The Week

Metal sculptor Yves Darius of Croix Bosquets, Haiti, shows off one of his pieces. His work will be among the many crafts available at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Crafts fair Saturday and Sunday. Photograph by Jennifer Patntaléon.
Metal sculptor Yves Darius of Croix Bosquets, Haiti, shows off one of his pieces. His work will be among the many crafts available at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Crafts fair Saturday and Sunday. Photograph by Jennifer Patntaléon.
 

News

Buying with a Conscience at the International Holiday Crafts Fair

By Judith Scherr
Friday November 30, 2007

The “tap-tap-tap” you hear coming from the shops that line some of the narrow streets in Croix des Bosquets is the sound of artisans pounding nails into metal, crafting the recycled iron mermaids or butterflies that have given the bustling, dusty town, just 15 minutes northeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, its reputation for metal sculpture, says Jennifer Pantaléon, whose nonprofit, Zanmi Lakay, brings Haitian arts and crafts to buyers in the U.S. -more-


Council Cleans Up Commons for Shoppers

By Judith Scherr
Friday November 30, 2007

Next Steps for the Public Commons

By Judith Scherr
Friday November 30, 2007

While enforcement for new restrictions against those lying on the sidewalk and smoking in commercial areas will likely begin within six weeks, new services—lauded by supporters as an integral part of the Public Commons for Everyone Initiative passed by the City Council Tuesday—will take more time. -more-


BioFuel Project Clashes with Kandy’s Car Wash at Corner

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday November 30, 2007

A vehement burst of community protest compelled the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to postpone permitting BioFuel Oasis to establish a filling station at 1441 Ashby Ave. Thursday. -more-


Council Approves Funds For Ed Roberts Campus Fund

By Judith Scherr
Friday November 30, 2007

For some, council meetings are drudgery. But for Dimitri Belser, president of the Ed Roberts Campus board of directors, and others who came to Tuesday’s meeting to support the ERC, the session proved to be exactly what they had hoped for. -more-


Stadium Grove Tree-Sitters Set for First Anniversary

By Richard Brenneman
Friday November 30, 2007

Berkeley’s tree-sitters and their supporters are getting ready for Sunday’s celebration that will mark the end of the first year of a colorful campus protest. -more-


BUSD Selects BHS Superintendent Finalists

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday November 30, 2007

The Berkeley Board of Education selected the finalists Monday to fill the post of superintendent for the Berkeley Unified School District. -more-


Oakland School Officials Await Decision on Local Control

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday November 30, 2007

State Schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell appears ready to turn over two more areas of control to the Oakland Unified School District on the recommendation of the Fiscal Crisis & Assistance Management Team (FCMAT), a move that could lead directly to the hiring of a new OUSD superintendent under local control. -more-


FCMAT Oakland Schools Report Summary

Friday November 30, 2007

FCMAT rates on a 10-point scale, with scores given to several individual standards within each of the five operational areas (community relations and governance, finance, facilities management, personnel management, and pupil achievement), and then the operational area itself is given an average of the individual standards scores. -more-


Planners Tackle West Berkeley Density, Housing Rules

By Richard Brenneman
Friday November 30, 2007

Planning Commissioners began their trek through one of Berkeley’s most complex and cabalistic arts Wednesday night—deciphering the city’s policies on density bonus and inclusionary housing. -more-


Dellums to Break Up Police Department

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday November 30, 2007

The administration of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums moved swiftly to consolidate its recent police 12-hour day arbitration victory, announcing that the Oakland Police Department will be broken up into three “geographically accountable” command areas effective Jan. 19. -more-


Berkeley High Beat: Help Needed for BHS Holiday Meal

By Rio Bauce
Friday November 30, 2007

On Dec. 15, hundreds of people around Berkeley will come to eat a holiday meal at Berkeley High School (BHS) from 1-5 p.m. The BHS Associated Student Body (ASB) is calling on Berkeley residents and businesses to help by volunteering or donating money or food. -more-


You Write the Planet

Friday November 30, 2007

It’s time to submit your essays, poems, stories, artwork and photographs for the Planet’s annual holiday reader contribution issue, which will be published on Dec. 21. Send your submissions, preferably no more than 1,000 words, to holiday@berkeleydailyplanet.com. Deadline is 5 p.m. on Dec. 16. -more-


Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Friday November 30, 2007

Domestic violence -more-


Fire Log

By Richard Brenneman
Friday November 30, 2007

Cat on a hot thin rug -more-


Flash: Council Cleans Up Commons for Shoppers

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Once known for tolerance toward the downtrodden, Berkeley turned a corner Tuesday night, advocates for the homeless and mentally ill say, when the City Council voted to give police greater power to cite people lying on city sidewalks. -more-


Reader Report: Grandmothers Break Oak Grove Siege

By Matthew Taylor, Special to the Planet
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Oak grove tree-sitters had cause for gratitude on Thanksgiving when over 80 Berkeley community members and students, led by the “Berkeley Grandmothers for the Oaks,” defied UC police orders, risked arrest, and successfully delivered bulging bags of food and jugs of water to the arboreal protestors. -more-


Street Behavior, Solar Contract Top Council Agenda

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday November 27, 2007

If the Berkeley City Council gives its approval tonight (Tuesday), the city will award a $50,000 sole source contract to the nonprofit corporation Build It Green to prepare the groundwork for a pilot solar project. -more-


Downtown Panel Meets Thursday for Final Votes

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Two years of grueling and sometimes acrimonious effort comes to an end Thursday night when the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee holds its final meeting. -more-


Berkeley Marina Bird Rescue Center Closes as Cleanup Continues

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday November 27, 2007

The Oiled Wildlife Care Network closed down its bird rescue center at the Berkeley Marina Monday and moved operations to the International Bird Rescue and Research Center in Cordelia. -more-


International Baccalaureate Site Visit Positive, Says BHS

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Extensive interviews, discussions and reviews marked the two-day visit to Berkeley High’s International High School by the International Baccalaureate Organization as part of an application to accredit the program within the institution’s International High School last week. -more-


Centennial Exhibit Tracks History of Berkeley Parks

By Steven Finacom, Special to the Planet
Tuesday November 27, 2007

The newcomer visiting the Berkeley Marina for the first time, the long-time local sunbathing on the lawn at Willard Park, the dog walker at Ohlone Park, the sunset viewer at Indian Rock, the softball player at San Pablo, the romantic in the Rose Garden, or the new mother watching the children at Virginia-McGee tot lot—all may be excused in the midst of their enjoyment, for perhaps imagining that such places have been around as long as Berkeley itself. -more-


Berkeley City College Announces Selection Of New President

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Betty Inclan has been appointed the new president of Berkeley City College, the Peralta Community College District announced last week. -more-


Port Commission Considers New Bay Bridge Billboard Deal

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday November 27, 2007

A proposed deal between the Port of Oakland and CBS Outdoor to put a second 20-by-60-foot billboard near the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza has sparked opposition from at least one local environmental group, but the Oakland city councilmember who opposed the first billboard says she lacks the power to prevent it. -more-


University Seeks Bids for Kerr Campus, Li Ka-Shing Building

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday November 27, 2007

UC Berkeley’s building boom continues to move forward, with calls for bids issued to three companies for the renovation of seven buildings housing 800 students at Clark Kerr Campus. -more-


Planning Commission Faces Light Agenda

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Berkeley Planning Commissioners will face a light agenda when they meet Wednesday night, with the only action item a decision to set a public hearing. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Pie in the Sky for the Holiday Table

By Becky O’Malley
Friday November 30, 2007

If you want a good laugh, type “sex on the sidewalk” into Google News. This will give you the opportunity to witness, firsthand, the birth of an urban legend. And where has it been born? Why, in our beloved San Francisco Chronicle, of course. Carolyn Jones reported on Tuesday that: “The new plan cracks down on yelling, littering, camping, drunkenness, smoking, urinating and sex on sidewalks and in parks.” I know she was at the City Council meeting—so was I, and I saw her. But where did she get that sentence? Never mind, it’s been picked up all over the map as the key component of whatever the City Council thinks it passed on Tuesday night. -more-


Editorial: Substituting Private Profit for Public Policy

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday November 27, 2007

What’s nice about book reviews is that, well done, they turn a monologue into a dialogue. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for an author to reveal his thought processes and his conclusions on the printed page, and even more to submit to the judgment of his peers about whether or not he got it right. At our house we’ve been planning for a while now to form opinions about two new books by two Bobs, Robert Reich, now a Berkeley snowbird who teaches at UC’s Goldman School of Public Policy in the months when Cambridge is unpleasant, and Robert Kuttner, who’s still mostly an Easterner. They’re co-founders of The American Prospect, a worthy if sometimes dull journal of opinion populated mostly by center-left thinkers with a Boston background who have a lingering affection for the Democratic Party in some of its manifestations. -more-


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday November 30, 2007

WORK IT OUT TOGETHER -more-


Commentary: Whom Do We Blame?

By Alan Miller
Friday November 30, 2007

In last Friday’s issue of Berkeley Daily Planet, Jonathan Stevens asks one of the most discussed questions today: “Whom do we blame....” for the failures in public education? This is easy to answer: let’s start with the citizens of California, who passed Proposition 13 and began the process of starving what was once considered the premier public education system in the country. That initiative quickly gutted the state budget and made it unlikely that, without an appeal, California could ever add the per pupil funding expenditures necessary to achieve the results citizens say they desire. California has the highest class sizes in the nation and moves between 40th and 48th in per pupil expenditures (depending upon which numbers one uses). Thank God for Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation, and one of the few to be as consistently stingy as we are with our students. Nina Simone said it all in her classic song! And thanks to Berkeley citizens for Measure A and all of the bond measures which have supplemented the district budget. -more-


Commentary: Schools Are Better Now

By Al Durrette
Friday November 30, 2007

In “The State of Education” in the Nov. 23 Daily Planet, teacher Jonathan Stephens decries the “diminishing intellectual returns” in today’s classrooms, but fails to appreciate the deepened understanding of other cultures and behaviors, and the internalization of the idea of justice, that students achieve in today’s multi-cultural equal-opportunity classrooms. -more-


Commentary: Talking Points for the Superintendent Selection Process

By Michael Miller
Friday November 30, 2007

The following text is the United In Action “Talking Points for Superintendent Selection Process,” submitted to the Leadership Associates (“Leadership”) consulting group. Leadership is the agency contracted by the BUSD to find our next superintendent. -more-


Commentary: Real Solutions Needed for Greenhouse Gases

By James Singmaster
Friday November 30, 2007

Richard Brenneman’s comment in Nov. 20 issue of the Planet continues to point to the deficiencies of the BP grant and agrofuel programs, but the real deficiency has gotten little mention until Dr. J. Overpeck’s statement on the last IPCC report in the San Francisco Chronicle on Nov. 18. In the front page article, Dr. Overpeck, director of the University of Arizona, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth and member of the IPCC, is cited as saying “It’s going to get warmer” from industrial emissions remaining in the atmosphere for decades to centuries without making mention of new emissions that will be adding to raise the level of greenhouse gases (GHGs) mainly carbon dioxide. The real issue that has to be addressed to get some control of global warming is finding a means to remove some of the 35 percent overload of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution. In the same article, Dr. S. Schneider of Stanford cited that overload in the article as being the main cause of warming seen in the last 40-50 years. Almost all proposals for curbing of emissions from vehicles and power plants, which still allows some adding to that 35 percent, and for growing agrofuels, which allow a lot of non-energy generating recycling of that gas, do nothing to remove any of that 35 percent. -more-


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday November 27, 2007

ARE WORDS OF PRAISE -more-


Commentary: The DAPAC Finale: A Convoluted But Positive Ending

By Jim Novosel
Tuesday November 27, 2007

The proceeding of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) has come to an end. And what an ending it is. This Thursday, Nov. 29, the Committee will vote on the plan and most likely, a slight majority will affirm it and a minority will abstain; not vote against it but abstain in the final vote before the group disbands. It is a true irony that the many of those who were appointed by the councilmembers that had voted against creating DAPAC, were those who worked the hardest to create a consensus plan that is reasonable, progressive and one that most of our citizens will likely support. On the other hand, most appointees of councilmembers who voted to create DAPAC have indicated that they will abstain from voting for the plan. DAPAC, set up by the City Council with a slim 5 to 4 vote, has ended mirroring the divisions on the city Council in the reverse. -more-


Commentary: Act Rationally: Go Independent

By Joanna Graham
Tuesday November 27, 2007

OK, I’ve been putting this off for a long time, but now I have to ask. In what universe does Bob Burnett live? I’m interested because I’d like to go there too. In Bob’s universe, surely goodness and mercy will follow us as soon as “bad” Republicans are replaced by “good” Democrats. I guess in Bob’s universe the “good” Democrats haven’t already been in control of Congress for a year, getting nothing done that might cheer us humble folk. Oh, but wait, that’s not fair! They have a mere majority and there’s a Republican in the White House, so how can we expect them to accomplish anything? We must look back to the glory years from 1993 to 2001 when the Democrat in the White House did so much good for us…. Oops, I forgot! For all except the first two years (during which he agitated for NAFTA, instituted “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, and created the health care debacle) that poor Democrat was hamstrung by a Republican Congress. So there was no way he could possibly have accomplished all the wonderful things he intended. -more-


Columns

Column: Undercurrents: A Ride, Or a Walk, In Uptown-Downtown Oakland

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday November 30, 2007

Last summer, I happened to be walking with an out-of-town couple who had come, early, to a Paramount Theater concert and, with some time to kill, wanted to know if I knew of any good places in the downtown area to get something to eat. I did, actually. Several places. But Jack London Square seemed too far for them to walk and, with little city signage to help them along the way, I thought they might be mistrustful of any directions a strange local might give them that took them off Broadway to Old Oakland or Chinatown. They got a hot dog from one of the vendors who works outside the Paramount events, I think, and an opportunity was lost. -more-


East Bay: Then and Now: North Gables: Early Exemplar of Equal Opportunity Housing

By Daniella Thompson
Friday November 30, 2007

In 1948, University of California enrollment at the Berkeley campus reached 22,000 students, making adequate housing the number-one problem facing the student body. That year, the California Alumni Association published the book Students at Berkeley, which contained a large chapter devoted to housing and analyzed potential student housing sites. -more-


Garden Variety: Shopping for the Gardener On Your List, Part 1

By Ron Sullivan
Friday November 30, 2007

It’s post-Thanksgiving: socially, it’s December. Time to think about holiday shopping. -more-


About the House: A Resident’s Guide to Our Mushy Landscape

By Matt Cantor
Friday November 30, 2007

Welcome to my watershed. I really like it here but it is, basically, a big clay bowl and we’re all salad. -more-


Column: The Public Eye: Cloning Dubya

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday November 27, 2007

While George Dubya Bush will be in office for 14 more months, many have already labeled him the worst president in modern American history. They complain that the Bush legacy will extend well beyond January of 2009, when the next president takes office. Political observers lament he has had the “reverse Midas touch,” where he’s worsened every aspect of American foreign and domestic policy he’s blundered into. Bush’s most lasting negative legacy can be attributed to his autocratic leadership style, which has inspired other politicians to emulate his tactics and ethics. As a result, we see mini-Dubyas running for president and Dubya clones ruling other countries. -more-


Wild Neighbors: Thanksgiving with the Grebes and Scoters

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Chopped fish and mealworms: not your classic Thanksgiving menu. But that’s what the eared and horned grebes at the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRCC) were getting. The larger birds—surf scoters, greater scaup, western grebes, common murres—were fed whole fish. The coots, according to a whiteboard notation, got a side of bloodworms “if we have any bloodworms.” -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday November 30, 2007

FRIDAY, NOV. 30 -more-


James Rosen’s ‘Homage’ at GTU Library

By Peter Selz, Special to the Planet
Friday November 30, 2007

James Rosen’s paintings at the Graduate Theological Union library are called “Homage.” They are indeed in praise of the old masters as chosen by the painter, who sees himself as a messenger, detecting his signals from the past so that he can employ his artistic talent to send them on to us, the viewers. Rosen, like all good artists, is aware that his work is part of a flow which goes back to Paleolithic times. -more-


Goines Posters on Display at Hillside Club

By Karen Jacobs, Special to the Planet
Friday November 30, 2007

See 100 posters by David Lance Goines at the Hillside Club this weekend. -more-


Jazz Drummer Roy Haines at Yoshis

By Ira Steingroot
Friday November 30, 2007

In the 1940s, jazz drummer extraordinaire Roy Haynes worked with Lester Young, Charlie Parker (“My Little Suede Shoes”), Bud Powell (“Dance of the Infidels”) and Miles Davis. -more-


Moving Pictures: Early Cinema’s Grandest Spectacle

By Justin DeFreitas
Tuesday December 30, 2008 - 09:23:00 PM

Though he is often credited with more than he contributed, D.W. Griffith is undoubtedly the first of the great cinematic artists. He did not create the tools of the trade, nor invent its techniques, but he imbued them with meaning, gave significance and weight to them, and thus established the grammar of motion pictures. -more-


Moving Pictures: 'True Heart Susie' Shows Griffith's Softer Side

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday November 30, 2007

D.W. Griffith is known these days primarily for his large-scale epics Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). And while these films contributed greatly to the history and art of motion pictures, they do not fully convey the range and power of Griffith's talent, nor are they his most enjoyable films. -more-


Moving Pictures: The Movie Heard ‘Round the World

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday November 30, 2007

The great thing about DVD is that it has given the major studios the opportunity to finally do right by the classics in their archives. For the first six or seven years of the format’s existence, the studios were, for the most part, content to simply reissue their back catalogues in cheap editions, often without any attempt to remaster the image. -more-


Moving Pictures: The Talkies Learn to Move: Pabst's 'Threepenny Opera'

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday November 30, 2007

When Bertolt Brecht and G.W. Pabst decided to collaborate in bringing the former's Threepenny Opera to the screen, both men were at the peak of their careers. But the collaboration would be anything but smooth. Indeed it was fraught with conflict, as so many Brecht projects were. -more-


Lorna K. to Record First CD Live At San Francisco’s Plush Room

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday November 30, 2007

Vocalist and Berkeley resident Lorna Kollmeyer—Lorna K. to her many Bay Area fans—is topping off her 15-year “overnight success” career of singing the American songbook with a live recording session for her first CD at the Plush Room in San Francisco Monday evening, Dec. 3. -more-


East Bay: Then and Now: North Gables: Early Exemplar of Equal Opportunity Housing

By Daniella Thompson
Friday November 30, 2007

In 1948, University of California enrollment at the Berkeley campus reached 22,000 students, making adequate housing the number-one problem facing the student body. That year, the California Alumni Association published the book Students at Berkeley, which contained a large chapter devoted to housing and analyzed potential student housing sites. -more-


Garden Variety: Shopping for the Gardener On Your List, Part 1

By Ron Sullivan
Friday November 30, 2007

It’s post-Thanksgiving: socially, it’s December. Time to think about holiday shopping. -more-


About the House: A Resident’s Guide to Our Mushy Landscape

By Matt Cantor
Friday November 30, 2007

Welcome to my watershed. I really like it here but it is, basically, a big clay bowl and we’re all salad. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday November 30, 2007

FRIDAY, NOV. 30 -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday November 27, 2007

TUESDAY, NOV. 27 -more-


Vincent, Reed Talk Poetry at Pegasus

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Poets Stephen Vincent (author of the newly published Junction Press collection, Walking Theory) and Pat Reed, both Bay Area poets noted for close observation of landscapes, will read 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Pegasus Books, at 2349 Shattuck Ave. -more-


Around the East Bay

Tuesday November 27, 2007

WRIGHT CENTENNIAL -more-


Books: Looking Beyond Ken Burns’ ‘The War’

By Helen Rippier Wheeler
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Ken Burns’ latest monumental television production is currently being shown on PBS channels. The War follows more than 40 people from 1941 to 1945, focusing on the citizens of Luverne, Minnesota; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Mobile, Alabama. The book companion to the series, The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, is available in public libraries. -more-


Wild Neighbors: Thanksgiving with the Grebes and Scoters

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Chopped fish and mealworms: not your classic Thanksgiving menu. But that’s what the eared and horned grebes at the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRCC) were getting. The larger birds—surf scoters, greater scaup, western grebes, common murres—were fed whole fish. The coots, according to a whiteboard notation, got a side of bloodworms “if we have any bloodworms.” -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday November 27, 2007

TUESDAY, NOV. 27 -more-


Correction

Tuesday November 27, 2007