The Week

Berkeley High senior Giana Cirolia, 17, strikes a pose for her student ID card during registration Friday. Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee.
Berkeley High senior Giana Cirolia, 17, strikes a pose for her student ID card during registration Friday. Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee.
 

News

Riot Erupts Over Fencing In of UC Oak Grove

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 28, 2007

It began with a flimsy yellow ribbon and ended with a riot, two arrests and a courtroom hearing. -more-


BHS Officials Hope to Quell Back-to-School Chaos

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 28, 2007

When Berkeley High starts on Wednesday, school officials are hoping there will be no need this year for “zoo time,” as the beginning-of-the-school-year pandemonium at Berkeley High is commonly known, with students clamoring for books, calendars and lockers. -more-


Demolition Work Raises Questions in West Berkeley

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 28, 2007

A group of Berkeley residents are questioning why the windows of a building at 1050 Parker St. are being dismantled prior to the building getting a demolition use permit from the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB). Demolition permits for any building over 40 years old in a commercial zone must first be reviewed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to determine whether it has any historic significance. -more-


Verizon Sues Berkeley Over Cell Phone Towers

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 28, 2007

Cell phone giant Verizon Wireless filed a lawsuit against the City of Berkeley in the Federal Court of Oakland last week for allegedly being in violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. -more-


Time Will Tell If Dobbins Can Survive School Board Censure

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday August 28, 2007

Can the once-promising political future of Oakland Unified School District board member Chris Dobbins survive the recent scandal and censure? To quote the most trite of answers: Only time will tell. -more-


Group to Announce Results of West Berkeley Air Quality Testing

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 28, 2007

Air monitors set up by a group of West Berkeley residents in May to detect emissions from Pacific Steel Casting (PSC) reveal high levels of toxic metals nickel and manganese. -more-


Art Exhibit Stirs Controversy Among Korean Americans

By Peter Schurmann, New America Media
Tuesday August 28, 2007

The Korean king kneels, hands clasped in a gesture of submission. Above him looms the Japanese empress, at the head of an armada and clad in full samurai armor with sword outstretched. His armies defeated and his lands occupied, the king swears his country’s eternal loyalty to the Japanese throne. -more-


First Person: Six Years into War on Terror, TV Violence Has Skyrocketed

By Margot Pepper
Tuesday August 28, 2007

Violence, selfishness and insults have skyrocketed on national television since the first year of the war on terror, my second-grade students at Rosa Parks Elementary in Berkeley found. -more-


Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Tuesday August 28, 2007

Assault with a deadly weapon -more-


Elmwood Hardware to Close for Remodel, Might Not Reopen

By Richard Brenneman
Friday August 24, 2007

Elmwood Hardware, a fixture-selling fixture of the Berkeley scene for 84 years, will close next month for extensive remodeling, said owner Tad Laird. -more-


City Housing Authority Throws Out Waiting List

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 24, 2007

Angel Bertha Elzy has been waiting for a house since 1983. -more-


Telegraph Noise Battle Targets Evangelicals

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 24, 2007

A new kind of battle is brewing on Telegraph Avenue. Those who are leading the fight say it is not against religion, or against freedom of speech, but they contend that some religious speech on the street is just too loud. -more-


San Pablo Park Plans Centennial Bash

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 24, 2007

San Pablo Park—the West Berkeley recreation center that served as a social and sports mecca for East Bay African Americans in the heavily segregated years before World War II and became the symbol of Berkeley’s legendary ethic of ethnic diversity—turns 100 this month, and local officials and residents are honoring it this Saturday with a centennial celebration. -more-


Lawsuit Seeks Halt to Lab Plans, New Environmental Review

By Richard Brenneman
Friday August 24, 2007

Berkeley’s oldest tree-sitter, two Panoramic Hill residents, and two Berkeley landmark commissioners—one current, one former—have joined forces to file a legal challenge to expansion plans at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). -more-


Oakland School Board Reprimands Dobbins for Conduct

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 24, 2007

Solemn-faced members of the Oakland Unified School District board gave fellow board member Chris Dobbins the severest possible reprimand on Wednesday night, voting 5-2 to censure him “in the strongest possible terms,” stripping him of committee assignments, and requesting his resignation for what the board called “unethical, unprofessional, and inappropriate conduct” regarding Dobbins’ contact with a 17-year-old district high school student. -more-


Fire Code Violations Close UC Fraternity

By Rio Bauce
Friday August 24, 2007

On Thursday, the Berkeley Fire Department (BFD) threw the 16 residents of UC Berkeley’s fraternity Kappa Sigma out of their house for violating several fire safety codes, including not replacing a dysfunctional sprinkler system. -more-


Chancellor Briefs Press on Campus Projects

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 24, 2007

After outlining diversity and energy initiatives at his back-to-school press briefing Thursday, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau fended off top UC Regent Richard Blum’s criticism that the UC ten-campus system suffered from a “dysfunctional set of organizational structures, processes and policies.” -more-


School Board Appoints New Deputy Superintendent

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 24, 2007

The Berkeley Board of Education welcomed Javetta Robinson as the school district’s new deputy superintendent-chief financial officer at their first meeting after summer break Wednesday. -more-


DAPAC, Landmarks Meet to Finish Chapter

By Richard Brenneman
Friday August 24, 2007

The key document in the battle over the role of historic buildings in shaping the public face of tomorrow’s downtown will take definitive form Monday night. -more-


Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Friday August 24, 2007

Battery -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Celebrating the Small Changes

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday August 28, 2007

For many months, there was a bottle of champagne in our office refrigerator, being saved for the day Karl Rove was indicted. The donor wasn’t a member of the reporting staff, since they are expected to preserve the appearance of political neutrality, but I’m pretty sure that if and when Rove had actually been indicted everyone, including the reporters, would have accepted a celebratory glass with enthusiasm. It didn’t happen—Rove was allowed to slither off the scene without going to jail, an over-enthusiastic former sales manager popped the champagne cork for some petty triumph, and the focus shifted to Alberto Gonzales as villain-du-jour. (Meanwhile, the odious Rummy had also left the building.) -more-


Editorial: At Least We Don’t Jail Our Prophets

By Becky O’Malley
Friday August 24, 2007

Berkeley residents who get tired of being called NIMBYs and worse by the powers-that-be think they have problems. The artists and other denizens of West Berkeley who object to the new taxation scheme which the big property owners are trying to foist on the neighborhood they call home are currently getting the full treatment from those who think they know what’s best for the area: how to clean it up and make it all nicey-nice for the newly lucrative biotech labs and the high-end condos speculators are hoping to build near them. Their turf is also the target of city re-zoning efforts both spot (Berkeley Bowl) and far-reaching (auto dealership specials). They complain, with some justification, that their now-affordable housing and workspaces are being threatened by gentrification, that there’s obvious inequality in the way different contenders for West Berkeley space are being treated. -more-


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday August 28, 2007

VAN HOOL BUSES -more-


Commentary: West Berkeley Air Quality: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

By L A Wood
Tuesday August 28, 2007

The lyrics “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” have certainly been true in West Berkeley where foundry emissions and their noxious odors are a daily reminder of our local air quality crisis. Current levels of airborne chemicals and metal particulates have given zip code 94710 the shameful distinction of having some of the highest levels of asthma in the county. -more-


Smart Growth

By Steve Meyers
Tuesday August 28, 2007

In a recent editorial, Becky O’Malley described “smart growth” as “the unproven theory that making already-developed urban areas ever denser will prevent sprawl into the hinterlands.” While this is often cited as a benefit of smart growth by its advocates, it is only one aspect of smart growth, and the least important from the perspective of Berkeley. -more-


Letters to the Editor

Friday August 24, 2007

DOUGHBOYS -more-


Commentary: Berkeley Housing Authority’s Plan To Dump its Waiting List

By Lynda Carson
Friday August 24, 2007

On Aug. 22, Berkeley Housing Authority board members were scheduled to vote on a resolution to terminate it’s existing housing assistance waiting list. There was little to no advance warning that this was about to occur, and it caught the housing community by surprise. -more-


Commentary: Oak-to-Ninth Referendum Raises Democratic Issues

By Akio Tanaka
Friday August 24, 2007

Last Friday the Oak-to-Ninth Referendum Committee held a rally in front of Oakland City Hall to mark the one-year anniversary of the turn-in of the 25,000 petition signatures requiring that the Oak-to-Ninth Development Agreement be put to a vote of the public. -more-


Commentary: Mark Rhoades: Just Following Orders?

By Sharon Hudson
Friday August 24, 2007

Becky O’Malley’s Aug. 10 editorial, “Planners Come and Go, But the Department Never Changes,” blamed departing city planner Mark Rhoades’ malodorous planning style on three factors: the loss of municipal revenues created by Proposition 13, policies set by Rhoades’ bosses, and the natural tendency of regulatory agencies to be hijacked by those they regulate. -more-


Commentary: Trying to Re-Frame the Question of Artists in Berkeley

By Thomas Lord
Friday August 24, 2007

Is there such a thing as optimistic fatalism? I’m talking about artists in Berkeley, of course. Here are some observations that occur to me: Of course, nobody who is upstanding should be brutalized by a civil process into quitting their residence or business place—we all ought to demand civility and generosity towards artists in those proceedings and transactions which increasingly force them to relocate out of town. It is a sad period of time in the history of Berkeley. -more-


Commentary: Empty Van Hool Buses on Telegraph

By Glen Kohler
Friday August 24, 2007

A closely-spaced motorcade of double-size Van Hool buses now trundles up and down Telegraph Avenue at all hours. I regularly observe the middle and Berkeley end of Bus Line No. 1 doing business on Telegraph and occasionally getting paint at Kelley-Moore at Telegraph and 42nd. Morning, noon, and night, I see an average range of six to 16 passengers occupying these cavernous vehicles. Telegraph Avenue in Oakland is in poor condition already. The greatest damage to city streets is done by buses, according to the paving engineer hired by City of Berkeley that I spoke to when North Shattuck Avenue was last repaved. And we all see how little budget there seems to be for street maintenance and repair in Berkeley and Oakland. Considering how much fuel is being consumed to deploy so many heavy buses to move so few passengers, BRT deserves a good deal more before-the-fact public disclosure and scrutiny than it has received. -more-


Commentary: Normalcy is Dead in South Berkeley

By Sam Herbert
Friday August 24, 2007

There is no “normal” left in Berkeley. Lethargy, a surfeit of political correctness, and confusion of common sense have led to its demise. I spend less time than I used to in community activism. It is not that the issues that plague South Berkeley have diminished in any way. My resignation comes from recognition that there are more individuals committed to defeating “normal” than I can battle. Conditions have changed little in the 11 years I’ve lived in Berkeley. The players change on both sides of the law, but the challenges remain. The dangers posed by the out-of-control illegal drug trade are still here. Shootouts are still commonplace in Beat 12. The focus of criminal activity in and around 1610 Oregon St. bleeds out—often literally—onto satellite sites, including other houses on the 1600 block Oregon Street; McGee Street (especially the four corners and the intersection of Oregon/McGee); the 1500 block of Oregon Street, with daily drug sales at the corner of Oregon/Sacramento and the apartments on the other side of Oregon; gunfire exchanges with residents of the Rosewood Apartments, on Russell and Oregon Street habitués; and now excursions onto Stuart Street as well. -more-


Commentary: Commemorating the Life of Peace Activist Brian Willson

By Mark Coplan
Friday August 24, 2007

Long-time peace activist Brian Willson became an international symbol of nonviolent resistance when he was run over by a train carrying weapons to Central America at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, near Concord, California, on Sept. 1, 1987. Brian miraculously survived, but lost both his legs and received a severe head injury. A subsequent investigation revealed that the government train was speeding, that the military drivers could see him for over 650 feet, and that they never applied the brakes as the train ran over him. He had been sitting on the tracks in a widely publicized protest against U.S. military intervention in Central America.” (Excerpt from The Road to Transformation: A Conversation with Brian Willson, by John Dear). -more-


Columns

Green Neighbors: The Survival of the Birch Beer Canoodle

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday August 28, 2007

A birch is about as exotic as a banana here, and maybe they’re both ubiquitous in people’s front yards for similar nostalgic reasons—or maybe instead because they’re so outrageous when you know where you are. -more-


Column: The Public Eye: Two Great Iraq War Documentaries by Berkeleyans

By Bob Burnett
Friday August 24, 2007

Berkeley residents have made two superb documentaries about the long-term impact of the war in Iraq: No End in Sight and Soldiers of Conscience. -more-


Column: Undercurrents: Parsing the Case Against Your Black Muslim Bakery

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 24, 2007

There was always something that seemed extraordinarily fortuitous about the supposed quick solving of the Chauncey Bailey murder case. -more-


Architectural Excursions: General Vallejo Practiced the Art of Living Well

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 24, 2007

We all need a sanity break from Berkeley every now and then, but not everyone can fly off to the Seychelles or to Switzerland when the urge to flee is upon us. -more-


Metonymy in the Garden: Containing Yourself

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 24, 2007

Glenn Keator talked to the Merritt College Aesthetic Pruning Club’s annual symposium last week about planting in containers, and here are some of the things he said and evoked: -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday August 28, 2007

TUESDAY, AUGUST 28 -more-


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Tuesday August 28, 2007

‘VIATICUM’ AT LIVE OAK -more-


Books: Delightful Characters of Bygone Berkeley

Tuesday August 28, 2007

By RICHARD BRENNEMAN -more-


Singer Kim Nalley Wows Downtown Jazz Festival

Tuesday August 28, 2007

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor -more-


Green Neighbors: The Survival of the Birch Beer Canoodle

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday August 28, 2007

A birch is about as exotic as a banana here, and maybe they’re both ubiquitous in people’s front yards for similar nostalgic reasons—or maybe instead because they’re so outrageous when you know where you are. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday August 28, 2007

TUESDAY, AUGUST 28 -more-


Correction

Tuesday August 28, 2007

Due to overzealous use of the spell-checking function, the name of Pacific Film Archive house pianist Jon Mirsalis was inadvertently printed as Jon Misrules in an Aug. 24 story about avant-garde cinema. We regret the error. -more-


Arts Calendar

Friday August 24, 2007

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 -more-


Around the East Bay

Friday August 24, 2007

HOPE BRIGGS SINGS AT YERBA BUENA -more-


The Tale of Gilgamesh at The Ashby Stage

By Ken Bullock
Friday August 24, 2007

Entering the Ashby Stage for George Charbak’s TheaterInSearch production of the (very) ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, the spectators see a seated, veiled figure, sculptural, atop a model ziggurat, surrounded by gaping masks of bearded Assyrians on the back walls, as strains of the oud (evocatively played by Larry Klein) resound through the hall. -more-


Kornbluth at Berkeley Rep

By Ken Bullock
Friday August 24, 2007

“We’ve been exporting democracy to other countries around the world—and maybe we ran out! ... a soupcon of democracy, as they like to say at Chez Panisse ... I’m a monologist—and democracy is a dialogue. At least!” -more-


Avant-Garde Cinema, Then and Now: Kino Celebrates Film’s More Eclectic Figures

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday August 24, 2007

A recent driving tour through the wilds of Northern California and Southern Oregon only reaffirmed what I already knew: that Bay Area cinephiles are lucky, especially in these dull summer months of big-budget drivel, to live in a place where film artistry is not only appreciated, but relatively plentiful. -more-


Avant-Garde Cinema, Then and Now: Kiarostami’s ‘Five’ At Pacific Film Archive

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday August 24, 2007

Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has always toyed with a minimalist aesthetic, an approach he derived from the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. It is a technique that calls for patience, both from the filmmaker and his audience, with long, meditative shots that allow characters and themes to gradually reveal themselves before the camera. -more-


Architectural Excursions: General Vallejo Practiced the Art of Living Well

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 24, 2007

We all need a sanity break from Berkeley every now and then, but not everyone can fly off to the Seychelles or to Switzerland when the urge to flee is upon us. -more-


Metonymy in the Garden: Containing Yourself

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 24, 2007

Glenn Keator talked to the Merritt College Aesthetic Pruning Club’s annual symposium last week about planting in containers, and here are some of the things he said and evoked: -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday August 24, 2007

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 -more-