Kali Grosberg of Berkeley lay down on the sidewalk in front of the Oakland Federal Building on Tuesday. Two friends wrapped her in a shroud and placed green rosemary springs on her still body. -more-
UC Berkeley officials are pushing ahead with plans to transform Bowles Hall into a corporate executive education center with a new call for a seismic consultant. -more-
It’s not often that Berkeley Technology Academy students get a chance to fly, but last week was different. -more-
While a new governance structure for the Berkeley Housing Authority may buy federally subsidized renters more time in their Berkeley homes, subsidy cuts could force them out. -more-
The man who was the lead drafter of the Instant Runoff Vote language that eventually became Oakland’s Measure O says that the chance that differences in vote-counting procedures in various forms of IRV could affect the outcome of an election are “incredibly small,” and the example cited in a recent Daily Planet article would not affect an election outcome at all. -more-
The incident involving 23-year-old UCLA student Mostafa Tabatabainejad, who was shot with a taser by campus police officers last week, has sparked off debate in the national media and led to protests at the UC Berkeley. -more-
Jim Slaten’s sewing machine service shop has been on Solano Avenue for more than four decades. Slaten says he doesn’t need an organization to help keep his sidewalks clean and certainly doesn’t need a new planter in front of his store. -more-
Two men—and possibly a third—were shot Tuesday night as gunfire shattered the evening on Sacramento Street. -more-
The Berkeley City Council and Police Review Commission will meet behind closed doors on Monday to discuss a Berkeley Police Association lawsuit against the city, although the requirement for a closed session meeting is disputed by a least one councilmember. -more-
San Francisco Opera singers and fourth-graders at Malcolm X Elementary School joined forces in a one-hour production of Rossini's Barber of Seville at Malcolm X last week. -more-
UC Berkeley’s controversial plans to convert its historic six-acre Laguna Street extension campus in San Francisco into a private development featuring condominiums and a shopping center are moving forward. -more-
The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce PAC broke local campaign laws when it left its name and identification number off of a political mailer, but the omission was inadvertent, the city’s Fair Political Practices Commission ruled 6-0-1 on Thursday. -more-
With Oakland’s proposed new condominium conversion law set for a return to the Oakland City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee on Nov. 28, and then to the full council on Dec. 5, the issue is heating up among politicians and tenant groups in the city. -more-
Anyone attending the panel charged with producing a new downtown Berkeley plan on Wednesday night would have heard a lot of words and paper flying over a very short statement. -more-
Vacant office space in Berkeley is growing scarce, says commercial real estate broker John Gordon. -more-
The Library Board of Trustees huddled in closed session Saturday afternoon and evening to interview finalists for the director position. -more-
Users of People’s Park met Sunday to discuss the future of the berms which UC wants to remove on both ends of the Community Garden in the park. -more-
Nine people were elected to the KPFA Local Station Board using ranked choice voting, where voters rank candidates according to their preferences. -more-
Berkeley’s first and most nationally honored landmark, the First Church of Christ Scientist, is $118,000 richer this week, thanks to Internet voters. -more-
Jane Micallef’s name was spelled incorrectly in the Nov. 14 article “One-Stop Homeless Shelter Opens in Oakland.” -more-
LOS ANGELES—A couple of years ago Fox News duked it out with NBC to see which one would be the first to land and air a Simpson interview on the 10th anniversary of the murder case. So Fox’s latest Simpson media dance was not merely a cheap stunt by a network to cash in on the notoriety of a disgraced superstar turned double-murder defendant. The case punched and continues to punch every hot button in the book: race, class, celebrity and sports idolatry, domestic violence and especially tabloid sensationalism. -more-
When it’s past time for rising, cold wet noses find their way under the covers. They know all the drills, days set aside for work and non-work, time of day for meals, snacks and play. You’re always their best friend; warm eyes and wagging tail hold nothing back. Dogs can be loving, stubborn, a comfort and a trial and are usually all four. -more-
Trent Lott, the new Senate minority whip! At first glance it seemed the Republicans had gone completely cuckoo when they narrowly voted to elevate the once-disgraced senator from Mississippi to Republican second-in-command in the Senate. -more-
Today (the day after Thanksgiving) is widely believed to be the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States. Actually, according to the invaluable and entertaining Wikipedia, the days before and after Christmas are days when more retail dollars change hands, but Black Friday, as it’s called, wins out in terms of bodies on the streets and in the malls, though some of them are just shopping, not buying. One folk explanation for the name is that retailers finally make it into the black on that day after almost a year of red ink. -more-
We drove to Sacramento on Sunday afternoon, through a dense tule fog which made seeing the road a dicey proposition. The fog lifted just as we came into town, and was still gone when we came back to the Bay Area. The trip seemed a bit like the current political perspective. -more-
Eisa Davis’ upcoming play by Shotgun Players is Bulrusher, not Bulrushers as was printed in the Nov. 17 issue of the Planet. One of the characters is a visitor from Birmingham, Ala., not Montgomery, as was printed. And, Davis first saw Aaron Davidman, now the artistic director of A Traveling Jewish Theatre, as Mack the Knife in a 1985 Berkeley High production of Threepenny Opera. -more-
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi isn’t checking her motherhood at the door. Addressing the House of Representatives, the microphones falter and she says, “Do I have to use my mother-of-five voice?” She has also begun numerous sentences with: “As a mother and grandmother and the leader of the House Democrats…” -more-
Art Goldberg’s complaints (“Myopia, Not Vision, in North Shattuck Plan,” Daily Planet, Oct. 20) about the proposed North Shattuck Plaza amount to a cry of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” -more-
Unlike Mr. Rivera, I do not deem myself a student of violence. Rather, I like to think of myself as a student of human nature, of which violence is one facet. I have, however, been in dozens (possibly hundreds) of physical altercations in a professional capacity, as a doorman at some of the biggest and busiest nightclubs in San Francisco. -more-
Berkeley’s Warm Pool is important and magical. It is important to everyone who goes there to partake of the healing waters. -more-
Annette Fleming never used to stop to pick up dinner in Old Pasadena. It used to take five or 10 minutes each way to walk between the restaurant and the parking lot, and she did not have that extra time on her way home from work. -more-
A few things need to be said regarding the issue of Pacific Steel Casting. While the following opinions could be controversial, and perhaps even disagreeable to some readers, I do believe that they need to be said. To begin with, I am a resident of West Berkeley, whose family has resided in the East Bay since about 1903. For most of my fifty plus years on this planet, I have been an environmentalist and a staunch advocate for a clean and healthy San Francisco Bay. During the most recent election, I voted Green. Nevertheless, I have certain reservations about the growing local movement against Pacific Steel Casting. While I most strongly agree that toxic pollution is a grave problem in our community, and must be rigorously contained and controlled, I do take issue with those who would want to find a solution by simply shutting down Pacific Steel’s foundry. -more-
In his Nov. 14 commentary, “Why Measure J Lost,” Alan Tobey left out the elephant in the room. The “City Attorney’s Impartial Analysis of Measure J” in the county’s voter pamphlet was written by Zach Cowan, the author of the revisions designed to gut our Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, which Measure J would have continued. Is it surprising that the ballot language turned out to be hopelessly confusing to voters? -more-
At Berkeley Food & Housing Project, giving is the most important part of Thanksgiving. -more-
Initiatives and referenda are often viewed as the purest forms of democracy, removing issues from the control of fallible legislators and placing them directly before the electorate. (An initiative is newly drafted legislation submitted directly to voters; a referendum is a popular vote to overturn legislation already passed.) -more-
One of the more persistent guessing games in Oakland politics these days is who will be the next president of the Oakland City Council. -more-
As the dust begins to settle from the mid-term elections, popular thinking is that, over the next two years, the Democrats will force the Bush administration to edge away from the unilateral militarism that has entrapped the nation in two open-ended wars. -more-
Although travel is educational not much can be learned from short, packaged tours. You learn more from longer than from shorter tours especially if you’re on your own. I was in the Air Force in the 1950s and stationed on Guam for two years. I learned a little bit there but in two short trips to Japan I learned next to nothing. Not so when I earned my living in China for two years doing the same job Chinese did. -more-
It is not yet light, but the day has started, led by a conspiracy of gizmos throughout the house, each doing its assigned duty. These devices are awake already and, untouched by human hands, start to organize my day. The heat is on. The coffee is brewing. NPR lulls me awake with overnight news, weather, and traffic reports. -more-
For Indian-Americans it seems there is much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. By and large they vote Democrat, and the Democrats have regained control of the House and the Senate. And the U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement just cleared the Senate by a whopping 85-12 margin. “Cold War blinkers have finally come off in India-U.S. ties,” rejoiced an editorial in The Times of India, remembering the days when no matter what the issue, the United States reflexively cold-shouldered India because it was perceived to be in the Soviet bloc. -more-
I suppose it’s the season that’s pulling my thoughts toward the organisms and processes of decay: molds, mildews, earthworms, compost in general. Certainly I’m encountering them a lot lately, in the garden and in the wilds. We’ve had just enough rain to encourage little brown mushrooms to pop up, and the more annoying fungi and their companions on plants and walls and books and shower curtains are getting bolder too. Our winter companions, fungi are often such agents of destruction that we can just plain hate them. -more-
Dear Matt, -more-
The news headlines resound of doom and gloom for the real estate market; but what is the back story? Most of these articles refer to the national scene, and to certain parts of the country that are the hardest hit. “18 percent drop here, 16 percent drop there, no relief in sight.” -more-
An old friend sent me a free plane ticket to Phoenix, Arizona, and I went. Pam lives in Lexington, Kentucky, but she was attending a veterinary-chiropractic meeting at the Scottsdale Chaparral Suites, located not on the chaparral but along a six-lane boulevard lined with imported palm trees and newly constructed strip malls. -more-
You may have noticed last month that the Ig Nobel laureates for 2006 included Ivan Schwab, a professor of ophthalmology at UC Davis, recognized for his explanation of why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. -more-
The splendid early buildings of UC Berkeley’s campus are more radical than first appears. California Hall from 1905, the first unit of John Galen Howard’s Beaux Arts ensemble, looks solidly traditional, yet one of its main features is an enormous skylight that illuminates not only the big attic, but, via a glass floor, an elegant atrium below. There was nothing more truly modern than this until the galleries-hanging-in-space of Mario Campi’s 1970 art museum. -more-
Never has there been a more perfect show, site-specific in fact, for La Val’s Subterranean than Impact Theatre’s current production of Jukebox Stories, Prince Gomilvilas’ performance of his own prose alongside Brandon Patton singing songs and the interaction between the two—as well as with the audience. -more-
The holiday season is the time of year when the big Hollywood studios roll out their best films, the logic being that the Academy Award voters have short memories. But it is also the time when the studios and the smaller DVD companies bring out many of their most prestigious titles, often in special editions. -more-
I suppose it’s the season that’s pulling my thoughts toward the organisms and processes of decay: molds, mildews, earthworms, compost in general. Certainly I’m encountering them a lot lately, in the garden and in the wilds. We’ve had just enough rain to encourage little brown mushrooms to pop up, and the more annoying fungi and their companions on plants and walls and books and shower curtains are getting bolder too. Our winter companions, fungi are often such agents of destruction that we can just plain hate them. -more-
Dear Matt, -more-
The news headlines resound of doom and gloom for the real estate market; but what is the back story? Most of these articles refer to the national scene, and to certain parts of the country that are the hardest hit. “18 percent drop here, 16 percent drop there, no relief in sight.” -more-
MATINEE SCREENINGS TO BENEFIT SCHOOLS -more-
Eisa Davis—actor, playwright, singer and songwriter—has returned to her hometown, performing at Berkeley Rep as The Mother in rock singer Stew’s play, Passing Strange. Her own play, Bulrushers, about a visitor from Montgomery, Ala., to the Mendocino County town of Boonville on the eve of the Civil Rights Movement, will be produced next year by the Shotgun Players. -more-
As part of an extraordinary daily regimen for the theatrical palate, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays national theater project, which will run the 365 plays Parks wrote in 2002 over the coming year all around the country, was inaugurated in San Francisco last week—and will be continued throughout the year in the Bay Area, Weeks Two and Four produced by East Bay companies Woman’s Will and Ten Red Hen. -more-
You may have noticed last month that the Ig Nobel laureates for 2006 included Ivan Schwab, a professor of ophthalmology at UC Davis, recognized for his explanation of why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. -more-
