Posted Sat., Feb. 9—It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. -more-
If the Berkeley City Council approves an item on Tuesday’s agenda, it will clarify city support for the troops—while continuing to condemn the war—and will rescind the section of the Jan. 29 council item that calls the downtown Marine Recruiting Center “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” that has provoked the ire of conservative bloggers and pundits. -more-
Berkeley wasn’t exempt Tuesday from election-day glitches due to technical and human error. -more-
Berkeley’s Public Works Department submitted a revised work plan for dredging the lagoon at the north end of Aquatic Park to the Regional Water Quality Control Board last week. It is scheduled to go before the city council for approval in March. -more-
Neighbors say they are relieved: There won’t be a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and bar replacing the old Wright’s Garage at the corner of Ashby Avenue, just west of College Avenue. -more-
The Oakland City Council 2008 election dance card all but filled up this week with the announcement that North Oakland public safety activist Patrick Mc-Cullough is running for the District One seat currently held by Councilmember Jane Brunner. -more-
California Highway Patrol officers joined Richmond Police on patrol this week in a three-month concerted effort to stem the bloodshed that has plagued the city in recent months. -more-
Berkeley police have arrested the man they believe stalked elderly men and women leaving grocery stores, then beat them before stealing their valuables. -more-
Under the gun to file its contribution statements with the city of Berkeley rather than with Alameda County, Business for Better Government, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee (PAC), is going out of business. -more-
More than 800 sophomores sat for their California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) at Berkeley High this week. -more-
The Bay Area music community and the world lost an important voice and a respected, beloved teacher on Sunday, when composer Jorge Liderman died in an apparent suicide when he was struck by a BART train at the El Cerrito Plaza station. He had recently taken a leave of absence from the music department at UC Berkeley in order to treat his depression. The news of his death came as a grievous shock to the wide circle of people who knew him and called him a friend. -more-
Progressives disappointed over Barack Obama’s California numbers can be cheered by three critical facts. First, Obama did much better than was projected only a month ago, and California’s delegate selection process minimized Clinton’s popular vote margin. Second, the defeat of Prop. 93 promises to usher in a new era of progressive leadership in Sacramento, with the possibility that a “dream team” of Karen Bass as Assembly Speaker and Darrell Steinberg as Senate pro tem could be installed this session. Third, Prop. 93’s defeat set up contested Democratic primary contests across the state, which will greatly increase voter turnout in June for the campaign to defeat Prop 98, the measure that would abolish rent control. -more-
Posted Thurs., Feb. 7—Neighbors say they are relieved: there won’t be a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and bar replacing the old Wright’s Garage at the corner of Ashby and College avenues. -more-
Posted Tue., Feb. 5—If the Berkeley City Council approves an item on the Feb. 12 council agenda, it will clarify city support for the troops—while continuing to condemn the war—and will rescind the part of the Jan. 29 council item that called the downtown Marine Recruiting Station “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” -more-
In a countdown to today’s Super Tuesday vote, Sen. Edward Kennedy was cheered Friday by thousands of Barack Obama supporters, who had queued up for blocks along Telegraph Avenue and crowded into the pews and aisles of Beebe Memorial Cathedral in Oakland to hear Kennedy speak on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidate. -more-
The World Can’t Wait ratcheted up the protests at the downtown Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center Friday, when three demonstrators dressed in orange jump suits to symbolize the garb worn by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay chained themselves to the recruiting center doors at 64 Shattuck Square. -more-
Five members of the People’s Park Community Advisory Board resigned last week after falling out with UC Berkeley officials over the university’s reluctance to sponsor an open competition to choose a new design as part of ongoing efforts to remodel the park. -more-
Richmond’s Design Review Board (DRB) voted to approve Chevron’s plans to upgrade its refinery, but before the vote was taken Thursday night, few folks had anything nice to say about the world’s seventh largest corporation. -more-
The first of the 184 trees slated for removal within two weeks on the Gill Tract at Buchanan Street and San Pablo Avenue was felled on Friday. -more-
Bill Huyett, Berkeley’s new superintendent of schools, began his first day in the district with the most tedious of tasks: moving in. -more-
Berkeley’s Housing Advisory Commission (HAC) meets Thursday night to weigh in on three critical housing issues now before the Planning Commission. -more-
Neighbors of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center are once again on the war path, this time over an e-mail which they said tipped off hospital employees about an annual traffic monitoring survey held last week. -more-
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals to fix a projected $14 billion state budget deficit could cost Alameda County as much as a half a million dollars in borrowing costs alone and millions of dollars more in federal matching money, according to a veteran county supervisor. -more-
Advocates of single payer health insurance in California are saying that the collapse of the Nuñez-Perata-Schwarzenegger health care bill is a good thing and are moving forward with reviving their own single-payer legislation. -more-
Sorting out the controversy over the Marine recruiting station will be a long and tedious job, but bear with us, please. -more-
Thanks to my advanced age, it’s very rare that I have to talk to or even see another human before 8 a.m. anymore (except of course my husband.) Which is how I like it. I’m awake early, but definitely not conversational. So I was very surprised to find myself at Peet’s on Domingo at about 7 on Monday morning, fully clothed and relatively alert. I was even wearing Norine’s scarf, a flamboyantly-flowered number which I inherited from my flamboyantly-redhaired friend Norine Smith, who never hesitated to leap into any political controversy whenever she felt that God was on her side, which was pretty much always. I wear it when I feel the spirit moving me to take action, which sadly is not too often these days. -more-
Super: Excellent, outstanding, great, -more-
My recently published book on presidential primaries started as an independent study project out of the political science department at San Francisco State University in 2003. My advisor on the project, Professor Rich DeLeon, was (and is) an advocate for ranked balloting. “This suggestion is perhaps a bit too far over the horizon of political reality, but I’d like to see a rider attached to your proposed reform requiring all primary victors to win a majority of the vote, either by runoff if necessary or, optimally by some kind of ranked-ballot method, which would also yield terrific in-depth info about a candidate’s strengths in terms of second-place votes received, third-place votes, etc.” -more-
In 2000 Berkeley voters approved a $116.5 million bond to finance the continuation of the schools rebuilding program which had commenced in the early 1990s. Of the projects for which this bond was intended, adding classrooms at Berkeley High was the most urgent and the most expensive. After the election, Superintendent “Great Builder” Jack McLaughlin left the district. The new superintendent’s attention was aimed at budget issues judged more urgent than the commencement of new building projects. While the new superintendent was so consumed, things shifted. The perception of overcrowding at the high school was erased by a significant drop in the high school’s population and by the completion of the new building. Everyone agreed that the high school needed time to adjust to the great changes in its campus. The public lost interest in the overcrowding issue. The district, in turn, launched a master planning exercise—the latest of countless since the 1930s—to decide exactly how to resolve the south of Bancroft portion of the campus. Subsequent construction at the high school was hitched to a slow but accountable decision process. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: Letters regarding the City Council’s ruling on the Marine Recruitment Center are on Page Fifteen. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Planet is only printing letters from locals regarding the ruling on the Marine Recruitment Center. Signed letters from non-locals and letters addressed to third parties will be published on our website. Unsigned letters will not be published. -more-
OUT OF CONTROL -more-
For 95 years, Children’s Hospital has cared for the children and families of this community. From day one, in 1912, our mission has been to serve any child, no matter the family’s ability to pay. We have never wavered from that mission. Over the years we have cared for hundreds of thousands of children. -more-
I’m a resident of North Oakland, and Ms. Roy’s comments in the Daily Planet regarding the expansion of Children’s Hospital are profoundly disturbing to me—not least since I’m also the sister of a little girl who died in childhood of a rare form of cancer that strikes only children (Wilmes’ tumor). Today, thankfully, almost all forms of children’s cancer are treatable. If my sister, Cathy, had been born just a few years later, chances are she’d be alive today. -more-
As a mother of a teenager, I am proud that Berkeley High School was the last high school in the nation to cave in to federal pressure and give students’ contact info to the military. Though the elected school board had voted to opt out, the school had to comply eventually to preserve federal funding. Parents may opt out, as I did, but signing up for college info opted us back in, so we are receiving deceptively seductive, glossy brochures that don’t mention that enlistees are trained to harden their hearts and kill, possibly torture, and may be killed. -more-
I ran into a good friend of mine on Shattuck Avenue on election day, a longtime Berkeley progressive, hurrying to buy some Chinese food so he could get back home and watch the returns on television. He said that John Edwards had been his first choice, but after Edwards dropped out, he had agonized over who to vote for. He liked Barack Obama’s energy and promise of change, he said, but said that Hillary Clinton is closest to his positions on the two issues he cared for the most, nuclear power and universal health care. He said that even on his way to the polls, he was still agonizing over who to choose. -more-
For seven decades spanning the period from the 1880s to the 1950s, San Francisco was an important hub in the American knitting industry. It became so thanks to one Swiss immigrant: John Jacob Pfister (1844–1921). -more-
I’m listening to the mow-n-blow couple working their way through the neighborhood. I’m about bored with things that roar and go bang, especially in the garden, especially at midday because, surprise, I work right here at home. To judge by the time they’ve spent on the token lawn in front of the apartment next door, the various gas-powered gadgets don’t save much time and they must make the work as hard with their weight as the average push mower, weed whip/scythe, or rake would with just repetitive motion. Don’t get me started on what errant weedwhackers do to tree trunks; I ranted sufficiently last week to keep my diastole high. -more-
One of the most common features in our early 20th century housing stock is that imperishable ruffian of the heating world, the floor furnace. -more-
Today, “Super Tuesday,” millions of Americans will select either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for president. Both carry historic liberal values and are capable of doing an excellent job as president. The question voters will have to decide is not who can do the job “on day one”—they both can—but rather who would be the best fit for these tumultuous times. -more-
(Posted on Feb. 5, at 11:45 a.m.)—On several occasions since the war began in 2003, the Berkeley City Council has publicly and passionately stated its opposition to the war in Iraq. On January 29, 2008, the Berkeley City Council approved a series of recommendations intended to impede the recruiting activities of the downtown Berkeley Marine Corps office, which for many people in Berkeley has become a symbol of that war. -more-
Most of the public and literary appreciation for bare trees seems to come from wintry places like New England, but bonsai artists and fans and the landscape pruners who think along similar lines make a big deal of the “winter silhouette.” It’s one of the most refined criteria for judging a deciduous tree. -more-
Temescal Labs, the innovative Oakland theater company (nee Ten Red Hen) that notably staged both The 99-Cent Miss Saigon and Clown Bible at Willard Metalshop Theater, is performing Clean, a work-in-progress about Silicon Valley and toxicity, which includes the story of Hans Reiser, on a double bill with Brittney Brown Ceres’ Bodily File, 8 p.m. tonight (Friday) and Saturday at CounterPulse, 1310 Mission St. near Ninth Street in San Francisco. -more-
Sometime in the early 1960s, Jan Faulkner, an undergraduate at Lincoln University in Missouri, saw some paper ephemera featuring black stereotypes and began a collection that has since been exhibited in museums, featured in monographs and the subject of a film documentary produced by Marlon Riggs in 1986. -more-
For seven decades spanning the period from the 1880s to the 1950s, San Francisco was an important hub in the American knitting industry. It became so thanks to one Swiss immigrant: John Jacob Pfister (1844–1921). -more-
I’m listening to the mow-n-blow couple working their way through the neighborhood. I’m about bored with things that roar and go bang, especially in the garden, especially at midday because, surprise, I work right here at home. To judge by the time they’ve spent on the token lawn in front of the apartment next door, the various gas-powered gadgets don’t save much time and they must make the work as hard with their weight as the average push mower, weed whip/scythe, or rake would with just repetitive motion. Don’t get me started on what errant weedwhackers do to tree trunks; I ranted sufficiently last week to keep my diastole high. -more-
One of the most common features in our early 20th century housing stock is that imperishable ruffian of the heating world, the floor furnace. -more-
In gathering darkness from a storm—or in a dark prisoner’s cell—a disparate group of characters find themselves confronting fears over safety, security, their own behavior—primal fears. What’s in the darkness? A monster? Am I becoming a monster? -more-
Charles Wollenberg, history professor at Berkeley City College, will speak about his new book, Berkeley: A City in History, Friday at Mrs. Dalloway’s Books, 2904 College Ave., at 7:30 p.m., and on Monday at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave., at 7:30 p.m. He will also discuss the book at University Press Books on Bancroft Way on Feb. 14, at 5:30 p.m., at the San Francisco Public Library on March 5, at 6 p.m., and at the Berkeley Public Library on March 31, at 7 p.m. -more-
Most of the public and literary appreciation for bare trees seems to come from wintry places like New England, but bonsai artists and fans and the landscape pruners who think along similar lines make a big deal of the “winter silhouette.” It’s one of the most refined criteria for judging a deciduous tree. -more-
In the Jan. 29 issue, the article “Feds Say Teece Must Pay $12 Million for Tax Dodges” had an incomplete last sentence. The full sentence was: “Recipients of [David] Teece contributions include President George W. Bush, state Senator Don Perata, former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean and Berkeley Councilmember Gordon Wozniak.” -more-
