The eclectic assembly of artists who have made The Shipyard a hub of creativity for the past six years was packing up over the weekend, evicted—they say—by the city. 

Not so, says Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth, one of the three city officials who signed a notice to vacate and abate the shipping containers used by the yard’s 30 artists as studios. 

Jim Mason, who recently signed a new 15-year lease on the West Berkeley site, said he intends to organize a coalition of artists to fight for their right to stay in the city. 

Meanwhile, he said, “Many of the artists have major projects for the summer, and my first responsibility is to make sure they have a place to work.” 

As a result, many of the artists have already moved out of their containerized studios at 1010 Murray St. and into temporary new quarters in Oakland, while others were busily packing up Monday. 

Orth said the city acted after he noticed that Mason had recently added another dozen containers to The Shipyard. 

“We had been working with him for five years trying to legalize what he had, and then he decided to expand, adding another dozen shipping containers,” Orth said. 

But the city hasn’t ordered eviction—only that Mason comply with city codes, Orth said. 

The city served Mason and property owners James and Leann Lin with an eight-page letter May 8, but Mason was able to negotiate an extension to give his renters time to move. That continuation ends Friday. 

The letter, signed by Orth, city Building Official Joan MacQuarrie and Zoning Officer Mark Rhoades, cited 15 Building Code violations, 13 city and state fire code violations and 4 city Zoning Ordinance violations. 

“It was impossible to meet,” Mason said. “There’s probably a million pounds of stuff to move, and with the threat of jail and $2,500-a-day fines, there was no choice but to move. 

“They had us surrounded on all fronts,” he said. 

But Orth said the issues involved safety and clearly established code violations, among them encroachment on other property, including the existing railroad right of way the city intends to acquire for a bike trail. 

The site also is located near another piece of property the city plans to use as an emergency equipment warehouse that will serve Orth’s department, he said. 

Vanishing artists  

The closure of The Shipyard marks the fifth closing of a Berkeley artists’ community in the past six years, and the third triggered by city action. 

A 2001 sale forced the eviction of artists who lived A 2001 sale forced the eviction of artists who lived in the live/work spaces in the old warehouse building at 2750 Adeline St. That building had housed an unusual collection of artists, including one-time resident R. Crumb, the noted underground cartoonist. 

The following year saw the closing of The Crucible, a community of studios very similar to The Shipyard, after city officials cracked down on code violations following a raucous party that led to a pair of shootings near the site. 

That facility was located at 1036 Ashby Ave., a block from The Shipyard. 

In 2005, city officials cited the owner of The Drayage at 651 Addison St. for multiple violations , leading to the end of another cherished West Berkeley artists’ community—though, as Orth observes, spaces there were rented as live/work units, unlike The Shipyard. 

West Berkeley lost yet another arts collective last year when the 31-year-old Nexus Collective lost its lease to buildings owned by the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society at 2701-2721 Eighth St. 

Once known as a haven for artists seeking congenial company and low rents, West Berkeley is gradually losing the artists for which it was once widely known. 

Mason vows to fight back. 

“This is a systematic problem in Berkeley, and two officials are primarily involved, the deputy fire chief and the building official, and they have very little oversight,” said Mason. “They’re making the same dubious claims of safety issues. 

“The problem is that claiming a public safety threat is kind of like claiming a terrorism threat: It’s vague, it’s always everywhere but at the same time nowhere, and it always relates with difficulty to anything in actuality on the ground.” 

Mason said he intends to resolve the issue over the coming months, “not just for The Shipyard but for all of the artist communities that are being driven out of the city. This is much bigger than The Shipyard, and there will be a coalition of arts organizations against the structure of officials who have led to the loss of artists from our community,” he said. 

“We’re already getting the e-mails,” said Orth, “and we’re working on a boilerplate response letter. But none of this would have happened if he hadn’t brought in another dozen shipping containers. 

“He’s a nice enough guy and they do some really cool stuff, but you can only go so far.” 

Works in progress 

The Shipyard is a steampunk’s dreamworks, a haven for techno creations ranging from a steam-powered car to Mechabolic, a high-tech “terra preta” trash-to-energy system that will be one of the highlights of this summer’s Burning Man festival in Nevada. 

“It’s a large-scale sculpture that ingests trash like paper, tires and wood scraps and converts it into fuel for its own mobility and for fire and produces organic charcoal fertilizer as a by-product,” said Mason. “It’s a carbon-negative system for producing energy that integrates agriculture into the energy cycle. It’s just the kind of thing you’d think the city would want in Berkeley.” 

Michael Michael, a Shipyard alumnus and one of the organizers of the Burning Man festival, said The Shipyard has produced an amazing collection of artworks and is one of five major hubs for creative work in the Bay area, with the others being Hunters Point and the Box Shop in San Francisco, and the Crucible, NIMBY and Headless Point East in Oakland. 

“Berkeley has been losing a lot of valuable artists’ resources,” Michael said. 

Peter Luka, who has been working at The Shipyard for three years, was gathering up his gear Monday and helping other artists as they worked to clear out their accumulated works and tools. 

An engineering graduate of MIT, Luka said he’s moving the lot into the garage of his home for the time being. 

“I came here because I really wanted to do art work in this community, a place where a lot of weird, smart people are producing a lot of crazy ideas,” he said.  

He dubs his works “structural/mechanical/robotic art.” 

“I was supposed to be at the Maker Faire this weekend; instead, I’m moving out,” said Kimric Smythe, referring to an event dubbed by the techno-blog Engadget.com as “end-all be-all event for DIY (i.e., do-it-yourself) hacks, homebrew gadgets, and other oddities.” 

Smythe is one of the creators of the steam car and proudly showed a reporter a cloud-belching compressor he’d fabricated for the machine. 

“Welcome to the shipwreck,” said Shannon O’Hare, who had also helped with the car and on the unique clock tower Shipyard artists built for the 2005 Burning Man festival. 

O’Hare said he found it particularly ironic that the city had ordered the immediate disconnection of the solar panels that provided some of The Shipyard’s power. 

“You wouldn’t think they’d do that here in Berkeley, would you?”

A few weeks ago members of the southeast Berkeley community found newspapers and hate-filled flyers on their sidewalks and front porches targeting Jews, blacks, Hispanics and immigrants. 

Last week, members of the Peace and Justice Commission received in their e-mail in boxes another sample of what many are calling “hate speech.” The e-mail links to a five-minute video that condemns Islam as a religion of war and its prophet Mohammad as “some rambling ancient desert nomad with a psychological disorder.”  

The e-mail was not sent by a right-wing fanatical group as the newspaper drop apparently was, but by fellow Peace and Justice Commissioner Jonathan Wornick.  

Wornick told the Planet he didn’t agree with everything on the tape, but sent it to fellow commissioners “in an honest attempt to bring dialogue.” 

Among the tape’s assertions are general statements claiming Muslim misogyny. Specifically it says: “Muslim women in Britain who cover their faces are mentally ill. If God had intended for you to cover your face then in His wisdom He would have provided you with a flap of skin for the purpose.” 

Wornick’s link to the video was prefaced only by the comment, “An interesting commentary from Britain.” (The video commentator is Englishman Pat Condell, an actor.)  

The video “tries to expose intolerance in the [Muslim] world,” Wornick told the Daily Planet, underscoring that he is referring to “the intolerance of radical Islamists who say if you insult Allah, you should have your head cut off.” 

Underscoring that he has “no problem with the Muslim faith,” Wornick went on to say that the real issue for him is how “radical Islamists” are against women and gay people, “threatening the real values this country stands for.”  

Wornick said that the point he was trying to make is that the commission spends so much time vilifying the Bush administration that commissioners are “blinding people to the real threat of radical Islam in the real world.” 

Fellow commissioners, however, told the Planet that this video isn’t the way to open the door to dialogue. 

“It was stunning,” commented Commissioner Michael Sherman, noting the “stereotyping and bigotry of the tone and the language” of the tape. “It comes from so far out in right field,” he said. 

When he was told that that Wornick said his point was not to attack Islam in general, but only “radical Islam,” Sherman responded that the term is used in many ways and hard to define. The al Qaeda vision of Islam is shared among very few Muslims, Sherman said.  

Khalil Bendib, Berkeley resident, cartoonist and Middle East commentator for KPFA, further described radical Islam as a “grab bag.” In fundamentalist Islam, there are many schools of thought, he said. Only a few on the fringe justify violence by the religion. 

It would also be a mistake to identify Christianity by its worst representatives, such as the Inquisition or the genocide of native peoples in Latin America, Bendib said, adding that distributing such a video does not promote dialogue. Rather, “it fans the flames of hatred,” he said. 

Sherman said he did not understand why someone who consistently votes against proposals to promote peace is sitting on the commission, and Commissioner Mark MacDonald said he thought Wornick “crossed the line on this one” and should resign.  

Wornick was appointed to the commission by Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who, when reached by the Planet, said he had not seen the video. However, he defended his appointee, saying, “There should be diversity on the commission. Jonathan brings a viewpoint different from the other commissioners.”  

Wozniak added that Wornick’s e-mail message should not turn into an issue about whether he should sit on the commission, and noted that at least one commissioner who had publicly insulted fellow commissioners in the past was allowed to maintain her commission seat. 

Further, he said he had just returned from a trip to Indonesia where he visited a number of mosques and found them very beautiful. He said he had traveled with a Muslim woman who is a friend.  

“I don’t condone people making statements disparaging any religion,” he said, adding that he intends to watch the video. 

MacDonald had responded to Wornick on the commission e-mail list, and along with other commissioners was asked by Peace and Justice Chair Steve Freedkin not to respond, because if a majority of the commissioners took part in the discussion, it would constitute a violation of open meeting laws. 

Commissioner Elliot Cohen, who called the tape “insulting, degenerating and racist,” said that the proper place for such a discussion would be to agenda it at the commission level, where commissioners could question Wornick on his intention in presenting this.  

“People should not be allowed to spew racist propaganda” without others being able to respond, Cohen said. “It’s not about free speech—it’s hate speech.” 

Directing her comments to the content of the video and its claims that Islam is a religion of war, Lily Haskell, program director at San Francisco’s Arab Resource and Organizing Center, said “there is no legitimate claim that Islam is not a religion of peace.” 

Bendib addressed the accusations of sexism in the tape. “He makes it sound like it’s the norm,” he said. “He makes it sound like it’s prescribed in the Holy Book.”  

And Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the Planet there are many such tapes available on the web. “Some are even more hate-filled,” he said, adding, “The significance is that someone on the Peace and Justice Commission would distribute it.”  

He added, however, that individuals are within their rights to circulate such material. “I value the First Amendment,” he said.  

Were there a similar attack on Jews or African Americans, Hooper said he thought there would be a greater outcry. “We’ve grown to accept anti-Muslim bigotry in our society,” he said. 

Education and personal contact between Muslims and non-Muslims will help to break down such stereotypes, Hooper added. 

The video can be viewed at www.liveleak.com/view?i=418_1176494781 

or on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq4ObP_rzrs. 

CAIR’s website with educational materials on Islam is at www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=aboutIslam. 

One of the city’s most valuable services is the NewsScan, the free, online daily compilation of media references to Berkeley. You find things there that you wouldn’t know about otherwise. Last Friday, I happened across just such an item, an article pulled down from the website of GlobeSt.com that reported the upcoming auction of two parcels totaling 5.8 acres at Fourth and Gilman, a.k.a. the former site of Flint Ink.  

The property is contaminated, said Todd Good, whose Newport Beach company, Accelerated Marketing Group, will handle the June 1 auction, but it will be “delivered clean” to the highest bidder in 15 to 24 months. “What we are really selling,” Good explained, “is the future deliverability of a piece of property that right now, in its current form, cannot be used.” He added: “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve never seen this done.”  

That was interesting. Even more intriguing, though, were the names of two of the people on the selling end of the transaction: Ali Kashani and David Greensfelder. Kashani, the founder and longtime director of Affordable Housing Associates, is well-known in Berkeley. In 2004 he left AHA and not-for-profit development and started his own firm, Memar Associates. The GlobeSt.com article described him as “a Berkeley area property and asset management specialist.” It was an inquiry from Kashani to the city’s fire department that sparked the chain of events leading to the eviction of the artists at the Drayage Building in 2005.  

David Greensfelder, who sits on the AHA board, is the former real estate director for Longs Drugs. In 2006 he became vice president for acquisitions at Rawson, Blum & Leon. Headquartered in San Francisco, RBL specializes in the acquisition, development and management of commercial real estate throughout the western United States. GlobeSt.com indicated that if an out-of-state investor bought the property at Fourth and Gilman, Memar might handle the entitlement process, while RBL could oversee development.  

Greensfelder is already collaborating with Kashani on another development in West Berkeley, a four-story, mixed-use, 100-condo project to be built on a 0.75 acre site at the southwest corner of Ashby and San Pablo. RBL’s website says, however, that the company’s focus is on shopping centers—“urban in-fill centers, suburban neighborhood and community centers, lifestyle centers, power centers and regional malls.” Adorned with photos of Home Depot, Target, Best Buy and other big box chain stores, the website touts a history that makes Patrick Kennedy—to date, Berkeley’s single biggest developer—look like a piker. “Since its inception,” we read, “RBL has acquired and managed over 40 properties with an aggregate value in excess of $500 million.” In urban areas, RBL’s “new development opportunities” are all five acres or larger.  

GlobeSt.com noted that the 5.8 acres at Fourth and Gilman are in the city’s manufacturing district, “which permits numerous uses including warehousing, distribution, light manufacturing, production facilities and arts/crafts” and thereby “makes the land parcels highly desirable.” But not, perhaps, desirable enough. The article went on to report that the city of Berkeley is installing a zoning overlay that would permit auto-related sales on the site. According to auctioneer Good, the sellers are willing to make the sale contingent on that change. 

What brought me up short was another prospective change, hinted at in the article’s final paragraph, in which an unnamed “local industry source” estimated the variable value of the property depending on the zoning. According to the anonymous informant, “[I]f used for light manufacturing, the property might be worth between $40 and $60 per square foot. If the overlay is put in place and entitlements are obtained for a car dealership, the value may be $75 to $100 per square foot. If a special permit is obtained to put pure retail on the site, it might be worth between $100 and $125 per square foot.”  

A special permit for pure retail? Whatever that might mean, it would go way beyond the City Council’s directive to the planning commission, which dealt only with an auto-sales overlay in the manufacturing (M) and mixed-use light industrial (MULI) districts. As it turns out, the city’s planning staff want to go even further. Last Wednesday the planning commission considered a staff proposal to amend the zoning regulations so as to open the way to making major commercial development a regularly permitted use in the M and MULI districts. Staff suggested expanding the purposes of both districts to “support the development of businesses, including retail automobile sales, that contribute to and enhance the economic viability of the area and provide essential sales tax revenues for the city.” The syntax renders auto-related sales into an afterthought. The emphasis is on businesses that generate a lot of sales tax.  

Sales tax generation is code for the out-and-out commercialization of the West Berkeley economy because retail yields much more sales tax than industry and artisanal transactions. Staff didn’t have the audacity to remove the zoning ordinance’s explicit prohibition on retail that’s unaffiliated with industry. Instead, they were testing the waters, seeing how far they could go with a sneak attempt to undermine the businesses that depend on industrial zoning to keep their rents affordable: Berkeley’s manufacturers, artisans and recyclers.  

I say “sneak” because staff buried their actual revisions deep in its 41-page report to the planning commission. The report appeared on the commission’s May 9 agenda under the heading “Discussion of West Berkeley Automobile Sales Zoning Amendments.” Nothing about allowing retail per se. Ditto for the two-page staff cover memo, which focused exclusively on auto-related sales. To discern staff’s underlying motives, you had to comb through the attached text of the zoning ordinance and mark the (de)regulatory language embedded there. 

To date, no city official has publicly tied the West Berkeley zoning changes being considered at the planning commission to the upcoming auction of the Flint Ink site. Land use planning manager Mark Rhoades has told the commission that staff activity has been spurred by a “nibble” at West Berkeley real estate. But he’s said nothing about the Flink Ink site or a mega-shopping center developer’s entry onto the scene. 

Nor, at the council’s budget workshop last Tuesday, did Mayor Bates or councilmembers Wozniak and Capitelli mention the deal in the works at Fourth and Gilman, as they echoed each other’s calls for economic development that yields high revenue. “I don’t want a big box here,” said Wozniak, “but I think there should be a store [in Berkeley] where you can buy a TV set. Same with refrigerators and driers.” In the wake of the GlobeSt.com revelations, that sounds a lot like advance publicity for a big box store.  

Note to prospective bidders on the Flint Ink site: If city officials have told you that putting a shopping center at Fourth and Gilman is going to be a slam dunk, they have only been telling you what they know you’d like to hear. This is Berkeley, not Emeryville. Be prepared for a battle royal. 

Chaos broke loose at the intersection of The Alameda and Monterey Avenue during an otherwise peaceful Berkeley Critical Mass bicycle demonstration late Friday. 

A group of parade participants—who said they were out publicizing bicycling and oil-dependency reduction—accused a Berkeley couple in their 70s of trying to run them over. 

Video footage of the incident, which is available in an edited version on the Bicyclists’ Civil Liberties Union (BCLU) website and YouTube.com, captures the sights and sounds of the angry confrontation that occurred at 8:06 p.m. 

It shows around 50 bicyclists crowding around a minivan and some of them rescuing bicycles which appear to be trapped under the van’s right front tire. 

“People, back it up!” a man is heard shouting as people start pounding on the hood and windows of the car. “Back up the car and stop it!” 

And later, “What the fuck! What’s your fucking problem!” 

“How dare you people be so violent!” a bicyclist tells Marilyn Head, 70, whose husband Harlan Head, also 70, was driving the car. “Are you people drunk?” Marilyn’s reply to this line is inaudible. 

“There’s the attacker!” a voice could be heard as the camera focused on a visibly shaken Head. “Get back. You are on top of three bikes.” 

“I am trying to,” Head says. “My wife has the door open.” The camera zooms into the California license plate at the rear of the car, which shows a disabled sticker, and more angry voices can be heard. 

“We are victims of you. I don’t care how much you love him but your husband did a very stupid thing!” a man tells Marilyn, who is standing in the street by this point. 

Two children who are crying in a carriage are shown being comforted as the crowd started to clear off. No arrests were made by the Berkeley Police Department. 

“Witnesses have said that the van was going west on Monterey while the bicyclists were going south on Alameda,” said Officer Wesley Hester of the BPD. “At one point the vehicles joined together. There were claims that the driver attempted to run over the cyclists and claims that the cyclists were attempting to antagonize the driver. About a dozen police arrived at the scene after being informed by the Fire Department and sorted out the incident.” 

Officer Waite of the Berkeley Police Department is investigating claims made by Head, who alleged that the cycles were strategically place under his van, and those of the cyclists, who allege that Head intended to run them over. 

Jason Meggs of BCLU said in a statement that “three bicycles were destroyed and two demonstrators were injured and bleeding, although they refused medical treatment at the scene.” He added that two bicyclists had reported that Head had brandished a knife at them and that many said he looked drunk. 

“Unfortunately, as all too often happens, police did not protect the rights of the bicyclists despite video evidence showing the attack,” the statement read. “Police fabricated that bicyclists were ‘pushing their bicycles under the car,’ an outrageous claim. Police refused to charge the motorist. They refused to execute a citizen’s arrest. They did not search and impound the motorist’s knife, claiming he ‘had a right to protect his car.’” 

Head, in a interview with the Planet Monday, described the claims of the bicyclists as “pretty wild.” 

“We were driving legally when we were confronted with a large number of Critical Mass bicyclists traveling south through a red light on the Alameda,” he said. “We approached the group and stopped, at which point several of the bicyclists went berserk.” 

He added that several bicyclists began rocking the van shouting, “Let’s turn the van over,” but were unable to do anything. 

“My concern is twofold,” he said. “I am less concerned about the damage to my vehicle. That is repairable.” His windshield was smashed in the melee. “My main interest is in going in front of the City Council and getting a group that is quite ready to trash cars to come to terms with what the city will accept and not accept. I hope the city of Berkeley and this group using our streets could sit down and work out fundamental ground rules satisfactory to all for the use of our streets,” he continued. “Secondarily, I am concerned about the statements of Mr. Meggs which are in direct conflict with those of independent witnesses.” 

On the night of the incident, Head said, he and his wife had been on their way to put their daughter—who has cerebral palsy—to bed. 

Postings on YouTube vociferously condemned the bicyclists. 

“Shame on you,” one message which calls the footage the “Elderly Couple Abuse Video” says. “Pushing around Grandma and Grandpa.” 

“As a cyclist, I do not support your group, or the mob actions that you use to disrupt SF,” says another, comparing Friday’s incident to a similar one in San Francisco. 

On March 30, Susan Ferrando of Redwood City was confronted by bicyclists in Japantown who claimed she had tried to drive through them in her minivan. While the cyclists said that Ferrando had knocked a rider to the ground, she denied the allegations. No arrests were made in this case either. 

The video can be viewed at www.bclu.org/20070511. 

Developing earthquake standards for cities is hard enough, but writing rules to strengthen homes to withstand serious temblors—rules that apply to a large number of homes, including those built on hillsides, and are flexible enough to use a variety of materials and building techniques—is a challenge. 

But that’s what the Berkeley City Council decided to do at its meeting last week, voting unanimously to approve a resolution authored by Councilmember Laurie Capitelli asking staff to review current standards and report back to council with suggested changes within one year. 

At issue is the Disaster Commission’s goal of maximizing the number of Berkeley homes that will withstand a major earthquake.  

Following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the city, in 1991, wrote new laws providing incentives to get people to retrofit their homes. The measure allowed homeowners, at the time a home is sold, to use one-third of their transfer tax burden —equal to 0.5 percent of the selling price—to pay for the costs of retrofitting their homes.  

In 1991, there were no standards written for the retrofit. “It depended on the contractor,” said Jesse Townley, Disaster and Fire Safety Commission chair in a phone interview Friday. 

When experts went under houses to check work that had been done under the 1991 law, they found some homes were insufficiently protected and others had work that was excessive, Townley said.  

“Less than one-third of the retrofits were properly performed,” says a staff report, prepared for the May 8 City Council meeting. 

This problem led to the adoption in February of retrofit standards, known as Plan Set A. But this standard has a limited value, applying only to homes constructed in simple box shapes, one or two stories high, located on relatively flat lots, which have a wood frame, are at least 1,200 square feet and have less than a 4-foot crawlspace under the house. 

For homeowners who want to take advantage of the tax rebate, but whose houses do not fall into the Plan Set A category, they must get an engineer’s report before they can get the work done. This will often cost more than the rebate and may act as a disincentive to do the work, Townley said.  

For those able to take advantage of Plan Set A, many find the standard too rigid, Townley said, specifying, for example, precise materials and techniques that must be used. Were Plan Set A more flexible, various types of bolts could be used—in some cases one might be able to use fewer bolts of greater strength, in the end, producing the same benefit, Townley said. 

There are different equivalencies that should be written into the standards, Townley said. “It may be cheaper to do the same thing differently.” 

Another problem raised is that Plan Set A identifies some materials by their product name. “We do not believe the city of Berkeley should be a sales outlet for a hardware manufacturer,” wrote Disaster Commissioner Kyle McCormick and former Commissioner Howard Cook in an undated letter addressed to Councilmember Kriss Worthington “et al.” 

In addition to addressing the question of drawing up more flexible guidelines for Plan Set A, the council asked staff on May 8 to review new Los Angeles hillside building codes adopted in 2007, for possible implementation in the Berkeley hills. These guidelines were adopted in Los Angeles in response to the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

On May 8, the Department of Energy announced the new management team for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL): the University of California, Bechtel National, BWX Technologies and others. 

On May 9, 42 students and supporters from UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara and one person from UC San Francisco began a hunger strike, according to hunger-striker Chelsea Collonge, who graduated from UC Berkeley last year.  

Chelsea told the Daily Planet on Monday that she hopes the action will “wake the public up” to the role the university is playing, by managing the Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) and Livermore labs that are developing and manufacturing nuclear weapons. 

“As our country continues to respond to threats at home and abroad, our new team will ensure that the employees at Lawrence Livermore are able to continue enhancing our nation’s security,” said George Miller, designated director for the Lawrence Livermore Lab in a May 8 UC press statement. As one of his first acts as director, Miller appointed Dr. Steve Liedle, Bechtel vice president, as deputy director of the Livermore labs. 

The Planet was not able to reach UC’s Washington, D.C., spokesperson for a response to the hunger strike. 

“The mission of LLNL and LANL is changing. LLNL just succeeded in designing a new nuclear weapon, called the Reliable Replacement Warhead,” wrote hunger striker Darwin BondGraham on the group’s blog, at www.nonukeshungerstrike.blogspot.com. “Los Alamos is, as you read this, preparing the manufacturing infrastructure for the production of plutonium bomb pits, the core component of the bomb. In other words, these labs are leading an effort to design and build a whole new generation of nuclear warheads under direction of the National Nuclear Security Administration.” 

The hunger strikers—who are taking finals while consuming only water or fruit juices—will be at the Regents meeting at 8 a.m. on Thursday, UCSF Mission Bay Campus, 1675 Owens St., San Francisco. Collonge said she is asking the community to be present to convince the Regents to give up lab management. 

Canon Christian Jones II came home a week too soon from school in Alabama. The 18-year-old Berkeley High School graduate had planned to spend the summer with his family in Pinole starting May 14. 

He had planned to play with little brother Cameron and volunteer for young kids at his childhood hangout, the Berkeley Boosters. Instead, he was robbed, beaten and shot to death outside his college campus in Tuskegee on the fateful night of April 29. 

“We were walking back from a party at The Marcellete around 10 p.m. when we heard about it,” said Tuskegee University freshman Courtney Boyd during Canon’s funeral at the South Side Church of Christ in Richmond Friday. 

“Someone told us that a light-skinned freshman with braids had got shot at the BP gas station. There were only four people who fit that description, so we started knocking on their doors. When Canon did not answer his cell phone, we started getting scared. One of the boys went down to the BP station to identify the body. He came back in tears and that’s when we knew that Canon had been murdered by these kids driving by in a car.” 

The world stopped for the Jones family when they received news about Canon’s death on an otherwise normal Monday morning. 

“I will never forget what my wife said when she returned the phone call from the Tuskegee police,” said his father, Canon Jones Sr. “‘Listen, Officer Collins, don’t sugarcoat this. Tell me what happened,’ she said, and then broke the news to me that Canon had been shot in the neck. We had worked so hard to make sure that Canon did not just become another statistic. And then this happened.” 

Canon’s death sent ripples of shock through the entire Richmond and Berkeley communities where he had grown up. 

An inter-district transfer to the Berkeley public schools at the age of 10, Canon had attended the Community Arts and Science (CAS) small school at Berkeley High. 

“I am not saying that he was a genius, oh no,” said his father. “He struggled throughout school at every grade but he fought hard to make it through. He grew up fighting for the little guy and all he ever wanted to see was fairness. His job was to help others, to be there for people, to support his friends and family. He went out to do what he had to do.” 

The last the Jones family heard from the D.A.’s office in Tuskegee was that they had a solid case against the two teenagers who had attacked Canon.  

Quentin Motez Davis, 18, of Macon County and Romanita Michelle Cloud, 18, of Tuskegee, Ala., had robbed Canon of his wallet while he was on his way to Calhoum’s grocery store. When Romanita had spoken Quentin’s name by mistake, Quentin shot Canon for fear of being identified. 

“The police granted immunity to the driver of the car because he gave them the names of the other two,” said Jones Sr. “The girl has confessed to the crimes but it’s unlikely that Quentin will confess. I just don’t want to see the two ever get out again.” 

Canon—who was going to school for a degree in business administration—left behind a legacy of social service in Berkeley. His leadership skills became prominent when he was a member of the Youth Director Council and was active with the Y-Scholars who encouraged students to go to college and most importantly with the Police Activity League Berkeley Boosters. 

“He was able to touch many lives,” said Canon’s mother Felicia Jones. “And all he ever wanted was to be accepted.” 

As Felicia struggled to cope with the loss on Friday, 12-year-old Cameron held his mother’s hand every step of the way. 

Hundreds gathered to mourn Canon’s death and celebrate his life that afternoon, the smiles and tears evidence that the bullet that had taken his life had wounded countless others. 

“The greatness of a man’s life is not measured by how long he lives, but by how long he is remembered after he has lived,” said Berkeley High African American studies teacher Robert McKnight, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. 

Phil Halpern, who taught Canon at Berkeley High, described the teenager as a steady positive force in the classroom. 

“Canon was never afraid to speak his mind,” he said. “He was an inspiration and was genuinely concerned about the future of the younger students. I will never forget his warm smile and his firm handshake.” 

As teary-eyed friends and families shared memories with each other on Friday, David W. Manson Jr. of the Berkeley Boosters honored Canon with a proclamation on behalf of state Senator Don Perata. 

Efforts are also being made to establish scholarships in his name.  

“We have around $1,500. But David and I are trying to raise some more money,” said Jones Sr. “The scholarships will be given to anybody who needs money to go to school.”

SB 67 (Sideshow bill) 

After sailing through the state Senate, Senate President Don Perata’s “urgency” sideshow car confiscation measure (SB 67) has stalled in the Assembly, but a spokesperson for Assemblymember Fabian Nuñez said the delay is normal procedure. 

SB 67 is a renewal of previous legislation aimed specifically at Oakland sideshows that allows cars to be towed and confiscated for 30 days solely on the word of a police officer that the car was being used in “sideshow activity.” 

The original legislation that included the sideshow provisions expired in January of this year, and Perata had asked that the new bill be passed on an urgency basis. Such an urgency status means the bill can be speeded through the legislature, but must pass by a two-thirds vote in both houses. 

The bill has been held at the Assembly speaker’s desk since it passed the Senate in mid-April. 

The press secretary for Assembly Speaker Nuñez said that “because of legislative deadlines, all Senate bills are currently being held until we have completed hearing all Assembly bills.” The Nuñez spokesperson said that the deadline for completing Assembly bill work was June 8. 

SB 1019 (Peace officer records; confidentiality. Senator Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles) 

This bill would reopen civilian review board hearings to the public in cities across the state (including Oakland and Berkeley) that were closed following a recent ruling by the California State Supreme Court in Copley Press, Inc. v. The Superior Court of San Diego County.  

The bill would also open up more police disciplinary files than were available prior to the Copley ruling, but some analysts believe that the disciplinary file provision will be taken out in order for the bill to pass the legislature and be signed into law. 

SB 1019 has passed the Senate Public Safety and Appropriations Committee and was scheduled for a third reading in the full Senate on Monday, with the bill then scheduled to move over to the Assembly. 

Oakland City Council is scheduled to vote today (Tuesday) on a resolution in support of SB 1019, with both City Attorney John Russo, City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, and Oakland Citizens’ Police Review Board Executive Director Joyce Hicks all recommending support. 

PUEBLO organization of Oakland, which is also supporting the legislation, has noted in an e-mail circulated in the city that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has not yet come out in support of SB 1019. “In Los Angeles, Mayor Villaraigosa and Police Chief Bratton have announced their support for the bill,” the PUEBLO e-mail says. “Oakland, like L.A., has a history of serious issues with police misconduct. Join us in calling on the mayor to support police accountability!” 

AB 45 (Oakland Unified School District; Governance. Assemblymember Sandré Swanson, D-Oakland) 

This bill would set definite benchmarks for return to local control of the Oakland Unified School District, which has been under state control since 2003. 

Has passed the Assembly Education Committee. Scheduled for hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, May 16, 9 a.m., Room 4202 of the State Capitol Building in Sacramento. 

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) approved a use permit to establish a 24-Seven fitness center of approximately 2,000 sq. ft. in an existing commercial building at 1775 Solano Ave., but decided to discuss its parking provisions as an informational item at the next ZAB meeting. 

The proposed plan shows no off-street parking available on the site, indicating that parking would have to be accommodated in nearby street spaces. Board member Jesse Arreguin abstained from approving the request since he was not comfortable with the information available on parking. 

Other action 

• The board approved a use permit to convert the basement of a house at 1459 Kains Ave. to an apartment. 

The proposed plan involves excavating the basement approximately 4.25 feet to create an 8-foot ceiling clearance for the new two-bedroom unit. The building’s current mass or volume would not be subject to any change. The existing rear yard would be used for parking and open space, and the south side yard would be converted to a driveway to accommodate the requirements for two off-street parking spaces and 800 square feet of usable open space. 

• It approved a use permit request by Jinwoo Kim to establish Ryno’s Yogurt—a carry-out frozen yogurt store—on Telegraph Ave., to remain open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. 

• It also approved a request for a use permit by Planning Commissoner Harry Pollack of Berkeley to demolish an approximately 3,625-square-foot two-story abandoned service station building and two dispenser pads to allow for further testing and remediation at 3001 Telegraph Ave.  

• The board approved a request for a use permit to update a plan to modify the building facades and floor plans for 2041-2067 Center St., the building originally called the Seagate, but now The Arpeggio under new owners. 

The first use permit, to demolish the existing buildings in the lot to allow the construction of a 186,151-square-foot, nine-story, mixed-use building, with 149 units, 5,765 square feet of retail, a 12,067-square-foot cultural and 141-160 underground parking spaces, was approved in October 2004. 

The Berkeley Repertory Theater (BRT) will be the primary tenant of the building’s cultural space, and according to the staff report will present at least 48 performances there annually. Additionally, BRT will also make this space available at below market rent to other non-profit community organizations for at least 52 days every year. 

The new plan proposes to decrease the number of residential units—which have been designed in a New York loft style—to 143. Although the total unit count has dropped by 4 percent, no change has been proposed in the number of inclusionary units (23).

MKThink—the San Francisco-based consultants hired by UC Berkeley to develop a community-based needs assessment plan to improve People’s Park—met with the park’s Advisory Committee members and park users for their first public meeting last Monday, May 7. 

MKThink staff shared information from their “Discovery Phase”—which involves exhaustive research into the history of the park, digging up relevant archives and newspaper clippings, interviewing park users and student groups and visiting the park itself—and answered questions from the community. 

Park users stressed that they wanted a community process and not a corporate design for People’s Park. 

“The process is secretive, biased and divisive,” naturalist and community gardener Terri Compost said at the beginning of the meeting.  

“Neither the public nor the advisory board know who MkThink is meeting with and when. Even the so-called stakeholder groups are often private hand-selected meetings. For the meeting with the ‘activists,’ an e-mail only went out to a select dozen or so people. Notes taken from the group are illegible and are not made available to the public.” 

Ionas Porges-Kiriakou, a UC Berkeley student board member, echoed Compost’s words. 

“A lot is missing from what is being said and what is written down,” he said. “I am hoping that a tape-recorded account of the meetings can be kept.” 

MKThink planner Mark Miller assured community members that the firm was acting in the best interest of the park. 

“People want a park,” he said. “A park has great value in this place and we need to re-develop it in a way that will be useful for everyone. Our desire is to make it a welcoming place and to respect its rich history.” 

Miller added that the current phase was looking at three main factors: active park users, not-so-active park users and activities at the park. 

“We want to identify the physical characteristics that positively or negatively affect the park,” he said. “We are currently in the small group phase which has led to a lot of exchange of ideas. We have met with 40 small groups which have included park users, student groups, social service agencies and religious associations. Law enforcement records and attendance logs at the park have also been consulted. All this has helped us to get a general sense of what’s going on.” 

Miller also said that the general response had been that the park was unsafe because of drug use and homeless habitation.  

“The general impression is that it offers spaces where people can hide,” he said. “A lot of people, especially students stay away from it because they don’t feel comfortable there. Our job is to figure out whether the issue of safety is as extreme as it is perceived to be or if it is just an issue of perception. At the moment, we don’t have a handle on data to say how safe or not safe it is.” 

The MKThink employee said that it would be pertinent to see whether the park was the best place for the social and mental health services provided at the park currently. 

“We want to find out how the park can help facilitate the community and whether it should take on a more structured role,” said Miller. “The overall impression is that the park should remain an open green space. There’s a lot of healing that needs to happen in the community and we need to figure out a way to move through the points of tension.” 

Both board members and MKThink personnel agreed that it was important to preserve the relationship between People’s Park and Telegraph Avenue. 

“One of the important uses of the park is that it’s a place for people to gather and have food at,” said Lydia Gans, board member and a volunteer with Food Not Bombs. “The park acts as a sanctuary for people who don’t have anywhere else to go. It should be allowed to flourish in the way it is now and not become a carefully landscaped area.” 

MKThink staffers also said that problems of trash and inadequate restrooms would have to be addressed. The men’s restroom at the park currently has no door. 

Board members volunteered suggestions ranging from a walking path around the park’s circumference to developing a larger children’s play area. 

“There is too much negative perception given out about the park on Cal Day,” said Porges-Kiriakou. “Students end up hearing that the park is a sketchy place they need to stay away from. This has got to change.” 

Board member John Selawsky suggested comfortable seating areas and movie screenings to draw people to the park. 

“I’d like to see a history cafe,” said board member George Beier. “$2 coffee and free Internet would get that place jammed with students.”

Members of the two city bodies looking at the future of the Berkeley’s historic buildings are nearing completion of a key element of the new downtown plan. 

A joint subcommittee formed of members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) has been meeting since August to hammer out policies for the new plan—and members said Wednesday they hope to finish their work soon. 

While historic preservation was declared the cornerstone of the city’s last plan, done in 1990, DAPAC members will meet this week to hammer out the centerpiece of their new plan—sustainability. 

A city lawsuit challenging UC Berkeley’s long range plans for development through the first two decades of the new century resulted in a settlement that requires the city to draft a new downtown plan accommodating the 800,000 square feet of construction the university plans there. 

Historic district? 

One of the questions discussed Wednesday was the possible creation of a downtown historic district, a legal entity that would afford some protection to designated historic buildings and given the LPC a say in the design of all new construction within the district. 

“We are going to have to reconcile historic preservation with a degree of flexibility to allow for some development,” said Jesse Arreguin, a DAPAC member. 

Patti Dacey, a DAPAC representative and former LPC member, said to her former colleagues, “DAPAC is looking to you to define a historic district or look where we really need to preserve the historic character of downtown.” 

Steven Winkel, a landmarks commissioner and architect, said members needed to decide if they were going to focus on a map or on specific policies. 

“I don’t see a historic district happening in the near future,” said LPC Chair Robert Johnson. “But if we don’t come up with a policy, DAPAC is going ahead.” He said preparation of guidelines would be a good interim step.  

One problem facing the panel is the lack of a thorough survey of the downtown’s historic structures, although the subcommittee has made a significant start with its own preliminary survey conducted by Architectural Resources Group, a consulting firm retained for that purpose, along with the results of previous studies and other data compiled into a basic matrix. 

A step suggested by Matt Taecker, the planner hired by the city with university funds to help draft the plan, is creation of precincts, or discrete areas within the downtown containing noteworthy buildings. 

“A district would take a higher level of analysis to establish,” he said. 

Winkel said he liked the idea, which has been used in cities like Pasadena. 

John English, a retired planner and preservationist who has been working with the subcommittee on a volunteer basis, has suggested four distinct areas, and members agreed Wednesday that two in particular could be singled out as possible historic districts. 

The first, dubbed “Main Street Downtown,” encompasses the core of Shattuck Avenue in the city center from University Avenue to Durant Street, while the second, “Dwight Station,” includes historic buildings near the intersection of Shattuck and Dwight Way, once a rail transit station. 

Downtown already has one historic district which is recognized by the city, state and federal governments and includes the historic structures around Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. 

New design guidelines for the downtown intended to preserve the overall historic character and context of existing buildings will also have to include provisions that allow for green building design—structures that consume less energy than typical buildings, Taecker said. 

“Your challenge is how to articulate how to deal with a street facade that is obviously calling out for change,” said LPC member Carrie Olson. 

Jim Novosel, an architect as well as one of the newest DAPAC members, said members faced a real challenge in dealing “with this zoo of architecture that is the downtown.” 

Johnson said the emphasis of any design guidelines should be on the way new buildings relate to the street. “I don’t think we should be encouraging or discouraging any particular style or architect.” 

Several members agreed that the design guidelines included in the existing downtown plan, adopted in 1990, provide a good basis for the new plan. 

Novosel, who agreed to hone the subcommittee’s preservation proposal with Patti Dacey in time for a possibly final meeting on May 23, said “we would be going against the civic grain if we didn’t put historic preservation at the forefront” of the new plan, “but with an opportunity for significant growth.” 

Olson said that if the document’s language about creating historic districts is specific enough, the city should be able to receive state funding for the historic resources survey subcommittee members have sought since the group began meeting. 

“I have been assured by the mayor that this is something he wants,” Olson said. 

Sustainabilty 

DAPAC members received a hefty collection of documents in an email last week, including a 17-page draft of the goals and policies section which includes a section on basic principles for green design and planning. 

The document, part of a 34-page compendium drafted by Taecker, UC Berkeley planners Judy Chess and Jennifer McDougall and Berkeley environmental activist Juliet Lamont, includes critical comments added by DAPAC Chair Will Travis and Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman. 

Travis, whose day job is running the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, wrote that he “found the policies to be directed primarily to environmental sustainabilty at the expense of economic and social sustainabilty.” 

He also found that the proposed language locked in existing technology without encouraging development of new, even more sustainable methods and materials. 

Poschman noted that reliance on transit-oriented development (TOD) ignored the fact that most people who move to such projects continue to rely on single occupant car trips to commute to work. 

He also noted that the TOD section didn’t include a specific call for inclusion of affordable housing and urged inclusion of a provision calling for more units reserved for low- and very low-income families in multi-unit projects than currently called for in the city’s inclusionary housing regulations. 

Other committee members, during earlier discussion of the issues, have called for support for retrofits of existing buildings as a key element of a sustainable development section. 

Patti Dacey and Wendy Alfsen are two DAPAC members who have repeatedly urged retrofits as a means of revitalizing the historic buildings they see as central to the downtown character.

A celebration of smiles will be held at Emerson and Jefferson Elementary Schools this weekend. 

Smiles that belong to the thousands of children who have learned their ABCs and scraped their knees on their hallowed grounds over the last 100 years, and to the parents and teachers who have painstakingly helped them every day. 

Established in 1906, Emerson will celebrate its centennial anniversary today (Friday) while Jefferson—founded in 1907—will host it’s 100th birthday on Saturday. 

Both schools were born from the 1906 earthquake and both are vivid examples of institutions that have stood the test of time. 

“We acknowledge our students for who they are,” said Jefferson principal Betty Delaney, who has been at the school for the last six years. With her warm smile, watchful eyes and motherly advice, Delaney proudly carries the legacy of the school’s former principals. 

The close-knit North Berkeley community remembers Mary O’Bannon, Jefferson’s first principal, who drove to school each morning in her buggy. They remember Les Thomsen, who as a student in 1917 helped operate the school’s first baloptican projector. Years later, Thomsen directed a film about the school’s Junior Traffic Police in Hollywood. 

“Berkeley had the first Junior Traffic Police in the country,” Joann Sullivan, who served as the school historian for its 90th anniversary. 

“It was 1923, and August Zollmer, head of the Berkeley Police Department, felt it was necessary to have one,” she said. 

As Sullivan and a team of other devoted parents and faculty put together scraps of paper, remnants of faded photographs and a million memories, their effort gives shape to the history of the school’s evolution. 

“Way back when Ms. O’Bannon was principal, the school didn’t even have a piano because the Board of Education could not provide it,” Sullivan said smiling. “Fifteen dollars was raised for down payment and the principal gave her a note for the $185 balance. Her faith in the Jefferson people were justified. They met every succeeding payment.” 

Jefferson has come a long way since then. Its excellent programs and caring, nurturing atmosphere earned it “A California Distinguished School” award under principal Marian Altman. 

Anna Wong, who has taught the Chinese by Cultural Kindergarten program at Jefferson since 1970, credits the school’s success to its staff. 

“Over the years the teachers have put up with some really extraordinary circumstances,” she said, while teaching her class the meaning of resilience in the yard Wednesday. “But it’s the children who keep us going. My best memories are watching the kids develop and grow and have an ‘aha’ moment,” 

Teachers have survived not just disasters, suc as the Loma Prieta earthquake, but also small hindrances such as forever leaking hallway windows, lack of handicap access to the stage and second floor, asbestos removal, lead paint removal, failed heating system, popping floor tiles, and failing ceiling tiles, which led to many a stressful working condition over the years. 

“We will always be a work in progress,” said art teacher Lolly Watanabe, who is creating a centennial year mural with students. 

“Right now, the school does not reflect the creativity of the students and teachers and the tiles are going to change that. The entire mural will serve as an year book. The kids will be able to come back and remember Miss Delaney, Kate Brooks—their music teacher—and festivities such as the Chinese New Year.” 

For fifth-grader Tara Taeed, it was the memory of the school’s ice-cream social that went into her tile. “I have been going to it since I was a Kindergartner,” she said shyly. “It’s cool that our school has been here for 100 years. That makes it so much more special.” 

Nestled in the hills of South Berkeley, is another special institution— Emerson. A bond issue passed in May 1903 led to ten rooms built three years later on the corner of Piedmont and Forest Avenue and Emerson was born. 

Today the school boasts of classrooms, offices, an auditorium and a playground as well as an extraordinarily committed PTA and a strong academic program. 

“Even though it’s a tiny campus with no grass, it’s always been the kind of school you’d want to send your child to,” said former Emerson parent Jamie Carlson, who has been teaching at the school for 14 years. 

“Every year there’s a phrase we say : ‘It’s the Emerson Way’. The school is like our own village, our home, a place where we can be safe. Every teacher knows every student by name.” 

Emerson alumni will congregate Friday to share memories about Bert Harwell, known as the Bird Man, who served as principal from 1921-1927. Harwell, who broke the ice at the first faculty meeting by whistling for the teachers, inspired hundreds of Emerson school children with a love for the birds in their neighborhood. 

They will remember Miss Betty Pittman, former kindergartner teacher who is now 85 years-old and lives in Santa Barbara, and share a laugh about the wild sliding on the linoleum floors. 

“One of the things I remember is the effort to desegregate schools in the 1960s,” said Carlson. “Earlier, we only had students who came from middle class backgrounds and were just as white as could be. But after desegregation, there were children of color who came from different socio-economic levels.” 

Louis Smith, the school custodian, often described as the heart and soul of the school, summed up the spirit of Emerson after a day’s work. 

“When I first started, it was from K-3. Today it’s K-5,” he said. “It’s gotten a lot busier but everyone does their bit. If it hadn’t been for the team effort, I would have had a whole lot of trouble keeping up with things today.” 

Emerson Elementary School will begin festivities at 4 p.m. today (Friday) with tours of the Emerson school site followed by a reception and commemorative program at St. John's Presbyterian Church from 6-9 pm. Tickets $10; all alumni and family over 18 welcome. 

Jefferson Elementary School welcomes the entire Berkeley community, and especially Jefferson alums, to join them on Saturday between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., to celebrate 100 years of the school.

A weary mayor and seven councilmembers—with Councilmember Betty Olds having gone home—and more than two dozen members of the public waited in the council chambers past midnight Tuesday to address the mayor’s controversial Public Commons for Everyone initia-tive, a proposal aimed at curbing inappropriate behavior in shopping areas by intensifying law enforcement in an initial phase and adding social services later as funding will allow. 

No decision on the proposal was made however. Mayor Tom Bates delayed a vote, saying he would present additional information at the council’s May 22 meeting. 

Before the council was a staff report that would have required councilmembers to vote on whether they wanted the staff to write ordinances addressing any or all of the proposals the mayor had put forward.  

These are:  

• Strengthening prohibitions against lying on the sidewalk, making them citywide rather than just in the Telegraph-Shattuck avenues areas as they now are. The measure could include allowing police officers discretion in giving warnings to offenders before citing them;  

• Making urination/defecation in public a citable offense; 

• Broadening smoking restrictions, making smoking illegal in most parts of commercial districts; and 

• Increasing enforcement of existing laws such as prohibitions against bike riding on sidewalks, possessing a bicycle without proper registration, tying dogs to parking meters and more. 

When the remaining public—most of the homeless and marginally housed had left by midnight—was invited to queue up for comment, Downtown Business Association President Mark McLeod lauded the proposal. “Improved [street] behavior is going to equal more sales for our merchants,” he said. “More sales means more taxes. More taxes, more services.” 

But attorney and artist Osha Neumann slammed the proposal. “There are no services provided. It’s about new laws,” he told the council. 

Neumann distributed copies of a poster he had made to the council with an apparently homeless person seated on the sidewalk and a question inscribed at the bottom: “Is this a crime?”  

There are already laws on the books criminalizing the homeless, Neumann said, asking for what he called a “real” discussion on the issues. 

Jake Gelender of Copwatch also spoke against the initiative, condemning the further criminalization of petty infractions.  

“People aren’t not enjoying Telegraph because people are going around with unregistered bikes,” he said. “That is to target a population that is already over-targeted by police.” 

It’s not about a simple citation when one is talking about people with no address, no phone and no income, he said. “It’s about locking people up and nothing else.”  

In his comments the mayor added information to the staff report, saying that he was talking to city staff about keeping various bathrooms under city control open at all times: those at Civic Center, and at the Sather Gate and Center Street garages. He also said he would talk to UC Berkeley officials about keeping the People’s Park bathroom open. 

He said he also wanted to investigate installation of self-cleaning public toilets, such as are in use in San Francisco. 

Over the last few weeks, the initiative had been strongly criticized by the Homeless and Human Welfare commissions as well as service providers for its lack of services. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington noted at the meeting that funding has been “slashed for a dozen homeless groups” when services are critical. 

But Bates defended the proposal as a way to “open a dialogue in the community” on the question of unacceptable street behavior. While many have said the measure targets homeless people, the mayor said it does not. Its enforcement would respect everyone’s rights, he said. 

“I want to curb inappropriate street behavior wherever that is, whether it is adults or young people harassing passersby, or a small group of high school students wreaking havoc at lunch or after school, for people with serious mental illness problems, for people high on drugs or conducting unlawful activities,” he said, bringing the question of targeting Berkeley High students into the mix. 

The mayor underscored that the measure is not simply punitive and would eventually include services. “This is not one shot,” he said. “It is a broad picture.”  

Along those lines, Bates called for more seating in public areas so that people do not have to sit on the sidewalk. He also said he wanted to find a way to encourage people to give donations to agencies that serve the homeless, rather than directly to panhandlers “who may or may not use it for purposes you’d want them to use it for.”  

He said he’d also like to initiate a program of peer outreach, where there would be an initial response to inappropriate street behavior by trained peers. And he supports community policing and diversion programs. 

To pay for additional programs he said he would support a January 2008 increase in street parking fees, raising them to $1.50 per hour. This would generate $2 million, he said.  

Councilmember Laurie Capitelli spoke out in favor of the initiative—and had sent emails to constituents calling on them to come to the council meeting in its support.  

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak also supported the proposal and told the council and public a story about a time a year or so ago when he and his wife witnessed an incident in which a woman parked her car and went to an ATM machine nearby. In the few minutes she was there, an individual urinated on the grill of her car, he said. 

“I bet she didn’t come back to Berkeley,” Wozniak concluded.

With the release last week by Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums of a budget that proposes to spend $1.1 billion per year over the next two fiscal years, the focus of Oakland’s budget discussion now shifts to the Oakland City Council. 

The council is scheduled to formally receive the mayor’s proposed budget at a May 15 special meeting, with four more meetings planned in a month before a scheduled June 19 adoption. A sixth council budget meeting has been tentatively scheduled for June 21 if the council cannot come to an agreement by the June 19 meeting. 

In addition, several councilmembers have planned community budget meetings to be held within their individual districts. 

Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who is expected to have a major say in reshaping the budget to meet the council’s desires as well as the mayor’s, was sick and out of the office this week and not available for comment. 

De La Fuente has scheduled two community meetings for the Fifth District he represents, one for the evening of Thursday, May 31, and the second for the morning of Saturday, June 2. Locations for the meetings have yet to be set. 

Last year, Dellums campaigned on soaring promises of making Oakland a “model city,” with far-reaching initiatives to tackle its most serious and long-standing problems. 

Though Dellums has not backed away from that vision, his May 3 budget message to the City Council made it plain that money for far-reaching new initiatives was not in Oakland’s current financial reach, and this was a hold-harmless budget that, at its best, keeps most current city programs and offices intact. 

“This is a balanced budget that continues funding levels for most existing programs, but a budget severely constrained by rising costs, stringent spending requirements, and limited revenues,” Dellums wrote. “While this budget touches on [my policy] priorities, it is neither a transformative budget nor an expression of my vision of Oakland as a 21st Century Model city. There are simply too few resources to address the magnitude of the problems facing Oakland. … With existing funds, we are not able to invest in our people or maintain our infrastructure. To address Oakland's short- and long-term needs, we need to develop our local economy to increase current revenue sources, as well as develop new sustainable revenue streams and program-specific funds. This is not a new discovery, but it is important for the residents of Oakland to understand that Oakland’s needs cannot be met solely through Oakland’s current budget.” 

But Dellums has proposed to address one of his most persistent campaign themes in the new budget, calling for the creation of a new position of Public Safety Director to work directly out of the mayor’s office. Last year, during the mayoral campaign, Dellums consistently criticized the governmental breakdown in New Orleans and along the Mississippi River area during and after Hurricane Katrina. During last month’s Frick Middle School Town Hall meeting, he said he did not want to repeat those mistakes in Oakland, and that with earthquakes the major natural disaster facing the East Bay, he wanted a Public Safety Director to directly coordinate disaster preparedness. 

While telling Councilmembers that “spending constraints severely limit the possibility of proposing new programs,” Dellums has also proposed $2.4 million for what he called “a very limited set of” new program initiatives in the area of support for children and youth, health, police, violence prevention, and human rights, among them an Oakland Human Rights Commission, an HIV screening program, 21 additional recreation staffmembers for after school programs, and additional staffmembers specifically designed to “to reduce barriers to ex-offenders finding City jobs.” 

The budget is based a $21.5 million increase in city revenue in FY2007-08 and a $14 million increase in FY2008-09, based upon forecasted economic growth of 4.8 percent this year and 3 percent the year after. The budget document says that “the revenue forecast is consistent with economists’ forecasts of moderate economic growth - without any indications of recession in sight.” 

Highlights of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums’  

Fiscal Year 2008 and 2009 Proposed Budget 

Mayor Dellums’ Budget Priorities: to increase public safety and reduce crime and violence; to foster sustainable economic growth and development for the benefit of Oakland and Oakland residents; to create a sense of hope and empowerment, especially among youth; to give Oakland residents the opportunity to lead a healthy life; and to deliver City services in an open, transparent, effective and efficient manner. 

Principal Goal: to maintain fiscal prudence while avoiding cuts in current program levels. 

Funding Levels: Currently existing funding levels have been maintained, according to the Mayor’s office, for “most existing programs.” In other words, no major, across-the-board funding cuts. 

New program initiatives 

• $600,000 for 21 additional part-time (afternoon/evening) recreation staff to staff and support after-school programs. 

• $100,000 for additional staff to assist ex-offenders finding City jobs. 

• $400,000 for City/County collaboration on Children, Families and Youth. 

• $100,000 for a City/County HIV/AIDS initiative for testing, counseling, and treatment efforts. 

• $400,000 to add 5 non-sworn staff positions to support Chief Wayne Tucker’s geographic policing reorganization. 

• $300,000 for additional Mayor’s Office inter-governmental relations staff for the purpose of seeking increased funding for the City of Oakland from federal and state governments and philanthropic organizations. 

• $200,000 for continuation of one-time Council funding of the middle-school sports program. 

• $200,000 for increased support for Chabot Space and Science Center. 

• $100,000 for initial funding to support a Human Rights Commission. 

Need for additional revenues 

The mayor’s proposed budget is based upon a one-time allocation of $3.5 million to make up a shortfall in the Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District (LLAD). The mayor’s office anticipates that in order to keep current funding levels for maintenance of street lighting, parks, fields, medians and trees, the City will have to go back to Oakland voters prior to the beginning of the 2008-09 fiscal year to request an increase in the LLAD assessment. 

Two operations and five days after he was beaten outside a Berkeley student co-op, a San Francisco State student remains under medical care at Summit Alta Bates Hospital. 

Charles Rochon, a resident of the Andres Castro Arms co-op at 2310 Prospect St., sustained a skull fracture, a broken jaw and other injuries in a fight with at least one man, identified by friends as a member of the national championship UC Berkeley rugby team. 

Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan said police were called at 9:48 p.m. Saturday about an incident near the intersection of Prospect Street and Channing Way. 

Officers interviewed Rochon at the scene, and “he said he wanted no medical service. We thought it was not anything major,” said Galvan. 

A housemate’s father, a UC Irvine faculty member and physician, insisted that he should see a doctor when asked for advice by telephone. He was admitted to the hospital the next day, where the full extent of his injuries was diagnosed. 

Rochon then told his story to Berkeley detectives, who have launched an investigation, Galvan said. 

“We took the case,” said the officer. “We are currently working on an investigation, and we can’t release anything more than that.” 

Rochon, reached at the hospital, declined to comment on the attack, other than to say “I wish I could tell you what happened, but I’ve been advised not to talk” until he can meet with an attorney. 

The incident reportedly began after something was thrown through a window of the co-op, now covered with flattened segments of a cardboard box. A confrontation outside was followed by the beating, said the friend.  

The attack followed the rugby team’s capture of the national title in a 37-7 win over Brigham Young University in a game played at Stanford. 

A call to Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley’s director of community relations, had not been returned by deadline. 

Nextel and Verizon representatives at Tuesday’s council meeting squared off with irate neighbors of UC Storage at 2721 Shattuck Ave., with the communications companies getting what they wanted—the promise of a public hearing to review a zoning board decision which denied the powerful companies permits to install their antennas atop the Shattuck Avenue building. 

In other council actions, the body voted to reappoint Library Trustee Susan Kupfer, called on a developer and neighbors to come to an agreement over disputed height of a proposed south Shattuck condominium building, asked the city manager to explore adding sex-change operations to the city’s employee benefits and more. 

At the council meeting, both sides of the telecommunications question laid out their cases. Paul Albritton, an attorney representing Verizon, cited the need for the antennas. Berkeley’s use of cell phones has increased 94 percent between years 2005 and 2006, he said, adding, “Data use has tripled in Berkeley.” 

Nearby residents argued that the council has significant evidence that there is no need for additional coverage and that south Berkeley has got the highest rating for service.  

But the argument that seemed to convince the council majority that a hearing was in order was city staff’s recommendation to set aside the zoning board decision: “The board did not make a finding relating [to] the primary need for the facility, which is capacity,” a staff report said. 

The vote to support the zoning board decision was 3-5-1, with Councilmembers Max Anderson, Darryl Moore and Kriss Worthington voting in favor of the decision and Councilmember Dona Spring abstaining. The date of the hearing will be set at the May 22 meeting. 

Neighbors call for lower building 

People in the same neighborhood also came to the meeting to contest the zoning board’s approval of a five-story 24-unit condominium development planned for 2401 Shattuck Ave. Neighbors were calling for developer Gordon Choyce to construct a structure whose height would not interfere with their access to sunlight. The council made no decision, but asked Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Max Anderson to mediate between the neighbors and developers. They will come back to the council July 10. 

Kupfer reappointed 

While fellow trustee Terry Powell called on the council Tuesday night to renew the appointment of trustee and Board Chair Susan Kupfer for “leading the library through difficult times,” a number of citizens asked the council not to rubberstamp the reappointment and to have an open and democratic process.  

The council vote went in favor of the reappointment 6-2-1, with Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring opposing and Councilmember Max Anderson abstaining.  

At issue in the trustee reappointment is the constitution of the board of trustees. Unlike most city commissions, where the mayor and council each appoint a commissioner, and the rent and school boards, where members are elected by the community, the library trustees select new trustees and renew four-year appointments automatically. (The trustees have a two-term limit.) The City Council then affirms the trustees’ decision, generally approving the candidate without discussion. 

But because of increasing conflict at the library over the last few years, with members of the public opposing the decision to use Radio Frequency Identification Devices and conflict between staff and the former director, the public has increasingly called for more transparency in the actions of the library directors. Some have called for putting an end to self-selection among the trustees and handing the job over to the city council. 

Addressing the council, Berkeley resident Leona Wilson called the selection process “undemocratic” and asked, “Where is the public in the public library?” 

The council voted unanimously to: 

• increase the salary of the energy program manager to a range of $7,000 to $8,300 per month; 

• conduct a refuse rate survey, which will likely result in an increase in garbage rates; 

• ask the city manager to look at the cost of adding sex reassignment surgery to city staff benefits; 

• ask the city manager to report on the possibility of implementing community involved policing for Telegraph Avenue and other districts in the city.

The Berkeley City Council got a first look at the draft two-year 2008-2009 $614,050 budget at a workshop before its regular meeting on Tuesday. Final budget decisions will not be made until the June 26 council meeting. 

The budget is balanced through savings mostly from vacant or eliminated positions and limited increases in revenue, despite the fact that “growth in recurring revenues is not keeping pace with the cost of providing city services and programs,” according to the city manager’s written budget report. 

As always, there’s little wiggle room for councilmembers to fund pet projects for their districts, as 80 percent of the budget is dedicated to fixed employee costs and most of the rest of the budget is tied up in ongoing projects and capital expenses. 

The council will have a degree of discretion, however.  

Much of that comes from a one-time infusion of cash the city is getting from unexpected commercial transfer taxes—taxes of 1.5 percent of the sales price of properties. Large commercial properties sold during the 2007 fiscal year include seven of Patrick Kennedy’s properties, the Fantasy Building at 10th and Parker streets, the Smith-Marchant building on the 6700 block of San Pablo Avenue and the Shattuck Hotel. 

The total FY 2007 transfer tax is expected to be $15.6 million. Of that, the city manager considers $10.5 million as recurring revenue to be allocated as part of ongoing city expenses.  

The remaining $5.1 million can be used for one-time expenditures. While the manager had detailed the projects he would like to see funded, the council will be able to make adjustments, Kamlarz said at a Tuesday morning press briefing. 

Kamlarz asked the council to spend the windfall over five years on capital improvement projects including: $900,000 for deferred maintenance for city buildings and recreation facilities, including swimming pools, senior and recreation centers; $1 million transportation planning; $2.86 million for streets and other transportation funding and $1 million for clean storm water/creeks planning.  

The city manager is proposing to fund other projects through a shift in expenditures. Some of the projects he is asking the council to fund include: 

• Youth—$306,000: funding would go to 50 jobs for $136,000 (Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Darryl Moore and Max Anderson are asking for enough money to fund 400 jobs) and adding another $170,000 for recreation programs cut in earlier budgets; 

• Full-time watershed coordinator—$66,000, increasing the half-time position to full time; 

• Affordable housing: $947,000 over two years to subsidize the Berkeley Housing Authority; and $1.5 million to fund three projects: Ashby Lofts, Satellite Senior Housing and the Oxford Plaza. (This $1.5 million is expected to be reimbursed to the general fund through future fees for condominium conversion.) 

• Public safety—$900,000: $600,000 is allocated to keep all fire stations open (ending rotating closures) until December 2008 and $300,000 for training public safety dispatchers on a new communications system. 

Still, there’s not enough money available to fund large projects, Kamlarz said, proposing their funding through new taxes. 

For example, $80 million is needed to fund the aging, under-capacity storm water system, he said.  

“If people want more police and fire, they may need a special tax,” Kamlarz added. “Feeling safe is a major community value.”  

On the average, one police officer costs approximately $170,000, including a car, equipment and overtime, said budget manager Tracy Vasely. 

At the same time, the city manager said the impact of a new tax could be blunted by refinancing existing obligation bonds. 

“Given the savings resulting from the Measure S bond restructuring, the resulting increased tax generated from a ballot measure would be offset, resulting in a minimal new tax increase to homeowners,” the manager says in his budget report. 

Other anticipated revenue sources are increases in sewer and garbage fees—studies on the increase are pending. A 5 percent increase in the Marina berth fee will come before the council May 22. 

The budget includes a 6 percent reserve. “Eight percent covers city operations for 30 days,” Vasely said. 

Among the large city costs are employees’ pension funds. “We have guaranteed pensions for the rest of our lives,” Kamlarz said. At age 50, police and fire employees can opt to retire and receive 3 percent of their top year’s wages for every year served. Other staff gets 2.7 percent per year of their top wages if they retire at age 55.  

“It’s a very expensive plan,” Kamlarz said. 

Areas in which city revenue is growing in addition to transfer taxes are city income from hotel taxes, auto in-lieu fees, parking fines, and interest income. Sales taxes show a small increase and business license tax revenue is flat. 

Councilmembers have a number of projects they are asking the city manager to consider. Funding them would amount to $3.8 million in one-time costs and $2.1 million in recurring costs.  

The council wish list includes increasing the street sweeping program, traffic calming measures, implementation of the Public Commons for Everyone proposal, holding programs at the Willard Park clubhouse, providing sex-reassignment surgery as part of employee benefits, adding funding to Options Recovery Services, funding community-involved policing and funding implementation of the mayor’s greenhouse gas reduction plan. 

A community meeting will be held May 29 when the public can ask questions about the budget, copies of which are available $25 through the city clerk’s office or online at www.cityofBerkeley.info/ budget. The meeting will be at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center at Hearst Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way.

If a Burger King wants to set up shop on Telegraph Avenue, the Berkeley Planning Commission decided Wednesday night that they’re not inclined to block it, though they don’t expect the fast food chain to open up on Berkeley’s emblematic commercial street. 

The issue before the commission was a staff proposal drawn up in response to comments commissioners made at the March 28 meeting after they voted 5-4 to adopt new rules that would ease quota-busting on the avenue. 

Those changes are currently slated to go before the City Council for final adoption on June 12. 

The existing ordinance, adopted in 1985, sets strict quotas on the numbers and types of business allowed in the Telegraph Commercial District. 

Immediately after the March vote, commissioners Susan Wengraf and Harry Pollack said they might be willing to reconsider the requirements for findings in the revised ordinance they’d just approved. Findings spell out the reasons for granting variances from existing quotas. 

The main concerns of commissioners were about the “quick service” restaurant category, zoning-code-speak for fast food eateries. 

Associate Planner Jordan Harrison drew up a series of four options that could tighten the proposed rules to make it more difficult to open quick service and other so-called “formula restaurants” in the district. 

The choices ranged from an outright ban to the no-change option ultimately accepted. 

A lawyer representing the owners of the Granada Building at the southeast corner of Telegraph and Bancroft Way told commissioners her clients were “strongly opposed to any new restrictions on business in the area.” 

Robia Chang, representing Munger Properties, said a ban on formula restaurants “would present itself as another barrier to businesses.” 

Roland Peterson, executive director of the Telegraph Business Improvement District, said his organization “opposes all quotas in the district. A ban on formula restaurants is just another restriction on business,” and contradicts efforts of Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli to aid the district, he said. 

“I am an immediate past president of the California Downtown Association,” he said, “and we have found that the most successful downtowns have a mixture of formula and unique restaurants.” 

While Wengraf said she thought that with a little editing the commission might be able to adopt a recommendation to forward to the council, in the end the commissioners decided not to act. 

Vice Chair Larry Gurley said there probably wasn’t any reason to worry, noting that city Planning Manager Mark Rhoades had told the commission earlier that Berkeley was perhaps the only town in the U.S. where Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken had closed their franchises. 

The permit regulations changes as now proposed will make it easier for new businesses to avoid the quotas, and for property owners to subdivide previously mandated minimum spaces into smaller spaces for rental to multiple tenants. 

West Berkeley car sales 

Do proposed zoning ordinance amendments proposed to allow car dealers to set up shop in West Berkeley also open the door to commercializing the city’s last remaining manufacturing and light industrial districts? 

Rick Auerbach said he thinks they do, but commissioners said he was worrying for naught. 

At issue are the zoning law changes sought by Mayor Tom Bates as a way of keeping car dealers— and their hefty sales tax revenues—from fleeing the city. 

Auto manufacturers have told the city they want dealerships “freeway close,” as their ads often say, but current zoning law bars them from locating in the M and MULI zones that govern most city property immediately to the east of Interstate 80. 

Auerbach, who spoke as a representative of West Berkeley Artists and Industrial Companies (WEBAIC), said his group “is sympathetic to auto businesses locating in West Berkeley,” but concerned that the wording of the changes would allow other businesses to settle in. 

Because retail rents are higher than industrial rents, WEBAIC members have opposed opening up more of the area to commercial use because they fear higher rents could drive out small industries, artists and artisans. 

He said he was also concerned that the large size of the parcels the proposal allows for dealerships could lead car retailers to buy up multiple properties and consolidate them, destroying existing buildings in the process. 

“I am not happy about this in many ways,” said Commissioner Gene Poschman. His colleague Harry Pollack said concerns that the wording would open up the area to other retailers were misplaced, but “there might be a better way to phrase it.” 

Commissioners agreed, however, that the dealers couldn’t let would-be buyers test drive prospective purchases in the nearby neighborhood. 

“You couldn’t say that all test drivers should be conducted in Albany?” quipped Gurley. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Pollack. 

In the end, the commission voted unanimously to schedule a public hearing on the ordinance changes at an upcoming meeting. 

ABAG quotas 

Poschman took the final moments of the meeting to direct another round of criticism at the housing quotas imposed by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). 

While the regional government agency doesn’t demand construction of all the units in the quotas it imposes, it does insist that local governments be willing to permit the full development if private builders apply—with possible loss of some state and federal funding if municipalities and county governments refuse. 

Poschman said Berkeley is penalized with higher quotas than many other cities because of ABAG policies that set larger numbers for cities with rail transit, adding that Berkeley also seemed to go out of its way to meet quotas while Newark had built none of the below-market-rate housing in its ABAG quota. 

“They must know something we don’t,” he said. Five other Bay Area communities had built less than 10 percent of their affordable housing quotas, and 11 others hadn’t built half. In addition, he said, the city was also obligated under state law to meet the housing needs generated by UC Berkeley. 

The city is currently in the process of challenging the latest proposed quota, which would apply through 2012.

The Berkeley Board of Education delayed its vote on a controversial proposal to establish a Community Day School on the B-Tech campus Wednesday. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence recommended that the Independent Study program remain at the B-Tech campus at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Derby Street for the time being, while options for moving the program are considered. 

She asked the school board to hold off on the decision to move the Independent Study program to the new Adult School at San Pablo Avenue to make room for the proposed Community Day School, which would enroll middle-school students who have faced expulsion from school, have disciplinary problems, are on probation, have attendance or adjustment problems, or require a smaller school setting. 

“I felt it was necessary to pull the plug on this today,” Lawrence told boardmembers, and added that Berkeley Unified would continue to look for a viable place to relocate the Independent Study program so that the Community Day School could be esablished as early as the spring 2008 semester. 

The board discussed the proposal at great length after Independent Study parents and staff vehemently opposed it at the meeting. 

“We have needed a Community Day School for sometime now,” Lawrence said. “We don’t have an appropriate place to put children who are troubled or need special attention. We have a wonderful Independent Study program but students can only go there independently. We cannot force anyone to go there. The continuation school [B-Tech] cannot be used for middle school students. As a result there are very limited options.” 

Lawrence added that the school district did not have school campuses that could hold the administrative offices, classrooms and conference rooms required at the Community Day School. 

“We looked at Willard Elementary School but it was horrifically cramped,” she said. “We looked at West Campus but that made no sense. The classrooms are leaking, unhealthy and we are intending to knock that place down. We did go to the current Adult School site but that did not work out either.” 

The proposed plan for the Community Day School recommends that the program be housed in the current location for Independent Study, which is on a separate part of the B-Tech campus. 

“No sufficient planning has preceded this proposal,” said Robert Young, a Berkeley teacher. “Moving 170 Independent Study students to the Adult School which does not have adequate light is not a good idea. B-Tech parents and students have not been consulted either.” 

Gordon Stevens, an IS parent, said that tampering with the Independent Study program could jeopardize his daughter’s future. 

Cathy Campbell, vice president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, said that while the union supported the creation of a Community Day School, curriculum should not be harmed in the process. 

“Many attend Independent Study because they need a smaller learning environment or are in a transitional phase in their lives,” she said. “Moving this program to the Adult School would mean a loss of 1,000 square feet for Independent Study. There is zero natural light, insufficient acoustics and the rooms are currently only used for Traffic School and testing. The bathrooms are also located a distance away.” 

Board Vice President John Selawsky said that he had heard in the past that the Independent Study site was getting crowded and not considered a good fit for its current students. 

“So there is some kind of double talk going on,” he said. “Maybe it’s the fear of the unknown. However, it’s important to know that we live in a built-out city and a built-out district. We have very little space to move our programs and our students around. It’s the curriculum, the people and the sense of purpose that builds a good program, not the facility itself. The facility can enhance the program. I would ask faculty and parents at Independent Study to keep an open mind.” 

Lawrence said that the partnership between the proposed Community Day School and B-Tech made sense because students at both schools would need counseling and education support services as well as an administrator.  

B-Tech principal Victor Diaz would oversee the curriculum, staff development, day-to-day discipline and supervision and evaluation of staff at the Community Day School. 

“I need to let our Independent Study program know that we don’t have any other space to put the Community Day School,” Lawrence said. “We need to look for another place to put the Independent Study in.” 

The Community Day School would initially enroll seventh- and eighth-graders and would expand to serve sixth- through ninth-graders in the future. 

2007-08 consolidated school plans 

The board unanimously approved the 2007-08 consolidated school plans which outlines a three-year plan for student achievement at each school site. 

Selawsky commented that although progress had been made in creating the plans, inconsistencies were present from site to site. 

“A lot of thought was put into most of the plans, but there were a handful of sites where there was no mention of any plans,” he said. “I expect some of these sites to do some more work.” 

Lawrence said that the plan had become more inclusive and was considering the needs of every child in the district. School board member Karen Hemphill said that the plans should be shared with the community. 

“We need to celebrate what the schools are doing for the our children,” she said. “We should give the public the opportunity to see what we are getting to see.”

Tuskegee police have charged Quentin Motez Davis, 18, of Macon County, and Romanita Michelle Cloud, 18, of Tuskegee, Ala., with the murder of Berkeley High Graduate Canon Jones, who was shot after he left his dorm to buy food on April 29. 

Both teenagers are being held at the Macon County Detention Center without bond. Police believe robbery was the the motive for the shooting. Canon, who graduated from the Communication Arts and Sciences School (CAS) at Berkeley High in 2006, had also attended the Berkeley Boosters PAL program. 

“He had so much potential,” said CAS English teacher Ingrid Martinez. “We were really looking forward to see him accomplish a lot. He was a leader and a really great community member.” 

David W. Manson Jr. of the Berkeley Boosters described Canon as a “peacemaker.” 

“He was planning on working with the younger kids this summer as a youth counselor in our summer adventure camp programs when he returned from college,” he said in an email. 

Canon had also worked at Berkeley Unified’s transportation department last summer before starting at Tuskegee. 

“This is the tenth Berkeley High student we have lost to a shooting in the last three years,” said school district spokesperson Mark Coplan. 

“Canon was a really popular kid,” he said. “When his mother went to his dorm room to collect all his stuff, she was surrounded by at least 30 college students who shared memories about him.” 

Funeral services are scheduled to be held today (Friday) at the Southside Church of Christ in Richmond at 11:15 a.m. 

The words “academic freedom” have been tossed around a lot lately. They seem to mean different things in different contexts, and as a result they seem to be losing meaning altogether. Chancellor Birgeneau invoked them sanctimoniously in defense of his university’s god-given right to sell off a good bit of Strawberry Canyon, complete with associated faculty members, to British Petroleum, to aid in BP’s search for new and more lucrative ways to allow the rich nations to prolong their excessive energy consumption. A self-selected percentage of UC Berkeley’s faculty senate endorsed his position, which was possibly enhanced by the $500 million payoff, as did the Bates/Hancock apparatus and other local politicos. Now academic freedom seems to be expanding to protect UC’s right to add a 60-room hotel to the environmentally impacted canyon site, presumably so that BP’s visiting scholars won’t have to endure the horrors of the Hilton.  

For a much smaller pot of gold, only $15.8 million statewide, 43 members of the Faculty Assembly, the statewide incarnation of the faculty senates on each UC campus, have recently voted to go on taking bucks from the tobacco industry. Clearly what academic freedom means to some people these days is the right of academics to sell their services to the highest bidder, regardless of where the money comes from. We’ve mentioned before in this space the precedent in Germany during the Nazi era of academics taking research money from Bayer, Krups and other corporations which were engaged in some very nasty projects. History has not vindicated that decision.  

Some people with good educations who should know better have always used their knowledge to research bad things, all the way back well beyond the legendary Dr. Faustus. One of Berkeley’s staple urban legends, undoubtedly true in some incarnation, is of the guy/guys with advanced degrees in biochemistry who supposedly ran great big methamphetamine labs in Emeryville back in the days when it was an industrial wasteland. If UC faculty members were to try this today, academic freedom would probably not be invoked to protect them, even if they claimed that further research into how to make crystal meth is needed. Is tobacco different? 

Again and again, we hear stories about academics who have taken research money from Big Pharma or the tobacco industry and allowed publication of their research results, especially bad news, to be tainted by what the sponsors wanted to promote or suppress. I wrote my first story about this practice in 1979, and new versions still appear on a regular basis. 

In the old days, academic freedom was not based on the golden rule (those who give the gold make the rules). Then it meant the freedom of academics to hold any ideas they pleased and to teach about them as they wished. Of course that concept was honored more often in the breach than in the observance. In 1949, in the era of McCarthyism and anti-communist “spy trials,” the UC board of regents, at the request of UC President Robert Gordon Sproul (for whom Sproul Hall is named), adopted an anti-communist oath for all University of California employees to sign. Thirty-one faculty members and many graduate students were fired for not signing, only coming back when they were vindicated in court. At other universities in the fifties faculty members were fired for not testifying before inquisitional legislative committees like Senator Joe McCarthy’s.  

The battle was always for freedom of thoughts and ideas, never about funding sources. An old German scholars’ song, Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Thoughts Are Free), was popularized by Pete Seeger in defense of those under attack.  

Recently a school teacher in Bloomington, Indiana (another university town) lost her job because she told her students, when they asked about her views on the Iraq war, that “I honk for peace” when passing a demonstration. A federal court in January refused to back her up, saying that teachers in public schools are supposed to convey the official version of information and not their own ideas. It now seems to be a generally accepted opinion that “academic freedom” doesn’t apply from high school on down—based partly on the premise that if the state is paying teachers, teachers ought to say what the state wants them to say.  

But if teachers at state universities are instead paid by Big Oil or Big Tobacco or Big Pharma, should they say what their funders want to hear? Surely not. And what are the rules for the privatized charter schools that are all the vogue these days? Do they have any kind of academic freedom or not? 

It’s been about 50 years since I first started thinking about the concept of academic freedom, when I heard that a friend’s father and brother had been fired from their university jobs for refusing to testify about their political opinions. It seems like it’s changed a lot since then. I hope some academic somewhere is engaged in philosophical speculation or historical research which will explain exactly what’s happened to academic freedom in my lifetime, because the sands have definitely shifted.  

It’s been almost 40 years since I gave up smoking, but watching Tuesday’s City Council meeting made me feel for the first time in years that I’d really like a cigarette. Why? Well, watching the City Council stumble and stutter their way through an agenda which came with a 1,400-page packet which they clearly hadn’t bothered to read was a nerve-racking experience. It culminated in a pathetic charade which purported to address the mayor’s heartfelt interest in “improving the quality of life of public commons in the city.”  

What’s pathetic about that? Well, first, the grammar. Perhaps the drafter meant to say “in” or “on” the public commons. Whatever the “public commons” might be, it’s inanimate, doesn’t have any life of its own, nor any quality of same.  

Maybe what was meant was the quality of life for “people” in or on the public commons. But what does “public” commons mean anyway? Is it to be contrasted with “private” commons, and if so what would a “private” commons be? Let’s just assume for discussion purposes that “public” is simply redundancy for the purpose of emphasis, and that that the triple redundancy in the title “Public Commons for Everyone” initiative is meant to convey the very great sincerity of the proponents.  

In case you were afraid that there might be some insincerity at work here, you might have caught the mayor’s introduction to the discussion on Tuesday night. He maundered on for several minutes, eyes downcast, seeming to be reading from a text written by someone else, assuring anyone who cared that he really really does feel their pain. 

You might have missed the whole discussion, though, since it took place at 11:30 or later, after the allotted time for the council meeting had been extended. Presumably it was placed at the end of the agenda to make sure that as few people as possible saw it, and that even fewer were able to show up to express their opinions on the topic.  

What was actually on the agenda for this item? Just five recommendations, all either obvious or pointless:  

1. “Restrict smoking in public areas in commercial zones.” Yes, yes, I’m fully aware that tobacco is the devil’s weed, and that one of the privileges of living in the Berkeley Bubble is never having to inhale anything you believe to be health-threatening or simply offensive, whether it’s tobacco smoke, cheap scent or body odor. (Perhaps medical marijuana is an exception, perhaps not. The no-smoking signs on the 51 bus my kids took to Berkeley High had hand-lettered “this means pot too,” but whiffs of The Other Weed still drift in through the windows in some areas.) There are already laws against public smoking, widely ignored by the police. The proposal would extend the no-smoking zones to even wider areas, making them even less likely to be enforced.  

But perhaps Recommendation 4 would take care of that: “Provide for strict enforcement of all existing laws affecting the quality of life in public spaces and parks.” Oh sure, and in the meantime the drug dealers down around Oregon and Sacramento are cheering. This one will keep the police off the streets and out of trouble, busy handing out tickets for public smoking.  

Better get the officers some foreign language instruction too. Every year about this time Telegraph Avenue is deluged with French youth, guidebooks in hand, looking for excitement and puffing up a storm. If the cops are going to try to stop them, at least they should learn to say “Defense de Fumer.” Some Chinese wouldn’t hurt either, since sadly most people in China are still heavy smokers, even when they visit the United States. 

Which brings up, in a roundabout way, elimination. In many countries urination in alleys is no great sin if there’s no public facility handy, particularly for men. I’m personally a bit too timid for that—the reason I finally stopped buying clothes in downtown Berkeley is that Ross-Dress-for-Less closed the bathrooms in the building they took over from J.C. Penney, and it became virtually impossible to find a place to pee in peace downtown. We’re told the city should “Develop prohibitions and increased fines for public urination”... but just wait until the police snag a hapless foreign tourist in an alley.  

This will all be solved, however, by Recommendation 2: “Install better directional signage to public restrooms.” Turns out that when you find them there are only four public restrooms in the downtown/Telegraph area, and trust me, three of them you wouldn’t want to go into. They’re only open during business hours anyhow, though the mayor in his benevolence now suggests keeping them open longer, and of course the signs will be bigger....  

But obviously the target of all this is not tourists or desperate shoppers, it’s the homeless and/or crazy folks in the “public commons” who offend. That “Everyone” in the title of the proposal really means “everyone except anyone who offends someone else who’s more important.”  

Councilmember Wozniak told a harrowing anecdote about the time his wife and son saw a vagrant deliberately peeing on the radiator grill of an expensive car on Telegraph—the horror! I’m sure that never happened back in Nebraska.  

And there are urban legends that some of these types even defecate where they shouldn’t to show their contempt for something or other. How often does this happen, in reality? Wouldn’t a better explanation be that they just couldn’t find a bathroom in time? Not pleasant, but not criminal, and until the city can provide enough public facilities in enough places it will be hard to prove intent-to-annoy. (On the other hand, in the defecation category don’t get me started on dogs and their lazy owners.) 

And the recommendation that is the red meat in this proposal is Number 5: “Reduce warning provisions associated with regulations prohibiting lying on the sidewalk.” Anyone who’s ever shopped with a 2-year-old knows that lying on the sidewalk is a regular feature of the tired-of-shopping-tantrum. Anyone who occasionally gets dizzy knows that sitting or lying down helps. Even the mayor recognized problems like this with his suggestion that the city needs more approved places to sit down, but don’t hold your breath waiting for new benches on Telly.  

Again, however, it’s not naughty toddlers or dizzy walkers who are being targeted. It’s the homeless/disturbed/anti-social people who are the real problem for Everyone Else. And what do we propose to do about them? Give them tickets, of course, but now without the traditional and customary “OK, buddy, it’s time to move on.” And if they get enough tickets, they go to jail, since of course they don’t have money for fines. That’ll show’em. 

The latest North East Berkeley Association newsletter sums it all up without apparent irony: “... serious impediments to safe and enjoyable use of our public spaces and commercial districts are inappropriate street behavior, drug-dealing, vagrancy, and panhandling.... Mayor Bates has, commendably, put forth a call for a serious examination and resolution of this issue, with an emphasis on making our public spaces more attractive to the vast majority of Berkeley residents. It remains to be seen whether common sense and the needs of the vast majority will prevail against well-organized homeless advocates.” That vast underprivileged silent majority of North East Berkeley homeowners speaks up for themselves for once! Thank God someone’s finally looking out for their rights!  

Oh, and by the way, earlier in the evening the council discussed plans for cutting the funding for social service programs in next year’s budget. The “well-organized homeless advocates” were wringing their hands, but to no avail. And councilmembers stomped all over Kriss Worthington’s excellent ideas for using genuine community policing to solve Telegraph Avenue problems. It’s so much easier just to write some new laws, isn’t it? But on Tuesday the council didn’t even get around to that by the time the meeting ended. 

PUBLIC COMMONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s May 11 editorial, “Another Foggy Night on the Public Commons,” was depressing, as I realized that the Berkeley bourgeois bullies lead by the Mayor Bates and the “liberals” on the City Council were intent again on making life as miserable as possible for the down-and-out that have the misfortune of currently living in Berkeley. No public restrooms? No public shower facilities? No public storage lockers? No local public campgrounds? Hey, this is liberal-fascist America in the 21st century. It’s amazing to me to notice that there is a great similarity in the attitudes exhibited by the Bush gangsters, currently holed up in the White House, and the liberal fascists that currently hold sway on the Berkeley City Council. Both groups share a hatred and a disdain for anyone poorer than themselves or anyone lower on the power structure pecking order. 

America is the only remaining industrialized country that is unwilling to provide universal health care and universal health insurance for all its citizens. One guesses that we’d rather be spending our money on armaments and troops that are currently stationed in (or occupying) over one hundred countries around the world. Kids, can you say, “empire?” 

Australia, New Zealand, Japan and many European countries have had provided said universal health care and insurance for many years now… What is our problem? We’d rather have the corporate greed system of interlocking HMOs, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations, thank you very much…  

This same perverse attitude covers the areas of public toilets, public showers and public campgrounds with low-cost trailer accommodations for both travelers and poorer local residents. In New Zealand, every city, town and hamlet has public bathrooms, called comfort blocks, installed in convenient locations. Even the French provide urinals (for men), which are discreetly placed in the shrubbery around public parks in their cities. There are hundreds of public campgrounds in New Zealand, called caravan parks, which provide low-cost accommodations for both travelers and local residents. Small trailers (with large picture windows!) are available for rent. Or you can bring in your own vehicle or house trailer. There are bathroom blocks with showers, kitchen and laundry facilities available for all in a central building. 

Could we do this in America in the 21st century? Hmm. We’d have to give up our snotty bourgeois bullying attitudes, but we may be able to build a humanistic, caring society for all its members at some point. Let’s hope that this transformation will not simply be a social mirage, constantly receding into the future, a la our proposed date for leaving Iraq to the Iraqi people… 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

• 

OBJECTIONABLE  

BEHAVIOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To me, “public commons” is any space that I have to share with other members of the public. 

People aren’t allowed to smoke or eat on AC Transit buses. But they are allowed to talk. During my frequent bus rides, I often encounter someone randomly ranting. These are not just loud cell phone conversations. These people are just talking to themselves. They are not just mumbling; they are loud enough to annoy everyone on the bus. What they say occasionally makes a little sense (racist or political taunts), but mostly it is random rant. 

Would the public commons initiative increase sheriff patrols on the buses? Can I expect random ranters to be cited or ejected? What about the loud people on their cell phones? 

If lying down on the sidewalk or “objectionable behavior” will be illegal, maybe the sheriff will cite the bus riders who slump in an aisle seat, blocking access to a vacant window seat. Surely they’ll cite the riders who prop their dirty feet on the seat opposite. Or should bus riders just put up with these inconveniences and let the police focus on enforcing the laws covering car and drug traffic? 

Steve Geller 

• 

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

CNN’s May 11 broadcast in Europe showed some children in Baghdad gathered around a big pool of water, created by holes punched in one of the makeshift water lines leading into the Green Zone. They weren’t frolicking in the water as one might expect; they were washing themselves and collecting water in squalid plastic containers. These kids know the discomfort of being dirty and not having water to clean themselves; they live with the fear of thirst. For them, this pipeline carrying water to the powerful of Baghdad was not a temptation for vandalism; it was a necessity.  

This image illustrates the failure of the Bush administration’s great social experiment. Under the guise of “making the Middle-East safe for Democracy,” the neo-con Republicans’ social theory actually intended to provide unfettered privilege to the wealthy, with the afterthought that their improved economy would drip down to the poor people. Drip down economics, indeed. The idea of collective public works for the good of the community is anathema to these Republicans, whose anti-taxation spokesman, George W. Bush, proclaims, “it’s your money, don’t let the government take it away.”  

Seductive sentiment if you have money, money enough to buy your own clean-water system and prevent those who don’t from taking “your” water. But, as we now see on CNN, this is a formula for incredible personal misery where, ultimately, even the wealthy live in danger. “Mission accomplished,” experiment failed.  

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

BRIGHT BILLBOARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wanted to add my voice to those who’ve been protesting against that dangerously bright, energy-sucking electronic billboard along the eastern side of the Bay Bridge. My partner and I drove past this monstrosity late last night and couldn’t decide which was worse: the blinding messages being flashed at us (the white background was particularly bright), or the amount of energy that thing must be consuming every hour as our country comes to grips with global warming. On both counts, it’s an irresponsible and obnoxious example of advertising that has gone over the edge. I’m going to ask my local, state and federal representatives to help bring it down, and I urge other readers to do the same. 

Mark Pasley 

• 

TRUSTWORTHY TEACHERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What does it take for teachers to stop being encouraging to the children in their care? Does the fault lie in the selection process by which new teachers are hired? Does the fault lie in weak development of an inner sense of responsibility towards children? Teachers don’t just teach skills. By their example, they teach the way of virtuous living. By what process of selection, by what process of inspiration can we strengthen the trustworthiness of teachers ? 

Romila Khanna 

Albany 

• 

TERRORIST OR  

FREEDOM FIGHTER? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As Steven Jukes of Reuters News Service said, immediately following 9/11: “We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter…”  

The reason it’s so difficult to distinguish a terrorist from a militant freedom fighter is that all terrorists are militants but not all militant freedom fighters are terrorists. Three examples highlight the overlaps:  

1. Timothy McVeigh, a decorated Army veteran, perpetrated an act of terrorism that killed 168 innocent adults and children. 

2. John Walker Lindh, neither a militant freedom fighter nor a terrorist, was seized at a military training camp in Afghanistan, tried for supporting terrorists and sent to prison.  

McVeigh and Lindh may invoke a modicum of sympathy as being young, misguided, delusional and fellow Americans. 

3. No sympathy is due to Luis Posada Carilles who dedicated his life to using terror as a tactical instrument in the fight for freedom.  

Posada first distinguished himself by applying the training he got in the use of explosives at the CIA run School of the Americas to “mastermind” the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner killing 73 people, and went on to other acts of violence spanning half a century.  

A few days ago a federal court ordered Mr. Posada released from detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and thus, in effect, officially blurred the distinction between terrorist and freedom fighter.  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

ABOUT FACE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Aware that I’ve come down pretty hard on the president of late, and feeling a bit contrite, I decided last week I would cool it—lay off. No more snide remarks. Then, having made this momentous decision, like millions of other Americans, I turned my attention to the extensive television coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the colonies. What a grand spectacle it was! I must admit that Mr. Bush did a creditable job of escorting Liz around. He did flub one introduction, but it might have been that he was taken aback by that god-awful hat she wore. (On the subject of hats, they got worse by the day, didn’t they? The one she wore to the Kentucky Derby was a doozy! I was amazed that the horses didn’t stop in their tracks when they passed her box.) Oh, but I digress. 

I think we’ll have to concede that George and Laura did a splendid job on the white-tie dinner. That was one classy affair! I’ve no doubt the queen returned to London, assured that we Americans are more civilized than she thought. Yes, all in all, I started to feel a little better about George Bush, and concluded that he might not be such a bad guy after all. 

Well, my newfound respect for the president quickly dissipated with the announcement that he was sending 35,000 troops to Iraq, over the objections of Congress and members of his own party. Further, in his typical bully fashion, he threatened to veto any congressional bill that would require him to withdraw troops in three months, completing the withdrawal in nine months. Once again, the “Commander Guy” (his self-bestowed title) has shown utter disregard for the wishes of the American public to bring this disastrous war to a close. 

Therefore, I will not lay off George W. Bush—I’ll continue to rave and rant. This arrogant, mule-headed man and his entire sleazy administration must be squelched. I fervently hope that a nation which so far has shown little outrage at this bloody war will finally speak up and demand that our troops return to their families—the fortunate ones who escaped suicide bombers. 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

BAGHDAD AND CASABLANCA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This past weekend PBS ran Casablanca, and as I watched I kept flashing to a Middle Eastern Islamic country of today. 

In Casablanca of 1942 big tall egotistical foreigners wearing impressive military gear strutted with authority among fearful turban wearers. Corruption abounded in that big city, as it does in another one now, but in the movie it was hard not to identify with the crooked Sidney Greenstreet, the shifty eyed Peter Lorre and the “cynical” Humphrey Bogart, proprietor of a gambling den with a fishy roulette wheel. I rooted for the flawed but believable rabble to stay afloat in a land where the occupiers didn’t have full control, and often had to defer to police chief Claude Rains. However the stormtroopers could still whisk people away to a dark prison where very bad things happened. 

All told, I was glad to see the colonel take a bullet from Bogey, enabling “movement” leader Paul Henreid and Bogey’s lost love Ingrid Bergman to board that plane to Lisbon, the jump off to an escape to “America.” How the script has flipped over! Where would the plane from Baghdad fly?  

Ted Vincent 

• 

GENOCIDE OLYMPICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I note that China has named an African envoy to focus on the crisis in Darfur. The threat to boycott the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing and label it the “Genocide Olympics” appears to be working. Over 450,000 have been killed in Darfur and another 2.5 million have been displaced. Why focus on China? Sudan is Africa’s third largest oil producer after only Nigeria and Angola and China has a large economic interest in this Sudanese oil. China dominates Sudan’s oil fields through the China National Petroleum Corporation. China participated in the construction of a 1,500-kilometer pipeline through Sudan to the Red Sea where it has built a tanker terminal, and has built an oil refinery in Khartoum. More than half of Sudan’s oil exports go to China. More than 10,000 Chinese nationals work in Sudan. In return, China furnishes weaponry to Sudan which it uses to commit wide scale killings in Darfur. As a sidenote, it has been reported that a large oil field exists in Darfur. Isn’t it usually about oil? 

Also, China has a seat on the U.N. Security Council and uses a threat of a veto to weaken a series of resolutions aimed at pressuring Sudan to stop support for the Juwadeen militia’s mass killings in Darfur. Why would a boycott work? A threat to boycott the “Genocide Olympics” might shame the Chinese government to pressure Sudan to stop the killings in Darfur. China craves respect and status from others. Thus, it has invested enormous hopes in hosting next year’s Summer Olympics at Beijing. If the Olympic theme of “One World, One Dream” became the “Genocide Olympics,” it would be a serious blow to China’s prestige. The Olympics’ major sponsors such as Coca-Cola, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and McDonalds, and key collaborators like Mr. Spielberg, who has been hired to help stage the Olympic ceremonies, might think twice about participating in a Genocide Olympics. Let’s keep up the pressure. 

Ralph E. Stone 

San Francisco 

• 

CHENEY’S THREATS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On May 11 Vice President Cheney threatened Iran from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis. He stated, “With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike…[The United States] will…prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.” The United States has maintained two carrier groups in the region to support military action in Iraq, but also with the potential to launch attacks on Iran. 

Cheney has repeatedly issued threats to Iran on behalf of the Bush regime. In February, he stated, “It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power.” He threatened that “All options are still on the table,” to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. 

It is interesting that his latest threat included the words “to prevent Iran…dominating the region.” The Bush regime fears Iran’s influence with various Shiite forces in Iraq. In January, the White House issued a power point presentation to the media. In it were the words, “Our Allies in the region are concerned about Iranian influence in Iraq…Iran has been cultivating influence in Iraq through all means at its disposal. Iran’s threat involves both lethal action and the burrowing of Iranian actors into Iraqi institutions.” 

The Bush regime has repeatedly accused Iran of interfering in Iraq. It has accused Iran of smuggling weapons and sophisticated IEDs into the country as well as of training “terrorists” to conduct operations in Iraq. All these accusations and the rhetoric around Iran’s nuclear program are all designed to give the United States political cover for attacking Iran. 

Many do not believe that the United States will attack Iran while it is bogged down in two wars. But this latest threat by the vice president should alert everyone that the administration is very capable of launching such an attack.  

The Bush regime will continue to make charges against Iran concerning its alleged intent to acquire nukes and also regarding Iranian interference in Iraq. But do not be lulled into believing it is just rhetoric. The regime has already attacked two nations in the region and even the VP says it is a “clear message.” We just need to listen and then mobilize to prevent this new war. To learn how to do so, see worldcantwait.org. 

Kenneth J. Theisen 

Oakland 

• 

FUNDAMENTALISTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In Palestine, Hamas have used a Mickey Mouse clone to indoctrinate their children into the ways of hate and intolerance. In America the fundamentalist and anti-abortionists indoctrinate their children from birth into a life of deception, hypocrisy and secrecy. 

Is there a difference between the fundamentalists in the Middle East and America? Only in the degree of violence they use. In Iraq it is physical violence that prevails while in America fundamentalists use psychological violence to harass and intimidate their victims. 

Both groups of fundamentalists are indoctrinating their children into a future of religious extremism. 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley 

I have taught the Community Partnerships Academy (CPA) Class of 2007 every year since they were freshmen. Never in my 18-year career have I taught the same group of students over a four-year period and never before has teaching a group of students make me feel sincerely that they are my family.  

Next year, the seniors will be attending UC Berkeley, Morehouse, Laney College Biotech Co-op, UC Santa Cruz, Beloit, Loyola Marymount, Spelman, UC Davis, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, Cal Poly, San Francisco State, University of San Francisco, Northeastern University, St. Mary's College, Holy Names University, and many others. Some have earned scholarships. 

The list of college acceptances is impressive, but more impressive to me is the fact that as second semester seniors, they have the largest number of students among all four grades on the CPA honor roll. As second semester seniors, the majority of them have never worked harder in their high school careers. They have internalized the admonition to “keep up their habits” so that they don't just get into college, they succeed once they are there. Their work ethic and enthusiasm for learning is contagious. Many of my students who struggled in past years are now succeeding, largely because of the inspiring hard work of their classmates. 

They are the last class in our small school before the “small school lottery” required an even mix of students from all socioeconomic levels. Thus, as ninth-graders, all of these students lived in neighborhoods of mid- and lower-income socioeconomic levels. Yet 85 percent passed the Exit Exam on their first try as tenth graders. So a commonality of this class is that they are relatively high achieving in spite of the obstacles they have faced. And they have faced obstacles. Most of them are children of single parents. Many will be the first in their family to attend college. Many have had to play the role of parent to their siblings. Some have had to fend for themselves at some point in their lives. Nearly all have, in their short lives, suffered the losses of close friends and family members. Some have experienced brushes with death themselves, due to illness and violence. 

They may not look like a diverse class, but they are. This class is comprised of many East Bay natives, but also first and second-generation immigrants from Germany, Nigeria, Mexico, Peru, Belize, Ethiopia, Japan, India, Yemen, Pakistan, the Philippines, China, Kenya and El Salvador. They are Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, Buddhist and athiest. In the same class are the son of a Black Panther and the great-granddaughter of famed Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange. These students are BHS student government officers (the president and treasurer of the senior class), cheerleaders, yearbook staff (including the editor), football and lacrosse players and Youth Together officers. They are students in CPA’s first AP English class, but they are also students in AP Calculus, AP Latin, AP Statistics, AP Environmental Science, AP Spanish, AP Chemistry, and AP Biology. Some of them are among the most talented writers I have ever taught. 

These students also give of themselves. They have educated their classmates on immigrant rights and African history; they have traveled to Native American Reservations to teach Aztec Dance; they have fed the homeless at the holidays and raised money to buy poor children Christmas presents; they have privately attempted to raise money for a scholarship fund so that their classmates can attend college; they have taught elementary school children how to read. 

Yes, I am proud of this group of seniors. And yes, I will most likely be a mess at their graduation. But when they walk across that stage, it will be a good day for all of us. This group leaves us at CP Academy a stronger school for their example and though it may sound cliché, I wholeheartedly believe they will create for us a hopeful future. 

Susannah Bell is an English teacher at CP Academy. 

Among other things, the timing was wrong. The Dellums’ taskforce recommendations were turned over to the Oakland Chamber of Commerce before they were finished. They were released before they were merged into a coherent plan and before there was sufficient indication of agreement from the mayor on the individual recommendations or priority order of implementation. The Oakland Chamber took these raw recommendations, used the pro bono services of a consultant with particular biases (McKinsey), and presented the framework they had already been working on as Oakland’s economic future at the mayor’s Economic Summit. Unlike McKinsey’s spokesperson, the taskforce presenters were literally chosen at the last minute. Was this the mayor’s timing or the chamber’s timing? The chamber wants to get out in front of an economic development process that it is not in control of for the first time in the history of Oakland? 

The McKinsey Report laid out very little that was new about Oakland’s economic situation. It conveniently ignored the city’s racist development history that is told so well in the book Baghdad by the Bay; past wrongheaded business decision-making is part of the reason that Oakland is in the economic condition that it is in. The worst aspect of the report is the injection of biotechnology as a primary direction for Oakland to develop. This smells like that same old, purely self-serving misdirection. 

In 2005 in their report, The Dynamics of California Biotech Industry, Zhang and Patel note that “…despite California’s dominance in biotech, the sector is not likely to be a powerful engine of economic growth in the state. First, nationwide, the biotech industry involves fewer than 200,000 employees … Second, this industry has an insatiable appetite for new ideas and for venture capital to support the development of those ideas, … and that only the most highly trained and educated scientists are likely to be involved.” Why should Oakland promote an industry that is going to bring few jobs to residents?  

Well, it turns out that McKinsey’s spokesperson is an executive member of the Bay Area Council, which is busy lobbying for more H1B visas so that the biotech industry will be able to import more foreign scientists. (You do not have to pay foreigners as much and they make few demands.) Since the defeat of affirmative action, very few Oakland residents will be trained at the University of California to take those few available biotech jobs. The industry is also chasing Proposition 71 (stem cell public bond) money since the venture capitalists are moving on to green technology investment. Biotech desperately needs space for research facilities. In 2005 the Bay Area Council got three Oakland City Council members to sign a letter supporting the San Francisco Stem Cell Institute and offering up Oakland land for facilities. They had already squeezed huge concessions out of Mayor Newsom for the Institute. But SF won’t get many jobs for residents either. 

Mayor Newsom has just launched the Business Council on Climate Change, getting a step on Oakland in becoming the center for green technology. Green technology is where the future growth is in producing good jobs that are more accessible to Oakland residents. It is with green technology that there will be more small business and general entrepreneurial opportunities. This is where more black business people ought to be looking; there is going to be a big market here. Green tech was in the back of the McKinsey report and given little attention. The big boys don’t fully control it yet. 

Are not jobs for residents more important than profits for millionaires? Will the follow-up meetings from the summit be dominated by chamber types? Or will they be a part of a process with other knowledgeable folks on an equal basis and dedicated to the betterment of all of Oakland’s residents? It remains to be seen. 

Wilson Riles is a former Oakland City Council member.

At the age of 20, being a mother of a 3- and 5-year-old was not easy. Being a single mom on welfare living in a cockroach-infested apartment was not living. I thought I needed to learn discipline, so I walked into the army recruitment office. I spent my 21st birthday in boot camp on a five-mile road march. Many a mom has gone through boot camp. I was no exception. 

Today I work towards building a network of women, many of them mothers, who have served in the U.S. military. We seek ways to tell the truth and speak for peace. This Mothers’ Day is a time to remember the mothers serving in the military whose stories you’re not likely to hear. 

In 1987 I was activated and left for Honduras. Once you put on the uniform, you’re a soldier and you do what is expected of you. You do your job and try not to think. You learn to shut your emotions off. When I returned I didn’t talk with my sons about these life changes. You just come back, go to work, feed your kids. 

In 1993 I went to drill sergeant school. Another eight weeks away from home. As a woman in the military, I had to eliminate showing any emotion or insecurity. It affected how I raised my sons. They knew what it was like to be in the military at very young ages. You lose emotions; you lose yourself and connections to others. They drove it out of me in boot camp and finished it off by sending me to Iraq. I don’t feel like a very good mom or partner these days. 

My depression can be severe. Some days I can get out of bed, some days I can’t. Other times all I can do is cry. The military teaches you to accept the rules. When you have PTSD, the VA’s evaluation process seems to be the biggest obstacle to get help. Most veterans just give up.  

Women are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and don’t know what is happening to them. They can’t be around their kids; they can’t control their anger or sadness and no one can get close to them. They’re suffering from PTSD but they pretend they’re all right because they don’t want to look weak.  

When I started to speak about my experience, my son, a former Marine, thought I was crazy. He is still afraid for me. He thinks someone is going to kill me if I keep talking. But as a mother and a grandmother of eight, I feel there is an obligation to clear the path for our children. My tour in Iraq taught me this lesson. 

It broke my heart to watch 20-year-olds walk in from patrol with faces dirty from the dust and heat—looking as if they just came in off the playground—with pictures of their loved ones on their armbands and their weapons on their backs, talking about how they just graduated high school.  

Mothers cry for their babies, here and in Iraq. Mothers are the casualties that are not counted. We are the wounded that go untreated. We are also the healers that can change anything. We protect life because we give it. Send a Prayer for the mothers and babies who have lost each other. This Mother’s Day remember them, remember us. We need each other to heal. And for all mothers who feel helpless because they think they can’t do anything to stop the war – if you knew the truth you would try.  

This month, here in Northern California, women veterans are gathering to heal from the trauma of military service and war, to document our stories and to support our transformation from soldiers to peacemakers. 

Eli PaintedCrow is a retrieved vet working for peace with the Women of Color Resource Center in Oakland. 

POWERBAR SIGN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Have you noticed? It’s suddenly gone! Gone to Nestle USA in Glendale, we can presume (see Riya Bhattacharjee’s “PowerBar Moves To Southern Cal” in the Aug. 8, 2006 Daily Planet). 

Will anyone miss the 140-square-foot yellow snack-food advertisement which adorned the uppermost eastern face of Berkeley’s tallest downtown building for nine years and four months? 

Perhaps, if anyone still believes the words of the late PowerBar magnate Brian Maxwell who in 1998 defended his company’s sign by arguing that it “overlooks both the tennis court and the track at the university” and that “there are several people who have told me that the sign is an inspiration to them.” The rest of us have lost a rooftop reminder of how, in their zeal to accommodate and reward private-sector employers, Berkeley’s public servants occasionally stretch municipal rules and manage to circumvent public process. 

Goodbye and good riddance, I say. No doubt moving day for the monster sign would have made a great Planet photo-op. 

Jim Sharp 

• 

KEEPING HOURS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I decided to be a consumer of conscience and patronize an independent store instead of Amazon. So I rushed across town to the Musical Offering, ready to spend serious money. I got there ten minutes before their stated closing, knowing exactly what I wanted, The store was closed. Very annoying since I get there so rarely. How are local businesses going to survive if they don’t observe their stated hours? 

Rachel DeCarlo 

• 

CARTER CENTER FUNDING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the interests of full disclosure the Daily Planet’s coverage of Jimmy Carter’s appearance on the UC campus should have mentioned that more than 80 percent of the Carter Center’s budget is paid for by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Carter has denied that he is influenced by the Saudi government paying his bills. The Daily Planet should leave it to its readers to decide whether we believe that or not.  

Jack Kessler 

El Cerrito 

• 

CELL TOWER STUPOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the northwest corner of the Orchard Supply parking lot near the corner of Ninth and Heinz there stands a high, large water tower bristling with cellular antennae. I count at least 26 attached to structure pointing in all directions. There are about seven antennae pointed directly at the French School situated about 150 feet away. 

Is it prudent of the City of Berkeley to allow the continued electromagnetic irradiation of adolescent children in their formative years? Has there been any attempt to do an epidemiological survey of this student population? 

Is there any anecdotal evidence of unusual or increased health problems in this population? 

While city planning staff assert that there is no potential for injury from exposure to electromagnetic waves, they are relying on an FCC safety standard that has been called into question by many reputable scientists. 

The City of Berkeley bases its cell tower approvals on radio wave engineers who work closely with the cellular industry. Does this not call into question the independence of the consultant evaluations? Is this prudent? Have these engineers/consultants ever seen a cell tower they didn’t approve of? 

Peter Teichner 

• 

ABORTION POLITICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When it’s your family, the abortion debate stops being academic. Let me backtrack a little. In 1914 Margaret Sanger gave out information on birth control, which was illegal at the time. Though arrested numerous times, in 1921 she formed the organization that became known as Planned Parenthood. In 2007, anti-abortionists and Republicans on the right are still trying in earnest to make contraceptive information hard to get. 

Where are the Margaret Sangers’ of today and why do Christian conservatives feel they have the right to tell a woman what she can and can’t do with her body and why are nine of 10 GOP presidential hopefuls intent on overturning Roe v. Wade? 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley 

• 

TRAFFIC CONCERNS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am currently an Oakland resident who lives one block from Grand but who travels along Ashby Avenue between Adeline and Telegraph often enough to understand the concerns in one Becky O’Malley’s recent editorials.  

However, if O’Malley wishes to compare her Ashby corridor air quality concerns with those of West Oakland residents, it is only fair to mention the approximately 5,000 trucks that drive through West Oakland to pick up and deliver shipping containers to the port every day. Even living near there, I did not fully appreciate the impact of these trucks until I actually went down by East Shore Park where some of these them are loaded and saw how they are lined up by the scores, idling their motors as they wait, to take their turn beneath a shipping crane. I’ve not measured the air quality other than by my own experience breathing, but I do not find the current circumstances along Ashby Avenue compete for poor quality with the output of all those trucks—and I am not even taking into account the additional pollution West Oakland residents now experience as result of detouring three lanes of east-bound traffic along West Grand.  

I do not actually wish to contest O’Malley’s fundamental concerns. They are both legitimate and very serious. I just don’t find her approach as savvy or as thoughtful as it might be. Pushing for improved public transportation would seem more appropriate. I would prefer to be able to reach central Berkeley and the university efficiently by public transportation, but do not live very near the BART station and usually drive because it takes me less than half as long to get to my destination by auto than by any of the public transportation alternatives available, even given Berkeley traffic and parking.  

Julie Bongers 

• 

OAKLAND BUSINESSES WANT PUBLIC SAFETY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Daily Planet comprehensively reviewed the policy aspects of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce/McKinsey report (“Oakland Begins Sparring Over Economic Development,” May 8). The real news in the document was the survey of Oakland businesses. They told the Chamber and McKinsey that the number-one constraint on doing business in Oakland is crime; that the understaffed police department cannot be relied on; and that common crime imposes significant costs on doing business in Oakland. For the details and what they mean, see www.orpn.org. 

Charles Pine 

Oakland Residents for  

Peaceful Neighborhoods 

• 

LIBRARY COMPLAINT LINE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

With all the serious gnashing of teeth in and around Berkeley Public Library administration and services, wouldn’t it be nice to have a complaint to which library staff could answer, “sure, no problem!” and make everyone happy? Here’s one. 

For a couple of years now, I have encountered more and more lower, floor-level library shelves with books or videos shelved on their sides. The reason is obvious. Shelvers need only bow slightly to see the call number at the lower end of the spine, in order to shelve or remove a book or video. However, browsers must actually read a title, which requires deep, prolonged bending or kneeling, pulling the books out, one by one, to see the title. With my aged, aching back, I can go through this ordeal only briefly before I must give up. (Indeed, those unfortunate, neglected authors on the lower shelf have really hit bottom.) 

I mentioned my problem to a South Berkeley librarian, and never even got into gory descriptions of my back surgery before he interrupted me. “You’re absolutely right, even the kids won’t flop down on the floor in order to pull out and read the hidden titles on that bottom shelf.” 

Two days later, all books on all shelves at South Branch, were standing upright, titles on bottom shelves easily visible when I stepped back and slightly cocked my head. 

Thank you, overworked staff at South Branch! 

But then there is Central Branch. I have sent e-mails, I have fed notes into suggestion boxes. I have spoken to staff. 

No action, no response (unless you count shrugs), nothing. So I’m forced to go public. I urge others to join in my plea to Central. Please! 

Dorothy Bryant 

• 

KPFA: A POX ON  

ALL THEIR HOUSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent spate of letters and editorials regarding the situation at KPFA, coupled with the onset of yet another interminable fundraising period, moves me to write this. I have followed the internal disputes there pretty closely, starting with the Pacifica-KPFA battle in 1999: I was there protesting when Dennis Bernstein was dragged out of the station and the staff locked out. But what I feel now can pretty well be summed up thus: “a pox on all your houses.” 

Since there seems to be no end in sight to the endless bickering, vituperation, back-stabbing, squabbling, whining about process, whining about how the process is broken, accusations and counter-accusations of sexual harassment, racism, sexism, elitism, and every other evil in the pwogressive catalog, I am about ready to just throw my hands up and simply tune it all out, literally and figuratively. 

I’m certainly not suggesting yet another letter-writing campaign, boycott or other Berkeley-type agitation here. I’m just pointing out to the combatants that I’m certainly not alone in reaching the saturation point. And don’t expect any more money from us: Why should we continue to fund you, when you only seem to fight over it and piss it away? While I’m at it, how about taking a look at the uneven quality of what gets broadcast at 94.1? (I’m being charitable here.) Sure, there are some outstanding programs (Democracy Now and a few others spring to mind), but a lot of the rest, particularly the locally produced shows, sounds like what one would expect from a mediocre college radio station training neophyte announcers. 

It’s a pity, really, because it would be really nice, not to say essential, to have a functioning voice for progressive politics and all that that entails here in Berkeley. But keep it up, and you run the risk of becoming irrelevant and being tuned out by more and more folks. 

David Nebenzahl 

North Oakland 

• 

MAHER ARAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Great commentary by Marc Sapir in the May 5 issue! I have been following the Maher Arar story since the Canadian government decided he was hard done by. Therefore I know all the details.  

However, how could anyone not know his name and his role? And why did so many not know of Italy’s action against CIA agents?  

I too would like to know where those people “buy their ignorance.”  

David Ferrier 

Edmonton, Alberta 

• 

LACK OF CIVILITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have lived in Berkeley for more than 40 years, and have been active in politics for a good deal of that time from being a spear carrier in the Free Speech Movement to being a delegate to the founding convention of the California Peace and Freedom Party, to working for Rep. Jerry McNerney in his campaign to unseat Richard Pombo and turn one Congressional seat from Red to Blue. 

I want to support Mayor Bates’ effort to curb anti-social behavior on the streets of Berkeley. The “in your face” attitude that is so prevalent on our streets is one of the least attractive parts of our town. A lot of that behavior comes from people who need help, and incarceration is not the way to solve their problems. But neither is letting them do anything they want on our streets no matter how rude or injurious it is to them or to us. 

We must find ways to keep our city civil and at the same time to make sure that we remain a bastion of free speech and free thought. I believe the mayor’s proposals find that balance in almost every case. Berkeley is unique. We need to make sure it is not unique in being a city done in by its lack of will to remain civil. 

Vincent Casalaina 

• 

DEFECATION IN THE STREETS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

“The Movement” may soon come to its final sputtering end. If the puritanical forces of retention and denial have their way our dear denizens of darkened doorways will be deprived of the joy of completing their morning constitutional on the sidewalk. Will the city add a steaming pile of defecate to the tacky banners lining Telegraph Avenue? Right next to the yellow flower. Thus adding the final human touch to the sweet nostalgia for days gone by. Mario Savio rolls in his grave. Karl Marx said “people do not have the right to sleep under bridges.” In other words the state owes a responsibility to those that cannot take care of themselves. Here in the land of the 10-cylinder SUV we still have the right to lay down in the street and die. Shame on you heartless hypocrites that blame the illness of this malignant society on the poor. How many of those of you that would run the homeless sidewalk poopers out of town work for or have some connection with “Bayer” or UC Berkeley? Smells to me that those organizations along with Chevron and Pacific Steel have been taking a giant crap around here for along time.  

Herb Gardner 

• 

SHUTTING DOWN B-TOWN WON’T HELP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I live on that block of Sacramento between Ashby and Russell and since I wasn’t able to attend the ZAB meeting regarding the matter, I’d at least like to put my two cents in here. I’ve lived in that neighborhood for about a year and a half and I’ve seen just about everything that goes down on that block. It’s probably the “shadiest” part of Berkeley, if you ask me. To get to the point, I don’t think shutting down B-Town Dollar is going to help the neighborhood or retard the amount of drug dealing that is going on.  

The reason I think this way is because, truthfully, they deal drugs everywhere on this block. In front of both barber shops, in and around the 24 hour laundry, all around the apartment units at 2924, and just about everywhere else there’s a shady spot to duck into. What is going to happen when they shut down B-Town? The “d-boys” are going to migrate elsewhere. Meaning our homes and businesses will be even more unsafe. 

I think this is a police presence issue and not a “drug-dealing nexus” issue. Maybe if the BPD added more patrols to southwest Berkeley then the dealers wouldn’t be so bold as to infest the block the way they do now. As a side note, I shop at B-Town Dollar fairly regularly and my quality of life hasn’t been significantly impacted by this issue.  

Name withheld 

• 

MICRO PARKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Can we design micro parks in our cities where smoking is allowed? We can kill two birds with one stone. We can keep other public spaces healthy for non-smokers. At the same time by providing attractive green sites for smokers we can remind them that they have a choice about smoking. When they come to these micro-parks ? just four trees and two park benches they will inhale a lungful of fresh air before lighting up.  

Romila Khanna 

Albany 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A recent Drill Team practice had to be canceled again, due to the weather. This might not sound so unusual except for the fact that we have never had this problem before. Thank you Scott Ferris. The Flaming Five Drill Team has been practicing at Frances Albrier Recreation Center for nearly 20 years. We provided a safe activity for at risk youth. A organization they could belong and not worry whether or not their family could afford it, for some over the years the drill team became their family. Then along came Scott. I was told in November that we could no longer use the space for free and I was given Three options: 1) Pay the rental fee for the space; 2) Turn over the team to the city and become a volunteer; 3) Turn over the team to the city and perhaps be a paid instructor. He suggested I think about it over the holidays. In February I informed the site director Deborah Jordan that I decided to go with option no. 1. She gave me a breakdown of how much it would cost and when it would be due. It was going to be hard but I was not about to turn the team over, not by force. We practiced during Spring Break ,when it ended we were informed that we had already had our last use of the center. Our space had been given away. Scott changed the options, he decided option no. 1 was only available after hours. Did I mention that the children on the drill start at age 5. I have met with the mayor the I been asking our councilmember for help but no one seems to be able to do anything. Here’s how it stand for now we sit outside with our drums and our new recruits that we are unable to properly train while inside for the first 30 minutes there is a empty auditorium and for the last hour the city has hired someone to come in to teach less than eight children dance. We could be in there providing that service and more at no cost to city. Like we have been doing for almost 20 years. We are now in jeopardy of not being able to compete at any event this summer or even be performance ready. Here’s a bit of irony, last week Ms. Jordan asked if the team could perform at an upcoming event.  

Denice Cox 

Director, Drill Team 

• 

REPORTING VS. SNITCHIN’ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

According to a Pentagon study 40 percent of marines and 55 percent of army personnel say they would not report a fellow member for killing or injuring an Iraqi. On 60 Minutes (April 29) black hip-hop performers and fans alike declared that if they witnessed or knew about a crime, they would not report it.  

The military and the black devotes of hip-hop are closed communities in which, evidently, a similar moral value prevails, a value antithetical to standards advocated by society at large.  

In hip-hop society a black person who snitches commits the same kind of “crime” a military person reporting a crime in Iraq commits. May we old folks, to this extent, consider soldiers in Iraq akin to blacks in hip-hop land? 

Marvin Chachere  

San Pablo

Here in Alameda we recently marked that 10th anniversary of the closure of Naval Air Station Alameda, on the West end of the Alameda. The former base is heavily contaminated and is a federal Superfund site, and clean-up has been in progress for years. The land that comprised the base is now known as Alameda Point and is slated for housing development, and the City of Alameda has recently selected two developers - Catellus and Lennar - as co-developers for Alameda Point. Enacted in 1973, Alameda City Charter Amendment XXVI (known colloquially as “Measure A") restricts housing density for new construction within Alameda. 

One small, but vocal, organization in Alameda, Homes Makes Economic Sense (HOMES), argues that Measure A needs to be relaxed to build “affordable housing” at Alameda Point. However, when you read their material, you realize that they aren’t talking about traditional “affordable housing” for low-income families. Instead, they are talking about housing for a much higher income level. Yet, in their IRS filings claiming charitable organization status, they describe themselves as public educators and advocates for “affordable housing.”  

You can learn for yourself how they misrepresent the term “affordable housing” from their FAQ on their web page and from their newsletters: 

From the FAQ on the HOMES website: 

3) But isn’t there subsidized housing? 

Twenty-five percent of the new homes must be “affordable” defined by income levels for “very low,” “low,” and “moderate” incomes. People who earn mid-level incomes, such as young professionals, nurses, teachers, and safety officers, don’t qualify for “affordable” housing, yet can’t afford the only types of homes permitted by Measure A.  

From HOMES’ September 2006 Newsletter: 

Currently, market-rate homes at Bayport are selling for close to $1 million, and subsidized low-income housing is provided for one-quarter of the homes to be built. However, there will be no middle-income housing for those who can’t afford large single family homes nor those who don’t qualify for subsidized housing...Studies show that with transit-oriented higher density, each household tends to own fewer cars and drive less. 

From HOMES’ October 2006 Newsletter: 

And herein lies the rub. What you end up with are two extremes: those who qualify for the below market rate housing and those who can pay the price tag for expensive single family homes. The ones left out of this picture are those who neither qualify for below market rate housing nor can afford the market rate prices. 

So it seems that when HOMES is arguing for “affordable housing,” they aren’t talking about housing for very low, low and moderate income households. They are talking about housing for, as an example, a family of two making $150K per year in Alameda. This is a shameful mis-use of the term “affordable housing” and a betrayal to the genuine low-income residents of Alameda, such as the residents of Operation Dignity and Alameda Point Collaborative out at Alameda Point. 

Further, HOMES advocates high-density housing so that residents need not own or use a car. But there is growing research across the nation suggesting that owning a car improves the lives of low-income families. Consider this report from “Port Jobs” of Seattle, WA on their “Working Wheels” program, at a 2005 Brookings Institute conference on Low-Income Car Ownership (LICO): 

Working Wheels opened in 2002 and has sold more than 225 cars to low income individuals and families. 

• Improved employment opportunities for low-income families:  

— Increase hours worked – an average 32 percent increase in weekly hours  

— Increase flexibility in jobs and shifts  

— Increased education and training opportunities  

• Increased earnings:* 

— 81 percent of car owners experienced wage gains over the 15 month period.  

— Median hourly wage increased from $11.25 one quarter before car purchase to $12.34 three quarters after, an increase of 10 percent.  

— Median wage gain was 10 percent higher than the comparison group. Decreased dependence on public assistance.  

— 60 percent decrease in car owners who receive TANF cash assistance. –Majority of those who left TANF cite an increase in income as the reason.  

(Source: Washington State Employment Security Department employment records.) 

Improved family life:  

— It’s easier to get kids where they need to be: Nine out of 10 parent respondents report transporting their children to daycare, school, extracurricular activities, and doctor’s appointments is easier now that they have cars. 

— Children can participate in new activities: 83 percent of parent respondents report that their children can participate in new activities, such as joining the school debate team, taking Tae Kwan Do classes, and going to the park.  

— Families are spending more time together: 76 percent of parent respondents report having a car has increased the time or improved the quality of time they spend with their children.  

(Source: Interviews with 51 Working Wheels car owners.) 

Sally, a Working Wheels car owner said: “The car has helped so much with my kids. We are on medical coupons, so the kids are restricted to the one dentist who takes coupons in our area. It takes 3 buses to get there, and this is impossible to manage during my working day. And of course that dentist doesn’t offer night appointments. The kids hadn’t been able to go to the dentist in about two years. Now that I have a Working Wheels car, I can take them.”  

Additional studies reported at the Brookings Institute conference showed that doubling the number of people who take mass transit to work would reduce drivers by less than 5 percent, while if every car-deprived household in the bottom half of the income scale were to buy an automobile, it would increase the number of vehicles on the road by only about 3.5 percent 

(Learn more about Low-Income Car Ownership here: http://www.brookings.edu/es/events/agendas/20051205.htm or email info@actionalameda.org to request a CD-ROM.) 

Public transit is always heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Instead of insisting on high-density housing to justify public transit, which only collects 20 to 25 percent of expenses from the fare box, and typically has only 30 percent usage, why can’t we taxpayers subsidize low-income families to buy a low-emission hybrid vehicle? A low-emission vehicle would afford low-income families the benefits of owning an automobile without grossly increasing greenhouse gas emissions. 

As for HOMES, many of us in Alameda are asking: Why is HOMES waging warfare on the lowest-income earning families in our city? 

David Howard is an Alameda resident.

The City of Berkeley is approaching the point when the long-held vision of a spectacular urban plaza featuring a daylighted Strawberry Creek can at last become a reality. Since the early 1980s, hundreds of Berkeley citizens have come forward to express their hope that the City would unearth Strawberry Creek which currently flows under several downtown buildings and streets. This long-buried waterway could become the centerpiece of a world class destination, the first example of environmental restoration in such a highly urbanized location.  

With Berkeley Art Museum and the first LEEDS certified hotels to be built in the country moving onto Center Street, Berkeley has the opportunity to continue the pioneering role it has played in the now thriving national movement to restore our urban creeks. Despite vocal opposition and skepticism at the time of its proposal, in 1983, Berkeley became the first city in the country to “daylight” an urban creek when it brought a section of Strawberry Creek back to the surface. The landscape design for Strawberry Creek Park received the highest Environmental Planning Award from the California Parks and Recreation Society in 1984. 

Berkeley now has the opportunity to take the lead in the Green Cities movement by doing more than planting trees, more than certifying its new hotel as energy efficient, more than increasing its density to promote transit. While all of these efforts are important, a truly “green” city cannot be built on top of a buried natural resource; part of a deteriorated watershed that needs to be brought back to better health.  

The current planning process for the downtown which is being carried out by the DAPAC (Downtown Area Planning Advisory Committee ) has recommended full pedestrianization of Center Street, allowing access for deliveries and emergencies, a public open space on Center Street, and possible inclusion of a creek water/feature. This is in full accordance with the recommendations of the Hotel Task Force. Citizens for a Strawberry Creek Plaza has formed to ensure that this approach, including the option of daylighting Strawberry Creek, is fully explored.  

Contrary to misinformation we’ve seen in recent letters and articles on the topic, the creek would not require elevation and pumps at the proposed Center Street location between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue; rather, it would remain at a depth approximately eight feet and flow down the block naturally. At the end of the block, the creek would be channeled back into the culvert. This design offers the benefit of providing additional flood protection in case of failure of the aging and seismically vulnerable downtown section of the existing culvert. 

Featuring Strawberry Creek as part of a new green urban plaza presents Berkeley with an opportunity to move downtown toward a real renaissance, the likes of which have resulted from investments in water oriented plazas like those in San Antonio, Texas, San Luis Obispo, California, and Little Rock, Arkansas. A Strawberry Creek Plaza in the heart of downtown Berkeley would provide a wealth of aesthetic, social, economic and environmental benefits to the city. It would be an inspiration to those who believe cities can be leaders in restoration of a healthy relationship between society and nature.  

Elyce Judith is a member of Citizens for a Strawberry Creek Plaza.

Below is an excerpt from “A failure in generalship”by Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, deputy commander, 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, as published in the Armed Forces Journal, followed by a response by Karl Davis, a Berkeley High graduate currently on active duty as colonel in the National Guard.  

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the United States fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq’s grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war. These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America’s general officer corps. America’s generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America’s generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress. 

• • • 

Yingling does a good job of describing some aspects clearly lacking in our present three-front war, particularly the lack of social political involvement of the nation at war. But you cannot lead a people to war on false pretexts, and then expect their commitment to the cause down the road. The Administration’s misrepresentations were very short-sighted. I do have to take some measure of dispute with his analysis that it is the generals who failed to foresee our current fight. Since 1991, the US history of warfare has been one low intensity operation other-than-war after another. We have fought an increasingly complex variety of fights, to include Somalia, Philippines, Angola, Bosnia, Kosovo, Columbia, Haiti. The force-on-force model we pursued in the prepare-to-fight World War II again Cold War era was pretty well replaced, both in training and in operations. We knew full well the nature of the fight in Afghanistan, on a military level. Many of us foresaw the nature of war in Iraq, as well. That these two fronts have gone poorly is a matter of political leadership, at least as much as military. As Yingling points out, the military has a duty to instruct as to its appropriate purposes and employment; but also politicians must recognize when a fight is diplomatic, and when it can be won with force. Or when the balance has tipped, and a new approach would be appropriate. 

In Afghanistan, we are now losing the fight we won three years ago. Without a significant change of course, we will be declaring defeat there, too, soon enough. We may or may not have won the “land war” in Iraq, depending on how one sees things, but we never engaged appropriately the multifaceted conflict that followed. By refusing to use the full range of tools available, to include regional diplomacy, we doomed our military to a uni-dimensional fight on a multi-level battlefield. Our one success in the “Global War", so far, has been stemming the insurgency in the Philippines. I believe we have been successful there, in a large part, because it is a nearly invisible operation, and the theater leadership is allowed free reign to manage the fight, both military and diplomatic, as they see necessary. With hope, the next administration will see a way through the woods it inherits, both without our having to suffer another post-Vietnam self-canabilism and without leaving a significant portion of the world dedicated to our destruction. 

Dealing with serious social problems by creating laws which only protect certain individuals is a method for avoiding root causes by making small changes in their effects. Thus we have new legislation applied to old problems which exist, in part, because old legislation was never fairly enforced. The new laws make some people feel better, especially if they’re in the legal business. But the public is usually divided along familiar for or against lines, remaining in the mindset they had before the new laws were applied to the old problems. 

Serious issues of discrimination have brought legal battles which excluded much of the general public by operating over their heads, and out of their minds. The resulting victories were for some individual members of a minority , but actually more for the system which thrives on social discrimination. When privileged groups within targeted populations achieve seeming equality with the mainstream, countless members of those same groups are left still suffering from discrimination that can only be met in part by laws. What is needed is radical change in the system these laws maintain. 

Among the national establishment’s favorite new legislative moves are those against what are labeled hate crimes, in a sense implying that some other crimes might be provoked by love . The implication that pain hurts more when it is the result of hate flies in the face of any supposed logic , but the reason for passing such laws seems to be motivation for justice, even if majority injustice continues under cover of minority law. Both language and law sustain rather than change systems of social discrimination which maintain power and class relations, no matter which discriminated group may gain entry level status or protection for some of its members. 

Perhaps the worst case of sanitized madness is the massive hate crime called war. In war, mass murder and serial killing are morally legalized as necessary for geopolitical and social safety. This perpetuates the same system that labels some special crimes as being hateful, if they befall a class of minorities which has the legal and political power to gain some exclusion from the social norm of discrimination. But once war is started, no people, minority or otherwise, can demand exception or exclusion from the targeted population: humanity. 

Since there is some acceptance of a narrowed and specific view of hate crimes, it may be time to broaden the label to encompass and cover a more general sector of humanity: Everyone. 

What can be more hateful than bombing cities, destroying national infrastructures and transforming human beings into corpses, cripples and refugees? The ongoing atrocity in Iraq has seen the near total destruction of a nation and a people, unacknowledged as such by most political and media mind managers who line up in support of hate crime legislation. What if there were a movement to designate war as the most serious hate crime of all? In fact, rather than discriminate against special groups of people, warfare is an equal opportunity mass murderer, with alleged villains joining thousands of innocents in the slaughter. Can we be serious about protecting the rights of some people from being slandered in speech, when we do nothing to safeguard life itself for humans who have been falsely designated as enemies, or, more usually, are nonexistent in popular consciousness? 

If the average American were witness to the carnage that our foreign policy has created in Iraq, or what it supports in Palestine, the movement against such policies and war itself might be much stronger. But as long as we are manipulated into only seeing some hardship and discrimination while missing out on most, we can be swept up in righteous indignation at one form of injustice, while we support an even more criminal form that commits mass murders in our name. Designating a physical or language assault on another human being as a hate crime, but only in special cases in which response from society is based on segments of an offended group and not all members of the group, serves to strengthen and not change the system from which the discrimination and hate originates. We can make such laws forever, and possibly even help a relative handful of people in the process. But as long as we accept and even in false patriotism fiercely support the mass hatred for humanity that is the reality of war, our law making powers are inflicted on minorities, for other minorities, while majorities remain under the hateful control of powers that show no respect at all for human life. 

It makes little sense to claim that someone who hits you over the head with a bat because you are female, nonwhite, or gay commits a more serious crime than someone who hits you over the head with a bat to steal your wallet or purse. By creating new categories and sub categories of people and crimes, we simply add to the list of injustice and court case loads, while doing little or nothing about real discrimination which only rarely involves literally taking a stick upside someone’s head. 

Seemingly nonviolent discrimination administered in hiring, housing and health care , widespread in our society, is not seen as criminal. But when we practice large scale social murder, our unwillingness to treat it as criminal is puzzling. Maybe it’s because it hasn’t been suggested that war is the ultimate hate crime, and needs to be confronted and dealt with as such. Consider this such a suggestion . If the mass murder of war is not a hate crime, then there are no hate crimes. And the president of the United States is a brilliant humanist.  

Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in the Coastal Post, a monthly publication in Marin County, and on his shared blogsite at: http://legalienate.blogspot.com. 

Sooner or later, we will be taking care of a parent or a loved one who is aging. According to the National Family Caregivers Association, “More than 50 million people provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year.” Our State’s elderly population is expected to reach 12.5 million by 2040, an increase of 232 percent from 1990. Beginning in 2010, 1 in 5 Californians will be 60 years of age or older. As the average age of the population becomes older, the importance of a care giver becomes increasingly significant, both functionally and economically.  

At any moment, you could become a care giver which means you will have to make good decisions for your loved one; therefore, what to do next and where to go for help will be crucial. Undoubtedly, this will raise concerns about your responsibilities and what resources will be available to you. Many of us are so pre-occupied with our own financial and emotional security, thinking about and planning for our retirement years, that we are not thinking about a crisis situation with mom, dad, or an aging loved one.  

Do you know your aging loved one’s wishes? Knowing that an advanced health care directive allows individuals to appoint an agent who has power of attorney to make care and treatment decisions on their behalf will become very important. When is it time to consider moving them out of the home and when do you bring in specialized care? Knowing where to go for housing and in-home care resources is essential to the continued health and safety of your loved one.  

Most importantly, how will your aging loved one afford the appropriate care they need and are you and your siblings in a financial position to help? The answers to these questions are not always easy to find; while there are many government agencies and organizations to help you navigate through the challenges of these issues, rarely can you get all of this information in one place. 

Please join me and other County residents for a free community event, “Planning and Caring for Aging Loved Ones,” on Saturday, June 2, 2007 at the Malcolm X Elementary School in Berkeley from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. This event will offer you information essential to plan for issues related to legal responsibilities, housing, health and safety of aging adults. Alameda County’s Social Services Agency and the Area Agency on Aging will have resources at the event, along with the City of Berkeley. There will also be many community groups with invaluable resources that you can take home with you, so you can begin the planning process.  

For more information or to register for this free event, please call my office at 272-6695 or visit www.acgov.org/board/district5/event.htm. 

Keith Carson represents District 5 on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

In Berkeley, it’s difficult to travel more than a few blocks without seeing an “Impeach Bush” bumper sticker. And whenever I write a column about the 43rd president, I receive e-mails suggesting that the simplest solution to America’s problems is his impeachment. Nonetheless, I’d never taken the possibility of impeachment seriously until this week when I realized I’ve had enough: I want Dubya to go down. 

The movement to impeach George W. Bush started around Labor Day, in 2002, when it become clear that he was determined to invade Iraq. In March 2003, it gathered momentum when many Americans joined marches and silent vigils to protest what we considered to be an ill-considered and dangerous action. At that moment, Bush was enormously popular and many “blue” Americans felt we had lost our country: we couldn’t understand why so many of our fellow citizens supported Dubya; or why they voted to reelect him in 2004. In those dark days, the impeachment movement seemed to be the last refuge of die-hard liberals: a defiant stance that had little hope of success. 

Times changed: in 2006, Democrats took control of Congress and Bush’s popularity rating sank to Nixonian depths. Meanwhile, evidence of his malfeasance exploded. Suddenly even conservative Republicans were criticizing the President, calling for him to abandon his customary intractability and engage in real bipartisanship. 

As the impeachment movement grew stronger, I resisted its call for several reasons. While I’ve never doubted that there are strong legal grounds for Bush’s impeachment, I’ve been troubled by pragmatic considerations: if Dubya was removed from office, Dick Cheney would become president; impeachment proceedings would tie up the 110th Congress at a time when congressional energy needs to be focused on undoing Bush administration mistakes—such as ending the war in Iraq; and the impeachment process would further polarize a nation that has become far too adversarial and combative. When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that impeachment was “off the table,” I agreed: it’s one thing to be right and quite another thing to be effective, I thought. 

My thinking changed after I read George Packer’s magnificent commentary in the May 14 New Yorker. In “No Blame, No Shame.” Packer asks the key question: “Why has it become impossible to admit a mistake in Washington and accept the consequences?” I pondered the fact that “under the Bush administration no senior civilian official or military officer has been held responsible for what will probably turn out to be the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history.” Then, I had an epiphany: I understood the “why” Packer asks about. The reason why Bush never admits a mistake or accepts consequences is because he knows he can get away with it. He’s been raised in a system of privilege where there’s a special justice system. 

George Bush’s unwillingness to be held accountable reflects on more than his administration. It’s a symptom of a deeper malaise that infects American politics and, sadly, much of American society. It’s what I think of as the dual justice system. I first ran into this system many years ago when I was an idealistic probation officer in Orange County: courthouse habitués informed me that the defendants whose cases I handled were mostly from the lower and middle class, because there was a different system of justice for the rich and powerful—they didn’t go through the same process the commoners did. Whether their crime was petty theft or murder, the rich received different treatment than they would if they were poor or persons of color. 

There are two systems of justice in the United States: one for the rich and powerful and a far different system for everyone else. Rob a bank and you go to prison; loot a savings and loan as an executive and you’re likely to get a hefty fine, if that. We read every day about corporate executives who mismanaged their firms, caused the layoffs of thousands of poorly paid workers, and then danced away with millions of dollars of severance pay. Look at what happened to the architects of the disaster in Iraq: Bremer, Franks, and Tenet got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Rice and Wolfowitz got promoted, as did the invasion supporters in the Pentagon. There was no accountability; they got away with it. So far. 

That’s why the impeachment of George W. Bush would send an important signal to other elected officials, and the power elite. It would be an indication that the American people are tired of Washington business as usual and serious about holding our leaders accountable for their actions. I’m not suggesting that the focus be exclusively on Bush, because I think his whole crew—Cheney, Gonzales, Rice, and Rumsfeld, among others—should go down, too. However, the logical place to start is with the guy at the top: the decider-in-chief. 

Bob Dylan once sang “even the President of the United States sometimes has to stand naked.” This is the time for the trappings of power to be stripped from Bush. He needs to stand naked before the law and take full responsibility for the failures of his administration. Impeach Dubya. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net 

Two weeks ago I wrote a column in which I described my adventures at Fairyland with a hyperactive kindergartener. I mentioned tagging along with him as he climbed up and over the Pirate Ship. I explained that I pursued him as he rushed from Hey Diddle Diddle to the Crooked House, past the Three Little Pigs and Little Miss Muffet on his way to the Jolly Trolly, Pinocchio’s Castle, and the Owl and the Pussycat. I reluctantly followed him down Alice’s Rabbit Hole. I stated that I popped up safely within the Maze of Cards.  

Full confession: I was exaggerating when I said it was a safe emergence. 

Soon after visiting Fairyland I was assigned a full-time substitute position in a school near my home. I accepted the seven-week gig for several reasons: after eight months of widowhood I wanted more structure in my life; I could ride my bike to and from the workplace; I desperately needed the extra income. 

How hard could it be, I asked myself as I prepared for my first full week in a primary grade classroom after a mere 23-year absence. After all, I am the retired teacher who is still friends with some of her former students. I’ve watched them grow from enthusiastic, well-behaved fourth-graders to mature, responsible adults: lawyers, doctors, performance artists, mothers and fathers. As far as I know only one of my past prodigies has received a long-term jail sentence: 50 years in a Virginia state prison for a truly heinous crime. He’ll be out in 2034.  

What I should have asked myself is why. Why, at the age of 55, do I think I have the energy to enter a small, cramped room and teach anybody anything? Why didn’t I stop to think about the reasons a new teacher might be needed just weeks before the end of the school year? I knew that the person I was replacing was not sick. He didn’t have family obligations, or a pressing emergency. I should have considered the clues before plunging into this mysterious, unknown hole. 

Monday, 8 a.m. I found myself surrounded by several overwhelmed administrators, a cluster of anxious parents, and 24 wise and world-weary 6-year-olds. I could see them sizing me up while the adults fussed and fidgeted. I believe my soon-to-be constant companions were making bets on just how long I would last.  

Gradually the room emptied of all adults except me. There was a moment of absolute silence as the classroom door finally closed, and then the room erupted with an explosion of uncontrolled activity and noise. George Bush should have skipped over Iraq and looked for Weapons of Mass Destruction in the toy box near the Quiet Corner. Dangerous items lurked everywhere: large cardboard blocks lined a low hanging shelf, a bucket full of sharp, chewed-upon miniature dinosaurs waited patiently for someone to throw them, nine naked Barbie Dolls loitered in a wicker basket under a pile of raggedy dress-up clothes.  

Eventually I got the kids settled into their seats. I read a story to them—something about meatballs raining down on a city, orange juice flooding the streets, strawberry jam clogging the freeways. We worked on a language arts project and a few simple mathematical equations. Then it was time for recess.  

While the kids tumbled onto the playground, I staggered to the teachers’ lounge. I locked myself in the tiny bathroom and leaned against the sink. I examined myself in the mirror. I had aged considerably in the past hour. I looked at my watch. Ten more minutes until free time ended. I needed to get back into the classroom before I turned into a pumpkin.  

Oops. Wrong nursery rhyme.  

I took a deep breath, unlatched the bathroom door, and headed down the empty hallway. I needed to be adventurous and brave. I needed to be strong and determined. I needed to transform myself into Alice. Fast.

Cal Day at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) is a reliable venue for stories. Last year it was a conversation with a maybe eight-year-old naturalist about gopher snakes at the Berkeley Marina. This year I wound up talking to a young woman who was presiding over a tabletop display of dead bats. One in particularly caught my eye, a larger-than-average bat with a striking two-tone wing pattern: a hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus). 

(That snickering in the back row will stop immediately. “Hoary” is a respectable Old English word connoting frost. In addition to the hoary bat, the hoary redpoll and the hoary marmot are members in good standing of North America’s fauna. So just cut that right out). 

What the Cal student told me was that hoary bats, unlike many of their kin, roost in trees and shrubs, and that UC’s grounds maintenance crew used to bring them to the MVZ a lot (whether dead or alive was not clear). I was intrigued enough to ask a friend who had recently retired as the university’s lead groundskeeper about bats in trees. He remembered dealing with Mexican free-tailed bats in the crevices of buildings, including the women’s faculty club, but not the larger hoarys. 

Still wondering what kind of shape those bats were in, I followed up with Patricia Winters, Education and Rehabilitation Director of the California Bat Conservation Fund, whose “BATMAM” license plate you may have noticed. I thought I recalled her talking about scrub-jay predation on tree-dwelling bats a few years ago, and she confirmed that it was frequent. Crows do it too.  

“They often come into our rehab centers with various injuries,” Winters said via email. “I presently have three hoary bats in captivity who were too badly injured to ever regain the ability to fly. They are fierce fighters when they first come in, but quickly learn to realize that we are not going to hurt them, and calm down. I have had one hoary female for eight years now. She was a marvelous school bat, going to hundreds of presentations with me, but she is now retired due to her old age. The other two hoarys, both female, are now getting ready to take her place.” 

Winters was kind enough to provide the accompanying photograph of the late Punkinhead, a male hoary bat who was in the rehab program for several years. How can you not love that face? As cuddly as they may appear, it’s not a good idea to pet them, should the opportunity arise. “Do not reach out and attempt to touch them,” Winters warns. “They will never attack people, but they will defend themselves and can give a nasty bite if they are handled.” Hoary bats will typically warn against such familiarities with what one book calls “a most startling rattling hiss accompanied by an impressive show of teeth.” 

Active late in the evening, hoarys have a strong direct flight. Their food habits are not well documented; in addition to the expected insects, one was observed attacking a western pipistrelle, a smaller species of bat. Unlike the high-pitched echolocation calls of most other bats, their in-flight chatter is audible to the human ear. 

These mostly solitary bats have a huge range, from the Canadian tree line into South America. Males and females seem to follow different northbound routes through California in spring, females in the lowlands and coastal valleys, males in the foothills and mountains. The sexes have been found together during fall migration, and may travel in small flocks. Up to 21 have been counted at the same time on South Farallon Island. 

But they haven’t stopped there. Humans aside, the hoary bat is the only land mammal to reach the Hawai’ian islands on its own. Island bats, known as ope’ape’a, have been classified as a separate subspecies and their fur is a bit redder, but otherwise they’re pretty much standard hoary bats. 

Which makes you think about the vagaries of evolution. Millions of years ago, the seed of a California tarweed reached Hawai’i probably clinging to the feathers of a migratory bird; its progeny include the bizarre yuccalike silversword plants of Haleakala Crater. An ancestor got out there some 3.5 million years ago and gave rise to a whole slew of red, yellow, and black songbirds with a dazzling array of bill shapes and functions: seed-crushers, tweezers, picks and probes. Some, like the beak of the extinct Lana’i hookbill, still have scientists scratching their heads. 

As recent work with the Darwin’s finches of the Galapagos Islands suggests, it could be that it’s somehow easier to rewire the developmental pathways that make a beak than for other body parts. Or the Hawai’ian bats may simply not have been there long enough for their own evolutionary radiation; the oldest known fossils are less than 100,000 years old. Time and chance, like the man said. 

Photograph by Patricia Winters, California Bat Conservation Fund: Punkinhead, a rehabilitated hoary bat. 

The current brouhaha over a U.S. plan to deploy anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) in Poland has nothing to do with a fear that Iran will attack Europe or the United States with nuclear tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), but a great deal to do with the Bush Administration’s efforts to neutralize Russia’s and China’s nuclear deterrents and edge both countries out of Central Asia. 

The plan calls for deploying 10 ABMs in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic, supposedly to interdict missiles from “rogue states”—read North Korean and Iran.  

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security John Rood claims “North Korea possesses an ICBM range missile,” and it is “certainly possible” that Pyongyang could sell some to Iran. Barring that, Tehran could build its own missile capable of striking Europe and the United States. 

But the North Korean Taepodong-2, which failed a recent test, is not a true ICBM—in a pinch it might reach Alaska. And Iran pledged in 2003 not to upgrade its intermediate missile, the Shihab-3. 

“Since there aren’t, and won’t be, any ICBMs [from North Korea and Iran], then against whom, against whom, is this system directed?” First Deputy Prime Minister Sergi Ivanov said to the Financial Times, “Only against us.” 

The chief of the Russian General Staff added, “The real goal [of the U.S. deployment] is to protect [the United States] from Russian and Chinese nuclear-missile potential and to create exclusive conditions for the invulnerability of the United States.” 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded that “The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet [sic] strategic return is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it.”  

But once you start adding up a number of other things, it isn’t just 10 missiles and a radar site. There is already a similar site in Norway, and the plan is to put similar systems in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Britain is considering deploying ABM missiles at Fylingdales, which even the United States admits would pose a threat to Russian missiles. 

“If the [Russians] are concerned about the United States targeting their intercontinental ballistic missiles, I think that would be problematic from the UK because I believe we probably could catch them from a UK launch site,” says Lieutenant General Trey Obering, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. 

An editorial in the Guardian called the Fylingdales plan “the far side of folly.” The Russians are also suspicious that the Polish missiles are the camel’s nose under the tent. 

Poland has made it clear that it doesn’t feel threatened by Iran. For Warsaw, this is all about its traditional enemy to the East, Russia. Besides the ABM missiles, Poland is pressing Washington for Patriot missiles and high altitude THAAD missiles, plus it is purchasing American F-16s. In response, the Russians have moved surface-to-air missiles into Belarus. 

“It would be naïve to think that Washington would limit its appetite to Poland or the Czech Republic, or the modest potential that it is now talking about,” writes Victor Litovkin of Russia’s Independent Military Review.  

All these systems will be tied into ABM systems in Alaska and California, plus similar planned systems in Japan, Australia and the Philippines (not to mention sea-borne ABM systems in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean).  

Keep in mind the Bush Administration unilaterally withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.  

Total all those things up, and toss in the recent decision by the Bush Administration to start designing another generation of nuclear warheads, and it is no wonder the Russians have turned cranky. 

The European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have—with reservations— gone along with the plan, in part because the EU would like to squeeze Russian control over gas and oil pipelines coming out of Central Asia. 

According to K.M. Bhadrakumar, the former Indian ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey, the United States has financed a pipeline that runs natural gas from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan through Turkey, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. The pipeline will be “a rival to Russian Gazprom’s Blue Stream-2,” scheduled to open in 2012. 

“Moscow is well aware that Washington is the driving spirit behind the EU’s energy policy toward Central Asia,” Bhadrakumar writes in the Asia Times, arguing that the U.S. “calculates that Moscow will be inexorably drawn into a standoff with the EU over the latter’s increasingly proactive polices in Eurasia.” 

While Rice may suggest that “everyone” thinks Russian paranoia is “ludicrous,” in fact the EU is split over the missiles, and unhappy that Washington bypassed NATO to make bilateral agreements with both countries.  

Neither the right-wing Polish government nor the center-right Czech governments dare put the issue up for a referendum. Sentiment in the Czech Republic is running 60-40 against the radar, and there is strong opposition to the missiles in Poland. 

The German Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in the current coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel, also oppose it. “We do not need new rockets in Europe,” says SPD chair Kurt Beck. “The SPD doesn’t want a new arms race between the United States and Russia on European soil. We have enough problems in the world.” 

Former French President Jacques Chirac also warned, “We should be very careful about encouraging the creation of a new dividing lines in Europe or a return to the old order.” 

The Russians have threatened to withdraw from the European Conventional Forces Treaty, and have even hinted they might reconsider their participation in the 1987 Intermediate Ballistic Missile Treaty. Russia is also making plans to quadruple its production of new ballistic missiles and add to its nuclear submarine fleet. 

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute researcher Shannon Kile says the Russians view the deployment “as a violation of the original NATO enlargement agreement,” where the United States pledged it would not permanently deploy or station “military assets on the territories of former Warsaw pact countries.” 

Last month, the White House urged admitting Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia and the Ukraine to NATO.  

Implicit in Rice’s “ludicrous” comment is that an ABM system would be incapable of stopping a full-scale nuclear attack by a major nuclear power, and critics point out that the system has a dismal track record. Kile characterized the proposed ABM as “A system that won’t work to fight a threat that does not exist.” 

But it doesn’t have to work very well. ABM systems have a dark secret: They are not supposed to stop all-out missile attacks, just mop up the few retaliatory enemy missiles that manage to survive a first strike. First strikes—called “counterpoint” attacks in bloodless vocabulary of nuclear war—are a central component in U.S. nuclear doctrine.  

Last week the Democrats blocked funds for the European ABM system. Robert Wexler (D-Florida), chair of the House subcommittee on Europe, said, “Europeans also question why—if this program is really intended to protect Europe—did the administration choose to bilaterally negotiate with Poland and the Czech Republic rather than collectively decide this issue in NATO?” 

But whether the Democrats will stand up to the White House is anyone’s guess. 

If you are sitting in Moscow or Beijing and adding up the ABMs, the new warheads, and the growing ring of bases on your borders, you have little choice but to react. Imagine the U.S. response if the Russians and the Chinese were to deploy similar systems in Canada, Mexico and Cuba. 

A nuclear arms race, an increase of tension in Europe, and the launching of a new Cold War: That is what is at stake in the European missile crisis.

How should East Bay progressives handle criticism of Mayor Ron Dellums and his administration, their own criticism, and that of others? It’s a complicated question without a quick and easy answer. 

Mr. Dellums won last summer’s election handily over two solid opponents—veteran city councilmembers, both—and it would appear that the new mayor has done little in the ensuing 11 months that would indicate a lessening of his popularity with the people who voted for him. Certainly, that would be indicated by the favorable reception he received at the recent Sixth District Town Hall meeting at Frick Middle School. The new mayor has made no major missteps—either in public statements or in policy direction—and, so far as I can tell, he has not, in the four months since he took office, been accused by any responsible observer of breaking any of the promises he made to Oakland voters in the campaign. 

Still, Mr. Dellums has not been afforded the “honeymoon” period new officeholders are generally allowed to get their feet wet and to establish the direction of their new positions. 

Some of this early criticism has come from a few of my colleagues in the media. 

Most recently, for example, we have San Francisco Chronicle political columnists Phil Matier and Andrew Ross combing through Mr. Dellums’ newly released 500 page, two year proposed budget to discover that, according to the columnists, “Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is thinking big—a big $1 million-plus increase in his own office budget next year. Dellums is asking the City Council to give him seven new or redefined staff positions, including a $130,000 chief of staff, two $100,000-plus senior deputies and both a full-time bodyguard and a driver.” All in all, Mr. Matier and Mr. Ross report, this is a seven-staff increase from the 17 staff members under former Mayor Jerry Brown. “Dellums’ budget director, Dan Lindheim,” the column explains, “said about half the requested increase would be covered by redirecting money that Brown had steered toward the School for the Arts, one of his pet projects.” 

I can’t read Mr. Matier and Mr. Ross’ minds, but the column seems designed specifically to leave the impression that rather than crafting a budget to build Oakland into a “model city,” as promised in last year’s election, Mr. Dellums is instead building an entourage that would seem more appropriate for a fashion model. Long after the 500-page budget is combed through and studied and analyzed for its strengths and weaknesses and insight into Mr. Dellums’ policy directions, it will be the Matier & Ross column that will be remembered. 

If that’s the column’s purpose, it has already had its desired effect. 

Larry Livermore, a blogger who often writes about East Bay political affairs from his current Brooklyn, New York home, writes in his most recent post [http://larrylivermore.blogspot.com/2007/05/dellums-takes-charge.html]: “Doddering Ron Dinkins, er, I mean Dellums, is off to a blinding start when it comes to attacking Oakland’s myriad problems. After a couple months-long disappearing act, he’s now surfaced with a million-dollar makeover on what he apparently considers the most crucial of them: his office. Oh yeah, plus a pay raise for himself and a new driver and bodyguard to accompany him through the streets of his fair city. Oh, and where’s he coming up with the money in that perennially broke city? Half of it’s being lopped off the budget of one of the new schools launched during Jerry Brown’s tenure. Let’s see: educating children or pay raise and chauffeured limo for the mayor, which is more important? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

Mr. Dellums’ supposed “disappearing act” for the first three months of his administration has gotten to be a general theme among some critics, by the way, with a local blogger posting at Common Sense Oakland [http://urbandreems.blogspot.com/] that “the same benighted constituencies that pushed his candidacy … is making a concerted effort to ignore the fact that St. Ron is ignoring his job and basically drawing an increased check for sitting around is hardly surprising.” 

And on a Berkeley neighborhood e-mail forum, one resident posted, in response to the Matier & Ross column, “What I think should be focused on is WHY Mayor Dellums is acting like he’s back in Washington D.C.? Oakland does not have the coffers, the lobbyists or the structure to support requests such as private drivers and full-time bodyguards. Although I didn’t agree with Mayor Brown’s choices, at least he never requested those private services. Hell, all of us drive, why can’t Dellums learn or pay for a driver out of his private pension?” 

Some of the insinuations in the Matier & Ross column are easily refuted, but only if you have a detailed knowledge of Oakland in the Jerry Brown years. 

The money Mr. Brown allocated for the highly-subsidized Oakland School For The Arts was not a part of Oakland’s regular, departmental, line-item budget, but was part of the mayor’s discretionary funds, which was his right to funnel to any (legal) area of his choosing. To that end, Mr. Brown spent more than a million dollars for renovations to the Malonga Casquelord Center (formerly the Alice Arts Center) in order to make it the arts school’s first home, and God knows how much more was spent by the city through the mayor’s office to relocate the arts school to the still-being-renovated Fox Theater. The point is that the mayoral discretionary funds being allocated by Mr. Dellums are not being “redirected” from the Oakland School For The Arts since each mayor, coming in, has the authority to use that money for her or his own projects and purposes. That’s why they call it discretionary. 

Because Brown staff members destroyed many, if not most, of the Brown Administration records in its last days, we may never know exactly how many staff members Mr. Brown actually had at his disposal. Matier & Ross noted that according to Dellums Budget Director Dan Lindheim, Mr. Brown funded “a couple of” staff members from other departments, so that they did not show up in the mayor’s budget during his years. We have no idea whether that “couple of” staff members included such people as Deputy City Manager Simón Bryce, who at one point while still on the city manager’s staff, moved his offices out to the Oakland Army Base to act in an administrative capacity for one of Mr. Brown’s other charter school projects, the Oakland Military Institute. And that doesn’t take into account the many hours the City Manager’s staff—including former City Manager Robert Bobb himself—put into Mr. Brown’s charter school initiatives when they had other city business they should have been working on. 

Meanwhile, the early blanket criticisms of Mr. Dellums put local progressives in a difficult position. 

Except for those who stayed with Oakland Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who has her own longtime progressive credentials, Oakland progressives generally supported Mr. Dellums in last year’s election. They did so not simply out of loyalty to a man who was a national progressive icon for many years, but because they have long-term issues and interests that they wanted the mayor’s office to address and solve. And many progressives are now lobbying fiercely for those interests in areas where they don’t think the new mayor has moved swiftly or forcefully enough. 

One of those areas is State Senator Gloria Romero’s SB 1019 legislation that would overturn the recent California Supreme Court “Copley” ruling that closed most police misconduct hearings and records to the public. Some progressive groups would like to see Mr. Dellums put his considerable political weight, progressive credentials, and prestige to bear in publicly lobbying for SB 1019. 

Conversely, some progressives were disturbed to learn that a city-contracted legislative lobbyist, Jennifer Thompson of Towsend Public Affairs, spoke for the Dellums Administration earlier this spring before the State Senate Public Safety Committee in support of State Senate President Don Perata’s SB 67 sideshow car confiscation bill, which would renew the recently-expired law. They think the original law has been misused by Oakland police, and want Mr. Dellums to speak out against it, or at least withdraw his support. 

Mr. Dellums has also come under some early criticism from progressives on the economic front. Former Oakland City Councilmember Wilson Riles—who lost to Mr. Brown for Oakland Mayor when Mr. Brown ran for re-election in 2002—is concerned that Mr. Dellums’ economic task force recommendations were turned over to the Oakland Chamber of Commerce “before they were finished” and “before they were merged into a coherent plan and before there was sufficient indication of agreement from the Mayor on the individual recommendations or priority order of implementation.” 

As far as I know, none of these Oakland progressives have come out publicly with statements specifically criticizing Mr. Dellums himself, and these progressive criticisms don’t constitute a “break” with the Dellums Administration, if by that term we mean that progressives no longer support Mr. Dellums, or are in danger withdrawing their support at anytime soon. The jockeying and criticisms are part of the normal give-and-take of political advocacy, a sign of a healthy adult political dialogue in a community long known for its strong advocacy of various political positions. 

And East Bay progressives are mindful of the toxic, relentless attacks on the presidential administration of Bill Clinton—from the health care bill onward—that blunted or still-birthed Mr. Clinton’s most progressive initiatives, and eventually helped lead to the conservative, Republican takeover of Congress. There is some concern that a drumbeat of blanket criticism and attacks on the Dellums Administration might do something similar in Oakland. 

But if progressives—to counter those blanket attacks—begin a campaign of speaking and letter-writing specifically to throw support to Mr. Dellums, as well as holding off on “excess” public criticisms of their own that might add to the general clamor, there is also some concern that some of the issues progressives most care about may get unduly delayed, or completely lost in the shuffle. 

It’s not an insoluble problem, by any means. But look for area progressives to try to find creative and responsible ways to work out of the dilemma in coming weeks, trying to split the difference between focused criticism and reasoned support. 

Ploughshares Nursery is a unique operation. Located off Main Street on the former Alameda Naval Air Station, across from the Rosenblum Winery and the ferry terminal, it’s owned by the Alameda Point Collaborative. The Collaborative describes itself as a “supportive housing community,” with 500 formerly homeless people—veterans, domestic violence survivors, children and adults with disabilities—living in converted Navy housing. It offers counseling, life skills coaching, and job training, through the nursery and otherwise. Proceeds from the plants you buy at Ploughshares go to the Collaborative. 

Good plants, too. With its mix of edibles and California natives, this is a nursery after my own heart. Andrea, the propagator who showed us around last week, joked about specializing in edible natives plants—a niche just waiting to be filled. 

Ploughshares has a couple of neighbors on its four-acre growing site: Kassenhoff, which sells organic heirloom tomato starts at a couple of Oakland farmers’ markets, and Oaktown Natives, which grows plants for restoration projects. Although they don’t do direct retail sales, you can find a selection of Kassenhoff tomatoes at Ploughshares: the likes of Omar’s Lebanese, Black from Tula, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Momotaro. 

Among other edibles, there’s Four Winds Citrus (improved Meyer lemon, bai makrut), guava, tree collards, red Russian kale, several kinds of raspberry. Andrea says the Chinese spinach isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it is edible. 

“We have weird natives other people don’t have,” she adds. I don’t know about weird, but the variety is impressive. Fremontodendron ‘Ken Taylor’ looks like a spreading variety; blue-eyed grass ‘California Skies’, short and stout, complements another Sisyrhynchum with a tall, slender growth habit. Ploughshares has native trees (coast live oak, buckeye, madrone, holly-leaf cherry, red-twig dogwood, tree poppy), shrubs (toyon, ceanothus, manzanita, coyote brush), ground covers (wild ginger), bulbs (wild onion, Ithuriels’ spear)—a little of everything. The nursery’s web site includes a partial plant list.  

The nursery still bears the fingerprints of its first manager, Christopher Shein, who now runs the permaculture program at Merritt College. You enter through a wide bamboo arch, and the shade house, something between a palapa and a Marsh Arab mudhif, is thatched with palm leaves, some donated by a local church after Palm Sunday. There’s a stump-and-haybale amphitheatre where classes have been held in the past, although none are currently scheduled. Many of the plants are organically grown and/or certified Bay Friendly. 

This place is well worth a trip through the Posey Tube (“Dark Tunnel,” the sign on the Oakland side warns). Keep an eye out for the family of hooded orioles that frequent the nursery’s salvia beds. And consider a lunch stop on nearby Webster Street. Although the somewhat unsettling Ribs n’ Things is long gone, Tillie’s is still dishing up classic diner fare, and you can try an antipodean meat pie at the New Zealander. 

Ploughshares Nursery 

2701 Main Street, Alameda,  

Open Wed.-Sun. 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. www.ploughsharesnursery.com 

898-7811. 

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. 

There are few things in life as embarrassing as having to ask your hostess what’s in the casserole. I know. I’ve been doing this for the last 15 years or so since having finally figured out after many distressing years that I’m not good friends with bovine products. 

Not meat, mind you. I do fine with beef, although, like most of us, I’ve pushed that plate pretty far away in favor of tofu and fish. No, it’s the other wonderful things that cows will gladly give us in return for their lives: Cheese, milk, cream, ice cream and sadly, butter. It’s not really as bad as it sounds. I’ve gotten used to it and the downside for me personally was so distressing that I need only remind myself of the late night wheezing or stomach ache to happily eschew the Cheese Board pizza.  

Of course, there is that issue of the dinner party at Ben and Lisa’s where I actually have to ask if butter is used in the casserole. I just hate it. So when I talk with mold sensitive clients, and this IS something that comes up with some regularity, I have more than a little empathy for those who cannot live with what others take for granted. 

You see, that’s the funny thing about mold, mildew and other fungi. They’re all around us, on everyone’s menu but some folks have a very hard time with them. My own dairy sensitivity is nothing compared with, for example a serious peanut allergy. Some folks can’t eat food that was prepared using the same machine that grinds up peanuts and will go into shock over the tiniest exposures. 

This is also true with molds and mildews. While most people can eat cheeses cultured with mold (funny you should ask), tempeh and the other moldy foods we eat, a few sorry souls are exempt and must eschew, not chew. 

So when we talk about mold in buildings, it’s the same. Molds and their neighbors (members of the fungus family) are common to our environment and, in typical settings, are not significantly pathogenic (unless your immune system is compromised, in which case many common molds can become a serious threat). 

The one thing that almost all molds have in common is their need for moisture, although many need other conditions (like still air) to propagate successfully. So, the first thing that I start thinking about, when I’m confronted with a mold or mildew problem, is where the wet is coming from? If you do, as I do, you begin by opening a toolbox of investigative and amelioratory tools. 

Let me give you that toolbox (or at least a beginner’s set) so that you can go boldy where no aspergillus has gone before. 

Since we know that most molds require fairly high levels of humidity to grow, our first tool is a simple examination of the external shell of the building. If there are physical signs of growth in one particular place and not in others, we have a big clue. Later we’ll discuss broadcast effects. 

If I have one closet or one bedroom where there is growth and it’s all localized along one wall, I’d start by examining the walls and adjacent surfaces. A closet is more likely to be a problem because of still air, which spore-producing critters prefer. When they get blown about, they have difficulty propagating. The simple act of opening a closet can lessen the growth of a mold colony. 

I will want to make sure that there is no leakage into the interior of walls or into the living space from the outside so a good set of eyes working slowly across the roof and exterior is the first major tool to use when it’s clear that the growth is discreet or localized. If you take your time, this can be quite effective. 

Keep in mind that water can enter through a fissure one-8000th of an inch (or so I’ve been told), so it’s critical that all junctions on the exterior of the house be sealed or configured to shed water outward. On the inside, signs of moisture aren’t hard to detect, although a moisture meter can be quite handy. 

If you don’t have a clear sign of leakage from roof or wall, and growth is randomly noted, it’s possible that you’re dealing with elevated moisture levels due to ground moisture. Moisture travels from cold to warm because warm air will hold more moisture than cold air (counterintuitive, I know) so this is why moisture will travel up out of the soil or damp basement to the upper areas of the house or the outside walls. 

Area which have elevated humidity or actual dampness on surfaces will tend to grow bushes, grass, corn or maybe just mold. Mold spores are all around floating in the atmosphere and they need only find a damp environment to begin having large families. 

The second set of tricks or tools relates to this condition. If we have a good idea that the moisture started in a soil-surfaced crawlspace (as opposed to a basement), the first and cheapest thing to do is to cover the soil with plastic. A “vapor barrier” does not need to be sealed at the edges or taped together, although these things certainly can’t hurt. 

Steve Quarles, of U.C. Berkeley, has shown us in his research that moisture levels in crawlspaces are driven down very effectively by nothing more than laying plastic on the ground. So, this being the case, it’s the first thing I’d do if I believe that this was happening.  

The other thing that can be done if damp soil is the source of moisture is to increase ventilation in a crawlspace so that air can naturally dry out the soil through increases evaporation. 

Breaking the barrier between the crawlspace and the exterior allows the two spaces to reach equilibrium and it’s often a lot wetter under your house than it is outside where the sun and breeze are drying things out. 

If you’re not sure if the inside of your house is damp, a great tool to acquire is a hygrometer. Cigar stores carry these and they’re pretty cheap to buy. I see them on eBay for 10-20 bucks all the time. If you put this up in your living space and study it over a course of days, you’ll be able to get a sense of how damp you’re home is. A moisture level of 40-60 percent is very nice but a moisture level of 90 percent is probably going to lead to all night fungus parties at your place. 

A tool that is both diagnostic as well as amelioratory is a dehumidifier. You can set one of these in a room and within a day or two figure out if the room was really damp. If the unit is collecting buckets and buckets of water and never shuts down (they have adjustable “humidistatic” controls), it means that there a lot of water in the space and you’ll probably want to start taking other measure.  

Nonetheless, leaving one hooked up and hosed to the outside, can actually fix a damp space, although I’d never choose that as my final solution. I’m too cheap to want to pay the electric bill and dehumidifiers cost money to run. 

If you’ve got major wetness in the subfloor area (i.e. boat ramp, fishing pier) you may want to install a subsurface drainage system. This can help to dry things out but costs a lot of money and is never my first solution. That said, there are houses for which this IS the solution. Even then, some will need additional ventilation, vapor barriers and other tactics. 

So this is the short course and not, by any means a complete assessment of what makes mold grow but, seriously, these few tactics can help I.D. or lessen the ill effects of damp wood and plaster in many homes. 

If you’re someone who’s clearly getting sick, don’t mess around. If you can’t make things better in very short order, just get out. There’s always another place to bed down and being sick isn’t worth staying at Buckingham Palace. I’m lucky. Like most people, I can live with a little damp and a little mold but when it comes to lunch, I’ll take the sushi and leave the pizza for someone else. 

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

TUESDAY, MAY 15 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Opal Palmer Adisa and Karla Brundage at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476.  

Kaya Oakes and Jeff T. Johnson, poets, read at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Rafaela Castro reads from “Provocaciones: Letters from the Prettiest Girl in Arvin” at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. 

Cheri Huber reads from “Making a Change for Good” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Barbara Kingsolver reads from her first non-fiction narrative “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $15-$20. For reservations call 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

OOGOG plays at the Berkeley Arts Festival at 8 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Tri Tip Trio, cajun, zydeco, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Philips Marine Duo at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16 

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival “Al Otro Lado-To The Other Side” at 7 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6555. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chris Finan describes “From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 528-3254. 

Lama Surya Das describes “Buddha Is As Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Spoken Word: Park Day School Student Writers at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Café Poetry hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

Cheri Huber reads from her new books on Zen and dialy life at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Whiskey Brothers at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

Jazzalicious at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

HeadRush’s, The Thow Down, and Shanique Scott’s Prisons, hip hop, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568.  

Groundation, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$18. 525-5054. 

Orquestra America at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Matt Morrish & Trinket Lover at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Chris Webster at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Tie One Ons at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

THURSDAY, MAY 17 

THEATER 

Eastenders Repertory Company “Fear and Misery of the Third Reich” by Bertolt Brecht at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $20. 

FILM 

“Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible” by Dr. Shakti Butler, at 6:30 p.m. followed by discussion at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 116 Montecito Ave., Oakland. 285-9600. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Julie Carr and Jessica Fisher at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. www.poetryflash.org 

Ann Jauregui describes “Epiphanies: Where Science and Miracles Meet” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Tina Barseghian introduces “Get a Hobby! 101 All-Consuming Diversions for Any Lifestyle” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony “Porgy and Bess” Preview performance at 7 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $25. 625-8497. 

Aphrodesia, Antioquia at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellis Paul at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Elaine Lucia & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $17. 841-JAZZ.  

Travis Jones and Chojo Jacques at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Sorrowtown Choir, Matthew Grimm & the Red Smear at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $TBA. 841-2082  

Box O Bananas at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Bunson, Panic Button, Go Kart Mozart at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. 

FRIDAY, MAY 18 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “The Last Five Years” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through June 10. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Private Jokes, Public Places” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through May 20. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. 

Berkeley Rep “Blue Door” at 8 p.m. at 2025 Addison St., through May 20. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org  

Berkeley Rep “Oliver Twist” at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. through June 24. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org  

Impact Theatre “Measure for Measure” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through May 26. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Just Theater, “I Have Loved Strangers” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., to May 26. Tickets are $12-$25. 421-1458.  

Shotgun Players “The Cryptogram” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through June 17. Tickets are $17-$25. For reservations call 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

“The Striders Club” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Malonga Casquelourd Arts Center, 1421 Alice St., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$11. 450-0891. 

Subterranean Shakespeare “Macbeth” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., near Rose in Live Oak Park, to May 26. Tickets are $12-$17. 276-3871. 

TheatreFIRST “Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theatre, 481 Ninth St., Oakland. Tickets are $18-$25. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

fer•ma•ta UCB Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way and runs through June 10. 642-0808. 

Richmond Art Center Spring Reception for all exhibitions at 6 p.m. at 2540 Barret Ave., Richmond. 620-6772. 

“Significant Others” Art from LGBTQ Communities. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery, 5741 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 601-4040, ext. 111. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Representa! Bilingual spoken word and poetry with Paul Flores and Julio Cardenas at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

Comics Out Loud! with cartoonists Julia Wertz, Shannon O’Leary, Justin Hall, Geoff Vasile and many others at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

State of the Arts 2 Conference sponsored by UC Institute for Research in the Arts with Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Lectures on the current role and future of the arts in California and beyond, Sat. and Sun. at BAM/PFA. 2626 Bancroft Way. For complete schedule see www.ucira.ucsb.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater Spring Performances, including “Cinderella” at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $21. 843-4689. 

Oakland East Bay Symphony “Porgy and Bess” at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $20-$67. 625-8497. 

Women’s Antique Vocal Ensemble “Transitions: Spanish Influence in the New World” at 8 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave. Tickets are $5-$15. www.wavewomen.org 

Volti “the San Francisco Experience” with the Piedmont Children’s Choirs at 8 p.m. at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $8-$20. 415-771-3352. www.voltisf.org 

Bay Area Classical Harmonies “The Passion of St. John” at 7 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Church, 2005 Berryman St. Tickets are $12-$25. 868-0695. www.bayareabach.org 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra “Crossroads: Music from the African Diaspora” at 8 p.m., pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m., at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Free. 415-248-1640. www.sfchamberorchestra.org 

Jazz City Singers Spring Concert at 8:30 p.m. at Rockridge Methodist Church, 303 Hudson St., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$7. 658-7136.  

Nanette McGuiness, soprano, and flutist Marha Stoddard, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $12-$15. 848-1228. 

Jerry Kuderna Piano “From Bach to Babbitt” at 1 p.m. at 2323 Shattuck Ave. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

“Dance Elixir” with Leyya Tawil and Zari Le’on Fri. and Sat. at 8:30 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St., Oakland. Tickets are $20. 435-6413. 

SFJazz All-Star High School Ensemble at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Hurricane Sam & the Hotshots at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Gypsy Dances from the Romani Trail, belly dance performance at 8 p.m., Diiin at 10 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Rajeev Taranath on sarod with Abhiman Kaushal on tabla at 8 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2118 Allston Way. Tickets are $18-$25. 517-8952. nssensalo@gmail.com 

Ron Thompson, blues, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Solo Bass Night with Michael Manring, Jean Baudin, Jeff Schmidt and Dave Grossman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Avatara and The Wicker Men at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Workingman’s Ed with guest Joe Rut at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

California Love, Drain the Sky at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

The P-PL at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Ashkon, Bumbalo, Richie Cunning at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Socket, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Resistoleros, New Faith, One Word Solution at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

SATURDAY, MAY 19 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley Art Center 40th Birthday from 1 to 4 p.m. with guest speakers, concert, children’s activities and art exhibition, at 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893. 

“Jazz Icons” photography by Carl Lewis at the Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St.  

ACCI Gallery 50th Anniversary Celebration with music by Red Wings and an exhibition honoring ACCI alumni Tim Baskerville, Elizabeth Kavaler, Bob Stocksdale and Catherine Webb, at 6 p.m. at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527.  

THEATER 

Eastenders Repertory Company “Fear and Misery of the Third Reich” by Bertolt Brecht at 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $20. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Representa! Bilingual spoken word and poetry with Paul Flores and Julio Cardenas at 2 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

The Great Night of Rumi with spoken word, music and dance at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

“Medieval Seminar: Music, Liturgy, and Architecture in Medieval England” with Professor William Mahr, Dept. of Music, Stanford Univ. from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at MusicSources, 1000 The Alameda. Cost is $15. 848-5591. 

“Stepping Away From the Stereotypes: Two Latina Authors Discuss Fact and Funny Fiction” with Marta Acosta, whose latest book is “Midnight Brunch at Casa Dracula” and Rose Castillo Guilbault, on her memoir “Farmworker’s Daughter” at 2 p.m. at the Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. 531-4275. 

Bay Area Storytelling Festival Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area, El Sobrante. Tickets are $33-$75. 869-4969. www.bayareastorytelling.org 

Jazz in Literature, Photography and Fine Art with readings by Al Young and Michael McClure at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra Concerto Concert at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $12-$15. 849-9776. www.ypsomusic.net 

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble “Songs of Heavenly and Earthly Love” at 4 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$20. 531-8714. www.vocisings.com 

Contra Costa Chorale with the Kensington Symphony Mozart’s “Coronation Mass” at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $12-$15, children free. 527-2026. 

Sacred and Profane “Summer on the Baltic Sea” Music from Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden at 8 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Church, 2220 Cedar St. Tickets are $12-$18. 524-3611. www.sacredprofane.org 

Kairos Youth Choir Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $8-$10. 704-4479. 

Ruth Botchan Dance Company and Shahrzad Dance Company “Bridging Jewish and Persian Cultures” at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St. Tickets are $10. 848-3988. 

Winds Across the Bay “Views From the Stage” at 2 p.m. at Hilltop Community Church, 3118 Shane Drive, Richmond, just across from Hilltop Mall. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 243-0514. info@WindsAcrossTheBay.org 

Jack L in a benefit for the Darfur Women’s Center at 7:30 p.m. at the Hills Swim and Tennis Club, 2400 Manzanita Dr., Oakland. Tickets are $85. 339-0234.  

Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus and the Freedom Song Network in a performance to Save the Oaks at 2 p.m. at Memorial Oak Grove, east side of UC Campus, off Gayley Rd. 649-1423. halih@yahoo.com  

Las Mujeres del Hip-Hop Cubano with Las Krudas, DJ Leidis, and Magyori La Lave at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Robin Gregory & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Native Elements, Lakay, Caribbean, Haitian, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Stephanie Crawford, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Wayward Monks at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Gil Stancourt & Friends at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Druid Sisters Tea Party at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

R’N’R Adventure Kids at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MAY 20 

CHILDREN 

Orange Sherbert with members of Hot Buttered Rum at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $5-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

“Summer Time at the Little Farm” A puppet show about life on the farm and the mishaps of a farmer, at 10:45 and 11:30 a.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Allison Smith “Notion Nanny” an exhibition exploring traditional art and craft-making from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Berkeley Art Museum Galleries, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Representa! Bilingual spoken word and poetry with Paul Flores and Julio Cardenas at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition Artsts’ Talks at 3 p.m. in the Berkeley Art Museum Galleries, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

UC Extension Writing Students read at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

11th Annual Jazz on Fourth Street from noon to 5 p.m. featuring the Marcus Shelby Quartet, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Group and the Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble.  

Laurel Ensemble in celebration of Berkeley Art Center’s 40th Anniversary, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $15-$20. 644-6893. 

Songs from Spain and Cuba with Elizabeth Caballero, soprano and Leesa Dahl, piano at 5 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Churhc, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. 845-6830. 

Oakland Public Conservatory of Music Student Recital at 7 p.m. at 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. 836-4649.  

Prometheus Symphony Orchestra at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. www.prometheussymphony.org 

Sacred & Profane “Summer on the Baltic Sea, Sounds of Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden” at 4 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Church, 2220 Cedar St. Tickets are $12-$18. 524-3611. www.sacredprofane.org 

Golden Gate Boys Choir and Bellringers at 2 p.m. at Calvary Christian Center, 1516 Grand Ave., Alameda. Suggested donation. 887-4311. www.ggbc.org 

“Jazz at the Chimes” featuring Shanna Carlson and Cathi Walkup at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. Tickets are $10, children under 12 free. 228-3218. 

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble “Songs of Heavenly and Earthly Love” at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $15-$20. 531-8714. www.vocisings.com 

Season of Praise Gospel Concert at 6 p.m. at St. Paul AME Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. Proceeds will help sponsor youth on a trip to a gospel convention in Phildelphia this summer. 848-2050. 

Spring Choirs Concert with Angel Choir and Joyful Noise Choir at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., corner of W. Richmond Ave., Point Richmond. Suggested donation $10. 236-0527. 

Concerto Festival with winners from the Concerto Competition at 4 p.m. at Valley Center Concert Hall, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $5-$10. 436-1225. 

Novello Quartet at 3 p.m. First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. Donation $10-$15. www.novelloquartet.org 

Caren Armstrong at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jenny Jens & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Americana Unplugged: The Whiskey Brothers at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Art Lande/Peter Sommer Duo at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Benefit for the Albany High School Music Fund at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Glen Staller at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Gather, Risen, 7 Generation at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Rwake, Black Cobra at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

MONDAY, MAY 21 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Art for Food’s Sake!” Restaurant Industry Artists Exhibition, opening reception at 5 p.m. at Downtown Restaurant, 2102 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. Bring a non-perishable food donation. Proceeds benefit the Alameda County Community Food Bank. RSVP to art@downtownrestaurant.com 649-3810. 

FILM 

“Jazz on a Monday Afternoon” Films and discussion on Jazz Innovators at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd flr. 981-6100. 

“When the Levees Broke” Parts 3 and 4 of Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina’s effect on New Orleans at 6:45 p.m. at the Upstairs Lounge at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, 410 14th Street, off Broadway, Oakland. Suggested donation $10. 262-1001. info@wellstoneclub.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Artists in Berkeley: Is There a Future? at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6150. 

Judith Goldman and Geoffrey G. O’Brien read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. This will be Judith’s last Bay Area reading before she moves to Chicago. Join her friends, fans, and secret admirers in wishing her a fond farewell. 849-2087. 

Jeffrey Kripal describes “Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. 559-9500. 

Susanna Moore introduces her novel “The Big Girls” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express with John Moore and Roy Johnston at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ed Neff, bluegrass, at 7 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.  

Blue Monday Jam at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

West Coast Songwriter’s Showcase at 7:30 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Photograph: Wayne Wallace will be appearing at the Jazz on Fourth Street Festival this weekend. 

If you yearn for the days when jazz was played on the streets of New Orleans for free and all you had to do to join the second line was to get with it and dance to the beat you will not want to miss hearing the top-rated artists who will be performing al fresco and for free at the 11th annual Jazz on Fourth Street Festival this Sunday. 

The Marcus Shelby Quartet, Sugar Pie Desanto, the Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Group and the Berkeley High Jazz Orchestra and combos will all be on hand to entertain you as well as to give you a taste of what can come from top flight musical pedagogy. 

Public school jazz education began in Berkeley in 1966 when Herb Wong, the principal at Washington Elementary, offered a jazz class to his music students. It was not long before every school in the district had a jazz band. When Phil Hardymon, who had worked with Wong at the grade school level, became band director at Berkeley High in 1975, he parlayed all the work that had gone on in the lower grades into the top-rated high school jazz education program in the country. 

Berkeley High jazz bands and members regularly win state and national competitions and scholarships and have performed at the Monterey, North Sea and Montreux Jazz Festivals—and why not when their alumni include such stellar players as David Murray, Craig Handy, Josh Redman, Benny Green and Peter Apfelbaum? 

What Herb Wong began has become a multi-generational community of teachers, alumni and students which gives the Berkeley jazz community a depth and resonance often lacking elsewhere. 

Unfortunately, major budget cuts are threatening this innovative and successful program. The proceeds from this eleventh annual festival, presented by KCSM/Jazz 91, Yoshi’s at Jack London Square and Fourth Street Merchants, will benefit Berkeley High School Performing Arts to help ensure that the jazz program is able to continue. 

This summer, Berkeley High hopes to send the ensemble to Japan to perform at several jazz festivals. While on tour there, the ensemble members will stay in the homes of Japanese students. Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble Parent Coordinator Ruth Tabancay indicated that without the proceeds from the Jazz on Fourth Street Festival, “people all over the world would not have the joy of hearing these accomplished musicians.” 

Appropriately, the festival begins at noon with two of the Berkeley High Ensemble’s top-rated combos. Next, award-winning bassist and composer Marcus Shelby leads his eponymously named Quartet in its festival debut with a program of jazz standards and swinging flagwavers. One of the most esteemed and in-demand performers on the local jazz scene, Shelby will lead a quartet of the Bay Area’s top jazz players. 

Long-time Bay Area blues favorite and R&B legend Sugar Pie DeSanto, who follows Shelby, is a mistress of soul, jazz, comedy, dance and the composer and/or lyricist of over one hundred songs. Born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton in San Francisco, she was dubbed “Little Miss Sugar Pie” by bandleader Johnny Otis when she made her recording debut with him for Federal Records in 1955. Since then she’s recorded for Chess Records, appeared at the Howard in Washington, D.C., the Regal in Chicago and the Apollo in New York. After James Brown heard her at the Apollo, she became his opening act for two years. She has recorded two of her originals with Etta James, one of which, “In the Basement,” was featured on the soundtrack of the 1999 movie The Hurricane. 

Bay Area trombonist, educator, arranger and composer Wayne Wallace and his Latin Jazz Group are the last of the three headliners. Wallace, another in-demand sideplayer, is well-known in the Bay Area musical worlds of Latin, funk and jazz. He studied with, among others, the great post-bop trombonist Julian Priester, and his performances reveal a musician grounded in both jazz improvisation and Brazilian and Latin rhythms. He’ll be performing works from his latest CD, The Reckless Pursuit of Beauty. The festival grand finale will be a performance by the full Berkeley High Jazz Orchestra. 

Besides the onstage music, the Fourth Street merchants will get in the spirit of jazz by bringing their food and wares into the street and plaza. The whole afternoon promises to be an expansive, sunny, music-filled entertainment. 

JAZZ ON FOURTH STREET FESTIVAL 

Noon-5 p.m. Sunday, May 20, on Fourth Street in Berkeley between Hearst and Virginia. The festival kicks off at noon with two Berkeley High School Combos and features the Marcus Shelby Quartet (1:15 to 2 p.m.), blues singer Sugar Pie Desanto (2:15 to 3 p.m.), the Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Group (3:10 to 4 p.m.) and closes with the Berkeley High Jazz Orchestra. 526-6294.  

Photograph: Wayne Wallace will be appearing at the Jazz on Fourth Street Festival this weekend. 

Before the opening scene of the Eastenders’ production of Bertolt Brecht’s Fear and Misery of the Third Reich—which opens Thursday, May 17, at the Jewish Community Center for a four-show run, after four days last week at San Francisco’s Traveling Jewish Theatre—there are projections of National Socialist posters of happy comrades, of mother and child, the cheerful false face of Nazi propaganda for the German public and the world. 

As many as 30 of these scenes and sketches were written during and just after the dark years from the Nazi takeover in 1933 to the Anschluss, annexing Austria in 1938; the Eastenders show features 18. What Brecht tried to do in them was to pry off that mask to reveal the human toll, the social miasma, of private life beneath the fixed, defiant smile. 

The original U.S. production of 17 scenes was entitled The Private Life of the Master Race, and had its first premiere June 7, 1945 at the Little Theater in Wheeler Auditorium on the UC campus, part of the program for the UN conference delegates meeting in San Francisco. It was directed by Henry Schnitzler, son of famed Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler (La Ronde), who was in touch with Brecht. The Eastenders program, with its George Grosz cartoonish cover, contains a facsimile of the Daily Cal preview of the premiere. 

The scenes, episodic (Brecht called his theater “Epic”) and unrelated directly by story but knit together by theme, play like frames in a film running through those years, capturing a panorama of social breakdown, deception, betrayal, disaffection, disaffiliation and flight. In Berlin in 1933, a storm trooper eggs on a worker to make jokes about the regime and shows him the trick of marking a suspect with a chalk cross on the back of his jacket, unawares. The next year in Augsburg, a magistrate in chambers nervously hears pleas, advice and veiled threats from a prosecutor, an investigator and storm troopers, wondering how he can render a verdict.  

In the most famous of these miniature dramas, one that was played with great affect by Vanessa Redgrave a few years ago at a benefit in San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, “The Jewish Wife,” a Jewish woman on the verge of fleeing to the Netherlands from Frankfurt in 1935 talks reassuringly to her friends on the phone about her “little spring vacation,” asking them to look after her husband—then rehearses a bitter goodbye to him, which she can’t repeat when he appears. 

It’s absorbing, sometimes very funny, and deeply affecting. And this production is probably the best sustained show the Eastenders have done in years. The cast of 11, including splendid Longfellow Middle School student Alexander Senauke (who plays a Hitler Youth whose parents nervously suspect him of spying on them) has the flavor of this repertory company that calls itself “held together by an ensemble of artists who collectively ... produce and generally build theater from the ground up,” an interactive and personable troupe, as they take on these often nameless faces from the past, or pose in tableau, bookending the scene in progress centerstage with what came before and will follow.  

This Eastenders production, solidly presided over by artistic director Susan Evans and founder Charles Polly, emphasizes the documentary aspects of these brief cameos of the contradictory life led by the German people, supporters and dissenters alike, under Hitler’s regime. It therefore touches on Brecht’s relationship—a somewhat uneasy one—with “The New Objectivity,” a progressive movement which aimed to show the social realities of the times, under the Depression and fascism. Brecht, however, went further: his innovative dramatic practices stylized the actions of the characters portrayed, in a new method of theatrical storytelling that brought out big issues hiding in small gestures. He invited the audience to consider the social intent rather than just identifying emotionally with the personal plight of the characters.  

Performances by Craig Dickerson (a talented comedic actor), Carolyn Doyle (whose “Jewish Wife” deftly plays the full register, yet seems low key) and Christine U’Ren, in particular, capture something of the still controversial “performative” aspects of the synthesis of theatrical style that’s called Brechtian.  

This is one of the few shows in the ad hoc revival of Brecht that’s been going on the past few years that really plays and gets the point across, thanks in great part to the Eastenders’ canniness and commitment in choosing this collection of sketches which are both intimately direct yet suggestive of issues broader and deeper. What doesn’t always come across are the finer points of Brecht’s innovation, like what he called the social gesture, an actor’s exact portrayal of a “pregnant moment” which reveals, in a flash, the social meaning of the character or the scene—like a prosecutor wryly forgetting, over and over, the name of a suspect (”Judicial Process”). Like camp follower Mother Courage in Brecht’s great wartime drama, biting a coin and losing her son to the recruiters while distracted, it demands a kind of concentration and sense of display, of demonstration, different from the training of most American actors. 

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich is the sort of theatrical experience which goes over without going over the top. It has plenty of true dimensionality—and the audience leaves with much to mull over, difficult but fascinating truths that the valiant Eastenders have portrayed. 

FEAR AND MISERY OF THE THIRD REICH 

Presented by the Eastenders Repertory Company at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday and at 3 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. $20. 568-4118.

Cal Day at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) is a reliable venue for stories. Last year it was a conversation with a maybe eight-year-old naturalist about gopher snakes at the Berkeley Marina. This year I wound up talking to a young woman who was presiding over a tabletop display of dead bats. One in particularly caught my eye, a larger-than-average bat with a striking two-tone wing pattern: a hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus). 

(That snickering in the back row will stop immediately. “Hoary” is a respectable Old English word connoting frost. In addition to the hoary bat, the hoary redpoll and the hoary marmot are members in good standing of North America’s fauna. So just cut that right out). 

What the Cal student told me was that hoary bats, unlike many of their kin, roost in trees and shrubs, and that UC’s grounds maintenance crew used to bring them to the MVZ a lot (whether dead or alive was not clear). I was intrigued enough to ask a friend who had recently retired as the university’s lead groundskeeper about bats in trees. He remembered dealing with Mexican free-tailed bats in the crevices of buildings, including the women’s faculty club, but not the larger hoarys. 

Still wondering what kind of shape those bats were in, I followed up with Patricia Winters, Education and Rehabilitation Director of the California Bat Conservation Fund, whose “BATMAM” license plate you may have noticed. I thought I recalled her talking about scrub-jay predation on tree-dwelling bats a few years ago, and she confirmed that it was frequent. Crows do it too.  

“They often come into our rehab centers with various injuries,” Winters said via email. “I presently have three hoary bats in captivity who were too badly injured to ever regain the ability to fly. They are fierce fighters when they first come in, but quickly learn to realize that we are not going to hurt them, and calm down. I have had one hoary female for eight years now. She was a marvelous school bat, going to hundreds of presentations with me, but she is now retired due to her old age. The other two hoarys, both female, are now getting ready to take her place.” 

Winters was kind enough to provide the accompanying photograph of the late Punkinhead, a male hoary bat who was in the rehab program for several years. How can you not love that face? As cuddly as they may appear, it’s not a good idea to pet them, should the opportunity arise. “Do not reach out and attempt to touch them,” Winters warns. “They will never attack people, but they will defend themselves and can give a nasty bite if they are handled.” Hoary bats will typically warn against such familiarities with what one book calls “a most startling rattling hiss accompanied by an impressive show of teeth.” 

Active late in the evening, hoarys have a strong direct flight. Their food habits are not well documented; in addition to the expected insects, one was observed attacking a western pipistrelle, a smaller species of bat. Unlike the high-pitched echolocation calls of most other bats, their in-flight chatter is audible to the human ear. 

These mostly solitary bats have a huge range, from the Canadian tree line into South America. Males and females seem to follow different northbound routes through California in spring, females in the lowlands and coastal valleys, males in the foothills and mountains. The sexes have been found together during fall migration, and may travel in small flocks. Up to 21 have been counted at the same time on South Farallon Island. 

But they haven’t stopped there. Humans aside, the hoary bat is the only land mammal to reach the Hawai’ian islands on its own. Island bats, known as ope’ape’a, have been classified as a separate subspecies and their fur is a bit redder, but otherwise they’re pretty much standard hoary bats. 

Which makes you think about the vagaries of evolution. Millions of years ago, the seed of a California tarweed reached Hawai’i probably clinging to the feathers of a migratory bird; its progeny include the bizarre yuccalike silversword plants of Haleakala Crater. An ancestor got out there some 3.5 million years ago and gave rise to a whole slew of red, yellow, and black songbirds with a dazzling array of bill shapes and functions: seed-crushers, tweezers, picks and probes. Some, like the beak of the extinct Lana’i hookbill, still have scientists scratching their heads. 

As recent work with the Darwin’s finches of the Galapagos Islands suggests, it could be that it’s somehow easier to rewire the developmental pathways that make a beak than for other body parts. Or the Hawai’ian bats may simply not have been there long enough for their own evolutionary radiation; the oldest known fossils are less than 100,000 years old. Time and chance, like the man said. 

Photograph by Patricia Winters, California Bat Conservation Fund: Punkinhead, a rehabilitated hoary bat. 

TUESDAY, MAY 15 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Pointe Pinole. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Vigil Supporting the People of Iraq from noon to 1 p.m. at the Oakland Federal Building 1301 Clay St. We create a Living Graveyard, in which people lie on the city sidewalk, five feet apart, covered with white sheets, to represent the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq caused by the war of occupation. Please bring your own sheet. www.epicalc.org  

Improving Berkeley’s Public Pools and Swim Programs A community forum at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst at MLK. 649-9874. Poolsforberkeley.org 

“Climbing Mt. Shasta: Tips for First-time Climbers” with Eric White, climbing ranger with the US Forest Service at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Discussion Salon on “Will Robots Become More Intelligent Than Humans and Take Over the World?” at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut. 848-2995. 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

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

Solo Sierrans Hike Hike at Lake Chabot Reservoir Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the boat house. Optional dinner follows. For information call Delores 351-6247. 

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. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda.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. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland uptown to the Lake to discover Art Deco landmarks. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of the Paramount Theater at 2025 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Tilden Mini-Rangers Hiking, conservation and nature-based activities for ages 8-12. Dress to ramble and get dirty. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Chris Finan describes “From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 528-3254. 

Albany Library Evening Book Club meets to discuss “Digging to America” by Anne Tyler at 7 p.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

Lead-Safety for Remodeling, Repair and Painting of older homes. A HUD & EPA approved class held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, 2000 Embarcadero, #300, Oakland. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org  

New to DVD: “The Painted Veil” at 7 p.m. at JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Discussion follows. 848-0237. 

Trusts and Wills A free seminar at 2 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Please RSVP to 280-2165. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley BART station. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MAY 17 

Bike to Work Day with energizer stations located throughout Berkeley with refreshments and information. www.EBBC.org, www.511.org 

Golden Gate Audubon Society “Coming and Going: Bay Bird Populations” with Harry Fuller at 7 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 843-2222. 

LeConte Neighborhood Assoc. meets at 7:30 p.m. at LeConte School, Ellsworth & Russell, to discuss the proposed five story building at Shattuck and Derby, the expansion of 2516 Ellsworth from 900 sq ft to nearly 4,000 sq ft, the cell phone microwave emitters planned for Shattuck and Ward and the current "Student Move-Out" debris collection system. 843-2602. 

Young People United, Resisting War, Resisting Violence An evening with Camilo Mejía, Iraq War veteran and conscientious objector, spoken word, video and more at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 411 28th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$20. 914-4678. 

Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative Potluck at 6:30 p.m. at LeConte Elementary School Garden, 2241 Russell St. Please bring something to share. 883-9096.  

“Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible” a documentary by Dr. Shakti Butler, at 6:30 p.m. followed by discussion at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 116 Montecito Ave., Oakland. 285-9600. 

Compassionate Communication Lori Hope discusses her new book “Help Me Live: 20 Things People With Cancer Want You To Know” at 6:15 p.m. at Markstein Cancer Education Center, 450 30th St., Suite 2810, Oakland. 869-8833, option 2. 

Simplicity Forum “Tiny Homes, Handmade Homes” at 6:30 p.m. at the Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 549-3509. 

“Curitiba” A film on urban solutions from Curitiba, Brazil at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Suggested donation $5. 663-2594. 

Poetry Workshop with Donna Davis, ongoing on Thurs. from 9 a.m. to noon at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $10 per semester. 848-0237. 

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

“Dogen and the Lotus Sutra: The Mahayana Worldview of Zen” with Dr. Taigen Dan Leighton at 8:30 p.m. at the Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. RSVP to 809-1444. 

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 

FRIDAY, MAY 18 

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 Ilana Crispi on “Art in San Francisco” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925.  

“Homeland” A documentary of Native Americans and the destructive policies of corporations at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 370 27th St., Oakland. www.HumanistHall.net 

Wavy Gravy’s 71st Birthday and Benefit for Seva Foundation at 8 p.m. at the Grand Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness, corner of Sutter, SF. Tickets are $50-$250. 845-7382, ext. 332. www.seva.org/specialevents 

Free Skin Cancer Screening at Alta Bates Summit. Oakland. Appointments required. 869-8833, ext. 2. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Kaiser Premanente Conference Room, 1950 Franklin, Oakland. To schedule an appointment call 625-6188. 

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. www.circledancing.com 

SATURDAY, MAY 19 

Berkeley Art Center 40th Birthday from 1 to 4 p.m. with guest speakers, concert, children’s activities and art exhibition, at 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Walk on the Santa Fe Right of Way A five-mile walk to discover art, gardens and creeks. Meet at 10 a.m. at the ball court at the south end of Strawberry Creek Park, returning by BART. Bring water and a snack. 540-7223. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Bay Area Storytelling Festival Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area. Tickets are $33-$75. 869-4969. www.bayareastorytelling.org 

Berkeley Climate Action Kick-Off with ideas and resources for reducing your emissions at 10 a.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. www.cityofberkeley.info/mayor/GHG/index.htm 

Solidarity with the Tree-Sitters with the Rockin' Solidarity Labor Chorus and the Freedom Song Network at 2 p.m. at the Memorial Oak Grove, east side of UC Campus, just off Gayley Rd. 649-1423. halih@yahoo.com 

ACCI Gallery 50th Anniversary Celebration at 6 p.m. at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527.  

Himalayan Fair with arts and crafts, music, dance and food, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$20, benefits grassroots projects in the Himalayas. 869-3995.  

“Making Waves to Fight Cancer” A 15.5 mile sea kayak and canoe paddle around Alameda Island to raise money for breast cancer research, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Register and pledge online at www.calkayak.com 

Community Picket of the Port of Oakland to call for a halt to war shipments. Meet at 7 a.m. at the West Oakland BART station. There will be a shuttle to take people to the picketing site. 525-5497. 

A Clean Sweep: Thermometers, Medicine, and E-Waste Disposal from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EmeryBay Market Place, Christie Ave. at 64th St., Emeryville. Bring unwanted or expired medication, mercury thermometers, and electronic waste, such as TVs, computers, monitors, cell phones and fax machines. No appliances. Bring thermometers sealed in two plastic zipper bags, and bring medication in original containers with your name marked out. 452-9261, ext 118. www.ebmud.com/cleanbay 

Tea Party and Old Time Music Jam at 3:30 p.m. in People's Park. Bring a teacup! 

Walking Tour of Oakland City Center Meet at 10 a.m. in front Oakland City Hall at Frank Ogawa Plaza. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Tela de la Vida/Fabric of Life A bilingual walk for the entire family at 2 p.m. at the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline. For information call 525-2233. 

Multicultural Health Fair for Children with hands-on activities from 1 to 4 p.m. at Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave., lower level. 705-8527. 

Vegetarian Cooking Class “A Taste of Thai” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $45, plus 435 for food and materials. Registration required. 531-COOK. www.compassionatecooks.com  

“U.S Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis and Paths to Peace” with Jacqueline Cabasso and Andrew Lichterman of the Western States Legal Foundation at 7 p.m. at the Alameda Public Affairs Forum, at the Home of Truth, 1300 Grand Street in Alameda. www.alamedaforum.org  

Friends of the Library Annual Book Sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 16.  

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Sproul Room, 2727 College Ave. All welcome.  

“My People Are” A short film on racial identities experienced through the eyes of young people at 7 p.m. at Park Day School, 215 Ridegway, Oakland. For information call Tasha at Bananas, 658-7353. 

“The Hidden Life of the Wild Elephant Herds of Africa” with author and researcher Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., off Hwy 580. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

EcoVillage’s Earth Day and Spring Festival with keynote speaker Carl Anthony, Senior Ford Foundation Fellow, environmentalist, and social justice leader and workshops and lunch, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at EcoVillage Farm Learning Center, 21 Laurel Lane, Richmond. Cost is $15-$25. 329-1314. www.ecovillagefarm.org 

SoloSierrans Waterfront Biking from Emeryville to Berkeley Meet at 1 p.m. in front of the Watergate Clipper Club, 5 Captain Dr., Emeryville. 923-1094. 

Hopalong Animal Rescue Come meet your new best dog friend from noon to 3 p.m. at Pet Food Express Rockridge, 5144 Broadway, Oakland. 267-1915, ext. 500. www.hopalong.org  

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 every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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, MAY 20 

Celebration of Old Roses Heirloom and hard-to-find roses from specialty nurseries, plus crafts, books, jewelry and clothing inspired by roses, from 11 to 4 p.m. at El Cerrito Community Center, on Moeser at Ashbury, El Cerrito. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. 

People’s Park Design Help to design an open, respectful, community based visioning process for People’s Park. Planning meeting 3 p.m. in People's Park NW corner grove. 658-9178. 

Himalayan Fair with arts and crafts, music, dance and food, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$20, benefits grassroots projects in the Himalayas. 869-3995.  

Hidden Gems of Berkeley Bike Ride exploring the Elmwood and South Berkeley starting at 10 a.m. at Halcyon Court, Prince St. Bring snack, lunch and water. mayith@yahoo.com 

Bike Tour of Oakland Explore Arrowhead Marsh on a leisurely 5-mile ride. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance to the Oakland Museum of California. 238-3514. www.museumca.org 

SoloSierrans Hike in Tilden Meet at 4 p.m. at Lone Oak parking area for a one hour hike through the woods. Optional dinner follows. 234-8949.  

“Summer Time at the Little Farm” A puppet show about life on the farm and the mishaps of a farmer, at 10:45 and 11:30 a.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

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 

Bicycle Commuting Tips: Gear and Fixing Flats at 10 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Smart and Green Day at the Kensington Farmers’ Market with free thermometer exchange and free energy-efficient light bulbs, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington, behind Ace Hardware. 

EcoHouse Greywater Tour Learn about the first permitted residential constructed wetland greywater system in California. We will discuss the principles and process of safely irrigating with household waste water. Return home with ideas and plans of your own. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Cost is $15 sliding scale, no one turned away. 548-2220 ext. 242. ecohouse@ecologycenter.org 

EarthTeam’s Environmental Film Festival and Awards Ceremony Screening of the student-created Our School/Our Planet videos, poetry, photography and silent auction from 2 to 5 p.m. at Expression College for Digital Arts, 6601 Shellmound St., Emeryville. 704-4030. info@earthteam.net 

East Bay Atheists meets to discuss “Mormonism: the Goofiest Sect of All” with Don Havis at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 3rd flr. meeting room, 2090 Kittredge St.  

“From Creeks to Coastline: Bay Watershed” Learn about our local San Francisco Bay Watershed through hands-on activities and exhibitions from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., at 10th St., Oakland. www.museumca.org 

“Democratization of the Media through the Internet” with Andrew Keen, author of “Cult of the Amateur,” and Dan Gilmor, author of “We the Media” at 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $15. 527-0450. www.hillsideclub.org  

“The Dark Side of Gluten in Pet Foods” at 2 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington, behind Ace Hardware. 525-6155. 

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 

Tibetan Buddhism with “Jack Petranker on “Precious Jewel of the Dharma” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MAY 21 

Four Mile Monday Join a four mile hike with history, vistas and birdwatching at 11 a.m. at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline. Bring layers, lunch and your binoculars. 525-2233. 

“When the Levees Broke” Parts 3 and 4 Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans at 6:45 p.m. at the Upstairs Lounge at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, 410 14th Street, off Broadway, Oakland. Suggested donation $10. 262-1001. info@wellstoneclub.org 

Benefit for Vukani Mawethu Choir Silent auction and dinner with seatings at 5:30, 7:30 and 9 p.m. at Unicorn Restaurant, 2533 Telegraph Ave. For reservations call 841-8098. 

Read Aloud Theater A free Berkeley Adult School class at 9 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

ONGOING 

Food Drive for Alameda County Food Bank Drop off canned goods, peanut butter, ceareal, powdered milk, beans, rice and pasta at Citibank, 200 Shattuck Ave. from May 1 to 15. Financial donations always welcome. 635-3663, ext. 318. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., May 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601. 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., May 16, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5344.  

Commission on Labor meets Wed., May 16, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7550.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed., May 16, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., May 16, at 7 p.m. at the South Branch Library. 981-6195.  

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., May 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

FRIDAY, MAY 11 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Lysistrata” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through May 12. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Aurora Theatre “Private Jokes, Public Places” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through May 20. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. 

Berkeley High Theater “Hair” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $7-$15.  

Berkeley Rep “Blue Door” at 8 p.m. at 2025 Addison St., through May 20. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949.  

Contra Costa Civic Theater “A Streetcar Named Desire” at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Contra Costa Civic Theatre, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Runs through May 12. Tickets are $8-$11. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Impact Theatre “Measure for Measure” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through May 26.Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Just Theater, “I Have Loved Strangers” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., to May 26. Tickets are $12-$25. 421-1458.  

Masquers Playhouse “She Loves Me” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through May 12.Tickets are $18. 232-4031.  

Shotgun Players “The Cryptogram” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through June 17. Tickets are pay what you can. For reservations call 841-6500.  

Subterranean Shakespeare “Macbeth” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., near Rose in Live Oak Park, to May 26. Tickets are $12-$17. 276-3871. 

TheatreFIRST “Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theatre, 481 Ninth St., Oakland. Tickets are $18-$25. 436-5085.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Touchable Stories: Richmond” A multi-media, oral history event created by the people of Richmond. Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 6 p.m. through May 13, at 1303 Canal Blvd., Richmond (the former Kaiser Shipyard Cafeteria). Cost is $6-$12. For reservations call 619-3675.  

“Origin: Poetics of Space” Intaglios by Seiko Tachibana. Reception at 6 p.m. at Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809-D Fourth St. 549-1018. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Last Word Poetry Series David Alpaugh and C.O McCauley read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave. at Hearst. Open mic follows. 841-6374.  

Arthur Blaustein talks about ways to “Make A Difference: America’s Guide to Volunteering and Community Service” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Geoffrey G. O’Brien and Jasper Bernes, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

David Kerns talks about his novel “Standard of Care” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Zipper Festival, three days of jazz and other music, by more than 50 musicians in a fundraiser for The Jazz House, in conjunction with the Berkeley Arts Festival, at 6 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. 415-846-9432. 

Berkeley Opera “Romeo and Juliet” at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$40. 925-798-1300.  

Oakland Public Conservatory of Music Student Performance at 7 p.m. at 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. 836-4649.  

Berkeley Symphony with Matt Haimovitz, cello, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. 841-2800. 

Jerry Kuderna Piano “From Bach to Babbitt” at 1 p.m. at 2323 Shattuck Ave. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalapeño Band at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

We A Dem, Friends, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Bobby Ingrams Returns at 8 p.m. Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave., Kendington. Tickets are $15, children $5. 526-9146. 

Chelle! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Judy Wexler, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Bluegrass Intentions at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

The Nomadics, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Sumner Brothers, Phil Saylor Wisor at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Whiskey Rebels, Far From Finished at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Sacred Music Concert with Snatam Kaur, Guru Ganesha, Ram Dass Khalsa at 8 p.m. at Sacred Space Yoga Sanctuary, 830 Bancroft Way. Cost is $20-$25. 1-888-735-4800. 

Stolen Booty at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Celius-One, Psycokinetics at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Zadell: Zoe & Dave Ellis at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Desa, Tera Melos, Nurses at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. 

Mirthkon, The Coma Lilies, Juan Prophet Organization at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $7. 451-8100.  

SATURDAY, MAY 12 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Bonnie Lockhart at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Wings of Spring” Paintings of American, European and African birds by Rita Sklar at Café 817, 817 Washington St., Oakland. Through July 12. www.ritasklar.com 

“Out of the Box” Works by Gera Hasse, Jaja Jackson, and Jim Woessner. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Fourth Street Studi, 1717D 4th St. www.fourthstreetstudio.com 

“Excavations” Opening exhibition for a new gallery, Johansson Projects, at 6 p.m. at Telegraph and 23rd, Oakland. http://johanssonprojects.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“ultra deepfield” Bay Area artists look at urban locations in transition. Gallery talk with the artists at 2 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Exhitition runs to May 12. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

Michael Chabon reads from “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Aging Artfully” with author Amy Gorman and “Still Kicking” with Greg Young at 1:30 p.m. at The Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Donation $5-$10. 620-6772. 

Rhythm and Muse Open Mic with Julia Vinograd at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Zipper Festival, jazz and other music, in a fundraiser for The Jazz House, in conjunction with the Berkeley Arts Festival, from 2 to 11 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. 415-846-943. 

American Bach Soloists with Michael Sponseller on harpsichord at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-$42. 415-621-7900.  

Schola Cantorum San Francisco “Come My Beloved” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $12-$20.  

Trinity Chamber Concerts, Kazuko Cleary, piano, perfroms Beethovan and Chopin at 8 p.m. at 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Kairos Youth Choir Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at Longfellow School Theater, 1500 Derby St. Cost is $8-$10. 704-4479. 

Los Mapaches at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. 

Bluebelles at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

DjiIay Kunda Kouyate at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Bhi Bhiman and Ted Schram at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Frank Wakefield at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Ed Johnson and Novo Tempo at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Beep with Michael Coleman at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Vanessa Lowe & Kwame Copeland at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Plum Crazy Shelley Doty X-tet at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Raya Nova, hybrid rock, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Internal Afairs, Never Healed, Trash Talk at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MAY 13 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Allison Smith “Notion Nanny” Artist talk on her exhibition exploring traditional art and craft-making, at 3:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Total Chaos: Hip Hop Literati A discussion with Jeff Chang, Adam Mansbach and others at 6 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Zipper Festival, jazz and other music, in a fundraiser for The Jazz House, in conjunction with the Berkeley Arts Festival, from 2 to 11 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. 415-846-943. 

Berkeley Opera “Romeo and Juliet” at 2 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$40. 925-798-1300.  

Bella Musica Chorus “Her Infinite Variety” Four centuries of Shakespeare in song at 4 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Church, 29005 Berryman at Milvia. Tickets are $12-$15. 525-5393. www.bellamusica.org 

Presidio Ensemble performs music of Biber, Ginastera, Foote, and Goodheart at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893.  

Community Women’s Orchestra “Concertstück pour Violoncelle” at 4 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Suggested donation $10, children free. www.communitywomensorchestra.org 

Kathy Kallick’s 18th Annual Mother’s Day Celebration at 1 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $7.50-$9.50. 548-1761.  

Tango No. 9 at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Gift Horse at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344.  

Americana Unplugged: Corbin Pagter & Friends at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Zaedno and Friends, Bulgarian, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5-$10. 525-5054.  

Mark Murphy “The Singer’s Singer” at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Clorox Girls, The Red Dons, Sex Tape Scandal at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, MAY 14 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Celebrating the Arts in Berkeley: The Anniversary of the Arts and Crafts Cooperative, Inc., and the Berkeley Art Center at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6150. 

African/African-American Collections with Phyllis Bischoff, retired librarian, who will discuss her 30+ years developing an extensive collection of Africana for UC Berkeley at the Friends of Richmond Library Annual Meeting at 7 p.m. in the Bermuda Room, Richmond Convention Center, 403 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 235-9056. 

“Fostering Creative Engagement in Youth” A lecture and workshop by Eric Booth for educators, teaching artists and community members from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $25. 642-6838. 

Mary MacKey introduces her story set during the American Civil War “The Notorius Mrs. Winston” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Ron Loewinsohn reads at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Aurora Theatre Staged Readings “Subterranea” by Craig Lucas at 7:30 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. 

Poetry Express with Garrett Murphy at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ensemble Ciaccona, viola da gamba and harpsichord music at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. www.lebateauivre.net 

Parlor Tango at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.  

Classical at the Freight at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761  

Mo’Fone, The Jolly Gibsons at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146.  

TUESDAY, MAY 15 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Opal Palmer Adisa and Karla Brundage at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476.  

Kaya Oakes and Jeff T. Johnson, poets, read at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Rafaela Castro reads from “Provocaciones: Letters from the Prettiest Girl in Arvin” at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. 

Cheri Huber reads from “Making a Change for Good” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Barbara Kingsolver reads from her first non-fiction narrative “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $15-$20. For reservations call 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

OOGOG plays at the Berkeley Arts Festival at 8 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Tri Tip Trio, cajun, zydeco, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Philips Marine Duo at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chris Finan describes “From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 528-3254. 

Lama Surya Das describes “Buddha Is As Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Spoken Word: Park Day School Student Writers at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Café Poetry hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

Cheri Huber reads from her new books on Zen and dialy life at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Whiskey Brothers at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

Jazzalicious at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

HeadRush’s, The Thow Down, and Shanique Scott’s Prisons, hip hop, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568.  

Groundation, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$18. 525-5054. 

Orquestra America at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Matt Morrish & Trinket Lover at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Chris Webster at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Tie One Ons at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

THURSDAY, MAY 17 

THEATER 

Eastenders Repertory Company “Fear and Misery of the Third Reich” by Bertolt Brecht at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $20. 

FILM 

“Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible” by Dr. Shakti Butler, at 6:30 p.m. followed by discussion at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 116 Montecito Ave., Oakland. 285-9600. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Julie Carr and Jessica Fisher at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. www.poetryflash.org 

Ann Jauregui describes “Epiphanies: Where Science and Miracles Meet” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Tina Barseghian introduces “Get a Hobby! 101 All-Consuming Diversions for Any Lifestyle” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony “Porgy and Bess” Preview performance at 7 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $25. 625-8497. 

Aphrodesia, Antioquia at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellis Paul at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Elaine Lucia & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $17. 841-JAZZ.  

Travis Jones and Chojo Jacques at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Sorrowtown Choir, Matthew Grimm & the Red Smear at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $TBA. 841-2082  

Box O Bananas at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Bunson, Panic Button, Go Kart Mozart at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100.

OOGOG AT THE  

BERKELEY ARTS FESTIVAL  

OOGOG, a “rock chamber group” comprised of clarinet/alto sax (Jon Russell), electric guitar (Ryan Brown), electric bass (Damon Waitkus) and piano (Kate Campbell for this performance), will play at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 15. The music is rhythmically complex though groovy, contrasted with moments of free, wild improvisation. The musicians come from various backgrounds, bringing influences of rock, jazz, free improv, electronic and world music. The program is comprised of music written by the group, with one exception: three movements from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring arranged by Ryan Brown. $10 general, $5 students and seniors. Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. For details, see www.oogog.com or  

www.berkeleyartsfestival.com. 

BELLA MUSICA 

The Berkeley-based chorus Bella Musica presents a Mother’s Day concert, “Her Infinite Variety: Four Centuries of Shakespeare in Song,” featuring a mostly a cappella program of songs by Morley, Verdi, Vaughn Williams, Shearing, P.D.Q. Bach and others, at 4 p.m. Sunday, at St. Mary Magdalen Church, 2005 Berryman St. Admission is by donation. Recommended donation: $15 general, $12 for students and seniors. For more information, call 525-5393 or see www.bellamusica.org. 

MICHAEL CHABON 

AT CODY’S BOOKS 

Pulitzer Prize-winning Berkeley writer 

Michael Chabon will read from his new novel The Yiddish Policeman’s Union at 7 p.m. Saturday at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St.

You may not be a fan of the rap industry, but if you’re looking for a movie with more heart and soul than a dozen Dream Girls, check out The Hip Hop Project, which opens today (Friday). And there’s something else that sets this film apart: all the profits from ticket sales are being donated to youth art programs. 

You might expect something out of the ordinary when Bruce Willis and Queen Latifa team up to produce a film, and HHP delivers. This is a transcendently honest and emotional film that will rip you apart and hug you back together. Over the four years it took to film HHP, you can see a rag-tag group of New York kids age from troubled but driven 14-year-olds to amazing, accomplished young adults. 

The film soars on the personalities of a number of young rappers, including “Cannon,” “Princess,” and the former street orphan who inspires them to produce one of the best rap CDs of the year. Chris “Kazi” Rolle, survived on some of Manhattan’s meanest street and found his life transformed when he became a surrogate father to a family of talented but conflicted teens who were brought together by two common forces: pain and art. 

For people who “don’t like rap,” don’t fret. This isn’t gang-banging rap. The HHP was designed to be an antidote to misogynistic, chest-thumping gangsta rap. This is Rap 2.0. Instead of rapping about being supernatural toughs, Kazi’s kids are telling their own personal stories of struggle, abandonment and achievement. 

As one tough-looking kid raps his story, his lip begins to tremble and tears stream from his eyes. This is not your Snoop Dogg’s rap. 

According to HPP’s director Matt Ruskin, this movie was intended as “a call to end the destructive forces of violence, misogyny and criminality that dominate the music our children are listening to.” Although this New Rap has been stripped of references to bitches and hos, the film was originally rated R because of 17 “fucks” that are uttered during the movie. In a rare ruling, the MPAA Ratings Review Board reconsidered and granted HHP a PG-13 rating, citing the film’s positive images and concluding that the message was “too important to turn kids away.” 

In the course of the film, HHP shows how a scruffy would-be rap artist evolves into what one might be tempted to call sainthood. Kazi is one in a million, a kid who listens, feels and heals — a Soul Buddha from the Hood. At one point in the film, Kazi is even shown introducing his young peers to meditation. 

There’s a remarkable scene where Kazi confronts the mother who abandoned him. The encounter left the audience groaning in anguish and then, amazed by a long moment of wrenching honesty unmatched in cinema and rarely encountered in real life. During a live performance following a preview screening of the film in Oakland’s UA Emery Bay Stadium, Kazi had the crowd pumping fists and swaying to one of his songs.  

Halfway through his passionate mike-waving rap, Kazi inserted the lines of the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

This film has won 12 film awards, but because it’s plowing its profits back into impoverished communities, it doesn’t have a budget for expanded distribution. 

The distribution process is so grassroots that the film’s director, producer, and star are all traveling across the country to help promote these critical screenings. 

Gar Smith is a Berkeley writer and editor emeritus of Earth Island Journal. 

“He can sing you jazz, the songs,” said Richard Silberg of Poetry Flash, introducing Al Young, California’s Poet Laureate, a Berkeley resident, as one of three readers, with Floyd Salas, also of Berkeley, and Reginald Lockett of Oakland, Tuesday night, in a round robin: “They’ll riff back and forth ... in sweet conclave!” 

With Silberg as genial MC, it had the feel of Poetry Flash’s long-running weekly reading series at the old Cody’s on Telegraph. But since last October, they’ve been transplanted downtown to the Berkeley City College auditorium, 2050 Center St., mostly on Thursday evenings, after a few were held in conjunction with Moe’s Books’ ongoing series, and at Black Oak Books before that series was dropped. The readings at City College are all free of charge. 

Young opened the set with, “Like Butter,” talking about “the way heat dictates” things like love. Most of the riffing, one poem suggesting another to the next reader, went on between Young and Lockett. Salas, best-known as a novelist (Tattoo and The Wicked Cross), read exclusively from his new book of poems and drawings, Love Bites—close, emotional studies about the dogs and cats he’s known since his childhood in Oakland. 

It wasn’t just exchanges of poems, but the good-natured banter that made it a reading apart from the typical parade of poets holding forth, one by one, at the podium. 

“I like doing it round robin when I can,” said Young. “It keeps you on your toes.” And Lockett expanded on the “riff” motif: “The three of us make a chord.”  

After the humorous, pugnacious Salas read a poem about the fears of his boyhood, “to face the stranger now at last,” and the feel of “the snapping tail of a fighting dog” quelling them “until the night prowler fades and evaporates in the dawn light,” Lockett took the mic and, referring to “Floyd the boxer,” and said, “I bet people wouldn’t know where I got my love of boxing ... my grandmother!” 

He then recited a piece about his grandmother reading her Bible and writing “Christian musings” while “waiting to watch Floyd Patterson throw jabs, uppercuts,” in a rural South populated by “fireflies, possums, hoot owls ... and Floyd Patterson on Saturday nights.” 

Maybe Lockett, referring to his relations walking “three country miles to listen to [Joe] Louis knock [European champ Max] Schmelling out” on the only radio around, in a country store, prompted Young to read a poem about another German, the internal combustion engine inventor Rudolf Diesel, who wanted “what we’d now call biofuels” rather than oil to power his invention. 

Young contrasted him to Hitler, who he referred to wryly as everybody’s “favorite” German: “The History Channel could not survive without Hitler—all that footage digitalized ...” Salas, in turn, remarking how “We’re all different,” referring to Lockett as writing about “the ambiance ... of who he is,” and calling Young “Mr. Suede—he’s so smooth!” recited how he once saw a sign, “German Shepherds For Sale,” leading him to his longtime canine companion, Sergie, “the most intelligent person I’ve ever known.” 

The community feel in the room was strong. All three poets are longtime local educators, and had contributions, alongside some of their students’, in the anthology from the Oakland PEN reading series, Oakland Out Loud (Jukebox Press), as well as their individual books, offered up for sale. Two of the anthology’s poet-editors, Claire Ortalda and Kim McMillon, were among the listeners. 

Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash stressed the years since 1982, when the Flash formally took over the Cody’s series (which went back to the ‘60s), that saw national figures brought week after week to Berkeley. Supported by the UC Chancellor’s Initiative, it’s the first time City College has done this sort of program. 

There’ll be a benefit reading for The Flash with Michael Ondaatje (author of The English Patient) June 14 at Cody’s Fourth Street. 

Lockett read of coming to California and being put into a Special Ed class until the school nurse discovered “I needed glasses,/A pair of glasses.” Young then mentioned a beautiful girl he once befriended who was in Special Ed, his friends remarking, “I’m gonna get me somebody from the dumb class!” 

There were poems and commentary on James Brown’s death: “We danced and sweated to your songs at blue light garage parties,” in Lockett’s words—and how Gerald Ford’s death took Brown’s out of the news, recalling Rupert Murdoch’s reputed command after Ray Charles’ death was superceded by another ex-President’s: “Get Ray Charles off and put Reagan on!” One line summed it all up: “Winners will take all.” 

Lockett spoke of fried bologna sandwiches: “If you’re from the South, that’s a delicacy!” and of the hand-me-down educational materials from white schools in his classroom, surrounded by pictures of appliances his teachers “tore from Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Wards catalogues” to decorate.  

Young read about a photo, “a silver gelatin print,” of a married couple embracing during the Korean War period, imagining their lives, their reaction to events, “the relation between photography and the subject. We don’t usually think about that, enter into whatever dialogue’s taking place. Art is never objective.” 

“Nothing in black and white to decipher, no diction/To master, just the tenderest picture—pure fiction.” Young later said, “I tell my students it’s all fiction, choosing what to write about. Some of them say, ‘But that really happened!’ And I tell them it’s fiction, and that’ll liberate them.” 

When Salas mentioned meeting Barney Rossett, Silberg blurted out, “Barney Rossett the prize fighter?” No, no, Lockett and Young responded for Salas, saying he is the late publisher of Grove Press, which featured Salas’ books. 

“Finish it up, Al!” Young closed with “Passport Blues”: “At dawn you wake up, knowing you will not make that flight ... Before Columbus cut his deal/ With the crown of Castile, /Who was lost?” 

Al Young and Richard Silberg will read May 19 at the Jazz School, with music. 

Ploughshares Nursery is a unique operation. Located off Main Street on the former Alameda Naval Air Station, across from the Rosenblum Winery and the ferry terminal, it’s owned by the Alameda Point Collaborative. The Collaborative describes itself as a “supportive housing community,” with 500 formerly homeless people—veterans, domestic violence survivors, children and adults with disabilities—living in converted Navy housing. It offers counseling, life skills coaching, and job training, through the nursery and otherwise. Proceeds from the plants you buy at Ploughshares go to the Collaborative. 

Good plants, too. With its mix of edibles and California natives, this is a nursery after my own heart. Andrea, the propagator who showed us around last week, joked about specializing in edible natives plants—a niche just waiting to be filled. 

Ploughshares has a couple of neighbors on its four-acre growing site: Kassenhoff, which sells organic heirloom tomato starts at a couple of Oakland farmers’ markets, and Oaktown Natives, which grows plants for restoration projects. Although they don’t do direct retail sales, you can find a selection of Kassenhoff tomatoes at Ploughshares: the likes of Omar’s Lebanese, Black from Tula, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Momotaro. 

Among other edibles, there’s Four Winds Citrus (improved Meyer lemon, bai makrut), guava, tree collards, red Russian kale, several kinds of raspberry. Andrea says the Chinese spinach isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it is edible. 

“We have weird natives other people don’t have,” she adds. I don’t know about weird, but the variety is impressive. Fremontodendron ‘Ken Taylor’ looks like a spreading variety; blue-eyed grass ‘California Skies’, short and stout, complements another Sisyrhynchum with a tall, slender growth habit. Ploughshares has native trees (coast live oak, buckeye, madrone, holly-leaf cherry, red-twig dogwood, tree poppy), shrubs (toyon, ceanothus, manzanita, coyote brush), ground covers (wild ginger), bulbs (wild onion, Ithuriels’ spear)—a little of everything. The nursery’s web site includes a partial plant list.  

The nursery still bears the fingerprints of its first manager, Christopher Shein, who now runs the permaculture program at Merritt College. You enter through a wide bamboo arch, and the shade house, something between a palapa and a Marsh Arab mudhif, is thatched with palm leaves, some donated by a local church after Palm Sunday. There’s a stump-and-haybale amphitheatre where classes have been held in the past, although none are currently scheduled. Many of the plants are organically grown and/or certified Bay Friendly. 

This place is well worth a trip through the Posey Tube (“Dark Tunnel,” the sign on the Oakland side warns). Keep an eye out for the family of hooded orioles that frequent the nursery’s salvia beds. And consider a lunch stop on nearby Webster Street. Although the somewhat unsettling Ribs n’ Things is long gone, Tillie’s is still dishing up classic diner fare, and you can try an antipodean meat pie at the New Zealander. 

Ploughshares Nursery 

2701 Main Street, Alameda,  

Open Wed.-Sun. 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. www.ploughsharesnursery.com 

898-7811. 

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. 

There are few things in life as embarrassing as having to ask your hostess what’s in the casserole. I know. I’ve been doing this for the last 15 years or so since having finally figured out after many distressing years that I’m not good friends with bovine products. 

Not meat, mind you. I do fine with beef, although, like most of us, I’ve pushed that plate pretty far away in favor of tofu and fish. No, it’s the other wonderful things that cows will gladly give us in return for their lives: Cheese, milk, cream, ice cream and sadly, butter. It’s not really as bad as it sounds. I’ve gotten used to it and the downside for me personally was so distressing that I need only remind myself of the late night wheezing or stomach ache to happily eschew the Cheese Board pizza.  

Of course, there is that issue of the dinner party at Ben and Lisa’s where I actually have to ask if butter is used in the casserole. I just hate it. So when I talk with mold sensitive clients, and this IS something that comes up with some regularity, I have more than a little empathy for those who cannot live with what others take for granted. 

You see, that’s the funny thing about mold, mildew and other fungi. They’re all around us, on everyone’s menu but some folks have a very hard time with them. My own dairy sensitivity is nothing compared with, for example a serious peanut allergy. Some folks can’t eat food that was prepared using the same machine that grinds up peanuts and will go into shock over the tiniest exposures. 

This is also true with molds and mildews. While most people can eat cheeses cultured with mold (funny you should ask), tempeh and the other moldy foods we eat, a few sorry souls are exempt and must eschew, not chew. 

So when we talk about mold in buildings, it’s the same. Molds and their neighbors (members of the fungus family) are common to our environment and, in typical settings, are not significantly pathogenic (unless your immune system is compromised, in which case many common molds can become a serious threat). 

The one thing that almost all molds have in common is their need for moisture, although many need other conditions (like still air) to propagate successfully. So, the first thing that I start thinking about, when I’m confronted with a mold or mildew problem, is where the wet is coming from? If you do, as I do, you begin by opening a toolbox of investigative and amelioratory tools. 

Let me give you that toolbox (or at least a beginner’s set) so that you can go boldy where no aspergillus has gone before. 

Since we know that most molds require fairly high levels of humidity to grow, our first tool is a simple examination of the external shell of the building. If there are physical signs of growth in one particular place and not in others, we have a big clue. Later we’ll discuss broadcast effects. 

If I have one closet or one bedroom where there is growth and it’s all localized along one wall, I’d start by examining the walls and adjacent surfaces. A closet is more likely to be a problem because of still air, which spore-producing critters prefer. When they get blown about, they have difficulty propagating. The simple act of opening a closet can lessen the growth of a mold colony. 

I will want to make sure that there is no leakage into the interior of walls or into the living space from the outside so a good set of eyes working slowly across the roof and exterior is the first major tool to use when it’s clear that the growth is discreet or localized. If you take your time, this can be quite effective. 

Keep in mind that water can enter through a fissure one-8000th of an inch (or so I’ve been told), so it’s critical that all junctions on the exterior of the house be sealed or configured to shed water outward. On the inside, signs of moisture aren’t hard to detect, although a moisture meter can be quite handy. 

If you don’t have a clear sign of leakage from roof or wall, and growth is randomly noted, it’s possible that you’re dealing with elevated moisture levels due to ground moisture. Moisture travels from cold to warm because warm air will hold more moisture than cold air (counterintuitive, I know) so this is why moisture will travel up out of the soil or damp basement to the upper areas of the house or the outside walls. 

Area which have elevated humidity or actual dampness on surfaces will tend to grow bushes, grass, corn or maybe just mold. Mold spores are all around floating in the atmosphere and they need only find a damp environment to begin having large families. 

The second set of tricks or tools relates to this condition. If we have a good idea that the moisture started in a soil-surfaced crawlspace (as opposed to a basement), the first and cheapest thing to do is to cover the soil with plastic. A “vapor barrier” does not need to be sealed at the edges or taped together, although these things certainly can’t hurt. 

Steve Quarles, of U.C. Berkeley, has shown us in his research that moisture levels in crawlspaces are driven down very effectively by nothing more than laying plastic on the ground. So, this being the case, it’s the first thing I’d do if I believe that this was happening.  

The other thing that can be done if damp soil is the source of moisture is to increase ventilation in a crawlspace so that air can naturally dry out the soil through increases evaporation. 

Breaking the barrier between the crawlspace and the exterior allows the two spaces to reach equilibrium and it’s often a lot wetter under your house than it is outside where the sun and breeze are drying things out. 

If you’re not sure if the inside of your house is damp, a great tool to acquire is a hygrometer. Cigar stores carry these and they’re pretty cheap to buy. I see them on eBay for 10-20 bucks all the time. If you put this up in your living space and study it over a course of days, you’ll be able to get a sense of how damp you’re home is. A moisture level of 40-60 percent is very nice but a moisture level of 90 percent is probably going to lead to all night fungus parties at your place. 

A tool that is both diagnostic as well as amelioratory is a dehumidifier. You can set one of these in a room and within a day or two figure out if the room was really damp. If the unit is collecting buckets and buckets of water and never shuts down (they have adjustable “humidistatic” controls), it means that there a lot of water in the space and you’ll probably want to start taking other measure.  

Nonetheless, leaving one hooked up and hosed to the outside, can actually fix a damp space, although I’d never choose that as my final solution. I’m too cheap to want to pay the electric bill and dehumidifiers cost money to run. 

If you’ve got major wetness in the subfloor area (i.e. boat ramp, fishing pier) you may want to install a subsurface drainage system. This can help to dry things out but costs a lot of money and is never my first solution. That said, there are houses for which this IS the solution. Even then, some will need additional ventilation, vapor barriers and other tactics. 

So this is the short course and not, by any means a complete assessment of what makes mold grow but, seriously, these few tactics can help I.D. or lessen the ill effects of damp wood and plaster in many homes. 

If you’re someone who’s clearly getting sick, don’t mess around. If you can’t make things better in very short order, just get out. There’s always another place to bed down and being sick isn’t worth staying at Buckingham Palace. I’m lucky. Like most people, I can live with a little damp and a little mold but when it comes to lunch, I’ll take the sushi and leave the pizza for someone else. 

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

FRIDAY, MAY 11 

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 

Emerson School’s 100th Birthday Celebration with a tour at 4 p.m. at 2800 Forest Ave., and a reception and Commemorative Program at 6 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $10. For information on how to send pictures and memories see www.emerson100.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Raj Patel “Rights of the Poor: Democracy in South Africa” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925.  

“Creating a Caring Economy” A conversation with Raine Eisler at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $10-$100. For tickets see www.brownpapertickets.com/event/13655 

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. www.circledancing.com 

Planning Meetings for a Dedication to denise brown will be on going every Fri. at 2 p.m. at LeConte, Room 104. Photos, videos and dvd's are welcome to be included in the event. For more information, contact Rita Pettit, PRitaAnn@aol.com, 559-4602. 

SATURDAY, MAY 12 

Annual Letter Carriers’ Food Drive Leave non-perishable food donations such as canned goods, rice, dried beans and pasta near your mailbox this morning for your letter carrier to collect. Benefits the Alameda County Community Food Bank. 653-3663. www.accfb.org 

5th Annual Bike Rodeo Practice your safe riding skills and learn some new tricks from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at San Pablo Park, 2800 Park St. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Injury Prevention and Chronic Disease Prevention Programs. 981-5347.  

Annual Spring Plant Sale at The Edible Schoolyard Featuring 50 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, as well as vegetables, fruits, herbs, annual and perennial flowers grown by King students. Proceeds support school gardens throughout the East Bay. Sat and Sun from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 1781 Rose St. at Grant. 558-1335. www.edibleschoolyard.org 

Bike Day at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market with information on everyday bicycling and how to repair your bike, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Center St., btwn Milvia and MLK Way. 548-7433. 

Rosa Parks Kid’s Carnival Spring Fundraiser with live music, dance performances, petting zoo, games & prizes, great food, silent auction and quilt raffle, from noon to 4 p.m. at 920 Allston Way at 8th St. Torrezfamily@hotmail.com 

Peralta In Bloom Spring Festival from noon to 4 p.m. with live entertainment, carnival games, old fashioned high steppin’ Cakewalk, free arts & crafts activities, a climbing wall, jumper, delicious barbeque, and much more. Due to the school fire this year the festival will be held at Peralta’s temporary home, 4521 Webster Oakland, 45th and Webster. 301-4565. 

Celebration of Children Community Book Fair from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Ephesians Children’s Center, 1907 Harmon Ave., corner of Alcatraz and Adeline St. 653-2984. 

California Wildflower Show with flowers, talks and information on how to use native species in home gardens, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Orchid Society of California Mother’s Day Sale and Show Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Lakeside Park Garden Center, 666 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. 238-3208. www.orchidsocietyofcalifornia.com 

Pepperweed Pull Join Friends of Five Creeks volunteers removing invasive perennial pepperweed, a threat to shorebird habitat, at the mouth of Strawberry Creek. Meet at 10 a.m. at the cove west of Sea Breeze Deli, University Ave. just west of the I-880/580 Freeway. 848-9358.  

Berkeley History Center Walking Tour “Gilman and Frontage Road Area” led by Allen Stross at 10 a.m. Cost is $8-$10. For information on meeting place and to register call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234.  

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Reptile Rap Meet our resident snake and turtle friends in an interactive talk for the whole family at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Celebrating Elephants Learn about the Oakland Zoo’s Elephant management program from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., off Hwy 580. 632-9525.  

No Animal Circus Circus fun with the Circus Finelli from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., off Hwy 580. 632-9525.  

Great War Society meets to discuss “Trench Art” by Jane Kimball at 10:30 a.m. at 640 Arlington Ave. 527-7118. 

Friends of the Kensington Library Booksale Sat. from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Blvd., Kensington. 524-3043. 

“The Road to Black Freedom: Revolutionary Marxism vs Black Nationalism” A forum with updates on Mumia Abu-Jamal at 4:30 p.m. at Laney College, Room D200, Oakland. Suggested donation $2. 839-0851. 

Benefit for Deaf Palestine Solidarity Project, a new project linking American and Palestinian deaf communities, with poetry reding by Jean Stewart at 2 p.m. at Redwood Gardens Community Room, 2951 Derby St. Donation $5-$15. 243-9910. 

Hopalong Animal Rescue Come meet your furry new best cat friend from noon to 3 p.m. at 2940 College Ave. 267-1915, ext. 500.  

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.  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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. 

Petite Pooches Playgroup for small dogs from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., one block north of Solano on Ensenada at Talbot. 524-2459. 

SUNDAY, MAY 13 

California Wildflower Show with flowers, talks and information on how to use native species in home gardens, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Annual Spring Plant Sale at The Edible Schoolyard Featuring 50 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, as well as vegetables, fruits, herbs, annual and perennial flowers grown by King students. Proceeds support school gardens throughout the East Bay. From 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 1781 Rose St. at Grant. 558-1335. www.edibleschoolyard.org 

Farm Stories and Songs for the whole family with farm activities, at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Grandmother Oak Mother’s Day Celebrate Mother’s Day by visiting a very old oak. Bring a snack and a poem to share. Meet at Bear Creek Staging Area, Briones Regional Park, at 1 p.m. for this 5-mile hike. 525-2233. 

Mother’s Day Pancake Breakfast on the Red Oak Victory Ship in Richmond Harbor from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Cost is $6, children under 5 free. 237-2933. 

Celebrate Mother’s Day at the Kensington Farmers’ Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington, behind Ace Hardware.  

Mother’s Day at the Oak Grove with an interfaith blessing from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Memorial Oak Grove in front of Memorail Stadium off Piedmont Ave. www.saveoaks.com 

Tibetan Buddhism with Hugh Joswick on “Self-Change” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, MAY 14 

“Nanoscience at Work: Creating Energy from Sunlight” with Paul Alivisatos, Associate Laboratory Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater 2025 Addison St. 486-5183. 

“Fostering Creative Engagement in Youth” A lecture and workshop by Eric Booth for educators, teaching artists and community members from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $25. 642-6838. 

“When the Levees Broke” Parts 1 and 2 Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans at 6:45 p.m. at the Upstairs Lounge at Geoffrey's Inner Circle, 410 14th Street, off Broadway, Oakland. Parts 3 and 4 will be shown May 21. Suggested donation $10. 262-1001. info@wellstoneclub.org 

“The Adventures of a Wildlife Photographer” with Eleanor Briccetti at 12:30 p.m. at the Edith Stone Room, Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Brown bag lunch. 526-3720, xt. 17. 

Read Aloud Theater A free Berkeley Adult School class at 9 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190.  

TUESDAY, MAY 15 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Pointe Pinole. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Vigil Supporting the People of Iraq from noon to 1 p.m. at the Oakland Federal Building 1301 Clay St. We create a Living Graveyard, in which people lie on the city sidewalk, five feet apart, covered with white sheets, to represent the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq caused by the war of occupation. Please bring your own sheet. www.epicalc.org  

Improving Berkeley’s Public Pools and Swim Programs A community forum at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst at MLK. 649-9874. Poolsforberkeley.org 

“Climbing Mt. Shasta: Tips for First-time Climbers” with Eric White, climbing ranger with the US Forest Service at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Discussion Salon on “Will Robots Become More Intelligent Than Humans and Take Over the World?” at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut. 848-2995. 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

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

Solo Sierrans Hike Hike at Lake Chabot Reservoir Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the boat house. Optional dinner follows. For information call Delores 351-6247. 

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. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda.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. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland uptown to the Lake to discover Art Deco landmarks. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of the Paramount Theater at 2025 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Tilden Mini-Rangers Hiking, conservation and nature-based activities for ages 8-12. Dress to ramble and get dirty. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Chris Finan describes “From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 528-3254. 

Albany Library Evening Book Club meets to discuss “Digging to America” by Anne Tyler at 7 p.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

Lead-Safety for Remodeling, Repair and Painting of older homes. A HUD & EPA approved class held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, 2000 Embarcadero, #300, Oakland. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org  

New to DVD: “The Painted Veil” at 7 p.m. at JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Discussion follows. 848-0237. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets 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. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley BART station. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

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

THURSDAY, MAY 17 

Bike to Work Day with energizer stations located throughout Berkeley with refreshments and information. www.EBBC.org, www.511.org 

Golden Gate Audubon Society “Coming and Going: Bay Bird Populations” with Harry Fuller at 7 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 843-2222. 

Young People United, Resisting War, Resisting Violence An evening with Camilo Mejía, Iraq War veteran and conscientious objector, spoken word, video and more at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 411 28th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$20. 914-4678. 

Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative Potluck at 6:30 p.m. at LeConte Elementary School Garden, 2241 Russell St. Please bring something to share. 883-9096.  

“Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible” a documentary by Dr. Shakti Butler, at 6:30 p.m. followed by discussion at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 116 Montecito Ave., Oakland. 285-9600. 

Compassionate Communication Lori Hope discusses her new book “Help Me Live: 20 Things People With Cancer Want You To Know” at 6:15 p.m. at Markstein Cancer Education Center, 450 30th St., Suite 2810, Oakland. 869-8833, option 2. 

Simplicity Forum “Tiny Homes, Handmade Homes” at 6:30 p.m. at the Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 549-3509. 

“Curitiba” A film on urban solutions from Curitiba, Brazil at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Suggested donation $5. 663-2594. 

Poetry Workshop with Donna Davis, ongoing on Thurs. from 9 a.m. to noon at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $10 per semester. 848-0237. 

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

Baby and Toddler Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

“Dogen and the Lotus Sutra: The Mahayana Worldview of Zen” with Dr. Taigen Dan Leighton at 8:30 p.m. at the Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. RSVP requested 809-1444. 

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 

ONGOING 

Food Drive for Alameda County Food Bank Drop off canned goods, peanut butter, ceareal, powdered milk, beans, rice and pasta at Citibank, 200 Shattuck Ave. from May 1 to 15. Financial donations always welcome. 635-3663, ext. 318. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Youth Commission meets Mon., May 14, at 6:30 p.m., at City Council Chambers, Old City Hall. 981-6670.  

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., May 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601. 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., May 16, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5344.  

Commission on Labor meets Wed., May 16, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7550.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed., May 16, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., May 16, at 7 p.m. at the South Branch Library. 981-6195.  

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., May 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.