Posted Wed., Jan. 30—The question of dedicating space—a parking space—for Code Pink’s weekly demonstrations in front of the downtown Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center (MRC) raised hackles at Tuesday night’s Berkeley City Council meeting, when Councilmember Gordon Wozniak likened the demonstrations there to protests at abortion clinics. -more-

The Berkeley City Council will be addressing the issue of people lying on sidewalks and will have its first opportunity tonight (Tuesday) to address criminal behavior in its police department following the 2006 conviction of former Sgt. Cary Kent for stealing drugs from the evidence room he supervised and the alleged theft of cash and property belonging to suspects by another officer. -more-

Richmond’s Design Review Board this week will take up major renovation plans for the city’s Chevron Refinery, using an environmental impact report (EIR) one city councilmember calls “really pathetic” and “a piece of shit.” -more-

David J. Teece, the UC Berkeley professor and until recently perhaps Berkeley’s richest private landlord, used illegal tax dodges and owes Uncle Sam millions, says the IRS. -more-

Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission is asking the city tonight (Tuesday) to approve a resolution to “cease all purchases from Chevron, to the extent allowable by law.” -more-

When heavy winter rains and cold weather are predicted, even the hardiest of homeless people find themselves desperate for shelter. Thanks to funding from the city of Berkeley, the generosity of the congregation of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church—and some luck and community support—there is a haven from the storms. -more-

At its Jan. 13, 2008 meeting, Berkeley Citizens Action members considered the presidential primary candidates and the propositions and measures on the upcoming Feb. 5, 2008 ballot. -more-

It had been commonly believed—at least by Assembly District 14 candidates Richmond Councilmember Tony Thurmond, Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington, and Berkeley resident Dr. Phil Polakoff—that East Bay Parks District member and former Berkeley City Councilmember Nancy Skinner had decided not to run for the Assembly seat now occupied by Loni Hancock. -more-

In a made-for-TV moment, under blue skies and beside a sparkling bay at Shorebird Park, Mayor Tom Bates rolled out the draft Climate Action Plan aimed at reducing greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050—fulfilling the goals of Measure G, approved by Berkeley voters in 2004. -more-

Three more challengers, including one in the district of powerful Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, have announced for the Oakland City Council in what already was one of the most crowded election years in the city in recent memory. -more-

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board Member Chris Kavanagh, facing seven felony counts stemming from allegations that his real home is in Oakland and not Berkeley as he has claimed, was back in court on Thursday. -more-

The West Berkeley Community Monitoring Project will release test results today (Tuesday) for air samples taken near the Second Street-based Pacific Steel Casting to check for toxics. -more-

Snow, rain, wind. It’s that time of year when snuggling under an eiderdown, preferably with furry four-pawed friends, seems the only way to keep warm. -more-

Posted Sun., Jan. 27—Not that I miss them, but I haven’t found any Argentine ants in the house this winter. I hesitate to consider this a permanent victory, though. They’re out there somewhere, biding their time. -more-

Posted Sat., Jan. 26—When heavy winter rains and cold weather are predicted even that hardiest of homeless people find themselves desperate for shelter. -more-

The perpetual ring of the telephone shatters the otherwise calm interiors of Michele Lawrence’s spacious office in the headquarters of the Berkeley Unified School District at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. -more-

The little town of Albany stood up Tuesday night, first to the University of California, and then to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and its partner, the U.S. Depart-ment of Agriculture. -more-

Berkeley peace activists are gearing up to circulate a petition to place a measure on the November ballot restricting where public and private military recruiters can locate within the city. -more-

Two weeks after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed slashing K-12 funding as part of his proposed state budget cuts, Berkeley public school officials announced Wednesday that it was time to get on the bus and head for Sacramento. -more-

The AC Transit Board of Directors tabled a proposed 25 cent bus fare in-crease Wednesday night to study its implications on ridership, with the issue likely to come back before them before the winter is out. -more-

Full implementation of AC Transit District’s proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line ran into a potential chokepoint Wednesday night when dismayed district board members learned that the planned bus-only lanes may not be possible in a 1,000-yard stretch in the heart of Oakland. -more-

Tenants and customers of West Berkeley’s landmark Sawtooth Building have been granted an extra month to use a parking lot they say is critical to their commercial survival. -more-

“Activism is the elixir of life” was his motto. And Milt Wolff was an icon of activism, as were his fellow veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He could be seen at demonstrations and political events well into his 80s and even 90s. -more-

Robbery ring -more-

Civil rights in Berkeley has become like the residue of smoke once the smoker has left the room, says Osha Neumann, an attorney who works mostly with homeless and indigent people. -more-

Lawyers challenging UC Berkeley’s plans for a gym next to Memorial Stadium must produce expert evidence to back their claim that the two buildings are really one. -more-

Presenting the draft Downtown Plan to Berkeley’s Planning Commission Wednesday night, DAPAC Chair Will Travis declared that the commission could tinker with the proposal’s fabric only “at your peril.” -more-

West Berkeley zoning changes and a dramatic public challenge rounded out a Wednesday night Planning Commission schedule otherwise dominated by the Downtown Area Plan. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education on Wednesday approved the appointment of Dan Lee to the Merit Commission. -more-

In 1968, General Westmoreland announced that we could finally see “the light at the end of the tunnel” in Vietnam. That announcement has come to define a paradigm: the tendency of leaders, military and political, to declare victory long before a conflict has actually been resolved. An editorial in the influential international scientific journal Nature in February of 2007 was in fact entitled “Light at the End of the Tunnel.” It was part of Nature’s Climate Change special edition, and it warned that the world-wide acceptance of the reality of climate change brought with it new perils: business and political leaders were starting to announce what steps they were taking to combat the problems of global warning as if the problem were solved, when in fact the solutions offered were not nearly enough to solve the problem. -more-

Building support for live local performances is a Gordian knot which has no easy solution. At a recent gathering of supporters of a well-regarded classical music organization, someone asked in all innocence why the staff had not been able to arrange for more reviews of the group’s one-night-only performances in what still passes for the major metropolitan daily. Well, arts reviewers are dropping like flies all over the country as newpapers perceive themselves, rightly or wrongly, as being in trouble. -more-

MONEY WISELY SPENT OR WASTED? -more-

Recent weeks have seen television ads and mailers from a broad list of progressive groups and politicians urging a yes vote on Prop. 93, which revises the state’s term limits law. Progressive groups who work at the state level have little choice but to back a measure designed to keep the current Democratic leadership in place, and Prop. 93’s passage will enable some progressive legislators to extend their careers. But Prop. 93 is a disaster for progressive interests. -more-

Berkeley’s Elected Officials Unanimously Say Yes to Propostion 92 -more-

Thousands of absentee voters registered as independents are in for a shock when they open their ballot envelopes for the upcoming primary election and discover there are no presidential candidates’ names on their ballot. If you’ve already opened your envelope and discovered this, then you’re probably one of over 10,000 California voters who have already called their county Registrar of Voters to find out how to fix the problem. You learned that the Registrar would mail you a partisan (e.g., Democratic or American Independent) ballot, which you could then fill in and mail back. (Republicans have excluded independents in this election.) -more-

The arguments for and against the California Indian Gaming agreement propositions, Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97, has prompted me to re-examine an underlying assumption about Indian gaming. That is, does California’s $7 billion Indian gaming industry substantially benefit California Indians economically and socially? There are 105 tribal entities in California with approximately 56,158 tribal members. There are 31 gaming tribal casinos. Yes, Indian gaming revenue has been used to build houses, schools, roads and sewer and water systems and to fund health care and education for California’s gaming tribes and to a lesser extent, its non-gaming tribes. However, there remains a large economic and social disparity between California Indians and those of other Americans. -more-

Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland is a hospital for very sick children and serves all of Northern California. Alameda County has the good fortune of having this hospital, located in its jurisdiction and has placed two measures on the ballot to support its construction program, Measure A and Measure B. -more-

For decades, the stench from airborne chemicals emitted by Pacific Steel Casting has been allowed to pollute the air downwind from its foundries with virtual impunity. Environmental changes have come slowly to this part of the city. While other industrial polluters are much smaller, or have moved away in response to the growing residential population in this district, PSC’s operations have been allowed to expand. Until recently, it appeared that nothing would ever change. -more-

FOCUS ON AREA-WIDE -more-

To treat the spate of pedestrian traffic deaths and accidents as a uniquely Berkeley problem is blind provincialism at its worst as the problem is widespread throughout the country. There have been system change efforts to make Berkeley streets safer including lowering of speed limits, protruding peninsulas to shorten the crossing time and distance, trials of flags and flashing ground lights, the change to one lane of traffic each way on Marin, the bicycle boulevards and so forth. Many people have expressed their opinions as to whether these and other changes contribute to or alleviate the risk to pedestrians. Like one letter writer I have no doubt that talking on cell phones while driving contributes to many accidents and there is ample data from the transportation safety people to back that up. Cell phone driving has to be stopped by state laws that are highly promoted and enforced. But, beyond that hazard (and drunk driving) do we understand the major causes of such accidents? -more-

TRAGEDY AND COMEDY -more-

I’m sure most everyone has heard about the tragic deaths of pedestrians in our neighborhood. In less than seven months, four people have died within one mile of Thousand Oaks. Laurie Capitelli, our city councilmember, Betty Olds, and Dona Spring are gathering information to determine what kind of new safety measures the city can take to limit these horrendous accidents. In the Friday, Jan. 11 edition of the Berkeley Voice, Mr. Capitelli is quoted “We want to know if these deaths are a horrible coincidence or if there are some things going on that we need to address.” I have no doubt that all of our political leaders would like to improve the safety of our streets, but Mr. Capitelli also said in a recent e-mail to his constituents “After three years in the District 5 office, I can truthfully say the number one constituent complaint is about traffic; too much, too fast, too reckless.” It has been obvious to me and anyone who walks, rides, or rolls around Berkeley that the conditions for these “horrible coincidences” were all in place, even though alcohol and impaired visibility were a factor in two of these accidents. Over the last few years, traffic and related safety issues have been the number one topic of Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association (TONA) meetings, and repeated requests to improve enforcement have fallen on deaf ears. Our previous Councilmember Mim Hawley, told a TONA meeting that police were reluctant to write tickets as the city only kept half of the fine, the other half going to the state. -more-

After a second tragic pedestrian death on Marin Avenue, I’m glad to hear several Berkeley City Councilmembers calling for better traffic enforcement, signage, and analysis of collision statistics—and for driver restraint. -more-

On this day reflecting over Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, we remember his famous words: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” -more-

A friend asks me to check out the website www.idealist.org. I click on their URL and up pops a paid plea from Children’s Hospital Oakland, (CHO). It asks for help distributing 50,000 “Vote Yes on Measure A” yard signs. That’s one helluva lot of soon-to-be-thrown-away plastic signs. -more-

Not that I miss them, but I haven’t found any Argentine ants in the house this winter. I hesitate to consider this a permanent victory, though. They’re out there somewhere, biding their time. -more-

My neighbors and I put together a website (www.livableoakland. com) about our fight against Measure A, which will appear on the Feb. 5 ballot. In it we posted information about our neighborhood, sometimes known as Lower Temescal, or Baja Rockridge, or just plain North Oakland. -more-

I don’t usually find myself in agreement—even partial agreement—with NovoMetro columnist V Smoothe, but she raises some points in her Jan. 16 post “Mayor’s Cop Promise Impossible To Keep” that ought to be considered. -more-

The settlement of the residential blocks south of the UC campus began, naturally, on the streets closest to the university and progressed southward. In 1903, the area now known as the Willard neighborhood, comprising the Hillegass and Berry-Bangs tracts and bounded, clockwise, by Dwight Way, College, Ashby, and Telegraph Avenues, was most densely built along Benvenue and Hillegass Avenues north of Derby Street. -more-

When you crawl around under houses every day, you see some odd things. It’s part archaeology, a little zoology and, of course, all that construction stuff. It doesn’t take too long doing this to realize that you’re not always alone down under the house (or up in the attic). There are little neighbors that like to share the space. They’re not trying to get inside your house, per se. It’s just that they want a safe warm space and you happen to be right there. Termites use the same logic. They don’t know that they’re eating a house. What’s a house to a termite. They’re just eating some fallen trees that happen be in their path. -more-

Woodland gardening takes on a new aspect when one is practicing it here in coastal northern California. There are considerations one must take with regard to natural resources and scarcity—as much a product of time as of place, as everything living here gets more squeezed by human overpopulation, including us humans who are doing the overpopulating. -more-

TUESDAY, JAN. 29 -more-

In a Victorian parlor, a querulous wife (Michelle Pond as Bella Manningham) feels things are slipping away from her grasp, though she’s unable to explain how or why, while her prepossessing husband (David Shirk as Jack Manningham), in quiet, gentle tones or with impatience, treats her as a child, whether a naughty one or a child unaware of the import of what she’s doing. -more-

McSweeney’s, the San Francisco Mission District publishing concern founded by author Dave Eggers, is coming to Berkeley with a pizza party (they will provide the pizza) at Moe’s Books at 2476 Telegraph Ave. to celebrate the 50th issue of their monthly magazine, The Believer, on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Moe’s is one of 20 stores nationally where McSweeney’s is planning a celebration this week. “Any magazine today producing 50 issues is remarkable,” said Owen Hill of Moe’s. “McSweeney’s has a list of young, clever writers. The Believer is a good, open-ended interview/review magazine. We’ve hosted a pizza party before for their video magazine, and they're good at getting enough veggies for the vegetarians, enough meat for the carnivores!” -more-

A pair of Oakland writers have offered a compelling blueprint for the world’s energy ministers as they debate how best to address global warming and replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. -more-

Not that I miss them, but I haven’t found any Argentine ants in the house this winter. I hesitate to consider this a permanent victory, though. They’re out there somewhere, biding their time. -more-

TUESDAY, JAN. 29 -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 25 -more-

There is no shortage of great film festivals in the Bay Area, celebrating the cinematic heritage of every corner of the globe. -more-

‘APPARITION OF THE ETERNAL CHURCH’ -more-

A door on-stage is thrown open, and a vivacious young woman (Wendy Welch as Corie Bratter) surveys the room before her, and heaves a happy sigh. The room is a bare, freshly-painted fifth-floor walkup apartment, with only a ladder and paint cans for adornment. -more-

This Sunday at the Berkeley City Club, world-renowned pianist Seymour Lipkin will join music director George Cleve and the Midsummer Mozart Orchestra to initiate the 34th season of the Midsummer Mozart Festival. -more-

The settlement of the residential blocks south of the UC campus began, naturally, on the streets closest to the university and progressed southward. In 1903, the area now known as the Willard neighborhood, comprising the Hillegass and Berry-Bangs tracts and bounded, clockwise, by Dwight Way, College, Ashby, and Telegraph Avenues, was most densely built along Benvenue and Hillegass Avenues north of Derby Street. -more-

When you crawl around under houses every day, you see some odd things. It’s part archaeology, a little zoology and, of course, all that construction stuff. It doesn’t take too long doing this to realize that you’re not always alone down under the house (or up in the attic). There are little neighbors that like to share the space. They’re not trying to get inside your house, per se. It’s just that they want a safe warm space and you happen to be right there. Termites use the same logic. They don’t know that they’re eating a house. What’s a house to a termite. They’re just eating some fallen trees that happen be in their path. -more-

Woodland gardening takes on a new aspect when one is practicing it here in coastal northern California. There are considerations one must take with regard to natural resources and scarcity—as much a product of time as of place, as everything living here gets more squeezed by human overpopulation, including us humans who are doing the overpopulating. -more-

FRIDAY, JAN. 25 -more-