Posted Wed., Feb. 13—After being called “idiots,” thanked profusely, had their manners upbraided, told, during a three-hour public hearing they were unpatriotic and true patriots, the Berkeley City Council softened rhetoric of a Jan. 29 council item that would have had staff write the Marines, telling them their recruiters are “uninvited and unwelcome” in Berkeley. 

The council voted 7-2 to publicly recognize the right of recruiters to be in Berkeley, while underscoring opposition to the “illegal and unjust” Iraq war and differentiating between that opposition and those who are members of the military. Hills area Councilmembers Betty Olds and Gordon Wozniak voted in opposition. 

After debate that extended past 1 a.m. Wednesday, the council declined to issue a formal apology to the Marines or to back down on its support for legal protests at the downtown Marine Recruiting Center. 

The vote come after 24 hours of demonstrations that began in celebratory style with a camp-out that included spirited singing and salsa dancing as well as serious talk of war and peace among some 40 anti-war protesters, mostly from Code Pink, the World Can’t Wait, Veteran’s Against the War and Courage to Resist.  

Dressed in army fatigues, former Marine Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist, a group that helps military personnel leave the armed forces, was preparing to spend the night out. A sign he propped up was directed to the Canadian government: “Dear Canada, Let U.S. war resistors stay.” 

“I’m out here to support people that are protesting military recruiting in our communities, Paterson told the Daily Planet. “I believe if people are going to join the military, they should know the other side of the story. I wish somebody had told me the other side of the story before I joined.” 

The protests Monday night and Tuesday had been sparked by conservative Move America Forward’s reaction to the Berkeley City Council support for protesters and their call for pro-military allies to descend on Berkeley on Tuesday. 

At 5 a.m. Tuesday, across the street from the camp-out at Civic Center Park, Move America Forward began its demonstration with about three-dozen pro-military individuals.  

Among them was Lisa Disbrow from Moraga, a Blue Star Mom and member of the Lafayette flag brigade. She told the Planet her son is an army officer “dedicated to peace.”  

“Our army, Navy, Air Force, Marines are volunteers who willingly stand in defense of this nation and every living American and we owe them the honor that the city of Berkeley has taken away,” she said. “The city of Berkeley is actually harassing the Marines in an effort to look as though they’re in support of peace. They’re not in support of peace. They’re actually in support of terrorists.” 

Move America Forward allies gave interviews and talked among themselves until, at around 5:45 a.m., some two dozen people affiliated with ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) squared off with verbal matches that would characterize the rest of the day and night. 

Soon people from the camp across the street joined those at Civic Center Park, with Code Pink allies often inserting themselves between individuals shouting at one another, as was the case when Scott Conover, who had lost a son in Iraq was screaming at a anti-war demonstrator carrying the picture of a person who had been tortured in Iraq. 

Police estimate that the crowd grew to around 2,000 at its height and reported misdemeanor arrests of four individuals: two juveniles and two adults.  

There were several scuffles between protesters and police during the day. One of the most notable came after the arrest of the two students from Berkeley High, age 13 and 15, who allegedly had been in an altercation – or threatened an altercation – with the pro-military forces. 

Several hundred people, including some 50 who appeared to be high school age, blocked the police station entry, demanding the release of the arrested. Some 25 police in riot gear reacted pushing back the protesters with their batons. 

What the council decided 

The measure passed by the City Council was intended to “publicly differentiate between the city’s documented opposition to the unjust and illegal war in Iraq and our respect and support for those serving in the armed forces.” 

The item says the city recognizes “the recruiter’s right to locate in our city and the right of others to protest or support their presence” and reiterates “respect and support” for people in the armed forces, underscoring “we strongly oppose the war and the continued recruitment of our young people into this war.” 

Without formally rescinding the request to the city manger to write a letter telling the Marines they are unwelcome in Berkeley, the council item concludes: “with the issuance of this statement, there is no need to send the letter to the Marine Corps that the City Council approved on January 29, 2008.”  

As many as 300 Native Americans and their supporters marched on Sproul Plaza Monday morning after a gathering at the Memorial Stadium Grove. 

The rally marked the start of a protest by tribal people that will carry them across the country in an environmental protest that also targets the treatment of native remains and sacred sites. 

In Berkeley, protesters addressed university building plans and the school’s collection of Native American remains. 

From the steps of Sproul Hall, veteran American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Dennis Banks called on UC Berkeley to return the boxed skeletons of thousands of American natives held at the school’s anthropology museum. 

“Thirty years ago I was here asking the same thing of the university,” he said. “Sad to say, today there are more dead Indians here at the university than there are live ones.” 

Calling the practice of collecting human remains a continuation of centuries of war against native people, Banks said that when he dies, he may have someone “pin a note on my back to say to the diggers and to say to the anthropologists and archaeologists, ‘Kiss my royal ass.’” 

The crowd responded with a cheer. 

Monday’s events began on Alcatraz Island earlier in the day, and marchers will follow two routes as they cross the country, meeting up again in the nation’s capital. The grove was the second stop, followed by the march to Sproul Plaza. 

The next stop for the march is Sacramento, where a rally will be held Tuesday noon at the State Capital building. 

The Longest Walk 2 follows 30 years after the original event, and Monday’s gathering featured two veterans of the original walk: Wounded Knee DeOcampo and Tawna Sanchez.  

Veteran Memorial Stadium Grove protesters Ayr and Marcella Sadlowski were joined by Zachary Running Wolf and other Native Americans at the grove earlier in the morning, and UC Berkeley officials opened the gates enclosing the grove to allow Longest Walk participants to make ceremonial tobacco offerings to the oldest trees at the site, dubbed Grandmother Oak. 

UC Berkeley wants to build a $125 million high tech gym and office complex at the site, but treesitters took to the branches in protest 437 days before Monday’s events, and they remain in the trees despite two fences UC built around the grove and frequent arrests of protesters. 

One arrestee last week was Sadlowski, a UC Berkeley student, who was taken into custody Thursday when she appeared at the campus police office to negotiate grove access for Monday’s marchers. 

Running Wolf is leading in the arrests category, with more than a dozen and several stays in Santa Rita Jail. 

UC Police maintained a low-key presence during Monday mornings actions. 

The greatest disruption came not from authorities, but from a Birthright Israel rock concert sponsored by the campus Hillel group. 

While Native Americans complained of the overpowering sound of the rock bands, David Azulay, a manager for the band Israelity, said he blamed campus officials for allowing two conflicting events at the same time.

Since voting Jan. 29 to support protests at the downtown Marine Recruiting Center and asking staff to write a letter telling the Marines they are “unwelcome intruders,” the Berkeley City Council has been skewered on-line and in print, excoriated in thousands of e-mails, and threatened by Republicans in Congress and state legislature with the loss of government funds.  

While several of the Jan. 29 council actions related to the Marine Recruiting Center have apparently been misconstrued, as evidenced in on-line and print publications, the council item in which lawmakers ask staff to write the Marines, telling them they are uninvited and unwelcome in Berkeley, was clearly understood. It enraged more than a few people and may be scrapped. 

In an item before the council tonight (Tuesday), councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Betty Olds propose retracting “inflammatory” language telling the Marines they are unwelcome, underscoring support for the troops and restating council opposition to the war. 

Much of today’s action related to the year-old Marine Recruiting Center at 64 Shattuck Square, however, will precede the council meeting, with dueling pro-troop and pro-peace groups out in force. 

The pro-military group Move America Forward has called on its troops to be outside the Council Chambers at 5 a.m. to make their pitch to early-morning news crews. MAF spearheaded e-mail campaigns and petition drives berating the council and denouncing its actions.  

“Society for years has endured the freakish antics of Berkeley dwellers. Naked people streaking in the streets; smelly hippies begging for money as they sing drunken renditions of '60s anti-war songs; adults sitting in trees like a bad zoo exhibit,” says Melanie Morgan, radio talk host on KSFO and MAF chair, writing Feb. 8 on worldnetdaily.com.  

“But the Berkeley City Council and instigators from the extreme left have crossed the line this time,” she writes, calling “anti-American” the council’s “anti-military resolutions.” 

Not to be outdone, Code Pink and its anti-war allies began a 24-hour peace vigil outside the Council Chambers at 7 p.m. last night. 

In its call to people to attend the vigil, Code Pink states: “This struggle is not about the Marines: It’s about the occupation of Iraq. It’s about recruiting our youth to be those occupying forces in Iraq. It’s about the 1.2 million dead Iraqis, the 3,950 dead U.S. soldiers, the trillions of dollars of our taxpayer money. It’s about respecting the right of the people of Berkeley to say no to war!”  

Clarifying council actions 

Precisely what the two Jan. 29 council items actually said, who supported what and the question of a citizens’ ballot initiative restricting the location of future military recruiting stations has become muddled. 

The parking space issue is perhaps the one most misunderstood. 

What actually happened was that, in an 8-1 vote Jan. 29, with Councilmember Gordon Wozniak voting in opposition, the council designated one parking space for Code Pink demonstrations in front of the Marine Recruiting Center on Wednesdays from noon to 4 p.m. for six months and granted the group a sound permit for which the council waived the $36 fee. 

At the Jan. 29 meeting, Acting City Attorney Zach Cowan described the action as according a mundane Street Event Permit. “Anyone can ask for a Street Event Permit,” Cowan said.  

“Any group, whether pro- or anti- war, can obtain such a permit,” writes Mayor Tom Bates in a statement published on his city website.  

Catherine Moy, MAF executive director, quoted Feb. 2 on the MAF website, blasted the council: “We are looking at all options to stop Berkeley from issuing gifts of public funds, such as free parking spaces, and violating the constitution,” she said.  

And, promising to submit a bill to strip Berkeley of state transportation funds (something Mayor Tom Bates called “demagoguery”), Assemblymember Guy Houston, R-San Ramon, said in an audio broadcast posted on his website: “They have granted a private easement, a private right for a parking space right in front of a Marine recruiting station for Code Pink with the express purpose to harass and annoy the United States Marine Corps and their recruiting station.” 

Melanie Morgan goes further in her Feb. 8 worldnetdaily.com piece, blasting Councilmember Max Anderson, an ex-Marine, who, with Councilmember Linda Maio, sponsored the parking space council item. “Anderson has pushed the idea of giving special favors to Code Pink, which has done so much to cripple America's efforts to protect herself against radical Islamic jihadists,” she writes. 

And an unsigned San Francisco Chronicle editorial (that gets 16-year Councilmember Betty Olds’ name wrong) asks: “What is the Berkeley City Council doing by … reserving curb space for the convenience of weekly protesters?” 

The three-point measure 

The second item related to the recruiting center and supported by the council Jan. 29 had three distinct parts: The first asked the city attorney to investigate city options for enforcing statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, with respect to the military recruiting office in Berkeley. The measure was aimed at the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prohibiting “out” gays and lesbians in the military. The council approved this 7-2, with Olds and Wozniak opposing. 

The second—and most controversial part—directed the city manager to send letters to the local Marine Corps Recruiting Center and to the Marine Corps commander, advising them “that the Marine recruiting office is not welcome in our city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” The council approved this 6-3, with Olds, Wozniak and Councilmember Kriss Worthington opposing. 

Explaining his vote, Worthington said: “It is important that we encourage that part of the peace movement and make sure that we do not villainize people who are forced by economic circumstances to become part of the military. People who are veterans and people who are in the military are not our enemies. It is the stupidity of the people in Washington, D.C., that are causing these illegal activities using our military.” 

The third section “encourage(s) all people to avoid cooperation with the Marine Corps recruiting station, and applaud(s) residents and organizations such as Code Pink, that may volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the city of Berkeley.” This passed 7-2, with Wozniak and Olds opposing. 

What the council actually did, however, may not have been clear to some. For example, Rep. John Campbell, R-Newport Beach, announced his plan to cut federal funds in Berkeley saying: “Last week, the City Council of Berkeley voted to oust the Marine Corps Recruiting Station from their downtown office.”  

Most of the brouhaha was directed at the “unwelcome intruder” language, which the council may scrap tonight. Some writers, while shocked at the language, did not hesitate to respond in kind. 

In a Jan. 30 statement on the MAF website, Morgan called the “socialist” council “ungrateful and despicable people” for their vote and referred to Code Pink as “these beasts,” and “Code Stinkos.”  

Rezoning for recruiters 

A group of citizens that includes members of Code Pink are circulating an initiative to be placed on the November ballot if they get 5,000 valid signatures which says no public or private military recruiting organization can locate in Berkeley within 600 feet of a school, residential neighborhood, park, health facility or library. Before obtaining its permit, the recruiting organization would have to hold a public hearing. 

The initiative will not affect the downtown Marine Recruiting Center. 

In a Feb. 6 article distributed by Creators Syndicate Michelle Malkin says the zoning is a done deal: the council “preceded with zoning changes,” she wrote. 

And Melanie Morgan wrote Feb. 8: “To make matters worse, Code Pink has now kicked off a campaign for an initiative that would restrict recruiting centers in the same way cities contain pornography shops. Comparing our military to pornography peddlers is slanderous and outrageous.” 

Library Trustee Ying Lee, former city councilmember and former aide to Reps. Ron Dellums and Barbara Lee, is one of three sponsors of the rezoning initiative. 

“I just wrapped that interview [with Ying Lee] and I am stunned that leadership in a community that opposes the war believes it can deprive the rest of us from the safety and security offered by the brave men and women willing to sign up,” writes Jamie Colby Feb. 3 on Fox.com. 

The Planet didn’t catch the Colby interview, but recorded Lee, a septuagenarian, at the Jan. 29 council meeting asking the body to continue to support the protesters. 

“There is a close relationship between the military and the deaths of American soldiers and the deaths of up to a million Iraqis,” Lee said. “This is our money that is doing this. I personally feel the responsibility of what our tax monies do. I love working with Code Pink. They are not as ladylike as I like to be, but they are making the point that the Marines, who I cheered during World War II, are not doing an honorable job protecting our safety—they are attacking an innocent country.”  

While most eyes on tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting will be on the council item that would rescind the Jan. 29 directive to staff to write the Marines and tell them they are unwelcome in Berkeley, the council has a full plate of other tasks before it. 

Beginning at 5 p.m., while the council chambers fill with protesters for the 7 p.m. meeting, there will be a workshop on proposed new taxes—police, fire, infrastructure, warm pool and more. 

At the regular council meeting, beginning at 7 p.m., the council will consider categorizing odors from the Pacific Steel plant as a nuisance, approving the staff’s going out to bid for services related to the Public Commons Initiative, reviewing an appeal on a zoning board decision to demolish buildings at 1050 Parker St., discussing the police chief’s report on crime, approving a condominium conversion ordinance and considering the purchase of radio-frequency measurement equipment to monitor radiation related to cell phone antennas. 

They will be asked to approve several advisory public policy issues, including opposition to building a wall between Mexico and the U.S. and requesting that Canada provide refuge to military personnel who oppose the war. February will also be declared freedom-to-marry month, which aims at creating marriage opportunities for gays and lesbians. 

1050 Parker 

The West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies are appealing the Zoning Adjustment Board’s ruling that allows the new owners of 1050 Parker St., San Rafael-based Wareham Properties Group, to demolish the buildings and, at the same time, changes the permitted use of the property. 

Rick Auerbach of WBAIC says restricting the property to industrial uses—distribution, production and repair—goes to the heart of the protections provided by the West Berkeley Plan.  

City staff says the property was previously used for warehousing, which was ancillary to other uses and therefore the West Berkeley Plan protections do not apply.  

Auerbach says he has found proof that manufacturing took place on the site in recent years, which, he contends, means that the protected uses in the future will take precedence. 

Public Commons Initiative Services 

The public could miss the importance of the item vaguely titled, “Formal bid solicitation and Request for Proposal scheduled for possible issuance in the next 30 days,” which asks the City Council to allow staff to solicit bids to implement Public Commons for Everyone Initiative services. 

The PCEI is an initiative that calls on police to cite people for lying on the sidewalk, smoking and other quality-of-life infractions and to initiate services helping people whose behavior as exhibited in shopping areas is deemed inappropriate. 

Among the services for which they are seeking bids are a centralized homeless intake system ($60,000), a transition-aged youth program ($100,000), training to clean public bathrooms ($70,000), permanent housing with services ($100,000), and the Berkeley Host Program ($200,000). 

The housing program, aimed at finding permanent homes for 10 to 15 of the city’s hardest-to-serve residents, will be funded at the $350,000 originally outlined in the Nov. 27 PCEI report, according to Jim Hynes of the city manager’s office. Some of the money goes to city staff, who will administer the program and provide some of the services; the bulk of the funds will go to rental assistance. 

The program will house individuals in rental units scattered around the city. Landlords will be paid market rates and clients will contribute one-third of their income, to the extent that they have income. 

Part of the PCEI program—not listed as part of this council item because the Homeless Action Center has been designated the service provider—is to provide advocacy for persons who are likely to qualify for Social Security disability payments, mediCal or food stamps, but have not signed up for the programs 

The Berkeley Host program is intended to be eyes and ears on the street, aimed to “regulate specific objectionable behaviors” according to a Nov. 27 staff report. City staff has envisioned two teams, one on Telegraph Avenue and one downtown, that would work with business associations and police “helping to maintain compliance with laws by providing information and educational outreach, and assisting community members and merchants in dealing with low-level offenses.”  

Toilets, including port-a-potties don’t appear on the RFP list because, according to Hynes, the city has had a hard time finding a place acceptable to nearby businesses where they can place the toilets. As for the merchants opening their restrooms to the general public in exchange for $400-$500 per month, “No takers,” Hynes told the Planet. To date no new public bathrooms have opened up to the general public, though hours have been extended at Civic Center and at the Telegraph Avenue/Channing Way parking lot.  

The captain of the newly formed Oakland Police Department Area One told North Oakland residents on Saturday that the rash of recent shootings in their community is the result of a turf war between the Ghost Town gang and the Acorn Gang of the Lower Bottom, and he intends to “plant the flag” in the Ghost Town section as an immediate step to abate the problem. 

Captain Anthony Toribio spoke to a packed Peralta Elementary School audience at Councilmember Jane Brunner’s regular community advisory committee meeting. The meeting was specifically set aside for a panel discussion on crime issues, but with several contested City Council races on the June ballot—including Brunner’s own District One—there were considerable political remarks as well. 

The meeting came at a time when an escalating series of burglaries, muggings, and a number of high-profile shootings and murders have propelled crime and violence into one of the top concerns of North Oakland residents. Several residents said they had been kept up into late hours the night before the meeting by gunfire that accompanied a homicide at 58th Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

Toribio, who was recently picked to head up one of the three city geographical districts set up in OPD Chief Wayne Tucker’s police reorganization plan, outlined a strategy that sounded very much like the anti-terrorist war strategies in Iraq or Afghanistan, saying that Oakland police have “abated a lot of problems” in neighborhoods where law enforcement resources can be marshaled and targeted, but after the police focus turned elsewhere, “the problems were left smoldering, and when we leave, they reignite. We need to figure out a plan to take and maintain [neighborhoods] block by block so that they are ultimately safe and free from violence. We need to do more to hold on to what we have.” 

The Ghost Town neighborhood sits along the West Oakland-North Oakland divide and straddles Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard roughly between 29th and 40th streets. Lower Bottom is in the heart of West Oakland surrounding the area’s old Seventh Street business district. 

Among the “plant the flag” strategies Toribio said his department has employed or will shortly employ are what he called “quality of life” sweeps of “hot spot areas” of Ghost Town, doing increased probation and parole searches for individuals convicted of robbery or violent crimes, conducting school truancy sweeps aimed at getting potential juvenile criminals off the street, setting up a mobile command post in the community, increasing the time for problem solving officers to walk their beats from four hours a week to 10 hours a week, and conducting traffic ticketing sweeps "to give the message that we are out there.” 

Meanwhile, Chief Tucker and two City Council candidates sparred over how many police should be hired to handle Oakland’s crime problems. 

Oakland Residents For Peaceful Neighborhoods co-founder Charles Pine, a candidate for the Council At Large seat, and neighborhood public safety activist Patrick McCullough, a candidate for the District One seat currently held by Brunner, both repeated assertions that Oakland needs “at least” 1,100 police officers, 300 more than the currently authorized 803. 

But Tucker called the 1,100 goal "unrealistic," saying that it would cost the city $60 million a year to authorize and hire that many new officers. "We would have to close parks and libraries to do so." 

And saying that Oakland already spends 60 percent of the $500 million non-restricted portion of its $1 billion city budget on police and fire services, City Administrator Deborah Edgerly said that the $60 million figure for 300 new officers would eat up the entire discretionary portion of that budget. 

But Tucker said that if Oakland wanted to maintain a constant police force of 803 officers actually on the payroll, the number of authorized officers would have to be increased. The chief said that this was because a new police academy class is only authorized when the department is down 20 officers from full authorization, and it takes 10 months from the time of such authorization to actually get a new group of officers out on the street. 

To maintain an actual force of 803, Tucker said that the city would need to authorize a force of 875. 

Tucker also said he had submitted an augmented police recruitment program proposal to the Oakland City Council designed to meet Mayor Ron Dellums’ recent pledge to have 803 officers hired by the end of 2008. The City Council is scheduled to discuss the police recruitment plan--including a request to use $7.7 million in Oakland Measure Y Violence Prevention funds to finance the recruitment effort--at its Feb. 19 evening session. 

Meanwhile, Pine’s and McCullough’s 300 police increase proposal was popular with at least some of the meeting participants, and McCullough himself received a smattering of applause from the audience when he got up to speak in the public comment section of the meeting, the only speaker to get such a reception. 

And at least two residents—besides McCullough—said the area’s crime problem could be solved by first getting rid of Brunner from the council. 

But in a rare speech at the beginning of the community advisory meeting—where she usually lets residents and city representatives and other officials do most of the talking—Brunner defended her record on public safety, saying that it was she who originally discovered the post-Measure Y vacancy in the city’s police force ("buried in one of the chief’s reports”) and then requested $2 million to fund the city’s current police recruiting effort.  

She also said that she worked to get the police department’s juvenile desk reinstated after the department had shut down it down for a year (the desk concentrates on sorting out which juvenile accused offenders need jail time and which need other intervention strategies), and last year was one of the leaders in the City Council request for six more police investigators. 

But Brunner said that councilmembers’ hands are tied by the city’s non-interference clause from actually moving around police resources as constituent’s might wish. “I can’t direct police what to do," she said. "I can only ask.” 

And Brunner sided with several residents who have criticized police lack of response, revealing that the morning of the community meeting her own car had gotten broken into, and she hadn’t been satisfied with how it was handled.  

“I called the non-emergency number and wanted to give a report, but the operator told me that I couldn’t because the investigators only work from Monday through Wednesday," Brunner said. "They wanted me to go on the department’s website to file a report.”  

Noting that she didn’t identify herself as a councilmember, she said it made her wonder how many citizens were discouraged from filing police reports because investigators were only available to take them three days a week. 

An illegal demolition of a building on University Avenue has made local preservationists question Berkeley’s demolition ordinance yet again. 

The proposed project at 1811 University Ave.—scheduled to go before the zoning board Thursday for a demolition use permit and a variance from the University Avenue Strategic Plan—originally had an administrative use permit from the city which allowed a 1,408-square-foot addition 

But the constuction work for the addition has meant many of the walls and the entire roof are missing from the building. 

“That approval was not for a demolition,” said Steve Ross, secretary to the zoning board. “It was for an addition. In doing the addition, the contractor demolished more than 50 percent of the walls and all of the roof.” 

Dr. Barry Kami, who owns the property, received an administrative use permit to renovate his dental office and add 1,686 square feet on Nov. 5, 2005. He was granted a modification to the original permit in 2006 which decreased the floor space addition to 1,408 square feet. 

The building permit for the modified project was issued on June 8, 2007, and construction began in September.  

According to the city staff report, a building inspector from the city discovered that the contractors had exceeded the scope of work without informing the city or Dr. Kami in November. 

“We informed Dr. Kami about the illegal demolition and construction was stopped sometime between November and January,” Ross said. “The removal of an approximately 20 feet length of wall resulted in the removal of more than 50 percent of wall area which was defined as a demolition under the zoning ordinance. Since a technical demolition had occurred, the proposed construction was defined as a new project and will have to adhere to the development standards for new buildings in the University Avenue Strategic Plan.” 

According to the city’s demolition ordinance, a building is considered demolished when it is destroyed in whole or in part or is relocated from one lot to another. “Destroyed in part” means when 50 percent or more of the enclosing exterior walls and 50 percent or more of the roof are removed. 

In a letter to the zoning board, Dr. Kami stated that the partial demolition of the existing building by his contractor was unfortunate and mistaken, and carried out without his authorization. 

“The contractor stated he removed this 20-foot section because of its severe and extensive deterioration, as was later verified by a City of Berkeley building inspector,” his letter said. “I attribute this error by the contractor to the fact that neither he nor my current architect were involved in obtaining the administrative use permit.” 

Kami submitted an application on Jan. 4 for a variance from several development standards—including minimum height, ceiling clearance, street setbacks and street improvements—and a demolition permit in order to proceed with the proposed project. 

Kami, who has been practicing dentistry at 1811 University Ave. since 1982, stated in the letter that if the board denied him a variance, he would not be able to return to his office to practice because of his inability to fund a project from scratch. 

The property site—which has been in Kami’s family for three generations—is part of the city’s pre-WWII Japanese heritage. 

In 1942, Dr. Kami’s grandparents and their six children were forced into internment camps, and the property was managed by a realtor friend during their absence. In 1955, after completing military service in Germany and graduating from dental school, Dr. Kami’s father built the current dental office next to the family’s pre-WWII residence. 

When Dr. Kami’s grandparents moved to North Berkeley in 1962, the residence building was razed and he took over the property to practice dentistry there. 

After receiving the use permit from the city to remodel the office in 2006, Dr. Kami purchased the property from his father. 

“The fact whether the demolition is illegal or not is still up in the air,” he told the Planet Thursday. “I was told by the Planning Department that I would need a variance to move ahead with the project.” 

According to Ross, exceeding a project’s scope of work either intentionally or not becomes a major problem for the applicant. 

“They have to meet new requirements,” he said. “Penalties for illegal demolition include holding up a project and paying twice the amount for an application fee. ... We don’t get this kind of a situation very often, but when retroactive demolitions like this occur, the zoning board may go as far as not approving the project.” 

Carrie Olson, a Berkeley landmarks preservation commissioner and a former planning commissioner, said that that she feared that the zoning board would give the project a green light, something she said it has done for other “accidental demolitions” in the past.  

According to Olson, developers have used loopholes in the city’s demolition ordinance to get away with illegal demolitions for more than a decade. 

“The sad part is, the city is not really doing anything to prevent illegal demolitions,” she said. “The two I have been directly involved in ended up with zero consequences except a delay for the project. Mark Rhoades, the city’s former current planning manager, told me once that a delay was punishment enough. I so totally disagree, because it gives the applicant the potential for more of a project than the discretionary ZAB process might have allowed them to have.” 

Zoning Adjustments Board member Jesse Arreguin told the Planet that the city ought to take illegal demolitions seriously. 

“There have been situations in the past when the Zoning Adjustments Board has approved a demolition permit after the demolition occurred,” he said. “If the building has already been demolished, then there is no use permit. The only recourse ZAB has is if they deny a new permit or demolition permit.” 

Olson said that she runs across illegal demolitions every year.  

“Once I was on the phone with the planning department saying that I was watching a building being demolished illegally but they are never quick enough. It’s up to the neighborhood to keep a lookout,” she said. “I have never really known the city to actually punish anyone for an illegal demolition.” 

According to Olson, the city embarked on a project to redraft its zoning ordinance almost a year ago to give it more clarity. 

“The last person whose desk that sat on was Rhoades,” she said. “We still don’t have a revised ordinance. The planning commission should take upon themselves the responsibility to finish it.” 

Phone calls to Fatema Crane, project planner, and Dan Marks, the city’s planning director, for comment were not returned. 

Olson recently protested the removal of tall metal-sash windows from an unoccupied one-story World War II-era building at 1050 Parker St. even though no demolition permit had been issued by ZAB.  

By law, demolition permits for any building over 40-years-old in a commercial zone must first be reviewed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to determine whether the structure has any historic significance. 

San Rafael-based Wareham Developers, who had purchased the property from Pastor Gordon W. Choyce’s Jubilee Restoration organization in June, said the windows had been removed as part of an asbestos abatement project. 

The Landmarks Preservation Commission had asked for the inclusion of the loss of character-defining features in the revised demolition ordinance. 

“If you strip everything beautiful off of a building,” Olson said, “it strips it of anything recognizable.”

The Berkeley Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (BNAFU) filed a lawsuit in the Alameda County Superior Court last week to stop the installation of 11 cell phone antennas on top of UC Storage at 2721 Shattuck Ave. 

According to BNAFU member Michael Barglow, the suit charges Patrick Kennedy—who owns the five-story UC Storage building—with violating the city’s zoning ordinance and the use permit process by eliminating parking spaces and breaking off-street parking rules, among other factors. 

The suit asks the court to order Kennedy, Verizon and Sprint to suspend work on the project immediately. 

BNAFU members rallied outside City Hall Friday afternoon, carrying “No Cell Phone Antennas” posters. 

“We will continue to make our presence known,” said Barglow, who has been protesting the antennas for the past two years and four months. 

“We have to put these antennas where they are not shining on people’s homes,” he said. “Our neighborhood believes that people, including many children in our neighborhood, have the right not to be used as guinea pigs exposed 24/7 to microwave frequency radiation, particularly when cell phone service in South Berkeley is excellent.”  

In the past, BNAFU has lobbied residents, picketed Mayor Tom Bates’ residence and rallied at Berkeley City Council meetings to protest the cell phone installations in their neighborhood. 

Verizon Wireless filed a lawsuit against the City of Berkeley in Federal Court in Oakland last August for allegedly being in violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, after the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board and the city council denied them permits to install antennas on top of UC Storage. 

The Telecommunications Act requires cities to grant cell phone companies a permit within a reasonable period of time and allows the carrier to sue for unnecessary delay.  

In November, the City Council decided to allow Verizon to install the antennas, stating that federal law prohibits cities from denying use permits to telecom companies based on health reasons. 

The council also recognized the neighborhood concerns about the placement of the cell phone towers and the inadequacies of the current ordinance. 

Fighting the lawsuit would have cost the city more than a million dollars in legal fees. 

“It’s total abuse of power by the city,” said Jim Hultman, a member of BNAFU.  

The lawsuit charges the city with “abusing its discretion and failing to act in the manner required by law in approving the permit for the project.” 

On Tuesday, Bates and councilmembers Dona Spring and Max Anderson will request the city manager to establish a moratorium on further antenna installations in Berkeley until the city has an ordinance which protects residential neighborhoods by monitoring microwave radiation emitted by cell phone antennas. 

If approved, the city would purchase RF radiation measurement equipment to measure radiation levels prior to the installation of the antennas and every six months thereafter. 

City staff would also be trained to operate the equipment.

Planning Commissioners will weigh in Wednesday on building size rules and get their first look at a three-story building UC Berkeley plans for the courtyard adjacent to its law school. 

Beth Piatnitza, associate director of the university’s capital projects planning staff, will present the plans that call for a building with two floors underground. Also included in the plans is an interior remodeling of some of the existing law school building once known as Boalt Hall. 

Commissioners will also take up once again the recommendations of the Joint Density Bonus Subcommittee, the same proposal taken up by the Housing Advisory Commission last week. 

The proposals govern the requirements for low-cost housing in new projects as well as the rules for creating bonus space that the city must grant in exchange for builders adding to the city’s affordable housing supply. 

The third item on the agenda is a staff report on the draft Southside Plan. 

Commissioner Larry Gurley has been pushing hard to revive the long-delayed plan, and Wednesday night’s presentation is the first since he began his drive to resurrect the plan. 

The proposed plan, a joint effort of the city and UC Berkeley, was handed to the commission eight years ago, but commissioners last dealt with the plan in 2003. 

Wednesday night’s meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way.  

—Richard Brenneman

There are several opportunities in Berkeley this week to engage with the peace process in Israel-Palestine. 

• On Wednesday, at 7 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St., controversial historian Norman Finkelstein, recently denied tenure at DePaul University in Chicago, will speak at 7 p.m. on “A Farewell to Israel: The Coming Break-up of American Zionism.” Finkelstein is the author “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism & the Abuse of HIstory.” [At press-time on Monday the Planet was informed that a rumor had been circulating that Finkelstein would be unable to attend, but after checking the event organizers confirmed that his talk would go on as scheduled.] 

• On Saturday, at 4 p.m. on the fifth floor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union, the Israeli-Palestinian Confederation will host a debate on the possibility of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a confederation government. Speakers are to include Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor in chief of Tikkun magazine and Dr. Khalil Barhoun of Stanford University, Mitchell Plitnick of Jewish Voice for Peace and others.  

According to IPC spokesperson Josef Avesar,“The Israeli-Palestinian Confederation has a novel idea. It proposes the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation within the broader context of the current Israeli and Palestinian nations. Both Israelis and Palestinians would still answer to their own governments. However, a third governing body (the confederation) set up by both Israelis and Palestinians would legislate issues that are unresolved by the separate governments.” 

• Also on Saturday, Aikido of Berkeley is hosting an all-day training seminar, aimed at raising funds for the non-profit Aiki Extensions Middle East Project. “All proceeds will be used to help bring Israelis and Palestinians together to practice aikido, the Japanese martial art of peace,” according to a press statement by Aikido of Berkeley. For details and registration call 776-4700

With at least two incumbent Oakland Unified School District board members choosing not to run for re-election this year, the OUSD board is guaranteed new faces just at the time it is regaining a measure of local control. 

District One board member Kerry Hamill (North Oakland) and District Three board member Greg Hodge (West Oakland/Downtown) have both indicated that they will not run for their district seats in the June 3 primary. Meanwhile, District Seven incumbent Alice Spearman (East Oakland) has said that she will be running. The fourth incumbent up for re-election this year, Noel Gallo (District Five, Fruitvale), could not be reached for comment for this story, and his plans are not known. 

The District One vacancy has already set up a race for Hamill's replacement, with two candidates, Chabot Elementary School parent Jody London and Brian Rogers, who describes himself as an "Oakland educational philanthropist," already announcing their intentions to run. 

London, the co-chair of the 2006 OUSD Measure B bond campaign and a member of the Measure B expenditure oversight advisory committee, has been endorsed by Hamill, and has set up a campaign web site at www.votejody.com. 

Rogers, the son of the founder of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, is the executive director of the multi-million dollar Rogers Family Foundation, which Rogers says is "dedicated to supporting education and youth development organizations in the city of Oakland." A portion of the family's money has also gone to support OUSD's Expect Success!, the operational reorganization that came in during the state takeover. 

In District Three, Hodge is giving up his school board seat to run for the Oakland City Council against incumbent Nancy Nadel. 

His wife, Jumoke Hinton Hodge, has announced plans to run for the school board in her husband's place. Hinton Hodge is a longtime educational activist, the founder of Stand Up West Oakland, an educational advocacy organization. 

OUSD Board members served without power or pay between 2003 and 2007 after the state seized control of the school district. The board won back control over community relations and governance last fall, and is currently negotiating memorandums of understanding with State Superintendent Jack O'Connell for return in several other areas as well.  

When it hires its first local superintendent since 2003 later this year, the district will operate under a bifurcated system in which the board will run the district in some areas through its superintendent, and the state superintendent’s office will run other areas--notably finance--through its appointed state administrator.

Housing Advisory Commissioners are weighing in on one of Berkeley’s hottest political potatoes, laws that grant developers bigger buildings in exchange for including affordable units. 

HAC members Thursday heard from one of their own members who is currently fighting a legal battle against one such project, the Trader Joe’s building—or the Old Grove as its developers call the project planned for the northwest corner of the intersection of University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Steve Wollmer, HAC member and Friends of Berkeley Way litigant, agreed with city staff that the city’s inclusionary and density bonus status needs reform, but he doesn’t agree with some of the policies he said staff take as givens. 

City staff, he said, are operating on 2002-2003 guidelines which they used to allow developers Chris Hudson and Evan McDonald to add to the mass of their five-story project. 

Jesse Arreguin, who was elected HAC chair for the coming year, said he disagreed with the staff’s position that the developers should be allowed 25 more housing units to make up for the costs of adding the additional parking they said was needed to make the popular grocery store a viable business at that location. 

“The city’s interpretation was inconsistent with the spirit of the state density bonus law and with the spirit of the city’s housing ordinance,” Arreguin said. 

By adding market rate housing, the staff interpretation—which was adopted by the Zoning Adjustment Board—didn’t lead to a gain in affordable housing, he said, which is the real reason for the density bonus. 

As one of her last acts as chair, Marie Bowman had sent a letter Thursday morning to City Manager Phil Kamlarz urging adoption of revisions soon, because of the resurrection of the state eminent domain initiative, narrowly rejected by California voters last year and scheduled for a return to the ballot in June. 

Passage of the initiative would impose heavy costs on state and local governments for enacting any land use law changes that could reduce the potential earning power of property. 

Inclusionary housing by definition reduces potential profits by requiring developers to rent or sell at below market rates to tenants and buyers who couldn’t otherwise afford them. 

Bowman’s letter also asked that members of the Joint Density Bonus Subcommittee, formed of appointees from HAC, ZAB and the Planning Commission, be granted the opportunity to weigh in on whatever proposals the city planning and legal staffs eventually bring to the City Council for adoption. 

The subcommittee met for more than a year until it was ended by the council last May, and all its recommendations were adopted by 9-0-1 votes, with only Planning Commissioner David Stoloff abstaining. 

Bowman said one important issue is student eligibility for low-cost housing, and the implementation of measures to ensure that it is only the genuinely needy students who receive it. Given that currently children of well-to-do parents can qualify because they themselves are full-time students and not generating income, one possible solution is a means test for applicants. 

“Upwards of seven-eighths of affordable housing produced in Berkeley is being rented by students,” said Wollmer. That conflicts with the city’s own policy of trying to bring more working class families into downtown housing, he said. 

“We really need to find an equitable way to house students who really need help, but it is not the city’s responsibility to house UC students,” Wollmer added. 

“It would be good if we could get legal opinion from the city attorney,” said Arreguin, who made the transition into community activism from his activism as a UC Berkeley student. 

Another issue is federally subsidized housing, where low income tenants pay a fraction of market rate rents, with the federal government picking up the difference. 

Bowman said that because landlords receive market rate or close to it for Section 8 tenants, those tenants should not be counted toward the current 20 percent requirement for inclusionary housing in new buildings of five or more units. 

Jill Dunner said she wanted assurance that by separating out Section 8 renters, it wouldn’t make it harder for these poor would-be renters to find housing in the city. Dunner also said she would like to hear from city planning staff at an upcoming meeting. 

Commissioner Vincent Casalaina said he didn’t see a problem with requiring a full 20 percent inclusionary requirement. “It’s really a way to have much more affordable housing without increasing the number of Section 8 vouchers,” he said. 

The subcommittee opted for a proposal that includes a pair of menus, one of waivers that could be granted projects without the need for a developer to show financial necessity for the changes and a second set that would require the developer to prove they impacted the proposal’s financial viability. 

Justification would be needed for increase in building heights of more than 10 percent of allowable levels, increase in stories beyond the maximums set for each zoning district, reductions in parking over 20 percent and cutbacks in open space of more than 35 percent, decreased setbacks along residential perimeters, increased floor-to-area ratios and any reductions in size, furnishings, bedrooms and locations of inclusionary apartments or condos. 

Chris Kavanagh has stepped down from his seat on the Rent Stabilization Board, resigning retroactive to Feb. 1. 

An elected member of the board since 2002, Kavanagh faces charges of seven possible felonies stemming from accusations that, while serving as an elected official in Berkeley and claiming to live in Berkeley, he actually lived in Oakland. 

“It is with a profound—and simultaneous—sense of joy and regret that I am announcing my departure from the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board, effective this past Feb.1,” Kavanagh wrote in a mid-afternoon e-mail Monday to the Daily Planet, before making the termination official with the Rent Stabilization Board. 

Kavanagh’s e-mail touched on his legal situation. Most of the time since his election, he said, he had two residences, one in Berkeley and one in Oakland. But, he admitted, in part of 2006 and 2007 he lived only in Oakland. 

The e-mail said: “Like scores of Berkeley homeowners who own or rent second residences outside Berkeley, since 2002, I rented two separate living spaces: one in Berkeley and a second space in Oakland (located a block from Berkeley). 

“I lived in my Berkeley unit to comply with the city’s residency requirement to hold public office. I rented my Oakland unit because I did not wish to give up a beautiful living space that I had originally acquired through a friend before I was elected to the Rent Board in 2002.” 

Kavanagh went on to say in his letter that during parts of 2006 and 2007 he had to “involuntarily” vacate his Berkeley unit “and was unable to technically comply with Berkeley’s residency requirement. This latter period of time is the reason for the current legal allegations that have been filed against me.” 

Reached Monday afternoon, Kavanagh’s attorney, James Giller, said his client will be back in court Feb. 22 and declined to comment on the case. 

Rent Stabilization Board Executive Director Jay Kelekian said he has yet to receive a formal letter of resignation from Kavanagh, but was told to expect one. He said the board would vote at either its February or its March meeting to replace him. 

Under normal circumstances, in November there would be four rent board seats up for election, but in Nov. 2008, there will be five vacancies on the board if Kavanagh resigns. The candidate receiving the fifth-highest vote will complete Kavanagh’s term, which ends in 2010. The four higher vote getters will get four-year terms. 

In his e-mail, Kavanagh apologizes, saying, “In retrospect, I should have either resigned my commissioner seat or sought to rent a new Berkeley living space as quickly as possible. Ultimately, I was able to rent a new Berkeley space but I regret my delay in doing so. For this lapse, I apologize to my Berkeley constituents and colleagues.” 

It remains to be seen whether Kavanagh’s mea culpa will make the prosecution more sympathetic to his cause. Unconfirmed reports from behind-the-scenes sources say discussions between Kavanagh’s attorney and the district attorney are ongoing. 

The Berkeley City Council will decide whether the odors from Pacific Steel Casting should be considered a nuisance during a meeting at the Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, today (Tuesday). 

If so, it will refer the matter to the Zoning Adjustments Board for nuisance abatement. 

Last week, Pacific Steel workers rallied in front of the West Berkeley-based steel plant, denouncing what they said were efforts by the council to push them out of the city.  

More than 100 workers belonging to the GMP Local 164B took Wednesday off from work to protest councilmember Linda Maio’s request to the council to label odors from the plant a nuisance. 

The group contended that if the city mandates conditions on the plant’s current permit, it might force the company to shut its Second Street site. Pacific Steel laid off 60 workers, about 9 percent of its workforce, on Friday, claiming that clients were canceling orders due to the uncertainty of the company’s future. 

“Councilmember Linda Maio made a mistake by not dealing with Pacific Steel directly before she put the item on the agenda,” Ignacio de la Fuente, president of the GMP Local 164B and president of the Oakland City Council, told the Planet Friday. “The plant’s customers started reacting after she put the item on the agenda to declare it a public nuisance. They said they couldn’t trust the company to deliver their products anymore ... We lost 60 workers today. We are concerned about the loss of jobs we are going to suffer ... We are concerned that the city of Berkeley is even talking about any kind of a condition. This company pays more than a million dollars in taxes to the city. If you lower the hours and say you cannot cater to customers, then it will result in layoffs.” 

Maio said she was only interested in Pacific Steel’s outlining a definite plan and timeline to reduce odors. 

“The fact of the matter is the city has been on the sidelines while the air district acts with Pacific Steel,” she said. “I put it on the agenda so that the city can have some authority, a way of asserting itself. The definite evidence of continuous odor concerns even after installing a carbon absorption system in Plant 3 shows that not enough is being done.” 

Pacific Steel submitted an odor control plan to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in November that has yet to be approved. 

“We all know we don’t want to shut the plant down and drive the workers to China,” Maio said. “They are worried about jobs and we are worried about odors. We need to find a middle ground.” 

“I am not saying everything is beautiful and great,” De la Fuente said. “But there are ways to improve the environment and reduce emissions. But you can’t do it by endangering the workers.” 

Odor complaints from residents resulted in the air district’s independent hearing board enforcing an unconditional odor abatement order on Pacific Steel in 1985. In 1999, the air district removed the abatement. 

“There were very few complaints about odor between 1985 and 1999,” said Karen Schkolnick, air district spokesperson. “PSC appealed to the hearing board for the order to be lifted, and since there was a better inspection record, it was. Since then the air district has continued to inspect and enforce odor nuisance complaints.” 

The air district has also sued Pacific Steel twice through the larger court system to address violations. 

“In the last seven years, Pacific Steel has increased its productions, emissions and odor,” said LA Wood, who tested air samples taken near the foundry as part of the West Berkeley Community Monitoring Project last year. 

According to the community air test results, high levels of manganese and nickel were found at the Duck’s Nest preschool site, located a block away from the foundry. 

Elizabeth Jewel, of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the public relations firm representing Pacific Steel, told the Planet that it was impossible to tie the outcome of the test to one particular source. 

The project, funded by the Bay Area Air Quality Monitoring District, used a calibrated pump for more than six months to gather particles on filters which were tested for heavy metal pollutants such as lead, manganese, nickel and zinc by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved laboratory. 

“We will be requesting a dedicated council meeting on the air monitoring and other concerns regarding Pacific Steel,” Wood said. “We will also ask the city to request further air district funding to continue our efforts for air monitoring West Berkeley.” 

Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, told the Planet that the test results indicated a threat to public health from Pacific Steel’s toxic emissions. 

“High levels of toxic metals were found in the air even after the date that Pacific Steel supposedly installed pollution control equipment,” he said in an e-mail. “This shows that Pacific Steel must do much more to reduce and prevent pollution.” 

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. 

Last week two hummers, a male and a female, got into our living room, were trapped inside when a gust of wind blew the front door shut, and became entangled in the curtains. Matt the Cat spotted them (he doesn’t so much hunt things as point), and Ron, who moves faster than I do in these situations, retrieved them and released them on the front porch, apparently none the worse for wear. 

I didn’t refer to this distracted twosome as a pair, because hummingbirds don’t form pairs. Mating is promiscuous, and males don’t involve themselves in the tedious business of nest construction and childcare. 

You may have noticed the dive display of the male Anna’s. As described in the authoritative Birds of North America series: “The male sings 1–2 sets of buzzy notes while hovering 2–4 meters over the object of the display for 1–2 second, then climbs in a wavering fashion nearly vertically for 7–8 seconds to a height of 20–40 meters, plummets in a near-vertical dive for 2 seconds, ending the dive with a loud Dive Noise within 0.5–1 meter of object, finally returning in a continuous circular arc …. to the beginning point over the object…..The object may be a female Anna’s Hummingbird, another hummingbird, another bird species, or occasionally a human; the sight of any perched hummingbird in its core area may initiate a Dive Display.” 

The exact nature of the Dive Noise, or dive chirp, has been much debated among ornithologists. The late Luis Baptista, former curator of birds at the California Academy of Sciences, thought it was vocal, since the frequency of the chirp was similar to that of the hummer’s vocalization. (It was Baptista who established that Anna’s hummingbirds, like more conventional songbirds such as the white-crowned sparrow, have local song dialects.) 

Recent work by UC Berkeley graduate student Christopher Clark and recent graduate Teresa Feo makes a compelling case that the noise is mechanical in origin, created by specialized tail feathers. 

Their investigations involved a high-speed video camera and a wind tunnel. 

Clark and Feo took the camera, with a 500 shot-per-second capability, to the Albany Bulb, where they alternately wired a stuffed female hummingbird to a bush or staked out a live female in a cage. Males responded to both variants. The camera captured a 60-millisecond spreading of the displaying male’s tail feathers at the bottom of the dive, coincident with the chirp.  

Having observed that Anna’s hummingbirds had, as Clark puts it,  

“funny tail feathers with tapered or narrow tips,” the researchers then captured several male hummers and customized their tails—either removing the outer pair of tail feathers or trimming their inner vanes. Modified males still performed dive displays, but failed to produce the dive noise. 

The final piece fell into place at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, where Clark and Feo exposed outer tail feathers to wind speeds equivalent to a male’s dive speed of 50 miles per hour. The chirp was reproduced in the wind tunnel when the inner vane of the feather fluttered at a frequency of 3.3 to 4.7 kiloherz, four octaves above middle C. Tiny linking barbules kept the barbs of the inner vane stiff enough to vibrate like the reed in a clarinet.  

The dive chirp is actually louder than the hummer’s vocalization. Clark and Feo suggest that this may be an evolutionary response to the constraints posed by the small size of the bird’s syrinx, or song box (the avian equivalent of the larynx.) They suspect that close relatives of the Anna’s hummingbird, like the desert-dwelling Costa’s, may produce their chirps in a similar fashion. 

Mechanical sound production in birds is unusual, but not unknown. 

The “winnowing” noise of the Wilson’s snipe is apparently produced by its tail feathers, although no one has worked out the mechanism. Common nighthawks make a rude sound with their wing feathers, and I’m convinced that the bizarre rustling-grating-creaking sounds emitted by a displaying male great-tailed grackle can’t be entirely vocal. The club-winged manakin of Ecuador has specialized wing feathers that operate like a zydeco musician’s rubboard: a scraper feather hitting the ridged vane of another feather. 

It’s good to have the riddle of the dive chirp resolved—and to be reminded that there’s still much to be discovered about even the most familiar of birds.  

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. 

The council item and proposed revisions have sparked response on the right and the left, with pro-war Move America Forward planning a day-long demonstration Feb. 12 outside the Maudelle Shirek Building (Old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way) and Code Pink calling a 24-hour peace-in at the same place, beginning at 7 p.m. Feb. 11. The Rev. Fred Phelps will bring his virulent anti-gay message to the mix as well, demonstrating against both the Marines and Code Pink. 

Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Betty Olds are sponsoring the revised resolution. Capitelli told the Planet that while he opposes the war, he wants it understood that the council action does not imply non-support for the troops. 

“My position is that policy makers send those people into harm’s way,” he said. “I want to get them sent home.” 

In a joint press statement, Capitelli and Olds say: “We failed to make it clear that while we continue to oppose what we consider an unethical and illegal war in Iraq, at the same time we respect and honor all the brave men and women who are serving or have served in the military … We have erred by not adequately differentiating between the war and the warriors.” 

As for telling the Marine recruiters they are not welcome, Capitelli said if the recruiters opt to stay, despite the legal demonstrations outside their office, that’s up to them.  

However, Capitelli and Olds say in the press statement: “The recommendation to inform the Marine Corps recruiting office that they are not welcome in our city, was insulting, hurtful and wrong.”  

“I wish we wouldn’t have Marines anywhere,” Capitelli said. “But they have a legal right to be here.”  

Olds agreed. “They do have a right to come,” she told the Planet, adding that service personnel should not be condemned: “They have to do what they are told to do.” 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who, along with Olds, voted against the three-part council item Jan. 29, told the Planet, “Laurie and Betty’s item is a step in the right direction.” 

He said he’d like to see the entire council item rescinded, along with an apology to the Marine Corps. The item has “pretty inflammatory stuff,” he said. “People are letting their opposition to the war interfere with their good judgment.” 

If the Olds-Capitelli council item passes Tuesday, the other two parts of the item will remain intact: asking the city attorney to research whether Berkeley’s anti-discrimination laws apply to the Marine Recruiting Center and supporting “residents and organizations such as Code Pink that may volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the city of Berkeley.”  

Wozniak wrote in an e-mail response to a person who criticized the council for its item critiquing the Marines and granting a weekly afternoon parking space for demonstrators: “I would note that I was the sole councilmember who opposed both anti-Marine resolutions. I apologize for the action of the remainder of the council. As Christ said, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”  

Councilmember Dona Spring told the Planet that she agreed in part with Capitelli and Olds: “We could have been more diplomatic, politely asking them to leave,” Spring said.  

However, Spring said a clear statement ought to be made: U.S. policy of war “is the antithesis of life and liberty. We need to take a strong stand against this military regime that provokes violence, murder and torture. We need to reflect Berkeley values.” 

On Jan. 29, Capitelli, councilmembers Linda Maio, Max Anderson, Dona Spring, Darryl Moore and Mayor Tom Bates voted for the three-part item. Councilmember Kriss Worthington opposed the section that called the Marines “unwelcome intruders” and supported the other two parts of the item. Councilmembers Olds and Wozniak opposed the full item. 

The House gets involved 

On the national front, Rep. John Campbell, R-California, and five other House Republicans introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008 Wednesday to rescind about $2 million in federal funds for Berkeley contained in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill in retaliation for what they said was the city’s “disdain” of the Marines and lack of appreciation “for what they do and have done for this country, our democracy and our freedoms.” 

The act transfers the funds to the Marines. Cosponsors are Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Florida, Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, and Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas. 

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, is introducing similar legislation in the Senate. 

In response, Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents the Berkeley area, said in an e-mail to the Planet: “As for any attempt to punish the people of Berkeley by stripping much needed federal funding, I would simply say I will strongly oppose such an effort.”  

The proposed legislation says “the City Council of Berkeley voted to oust (sic) the Marine Corps Recruiting Station from their downtown office.” It actually directed the city manager to write a letter telling the recruiters that they were unwelcome. 

It further states that the “City Council of Berkeley also voted to give the radical protest group Code Pink a parking space to protest the Marine Corps and urged them to ‘impede, passively or actively’ the work of Marine Corps recruiters.” 

The funds targeted by the proposed legislation include $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation’s organic school lunch program and $975,000 for UC Berkeley’s Matsui Center for Politics and Public Services. 

And Tuesday 

The pro-war group Move America Forward is planning a day in Berkeley aimed at maximizing media coverage, beginning at 5 a.m. 

“If you can, please join us for our ‘picketing’ of the City Council Chambers. We will be out there at 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way beginning at 5 a.m. for the morning news. We will have a presence all throughout the day—the next newscasts are at 12:00 noon, so we’ll want a good size [sic] presence at that time as well,” says the Move America Forward website. 

The group plans to deliver petitions to the council at its 7 p.m. meeting, which say, in part: “We, the undersigned, do register our complete outrage with the city of Berkeley for the recent resolutions that criticized our Marines, as part of an effort to harass the Marine Recruiting Center and chase all vestiges of the United States military outside of the city of Berkeley, California.” 

Not to be outdone, the anti-war group Code Pink is calling for a 24-hour “peace-in,” beginning at 7 p.m. Feb. 11 at the Maudelle Shirek Building and continuing until the start of the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Feb. 12. 

“We want to support our elected officials who have taken a courageous stand,” said Zanne Joi, spokesperson for Code Pink. “We’re protecting our city from outside pro-war forces.” 

Joining the protests will be Rev. Fred Phelps’ group “God Hates Fags.” Responding to an e-mail query asking why they would be protesting, Shirley L Phelps-Roper responded: “We are picketing at Berkeley because you are a cesspool of filth! .... You freaks are going to kick the brutish Marines to the curb because they are not filthy enough for you. It is not enough for them to be raping, murdering, fag infested perverts. You want them to be ONLY fags and ONLY raping/murdering perverts. You want them to violate the lame and wimpy executive order that is called Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and aggressively recruit fags into their numbers.” 

The Berkeley Police Department “is putting together a thoughtful plan so all participants will be able to express themselves lawfully and peacefully,” said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, police spokesperson.

Berkeley wasn’t exempt Tuesday from election-day glitches due to technical and human error. 

Election officials ran out of Democratic ballots at four different polling places in the city: two polling stations at the Veteran’s Memorial Building on Center Street, the polling station at the Lutheran Church of the Cross on University Avenue, and the YWCA on Bancroft Way near campus. 

“There were 14 precincts countywide that ran out of ballots,” said Guy Ashley, spokesperson for the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. “[Registrar] Dave Macdonald ordered 14 polling places to stay open after consulting with a judge.” 

“A ballot shortfall sent us scrambling,” Ashley said, adding that Macdonald didn’t have to consult a judge to keep the polling place doors ajar.  

California law says “at 8 p.m., anybody in line should be allowed to vote,” he said.  

Most of the polling places kept open while waiting for extra ballots to be delivered were closed by 9 p.m., Ashley said.  

He said he thought a factor in running out of ballots was the large number of people who voted provisionally at polling places where they were not listed as registered to vote. He said he believed that many of them were not registered at all.  

“There were more voters than entitled to vote who showed up,” Ashley surmised. 

These ballots are put aside, signatures verified and votes counted separately. It will be several weeks before all the provisional ballots are tallied. 

Gary Crumback of northeast Berkeley ran into another problem. He was one of the earliest voters at his precinct at the Northbrae Community Church at 941 The Alameda. When the first voter went to slide his paper ballot into the scanner, his ballot jammed the machine.  

“It wouldn’t accept any more,” Crumback told the Daily Planet.  

The scanner still was on the blink when the Planet went by the polling place at about 10:30 a.m. Poll workers said they had called at 7:30 a.m. and were told a technician would come out.  

About 100 people had voted by that time, according to poll worker Ned Dairiki. The ballots were being kept in a locked box, he said. 

Asked about the problem at about 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Ashley downplayed the seriousness of the situation. “There are 810 polling places [in the county],” he said. “Occasionally a piece of machinery doesn’t work.” 

He said he went out to a site earlier in the day at the student union on the UC Berkeley campus that had reported a scanner problem and found the machine was not plugged in.  

Over at San Pablo Park, a Planet reporter overheard a poll worker tell a person who had registered “Decline to State” that she could not give her a Democratic Party ballot. The reporter intervened, assuring the poll worker that the voter had a right to the Democratic ballot. The individual was able to vote. 

“Poll workers are trained to allow crossover for Democrats and American Independents. They have classes three to four weeks before the elections,” Ashley said.

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. 

Public works dredged the lagoon without a permit and dumped the spoils near a popular bird-watching spot at the south end of the park in November. 

WR Forde—the contractors hired by the city to carry out the dredging—constructed a watertight basin Wednesday to prevent the contaminated spoils from entering the lagoon. 

Local environmentalists said they were upset that the company dumped mulch mixed with dredged mud, plastic sheets and sand bags from the excavated basin along the trail on the south shore of the main lagoon Wednesday morning.  

The mulch—primarily consisting of decomposing wood chips dumped inside the park by public works last year—was placed adjacent to and on top of clean new wood chips that will be used by the Environmental Greening, Restoration, and Education Team’s (EGRET) student volunteers for the city’s habitat improvement project that begins this weekend at the park. 

“Public works is telling us that the spoils are contaminated and have to be taken away to a landfill and then they are piling it on the road,” said Lisa Stephens, a member of the Aquatic Park subcommittee of the Parks and Recreation Commission. “The whole attitude of the Public Works Department towards Aquatic Park should be called into question by the City Council. They don’t repair the roads ... they basically treat it as a dumping ground.” 

Complaints from park users led to Public Works removing the decomposing wood chips from the spot the same afternoon. 

Mark Liolios, who heads EGRET, said he had been concerned about its possible impacts on student groups. Students from UC Berkeley and Oakland’s Head-Royce School will volunteer at the park over the next couple of weekends. 

“The wood chips are very old and according to city staff should only be moved by people wearing suitable respiration gear,” Liolios said. “The spoils are contaminated with lead which are said to be ingestible through breathing when airborne. I was a little unhappy and worried about having school children here.” 

Lorin Jensen, head of engineering at public works, said the mulch should not have been placed on the roadway. 

“I don’t know how it was placed close to the new mulch,” he said. “I went down and made sure the contractors took it back to the contained area.” 

The water board had asked public works to place the spoils in water containment in November. 

“The weather did not permit construction,” Jensen told the Planet. “There is a break in the weather now, and we should be able to complete construction by Friday.” 

Hamid Kondazi, the project manager for the dredging project who neglected to get approval from the Army Corps of Engineers, the BCDC and the water board for the project, was replaced by Danny Akagi, who is in charge of the city’s storm-water drainage. 

Brian Wines, who approves permits for Alameda County at the regional water board, said that he had not had a chance to review the revised plan yet. 

According to Jensen, dredging the north end of the lagoon would clear out the debris around the tidal tubes and clean out the Strawberry Creek storm drain to improve circulation. 

“The sediment in the five tide tubes blocks water from going through the pipes,” he said. “The elevation of the storm water overflow pipe under Addison Street and the force of the storm water isn’t enough to clean out the pipes.” 

Jensen added that Caltrans and the City of Berkeley took turns cleaning the tide tubes. 

“It is not clear who has full responsibility for cleaning it,” he said. “The city is doing it this year.” 

Public works has determined that the dredged spoils will not be re-used inside Aquatic Park. 

“We will probably be taking the spoils to a Class II landfill in Altamont or Vacaville which accepts the lead level found in them,” he said. “It does not meet the stricter requirements the water board has laid down for reusing them in the park.”

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. 

The Elmwood Neighborhood Association (ENA) agreed to settle their lawsuit against the city, in which they alleged that the permits granted to developer John Gordon for the project violated the California Environmental Quality Act, and that it would bring excessive noise and traffic to the small commercial area. The ENA, Gordon and the City Council agreed to the settlement. The unanimous council vote came in a closed-door session Monday. 

“Settlements are always a little bit win, win and a little bit lose, lose.” said Harry Pollack, an attorney and member of the Berkeley Planning Commission who acted as spokesperson for Gordon. Nonetheless, Pollack added, “It’s a good settlement.”  

The lawsuit was causing delays in getting the project leased, he said. “Holding up the project is not good for the neighborhood,” he said. The settlement did not concede that any CEQA violation had taken place, however. 

Speaking for the ENA, Judith Epstein underscored that the neighborhood is not anti-development. “We wanted to get rid of the most inappropriate parts of the project,” she stated in an e-mail: “The 5,000-square-foot restaurant, bar, lounge and banquet facility with extended hours would have been disastrous for our community.”  

In March 2007, the city’s zoning board approved the project. The ENA appealed the ruling, which was heard by the City Council in June. The council mustered only four votes, with five needed to support ENA’s request for a public hearing, a critical step before the council may overturn a zoning board decision. (Voting in favor of holding a public hearing at the time were Councilmembers Linda Maio, Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring, and Max Anderson.) 

After losing the appeal, ENA attorney Amber Vierling filed the lawsuit. 

Based on the California Environmental Quality Act, the complaint names the city as defendant and Gordon as an interested party, and says that because the restaurant-bar would bring traffic and noise to the neighborhood, the developer was required to do an environmental impact report. 

The lawsuit also cited Berkeley’s code, saying that the proposed project violates the purpose of the Elmwood commercial district’s quota system, which is “‘to maintain a scale and balance of retail goods and services in the district to compatibly serve the everyday needs of surrounding neighborhoods by: ... preventing development which exceeds the amount and intensity of use that is compatible with adjacent residential neighborhoods; [and] limiting the space occupied by businesses that generate high traffic and/or parking demands….’” 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who was advised by the city attorney’s office to recuse himself from council discussions and from the vote on the project because he had publicly supported the project, said he thinks it is a “reasonable” settlement. 

“John can go ahead and develop the rest of the project,” he said.  

The settlement agreement specifies that Gordon agrees to relinquish four permits: a use permit to exceed the district’s full-service restaurant quota; a use permit for extended hours of restaurant operation; a use permit for a sidewalk café; and a use permit to allow alcohol sales and service within a full-service restaurant. 

If Gordon includes a restaurant in the development, he will need to go back to the zoning board and begin the process anew.  

The $40,000 in the plaintiff’s attorney fees and $1,670 in costs will be paid jointly by the city and the developer, Pollack said. 

No leases have been signed for space in the project due to the uncertainty of the lawsuit, Pollack said, noting that up to seven commercial tenants can locate in the development. 

Pollack said Gordon expects leases to be signed within the next two to three months.

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.  

McCullough, an African-American and a city of Berkeley employee, is best known for the 2005 incident in front of his 59th Street house, when he shot and slightly wounded an African-American teenager who was part of a group McCullough said had threatened him with a gun. The Alameda County District Attorney’s office declined to bring charges against either McCullough or any of the teenagers. McCullough’s home was the target of several vandalizing attacks after he led a neighborhood campaign to keep drug dealing off his street. 

He said that combating North Oakland’s soaring crime problem would be one of his top concerns, and immediately criticized the incumbent Brunner for what he called her inaction on the problem. 

“Jane Brunner is typical of many white liberals who have an affinity with groups like the Black Panther Party and are not comfortable in doing what is needed about the crime problem,” McCullough said in a telephone interview. “They’re afraid to be called racist.”  

He added that “there has been no improvement in the city that is attributable to her as councilmember. She doesn’t do things until pushed. I will do things on my own initiative. I’m not going to wait until people complain. I don’t know who is benefiting from her inaction, but people are suffering.” 

He said that if elected, he would move toward increasing the number of police in Oakland to between 1,100 and 1,200, significantly higher than the 803 currently-authorized strength. 

“A lot of people are afraid to go outside, afraid to cut their grass, afraid to casually walk around their neighborhood,” McCullough said.  

While Brunner agreed that crime is “the biggest issue” in her North Oakland district, she took issue with McCullough’s contention that she had not been doing anything about it. 

“We have made it our top priority in the last two years,” she said. “I am the one who pushes [Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker] the most in developing public safety strategies. I think [Mr. McCullough] may not have been paying attention recently.” 

Brunner also disputed McCullough’s contention that she was a white liberal who is soft on crime. “I’m proud of being a progressive,” she said. She said that she would talk more about the issues in her district as the campaign developed, adding, “I think I will win. I know I have a lot of support.” 

If Council President Ignacio De La Fuente announces for re-election for his District Five seat, as expected, there will be contested races in all of the Oakland City Council districts whose four-year terms are up this year: One, Three, Five, Seven, and At Large. While candidates have informally announced for all of these races, official candidate filing does not begin until Monday, Feb. 11 and runs through March 7. 

Neither De La Fuente nor At Large Councilmember Henry Chang responded to telephone inquiries about whether they were running for re-election this year. 

Council races are set for June 3, with a November runoff scheduled for multi-candidate races in which no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote.

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. 

Even for a city where murder is the third leading cause of death among African American men and where homicide rates average 10 times higher than for Contra Costa County as a whole, the last months of 2007 and the first weeks of the new year have proved particularly bloody. 

“We had 27 homicides in three months, which is a record for our city,” said Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan. “We had 13 in December, which is an all-time record.” In the same month of 2006, the city logged only two homicides. 

The year-end surge brought the city’s yearly homicide rate to 47. 

January brought four more killings, while February has logged only one—though one man clings to life following a pair of shootings that took place minutes before CHP units were set to hit the streets for their second day of patrolling the city, leaving one man clinging to his life in a trauma center. 

Lt. Gagan attributed the immediate causes of the violence to gang feuds, one between groups in North Richmond and the center of the city and the other blamed on infighting on the city’s southside. 

More that 20 CHP officers rolled through Richmond streets Tuesday evening on the first of their 12-hour shifts in the city, said Officer Sam Morgan, CHP spokesperson, and police reported a relatively quiet evening in the troubled city. 

All that was to change at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, when a drive-by shooter in a silver Nissan Altima opened up on a 16-year-old standing near the corner of Potrero and Carlson boulevards. 

The shooter, who was riding in the passenger seat, fired multiple rounds at the youth, who was struck in both hands. 

“He has gang ties, and he has been uncooperative,” said Lt. Gagan. 

Police believe the next shooting, which took place 20 minutes later, was related. 

An SUV pulled up alongside a car stopped at a red light at the intersection of San Pablo and Macdonald avenues and a front-passenger-seat shooter fired multiple bullets into a 23-year-old man as he sat behind the wheel of his Cadillac, waiting for the light to change, said the officer. 

Struck multiple times, the grievously wounded driver stepped on the gas, careening through the intersection and striking a passing car. 

The resulting chaos shut down one of the city’s busiest intersections at the start of rush hour while investigators combed the scene and a helicopter airlifted the victim to treatment. 

The shooting happened ten minutes before CHP officers were scheduled to hit the streets, Lt. Gagan said. 

Police and CHP officers have detailed descriptions of the cars, but the lieutenant said it is unlikely either vehicle is linked directly to the shooters. 

“Typically in these cases they use stolen cars or community cars,” he said. 

A CalGRP on gangs 

The patrol—which exacts no cost from the city—comes at the request of Richmond police through Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s CalGRIP program, short for the California Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention Program, first announced last May. 

Paul Seave, a former federal prosecutor, directs the program under the aegis of the state Office of Emergency Services, but reports directly to the governor’s office. 

CHP intervention is only one of the programs Seave is charged with overseeing, though the exact nature of his duties is still a work-in-progress, he said Thursday. 

“I got the job on Sept. 24,” he said. “CalGRIP is really an umbrella term, and it refers to a number of funds and funding grants that are being or will be distributed,” as well as programs overseen by his office. 

“Seven million dollars is set aside for the California Highway Patrol for helping local law enforcement,” he said, funds derived from motor vehicle fees. If the annual allocation isn’t spent, the money reverts to the CHP for other programs. 

Morgan said the CHP has been called into other Bay Area cities, and is currently deployed in Oakland. Other cities which have invited the patrol are San Francisco, Vallejo and East Palo Alto, as well as communities in Southern California, he said. Seave said Salinas has also used CHP patrols. 

CHP officers enter local communities with a three-month commitment, and the community has the option to keep them on the streets for another three months. 

“After that, there is a review process, and then they can submit a request to have us return,” Morgan said. 

The CHP officers patrol through the streets in high-crime neighborhoods like the city’s Iron Triangle, looking for what Morgan called “on-view traffic and criminal violations,” leaving the investigative work to the city’s own detectives. 

“We’ve had a welcome response from both the Richmond Police and elements of the community,” Morgan said. 

McLaughlin said the idea of calling in the Highway Patrol came from Richmond Police Chris Magnus, who informed City Council. “The (council’s) public safety committee had called a special meeting prior to the city council meeting and heard from the police chief there,” she said.  

Partial solution 

Rev. Andrew Shumake Sr., a founder of the Richmond Improvement Association and a prominent advocate for the city’s poor, said that while he welcomes the presence of the CHP because of the recent surge in killings, he fears Richmond’s elected officials are dealing with only half of the problem. 

“If you want these young people to lay something down, you also have to give them something to pick up,” he said. Without jobs to give young unemployed men and women something constructive to do, he said, violence will only resume when the CHP eventually leaves. 

“I am tired of going to these funerals,” he said, adding that he has a service to conduct Friday for a young woman slain in the epidemic of violence. 

Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said long-range solutions will involve “program/service opportunities, outreach/peacekeeping teams, conflict mediation, healing, job training, jobs, educational enhancement.” 

The mayor said “causes for any one homicide or cluster of homicides are varied and unpredictable. It can be the result of feuding street factions from different neighborhoods, domestic violence, or other isolated incidents. 

One new program is charged with tackling the dynamics that lead to factional violence, McLaughlin said. 

“The new Office of Neighborhood Safety’s outreach program will be specifically addressing the issue of inter-neighborhood feuds in an effort to prevent them from escalating to fatal proportions,” she said. 

Seave said prevention and job programs play a major role in CalGRIP’s agenda as well. 

“Whenever you talk to gang members and people who want to get out of gangs or people who work with people in gangs,” the need for jobs “is the first thing you hear, and it’s legitimate.” 

One of the programs under his charge is the $6 million in federal funding under the Workforce and Labor Development Agency for job training and placement. 

The state has put out a call to local agencies for applications. 

Seave said hundreds of millions in state funds are available for programs ranging from enforcement to prevention, for both government and private agencies. 

One program under his office offers $9.5 million for community grants, with $2 million for private agencies and the rest for cities—with $1 million off the top for Los Angeles. 

“I believe Richmond has already applied for funding,” he said. 

Seave said he’s still gathering information on the full range of programs under a wide range of agencies that are designed to address the problems of gangs and gang violence. 

“Call me back in a few months, when I have a better idea” of which ones are working and which ones aren’t, he said.

Berkeley police have arrested the man they believe stalked elderly men and women leaving grocery stores, then beat them before stealing their valuables. 

Jahton Green, a 21-year-old Oakland resident, was arrested after police raided a Berkeley residence where he had been staying, said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, the department’s spokesperson. 

The youngest of the eight victims police believe Green attacked and robbed was a 57-year-old man, while the rest were over 70. The last, a 93-year-old, was assaulted and robbed as he walked into his condo. 

Several of the victims were attacked after they left two Berkeley grocery stores, the Berkeley Bowl and the North Shattuck Avenue Safeway. 

“The investigating officers believe he bicycled to the stores, then sat around and waited until he saw someone leaving the stores” who fit his victim profile, Sgt. Kusmiss said. 

Green was arrested Jan. 29, a day after what investigators believe was his eighth and most brutal robbery of a Berkeley resident. Five victims were women, three were men. 

The string of robberies began at 4:45 p.m. Nov. 17, when an 82-year-old woman was attacked as she was walking to her residence in the 1700 block of Hearst Avenue. 

Assaulted from the rear and shoved violently to the ground, the woman suffered a broken hip, which required surgery to repair. Her attacker grabbed her purse and fled, said Sgt. Kusmiss. 

“In the attacks, he would strike or punch his victim in the back of the head, knocking them to the ground,” she said. Further blows would follow if needed to subdue the victim. 

More attacks followed, with the next on Dec. 17 in the 2000 block of Hearst Avenue. Two robberies were reported on Dec. 28, one in Live Oak Park on the path between Oxford and Spruce streets and the second in the 1900 block of Oregon Street. 

The next attack, on Jan. 10, had special meaning for City Councilmember Betty Olds. 

A 78-year-old man was returning home from his daily stroll for coffee, conversation and a look at the newspapers at the Peet’s Coffee on Shattuck Avenue in North Berkeley, Olds said. 

“He noticed this guy following him, and he kept telling him, ‘I don’t have anything. Please go away,’” Olds said. But the man followed him to his home in the 1300 block of Arch Street. At his home, the bandit struck, knocking the man down, beating him, then rifling his pockets, leaving him, Kusmiss reported, “in a pool of blood.” 

The septuagenarian victim suffered fractures of the hip and femur, both of which needed surgical repairs, head injuries and permanent hearing loss. 

“I’d have had a heart attack if he attacked me,” said Olds, who is nearing her 88th birthday. “It’s so hard to be observant.” 

The next attack came Jan. 22, when a woman was struck and robbed of her purse near the corner of Hearst Avenue and Bonita Street. The next attack, another assault and purse snatch, took place at Bonita and University Avenue. The victim had turned 84 less than two weeks earlier. 

The final attack came on the 28th, when the robber followed his 93-year-old victim into his condo. 

Sgt. Kusmiss said the robber apparently followed close behind the nonagenarian as he entered the security door into his building, catching the door before it closed. 

She said he trailed the man to the door of his condo, and there shoved the victim into the door as he unlocked it, finally pushing him into the apartment, knocking him to the floor and striking him repeatedly in the head. 

“Then he picked up a suitcase and beat him in the head with it several times,” Sgt. Kusmiss said. The robber rifled the man’s pockets, making off with his wallet, identification and house keys. 

Olds said that Berkeley police had learned the identification of their suspect because a stolen credit card was used to make a purchase that was shipped to the Berkeley residence of a close associate of Green’s. 

“Fortunately for us, they were kind of dumb,” said Olds. 

Kusmiss said that once some of the victims had identified Green in a photographic lineup, investigators obtained warrants to search the apartment of Stewart Tremaine Robinson, 19, at 2009 McGee St. 

Kusmiss said that while Green lived in Berkeley, he spent much of his time at Robinson’s home, and when officers conducted their search they found 49 pieces of evidence directly linked to the crimes, including “four purses and lots of ID and credit cards.” 

Green and Robinson were both arrested. 

After examining the evidence and witness statements, the Alameda County District Attorney’s office charged Green with two counts of second-degree robbery with great bodily injury, grand theft and receiving stolen property. Robinson was charged with fraud for using a stolen credit card to make a purchase. 

“The detectives are very confident Green is responsible for all eight robberies,” Kusmiss said. “But because the victims were struck or strong-armed from behind, some were unable to make identifications.” 

Kusmiss said state law also provides separate sentencing enhancements for victims over age 70 and for victims over 80. 

“These are very significant felonies with mandatory sentences,” she said. 

“It’s so sad that old people have to worry about people like this,” said Olds. “Being one of those poor old things, I know.”

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. 

Although the state Fair Political Practices Commission advised the city and the Chamber PAC attorneys that the PAC should file its campaign contribution statements with the city, it has not done so. 

It is unclear whether the PAC—even if terminated—will have to file past contribution statements with the city. Deputy City Attorney Kristy van Herick told the Planet on Thursday that the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission will decide whether to press the issue. 

Asked if the PAC would file locally, retroactively, Miriam Ng, Chamber PAC chair, told the Planet, “We’ll do whatever is necessary.”  

In 2006, the PAC collected and spent more than $100,000 to defeat Measure J, the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, to elect Mayor Tom Bates and to attempt to unseat Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring. 

But it was difficult for local voters to ascertain the names of those who had contributed to the PAC, since it filed campaign finance disclosure documents with the Alameda County registrar and disclosed only a limited number of contributors to the Berkeley city clerk. 

Berkeley campaign finance law requires the city to post on the internet the names of contributors to local campaigns and the amount contributed, and to publish the information in local newspapers. The Alameda County registrar places campaign finance statements on the internet only if filers use specific software, which is not obligatory.  

In response to a query by van Herick, the state weighed in, in August 2007, advising the city that, because the PAC’s contributions were directed overwhelmingly to Berkeley campaigns, it should file its campaign disclosure documents in Berkeley and not with the county. 

The PAC hired San Francisco-based Sutton Law Firm, which responded Nov. 14 with arguments against filing locally. 

On Nov. 26 Emelyn Rodriguez, counsel in the Legal Division of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, wrote the PAC attorneys saying the Commission would not reconsider its advice: 

“You state that the percentage of money the committee spent in the last five years is but one factor in determining whether a general purpose committee should file as a county or city committee. You stated that the Commission should also take into account the committee’s ‘other activities’ such as: its monitoring of county legislation and politics; its promotion of county voter registration; advising the Chamber on ‘non-reportable member communications regarding issues of importance throughout the county,’ … You also state that the Commission should consider the Berkeley Chamber PAC’s intent to be regularly active in future county elections, even if some of all of the committee’s past activity is in a different jurisdiction.” 

The state FPPC attorney concludes that given the PAC spent $124,500 between 2002 and 2006 on Berkeley campaign expenditures, gave a single $500 campaign contribution to a state candidate and gave no contributions at all to county candidates or issues, that “we reaffirm the conclusion reached in the van Herick letter that the Berkeley Chamber PAC, based on its expenditures, is a city general-purpose committee.” 

On Jan. 8 van Herick wrote the Chamber PAC, asking it to change its filing status by Jan. 31. The letter was followed by a voicemail message. 

The response came to van Herick in a Jan. 28 e-mail from Melissa A Mikesell, an attorney with the Sutton Law Firm, notifying her that the PAC was going out of business.  

“I received your voicemail and wanted to let you know that the Berkeley Chamber PAC decided to terminate the PAC effective 12/31/07. They will be filing their termination Form 460 with the County in the next few days,” the e-mail said. 

Asked whether the Chamber PAC will reinvent itself as another organization, Ng said: “We may do that. We don’t know that yet.”

More than 800 sophomores sat for their California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) at Berkeley High this week. 

State law specifies that all public school students take the exit exam for the first time in 10th grade. If they fail to pass, students have two opportunities in 11th grade and three opportunities in 12th grade.  

Students cannot earn a high school diploma unless they pass the exit exam. 

Last year, 89 percent of Berkeley High School students passed the CAHSEE, which was a rate slightly lower than the state’s overall pass rate of 93 percent, according to P. J. Hallam, the district’s director for the assessment department, and data from the California Department of Education. 

At Berkeley Technology Academy (B-Tech), the results were worse. In 2006-07, 41 percent (19 out of 46 students) of B-Tech students who took the CAHSEE English exam through 10th to 12th grades passed. Only 26 percent (15 out of 57 students) passed the math exam. 

“The numbers are not good,” Hallam told the Planet Wednesday. “The reason why these students went to B-Tech is because they need the support of an alternative school. There clearly needs to be more effort to improve the numbers.” 

Hallam, hired by Berkeley Unified in August, put together a student assessment data report for the school board in January. 

The majority of Berkeley High students passed the math and English exams in 10th grade, something that district officials said they expected this year as well. 

“In fact the pass rate for our high school 10th graders in English and math was slightly higher for the county and higher than the state over the last two years,” Hallam said. “It means we are covering the basics for the most part.” 

Multiethnic, white and Asian students continued to have higher pass rates in English than Latino (72 percent) and African American (61 percent) students for the last two years. 

“There may be some high school students who recently moved to California from a different country,” Hallam said. “As a result they are still learning English.” 

White students (at 93 percent) outpaced multi-ethnic (81 percent) and Asian (86 percent) students in CAHSEE math, while Latinos and African Americans passed at 67 percent and 58 percent respectively. 

“The district needs to work on African American students to improve their basic math skills,” Hallam said. “There needs to be remediation for them at the high school level.” 

Last year, 87 percent of Berkeley High seniors graduated, and topping the list were Asians and whites (92 percent), followed by Latinos (88 percent), multiethnic (84 percent) and blacks (80 percent). 

Students and can list their background as multi-ethnic if they claim two or more ethnicities.

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. 

David Milnes, a colleague at UC Berkeley, was preparing to premiere one of the composer’s latest pieces, Furthermore … (2006), with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, when the news came. At the SFCMP concert on Monday, Milnes spoke briefly to the audience, referring to the group’s Contemporary Insights event the day before in San Francisco: “Imagine our shock at a salon [Sunday] afternoon, where we were to share the piece with others, and we got the terrible news instead. Last week at rehearsals he was upbeat. There was not a hint of melancholy. We had no hints of what was to come. It’s a terrible artistic loss. His output is now closed, but his music will live on.” 

Liderman was an exceptionally sensitive and careful musician, and his compositions were marked, like his personality, with a generosity of spirit and humility. There was no technical display of learning or excess complexity. He composed intuitively, by ear, without espousing a particular style or school. 

Liderman’s death comes at a time when a raft of new recordings (seven in the past three years and a new one about to be released on Bridge records), a 50th birthday concert through Cal Performances, a 2003 Guggenheim grant, and numerous new commissions were beginning to broaden his base of popularity to match the imagination and accessibility of his music. (You can listen to samples at his website, www.jorgeliderman.com.) For a composer who had decried the “ghetto of composers writing music for other composers,” it would have been a time to be savored. 

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Liderman studied music in Israel; Mark Kopitman was his teacher at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. Meeting composer Shulamit Ran in Tel Aviv, he subsequently studied with her and Ralph Shapey at the University of Chicago, before being hired by UC Berkeley in 1989. He was internationally recognized, to a degree, and his music received performances from the London Sinfonietta, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Arditti Quartet, and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, among others, and at festivals like Darmstadt (Germany), Foro Internacional (Mexico), and Nuova Consonanza (Italy). His opera, Antigona furiosa (1991), was performed at the 1992 Munich Biennale. And he had numerous prominent performances in the Bay Area during the 20 years of his residency. 

It can be difficult to define originality or “voice” in a creative personality when it doesn’t reside in overt acts of revolution, or in polemical, theoretical pronouncements. Liderman in particular wasn’t given to those modes of expression. His music is not minimalist-influenced, or eclectically postmodern. It isn’t easy to pigeonhole, but it is compelling. It bursts with vitality, the music flowing out in an irresistible stream. 

If you listen to Waking Dances, the first piece he wrote for guitarist David Tanenbaum (and recorded by him on Bridge Records), you’ll note the incredibly simple materials he begins with. A scale fragment, a three-note ostinato, a few scattered pitches transmogrify into extraordinary structures through the composer’s fantasy. As Ran, his teacher and friend, put it simply, the sources of inspiration were almost “primeval,” but were developed by “a sophisticated mind that allowed the elements to flourish into something unique and elaborate.” The mind, what she calls “rigor,” contributes as much to the music’s surging quality as the rhythmic bounce and drive. 

Of course there are always influences on a composer, and if you search long enough, you’ll find them. Liderman can count a number of teachers and famous musicians who contributed to his sense of style, including Kopitman, Ran, Hans Werner Henze, György Ligeti, and, behind them all, Stravinsky. But again, you won’t pick those personalities out easily. 

Tanenbaum relates that, when he was rehearsing Swirling Streams, commissioned by the guitarist and scored for the unusual combination of guitar, string trio and bass clarinet, “We just coincidentally found out that Henze had written a piece for guitar, bassoon, and string trio, and so we did them on the same program.” But the connection pretty much ends there. Among other things, “Jorge’s has much more rhythmic vitality and pulse than Henze’s does,” he says. Tanenbaum points to Ligeti as the influence on Liderman’s individual sense of rhythm. 

And yet, as Ran reminded me, “The rich tapestry that was his life, being raised in Argentina, and then growing up in Israel, and then coming to this country and then the West Coast, and growing new roots—I think all of those, in various ways, were reflected in his music, but not in a thoughtless, eclectic way. The music reflected the life that he led.” You look to life influences to explain the texts he chose to set, for example in the Aires de Sefarad (2001), or the oratoriolike Song of Songs (2004), or the Shir ha Sharim (1986), based on the Book of Solomon, all works that reflected his interest in Jewish culture. 

A Generous Spirit, Always Searching 

It took a residency on the West Coast, however, to provide him with an outlet to investigate the guitar, that iconic instrument of Latin America. “He came to me — it was about 10 years ago,” says Tanenbaum. “He knew my work and presented himself as really blocked with the guitar. He knew it and had always wanted to write for it, but he couldn’t get there. And he said, ‘I want you to help me get over the hump.’ So we worked quite a bit—of the four major pieces we ended up doing together, the one we went back and forth on the most was the first one [Waking Dances]. It was more of a struggle for him [than the others].” 

The fluidity of the completed work betrays none of that struggle, naturally, but the story points to an aspect of Liderman’s view of music. He enjoyed taking artistic risks and thought it was a necessary part of creativity. Ran notes that he rarely looked back. “Sometimes, when I would mention his opera, which is a piece I just love, he would say to me, ‘Oh that’s an old piece, already.’ He was always looking for new ways of thinking about music, always working things out in his mind. He had the powerful stamp of his own personality, but at the same time, he was always searching, always open for more.” 

As a colleague and friend, Liderman was one of the more generous people you could hope to meet. He was humble, deflecting conversation away from his own music to that of other composers. His graduate students benefited from being treated as equals from the beginning, and also from his incredibly detailed and thoughtful recommendations. 

Robert Cole, a friend and director of Cal Performances, says, “He was helpful in practical ways, making things easy that would otherwise be very difficult to do.” Cole points to Cal Performances’ Edge Festival in 2005, when instead of featuring his own compositions, Liderman suggested that the performances focus on his former students. “We brought some Berkeley graduates back, but it was only possible because Jorge made it happen.” 

Bonnie Wade, the chairperson of the UC Berkeley music department, knew him as a quiet and humble man, dedicated to teaching. “At both the graduate and the undergraduate level, he was somebody who had the door open, literally. He would be in the department for many hours, with the door open for students who wanted to come [talk] on a one-to-one basis.” 

Personal memories of Liderman paint the opposite picture from a man struggling with depression. Ran recalls her first meeting with the young man in Tel Aviv: “He came to see me at our apartment and I still remember he warmed my heart immediately. There was something so engaging and bright and open about him, and we had a wonderful conversation.” 

As a former Ph.D. student in the department, I recall him ambling through the halls of UC Berkeley, saying hello to his students in an amiable, totally unpatronizing way. He made real contact with them. He bicycled everywhere, and Tanenbaum recalls conversations held while riding. “He would be so involved in conversation—he’d be in the middle of the street and turning his head backward to say something to me, like old Mr. Magoo or something, and I was worried that something would happen to him, but it never did.” 

Wade relates that “he loved to cook. He gave parties that always collected the most interesting, unconnected people from the various parts of his life.” The department observed a moment of silence on Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. for the composer. 

Liderman is survived by his wife, Mimi, of El Cerrito, and his mother, Sarah, and sister, Claudia, both of Buenos Aires. Plans for a memorial service have not yet been announced. 

Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph.D. in music history from UC Berkeley. This article first appeared on the San Francisco Classical Voice web site (sfcv.org).

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.  

The California Republican Party put ideology over pragmatic politics in spending heavily to defeat Prop. 93, enabling the state’s progressives to come out of the Feb. 5 election stronger than before.  

Despite pre-election polls showing Prop. 93 losing badly, the initiative trailed by only a few points with nearly two-thirds of the vote counted. But the margin held, meaning that California Democrats will finally be able to remove the compromised legislative leadership team of Perata/Nunez that has proven such a gift to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

New Progressive Leadership 

Legislators could be deciding as soon as this week whether to replace these lame-duck leaders now rather than at the end of the year. This is something of a tradition in the Legislature, as it gives new leadership an extra year in power. 

African-American Assembly member Karen Bass from Los Angeles is the leading candidate to replace Nunez as Speaker. Bass has strong support from labor unions and other key Democratic constituencies, and would represent a night and day difference from the wheeling-dealing Nunez. 

One is hard-pressed to recall the last time California had a solidly progressive Assembly speaker who could rally the public behind a clear agenda. Jess Unruh and Willie Brown backed some progressive causes, but both became symbols of backroom deals and big-money special interests that ultimately did not advance the progressive cause. 

At a time when progressives must rally the state to opposed the Governor’s draconian budget plans, Bass’ election as speaker would be ideal. 

Sacramento State Senator Darrell Steinberg has been a staunch affordable housing advocate and, like Bass, would represent a sharp departure from current Senate leader, Don Perata. Steinberg’s public image is as clean as Perata’s is tarnished, and he and Bass could build support among the state’s residents to force the Governor and a handful of Republicans to support the tax increases on the wealthy necessary to stabilize the budget. 

Californians feel disconnected from state government. A major reason is a culture of backroom legislative dealing that ignores the need to organize grassroots support for progressive policies. A legislative leadership team that went out to the cities and towns across the state to sell a progressive agenda would help put the Governor on the defensive as labor unions successfully did in 2005. 

A Boost for No on 98 

Prop. 93’s defeat means heavily contested primaries across California, and increased voter turnout against the anti-rent control Prop 98. Consider the impact in the East Bay alone. 

Had Prop. 93 passed, there would be no contested legislative races in June in Berkeley or Oakland. Now, there will be fierce fights for the Assembly seat to be vacated by Loni Hancock, and the Senate seat finally being vacated by Don Perata. 

While initiative campaigns can boost turnout, voters are more motivated by candidates. 

In the State Senate race, both the Hancock and Wilma Chan campaigns will be sending out slate cards that include No on 98, and their GOTV efforts---including absentee voter campaigns—will increase turnout against the landlord-backed initiative. 

Two of the East Bay Assembly candidates---Kriss Worthington and Nancy Skinner---are also strongly pro-tenant and their voter outreach will help the No on 98 campaign. So rather than have thousands of voters potentially ignoring the projected low-turnout June election, these contested legislative races gives them greater reason to vote. 

This East Bay dynamic of increased No on 98 voter turnout will be replicated in Los Angeles and other rent-control jurisdictions that include contested primaries. And Prop 98’s presence on the ballot means that tenant issues will be more important in distinguishing between candidates than ever before, which could ensure a more pro-tenant legislature in 2009. 

How fortunate that California Republicans were willing to advance the progressive cause by prioritizing term limits over their practical political agenda. 

Randy Shaw is the editor of BeyondChron.org. 

Message to would-be politicians: watch out for e-mail. The time-hallowed practice of pitching part of your message to Interest Group A and another part to Interest Group B becomes very risky when just one Group A recipient who doesn’t like what your pitch letter promises can quickly forward it to all sorts of others who really don’t like it. 

That’s what seems to be happening to new Assembly candidate Nancy Skinner, whose number has come up because Loni Hancock is now officially termed out, thanks to the defeat of Proposition 93. She was (reportedly reluctantly) tapped by the Bates-Aroner-Hancock organization as Hancock’s replacement, jumping into a crowded field to join Councilmember Tony Thurmond of Richmond, Phil Polakoff of Berkeley (endorsed by ex-Mayor Shirley Dean and ex-sheriff Charlie Plummer) and Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington (full disclosure: endorsed by this space and many more.)  

A pitch letter signed by consultant Carole Selter Norris, identifying the writer as vice-president of the San Francisco consulting firm ICF International, is in wide circulation on the Net, and has been forwarded to me by several anonymous correspondents. Norris is a sincere person who’s been active in Berkeley politics for many moons, including an unsuccessful bid for a city council seat in the same historic era as Skinner’s council term, but presumably this letter, because it’s on her firm’s electronic letterhead, represents more than personal preference. Suggested donation: “up to $3,600.” 

It came to me complete with a list of first-tier recipients, all of whom we won’t identify here because they probably didn’t ask to be included. Hey You Guys: someone should show you how to do “bcc”, blind copying, to conceal the names of the addressees on your list. Let’s just say that number 2 addressee is Ali Kashani, the developer whose bid to replace Iceland with a condo complex sparked a fierce battle in the Berkeley City Council.  

The letter did sport a scary-sounding warning: “This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain privileged or confidential information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any other use of this e-mail by you is prohibited.” Of course, it’s legally meaningless. Two words, for you intellectual property buffs out there: Fair Use. 

Much of the content is plain vanilla resume stuff and normal political PR, but a few bits are sure to catch the eye of anyone outside of the Bates-Skinner orbit. First, it says that she “organized the July 2006 Climate and Energy Roundtable with Gov. Schwarzenegger, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Assembly Speaker Nunez...” None of these are exactly names to conjure with around here, though the letter does claim that this ‘led to the governor’s signing of California’s groundbreaking global warming bill.” Time will tell if this was a real accomplishment or simply Advanced Greenwashing 101 . 

But the sentence that will generate too much excitement around Skinner’s candidacy in exactly the wrong circles in this district was this one: 

“Nancy ... worked with Berkeley ZAB members to organize support and approvals for a number of infill projects facing opposition including the Berkeley Bowl, several condo projects and the proposed mixed use project that includes Trader Joe’s.” 

One would hope that it’s just a drafting error: that the writer doesn’t actually intend to say that some ZAB members worked with Nancy to pass projects that came before them for decision, since that would be unethical. But even so, Skinner doesn’t seem to be aware that these two projects were and still are very controversial.  

Both of the supermarkets mentioned, though loved by some shoppers because they’re cheap (as is Wal-mart) have had serious problems with labor unions, whose support is needed by any candidate in this district. Berkeley Bowl reluctantly agreed to allow employees at their current store to organize after a long struggle, but made no such guarantee for their new development. Trader Joe’s is resolutely and proudly anti-union. 

And even more, there’s the growing anger of many residents of the urban East Bay, including but not only Berkeley, about the Big Ugly Boxes that have landed in their midst in the last few years. If Skinner really plans to run on a platform of “more condos coming to a neighborhood near you” she might be in trouble in some areas.  

The letter gets even worse, with an all-caps pitch aimed at those who know the code words: 

“NANCY UNDERSTANDS THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTING URBAN INFILL DEVELOPMENT WHEN CHANGES TO THE STATE BUDGET, CEQA, THE GOVERNMENT CODE, REDEVELOPMENT LAW, AND OTHER STATE LAND USE AND DEVELOPMENT LEGISLATION IS [sic] INTRODUCED IN SACRAMENTO THAT MAKES [sic] URBAN INFILL PROJECTS MORE DIFFICULT. [all caps sic] 

Does this mean, as it seems to, that she’s hoping to join the ranks of the developer-funded legislators, Fabian Nunez among them, who’ve been working to get rid of the protections for urban areas in the California Environmental Quality Act? Does it mean, as it seems to, that she will work to expand the powers of the redevelopment laws, frequently exploited and often misused by development interests in Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond and elsewhere? This sentence looks like a message to the building industry that Nancy’s on their side, which works fine for a privately circulated fundraising letter, but which will galvanize some opponents when they read it as a forwarded e-mail. (Of course, it might also raise some Big Bucks from the Big Boys.) 

Sitting through the long and tedious proceedings of then-new-mayor Tom Bates’s Task Force on Permitting and Development, I became aware that Skinner, the mayor’s appointee to the committee, turned a tin ear to the pleas of city neighborhoods adversely impacted by poorly planned development, as does Bates himself. Subsequently on his watch it’s gotten worse instead of better, and Skinner, if this letter is accurate, has enthusiastically been part of the problem. 

But then, tin ears in the Bates camp seem to be the order of the day. Tonight (Tuesday) the council will be facing the wrath of those, both local and imported, who took exception to the Marines-Go-Home resolution passed a couple of weeks ago with the Mayor’s blessing. On the other hand, Kriss Worthington, who certainly agrees with the goals of the anti-war protestors, showed his usual good judgment in voting from the start against the unnecessary inflammatory language which has provoked the expensive circus the city’s been experiencing. It’s important to choose your battles carefully, but Bates et al. don’t seem to understand that. 

—Becky O’Malley

Sorting out the controversy over the Marine recruiting station will be a long and tedious job, but bear with us, please. 

First, free speech.  

There’s the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee: “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Subsequently that language has been interpreted to cover government in general, right down to the Berkeley City Council, and similar guarantees have been added to state constitutions, including California’s. Courts have held that it’s OK to set rules regarding the time, place and manner that the right of free speech can be exercised, but the content of speech can’t be regulated.  

Technically, the Berkeley City Council hasn’t done anything to violate these First Amendment guarantees as regards the federal government, the Marine Corps or the individuals who are representing them in the office they’ve rented in downtown Berkeley. The Marines are still there, they’re still saying whatever they please. But what about those who disagree with them? 

Those who piously invoke the tradition of Berkeley’s Free Speech movement on behalf of the Marines have a point, sort of. We’d like to ask the Berkeley City Council and its critics to repeat after us, one more time: “The best remedy for speech you disagree with is more speech.”  

Or, in the more eloquent words of Justice Brandeis: “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” (Whitney v. California 271 U.S. 357 [1927]) 

Simply stated, even if you think the Marine recruiters are wrong, dead wrong, they should be allowed to speak, but you should be able to speak up to correct them. And it’s quite appropriate for any government agency, even the Berkeley City Council, to make sure that there is a suitable time, place and manner for dissenters to petition the U.S. government as represented here in Berkeley by the Marine recruiters. 

The paper formerly known as SF’s Major Metropolitan Daily (hereafter the ex-MMD) indulged in a self-righteous editorial on the topic on Wednesday: “While playing up arguments of free speech and organized protest, the council has loaded the deck with insulting language that denigrates the military and embarrasses the anti-war cause. The motion approved by the council includes a number of remarkable statements: ‘The United States has a history of launching illegal, immoral and unprovoked wars of aggression’ and ‘The military recruiters are sales people known to lie to and seduce minors.’ ” 

Well, those two statements might or might not be prudent, but they’re certainly true. Examples for the first one: the Spanish-American War, the Vietnam War, and yes, increasingly obviously, the war in Iraq.  

And I myself can testify to the second one, since I personally snatched a young man, the grandson of a dead friend, away from a dishonest U.S. Army recruiter who’d set up shop in Eastmont Mall. The recruiter clearly lied, consistently and boldly, to the boy, his mother and to me about the “contract” he claimed the kid had signed, and only backed down when I caught him at it, said I was an attorney and threatened legal action.  

If anyone, including the editorial writer, needs more information about what happens to Marine recruits, they should check out the long investigative article by Kathy Dobie in the Feb. 18 issue of The Nation: “Denial in the Corps: A stressed-out Marine Corps sends its troops on repeated tours in Iraq—and then tosses them out when they come back traumatized.” Or they should listen to the many pieces on National Public Radio by Danny Zwerdling and Ari Schapiro about how badly this country treats veterans. Recruiters don’t usually tell their targets about what will happen to them after they serve.  

So let’s not have any pious platitudes about not denigrating the military recruiters. Members of the armed forces are often courageous and self-sacrificing in battle, true, but recruiters often lie. And the Berkeley City Council doesn’t need to be embarrassed about telling it like it is.  

But back to free speech: the idea of zoning the recruiting office out to the edge of town, proposed but not adopted by the council, is a bad one. It does violate basic concepts of free speech, if not the letter of constitutional law. The recruiter who went after my young friend was almost able to get away with it because his office was in a place where kids hang out but adults seldom go. Right in the middle of downtown Berkeley is the ideal place for recruiters to exercise their free speech rights, because that’s where there are people around to keep an eye on what they’re saying. It’s the ideal place for those who criticize military propaganda to set up shop to deliver some counter-speech when needed. 

Some councilmembers are furiously backpedaling at this point, away from what does seem to be a public relations disaster. From a PR perspective, the episode is this week’s candidate for the Planet’s “What Were They Thinking” award. Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli have attached their names to what’s known in the trade as a repealer: “what we really should have said is...”. Olds, Gordon Wozniak and Kriss Worthington took exquisite care not to vote for the—shall we say—ungracious language in the first place, not that most of the press noticed.  

No one else on the council seems to have been paying attention in Sunday School when the maxim “hate the sin, love the sinner” was discussed. There’s no doubt that each and every councilmember believes that the current war in Iraq is a major mistake, but also that all of them without exception want only the best for those stuck with fighting there. It just didn’t come across that way in the media. This is partly the media’s fault, of course, since the ex-MMD and its would-be rivals are always eager to construct the boilerplate Berzerkely story from any raw material, so much easier than accurate reporting of who said what.  

(The ex-MMD in its confused editorial even got one of the councilmembers’ names wrong in print, though corrected on the Internet. Betty Olds was mistaken for Sharon Olds, no relation, an excellent poet who happens to come from the Berkeley area. We might need more poets on the council, but Sharon Olds moved away years ago.)  

But Wozniak, who voted no on everything, doesn’t seem to get the free speech idea. He said in a letter to his District 8 constituents: “I opposed the second [resolution] because, I felt that the Council favored the antiwar group by giving it a free parking space and sound permit to facilitate their protesting directly in front of the Marine recruiting center. Code Pink has the right to protest, but not directly in front of the Marine center, where visitors can be intimidated.” 

No, no, no. If it’s going to work, free speech needs a level playing field. If the federal government rents an expensive downtown office for its recruiting effort, the least the local government can do is make sure that those who want to petition the feds to stop recruiting for an unjust war have equal time right out there in front. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean free parking for Code Pink, a gesture which has been widely misinterpreted and caricatured. A much better solution would be to set up some kind of Hyde-Park-like Speakers’ Corner where all opinions can be heard, very close to the office which is being protested. It’s possible that the special parking space was intended to supply this need, but it shouldn’t be reserved for a single organization whose tactics might be too dramatic even for some who agree with them. Just allowing a card-table on the sidewalk to be staffed on a rotating basis during business hours by members of Berkeley’s many indigenous anti-war organizations would do the job without feeding the negative publicity apparatus which is ever eager to jump on Berkeley. 

—Becky O’Malley

EDITOR’S NOTE: Letters regarding the City Council resolution against the Marine Recruiting Station start on Page Eight. 

JUSTICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is not surprising that the Prevaricator-in-Chief and his Dark Lord would deny that waterboarding is torture, and now further assert that they have a legal right to order such practices. Neither Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Idi Amin, Agusto Pinochet, nor the rulers of Nazi Germany admitted that their actions were illegal torture. But it was not for them to say. The International Criminal Court has that authority, and obligation. Someday, the human rights abusers currently running our country will be taken to the bar of justice as well. Soon, I pray, very soon.  

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

IN SUPPORT OF OBAMA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While I must give the benefit of the doubt to those women, Latinos, Asians, and poor people who say they cannot vote for Obama because of his lack of experience, I wonder if it has occurred to them that more than anything else, we need to patch up the world view of us. Let Congress fumble and mumble with our economy, immigration, health care etc.—they will anyway, if we continue to perpetuate acrimony with the rest of the world, we are in danger of losing everything. Put yourselves in the place of an angry third world person who views the United States with its aggressive and selfish attitude as an arrogant place run by arrogant white people. Think what a biracial, multicultural, liberally educated young man might do for them. Already I’ve read of hopeful incredulousness from Middle Easteners just at the thought of a U.S. president whose middle name is Hussein. It is looked on as a huge sea change and a ray of hope. Give it a thought.  

Madeline Smith Moore 

Oakland 

• 

WATERBOARDING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am both outraged and frustrated at President Bush’s brazen announcement on Feb. 6 that waterboarding is not torture and therefore legal. I also note that the CIA admitted using waterboarding on three suspects in 2002 and 2003; the White House stated that the CIA could use the technique in the future. Waterboarding is clearly prohibited by the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Convention. Thus, President Bush has declared the United States above international law. We are now in the same company as such vile regimes as the Khymer Rouge, the North Vietnamese, and the North Koreans, who used waterboarding to elicit (usually false) confessions, not useful intelligence. Thus, our president would sacrifice our moral values for little or no purpose whatsoever. 

I am frustrated because this president will not be held accountable during his presidency. Representative Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table. And remember, Sen. Feinstein in casting a decisive vote to confirm Michael Mukasey for attorney general, brushed aside Mr. Mukasey’s refusal to show his independence from the President by categorically declaring “waterboarding” illegal. Remember also that Rudolph Guiliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson, three of the leading Republican presidential candidates at the time, refused to condemn the use of “waterboarding.” Where is the outrage? 

As Walt Kelly’s Pogo observed: “We have met the enemy, and they are us.” 

Ralph E. Stone 

San Francisco 

• 

CRANKS, LUDDITES  

AND LUNATICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After living here in beautiful Berkeley for eight months now, I have had plenty of time to speak to a never-ending cadre of cranks, luddites, scientifically illiterate conspiracy theorists, loud-mouthed complainers, and professional contrarians. I have come to the conclusion that self-righteous bitching about minutiae is the most popular city pastime. In keeping with this spirit I would like to inform the people of Berkeley that unregulated electromagnetic radiation is a danger to all and must be brought under control. Yes I am talking about the insidious dangers of Sunny Day Radiation. While sunny days may be beautiful and inspiring they are also silent killers giving rise to cancer and killing thousands every year. Mother Nature has not submitted an environmental impact report, detailing all the possible implications of this unregulated radiation emission. Effects of sunny days are not fully known. In addition Sunny Day Radiation affects minorities and those of darker skin color differently than whites violating Berkeley’s anti-discrimination ordinance. Mother Nature illegally irradiates local crops with ionizing radiation violating the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act. I propose a giant dome be placed above Berkeley to shield us from this radiation until Mother Nature complies with the proper regulations. We will be holding a demonstration against this electromagnetic radiation in People’s Park on Wednesday Feb. 20 between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., by staring directly at the sun for an hour and demonstrating our resistance to this photonic tyranny. 

Michael Bakeman 

• 

OBAMA HASN’T PEAKED YET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So, Barack Obama wins a Grammy award for his voice recording of the book he penned, The Audacity of Hope—not to mention sweeping all the latest Democratic primaries and caucuses—and Hillary Clinton fires her campaign manager. These are just the latest signposts of what’s been going on under the surface for weeks now. Obama’s soaring popularity is a subliminal consciousness phenomenon, electric and unifying. What’s behind it? For one thing, Obama is a clean slate on which we can all write our own hopes and dreams, while Clinton is a cluttered canvas on which we perceive many of our compromised ideals and failed efforts. It’s human nature—none of us likes to remember the pain of past betrayals. 

But it’s more than that. The Clinton campaign’s choice to highlight her “experience” was particularly unfortunate—as it constantly draws our attention to her past. The problem is, most of Clinton’s claim to having experience comes from her having been in the vicinity, rather than in charge. The distinction is not lost on the electorate. But most important, experience is largely an intellectual issue. Idealism always trumps experience emotionally, and that’s where she is losing big. Look at the faces of the people who attend Obama’s campaign events, and you see clear resemblances to the faces in the crowds that flocked to hear John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy speak. There is real political energy here, and Clinton’s strategists with their poll experts and donor lists completely failed to understand its importance. 

Obama hasn’t peaked yet. When he does, it will be clear to everybody that he will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. And I think he’ll win in November. 

Doug Buckwald 

• 

BUSH AND McCAIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let’s cut to the chase. Did you see the picture of George Bush embracing John McCain? If you want four more years of Bush policy, vote McCain in November. 

The NRA must be at its wits end to come up with more phony excuses to explain away the continuing wave of gun violence. 

The anti-immigration movement continues to use patriotism, the flag and security to justify the 700-mile fence along the southern border. What about the 3,000 miles of Canadian border that remains wide open? Is it that Canadians don’t have brown skin? 

The Republicans tried to impeach President Clinton for lies. The Bush, Cheney, Republican conundrum has subjected America to seven years of lies 

Is everybody in denial or just braindead? Taser guns cause death. Two hundred and fifty people didn’t die being arrested before tasers became the weapon of choice. 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

• 

BERKELEY HAZARDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a recently new resident of Berkeley, I have noticed a disturbing safety hazard on our streets. An inordinate number of cars are operating with headlights out throughout the greater Berkeley area. Seemingly every time I walk or drive at night, I see at least one or two cars being driven with only one headlight. Driving with one headlight not only reduces your visibility, but also makes it more difficult for other drivers to judge how far away your car is. I would urge the Berkeley police as well as citizens to be vigilant in identifying and correcting this hazard. 

On a related note, I have lived in several college towns in the past and am dismayed at the lack of police presence in Berkeley, especially at night. Unfortunately, I have several friends and acquaintances that have been mugged, threatened, or robbed while living in this otherwise charming city. Many of these incidents occurred within blocks of the university. Other college towns I have lived in have a noticeable police presence that I can only assume deters this behavior. Having enough police on the streets driving through our neighborhoods not only prevents crime, but also creates jobs and boosts our local economy by allowing residents to feel safe enough walk alone at night to restaurants and shops. The police men and women in Berkeley with whom I have interacted have always exemplified the qualities of professionalism and judgment that make great police forces. I simply wish their ranks were larger to allow them to do even more good for long-time residents and students alike. 

I urge the City Council and UC Berkeley to consider equally the general safety of its residents in addition to the issues that have made this city so famous, such as its environmental leadership and history of promoting free speech. 

Zachery Jacobson 

• 

BERKELEY HIGH CLASSROOMS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am underwhelmed by the excuses Mr. Wicinas offers in his Feb. 8 commentary “Why BHS Classroom Construction Has Stalled” for the classroom fiasco at Berkeley High School.  

First he blames the lack of classrooms on a new superintendent whose “attention was aimed at budget issues judged more urgent than the commencement of new building projects.” Huh? BUSD promised to build classrooms at BHS when it sent the 2000 Measure AA Bond to voters for approval. End of story. Except that we have fewer classrooms now, after a $116 million bond measure. 

Then he suggests there was a significant drop in the student population. I find that hard to believe—there were 3,200 students in 2003 and that number has not varied significantly. Certainly BUSD blamed over-enrollment on all the problems my older son experienced with lack of textbooks and over 40 students in some classes through 2005. So figure it out, BUSD. Are you going to blame lower enrollment or higher enrollment for your failure to live up to your promises (and legal commitments)? And please, don’t refer to anger over lack of textbooks and desks as a “perception of overcrowding.” At any rate, this is completely irrelevant to the commitment BUSD made to construct classrooms at BHS. 

He also claims “the public lost interest in the overcrowding issue.” What does he base this on? Most of us in Berkeley assumed we’d have classrooms built within eight years of the bond measure passing. Does the public really need to storm the barricades at School Board meetings to ensure promises are kept? 

Finally, he blames the preservationists. Guess what? Those people didn’t get going until recently. Too bad the BUSD didn’t have the classrooms built by now, isn’t it?  

Now BUSD can blame the long delay (they created) as the reason for no classrooms—there simply won’t be enough money to build those classrooms because now it’s too expensive. Will we hear whatever happened to the $10 million contingency for unforeseen conditions and the $18.9 million earmarked for inflation that was part of Measure AA? 

The only explanation for the lack of classrooms at Berkeley High is either gross mismanagement of bond monies or criminal malfeasance. Take your pick. Either way we lose. No way should the BUSD or the City of Berkeley attempt to float another bond issue until they give us the classrooms they promised and we paid for eight long years ago. 

Peter Kuhn 

Richard Brenneman’s Feb. 1 article on the Reagan-era Savings and Loan crisis details his 1980s research into the failure of a California S&L that made Stockton, in his words, “Ground Zero” of that financial collapse. He compares this to a recent “60 Minutes” piece focusing on Stockton as a present-day epicenter of the current real estate crisis. 

This is all a useful reminder of the financial scandals and instabilities that seem to regularly blossom under Republican administrations which are otherwise tirelessly touted for their alleged business acumen. 

But should Stockton really command the spotlight when our own Berkeley might have a better claim to being the place where both of these financial catastrophes, although certainly not of our local doing, nonetheless first became publicly manifest? 

In the early 1980s I had a bank account at Fidelity Savings and Loan, a statewide S&L then headquartered in San Francisco, but historically a Berkeley institution, founded here in the 1920s as a vehicle for financing local housing development and homeownership.  

As a depositor, I received a letter noting that Fidelity was in financial difficulties and Federal regulators had arranged for its sale to Citicorp to stave off possible insolvency.  

Soon after, on Reagan’s watch, the S&L crisis exploded and hundreds of financial institutions across the country collapsed or had to be propped up at a cost of tens of billions to taxpayers. 

Fast forward to the era of Mr. Bush and 2007 when, as a small depositor in the Cal State 9 Credit Union, based in Berkeley, I received a letter stating that it had been taken into conservatorship by the National Credit Union Administration, apparently because of trouble with real estate loans. 

I don’t know for certain if Fidelity was the first S&L to start to fall apart in the 1980s, or if Cal State 9 is the first or one of the first financial institutions to border on insolvency in the current crisis. Perhaps someone with an expertise in financial history could research and establish the relevant dates and details. 

If they were indeed the first in their respective eras, then Berkeley, not Stockton, might well be the best symbolic “Ground Zero” for these two important events in banking history. 

This is an exciting prospect since Berkeley has a long history of “firsts” and a somewhat shorter, but still distinguished, legacy of being treated badly by right-wing presidents.  

We even have a spot where this legacy could be publicly commemorated. The original Fidelity building on Shattuck Avenue, a Walter Ratcliff, Jr. masterpiece, fortunately survived the dissolution of the institution. It still stands, and is now scheduled to become a restaurant. 

A modest historic plaque there—or near the Cal State 9 branch a few blocks north on Shattuck—could permanently remind Berkeley residents and visitors that once again, it all started here, and also serve as cautionary reminder of what a previous local paper—the Berkeley Daily Gazette—warned its readers about in early 1933, after the financial debacle of the Hoover era had fully unfolded. 

"In the rich years, investors, officials and public examiners alike became careless in these matters...It would be a fine thing if we could learn from this depression’s failures not to lean so heavily on the profits of speculation hereafter, or to trust to luck that such fires will go out of themselves.” 

Steven Finacom is a local history buff.

The campaign by Children’s Hospital to access tax revenues to finance a major construction project, along with the manner in which it was run, was a disservice to the employees and physicians of the hospital, its patients, the hospital’s neighborhood, and the city of Oakland at large. While the campaign’s defeat may itself have marred the reputation of this distinguished hospital, the disservice lies in the fact the campaign was rife with prevarications and inaccuracies. 

We read various statements and comments such as: 

1. The hospital will close if this measure does not pass. 

2. The hospital does not meet the state’s seismic requirements. 

3. To retrofit the current facility at Children’s would require closing the hospital for three years. 

4. The hospital will consider the use of eminent domain to acquire neighborhood residences 

The first three statements are simply wrong: 

1. The hospital will not close, except as a result of malfeasance or neglect by senior management and the governing board. The hospital may need to reduce its reliance on consultants and lobbyists, but the commitment of the medical staff and the employees to the care of children will not allow for a cavalier decision to close the doors because of budgetary constraints. 

2. The only parts of the hospital which are not in compliance with the State’s structural standards are the old (circa 1941) A and B wings. One is completely used for offices and administrative personnel, and the other for select outpatient services. The prominent five-story inpatient tower is in structural compliance. Other areas require limited upgrades, but the hospital board’s building committee, at least until recently, has exercised exemplary due diligence to insure the adequacy of hospital facilities. 

3. To retrofit the hospital will not require closing its closure. Staging and temporary relocation of services are not unknown in hospitals. The hospital’s statement, if not intentionally false, reflects a lack of understanding of hospital construction. 

4. The use of condemnation to acquire neighborhood residences requires little discussion. Senior management will discover soon enough that a not-for-profit hospital in California will have extreme difficulty in justifying the use of eminent domain for this purpose. And the enmity this effort will generate among its neighbors and the Oakland community, as the popular commercial says so well, is priceless.  

While it is easy for Children’s senior management to suggest its mission to care for sick children supersedes its obligation to its neighbors, the fact remains that Children’s Hospital is located in an urban residential neighborhood. Its ability to grow and expand depends in part on the good will of its neighbors. 

In my 22 years as chief executive officer we endeavored continuously to maintain a cordial relationship with the neighboring community. I would not declare that effort a complete success. But we did attempt to address the concerns as they arose. For example, the helicopter landing was placed on an elevated pad behind the hospital instead of on top of the patient tower to alleviate potential noise pollution for the neighbors. Arguably, the location is not ideal for patient care, but after a series of “dry runs,” Emergency Department physicians, trauma surgeons and the FAA agreed it was an acceptable compromise. In our planning for a new hospital we worked to maintain height levels which did not exceed that of existing buildings, again in an effort to coexist as good neighbors 

Work was begun in early 2001 to develop a comprehensive plan for a new hospital. An architectural firm was retained and began innumerable meetings and discussions with physicians and managers in individual specialties and services to determine and achieve consensus on new and appropriate facilities. This process covered a period of about 24 months and cost nearly $2.5 million We were successful in retaining the entire facility on the south side of 52nd Street, where the main hospital is now. These plans included all private patient rooms and family sleeping facilities. During the period of construction, the current hospital would remain open. The hospital’s neighbors might ask management at future community meetings what became of those plans. 

Children’s campaign was not successful in accessing tax revenues, but it did succeed in alienating Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors, other local politicians--all of whom Children’s depends on for ongoing support -- and the hospital’s neighbors. Members of the community who have historically supported the hospital should now ask what became of the hospital’s endowment, which was in the past so rigorously protected for use as initial funding for a new hospital.  

We hope that the board of directors of Children’s Hospital will now return its attention to the hospital’s mission, to the hospital’s obligation to its neighbors as a member of the community, and to its primary responsibility for major fundraising. 

(I have been away from the state of California for the past seven months and unable to respond to the campaign any earlier.) 

Tony Paap is president and chief executive officer (retired) of Children’s Hospital and Research Center, Oakland.

MARINE RECRUITING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Did you know you have to be a college graduate to sign up to be a Marine at the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center? A high school student or even a college undergraduate cannot get recruited there. This recruiting of the college graduate is to train them as future officers. One must remember that the college graduate has a degree, a driver’s license, voting rights, can get married and can even legally drink, so I am sure he is quite capable of choosing a future career without the demonstrators Code Pink blocking his way. I am sure that these people are attempting to do good, but I feel their energy and time could be better serve by tutoring in the schools. And the Berkeley City Council should take a more liberal rather than a fascist view by supporting free speech in its home town. 

Martha Jones 

• 

UNCONSTITUTIONAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It has been reported that the City Council is considering a watered down version of last week’s Code Pink resolutions. Essentially, they would come up with face-saving language affirming the city’s support for the troops, while repeating its opposition to the war. However the underlying resolution would stay in place: Code Pink would be exempted from the city’s usual fees It would also have a reserved parking space in front of the recruiting office from which to launch its protests, 

Nothing short of a full retraction will undo the harm done by the council’s caving to the demands of this raucous minority. Consider the following: 

1. The resolutions are clearly unconstitutional. A city may generally regulate the time place and manner for political speech. But it must be neutral and may not directly subsidize a particular political opinion in preference to others. Here in one resolution the council has waived fees for Code Pink, and reserved free space for it in the location most likely to disrupt the activities of the recruiting office. In a parallel resolution the council “applaud individuals and organizations such as code Pink [which] actively or passively by non-violent means the work of any military recruiter in the City of Berkeley.” On the face of it, the council has endorsed the content of Code Pink’s protest and materially aided it. They would not do this for others. What if a right-to-life group wanted to stage a protest in front of a Planned Parenthood office? The whole process has been tainted and there is no way to cover it up without a full rescission of both resolutions 

2. As an anti-war tactic, the resolutions are counter-productive. From the very beginning I was against the Vietnam war (as I am against the Iraq boondoggle today), but like many I had no choice but to go. I will never forget my feelings on coming back to the Oakland Army Base: As soon as we hit the ground, we tore off our uniforms, hid them in our bags, and walked out the door disguised as civilians. This was not because we were ashamed of what we had done, but rather because of the violent, unreasoning hatred we were sure to meet on so many East Bay streets. When will they ever learn? Unreasoning, self-righteous attacks on the people who really bear the burden of war do nothing to convert them; on the contrary, they create a level of bitterness which never goes away. 

3. The City Council needs to figure out how they got us into this mess. Time and again, the council majority votes for or against things, based not their merits but on the loud cries of a a few people who feel that they only need to shout a few code words (“racism,” “gentrification,” “discrimination”) to end all rational discussion. With a bit more courage, the councilmembers might have caught their breath, and asked the acting city attorney whether the resolutions were even legal. With a little more courage he would have told them the truth. There is also a tendency among those on the council who know better to compromise or abstain on important issues when you don’t think you can muster a majority. Sometimes, you’ve got to stand up for what you know is right, political consequences be damned. 

Nothing is more courageous than for a politician to admit that s/he might be wrong. I ask the City Council to please reverse themselves on Code Pink. 

David M. Wilson 

• 

EFFECTS ON BUSINESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The City Council resolution concerning Code Pink and the Marine Recruiting Station has had a negative effect on the nearby merchants along Shattuck and University Avenue. This council action is yet another instance where the concerns of the business community have been ignored. 

The council apparently not only failed to consider how this controversy adversely impacts small businesses on a day-to-day basis, but also failed to consider the potential long-term consequences. 

I suggest that among those long-term effects are a reduction in number of consumers willing to shop in the downtown; increasing difficulty in filling already empty storefronts; possible failure of some currently viable retail businesses; and reluctance of developers to undertake the very projects (hotels, museums, cultural venues) which we all hope will contribute to the further revival of the downtown. 

I strongly urge the City Council reconsider their vote and resist taking sides in this disruptive protest in the heart of our downtown. There are many other ways in which the Council, or its individual members, can forcefully and effectively state their opposition to the war. Not all, however, need to impose such a high price on the very community the Council has been elected to nourish and protect. 

Mark McLeod 

• 

NO TOM, THE OTHER ENEMY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My friend Mugg Muggles says it well: “If Tom Bates wants to go after an evil organization, he should leave the Marines alone and go after the University of California.” 

Carol Denney 

• 

THANKS TO CODE PINK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Marine recruiting in order to defend our country is like calling fire in a crowded theater, knowing there’s no fire. Both are against the law. Worse, Marines lie to convince vulnerable, diseducated people that there are benefits to enlisting. They are breaking the law and they need to be stopped. Hooray for Berkeley, again! And to Code Pink over and over. 

Norma J F Harrison 

• 

AN IMPORTANT VOTE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I want to thank the mayor and City Council for their vitally important vote to tell the Marines that, as much as we may love them as our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts, we don’t need recruiters here trying to fool our kids into joining up and becoming either invaders or war casualties. Come back after McCain’s hundred-year war is done and maybe we’ll reconsider. Please hold that line, City Council, and don’t betray us under the rightist duress that is growing. Hold that line, Tom, no matter their bullying threats.  

When a fellow—labelling himself a liberal in these pages—argues that council urging the Marine recruiters to leave our city is an infringement of their free speech we have entered the world of the sublime (satire, that is). Obviously, the Marine recruiters don’t get paid to argue politics, but to use material incentives to entice our youth into becoming fodder for the war machine. Equally important, free speech, in the First Amendment to the Constitution, was specifically granted to the people, not to government or corporations. Why? To protect the right to dissent without fear of government retribution, not to protect government’s right to recruit hired hands for the death and destruction machine of expansive imperialism nor even to protect other types of more legitimate job recruiting. The Bill of Rights contains the important rights granted to the common people (excluding slaves and Indians) by the nation’s founders.  

Meanwhile, rightists on the radio and in Congress hope to launch their rockets at Berkeley’s educational funding on the premise that we’ve become too smart for our britches and need to be dumbed down a bit more than the average dumbing down they’re presiding over. That’s the open threat to free speech, right there. We’ve good reason to fear these Dr. Strangelove clowns every day, not just when they rattle their rockets at us. They aren’t just a once in a while threat. Just listen to the Republican debates, my God, and the legitimization of torture. But to quote the other side of the aisle for a change: we better not cut and run from this fight, or we’ll be fighting in our own back yards in no time.  

There are too many hints that Congress and even the next President may not be able to scale back US aggression worldwide. No candidate dares to stand up to Israel or AIPAC. None talk of peace and partnership with Cuba. The US political class didn’t learn from their famous partnerships with our Shah, Suharto, Batista, Trujillo, Musharef etc. ad nauseum that selling tyrany and exploitation as democracy can appear to work at a distance via our magnificent Media machine but you never know who will pick up the pieces and rally the commoners at the other end of the big stick. More U.S. government allies, from Kenya to Mexico are now also into stealing elections, and how long can that go on without anti-American revolutions breaking out here and there. If we let this government have our kids this will never end until they’re all dead or broken. On the other hand, if we stand firmly against recruitment it might eventually “break the cycle of violence.”  

Marc Sapir 

• 

PEACE YES, MARINES NO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Steven Donaldson wrote “many of the protesters are not from Berkeley.” What bearing does that have on the issue of Marine recruiting in Berkeley? The war affects all of us. 

I’m incredulous at the negativity toward the patriotic actions of Code Pink and others who object to the Marines in our community. As if giving the peace activists one parking space once a week is a bigger deal than the death and torture the Marines are selling at 64 Shattuck Square. As if we should do nothing to prevent our young people from being lied to and turned into warriors to carry out the Administrations’ illegal occupation and destruction of a defenseless people. As if the actions of right-wing Congress members to punish our community financially for its courageous stand against the violent war machine are valid. As if the right-wing false patriots coming from outside of Berkeley, who spew hatred and jingoism and attack our City Council and peaceful Berkeley values should be dictating how Berkeleyans should act and think. 

Don’t buy the mistaken argument that this is a free speech issue. Think about this: if we don’t stop the Bush Administration in its mad rush to destroy our Constitution in the service of this endless war, we can kiss our free speech rights goodbye. 

The Marines are free to speak and no one should interfere with that right. But the Marines aren’t just speaking; they’re conducting a business. We prohibit objectionable businesses in Berkeley. And we’re going to amend zoning regulations so military recruiters can’t locate their business near churches, schools, libraries, homes. 

Hundreds of people pass us each day and honk or give us the peace sign to show their support. Veterans walk by and tell us we’re right. Berkeley’s standing in the country and the world is being enhanced by our activism. We’re leading the way for people all over the country and giving people hope and courage. People have always said Berkeley is a crazy place. So what? We who live here can handle that silliness. We can hold our heads up with pride for taking a principled stand against the war machine. We can be proud of our City Council and Mayor for taking a risk and doing the right thing. We thank them for their strong stand on the side of peace and ending this war. Please thank them too—they represent the best of Berkeley. 

Cynthia Papermaster 

Code Pink 

• 

RESPECT FOR VETERANS? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The fact that the elected City of Berkeley officials claim to care about and respect veterans is rendered moot when they allow the Veterans Building to be turned into a urinal by the street people. 

David Krasnor 

• 

HIPPIES WITH NO SOLUTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When I accepted an offer to study at UC Berkeley from San Diego, I was constantly warned by my conservative brethren to watch out for those “long-haired hippies.” I never really thought they knew what they were talking about until I got here and saw for myself what a “rebellious” (relative to the rest of the country) place this was. However, I was disappointed to see that most of this disobedient ruckus was filled with anger but void of solutions. Such is the case with the newly created marine recruiting station on Shattuck. When I initially heard about the controversy, I immediately sided with the Marines, well aware of how naive some protesters can be. However, a more detailed investigation proceeded to change my mind on the issue. 

While I believe that living in a peaceful utopia is a lofty ideal, I side with the city of Berkeley that recruiting stations are terrible ideas, especially right next to a high school. I was appalled yesterday to walk by the Cal vs. Oregon basketball game and find an ARMY painted humvee advertising military service to curious young children. While I have a few friends in the marines and have the utmost respect for their courage, service and discipline, I think that it is morally wrong to use propaganda tactics to sell an ideal to impressionable youth. 

Sometimes you need to fight a war. But in those cases, we should not be spending government money to capture the young, innocent bystanders and then send them off to do the dirty work for us. If we go to war, it is something that our whole country needs to be behind, something that everyone is willing to fight for. In instances like this, I believe that just as in World War II, our countrymen and women will volunteer out of a sense of ethical imperative, not out of financial or emotional incentives. 

Tei Newman 

• 

SHORTSIGHTED VIEWS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Something seems to have been left out of the debate on the City Council/Code Pink/Marine Corps fiasco. Code Pink and a majority of the council are concerned about our invasion of Iraq and the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay servicemen and women Nothing wrong with that—except that there’s an inevitability about conservative views in the military, given the preponderance of officers and enlisted personnel hailing from the most conservative parts of the country.  

Yet Code Pink and our council see nothing wrong in discouraging young people from more liberal backgrounds—especially UC Berkeley graduates at whom the Marines are aiming—from joining (or even, for god’s sake, inquiring about) our armed forces. 

Shortsightedness over free speech, combined with dimwittedness over the need to broaden the intake to the military, didn’t make for a series of council decisions anyone can be proud of. But it’s the kind of thing that is bound to happen when councilmembers grandstand on foreign or national matters they weren’t elected to deal with.  

What they need to do now (with heads down and tails between legs) is to concentrate on the matters they were elected to deal with, and hope that by November all will be forgiven.  

Revan Tranter 

• 

A SOLUTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I may have a solution to the issue of free speech for military recruiters. This issue if far from simple and straightforward. In fact, speech is limited and regulated in all sorts of ways, both for private citizens and when it is performed by representatives of particular interests.  

In the case of military recruiters, the right to express their opinions as private citizens differs from their rights to act on behalf of a particular government agency. In this case, it seems to me, we are not regulating their free speech rights, but the activities of an agency. 

Lenders and sellers find their speech constrained in all sorts of ways. Thanks to years of consumer struggles, and over their rigorous protests, they are no longer free to lie and hoodwink people, or at least not as free as they once were. All sorts of disclosure statements must be provided and their speech is strictly regulated. 

Drug companies are not free to make false or unsubstantiated claims about their products. This is not the same as constraining an individual from singing the praises of a particular drug, and telling friends it cured his warts, baldness, sex drive, and so on. If it turns out this individual is on the payroll of the company, however, it becomes a different matter. Physicians and researchers are required to disclose any financial ties they might have to a drug company when they make recommendations or report research results. Scientific researchers are required to disclose financial ties to corporate interest. 

The freedom to express opinions enjoyed by a cop, social worker or any other public service employee, as a private citizen, is often regulated and constrained when this same person is on the job. The activities of government agencies and their employees are regulated in thousands of ways. Even private citizens have their speech regulated in some ways when there is a consensus that this is in the interest of the community. 

Here is a possible solution for the issue of military recruiters. They should be allowed to continue their recruitment activities but be required to offer full disclosure, in writing, of the following: personal liabilities - the incidence of death, maiming, mental disorders and any other potential negative consequences of signing up; interests—who is backing and benefiting from the war; how much money is being made by what corporations and individuals; social liabilities—how much the war is costing and will cost future generations of citizens. 

Carl Shames 

• 

CODE PINK’S GOT IT WRONG 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Marine recruiting in Berkeley, Code Pink is way off-base. A different approach would be more fun. Start a social action group, Code Green, supporting “Logic-free, Free Speech” zones. Start with the Marines. Wave people into the recruiting office. Hand out official Marine recruiting literature along with green donuts. Use a Marine recording of “Halls of Montezuma,” the last verse of which goes: 

If the Army and the Navy 

Ever look on Heaven’s scenes 

They will find the streets are guarded 

By United States Marines. 

There’s a lot of logic-free material to work with when it comes to solving disputes with violence, whether it’s official or unofficial. 

Robert Gable 

• 

CLOSE ALL THE  

RECRUITING CENTERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a member of Veterans for Peace, I was asked to join Code Pink at their demonstration against the Marine Recruiting Station in Berkeley. I did so because I supported what they are doing, and, in spite of all criticism, I continue to support these colorful women. 

I enlisted in the Marines in 1957 at a Marine recruiting office on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, as I recall. It was a spur of the moment sort of thing, and if there hadn’t been a recruiting station there, I might never have enlisted. So, if the Code Pink action keeps one young person from joining the Marines, I think it is worthwhile. 

Personally, I have no complaints against the Marines. I did a dumb- ass thing, served my time, and got out with my mind and body relatively intact. But that was after Korea and before Vietnam. Not so with young people today who are almost certain to be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan where they will quite likely be required to kill other human beings and where they themselves will be put in danger of being killed or maimed for life. In 1957, I thought this was OK. It took the intellectual and moral ferment surrounding the resistance to the Vietnam War to make me realize that this is not true. It is not OK to kill other people, even if the President and his friends say it is. This is not simply my personal opinion. It was affirmed by the Nuremburg judgment: 

“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” 

Supporters of the war frequently claim that the troops are protecting our right to protest. Not so. Here’s what Marine Corp General Smedley D. Butler had to say in 1933: 

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. 

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. 

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. 

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” 

General Butler’s words remain true. The Marine Corps and the rest of the military industrial complex have managed to protect American capitalism, but this has not contributed to the freedom and well being of working class Americans. To the contrary, we are less free, less secure, and less well off because of their activities. 

Closing the Marine recruiting office in Berkeley is but one step. We need to close down all the military recruiting stations in the country, bring our troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere else, and honor the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, in which the United States agreed “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” 

Gene Ruyle 

Peace and Freedom candidate,  

10th Congressional District  

(El Cerrito, Walnut Creek, etc) 

• 

AN ANTI-WAR VIETNAM VET  

URGES RESTRAINT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The official and ungracious Berkeley City Council opposition to the Marine recruiting office in a business district has brought back unwelcome memories of 40 years standing. 

In 1968 I returned to my university as a law student, after four years of active duty as a destroyer officer in the Tonkin Gulf and intelligence officer on shore, convinced by personal experience that the Vietnam War was grounded in falsehood and false hopes. The immediate antiwar plea of that moment was to remove ROTC from university campuses. I recall conversations with my classmates: my security clearance prevents me from telling you how completely right you are to oppose this war, but how wrong you are in your form of opposition. Often in my naval service the voices of chauvinism were overcome by the Navy captain or Air Force colonel, a graduate of my or a similar university, who imposed restraint, discipline, and historical perspective. We needed then, and need now, the best diversity within the ranks of a citizen-military. 

Many unfortunate adjectives can be used to describe the implications of the City Council’s efforts to kick the Marine captain out of Berkeley. In our aspirations to bring an end to the present war, and have Berkeley stand in the forefront of that campaign, the City Council has at best scored an embarrassing own goal. The council majority owe their constituents and the nation not merely rescission, not merely apology, but call to protect each adult’s choice of a military career free of verbal and physical intimidation. 

Members of the Council should look a few short years down the line, when the next Commander in Chief will need the best military available to carry out his or her directives to provide humanitarian aid, stand in the way of ethnic cleansing, or finally bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. As a citizen and veteran I will feel more secure knowing that the next President’s military includes a handful of graduates of Berkeley High and of our Berkeley campus, bringing to their ranks the best of Berkeley values. 

Antonio Rossmann 

• 

HOW TO DO YOUR JOB 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a long-time resident of this city, thank you to the City Council for once again embarrassing me. Why is it so difficult for you digressive, not progressive people to focus on what we, the citizens of Berkeley, need? Leave the military alone! 

Your job which you are so oblivious to perform is the following: 

• Finish repaving Gilman between San Pablo Avenue to the I-80 entrance 

• Making sure pot-holes are filled, especially on Gilman near I-80 entrance 

• Making sure pot-holes are filled on University between San Pablo and Sacramento Street. 

• Stop creating those stupid intersection circles. 

• Stop creating those parking planters which take up parking spaces on University Avenue between Milvia and Shattuck Avenue. 

• Stop allowing able-bodied people, especially young people sit around like they’re helpless throughout the city. 

• Investigate as to why black Americans of African descent are being forced out of Berkeley. 

• Investigate as to why the percentage of Americans of African descent who were property owners has dwindled to less than 9 percent of the population. 

• Investigate why Berkeley has now become the home of the privileged. 

• Investigate why Berkeley has not maintained a working-class citizenry. 

• Investigate why only the elitist, the entitled, the white privileged are over 70 percent of the population. 

• Investigate as to why the Berkeley Police Department has done a Back-to-the-Future change by hiring predominately white police department employees; sworn specifically when Black officers and employees retire. 

• Investigate as to why long-time black sworn officers of great character and experience are being overlooked for staff positions. 

• Investigate as to why Ross was allowed to close. 

• Investigate as to why traditional American type businesses like Ross, Target, Red Lobster, Payless Shoe Source, International House of Pancakes are either being kicked out or not encouraged to open/stay in Berkeley. 

• Investigate as to why smaller cities like Emeryville and El Cerrito are truly diverse and expanding their business base, but not Berkeley. 

• Investigate as to why the BUSD continues to promotes white-based education where a large percentage of children of color to 12th grade attend Berkeley schools. 

• Investigate as to why there is a very small percentage of Latino and black American teachers in BUSD. 

• Stop idiot people from crossing the streets against the red light with no penalty of citation giving to them. 

Should I keep going?........ 

• Investigate as to why there is a decline of black businesses in Berkeley. 

• Investigate as to why there is such a dramatic influx of non-American businesses. 

• Investigate as to why when black and white men stand on same corner as Latino men on Fourth Street area, no one approaches them for work. 

• Investigate why you continue to make city employees rob people of their hard earned money when the parking meters do not work properly. 

• Investigate as to why the public is allowed to spit, expose of gum, cigarettes, defecate and liter on the sidewalks and other public areas and not be cited/jailed. 

• Investigate as to why black men are being allowed to loiter, be a threat to the safety of others especially when obvious drug dealing occurs next to the BPD Substation. 

• Stop the thieves (fancy financiers) from taking homes of the elderly, especially of black Americans of African descent. 

Stop promoting perverted activities. 

• Start promoting those activities that are good, right and healthy. 

• Repave Gilman between San Pablo Avenue to the I-80 entrance on both sides! 

Represent the citizens! Code Pink doesn’t represent me nor the rest of the citizens! 

Recall Bates and Spring! 

Leave the military alone!  

Robin Haizlit

The eyes of the world are on Berkeley due to recent actions by courageous demonstrators at the Marine recruiting office and the equally courageous actions of the Berkeley City Council which voted to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Square recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."  

Support for the actions of the Berkeley City Council has grown and other cities are contemplating following the actions of the council. But at the same time, the right-wing talk show hosts have been filling the airwaves with verbal assaults on Berkeley and a number of right-wing Senators are attempting to cut-off federal funding for the city to punish resistance to the federal government’s military machine.  

Some are calling for the City Council to rescind their previous actions. But it is critical that the Council stand by its correct actions and continue to set an example for the rest of the world. Demonstrations against the recruiting station should continue until the Marines pull out of Berkeley altogether. (There will be further actions Feb. 15.) All criminal charges against protestors should also be dropped and Berkeley should not cooperate with their prosecution. 

Protesters from World Can't Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime! were arrested after chaining themselves to the door of the recruiting station and refusing to leave in an act of non-violent civil resistance. Code Pink was also active in the resistance. There is a long tradition of such civil resistance in this area. Berkeley police officers in riot formation blocked and violently cleared the street before arresting the orange jumpsuited protesters. The protestors were in jumpsuits to symbolize the role of the Bush regime in imprisoning and torturing prisoners around the world. 

The Marine recruiting station is an outpost of the U.S. military in Berkeley. Its role is to recruit officers for the Marines. Without such officers, the Bush regime would not be able to launch its aggressive wars throughout the world. 

For this reason it is right and just to demand the recruiting office’s ouster. The Marines are a large component of the U.S. military forces occupying Iraq. And despite the Bush regime claims that it invaded Iraq to bring freedom to the Iraqi people, the Marines are doing what they have always done for U.S. imperialism—killing people. 

Just one example is what happened in Haditha, Iraq on November 19, 2005. US marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians, including 11 women and children in a massacre there. In case readers think this is an aberration, listen to the words of Marine Lieutenant General James N. Mattis, who was in charge of developing Marine war-fighting doctrine and tactics. In answer to a question about fighting insurgents he stated, “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up front with you, I like brawling.” “Mad Dog Mattis” led the 1st Marine Division during the initial invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. He also led the initial attack on Fallujah, Iraq in April 2004. 

As far back as1933, Marine Major General Smedley Butler in a speech clarified the role of the Marine Corp. “War is just a racket…It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses…” 

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps…In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism...I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912…I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.” 

Today the Marine Corp continues its tradition of acting as gangsters, but now it is serving the Bush regime in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each day in Iraq and Afghanistan it kills people or rounds them up and places them in prisons where torture and death are routine. Thousands of Iraqis and citizens of Afghanistan are rotting in these prisons while millions of others suffer at the hands of the U.S. occupiers. 

The issue of free speech is not being debated in Berkeley. The issue is how far we need to go to stop the death and destruction that the Bush regime carries on daily in our name. The first amendment guarantees that the government will not interfere with free speech. The Marines are a component of the government. The Bush regime’s “free speech” is not in danger. Yes, some of those who may wish to join the Marines are being inconvenienced. I hope so, as the role of the Marines is not in the interest of the people. 

Whatever it takes to stop the Bush regime and drive it from power is justified. I do not mind preventing the recruitment of Marines any more than I would have minded stopping the recruitment of soldiers for the Nazis during World War II. If the Bush wars are immoral, it is moral to do what we can to stop them by acts of civil resistance.  

The City Council should be proud of its actions in opposing the Marine recruiting office and those of us in the Bay Area should support their courage. We should keep up the political opposition until the Marines leave this community. 

Kenneth J. Theisen is a resident of Oakland and is an organizer with The World Can’t Wait! Drive out the Bush regime!

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Planet is only printing letters from locals regarding the ruling on the Marine Recruitment Station. Signed letters from non-locals and letters addressed to third parties will be published on our website. Unsigned letters will not be published. 

Open Letter to Captain Lund of the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Station 

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me a couple of months ago. I wanted to get your email address because I knew I would think of more things to say after we parted. Also, I believe we have a common goal: defending the United States of America and its Constitution. Therefore I think it's important to include you and other members of our military in our discussions. 

Our country was founded on the principles of giving equal rights to all citizens, and of the rights of all citizens to take part in governing. This right to take part in governing carries with it the responsibility of understanding the principles upon which our Constitution is based and knowing what our government is doing so that we can correct injustice and work to create positive and necessary change. 

In fact, our Constitution was specifically designed so that our laws could be changed and upgraded through legal and peaceful means, rather than revolution. Our founders knew that the laws of their time weren't perfect. For instance, they knew that slavery was unjust, but at the time the political will did not exist to end it. (Though it took nearly 100 years and a war to end slavery, the Constitution did include the means to end it peacefully.) 

You correctly pointed out when we spoke that the appropriate recourse against the crimes of the Bush administration is impeachment, and this is mentioned in the Constitution four times. You may be wondering why I am bringing up the Constitution. I am bringing it up because as American citizens, it is our responsibility, yours and mine, to defend the Constitution. In fact, I believe you have pledged to give your life, if necessary, to defend the Constitution and our country. 

However, defending one's country can never simply be a matter of following someone else's orders, especially in a democracy, and especially in light of clear evidence of criminal behavior on the part of your Commander in Chief (e.g. lying to Congress about reasons for invading Iraq, illegal wiretapping, and torture). 

In fact, as a member of the military, you probably have standard instructions on what to do if you are given what you believe to be an illegal order. I would guess (and hope) that you are not supposed to follow it. There is a very real possibility that you could be given an order to water board a prisoner. Have you figured out what you are going to do in such an instance? Your Commander in Chief has rather forcibly created a legal framework to support such actions, but the legal arguments of his staff are not legally defensible, and water boarding is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention. I hope that you would refuse such an order. 

There are some cases of very heroic members of the US military who have refused orders to send nuclear missiles to the Middle East in preparation for a possible attack against Iran (let me know if you want me to send you the story), as well as several generals serving in Iraq who have publicly stated that they would refuse orders to attack Iran. There were also many high ranking military officers who publicly advised against attacking Iraq before that war started. 

Ordinarily it may be counterproductive, inappropriate and unpatriotic for military personnel to speak out against their leadership, but these are not ordinary times. I believe that after two stolen elections and the other criminal activity we have witnessed, our country is facing the worst threat to its democracy and constitution since it began (though my knowledge of history isn't that complete, admittedly). Our criminally incompetent foreign policy has also created instability in already volatile parts of the world, including countries that have nuclear capability. 

In short, the most serious threat to this country is from within. As a sworn defender of the USA, I am asking you to at least think about at what point you would stop taking orders from criminals and start fighting against the real threat to our country, which is within its borders. This is not a radical viewpoint - a recent poll from the American Research Group shows that 55% of Americans believe that Bush has committed impeachable offenses. (By the way, I'm not implying that your commanders are criminals. In fact, I'm counting on you do to the right thing if the situation becomes really dire - orders to attack Iran, or refusal by Bush to leave office when his term is up.) 

I also mentioned to you in our conversation that I'm glad we have a strong military because I'm concerned by the privatization of the military, as is evidenced by companies such as Halliburton and Blackwater. I'm concerned that these companies will become private mercenary organizations for international corporations that have no love or allegiance to the United States. Without a strong military we would become just another third world nation enslaved to corporate power (even more than we are now). 

Therefore it may seem strange that I am working on shutting down your recruiting station. As I said to you, though, anyone who signs up for the Marines now will most likely be shipped off to fight in an illegal and immoral war led by a Commander in Chief who stole two elections and is a war criminal. A majority of Iraqis want us to leave their country alone, and we are irrevocably poisoning their land and people with the debris of depleted uranium weapons which is impossible to clean up and is known to cause cancer. I also feel that we are damaging our own national security by our actions and creating more potential enemies and terrorists than we would have ever had if we had stayed out of Iraq. Therefore, I and many other Berkeley citizens have chosen by legal and peaceful means to block this war effort in our town. 

However, I want to let you know that I appreciate the sacrifice that you and all members of our military are making by offering to give your lives in defense of our country. We in CODE PINK are also working and fighting to defend our country (though hopefully not dying for it). I'm asking you to please remember that patriotism, especially in a democracy, is rarely as simple as following orders. Please remember that when you fight to defend our country, your are not just defending territory, you are defending our Constitution and our system of justice. 

Thank you once again for talking and listening to me, and for your sacrifice in defense of our nation. I hope we can work together to rebuild a peaceful, just and prosperous country. 

Sincerely, 

Sara Frucht 

CODE PINK activist 

People of Berkeley, CA , if you can read ( doubtful ) hug a teacher. If you can read in English, instead of Japanese, Hug a United States Marine . 

It is my hope that the entire city council will be replaced with patriotic veterans of our great country's military services.  

George Dersheimer 

Major USAF, Retired, Galveston, Texas 

As I watched this evenings news I was shock to hear that the city of Berkeley had told the Marines that they were not welcomed in their city. My first thought was that it was the usual anti-war protesters holding a rally. But to my DISGUST I heard that actual elected city officials passing resolutions calling for the Marines to leave. Now I've never been one to believe everything I hear on TV and started searching the web to dig up more information about this story. What I found was a lot more than the story reported. Not only did these elected officials make such a statement but also are supporting the harassment of this recruiting office. Or as they put it, "residents and organizations such as Code Pink that may volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the city of Berkeley." Now I'm now lawyer, but I do think that such actions are against federal law not that I think any of these people care about that. Watching the Youtube videos of the council meetings I found myself so mad I was yelling at my computer. To hear these people speak so proudly about the heritage of Berkeley's free-speech past while in almost the same breath preparing to trample on the rights's of a group that in their words, "don't belong there". Now it's that one passage that really stuck in my mind as it was said over and over and over again. I remember my Granny once telling me about how when she moved her family into a middle class neighborhood how they were told to get out and leave because they were black and they "didn't belong there". I also remember her telling me how lucky I was that it was a long time ago and that such things don't happen like that any more. Yeah really lucky. 

James Lucas 

Milwaukee, Wisconsin  

How on earth can you say that your just against the war but not against our soldiers? That is like saying i have my cake, but i ate it also. Since it appears you made this rash decision to spout your anti-military beliefs due to deaths of American soldiers, we should look at how many were murdered in California .Latest info shows 2485 in 2006, FBI numbers. We should move to Iraq and abandon California, its too dangerous a place to live! 

George Pearson 

Lone Grove , Oklahoma 

The people of Berkeley, Ca. are not welcome in the United States of American. Your socialist/communist leanings make you enemies of the United States. I am a retired United States Marine and as such, I have taken an oath to protect the United States from all enemies domestic and abroad. Taking into account your Anti-American sentiments and beliefs, you can be considered enemies. You live in the country of Berkeley and as a citizen of that country you are a foreign enemy and will be treated as such if you are found outside the boarders of your country. 

Does this sound extreme to you? Citizens of the United States Of America, exercising their rights under the constitution to express their opinions. A right that the men and women you are excoriating and persecuting are sworn to defend, with their lives. That by the way is a right I also have. The only difference between the people of Berkeley and me is that I have earned that right as well as being born to it. Aside from being born in the United States, how have the people of Berkeley, Ca. earned the rights of Americans under the constitution? There is a difference you know. 

Remember I said I am a retired U. S. Marine. Well, I am a retired U. S. Marine from the Vietnam era. I fought in Vietnam and am proud of my service to my country and the world. When I returned I was spit on by a person wearing a UC Berkeley shirt. Under the law, that is assault. In an attempt to make a citizen's arrest, I chased that brave individual for several miles. He was a good runner...I never caught him...the last time I saw him he was trying to outrun a Greyhound bus down the interstate. My point is, I found the people of Berkeley to be laughable then, extremely offensive but laughable. My fellow Marines and I used to sit around and laugh at the antics of the people of Berkeley. You were a bright spot of comedy in an otherwise stressful environment. I can assure you, Marines are still laughing at your antics. So, even in your attempt to excoriate and persecute, you are supporting the American military with your constant stand up comedy routines. Thank you and keep up the good work. 

C. L. Stewart 

GySgt USMC (retired)  

I too, am entirely against this war and in fact, I changed parties because I disagree with this administration on just about every issue imaginable. I voted in the primary for Barack Obama and am volunteering to help him get elected. You can hardly call me a right-wing nut, or a right-wing anything.  

But I also served proudly in the United States Marine Corps for six years. And in case you are as obtuse as you are mean-spirited, let me remind you that the Marines go where our nation's civilian government tells them to go, and they execute the missions given them by that same civilian government - which includes a lot of Democrats and self-proclaimed liberals. If you don't like that, then get off your rear ends and make a difference by helping elect a different government, or requiring this one to change policies. 

But don't blame the Marines.  

Instead you should be eternally grateful that my USMC (and US Army) brothers are willing to make sacrifices that you are surely unwilling to make, no matter the cause. 

Your lackey Medea Benjamin is quoted as saying: "We are the defenders of democracy, the upholders of the Constitution. If it weren't for people like the people in Berkeley standing up for what they believe, we'd be living under Hitler." 

Is she, and are you, KIDDING? Standing up for what you "believe?" Have you read a history book? It is precisely the Marines (and the US Army, Navy and Air Corps) that stood up to Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese Empire - and is them we have to thank for that fact that we're NOT living under Hitler. 

Your ignorance and ingratitude is remarkable in a place that prides itself on learning and academic accomplishment. 

Shame on you all, except Mr. Wozniak, the lone person among you with any moral center or courage. I now fully understand why many people revile "liberals." You all make me too ill to describe.  

God bless America, and my beloved Marine brothers. And may God help you. 

David Gaier 

Metuchen New Jersey 

Mr. Mayor 

What an abomination your city council is! You should chastise them for an anti-democratic declaration. You and all the folks that live in your city should be embarrassed by their actions. Without the fine folks of the United States Marine Corps to defend us, we would not be enjoying our right to express our viewpoints and freedoms.. 

SHAME ON YOUR CITY 

Dale Goshorn 

USMC 1983-1987 

I find the actions of the Berkeley City Council reprehensible. How dare you tell the Marine Corps they are "unwelcome" in your city? I wonder if your feelings would be the same if we were invaded and the Marines were the only thing between you and a prison camp or death? I completely respect your citizens rights to protest the current military actions the United States is involved in (coincidentally another right the U.S. Military protects). I think your protests are misguided. Marines don't make policy; they follow orders. If you want to protest, maybe you should go to your state house or Washington and March in front of the Pentagon.  

Granting Code Pink special access to protest in front of the recruiting station is akin to Stalinism. Granting one group a voice while trying to stifle another is information control/manipulation. I am certain that the Marines will not even dignify your actions with a response and will simply continue on in their duty with dignity. 

Finally, have any of you in Berkeley, residents and politicians alike, stopped for one second to consider the GOOD things the U.S. military does? How many tens of thousands have they saved? How about the hundreds of thousands of former military personnel that have gone on to lead productive lives? What about the thousands who have made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of this great country? You should be outside that station THANKING them, not protesting them. I never served in the military but I'm PROUD of them every day for the sacrifices they make for US. 

SHAME ON YOU ALL! 

Joseph Castelli 

New Jersey 

Being a retired member of the United States Army that twice was put down for being on the streets of California in uniform. I would pray that the United States Military would place the city of Berkley 'OFF LIMITS' to all personnel. 

I would further pray that any veterans that live in and around Berkley would take their business someplace else to the extent possible. 

I further pray that the Senate can do something about withholding earmarks from you for some of your pet projects. 

I fought so you could have freedom of speech. You must also remember that you, and you alone are responsible for placing your foot in your mouth. 

James Batchelor 

U. S. Army Retired 

Colville, Washington 

This is a little too much. The whole country is watching your town make a mockery of activism and free speech. You make "political correctness" seem politically correct. I sincerely hope the bill introduced to pull all federal funds from your little hamlet there on the left coast succeeds until someone in your group of "public servants" understands what service is. Your "council" owes an apology to the Marines, the entire Armed Forces of this great land, the state of California, but most of all to the families who have made the ultimate sacrifice. I'll bet no one in your group has ever served our nation's highest cause, because your actions certainly don't demonstrate that you have one clue about what true sacrifice is. To me, that is the chronic dysfunction of bleeding heart liberalism. Self-centerdness as opposed to self-sacrifice. Shame on you. 

Semper Fidelis, 

Shawn Kiley 

Matthews, North Carolina 

I was appalled to learn about the comments made by Berkley City leaders regarding ousting marine recruiters in your area. I would like to remind these folks that they are sitting on that platform and behind their nameplate because men and women had fought so that people have the freedom to vote. There’s a country song with a line that says “What was I thinking?” I want to ask you, Berkley leaders, Mayor Bates, and some residents…What were YOU thinking? 

John Evers 

Mount Airy, North Carolina  

Dear Mr. Mayor and City Council members: 

I am deeply disappointed in your actions in wanting to force the Marine recruiting office to move from Berkeley. To be against the war is one thing. To be against those soldiers fighting and dying is too much. The irony is that they are fighting and dying to maintain freedom to wage your battle against them. In addition, you have spat in the face of the soldiers whose prior service and sacrifices have purchased the freedoms you now enjoy and misuse. As a Disabled Veteran and former 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper, I am appalled and angered by what you have done. By your decisions and actions and statements, you have insulted me and my service. I am ashamed to have to admit that you are fellow citizens in this great country. 

By allowing the Code Pink protesters to deface government property (the recruiting offices), you have become accomplices to their guilt, and have lost the moral right to govern your community. The police are there to protect people and property from damage. Tell us honestly: if a group of protesters were to vandalize and deface your City Council offices, would those same Police Officers "try and remain neutral"? We both know the answer to that question, don't we? The Police would immediately intervene. So now you have admitted to discriminatory actions on the part of the Police Department and also on the part of the people who gave them their orders. You have also admitted complicity to negligence for not disciplining the Police Department for dereliction of duty (not doing their job, which was to protect people and property). 

I hope the U.S. Senate is successful in their efforts to have earmarks taken from your city. I also hope and pray that businesses who deal with or support the military or its members see what you have done and either boycott or relocate away from Berkeley. I hope the Marine Corps sues the City of Berkeley for what has happened to their property and also for punitive and civil rights damages because of the Police Department's lack of action. I further hope that the damages awarded are of such an amount that the City Government feels true pain at having to live with the penalties. I hope Governor Schwarzenegger adds any appropriate state-level censures and penalties as well. I am sure that I will be not be the only person looking for opportunities to inform his office of your actions. 

As stated before I am a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper. I am not a Marine. But I have served with them from time to time during my service, and I can assure you that when threatened or attacked in any way, no service member stays territorial about which exact branch of service they belong to. You have angered and upset far more people than just the Marine Corps. 

Charles Sullivan 

Longview, Texas 

Disabled Veteran 

Former Paratrooper, 82nd Airborne Division 

Salutations; 

Mayor, people of Berkeley: 

I hope you or one of your staff will actually have time to read this. 

Your councils attack on the marines and poor choice of words has angered a number of people. Yet you have a chance to really get out a real message and to show and mobilize a number of groups to benifit your citizens and people of berkeley. 

First I would ask the council apologize and really back on what comes across as an attack on american service members. Second stop treating code pink as a special interest group and showing a favorotism that hurts the ideals your city says it stands for. ( Will you be giving a parking spot to anti abortion groups in front of clinics?). 

Third ask supporters to start fund raising for your lunch programs and the fallen soldier fund split down the middle. This will allow healing and a good outcome. ( Also gives you aback up plan if federal dollars get held up) 

Point out and ask code pink to do a carefully worded and polite apology that will ge there message on national media and yet make those on the right feel victory in defending their marines. 

You and council where incorrect in your choice of words and actions, I believe you have a wonderfull oppurtunity to dialogue on the war and veterans and alternative peoples in the military. An real apology will cost nothing and get much done please live by the ideas your city says it promotes. 

Thank you 

Mike Donnelly 

Seattle 

Regarding berkley's stupidity shown by demanding the United States Marine Corps Recruiters leave the city, based on some drug infested dream that the Marines are bad & berkley nut-cases are the only ones in America with a brain. A fence should be built around your town & tickets sold, partly so real Americans can come look through the fence to see what drugs & lack of leadership can do to a city... The real reason though, is so your idiotic neighbors can't get out and possibly breed with real humans.  

Yes, it would be appropriate for the USMC should be positioned as guards around the fence to ensure no one gets out & no drugs get in. 

God bless the USMC. Please God, do something else with the berkleyites... 

Bob Holdman (US Navy Retired) 

Bonaire, Georgia 

I see nothing has changed in Berkeley. You were treating our military like garbage when I came back from Vietnam, both in 1967 and again in 1969. You're still treating tem like garbage today. How you can sit there and slander, abuse, and disrespect the very people who have given their lives for your freedom is beyond me. You sit and act like idiots pushing your anti American agenda. The backpeddeling, the well what we said isn't what we ment is hogwash. You said it, you ment it, and now you're just doing damage control . . . To late! When the next big earthquake drops Berkeley in to the bay where it belongs, I'm sure you will not be requesting or accepting ANY help provided by the National Guard, Reserves, or the military. 

Hallett Newman 

Ratcliff, Arizona 

I read a news article regarding the council in Berkeley publicily announcing their distate for the Marines by telling the reqruiters; you are unwelcome in Berkeley. 

God bless America and it's freedoms for your right to make this announcment. Had you made such an announcment regarding the armed forces of many despotic and totalitarian societies in this world you might be amoung the missing by now. Luckily you could grandly announce your distaste for a service branch of The United States Of America and so toast each other on how daring and honest you are, because you are in Berkeley, California, USA. Every Marine who ever wore the uniform stood for your right to say what you did. 

I was not a Marine, I served in the Navy. Perhaps you have some problem with the Navy also. Frankly, I would not be surprised, since the Navy is an organisation which might go to war and so hurt somebody. 

My question for all of you in Berkeley who might read this is; if an aggresive army was coming up your main street, would you fight them, would you be a colaborator (to save you own life), would you gladly become a slave or would you wish for just one Marine to stand between you and the ones, who would take away every freedom you took so lightly in your life? 

Posting here requires my identity so here it is: 

Hugh McGuigan 

Pensacola, Florida 

The reason you don't want to print letters from outside Berkley, concerning the Marines, is that you don't want your readers to see how the rest of the nation sees Berkley. You people are nothing but a bunch of south ends of north bound KY mules--wait I am sorry I did not mean to insult such a fine animal. 

Bob Tanguay  

Brandenburg Kentucky 

You and your city council (excluding the couple of patriots who voted like Americans) and the Code Pinkos have got it wrong. You all say that the Marines are not welcome and that they should go. Actually, it the city of Berkeley and your newspaper who should go. You do not belong here in the US and you are not welcome here. How does it feel to be tied with San Francisco as the nations cesspool? Ah, it feels so good to exercise my freedom of speech!!! 

Hank Sierakowski 

Boynton Beach, Florida 

Ah!!!!!! I think I understand your decision. Not all that surprising since one of America's best centers Liberal centers of learning is there and producing very smart people and I assumed at least a measure of common sense. The Berkeley City Council wants to do away with the unwelcome intrusion of Marine recruiters in your community because you believe they will enlist your son's and daughters to serve their country to protect against terrorism bent on our destruction and you want to protect the health and safety of your youth. You must want to exchange the Marines for and welcome into your community radical terrorists who are sworn to eliminate every aspect of your current way of life that you obviously take for granted and who also assure the total destruction of your children and the rest of America. About 9 people did not receive a liberal measure of com mon sense. 

Lee Southard 

Florida 

It’s February 14 and you’ve just handed your sweetie a gorgeous bouquet of roses. Tears spring to her eyes and her cheeks begin to flush bright red. But wait: Is this love or just an allergic reaction? 

Valentine’s Day is a time for flowers, chocolates and the occasional diamond. But each of these love-gifts can come with curses. Chocolates can involve child labor, smuggled gems can support rebel armies (proof that diamonds truly are a guerilla’s best friend), and flowers can arrive perfumed with pesticides. 

According to the Society of American Florists, more that 175 million roses will be planted, reared, sheared, and shipped thousands of miles to feed the Valentine’s Day market in the US alone. But be careful when you chose your spray of roses because there’s a better-than-even chance that those roses have been sprayed—with herbicides and pesticides. 

“All of these cut flowers and plants are heavily treated with pesticides,” University of Florida Anthropologist Elizabeth Guillette, Ph.D. recently advised The Green Guide. “It’s important to avoid touching the blossoms and to handle them as little as possible, and then be sure to wash your hands.” Guillette is not over-reacting. She spent time in Mexico charting elevated instances of stillbirths and early infant deaths among female flower workers who were exposed to organophosphate pesticides. 

Flowers: A Blooming Global Business 

According to the US Census Bureau, Americans spent more than $400 million on flowers in 2004—$40 million just on roses. The US consumed nearly 1.5 billion roses in 2005. More than 93 percent of America’s flowers are imported, mostly from Colombia and Ecuador. 

If your flowers came from Colombia, the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) wants you to know that they were probably genetically engineered, showered with pesticides and raised inside a gigantic factory farm owned by Dole Foods, which presides over Colombia’s largest flower plantation. (Last year, Dole fired 200 employees after they staged a protest over working conditions.) ILRF Program Coordinator Nora Ferm reports that Latin America’s flower workers “have daily contact with toxic chemicals but are not given sufficient protective equipment” so it’s no surprise that they suffer “skin rashes, asthma, miscarriages, respiratory problems and neurological problems.” 

The ILRF claims that two-thirds of the region’s poverty-waged, over-worked, floricultural laborers suffer significant health problems due to pesticides. The International Labor Organization reports that more than 70 percent of the flower-workers in Ecuador and Colombia are women. In Ecuador, 20 percent of the workers are young girls. These workers are particularly at risk in the days leading up to St. Valentine’s Day, when they can be forced to work 20-hour shifts. 

Poisoned Workers Demand Justice 

In December 2003, hundreds of Colombian workers were poisoned when a single container of chemicals spilled on the ground at a flower factory. The Association of Flower Exporters reported that only “a few” workers were hospitalized but a Pesticide Action Network investigation revealed that 384 workers had been treated for symptoms including “fainting, strong headaches, nausea, swelling, rashes, diarrhea, and sores inside and around the mouth.” 

A Colombian Ministry of Health investigation discovered that nine different pesticides were being used in the flower factory including Dursban and Lorsban (both formulations of chlorpyrifos, a highly toxic organophosphate insecticide produced by Dow Agrosciences). 

The ILRF has inaugurated a Fairness in Flowers Campaign that encourages shoppers to demand that retailers only deal with suppliers who respect worker rights. The campaign’s main targets: Albertsons, Costco, Dole Food Company, FTD, Safeway, and Wal-Mart. 

Shopping for an Alternative 

The neighborhood florist has long since taken a backseat to the mall and supermarket when it comes to the flower trade. Today florists account for around 22 percent of sales while supermarkets have captured 49 percent of the market. (Although there are fewer florists, they do manage to snag nearly half of the money Americans spend on flowers. The supermarkets claim slightly more that a quarter of all the bucks spent on blossoms and buds.) 

“The $6 billion American cut-flower industry has been slow to embrace the idea of an eco-label for cut flowers,” Stewart notes. Meanwhile, “such programs have been popular in Europe for years.” 

Fortunately you can still play Cupid without being stupid. California Organic Flowers (https://californiaorganicflowers.com) ships organic roses by the dozen. As does Akagourmet (www.akagourmet.com) and Manic Organics (www.ManicOrganicsFlowers.com). Diamond Organics (www.diamondorganics.com) specializes in organic tulips and California Organic Flowers (www.californiaorganicflowers.com) proffers pesticide-free proteas. Organic Bouquet (www.organicbouquet.com) sells chemical-free flowers grown in Ecuador. You can also order fair-trade flowers from Transfair USA (http://transfairusa.org) and FairTrade (www.fairtrade.net/flowers). If you can’t find a local supplier of organic Valentine’s Day roses (or fair-trade chocolate), the Pesticide Action Network website will link you to a host of Special Offers. (A portion of each purchase goes to support PAN’s work.) 

The Local Harvest website (www.localharvest.org) will guide you to your nearest certified organic grower (for fruits and veggies as well as flowers) as well as local greenhouses and dried flower purveyors. Or you could surprise your loved ones with a gift membership in a Community Supported Agriculture cohort. One local CSA, Full Belly Farm (www.fullbellyfarm.com) will deliver flowers to your doorstep as part of the deal. 

A Valentine for Flower Workers 

Corporación Cactus, a Colombian social justice organization, has called on shoppers to honor February 14th as International Flower-workers’ Day. Corporación Cactus is asking the world to pay tribute thousands of workers who are “more important than thousands of flowers.” On February 14, the workers simply ask that, when you buy an imported flower, you understand that you are “buying the sweat of many workers.” 

Valentine’s Day is, at heart, all about caring for someone else. So enjoy Valentine’s Day by making sure your red roses are local/fair-trade and “green.” Remember: when you buy organic and embrace your partner, you will also be embracing justice. 

Gar Smith is editor emeritus of Earth Island Journal and editor at Pesticide Action Network North America. He also edits the environmental website The-Edge.org.

Super: Excellent, outstanding, great,  

terrific… 

Superfluos: Unnecessary, more than what is needed, redundant, inessential… 

OK, we have just been exposed to two superfluous super days within two days of one another. The Super Bowl was an enormously expensive waste of time, which solved nothing and proved nothing in a lasting way. Millions of people were guilted into pretending that the outcome of the game meant something while watching advertisements, which cost more that most cities’ annual budgets. Football players from all over the country, claiming some fealty to a couple of general areas of the country, are playing for two teams ostensibly from New England and New York, so that overweight men with painted, distorted faces could pay exorbitant amounts to sit in the stands like Neo-Romans with distorted faces shouting “Number One” pointing their fingers up instead of their thumbs down. These so-called fans wear jerseys of their favorite player, who wouldn’t give them the time of day if they were to meet on the street, and cheer on “their” team. These beer addled sycophants do this as if they had something to do with the false glory and fleeting success of these gross business playthings owned by a very few privileged white men. Remember, “Give them Circuses and Bread”? Wait until next year, all the other misled camp followers chant, as the circuses and bread are being prepared for next season. 

The other superfluous exhibition was Super Tuesday. This embarrassing display of wealth in place of intelligence brought us millions of dollars spent on each candidate’s profiling and hours of TV coverage tracking the meaningless statistics ending up with a virtual tie and no real decision. In keeping with the wasteful spending on the Stupid Bowl, each candidate is also spent more than many cities’ budgets to end up right where they were before Super Tuesday. All the grim-faced, pseudo-serious, talking heads couldn’t inject any excitement, interest or new information in the plodding, child-like wrangling which passes for Democratic or Republican campaigning. While schools are continuously under funded, Bush squanders billions on an undeclared, un-winnable war and all the sitting senator candidates ignore this glaring failure of government. Instead, the top three candidates trade pity-pat punches about their spouses, gender and race in hopes of winning the 50 percent of the consistently ignorant voter pool who do make the effort to be part of Super Tuesday. At the end of Tuesday night nothing was settled nationally except for the terminally head-in-ass Republicans and their McCain daisy chain. In California, a measure to finally fund community colleges as they should be was defeated, while three measures to allow more Indian gambling passed, providing revenue for four of the 120 tribes in California.  

At the end of these two super days, the American public has demonstrated our ignorance, fear of change and inability to comprehend the problems at hand. All of our politicians have failed us. They hoped that we wouldn’t notice because of the hype surrounding the circus of the Super Bowl. Bush’s solution to the awful economic conditions he has created is to borrow money and give it to the citizens in hopes that they won’t notice that this is a bad loan, which will have to be paid off by my generation’s children. This is also just another “circuses and bread” trick to divert attention from the wars in which this mental midget has involved us. It worked too, as the economy became the number one topic for the pundits to scream at us all last week. 

This is a nation, which proclaims that democracy should be pressed on the world, yet we are presenting a very weak example. We even ran out of ballots! Yes, we haven’t killed anyone at the polling places as in some countries, but this display of weak-willed representatives, myopic ignorant president and lazy, gullible voters is appalling. True, our system is still way ahead of what ever is in second place; see the political flavor of the week in Italy and the arcane British system. The last eight years has been so destructive to America’s status in the world that impeachment is too good for the barbaric criminals who are sill in the White House. The fact that anyone is voting for any Republican is dangerous, short sighted and insulting. 

By the way, there was a Super Bowl in each of the last 30-plus years; I’m sure that you feel the economic boost, the respect of worldwide sports enthusiasts and respect for producing such a meaningful pageant. The only advantage to come of this worthless sports event is that there were less traffic accidents due to the almost empty streets. 

My suggestion is to have both the Super Bowl and Super Tuesday on the same day and you only get to watch the game if you can prove that you have voted (voting booths at the stadium and cable black out for those who haven’t cast their ballots). This would mean millions more voters for those who think that Americans are lazy as voters (a 30 percent-40 percent turnout is considered good). Of course, tying the two events together will mean that we will have quarterbacks and running backs (ring leaders in the circus) for our government and be eating hot dogs (bread) for the rest of our lives. 

Thomas L Turman is a Berkeley resident.

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.” 

I didn’t immediately see an application for ranked voting in presidential primaries. “If a candidate wins a plurality of 27 percent, shouldn’t he or she get what’s coming... 27 percent of the delegates? Instant runoff voting does not apply to presidential primaries, because there nothing to instantly run off, no office to immediately be filled; rather it is a competition for state delegates to a national convention. The functional equivalent of a runoff, if necessary, occurs at the national level at the national party convention through successive balloting. If delegates are awarded on a proportional basis, this is functionally equivalent to proportional representation.” 

Experience is another teacher. On Jan. 30, 2008, I marked my ballot for California’s Feb. 5 presidential primary and mailed it. There were eight candidates listed for the Democratic nomination, but most of them had already dropped out of the race. That was bad in itself, of course, but it had been easy to predict that the real choices would have dwindled to two or three by Super Tuesday. My proposed reform of the presidential primary system is meant to redress that problem, allow more candidates to stay in the race longer, and give more voters more choices. I considered the remaining field of candidates and chose John Edwards. 

About an hour later, I learned the Edwards had dropped out of the race, leaving only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. 

Although it has so many other things going for it, that’s a down side of voting by mail, but it doesn’t have to be that way. At that point I saw that if I have been able to rank several choices for president, my vote wouldn’t have been wasted. Since my first choice was out of the race, my ballot could have defaulted to my second choice, and if that candidate also dropped out before the election, my ballot could have defaulted to my third choice. It would be a bit more work, but I could vote my conscience and be quite confident that my vote would count. 

Another application of ranked voting came to light in a recent conversation with Steve Chessin, president of Californians for Electoral Reform: suppose a presidential candidate’s percentage of the vote is below the threshold required to be awarded delegates to the national convention? That candidate’s supporters are disenfranchised. For example, if John Edwards had stayed in the race, but he had failed to capture 15 percent of the vote, according to the California Democratic Party’s rules, he wouldn’t have been awarded any delegates. 

That’s democracy? 

On the other hand, if voters could rank candidates, their votes would never be wasted. If the first choice didn’t reach the fifteen-percent threshold, a voter’s ballot could be counted toward the second choice, and so on, until the ballot counted toward the awarding of delegates to some candidate. The threshold requirement makes sense to the party, which is interested in determining the presidential nominee with a minimum of internecine strife. But what about those voters whose candidates—and there might be several such candidates in a race—don’t meet the threshold? Ranked voting offers a mechanism that should satisfy the interests of the party and the voters. 

The California Democratic Party platform states that the party will “encourage, where feasible, instant run-off elections.” This should be taken to include ranked voting in its own primary elections. Job One is election integrity: ensuring that every vote is counted as marked. As we work toward that goal, we should also be thinking about the next step—election fidelity—to ensure that every vote counts toward some non-zero outcome. 

Thomas Gangale is the author of From the Primaries to the Polls: How to Repair America’s Broken Presidential Nomination Process, published by Praeger. 

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. 

Fast-forward to the present. The dollars originally allocated to the BHS classrooms have been preserved. But the world and the campus have changed. Construction inflation has reduced the potency of the dollars. The Berkeley High master plan has proposed a succession of projects to resolve the southern half of the campus. The execution of the master plan is currently on hold due to preservationists’ concerns regarding the fate of the “old gym” building and by community concern about the fate of the warm pool. The “old gym” occupies the only location where the new classrooms could be built. The “old gym,” comparable in age and in construction quality to King Junior High, would be prodigiously expensive to modernize, as was King Junior High. The renewal of concern about the inventory of classrooms at Berkeley High is very recent relative to the tectonic movement of the school building program. 

The funds preserved since 2000 for added classrooms will not be sufficient to realize the entire Berkeley High master plan. But this school district is rich in citizen creativity. 

The School Board, the Facilities Department and the Citizen’s Construction Advisory Committee (CCAC) have faithfully minded all this since the 1990s. The budgets, the projects and the priorities are reviewed every month. School construction has been a lower priority for the current (outgoing) administration than for the prior. But it has been a lower priority in the public’s consciousness as well. For those interested in how the figures currently stand, we’ll post (by the time this letter appears) some recent figures on the hand-made web page of the CCAC at www.busduse.org/ccac. 

Bruce Wicinas is chair of the Citizens’ Construction Advisory Committee of Berkeley Unified School District.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Letters regarding the City Council’s ruling on the Marine Recruitment Center are on Page Fifteen. 

HOORAY FOR  

ANDRONICO’S 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to commend Andronico’s CEO Bill Andronico for his leadership and courage in dropping tobacco sales from his eight Bay Area markets on Feb. 4 despite the potential loss of revenue stemming from this decision. Personally, I am planning to increase my patronage of Andronico’s and encourage others to do likewise. I hope other grocery stores will follow Andronico’s lead, telling the tobacco industry “no thanks” to offering shelf space for their addictive and dangerous product. For smokers who might object, I encourage them to get help to quit from the American Cancer Society at 1.800.ACS.2345. Andronico’s philosophy of healthy and organic foods, sustainable products, and environmentalism is clearly inconsistent with a sales of a cancer-causing product. I applaud them for recognizing this and taking action. 

Janna Katz 

American Cancer Society 

• 

GOODBYE SHRUB PARTY! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the time draws closer, I’m readying myself to say, loudly and proudly, “The nation and the world are well rid of you wielding your autocratic power!” to George Bush. I wonder if other Berkeley citizens feel, as I do, the desire to celebrate that occasion. Whoever wins the presidency this November, it sure won’t be Shrub. Although one of my paranoid friends thinks something could be made to happen that would put Cheney in the presidency before election time, I’m too much of a Pollyanna to go there—but we’ll see. 

The event I have in mind would be one of those uniquely “Berkeley things” that as well as a cathartic “Thank God, he’s gone!” event. I’m going to be making contacts with those I know who have the kind of activist experience that I lack, but wonder if Daily Planet readers might have some suggestions as to how to pull such a thing off. 

Thanks for listening! 

Nicola Bourne 

• 

MEASURES A AND B 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have long read most of Susan Parker’s columns and her most recent ones are the best and most passionate. I don’t live in Oakland but I believe that people have a right to stay in there home when big business comes to knock down their house. Children’s Hospital maybe important but so is living in a place where you can see the neighborhood and not be blocked by the views of a 10-story hospital building, with a helipad. 

I wasn’t sure how I was going to vote on Measures A and B, but Susan Parker made me realize that the Children’s Hospital reach for more money with the use of children was low-down and dirty. At least, Susan Parker and her 50 neighbors are doing things the right way. Grassroots and all.  

Anita Fiessi 

• 

REYCLING PROBLEMS  

IN BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There are two kinds of recycling pickup in Berkeley. People living in houses have small blue bins. The Ecology Center picks them up. The Ecology Center also leaves recycling directions at each house. 

Recycling for apartments is different. Three big bins are put near each apartment house. These are marked “mixed paper” “cardboard” and “bottles and cans.” No directions are given to people who live in the apartments. These bins are often not sorted correctly, and if they are not sorted correctly, they are not emptied. I have a peculiar habit of resorting apartment bins near where I live. 

Because of the recycling mess, I think that the city of Berkeley should mail or deliver directions to each apartment dweller. Something like this: Bins should be sorted carefully. “Mixed paper” includes thin cardboard. “Cardboard” includes brown paper bags. Cans and bottles should be in the third bin. 

Julia Craig 

• 

PRESIDENTIAL NAME GAME 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I recently heard someone dismiss Barack Obama’s presidential bid with the comment: “The American people have never elected anyone whose name ended in a vowel.” I decided to look into this. 

It turns out America has already elected four vowel-afflicted presidents: James Monroe, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and Calvin Coolidge. It is also a matter of record that the names of five presidents end in an “r,” four with “t,” and three with “s” or “er.” 

The big surprise is that eight (18.6 percent) of our presidents had names that ended in “son.” And, if you count William Jefferson Clinton, that’s nine (20.1 percent). So, if you name ends in “son,” son, you’ve got a one-in-five chance of beating the competition in the race to the Oval Office. (Yeah, I know: “Tell that to Jessie Jackson.”) 

But here’s the real surprise. If you’re name ends with an “n,” history tells us that you’re a virtual shoo-in. Seventeen of the USA’s elected presidents had names ending in “n.” That’s a whopping 39.5 percent. So, if your name ends in an n, you’ve got better than one-chance-in-three of sweeping the polls. 

Perhaps that explains why Guliani, Kucinich, Edwards, Gravel, Huckabee, and Romney won’t be going to Washington. (If Joe Biden had studied the link between last-letters and first-finishers, he might have stayed in the race.) 

So, if history is any guide, after Super Tuesday, the nominees for November will be McCain and Clinton. 

Of course, there is always the off-chance that Barack Obama can rise above the Curse of the Vowel. Even in the Presidential Name Game, nothing is for certain. (Just ask Fred Thompson.) 

Gar Smith 

• 

OUTRAGED BY RANK-AND-FILE BLACK LEADERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have lived in this country for 26 years, and I am now a citizen. I consider the United States to be my new home. I have always had opinions about America: some good and some not so good. But now that I can vote, I feel a lot more impassioned about my opinions, and about what goes in this country than ever before. I have heard for years how young black Americans have low self-esteem issues because there aren’t too many (but a handful of) black figureheads, heroes, or statesmen to look up to compared to their white counterparts. Of course, there are black athletes that are filling that role. But more often than not they don’t make good role models, because of their lavish lifestyle which is incongruent with the plight of a young African American who is trying to make a name for himself/herself in environment where the cards are stacked against them. These young African Americans are pretty much taught a Eurocentric, white-dominated history (some rightly warranted, especially if you consider the history of the industrial age, science, and geographical conquests). 

I took note of Obama when he spoke at the Democratic convention. I thought he spoke eloquently, and gave a very inspirational speech. So when he decided to run for the presidency I took a long, hard look at him, comparing him to the other candidates ad nauseum. After much deliberation, I decided that he indeed was the best person for the job; we do indeed need some infusion of fresh blood into our extremely anemic Washington politics. I never for once took the color of Obama’s skin into consideration because he basically transcended that (I am Indian). He struck me as more of a statesman, and a leader than a politician: albeit everyone is a little guilty of being a politician to some extent when running for an office. His message is inclusive, encompassing, insightful, and quite fresh. His idea for change in direction for this country is compelling. His speeches are impassioned, moving, and lofty: very reminiscent of John F. Kennedy or even Dr. King to some degree.  

So here is a very promising, young, vibrant, black person, full of potential and leadership qualities that anyone can be proud of, regardless of race. And yes, with a fairy tale background that is only possible in America. I am loathe to see the status quo black politicians like Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters, Ron Dellums et al, sitting and clapping unabashedly in the front row of a Hillary rally or the billionaire Bob Johnson making distastefully disparaging remarks about Obama, or Charles Rangel defending Bill Clinton’s extremely belittling (not to mention very unbecoming of an ex-president) remark about Obama. I am now beginning to wonder if the self-esteem issue is only plaguing young black Americans!  

Rizwan Rahmani 

Oakland 

• 

HELIOS FACILITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Helios Energy Research Facility / Energy Biosciences Institute (Helios/EBI) to be housed at LBNL must not be approved. EBI is financed by a $500 million British Petroleum grant the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires effects of a project to be considered that are not only direct, but indirect or secondary, or which may occur later in time, but are still reasonably foreseeable. Some of these effects are environmental and global and involve moral concerns, such as human and civil rights as noted below.  

The UC Regents should not approve this project because: 

1) It violates academic freedom. Corporations fund research to produce goods to sell for profit. Their involvement in research can undermine scientific inquiry for the public good. Hiding the research inside LBNL fence further distances the research from public view. 

2) Biofuels main focus of the BP grant, presumably an alternative to oil may take more energy to make than they produce. 

3) Occupying third-world countries for cropland for biofuel development would substitute for occupation for their oil. U.S. biofuel needs require six times the current amount of cropland in the United States. Solar and wind do not require occupation and war. 

4) Biofuel research involves genetically modified organisms to develop transgenic grasses, trees, corn, soybeans, and bacteria for highly industrialized monoculture. These practices result in deforestation, soil depletion, displacement of people, loss of local knowledge and self-reliance, as well as the demise of biodiversity. 

5) Researchers in the Helios building will collaborate with nanoscience researchers at the Molecular Foundry built without an EIR/EIS. Effects of nanotechnology are not fully known. This violates the Precautionary Principle. 

6) Coal and oil are not abandoned. There will be research on how to use microorganisms to “enhance recovery of petroleum from underground reserves” and the use of microbes for processing coal into fuel etc. 

Gene Bernardi 

• 

RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are responding to Sharon Bauer’s Jan. 29 letter. Though we don’t argue Ms. Bauer’s right to her opinion, it is important to note that most of what she asserts in her letter is just that. As a primary example, her minimizing the impacts on Berkeley Unified School District, and all districts in California, because of “nickels and dimes” is an insult to the real budgetary and fiscal impacts currently being proposed by the governor. If enacted in whole, the proposals coming from the governor’s office this budget cycle would result in over $3 million in lost or reduced revenues to the Berkeley Unified School District. Only a multi-millionaire could characterize that figure as “nickels and dimes.” 

Further, Ms. Bauer’s assertion that California teachers are among “the highest paid of the populated states” demands a response. Her assertion is true, but context is everything. A quick glance at CNN.Money and its survey of zip code housing costs indicates that the most expensive housing markets in the nation are almost all within California, and only Hawaii, Greenwich Connecticut, and Manhattan New York rival the housing costs of dozens of towns and cities within California. Furthermore, the cost of living here in the Bay Area, in the Los Angeles area, and the San Diego area are some of the highest in the country. 

Money is not the solution to all the problems and issues that face California school districts. But lack of adequate funding is certainly one of the obstacles every school board, every superintendent, and every teacher in California has to deal with on a daily basis. We urge all who read this to remind their state representatives of the importance of sufficient school funding, even in times of fiscal shortfalls. We are only shortchanging our own futures by anything less. 

Cathy Campbell 

President, Berkeley Federation  

of Teachers 

John Selawsky 

President, Berkeley School Board 

• 

ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you to everyone in Berkeley and other communities who stayed out at the polls late into the evening to make sure their voices were heard! As unacceptable as it is to experience a shortage of ballots during an election, I ask that the people of Berkeley, the state of California and the nation to continue insisting upon the use of paper ballots. They may take more time to count, but they are vastly more accurate and secure than electronic voting systems. 

I’d like to remind the community that electronic voting machines, specifically Diebold machines (now Premier Election Services), were ordered out of Berkeley for very concrete reasons. Diebold was actually sued by Berkeley residents over its unacceptable behavior involving a recount for Measure R. Not only was it found by the court that the removable memory from the machines was improperly handled, but the fixed memory within the machines was deemed unrecoverable, therefore making an accurate recount impossible. 

Now if you were watching the “up-to-the-minute” news coverage on KRON 4, like I was, the reporting staff seemed visibly annoyed that Berkeley and other East Bay communities were relying heavily upon paper ballots. This annoyance seemed to triggered by the amount of time it takes to count paper ballots, therefore stifling their “up-to-the-minute” announcement of the results. Several times they hinted that electronic voting machines would have sped up the process and eliminated the prolonged waits and extended hours at polling stations. I ask you, fellow citizens, do not be suckered by this line. 

Voting machines may facilitate rapid reporting of results, but is this really desirable? Do we want people rushing through election results at breakneck speed in order to facilitate media sources? Or do we want an accurate, traceable election record that stands up to scrutiny? Yes, it was unacceptable that polling stations were running out of paper ballots, but this can easily be solved by supplying a greater quantity of ballots to each polling station in advance. Don’t let vested interests trick you into sacrificing election security for election convenience. Choosing leaders and laws is serious business, and voting should not be approached with a “drive-thru” mentality. 

Roger LaChance 

• 

THE LOSS OF ROSS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I’d lament, actually grieve, over the closing of the Ross Store on Shattuck Avenue. A Saks Fifth Avenue/ Bloomingdale’s it definitely was not. But it was THERE, darn it—the only department store in downtown Berkeley! I never went downtown that I didn’t pop into Ross, if only for a new bra, wallet or sauce pan. I can’t say that this was ever a particularly thrilling experience. There were no attractive young women spraying an expensive perfume in my direction, nor were there cosmetic counters with tall stools where one could sit and be transformed into a ravishing beauty by gorgeous young women (or men) lavishly applying Estee Lauder or Dior make-up. That was a blessing in disguise, as I always falls hook, line and sinker for cosmetics that never seem to make a noticeable improvement in my appearance. 

I must admit there were many things about the store I definitely did not like, such as the security guard who would eye me with suspicion when noticing my large tote bag. I could feel his eyes follow me as I made my way through the store. And I was always dismayed at the number of garments strewn about the floor in the clothing department. Being somewhat of a neatness freak, I’d make it my business to pick up these items, dust them off, put them on hangers and place them on the racks where they belonged. Quite often I’d find famous name designer clothes, but, alas, they were always a size 4 or 6, never a 14! Upstairs in the housewares department I’d lose all control and pick up wine goblets, cutlery, casseroles, tablecloths, etc., etc.—things for which I had no need. But with a senior discount on Tuesdays, how could I resist? 

Oh, yes, with all of its faults I miss Ross horribly. Having a deep-seated, almost pathological dislike for shopping malls, what are my options now? Travel to Emeryville or El Cerrito for their Ross, or take BART to the San Francisco Nordstrom’s and Bloomingales? Is Berkeley such a hick town that it can’t support at least one department store? Are we slowly but surely becoming a ghost town where only McDonald’s will survive? 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

GRIM REAPER IN BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Speaking on The United Nations Mission in Haiti, Chilean Juan Gabriel Valdés, who headed that bloody Mission between 2004 and 2006, told listeners at UC Berkeley on Feb. 5 that “lack of a government in Haiti” made it impossible for the UN to bring peace 

or accomplish its goal of national reconstruction. The president had “left Haiti” on Feb. 29, 2004, he explained, in the midst of a “civil war” between the country’s elites and the country’s poor. Today, there are serious problems in the country caused by NGOs skimming money from funds that should be used for development. 

The real problem in Haiti, he declared, is one of “perception"—people just not seeing eye to eye on what needs to be done. 

WHAT? As is well known, President Aristide did not “leave” office; he was kidnapped at gunpoint by U.S. military and forced out of the country. Far from civil war, the country was actually united under a president that Haitians had twice elected by landslides. And everyone, everywhere, recognizes that international monetary policy, including gargantuan debt service, 

is the force that makes development in Haiti nearly impossible. 

After totally distorting the situation in Haiti, Valdés went on to express his disagreement with his friend, a Haitian businessman, who contends that the only way peace can be achieved in the country is through dictatorship and terror. There are “ethical problems” with that point of view, Valdés acknowledged. What he failed to mention is that the UN troops under his leadership completely disregarded those ethical problems and instituted a reign of terror which is still in progress at this time. 

Ignoring the poster-size photographs brought to the room by a member of the audience, of Haitian children shot through the head by UN troops, Valdés did not deny that the well-documented massacres of July 6, 2005 and Dec. 22, 2006 (captured on film, with eyewitness descriptions of UN troops firing on unarmed civilians) had taken place; he only denied that the UN had anything to do with the killings. Terrorism in Haiti, he claimed, is not the work of the UN [or the elites served by the UN, or the political thugs who carried out the coup against the elected government of President Aristide], but rather the violent groups of people who live in shantytowns. When two members of the audience confronted him with the fact that on the basis of his role as head of the UN mission, a Haitian people’s tribunal had convicted him of 

crimes against humanity, Valdés claimed to be unaware of the proceedings. 

It does not speak well for the university, that it brings to campus a convicted criminal billed as a diplomat, without disclosing the unconscionable record of his tenure as head of the UN Mission in Haiti. It’s like bringing in the Grim Reaper, showing him with a Princeton diploma in his hands instead of his bloody scythe. 

Adrianne Aron 

Haiti Action Committee 

• 

DEMONSTRATION AGAINST  

CELL PHONE ANTENNAS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The battle continues against increasing radio frequency radiation in South Berkeley. On Monday, Feb. 4, the Berkeley Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (BNAFU) filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court to stop installation of 11 more cell phone antennas at 2721 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. It is clear that we no longer have local control over this technology. Today (Friday) BNAFU is holding a demonstration at City Hall, 2180 Milvia St. The demonstration will take place between 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. 

Our neighborhood believes that people, including many children in our neighborhood, have the right not to be used as guinea pigs exposed 24/7 to microwave frequency radiation, particularly when cell phone service in South Berkeley is excellent. 

This coming Tuesday evening, Feb. 12, a cell antenna moratorium will be on the City Council Agenda. 

Contact BNAFU at jllib2@aol.com or 849-4014. 

Michael Barglow 

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. 

Dear Mayor Tom Bates, 

I realize that I’m probably wasting my time in that there will be no response to this e-mail, but as the right of free speech works both ways, I feel compelled to express my opinion on the despicable actions that you’ve attemted to performed in the name of some “Whack Job” organization that you seem to have decided to sponsor, and I ask the question if your organization actually condones their behavior. 

I am referring specifically to your recent sponsorship of Code Pink and their treasonist efforts to remove the Marine Recruitment center in your alien city. Do you people actually not realize how moronic you appear, to the rest of this great country when you propose and attempt to denigrate and legislate treasonist proclomations against our brave men and women fighting to defend freedom and liberty. 

How stupid of you to associated your city council with an organization so intellectually challenged that they can’t even spell the word “Assasination” correctly while illegally scrawling it over the word Selection on the window front of the Marine Officer Selection Office. (I won’t belabor the point, but I do find it amusing that whenever these “Whack Jobs” get their moment in the spotlight, they alway manage to demonstrate their illiteracy. How hard is it to spell check the word “assassination?") 

The dictionary definition of the word “assassination” is as follows: Assassination is the murder of a political figure or another important individual. An added distinction between assassination and other forms of killing is that an assassin usually has an ideological or political motivation. 

Marines kill, they do not assassinate. And the fact that they have killed our nation’s enemies over the years is the reason why your organization exists, which I’m sure you don’t like to acknowledge or think about. The supreme strength, and irony, of our way of government is that the people who join the Marines are essentially putting their lives on the line to protect your right to despise your protectors. Whether or not this particular war helps defend that freedom is beside the point; your protest is against the Marine Corps as an organization, one that has been in business for longer than the country has been founded. Somewhere along that timeline, your freedoms were in jeopardy, and the Marines were there as part of the effort to keep that from happening.  

Your actions to thwart the opening of recruiting offices leads me to question exactly what your motives and goals are.  

Obviously, your organization is against the war in Iraq. Are you also saying that you want to abolish the military altogether? Are you implying that either there will never be another need for a military force, or that even if there is, our country will be at fault and the aggressor, and this is your attempt to stop that from happening? As I said, I know none of you will take the time to respond, but on the off chance you do, I would very much like to know the answer to that question. 

Just what good is your short-sighted attempt to stop people from entering the military to fight in this war going to do our country in the event that we truly need to be defended? Are you really so naive to believe that if we were to unilaterally disarm ourselves, abolish our military and force them to hold bake sales to supply themselves with arms and munitions, that this is a good thing? That we wouldn’t instantly be attacked by other nations who want to see our downfall? Or are you suggesting that we deserve to be cast down and conquered? 

The fact that you are working towards legislation that would bar recruiters from the city of Berkeley can really only be interepreted in a couple of ways. 

1) You are trying to set an example that you hope other communities will follow to stop recruiters from their mission of keeping our military up to strength, thereby crippling its ability to conduct any type of operations, or 

2) You believe that for whatever reason, the young men and women of your community are too good for the military. If some other community wants to sacrifice their sons and daughters, fine, but OUR children are much too precious. The fact that this demonstrates the very elitism that you profess to hate so much in individuals like George W. Bush seems to be lost on you. I would be very interested to know the results if there were a study to determine whether or not the gene that recognizes hypocrisy is missing from your members’ DNA.  

Again, this email is designed to both register protest, and better understand exactly what your goal is in your absurd attempts to block recruiting for the military in your community. Please explain to me how this helps our country. 

I look forward to any reply you care to make, no matter how civil or uncivil it may be. 

David Hill 

Westminster, Colorado 

Know this Berkeley, the city sleeps protected by the blanket of FREEDOM supplied by the US Marines. CodePink undermines this warmth and FREEDOM. We expect you to apologize to the Marines. 

Kevin Bester 

Madison, Wisconsin  

I would like to thank Council members Kriss Worthington, Betty Olds, and Gordon Wozniak for your no votes on the Berkeley City Council’s latest resolution regarding the presence of the U. S. Marine Recruiting Station. My commentary is addressed to the six members who voted for the resolution opposing the presence of the United States Marine Corp Recruiting Station. 

As a former Californian, I am reminded why I left the land of Fruits and Nuts every time I read or hear about the shameful, ungrateful, and just plain stupid utterances of those who do not understand or appreciate the price that must be paid for the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States. Those of us who have paid that price understand its cost and respect those who stand between our freedoms and those who would take it from us. It is fortunate for those like yourselves without the Honor and Integrity of those who serve their Nation, that they never fail to serve you. 

I served in Vietnam and I hate war and all that it does to those of us who survive; fellow veterans and families of those who died. It is sad that this is the price that must be paid for freedom. It is sadder still that there are those who don’t understand, refuse to appreciate or fail to respect the cost paid by our service people and their families so that we remain free. 

Ron Barger 

East Wenatchee, Washington 

You are aware of the actions of the Berkeley City Council and their attempts to remove a US Marine recruiting office in your city. I am not a little unhappy with their position, even hostility to our wonderful men in uniform. They promote hostility to all most Americans hold dear when the vote to provide Code Pink parking space directly in front of the recruiter’s offices. They have gone too far! 

RG Metzger 

Dallas, Texas 

A city and some of its citizens do not agree with the policies or actions of the Federal government and decide to take what they believe to be a moral, courageous stand to protest those policies. In this case, it is Berkeley and the Iraq War. Forty some years ago it was numerous towns and individual citizens who felt that they also knew better than the Federal government. The citizens then stood in school house doors to prevent the carrying out of Federal orders to desegregate. Is this any different? Not in my mind. We live in a democracy. Whether the Berkeley city council likes it or not, President Bush is the elected head of our government. Since January 2007, he has been funded by a Democratically controlled Congress. The means to change policy is in their hands. I would have a lot more respect for the World Can’t Wait group and the Berkeley city council if they staged their protest in Senator Feinste in’s office (she voted for the war), Senator Clinton’s campaign offices (she voted for the war), or any number of congressmen who voted for it and continue to support it. But no, better not upset the powerful when you can pick on young Americans instead. 

To block the path of young people who want to serve is not moral or courageous. To prevent soldiers or Marines from carrying out their assigned tasks is not moral or courageous. The Marine Corps did not start this war nor does it vote to maintain it. I challenge the World Can’t Wait to confront those who did rather than acting out their rage on the backs of those who are already carrying the weight of this war.  

BTW, I’m a former Marine. I think this war is idiotic, and have voted Democratic in all but 1 election including all the time I was in the Corps. Groups like those making a scene in Berkeley at our military mens’ expense are why a large segment of the American voting public does not trust the Democratic party with the Presidency. 

Semper Fidelis, 

Michael Greene 

Alexandria, Virgina 

As Stalinism continues its inevitable retreat into the trash bins of history, adherents struggle to hold on to its last outposts in North Korea, Berkeley, and Turkmenistan. 

These extremists have decided what is right for you and are willing to force you to comply. Individuals have no right to think, speak, or act for themselves. 

From comrade Bates stealing newspapers that don’t agree with him, to leftist stormtroopers preventing Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking in Berkeley, to the current thugs preventing individuals from visiting the Marine recruiting station, Berkeley has become the American capital of the anti-free speech movement. 

Mark Johnson 

What a bunch of hypocrits. Only after the “crap hit the fan” are thewe wimps now concerned. I hope many businesses join Mr. Dennard in the boycott of the City of Berkeley. I would also hope that the Council does not speak for the Majority of the Citizens of the City. If so the City is in Deep trouble. 

Jim Brown 

Retired U. S. Air Force 

Did you know you have to be a college graduate to sign up to be a Marine at the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center? A high school student or even a college undergraduate cannot get recruited there. This recruiting of the college graduate is to train them as future officers. One must remember that the college graduate has a degree, a driver’s license, voting rights, can get married and can even legally drink, so I am sure he is quite capable of choosing a future career without the demonstrators Code Pink blocking his way. I am sure that these people are attempting to do good, but I feel their energy and time could be better serve by tutoring in the schools. And the Berkeley City Council should take a more liberal rather than a fascist view by supporting free speech in its home town. 

Martha Jones 

From the southern part of our great land, I read with great dismay that the City Council of Berkeley passed a resolution, in essence, to drive the Marines from the city. I had to read, and re-read the articles/links/headlines to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me. Wow, what a story, and what an indictment on a pack of buffoons who are becoming the laughing stock of America. I am speaking, of course, of the Berkeley City Council. From a city which boasts of its high intellect, I’m seeing nothing but pea brains. How could anyone possible elect these fools, and, after this, allow them to remain in office! Sadly, they have done irreparable harm by placing a shroud of shame upon that community for years to come. I might have expected this from some misguided, naïve college students just starting to learn the ways of the world, but never from adults who were elected officials! God help the fools of the world, of which Berkeley has more than its share.  

Semper Fi, 

C. M. Collins, III 

Those of you who voted to, essentially, make the United States Marine Corps recruiting office “persona non grata” in Berkeley have perhaps delivered one of the lowest blows to our brave men and women EVER in the history of this country. While I am not in favor of this war in Iraq, our future ability to cope with an increasingly tumultuous world climate, will have our country in need of many more brave young men and women in the future. The call that many of our young people feel to defend our country is a wonderful thing. When I served in Vietnam, I was ready to die for my comrades and they for me...an emotion I suspect none of you have ever experienced or have the courage to experience. 

Do not confuse our military with the broken foreign policy of the current administration. There will be a time I believe, and it will be very soon, that we will need that military more than ever. My wife, a graduate of Berkeley HS is even more repulsed by your actions than I. And how do you think the surviving parents, wives, husbands and children are coping with your callous and short sighted action? I suspect some of them may even be constituents of yours. 

May God save us from the likes of the six of you who voted for the resolution in question. 

Milt Rogers 

Boulder, Colorado 

Dear Mayor Bates, 

In that you and your city have chosen to gravely insult the brave men and women, who have indeed bought you that right with their blood, I am informing you that my company will no longer do business with any of our current suppliers located in the Berkeley, California metro area. 

In that my company is in international resort real estate development, and do business with and am associated with, developers and investors worldwide, I am informing all of my contacts, associates and patrons that we will no longer do any business of any sort with anyone living in the Berkeley area. In that we/MDG Resorts are currently building a state of the art mega-yacht marina, all of the suppliers of Marina equipment, all owners of Yachts , all suppliers of Yacht materials & supplies, all yacht brokers and all tangential yacht business purveyors will likewise be informed that we will not do any business whatsoever with anyone from the Berkeley area. 

Likewise all suppliers of building materials, both interior and exterior, currently associated with any of our several resort developments (Brisamar 300+ villas and 200+ condos: Porto Hussong, www.portohussong.com 500+ condos, 180 slip mega-yacht marina) both of which I might add have international recognition by virtue of glowing reports in Robb Report, Wall Street Journal, Yacht World, Forbes. I will likewise inform all of our investors, most of whom are very wealthy yacht owners, casino owners, high net worth international businessmen, of our decision to essentially boycott all products and providers located in, or associated with in any way whatsoever, Berkeley, Ca. 

Trust me when I say that having been in the real estate development business for over 35 years, our list of contacts and associates is long and very, very impressive. We, and I personally, are going to recommend that they ALL along with us boycott your city, its purveyors, suppliers, and businesses and CHARITIES of every kind. 

You have every right to choose to take the obnoxious anti-military stance you have taken, and as stated, that right was bought for you with the blood of better men than you. 

I too have every right to do all that I can to insure that your city suffers consequences arising from that obnoxious, sickening stance. 

Cordially, 

Brian G Dennard 

Principal Director 

Meridian Development Group, LLC 

In my humble opinion, the Berkley City Council, through it’s recent resolutions, is guilty not only violating civil rights laws but also of treason in its attitude towards the Marine Recruiting Center located there. 

Freedom of Speech is guaranteed in the US Constitution. Yet, I am willing to bet that organizations other than Code Pink do not receive the same courtesies. Are organizations that back the war receiving parking privileges in front of city hall to protest this city’s anti-war and anti-military resolution? Are pro-life organizations going to get parking spaces in front of abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood? Doubt it! 

As for the arguments for the resolutions, the woman who said, “It is not favoritism,” is sadly mistaken. Pacifists have no more rights than pro-military, pro-life, pro-choice or the Ku Klux Klan for that matter. Freedom of Speech is for everyone despite the fact that you may not agree with them. 

Then there was the gentleman who called the recruiters, “criminal liars.” I believe he is right in that if they are lying they are committing a criminal act under the Military Code of Conduct as well as civil law. However, that is for the courts to decide not someone who makes rash statements and fails to back them up with facts. 

Then there is the woman who felt like a hypocrite because she arranged for a psychiatrist to lie about her son’s mental condition to keep him out of the military during Vietnam. I would suggest that if she feels so guilty about it she turn herself, her son and the psychiatrist in to the authorities. Although I am sure the statute of limitations is probably up. Instead find a Vietnam vet, or a conscience objector who still did his duty, or someone who went to prison rather than lie and tell them your story. They will probably be very sympathetic. 

As for the Marines not having, “had the sense not to come here,” I would point out that it is very apparent that not everyone agrees with that statement. If there were not people in the area interested in joining the Marines, the center would close. Then too if there aren’t people going into the center then why is it necessary to provide Code Pink with special parking. If it is not a busy place, there should be plenty of parking available. 

In encouraging the protest of Code Pink at the Recruiting Center the City Council is interfering with military recruitment, thus aiding the enemy. The recruitment centers and those who man them have no say in policy. Washington D.C. makes the decisions as to where and when we fight, not downtown Berkley. Therefore, in protesting at the Center, Code Pink is making the statement that they are ant-military as well as anti-war. Moreover, the city makes the same statement when it offers special courtesies to Code Pink. 

As I said in my opinion this constitutes treason! 

Rodger L. Solomon 

Gillette, Wyoming 

After Alameda County voters resoundingly rejected Measures A and B—the $300 million parcel tax to fund Children’s Hospital Oakland’s (CHO) dream tower—my neighbors and I figured we’d have some time to relax. Or at the very least catch up on the Hillary-Obama race.  

We weren’t naïve enough to think that CHO execs would actually give up. But we thought they might give us a break. Yasmin got her hair cut, Katina went snowboarding, Sharon returned to her studio, Jeannie attended PTA meetings and soccer games. I spent some time in front of the mirror ignoring new wrinkles and admiring my suddenly svelte (from stress) body. 

We reflected on the past hectic five months, including a bizarre encounter in the city of Piedmont after Katina debated CHO senior vice president Mary Dean at a meeting hosted by the League of Women Voters. As we were leaving the quaint Piedmont City Hall, a little man followed us with his yellow notepad and critiqued Katina’s performance. When Yasmin asked who he was, he called her “Missy” and told her not to get her panties in a bunch. We were in his “hood” now. We virtually had to hold Yasmin back from decking him. We jumped into our car and raced down the hill to the safety of the flats at 54th and Dover streets. 

I thought about all the odd and beautiful things I saw and experienced while delivering hundreds of flyers around the neighborhood. How I met Linda Reed and Carrie Lee Burchell, two women who have lived on 53rd Street for decades. Linda told me she was born 60 years ago in a house that was bulldozed by Children’s to make way for the parking lot between 52nd and 53rd streets. She moved across 53rd and has lived there ever since. When I asked Carrie Lee if I could put a “No on Measure A” sign up in her front yard, she said, “Honey, please do.” 

While leafleting I learned some neighborhood family secrets, found out who was related to whom at Mr. Cole’s house, saw someone’s cleaning lady kiss a stranger before pulling him through the front door. 

My friends and I had a good chuckle over the use of the CHO shuttle bus to transport neighbors (who shall remain anonymous) to and from the McArthur BART station in order to distribute anti-Measure A flyers to commuters. We could finally laugh about the early morning KPFA radio debate I had with CHO’s head of Trauma Services, Dr. Jim Betts. I had arrived at the studio in my lucky Mrs. Scott sweater; he wore his scrubs. 

But before I popped open the champagne to celebrate the defeat of Measures A and B, I decided to check in with a few local politicians. I didn’t expect anyone to return my call. After all, no one had been in a hurry to answer my questions before the election. But surprisingly, Oakland city council members Jane Brunner and Nancy Nadel got back to me almost immediately. What Jane Brunner told me suggests the hospital plans to move forward as though the election never happened.  

“How?” I asked. “They didn’t get the $300 million from taxpayers to finance the project.” 

“I don’t know,” she answered. 

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow (Wednesday) night at CHO’s community meeting at the North Oakland Senior Center. If you’ve got the time, drop by and hear what they have to say. I’ll be there listening for clues as to how they expect to build their dream tower. That sure was one short-lived election victory. 

Danny Hoch’s new solo, Taking Over, is having its world premiere at the Berkeley Rep. I saw the show in January, my interest piqued by the rave review in the Chronicle. But what got me to buy a $49 ticket was curiosity about the play’s treatment of gentrification. I knew that Hoch’s latest piece dramatized the recent, wrenching transformation of his Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg.  

Having participated in Berkeley’s own gentrification wars for a good decade, I wanted see how Hoch’s play framed the Brooklyn experience. I wondered, too, whether local struggles would be illuminated by his show. That the piece had been commissioned by the Rep and directed by the company’s artistic director, Tony Taccone, made its potential relevance all the more intriguing. 

To a casual observer, the differences between Brooklyn and Berkeley may seem so great as to make it unlikely that the one place could shed any light on the other, at least before Brooklyn was invaded by the new gentry. Such an observer might well equate gentrification with Berkeley-ization, as manifest in the cultural posturing, political pretension, therapeutic entrepreneurship and “progressive” consumerism that confront the Williamsburg natives in Taking Over. Indeed, in one scene a manic Jewish developer holds forth to a reporter while being coached in tai chi and yoga by a Berkeley woman for $350 an hour.  

The multi-tasking developer is one of seven closely observed characters (eight, if you count Hoch’s out-of-character cameo) who contribute to the show’s complex portrait of a place in uneasy transition. On the positive side, the crackheads are gone, and with them, the area’s once-notorious crime and violence. The Hispanic ex-con who comes upon a low-budget movie being filmed on his block recalls that not long ago he and his neighbors routinely witnessed a different sort of shooting. Seductive shopping options, especially for food, drink and clothing, suddenly abound. The fifty-something African-American social worker who keeps the peace from her front stoop is drawn to a trendy café by the shop’s delectable almond croissants. The area’s building stock is being swiftly upgraded through rehabilitation or outright demolition and new construction. “This is a resurgent neighborhood,” says the developer, who has 3,000 apartments on the market.  

But the longtime Williamsburgers also resent the changes that make them feel, as one of them says, “like a fucking tourist in my own neighborhood.” The turbaned social worker finds herself virtually invisible at the trendy café. The unemployed ex-con approaches the film crew in hopes of getting a little work and thereby impressing his mother, who’s watching from the window of their nearby home—only to be brushed off. These offenses are mild, however, compared to the physical displacement experienced by those forced out of their homes by the speculative real estate market. “Times change,” says the developer, whose units are selling for $2 million. “Some old-time families have to leave.” 

In short, Taking Over depicts a place that’s changing for better and for worse. At the same time, the show makes it clear that gentrification’s benefits and liabilities are not evenly distributed, and that the newcomers’ aggrandizement comes largely at the detriment of the existing residents.  

It was disconcerting, then, was to find the show acquiescing in the injustice. Which is to say that Taking Over lacks a viable local politics. A group called “Artists Against Gentrification” protests the loss of affordable space to pricey development. That demonstration, the closest thing to political action in the play, elicits the scorn of the neighborhood’s old-timers, who see artists themselves as gentrification’s “advance troops.” But the neighbors’ scorn also reflects their own alienation and impotence. Their legitimate anger at their plight can be expressed only through rage or surreptitious defiance. The slighted ex-con gets in the face of the indie film crew, shouting “Look at me!” The social worker walks off unnoticed with a few croissants (“Nobody said a word, because I don’t exist”).  

The corollary to the neighbors’ disfranchisement is the absence of accountable authority. Though every one of the thousands of Williamsburg’s new condos presumably had to be approved by some duly constituted body, Taking Over contains but a single reference to a public official: In the middle of his workout-cum-interview, the developer gets a call from a nameless councilmember about a zoning change. In a gesture that indicates where the real power lies, he declines the call.  

As Hoch tells it, he and his neighbors are helpless to resist the appropriation of their home place. Their suffering likely evokes theatergoers’ pity. But that pity may well be mixed with disdain. I want to be clear: I don’t think the playwright has contempt for his fellow Williamsburgers, nor do I think he intends his show to evoke contempt for them. But in presenting the dispossessed as helpless victims, he invites the audience’s condescension toward the characters he wishes to champion. The pathos of their situation is undercut by Hoch’s nervy wit and intense delivery. As the Rep’s website states, Taking Over has “compassionate and hilarious results.” But the audience’s sympathetic laughter palliates a deeper recognition of the play’s harrowing premise: Nothing can be done to abate gentrification and its wrongs.  

The real Brooklyn tells a different story, one that features the vigorous activism of numerous homegrown organizations. Three of many possible examples: Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, whose 5,000 members are fighting developer Bruce Ratner’s monstrous Atlantic Yards project, equated on the DDDB’s website with “instant gentrification”; the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, which turns old factory and warehouse buildings into affordable space for light industry and artisans; and the Pratt Center for Community Development, which uses policy research and leadership training to empower neighborhoods and foster broadly shared prosperity.  

What makes these groups and others like them political, in the best sense of the word, is that they assume that ordinary people are capable of coming together to act in their common interest and demanding accountability from those charged with protecting the general welfare, and that such action can bring about the exercise of power in behalf of the whole community, and not just its privileged members. 

Compelling political theater fleshes out these assumptions. It doesn’t hector or proselytize. Instead, it shows how the character of a place reflects the political competence of its citizens. Accordingly, it implicates citizens who may be in the audience. By citizens, I mean theatergoers who inhabit a world akin to the one represented onstage. 

Cue the matter of Taking Over’s relevance to Berkeley. Though it might not be evident to that casual observer mentioned at the outset, in Berkeley as in Williamsburg, gentrification threatens to transform a place of social, cultural and economic diversity into a homogeneous enclave of wealth. The pressures of the speculative real estate market can be felt all over town, but they weigh most heavily in West Berkeley. That’s also the area that’s most like Brooklyn, in that it’s where hundreds of industrial firms—almost all of the light variety—and in recent decades, hundreds of artists and artisans, ply their trades. In both places, it’s industry’s presence that’s held down land values. Accordingly, it’s the conversion of industrial lands to other uses—above all, residential (read: high-end condos)—that has facilitated gentrification. 

Given these commonalities, what’s striking is how remote Hoch’s Williamsburg appears from West Berkeley. That remoteness is partly explained by the fact that Brooklyn’s industrial character is imperceptible in Taking Over. But the dissimilarity is also due to the play’s elision of Brooklyn’s grass-roots politics.  

For a quarter of a century, Berkeley’s industrial community—led by resident artists and artisans, no less—has fought to maintain the zoning that protects businesses engaged in production, distribution and repair. Until Tom Bates became mayor in 2002, those tireless efforts had largely succeeded in keeping gentrification at bay. Bates, fronting for the big developers in town and pushing the counterfactual claim that the city’s manufacturing is dead, has made the de-industrialization and corresponding Emeryville-ization of West Berkeley one of his top priorities. The ensuing land use battles have been fierce; the ones on this year’s horizon promise to be the fiercest yet, and perhaps decisive. This struggle has no counterpart in Hoch’s depoliticized portrait of gentrifying Brooklyn. 

Nor is the controversy over West Berkeley’s future evident in the publicity or cultural events that accompany Taking Over. The Rep’s website features a book about gentrification in New York and links viewers to “the San Francisco Chronicle’s story on gentrification of San Francisco’s Bayview district.”Not a word about Berkeley. The playbill is scarcely more instructive. Hoch’s show, says director Taccone in his “Prologue,” is “a portrait of what is happening…in every major city in America….Welcome to Brooklyn. Welcome to Berkeley.” Is Taccone saying that Berkeley is one of those gentrifying major American cities? Impossible to tell. Benjamin Grant’s essay “What is gentrification?,” also in the playbill, contains only one place name: America.  

Worse yet, Grant implies that gentrification cannot be resisted. “Gentrification,” he submits, “works by accretion—gathering momentum like a snowball.” In fact, unlike snowballs and other natural phenomena, gentrification is the outcome of human agency. What drives out longtime residents and established businesses is not just impersonal forces—the “rising rents or shifting sensibilities” cited by Grant—but, at bottom, the failure of democratic governance. He mentions successful community campaigns for city policies “that protect [existing residents] from rapid change and broaden the benefits of economic development” but gives no indication of what such policies might be—and if gentrification’s changes are, as he writes, “inevitable,” what difference would policies make?  

There are plenty of smart people in town who could fill in the blanks, as was evident from last November’s symposium on industrial land use in the Bay Area, sponsored by UC’s Center for Community Innovation. I’ll bet some of them would be happy to take part in a panel discussion at the Rep. If it’s too late for that—Taking Over closes on Feb. 24—the Rep’s website could could still direct its viewers to the most incisive coverage of local gentrification, the coverage provided by the independent press. For my part, I invite Danny Hoch to tour West Berkeley and meet some of the locals who have been fighting the good fight. Maybe he can be persuaded to put some of that fight into his next play.

It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. 

Last week two hummers, a male and a female, got into our living room, were trapped inside when a gust of wind blew the front door shut, and became entangled in the curtains. Matt the Cat spotted them (he doesn’t so much hunt things as point), and Ron, who moves faster than I do in these situations, retrieved them and released them on the front porch, apparently none the worse for wear. 

I didn’t refer to this distracted twosome as a pair, because hummingbirds don’t form pairs. Mating is promiscuous, and males don’t involve themselves in the tedious business of nest construction and childcare. 

You may have noticed the dive display of the male Anna’s. As described in the authoritative Birds of North America series: “The male sings 1–2 sets of buzzy notes while hovering 2–4 meters over the object of the display for 1–2 second, then climbs in a wavering fashion nearly vertically for 7–8 seconds to a height of 20–40 meters, plummets in a near-vertical dive for 2 seconds, ending the dive with a loud Dive Noise within 0.5–1 meter of object, finally returning in a continuous circular arc … to the beginning point over the object ... The object may be a female Anna’s Hummingbird, another hummingbird, another bird species, or occasionally a human; the sight of any perched hummingbird in its core area may initiate a Dive Display.” 

The exact nature of the Dive Noise, or dive chirp, has been much debated among ornithologists. The late Luis Baptista, former curator of birds at the California Academy of Sciences, thought it was vocal, since the frequency of the chirp was similar to that of the hummer’s vocalization. (It was Baptista who established that Anna’s hummingbirds, like more conventional songbirds such as the white-crowned sparrow, have local song dialects.) 

Recent work by UC Berkeley graduate student Christopher Clark and recent graduate Teresa Feo makes a compelling case that the noise is mechanical in origin, created by specialized tail feathers. 

Their investigations involved a high-speed video camera and a wind tunnel. 

Clark and Feo took the camera, with a 500 shot-per-second capability, to the Albany Bulb, where they alternately wired a stuffed female hummingbird to a bush or staked out a live female in a cage. Males responded to both variants. The camera captured a 60-millisecond spreading of the displaying male’s tail feathers at the bottom of the dive, coincident with the chirp.  

Having observed that Anna’s hummingbirds had, as Clark puts it, “funny tail feathers with tapered or narrow tips,” the researchers then captured several male hummers and customized their tails—either removing the outer pair of tail feathers or trimming their inner vanes. Modified males still performed dive displays, but failed to produce the dive noise. 

The final piece fell into place at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, where Clark and Feo exposed outer tail feathers to wind speeds equivalent to a male’s dive speed of 50 miles per hour. The chirp was reproduced in the wind tunnel when the inner vane of the feather fluttered at a frequency of 3.3 to 4.7 kiloherz, four octaves above middle C. Tiny linking barbules kept the barbs of the inner vane stiff enough to vibrate like the reed in a clarinet.  

The dive chirp is actually louder than the hummer’s vocalization. Clark and Feo suggest that this may be an evolutionary response to the constraints posed by the small size of the bird’s syrinx, or song box (the avian equivalent of the larynx). They suspect that close relatives of the Anna’s hummingbird, like the desert-dwelling Costa’s, may produce their chirps in a similar fashion. 

Mechanical sound production in birds is unusual, but not unknown. 

The “winnowing” noise of the Wilson’s snipe is apparently produced by its tail feathers, although no one has worked out the mechanism. Common nighthawks make a rude sound with their wing feathers, and I’m convinced that the bizarre rustling-grating-creaking sounds emitted by a displaying male great-tailed grackle can’t be entirely vocal. The club-winged manakin of Ecuador has specialized wing feathers that operate like a zydeco musician’s rubboard: a scraper feather hitting the ridged vane of another feather. 

It’s good to have the riddle of the dive chirp resolved—and to be reminded that there’s still much to be discovered about even the most familiar of birds.  

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. 

I went away chuckling, feeling that for progressives, the Democratic presidential primaries has come to be something like the story of the man who has had to scuffle to find meal money all year, and suddenly finds himself invited to a cousin’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Discovered grumbling in his chair, he confesses that he has found himself in distress because he cannot decide on the pumpkin, sweet potato, or mince pie for dessert. 

Enjoy the moment, guy. If only all the world’s days were made up of such choices. 

This is not to minimize the policy differences between the remaining major Democratic primary contenders, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. There are differences, and for those of our friends around the nation—Ohio and Pennsylvania and thereabouts—whose primaries have not yet occurred, or for those who may be delegates to the Democratic National Convention, they may yet play a role in the process of who the Democrats choose. But I doubt it. 

Instead of policy, the choices between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama swirl more around identity, and, more particularly, gender and racial identity. For the first time, ever in the history of the nation, the nominee of a major political party will be either a woman or an African-American. For progressives who for years have fought for the elevation and equality of both groups, the question is which one should take precedence. 

If it were merely a question of which one is preferable to open the presidential door for this year, woman or African-American, I would choose African-American, but only on the very narrow grounds that I believe Ms. Clinton’s candidacy is going to automatically open the way for other women presidential candidacies, while the jury is still out on whether Mr. Obama’s will immediately do the same for African-Americans. 

Past non-whitemale presidential candidacies in recent memory—Shirley Chisolm, Jesse Jackson’s two runs, Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President—were all saddled by the “exotic tag.” Ms. Chisolm and Mr. Jackson were always and ever the Black candidates, Ms. Ferraro was always the woman candidate, with other political issues taking a back seat with supporters and detractors alike. But at times during the 2008 Democratic primaries, a remarkable event has occurred: Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama were able, each, to step away from gender or race, to be judged independently only as candidates. Clearly that is happening more among the hip-hop generation than among those of us in the older crowd, and it has not always happened, but it has happened, a historical river crossed. 

Regardless of what happens at the convention or in the general election, the effect of Ms. Clinton’s candidacy is that forever after this year, national women politicians in this country will be judged for their presidential possibilities, in the same way national male politicians are. That will begin immediately as soon as the November elections are over. 

I am not as certain that Mr. Obama’s candidacy will lead to such an immediate door-opening for African-Americans. 

Mr. Obama has a background that is distinctly different from most African-Americans, not so much because he is biracial, but because his father was Kenyan, rather than American. In addition, despite the fact that he was raised by the white side of his family, he appears to have slipped easily and unpretentiously into African-American culture as an adult. This is a more difficult task than would be imagined for those who are not African-American. The dual result is that Barack Obama is almost universally accepted by African-Americans as an African-American, while at the same time—and this is difficult to explain, so bear with me—not projecting such an African-Americannness that he scares off the whitefolks in the far reaches of the exurbs and small towns in Utah. 

Part of it, I believe, is the weight—the personal and racial memory—carried by African-Americans from the slave trade, through slavery, through the hundred years of terror between the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights and Votings Rights Acts. Many in the hip hop generation believe that history is no longer applicable—many of them believe that they have transformed the meaning of the word “nigger” (or “nigga”), and race itself has no meaning at all. I don’t know if that is true, and what will happen when the generations of those of us born before Selma and Montgomery are no longer here. But we are still here, and, to paraphrase Gibran, we are arrows that can only travel as far as the strength and position of the bow which shot us. 

For that reason, I believe that without Mr. Obama’s unique background, it is going to be difficult for future African-American presidential contenders to repeat that feat. Mr. Obama’s race will make the way for future African-American candidacies easier, but it will not make them automatic. And so, it is not so much a case of whose “turn” it is—as the argument so often happens in America when it comes to opening the door for those many to whom it has long been closed—but more so that for women politicians, the “turns” will probably come in steadily increasing cycles, such as we see in countries from England to Israel to Pakistan, while for African-Americans, it may be another long drought before the next drink of cool water. 

But in a twist on Einstein’s theory of why solid matter can’t ever reach the speed of light, the reasons African-Americans originally thought it important to have an African-American President may be dissipating the closer that such a presidency comes to reality. 

I grew up in a generation that focused on African-American “firsts,” a term you sometimes still hear, but which is only a pale—no pun intended—echo of its original powerful meaning. 

In my parents’ time, African-Americans were actively and affirmatively excluded from many levels of American social and political life. The completeness of that exclusion is difficult—if not impossible—to understand for those of us born following those days. My parents also lived through the days when the Oakland Fire Department—Oakland, California, not Oakland, Georgia—were hired to fight fires from the segregated, West Oakland Engine 22 station, but thought not intelligent enough to serve as officers. 

I was born the year after Jackie Robinson was hired by the Brooklyn Dodger organization and broke the baseball color line, and so I missed entirely the turmoil and excitement that surrounded that event. By the time I began paying attention to baseball, Jackie Robinson was aging and about to retire, and African-American players were both the norm and among the recognized stars—Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente (not actually an African-American, true, but included in the pantheon), Frank Robinson. In my time, it was the coaching ranks of all major league sports, and the quarterback position in football, where African-Americans met the closed doors. It is difficult to figure how—with African-American coaches permeating all levels of major sports, and African-American quarterbacks running too many college and NFL teams to count—that it was once argued, openly and without apparent shame, that African-Americans were too dense and excitable to fill those positions. I grew up in a time when African-Americans were so scarce on national television that Jet Magazine—the national African-American news magazine of the ‘50s and 60’s—were able to print a weekly, one page schedule of Black appearances so that we could all tune in. 

I have lived, in my time, through a number of African-American political “firsts.” The first African-American member of Oakland City Council. The first African-American Oakland mayor. During my years in South Carolina, I witnessed the first African-Americans in the South Carolina state assembly since they were run out—through assassination, violence, and fraud—a hundred years before following Reconstruction. 

But all of these “firsts” were accompanied by what used to be called the “Black agenda,” an outgrowth of the civil rights and Black Power and Black Nationalist movements, and movements further gone, which detailed a direction that the African-American community should take, goals to be accomplished, thresholds to be reached. In those early days of modern Black politics, African-American politicians could only be elected from majority Black districts, and to be elected, they had to have a history in the movement and, at least on paper, a commitment to that “Black agenda.” 

But time and victories have dissipated that agenda, so that the term is rarely, if ever, used in recent years. In addition, African-American politicians have jumped the color line and slowly begun to win victories in districts that are not majority African-American. To do so, they have had to maintain the delicate balancing act of maintaining their political base among African-American voters, but in such a way that they are not identified as a “Black candidate” who scares off the necessary non-Blacks. The smaller the African-American voting percentage becomes in the district being pursued, the further the African-American candidate and office-holder must wander from a strictly Black agenda, until a Black agenda ceases to exist. 

That is what we are seeing in the candidacy of Mr. Obama. He identifies himself as an African-American, and many of his political traditions have their roots in the African-American community. If he were to win, he would promote many policies that would be favorable to that community. But distinctly more favorable than those that would be promoted by Ms. Clinton? That, I believe, would be a difficult argument to make. 

In the end, progressives, African-American, and women who identify with the Democratic Party are left with an embarrassment of riches—two credible, serious candidates who we don’t have to grind our teeth to vote for. Hell, you could throw in John Edwards, put their names in a hat, close your eyes, guarantee that the one you picked would be the President come next year, and most progressive, African-American, and women Democrats would be tickled to death at the prospect. 

Something to remember, even as we support and pull for the candidate of our choice, in the meantime. 

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). 

Although the knitting machine was invented as early as 1589, knitting remained a cottage craft for more than 250 years. Not until the mid-19th century, when the circular knitting machine was introduced, did machine-knitted undergarments become common. 

In 1864, William Cotton of Leicestershire developed a full-fashioned machine, capable of producing garments that fit the body’s shape. This innovation helped turn commercial knitting into a full-fledged industry in Europe. 

Four years after Cotton’s invention, the 25-year-old John Jacob Pfister, who had worked as a traveling salesman in his native Switzerland, left for the New World. He is said to have been one of the passengers who made the trip to San Francisco on the first transcontinental train. 

In 1877, Pfister obtained three hand-operated knitting machines and began manufacturing knitwear on a small scale with the help of two assistants. The impetus may have come from Pfister’s elder brother, who had remained in Switzerland and become a knitwear manufacturer. 

Who were the two assistants? Pfister’s biography in Greater Oakland, 1911: A Volume Dealing with the Big Metropolis on the Shores of San Francisco Bay (Pacific Publishing Co.) doesn’t reveal their names. However, a decade following this modest beginning, the J.J. Pfister Knitting Company, now incorporated, was operating a factory at 410 Polk Street, on the corner of McAllister and cater-cornered from the construction site of San Francisco’s city hall, begun in 1872 but not completed until 1899. 

In 1889, J.J. Pfister Knitting Co. was listed in the San Francisco directory as manufacturers of crochet and knitted goods, bathing suits, tights, underwear, sporting uniforms, and importers of bolting cloth. By then, Pfister was employing two men who within a decade would utilize their acquired know-how to found their own knitting company—one that would rival Pfister’s and eventually eclipse it. They were John O. Gantner, corporate secretary, and George A. Mattern, mill superintendent (see “Knitwear Magnate Looked to Europe for Building Inspiration” in the Jan. 25, 2008 issue). 

As the Victorian era waned, Americans of both sexes were engaging in more athletic pursuits than ever before, propelling consumer demand for swimsuits, jerseys, golf vests, sweaters, and leggings. Pfister opened a retail store at 60 Geary Street in downtown San Francisco, where he sold both off-the-shelf and knit-to-order apparel and underwear. 

Athletic uniforms being an important component of the catalog, Pfister was active in the affairs of the YMCA, even attending the organization’s state conventions. His employee G.A. Mattern learned and copied from the master. 

On June 13, 1905, the San Francisco Call reported that property owners and lease holders of the blocks bounded by Geary, Stockton, Post, and Kearny Streets had met “to discuss ways and means of beautifying Union Square Avenue [today’s Maiden Lane] and turning the alley into an attractive place for retail shoppers.” Newton J. Tharp, a prominent San Francisco architect (he would become the City Architect in 1907) presented a sketch of a covered arcade proposed for the two blocks between Kearny and Stockton Streets. 

“On each side of the street were walks seven feet wide. Every thirty feet was a pillar, made of iron and supporting a glass roof,” reported the Call. The retail merchants in attendance “seemed very enthusiastic over the possibility of the artistic improvement. Most of them had seen the shopping streets of Paris, Berlin, Milan and other European cities, where the covered shopping avenues have been in vogue for many years.” 

A second meeting was convened on June 19 to poll all interested parties, of whom J.J. Pfister was one. A committee was formed and success seemed assured when the City Engineer announced that obstructions on the streets ran contrary to the city charter and the building ordinance and therefore could not be legally accomplished. The merchants vowed to continue, but the momentum appeared to have fizzled. 

And then the earthquake struck, followed by fire. Pfister family lore, passed down through John Jacob’s daughter-in-law, tells that on the first day of the fire, the Polk Street factory burned down; on the second day, the Geary Street shop went up in flames; and on the third day, the house at 2208 Jones St. was decimated. 

The business was insured by the Pennsylvania Insurance Company, the home by German-American (now Great American Life Insurance), and both refused to cover the loss, since the fire was caused by earthquake. 

Two San Francisco friends are said to have helped Pfister start from scratch. Were they Gantner and Mattern, whose own facilities were not harmed? Perhaps, but not likely. 

A week after the earthquake, Pfister had opened a temporary office at 1006 McAllister St., and on June 26, the Berkeley Reporter announced that the J.J. Pfister Knitting Company had bought a tract of land in West Berkeley, along Parker Street from Seventh to Tenth, and would construct there a factory employing between 150 and 200 hands. 

The land was purchased from the Carleton family, which owned a 100-acre farm on San Pablo Road. 

“Five factories are now working on machines to stock this new knitting mill, which is expected to be in full working order some time during September,” informed the Reporter. “In order to accommodate its employees, the company will build a number of cottages, and rent them at a nominal figure.” 

The Reporter also made it known that in addition to its factory hands, the Pfister Company employed “many outside hands to do finishing and crocheting and will thus give a number of Berkeley people an opportunity to increase their income by working in their own homes.” It was rumored that the town would “meet the company by completing the macadamizing of Seventh Street to and through the company’s land and also macadamizing Parker Street to the West Berkeley railroad line.” 

By July 11, the Reporter divulged that architect William H. Wharff had prepared plans for the new factory, which would contain 27,000 square feet, measure 150 by 60 feet, and accommodate 100 employees. The previous year, Wharff had designed the Masonic Temple on the corner of Shattuck Ave. and Bancroft Way. 

Opened in November 1906, the Pfister factory was originally clad in brown shingles. The Oakland Tribune took stock of it on Dec. 8 of that year: 

The building is two stories in height and is well lighted by fifteen windows on each side of the building. The basement is being used for storing a large stock of yarns; the first floor has the knitting machines; the second floor contains the machines used for finishing off garments. D. Halliday erected the factory building, and also a handsome residence for J.J. Pfister, the proprietor of the factory, which is located east of the factory building. The factory is employing twenty-five persons this week, but in the near future the number of employees will be increased to 100. 

At latest there are thirty-two machines of the latest and most improved type in use on the first floor, and eighteen on the second floor. Fifteen new machines will be obtained in the near future, and will materially increase the capacity of the plant. 

The Pfister family—John Jacob, Bertha, and John Jacob Jr.—settled in a modest shingled cottage—also designed by Wharff—across the street from the factory, at 2601 8th Street. The company’s San Francisco office and sales rooms returned to Polk and McAllister, and a new store was opened in 1908 at 739 Market St., opposite Grant Avenue. 

In 1907, the frugal Pfister hit upon an ingenious way to promote his business without shelling out for display ads. His brief, three-line ads began appearing in the San Francisco Call’s editorial columns, the only such ads to occupy this type of space. 

Business was sufficiently good, but the Pfisters lived modestly and their names were never mentioned in the society pages. John Jr. was not a coddled son. In 1907, at the age of 20, he took out an ad in the Call in which he described himself as experienced in farming and wanting a position as teamster on a large farm. Evidently he found such a position, because in 1909 he took out another ad, this time describing himself as an experienced teamster with good knowledge of farming who could take entire charge of a small place. A year later, he was superintendent in the knitting mill. 

From trade publications of the era one gathers that the Pfister company had a capitalization of $80,000 in 1913 and $120,000 in 1916, at which time they operated 72 knitting machines. But the company wasn’t strong enough to withstand the post-WWI recession of 1920–21. John Jacob Pfister died on April 21, 1921. Although his daughter-in-law claimed that he was ruined financially and died of a broken heart, Pfister left his wife and son an estate of $48,000, consisting of a house and lot in Berkeley and 640 acres in Placer county. 

The Emporium bought the Pfister inventory and on December 22, 1924, advertised “Stock purchase of the well known J.J. Pfister Knitting Co. of San Francisco and Berkeley, who are retiring after forty years of successful business. On sale Tuesday at nine—at regular wholesale prices: Sweaters for men, boys, women, children, infants. Not only sweaters but other wanted knitted wearing apparel of high quality just in time for your last-minute Christmas shopping. Every garment high grade and dependable in every way. Truly a lucky purchase!” 

In 1923, the Pfisters moved their house to 1233 Derby Street, where they continued to live for the rest of their days. John Jacob Jr. went to work as a clerk in another knitting company. The Pfister factory was taken over in 1929 by the Bomberger Seed Company, which stuccoed the exterior. The building was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark in November 1986. 

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA).

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. 

Some garden sounds are perfectly pleasant. It’s possible, for example, to overdo it with windchimes, but on their own they’re good. One set, please, and in a soothing rather than ebullient pitch because ebullient becomes excruciating in short order. Want to make it art? Hang them in a spot where the wind doesn’t usually reach. They become a rare treat and also a source of information: Listen! The wind’s shifted. The weather’s about to change. 

Water’s another common source of garden music, and lately you can shop for every choral range from falsetto to seafloor bass. It’s easy enough to make your own fountain out of an interesting stone or a pot or other artifact. Remember how folks used to make lamps out of old bottles, spools, oilcans, small pets who sat still too long? I guess they still do, actually.  

Now, with a low-power recirculating pond pump and a length of plastic tubing, you can follow that same inclination, only toward fountains. Forget the Mannequin (or Manneken) Pis—please!—and the standard drooling lion or spitting fish. Pipe a stream through a broken hula-hoop or a copper spiral from that still you never got finished. Bounce it down a ladder of old serving spoons. Pour it from a jug into a bowl. Run it over an umbrella or plumb a bowling ball.  

Natural fountains are easy enough, if that’s more your style. A pile of stones and a basin with plants to soften the rim: instant waterfall. It’s a good idea to cement or putty your stack of rocks together, but try them out in a few different poses first; then run your tubing up the back. If you’re daring and fickle you can just balance them unglued and leave the option of rearranging them on a whim. You might find the local raccoon or possum doing the rearranging for you some night, though. 

Moving water does attract wildlife, including the musical kind. It doesn’t take much to do that: just a drip into a shallow bowl will bring in birds you didn’t know you had in the neighborhood, and it can happen overnight. You get bird music—they’re starting already, as the hummingbirds are nesting and the robins singing in rehearsal before they migrate—and if you have a dead tree handy you might even get woodpeckers to play the drums.  

One of the most common features in our early 20th century housing stock is that imperishable ruffian of the heating world, the floor furnace. 

It continues to amaze me how many of these persist in operating as the main source of heat for houses since they do not heat spaces uniformly and pose a greater risk for fire, burns and exhaust leaks than many other types of heater. The answer to this conundrum is, of course, that since they don’t just up-and-die, people keep on using them. 

Natural gas floor furnaces are radiant heaters that heat the spaces that they are in and provide no ducting to heat adjacent spaces. This means that they will tend to bake their immediate environs when they are being used to heat whole houses. Floor furnaces actually heat by convection more than by radiation, which means that they are creating a plume of heat that drives air up to the ceiling above them, down the walls and across the floor back into the unit.  

Since this process pushes air, it also pushes dust, dander and animal hair into the unit where it comes to rest near the bottom. In other words, floor furnaces are central vacuum systems and this is why they are always filled with dust. This material is of course, flammable and adds a lovely allergenic aroma to the air which those of you privy to this experience will recognize immediately.  

Excessive built-up of dust and dander also becomes a fire hazard and should be maintained with the narrow wand of a vacuum cleaner. Many older floor furnaces have a metal cowling or heat shield that can be easily removed for cleaning. Be sure and put it back properly when this job is complete. Some later models have a heat sensor attached to the shield and should only be removed by a professional. You’ll readily see a wire attached to the shield if you try to remove it. 

Floor furnaces get quite hot when being used and small children, especially toddlers are at risk around these floor mounted ovens. Remember that infants do not have well developed heat sensors or reactions and will be burned before they have become aware. 

Flammables should be kept clear of these units and this includes rugs, newspapers, books and drapes. It’s improper to have these devices installed where a door swings across the grill, since even these can catch fire after hours of prolonged heating. 

A feature that’s important to look for with any radiant heater is the presence of a thermostat in the area heated by the device. If the thermostat is located beyond a doorway, the door may be shut when the unit is in use allowing the heater to reach much higher temperatures than those mandated by the thermostat. If this is true for you, have your heating contractor move the thermostat. If you have a unit that turns on and off with a metal floor key, consider having a thermostat installed since without one, the unit can be left on and reach very high temperatures, greatly increasing the likelihood of fire. 

Like all gas heating appliances, floor furnaces generate exhaust gas. This gas is toxic and can contain significant amount of carbon monoxide, a deadly, odorless gas. So it’s really important that these gases be moved outside the dwelling without leakage. I find that lots of these old floor furnaces leak at least a little bit and some leak a lot. One way that leaks occur is through a hole intentionally installed in all of these units right on top. These view holes come with covers and most have a mica or similar clear window in the top. These are often damaged or left open or lost entirely allowing flue glasses to literally pour into the dwelling. Under the best of circumstances this puts lots of steam into the house and under the worst of circumstances this may be deadly. There are also seam leaks on many of these.  

Last in this litany of complaints is the surprising fact that this kind of heating is more likely to create an electrical fire in an older home. This is due to the frequent use of electric heaters in homes that lack an adequate gas heat source. Many of the same homes that have floor furnaces have inadequate or unsafe wiring and the addition of an electric heater (often left on for hours at night) adds the duress that sets off a fire. 

The best response to these many concerns is to spend the money and upgrade. Forced air is the most common replacement but take some time to look at the alternatives before you spend your money. If you do go with forced air, consider using the old floor furnace housing (box) as your “cold-air return” (or intake). It will eliminate the need to repair the floor and generally works quite well. The filter for your “FAU” (forced air unit), can be placed in the gutted box of the floor furnace making it easy to service.  

Although I’ve never seen statistics on this, I wouldn’t be surprised if an FAU used less energy to heat the house than a floor furnace since all rooms are kept at roughly the same temperature with an FAU. The living room or hall is often baking hot when a floor furnace is trying to keep the back bedroom warm enough and this surely used a great deal of excess energy.  

If you are going to keep that floor furnace a while longer consider adding attic insulation to help hold and distribute heat that wants to go right up into space. Also be sure and have it looked at regularly by an expert. 

Despite the charm of our elderly housing stock and my love of restoration, this is one feature that I’d like to see us all part with. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 

FILM 

Experimental Documentaries “Here Is Always Somewhere Else” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Garrison Keillor at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$62. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Peggy Orenstein reads from “Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, FIve Fertiltiy Doctors, An Oscar, An Atomic Bomb, A romantic Night, and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

‘Round Midnight Marathon at Berkeley Arts Festival with John Schott in an eight-hour tribute to Thelonious Monk from 2 to 10 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave. 665-9496.  

“Sweet Soul Music: Rare Soul Music Performance Clips from the 1960s and Early 1970s” with Rickie Unterberger at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Jeffrey Broussard and the Creole Cowboys at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Solo Bach Night with Lara St. John, Sam Bass, Dave Grossman, and others at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Kaspar/Sherman Jazz Quartet at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Sierra Leone’s Refugee Allstars at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200.  

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia” A twenty-five year survey of works opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, and runs through May 18. 642-0808.  

FILM 

History of Cinema “Battleship Potemkin” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

African Film Festival “Young Rebels: New Visions from Africa” at 6:30 p.m. and “Life on Earth” at 8:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Russell Banks reads from “The Reserve” a suspense novel set at the begining of WWII, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

Daniel Alarcorn reads from “Lost City Radio” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe's Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

“Cancer in Other Words” prose, poetry, at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit Celebrating Black History Month with music by J. Roalnd Braithwaite, Bongai Ndodana and Fela Sowande at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with students from the Young Musicians Program at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Rebecca Griffin & her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Tamsen Donner Blues Band at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. West Coast swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $7. 525-5054. 

Mysterioso at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Jenna Mammina and guests at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, FEB. 14 

FILM 

A Theater Near You: “Let’s Get Lost” at 6:30 p.m. and Jean-Pierre Léaud “Masculine-Feminie” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charles Wollenberg introduces “Berkeley: A City in History” at 6 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

“California Tile: The Golden Era 1910-1940” with Riley Doty tile expert and collector at 7:30 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Cost is $8-$10. 763-9218.  

Lonny Shavelson and Fred Setterberg discuss “Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2002. 

Nancy Polikoff describes “Beyond(Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under the Law” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

African American Cultural Celebration with African drumming, the music of Thelonious Monk and vocalist Melanie DeMore at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison S., Oakland. Free. 285-9628. 

Nina Ananiashvili and The State Ballet of Georgia at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$90. 642-9988.  

Maeve Donnelly with Tony McManus at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Karina Denike & her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Melvin Seals & JGB, R&B, rock, funk, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $17-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Flamenco, Candlelight and Roses dinner shows Thurs.-Sat. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $75-$115.  

Bekah Barnett & Joni Davis at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Antioquia, Locura, Night Train at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. 

Valentine’s Celebration with Aya de Leon at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568.  

Diablo’s Dust at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Cedar Walton Sextet at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, FEB. 15 

CHILDREN 

Comedy Juggling with Owen Baker Flynn at 4 p.m. at the South Branch Library, 1901 Russell Street, near Ashby BART. Free. 981-6260. 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Barefoot in the Park” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $10-$12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Wait Until Dark” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Satellites” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. through March 2. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “”Wishful Drinking” with Carrie Fisher, at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St., through March 30. Tickets are $33-$69. 647-2949. 

Black Repertory Group Theatre “A Raisin In The Sun” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $5-$25. 652-2120.  

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “The Cocoanuts” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., some Sun. matinees at 2 p.m., at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through March 2. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

foolsFURY Theater “Monster in the Dark” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 5 p.m., through Feb. 17, at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $12-$30. 800-838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Impact Theatre “Jukebox Stories: The Case of the Creamy Foam” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 22. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. http://impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “Angel Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. through Feb. 23 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

FILM 

Jean-Pierre Léaud “Weekend” at 7 pm. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Stephen Gamboa, harpsichord, at noon at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

India Cooke-Bill Crossman Duo at 8 p.m. Berkeley Arts Festival, 2213 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Project Opera “Pagliacci” at 8 p.m. at the Hillside CLub, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $15-$20.  

Nina Ananiashvili and The State Ballet of Georgia at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$90. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

History and Harmony Black History Concert Series with Kevin Monroe, Jono, Angelou Luster, Stabe Wilson and Roland Gresham at 7:30 p.m. at Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 Internationl Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$10. 544-8924. 

La Familia Son at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Muse Academy Students, from Tokyo, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Free. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Carla Zilbersmith & her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ.  

Frankie Manning with Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Lecture and films at 7:30 p.m., show at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. 

Jenny Kerr at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Henry Clement & the Gumbo Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Anthony Blea Trio, Latin percussion, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Sarah Williams, Ashling Cole, R&B, at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 839-6169 

The Landing, Abel Mouton at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

The Mother Hips, Lee Bob Watson at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $15. 841-2082.  

Parasites Go, Skull Stomp, Rukkus at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Rainmaker at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 16 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Bonnie Lockhart and Fran Avni at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568.  

Antoinette Portis introduces her new picture book “Not a Stick” and will demonstrate her illustrations at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Buki the Clown” magic show Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellvue Ave., Oakland.  

EXHIBITIONS 

Huey P. Newton Photography Exhibit Celebrating the achievements and influence of the founder of the co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Reception at 1 p.m. at the West Oakland Branch of the Oakland Public Libray, 1801 Adeline St. 238-7352.  

“Lines, Patterns and Textures” Group show in a variety of media. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 849-3111.  

“Pods” Paintings by Kim Thoman opens at 1 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 25th St., Oakland, and runs through March 22. 663-6920. 

FILM 

The Medieval Remake “Faust” at 6:30 p.m. and “the Flowers of St. Francis” at 8:40 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Sarah O”Neal Rush, great grand-daughter and biographer of Booker T. Washington, will read at 2 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. 637-0200. 

The Danzón Cuban Music lecture and demonstration with the John Santos Quintet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

“Gumby” Comic Book Creators in a presentation of the green, pliable, good-natured cartoon character and toy figure that’s been around since the 1950s, from 1 to 6 p.m. at Dr Comics and Mr Games, 4014 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 601-7800. 

Susan Bono, editor in chief of “Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative” at 10 a.m. at Barnes and Noble, Jack London Square. 272-0120. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Theresa Wong, improvisations on cello, bicycle, piano and voice at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Arts Festival, 2213 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Project Opera “Pagliacci” at 8 p.m. at the Hillside CLub, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $15-$20.  

Hesperion XXI & La Capella Reial de Catalunya at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley. Durant at Dana. Tickets are $52. 642-9988.  

Donna Lerew, solo violin, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www.trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Nina Ananiashvili and The State Ballet of Georgia at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$90. 642-9988.  

Ellen Robinson & her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ.  

De Rompe y Raja, Afro-Peruvian, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054.  

The Courtney Janes, KC Turner at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Eliza Gilkyson at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761.  

The Jazz Fourtet at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Charles Wheal and the Excellorators, blues, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

The Wayward Sway at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

The Mother Hips, Okie Rosette at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $15. 841-2082.  

Lazima Modern Jazz Group with pianist Alex Specht, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Cedar Walton Sextet at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$22. 238-9200.  

SUNDAY, FEB. 17 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Cultural Connections: The Art of Living Black” Conversations with the artists at 6:30 p.m., music at 5 p.m. at the Atrium, State of CA Office Bldg., 1515 Clay St., Oakland. 622-8190.  

“Photography of Aaron Cole” Reception at 5 p.m. at Schmidt’s Pub, 1492 Solano Ave.  

FILM 

African Film Festival “The Forgotten Man” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lonny Shavelson on “Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2002. 

Parker Palmer on “The Courage to Teach” and “Leading From Within” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Cost is $5-$10. 559-9500. 

“Memory Deficiency in Recent Israeli Art” with Sarah Breitberg-Semel at 2 p.m. at Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Reservations recommended. 549-6950. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Nina Ananiashvili and The State Ballet of Georgia at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$90. 642-9988.  

Live Oak Concert Different Strokes, inoovative jazz duo, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Tickets are $10-$12. 644-6893.  

Jacqui Naylor at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. Tickets at the door $10-$15, includes reception. Children under 12 free. 228-3218. 

Tokyo String Quartet at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $46. 642-9988.  

Pappa Gianni and the North Beach Band at 2 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Annual Gospel Concert with Bobby Hall & Friends at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina Ave., Point Richmond. 236-0527.  

Hope Briggs and Friends “A Musical Valentine” at 3 p.m. at HErbst Theater, 401 Van Ness Ave., S.F. Tickets are $25-$50. 415-392-4400. 

La Gran Noche de la Canción Boricua with José Saavedra and Meli Rivera at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8. 849-2568.  

Mads Tolling Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Erik Yates & Friends, Americana, rock, at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. 

John Santos Quintet at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Glen Phillips at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $21.50-$22.50. 548-1761.  

MONDAY, FEB. 18 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Aurora Theatre “Sick” reading followed by discussion at 7:30 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. Free. 843-4822.  

Toby Barlow introduces his new novel “Sharp Teeth” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

Andrew Demcak and Kaya Oakes at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Paradise at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Arts Festival Jerry Kuderna Piano Concert from noon to 1 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave. Free. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Don Coffin and Paul Ellis at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Martyn Joseph at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Pagliacci, Leoncavallo’s “gritty realism” classic of verismo opera, the tale of the fatal crossover between stage and real life in a troupe of carnival performers, will be performed by Project Opera, founded by musical director-conductor Robert Ashens, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights at the Hillside Club, on Cedar near Spruce, a venue associated with the beginnings and early years of Berkeley Opera—and one which has recently seen a diverse renaissance of concert programming. 

Featuring Todd Donovan as Tonio, Mark Narins as Canio, Eliza O’Malley as Nedda, Ross Halper as Beppe and Anders Froehlich as Silvio, with orchestra and chorus of local musicians and singers, Pagliacci’s fame has been so great that, according to Ashens, “it’s often been featured in pop culture, such as the movie The Untouchables, and lampooned on “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons.” 

“My concentration with this particular project has been to return to a former approach in opera preparation,” said Ashens, who is also an opera coach, “continuous and intensive coachings prior to actual rehearsal. Rather than dictating to the singers what interpretation I want, the coaching sessions are highly collaborative, making it quite organic ... When that’s accomplished, stage director Ross Halper will give the movements shape and reasoning ...” 

The performance will begin with a brief talk and demonstration by Ashens, leading into the opera. 

The Hillside Club serves as concert venue for more than opera. At a recent show featuring “Hemispheres” (Paul McCandless of “Oregon” and the original “Paul Winter Consort” and Sheldon Brown on woodwinds, Frank Martin on piano, Bill Douglass on bass and woodwinds and Ian Dogole on percussion), a lively audience of about 80 was rapt by the often piquant tonality of the batteries of reed instruments in the frontline, offset by weaving rhythms—and, in the second set, the Kurdish and Persian verses (one by Rumi) sung by guest vocalist Hossein Massoudi. A profound blend of jazz, world and new musics, the audience’s delight was mirrored by the enthusiasm of the band in their first appearance at the club. 

Bruce Koball, who ran the electronics and served as M.C., later pointed out, “What you saw the other night has only been happening recently. The Hillside Club has been coming back after a near-death experience. Four or five years ago, the place was dark maybe 250 nights a year. Membership was under 70. But thanks to the foresight of a few members, after Jeff Ubois moved into the neighborhood and stopped in to see what was here—and within a year was president—the long history of the club as a center for arts and culture was reactivated. The old and new guards came together.” 

Ubois brought in Koball and drummer Brian Bowman, whose series of house concerts had just come to an untimely end. Since that time, the club has produced “75 or 76 shows,” according to Koball, “in an all-volunteer effort, with no guarantees for the performers, but the club only taking a little slice of the gate to pay the bills. Musicians love it—we have more requests now than we could possibly handle—the warmth and the beautiful acoustics of the club. But it’s also about getting an audience here, and we’ve been successful in all but a very few instances.” 

Koball cited Paulina Borssok, who serves as house manager, and Bill Woodcock as the two other members who are the “partners in crime ... in this labor of love.” He also gives credit to former club president John Govers “who saw the value” of a new concert series. 

The club was founded by three Berkeley women, hill-dwellers, appalled by the development already swamping what they loved about Berkeley in the later days of the 19th century. Architect Bernard Maybeck was president in 1910 and designed an earlier clubhouse, which burned in the disastrous Berkeley fire of 1923. “Talking in terms of continuity,” said Koball, “we have a member, now aged 102 or 103, who helped put out that fire. I’m proud of what the club’s become—and hope we can keep it alive another hundred years.”

Items on Display at Berkeley Main Library 

The Berkeley Historical Society recently opened a sealed chest found in the Veterans Memorial Building, which was placed there in 1939 for safekeeping by the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Post 88.  

Post 88 was established in Berkeley on Nov. 14, 1885. After the war between the states ended, the veterans returned to their homes or established new homes throughout the U.S. Civil War veterans groups that were established all over the country, including 102 of them in California alone.  

The chapters or “posts” held regular meetings, collected dues, and went to “encampments,” a sort of campout-convention-get-together, where they exchanged stories and ideas. Quite a few were held in the Bay Area. Each post selected a name for their group in addition to the number and region in which it was located. Many of them chose the name of a famous battlefield or important location in the war. Berkeley chose Lookout Mountain in honor of the battle that took place there in Tennessee.  

The Lookout Mountain Post first met in the Odd Fellows Hall in Berkeley and later in the Veterans Memorial Building when it was completed in 1928. Post 88 had 221 members, who served in many Northern troop branches, including the U.S. Navy, Calvary, Infantry, Sharpshooters and Artillery. The post existed for 54 years. Many of the veterans were buried in Sunset Cemetery in El Cerrito or Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.  

The last two members were Thomas H. Gilbert and Erie A. May, who both died at age 92. When the last member in a post died, the records of the group were packaged and entrusted to a civic group or location. The Berkeley records were packed in a handmade chest and placed in the Veterans Memorial Building for safekeeping.  

A note inside says, “This chest was prepared and disposal of contents placed by Erie A. May, the last Commander of the post, May, 1939.” The contents included: a framed charter dated 1885, assorted banners and flags, a photo of Lookout Mountain, a photograph of the group signed by Julia Dent Grant, Tent No. 32 (Daughter of General Grant), several veterans’ discharge papers, membership records, dues account books, rules and bylaws, copies of official rituals, day books, and printed reports of many encampments.  

The final encampment of the GAR in the United States was held in Indianapolis, Ind., in 1949. It was decided that the installed officers remaining would stay in office for the life of each organization. The last GAR member was Albert Woolson, who died in 1956 at the age of 109. The spirit of the GAR is carried on in many California chapters of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.  

Berkeleyans are urged to visit the Berkeley Public Library Main Branch showcases to see the records of these veterans who served in the battle between the states. The display will run through March 3. 

John Aronovici is co-president of the Berkeley Historical Society.

It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. 

Last week two hummers, a male and a female, got into our living room, were trapped inside when a gust of wind blew the front door shut, and became entangled in the curtains. Matt the Cat spotted them (he doesn’t so much hunt things as point), and Ron, who moves faster than I do in these situations, retrieved them and released them on the front porch, apparently none the worse for wear. 

I didn’t refer to this distracted twosome as a pair, because hummingbirds don’t form pairs. Mating is promiscuous, and males don’t involve themselves in the tedious business of nest construction and childcare. 

You may have noticed the dive display of the male Anna’s. As described in the authoritative Birds of North America series: “The male sings 1–2 sets of buzzy notes while hovering 2–4 meters over the object of the display for 1–2 second, then climbs in a wavering fashion nearly vertically for 7–8 seconds to a height of 20–40 meters, plummets in a near-vertical dive for 2 seconds, ending the dive with a loud Dive Noise within 0.5–1 meter of object, finally returning in a continuous circular arc … to the beginning point over the object ... The object may be a female Anna’s Hummingbird, another hummingbird, another bird species, or occasionally a human; the sight of any perched hummingbird in its core area may initiate a Dive Display.” 

The exact nature of the Dive Noise, or dive chirp, has been much debated among ornithologists. The late Luis Baptista, former curator of birds at the California Academy of Sciences, thought it was vocal, since the frequency of the chirp was similar to that of the hummer’s vocalization. (It was Baptista who established that Anna’s hummingbirds, like more conventional songbirds such as the white-crowned sparrow, have local song dialects.) 

Recent work by UC Berkeley graduate student Christopher Clark and recent graduate Teresa Feo makes a compelling case that the noise is mechanical in origin, created by specialized tail feathers. 

Their investigations involved a high-speed video camera and a wind tunnel. 

Clark and Feo took the camera, with a 500 shot-per-second capability, to the Albany Bulb, where they alternately wired a stuffed female hummingbird to a bush or staked out a live female in a cage. Males responded to both variants. The camera captured a 60-millisecond spreading of the displaying male’s tail feathers at the bottom of the dive, coincident with the chirp.  

Having observed that Anna’s hummingbirds had, as Clark puts it, “funny tail feathers with tapered or narrow tips,” the researchers then captured several male hummers and customized their tails—either removing the outer pair of tail feathers or trimming their inner vanes. Modified males still performed dive displays, but failed to produce the dive noise. 

The final piece fell into place at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, where Clark and Feo exposed outer tail feathers to wind speeds equivalent to a male’s dive speed of 50 miles per hour. The chirp was reproduced in the wind tunnel when the inner vane of the feather fluttered at a frequency of 3.3 to 4.7 kiloherz, four octaves above middle C. Tiny linking barbules kept the barbs of the inner vane stiff enough to vibrate like the reed in a clarinet.  

The dive chirp is actually louder than the hummer’s vocalization. Clark and Feo suggest that this may be an evolutionary response to the constraints posed by the small size of the bird’s syrinx, or song box (the avian equivalent of the larynx). They suspect that close relatives of the Anna’s hummingbird, like the desert-dwelling Costa’s, may produce their chirps in a similar fashion. 

Mechanical sound production in birds is unusual, but not unknown. 

The “winnowing” noise of the Wilson’s snipe is apparently produced by its tail feathers, although no one has worked out the mechanism. Common nighthawks make a rude sound with their wing feathers, and I’m convinced that the bizarre rustling-grating-creaking sounds emitted by a displaying male great-tailed grackle can’t be entirely vocal. The club-winged manakin of Ecuador has specialized wing feathers that operate like a zydeco musician’s rubboard: a scraper feather hitting the ridged vane of another feather. 

It’s good to have the riddle of the dive chirp resolved—and to be reminded that there’s still much to be discovered about even the most familiar of birds.  

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” Documentary screening in celebration of Darwin Day at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

“Is the U.S. Provoking an Arms Race in Space?” A talk by Mike Moore, author of “Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance” at 6:30 p.m. at The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. RSVP to 632-1366. 

The California Colloquium on Water A Look at the Sonoma County North American Climate Initiative with Randy Poole, General Manager/Chief Engineer, Sonoma County Water Agency at 5:30 p.m. at 250 Goldman School of Public Policy, 2607 Hearst Ave. at LeRoy. 642-2666. 

“Love at First Sight: America’s Love Affair with the Rose” A documentary about people who grow roses for sale and competition at 6 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden. Registration required. 643-2755, ext. 03. Cost is $9-$12. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

“First Ever Yo-yo Hike of the Continental Divide Trail: Mexico to Canada and Back” with Francis Tapon at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Teen Playreaders meets to read and discuss Hamlet and related plays at 4:30 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13 

Berkeley Public Library Master Plan for Branch Libraries will be discussed at the Board of Library Trustees meeting at 7 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6107. 

Celebrate Darwin Day with a talk by David Seaborg on “Principle of Evolution Today” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. www.defendscience.org 

East Bay Science Cafe “Celebrating Darwin” on Darwin’s 199th Birthday with Kevin Padian, UC Museum of Palentology at 7 p.m. at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. http://bnhm.berkeley.edu 

“A Farewell to Israel: The Coming Break-Up of American Zionism” with Dr. Norman Finkelstein at 7 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Benefit for Middle East Children’s Alliance. Cost is $15. 548-0542. ww.mecaforpeace.org 

“Compassion in Exile” A film about the 14th Dalai Lama at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Encounter Point” A documentary featuring a Palestinian, Israeli, North and South American team from Just Vision profiling everyday leaders from all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who have suffered catastrophic losses and choose to seek common ground instead of revenge, at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St.  

The Inaugural Neil Gotanda Lecture in Asian American Jurisprudence with Prof. Neil Gotanda on his work on Critical Race Theory and Asian American Jurisprudence at 4 p.m. in the Goldberg Room, UC Berkeley School of Law, Bancroft at Piedmont. 415-290-0688. lisa_chin@berkeley.edu 

“The Concept of Race: Science or Social Construct?” with Dr. Martinez Hewlett, Prof. Emeritus of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Univ. of Arizona, at 9 a.m. at the Chapel of the Cross, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, 2770 Marin Ave. Free. 559-2731. 

Writer Coach Connection Volunteers needed to help Berkeley students improve their writing and critical thinking skills from noon to 3 p.m. or from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org  

Cycling Lecture with Jacquie Phelan, womens cycling advocate at 7 p.m. and Ted Kirkbride at 8:30 p.m. at Velo Sport Bicycles, 1615 University Ave., enter at 1989 California. RSVP to 849-0437. 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

After-School Program Homework help, drama and music for children ages 8 to 18, every Wed. from 4 to 7:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $5 per week. 845-6830. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

THURSDAY, FEB. 14 

Shoreline Nature Exploration for the Deaf or Hearing Impaired from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Eastshore State Park, Berkeley Meadow. For information call 525-2233. 

African American Cultural Celebration with African drumming, the music of Thelonious Monk and vocalist Melanie DeMore at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison S., Oakland. The celebration is free of charge and the public is invited. Sponsored by St. Paul's Episcopal School. 285-9628. 

“Love of Humanity” Valetine’s Day Tea with Dr. Dacher Keltner on the biological and social origins of love at 3 p.m. at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. Cost is $10. RSVP to 642-4128. http://ihouse.berkeley.edu 

“Forbidden Landscapes: Negotiating Sacred Space at Tateyama” with Prof. Caroline Hirasawa, Dept. of History, Univ. of British Columbia, at 5 p.m. at Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. 809-1444. events@shin-ibs.edu 

Teen Book Club meets to discuss love stories at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 15 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with The Hon. Julian Evans, British Consul General, SF, on “Afghanistan and Pakistan: For Better or Worse.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“Overcoming Zionism” Joel Kovel, longtime activist, professor at Bard College, will read from and discuss his most recent and most controversial book, “Overcoming Zionism” at 7 p.m. BFUU Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Cosponsored by the Northern California Support Group of the International Solidarity Movement and the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian-Universalists. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 16 

Mud, Slugs and Newts An exploration of the advantages of being slimy! Rain or shine from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland in Celebration of Black History Month “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“African Americans: Champions of Democracy” with Cassie Lopez, community activist, on the role of African Americans today and through history, at 4 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph, at 65th St., Oakland. Donations accepted. 251-1120. 

Planetarium Showings of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Chabot Space and Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $9-$13. 336-7373.  

“Can a Confederation Help Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?” with Dr. Jhalil Barhoum of Stanford Univ., Francesca Giovannini, former U.N. employee and current lecturer in International and Area Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies Group Major, U.C. Berkeley, Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine and Mitchell Plitnick former Policy Director at Jewish Voice for Peace and others at 4 p.m. at Martin Luther King Student Union, 5th flr, UC Campus.  

“Planning Your Bay Area Edible Garden” at 10 a.m. at UC Botanical Garden. Cost is $20-$25. Registration required. 643-2755, ext. 03. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

“California Chronicles of Medical Marijuana” The screening of a Claire Burch film at 5 p.m. at the Regent Press Gallery, 4770 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Free. 849-0153. 

California Writers Club with Susan Bono, editor in chief of “Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative” at 10 a.m. at Barnes and Noble, Jack London Square. 272-0120. 

“Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” Videos from philosophers, scientists and community leaders, including Paul Hawken, Julia Butterfly Hill, Lynn Twist, Van Jones, Matthew Fox, Thomas Berry and more, from 1 to 6 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito. Sponsored by Pachamama Alliance. 665-6066. bohnert@sonic.net 

Akido for Peace: Training Across Borders Middle East peace fundraiser from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Aikido of Berkeley with instructor Hiroshi Ikeda, shihan. Suggested $75 donation; all proceeds go to Aiki Extensions’ Middle East Aikido Project. www.aikidoofberkeley.com  

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

“Meditation as Relationship, Relationship as Meditation” A workshop from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Urban Peace, 2584 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Cost is $35-$50, no one turned away. Please bring a bag lunch. Reservations required. 866-732-2320, ext. 1. 

Preschool Storytime, for ages 3-5, at 11 a.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Oakland Artisans Marketplace Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jack London Square. 238-4948. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 17 

Winter Wildlife Hike Join us as we look for winter birds, slimy newts and slippery banana slugs along the muddy trails, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Basics of Gardening Plan what to do in your garden for the rest of the year. We will cover the basics of what is appropriate for each season in Bay Area gardens. You will learn when to prune, look out for weeds, put down mulch, propagate, plant, and much more. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Bring lunch. Cost is $40-$48. Registration required. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

“The Afro-Caribbean and Black Native American Presence in California” with Lonny Shavelson at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2002. 

“Women Philosophers by H. D. Moe” on Martha C. Nussbaum at 11 a.m. at the Humanist Fellowship Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free. 451-5818. 

East Bay Atheists Berkeley meets at 1:30 p.m. in the Berkeley Main Library, 3rd Floor Meeting Room, 2090 Kittredge St. Fred Glynn will discuss his book, “Authors of the Bible,” which describes the men and women who wrote the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. 222-7580. eastbayatheists.org 

Gut Health is Great Health! From 3 to 4 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200.  

Kensington Farmers’ Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 303 Arlington Ave. at Amherst, Kensington. 525-6155. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Santosh Philip on “Increasing Awareness in the Dream State” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000 www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 5 to 9 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Cost is $3 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org  

MONDAY, FEB. 18 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bike Trip “Eastshore State Park and Aquatic Park” Meet at 8:30 a.m. at the southernmost pond of Aquatic Park, Bay and Potter Sts. Bring lunch and bike helmet. 843-2222. 

“Tillie Olsen: A Heart in Action” A new film by Ann Hershey at 7:30 p.m. at the California Theater, on Kittredge btwn Shattuck and Fulton. Q&A follows. Tickets are $10. annhersh@aol.com 

Berkeley Green Mondays “US Coverage of the Muslim World: Ignorance, Malice or Greed?” with Lisette B. Poole, CSU, at 7:30 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Open ot all. www.berkeleygreens.org 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. from 3 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Feb. 12, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m. at the Main Library, 2090 Kittredge St.. 981-6195.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13 , at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. 981-6740.  

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600. www.svdp-alameda.org 

Help a Newt Cross the Road Every year newts migrate across Hillside Drive to reach their breeding pools in Castro Creek. Volunteers prevent many of these creatures from being crushed by cars. We need volunteers every evening during January and February in El Sobrante. The newts are most active on rainy nights. annabelle11_3@yahoo.com 

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832. www.EarnItKeepItSaveIt.org 

Donate the Excess Fruit from Your Fruit Trees I’ll gladly pick and deliver your fruit to community programs that feed school kids, the elderly, and the hungry. The fruit trees should be located in Berkeley and organic (no pesticides). This is a free volunteer/ 

grassroots thing so join in!! To scehdule and appointment call or email 812-3369. northberkeleyharvest@gmail.com

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. 

“CounterPulse chooses two artists per season for residency,” said Maya Gurantz, Temescal Labs’ founder and dynamic artistic director. “It’s a very supportive process. Remarkable to work with my company in this professional space—especially to be able to work on developing all these ideas, these dark stories, without having to worry about a final product.” 

The two major stories are those of Fernando Jimenez Gonzalez, an 18-year-old worker at a P.C. Board company in Silicon Valley, who drowned in a vat of sulphuric acid last September (and whose family, after months of an OSHA investigation, has just been compensated: $3,800), and Hans Reiser, now on trial in Oakland, accused of doing away with his wife.  

“The Reiser story is about the more invisible costs of the industry,” Gurantz noted. “He’s on the intellectual end of production, whereas Gonzalez was in manufacturing, at the opposite end.” 

The staging of Clean includes a 15x15-foot piece of fake turf in the middle of the CounterPulse space, and a tissue dancer, playing Gonzalez, performing his fatal tumble over and over. 

“There’s lots of movement for the Hans Reiser character, too,” said Gurantz, “and lots of found text. This has been a real exploration, deeply researched. I went over 10 years’ back issues of the San Jose Mercury and read the relevant books, and everybody joined in—actors, designers ... we had field trips to the Intel Museum. And I don’t know that we’re anywhere near finished. The ideas involved are too big to find answers to in three months.” 

Meanwhile, Gurantz is looking toward the future. “I’ll be directing for Shotgun in their Fall slot, then we’re trying to take Clown Bible [in which Biblical stories are performed as musical comedy by clowns] to New York. And figuring out what the next project is, though we’re not finished with this one at all! And we’d like to take something to Europe the summer after this one—a Commedia-type clown piece.” 

And why the name change from Ten Red Hen? “That’s the name of my blog!” said Gurantz. “It was chosen in a moment of haste to give the company a name when The 99-Cent Miss Saigon was opening. The blog will keep that name. But I think Temescal Labs is less confusing, communicates more what we do. And we’re permanent Oakland residents now. Besides, I like what ‘Temescal’ means—it’s the Ohlone word for sweat lodge.” 

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.  

The collection is usually known by the name Ethnic Notions. More recently, Faulkner had hoped to sell the whole collection to a museum, but with no success. Where is the Smithsonian when you need them? 

Now, this whole remarkable assemblage is going to be broken up and offered for sale to collectors. If you saw the show at the Berkeley Art Center in 1982, you only saw a fraction of the whole collection. For this first scheduled sale all of the objects from the collection, not just the couple of hundred in the museum exhibition, will be shown and offered for sale. Paper ephemera items will be featured at a later sale. 

The observant flâneur in the contemporary supermarket will occasionally catch a glimpse of some brand survivors from as far back as the 1890s, fugitive images of Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and Rastus, the chef on the Cream of Wheat box, still being used to sell products today. Few are aware that these taken-for-granted icons are only the tip of an enormous black iceberg of African-American stereotypes used to sell everything from pancakes, syrup, fried chicken, candy, coffee, yams, toothpaste, and laundry detergent to golf tees, tobacco, clothing, liquor, toys, novelties and greeting cards. 

Among the most famous advertising characters of the past were the Gold Dust twins, Goldie and Dustie, two “pickaninnies” who touted cleaning products for Lever Brothers. My own tiny collection includes a tube of Darkie toothpaste, made in Taiwan, showing a very black man with very white teeth. Even ofay Mrs. Butterworth comes in a synechdochal brown, Mrs. Butterworth-shaped bottle. 

Strangely, in America, blacks are both loved and hated, trusted and feared, taboo and desirable, divine and demonic. As far as merchandising, they have been used to sell products for at least two centuries. And this selling of products spills over into the images of blacks in literature, music, radio, film and television. All black performers know that their individual performances can be subsumed either by themselves or their audience into any number of stereotypes. Film scholar Donald Bogle explicates some of these types in his pioneering Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks. Where Europe has Harlequin, Scaramouche, Columbine, Pierrot and Punch, America has Jim Crow, Uncle Remus, Amos and Andy and Sambo. 

Faulkner’s assembling of these enigmatic objects, each of which speaks with an eloquence that transcends the need for explanation or commentary, is a remarkable achievement by a unique individual who had a personal insight into race in America. The films Ghost World and Bamboozled hint at some of this vision, but it is even rawer and more immediate here. It is sad to think that Ms. Faulkner’s conception will be fragmented, but if you have never seen it, you will not want to miss this final showing of Ethnic Notions.

FRIDAY, FEB. 8 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Barefoot in the Park” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $10-$12. 649-5999.  

Altarena Playhouse “Wait Until Dark” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553.  

Aurora Theatre “Satellites” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. through March 2. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822.  

Berkeley Rep “”Wishful Drinking” with Carrie Fisher, at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St., through March 30. Tickets are $33-$69. 647-2949. 

Black Repertory Group Theatre “A Raisin In The Sun” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $5-$25. 652-2120.  

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “The Cocoanuts” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., some Sun. matinees at 2 p.m., at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through March 2. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

foolsFURY Theater “Monster in the Dark” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 5 p.m., through Feb. 17, at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $12-$30. 800-838-3006.  

Masquers Playhouse “Angel Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. through Feb. 23 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

“Still I Stand” written and performed by Marissa Saunders. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Longfellow School Theater, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $15-$20.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Real or Surreal” Art by Mari Kearney. Reception at 7:30 p.m. at Cafe Diem, 2224 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 

FILM 

Jean-Pierre Léaud “The Mother and the Whore” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

“The Invisible Forest” A film by Antero Alli at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakland. Tickets $8-$12. www.21grand.org  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charles Wollenberg reads from “Berkeley: A City in History” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s. 704-8222. 

Carol Gilligan talks about her new book “Kyra” at 6:30 p.m. at Bette’s Oceanview Diner on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Grace Grafton and Cherese Wyneken, poets, at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave. 841-6374. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Anatolian Folk Music at noon at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. 

Triskela, celtic harp trio,at 7:30 p.m. at the Arlington Community Church, 53 Arlington Ave. Tickets are $5-$15. 526-9146. 

History and Harmony Black History Concert Series at 7:30 p.m. at Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$10. 544-8924. 

Catalina Claroat 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

Pamela Rose & Danny Caron Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Slammin, Crosspulse at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054.  

Justin Hellman at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373.  

Amy Meyers at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

SF Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival with The Freight Hoppers, Crooked Jades at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Bosssa Five-O, jazz, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

David Silverberg, Christina Kowalchuk at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Scott Amendola, Matthais Bossi and Devin Ray Hoff at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Jimmie Reign, Rozi Crane, R&B, at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 839-6169. 

A.P.P.L.E., Resistant Culture, Armistice, at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Kevin Beadles at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

The Jelly Roll Souls at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Eliane Elias, sings and plays Bill Evans, at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 9 

CHILDREN  

Children’s Book Marathon in Celebration of Black History Month from 1 to 4 p.m. at the African American Museum & Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. Free, but reservations strongly encouraged. 637-0200. 

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Gary Lapow at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568.  

Music and Puppets with Jen Miriam at 11 a.m. at Studio Grow, 1235 Tenth St. Cost is $7. 526-9888. 

“The Wizard of Ahhhhs” Magic show with Blake Maxam Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellvue Ave., Oakland.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Art of Living Black” and “Emory Douglas: The Art of Political Protest” Opening reception with Emory Douglas in person at 3 p.m. at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. 620-6772. 

National Institute of Art & Disabilities “NIAD Faculty & Artists” A 25th Anniversary Celebration. Opening reception at 2 p.m. at 551 23rd St., Richmond. 620-0290.  

“Tilden Odyssey” Textured paintings, collages, and monotypes by Sheila Sondick on display at the Tilden Nature Center, through Feb. 28. 525-2233 

“Double Vision: Artist Partners” Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, 25 Grand Ave., upper level, Oakland. www.chandracerrito.com 

“Yea We Said It, And No We’re Not Sorry” works by Malik and Milton Bowens for Black History Month. Opening reception at 5:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. 465-8928. 

FILM 

African Film Festival “Clouds Over Conakry” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Gillian Conoley and Jane Miller at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Moiseyev Dance Company at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988.  

Community Women’s Orchestra at 4 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1331 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Suggested donation $10, children free. 463-0313.  

Philharmonia Baroque Beetoven’s “Emperor” piano concerto with Robert Levin, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400.  

“Love Songs & Chocolate” at 7 :30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Suggested donation $15, includes a variety of desserts. 525-0302. 

Powell St. John at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 1809b Fourth Street. 525-2129. 

Gateswingers Jazz Band, for dancing or just listening, at 8 p.m. at Central Perk, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 558-7375. 

Ed Reed & his Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ.  

Yarie Toure, Djekouria Fanta Conde at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Guinean dance workshop at 9 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. 

Kurt Maire, Jesse Rubin at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Junius Courtney Band with a staged reading of “The Billy Strayhorn Session” at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Kally Price Old Time Music at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. 

Ray Obiedo & Mambo Caribe, Latin jazz, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Mikie Prasand Band at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub. 647-1790.  

Beatbeat Whisper, Or, the Whale, Emily Jane White, indie folk country, at 9 p.m. at Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Terrence Brewer Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Izzy Osbourne, Everything Must Go at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7-$10. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 10 

CHILDREN 

Oliver Chin reads from “The Year of the Rat” at 2 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

Matt Faulkner introduces “The Taste of Colored Water” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Homage to the Motherland” Oil paintings by Hongyun Suriwong. Reception at 4 p.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. 524-9283. 

FILM 

Human Rights Film Festival “Strange Culture” at 5:30 p.m., “City of Photographers” at 7:05 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Celebration of Music” with the Music School at Piedmont Piano Company to benefit Christopher Rodriguez who was shot while taking a piano lesson, from 2 to 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Tickets are $25. 547-8188. www.piedmontpiano.com 

Jen Baker, solo trombone, at 4 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Live Oak Concert Jazz Duo with Laura Klein, piano, Ted Wolff, vibraphone, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., near Eunice. TIckets are $10-$12. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and Piedmont Choir in a family friendly concert at noon at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Free. 415-248-1640.  

Moiseyev Dance Company at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988.  

Organ Recital with John Karl Hirten at 6 p.m. at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. 845-0888.  

Philharmonia Baroque Beetoven’s “Emperor” piano concerto with Robert Levin, at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-392-4400. www.philharmonia.org 

Aleph Null Sextet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Magic Carpet, world fusion, at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Debbie Poryes Trio at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373.  

Ledward Kaapana & Mike Kaawa at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

La Plebe, Carnal Knowledge, Zomo at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, FEB. 11 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charles Wollenberg describes “Berkeley: A City in History” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Dowmtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Aurora Theatre “Kings Play Chess on Fine Green Satin” reading followed by discussion at 7:30 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. Free. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

David Roche describes “The Church of 80% Sincerity” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express with FrancEye from Los Angeles at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

Poetry Reading with Lynn Knight at 6:30 p.m.,at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Arts Festival Jerry Kuderna Monday Lunch Piano Concert from noon to 1 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave. Free. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Luciano Chessa “Nodi d'amore” at 8 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. 665-9496. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Dazzling Divas Opera at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100.  

Parlor Tango at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

West Coast Songwriters Competition at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Dave Eshelman’s Jazz Garden Big Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 

FILM 

Experimental Documentaries “Here Is Always Somewhere Else” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Garrison Keillor at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$62. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Peggy Orenstein reads from “Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, FIve Fertiltiy Doctors, An Oscar, An Atomic Bomb, A romantic Night, and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

‘Round Midnight Marathon at Berkeley Arts Festival with John Schott in an eight-hour tribute to Thelonious Monk from 2 to 10 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave. 665-9496.  

“Sweet Soul Music: Rare Soul Music Performance Clips from the 1960s and Early 1970s” with Rickie Unterberger at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Jeffrey Broussard and the Creole Cowboys at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Solo Bach Night with Lara St. John, Sam Bass, Dave Grossman, and others at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Kaspar/Sherman Jazz Quartet at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Sierra Leone’s Refugee Allstars at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200.  

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia” A twenty-five year survey of works opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, and runs through May 18. 642-0808.  

FILM 

History of Cinema “Battleship Potemkin” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

African Film Festival “Young Rebels: New Visions from Africa” at 6:30 p.m. and “Life on Earth” at 8:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Russell Banks reads from “The Reserve” a suspense novel set at the begining of WWII, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

Daniel Alarcorn reads from “Lost City Radio” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe's Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

“Cancer in Other Words” prose, poetry, at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit Celebrating Black History Month with music by J. Roalnd Braithwaite, Bongai Ndodana and Fela Sowande at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with students from the Young Musicians Program at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Rebecca Griffin & her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Tamsen Donner Blues Band at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. West Coast swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $7. 525-5054. 

Mysterioso at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Jenna Mammina and guests at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, FEB. 14 

FILM 

A Theater Near You: “Let’s Get Lost” at 6:30 p.m. and Jean-Pierre Léaud “Masculine-Feminie” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charles Wollenberg introduces “Berkeley: A City in History” at 6 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

“California Tile: The Golden Era 1910-1940” with Riley Doty tile expert and collector at 7:30 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Cost is $8-$10. 763-9218.  

Lonny Shavelson and Fred Setterberg discuss “Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2002. 

Nancy Polikoff describes “Beyond(Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under the Law” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

African American Cultural Celebration with African drumming, the music of Thelonious Monk and vocalist Melanie DeMore at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison S., Oakland. Free. 285-9628. 

Nina Ananiashvili and The State Ballet of Georgia at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$90. 642-9988.  

Maeve Donnelly with Tony McManus at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Karina Denike & her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Melvin Seals & JGB, R&B, rock, funk, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $17-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Flamenco, Candlelight and Roses dinner shows Thurs.-Sat. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $75-$115.  

Bekah Barnett & Joni Davis at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Antioquia, Locura, Night Train at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. 

Valentine’s Celebration with Aya de Leon at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568.  

Diablo’s Dust at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Cedar Walton Sextet at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

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). 

Although the knitting machine was invented as early as 1589, knitting remained a cottage craft for more than 250 years. Not until the mid-19th century, when the circular knitting machine was introduced, did machine-knitted undergarments become common. 

In 1864, William Cotton of Leicestershire developed a full-fashioned machine, capable of producing garments that fit the body’s shape. This innovation helped turn commercial knitting into a full-fledged industry in Europe. 

Four years after Cotton’s invention, the 25-year-old John Jacob Pfister, who had worked as a traveling salesman in his native Switzerland, left for the New World. He is said to have been one of the passengers who made the trip to San Francisco on the first transcontinental train. 

In 1877, Pfister obtained three hand-operated knitting machines and began manufacturing knitwear on a small scale with the help of two assistants. The impetus may have come from Pfister’s elder brother, who had remained in Switzerland and become a knitwear manufacturer. 

Who were the two assistants? Pfister’s biography in Greater Oakland, 1911: A Volume Dealing with the Big Metropolis on the Shores of San Francisco Bay (Pacific Publishing Co.) doesn’t reveal their names. However, a decade following this modest beginning, the J.J. Pfister Knitting Company, now incorporated, was operating a factory at 410 Polk Street, on the corner of McAllister and cater-cornered from the construction site of San Francisco’s city hall, begun in 1872 but not completed until 1899. 

In 1889, J.J. Pfister Knitting Co. was listed in the San Francisco directory as manufacturers of crochet and knitted goods, bathing suits, tights, underwear, sporting uniforms, and importers of bolting cloth. By then, Pfister was employing two men who within a decade would utilize their acquired know-how to found their own knitting company—one that would rival Pfister’s and eventually eclipse it. They were John O. Gantner, corporate secretary, and George A. Mattern, mill superintendent (see “Knitwear Magnate Looked to Europe for Building Inspiration” in the Jan. 25, 2008 issue). 

As the Victorian era waned, Americans of both sexes were engaging in more athletic pursuits than ever before, propelling consumer demand for swimsuits, jerseys, golf vests, sweaters, and leggings. Pfister opened a retail store at 60 Geary Street in downtown San Francisco, where he sold both off-the-shelf and knit-to-order apparel and underwear. 

Athletic uniforms being an important component of the catalog, Pfister was active in the affairs of the YMCA, even attending the organization’s state conventions. His employee G.A. Mattern learned and copied from the master. 

On June 13, 1905, the San Francisco Call reported that property owners and lease holders of the blocks bounded by Geary, Stockton, Post, and Kearny Streets had met “to discuss ways and means of beautifying Union Square Avenue [today’s Maiden Lane] and turning the alley into an attractive place for retail shoppers.” Newton J. Tharp, a prominent San Francisco architect (he would become the City Architect in 1907) presented a sketch of a covered arcade proposed for the two blocks between Kearny and Stockton Streets. 

“On each side of the street were walks seven feet wide. Every thirty feet was a pillar, made of iron and supporting a glass roof,” reported the Call. The retail merchants in attendance “seemed very enthusiastic over the possibility of the artistic improvement. Most of them had seen the shopping streets of Paris, Berlin, Milan and other European cities, where the covered shopping avenues have been in vogue for many years.” 

A second meeting was convened on June 19 to poll all interested parties, of whom J.J. Pfister was one. A committee was formed and success seemed assured when the City Engineer announced that obstructions on the streets ran contrary to the city charter and the building ordinance and therefore could not be legally accomplished. The merchants vowed to continue, but the momentum appeared to have fizzled. 

And then the earthquake struck, followed by fire. Pfister family lore, passed down through John Jacob’s daughter-in-law, tells that on the first day of the fire, the Polk Street factory burned down; on the second day, the Geary Street shop went up in flames; and on the third day, the house at 2208 Jones St. was decimated. 

The business was insured by the Pennsylvania Insurance Company, the home by German-American (now Great American Life Insurance), and both refused to cover the loss, since the fire was caused by earthquake. 

Two San Francisco friends are said to have helped Pfister start from scratch. Were they Gantner and Mattern, whose own facilities were not harmed? Perhaps, but not likely. 

A week after the earthquake, Pfister had opened a temporary office at 1006 McAllister St., and on June 26, the Berkeley Reporter announced that the J.J. Pfister Knitting Company had bought a tract of land in West Berkeley, along Parker Street from Seventh to Tenth, and would construct there a factory employing between 150 and 200 hands. 

The land was purchased from the Carleton family, which owned a 100-acre farm on San Pablo Road. 

“Five factories are now working on machines to stock this new knitting mill, which is expected to be in full working order some time during September,” informed the Reporter. “In order to accommodate its employees, the company will build a number of cottages, and rent them at a nominal figure.” 

The Reporter also made it known that in addition to its factory hands, the Pfister Company employed “many outside hands to do finishing and crocheting and will thus give a number of Berkeley people an opportunity to increase their income by working in their own homes.” It was rumored that the town would “meet the company by completing the macadamizing of Seventh Street to and through the company’s land and also macadamizing Parker Street to the West Berkeley railroad line.” 

By July 11, the Reporter divulged that architect William H. Wharff had prepared plans for the new factory, which would contain 27,000 square feet, measure 150 by 60 feet, and accommodate 100 employees. The previous year, Wharff had designed the Masonic Temple on the corner of Shattuck Ave. and Bancroft Way. 

Opened in November 1906, the Pfister factory was originally clad in brown shingles. The Oakland Tribune took stock of it on Dec. 8 of that year: 

The building is two stories in height and is well lighted by fifteen windows on each side of the building. The basement is being used for storing a large stock of yarns; the first floor has the knitting machines; the second floor contains the machines used for finishing off garments. D. Halliday erected the factory building, and also a handsome residence for J.J. Pfister, the proprietor of the factory, which is located east of the factory building. The factory is employing twenty-five persons this week, but in the near future the number of employees will be increased to 100. 

At latest there are thirty-two machines of the latest and most improved type in use on the first floor, and eighteen on the second floor. Fifteen new machines will be obtained in the near future, and will materially increase the capacity of the plant. 

The Pfister family—John Jacob, Bertha, and John Jacob Jr.—settled in a modest shingled cottage—also designed by Wharff—across the street from the factory, at 2601 8th Street. The company’s San Francisco office and sales rooms returned to Polk and McAllister, and a new store was opened in 1908 at 739 Market St., opposite Grant Avenue. 

In 1907, the frugal Pfister hit upon an ingenious way to promote his business without shelling out for display ads. His brief, three-line ads began appearing in the San Francisco Call’s editorial columns, the only such ads to occupy this type of space. 

Business was sufficiently good, but the Pfisters lived modestly and their names were never mentioned in the society pages. John Jr. was not a coddled son. In 1907, at the age of 20, he took out an ad in the Call in which he described himself as experienced in farming and wanting a position as teamster on a large farm. Evidently he found such a position, because in 1909 he took out another ad, this time describing himself as an experienced teamster with good knowledge of farming who could take entire charge of a small place. A year later, he was superintendent in the knitting mill. 

From trade publications of the era one gathers that the Pfister company had a capitalization of $80,000 in 1913 and $120,000 in 1916, at which time they operated 72 knitting machines. But the company wasn’t strong enough to withstand the post-WWI recession of 1920–21. John Jacob Pfister died on April 21, 1921. Although his daughter-in-law claimed that he was ruined financially and died of a broken heart, Pfister left his wife and son an estate of $48,000, consisting of a house and lot in Berkeley and 640 acres in Placer county. 

The Emporium bought the Pfister inventory and on December 22, 1924, advertised “Stock purchase of the well known J.J. Pfister Knitting Co. of San Francisco and Berkeley, who are retiring after forty years of successful business. On sale Tuesday at nine—at regular wholesale prices: Sweaters for men, boys, women, children, infants. Not only sweaters but other wanted knitted wearing apparel of high quality just in time for your last-minute Christmas shopping. Every garment high grade and dependable in every way. Truly a lucky purchase!” 

In 1923, the Pfisters moved their house to 1233 Derby Street, where they continued to live for the rest of their days. John Jacob Jr. went to work as a clerk in another knitting company. The Pfister factory was taken over in 1929 by the Bomberger Seed Company, which stuccoed the exterior. The building was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark in November 1986. 

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA).

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. 

Some garden sounds are perfectly pleasant. It’s possible, for example, to overdo it with windchimes, but on their own they’re good. One set, please, and in a soothing rather than ebullient pitch because ebullient becomes excruciating in short order. Want to make it art? Hang them in a spot where the wind doesn’t usually reach. They become a rare treat and also a source of information: Listen! The wind’s shifted. The weather’s about to change. 

Water’s another common source of garden music, and lately you can shop for every choral range from falsetto to seafloor bass. It’s easy enough to make your own fountain out of an interesting stone or a pot or other artifact. Remember how folks used to make lamps out of old bottles, spools, oilcans, small pets who sat still too long? I guess they still do, actually.  

Now, with a low-power recirculating pond pump and a length of plastic tubing, you can follow that same inclination, only toward fountains. Forget the Mannequin (or Manneken) Pis—please!—and the standard drooling lion or spitting fish. Pipe a stream through a broken hula-hoop or a copper spiral from that still you never got finished. Bounce it down a ladder of old serving spoons. Pour it from a jug into a bowl. Run it over an umbrella or plumb a bowling ball.  

Natural fountains are easy enough, if that’s more your style. A pile of stones and a basin with plants to soften the rim: instant waterfall. It’s a good idea to cement or putty your stack of rocks together, but try them out in a few different poses first; then run your tubing up the back. If you’re daring and fickle you can just balance them unglued and leave the option of rearranging them on a whim. You might find the local raccoon or possum doing the rearranging for you some night, though. 

Moving water does attract wildlife, including the musical kind. It doesn’t take much to do that: just a drip into a shallow bowl will bring in birds you didn’t know you had in the neighborhood, and it can happen overnight. You get bird music—they’re starting already, as the hummingbirds are nesting and the robins singing in rehearsal before they migrate—and if you have a dead tree handy you might even get woodpeckers to play the drums.  

One of the most common features in our early 20th century housing stock is that imperishable ruffian of the heating world, the floor furnace. 

It continues to amaze me how many of these persist in operating as the main source of heat for houses since they do not heat spaces uniformly and pose a greater risk for fire, burns and exhaust leaks than many other types of heater. The answer to this conundrum is, of course, that since they don’t just up-and-die, people keep on using them. 

Natural gas floor furnaces are radiant heaters that heat the spaces that they are in and provide no ducting to heat adjacent spaces. This means that they will tend to bake their immediate environs when they are being used to heat whole houses. Floor furnaces actually heat by convection more than by radiation, which means that they are creating a plume of heat that drives air up to the ceiling above them, down the walls and across the floor back into the unit.  

Since this process pushes air, it also pushes dust, dander and animal hair into the unit where it comes to rest near the bottom. In other words, floor furnaces are central vacuum systems and this is why they are always filled with dust. This material is of course, flammable and adds a lovely allergenic aroma to the air which those of you privy to this experience will recognize immediately.  

Excessive built-up of dust and dander also becomes a fire hazard and should be maintained with the narrow wand of a vacuum cleaner. Many older floor furnaces have a metal cowling or heat shield that can be easily removed for cleaning. Be sure and put it back properly when this job is complete. Some later models have a heat sensor attached to the shield and should only be removed by a professional. You’ll readily see a wire attached to the shield if you try to remove it. 

Floor furnaces get quite hot when being used and small children, especially toddlers are at risk around these floor mounted ovens. Remember that infants do not have well developed heat sensors or reactions and will be burned before they have become aware. 

Flammables should be kept clear of these units and this includes rugs, newspapers, books and drapes. It’s improper to have these devices installed where a door swings across the grill, since even these can catch fire after hours of prolonged heating. 

A feature that’s important to look for with any radiant heater is the presence of a thermostat in the area heated by the device. If the thermostat is located beyond a doorway, the door may be shut when the unit is in use allowing the heater to reach much higher temperatures than those mandated by the thermostat. If this is true for you, have your heating contractor move the thermostat. If you have a unit that turns on and off with a metal floor key, consider having a thermostat installed since without one, the unit can be left on and reach very high temperatures, greatly increasing the likelihood of fire. 

Like all gas heating appliances, floor furnaces generate exhaust gas. This gas is toxic and can contain significant amount of carbon monoxide, a deadly, odorless gas. So it’s really important that these gases be moved outside the dwelling without leakage. I find that lots of these old floor furnaces leak at least a little bit and some leak a lot. One way that leaks occur is through a hole intentionally installed in all of these units right on top. These view holes come with covers and most have a mica or similar clear window in the top. These are often damaged or left open or lost entirely allowing flue glasses to literally pour into the dwelling. Under the best of circumstances this puts lots of steam into the house and under the worst of circumstances this may be deadly. There are also seam leaks on many of these.  

Last in this litany of complaints is the surprising fact that this kind of heating is more likely to create an electrical fire in an older home. This is due to the frequent use of electric heaters in homes that lack an adequate gas heat source. Many of the same homes that have floor furnaces have inadequate or unsafe wiring and the addition of an electric heater (often left on for hours at night) adds the duress that sets off a fire. 

The best response to these many concerns is to spend the money and upgrade. Forced air is the most common replacement but take some time to look at the alternatives before you spend your money. If you do go with forced air, consider using the old floor furnace housing (box) as your “cold-air return” (or intake). It will eliminate the need to repair the floor and generally works quite well. The filter for your “FAU” (forced air unit), can be placed in the gutted box of the floor furnace making it easy to service.  

Although I’ve never seen statistics on this, I wouldn’t be surprised if an FAU used less energy to heat the house than a floor furnace since all rooms are kept at roughly the same temperature with an FAU. The living room or hall is often baking hot when a floor furnace is trying to keep the back bedroom warm enough and this surely used a great deal of excess energy.  

If you are going to keep that floor furnace a while longer consider adding attic insulation to help hold and distribute heat that wants to go right up into space. Also be sure and have it looked at regularly by an expert. 

Despite the charm of our elderly housing stock and my love of restoration, this is one feature that I’d like to see us all part with. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 8 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Jennifer Watts, State Water Resources Control Board, on “Environmental Impacts of Fish Farming.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

Textile Society of America Luncheon with selections from the Hillside Club’s costume collection at 12:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $15, reservations required. 316-3528, president@hillsideclub.org 

Womansong Circle An evening of participatory singing for women at 7:15 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Small Assembly Room, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $15-$20.no one turned away for lack of funds. betsy@betsyrosemusic.org 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 9 

Pondering Ponds Listen to a tale about ponds, then explore this dynamic habitat filled with a variety of life, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Waterfalls of Berkeley Join Berkeley Path Wanderers and Greenbelt Alliance for a 5-mile walk with a 500 ft. elevation gain to vist two waterfalls and climb a volcanic rock. Meet at 10 a.m. at Liaison Cafe, NE corner of Shattuck and Hearst. Bring lunch and liquids, wear stur/dy shoes and dress in layers. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Dawin Day A celebration of the contributions of Charles Darwin with a short course on global climate change and evolution, diversification from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Museum of Palentology. For information and to register see www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/about/shortcourses/shortcourse08.php 

Bookmaking with Recycled Materials Learn how to make a book using coptic binding and creatively recycled materials from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $10-$15. Reservations required. 548-2220, ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org 

Children’s Book Marathon in Celebration of Black History Month from 1 to 4 p.m. at the African American Museum & Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. Free, but reservations strongly encouraged. 637-0200. 

NAACP meets at 1 p.m. at 2108 Russell St. All are welcome. 845-7416.  

“Evolution is in Action All Around Us” A discussion of the book “The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism” at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

“A Celebration of Diversity” with art and games, and a community potluck, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Peralta Historical Park, 2465 34th Ave., Oakland. Free. 532-9142. www.peraltshacienda.org 

The Great War Society meets to discuss “Killers of the Sea” and “The Log of U-35” by Andrew Melomet at 10:30 a.m. in the West Berkeley Library, 1125 University Ave. 527-7118. 

“The New Eugenics: Stem Cell Research and Cloning, What the Public Doesn't Know” sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum, at 7 p.m. at the Alameda Free Library, Conference Room A, 1550 Oak St. at Lincoln, Alameda. 814-9592.  

Healthy Gardens Learn how to minimize or eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in the garden, at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave., off 7th St. 644-2351. 

“Lead-Safety for Remodeling, Repair and Painting of Older Homes” HUD & EPA approved class from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, 2000 Embarcadero, #300, Oakland. 567-8280. www.aclppp.org 

Mindful Drumming: The Secret Power of Rhythm and Sound at 5:30 p.m. at Attitudinal Healing Connection, 3278 West St., Oakland. Cost is $20. 652-5530. 

Kids Go Green Activities centered on ecology and climate change from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Chabot Space and Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $9-$13. 336-7373.  

Preschool Storytime, for ages 3-5, at 11 a.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Adopt a Bunny Learn about habitat, feeding, playtime and grooming of rabbits at 1 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave. at Amherst, Kensington. 525-6155. 

Teen Knitting Circle at 3 p.m. in the 4th flr Story Room, Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Bring your own knitting needles in size 8, sample yarns provided. 981-6107. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Oakland Artisans Marketplace Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jack London Square. 238-4948. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 10 

Green Sunday: “Courage in Life and Politics: The Dona Spring Story” with a film about Dona Spring, the longest serving Green Party elected official in the United States, and Berkeley City Council member for 15 years, at 5 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland. www.acgreens.org 

Lunar New Year Celebration and Parade starting at 1 p.m. at the top of Solano Ave. at 1 p.m. and ending with performances at the Main Stage at Cornell School, Solano and Cornell, ALbany at 2 p.m. 527-5358. www.SolanoStroll.org 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Field Trip “Tilden Regional Park” with Della Dash. Meet at 9 a.m. at the parking lot at north end of Central Park Drive near the Little Farm for a 4 mile hike to look at wintering birds. 843-2222. 

Darwin Day: “The History of Life on Earth” A talk by David Seaborg, evolutionary biologist, at 1 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations accepted. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Latin America’s New Political and Economic Independence: Implications for a Multi-Polar World” with Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington D.C., at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. Suggested donation $10-$20. 415-924-3227. 

Sushi Basics Learn the natural and cultural history of this cuisine as you prepare and taste seven basic types of sushi. From 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $25-$39. Parent participation required for children 8-12 years. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS 

Kensington Farmers’ Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 303 Arlington Ave. at Amherst, Kensington. 525-6155. 

Fullpower Workshop Learn simple effective skills to keep yourself safe from 6:30 to 10 p.m. in Berkeley Cost is $105, no one turned away. To register and for location call 831-426-4407 ext. 1. safety@kidpower.org 

Mantras of Henry Marshall, led by Marcia Emery, PhD. at 2 p.m. at Peralta Community Garden, Hopkins and Peralta. If by chance it rains, we will postpone until the following month. 526-5510. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 5 to 9 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Cost is $3 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Keeping an Open Heart” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000 www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, FEB. 11 

“Berkeley: A City in History” with author Charles Wollenberg at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Dowmtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

“Genomic Advances to Improve Biomass for Biofuels” with Dan Rokhsar, U.S. Department of Energy, Joint Genome Institute, UC Berkeley at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Free. Presented by Berkeley Lab Friends of Science. 486-7292. www.lbl.gov/friendsofscience 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” Documentary screening in celebration of Darwin Day at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

“Is the U.S. Provoking an Arms Race in Space?” A talk by Mike Moore, author of “Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance” at 6:30 p.m. at The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. RSVP to 632-1366. 

The California Colloquium on Water A Look at the Sonoma County North American Climate Initiative with Randy Poole, General Manager/Chief Engineer, Sonoma County Water Agency at 5:30 p.m. at 250 Goldman School of Public Policy, 2607 Hearst Ave. at LeRoy. 642-2666. 

“Love at First Sight: America’s Love Affair with the Rose” A documentary about people who grow roses for sale and competition at 6 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden. Registration required. 643-2755, ext. 03. Cost is $9-$12. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

“First Ever Yo-yo Hike of the Continental Divide Trail: Mexico to Canada and Back” with Francis Tapon at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Teen Playreaders meets to read and discuss Hamlet and related plays at 4:30 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577.  

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13 

Berkeley Public Library Master Plan for Branch Libraries will be discussed at the Board of Library Trustees meeting at 7 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6107. 

Celebrate Darwin Day with a talk by David Seaborg on “Principle of Evolution Today” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. www.defendscience.org 

East Bay Science Cafe “Celebrating Darwin” on Darwin’s 199th Birthday with Kevin Padian, UC Museum of Palentology at 7 p.m. at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. http://bnhm.berkeley.edu 

“A Farewell to Israel: The Coming Break-Up of American Zionism” with Dr. Norman Finkelstein at 7 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Benefit for Middle East Children’s Alliance. Cost is $15. 548-0542. ww.mecaforpeace.org 

“Compassion in Exile” A film about the 14th Dalai Lama at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Encounter Point” A documentary featuring a Palestinian, Israeli, North and South American team from Just Vision profiling everyday leaders from all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who have suffered catastrophic losses and choose to seek common ground instead of revenge, at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St.  

The Inaugural Neil Gotanda Lecture in Asian American Jurisprudence with Prof. Neil Gotanda on his work on Critical Race Theory and Asian American Jurisprudence at 4 p.m. in the Goldberg Room, UC Berkeley School of Law, Bancroft at Piedmont. 415-290-0688. lisa_chin@berkeley.edu 

“The Concept of Race: Science or Social Construct?” with Dr. Martinez Hewlett, Prof. Emeritus of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Univ. of Arizona, at 9 a.m. at the Chapel of the Cross, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, 2770 Marin Ave. Free. 559-2731. 

Writer Coach Connection Volunteers needed to help Berkeley students improve their writing and critical thinking skills from noon to 3 p.m. or from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org  

Cycling Lecture with Jacquie Phelan, womens cycling advocate at 7 p.m. and Ted Kirkbride at 8:30 p.m. at Velo Sport Bicycles, 1615 University Ave., enter at 1989 California. RSVP to 849-0437. 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

After-School Program Homework help, drama and music for children ages 8 to 18, every Wed. from 4 to 7:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $5 per week. 845-6830. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

THURSDAY, FEB. 14 

Shoreline Nature Exploration for the Deaf or Hearing Impaired from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Eastshore State Park, Berkeley Meadow. For information call 525-2233. 

African American Cultural Celebration with African drumming, the music of Thelonious Monk and vocalist Melanie DeMore at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison S., Oakland. The celebration is free of charge and the public is invited. Sponsored by St. Paul's Episcopal School. 285-9628. 

“Love of Humanity” Valetine’s Day Tea with Dr. Dacher Keltner on the biological and social origins of love at 3 p.m. at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. Cost is $10. RSVP to 642-4128. http://ihouse.berkeley.edu 

“Forbidden Landscapes: Negotiating Sacred Space at Tateyama” with Prof. Caroline Hirasawa, Dept. of History, Univ. of British Columbia, at 5 p.m. at Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. 809-1444. events@shin-ibs.edu 

Teen Book Club meets to discuss love stories at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Mon., Feb. 11 at 6 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. 981-5470. 

City Council meets Tues., Feb. 12, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m. at the Main Library, 2090 Kittredge St.. 981-6195.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13 , at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Feb. 13, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. 981-6740.  

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600. www.svdp-alameda.org 

Help a Newt Cross the Road Every year newts migrate across Hillside Drive to reach their breeding pools in Castro Creek. Volunteers prevent many of these creatures from being crushed by cars. We need volunteers every evening during January and February in El Sobrante. The newts are most active on rainy nights. annabelle11_3@yahoo.com 

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832.  

Donate the Excess Fruit from Your Fruit Trees I’ll gladly pick and deliver your fruit to community programs that feed school kids, the elderly, and the hungry. The fruit trees should be located in Berkeley and organic (no pesticides). This is a free volunteer/ 

grassroots thing so join in!! To scehdule and appointment call or email 812-3369. northberkeleyharvest@gmail.com