A blaze triggered by a faulty water heater demolished a $1.3 million home in the Berkeley Hills early Tuesday morning, reports Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth. -more-
A developer unveiled Friday plans for a 5.5-acre, two-block corporate, retail, condo and artists’ development for West Berkeley. -more-
Berkeley officials are planning another lawsuit against UC Berkeley’s development plans—this time challenging the quarter-billion-dollar complex planned for the Memorial Stadium area. -more-
Aimee Allison is hoping that the third time is the charm. Pat Kernighan is hoping that history keeps repeating itself. -more-
There were no surprises at the Berkeley Citizens Action Endorsement convention Sunday afternoon, with the 30-year-old group that once was Berkeley’s progressive electoral powerhouse endorsing longtime members Mayor Tom Bates, and City Councilmembers Dona Spring, Kriss Worthington and Linda Maio. -more-
Oakland’s massive Oak-to-Ninth development project entered familiar territory this week with another citizen lawsuit filed in Superior Court against the controversial project. -more-
For neighbors of UC Storage at Ward Street and Shattuck Avenue, approval of placing 18 antennas atop the four-story building is the last straw. -more-
Planning commissioners face two action items on the agenda Wednesday. -more-
Creation of a major new UC Berkeley museum complex on Center Street inched a step closer Monday with the close of applications for the position of project architect. -more-
Two 19-year-old men were convicted today of second-degree murder for beating and kicking a 100-pound homeless woman to death in Berkeley last year. -more-
Berkeley’s City Club and the First Church of Christ, Scientist are among 25 Bay Area architectural and historic treasures competing this fall for one million dollars in grant funding from the American Express Foundation through the National Trust for Historic Preservation. -more-
Reorganization of the Nutrition Services Department, a progress report from the B-Tech, and a presentation by the Life Academy at Berkeley High School were highlights of the BUSD Board meeting on Wednesday. -more-
Since 1973, the Berkeley community has been able to air complaints in public against its police officers and compel them to respond. But a recent California Supreme Court decision may have knocked the teeth out of the ordinance that created Berkeley’s Police Review Commission. -more-
Prakash Stephen Pinto wants the deserted glass-strewn lot at San Pablo Avenue and Harrison Street near his Stannage Avenue home replaced by shops and new housing, but he told the City Council Tuesday night that the project before them “is a serious detriment to the neighborhood.” -more-
With the specter of Proposition 90 lurking in the wings, Berkeley’s City Council Tuesday passed a conditional new law governing the sizes of apartment and condominium buildings. It attempts to reconcile conflicts between size bonuses offered by the state of California and the City of Berkeley as a reward for the provision of affordable housing. -more-
In an effort to bring public awareness to the issues involved in critical contract talks between the City of Oakland and the powerful Oakland Police Officers Association, members of the Black Elected Officials of the East Bay sponsored a public forum Wednesday night on the contract negotiations. -more-
Berkeley should be ready to boost downtown parking prices for a host of reasons, declared members of the panel charged with developing a new plan for downtown Berkeley Wednesday night. -more-
Some library activists have been watching the search process for a new library head and say they don’t like what they see. -more-
A Federal Court in San Francisco denied a request by Oakland-based environmental nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) on Wednesday for a preliminary injunction against Berkeley-based Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) citing insufficient evidence that CBE would prevail on the merits of its arguments. -more-
Opponents of Oakland’s massive Oak to Ninth development project have amended their California Superior Court complaint against the project, asking that the court invalidate the City Council’s approval of the project because the final version of the project agreement was never available to the council or the public at the time of the council vote. -more-
A 15-year-old Berkeley High School student was assaulted Tuesday afternoon near Planet Juice in downtown Berkeley. -more-
Berkeley police are offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the killer of a 23-year-old Oakland man who was shot in Berkeley Sept. 4. -more-
The plight of artists seeking to live and work in West Berkeley is the subject of a special meeting to be held this afternoon (Friday). -more-
The record-breaking, triple-digit heat wave that rolled through California this summer did untold harm to the state’s $31.8 billion agricultural industry—cooking walnuts in their shells, killing dairy cows and wilting tender greens in the field. -more-
We have had many inquiries about whether or not the Planet will endorse candidates for the November election. Election day is a little over six weeks away, and mail-in ballots (formerly known as absentees) will be out in little more than a week. More and more voters are going to be voting by mail, so the campaign is winding up right now. Last-chance political efforts, sponsored by MoveOn.org and others, are underway across the nation and in this area. -more-
Pope Benedict XVI may be too old and conservative for what is best for the Catholic Church. However, the undeserved bad media coverage and misinterpretation of his out of context comments are appalling. Most of the media is sound-biting the controversy into a wider spreading of unfortunately horrible publicity that does not present the facts of the situation, only furthering the damage. Peace is what the world needs more of, not inflaming violence and those who want to escalate it. -more-
I greatly appreciate the forum you have provided for airing viewpoints on a very contentious set of issues, and the effort you made in a recent editorial with regard to anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, difficult problems remain that must be brought to light. Before I go further: My own background is a left-wing, non-Zionist Jew. -more-
Randy Shaw’s long attack on the record of Mayor Bates was a study in strange contradictions and outright errors. I’ll just take a few moments to point out a few of them. -more-
By ROBERT CHEASTY -more-
Having just gone through the process of accepting that Cody’s on Telegraph would be no more, I found the sale of Cody’s Fourth Street and San Francisco stores to a Japanese buyer something of a further shock. As well as an important reality check. Let us never forget, I thought to myself when I learned of the sale, that business is about money. -more-
As a BUSD parent who has been working on improving the food that the district serves for the past 10 years, I think that there is basic level on which Ms. O’Malley misses the point about the food project at the Berkeley schools. -more-
Several years ago, my husband Ralph returned home from a stay in Oakland’s Kaiser hospital and insisted he’d been kidnapped by aliens. He e-mailed an acquaintance in Wisconsin and told her she was the only witness to his abduction. He asked her to write down everything she had seen for a lawsuit he planned to pursue. I called a Kaiser doctor to discuss Ralph’s mental state. -more-
I’d like to be able to make some kind of Berkeley connection with the California Academy of Sciences’ new exhibit, “Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries.” But geology is against me. There was no there here during the dinosaur era: the coast of North America ended about where the Sierra Nevada is now. Westward, there were volcanic island arcs, ancient equivalents of Japan or the Philippines, then open ocean. -more-
A little over 10 years ago, just after the explosive launch of the Internet information age, I wrote a feature-essay for Metro newspaper in San Jose called “W.W.W.—World Without Wisdom.” (The essay was all mine; the idea for turning the “world-wide-web” initials into “world without wisdom,” however, was the Metro editors’—I’d always wished I’d thought of that.) -more-
Scare the hell out of the American people. That, in a nutshell, is the Republicans’ fall congressional campaign strategy. If you doubt it, consider the following: George W. Bush launched a propaganda offensive in the run-up to the 9/11 anniversary with a speech in which he called Islamic terrorists “successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century”; Donald Rumsfeld in turn likened administration critics (read Democrats) to those who appeased Nazi Germany in the 1930s; Dick Cheney, appearing on Meet the Press, accused opponents of the war of inviting more violence; Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in August released a hyped report on the supposedly grave threat to US national security posed by Iran—one strikingly similar to the hyped intelligence documents the administration used to build its case for war in Iraq. -more-
At 10 a.m. every Friday, Mary Ann Broder opens the Friends of the Library Bookstore for business. She’s been doing that since 1998 when the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library first moved into their present location in the Sather Gate Mall housed in the public parking structure a half block below Telegraph Avenue, between Channing Way and Durant. -more-
One of the largest residential parcels in the Berkeley, the John Hopkins Spring Estate, commonly known as the Spring Mansion, occupies 3.25 acres in the Southampton area of the north Berkeley Hills. The property is so large as to require three addresses: 1960 San Antonio Ave., 1984 San Antonio Ave., and 639 The Arlington. -more-
Everyone has something particularly annoying about their job. I’m sure yours has at least one (I can see the heads nodding). O.K. It’s more than one. Me too. I’ve got a few and one of these serenity-busters that bugs me the most is being asked which building code justifies an item that I’ve called-out during an inspection. -more-
When we start thinking good thoughts about rain, it must be the peak of fire season. That means fall planting season is coming soon, and it’s time to start looking for plants to fill in (or overcrowd) our gardens. Especially California natives, because this is a good time to plant them, to take advantage of the winter rains. Even drought-loving plants need a bit of watering help in their first year. -more-
“You’re going to talk to me! Another happy day!” Samuel Beckett’s heroine Winnie addresses her seldom-seen husband Willie after he’s finally emitted a syllable. -more-
Milarepa, a new film by Tibetan lama and actor/director Netken Chokling, will show at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30 at Wheeler Hall Auditorium on the UC campus. -more-
Another weekend, another film festival. -more-
Resurrecting a book is probably like raising Lazarus. It can happen, but only with a little divine intervention. On the other hand, there are scientifically documented cases—like Their Eyes Were Watching God (and indeed all the works -more-
I’d like to be able to make some kind of Berkeley connection with the California Academy of Sciences’ new exhibit, “Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries.” But geology is against me. There was no there here during the dinosaur era: the coast of North America ended about where the Sierra Nevada is now. Westward, there were volcanic island arcs, ancient equivalents of Japan or the Philippines, then open ocean. -more-
Film was the dominant art form of the 1920s, an international cultural phenomenon which, in the days before sound, was considered a universal language. -more-
Fritz Lang is best known today for Metropolis, the 1927 science fiction classic that recently screened at Pacific Film Archive. The film has been tremendously popular throughout the decades, and the fact that much of the film has been lost, cut by censors and misguided studios, has only added to its allure. -more-
Ranging from a violent clash between brothers in a quiet orchard, to edgy life at court under the onus of a suspicious usurper, to philosophical exile in the Forest of Arden where the usurper’s own brother, the deposed duke, has fled with his retinue, CalShakes’ As You Like It, directed by artistic director Jonathan Moscone, spreads out from a series of situations and encounters into a big show (if not quite a spectacle), incorporating a gypsy band, vocal renditions of The Bard’s sublime songs, a rather modest drag act, a little Big Time Wrestling, a good deal of business and routines imported from cabaret, burlesque and sitcom ... in other words, something of an extravaganza, played out under an enormous moon waxing through the boughs of trees (all scenery) to the nighttime sound of crickets (very real), in the Bruns Amphitheatre, facing the hills over Siesta Valley near Orinda. -more-
At 10 a.m. every Friday, Mary Ann Broder opens the Friends of the Library Bookstore for business. She’s been doing that since 1998 when the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library first moved into their present location in the Sather Gate Mall housed in the public parking structure a half block below Telegraph Avenue, between Channing Way and Durant. -more-
One of the largest residential parcels in the Berkeley, the John Hopkins Spring Estate, commonly known as the Spring Mansion, occupies 3.25 acres in the Southampton area of the north Berkeley Hills. The property is so large as to require three addresses: 1960 San Antonio Ave., 1984 San Antonio Ave., and 639 The Arlington. -more-
Everyone has something particularly annoying about their job. I’m sure yours has at least one (I can see the heads nodding). O.K. It’s more than one. Me too. I’ve got a few and one of these serenity-busters that bugs me the most is being asked which building code justifies an item that I’ve called-out during an inspection. -more-
When we start thinking good thoughts about rain, it must be the peak of fire season. That means fall planting season is coming soon, and it’s time to start looking for plants to fill in (or overcrowd) our gardens. Especially California natives, because this is a good time to plant them, to take advantage of the winter rains. Even drought-loving plants need a bit of watering help in their first year. -more-
