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. -more-

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

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. -more-

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. -more-

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. -more-

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

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. -more-

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. -more-

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

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. -more-

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. -more-

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

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). -more-

Posted Sat., Feb. 9—It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. -more-

If the Berkeley City Council approves an item on Tuesday’s agenda, it will clarify city support for the troops—while continuing to condemn the war—and will rescind the section of the Jan. 29 council item that calls the downtown Marine Recruiting Center “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” that has provoked the ire of conservative bloggers and pundits. -more-

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

Berkeley’s Public Works Department submitted a revised work plan for dredging the lagoon at the north end of Aquatic Park to the Regional Water Quality Control Board last week. It is scheduled to go before the city council for approval in March. -more-

Neighbors say they are relieved: There won’t be a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and bar replacing the old Wright’s Garage at the corner of Ashby Avenue, just west of College Avenue. -more-

The Oakland City Council 2008 election dance card all but filled up this week with the announcement that North Oakland public safety activist Patrick Mc-Cullough is running for the District One seat currently held by Councilmember Jane Brunner. -more-

California Highway Patrol officers joined Richmond Police on patrol this week in a three-month concerted effort to stem the bloodshed that has plagued the city in recent months. -more-

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

Under the gun to file its contribution statements with the city of Berkeley rather than with Alameda County, Business for Better Government, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee (PAC), is going out of business. -more-

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

The Bay Area music community and the world lost an important voice and a respected, beloved teacher on Sunday, when composer Jorge Liderman died in an apparent suicide when he was struck by a BART train at the El Cerrito Plaza station. He had recently taken a leave of absence from the music department at UC Berkeley in order to treat his depression. The news of his death came as a grievous shock to the wide circle of people who knew him and called him a friend. -more-

Progressives disappointed over Barack Obama’s California numbers can be cheered by three critical facts. First, Obama did much better than was projected only a month ago, and California’s delegate selection process minimized Clinton’s popular vote margin. Second, the defeat of Prop. 93 promises to usher in a new era of progressive leadership in Sacramento, with the possibility that a “dream team” of Karen Bass as Assembly Speaker and Darrell Steinberg as Senate pro tem could be installed this session. Third, Prop. 93’s defeat set up contested Democratic primary contests across the state, which will greatly increase voter turnout in June for the campaign to defeat Prop 98, the measure that would abolish rent control. -more-

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. -more-

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

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

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. -more-

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. -more-

MARINE RECRUITING -more-

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." -more-

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. -more-

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? -more-

Super: Excellent, outstanding, great, -more-

My recently published book on presidential primaries started as an independent study project out of the political science department at San Francisco State University in 2003. My advisor on the project, Professor Rich DeLeon, was (and is) an advocate for ranked balloting. “This suggestion is perhaps a bit too far over the horizon of political reality, but I’d like to see a rider attached to your proposed reform requiring all primary victors to win a majority of the vote, either by runoff if necessary or, optimally by some kind of ranked-ballot method, which would also yield terrific in-depth info about a candidate’s strengths in terms of second-place votes received, third-place votes, etc.” -more-

In 2000 Berkeley voters approved a $116.5 million bond to finance the continuation of the schools rebuilding program which had commenced in the early 1990s. Of the projects for which this bond was intended, adding classrooms at Berkeley High was the most urgent and the most expensive. After the election, Superintendent “Great Builder” Jack McLaughlin left the district. The new superintendent’s attention was aimed at budget issues judged more urgent than the commencement of new building projects. While the new superintendent was so consumed, things shifted. The perception of overcrowding at the high school was erased by a significant drop in the high school’s population and by the completion of the new building. Everyone agreed that the high school needed time to adjust to the great changes in its campus. The public lost interest in the overcrowding issue. The district, in turn, launched a master planning exercise—the latest of countless since the 1930s—to decide exactly how to resolve the south of Bancroft portion of the campus. Subsequent construction at the high school was hitched to a slow but accountable decision process. -more-

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

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

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. -more-

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. -more-

It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. -more-

I ran into a good friend of mine on Shattuck Avenue on election day, a longtime Berkeley progressive, hurrying to buy some Chinese food so he could get back home and watch the returns on television. He said that John Edwards had been his first choice, but after Edwards dropped out, he had agonized over who to vote for. He liked Barack Obama’s energy and promise of change, he said, but said that Hillary Clinton is closest to his positions on the two issues he cared for the most, nuclear power and universal health care. He said that even on his way to the polls, he was still agonizing over who to choose. -more-

For seven decades spanning the period from the 1880s to the 1950s, San Francisco was an important hub in the American knitting industry. It became so thanks to one Swiss immigrant: John Jacob Pfister (1844–1921). -more-

I’m listening to the mow-n-blow couple working their way through the neighborhood. I’m about bored with things that roar and go bang, especially in the garden, especially at midday because, surprise, I work right here at home. To judge by the time they’ve spent on the token lawn in front of the apartment next door, the various gas-powered gadgets don’t save much time and they must make the work as hard with their weight as the average push mower, weed whip/scythe, or rake would with just repetitive motion. Don’t get me started on what errant weedwhackers do to tree trunks; I ranted sufficiently last week to keep my diastole high. -more-

One of the most common features in our early 20th century housing stock is that imperishable ruffian of the heating world, the floor furnace. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 -more-

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. -more-

Items on Display at Berkeley Main Library -more-

It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 -more-

Temescal Labs, the innovative Oakland theater company (nee Ten Red Hen) that notably staged both The 99-Cent Miss Saigon and Clown Bible at Willard Metalshop Theater, is performing Clean, a work-in-progress about Silicon Valley and toxicity, which includes the story of Hans Reiser, on a double bill with Brittney Brown Ceres’ Bodily File, 8 p.m. tonight (Friday) and Saturday at CounterPulse, 1310 Mission St. near Ninth Street in San Francisco. -more-

Sometime in the early 1960s, Jan Faulkner, an undergraduate at Lincoln University in Missouri, saw some paper ephemera featuring black stereotypes and began a collection that has since been exhibited in museums, featured in monographs and the subject of a film documentary produced by Marlon Riggs in 1986. -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 8 -more-

For seven decades spanning the period from the 1880s to the 1950s, San Francisco was an important hub in the American knitting industry. It became so thanks to one Swiss immigrant: John Jacob Pfister (1844–1921). -more-

I’m listening to the mow-n-blow couple working their way through the neighborhood. I’m about bored with things that roar and go bang, especially in the garden, especially at midday because, surprise, I work right here at home. To judge by the time they’ve spent on the token lawn in front of the apartment next door, the various gas-powered gadgets don’t save much time and they must make the work as hard with their weight as the average push mower, weed whip/scythe, or rake would with just repetitive motion. Don’t get me started on what errant weedwhackers do to tree trunks; I ranted sufficiently last week to keep my diastole high. -more-

One of the most common features in our early 20th century housing stock is that imperishable ruffian of the heating world, the floor furnace. -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 8 -more-