The Week

“Gr-rr-rah, Gr-rr-rah Gr-rr, ... rr-rah!”  A new Cal song book, Songs of California: The U.C. Berkeley Tradition, has just been published. See story, page six.
Contributed photo
“Gr-rr-rah, Gr-rr-rah Gr-rr, ... rr-rah!” A new Cal song book, Songs of California: The U.C. Berkeley Tradition, has just been published. See story, page six.
 

News

Mourning Cloak Mysteries: The Butterfly that Hibernates

By Joe Eaton
Friday March 07, 2008

Posted Sun., March 9—We were out at Lafayette Reservoir a couple of weeks ago, looking for the bald eagle that wasn’t there. But there was a fair amount of butterfly action: a probable echo blue, some small hyperactive orange jobs, and three or four mourning cloaks, sparring or courting—it’s hard to tell with butterflies. -more-


Oakland Joins Fight to Halt State Moth Spray Plan

By Judith Scherr
Friday March 07, 2008

Oakland joined a fast-growing collaboration of cities, organizations, legislators and citizens on Tuesday looking for political and legal means to force the state to back off from plans for aerial spraying of pesticide over parts of Northern California to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). -more-


Greenhouse Gas Session Generates Political Heat

By Richard Brenneman
Friday March 07, 2008

The draft city Climate Action Plan presented to Berkeley planning commissioners Wednesday night resembles another document in their possession: the proposed new Downtown Area Plan. -more-


School Board Ends Investigation of Vice Principal

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday March 07, 2008

Margaret Lowry—removed from her position as Willard Middle School vice principal—was placed on special assignment Tuesday with Berkeley Unified School District’s central staff. -more-


Three Policy Victories For Dellums in Oakland

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday March 07, 2008

The administration of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums hit the trifecta on Tuesday, winning City Council passage of two major initiatives and claiming victory in contract arbitration with the powerful Oakland Police Officers Association police union. -more-


Candidates Race for Election Cash

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday March 07, 2008

While candidates decided whether or not to put their toes in the water of several Oakland City Council and Oakland School Board races, announced candidates in the hotly contested state seats of Senate District 9 and Assembly District 14 continued to raise war chests for the June 3 election. -more-


ZAB Approves Center Street Restaurant Permit, BioFuels Station

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday March 07, 2008

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) gave nods to three big projects last week, which propose to add a restaurant downtown, build a bio fuels station in South Berkeley and permit a child care center for Pixar employees in West Berkeley. -more-


Man Fatally Shot Outside Russell Street Apartments

By Richard Brenneman
Friday March 07, 2008

A San Leandro man was fatally shot Monday night on California Street, just seven blocks north of the scene of another murder eight days earlier. -more-


Alta Bates Nurses Vote for Strike

By Richard Brenneman
Friday March 07, 2008

Registered Nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center have voted to call for a 10-day strike, along with nurses at 10 other Sutter Health facilities. -more-


SF Bay Guardian Wins Big, Heads Back to Court

By Judith Scherr
Friday March 07, 2008

The San Francisco Bay Guardian won a $15.6 million judgment Wednesday against the San Francisco Weekly and its parent company, the 16-paper Village Voice Media, for predatory business practices—but the Guardian’s not counting the big bills yet, says Executive Editor Tim Redmond. -more-


Local Newspaper Group Avoids Layoffs, for Now

By Judith Scherr
Friday March 07, 2008

The menace of layoffs at Bay Area News Group [BANG] newspapers—which now include the Contra Costa Times, the West County Times, the Berkeley Voice, the East Bay Daily News and the Oakland Tribune, among others—has passed for the moment. -more-


News Analysis: Guardian Editor Views Court Victory

By Tim Redmond, Special to the Planet
Friday March 07, 2008

A San Francisco jury found the San Francisco Weekly and its corporate parent guilty Wednesday of illegal predatory pricing and awarded us $6.39 million. -more-


Berkeley Schools Plan to Hand Out Layoff Notices

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday March 07, 2008

The Berkeley Unified School district will be sending out possible layoff notices to its certified staff by March 15 in the face of the proposed $4.6 billion state education budget cut crisis, district officials confirmed Monday. -more-


BUSD Mulls Fate of 6th Street Site

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday March 07, 2008

More than 50 seniors, parents with toddlers and teenage moms crammed inside a Berkeley Unified School District conference room Tuesday to voice their support for the LifeLong Health Center at 2031 Sixth St. -more-


‘The Songs of California: The UC Berkeley Traditon’

By Zelda Bronstein, Special to the Planet
Friday March 07, 2008

What venerable UC Berkeley tradition, having fallen onto hard times, has its fans hoping that it’s on the verge of a comeback? -more-


Flash: Bay Guardian Wins $15.6 Million Verdict In Predatory Pricing Suit Against SF Weekly

By Tim Redmond Special to The Planet
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Posted Wed., March 5—A San Francisco jury this afternoon found the San Francisco Weekly and its corporate parent guilty of illegal predatory pricing and awarded us $6.39 million. -more-


Man Fatally Shot Outside Russell Street Apartment

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Posted Wed., March 5—A San Leandro man was fatally shot Monday night on California Street, just seven blocks north from the scene of another murder eight days earlier. -more-


Oakland Weighs Legal Options to Stop State Plans to Spray Moths

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Posted Wed., March 5—On Tuesday, Oakland joined a growing movement to force the state, through political and legal means, to back off from plans for the aerial spraying of a pesticide over parts of Northern California intended to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). -more-


West Berkeley Zoning Tour Reveals Land-Use Tensions

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday March 04, 2008
John Curl, a West Berkeley woodworker and land use activist (right), leads planning commissioners on a tour of the Sawtooth Building during Saturday’s “West Berkeley Zoning Flexibility” tour.

Crammed into two standing-room-only buses, planning commissioners, city staff, business owners and interested citizens set out for a five-hour tour of West Berkeley Saturday. -more-


School Board Removes Willard Vice Principal

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Willard Middle School Vice Principal Margaret Lowry—under investigation by the Berkeley Board of Education for improper conduct involving two special education students—has been removed from her position and will be replaced by Thomas Orput, vice principal of the Berkeley Adult School. -more-


Chief Wants Better Policing, New Taxes

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Berkeley’s facing neither layoffs nor program cuts in the next fiscal year, but without taxpayers ponying up to pay for them, there will be no new services, City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the City Council last week. -more-


Maneuvering Over Dellums’ Police Plan Continues

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday March 04, 2008

With the full Oakland City Council scheduled to vote on Mayor Ron Dellums’ police recruitment augmentation plan at its regular 7 p.m. meeting today (Tuesday), maneuvering over the final shape of the plan continued through the weekend. -more-


Oakland Council Asked to Reconsider Zoning Changes

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday March 04, 2008

A diverse representation of Oakland interests came out Monday morning in support of Mayor Ron Dellums’ industrial zoning plan, asking that the City Council make no changes in the proposal. -more-


Option Contract Signed for Iceland

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday March 04, 2008

There is still hope for Berkeley Iceland. And it comes in the form of Tom Killilea and his non-profit Save Berkeley Iceland. -more-


Chamber PAC Must File Retroactively

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Berkeley’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission decided Thursday that Business for Better Government, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee, must file campaign contribution statements for 2004 and 2006 retroactively with the city. -more-


Oakland Schools Face a Rough Road Back to Local Control

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday March 04, 2008

In December 2007, State Superintendent Jack O’Connell came to Oakland to announce that he was turning over two more areas of control to the state-operated Oakland Unified School District: personnel and facilities management. -more-


Council Postpones Several Items, Approves Blood House Move

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which was mainly devoted to a discussion of the light brown apple moth, ended in a surprise finale, with an 11:30 p.m. vote to extend the meeting until midnight falling short of the needed two-thirds approval. The council had been in session since 5 p.m. -more-


Protesters Shine Light on U.S. Marines in Haiti

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

The four dozen protesters picketing the downtown Marine Recruiting Center early Friday morning had a different message than the anti-Iraq War/anti-military recruiting demonstrators seen there almost daily since September. -more-


BHS Girls Basketball Takes Title Again

Tuesday March 04, 2008

The Berkeley High School Girls Basketball team won the North Coast Section Division I Championship for the second year in a row on Saturday at the Oracle Arena. -more-


Planning Commission to Hear Climate Plan

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Berkeley’s Planning Commission meets Wednesday night to focus on a single issue, the city’s Draft Climate Action Plan. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Which of These Things Is Not Like the Other?

By Becky O'Malley
Friday March 07, 2008

There are people who can’t tell the difference between red wine and white wine if they close their eyes. Some can’t tell a pansy from a petunia. If you ask some others (perhaps mostly men) to get a blue towel off a shelf, they won’t be able to decide which is the green one and which is the blue one—and they certainly can’t distinguish between chartreuse and turquoise. Many people think Debussy and Mantovani sound pretty much alike. Half the world, perhaps, would say confidently that Andrea Bocelli is as good as Placido Domingo. And they’d be wrong. -more-


Editorial: How to Live Forever

By Becky O'Malley
Tuesday March 04, 2008

When I heard last week from Ruth Rosen that Barbara Seaman had died at 72, an age that now seems much too young to me, I looked on the Internet for the many obituary reminiscences about her which I was sure to find. They were all there, some in the kind of prestigious papers that had once dismissed her work for women’s health in the most patronizing way. But the one that rang truest was on a blog devoted to feminist concerns written by Jennifer Baumgardner: “Thinking about Barbara, I realize that she was a one-woman social networking site. She remembered everyone she had ever met and tried to connect them with everybody else she had ever met. She recalled where you were from, whom you dated, your health problems, and your writings or accomplishments and then she introduced you to people you should know.” That was Barbara, all right, and I thought my experience with her was unique. It seems that she did it for everyone. -more-


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday March 07, 2008

PESTICIDE SPRAYING -more-


Commentary: Barack and Hillary Vs. King Crab

By Winston Burton
Friday March 07, 2008

I agree with J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s (does he have a shorter name ?) recent column that progressives are left with an embarrassment of riches—two credible, serious candidates, either of whom would be a good choice for president. We are in a win-win position having two Democrats running for office against an opponent, John McCain, who has little or nothing compelling, professionally or personally, that would make someone vote for him besides his service in Vietnam. What might derail a Democratic victory would be unfair and untrue attacks on the part of the candidates and the unspoken competition that exists between different classes and groups in our society. -more-


Commentary: An Update on Nutrition, Gardens and Compost

By Beebo Turman
Friday March 07, 2008

March is “National Nutrition Month” in our schools. The city of Berkeley has long been committed to fitness and nutrition education as chronic disease prevention, and in September the council members kicked off a nine-month campaign to engage the community with their goals, calling it “Be Fit Berkeley.” For the past six years a group of gardeners, Farmers’ Market people, school nutrition advocates, and city staff have met to coordinate various nutrition-education activities. March 8, this Saturday, will be “Be Fit Berkeley Day!” with health screening activities at the Farmers’ Market. Later this month there will be cooking demonstrations at the Tuesday Markets with Kirk Lumpkin, as well as a special Berkeley High School lunch event on March 20th. Certain schools with grants from “Network for a Healthy California” will have events at their schools; for instance Malcolm X will have a Health Fair, LeConte will have a Spring Fair, and there will be mini-farmers’ markets at John Muir, Emerson, and Rosa Parks. Since I am a garden advocate (I run the “Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative”) I want to encourage people to grow their own vegetables, and one way to help gardeners out is to give away city compost on Sat. March 29 at the Farmers’ Market (bring two buckets or one large bag). -more-


Commentary: The Real Facts About Apple Moth Spraying

By Robert Lieber
Friday March 07, 2008

California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Secretary Kawamura’s recent dog and pony show that he has been trotting out before many city councils and commissions promoting the light brown apple moth (LBAM) aerial pesticide spraying of the Bay Area relies on blatant misrepresentations of the truth, fear-mongering and outright lies. The spray program he defends imperils California’s families, children, pets, and the environment, based on no real science and no solid facts. -more-


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday March 04, 2008

Commentary: A Way Out of the Spoiler Dilemma

By Steven Hill
Tuesday March 04, 2008

With the Academy Awards over, it’s time for a new year of thrilling cinematic chills. How about: “Spoiler Dilemma, Take Three,” starring Ralph Nader? -more-


Commentary: Some Planners Believe That BRT Will Work

By Erina Hong
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Imagine a bus route so fast that it’s like a vehicle free of tracks. It would be 10 times cheaper and ride along a 15-mile stretch from Bay Fair BART station in San Leandro to Downtown Berkeley. Each stop would be about half mile apart and bus drivers would have the ability to turn stoplights green using GPS technology and have an electronic sign informing riders when the next bus was scheduled to arrive. This $400 million budgeted project would provide elevated stops in the middle of the street and dedicated lanes free of cars. While the city of Berkeley does have a toned down version of rapid transit systems, they still have to drive alongside the traffic of regular cars. -more-


Commentary: Clinton’s Duplicity On Michigan, Florida Delegates

By Paul Rockwell
Tuesday March 04, 2008

A spectre is haunting the Democratic Party, the spectre of an ugly—albeit unnecessary—floor-fight over Florida and Michigan delegates at the national convention in August. -more-


Commentary: Must We Stamp His Footprint Into Nature to Remember Cesar Chavez?

By Alesia Kunz
Tuesday March 04, 2008

I’ve been walking at the Marina and Cesar Chavez Park for 14 years. My dog Grace loved our walks and runs around the perimeter and in the center where it was pure nature. In the early 1920’s the area was the city municipal dump and in the 1990s it was landscaped and converted to a public park, North Waterfront Park. Now, Cesar Chavez Park, it has become a beautiful haven for all manner of nature beings with a Wildlife Sanctuary at the northern end. Red tail hawks, black shouldered kites, hummingbirds, finches, crows, ravens, pelicans, burrowing owls, ground squirrels, rabbits, feral cats, gopher snakes, great blue herons, snowy egrets, Northern Harriers, sea gulls and more. There are beautiful native plants, sages, fennel, pampas grass, purple and white statice, pine trees, purple thistle plants, matilija, or, “fried-egg” poppies, and crimson clover. It’s wild with nature. I walk there every day to enjoy the sounds, scents and sights. -more-


Commentary: The Danny Hoch Incident

By Jean Stewart
Tuesday March 04, 2008

I’m standing at my desk as I type this; I’ve tilted the keyboard and nestled it inside a cardboard box, next to the mouse, which I’ve precariously propped at a steep angle on various piled-up objects. I’ve done this because of the pain I experience when I sit, but in fact standing seems only incrementally better than sitting. So I don’t know how long I’ll last before I give up and go back to bed. -more-


Commentary: A Planning Student’s Perspective on Bus Rapid Transit

By Janet Shih
Tuesday March 04, 2008

After reading the recent article about AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal as well as being an attendee of early February’s planning commissioning meeting for Berkeley, I would like to support the argument for a positive response towards the BRT proposal. -more-


Commentary: Another Planning Student’s Perspective on Bus Rapid Transit

By Juju Wang
Tuesday March 04, 2008

I am a senior major in Civil Engineering and City Planning at UC Berkeley. I am very interested in transportation planning, especially parking policies. Recently, I came across a parking study "The Smart Parking Seminar" conducted by the Metropolitan Transportation Committee (MTC.) The allocation, use of limited on and off street parking resources, and parking policies continue to be highly debated issues both locally and nationally. The MTC's parking study identifies some local parking policies, requirements, and recommendations to "managing constrained parking conditions with smart growth and Transit Oriented Development (TOD) policies and programs." Here's my thought on the parking study. -more-


Columns

Column: Undercurrents: Time to Revise Those Judgments of Dellums

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday March 07, 2008

Two of the problems with some of the early scathing criticisms of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums—specifically the charge that he was a “do nothing” mayor—were that they were highly premature, at the very least, and failed to take into account Mr. Dellums' particular operating style. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Telegraph and Durant: From Ritzy Enclave to Commercial Hub

By Daniella Thompson
Friday March 07, 2008
Hotel Carlton was built in 1906-07 on the site previously occupied by the Knowles mansion.

Teeming with pizza, bagel, and t-shirt outlets, surrounded by ethnic-food courts and cheap retail arcades, the intersection of Telegraph and Durant Avenues is inconceivable as an exclusive residential enclave reserved for millionaires' mansions set amidst spacious gardens and fronted by orderly rows of palm trees. -more-


About the House: Why My Floors Are Sloped

By Matt Cantor
Friday March 07, 2008

I live in a slide zone. As I understand it, the land my house is bobbing about on is a colloid of tumbled rock and Cuisinarted soil, the remains of an avalanche, hundreds of years now past. Since this material isn’t “consolidated” or compressed by time into a hard cake, it tends to amble downhill as gravity would have it. (I’m turning 50 and, as my friend Joann would say, my local gravity is also increasing so I know how the house feels). -more-


Garden Variety: Surviving Oaks Still Shade Alden Lane Nursery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday March 07, 2008
Whimsical sculpture at Alden Lane Nursery.

I’ve liked Alden Lane Nursery ‘way out in Livermore since I first set foot in it over ten years ago. The big valley oaks that shade parts of the place won my splintery old heart immediately, and I saw evidence of real community involvement along with the more concrete stuff: primo nursery stock, interesting ornaments, good tools, less-toxic pest controls. -more-


Column: The Public Eye: The Great Debate of 2008

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday March 04, 2008

So far there have been many surprises in the contest for the 2008 presidential nomination. Six months ago, it appeared the probable candidates would be Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton; now it seems they will be John McCain and Barack Obama. Last year it appeared the leading issue would be the war in Iraq; now it’s likely the great debate will be about the economy. -more-


Green Neighbors: Pretty Good Tree with a Pretty Dumb Name

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday March 04, 2008
Casaurina in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Park, by Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland.

Trust the Aussies (“…from the Land Down Under/Where the women something and the men something-else-that-rhymes with ‘under’—maybe ‘blunder’?—but definitely not whatever the women do”) to get all weird about gender issues in the unlikeliest places. They’re blessed with several species of casuarina, a useful and engagingly weird clade of trees, and what do they call them? “She-oak.” And what do they mean by that? Why, “like oak but inferior.” -more-


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday March 07, 2008

FRIDAY, MARCH 7 -more-


Berlin Film Festival: From the Stones to Abu Ghraib

By Lewis Dolinsky, Special to the Planet
Friday March 07, 2008
A scene from Standard Operating Procedure, Errol Morris’ film on Abu Ghraib, was part of the Berlin Film Festival.

How big is big? At the 58th annual Berlin Film Festival, or Berlinale, in February, 387 movies were shown in 11 days on 38 screens in 15 theaters operating from 9 a.m. to past midnight. -more-


Moving Pictures: Pacific Film Archive Presents the Magic of Orson Welles

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday March 07, 2008

The myth of Orson Welles has outlived its usefulness. The man has long since passed on, as have those who sought to undermine his achievements. He was jealously branded by Hollywood as the wunderkind-turned-enfant terrible of the cinema, the man who took on a media titan, and Hollywood itself, in Citizen Kane and then squandered his own career with his proclivity for self-destruction and artistic excess. The standard line on Welles was that he created just that single masterpiece before embarking on a long downward slide. -more-


The Theater: Cave and Gwinn’s ‘Romeo & Juliet and Other Duets’

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday March 07, 2008

“For Romeo & Juliet we're playing with no language, so we call it 'according to Shakespeare,’” said Jim Cave of his show with Deborah Gwinn, Romeo & Juliet and Other Duets, which just opened at The Marsh in San Francisco. “For The Chairs, it’s ‘after Ionesco.’ There are maybe a couple pages of text; the rest went out the window. We tell both of these stories in our own peculiar way. And as the run develops, we may add other little pieces.” -more-


The Theater: ‘Jukebox Tales’ at La Val’s

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday March 07, 2008

Jukebox Tales: The Case of the Creamy Foam puts the team of Prince Gomovilas and Brandon Patten back together, alternating story and song on a messy set in the basement of La Val's Pizza, a bedroom strewn with the domestic wreckage of young bachelorhood. Sometimes Brandon, after capping off a tune, slips under the sheets and asks Prince for a bedtime story—a funny request before a roomful of spectators. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: Telegraph and Durant: From Ritzy Enclave to Commercial Hub

By Daniella Thompson
Friday March 07, 2008
Hotel Carlton was built in 1906-07 on the site previously occupied by the Knowles mansion.

Teeming with pizza, bagel, and t-shirt outlets, surrounded by ethnic-food courts and cheap retail arcades, the intersection of Telegraph and Durant Avenues is inconceivable as an exclusive residential enclave reserved for millionaires' mansions set amidst spacious gardens and fronted by orderly rows of palm trees. -more-


About the House: Why My Floors Are Sloped

By Matt Cantor
Friday March 07, 2008

I live in a slide zone. As I understand it, the land my house is bobbing about on is a colloid of tumbled rock and Cuisinarted soil, the remains of an avalanche, hundreds of years now past. Since this material isn’t “consolidated” or compressed by time into a hard cake, it tends to amble downhill as gravity would have it. (I’m turning 50 and, as my friend Joann would say, my local gravity is also increasing so I know how the house feels). -more-


Garden Variety: Surviving Oaks Still Shade Alden Lane Nursery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday March 07, 2008
Whimsical sculpture at Alden Lane Nursery.

I’ve liked Alden Lane Nursery ‘way out in Livermore since I first set foot in it over ten years ago. The big valley oaks that shade parts of the place won my splintery old heart immediately, and I saw evidence of real community involvement along with the more concrete stuff: primo nursery stock, interesting ornaments, good tools, less-toxic pest controls. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday March 07, 2008

FRIDAY, MARCH 7 -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday March 04, 2008

TUESDAY, MARCH 4 -more-


Berkeley Art Museum Presents Chagoya

By Peter Selz, Special to the Planet
Tuesday March 04, 2008
Crossing I, (1994) by Enrique Chagoya. Acrylic and oil on paper.

In 1971 Enrique Chagoya, as an 18-year-old student in Mexico City, participated in a student demonstration against the repressive regime and barely escaped a massacre by the police which, like the mass murder of 1968, killed hundreds of students. This was near the site where human sacrifices were performed by the Aztec priests before the Spanish conquest. Chagoya, in his paintings, codices and prints, fuses the depravities of the past with those of the present and does much more. -more-


The Theater: Euripides’ ‘The Bacchae’ at Zellerback Playhouse

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Tuesday March 04, 2008

“It is impossible to pin down what Euripides’ The Bacchae is about.” Barbara Oliver, who founded the Aurora Theatre and is in residency at UC’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies to direct this peculiarly contemporary late tragedy, opens her program notes with this statement. -more-


Green Neighbors: Pretty Good Tree with a Pretty Dumb Name

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday March 04, 2008
Casaurina in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Park, by Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland.

Trust the Aussies (“…from the Land Down Under/Where the women something and the men something-else-that-rhymes with ‘under’—maybe ‘blunder’?—but definitely not whatever the women do”) to get all weird about gender issues in the unlikeliest places. They’re blessed with several species of casuarina, a useful and engagingly weird clade of trees, and what do they call them? “She-oak.” And what do they mean by that? Why, “like oak but inferior.” -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday March 04, 2008

TUESDAY, MARCH 4 -more-