.  

And then there’s the argument often made in support of bond issues and parcel taxes: that schools are not just the concern of parents and students, but of the whole community. As someone who’s long since passed the point of needing the public schools for my own kids, I subscribe to that argument, and support any school funding proposal they throw at us, as do most Berkeley voters. But I see myself primarily not as a dweller in the Berkeley Bubble, but as a resident of the Urban East Bay as a whole and of the world. I have just as much interest in the education of those Oakland kids who live ten blocks from my house across the border as I do in the education of Berkeley kids. I’m going to have to live with them, or close to them, when they grow up, after all. Until Professor Baggins started his campaign, I wasn’t aware of the extent to which the policy of the Berkeley public schools has evolved to favor the exclusion of outsiders, and I don’t much like what I hear.  

In fact—might as well put it all on the table—I allowed an African-American family who were not able to find a new home in Berkeley when their rental apartment was converted to owner-occupied to register their kids from my address until they found a legal place inside the city limits. Should I have been dreading a knock on my door by the school police some dark night? Of course if I’d really been worried I could have given them a “lease” to a broom closet at my house to keep the kids in their classes until their housing situation improved.  

From another Baggins letter:  

”Anyone who wishes to validate the extent of this issue need only take one afternoon in September to stand at the bus stops along Shattuck and wait for Berkeley High to let out. You will witness police deployed to monitor hundreds of students returning daily to other districts. It would seem that Berkeley’s police department has a greater awareness of the schools in this regard than the school-Board.”  

Or perhaps that Berkeley police are negatively profiling these kids They are, after all, the ones whose families care enough about them to send them to Berkeley on the bus because they can’t afford private schools. 

Baggins to the contrary notwithstanding, grandmothers and godmothers and friends of the family are going to go on doing what they need to do to make sure kids they care about are getting the best education they can provide. And what’s wrong with that? School Board candidates, please address this question. 


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor: What Opinions Belong in an Open Press?

Tuesday August 29, 2006

EDITOR’S NOTE: We got a lot of letters about our decision to print an anti-Jewish letter on our opinion pages, and about the letters we ran last Tuesday from some Jewish leaders and some politicians denouncing that decision. Many of our readers are tired of hearing about this topic and would like us to get back to other matters. In these pages we attempt to run most of the comments which came in before our deadline at one time and be done with it. We’re holding letters on other matters until Friday to make space. 

In these pages we are also experimenting with the idea of making short editor’s comments on individual opinions, a la the Anderson Valley Advertiser.  

Readers of our opinion pages (letters and commentary) should be aware of these disclaimers: the owners, management and staff of the Berkeley Daily Planet do not agree with everything printed in our opinion section even when we don’t say explicitly that we disagree. Editorials are the opinion of the owners of the paper unless otherwise stated. By-lined columns and cartoons in the rest of the paper are the opinion of the authors, not necessarily those of the paper. The editors decide which opinions are most likely to interest our readers, and they are published on a space-available basis, with overflow on our website.  

 

MEETING 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

In her Aug. 22 editorial, Ms. O’Malley denied that she turned down a request to meet with representatives of the Jewish community about what they saw as a blatantly anti-Semitic commentary printed in the Daily Planet on Aug. 8. 

Ms. O’Malley, did, in fact, refuse such a meeting. That is an indisputable fact. How do I know? I know because I am the representative from the Jewish community who called her asking for the meeting. She even mentions me by name in the Aug. 11 issue of the Daily Planet: 

“We also got a call from a young sounding woman with a San Francisco number who said she was ‘Tami from the ADL.’ I expected that meant she represented the Anti-defamation League. When I called her back, she said, ‘We’d like to meet with you.’ I’d just fielded a similar request for a meeting from the manager of a political candidate. In both cases, I’m assuming they hoped to affect the way the paper covers stories and issues that they care about, and frankly, the answer to both has to be sorry, no dice. 

“I told Tami that if she was hoping to persuade us to self-censor our opinion coverage, a meeting would be a waste of time for both parties (italics added), but if her organization wanted to submit a commentary, we’d be happy to print it.” 

Ms. O’Malley told me, in a clear unmistakable way, that she was unwilling to meet. She even published her reaction in her own paper. 

Tami Holzman 

Assistant Director, Anti-Defamation League 

Oakland  

 

I sent the following e-mail over the weekend replying to Ms. Holzman and the two rabbis who forwarded last Tuesday’s two letters from Jewish leaders and politicians: 

 

Dear Rabbi Brandt, Rabbi Raj and Ms. Holzman, 

You have taken part, perhaps unknowingly, in an unjust act.  

As Ms. Holzman knows and can tell you if she thinks about it, in our brief conversation I did not say that I refused to meet with all leaders of the Jewish community. What I did say is that it was unlikely that a meeting with people she represented only as “we” (by which I assumed she meant Anti-Defamation League members and/or staff) would change my mind regarding the propriety of printing admittedly racist and unkind letters. I did say I thought it would be a waste of time, but that’s not a refusal, just an opinion. I was then, and am still, willing to meet with anyone to discuss the topic. Ms. Holzman, if she thinks back on the conversation, will I’m sure acknowledge that she might have misinterpreted my words. As I said in my editorial last Tuesday, which I hope you all have read by now, I offered her space in the paper, she wrote a letter which was published, and I assumed that she (and her principals, whoever they were) were satisfied, that they agreed with me that a meeting would be a waste of time for all concerned.  

I am still ready to meet. 

Regarding a public or private meeting: you may or may not be aware that the reputation of the Anti-Defamation League is not the same as it was when I was growing up in University City, Missouri, in the ’50s. If you look it up on Wikipedia, you can find reproduced some of the criticisms it has received in the last few years—that’s what caused me to feel apprehensive about a closed-door meeting with today’s ADL.  

I don’t have the same apprehension about everyone who signed your two letters, however. I am ready to meet with any or all of those who signed the letters you transmitted. I would prefer to meet in front of witnesses, as I said in the editorial, but I’d even be willing to meet behind closed doors with designated representatives of the whole Jewish community if there’s some reason they’re apprehensive about expressing their views in public.  

Any or all of you or your signers could have checked with me on this matter before signing a letter denouncing me. My office phone number and e-mail addresses are printed in every issue of the paper, and my home phone number has been listed in every Berkeley phone book since 1973. I don’t know any of the religious leaders, but I do know most of the politicians, and (whether or not they like me or what the paper has reported about them) they know I’m not afraid of controversy. Most of them have called me when they wanted something from me, and they could have called me to ask if it was true that I refused to meet with the religious leaders.  

But even after the letters were published last Tuesday along with my response none of the signers has seen fit to get in touch with me regarding my offer to meet. I would like to believe that their expressed desire for a meeting was a good faith offer. Please forward this letter to all signers of both letters.  

Becky O’Malley 

Executive Editor 

Berkeley Daily Planet 

 

• 

WORDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As I read your editorial, “It’s Time for a Meeting,” I began to realize it was mostly a bunch of words. Well-written as usual, but still a lot of words. Under all the sophisticated phrasing (except maybe for “put up or shut up”), a few major things caught my attention. 

One is the idea that you, Becky O’Malley, are a victim being picked on by the big bad people who are simply asking you to clean up the mess you helped make (“I was being set up” “I don’t like to be bullied”). This is not only wrong, but also irrelevant, as the real issue is not about ego. Second, all those intellectual rationalizations for allowing the letter to be printed strike me as little more than noise. The simple, undeniable fact is that a piece of blatant religious/ethnic bigotry has been allowed in this newspaper. 

But the thing that surprises and saddens me the most, as I read through your editorial, is what seems like a near-complete lack of empathy for the people who have been hurt (never mind the couple of gee-I’m-sorry-you-feel-that-way-but statements). In the mass of words, I could find nothing that sounded like a true apology. Your one “personal opinion,” in which you state that you found the Arianpour letter “very nasty,” is quickly followed up with more rationalizing. Echoing a previous writer, I have to ask: Would you use all these words to justify printing a similar letter that pushed blatant racial stereotypes about blacks? On the heels of that: If not, why not? 

Alexis Johnson 

Oakland 

 

Ms. Johnson’s point was also made to me in a somewhat different way by an African-American friend who asked to meet with me shortly after the Arianpour letter appeared. He felt required in good conscience as a member of another often-discriminated-against minority to point out that generalizations attributing bad behaviors to large groups and saying that evil done to them is their own fault are both untrue and hurtful, and that therefore they shouldn’t be given space in the paper. It’s a good point, which deserves serious consideration, but having thought about it, I respectfully disagree. Racist generalizations about blacks, Jews and other groups will be made behind closed doors no matter what we do in the press, but if they’re put on the table they can at least be refuted. See the next letter. 

 

• 

APOLOGY NEEDED 

To Don Perata et al: 

I write, as a Jew, to protest strongly the letter to which you signed your name calling on Becky O’Malley, executive editor of the Berkeley Daily Planet, to “apologize to the community” for printing the anti-Semitic Arianpour op-ed on Aug. 8. 

O’Malley made an editorial decision with which you may or may not agree but to call for an apology is equivalent to imposing censorship ex post facto. Shall we have the newspaper police sitting in the Planet offices henceforward, making sure this never happens again? Hey, if you didn’t like something you read, write in and say so—Kris Worthington did—or stop reading the paper (duh) but don’t “call for” an act of public abasement to the “community,” whatever that is. 

Context rules. All kinds of racist nonsense gets printed in the Planet all the time—and for good reason, since racist thinking pervades American culture. My favorite is the letter last year following the incident in which a good Samaritan rescued a young African-American woman who was giving premature birth to triplets on the steps of the downtown BART station. Sure enough, someone actually went to the trouble of writing in to point out that these babies were going to be a burden on the public (Eisenman, Oct. 11, 2005). Should they have been left to die? Is this racist enough for you? Or did the same nasty thought briefly flash through your mind when you read the original item?  

Or consider the story, not letter, that appeared in the Aug. 18 Planet, in which first-time Berkeley School Board candidate David Baggins explained that he was running to address “violence in the schools,” “under-enforcement of residency” and “not holding back” the “bright youths.” Since my child went through Berkeley schools not long ago, I immediately recognized this platform as barely veiled code for “Berkeley High would be a great school if we could just get the black kids out of my kid’s classes and out of the hallways, where they jack him for his lunch money.” I also know that if I were an African-American parent or grandparent struggling to shepherd my child through a school system run by white people for white people and essentially indifferent to my child’s well-being, I would feel as if a knife had gone through my heart when I read this, particularly because, not only is it not recognized as racism, but, on the contrary, exemplifies mainstream thinking and acceptable discourse. And then I would toss the paper in the trash and get on with my day because this would be my reality in America. 

On the other hand, twice in the last year or so I have sat in a roomful of middle-class Jews while an “anti-racism/anti-anti-Semitism activist” urged us to seek in our hearts for the anti-Semitism we must surely be experiencing. One woman in one group had escaped the Holocaust, the worst outbreak of anti-Semitism in history, and I had been frightened or discomforted a few times, mostly during my childhood, but no one else could think of any actual instances! Yet everyone present was convinced that he or she was surrounded by a pervasive anti-Semitism which could reach threat level at any moment if ever our vigilance fails. 

Why is it that African-Americans, for whom racism, embedded as it is in our culture, is ubiquitous in daily life, do not demand “apologies,” whereas Jews, the most successful minority in U.S. history, any cross-section of whom can’t at any particular moment think of actual experiences of oppression, do so at the drop of a hat? 

Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been had. Neither Rabbi Raj nor any of the other people who may possibly have contacted you in an effort to obtain your signature felt either fear or shame (the key effects of racism) as a result of Mr. Arianpour’s diatribe, but rather that agreeably triumphal feeling of a-ha, the moment has come to get Becky. 

It turns out that Lebanon War II had been planned for over a year, the border incident of July 12 merely providing a pretext. Mr. Arianpour’s op-ed is the border incident of the long-planned Daily Planet campaign. O’Malley’s sin is giving folks like me, who criticize Israel, a platform. The apology which you demand has nothing to do with anti-Semitism and everything to do with the hyper-vigilant Zionist lobby, which will not permit any narrative contrary to the Zionist narrative to see the light of day. 

Twice in the past two weeks, because of the Lebanon war, I argued about Israel with two people with whom I had never before discussed it: an old friend of my husband’s and my sister-in-law. Both are middle-class, mainstream, non-Jewish Americans of rather conservative opinion and both of them told me fervently that Israel is a tiny beleaguered country surrounded by barbarian Arab terrorists who want only to push it into the sea. Neither understands that there are millions of displaced and/or occupied Palestinians, let alone has the slightest clue as to their plight. 

When I think of those Palestinians, nearly all of them in straits of dire poverty and oppression and hopelessness, and know that, not only did people from my tribe, the Jews, cause their situation to begin with (and deliberately and continually worsen their situation and refuse to address their situation), but also that people from my tribe, the Jews, work overtime to ensure that their situation will be erased from human discourse, erased from the minds of living people, and ultimately erased from history, then I understand that I’m back in 1930s Germany, but this time, maybe because there is a God who wants us to learn compassion, I’m on the other side. It is this reversal of roles that Zionists (successfully, as the above paragraph illustrates) do not want Americans to comprehend. Thus, the calls for apologies at every ridiculous hint of “anti-Semitism” form a part of the ongoing project of keeping the Jews, in their own minds as well as the minds of others, essential and eternal victims—the archetype of victimization. 

I will keep doing what I can to fix an historic wrong—one that, I might mention just in passing, with its constant threat of wider war such as we have just now seen, poses a grave danger to the United States as well as to the region and the world. What you need to do is write a letter of apology to Becky O’Malley for interfering with the way she does her job. I bet she doesn’t interfere with yours. 

Joanna Graham 

 

Well, I do try to influence the way elected officials do their jobs, but then taxpayers like me pay their salary, while they don’t pay mine. 

 

We’ve received a letter in response to our last editorial on the Berkeley schools from a parent who says that his kids did get a good education in Berkeley schools, but his daughter also had her nose broken by an African-American girl. And therefore…??? Is this an unintentionally racist letter, because it invites generalizations about a large group of people from the bad behavior of one member of the group? Should we print it on Friday? Should we point out what we think is wrong with his reasoning? 

 

• 

EGG ON THEIR FACES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

All the East Bay mayors and the conservative wing of the Berkeley City Council who signed the letter excoriating Daily Planet editor Becky O’Malley must be quite busy now, and using a ton of soap washing the egg off their faces. 

Their letter lambasted Becky for printing a vile hate letter and failing to meet with pro-Israeli supporters. Yet Becky in her Aug. 22 editorial showed that she wasn’t taken up on her offer to meet in a public venue with any or all of them. I guess the public venue thing was a bit too challenging. 

All this sound and fury points to the long unaddressed need in Berkeley to hold town hall meetings to air all sides over hot issues. The town hall meeting used to be a standard democratic practice in the U.S. of A. 

How about it, Mayor Tom? He has some democratic dues to pay to Berkeley. Holding a public meeting on the Middle East mess would be a good start. 

And to Becky, hold on to your ideals of free speech as your policy. It is that policy that makes the Daily Planet one of the few facets of Berkeley political life I’m proud of. 

Maris Arnold 

 

• 

O’MALLEY’S WEAK REASONING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s defense of her decision to publish the commentary by Mr. Arianpour, which contained blatant anti-Semitic remarks, rests on weak reasoning. She wrote that keeping sentiments like his out of the Daily Planet won’t make him or people like him go away. The same could be said for the racist and anti-female sentiments that are standard fare on American “hate” radio. 

Absolute free speech exists only in the privacy of one’s home (and not always there). An editor of any media outlet is always a gatekeeper. Some kinds of speech are outside the bounds of what any given community feels is tolerable. It’s fine for an editor to push the edges, lest the community become too smug. But an editor who wants to keep a community’s respect must also recognize when she has gone too far. And in this case, Ms. O’Malley did. 

Steve Meyers 

 

• 

POWER AND FAIRNESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I support your decision to publish letters from your readers. I support your right to use your judgment in deciding which letters to publish. I felt moved to let you know that you have my support after reading the letter from a reader who found it necessary to marshal the support of a number of rabbis, heads of Jewish organizations, and publicly elected officials to denounce your decision to print a letter from another of your readers whose opinion was found objectionable. 

Within a few days the letter to which there was objection appearing in the Daily Planet, this person was able to contact numerous heads of organizations and publicly elected officials to sanction his rejoinder. To me that is power. I am reminded of the many publicly elected officials and business owners who cower at the mention of certain political action committees. And I am reminded of those who refuse to be cowered. You are of the latter.  

Thank you for a publication that I look forward to reading. I have been involved in Berkeley life since 1959. Your commitment to fairness is why I enjoy and appreciated living in Berkeley. 

James L. Lacy 

 

• 

GO TO THE SOURCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While not questioning the Daily Planet’s right to publish vulgar, hate-filled statements, local political leaders question the propriety of publishing them in a community newspaper (letters, Aug. 22). As disturbing as it may be to read such venom, and realizing that in war the first casualty is truth, we need to be exposed to views held by many as a result of U.S. policy and realize what hatred has been generated. Rather than being disturbed at the Daily Planet for publishing these words, we should be asking why there is such hatred generated, and what we can do about it. 

Tom Miller 

Miller & Ngo, PLC 

Attorneys at Law 

Oakland 

 

• 

TRUE INTENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Despite publisher/editor Becky O’Malley’s hiding her true intent behind the facade of free speech, she chose to print the anti-Semitic tract by Kurosh Arianpour. And she knows full well that she would never print similar commentary from the hate groups like the KKK about blacks or any other minority. 

Let there be no mistake about it, the fact that O’Malley decided to publish such garbage—a missive of astounding bigotry which would never be printed in any other American journals save neo-Nazi rags—reflects her own pronounced anti-Semitism. 

Unfortunately, O’Malley has used her money to create a publication, passing for a community newspaper, which regurgitates such unmitigated prejudice in our community. Correspondingly her newspaper, always less than professional, has become something far darker. 

Dan Spitzer 

Kensington 

 

• 

GET YER OWN PAPER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

These self-styled Jewish leaders need to get their own newspaper if they dislike the Daily Planet. They don’t get to set the parameters or decide what’s politically correct. 

The Iranian was crude and he did generalize, as if your Israeli apologists’ letter writers don’t do that every day about “Arabs”! 

I disagree more often than not with your editorials but it’s your paper and your money and you, properly, get to call the shots. 

People who don’t like that, for any reason, need to be told to take a long walk off a short pier. 

Michael Hardesty 

Oakland  

 

• 

UNIMPRESSED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a determined advocate of the First Amendment and no fan of hate speech legislation, I was unimpressed by Becky O’Malley’s disingenuous defense of the Planet’s decision to publish Kurosh Arianpour’s bigoted and unenlightening commentary in the Aug. 8 edition. 

O’Malley’s editorial suggests that running Arianpour’s piece was an act of integrity, or even of public service. It contends that beyond simply offering up equal space for the battle of ideas, the Planet did readers a favor by educating us on the insidiousness of extremist thought. 

Nonsense. By this logic, it is the Planet’s editorial duty to publish in every issue a racist, sexist, or homophobic diatribe. Reasoned arguments need not apply; only the basest bigotry can enlighten the audience as to hate’s myriad forms. 

O’Malley’s piece relies on what is known in the magic business as “misdirection”: I’ll wave a hand over here, defending free speech, so that the audience misses what is actually happening over there: the Planet’s attempt to evade responsibility for its editorial decisions. 

The editors might easily have found an anti-war Israeli, a Lebanese, or a Palestinian to offer their impassioned criticism of Israeli military action in Lebanon. Such a piece could have offered a useful counterpoint to Mr. Glickman’s defense of Israel. Instead, the editors chose—and I emphasize the verb “to choose”—a philippic that Ehud Appel, quoting Halper, aptly summarized as “plain old-fashioned stupid racism.” In making this deliberate selection the Planet most certainly sought to either paint all defenders of Israel as racists equal in bigotry to Mr. Arianpour, or to legitimize Arianpour’s tired blame-the-victim logic. 

Planet editors should take care not to confuse their constitutional precepts. The freedoms of speech and of the press are called out individually in the First Amendment because they are distinct rights with different obligations. I support absolutely the right of people like Mr. Arianpour to shout their ideas from a soapbox, publish a blog, or print up pamphlets, however odious I may find such expression. 

But the press is not a purely public space, and the Planet doesn’t publish every commentary it receives. It intentionally selected Arianpour’s essay from among many. (Of course, the decision to run an inflammatory, misleading headline (“Criticizing Israel = Anti-Semitism”) atop Mr. Glickman’s commentary was also deliberate.) Ms. O’Malley claims independence from those who would use any “form of persuasion to suppress speech you don’t like” but then waves the grand banner of free expression to “misdirect” readers from the fact that the paper most recently demonstrated that same independence by choosing to publish unvarnished (if unoriginal) racism. 

Adam F. Block 

 

The headline over Mr. Glickman’s commentary was a mistake—it was intended for another letter which came in at the same time. We ran his letter pointing out the error. 

 

• 

WASTE OF WORDS, PAPER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To all those honorable religious and political leaders who are named in a collective condemnation of this paper’s approval of free speech (Aug. 22): Your cries of anti-Semitism do not turn our eyes away from the truth. You join the ignorant anti-Semites in their waste of precious words and paper.  

If you are defending Jewish people then you must include the millions of us Jews who are horrified by Israel’s slaughter of innocents! I am distressed and shocked to assume that you, who have signed this complaint to the editor, are by your silences, approving of these atrocities. 

While you argue the danger of language, there are, to this day, universal reports by “Human Rights Watch” on the continuous use of thousands of illegal cluster bombs and land mines, in the killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanan. 

Please use Editor O’Malley’s invitation to defend your attacks. This is one paper that is not putting truth on a “back page”! 

Gerta Farber 

 

• 

TWO SIDES TO THE STORY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In regards to Kurosh Arianpour’s comment about the Jews: “....they do wrong to other people to the point that others turn against them.” Like all half-truths, this statement is baldly false at face value. But speaking of half-truths, here’s something else for Rabbi James Brandt to consider: During the Jews’ long, and often tragic history, the Jews have had trouble get along with many, many different tribes, during many, many different times and many, many different places. A fact that nobody disputes. In regards to this, there are entire libraries of Jewish-written books on the subject of “anti-Semitism", almost all of which can be summed up in six little words: “Its all the other person’s fault.” This is possible, but highly unlikely. As shocking as this notion might be for certain people in certain circles to consider, perhaps there really is two sides to the story.  

Peter Labriola 

P.S.: I hope my many, clear-thinking Jewish friends will consider what I’ve written here, as opposed to just attacking me out of hand. For I’ve written it for your benefit not mine.  

P.P.S.: The Berkeley Daily Planet should be commended for printing a wide and divergent spectrum of opinions, as opposed to just the politically correct version of reality. This is an almost unprecedented example of journalistic integrity among Bay Area publications. And if you don’t think so, just look at all the knee-jerk liberal pablum spewing out of virtually every other Bay Area publication in the guise of journalism. 

 

See above comments re: problems with generalizations. Everyone has always had trouble getting along with their neighbors, unfortunately—recent examples are ex-Yugoslavia and many in Africa. Jews are no different from the rest of humanity in this respect. 

 

• 

FIRST AMENDMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks for having the guts to print diverse opinions. Keep the First Amendment alive, 

Daryl Lura 

El Cerrito 

 

• 

VOICE OF REASON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’d like to applaud Kriss Worthington for his tempered criticism of the anti-Semitic commentary by Kurosh Arianpour in your Aug. 8 edition. Instead of attacking the Planet, as did a small group which professes to speak “on behalf of the Berkeley Jewish community” and another small group of pro-development politicians eager, no doubt, to get their licks in, Councilmember Worthington criticized the source, not our free-speech newspaper. There have been countless letters from Israel-right-or-wrong supporters that have been printed in the Planet, with a lesser number of brave souls supporting the Palestinians’ right to a free state of their own, not a land that is occupied or fenced or bantustaned. This Jewish community of rabbis and professionals does not speak for me or many other Jewish people I know in Berkeley and the Bay Area who support a two state solution and do not think that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. I do not hold with Mr. Arianpour’s views, but now we have a very concrete example of what others think of Israel and Jews and why we have to work even harder to change U.S. and Israeli policies. Both these elite groups in Berkeley are the ones who owe Becky O’Malley and the Planet an apology for attacking her and its integrity and their great service to our community. 

Estelle Jelinek 

 

• 

WHO DEFINES A FREE PRESS? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Who would disagree with the importance of decrying and exposing racist remarks (including anti-Semitic remarks) and behaviors whenever and wherever they appear? I found myself in strong agreement with those sentiments as I read them in letters printed in the Planet. I’m pleased that the earlier article’s author was taken to task for his inappropriate and inaccurate remarks about Jews. However, a question or two for the rabbis and self-righteous politicos who signed those two letters. Tell us, the public, if and how you have used the weight of your positions and your public and private voices to declaim against Israel’s destruction of Lebanon and her people, against the systematic decimation and dehumanization of the Palestinian people? As far as I can tell almost all U.S. politicians jumped to defend Israel’s behavior, which Amnesty International claims amounted to war crimes against an entire nation. Can you be unaware that Israel’s disrespect for the lives of millions of others (unlike the fraud of historical revisionism) is providing documentable evidence for the rise of yet another round of the scourge of anti-Semitism?  

I find the rabbis and politicos finger wagging at the Planet and its editor misplaced and self-serving. And there is a hidden warning. I have no doubt that Becky O’Malley will continue to run a free press, printing your opinions as well as mine. But if the Planet were to attempt to censor all inaccurate stereotypes and potential hate-speech, you know, the Planet would be unable to print many of the remarks of this nation’s highest officials; and would have to hire a team of censors.  

Some years ago a group called the Network against Disinformation picketed the Chronicle based on its censorship. We had Alison Weir’s (www.ifamericansknew.org ) research proving that U.S. media consistently failed to cover the Palestinian plight, while giving overwhelming attention to Israel’s views and personal losses. By chance, Phil Bronstein, the editor, entered the building through our line and we engaged him. If you want us to pay attention to what you are saying, he said in a moment of frankness, bring down 1,500 people and threaten to boycott us like Zionist organizations can and do do.  

Reflect on that idea of an open society, suggesting the truth isn’t important. People who do believe in real democracy ought to be quite pleased with the Planet for not emulating that cowardly view of journalism and the free press. 

Marc Sapir 

 

• 

PROFOUND REPUDIATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley says that she is willing to meet with Jewish community so long as it is in a public forum. She names me as the one member of the organized Jewish community with whom she has already met. Although I hold no formal position in the Jewish community, Becky did agree to accept my invitation to take her to lunch. I wanted to discuss a cartoon that she published. O’Malley characterizes this as a cartoon with which I did not agree. In fact, this was the now infamous cartoon depicting Jews as being in control of the United States. To say, blandly, that I disagreed with it, is not the point. It, like the Iranian commentary she has published, was an overt call to anti-Semitism. This goes beyond just disagreement. It was as if she had published the statement, “blacks are sub-human.” This is not a proposition open to debate, only to profound repudiation. Similarly, the most recent hatred published by the Planet to the effect that Jews have caused their own misery because they are inherently racists, is not a proposition anyone should have to debate in public. What happened at our lunch maybe instructive to the Jewish community at large as it weighs O’Malley’s invitation to an open public meeting. O’Malley came to the lunch with a guest. Remember, I was buying, which normally means that I am at least informed in advance of the added freight. She introduced her guest, Anita, as her Middle East expert. I didn’t even sit down before this guest launched into an invective that did not stop, at times screaming, and was comprised of most every piece of information and misinformation in the Hamas textbook. It got so bad, that O’Malley took to apologizing for her guest’s behavior, and offered that she in fact had herself just met this woman and didn’t really know her all that well.  

I presume the public forum O’Malley seeks will be stacked with every radical lunatic in Berkeley, and maybe some out of town skin heads and neo-Nazis to boot, ready to debate the Daily Planet’s proposition that Jews have brought their historical persecution upon themselves. At a minimum, the audience will be filled with Berkeley’s anti-Israel community, even though the topic is not or should not be Israel, pro or con, but the Planet’s publication of ani-Semitic garbage. That O’Malley is ready to stack the audience is apparent by her recent behavior in these pages, where, when faced with a blizzard of letters protesting the use of the Planet for the propagation of anti-Semitism, she actually published a letter in her defense by Rio Bauce, one of her own reporters (the letters section in any reputable paper is off limits to staff), while failing even to identify him as such. In any event, such a public meeting would almost certainly devolve quickly into a shouting match, leaving O’Malley to smugly lean back and take in the fun. 

Finally, I have no personal knowledge of who in the Jewish community did or did not recently ask O’Malley for a meeting. However, I do know that Councilmember Linda Maio, was explicitly asked to sign the letter denouncing anti-Semitism which appeared in the Aug. 22 Planet and pointedly refused to do so. She defended O’Malley’s right to be a purveyor of hate in Berkeley. Recall, that Maio supported the Corrie Resolution, in support of Hamas, which has been so divisive in this community. The Jewish community and other fair-minded citizens of Berkeley will remember this if and when Maio runs for mayor. 

John Gertz 

 

 

Much in this letter, right down to the name of the friend, a Holocaust survivor active in reconciliation activities who generously offered to accompany me to lunch with Gertz, is wrong. We do allow our staff writers, even high school interns like Rio, to write signed opinions, and yes, I do know that other papers don’t. They also don’t usually print letters like Gertz’s. Neither the paper nor the cartoonist believes that Jews control the United States, or has ever said or implied that. Gertz has admitted on at least one occasion that he does not know the events which inspired the cartoon (it was published early in April of 2004, if he’d like to do some research). The cartoon used three national flags to depict the three nations involved and was a criticism of the Bush administration’s hypocrisy in posing as a mediator while expressing unquestioning and unconditional support for one side. No stereotypes or generalizations were involved, just flags. Incidentally, Gertz has never taken into account the cartoonist’s other work, offering up nary a word when we ran three consecutive cartoons condemning the election of Hamas and branding it a terrorist organization. See the “International” category at jfdefreitas.com.  

And I don’t sell myself for the price of lunch. I don’t remember who paid the tab, but if it really bothers Gertz I’ll send him a twenty if he’ll give me his mailing address. 

 

• 

THE GOOD WITH THE BAD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Though I’m reluctant to invite more hate-filled rants from the Daily Planet’s most prolific letter writers, I’d be interested to know how Gertz, Spitzer, Altschul, et al would respond to the recent news that the invasion of Lebanon was in fact planned much earlier, and in partnership with the United States. These letter writers are forever lecturing others for not placing events in context, yet in this instance they insisted that the war was simply sparked by Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. Now that Seymour Hersh has revealed the context, it would seem that the rather moderate points made over the years in Planet editorials, columns and cartoons—that Israel is not entirely free from blame, that the situation is not black and white, good vs. evil, and that U.S. involvement is at best disingenuous and at worst wildly destructive—have been confirmed as accurate. And not for the first time, I might add. 

I’d also be curious to know what these writers think of A Jewish Voice For Peace, a group whose position, as stated in one of their slogans, is that there can be no peace for Israel without justice for Palestinians. Are they also, as Spitzer is so fond of saying, victims of Hezbollah’s propaganda machine? Are they leftist Israel-hating radicals masquerading as Jews? Do they have some sort of hidden agenda? 

Again, context is everything. Yes, Editor O’Malley published a racist, anti-Semitic rant. And I cannot offer a defense of that decision. I don’t believe she is an anti-Semite herself, though I do believe she can be faulted for poor editorial judgment. But what the aforementioned letter writers fail to understand is that the same editorial policy that would ban the hate of Mr. Arianpour from getting published would likewise entail the banning of Gertz and Spitzer from these pages, for they have little to say that doesn’t involve systematically trashing those who disagree with them by painting the opposition with the broad brush of “anti-Semitism.” Can you think of any other newspaper that would allow such crass, destructive and infantile language? For or better or for worse, the Planet grants them that privilege. Frequently. 

Yet that’s not to say that these men are not intelligent, articulate people. I don’t know them, I can only judge them by their letters, and despite all the bile, they’re decent writers and more than capable of expressing their views . But just once I would like to see one of them apply his gifts to a proactive piece of writing, a clear and simple statement of his views, without personal attacks. For all I ever see of them are reactionary letters written in response to others, attacking ruthlessly and all the while accusing the Planet of not representing their views. I would argue that the Planet has always allowed them space, too much of it in fact, and that the decision to publish Arianpour’s particular brand of hate is merely the logical extension of that lax editorial policy, a policy that some would praise as open-minded, but one that I would suggest as been misguided from the start. 

That said, I admit that read the Planet in part for just this reason—that they publish views that you can’t find in the tepid, bland mainstream newspapers. That is part of their identity. And if that’s what you want, you have to take the good with the bad. And again, if the politicians and rabbis who recently lambasted the paper had taken the time to consider the context, to learn something of the Planet’s history, to ask for an explanation of editorial policy before rushing to judgment, they might have contributed something positive to the debate rather just another condemnation.  

Steve Reichner 

North Oakland 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Amazing! Becky O’Malley has managed to turn the attack on Jews that appeared in her paper into a situation where she is somehow the aggrieved victim of a “setup.” She even denies that she ever turned down a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community to discuss the hateful commentary she published. 

Yet she admitted her refusal to meet in an Aug. 11 editorial. Here’s what she wrote: 

“We also got a call from a young-sounding woman with a San Francisco number who said she was “Tami from ADL.” I expected that meant she represented the Anti-Defamation League. When I called her back, she said “We’d like to meet with you.” I’d just fielded a similar request for a meeting from the manager of a political candidate. In both cases, I’m assuming they hope to affect the way the paper covers stories and issues that they care about, and the answer to both has to be sorry, but no dice.” 

Clearly, in her own words, Ms. O’Malley says she wouldn’t meet with anyone who “hopes to affect the way the paper covers stories and issues they care about.” The problem is that she does not understand the difference between a political candidate who wants to meet with her to spin a particular issue and a minority group that is offended by a vicious, racist attack. 

And what is her proposed solution? A public meeting. Once again, she thinks that whether or not genocide against the Jews is a good thing is a matter for public debate. She just doesn’t understand that this is not a discussion of land-marking buildings or the creek ordinance or the validity of the war in Iraq.  

This is a question of whether it is appropriate to print a commentary that singles out an ethnic group and vilifies it in the most egregious manner. The representative of the Jewish community who called Ms. O’Malley was simply asking to bring that concern to her attention and to hear her response. 

Ms. O’Malley’s reaction was to divert attention from the real question by launching yet another attack on the Jews. Even more amazing!  

Jerry Weintraub 

 

• 

THE PROBABLE SOURCE OF ARIANPOUR’S ANTI-SEMITISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just read the Aug. 8 op-ed of Kurosh Arianpour, an Iranian student studying in India. 

My reactions follow. I was not surprised to read the words of someone with education in essay composition but factually ignorant and obviously in need of an emotional spleen-venting, the cause of which I think I recognize more than many other Americans. You see, I have read Dr. Alice Miller’s “For Your Own Good,” which talks about brutalized children who are given socially acceptable targets for vilification because it was forbidden to question parents and other elders. They grow up to bigots. Most Arab governments are brutal parents. They have intentionally kept their children in poverty the way the Catholic Church kept its congregants illiterate and used the passion play for more than a thousand years to teach hate of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, with its distorted version of history. It’s important for all Americans to recognize the educational and sociological and nutritional poverty into which most of the children of the Middle East have been born and in which they have been growing to adulthood. The level of historical, academic ignorance and the mentality to blame the victim are natural products of children born into that poisonous-for-children environment. Add to it a religion that, to a great extent, forbids questioning of higher thinking on a spiritual and/or academic level. I don’t think it’s any wonder at the disparity in number of (Christian) Nobel awards given to Jews within the wide array academic fields. My heart breaks for the children born into these conditions, just as my heart bleeds for the African 6-year olds who break big rocks into little pebbles to be able to eat two meals a day. 

Another reaction I had to the op-ed is the same reaction I have when I see news films and photos of people in other countries burning American flags. I smirk. Even when I’m alone, I say out loud: “I can do that. I can burn the U.S. flag to protest a governmental act and not be imprisoned for it because I live under the U.S. Constitution that protects my right to freedom of thought and disagreeing speech. Let me see you, burner of an American flag, protest something your government does by burning your own flag and I’ll see film at 11 on your being shot on the spot or dragged away by your police.” 

Many Americans just don’t grasp the difference in environments in which we and these non-American flag-burners live. Without education about their daily lives and recognition of their abuse by their leaders, we, on both sides, are doomed to destroying the Earth’s ecosystems, one acre at a time. We who live under freedom-of-speech laws can’t build a wall high or long enough to keep them and their hate-propelled munitions on the other side. We have to use the Internet to spread the concept of exchange of ideas. 

My third reaction was to resolve to write this op-ed to make sure that, somehow, Kurosh Arianpour would became aware that photos of dead Lebanese babies with pacifiers were run in the U.S. papers as well as on local, national, and cable TV news in the United States, along with photos of dead Israeli babies with pacifiers, the latter of which I doubt are ever run in most Arabic countries. So when we talk about censorship, let’s be honest on both sides. 

Many people are aware Gold Meier said that “Arabs will make peace with Israel when they loves their children more than they hate the Jews and the State of Israel”; but are Kurosh Arianpour and others aware of what she said after that? “I can forgive you for killing my children. What I can’t forgive is your making me kill yours.” Since Arafat was a young man, enemies of Israel, have intentionally hidden munitions in families’ nurseries in hopes of the babies’ being killed. Some parents welcome those soldiers. Other parents are bullied into hosting them. Who killed the babies under whose cribs bombs are stored and next to whose cribs rockets are launched into Israel’s civilian neighborhoods with the specific purpose of having the launchers targeted while the babies are made to wait for the retaliation. 

There is currently only one state in the corner of the Middle East designated by Romans as Palestine, the State of Israel. Does Kurosh know that Arab/Moslem political and religious leaders refused a state for the Palestinian Moslems in 1947/48. Blood cousins of different faiths whose people had been in the region for what 10,000 years. There was an opportunity to live side-by-side in peace in response to Chaim Weitzman’s call that the non-Jews stay and help to make the desert bloom. Instead of the sickle, the sword was grabbed. How sad. How many children have died since the first fateful refusal of a State of Palestine? Is Kurosh allowed to ask that out loud? 

Jews were known as the Chosen People because they had a book to protect, a book, the first five sections of which are the basis of democratic law but which laws Arabic citizens either aren’t educated about or don’t comprehend because they’ve never been given the opportunity to make choices for themselves, an essential aspect of a democratic society for people who have to take responsibility for their daily decisions and governance of themselves. We have laws that aspire to equal protection and providing due process in a criminal justice system along with our civil contract and negligence laws. These are foreign concepts to most people of most of the Arabic countries. Certainly, Kurosh Arianpour is unaware of democratic political science except for the lesson received by the publication of the op-ed. 

If Kurosh Arianpour were in the US, there would be no arrest for the op-ed just as there is no arrest for the people who decided to publish the it. This is America and that is the difference between “us” and “them.” This is the biggest lesson to be taken from the publication of this hateful op-ed filled with blatant ignorance which purports to explain grounds for hate. What it clearly portrays is the impoverished life in which far too many children are born. 

I wonder whether Kurosh Arianpour is talking to anyone about the fact of the publication of the op-ed and the exchange of ideas which it precipitated. 

Is that allowed in Iran? 

C.J. Kingsley 

 

Wow. Too many factual errors in this one to correct in the available space. Just a couple: Iranians are not Arabs. Neither Catholics nor Moslems are illiterate. Many would disagree with most of his “history.”  

 

• 

WHERE ARE THE  

PEACMAKERS? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We stand at the brink of never ending war and hate. Those who should come forward to stand against tyranny have failed to do so. 

The liberal peace movement has embraced the cause of occupation. They march together even though the occupied also advocate destruction, repression and death as legitimate tools. 

The Just moralize the destruction of the innocent and the repression of others in the name of self defense. 

We bring war and chaos to the world in the name of freedom and defeating terror. 

Where are the Martin L. Kings, the Nelson Mandelas, and the Gandhis? Where is the social outcry for peace though nonviolence? 

A man in China stands unarmed against a tank, and the world sees. A farm worker organizes and a country changes. A young student has her life crushed opposing injustice, and the world cries. 

These are the real heroes. Those who advocate and practice unrelenting non-violent social action to achieve peace and change. 

We must hold our government and ourselves accountable and stand up against all violence and hate. We must never embrace it for any reason or advantage. 

We should demand that the words “never again” be embraced by Israel’s neighbors. The peacemakers there must own this truth. And from Israel, should flow uncompromising protection of social justice for all, regardless of the cost. 

Peace and freedom of speech trump any ideology or religion. 

We are the peace makers. Who will stand up? Stop the violence, hate and injustice. 

Robert Lieber 

Albany 


Commentary: The University of Oakland: An Impossible Dream?

By Joanne Kowalski
Tuesday August 29, 2006

“Oakland Unified School District trustees ... introduc(ed) a proposal to build a ‘new, permanent, state of the art education center’ on the 8.25-acre property ... (that) would house a kindergarten through high school program, the two early childhood development centers ... and the district administrative office.” 

—From “Oakland School District Trustees Release Counterproposal to Downtown Property Sale,” Berkeley Daily Planet, Aug. 18, 2006. 

 

When I read this, I wondered why not carry the proposal one step further and create a world class preschool through post-grad educational center that, in addition to the above facilities, would also house A.A., B.A. and graduate programs in urban education, bilingual education, child development and public administration? With such a center, educators and researchers could collaborate on building first class urban schools in Oakland, OUSD personnel could work and go to school at the same time and Oakland would be assured of having a future supply of well trained teachers and administrators. 

Oakland, after all, has been woefully short changed when it comes to higher education. It is one of the very few cities in the country to not have a publicly funded four-year college or university within its borders. Not only does it lack upper division and graduate programs, it has no public medical, dental or law schools. Only two of Peralta’s four community college campuses are in Oakland. One of these (Merritt) was originally built to replace an inner city school but is so high in the hills it is really suburban. This leaves Oakland with only Laney, three private colleges of any size (Mills, Holy Names and California College of the Arts) all of which serve special populations and a bare handful of small religious and technical schools. 

San Francisco, by comparison, is teeming with higher educational opportunities. There is San Francisco State, UC Medical and Dental, Hastings Law and the University of the Pacific Dental. City College, the San Francisco community college system, has nine campuses in the city of which at least four (Chinatown, Mission, Castro and Fort Mason) are located near downtown. San Francisco also has Golden Gate, the University of San Francisco and New College (all with graduate, professional and law programs), the San Francisco Art Institute and a virtual smorgasbord of specialized colleges ranging from psychology to business, design, culinary arts, digital arts and photography. 

It could be argued, I guess, that Oakland is served by both Cal State East Bay and UCB. But Cal State East Bay (really Cal State Hayward) was not designed as an urban school and sitting as it does at the top of the Hayward hills, it is far removed from Oakland’s city life. UCB, while closer, is much more akin to exurban schools that cater to the cream of students statewide such as the Universities of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Wisconsin (Madison), Texas (Austin) or Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) than it is to any free standing urban university like CUNY, the University of D.C., Wayne State (Detroit) or the University of Houston. And unlike other exurban schools, neither UC nor Cal State has campuses or schools located in Oakland expressly designed to serve students living there. 

I grew up in Midwestern cities where urban universities are a common part of city life. I know they do much more for their communities than simply train the local workforce or provide educational opportunities for students whose families cannot afford to send them away to school. Their professional schools provide needed services to low income communities through teaching hospitals, clinics and practicums. Their campuses serve as focal points for local intellectual leadership and can stimulate an urban area both culturally and economically through their programs, lectures, research, exhibits, performances and athletic events. 

Most importantly, urban universities share a mission and focus schools like UCB decidedly do not have, such as a commitment to reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of their metropolitan area in both their faculty and students. 

Urban universities also strive to provide education relevant to the well being of the urban environment. The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee campus, for example, has schools of social welfare, urban studies, urban education, and architecture and urban planning and works with local schools in disadvantaged areas on pre-college programs from the fourth grade up. And the University of Michigan/Dearborn emphasizes education programs for a multicultural society and the teaching of science and math in inner city schools. 

UC Berkeley also lacks the typical urban university’s goal of strengthening the metropolitan area in which it is located. For instance, along with numerous urban programs, the University of Illinois/Chicago hosts both the Center for Urban Economic Development and the Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement along with the Great Cities Institute and the Neighborhood Initiative—a partnership between UIC and organizations in the neighborhoods adjacent to it. Indiana University Northwest in Gary has both a Center for Sustainable Regional Vitality and one for Cultural Discovery and Learning which explores regional culture and history. Even the University of Nebraska has a ‘metropolitan campus’ in Omaha with a College of Public Affairs and Community Services. 

If I felt they could be trusted to do a righteous job, I would suggest that UCB partner with OUSD to create an urban educational campus in Oakland. After all, in an era of ever diminishing public moneys for education, the ever expanding UCB has shown itself to be a first class fund raiser for projects it gets behind. And as the OUSD is currently under state supervision and as UC is a state supported institution, the state superintendent of public instruction is in a perfect position to broker the deal. By creating such a school, UCB would be able to increase its diversity and relevance to the community, two things it sorely needs, while Oakland would get at least a downpayment on the kind of public education it deserves. 

 

 

Joanne Kowalski is a Berkeley resident who worked for many years in the higher education industry. 


Commentary: Really Being Green, Not Just Whistling Yourself Green

By Willi Paul
Tuesday August 29, 2006

We got a thousand points of light, For the homeless man 

We got a kinder, gentler, Machine gun hand 

We got department stores, and toilet paper 

Got styrofoam boxes, for the ozone layer 

Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive 

Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.” 

—Neil Young and Crazy Horse 

“Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” (1989) 

 

I made the wondrous leap into sustainability about three months ago. It felt like a good wrap for all of my past mistakes and a chance to re-birth into the groovy green world of Bates, Schwarzenegger and Gore. Interesting three-some, eh? Since then I’ve learned that the rhetoric is far out-pacing real change but we’ve got tons of visions, festivals, organic crunchies and sustainable MBA programs ready to go when the planet shifts. By the way, on the evening of Aug. 25, there were a total of 18 full- and part-time sustainable/green jobs listed in the Bay Area section of craigslist. 

Tom Bates whistled himself Green in his Aug. 25 campaign shout in the Daily Planet: “I am running for re-election to ensure we continue to make Berkeley as green as it can be.” (Commentary, “Rolling Out Berkeley’s Green Carpet”) but completely avoids the ashtray from Pacific Steel Casting’s (PSC) decade of air pollution in West Berkeley—and he now sits in judgment of PSC as a member of the Bay Area Air Management District Board who just sued the company. What will Bates do to re-Green the citizens in the three-city dead zone that has been toxified by PSC’s crud? Beware wolves in Jolly Green Giant suits. 

The city is assisting Berkeley businesses to get Green. There are nearly 100 Berkeley Sustainable Businesses which market environmental products or services in sectors such as recycling, energy efficiency, green building and design, manufacturing, and environmental consulting. In addition, there are more than 50 companies which maintain eco-efficient operations in sectors such as restaurants, auto repair, printing, consumer products and light industrial manufacturing. I did join this group recently. 

There are a plethora of institutions and groupies promoting the new shift. At the Rocky Mt. Institute in Boulder, Lovins and gang are serving up Natural Capitalism—a new business model that synergizes four major elements: 

1. Radically increase the productivity of resource use. Get more from less! 

2. Find nature-based production processes with closed loops, no waste, and no toxicity.  

3. Shift the business model away from the making and selling of “things” to providing the service that the “thing” delivers.  

4. Reinvest in natural and human capital. (www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid564.php) 

The pending 2006 San Francisco Green Festival (http://greenfestivals.org) is gonna preach and reach: “green means safe, healthy communities and strong, local economies. Green is the color of hope, of social and economic justice, of ecological balance. Join us for these huge parties with a purpose. You’ll enjoy more than 200 visionary speakers and 400 green businesses in each city, great how-to workshops, green films, yoga and movement classes, green careers sessions, organic beer and wine, delicious organic cuisine and live music.” Yum! 

Have you heard that Burning Man has spawned Cooling Man (an attempt to use pollution credits to offset the smoke and electricity use at the party)? 

Grist Magazine, a popular green speak, is targeting the relationship between environmentalism and minority community issues. “Minority communities, now comprising 55 percent of California’s population, bear the burden of dumping by dirty industries, and will benefit most from cleaner waste management and recycling approaches. Likewise, since minority communities pay the largest percentage of their incomes for energy (both at home and in their automobiles), they will benefit most from the development of alternative energy sources. And minority communities would benefit most from the construction of affordable housing using green building materials and practices.” (http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/8/25/15931/5148) 

In the East Bay, the Sustainable Business Alliance is a green group committed to greater sustainability in their business policies and practices. (http://sustainablebiz.org) 

Looking for training? Certification? Check-out the Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy Santa Rosa (www.ecoleader.org/index.html). Or contact the Bay Area Green Business Program to get your certification started (www.greenbiz.ca.gov). 

The American Dream is dead. Can we build a new global Green? 

• Green is pushing a push mower. 

• Green is teaching sustainable values to our parents and employers. 

• Green is in the streets, fighting for clean air and historic landmarks. 

• Green is watering the free trees that the City put on your curb strip. 

• Green is taking your bike to the store and handing out flyers in support of Proposition 87. 

• Green your Self; green your home office, kitchen and yard.  

This is where Green begins. 

 

 

Willi Paul is Berkeley activist.


Letters to the Editor

Friday August 25, 2006

 

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS 

By Myrna Sokolinsky 

 

“The three little pigs are an axis of evil,” 

The Wolfowitz claimed in this story medieval. 

The first little pig had no nuclear bombs 

So the Wolf bombed his house with no remorse or qualms. 

 

The second pig saw what the first pig went through 

So to enrich uranium is what he’ll do, 

But he won’t have the time to produce his defense 

Before Bad Wolfowitz bombs his own residence. 

 

The third little pig had a nuclear bomb 

So the Wolfowitz was unaccountably calm. 

“Negotiations is what’s needed,” said he 

And so in his house pig number three lived carefree. 

 

 

BERKELEY AT RISK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks to the Daily Planet for alerting us about the attempt to close the excellent South Berkeley senior lunch program. It seems nothing we love is deemed worthy of preservation by Mayor Bates and company who favor a redevelopment approach to planning. Landmarks, trees, parks, playgrounds, our ice-skating rink, school properties, the warm-water pool for the disabled, branch libraries, senior centers—all are at risk and the list is growing! 

Tom Bates gave up his salary as mayor to keep his assemblyman’s pension. So why is he here? It seems fair to say, after observing him for many months, that he is not serving us from the kindness of his heart but for the chance to fulfill his agenda. His stated priority has been “to get Berkeley developed.” It seems that our above-mentioned treasures are being readied as opportunity sites for the mayor’s developer friends. 

Government’s duty is to serve the people, not to steal from them and pillage their community. Some people believe that Mayor Bates and company are trying to destroy our city as we know it, to rebuild it as a safe harbor for their supporters and ideologies.  

I believe Tom Bates has tried to do some very good things. Before becoming mayor, he planned a development which would have electric “Batesmobiles” for seniors. Sounds good to me! Seniors often need a lift; it can give them a new lease on life. And furthermore, Berkeley needs clean air vehicles desperately, because our downtown and corridors stink from pollution and worse. 

Merrilie Mitchell 

 

• 

HOUSING AND DEVELOPMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Steve Meyers, in an Aug.15 letter to the Daily Planet, made this claim: “Many, perhaps most, of the opponents of current building development trends agree that Berkeley needs more housing…”  

I certainly qualify as an opponent of current development trends, but could not agree less with this statement. While there might be an unlimited demand for rich historic buildings that people actually love and enjoy, the demand for “stunning new lofts” appears to be finite. 

A condo project on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, which has been on the market for approximately three months, is now advertising “New Prices!” Last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle listed these units for sale, logically, in the Berkeley column of the real estate section. But the open house ad was also found under Emeryville listings as “Emeryville Alt” (alternative?). 

Is Berkeley the booby prize for those who can’t score a real Emeryville condo? A brief tour of Emeryville showed a town plastered with condo ads. “Human directionals” clutter the corners near half-finished projects, bouncing big signs pointing to the sales office. No dearth of new condos there. 

How are they selling? The real estate section of the Daily Planet featured an article about the Green City Lofts a couple of months ago. After approximately six months on the market, only 11 of 62 units had sold. According to the Alameda County Recorder’s Office, a total of 13 have now sold. I recently took a look at the building—nice, if you like ghost towns. 

Since no one is building historic houses these days, I’d like to see some evidence that Berkeley needs more housing of the variety that is being built. In the meantime, just call me a proud NIMBY who thinks we should protect and preserve the existing Berkeley, because that’s where we all live. 

Gale Garcia 

 

• 

POLITICAL SHENANIGANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Aug. 15, tenants in public housing and the Section 8 program in Berkeley received a notice from the Berkeley Housing Authority, inviting them to an Aug. 26 community meeting at the South Berkeley Senior Center at 2 p.m. 

This same meeting was originally organized by Save Berkeley Housing Authority, a group of local Section 8 tenants, until the city manager seized control of the event in an effort to squash the tenant’s movement. 

Among other things, the tenant notice states that Section 8 vouchers are not at risk, and the notice was written in such a boring way that most people would not even bother to cross the street, to go to this community meeting. 

In the notice, there’s no mention that the Berkeley Housing Authority is in a crisis, that it’s on the verge of a HUD take-over, that police liaison Taj Johns has been chosen by the city manager to moderate the community meeting tenants are invited to, or that in April of 2007, FMR’s (Section 8 contracts) in Berkeley will be reduced in value. 

For political reasons, Berkeley’s power elite have chosen to use the full power of the city to do everything possible to keep Section 8 tenants from organizing their own event. 

When Section 8 vouchers in Berkeley are reduced in value during April of 2007, landlords will receive less in rents, tenant’s may have to pay more in rents, and most others will probably receive a notice telling them that they have been downsized and will have to move into a smaller rental unit if they want to save their Section 8 vouchers. 

This same scenario has been playing out all across the country in other locations that FMR’s have been reduced. 

Berkeley’s tenants and landlords should be aware of what’s in store for them in the near future, so that the tenants have more time to save the vouchers that are at risk. 

The Aug. 26 event would be the time and place to discuss the future of the Section 8 program in Berkeley, and tenants would be better served if the political shenanigans of Berkeley’s political elite, came to an end. 

As many people as possible need to show up at the Aug. 26, event at the South Berkeley Senior Center to ask why the city manager has seized this tenants event, for political reasons that have not yet been revealed. 

Lynda Carson 

Oakland 

 

• 

BUSINESS AS USUAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s no wonder the Bush administration gets away with continuing to up the military ante. Most Americans (besides soldiers and their families) feel no real impact from the war. Emotional outrage is not the same as day-to-day reality. So why should anything change? 

Feedback mechanisms are basic to living organisms and systems. Where’s the mechanism to tell the president and Congress that carrying on business as usual during a state of war is not OK? 

I suggest freezing all tax cuts (obviously). Also freeze federal job pay raises at all levels, retroactive to the date when “we” declared war upon Iraq. It’s time to create an incentive for everyone. Please contact your congressional reps. Let’s get real.  

You don’t think this would work? Brainstorm the idea with your friends and come up with something better. 

Jean Hohl 

 

• 

MISUSE OF LANGUAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In each of the four pieces by Sharon Hudson on NIMBYism I have found myself cringing. How can she credibly attempt to argue for inclusiveness and respect for all in an urban setting and simultaneously not include over 50 percent of the population when she repeatedly refers to “man” (I assume meaning the human race) and “mankind.” Gender neutral language helps foster to kind of inclusiveness I presume she is trying to foster and promote.  

Ruthanne Shpiner 

El Cerrito 

 

• 

NEW ORLEANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Nothing these days raises my ire to the boiling point more quickly than the phrase: Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Why? Because, quite simply, a flood is not the same as a hurricane. It was the flood that devastated New Orleans, a flood caused by the breach of the levees, a flood that, as everyone knows by now, was predicted and could have been prevented. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

 

• 

POLITICS OF FEAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

American’s indifference is what keeps the corrupt and benign Bush administration in power. With midterm elections approaching Bush and Republicans are trying to make Democrats scapegoats for their indefensible war. What will the GOP subject Americans to at the midterm elections? More politics of fear or will it be border politics this year? 

And let’s not forget the “Rovian Factor.” You can pooh-pooh Karl Rove’s politics all you want but he pulls a new scare tactic out of the hat for every election. 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

 

• 

TEEN SUBSTANCE ABUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley has a serious problem—its culture of tolerance is encouraging substance abuse in teenagers. 

I am writing this letter anonymously because I have a child, who is a Berkeley High School drop out, with a serious substance abuse problem. He began smoking marijuana in 9th grade, introduced to him at Berkeley High. He claims that there is nothing wrong with smoking it, because the police don’t care. He claims that he has had a friend, who was stopped by the police on MLK, driving, while stoned, with pot in his pocket, and without a driver’s licensed, with NO consequences. My son’s problem really got out of hand because my son’s also started dealing. And my son says once he is 19, he will just get a marijuana club card and can smoke and deal small quantities with impunity. 

Our family has lived in Berkeley since the 1970s. My children were born in Berkeley and attended Berkeley’s schools. I used to love it here. But I now see that this “tolerance” is in reality promoting substance abuse. 

I know that BHS students smoke every day in civic center park. I have personally seen police ride by on bicycles when a cluster of kids in the middle of the park were smoking. And of course the school does nothing. 

When I called the police, they told me that if my son was using narcotics (not pot), they recommended that I file a police report and they would arrest him. My son is now in a very expensive private center for teens with substance abuse problems. This is because there are no resources in Berkeley to help. 

The Mayor and Councilmembers have done too little to address this serious problem. What is the police chief doing? Crime is a major concern of mine.  

Why isn’t there enforcement?! Tom Bates, wake up!  

An anonymous and very upset parent 

 

• 

CANDIDATES FORUM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For a week and a half, we have been trying to schedule a south Berkeley mayoral candidates forum. The challengers have been cooperative, but we have not been successful scheduling the mayor. 

It took five days for Tom Bates’ chief of staff, Cisco deVries, to inform us that the first date we suggested, Sept. 21, was not available. It took him another three days to respond to us, on Monday, Aug. 21, that the second date we suggested, Sept. 20, was also unavailable. Mr. deVries’ Aug. 21 e-mail also stated, “it is probably better to look towards mid-October, as late September and early October are already quite full on [the mayor’s] schedule.” Then on Aug. 22, Tom Bates’ campaign manager, Armando Viramontes told our representative that he would have to get back to us to determine whether the mayor could make any one of the five new dates in mid- and late October that we had suggested. Yet on the same day, Aug. 22, Mr. Viramontes received and agreed to a request for the mayor to participate in a North Berkeley organization’s candidates’ night on Oct. 5. 

Why is Tom Bates giving South Berkeley the runaround? Is it because of the controversy over development at Ashby BART? Is he trying to minimize the publicity from our public forum by forcing us to hold our event as close to the Nov. 7 election as possible? Is he planning to show up at all? 

The neighborhood associations sponsoring this event represent thousands of south Berkeley households. 

Laura Menard, ROC Neighborhood Association 

Dan Bristol, Lorin Neighbors 

Robin Wright, Lorin Neighbors 

Kenoli Oleari, Lorin Neighbors 

Ozzie Vincent, South Berkeley Crime Prevention Council 

 

• 

SCHOOL BOARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for your story on the upcoming Berkeley School Board elections. To delve deeper into my candidacy, I would like to state that I am a candidate for the School Board because as a parent of two sons in Berkeley schools, I see the promise of what the BUSD can be—a model urban district that uses our vast community’s resources to provide our children with the opportunity and support to bring out their personal best and prepare them for the challenges of our 21st century world—academically strong and ready to thrive. And, as a long time volunteer in the School District and as a senior manager in local government, I have the skills and experience necessary to bring about this vision. 

I have been an active parent in the School District for 10 years and have a proven track record of bringing together diverse school communities toward common actions that benefit our youth—most recently, as co-president of the Berkeley High PTSA. I have held many other leadership positions, both at the school site and District-wide level, including serving on the BSEP (school tax measure) Planning and Oversight Committee, the District Advisory Committee, and the governance councils of Washington Elementary and Longfellow Middle Schools. As a senior manager in local government, I have extensive budget, policy, and organizational development experience and have regularly facilitated community-based planning efforts and interest based negotiations. I also have experience in securing millions of dollars of private and public funds—working with regional public agencies and the business community. And, I have established relationships with our city, county, state, and federal elected representatives that can form the basis for expanding the resources available to help our children succeed. I am also a graduate of Brown University (Asian Studies/Comparative Politics) and have a graduate degree from UC Berkeley in Political Science/Public Administration. 

If elected to the School Board, I will have two priorities:  

1) I will work with our school communities as well as the wider community to develop a district-wide student achievement plan that sets priorities and determines core programs so that all of our students are challenged and supported to do their personal best—whether they are students with special needs, underachieving students, average students, or academically gifted students and which is tied to a sound fiscal plan that includes partnerships with local government, private foundations, the university and community colleges, non-profits organizations, businesses, and community groups. 

2) I will facilitate the creation of a much more open and inclusive School District, by insisting on a user-friendly comprehensive district budget format; advocating for the institutionalization of public advisory and oversight committees; and stressing two-way communication with the school and wider community around district finances, educational priorities/programs, safety/discipline, and other issues. 

I have been endorsed by the Berkeley Federation of Teachers as well as numerous elected officials and a spectrum of school community activists, including Janet Huseby, Jessica Seaton, Rebecca Herman, Mary McDonald, Michael Miller, and Carol Lashof. 

Karen Hemphill 

 

• 

RENT BOARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It's amazing what intelligent and persevering citizens are capable of achieving. Laurie Bright and Roger Marquis, neither of whom is a lawyer, have managed to write and file a petition for writ of mandate and injunctive relief with the Superior Court of the County of Alameda asking for a rewrite of both the question and the city attorney’s analysis of the Landmarks Preservation Update 2006 Initiative, which is Measure J on the November ballot, adopted by the City Council despite vocal opposition by preservationists. The petition charges that the question and analysis are biased and contain untruths, and so should not be published in the Voter Guide. 

On this coming Monday, at 8:45 in Dept. 31 of the Superior Court, 201 13th 

St., Oakland (the Old Post Office Building), there will be a hearing on petitioners’ request for an expedited hearing, so that the writ can be heard before the Voter Guide is printed. Interested citizens should attend to cheer our citizen representatives on! 

Patti Dacey 

 

• 

ARROGANT REGIME 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Our Constitution and American way of life are under assault from an arrogant, authoritarian regime in Washington with no respect for the values of our founding fathers. Senate Bill 2453 would give them more room to violate the Constitutional checks and balances, and the rule of law. 

Dr. Taigen Dan Leighton 

 

• 

THE REAL ITALY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As an Italian-American concerned for family who try to endure and survive in the real Italy (as opposed to the romantic projections of American tourists), I appreciate your occasional articles on Italian culture and politics, including the brief, sinister view given on Aug. 18. To other interested readers, I recommend the new book about Berlusconi, with its enlightening parallels to the worst of our government, The Sack of Rome, by Alexander Stille. 

Dorothy Calvetti Bryant 

• 

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Just wanted to thank you for Conn Hallinan’s Aug. 18 column, “The Deadly Tales We Tell Ourselves.” He detailed Hezbollah’s point of view in ways I had no previous knowledge of, although I was quite familiar with Israeli motivations for war, as are well chronicled in larger media outlets. Perhaps the solution to the Mideast crisis is for us to read publications like the Berkeley Daily Planet more often. 

Karl B. Kelley 

 

• 

POLITICAL DISCOURSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is unquestionably true but nonetheless routinely forgotten that punishment is the least desirable means of influencing behavior. In Albany, however, political discourse has become punishing. Gushing self congratulations for their own right thinking, neighbors describe neighbors as corporate shills, mindless consumers, SoCal wannabees, good buddies of Karl Rove’s, Judases, and church burning racists. I have never before witnessed such repugnant rhetoric in municipal politics. 

Since it frequently comes up, I hope by means of this letter to clarify that drinking coffee, thinking some development on the waterfront is a good thing, and drinking coffee while thinking so are neither illegal nor immoral acts. Likewise, drinking coffee, thinking no development on the waterfront is a good thing, and drinking coffee while thinking so are equally normal behaviors. Any objections? If you’d like, substitute tea. 

And since it was asserted absolutely in a letter to the editor last week that I do not exist: I support CAN but never hosted or attended “a Caruso coffee” (again with the coffee!) or “spoke publicly in favor of waterfront development” (this too is a crime now?). I opposed the CAS initiative for the waterfront because it was unnecessary in light of Measure C, and it intentionally sought to rig a planning process with a particular point of view. I am nonetheless certain no initiative supporters burned down churches.  

People who are undecided about the waterfront are routinely dehumanized in Albany these days. No matter one’s beliefs in and actions on other social issues, waterfront politics are the acid test of righteousness. Here’s my prediction: if Albany someday decides there should be no waterfront development, CAN members and like-minded folks will step aside; if Albany someday decides there should be waterfront development, its opponents will cry foul and obstruct the decision.  

Paul Klein 

Albany 


Commentary: Rolling Out Berkeley’s Green Carpet

By Mayor Tom Bates
Friday August 25, 2006

When I ran for mayor four years ago, I promised to put the environment at the top of my agenda. Earlier this month, two of Berkeley’s innovative energy and environmental programs were highlighted in “New Energy for Cities,” a national report released by the Apollo Alliance.  

This is just the latest recognition that Berkeley is now leading an emerging environmental revolution among cities. The Apollo Alliance report follows Berkeley’s recent ranking as the third most sustainable city in the country in a peer reviewed study by SustainLane, a national environmental organization. Earlier this year the Green Guide ranked Berkeley the seventh greenest city in the country.  

We are making great strides by working to green our economy, our homes, our city operations and our region. 

First, we have worked to put “green” at the center of Berkeley’s economic development strategy. Shortly after taking office, I put together a Sustainable Business Working Group of over 100 business and organization representatives to develop a Sustainable Business Action Plan. That plan was unanimously adopted by the City Council and now serves as the backbone of our efforts. 

Small businesses can get a free energy audit and a major subsidy on their energy retrofits through our partnership with Smart Lights. We have just launched a new initiative, funded through a grant from PG&E, to help our 100 largest businesses reduce their energy use and save money.  

In part thanks to this collaborative work, Berkeley is now home to more than 200 green businesses and organizations—from small printing shops to international solar power firms. With dozens of green hotels, restaurants, and retail shops, Berkeley boasts one of the greenest hospitality industries in the United States. We are building on that with a new effort to green certify 20 new restaurants in our downtown by the end of the year. 

We have also instituted a new “sustainable development” fee on all new building permits. This fee funds a number of important programs, including a requirement that all major new developments work with our green building experts on ways to improve the environmental performance of their buildings. 

We are far from done. I plan to redouble our efforts to promote green businesses and dramatically improve our efforts to attract and retain the spin-off businesses from UC Berkeley and the Berkeley National Laboratory. 

Second, we are working to help people green their homes. Homeowners have a number of programs available to them to help cut their energy costs, including free home energy retrofits as part of a city partnership with Community Youth Energy Services. (This program is available during the summer and is performed in large part by local high school students who have been trained in energy conservation techniques.) Homeowners planning to renovate or expand their homes can get free expert help through our partnership with Build It Green (www.builditgreen.org). 

Third, we have worked hard to green our city operations. One of my favorite programs is the innovative partnership with City CarShare that allows us to share part of our city fleet of hybrid cars with the community. That program, which was named one of the most innovative in the country by the Harvard University, is saving about $150,000 a year while reducing emissions and reducing the number of cars on the road. There are many more examples—from our requirement that all new city buildings be built to a high green standard to our use of biodiesel for the city fleet. With innovative green programs like these, we have reduced municipal greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent—double of the 7 percent goal in the Kyoto Protocol. 

Lastly, Berkeley has taken the lead among our neighboring cities by creating a regional greenhouse gas reduction partnership. During my term as president of the Alameda County Conference of Mayors, I spearheaded the formation of the Alameda County Climate Protection Initiative. As part of the initiative, 10 cities with a combined population of more than a million people have now agreed to do full emissions inventories, set reduction targets, and adopt plans to meet those targets. This program, which is run in partnership with ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability, has already been cited as a national model that other regions are looking to follow. 

In November, we are asking the voters of Berkeley to take all of our efforts a big step further by passing Measure G which would set aggressive targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and launch a year-long community process to create a plan to meet those targets. Berkeley would become the first city in the nation to pass such a measure and it would place us firmly in the lead among cities working to reduce emissions and improve air quality.  

Working together over the past few years we have made significant progress to protect our environment. I am running for re-election to ensure we continue to make Berkeley as green as it can be. 

 

Tom Bates is the mayor of Berkeley. Previously he served for 20 years in the state Assembly representing the East Bay. 


Commentary: LBNL: 75 Years of Science, 75 Years of Pollution

By L A Wood
Friday August 25, 2006

This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Established a decade prior to World War II, the “rad lab,” as it was first called, has maintained a strong presence at the UC Berkeley campus since that time. Today the national laboratory is operated by the Department of Energy and it continues with its radiation research. 

The founders’ day activities at this private gala will undoubtedly evoke many memories of the good old days, including scientific advancements, Nobel Prizes, and recognition of those men and women who put the lab and Berkeley on the world map. It’s unlikely that very many will speak about its legacy of pollution and the undeniable impact that has had on the facility and its environs. 

During the 1940s, expansion shifted most the lab’s operations to the hill above the campus. As a result, most of the lab’s research has been hidden from public view. For over half a century, Berkeley’s “stealth” laboratory has operated in a climate that has promoted little thought for the public or environmental management. 

This “scientific” mindset at LBNL has been difficult to overcome and has been accompanied by an academic arrogance that seems to be associated with higher education and Nobel Prizes. Few residents have been able to question the lab’s poor environmental record without feeling the brunt of LBNL’s self-righteous rhetoric and endless recitations of its connections with the Manhattan Project, breast cancer research and solar panels. 

However, there has to be more to science than generating new discoveries. It is also about taking responsibility for the dangers produced by research. Perhaps it’s unfair to point to the lab’s environmental transgressions during the war since little was understood about radiation and its deadly effects at that time. But today, it is fair to look at LBNL’s more recent history and necessary to challenge its failed responsibility to environmental stewardship. 

 

No buffer, no cleanup, few monitors 

One would have to go back to the late 1980s to find the first attempts to address the impact of LBNL’s research activities. The passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) spurred these investigations. Consequently, LBNL was forced to undertake a review of its facility. Back then, DOE’s Tiger Team gathered documentation of the lab’s historic and current research operations. The goal of the RCRA investigation was to define the onsite contamination and then produce a cleanup plan. 

More than 15 years later, the RCRA corrective action report has finally been daylighted. Unfortunately, DOE chose to limit the investigation and cleanup by restricting the funding. Certainly, the current Washington political climate and Bush’s dismantling of the US EPA have helped shape this non-cleanup policy. 

Many US brownfield sites, like the lab’s “old town” area, and Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, are now struggling for local cleanup dollars and to get the federal government to meet its full responsibility. In Berkeley, LBNL’s cleanup has stalled out. In fact, now the lab is proposing that the University of California Regents grant them a deed restriction that would essentially halt any further cleanup on the hill. 

Sometime in the last decade, DOE’s site investigations must have triggered the realization that the rad lab has no buffer zone between it and nearby residents and the adjacent central campus. These evaluations also flagged radiation emissions from two of the lab’s commercial user facilities, the Bevatron and the National Tritium Labeling Facility. Subsequently, both of these labs were forced to close during the 90s. 

The proximity of LBNL to hillside homes has caused residents to question the adequacy of air monitoring at the facility. This public controversy eventually resulted in the City of Berkeley hiring an independent consultant to examine LBNL’s environmental records. Unable to draw very many conclusions from the lab’s scant data, the consultant noted that the radiation laboratories at LBNL were inadequately monitored and clearly not on a par with what is expected of other national research facilities. 

In the last decade, DOE has continued to run the lab as though it’s still the good old days. Operating with a grossly outdated, long-range development plan and a fifteen-year-old environmental assessment, LBNL has refused to consider the growing impacts of lab expansion and research. 

At the same time, DOE is pushing to redevelop LBNL on a scale not seen in many decades, demonstrated most egregiously by DOE’s placement of the new molecular foundry in Strawberry Canyon. It’s criminal that LBNL can force this nano-technology lab onto hill residents, some of whom live within a quarter mile of the stacks, while refusing to invest in a full environmental impact report. This speaks volumes about the current lack of responsible regulatory oversight and what may be in store for Berkeley in the future.  

 

The Bevatron: quick n’ dirty 

Nothing exemplifies this cavalier attitude more than the recently proposed demolition of the Bevatron, Berkeley’s own particle accelerator. Built in the early part of the cold war, this laboratory was funded by the Atomic Energy Commission. Despite being recently nominated for the National Register of Historic Places, LBNL insists this world famous building must be torn down. 

The proposed demolition has raised more than just preservation concerns. DOE proposes that the Bevatron, constructed of concrete, lead, and asbestos, be crushed on site. If approved, the demolition is expected to last through 2012 and at the cost of 90 million taxpayer dollars! 

During that time, thousands of trucks burdened with hazardous and radioactive demolition debris will snake through the streets of Berkeley before being shipped off to communities in three states. The City of Berkeley has long been opposed to the injustice of sending waste to other communities and has expressed this to LBNL. The responsible solution is to preserve the Bevatron so the structure’s hazardous and radioactive materials will remain safely contained on site. 

In a public review of the proposed demolition of the Bevatron earlier this year, the project’s proponents said that the environmental impact would be limited. They claim the building itself would be used for containment of dust during the removal process. However, it appears that a new demolition plan has been drawn up which, of course, has not been re-circulated for public review. The revised plan calls for a quick n’ dirty knockdown of this historic structure. 

DOE, in typical developer fashion, claims that it is two years behind schedule with the demolition and has used this as justification for throwing all caution to the wind. This new scheme to unleash the Bevatron’s legacy of contamination is nothing short of an environmental atrocity for nearby residents, UC students and those living along the proposed truck routes. 

Clearly, the environmental choices being made reflect the fact that LBNL is in crisis. With seemingly little to lose, the lab is scrambling to meet the future and reinvent itself. There seems to be very little goodwill or concern for the public’s safety. Those at LBNL and in Washington who are driving this unprecedented expansion need to be reminded that research work at the lab is for the public good, and not the other way around. Responsible stewardship is needed now. After 75 years, it’s about time. 

 

L A Wood is a Berkeley resident.


Columns

Column: Fleas, Flies, Frank And the Almost Failed

By Susan Parker
Tuesday August 29, 2006

Over the summer we halted a flea invasion by taking the dog to the vet and hiring an exterminator. We removed the rodent population by cutting down a vine and carefully placing poison in humanly inaccessible places. We foiled a fly infestation by discovering the source, removing it, and scouring the house. We survived a trip to the emergency room and the follow-up recovery by administering antibiotics through a PIC line at home. We thwarted the return from jail of an unwanted visitor by calling the cops and taking out a restraining order.  

We went to the funeral of our dear friend Cleo Liggons, and to an 80th birthday party for the father of a good friend. The party was held at The V.I.P., a beach club along the Long Island Sound owned by a man of Italian descent indicted on tax fraud. While there we were entertained by a Frank Sinatra impersonator singing “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Strangers in the Night.” We did the Hokey Pokey, the Macarena, and the hand motions to “YMCA.” We stood in a circle and sang “Kum Ba Yah.”  

As usual, our 16-year-old friend Jernae spent her summer vacation at our house. She got a volunteer job at the Emeryville Recreation Center, the same Leader-in-Training position she held last year. Everyday she walked to the rec center wearing a white and blue Leader-in-Training T-shirt and a plastic whistle around her neck. She spent evenings talking non-stop on the phone with her friends and perusing My Space on the computer. Occasionally she acknowledged that my husband and I existed.  

It was, by our modest standards, and despite fleas, flies, and the Frank Sinatra impersonator, a good summer.  

And then it turned bad.  

Jernae came home from the rec center at noon one day and announced she’d been fired.  

“What happened?” I asked.  

“Nothing,” she said, closing the bedroom door and thereby signaling that our chat was over.  

“My door, my house,” I reminded her. “We need to talk about this.”  

It was not a fun discussion. From what I could gather, Jernae had misbehaved in a way unbecoming to a Leader-in-Training. She felt awful. I felt awful. She needed to go to bed, and so did I.  

I felt I had done something wrong, as if I was a failure at parenting, even though I’m not Jernae’s parent. She’s just a friend, I reminded myself, and a kid who made a small mistake, so why should I suddenly feel like Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother?  

But I couldn’t help myself. I was suffering every parent’s nightmare: guilt by association.  

I called Jernae’s supervisor at the rec department and left a message. Two unpleasant days went by before I was able to speak with him. I thought about the bad things I’d done as a teenager that must have made my parents feel like losers. How could I have caused them so much undeserved pain and anguish? Was this the payback?  

I was sure that Jernae’s dismissal was somehow my fault; that I was to blame for her inability to hold down a volunteer Leader-In-Training job. What would happen to her in the future? What would happen to me? Would she have to return the whistle?  

“It was a kid thing,” explained the supervisor when we finally spoke. He instantly became my new best friend when he added, “It’s no big deal. Jernae needed to stay home and chill for a few days. These things happen. It’s part of growing up, of learning how to take on responsibility.”  

“You mean she can come back?” I asked.  

“Of course,” he said.  

What a relief. I wasn’t a bad mother after all! Then I reminded myself again that I wasn’t a mother.  

Mother-in-Training, maybe. And I still have a lot to learn.


The Rise and Fall Of the City of Paper

By Joe Eaton, Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 29, 2006

It was an impressive object: somewhere between soccer ball- and basketball-sized, hanging just above eye level in a tanoak tree. A couple of its inhabitants, big black wasps with white markings, were at work on its outer surface. They were white-faced or bald-faced hornets, and the corrugated gray spheroid was their nest. 

Hornets and their close relatives, the yellowjackets, represent one of the pinnacles of social evolution among insects. The vast majority of wasps are solitary, but one group of species has all the hallmarks of what biologists call eusociality. Only one female in the colony, the queen, reproduces; her daughters build, maintain, and provision the nest, and care for their younger siblings in their larval state. This state of affairs has evolved several times among insects—in ants and social bees, and the more distantly related termites—as well as in some species of reef-dwelling shrimp and that disconcerting rodent, the naked mole-rat. (Some spiders are colonial but not truly eusocial, and that’s probably a good thing). 

Hornets and yellowjackets differ in their architectural style and preferred location. Hornets build out in the open, yellowjackets underground. Although their name is a byword for ferocity—think of the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh, from which Union troops raked attacking Confederates with gunfire—hornets are actually somewhat less likely to attack humans than yellowjackets are. But neither is to be trifled with. 

The nests of both types are similar in basic structure and construction material. They’re made of paper—wood pulp chewed up by the powerful jaws of the wasps and moistened with saliva—and contain tiers of cells, each built to house one of the queen’s eggs. Yellowjackets build to fill whatever nook or cranny they’re in; hornets add one tier below another, encasing the whole assemblage in a tough outer rind. 

The project begins in spring, with a single female wasp who has mated the previous fall and overwintered. She makes a small paper disc, then builds it into a pedicel to which a row of cells is attached. Then she surrounds the whole thing with a paper envelope, leaving a hole in the bottom. She lays an egg in each cell; when the larvae hatch, she feeds them chewed-up insects. (Unlike solitary wasps, the social wasps don’t provision their brood cells with paralyzed spiders or caterpillars). After about 12 days as larvae and another 12 as pupae, the queen’s daughter’s emerge. They’re the work force now. The queen no longer hunts, builds, or feeds the brood; all she does is lay more eggs. 

And more eggs, and more eggs. The paper city grows, tier after tier. One nest in California—and my hat is off to the man or woman who conducted this study—was found to have 4,768 workers in midseason, and over 10,000 cells. The workers dutifully kill more insects—I’ve seen yellowjackets literally cut a stick insect apart—and bring them home to feed the new mouths. 

Then in late summer, a couple of things happen. The queen, who has stored last fall’s sperm and doled it out to fertilize the eggs that hatch into workers, lays a batch of unfertilized eggs that will hatch into male wasps. Other eggs, laid in larger-than-usual cells, get extra rations from the workers and develop into fertile females. They exit and mate. Those of the females who survive the winter will be next year’s queens. The males, having served their purpose, die off. 

At some point after this exodus, the colony begins to come unraveled. Discipline breaks down. Instead of hunting insects to feed the larvae, the workers gorge on nectar and overripe fruit, and harass picnickers. They may even ransack the cells and eat any larvae that remain. During this period of anarchy, the queen, who has already ceased to lay eggs, dies. What’s interesting is that this all happens well before the first cold snap of the year. There will still be warm days in which the colony could have flourished. But like the superfluous males, the queen and the workers have done what they needed to do: created a new generation of queens. If it isn’t cleaned out first by a marauding skunk or raccoon, the paper city will be abandoned. 

So the hornets I saw performing maintenance duty on that recent day on the downhill side of August were—although they had no way of knowing it—near the end of their road. All that work, all those wasp-hours of chewing paper and tending the brood, as part of a superorganismal queen-making machine, impelled, according to theory, by the drive to perpetuate the genes they shared with their fertile sisters. I just hope they were wired to experience some kind of job satisfaction. 

 

 

This hornet colony may be home to thousands of workers. Photograph by Ron Sullivan.


Central Oregon Coast: Uncrowded Beaches, Spectacular Ocean Vistas, Bargain Prices and 3 Skate Parks

By Carole Terwilliger Meyers
Friday August 25, 2006

By Carole Terwilliger Meyers 

 

The Oregon Coast runs north from Brookings, just above the California border, to Astoria, just below the Washington border. It’s a beautiful drive. But in the interest of keeping you and the kids out of the car as much as possible, this excursion concentrates on the area between Yachats (that’s pronounced “ya-hots”) and Lincoln City, a 57-mile span that is easily reachable from Albany or Salem if you are driving, and is not much farther from Portland, if you are flying in.  

 

Where can you go to the beach on a summer day and have it all to yourself?  

On the remarkably scenic, rugged central coast of Oregon, where beaches are often deserted even in August and where at Fuddy Duddy Fudge the motto is: “We let you do nothing.”  

In addition to low-key bliss, this area has plenty to keep an active family busy.  

 

Lincoln City (88 miles southwest of Portland) 

Let’s begin in Lincoln City, the northern-most point of the central coast and at the end of Highway 18 coming in from Portland. Embracing the past, when hand-blown glass floats from Japanese fishing nets were frequently found on the wind-blown beaches here, this bustling town hosts a “Finders Keepers” program. Every day “float fairies” salt its seven miles of public beaches with new glass floats. This year the program runs through Memorial Day weekend.  

But, alas, not every beachcomber finds an orb. If your family isn’t one of the fortunate ones, turn disappointment into excitement with a visit to the Jennifer L. Sears Glass Art Studio. By appointment, the entire family can participate in blowing a beautiful glass float souvenir (children must be age 10 or older).  

In Regatta Park, youngsters can let off steam at the Sandcastle Playground overlooking lovely Devil’s Lake. Note that the 120-foot-long D River separating the lake from the ocean holds the Guinness record as “the shortest river in the world.” And at the town’s covered skate park in Kirtsis Park, skateboarders can experience a state-of-the-art bowl called The Cradle—one of three in the world.  

Known as the Kite Capital of the World, Lincoln City sits right on the 45th parallel, which is said to position it at the ideal point for a kite-friendly mixture of warm equatorial air and cold polar air. Visit in June and you can participate in one of three kite festivals held here each year. The first—the largest Indoor Windless Kite Festival in the United States—is held in March, and the last occurs in the fall.  

 

Depoe Bay (13 miles south of Lincoln City) 

Wildlife abounds along this coast. Harbor seals, brown pelicans, and fast-moving sandpipers are spotted frequently, as are whales (from December through early May). Perched atop a cliff next to the world’s smallest harbor, the town’s new family-friendly Whale Center offers an excellent ocean view and admission is free. Kids learn about whale babies and can touch whale bones and whale “burp balls” made of sea grass, as well as purchase a snack of whale-shaped cheddar crackers or a souvenir stuffed whale.  

This two-block-long town is protected by a seawall, over which the water sometimes crashes, hitting the businesses on the far side of the street--including Fuddy Duddy Fudge and several other tiny shops dispensing ice cream, lattes, and salt water taffy. “We take care of your candy needs,” says local John Rose, “but don’t go needing a hardware store.”  

Three miles south of town at Devils Punch Bowl State Natural Area you’ll see water gather and splash in a natural rock basin. Nearby, the tiny Flying Dutchman Winery pours tastes of their superb pinot noirs; kids can be kept occupied with an ice cream cone from an adjacent stand. 

 

Newport (13 miles south of Depoe Bay) 

In addition to being home to two lighthouses and the gorgeous 1936 Yaquina Bay Bridge, this vibrant city houses the nonprofit Oregon Coast Aquarium. Keiko, the whale star of Free Willy, once swam in a tank here. Elaborate outdoor exhibits delight visitors, and an animal encounters program goes behind the scenes and sometimes includes a sea lion kiss. The philosophy here is that if you get close enough to look an animal in the eye, you’ll want to protect them. Sea otters, tufted puffins, and sharks are among the most popular exhibits.  

Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center is practically next door. Sort of a cross between an aquarium and the Lawrence Hall of Science, a touch tank filled with colorful sea life and hands-on learning puzzles keep little hands busy. Here you’ll meet Roxie the octopus and find Nemo and Dory frolicking in their own tank.  

 

Toledo (6 miles east of Newport) 

Built on the hillsides of the Yaquina River, this tiny town has antique shops, art galleries, and casual restaurants galore, plus a railroad museum and a new skatepark designed with mini ramps for kids as young as 4 or 5.  

Just south of Yachats, Cape Perpetua Scenic Area’s easy, paved Whispering Spruce Trail leads to the highest point on the Oregon Coast and a stunning view. A visitor center provides activities for children and shows nature films.  

From here you can continue south to the dunes and back into California, or turn north and backtrack to the Victorian charms of Astoria.  

 

The central coast offers mile after mile of scenic vistas, plus myriad parks and beaches. Lodging prices are low compared to those in California, and Oregon still doesn’t have a sales tax. Your vacation dollar just might stretch enough to allow you to spend a few extra days in this natural wonderland.  

 

 

 

Carole Terwilliger Meyers is the author of Weekend Adventures in San Francisco & Northern California (www.carousel-press.com) and is the editor of Dream Sleeps: Castle & Palace Hotels of Europe. 

 

 

 

Travel Information for the CentralOregon Coast 

 

Lodgings 

Adobe Resort: In Yachats, (800) 522-3623, (541) 547-3141; www.adoberesort. com. Most rooms have ocean views; fitness center with lap pool, kids’ pool, and hot tub.  

A Gathering Place: South of Newport, (206) 935-7921; www.agatheringplace.net. Spacious oceanfront house with five bedrooms and a hot tub; perfect for a reunion.  

Chinook Winds Casino Resort: In Lincoln City, (800) CHINOOK; www.chinookwindscasino.com. Oceanfront lodging and dining; RV park; 24-hour casino with full-service childcare facility. 

Heron’s Watch: In Waldport, (541) 563-3847; www.heronswatch.com. Secluded two-bedroom house on Alsea Bay; a haven for bird-watchers.  

Pelican Shores Inn: In Lincoln City, (800) 705-5505, (541) 994-2134; www.pelicanshores.com. Beach-front rooms; indoor pool; great rates.  

Salishan Spa & Golf Resort: In Gleneden Beach, (888) SALISHAN, (541) 764-2371; www.salishan.com. Refined lodging and dining on 750 wooded acres.  

Shilo Inn Suites Hotel: In Newport, (800) 222-2244, (541) 265-7701; www.shiloinns. com. Beach-front rooms; inexpensive ocean- view dining; 2 indoor pools; aquarium packages.  

 

Restaurants 

Mo’s: In Lincoln City and Newport; moschowder.com. This popular, casual spot serves fresh Oregon seafood and is famous for its clam chowder. The Newport branch is across the street from a Wyland Whaling Wall and from seals that hang out on the docks below Undersea World.  

Waldport Seafood Company: In Waldport, (541) 563-4107; www.waldport-seafood-co.com. This restaurant and deli serves fresh local seafood and Tillamook ice cream. Pick up a picnic and eat it at the beach across the street. Do also pick up a few tins of their hand-canned Oregon albacore tune—it is THE BEST. This town also has a skate park.  

 

More Information 

Central Oregon Coast Association: 800-767-2064, (541) 265-2064; www.coastvisitor.com  

Camping: www.oregonstateparks.org  

Jennifer L. Sears Glass Art Studio: 541-996-2569  

Oregon Coast Aquarium: (541) 867-3474; www.aquarium.org 

OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center: (541) 867-0100; http://hmsc.orst.edu/visitor 

Flying Dutchman Winery: (541) 765-2553; www.dutchmanwinery.com  

Cape Perpetua Scenic Area: (541) 547-3289, www.fs.fed. 

us/r6/siuslaw/recreation/tripplanning/capeperpetua 

 

Teach Your Children Well! 

The beach can also be a dangerous place. Never turn your back on the water.  

 

Photograph by Carole Terwilliger Meyers


East Bay Then and Now: SBCC: A Grand Building On a Modest Scale

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 25, 2006

The half-dozen years before World War I were significant ones for Berkeley’s ecclesiastical architecture. 

Between 1908 and 1913, five remarkable Arts & Crafts church buildings went up in five neighborhoods. These were Knox Presbyterian Church (Henry Starbuck, 1908); St. John’s Presbyterian Church (Julia Morgan, 1908–10); First Church of Christ, Scientist (Bernard Maybeck, 1910); Park Congregational Church (Hugo Storch, 1912); and North Berkeley Congregational Church (James Plachek, 1913). 

Although each of these churches—all designated City of Berkeley Landmarks—is unique in its appearance, they have in common an unassuming scale in keeping with their residential surroundings. Gone are the steeples and soaring bell towers seen in earlier houses of worship. The five architects derived at least some of their inspiration from the First Unitarian Church (A.C. Schweinfurth, 1898) at Bancroft and Dana, a one-story structure combining shingles and amber-glass steel windows with natural redwood interior. This church in its turn followed the path set by the Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco (A. Page Brown & Rev. Joseph Worcester, 1894). 

The southernmost of the five churches, Park Congregational—now South Berkeley Community Church—is located on the southeast corner of Fairview and Ellis streets, in the historic Lorin district. 

The community of Lorin was developed on the land of farmer Edward Harmon, who sold lots to prospective homeowners. According to Berkeley historian Charles Wollenberg, Harmon went into the construction business in the 1870s and over a twenty-year period built more than forty houses on what had been his South Berkeley farmland. Harmon was the major developer of the community of Lorin, which once boasted a train station located at Adeline Street and Alcatraz Avenue, as well as a school and post office. In the early 1890s, Berkeley annexed Lorin and some adjacent tracts in the city’s first territorial expansion since incorporation in 1878. 

On July 24, 1912, the Oakland Tribune announced that construction had commenced on a new building to be occupied by Park Congregational Church. The congregation’s previous home, in use since 1883 and located a block and a half to the west, had been sold to the Seventh Day Adventists. 

According to the Tribune report, the new building was to be finished in stucco on the exterior and in natural wood on the interior. The main auditorium would seat 300, with room for 200 additional persons in an auxiliary room. A semicircular Sunday school room would accommodate seventeen classes, with seating space for 400 children. Public reading rooms and assembly halls for community clubs would be provided. The cost was to be $15,000, exclusive of furnishings. 

The residential architecture of the Lorin district consists primarily of Victorian and Colonial Revival homes that rarely rise above two stories. It was into this context that Hugo Storch had to place the church building while incorporating requisite features such as a bell tower and a lofty sanctuary. 

Storch met the challenge admirably. Blending several architectural styles—Arts and Crafts and Mission Revival outside, First Bay Region Tradition within—his church stands out without overwhelming its neighbors. Seen from the street, the building is low-lying. Its corner bell tower is massive but squat. The residential-scale portico leads into an intimate redwood antechamber, which serves as a space of transition into the main sanctuary, also lined in redwood. 

But no transition space prepares the visitor for the breathtaking contrast between exterior and interior. The sanctuary soars to the high rafters, exposing roof trusses, diagonal braces, and wall studs. The pews are arranged in a semicircle that is echoed by the semicircular social hall in the rear, separated from the sanctuary by three enormous roll-down redwood doors. In the hall, formerly a Sunday school, a fan-like mezzanine balcony is partitioned into loges that used to serve as classrooms, with more classrooms directly underneath. 

Revolutionary for its time, the stark interior space nevertheless mirrors the spatial arrangement of historic church architecture. The nave, aisle, and side chapels are all here, albeit free of any ornamentation. The rounded social hall recalls the traditional apse, normally located behind the altar. Since the altar of this church is placed at the front of the building, with no space for a real apse, the architect ingeniously created an interior “apse” in the rear. 

The son of a Bohemian-German mining engineer, Hugo William Storch (1873–1917) was born in Mexico. In the 1880s the family moved to San Francisco, eventually settling in the Fruitvale district of Oakland. At the age of 17, Storch became an apprentice to the respected San Francisco architect John Gash. Three years later, the young man left Gash to start his own office and practiced as an architect until 1899, when he took a job with the Electrical Engineering Co. of San Francisco. The company would be renamed Van Emon Elevator Co. in 1903 and relocate to Berkeley after the 1906 earthquake. 

Storch may have designed the company’s Berkeley plant. The post-earthquake building boom probably spurred his return to architecture, which was his primary practice for the next eight years. During this period he designed the Fruitvale Masonic Temple (1905–06, built 1909) and the Fruitvale Congregational Church (1911, destroyed in 1973). The Fruitvale Pythian Hall (1913, severely altered in 1941) was built on his modified plans, according to a 1913 report in the Oakland Tribune. In 1915, Storch moved his family to Sonoma County, building a home on the bank of Santa Rosa Creek. He died in 1917, aged 44. 

After 30 years on Fairview Street, the Park Congregational Church found itself with a steadily dwindling membership. Much of the attrition had to do with the area’s changing demographics. In November 1942, Rev. Tom Watt’s annual pastor’s report informed his parishioners, “I am appalled and tremendously disturbed when I discover the change in the population … that materially effects our work. Only two colored families were in the immediate vicinity. Now … the block directly across the street on Ellis is predominantly colored … If we are to maintain ourselves as an organization it seems to be quite evident that we shall be compelled to depend on growth from outside this area.” 

As told in the church’s history, the remnant congregation decided to discontinue services. In 1943, following a recommendation of the United Church of Christ Conference, Berkeley’s first interracial congregation was born, led by two ministers: Robert K. Winters, a junior at the Starr King School, and Roy Nichols, a senior at the Pacific School of Religion. One of the fledgling congregation’s charter members was Berkeley legend Maudelle Shirek. 

Time has taken its toll on the church building. A 1988 architectural report found it to be in “relatively poor shape. Considerable repair and rehabilitation will be necessary if the building is to remain as it is without further deterioration.” The funds required for full-scale restoration are beyond the small congregation’s means. 

Last fall, a capital restoration campaign was inaugurated with a lecture sponsored by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. An article by Martin Snapp attracted the attention of Mike Van Brunt, who volunteered the services of his construction company, Walnut Creek–based Van Brunt Associates, in preparing a restoration plan. Some of the firm’s past renovation projects include the San Francisco Ferry Building and the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels. 

The Friends for the Restoration of South Berkeley Community Church are now writing a proposal to place the building on the National Register of Historic Places as a means for facilitating fundraising. A National Historic Landmark status has helped the First Church of Christ, Scientist to obtain matching grants from the Getty Foundation and National Trust for Historic Preservation. 

 

 

The writer is indebted to Bradley Wiedmaier for information about the life and work of Hugo Storch. 

 

Photograph: South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview Street (Daniella Thompson) 

 


About the House: New Houses Aren’t Quite as Trouble-Free as They Seem

By Matt Cantor
Friday August 25, 2006

Crisis is opportunity isn’t it? And some days I just have to say, Thank you, Lord Buddha, for another #$%@ing growth opportunity. 

What makes me start off this way? Well I’ll tell you. It’s the inspection of brand new houses. Some people like diving out of planes from 35,000 feet. Others like to train tigers and still others like to argue with women who are way smarter than they are. I’m not really up to any of these death-defying activities but I do, occasionally inspect a brand new house. 

When I’m feeling especially moxie-filled, I like to pick one of those 5 million dollar jobs (yes, they go way higher these days but they’re not too many around these-here parts). It really gets my blood pumping to inspect one of these houses that I am absolutely certain is going to have lots more to tell and many more defects to find in about two or three years, not to mention 10 years from now. 

That’s the thing; when a house is brand new, you just don’t know what’s going to fail. It’s like a newborn babe, all full of promise and hope. Then one day, it’s all car-jacking and unpaid alimony. Well, maybe that’s a bit over the top but you get the point. 

The problem is that people get sort of glazed over when they’re looking at a brand new house.  

Most people assume that a new house is going to be free from defect. That everything will be plumb, square and tight. Perfect. That all the outlets will work and that it won’t leak. So there’s much further to fall than when you’re buying an old fixer and you ASSUME that everything is going to need work. 

New houses are just like old houses are before they get old. But they’ll get there. After a while, they begin to exhibit all the things that old houses do and many will get there faster than you think. 

Now, new houses have many things to recommend them. Newer heating systems are superior in many ways to the earlier models. Same with water heaters and electrical systems and nice big fat copper plumbing. We also have much more rigid seismic requirements and better fire codes.  

These are all excellent things and, in many ways, well worth the trip. If I saw a new house that looked a bit more like our old Berkeley beauties, I’d almost be ready to lay the bucks on the barrel-head. But being in the business that I’m in, I’m privy to a nearly endless reservoir of stories that circulate showing us that much new construction, while looking very neat and shiny, has plenty that can go wrong in the first few years. 

Of course this is not an overall condemnation of new construction, but rather a simple myth-busting exercise in the interest of consumer protection. Many of the newer houses we’ve seen built in the last 15 years in our area have turned out to leak. This is the most common failure by far. 

Windows can leak, walls can leak, roofs can leak and, my personal favorite, decks over living space (or sealed areas) can leak. That last one is so common that many in my business are unwilling to bless any of the new tiled decks with their trust and often leave the client with subtle warnings regarding their long-range futures. 

Many new houses have Italianate ornamentation around or below their windows or along cornices that are made of Styrofoam. That’s right, Styrofoam. They’re called foam plant-on’s and they get embedded below stucco finishes. 

When you see fancy shaped stucco trims (usually 4” to 8” thick) they are probably made of this stuff. The manufacturers wisely require that a good thickness of stucco be added over the foam to make sure that they won’t be easily damaged over time but you know how things go. 

I can often push them in with my thumb clearly revealing that less than 1/4” of stucco has been installed over the foam. 

Newer houses often have uneven walls, floor and stairways. It’s just rush, rush, rush when there’s a million dollar paycheck waiting at the end of the herringbone walkway. 

Now, again, this is not the whole story. Builders work hard to build good houses as a rule. Part of the problem lies with a cornucopia of new materials that are emerging daily, each with the promise of low cost and iron-clad results. We know how that story comes out too, right? 

One major window producer is in the midst of a major recall and this isn’t a shock. New ideas are hard to get right, fresh out of the gate. I’m not exactly an old-fashioned guy but I do believe in tried and true technology and I feel as though we should adopt building techniques and products slowly with thorough testing in both lab and field. I don’t really want to live in a test case and would rather not have to sue anybody ever over anything. 

Beyond this, I do find plenty of errors made in newer construction, just as I find them in remodels and old houses. This is normal. 

The message here is to have reasonable expectations and to not fall into all-too American trap of thinking that new is always better and that a new house will free you from all possible future difficulties. Yes, a new house is very likely to be less work and less cost over the first 10 years, in general. But taking a close look is a darned good idea. So is a builder’s warrantee.  

For some, buying a condo or a townhouse can make a similar sense in that you will have less responsibility when things do go wrong or run their normal wear cycle. If you have a 5 percent or 10 percent interest in an HOA (homeowner’s association), it’s a lot less painful when a roof needs replacement or when a construction defect arises. 

As for me, I think I’ll stay in my 84-year-old house with all it’s bumps and warts. But I am thinking about taking up skydiving! 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.


Garden Variety: Selecting Plants with Natural Scents in Mind

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 25, 2006

After a day of being olfactorily jostled by vehicle exhaust, the odd pile of dog turds by the sidewalk, and overdone, overused, over-applied synthetic perfumes, being surrounded by natural scents clears the crud from one’s mind and mood.  

Scent in flowers, like color and form, serves to attract pollinators. Big bright perfumed blooms usually don’t toss pollen promiscuously into the air and up your nose; that’s done by wind-pollinated plants with small, inconspicuous flowers. (Some of us seem to be allergic to the scents themselves, or to whatever sublimates carry them through the air, but that’s more unusual than allergies to pollen or sensitivities to petroleum derivatives.) 

Scientists looking to breed—or genetically engineer—the perfume back into modern hybrid roses have done a lot of looking into flowers’ scent production. A few years ago a group at the University of Michigan found four separate genes that code specific enzymes that prod flowers to produce scent. This happens right in the tissues of the petals and it can be amazingly precise and versatile.  

Within those petals, which may look pretty much uniform to us, plants can manufacture and release several different scents: a general come-hither near the petal’s edge and a more specific directional indicator nearer its base. This looks like an analogy to the ultraviolet markers on flowers: bees can see them; we can’t.  

If you want a fragrant garden, consider a few things before choosing plants.  

Some flowers, like those of the shrub night jessamine, mentioned last week, are overwhelmingly fragrant. Set such flowers at the far edge of your garden, to dilute the scent. Be kind to your neighbors about this, too, please. 

Like night jessamine and nicotiana, some flowers release their scents only in the evening: brugmannsia (angel’s trumpet) and some cacti and orchids, for instance. 

Daphne blooms early in the year, when we all need encouragement. Earlier still are those white narcissus bulbs you can force in a dish of pebbles and water.  

Old roses have the best scents. Shop for them when they’re blooming, to find your favorite, or take notes and keep those fort bare-root season.  

Citrus trees are famously fragrant, and many do well in big containers. If you love the scents, look for several types that bloom and bear fruit at different times. If not orange, then “mock orange,” Philadelphus—we have a fine native species. 

A nice fragrant underplanting is the humble, common, inexpensive white alyssum. The purple and pink kinds aren’t so fragrant. Alyssum re-sows generously, which is good in a city garden but makes it dangerous to plant next to a wildland; it’s already feral along the coast. Old-fashioned pinks smell wonderfully spicy; so do a number of our native annuals like Brewer’s clarkia. Sweet stock is easy to find as seedlings; heliotrope and mignonette only a little less so.  

Best is to shop a few times each season, and walk the streets and public gardens, with your nose working and a notebook and/or camera.  

 

Next week: fragrances don’t come only from flowers. 

 


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday August 29, 2006

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 

FILM 

Screenagers “a.k.a. Don Bonus” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

A Night of Poetry with Chris Hoffman and Robert Lipton at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Tell It On Tuesday, storytelling at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $8-$12 at the door. www.juliamorgan.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Swamp Coolers, cajun/western swing at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Randy Craig Trio at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Plena Libre at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30 

THEATER 

Unconditional Theatre “Voices of Activism: Crawford” documentary theater, storytelling and dialoge at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $2-$20, sliding scale. www.untheatre.org 

FILM 

Kenji Mizoguchi “The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Simpson, author of “9/11: The Culture of Commemoration” in conversation with T. J. Clark at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

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  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Reggae Showcase with Abba Yahudah, Honourebel Nasambu, Buddha, Bobby Tenor and others, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

The Estate at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. 

Karabali at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Wish Inflicted at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Michael Coleman Trio Jazz Jam at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Bring your instrument. 451-8100.  

Plena Libre at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31 

THEATER 

East Bay Improv “Not the Same Old Song & Dance” at 8 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Donation $7. 597-0795. 

FILM 

Beyond Bollywood “Company” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region” Geologist Doris Sloan and photographer John Karachewski talk about their new book at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Tom Spanbauer reads form “Now is the Hour” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Not the Same Old Song and Dance” Improv at 8 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 597-0795. 

KTO Music Project with Musekiwa Chingodza from Zimbabwe, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

David Ross MacDonald at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Vermillion Lies, The Peculiar Pretzelman at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Lucas Carpenter’s Friggin’ Fiasco of Fabulousness at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

Elvin Jones Birthday Salute with Delfeayo Marsalis, Dave Liebman, Nicholas Payton and others at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Slydini, Innerear Brigade, Stanley at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Salome” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. and runs Wed. - Sun. through Oct. 1. Tickets are $38. 843-4822.  

California Shakespeare Theater “The Merchant of Venice” at the Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. through Sept. 3. Tickets are $15 and up. 548-9666. 

Encore Theatre Company and Shotgun Players “The Typographer’s Dream” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 17. Tickets are $15-$30. 841-6500.  

Masquers Playhouse “Diary of a Scoundrel” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond across from the Hotel Mac. Through Sept. 30. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Jugglers of Color” Works by Albert Hwang, Douglas Light, and Sue Averell opens at Estaban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St. at Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 444-7411. 

“A Balanced Life” sculptures by Will Furth and “Ma Vie en Rose” paintings by Jennifer L. Jones at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave. through Nov. 10. 204-1667.  

Anna W. Edwards Abstract Paintings Opening reception at 5:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to Sept. 30. 465-8928. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Los Rakas, reggae, dancehall and hip hop at 10 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$12. 849-2568.  

Ellen Honert at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston WAy. 841-JAZZ. 

Junior Reid, Everton Blender and The Reggae Angels at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $17-$20. 525-5054.  

The Dave Matthews Blues Band at 8 p.m. at The Warehouse Bar, at 4th & Webster, Oakland. 451-3161.  

Steve Taylor-Ramirez, acoustic folk-country-blues, at 7 p.m. at A Cuppa Tea, 3200 College Ave. 420-0196.  

R at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Jon Steiner Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

The Ravines and Gery Tinelenberg at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

The Hooks, Joel Streeter, Nine Pound Shadow at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Eskapo, Acts of Sedition, Deconditioned at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Dynamic, jazz-funk, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Bayonics, 40 Watt Hype, latin, fusion, soul, funk at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

The Moanin Dove, jungle jazz rock, at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Elvin Jones Birthday Salute with Delfeayo Marsalis, Dave Liebman, Nicholas Payton, Anthony Wonsey and Jason Marsalis at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 2 

THEATER 

Shotgun Players “Ragnarok: Doom of the Gods” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkle Park, through Sept. 10. Free, with pass the hat donation after the show. 841-6500.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Educate to Liberate: A Retrospective of the Black Panther Community News Service” Exhibition in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party, on diplay in the Oakland History Room at the Oakland Main Library, 125 14th St. 238-3222. www.oaklandlibrary.org 

FILM 

A Theater Near You “Blue Velvet” at 6:30 p.m. and “Notorious” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Art & Soul Oakland Festival Sat. - Mon. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza. Cost is $5, children under 12 free. www.ArtandSoulOakland.com 

Sam Bevin Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Ray Abshire at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Transbrasil at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159.  

Rebirth of the East Bay Music Scene at 8 p.m., at Historic Sweet’s Ballroom, 1933 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $16.50. Ticketweb.com  

Hip Hop Competition at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568.  

Three Apparitions and Theo Hartman at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Macy Blackman Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Blind Lemon Phillips & the Lemon Squeezers, Diablo’s Dust, Adam Traum at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Will Bernard Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Hellshock, Wartorn at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, SEPT. 3 

EXHIBITIONS  

“Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. 

FILM 

The Mechanical Age “Metropolis” at 3 p.m. and “Modern Times” at 6 p.m.at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Twang Cafe with Davis Morreales 2 Wheel Tour and Crooked Roads at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

Paul H. Taylor & The Montara Mountin Boys at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Americana Unplugged: The Blind Willies at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

MONDAY, SEPT. 4 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Marc Elihu Hofstadter and Eliot Schain at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.


The Berkeley Book Tribe

By Dorothy Bryant, Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 29, 2006

If you are new to Berkeley, chances are that up to now you’ve done your book shopping online or at a giant chain store in the nearest mall. 

The same chain stores serve the Bay Area, but they are far outnumbered by independent bookstores of all types and sizes, with a staff of one to 25. 

The Yellow Pages list, within the borders of Berkeley alone, over 30 independent bookstores—new, used, and mixed—general and specialized: children’s books, sci-fi/mystery, builder/landscaper, legal, comics, political, metaphysical/religious, antiquarian/rare, environmental, erotica, and one devoted to books published by university presses. 

These bookshops are not only retail stores, but hangouts for booklovers who come to buy or just to browse and maybe to schmooze with the frantically busy people who work in them. These are the people who will (only if asked, mind you) tell you if that new hot novel is really worth reading, or which is the best book on repairing antique furniture. 

They delight in playing Sherlock Holmes to locate the book that—well, all you can remember is that it’s a translation from Lithuanian and has the word “waterfall” in the title? After you’ve been in Berkeley for a while, you and they will begin to recognize each other and greet one other like old friends—as, in a way, you have become, although—while catering to your reading taste—they have ended up knowing a lot more about you than you know about them. 

I decided it was time to correct that imbalance, so I barged into seven or eight stores, notepad in hand, grabbed whoever happened to be working, and announced, with my usual tact, “I’m here to interview some of the weird people who work in bookstores.” 

As soon as they found out I wasn’t asking for yet another lament on how high rents, chain stores, and the Internet are killing the independent bookstores, people were willing to answer questions like, who are you, and how did you end up working here?  

Bookstore people have come here from all over. Michele is that rarity, a native Californian; Roger is from Illinois; Tatsuya came 10 years ago from Japan, Stas, 13 years ago from Russia. They range in age from early 20s to well past the usual retirement age. 

Some had one or two family members with experience in bookselling—most obviously Doris, who owns and works in the store named after her father, Moe. “It took me seven years to persuade my father to give me a job in the store; he fired me twice, but then apologized and rehired me.” 

Others, like Kay, grew up with no books and no readers in her home. Yet, “I can’t remember a time, an existence, before I could read, and did, constantly.” 

Typical of over-credentialed Berkeley, most of the people I spoke to had at least a B.A., and a sprinkling had completed most or all of an M.A. or Ph.D. 

Clay is an exception, who “always haunted bookstores in Massachusetts, but could never get a job in one because everyone they hired had degrees, and I couldn’t afford to stay in college. Ten years ago I came to Berkeley, and got what I always wanted—this job.” 

Most of the others drifted into bookselling because, after finishing a B.A., they needed a job while they made up their minds what to do next. “And so here I am,” says Nick, “thirty-five years later, realizing there’s no place else I’d rather be.” 

Others have more specific reasons for starting and staying in bookstores, like flexible hours. Amy and Laura cite more hours spent with their children, even, Laura says, “taking one to work with me in the stroller, and keeping an eye on her between the shelves.” 

Peter is grateful to be able to juggle care of his son, working at both Analog Books and University Press Books, and writing, while his wife, an M.D., brings home the major income. 

A primary attraction, mentioned by all, was, “I don’t have to get dressed up to go to work.” 

Lewis started off teaching English at Yale, then hopped from one college to another, across the country, to land as a research consultant for a large firm in San Francisco, plus some hours at Black Oak. 

“One day I came straight from the office to my shift at the store, wearing a business suit. One of my fellow workers stopped me at the door and said, ‘Hey, you can’t come in here dressed like that!’ and I knew I’d found my home.” 

Jon followed a strangely logical zig-zag path to his bookstore. 

“In 1978 I was majoring in music at Sonoma State and living in a trailer with a couple thousand books,” he said. “I’d bike to the campus, spread a few books out on the lawn, sell a few, enough to get by. Sometimes I hitchhiked to flea markets to buy books for resale. One day Harvey, then a professor at SSU, picked me up, and we got acquainted. By the time he left teaching and bought Shakespeare & Co. from Bill Cartwright, I had my own store in Cotati. He asked me to wholesale books to him, then, later, to work nights for him in Berkeley. In 2004, he was ready to retire and sell Shakespeare & Co. So here I am!” 

The main reason for staying, mentioned by everyone, was “the books, just being around books all day,” and the word used over and over again was “excitement,” at the arrival of a fascinating book by an old or new author, introducing a new subject or a new take on an old one, with a new or old design or a typeface, a style, a quality of paper or binding rarely seen.  

Katsuya, whose interest has shifted from his college major, French literature, to history, and recently to philosophy, says, “I am surrounded by my university, with access to life-long learning.” 

Kimn catches her breath when she says, “Every book is someone’s mind.” Her degree in Anthropology was broadened by her independent study of Jung. Lately her interest has shifted to “design, in everything we use, because beauty is so essential to our lives.” 

Only one person I interviewed had plans to move on to another profession: Patrice is finishing an external (on-line) degree, after which she hopes (after 25 years in bookstores) to go to divinity school. 

Nearly everyone had worked for many bookstores, wholesalers, publishers, libraries, printers, newspapers, magazines. The bookstores they named echo in memory like lost mythological kingdoms: Pellucidar, A Woman’s Place, Books Unlimited, Holmes, Bookpeople, Mama Bears, Upstart Crow, Paper Tiger, Shambhala. With a few exceptions, bookstores come and go. Continuity is provided by the people who work in one, then another store.  

Many have known each other over the long-term (“Ever since my now-20-year-old son peed on Kay’s counter at Paper Tiger” says Amy) like a nomadic tribe or clan with shared cultural roots. The shared culture goes beyond Berkeley, East Bay, Bay Area, to form a nation-wide tribe that gathers at annual trade shows and book fairs.  

“At an ABA dinner, oh, 30 years ago I ran into a friend from Northwestern U. who knew Andy, and that’s how I ended up at Cody’s,” says Michele. 

These broad ties run deep as well. “When my husband died,” says Amy, “there I was with our three young sons, and my three Pegasus/Pendragon stores. The staff was wonderful, a real family. I don’t know how I would have made it without them.”  

Everyone can name famous artists or poets or novelists who have at one time or another worked in a bookstore. These are part of a tiny percentage of practicing artists; most, no matter how accomplished and respected, must keep their day jobs. A couple of well-known local people who juggled parallel artistic/bookstore careers for many years are artist Susan Jokelson (whose cards you can still buy at Cody’s Books) and radio broadcaster Denny Smithson, whose eye-witness-reporter voice you will hear whenever anyone presents a documentary of 1960s political demonstrations. People working in the bookstores now will modestly admit to keeping up that tradition. 

Kay used to perform with “The Mother Pluckers” and still plays guitar weekly with informal groups. In fact, there are enough musicians and singers to form a few booksellers’ bands. As Laura puts it, “part of my soul is in books and the rest of it wants to sing in a smoky old dive.”  

Matthew paints in oils and does pen and ink drawings. Isla works mostly in pencil. Russ modestly denies being an artist, but “yes, I sew. I make aloha shirts, like the one I’m wearing, for me and my friends.” 

Robert is studying film-making when he’s not reading or playing sports. “I have a wrestling mat in my basement” (good training for hauling and shelving books). Roger has edited anthologies and is in demand by university libraries to do appraisals of rare and learned collections. Bruno is the publisher of AK Books, which specializes in handsomely produced reprints of “books by and about outsiders, drifters, marginal people.” 

He also is a mainstay of the Prison Literature Project. (You can donate books and money at Moe’s.) Carla edits the literature/art magazine Kitchen Sink. Stan’s Subterranean Shakespeare Co. used to perform in the basement of LaVal’s Pizza (dishwashers thumping and swishing overhead). “My first cast was half pizza makers and half booksellers.” He is now directing for Live Oak Theater. “Hey, plug my new adaptation of Hedda Gabbler, will you? We open Oct. 20.” 

Owen may be the most active poet, but definitely not the only one. Almost everyone—if pressed—will admit that s/he is writing or has written poetry or has “a novel on the back burner.” Clay insists modestly, “I write poetry but I think I serve poetry just as much by arranging the readings at Pegasus.” 

Lewis, in charge of the well-attended calendar of readings at Black Oak, prepares the most unpretentiously authoritative introductions of writers I’ve ever heard. Some of his introductions have been incorporated into his published book reviews, and people are always urging him to collect the best of them in a book. 

Lewis not only arranges readings requested by publishers, but goes after admired hard-to-get writers, and is not above bribery. He tells me of the very famous poet who, he learned, is a foodie. 

“Now, if I can persuade Alice Waters to cook a special meal for him, maybe I can get him to come and read here,” he said. 

Lewis receives interesting phone messages, like a recent one: “Lewis. Single mom seeking. Call Rachel.” He laughs and says he was relieved to learn that “Single Mom Seeking was the title of a book that Rachel wanted me to schedule for a reading.” Speaking of phone callers, Michele loves them all, including “the people who call us to ask for the name of a good restaurant or the best movie or play in town this week.” 

I asked the same question of everyone: what do you like best about working here, and what do you like least? Universally named as best were the people, customers and co-workers. “Intelligent people ask my advice all day,” says Russ. “And they say please and thank you,” says Charles. 

Isla was inspired by her co-worker Carla to find her direction in art, and Elliot credits a co-worker for introducing him to his great love, opera. 

“I love writers,” says Nick. “You know, they work alone, they have trouble with their publishers, sometimes with their agents, with their lives—and when they come here to do a reading, they greet us like their best friends. And maybe we are.” 

Under what they liked least about the job, nearly everyone said “money,” the comparatively low wages, though Russ said, “I’m broke now, but I was broke when I was earning ten times more, doing work I hated, and compensating myself by buying and spending.” 

Complaints about money went beyond the personal to store-budget constraints, the necessary limits on stock, the expense (not to mention regret) of shipping returns, the limits on advertising and promoting books and authors. Everyone felt “kind of squeamish” about collecting money from customers—as if they shrank from trading a sacred object like a book for cold cash. (Which doesn’t mean theft is okay: “Depressing, as if you welcome someone into your church, and he spits on it.”) 

Depending on location, there were the problems posed by street people, mentioned with a shrug, like a inevitable rainy weather. 

One answer to “liked least” was given on condition of strict anonymity. “It’s when someone comes in to sell us a trashy book, and I have to take it because I know we can sell it, or when somebody buys a book, and I want to tell him, ‘look, you don’t want this, we have a much better book on the subject.’ I try not to show those feelings in my face or my eyes or any gesture.” The reason for this person’s concern is the reputation of booksellers, “that we’re snotty and arrogant.” 

Gino says, “There’s some basis in history for this, you know, the old one-man-owner-alcoholic-crank who sat behind his counter and growled at you as if you were an intruder. He was real enough.” (No more lone curmudgeons. Wayne at Cartesian Books is shyly civil, while Roger at Turtle Island is expansively cordial.) 

Yet the negative image, says Laura, of “not checking my personality at the door,” lives on. (Laura needed plenty of “personality” in the ‘70s, when she broke the gender barrier both at Holmes Books/San Francisco, and at Moe’s, becoming the first woman visible on their selling floors.) 

Of course, Moe (who had been an actor in his youth) created an imitation of the old grump, but everyone knew his gruffness covered pure cream-puff generosity. Besides, Amy says, “customers need a little eccentricity, and we offer it for free.”  

I thought I noticed a general discomfort among the bookstore people about what to call their job. They were willing to settle for the title Bookseller, though they wished there were some way to indicate that their interest lay in books, rather than in a career in “sales.” Book Clerk? Too stuffy and pretentious.  

“I suppose,” said Roger, “you could just call us users, junkies, pushers, trying to spread our addiction to books.” 

 

Coming Friday: A guide to Bay Area booksellers in our Back to Berkeley section. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The Rise and Fall Of the City of Paper

By Joe Eaton, Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 29, 2006

It was an impressive object: somewhere between soccer ball- and basketball-sized, hanging just above eye level in a tanoak tree. A couple of its inhabitants, big black wasps with white markings, were at work on its outer surface. They were white-faced or bald-faced hornets, and the corrugated gray spheroid was their nest. 

Hornets and their close relatives, the yellowjackets, represent one of the pinnacles of social evolution among insects. The vast majority of wasps are solitary, but one group of species has all the hallmarks of what biologists call eusociality. Only one female in the colony, the queen, reproduces; her daughters build, maintain, and provision the nest, and care for their younger siblings in their larval state. This state of affairs has evolved several times among insects—in ants and social bees, and the more distantly related termites—as well as in some species of reef-dwelling shrimp and that disconcerting rodent, the naked mole-rat. (Some spiders are colonial but not truly eusocial, and that’s probably a good thing). 

Hornets and yellowjackets differ in their architectural style and preferred location. Hornets build out in the open, yellowjackets underground. Although their name is a byword for ferocity—think of the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh, from which Union troops raked attacking Confederates with gunfire—hornets are actually somewhat less likely to attack humans than yellowjackets are. But neither is to be trifled with. 

The nests of both types are similar in basic structure and construction material. They’re made of paper—wood pulp chewed up by the powerful jaws of the wasps and moistened with saliva—and contain tiers of cells, each built to house one of the queen’s eggs. Yellowjackets build to fill whatever nook or cranny they’re in; hornets add one tier below another, encasing the whole assemblage in a tough outer rind. 

The project begins in spring, with a single female wasp who has mated the previous fall and overwintered. She makes a small paper disc, then builds it into a pedicel to which a row of cells is attached. Then she surrounds the whole thing with a paper envelope, leaving a hole in the bottom. She lays an egg in each cell; when the larvae hatch, she feeds them chewed-up insects. (Unlike solitary wasps, the social wasps don’t provision their brood cells with paralyzed spiders or caterpillars). After about 12 days as larvae and another 12 as pupae, the queen’s daughter’s emerge. They’re the work force now. The queen no longer hunts, builds, or feeds the brood; all she does is lay more eggs. 

And more eggs, and more eggs. The paper city grows, tier after tier. One nest in California—and my hat is off to the man or woman who conducted this study—was found to have 4,768 workers in midseason, and over 10,000 cells. The workers dutifully kill more insects—I’ve seen yellowjackets literally cut a stick insect apart—and bring them home to feed the new mouths. 

Then in late summer, a couple of things happen. The queen, who has stored last fall’s sperm and doled it out to fertilize the eggs that hatch into workers, lays a batch of unfertilized eggs that will hatch into male wasps. Other eggs, laid in larger-than-usual cells, get extra rations from the workers and develop into fertile females. They exit and mate. Those of the females who survive the winter will be next year’s queens. The males, having served their purpose, die off. 

At some point after this exodus, the colony begins to come unraveled. Discipline breaks down. Instead of hunting insects to feed the larvae, the workers gorge on nectar and overripe fruit, and harass picnickers. They may even ransack the cells and eat any larvae that remain. During this period of anarchy, the queen, who has already ceased to lay eggs, dies. What’s interesting is that this all happens well before the first cold snap of the year. There will still be warm days in which the colony could have flourished. But like the superfluous males, the queen and the workers have done what they needed to do: created a new generation of queens. If it isn’t cleaned out first by a marauding skunk or raccoon, the paper city will be abandoned. 

So the hornets I saw performing maintenance duty on that recent day on the downhill side of August were—although they had no way of knowing it—near the end of their road. All that work, all those wasp-hours of chewing paper and tending the brood, as part of a superorganismal queen-making machine, impelled, according to theory, by the drive to perpetuate the genes they shared with their fertile sisters. I just hope they were wired to experience some kind of job satisfaction. 

 

 

This hornet colony may be home to thousands of workers. Photograph by Ron Sullivan.


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday August 29, 2006

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 

Tuesday is for the Birds A tranquil early morning walk in Miller Knox Park. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. Call for meeting place. 525-2233. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds, who may be accompanied by an adult. Meet at 3:15 p.m. at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park, to look for reptiles. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Asian Brush and Ink Painting for ages 8 and up from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Asian Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 388 Ninth St. Registration required. 238-3400.  

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. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30  

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 

“Soylent Green” A film of a grim, bleak vision of New York City in the future, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. 

Holistic Pet Care at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

“Voices of Activism: Crawford” documentary theater, storytelling and dialoge at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $2-$20, sliding scale. www.untheatre.org 

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. 548-9840. 

New to DVD “Inside Man” at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “Debunking 9/11 Myths” at 6:30 p.m at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito. 433-2911. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Stress Less Seminar at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

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, AUGUST 31 

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 

FRIDAY, SEPT. 1 

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 

“Engaging a New Generation of Activists” An Anti-Poverty Teach-in and Strategy Forum with speakers, Frank Chong, Van Jones, Sharon Cornu, Hallie Montoya and others, at 6 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Free, but RSVP requested, fightpoverty@youthlaw.org 

“Architects at Play” An opportunity for children to build free-form structures at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 2 

Art & Soul Oakland Festival from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Mon. at the Frank Ogawa Plaza and City Center. Cost is $5. www.artandsouloakland.com 

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 

Sick Plant Clinic UC plant pathologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants from 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

Spiritwalking: Aqua Chi(TM) at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Also Wed. at 3:30 p.m. Cost is $5.50, $3.50 seniors & disabled. Bring your own towels. 526-0312. 

Yoga for Peace at 9:30 a.m. at Ohlone Park, MLK at Hearst. Bring a yoga mat, warm blanket, and peace sign.  

Adult Fast Pitch Softball at noon. For location call 204-9500.  

Urban Releaf Tree Tour of Oakland and workshops in urban forestry that teach tree planting, maintenance, GIS/GPS systems, and community advocacy. For information call 601-9062. www.urbanreleaf.org 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

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. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

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, SEPT. 3 

Gala Convergence of Storytellers from 1 to 4 p.m. at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Jack London Square, 98 Broadway, Oakland. 238-8585. 

East Bay Atheists shows the video,"The Root of All Evil," Part 1, by Richard Dawkins, the renowned evolutionary biologist, at 1:30 p.m. Berkeley's Main Library, 2090 Kittredge Street, 3rd floor. 222-7580. 

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  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

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 

Balinese Dance Class with Tjokorda Istri Putra Padmini at 11 a.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 237-6849. 

Kickabout at Codornices Park Soccer for all, skill and talent not required. For more information contact cambour@hotmail.com  

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Ancient Wisdom; Modern Application” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

ONGOING 

Each One Teach One Mentoring Program of the Oakland Unified School District is curbing student absenteeism, decreasing suspensions and increasing student participation with the help of volunteer mentors like you. For more information call 495-4010, 495-4011.  

Energy Saving Program for Residents CYES is running its 7th annual summer program, providing direct-installation of CFLs, retractable clotheslines, showerheads, and more. Services available in Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond. Free. 665-1501. 

Child Care Food Program is available without charge to all children enrolled in the BUSD Early Childhood Education progam, based on income eligibility guidelines. Please call for details, 644-6358. 

Berkeley Adult School Register for programs in High School Diploma, GED Preparation, Citizenship and ESL classes, Mon.-Thurs. 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., Fri. 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1701 San Pablo Ave. 644-6130. http://bas.berkeley.net


Arts Calendar

Friday August 25, 2006

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25 

THEATER 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Merchant of Venice” at the Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. through Sept. 3. Tickets are $15 and up. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Encore Theatre Company and Shotgun Players “The Typographer’s Dream” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 17. Tickets are $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Impact Theatre “House of Lucky” Written and performed by Frank Wortham, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Aug. 26. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Masquers Playhouse “Diary of a Scoundrel” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond across from the Hotel Mac. Through Sept. 30. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. 

Unconditional Theatre “Voices of Activism: Crawford” documentary theater, storytelling and dialoge at 7:30 p.m. at Temescal Co-Housing, 322 45th St., Oakland. Cost is $2-$20, sliding scale. www.untheatre.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Then, Now and New Beginnings” Works by Lynne Zickerman. Reception at 5 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228.  

FILM 

Kenji Mizoguchi “Street of Shame” at 7 p.m. and “Sansho the Bailiff” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Robert E. Bowman in a classical piano recital, at 8 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 845-1350. 

Trumpet Supergroup at noon at the Downtown Berkeley BART. 845-5373.  

“Jazz & Poetry” with David Meltzer, Genny Lim, Kit Robinson and others at 7 p.m. at Half Price Books, 2036 Shattuck Ave. 526-6080. 

Quartet San Francisco at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Free. 981-6241. 

Otro Mundo at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12, children 12 and under, free. 849-2568.  

Julian Pollack & Taylor Eigsti at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Zoe Ellis Band with guest Dave Ellis at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. 

Sister Carol with The Yellow Wall Dub Squad, reggae, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $17-$20. 525-5054.  

Meli, Latin vocalist, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

John Stowell at 5 p.m. at Ristorante Raphael, 2132 Center St. 644-9500.  

Tera Johnson Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Ira Marlowe and Mario DeSio at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Trailer Park rangers, Eddie Rivers and the Flood at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. 

Thought Riot, Scare, Goddamn Wolves at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Realistic Orchestra at 10 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Eddie Marshall and Holy Mischief at 8 p.m. and John Schott’s Dream Kitchen at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

David Weckl Band at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 26 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Video Work by Bill Viola” An installation with continuous loops of the videographer’s works from 1977-1994, opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200.  

“Horses in the Trees” works by Mark P. Fisher. Reception at 2 p.m. at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Ave. #4. Exhibition runs to Oct. 7. 421-1255. 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Godfellas” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Willard Park, Hillegass & Derby. 415-285-1717. 

San Francisco Shakespeare “The Tempest” Free Sharespeare in the park at 4 p.m. at Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt, corner of Perkins and Bellevue, Oakland. Sat. and Sun. through Aug. 27. 415-865-4434. 

Shotgun Players “Ragnarok: Doom of the Gods” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkle Park, through Sept. 10. Free, with pass the hat donation after the show. 841-6500.  

Jump! written and performed by Shanique S. Scott at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

The Great Night of Soul Poetry at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Co-sponsored by Dan and Dale Zola and Black Oak Books. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

“Bird, Bop, Black Art and Beyond” A symposium on saxophonist Charlie Parker Sat. and Sun. at House of Unity, Suite 230, Eastmont Mall, 7200 Bancroft Ave, E. Oakland. COst is $5-$15 sliding scale. 836-6234.  

John Canemaker “Marching to a Different Tune” at 5 p.m. and “Winsor McCay: His Life and Art” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. 

Rhythm & Muse features poet Jeanne Lupton at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 527-9753. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Old Puppy at 10 a.m. at Nabalom Bakery, 2708 Russell St. 845-BAKE. 

Jazzschool Ensembles at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK. 845-5373. 

Ambrose Akinmusire at noon at the Downtown Berkeley BART. 845-5373. 

George Brooks Summit at 2 p.m. at the Downtown Berkeley BART. 845-5373. 

Royal Society Jazz Orchestra at 4:30 p.m. at the Downtown Berkeley BART. 845-5373. 

Jaya Lakshmi, Indian devotional music at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Cost is $16-$18. 843-2787.  

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Kotoja, Afrobeat dance party, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054.  

John Bruce and Derek See at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

The People, Bayonics at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Terry Riley at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. 845-5373.  

“Jazz & Poetry” with Adam David Miller & Pam Johnson, Al Young, and others at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6241. 

Rhonda Benin Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Kai Eckhardt’s Area 61, at 9 p.m. at Capoeira Arts Cafe, 2062 Addison St. Cost is $10. 666-1255. 

Celu Hammer with Gail Makris and David Schiretzky at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

The Whoreshoes, Meat Purveyors, Pickin’Trix at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Will Blades Duo at noon, Sarah Manning Trio at 5 p.m. and Disappear Incompletely at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Charm, UG Man, Lewd Acts at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 27 

FILM 

Kenji Mizoguchi “The Life of Oharu” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Elizabeth Wagele talks about “The Happy Introvert: A Wild and Crazy Guide for Celebrating Your True Self” at 6:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Linda Moyers, poetry reading, at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Benefit Concert for the Animals, featuring flautist Carol Alban, cellist Suellen Primost, and others at 3 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Suggested donation $10. 595-9009. 

Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco at noon at the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza, 845-5373.  

Art Song of Debussy, Duparc, Vaughan Williams, Beethoven and more with Dorothy Isaacson Read, mezzo soprano and Kristin Pankonin, piano at 4 p.m. at Chamber Arts House, 2924 Ashby Ave. Suggested donation $5-$10.  

John Santos & Machete Ensemble at 2 p.m. at the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza, 845-5373. 

Bob Marley Ensemble at 5 p.m. at the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza, 845-5373.  

Vicki Randle with Nina Gerber & Bonnie Hayes at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Ray Obiedo’s Mambo Caribe with Pete Escovedo at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Will Bernard Trio at noon, Americana Unplugged with Feed and Seed at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Girl Talk at 5 p.m. at Ristoprante Raphael, 2137 Center St. 644-9500. 

The Hot Club of San Francisco at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810 

Natasha Miller and Bobby Sharp at 4:30 p.m. and Kasey Knudsen Sextet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373.  

Bigger Olsen at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344..  

MONDAY, AUGUST 28 

EXHIBITIONS 

New Works by Kazuyo Sato-Leue, abstract expressionist, opens at Westside Barkery Cafe, 250 Ninth St., and runs through Dec. 31. www.studiokazuyo.com 

FILM 

“A Strong, Clear Vision” A documentary about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, at 7 p.m. at Community Center Hall, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lucy Jane Bledsoe presents “Ice Cave: A Woman’s Adventures from the Mojave to the Antarctic” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

David Abel and Stephen Vincent at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express theme night on “pet peeves” at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Steve Lucky & The Rhumba Bums, with Ms. Carmen Getit at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Gina Leishman at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Nika Rejto at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 

FILM 

Screenagers “a.k.a. Don Bonus” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

A Night of Poetry with Chris Hoffman and Robert Lipton at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Tell It On Tuesday, storytelling at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $8-$12 at the door. www.juliamorgan.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Swamp Coolers, cajun/western swing at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Randy Craig Trio at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Plena Libre at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30 

THEATER 

Unconditional Theatre “Voices of Activism: Crawford” documentary theater, storytelling and dialoge at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $2-$20, sliding scale. www.untheatre.org 

FILM 

Kenji Mizoguchi “The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Simpson, author of “9/11: The Culture of Commemoration” in conversation with T. J. Clark at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

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  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Reggae Showcase with Abba Yahudah, Honourebel Nasambu, Buddha, Bobby Tenor and others, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

The Estate at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. 

Karabali at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Wish Inflicted at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Michael Coleman Trio Jazz Jam at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Bring your instrument. 451-8100.  

Plena Libre at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31 

THEATER 

East Bay Improv “Not the Same Old Song & Dance” at 8 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Donation $7. 597-0795. 

FILM 

Beyond Bollywood “Company” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region” Geologist Doris Sloan and photographer John Karachewski talk about their new book at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Tom Spanbauer reads form “Now is the Hour” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Not the Same Old Song and Dance” Improv at 8 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 597-0795. 

KTO Music Project with Musekiwa Chingodza from Zimbabwe, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

David Ross MacDonald at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Vermillion Lies, The Peculiar Pretzelman at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Lucas Carpenter’s Friggin’ Fiasco of Fabulousness at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

Elvin Jones Birthday Salute with Delfeayo Marsalis, Dave Liebman, Nicholas Payton and others at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Slydini, Innerear Brigade, Stanley at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Salome” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. and runs Wed. - Sun. through Oct. 1. Tickets are $38. 843-4822.  

California Shakespeare Theater “The Merchant of Venice” at the Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. through Sept. 3. Tickets are $15 and up. 548-9666. 

Encore Theatre Company and Shotgun Players “The Typographer’s Dream” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 17. Tickets are $15-$30. 841-6500.  

Masquers Playhouse “Diary of a Scoundrel” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond across from the Hotel Mac. Through Sept. 30. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Jugglers of Color” Works by Albert Hwang, Douglas Light, and Sue Averell opens at Estaban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St. at Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 444-7411. 

“Horses in the Trees” works by Mark P. Fisher at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Ave. #4. Exhibition runs to Oct. 7. 421-1255. 

“A Balanced Life” sculptures by Will Furth and “Ma Vie en Rose” paintings by Jennifer L. Jones at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave. through Nov. 10. 204-1667.  

Anna W. Edwards Abstract Paintings Opening reception at 5:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to Sept. 30. 465-8928. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Los Rakas, reggae, dancehall and hip hop at 10 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$12. 849-2568.  

Junior Reid, Everton Blender and The Reggae Angels at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $17-$20. 525-5054.  

The Dave Matthews Blues Band at 8 p.m. at The Warehouse Bar, at 4th & Webster, Oakland. 451-3161.  

Steve Taylor-Ramirez, acoustic folk-country-blues, at 7 p.m. at A Cuppa Tea, 3200 College Ave. 420-0196.  

R at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave.. 548-5198.  

Jon Steiner Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

The Ravines and Gery Tinelenberg at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

The Hooks, Joel Streeter, Nine Pound Shadow at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Eskapo, Acts of Sedition, Deconditioned at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Bayonics, 40 Watt Hype, latin, fusion, soul, funk at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

The Moanin Dove, jungle jazz rock, at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Elvin Jones Birthday Salute with Delfeayo Marsalis, Dave Liebman, Nicholas Payton, Anthony Wonsey and Jason Marsalis at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 


Sankofa Institute Presents Charlie Parker Symposium

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday August 25, 2006

“We want to bring Jazz back to the fore, make it relevant again—and bring it back to black audiences,” said Duane Deterville, founder of the Sankofa Cultural Institute, of the two-day symposium “Bird, Bop, Black Art & Beyond” at the House of Unity, Suite 230 in Oakland’s Eastmont Mall, 7200 Bancroft Ave., this Saturday and Sunday. 

“Jazz has been presented too much as music of the past, not for young audiences,” he said. “We’ll be looking at how great players like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were catalysts for art and style of worldwide appeal, and how they were part of a cultural movement that germinated in black neighborhoods, communities like Brooklyn and the Bronx that gave birth to Hip Hop in more recent years.” 

The symposium, running from 2-8 p. m. Saturday and 12:30-4:20 p.m. Sunday, will feature a Norwegian documentary film, never released in the United States, with interviews of musicians who played with Parker, shown over the two days of the event. A one act play, “Wounded Feathers, A Jazz Tragedy,” will be performed Saturday by its author, actor and jazz promoter Robert Carmack. 

Both days will also feature panel discussions, with Arthur Monroe, an artist and historian who was acquainted with Parker; Karlton Hester, musician and director of Jazz Studies at UC Santa Cruz; musician and scholar Rudy Mwongozi; archivist Julian Carroll; and jazz promoter Melva Young, as well as Robert Carmack. Duane Deterville will moderate the panels.  

Monroe met Parker in New York, through black abstract expressionist painter Norman Lewis, who had a studio near Willem De Kooning’s. 

“Bird not only had an impact on the painters and writers who gathered at places like The Five Spot,” Deterville said, “but also studied painting with Harvey Cropper. Most of his canvases are gone, but one or two apparently survive. Part of what we want to do is to resurrect him from the stereotypical image of being just a slave to his own addiction, the myth of him and other Jazz artists as being just about emotions and ‘natural talent,’ not the rigor of study. Charlie Parker was well-read, basically an intellectual, and listened to everything in music. Downbeat put him through a blindfold test of a wide range of music, which he got all right, including Stravinsky and other composers, some of whom he had met. We want to make him more three-dimensional.”  

Deterville also told the story about how Monroe met Jan Horn, the Norwegian documentarist who made the Parker film on a grant from his government. 

“It includes interviews with Red Rodney, the Heath Brothers—from some great players no longer with us,” he said. He also mentioned other artists who traveled back and forth between the black community, jazz, “beat” and other scenes in American and international society, like the late poets Ted Joans and Bob Kaufman (long a San Francisco resident). 

“We want to show that these things that originated in the African diaspora in Black communities in the U. S. occurred more than once,” Deterville said. “Hip Hop is in that way almost an echo of Be Bop, and not only in the sound. Like jazz, it’s got a world-wide appeal, moving youth culture, inspiring painters like Keith Haring and Basquiat, as well as sparking poetry slams, fashions in dress, literature ... We’d like to make Jazz relevant to younger listeners, show how these are materials that can be used in their current aesthetic--and that there are words to draw upon as well.”  

Deterville founded the Sankofa Cultural Institute in 1999 to bring about encounters, workshops and cultural exchanges concerning African Diasporic cultural expression. The Institute has both a local and an international focus. 

Past conferences have brought artists and cultural leaders from as far away as Brazil and Nigeria. Yet Deterville’s focused on the future, culturally speaking. 

“You have to wonder what’s next on the horizon after this,” he said. “Looking back, who knows what brings these things in and out of vogue?” 

He’s making sure the discussions will be documented, so in the future younger people will be able to hear the participants talk, “and hear other people chiming in, to know there was still an interest in jazz in the black community in Oakland, that it wasn’t completely forgotten in the 21st century.” 

 

BIRD, BOP, BLACK ART  

AND BEYOND 

A symposium on legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker and the significance of black artists in the 1950s. Saturday, Aug. 26 and Sunday, Aug. 27. House of Unity, Suite 230, Eastmont Mall, 7200 Bancroft Ave., Oakland. $5-15 per day, sliding scale. For more information, call 836-6234.


Moving Pictures: The Birth of Animation

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday August 25, 2006

Despite his claims to the contrary, Winsor McCay did not invent the animated cartoon. But the legendary cartoonist did play a pioneering role, helping to advance, shape and define the nascent art form. 

This Saturday Pacific Film Archive will present several films by McCay as part of a presentation by another accomplished cartoonist, John Canemaker.  

Canemaker has many achievements to his credit, the latest among them being the Academy Award he won last year for his short film The Moon and the Son. The film depicted an imaginary conversation between Canemaker and his deceased father and featured the voices of John Turturro and Eli Wallach. 

Canemaker will be present for a screening of his own films as part of a program entitled “John Canemaker: Marching to a Different Toon” at 5 p.m. Saturday and will follow at 7:30 p.m. with a presentation and discussion of the McCay films.  

The presentation on McCay is based on Canemaker’s own biography of the great cartoonist, Winsor McCay: His Life and Art. The book was first published in 1987 but has been newly revised and expanded in a beautiful new edition that presents excellent reproductions of McCay’s artwork along with insightful and scholarly analysis. It is the only comprehensive biography of McCay and will surely play a crucial role in helping to better establish his legacy in print and animated cartooning. 

McCay’s range and talent is difficult to comprehend today. He was an extremely prolific artist, creating a number of popular comic strips as well as illustrations, editorial cartoons and animated cartoons, working on many of them simultaneously. The work for which he is most renowned focused on dreams and fantasy and included his most famous and beloved creation, Little Nemo in Slumberland, widely considered one of the greatest comic strips of all time.  

Another of his unique, though lesser known, strips is Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. Like Nemo, it relies on a predictable pattern in the creation of a most unpredictable strip. Each week the strip depicted a harrowing nightmare consisting of often surreal and hallucinatory imagery, and each week the strip concluded in precisely the same way: The protagonist would wake up in bed, realize it was just a dream, and exclaim that never again would he eat so much rarebit for dinner. 

McCay used the same basic structure for Little Nemo, with the young boy always waking up or falling out of bed in the strip’s final panel, a device later used to great effect by another comic strip artist, Bill Watterson, whose Calvin and Hobbes which often featured the wild adventures that take place inside the mind of a highly imaginative 6-year-old boy. 

Little Nemo in Slumberland ran as a full page every Sunday at a time when a newspaper page was nearly twice the size of today’s broadsheet pages. The comic strip was a relatively new medium when Nemo debuted in 1905, just 10 years old and still struggling to find its niche. McCay’s superior draftsmanship, wide-ranging imagination and bold use of color took the form to new heights. 

Brilliant as his imagination and artwork were, McCay was not without his shortcomings. He never seemed to master dialogue or narrative thrust. His dialogue is trite and redundant, and often crammed into awkward and at times barely legible word balloons. Of course, the word balloon itself was a recent invention, and it took time for artists to learn to incorporate them gracefully into their compositions. But McCay never seemed to fully grasp the concept; in fact, Nemo, even in its second incarnation in the 1920s, still evinced this anomalous flaw. 

McCay later turned his attention to animation, and once again, he played a major role in the development of a new art form, using his bold imagination, unparalleled drawing skills and showman’s flair in advancing the new medium. McCay employed wonderfully sophisticated effects and charming characters in his animated work, even taking his films on the road in vaudeville.  

“Where McCay differed from his predecessors,” Canemaker writes, “was in his ability to animate this drawings with no sacrifice of linear detail; the fluid motion, naturalistic timing, feeling of weight, and, eventually, the attempts to inject individualistic personality traits into his characters were new qualities that McCay first brought to the animated film medium.” 

McCay developed techniques that would later become commonplace and, in stark contrast to other, more secretive artists of the day, refused to patent those techniques, believing that the art form stood a better chance of progressing if artists shared their knowledge. 

Saturday’s screening will include four of McCay’s 10 animated films. His first film was Little Nemo, in which Nemo, Flip and the Imp go through a series of fun-house mirror style transformations. At the time, audiences were skeptical and often didn’t believe that the film was hand-drawn. 

“It was pronounced very lifelike,” McCay wrote in a 1927 essay, “but my audience declared that it was not a drawing, but that the pictures were photographs of real children.” 

So, in his next film, McCay drew something a little more difficult. How a Mosquito Operates, a somewhat twisted presentation that would fit right in today in Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Animation Festival, features a disturbingly oversized mosquito plunging his proboscis again and again into the face of a sleeping man, eventually becoming so bloated with blood that he explodes. Again, the cartoonist encountered skepticism.  

“My audiences were pleased,” McCay wrote, “but declared the mosquito was operated by wires to get the effect before the camera.” 

So McCay decided to create a character that could not be photographed: Gertie the Dinosaur. Gertie was a popular creation and McCay proceeded to take her on the road in vaudeville with a clever act that consisted of McCay standing beside the screen and commanding Gertie as though she were a trained elephant. He would toss her a pumpkin, crack a trainer’s whip, and even step into the frame himself, disappearing behind the screen and reappearing onscreen as an animated figure riding on the dinosaur’s back, a moment later satirized by Buster Keaton in his first feature film, The Three Ages. 

McCay’s next project was his most ambitious. The Sinking of the Lusitania took two years to produced and consisted of nearly 25,000 drawings. It marked the first time McCay used the technique of drawing on transparent cels on separate backgrounds, a technique that not only saved time and work, but also contributed greatly to the film’s dynamics. For the first time, McCay’s animated work took on a more cinematic quality, using dramatic angles to further enhance the action.  

Great as his films are and important as his contribution may be, McCay’s defects again hindered his progress. Animated cartoons would soon develop plot and narrative, and, eventually, sound, but without McCay’s help. He played a significant role in nurturing animated film into its adolescence, but it would take other talents to bring it to maturity. 

 

 

Even in his print work, McCay toyed with the idea of animation eventually leading to Gertie the Dinosaur the first widely popular animated cartoon character.


Central Oregon Coast: Uncrowded Beaches, Spectacular Ocean Vistas, Bargain Prices and 3 Skate Parks

By Carole Terwilliger Meyers
Friday August 25, 2006

By Carole Terwilliger Meyers 

 

The Oregon Coast runs north from Brookings, just above the California border, to Astoria, just below the Washington border. It’s a beautiful drive. But in the interest of keeping you and the kids out of the car as much as possible, this excursion concentrates on the area between Yachats (that’s pronounced “ya-hots”) and Lincoln City, a 57-mile span that is easily reachable from Albany or Salem if you are driving, and is not much farther from Portland, if you are flying in.  

 

Where can you go to the beach on a summer day and have it all to yourself?  

On the remarkably scenic, rugged central coast of Oregon, where beaches are often deserted even in August and where at Fuddy Duddy Fudge the motto is: “We let you do nothing.”  

In addition to low-key bliss, this area has plenty to keep an active family busy.  

 

Lincoln City (88 miles southwest of Portland) 

Let’s begin in Lincoln City, the northern-most point of the central coast and at the end of Highway 18 coming in from Portland. Embracing the past, when hand-blown glass floats from Japanese fishing nets were frequently found on the wind-blown beaches here, this bustling town hosts a “Finders Keepers” program. Every day “float fairies” salt its seven miles of public beaches with new glass floats. This year the program runs through Memorial Day weekend.  

But, alas, not every beachcomber finds an orb. If your family isn’t one of the fortunate ones, turn disappointment into excitement with a visit to the Jennifer L. Sears Glass Art Studio. By appointment, the entire family can participate in blowing a beautiful glass float souvenir (children must be age 10 or older).  

In Regatta Park, youngsters can let off steam at the Sandcastle Playground overlooking lovely Devil’s Lake. Note that the 120-foot-long D River separating the lake from the ocean holds the Guinness record as “the shortest river in the world.” And at the town’s covered skate park in Kirtsis Park, skateboarders can experience a state-of-the-art bowl called The Cradle—one of three in the world.  

Known as the Kite Capital of the World, Lincoln City sits right on the 45th parallel, which is said to position it at the ideal point for a kite-friendly mixture of warm equatorial air and cold polar air. Visit in June and you can participate in one of three kite festivals held here each year. The first—the largest Indoor Windless Kite Festival in the United States—is held in March, and the last occurs in the fall.  

 

Depoe Bay (13 miles south of Lincoln City) 

Wildlife abounds along this coast. Harbor seals, brown pelicans, and fast-moving sandpipers are spotted frequently, as are whales (from December through early May). Perched atop a cliff next to the world’s smallest harbor, the town’s new family-friendly Whale Center offers an excellent ocean view and admission is free. Kids learn about whale babies and can touch whale bones and whale “burp balls” made of sea grass, as well as purchase a snack of whale-shaped cheddar crackers or a souvenir stuffed whale.  

This two-block-long town is protected by a seawall, over which the water sometimes crashes, hitting the businesses on the far side of the street--including Fuddy Duddy Fudge and several other tiny shops dispensing ice cream, lattes, and salt water taffy. “We take care of your candy needs,” says local John Rose, “but don’t go needing a hardware store.”  

Three miles south of town at Devils Punch Bowl State Natural Area you’ll see water gather and splash in a natural rock basin. Nearby, the tiny Flying Dutchman Winery pours tastes of their superb pinot noirs; kids can be kept occupied with an ice cream cone from an adjacent stand. 

 

Newport (13 miles south of Depoe Bay) 

In addition to being home to two lighthouses and the gorgeous 1936 Yaquina Bay Bridge, this vibrant city houses the nonprofit Oregon Coast Aquarium. Keiko, the whale star of Free Willy, once swam in a tank here. Elaborate outdoor exhibits delight visitors, and an animal encounters program goes behind the scenes and sometimes includes a sea lion kiss. The philosophy here is that if you get close enough to look an animal in the eye, you’ll want to protect them. Sea otters, tufted puffins, and sharks are among the most popular exhibits.  

Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center is practically next door. Sort of a cross between an aquarium and the Lawrence Hall of Science, a touch tank filled with colorful sea life and hands-on learning puzzles keep little hands busy. Here you’ll meet Roxie the octopus and find Nemo and Dory frolicking in their own tank.  

 

Toledo (6 miles east of Newport) 

Built on the hillsides of the Yaquina River, this tiny town has antique shops, art galleries, and casual restaurants galore, plus a railroad museum and a new skatepark designed with mini ramps for kids as young as 4 or 5.  

Just south of Yachats, Cape Perpetua Scenic Area’s easy, paved Whispering Spruce Trail leads to the highest point on the Oregon Coast and a stunning view. A visitor center provides activities for children and shows nature films.  

From here you can continue south to the dunes and back into California, or turn north and backtrack to the Victorian charms of Astoria.  

 

The central coast offers mile after mile of scenic vistas, plus myriad parks and beaches. Lodging prices are low compared to those in California, and Oregon still doesn’t have a sales tax. Your vacation dollar just might stretch enough to allow you to spend a few extra days in this natural wonderland.  

 

 

 

Carole Terwilliger Meyers is the author of Weekend Adventures in San Francisco & Northern California (www.carousel-press.com) and is the editor of Dream Sleeps: Castle & Palace Hotels of Europe. 

 

 

 

Travel Information for the CentralOregon Coast 

 

Lodgings 

Adobe Resort: In Yachats, (800) 522-3623, (541) 547-3141; www.adoberesort. com. Most rooms have ocean views; fitness center with lap pool, kids’ pool, and hot tub.  

A Gathering Place: South of Newport, (206) 935-7921; www.agatheringplace.net. Spacious oceanfront house with five bedrooms and a hot tub; perfect for a reunion.  

Chinook Winds Casino Resort: In Lincoln City, (800) CHINOOK; www.chinookwindscasino.com. Oceanfront lodging and dining; RV park; 24-hour casino with full-service childcare facility. 

Heron’s Watch: In Waldport, (541) 563-3847; www.heronswatch.com. Secluded two-bedroom house on Alsea Bay; a haven for bird-watchers.  

Pelican Shores Inn: In Lincoln City, (800) 705-5505, (541) 994-2134; www.pelicanshores.com. Beach-front rooms; indoor pool; great rates.  

Salishan Spa & Golf Resort: In Gleneden Beach, (888) SALISHAN, (541) 764-2371; www.salishan.com. Refined lodging and dining on 750 wooded acres.  

Shilo Inn Suites Hotel: In Newport, (800) 222-2244, (541) 265-7701; www.shiloinns. com. Beach-front rooms; inexpensive ocean- view dining; 2 indoor pools; aquarium packages.  

 

Restaurants 

Mo’s: In Lincoln City and Newport; moschowder.com. This popular, casual spot serves fresh Oregon seafood and is famous for its clam chowder. The Newport branch is across the street from a Wyland Whaling Wall and from seals that hang out on the docks below Undersea World.  

Waldport Seafood Company: In Waldport, (541) 563-4107; www.waldport-seafood-co.com. This restaurant and deli serves fresh local seafood and Tillamook ice cream. Pick up a picnic and eat it at the beach across the street. Do also pick up a few tins of their hand-canned Oregon albacore tune—it is THE BEST. This town also has a skate park.  

 

More Information 

Central Oregon Coast Association: 800-767-2064, (541) 265-2064; www.coastvisitor.com  

Camping: www.oregonstateparks.org  

Jennifer L. Sears Glass Art Studio: 541-996-2569  

Oregon Coast Aquarium: (541) 867-3474; www.aquarium.org 

OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center: (541) 867-0100; http://hmsc.orst.edu/visitor 

Flying Dutchman Winery: (541) 765-2553; www.dutchmanwinery.com  

Cape Perpetua Scenic Area: (541) 547-3289, www.fs.fed. 

us/r6/siuslaw/recreation/tripplanning/capeperpetua 

 

Teach Your Children Well! 

The beach can also be a dangerous place. Never turn your back on the water.  

 

Photograph by Carole Terwilliger Meyers


East Bay Then and Now: SBCC: A Grand Building On a Modest Scale

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 25, 2006

The half-dozen years before World War I were significant ones for Berkeley’s ecclesiastical architecture. 

Between 1908 and 1913, five remarkable Arts & Crafts church buildings went up in five neighborhoods. These were Knox Presbyterian Church (Henry Starbuck, 1908); St. John’s Presbyterian Church (Julia Morgan, 1908–10); First Church of Christ, Scientist (Bernard Maybeck, 1910); Park Congregational Church (Hugo Storch, 1912); and North Berkeley Congregational Church (James Plachek, 1913). 

Although each of these churches—all designated City of Berkeley Landmarks—is unique in its appearance, they have in common an unassuming scale in keeping with their residential surroundings. Gone are the steeples and soaring bell towers seen in earlier houses of worship. The five architects derived at least some of their inspiration from the First Unitarian Church (A.C. Schweinfurth, 1898) at Bancroft and Dana, a one-story structure combining shingles and amber-glass steel windows with natural redwood interior. This church in its turn followed the path set by the Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco (A. Page Brown & Rev. Joseph Worcester, 1894). 

The southernmost of the five churches, Park Congregational—now South Berkeley Community Church—is located on the southeast corner of Fairview and Ellis streets, in the historic Lorin district. 

The community of Lorin was developed on the land of farmer Edward Harmon, who sold lots to prospective homeowners. According to Berkeley historian Charles Wollenberg, Harmon went into the construction business in the 1870s and over a twenty-year period built more than forty houses on what had been his South Berkeley farmland. Harmon was the major developer of the community of Lorin, which once boasted a train station located at Adeline Street and Alcatraz Avenue, as well as a school and post office. In the early 1890s, Berkeley annexed Lorin and some adjacent tracts in the city’s first territorial expansion since incorporation in 1878. 

On July 24, 1912, the Oakland Tribune announced that construction had commenced on a new building to be occupied by Park Congregational Church. The congregation’s previous home, in use since 1883 and located a block and a half to the west, had been sold to the Seventh Day Adventists. 

According to the Tribune report, the new building was to be finished in stucco on the exterior and in natural wood on the interior. The main auditorium would seat 300, with room for 200 additional persons in an auxiliary room. A semicircular Sunday school room would accommodate seventeen classes, with seating space for 400 children. Public reading rooms and assembly halls for community clubs would be provided. The cost was to be $15,000, exclusive of furnishings. 

The residential architecture of the Lorin district consists primarily of Victorian and Colonial Revival homes that rarely rise above two stories. It was into this context that Hugo Storch had to place the church building while incorporating requisite features such as a bell tower and a lofty sanctuary. 

Storch met the challenge admirably. Blending several architectural styles—Arts and Crafts and Mission Revival outside, First Bay Region Tradition within—his church stands out without overwhelming its neighbors. Seen from the street, the building is low-lying. Its corner bell tower is massive but squat. The residential-scale portico leads into an intimate redwood antechamber, which serves as a space of transition into the main sanctuary, also lined in redwood. 

But no transition space prepares the visitor for the breathtaking contrast between exterior and interior. The sanctuary soars to the high rafters, exposing roof trusses, diagonal braces, and wall studs. The pews are arranged in a semicircle that is echoed by the semicircular social hall in the rear, separated from the sanctuary by three enormous roll-down redwood doors. In the hall, formerly a Sunday school, a fan-like mezzanine balcony is partitioned into loges that used to serve as classrooms, with more classrooms directly underneath. 

Revolutionary for its time, the stark interior space nevertheless mirrors the spatial arrangement of historic church architecture. The nave, aisle, and side chapels are all here, albeit free of any ornamentation. The rounded social hall recalls the traditional apse, normally located behind the altar. Since the altar of this church is placed at the front of the building, with no space for a real apse, the architect ingeniously created an interior “apse” in the rear. 

The son of a Bohemian-German mining engineer, Hugo William Storch (1873–1917) was born in Mexico. In the 1880s the family moved to San Francisco, eventually settling in the Fruitvale district of Oakland. At the age of 17, Storch became an apprentice to the respected San Francisco architect John Gash. Three years later, the young man left Gash to start his own office and practiced as an architect until 1899, when he took a job with the Electrical Engineering Co. of San Francisco. The company would be renamed Van Emon Elevator Co. in 1903 and relocate to Berkeley after the 1906 earthquake. 

Storch may have designed the company’s Berkeley plant. The post-earthquake building boom probably spurred his return to architecture, which was his primary practice for the next eight years. During this period he designed the Fruitvale Masonic Temple (1905–06, built 1909) and the Fruitvale Congregational Church (1911, destroyed in 1973). The Fruitvale Pythian Hall (1913, severely altered in 1941) was built on his modified plans, according to a 1913 report in the Oakland Tribune. In 1915, Storch moved his family to Sonoma County, building a home on the bank of Santa Rosa Creek. He died in 1917, aged 44. 

After 30 years on Fairview Street, the Park Congregational Church found itself with a steadily dwindling membership. Much of the attrition had to do with the area’s changing demographics. In November 1942, Rev. Tom Watt’s annual pastor’s report informed his parishioners, “I am appalled and tremendously disturbed when I discover the change in the population … that materially effects our work. Only two colored families were in the immediate vicinity. Now … the block directly across the street on Ellis is predominantly colored … If we are to maintain ourselves as an organization it seems to be quite evident that we shall be compelled to depend on growth from outside this area.” 

As told in the church’s history, the remnant congregation decided to discontinue services. In 1943, following a recommendation of the United Church of Christ Conference, Berkeley’s first interracial congregation was born, led by two ministers: Robert K. Winters, a junior at the Starr King School, and Roy Nichols, a senior at the Pacific School of Religion. One of the fledgling congregation’s charter members was Berkeley legend Maudelle Shirek. 

Time has taken its toll on the church building. A 1988 architectural report found it to be in “relatively poor shape. Considerable repair and rehabilitation will be necessary if the building is to remain as it is without further deterioration.” The funds required for full-scale restoration are beyond the small congregation’s means. 

Last fall, a capital restoration campaign was inaugurated with a lecture sponsored by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. An article by Martin Snapp attracted the attention of Mike Van Brunt, who volunteered the services of his construction company, Walnut Creek–based Van Brunt Associates, in preparing a restoration plan. Some of the firm’s past renovation projects include the San Francisco Ferry Building and the Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels. 

The Friends for the Restoration of South Berkeley Community Church are now writing a proposal to place the building on the National Register of Historic Places as a means for facilitating fundraising. A National Historic Landmark status has helped the First Church of Christ, Scientist to obtain matching grants from the Getty Foundation and National Trust for Historic Preservation. 

 

 

The writer is indebted to Bradley Wiedmaier for information about the life and work of Hugo Storch. 

 

Photograph: South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview Street (Daniella Thompson) 

 


About the House: New Houses Aren’t Quite as Trouble-Free as They Seem

By Matt Cantor
Friday August 25, 2006

Crisis is opportunity isn’t it? And some days I just have to say, Thank you, Lord Buddha, for another #$%@ing growth opportunity. 

What makes me start off this way? Well I’ll tell you. It’s the inspection of brand new houses. Some people like diving out of planes from 35,000 feet. Others like to train tigers and still others like to argue with women who are way smarter than they are. I’m not really up to any of these death-defying activities but I do, occasionally inspect a brand new house. 

When I’m feeling especially moxie-filled, I like to pick one of those 5 million dollar jobs (yes, they go way higher these days but they’re not too many around these-here parts). It really gets my blood pumping to inspect one of these houses that I am absolutely certain is going to have lots more to tell and many more defects to find in about two or three years, not to mention 10 years from now. 

That’s the thing; when a house is brand new, you just don’t know what’s going to fail. It’s like a newborn babe, all full of promise and hope. Then one day, it’s all car-jacking and unpaid alimony. Well, maybe that’s a bit over the top but you get the point. 

The problem is that people get sort of glazed over when they’re looking at a brand new house.  

Most people assume that a new house is going to be free from defect. That everything will be plumb, square and tight. Perfect. That all the outlets will work and that it won’t leak. So there’s much further to fall than when you’re buying an old fixer and you ASSUME that everything is going to need work. 

New houses are just like old houses are before they get old. But they’ll get there. After a while, they begin to exhibit all the things that old houses do and many will get there faster than you think. 

Now, new houses have many things to recommend them. Newer heating systems are superior in many ways to the earlier models. Same with water heaters and electrical systems and nice big fat copper plumbing. We also have much more rigid seismic requirements and better fire codes.  

These are all excellent things and, in many ways, well worth the trip. If I saw a new house that looked a bit more like our old Berkeley beauties, I’d almost be ready to lay the bucks on the barrel-head. But being in the business that I’m in, I’m privy to a nearly endless reservoir of stories that circulate showing us that much new construction, while looking very neat and shiny, has plenty that can go wrong in the first few years. 

Of course this is not an overall condemnation of new construction, but rather a simple myth-busting exercise in the interest of consumer protection. Many of the newer houses we’ve seen built in the last 15 years in our area have turned out to leak. This is the most common failure by far. 

Windows can leak, walls can leak, roofs can leak and, my personal favorite, decks over living space (or sealed areas) can leak. That last one is so common that many in my business are unwilling to bless any of the new tiled decks with their trust and often leave the client with subtle warnings regarding their long-range futures. 

Many new houses have Italianate ornamentation around or below their windows or along cornices that are made of Styrofoam. That’s right, Styrofoam. They’re called foam plant-on’s and they get embedded below stucco finishes. 

When you see fancy shaped stucco trims (usually 4” to 8” thick) they are probably made of this stuff. The manufacturers wisely require that a good thickness of stucco be added over the foam to make sure that they won’t be easily damaged over time but you know how things go. 

I can often push them in with my thumb clearly revealing that less than 1/4” of stucco has been installed over the foam. 

Newer houses often have uneven walls, floor and stairways. It’s just rush, rush, rush when there’s a million dollar paycheck waiting at the end of the herringbone walkway. 

Now, again, this is not the whole story. Builders work hard to build good houses as a rule. Part of the problem lies with a cornucopia of new materials that are emerging daily, each with the promise of low cost and iron-clad results. We know how that story comes out too, right? 

One major window producer is in the midst of a major recall and this isn’t a shock. New ideas are hard to get right, fresh out of the gate. I’m not exactly an old-fashioned guy but I do believe in tried and true technology and I feel as though we should adopt building techniques and products slowly with thorough testing in both lab and field. I don’t really want to live in a test case and would rather not have to sue anybody ever over anything. 

Beyond this, I do find plenty of errors made in newer construction, just as I find them in remodels and old houses. This is normal. 

The message here is to have reasonable expectations and to not fall into all-too American trap of thinking that new is always better and that a new house will free you from all possible future difficulties. Yes, a new house is very likely to be less work and less cost over the first 10 years, in general. But taking a close look is a darned good idea. So is a builder’s warrantee.  

For some, buying a condo or a townhouse can make a similar sense in that you will have less responsibility when things do go wrong or run their normal wear cycle. If you have a 5 percent or 10 percent interest in an HOA (homeowner’s association), it’s a lot less painful when a roof needs replacement or when a construction defect arises. 

As for me, I think I’ll stay in my 84-year-old house with all it’s bumps and warts. But I am thinking about taking up skydiving! 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.


Garden Variety: Selecting Plants with Natural Scents in Mind

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 25, 2006

After a day of being olfactorily jostled by vehicle exhaust, the odd pile of dog turds by the sidewalk, and overdone, overused, over-applied synthetic perfumes, being surrounded by natural scents clears the crud from one’s mind and mood.  

Scent in flowers, like color and form, serves to attract pollinators. Big bright perfumed blooms usually don’t toss pollen promiscuously into the air and up your nose; that’s done by wind-pollinated plants with small, inconspicuous flowers. (Some of us seem to be allergic to the scents themselves, or to whatever sublimates carry them through the air, but that’s more unusual than allergies to pollen or sensitivities to petroleum derivatives.) 

Scientists looking to breed—or genetically engineer—the perfume back into modern hybrid roses have done a lot of looking into flowers’ scent production. A few years ago a group at the University of Michigan found four separate genes that code specific enzymes that prod flowers to produce scent. This happens right in the tissues of the petals and it can be amazingly precise and versatile.  

Within those petals, which may look pretty much uniform to us, plants can manufacture and release several different scents: a general come-hither near the petal’s edge and a more specific directional indicator nearer its base. This looks like an analogy to the ultraviolet markers on flowers: bees can see them; we can’t.  

If you want a fragrant garden, consider a few things before choosing plants.  

Some flowers, like those of the shrub night jessamine, mentioned last week, are overwhelmingly fragrant. Set such flowers at the far edge of your garden, to dilute the scent. Be kind to your neighbors about this, too, please. 

Like night jessamine and nicotiana, some flowers release their scents only in the evening: brugmannsia (angel’s trumpet) and some cacti and orchids, for instance. 

Daphne blooms early in the year, when we all need encouragement. Earlier still are those white narcissus bulbs you can force in a dish of pebbles and water.  

Old roses have the best scents. Shop for them when they’re blooming, to find your favorite, or take notes and keep those fort bare-root season.  

Citrus trees are famously fragrant, and many do well in big containers. If you love the scents, look for several types that bloom and bear fruit at different times. If not orange, then “mock orange,” Philadelphus—we have a fine native species. 

A nice fragrant underplanting is the humble, common, inexpensive white alyssum. The purple and pink kinds aren’t so fragrant. Alyssum re-sows generously, which is good in a city garden but makes it dangerous to plant next to a wildland; it’s already feral along the coast. Old-fashioned pinks smell wonderfully spicy; so do a number of our native annuals like Brewer’s clarkia. Sweet stock is easy to find as seedlings; heliotrope and mignonette only a little less so.  

Best is to shop a few times each season, and walk the streets and public gardens, with your nose working and a notebook and/or camera.  

 

Next week: fragrances don’t come only from flowers. 

 


Berkeley This Week

Friday August 25, 2006

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25 

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 

“Voices of Activism: Crawford” documentary theater, storytelling and dialogue at 7:30 p.m. at Temescal Co-Housing, 322 45th St., Oakland. Cost is $2-$20, sliding scale. www.untheatre.org 

Activist Series featuring Nadia Mcaffrey, Gold Star Families Speak Out, and Dewaybe Hunn, Director of the People’s Lobby & World Service Corp. whose son was killed in Iraq, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Donations welcome. 528-5403.  

Red Cross Blood Drive from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Oakland Children’s Hospital, Outpatient Building Basement, 747 52nd St., Oakland. For an appointment call 1-800 GIVE-LIFE. 

Ballroom Dancing every Friday at 8 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building, 200 Grand Ave., Oakland. Live band and refreshments. Cost is $10. 925-934-9129. 

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. 

Kol Hadash Humanistic Shabbat at 7:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Please bring finger dessert to share, and non-perishable food for the needy. Free and open to all.  

SATURDAY, AUGUST 26 

Trails Challenge: Traversing Tilden’s Trails Meet at 8 a.m. at the Lone Oak Staging Area to cover to park’s varied ecosystems. Bring water, sunscreen, layered clothing and lunch. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Rocks A walk to explore seven rock parks in Berkeley, along with paths, historic homes and great views. Meet at 10 a.m. at the northeast corner of Solano Ave. and the Alameda, by Indian Rock Path. Bring lunch and liquids for this 4-5 mile walk with significant uphills. 528-3355. www.berkeleypaths.org  

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. at the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of Philbrick Boat Works at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Cost is $5-$15. Reservations required. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Save the Berkeley Housing Authority A community meeting at 2 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ellis St. at Ashby Ave.  

A Conversation with Bob Watada, father of L. Ehren Watada, first U.S. Military officer to publicly resist illegal war and occupation of Iraq, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Church, 1800 Sacramento St. 684-0239. 

Muir Heritage Ranch Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the John Muir National Historical Site in Martinez. Entertainment, demonstrations, games and food. 925-639-7562. www.JohnMuirAssociation.org 

Oakland Chinatown StreetFest Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Franklin St. from 7th to 11th, and 8th and 9th Sts., from Broadway to Harrison. 893-8979. 

ActivSpace Arts and Crafts Fair Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2703 Seventh St. 845-5000. 

“I Love Bugs!” Day at Habitot Children's Museum from 10 am to 5 pm 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. 

Urban Releaf Tree Tour of Oakland and workshops in urban forestry that teach tree planting, maintenance, GIS/GPS systems, and community advocacy. For information call 601-9062. www.urbanreleaf.org 

ACCI Seconds Sale from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Sun. at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. 

PR/Marketing Workshop for Musicians at 11 a.m. at Freight & Salvage Coffee House, 1111 Addison St. Cost is $45-$49. 548-1761.  

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at East Bay Bible Church, 11200 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. For an appointment call 1-800 GIVE-LIFE. 

SHAC 7 Benefit Vegan food and films, sponsored by East Bay Animal Advocates at 6 p.m. at AK Press, 674-A 23rd St, Oakland. Cost is $5-$15, sliding scale. shac7benefit@yahoo.com 

Heart Health Fair Sponsored by the Association of Black Cardiologists from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Eastmont Town Center, 7200 Bancroft Ave., Oakland. Free blood pressure screenings, and presentations on strokes and heart disease. 632-1131. www.abcario.org 

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. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Spiritwalking: Aqua Chi(TM) at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $5.50, $3.50 seniors & disabled. Bring your own towels. 526-0312. 

Yoga for Peace at 9:30 a.m. at Ohlone Park, MLK at Hearst. Bring a yoga mat, warm blanket, and peace sign.  

Adult Fast Pitch Softball at noon. For location call 204-9500.  

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, AUGUST 27 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of West Oakland’s “Big One” from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Meet at 14th St. and Nelson Mandela Parkway. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

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  

Name That Snake An introduction to the snakes that live in our backyards and local parks, at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Cattail Capers We’ll explore the local ponds with dip-nets and magnifiers. Meet at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Dress to get wet. 525-2233. 

Oakland Chinatown StreetFest from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Franklin St. from 7th to 11th, and 8th and 9th Sts., from Boadway to Harrison. 893-8979. 

Garden Party at Salem Lutheran Home with entertainment by the Puppets of Praise, from 2 to 4 p.m. at 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. 434-2828. 

Summer Sunday Forum with Katherine Burroughs on elder abuse at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Kickabout at Codornices Park Soccer for all, skill and talent not required. For more information contact cambour@hotmail.com  

Balinese Dance Class with Tjokorda Istri Putra Padmini at 11 a.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 237-6849. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

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 Robin Caton on “Meditation: Patience and Ease” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 28 

“The Man Behind the Marquee” An evening with Grand Lake Theater owner Allen Michaan. Hear what events compelled this voting-rights activist to seek unique expression of his right to free speech and to provide venue for others to speak out as well. Sponsored by The Paul Robeson Chapter of the ACLU at 7:30 p.m. at “Theatre By The Bay,” 2700 Saratoga, Alameda Point, Alameda, former Naval Air Station. 596-2580. 

“A Strong, Clear Vision” A documentary about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, at 7 p.m. at Community Center Hall, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. 548-0425. 

Stress Less Seminar at 6:30 p.m. at Piedmont Branch Library, 160 41st St., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 

Tuesday is for the Birds A tranquil early morning walk in Miller Knox Park. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. Call for meeting place. 525-2233. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds, who may be accompanied by an adult. Meet at 3:15 p.m. at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park, to look for reptiles. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Asian Brush and Ink Painting for ages 8 and up from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Asian Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 388 Ninth St. Registration required. 238-3400.  

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. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, AUSUST 30  

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 

“Soylent Green” A film of a grim, bleak vision of New York City in the future, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. 

Holistic Pet Care at 7:30 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

“Voices of Activism: Crawford” documentary theater, storytelling and dialoge at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $2-$20, sliding scale. www.untheatre.org 

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. 548-9840. 

New to DVD “Inside Man” at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “Debunking 9/11 Myths” at 6:30 p.m at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito. 433-2911. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Stress Less Seminar at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

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, AUGUST 31 

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 

ONGOING 

Each One Teach One Mentoring Program of the Oakland Unified School District is curbing student absenteeism, decreasing suspensions and increasing student participation with the help of volunteer mentors like you. For more information call 495-4010, 495-4011.  

Energy Saving Program for Residents CYES is running its 7th annual summer program, providing direct-installation of CFLs, retractable clotheslines, showerheads, and more. Services available in Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond. Free. 665-1501. 

Child Care Food Program is available without charge to all children enrolled in the BUSD Early Childhood Education progam, based on income eligibility guidelines. Please call for details, 644-6358. 

Berkeley Adult School Register for programs in High School Diploma, GED Preparation, Citizenship and ESL classes, Mon.-Thurs. 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., Fri. 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1701 San Pablo Ave. 644-6130. http://bas.berkeley.net 

Medical Care for Your Pet at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society low-cost veterinary clinic, 2700 Ninth St. For appointments call 845-3633. www.berkeleyhumane.org