UC Berkeley students headed back to Sproul Plaza Wednesday evening to discuss possible actions to protest the university’s budget cuts and related topics. -more-

The AC Transit Board of Directors took a step back from its signature Bus Rapid Transit project last week. But just how big a step back is yet to be determined. -more-

The Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA) is moving in a new direction with the creation of a three-year strategic plan and a search for a new executive director in order to generate more revenue for the 20-year-old organization with hopes of making the downtown more attractive. DBA President Mark McLeod has revealed the organization’s intention to explore the creation of a property-based business improvement district (PBID) and a parking revenue district. The existing Business Improvement District is controlled by business owners, who are not necessarily property owners but can also be tenants. -more-

The Shattuck Hotel has been born again. The 100-year-old six-story landmark, Berkeley’s oldest hotel, officially reopened Thursday, Sept. 24, with much fanfare after a two-year, multi-million-dollar remodeling effort. -more-

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell was in Berkeley Wednesday to announce the names of five California public high schools—including Berkeley High—selected for a new “green energy” partnership academy pilot program that seeks to train students in clean energy technologies. -more-

In a short-agenda meeting Tuesday night where controversy was notably absent, the Berkeley City Council unanimously agreed to an across-the-board 25-cent-per-hour increase in parking meter rates, added 420 new parking meter locations around the city, and set an Oct. 27 date to begin a series of council discussions and action on how to increase the amount of affordable housing in the city. -more-

People’s Park: Still Blooming, brilliantly compiled by Terri Compost, longtime Park activist and gardener, is a book that grabs your attention. On the cover is a captivating picture of a sweet-faced child peeking out from behind a flower, and, as you look more closely, below it a vaguely familiar black and white photo of a mass of soldiers standing at attention, wearing gas masks and armed with bayonets. The 190-page book contains hundreds of photographs interspersed with short segments of text culled from museum and newspaper archives, and conversations and recollections from a wide variety of sources. It’s an unusual way to construct a book, but it works well. -more-

The Alameda County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday, Sept. 23 that it would not press criminal charges against four protesters cited for misdemeanors during a rally at UC Berkeley’s School of Law. -more-

Firefighters from the East Bay Regional Park District and four other state and local agencies battled a fire near the Fish Ranch Road exit off Highway 24 Tuesday afternoon, according to park district officials. -more-

John Gertz has told the Daily Planet that he alone did not pay for the signature ad which appeared in the East Bay Express. This was his own prior description of his relationship to the series of ads denouncing the Planet, which have been appearing in the Express, as e-mailed to the Planet’s advertising sales representative on Sept. 8: -more-

In the early ’70s, I lived at 2700 Virginia St. in the Berkeley Hills with a sublime view of the Golden Gate Bridge. My next-door neighbor was Adam, a Jewish guy who took care of his son, David, while his wife taught at UC Berkeley. I, as a black writer, and Adam, a stay-at-home father, had a lot of free time on our hands. While taking care of David, we talked a lot about writing fiction and the books we loved. And, of course, we also talked about how we were going to change the literary world. With the publication of my novel, I was something. I threw parties and invited everybody—English department celebrities like Mark Schorer, Larry Ziff, and Leonard Michaels, and lots of writers, like Richard Brautigan, Claude Brown, Richard Pryor and Ishmael Reed. Adam was always invited. -more-

AC TRANSIT/BRT -more-

The City Council has their collective head in the sand (or someplace darker), and haven’t made the announcement, even though it’s official, so it’s my privilege to be the first to publicly state: the referendum on the council downtown plan was certified last week by the Alameda county registrar. Based on sampling, 7,900 of the 9,200 signatures submitted were estimated to be valid Berkeley voters at their proper address and with a proper signature, so many more than the 5,558 required that by law there was no need to validate them individually. As a member of the referendum committee, I’d like to express my thanks to all the Berkeley citizens who decided to take an active role in their future and signed the petition. Go Bears!  -more-

It’s heartening to know that Afghan Narcotics has at last drawn a letter to the editor in both Berkeley weeklies, but dismaying to read Harry Gans’ proposals. It is impossible to imagine how to “pay poppy farmers ... to not grow poppies.” How can the million Afghan families who live off the opium trade be identified, or paid? If farmers are paid full-market value—five to ten times that of any other crop—everyone will grow poppies next season; but if less than full value is paid, why would any farmer join the program? If the United States buys the entire crop , we will look hypocritical, for in May 2001 the State Department paid the Taliban $43 million for destroying the opium crop. -more-

The United Nations has often been tested in the course of its history, and once again it is facing a major challenge directed at its capacity to serve the cause of peace, security, and justice through respect for the rule of law. The test involves the treatment given to the Goldstone Report, so named after the distinguished jurist, Richard Goldstone, former judge of the South African Constitutional Court, who headed a fact-finding mission on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council. The focus of the mission was on alleged war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas between Dec. 27, 2008 and Jan. 18, 2009, when Israel attacked Gaza, an essentially defenseless society whose population was already severely weakened by a blockade of food, fuel, and medicine, which had then been maintained for eighteen months.  -more-

The recent outburst by Joe Wilson in Congress concerning Obama’s veracity on his proposed health care reform once again invoked that ghost so often enlisted to sidetrack real issues, the specter of the “illegal” person. It refers to those immigrant workers who labor without proper papers under substandard conditions, mostly in agricultural work that is very hard and injurious to health, both physically and chemically. Politically, they live precariously, subject to arrest by immigration authorities and the callous breaking of family bonds, often held, unconstitutionally, in indefinite detention, yet with taxes withheld from paychecks that they then cannot reclaim. They do essential work in this economy, yet face demands that they leave. They are excluded from social services, such as health care and education, that they nevertheless pay for through their labor and their taxes. From a value-added standpoint—the primary standpoint of a capitalist economy—they constitute an ideal labor force. -more-

On Oct. 7, 2001 the United States. launched a war of terror against Afghanistan. U.S. leaders are still debating how best to achieve U.S. goals there. Military leaders, including Joint Chiefs Chair Admiral Mike Mullen, Central Command leader General David Petraeus, and General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, support the further escalation of the war by sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to prosecute the “new” counterinsurgency troop-intensive strategy they wish to pursue. It is reported that some of Obama’s civilian aides are arguing for a greater emphasis on attacking al Qaeda leaders with increased special operations missions and missile strikes, including more missile strikes launched against targets within Pakistan. Commander-in-Chief Obama will have to decide on which course to follow. But regardless of which of various strategies is implemented, it is clear that no one in the top rungs of the U.S. government is arguing for the end of the Afghan war. -more-

Readers of the Daily Planet might have noticed an odd disconnect in the recent exchanges between the supporters of Concerned Listeners (CL) and their opponents in the current KPFA Local Station Board elections.  CL’s endorsers are heavy on the labor side, including at least two Labor Councils, the leadership of several others, not to mention scores of militant organizers from a wide range of unions.  Yet some of our attackers have called us anti-worker.  Such is the mudslinging in this election.  -more-

During the KPFA-Pacifica history, the progressive listeners have, at several moments of crisis, come to the rescue of KPFA and Pacifica, and demanded to get their stations back. The listeners helped rescue the network in the 1999 attempted takeover, along with dedicated legal help from attorneys like Dan Siegel, the network is still alive. The following message is to alert the listeners that another, very serious, crisis is now in progress, here in Berkeley today. -more-

We KPFA unpaid-staff members would like to respond to Marcia Rautenstrauch’s attack on our Unpaid Staff Organization, published in last week’s Planet “KPFA Unpaid Staff and the Elections.”  -more-

           The KPFA board elections are in full swing and the ballots are due October 15. I was struck by couple of developments. -more-

There are 29 candidates for 9 seats. We have had several events to meet the candidates all around the Bay Area. There has been much more promotion of the election on the air this year based on a Pacifica National Board (PNB) resolution. Concerned Listeners (CL) elected to the PNB voted against this inclusiveness resolution. CL allies in management recently took the candidates’ recorded statements off the air. -more-

Pacifica Radio, the nation’s oldest listener sponsored broadcast network, is at an existential crossroads. If serious reforms aren’t implemented soon, the network could go under. The crisis pre-dates the current recession and is the result of numerous factors. The greatest of these is a hopelessly dysfunctional governance structure. -more-

As a candidate of Voices For Justice Radio www.voicesforjusticeradio.org who is running for the KPFA listeners candidate for the Local Station Board, I was surprised to see the letter by Sister Rautenstrauch about the struggle within the Unpaid Staff Organization. As a long time unpaid staff volunteer at the station it is surprising to hear her confusion about issues that took place in the unpaid staff organization by a so called  "small organization."  "Several years back the station management derecognized UPSO after a small group within the station tried to take UPSO over and screamed and yelled abuse at anyone who would oppose them in meetings to the point that the organization fell apart?". -more-

The information attack came like a one-two-three punch. The Berkeley Daily Planet printed a front page story, titled, “KPFA Charges Pacifica With Raid on Station’s Funds.” That was Thursday, August 6th. The paper had hardly hit the street, and we hadn’t even seen it yet before we heard KPFA newscaster Philip Maldari talking about it on the Morning Show. Improperly using KPFA’s on-air microphone, Maldari called on listeners to attend the Saturday board meeting and hear for themselves how Pacifica grabbed $100,000 from KPFA. He urged listeners to speak out against the “raid.” -more-

Iranian nukes -more-

An assertion in this week’s Chip Johnson column in the San Francisco Chronicle on Oakland City Council’s parking fee controversy (“Compromise on Oakland parking may be in works”) caught my attention, as Mr. Johnson’s writings sometimes do. -more-

I wish I could recommend the new Sibley Guide to Trees as enthusiastically as I can recommend breakfast and/or lunch at Quince, also new. -more-

In its 136 years, the University of California’s Berkeley campus has seen many buildings come and go. Among them, North Hall was the only one to have merited a demolition ceremony attended by the UC president and 700 alumni. -more-

Contracting is called contracting because it’s about writing contracts. It’s about sales, which are contractual. Contractors aren’t builders, they are people who write and perfect (that’s the legal term for bringing to completion) contracts. We’ve come to think of contractors as people who wear tool belts, but for anyone who has ever hired a contractor only to find them inexplicably absent for the duration of the job, this understanding of a contractor’s role in building can prevent woe and direct you through a morass of remodeling problems. -more-