UC Students, Workers Launch 3-Day Strike
UC Berkeley students embarked on a three day strike Wednesday to protest budget cuts, furloughs and fee hikes. -more-
UC Berkeley students embarked on a three day strike Wednesday to protest budget cuts, furloughs and fee hikes. -more-
The Alameda County district attorney charged Oakland resident Curtis Martin III Tuesday with murdering Zoelina Toney and her 17-month-old son Jashon Williams. -more-
Just as the hullabaloo over Balloon Boy seems to be finally cooling off, Berkeley is getting ready to make some noise about balloons. -more-
The body of a child recovered Sunday from San Francisco Bay near the Berkeley Marina remains unidentified. -more-
Japanese artist Chiura Obata’s landmarked Mission revival-style studio was back before the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission Nov. 5, after a remand from the City Council asked the commission to carefully consider singling out the building’s courtyards for preservation as historic features. -more-
Oakland police arrested Curtis Martin III at Chestnut Street and 24th Avenue in Oakland a little after 1 p.m. Friday for his alleged involvement in this morning’s Aquatic Park homicide. -more-
UC Berkeley students aren’t the only ones planning to go on strike next week. -more-
Fourteen birds injured after last month’s Dubai Star oil spill have been rehabilitated and were released today at Eastshore State Park in Berkeley. -more-
Civic Center Park became the safest place in Berkeley Friday evening due to a joint training program for hostage negotiations by the Berkeley police and fire departments. About six fire engines lined up on Center Street across from City Hall a little before 6 p.m., stretching all the way to the Public Safety Building on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. -more-
Safeway took ownership of the Union 76 gas station site in Rockridge last week and is moving ahead with plans to incorporate it into a proposed remodeling project for its supermarket at the corner of College and Claremont avenues. -more-
On Tuesday evening about 80 UC Berkeley students and faculty packed the Sociology Department lounge in Barrows Hall to ponder strategy and tactics for a strike that will take place Wednesday through Friday next week, Nov. 18–20. -more-
When news of Captain Michael Meehan’s appointment as Berkeley’s new police chief reached Seattle last week, the city was going through a rough patch. -more-
Berkeleyans, beware: the city will be banning all pole signs effective the third week of December. -more-
For some people, “where” is a prominent question for getting oriented and staying informed: “where is it?,” “how far?”, “what route to take?” -more-
A teach-in supporting public school education took place at Berkeley City College on Saturday. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: Mary Wolf is a Bay Area teacher who will be writing occasional columns for the Planet based on her experiences in the classroom. -more-
The three American hikers, all graduates of UC Berkeley, who were detained by Iranian authorities, were charged with espionage Monday, according to reports by national and international media. -more-
The Downtown Berkeley Association announced Tuesday that it had hired John Caner as their new executive director. -more-
When at a farmers’ market I had to pay $2.25 for a tomato which, to add injury to insult, looked as though it had a shelf life of half an hour, I asked the vendor why it was so outrageously expensive. -more-
A figure cited by a letter writer in a recent issue of the British magazine New Scientist grabbed my attention this week: 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the manufacture of steel and concrete. -more-
Doctors want to see patients and help people, not fill out paperwork. Give them one framework under which they perform their jobs, and every doctor will become more efficient. Want to save costs? Make it so those who spend decades learning their science spend their time using it, not wasting man months per year filling out differing insurance paperwork. -more-
Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP) has reviewed the present proposal for a ferry terminal at the Berkeley Marina as presented to the Berkeley Waterfront Commission in October 2009. CESP now strongly urges the Berkeley City Council to deny permission for a terminal at the proposed site. -more-
There is no example more real, and relevant, as to why Berkeley should welcome a ferry system back onto its shores than the recent, and painful, days long closure of the Bay Bridge. And, according to a professional poll taken in April 2005, 83 percent of Berkeleyans think this restoration of service is a good idea. -more-
The Berkeley City Council will vote on Nov. 17 whether to endorse construction of a ferry terminal at the Berkeley Marina between the fishing pier and Hs Lordships restaurant. This vote is premature because of unresolved, significant reservations expressed by Berkeley’s three cognizant commissions: Planning, Transportation, and Waterfront. -more-
In her latest book Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich contends that positive thinking can render you powerless when it overrides reality. It did so for a man I knew whose face was being eaten by cancer. He dabbed at the suppurating wound with a handkerchief while sunnily burbling about everything but that or seeking treatment. I wondered how he could so blithely ignore what was obvious to everyone else. I wonder the same about the UC administrators and regents. -more-
What? Manufacturing in Berkeley? Of course. In the United States the largest economic sector is manufacturing. Manufacturing accounts for 70 percent of R & D. Manufacturing pays better. For every dollar paid to production workers, service workers receive 75 cents. Retail jobs pay 50 cents. -more-
President Lyndon Johnson once said that you can’t sell chicken poop as chicken soup. Only he didn’t say poop. New Yorker’s have a saying “money talks and bull manure walks” only they don’t say manure. I have found, especially over the last eight years, that both of these truisms are wrong. When you mix money with any kind of manure you can sell chicken poop as soup and money plus manure always rides in limousines. I am writing to counter the deep manure and the heavy money that is driving the changes to the West Berkeley Plan. -more-
Our city is on the verge of an incredible achievement. Across the country, city officials and their school district counterparts often bicker about everything under the sun relating to youth and their needs within a given jurisdiction. All the while, the children they are responsible for educating are lost in the shuffle. Low-income, African-American and Latino children fall the furthest behind and often drop out of the system altogether. -more-
I don’t believe in human nature, said Prof. Dongping Han, a participant in China’s Cultural Revolution and now a Professor of History at Warren Wilson College. In the Cultural Revolution, he said, we didn’t have to care about ourselves, because others cared about us. -more-
Whatever else he may accomplish this election season, former State Senator Don Perata appears—so far—to be successfully winning the battle to get the media to adopt his electoral narrative. While no other reporter or columnist has embarrassed themselves by declaring, as the Chronicle’s Chip Johnson once did, that nothing stands between Mr. Perata and the Oakland mayor’s office but “blue skies” (“With Probe Over, Perata Primed To Lead Oakland,” May 29, 2009), there appears a subtle—if sometimes grudging—tone in local reporting that once Mr. Perata’s potential federal corruption problems were behind him, the mayor’s race is his to lose. That, of course, is clearly Mr. Perata’s strategy in next year’s election: to run as if his victory is all but inevitable, and those who do not get with his campaign immediately will be left out. -more-
Rebels Widen Deadly Reach Across India” reads the alarming headline in the New York Times, and the prose that follows is pretty scary: “India’s Maoist rebels are now present in 20 states and have evolved into a potent and lethal insurgency.” According to the Times, the Maoists have killed 900 Indian security officers over the last four years, hi-jacked a train, burned two schools, and freed prisoners from jails. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls them the “single greatest security challenge ever faced in our country.” -more-
Those of us who came of age at a certain time think of Van Morrison and John Lee Hooker when we hear the tree’s name: tupelo. It’s an Algonquian word, like the name of the Susquehannock (“muddy river”) people, who lived along the river I grew up on, the Susquehanna. (Donald Culross Peattie said it was derived from the Creek eto, “tree”, and opelwv, “swamp.”) -more-
On many an April 18, the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Berkeley Gazette columnist Hal Johnson used to trot out one of his favorite stories: “The Barker Block, on the northwest corner of Shattuck Ave. and Dwight Way, had just been built ... Brick cornices crashed. Damage was quickly repaired. Soon the building was housing book concerns that were burned out in San Francisco.” -more-
As in much fiction, and occasionally in life, the set-up for Fat Pig, the Neil LaBute play at the Aurora, is simple, leading to complications that threaten that initially apparent simplicity. -more-
Agora Theater—“think ‘marketplace of ideas’ in the public square”—was founded by Anne Hallinan and her fellow San Francisco Mime Troupe alumna Patricia Silver -more-
Kahlil Wilson, alumnus of both the UC Berkeley Young Musicians’ Program and the Oakland Youth Chorus, comes home to the Bay Area this week to sing with soprano Hope Briggs and others at the Oakland East Bay Symphony’s “Night at the Opera.” -more-
The Black Dragon: Music from the Time of Vlad Dracula, the title of Canconier’s Sunday evening concert at St. Alban’s Church in Albany, may strike some readers as being less about the richness and diversity in sounds from 15th- century Eastern and Central Europe and the Balkans than as a vague memory of Bela Lugosi intoning, to the accompaniment of a wolf howling, “Children of the Night! What music they make!” -more-