A day after Berkeley High School students mourned the sudden death of Vice Principal Denise Brown, over 800 Berkeley High sophomores filed into the gymnasium to take the California High School Exit Exam Tuesday. -more-
Is the referendum fast becoming the weapon of choice for Berkeley voters to challenge City Council decisions? -more-
When residents and merchants of North Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto walked into the North Shattuck Plaza workshop on Wednesday evening, the walls were sans plans, sans easels. -more-
While Councilmember Gordon Wozniak thinks it would be a stellar idea to develop the old Wright’s Garage at 2929-23 Ashby Ave. as a restaurant and shops, some criticize the District 8 councilmember, saying he should keep an open mind on land-use questions that may come before him. -more-
Despite heated opposition from representatives of both bus drivers and the bus riding community, the Board of Directors of Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District voted unanimously last week to go forward with a contract that would put 50 new revised models of the controversial Van Hool 40-foot buses on East Bay streets. -more-
“Our goal is to bring the 1910 feeling back to the Bay Area with 2010 amenities that appeal to the corporate traveler,” said the man who will oversee the renovation a downtown Berkeley landmark. -more-
The question before DAPAC Wednesday night was whether to give the elephant in the room its own corner or simply treat it as part of the furniture. -more-
Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Linda Maio had planned a very civil two-hour evening, focusing on Pacific Steel Castings whose “burnt potholder” smell and possibly dangerous emissions have been a community concern for more than two decades. -more-
Deputy superintendent Eric Smith presented board members of the Berkeley Unified School District with information on the governor’s budget for fiscal year 2007-2008 on Wednesday. -more-
Following up on an issue he originally raised in last fall’s election campaign, freshman Peralta Community College District Trustee Abel Guillen questioned ongoing renovation work on the district’s board room, saying that it should not come before renovation at Peralta’s colleges. -more-
Following a breakfast gathering in which local law enforcement officials painted a bleak picture of youth crime in Alameda County, representatives of Alameda County’s black elected officials and black clergy took one of the first public tours the other week of the county’s soon-to-be-opened Juvenile Justice Center. -more-
The man with the sparkling eyes and shoulder-length salt and pepper hair who laughs and jokes with a visitor and shares his passion for photography and writing could have spent much of his life homeless, living in backyards in what he describes as a tube, or shut away in a mental institution. -more-
When the governor released his budget in July, he terminated funds for mental health programs, best known as State Assembly bill AB2034, saying that this funding source, available since 2000, would be replaced by the 2004 voter-approved Proposition 63. -more-
A news analysis article on page 17 of the Feb. 6. edition misidentified one of the recipients of research funds from British Petroleum. It should have been Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, not Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, as reported. -more-
Roving firefighters discover trailer fire -more-
“Is there a president anywhere in the history of America as bad as George W. Bush? I believe there is. It is Jefferson Davis. He came from privilege. He wasn’t elected. And he marched thousands of young men to their death in a long war for immoral ends,” declares Chris Chandler of the Chandler and Roe political/musical duo in a rap he gives between songs—as he did recently at Berkeley’s La Pena night club. -more-
1. Sleep shmeep -more-
At a time when Americans throughout the country are frustrated by the failure of public schools to teach their children, Mexico is increasing its efforts to help struggling school systems deal with immigrant children who speak Spanish. -more-
The purple ribbons fluttering in the wind inside the Berkeley High School courtyard symbolized the loss of BHS Vice Principal Denise Brown for the entire Berkeley Unified School District Monday. -more-
Seven years ago, the Atlantic Monthly published “The Kept University,” a story about a $25 million five-year liaison between the giant Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis and California’s premier public university, UC Berkeley. -more-
With the final campaign expenditures for the November elections in on Jan. 31, it became definitive that the top spender was the losing challenger for District 7: George Beier. -more-
When Charles Hamilton teaches jazz at Berkeley High, every note has to be perfect. -more-
With a November deadline looming, the panel of citizens charged with helping the city draft a new downtown plan will pause to take stock Wednesday. -more-
The School Board will be meeting on Wednesday to receive information on the governor’s budget for fiscal year 2007-08, which was released on Jan. 10. -more-
With royal fanfare, British Petroleum just donated $500 million in research funds for UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois to develop new sources of energy—primarily biotechnology to produce biofuel crops. This comes on the anniversary of Berkeley’s hapless research deal with seed giant Novartis ten years ago. However, at half a billion dollars, the BP grant dwarfs Novartis’ investment by a factor of 10. The graphics of the announcement were unmistakable: BP’s corporate logo is perfectly aligned with the flags of the Nation, the State, and the University. -more-
The Zoning Adjustments Board will once again hear the request for a use permit for the conversion of Wright’s Garage on 2629-2635 Ashby Ave. into a multi-tenant commercial building on Thursday. -more-
East Bay Municipal Utilities District officials are urging their customers to ease off on the taps—at least until they can finish a much needed retrofit of the Claremont Tunnel. -more-
Steal music player, lose their bikes -more-
Some of Berkeley’s poorest older residents will soon be living in comfortable new quarters with the opening Thursday of the Margaret Breland Apartments. -more-
One of my favorite cartoons of all time—I think it was in the New Yorker—shows a stream of little men in stovepipe hats and knee britches hurtling off a cliff. An observer off to one side says to another, “Flemings…” The message? (Do cartoons have messages?) Even Flemings, the sober inhabitants of Flanders, what is now the northern part of Belgium, pictured in britches in late Gothic and early Renaissance paintings, could be gripped by the kind of mass hysteria that sometimes causes little animals (lemmings) to jump off cliffs during frantic migrations. Never mind the natural historians who say that lemmings have gotten a bad rap in this story, that they’re not committing suicide but just fall by accident—the image is compelling, and it certainly applies to human behavior all too often. -more-
Lately opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com has been getting complaints not only about outrages and abuses in the wider world, and about our own supposed transgressions in the pages of the Planet, but about letters to the editors and other responsible parties in other media which the proprietors of same didn’t print. For example, we ran a couple of letters lambasting the San Francisco Chronicle for a particularly lame editorial on Lt. Ehren Watada’s refusal to fight in what he terms an illegal war. The editorial writer claimed that “no soldier can be allowed to pick and choose assignments, a notion that undercuts the necessary hierarchy of military order.” He or she must have been out the day they studied the Nuremberg Trials in history class in high school. To be fair, the Chronicle did publish one snappy letter the next day making this very point, but two other good ones which the Chron didn’t see fit to print ended up in the Daily Planet instead. Which is fine. Happy to be of service. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one in a series of columns submitted in response to the Daily Planet’s call for tributes to Molly Ivins. -more-
In her Jan. 30 article, “ZAB Rejects Cell Phone Antennas on UC Storage,” Riya Bhattacharjee writes: -more-
Matthew Taylor’s recent op-ed blaming Israel for just about everything is filled with every manner of distortion, falsehood, reliance on dubious and partisan sources, and a very selective reading of history. Here are just a few examples: -more-
Since, with respect to Mideast policy, the United States and Israel are inseparable, it is not surprising that, with the disastrous collapse of the Iraq project, for the first time in a long time criticism of Israel’s policies is being heard in this country. Not only political realists like James Baker, Jimmy Carter, and professors Mearsheimer and Walt, but also the anti-war left have been almost forced, despite their reluctance, into looking anew at the occupation of Palestine. Many American Jews, liberal and anti-war by inclination, have been experiencing some discomfort from this turn of events. This discomfort has been deliberately aggravated by a Zionist campaign, mounted for several years now both here and in Europe, to convince Jews that they are experiencing a huge new wave of anti-Semitism, coming, against all expectations, from the left. -more-
Compared to adjacent communities, Berkeley is in many ways an attractive city to live in or to visit. But our city is very vulnerable to pressures brought by commercial real estate developers. A case in point is the pending application by Gordon Commercial for a use permit that includes a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and bar at Ashby just below College. If this application is granted, it will increase retail floor space in the four-block area surrounding College and Ashby by 11 percent, and quality of life in the neighborhood will decline for residents and visitor alike. -more-
The world’s best-loved cities all have something in common—beautiful public squares and plazas surrounded by magnificent buildings. They are the places where people meet and things happen, the places we tell stories about. Across the United States, public squares and plazas are being rediscovered as a powerful way of revitalizing and transforming downtowns. -more-
Sept. 11, 2001 was a terrible tragedy. For those of us who were up early that morning and were called to turn on the TV, we saw a horrible series of events—not read, not imagined—in real time. A worse tragedy occurred when our country, under false pretenses, attacked Iraq. Although the bombs, mortars, other sophisticated weapons were directed at Iraqis, the attack was also a less obvious one against Americans. -more-
Let us begin this week’s discussion with the question where we ended a previous column: “So what actually happened at the Paramount, and how did the allegations of anti-Latino racism get blown up by some into the defining moment of that event?” -more-
If you’ve ever dined in the rear portion of the Great China restaurant on Kittredge Street, you might have noticed that this space is markedly different from the front part. Redwood board-and-batten wainscots; redwood doors and window trim; a beamed tongue-and-groove ceiling with elegantly carved brackets; and a doorway incorporating a fan of Victorian spindlework all suggest that these rooms were part of a former home. -more-
A couple of months ago, I wrote about Berkeley Indoor Gardens, an indoor gardening (surprise!) store down at the tidal end of University Avenue. I got to feeling bad because I hadn’t written about the other indoor gardening store across the street. This one even advertises on KPIG, my favorite radio station. (So does Memphis Minnie’s, home of the best Sunday brunch in San Francisco. Don’t take my word for it—go eat!) -more-
Breakers of the space-age: In 2003 there were over 73,000 electrical fires and nearly 600 resulting deaths, not to mention about a billion dollars in property loss. Most of these fires were caused by electrical “arcing.” -more-
The weekend of Jan. 26, speaker of the House and six-time grandmother Nancy Pelosi traveled to Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to get a personal view of George Bush’s “war” on terrorism. Judging from her initial comments, the trip hardened Pelosi’s opposition to Bush’s escalation of the war in Iraq. So, what should we expect the Pelosi-led Dems to do about Iraq? -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: This week Susan Parker turns her column over to guest columnist Jernee Suga’ Baby Carter, writing in response to the Daily Planet’s call for writers to follow in Molly Ivins’s footsteps. -more-
All right, the season’s over. Put down that polesaw. I don’t mean the pruning season, exactly. I mean the pruning free-for-all season: that season where a pruner’s only concern is the anatomy and physiology of the tree being pruned. -more-
ACTIVE ARTS THEATER FOR KIDS -more-
Jazz singer Ed Reed will celebrate the release of his first CD, Ed Reed Sings Love Stories, this Saturday (Feb. 10) at Anna’s Jazz Island, performing a rare date with the stellar band that made the album, led by Berkeley favorite (now New York-based) Peck Allmond, a triumph for an unusual vocalist of real excellence, whose hour is long overdue. -more-
There are more than 400 prisoners in the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, rotting away with little or no recourse to the law, no contact with families or lawyers or the governments of the nations from which they came. Tragic as the situation may be, these men are almost celebrity cases in comparison to the hundreds or possibly thousands of wrongly incarcerated men who bide their time in our state and federal prisons. -more-
An old Brooklyn mansion, stuffed with memories—and more than memories—of an eccentric, even grisly past, presently populated by two smiling old spinsters who only want to help lonely men find peace; one nephew, a gangster, who barges in with his drunken plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein; a chorus line of Irish cops; and the other nephew, in love with the minister’s daughter next door, himself the grisliest thing of all—a drama critic. -more-
Luis Garcia and Richard Krech, two lifelong Berkeley poets, will read for Monday At Moe’s, the series produced by Owen Hill at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave., 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 12. -more-
If you’ve ever dined in the rear portion of the Great China restaurant on Kittredge Street, you might have noticed that this space is markedly different from the front part. Redwood board-and-batten wainscots; redwood doors and window trim; a beamed tongue-and-groove ceiling with elegantly carved brackets; and a doorway incorporating a fan of Victorian spindlework all suggest that these rooms were part of a former home. -more-
A couple of months ago, I wrote about Berkeley Indoor Gardens, an indoor gardening (surprise!) store down at the tidal end of University Avenue. I got to feeling bad because I hadn’t written about the other indoor gardening store across the street. This one even advertises on KPIG, my favorite radio station. (So does Memphis Minnie’s, home of the best Sunday brunch in San Francisco. Don’t take my word for it—go eat!) -more-
Breakers of the space-age: In 2003 there were over 73,000 electrical fires and nearly 600 resulting deaths, not to mention about a billion dollars in property loss. Most of these fires were caused by electrical “arcing.” -more-
OLD TIME MUSIC IN BERKELEY -more-
In his interview with Robert Hass to an overflowing crowd at International House, the Columbian artist Fernando Botero mentioned that when reading Seymour Hersh’s article in The New Yorker about American soldiers using torture in the same prison at Abu Ghraib where Saddam Hussein used similar violent tactics, he was deeply shocked. -more-
Robert Ernst, cofounder of ’70s-’80s Berkeley experimental performance cooperative The Blake Street Hawkeyes and writer, director, teacher, musician and actor, has a new play, Catherine’s Care, onstage for two more weeks in San Rafael. -more-
All right, the season’s over. Put down that polesaw. I don’t mean the pruning season, exactly. I mean the pruning free-for-all season: that season where a pruner’s only concern is the anatomy and physiology of the tree being pruned. -more-
