Opinion

News from Iran this week prompts reflections on the utility of violence as a solution to problems and questions about the ability of humans to govern themselves. On the first topic, it’s been all too easy to contemplate a simple solution to perceived potential threats if Iran ever managed to develop nuclear weapons: a pre-emptive attack. But after the world has seen a large percentage of Iranian citizens take to the street to protest what looked to them like a rigged election which their side might actually have won, it’s going to be hard to view Iran as a monolith which can be ethically stopped by broad military action. It seems that many Iranians are prisoners of their government and therefore can’t be held collectively responsible for, e.g., President Ahmadinejad’s intemperate statements about the Holocaust. -more-

ENERGY BILL -more-

ATTACKS ON THE PLANET -more-

Stop four deaths in California every day? Senator Loni Hancock could do that with a simple vote in the Senate Public Safety Committee. -more-

Dr. Helen Caldicott, the noted author and world acclaimed anti-nuclear activist, will speak in Berkeley this Saturday, June 27, 2009, 7:30 p.m., at a benefit to support SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense) in its legal challenge of the City Council’s waiver of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act (NFBA) for the Berkeley Public Library. -more-

Steven Falk, the city manager of Lafayette, said in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, “The state is broke, counties are broke and cities are broke.” He went on to say “Public pensions are unsustainable in the current form.” -more-

After the dust has settled, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will again be the president of of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Why and how was he re-elected president? Because he was approved once again by Iran’s Guardian Council as a candidate for the nation’s highest office. The council consists of six Islamic jurists appointed by the Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and six from the Majlis, Iran’s popularly elected parliament. They screen presidential candidates through background checks and a detailed written examination. Very few pass the test. Since 2004, the council has routinely rejected reform candidates. If there was fraud in the recent election, it occurred much before the election itself. -more-

The City of Berkeley’s community noise guidelines need an amendment; more than 70 local businesses and residents have signed a petition made necessary by its omission. -more-

An open letter to Robert Fujimoto, the new manager of Monterey Market: -more-