Reflections on the Washington Peace March by Betty Medsger 

It’s too bad Molly Ivins could not have been in Washington for the peace march on Saturday. She would have appreciated the overall tone of the event:  

This war must stop!  

This Congress must act!  

Reverse the Decider! 

But she might also have been disappointed, as I was. Being of a certain age, it was difficult not to remember that crises similar to those we are in now—the world on fire because of our government’s actions—brought out much larger crowds during the Vietnam war. They say there were about 400,000 people at the Saturday march. That sounds impressive, but it is 100,000 fewer people than marched in an antiwar march in New York the Sunday before the Republican convention opened in August 2004. Many Americans and Iraqis have died in the intervening three years. A lot of strategies have failed, and a lot of calls for peace have been ignored since then.  

Because the war is so much worse now than it was in 2004, I thought there would be a huge turnout. I walked through the crowd from the beginning point near the speakers’ platform to the end. The crowd was so much smaller than ones I had seen there more than 30 years ago.  

What disappointed me most, though, was the lack of people under 60 and especially the relatively small number of people of college age. I realize that without a draft, it is easy for the war to seem remote, not part of our lives. Still, given the election results and the threats both President Bush and Vice President Cheney made last week to ignore the opinions of Congress, the Senate and the American people regarding the president’s much-criticized plans to send more troops to Iraq, I thought determined, angry people would pour into Washington, that the planes would be overbooked, the trains overflowing, the streets so full that the Decider would see and hear them all the way to the White House.  

To overcome apathy and detachment, we need to promote the idea as widely as possible that we—ordinary people—are responsible for what our elected officials do and, if we disagree with what they do in our name, we have a responsibility to work hard to stop those actions. In other words, the democracy the neocons planned to export to Iraq should be brought to full life at home. 

I fear that live connection between people and government is missing. We act as though the government is a force outside our responsibility, let alone beyond our control. The realization that the Vietnam war was “our” war—a wrong war being fought in our name and with our money—eventually led to the explosive growth and diversification of the movement against that war. It swelled the ranks of the peace movement and inspired people to fill the streets of Washington and other American cities. Sure, sometimes they did so with a great sense of futility, as presidents, then as now, ignored the peoples’ will. But the ranks of protesters kept growing as more and people came to think it was fundamentally important not to give up the effort to bring an illegal and immoral war to an end.  

Much has changed since then, but the need to be active citizens has not changed. As we know from history, horrific events happen in the names of citizens when they are apathetic about what their officials are doing. Given what is taking place today and what is promised—edging closer to attacks on Iran, expanding the number of troops in Iraq against most advice, ignoring the advice of leaders in Congress and in the military, ignoring the wisdom of the international community, and, worse, death and more death every day—surely we are on the edge of such a time now. 

At the rally in Washington, two voices, those of Robert Watada of Honolulu and Jane Fonda, were especially eloquent. Watada, the father of First Lt. Ehren K. Watada—who is being court-martialed for his refusal to deploy to Iraq again because he thinks the war is illegal because it violates Army regulations that wars must be waged in accordance with the United Nations Charter – said his son “seeks to give others a voice.” He encouraged other troops to follow his son’s example and resist service. Fonda said she had feared that lies told about her 30 years ago when she opposed the Vietnam war would distract from the cause if she spoke out against the war in Iraq. Finally, she said, she felt compelled to speak. “Silence is no longer an option,” she said. 

The plaintive voice of a veteran who recently returned from Iraq also was eloquent. “I thought I was going to serve my country, to protect my country,” he said. “Instead, I went there for causes that have proved fraudulent.” 

Since that war, the internet has empowered our communication. It has greatly increased our ability to engage in political action easily—give money to candidates and causes, organize voter drives and participate in polls. All of that is valuable work, but we are invisible as we do it. Perhaps that matters. Perhaps it is time for more people to be visible witnesses so all generations and the rest of the world can see what we stand for—and what we stand against—at this crucial time in history. 

Let’s do it in the smart and feisty spirit of Molly, whose wise words have amused, moved and inspired us for so many years. 

_______________________________________ 

Betty Medsger, former head of the Department of Journalism at San Francisco State and former Washington Post reporter, is writing a book about resistance during the Vietnam war. 

The message delivered by thousands of sign-bearing, chanting people at Saturday’s San Francisco march and rally was clear: U.S. out of Iraq. 

“We’ve just got to end the occupation of Iraq. We’ve got to end the war. I came today to show the large numbers of people who are for peace,” author Maxine Hong Kingston told the Daily Planet as she marched among the throngs down Market Street. “These demonstrations hearten all of us, so we know we are not isolated and alone thinking these thoughts.” 

The protesters’ message was often aimed less at the devolving presidency than at the Democrats now in power. 

“Go tell your congressmen to get a spine,” sang the Raging Grannies to the tune of “God Bless America,” performing on the makeshift truck-bed stage. 

Todd Chretien, who ran as a Green against Dianne Feinstein in the November elections, disparaged the Democrats as he addressed the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at Powell and Market streets: “Did you count the number of times Nancy Pelosi stood behind Bush and gave him a standing ovation [at the State of the Union address]?”  

On the Bush plan to add 21,000 troops to the forces in Iraq, Chretien said: “Of course we blame George Bush, but it is not just George Bush’s surge plan … There’s all too many in the Democratic Party that support it … The two leading candidates for president are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They stood with Nancy Pelosi and cheered on George Bush.” 

Throughout the crowd, people hoisted signs calling for the refusal of the “illegal war,” bearing a photo of Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. Watada’s military trial begins next week in Ft. Lewis, Washington. 

His mother, Carolyn Ho was among the speakers: 

“In the past, the world has been wondering and watching and asking why have you been so silent,” said Ho. “But the consciousness of the American people has grown. We will not allow this war to go on.” 

She explained why her son joined the military: “He went in believing he was really trying to do his duty to his country in trying to preserve our freedoms. He said to me at one point, 9/11 happened and I will never be the same again … But then my son, after doing the research and finding the facts realized that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that we entered a preemptive war on a lie. That has to stop.”  

Watatda is charged not only with refusing to go to Iraq, but for speaking out against the war, which Ho called his “constitutional right.”  

“Compare that to the kinds of crimes the Bush administration has committed,” she said. 

Other speakers linked the occupation in Iraq to the occupation in Palestine. A lone heckler protested bringing in the issue of Palestine, but was ignored by the peaceful assembly. 

Links were also made to the struggle of union workers—the march went down to the dock where Hornblower Cruises, under new ownership, has laid off International Longshore Workers Union members and hired non-union employees. 

San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi spoke, noting that when San Francisco came out against the war, the city was maligned for being on the fringe. “Once again we are a city that is leading the pack,” he said. 

An Iranian-American, Mirkarimi said he feared escalation in Iraq might be “a prelude to an attack on Iran itself.” 

Mirkarimi addressed the erosion of civil liberties in the U.S. stemming from the “war on terror,” and pointed to the impact of the war at home: “How dare you siphon millions of dollars to an illegal war abroad while we have unmet needs here at home.” 

And he added:” It is unfathomable that Bush and Cheney have not both been brought for impeachment hearings.” 

Placards calling for impeachment could be seen throughout the crowd. 

Library Board Trustee Ying Lee, longtime anti-war activist, stood on the stage during the rally behind the speakers holding a banner calling for the troops to come home and for support of Lt. Watada. 

Lee said she was energized by the spirited San Francisco crowd and reports of the half-million people in Washington. “My spirits soared as soon as I got into the BART [in Berkeley] and saw all the people there with placards and drums,” she said. 

The demonstrations “will tell congress we knew what we were doing when we voted—the Democrats were elected for a reason,” Lee said. 

March organizer Snehal Shingavi, a UC Berkeley graduate student, said he isn’t disappointed that more students on campus have not become active in the anti-war effort.  

“The anti-Vietnam war took five or six years,” he said. “We have to commit ourselves.”

The Save-the-Oaks community celebrated victory Monday when Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller stopped the University of California from moving forward with its plans to chop down a grove of old oak trees and replace it with a training center for student athletes—atop what is quite possibly a fissure of an active earthquake fault. 

In addition to the three lawsuits targeting the university’s building projects—one by the California Oaks Foundation, another by the Panoramic Hill Neighborhood Association, whose members live adjacent to the proposed projects, and the third by the City of Berkeley—tree-sitters and their accompanying supporters brought pressure to bear on the university over the last two months.  

The effort gained national attention last week when former Mayor Shirley Dean, 71, City Councilmember Betty Olds, 86, and Save the Bay founder Sylvia McLaughlin, 90, were hoisted into the trees to underscore the community’s desire to protect the trees and to move the proposed training center to safer ground. 

“I am so gratified that so many care,” McLaughlin said Monday. “Saving the environment is an ongoing process.” 

The three women joined Save the Oaks attorney Stephan Volker, councilmember Dona Spring and the regular tree-sitters—including Redwood Mary and Zachary Running Wolf—and the community organizers at the grove midday Monday to host a celebratory press conference.  

“We thought we had an overwhelming case,” Volker said., explaining that the university regents had followed improper procedure by allowing a committee rather than the full body of regents to approve the environmental report that detailed impacts of the proposed university projects in its southwest quadrant that included the training facility, retrofitting and modifying Memorial Stadium, building a 912-car garage and more. 

Asked if the university could not go back and rectify the procedural error, Volker quipped: “You can’t correct the Hayward fault.” 

Perhaps the strongest argument the plaintiffs made against siting the new athletic training facility next to the stadium was that their experts say that a trace of the Hayward Fault likely runs beneath the area where the training facility is slated to be built. 

Volker pointed to UC Santa Cruz Emeritus Research Professor of Geology Robert Curry’s written opinion which says that the project is located “over recently active earthquake faults that present a rupture hazard. These faults are part of the system of fault traces commonly known as the Hayward Fault.”  

“The judge looked at that as one of the key factors” in her decision,” Volker said. 

In a conference call Monday afternoon aimed at responding to press questions about the court decision, UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom disputed those findings, saying UC geologists have tested the area. “The High Performance Center is not on a fault,” he said. 

He went on to say that the delays could cost the university as much as 1 percent per month in rising construction costs. 

But earlier in the day, Volker had argued: “Human lives are more important than saving dollars.”  

While the community was celebrating at the oak grove, Mayor Tom Bates and City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque held a separate press briefing. (See related article for a full report on the city’s press conference) 

Like Volker, Albuquerque said safety concerns were the strongest aspect of the case: “The injunction struck an important blow for public safety by stopping this ill conceived and poorly studied project,” she said. 

“We hope the judge’s finding …will cause the university to reconsider its approach to these projects,” she said. “There is no reason why the university cannot comply with safety concerns and put the new facility in a seismically safe area.”  

Asked if the city were willing to settle with UC, Bates said he was open to discussion. 

Up at the oak grove, Berkeley resident and community organizer Doug Buckwald celebrated the decision, but was cautious at the same time: “This is one step in the process,” he said. “We have to be sure UC is listening.” 

Buckwald said the importance of the victory goes beyond the move to stop this project. “Courage is contagious,” he said. “These people in the trees have inspired people here and across the nation.” 

“The judge was really on top of it,” Dean commented, adding that the most important thing was “protecting the environment and making sure that people are safe.” 

Running Wolf and Redwood Mary both said they plan to stay and protect the trees. But UC’s Brostrom said the university would comply with the injunction and that the tree sitters should respect the law and leave.  

The university could appeal the injunction, it could settle with the plaintiffs out of court or it could go to trial, which is expected to be in three to six months.  

Photograph: Save the Oaks attorney Stephan Volker spoke to the media during a celebratory press conference Monday at the Memorial Stadium oak grove. Photo by Judith Scherr.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and other city officials held a press conference Monday after the Alameda County Superior Court issued an injunction to stop UC Berkeley’s construction of the new Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC) on the Memorial Stadium grounds. 

“The University of California, Berkeley, needs to recognize the danger they are putting people into and retrofit the Memorial Stadium immediately,” Bates said. 

Judge Barbara Miller granted the request of petitioners City of Berkeley, the Panoramic Area Association and the California Oaks Foundation that had sued to stop the project on the grounds that the petitioners had made a “strong showing of likelihood of success on their claims under the Alquist Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act and the California Environmental Quality Act to justify issuance of a preliminary injunction pending resolution of those claims at trial.” 

Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Alburquerque said safety concerns had been the strongest aspect of the case. 

“The injunction struck an important blow for public safety by stopping this ill-conceived and poorly studied project,” Alburquerque said at the press conference. “We hope the judge’s finding that the city had made a strong showing that it would win its significant legal claims will cause the University to reconsider its approach to these projects.” 

The city’s suit, filed on Dec. 19, charged that the “university ignored state law requirements concerning building or expanding structures located on earthquake faults, and failed to consider the serious threats to public health and safety that would result if the west wall of the stadium, under which the SAHPC is to be built, collapsed in an earthquake.” 

According to the city, the lives of the people working or attending events at the facilities would be endangered by the collapse. 

“There is no reason why the university cannot comply with safety concerns and put the new facility in a seismically safe area,” Alburquerque said, adding that it could take anywhere from three to months for a hearing. 

The city had also stated that in the event of a disaster, the neighboring Panoramic Area residents’ egress would be cut off, severely straining the city’s emergency response workers who would have to deal with the collapse instead of attending to the disaster-related needs of citizens impacted by an earthquake. 

Bates told reporters that he hoped the university would not go ahead with the trial but would pause to take a careful look at its approach to these projects and comply with the law. Asked if the city was willing to settle with UC, Bates said he was open to discussion. 

“If the garage is off the charts, the sports facility is relocated and the stadium is retrofitted, then I am open to negotiations,” he said. “But it’s not just my call. The City Council and members of the community are also involved in this.” 

The mayor also said that although the City of Berkeley and the university had locked horns on the stadium issue, the city would continue to work with the university on other important issues, such as the Downtown Plan. 

“Our relationship is a bit strained because of this, but I would be shocked if they turned a cold shoulder to us. I hope they get what they want but not in a place that is seismically unsafe. At the end of the day I do care about Cal and its athletics,” said Bates, a UC Berkeley alumnus.  

Bates added that the city had suggested several viable locations for the SAHPC, which the university had dismissed.  

He vociferously expressed his disapproval of the 900-plus parking space garage that had been proposed to be built on the sports field.  

“The garage has to be scrapped and relocated,” Bates said. “We need to get people out of their cars. UC needs to hand out bus and BART passes to their employees. If we don’t do something about pollution and global warming right now it’s going to kill all of us.” 

The suit had also charged that the university ignored provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by: 

• Describing the proposed projects in such vague terms as to make an adequate study of their consequences impossible. 

• Illegally piecemealing its approval of connected projects to avoid any meaningful assessments of their cumulative environmental consequences. 

• Releasing an important seismic study only after the draft of the environmental impact report had been issued and commented upon, thereby preventing the public from a meaningful opportunity to comment on its inadequacy. 

• Ignoring the comments of state and federal seismic experts that the university’s seismic study was inadequate. 

• In general, rationalizing a pre-ordained decision to build these projects, rather than conducting a good faith and careful environmental assessment of the effects of the projects, including whether the university’s legitimate goals could be obtained in a manner more respectful of public safety and the avoidance of adverse effects on the environment, as state law requires.  

The university had claimed that an injunction would expose “75 of its staff housed at the CMS to seismic dangers,” but the city maintained that these staff had been moved into the CMS by UC in the 1980s and ‘90s “when it knew full well that CMS was dangerous.” 

“UC has not moved their staff elsewhere even though it could have done so,” Alburquerque said. “It admitted in court that no funds had been allocated for seismic safety to protect these staff but had required the staff to raise their own funds for this project, claiming that sports was ‘ancillary’ to the university’s mission. It also admitted that it had not tried to raise funds to make CMS safe because only a new SAHPC was attractive enough to draw private funds.” 

A jubilant group of south Berkeley residents left the Zoning Adjustments Board meeting at midnight on Thursday after the board voted 6-3 to deny the request of Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communications for a use permit to construct a new wireless telecommunications facility to host eighteen cell phone antennas and related equipment atop the UC Storage building at 2721 Shattuck Ave. 

A remand from the Berkeley City Council, the proposed project had been vociferously protested by some area residents because of parking, loading and health concerns. Neighbors fear that the radio frequency (RF) produced by telecom antennas could cause cancer and interfere with medical devices. 

The six ZAB members who voted against the permit cited insufficient third party engineering review as grounds for denial. 

The City Council had asked the ZAB to look primarily at the third party engineering review, parking concerns and whether any illegal construction was taking place at the site, and asked ZAB to not to reject the cell phone antennas on grounds of health concerns. 

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits local governments from rejecting wireless facilities based on health concerns as long as the stations conform to Federal Communication standards. 

“This is a major breakthrough in terms of communities being able to say how their urban environment is planned and engineered by themselves,” said Michael Barglow, a member of the Berkeley Neighborhood Antenna Free Union (BNAFU), an organization that was started last November to protest against the cell phone towers. 

“Corporations have a major role in how these decisions are made. Cell phone pathways are like freeways. They need more lanes of traffic since so many people are using them. But just like the freeways, they contribute to pollution. The bottom line is that health and safety cannot be compromised in any way,” said Barglow. 

Applicants Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communications argued at the meeting that the need for the cell phone towers had stemmed from complaints of South Berkeley residents about dropped calls and poor reception. 

Several Verizon Wireless employees as well as customers testified about poor cell phone service in the area and urged the board to approve the Use Permit. 

Berkeley developer Patrick Kennedy -- who owns the property, located at 2721 Shattuck Av. -- spoke in favor of the project at the meeting. 

“I find it ironic to be here in the midst of this controversy,” Kennedy said.  

“We have addressed a lot of the concerns with respect to loading on Ward Street. I did have some concerns about the safety issues but an Internet check on health risks from antennas and cell phone towers took that away.” 

Board member Bob Allen, who voted in favor of the cell phone towers, said that he was not convinced that the cell phone antennas were a threat to the community.  

“There is not enough proof about negative effects,” Allen said, adding that he did not see any evidence of illegal work on the project’s premises and was convinced by the third party engineering review.  

ZAB member Jesse Arreguin called the third party engineering review insufficient. 

“The City Council remanded this issue to us and one of the criteria they wanted us to base our decision on was a third party engineering review,” Arreguin said. “A third party review is something we need to take account of. The review is insufficient, as the information in the review is being given by the applicants themselves. Therefore I don’t believe I have the necessary information to make this decision on whether these cell phone towers are necessary for people in Berkeley.” 

Other matters 

The board continued the hearing for the request of a use permit for the conversion of Wright’s Garage at 2629-2635 Ashby Av. into a multi-tenant commercial building until February 8. 

Applicant John Gordon told ZAB members that he had met with neighborhood groups to address concerns about parking. 

“The area is densely populated. I can mitigate the impact of cars in the area but can’t solve the problem,” Gordon said. 

The size of the proposed restaurant had been widely discussed by neighbors in past meetings. They fear that a large-scale establishment with an area of 5000 sq. ft. would increase traffic in the neighborhood.  

Board member Terry Doran said that he welcomed creative suggestions about how to handle parking in the area. 

‘It’s not a closed issue,” Doran said. “I would like to hear about possible solutions for not just your issue but also the whole neighborhood,” he said, addressing Gordon, who lives in the Elmwood district himself. 

A few board members suggested valet parking to solve the parking problem. 

“Something needs to be done about that space or it’s just going to go to the rats,” said board member Jesse Anthony. 

In August, the City of Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission landmarked the site of the 180-foot diameter circular Bevatron building at 1 Cyclotron Road, but not the building itself, opening the door to its demolition by the University of California. 

Appellants will argue before the City Council tonight (Tuesday) that the historic importance of the Bevatron building is too great to allow its destruction and that the demolition could constitute an environmental hazard. Their appeal questions the accuracy of the city planning staff’s Notice of Decision reporting the commission’s ruling on the historic significance of the structure. 

At its meeting tonight, the City Council will also look at enacting new laws to control the impact of alcohol sales, adding live-work lofts to inclusionary housing rules, allocating $100,000 to greenhouse gas reduction and more. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. with a work session on economic development. The meeting is at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Way and is broadcast on KPFB-FM 89.3 and Cable Channel 33. 

Bevatron appeal 

The Landmarks Commission ruling could be used to allow UC Berkeley—which operates the Lawrence Berkeley Labs for the Department of Defense—to tear down the structure that housed a particle accelerator that functioned between 1954 and 1993.  

The demolition is what LA Wood, Pamela Sihvola and 53 others are trying to prevent with their appeal of the Landmarks Preservation Commission decision, saying the building itself as well as a historic record of the science practiced there should be preserved. 

They say that the Notice of Decision for the August meeting, which was drafted by city planning department staff, was not an accurate representation of what the commission actually decided, and that staff neglected to report the commission’s opinion that the property might be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, which would affect the extent  

of environmental review demolition must receive. 

“This is the most historic of the buildings for the lab,” Wood said in an interview Friday. 

However, in its Oct. 2005 draft environmental impact report, LBL calls for the demolition and removal of the Bevatron.  

“Approval of the demolition project (is) anticipated to be considered in early 2007,” says the recently released final EIR, which goes on to say that the Bevatron removal would likely take place some time between 2008 and 2012. 

The plan calls for disassembling the building that houses the Bevatron and the foundation underneath, then removing some 22,000 to 26,000 tons of reinforced concrete, structural steel, siding, glass and other building materials and another 24,000 to 30,000 tons of debris. “The site would then be backfilled, and the fill compacted and leveled,” the EIR says. 

What will be built on the site? “There are no current plans for future development of the underlying site,” the EIR says.  

Critics of the demolition have cited the danger of radioactive contamination being spread from the thousands of truck trips to landfills and hazardous waste disposal sites. 

Confronting alcohol abuse 

The council will address several proposed laws to address alcohol-related problems.  

One proposal is to train servers/sales persons not to sell alcohol to minors and to inebriated persons and to stop consumption on the premises, where it is illegal. 

Another, called a “social host ordinance,” targets adults responsible for large parties on private property where alcohol is consumed, especially by minors.  

The third proposed law would target loud and unruly gatherings as public nuisances. Police would first post the site of such gatherings, then cite persons exhibiting unruly behavior at the site on subsequent occasions. 

The council will also take up regulations leading to reduction of alcohol outlets where they are over-concentrated. 

The council will also look at:  

• A law which would require developers of live-work lofts to provide one “affordable” unit for each five market rate units built, which they must now do for the construction of regular apartments. 

• Allocating $100,000 for the the greenhouse gas reduction program approved by the voters as Measure G, and applying for additional grants from outside source to further fund the program. 

• Questions surrounding the ticketing of high school students who sit on the ledge at the Milvia Street administration building. 

• Joining a national pro-choice campaign. 

• Opposing Bush’s escalation of the war in Iraq. 

• Supporting a resolution to enforce the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

For Bob Sayles, the awakening moment came in May 2005, “when we heard that Bowles Hall was to be for freshmen only.” 

To former residents like Sayles, a retired IBM executive, and Norman Mineta, a former member of the House of Representatives and member of two presidential cabinets, their years in the UC Berkeley residence hall are fondly remembered as a powerful, life-shaping experience. 

Now retired and living in Gold River near Sacramento, Sayles is president of the Bowles Hall Alumni Association, formed by former residents in response to the university’s decision. 

Now numbering more than 150 dues-paying members, the association includes retirees who graduated before World War II and current undergraduates no longer able to live in the hall where they started their years at UCB. 

Their common goal: restore the hall to its former glory and the critical role it played in all their lives. 

But the event that galvanized the alumni was the discovery that the university’s Haas School of Business wanted to transform their cherished hall into a collection of upscale suites worthy of corporate executives willing to pay hefty charges for courses that would let them update their skills and network with fellow execs. 

Sayles and two fellow alums—“all of us had careers in business and academia”—discovered that Haas had started looking at Bowles Hall after the school received a $25 million anonymous donation in August 2005. 

Two months earlier, university officials confirmed that Bowles Hall would become a freshman-only dorm, citing disturbances and parties that had occurred at the facilities. 

At the time, Haas Dean Tom Campbell—like Mineta a former congressional representative—was willing to talk to the Bowles alums. “He told us Bowles was only one of a number of sites being considered, and not necessarily the preferred one,” Sayles said. 

“We’ve learned a lot more since then. Bowles is the only site being seriously considered, and the primary reason, we believe, is that the faculty are insisting that they be able to walk across the street to teach there. Several university officials have told us that.” 

Late last year the university issued a call for bidders to conduct a seismic study of the hall, which may sit on two different traces of the Hayward Fault. 

Accompanying the call was a drawing showing two new additional structures, one a partially underground classroom and meeting room facility to the west and the other a building with additional guest rooms to the east. 

Later design iterations triggered by construction cost estimates have surfaced the underground structure and moved it closer to the Greek Theater. 

History of conflict 

The current battle isn’t the first one waged by Bowles alums for their hall. 

A 1988 announcement of a proposal to demolish the building motivated then-current and former residents to file an application with the National Parks Service to list the building on the National Register of Historic Places. The service complied, listing the building on March 16, 1989. 

Sayles, who moved into Bowles as a 16-year-old freshman, said he and his fellows will continue to fight for the institution that played a crucial role in their lives. 

Transformation into a first-year-only residence completed the demolition of the Bowles experience. “If you take away the older participants, the whole thing begins to fall apart,” Sayles said. 

University officials cited drinking and misbehavior as their reasons for ending the hall’s long-standing tradition. 

Supporters of the hall acknowledge there were some incidents of rowdiness, but blame them on the university’s progressive deconstruction of a system of guidance that had evolved over the course of decades. 

“Four of us went to the housing department, but what they told us didn’t ring true,” Sayles said. 

He and his fellow alums place the blame on the earlier elimination of the resident advisory system based on peer counseling by the upperclassmen and their replacement by student housing department staff with no awareness of or participation in the hall’s legacy and traditions. 

The retired IBM executive enrolled at Berkeley as a 16-year-old freshman and found Bowles the ideal residence for his undergraduate years. 

“The older guys steered the younger ones in all kinds of ways, both academically and socially,” Sayles said. “I later realized that these four years were really important to my life. Something important had happened, and Bowles Hall had played an important role.” 

Six months after graduation, he—like Mineta—was in uniform, serving as a Marine Corps platoon leader in combat in Korea.  

For Sayles, Mineta and their compatriots, “the goal is to restore that experience in a restored Bowles Hall,” he said. But even if Haas finds another home for its program, restoration won’t be easy,” Sayles said. 

“The university stopped putting money into maintenance 10 years ago, and now the housing office has a huge maintenance deficit,” he said. One reason the office might be encouraging the move, he said, is because Haas would have to transfer badly needed funds to the housing department in the event of a takeover of the hall. 

“Then the contractors would destroy all the evidence that no maintenance took place,” Sayles said. 

If Haas gets its wishes, the interior would be gutted, with the hall’s living room and stairs to be preserved along with a restored kitchen. “They would gut the rest and turn it into 70 hotel rooms, each with attached baths.” 

Then the state’s oldest university residence hall would become a hotel for corporate executives. 

Bowles, a city landmarks and a National Register site, was conceived by donor Mary Bowles, Robert Gordon Sproul (later UC President) and George Kelham, chief architect of the 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition in San Francisco and successor to John Galen Howard as architect for the university.

In the contest between the interests of his college and his home for three years of college, one famous UC Berkeley alum comes down unequivocally on the side of Bowles Hall. 

“My allegiance is still about Bowles Hall; Haas will always be able to take care of its own needs,” said Norman Y. Mineta, who graduated from the business school and went on to serve in Congress and in the cabinets of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. 

His three years as a resident of Bowles Hall would play a crucial role in a career which ascended from behind the barbed wire of a Wyoming internment camp to the highest corridors of power in Washington. 

And now the end of the residential hall he cherishes is threatened by UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, from which he graduated in 1953 when it was still known as the College of Commerce. 

Haas has set its sights on the venerable gothic landmark, which is located northwest of Memorial Stadium on Stadium Rim Way and a short stroll from the business school. 

If Haas and UC Berkeley officials have their way, a unique and much-loved residential hall will be transformed into upscale living quarters for executives taking specialized training designed to enhance their corporate chops while enriching Haas’s bottom line. 

“It looks pretty much like the die has been cast,” Mineta said. “The question is, what can be done?” 

One step he’s taking is a letter he’s writing to UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. Another step may be a call to Haas Dean Tom Campbell, a Republican who succeeded to the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that Democrat Mineta vacated in 1995. 

Internment 

Born in San Jose to Japanese immigrants in 1931, Mineta and his family were swept up in the dragnet of Japanese-Americans that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

He and his family were thrown into Heart Mountain Relocation Center, one of 10 internment camps built to house people rounded up in Pacific Coast states and Southern Arizona. 

Returning to San Jose after the war, he threw himself into his high school and was elected student body president his senior year. “The newspapers took note of an American of Japanese ancestry being elected so soon after the war,” Mineta said. “Asian Americans at San Jose High School probably didn’t make up even five percent of the student body.” 

At the same time, Harry Kawahara, another Japanese-American, was elected student body president at San Leandro High School. 

“We both started at UC Berkeley in September 1949, and we became close friends,” Mineta said. “We still are to this day.” The friendship would also lead to a romance and marriage. ”My brother-in-law’s brother married Harry’s sister. We kid each other that we are relatives.” 

Mineta spent his freshman year living in a boarding house on Ridge Road. 

“At that point, the ability for a minority student to pledge one of the fraternities was somewhere between zero and five percent,” he said. “There was one interracial fraternity at that point, but they didn’t have a house and there was no chance of pledging somewhere like SAE (Sigma Alpha Epsilon). 

“But I had heard of Bowles Hall, so I decided to apply,” he said. 

The Bowles experience 

Bowles Hall was the built in 1928 with a donation from Mary McNear Bowles as a men-only residence in memory of her spouse, UC regent and Cal graduated Phillip E. Bowles. 

When completed the following year, it became the first state-owned college or university residential hall in California, built in the Collegiate Gothic style, an American evocation of the oldest buildings at Oxford and Cambridge. 

From the beginning, the goal was to provide an experience where residents would live at Bowles throughout their undergraduate years, older students mentoring those who were just beginning their college careers. 

Mineta applied, undergoing the interviews required of all prospective residents before he was accepted. He became a Bowlesman in September 1950. 

“For me, it was tremendous, I had been very active in high school, and I found Bowles Hall to be very much like a fraternity, where we had a lot of social activities,” he said, all conducted under the watchful but benevolent eye of Mrs. Rose Gilmore, the house resident. “She was terrific,” Mineta added. 

While most meals were served cafeteria style, Wednesday night dinner were formal by comparison, with residents attired in suits and ties and served by “the hashers,” or hall staff. 

“Occasionally on Wednesday nights after dinner we had speakers. The first event that Clark Kerr accepted after he became chancellor was an invitation to speak at Bowles Hall after dinner. We were tremendously proud.” 

There were 450 residents then, living in small suites that housed two students, though occupancy has since been doubled. 

“I really felt part of the whole hall,” said Mineta. “I felt part of a living group. It was structured, we had a social life, and we have residential advisors among the upperclassmen we could turn to for help.” 

Mineta served on the class council throughout his years at Bowles, and chaired the men’s banquet for the university’s graduating class during his senior year—when he also served as secretary treasurer of the Bowles Hall Association. 

Life after Bowles 

Like many students, Mineta had enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps during college, and on graduating in 1953, he was taken into active service and assigned to Army intelligence—where he served in Japan and Korean during the Korean War. 

Once back home in San Jose, he joined his father’s insurance business, “and little by little I started getting into community affairs, and that got me into politics.” 

In 1967, the mayor and a city councilmember asked if he’d be interested in serving out a three-year vacancy on the council. He accepted, and won election—“I couldn’t campaign for reelection because I was appointed.” 

The following year he ran for mayor, carrying every precinct in the city. Four years later, he ran for Congress, where he served for 20 years. 

In the last year of his administration, Bill Clinton picked Mineta to serve as Secretary of Commerce, and when George W. Bush was inaugurated, Mineta because Secretary of Transportation, serving until last July when he resigned to become vice chair of Hill & Knowlton, one of the nation’s most powerful public relations firms. 

On Dec. 15, Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, “for a life of selfless and distinguished service to our Nation,” including his work “to improve the security of our transportation system and restore our confidence in air travel after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.” 

And through it all, Mineta has retained his relationships with his companions from Bowles Hall, and is a regular at the dinners Bowles alumni have every year at Big Game time. 

“My experience in Berkeley, and especially at Bowles Hall, really gave me a great foundation for public service,” he said.

With proposed high-rise building around the outskirts of Oakland’s Lake Merritt a growing concern among residents, two Oakland City Councilmembers are holding a public meeting this week to discuss the matter. 

District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel and District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan, both of whom represent districts which border on parts of the lake, are co-sponsoring the Lake Merritt high-rise development meeting on Wednesday, 6-9 p.m., in the Vista Room of the Lake Merritt Garden Center, 666 Bellevue St. in Oakland. The Garden Center is located near the Fairyland children’s park. 

Among other things, the purpose of the meeting is to identify areas around the lake where high rise buildings are and are not appropriate and to discuss possible impacts of high-rise development on existing lake-area neighborhoods. 

“How do you envision the long-term skyline around our jewel of Lake Merritt?” Nadel asked in a statement released in the Grand Lake Guardian online newspaper. “A solid ring of 30-plus story towers? An undulating line of old and new architecture? Gradations of building heights stepping back from the lake? As a pedestrian walking the lake, will your walk be mostly in shadow? Will you be blown about by gusts of wind coming from between the towers like walking some streets in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago? Currently, zoning for this area could allow a solid ring of high-rises around the lake. We want you to help us craft the crown of our jewel with more thoughtful artistry.” 

The team of MKThink and Marta Fry Landscape Architects (both of San Francisco) have been selected by UC Berkeley, to guide a community planning process to help improve People’s Park in the coming months. 

“MKThink will be the team leader in the project and Marta Fry will provide more of the design expertise,” Irene Hegarty, director of Community Relations at UC Berkeley, told the Planet on Monday. 

Hegarty said that the People’s Park Advisory Board Selection subcommittee along with UCB staff and an official from the City of Berkeley had made the final decision from a group of three finalists. 

“MKThink has a very unique approach and are people-centric. They have already visited the park and interviewed people who frequent it,” Hegarty said, adding that the project would involve community engagement. 

“The idea is to look at the uses and programs that both the community and the campus would want to have in the park and recommend landscape improvements to the university,” she said. 

MKThink was singled out from ten firms who had submitted proposals to the university to a request for qualifications. 

“Since they are based out of San Francisco, it makes them accessible and keeps the cost down,” said Hegarty.  

MKThink had worked on many other urban projects and most recently was selected by the Stanford Law School as part of a team to design their New Academic Building. 

“We are looking forward to working with the MKThink team,” Emily Marthinsen, assistant vice chancellor for planning for UC Berkeley, said in a statement. “It bases its work on an understanding of the impact of the built environment on the human condition. It is a people-focused approach that is well-suited for this site.” 

Mark Miller, project principal for MKThink, said that the firm was delighted to be chosen for such an important assignment. 

“People's Park's dynamic history, broad constituents and neighboring community form a valuable foundation for an exciting future. We want to build upon this foundation and create opportunities for an engaging, safe and respectful park for many years to come.” 

Hegarty told the Planet that MKThink would begin working on the project by laying out a community process and researching documents important to the history of the 2.8-acre site located in the south of campus Telegraph Avenue area. 

The People’s Park planning process would begin in March and be completed by fall 2007. 

The office of the Alameda County Registrar of Voters believes that implementation of Instant Runoff Voting in the county is on schedule for implementation in the fall elections of 2008 and expects software from vendor Sequoia Voting Systems to be delivered sometime this spring. 

“Sequoia hasn’t finished writing the program yet, but we understand that it is on a fast track,” the registrar’s Public Information Officer Guy Ashley, said in a telephone interview this week. 

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) eliminates runoff elections in elections with more than two candidates running by allowing voters to rank the candidates by order of preference. In the past, in elections that required a candidate to get more than 50 percent of the vote to win, runoffs between the top two candidates were necessary in Alameda County in instances where no candidate’s vote total cracked the 50 percent barrier. By allowing voters to choose and rate candidates by order of preference in the original election, IRV promises to mathematically select the candidate who is favored by a majority of voters without the necessity of a runoff. 

Under the system to be implemented in Alameda County, voters will be limited to ranking the top three candidates in any given election. 

Voters in the Alameda County cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro have all passed referendums in favor of implementing IRV in their elections. 

The contract with Oakland-based Sequoia stipulates that test run of the IRV-capable election software must be available in November of 2007, a full year ahead of the first county election in which it is scheduled to be implemented. 

Ashley said the year’s start-up period is necessary because, while the Sequoia voting machines now in use in Alameda County have been certified by federal and state officials, the newly written IRV software must go through the certification process before it can be used in an election. 

“The whole IRV project depends on state and federal certification, and nobody knows how long that will take place,” Ashley said. “That’s why we built in enough lead time before the first elections.” 

Ashley said the county cleared another potential hurdle with city election officials late last year when cities within Alameda County “agreed to have uniformity in IRV and implement only one system countywide.” Sequoia officials had said they had the capability of writing software for more than one IRV system to be used in Alameda County, but there were concerns among local election officials that having more than one IRV system might cause problems by unduly complicating county elections. 

Sequoia first operated voting machines for Alameda County last year after the county ended its contract with controversial Diebold Election Systems. 

Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, had more questions than answers when he spoke Thursday afternoon in the new Berkeley City College auditorium, addressing the topic: “Berkeley’s Economic Future—How Can We Compete in the New Economy?” 

Reich, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and Berkeley resident for just one year, joked about the high cost of the house he bought and the accompanying property taxes. “I am subsidizing all of you,” he told the crowd of about 250 people, going on to speak more seriously about the consequences of the loss of diversity that the high cost of housing brings to an area. 

“How can Berkeley maintain economic diversity?” he asked. “How can we make sure poor and lower middle-class people live in the community? We don’t want to be all upper middle class.” 

As property values escalate, “If you want artists, how do you make places for artists to live?” he asked. Building low-income housing is critical, he said, pointing to the problems created by “nimbyism.” 

He addressed the problem of homelessness, saying Berkeley and the Bay Area attract homeless people because of its moderate climate and liberal attitudes. He said, while “the homeless will always be among us,” solutions should be addressed regionally and should include community-based treatment for the mentally ill and safe places for homeless people to live.  

He pointed out that people who work in Berkeley, such as postal workers, cannot afford to live in the city. And, “Commutes get harder and harder,” he said. 

The question is not just bringing money into the community, “but the character of the community,” Reich said, noting how much he appreciates the small shops and exclusion of Wal-Mart-like businesses. Still, he confessed that he went to Emeryville last week to purchase a TV.  

Reich said he supports unions, particularly the new push of unionization of service workers by the Service Employees International Union. “I salute unions organizing workers at the bottom,” he said. 

Economic diversity includes people of various occupations, from technicians to shopkeepers, and it includes the town and the gown, he said. He called the diversity “social capital,” from which the city benefits when the diverse sectors come together and spend time working on community issues, creating a sense of community. “It’s a function of how much people care,” he said. 

“But the more chic the community gets, it loses its economic diversity and its cultural diversity and becomes just another chic place,” consequently losing that social capital, he said. 

Obviously enjoying the city he now calls home, Reich pointed to the views from the hills, the arts, the restaurants and the politics, which, he says, pit liberals against liberals. It’s not like Washington, he joked, “where someone is a friend who stabs you in the front.” 

“Thank you for being such great neighbors,” he concluded. 

MEXICO CITY—Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s use of “oil diplomacy” to secure his position as the leading socialist voice in Latin America is upsetting relations with Mexico and threatening to unravel a decades-old Mexico-Venezuela foreign aid program to struggling neighbors. 

Mexican officials are quietly seething at Chavez’s grandstanding, deploring his use of the San Jose Accord as an ideological weapon in his campaign against the United States. 

The San Jose Accord between the two largest oil-producing countries in Latin America has guaranteed crucial shipments of affordable petroleum, regardless of fluctuations in the world market, to Barbados, Belize, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Panama. 

Inked on Aug. 3, 1980, as oil prices soared and recession buffeted smaller nations in the region, this joint aid program has never been interrupted by any political and economic disagreements with beneficiaries. 

Even when Mexico’s diplomatic ties with Cuba reached a low point in May 2004—when Mexico led the U.N. condemnation of Cuba for human rights violations, Castro disparaged then-President Vicente Fox as a lapdog of the Bush White House and ambassadors were recalled—Mexico didn’t disrupt the flow of oil to Havana under the terms of the San Jose Accord. 

“The San Jose Accord’s purpose is to provide foreign aid, in apolitical terms, to the nations of Central America and the Caribbean,” says a Mexican official at Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly. 

“It has never been used for political purposes, or as a political weapon,” adds the official, sharply alluding to Chavez’s use of oil as a tool to foment socialist “revolutions” in neighboring countries. 

Mexican diplomats are stunned by the politicized perception of “oil diplomacy,” and how they now have to defend themselves. “Suddenly there are questions about the ‘wisdom’ of selling oil on preferential terms, or as grants,” a Mexican official at the foreign ministry says. 

“We have to explain that we are not following Chavez’s lead, but simply complying with a foreign aid program created more than a quarter century ago.” 

Mexican officials are also worried about the American media’s tendency to inaccurately report on the nature of the San Jose Accord oil diplomacy. 

Typical of the inaccuracies was a Miami Herald report that Cuba’s future is in the hands of Hugo Chavez, not Fidel Castro’s successor, Raul Castro: “The Venezuelan president is propping up the Cuban economy by giving it nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day virtually for free, according to experts.” There’s no clarification that Venezuela is simply complying with its obligations under a two-decades-old pact with Mexico that’s older than Chavez’s presidency. 

Further fueling Mexican resentment is Chavez’s unilateral decision to transform “oil diplomacy” into a tool for building a “cult of personality” throughout Latin America, which they say feeds into American fears. 

“We are being linked with a policy that is becoming more and more anti- American,” says a foreign ministry official. 

“There is no economic rationale in [Chavez’s] deals. It is a political investment,” Ricardo Haumann, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School told the Christian Science Monitor. 

At the heart of the emerging rift are two conflicting aims. Mexico is betting its future on globalization and further economic integration with the United States; Venezuela is working for regional dominance and limiting U.S. influence in the hemisphere. 

“Chavez essentially has rendered Castro and Castroism immune to any kind of U.S. action unless the U.S. is prepared to threaten its oil supply and begin a diplomatic conflagration in the Caribbean,” Larry Birns, of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, said last fall. 

Giving Mexico further reason to reconsider its participation in the San Jose Accord, Chavez has initiated oil deals throughout the hemisphere, linking virtually every nation in Latin America. Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon told the press last December,“[This accord] must remain an apolitical economic assistance program.” 

Chavez has a different vision: “We must use oil as a weapon to fight American imperialism,” Hugo Chavez told his radio listeners earlier this month. “It can help finance socialism for us and our neighbors.” 

Chavez oils his way to good graces 

Apart from the San Jose Accord with Mexico that provides oil and oil subsidies benefitting 11 Central American and Caribbean nations, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has other initiatives using his country’s oil wealth as a means of establishing dominant influence throughout Latin America. 

• Cuba: Chavez now ships 90,000 barrels of oil a day, more than the allotment required by the San Jose Accord and a vital lifeline to Castro’s stagnant economy. Venezuela’s state-run national oil company PDVSA also opened its Caribbean headquarters in Havana. In return Castro has sent more than 30,000 doctors and teachers to Venezuela, helping consolidate support for Chavez among Venezuela’s most disenfranchised. 

• The Caribbean: Chavez launched PetroCaribe, an economic pact that will benefit smaller nations through subsidized oil, goods-and-services-for-oil exchange and interest-deferred financing for oil purchases. Of the 15-member Caribbean-community group Caricom, 13 have signed on to this agreement. 

•Andean Region: PetroAndina, PetroCaribe’s counterpart for Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, guarantees the development of these countries’ oil industries under Venezuela’s leadership. 

•Mercosur Region: Chavez has proposed specific programs for three member-nations of Mercosur,the South American trading bloc comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Foremost, he’s promoting the creation of PetroSur, which would give Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay oil on terms similar to those envisioned for PetroCaribe. (Only Chile is excluded from Chavez’s oil diplomacy.) 

Chavez since 2006 has been supplying oil to Argentina to ease a critical shortabe. In return for an additional four million barrels, Argentina will provide farm equipment and shipbuilding experts for Venezuela’s merchant marine fleet. Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA is opening service stations throughout Argentina in a joint venture with Energia de Argentina (Enarsa). PDVSA and Brazil’s state-run Petrobras, built a $2.5-billion refinery, dramatically raising Venezuela’s profile in Brazil’s energy sector. 

Chavez signed a separate accord to supply oil to Uruguay for the next 25 years under favorable terms: 67 percent of Uruguay’s oil imports will be paid with agricultural goods; 33 percent will be paid through subsidized-interest loans. Venezuela’s PDVSA will upgrade Uruguay’s La Teja refinery in order to process Venezuelan crude. 

Chavez now ships 8,600 barrels of fuel a day to Paraguay, priced at 25 percent below world prices and financed with interest-free loans. 

With these initiatives, Chavez now benefits every nation in Latin America, except Mexico and Chile, and his rise as the leading populist voice in the region is solidified. Financed by Venezuela’s oil riches, he’s well on his way to becoming Castro’s ideological heir. 

Louis E.V. Nevaer, author of the forthcoming book, "HR and the New Hispanic Workforce."

Berkeley fault lines—literal and legal—dominated long hours of argument Tuesday during an intense hearing in Judge Barbara J. Miller’s crowded Hayward courtroom. 

At the end of the day, the Alameda County Superior Court jurist announced she would issue a ruling by Monday afternoon on a case that has brought nationwide attention to the tree-sitters nested in the branches west of UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium. 

Tuesday’s arguments pitted a world-renowned university intent on developing a massive complex of new buildings near a beloved campus landmark against a city worried about seismic calamities and increased demands on an overburdened infrastructure, neighbors worried about safety and congestion, and environmentalists out to save a grove of threatened trees. 

For the university, the main issues are costly construction delays and the need to clear-cut the grove and excavate a construction site before the onset of football season. 

Vice Chancellor Ed Denton, the university’s development boss, sat quietly in the audience, scowling once at a reporter who aimed a camera in his direction. Seated across the courtroom from him were Berkeley’s top two city lawyers, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque and deputy Zach Cowan. 

Two strands of legal argument dominated the discussion—allegations that the university had violated key provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act and allegations that Denton’s projects violated—or potentially violated—the Alquist-Priolo Act, which governs construction near active earthquake faults. 

What the plaintiffs seek is a ruling by Miller holding that the evidence of potential violations they offered is strong enough to justify a preliminary injunction blocking further work at the grove until she can hold a full hearing and issue a definitive ruling. 

Charles Olson, a private attorney representing the regents, countered with claims that the university is fully in compliance with both laws, and that a delay would cost the university $20,000 a day—a figure based in part on construction cost inflation. 

Substantial delays now could postpone construction because excavations must be completed before football season and the onset of winter rains, he told the court, with a year’s delay likely to cost between $8 million and $10 million. 

Three lawyers presented the opposition case: Harriet Steiner of Sacramento for the city, Michael Lozeau of Alameda for the Panoramic Hill Association, and Stephan Volker for the California Oaks Foundation. Olson responded to each in turn. 

All of the plaintiffs urged the delay of the first stage of construction—taking the ax to a grove that includes 38 California live oaks, a protected tree inside city limits but not on campus. Five of the oaks are currently occupied by tree-sitters, as is a doomed California redwood currently inhabited by defeated mayoral candidate Zachary Running Wolf. 

The high-profile arboreal activists have drawn the ire of university officials and sometimes heavy-handed surveillance by campus police along with the attentions of reporters and the lenses of media photographers from coast to coast. 

One protester was in court Tuesday, and recognized by the judge during an exchange with Harriet Steiner, the Sacramento attorney hired by the City of Berkeley to plead its case. 

At issue was a key point raised by the plaintiff’s attorney—whether or not University of California Regents acted legally when they delegated the decision to approve an environmental impact report to a subcommittee. 

When Miller asked when the regents opted for a delegation policy, Steiner answer, “The grove has been in existence way longer.” 

“And longer than Shirley Dean and those other two ladies,” replied the judge. 

Dean, a 71-year-old former mayor, had joined 86-year-old City Councilmember Betty Olds and 90-year-old environmentalist Sylvia McLaughlin for a brief tree sit-in Monday, an event heavily covered by Bay Area media and the New York Times, which featured pictures on the day of the hearing. 

Sitting in the audience Tuesday, Dean beamed at the judge’s recognition. 

But there were few light moments during Tuesday’s session, which featured a courtroom-spanning table jammed with seven lawyers and a welter of papers, files and binders. 

Steiner said the city wants a court order revoking the environmental impact report (EIR) approved by the regents’ Committee on Grounds and Buildings Dec. 5. 

That document gave regents the power to undertake seven projects, starting with the 186,000-square-foot, $125 million gym—the Barclay Simpson Student Athlete High Performance Center—at the protest site. 

Other projects include a common office and meeting “connection” building for the faculties of the university’s schools of law and business, a 912-space multi-level underground parking lot, and a major retrofit and vertical expansion of Memorial Stadium, recognized as a landmark by the city and state and listed on the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places. 

The stadium sits directly astride the Hayward Fault, rated by federal geologists as the most likely site of the next major Bay Area quake, and state and federal geologists have urged more testing at the gym site.  

The plaintiffs argued that no EIR should have been approved before the sites were cleared of Alquist-Priolo questions, and questioned building an expensive gym near a stadium which the university might not even be able to bring up to seismic code. The parking lot site directly north of the gym has also yet to be cleared. 

That issue—strongly contested in Tuesday’s arguments—could trigger a decisive appellate ruling defining just what can and can’t be done to upgrade old buildings on active faults. 

Alquist-Priolo limits improvements or additions to structures on fault lines to 50 percent of the structure’s value. But the question Miller must answer is just what “value” means in the context of the law. 

While the university claims the term means replacement value at current construction costs, the plaintiffs charge that the value means the worth of the existing structure including all its faults and defects—which both sides acknowledge to be extensive. 

Because no California court has decided the issue, whichever way the judge rules is likely to trigger an appeal and a decision that could greatly impact the future of construction in the country’s most fault-ridden state.  

Since the new gym was one of the hiring demands of winning Cal Bears football coach Jeff Tedford along with costly stadium alterations that go well beyond simple seismic upgrades, the issue carries significant implications for a university that depends increasingly on the largess of alumni and corporate donors. 

The preliminary plans call for major renovations within the coliseum’s interior and the addition of a new ranks of seats above the existing east rim and an elevated structure housing luxury skyboxes—a lucrative source of big-dollar donations—to be built above an elevated press box on the western rim. 

Just how much work is feasible depends of the definition of value, the crucial legal issue. 

Another issue involves the decision by regents in November to approve funding for the gym before reaching a decision on adoption of the controversial EIR, then to delegate the final decision on the environmental document to the board’s Committee on Grounds and Buildings. 

Michael Lozeau, representing Panoramic Hill, challenged the resulting approval because the adoption was made by a vote of seven regents, a total less than a quorum of the full board. 

“This was an illegal delegation under CEQA,” he said, making a point that seemed to draw great interest from the judge. 

Olson replied that that regents had delegated similar decisions in the past, including a vote to grant the Berkeley chancellor the right to decide on the Foothill Bridge. 

The university has been cagey about details of stadium plans since they were first unveiled by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau in November 2005. At the time, Birgeneau professed ignorance of the reasons for the uppermost western level of additions, later revealed by an athletic department representative to be the premium donor boxes. 

University staff also showed deceptively bucolic renderings to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission early in the following year which showed none of the additions above the western wall, an omission noted by commissioners. 

During testimony before the regents, Denton said construction at the stadium was critical to win the support of graduates who had fond memories of Big Games past and other events at the stadium. 

All of the funding for the stadium area projects will come from private donors, Olson said Tuesday, because all state construction moneys are already committed to seismic retrofits of existing buildings on the campus.  

Berkeley City Attorney Albuquerque was upbeat after the hearing ended shortly before 5 p.m. 

“Judge Miller has a tremendous command of the case,” she said, “and I was very pleased with the quality of her questions.” 

“It was almost as interesting as yesterday,” said Shirley Dean, referring to her high-profile fling at tree-sitting.

Neighbors of Alta Bates Medical Center denounced what they said was an effort on the part of the hospital on Wednesday to influence the results of a required parking and traffic survey by lowering the number of employees parking in the neighborhood on the days of the survey. 

Alta Bates is required, under a zoning permit from the city, to do a parking and traffic survey every January.  

The purpose is to make sure that the hospital maintains the parking limit allowed by the permit. If too many employees park in the neighborhood, the hospital is required to take additional measures, such as moving some facilities and employees to other locations. 

Area residents told the Planet on Wednesday that they had spotted Alta Bates employees leaving flyers on cars informing hospital staff about the survey—which was scheduled to be held on Wednesday and Thursday—and telling them not to park in the neighborhood. 

“This is clear manipulation of the data,” said Peter Shelton, a resident of Prince Street. “To take special steps on the day of the survey is uncalled for. The whole point of the survey is to see if there is a parking problem in the area. Tampering with the data will leave the survey with no validity.” 

Neighbors were surprised to see the abundant parking available on Wednesday morning. 

A car parked on Prince Street, about a block from the hospital, had a flyer on its window on Wednesday which read: 

“Attention All Employees: There will be a parking survey at the Alta Bates Campus on Jan 22–Jan 26. We encourage all employees to please utilize the shuttle services during this time. The Shuttles transport between campuses, and the BART stations. Thank you for your cooperation and have a nice day!” 

Prince Street resident Saskia Dennis-van Dijl said Alta Bates had promised to encourage its employees to park away from local streets for months, but never did until the day of the traffic survey. 

“Lo and behold, this morning at 8:30 a.m. every spot on the two blocks on Prince between Regent and Bateman was available,” Dennis-van Dijl wrote in an e-mail to the Planet on Wednesday. “I have lived in this house for almost ten years—never has there been this much parking at this time of the day.” 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district the neighborhood is in, called the act ethically questionable. 

“It’s quite disturbing to see that Alta Bates is trying to game the system,” he said. “I am concerned that they are trying to trick people by artificially inflating the numbers. It’s no use pretending that a parking problem does not exist when in fact it clearly does. It’ll definitely be better if they re-do the study.” 

Worthington added that since Alta Bates had exceeded the parking range in 2006 it made sense that they were trying to artificially lower the numbers during the current study. 

“But this will not solve the problem,” he said. “Alta Bates needs to provide free public transport to their employees just like the City of Berkeley does to its employees. Public transit can cost a lot of money.” 

Alta Bates has a garage in Oakland and surface parking on Shattuck Avenue from which employees can take shuttles to work. The garage located at the hospital charges $14 per day for parking. 

Deborah Pitts-Cameron, manager of public affairs for Alta Bates, called the situation unfortunate and said that the medical center will pay for an additional unannounced parking survey at a future date to gather more data. 

“Alta Bates said that the flyers had been left on the cars inadvertently,” said Aviva Laurenti, supervisor for Fehr & Peers, the traffic monitoring firm who carried out the survey. 

In an email to the Alta Bates campus neighbors, Pitts-Cameron thanked them for bringing the action of placing flyers on cars in the neighborhood to her attention. 

“I must apologize for the angst this has created. I was not aware of the flyer verbiage that could certainly be perceived as an attempt on the medical center’s part to manipulate the data,” she wrote. 

PItts-Cameron told the Planet that the action wasn’t an effort on the part of the hospital to influence the data. 

“We have been trying over the past two years to lessen the traffic impact on the campus, including moving services, increasing shuttle usage, working with the city to increase parking enforcement, supplementing that enforcement with our own security, increased transit subsidies and carpool incentives,” she said. 

“It’s kind of unfortunate that we made some hurry-up efforts to lessen the traffic which has raised concerns,” Pitts-Cameron added. “The truth is that all Alta Bates campus employees are always informed of the survey dates. As part of the required traffic monitoring process, each employee receives a written survey at home a few days prior to the survey asking them to note their mode of travel and parking habits. Therefore, the dates on the flyer would not be new information to employees. But we want to make sure that the data is not compromised in any way and will be redoing the survey.” 

The parking and traffic survey that was carried out this week, which will now be redone, cost Alta Bates $70,000.

It’s official. The Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) is headed back to the ballot box. 

Austene Hall, co-chair of the drive to force a voter decision on the revised LPO adopted by the City Council Dec. 12, received the official notice Wednesday afternoon in an email from Berkeley City Clerk Pamyla Means. 

“The random sample signature verification found that the petitions contain 120 percent of the number of signatures needed to qualify (4,073),” Means wrote. “The petition results will be submitted to the City Council on February 13.” 

“I think it’s great, and I’m very excited,” said Austene Hall, co-chair of the signature drive that began the same day as the final council vote on the new LPO championed by Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli. 

“Well, you know, we’ve been through it before and we’ll go through it again,” said Capitelli. That’s the democratic process and you’ve got to love it.” 

Certification of the signatures by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters blocks enforcement of the new LPO until city voters can cast yes or no votes during the next citywide election. 

Bates has rejected a special election on the issue, which means the vote could come during the June 2008, primary election or earlier if a special election is called on another issue. Capitelli agreed. “That’s just too much cost at this point,” he said. 

The new law had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 12, but was blocked when volunteers handed in petitions bearing 5,947 signatures. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters then had 30 days to conduct a random sample of three percent of the signatures to determine their validity. The referendum passed with flying colors. 

Wednesday’s announcement came 78 days after Berkeley voters defeated Measure J, an initiative launched after the council’s first vote in July to adopt a new LPO. 

In the Nov. 7 election—conducted after an expensive campaign by initiative foes bankrolled by Business for Better Government, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce’s Political Action Committee—voters defeated Measure J by a 57-43 percent margin. 

Darrel de Tienne, the San Francisco-based developer’s representative whose clients contributed much of the anti-J funds, said he and his developers will be back in the fray when the initiative comes back for a vote. 

“I don’t think there’s much more to be said,” he said. 

Laurie Bright, co-chair of the Measure J committee, hailed the announcement of the referendum signature drive Thursday morning. “It’s their move now,” he said, referring to the council majority that adopted the threatened LPO. 

“That was pretty good news to wake up to,” he said of Means’ announcement. “The volunteers were everything. They worked their hearts out.” 

In addition to rallying support after a setback at the ballot box, referendum supporters also had to contend with gathering signatures over the winter holidays, an interval when many residents are either out of town or preoccupied with family matters. 

“We’re all happy campers today,” Bright said, “and if we could also get the university to back off the trees, it would be a really good week.” 

Bright was referring to the ongoing battle between UC Berkeley and environmental and neighborhood activists, joined by the city, over the fate of a grove of California live oaks and other trees along the western wall of Memorial Stadium, which the university plans to ax to make room for a $125 million gym complex. 

Hall said one encouraging sign for the upcoming election came from the Berkeley Hills, where signature gatherers found strong support for the referendum in the area where the vote against Measure J was the highest. 

“People are becoming more and more aware of the importance to their neighborhoods and the community of these architectural gems that are found both in the hills and in the flats,” she said. 

Hall said she would meet with referendum supporters in the near future to begin laying the groundwork for the electoral battle ahead. 

Critics of the mayor’s ordinance are particularly concerned with a “safe harbor” provision that gives owners and developers a two-year window of exemption from preservation efforts if the Landmarks Preservation Commission fails to act on a new legal mechanism called a Request for Determination, or RFD. 

Developers and the council majority said the provision is necessary to stop landmarking efforts launched less to save old buildings than to block new projects. 

Meanwhile, the stalled LPO passed by the council is undergoing a second challenge, this one in the courtroom. A coalition of neighborhood activists that includes Daily Planet arts and calendar editor Anne Wagley has filed a suit alleging the council acted illegally in adopting the ordinance without first preparing an environmental impact report. 

The city contends an environmental initial study adopted on the July reading of the Bates/Capitelli ordinance was sufficient.

The Peralta Community College District’s conversion to running district operations through an information management system purchased from the former PeopleSoft company was hastily managed at the beginning, is two years behind its initial projected completion, and is costing the district millions of dollars in unanticipated consultant fees, according to a report given last week by the district’s information technology office to Peralta trustees. 

Told by Peralta Chief Information Officer Gary Perkins at last week’s trustee meeting that the district’s technology department may need to increase its staff from 22 to 35 in the near future—including six additional staff members specifically earmarked for the PeopleSoft work—trustee Nicky Gonzalez Yuen said that “we have to remember that we are primarily an educational institution; we’re not in the business of technology. Should we stop [the conversion] now and say, this is enough?” 

Yuen estimated that the conversion cost “started at $5 million in 2004 and eventually went up to $11.5 million, and now we’re talking about a total cost of $16 million, plus proposed increases in staffing of a million dollars a year. I’m just trying to get over the sticker shock,” 

But Peralta Chancellor Elihu Harris told trustees that there was no choice but to complete the conversion as planned.  

“I think we’ve already jumped off the cliff on this one,” Harris said during a prolonged debate over the future direction of the district’s IT department. “That decision was made a number of years ago, and turning back is no longer an option. If the board thinks we have another choice, I’ll leave it to your wisdom. But though we’ve made some mistakes, I believe we have to move forward.” 

Trustee Linda Handy, chair of the trustee board’s IT Committee, agreed, even though she has been a longtime board critic of the way the PeopleSoft conversion has been going. “Handy said. “Much of the problem happened under the present trustee board during the last two years,” Handy said. “I kept coming back to the board and saying there was a problem, but it was ignored. This train has left the station, Controlling the stops we are going to make along the way and controlling the costs are the only options we now have.” 

And trustee Bill Riley said that the district was understaffed in its information technology department and “this is just a cost we are going to have to pay in order to continue in the field of high tech.” 

According to Perkins and Harris, the district now has six to seven weeks to decide whether to hire additional district staff to implement the conversion process and operate the new system, pay an outside company to provide consultant services for a district-operated system, or remove the system from the district entirely, paying hosting fees for hardware and software maintained offsite by an outside company. Harris said that district administration was researching the options, and would provide the board with detailed financial information on each option within a few weeks. 

Because the PeopleSoft conversion process is still ongoing, some of the money for the proposed possible new staff dedicated to putting the system in place can come out of existing Measure E bond money. But according to district officials, any portion of the actual cost of running the new computerized management system, once it is fully in place, must come out of Peralta’s regular operating budget, 

The PeopleSoft conversion initially began with high hopes. 

In the spring of 2005, the Peralta public affairs office reported optimistically on the conversion, stating in a press release that “the Peralta Colleges are abuzz with the energy generated by the District’s conversion from the old (and often revered) legacy system to the new PeopleSoft software, known as PROMT for Peralta Real-Time Online Management Technologies.” 

In June of that year, the Daily Planet reported that the conversion was on schedule, noting that “the finance, human resources, and payroll portions of that conversion are scheduled to ‘go live on July 5,’ according to Peralta Chief Information Officer Andy DiGirolamo. The PeopleSoft system is scheduled for full implementation by October of 2006.” 

DiGirolamo has since left his position with the district and Perkins, his replacement, now says that “July, 2008 is the target” for completion. 

In September of 2005, the Planet reported problems with the conversion in a story headlined “PeopleSoft Payroll Glitch Alarms Peralta Trustees,” noting that “in its end-of-August payroll, some Peralta workers were paid twice and some were not paid at all. In addition, a district union official said that some portion of the payroll deduction component did not work, with money deducted from some workers’ salaries but not transferred to the accounts needed to be paid.” 

And in his report to the board last week, Perkins said that the PeopleSoft problems began in its initial selection and implementation phases, noting in a bullet-list of issues that there was “fast implementation with no design specifications,” and that the software was designed with a “lack of review of Peralta policies.”  

During the initial phase of adapting the PeopleSoft software package to the Peralta system, Perkins said that district staff was directed to go to the PeopleSoft “solution center” operating out of Pleasanton in order to voice concerns about how the system would be implemented. “Many people were frustrated with that process,” he said. “They were told that ‘this is the vanilla program you chose to buy,’ and they didn’t pay attention to how Peralta did business. Six months later, they were implementing the first part of the system on-line, in real-time, with no parallel testing to see how and if it would work. It was a very fast implementation.” In the meantime, Perkins said that PeopleSoft brought “a lot of consultants on board who didn’t know what they were doing. They were operating without a plan.”  

Perkins said that the situation got even worse following the initial implementation, and the purchase of PeopleSoft by the Oracle company. He said that left Peralta “without any support” from Oracle. 

Handy said that Peralta had specifically turned down Oracle for the contract, and that when she told Harris by telephone about the purchase of PeopleSoft by Oracle, he answered “Oh my God!” 

Perkins now says that his office will be spending this year “stabilizing the Human Resources and Finance portions of the PeopleSoft system,” as well as bringing the Student Administration online. With the Student Administration system scheduled to handle student registration online, Perkins called it “our bread and butter. It’s our dollars coming it. It cannot fail.” 

A massive dog with bared fangs stands atop the blindfolded half-naked man lying face down on the jail-cell floor; an unclothed hooded man is hoisted upside down by the rope tightly tied around his left ankle; a prison guard with large army boots beats and kicks a bound prisoner. 

These images of Abu Ghraib are among the 47 paintings and sketches by celebrated Colombia-born artist Fernando Botero, 74, to be exhibited in the Doe Library on the UC Berkeley Campus Jan. 29 to March 25. The exhibit, which Botero will open Monday at 6 p.m. at 190 Doe Library, is sponsored jointly by The Center for Latin American Studies, Boalt Hall Law School and the Doe Library. 

“While the photos [of Abu Ghraib] are shocking and disturbing, the paintings add a profoundly different dimension. It’s like visiting the issues for the first time,” said Center for Latin American Studies Chair Harley Shaiken in an interview with the Daily Planet. 

The purpose of bringing the exhibit to the university is to present the artwork as a basis for discussion and analysis, he said. 

The paintings were first shown in Rome last year, then in Germany and Greece. The only exhibit in the United States ran for a month in the fall at the Marlborough Gallery in Manhattan.  

While Bolero’s work is exhibited in a number of U.S. galleries, the artist has found it difficult to find venues for his Abu Ghraib series in the U.S., which is where, as he told the Independent of London, he wanted the paintings displayed most of all. 

“The matter concerns that country above all,” he said. 

Asked why the San Francisco Museum for Modern Art did not host the exhibition, an SFMOMA spokesperson said it was not asked.  

Shaiken, however, did not wait to be asked. Having read reviews of the New York exhibition, he solicited the exhibit. 

The paintings are controversial, he acknowledged. Some people might believe “viewing the exhibit is unpatriotic,” he said. “But it’s more patriotic to engage the ideas and debate the differences. That’s the cornerstone of a democratic society.”  

Botero is not known for political paintings, at least not until recently. For 50 years, his work was of pastoral scenes featuring ordinary people. However, between 1999 and 2004, Botero created a series of paintings of Colombia’s long-lasting internal war.  

“He had decided he could not stay silent over a conflict he called absurd,” said Juan Forero, writing in the May 7, 2005 New York Times. 

Reuters reported that it was on an airplane trip that Botero, reading about the torture at Abu Ghraib, asked a stewardess for paper, so he could sketch.  

“The rage I felt at that moment made me take a decision,” he told Reuters. “The day the newspapers stop writing about [Abu Ghraib] and people stop talking about it, this art could serve as a permanent witness to a great crime that was committed.” 

Botero told the Colombian magazine Diners: “This conduct by the Americans was a total shock for me.”  

The exhibit is open Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in room 190 Doe Library. 

A number of events associated with the exhibit are planned: 

• A conversation between Robert Haas, U.S. poet laureate 1995-1997, and Botero, Jan. 29, 4 p.m., Chevron Auditorium, International House. The event is free, with one ticket per person distributed at 3 p.m. at International House; 

• A panel on “Art and Violence,” Jan. 31, 4 p.m., Morrison Library, Doe Library; 

• A panel on “Torture, Human Rights and Terrorism,” 4 p.m., March 7, Boalt Hall School of Law. 

Imaage: Fernando Botero’s “Abu Ghraib 72” (2005), oil on canvas, is one of the paintings in the UC Berkeley exhibit.

The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce political action arm spent $100,000 in a much-publicized attempt to influence local November elections and to direct the path of economic development in the city. 

But by filing campaign finance reports with the county rather than the city, the PAC may have made an end-run around a 2004 election law that attempts to limit—albeit to a small degree—campaign spending and to publicize that spending. 

The local law limits donors to $250 contributions, although there is no cap on spending and no limit on personal contributions. It prohibits corporate donations. 

“Local government should serve the needs and respond to the wishes of all citizens equally, without regard to their wealth,” the law says.  

Questions linger about whether the Chamber Political Action Committee—whose formal name is Business for Better Government, Berkeley Chamber of Commerce—has skirted the spirit and perhaps the letter of the law: 

• Why does a committee that endorses uniquely local candidates and issues file its campaign finance statements in the county offices rather than the city? 

• What relationship does the Chamber of Commerce have to its political arm? Is it independent of the PAC, as both the Chamber’s chair and executive director assert? 

• Who are the PAC’s board of directors? 

Filing with the county 

The PAC files its campaign finance statements with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, rather than with the Berkeley City Clerk.  

In 1998 the chamber PAC was formed as a city committee, with the Chamber’s Chief Operating Officer Rachel Rupert as treasurer. In 2001, Mari E. Lee wrote then-City Clerk Sherry Kelly that she had become the new treasurer:  

“I am writing to inform you that owing to an expanded committee agenda, I have filed an amended [campaign reporting form] 410 with the Secretary of State designating this committee as a COUNTY committee….PLEASE CHANGE YOUR RECORDS TO REFLECT THE FACT THAT THIS COMMITTEE WILL NO LONGER HAVE ANY REGULAR FILING OBLIGATIONS WITH THE CITY OF BERKELEY.” (Capitals are in the original text.) 

Normally, a committee must file its statements with the city if it endorses local candidates and issues, according to Chamber PAC Treasurer Stacy Owens, speaking in an interview during the pre-election season. 

The Daily Planet reviewed the Chamber PAC’s filings with the county for the last five years—the only filings the county retains. They show that the Chamber PAC spent money uniquely on local races. Contributions were made to the Berkeley Democratic Club ($1,500 in 2002), Coalition for a Livable Berkeley-No on P ($11,000 in 2002), Committee for Fair Representation ($1,557.32 in 2002) and No on O ($1,245 in 2004). 

This year the money was spent unsuccessfully attempting to defeat Councilmembers Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington and on the winning campaigns to defeat Measure J, the landmarks ballot measure, and to support Mayor Tom Bates. 

Chamber PAC president Miriam Ng said on Wednesday that she thought the PAC filed its campaign statements with the city, but referred the Daily Planet to treasurer Owens, who did not return calls before deadline. (The Chamber PAC did a limited filing in Berkeley of November contributions. Owens explained at the time that the PAC was only obligated to file locally when it spends funds. The bulk of the fundraising—$61,000—was done earlier and reported only to the county.)  

There are at least two consequences of the Chamber PAC’s filing with the county rather than the city. 

One is that the city is very efficient in posting on its website every contribution that is filed—this gives the public the opportunity to know who is supporting whom. The county only posts campaign finance reports filed electronically—so if an organization does not want its campaign contributions posted on the web, it need only make a paper filing. 

The election law also requires the city to publish campaign donations in a local newspaper. The 2004 law includes an explanation for this exposure: “The influence of large campaign contributors is increased because existing laws for disclosure of campaign receipts and expenditures have proved to be inadequate.” 

Secondly, Berkeley’s campaign laws prohibit an individual from giving more than $250 to any candidate. That means that a donor can give a council candidate’s own campaign organization $150, but is then limited to giving only $100 more to a political action group filing under Berkeley law and supporting that same candidate. 

On the other hand, as happened in the November election, developer Patrick Kennedy was allowed to give the maximum, a $250 contribution, to Tom Bates for his campaign fund, which reported in Berkeley, but was also allowed to give $5,000 to the Chamber PAC, filing with Alameda County. That PAC in turn could have given all or a part of that $5,000 to Bates—but the public will never know whether they did or how much money was involved if so. 

Who is the PAC? 

During his re-election campaign, Worthington, targeted by the Chamber PAC for defeat, repeatedly asked for the names of the PAC board members, but was unable to get a response. 

During the 2006 election campaign, Chamber of Commerce Chair Roland Peterson wrote a letter dated Nov. 1 distancing the Chamber from the PAC, claiming that the PAC board is distinct from the Chamber board. He did not, however, say who the members of the PAC board are. The Chamber Board of Directors’ names are posted on the Chamber web site. 

“It is important to realize that the Chamber of Commerce is separate and distinct from the Business for Better Government PAC. They have separate boards and leadership. There is only a casual affiliation among the two, such as a shared address,” Peterson wrote. 

Last week, in response to a public query by Worthington and Spring at a City Council meeting, Chamber PAC President Ng sent a letter to councilmembers and to the Daily Planet naming the three PAC officers as herself as preident, Milton von Damm as secretary and Owens as treasurer. 

Reached by phone Wednesday, Ng said that the three served as the full board as well as officers. Asked if Chamber Executive Director Rachel Rupert were not the assistant treasurer, as the Chamber PAC filings indicate that she is, Ng conceded that Rupert, too, is an officer. 

Following up with an e-mail, Chamber CEO Rupert wrote: “Yes, I am assistant treasurer, but I only receive checks for the PAC and forward them to Stacy Owens. That is the extent of my current involvement.” 

It should be noted as well that Ng is listed on the Chamber web site as one of three vice chairs of the Chamber.  

Another vice chair is Jonathan DeYoe of DeYoe Wealth Management. While DeYoe is not named by Ng as belonging to the Chamber PAC board, a letter to the Daily Planet was sent on Nov. 2 on Business for Better Government letterhead signed by Ng and DeYoe, in which both identified themselves as Business for Better Government. 

PAC Ties to the Chamber 

When she spoke before the City Council at its Jan. 16 meeting, Rupert underscored the separation between the Chamber and its PAC. “I do no business for the PAC,” she told the council. “That was divided up so I wouldn’t be involved with the PAC.” 

At the same meeting, Chamber Chair Roland Peterson also distanced the chamber from the PAC, saying the Chamber does not contribute monies to the PAC. “Not one penny of membership dues goes to PAC activities,” he said. 

However, campaign contribution records show that the Chamber in fact gives money to its PAC. On Feb. 4, 2004 the Chamber contributed $200 as recorded on a PAC statement, and between Feb. 17 and April 18, 2006, the Chamber contributed $885.76, which went to Henry C. Levy & Company for PAC accounting services. 

First you see them. Then you don’t. 

Owners of the 21 or so 6-foot-high green metal boxes with the friendly “Gaia” label on the front that once were scattered around Berkeley have been picked up by their owners, Humana People to People. 

The boxes sprouted up around the city about a year or so ago, as a convenient way of leaving used clothes for recipients assumed to be people in need. 

At least, that’s what most people thought until CBS’s 30 Minutes Bay Area exposed the outfit, also known as Teacher’s Group (or Tvind), as a multi-million dollar profit-making group. (Research on the organization can be seen at www.tvindalert.com.)  

The report contends that the donated items in the boxes were sold for the owners’ benefit, rather than given to charity. 

“Critics call it a cult that is using people’s good will to make millions in profit,” the CBS show said. 

After the program aired, the city got a number of calls asking about the boxes, according to Roy Phelps of the city manager’s office. “They didn’t have a permit,” he said. Once he realized they were illegal, he had the organization pick the boxes up. “They can apply for a permit,” he said. 

Asked why the city didn’t contact the group earlier, Phelps answered that “some of them were on private property.” A number of the boxes, however, were on city sidewalks.  

The organization, now worldwide, got its start in the 1970s as a radical education project in Denmark and was supported by the Danish government, according to the Tvindalert website. The same website reports that the founder is currently on trial in Denmark for fraud. The Daily Planet has not independently verified these reports.

UC Berkeley’s building boom has chalked up plans for still more construction, with the unveiling this week of the final draft of another Long Range Development Plan (LRDP)—this one proposing to add nearly a million square feet of new construction by 2025. 

The newest LRDP covers plans for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility in the Berkeley Hills managed by the university. 

Dan Krotz, a lab spokesperson, said the document is mandated by the University of California Board of Regents, and will supersede the existing LRDP, adopted in 1987 and last updated 10 years ago.  

Also released was the draft environmental impact report (EIR) on the LRDP, a crucial document which must be adopted before the LRDP can take legal effect. 

“We hope to go the regents for review and approval in the fall,” said Krotz. 

The lab is now taking public comments on the EIR through March 23, with a public hearing planned for Feb. 26 at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

Once known as the Radiation Lab, LBNL houses a variety of research centers, including a program for developing more efficient forms of solar energy and a Molecular Foundry for so-called nanotechnology. 

The lab also features the Bevatron, once the world’s largest accelerator of subatomic particles, which is now slated for demolition after a losing fight by Berkeley preservationists to save the massive but aging structure. 

The LRDP under review calls for: 

• 980,000 square feet of new construction, along with demolitions of 320,000 square feet of existing buildings, making for a net increase of 660,000 square feet; 

• addition of between 375 and 500 new parking spaces, the number to be determined by development of alternative transportation programs; 

• the addition of 1,000 new employees above the current base of 4,375. 

“That’s less than they originally planned, but that’s still a lot of development to put up on that hill,” said city Planning and Development Director Dan Marks, who has yet to receive a copy of the documents. 

“If you were going to chose a more difficult place to put a major development, you’d be hard pressed,” Marks said, noting the presence of the Hayward Fault along the base of the slope, along with steep terrain and ongoing fire hazards. 

“They were a lot more responsive to our concerns than the campus, and they did agree to scale back somewhat on the buildings and parking,” he said. 

Marks said he will prepare the city’s response when he receives the documents. 

The lab’s plans have come under fire from neighbors who were already energized by their losing battle to save the Bevatron and earlier comment periods after the release of the first LRDP draft more than three years ago. 

Major concerns raised during those fights were further congestion of streets north of the campus, possible contamination by waste being trucked out of the site and the danger of traffic accidents from increased movement of heavy equipment through narrow neighborhood streets. 

Both the LRDP and draft EIR are available for review on the LBNL website at www.lbl.gov/LRDP. 

Another UC Berkeley LRDP remains the bone of political contention as well as litigation—the LRDP 2020, adopted for the main campus and the university’s proposed addition of more facilities off campus in the city center.

UC Berkeley is looking for a representative of the Berkeley community to fill a vacant position on the People’s Park Community Advisory Board. 

Advisory Board members are appointed for one-year terms which are renewable to a maximum of three years. 

“All of the current advisory board members have indicated their desire to serve another year, but we do have one vacancy due to an advisory board member who resigned earlier this year,” said UC Berkeley Community Relations officer Irene Hegarty. 

Hegarty added that although Advisory Board members were usually Berkeley residents, they could also have a substantial involvement in Berkeley and interest in the area (for example, a Telegraph merchant or representative of a local church). 

People’s Park is operated as public open space for the benefit of the campus and the community by UC Berkeley. 

The Community Advisory Board is in charge of reviewing and making recommendations on park policies, programs and improvements. Members attend approximately ten meetings every year which are held in the evening on the first Monday of each month in the south campus area. 

The board, along with UC staff, is currently in the process of selecting a consultant who will be responsible for improving the park. The board will be working with the consultant in 2007 to engage community members in a planning process that would lead toward a possible redesign or improvement of the site. 

Applications and additional information is available at the People’s Park office (642-3255), the UC Office of Community Relations (643-5299), and via e-mail to pplspark@berkeley.edu. Applications will be accepted until Feb. 15.

The city has removed median strips in the middle of Telegraph Avenue between Prince and Russell streets, alarming area residents about pedestrian safety. 

Parents who walk their young children to LeConte Elementary School on Russell every morning have complained that they miss the islands in the middle of the avenue since they provided some safety when they weren’t able to cross the street in the time allotted by the traffic light.  

“When I crossed Telegraph at Russell this morning with my 4-year-old in tow, the walk sign gave us only 15 seconds to cross Telegraph,” LeConte Elementary School parent Peter Shelton said recently. “That’s not enough time for my child, and I doubt it’s enough time for an elderly or disabled person. With the number of schools and medical offices around Telegraph, it’s just a matter of time before a pedestrian is injured or killed. Especially since the straightening of the lanes on Telegraph allows drivers to go even faster.” 

The median strips were recently removed by the city Public Works Department to make room for bike lanes on Telegraph. 

A public works officer told Shelton that the city wanted to have more parking and faster traffic flow on Telegraph as well as a bike lane and therefore the islands had to be taken away. 

“I think this is absurd,” Shelton said in an e-mail to the Planet. “First, we have north/south bike boulevards on Hillegass and Milvia, why do we need one on Telegraph? Second, I thought Berkeley was supposed to discourage car trips to the city center, so why make it easier for people to drive to campus on Telegraph? Third, it totally ignores the safety of pedestrians who have to cross Telegraph anywhere between Ashby and Dwight.” 

Shelton said he is also indignant that there was never any notice or publication of the removal. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, in whose area Telegraph falls, said the city first took away 24 parking spots from the area to make room for the bike lane. 

“When I complained to the Public Works about why the parking had been taken away, they put back the parking but removed the islands,” he said. “I can’t understand why the parking and the median strips cannot exist along with the bike lane. The street is wide enough.” 

Worthington added that both the parking and the medians had existed on the street together for decades. 

“The theory behind the medians was to make it safer for pedestrians to cross,” he said.  

Hamid Mostowfi, city supervising traffic engineer, said it was not possible for parking as well as the median strips to exist along with the bike lane. 

“Bike lanes by standard have to have a certain minimum width,” he said. “With the median, the width was not available. So in order to maintain the width and bring the bike lanes up to standard, the median strips had to be removed.” 

Marjorie Alvord, a Berkeley resident, said that not having the island was a problem, but added that the current parking situation also caused a dangerous visibility problem. 

“The younger kids with slower mobility could have problems with crossing,” she said. “But for me, parking so close to the corner makes it a big problem to see the cars that try to enter the street.”  

Worthington told the Planet that he was hopeful that when the city, county and AC Transit spend millions of dollars to improve the Bus Rapid Transit system, they would also study and improve pedestrian safety on Telegraph. 

“I think having a bike lane on Telegraph is a good idea because it helps to connect with the one in Oakland,” he said. “But the city needs to work in the area of pedestrian safety. It’s not that hard to provide a full network of services for residents which takes into consideration bikes, parking as well as pedestrians. If we can spend millions of dollars on a transport corridor, let’s do the same for pedestrians.”

The Berkeley Planning Commission agreed to continue through February the public hearing for zoning changes on Telegraph Avenue designed to help businesses on the strip which has experienced an economic downturn according to the city. 

The proposed zoning amendments would extend hours of operation from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday and midnight Sunday through Thursday for businesses that don’t sell alcohol. The hours can be extended with a permit.  

For businesses that do sell alcohol, the hours of operation would be extended from 10 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. A permit would be required to extend these hours further. The by-right hours for other evenings would remain 10 p.m. 

The amendments would also make it easier for new businesses to open on the avenue and ease requirements to change the use and size of the business space. 

The board unanimously passed a motion to continue the public hearing to Feb. 28 because residents of Le Conte and Willard neighborhoods had not received notice of Wednesday’s hearing. 

Roland Peterson, director of the Telegraph Improvement Business District, told the board that Telegraph Avenue merchants supported the proposed zoning changes. 

“The Telegraph shopping district has suffered a steady, slow, long-term decline in business that results in loss of revenue to the city and business vitality for all merchants here,” Peterson said, adding that it could be very difficult for prospective merchants to open a business in the Telegraph district. 

“For example, it required 88 letters from nearby neighbors to persuade the Zoning Adjustments Board to approve a popular Peet’s store at Dwight Way and Telegraph Avenue,” he said. “This was necessary because of the antiquated quotas that restrict the numbers of certain types of business. Most entrepreneurs will not endeavor to overturn quota restrictions or wait for months for a permit to be approved because of arcane restrictions.” 

Robia S. Chang, a representative of Munger Properties—owner of the Granada Building on Bancroft and Telegraph—told the commission that Munger Properties supported the proposed amendments to the extent that they made starting a new business easier on Telegraph Avenue. 

Chang added that Munger did not support the extended hours of operation for businesses because it would lead to noise and safety issues for area residents. 

Other matters 

The board approved the Tentative Tract Map for a 16-unit condominium project at 2628 Telegraph Ave. The building is currently under construction.  

The board asked staff to come back with the Zoning Ordinance amendments clarifying roles and limiting appeal of final design review action.

Victim clings to life 

A 42-year-old homeless woman is behind bars today, charged with a Sunday beating that has left a 47-year-old man unconscious and clinging to life in a local hospital. 

“The victim is in critical condition and on life support,” Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan said Thursday afternoon. 

Police first learned of the attack about 7:30 p.m. when a cell phone caller reported a woman apparently beating a duffel bag or a sleeping bag near the Ashby BART station. 

Moments later, other callers reported that the woman was beating a man with her cane. 

“When officers arrived, they found the victim on the ground and suffering from serious head trauma near the corner of Essex and Adeline streets,” said Officer Galvan. “The woman had already taken off.” 

A young officer undergoing field training was able to identify the woman from witnesses’ descriptions and after a search was able to apprehend her a few blocks away. 

“She was taken to our jail and was arraigned yesterday on a charge of attempted murder,” said Officer Galvan. “She is presently in custody at the Santa Rita jail.” 

The suspect is identified as Sharon Sandford. Police are asking anyone with information about the crime other suspect to call the Berkeley Homicide Detail at 981-5741. 

Cellular punchers 

Berkeley officers arrested two suspects, one a juvenile and the other a 38-year-old Richmond man, after they allegedly beat and robbed a homeless man of his cell phone in the 1300 block of University Avenue just after midnight on Jan. 10. 

Officer Galvan said the victim flagged down a passing patrol car, and a quick search of the area turned up the suspects, who were booked on suspicion of robbery. 

Fires, misses 

A frustrated robber, rebuffed in his effort to rob an 18-year-old Berkeley man near the corner of Oregon Street and McGee Avenue just before 9 p.m. on the 10th, left with a parting shot—literally. 

“He fired one round from inside his car, but he missed,” said Officer Galvan. 

Botched heist 

Two 17-year-olds, one from Antioch and the other from Vallejo, were arrested by Berkeley police just after 1:30 a.m. on the 12th after they tried and failed to rob a 19-year-old Berkeley man of his wallet. 

The incident occurred near the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way, and quick response by police led to the arrests of both suspect. The youths were taken to juvenile hall. 

Argument turns violent 

An argument between a 43-year-old Berkeley man and a 25-year-old Ukiah man early on the morning of Jan. 15 left the Berkeley man worse for wear after the younger man clocked him in the cranium. 

The miscreant was gone by the time police arrived, and remained at large until the following afternoon when the Berkeley man spotted him in the same neighborhood, accompanied by a girlfriend. 

Forgetting the lesson of the previous day, the older man decided to make a citizen’s arrest, only to be bashed in the beezer once again, this time by the younger man’s skateboard, and assailed by the fellow’s companion as well. 

But Berkeley police were promptly on the scene, and captured the belligerent couple. The young man was charged with battery and assault with a deadly weapon and his companion, a 28-year-old Berkeley woman, was busted for battery. 

Paramedics treated the injured man at the scene. 

Pocket pistol 

A young man with a pistol visible in his pocket robbed a 35-year-old Oakland woman of her purse as she was walking near the corner of Alcatraz Avenue and Adeline Street just after 7 a.m. on the 15th, said Officer Galvan. 

The fellow had fled in a large green vehicle by the time police arrived. 

Dominos delivers. . . 

Cash, that is. 

A gang of four teen toughs, all clad in dark garb, used their fists to pound the cash out of a pizza deliveryman they accosted shortly before 10:30 p.m. in the 2900 block of Newberry Street on the 15th. 

“They didn’t take pizza,” said Officer Galvan, unlike Berkeley’s previous pizza delivery heist where the baddies went for the pie instead of the dough. 

Grocery heists 

Berkeley police believe the 17-year-old Berkeley youth they arrested after a holdup at the Grocery Outlet in the 2000 block of Fourth Street on the 16th may be part of a gang that has pulled off similar heists throughout the Bay Area. 

Officer Galvan said a store employee called while three armed men were inside the store pulling off the caper. 

Multiple prowl carts rolled to the scene in time to spot one of the suspects fleeing near the corner of Fifth and Delaware streets. 

Officers cordoned off the surrounding area, briefly spotting the young man, who quickly retreated. 

Oakland police chipped in with a K-9 unit, and it didn’t take the dog long to find the suspect, who was quickly clapped in handcuffs and hauled off to jail. 

“We are currently investigating to see if this is the same gang that has pulled off similar robberies at grocery stores in El Cerrito, Napa, Pinole and San Francisco,” said Officer Galvan. 

Home invasion 

A masked man packing a pistol burst into a residence near the corner of 10th and Delaware streets about 1:30 on the morning of Jan. 19, threatened the lone occupant and made off with three phones, a laptop computer and her wallet. 

Keeps purse 

A 58-year-old Berkeley woman hung onto her purse, even after a young gunman bashed her in the head during an attempted robbery at 8:16 a.m. on the 19th, reports officer Galvan. 

The incident happened on College Avenue near Woolsey Street. 

Bandits busted  

Berkeley police caught two teens red-handed after they robbed a 61-year-old Berkeley man of his backpack, cell phone and wallet outside a laundry in the 2900 block of Sacramento Street seconds after midnight on the 17th, reports Officer Galvan. 

Officers arrived moments later and found the youths still in possession of their loot. They were hauled off the juvenile hall. 

Another keeper 

A 23-year-old Oakland woman, armed with a loud scream, managed to fend off a gang of four hoodie-clad teens who attempted to seize her purse as she walked along Adeline Street near the 62nd Street intersection minutes before midnight on the 17th. 

Officer Galvan said neighbors who heard the screams called police. The boy bandits had boogied by the time officers arrived. 

Menaced 

Though he stood only about 5’7” there was something menacing about the young man who approached a 20-year-old Berkeley man as he walked along Euclid Avenue at Ridge Road just before 8:30 p.m. on the 19th. 

Told he’d be beaten if he didn’t hand over his cash, the Berkeley man complied, and no fists flew. 

Cut 

Police arrested a 52-year-old San Francisco man on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after a knife attack on a Berkeley man, 48, in the 1800 block of San Pablo Avenue just after midnight Saturday. 

Police responded quickly, and nabbed one suspect, though a second suspect eluded them. 

The victim sustained only a minor injury and refused the assistance of paramedics. 

Shelled out 

An angry man who claimed to have a gun convinced the clerk at a Shell Station in the 3000 block of Ashby Avenue to hand over her purse after he cleaned out the cash drawer just before 8:15 p.m. Sunday. 

The suspect then fled in a dark blue American sedan.

The news over the weekend was not good. Molly Ivins, everyone’s favorite smart-mouth columnist, was back in the hospital for the third time, dealing with her raging cancer, which started in her breasts but now has spread throughout her body. Last fall, she was in San Francisco on a panel at a conference of journalism educators, and she didn’t look well then, wan, thin, wearing a bold hat to cover up the loss of most of her hair. Her tongue was as sharp as ever, of course, causing a roomful of ordinarily sincere and cautious academics to shriek with laughter before giving her a standing ovation.  

Since then she’s continued to write as much as she could, devoting an increasing portion of her limited energy to castigating the fools in Washington (and she’s never suffered fools gladly) for continuing the war in Iraq. A sample pronouncement, early this year: “The president of the United States doesn’t have the sense God gave a duck. So it’s up to us. You and me.” In that column she promised that “This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old-fashioned newspaper campaign. Every column, I’ll write about this war until we find some way to end it...every time, we’ll review some factor we should have gotten right.”  

But since then she’s only managed to write one more column. That one ran on Jan. 11 and opposed George Bush’s proposed “surge” escalation of the war.  

In it she said: 

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war.”  

At the Washington peace march on Saturday, which Molly had promoted in her latest column, actor Sean Penn picked up her refrain “We are the deciders” and vamped on it to great effect before an audience of tens of thousands.  

And now it really is up to us. While Molly is sick, the rest of us will have to carry her “old-fashioned newspaper campaign” forward.  

With that in mind, the Berkeley Daily Planet is hereby launching what we might call the “Molly Ivins Festschrift.” A festschrift is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a volume of writings by different authors presented as a tribute or memorial especially to a scholar.” Academics are wont to create festschrifts on the occasion of a revered colleague’s 60th birthday, for example. Molly’s already 62, but no time like the present to catch up with what we should have done two years ago. And we might call it festschrift if we could reliably remember how to spell or pronounce that German word, but let’s just call it the Molly Ivins Tribute Project. 

The idea is that her colleagues in the opinionated part of the journalistic world should take over her campaign while she’s sick, creating a deluge of columns about what’s wrong with Bush’s war and what should be done to set things right. It would be nice if a lot of these columns could be funny, since skewering serious subjects with humor is what Molly does best, but that’s not required.  

Here at the Berkeley Daily Planet we’ve set up a special mailbox to receive the offerings, tribute@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We’ll publish them as they come in, at least one every day if possible, in our Internet edition, berkeleydailyplanet.com. We’d like them to be contributed free of copyright, so that any publication, print or online, can take them off the web and re-circulate them to their own readers. The best ones we’ll also run in our Tuesday and Friday printed papers. A good length would be 600-800 words, which would work for most publications. And of course, columnists under contract should just write pieces to run in their regular outlets.  

Readers, please take on the job of forwarding this call for contributions to any good columnist you read regularly, and to any publications which might circulate the results.  

Just to get started, would-be writers might take a look at Monday’s top story from Iraq, which described a fierce battle in which 200 (or was it 300?) Iraqis were killed. They were variously described, in A.P. reports and by L.A. Times correspondents, as members of a messianic Shiite sect, die-hard survivors of Hussein’s (mostly Sunni or secular) Baath party, tribal fighters dressed in colorful Afghan robes, and more—no one really seems to know who they were or what they were up to. But whoever they were, we seem to have killed a bunch of them—and it’s “we” because though the Iraqi national forces started things off, U.S. helicopters and bombers were called in to finish up when things were not going well. And yes, two or three Americans died too, fighting whoever they were for whatever reason it turned out to be. I’m glad I’m not the person who has to explain to their families why they died.  

Much glee in the Planet newsroom this week over the flock of photos in the bigger papers of what I affectionately call “the old birds in the trees.” (You shouldn’t call them that if you’re under 60, but at my advanced age it shows no disrespect.) A colleague observed that the story was “the real Berkeley.” We were not at all miffed that other papers had finally gotten around to copying the story about the struggle to save the oak grove, which we’d been following for a long time, though we did think our front page photo was the best of the lot. That’s always been a core mission of this paper: to persuade other media to give up their standard knee-jerk “Beserkeley” coverage and acquire some real understanding of what this city is all about. It’s about people who often and vociferously disagree with one another, but who get together when it counts to stand up (or sit down) for basic beliefs that most of us share. Conservation of natural resources is one of those core Berkeley values. 

The ringleader in the oak-sitting group, Sylvia McLaughlin, is a 90-year-old who climbs trees and poses for the camera like a well-preserved 65. Her lifetime achievement is organizing the doughty group of East Bay women who stopped the ’60s attempt to fill in San Francisco Bay for real estate development, but she’s been part of lots of other action as well. She was joined by Betty Olds, still a Berkeley councilmember at 86 and also an outdoors-woman, whose most recent courageous act was supporting Measure J, another battle in the ongoing war to preserve Berkeley’s urban amenities from greedy builders. Number three was someone not known as an athlete, former mayor Shirley Dean, who confessed to being afraid of heights as she ascended into the oak. Shirley seems well on her way to becoming Berkeley’s Jimmy Carter, trying to accomplish even more for the public good after being defeated for re-election than she did while in office. 

That can be a bitter pill to swallow for those among us who live and breathe partisanship. One cynical progressive politico in the oak grove was heard to say that what he most resented about Mayor Tom Bates is that Bates had made him admire Shirley Dean. It is quite remarkable how the winds have shifted in that respect, but that’s Berkeley—never predictable, never dull. 

All in all, it was a Very Berkeley week for me. Going straight from the excitement at the oak grove, on Monday afternoon I enjoyed a concert courtesy of the Etude Club, a 103-year-old group established to promote the study and performance of music, which still raises funds to support local music students. Most of the members appeared to be over 70, but there was a healthy sprinkling of younger participants, including one of the soloists, a 30-something graduate of Berkeley High School. In the audience I recognized Mister Chacona (who probably has a first name), who taught violin to one of my daughters at Malcolm X school. She didn’t pursue her study into adulthood, but now as the mother of daughters herself is avidly encouraging their violin playing, thanks to the love of music she learned in Berkeley schools.  

One hundred and three years is a long time to be doing good, even for an institution, but among those witnessing at the Oak Grove on Monday was another venerable Berkeley activist, Margaret Emmington, 102-years-young, decked out in a very stylish hat. Her most famous Berkeley moment was organizing the campaign to save old St. John’s Presbyterian Church from demolition, so it could survive to be reborn as the Julia Morgan Theater. The battle to save the grove has engaged three generations of her family, including her daughter, Lesley Emmington Jones, and her grandson, Stuart Jones. That’s Very Berkeley too. 

The Etude Club concert took place at the home of an even older Berkeley institution, the Hillside Club, which was started around the turn of the 20th century to promote “building with nature.” It was responsible for persuading builders in the Berkeley hills to respect the natural environment—the oaks, the creeks and the rocky contours of the land itself. On Tuesday of this Berkeley week I went to another event held at the Hillside Club, a birthday party for Councilmember Dona Spring. Entertainment was supplied by Peter Dale Scott, a UC faculty member, reading his satiric and serious poetry about saving the oaks, addressed to Chancellor Birgenau, and by Sarah Cahill, another Berkeley High graduate, who’s gone on to a distinguished career as a pianist and essayist.  

People used to say that Ginger Rogers was a better dancer that Fred Astaire because she did everything he did backwards and in high heels. Dona Spring does everything any councilmember has ever done for Berkeley and more, and even more remarkable, she does it lying down in a wheelchair. Dona is hands down the most courageous fighter for what’s best for Berkeley on the City Council these days. She exemplifies the values of the old Berkeley—living with nature, support for culture—and at the same time supports worthy ideas which came to town more recently, including valuing diversity and ensuring adequate housing even for tenants and other low-income Berkeleyans.  

Berkeley has always been about surprises—attempts to stereotype our citizens are doomed to fail. A couple of issues back the Planet printed one of my favorite kinds of letters, the ones that start out “I don’t expect this to be printed…..” We take particular pleasure in proving people like that wrong.  

The writer, whose business is called “Wealth Management,” also submitted his epistle to the “Berkeley Business Advocate,” the newsletter published by the Chamber of Commerce, which our business receives as a chamber member. He’s described as the Chamber’s “Chairman of Governmental Affairs,” whatever that means.  

There he repeated his assumption that his letter wouldn’t be published in the Planet (it already had been), along with a couple of other errors. He said that “many letters that share a similar perspective” were not printed in the Planet “due to space constraints.” That’s simply not true. I called him and asked him to send copies of any letters that weren’t printed or to give me names of writers who said they’d submitted such letters, and he couldn’t do so.  

We pride ourselves on printing just about every opinion piece, no matter how stupid, though we do have an informal quota for a few chronic repeaters. We’re happy to print criticisms of our paper, though we reserve the right to correct false ones. For example, the writer claimed that the only time the Planet has done a door-to-door distribution was with our November pre-election issue. That’s another canard— we’ve done a number of similar promotions in the past, including distribution in the hills for a whole month last spring.  

Evidently also his ideas about appropriate “wealth management” are different from those of the owners of this paper. In his piece he indicated that he doesn’t seem to think that investing in a community newspaper is what he’d do if he could afford it. That’s his prerogative.  

We happen to believe in what might be called Berkeley Values, sometimes derided just as “San Francisco Values” were in the recent election. We’re proud of our “Old Birds in the Trees” who could be just sitting in rocking chairs enjoying a peaceful old age, even if (or perhaps especially because) we don’t always agree with all of them all the time. That’s what makes Berkeley Berkeley. 

NANCY PELOSI 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his Jan. 23 commentary, Gene Zubovich calls Nancy Pelosi “the most powerful woman in the world and the major obstacle for George Bush’s war powers,” then goes on to complain that she got there by being a politician. Duh! 

He is dismayed that she has returned to Baltimore. That is her family home. Her father, also a career politician, represented that city for five terms in congress, then served for twelve years as its mayor. Her brother also served as mayor. Is it unreasonable that Baltimore is her home base, or that she has followed a career as a politician with eastern roots? 

Now that she has attained a position from which she can greatly influence this country’s foreign and domestic policies, as well as the next election, Mr. Zubovich grumps that she is not sufficiently focused on the parochial problems of San Francisco. He also suggests that this dazzlingly dynamic woman lacks charisma. What world is he living in? 

Jerry Landis 

• 

POLICE BLOTTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your vile crime reporter must be stopped, regardless of the like-minded who write in to say “aw, don’t be a spoilsport,” insensitively approving his cavalier attitude towards victims of crime. These people don’t know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of physical violence. If they did, they’d save the oh-so-cute language for other occasions. Your writer is like a little boy disciplined for meanness who cleverly hides for awhile, then lets the verbal abuse fly again, proving he learned nothing. Let somebody else write that column. He covers other things well. Street crime is not film noir—and although he and his fans can’t understand that, the paper could. 

Sandy Rothman 

• 

ECLECTIC MODERNISM? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your newspaper is getting better all the time! You represent my City of Berkeley fairly, and in light of people’s needs and objections. As a Berkeley architect, builder and resident since 1951, I have observed the city changing from bad to worse. I empathize with the manner in which you portray the good and the bad. 

The case in point is the brothel replaced by the new condominium building at 2628 Telegraph Ave. You stated in your Jan. 9 edition how the afternoon sunlight cast a blinding reflection from the metallic southern wall. To my chagrin, you went on to mention that the Planning Commission is scheduled to vote on a key document needed before the one and two bedroom units can be sold. You pointed out in the article on page five that oxidation should eventually turn the exterior into a duller turquoise green. I hope! However, no comments were made about the shape and form of this structure. 

I wonder if Mr. Bob Allen, architect, who chairs the city’s Design Review Committee, would be kind enough to tell us publicly what he thought of this project when it was approved. Would he call it eclectic modernism? 

It is my opinion that the former brothel, had it been left intact and cleaned up a bit, its service personnel legalized and offered medical attention, would serve our community better than this glaring mix-up of shapes will ever do. 

Edward J. Levitch 

• 

SAVE ICELAND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing in response to the article “Community Launches One Last Attempt to Save Iceland” (Jan. 23 by Riya Bhattacharjee). 

Many issues are at stake for Iceland. Berkeley residents of all ages have a wonderful unique recreational facility which has been part of the community for many generations. It is too good to lose now. 

What makes a sensible solution is a “partnership” between the city, Unified School District, and University of California with a community oriented business who wants to contribute and make a difference.  

Children (and adults) of all ages benefit from learning to ice skate—coordination skills, strength, and flexibility are natural outcomes. Everyone learns, benefits and enjoys skating at every age. 

This facility can be reborn, revitalized and used all day every day by all ages for years to come. School children can take lessons, high school and college students can practice and hold meets, adults and seniors can keep in shape. 

It’s time for the entire community to step in and support the current owner who should not be forced to close. Its worth much more than the asking price as a community-wide benefit. Why not enroll college team students to coach high school students in hockey and other ice skating skills? 

It’s time for UC to find new and positive ventures that benefit this community and not only make plans that tear down—good will, trees or structures, but instead find new and innovative solutions to solve traffic, parking, recreation, education, health, crime, business and other issues that affect us all—citizens, students, teachers, agencies, and commercial interests. 

What we do in Berkeley is after all a microcosm for the rest of the world. Let’s lead by example instead of giving lip service to “commitment, caring and community” 

When I was growing up we skated at the Queens (NY) Ice rink where the World’s Fair was held. It was a special place for skating, music, fun—everyone had a great time. I thought about how fortunate we were Parks and Public Works Commissioner Robert Moses saw the potential of building parks and recreational facilities. 

Iceland is special to the East Bay. It’s a Berkeley treasure. Its value in human terms is worth much more than the millions needed to restore and revitalize. Everyone can benefit and find out how much fun it is to skate, keep in shape and keep healthy. We all have a stake to keep skates flying around the Iceland rink. Let’s save Iceland! 

Stevanne Auerbach 

• 

OAKLAND INAUGURAL 

CEREMONIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While I applaud J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s insistence in “tracking down what actually happened...” at the mayoral inauguration ceremonies, I can’t help but suspect that he is more interested in disproving the reports of bad conduct toward Mr. de la Fuente. This disappoints me. After all, Mr. Taylor has acknowledged that “...at least one prominent Bay Area media outlet...” has reported that racial epithets and curses were hurled at Mr. de la Fuente. I read accounts of this behavior in both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune, both of which I consider to be responsible newspapers. In fact, one of the most vociferous critics of the behavior was offered by Chip Johnson, an African-American columnist in the Chronicle. Mr. Taylor seems to infer that if we did not personally witness the behavior in question, we cannot believe the accounts of it. I think this opinion is misplaced, to say the least. Does Mr. Taylor have such skepticism of all news outlets and all news reports? The point is, some people heard them. Even our new mayor was embarrassed enough to take the stage and call for civility. It must be kept in mind that crude, cursing, and even racist comments toward Mr. de la Fuente were out of line, no matter whether Mr. Taylor heard them or not. I’m a progressive, too. I love Oakland, but I don’t kid myself; I know racism exists on all sides of the city’s population. The sooner we all quit trying to excuse it and begin trying to eliminate it, the better off we all will be. 

Jim Puskar 

Oakland 

• 

ANTI-WAR MARCH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What a wonderful experience marching in the anti-war parade on Saturday. The march was serious; the mood was festive. It was heart warming marching with thousands of people who very much care about making a difference.  

It was also an unusual event, one which I hope will set a new standard for future demonstrations. It made the immensely important connection between the violence of the war abroad and the violence of the war at home. That’s right. To deprive working people and their families of decent jobs is a form of violence. 

The march ended at Pier 33, where long shore workers lost both their union status and their jobs. Just several months ago the National Park Service awarded a ten year exclusive contract to take tourists to Alcatraz. The company, Hornblower, immediately got rid of the unions and the vast majority of its workers. Members of the striking unions wrote up an excellent leaflet that spells out how the war has contributed to the current mess at home. 

International issues are also local ones, which those who organized and participated in the massive demonstration understood and acted upon. That was the underlying meaning of the march. 

Harry Brill 

Berkeley Labor and  

Community Coalition 

El Cerrito 

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Neighborhood residents have complained about the removal of the Telegraph Avenue median strip, which makes it less safe to cross, and Councilmember Worthington has suggested that AC Transit should improve pedestrian safety when it improves the street for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). 

It is important for residents to understand that a full implementation of BRT, with dedicated bus lanes, will make the street much more safe for pedestrians, for two reasons. 

First, it will slow traffic by leaving only one traffic lane in each direction instead of two. There would be no fast lane: all drivers would have to go the same speed as the most prudent drivers. 

Second, the curbs around the bus lanes could easily be designed so they are also safe places for crossing pedestrians. There would be two pedestrian refuges at each intersection instead of just one median. 

I expect that the safer crossing would also help to revitalize business on Telegraph south of Dwight, as it would become easy for people shopping on one side of the street to cross to the stores on the other side. 

In addition to the global benefit of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and the regional benefit of providing a more efficient transportation system. Bus Rapid Transit would provide the local benefit of increasing pedestrian safety. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

VAN HOOL BUSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Alert: AC Transit is planning to buy 50 more Van Hool buses and to sale and/or trade-in 71 of the not-so-old buses most riders prefer. To stop this come to a board meeting at 10 am sharp (public comment is 1st) on Wed. Jan. 31 in the Conference Room on the 10th Floor of AC Transit Headquarters at 1600 Franklin in downtown Oakland. The board has three new members who may listen.  

For more info contact me at joyceroy@earthlink.net.  

Joyce Roy 

• 

A LOSS OF FAITH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I grew up in this country and was taught about democracy from a very early age. Democracy is what makes the United States of America so great, I was told. Now an undergraduate student thinking on my own, I’ve begun to see things differently. I don’t think we have much of a democratic process in this country. Decisions are made by very few that are meant to represent the will of 300 million people. On Friday Jan. 26, President Bush declared “I’m the decision maker” on the subject of sending more troops into Iraq. The setup of the government under the U.S. Constitution makes it very clear that this is not the case. What about what I learned in grade school about ‘checks and balances?’ 

Another realization that led to a loss of faith in our version of democracy was that politicians and therefore policies could be bought (or at least strongly influenced) by corporations. The lobbyists and campaign contributions of corporations have no doubt had a huge influence on the outcomes of countless elections. Democracy means governance by the people, not corporations. It used to be a federal offense for a corporation to give money to a political campaign. Now corporations are given the same (if not more) rights as people, and have made it much more difficult for people to govern themselves. Factual information about issues is difficult to come by since most “information” in campaigns comes from advertisements funded by corporate dollars. 

It is time we take back the rights guaranteed to people under the Constitution and take them away from corporations. Originally corporations were chartered to serve a specific need in a society. Now, huge corporations have taken on a life of their own, and exist to serve the bottom line of company share-holders. People need to govern people. If people can’t claim more rights than corporations at the national scale, then maybe it’s time to look at smaller, more manageable scales of sovereignty. 

Kevin Spears 

• 

BUSH’S HEALTH PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his speech, President Bush referred to ways to increase the number of people covered by health insurance. But his plan fails to cover many people, including those who are not employed. 

And why should the insurance companies be involved to take their cut? Why not simply have a single payer system, as they do in Canada. It costs less than does our haphazard system, and it also covers all of the people. Oh, yes, the insurance companies wouldn’t like it. 

Karl Ruppenthal 

• 

A DAY IN BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On a recent visit to the Bay area, from Cape Cod, my son and I spent a few days driving down to Monterey and Santa Cruz and north to Mt. Tamalpais and Point Reyes. After climbing hills and towers in San Francisco on a spectacular day (Friday, Jan.), we ended up in Berkeley—my first visit in at least 15 years. So many things have changed, and yet Berkeley remains one of my favorite places—Berkeley is incredibly diverse: the great mix of people, topography, architecture and businesses make it work. (I don’t know where all the great East Coast bookstores and music stores have gone!) 

We ended up at the grand old Hotel Shattuck Plaza with a nice room at a reasonable rate, with Saturday morning seeing me comfortably reading your great paper in the hotel lobby. Topping off this long overdue Berkeley visit was the forgotten computer charger—but no problem, management quickly dropped it in the mail for us. Now if I could just get the rest of my family to agree to move to Berkeley... 

Steve and Lloyd Gould 

Cotuit, MA  

• 

MIDDLE EAST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Jan. 23 op-ed by Joseph Lifschutz, a retired professor, debunks the notion that being an academic guarantees that one is careful and even-handed when writing about a topic he has allegedly researched. Contrary to Lifschutz’s assertion, it has been Palestinian leaders, rather than the Israelis, whose policies are the primary obstacles to a Palestinian state. As Clinton envoy Dennis Ross has frequently noted, at Camp David talks in 2000, President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak presented a proposal to Arafat for a Palestinian state which would consist of Gaza, 96 percent of contiguous West Bank land, and a capital in East Jerusalem. Arafat rejected this, saying it would abrogate the Palestinians’ “right of return” to land in Israel proper. Arafat thereafter initiated the murderous Second Intifada, scuttling any hopes for peace. And now, of course, the Palestinians have elected a Hamas-run government which consistently says the only acceptable Palestinian state would include all of Israel. So Professor Lifschutz, who is really standing in the way of a Palestinian state? 

Lifschutz claims I didn’t substantiate my criticisms of Jimmy Carter. In fact, in my letter to this publication I quoted the critiques of Carter by his former confidant and the very first director of the Carter Center, Professor Kenneth Stein, the Dennis Ross op-ed in the New York Times, and the letter penned by 14 members of the Carter Center’s board who resigned in disgust at the numerous untruths and one-sided commentary found in Carter’s book. And to say that my criticism of Carter reflects my support of the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom I hold little respect, is indicative of Lifschutz’s simplistic analysis. Unsurprisingly, Lifscutz makes no mention of the fact that I took pains to note that the revolting term “apartheid” ascribed by Carter to Israel was as utterly inappropriate to Israel as it was fully applicable to the Palestinian treatment of women, homosexuals, and intellectuals. 

Dan Spitzer 

Kensington 

• 

FOSTER PARENTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a foster parent. Being a foster parent is a lot of work but it also brings a lot of rewards. I highly recommend it! 

Did you know that one of the best foster care agencies in the world is located right here in Berkeley? It’s true. I went to a meeting at the agency last night and they said, “We really need new foster parents. If you know any people or have any friends who might consider becoming foster parents, please let us know.” 

I know people! I know the readers of the Berkeley Daily Planet! So. If you are reading this, consider yourself my friend. And here’s a friendly suggestion -- because there is such an urgent need for foster parents, you could enrich your life by helping a child and helping save the world “One child at a time". Plus you will receive $23 a day to cover the child’s expenses. Plus you would feel all good about yourself for having done good deeds. Both small children and teenagers (who are easier to take care of) are looking for homes. And there is also a foster care-to-adoption program too. 

If you want to know more, please call me at 843-0581 and I will gladly give you the 411 on this outstanding agency and foster care program. 

Jane Stillwater 

• 

TEACHERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Can tuition fees for teaching credential courses be reduced for low-income people who are inspired to teach so that they can enter the ranks of teachers? We need more teachers whose life experience draws them to share their learning with others. Yet there is the reality of food, children, a roof over one’s head, some dignity among one’s neighbors. Can no one invest in future teachers by lowering tuition for students enrolled in teaching credential courses ? 

Romila Khanna 

Of all our hang-ups, American folly over spectator sport is one of the more pernicious. It is the lingua franca of social encounter, the club handshake. Along with the few who share the same celebrative awe and commingling techniques through opera, you have only to select some proper names from the rosters of football, past and present, basket or baseball—preferably accompanied by scores, injuries, and titles, to qualify for the brother-sisterhood of the “elect,” or at least “admitted.” 

One would expect the University of California to manifest another set of values, and to support those values in every way. The pleasures of imagination, of learning, of the mind. The University as purveyor of theater, visual art, music, research, public outreach. The highest and the fullest pleasure of art, thought, information, technique and learning, not accessible in any other form. 

If the University of California can raise, or “accept” more than $250 million for a bigger, better sports facility, what great stimulus those funds could provide the arts, laboratory science, economics, political science, sociology—cultural programs of every kind. Some version of most of these programs already exists, and every year, for decades, they are reduced in scale, scrabble along, or vanish. Every year more people become more dependent on Commercial Advertising for selection and presentation of music, poetry, dramatic art, and the history of their own and other times. For what they know, and accordingly, what they have come to want. 

This University, because it is both Public and First-Rate, can take the best cultural manifestations of our and any time, give them currency, and with the free and good will of its members, distribute them. 

Long ago, shocked by Sputnik, the federal government decided to fund high culture in publicly supported schools. Berkeley High chose to form a School of Performing Arts, complete with expert instruction in costume, scenic design and music, “grande musicque.” One enchanting modest product was Menotti’s madrigal opera “The Unicorn, The Gorgon, and the Manticore.” The ease, charm, the supple brilliance of the young participants, including choreographer and choir, their cultural literacy, explained why Izak Dinesen’s Sultan fired all his dancers on their 17th birthday. 

A similar program at UC resulted in a “right on” version of Handel’s “Semele,” where the chorus spent an entire semester working on the music before staging and direction of the principals began. The beautifully trained chorus, without intrusion, seemed to generate the piece. There had been a world-wide sweep for the counter-tenor. The other protagonists were from the area—at last given a chance to be first-rate. 

The same trigger—Sputnik—resulted in a posse of “swingers” from the English Department, youngish, august, immensely capable, working with students—I almost wrote “patients”—in Berkeley’s chronically ailing Middle Schools. There may have been a biologist or physicist or two as well. 

These activities could not be more important. Neither could the CHOICE of a stadium for heavily advertised and advertising strong men jumping around a playing field, with its celebration, in triplicate, of muscle, brutality, and beer, automobiles, and processed food. Fifty years ago a demented fellow-traveler of the John Birch Society, selected his target for the first fatality of the Third World War: The professor had complained publicly that the University gave more scholarships to football players than to women. He lost half his face in a shotgun blast. The student with him lost his life. 

What the society, the state, the householder spends money on is a declaration of both necessity and value. 

The girdle of hills, the bay, still open, stretching to the west; Strawberry Creek, Strawberry Canyon; the long irregular lawns and glades of the campus, twenty-three oak trees west of the stadium are also a declaration of value, of human life in a context, of allegiance to the earth. 

Ariel Parkinson is a Berkeley resident. 

EDITOR’S NOTE:This commentary was originally submitted to the Daily Californian in response to an editorial in that paper. The Daily Cal has not published it. 

Your Dec. 8 editorial calls for Cal students to support the construction of the new weight room and training facilities at the Memorial Stadium known as the SAHPC.The basic premise of your editorial is that having a big-time football program would improve the education that undergraduate students receive at Cal. A successful football team, you claim, will help Cal compete educationally against Stanford and the Ivies and make Cal an “academic destination.” Really? I think that when UC administrators hype educational synergies of football, they are just blowing smoke to hide the fact that all of the SCIP project is driven by money for privatization. 

In 1981 the Ivy League decided to deemphasize football and dropped down from Division I-A to Division I-AA. They even banned all post season play. As for Stanford, they are no longer competitive in Division I-A. It’s not a question of stadiums or even coaches. Stanford would have to lower its academic standards for the “near-professional” football player to survive there. These schools—which Cal clams to be competing against—have put academics before football. But when the football coach is the most important person at the university, you can be assured that the quality of the educational product will be out of the limelight and will suffer for it. 

You claim that a Cal education has already achieved “preeminence” and that a big-time football program (isn’t Cal good enough already?) is the last piece of the puzzle needed to raise UC Berkeley to the very pinnacle of American universities. But is the educational experience at Cal truly “preeminent”? The Ivy League schools emphasize small classes and direct, professor-to-student intellectual contact for all four years. My school, Columbia, has a really tough and wide-ranging required core curriculum for the first two years. Can Cal students really say that they’ve been pushed to their maximum for four years? A high rating in a magazine may be comforting but is a bad measure of the quality of the education. Graduate admissions officers know the pecking order. When a Cal diploma is a fast track to graduate school like my Columbia diploma was, then you know that you are competitive. I’m not trying to run down Cal but to point out that there’s lots of room for improvement. When a school starts to put such an emphasis on football, it is diverted from critically evaluating its educational product and investing the resources needed to constantly renovate and improve it. This is what will raise the bar at Cal. 

Your paper also contends that the future of UC Berkeley—a public institution—depends on its private endowment and that football is crucial to building the endowment. The endowments of Stanford and the Ivies are racing forward without successful football programs. Their Alumni are giving as a way to pay back for the education they received and not as a reward for winning football games. Accepting the Schwarzenegger program of state funding cuts and moving to privatization is driving UC away from its educational mission. Students are the big losers in this process. They get annual tuition and fee hikes and reduced attention to their education. The winners? UC administrators. For them, “being competitive” is a code phrase to justify their huge pay and benefit increases. Over the past two years they have diverted hundreds of millions of dollars away from educational improvements and into their own pockets. Unfazed by the pay scandals, UC continues to equate competitiveness with salary levels. But where are the new educational programs? There is no reason to expect that these priorities will change in the future. Undergraduate education does not produce a profit and by the financial logic of privatization will be left to wither on the vine. 

Your paper supports the massive construction projects planned for the Hayward Fault as important for public safety. I disagree. No responsible institution would try to build so much on an earthquake fault. The first principle of earthquake safety (and the law) calls for keeping people away from these dangerous locations. However, instead of reducing the usage at the Hayward Fault, the university is planning to congregate over a million spectators a year at the stadium with big rock concerts and other events. Further threatening the public safety, UC is downplaying and hiding the seismic risks at Memorial Stadium. In the upcoming earthquake, any gym or stadium built on the fault will have fatal structural damage and—as UC itself predicts—there will be death and injury. It is true that the people working at the stadium now are in immediate danger and the university should have long ago moved them away from the stadium. Instead, they keep them there-in violation of UC’s SAFER guidelines- and use them as an argument for SAHPC. The fact is, no one can safely occupy the SAHPC until it is completed and the western half of the stadium is rebuilt and stabilized-which would be years from now—if ever. Administrators are hell-bent to build the SAHPC along the west wall of the stadium because this massive, concrete bunker is needed to hold back the loose fill under the stadium (identified by the USGS as a liquefaction zone). The gym is actually the first phase of a new stadium’s foundation. The safety justification is a red herring to cloud the connection between the SAHPC and a new stadium. 

A new training facility could be more quickly constructed at one of a couple of excellent on-campus locations. It would be safer, in compliance with the law, a good deal cheaper and more accessible to non-football athletes. Also, it would be a better facility. Siting the SAHPC at the length of the stadium western wall forces a narrow, problematic, “railroad car” layout with no direct access to the stadium and would hardly be a state-of -the-art design. The problem with any alternative location, of course, is that a gym built there would not support the new stadium. 

And then, there is the question of the safety of Berkeley residents. This is a massive project that will greatly complicate rescue efforts in the surrounding residential neighborhoods and tie up much of the city’s rescue capabilities. When the earthquake comes, with its accompanying fires and landslides, the SCIP projects will end up endangering the lives and property of these people. Your editorial makes no mention of these safety ramifications. The university administrators, however, are well aware of these problems. But, because of a constitutional provision intended to protect UC academic freedom, UC says that it is not required to consider the safety and welfare of Berkeley citizens and so it won’t. That is morally unconscionable but not surprising coming from an institution that has grown arrogant and greedy, free of normal checks and balances. Everyone’s safety—student and resident- is important. 

The SAHPC is a bad project and should not be built. Under a cloud of football frenzy, UC administrators are desperately rushing to start the SAHPC gym to create “facts on the ground” and short-circuit any further criticism. Only after the SAHPC is stopped will everyone have a chance to openly and honestly examine all the alternatives to SCIP. A self-serving UC has shown that it cannot be entrusted with the public safety. 

Hank Gehman is a former Ivy football player and Cal graduate student.

SEEN ONE OAK... 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I think the City of Berkeley should concern itself with more important matters than a few oak trees on the UC campus. 

I estimate that California has over one million oak trees. I was born and raised in the country outside Salinas, near Monterey. There are oaks everywhere. I used to love playing in them—we used to be tag on the low lying branches.  

Are we talking about a grove of ancient redwoods? If we were, I’d be out there supporting the tree huggers. But we are not.  

So a few less oaks trees on the UC campus shouldn’t be a big deal. In fact, my understanding is that UC will be planting triple the amount of trees that they are cutting down. In 50 years, those oak trees will be as beautiful as the ones they cut done. 

In the meantime, I will hike in Tilden Park and Strawberry Canyon enjoying nature, and on special days, walk up UC’s beautiful campus on the way to another great football game in the new stadium and sports center. Go Bears! 

Jim Molmen 

• 

FOOTBALL FAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It took me a few years to figure out what is going on in this town, but it is clear it is being run by fascists, not progressives, and mostly whom are old bittys who used to be hippies and wimpy guys, both of whom have either consumed too much drugs or still are and have used their good education at University of California against it, which is really ironic. I didn’t attend Cal but did attend another major university and have done OK by my education. Also I know a little about football and the impact it has on not just the university and its endowments, but also the entire community. Ask the proprietors of restaurants in town as well as the hoteliers who pay ridiculous taxes if they agree. I believe the City Council are being buttheads needlessly and because most of the local grads who stick around town are the under achievers except for the hill dwellers so they bend over and do whatever the city says and earnestly believe athletics are not important to a world-class university. I say bull. The alums who are driving up in limos to Memorial Stadium on game day with their big hearts and bigger checkbooks and who are filling up the stadium regularly now, which is a big change, are not of this ilk. Cal has figured this out, and Becky, expect a fight to the mat on this, and guess which side I am on, even though I never attended Cal.  

Steve Pardee 

• 

RETIRED ARCHITECT PLANNER RETURNS TO THE DESIGN BOARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Well, not exactly, I do not intend to volunteer concept drawings for this concept, just the idea. I propose that the oak grove problem with the CAL Athletic Training Center (ATC) and the threatened demise of the Iceland Skating Rink (ISR) can be solved by relocating them both to the property immediately south of Edwards Practice Field across Bancroft towards Durant. That site is now occupied by a large surface parking lot and an old bank building (now used for UC Berkeley offices). The Edwards Practice Field site would be used to accommodate compatible elements of the other uses. Either an aerial or underground pedestrian way would connect the two sites.  

This plan will save two cherished community assets: the oak grove just west of the Coliseum and the Iceland Skating Rink (ISR). The ATC functions can be fitted into a redesigned Edwards Field site plus parts across Bancroft. Both the ATC and the ISR are athletic sports in nature. Both embody some overlapping functions such as parking, offices, locker rooms, showers and toilets, offices, eating facilities, meeting/lecture rooms, and heating and cooling infrastructure. Both functions could be accommodated in a jointly designed complex. Solar collectors mounted on all the roofs can furnish much of the energy for electricity, refrigeration, and hot water. 

This idea is so timely, fulfilling our obligation to reduce global warming by building compatible uses in compact urban clusters that are energy efficient and that relate to the existing urban pattern in an ecological, pedestrian and transit friendly composition. The above combined ATC and ISR project by a joint UC, City of Berkeley, and possibly private financing is what “community” is all about. I see CAL or the City buying and temporarily owning the Iceland Rink and leasing the operation to the present owner; then CAL building a new ice rink on the new site adjacent to the new CAL ATC; then when the old rink is vacated demolish it and redevelop the site for uses more compatible to the surrounding residential neighborhood. The new location for Iceland puts it in the heart of the city, serviced by downtown BART and many bus lines, and easily accessible by pedestrians and bicycles in a high-density location. 

This is a win-win-win solution: for UC Berkeley Hockey Team, for Iceland and ice skaters, for the City of Berkeley, for down town, for the general public, and for the fight against global warming. 

Ken Norwood 

By Dan Knapp 

It appears that Deputy City Attorney Van Herick based her opinion that the July survey conducted by David Binder was “not political” largely on the poll’s question about whether the respondents agreed with City Council that Berkeley Bowl should be allowed to open a second store in West Berkeley. Out of more than 60 questions asked, the Bowl question was unrelated to issues or candidates that would be on the upcoming ballot, and it is that difference she cites to support her conclusion that the poll was innocent of political intent.  

But in this context the question could only have been political, based on the answer to the question, what is political? In my student days I latched onto a definition of politics that was brilliant for both simplicity and reach. It came from some of my professors, who got it from famed political scientist Harold Lasswell. It is: “Politics is the process of deciding who gets what, when, and how.”  

The wonderful feature of this definition, besides the fact that it so easily becomes part of the mind’s software, is that it separates “politics” from “mere partisan politics.” It elevates politics above sordid partisanship into a fundamental process that all humans use for getting things done, changing things that need changing, adapting to change, and the like. Politics at this level permeates all our lives, sometimes in surprising ways, and only part of it is partisan.  

By July 2006, when the poll was taken, the City Council had already approved the second Berkeley Bowl, which makes including such an after-the-fact question curious to say the least. What were the poll sponsors trying to accomplish? Were they really trying objectively and dispassionately to find out what the voters thought, or were they trying yet again to frame the issue in their favor? Reading the articles by Judith Scherr and Richard Brenneman in the Jan. 23 Daily Planet I was struck by how, even after the decision was made, the poll persisted in its gross misstatement of the issues the “vocal opponents” had raised.  

There were two schools of opponents. One wanted the store to commit to unionization. I was among the somewhat overlapping class of opponents who simply thought the project was too big. The specific wording of the poll question trivialized and misstated all of our opposing positions by creating a nonissue for people to agree or disagree with. This trivializing and misstating exactly matched the tactics that project proponents used in the months-long runup to the Council’s decision, during many public hearings and informal meetings.  

Whether the council should approve a “second Berkeley Bowl” in West Berkeley was never an issue with anyone I knew. In fact there were three issues among the “it’s too big” crowd. The first was the continued encroachment of commercial and residential uses onto lands that less than a decade ago had been protected by being designated mixed-use/light industrial. The Bowl would take another bite out of that reserve, and that issue deserved much more discussion than it got. The second issue was the massive size of the Big Bowl project, which led to the third issue, the potentially disastrous traffic impacts caused by this supersized behemoth. At three times the size of other Berkeley supermarkets such as Andronico’s, Whole Foods, or Safeway, the Big Bowl is an obvious regional draw since the surrounding hinterland is not very residential and the freeway is only a quarter-mile to the west.  

All we vocal opponents really wanted was for the Council to approve a true neighborhood store, not one drawing traffic from twenty to thirty miles away and dumping cars first onto Ashby, and next into a cul-de-sac opening back out either onto already-overloaded Ashby or onto already-overloaded Seventh. Despite misgivings on the zoning issue, we were willing to concede the parcel to this proposed use because we agreed that the neighborhood could use a grocery store, and Berkeley Bowl would no doubt be a very good one.  

But our entirely rational and fact-based opposition was turned by a bunch of sophistry, including this survey, into opposition to the project as a whole at any scale. It was very frustrating to be put in this position, and one of the reasons the discussion is continuing months later is that the objections we presented are still valid, and the dangers and downsides still out there to be dealt with by future City Councils.  

Our public efforts to correct the proponents’ misstatements were oddly ineffective. For the most part, they ignored us. Once in awhile someone would repeat the accusation, in effect, that we were all anti-development and anti-business troglodytes. I, my wife, and my company Urban Ore were even singled out for further attack by Steven Donaldson in his op-ed piece “Is the West Berkeley Bowl Dead?,” published in the Planet in the June 13-15 edition, just before the Council voted.  

So contrary to Deputy Attorney Van Herick’s opinion, the poll question was political, very political, and only political. It had no real-world purpose other than to carry into the election season the proponent’s framing strategy that helped the Big Bowl to win both the Council vote and public opinion. In its real-world victory it created a regional commercial draw at the edges of a rapidly shrinking industrial zone at a time when industry is making a big comeback both nationally and locally. It shrank the land base for further expansion of Materials Recovery Enterprises that will be needed if Berkeley is ever to reach its ambitious goal of sending zero waste to landfill by 2020. It will be a major regional commercial draw, and Berkeley residents caught in its traffic will pay the price.  

Dan Knapp owns Urban Ore in West Berkeley.

OAK GROVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This sunny clear afternoon I paid a visit to UC Berkeley coast live oak grove just north of the football stadium and International House on Piedmont Avenue and met the tree-sitters. I had time to chat with Redwood Mary who shared that she was given the Ronald Dellums Scholars Award, 2002-04 at Mills College; she is extremely dedicated and articulate about their protest. Thanks for your front-page coverage of Shirley Dean and elders tree sitting. 

I can imagine my parents who met at UCB in 1930, watching games from Tightwad Hill where the still majestic, sweet-smelling, shade-providing, healthy oaks stand, as habitat to a myriad of mother earth’s species thrive including ourselves. 

UC Regents, please build your sports center elsewhere; one earthquake fault line is here. Find a safer place for our future Olympic sportspeople to train. 

Sylvia P. Scherzer 

Albany 

• 

STINKY POLITICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Judith Scherr is an excellent writer for your exciting paper that truly serves our community. She did a good job on her Jan. 23 front-page piece, “Dismissal of Survey Complaint Questioned.” Spring and Worthington are the kind of politicians that come along rarely, and we need to be sure that all is done to keep them in office, in spite of the money and nasty things done to stop their working class supportive agendas. 

This last election is the stinkiest politics I have smelled in my many decades filled with the hope that goes with believing in what Berkeley stands for. Money, land, greed, power, all add up to what happened in Worthington’s district. Forget the average working stiff, forget the needs of students, just suck up to the money that can get you elected, oh yeah. Follow the money. I miss the good old days when Berkeley voters got out into the streets and raised hell when there was something wrong. However, as many times as I have disagreed with 86-year-old Betty Olds, gotta give that woman credit this week for when she and the 90- and 71-year-old women risked their lives to climb into a tree to keep it from being killed by UCB. What the heck is UCB thinking? I thought that school was supposed to have great minds there. But the murder of the Oak Grove will put UCB at the very bottom of the Neanderthal thinkers. If anything is in your way, just kill it. Right, UCB? I hope better minds than UCB seems to have working for them prevail, and these venerable trees are not lost forever. 

And, Betty and gang, you go girrrls! 

Patty Pink 

• 

SAVING THE GROVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here is my little idea on how the oak trees can be saved: Build a brand new stadium closer to downtown and BART. A football/track stadium where the current track stadium sits. You could knock down the building where the ticket office sits. The building has been condemned anyway. You could save money because you would not have to bus people around on game days. It is closer to the rec center, Haas Pavilion. Plus the class celebrating the 50-year reunion will find it easier going downhill than uphill. The one major thing is that it would move the stadium of the fault line! 

What to do with the current site on Memorial stadium build a world class earthquake research center. You save the trees and gas on Saturday game days. 

Sergio Blandon 

• 

SAVING BLACK OAK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Black Oak Books has other options besides selling or closing. Here are some ideas: 

(1) Move into a smaller space. 

(2) Move to a lower-rent neighborhood. 

(3) Swap spaces with another store. The other store could be in a smaller space or a lower-rent neighborhood. 

(4) Find a way to buy out the landlord.  

This could involve: 

(a) getting donations from neighborhood residents 

(b) getting a foundation grant 

(c) getting money from a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving alternative bookstores 

Eckhard Festag 

• 

FIGHTING AIDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Right now, Congress has an incredible opportunity to continue saving millions of lives in the world’s poorest countries by fully funding the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty. 

The last Congress left nine critical spending bills unfinished and now the new Congress is left with the hard work of deciding our budget for 2007. They’re facing tough decisions and at stake is $1 billion vital to continuing to provide clean water, education and life-saving medicines to people in Africa and the world’s poorest countries. There are few places in the U.S. budget where dollars translate so directly into lives saved. Without this funding, 350,000 people will not receive life-saving AIDS medicines, nearly 1 million anti-malaria bednets will not be distributed and 120,000 people will not receive treatment for tuberculosis. 

As a member of the ONE Campaign, I encourage Congress to protect this funding and ensure America’s continued commitment to the fight against extreme poverty and global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. America’s leadership in development assistance reflects the best American tradition of compassion and generosity. Together, we can give the world’s poorest people the tools they need to beat extreme poverty and the chance for a hopeful future. 

Carol Suveda 

• 

JAZZ AT THE LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For those of you who regard public libraries as a bit stodgy and restrictive, you would most certainly have gained another impression had you wandered into the Main Berkeley Library this past Monday afternoon, where, in the Third Floor Conference Room, the first “Jazz on a Monday Afternoon” was unveiled. This was the first of a six-part series which will run through June. Due no doubt to Galen Babb’s article in the July 19 Berkeley Daily Planet, the room was jammed, with people sitting on the floor, along the walls, practically swinging from the rafters.  

No one was more surprised by this huge turnout than Dr. Dee Spencer of San Francisco State College, who hosted the event. Expecting a small crowd, she planned to have participants sit in a circle and had printed only twenty handouts. She was clearly flabbergasted at the packed room. Dr. Spencer kept her remarks to a minimum, but traced the evolution of jazz from its beginnings in Africa to the mainstream forms of work songs, spirituals, country blues and New Orleans traditional marches. She also played a bit of rag time on her Wurlitzer. This was followed with tapes of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton.  

But the highlight of the afternoon was the showing of ancient Louis Armstrong footage, dating back as far as the 1930s. With his broad smile and the familiar white handkerchief wiping his brow, Louie had the audience yelling their applause for his dynamic trumpet solos. The program ended all too soon with the singing of “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home?” and “When The Saints Coming In.” All in all, it was a joyous afternoon and thanks should go to Dr. Spencer, Librarian Michelle McKenzie, and the American Library Association, to name just a few of the contributors to this fabulous series. 

The next session will be on Feb. 26, “The Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance.” Mark your calendars! 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

SAVE ICELAND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing in response to Riya Bhattacharjee’s Jan. 23 article “Community Launches One Last Attempt to Save Iceland.” 

Many issues are at stake for Iceland. Berkeley residents of all ages have a wonderful unique recreational facility which has been part of the community for many generations. It is too good to lose now.  

What makes a sensible solution is a “partnership” between the city, the school district, and University of California with a community-oriented business who wants to contribute and make a difference.  

Children (and adults) of all ages benefit from learning to ice skate—coordination skills, strength, and flexibility are natural outcomes. Everyone learns, benefits and enjoys skating at every age.  

This facility can be reborn, revitalized and used all day every day by all ages for years to come. School children can take lessons, high school and college students can practice and hold meets, adults and seniors can keep in shape.  

It’s time for the entire community to step in and support the current owner who should not be forced to close. Its worth much more than the asking price as a community-wide benefit. Why not enroll college team students to coach high school students in hockey and other ice skating skills? It’s time for UC to find new and positive ventures that benefit this community and not only make plans that tear down—good will, trees or structures, but instead find new and innovative solutions to solve traffic, parking, recreation, education, health, crime, business and other issues that affect us all—citizens, students, teachers, agencies, and commercial interests.  

What we do in Berkeley is after all a microcosm for the rest of the world. Let’s lead by example instead of giving lip service to “commitment, caring and community.” 

When I was growing up we skated at the Queens (NY) Ice rink where the World’s Fair was held. It was a special place for skating, music, fun—everyone had a great time. I thought about how fortunate we were Parks and Public Works Commissioner Robert Moses saw the potential of building parks and recreational facilities.  

Iceland is special to the East Bay. It’s a Berkeley treasure. Its value in human terms is worth much more than the millions needed to restore and revitalize. Everyone can benefit and find out how much fun it is to skate, keep in shape and keep healthy. We all have a stake to keep skates flying around the Iceland rink. Let’s Save Iceland! 

Stevanne Auerbach 

• 

2721 SHATTUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Having just seen the staff report on 2721 Shattuck Ave., I have to second Ellin’s comment. It is the most dishonest piece of trash to have come out of the city yet. City staff’s latest interpretation of both the Zoning Ordinance and history of 2721 Shattuck are nothing short of flat-out lies. They should all be ashamed of themselves. Every Berkeley resident should be angered that our tax dollars are being spent on staff like Mr. Wolf to work against the very people who pay his salary. 

City staff has been in constant contact with Mr. Kennedy and the wireless companies, however not once in this entire process has any city staff tried to seek information from residents or been willing to meet with us.  

This latest interpretation of the Zoning Ordinance clearly show the depth of corruption going on within the City of Berkeley.  

It needs to stop! 

Jim Hultman 

• 

DIVERSITY A RED HERRING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When Councilmember Moore provided the fifth vote to instruct the city attorney to draft legislation to bar Berkeley citizens from serving on more than one “major” commission, he explained that “putting a person of color on several commissions is tokenism, not diversity.” I’m Latino, and I’m the only person threatened with removal from office by the change. I don’t think Moore consciously meant to label me a token appointee, but I do think his comment detracted from the quality of the council’s discourse. 

I was appointed by Councilmember Worthington, who is known for his commitment to diversity, and also known for the most rigorous interview process for potential commissioners. He put me on the Zoning Board and the Housing Commission because he thought I was the best person for the job in both cases. I’m proud of the work I’ve done promoting affordable housing while protecting the quality of neighborhood life, and I take a twisted pride in being the focus of a Council majority so concerned about my effectiveness that they’re considering passing a special law just to rein me in. 

Jesse Arreguin 

• 

ADL CONFERENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I couldn’t agree more with Tami Holzman of the Anti-Defamation League (Letters, Jan. 12) that anti-Semitism is a serious and growing problem. Yet I believe the conference she plugs as a remedy is seriously flawed and that that Holzman is not accurately describing it in her letter. 

According to Holzman and the conference website, the conference will address anti-Semitism from a progressive perspective. Yet when one looks at the lengthy list of co-sponsors of the event the most prominent and visible Bay Area progressive Jewish organizations (Jewish Voice for Peace, Tikkun, Progressive Jewish Alliance, and Brit Tzedek) are missing. Instead, the list is dominated by mainstream and right-wing Jewish organizations and groups such as the Blue Star PR and AIPAC, whose primary mission is to support the decidedly unprogressive actions of the Israeli government. 

My organization, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), has a strong record of standing up against anti-Semitism in the Middle East peace movement and has published a book called Reframing Anti-Semitism. This book, now in its fourth printing, has been used as a text in university classrooms and has been distributed internationally. My own essay in that book is precisely about anti-Semitism on the Left. Yet the ADL never consulted with us, asked us to co-sponsor, or invited us to present at the conference. (Though one of our activists will be on a panel there, she was invited by a third party, not by one of the conference co-sponsors.) 

Holzman claims that the Finding Our Voice conference “is not about Israel.” Yet the keynote speaker is touted as having been instrumental in overturning British boycotts against Israeli universities. Conference workshops include: “Dealing with Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions,” (against Israel, I presume), “The Israel You Don’t Hear About,” “Emphasizing What’s Right in Israel,” “Keeping Blue and White [the colors of the Israeli flag] Part of the Rainbow,” etc. 

A conference to examine anti-Semitism from a progressive perspective is sorely needed. Yet a truly progressive conference would involve bona-fide progressive organizations in the planning process, and include co-sponsors that strongly oppose Israeli policy, including those that believe sanctions, boycotts and divestment campaigns are a legitimate tool to pressure Israel to end its decades-long occupation. (Perhaps Holzman can explain why “criticizing the decisions and actions of the Israeli government is not anti-Semitic,” but backing up these criticisms with non-violent economic or diplomatic pressure is.) A truly progressive conference would examine the connections between anti-Semitism directed at Jews and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism, and look at how Jews, Arabs and Muslims, can work together to end both oppressions. A truly progressive conference would look critically at the role of U.S. imperialism in fomenting anti-Semitism, would examine the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, when these forces are coming together, and when they are not. 

In the meantime, the ADL should not be misleading people into believing that this conference will be something that it is not. 

Terry Fletcher 

There is no doubt that the present Bush administration has done serious damage to the image of the Republican Party. But as discredited as the Republican politicians may stand today, the Democrats could still lose the White House in 2008 if they choose the wrong flag bearer.  

Of all the democratic candidates aiming for the White House, polls show that John Edwards, Barak Obama, and Hillary Clinton, are at the top. It is the opinion of this writer that choosing either Clinton or Edwards over Obama would place the Democrats at a higher risk of losing the White House. Obama has unique advantages over both Clinton and Edwards. For example, as the son of an immigrant father, Obama has much more in common with the immigrant voters than Edwards and Hillary. The black votes are very significant, and very few blacks would vote for either Edwards or Clinton over Obama. Beyond the black votes, Obama’s life history brings hope and inspiration to all immigrants, and his story is naturally more appealing to the immigrant voters than the chronicles of the privileged white candidates.  

Unlike Obama, both Hillary and Edwards pose a threat to the Republicans in different ways. Business owners and corporations are afraid of Edwards. When it comes to Republican voters, the name Clinton still remains a liability for Hillary. It’s been over five years since Bill Clinton left office, but the conservatives still hate him and his wife with passion. Obama doesn’t have any such liability. If anything, Americans of all political persuasions are curious and fascinated by his “new ideas” philosophy. 

Not only that, Obama is already the darling of the women. Gone are those days when women didn’t matter in politics. Women like Oprah, for example, are powerful king makers today. Anyone who doubts this should ask Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama is enjoying the backing of some of the most powerful women in the country. The same cannot be said of Edwards, and not all women are intrigued by Hillary Clinton.  

Perhaps the biggest advantage Obama has over his opponents is his good standing with the evangelical community. Needless to say, the evangelical Christians have become a force to reckon with in politics. For example, in the 2000 and 2004 elections, most Christians, black and white, voted for George Bush, all in the name of God and Jesus. There is no better candidate to tap into the vast Christian votes than Obama. More than Hillary and John, Obama receives ready welcome at the church. He is a member of the huge born-again club, Clinton and Edwards are not. Obama speaks the Jesus language, and he speaks it very fluently; Hillary and Edwards don’t speak it as well.  

Miracles do happen. It happened in Minnesota when a wrestler became the governor. It happened in Massachusetts when a black man was elected governor in 2006. It happened when a hard-core liberal from San Francisco, a woman, became the speaker of the House of Representatives. It could happen again if Obama is given a chance. 

Emeryville resident Peter Opa is from Africa and is a student of politics, philosophy and economics. 

The commentary in the Dec. 22 issue of the Daily Planet, while making some commendable points, fails to point out some of the problems and new twists to micro-lending. 

As a former advisor to central European delegations to the U.N. Beijing conference on Women and to the U.N. Development Program on micro-lending in central Asia, I would like to point out that the vast majority of the success rates of the micro-credit programs such as Yunas’s Grameen Bank are based on loan payback rates rather than whether the participating women have actually gotten out of poverty. In other words it’s the success of the lender, not the recipient. Even Yunus admits that he has probably only helped 50 percent of the borrowers obtain a tin roof, mosquito netting, clean water, and a latrine; but that he has , in his words, proven that “The poor can be reliable borrowers even at high interest rates.” 

As Krishna Bhattacharjee pointed out in his commentary, micro-lending is now being implemented in 50 countries; but he did not explain that the conflict between do-gooders and profit minded do-gooders that defines the current debate in this new profitable market. Micro-financing has become a global market with micro-finance futures that tend to serve the “less poor” rather than serving as a channel out of desperate poverty. Banks such as Citigroup and Duetsche Bank have gotten into the game of helping the “un-banked” become new clients. Their goal is financial inclusion, not reducing poverty. Carlos Labrathe, CEO of Compartamos, the McDonald’s of village banking in Mexico, predicts that in five years 80 to 90 percent of all micro-finance institutions will be for-profit institutions. 

Compartmos borrowers pay an annual rate of a hundred and five percent in interest and taxes and some are higher than a hundred and 20 percent. The Mexican Government is now requiring Compartamos to explain the hidden cost to clients. (New Yorker, Oct. 30, 2006) The women that I worked with through UN contacts wanted some modicum of business training such as how to judge which market needed which product. Most of the wee loans at usury interest rates go to women for activities that require the involvement of whole families. Paying the high interest from earnings of a garden plot, a small kiosk, a phone service, or basket making generally requires a 16-hour day and help from family members. Women wanted to become valued as good credit risks as men are valued so they could borrow money individually from local institutions. I won’t go into how belittled many women felt having to become a member of a group to get a loan rather than being respected as an individual because it places a tremendous burden on the women in the group to pay the interest for a member who becomes ill or has a problem in her family. (As the New Yorker article pointed out, some women unable to payback loans have committed suicide.) We regulate predatory lending practices in some parts of the United States. These overseas lending programs are entirely unregulated and borrowers need protections. (Bruck, Connie, “Millions for Millions” New Yorker, Oct. 30, 2006, p.62) 

There are some good programs out there that offer training, dignity and hope: Pro Mujer in Latin America, Kickstart, the Village Enterprise fund in Africa; but until all programs are evaluated for the effect the program has on the borrower rather than merely the payback rate, we will never know if micro-lending/financing is doing more harm than good. 

Sally Williams is a Berkeley resident.

That any book should be so universally vilified, especially in these final days of George Bush’s America, suggests good reason to read it and take it seriously. 

After six sojourns in Israel/Palestine, performing, teaching, meeting with activists, educators, artists, intellectuals, and people on the streets in towns and villages on both sides of the wall, I can say there is nothing exaggerated about Carter’s account of the destruction of farmland, the poisoning of well water, the dumping of garbage, the cantonizing of Palestine by the ubiquitous wall and multitude of check points, the arrogance and brutality of soldiers, the disruption of daily life inflicted at check points and by curfews, the imprisonment of children without due process, the imprisonment of duly elected officials, the appropriation of land and resources for the ever-expanding settlements. 

Carter’s use of the term apartheid is as clear-sighted as it is courageous, and though probably 50 percent of the good people currently throwing stones at his effigy have not read the book, the incendiary term will be as vindicated by anyone traveling to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza, as it was for those who made their way to South Africa before the release of Mandela. 

Those who accuse former president Carter of anti-Semitism, if they did read the book, have not noticed that he begins his thesis stating that Israel has a legal right to statehood, and should enjoy peace and security within its borders, urging the acknowledgement of that right by all Arab countries, including Palestine. 

But at the heart of this book, and of at least one interview I have seen, is the statement by Dr. Mahmoud Ramahi, secretary and West Bank spokesman for the current government, now sitting in an Israeli prison. He indicated the willingness of his government to put a brake on all violence indefinitely, based on Israel’s willingness to refrain, and continued, “Where is the Israel you would have us recognize? Does it include the West Bank and East Jerusalem?” 

Must an occupied people acknowledge the rights of their occupier? Certainly it took much less provocation for our revered forefathers to take arms against King George. 

At an Arab/Israeli peace forum in Israel, I met a young Palestinian teacher who managed to get through the check points for the first time to deliver a short eloquent speech: 

“I work every day to teach peace, non-violence and brotherhood. How can I succeed when an Israeli soldier drives his Hummer up to my classroom and points his machine gun at me in front of my students? How can they listen to me when an Israeli soldier has made their friend walk on all fours through the check point, barking like a dog?” 

I visited his school. Every boy there had experienced worse. By the age of 12 they had watched as their homes were bulldozed, family members shot, burned or beaten. The artwork on the walls shows Israelis with tanks and machine guns. The blood is Palestinian. 

When I first set foot in the West Bank, it was with the hope of promoting interest in a collaborative exhibit between Palestinian and Israeli artists—an idea for which I had much support among Israeli friends. Now, so many visits later, my aims have become more humble. I travel there with my cello and my poetry, but what I have to say to these people is this: “As an American I am sorry. I am sorry that my government supports the Israeli government in its illegal and aggressive occupation of your land, and the displacement, and imprisonment, of so many of your people.” 

This is neither anti-Semitism, nor the advocacy of terror. I think Mr. Carter would agree. 

Matthew Owens is an El Cerrito resident.

As soon as I heard that Robert Reich would be speaking about our city’s economic future at Berkeley City College on Jan. 25, I knew I wanted to be there. It’s not often that you get a chance to hear a former secretary of labor/celebrated author/popular NPR commentator/ Goldman School of Public Policy professor hold forth on local affairs, with “a light lunch” thrown in for good measure, and for free yet. This bill of fare would have been more than enough to get me to immediately RSVP the event’s announced sponsor, the Office of the Mayor.  

But I had one more reason for wanting to attend. I suspected that Tom Bates had invited Professor Reich to speak in large part because he knew that his distinguished guest belongs to the “manufacturing is dead in America” school of thought and would likely lend prestigious support for the mayor’s—in my view, badly misguided—efforts to de-industrialize and gentrify West Berkeley. I wanted to see if I was right.  

As far as the mayor’s intentions were concerned, my hunch was spot-on. Introducing Reich to a full house (237 people, said BCC President Judy Walters), Mayor Bates declared that the city is “at a turning point.” The only change he addressed in any detail, however, involved the city’s industrial sector. “Berkeley,” he said, “used to be the home of many, many factories.” Now, “manufacturing is departing,” headed for “low-cost states” and overseas.  

Reich had been given his cue, and at first it seemed as if he was going to take it, pure and simple. With customary brio and wit, he hailed the opening of the new college building as “a milestone,” congratulated the mayor on his re-election, gestured toward his own time in and out of public office (“Here’s how you know that you’re not in the Cabinet anymore: you get into the back seat of your car, and there’s nobody sitting in front”), touched on his first year as a Berkeley homeowner (“I used all my savings to buy my house”), plugged the presidential bid of former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack and then turned to the Berkeley economy.  

“What are Berkeley’s exports?” he asked. Though the city “still has some light industry, … as with most cities this size, the major exports are no longer manufacturing.” What brings money into town, Reich averred, is UC, culture, arts, design, research and development, and good restaurants. All (except perhaps the restaurants) in keeping with our “knowledge-based” society and global economy. “The manufacturing jobs are disappearing,” he said, “and they are not all going to China; a lot are being automated.” Some people are worried about the offshoring of white-collar jobs. Not Reich. “The more education you have, the more globalization is on your side.” 

In light of these remarks, I was expecting Reich to embrace the mayor’s vision of an Emeryville-ized West Berkeley—a mix of freeway-oriented strip malls, high-tech research facilities and fancy condos. Instead, he called the future “a delicate question.” He told how, in his previous place of residence, Cambridge, Mass., the area between Harvard and MIT has become a high-rise, high-tech research center. “Is that right for Berkeley?” he asked. 

The answer, he said, depended on how we—meaning Berkeley citizens— view “the character of the city.” “Berkeley’s success is not just a function of its economic vitality,” but also reflects its “social capital”—“how much people care about the community and what they’re willing to do for the community.” That sort of commitment grows out of “a sense that we’re all in this together … The most important words in politics,” he told us, “are ‘we’ and ‘our.’” Again and again, he posed the question: what do we want? 

Reich made clear what kind of Berkeley he wants: a city that keeps its unique “charm” from turning into high-end “chic.” As evidence of the former, he heaped praise on “all of the independently owned proprietorships.” He said that he had grown up in the two shops his parents had owned, so he knew firsthand the challenges facing small business (one of his family’s stores had to be closed). “Berkeley keeps out Walmart,” he said, eliciting a big round of applause. He acknowledged the sky-high price of housing and deplored gentrification and its homogenizing effects. “If you want artists, there have to be places that artists can live”—in other words, places they can afford. How, he asked, do we add housing, “and keep Berkeley’s character”? His answer deserves to be quoted in full: “My impression is that building is pretty dense already. Do we want to create more apartment complexes? I don’t think so. I think that some of the apartment complexes we have are ugly. I don’t how how they got away with some of the stuff they got away with.” 

What a pleasant surprise. In his appreciation of the qualities that “have made Berkeley such a desirable place to live”—its distinctive townscape and its social, economic and cultural diversity—and his recommendation for inclusive governance, Robert Reich sounded like a Berkeley citizen after my heart. To be sure, he has yet to grasp the local political dynamics that threaten the things he holds dear. But he seemed open to edification. Indeed, with appealing modesty, he repeatedly stated that he is no expert on Berkeley.  

Taking his disclaimers at face value, I respectfully suggest that the easiest way to find out what’s going on—to learn, for example, how developers “got away with some of the stuff they got away with”—is to read on a regular basis the East Bay’s only independent, locally owned and operated newspaper. And Berkeleyans should help Professor Reich get better acquainted with his new hometown. For starters, folks at WeBAIC (West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies) should take him on a tour. A firsthand look would foster his understanding of manufacturing’s essential role in sustaining the diverse Berkeley community that he prizes. Maybe he could get Tom Bates to understand that, too.

On Sunday at noon my 16-year-old housemate finally rolled out of bed. “What’s to eat?” asked Jernae, peering over my shoulder as I typed on the computer. “And what’re we doin’ today?”  

“I’ve got a class to teach tonight,” I said, staring at the screen in front of me. “And a column to write before I go.”  

“Let’s rock climb,” she said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “We need to bond.” 

“No bonding,” I answered. “There’s work to do.”  

“You always say we need to do stuff together, so now I’m sayin’ let’s go do it and you won’t.” She sighed. “So typical.” 

I shrugged and continued typing although it was distracting having someone leaning on my head, breathing down my neck. 

“I know,” she said, suddenly animated. “We’ll go climbing and then while you’re at class, I’ll write the column.” 

“You can’t write it,” I said. 

“Why not?” 

“Because it’s my column, and – 

“You write about me all the time.”  

“So?” 

“It’s time I wrote about you. The people want the truth.” 

“I don’t— 

“How many words?” 

“Six hundred and fifty at least.” 

She rolled her eyes. “How hard is that? It’ll be finished by the time you get home.” 

I knew this wasn’t a good idea, but Procrastination is my middle name. We went to Ironworks Climbing Gym on Potter Street, and then I went to class. I left Jernae at home in front of the computer, and when I returned she was still there, perusing MySpace while listening to rap on LimeWire.  

“Where’s the column?” I asked, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on in teenage cyberspace. The little I could see wasn’t pretty.  

She handed me a sheet of paper, eyes still glued to the screen. “It’s not the right number of words,” she mumbled. “But I give you permission to add some.” 

I looked at the printed page. It was entitled “Moving in With the Old Lady, by Jernee Suga’ Baby Carter.” I read further. 

“I moved in with Susan a couple of months ago. Although I’ve known her almost my whole life, moving in was a shock to my system. She always wants to talk to me, but it’s not like we have anything in common. I’m young and hip, she’s old and going to break a hip. She tries to give me advice, but she just don’t understand. Yeah, she was once 16, but not in the year 2007. She has no idea what I go through on a daily basis, the stress I’m under. She wouldn’t last one minute in my shoes.  

“Another thing: she’s got no sense of style, and she don’t listen when I give her advice.  

“She wants to know everything about me, but when I tell her something I want her to know, she forgets. I have to repeat important stuff at least four times, sometimes more. 

“She took the lock off my door and gave me some lame excuse about fire danger, but, duh, I need a door with a lock so I can be in bed and safe in case somebody robs the house! 

“When I was little she taught me how to ride a bike, but she only let me ride to the corner and back. She also taught me how to rock climb and took my whole 5th grade class and they thought it was pretty cool.  

Today we went climbing. What a flashback I had. I remembered when I was eight and climbing at the gym. I was cute. The End.” 

“‘I was cute’ is the ending?” I asked. 

“That’s what it says, isn’t it?” Jernae’s eyes were still on the screen in front of her.  

“It’s not much of an ending,” I said. “And you need at least 100 more words.”  

“Okay,” she answered. “Change it to ‘I was SO cute,’ That adds another word, it makes it more true, and it definitely reads better.” She paused, and finally turned to look at me. “I’m starving,” she said. “What’s for dinner?” 

First, my apologies for the last column’s headline, which I suspect was a spell check-inflicted error. “Scooter” is one of the surf scoter’s many vernacular names, along with “skunkhead coot,” “blossom bill,” “tar-bucket,” and several that involve distasteful ethnic references. But officially, it’s “scoter.” 

Onwards. 

I’ve always been fascinated by evolutionary arms races. In his The Ancestor’s Tale Richard Dawkins makes the point that if you can see progress anywhere in evolution, it’s in these ongoing duels between predator and prey. Each, over time, gets better at attack or defense, or dies out. At a minimum, as Geerat Vermeij has argued, arms races have made the natural world a more complex place.  

Take just one example: the skin of the California newt is laced with tarichatoxin, nearly identical to the active ingredient in the notorious fugu fish—enough to kill a human-sized predator if swallowed (yes, it’s happened.) But some West Coast garter snakes have evolved a resistance to the toxin. The snakes aren’t totally immune—they do get sick; but they survive. This puts pressure on the newts to ratchet up their toxicity. And so on. 

Insects and other arthropods, though, are the true masters of chemical defense. I refer you to the work of pioneering chemical ecologist Thomas Eisner, especially his For the Love of Insects. Here you’ll meet millipedes that secrete tranquilizers, stick insects that protect themselves with the natural equivalent of mothballs, butterfly and moth larvae that sequester toxins from the plants they eat and render themselves unpalatable. 

For really baroque defensive systems, you can’t beat the beetles. Best known is the bombardier beetle, a staple of creationist literature. This insect responds to attackers by squirting scalding-hot fluid from its rear end. It stores hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide in large abdominal glands. Adding an enzyme triggers a chemical reaction that turns the hydroquinones into benzoquinones and frees oxygen, forcing the mixture out of the bombardier’s body. Creationists claim this is an irreducibly complex system which could not have arisen through evolutionary tinkering.  

But another chemically-armed beetle belies that claim. Stink beetles of the genus Eleodes, a variety of darkling beetle, are common in California and the Southwest. They’re shiny black creatures, flightless foragers for plant matter. When alarmed, they point their rear ends toward the sky. There’s a passage in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row in which Hazel, one of the Row’s derelicts, speculates to Doc, the Ed Ricketts character, about this behavior: “’I wonder why they got their asses up in the air for? … I think they’re praying,’ said Doc.” But no; the posture is preliminary to firing. 

The stink beetle’s weapons system is a simpler version of the bombardier’s. Instead of mixing chemicals in a reaction chamber to form benzoquinones, it stores them ready-made. Caprylic acid provides the stink. Eleodes is well-enough defended that unrelated (and unarmed) beetles have come to mimic its distinctive posture.  

At least one predator, though, has figured out how to circumvent the defense. When working in Arizona, Eisner kept finding stink beetle remains strewn about the desert. The wing covers appeared to have been chewed off, apparently by a rodent. Trapping identified the predator as the southern grasshopper mouse (Onychomys torridus.) That may seem like an incongruous notion, but this is no ordinary mouse. Grasshopper mice also prey on scorpions, and even other mice. And territorial males throw back their heads and howl, like miniature wolves. 

Eisner presented a captive grasshopper mouse with a stink beetle.  

Before the beetle could even assume its headstand, the rodent grabbed it with its front paws and jammed it butt-down into the soil of its enclosure. Holding the insect in place, it proceeded to eat it starting with the head. The tip of the abdomen, containing the chemical storage glands, was discarded. 

The next move, in an evolutionary sense, would appear to be up to the beetle. You have to wonder what the stink beetle and grasshopper mouse will come up with, if they have another few million years to work things out.  

Photograph: N. Ludman 

A stink beetle assumes its defensive posture.  

Joe Eaton is a former professional gardener and arborist. His “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column.

On Tuesday night, Jan. 23, the City of Alameda held an open house for citizens to meet the developers vying for status with the city as official “replacement master developer” for Alameda Point, the former naval air station. 

The city has been soliciting proposals for a new master development since Alameda Point Community Partners, a consortium that included Shea Homes and Centex Homes, backed away from the project in September, citing the Navy’s $108 million price tag juxtaposed against a softening real estate market and the high cost of cleaning up the contamination from decades of Navy use. 

The City’s redevelopment effort for the former base suffered another blow last week when a fifth developer, Corky McMillin, of San Diego, widely considered a strong contender backed out of the competition, citing the financial and environmental challenges.  

The remaining four developers—Catellus, Lennar Urban, SunCal and United World Infrastructure—played to a packed house at the Mastick Senior Center on Santa Clara avenue in Alameda. Debbie Potter, of the City of Alameda Development Services department, opened the proceedings and then promptly turned it over to the developers, who each had ten minutes to present. 

The order of presenters was drawn by straws, and Catellus went first. All developers stressed their financial backing, experience with “brownfield” developments, and the importance of community input in the planning process. After the presentations, attendees were invited to visit tables and presentations staffed by the developers and ask questions and collect brochures.  

Both Catellus and Lenar Urban employ former City of Alameda employees, respectivelyBruce Knopf and Stephen Proud. Near the close of his presentation, Proud even joked that, as a former city staffer, he didn’t want to give Debbie Potter the satisfaction of cutting off his presentation for running out of time.  

Knopf is widely credited with securing the city’s approval of Catellus’ “Alameda Landing” mixed-use development, on the former U.S. Navy Fleet Industrial Supply Center in Alameda, which includes up to 300,000 square feet of new retail, 400,000 square feet of office space, and 300 single-family homes. Alameda City Council formally green-lighted the project at the Tuesday, Jan. 16 City Council meeting.  

SunCal, as a relative newcomer to the redevelopment, presented few specifics on their plans for Alameda Point but promised to learn with the community what would best suit the project site. Perhaps the most innovative and broad-ranging proposal was from Dubai-based United World International (UWI) whose proposal for an “Alameda Green Island Village” incorporates an ultra-light rail transit line from CyberTran International and for which the Coalition for a New California Infrastructure (CNCI) is a partner. CNCI counts UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Merced as partners. CNCI is led by Dr. George Cluff, Ph.D. of the Haas Graduate School of Business at UC Berkeley.  

The UWI proposal promises to work with UC to bring to Alameda Point a research institute devoted to the study of environmental improvement, sustainability and global warming issues. 

When asked if UC Berkeley might find a way out of the current controversy over the planned student athletic facility for Memorial Stadium by building at Alameda Point instead, and running shuttle buses or shuttle ferries to connect to the campus, Cluff responded: “That’s an A+ idea!”  

Cluff also responded favorably to the suggestion of approaching the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship of the Haas School of Business to see if the center would be interested in extending its Berkeley Entrepreneurship Laboratory to Alameda Point, possibly in conjunction with the College of Alameda and private enterprise, such as Bay Area venture capitalists, thereby creating a “Sand Hill Road North” with views of San Francisco. While Cluff responded positively to both suggestions, nobody on the UWI team admitted to having approached either Cal Athletics or the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship to date.  

The next step in the selection process is for the remaining developers to present to the Alameda City Council, sitting as the Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment Authority, on Feb. 7, at City Hall in Alameda. 

David Howard is an Alameda resident and a member of Action Alameda.

It is not at all unusual for newspapers, television and radio news outlets, and the various journalists who work for them to come away with a different story on the same event. Put five people in a room to witness the same event and, almost invariably, they will write five separate accounts of what happened—most often not because they are lying or because they are trying to cover something up, but because of differences in what they think is important, what they actually saw or heard, and what type of background they brought to the event that enhanced—or colored—their interpretation. Add to that the built-in biases of every news organization—what audiences they are aiming for and what areas of concern they are promoting—and you can easily see why a variety of news sources is necessary for an informed citizenry and a healthy democracy. If your news is coming from only one source, you will be almost as misinformed as if you got no news at all. It is only through sifting through several information outlets—looking at issues and events from several accounts and angles—that we can begin to discover what is fact, and what is truth. 

That is one of the reasons I found myself a little disturbed by some of the allegations made in reaction to the events at the Paramount Theater inaugural earlier this month. What is being alleged is not that different reporters looked at the same event and honestly saw different things and interpreted them in different ways, but rather the implicit charge that there is a concerted attempt by some reporters and news outlets to cover up anti-Latino racism in Oakland’s black community. 

At issue is the charge that during the special, on-stage reorganization meeting of the Oakland City Council that occurred in the middle of the Paramount inaugural event, some members of the audience made anti-Mexican-American statements and slurs while Council was considering the re-election of Ignacio De La Fuente—a Mexican-American—as Council President. At least one prominent Bay Area media outlet has identified those slurs as coming from African-Americans. 

Accounts of the booing from the audience appeared in almost every media story of the inaugural, but while some news stories mentioned and highlighted what they called anti-Mexican slurs, other news stories left them out entirely. And the failure to mention those slurs has led to attacks on some reporters. 

Shortly after the Jan. 7 inaugural, Oakland progressive activist, former City Council aide and City Council candidate Pamela Drake filed a story with the on-line Grand Lake Guardian newspaper which reported on the booing, but left out the racial slurs. Drake wrote merely that, “during the shouting match that ensued in the audience over De La Fuente’s reelection to president, [Councilmember Pat] Kernighan tried to speak to the crowd to explain that she thought Ignacio would not stand in the way of change—she was drowned out.” 

That provoked a spirited online debate among Grand Lake Guardian readers, pretty much evenly divided over whether Drake’s account was accurate and fair or merely “offer[ed] excuses and glosse[d] over an embarrassing display of inexcusable behavior,” according to one reader. One reader, David Dickson, concluded that “the reporting by Pamela Drake on this event was among the most paternalistic rationalization of racist conduct that I’ve ever read. But it was progressive racism, so that makes it OK. Something we can ignore and take lightly (at our own peril).” Another reader, Jim Puskar, added, “I’ve read all the commentary about the inaugural, and none of it excuses the conduct of the people who jeered and booed Mr. de la Fuente with crude, racist remarks.” 

But were anti-Latino racist remarks made at the Paramount event? 

So far, I have heard of only one account of someone who says they heard such remarks themselves, and this person says there were both anti-black and anti-Latino remarks being made. One reader identified only as Michael wrote to the Grand Lake Guardian in response to the Pamela Drake article: “I don’t care what ‘side’ one is on in this town, the behavior on both sides at the swearing in was indefensible. I had a woman sitting in front of me who appeared to be with her granddaughter yelling, ‘Go home you damn Mexican’ and a man sitting next to me (who I later learned lived in Piedmont), who turned to me and said, ‘This is what happens when the blacks are in charge.’ I understand Pam’s argument that some steam was being let off, but the venomous racism on both sides cannot, and should not, be dismissed.” 

Meanwhile, why didn’t such accounts appear in Ms. Drake’s story? I have talked with her since she wrote that story, and she says she didn’t report it for the simple reason that she did not hear any. 

The account of the booing incident that I wrote for the Daily Planet was similar to that of Ms. Drake’s. I characterized the audience disruption of the Council President election only as “spirited boos and catcalls” and added that “De La Fuente’s election led to prolonged jeering from the crowd that disrupted the Council meeting and only could be halted when Dellums stood up” and stopped them. I did not mention any racist remarks for the simple reason that, like Ms. Drake, I did not hear any remarks that I would characterize as racist—either in general or anti-Latino in particular. 

But both Ms. Drake and I characterize ourselves as progressives, so is this simply a case of covering up “progressive racism,” as Mr. Dickson charges in his Grand Lake Guardian post? 

In an interview with a KTVU reporter shortly after the inagural events, East Bay Express reporter Will Harper, who was at the Paramount, described the disruption as “some people screaming out calling somebody a crook and a snake,” without any mention of racial epithets. 

And consider this from the East Bay Express blog last Jan. 12 by Harper’s fellow Express reporter Bob Gammon. In a post entitled “What Racism?” Gammon wrote, “If you only read today’s Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle version of Monday’s inauguration ceremony of Mayor Ron Dellums, you might think the event was awash in racial tension. It was not. I attended the event, as did my Express colleagues, Will Harper and Chris Thompson, and none of us heard a single racial slur.” 

A reader identified only as dto510 later called Mr. Gammon “a die-hard Perata conspiracist and author of slanted political articles,” but he is widely-considered one of the Bay Area’s most respected investigative journalists, with readers sometimes disagreeing with his conclusions, but rarely his research. In addition, readers familiar with Mr. Harper and Mr. Thompson’s work at the East Bay Express, whatever opinion one may or may not have of them, can hardly believe that they would lie about not hearing racist slurs at the inaugural or, if they had heard them, not have written about them prominently in their subsequent accounts. 

Other news outlets mentioned—and even highlighted—the booing in their accounts immediately following the inaugural, but had no mention of any anti-Latino racial slurs. That’s true for stories that were broadcast on KTVU, KRON, and KPIX. (The key term here is immediately following the inaugural, but that’s something we’ll have to get to at a later time.) 

While I do not know where Ms. Drake was sitting during the inauguration, the East Bay Express reporters were all located in roughly the location where I was, in or near Row E, which is close to the orchestra pit, on the right-hand side of the auditorium, facing the stage. So it is entirely probably that during the raucous booing which was centered in the middle of the auditorium far from us, we did not hear things which were said, but which others heard. 

But some sitting in other parts of the auditorium did not hearing any racist remarks, either. Oakland activist James Vann, an African-American who works with several multi-ethnic organizations and causes, wrote to the Grand Lake Guardian, “I was at the Paramount Inauguration event last Monday, and was one of the public speakers on the ‘Election of Council President.’ I certainly heard the booing and jeering, and while I would not be surprised if a few people, and it was probably very few, inappropriately expressed their frustration, however, I did not hear nor witnessed any racial epithets from the vicinity of my seat.” 

I talked about these issues with another Oakland leader this week who is African-American but who is not identified solely to African-American causes: former mayoral candidate Wilson Riles Jr., who once held the Council seat now held by Mr. De La Fuente. While Mr. Riles said he did not hear any anti-Latino slurs himself at the inauguration, he encouraged me to continue my investigation to find out exactly what happened. 

“African-Americans have long been on the other side of this issue, charging racism in a situation where others say it didn’t happen or doesn’t exist,” Mr. Riles told me. “It’s important for us to acknowledge that when other groups make the same charge.” 

So what actually happened at the Paramount, and how did the allegations of anti-Latino racism get blown up by some into the defining moment of that event? More to follow. 

A lobbying group of 100 grandmothers from 20 states descended on Washington D.C. on Jan. 18, visiting all 100 senators and some representatives to protest the war in Iraq and to demand that American troops come home quickly. Four Berkeley/Oakland grandmothers were part of the contingent—Helen Isaacson, Marge Lasky, Renate Sadrozinski and myself.  

The Granny Peace Brigade, including our local group, Grandmothers Against the War, timed the visit deliberately for the opening of the new Democratic-led Senate so as to set the tone that Something Must be Done Soon to change U.S. policy in Iraq. Citing the daily horror of casualties on both sides, a deep resistance in the U.S. and Iraq to the illegal war, and the squandering of this country’s wealth, the grannies pressed members of Congress to immediately stop the funding of the war as the most effective way to get the U.S. out of Iraq. 

Anti-war Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio hosted our press conference at 9 a.m. in a small room in the basement of the House of Representatives. Kucinich applauded the granny contingent as “conductors on the train of peace.” Rep. Barbara Lee, and newly elected Rep. Albert Wynn (MD) commended the efforts of the women, several of whom were New York veterans of the arrest in 2005 for allegedly blocking the entrance of the Times Square military recruitment office. 

South Carolina Gold Star Mother Elaine Johnson spoke of her son killed in Iraq and her dismay at the continuation of the war. As she campaigns around the country, she is challenging politicians for prolonging and escalating the war. In a public event she asked President Bush to explain why the U.S. was in Iraq. Subsequently he privately gave her a Presidential coin and then admonished her, saying “Now don’t go selling it on Ebay.”  

The news conference was covered by a few television reporters—Agence Presse France, NHK (Japan TV), a Russian TV station and Capitol News 9 from Albany, NY. One American photographer for a Tribune-owned Atlanta paper documented the event; stories and photos appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer and on a New Jersey news website. No reports of the event turned up in The Washington Post or any other DC paper. 

By mid-morning, all the grandmothers were streaming through the halls of Congress carrying gifts of white roses and George McGovern and William R. Polk’s OUT OF IRAQ: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now for the senators.  

Along with visiting our California senators and a few Republicans, our Bay Area team talked with other progressive Democrats who agreed that we needed to leave Iraq sooner rather than later. But several were reluctant to sponsor legislation mandating that policy since the reality at this moment is that there are not enough votes to set a timetable for withdrawal.  

The palpable sense of flux on Iraq policy, evident everywhere in Washington except for the White House, has spawned multiple Congressional plans in the form of resolutions, both binding and non-binding. 

Republican Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, who coined the term “freedom fries”, has changed his mind and is now against the war. Kucinich has proposed a plan for withdrawal based on a political process that would involve Congress. Senators Biden, Levin, and Hagel have introduced a non-binding resolution condemning the escalation. That resolution will be countered by a softer condemnation in a resolution proposed by Senators Warner, Collins, and Nelson. House Speaker Pelosi has called for an exit plan. Even Hilary Clinton has put a finger to the wind and shifted from her position of support. 

A major source of tension is between binding legislation and non-binding, i.e. symbolic, resolutions. Senator Ted Kennedy has introduced legislation that requires a congressional vote before the President can introduce more troops into Iraq and has enlisted Senators Boxer, Kerry, Leahy, Sanders, Harkin and Brown as co-sponsors. Despite this notable list of senators, Senate maneuverings make it doubtful that the full Senate will ever vote on the Kennedy bill.  

Progressive Caucus members Representatives Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, and Maxine Waters have introduced a comprehensive bill which goes beyond any measure introduced to date in requiring the return of all U.S. military personnel and military contractors within six months. In our meeting with Lee, she urged us to contact people throughout the country to pressure their Representatives into co-sponsoring the bill, “The Bring the Troops Home and Iraq Sovereignty Restoration Act.” 

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s aide told our group that the senator does not support an escalation and wants the withdrawal of troops by the end of this year.  

At the entrance to Senator Barbara Boxer’s office visitors are greeted with large posters of the names of the 3000 plus troops who have died in the conflict. Boxer’s aide inferred that she and Senator Feingold (both of whom have long opposed the war) are likely to sponsor similar legislation.  

The Democrats count six to ten Republicans who are moving away from the Bush party line on Iraq, but still not enough to assure that the Senate could stop a filibuster on legislation that might be considered too progressive. Harnessing this Congressional shift in attitude is somewhat like turning a three-story leisure cruise boat around in choppy waters against a gale wind. 

Here’s the good news. Although it’s very difficult at this juncture to get to see the senator or representative directly, in every single office we walked into, with or without appointments, we were treated well and taken seriously. The senior policy aides we spoke with—again some with and some without appointments—were mostly young, knowledgeable, interested and gave us adequate time to discuss our positions. Two of them, a bit older, were men with military backgrounds. 

I suspect they were professionally polite and also possibly amused at the savvy and passion of this cadre of older women. (Of course, we are their constituents and we always vote.) They were good-humored, well informed, and generally closer to our position than the public statements of the legislators they worked for.  

And more evidence of positive change: The Berkeley grannies sat in on a three hour session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator Joseph Biden. Committee members listened intently to three experts on foreign policy—former Ambassadors Dennis Ross and Richard Haass and Dr. Vali Nasr (author of The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future). All emphasized the impossibility of a military ‘victory’ and that the only possible hope is a political settlement.  

With the lineup of Democrats on the committee, including Senators Boxer, Obama (five cameramen took pictures of him as he came into the session), Kerry, Webb, Casey, and Nelson, and a number of Republicans asking serious questions, some light was shed on the actual repercussions of the war and occupation. It was an intelligent, reasonable approach to the issue and, for me, the most hopeful experience of the visit as an illustration of rational governance.  

After several days of talking with lawmakers—and innumerable searches at every entryway to the capitol and the office buildings—we took off for the museums for something completely different. It was in these non-political places we had the most affirmation of the popularity of our mission. 

In the National Gallery Helen’s yellow, black and red Grandmothers Against the War bumper sticker on her handbag produced an interesting response from the woman in charge of security. As she read the sticker her face said “I may not let you in” but when she opened her mouth she said “I was a Marine in Iraq for a year—it’s enough now!” 

As I was wondering around the Sackler Museum I asked a guard where Gallery 5 was. He read my Grandmothers button and said “I like your button” and we launched into a 30-minute conversation about the war, about sparse press coverage on U.S. television (he had read an article about an anti-war protest in NY on January 2 in The Final Call, the Black Muslim paper), about Amy Goodman and the state of the world. Similar support for our position was evident in elevators in the House/Senate buildings as well as among people standing in lines with us. It seemed that in Washington, at least among everyday people—where residents still can’t vote—there was a clear consensus: it’s time to get out.  

From our unscientific impression of the mood in Washington one could say that the majority of the people we encountered feel as the grannies do, those who simply smiled at us are probably in sympathy, and most people with political titles are making excuses. 

Ten days after I began a campaign to protest Amazon’s hostile presentation of former President Jimmy Carter’s book on Palestine, and a day after the petition with more than 16,000 signatures was delivered to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the company responded by revamping the page in a way that puts the book in a completely different light. 

The petition complained that Amazon had abandoned its usual evenhandedness by posting the full text of a lengthy attack on Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid in its “Editorial Reviews” section—and by repeatedly refusing customer requests that it add a more positive review in the same location for balance. 

In signing the petition, customers pledged to stop shopping at Amazon if the retailer did not come up with a more balanced page by Jan. 22. A copy of the petition, some 16,200 signatures, and supporting materials were sent to Bezos and his staff on Friday. The following morning, the “Editorial Reviews” section of the page listing Carter’s book was overhauled: It now begins with a glowing tribute from Amazon to the former president’s achievements and an interview with him about the book, plus a photo of him and graphic links to some of his other books—all new material, and all of it posted ahead of the negative review. 

This is a huge victory. The whole tone of the page is different now. Instead of saying, in effect, “Stay away from this vile book,” what it now conveys is the truth: that this is an important and fair-minded, even if controversial, book by a distinguished American who has unique qualifications to address the issue of Palestine. 

Paul Larudee, an El Cerrito piano technician who helped me organize the protest campaign, said, “Of course Amazon deserves credit for responding after initially refusing to make a change. However, the real credit goes to the thousands of petition signers who exercised their power—in this case the nonviolent power to take their business elsewhere. It gives hope that boycotts and other nonviolent efforts can help to end the larger injustices that Carter addresses in his book.” 

I’m sorry Amazon continues to display the review by Jeffrey Goldberg because I think it’s horribly unfair and misleading, and I still wish they would add one of the other reviews we suggested. Some people who signed the petition have let me know that they still intend to close their accounts if Amazon doesn’t make more changes, and I understand their feelings. But what the petition was really demanding was fair and balanced treatment for the book, and on the whole I think we’ve come pretty close to that objective.

The Save the Memorial Oak Grove tree sit-in is about to complete its second month. Among the campaign’s environmental supporters, which include the Native Plant Society and the Oak Foundation, the Sierra Club is the most powerful if not the most active. 

Many Sierra Club members are probably unaware that their organization’s ties to the area around Memorial Stadium are deep and old—as old as the club itself. 

Within a football’s throw from the stadium, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several founders and early leaders of the Sierra Club built their homes. 

Of course, there was no stadium then. There was only the bucolic Strawberry Canyon with its waterfall, grasslands, and native oaks. 

Just around the corner from the stadium oak grove lived the eminent geologist Joseph Le Conte (1823–1901). His house, designed by the renowned Victorian architect Clinton Day, stood at 2739 Bancroft Way, current site of Boalt Hall School of Law. 

Professor Le Conte first visited Yosemite Valley in 1870 on a 5-week Sierra camping trip with ten of his students, members of the first class of the University of California. On that trip Le Conte met John Muir, then living in the Valley. 

Le Conte invited Muir to join the party. Muir later described their ten-day ramble as “a most glorious season of terrestrial grace.” Thus began a friendship that was to last until Le Conte’s death. Le Conte’s account of the 1870 trip, “Ramblings throughout the High Sierra” would serve as the inspiration for the Sierra Club’s High Trips. 

A charter member of the Sierra Club, Le Conte served on its board of directors from 1892 to 1898. He died in Yosemite Valley on the eve of the club’s first High Trip. As a tribute to his leadership, the Sierra Club built Le Conte Memorial Lodge (1904) in Yosemite Valley. Designed by Maybeck’s brother-in-law John White, the lodge is a National Historic Landmark. 

Professor Le Conte’s son, Joseph Nesbit Le Conte (1870–1950), known as “Little Joe,” was another Sierra Club charter member. A director from 1898 to 1940, he was the club’s second President, serving from 1915 to 1917—after John Muir and before William E. Colby. A professor of mechanical and hydraulic engineering, the younger Le Conte built in 1908 a brown-shingle house at 19 Hillside Court, designed by Julia Morgan. The house is now the Berkeley Bayit, a student center for cooperative Jewish living. 

The two Le Contes have been honored with various names in the Sierra Nevada. Mount Le Conte, over 13,900 feet in the Mount Whitney region, was named for the father in 1895. Le Conte Canyon south of Muir Pass and Le Conte Point above Hetch Hetchy are named after the son. 

A hop, skip, and jump from the Joseph N. Le Conte house is the William Colby house, another brown-shingle creation of Julia Morgan’s. Attorney William E. Colby (1875–1964) joined the Sierra Club in 1898 and served as its secretary from 1900 until 1946, taking two years off to assume the club’s presidency. In 1901, Colby initiated the club’s outings program and led the annual High Trips until 1929. 

In 1905, Colby built his house at 2901 Channing Way, on the corner of Warring Street. A City of Berkeley designated landmark, the house has recently fallen into the hands of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, which replaced the front garden with an elevated concrete “play yard” without permit review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. 

Just across the street from the Memorial Stadium site, at 9 Canyon Road, Julia Morgan built in 1908 a house for UC Economics professor Lincoln Hutchinson (1866–1940). Hutchinson’s attorney brother James (1867–1959) would settle at 14 Mosswood Road in 1935. Both brothers were Sierra Club stalwarts. James was a charter member, a director from 1903 to 1907, and twice editor of the Bulletin. He was elected honorary Vice President in 1958. 

In the early 1920s, the Hutchinson brothers gathered a group of friends for winter outings on skis or snowshoes, founding the Sierra Ski Club. Lincoln purchased property at Norden, near Donner Summit, where the club built a lodge. The architect was Walter H. Ratcliff, a member of the group. The lodge was constructed by the members themselves in the summers of 1924 and 1925. The Sierra Club named the lodge after the Hutchinsons. 

A little further up on Panoramic Hill, Sierra Club leaders Edward Taylor Parsons (1861–1914) and his wife Marion Randall Parsons (1878–1953) bought the country house of San Francisco physician Silas Mercer Mouser. Built in 1888, this gable-roofed, white clapboard farmhouse faced the bay and was surrounded by almond orchards. 

Parsons was one of the first salesmen for the Sherwin-Williams paint company. An avid mountaineer and photographer, he settled in San Francisco about 1900 and joined the Sierra Club the same year, assisting William Colby in establishing the club’s outings program. Parsons served as a director of the Sierra Club from 1904 until his death. In his eulogy of Parsons, John Muir recalled: 

In 1907 he married Marion Randall, as able and enthusiastic a mountaineer as himself, whom he first met on the Sierra Club Outing of 1903, and three years later, in 1910, established his first home high up on the Berkeley hills overlooking the Golden Gate… 

Parsons moved the Mouser house from 11 Mosswood Road to 21 Mosswood, overlooking Strawberry Canyon, and retained John Hudson Thomas to remodel it in the Arts and Crafts style. On the new site, the house was turned around so the previous façade now faced the rear. Thomas added interest to the new façade by placing a substantial bay window surmounted by a false pediment above the entrance door, which shelters beneath a copper-sheathed awning supported by heavy wooden brackets. The exterior was clad in redwood barn shakes. 

It was at the Parsons home that John Muir began transcribing his Alaska journals in November 1912. Marion assisted Muir with the manuscript of Travels in Alaska in his final months and edited it for publication after his death in 1914. 

Edward Parsons died the same year. Parsons Memorial Lodge in Tuolumne Meadows at Yosemite National Park was built in his memory, and Parsons Peak in the Cathedral Range was named after him. Marion Parsons became the first woman elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club and served in that capacity for 22 years, having a hand in the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. She was also an amateur painter. 

Following Edward’s death, Marion Parsons went on living at 21 Mosswood Road for another seven years. Her home continued to be a salon for leading nature enthusiasts and artists, where the Muir family, William Keith, Stephen Mather, William Colby, Ansel Adams, and others gathered. 

In 1921, Marion decided to build a new house on an adjacent double lot east of 21 Mosswood Road. Was she preparing to flee the stadium about to be built directly below her home? 

Designed by neighbor Walter T. Steilberg, the new house—also clad in redwood shingles—was sited away from the street and set in a rustic garden amidst seven mature Coast Live Oaks and a Sequoia gigantea, the latter planted by the Parsons. In this house, Marion Parsons continued to receive social gatherings—Ansel Adams is said to have played the piano here. 

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA). 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson. Walter T. Steilberg designed this house in 1921 for Sierra Club director and editor Marion Parsons.  

I am in love with old houses. When I get a chance to spend a few hours or a day in an older home that has been left unchanged over the decades, I’m really in something of a trance much of the time. 

There is something about the way things were done 80 years ago (the age of many of the houses I look at) that’s much more deliberate, thoughtful and honorable. The aesthetics were often quite humble and sometimes quite homely (no pun intended but the shoe does fit, don’t it). Nowhere is this more true and applicable than in the flooring used in these homes and particularly in the use of that most servile and courageous of floorings, linoleum. 

For the most part, people of today have no idea what linoleum is, although the word is used widely (and usually in misnomer to mean vinyl flooring). Vinyl sheet flooring has become so thoroughly the usurper and pretender to this throne that actual linoleum is nearly forgotten and what a tragedy this is. 

Linoleum is nearly 150 years old and was developed and patented near London by a Rubber manufacturer in 1860 named Frederick Walton. The process involved the use of linseed oil, pigments of various sorts, pine rosen and pine flour. 

The mixture is cooked into a mixture called linoleum cement, which is in turn mixed with more pulps and then spread on a canvas backing. One of the things that this process produces is a solid, homogenous material that will retain it’s appearance as it becomes worn through.  

One of the things that has always amazed me about linoleum is the fact that it will maintain its appearance for an incredibly long time if it receives even a smidge of care and a minimum of abuse. I’ve been in kitchens from 1925 that still had, what I am sure was, the original floor and these often still look pretty good. There is no way that we’re going to be able to say that about any vinyl flooring installed today, unless the house were sealed up and left unused. 

These old floors also commonly featured in-laid patterns, often of incredible complexity and detail. I’ve seen some where a field of circles were cut through and a contrasting color was spliced in and then another shape was cut through both (just to show off) and spiced again. Some pattern are quite deco and some are just simple and pretty. 

The most common in-lay is a border piece and, in the style of the time, they often mimic the living room oak floor by taking the border through a knot at the visible corners. Sometimes these end up being installed on funny angles as the knot works its way around a 45 degree corner. These little touches and hand-workmanship separate these floors from the ones of today by a huge margin in my opinion. They are truly works of fine craftsmanship, as valid as a piece of fine furniture or a well-knit scarf. 

Linoleum has a look and feel that, even from a distance, separates itself, head, shoulders and torso, from vinyl floors. They seems to me much more comparable to nice quality ceramic tile but have advantages over that material as well. Linoleum, due to it’s springy ductile nature, endures when houses shift, holds water when the sink overflows, resists cracking and also allows for high traffic by wearing through with little visible aberration. It’s also easier on the spine and the old aching feet. 

The installation of true linoleum requires the same sort of knowledge that is involved in vinyl and is best left to installers. That said, a hearty venturer who does not want to try to cove the material up to baseboard height can master this with some patience. The danger is that a couple of hundred dollars worth of the material may have to get thrown out if things don’t work out. 

Vinyl flooring on the other hand is made from a very thin layer of PVC, which is stretchy and easily torn or damaged, laid over either cellulose based backings or fiberglass reinforced backings. Vinyl has the potential to be printed in a wide range of interesting patterns but frankly, the industry has shown an amazing lack of imagination and an overall aesthetic torpor. 

What is it with the manufacturing industry in this country? It’s not so bad overseas but U.S. manufacturers must be afraid that someone’s going to call them sissy-boys if they put out something really good looking. Oh well. No matter. Vinyl is largely of such inferior quality to linoleum that it’s hardly worth the trip. It is somewhat less expensive at $1-$2 per square foot, (Linoleum is in the $4-$6 range), but installation makes up the larger portion of the cost on most jobs anyway and in the end, it’s unlikely to cost twice as much for the same kitchen floor to do Linoleum. 

I’ve seen so many torn vinyl floors over the years that I can no longer imagine bothering to recommend the stuff. Vinyl rigid flooring tiles are somewhat better but again, the styles of most leave me pretty bored so I question the value of bothering to install the stuff. 

Linoleum flooring, on the other hand is now beginning to appear in some other forms that make for interesting option when it comes to installation. Marmoleum, which is type of linoleum made by the Dutch company Forbo, is available on a solid backing that has a click together joint.  

This “floating floor” is easy to install and even easier on the back and feet than conventional installations. Marmoleum is a slightly non-traditional formulation and is attached to a jute backing. The Dutch are not, apparently, afraid of sissy-boys (and let them get married and everything) and produce great colors and patterns. Go Holland. 

By the way, many other types of floors including cork, bamboo and various hardwoods are becoming more and more commonly available with click-to-join planking that greatly speeds installation. The choices available to us are almost TOO much and you really have to start any project by getting very specific about what you want things to look and feel like. Think about how the space will be used and the needs of the occupants. As noted above, consider your back and your feet. Consider the effects of a dark floor on the luminosity of the space (will you be looking for sewing needles on a black floor?). This kind of thinking is how one arrives at a great design. 

I just have to share one last thing before I call it quits for this one, my friends because it gave me such a giggle. This quote from the Marmoleum Tile Installation instructions (it’s not tile!) on the Green Building Supply website; 

Take pride in your work and be Professional at all times. (I am NOT joking). 

Words to live by, eh? 

We gardeners learn (or try to) that our work is worth doing despite disheartening setbacks. It’s the sort of nasty life lesson that somehow doesn’t stop hurting just as badly the tenth or hundredth time as it did the first. Still, we go on.  

Some of us are looking sadly at our frostbitten tender plants this week. (Fellow mourners: Do not prune off the apparently dead bits! Wait until late spring, at least; green buds will appear where you least expect.)  

Sometimes we lose big: locusts and landslides are bad news, but the worst can come from our own species. Gardeners who work in public have told me scary stories of theft, vandalism, and plain ignorance that would break the flintiest heart. 

Most recent was an e-mail from Susan Schwartz to the other members of the Friends of Five Creeks. The Friends do the highest form of gardening: restoration of natural areas. They’re volunteers, too—now that’s serious halo material.  

Concerning a stretch of Cerrito Creek on the Richmond-Albany border, near its entry into the Bay, Susan wrote: 

This message is hard to write. On the north side of Cerrito Creek at Pacific East Mall, where hundreds of volunteers did thousands of hours of work restoring natives beginning in 2001, nearly all the native grasses and many, probably most low-growing plants on the bank below the path appear to have been killed by herbicide. Three oaks appear to be dying as well. 

My best guess is that this was a mistake by landscapers, who have long used herbicide to kill weeds on the path at the top of the bank. It follows a long series of insults to this restoration project, including repeated mowing that wiped out small native shrubs we had planted, and kept grass from setting seed. Despite repeated requests, the owners of Pacific East Mall have never agreed to create a written maintenance plan for this project, as required in their use permit.  

I apologize to all who spent so many hours, in all kinds of weather, transforming this creek bank from a fenced-off garbage-and-blackberry jungle to a burgeoning oak savanna, alive with wildflowers. 

Susan discovered the damage just before the holidays, and hypothesizes that the spraying, possibly of some pre-emergent weedkiller, happened in December. The damage has progressed since then. From what I saw, I wonder if some herbicide washed downhill toward the creek: a scary thought.  

“What’s saddest is that stretch had become pretty self-sustaining,” Susan said. “The one bright spot is that the Richmond city people have been very helpful, all along.” 

Despite the swath of death, we saw in a half-hour’s casual stroll a young red-shouldered hawk hunting lunch, a great egret, Anna’s hummingbirds, several black phoebes, and various warblers and sparrows; and monarch butterflies lured out by the warm day. Across the creek, young native plants still thrive.  

If you volunteered here, or just walked the trail, Susan asks that you email Joe Light in Richmond's Community Development department, and say what the place has meant to you:  

joe_light@ci.richmond.ca.us. Please also copy to f5creeks@aol.com. 

It Won’t Be So Bad 

Earthquakes are mostly just inconvenient, right? So let’s not worry too much. The really major ones happen elsewhere, except maybe for San Francisco in 1906. But that was a long time ago. 

I give talks to civic/business groups about earthquake preparedness, and I’ve actually had people comment that they did just fine in the Loma Prieta or Northridge quake, so they’re not really concerned. One man told me he figured there wasn’t much he could do anyway, so why bother. 

Really? Not much we can do? Remember that: 

• it is the retrofitted houses that have survived previous big quakes.  

• an automatic gas shut-off valve means your house is less likely to burn to the ground after a quake.  

• furniture and appliances that are secured won’t injure you or your family.  

• historically (think Katrina), we cannot count on having water, food, electricity, gas, or usable roads after a disaster like a big quake, so we should have our own emergency supplies.  

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

TUESDAY, JAN. 30 

CHILDREN 

Children’s Illustrator Elaine Chu introduces her new book “The Year of the Pig” for ages 3 and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Free. 524-3043. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Unveiling of a New Tapestry by Elisa Kelven at 3 p.m. in the Story Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Family concerts with Juan Sanchez at 2:15 and 3:15 p.m. 981-6224. 

“Looking for Hope: Paintings About Oakland by Daniel Camacho” Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, César Chávez Branch, 3301 East 12th St., Oakland. 535-5620. 

FILM 

Yoko Ono: Imagine Film “Bed-In” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Richard Schwarzenberger reads from “In Faro’s Garden” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Neal Pollack describes his role as “Alternadad” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Itzhak Perlman, violin with Janet Guggenheim, piano at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$88. 642-9988.  

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Teja Gerken and Vicki Genfan, acoustic guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Ellen Hoffman Trio and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Paula Morelenbaum at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Randy Craig Trio at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 31 

THEATER 

Word for Word “Strangers We Know” Wed.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $25-$33. 415-437-6775. www.zspace.org  

FILM 

History of Cinema: “Show People” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Maxine Hong Kingston in conversation with her husband, Earll Kingston, at 7 p.m. at College Prep School, Oakland. Tickets are $12.50-$15, students $5. www.college-prep.org/livetalk 

“Art and Violence” with Tim Clark, Tom Laqueur and Francine Masiello in conjunction with the exhibition “Paintings of Abu Ghraib” by Columbian artist Fernando Botero at 4 p.m. in the Morrison Library, Doe Library, UC Campus. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Mary Anderson Parks reads from her novel “They Call Me Bunny” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Jay Griffiths decribes “Wild: An Elemental Journey” at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with Jazz Trio at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Paco de Lucía, flamenco, jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Sontraud Speidel, piano, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15. 845-1350. 

Wild Wind at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Bandworks Recitals at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Body Tales” Improv movement performance at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Donatoin $5-$20. 532-1020. 

Savant Guard at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Paul Manousos at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Bill Kirchen, dieselbilly and truck-stop rock, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Paula Morelenbaum at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, FEB. 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

Michael Howerton “Portraits” opens at Chachie’s Coffee Shop, 1768 Broadway at 19th St., Oakland. Though Feb. 28. www. 

howertonphoto.blogspot.com 

“Used and Re-Used: decorative objects made from utilitarian materials” opens at the The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. through March 31. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

“The Children of Chaguitillo” Photographs by Harold Adler opens at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. and runs through March 31. 

“Fire in the Heart” Paintings by Foad Satterfield influenced by African art opens at the Community Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave., through March 2. 204-1667. 

“Love Dream” and other limited ed. prints by Richard Franklin (1961-1997) on display at Solano Fine Art Gallery: 1654 #B. Solano Ave. through Feb. 24. Gallery hours are 1-6 p.m. Wed.-Sun. 524-7009. 

“Environmental Surrealism” works by Guy Colwell and Michelle Waters at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland, through Feb. 23. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

“100 Families in Oakland: Art & Social Change” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through April 22. 238-2200. 

Paintings by Allan Reynolds at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 3rd flr., 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs through March. 817-5773. 

“Transforming Vision: The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter, 1970-2005” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through March 18. 238-2200. 

“Berkeley: 75 Years Ago” at the Berkeley History Center, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. Hours are Thurs.-Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. Exhibit runs through March. 848-0181.  

“Art of Living Black” at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond, and runs through March 16. 620-6772. www.richmondartcenter.org 

Oakland Art Association Juried Show at the MTC Offices, Bort MetroCenter, 3rd floor, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to March 30. 817-5773. 

FILM 

The Lubitsch Touch “I Don’t Want to Be a Man” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free first Thursday. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m.. lecture at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Lunch Poems with Dunya Mikhail at 12:10 p.m. in the Morrison Library, in the Doe Library, UC Campus. http://lunchpoems.berkeley.edu 

Robert Pinsky talks about the “Favorite Poem Project” at 7:30 p.m. at Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. Free tickets issued at 6 p.m. 

Jack Marshall, poet, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Stephen Klaidman decribes “Coronary: A True Story of Medicine Gone Awry” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Adina Sara reads from “100 Words Per Minute: Tales From Behind Law Office Doors” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Paco de Lucía, flamenco, jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Leslie Helpert “28 Teenage Angst” at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Donation $10, or a damn good joke/story. 544-2204. 

Shinehead with Reggae Angels and Razorblade, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands with Tom Rozum, Todd Phillips, Craig Smith and Scott Huffman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Randy Moore Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Laura Klein & Ted Wolff, piano and vibraphone, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

The Sweet Nothings, Jack Killed Jill, Vicious Denial at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Joe Cardillo at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Tourettes without Regrets at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. All ages. Cost is $8. 763-1146. g 

Pieces of a Dream at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, FEB. 2 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “True West” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through Feb. 17. Tickets are $12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse Rogers and Hammerstein’s “A Grand Night for Singing” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Feb. 17. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre Company “The Birthday Party” Wed. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through March 4. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Pillowman” at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through March 11. Tickets are $33-$61. 647-2949. 

Black Repertory Group “Wild Roots” at 8:30 p.m. and Sat. at 2:30 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $5-$25. 652-2120. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito., through March 3. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theatre “Cartoon” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, through March 10. Tickets are $10-$15. www.impacttheatre.com 

The Marsh “Shopping for God” Thurs.-Sat. at 7 p.m. at 2120 Allston Way, through March 3. Tickets are $15-$22. 1-800-838-5750. www.themarsh.org 

Masquers Playhouse “Arsenic and Old Lace” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., though Feb. 24, at 105 Park Playhouse, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The Tempest” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at The Metal Shop Theater, 2425 Stuart St., behind Willard Middle School. Runs through Feb. 17. Tickets are $15-$25. 800-838-3006. www.raggedwing.org 

Word for Word “Strangers We Know” through Sun. at 8 p.m. at 2640 College Ave, through Feb. 4. Tickets are $25-$33. 925-798-1300.  

EXHIBITIONS 

Michael Howerton “Portraits” Reception with the artist at 8 p.m. at Chachie’s Coffee Shop, 1768 Broadway at 19th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs though Feb. 28. www.howertonphoto. 

blogspot.com 

“Often Forgotten” New work by Derek Weisberg and Percy Fells. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at the Boontling Gallery, 4224 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 295-8811. 

Maya Kabat and David Seiler “New Works” opens with a reception at 6 p.m. at the Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave. at Broadway, Oakland, and runs through Feb. 28. 

Tony Bellaver “Interventions” Performance art from 1 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Donations accepted. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“Still I Rise” Recent art by Bryan Keith Thomas. Opening reception at 5:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. Runs through Feb. 26. 465-8928. 

“Piece of My Heart” Group show reception at 7 p.m. at Back Room Gallery eclectix at 7523 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito. 364-7261. 

FILM 

African Film Festival “The Night of Truth” at 7 p.m. and “U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Symposium at 1 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Mike Henderson “Art & Singing the Blues” a slide talk at 6:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St. Cost is $5-$10. 238-2200. 

Tim Wendel reads from his sports novel set in pre-revolutionary Cuba, “Castro’s Curveball” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

“UnPacking” Spoken word and dance performance by Marissa Saunders to benefit the Women's Cancer Resource Center at 8 p.m. at 2232 Martin Luther King, Oakland. Cost is $40-$50. unpackingmy@yahoo.com  

Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert on “Is It Hot in Here, Or Is It Me? The Complete Guide to Menopause” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Songs and Stories of the African American in the 21st Century with Rhodessa Jones at 8 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Free. 238-3842. 

Matt Rahaim, Hindustani vocal music, at noon at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Grupo Cacique y Kongo, Afro-Puerto Rican, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Kodo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Free Jazz Fridays with Simon Rose, saxophone, Kjell Nordeson, percussion, Damon Smith bass, at 8 p.m. at 1510 8th Street Performance Space, 1510 8th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$15.  

A Night of Voices at 9 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave. Oakland.  

Vicki Burns & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Slammin, all-body band, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Hal Stein, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Tin Hat, chamber folk ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Bill Bell Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Stuart Rosh and Miena Yoo at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Happy Clams, Pickin’ Trix, Dan Lange at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Dave Stein BubHub at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Pieces of a Dream at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 3 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Derique, the high-tech clown, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Street Portraiture” Photographs by Tom Stone Reception at 5 p.m. at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Feb. 28. 649-8111. 

FILM 

The Lubitsch Touch “One Hour with You” at 6:30 p.m., “The Merry Widow” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bay Area Poets Coalition 27th Annual Poetry Contest and open reading at 3 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, Dining Hall, 1320 Addison St. Please park on the street. 527-9905. 

African American Celebration through Poetry from 1 to 4 p.m. at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline St. Free. 238-7352. 

Ellis Avery introduces her debut novel, “The Teahouse Fire” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“UnPacking” Spoken word and dance performance by Marissa Saunders to benefit the Women’s Cancer Resource Center at 8 p.m. at 2232 Martin Luther King, Oakland. Cost is $25. unpackingmy@yahoo.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kodo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Birdmonster, Poor Bailey, Minipop, Cold Hard Crash at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. All ages. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Pellejo Seco, contemporary Cuban son, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Medicine Ball with Pee Wee Crayton at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Zydeco Flames at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Naomi Adiv at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

House Jacks, a capella, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Ben Stolorow Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Third Ave., hip hop, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

The Flux, Socket at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Pieces of a Dream at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, FEB. 4 

THEATER 

Black Repertory Group “The Trial” a gospel play at 7:30 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $10-$15. 652-2120. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

“Art from the 1960s” by Gayle Kaplan opens at 11 a.m. at Start Here Gallery, 2295 B San Pablo Ave., Entrance east of San Pablo on Bancroft. 707-937-3204. 

FILM 

The Lubitsch Touch “Rosita” at 2 p.m., “Design for Living” at 3:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Conversations on Art “The (Fabric)ation of Memory” intergenerational dialogue through the medium of textiles at 2 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $10-$12. 549-6950. 

Sandra Lim and Rebecca Black, poets, read at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

“Are You Good Enough to be Published?” Symposium at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kodo at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra “Six Seasons” at 3 p.m., with a 2:30 p.m. pre-concert talk, at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Free. 415-248-1640. 

Cheap Suit Serenaders, ragtime and jazz, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$35.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Berkeley High Jazz Combos at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Twang Cafe with Town Mountain and Jimbo Trout, Bluegrass and Old Time music at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.twangcafe.com 

Los Mapaches, Andean music, at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Kathy Zavada, singer/songwriter, at 6:30 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Cost is $15. 528-8844. 

Lakay, Rasi-n Banbou Band, Haitian, at 6:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Philips Marine Duo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

MONDAY, FEB. 5 

THEATER 

Shakespeare Intensive “A Midsummer Nights Dream” staged reading at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, Fireside Room, 1925 Cedar at Bonita. Other plays to be read each Mon. to Feb. 26. Cost is $5. 276-3871. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Revisions” Works by Amy Berk using Jewish ceremonial textiles on display at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St., through Aug. 5. 549-6950. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Paul Giganti will speak on “How a Book Goes from Idea to Hardbound” at 12:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, Edith Stone Room, 1247 Marin Ave. Bring your lunch. 526-3720. 

Monday Night Blues Lecture and performance held every Mon. night during Black History Month at 8 p.m. at Kimball’s Carnival, 522 Second St. Donation $5. 836-2227. 

Rafe Esquith and the Hobart Shakespeareans on “Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire” at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $5 in advance at Cody’s or $10 at the door. Benefits the Berkeley Public Education Foundation. 559-9500. 

Actors Reading Writers “Odd Couples” Stories by Russell Banks and Padgett Powell at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Free. 

David Smethurst reads from “Tripoli: The United States’ First War on Terror” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Poetry Express with Stephanie Manning and Erik Haber at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

Last Word Poetry Series with Julia Vinograd at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

S.F. Bluegrass & Old Time Festival with Lost Coast, Homespun Rowdy, and Diana Jones at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

“Hot Frittatas” international cafe music, at 6 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre , 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

El Cerrito High and Portola Middle School Jazz Bands at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com  

NEW TAPESTRY TO BE UNVEILED 

An unveiling of a new tapestry by Elisa Kelven will be held at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Story Room of the Berkeley Public Library, preceded and followed by family concerts with Juan Sanchez at 2:15 and 3:15 p.m. 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6224. 

A THOUSAND DECISIONS IN THE DARK 

Film critic David Thomson continues his film and discussion series examining the state of cinema toward the end of the 1950s with a screening of Some Like it Hot at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Pacific Film Archive. $4-$8. 2575 Bancroft Way. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. 

A DISCUSSION OF ART AND VIOLENCE 

Tim Clark, Tom Laqueur and Francine Masiello will discuss art and violence in conjunction with the ongoing exhibition of “Paintings of Abu Ghraib” by Colombian artist Fernando Botero at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the Morrison Library at the Doe Library on the UC Berkeley campus. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu. 

DANGEROUS DAMES AND DARK STREETS 

OK, so it’s not in the East Bay, but the fifth annual Noir City film noir festival, running through Sunday night at the Castro Theater, is more than worth the trip across the bay. The series screens double features every night for just $10, and often includes onstage interviews with actors and actresses from the heydey of the genre in the 1940s and ’50s, including Marsha Hunt and Richard Erdman.This week the festival will spotlight the work of Charles McGraw, Glenn Ford, Burt Lancaster, screenwriter Roy Huggins, cinematographer John Alton, and the queen of noir, Joan Crawford.  

429 Castro St., San Francisco. www.thecastrotheatre.com.

A rather involved tale of the appearance (and disappearance) of a boarder in a Parisian flat, a young woman from Marseille, studying acting ... but is she from Marseille? Or studying acting? Certainly she proves to be “enceinte”—and the effect of the ephemeral tenant on the family, narrated wistfully by Madame, especially after seeing her again, years later, for an instant in a commercial on TV, while the background of the 13ieme Arrondisement constantly changes as Asian immigrants move in ... 

Followed by an adult mother-and-daughter act, tooling around Ireland on vacation, bristling with old “issues,” as daughter Abby just waits for the chance to kiss the Blarney Stone as a boost for her forthcoming promotion from achievement test question writer to inspirational speaker. 

Such is the fare in store when Word for Word brings Strangers We Know to the Julia Morgan for one week, tomorrow night (Wed.) through Sun. afternoon, after a run at SF’s Magic Theater, with an adept cast simultaneously narrating and acting out “Mlle. Dias De Corta” by Canadian storyteller and elective Parisienne Mavis Gallant and “Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People” (Abby’s mother’s constant tag-line) by Lorrie Moore, author of Birds of America. 

Mavis Gallant’s wry tale is seen through the eyes of the lady of the house (Susan Harloe), addressing her long-lost boarder (Maria Candelaria, a would-be surrogate daughter?), the long, raconteurish storylines switching back and forth from past to present, the life of the neighborhood flowing in and out. 

It’s an engaging work, directed by Amy Kossow, though Word for Word’s eponymously literalistic approach doesn’t always match up to the resilient, almost hypnotic flow of the second-person narrative; their quick, indicative turns of family or neighborhood characters breaking into the flow to illustrate what’s been said can distract from the ambient sense of its telling, contradicting rather than fleshing out its charm. 

“Which Is More Than I Can Say ...” is almost a burlesque, a hapless familial takeoff of Buddy and Roadtrip adventures, Abby kvetching while her imperious mother takes the helm of what was originally a solo voyage, plying the rent-a-car wheel and bursting into song (Country-&-Western) as they brave the tourist life and the open road, beset by disapproving, guidebook-browsing sheep (Maria Candelaria in a funny routine) and cranky local folk, many with suspiciously pointed leprechaun ears (Joe Mullinex, who also directs, in a panoply of roles, subbing in some for Paul Finnochiaro). Comedic and a little picaresque (though Abby would quail over so testy a word), the story doesn’t have the sophistication or artfulness of Gallant’s raconte, but it works perfectly for Word for Word and their style, bringing out two splendid performances by Sheila Balter as indecisive Abby, and Patricia Silver as her seemingly flinty mother, who, as Abby comes to realize, has always acted so aggressively that she “never was courted before.” 

Word for Word’s been at it for 13 years now, and have developed a real following. These selections, with choreography by Andrea Weber, set and video design by David Szlasa (a nice arc of emerald green like a rainbow) delight those coming back for yet another story. 

STRANGERS WE KNOW 

Presented by Word for Word at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday at the Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. $25-$33. 

(415) 437-6775, www.zspace.org

TV news clips of a contrite James Frey being castigated by Oprah for adding fictional sins to his (until then) best-selling memoir “A Million Little Pieces,” reminded me of G. B. Shaw’s hilarious character “Rummy” in Major Barbara. (1905) Rummy is a regular at Salvation Army rallies, where he confesses long lists of imaginary sins, making good money in contributions for himself and for the charity. Probably our appetite for vicarious sin and redemption goes back even further than a century.  

So does our appetite for cheap escape. The latest in the formulaic romance genre is “chick-lit” for teenagers. Kaavya Viwanathan, a nineteen-year-old Harvard sophomore, must have decided that it was a waste of her intellect and time (I would agree) to invent incidents for such a formula, so she just cut and pasted bits from published chick-lit novels. Her wild success was quickly followed by disgrace. Since Ms. Viwanathan was smart enough to get into Harvard, one would assume she had heard of the term “plagiarism”—violation of copyright, theft. Or is she suicidal?  

It’s a relief to turn to the hoax recently devised by biographer Bevis Hillier, after his biography of poet John Betjeman was panned by A. N. Wilson. Knowing that Wilson was working on his own biography of Betjeman, Hillier took revenge. He faked a letter to Betjeman from Honor Tracy, “proving” that they had been lovers; then he sent it by devious means to Wilson, who swallowed it, and included the bogus love affair in his book. After other scholars called the letter an obvious phony, the chortling Hillier owned up. No disgrace here—rather, the exposure of the hoax becomes an act of one-up-man-ship, proof that the great A. N. Wilson isn’t so smart, after all. That kind of hoax, in that small world, might do little except cause a few scholarly giggles and complicate research for future graduate students. 

There were more raised eyebrows at the news that, in his new collection of “original” songs, Bob Dylan lifts whole verses from Civil War poet Henry Timrod. Since Timrod is not likely to complain, and Dylan has not violated any copyright law, this example of plagiarism—where there could have been a gracious acknowledgement—is just tacky. 

More troubling is the ease with which students now can and do plagiarize papers off the net. (I’m glad I left teaching before the age of the internet. I remember occasionally spotting a clumsily plagiarized paper and feeling that the student was spitting on me and my unending, underpaid hours of work for him.) Some students plead the ruthless Darwinian laws of academic survival. Do they really believe so deeply in the myth of the Almighty College Degree? Someone should remind them of the well-known Car Talk Brothers’ joke: 

Question—“What’s the first thing you’ll say after you get your PhD?” 

Answer— “Do you want mashed potatoes or fries?” 

Yet, it’s hard to blame students when teachers set a bad example, like the practice referred to in the NY Times as “the echoing textbooks.” It seems that the same concluding paragraph about 9/11, word for word, has turned up in several new history textbooks submitted for adoption by schools. Although textbooks are published under the names of one or two professors, dozens of anonymous academic peons do much of the research and writing. In such cases, it’s hard to say who has stolen what in order to offer an “up-to-date” text. The motive here has little to do with academic prestige; state adoptions of text books equals big money. 

Worse yet are the more personal violations, like a teacher stealing a student’s work. It never happened to me when I was a student—probably I never wrote anything that good—but a friend of mine has never forgotten the day she opened a scholarly journal to find a paper she had recently written for a graduate seminar, published under the professor’s name. I’m told this happens more frequently than we hear about—because students don’t know quite what to do about theft and betrayal by someone they may have to depend on for thesis approval and recommendations. 

Some “borrowing” hurts even more: the brazen, non-credited appropriation of the work of a long-time friend, in the service—supposedly—of shared ideals. I had a recent telephone call from a friend who needed to vent his feelings of betrayal. A well-known peace and justice leader, who also happened to be his friend of forty years, called to ask what he knew on one aspect of Middle East culture. My friend was just finishing a painstakingly researched article on this topic. He e-mailed his as-yet unpublished article, and waited for questions, feed-back. The whole article suddenly appeared on the peace and justice organization’s website, under the leader’s name. No request for permission, no credit, no mention of the author, who then telephoned to him to say, wait a minute, how come—? The plagiarist didn’t even bother to pretend a misunderstanding, though his tone was a bit squirmy as he mumbled something about web site technology (the computer did it? yeah). They haven’t been in touch lately. “The worst thing is, he knows I’m not going to make a fuss about it. He also knows he’s lost my trust, my friendship—and he just doesn’t care.” 

Probably the record for the longest career as hoaxer/plagiarist was Bruno Bettelheim’s forty years as The Authority on childhood psychosis. After Bettelheim’s death in 1990, his over-inflated reputation finally exploded into fraudulent pieces, the least of which was his plagiarized Freudian book on fairy tales. Julius Heuscher, the author from whom he lifted the most, only shrugged, “We all plagiarize. I plagiarize. Many times, I am not sure whether it came out of my own brain or if it came from somewhere else.” Heuscher was overgenerous—long verbatim passages from Heuscher’s book prove that Bettelheim knew exactly what he was doing. Nevertheless, Heuscher’s attitude may be sensible. It’s easier for writers to stay sane if we’re good at shrugging off most literary thefts that, like mosquitoes, suck a bit of our blood. (no, I’m not going to bore you with examples from my experience). 

The big guys seem to get away with the biggest cons. In the 1980s, Alex Hailey was sued for plagiarizing substantial parts of his blockbuster Roots from Margaret Walker’s 1966 Civil War novel Jubilee. Hailey settled out of court with Walker, and perhaps with others. It is said that he ran a writing factory—correction—a team of “student researchers” who combed books for material he could use. 

The fine line between research and plagiarism entered into a recent suit against another blockbuster, Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. Last April, the plaintiffs lost their case, much to the relief of historical novelists who feared being sued for “plagiarizing” historical sources they consult. But, as Joseph Finder pointed out in the NY Times, Brown is nevertheless a hoaxer, by virtue of the epigraph he printed at the beginning of the Da Vinci Code. “Fact: The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975 Paris’s Bibliothéque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.” 

What Brown’s statement of “Fact,” leaves out, according to Finder, are the true facts, well known to historians, that during the 1960s a Frenchman named Plantard planted these forged parchments in the Bibliothéque Nationale to support his own “wild tale about Jesus and his bloodlines.” Brown’s hoax doesn’t seem to bother anyone but people who find fantasies about ancient Vatican conspiracies a bit tiresome and beside the point.  

I lack the wit and the time to dream up a hoax that might embarrass nasty reviewers (though I have, once or twice, spent a few minutes planning their torture and slow death.) And I find it hard to understand what might tempt anyone to spend time plagiarizing someone else’s work. The possible rewards for this kind of theft—money, status, advancement—may be tempting, but hardly worth the risk. 

Or is the risk part of the reward? The classic con artist, the spy and the imposter enjoy a sense of power gained by deceit, by knowing more than, feeling superior to the people who are deceived. Like the gambler, the con artist knows that everything could suddenly be lost—money, reputation, even freedom—but that’s the thrill at the very heart of the game. There are a few con artists in every profession. Why should we expect writers—by definition inventors of tales—to be exempt? 

In any case, it seems that writers who get high on the risks of stealing other writers’ work would be well advised to find another addiction. Plagiarism, until now exposed mostly by accident, is instantly detectable by new software like iParadigms, invented by John Barrie. Barrie’s most recent coup was exposing the plagiarism of Ann Coulter, right-wing columnist and TV abuser of liberals. Today, many teachers, publishers, companies with “intellectual property” to protect use this software which instantly brings up matching phrases, passages, identifying the source. John Barrie promises to turn all of us writers into honest folk. Unless, like other creative con artists, plagiarists and hoaxsters manage to devise another scam. 

First, my apologies for the last column’s headline, which I suspect was a spell check-inflicted error. “Scooter” is one of the surf scoter’s many vernacular names, along with “skunkhead coot,” “blossom bill,” “tar-bucket,” and several that involve distasteful ethnic references. But officially, it’s “scoter.” 

Onwards. 

I’ve always been fascinated by evolutionary arms races. In his The Ancestor’s Tale Richard Dawkins makes the point that if you can see progress anywhere in evolution, it’s in these ongoing duels between predator and prey. Each, over time, gets better at attack or defense, or dies out. At a minimum, as Geerat Vermeij has argued, arms races have made the natural world a more complex place.  

Take just one example: the skin of the California newt is laced with tarichatoxin, nearly identical to the active ingredient in the notorious fugu fish—enough to kill a human-sized predator if swallowed (yes, it’s happened.) But some West Coast garter snakes have evolved a resistance to the toxin. The snakes aren’t totally immune—they do get sick; but they survive. This puts pressure on the newts to ratchet up their toxicity. And so on. 

Insects and other arthropods, though, are the true masters of chemical defense. I refer you to the work of pioneering chemical ecologist Thomas Eisner, especially his For the Love of Insects. Here you’ll meet millipedes that secrete tranquilizers, stick insects that protect themselves with the natural equivalent of mothballs, butterfly and moth larvae that sequester toxins from the plants they eat and render themselves unpalatable. 

For really baroque defensive systems, you can’t beat the beetles. Best known is the bombardier beetle, a staple of creationist literature. This insect responds to attackers by squirting scalding-hot fluid from its rear end. It stores hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide in large abdominal glands. Adding an enzyme triggers a chemical reaction that turns the hydroquinones into benzoquinones and frees oxygen, forcing the mixture out of the bombardier’s body. Creationists claim this is an irreducibly complex system which could not have arisen through evolutionary tinkering.  

But another chemically-armed beetle belies that claim. Stink beetles of the genus Eleodes, a variety of darkling beetle, are common in California and the Southwest. They’re shiny black creatures, flightless foragers for plant matter. When alarmed, they point their rear ends toward the sky. There’s a passage in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row in which Hazel, one of the Row’s derelicts, speculates to Doc, the Ed Ricketts character, about this behavior: “’I wonder why they got their asses up in the air for? … I think they’re praying,’ said Doc.” But no; the posture is preliminary to firing. 

The stink beetle’s weapons system is a simpler version of the bombardier’s. Instead of mixing chemicals in a reaction chamber to form benzoquinones, it stores them ready-made. Caprylic acid provides the stink. Eleodes is well-enough defended that unrelated (and unarmed) beetles have come to mimic its distinctive posture.  

At least one predator, though, has figured out how to circumvent the defense. When working in Arizona, Eisner kept finding stink beetle remains strewn about the desert. The wing covers appeared to have been chewed off, apparently by a rodent. Trapping identified the predator as the southern grasshopper mouse (Onychomys torridus.) That may seem like an incongruous notion, but this is no ordinary mouse. Grasshopper mice also prey on scorpions, and even other mice. And territorial males throw back their heads and howl, like miniature wolves. 

Eisner presented a captive grasshopper mouse with a stink beetle.  

Before the beetle could even assume its headstand, the rodent grabbed it with its front paws and jammed it butt-down into the soil of its enclosure. Holding the insect in place, it proceeded to eat it starting with the head. The tip of the abdomen, containing the chemical storage glands, was discarded. 

The next move, in an evolutionary sense, would appear to be up to the beetle. You have to wonder what the stink beetle and grasshopper mouse will come up with, if they have another few million years to work things out.  

Photograph: N. Ludman 

A stink beetle assumes its defensive posture.  

Joe Eaton is a former professional gardener and arborist. His “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column.

TUESDAY, JAN. 30 

Tuesday is for the Birds An early morning walk for birders through Bay Area parklands. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. This week we will visit Kennedy Grove. For meeting location or to borrow binoculars, call 525-2233.  

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. This month we’ll visit Sobrante Ridge Regional Park. From 10 a.m. to noon. To register call 525-2233.  

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

WriterCoach Connection seeks volunteers to help students improve their writing and thinking skills. Commit to 1-2 hours per week during the school day and work one-on-one with students in their English classes. Training from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. For information call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

“Extraordinary Rendition and International Law” with the screening of a short documentary at 6:30 p.m. at the Free Speech Movement Cafe at Moffitt Library, UC Campus.  

Exploring the Amazon in Southeastern Peru A slide presentation with Pepe Rojas-Moscoso at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Let It Snow Day at Habitot Children's Museum Make snow and conduct fun ice experiments from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. 

Building Success from the Inside Out with Nina Ham, career coach, at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512.  

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. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 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. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Donna Covey from Foundation for Osteoporosis Research and Education will talk to us about osteoporosis risks and prevention at 11 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 31  

Report from Chiapas with music, video and speakers at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donations of $5-$10 benefit Zapatista health care. 654-9587. 

“Environmental Policy and Planning: From Academia to Action” with Tim Duane at 1 p.m. at Wurster Hall, 315A, UC Campus. http://laep.ced.berkeley.edu/events/colloquium 

Bay Area Seed Interchange Library Information Meeting Learn how to promote local seed sharing at 6:30 p.m. at the at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. 

New to DVD “Scoop” at 7 p.m. at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Know Your Rights Training at 7 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Sponsored by Copwatch. 548-0425. 

Bayswater Book Club discusses “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, El Cerrito. 433-2911. 

Pacific Boychoir Academy Winter Auditions for boys ages 5-9 at 4 p.m. at 410 Alcatraz, Oakland. 652-4722.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704.  

THURSDAY, FEB. 1 

Palestinian-Americans Mona & David Halaby will share stories and photos, as well as updates about facts on the ground from their recent trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank at 7 p.m. at La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $10-$20 benefits the Middle East Children's Alliance. 548-0542. www.mecaforpeace.org 

Tim Wise: Anti-Racism Activist and Author will speak at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Tickets are $5-$10 available from 1-800-838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/9397 

“I Cried, You Didn’t Listen” Readings and discussion of Dwight Abbott’s life in the California Youth Authority system at 7 p.m. at AK Press, 674-A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700.  

“Adventures in Wild California” a program for older adults at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Class for Family Members of Mentally-Ill Relatives begins at 6:45 p.m. in Albany, and runs Thurs. nights for 12 weeks. For information or to register, please call NAMI-East Bay at 524-1250.  

WriterCoach Connection seeks volunteers to help students improve their writing and thinking skills. Commit to 1-2 hours per week during the school day and work one-on-one with students in their English classes. Training from noon to 3 p.m. 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

Family Story Time for children ages 3-7 at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6107. 

Storytime for Babies and Toddlers at 10:30 a.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

FRIDAY, FEB. 2 

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 

“Why We Fight” Eugene Jareki’s documentary on American militarism at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Informal discussion follows. 482-1062. 

Discover Wild Mushrooms with biologist Debbie Viess at 7:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St. Followed by field trip on Sat. from 10 a.m. to noon. To regsiter call 238-6641. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Unit 4 Dorms, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com (code UCB) 

Financial Health Checkup with Josephine White at 11 a.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 981-5190. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, FEB. 3 

“New Era/New Politics” A walking tour of Oakland which highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7-12 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Dress to get dirty! Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

French Broom Removal Help remove this invasive plant which has been displacing native plants in Redwood Park. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at Skyline Gate staging area, 8500 Skyline Blvd. Oakland. 925-756-0195. 

“Bug of the Month Club” Explore the bizarre and fascinating world of insects, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. or 12:30 to 2 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church Office, 1255 First Avenue, Oakland. Cost is $20. Call for reservations 581-3739. 

Sick Plant Clinic Dr. Robert Raabe, plant pathologist, and Dr. Nick Mills, entomologist, will diagnose plant illnesses and recommend remedies. Bring a piece of the plant in a securely sealed container. A zipperlock bag is ideal. From 9 a.m. to noon at Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755. 

Bookmaking with Recycled Materials from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. Registration required. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Benefit Drag Show to benefit Vital Life Services, an HIV/AIDS organization at 6 p.m. at the Bench and Bar Club, 2111 Franklin St. Cost is $10. 655-3435. 

Introductory Workshop in Projective Dream Work from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Suggested donation $45. 528-3417.  

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

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, FEB. 4 

“A Coca Farmer President and Gas Nationalization?” A slide show and Andean music and a report back on a recent delegation to Bolivia at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 415-924-3227. 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cancelled only by heavy rain. 525-2233.  

French Broom Removal Help remove this invasive plant which has been displacing native plants in Tilden Park. Meet at 1:30 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Hiking Club Explores the Santa Fe Right of Way This 4-mile hike begins at 9 a.m. For information on how to join, please call 524-4715. 

Combatants for Peace Israeli and Palestinian combatants who have forsaken violence in order to promote peace will speak at noon at Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. Sponsored by Brit Tzedek V'Shalom. 524-1993.  

“Taking Heart in Tough Times” A workshop with Joanna Macy from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists 1924 Cedar St. Cost is $25-$100 sliding scale, includes lunch. For reservations call 841-4003. 

Spring Pruning 101 Learn how prune perennials, shrubs and roses at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 

“The Spirituality of Deep Democracy” with Tim Weitzel at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 535-0302, ext. 306.  

Holistic Pet Health A free consultation from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. For information call 525-6255. 

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 

Tu B'Shvat Seder Jewish Holiday of the Trees, benefitting Rabbis for Human Rights, at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley JCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10. For reservations call 415-789-7685. 

MONDAY, FEB. 5  

“Restoring America’s Estuaries: Winning Battles But…,” with Friends of Five Creeks president Susan Schwartz at 7 p.m. at the Edith Stone Room, Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany. 848-9358. www.fivecreeks.org 

“Steelhead (Ocean-Going Trout) in East Bay Creeks” Andy Gunther, ecosystems expert, will talk about the life cycle of steelhead trout, and the technical and political challenges of restoring these fish to streams in the Bay Area, at 7:30 p.m. at Montclair Presbyterian Church, 5701 Thornhill Rd., Oakland. 655-6658.  

Cancer Prevention and Survival Cooking Course Meets for eight Mon. from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Keller WIlliams, 4341 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 652-8885. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at MLK Student Union, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com (code UCB) 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

ONGOING 

Berkeley Winter Campaign for Cats We are providing free trapping assistance and spay/neuter to feral and homeless cats in Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville and Piedmont, through March 2007. The cats will be spayed/neutered, vaccinated, treated for fleas and returned safely back to their neighborhoods. To report a neighborhood in need or to volunteer, please contact Caitlin at 908-0709. 

Albany Berkeley Girls Softball League Open to girls in grades 1-9. Spring season begins March 3. To register call 869-4277. www.abgsl.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Jan. 30, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed., Jan. 31, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Jan. 31, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Wed. Jan. 31, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 1, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/landmarks 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 1, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/environmentaladvisory 

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 1 , at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks

FRIDAY, JAN. 26 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “True West” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through Feb. 17. Tickets are $12. 649-5999.  

Altarena Playhouse Rogers and Hammerstein’s “A Grand Night for Singing” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Feb. 17. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553.  

Azeem’s “Rude Boy” at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way and runs Thurs.-Sat. through Jan. 27. Tickets are $15-$22. 800-838-3006. 

Berkeley Rep “The Pillowman” at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through March 11. Tickets are $33-$61. 647-2949. 

Black Repertory Group “Wild Roots” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through Feb. 4. 652-2120. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito., through March 3. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132.  

Masquers Playhouse “Arsenic and Old Lace” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., though Feb. 24, at 105 Park Playhouse, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The Tempest” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at The Metal Shop Theater, 2425 Stuart St., behind Willard Middle School. Runs through Feb. 17. Tickets are $15-$25. 800-838-3006.  

Rough and Tumble “43 Plays for 43 Presidents” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Eucid Ave. through Jan. 27. Tickets are $15-$20. 499-0356.  

Shotgun Players “The Forest War” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., extended through Jan 28. Sliding scale $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

ProArts Juried Annual, selections by Berin Golonu, opens at 550 Second St., Oakland. 763-9425. www.proartsgallery.org 

Tony Bellaver “Interventions” Performance art from 1 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Donations accepted. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“Health Through Art” opens at Addison Street Windows Gallery, 2018 Addison St. 981-7533. 

FILM 

“Little Birds” A film by Takeharu Watai on the daily lives of Iraqi people following the launch of the US-led war, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Presented by the Arab Film Festival. www.aff.org 

The Lubitsch Touch “The Wildcat” at 7 p.m. and “The Smiling Lieutenant” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Christopher Bollas, psychoanalyst and author at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Calvin Trillin reads from “About Alice” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Arts Festival Jerry Kuderna, piano with Nora Martin, soprano, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. Caost is $10. 665-9496. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Country Joe McDonald in a Tribute to Woody Guthrie at 7:30 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $30-$45. 843-0662. 

Trisha Brown Dance Company at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$46. 642-9988.  

The Four Bags at 8 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15. 845-1350. 

Dance Braided Lives A collaboration between artists, poets, dancers and musicians at 7 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Donation $10-$50. 843-2787. 

Terrain “WinterDances 2007” Sat. and Sun. at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 Eighth St. 848-4878. 

Indian Classical Music and Dance at 8 p.m. at Yoga Kula, 1700 Shattuck Ave. at Virginia. Cost is $10 at the door. 

Rumbaché, salsa, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Bobbe Norris/Larry Dunlap Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Sambada, Antioquia, Afro-Brazilian-Funk at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Meli Rivera at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Stephen Bennett, guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Dave Bernstein Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Noah Grant and Fred Odell at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

The Family Arsenal, Bye Bye Blackbirds, The Light Footwork at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Gravy Train, Groovie Ghoulies, Ninja Academy at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

The P-PL at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Martin Luther, Anthony David at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159.  

Socket at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Look, The May Fire, Excuses for Skipping, indie rock, at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

The Clash in Oaktown at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. All ages. 763-1146.  

Kenny Garrett with Bobby Hutcherson though Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$66. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, JAN. 27 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Maria Fernanda Acuña & Melissa Rivera at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Diana Shmiana’s Puppets and Music at 11 a.m. at Studio Grow, 1235 10th St., at Gilman. Cost is $7. 526-9888. 

FILM 

The Lubitsch Touch “The Marriage Circle” at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm & Muse “Poetry Inside Out” with Yesenia Isabel Canada, Mehrnush Golriz, Alex Rowland, others at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose. 644-6893.  

Vesta Kirby will discuss her works in “New Beginnings” at 2:30 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. Exhibition runs to Feb. 644-4930. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Concertante with Terrence Wilson, piano, at 7:30 p.m. at Regents Theater, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $35-$40. www.fourseasonsconcerts.com 

Trisha Brown Dance Company at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$46. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Winds Across Russia” at 7 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Richmond, 770 Sonoma St., at Solano Ave., Richmond. Tickets are $10. 243-0514. 

Donne di Mezzi “A Due Voci” 17th and early 18th century duets for matched voices at 8 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Church, 2005 Berryman St. Donation $5-$10. 

TomKat Roher, Mike Glendinning, The Trencherman at the Missouri Lounge, 2600 San Pablo Ave. Free. 548-2080. 

The Mixers at 9 p.m. at The Pub at Baltic Square, 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. Cost is $5. www.balticsquarepub.com  

Lo Cura! at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Lava Nights, AIDS Marathon Benefit at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Mo’ Rockin! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Baba Ken & The Afro-Groove Connexion with KTO Project at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Evelie Posch and Eileen Hazel at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Lou & Peter Berryman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

“Shimshai” Kirtan Devotional Music Series at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Tickets are $16-$18. 843-2787. 

Smith Dobson V Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Jeremy Steinkoler Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

George Cotsirilos Jazz Group at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Dirty Martinis at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Nate Cooper & Mario Desio, folk and rock, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

The Ravines at 8 p.m. at Sea Mi, 856 San Pablo Ave. Albany. 

Tempest, Caliban at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $12. 841-2082.  

Beep! Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

30 Foot Tall, Fleshies, Abi Yo Yo’s at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Kenny Garrett with Bobby Hutcherson though Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$66. 238-9200.  

SUNDAY, JAN. 28 

CHILDREN 

Family Explorations “Musical Masterpieces” A special Black History day with jazz musicians, and the opportunity to paint to live music. From 1 to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Winter Time at the Little Farm” A puppet show for the whole family at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Family Workshop and Concert with Odile Lavault of the Baguette Quartette, for ages 10 and up, at 2 p.m. at Black Pine Circle Theater, 2017 Seventh St. at University. Followed by a concert at 4 p.m. For information and tickets call 528-3723. 

THEATER 

The Chris Chandler & David Roe Show with singing CIA Agent George Shrub at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $18-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

365 Days/365 Plays Week 11 at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Rep School of Theater, Nevo Education Center, 2071 Addision St.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

FILM 

African Film Festival “A Child’s Love Story” at 3:30 p.m. and “New Visions from Africa” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Kathryn Alice reads from “Love Will Find You: Magnets to Bring You and Your Soulmate Together” at 6 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Kurt Hackbarth will read from his poetry of Oaxaca, Mexico in “Man With Luggage” at 5 p.m. at Nomad Café, 6500 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. 595-5344. 

Sonia Gaemi discusses “Eating Wisely for Hormonal Balance” at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Poetry Flash with Paul Hover reading from “Edge and Fold” and Dawn Michelle Baude reading from “Egypt” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Symphonica Toscanini with Lorin Maazel conducting, at 3 p..m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$76. 642-9988. 

Prometheus Symphony Orchestra Winter Concert at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. Free, donations requested. www.prometheussymphony.org 

Live Oak Concert with Lawrence London, clarinet, Victor Romasevich, violin, Lena Lubotsky, piano, and the Jupiter String Quartet, performing works by Mozart, Brahms, Iosif Andriasov at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893. berkeleyartcenter.org 

Country Joe McDonald in a Tribute to Woody Guthrie at 7:30 p.m. at Café de la  

paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $30-$45. 843-0662. 

Bill Evans String Summit with Scott Nygaard, Tashina Clarridge, Tristan Clarridge, Michael Witcher and Cindy Browne at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Kitka & Trio Kavkasia “Songs from Beyond the Black Sea” at 5 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland. TIckets are $20-$25. 444-0323. www.kitka.org 

The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show with Singing CIA Agent George Shrub and satirist Dave Lippman at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568.  

Brazilian Soul at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

“ViolinJazz” Quartet at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Bandworks Recitals at 1 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Wee at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

MONDAY, JAN. 29 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Paintings of Abu Ghraib” by Columbian artist Fernando Botero opens with a conversation with the artist at 4 p.m. in the Chevron Auditorium, International House. Exhibition opens at 6 p.m. at 190 Doe Library, UC Campus, and runs through March 23. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Street Portraiture” Photographs by Tom Stone opens at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St. and runs through Feb. 28. 649-8111. 

THEATER 

Shakespeare Intensive “A Winter’s Tale” staged reading at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, Fireside Room, 1925 Cedar at Bonita. Other plays to be read each Mon. to Feb. 26. Cost is $5. 276-3871. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Page to Stage A conversation with Tony Amendola and Les Waters at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Free. 647-2949. 

Ann Sherman and Ryan Newton at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Kim Todd reads from “Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Stephen Hinshaw discusses “The Mark of Shame: Stigma of Mental Illness and an Agenda for Change” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express with Arthur Weil at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Yolanda Rhodes, soprano and Ric Louchard, piano, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. 

Classical at the Freight with San Francisco Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 7:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Sony Holland at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$15. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, JAN. 30 

CHILDREN 

Children’s Illustrator Elaine Chu introduces her new book “The Year of the Pig” for ages 3 and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Free. 524-3043. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Unveiling of a New Tapestry by Elisa Kelven at 3 p.m. in the Story Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Family concerts with Juan Sanchez at 2:15 and 3:15 p.m. 981-6224. 

“Looking for Hope: Paintings About Oakland by Daniel Camacho” Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, César Chávez Branch, 3301 East 12th St., Oakland. 535-5620. 

FILM 

Yoko Ono: Imagine Film “Bed-In” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Richard Schwarzenberger reads from “In Faro’s Garden” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Neal Pollack describes his role as “Alternadad” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Itzhak Perlman, violin with Janet Guggenheim, piano at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$88. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Teja Gerken and Vicki Genfan, acoustic guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Paula Morelenbaum at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Randy Craig Trio at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 31 

THEATER 

Word for Word “Strangers We Know” Wed.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $25-$33. 415-437-6775. www.zspace.org  

FILM 

History of Cinema: “Show People” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Maxine Hong Kingston in conversation with her husband, Earll Kingston, at 7 p.m. at College Prep School, Oakland. Tickets are $12.50-$15, students $5. www.college-prep.org/livetalk 

“Art and Violence” with Tim Clark, Tom Laqueur and Francine Masiello in conjunction with the exhibition “Paintings of Abu Ghraib” by Columbian artist Fernando Botero at 4 p.m. in the Morrison Library, Doe Library, UC Campus. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Mary Anderson Parks reads from her novel “They Call Me Bunny” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Jay Griffiths decribes “Wild: An Elemental Journey” at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with Jazz Trio at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Paco de Lucía, flamenco, jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Sontraud Speidel, piano, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15. 845-1350. 

Wild Wind at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Bandworks Recitals at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Body Tales” Improv movement performance at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Donatoin $5-$20. 532-1020. 

Savant Guard at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Paul Manousos at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Bill Kirchen, dieselbilly and truck-stop rock, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Paula Morelenbaum at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, FEB. 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

Michael Howerton “Portraits” opens at Chachie’s Coffee Shop, 1768 Broadway at 19th St., Oakland. Though Feb. 28. www. 

howertonphoto.blogspot.com 

“Used and Re-Used: decorative objects made from utilitarian materials” opens at the The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. through March 31. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

“The Children of Chaguitillo” Photographs by Harold Adler opens at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. and runs through March 31. 

“Fire in the Heart” Paintings by Foad Satterfield influenced by African art opens at the Community Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave., through March 2. 204-1667. 

“Environmental Surrealism” works by Guy Colwell and Michelle Waters at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland, through Feb. 23. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

“100 Families in Oakland: Art & Social Change” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through April 22. 238-2200. 

Paintings by Allan Reynolds at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 3rd flr., 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs through March. 817-5773. 

“Transforming Vision: The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter, 1970-2005” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through March 18. 238-2200. 

“Berkeley: 75 Years Ago” at the Berkeley History Center, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. Hours are Thurs.-Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. Exhibit runs through March. 848-0181.  

“Art of Living Black” at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond, and runs through March 16. 620-6772. www.richmondartcenter.org 

Oakland Art Association Juried Show at the MTC Offices, Bort MetroCenter, 3rd floor, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to March 30. 817-5773. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with Dunya Mikhail at 12:10 p.m. in the Morrison Library, in the Doe Library, UC Campus. http://lunchpoems.berkeley.edu 

Robert Pinsky talks about the “Favorite Poem Project” at 7:30 p.m. at Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. Free tickets issued at 6 p.m. 

Jack Marshall, poet, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Stephen Klaidman decribes “Coronary: A True Story of Medicine Gone Awry” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Adina Sara reads from “100 Words Per Minute: Tales From Behind Law Office Doors” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Paco de Lucía, flamenco, jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Leslie Helpert “28 Teenage Angst” at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Donation $10, or a damn good joke/story. 544-2204. 

Shinehead with Reggae Angels and Razorblade, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands with Tom Rozum, Todd Phillips, Craig Smith and Scott Huffman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Randy Moore Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Laura Klein & Ted Wolff, piano and vibraphone, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

The Sweet Nothings, Jack Killed Jill, Vicious Denial at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Joe Cardillo at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Tourettes without Regrets at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. All ages. Cost is $8. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Pieces of a Dream at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

IRAQI LIFE IN A TIME OF WAR 

The Arab Film Festival will present a screening of Little Birds, a film by director Takeharu Watai about the daily lives of Iraqi people following the launch of the war in 2003, at 7 p.m. Friday at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. For more information, see www.aff.org. 

‘THE LUBITSCH TOUCH’ AT PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 

Pacific Film Archive continues its Ernst Lubitsch retrospective with Saturday screenings of two of his best. The 1924 silent film The Marriage Circle, at 6:30 p.m., will feature piano accompaniment by Judith Rosenberg. And Greta Garbo stars in the 1939 Cold War classic Ninotchka at 8:30 p.m. $4 for PFA members and UC students; $8 for non-members. 2575 Bancroft Way. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. 

OPENING RECEPTION AND EXHIBIT 

“Paintings of Abu Ghraib,” an exhibit by Columbian artist Fernando Botero, opens with a conversation with the artist at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 29 in the Chevron Auditorium at International House on the UC campus. The exhibit will run through March 23 at UC Berkeley’s Doe Library beginning at 6 p.m. Monday. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu. 

HITCHCOCK CLASSICS IN EL CERRITO 

The Cerrito Theater continues its series of Alfred Hitchcock classics with Psycho (1960), starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. The film shows at 9:45 p.m. Friday night and will continue next week with more late-night screenings. For more information, see www.picturepubpizza.com.

An anxious detainee faces two cops in traditional configuration, tough and charming, for questioning in a bureaucratically, old-fashioned high-ceiling office—where? Everything seems timeless, and foreboding. But of what? The police seem sure, as usual; the suspect puzzled. 

That’s about when the fix—or un-fix—of Pillowman, Martin McDonagh’s acclaimed play now at the Berkeley Rep, sets in. Something like an irridescent fabulousness glows, if sometimes luridly, from the told and retold modules of the questions, hesitant responses, stories and situations that follow, rendering the often intense black humor of its London-raised (and streetwise) Irish writer paradoxically light as a feather—though telling, in the sense of what’s underscored. 

Later, after final curtain, when asked on the street what was playing at the Rep, and telling the questioner it was a comedy about fairytale-like stories that lead to the horrible deaths of children brought a slow, puzzled look. A glib synopsis, but true—and the audience laughed, and stood up at the end.  

Koturian K. Koturian is, in fact, not just a suspect, but a storyteller, a writer since childhood—though only one story has been published (“The Town on the Other Side of the River,” which Koturian reads aloud to the detective), in a magazine titled Libertat, that for a fleeting moment (there are many fleeting moments in Pillowman, but all will return to be rehearsed) seems to be the problem: political? Code? It seems to reference “The Pied Piper.” 

Koturian remarks, “It’s the children the Pied Piper was after; in my opinion, he brought the rats. He knew the townspeople wouldn’t pay him.” But no, it’s something else. (So much for lit. crit.) Koturian hears his brother scream from another room, his “spastic brother,” as the tough cop put it. Why is either of them involved? Children have disappeared. Koturian’s Kafkaesque tales have, as repetitive incident, the detective repeats, the brutal fate of children (which the audience might associate with Grimms’ Fairy Tales). Children in the town have disappeared, some later found, killed monstrously. Is Koturian responsible—or has someone re-enacted his stories in the most horrible details, of which the officers offer awful evidence? 

MacDonagh’s super-lucid, deliciously tangled tale is shaggier-than-thou, yet gets woolier, to explosions of laughter, especially at the strangest, hoariest points. There are double reverses that switch back a hundred-and-eighty degrees again. Every bit of territory is gone over at least twice, often in arch pantomimes of comportment, similar to the time-killing games in Beckett’s plays and novels. (Another McDonagh play carries, as title, the obsessive line from Lucky’s Waiting for Godot speech: The Skull in Connemara, but whatever borrowing there may be--and both tell of the appalling urge to tell tales—each detail is recast in a different tone, a very genial and hair-raising raconteur’s voice.) 

Koturian’s stories are enacted on a stage on stage, behind a scrim, one (just as wild as the others) apparently autobiographical, concerning his happy childhood, and the torture of his brother by his parents. Another is of a young girl who imitates Christ, down to wearing sandals and a beard—and her evil foster parents who put her through her icon’s passion. Even the cops begin to tell Koturian stories, whether of their own life or imaginative, but to give a world view (”I think the world is shit. That wouldn’t be a world view, though, would it?”) Contradictions, threats, confessions, the reassurances and seeming betrayals of his “special” brother--the intermittent awareness that none of what’s avowed might be true ... 

The strange, half-lulling, half-jolting tone is original to McDonagh’s piece, bringing a few vague hints of, yes, Kafka, or of the bittersweet plays and narratives of Beckett’s friend, Robert Pinget. Yet the only other full-length play of relatively recent date that’s been as original in memory (after six years of reviewing) is the Iranian Death of Yazgird that Darvag played at the Shotgun Lab a couple years back. And Pillowman, if anything, creates its own dramaturgy as it goes along, relentlessly justifying itself as its constituent parts are retold and changed. Antonin Artaud, the poet of modern theater, discussed the origin of Western drama: “In Aeschylus, Man is very evil [”mal” in French—which also means sick], but like a little god on stage ... then comes Euripides, and the juices flow; the floodgates are open—and we just can’t say, don’t exactly know where we are.” This was not a play done to spec in workshops; it follows in the tradition of those who have made an impulse of moment histrionic, and shown it with due immediacy to the community, to others at large. 

This is a breezy parable with a powerful undertow, about a “mere” storyteller and what it takes to insure the survival of his stories—and what is lost instead along the way. All involved deserve praise, from Les Waters’ firm but flexible direction, to the principals: Erik Lochtefeld (both Everyman and banally personable) as Koturian, Matthew Maher (offbeat and hypnotic) as his brother Michal, Tony Amendola (alternating sharp and almost wistful ) and a terrier-like Andy Murray as the cops—and the players in the story tableaux, victims or survivors: Nancy Carlin and Howard Swain, and young Brigette Lundy-Paine, Madeline Silverman, Brendan Reilly and Gabriel Vergez. 

Antje Ellerman’s set, Russell H. Champa’s lights, Anna R. Oliver’s costumes and Obadiah Eaves’ sound and music were all commendable, each adding to the total effect of Pillowman, something you can’t—or don’t want to—put your finger on. 

Pillowman 

The Berkeley Rep 

through Feb. 25, 8 p.m. 

Tickets $33-$61 

647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org 

Contributed photo  

Tony Amendola, Andy Murray and Erik Lochtefeld perform in The Pillowman.

Pulitzer and MacArthur prizewinner Suzan-Lori Parks’ ongoing national dramatic marathon, 365 Days/365 Plays, for which Parks wrote a play a day for a year, is in its 11th week in the Bay Area theater round-robin, to be staged Sunday by 23 acting students of the Berkeley Rep’s theater school. 

Mary Beth Cavanaugh of the Rep’s school spoke with enthusiasm about the rapid process whereby seven directing students each received the script for one of the week’s plays with two weeks to consider the mostly one-page texts and develop ideas for staging, then had one three-hour rehearsal with a technical rehearsal slated the morning of performance. 

“And that’s all they get, unless they want to rehearse on their own time,” she said. “I helped in casting, mostly advanced acting students, non-Equity, but with experience. It’s a low, low-tech performance, with some sound cues and basic lighting, a few different looks. Some of the plays are five minutes, some 20; there were no time limits in developing the scripts. Half of the directing students are, or were, performers. Most are traditional theater directors, but one—who took a one-page script and with pages and pages of notes is staging it over 20 minutes—is a film director; another has a background in movement theater, choreography and performance art, and performed at New York’s La Mama lab theater.” 

The film director Mike Rose is filming his first feature this summer. He’s also acting in it, having studied and performed in the Bay Area. Of his piece, #2 “The Wagon,” Rose said, “The script’s just dialogue. Everything else is left open, giving the director an infinite number of ways to proceed, a tremendous amount of creative freedom. I drew on my background as a writer--short stories and poetry, besides film scripts—and used my imagination to create my own story around the dialogue, developing the characters, situations ... The two main actors were fellow students in acting classes. I guess we could’ve used another day, but we’ll have time for a brush-up after tech. The proof’s in the pudding: if the play goes well, then I can say the rehearsals were good! I was unfamiliar with Parks; I think this’s been an excellent choice by the school. The plays are very short but complete in themselves.” 

Neither Cavanaugh nor Rose saw a thread running through the plays, but Erica Blue, directing “apocalyptic” #7, “The Arrival of the End,” with her background in movement and in dealing with one-page plays before, noted that some of the plays “aren’t about relationships, or humanity, but more metaphysical. The characters are delving into something deeper, unspoken, to get to something they can’t explain. Something metaphysical.” But she agreed with Rose in that the plays have “a huge range, with a lot of room for the director to interpret.” Blue also was unfamiliar with Parks’ work. 

Blue said her approach is “minimal, slow moving—all there’s time for! It’s interesting to learn at a professional theater, where there’s such fast turnover and short rehearsal time, though not usually like this! There’re only six lines to the script. [Student and Bay Area performer] Dan Carbone’s in the show, who usually does 40 straight minutes of text. I have singer Aurora Josephson and bassist Damon Smith participating, too. I have no idea what the other directors are doing--though Mike may know what I’m doing, after the sound being so loud in the lobby! I lent him the wagon for his play, the one my kid rides in. It’s been a great experience. I can’t wait to see what everybody else comes up with—and what mine looks like, too!” 

Week 11 of 365 Days/365 Plays will be performed at the Berkeley Repertory’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., 3 p.m. Sunday (Jan. 28). Admission is pay-what-you-will. For information, call 647-2972 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.

Every few weeks a group of about 60 film lovers gather at 9:30 on a Sunday morning in the lobby of the Albany Twin on Solano Avenue, to sip hot beverages while waiting in anticipation for the day’s mystery movie. It’s a small room and it fills up quickly with people and chatter and the aromas of coffee and tea and bagels. Enthusiastic as the crowd may be, they’re in no hurry to enter the theater; it’s a Sunday morning, after all, and much too early to move at anything but a leisurely pace. So by the time 10 a.m. rolls around they almost have to be cajoled and herded into the theater.  

The group is called Talk Cinema, a movie club with screenings and discussions led by UC Berkeley film lecturer Marilyn Fabe. The series takes place roughly once a month, with Fabe hosting a preview of an as-yet-unreleased film. Once Fabe manages to persuade the gathered throng that it’s time to get started, and after they have scattered throughout the auditorium to their preferred seats, she lets them in on the secret, finally revealing the name of the film they are about to see along with some background information on the production.  

After the closing credits roll and the lights come up, everyone takes a quick break and then gathers toward the front of the theater for a recap of the previous meeting’s film in the form of a reading of selected audience comment cards. Then they’ll delve headlong into what often becomes a wide-ranging discussion on the vices and virtues of the current film. 

Arriving for the Nov. 12 screening of The Painted Veil, it seemed as though I may have arrived a couple of weeks too late. The previous screening, on Oct. 29, had been Borat, the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy that would soon generate rave reviews along with a great deal of controversy. The film had sparked a particularly lively discussion with the Talk Cinema group. The Painted Veil, by contrast, didn’t seem to hold as much promise; a period piece about love and marriage in the time of cholera, on the surface, just didn’t seem capable of sparking as much debate as a guerilla comedy about a bigoted journalist from Kazakhstan traversing the United States in search of Pamela Anderson.  

But once the group settled back into their seats an enlightening discussion ensued.  

Reaction to the film was mixed. Some loved it and some hated it, with the rest of us landing at various points between. The result was a discussion that brought both the film’s virtues and failures to light, granting a better appreciation and understanding if not a better liking for the picture.  

Talk Cinema members bring a wide range of knowledge and interest to these discussions. One man was very knowledgeable on Chinese history and provided a brief summary of the circumstances surrounding the cholera epidemic that provides the movie’s backdrop; several other participants shared their intimate knowledge of the works of W. Somerset Maugham, from whose novel the film is adapted; another member shared insights from his background in anthropology, casting doubt on the Chinese burial practices depicted in the film; and another woman offered a thoughtful comparison between the new film and the 1934 version starring Greta Garbo.  

“That’s what I’m trading on,” says Fabe, “all the wonderful, knowledgeable people of Berkeley with their diverse areas of expertise. It’s wonderful to do this sort of thing in a place like this.” 

Which is not to say this is a stuffy intellectual group; far from it. These are movie lovers first and foremost. Participants readily admitted their biases, some confessing to an intense dislike for Maugham, others a strong affection. Some were quite taken with the romance of the film, others not so much. Some found the transformation of Naomi Watts’ character compelling while others found it unconvincing. And while some found the background tale of politics and imperialism to be a complex and fascinating milieu, others thought the use of geopolitical struggles as a metaphor for a couple’s evolving relationship a trite device at best. 

Yet all opinions were respected and taken seriously. This is not an academic environment; it is more like a book club.  

“People are hungry for this kind of interaction,” says Fabe. “So many people come up to me and say ‘You know, I’ll go out to see a movie with my friends and afterwards they won’t have a thing to say about it. We just go out to dinner and talk about other things as though the movie never happened.’ ” 

Talk Cinema was founded by film critic Harlan Jacobson 15 years ago as an attempt to replicate the experience of attending a film festival. Jacobson himself attends festivals around the country and hand-picks films for the series. A few years ago Talk Cinema started a chapter at the Aquarius Theater in Palo Alto and hired Fabe as host and moderator. A couple of years later she persuaded the company to start a Berkeley chapter, allowing Fabe to avoid the commute to the peninsula and simply “roll out of bed and onto Solano Avenue to the Twin” on Sunday mornings.  

While the audience doesn’t know what they’re going to see, Fabe really does her homework, viewing the films in advance whenever possible and doing copious research into each film’s history, reading reviews, interviews and production notes so that she can start off each discussion on solid footing.  

“If you told them what the film was going to be, they might not come, and they’d miss out on a wonderful experience,” Fabe says, citing the example of The Woodsman from a previous season. “They’d say, ‘I don’t want to see a movie about a child molester!’ and they wouldn’t show up and they’d miss out. People always say to me, ‘If I had known what it was I wouldn’t have come, but I’m glad I did.’ ”  

The Berkeley chapter apparently differs from other chapters in its preferences. The Painted Veil, for instance, did very well with other chapters, but Fabe’s group didn’t take to it quite as readily.  

“They don’t like all that Masterpiece Theater kind of stuff,” she says. “They want something a little edgier.”  

According to the Talk Cinema blog, 40 percent of Berkeley members rated The Painted Veil as “excellent” on comment cards submitted after the show, and another 40 percent described it as “good” for an overall positive rating of 80 percent. This compares with Boston and Dallas with positive ratings of 96 and 97 percent. When asked if they would recommend the film, only 65 percent of the Berkeley crowd said yes, compared with other cities in the series that recommended the film at rates of anywhere between 80 percent and 98 percent. 

Comment card remarks ranged from grouchy to enthusiastic to silly. “Watching depressed people for two hours is unpleasant no matter how beautiful the scenery,” remarked one. “Illuminated what mature love consists of and how it comes to fruition,” wrote a second. “A celibate Edward Norton, what a waste!” bemoaned a third. A Dallas participant, quoted on the company’s blog, used a pun to register her displeasure: “A regular Maugham & Pop tragedy.” 

The Berkeley series has steadily added patrons, but it’s a for-profit business and will likely need to find a consistent audience of more than 100 if it is to survive beyond this season. If the season is a success, Talk Cinema will return to Berkeley for another season in September. The largest chapter, in Philadelphia, regularly seats 400.  

Patrons pay $149 for the 10-film season, but the cost is pro-rated for subscriptions taken out after the season has begun. Day of show admissions are also available for $20 per person. 

TALK CINEMA 

10 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 28 at the Albany Twin, 1115 Solano Ave., Albany. Doors open at 9:30 a.m. Later screenings in the series take place Feb. 11, Feb. 25, March 11, April 22 and May 6. 

To register, send check or money order to Talk Cinema PO Box 686 Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 or call (800) 551-9221 to subscribe by phone. For more information, see www.talkcinema.com.

The Save the Memorial Oak Grove tree sit-in is about to complete its second month. Among the campaign’s environmental supporters, which include the Native Plant Society and the Oak Foundation, the Sierra Club is the most powerful if not the most active. 

Many Sierra Club members are probably unaware that their organization’s ties to the area around Memorial Stadium are deep and old—as old as the club itself. 

Within a football’s throw from the stadium, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several founders and early leaders of the Sierra Club built their homes. 

Of course, there was no stadium then. There was only the bucolic Strawberry Canyon with its waterfall, grasslands, and native oaks. 

Just around the corner from the stadium oak grove lived the eminent geologist Joseph Le Conte (1823–1901). His house, designed by the renowned Victorian architect Clinton Day, stood at 2739 Bancroft Way, current site of Boalt Hall School of Law. 

Professor Le Conte first visited Yosemite Valley in 1870 on a 5-week Sierra camping trip with ten of his students, members of the first class of the University of California. On that trip Le Conte met John Muir, then living in the Valley. 

Le Conte invited Muir to join the party. Muir later described their ten-day ramble as “a most glorious season of terrestrial grace.” Thus began a friendship that was to last until Le Conte’s death. Le Conte’s account of the 1870 trip, “Ramblings throughout the High Sierra” would serve as the inspiration for the Sierra Club’s High Trips. 

A charter member of the Sierra Club, Le Conte served on its board of directors from 1892 to 1898. He died in Yosemite Valley on the eve of the club’s first High Trip. As a tribute to his leadership, the Sierra Club built Le Conte Memorial Lodge (1904) in Yosemite Valley. Designed by Maybeck’s brother-in-law John White, the lodge is a National Historic Landmark. 

Professor Le Conte’s son, Joseph Nesbit Le Conte (1870–1950), known as “Little Joe,” was another Sierra Club charter member. A director from 1898 to 1940, he was the club’s second President, serving from 1915 to 1917—after John Muir and before William E. Colby. A professor of mechanical and hydraulic engineering, the younger Le Conte built in 1908 a brown-shingle house at 19 Hillside Court, designed by Julia Morgan. The house is now the Berkeley Bayit, a student center for cooperative Jewish living. 

The two Le Contes have been honored with various names in the Sierra Nevada. Mount Le Conte, over 13,900 feet in the Mount Whitney region, was named for the father in 1895. Le Conte Canyon south of Muir Pass and Le Conte Point above Hetch Hetchy are named after the son. 

A hop, skip, and jump from the Joseph N. Le Conte house is the William Colby house, another brown-shingle creation of Julia Morgan’s. Attorney William E. Colby (1875–1964) joined the Sierra Club in 1898 and served as its secretary from 1900 until 1946, taking two years off to assume the club’s presidency. In 1901, Colby initiated the club’s outings program and led the annual High Trips until 1929. 

In 1905, Colby built his house at 2901 Channing Way, on the corner of Warring Street. A City of Berkeley designated landmark, the house has recently fallen into the hands of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, which replaced the front garden with an elevated concrete “play yard” without permit review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. 

Just across the street from the Memorial Stadium site, at 9 Canyon Road, Julia Morgan built in 1908 a house for UC Economics professor Lincoln Hutchinson (1866–1940). Hutchinson’s attorney brother James (1867–1959) would settle at 14 Mosswood Road in 1935. Both brothers were Sierra Club stalwarts. James was a charter member, a director from 1903 to 1907, and twice editor of the Bulletin. He was elected honorary Vice President in 1958. 

In the early 1920s, the Hutchinson brothers gathered a group of friends for winter outings on skis or snowshoes, founding the Sierra Ski Club. Lincoln purchased property at Norden, near Donner Summit, where the club built a lodge. The architect was Walter H. Ratcliff, a member of the group. The lodge was constructed by the members themselves in the summers of 1924 and 1925. The Sierra Club named the lodge after the Hutchinsons. 

A little further up on Panoramic Hill, Sierra Club leaders Edward Taylor Parsons (1861–1914) and his wife Marion Randall Parsons (1878–1953) bought the country house of San Francisco physician Silas Mercer Mouser. Built in 1888, this gable-roofed, white clapboard farmhouse faced the bay and was surrounded by almond orchards. 

Parsons was one of the first salesmen for the Sherwin-Williams paint company. An avid mountaineer and photographer, he settled in San Francisco about 1900 and joined the Sierra Club the same year, assisting William Colby in establishing the club’s outings program. Parsons served as a director of the Sierra Club from 1904 until his death. In his eulogy of Parsons, John Muir recalled: 

In 1907 he married Marion Randall, as able and enthusiastic a mountaineer as himself, whom he first met on the Sierra Club Outing of 1903, and three years later, in 1910, established his first home high up on the Berkeley hills overlooking the Golden Gate… 

Parsons moved the Mouser house from 11 Mosswood Road to 21 Mosswood, overlooking Strawberry Canyon, and retained John Hudson Thomas to remodel it in the Arts and Crafts style. On the new site, the house was turned around so the previous façade now faced the rear. Thomas added interest to the new façade by placing a substantial bay window surmounted by a false pediment above the entrance door, which shelters beneath a copper-sheathed awning supported by heavy wooden brackets. The exterior was clad in redwood barn shakes. 

It was at the Parsons home that John Muir began transcribing his Alaska journals in November 1912. Marion assisted Muir with the manuscript of Travels in Alaska in his final months and edited it for publication after his death in 1914. 

Edward Parsons died the same year. Parsons Memorial Lodge in Tuolumne Meadows at Yosemite National Park was built in his memory, and Parsons Peak in the Cathedral Range was named after him. Marion Parsons became the first woman elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club and served in that capacity for 22 years, having a hand in the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. She was also an amateur painter. 

Following Edward’s death, Marion Parsons went on living at 21 Mosswood Road for another seven years. Her home continued to be a salon for leading nature enthusiasts and artists, where the Muir family, William Keith, Stephen Mather, William Colby, Ansel Adams, and others gathered. 

In 1921, Marion decided to build a new house on an adjacent double lot east of 21 Mosswood Road. Was she preparing to flee the stadium about to be built directly below her home? 

Designed by neighbor Walter T. Steilberg, the new house—also clad in redwood shingles—was sited away from the street and set in a rustic garden amidst seven mature Coast Live Oaks and a Sequoia gigantea, the latter planted by the Parsons. In this house, Marion Parsons continued to receive social gatherings—Ansel Adams is said to have played the piano here. 

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA). 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson. Walter T. Steilberg designed this house in 1921 for Sierra Club director and editor Marion Parsons.  

I am in love with old houses. When I get a chance to spend a few hours or a day in an older home that has been left unchanged over the decades, I’m really in something of a trance much of the time. 

There is something about the way things were done 80 years ago (the age of many of the houses I look at) that’s much more deliberate, thoughtful and honorable. The aesthetics were often quite humble and sometimes quite homely (no pun intended but the shoe does fit, don’t it). Nowhere is this more true and applicable than in the flooring used in these homes and particularly in the use of that most servile and courageous of floorings, linoleum. 

For the most part, people of today have no idea what linoleum is, although the word is used widely (and usually in misnomer to mean vinyl flooring). Vinyl sheet flooring has become so thoroughly the usurper and pretender to this throne that actual linoleum is nearly forgotten and what a tragedy this is. 

Linoleum is nearly 150 years old and was developed and patented near London by a Rubber manufacturer in 1860 named Frederick Walton. The process involved the use of linseed oil, pigments of various sorts, pine rosen and pine flour. 

The mixture is cooked into a mixture called linoleum cement, which is in turn mixed with more pulps and then spread on a canvas backing. One of the things that this process produces is a solid, homogenous material that will retain it’s appearance as it becomes worn through.  

One of the things that has always amazed me about linoleum is the fact that it will maintain its appearance for an incredibly long time if it receives even a smidge of care and a minimum of abuse. I’ve been in kitchens from 1925 that still had, what I am sure was, the original floor and these often still look pretty good. There is no way that we’re going to be able to say that about any vinyl flooring installed today, unless the house were sealed up and left unused. 

These old floors also commonly featured in-laid patterns, often of incredible complexity and detail. I’ve seen some where a field of circles were cut through and a contrasting color was spliced in and then another shape was cut through both (just to show off) and spiced again. Some pattern are quite deco and some are just simple and pretty. 

The most common in-lay is a border piece and, in the style of the time, they often mimic the living room oak floor by taking the border through a knot at the visible corners. Sometimes these end up being installed on funny angles as the knot works its way around a 45 degree corner. These little touches and hand-workmanship separate these floors from the ones of today by a huge margin in my opinion. They are truly works of fine craftsmanship, as valid as a piece of fine furniture or a well-knit scarf. 

Linoleum has a look and feel that, even from a distance, separates itself, head, shoulders and torso, from vinyl floors. They seems to me much more comparable to nice quality ceramic tile but have advantages over that material as well. Linoleum, due to it’s springy ductile nature, endures when houses shift, holds water when the sink overflows, resists cracking and also allows for high traffic by wearing through with little visible aberration. It’s also easier on the spine and the old aching feet. 

The installation of true linoleum requires the same sort of knowledge that is involved in vinyl and is best left to installers. That said, a hearty venturer who does not want to try to cove the material up to baseboard height can master this with some patience. The danger is that a couple of hundred dollars worth of the material may have to get thrown out if things don’t work out. 

Vinyl flooring on the other hand is made from a very thin layer of PVC, which is stretchy and easily torn or damaged, laid over either cellulose based backings or fiberglass reinforced backings. Vinyl has the potential to be printed in a wide range of interesting patterns but frankly, the industry has shown an amazing lack of imagination and an overall aesthetic torpor. 

What is it with the manufacturing industry in this country? It’s not so bad overseas but U.S. manufacturers must be afraid that someone’s going to call them sissy-boys if they put out something really good looking. Oh well. No matter. Vinyl is largely of such inferior quality to linoleum that it’s hardly worth the trip. It is somewhat less expensive at $1-$2 per square foot, (Linoleum is in the $4-$6 range), but installation makes up the larger portion of the cost on most jobs anyway and in the end, it’s unlikely to cost twice as much for the same kitchen floor to do Linoleum. 

I’ve seen so many torn vinyl floors over the years that I can no longer imagine bothering to recommend the stuff. Vinyl rigid flooring tiles are somewhat better but again, the styles of most leave me pretty bored so I question the value of bothering to install the stuff. 

Linoleum flooring, on the other hand is now beginning to appear in some other forms that make for interesting option when it comes to installation. Marmoleum, which is type of linoleum made by the Dutch company Forbo, is available on a solid backing that has a click together joint.  

This “floating floor” is easy to install and even easier on the back and feet than conventional installations. Marmoleum is a slightly non-traditional formulation and is attached to a jute backing. The Dutch are not, apparently, afraid of sissy-boys (and let them get married and everything) and produce great colors and patterns. Go Holland. 

By the way, many other types of floors including cork, bamboo and various hardwoods are becoming more and more commonly available with click-to-join planking that greatly speeds installation. The choices available to us are almost TOO much and you really have to start any project by getting very specific about what you want things to look and feel like. Think about how the space will be used and the needs of the occupants. As noted above, consider your back and your feet. Consider the effects of a dark floor on the luminosity of the space (will you be looking for sewing needles on a black floor?). This kind of thinking is how one arrives at a great design. 

I just have to share one last thing before I call it quits for this one, my friends because it gave me such a giggle. This quote from the Marmoleum Tile Installation instructions (it’s not tile!) on the Green Building Supply website; 

Take pride in your work and be Professional at all times. (I am NOT joking). 

Words to live by, eh? 

We gardeners learn (or try to) that our work is worth doing despite disheartening setbacks. It’s the sort of nasty life lesson that somehow doesn’t stop hurting just as badly the tenth or hundredth time as it did the first. Still, we go on.  

Some of us are looking sadly at our frostbitten tender plants this week. (Fellow mourners: Do not prune off the apparently dead bits! Wait until late spring, at least; green buds will appear where you least expect.)  

Sometimes we lose big: locusts and landslides are bad news, but the worst can come from our own species. Gardeners who work in public have told me scary stories of theft, vandalism, and plain ignorance that would break the flintiest heart. 

Most recent was an e-mail from Susan Schwartz to the other members of the Friends of Five Creeks. The Friends do the highest form of gardening: restoration of natural areas. They’re volunteers, too—now that’s serious halo material.  

Concerning a stretch of Cerrito Creek on the Richmond-Albany border, near its entry into the Bay, Susan wrote: 

This message is hard to write. On the north side of Cerrito Creek at Pacific East Mall, where hundreds of volunteers did thousands of hours of work restoring natives beginning in 2001, nearly all the native grasses and many, probably most low-growing plants on the bank below the path appear to have been killed by herbicide. Three oaks appear to be dying as well. 

My best guess is that this was a mistake by landscapers, who have long used herbicide to kill weeds on the path at the top of the bank. It follows a long series of insults to this restoration project, including repeated mowing that wiped out small native shrubs we had planted, and kept grass from setting seed. Despite repeated requests, the owners of Pacific East Mall have never agreed to create a written maintenance plan for this project, as required in their use permit.  

I apologize to all who spent so many hours, in all kinds of weather, transforming this creek bank from a fenced-off garbage-and-blackberry jungle to a burgeoning oak savanna, alive with wildflowers. 

Susan discovered the damage just before the holidays, and hypothesizes that the spraying, possibly of some pre-emergent weedkiller, happened in December. The damage has progressed since then. From what I saw, I wonder if some herbicide washed downhill toward the creek: a scary thought.  

“What’s saddest is that stretch had become pretty self-sustaining,” Susan said. “The one bright spot is that the Richmond city people have been very helpful, all along.” 

Despite the swath of death, we saw in a half-hour’s casual stroll a young red-shouldered hawk hunting lunch, a great egret, Anna’s hummingbirds, several black phoebes, and various warblers and sparrows; and monarch butterflies lured out by the warm day. Across the creek, young native plants still thrive.  

If you volunteered here, or just walked the trail, Susan asks that you email Joe Light in Richmond's Community Development department, and say what the place has meant to you:  

joe_light@ci.richmond.ca.us. Please also copy to f5creeks@aol.com. 

It Won’t Be So Bad 

Earthquakes are mostly just inconvenient, right? So let’s not worry too much. The really major ones happen elsewhere, except maybe for San Francisco in 1906. But that was a long time ago. 

I give talks to civic/business groups about earthquake preparedness, and I’ve actually had people comment that they did just fine in the Loma Prieta or Northridge quake, so they’re not really concerned. One man told me he figured there wasn’t much he could do anyway, so why bother. 

Really? Not much we can do? Remember that: 

• it is the retrofitted houses that have survived previous big quakes.  

• an automatic gas shut-off valve means your house is less likely to burn to the ground after a quake.  

• furniture and appliances that are secured won’t injure you or your family.  

• historically (think Katrina), we cannot count on having water, food, electricity, gas, or usable roads after a disaster like a big quake, so we should have our own emergency supplies.  

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

FRIDAY, JAN. 26 

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 

“Prospects for Peace: The Role of the American Jewish Community” with Marcia Freedman at 8 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave. at Fairview, Piedmont. 547-2424 ext. 100.  

“Little Birds” A film by Takeharu Watai on the daily lives of Iraqi people following the launch of the US-led war, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Presented by the Arab Film Festival. www.aff.org 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at MLK Student Union, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com (code UCB) 

“An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore’s documentary at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation of $5 acccepted. www.HumanistHall.net 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Milton Gordon on “Weapon Control and the Second Amendment” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925.  

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 8 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito. Potluck supper at 7 p.m. 528-4253.  

“Reading Repetition in Biblical Narrative” with Robert Alter at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St. 848-3988. 

Kol Hadash Family Pot Luck Shabbat at 6 p.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., followed by Installation Celebration for Rabbi Miriam Jerris. 428-1492. 

SATURDAY, JAN. 27 

Worm Composting Learn how to enrich your garden soil while reducing kitchen waste, from 10:30 to noon at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Help Friends of Five Creeks Volunteers needed to remove invasives and plant natives on Cerrito Creek at the foot of Albany Hill. Meet at 10 a.m. at Creekside Park, south end of Santa Clara St., El Cerrito, just north of Albany Hill. Wear clothes that can get dirty and shoes with good traction. Heavy rain cancels. 848 9358. www.fivecreeks.org 

“Blooming Perennials and Shrubs for the Winter Season” at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave., off 7th St. 644-2351. 

“The Ins & Outs of Cacti and Succulents” from 10 a.m. to noon at the UC Botnaical Garden. Cost is $20-$25. Registration required. 643-7265. 

Latino Education Summit with a conference from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and resource fair from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m at CSU East Bay, Hayward Campus. Free, but registration encouraged. 536-4477. 

Freedom of Speech Dance Party in support of National Radio Project and journalists Sarah Olson and Dahr Jamail at 7:30 p.m. at Uptown Body and Fender Community Space, 401 26th St., Oakland. Cost is $10. 251-1332, ext. 102. 

Marketing for Artists Boot Camp from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru St., Alameda. Cost is $75-$80. 523-6957. 

Copwatch Stretegy and Structure Meeting from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Computer & Electronics Recycling from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200.  

East Bay Atheists meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd flr., 2090 Kittredge St. Emma Krasov will speak on “Religious Consciousness in the Authoritarian Society of the Former Soviet Union and Thereafter.” 222-7580. 

“Make Marriage Work“ A conversation with Dr. John Gottman, sponsored by the Psychotherapy Institute, from 9 a.m. to noon at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St. For tickets call 548-2250. 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

Petite Pooches Playgroup for small dogs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., one block north of Solano on Ensenada at Talbot. 524-2459. 

“The Challenge of Translating the Bible” with Robert Alter at 10:30 am. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St. 848-3988. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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, JAN. 28 

Help Plan People’s Park’s 38th Anniversary Meet at 4 p.m. at Cafe Med on Telegraph. Your input and help is needed. 658-9178. 

“Winter Time at Little Farm” A puppet show for the whole family at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cancelled only by heavy rain. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Winter Wildlife Hike Join naturalist Tara Reinertson to look for winter birds and explore the pebble beaches and salt marshes of Pt. Pinole, from 2 to 4 p.m. For information and meeting place call 525-2233. 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, the landmark designed by Julia Morgan, at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Free, donations welcome. For information or group reservations call 848-7800. 

United Nations Association East Bay Chapter Annual Meeting at 2 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, 1924 Cedar St. Keynote speaker will be David Seaborg on “The Global Environmental Crisis and the Role of the U.N.” 

“Bloodlines: Recovering Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws From Patton’s Trophy to Public Memorial” with Anthony M. Platt at 10:15 a.m. at Temple Beth Hillel, 801 Park Central, Richmond. Cost is $5. 223-2560.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Bob Byrne on “Longchenpa: Writings on the Magic of Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JAN. 29 

Parent Education Workshop Learn how to keep your children safe with self protection, self esteem and bullying prevention skills at 7 p.m. at Jingle Jamboree Music, 1607 Solano Ave., Albany. Cost is $30. 1-800-467-6997. 

TUESDAY, JAN. 30 

Tuesday is for the Birds An early morning walk for birders through Bay Area parklands. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. This week we will visit Kennedy Grove. For meeting location or to borrow binoculars, call 525-2233.  

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. This month we’ll visit Sobrante Ridge Regional Park. From 10 a.m. to noon. To register call 525-2233.  

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

WriterCoach Connection seeks volunteers to help students improve their writing and thinking skills. Training from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. For information call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

“Extraordinary Rendition and International Law” with the screening of a short documentary at 6:30 p.m. at the Free Speech Movement Cafe at Moffitt Library, UC Campus.  

Exploring the Amazon in Southeastern Peru A slide presentation with Pepe Rojas-Moscoso at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Let It Snow Day at Habitot Children’s Museum Make snow and conduct fun ice experiments from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. 

Building Success from the Inside Out with Nina Ham, career coach, at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512.  

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. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 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. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Donna Covey from Foundation for Osteoporosis Research and Education will talk to us about osteoporosis risks and prevention at 11 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 31  

Report from Chiapas with music, video and speakers at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donations of $5-$10 benefit Zapatista health care. 654-9587. 

“Environmental Policy and Planning: From Academia to Action” with Tim Duane at 1 p.m. at Wurster Hall, 315A, UC Campus. http://laep.ced.berkeley.edu/events/colloquium 

Bay Area Seed Interchange Library Information Meeting Learn how to promote local seed sharing at 6:30 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. 

New to DVD “Scoop” at 7 p.m. at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Know Your Rights Training at 7 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Sponsored by Copwatch. 548-0425. 

Bayswater Book Club discusses “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, El Cerrito. 433-2911. 

Pacific Boychoir Academy Winter Auditions for boys ages 5-9 at 4 p.m. at 410 Alcatraz, Oakland. 652-4722.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

THURSDAY, FEB. 1 

Palestinian-Americans Mona & David Halaby will share stories and photos, as well as updates about facts on the ground from their recent trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank at 7 p.m. at La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $10-$20 benefits the Middle East Children’s Alliance. 548-0542. www.mecaforpeace.org 

Tim Wise: Anti-Racism Activist and Author will speak at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Tickets are $5-$10 available from 1-800-838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/9397 

“I Cried, You DIdn’t Listen” Readings and discussion of Dwight Abbott’s life in the California Youth Authority system at 7 p.m. at AK Press, 674-A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

“Adventures in Wild California” a program for older adults at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Class for Family Members of mentally-Ill Relatives begins at 6:45 p.m. in Albany, and runs Thurs. nights for 12 weeks. For information or to register, please call NAMI-East Bay at 524-1250.  

WriterCoach Connection seeks volunteers to help students improve their writing and thinking skills. Commit to 1-2 hours per week during the school day and work one-on-one with students in their English classes. Training from noon to 3 p.m. 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

Family Story Time for children ages 3-7 at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6107. 

Storytime for Babies and Toddlers at 10:30 a.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

ONGOING 

Berkeley Winter Campaign for Cats We are providing free trapping assistance and spay/neuter to feral and homeless cats in Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville and Piedmont, through March 2007. The cats will be spayed/neutered, vaccinated, treated for fleas and returned safely back to their neighborhoods. To report a neighborhood in need or to volunteer, please contact Caitlin at 908-0709. 

Volunteer at Emerson Elementary School by committing to at least 1 hour per week to work one-on-one with a Kindergarten-5th child or help in a classroom. 883-5247.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Zero Waste Commission Mon., Jan. 29, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. 981-6368.  

City Council meets Tues., Jan. 30, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed., Jan. 31, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Jan. 31, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Wed. Jan. 31, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.