The Week

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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Tuesday August 29, 2006

Larceny -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


Upcoming Political Candidate Events

Friday August 25, 2006

August 26 -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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.” -more-


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 -more-


Letters to the Editor

Friday August 25, 2006

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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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 -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday August 29, 2006

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday August 29, 2006

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 -more-


Arts Calendar

Friday August 25, 2006

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25 -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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 -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


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. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday August 25, 2006

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25 -more-