The Week

Photo by Gar Smith
          As car crashes go, this one on Sunday on Miramonte Court was both spectacular and nearly pristine.
Photo by Gar Smith As car crashes go, this one on Sunday on Miramonte Court was both spectacular and nearly pristine.
 

News

Car Crash

Tuesday April 24, 2007

Photo by Gar Smith -more-


Council Hears New Plan for Greenhouse Gas Reduction

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday April 24, 2007

The mayor and city manager will propose, at tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting, a shift in tactics for writing Berkeley’s greenhouse gas reduction plan. -more-


Oak-to-Ninth Dispute Moves Forward in Superior Court

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday April 24, 2007

The massive Oak-to-Ninth development project continued its various journeys through the state court system last week, with lawyers for the Oakland Heritage Alliance filing its opening brief in a lawsuit challenging the City of Oakland’s CEQA findings on the 180,000-square-foot Ninth Avenue Terminal. -more-


Local Bus Manufacturer Refutes AC Transit Assertions

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday April 24, 2007

With AC Transit rapidly expanding its purchase of Belgian-based Van Hool buses, the senior vice president of a Bay Area bus manufacturing company is refuting a key reason why AC Transit officials say the European-manufactured buses are more desirable than American-made ones. -more-


I-House Spring Festival Celebrates Diversity, Tolerance

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 24, 2007

As Virginia Tech struggled to recover from the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, residents of International House at UC Berkeley came together in a riot of colors to celebrate unity in diversity Saturday. -more-


School Board to Vote on Curvy Derby

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 24, 2007

The Berkeley Board of Education is scheduled to vote on development of the Curvy Derby Plan for the Berkeley Unified School District’s (BUSD) East Campus field Wednesday. -more-


David Halberstam Killed in Car Crash

Bay City News
Tuesday April 24, 2007

MENLO PARK (BCN)—Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author David Halberstam was killed this morning in a three-vehicle crash near the Dumbarton Bridge in Menlo Park, the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office reported. -more-


ZAB Hears Sacramento St. Drug Problem Reports

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 24, 2007

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) is scheduled to hear a nuisance proceeding Thursday. -more-


Commission Discusses Closed Police Misconduct Hearings

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Since September, due to a California Supreme Court decision, the Police Review Commission has not held any inquiries into police misconduct. On Wednesday, the commission will hold a public hearing on new regulations for closed hearings. -more-


High School Students Become College Students for a Day

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 24, 2007

About 250 UC Berkeley students were shadowed last Thursday, but it was all for a good cause. -more-


Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Wet Seal chase -more-


Legislative Briefs

Tuesday April 24, 2007

SB67 -more-


West Berkeley Residents Monitor Pacific Steel Emissions

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 24, 2007

A group of West Berkeley residents have set up an air monitor to detect emissions from Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) Monday. -more-


The Rise of Blackwater

By Sandip Roy, New America Media
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Four of the employees of Blackwater USA, one of more than three dozen private military companies operating in Iraq, were murdered, burned and left hanging on a bridge in Fallujah in 2004. Jeremy Scahill, a contributor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for Democracy Now!, has written a book about how a company that is barely 10 years old rose from the swamp of North Carolina to become the world’s most powerful mercenary army, controlled by one man. Scahill recently spoke to Sandip Roy on the program “Your Call on KALW” about his book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. -more-


Follow the Carquinez Strait to Port Costa and Crockett

By Marta Yamamoto, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 24, 2007

From Franklin Trail in Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline Park spread panoramic views ranging from Martinez and Benicia nearby to the far reaches of Mt. Diablo, Mt. Tam and the Lower Delta. Anchoring the two ends of this trail are the small, strait-side towns of Port Costa and Crockett. Plan a glorious getaway exploring parkland, browsing antique shops and eclectic boutiques and sampling intriguing eateries. -more-


Ten Questions for Councilmember Linda Maio

By Jonathan Wafer, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 24, 2007

1. Where were you born and where did you grow up, and how does that affect how you regard the issues in Berkeley and in your district? -more-


More Korean Reactions to Shooting Rampage

By Kapson Yim Lee, New America Media
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Korean-Americans’ fear of a backlash from the campus massacre at Virginia Tech eased a bit when mainstream news media began focusing on issues that concern all Americans, such as mental illness, gun control and campus security, rather than the ethnicity of the gunman. -more-


Historian Leon Litwack Retires with Golden Apple

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 20, 2007

Images of a young Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar ablaze flickered across the screen at the UC Berkeley Wheeler Auditorium on Wednesday. The film Berkeley in the ’60s was not just entertainment for the some hundred students from History 7B (American History since 1865)—it was classwork. -more-


UC Academic Senate Confirms BP Contract

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 20, 2007

Berkeley’s Academic Senate handed a victory to supporters of the proposed half-billion-dollar contract between the former British Petroleum and the university. -more-


Universal Health Care Bill Passes Committee

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday April 20, 2007

A bill that would guarantee single-payer health care coverage to all Californians passed the California State Senate Health Committee Thursday, leaving at least one community advocate optimistic about the bill’s chances of becoming law. -more-


DAPAC Gives OK to Downtown Proposals

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 20, 2007

DAPAC members finally adopted recommendations for developing UC Berkeley-owned property in downtown Berkeley Wednesday, but it took more than three hours, and one key element remains to be decided. -more-


Mayor Bates Touts Berkeley’s Green-City Initiatives

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 20, 2007

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates urged local businesses to help propel Berkeley toward becoming the greenest city in the country at the Sustainable Berkeley Commercial Property Climate Protection Luncheon gathering on Tuesday. -more-


Senate Bills on Police Public Information Meet Mixed Fates

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday April 20, 2007

Legislation that would re-open police disciplinary hearings and open up police personnel disciplinary files narrowly passed the Senate Public Safety Committee this week on a partisan 3-2 vote, leading advocates to the conclusion that a compromise will be necessary for the bill to survive both the Legislature and a possible veto from Gov. Schwarzenegger. -more-


Panoramic Sales Net City $2.1 Million

By Richard Brenneman
Friday April 20, 2007

The sale of seven Berkeley apartment buildings will make the city richer by $2.1 million in the form of a one-time property transfer tax payment, reports Calvin Fong, an aide to Mayor Tom Bates. -more-


Longfellow’s Technology Programs Attract National Attention

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 20, 2007

Forty-two school board members from around the country paid a visit to Longfellow Arts and Technology Magnet Middle School Monday to look at what the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) is doing with technology in the middle schools. -more-


SF Board Landmarks UC Laguna Extension Campus

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday April 20, 2007

The Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board (LPAB) in San Francisco voted 6-1 in favor of the local landmark designation of the UC Berkeley Extension Laguna Street Campus Wednesday. -more-


Opium, Drug Use Drive Second Wave of AIDS Pandemic

By Khalil Abdullah, New America Media
Friday April 20, 2007

Intravenous drug use (IDU) is emerging as a significant driver for the “second wave” of the international HIV/AIDS pandemic, according to Dr. Chris Beyrer, a leading authority on the disease. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: It’s Too Easy Acting Green, and Other Arias

By Becky O'Malley
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of imported tschotchkes, have a house full of them. (For the Yiddish-challenged, that’s all the little bits of useless decorative stuff you either love because your mother didn’t let them into your childhood home, or hate because she did.) But still, in the context of our PC-plus city’s Earth Day festival on Saturday, I did wonder. The Planet had a table there, and we spent an hour or so alternately sitting and walking around, chatting with vendors and visitors. We noticed quite a few stalls with merchandise which originated in Asia or Latin America which was delivered in big vans, panel trucks or SUVs. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? -more-


Editorial: Gonzales Explains It All, One More Time

By Becky O’Malley
Friday April 20, 2007

The picture that emerges from the appearance of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee is not one of “high crimes and misdemeanors”—unfortunately. “We should have done a better job of communicating,” he says. “I accept responsibility,” he says, “mistakes were made.” Next thing you know, he’ll be going into rehab. -more-


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday April 24, 2007

OPPENHEIMER -more-


Commentary: The Proposed West Berkeley Community Benefits District

By Rick Auerbach
Tuesday April 24, 2007

With almost no public examination a private, developer-driven organization with $10,000 in funding from the city has targeted a new property assessment for large swaths of West Berkeley. Bringing into question our foundational tenets of “one person, one vote,” and “no taxation without representation,” this effort appears to find its basis in that ever popular mutation of the golden rule: whoever owns the gold (property) makes the rules. -more-


Commentary: Doing Whatever We Can to Stop Gun Violence

By Marian Berges
Tuesday April 24, 2007

I’ve been thinking about the violence at Virginia Tech, and about a violent man I once met. He was the boyfriend of a friend of mine. She brought him over to visit one afternoon, but his vibe was so repellent, so dangerous, that I didn’t want him near my kids, near me, nor in my home. I remember him sitting in my kitchen, his eyes moving over the furniture, the fixtures, evaluating everything, sizing everything up. My friend sat a little in the background, not saying much, anxious for us to like him. She was something of an innocent. She owned her own house, had a job, but (and this is my own interpretation; I can’t speak for her) felt she needed a man, a baby, and so invited this man into her home. He had come out of nowhere, had no job—she met him in a café. Over the next few months I often thought of calling her, of warning her about him, and my only excuses for not doing so was that I was pretty sure she wouldn’t listen to me, and moreover that I couldn’t imagine that it would end the way it did. It was obvious that he had all the power, had taken the reins. This is what violence, or the threat of violence does; it trumps good sense, good intentions. So I didn’t call her and he killed her. -more-


Commentary: Were KPFA Comments Red-Baiting, Or Is That a Red Herring?

By Marc Sapir
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Some publicity hound—maybe it was Al Capone—once quipped, “You can write anything you want about me as long as you spell my name right.” Having read about myself in the pages of the Planet lately I can’t say that I have much sympathy for that idea. Maybe it’s my age, but this grandfather of six doesn’t have quite the thick skin he had at 30 when jousting with the windmills of imperialism’s hubris. I actually don’t see why any critic about Berkeley would enjoy being flattered as a writer of “hit pieces,” a “red baiter” or an “agent baiter.” I’ll accept that my piece on KPFA was hard-hitting, but I had thought of that in figurative terms. Sure, I expected some wrathback. Still, those responses helped make my point. -more-


Commentary: Contracting Out the Troop Death Tolls

By Jane Stillwater
Tuesday April 24, 2007

On my plane flight back from Iraq, I was cogitating on what I had learned while I was there and, in between the in-flight movie and the rubber chicken, I started remembering what one female Parliamentarian I had interviewed kept saying to me. “The number of American troops that have died over here is much higher than reported because they do not count the contractors.” -more-


Letters to the Editor

Friday April 20, 2007

LONNIE TORRES -more-


Commentary: A Berkeleyan’s View From Iraq

By Jane Stillwater
Friday April 20, 2007

EDITOR’S NOTE: Berkeley resident Jane Stillwater, sponsored by the Lone Star Iconoclast, a Crawford, Texas newspaper, is blogging about her trip to Iraq. Below are her posts of April 12 and 13. To read more, see http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com. -more-


Commentary: Your Water Company Leading the Way

By Lesa R. McIntosh
Friday April 20, 2007

Did you know that Easy Bay Municipal Utilities District (EBMUD), your water company, sets the standard? The trick, which EBMUD seems to do so effortlessly, is to first secure a high-quality water source from the eastern Sierra mountains and the Mokelumne River watershed, transport that water through three 90-mile aqueducts to the East Bay, move it through a 331-square-mile area; from Crockett on the north, southward to San Lorenzo, eastward from San Francisco Bay to Walnut Creek, and south through the San Ramon Valley and through local pipelines to your tap. EBMUD serves 1.3 million water customers and over 650,000 wastewater customers here in the East Bay. The wastewater system covers an 88-square-mile area. -more-


Commentary: ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ Holds First National Conference

By Cecilie Surasky
Friday April 20, 2007

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it’s important to reflect on where we as a Jewish community stand on this issue, especially here in the Bay Area. -more-


Commentary: Is a Ferry a Good, Cost-Effective Environmental Alternative?

By Roy Nakedegawa
Friday April 20, 2007

A ferry from Berkeley to San Francisco may be a good idea, but such a service should usefully augment the public transit we have. Sure, it’s good to have an alternative if the bridge or BART suffers damage from a quake, but with increasing global warming, we really need to reduce the number of car trips. The ferry is going to rely on cars with parking to achieve any decent ridership; therefore, it is questionable whether it will help in reducing car trips. Even short trips to a ferry terminal can generate as much pollution as a trip of 10 miles, due to the cold start. -more-


Columns

Green Neighbors: Welcome the Flowers That Bloom in the Spring

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Having ranted about the allergenic pollen from certain flowering trees—the sorts one might not even think of as “flowering” except in the taxonomic sense—allow me to spend a few inches on thanks and praise for their more conspicuous brethren. -more-


Column: Undercurrents: Dellums Administration Gets Oakland Moving Again

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday April 20, 2007

Some years ago, in a more energetic time in my life, I used to pick up day work unloading banana boats for Chiquita Brands on the docks at Charleston, South Carolina. By that time they had stopped shipping bananas by the stalk, but instead, they were coming up from Central America in 40 pound boxes. These boxes were stacked up to the roof of each deck of the banana boats, and when you first got on the floor in the morning, there was barely enough room for the 10 man crews to stand in the bare space around the hold, much less start working sending the boxes up the single conveyor belt that took them up the hold to the top deck. -more-


First Person: Compassion and Outrage at the Coffee Bar

By E. S. Hammer
Friday April 20, 2007

As a 50-ish fan of Susan Parker’s column, I am following with keen interest her colorful descriptions of loss and renewal at age 55. I wish her great good fortune in finding or creating the “next right career” for herself. However, I just had to share an anecdote of my own, in case Ms. Parker meant seriously that perhaps she’d apply at Peet’s. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Daniels Excelled in Developing and Marketing Scenic Beauty

By Daniella Thompson
Friday April 20, 2007

Nobody recognized the commercial value of natural scenery better than Mark Daniels. -more-


About the House: Strapping Young Water Heater Turns 10 Years Old

By Matt Cantor
Friday April 20, 2007

I am a total crank. I admit it. I can’t help myself. I think this just the way Lord Shiva made me and there ain’t too darned much I can do about it. Some things just rile me, chafe and get under my pink semi-translucent skin and one of those things is the utter and thorough inability of just about everyone in the building trades to properly strap a water heater. -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday April 24, 2007

TUESDAY, APRIL 24 -more-


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Tuesday April 24, 2007

A TRIBUTE TO -more-


Marian McPartland Embodies Jazz History

By Ira Steingroot, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 24, 2007

If you’ve seen the film A Great Day in Harlem, you may have noticed that of the 57 jazz legends who showed up to be photographed by Art Kane standing on the stoop of a Harlem brownstone at 17 East 126th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues on an August morning in 1958, only three of them were women and only one of the three was white. -more-


The Theater: Aurora Production Satirizes Contemporary Architecture

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 24, 2007

A young Asian woman in a fashionable, low-cut black dress and high heels busies herself with last minute fussing over the white bulk of an architectural model, positioned on a table elevated enough so that she needs to climb above it on a high tech stepladder to reach down into its interior. -more-


‘Price of Fire’ Spotlights Unknown History of Latin America

By Conn Hallinan, Special to the Planet
Tuesday April 24, 2007

There was a time in history when travel diaries were the way people in London, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam found out about the countries they had yoked to their imperial ambitions. India, Sumatra, and rural Donegal—the places that funneled raw materials and gold into the great imperial centers—came alive in journals and long letters to leading newspapers. Most of the diarists focused on the exotic, but not a few accurately predicted that no matter how many dragoons were sent to terrorize the Irish countryside, insurrectionary groups like the “Whiteboys” would appear in their wake to burn down a landlord’s house. Or divined that all the “khaki boys” in the British Army would never quell the fierce Pushtin tribesmen of the Northern Frontier. -more-


Green Neighbors: Welcome the Flowers That Bloom in the Spring

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday April 24, 2007

Having ranted about the allergenic pollen from certain flowering trees—the sorts one might not even think of as “flowering” except in the taxonomic sense—allow me to spend a few inches on thanks and praise for their more conspicuous brethren. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday April 24, 2007

TUESDAY, APRIL 24 -more-


Corrections

Tuesday April 24, 2007

In an April 13 story on labor relations in the Berkeley schools, a school employee’s name was misspelled. Her name is Anita Thomson. -more-


Arts Calendar

Friday April 20, 2007

FRIDAY, APRIL 20 -more-


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Friday April 20, 2007

‘PARTNERS IN PAINT’ -more-


Moving Pictures: Finding Poetry Amid the Horror of World War II

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday April 20, 2007

Kon Ichikawa directed nearly 30 films in his native Japan before anyone took much notice of him. He was a studio director, taking assignments and completing them dutifully if not artfully. It was only when he and his wife/co-scenarist Natto Wada began developing their own projects that Ichikawa received his due recognition. -more-


Hertz Hall Hosts Medieval and Modern ‘Carmina Burana’

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday April 20, 2007

Composer Carl Orff’s 20th century “scenic cantata,” Carmina Burana, and the 13th century collection of songs that inspired Orff’s “reimagining” will both be performed—probably for the first time ever in this format, “back to back, recto to verso”—by the University Chorus and Chamber Chorus with guest soloists and musicians, under the direction of Marika Kuzma. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Daniels Excelled in Developing and Marketing Scenic Beauty

By Daniella Thompson
Friday April 20, 2007

Nobody recognized the commercial value of natural scenery better than Mark Daniels. -more-


About the House: Strapping Young Water Heater Turns 10 Years Old

By Matt Cantor
Friday April 20, 2007

I am a total crank. I admit it. I can’t help myself. I think this just the way Lord Shiva made me and there ain’t too darned much I can do about it. Some things just rile me, chafe and get under my pink semi-translucent skin and one of those things is the utter and thorough inability of just about everyone in the building trades to properly strap a water heater. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday April 20, 2007

FRIDAY, APRIL 20 -more-