UC Berkeley professor and former cabinet officer Robert Reich must be feeling prophetic today, since the warning he issued about the use of a university’s good name to greenwash an oil industry giant has just cost Stanford $2.5 million. -more-
Fix Moldy Condos First, Say Residents -more-
The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board voted 6-3 to approve the controversial Wright’s Garage project at 2629-2635 Ashby Ave. on Thursday. -more-
Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board members are divided about whether it is appropriate to use public comments from the website KitchenDemocracy.org to justify approval of the reuse of Wright’s Garage building at 2629-2635 Ashby Ave. -more-
At tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting, city staff will ask the community concerned with Pacific Steel Casting emissions to wait until a health risk assessment based on known emissions is published in mid-April to ask for further studies and hearings. -more-
The citizen planners shaping the new plan for downtown Berkeley are preparing to face a major decision about the city center’s streetscape. -more-
The Berkeley Board of Education will meet Wednesday to approve the Berkeley Unified School District’s (BUSD) 2007 Summer School Program. -more-
Late Monday, Berkeley High School Principal Jim Slemp reported that he was feeling better but that he was still hurting following an accident on his bike. -more-
When the City Council passed a resolution in December favorable to the Gaia building owner, councilmembers thought they had dodged a bullet. They were still under fire, however. -more-
Berkeley residents can weigh in with their concerns about the major expansion planned at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory during a 7 p.m. hearing Wednesday. -more-
At the March 8 meeting called by Wareham to show off its proposed transit cente-commercial-laboratory project, some 50 community members showed up—as well as two Wareham attorneys, a Wareham architect, a public relations consultant and a couple of helpers to operate the power point display. An Emeryville Police officer was stationed near the door. -more-
Since they are something of a dying breed and I’m someone who grew up in Berkeley in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I seem to have hippies on the brain not infrequently. -more-
Steve Cho, a Korean owner of a liquor store in the Pic-Union/Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles and a member of the U.S. National Guard, likes to listen to Spanish music and is currently learning Spanish. He admits, however, that there is hardly any communication between Koreans and Latinos. Others say the separation runs even deeper. -more-
After a camping hiatus of over ten years, here I sit, reclining in a canvas chair overlooking Wild Plum Creek, the Sierra Buttes rising as sentinels above me. After my children had grown, I’d sworn off camping. What am I doing here? -more-
Dated but not forgotten: This is the story of 16 seniors who have called South Berkeley home at different times in the last century. -more-
Sustainable Berkeley, the mostly city-funded grouping of public and private individuals and institutions, promises to lead the local fight against global warming and at the same time “brand” Berkeley as the country’s leading green city. -more-
Critics who say UC Berkeley shouldn’t taken $500 million from a British oil company to develop alternative energy espouse an “abhorrent” attitude and threaten academic freedom, declared Chancellor Robert Birgeneau Thursday. -more-
It has come to this: The North Shattuck Association (NSA), the North Shattuck Plaza Inc. (NSPI) and the Live Oak Codornices Creek Neighborhood Association (LOCCNA) have agreed to appoint representatives to a newly formed committee that will help move the disputed $3.5 million North Shattuck plaza in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto forward. -more-
Presented with three significant documents—recommendations on UC Berkeley downtown developments, ground-floor uses and a proposed economic development package—citizen planners held off any final action Wednesday. -more-
The University Press Building—UC Berkeley’s doomed downtown landmark—will be granted one last fling before the wrecking ball comes. -more-
Though the UC Berkeley’s massive Memorial Stadium-area expansion plans have been stalled by a court order, the university is moving forward with a seismic study. -more-
The month-old administration of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums did something this week that the predecessor administration of Jerry Brown failed to do in eight years of office, hold a full-blown City Hall press conference to which all media was invited and questions were raised and answered with equal access to all areas of the press. -more-
“The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.” -more-
A little over a month after Oakland city officials were blamed for allowing a sideshow-abatement state law to lapse, the California legislature is quietly moving to reinstate the law on an “urgency” basis. -more-
When can Berkeley police infiltrate political groups? What is the local police role when a government spy agency asks them for help? -more-
San Francisco-based MKThink Group presented an initial needs assessment plan for People’s Park to the park’s Advisory Board on Monday. -more-
What excites Willard Middle School eighth grader Naima Yi most about attending Berkeley High next year is its visual arts program, something the thirteen-year-old described as “super awesome.” -more-
“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” How often in the reign of the current mayor will we find the opportunity to use that now-hackneyed quote from Lord Acton? Tomorrow’s Berkeley City Council agenda offers yet another one. It contains not one but at least two naked power grabs by Mayor Bates, aided and abetted by the so-called ‘moderate’ councilmembers and the sycophantic faction of ex-progressives who have joined them to create the new conservative majority on the city council. (Style note: when both “so-called” and single quotes are used, it means we think the word ‘moderate’ lost all meaning in Berkeley politics years ago, as did ‘progressive’.) -more-
Why shouldn’t public universities welcome big grants from big corporations? After all, times are tough, and they need all the money they can get to keep tuition costs down, right? Well, maybe, but let’s take a look at the real costs of inviting the fox to sleep over in the henhouse. -more-
Those who object to a new ferry terminal along the Albany or North Berkeley shoreline can relax. After last Thursday’s scoping session conducted by the Water Transit Authority, it appears that the two northern locations are likely to be ranked a distant third and fourth behind the other two candidate sites in the Berkeley Marina. The northern sites are Buchanan Street (really closer to Fleming Point next to the race racetrack’s underutilized north parking lot) and Gilman (really a little to the north of Gilman, across from the stables area). -more-
Sustainable Berkeley formed last year to help foster collaborations towards a more sustainable future across sectors in Berkeley. It offers a rare glimmer of hope that people from business, government, universities, and the community can work together towards common goals in spite of the many divisions, which continually prevent the success of such efforts. -more-
Let us first set aside the potential ad hominem attacks against BP Amoco PLC. So what if it is the corporation that pleaded with Washington and London to remove the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from office which resulted in a violent coup d’etat in 1953 because of concerns over control of Iran’s oil resources? So what if it is the corporation that deliberately failed to adequately maintain its Alaskan pipeline so it could drive up the price of oil, and which, upon discovering the whistle blower, hired a CIA operative to break into the employee’s office? So what if it is the corporation who, along with oil giants ExxonMobil and Shell, heavily influenced the new Iraq Oil and Gas Law which would give Big Oil a 75 percent concession to Iraq’s oil resources in a so-called “Production Sharing Agreement”? Yes, let us put BP’s past (as well as its recent past) behind us and look towards the future of renewable energy so that, in the words of Berkeley National Laboratory’s Steve Chu, we can “help save the world.” -more-
I write in response to J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s recent column about the infamous slur word that is America’s pride and joy. The ignoble word that bigoted, racist, vulgar, people will continue to use. They use it in secret and public to try and make inferior a certain group of American and world citizens. -more-
“Tell that guy I don’t board dogs, and I refuse to stay at somebody’s house and pet sit.” -more-
Most of Ron’s columns have featured street trees. I’m making an exception for Michelia doltsopa; the few specimens we know about are in private gardens and storefront planters. I would have passed off the one on our street as some odd magnolia, but she recognized it for what it was. One clue: the flowers are borne among the leaves rather than at the ends of the branches. -more-
I have reported elsewhere on the history of U. S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s 2001-2005 conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum’s former stake in two war contractors, URS and Perini corporations. Unfortunately, the senator is not the only one in her family with an ethics problem. In March 2002, Gov. Gray Davis appointed Blum to a 12-year term as a regent of the University of California. For the next three years, both URS and Perini benefited from construction contracts awarded by the regents. -more-
Interesting, isn’t it, how much of the country continues to react to the complications surrounding the issue of race like the little boy who finds himself amazed, after multiple trips to the zoo, that the zebra continue to have stripes. The zebras have always had stripes, since they have been zebras, and the stripes have been there on the zebras each of the times the boy comes to visit. But each time, upon viewing the phenomenon, the little boy’s mouth drops in amazement, his eyes open wide, and he stands on tiptoe and leans over the railing to get a better look at this wonderful curiousity which has never been pointed out to him before, except for all of the many other times it was pointed out in the visits prior to this. -more-
It really annoys me when I see a real estate listing with a picture of a bungalow which announces something like “fabulous Victorian”—you would think there are enough bungalows around here that agents would get a clue, but apparently not. So herewith I shall answer the question “What is a Bungalow?” -more-
Lately I have been known to make outbursts over my Sunday morning cup of tea. It’s usually because I’m reading an article in a local paper purporting to give an update of our real estate market. Some of the articles come from wire services and describe a totally irrelevant national picture. Other times the article is describing the “local market,” but what they’re really discussing is the entire East Bay, from Hayward through Hercules. -more-
Okay Matt, I have been thinking about this for a while. There is a design feature I’ve noticed while looking at open houses these past years. -more-
Are you ready to make personal contact with your wild neighbors? Ready to go eye-to-eye with the swiveling head of a great horned owl, outstare a magnificent Bald Eagle, chuckle at an opossum burrowed head-deep into a cereal box, count the leaves being pulled out of a Trader Joe’s Indian Fare carton by a California ground squirrel? -more-
THE GREAT UNCLOTHED OAK GROVE -more-
There is no sound quite like that of an orchestra warming up before a performance. Even for the classical music novice, the scattered sounds of violins, tympani, cellos and brass running through a chaotic mesh of notes and rhythms is enough to build anticipation for what awaits, for the drama and emotive power of supreme musicianship. -more-
Most of Ron’s columns have featured street trees. I’m making an exception for Michelia doltsopa; the few specimens we know about are in private gardens and storefront planters. I would have passed off the one on our street as some odd magnolia, but she recognized it for what it was. One clue: the flowers are borne among the leaves rather than at the ends of the branches. -more-
UC PERFORMING ARTS’ ‘DOLLY’S WEST KITCHEN’ -more-
San-Francisco-born, Los Angeles-based poet and translator Paul Vangelisti will give a rare East Bay reading from his new book, Days Shadows Pass (Green Integer 129, Los Angeles), and share the rostrum with “multimedia fiction” writer Debra Di Blasi and her The Jiri Chronicles (FC2 Books/U. Alabama Press), part of her sprawling “transmedia” project of over 400 individual works taking many forms, 7:30 p.m. Monday at Moe’s Books on Telegraph Ave. Admission is free. -more-
The San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra will present a panoply of music by Bay Area composers Katrina Wreede, Lisa Scola Prosek, Alexis Alrich, Loren Jones, Erling Wold, and Chris Carrasco, this Saturday at Old First Church in San Francisco. -more-
When, in her final column, Molly Ivins called for the people to get out in the streets, bang pots and pans and raise hell, lefties all over the country responded with tributes and clarion calls to heed her message. Meanwhile, for more than six years, many of these same self-described liberals have excoriated the most accomplished and tenacious hell-raiser of them all, Public Pot-and-Pan-Banger Number One, Ralph Nader. -more-
Some films carry with them the burden of their own achievements, their reputations so ingrained in the public consciousness that often those who have never seem them convince themselves they have. And when they finally do see those films the expectations can be almost insurmountable, rendering the experience underwhelming. Try explaining to the uninitiated the allure of Casablanca, or the innovation and genius of Citizen Kane. For many younger viewers these films are merely overhyped relics from a pitiful, technologically challenged era. -more-
It really annoys me when I see a real estate listing with a picture of a bungalow which announces something like “fabulous Victorian”—you would think there are enough bungalows around here that agents would get a clue, but apparently not. So herewith I shall answer the question “What is a Bungalow?” -more-
Lately I have been known to make outbursts over my Sunday morning cup of tea. It’s usually because I’m reading an article in a local paper purporting to give an update of our real estate market. Some of the articles come from wire services and describe a totally irrelevant national picture. Other times the article is describing the “local market,” but what they’re really discussing is the entire East Bay, from Hayward through Hercules. -more-
Okay Matt, I have been thinking about this for a while. There is a design feature I’ve noticed while looking at open houses these past years. -more-
Are you ready to make personal contact with your wild neighbors? Ready to go eye-to-eye with the swiveling head of a great horned owl, outstare a magnificent Bald Eagle, chuckle at an opossum burrowed head-deep into a cereal box, count the leaves being pulled out of a Trader Joe’s Indian Fare carton by a California ground squirrel? -more-
