Opinion

We were talking recently to our new friend, the professor visiting from Spain. We asked what her husband’s job is. He’s a sociologist, she said. And does he teach at your university? Well, he does teach some classes at night, but his day job is working for the government of a small city, about the size of Berkeley, outside of Madrid. -more-

Possibly a weekend front page editor with a sense of irony laid out the big metro daily I saw on Sunday. At the top of the page was an all-to-familiar story about young black men destroyed by absentee parenting and the allure of street life. It featured the obligatory map of Oakland. “OAKLAND: A PLAGUE OF KILLING” was the overline. And the subhead: “Trapped in a bleak world where drugs and violence offer a chance for money and respect, many young black men quickly resort to murder.” -more-

BIOFUEL / KANDY’S -more-

Did you know that by shifting just 10 percent of your purchases to locally owned businesses, you can start a cycle that creates more jobs in Berkeley, lightens the city’s environmental impact, expands your own shopping options, builds a stronger community, and helps keep our city a national innovator? -more-

In a special meeting on Wednesday Dec. 5, the Berkeley Zero Waste Commission approved a controversial bid from a Stockton company to sort all rubbish (dry discards) that now comes through the city’s transfer station at Second and Gilman streets. It would cover about 200 tons a day of the 340 or so now landfilled. After sorting, about half the rubbish would go to landfill, some would be recycled, and some would be burned. -more-

Due to a copyediting error, a figure was misquoted in George Beier’s Dec. 11 commentary, “Option Recovery Services — Fighting the Good Fight.” The article should have stated that eighty percent of Options clients come from Berkeley. -more-

IRAQ OCCUPATION -more-

Who “owns” the commons is, indeed, the right question but we must ask it clearly. There are two, relevant meanings of “own” in modern English: Ownership in rights, and ownership in disposition. Children use the latter sense when, for example, one might say “A-ha—I owned you in that videogame,” meaning that the speaker’s skills were so fabulous the competitor couldn’t do much. -more-

Dan McMullan’s charges against Options Recovery (see last Tuesday’s Commentary) are simply baseless and cannot go unchallenged. -more-

Ever since the Bush regime began its escalation of the war in Iraq by sending tens of thousands of more troops this year, media pundits and politicians have been debating whether the “surge” is working. In the last couple months, the administration and it apologists are claiming that the escalation has been working and that more time should be allowed to give the Bush regime the chance to prove that the “new strategy” will be successful. But the debate has been waged entirely on the wrong terms. -more-

We are blessed to live in a community with international renown for having one of the most prestigious universities in the world. We are also blessed in that we nurture some students in our own K-12 schools who are sought after by some of the most elite universities in the country. -more-