Larry Bensky was kind enough to forward to us an article by Dan Eggen, from Sunday’s Washington Post. The headline is “Permissible Assaults Cited in Graphic Detail.” -more-
Reminders of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, 40 years ago on Friday, were everywhere last week. His sonorous voice was replayed again and again on every radio station—his picture was in every paper. For me, the most immediate and vivid memories of that dreadful week in 1968—indeed, of that whole dreadful year—came flooding back at the Tuesday farmers’ market, to which Full Belly Farms brought huge fragrant bunches of lilacs. -more-
The one thing that was clear at last night’s joint Planning and Transit Commission workshop was that not much is really known about AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit proposal. That may surprise many people after the multitude of public hearings and thousands of pages of material written by AC Transit, BRT supporters and those who support better public transit but are opposed to dedicating public roadways to busses that will come once every 10 minutes. -more-
Opposed to BRT” does not fairly describe my position. We citizens have been offered a bad choice: accept BRT in roughly its present form or oppose BRT. Given these lousy choices, I choose to oppose. -more-
Using its absurd draconian police powers embedded in its Blight Ordinances, the City of Oakland has fined a woman resident of Oakland the amount of $951.00 as a penalty for leaving her garbage can on the street curb for a couple of days. -more-
Ask the average American to name a famous war-tax resister and most folks would probably cite Henry David Thoreau. But how about Joan Baez, Noam Chomsky, Gloria Steinem and Julia Butterfly Hill? -more-
With the Time Magazine, April 7 issue, the BP program at Berkeley now becomes so useless that one can not find words to describe it. On March 29, the chief scientist at the United Kingdom’s Department of Environment, Farms and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Dr Bob Watson, was cited for his calling on the European Union to drop its whole bioethanol program as being a causer of increased emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) not a reducer of such emissions. And a paper in ‘Nature’ has now stirred up charges that the IPCC report with various supposed control steps for global warming are basically unattainable pipedreams. -more-
The Governor’s proposed budget would have a devastating impact on California’s public education system, already noted for being 47th in the nation for per pupil spending. This budget does not consider the educational needs of our children or the protection that voters put in place with Proposition 98, which the Governor will have to set aside in order to slash education funding. He needs the support of two-thirds of the legislature to set aside Proposition 98. -more-
The either/or alternatives of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vs. no-project is a false choice. But before I suggest another choice let us step back and look at the goal of BRT and what we can learn from the current BRT dry run. -more-
This is a people-friendly, eco-friendly plan to increase riders and decrease congestion and pollution. It will save millions for transit improvements. -more-
Even though AC Transit began planning for Bus Rapid Transit 18 years ago, in Berkeley we’re still only about half way to deciding whether to build such a system in south Berkeley along with neighbor cities Oakland and San Leandro. -more-
The architect Frank Lloyd Wright is supposed to have said that the right angle is a fascist symbol. That observation may be apocryphal, but it well applies to some of the newer buildings on Berkeley’s commercial corridors, big square apartment complexes that dwarf adjacent residential properties. Currently, the boxes are creeping north along San Pablo Avenue and threatening to change the character of West Berkeley. -more-
When figures like $16 billion and $8 billion and $5 billion are tossed about on a regular basis it’s fair for a person to wonder how Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal for next year affects the average citizen. What can I do, one might ask, about a gaping deficit of billions of dollars, and why should I care? -more-
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