Opinion

Be Afraid. Be Very, Very Afraid. That’s the advice I gave my old companera Dion Aroner last week, when I passed her on my way out of the meeting at Perata School last week which is written up elsewhere in this issue. The topic at hand was the Safeway corporation’s plans to put its current slightly dowdy local supermarket, which now occupies most of one leg of the scary, crowded multi-street intersection of College and Claremont on the Elmwood-Rockridge (Berkeley-Oakland) border, on steroids. Aroner was there in the Madame Defarge slot, hanging around in the back of the room, taking notes, saying nothing. Her firm has been hired to be the political fixers in Safeway’s ongoing drive to, shall we say, fully exploit its urban landholdings by turning four or five East Bay neighborhood stores into a new business model which promises to combine the worst features of Wal-Mart and a strip mall. -more-

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We are truly blessed to have in our community a reporter of the magnitude of Richard Brenneman who brings to the table his finely honed investigative and writing skills along with his many years of experience as a reporter. -more-

Our children were watching the evening news and saw the tree-sitters with the university police on the ground and the hired arborists up in the trees at the Memorial Stadium oak grove last Thursday. -more-

I supported Hillary Clinton in part from the same instinct that makes some people follow the Royal Family. The Clintons are for many people too likeable not to support. I feel this way despite the fact that Bill Clinton went overboard with his temper, and despite the fact that Hillary started out the campaign a little “canned.” Furthermore, I saw firsthand what Bill Clinton did for us as president, and his accomplishments were wonderful, especially in comparison to the Republicans, some of whom don’t seem quite human. -more-

On the issue of cell phone antennas, Berkeley has been trying to walk a fine line between local protection of its citizens and obeying a federal statute which says that people’s health cannot be used as a reason for refusing permits to the communications industry with respect to its cell phone antenna towers. Recent arguments advanced by the State of Oklahoma might help resolve the issue for us. -more-

More cell phone towers in Berkeley? Maybe not. At least not as quickly as the telecoms want. On June 17, by a vote of 5-2, with one abstention and one recusal), the City Council voted to have City Attorney Zack Cowan draft a city-wide moratorium on installation of new cell antennas. -more-

I have been following the recent debate about cellular system antenna sites in Berkeley. Part of the debate seems to center around the perceived difference between the way the flat and hillside sections of Berkeley are treated, with the implication that the supposedly wealthier hills get more favorable treatment than the presumably poorer flatlands. -more-

A little over a year ago, the Berkeley Daily Planet published an opinion piece where I warned about the dangers of putting too much faith in building condominiums as a means of heading off the home mortgage crisis. At that time, the established media proclaimed that there was nothing to worry about, because the Bay Region was, in the words of one commentator, an “Iron Bubble.” Twelve months later, we are seeing articles in the business press discussing downturns in the condo market. Consider this example from a May 15 article in the New York Times Business section: -more-

To any reader of newspapers and the Internet, it should be apparent that tensions between the United States and Iran have recently increased. Ever since President Bush declared that Iran was part of the “axis of evil,” Iran has been in the crosshairs of the Bush regime. (I would urge readers to review the recent articles of impeachment against Bush introduced by Dennis Kucinich to see a brief history of U.S. actions against Iran. They are contained in article 21.) Regime change in Iran is official U.S. policy. Recent developments make it likely that the United States will militarily attack Iran before the next administration takes office. -more-