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New Berkeley High football coach Alonzo Carter talks to his team for the first time Wednesday. Photograph by Mark Coplan.
New Berkeley High football coach Alonzo Carter talks to his team for the first time Wednesday. Photograph by Mark Coplan.
 

News

Carter Named New BHS Football Coach

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 02, 2007

Alonzo Carter was named as the new Head Coach for Berkeley High’s football program on Wednesday. 

The selection process, begun in December 2006, drew over a dozen candidates. Seven applicants were interviewed by a panel of seven, including student Jovan Williams (a senior at BHS), parents, faculty and administrators. 

Carter has coached football at McClymonds High School in Oakland for a decade. He has been credited with sending more than 60 student players on to play for Division 1 colleges since 1993. 

“He is known for carrying a satchel with all of his player’s transcripts, though he doesn’t have to look in the bag to tell you how his students are doing,” said Mark Coplan, BUSD spokesperson. 

“Alonzo Carter has a great reputation with the college recruiters. He personally tracks his players’ performance and attendance and makes sure that his students stay on track,” said BHS athletic director Kristin Glenchur said in a statement 

Carter also got a boost from UC Berkeley head football coach Jeff Tedford. 

“Alonzo is a great communicator and can motivate young people to give their best effort,” Tedford wrote in his recommendation. “He is an intelligent person who sees education as a priceless tool for young people and recognizes athletics as a vehicle to sponsor a higher goal, academically and socially. I would be proud to entrust him with my own children.” 

BHS principal Jim Slemp introduced Carter at the Donahue Gym on Wednesday where he had his first meeting with varsity and Junior Varsity football players. 

 


Lake Merritt Development Stirs Debate, Calls for Control

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 02, 2007

With at least six residential development projects and one cathedral either proposed, approved or actually under construction within 800 feet of Lake Merritt, and the City of Oakland’s zoning code in something of a shambles, close to 150 Oakland residents came out to the Lake Merritt Garden Center on Wednesday night to share their issues about high-rise development around the lake. 

The meeting was co-sponsored by Oakland City Councilmem-bers Nancy Nadel and Pat Kernighan, who said this was the start of a six-month process that they hoped would result in recommendations to City Council on zoning code changes for the areas in the vicinity of the lake. 

“It’s a beginning,” Kerninghan said following the meeting. “Clearly a lot of work needs to be done. There was some consensus that the area immediately around the lake needs to be protected. But the question is, at what distance from the lake and in what directions should higher development take place?” 

But Nadel said that “while we’re working towards consensus, we don’t have consensus yet.” 

Meeting participants broke into discussion groups at 10 separate tables and then reported the results back to the general body. 

Most of the groups reported that the lake itself—home of the first urban wild bird habitat in the United States and considered Oakland’s urban park jewel—should be protected from development along its immediate shores. “The lake provides openness, light and space, and that should be protected,” one woman reported from her group, with another adding that the land around the lake was “precious.” “Development should be targeted to areas that are less contentious than the lake,” she said. “Density in the downtown area is a great idea.” 

But others said that even in areas close to the lake where high-rise development should be permitted and encouraged—such as the Broadway corridor near the Forest City Uptown project—overdevelopment should be guarded against. “We don’t want that to become a concrete jungle.” 

And opposition to unregulated, wholesale high-rising of buildings in the Lake Merritt area was the overriding theme. 

“With high-rises, you get isolation without solitude and density without community,” one woman said, quoting an unnamed Polish architect. And another woman, who said she lived at East 28th Street and 11th Avenue but still has an unrestricted view of the lake, said she wants to keep it. 

“This is one of our spiritual issues,” she said. “People who don’t have parks in their neighborhoods depend on these views. We get up in the morning and are able to look at our city. We don’t want to be blocked from it.” 

But while the sentiment against high-rises was dominant, it was not universal. One table reported that they were evenly divided on the issue. Even the way the meeting was organized was contentious. Another reported that “four people in our group decided that this wasn’t the right process, and left.” 

The meeting itself got off to a rocky start, with several participants seemingly in disbelief that public officials were sincerely asking for their opinions. 

“Are there any assurances that the city will listen to our recommendations?” one woman asked. “You certainly didn’t listen to them around the Estuary Plan.” 

And a male participant said flatly that it was too late for long-term planning, and called for an immediate moratorium on high-rise development until a plan could be developed. 

Another woman referenced the city planning document already in existence, asking, “why weren’t we provided with a copy of the city’s General Plan? The task you’re asking us to undertake is too big for this meeting.” She suggested that instead of providing their views on how the Lake Merritt area neighborhoods should be developed, participants should have gone through the General Plan as a starting point. 

But Oakland Development Director Claudia Cappio said that, in fact, was the purpose of the meeting. She pointed out that when the General Plan was drawn up several years ago, the city was supposed to go back and conform the individual zoning districts to that plan. That action was shelved in the Jerry Brown years, however. 

“It was a political decision under Jerry Brown not to do it,” Cappio said. 

That left the lake area particularly vulnerable to high-rise development because at least three of the zoning districts directly bordering the lake—two on the northwest side along Lakeside between Snow Park and the Main Library and the other on the southern side along Lakeshore—currently have no height limits at all.  

Following the meeting, Cappio said that her office will next develop a working plan for how the meetings will proceed. 

“We’ll take the suggestions that came out of tonight’s meeting and overlay that with what my office is required to do by law,” she said. After consulting with Councilmembers Nadel and Kernighan, Cappio said a plan for the remaining process will be emailed to meeting participants “to see if people buy into it. I don’t want to impose a process.” 

Nadel said that while the general ideas were appropriate for the first meeting, she wants subsequent meetings to get more specific. 

“We will need more details from the public on what they want and don’t want,” the councilmember said, “so that we can go through with the process of conforming the zoning code to the General Plan. That’s the only way we will be able to protect the resource of the lake.” 

 

Photograph by David Sasaki.  

A participant at Wednesday’s community meeting on development and highrise construction around Lake Merritt holds up an area zoning map passed out by city staff. 


N. Shattuck Plaza Plan Looks for Common Ground

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 02, 2007

To build or not to build is the question North Shattuck residents and business owners find themselves asking about the proposed $3.5 million dollar plaza that would transform Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto to streetscape by closing off Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose street. The pedestrian plaza will be constructed on what is now a paved service road adjacent to the existing shops on the east side of Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose Streets.  

Members of North Shattuck Plaza, Inc., (NSP) and the North Shattuck Association (NSA), will be organizing the first in a series of community workshops on Feb. 7, which they say will be an attempt to engage the community in a dialogue about how to improve the proposed plan. 

“The workshop will give us an opportunity to start from scratch,” said David Stoloff, NSP chair, who committed himself to the project more than a year ago. 

“We need to find the points of agreement and back off the controversy,” he said. “I want everyone to come to this meeting with an open mind. I am looking for suggestions from community members and the merchants.” 

Stoloff said that the NSP wants to improve the North Shattuck Business district and make it a model for other cities. Support from merchants is crucial because it will be funded partly by fundraising, he said. 

The NSA and the business improvement district—made up of neighborhood businesses and property owners—entered into a partnership with the non-profit NSP Inc. to raise the required funds and oversee the plaza’s final design, construction and operation. 

Business owners on North Shattuck have circulated a petition among neighbors and merchants opposing the proposed alteration of roads, parking and pedestrian courses that presently exist along Shattuck Avenue. 

The petitioners include Earthly Goods, Masse’s Pastries, Bing Wong Laundry, Peet’s and other area stores. 

“The project will kill businesses,” said Allen Connolly, owner of Earthly Goods—a high-end clothing store in North Berkeley—who initiated the petition. 

Connolly, who has been in the retail business in the neighborhood for 20 years, told the Planet that the project would negatively impact struggling independent businesses in the area. 

Independent bookstore Black Oak Books, which has operated on Shattuck for over two decades, recently announced that it was up for sale citing low sales and competition from the Internet. 

“Unlike other parts of Berkeley, this area is in good condition. The idea of redeveloping it is frivolous. The millions of dollars and nine months of tearing up the area will affect our deliveries and parking,” Connolly said. 

The proposed plan would replace the current angle parking and access lane along the eastern side of the avenue with a 50-foot-wide pedestrian walkway with landscaped plantings, two rows of trees and benches. 

Connolly and other area business owners oppose the reconfiguration of the store front parking along Shattuck Avenue which would be replaced by a concentrated satellite parking lot near Rose Street. Stoloff told the Planet that the project would keep the parking neutral—that is, the number of parking spaces would neither increase nor decrease.  

Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, in whose district the proposed plaza is located, said that the current plan of the North Shattuck Plaza plan was a revised version of part of the North Shattuck Urban Design and Circulation Report that had been adopted by the city six years ago. 

“There didn’t seem to be any opposition back then. So why now?” Capitelli asked.  

“The current plan has the potential for a wonderful public space where people can gather. North Shattuck has nothing like that at present,” he said, adding that the workshop would be a chance to go back to a blank palette and address community needs.  

Art Goldberg, who has been living in the neighborhood for 20 years, told the Planet that there was a lot of distrust between the merchants and the members of NSP. 

“The group that put together the plan for the North Shattuck Plaza did not consult with the neighbors. As a result we held our own meeting at the Live Oak Park in January where there was pretty strong opposition for the project,” Goldberg said. 

“One of the things we don’t want in the plan is a ‘pedestrian-friendly’ promenade with benches. This will worsen panhandling and homeless issues. We will be going to the Feb. 7 meeting because they have said they will listen to us this time,” he added. 

Former Berkeley councilmember Mim Hawley told the Planet that the proposed plaza would be a model for environmental sustainability in an urban shopping area. 

“It will have features that protect water quality, replace asphalt and concrete with permeable surfaces, and help manage storm water runoff. Dozens of healthy trees, sidewalk extensions with native plantings and space for kids to play will provide a welcoming everyday connection with nature,” Hawley said. 

John Steere, boardmember for Livable Berkeley and Berkeley Partners for Parks, told the Planet that although the two organizations had not taken a formal stand on the project, he thought the city would benefit greatly from it environmentally. 

Connolly said that the proposed trees and public restrooms in the plaza would be difficult to maintain. 

“Yes, the plan would add more trees but who is going to take care of them?” he asked.  

“The city definitely won’t. It’s just going to turn out like People’s Park north. The only way merchants would support the project is if the planners don’t remove any of the parking and the roads in the area but just add new parking. We would contribute to that.”


Local Contingent Travels to Support Lt. Watada at Trial

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 02, 2007

“To stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers and service members can choose to stop fighting it,” First Lt. Ehren Watada. 

 

On Monday, the court-martial begins for Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. 

He won’t be alone. People from across the country, including the Bay Area, are planning to go to Fort Lewis, Wash., where Watada will be tried. 

Berkeley artist and activist Betty Kano will be among them. 

“I feel an urgency to witness and support Ehren Watada,” said Kano, a member of the Watada support committee of Asian Pacific Islanders Resist! Seven East Bay residents, including a representative from Code Pink, plan to attend the trial. 

“I think that his consciousness is extraordinary. He’s putting himself at real risk; he commands respect,” she said. 

Kano, who is Japanese American, said the actions of Watada, an Asian American, has special significance for the Asian American community: “It’s a source of pride.”  

For refusing to deploy to Iraq and speaking out about it, Watada is facing four years in a military prison, reduced Monday from a possible eight years, Eric Seitz, Watada’s attorney, told the Planet on Wednesday.  

In a phone interview on Thursday, Watada told the Daily Planet: “I’m willing to go to prison for what I believe in.”  

After Sept. 11, 2001, Watada joined the military as a patriot, but learning that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he refused deployment to fight what he sees as an unjust war. 

“I’ve taken an oath to defend the constitution,” he said. “I must be willing to sacrifice” by refusing to fight and going to prison. 

Watada said he thinks the military “trumped up the charges to instill fear so that I would capitulate.”  

Another officer who wrote an op-ed piece calling Bush a liar was allowed to resign, Watada said, but the military refuses to allow him to deploy elsewhere or to resign. “There’s a lot of support for me in the military,” he said. “And a lot despise me.”  

Many people in the military and in America in general still believe that that the war in Iraq is tied to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Watada said. 

“We need to educate ourselves,” Watada said. “We need to hold ourselves accountable and bring the troops home.”  

Ending the war is up to the people, he said. “Control comes from the people.” 

Watada’s attorney explained that, after negotiations with the military, the two reporters that had been subpoenaed would no longer be asked to testify. The reporters, freelance reporter Sara Olson and Honolulu Star-Bulletin journalist Gregg Kakesako, had been subpoenaed to testify that the stories as published accurately reflected the statements made by Watada. 

Seitz said that Watada agreed to “stipulate to the facts”—that is, he agreed to say that what the reporters had written was accurate.  

On Jan. 16, the judge who will preside over the court-martial, Lt. Col. John Head, ruled that the jury—minimally five Army officers—should decide whether Watada’s speech endangered troop loyalty. The judge refused to allow as evidence Watada’s motives for refusing to go to Iraq and evidence as to whether the war violates international law. 

“The allegations of disloyalty will be difficult (for the military) to prove,” Seitz said.  

In a phone interview from Washington, D.C., freelance journalist Sarah Olson said she was glad that the subpoena had been withdrawn and was grateful for the strong support shown by a coalition of organizations, such as the Society of Professional Journalists and the writers’ association PEN, and media such as Mother Jones, as well as individuals, all supporting the position that journalists should not be asked to testify in cases in which their sources are involved. 

“We need to preserve journalists’ ability to gather and disseminate news without government interference,” Olson said. 

Still, Olson said, the support mainly comes from independent journalists and independent media. “There has been no outcry by major media,” she said. 

Of particular concern in the Watada case is that charges against him relate to speaking out against the war. If he is prevented from putting out his perspective, that is a concern for journalists, Olson said, arguing that the censorship would impede her “ability to tell all aspects of a story and foster debate.” 

A journalist’s job is to tell the whole story, she said. “People need enough information to make decisions.” 

Today, Friday, API Resist! will hold a press conference at noon on the steps of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Building at 2180 Milvia St. and on Tuesday, those members of API’s Resist! not in Fort Lewis will be joined by others to hang a banner in support of Watada from the Berkeley pedestrian bridge across I-80, beginning at 5 p.m. 

For more information about the Watada case, go to www.thankyoult.org and for information about the delegation to Fort Lewis call 510-559-8189.


Pacific Steel Suit Settlement Announced

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 02, 2007

After months of grappling, Pacific Steel Casting Co. (PSC) and non-profit Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) entered into a consent decree in Federal Court on Monday that would bring about specified emissions reductions, create a scrap metal inspection program, and establish a joint consultation committee to recommend and oversee ongoing pollution reduction efforts. 

CBE had first sued PSC in July 2006 alleging that the West Berkeley-based steel foundry violated the air district’s permit with respect to the amount of emissions from the steel foundry in Berkeley. 

Although CBE’s preliminary injunction was denied by a Federal Court in San Francisco, Adrienne Bloch, staff attorney for CBE, told the Planet the organization would have won the lawsuit. 

“If the judge had ruled in favor of CBE, then Pacific Steel would have paid money to the U.S. Treasury. The settlement allows PSC to put funds into its entire facility for improvement instead,” Bloch said. 

She added that the decree allowed the community to have a voice and build a dialogue between PSC laborers and area residents. 

As a result of the agreement, the Joint Consultation Committee—comprised of members from CBE, PSC and the Glass, Molders, Pottery International Union (GMP)—will meet quarterly to recommend expenditures from the reserve fund to reduce emissions. 

Elisabeth Jewel, of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the public relations firm for Pacific Steel, told the Planet that a reserve fund of $350,000 would be created for selected projects to achieve reduction in emissions levels at the facility.  

“The prolonged litigation was not in anybody’s best interest,” said Jewel. “The fact that the court denied the preliminary injunction proves that the merits of the case were questionable to begin with. The reserve fund which resulted from the settlement would help to reduce emissions and conditions at the plant.” 

A minimum of two tons in particulate matter, hazardous air pollutants or volatile organic componds would be reduced as a result of the emissions reduction projects. 

Jewel said that this was in addition to the reduction of emissions from the carbon filter absorption system on Plant 3. 

Bloch said that CBE was especially pleased because the agreement made it mandatory for PSC to select and inspect the scrap metals it bought to be melted and formed into castings. 

The deal came as a surprise to some environmentalists and community members working on the campaign to clean up Pacific Steel. 

Andrew Galpern, a west Berkeley neighbor who complained about the emissions, called the decree terrible. 

“There is no mention of funding or plan for comprehensive community air testing in the neighborhood,” Galpern said.  

“Moreover, there is no funding or plan for a health effects survey to learn what harm has already been caused to workers and residents. The air still stinks in the neighborhood. Why should anyone celebrate an agreement that allows PSC to continue polluting the East Bay?” he asked. 

Denny Larson, director, Global Community Monitor, said that the settlement came out of the blue. 

“While it may be welcome, it is unclear how neighbors will be able to monitor whether pollution levels really decrease under the settlement. The settlement does not contain a basic demand to have more air monitoring at the source and in the impacted community," Larson said.  

Beck Cowles of the Ecology Center told the Planet that while her organization viewed the decree as progress, PSC's pollution issues went beyond what was covered in the agreement.  

“Rather than make improvements only as a result of public outcry, we'd like to see PSC take the initiative and become better neighbors by adopting toxic use reduction practices that would eliminate all toxic emissions, such as using existing pollution control devices properly and at all times and preventing fugitive emissions from escaping their plant,” Cowles said.  

“We believe they should also provide for adequate monitoring of their operations rather than place this burden on the community.” 

The agreement between PSC and CBE ends in three years or sooner when the $350,000 runs out.  

 

A Community Meeting on Pacific Steel Casting will be held Wednesday at the West Berkeley Senior Center, 1900 6th St., 7pm. For details, call (415) 248-5010. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


A Close Look at Downtown Transportation Options

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 02, 2007

Berkeley’s Transportation Commission joined the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) on Wednesday to talk about transportation conditions in downtown Berkeley and explore options for transportation improvements.  

Transportation consultants for the Downtown Area Plan, the IBI Group, highlighted the challenges and some of the information pertinent to the downtown plan. 

Matt Taecker, secretary to DAPAC, along with the IBI Group, explained the role of transportation modeling and how it would be used to understand the impacts of lower- and higher-intensity land use options. Alternative configurations of roadways and transit facilities were also examined. 

DAPAC members and transportation commissioners gave their opinions on the options that should be modeled and voted against a plan to run Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on Oxford Street. 

AC Transit’s proposed BRT project, promising to make Berkeley a “green” city on “the cutting edge of new transportation technologies,” has yet to finalize the routing and design of BRT.  

The rapid buses would serve passengers traveling between Bayfair, Downtown Oakland, and Downtown Berkeley along East 14th/International Blvd., and Telegraph Avenue.  

“BRT should be an effort to make transit better for people, so that more people use it. It should not be a attempt to keep people out of downtown, like some people want to do to the homeless,” said Transportation Commissioner Rob Wrenn. 

DAPAC member Juliet Lamont said that incorporating the use of greenery downtown into the transportation plans was extremely important.  

Len Conly, co-chair of Friends of BRT—an organization that was formed in 2005 in order to support AC Transit’s BRT project—spoke in favor of BRT. 

“A BRT system, such as that proposed for Telegraph Avenue, uses dedicated lanes, multiple door loading, and off-board payment of fares to make bus travel much faster and more convenient, especially for the disabled. BRT will help reduce congestion, oil consumption, pollution and carbon dioxide emissions,” Conly said. 

The boards also voted to approve the option of two-way traffic on the west side of Shattuck Avenue and consider options for the east side of Shattuck. 

Taecker told the board members that transportation modeling helped illustrate “how downtown Berkeley’s transportation system functions today, and how it might function in the future.”  

He added that staff would present results of the transportation modeling to both boards in April so that DAPAC could have an informed deliberation on “preferred” options in May. 

The transportation modeling would be responsible for measuring: 

• Quantity and distribution of trips (origins and destinations) 

• Mode split of trips (autos, transit, walking and bikes) 

• Traffic performance (intersection volume & capacity) 

• Other performance issues, including those related to parking. 

Taecker told board members that parking-related conditions would be discussed in a future joint meeting. A representative from AC Transit told board members that AC Transit would be releasing its draft EIR for the BRTproject very soon. 

Some of the highlights in the study presented by the IBI Group illustrated that downtown Berkeley attracted nearly 10,000 work-related trips daily with downtown residents generating approximately 1,000 work-based daily trips  

UC Berkeley generated approximately 30,000 daily trips, of which roughly half were work related. The study also showed that BART accounted for 22,000 of the 40,000 daily transit trips (work and non-work) to and from downtown. 

 

City Interest in UC Properties 

Dorothy Walker, chair of the DAPAC Subcommittee named City Interest in UC Properties (CIUPS), presented a report to the board on the function and design of Oxford Street. 

CIUPS was formed in December to look at UC properties in downtown Berkeley and its possible development. The committee is responsible for: 

• Identifying UC owned properties that might be appropriate for non-UC uses. Identify city or private properties that might be appropriate for UC uses. 

• Identifying the appropriate development potential of sites. 

• Identifying how any mutually advantageous land exchanges could be achieved and how to assure equity between the city and the university. 

• Identifying other areas for city/university collaboration that might be included in the plan. 

Currently, the committee includes three ex-officio UC members of DAPAC who were selected by the university as well as ten other DAPAC members selected by DAPAC Chair Will Travis. 

According to CIUPS, the only large downtown site which requires no assembly of land is already in public ownership, does not involve any buildings of historic interest and has a history of large scale development is the Department of Health Services. The building is situated near the University Avenue gateway to downtown and at the southern end of the North Shattuck area. 

CIUPS is brainstorming ideas for a new retail center at this location that would help attract foot traffic to the downtown area. Walker also told board members that a “number of exciting ideas had emerged for the development of Oxford Street.” 

Although CIUPS has not come to any conclusions yet, some of the proposed ideas for Oxford Street involved a public plaza on the West Crescent, a more prominent downtown presence for the Berkeley Art Museum and the Film Archive as well as Warren Hall (which houses UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health).  

DAPAC member Lisa Stephens asked the subcommittee to get more information from the University about the conversion of Bowles Hall from a student residence to a executive hotel building and the construction of the student gymnasium at the Oak Grove.


Council Says Bevatron May Be Dismantled

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 02, 2007

To the great disappointment of those who had hoped to save the 53-year-old Bevatron building housing a particle accelerator, the Berkeley City Council voted 7-to-2 at its Tuesday night meeting to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Commission decision to require that the science practiced in the structure be memorialized, but that there be no requirement to preserve the structure itself. 

Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring voted in opposition. 

The University of California, which manages the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—of which the Bevatron is a part—has stated that it plans to demolish the structure at 1 Cyclotron Rd. some time between 2008 and 2012. 

The building is under consideration for eligibility on the Register of Historic Places and should not be demolished, appellant Pam Sihvola told the council.  

“It should remain intact in its entirety,” Sihvola said. Appellants Sihvola and L.A. Wood said they are also concerned with the large amount of debris—including hazardous materials—that would have to be trucked through Berkeley during demolition. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak said he had worked at the Bevatron and contended that what should be memorialized was the science. “There are other ways to honor the Bevatron than to keep a deteriorating old building,” he said. 

 

On the Ledge 

Berkeley High students sit on the ledge outside the Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Building at Milvia Street and Allston Way, smoking, playing loud music and generally disturbing people inside the building, Police Chief Doug Hambleton told the council. 

That’s the reasoning behind the $250 ticket given one student for “loitering and disorderly conduct.” The student’s mother came to the council meeting to strenuously object both to the ticket—sitting on the ledge is not disorderly conduct, she said—and to the exaggerated sum required to pay the fine. 

“When I first saw students on the ledge, I thought it was an ideal place to sit,” said Councilmember Betty Olds, who later said she understood the need to keep the young people from disturbing city workers. “But such a high fine seems unfair.” 

The council voted 7-1, with Worthington in opposition, to refer the question to the city manager in order to see if the fine can be lowered and to have the Parks and Recreation Commission look to see whether benches can be installed in the area. 

 

Race  

Members of the Peace and Justice Commission came to the council to lobby for approval of an item, asking the city to comply with the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, by polling department heads on the question. 

“We have enormous levels of racism right here in Berkeley,” said Worthington, who brought the item to the council. Worthington said it is manifested, in part, in who gets contracts and who gets hired. Part of the reason for collecting the data is to identify problem areas, Worthington said. 

The item will be back before the council Feb. 27, with greater precision on what kinds of information should be collected. 

 

Reducing Greenhouse Gases 

A number of items were passed on the consent calendar, which means they were passed without discussion. (Worthington abstained on all the items, protesting that he wanted to hear from the public on the items before he decided which among them he wanted to remove for discussion and possible action.) 

A measure to give Sustainable Berkeley, a non-profit corporation, $100,000 to write an emissions reduction plan was passed on the consent calendar in concept, with councilmembers Spring and Worthington abstaining. 

Although a press statement released by the mayor’s office said that the item gives the funds to Sustainable Berkeley to write the emissions reduction plan, Mayor Tom Bates’ Chief of Staff Cisco DeVries said the funds would not be allocated until the council approves them in its 2007-2008 budget.  

Included in the council packet was a letter from Transportation Commissioner Rob Wrenn, calling for a person who is an expert in transportation matters to sit on the Sustainable Berkeley steering committee. The council did not address the question. 

The council also approved on consent: 

• The designation of Feb. 7 as National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day; 

• Designating Berkeley as a “pro-choice” city, joining a campaign initiated by West Hollywood as a campaign for greater access to abortion, reproductive health care and other services.


Berkeley School Board Discusses Report on Test Scores

By Rio Bauce
Friday February 02, 2007

On Wednesday night, Neil Smith, director of educational services for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), delivered a presentation on student data for eight different tests to the School Board. This is the first report of its kind that compiles all of these high-stakes tests.  

The presentation included statistical information on the Advanced Placement (AP) Test, Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), the Annual Performance Index (API), among others.  

“Measure B that passed in 2004, brings money to do data evaluation so we can see what is effective [in the schools] and base our decisions on what really works, rather than on emotions,” said district Public Information Officer Mark Coplan.” 

Probably one of the most important performance indicators for Berkeley schools is the API, which is showing significant progress in most schools with the exception of Berkeley High School (BHS). BHS did not receive an API score this year, puzzling many administrators. 

“My guess was that we didn’t get the 95 percent participation rate for the California Standardized Test,” said school board director John Selawsky. “Many students opt out of taking the tests and therefore the schools don’t receive an API rating.” 

BHS principal Jim Slemp concurred, “The mass number of students who don’t take the [CST] test is a problem. We’re a great school and if we’re not certified, it isn’t an honest measure of who we are … It’s a dilemma. The best way to increase participation on the test is to educate students on why it’s important.” 

Despite the situation at BHS, the average elementary school API for 2006 is 790. The middle schools (Willard, King, and Longfellow) are at their highest average ever of 719. B-Tech, formerly Berkeley Alternative High School, made significant progress going from 372 to 532. According to Coplan, the state stops measuring API after a school surpasses the highest possible index of 800.  

In terms of the SAT, Berkeley High School math scores have remained consistent over the years, but are still better than the county and the state average. The average test scores on the AP tests at BHS have been on a downward decline. Slemp explains that this trend should be expected. 

“We want that to happen,” said Slemp. “We want students taking as many AP classes as possible and that’s why we see the downward trend. The research says that if students take at least one AP class, their success in college will increase about 34 percent academically.”  

To increase student achievement, the BUSD allocated funds for two teacher special assignment (TSA) positions for the purpose of creating reports and collecting data. Aaron Glimme, Science Department Chair, is the TSA at BHS, while Seth Corrigan is the TSA for middle/elementary schools. 

Glimme explained about the job: ” We use a web-based data system called DataWise that we use to provide support for teachers at the site. We compare things such as student grades with ethnicity. The point of the job is to give teachers data-driven research to inform them how to teach more effectively and get feedback.” 

Selawsky pointed out other ways the district is helping with student achievement. The BUSD performs its own assessments, including the DRA/QRI, teacher assessments, student portfolios, etc. In the elementary schools, principals map each individual student’s achievement over the years. 

“These facts are tied to state standards,” said Selawsky. “The more we have teachers aware of the state standards, the better students will perform. This is just one measurement of student achievement. Unfortunately, there is a lot of emphasis based on these tests at the state and federal level rather than on our local evaluations.” 

Student Director Mateo Aceves expressed concerns over the testing results. 

“We know that there are a bunch of factors that contribute to kids doing worse,” said Aceves.” However, the biggest thing is a trend showing that minorities aren’t scoring proficiently in significant numbers. That’s what really scary.” 


Berkeley High Beat: How Students Cope with Finals

By Rio Bauce
Friday February 02, 2007

While most Berkeleyans may have found last week the same as any other week, Berkeley High School (BHS) students found it more stressful than usual—they took their semester finals. 

BHS required all teachers to give students a semester final. Most classes and all Advanced Placement (AP) classes got a written test as their final, while some elective classes such as the popular Politics and Power class (where they simulate a Model Congress), taught by Steven Teel, voted on final legislation in Congress. 

The week before finals week brought a lot of anxiety to us and increased our already high stress levels. Our teachers told us to prepare for six two-hour finals given over the course of three days. The administration requested that teachers not give too much homework and not give tests to their students the week prior to finals week, also called Dead Week. While most teachers followed these suggestions, many teachers continued to test their kids and gave them piles of busywork.  

On the flipside, the three days of finals were shorter days. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, students got out of school at 12:40 p.m. That was the best part of finals, I must say. However, I think it would be worthwhile for the school to let kids out early on Tuesday at 12:40 p.m. as well. 

Here’s my reasoning: As it works, first and second period finals were on Wednesday, third and forth period finals were on Thursday, and fifth and sixth period finals were on Friday. On Wednesday, you had a shorter day to study for your Thursday finals. Likewise, on Thursday you had more time to study for your Friday finals. However, isn’t it logical to say that you should get a shorter day on Tuesday to study for your Wednesday finals?  

As fate would have it, I had my most difficult finals on Wednesday (AP Biology and AP Calculus BC). I got out at 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday and had around three hours less time to study for these finals, as I had to study for my Wednesday finals (Politics and Power and French 7/8). I hope that the administrators consider making this change for future years. This way, all finals will receive an equal playing field. 

If you are completely confused about what finals are, I’ll explain it to you. Most teachers use finals as a way to test kids on all the information they have taught them during the course of the semester. Sounds great, doesn’t it? If you’ve learned it all already, it should be easy, right? WRONG.  

Many kids, who didn’t understand the material before, either do really poorly or study the night before the test, “spit it out” on the test, and then forget it all again. This is not to say the kids who do well in the class do poorly on the final, but it is definitely a challenge. Some finals count for almost nothing of your grade, while others can account for up to twenty-percent of your grade. It varies according to the teacher. 

With all of this said, many of us are glad that finals are over. We realize that we have another set of finals at the end of the year, but by then … well, it will be the end of the year. At least the next set of finals will be something to look forward to.


Panthers Snag Soccer Title

By Dan Lindheim
Friday February 02, 2007

The Albany-Berkeley Soccer Club Panthers defeated the Elk Grove Attack 4-0 on Sunday to win the under-14 Boys Association Cup state soccer championship played in Danville. 

The Attack had no answer for Panthers’ star Manuel Ramirez Jara, who scored three of the Panther goals. Thomas Rocroi also scored. Throughout the tournament, the Panther defense kept opponents from scoring, allowing only three goals in seven tournament games. 

During preliminary round play in Sacramento, the Panthers easily defeated teams from Stockton, Petaluma and Brentwood. In the “sweet 16” played in Morgan Hill, they defeated a very good Oakland Tigres team 3-0.  

The Panthers barely escaped their quarter-final game against the Rockridge Sting, another mostly Berkeley Team. The Panthers prevailed in sudden death “golden goal” overtime after the game was deadlocked 1-1 at the end of regular play. 

The Panthers advanced to the final with a 2-0 win over Almaden Newcastle.  

As an indication of the strength of local soccer, four of the eight quarter-final teams were from the Alameda/Contra Costa County District 4 competitive playing league. 

This was the second consecutive state championship for Panther coach Miguel Jara. Last year, his under-12 girls’ Dragonfly team also won their state championship. 


A Tribute to Molly Ivins: Reflections on the Washington Peace March

By Betty Medsger
Friday February 02, 2007

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’s 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.


City Adopts Alcohol Sales Limits Urged by Coalition

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 02, 2007

It took seven years of neighborhood complaints to shut down Dwight Way Liquors on Sacramento Street and that was too long, say members of Berkeley Alcohol Policy Advocacy Coalition (BAPAC). 

Tuesday night, with about two dozen BAPAC members in the audience, the City Council approved four of the five recommendations the group had put before them, all aimed at giving city enforcers new tools to control problem alcohol outlets and underage drinkers. 

But the council ignored an “informational” report on its agenda written by the Health and Human Services staff, addressing the need for treatment and other services for people with substance abuse issues. The proposals are costly and will be discussed during the budget process, City Manager Phil Kamlarz said in a telephone interview Wednesday. 

Current law “fail(s) to protect the community’s well-being,” BAPAC Secretary Lori Lott said, addressing the councilmembers Tuesday night. 

The council passed three of BAPAC’s five recommendations unanimously: 

• the first reading of a law that mandates alcoholic beverage service training for those selling alcohol. 

• a recommendation to the Planning Commission that if an outlet selling alcoholic beverages were closed for more than 90 days, the right to alcoholic beverage sales could be terminated.  

• a recommendation for the city manager to meet with BAPAC representatives to formulate a proposed “deemed approved” ordinance, which would require alcohol-selling establishments to pay fees for enforcement of operating standards. 

The council also voted 7-1-1, with Councilmember Kriss Worthington opposing and Councilmember Linda Maio abstaining, to approve an ordinance that would target the host of a gathering for a possible misdemeanor if minors consume alcohol on the premises. This is known as a “social host” ordinance. 

A fifth proposal, called a “second response ordinance,” was held for further examination by staff and will come back to the council in two weeks. This would be a redrafting of an existing law, increasing fines for multiple police calls for noisy parties at the same location. 

Many other cities have deemed-approved ordinances requiring annual inspection fees. The cost ranges from about $290 in Oxnard to $1,500 in Oakland. City staff estimate that a program in Berkeley would need five inspectors and cost about $750,000, but BAPAC members say inspections can be accomplished with fewer staff at a lower cost. 

Oakland’s deemed-approved ordinance is carried out by a multi-agency team that includes police, police technicians, a planner and a part-time city attorney. The team, according to a May 2005 report authored by the Oakland police chief, “encourages alcohol licensees to make site improvements, i.e. increased lighting, a clean environment, discouragement of loitering and proper signage to encourage better behavior from patrons and potential loiters.” The program also uses decoys to determine whether the establishment is selling alcohol to minors. 

The problem with the current nuisance law, is that “the public has to prove that it’s a public nuisance,” Ed Kikumoto, policy director for the Oakland-based Alcohol Policy Network, told the council. Regulations in a deemed-approved ordinance would put the onus on the business owners. “The owner must abide by the rules,” whether or not there are complaints, Kikumoto said. 

Dawn Trigstad Ribin of BAPAC said the current nuisance procedure is used only in the most egregious cases. “It’s very time consuming for the city and costly for the owners,” she said, supporting an eventual deemed-approved law. 

Addressing the council, Tim James, manager of local government relations for the California Grocers Association, agreed that training persons who sell alcohol should be mandatory. But in a phone interview Wednesday, he addressed the proposed deemed-approved ordinance, saying he thinks only problem outlets should pay inspection fees. 

“The challenge lies in not overly burdening responsible retailers,” he said. 

Kenan Wang, of the Interfraternity Council and the Associated Students of the University of California, was among a group of students at the council meeting who questioned the recommendations for social host and noisy party ordinances.  

“I’m skeptical of certain parts of (the social host) ordinance,” Wang said. “It does not distinguish between 20-year-olds and a 13-year-old. College students will party and will drink. We need to focus on curbing the negative consequences.” 

Addressing the recommendations to curb noisy parties, Daniel Montes, also a student, called on the council to “consider the voice of the students.” 

Staff proposals, which the council did not consider, target school intervention to address truancy problems and train school staff in substance abuse issues. Their recommendations also include increasing recreational opportunities for youth, access to treatment for people without insurance, affordable housing opportunities for people with drug and alcohol issues and creating programs for elderly substance abusers.


Molly Ivins Tribute

Tuesday January 30, 2007

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. 

 

 


Thousands Demand End to Iraq War

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.”


Activists Celebrate Victory in Oaks Ruling

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Mayor, City Attorney Hail Injunction on Stadium-Area Project

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.” 


ZAB Rejects Cell Phone Antennas on UC Storage

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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. 

 


City Council Looks at Bevatron Landmarks Appeal

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Bowles Alums Lead Fight to Preserve Beloved Hall

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Famous Bowles Alum Picks Residence Hall Over Haas Plans for Landmark

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Public Meeting Called on Plan for High-Rises Around Lake Merritt

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.” 


UC Chooses Firms for People’s Park Renovation

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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. 

 

 

 

 

 


County: Instant Run-Off Voting on Schedule

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday January 30, 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. 

 


Reich Calls for Economic Diversity in Berkeley

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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. 

 

 

 

 


News Analysis: Mexico-Venezuela Clash Over Oil as Foreign Aid

By Louis E.V. Nevaer, New America Media
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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."


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Carry It On

By Becky O’Malley
Friday February 02, 2007

As we had feared, Molly Ivins died on Wednesday. The anti-war war columns that we’d requested on Tuesday as a way of carrying on her last campaign have been coming in, and we’ll be printing one in every issue for a while as a tribute to her. We’ve also gotten, unsolicited, a good number of letters just expressing the writer’s appreciation for Molly herself, which we’ll add to our letters pages, some in print and all on the web. The Texas Observer, where she worked for many years and continued raising money for after she moved on, has put together an affecting memorial at texasobserver.org, another good place for readers to send their comments on Molly herself.  

The poetry that students were forced to memorize when Molly and I were in school in the 1950s has an annoying way of popping into one’s mind at moments like this, even though much of it is now out of style. In the context of Molly’s death, I can’t help recalling memorized lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (do kids still read him?): “Lives of great men all remind us/ We can make our lives sublime/ And departing leave behind us/ Footprints on the sands of time.”  

Deconstructing this message, even though the expression sounds mawkish to twenty-first century ears, can still be worthwhile. The Great Men thing is profoundly annoying to feminists, of course, but let’s ignore that for the moment. And “sublime”? What does that mean in today’s world, where fame is 15 minutes and it’s usually for doing something ugly?  

Let’s just look at Molly’s “footprints on the sands of time,” and remember another quote commonly attributed to Emma Goldman: “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.”  

Molly danced her way across the sands of time, jumping for joy and whooping with laughter as she took part in all the serious revolutions of the second half of 20th century and the beginning of the twenty-first. The poor woman hasn’t been dead a week, and already the Internet is circulating marvelous legends about funny things she might or might not have actually said, a sure sign of imminent canonization in the Church of the Left, right up there in the pantheon next to Emma Goldman.  

She gave Serious Journalism a good try, but ultimately rejected it as stultifying. Instead, she revived the use of the American Language, Texas Branch, as a way of telling a story, the whole story, not just a sanitized corporate version of the story told in sanctimonious clean language. The web apocrypha includes many examples, some undoubtedly authentic, of the way the New York Times tried and failed to clean Molly up. And Thursday’s obituaries provided another great one, perhaps intended, perhaps not.  

Here’s the Times obit: “She cut an unusual figure in the Times newsroom, wearing blue jeans, going barefoot and bringing in her dog, whose name was an expletive.”  

And here’s the real deal, sent to the Planet by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post: 

“There’s a heartfelt compliment I always meant to give Molly, but never got around to it: Lady, you’re even more piss than vinegar.  

“I’ve read Molly’s work almost my whole adult life, but I met her only a few times, in 1977, when we walked our dogs together in Lincoln Park in Albany (N.Y.). I was working for the local paper; Mol was working for the New York Times. My dog was named Augie. Her dog was named Shitter. I knew immediately this was a woman to be loved and feared.” 

Amen.  

And one more quote, this one from executed Wobbly Joe Hill, most often remembered in a song widely sung in funereal contexts in the Church of the Left: “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.” 

Here’s Molly’s version of Joe Hill’s last words, one more time: 

“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. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge….We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!” 

As we said Tuesday in this space, we’re asking readers and writers to enlist in Molly’s “old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war.” Please keep those anti-war columns coming until the war is over. The first one, submitted by Betty Medsger, who used to live around here, appears in this issue. 

 


Editorial: A Tribute for Molly Ivins

By Becky O'Malley
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.  


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday February 02, 2007

CENTER STREET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a member of DAPAC, I voted with a majority of the committee to express a preference for a pedestrian plaza on Center Street. The purpose of this vote was not to recommend building a plaza, or to declare that DAPAC supports a plaza as the right answer. Knowing that a majority of the committee members would prefer such a plaza is just the first step in a conversation. The second step is to produce some preliminary designs in consultation with downtown merchants and anyone else who is interested. With designs in hand, we can have a more directed and constructive discussion -- “This design is good, but it would be better if you change this feature..” “That one won’t work because there is not enough space for emergency vehicles.” “Here are our needs. Let’s find a way to accommodate them.” Having repeated public meetings where people just stand up to express general support or opposition to building a plaza won’t get us anywhere. DAPAC was not created to conduct a plebiscite, but to create a plan. Envisioning a plaza and seeing if it can work is the only way we will be able to determine whether it is the right thing to recommend. People who have reservations about a plaza can be part of this discussion, or they can just throw bricks. Which approach do you think will produce a more thoughtful result? 

Steve Weissman 

 

• 

ICELAND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

How about the university purchasing Iceland not only for the Bears Hockey Team, but also as a its training center for student athletes, e.g., the Bears Football Team? 

Iceland is far enough away from the Hayward Fault to be much safer and eco-friendly than the Memorial Stadium oaks grove regarding the university’s building plans, yet at the same time, Iceland is close enough to the university campus itself without even venturing outside of Berkeley. 

Aaron Cohen 

 

• 

CROSSING TELEGRAPH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was wondering what they were doing to Telegraph. After reading the recent article in the Daily Planet, I am simply appalled! 

I don’t have a car for financial reasons. I walk a lot and take the bus a lot, and ride my bike occasionally. Crossing the street has become a terrifying experience because of the aggressive drivers who speed, ignore red lights and traffic signs, talk on cell phones, don’t look where they are going, and refuse to yield to pedestrians. I don’t intend to ride my bike on Telegraph even with the bike lane, because the same aggressive drivers will ignore it. I stick to the less busy streets. 

The islands were an important safety feature; without them, Telegraph will become almost as dangerous to cross as Shattuck. 

Mary Kazmer 

 

• 

MOVE SPORTS FACILITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Football and track seasons normally don’t overlap. That’s why Cal should consider building a new, combined stadium and athletic facility on the relatively little-used site of the track stadium at Oxford and Channing. 

The site is closer to public transportation and to UC’s athletic and sports facilities immediately to the east. It would also be away from the Hayward Fault, and would not impinge on the residential neighborhoods already severely impacted by U-C development. Finally, it would be within walking distance of other downtown development U-C has in mind. 

Isn’t it about time for UC execs and planners to think of the City of Berkeley as a partner, not an obstacle? 

Alan Goldfarb 

Fremont 

 

• 

A OPEN CENTER STREET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I applaud Berkeley’s Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee’s recommendation to make Center Street between Oxford and Shattuck a pedestrian environment, possibly including a daylighted portion of historic Strawberry Creek. 

Currently I avoid the downtown as much as possible other than the theater district. A beautifully designed pedestrian space, particularly with an aesthetic open creek, would change that. I’d love to bring visitors and my family and children to a gracious plaza for lunch, dinner, a cup of tea. 

A public space for people of all ages to meet, rest, converse is often a feature of the world’s best-loved cities. With all it has to offer by way of education, arts, ideas and innovations, and with its citizen makeup, Berkeley is worthy of that aspiration. A carefully designed pedestrian space would continue the steps the city has already taken in that direction when they improved lighting and supported theater and jazz culture. A beautiful public space with an open waterway is in keeping with Berkeley’s commitment to environmental leadership as well as being harmonious with the Arts and Crafts tradition of celebrating nature in the built environment. 

A plaza facilitates social gathering whether it is meeting a friend or participating in a community event. Social connection is good for mental health and longevity. And, at the sight and sound of moving water, people slow down, lower their shoulders and sometimes their blood pressure. They take a deeper breath and become a bit more generous and expansive. The Center Street/Strawberry Creek project is good for our well-being. 

May the Berkeley City Council and Mayor Bates follow through on the DAPAC recommendation. 

Diana Divecha 

 

• 

WATADA'S COURAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In a Jan. 30 editorial (“Sorry Lieutenant”) the Sam Francisco Chronicle wrote: “As an officer, he (Lieutenant Ehren Watada) is in no position to refuse orders to go to Iraq.” 

Sorry, Chronicle editors, but in 1950 the Congress of the United States revised the Uniform Code of Military Justice to limit prosecution to soldiers and officers who refused to obey “lawful” orders. This was not an abstract exercise in legal precision. The Nuremberg trials of former Nazi officials, including military personnel, had just concluded and had repudiated, on a world stage, the “Nuremberg defense". War crimes could no longer be justified by the claim that “I was only following orders when I shot those kids.” 

Since it can be argued that the United States went to war in violation of the UN Charter, to which it is a signatory, there is a legitimate question whether any order issued in furtherance of this war is lawful. 

A court martial may rule for against Lieutenant Watada on the facts of the case but it is just those facts that the present administration does not want examined in a court of law. 

Lieutenant Watada’s courageous act deserves, not only applause, but full support. Especially in view of the spineless behavior of the U.S. Congress in refusing to use its powers to halt this criminal insanity. 

E. Haberkern 

 

• 

WATADA'S PATRIOTISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The following is my rebuttal to a letter written to the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday regarding Ehren Watada.  

I’m strongly opposed to the “Sorry, lieutenant” letter regarding Lt. Ehren Watada’s refusal to serve in Iraq because he believes that it is war based on lies. The writer’s a priori statements must be challenged: “As an officer, he’s in no position to refuse orders to go to Iraq.” 

He’s wrong. Our country is based on the rule of law, not a person, even elected. Watada’s oath to serve his military term is based on honesty. Of course his oath only holds if it is based on the truth as most of us understand it. 

Most people in the US now recognize that the attack against Iraq was based on the lie that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction. If my parent or my commanding officer orders me to kill an innocent person am I to follow these orders or am I to behave as a thinking, responsible American? 

We tried Nazi Germany’s highest officers in Nuremberg, and executed several for following orders to commit War Crimes. The Nuremberg Principles, which we used to execute top Nazis state: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” (note: this is one of six Nuremberg Principles). 

I commend Lt Watada for his courageous act and for being a true patriot in believing that our leaders should be honest, especially when he asks us to die. 

Ying Lee 

 

• 

CORRECTION ON THE HISTORY OF PEOPLE’S PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

People’s Park was built by the spirit of many people taking their lives and their community into their own hands. Activists did not “pressure the university to create People’s Park ...by holding a series of protests” as Andy Stokols attributed to me saying in his article “New Team Appointed for People’s Park Plans". 

In 1969 “the people” saw the ruins of their neighborhood, torn down and abandoned by UC’s abuse of eminent domain, and THEY built the park. No architectural plans, no leaders, no budget..but rather by collective will and the joy of bettering their neighborhood. The power and beauty of a group of people creating together like this is important to remember. 

This is why the University spending $100,000 of your money to hire a corporate architect firm is a threat to the vision of this historical Park. It is antithetical to the nature of the Park, which, besides being created by, has been improved and tended by, volunteers. Through “user development” we’ve built picnic tables and gardens and Community, still visible through the chaos of holding together the edges of today’s society. 

The corporate landscape design firm that was just hired by UC will be doing its “needs assessment” this spring. They will call meetings and hand out surveys and collect data and then they will write up the conclusions that the University is paying them to present, undoubtedly proposing more concrete and less freedom. Next UC will want to hire the “design experts” to replace the work and unique process of the park community. 

Nevertheless it may be helpful to participate in the corporate firm’s input process if for no other reason than as an opportunity to meet others who care about the history and future of one of Berkeley’s most important sites. It could be a way to meet different others and to share concerns, desires, and ideas. Perhaps we can find common ground to improve the Park without violating it’s history and spirit. 

But in the mean time, the Park will go on being cared for by the people that go there and just do it. Please join us. Help plan the Anniversary concert for April 22, or volunteer to cook food, or play Frisbee, or do art, or meet homeless people, or grow vegetables, or plan a poetry jam or a picnic or ballroom dancing or... 

People’s Park needs some of this generation to know yourselves as the People and participate in this experiment of Common Land. Enjoy it, improve it, share it. Take it into your own hands, unmediated by the experts, the officials. Do it yourself. It is a thin slice of freedom in a society of hierarchical control. Claim it. 

Terri Compost 

 

• 

GIVE PEDESTRIANIZATION A CHANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Much has been made in these pages and elsewhere about the Downtown Area Planning Advisory Committee (DAPAC) decision last week, on a 11-7 vote, to support full pedestrianization of Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford. As a DAPAC member who voted in favor of the motion, I say: “Give pedestrianization a chance!” 

Critics of the decision have said that it is too soon to select a design option for Center Street, that merchants’ concerns haven’t been heard, that first studies need to be made on all three options: 1) the current two-way traffic arrangement; 2) a slow street (or “woonerf”) with one way traffic on rough pavement with wide sidewalks; and 3) full pedestrianization. (Full pedestrianization would allow emergency access at any time and delivery access at certain hours every day.) Unfortunately, the clock is ticking; DAPAC must complete a Downtown Plan by next November, and until DAPAC acted last week, no planning assumptions had been adopted. Furthermore, these options have been under discussion since the UCB Hotel Task Force recommended full pedestrianization two years ago.  

Furthermore, major design elements needing space on Center Street, such as a possible creek and open space plaza that would compete with cars on the street, are waiting to be decided; therefore, a basic planning decision about the street had to be made. 

I understand and appreciate downtown merchants’ concerns about pedestrianizing Center Street. DAPAC’s decision in support of full pedestrianization is the preferred option; in other words, this decision is a starting point only and details need to be worked out. Concerns include but are not limited to: maintenance and security issues, street behavior, delivery access, emergency access, handicapped access, and parking. What’s needed now is a City process to work with downtown business interests and other stakeholders to identify and come up with a strategy to address those concerns. A good place to start would be to conduct a walking tour of that block of Center Street with stakeholders to identify issues and experience visually the relationships between buildings, street width, sidewalk widths, curb locations, etc. I urge the Mayor and City Council to initiate such a process sooner rather than later. 

Helen Burke 

 

• 

PSC CONTINUES TO POLLUTE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

They’re counting on you to keep your windows closed and your mouth shut. The recent Pacific Steel Casting consent decree with Citizens for a Better Environment is terrible because its missing several important parts that would have protected the people who live and work near the factory. Without these parts in the agreement, the neighborhood is still unsafe and PSC is officially allowed to continue poisoning the people who live and work there. 

Why the agreement stinks? 

There is no funding or plan for comprehensive community air testing in the neighborhood. 

There is no funding or plan for a health effects survey to learn what harm has already been caused to workers and residents by PSC and the toxic emissions. 

There is no funding or plan to release ALL test results to the public so the people who live near the factory can decide whether PSC should be allowed to continue to release chemicals known to cause cancer, reproductive disorders, respiratory disorders and other health problems. 

Remember, this factory is less than a mile from schools, parks, restaurants, and day care centers and the air still stinks in the neighborhood even after PSC added some new equipment that was supposed to fix the problem. Why should anyone celebrate an agreement that allows PSC to continue polluting people in Berkeley, Albany, Kensington, and El Cerrito? Why not ask the neighbors what they think about being poisoned just a little more slowly while Pacific Steel Casting and Citizens for a Better Environment and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Mayor Bates and Council Member Maio shake hands and celebrate a terrible job well done! 

They’re counting on you to keep your windows closed and your mouth shut. 

Andrew Galpern 

 

• 

ORGANIZING ACTIVISTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m working with a group of neighborhood activists in an East Coast College town. They’re being overrun with college expansion and an autocratic, development-minded mayor, and there’s no discernible community sector to fight it. In one of my recent e-mails to them, I commented:  

“I’m not sure your town is any worse than anyplace else in terms of development, but I can tell you what we do have in Berkeley that I don’t see much evidence of there: organized neighborhood groups and activists that work together. I almost can’t keep up with all the condo conversion ordinances and measures to change them and referendums to block these changes, etc. If you Google the Berkeley Daily Planet (our free community newspaper, gone defunct but resurrected by a couple who sold their software company to do so), you’ll find many stories each week of the ongoing battles with city officials, college officials, and developers. Oftentimes they actually make some headway in forcing compromises because they won’t shut up and go away.  

And a young person on their end asked me: Why do you think Berkeley has such an activist population? I have always attributed [my town’s] lack of such activity to its growing affluence and transient nature of the student body, yet Berkeley faces the same issues.  

I should have a concise answer for this great question, but I don’t. I haven’t been involved in any activist issues before now, and I’m still not connected with my own neighborhood in Berkeley. Can you enlighten me with your current and historic perspective and/or print this question somewhere in the Daily Planet to invite answers? It seems like a fruitful one. Or can you recommend any books/articles/documentaries on the subject?  

Thanks so much for any help you can provide these unfortunate, rudderless activists in a small New England college town. I really appreciate all you’re doing to keep our democratic, free press going, and I know this is a crucial part of keeping activism alive in Berkeley!  

Ann Foley 

 

• 

BOWLS HALL EXPERIENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There are always two sides of a story. Bob Sayles had a positive experience at Bowles Hall. I believe that he is telling the truth from his perspective. I was at Bowles Hall in the same period (1948-1952), and I found the atmosphere very chilling. Noisy, rowdy, inconsiderate. Upperclassmen who hazed lowerclassmen in a fraternity-like atmosphere. Drinking bouts. No perceptible guidance system—just a housemother who knew she was outnumbered and had to be a mascot. And an atmosphere in which I felt afraid, certainly never accepted When I moved to International House as a graduate student (1952--1955), I was amazed at the difference: nurturing, well-ordered, friendly, considerate. I should have moved there sooner.  

Adolescent behavior in residence halls is nothing new, but I see no reason to institutionalize it. I, for one, am more willing to trust the Housing Office at UC than some alumni who don’t know the campus today and who want to reinstate their vision of how they remember Bowles Hall. Old days can’t be relived, today’s world is different. And opposing each new move by the UC officials doesn’t seem a productive tactic. Why not let UC make choices in terms of today’s logistics, today’s students? And if the choices the Housing officials make don’t work, today’s students, not those of 50 years ago or more, should be the ones to help guide the system. They, not us oldtimers, are the consumers. 

Sherwin Carlquist 

Santa Barbara 

 

• 

SAVE BOWLES HALL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to “Bowles Alums Lead Fight to Preserve Beloved Hall” I’m outraged to hear again that the university is ruining the undergraduate experience at Berkeley! Haas needs to redirect the focus of their efforts to create executive suites away from California’s oldest residence hall, Bowles Hall. 

In 1998, when I moved into Bowles Hall my freshman year, I was roomed with two upper classmen. These upper classmen, both of whom were in my major, were able to guide me in my academics and help me become comfortable in the new college environment. (Recently they were both groomsmen in my wedding.) 

It was a shame when they UC Berkeley Housing Office capped the percent of returning Bowlesmen to 17 percent the hall’s capacity in 1999 (previously 50 percent) and even more discouraging when they eliminated any chance to return to the hall in 2005. 

The thought of eliminating the chance for any undergraduate to have the type of wonderful experience I had in Bowles Hall deeply saddens me. I sincerely hope the university will reconsider the location of their executive suites as well as make efforts towards restoring the Bowles Hall experience. 

David Hornung 

 

• 

PROTEST AGAINST PROF. YOO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For the past year a small group of citizens has held a weekly vigil outside of Professor John Yoo’s class at Boalt Law School and in Sproul Plaza to protest his presence at a leading U.S. law college. Yoo’s cockamamie legal theories have buttressed the Bush administration’s claims of dictatorial power and laid the groundwork for the torture so horrifically depicted in Fernando Botero’s paintings on display in Doe Library. 

Every week, students, faculty, and staff chatting on cell phones and plugged into iPods hurry past color photos of screaming men and bloody bodies, averting their eyes as good Germans once did from that which their government is doing. Let us hope that Botero’s paintings and presence at UC will reawaken the moral conscience of this university—if any remains to be woken—to a faculty member so responsible for such reprehensible crimes and UC’s unacknowledged shame. 

Gray Brechin 

 

• 

MACARTHUR DELIVERY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For the life of me, I cannot understand why it is so difficult to deliver your paper to the McArthur newspaper box, twice a week, as you do to every other Daily Planet box throughout “the greater Berkeley” area. I have called your office repeatedly to report this problem. All I’ve ever gotten have been half-hearted, unenthused responses bemoaning driver unreliability or scarcity. 

So what is it? You manage to deliver your newspaper to Piedmont, El Cerrito del Norte and Grand Lake. I have found it as far as Mountain Boulevard and Point Richmond. You should know that very many people in North Oakland spend money in Berkeley, patronizing some of the very businesses that advertise in your publication. We routinely cross the border to go to events, to activate, to socialize, to work and to shop. 

Other free publications, which may or may not be worth reading, don’t seem to have a problem stocking their boxes. However varied (the demographics of) their readership, they seem to not single-out any particular area for non-delivery. 

Please step up to the plate and show us the same respect you show everyone else. 

Jimena Pérez, 

Oakland 

 

• 

CELL TOWERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your recent story, “ZAB Rejects Cell Phone Antennas on UC Storage” (Jan. 30) was quite interesting. It seems that some activist-citizens in Berkeley did not want to see Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communications be able to improve their local cellular telephone service offerings. I trust that none of these activist-citizens are currently users of cell phones or any other modern electronically-based technology including television, radio, Internet, e-mail, WiFi or even the traditional telephone. For if they are, they are thus being schizophrenic, plain silly or as the folk saying goes, cutting off their noses to spite their faces… Many people seem to want to enjoy the fruits of modern technology without allowing the needed supporting infrastructure to be placed locally in their neighborhoods. 

As for alleged health concerns, we are all already taking a 24/7 daily bath in a cornucopia of electromagnetic energy: electricity, radio waves, television broadcasts, microwaves, radar, WiFi and satellite television signals. This is on top of all the natural electromagnetic radiation, which we receive from the sun, plus cosmic radiation originating from beyond our solar system. This radiation has been showering down on our Earth for billions of years; all species of plants and animals have evolved and lived in this radiation bath. There is also radioactivity from natural sources in the earth’s rocks. 

In a similar vein to our Berkeley protests, some of the good citizens through the tunnel out in Lafayette are up in arms about whether to continue to allow cell phone service antennas to be disguised as artifical “trees” with their blue-green needles and branches. And I thought that the corporations were quite smart in making these broadcast antenna/trees an obviously artificial blue-green color to stop ignorant woodsmen or tree trimmers from cutting down the antenna-trees in a fit of harvesting or pruning mania. Hmm, artificial Christmas trees are fine and dandy, but artificial cell phone tower/trees are not… Wonders never cease with the human species.  

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

 

• 

ABAG HOUSING NUMBERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Steve Martinot in his Jan. 16 commentary, “ABAG Allocations Equal Top-Down Decision Making,” misses the point about housing policy and the City of Berkeley’s decision-making and leadership role in meeting Berkeley’s and the region’s housing needs. The City of Berkeley’s elected officials and staff have worked closely with other city and county representatives from the nine Bay Area counties on the ABAG Housing Methodology Committee. Together they helped develop a draft process to distribute the regional housing need required by state law so that local governments can identify appropriate housing sites and policies to meet these planning goals. This Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) process is happening state-wide in all the regions. 

Martinot’s statements that this process and RHNA formula for housing distribution in the Bay Area was pre-determined, dictated top-down, kept secret, and even dominated by the Bay Area’s outer rim city interests, just aren’t true. The Draft RHNA formula has been reviewed intensely and constructively these past two months by all our region’s local governments. Berkeley and other cities have had multiple critical discussions across the board about how to allocate housing need equitably by income level to all our Bay Area communities. With ABAG Executive Board and staff they have wrestled with regional and local challenges like land use, availability of land, jobs, current housing, transportation systems, and strained infrastructure. The final revised RHNA Methodology, which was adopted on January 18th after a public hearing and additional lengthy review, reflects their articulated concerns and priorities. It also recognizes the critical need to secure incentives at the state and regional level to help our cities and counties meet their housing commitment. 

Martinot characterized this whole housing needs process and regional/local collaboration as “a new shift of power” to the region. In fact, the City of Berkeley has been at the forefront of facilitating a regional collaborative and problem solving process since 1961, when ABAG was formed and became the first council of governments in California. Former Berkeley Mayor Claude Hutchison was the first president of ABAG and one of the founding local government leaders to call for a regional local government body that would help Bay Area local governments find creative solutions to local issues they shared and maximize the resources and authority of local government in its dealings with the state. For 46 years, ABAG has continued this commitment.  

Kathleen Cha 

Senior Communications Officer 

Association of Bay Area Governments 


Commentary: Center Street: Leave Options Open

By Mark McLeod
Friday February 02, 2007

EDITOR’S NOTE: This letter was sent to the mayor, City Council and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, as well as other city officials and local newspapers.  

 

As president of the Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA), it was with considerable dismay that I read of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee’s (DAPAC’s) approval, on Jan. 18, of a motion to support one and only one alternative for the block of Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford. This action was a cynical rush to judgment in which a few members subverted their own subcommittee report. That subcommittee report recommended study of three different alternatives with the implication that there would be a thorough public discussion and evaluation of those alternatives. The five renegade members rammed through their personal preference, and ended up getting the DAPAC to ratify their motion that one and only one alternative model for Center Street henceforth be considered. 

In recent months, there had been considerable thoughtful discussion of how Center Street might be configured in light of the development of two large properties adjacent to the street—the Berkeley Charles Hotel and the Berkeley Art Museum (BAM). Three distinctly different alternatives of merit had emerged in very preliminary form. Each option will affect Center Street and the surrounding areas in every different ways, with important implications for the downtown as a whole. 

Before any one of the three receives support from the DAPAC, the responsible course would be for the DAPAC, or a qualified consultant, to do a thoughtful and professional evaluation of each alternative, including some preliminary designs, which could have indicated how each alternative might work. The assessment of the relative merits would then be part of the record on which the general community could base its own evaluation. DAPAC must also consult with the business and property owners who will be affected to obtain their views on how the three alternatives might affect them and include that input in the evaluation of the alternatives. 

Instead, despite protests from a number of committee members, including the chair, five members of the Center Street Subcommittee used a parliamentary maneuver to gain an 11 to 8 vote for their motion which allows DAPAC to consider only one of the three alternatives. 

The twenty-one member DAPAC, appointed to prepare a new plan for downtown—the economic and cultural heart of Berkeley—has no members that represent businesses, property owners, or arts and entertainment venues in the downtown. I would hope there would be some opportunity for a councilmember to add at least one such representative to DAPAC. At the minimum, each councilmember and the mayor should caucus with their appointees on the DAPAC and insist that they behave responsibly and engage the business community on an ongoing basis. 

It is my profound hope that the DAPAC will place on its agenda in the near future an opportunity to reconsider this action. The council and the mayor should inform their appointees that the three alternatives should be given intelligent, professional consideration, and that design concepts should be discussed with the affected businesses, long before options have been reduced to one. 

 

Mark McLeod is president of the Downtown Berkeley Association. 


Commentary: Walkable Open Space Best Option for Center Street

By Wendy Alfsen
Friday February 02, 2007

I previously served on the Hotel Convention Center Museum Task Force of which Downtown Business Association (DBA), the Convention and Visitors’ Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce were all members. After presentations by all sides, the task force recommended the closure of Center Street to through vehicle traffic. The council adopted the recommendations of that task force. I now serve on the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). More than any other interest group, over this last year downtown businesses have had the opportunity to and made presentations to the entire DAPAC and to its Center Street Subcommittee. Even at the subcommittee’s last meeting, most of the time was taken with presentations of DBA-solicited models & drawings and the one environmental presentation was severely restricted. DAPAC made no final determination but decided on a preferred study option—determine if a pedestrianized plaza will work on this street. This is the same decision that was previously made by the task force and by council. That’s what DAPAC (nearly two-thirds majority) decided last week.  

Yet Mark McLeod, current president of the Downtown Berkeley Association, has sent a letter attacking that vote. One could conclude that the DBA and other downtown businesses do not want direct access for hotel, convention center and museum patrons directly across Center Street.  

Currently, those few shoppers/restaurant customers who do drive to Center Street, park in a Bank of America parking lot or a few on street spaces. A similar number of spaces will be still be available in a mid block parking garage under the hotel/convention center/museum. Drivers will walk out of the garage mid block onto Center Street. Just think: Is that driver more likely to pick a restaurant or store where 1) as now, the driver is required to walk down the block to the corner, wait for a light, cross in a cross walk breathing car idling smog and then walk back up the block or 2) that driver can walk fewer steps in a more natural environment, without worrying about moving cars, directly across to that restaurant or store? Wouldn’t customers prefer sitting out front looking across strolling people in a car-free public space over a view of asphalt, parking meters and moving cars? Doesn’t seem like a hard choice.  

If moving and parked cars were a key ingredient for successful business, then downtown would be booming—as that is its current environment. But downtown businesses insist they are struggling—so more cars can hardly be the best answer for future business. We definitely know it’s not the best answer for the museum, the convention center, the hotel (and having chosen a public space option, we can ask their help in designing a new Center Street.)  

We already know that a walkable, rather than a car, environment, is preferred by the pedestrian majority of current Center Street and downtown customers (55 percent of all downtown shoppers walk to their shopping/eating destination). A majority of the customers to the hotel, convention center and museum will come by BART not car. (If not so, the complex would be built next to a freeway exit instead a BART station, wouldn’t it?) Since we’re building a new future, let’s explore creating a Center Street public space that embodies the best of Berkeley (a reality of the why we live here dream). As a downtown neighbor, I look forward to working with downtown businesses and many other stakeholders to do just that. 

 

Wendy Alfsen is a DAPAC member.


Commentary: Correcting McLeod’s Errors on Center Street

By Rob Wrenn
Friday February 02, 2007

Mark McLeod has written a letter to the City Council, local papers and others which attacks the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee’s vote to support pedestrianization as the preferred option for Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford streets downtown where the new hotel and UC art museum are planned. 

As chair of DAPAC’s Center Street subcommittee, I am writing to correct some factual misstatements in his letter and to elaborate on the DAPAC’s action. 

I will pass over the somewhat intemperate language of his letter (“renegades”; “cynical rush to judgment”; “subverted”) to focus on the substance of his arguments. 

First, it is not true that the subcommittee report recommended further study of three alternatives for Center Street. As the report clearly states, the subcommittee was not able to reach a consensus on what to do with the street. Most subcommittee members thought pedestrianization was the most promising option, but some preferred two alternative options that would allow cars to continue to drive and park on, or at least drive on, the street. The subcommittee left the decision regarding which option was best to the full DAPAC. 

Second, the vote (which was 11 to 7, not 11 to 8) was not the outcome of some “parliamentary maneuver.” The motion that passed was submitted a week in advance of the meeting. DAPAC members, and everyone on the DAPAC e-mail list, got it along with the agendas for the meeting. Everyone knew what was being proposed and had time to think about it. 

Third, there has been ample consultation of stakeholders regarding the future of that block of Center Street. The idea that a pedestrian open space should be created there has been discussed for years. 

The General Plan, adopted in 2001-2002, called for the City to explore options for closing Center Street and also called for a task force to look at the idea of a downtown hotel and conference center. 

In 2004, the 25-member Hotel Task Force was formed. The task force included representatives of DBA and the Chamber of Commerce, and also included a Center Street property owner. It met for five months and heard input from merchants and property owners on Center and nearby streets, along with input from other stakeholders and interested citizens. 

In the end the task force recommended the creation of “a public pedestrian-oriented open space or plaza” on Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford. It called for closing the street to motor vehicles. The City Council subsequently accepted the recommendations and forwarded them to the hotel developer and UC. 

In effect, by its recent action, the DAPAC has voted to affirm the Hotel Task Force recommendation. The DAPAC subcommittee also heard from merchants on Center Street and even discussed detailed drawings for alternative options. 

The full DAPAC has also dealt with Center Street during public workshops and other public meetings since the DAPAC process began in November 2005. Members of the public have had ample opportunities to voice their opinions. Support for the option that DAPAC ultimately approved has been voiced by many throughout the process. 

Now, with only nine months remaining before DAPAC disbands, DAPAC has begun to give its input to staff about what it wants in the draft plan, which is supposed to be finished by summer’s end in time for DAPAC review in the fall. 

Both during the Hotel Task Force process and again in the DAPAC process, merchants have raised a number of legitimate concerns about what pedestrianization will mean for Center Street. Their concerns have been addressed in the Hotel Task Force recommendations and again in the recent motion passed by DAPAC. 

First, there is a concern about how businesses on Center will receive deliveries when the street is closed. There are thousands of streets around the world that have been closed to regular motor vehicle traffic to create pedestrian areas. These streets, like Center Street, typically include restaurants and retail businesses, and all of them manage to get the deliveries they need. 

How this is accomplished varies according to the specific context. On Center Street, it may make sense to allow delivery vehicles onto whatever plaza is created during early morning hours. 

Second, there is a concern about whether the city will follow through and maintain the new open space if one is created. The city certainly will have the resources to do so. The new hotel and associated housing will generate well over $1 million a year in new hotel tax and property tax revenues. A small portion of this would be enough to keep the newly designed public space clean and well maintained.  

Third, there is a concern about the loss of on-street parking. Both the Hotel Task Force and the DAPAC have recommended creation of easy pedestrian access to public parking that will be built underneath the hotel and/or museum. 

Center Street businesses do not currently rely heavily on the on- street parking. A large portion of their business comes from the enormous flow of pedestrians going between BART and downtown bus stops and the UC campus. This flow has been estimated at 10,000 pedestrian trips a day. But with underground parking, it will probably be easier to find a place to park that it is now at the metered spaces on the street. 

By its vote, DAPAC has said that it wants a pedestrian-friendly open space. But DAPAC did not vote to endorse a specific design for that space. It has recommended a design process that will afford merchants, property owners and others an opportunity to voice their opinions on the specific design features they would like to see. Deliveries, maintenance, parking and whatever other concerns are raised can all be addressed in this design process. 

Designs could include varying mixes of trees, landscaping, street and sidewalk surfaces, street furniture, benches, public art, tables and chairs for outdoor dining, etc. A creek or other “water feature” could be included. There is a real opportunity to create a gathering place where people can spend time away from the noise and traffic of Shattuck Avenue. There could also be space for outdoor concerts.  

Without removing cars from the street (with possible exceptions for deliveries and emergency vehicles), it would be impossible to create a real pedestrian plaza. 

With no traffic and parked cars to contend with, people visiting the hotel, conference center and UC art museum will be able to more easily access the restaurants and shops on the south side of the street. There will likely be more of a flow from one side of the street to the other. 

So local businesses stand to benefit. Hopefully Mark McLeod and others will offer their ideas about how this new open space can work to maximum advantage for local businesses. 

 

Rob Wrenn is a member of DAPAC and a resident of the LeConte neighborhood.


Commentary: Israel Colonization is the Primary Obstacle to Peace

By Matthew Taylor
Friday February 02, 2007

It is heartening to learn that many readers of the Daily Planet understand the reality of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Others say they plan to approach Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, with an open and inquisitive mind. Below, I respond to Dan Spitzer’s and Rachel Neuwirth’s criticisms of my Jan. 9th op-ed on the subject. 

Mr. Spitzer’s letter is littered with ad hominem attacks, in which he insinuates that I am not one of “the sharpest nails in the shed,” that I smoke opiates, and that former President Carter is a “Peanut Brain.” I fail to see how such comments are useful or relevant. 

Mr. Spitzer’s letter does not respond in any substantive measure to the central thesis of both Mr. Carter’s book, and my op-ed: that “the primary obstacle to peace is Israel's unending colonial project.” 

The closest Mr. Spitzer comes to a response is his inaccurate assertion that I “parrot Palestinian propaganda without any substantiation.” Perhaps Mr. Spitzer might choose to re-read my op-ed, in which I offer a specific, personally witnessed instance of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. I saw Israel’s army bulldoze a Palestinian man’s home for one reason: in order to build a road only Israeli colonizers are allowed to access. In one fell swoop, this action combines the crimes of land theft (colonization) with forced dislocation of the inhabitants (ethnic cleansing) and the building of Jewish-only public works projects (Apartheid). 

Such home demolitions are systemic Israeli policy, and are extensively documented by Israeli watchdogs such as Rabbis for Human Rights (http://rhr.israel.net). Home demolitions are a key part of the stated plan of many Israeli political leaders past and present: to confiscate as much of the West Bank as they can get away with.  

Here’s what Arik Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights had to say about a recent such home demolition in December of 2006: 

“Little Yousef is again homeless, and shortly his sister will again come home from school to discover that the home she left in the morning is now rubble…. This time the family was all alone with their tears. I was not there to stand in front of the bulldozers and nobody from the RHR staff was able to get through the cordon of border police protecting the demolition…. I have promised Ahmed Musa Dari that this is not the end. We will not abandon him and his family. If we simply express our anger, the Mayor [of Jerusalem] will still have succeeded and will continue to harden his heart. He will have been mistaken if you leave the message not only that you are outraged but that you are contributing to the rebuilding of 10 homes and demanding that your country’s officials take action.” 

Asherman requests letters and phone calls to the mayor of Jerusalem, and donations to help rebuild homes. Visit the RHR website for more information at: http://rhr.israel.net/darkness-has-struck-again 

Other instances of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and colonization project in the West Bank have been documented ad nauseam by Israeli human rights organizations such as B’Tselem (www.btselem.org) and Machsom (“Movement Barrier”) Watch (www.machsomwatch.org). To find out more about the Palestinian women who have given “birth” to stillborn babies at movement barriers because they are denied the ability to travel to a hospital, simply visit B’Tselem’s website, listed above, and type in the search terms: Palestinian pregnant checkpoint. Similarly, B’Tselem reports that “The shortage of drinking water [for Palestinians] can cause dehydration and the inability to maintain proper hygiene and thus lead to illness,” whereas Israelis have enough to fill swimming pools. 

To clarify: according to Carter, Apartheid applies only to Israel’s policies in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories: East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza Strip. However, for at least some Palestinians in pre-1967 Israel, the term is quite relevant. A significant number of Palestinian villages inside Israel are “unrecognized” and are officially denied “any basic services such as running water, electricity, proper education and health services and access roads—constituting a gross violation of human rights.” (See the “Association of 40” at www.assoc40.org.) They don’t even appear on a map. Further, Bedouins have been subjected to the worst forms of Israeli oppression, including on Jan. 9 of this year the destruction of an entire Bedouin village, Tawil Abu Jarwal in the Negev, documented by the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (www.icahd.org). 

Mr. Spitzer makes a number of inaccurate claims, including that I cite a “fabricated quote.” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s statement imploring the colonizers to “grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements” appears in Carter’s book—Agence France Presse is the source. It is a matter of extensive public record that Sharon was a fervent supporter of Israel’s illegal colonies during his entire career. 

Mr. Spitzer refers to Israel’s wall, which unilaterally steals Palestinian land. The International Court of Justice has ruled that the wall is illegal and must be dismantled. If its purpose were Israel’s security, it would be built on the 1967 border—but it cuts deep into the West Bank and has permitted, for example, Mod’in Illit to expand at a furious pace on stolen Palestinian farmland. 

Mr. Spitzer’s claim that the West Bank and Gaza are “Palestinian ruled” are patently false. Both are under a nearly 40-year-old Israeli military occupation! The Palestinian Authority cannot possibly “rule” (or even govern) a land over which it has no real sovereignty. Gaza is now the world’s largest open-air prison, and the Israeli air force bombs civilian population centers at will, killing 200 civilians in November 2006 alone, half women and children. The West Bank is being sliced up into territorially discontiguous “Bantustans,” a Swiss cheese surrounded by a sea of illegal Israeli colonies. 

Mr. Spitzer attempts to change the subject and avoid dealing with the realities of Israel’s systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people by raising the specter of the election of Hamas, a movement that arose in 1988 as a response to 21 years of illegal occupation and colonization. While Hamas’ tactics are deplorable, they are also comprehensible as a desperate and misguided response to oppression. Mr. Spitzer’s comments are a misleading “blame the victim” approach. Statements by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya indicate that Hamas appears inclined to recognize Israel in exchange for a full withdrawl to the 1967 borders and a two-state resolution to the conflict. 

To backtrack for a moment, it would undoubtedly have been best for all involved parties had Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon listened to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ repeated pleas following Abbas’ election in January of 2005 to meet and negotiate a final status agreement. However, Sharon refused to do so because his intention was not to achieve a just peace, but to steal as much West Bank land as he could—which is precisely what he did. By refusing to meet with Abbas, Israel helped guarantee the election of Hamas a year later, the outcome it claims it least desired. But does that give Israel the political cover it needs to further ignore Abbas as a partner for peace and steal more land?  

In short, Israel has chosen—and continues to choose—colonization instead of peace. Uri Avnery’s analysis at Gush Shalom (www.gush-shalom.org) is well worth a read. 

One development that offers tremendous hope is Combatants for Peace, a group of former Israeli and Palestinian warriors who have set down their guns and are working together to end the occupation and all forms of violence. Read about their movement at www.combatantsforpeace.org and in the latest issue of PeacePower, available online at www.calpeacepower.org. 

Perhaps Mr. Spitzer, and interested readers, might wish to spend time researching the matter first-hand by visiting both Israelis and the Palestinians in the West Bank. For American Jews, Birthright Unplugged is a Jewish-led organization that offers guided tours of the West Bank (www.birthrightunplugged.org). Or visit Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, a Palestinian nonviolent activism organization that offers opportunities to live with Palestinian families (www.holylandtrust.org). In film, John Pilger’s insightful documentary “Palestine is Still the Issue” is now available online at www.youtube.com. 

I find Rachel Neuwirth’s commentary quite unsettling. She is the President of Middle East Solutions, which proposes a “win-win peaceful outcome” to the conflict: the ethnic cleansing (“resettlement”) of Palestinians from historical Palestine, and their removal to a new “Palestinian state” in Saudi Arabia. This “Plan for Arab-Israeli Reconciliation,” as she puts it, is outlined at www.middleeastsolutions.com.  

Ms. Neuwirth’s claim that I did not engage “in the slightest effort at fact finding” is obviously false—as mentioned, I have seen Israel’s Apartheid activities with my own eyes. Neuwirth changes the subject from Israel’s current oppression of Palestinians (the main point of Carter’s book) to interpretations of a colonial document issued ninety years ago. She neglects to mention that the document in question specifically states: “Nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Her assertion that the entirety of Palestine “was exclusively allocated to the Jewish nation by international law” could not be more inaccurate—the mandate called for a “homeland” for the Jewish people, but not one that was “exclusive” (or one that would involve the expulsion or mistreatment of the current population).  

Finally, Mr. Spitzer and Ms. Neuwirth both attack UC Berkeley’s Peace and Conflict Studies program (PACS). Mr. Spitzer claims that it is “laughed at” by “most responsible UCB professors.” I’m not sure which UCB professors he has spoken to, or what his criteria is for determining whether or not a professor is “responsible,” but I perceive our program to be held in extremely high esteem. Students have initiated several well-regarded projects recently, including PeacePower, a nominee for UTNE Reader’s “Best New Publication of 2006,” and the Conflict Resolution and Transformation Center (http://conflict.berkeley.edu), a student-led program that addresses student conflict on campus. I am a co-founder of both. 

PACS has been described as a “mission major,” akin to the Department of Public Health. Just as Public Health seeks to eradicate all forms of disease, PACS seeks to eradicate all forms of violence. As Susan Collin Marks of Search for Common Ground says, “violent conflict destroys everything.” Someday, Palestinian children and Israeli children will grow up together, love each other, and be sisters and brothers together. It is up to us to start a nonviolent movement to make that possible, is it not? As Yonatan Shapira of Combatants for Peace has said, we must liberate Palestinians from Israel’s occupation, and free Israel from its role as an occupier. 

 

Matthew Taylor is a fifth-year Peace and Conflict Studies student at UC Berkeley, editor of PeacePower magazine (www.calpeacepower.org), and Jewish. 


Commentary: Justice, Peace, Righteousness

By Joseph Lifschutz
Friday February 02, 2007

Mr. Spitzer’s latest misunderstanding of the Israel-Palestine disputes, and of President Carter’s recent book, deserves answers. 

Fourteen, to my mind misguided, members of the Carter Center advisory board resigned, protesting President Carter’s book. The board consists of over 200 members. 94 percent of them did not resign. 

The lessons of history must be read very carefully. With the passage of time our knowledge of the exact sequence and meanings of past events becomes less certain. There were three participants at the 2000 Camp David peace talks. None of the three were without partisanship. Exactly why no agreement was reached is not as certain as Spitzer makes out. 

And it is irrelevant anyway. What history can contribute to our knowledge of current conflict cannot compare with current, immediate observations. The precise question is—what is happening right now, on the ground, in the West Bank (Arab Palestine)? It is occupied by foreign (Israeli) troops. That the Arab population is oppressed there is no dispute. 

All sides (Israel, Palestine and the United States as intermediary) have made glaring and destructive past mistakes. Israel will lose nothing and gain everything by taking radical, peaceful steps now. Leave the West Bank. Where is the justice, the peacefulness and righteousness of the Jewish past, of the Book of which Jews are the People? Let is be demonstrated now. 

Israel is a tiny geographic speck surrounded by a sea of a hundred million Arabs who hate it. Israel’s current policy is suicidal. Sanity calls for peace, not suicide. 


Commentary: Carter’s Great Service to History and Justice

By Marc Sapir
Friday February 02, 2007

Is Dan Spitzer fooling anyone when he calls himself a progressive? One aspect of Spitzer’s Jan. 30 letter to the Berkeley Planet is the use of disingenuous “facts” to create insupportable assumptions in the public mind. Thus the statements about what was offered by Israel to the Palestinians at the Clinton Camp David meetings are riddled with falsehood, but his letter attacking Joseph Lifschutz isn’t really about what Arafat allegedly rejected. (If anyone needs to know what Israel actually offered the Palestinians at camp David—there was no formal proposal--I suggest Israeli Professor Tanya Reinhart’s excellent and well documented book, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. It’s all there). 

This ploy by Spitzer is used to bolster the idea that Arafat was being unreasonable to insist upon discussing the “right of (Palestinians) to return” to their towns, land, homes from which they fled in 1948. Unfortunately for Spitzer and Zionism, international law is quite clear about the right of any displaced people to return. Supporters of the Israeli state continue to insist that all efforts to assure implementation of this right are the hard evidence that Israel’s right to exist is under serious attack. What they are doing in that case is conflating the idea of the right of Jews to live in the middle east in a democracy--free from persecution--under a secular (i.e. non-Muslim) state that guarantees full political rights to all, with the idea of the right to a Jewish State announced by a Hungarian, Theodore Herzl, in 1896 and declared real by British imperialism in the Balfour Declaration after World War II (1917). A Jewish State is what Israel proclaims itself. For those of us—hopefully a majority of Americans and a majority of Jews—who believe in secular democracy, there can be no allowances for religious states regardless of how congenial that religion’s teachings on justice may be. Unequal rights for classes of citizens is understood to mean discrimination against some groups for the benefit of others.  

The fact that 3.5 million Palestinian civilians continue to live in a hell under Israel’s military domination and the accompanying constant terror-- having no citizenship in any country, absent the right to vote to influence the governance of Israel, that State which governs them against their will, destroys their homes and farmlands, forbids them passage from place to place within the occupied territories, prevents them from working and steals their resources; this condemns Israel to the label of rogue state in violation of international human and democratic rights. The UN General Assembly has been clear on that. Jimmy Carter did a great service to history and justice when he called the Israeli state correctly, an apartheid state in his title. Almost anyone who witnesses what is going on in the occupied territories today can not but come that same conclusion.  

 

Marc Sapir is executive director of Retro Poll.


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday January 30, 2007

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 

 

 

 


Commentary: Millions for Big Sports Could be Better Spent

By Ariel Parkinson
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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. 


Commentary: Chasing the Football Dollar Sidelines Education and Threatens Public Safety

By Hank Gehman
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


More Views on UC’s Stadium Projects

Tuesday January 30, 2007

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 

 

 


Commentary: July Poll’s Purpose Was Very Political and Only Political

By Dan Knapp
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Columns

Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Bolivian Elites Mobilize; Turkish Army Masses

By Conn Hallinan
Friday February 02, 2007

Unrest in Bolivia’s eastern provinces is spreading, as local landlords and the European-origin wealthy elite who dominate the region dig in to resist efforts by President Evo Morales to institute land reform and use the region’s natural gas reserves to raise national living standards. 

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, with six in 10 people living under the poverty line, a figure that jumps to nine in 10 in rural areas.  

Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) won last year’s election on a platform of reclaiming a controlling interest in gas and oil resources, raising fees on foreign mining companies, and turning idle land over to the landless. Gas and oil were successfully nationalized, and income from mining has increased six-fold. As a result, the economy is growing at a respectable 4 percent, and the government has built up a 6 percent budget surplus, which it is using to improve education and subsidize food for the poor. 

But an effort to distribute 48 million acres of land has sparked demonstrations in Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third largest city and capital of Cochabamba province, where an anti-Morales governor, Manfredo Reyes, is pushing an autonomy referendum. The departments of Pando, Beni, Tarija and Santa Cruz all voted for autonomy in July 2006. Nationwide, however, the autonomy referendum was defeated. 

While the Parliament approved the land distribution—10 percent of Bolivia’s families own 90 percent of the land— landlords, backed by powerful multinationals, like Cargill, Monsanto, and Brazilian soybean producers, have mobilized to resist the move.  

The tension boiled over in Cochabamba Jan. 10, when local peasants and coca growers marched on the city demanding that Governor Reyes resign after he organized the autonomy referendum. The governor called out the police, who tear gassed demonstrators. A right-wing pro-autonomy group, Youth for Democracy, attacked the demonstrators touching off a riot that killed two and wounded more than 100.  

The eastern provinces are the wealthiest part of Bolivia—Santa Cruz alone produces almost half the nation’s wealth—but there is widespread poverty as well, with working class slums sandwiched between malls and skyscrapers. While Indians make up a majority of Bolivia’s population, most of them live in the poorer highlands.  

Morales supporters point out that when highland tin was the Bolivian economic engine, the eastern elites supported a centralized government. It was only after natural gas deposits were discovered in the east, and Bolivia elected its first Indian president—Morales is an Aymara—that the eastern departments suddenly decided they wanted autonomy. 

An ugly strain of racism has crept into the current standoff. When Morales sacked army commander Marcelo Antezana for unilaterally allowing the United States to destroy Bolivia’s supply of Chinese shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, the general railed against Morales’ close ties with Cuba and Venezuela and “Caribbean mulattoes.” Signs dabbed on the walls in Santa Cruz read “Evo, chola de Chavez,” which translates, Evo [Morales] is [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez’s Indian woman.” 

MAS is currently attempting to amend the constituent assembly to end a two-thirds rule, which allows the elite minority to block political and judicial reforms. Even though Morales supporters have a majority in the Assembly—255 to 137—the elites have successfully paralyzed the process. 

Though a nationwide referendum on autonomy was defeated in the last election, the eastern provinces are forging ahead anyway. Some in the region suspect that secession is the real goal, quietly supported by landlords in neighboring Paraguay, as well as by the Bush administration. 

Any land distribution in Bolivia is likely to reverberate in Paraguay, which has the most unequal land ownership in the hemisphere: 1 percent of the population controls 77 percent of the land. Unequal access to land is already causing unrest in Paraguay. 

And as for the Bush administration, two years ago it began a campaign against Morales, accusing him of being a cat’s paw for Cuba and Venezuela. The administration has also increased the U.S. military presence in the triple border area of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, including deploying Special Forces in Paraguay.  

If an east-west civil war breaks out, the Bush administration is likely to be right in the middle of it. 

(For further information on Bolivia and Latin America in general, go to upsidedownworld.org, the best source of information on the hemisphere) 

 

 

Can things get worse in Iraq? Considerably, particularly in the north where Turkey appears to be massing troops on the border.  

Behind the sudden surge of military activity is a classified report by Turkey’s National Intelligence Service entitled “Iraq, Terror, Kirkuk, and the PKK.” The Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) has waged a long political and military campaign against Turkey’s mistreatment of its Kurdish minority.  

Ankara is currently upset because it accuses the Kurds of trying to absorb the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as part of a Kurdish autonomous zone by forcing Arabs and Turkic-speaking Turkmen out the city. According to the Intelligence Service, some 600,000 Kurds have moved into the city, and 200,000 Turkmen have been forced out. 

Der Spiegel reports that “Ankara is thinking aloud about a possible military intervention in northern Iraq,” a conclusion echoed by leading Turkish figures.  

On Jan. 9, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said, “There are efforts to alter the demographic structure of Kirkuk. We cannot remain a bystander to such developments. Turkey… will not remain indifferent to developments in Kirkuk.” 

Even the Turkish opposition Republican People’s Party is on board. Party leader Deniz Baykal says, “We are ready to back the government [on intervention]. We’re planning to invite parliament to debate this.” 

The possibility that a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would invade an American-occupied Iraq seems a stretch unless you take into account Turkey’s profound paranoia about its eastern borders, where Kurds constitute a major part of the population. There are approximately 25 million Kurds scattered between Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, and Turkey fought a long and bloody war with the PKK in the mid-1980s that killed 30,000 people and razed 3.000 villages. On a number of occasions Turkish troops crossed the Iraqi border pursuing Kurdish guerillas.  

But since the end of the 1992 Gulf War, Kurds in northern Iraq have established a well-organized autonomous region with some of the largest oil reserves in Iraq. If they can successfully win autonomy referenda in Mosul and Kirkuk, the Kurds will be awash in petrodollars and, Turkey fears, set an example to Kurds in neighboring countries to push for an independent nation. 

Ankara is worried that the PKK will rev up another round of war in eastern Turkey, although the Turks spurned a ceasefire offer last year from the PKK. The Turks are angry that the U.S. is not going after the PKK, but since the U.S. and Israel are using the PKK to try to destabilize Kurdish parts of Iran, Washington is not about to abandon them.  

It may be the Turks are just saber rattling to try to get the referendum called off (as the Iraq Study Group suggested), but they may also hope to prod the U.S. into taking more aggressive action against the PKK. Whatever Turkey has in mind, no one should be surprised if Ankara sends troops into Iraq to attack their long-time nemesis. Such an invasion will likely unite the Kurds, who have reason to fear and hate Turkey, and ignite a free-for-all in northern Iraq.  

Oh, and according to the Inter Press Service, Shiia tribes in southern Iraq are joining the resistance against the British, the main reason why London is talking about “cutting and running” from Basra.  

Can things get worse? Alas, yes.  

 


Column: Undercurrents: Remembering, Mourning and Following Molly Ivins

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 02, 2007

You could clearly see the change in Molly Ivins’ writing in the last weeks of her life. In large part, gone was the beer-and-bourbon with that we had come to love so much, along with that Texas way of looking at the world and the people therein that comes across both as straight-ahead and corner-out-the-eye at the same time, simultaneous, like you’re ready to face the world head-on, but just as ready to either reach for the pistol in your belt or head for the quickest way out, to laugh about it in great tales told in the shade of a summer porch sometime later, either way it came out. 

But in the last weeks of her life Molly’s writing had lost that touch, replaced by a plainspokenness that was almost plaintive. In the last column of hers I read, the next-to-the-last she wrote and published, she tried, not very well, to use once more the finger of ridicule to poke holes in the little puff-toad President that is George W. Bush, and then simply reduced herself to a simple cry of “enough!” in urging us to disengage from the quicksand that is Iraq. 

“The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck—so it's up to us,” she wrote. “You and me, Bubba. I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.” 

In part we can assume, now, that this change from the sublime to the imperative was due in great part to the advance stage of the illness that eventually took her life. But, in part, it may have come from a realization that we are rapidly approaching the point when words over the War in Iraq will have lost most of their meaning, and a clash over the future course of this conflict—and the future course of the United States—has become inevitable. 

It was William Henry Seward, then United States Senator and later Secretary of State under Lincoln, who in an 1858 speech called the coming Civil War an “irrepressible conflict.” 

Describing the competing slave and free-labor systems existing side by side in the United States in that time, Mr. Seward said, “these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation.” 

In many ways, the political conflict within the United States in these days has the same feel to it, a political conflict that is no longer driven by individuals, but that has taken on a force of its own, so that individuals on either side may have lost all ability to pull back and halt the impending train wreck. 

In a 2003 column talking of the difficulties Democrats and liberal-progressives were having in making any headway among the Bush-era Republicans, Ms. Ivins quoted Texas Senator Gonzalo Barrientos as once saying of his Texas Republican colleagues, “they don't want to govern. They want to rule.” In such a conflict, the side which reverts to clever argument, or demands for meet-and-confer, will be quickly overwhelmed by the side that decides that conversation is no longer in currency, only the exercise of raw power. 

To too many of our conservative friends, led and inspired by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney but assisted in great part by the Bill O’Reillys, Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs, Ann Coulters, and Michelle Malkins of the world, investigation, persuasion, and proving facts no longer holds value, only the steady movement along a pre-determined course to a pre-determined end. To attempt to reason with folks of such mind becomes increasingly useless since they have taken the stance of the cattle baron Fletcher in the movie “Shane;” they have absolutely no intention to practice “reasonableness,” professing it in pious and seemingly-sincere tones solely as a pretext to get you into town so that their gunfighters can get the draw on you. 

They have had considerable practice at this. In these times when someone who can remember what the President said two months ago is considered a “historian,” and reports about things farther back are sometimes looked upon like the Lost Scrolls of Atlantis, one forgets that it was Senator McCarthy and the conservative anti-Communist witchhunts that introduced “political correctness” in our era. 

But too many of our friends on the left are rapidly making up ground, on the theory that subtly and thoughtfulness are becoming less and less useful, and only words that cause the equivalent of blunt force trauma will do. 

And so we have entered the era of the shout-down, in which political differences are settled by three people on camera trying to outtalk and talk over each other, none of them listening but only looking for the slightest opening in which to jam their pre-programmed soundbytes, to be Youtubed over and over ad infintestimalitim, the commentator looking on in bemused wonderment, one eye always on the ratings bar, the circus barker who has loosed the clowns into the ring, and now must dutifully pretend that he has neither control of nor responsibility for the outcome. 

We long—on both the left and the right—for some return to some Grande Americana, the resurrection of the past leadership that fueled this country’s greatness, either in conquest or in democratic tradition, depending upon our own proclivities, but what good would such a resurrection do us if it actually occurred? Theodore Roosevelt, the grandest American imperialist of them all, also gave the simplest prescription for American world power: “speak softly, and carry a big stick.” A Republican Presidential aspirant in these times, espousing such views, would never make it out of the Super Tuesday primaries, where the shaking of sticks is the requirement. And though “Lincolnesque” is often used as the standard for Presidential stature, the actual Lincoln himself would be far too introspective for these days. 

In his Second Inaugural Address, sometimes considered his second-best speech next to the one delivered at the services at the Gettysburg battlefield, Lincoln advanced the theory that the American Civil War—then in its fourth bloody year—might have been God’s punishment to America for America’s long embracement of the slave trade and slavery. 

“The Almighty has His own purposes,” Mr. Lincoln said in the bleak winter of 1865. “’Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” 

Should Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John Edwards suggest that the 3,000 American deaths in Iraq, or the horrific injuries sustained by American troops, or even the September 11th terrorist attacks themselves, might be God’s retribution for some past American act, and that an answer to the problems of the terrorist threat to American might, indeed, be a deep search inside the American purpose and heart, how quick would it take for their Presidential candidacy to sink like a stone? 

Introspection is not the fashion, the lifting up of stones to discover and point out what damp and dark secrets are contained therein long ago replaced by a desire merely to throw stones. 

Molly Ivins was a person who first made us laugh and, in laughing, then made us think. In her final days, I believe she may have realized that for the time, being, at least, we have become sadly anesthetized to both, and that those types of appeals had temporarily become useless. Now that she—as in Stanton’s famous phrase about Lincoln—Molly Ivins has left us, and belongs to the ages, perhaps her time will roll around again, and we will have a renewed understanding about how she was so important to us. 

Until then, we are only left with the last words of Ms. Ivins’ last published column, a call to arms so unlike her usual witty insights: 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. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there.” And her final shout-out: “Stop it, now!” 


About the House: A Few Words About Skylights

By Matt Cantor
Friday February 02, 2007

Skylights are great. Nearly everyone agrees. They lighten up dark spaces and do so without any energy expense but like so many things, what seems like a good thing at first glance is a bit more complex and not right for every situation. Moreover, as most people know, they come with the possibility of leaks. So let’s take a look at some of the issues associated with putting in a skylight, living with one that you have now and just for fun, some of the newer things happening in this corner of construction. 

First, from a design stance, I’d like to say that skylights don’t belong everywhere. If you have a 1910 craftsman house, they may not be suitable. Now, every old house doesn’t have to be a restoration showplace, so before you go down this particular road, take a look at what your skylights will look like and where it will be placed. If it’s installed in the fashion of the time (skylight go way back) with suitable trim around the edges, a fitting vault between ceiling and roof and, perhaps, a window or stained glass at the ceiling line, it might be just the right upgrade. Every room isn’t right for a skylight and a gorgeous old room can be ruined by the wrong upgrade. Window light increases as we climb the wall and a placement of one or more high windows near the ceiling (especially those old 10’ beauties in older homes) can provide a great deal of light and approximate the gains that a skylight can provide, especially if they’re placed in a south facing wall (or east for morning … or west for afternoon). 

I’ve seen rooms with some high narrow windows on a south and western faces that were nearly as light as those with skylights and in some cases I think it’s a better choice since a skylight can really flood a room with light (more on that later).  

Light for more than one direction is best since it helps to shape and color objects and spaces. People will tend to gravitate toward rooms that feature windows in two walls and, of course, any well-lit space. 

In an older house, skylights might be a better choice in upstairs rooms or a developed attic. The integrity of style becomes less of an issue in these spaces, but design is still important. 

If you’re thinking about installing a skylight, here are a few tips:  

First, involve a first-rate roofer. This is where these folks earn their money. A skylight is, ultimately, a hole in your roof, so it’s best to be very careful about how you do that since leakage is quite likely to result if everything isn’t done just right. Also, a carpenter must be sure that the wooden members to be cut through are properly supported as the hole is created. If a rafter or joist is cut through to accommodate a skylight of more than about 2’ in width, the member must be joined to the neighboring members by use of a “trimmer.” These are generally installed in pairs (doubled up) and the neighboring members (joists or rafters) must sometimes be doubled up or “sistered” if the resulting load is going to be too great. A skilled contractor should be consulted and lumber sizing tables may need to be consulted. For a skylight of about 16” square this isn’t an issue. For a 2’ skylight, the ceiling joist may need some strengthening. A 4’ skylight is where things get more critical. A skylight that is narrow and long, running down between the joists, can provide a lot of light with a minimum of framing. This also has less leak potential per lumen (unit of light) since the leakage tends to be associated with the top edge. 

For more modern spaces a skylight can also be placed on a diamond or an odd angle for fun. This isn’t that hard for a skilled carpenter and the cost won’t be much more so don’t miss out on cool details because you’re afraid of cost. The real cost will result in hiring the wrong folks and dealing with years of leakage. 

When I got started, skylights were mostly single-layered (or “glazed”) but today, the double-layered bubble or double-glazed type is much more common and thank goodness. Skylights are, after all, placed where the heat gathers and the cold wind wants to “convect” the heat away. There is no window in your house more important to double insulate than your skylight. 

Skylights need to be “flashed” to the roof. In other words, a series of roofing pieces, which continue to overlap and carry the water away down the roof, must be installed around the shape of the “curb” or lip that gets built onto the roof surface. This set of flashings must be installed exactly right so that water doesn’t ever get the chance to drop into that “hole” you’ve just cut in your roof. This is by no means impossible but it’s not for the inexperienced and, again, leave it to a really good roofer. The curb, hole and skylight mounting is less important. Good roof safety is critical. No job is worth the cost of falling off a roof. 

As I mentioned, the skylight is where the heat goes and it’s cold just above. This heat differential can and often does cause condensation to form in the skylight and to weep down the well between roof and ceiling. This is often mistaken for leakage and often a cause of consternation. A vented skylight is less apt to do this, as is a double insulated one but this is no guarantee.  

If you have excess moisture entering your dwelling from the crawlspace or from gas appliances (like stoves, teapots, water heaters and dryers), they can contribute. This may be your chance to find out why the basement is moldy and to finally address the elevated humidity in your house (but that’s definitely another article). So, don’t be surprised if you have weeping skylight syndrome. 

Lastly, let’s take a minute to look at some old and new choices. For slanted roofs, a Velux roof window is a really nice choice. Be sure to buy the correct flashing kit. For a flatter roof, a well built and roofed curb is critical. These babies really beg to leak if not done right. For big light on a small budget, check out one of the new types of tube skylights, such as a Solatube or Sun-Dome. Velux makes one too and I’m very fond of their products because they seem very intent on making sure that the contractor has what they need to do the job right. These tube types are very inexpensive, fairly easy to install and more leak proof since they are modular and require almost no framing modification. They are essentially self-flashing, which is not a guarantee but they are a bit more fool proof (although, as we all know, there is no limit to the wreckage a true fool can manifest). Tube skylights are very modern, so think about what they’ll look like. Nonetheless, I see them as a real asset. 

Here’s an exciting notion that you might take a look at. Solar-Tube type skylights can be quite long and can easily run from a roof, all the way down to a basement if a 1-2’ square space can be found for the trip. The corner of a closet or an abandoned chimney shaft (you’ve been meaning to take that crumbly old thing out anyway) can be enough room for one of these and when you punch through into that dank basement room, you’ll be astounded at the volume of light these silvery tubes can retain and deliver. This is a project that I consider well worth the effort because the result can be so fulfilling. 

Think of skylights as an alternative energy source since they substitute for electric light and, during the day and well into dusk, keep the use of lights at a minimum. This of course applies to all fenestration but most prominently to skylights. When you price this job, consider the electric savings you’ll have over the years, as well as the decreased carbon you’ll be adding to the air and water. 

Remember that skylights are extremely effective and sometimes TOO effective. A small skylight can deliver more light than a wall of windows simply because that’s where the light is. So don’t overdo it. When you paint in this medium, a little goes a long, long way. 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net. 


Garden Variety: Get There Before It’s Gone: Ken’s in San Pablo

By Ron Sullivan
Friday February 02, 2007

I’d heard a rumor (Thanks, Chris!) that Ken’s Nursery in San Pablo was up for sale, so I moseyed on up San Pablo Avenue to that weird intersection like a broken asterisk, the corner of Where Value Village Used to Be and Where Bertola’s Used to Be. It’s just before the Mall Under Construction, mere blocks north of Casino San Pablo and the Alvarado adobe. 

You know, just past the trailer park they’re going to evict for development. That intersection. 

It’s been a while since I’ve dropped in there. The nursery backs onto San Pablo Creek, with a deck set high over the banks looking down on a mix of invasive exotics like German and Algerian ivy, plain-green houseplant tradescantia, and what looks very much like pokeweed. I’ve always liked to stop and scan for birds in the creekside trees—there were a few housefinches, one of them singing, last weekend, and I swear we were hearing geese somewhere—and stand on tiptoe to look over the wall at the creek.  

It’s clear that the recent freeze took a bite out of the stock. The bananas were sulking (though their central growing points looked healthy); some of the six-pack shelves were bare. But the annual color was cheerful, there were plenty of evergreens, and all the citrus looked unfazed.  

And yes, the place is for sale. I talked to owner Kikue Tokuyoshi-Wong, who cited a combination of family necessities and market pressures: “The big-box stores have really hurt us all, of course.” People don’t know any better than to want instant, maintenance-free gardens, in which they think of plants as wallpaper or furniture.  

We spent a few minutes in the kind of gossip I’ve engaged in too often: who used to own what nursery (that’s the jolly part) and when it closed down (the mournful part). Mostly this is family stories: rather a lot of the owners of our remaining family-owned nurseries are related to each other, at least by marriage. 

It bugs me that so many of these old-line nurseries are biting the dust, not just because I’m sentimental. We lose unique knowledge bases and history, and sometimes even plant varieties that have been propagated here over generations. There are heirloom nurseries just as there are heirloom tomatoes.  

Even non-propagating nurseries, which serve entirely as plant retailers rather than growers, have stores of lore about what does well in their parts of town, the sort of oral guidebook that a loyal customer base has let them accumulate.  

There’s no way to predict how long the sale of Ken’s Nursery might take. Prices aren’t reduced, though they’re certainly reasonable; it’s just interesting stuff at an interesting place.  

Get up there soon and maybe you’ll get some of those bush blueberries or kumquat or calamondin or bai makrut trees before I do. Look the other fruit trees over—apple, peach, cherry, Asian pear, greengage—for interesting varieties, ask about their chill requirements, try one anyway. Planting a fruit tree is a better gamble than you’ll get at the casino.  

 

 

Ken’s Nursery 

2364 Road 20, San Pablo 

234-1541 

Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (5:30 during DST) 

Weekends 9 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Closed Wednesdays 

 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.


Quake Tip of the Week: Bad News About Your Retrofit

By Larry Guillot
Friday February 02, 2007

In case you hadn’t heard, the Association of Bay Area Governments estimates that up to 80 percent of retrofits around here will be ineffective in even a moderate earthquake. 

How can this be? The main problem is that not one city or county in the Bay Area has adopted a retrofit code. Many inadequate retrofits are being done by well-meaning contractors who don’t know the basic engineering principles of a good retrofit. All the inspector does is make sure that the contractor did what he said he was going to do—there’s no check of correct engineering.  

What to do? First, call your head building inspector or city manager and tell them you’d like to see a retrofit code put in place. Second, if your house has been retrofitted, have a properly trained retrofit professional make sure it was done right. Also, to see a great explanation of what makes a good retrofit, check out www.bayarearetrofit.com. 

 

 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.


The Public Eye: Robert Reich’s Berkeley: Charming, Diverse, Democratic

By Zelda Bronstein
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Column: Moving in with the Old Lady

By Susan Parker
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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?” 


Wild Neighbors: Bug Bombs: The Stink Beetle Meets the Killer Mouse

By Joe Eaton, Special to the Planet
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday February 02, 2007

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. 

“Take Six: The Art of Living Black” Reception with the artists at 7 p.m. at the WCRC Gallery, 5741 Telegraph Ave. 601-4040. 

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 

Jazz in Motion “In The Day Of Charles Hamilton” with Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo performing at 6 p.m. in the Berkeley High Little Theater. Free. 253-8235. 

John Fizer and Gary Wade at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

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 

Lutsinga Music Ensemble, African dance/funk/jazz, at 9 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Epic Arts Birthday Party celebrations begin at 6 p.m. 644-2204. 

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.  

Triple 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 

Seth Montfort and Thomas Penders, piano, at 5:30 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228. 

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  

TUESDAY, FEB. 6 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “The Other Side” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Leslie Scalapino and Rae Armantrout read at 7:30 p.m. at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Jon Sullivan with show slides and talk about “Berkeley: The One and Only” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Donna Bee-Gates discusses “I Want It Now: Navigating Childhood in a Materialistic World” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Zabava and Yalazia, Balkan, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffman and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

S.F. Bluegrass & Old Time Festival with Earl Brothers, Circle R Boys and Dyad at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Barbara Linn & John Schott at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Ignacio Berroa Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 7 

THEATER 

“Colorstruck” Donald Lacey’s one-man show at 8 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland, through Feb. 11. Tickets are $5-$15. 663-5683. 

FILM 

“Race to Execution” on the factors that influence who lives and who dies at the hands of the state, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Oakland. Free. 238-2200. 

Film 50: History of Cinema “The Man with a Movie Camera” at 3 p.m. and Compilations “LunchFilms” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Brian Copeland, author of “Not a Genuine Black Man, or How I Claimed My Piece of Ground in the Lily-White Suburbs” will speak at 6 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library, 659 154th St., Oakland. 637-0200. 

Woodruff Minor describes “The Archecture of Ratcliff” at 7:30 p.m. at Builders Booksource, 1817 Fourth St. 845-6874. 

Brenda Webster reads from her translation of Edith Bruck’s “Letter to My Mother” a memoir of her life in wartime Auschwitz, at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert with Jared Redmond, piano, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Whiskey Brothers Old Time and Bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Mack Rucks Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Gerard Landry & the Lariats, Cajun/Zydeco. at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Antioquia at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Ignacio Berroa Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Clive Carroll, fingerstyle guitarist, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

THURSDAY, FEB. 8 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Flight Out of Time” Exhibition of contemporary prints by Barbara Foster, Jimin Lee and Tadayoshi Nakabayashi opens at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave., and runs to March 17. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

“Paintings of Abu Ghraib” by Fernando Botero at 190 Doe Library, UC Campus, through March 23. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Used and Re-Used: decorative objects made from utilitarian materials” at the The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. through March 31. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

"The Children of Chaguitillo” Photography exhibition by Harold Adler at Au Coquelet, 2000 University Ave. through March 31.  

Michael Howerton “Portraits” at Chachie’s Coffee Shop, 1768 Broadway at 19th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs though Feb. 28. www.howertonphoto.blogspot.com 

“100 Families in Oakland: Art & Social Change” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through April 22. 238-2200. 

“African Art” by Okaybabs, Yinka Adeyemi, Adeyinka Fashokun, honoring Black History Month. Reception at 4:30 p.m. at the LuchStop Cafe, joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to March 30. 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. 

“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. 

“Street Portraiture” Photographs by Tom Stone at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Feb. 28. 649-8111. 

“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. 

“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 

“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 

“Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey” at 7 p.m., at Ellen Driscoll Theater, Frank Havens School, 325 Highland Ave., near Oakland Ave., Piedmont. Judge Henderson will speak after the film. Presented by Appreciating Diversity Film Series. 835-9227. 

Film Series with David Thomson “Rio Bravo” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Conversations on Museums with David Behar, Israeli artist, at 6:30 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell describe “A Thousand Names for Joy: A Life in Harmnony with the Way Things Are” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $10. 559-9500. 

Dana Whitaker describes “Transforming Lives $40 at a Time: Women and Mircrofinance” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Pauline Chen describes “Final Exam: A Young Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

John Searle will discuss “Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflection on Free Will, Language, and Political Power” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

SF Bluegrass & Old Time Festival with The Mercury Dimes, Flat Mountain Girls, Jeff Kazor & Lisa Berman at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Martyn Joseph, contemporary folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mark Robinson & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tom Duarte, guitar, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Chaplain, Dead Ringer, Scene of Action at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. All ages. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Pat Martino at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Friday February 02, 2007

CONVERSATIONS ON ART 

 

Jazz musician Hal Stein will perform at 8 p.m. Friday at Caffe Trieste at 2500 San Pablo Ave. (at Dwight). 548-5198. 

 

OAKLAND MAGIC CIRCLE ANNUAL BANQUET 

 

Oakland Magic  

Circle, the oldest magic club in the West, hosts its annual Installation Banquet, “A Night of Wonder & Magic,” on Tuesday, Feb. 6. Performers include international star Amos Levkovitch with his spectacular bird act, Dick Newton's classic magic, mind-reader Greg Keeling and master conjuror James Hamilton, with M.C. Scott Alcalay.  

Dinner at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m. Bjornson Hall, 2258 MacArthur Blvd. near Fruitvale. Open to all, by reservation only. $25 adult, $20 children. (800) 838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com/event/8934. 

 

JAZZ IN MOTION AT BERKELEY HIGH 

 

The Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo will perform “In The Day of Charles Hamilton” at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Little Theater on the Berkeley High School campus. Admission is free. 253-8235. 

 

‘THE LUBITSCH TOUCH’ AT PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 

 

Pacific Film Archive continues its Ernst Lubitsch retrospective with Saturday screenings of One Hour With You, the 1932 musical remake of his 1924 silent film The Marriage Circle, at 6:30 p.m., and The Merry Widow (1934) at 8:30 p.m. $4 for PFA members and UC students; $8 for non-members. 2575 Bancroft Way. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.


Shepard’s ‘True West’ at Live Oak Theater

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday February 02, 2007

Typing by candlelight (“Like the old guys ... the forefathers”), a nervous, diffident screenwriter fends off the attentions of his feral older brother, a rawboned galoot just in from the desert, spilling potato chips over the writer and ruffling his hair, darkly exclaiming, “Don’t worry about me; I’m not the one to worry about!”—as crickets chirp and there’s talk of coyotes killing cocker spaniels in suburbia by the San Gabriels, in Actors Ensemble’s production of Sam Shepard’s True West at Live Oak Theatre.  

Paul Shepard, seemingly no relation to the playwright, has directed this straight-ahead show of one of his namesake’s most famous plays, also designing the excellent, geometrical kitchen set, backed by Shu Ping Guan’s backdrop painting of the mountain ridges with a lone Joshua Tree in the foreground, silhoutted out the windows in the night scenes, no less stark yet suggestive in daylight (Bob Gudmundsson’s design). 

This is the white-toned room—and deadpan world outside—where a barewire chamber play is enacted, a kind of doppelganger double-shuffle between two sons of an absent drunken father as they house-sit (and trash) their mother’s home while she’s sightseeing glaciers in Alaska. 

Kevin Fletcher Tweedy’s original, mostly guitar score framing the tense scenes is a stand-out, its hesitant vibrato splaying off from a ballad tune never quite introduced.  

As the brothers unravel, they’re visited by a golf-betting, gut-driven producer, first enthused over younger brother Austin’s story, then caught up in desert rat Lee’s con games and kitsch Western tales—and by their semi-oblivious mother, back early from Alaska to catch Picasso at the museum, a chance not to be missed. 

Benjamin Grubb, in his Bay Area debut as Lee, and Jay Kiecolt-Wahl as Austin handle the seesaw dialogue of the two brothers circling each other, intermittently jousting, pretty well, with Kiecolt-Wahl managing a despondent drunk act to his own off-key rendition of “Red Sails In The Sunset.” There’s a bit too much of Lee’s yelling and Austin’s whining; the often-monochromatic dialogue needs a little indirection to preserve the dynamics. John Hurst, as Kimmer, the Hollywood moneyman, and Maureen Coyne, as Mom, add good touches that soften the edge—or make it wryer—of this sharp encounter that sounds somehow flattened and banal. 

The show seems another step forward for Actors Ensemble, following a good Hedda Gabler. True West runs on an even keel, its best moment the eerie, wordless ending, with a graceful pirouette right into the curtain call. 

Director Shepard, initially repelled by the play, found it a way to explore his “shadow side.” And, indeed, the playwright’s fabulous success seems to be predicated on the appetites of director, actors—and audience—to express themselves. The ensemble handles it well enough, with a good shaggy dog story (rather self-consciously Beckett on the playwright’s part) and some choice business with a tangled typewriter ribbon and a kitchen overflowing with stolen toasters.  

Too much, or not enough—the strange codependency of the brothers—mythic? sociopathic? just plain dysfunctional? The script coyly hints at all, but neatly sidesteps any dramaturgy, substituting vague reference. 

The director sees a link with Pinter, who was sent up once, lovingly, by his friend Beckett as always writing “menace in a room.” In this and his brilliantly oblique dialogue, Pinter follows Strindberg’s plays peopled by phantoms of their own obsessions and desires, a drama found in the interstices, a Shakespearean modernism. 

But Shepard lacks real insinuation, as well as any chiaroscuro to his characters. In fact, they aren’t characters at all, caught somewhere between caricature and mere types. My father had an expression for a certain kind of bland hypocrite: “Printed on one side.” 

Creatures of the ’70s, as Shepard’s plays and personae age, they begin to show a threadbare and one-way quality, not primitive or sophisticated, just shallow, dashed in without draughtsmanship, becoming the same cliche supposedly played off of. 

As Austin says of the figures in Lee’s preposterous yarn, which he wants his writer brother to flesh out with his “tricks,” they aren’t characters at all, just the fantasy of a ruined childhood. 

 

TRUE WEST 

Presented by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Feb. 17 at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 

$12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org. 


About the House: A Few Words About Skylights

By Matt Cantor
Friday February 02, 2007

Skylights are great. Nearly everyone agrees. They lighten up dark spaces and do so without any energy expense but like so many things, what seems like a good thing at first glance is a bit more complex and not right for every situation. Moreover, as most people know, they come with the possibility of leaks. So let’s take a look at some of the issues associated with putting in a skylight, living with one that you have now and just for fun, some of the newer things happening in this corner of construction. 

First, from a design stance, I’d like to say that skylights don’t belong everywhere. If you have a 1910 craftsman house, they may not be suitable. Now, every old house doesn’t have to be a restoration showplace, so before you go down this particular road, take a look at what your skylights will look like and where it will be placed. If it’s installed in the fashion of the time (skylight go way back) with suitable trim around the edges, a fitting vault between ceiling and roof and, perhaps, a window or stained glass at the ceiling line, it might be just the right upgrade. Every room isn’t right for a skylight and a gorgeous old room can be ruined by the wrong upgrade. Window light increases as we climb the wall and a placement of one or more high windows near the ceiling (especially those old 10’ beauties in older homes) can provide a great deal of light and approximate the gains that a skylight can provide, especially if they’re placed in a south facing wall (or east for morning … or west for afternoon). 

I’ve seen rooms with some high narrow windows on a south and western faces that were nearly as light as those with skylights and in some cases I think it’s a better choice since a skylight can really flood a room with light (more on that later).  

Light for more than one direction is best since it helps to shape and color objects and spaces. People will tend to gravitate toward rooms that feature windows in two walls and, of course, any well-lit space. 

In an older house, skylights might be a better choice in upstairs rooms or a developed attic. The integrity of style becomes less of an issue in these spaces, but design is still important. 

If you’re thinking about installing a skylight, here are a few tips:  

First, involve a first-rate roofer. This is where these folks earn their money. A skylight is, ultimately, a hole in your roof, so it’s best to be very careful about how you do that since leakage is quite likely to result if everything isn’t done just right. Also, a carpenter must be sure that the wooden members to be cut through are properly supported as the hole is created. If a rafter or joist is cut through to accommodate a skylight of more than about 2’ in width, the member must be joined to the neighboring members by use of a “trimmer.” These are generally installed in pairs (doubled up) and the neighboring members (joists or rafters) must sometimes be doubled up or “sistered” if the resulting load is going to be too great. A skilled contractor should be consulted and lumber sizing tables may need to be consulted. For a skylight of about 16” square this isn’t an issue. For a 2’ skylight, the ceiling joist may need some strengthening. A 4’ skylight is where things get more critical. A skylight that is narrow and long, running down between the joists, can provide a lot of light with a minimum of framing. This also has less leak potential per lumen (unit of light) since the leakage tends to be associated with the top edge. 

For more modern spaces a skylight can also be placed on a diamond or an odd angle for fun. This isn’t that hard for a skilled carpenter and the cost won’t be much more so don’t miss out on cool details because you’re afraid of cost. The real cost will result in hiring the wrong folks and dealing with years of leakage. 

When I got started, skylights were mostly single-layered (or “glazed”) but today, the double-layered bubble or double-glazed type is much more common and thank goodness. Skylights are, after all, placed where the heat gathers and the cold wind wants to “convect” the heat away. There is no window in your house more important to double insulate than your skylight. 

Skylights need to be “flashed” to the roof. In other words, a series of roofing pieces, which continue to overlap and carry the water away down the roof, must be installed around the shape of the “curb” or lip that gets built onto the roof surface. This set of flashings must be installed exactly right so that water doesn’t ever get the chance to drop into that “hole” you’ve just cut in your roof. This is by no means impossible but it’s not for the inexperienced and, again, leave it to a really good roofer. The curb, hole and skylight mounting is less important. Good roof safety is critical. No job is worth the cost of falling off a roof. 

As I mentioned, the skylight is where the heat goes and it’s cold just above. This heat differential can and often does cause condensation to form in the skylight and to weep down the well between roof and ceiling. This is often mistaken for leakage and often a cause of consternation. A vented skylight is less apt to do this, as is a double insulated one but this is no guarantee.  

If you have excess moisture entering your dwelling from the crawlspace or from gas appliances (like stoves, teapots, water heaters and dryers), they can contribute. This may be your chance to find out why the basement is moldy and to finally address the elevated humidity in your house (but that’s definitely another article). So, don’t be surprised if you have weeping skylight syndrome. 

Lastly, let’s take a minute to look at some old and new choices. For slanted roofs, a Velux roof window is a really nice choice. Be sure to buy the correct flashing kit. For a flatter roof, a well built and roofed curb is critical. These babies really beg to leak if not done right. For big light on a small budget, check out one of the new types of tube skylights, such as a Solatube or Sun-Dome. Velux makes one too and I’m very fond of their products because they seem very intent on making sure that the contractor has what they need to do the job right. These tube types are very inexpensive, fairly easy to install and more leak proof since they are modular and require almost no framing modification. They are essentially self-flashing, which is not a guarantee but they are a bit more fool proof (although, as we all know, there is no limit to the wreckage a true fool can manifest). Tube skylights are very modern, so think about what they’ll look like. Nonetheless, I see them as a real asset. 

Here’s an exciting notion that you might take a look at. Solar-Tube type skylights can be quite long and can easily run from a roof, all the way down to a basement if a 1-2’ square space can be found for the trip. The corner of a closet or an abandoned chimney shaft (you’ve been meaning to take that crumbly old thing out anyway) can be enough room for one of these and when you punch through into that dank basement room, you’ll be astounded at the volume of light these silvery tubes can retain and deliver. This is a project that I consider well worth the effort because the result can be so fulfilling. 

Think of skylights as an alternative energy source since they substitute for electric light and, during the day and well into dusk, keep the use of lights at a minimum. This of course applies to all fenestration but most prominently to skylights. When you price this job, consider the electric savings you’ll have over the years, as well as the decreased carbon you’ll be adding to the air and water. 

Remember that skylights are extremely effective and sometimes TOO effective. A small skylight can deliver more light than a wall of windows simply because that’s where the light is. So don’t overdo it. When you paint in this medium, a little goes a long, long way. 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net. 


Garden Variety: Get There Before It’s Gone: Ken’s in San Pablo

By Ron Sullivan
Friday February 02, 2007

I’d heard a rumor (Thanks, Chris!) that Ken’s Nursery in San Pablo was up for sale, so I moseyed on up San Pablo Avenue to that weird intersection like a broken asterisk, the corner of Where Value Village Used to Be and Where Bertola’s Used to Be. It’s just before the Mall Under Construction, mere blocks north of Casino San Pablo and the Alvarado adobe. 

You know, just past the trailer park they’re going to evict for development. That intersection. 

It’s been a while since I’ve dropped in there. The nursery backs onto San Pablo Creek, with a deck set high over the banks looking down on a mix of invasive exotics like German and Algerian ivy, plain-green houseplant tradescantia, and what looks very much like pokeweed. I’ve always liked to stop and scan for birds in the creekside trees—there were a few housefinches, one of them singing, last weekend, and I swear we were hearing geese somewhere—and stand on tiptoe to look over the wall at the creek.  

It’s clear that the recent freeze took a bite out of the stock. The bananas were sulking (though their central growing points looked healthy); some of the six-pack shelves were bare. But the annual color was cheerful, there were plenty of evergreens, and all the citrus looked unfazed.  

And yes, the place is for sale. I talked to owner Kikue Tokuyoshi-Wong, who cited a combination of family necessities and market pressures: “The big-box stores have really hurt us all, of course.” People don’t know any better than to want instant, maintenance-free gardens, in which they think of plants as wallpaper or furniture.  

We spent a few minutes in the kind of gossip I’ve engaged in too often: who used to own what nursery (that’s the jolly part) and when it closed down (the mournful part). Mostly this is family stories: rather a lot of the owners of our remaining family-owned nurseries are related to each other, at least by marriage. 

It bugs me that so many of these old-line nurseries are biting the dust, not just because I’m sentimental. We lose unique knowledge bases and history, and sometimes even plant varieties that have been propagated here over generations. There are heirloom nurseries just as there are heirloom tomatoes.  

Even non-propagating nurseries, which serve entirely as plant retailers rather than growers, have stores of lore about what does well in their parts of town, the sort of oral guidebook that a loyal customer base has let them accumulate.  

There’s no way to predict how long the sale of Ken’s Nursery might take. Prices aren’t reduced, though they’re certainly reasonable; it’s just interesting stuff at an interesting place.  

Get up there soon and maybe you’ll get some of those bush blueberries or kumquat or calamondin or bai makrut trees before I do. Look the other fruit trees over—apple, peach, cherry, Asian pear, greengage—for interesting varieties, ask about their chill requirements, try one anyway. Planting a fruit tree is a better gamble than you’ll get at the casino.  

 

 

Ken’s Nursery 

2364 Road 20, San Pablo 

234-1541 

Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (5:30 during DST) 

Weekends 9 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Closed Wednesdays 

 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.


Quake Tip of the Week: Bad News About Your Retrofit

By Larry Guillot
Friday February 02, 2007

In case you hadn’t heard, the Association of Bay Area Governments estimates that up to 80 percent of retrofits around here will be ineffective in even a moderate earthquake. 

How can this be? The main problem is that not one city or county in the Bay Area has adopted a retrofit code. Many inadequate retrofits are being done by well-meaning contractors who don’t know the basic engineering principles of a good retrofit. All the inspector does is make sure that the contractor did what he said he was going to do—there’s no check of correct engineering.  

What to do? First, call your head building inspector or city manager and tell them you’d like to see a retrofit code put in place. Second, if your house has been retrofitted, have a properly trained retrofit professional make sure it was done right. Also, to see a great explanation of what makes a good retrofit, check out www.bayarearetrofit.com. 

 

 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.


Berkeley This Week

Friday February 02, 2007

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 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with “Voyage of the Monteno” travelling on indigenous balsa rafts with John Haslett. Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925.  

“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. 

Learn the Art of Organic Home Farming in a series of three classes with Margaret Lloyd from noon to 3:30 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost for all three classes is $100-$120. Registration required. 643-7265. 

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. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Spring Pruning 101 Learn how prune perennials, shrubs and roses at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 

The Hairy Eye Ball Benefit for East Bay Food Not Boms at 7 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. 

“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. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 6 

“Thirst” A documentary on the politics of the bottled water industry in the U.S. and the world, followed by discussion with producers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Cost is $5-$10. Part of the BFUU Social Justice Committee's Conscientious Projector series. 644-4956. 

Kayaking Alaska’s Inside Passage A slide show with Julie Hinkle and Zephyr Sincerny at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Free Legal Assistance the first Tues. of the month at 6 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Advance registration required. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

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. or from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. For information call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

Sports Nutrition with Carol Lourie on genomic testing, nutritional suppements and accupuncture at 7 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Volunteer Storyreaders Needed Training classes begin at 6 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5366 College Ave. Registration required. 238-7453. 

Animal Communication Consultations from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. For appointment call 525-6255. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Discussion Salon on Social Change and Activism at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 7 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Explore Oakland’s Shoreline Parks Meet at 10 am at the restrooms adjacent to parking lot at 7th St. and Middle Harbor Rd, Oakland. Dress in layers and bring water and snack for this level, wheelchair- and stroller-friendly walk of about two hours. 848 9358. www.berkeleypaths.org 

“Waves, Wetlands, and Watersheds” An interactive workshop for educators that covers watershed, coastal, and marine issues. From 4 to 6 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Registration required. 636-1684. www.ebparks.org 

Volunteer with the Native Plant Nursery Your help in the nursery will enable Save The Bay to continue restoration of some of the last remaining wetland habitat in the East Bay and help us reach our goal to plant 10,000 native wetland plants at Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park this winter. From 1 to 3 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland. RSVP requested. 452-9261 ext. 109. www.savesfbay.org/bayevents 

Community Meeting on Pacific Steel Casting Tell the Mayor and Berkeley City Council: Stop Pacific Steel Casting's pollution. Our community deserves clean air & environmental justice! It is important for residents to show up and express their concerns about the ongoing pollution and violations at PSC. at 7 p.m. at the West Berkeley Senior Center, 1900 6th St. at Hearst. 415-248-5010. 

“Little House on a Small Planet” with Shay Salomon on the small house movement at 1 p.m. at Wurster Hall, 315A, UC Campus. http://laep.ced.berkeley.edu/events/colloquium 

“Race to Execution” a documentary on the factors that influence who lives and who dies at the hands of the state, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Oakland. Free. 238-2200. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. 548-9840. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, FEB. 8 

“Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey” at 7 p.m., at Ellen Driscoll Theater, Frank Havens School, 325 Highland Ave., near Oakland Ave., Piedmont. Judge Henderson will speak after the film. Presented by Appreciating Diversity Film Series. 835-9227. 

“Breaking the Gridlock!” What will it take to have better transit in Berkeley? Panel and discussion, with Chris Peeples, AC Transit Board of Directors; Matt Nichols, City of Berkeley Transportation Planner; Betty Deakin, Director, Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley at 7:30 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar at Arch St. Free. 843-8724. 

“Little House on a Small Planet” Live in less space but have more room and enjoy it, with Shay Salomon of the small house movementand photographer Nigel Valdez at 7 p.m. at Builders Booksource, 1817 Fourth St. 845-6874. 

Richmond Southeast Shoreline Area Community Group meets at 6:30 p.m. at the Richmond Convention Center, Bermuda Room, 403 Civic Center Plaza, Nevin and 25th Sts. For information call 540-3923. To volunteer call 367-5379. 

East Bay Macintosh Users Group Learn how to sync your Mac to your cell phone or PDA, at 7 p.m. at Expression College for Digital Arts, 6601 Shellmound St., Emeryville. www.ebmug.org 

Café Literario, a Spanish book discussion group begins a new session at 7 p.m. at the West Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 1125 University Ave. 981-6140. 

Storytime for Babies and Toddlers at 10:30 a.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Family Story Time for children ages 3-7 at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6107. 

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, writer, on “False Self/True Self” at 7 p.m. at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito St. off Grand Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 625-5831.  

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 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Feb. 5, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Feb. 5, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5510.  

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Tues., Feb. 6, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. Feb. 7, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 8, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Feb. 8, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning  


Correction

Friday February 02, 2007

A Jan. 30 story on landmarking the Bevatron wrongly identified the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s affiliations: the University of California manages and operates LBNL for the Department of Energy.


Arts Calendar

Tuesday January 30, 2007

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  


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


The Theater: ‘The Strangers We Know’ at the Julia Morgan

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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


Books: Literary Con Artists

By Dorothy Bryant, Special to the Planet
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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. 

 


Wild Neighbors: Bug Bombs: The Stink Beetle Meets the Killer Mouse

By Joe Eaton, Special to the Planet
Tuesday January 30, 2007

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.


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday January 30, 2007

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