As a local movement to censure U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein for supporting Michael Mukasey’s nomination for U.S. Attorney General began, more than 200 students gathered in front of UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza Wednes-day to witness a waterboarding demonstration. -more-
The $500 million pact between UC Berkeley and one of the world’s largest oil companies went into effect Wednesday, though research covered by the contract started months ago. -more-
The only sound along the deserted shoreline at the Berk-eley Marina Wednesday was the clattering of pebbles inside Carole Rathfon’s double-layered plastic bag. -more-
Richmond residents expressed concern this week at the failure of state and federal officials to rescue oiled birds from the Rich-mond shoreline. -more-
The question of who will implement the East Bay Smart Solar Program, funded by the Depart-ment of Energy with matching city money, brings to the fore the question of how government engages nonprofits and other organizations—for better or worse—to do work it cannot or will not do. -more-
DAPAC approved a limited-height mandate for the downtown Berkeley plan, dividing their Monday night vote between a majority who felt they’d compromised enough and a minority who wouldn’t approve anything without an economist’s imprimatur. -more-
The Memorial Stadium confrontation between tree-sitters and campus officialdom heated up Thursday, marked by three arrests and a fence breach. -more-
Berkeley officials said they plan to submit a work plan for dredging Aquatic Park lagoon to the State Water Resources Control Board for approval, according to city and state officials. -more-
A three-year-old business assessment district that had become controversial with some of its members was voted off the Avenue at last week’s Solano Avenue Association (SAA) board meeting. -more-
Berkeley planning commissioners voted to clamp down on liquor stores that started selling spirits before the city instituted its current zoning policies. -more-
Arguing that the California Department of Transportation did not adequately assess impacts on the environment in its plans to add a fourth bore to the Caldecott Tunnel, attorneys Stuart Flashman and Antonio Rossmann have filed a petition in Alameda County Superior Court in an attempt to get Caltrans to modify its plans. -more-
California Attorney General Jerry Brown told a gathering of California county leaders in Oakland this week that global warming was the single most important issue of our time, that the California Environmental Quality Act was a “key environmental milestone” in fighting the greenhouse gas emissions that are much of the cause of global warming, and that counties which do not address such emissions in their CEQA environmental impact reports face a likelihood of being sued by his office. -more-
The California Senate Education Committee has scheduled a public hearing in Oakland next month on the State Department of Education and procedures for return to local control of school districts in state receivership. -more-
The $500 million pact between UC Berkeley and one of the world’s largest oil companies went into effect Wednesday, though actual work had begun in June. -more-
Seventy-nine volunteers from across the East Bay underwent four hours of training on cleaning hazardous oil spills from the shoreline by the City of Berkeley and the East Bay Regional Park District at the Berkeley Marina Monday. -more-
Berkeley is home to the movement for the independence of disabled people and winner of the National Organization on Disability’s 2006 Accessible America competition, yet the disabled community expressed outrage at what people said was the mayor’s insensitivity at the Nov. 6 council meeting. -more-
“We have something to celebrate and something to mourn,” Joe Robinson told fellow members of the citizen panel advising the state on toxic cleanups in southern Richmond. -more-
A new report takes aim at the East Bay Regional Park District for not doing enough to ensure that low-income minority communities have access to open space. -more-
Today I conducted an act of civil disobedience (my first in quite some time). Using a common kitty litter scoop, I peeled globs of oil from a beach, and placed them in a bucket. I defied not only the Coast Guard, but our own city manager, Phil Kamlarz, who has declared the shore off-limits. -more-
Second Lt. Joseph Perkins described it as a small carnival—with its Humvee, Apache Helicopter simulator and climbing wall. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Perkins was one of the army recruiters on campus Thursday, Friday and Saturday. -more-
The State Historical Resources Commission unanimously approved the nomination for the Berkeley High School campus to be listed on the National Register as a historic district Friday. -more-
Members of the Oak-to-Ninth Referendum Committee have decided to drop their lawsuit over Oakland City Attorney John Russo’s decision last year to throw out petitions calling for a citizen vote on the controversial development project. But opponents and proponents of the lawsuit were as divided over the reason for voluntary dismissal as they were over the lawsuit itself. -more-
California State School Superintendent Jack O’Connell said in an e-mail to an Oakland education activist this week that despite his belief that state school takeovers should be a “last option,” local control of the Oakland Unified School District will continue to be withheld until “the time is right.” -more-
The Memorial Stadium tree-sit sustained its second major casualty Sunday night when one of the protesters fell, breaking an arm and a leg. -more-
Berkeley Planning Commissioners will tackle Demon Rum Wednesday night—or, more precisely, a proposal to tighten the rules on its purveyors. -more-
The Berkeley Board of Education will vote Wednesday on whether to hire Emeryville-based Baker Vilar Architects to design Berkeley High School’s new bleachers and prepare plans for demolishing its old gym. -more-
An e-mail from an old friend chided me recently for this space’s seeming pre-occupation with local land use issues (and with opera). He pointed out that serious national matters like Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s inexcusable endorsement of Michael Mukasey deserve attention too, and he’s got a point. Luckily here in Berkeley we’ve got a good number of writers, some better than me, to keep track of Feinstein’s lapses, and they’re doing a sterling job, so we are off the hook. -more-
If anyone wonders if there’s a role for classical music in the hard-edged 21st century, they should acquaint themselves with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, which had its season’s opening on Friday night at the Paramount in Oakland. We go to a good number of musical events, some of them really big hits with their audiences, but it’s only at the Paramount with Maestro Michael Morgan wielding the baton that bravura performances are rewarded with shouts of “right on” from the balcony. Sometimes (horrors) they come even after a particularly thrilling movement, in defiance or ignorance of the classical convention which counsels waiting until the whole piece is finished to cheer. It’s not just polite clapping, or even the vigorous foot-stomping on the wooden floor of Berkeley’s First Congregational Church which is used to applaud the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. When the enormous Paramount audiences like something, it’s expressed by full-throated roars, often ornamented with the kind of piercing whistles normally heard at rock concerts or baseball games. -more-
The Biggest Game in Town is Mayor Tom Bates’ favorite—Deals for Developers. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: This correspondence between Downtown Area Planning Advisory Committee staffer Matt Taecker and former city land-use Planning Manager Mark Rhoades was sent to the DAPAC and has been circulating on the Internet for the last week. -more-
In his Nov. 9 letter, Jeffrey Jensen of North Oakland is unsatisfied with nebulous crime-fighting plans and bigger-picture orations from Mayor Dellums. -more-
Dear Chancellor Birgeneau, -more-
It is human nature to form our opinions out of small bits of available information, a large dose of personal experience, with random bits of stuff we’ve heard from other sources thrown in; that’s how we figure out the world. Unfortunately, all too often we form our opinions based on too little information combined with too much “stuff we’ve heard”—and that’s how we wind up with bigotry and prejudice. -more-
Despite its mission of dialogue, KPFA has become a venue for increasingly nasty attacks, which exhaust the station and turn listeners off. I would like to set the record straight on a number of allegations that have been printed in these pages and to ask the question: can KPFA afford to be at war with itself? -more-
The current conflict within the KPFA community is a cauldron of bitter feelings and resentments. There are three slates of candidates currently running for the Local Station Board. I’ll discuss the two slates that are most directly at loggerheads: “Peoples Radio” and “Concerned Listeners.” The former group has severe criticisms of current station management and governance—criticisms that have been voiced quite persuasively here in the pages of the Planet, one of the venues where this debate has taken place. -more-
Despite how he tried to portray himself in a recent East Bay Monthy article, Patrick Kennedy is no “Jane Jacobs.” He’s more like Jane’s nemesis, Robert Moses —the infamous developer who decimated New York City with freeways and oversized housing projects from 1920 to 1970. -more-
Development battle opponents are often depicted as pro-development on one side, anti-development on the other, but that’s almost always a mischaracterization. Just as it would be virtually impossible for someone to be in favor of all development, regardless of what that development happens to be, you never run into someone who is against any and all development. The questions for both sides always is: what type of development are we talking about? Where will it be located? And, probably most important, what portions of the community will it benefit? -more-
Mystery is the reverse side of history. Berkeley, a city chock-full of historic houses, naturally has its share of mysteries—interesting structures about whose origin little or nothing is known. -more-
Annie’s Annuals sent me a promo e-mail a week or two back. Not spam; I’ve put my name on Annie’s mail list because I want to know when the Annies do interesting stuff. -more-
Dash it all! It seems to take so blasted long to get clothed for the office these days, what with button-hooking the boots, those darned gaiters, buttoning those trousers all the way up and then there’s all the layers. My tailoring bill has become absolutely astronomical and my dresser takes a good 45-minutes ironing my shirt, cravat and those endless four-fold handkerchiefs. Perhaps one day, a man will be able to wear only three layers when flagging his Hansom cab to the office, but for now we must plod through, chin high and suffer silently. -more-
The presidential election will occur on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, less than a year from now. Because the candidates have been campaigning for 11 months, we already know quite a lot about the likely outcome. -more-
Bamboo is a plant with many faces and many reputations. It’s invasive, except when it’s not; it’s edible, tough, fast-growing. It’s good for scaffolding, houses, roofs, containers (in sizes from spice-bottle to bazooka), musical instruments (the Malagasy valiha tubular harp and sodinha flute, just for example), bows and arrows and the bowstrings too, fishing rods, curtain rods, flooring, paneling, dishes, kitchen and table utensils as well as the table and most of the kitchen itself, including water pipes. -more-
Awash with the spray of the yet-unconquered sea, the stage at Berkeley Rep (designed by Daniel Ostling) represents the wooden ships and wood palaces of preclassical times, as the cast does the heroes, demigods, goddesses, kings, witches and nymphs from legend that move through. -more-
The New Italian Film Festival, playing this week at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco through Sunday, offers a rich course on the best new filmmakers in Italian film. After this weekend, most of these films will likely never be shown again with English subtitles or ever be released on DVD in the United States. -more-
Our image of Charlie Chaplin is a simple one: a daft little man in baggy clothes, with bowler hat and wicker cane. He’s just a comedian—a silly clown. -more-
“Wow.” The word permeates The Life of Reilly, a new film of a one-man show by the late actor Charles Nelson Reilly. And with each utterance of the word, we get the sense that it’s the only time when this consummate entertainer is not totally in control of his performance. The word just seems to seep out, almost reflexively, at quiet moments during the show. It is as though Reilly himself is still marveling at his own past, reliving his memories, experiencing the formative events of his life all over again, but with the wisdom and awe of an older man keenly aware that he was too young to fully appreciate the depth, the pain, the humor and the madness of his life as he was living it. -more-
Mystery is the reverse side of history. Berkeley, a city chock-full of historic houses, naturally has its share of mysteries—interesting structures about whose origin little or nothing is known. -more-
Annie’s Annuals sent me a promo e-mail a week or two back. Not spam; I’ve put my name on Annie’s mail list because I want to know when the Annies do interesting stuff. -more-
Dash it all! It seems to take so blasted long to get clothed for the office these days, what with button-hooking the boots, those darned gaiters, buttoning those trousers all the way up and then there’s all the layers. My tailoring bill has become absolutely astronomical and my dresser takes a good 45-minutes ironing my shirt, cravat and those endless four-fold handkerchiefs. Perhaps one day, a man will be able to wear only three layers when flagging his Hansom cab to the office, but for now we must plod through, chin high and suffer silently. -more-
“What do I know about a heart? To me, a man’s an asset!” Mae West’s very intonation is proverbial—though just after the start of Sex, her 1926 Broadway blockbuster now revived at the Aurora, she intones, not too piously: “Don’t give me that church business again; you’ll get me goin’ back to the old homestead.” -more-
Bamboo is a plant with many faces and many reputations. It’s invasive, except when it’s not; it’s edible, tough, fast-growing. It’s good for scaffolding, houses, roofs, containers (in sizes from spice-bottle to bazooka), musical instruments (the Malagasy valiha tubular harp and sodinha flute, just for example), bows and arrows and the bowstrings too, fishing rods, curtain rods, flooring, paneling, dishes, kitchen and table utensils as well as the table and most of the kitchen itself, including water pipes. -more-
