Organized by KSFO radio personality Melanie Morgan, chair of Move America Forward, pro-war, anti-Islamic and anti-immigration demonstrators converged on the Berkeley Recruiting Center today (Wednesday), caravanning into town with their SUVs and Harleys decked out in American flags to face off with Code Pink, the anti-war group that has held vigils in front of the 64 Shattuck Square Recruitment Office for three weeks. -more-

A 31-year-old Berkeley mother has been charged with murdering her 9-year-old son. -more-

Michi Uchida’s piercing black eyes and gnarled fingers testify to a community torn apart by World War II and the resurrection that followed in its aftermath. -more-

After protests from West Berkeley residents and small business owners, the West Berkeley Community Benefits District (WBCBD) may be off the table. -more-

If Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has lost significant political support in the city since the June 2006 election—as at least one local media outlet has reported—that sentiment was not immediately apparent at a standing-room-only Town Hall meeting at North Oakland’s Peralta Elementary School last Saturday morning. -more-

Celebrated for her art and her activism, Pele deLappe spent a lifetime fighting for racial justice, women’s equality and workers’ rights. -more-

Two key sections of the proposed new downtown plan come up for votes Wednesday, chapters that could help define the future look of Berkeley’s urban core. -more-

The Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) voted 8-6 Thursday to allow Berkeley developers Ruegg and Ellsworth to relocate the landmarked Blood House at 2526 Durant Ave. to Regent Street and build a a 34,158-square-foot, five-story building with 44 apartments, 18 parking spaces and retail space in its place. -more-

Staff registered nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and Herrick Hospital were back at work Monday morning—three days after their two-day walkout ended. -more-

Assault -more-

In a move that Oakland Unified School Board President David Kakishiba said was “not unexpected,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB 45 Oakland school local control bill on Saturday. -more-

Amir Hassan, a 9-year-old Emerson elementary school student is dead, his mother has been hospitalized, and detectives are focusing their investigations on her, police said. -more-

The hands putting up the brightly colored rainbows, hearts and flowers on the walls of the library at Emerson Elementary School Thursday belonged to teachers, friends and classmates of Amir Hassan, the fourth-grader who was found dead inside his Shattuck Avenue apartment Wednesday morning. -more-

With a smile and a soupçon of praise for the legal talent arrayed before her, Judge Barbara J. Miller retired to her chambers Thursday afternoon to ponder the fate of UC Berkeley’s stadium area development plans. -more-

While the city’s appraiser said the air rights over a rebuilt City Center Garage is worth $850,000, a developer planning a building adjacent to the garage valued the rights the developer would buy at $22,250. -more-

Alta Bates/Summit nurses and their supporters were walking the picket line Thursday in the second day of what the California Nurse’s Association calls “the biggest RN strike this decade.” -more-

A widely publicized recent poll that reportedly showed that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is losing support among “likely Oakland voters” was not intended as a poll on success or failure of the Dellums administration, was never intended for release to the public, and the organization which commissioned it is now conducting an internal investigation to see how its results got released to political columnists Phil Matier and Andy Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle. -more-

On Monday, Oct. 1, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross reported selected results of the David Binder poll concerning Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums. -more-

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums meets with North Oakland residents this Saturday, holding a city charter-mandated community town hall meeting from 10 a.m. to noon at the Peralta Elementary School, 460 63rd St. -more-

UC Berkeley plans a major overhaul of landmarked Bowles Hall, and they’re looking for an architect to show how to do it. -more-

Visitors to Berkeley High School will now have to show photo identification to enter the campus. -more-

The Binational Health Week, organized locally by the Berkeley Organizing Congregation for Action (BOCA), starts today (Friday) to promote mental health and physical fitness in the city. -more-

Soon oh very soon, we’re going to change this world. -more-

Some Berkeley school board members expressed concern that Berkeley High School (BHS) did not meet the benchmark for the 2007 Academic Performance Index (API) scores. -more-

We get letters from all over the world in response to what appears on our pages, particularly on our opinion pages. We get letters in which the writers unburden themselves of their opinions about Berkeley in general, or about what they believe Berkeley to be. And we get many letters in which the writers reveal their opinions about the fate of the nation or the world, which they send hoping a Berkeley paper will print when their hometown papers haven’t. -more-

Just before the turn of the last century, the United States entered into a war with Spain which was to cost the lives of more than 4,000 Americans and many more Cubans. Spaniards and residents of the Philippines, and which would lead to decades of colonial domination by the United States. It is generally conceded that a major factor which precipitated the entry of this country into the Spanish-American war was the role of what was called “the yellow press,” the sensationalist newspapers which with lurid headlines and passionate front page editorializing whipped up a popular frenzy against Spain. The Hearst newspaper empire played a major role in this effort, which was a guaranteed circulation builder in those days. -more-

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Many people think the Bush regime is politically weakened and will no longer be able to achieve its political agenda, particularly in regard to the Iraq war. Millions also have the illusion that after the 2008 elections that the U.S. military will finally withdraw from that beleaguered country. But the Bush regime is currently expanding the size of the U.S. military, and the leading Democratic presidential contenders are not likely to remove the U.S. military presence in Iraq if they are elected. -more-

Before Marcel Marceau’s body is buried and evaporates from public view, I thought to make note here in a short commentary that Marceau was a pantomime (pantomimist) and Charlie Chaplin was a mime – despite what AP, UPI and theater folk say about Marceau. -more-

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, California found. -more-

Your article “Reading Recovery Program Shows Results in Berkeley Schools” (October 5–8) violates several basic journalistic principles. -more-

UNIMPEACHABLE -more-

Two pieces of e-mail arrived in my inbox on Sunday. One was about the recently-launched effort to recall Mayor Tom Bates. It asked “What is Tom Bates doing wrong?” The second was for an Oct. 15 benefit for the Elmwood Neighborhood Association, which is suing the city for its approval of the huge restaur-ant and bar complex at the old Wright’s Garage. I couldn’t help but laugh, because this e-mail had so simply answered the question posed by the first. If Tom Bates had been doing his job, ordinary people wouldn’t have to sue our city to get justice. They wouldn’t have to stage benefits when a letter to the mayor would have sufficed. -more-

As Halcyon Neighborhood Association (HNA) celebrates its 15th anniversary, we’d like to share with the larger community the principles that have allowed us to achieve so much in our corner of south Berkeley. -more-

Last May, in my daughter’s Berkeley High School music class, a fellow classmate, Herbert, walked out the door with my daughter’s laptop computer, iPod, Timbuktu bag and cell phone. The other students said, “Oh, he is always stealing.” She saved for a year working at the Pacific Center and back stage at school to buy the laptop; I am a single mom. The teacher witnessed it and reported it to the school security guard. -more-

Most Americans don’t trust their government. A recent Gallup poll found “Americans generally express less trust in the federal government than at any point in the past decade, and trust in many federal government institutions is now lower than it was during the Watergate era.” Only 43 percent of poll respondents trust President Bush and 50 percent do not trust Congress. -more-

If you want to look back at changes in Berkeley’s bird life over the last century, the work of Charles Augustus Keeler provides a convenient benchmark. I have a battered library-discard copy of his Bird Notes Afield, the second edition, published in 1907. Keeler notes in a preface that the bird collection of the California Academy of Sciences, where he did his research, had been a casualty of the San Francisco quake and fire the year before. -more-

Bush administration neo-conservatives, allied with a group of U.S. senators, appear to have successfully torpedoed the upcoming Bush administration-sponsored Middle East peace conference. Initially billed as a gathering that would propel Israel and the Palestinians toward a “final-status” agreement, the November conference’s goals have now been reduced to little more than establishing a “set of principles” as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it. -more-

When the Berkeley Planning Department proposed last January to re-zone the West Berkeley properties occupied by Urban Ore and the city’s transfer station—two of northern Alameda County’s recycling hubs—for auto dealerships, it might have seemed that the bureau had exhausted its capacity to dream up bizarre land use schemes. That impression was dispelled last Wednesday evening, as senior planner Matt Taecker presented the Downtown Area Planning Advisory Committee (DAPAC—sounds like daypack) with a vision of a high-rise downtown as surreal as the notion of replacing Berkeley’s major recycling facilities with auto dealers. -more-

It was a couple of throwaway sentences deep into the second page of an Oakland Tribune murder arrest story, so innocuous that if you read it, you probably hardly noticed. And that’s what makes it so insidious, why it should make us worried, and why the police practice involved ought to be brought to a halt. -more-

2206 Jefferson Ave. in central Berkeley is a charming enigma of an old Berkeley house. Precisely when it was built and how it arrived where it is are matters of some mystery. -more-

Some promising plant sales and garden events will happen over the next couple of weeks. One thing to remember about plant sales: Most of them accept payment by cash or check only, as it’s not feasible for them to set up a credit-card facility for such infrequent events. So remember your checkbook along with your walking shoes and some cartons or recycling boxes to tote your plants. -more-

For those of you who’ve been reading this column for some time, you know that I have what might be called a conflicted relationship with the building codes. Basically they bug me. I’m glad they’re there but they still bug me. -more-

TUESDAY, OCT. 16 -more-

“What do you do with an old king?” queries Central Works Theater Ensemble with their current revival of co-founder Gary Graves’ comedy Every Inch a King, which takes the primal scene, the family tragedy from King Lear, updates it, takes a peek at the three sisters conferring with the old man in the other room and makes it dark, offbeat and too funny. -more-

Child prodigy or fake? Naive genius or instrument of an adult Svengali? A controversy that erupts over the growing success of a child painter, a kind of modernist primitive, becomes a welter of questions about art, perception and authorship for a local community outside New York City and for the national media, and became a problem of integrity and presentation for Berkeley-raised documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev, whose remarkable movie My Kid Could Paint That opened locally this past weekend. -more-

This preview of the 2007 SF Jazz Festival, the 25th running of our inspired local jazz derby, must needs begin in medias res since the first two events of the season, author Ben Ratliff and guitarist John McLaughlin, have already come and gone. Not to worry. You still have a chance to catch 37 more performances before the festival closes on Jan. 25 with a concert by Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares at Grace Cathedral. -more-

Now is the perfect time of year to head up north to Crescent City. It makes a great refueling stop while exploring expansive Redwood National Park, and is just a hop, skip, and jump from the Oregon border and the dramatic Oregon coast. -more-

If you want to look back at changes in Berkeley’s bird life over the last century, the work of Charles Augustus Keeler provides a convenient benchmark. I have a battered library-discard copy of his Bird Notes Afield, the second edition, published in 1907. Keeler notes in a preface that the bird collection of the California Academy of Sciences, where he did his research, had been a casualty of the San Francisco quake and fire the year before. -more-

TUESDAY, OCT. 16 -more-

FRIDAY, OCT. 12 -more-

Singer and actor Nicholas Bearde, longtime Rockridge resident, one of Bobby McFerrin’s original (and ongoing) Voicestra vocalists and a favorite at Bay Area clubs and parties, will record his third CD live, performing at Yoshi’s Jazzhouse in Jack London Square Tuesday evening. -more-

Cinema 16 is a UK company bringing greater visibility to the short film through a series of DVD releases showcasing some of the best works in the form. -more-

Sergio Leone is often thought of as an ironic and humorous filmmaker, a mischievous genre deconstructionist. But though his films have plenty of humor and wit and mischief, they also contain great beauty and depth and insight. Though he may have worked most famously in a genre largely considered pulp—the Western—but Leone was one of the great cinematic artists. -more-

Greg Brockbank, who plays Dick Cheney in By George, It’s War!, composer Dale Polissar’s new satirical musical comedy about the Bush administration, says he tries to put a “tough, Republican look” on his face while swinging his golf club in the Bohemian Grove during the number “The Republican Men’s Chorus” as the group sings, “We’re just hard-working, regular guys trying to make an honest buck; and if we have to poke our fingers in a few people’s eyes, and cut a few throats, what the fuck?” -more-

2206 Jefferson Ave. in central Berkeley is a charming enigma of an old Berkeley house. Precisely when it was built and how it arrived where it is are matters of some mystery. -more-

Some promising plant sales and garden events will happen over the next couple of weeks. One thing to remember about plant sales: Most of them accept payment by cash or check only, as it’s not feasible for them to set up a credit-card facility for such infrequent events. So remember your checkbook along with your walking shoes and some cartons or recycling boxes to tote your plants. -more-

For those of you who’ve been reading this column for some time, you know that I have what might be called a conflicted relationship with the building codes. Basically they bug me. I’m glad they’re there but they still bug me. -more-

FRIDAY, OCT. 12 -more-