The Nov. 28 New York Times article about the efforts of a few pro-Israel activists to shut down the Daily Planet for its publication of reader contributions critical of that nation's policies provided a fair introduction to the story but failed to fully elucidate the nature of the campaign. 

Though the first stirrings of this censorship campaign began several years ago, it did not begin in earnest until this year, when PR professional Jim Sinkinson began a more organized and deliberate campaign to intimidate advertisers. The Planet first alerted its readership to Sinkinson's efforts in a March 19 editorial.  

The paper followed up with a June 4 story by Richard Brenneman that looked at the three principal players and documented the intimidation felt by advertisers—most of them local business owners, many with little or no knowledge of the Israel-Palestine conflict.  

The story was accompanied by multiple sidebars, looking at the amount of commentary on the subject (just 5 percent of the paper's opinion submissions over a two-year period focused on Israel-Palestine, roughly two thirds of which could be considered critical of Israel, and most submissions on both sides were written by Jews); Sinkinson's ties to FLAME (Facts and Logic About the Middle East), an organization run by Daniel Pipes and Gerardo Joffe, with a long history of intimidation and smear tactics in the defense of right-wing Israeli policies; John Gertz's red-baiting of Planet columnist Conn Hallinan; Dan Spitzer's elusiveness; the involvement of Sanne DeWitt and her Israel Action Committee of the East Bay; Gertz and Spitzer's effort to libel opinion-page contributor Joseph Anderson by falsely attributing anti-Semitic hate speech to him with fabricated quotes published online; and the fact that Sinkinson's company hosts an annual conference that coaches PR people on how to influence the media, and that this year's high-profile participants included Dan Rather and three New York Times staffers—health reporter Tara Parker Pope, Assistant Business Finance Editor Andrew Ross Sorkin and Blog and Technology Editor Saul Hansell—as well as editors from many other media outlets, including Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press.  

Blogger Hamilton Nolan commented on the irony of a media relations guru's opposition to free speech in a recent post on Gawker.  

Former Daily Planet reporter Richard Brenneman also penned a response to the Times story.  

Sinkinson's campaign persisted after the June 4 Planet story. One of his missives to advertisers selectively quoted from a letter to the Planet from the East Bay Council of Rabbis. Sinkinson excised a few lines from the letter where the council made plain their opposition to his campaign, leaving advertisers to believe that the East Bay's greater Jewish community supported his efforts. The council of rabbis, which includes Sinkinson's own rabbi, responded with indignation, characterizing Sinkinson's misuse of the letter as "deeply disturbing." 

The New York Times article failed to mention this or the fact that Sinkinson is a director of FLAME, as documented in our June 4 story. Thus the statement in the Times story that the organized Jewish community is not involved in his campaign is only partially correct, as the organized right-wing Zionist Jewish community clearly is.  

It also failed to mention that many Jews have condemned the actions of these men, and that more than 100 local Jews signed their names to an advertisement in support of the paper and in opposition to any effort to censor its opinion pages.  

Nor did the story mention that Gertz himself was a frequent contributor to the Planet's opinion pages for years. The paper gave much space to his views, including his criticisms of those—Jews and gentiles alike—who would criticize Israel, and only banned him from its pages once he began to threaten lawsuits and vowed to shut down the paper.  

The bottom line, stated nowhere in the Times article, is that this is a political dispute, not a moral one. Gertz, Sinkinson and Spitzer and other like-minded Israel supporters may couch their arguments in terms of Judaism, claiming that Israel's critics are anti-Semitic, but what they are really defending is a political ideology, and the efforts of these three men to shut down or "reform" the paper are, purely and simply, a form of McCarthyism—an attempt to stifle the flow of information and opinion which does not line up with their own political beliefs. Substitute the name of any other nation for Israel and the nature of this censorship campaign—a small band of ideologues attempting to shut down open discussion of a foreign power's policies—is made frightfully clear.  

And as for morality, hiding behind notions of Jewish identity and the long, tragic history of anti-Semitism to further a political agenda is the height of cynicism.

Results of the 2009 Physical Fitness Test released Monday by the state Department of Public Education show Berkeley public schools trailing their peers in six fitness categories. 

Thirty-four percent of Berkeley Unified School District fifth-graders met the criteria for all six areas of the test compared with 29 percent statewide. However, only 31 percent of seventh-graders met the same criteria compared with 34 percent throughout California.  

Just 13. 8 percent of ninth-graders met the criteria compared with 37.9 percent statewide. 

District Superintendent Bill Huyett said he was suprised to see low participation rates for ninth-graders in BUSD. Just 305 students had taken the test in ninth grade although there are approximatey 800 ninth-graders in the district. 

“An awful lot of students don’t take the test,” Huyett said. “They might go for other physical activities such as dance or theater.” 

Statewide, more than 1.38 million students in the fifth, seventh, and ninth grades took the test during the 2008-09 school year. 

“The test is an important indicator for students’ readiness,” Huyett said. According to a statement from the state education department, the goal of the test “is to facilitate learning about physical activity and physical fitness concepts in order to increase the likelihood students will adopt lifetime patterns of physical activity.” 

Carrie Strong-Thompson of the state Department of Public Education told the Planet that fifth-, seventh- and ninth-graders were required by law to take the test. The window for the test is between Feb. 1 to May 31 although districts may decide when to administer it. 

“Our goal would be that 100 percent of the students meet the fitness criteria,” she said. “We would like all schools to take the test seriously.” 

Strong-Thompson said the numbers for students meeting all six physical fitness criteria were gradually improving. She added that the test does not provide a pass-or-fail grade to students; instead each student has to meet minimum criteria which take into account age, gender and other factors. 

The latest test results represent a 0.6 percentage point increase in fifth-grade students’ scores, a 1.2 percentage point increase in seventh-grade students’ scores, and a 2.3 percentage point gain in ninth-grade student’ scores compared with last year's results 

“I am pleased that our students continue to make strides toward becoming physically fit,” state Superintendent of Education Jack O’Connell said. “The percentage of students who are in the healthy fitness zone is increasing. However, as a state we must continue to improve. National statistics show that today’s children are twice as likely to be overweight than their counterparts of the 1980s. Teenagers today are three times as likely to be overweight as those in the 1980s. Our students must take responsibility for their fitness, health, and overall well-being so they can compete on the playing field, in the classroom, and on the global stage.” 

Strong-Thompson said that each grade is required to take P.E. for a certain amount of time every day. 

California public schools are required to report results of physical fitness testing annually in their school accountability report cards. 

“We take P.E. very seriously,” said BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan. “The issue is that the amount of instructional minutes we get every day is very limited. Another big issue is space. We have very limited open space for P.E. in our schools. We don’t have adequate square footage.” 

The 2009 physical fitness results for schools, school districts, counties, and state are available on the CDE website. 

Parents looking to enroll their kids at Berkeley public elementary schools next year will have a few more choices at Saturday’s annual kindergarten fair. 

Faced with cramped classrooms and a rapidly increasing kindergarten enrollment, the 9,000-student Berkeley Unified School District drew up a plan in October to address space problems in its central and north zones, which are projected to exceed their present capacities in the next decade. 

The north zone in particular is the worst affected, according to district officials. 

The district hired Davis Demographics & Planning, Inc. earlier this year to project future enrollment figures for the Berkeley public schools. 

Data reported to the state by Berkeley Unified shows the district had 9,370 students in 2000-2001, which declined to 8,843 students by the 2003-04 school year. The DDP study shows that over the next five years BUSD’s enrollment stabilized at around the 9,000-student mark with a low of 8,904 in 2004-05 and a high of 9,088 in 2006-07. In 2008-09—the last year the DDP study took into account—it was 8,988.  

The DDP report predicts that most of the growth projected to take place over the next decade will be in the elementary grades, growing from 3,686 to 4,033 students—an increase of 347.  

In the middle schools, the numbers will rise from 1,799 to 1,894, an increase of 95.  

At the high schools, student population is expected to fluctuate over the same period, at first declining and then rebounding to current levels as larger classes in the lower grades graduate over the years.  

After listening to concerns from Berkeley Arts Magnet and Malcolm X Elementary school PTAs, the two institutions affected the most by the proposed zone realignment, the Berkeley Board of Education voted Nov. 18 to approve the district’s preferred model, which will keep the current zone lines intact but have Berkeley Arts Magnet straddle both the northwest and central zones. 

The new model will also see the central and southeast zones sharing Malcolm X. 

Berkeley Unified School District Facilities Director Lew Jones, who worked on the new model, told the Planet that the changes would leave parents with more options for their children. 

Until now, the north zone only included Rosa Parks, Thousand Oaks and Jefferson elementary schools, with Jefferson being the smallest. 

Next year Berkeley Arts Magnet will be added to the list.  

Parents will also have the option to choose Malcolm X in the central zone. 

“It’s nice for the parents to have some notice,” said Jones. “That way we won’t have to spring the choices on them at the last minute. Now they have the option of visiting Malcolm X or Berkeley Arts Magnet if they want to.” 

District Superintendent Bill Huyett said the district hoped the zone changes would address the population increase for the next two or three years, after which it would start looking at constructing classrooms. 

“In the long run we might add space to the schools themselves,” said Jones. “But we don’t know how many kids we will be serving in five to six years. Everything is an estimate. Some of the kids haven’t even been born yet.” 

Jones said that the district had listened to parents’ concerns and made amendments to the original plan before seeking the board’s approval. 

“We made some adjustments—there were some misunderstandings that by adopting the zone changes we would be putting portables in one place or the other,” Jones said. “Parents at Jefferson wanted us to add classrooms to the old cafeteria there rather than cutting down on playground space. We don’t have a lot of open playground space in our schools so it’s understandable that parents don’t want to lose whatever is there.” 

Jones said that the district would also consider using the annex at Washington Elementary School—currently occupied by Berkeley High School, which has severe space crunches of its own— for elementary classrooms, but that the plan would require “additional analysis and research.” 

Huyett said that parents at Malcolm X wanted the district to look at staffing patterns, clerical support and campus supervision for bigger schools as well as the hiring and retention of intervention teachers. 

“Some parents were concerned that Malcolm X would go over 500 students, but we are hoping that will not happen,” Huyett said. 

The annual Kindergarten Fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 5 at LeConte Elementary School, 2241 Russell St. 

For previous coverage of the issue, see the Daily Planet's Oct. 8 edition.  

Calling for a prompt, “impartial and comprehensive” investigation into police brutality that allegedly took place on the UC Berkeley campus during the Nov. 20 Wheeler Hall occupation, more than 100 faculty members signed an open letter to Chancellor Robert Birgeneau Wednesday condemning the violence. 

The letter came a day after Birgeneau issued a statement promising that a review panel consisting of faculty members and students would conduct an independent probe into Friday’s police actions. 

“We, the undersigned faculty, are writing to voice our strenuous objection to the use of unwarranted violence by the police forces enlisted by the University of California (UC) at Berkeley to patrol the student demonstration outside of Wheeler Hall on Friday, November 20th,” the letter begins. “It is now abundantly clear that in addition to UC Police, there were squads from the City of Berkeley and Alameda County, and that some of these police forces acted with undue violence at various points during the day, most conspicuously at mid-day and then again in late afternoon when they used batons against students and a faculty member. In some cases this occurred to defenseless people who had already been pushed to the ground, among them several who sustained injuries to hands, heads, and stomachs, and were forced to seek urgent medical care. These abuses of police power were captured on video recordings and in photographs, corroborated by numerous witnesses. They have now been widely circulated on the web and throughout the national and international media. We will send you a composite of those websites and testimonies under separate cover.” 

The letter, signed by many professors who found themselves in the middle of the protest, either negotiating the occupiers’ release with the university administration or trying to protect their students from police action, goes on to say that there is ample proof that the students were “acting in a nonviolent manner when their civil rights were abrogated by police harassment and assault.”  

"Such instances of unprovoked police brutality would be appalling and objectionable anywhere, but we find it most painful for these events to have taken place on the UC Berkeley campus, given the important tradition of protecting free speech that you, Chancellor Birgeneau, have only very recently defended,” the letter said. “Hence we regard with dismay and astonishment your euphemistic reference to this Friday’s violence: ‘a few members of our campus community may have found themselves in conflict with law enforcement officers.’ There is no doubt that our students and colleagues did find themselves subject to unwarranted and illegal police brutality. It is therefore incumbent on the Chancellor of UC Berkeley to condemn such actions unequivocally and to make sure that such actions are subject to comprehensive review and disciplinary action.” 

Although protesters repeatedly asked for Birgeneau to be present at the scene to witness police behavior last Friday, Birgeneau did not appear. 

Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Jonathan Poullard was outside Wheeler Hall talking to students and police. 

Faculty members demanded that the university assume “full accountability for the actions of the police forces” who were present on campus last Friday, “making broad use of available testimony on the part of victims and observers, including photographic images, video and personal narration of those at the scene in order to establish a clear record of the facts.” 

“We ask as well that you speak directly and honestly to the students about what has happened,” the letter said. “They are entitled to know that the university does not condone acts of police violence such as these; as of this writing, they have received no word from the administration acknowledging accountability for such appalling actions. Indeed, the administration was markedly unreachable on Friday, when faculty were most pressed to take on a mediating role.” 

Faculty members also asked Birgeneau to widely publicize current university protocol governing police misconduct at demonstrations and find out whether “protocol was followed or abrogated on Friday.”  

They said the administration should also clearly outline what kind of disciplinary actions would be taken against police officers who were found guilty of assault. 

Finally, faculty members asked the administration to issue a public statement reconfirming the university’s commitment to protect free expression and assembly for students on the Berkeley campus. 

“Friday’s failure to do so is a most painful public display of how far UC Berkeley has strayed from its historical responsibility as a national and international institution pledged to rights of free speech and assembly and to the ideals of social justice,” the letter concluded. “It is surely difficult enough to see our reputation as an excellent and affordable university jeopardized through budget cuts and fee hikes. Must we see as well the dissolution of the ideal of protecting free speech for students for whom the very future of their education is at stake?”

A small but spirited crowd turned up at a town hall meeting at Longfellow Middle School Tuesday night to protest the proposed closure of Berkeley’s Park Station post office on Sacramento Street. 

Officials from the United States Postal Service announced at the meeting that although the South Berkeley branch on Adeline Street had been taken off the list of stations being considered for the chopping block, Park Station was not so fortunate. 

South Berkeley station has not been immune, however; the number of sales associates at the office was recently reduced from two to one. 

Berkeley Post Master Ray Davis announced toward the end of the meeting that Landscape Station on Solano Avenue might still be on the list of closures. 

Faced with billions of dollars in deficit—exacerbated by historic declines in mail volume—the USPS is scrambling to find ways to stay afloat, slashing costs, downsizing operations, reducing customer service, and reducing mail service to five days a week. Consolidating stations, it says, is one method of addressing a rapidly changing communication system, in which more and more people prefer e-mail or text messaging to posting letters. 

However, a certain section of the population—mostly senior citizens who often don’t have access to computers, cell phones or e-mail—feel that closing down the post office is akin to taking away one of their most important forms of communication. 

The 30 or so senior South Berkeley residents in the audience reiterated this point at Tuesday’s meeting, defending the need for a “community post office” in their neighborhood. 

Another complaint was that the U.S.P.S. had called the town hall meeting right before a major holiday, when most people were either busy or away on vacation. 

“We appreciate the fact that you want to hold a meeting, but this is the worst time to hold a meeting,” said City Councilmember Darryl Moore, who represents District 2, where the Park Station post office is located. “I wasn’t even informed about this meeting. I learned about it from one of the postal union workers.” 

The Berkeley City Council passed a resolution in September opposing the U.S.P.S.’s plans to consolidate the three Berkeley post offices. 

Other South Berkeley residents said they were unhappy about the lack of proper notification about the meeting.  

“Only residents in the 94702 zone were mailed letters,” said Susan Hammer, a retired Berkeley postal worker who is with the local postal workers union. “What about those in the 94703 zone, who are right across the street? The community that Park Station serves is not limited to 94702.” 

Hammer, who submitted more than 800 signatures in support of saving the South Berkeley Post Office, added that station expenses represented only 2 percent of the total operating costs of the U.S.P.S. 

“There are ways to save money,” she said. “Why don’t they turn the main post office in Berkeley solar like they did in Oakland? It even has a flat roof for the solar panels.” 

Moore said that closing Park Station would negatively impact residents of at least three senior centers in the neighborhood. 

“The postal service is in the business to serve, but we have to balance our service with our assets,” said Lowana Gooch, the post master for Oakland, where community members recently fought to save the Diamond station post office. 

“How many of you use e-mail?” Gooch asked the audience. No one raised a hand. 

“Well, the thing is, more and more people are now doing things online,” Gooch explained. “We have lost a lot of first-class mail because of that. We don’t get catalogues anymore—remember when JC Penny’s used to be like this ...?” 

“But we get a lot of junk mail,” said Berkeley resident Carol Hochberg. “The post office is subsidizing all the heavy junk mail.” 

Davis explained that the U.S.P.S. was “trying to automate a lot of things” to save money. 

“You can now buy your stamps online,” he said. “You don’t have to wait in line anymore.” 

Eleanor Neal, Park Station’s only sales associate, was greeted with applause when she joined the meeting. Neal, who has been at the branch for eight years, knows her customers by name and often skips lunch to help them out. 

“The City of Berkeley has a climate action plan to reduce greenhouse gases—closing down neighborhood post offices will force people to take transportation; that undercuts the city of Berkeley’s climate action plan,” said another Berkeley resident. 

Damon Moore, a grassroots legislative coordinator with the American Postal Workers Union, said a lot of low-income residents in Berkeley used the Park Street station like a bank. 

“They don’t have credit cards or ATM, that’s all they have,” he said. “Twenty-one percent of residents around half a mile of Park Station don’t have vehicles. If you want to save the station, the numbers are there for you to save it. There is a lack of transparency in the process.” 

Moore pointed to a rebuttal by Anita Morrison before the Postal Regulatory Commission on behalf of the APWU which cited statistics showing that studies carried out by the U.S.P.S. before consolidating stations discriminated against communities with high percentages of low-income, minority and transit-dependent residents. 

Morrison is the founding principal of Partners for Economics Solutions, an urban economics consulting firm. 

According to her report, the Park Station post office serves 1,151 senior citizens. The unemployment rate in the area is almost 20 percent. 

“The postal service is in dire straits right now,” Gooch said. “The economy is hurting. Everyone here knows someone who has been laid off. We don’t want to inconvenience our customers, but we have to consolidate our services.”  

Some community members said that they would like the U.S.P.S. to hold another meeting, this time with ample notification to the concerned parties. 

Oscar Munoz, a U.S.P.S. post office operations manager for the Bay Valley district, which includes Berkeley, reminded everyone that the proposal to close Park Station was “still pretty much just a proposal.” 

He said that U.S.P.S. would try to organize another meeting in the near future. 

“The revenue in Park Station fell by 17 percent last year. Why? The economy,” he said. “You can help raise the revenue by going to Park Station more.” 

“Why doesn’t the government bail out the U.S.P.S. like it’s bailing out all the other corporations?” asked Hochberg. 

“That’s between our CEO and the president of the United States,” answered Gooch. 

Gooch said that although there had been 3,700 post offices originally slated for consolidation or closure, the list had been reduced by 75 percent. 

“The Postal Regulatory Commission takes into account demographics, culture and senior citizens,” she said explaining that notes from the meeting would be sent to the U.S.P.S. headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

Munoz said that the U.S.P.S. would notify the Park Station community about its next steps—whether it’s a final decision or another meeting. 

“It seems to me that this is going to be it,” said Moore. “Diamond had an opportunity to organize, we’ve not had an opportunity to organize. We have only 30 people here tonight—it will look like a set-up for failure. I don’t want your report to reflect that we don’t care about Park Station. We can easily fill this room.” 

To find out more about the post office closures, click here. 

UC Berkeley student activists held a candlelight vigil Tuesday night in front of Wheeler Hall, the campus building that was occupied by protesters Friday as part of a demonstration against the University of California's handling of its budget woes.  

There were about 100 students present for the vigil, which included a rally during which speakers told of their experiences last Friday. Several spoke of incidents of alleged police brutality.

UC Berkeley students were preparing to stage a candlelight vigil at Wheeler Hall Tuesday night as the Daily Planet went to press, and may take over the building once again next week to protest the 32 percent tuition hike. But this time, they say, it will be an “open occupation.” 

UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said that although students had talked about an open occupation at a Monday meeting, “no one really knew what they meant by that.” 

A group of UC Berkeley students marched to UC President Mark Yudof’s office in Oakland Monday and staged a sit-in, demanding to meet with him. 

The students went to Yudof’s office after learning at Alameda County Superior Court that burglary charges against three Wheeler Hall occupiers had been reduced to misdemeanors. 

Mogulof confirmed there were students in Yudof’s office “who were engaged in peaceful conversation with officials there.” 

He said Yudof was not present at the office. 

An employee at the UC Office of the President, who answered the phone around 5 p.m. Monday, but refused to give his name, said the office had received internal reports that some students had come into the lobby and staged a protest there.  

He said that Peter King, who is in charge of media relations for the office, had gone down to the lobby to talk to them and that employees were being asked to use alternative exits because of the protesters.  

King could not be reached immediately for comment. 

UC Chancellor Robert Bir-geneau issued a statement Monday saying that an independent review panel consisting of students, faculty members and staff would investigate the allegations of police brutality at Friday’s protest. Several students have charged that police used excessive force during the protests outside Wheeler Hall, sometimes beating individuals with batons and firing rubber bullets.  

One girl had her finger broken by a baton and another student complained that the police simultaneously struck him with a baton and fired a rubber bullet at him.  

“We truly regret the incidents that brought physical and emotional injury to members of our community,” Birgeneau said. “UCPD has already begun conducting conducting an operational review that entails collection of all the available information including reports, videos and pictures taken by UCPD, students, the public, and media, to ensure that actions were reasonable given the situation presented and the information known at the time. This includes a review of uses of force.”  

Mogulof, who was off work due to a furlough Nov. 20 and thus did not witness the police action first-hand, said he had seen some very disturbing video images from the protest. 

He said that three separate agencies—UCPD, Berkeley Police and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office—had responded to the scene. 

“I can’t speak for other agencies, but generally police are not authorized to use excessive force without doing a comprehensive assessment of what the risks are,” he said. “Obviously UCPD does carry weapons, and as police officers they are trained to use them, keeping in mind the safety and security of students.” 

When asked whether the Wheeler Hall occupation had helped in getting the message across to the UC Board of Regents, who approved the 32 percent tuition increase at a meeting on the UCLA campus Nov. 19, Mogulof replied, “Of course the administration is paying attention.” 

“There is a sense that this kind of action doesn’t advance the cause, but there is the desire to find common ground,” Mogulof said. “One thing that unites everyone is that they want to save the university. There’s a feeling we have got the message, but what does that actually do to address the underlying crisis?” 

Questions have been raised in the editorial pages of local and national media about whether the strikes and occupations across the 10-campus university system against the fee hike should be directed at Sacramento, which allots state funding for public education, instead of the regents. 

“You can’t overlook the fact that some of the students feel that the actions taken by the regents were not the correct decisions,” Mogulof said. “I spoke with some students who are just frustrated with the whole thing ... There were about one or two thousand students protesting around Wheeler Hall while there was another 32,000–33,000 that were not. They just wanted to go to class but couldn’t because of the protests. Nobody has a problem with protest as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others.” 

UC Berkeley professor of planning Matt Kondolf, who joined the protests for a bit during the day, said that “although the chancellor is correct that the protest really belongs in Sacramento against the absurd cuts to the state’s higher education system, it was good that there was some peaceful expression of opposition to the obscene increase in fees.” 

The occupation 

A cold rain did not deter hundreds of UC Berkeley students Friday, Nov. 20, as they surrounded the campus’ Wheeler Hall in support of 40 protesters who occupied the building to demonstrate against the fee hike.  

UC Berkeley police entered the building in the morning and took control of the first floor as the protesters moved to the second floor.  

Three students who did not make it to the second floor were arrested by UC police and later charged with misdemeanors. 

UC and Berkeley police later put up barricades around the building and cordoned off much of the area with yellow tape. Students and police clashed near Sather Gate as the crowd surged toward the barricades and police used batons to fight them off.  

“Shame on you! shame on you!” the crowd chanted. “Books not batons! Books not batons!” 

Some students urged the crowd to remain peaceful, and faculty members at one point emerged from Wheeler Hall to inform the crowd that the dean of students was in touch with UC Berkeley police and had guaranteed there would be no violence.  

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Department arrived in riot gear in the early afternoon and surrounded the hall.  

Throughout the day police made futile attempts to move students further away from Wheeler Hall. 

UC Berkeley student Lauren Cartwright told the Daily Planet that when she refused to move back, police grabbed her. Other students held on to her and police relented, released her, and backed off a few feet.  

Pegah Zardoos, an undergraduate who is on the board of Cal Berkeley Democrats, said she was “shocked and appalled by the police actions ...”  

Business undergraduates Astrid Fernandes and Ameetah Mishna came to Wheeler Hall but could not get to their class. They then joined the protest and walked in the picket line.  

“This occupation is a way, the only way, to get attention to what is going on,” Fernandes said.  

Emily Ng, a graduate student in anthropology, joined the protest with two of her friends. “This is a public institution, after all,” Ng said. “We are taught to forget that we can affect the institutions in which we partake.”  

According to UC Berkeley sophmore student Kritika Thukral, the occupation was planned following a Thursday night 6 p.m. general assembly, at subcommittee meetings at various undisclosed locations.  

A spokesperson for the occupiers who spoke on condition of anonymity said they were given an offer that they could either be “charged with misdemeanors and may leave the building without being arrested, then meet with the chancellor and other UC administrators to negotiate their demands” or they could be arrested and charged with a felony.  

The occupiers rejected the offer.  

Protest leaders asked supporters to remain outside Wheeler Hall, saying that without witnesses they feared police would begin arresting the occupiers.  

Students set off multiple fire alarms at a number of buildings on campus throughout the day, with at least 14 fire alarms going off at Dwinelle Hall, which is right across from Wheeler.  

Dean of Student Affairs Jonathan Poullard was negotiating with a student protester about the occupants’ release during the afternoon.  

Poullard told the student that although the occupiers would be cited and released, he wasn’t sure what the final charges would be against them.  

“There’s a due process for student conduct,” Poullard said. “There can be suspension, there is the possibility of expulsion ... we don’t know that yet.”  

Poullard appeared to be talking to UCPD and Berkeley police officers to bring the situation under control.  

“What about negotiation?” asked a student leader.  

“You can’t negotiate with 500 people,” Poullard answered.  

Anne Wagner, a professor of art history at UC Berkeley, said that she came to the protest to make sure no drastic steps were taken against the students.  

“Students at UCLA were tasered and pepper-sprayed yesterday,” she said. “That’s why I am here. That’s why a bunch of faculty members are here, to make sure things don’t go against the students.” 

Wagner said that although she wasn’t sure of the group’s tactics to fight the budget cuts, she was present to show support. 

UC Berkeley professor of Sociology Andrew Barlow, who was part of the faculty negotiating team, told the Planet around 8 p.m. Friday that the occupiers inside Wheeler Hall would be cited and released one by one. 

Barlow said that police officers had used a key to enter the occupied space. He said that an 11-member faculty team had met with the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs right after the police entered the second floor.  

“We were negotiating to end this day peacefully,” Barlow said. “The students are being cited for a misdemeanor of trespassing. They are not being taken to jail. They can come out and be with their friends.” 

At the end of the day the occupiers’ demands—ranging from a repeal of the 32 percent fee hike to reinstatement of all 38 laid-off UC Berkeley custodians to negotiation of leases for Bear’s Lair food court vendors who have been asked to pay double their current rent—were not met by campus administration, but that did not deter their spirit. 

“I’ll still say this was a huge success,” Barlow said. “It’s a beginning of a new student movement.” 

He said that the day-long negotiation had made it harder for the students to come out of the building earlier.  

All 40 occupiers were released from Wheeler Hall a little after 9 p.m. to cheers and applause from the crowd which surrounded the building.  

As the first three students left, escorted by police, the crowd clapped and shouted out their names.  

Fred, the father of one of the student occupiers who didn’t want to give his last name because he feared retribution for his daughter, praised the protesters.  

“My daughter is still in the building and I am very proud of her,” he said. “I am very proud of all of you.” 

Fred told the Daily Planet that his daughter had called him in the middle of the night and told him that “they were occupying the building.”  

“I said ‘good luck and be as safe as possible,’” he said. “And I told her I will be here.” 

He said he had been waiting outside Wheeler all day long, worrying “how the police will treat her.”  

“She gave me updates until her cell phone ran out of batteries,” he said. “She sounded anxious but very energized.”  

As more students came out, their friends hugged and kissed them, patting them on the back.  

“It’s so good to be back with all of you,” one girl said. “We were cited for trespassing and released ... That’s all.”  

The group requested media cameramen to respect their privacy, and invited everyone to a later meeting in front of Dwinelle Hall.  

UC Berkeley Political Science senior Adam Astan, who was in the crowd outside the hall, recounted how Alameda County police had hit him with a baton. He said he had also been shot with a rubber bullet, pulling up his t-shirt to show his injuries.  

“I was crying out ‘peace, peace’ and they suddenly hit me,” Astan said.  

He said he had seen one of the police batons fly out and hit a girl on the face. Another girl who showed up at the meeting later underwent reconstructive surgery after having her finger smashed by a stray baton.  

As the occupiers huddled under a tree outside Wheeler around 9 p.m, they thanked the crowd.  

“What we did in there doesn’t compare to what you did out here,” said one of the occupiers, who wouldn’t give her name to the press, as the crowd roared. “What you did out here blew what we did away. Whatever you did today, don’t stop doing it. It got people out of this building.”  

Some of the young women said they had been very scared all along since they didn’t know what to expect.  

“We know about the sacrifices you made, we know you put your bodies on the line,” one of them said. “We need to keep going.”  

Raymond Barglow contributed to this story.

Not everyone is happy with Berkeley’s latest plan, which seeks to make buses whiz through the city’s transit corridors. 

Like the majority of businesses on Telegraph Avenue, Moe’s Books is against the city’s Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) for Bus Rapid Transit, a bus route city officials say is designed to have many of the advantages of a rail line without the disruption that comes with laying tracks. 

The plan would keep Telegraph Avenue one-way northbound for cars but create a dedicated southbound lane between Durant Avenue and Dwight Way for buses, delivery and emergency vehicles and bikes. 

Already struggling in today’s challenging economy, Moe’s, which has been around for half a century and employs 27 people, feels that two-way traffic on Telegraph would give rise to gridlock and prevent customers from coming to the store. 

Standing in front of the store her father founded 50 years ago, Doris Moskowitz watched customers load and unload stacks of books from their cars. 

“At least they didn’t take this away,” she said, pointing to the load–unload zone. “I was afraid we were going to lose it.” 

Although earlier plans sought to remove the existing loading zones, angry letters from Moskowitz and other Telegraph merchants forced the city to scrap the idea. The revised LPA allows cars to use the southbound lane and maintains the loading zones on that side of the street. 

“But the bigger problem is access,” said Moskovitz. “I perceive two-way traffic will not work on Telegraph—cars, buses .... No one will be able to get through.” 

In a letter to the Berkeley City Council, Moskovitz made her point. 

“We at Moe’s Books trade, recycle and reuse goods,” she said. “That thousands of books come into Moe’s everyday may come as a surprise to you ... Any interruption to access to our front door is our primary concern. We perceive the Locally Preferred Alternative as a serious threat to our ability to do what we do.” 

A number of Telegraph Avenue street vendors showed up at the city’s first LPA public workshop on Nov. 19 at the Transportation Commission meeting. 

“In the name of progress, they submerged entire villages in China to build a dam,” said Janet Klein, who has sold handicrafts on Telegraph for 30 years. “In the name of progress I feel I am being submerged under water.” 

Klein, who also coordinates the Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Fair with Yolanda Castillo, said that Telegraph vendors have submitted a petition with thousands of signatures opposing the two-way proposal, which she said would make it difficult for vendors to load and unload their goods. 

“It’s a question of making conditions so difficult for us that we will have to leave,” Klein told the Planet in a telephone interview. “Making faster buses or longer buses or dedicated buslines is not going to get people out of cars. Sometimes in the name of progress we don’t progress.” 

Klein said the Locally Preferred Alternative would affect roughly 125 street vendors on Telegraph. 

“The city is telling us that in 10 years, more people will be using buses, but how do we know that?” Moskowitz asked. “In essence we want to get people out of cars but don’t want our business ruined. And if no one can get here that’s what will end up happening. If Berkeley wants to retain its characteristics, it needs to help us, not hurt us. Access is one issue. We need help with the street, the parking and the scruffiness. We don’t want Telegraph to become the stepchild of the neighborhood. We want it to be the heart of the city.” 

The city is currently preparing the final environmental study for the Locally Preferred Alternative, which includes two other options—“no build” and Rapid Bus Plus, which is still being developed by AC Transit. 

“The LPA is the city’s opportunity to develop a ‘best-build option,’ with the ‘no-build alternative at the other end of the spectrum, and the Rapid Bus Plus alternative in the middle,” said Bonnie Nelson of Nelson & Nygaard, the San Francisco-based consultants hired by the city’s transportation department. 

Moskowitz wants the traffic lanes on Telegraph to stay exactly the same. 

“I don’t know a single person in the neighborhood who wants designated lanes, bus malls or being told they can’t park somewhere,” she said. “The City of Berkeley has this idea that they can impose anything they want. We are not pro-car, but to do it this way will lead to a completely empty neighborhood.” 

Nelson said the Berkeley City Council would decide after the final environmental study whether it wants to endorse BRT. 

The concept of BRT has been around for a long time in Berkeley. Oakland and San Leandro are developing their own locally preferred alternatives as part of the 17-mile corridor that includes Berkeley and is the busiest in the AC Transit system, with more than 21,000 boardings daily on the 1 and 1R bus routes. 

“With or without the BRT we will continue to experience more growth and congestion,” said Nelson. “BRT has been conceived as a proactive way to address growth.” 

Some Berkeley residents and transportation commissioners said they gladly welcome the idea of a faster, better and more accessible transportation system given how unreliable AC Transit can be at times, especially late at night. 

Designed to operate like a small light-rail station, BRT was first established in Curitiba, Brazil. Today, it is used in big cities like Ottawa as well as small university towns like Eugene, Ore. 

BRT riders can buy tickets from machines, and the bus stops have larger shelters, more seating, maps and NextBus signs to show estimated arrival times. 

“For transit riders, BRT promises to be both faster and more reliable,” Nelson said. “In transit operations, every second counts.” 

Nelson said that BRT would increase frequency from 8–9 buses an hour to buses every five minutes, or 12 buses an hour. 

However, all these statistics have failed to impress Telegraph merchants so far.  

The owners of Amoeba Records, Rasputin’s and Buffalo Exchange have all expressed concern about the Locally Preferred Alternative. 

“I don’t know how they can put two-way traffic with a dedicated bus lane and a load-unload zone in the same place,” said Mark Weinstein, who owns Amoeba Records. “Telegraph’s health and welfare has not been taken into account at all—we are working our way backwards with all these concessions. It’s absolutely necessary for our customers to be able to pull over to unload books and records. It’s such a part of the fabric.” 

Weinstein said that he found the notion of a dedicated bus lane north of Ashby very troubling. 

“In order for some riders to save one to three minutes between Ashby and the campus, they will totally disrupt everything on Telegraph,” he said. “A very small number of people use those express buses. Taking away two lanes of Telegraph will cause a lot of problems.” 

Moskovitz said that at recent neighborhood meetings called by Telegraph Business Improvement District President Roland Peterson, merchants were very upset with the plan. 

“They were very angry about it,” she said. “They felt their needs were not being met.” 

Peterson said that after several “raucuous, hostile meetings,” the merchants decided that “changing any part between Dwight and Durant would not be workable.” 

“We have reservations about bus-only lanes in commercial districts,” he said. “We are also concerned about the loss of customer parking.” 

However, Billy Riggs, a planner for UC Berkeley, said the university supports BRT. 

One of Moe’s longtime customers, Ellen Archilla, said that if parking became more difficult, she would probably stop coming to Telegraph. 

“If Moe’s closes ... this is it,” Archilla said. “Berkeley used to be the city with the highest per capita bookstores in the country. We have already lost seven book stores. They try to compare Berkeley to Europe, but you have to remember that Berkeley isn’t planned like Europe.”

The UC strike reached its peak at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, when students and custodians dumped days-old trash from the different campus buildings outside California Hall, where UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau works, to protest recent custodian layoffs.  

Although California Hall was locked and looked deserted, a couple of people could be seen peaking out from behind the blinds.  

“Tell me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like!” shouted Kathryn Lybarger, an organizer for the workers union, as students threw used paper cups, apple cores and banana peels at the front door. “What does a regents’ meeting look like? This is what a regents’ meeting looks like!”  

“We will bring your job back,” Lybarger assured Houam Ounniyom, a laid-off custodian.  

UC Berkeley undergraduate Marika Goodrich said some buildings on campus had not had their trash picked up for a month because custodians had been laid off.  

“One custodian is being asked to clean an entire university building—garbage is piling up in the chemistry labs, in offices, everywhere,” she said. “Some people think it’s because the custodians are lazy, but it’s because they are being laid off.”  

UC Berkeley student Marika Ryer said that a shortage of maintenance workers was taking its toll on some classrooms.  

The pile of garbage was about 5 feet high by 4 p.m.  

“It smells like hell,” chanted the crowd. “It smells like the bathroom.”  

“It smells like leadership,” cried Lybarger, to applause from the audience.  

Senior Matt Marks said that the students had specifically chosen 3 p.m. to dump the trash outside California Hall because most custodians end their shift then.  

“So when they clean all this garbage up, they will get some overtime,” he said. “The union members were OK with us doing this.”  

Marks said that students wanted to have an after-party at the Bear’s Lair following Wednesday’s rally, but the student union administration had locked it down.  

“They kicked the students out and chained the doors,” he said. “The fire marshall came and told them to open the locks because it was a fire hazard.”  

Marks said that although the students had wanted to hold open lectures inside the food court Thursday, the student union officials told them that would require insurance.  

“I don’t think they want us to do anything there except eat food,” he said. “And apparently even then we have to be out.”

A student group at UC Berkeley’s school of law Tuesday called on the U.S. Justice Department, the Pennsylvania Bar and the University of California to “conduct full and thorough investigations” of former government lawyers who crafted the Bush torture memos, including John Yoo, a tenured faculty member at their school. 

Comprised of a coalition of student groups and individuals, the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture (B.A.A.T.) has gathered over 275 signatures which call for investigations into “potential violations of professional and ethical duties, as well as possible criminal conduct.” 

Both the Pennsylvania Bar Association where John Yoo is registered and the University of California have so far refused to open ethics investigations. 

Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley has invoked academic freedom to defend Yoo’s actions. Edley previously said that the law school would analyze the report released by the justice department’s office of professional responsibility—anticipated to be at the end of this month—to make any further determination on this issue. 

“Abuse by government lawyers cannot be swept under the rug,” said Liz Jackson, Co-chair of the Boalt chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a member of BAAT. “The Berkeley law community is making a statement that fundamental human rights were violated, and the institutions that have authority over these lawyers have a duty to investigate.” 

  Berkeley law students formed B.A.A.T. earlier this year to restore respect for human rights, civil liberties, and the prohibition against torture. 

“Lawyers to the government owe their client an honest appraisal of the law, as informed by statutes, court cases and international treaties and norms—not a tortured interpretation that the end justifies the means,” said Stephen Rosenbaum, a Berkeley law lecturer. “I teach a course in civil rights in which one of the take-away points is that actions by government officials—whether voting on a budget or making policy—demand accountability.”  

The Berkeley City Council voted Nov. 17 to amend the city’s noise ordinance, unanimously allowing nightclubs, open-air festivals and other venues to exceed sound limits if they obtain the proper permits from the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board. 

The revised ordinance will also make it easier for city staff to impose restrictions, giving more leeway to Health and Human Services to measure sound decibels and respond to complaints. 

Not everyone agrees with the council on the amendments, however. 

A group of neighbors from Panoramic Hill showed up at the meeting with a list of questions for the council, asking whether high decibels from concerts at the Greek Theater and nearby fraternity parties would permeate their homes. 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates asked whether the updated ordinance would restrict the changes to only the downtown area but was informed that it included the entire city. 

“There have been some concerns raised by campus communities on loosening the sound ordinance,” Bates acknowledged. 

Michael Kelly, president of the Panoramic Hill Neighborhood Association—which filed a lawsuit against UC Berkeley’s plans to expand Memorial Stadium—told the council that nobody from the city had informed them that the issue would be discussed at a City Council meeting last Tuesday. 

“The Greek Theater, which is operated on state property, takes its cue from community noise standards,” Kelly said. “So if we are talking about a five-decibel increase, will it apply to it?" 

City Attorney Zach Cohen told the council that the ordinance would not be applicable on state property, such as the Greek Theater or People’s Park. 

He added that although People’s Park was maintained by UC, they did look at city standards. 

The Berkeley City Council in June, 2009 asked City Manager Phil Kamlarz to craft recommendations on how the city’s noise ordinance could “better accommodate the city’s economic development goals by facilitating live music venues downtown and amplified sound permits for festivals.” 

Most councilmembers agreed at last Tuesday’s meeting that the revisions would allow flexibility for entertainment venues in commercial areas while allowing enforcement of the standards. 

John Caner, the new executive director of the Downtown Berkeley Association, said he supported the noise ordinance amendment “as it pertained to downtown.”  

Caner said that easing the sound restrictions would attract more businesses downtown. He said that the new nightclub proposed for the former UC Theater on University Avenue was taking measures to make sure that noise from concerts did not waft out through its walls, disturbing adjacent businesses. 

Current sound permits for festivals and other outdoor events allow a limit of 10 decibels above the ambient noise level. The revised ordinance would increase it to 15 decibels. 

“We have a balance in the ordinance,” Councilmember Kriss Worthington told the Planet. “Contrary to how it was represented in certain media, the likelihood that enforcement will happen will actually increase.” 

The Berkeley Police Department announced Tuesday that they have arrested a man suspected of being involved in a Berkeley homicide that took place in May. 

The suspect, 25-year-old Rafael Campbell, was profiled in the Nov. 7 broadcast of America’s Most Wanted. 

Police have been looking for Campbell in connection with the May 16 murder of Charles CJ Jones at 10th Street and Allston Way. Campbell is one of the final four suspects in that case to be arrested, according to Berkeley Polcie Department spokesperson Lt. Andrew Greenwood. 

Greenwood said that the U.S. Marshall’s office “has been engaged in an ongoing search for Campbell.” 

  At approximately 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, U.S. Marshals, working with the California Department of Corrections Northern California Fugitive Apprehension Team, and officers from the Sacramento Police Department, tried to contact Campbell at a ground-floor apartment at 4500 Natomas Crossing Road. 

  Greenwood said “Campbell attempted to flee out of the rear of the apartment, and was apprehended by a Sacramento Police K-9 and officers who’d surrounded the complex.” 

  Campbell was arrested without further incident, and is being held at the Berkeley Police Department jail until his arraignment. 

Next time you find a pothole on your street or graffiti in your neighborhood, call the city. It might just work. Or so promises the City of Berkeley, which launched a 311 call center program at the Nov. 17 City Council meeting to troubleshoot these kinds of problems. 

Berkeley residents, visitors and businesses can call 311 from their landlines or cell phones for routine city service requests—“information they want every single day,” said Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna. 

“The city is really excited that there’s a number for the public to call,” said Caronna. “We have consolidated a lot of information into this center. By providing one easy-to-remember, convenient number, we want to help community members get the information and services they need as quickly as possible. Our goal is to resolve 70 percent of all calls that come into the city.” 

The 311 line will remain open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during regular business days. 

The city also launched an online service center (www.CityOfBerkeley.info/onlineservice) where people can pay parking tickets or apply for jobs. The website, which is designed to take care of some of the same services as 311, will remain open 24 hours a day. 

“People can put in a service request online for things that have not been resolved,” Caronna said. “Tennis shoes hanging from the telephone pole, or just routine activities ...” 

Caronna said the city had also published a public staff directory online which would help people identify employees in a particular city department. 

Caronna said Berkeley received 65,000 calls through the pilot program last year and expected a lot more in the future. 

The city spent $800,000 from its 2006 technology improvement funds for the program. 

“I told my constituents that if their green bin didn’t get picked up, if there’s debris in their storm drain, they could call 311,” Councilmember Linda Maio said. “They couldn’t believe they could call one number and have everything resolved right there.” 

The City of Berkeley website points out that 311 is not a city switchboard—“calls are answered by customer service representatives who can help most callers complete routine city business without being transferred.” 

The city is currently inviting feedback on these pilot programs and is planning to expand the services in 2010. 

Comments can be mailed to 311@cityofberkeley.info. 

The Berkeley City Council at its Nov. 17 meeting adopted the Citywide Pools Master plan which proposes to expand or revamp the city’s existing public pools and relocate the warm water pool from the seismically unsafe Berkeley High School Old Gym to West Campus. 

Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department Manager William Rogers told the council that the city had identified two ways to fund the project—a bond measure or a Mello-Roos Community Facilities District, where a special property tax on real estate is imposed on homeowners. 

Both funding mechanisms will require 66.6 percent voter approval, Rogers said. Money from the bond measure will go only toward construction. The city currently doesn’t have funds to cover operational costs. 

Funds from Mello-Roos will cover both construction and operational expenditures. 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said that if the Berkeley Unified School District decided to put bond measures on the November 2010 ballot, the city would have to place the pools bond on the June 2010 ballot. 

The school district will let the council know by January whether it plans to have any bond measures on the November 2010 ballot. 

Councilmember Darryl Moore, whose constituency includes the West Campus, said the pools bond measure would be very difficult to pass. 

“I believe we owe them as a city,” he said. “I am hoping we can pay for the pool.” 

When Williams informed councilmembers that they would have to decide Jan. 19 whether to choose the bond measure or Mello-Roos, Moore said the date was far too late to prepare for the June ballot. 

“I want to do another survey,” Moore said. “And I hope the poll will include Mello-Roos.” 

A survey of Berkeley voters in the spring of 2008 showed that 50 percent of voters would approve a $22 million bond measure—the figure used then—to “build a new heated therapy pool and rehabilitate outdoor public pools.” Those surveyed had been sensitive to the cost. 

Williams pointed out that although only 57 percent of Berkeley voters polled in May 2008 supported a $26 million bond measure ($30 annually) to improve the city’s libraries, the library bond measure, FF, passed by 68 percent. 

Bates stressed that the city didn’t have the funds to do another poll, which he estimated would cost $20,000. 

“But we need the data,” Moore argued. “This is going to benefit the entire city. Let’s at least give them a chance to pass this thing.” 

Moore’s motion to carry out a survey passed at the end of the meeting. 

Although most warm water pool users are satisfied with the new warm pool design, many remain concerned about disabled parking on the West Campus. 

A 10-member aquatics task force completed the master plan in April 2009, recommending a preferred option, which includes the contruction of a 25-yard by 25-meter outdoor competition pool at King Middle School; a 2,790-square-foot indoor warm water pool; a 3,510-square-foot indoor lap pool at West Campus; the renovation of the pool and locker rooms; and the conversion of the dive pool to a children’s play pool at Willard, all for a total cost of $29,231,000.  

The Berkeley Board of Education has approved 1,900 square feet of additional land at West Campus for the warm water pool as part of the preferred plan.  

Berkeley Unified is planning to start construction at West Campus to convert an old adult school classroom building into the district’s administrative headquarters. The project is not expected to clash with the pool construction.  

At an April 21 workshop, the Berkeley City Council asked city staff to design a “design variant” to the preferred plan that altered the size and configuration of some of the pools and lowered the total cost of the project by around $4 million.  

The plan includes a warm water pool similar in size to the existing pool (2,250 square feet) and a larger, outdoor recreational pool at West Campus, a shallower end with a slide at the King pool which would provide more opportunity for swim lessons and recreational and public use, and keeps the design for the Willard pool unchanged.  

The total cost of the alternative design comes to $25,370,000.  

On May 19, 2009, the City Council gave the city manager the green light to move ahead with environmental analysis of the preferred plan and design variant of the Citywide Pools Master Plan.  

Based on the initial environmental report, Rogers proposed a mitigated negative declaration instead of an environmental impact report, explaining that “although the proposed project could have a significant effect on the environment, there will not be a significant effect in this case because revisions in the project have been made by or agreed to by the project proponent.”  

The council voted to adopt the mitigated negative declaration and incorporate the design variant into the master plan. 

Years ago, I met a guy who’d been to Afghanistan, and I was surprised to hear that the country really existed. I thought it was a mythical land out of a fairy tale, and I’d never heard of the Pashtuns. That was back in 1968. 

With a pack on my back and a map in hand, I set out to see the world, starting in Norway and ending in Japan. In between I wanted to see Europe, the Middle East and India. With no time constraints and no fixed itinerary, it was a whimsical journey that crisscrossed parts of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. At the end of a year I set out for India, traveling east through Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey and Iran. 

Istanbul and Tehran were modern cities, but as I progressed eastward everything seemed to get more primitive. And also more desolate. It was like going into the back woods, except that there weren’t any woods. I remember it as a dark, barren desert. Eventually I reached Afghanistan, and the first city I came across was Herat. Women there didn’t wear the veil; they wore the burqa, a garment that covered their entire body, almost down to the feet, with only a small screen over their eyes to peer out of. 

Herat was a quiet, dusty town, even though it was the third largest city in Afghanistan. There seemed to be no more than half a dozen motor vehicles in the entire city. At the intersection of the two main streets there was a policeman, and I wondered why he stood there. Later that day I happened to see an automobile coming down the street. The policeman immediately came to life, blew his whistle and waved the vehicle through. Then I realized that he was a traffic cop. That was before the Russians, before the Taliban, before the U.S. invasion or any of that. The town might look different now, but the Herat I saw probably hadn’t changed much since the Middle Ages. 

The travelers I met along the way were a good source of information, so I knew in advance there were a couple of hotels in Herat. As in other hotels I’d stayed at, I shared a room with half a dozen other foreigners, mostly British, some Japanese, one or two Australians, everyone traveling low budget. There were no beds; we rolled out our sleeping bags and slept on the floor. 

Alexander the Great is said to have passed through Herat. At the time I wondered what could have brought him to a place like this. Herat seemed to me about the most remote spot on earth, but actually, it lies on an ancient trade route, making it an important center of commerce and culture. An impressive list of famous Persian poets came from this city. 

The Afghans around Herat were Persian-speaking Tajiks. To the east of them lived the Pathans, tribesmen who’d earned fame for the bad times they’d given the British Empire. The English remembered them well and told many stories about them. One was from the First Afghan War of 1839. The British sent an army of 4,500 men to Kabul, and when the lone survivor eventually came straggling back to British India, he was asked, “Where’s the rest of the Kabul Expedition?” The soldier, whose name was William Brydon, replied, “I am the rest of the Kabul Expedition.” 

These Pathans were also said to be remarkably gifted at gun smithing. Using only primitive tools, they were capable of producing functional copies of any sophisticated firearm they got their hands on. 

After leaving Herat, I passed through Kandahar, Kabul, and then descended the steep Khyber Pass into Pakistan. Few Afghans spoke English; I met none who spoke it well enough to hold a conversation. But it was different in Pakistan, which had been part of the British Empire. There I encountered many who spoke English. 

I was on my way to Peshawar, riding a bus, when a fellow sat down next to me. I continued to look out the window at the countryside, but when I glanced his way again, he had a pistol in a shoulder holster lying on his lap. He’d been wearing it all under his baggy shirt. 

“This doesn’t disturb you, I hope?” he said in fairly good English. 

“Oh no. It doesn’t disturb me at all,” I assured him. 

Our conversation continued. He was traveling with his brothers, who were sitting across from us, and said that he found himself obliged to carry the pistol because of an ongoing disagreement with another group. At least one person had been killed. 

I asked if he were a Pathan. 

“I’m a Pashtun,” he corrected me. 

The British called them Pathans, and so it was that they became known as Pathans to the Western world, but Pashtuns is what they called themselves. 

By the time we reached the city of Peshawar, we’d become quite well acquainted. He and his brothers were continuing on northward to a certain village and invited me to accompany them for a visit. This I did and spent a couple of pleasant days with them. 

A few days later, back in Peshawar, I met a student who showed me around his campus. He was also a Pashtun, and, like everyone else, wore an oversized khaki shirt that came nearly down to his knees. I jokingly asked him if he were carrying a pistol. 

He looked at me strangely and said, “Why do you ask that?” 

“It seems like everybody around here does,” I said. 

Then he showed me his gun-belt. 

“You too?” I said in surprise. “But why is a gun necessary?” 

He assured me that his weapon was essential but didn’t say why. As we strolled around the campus he told me about student life. The school seemed much like an American one, and for a while they’d even held student body elections so they could learn the democratic way of doing things. But the school officials had ended that experiment a couple of years earlier, after the loser of a student election shot the winner. 

While we were talking, we heard a gunshot. Across the courtyard from us were a group of students; they were playing around with a pistol, and it had gone off. Nobody hurt. 

I asked my student friend about the famous gunsmiths of this region. I mentioned the stories I’d heard of the phenomenal gift these people had for making firearms. “Is it true, what they say?” 

“Of course it’s true. Would you like to see a place where guns are made?” 

Naturally I did. 

It was a small workshop. Two or three craftsmen sat cross-legged on the floor, working with rather simple tools. One was making a shotgun, another a revolver. 

I wondered about the metallurgy and the general quality of these weapons. On one occasion I saw a fellow attempt to fire a pistol in the air and it didn’t go off, so I must think that some were not too well-made. Presumably the craftsmanship varied from shop to shop. 

The Pashtuns were an extremely interesting people, and I’ve often wished I’d stayed longer in that region. One thing that impressed me about them was that they were rather quiet, extremely gentle and courteous. In a land where many people carry pistols and are so ready to use them, I suppose people tend to be more polite. 

Daniel Borgström is a member of Lake Merritt Neighbors for Peace.

As part of the ongoing protest over the University of California's 32 percent fee increase, UC Berkeley students marched to UC President Mark Yudof’s office in Oakland Monday afternoon and staged a sit-in, demanding to meet with him. 

The students went to Yudof’s office after finding out at the Alameda County Superior court that burglary charges against three Wheeler Hall occupiers had been reduced to a misdemeanor. 

UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof confirmed that there were students in Yudof’s office “who were engaged in peaceful conversation with officials there.” 

Mogulof said Yudof was not present. 

An employee at the UC Office of the President, who answered the phone around 5 p.m. Monday, but refused to give his name, said the office had received internal reports that some students had come into the lobby staged a protest there. 

He said that Peter King, who is in charge of media relations for the office, had gone down to the lobby to talk to them and that employees were being asked to use alternative exits because of the protesters. 

King could not be reached immediately for comment. 

UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau issued a statement Monday saying that an independent review panel consisting of students, faculty members and staff would investigate the allegations of police brutality at Friday’s protest. Several students have charged that police used excessive force during the protests outside Wheeler Hall, sometimes beating individuals with batons and firing rubber bullets. 

One girl had her finger broken by a baton and another student complained that the police simultaneously struck him with a baton and fired a rubber bullet at him. 

“We truly regret the incidents that brought physical and emotional injury to members of our community,” Birgeneau said. “UCPD has already begun conducting an operational review that entails collection of all the available information including reports, videos and pictures taken by UCPD, students, the public, and media, to ensure that actions were reasonable given the situation presented and the information known at the time. This includes a review of uses of force.”  

All 40 occupiers were released from Wheeler Hall a little after 9 p.m. to cheers and applause from the crowd which surrounded the building. 

As the first three students left, escorted by police, the crowd clapped and shouted out their names. 

Fred, the father of one of the student occupiers who didn't want to give his last name because he feared retribution for his daughter, praised the protesters. 

"My daughter is still in the building and I am very proud of her," he said. "I am very proud of all of you." 

Fred told the Daily Planet that his daughter had called him in the middle of the night and told him that "they were occupying the building." 

"I said 'good luck and be as safe as possible," he said. "And I told her I will be here." 

He said he had been waiting outside Wheeler all day long, worrying "how the police will treat her." 

"She gave me updates until her cell phone ran out of batteries," he said. "She sounded anxious but very energized." 

As more students came out, their friends hugged and kissed them, patting them on the back. 

"It's so good to be back with all of you," one girl said. "We were cited for trespassing and released ... That's all." 

The group requested media cameramen to respect their privacy, and invited everyone to a later meeting in front of Dwinelle Hall. 

UC Berkeley Political Science senior Adam Astan,who was in the crowd outside the hall, recounted how Alameda County police had hit him with a baton. He said he had also been shot with a rubber bullet, pulling up his t-shirt to show his injuries. 

"I was crying out 'peace, peace' and they suddenly hit me," Astan said. 

He said he had seen one of the police batons fly out and hit a girl on the face. Another girl who showed up at the meeting later underwent reconstructive surgery after having her finger smashed by a stray baton. 

As the occupiers huddled under a tree outside Wheeler around 9 p.m, they thanked the crowd. 

"What we did in there doesn't compare to what you did out here," said one of the occupiers, who wouldn't give their names to the press,as the crowd roared. "What you did out here blew what we did away. Whatever you did today, don't stop doing it. It got people out of this building." 

Some of the girls said they had been very scared all along since they didn't know what to expect. 

"We know about the sacrifices you made, we know you put your bodies on the line," one of them said. "We need to keep going." 

Students at UC Davis reportedly have also occupied a building. UCLA still has a building occupied. 

The students decided to hold a meeting Saturday at 5 p.m. to decide the next steps in the protest. They will also discuss the felony charges filed against the three occupiers this morning. The hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday at the Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.

Prof George Lakoff of the UC Berkeley linguistics department tells student protesters outside Wheeler Hall about the occupiers' demands Friday afternoon.

Occupiers talk to protestors from a Wheeler Hall classroom window Friday afternoon. The crowd threw apples, bagels and Subway sandwiches to the occupiers until the police stopped them. The student protestors were joined by the local Native American community who were commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Alcatraz takeover.

6:36 p.m. : UC Berkeley professor of Sociology Andrew Barlow, who was part of the faculty negotiating team, told the Planet that the occupiers inside Wheeler Hall would be cited and released one by one within an hour. 

Barlow said that police officers had a key to enter the occupied space. He said that an 11-member faculty team had met with the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs right after the police entered the second floor. 

"We were negotiating to end this day peacefully," Barlow said. "The students are being cited for a misdemeanor of trespassing. They are not being taken to jail. They can come out and be with their friends." 

Barlow said that none of the students' demands had been accepted. 

"But I'll still say this was a huge success," he said. "It's a beginning of a new student movement." 

He said that the day-long negotiation had made it harder for the students to come out of the building earlier. 

"They will not come out in a group," he said. "They will come out one by one." 

Barlow said it was not clear what the occupiers would do after being released. 

"It's up to the leadership of the protestors to decide what they want to do next," he said. "Whether to hold more meetings or a press conference." 

This just in from the occupiers' liaison—the police have broken into the space occupied by the protestors in Wheeler Hall. The protestors are holding their hands up high to indicate that they intend to act non-violently. 

—Raymond Barglow and Riya Bhattacharjee

A cold rain did not deter thousands of UC Berkeley students this afternoon as they surrounded the campus’ Wheeler Hall in support of 35 protesters who have occupied the building since this morning in demonstration against the University of California’s 32 percent tuition fee hike.  

As of 4:30 p.m., the students were still negotiating with campus officials, having outlined at least five demands:  

• Repeal of the 32 percent fee hike. 

• Amnesty for all the students occupying Wheeler Hall.  

• Amnesty for three students arrested during the occupation.  

• Negotiation of leases for Bear’s Lair food court vendors who have been asked to pay double their current rent. 

• Reinstatement of all 38 laid-off UC Berkeley custodians.  

UC Berkeley police entered the building earlier this morning and took control of the first floor as the protesters moved to the second floor. Three students who did not make it to the second floor were arrested by UC police.  

UC and Berkeley police later put up barricades around the building and cordoned off much of the area with yellow tape. Students and police clashed near Sather Gate as the crowd surged toward the barricades and police used batons to fight them off.  

Some students urged the crowd to remain peaceful, and faculty members at one point emerged from Wheeler Hall to inform that the crowd that the dean of students was in touch with UC Berkeley police and had guaranteed there would be no violence.  

The Alameda County Sheriff's Department arrived in riot gear in the early afternoon and surrounded the hall.  

Student leaders outside the building urged the crowd not to rush the students inside the hall, but to give them time to negotiate.  

According to student leaders, the occupation was planned after a Thursday night 6 p.m. general assembly, at subcommittee meetings at various locations.  

The protesters gathered at Wheeler Hall at 5 a.m. Friday and entered the building at 6 a.m.  

At 9:30 this morning, students surrounded Wheeler Hall and linked arms, hoping to prevent protesters from being taken from the building and arrested.  

Chancellor Birgeneau declared Wheeler Hall closed until further notice and the main path through the campus was blocked where it passes the building.  

Earlier this morning, police tried to move students further from Wheeler Hall. Lauren Cartwright told the Daily Planet that when she refused to move back, police grabbed her. Other students held on to her and police relented, released her, and backed off a few feet.  

Pegah Zardoos, an undergraduate who is on the board of Cal Berkeley Democrats, said she was “shocked and appalled by the police actions ...” 

Business undergraduates Astrid Fernandes and Ameetah Mishna came to Wheeler Hall but could not get to their class. They then joined the protest and walked in the picket line.  

“This occupation is a way, the only way, to get attention to what is going on,” Fernandes said.  

Emily Ng, a graduate student in anthropology, joined the protest with two of her friends. “This is a public institution, after all,” Ng said. “We are taught to forget that we can affect the institutions in which we partake.”  

A spokesperson for the occupants who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the occupiers were given an offer that they could either be “charged with misdemeanors and may leave the building without being arrested, then meet with the chancellor and other UC administrators to negotiate their demands” or they could be arrested and charged with a felony. 

As of 5:30 p.m., the occupiers had rejected the offer. Several faculty members were trying to arrange direct negotiations between the occupiers and UC administration. 

Protest leaders asked supporters to remain outside Wheeler Hall, saying that without witnesses they feared police would begin arresting the occupiers.  

Students set off fire alarms at a number of buildings on campus throughout the day, with at least 14 fire alarms going off at Dwinelle Hall, which is right across from Wheeler. 

Dean of Student Affairs Jonathan Poullard was negotiating with a student protestor about the occupants’ release around 4 p.m. 

Poullard told the student that although the occupiers would be cited and released, he wasn’t sure what the final charges would be against them. 

“There’s a due process for student conduct,” Poullard said. “There can be suspension, there is the possibility of expulsion ... we don’t know that yet.” 

Poullard appeared to be talking to UCPD and Berkeley police officers to bring the situation under control. 

“What about negotiation?” asked a student leader. 

“You can’t negotiate with 500 people,” Poullard answered. 

Anne Wagner, a professor of art history at UC Berkeley, said that she came to the protest to make sure no drastic steps were taken against the students. 

“Students at UCLA were tasered and pepper-sprayed yesterday,” she said. “That’s why I am here. That’s why a bunch of faculty members are here, to make sure things don’t go against the students.” 

Though UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff announced at 3 p.m. Friday that student protesters occupying Wheeler Hall on the UC Berkeley campus Friday would soon be exiting the building, escorted by UC police, no one has yet left the hall.  

After negotiating with police, the protesters will apparently be cited for misdemeanors. Lakoff said none will be handcuffed as they leave the building.  

According to Lakoff, terms of an agreement with campus officials say that a student representative will meet with the vice chancellor of student affairs, who may meet with the Chancellor Robert Birgeneau later. 

Rain did not deter thousands of UC Berkeley students this afternoon as they surrounded the campus’ Wheeler Hall in support of about 50 protesters who have occupied the building since this morning in demonstration against the University of California’s 32 percent tuition fee hike.  

As of 4:30 p.m., the students were still negotiating with campus officials, having outline three demands: 

• Amnesty for all the students occupying Wheeler Hall. 

• Amnesty for the three students arrested.  

• All 38 laid-off UC Berkeley custodians be rehired. 

UC Berkeley police entered the building earlier this morning and took control of the first floor as the protesters moved to the second floor. Three students who did not make it to the second floor were arrested by UC police.  

UC and Berkeley police later put up barricades around the building and cordoned off much of the area with yellow tape. Students and police clashed near Sather Gate as the crowd surged toward the barricades and police used batons to fight them off.  

Some students urged the crowd to remain peaceful, and faculty members at one point emerged from Wheeler Hall to inform that the crowd that the dean of students was in touch with UC Berkeley police and had guaranteed there would be no violence. 

The Alameda County Sheriff's Department arrived in riot gear in the early afternoon and surrounded the hall.  

Student leaders outside the building urged the crowd not to rush the students inside the hall, but to give them time to negotiate.  

According to student leaders, the occupation was planned Thursday night, first at a 6 p.m. general assembly, and later in subcommittees meeting at various locations. 

The protesters gathered at Wheeler Hall at 5 a.m. Friday and entered the building at 6 a.m.  

At 9:30 this morning, students surrounded Wheeler Hall and linked arms, hoping to prevent protesters from being taken from the building and arrested.  

  The occupation of Wheeler seems to have galvanized the protest on its third day after seeing a significant decrease in participation Thursday.  

Chancellor Birgeneau has declared Wheeler Hall closed until further notice. The main path through the campus is blocked where it passes the building. 

Earlier this morning, police tried to move students further from Wheeler Hall. Lauren Cartwright told the Planet that when she refused to move back, police grabbed her. Other students held on to her and police relented, released her, and backed off a few feet. 

Pegah Zardoos, an undergraduate who is on the board of Cal Berkeley Democrats, said she was “shocked and appalled by the police actions ... " 

Business undergraduates Astrid Fernandes and Ameetah Mishna came to Wheeler Hall but could not get to their class. They then joined the protest and walked in the picket line.  

"This occupation is a way, the only way, to get attention to what is going on,” Fernandes said. 

Emily Ng, a graduate student in anthropology, joined the protest with two of her friends. “This is a public institution, after all,” Ng said. “We are taught to forget that we can affect the institutions in which we partake.” 

Reports are coming in that UC Berkeley students have taken over Wheeler Hall on campus to protest the 32 percent fee increase approved by the UC Regents at UCLA Thursday. 

Today (Friday) is day three of the strike students and university custodians and unions embarked upon Wednesday after a big rally and march. 

According to published reports this morning, students wearing red bandannas entered the building at 6 a.m., chained themselves to the doors and barricaded themselves inside. 

On Wednesday, a group of students dumped trash outside California Hall at 3 p.m., and an hour later had a discussion to plan next steps. 

Student leaders indicated at that time that they might be planning something for Friday.  

UC Berkeley police have now surrounded the building.  

It has been reported that pepper spray was used to make student arrests, and that at least three students have been arrested so far. 

The Berkeley Police Department announced Tuesday that they have arrested a man suspected of being involved in a Berkeley homicide that took place in May. 

The suspect, 25-year-old Rafael Campbell, was profiled in the Nov. 7 broadcast of America’s Most Wanted. 

Police have been looking for Campbell in connection with the May 16 murder of Charles CJ Jones at 10th Street and Allston Way. Campbell is one of the final four suspects in that case to be arrested, according to Berkeley Polcie Department spokesperson Lt. Andrew Greenwood. 

Greenwood said that the U.S. Marshall’s office “has been engaged in an ongoing search for Campbell.” 

  At approximately 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, U.S. Marshalls, working with the California Department of Corrections Northern California Fugitive Apprehension Team, and officers from the Sacramento Police Department, tried to contact Campbell at a ground-floor apartment at 4500 Natomas Crossing Road. 

  Greenwood said “Campbell attempted to flee out of the rear of the apartment, and was apprehended by a Sacramento Police K-9 and officers who’d surrounded the complex.” 

  Campbell was arrested without further incident, and is being held at the Berkeley Police Department Jail till his arraignment. 

The UC Regents approved a fee hike at a meeting on the UCLA campus today (Thursday, Nov. 19) to address a $1.2 billion deficit next year, amid angry protests throughout the 10-campus University of California system. 

Student regent Jesse Bernal was the only one to vote against the fee increases. 

As a result of the hike, undergraduates and graduate professional school students will see a 15 percent increase in winter-spring 2010 fees, amounting to $585. Graduate students will see a 2.6 percent increase, amounting to $111. 

Starting summer 2010, all students will see an additional 15 percent, or $1,334, increase. 

A contingent of students from UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego left for UCLA Wednesday, the first day of a three-day strike on the Berkeley campus, to protest at the regents’ meeting. 

Students rallied, cheered, shouted and marched downtown to voice their concerns Wednesday. 

According to local media blogs in Los Angeles, angry cries erupted outside the regents’ meeting room at UCLA while they discussed the fee hikes. UC President Mark G. Yudof has encouraged students to explore all available options, including scholarships, to fund their studies instead of getting discouraged and dropping out. 

At UC Berkeley, students and faculty members held open discussions all over campus today. 

The strike reached its peak at 3 p.m., when students and custodians dumped days-old trash from the different campus buildings outside California Hall, where UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau works, to protest recent custodian layoffs. 

Although California Hall was locked and looked deserted, a couple of people could be seen peaking out from behind the blinds. 

“Tell me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like!” shouted Kathryn Lybarger, an organizer for the workers union, as students threw used paper cups, apple cores and banana peels at the front door. “What does a regents’ meeting look like? This is what a regent’s meeting looks like!” 

“We will bring your job back,” Lybarger assured Houam Ounniyom, a laid-off custodian. 

UC Berkeley undergraduate Marika Goodrich said some buildings on campus had not had their trash picked up for a month because custodians had been laid off. 

“One custodian is being asked to clean an entire university building—garbage is piling up in the chemistry labs, in offices, everywhere,” she said. “Some people think it’s because the custodians are lazy but it’s because they are being laid off.” 

UC Berkeley student Marika Ryer said that a shortage of maintenance workers was taking its toll on some classrooms. 

“The other day a chalkboard fell on a professor’s face and he had a concussion,” she said. “It’s pretty bad.” 

The pile of garbage was about five feet high by 4 p.m. 

“It smells like hell,” chanted the crowd. “It smells like the bathroom.” 

“It smells like leadership,” cried Lybarger, to applause from the audience. 

Senior Matt Marks said that the students had specifically picked 3 p.m. to dump the trash outside California Hall because most custodians end their shift then. 

“So when they clean all this garbage up, they will get some overtime,” he said. “The union members were OK with us doing this.” 

Marks said that students had wanted to have an after-party at the Bear’s Lair following Wednesday’s rally but the student union administrative body had locked it down. 

“They kicked the students out and chained the doors,” he said. “The fire marshall came and told them to open the locks because it was a fire hazard.” 

Marks said that although the students had wanted to hold open lectures inside the food court Thursday, the student union officials told them that would require insurance. 

“I don’t think they want us to do anything there except eat food,” he said. “And apparently even then we have to be out by 6 p.m.”

The BART board of directors voted today not to give any part of a $2 million lighting improvement project for two stations to a longtime associate of the troubled Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland. 

The BART board voted on Oct. 23 to have Nedir Bey and his firm, Solar Eclipse, of Oakland, do lighting improvement work at the North Berkeley station and have LINC Lighting & Electrical Group, of San Jose, do improvement work at the 12th Street/Oakland City Center station. 

But Bey failed to meet a Nov. 12 deadline to provide the license, bond and insurance documentation that was needed to prove that he is qualified to do the work. 

BART's staff recommended that LINC be awarded the contract for the North Berkeley station, but there was a heated two-hour public hearing today before the board finally voted 7-1, with one abstention, to give the work to LINC. 

Director Carol Ward Allen voted against giving LINC the North Berkeley station work and Director Lynette Sweet abstained. 

Bey told the board that "there was not a good faith effort to make this work" because he was only given seven days to get a bond for the project. 

But BART procurement manager Dick Wieczorek said all the contractors who bid on the work were told in September that they would have to get a bond and also provide license and insurance documentation. 

After the board voted, Bey declined to say whether he will challenge the board's vote, saying only, "I'm trying to take care of my family, man." 

Bey, 38, formerly was a member of the Oakland-based Your Black Muslim Bakery, which closed two years ago after going bankrupt. 

In 1994, Bey pleaded no contest to a felony false imprisonment charge for an incident in which he and other bakery associates were charged with torturing and robbing a man with whom they had a real estate dispute. 

Bey also never repaid a $1.1 million loan from the city of Oakland, according to Oakland City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente. 

Sweet said, "I didn't know his history" before she and other directors voted unanimously on Oct. 23 to give him part of the contract. 

She said, "It seemed like he was a businessman who was trying to get something done."

An Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled this afternoon that the case of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle will be moved to Los Angeles County. 

Mehserle is accused of murder for the shooting death of Oscar Grant III on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station on New Year's Day. 

Judge Morris Jacobson made the ruling at hearing this afternoon in Oakland.  

"The interest of justice will best be served by transferring the case to Los Angeles County," Jacobson said.  

Jacobson said Alameda County does not have the resources to send a judge to Los Angeles County and that it will be up to the state Supreme Court chief justice to select a judge for the case.

The business of journalism is dying. But the need for journalists is not. 

It is that dilemma that gave birth to the UC Washington Center’s California News Service. 

Washington bureaus are rapidly closing, at a time when landmark legislation on health and energy are moving through Congress, a new president is completing his first year, the military is fighting two wars and the nation is emerging from its worst recession in nearly a century. 

The California News Service employs UC students, who are participating in the university’s Washington semester, to write Washington news for local California news outlets. Roughly 220 UC students from nine campuses are in Washington each term working as interns for members of Congress, the White House, think tanks, media outlets and other agencies, as they take classes as part of the UCDC program. 

The idea behind the California News Service is to fill the vacuum created by the diminished ranks of Washington reporters, while providing experience to aspiring journalists. 

“Three years ago the San Francisco Chronicle had five people in Washington. Today there is one,’’ said Marc Sandalow, the Chronicle’s former Washington bureau chief, who was laid off in 2007. “It may be an economic necessity, but sadly it doesn’t mean there is only one fifth as much to write about.’’ 

So Sandalow, who spent 21 years at the Chronicle and now teaches at UC’s Washington Center, teamed up with Susan Rasky, a former Congressional Correspondent for the New York Times and now a professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, to develop the news service. 

The California News Service operates out of the UCDC building six blocks north of the White House and has placed stories in papers up and down the state on topics ranging from health care and immigration to politics and the stimulus bill. 

The Daily Planet is publishing a story today about Jeffrey Bleich, an East Bay attorney and old friend of President Obama’s, who will be sworn in Friday as the U.S. Ambassador to Australia. 

To contact the California New Service, e-mail CNS@ucdc.edu.

It was anything but business as usual at UC Berkeley Wednesday as students, faculty members and workers embarked on a three-day strike to protest budget cuts, furloughs and fee hikes. 

Chanting “Whose university? Our university!” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” the students once again marched from Sproul Hall to downtown Berkeley and to Berkeley High School and Berkeley City College to rally for their cause. 

Drumbeats, dance music, bells, whistles, sirens and screams filled the air as hundreds gathered on Sproul Plaza, evoking a scene similar in spirit, if not in numbers, to the Sept. 24 UC walkout, at which more than 5,000 people marched to protest the cuts. 

Wednesday’s strike started as early as 5 a.m. with picket lines forming in front of campus construction sites and, starting about 7 a.m., at the main entrances to the campus. 

David Kessler, a member of the Coalition of Union Employees, was handing out CUE buttons to passers-by. 

“A lot of students are taking our buttons, even if they’re going to class today,” he said. “We understand that. Education is what our movement is all about. What the campus community is doing here today—that’s what we mean by ‘Go Bears.’” 

Although quite a few students said they had missed class to take part in the rally, many stuck to their regular routine. 

Wearing T-shirts reading “Hey, hey, Mark Yudof, don’t sell our future off,” students vented their frustrations regarding fee increases. 

Facing a $1.2 billion deficit next year, a UC Regents’ committee voted Wednesday at UCLA to increase student fees and adopt a financial plan asking the state to fund the university’s needs. 

More than two dozen people were arrested at UCLA Wednesday during a protest against the fee hikes. 

The fee increases are part of the 2010-11 operating budget, which seeks an additional $913 million to pay for unfunded enrollment growth and to restore program cuts, stop employee furloughs and contribute to the UC Retirement Plan.  

The regents acted at the recommendation of UC President Mark G. Yudof, who said the budget “is designed to provide access, maintain quality and stabilize the fiscal health of the university.” 

The UC Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on the fee and budget proposals Thursday. 

After the noon rally, the marchers walked to California Hall before sending busloads of students to UCLA to protest at the regents’ Thursday meeting.  

The protesters are also planning to dump trash outside California Hall Thursday at 3 p.m. to show their anger about the 32 percent fee increase. 

“We declare it’s not business as usual,” said UC Berkeley Professor Ananya Roy, to cheers from the crowd on the Sproul Hall steps Wednesday. “I am here to say ‘not in my name.’ I call upon UC’s top administration to stand with us in solidarity ... Friends, it is time to raise hell. It is time to take back the university and the state of California. This may be the best education we have ever had.” 

Cynthia Ubilla, a Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley, said she was attending the strike to show support for her friends. 

“I have a scholarship, but a fee hike for my friends means that their loans will go up,” she said. “It means less opportunities for them, for the thousands of minority students who come here.” 

Mary June Flores, a member of CalServe, which organized the strike along with the Solidarity Alliance, said that students were also organizing Open University lectures all day Thursday. 

“We want to let people know that public education is not only for UC Berkeley students,” she said.  

Flores contended that a fee increase would create more chaos, 

“It will show that the regents are not listening to the students,” she said. 

UC faculty member Joshua Clover criticized what he called the “privatization of a public university.” 

“They have interests, we have solidarity,” he said. “Solidarity is knowing that while your life may be different from the person standing next to you, different from the undocumented North African worker in France, different from the student in Zagreb—knowing still that you share a common desire, a common urgency. That you will not accept the privatizing away of your common lives.” 

UC Santa Cruz faculty member Barbara Epstein said her institution was by far the worst off in the 10-campus UC system. 

“We are more reliant on public funds,” she explained. “Our humanities department is facing the biggest crisis. History, philosophy are not money-making programs. If the next project cuts come through, then there will be no support for graduate students, no money for repairing buildings. If a door stays open, it will stay that way.” 

University officials have implemented hiring freezes and furloughs and have laid off custodians and building maintenance workers in the past few months to address the budget cuts, angering many in the UC community. 

Eugene Estokes, a building maintenance worker on campus, listened intently to Clover’s speech from the Student Union balcony. 

“I am in danger of losing my job, and I am confused about what to do,” he said, shaking his head. “My 15-year-old, who goes to Berkeley High, asked me yesterday ‘Daddy, will I be able to go to college?’ and I stumbled to give her an answer.” 

UC Berkeley third-year social welfare student Cherrie Chen said she missed two classes Wednesday morning to show support for the rally. 

“I just couldn’t bring myself to cross the picket lines,” she said. “That would be disrespecting my co-students’ rights.” 

Chen said her professor, Ananya Roy, had canceled class because of the strike. 

A group of students from UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design held signs protesting the increases in professional school fees in 2010-11. 

“It’s being sold to us as a way of getting access to the professional world but it’s going to end up being a stopgap measure for these budget cuts,” said Jessica Luk, a graduate student in the City Planning Department. “It’s a step to privatization. This fee violates the principles of our university system.” 

The fee increases are expected to bring $505 million in revenue, of which $175 million would used toward financial aid. 

“We can no longer tolerate fiscal uncertainty and continual cutting as we wait for Sacramento to navigate through this crisis,” Yudof said in a statement. “We will keep working hard with state political leaders to restore the university’s funding to an appropriate level. In the meantime, however, we must act now to shore up our own finances if we are to preserve the quality and ensure the access that California expects from the world’s premier public research university system ... I know this is a painful day for university students and their families, but as I stand here today I can assure you this is our one best shot at preventing this recession from pulling down a great system toward mediocrity.” 

Luk said she was a little upset there weren’t more students protesting the fee hikes. 

“But it’s just the first day, so let’s see what happens over the next few days.” 

A first-year UC Berkeley science student left her Chemistry 1A class around 1:30 p.m. 

“I support the strike, but you can’t really miss Chem 1A,” she said smiling. “Some people have midterms this week, and they still have to submit papers.” 

Raymond Barglow contributed to this report.  

Body of Child Found in Bay Believed to Be  

Slain Woman’s Son 

The Alameda County district attorney charged Oakland resident Curtis Martin III Tuesday, Nov. 17 with murdering Zoelina Toney and her 17-month-old son Jashon Williams. 

Toney, who is also known as Zoelina Williams, was found beaten and shot to death near the Aquatic Park entrance early on the morning of Friday, Nov. 13.  

Martin was charged with two counts of murder, with special circumstances, said Lt. Andrew Greenwood of the Berkeley Police Department. 

Berkeley police investigators now believe that the body of a child found in the San Francisco Bay off the Berkeley Marina on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 15, is that of Jashon, Toney’s missing son. Green-wood said the “body is consistent in race, gender, and size to that of Jashon Williams.” The coroner’s office is still working to confirm the identity of the child, he said. 

Greenwood said that investigators believe Martin killed Toney, 23, “because she had knowledge of the death of Jashon.” 

“The nature of the ongoing investigation precludes our sharing further information regarding the time and manner of Jashon Williams’ death,” Greenwood said.  

Toney’s family members packed the courtroom of Judge Robert McGuiness for Martin’s brief arraignment at Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland. 

McGuiness referred Martin to the public defender’s office for representation and ordered him to return to court today (Thursday, Nov. 19) to be assigned an attorney and enter a plea. Martin is currently being held at the Alameda County Jail in Pleasanton without bail. 

Prosecutors also charged Martin with two special circumstance clauses that could result in the death penalty if he is convicted: committing multiple murders, and murdering Toney because she was a witness to the murder of her son. 

Martin was also charged for enhancements because of two prior felony convictions—a 1994 manslaughter conviction, and a 1992 conviction for possession of an assault weapon. 

Authorities had spent 10 to 12 hours Saturday searching the waters near Aquatic Park for Jashon’s body, to no avail.  

But at 10:57 a.m. Sunday, the Berkeleley Police Department got a 911 call that kayakers had found the body of a small child floating in the water. 

Berkeley Police and Fire departments responded, and officers from the Fire Department retrieved the body from the water. 

Greenwood said that BPD asked Oakland police to investigate the case as a “as a matter of professional courtesy.”  

Greenwood said the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau took custody of the child’s body.  

Members of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, a volunteer dive team and search-and-rescue dogs, and aircraft from the California Highway Patrol and East Bay Regional Parks District assisted in the search.  

Williams may have been with his mother when she was killed, Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said.  

Oakland police arrested Martin at Chestnut Street and 24th Avenue in Oakland a little after 1 p.m. Friday for his alleged involvement in the homicide, Berkeley’s fifth this year.  

A patrol officer conducting a routine security check in the south end of the park shortly after 4 a.m. found the body of an adult female lying on the shoreline adjacent to the parking lot on Bolivar Drive north of Potter Street.  

Martin, 38, was convicted in 1994 for fatally beating 3-year-old Devin Brewer of Oakland, the son of his then-girlfriend. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, of which he served only 6. Police arrested Martin last year in a domestic violence case but did not prosecute him. He has spent time in jail on robbery, burglary and weapons charges.  

Police searched Martin’s home, as well as the home where Zoelina Toney and Jashon Williams were living in Oakland.  

Martin has so far declined requests for interviews from reporters. 

Toney’s relatives contacted Oakland police at 12:40 a.m. Saturday to let them know about the missing child, he said.  

A Berkeley resident who works at the park and did not want to be identified said that the crime scene is at a place frequented by bikers, joggers and dog walkers during the day but is desolate at night. The park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., similar to other city of Berkeley parks.  

“The woman was shot twice, they needed a place to dump the body and they dumped it there,” he said. “It’s not the first time a body has been dumped there. I think the last time it happened was eight years ago. A lot of people dumps things in the park because no one can see it, so you can do whatever you want there.”  

Anyone with any information on this crime is urged to call the Berkeley Police Department’s Homicide Detail at 981-5741 (office) or 981-5900 (non-emergency dispatch line). Callers wishing to remain anonymous can call the Bay Area Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).  

Bay City News contributed to this report.  

Is Berkeley ready for a ferry? The Berkeley City Council seems to think so. 

The council voted 7–2 to support the project with a number of conditions, after debating and discussing this contentious proposal until midnight Tuesday. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz had recommended that, following the Water Emergency Transpor-tation Authority’s pitch for the $57 million ferry project, the council should either adopt a resolution supporting it or await the release of its final environmental impact report, while solving unresolved issues raised by the city’s Planning, Transportation and Waterfront commissions.  

While there were many Berkeley residents at the meeting who supported the rebirth of a ferry terminal in the city—Berkeley last had ferry service during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, but it was discontinued due to a lack of demand—there were others who viewed it as unnecessary, calling it a “vanity project.”  

WETA officials said at the meeting that a ferry would offer the public more mass transit options during weekdays as well as providing emergency transportation during natural disasters and bridge closures, like last month’s, when a Bay Bridge cable snapped due to high winds, leading to highly crowded BART trains during peak hours.  

WETA Executive Director Nina Reynolds told the council that a 2005 phone poll of about 400 Berkeley residents showed that 74 percent were interested in restoring ferry services to Berkeley. 

Subsequently the City Council asked WETA to do an environmental study, and in April 2009, after several scoping sessions, the agency whittled site selection down to Seawall Drive. 

Work on the final environmental study began right after that. 

WETA then went on to secure funds from a number of regional, state and federal partners, including $9 million in federal capital construction funds with the help of Congresswoman Barbara Lee. 

The project was also included in MTC’s Regional Transit Expansion Program. 

“We consider this a highly supported project, Reynolds said. “We think there are many benefits to providing ferry service. It’s a great transbay transportation alternative—a great way to link great cities. Ferries were able to pick up some of the load during the recent Bay Bridge emergency.” 

Reynolds added that the Berkeley ferry would be able to take 30 bikes at a time, which she said would be to the advantage of people who can’t bike across the Bay Bridge or have limited access to bringing their bikes on BART. 

“As we have moved through the process we have heard concerns about parking and access to the ferry terminal site,” Reynolds said. “We are working to modify the design to address the problem.” 

When the Planning Commission failed to make any kind of recommendation at its Oct. 30 meeting, WETA officials returned disappointed. However, a few weeks later, both the transportation commission and the waterfront commission—which came close to opposing the proposal a second time—declared conditional support for the project.  

Although WETA wanted the City Council to pass a resolution supporting the proposed project before the agency certifies the final environmental impact report in December—which would clear the way for regional funds to build the terminal in Berkeley—the council’s approval of the EIR is not required, according to a report signed by Kamlarz.  

If WETA does not certify the report by December, the regional funds could go toward building a terminal in Richmond.  

On Tuesday WETA officials hinted that it might take until March or April before the final EIR is released to the public. 

WETA said that the Federal Transportation Authority “requires an expression of local interest” before accepting an environmental impact study for a project that would spend millions of dollars in federal money.  

Kamlarz said that the city is not yet aware of any specific deadline by which the FTA is required to accept the study.  

However, without Berkeley’s support, WETA could lose federal dollars.  

Some of the concerns Kamlarz raised after listening to comments made by the Planning, Transportation and Waterfront commissions on the draft environmental impact report released in December 2008 were the proposed project’s impact on recreational and economic development uses of the Berkeley Marina and mitigation for traffic impacts.  

Reynolds said that the terminal, which would use the existing parking space for Hs. Lordship’s restaurant, would enhance the adjacent Bay Trail along the waterfront.  

Reynolds said the project would change waterfront use by improving landscaping and adding bike racks and free parking without altering current recreational and commercial features.  

With respect to the planning commissioners’ questions about whether the terminal would have adequate parking, given the recent service cuts to AC Transit, WETA said the cuts “would match the level of service provided by the ferry route.”  

The ride across the bay would take about 30 minutes during peak service and would drop commuters off at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal, which also serves as a stop for the Sausalito and Tiburon ferries.  

The two 199-passenger ferries would provide an estimated 1,716 weekday ferry passenger trips by 2025, according to WETA, which the agency said would be one of the highest ridership levels among proposed Bay Area ferry routes.  

Members of the Waterfront Commission voiced concern Tuesday about how the project would impact water sports as well as vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle traffic flow.  

Reynolds said that the breakwater would create a “very small footprint” and not interfere with windsurfers. 

She said that the project would employ 107 construction workers and 20 full-time staff. The council strongly urged WETA to hire locally. 

“This will be an improvement to the marina,” said Steve McDonald, an avid windsurfer who owns a business in West Berkeley. “It will not affect me at all, windsurfing. This is the beginning of a ferry system. As people come and we have smart growth, the ferries will be a very practical way to commute.” 

Carol Denney, a West Berkeley resident, said that the traffic generated from the project would stack the backup all the way to Nevada. 

“Gridlock is the new green,” she said, adding that frustrated drivers would start throwing their keys into the bay. 

“Everyone loves a ferry, but the devil’s in the details,” said David Fielder, a local sailor and windsurfer. “It will cost double that of BART—as Berkeley again leads the way in going green, why would you support something that’s less efficient than a car?” 

A majority of the councilmembers said that, although they supported the idea of a ferry, they would have been more comfortable supporting it if they had reviewed the final environmental study. 

Councilmember Laurie Capitelli proposed a number of changes to the conditions proposed by staff, an action Councilmember Jesse Arreguín, who voted against the project, contended watered down the terms to a certain extent. 

Based on Capitelli’s suggestions, the council decided to lease the ferry terminal and the parking lot to WETA for $1 annually instead of charging a fair market rate, as proposed by city staff. 

Other conditions imposed seek to have WETA collaborating with the city of Berkeley to design a parking enforcement plan that limits the ferry parking lot to WETA patrons only, in order to minimize impact on other parking areas. WETA will also provide traffic mitigations as mandated in the final environmental impact report. The city also has to be satisfied that the pending environmental impact report is legally adequate and addresses all its concerns. 

Although Capitelli wanted to strike bathrooms off the ferry terminal plans, the council voted to keep them on, out of concern for elderly and disabled commuters. 

WETA will also be required to continue addressing community concerns during the planning process. 

Although Councilmember Kriss Worthington wanted the council to hold off voting on the project until there was more time to gauge the revised set of conditions as well as its greenhouse gas impacts, his motion failed to pass. 

Worthington voted against the project. 

Just as the hullabaloo over Balloon Boy seems to be finally cooling off, Berkeley is getting ready to make some noise about balloons.  

The Berkeley City Council held off voting Tuesday on whether to ban balloon releases, based on a report from the city’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission, which says that balloons pose an environmental hazard when let loose.  

The Daily Planet reported Nov. 17 that the commission was recommending that the council request the city manager to include a clause prohibiting balloon releases in special-event permits issued by the city.  

The council might even decide to ask city staff to work with the CEAC to provide event organizers, schools, businesses and balloon sellers with leaflets informing them about the dangers of having a Mylar or latex balloon floating around.  

Councilmembers said Tuesday that they needed more information from the commission on the hazards of balloon releases in Berkeley, before taking further action. 

If the council approves the stipulation, balloon enthusiasts will have to think twice before letting go of that string at birthdays, graduations and block parties.  

Although some environmentalists approved of the prohibition at Tuesday’s meeting, not everyone felt the same way.  

Berkeley’s largest balloon seller, Paper Plus Incredible Balloons at 1629 San Pablo Ave., showed up at council, along with customers, children and of course balloons, to oppose the ban.  

“They are trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Don Daniels, a certified balloon artist who has been with Paper Plus for over a decade, in an interview with the Planet before the meeting. “There are no balloon releases in Berkeley. I have sold balloons for 15 years—from people’s births to when their loved ones have passed away to all the holidays in between—and I have never done a single balloon release. My question is: How many balloons are being released in Berkeley? How big a problem is this?”  

CEAC’s report didn’t offer any statistics. What it did say is that, although the commission “does not oppose the use of balloons nor wants to ruin an amusement for people, the wanton release of balloons into the air is tantamount to dumping” toxic materials into San Francisco Bay.  

The report said that Mylar balloons can lead to shocks or blackouts and even injure utility workers trying to remove balloons stuck on power lines. And balloon cords can choke birds to death, the report said.  

“Balloons can be enjoyed without watching them float away indiscriminately into the sky,” said the commission, which at one point had even considered extreme alternative measures, such as banning balloons entirely or regulating the materials they are made from.  

Daniels told the council that California state law already mandates that all Mylar balloons be put on weights so that they don’t float away.  

Every week Paper Plus sells more than 2,000 latex and Mylar balloons—pearls, stars, cats, caterpillars, columns, centerpieces—which find their way into shelters, schools, churches and even prisons.  

“We have things you have never seen before, things you never knew you could do with balloons,” Daniels said. “You should see the kids run and fall into them. Balloons generate emotions. But now, people will be scared to buy them. A ban will put a chill on the industry.”  

Daniels’ said that even if balloons are released in the air, 90 to 95 percent disappear, while only 5 or 10 percent make it back to the ground. Latex balloons are biodegradable, he said.  

Daniels’ employer, Michele Schurman, who started Paper Plus 25 years ago with her husband Philip, nodded in agreement.  

“I am outraged by the false allegations of the hazards of balloons in the report,” Schurman said, “The CEAC has done no research, and moreover they have done no balloon studies on the environment. Just because the CEAC makes a statement does not make it a fact.”  

Holding up a piece of paper from the Balloon Council, a national organization representing balloon sellers, Schurman explained that latex dissolves in water.  

“CEAC states that plastic and latex are associated with the deaths of all sea life. I am sorry but they have made this up,” she said. “If swallowed, latex will not block the digestive tract. It’s not a plastic bag.”  

But CEAC contends that in cold water, even latex can take as long as six months to disintegrate.  

“Balloons ain’t cheap, so people won’t release them anyway,” Daniels said, making a “running man” balloon out of one bubble and five longitudinal balloons Monday as a wide-eyed 2-year-old watched. “They take them home and keep them ’til they have the last gasp of air in them.”  

A customer hunting for Thanksgiving decorations at the store turned around in surprise when she heard about the proposed ban. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea, though they release everything else in the air,” she said laughing. “I think we have more important things to focus on. This is so Berkeley.”  

Daniels said that city officials had told him about similar bans in Virginia and Florida.  

“The city is saying anyone who releases a balloon will be fined, not the person getting the permit” said Daniels. “So guess what? When that little baby lets go of that balloon, he can get a ticket for $100 to $200.”  

Schurman said that she had received a letter from the city saying that in the event council adopted the CEAC’s recommendation, her store would be “required to have a leaflet stating that customers” couldn’t release balloons into the air and offering ideas on how to dispose of them.  

“Who’s going to pay for it?” Schurman asked. “The city’s broke. We can’t pay any more. We already pay for licenses and property taxes.”  

Both Schurman and Daniels called the idea a waste of taxpayer dollars.  

“Berkeley claims to be business-friendly ... Well, three years ago the city said helium is hazardous and charged us a $2.70 tax for it; then they said the sign outside was two inches too big, ‘take it down.’” said Daniels. “Then they said we are going to put parking meters outside. We said it’s going to kill our business, but they said they were broke and that they will have to put them up. And now they are saying they have to ban balloons. They never talked to us and we are the biggest balloon store in the East Bay.”  

As Daniels stood at the store’s cash register on Monday handing out fliers that said “Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon … except the city of Berkeley,” Sabine Rosen walked in with her mother to pick up a couple of balloons for her second birthday party.  

“Mommy, I want the purple stars,” she said smiling, her eyes lighting up at the sight of all the different balloons adorning the shop’s walls.  

When Sabine’s mother heard about the proposed ban, she didn’t seem too upset.  

“I think it’s fine,” she said. “It’s not good for the birds. But if nobody’s releasing them, it doesn’t matter one way or the other.” 

Schurman said she had approached her councilmember, Linda Maio, and other city officials to protest the proposed ban.  

Reached Monday, Maio called the recommendation “a sensible item.”  

“I don’t see anything wrong with it on its face,” she said. “It’s about time people realized there are some consequences to using these things carelessly.” 

However, at Tuesday’s meeting, Maio relented, saying, “I think it’s a courtesy to this business to give this a little bit more time, a little bit more attention.” 

Councilmember Laurie Capitelli said that while he was tempted to suggest that “we have blown this whole thing out of proportion,” he sympathized with the balloon sellers. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak suggested that the city should make the most of balloons while it could. 

“They are a fun thing,” he said. “This problem will solve itself in 10 or 20 years when helium runs out. Maybe we should enjoy [balloons] in the next decade.” 

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. 

Following a lengthy discussion, the commission voted to remove the courtyards from the list of the building’s special characteristics. 

After the commission landmarked the 2525 Telegraph Ave. structure in May primarily due to its connection to Berkeley’s pre–World War II Japanese American heritage—Obata lived there with his family until the American government forced them into internment camps, along with thousands of other Japanese-Americans, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor—owner Ali Eslami appealed the decision. 

Calling the three “semi-private” courtyards flanked by apartments an interior feature over which the landmarks commission has no jurisdiction—the commission can designate only exterior features as landmarks, except in public buildings—Eslami asked that they be removed from consideration as special characteristics. 

In a letter to the commission, Eslami argued that giving the courtyards special preservation status would make it hard for him to modify or relocate them if he tried to bring the building up to current safety code requirements. Eslami has said that in order for him to get a bank loan to repair the building he will have to expand it by adding two stories. 

In the process of asking the commission to revisit the landmarking, the City Council replaced the word “courtyards” with the word “lightwells,” an action that some commissioners strongly objected to. 

“The thing that’s really disturbing is the change in the wording,” said Commissioner Anne Wagley, who is also the calendar editor for the Daily Planet. “It went to City Council as courtyard, where did the word ‘lightwells’ come in? It is a fiction, and this fiction is being circulated all around.” 

Commissioner Steve Winkel said he voted against the landmarking because he didn’t think the courtyards contributed to the building’s Mission Revival–style architecture. 

“The fact that the language got changed gets me tweaked as well,” he admitted. 

A good part of the evening was spent debating whether the courtyard was indeed a courtyard or a lightwell. 

“It’s not a lightwell. You can’t walk into a lightwell,” said retired city planner John English, who regularly attends commission meetings. “These are outdoor recreational spaces.” 

Tenants of the building, who fear they might be dislocated during the proposed expansion, supported preservation of the courtyards. 

“Lightwells only have doors; we have doors, windows, tables, chairs—everything,” said Marcia Poole, who has lived in the building for two decades. 

While the tenants argued that the courtyards were a feature of the landmarked building’s Mission Revival–style architecture, the opposition brought preservation architects who argued to the contrary. 

Eslami said that the only way to preserve the building’s history would be to “remodel, upgrade and enhance.” 

“We want to fix the building, we want to keep the tenants happy,” he said. Citing a weak foundation, Eslami said that extensive renovations would be required to keep the building standing. 

“We are here for a very minor alteration which would make a huge difference,” said Rina Rickles, a land-use attorney representing Eslami. “The courtyards were not part of the application; courtyards are not part of [Obata’s] art. The key part of the landmark was his art. The courtyards/lightwells don’t meet the characteristic feature of the building. They are not significant from any elevation.”  

Donna Graves, one of the three authors of the landmark application, is currently studying historic preservation at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. 

“We don’t need to have the word courtyard—it doesn’t need to be a feature to be preserved,” said Commissioner Carrie Olson. 

In the end, the commission voted 8 to 1 to take courtyards off the list of special characteristics.

UC Berkeley students aren’t the only ones who went on strike this week.  

Two of the three Bear’s Lair food court vendors, disgruntled by the student union administration’s plans to double their rent, planned to close shop the entire week because they want to negotiate the terms of their contract.  

The vendors have been fighting over lease negotiations with the Associated Students of the University of California Auxiliary Store Operations Board since summer, when the board proposed a rent increase to boost flagging revenue and revitalize Lower Sproul Plaza.  

The two vendors have also expressed concerns about the length of the lease, terms for extensions and the number of months of partial payment when school is out.  

Both ASUC Auxiliary Director Dr. Nadesan Permaul and Store Operations Board Chair Nish Rajan have maintained that the increase is on par with current market rates.  

Ann Vu, proprietor of Healthy Heavenly Foods, a Vietnamese concession stall at Bear’s Lair, said it was impossible for her to meet the rent hike, and she backed out of the contract in August.  

The board gave Vu an extension last month until May 2010 because it was taking a long time to prepare a request for proposal.  

“It’s not a fair contract for me and Arnoldo,” Vu told the Planet. “Monday we closed our business and put up a sign. We hope to let the students know what’s going on.”  

Arnoldo Marquez, who runs Tacqueria Tacontento next to Vu’s restaurant, agreed to the terms of the new contract but has refrained from signing it so far.  

Vu, who has been at the food court for 20 years, said that she was angry the board was giving preferential treatment to Tully’s Coffee by offering it space on campus at a lower rate.  

“Tully’s contract was negotiated and approved by the board in advance of the terms offered to the food court vendors,” Permaul said in a statement to the Planet. “All leases are discrete and distinct, based on a variety of factors, costs of improvements, risk, location, and other conditions. Tully’s lease was approved just as the economy crashed, they paid for substantial improvements to the location to make it meet the campus requirements, and they were assuming a risk in a new business location that was untested.” [See Permaul’s commentary on the subject, Page 10.] 

Permaul said the board voted to approve the terms of Tully’s contract unanimously on Sept. 23, 2008.   

He said that about seven months later all the vendors spoke to the board and “insisted they would be happy to make significant physical improvements and pay larger rents to remain in their locations.”  

“Based on those promises,” Permaul said, the board changed its earlier decision to go out for bids on all the spaces, instead resolving to negotiate new terms for extending the vendors’ leases.  

He added that both Vu and Marquez had amenities such as ovens and hoods which allowed them to cook on site, which resulted in higher utility bills than Coffee Spot or Tully’s, which are both quick service.  

“These critical amenities also make their sites much more attractive in the market place,” Permaul said. “A recent proposed vendor, who did not get board approval, was willing to pay almost $1,000,000 for physical improvements to get similar conditions for their proposed site.”  

Vu said that unless the board agreed to begin negotiations, they would strike again. 

“This is our way of showing we support the students,” said Marquez. 

The board gave Marquez a week’s extension Nov. 9 for signing his lease.  

“I cannot make that kind of a contract,” Marquez said. “That’s why I asked for an extension. I am not ready.”  

Permaul said that the third vendor, Coffee Spot, has signed the lease, whose terms include requiring the vendors to carry out upgrades and improvements to their store.  

“We are working with the Coffee Spot on the physical improvements,” Permaul said. “The owner has expressed nothing but satisfaction with the new lease and our relationship. Marquez, who accepted the terms in June, had a full month to express his concerns and did not. Then, yesterday two days before his deadline to sign, comes an announcement of a strike in conjunction with the vendor [Vu] who did not accept the board's offer in June, and was aware that by doing so she had forfeited her right to an extension.”  

UC Berkeley senior Matt Marks, who has been supporting the vendors on the lease issue, showed up during the strike Monday with banners supporting the vendors. 

“I think a strike is a great idea, especially since this week students are striking to protect higher education,” Marks said. “Arnoldo and Ann are protesting to keep prices from going up at the Bear’s Lair. There will be no business as usual.”  

UC Berkeley students embarked on a “no business as usual” three-day strike Wednesday to protest the state budget cuts to public education, fee hikes and furloughs.  

Marquez and Vu said they already increased food prices by 50 cents amid a tough economy.  

“The ASUC Auxiliary has not taken students’ input into consideration,” Marks said. “I think these vendors are paying fair market rate. The ASUC needs more revenue, but they are not taking anything else into consideration. They have given Tully’s a smaller rent. I think they should give Ann and Arnoldo a gradual rent increase instead of doubling their rent at once. It’s an invitation to leave, not an offer to stay.”  

Students have spoken out in support of the vendors at Store Operations Board meetings, urging a fair contract.

Citing “lingering economic uncertainty,” UC Berkeley announced Wednesday that it has abandoned existing architectural plans to construct a new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in downtown Berkeley. 

The university said it is currently modifying the $143 million museum project, designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, and that a review and detailed alternate plan is due next year. 

The Berkeley Art Museum is currently located in a seismically unsafe building on Bancroft Way. The structural unstability resulted in the film archive being moved across the street to temporary campus quarters in 1999. 

The university hired Toyo Ito and Associates in 2006 to design the new museum. Ito’s design received mixed reviews from the public but was generally supported in arts circles, and the university launched its $200 million fundraising campaign. 

However, university officials were able to raise only $81 million of the necessary $200 million. City of Berkeley Planning Commissioner Patricia Dacey told the Planet she hopes the university will continue to plan for a new museum but will choose a better design. 

“I felt that the design was an arrogant imposition on the context of our existing downtown,” she said. “It related to nothing around it—it just screamed ‘look at me.’” 

BAM/PFA Director Lawrence Rinder said in a press statement that the university and BAM/PFA “remain committed to building a new facility on university property at the corner of Center and Oxford streets,” the site of the proposed design. 

Rinder emphasized that the museum’s lead donors and trustees are still committed to the project and are taking the decision in stride.  

“While the architectural plans will change,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, “what will not change is our shared goal of building a dynamic, welcoming, and seismically safe new museum.” 

“In the current economic climate, modifying the project’s proposed scope and expense by moving on to a new design is the only way to ensure BAM/PFA remains on track for a new museum,” university and museum leaders said in a statement.  

More than 2,000 Berkeley public elementary school students received H1N1 vaccinations from the city’s Public Health Division this week. However, middle and high schoolers will have to wait for new shipments to arrive before they can get their shots. 

The city’s Public Health spokesperson Zandra Lee said Tuesday that just as in the rest of the country, swine flu shipments to Berkeley have been inconsistent. 

Although the Public Health Division had planned to vaccinate students of all the Berkeley public schools this week, the staff postponed the dates for 6th to 12th graders to the week of Dec. 7. 

“We are apprehensive that we may not have adequate vaccine to hold clinics in all schools the week of Nov. 16,” the city’s Public Health Officer, Janet Berreman, told Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Bill Huyett in an e-mail Oct. 28. “Vaccine delivery throughout California has been uneven to date, with some health jurisdictions receiving substantial supplies, and others receiving little or none—without any apparent reason or explanation. Berkeley has still received only one very small shipment.” 

Berreman said in her e-mail that “fortunately,” both Kaiser Permanante and Alameda County had received vaccines, opening up options for students and staff in the high priority vaccine groups. 

“The situation is fluid, and this is an unprecedented undertaking made more difficult by state budget constraints and furloughs.” Berreman said. “So we are all grappling with the need to remain flexible and adapt to changing conditions.” 

On Tuesday, students at Malcolm X Elementary School, which was closed for a couple of days earlier this year after reporting the first swine flu case in a parent, lined up at 10 a.m. to get H1N1 shots. 

Some cried, some closed their eyes tight, and some smiled through the procedure, which was carried out by nurses from Flu Busters, consultants hired by the city. 

“We did not have the capacity,” spokesperson Lee said, when asked why nurses from Public Health were not administering the shots. “It’s logistically very challenging. Plus we need to free up our nurses to oversee the vaccinations.” 

Most children were given the nasal spray mist. Students with respiratory problems were given an injection instead. Parents were not present at the clinics unless there was some kind of discrepancy in their consent forms. 

Berkeley Unified spokesperson Mark Coplan said that a couple of private schools had called the district inquiring whether their children could get H1N1 shots from the city. Lee said that, although the city was only prioritizing public school students, public health care workers, and first- response personnel for the time being, the plan was to extend the H1N1 vaccinations to the community as more shipments begin to arrive. 

“We completely understand their frustration,” she said. “They should continue to check for H1N1 clinics in Contra Costa and Alameda counties.” 

Jennifer Monahan, a spokesperson for Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, which has 526 students, said the school was asking parents to get their children vaccinated at their private health care providers. 

“But my impression is that even organizations like Kaiser can’t keep it in stock,” she said. “It’s a long waitlist. The only thing we can do is stress hygiene and prevention.” 

The California Department of Public Health reports that as of Nov. 7 there have been 5,830 hospitalizations from the H1N1 virus statewide, of which 297 patients have died. 

Berkeley has had four serious cases and one death as of Oct. 24, according to the CDPH website. 

Coplan said that just over half of all elementary school students were getting the H1N1 vaccinations at the school flu clinics. 

“We had originally estimated that only 30 percent of the students would get the vaccination, based on national trends and parent surveys,” said Lee. “Things have gone well so far.” 

Coplan said that none of the Berkeley public schools had reported a higher than usual absence for this time of the year. 

Lee said the city’s Public Health Division had run out of seasonal flu shots. 

“People are struggling nationwide to find seasonal flu vaccinations,” she said. “The companies manufacturing the seasonal flu vaccinations are developing H1N1 vaccines right now. The public should know that the seasonal flu has not shown up yet. Ninety percent of flu that is emerging is H1N1, so right now the H1N1 vaccine is the most pressing vaccine.” 

The Berkeley Public Health Division recommends: 

• Kaiser patients can be vaccinated at Kaiser (the Kaiser Permanente website has 

information about dates, times, and locations). 

• Health care providers in Alameda County outside of Berkeley may have vaccine—families should check with their providers. 

• The Alameda County Public Health Department is offering public H1N1 vaccine clinics at various locations—the Alameda County website has information.

As a law clerk to judge Abner Mikva 20 years ago, Jeffrey Bleich never imagined that the young man Mikva tried to recruit as a fellow clerk would one day name him ambassador to Australia. 

But Bleich is moving his family and surfboard to the American Embassy in Canberra after being unanimously confirmed for the position last week by the Senate. A swearing-in ceremony is set for Friday so Bleich can begin his diplomatic work before making the move Down Under in January. 

Bleich has remained a close friend of President Obama’s since they met in Mikva’s chambers, and he boasts an extraordinary résumé, includimg stints as a clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and attorney for the San Francisco Giants centerfielder Willie Mays. 

He has led a busy life since moving to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, from which he graduated in 1989.  

The new ambassador was president of the California and San Francisco Bar Associations, was chair of the American Bar Association’s Amicus Curiae Committee, and is currently a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the California State University Board of Trustees, all while keeping up with his civil litigation practice at the San Francisco–based law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. 

He’s also no stranger to politics. In 1999, President Clinton appointed  

Bleich director of the White House Council on Youth Violence. He was heavily involved in Obama’s presidential run, co-chairing his California campaign and raising more than $500,000 for his friend. Obama named him as a special counsel in March, a position in which he served until his nomination as ambassador in September. 

Though Bleich sees little of Obama in his current role, the two remain close friends. After their encounter in Mikva’s office, they stayed in touch through a loose network of colleagues and reconnected when Obama decided to run for president. Bleich even flew to Chicago to spend time with Michelle and the Obama daughters during the campaign. 

Of all the positions in Obama’s administration, ambassador to Australia may not seem the most obvious choice for a man of Bleich’s background. But Australia, Bleich said in an interview, is America’s key ally in the region, and the relationship between the two nations rests on issues such as national security and environmental protection, which will “define the next few decades.” 

And after working in Washington for the past several months, Bleich looks forward to escaping the capital’s grueling work hours in favor a diplomatic post that will at least allow him to share his experience with his wife and three children in a country he described as “fascinating and beautiful.” 

“We can serve our country as a family,” he said. 

He also said that his background in law will prove useful overseas. 

“It gives you the skills required for negotiation, the ability to be discreet, and patience,” he said.  

He has met several heads of state and international leaders during his career, easing some of the intimidation he recalls feeling the first time he talked to Hall of Famer Willie Mays. Bleich is briefed regularly by the State Department as well as federal agencies in Australia on issues and happenings overseas to prepare for his assignment. 

“The Internet is very helpful,” he said with a laugh. 

His reception in Australia has been a welcoming one so far. The Age, a newspaper in Melbourne, referred to Bleich as a “down to earth bloke,” calling him “one of the highest achieving young lawyers in San Francisco.” 

Though thrilled about the additional family time his ambassadorship will provide, Bleich said that leaving the Bay Area will be the hardest part of the job. He is confident that the family will return one day, and he is keeping his house in Piedmont. 

“I serve at the pleasure of the president and my wife,” Bleich said, when asked how long he anticipated staying in the position. “I’ll let them work it out.” 

Bleich is also a fan of Bay Area surfing, but he is a little intimidated about keeping up with his Aussie counterparts. 

“I surf like a middle-aged man,” he said. 

Bleich is grateful for his years spent in the Bay Area, which he calls a “welcoming, thoughtful, progressive and effective environment.” 

“I can’t imagine any environment other than the Bay Area that would have provided me with the experiences and opportunities I’ve had,” Bleich said. “I’m fortunate to call it home.” 

The California News Service is a journalism project of the University of California’s Washington Center and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Contact CNS at cns@ucdc.edu.

Andrea Lewis, long-time broadcast and print journalist, co-anchor of the KPFA Evening News and host of Pacifica’s Sunday Sedition, died last weekend of an apparent heart attack. She was 52. 

Many thousands of radio listeners awoke to the voice of Andrea Lewis as co-host of the Morning Show and more recently Sunday Sedition. Her warm, relaxed delivery and knowledge of public affairs, music and the arts earned her a loyal following. 

Andrea Lewis was a native of Detroit, Michigan and earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Michigan University in 1982, where she studied Music, English Literature, and Art History. She was a 2008 Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Andrea first made her name in journalism after moving to the Bay Area in 1983. She started her career as an editor for Plexus: West Coast Women’s Press. In the late 1980s, she became a research editor for Mother Jones magazine. From there she went on to become an editorial assistant at Harper Collins Publishers in San Francisco in 1991 and two years later became a senior editor at Third Force Magazine. In 1996, Andrea joined Pacific News Service in San Francisco (now New America Media) as an associate editor. 

She switched effortlessly to radio in 1999, joining the KPFA Morning Show as co-host. Andrea’s friends, colleagues and classmates remember her as a curious, thoughtful journalist with diverse interests. 

“Andrea was truly a renaissance woman. She could talk about the politics of the day. She could talk about issues and what was going on not only nationally but also locally what,” says Amelia Gonzalez, KPFA Interim Assistant General Manager. 

“But it was also her knowledge of cultural affairs. She was a singer. She sang in the San Francisco Community Chorus and she was an avid golfer. We loved to argue about sports.” 

Andrea’s journalism work earned her accolades. The National Federation of Community Broadcasters recognized her with its Golden Reel award in 2002. In 2004, the California Teachers Association presented her with its John Swett Award for Media Excellence. Andrea was a fellow in the Society of Professional Journalists Diversity Leadership Program from 2006-2007. Matthew Rothschild is editor of the Progressive Magazine in Madison Wisconsin, to which Andrea was a regular contributor. He remembers Andrea as a deft journalist with tools that crossed platforms: 

“She could write well. She was gifted and a natural at radio. She did interviews really well. She did cultural profiles really well for the progressive magazine. She did commentaries for the progressive media project that were strongly voiced and in a different style. She was kind of a utility infielder as far as a journalist goes and she’d appreciate that because she was a big sports fan.” 

Friends say Andrea was always warm and easy-going, but with a direct straightforward manner when it came to issues close to her heart like race, gender and sexual orientation. They say Andrea would sometimes use everyday discussions about sports and other topics as teachable moments. 

“I’m a big college basketball fan. So we were going to do a college basketball pool,” recalls Paul Kavinta, a former Stanford Knight Fellow who befriended Andrea during their time at the University. “Andrea was like ‘yeah I’ll do that, but where’s the women’s pool?’ I was like, oh right, I guess we have to have a women’s basketball pool. That’s a fun example of what Andrea would bring up.” 

Other friends from Andrea’s time as a Knight Fellow remember her as being fearless when it came to putting difficult subjects on the table during class discussions. 

“She wore her heart on her sleeve and she wore her opinions on her sleeve and what I loved about her was that she would just get in there and ask the hard questions,” says friend and former Stanford Knight Journalism Fellow Ruth Teichroeb. “She would be the one who would say what everyone else was thinking and just bring it out in the open. Sometimes it was uncomfortable, but it didn’t matter because she always told the truth.” 

Other friends and colleagues said that although she held strong opinions, she was never strident and was always open to listening to people with opposing views. 

Jim Bettinger, Director of the Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford says beyond Andrea’s journalistic achievements, he’ll remember her as someone who was just easy to like: “In my mind she was just a real sweetheart, a good person whom I liked enormously and one whom I’m going to miss enormously.” 

And we here at KPFA share that sentiment as does everyone who was privileged enough to count Andrea among their friends. If Thackeray was right and “A good laugh is sunshine in the House,” then all our houses are a little sunnier for having known Andrea. 

A memorial service for Andrea Lewis will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 24 at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. All Andrea's friends and colleagues are invited to celebrate Andrea's life and grieve our loss as a community.  

The name and author of a Seattle blog were misidentified in the Nov. 12 story, “Meehan Approv-ed as City’s New Police Chief.” Quotes regarding police commanders’ length of service at Seattle’s East Precinct and about Meehan’s tenure there were originally posted by Doug Schwartz on the blog Capitol Hill Seattle.

Somehow someone’s gotten the idea lately that Thanksgiving is all about food. Well, no, not exactly. It’s the successor to a whole variety of traditional festivals going back at least to the Jewish Sukkot (sometimes transliterated as Succoth).  

Here’s how the “Judaism 101” website describes it: “Sukkot has a dual significance: historical and agricultural. Historically, Sukkot commemorates the 40-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. Agriculturally, Sukkot is a harvest festival…” 

The Pilgrim mothers and fathers, well-versed as they were in what Christians call the Old Testament, must have had similar ideas when they put together what schoolkids call The First Thanksgiving. The actual facts could be significantly different, but the myth of The First Thanksgiving is that European immigrants and American natives living in Plymouth Plantation threw a party to celebrate both the harvest and their mutual harmony in a safe environment, concepts clearly related to the dual message of Sukkot.  

One part of Sukkot is enjoying festive meals in a temporary shelter built outside for that purpose. Near the UC campus in recent years it’s been possible to see the one that the people at Chabad House have built on the corner of College and Derby. Sometimes these shelters, sukkahs, are charmingly decorated. The winemaker who lives on our family property in Santa Cruz commissioned my late mother-in-law, an artist, to do beautiful and elaborate murals on the walls of the sukkah he uses there for Sukkot celebrations with his observant community. 

Thanksgiving festivities have traditionally incorporated a similar decorative concept—the table is usually adorned with whatever the household can provide, everything from hand-drawn paper cutouts of turkeys to the family silver if any. The food on the table has represented the harvest, even in urban households where the harvest is gleaned mainly at the grocery store. The “standards”—turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie—are derived from the mythical Pilgrim feast, things thought to have been copiously available in Massachusetts in the 16th century. 

The idea that Thanksgiving’s primarily a family gathering seems related to the Sukkot tradition of celebrating shelter in a hostile environment. In California where many of us are from somewhere else, it’s become traditional to invite waifs and strays, those without local family, to join family tables, rather like filling an extra cup for the prophet Elijah at the Passover table. 

But the family reunion aspect of Thanksgiving takes its lumps in the chatty media. A fair percentage of our state’s population came here to escape their family, and these people view the event as a celebration of not having to put up any longer with any guests you didn’t personally select for their wit, charm, beauty or other desirable attributes. 

In the foodie subset of the Californian culture, Thanksgiving has become an opportunity for show-off cooking. It’s not just about sustenance or abundance any more—now it’s also about extravagance: demonstrating how very special your personal relationship is to what for others may be just food on the table. Turkey, pumpkin pie and cranberries are for amateurs, it seems. Why not instead quail stuffed with pate, kambocha squash soup, lingonberry tartes, washed down with several choice vintages?  

The old New England Puritans would have been horrified. They’re the ones who punished people for celebrating Christmas, viewing it as a pagan or perhaps even worse, a Roman Catholic holiday inseparably linked to debauchery. The foodie Thanksgiving, what’s viewed in some quarters as the year’s grandest dinner party, would have caused them to roll their eyes at least, if not throw all participants in the stocks forthwith.  

Plain or fancy, contemporary Thanksgiving tables are usually opportunities for committing what preachers of all stripes might denounce as the sin of gluttony. In the post-religious pockets of today’s society, it’s the number one deadly sin, far outstripping lust, the old champion which has almost disappeared from the roster of sins.  

Gluttony is most often ascribed to those who eat differently from oneself, especially those who sometimes indulge in cheap food, quintessentially at McDonald’s. But on Thanksgiving over-eating is culturally sanctioned, regardless of what’s actually consumed. 

There’s a monster dispute between those who think of Thanksgiving as an opportunity for consumption of large quantities of televised football and those who don’t. In the traditional households of the old Midwest, no problem: the women cooked, the men watched the games. Here, now, it’s a little more complicated. Fans, both men and women, feel compelled to just sneak a peek at the screen while also lending a hand with the potato peeling. If the timing of dinner is right, some manage to do both openly, but it’s not easy. 

When you think about it, cultural clashes mean that not much about the 21st Century California Thanksgiving is easy, unless of course you decide to make it so, which is the best course of action. One of its manifest virtues is that it’s quasi-religious while also being completely non-sectarian. It’s good to feel grateful, isn’t it, as long as you don’t have to define whom or what you’re grateful to. You can say grace before dinner, or not, depending on the custom of your people. It’s ideal if someone at the table can sing a traditional blessing for food in Hebrew, especially if most guests don’t understand the language, which prevents theological arguments. 

Whatever you decide to do for Thanksgiving, have fun doing it. If you don’t have a gathering to attend, join the volunteers at the many soup kitchens which need help with their meals.  

You can even enjoy having nothing to do. On our first Thanksgiving in frigid Michigan, where we knew no one and when we had no children, we spent the whole day in bed, keeping warm under the covers and catching up on our reading, and it was great.  

Myself, these days I don’t care what prayers you say or what food you bring to the table as long as you bring the kids. For me, Thanksgiving is the ideal opportunity to enjoy the latest additions to the next generation. This year, it’s a new grand-nephew to rejoice in, not to mention his bumptious 2-year-old brother, who seems to greet every new experience with enormous enthusiasm—a model for us all this Thanksgiving and every day. 

The most famous words spoken about the Great Depression, by Franklin Roosevelt in his first inaugural address, were these: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” They have become a mantra invoked in many situations where there’s a lot more than fear to fear, where real dangers are confronting people who must nonetheless act unafraid. 

This week we saw two gripping dramatic representations of coping with genuine fear of real danger. Both have been reviewed in these pages as theatrical events, but the questions they raise transcend the context presented on stage. 

Dark River, a new opera by Mary Watkins, focuses on the role of Fannie Lou Hamer, a woman with little education and modest resources, in organizing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 to push for voting rights for African-Americans. It starts with a chilling ballet enacting the 1950s murder of the young Black Emmett Till for the supposed crime of whistling at a white woman. Seven Jewish Children: a Play for Gaza, by Caryl Churchill, also opens with a shocker, a tense conversation about family members disappearing during the Holocaust. Both works go on to explore how the communities involved have been able to deal with their fears. 

Both move through time in a series of blackout vignettes. The Churchill play, just 10 or 20 minutes long, uses a very effective device to do this, the actors’ repeated alternation of “Tell her about…” and “Don’t tell her about…” referring to an always off-stage child who will learn how to view the world from the stories adults tell her. The action turns on their disputes about what to say and how to say it. The final injunction, repeated frequently: “Don’t frighten her!” 

That’s the crux of the matter examined in both plays: in a world full of pain and evil, what do we tell the kids? Both shed light on the specific historic situations presented on stage, but also raise questions bigger than the dramas that audiences of these two productions see enacted before them.  

An African-American mother who saw Seven Jewish Children spoke about wondering how she should tell her kindergarten child about slavery without frightening him. Many of our children and grandchildren are simultaneously descended from slaves and slaveholders, abolitionists and do-nothing bystanders—how can we explain their heritage to them? 

And there are many more thorny problems to grapple with. How can we talk to our daughters and sons about the relationships between the sexes? Not only about the evils of Capital S Sexism, but about the myriad ways the sexual impulse can either be celebrated or abused.  

What do we tell them about the recent news of horrendous events at a high school in Richmond? We don’t want our daughters to be irrationally afraid, but we need to warn them to stay out of dark alleys and away from boys who are drinking.  

Or about drugs of all kinds? A beer, a glass of wine, even occasional marijuana, fine, sure, but how to explain what happened to the adults all Berkeley kids know who are being destroyed by too much of these? And how do we caution young people to avoid seriously dangerous substances like crack or meth?  

On health? Should we tell the kids to wash their hands, but not to skip birthday parties or feeding the goats at the children’s zoo because of fear of germs? 

Do we caution a young daughter to get frequent mammograms, or should we tell her that worrying about getting cancer should be rationally connected to the probability of doing so?  

Don’t frighten her.  

At a recent meeting of the North-East Berkeley Association, a councilmember who represents the high Berkeley hills said that her constituents were afraid to go downtown. Is that a statement about the downtown or a statement about her constituents or a little of both? Many have chosen to live a suburban lifestyle in the hills because they’re afraid of the city and everything city life implies, but many people live in the flats, and only a few of these live in fear most of the time. 

Fear is everywhere. It’s what people make of their fears that counts. 

In Dark River we see Black people in Mississippi experimenting with violence and with self-segregation as ways of dealing with their fears. The life of Fannie Lou Hamer is celebrated in the opera because she managed to rise above these temptations and look toward a future when, most of the time, even in Mississippi, the right to vote would be secured for everyone without bloodshed. 

The Churchill play is more about questions, less about answers, but it too suggests that fear can create a temptation to become like the people one fears. The un-named characters in the last scenes seem to be in Israel, and seem to be inclined to choose violence to allay their fears, but doors are left open for other solutions.  

The tenor of the lives of future generations—our own children and grandchildren and others—will be determined in large part by what we do and don’t tell them to be afraid of. How is it possible to inform and warn them without frightening them?  

In the last analysis, it’s all about choice. It’s not realistic to expect to have a life free of fear, but it’s important not to let fears dominate and control life. As the two productions illustrate, it’s always been a challenge to achieve the right balance, and it probably always will be. 

• 

UC PROTEST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a student at UC Berkeley. Last week there were widespread protests regarding pending student fee increases. Last Friday I was forced to abandon my biology lab and wait in the rain while authorities responded to multiple false fire alarms set off by protesters. 

I support the right of my fellow students to protest the current financial debacle. They have the right to skip their classes if they so choose. However, I have the right to attend my classes if I so choose. 

These protesters are allegedly asserting the value of education, yet they are stopping those of us who wish to go to class from doing so. They self-righteously decry their right to free speech while simultaneously hindering the right of others to disagree. 

They are not freedom fighters protecting public education. They are petulant children who have discovered money will not be given to them merely because they have demanded it be done. Now they are throwing temper tantrums. 

As a Berkeley undergraduate, I would like to state unequivocally that these protesters do not represent me. 

Monica Snyder 

• 

PLANETARY BIAS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s clear to all that you are not getting anywhere near the support from contributions that you think you should have. Your handling of the Dellums tax issue is a great reason why. Your paper has no fairness or inte-grity. There has been absolutely no mention from your staff about the ridiculous situation that the mayor of Oakland is a tax cheat. And J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, who has been such a Dellums apologist who immediately challenges the Chron’s Chip Johnson anytime he writes negatively about Dellums, has been so silent on this issue. One has to wonder if Allen-Taylor is on Dellum’s payroll. 

Your lack of coverage and silence on this issue is just one example why people do not support you with their dollars and why your paper will be out of business soon enough. 

Javier Melendez 

• 

GREEN FERRIES? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The new ferries built for the Water Emergency Transportation Authority carry 149 passengers at 25 knots using 2820hp per boat. 

  They are averaging 30 percent full, consistent with WETA’s projections and typical for a commuter service where nearly-empty reverse runs are necessary. 

  At this power, speed and passenger count, we have achieved the equivalent of 8.1 mpg for each occupied seat. That’s right, far less fuel would be burned and far less carbon would be released if every passenger drove an SUV to work all by themselves. 

  If each passenger drove a high-mileage car they would burn about one-fifth as much fuel per passenger as the ferry. If they commuted in a three-person carpool they would use only one-fifteenth as much fuel as the ferry. 

  WETA does deserve some credit for spending an extra million dollars per boat to reduce NOX and particulate emissions by more than 85 percent compared to marine diesels with no emission controls. But remember, this is expressed as a percentage of exhaust gas constituents. The actual amount of pollutants released increases in proportion to fuel consumed. So even the NOX and particulate emissions per passenger-mile are right back up there with cars and SUVs. 

  In all fairness, the next two WETA boats will carry 199 passengers at about the same speed and power. And let’s be optimistic and assume 50 percent passenger loading. We’re up to 18.3 mpg per seat. The carpool lane still wins by a factor of five. 

  Ferries provide a wonderful travel alternative, and we should proceed with plans for a terminal at the Berkeley Marina. But let’s apply a little common sense here. The ferries need to be designed for the route: It’s only 5.6 miles, and they would be about twice as fuel-efficient if designed to go 18 knots instead of 25. It only adds five minutes to the transit time. 

  We don’t need to spend $34 million on the terminal—a much more modest facility comparable to other East Bay terminals— can serve. And we don’t need a 199-passenger boat leaving every 30 minutes—the site doesn’t have enough parking to support that level of service anyway. Much better to have a departure every hour with the savings used to run a coordinated feeder bus line. This would have the desirable effect of diverting some of that profoundly wasteful ferry subsidy to a public transportation mode with far more utility and would also add a badly-needed east-west bus route that would serve many more Berkeley residents than those lucky enough to commute by ferry. 

Paul Kamen 

• 

LEAF BLOWERS SUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Gas-powered leafblowers are illegal to use in the city of Berkeley, but you’d never know it. On a typical morning the sparkling air is full of the dust they blow and the chainsaw noise they make with their two-stroke motors. This “green” city seems fine with it. 

Right now a Berkeley citizen who observes leafblower use must write down the time of the use, the address of the physical location where the leafblower was used, and the license plate number of the vehicle of the user, and send this information to the Department of Environmental Health, which claims to contact the user and tell them the policy. After which it keeps happening, and the citizen gives up. 

Leafblower users tend to be through with their job inside of five or 10 minutes, so this can be challenging. But despite the law outlawing their use, almost every landscape maintenance crew in Berkeley uses them and gets away with it, including city crews. 

My experience is that by the time you find a piece of paper the use is over, the vehicle is gone, etc. There’s almost never an officer around when it’s happening, and if you did find one to flag or called one they’d only give them a warning unless you had your sheaf of papers with you proving it had happened before to precisely this guy with this truck. 

If you try speaking to the user, be prepared to hear that they had no idea about the law, that they don’t speak the language, etc. If you move swiftly into the appropriate language to discuss the matter, the shower of profanity that follows will help you spice up your vocabulary of contemporary slang. 

The city of Berkeley could send a letter to all the landscape maintenance services—and their own city workers, who also use them—giving them notice about the law but also giving them notice that the piece of paper they were holding serves as their first warning. 

Without the first warning policy, which the police don’t use anyway, residents of the city would have a prayer of enforcement, because until it costs leafblower users real money to ruin our respiratory function and our peaceful enjoyment of an afternoon, they’ll keep using them. 

For some people its simply an annoyance. But for others with tenuous respiratory function, it is life or death. 

Carol Denney 

• 

TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Some points about the BRT commentary by UC professor of environmental planning Matt Kondolf: 

1. True, car ownership in Berkeley is more common than in Bogota; yes, might be more effective in Latin America than here. But in Curitiba, Brazil, 28 percent of riders previously traveled by car—i.e. they own a car but choose to ride. This is the attitude we need in Berkeley. 

2. True, what we really need is to get people out of their single-person cars and into mass transit. But Berkeley residents are supposed to be so very concerned about the environment; we just passed a Climate Action Plan. BRT should motivate the car drivers among us to move to transit. This goal is not being motivated by any other current transit project—we need BRT. 

3. BRT does not duplicate BART. Just ask yourself whether you can get to, say, Telegraph and Alcatraz on BART. It would be just as nonsensical to say that AC Transit bus 51 duplicates BART because it has stops near five BART stations. The 51 goes places that aren’t close to a BART station; so does BRT. No riders will be poached from BART; plenty of riders will board from BART at MacArthur. 

4. BRT will definitely reduce greenhouse gas emissions because those 60 or more people aboard a big articulated bus are no longer driving alone in a car for all their trips. 

5. Don’t ridicule the polar bear; think of him like the miner’s canary. 

6. Yes, grade separation at intersections would make our BRT design much better, but we’re having enough of a hassle making sure we have the bus-only lanes. We have to start somewhere. 

Bottom line: BRT will not create worse traffic problems on Telegraph if a substantial number of the people now causing the traffic in their cars, switch to BRT. This is the really important question. 

Steve Geller 

• 

TAKE BACK THE NIGHT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was shocked and dismayed to discover that our city fathers and mothers—let’s just call them our “parents”—have voted to allow downtown establishments to continue their revelry well into the night, thereby infringing upon the ability of our city’s hill dwellers to enjoy the peace and quiet that is their right under God and the constitution. It is indeed “unconscionable”—a word our more elevated citizens love to fling over the ramparts of reasoned debate in our fair city—that the council should fail to submit to the hysterical self-interest of the privileged residents who inhabit our hillsides, and once again pander to a few special interests—everyone but them—who wish to make our downtown a place that people actually want to hang out in. Unconscionable indeed. 

It saddens me how no one in this town seems to appreciate the plight of those who live in the hills. Does anyone understand how hard it is to be constantly on the lookout for neighbors who want to build additions that get in the way of their bridge views? Does anyone know what it’s like to have to always worry about leaves choking the gutters or deer eating the petunias? And now this? Now they must submit to the faint echoes of laughter, random saxophone trills and the clink of beer steins wafting up the hill? It’s an outrage, another example of the vox populi horning in on their ability to enjoy the benefits of not living in the flatlands—gunshots and police sirens drive the dogs to distraction—in peace and quiet. 

This persecution of the privileged is not a new thing. Why, just a few years ago I met a man at an AC transit meeting who had gone to protest a plan to run a bus up his tree-lined lane (imagine!), and when he got up to testify to the hardship this would pose—he liked to park his BMW on the street, and it was narrow, you see, and then the noise—how is one to listen to Wagner when the damn bus is pulling up the hill?—he had the feeling that the grandmothers in the audience, who had come to the meeting to protest cuts in services that were going to make it impossible for them to get to their jobs, wanted to kill him, or at the very least emasculate him. They would have thrown tomatoes at him, if they had thought to bring tomatoes, but being without vegetables, they just glared. The poor man was near tears. 

No, it’s time the hill people took back the night. This unconscionable travesty of justice must be met with fierce resistance. I do submit to you, my downtrodden hill brethren, that it is your solemn duty to protest the relaxation of these noise restrictions by staying home. Every night. Leave the reveling to them what knows how. 

George Rose 

• 

DEMOCRATIZE THE REGENTS! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Power concedes nothing. Demonstrations did not influence the czar of Russia or Louis of France. 

It seems to me that the appointed regents view the university as a business in which students and scholars are liabilities because they generate no profit. We need the opportunity to elect directors who value the expansion of the human mind and spirit and regard the advancement of knowledge as the primary goal of any educational institution. The original goal of this university was the free education of anyone who could benefit from it. The state of California was understood to be enriched by an educated population. 

Democratize the Regents! 

Ruth Bird 

• 

THE BIG GAME 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The word on the street, in the gutters, is that the UC Board of Rejects—really Stanford Reprivatean archetypes—bribed the football team into throwing the Big Game. The reasoning? The dejected student-athlete-pit ghouls could then be used to control campus insurrection. You read it here first. 

Arnie Passman  

• 

BERKELEY HIGH ORCHESTRA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Berkeley High School Orchestra and Band successfully passed the audition for the Los Angeles International Music Festival to be held in June 2010.  

This achievement reflects a great deal of hard work by these young musicians, under the excellent direction of Ms. Karen Wells. 

Festival activities include a group workshop, interactions with other musicians from around the world, and culminate in a performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Symphony. 

The students now need to raise funds quickly to ensure that all of them can actually travel. A benefit concert and silent auction are planned for Thursday, Dec. 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley High School Auditorium 

Donors to the silent auction (tax deductible) are welcome to email Bonnie Borucki at bcb@bborucki.com 

We thank all generous donors and silent auction shoppers for your assistance, and look forward to seeing you at the benefit concert at BHS on Dec. 10! 

Casilda Rubio 

• 

UC PROTESTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The sit-in protest at UC Santa Cruz is over, there is some costly damage to attend to, some students will be held responsible and nothing has changed. Perhaps the process was flawed. 

OK, students in the UC system are among the best and brightest, some grad students, quite possibly tomorrow’s leaders. I had neither the grades nor the money to go to UC, so I settled for a Cal State education, so I assume these students have more going for them than I had. 

Given all that, what was the plan, the goal of this time- and money-consuming venture? Can any of them point to a person at UCSC who is responsible for the fee increase? I suspect that most of the university staff is sympathetic with their cause and plight. After all, if students can’t afford to attend, the university will need fewer instructors, fewer support staff, etc. 

Rather than dramatic but ineffectual gestures, perhaps these already organized, bright students can use the momentum they’ve built up for some meaningful changes, even though it would require more effort than sitting in a UC building, singing old John Lennon songs. 

These students should address the primary problem first, our state in financial disarray. The system of governance needs repair, and it doesn’t seem to be happening in Sacramento. Organized, energetic, educated young people might be able to start to steer our massive political ship in a better direction. 

Then, on a different level, they should take a hard look at the UC system. Like almost organizations these days, both public and private, I’d bet that UC is top heavy. Administrative costs almost everywhere have gone up faster than revenues. 

This is a systemic problem, and while the voters can’t do much about private industry, our public agencies are ultimately under our control. Students could organize and get some studies done regarding what percent of the budget each public entity actually needs to administer their programs, from local school districts, to UC, to the state government itself. Once this percentage is determined, these passionate students could work to get these limits put on the ballot. 

Sitting and singing is easy; solving complex problems is hard, but real solutions are the only way to avoid a 32-percent fee hike. 

Meade Fischer 

• 

MARIJUANA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m writing in response to Maris Arnold’s opinion of Nov. 19. Arnold is protesting the hiring of our new police chief Michael Meehan. Arnold states, “Additionally, any intelligent person who calls marijuana a drug, and especially a police chief to be of our city, is revealing his own ignorance. Arnold should know it’s a mild euphoric that even the APA states is non-addictive. It’s the prohibition of marijuana that’s dangerous. Legalize it and that’s the end of the crime surrounding it.” 

I invite Maris Arnold to meet the many former Berkeley High School students who have dropped out of school after becoming addicted to marijuana. I invite Arnold to visit the park across the street from Berkeley High School and the Berkeley Police Department and the Berkeley Unified School District Headquarters where teenagers cut school and smoke pot on a daily basis, while the city and the school district turn a blind eye. I invite Arnold to talk to the parents of these teenagers who have tried everything—including drug treatment programs—to help their children, only to have them lost to drugs. The drug culture of Berkeley is destroying families and children. Whether one can become technically “addicted” to marijuana or not, it is ruining the lives of many Berkeley teenagers. I fully support our new police chief in his statement, “I don’t want to send a message to kids that drug use is OK.” Even if marijuana was legalized, it wouldn’t be legal for children under 18. Why do we tolerate its daily use by children in downtown Berkeley? 

Lindsay Schachinger 

• 

H1N1 VACCINES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In recent weeks the Daily Planet has written that the Berkeley Public Health says that Berkeley residents can get H1N1 flu shots at Kaiser in Oakland. That has been far from being true for weeks. I call the Kaiser flu hotline for adults daily to see if they have any H1N1 flu shots available. They don’t, unless of course, you are healthy, between the ages of 18–49, and can get the nasal spray. Being a diabetic means that I can’t get the nasal spray. I don’t know when California will get another batch of H1N1 flu shots for people who need it, not just for healthy people, who may not need it as much. I have nothing against healthy people, but right now, without an H1N1 flu shot, I could get very sick. The state of California seems to be missing the boat on many fronts this year, taking away money from people on fixed incomes, and other sorts of things that aren’t going to change anytime soon. 

If Kaiser does get the seasonal and H1N1 flu shots in stock again, I’ll be right there, waiting. They are out of the regular flu shot too. Luckily I got my flu shot as early as possible. For those who want to call Kaiser’s hotline for updates on flu vaccines for adults The number is 1-800-573-5811. 

Anita Fiessi 

• 

COERCION, EXTORTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

By now it’s commonly accepted wisdom that lobbyists who represent wealth, i.e., corporate America, donate huge amounts of money to our local, state and national representatives to further their clients in the taking of profit, no matter the consequences. However, what is seldom known is that it’s “de rigeur” that if a donee doesn’t want to go along with the lobbyist’s instructions, donations may be given to the politician’s opponent in an upcoming election! Shades of coercion, and extortion. Given this kind of corporate power, how can we ever expect our reps to truly represent us? There should be a law, to quote an old cliché. 

Robert Blau 

• 

ISRAEL’S MIGHT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Robert Kanter sites Nationmaster.com as proof of his assertion regarding the size of Israel’s military. According to the site, Israel is ranked first in “weapons holding” per capita. He fails to mention that number two on the list is that global powerhouse, Dominica, an island in the Caribbean. Number three is mighty Cyprus. Rather than bore the Planet readers while I attempt to educate Mr. Kanter on the definition of “per capita” in terms of statistics and rankings, I’d like to suggest that he take this little debate away from the pages of the Daily Planet, and perhaps meet me for coffee. I’ll guess he knows where to find me. 

Israel is not powerless, and no one asserts that she is. But the conflict in the Middle East is not simply Israel vs. the Palestinians. This is a regional problem. Earlier this month, a ship smuggling tons of weaponry en route from Iran to Syria was intercepted just 100 miles off of Israel’s coast. The ship carried 50 tons of advanced weaponry and missiles, including Katyusha rockets, assault rifles, mortar shells, grenades and anti-aircraft platforms. It was to be delivered to the terrorist group, Hezbollah. In 2002, the Karin A terror ship was stopped attempting to smuggle tons of Iranian weapons into Gaza. This is a regional problem, Mr. Kanter, and one exacerbated by Iranian sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah terror. 

Let’s leave the Planet for discussion of local issues, Mr. Kanter. With fees at Cal rising 32 percent, with unemployment high and local businesses struggling, let’s leave the pages of the Planet available for discussion of what matters most to Berkeley residents. Meet me for coffee, Mr. Kanter, and I’ll be happy to explain “per capita” to you. 

Faith Meltzer 

El Cerrito 

• 

RABBIT HOLE HEALTH CARE REFORM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The health care debacle reminds me of my favorite book, Alice in Wonderland. I love the book, but not the hatters and hares in Washington, D.C., who tell us we are getting “reform” when all we are getting is another dirty plate left behind by the insurance companies and their lobbyists! Our representatives seem to be nothing but a pack of cards. I am in favor of Medicare for all, or nothing! 

L. D. Pratt 

• 

COMPASSION FOR CUBANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On national television Nov. 9, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pleaded with the government of Iran to show compassion for the three young U.S. citizens who may be facing charges of espionage.  

It is ironic that the very same secretary of state has turned a deaf ear on the international cry for compassion for the wives of two Cuban men serving long sentences in U.S. prisons. Gerardo Hernandez and Rene Gonzalez were convicted of conspiracy and other related charges for monitoring the activity of known anti-Cuba terrorists in Miami. They did this to protect lives in Cuba and are heroes in their country. Since 1998 Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva, wives of these men, have been denied the basic human right to visit their husbands in U.S. prisons. Thousands of postcards, petitions and letters from Nobel Prize winners, members of Parliaments from all over the world, U.S. unions, intellectuals, local elected officials, etc., have flooded the office of Hillary Clinton asking her for compassion and to grant humanitarian visas to these two Cuban women. While calling for compassion in Iran she should remember that humanitarian gestures go both ways.  

Alicia Jrapko  

Oakland 

• 

LGBT RIGHTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I remember a recent President of ours saying, “the terrorists hate us because of our freedoms.” Our freedoms to do what? Legally hate a certain segment of humanity just because they love and care for someone of the same gender? 

Fifty-eight percent of our states have laws allowing the firing of otherwise competent and qualified employees because they are lesbian, gay or bisexual. Transgender people suffer the same hate and punishment from 75 percent of our states. 

“They” hate our freedoms? My rear end. Only when we pass a federal law protecting our fellow LGBT Americans from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, then we might barely be able to talk about “freedoms.” 

We’ve got to grow up. My family has two gay members, we don’t discriminate against them because they’re not only our blood but human! It’s who they are, not who they choose to be, and that’s why we don’t ostracize or marginalize them. We shouldn’t do it to our fellow humans either. 

Please support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3017) to make it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or refuse to promote employees based on their sexual orientation or gender equality. 

We’re not asking for special treatment, we’re asking for equal protection. Please, help our country be a little more free, or else the terrorists have won. 

Rick Pickett 

Oakland 

• 

RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Isn’t it time to talk about religious discrimination in reported news stories? All this talk about “Fort Hood Muslim killer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.” 

What about the religion of Jason Rodriguez, the killer in Orlando? Shouldn’t we refer to him as “Catholic killer Jason Rodriguez”? Or to Scott Roeder as “Christian fundamentalist Scott Roeder, killer of George Tiller, MD”? 

Alexandra Andrews 

• 

ASSAULTS ON WOMEN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

An old woman presenting herself so candidly is to be admired. 

Sheila Goldmacher’s report does not appear to be “a fictitious narrative.” And yet, she or, more likely, the editors, captioned it “Another Sad Tale.” Why not, “Another old woman victim?” 

Three factors potentially surround her experience of elder abuse: age, race and sex. Plus, of course the perpetrator’s confidence that there would be no retribution. Unfortunately, Goldmacher apparently was aware that reference to her/his/their race would be unacceptable. 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

For over 20 years three owner-operated businesses have served students in the Bear’s Lair Food Court, in the Student Union on UC Berkeley’s campus. Haitham Alloun is a Palestinian immigrant who came to UC Berkeley in 1977 as an international student, only to discontinue his studies due to the fact that he had to work long hours to support himself and his family. He owns The Coffee Spot. Ann Vu came to this country from Vietnam, and has succeeded in building her business up over two decades to become a model for many students on campus from Southeast Asia, and especially women of color. Ann owns the Vietnamese restaurant, Foods.Healthy Heavenly Foods. Arnoldo Marquez has operated El Taqueria Tacontento for five years after purchasing the business from his uncle who owned the business for 15 years before. Throughout this time students have been provided with quality food at low cost in a quick and friendly manner. 

Last spring, the ASUC Auxiliary and the Store Operations Board—composed of students, administrators, and faculty—decided to put these spaces up for a Request for Proposal (RFP) process where the businesses would have to compete on the open market to continue to do business at their respective locations. Due to a well-researched report that advocated for the businesses to remain—and proved much of the information at hand to be false—as well as widespread student uproar with the decision, the Board instead chose to offer contracts to the businesses. However, what has come from the contracts is blatantly unequal compared to all other contracts in the Student Union, and does not take into account the specific interests of the student body or the needs of the business owners themselves. 

The board has more than doubled the rent on two of the three businesses in the middle of this economic crisis, while making concessions to all other businesses on campus that have suffered through these hard times. While students emphasized low prices, unique and under-represented cultures, and improved ambience in the Bear’s Lair Food Court, the Board has instead imposed rents that will raise prices, advocated for “standardizing the fronts” of businesses and following “trends in the industry,” and claimed that the Board would not, and did not want the vendors to invest in the space because of the vague possibility of renovations sometime in the future. 

At this same time the Board has negotiated a long-term lease with Tully’s Coffee, the second corporation to come to the Student Union at UC Berkeley. Tully’s received a longer lease, lower rent, fewer requirements—in terms of organic options, local produce, revenue sharing—protection from competition, and rights to future coffee spaces on campus. Tully’s Coffee is touted as a solution to the economic crisis, while the Bear’s Lair Food Court vendors have been intentionally misrepresented as a “subsidy.” The facts speak otherwise. The Bear’s Lair Food Court vendors will pay more total, and more per square foot than Tully’s Coffee. While the vendors were accused time and time again over the last five years of not paying market rate, a report in 2007 stated that the vendors paid a “strong market rate.” The vendors also each pay far more in common and maintenance fees—five times what Tully’s pays—thus contributing to the salaries of custodial employees and paying their fair share into the economic engine that is UC Berkeley. While the Bear’s Lair Food Court vendors have paid, and will continue to pay their fair share, Tully’s Coffee has been made a recipient of corporate welfare. 

We have a case where the Chancellor’s appointed man, ASUC Auxiliary Director Nadesan Permaul, has manipulated students and faculty on the Store Operations Board through false information, and withholding important additional information. The members of the Board do not have the time to acquire all the pertinent information, and rely on the Director to supply them with all necessary information so that the individuals can make an informed choice that best serves the student body. What is needed is a review of all information provided to the Board concerning the Bear’s Lair Food Court, an explanation for why information that was false was continuously provided, as well as why information that contradicted previous statements was never provided to the Board.  

More importantly, what is needed is a transparent process that results in fair and equal treatment of the Bear’s Lair Food Court vendors as compared with other businesses, both small and corporate, in the Student Union. The businesses in the Bear’s Lair Food Court should pay the same amount per square foot as their corporate competition upstairs, and be given a lease of equal length. It is hypocritical to suggest that these vendors who have a long history of providing good service not be treated fairly and equitably, while there is an attempt to replace them with corporate vendors with unequal favorable treatment. Fairness and transparency are required to ensure that these hard working blue-collar minority vendors with a long-time record of serving our diverse student body, staff and stakeholders are allowed to continue to do so with a fair and equitable contract. This is the only outcome that will satisfy the students on this campus concerned with low prices, diversity, and a quality educational experience that these three vendors have worked so hard to do. 

Matt Marks is an undergraduate student in his last semester at UC Berkeley.  

My name is Arnoldo Marquez and I am the owner of a business in the Bear’s Lair named El Taqueria Tacontento for the last five years. It’s a business preceded along with my family for a total of 20 years. I along with Ann Vu, owner of Healthy Heavenly Foods, and Haitham Alloun, owner of The Coffee Spot, have provided good food at reasonable prices to the Berkeley community on campus for 20 years. 

We have all been put through a very difficult process to keep our businesses open by the ASUC leadership this summer resulting in an effort which is nothing more than an invitation to leave rather than continue our businesses. We were told that we would be invited to bid on our own spaces and then given price increases on new lease agreements which represent a 125 percent rent increase. We are given contract terms which the ASUC leadership know, we cannot meet. They then offer our spots and contracts to other businesses with more user-friendly terms that have never been offered to us.  

There was an attempt to bring in Panda Express which was rejected by the students. However, while asking for price hikes from the three existing minority vendors which would increase our average business costs to over $6,800 monthly, Tully’s Coffee was given a contract without a bid process for a total of nine years with provisions that were not offered to us. When we responded and questioned the terms given to us in the initial leases, Tully’s, which has no history on campus, has been given more space than all of us at a rate of $3,400 per month. They were given a delay on profits while we are asked to pay a percentage of profits now and to reach a minimum of $400,000 in sales per year. NAIA, another business enterprise, was allowed to close for over a year in violation of their lease and reopened. They are now paying about $2,800 again for more space than we currently have with similar long term guarantees in their lease and no provision for shared costs of profits also.  

All the current vendors including myself have been denied long-term leases for over three years. This would be difficult for any established businesses to look at spending monies for renovations without the same lease terms offered to the new corporations. It is another example of the way the ASUC leadership has tried to run us out of business. 

The Daily Californian was given a 50 percent reduction in their rents also due to the economy. Apparently, everyone is aware of the fact that we are in a recession except the leadership of the ASUC auxiliary board who have directed the ASUC board’s request for contracts given to us which are designed to run us out of business. A report done by the ASUC leadership shows we—Bear’s Lair current vendors—are currently paying market rents and was not provided to the ASUC board. Yet this report was never provided to the student members of the board. We are not being offered similar contracts to new vendors who have little history serving the UC Berkeley community. 

We deserve a contract offered to us which is the same length with similar provisions to maintain our businesses. We deserve a fair and open process. Anything less is merely an attempt to run us out of business with terms that are unfair and designed to do so.  

We want to thank all of the people, staff and community members who have supported us in our efforts to have a negotiation which is fair and equal to what has been offered to corporations who do not have the history that we do. 

We have all worked very hard over the last 20 years to maintain businesses which provide a cultural food experience for our diverse Berkeley community at reasonable and affordable prices. We hope to continue our businesses by letting the public know what we have had to endure in a very unfair process to us designed to run us out of business by the ASUC leadership.  

Arnoldo Marquez is the owner of El Taqueria Tacontento.

I can’t tell you how proud I am of my daughter and her fellow students at UC Berkeley. She was one of the 41 students who occupied Wheeler Hall on Nov. 19 to protest the 32 percent fee hikes, teaching furloughs and layoffs being imposed on higher education in California. She studied hard to get the grades necessary to get into Berkeley and she’s working part time to help pay for it. She appreciates her education, but she fears that the state’s public university system is being privatized. Instead of providing an affordable quality education to any student with the grades to qualify, higher education in California is rapidly becoming an expensive commodity that only the rich—and a handful of poor students with financial assistance—can afford. 

University administrators say there’s a budget crisis and students are just going to have to live with crippling cutbacks and skyrocketing tuition. But if this is so, why are administrators giving themselves fat bonuses and expensive perks while telling everyone below them to suffer in silence? My daughter and her friends barricaded themselves in Wheeler Hall to say, “NO WAY!” Hundreds of their fellow students surrounded Wheeler Hall and faced down the police to demonstrate their solidarity with the students inside. 

They understand that this isn’t really a budget problem. One of their banners summed it all up: “THIS IS A CRISIS OF PRIORITIES!” 

I couldn’t agree more. I have been teaching in the California State University system for many years. Over the last three decades state politicians have used the tight budget as their excuse to freeze faculty salaries, increase class size and allow the cost of a college education to soar like a helium balloon. Yet, during these same years, prison spending tripled and a bloated university administration gorged itself on huge salary increases, juicy bonuses and expensive perks. If the budget is really the problem, why aren’t university executives demonstrating their concern by taking pay cuts instead of bonuses? Why aren’t they enthusiastically supporting Assembly Bill 656 which would raise about one billion dollars for higher education in California by taxing oil extraction in the state? Right now California is the only state in the country that doesn’t benefit from an oil extraction tax. 

As angry students realize, the ludicrous, twisted priorities of our system run all the way to the top. In Washington, politicians claim we’ll go broke if we try to provide Americans with universal health care, but they don’t blink an eye at spending billions every month to impose a bloody occupation upon Iraq and Afghanistan. With little debate or discussion they lavished billions of dollars in bailouts upon the same obscenely wealthy financial crooks that ran the economy into a ditch. Yet they claim they can’t afford to build the renewable energy infrastructure we need to prevent climate catastrophe and end our addiction to fossil fuels and transnational petroleum pushers who pump it into our economic veins. 

I’m proud to see my daughter and the rest of her courageous companions using their energy and their education to challenge these perverse priorities and to make history, not just study it. 

Craig Collins is the father of a UC protester.

At its Nov. 17 meeting the Berkeley City Council endorsed the construction of a ferry terminal at the Berkeley Marina. I present information here about how costly this ferry service to San Francisco will be relative to other modes of public transportation and ask if a Berkeley ferry terminal is a good allocation of diminishing state and federal resources. 

According to Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) staff at the Berkeley Transportation Commission of Oct. 29, the operating subsidy per passenger trip on the Berkeley/San Francisco ferry will be $8.62—compared with operating subsidies of $3.60 for AC Transit and $1.50 for BART. I don’t know how WETA staff arrived at this figure. I computed an estimate by first multiplying the 1,130 weekday passengers cited in WETA’s Ferry Fast Forward (8/09) by 260 (number of weekdays in a year) which yields 293,800 passenger trips annually. In its Final Transition Plan, WETA estimated the annual operational cost to be $5.3 million. Dividing $5.3 million by 293,800 yields $18.04 as the cost per passenger trip. Subtracting the WETA supplied fare revenue estimate of $4, the operating subsidy would be $14.04, not the $8.62 provided in their presentation to the Transportation Commission. WETA provides the fare revenue for BART as $2.80, but the current cost of BART from Downtown Berkeley to Embarcadero is $3.65. The one-way fare from the Berkeley Marina to San Francisco will likely be closer to $6 or $7 in today’s dollars. Both WETA’s and my estimate of the public subsidy for the ferry service are larger than the operating subsidies for AC Transit or BART. In addition to operating subsidies, there is also a public subsidy for capital expenditures—e.g., terminals and boats—which I estimate to be an additional $6.50 per passenger trip.  

Where will the funds for the public subsidy of operating, maintenance and capital costs come from? According to WETA’s Final Transition Plan (6/18/09), passage of Regional Measure 2 (RM2) in 2004 will provide local toll bridge funds for the entire regional ferry system expansion, including the five new regional routes, of $84 million in capital funds and $18.3 million in annual operating subsidies. In addition to the recent increase in tolls from $3 to $4, discussions are currently under way by the Bay Area Toll Authority to again raise bridge tolls from $4 to $5 with carpoolers paying $3 and other drivers $6 during peak hours. There is also mention of approximately $20 million in federal funds and “the promise of $250 million in Proposition 1B bonds.” According to the WETA’s Final Transition Plan, the Berkeley terminal is estimated to cost $34.2 million to be funded with future Proposition 1B and federal funds. It’s likely the federal funds will be borrowed. Proposition 1B funding, approved by the voters in 2006, permits the state of California to sell up to $1.475 billion in bonds, which, if fully implemented, would provide WETA with $250 million. The bonds, of course, will have to be repaid with interest. 

WETA comes to the City of Berkeley with “free money,” telling us that the ferry won’t cost Berkeley a penny. We’re told we would be fools not to accept the ferry terminal. If we don’t take it, someone else will. Another view is that those of us who live in Berkeley also live and pay taxes in Alameda County, California, and the United States. An increasing percentage of those taxes are used to pay back principal and interest on borrowed money, leaving less and less for the kinds of programs we value in Berkeley. We are close to reaching the limits of our borrowing capacity in California and the United States. We may not have to pay for the ferry terminal and boats out of the Berkeley General or Marina Funds, but we will be paying at the county, state and federal level for an amenity that we, as a society, simply cannot afford. During the council deliberations of the item, Councilmember Maio emphasized the “extraordinary subsidy” that the Berkeley ferry will require every year from local taxpayers. It’s widely noted in the media that the federal government and state of California are close to maxing out their credit cards. Our federal and state legislators are pushing costs and increasingly large and unsustainable repayment of principal and interest payments forward to our children and grandchildren. We cannot keep piling up this debt. 

In order to be cost effective, ferry terminals, like rail stations, should be within dense development and linked with other transit connections—as mandated by MTC for rail stations. Otherwise, they will have little use and, what use there is, will be by auto. There is general agreement that among all public transit modes, ferries are the most expensive and least fuel efficient. 

Given the high cost of public subsidy for ferries, doesn’t it make more sense, if we can’t stop this unsustainable borrowing, to allocate diminishing transportation resources to AC Transit and BART rather than to fund what most agree is an amenity that will do little to relieve Bay Area transportation problems during normal times, or even during an emergency? For this, and for many other reasons provided in other letters to the Daily Planet, a ferry terminal at the Berkeley Marina makes little sense. The City Council should have declined to endorse a ferry terminal at the Berkeley Marina and recommend the funds not be borrowed or, if the funds are borrowed, begin a process to reprogram them for underfunded AC Transit and BART. 

There are other cost issues. For example, the opportunity costs of endorsing a project without a planning process. As Councilmember Wengraf stated, “it is disingenuous to imply this won’t cost Berkeley anything”—the $1/year lease is a give-away given the potential for that Marina parkland. The Berkeley Waterfront Commission and City Staff recommended that, “WETA shall lease the ferry terminal and associated parking areas from the City at fair market rates, with a lease that shall be increased periodically as the market value of the leased land increases.” Whether the asphalt in the area now committed to a WETA parking could have been ripped up and turned into parkland to be added to the heavily utilized Shorebird Park or the parking used for a business that will replace the underperforming Hs Lordships restaurant should have been planned for. Instead it was rushed through council without a completed FEIR and with inadequate consideration of other possibilities and options. Councilmembers Worthington and Arreguín were correct to vote against a project that many now believe will one day be seen as an unnecessary boondoggle. 

Brad Smith is former chair of the Berkeley Waterfront Commission. 

The threat of Sarah Palin is as real as was that of George W. Bush, a decade ago. The fact that Palin is so popular, to begin with, among voters who see things differently than I and has the animal magnetism and the classic ability of the corrupt and successful politician to charm and to fool the masses, bodes strongly in favor of her being the one to defeat in 2012. 

Intellectuals may be incredulous that someone so obviously unqualified for the office of president would have a good chance of arriving at this power. Intellectuals never fail to be surprised at what foolishness can be accomplished by the power certain people have of guiding the masses. Falling rocks may appear to have no intelligence, but when they land on you, they flatten you very effectively. And so it is with the threat of Palin: no intelligence but a lot of flattening power. 

Palin has shown great ability to rally conservative religious people, the wealthy, and the badly informed, into one effective mass that will obliterate anything in its path. She would get the vote almost across the board of those strongly against abortion and those who don’t understand the importance of stem cell research—since those two issues have become intertwined in the minds of many. She appears to be anti-intellectual as well as pro-religion, and this fact alone potentially mobilizes millions of churchgoers. 

In the recent election in which Palin came close to winning, she demonstrated the potential to be elected, although not the potential to govern. She demonstrated a talent at lying effectively, and also at wooing many disappointed Clinton voters. 

In the 2008 election that put Palin on the map, she showed the ability to use a misconception to her advantage such as the promotion of “guilty by association,” as a valid type of thought. She took the truism that a person isn’t “guilty by association” which originally meant that a person isn’t guilty based on who they have met, and has turned it on its ear to mean the opposite: supposedly if you’ve associated with a person deemed “bad” that makes you become tainted. 

Palin has the ability to use fear and prejudice to her aid, such as when she falsely accused Obama of being “a muslim” and “a socialist.” With respect to calling Obama “a muslim,” not only was this a lie, it also took advantage of the power of people’s fear and prejudice, and did so without making Palin appear bigoted, which in this case, she was. In the case of calling Obama “a socialist,” it was a meaningless statement intended to bring up people’s fears. And it worked. 

A number of Americans will only vote for the white Anglo-Saxon person loudest at proclaiming their Christianity. As long as the candidate is within those bounds, that section of voters won’t discriminate. It seems that Palin has a lot of unfair and effective tactics in her arsenal—just like Bush. 

So far, I’ve discussed reasons why Palin has a good chance of becoming president. But what about that? How will it be for America to have her as our leader? 

Palin would become the most unqualified human being elected to the oval office in the history of the United States. The US needs leadership, and we won’t get that from Palin. Palin could either be a disaster for the country and for the world as the president, or worse. The lack of basic intelligence that she has shown, if authentic, could cause the end of civilization as we know it, should she come to power. She must not be elected president if we are to survive as a nation. 

As a result, I suggest that the person we elect president should be required to take and pass a basic competency test. I believe that this is the only way to reliably stop Palin from becoming president. Such a requirement might be passable as a constitutional amendment, or even as a law, under the Obama administration, and would block people from being elected who are mentally incompetent, such as Palin, from taking on the most prestigious job on the planet. 

Jack Bragen is a Martinez resident.

After years of highly contentious and difficult work, we have before us some possible Downtown Plans—not all that much different from one another. We’ve learned a lot and many good ideas have been put forward. Expertise in various areas is far more widespread than when the process started. And yet, who today, in the current economic situation, can believe in any variation of the plans before us? It is, sadly, time to go back to the drawing board. 

Here is a case for “starting over” on the Downtown Plan and on economic and infrastructure development in Berkeley generally. My case comes in three parts: (1) The Downtown Plan is based on assumptions that have proved false. (2) We are better off encouraging development in other parts of the flats and lower foothills, if we are careful about it. (3) There are positive steps we can take, starting tomorrow. 

Part one: Downtown planning is based on false assumptions 

The Downtown Plan assumed that higher-income families could be attracted to downtown Berkeley, and yet downtown households remain below the Berkeley median income, with families under-represented. 

There is no evidence of pent-up demand from higher-income families to settle downtown. The Downtown Plan elements such as the ambitious Cal museum and UC-backed hotel on Oxford and Center streets have failed; the museum plan has been significantly scaled back and, in the words of our mayor, the hotel plan “has no prospect.”  

The Downtown Plan is predicated on an assumption of rising commercial real estate values, and yet it is widely believed that commercial real estate values are a bubble on the verge of bursting. Attracting ultimately doomed development projects may have the net effect of disrupting existing businesses and increasing the city’s operational and infrastructure costs, resulting in a net decrease in city revenue from downtown. As the foreclosure crisis and unemployment crisis continue to unfold, and as UC scales back and cancels its plans, it is clear that assumptions need to be rethought. 

Part two: We are better off developing elsewhere in Berkeley and developing more intelligently 

If one travels along the major corridors of Southwest, Northwest, and Northeast Berkeley one can find long stretches of under-utilized land adjoining residential areas that are under-served by retail. These areas are prime targets for mixed-use development. 

What of our industrial infrastructure? 

If one examines the industrial parts of West Berkeley one finds Bayer—our largest private employer—who has deigned to stay only after bending Berkeley over a barrel for tax breaks. As well Bayer should, for their presence here is in support of a single product, with a limited patent lifetime, that could as well be manufactured in Detroit. One also finds, for example, some office space dedicated largely in support of the BP/LBL/Cal energy research initiative. 

What we’ve learned since those guests were invited in is that (a) Berkeley proper has no special attraction to those institutions; (b) most of their revenues are “pass through money” that fails to recirculate in Berkeley; (c) the built environment they will leave behind is almost useless for any other purpose; (d) these firms harm rather than hurt Berkeley’s export/import ratio; (e) these firms don’t do a good job of creating jobs for Berkeley residents. 

If West Berkeley is to be our light industrial zone, we should be draconian in mandating that new construction is highly flexible, suitable for inexpensive reconfiguration for the needs of anything from a machine shop or speaker manufacturer to an Internet start-up, to a live-work artistic space, to a live-event venue. On the grey market, truly flexible light industrial spaces are thriving elsewhere in the East Bay. Berkeley has an opportunity to build a lasting infrastructure for such economic uses on a legitimate basis. 

Part three: There are positive steps we can take 

The city should make a priority of improving its export/import ratio, and the first step is to measure it more carefully. I recommend Jane Jacobs’ The Life and Death of Great American Cities to all participants in the debate. 

The city should make a priority of enabling or running intra-city public transportation without reliance on AC Transit. Technologically and economically, there is a wealth of options to be explored with basic trade-offs such as public vs. private operation, particular vehicle types, route management tactics, fee collection integration, etc. The goal should be to make public transporation the most attractive option for intra-city travel, even when carrying a bi-cycle or other light cargo. In addition, if we hope to bring in many workers or shoppers from outside the city we should encourage arrival at peripheral hubs followed by intra-city transport to and from destinations. We’ve an amazingly small geographic area to cover and a unique economically and intellectually advantaged position; it can’t be that hard to get it right. 

The city should begin studying how to zone for a flexible-use light industrial space for West Berkeley. If a Bayer-type operation wants to come in, and new buildings will be built in connetion to this, we should ensure that the buildings are flexible enough to accomodate anything that might follow that corporation. 

They city should begin to explore development options for the neglected regions of the flats more eagerly than downtown options. 

That ends the case I promised to make. I have one last thing before I sign off, if you can forgive a folksy take: 

One view is that Berkeley’s troubles are like an apple rotten at the core. If downtown is the core and fails, greater Berkeley fails. Berkeley rots from inside out. 

Perhaps a better analogy is that downtown Berkeley is the crown of a tree whose roots reach out to all the other parts of Berkeley. In this view, it is a disease of the roots—the flatlands and the non-central foothills especially—that are producing symptoms of disease in the crown. Berkeley is rotting from the periphery to the core, in this view. 

Thomas Lord is a Berkeley resident. 

Celebrating my first wedding anniversary on Nov. 10, while mourning the passage of the referendum in Maine, I continue to wonder whether Proposition 8, the ban against same sex marriage in California, created more marriages than it prevented.   

My husband and I debated marriage in 2004. My urgency and his closeted reluctance remained our dilemma in 2008. “With love, what difference does a piece of paper make?” he asked. Resolving the anger I anticipated feeling if faced with the reality that I did not enjoy full civil rights, the same struggle of second-class citizenship endured by both my African- American and Mexican-American ancestors, seemed toxically unbearable. “Stop allowing politics to interfere with our relationship,” he asserted. Lucky to be in a 10-year relationship with the person I love, I questioned why I shouldn’t enjoy the recognition, through marriage, of a loving committed relationship, if I choose? Our conflict exposed our similarity to other couples, yet also identified our circumstance as uniquely different. We agreed to marry. Unexpectedly, our relationship has grown better and deeper.  

Newton’s Third Law posits that what we resist, persists, or our actions of resistance create an equal opposing force. If we had our choice, we would have delayed marriage, preferring to plan, save and host a more inclusive celebration. Instead, we accepted the earliest appointment available and married at City Hall with my sister and cousin as witnesses. The short window of opportunity to enjoy this basic civil right, forced us to make a difficult decision—marry legally while we could, or settle for domestic partnership later. We chose marriage. It is estimated that more than eleven thousand other couples made the same decision. Research reveals that more gay couples married in the first three months that gay marriage was legal in California, a state that resisted the legalization of same sex marriage, than were married the first four years it was legal in Massachusetts, a state where gay marriage remains legal.  

This experience has taught me two lessons. Like Newton, I know what we resist responds with equal force, thus I do not oppose homophobia or conservatism. Instead, I support human rights, diversity, equality and freedom of choice. Furthermore, like white abolitionists who fought to end slavery although they did not benefit personally from its demise, the struggle for civil rights does not end even though I have rights. With the passage of Proposition 8, thousands of men and women in same gender relationships lack access to a fundamental right many others enjoy. Everyone should be outraged.  

Newton’s Law demands that those of us privileged with the right to marry, both straight and gay, respond to the concerted resistance to same-sex marriage with equal or stronger resolve to support equality for all people. Equality and human rights ought to be a collective goal, irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity. This is nothing new. History reveals that people of all colors work together to progress toward racial equality. Men and women continue to collaborate to provide gender equity. Similarly, heterosexuals, gays and lesbians must work together to successfully re-define gays as fully human. When we are recognized as human, we marry because we want to, not because waiting means the opportunity will be denied a week later.  

Robert Quintana Hopkins is a Berkeley resident. 

At the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Haste in Berkeley, there is a unique bookstore. On the sidewalk where the entrance to Cody’s Books once stood, a man arranges rows and rows of books of every conceivable description. Next to the books is an old card table with a battered coffee can and a hand-lettered sign that says, “Books 50 Cents.” The sign used to say, “Books 25 Cents,” Like everywhere else, nowadays, inflation has taken its toll. 

The volumes are carefully organized into sections—there are large format books on art, gardens, history, animals, etc.; there are mysteries, hardcover novels, and paperbacks. Many are damaged—spines broken, pages torn, but all the injured have been carefully mended with scotch tape.  

This is the Last Chance Bookstore, the place where old and tired books come to die, but not before ordinary folk have a chance to buy these well-used tomes and give them one last read before they expire.  

The books have been set up almost every day, for the last 5 years, by a man named Ace Backwords. Ace the creator of this treasure trove is usually not to be seen. He has retired into an obscure corner of the Cody’s Building where the events calendar used to be, sitting, on a milk crate, inconspicuous. He is a shy man.  

He has not been shy, however, about his lifework, his love of books. Out of nothing he has created something that is needed, both for these books and for the people; it is a place to find a valued possession: just the book you were looking for, or just the book did not know you needed, or just something totally new to your fantasy, lying there in its well-worn covers.  

Ace Backwords is the hero of this oasis, in this strange place called Berkeley, where contrarians thrive, where the almighty dollar, contrary to the rest of the world, does not rule supreme, where people do not strive for wealth but for substance, for value in the moment of talking to someone else whom they have just encountered on the street. Or where they just have the privilege of being alone with their thoughts with the buzz of others around them, who are also alone with their wild and crazy ideas. They are alone, together in this town that devotes itself to independent thinking, to the radical idea that people can think and that if they have an idea they can speak about it freely and others will listen and perhaps cooperate with them to make it a reality.  

So here was the Last Chance Bookstore sitting there on the street corner like a spare changer doing its everyday Berkeley thing, no more remarkable than a thousand other things that happen in this town but unheard of elsewhere. It had been set up next to the shell of Cody’s flagship store on Telegraph—our famous Berkeley bookstore, untenanted for the last three years. Cody’s closed its last store a year ago after 52 years of serving our community. Cody’s Books was an icon of the independent book movement, an epicenter of free speech and the geographical birthplace of the street-vendors movement in Berkeley. Here was the Last Chance Bookstore, a phoenix arising like a phoenix from the ashes of Cody’s, keeping the spirit and soul of the book alive in Berkeley.  

We talked together for about 20 minutes. Ace broke through his shyness and I found more about him. He still considers himself homeless; even so he has at least one book, Surviving on the Streets: How to Go Down without Going Out, available on Amazon.  

Last year around this time a Halloween supply store took over Cody’s. Halloween has been taken over by capitalists and merged into Thanksgiving, making it part of one long buying season through Christmas and the New Year. Here in the Halloween store was the epitome of creative entrepreneurial money making. Yet there on the adjacent corner was the antitheses of this enterprise, equally brilliant, put together for no good reason and making a minimal amount of money each day, the anti-capitalist old-books graveyard, put here strictly for the enjoyment of the people and fueled by the love of this man, Ace Backword, and his legion of grateful customers.  

All of this may be changing radically. The current owner of Cody’s is getting ready to open a new bookstore, rumor has it. And Ace has announced he is ready to close shop.  

Well, I hope that this article has put tears in your eyes and they are not there because of tear gas. However, if this one small vignette about Berkeley and Ace Backwords has made you “stop in the name of love” and think for a moment about this parallel universe, Telegraph Avenue, well then, maybe you are a citizen of Berkeley or, if not officially living here, a wannabe. You are an honorary member of the Berkeley diaspora, existing all around the world, made of those people willing to stop for a moment and not think about how to make the next dollar but simply listen to a stranger on the street or even speak to them. Still, if you are a shy person like Ace, well, come down to Channing and Telegraph and visit the Last Chance Bookstore. Stop, in the name of love or a moment, and look at some old homeless books waiting to be adopted by people willing to give them a last chance before they hit the landfill. Maybe Ace will change his mind and say a bit longer. Maybe, then, those of us concerned for the future of this city can get some sleep, secure in the knowledge that there are people who are thinking and reading and talking to others about new ideas, which they are ready to contribute to this world that is in such great need of them.

TRANSPORTATION  

COMMISSION MEETING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hey everybody! Come to the Transportation Commission hearing tonight (Thursday, Nov. 19) and let’s show these arrogant bullies that they can’t manipulate the democratic process anymore. It’s time for us to stand up for our rights as Berkeley citizens.  

The hearing on the Bus Rapid Transit Locally Preferred Alternative is at 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 

Hope to see you there! 

Doug Buckwald 

• 

AMY GOODMAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If there was ever any doubt of the astonishing number of journalist Amy Goodman’s ardent admirers, that doubt was dispelled Monday morning, when she spoke to any overflow audience at the Northgate Hall Library in the UC School of Journalism at the rather unorthodox hour of 10 a.m. Introduced by Lowell Bergman, himself a well-known professor and investigative reporter, Amy spoke for more than an hour to rapt listeners, reading from her new book, Breaking the Sound Barrier. Producer of the radio program, “Democracy Now,” she is without question one of the most respected news reporter and analyst in the country. 

On a personal note, Amy’s a petite, attractive and very outgoing woman, not at all the somber, somewhat dour person we see on our Cable TV screen. At the conclusion of her remarks and the lively question and answer session, she received a standing ovation, with everyone rising to their feet in recognition of this outstanding journalist. 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last week, a failed vice-presidential candidate claimed that animals belong right next to the mashed potatoes. This week, our president is pardoning two turkeys. It’s food for thought. 

Each of us has the presidential power to pardon a turkey this Thanksgiving. It shows our compassion for an innocent animal, as well as our concern for our family’s and our planet’s health. It’s a most fitting way to give thanks for our own life, health, and happiness. 

The 270 million turkeys abused and slaughtered in the United States each year have nothing to give thanks for. They breathe toxic fumes in crowded sheds. Their beaks and toes are severed. At the slaughter-house, workers cut their throats, and dump them into boiling water, sometimes while still conscious. 

Consumers too pay a heavy price. Turkey flesh is laced with cholesterol and saturated fats that ele-vate the risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Careful adherence to government warning labels is required to avoid food poisoning. Turkey excrements pollute our water supplies. 

This Thanksgiving, I won’t be calling the Poultry Hot Line, or staying awake wondering how that turkey lived and died. I will be joining millions of other Americans in observing this joyful family holiday with nonviolent healthful products of the earth’s bounty: vegetables, fruits, and grains. 

A visit to my local supermarket or health food store and an Internet search on vegan Thanksgiving will provide me more recipes and delicious turkey alternatives than I can possibly use. 

Harold Kunitz 

Walnut Creek 

• 

REPUBLICANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

How can we attach party to the Republicans? And isn’t it beyond time now to call them the Reprivateans, no? 

Arnie Passman 

• 

ENVIRONMENTAL IRRESPONSIBILITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s Nov. 12 editorial, “Telling the Truth About Carbon,” made the point that even a new LEED certified building has a far greater environmental impact than keeping an existing building in use. The example she cited is the proposed Safeway superstore at College and Claremont. 

An even more obvious example of environmental irresponsibility is the decision of the Berkeley Unified School District to tear down the landmarked old gymnasium at Berkeley High School. The school board decided to build a new building in spite of the fact that everything they are planning to build can fit in the old building with room to spare. 

I have prepared plans that demonstrate the feasibility of this adaptive reuse which would also keep the warm pool in operation. The school board has shown no interest in looking at this proposal which would be a truly green solution. 

Henrik Bull 

• 

ISRAEL’S MILITARY MIGHT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It always amazes me how a person only sees what they wish to see, as opposed to what appears before their eyes. This is the only explanation I could conclude from anti-Daily Planet campaign supporter Faith Meltzer’s Nov. 12 letter, which asserts that my previous letter “contains a major factual error.” She then challenged me to “cite some sources, please” of my statement that Israel has the fourth most powerful military force in the world. 

Upon checking the very sources she uses to refute my allegation, I discovered some intriguing information. Globalfirepower.com ranks Israel 11th overall, but Nationmaster.com gives it the top spot among all nations listed in military expenditures per capita and military weapon holdings per capita. It ranked fourth in military weapon holdings, a category I would equate to military power. 

Also, according to Nationmaster, Israel has the most advanced nuclear weapons program in the Middle East, clandestinely established in the late 1950s by its first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Based on estimates, they have roughly 100-200 nuclear explosive devices. Israeli officials continue to prevent any international inspections of these weapons, nor are they a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 

The point of my previous letter was not to tussle over boring statistics or facts. It was primarily to refute the idea that Israel is weak and powerless over their enemies. They are not. They have the ability to solve their differences without violence, they just don’t have the courage to do so. I and many others around the Bay Area and the world are crying out, not to annihilate them—which obviously won’t happen—but to push them to find that courage. I urge you all to join us, in any way that you can. 

Robert Kanter 

Emeryville 

• 

LEAF BLOWERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Have you ever had to run from a leaf blower? 

My wife does it a few times a day. One good leaf blower could put her in the hospital with her allergies. I found out that leafblowers are against the law in Berkeley. But you would never know it. They are every where all over town making the dirt and clippings of a landscaping job someone else’s problem. 

Leafblowers are not made to clean up. They are made to blow dirt into the street, the neighbors and the atmosphere. Anywhere but here. 

There is a reason why leafblowers are illegal and we need to ask the mayor, the City Council and the Police Department to take our respiratory health seriously. 

Dan McMullan 

• 

ORGANIC FOOD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Shirley Barker’s off-target polemic casting organic food producers as an enemy of the people’s right to eat: 

Barker could choose to plant/tend her own tomatoes in one of those pots. Of course that involves much effort, demands ample sun and to succeed she will have to periodically pluck off pests. 

Likely her “vendor” was hired to work the stand and isn’t the farmer who would have more to say. It’s not just inputs raising the costs. Small farms reclaiming land in “service to the soil,” remains an outlier business model. Tending to soil health is a labor-intensive process taking some number of years before running on anything similar to the misleading, bucolic auto-pilot Barker suggests. Allocating acreage to lie fallow also raises the cost per output for acres planted. 

Consider the “shelf life” of produce harvested and brought to market ready to eat. It isn’t long, true, but our idea that tomatoes or other fruits and veggies can “last” weeks is a perversion of “natural” produce grown in full spectrum, mineral rich soils. Cost per mile to truck peak harvest into the city farmers’ markets from more sun drenched soils that grow those luscious tomatoes is another cost factor. 

As is hiring, supervising and paying market workers. Large, mono-crop agribiz farms feed product into the grand maw of a large, centralized distribution system that plunks their outputs into the bins of grocery chains without further need for the trucking and selling costs that local farmers incur. 

Last, but certainly not least, egregious USDA farm policy’s labyrinthine regulations that keep small fruit and vegetable producers from being able to actively work more land in the hopes of meeting demand with lower prices made possible by achieving economies of scale. At first blush it’s challenging to pin the high cost of organic fruits and vegetables on USDA Farm subsidies—90 percent of which support only corn, wheat, soy, rice or cotton crops—but it turns out that the most recent bill penalizes any farmer who receives government commodity subsidies from—even experimenting with—growing perishables for sale. Nor can s/he rent out unplanted acres to a small producer who could put the land to use in meeting the rising demand for healthy food crops.  

Caretaking the land remains hard work. Feeding the hungry is a virtue. The farmer and his/her family are welcome to their success. 

Fern Leaf 

• 

PEOPLE’S PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I would first like to publicly thank the People’s Park Community Advisory Board Subcommittee on Censorship for meeting secretly on the public’s behalf on Friday, Nov. 6, as best suits a subcommittee formed to govern the public tongue, which, without appropriate safeguards, would probably just say the wrong thing. 

I would secondly like to commend them for starting the ball rolling on a procedure for evaluating and endorsing slogans for the People’s Park stage. As a member of the public, I appreciate that finding precisely the right slogan could take months, even years, but that the search itself will be a journey worth taking with the whole-hearted, open-minded members of the Subcommittee on Censorship. 

I would thirdly like to recommend going further. Now that a Subcommittee on Censorship is firmly in place, I would suggest that all speech in People’s Park, which is often a location burdened with great contention and gratuitous discussion, be sent through this Subcommittee first for approval. 

I believe this will bring about a more pastoral, peaceful park, and assure park users that any language used therein has the full endorsement and approval of the University of California. 

Carol Denney 

• 

BERKELEY POOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve been a swimmer at Berkeley’s public pools for some 20 years, and I am dismayed this year by the curtailing of hours for lap swimmers. It seems odd to me to cut the hours from two to one and also to cut out swimming time not only for lap swimmers but for children and seniors. What is your reasoning for this? The lifeguards sit in their lobby office for about four hours each day, waiting for their next shift; of course, they don’t get paid for their waiting time, but the pool is still heated as are the locker rooms. What a waste! And we swimmers must rush to swim in very crowded lanes for one brief hour! 

People I’ve talked to say they are now going to the pools at Temescal, El Cerrito, and the JFK High School Richmond pool because they have longer hours for lap swimming, so the city of Berkeley is losing money and the good health of their citizens. 

I urge the city to reconsider its decision (how was it reached?!!) and continue the two-hour shifts and also restore the afternoon swim times on the weekend, just when everyone has more time to swim! 

Estelle Jelinek 

• 

ELDER ABUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the current chair of Berkeley’s Commission on Aging, I must correct an impression left by Helen Wheeler’s informative and passionate commentary on elder abuse (Daily Planet, Nov. 5). After describing a program she organized on this important topic, she states that the commission chair did not think elder abuse “merit(s) consideration.” Apparently, that program was over two years ago, and she must be citing some previous chair, as I have never thought that and find it hard to imagine anyone concerned about aging would. Of course, elder abuse is a major social problem, an issue on which I hope the commission and City of Berkeley can focus greater attention, in pursuit of effective remedies. Toward that end, the commission recently invited a presentation by police representatives regarding elder safety, including from crime, fraud, physical hazards. In the coming year, we hope to develop a community forum on safety and on abuse, in its disturbingly various and prevalent forms. 

Judy Turiel 

• 

GIVE TO THE POOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Poor people! You know peoples, I really don’t feel right when poor people beg. Don’t you care! Give them some support here! They need some help. Think about it, you have a house, they don’t. They live on the streets. You have food, they don’t and if they had three or four dollars they’d usually have to go to McDonald’s or some nasty place. You have a TV, they don’t. You have a bed and covers and they sleep on the ground. Think about it, you can get on a plane and afford it and go when ever you need to. They have to stay and sit all day or walk and not have food. You all, including me, are a great country. You have more team work and love somewhere in your hearts! 

Sylvia Sawislak 

3rd grade 

• 

GOOD LEARNERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The world around us is often noisy. 

Many children feel frustrated by the noisy conversational style of their parents and of their peers. It is not easy for noisy, bustling children to settle into receptive attentiveness. 

We all know that when we get a chance to take a deep breath, our nerves calm down and we feel relaxed. Beginning each class with a minute or two of “watching” our breathing will be a very effective way for children to get focused. Their memory cells will feel fresh and clear thinking will become natural. All the teacher has to say is: “Sit in a relaxed way and watch your breath flow in and out.” 

Children who begins lessons this way become very good learners.  

Romila Khanna 

• 

DAVID SWANSON: YOO JUST WON’T GO AWAY! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In honor of the great David Swanson’s visit to Berkeley this Sunday, Nov. 22—he’s speaking at the Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar @ Bonita, 7:30 pm—there will be a peaceful protest at “torture professor” John Yoo’s house from 10-11 am, on Grizzly Peak near Shasta. “Yoo” will be there in striped prison garb and handcuffs, telling anyone who will listen that he can’t be held accountable for the torture and deaths of many innocents, including children, because “I was just doing my job. I cleverly redefined torture in those memos. Yes, the memos were rescinded by the DOJ for shoddy research, but I was correct: it is legal to torture people if the president wants to. It kept us safe from terrorists! Don’t let them prosecute me. I’m a tenured professor at UC. Professors are exempt from the law!” 

Unfortunately, UC Law School continues to legitimize John Yoo’s complicity in torture by allowing him to teach next semester: “Constitutional Design and the California Constitution” Wednesdays, 6:20 p.m., co-taught with David Carrillo, deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice, member of La Raza Lawyers Association, active supporter of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, an inescapable irony. The worst aspect of this situation at the law school, in my judgment, is that students are being misinformed. They’re being told that Yoo’s academic freedom is at stake when it’s Yoo’s actionable legal advice to the Bush administration that it’s legal to torture people to get false intelligence to justify the illegal occupation of Iraq that is being questioned. Yoo should be disciplined—if not fired, at least not given a class to teach! This is a slap in the face to our Berkeley community, where the City Council passed a resolution calling for Yoo’s prosecution! 

Swanson, a PDA and UFPJ board member and founder of afterdowningstreet.org and ProsecuteBushCheney.org, looks forward to joining the protest and meeting some of the great community members who continue to shine the spotlight on Professor Yoo’s crimes. “John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel famously claimed in 2006 that the president had the right to crush a child’s testicles. Somehow that image doesn’t strike me as a worthy replacement for the Statue of Liberty,” says Swanson in his new book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, Seven Stories Press, 2009. David’s talk is Sunday at 7:30. Join us! 

Cynthia Papermaster 

Recently, Senate majority leader Harry Reid indicated that health care reform might not be passed this year. Why? Because he may not have the votes in the Senate to pass the legislation and, if such legislation were passed, it might not survive a Republican filibuster. 

Many have criticized Reid’s and House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi’s handling of health care reform. As the argument goes, we have a Democrat-controlled Congress, so forget the Republicans and pass a health care reform bill without them. But that argument does not take into consideration the conservative Blue Dog Democrats in both Houses, who largely control the debate. What’s the difference between a Blue Dog Democrat and a Republican? Not much, I guess. 

Blue Dog Democrats 

Presently, there are 435 Representatives with 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans. Of the 257, 56 are a coalition of conservative Blue Dog Democrats, and without them, the Democrats do not have a majority.  

In the Senate, there are 58 Democrat Senators. Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders are officially listed as Independent but usually caucus with the Democrats, giving them 60 votes. Of these, there are 15 to 20 Blue Dog Democrats. Without them, the Democrats do not have a filibuster-proof majority. And Senator Joe Lieberman recently said he would join a Republican filibuster of any health care legislation that includes a public option, leaving the Democrats one short to defeat a filibuster. That, of course, assumes that all the Blue Dog Democrats vote for a health care reform bill, which is not at all certain. Clearly, the Blue Dogs control the issue in both houses of Congress. 

Cost control 

Important objectives of meaningful health care reform are cost control and to provide health care for the approximately 45 million Americans without health care. The Blue Dog Democrats ostensibly focus on deficit reduction and fiscal responsibilty. These Democrats are especially concerned, as we all are, about the cost of health care reform. Presently, we have a $1.4 trillion deficit and the ten-year deficit is estimated to reach $9.05 trillion. Representative Pelosi claims that the House version of the legislation will cost $900 billion over ten years. The priorities of the House Blue Dogs are to keep the cost under $900 billion and to get a 20-year cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. If and when hearings begin, skeptical Representatives will focus on the legislation’s cost and who’s going to pay for it.  

Public option 

The health insurance industry enjoys obscene profits, while consumers pay more for less coverage. Profits at ten of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. One of the main reasons for such high profits is the growing lack of competition in the private health insurance industry, which has led to near-monopoly conditions in many markets. 

Any comparative analysis of health care systems indicates that the greater the role of private, for-profit health insurance companies in the delivery of health care, the higher the cost. This is why the United States has the most expensive health care system in the world but trails well behind on crucial indicators of public health, such as infant mortality, longevity, and death of women in childbirth. These facts provide compelling evidence for the inclusion of a public option in any health care reform legislation to provide some healthy competition, which in turn will bring down costs and provide the greatest amount of choice possible for consumers. 

Without a public option, more people will have health coverage, but it will do little to rein in the spiraling cost of health care. Giving consumers the choice of an efficient, nonprofit, government-run insurance plan similar to our Medicare or to the single-payer plans enjoyed by Australia’s Medicare, Canada’s Medicare, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, and Taiwan’s National Health Insurance would move us toward real cost control. Unfortunately, the votes simply are not there in either the House or the Senate for a single-payer plan.  

In an Oct. 21 Gallup survey, 50 percent of respondents thought a health care bill should include a public, government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies. Forty-six percent thought it should not. These poll results encouraged the Senate leadership to include a public option with an opt-out provision for states. Under this concept, states would be able to determine whether the public option works for them and would have the ability to opt-out. Up until this point, it was thought that any public option was dead in the water. 

The next step in the legislative process would be to send the new merged language to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis. When the CBO has finished scoring the combined Senate bill, it would be brought to the floor for an open debate and amendment process. That would leave the Senate and the conference committee between the two chambers as the final battlegrounds for the public option. There appears to be no opposition to this public option in the House, including among the Blue Dogs. 

Finally, Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced an amendment calling for a state single-payer option, which would protect the right of states to pursue a single-payer health care system. The House leadership rejected his amendment. Once the health care bill passes the House, and the Senate passes its version, the two bills will go to a conference committee. Kucinich hopes at that point that the amendment will be included in the conference committee report, since that is what would ultimately become law. Unfortunately, this is an unlikely scenario.  

A health care plan with any kind of public option is still far from certain in the Senate, and, even if one passed in the House and Senate, Senator Lieberman may be in a position to kill the legislation by joining a likely Republican filibuster. The Republicans will probably stand united against any Democrat-sponored bill even one without a public option. They do not want to give President Obama and the Democrats any political advantage, especially with mid-term elections just around the corner. 

Ralph E. Stone is a retired Bay Area attorney.

The Berkeley City Council may soon consider a measure that would make balloon releases illegal at any public events that require a permit authorized by the city. This is an unwise action; the City Council’s objectives could be far better addressed through less extreme measures, including consumer education about smart balloon practices.  

The Balloon Council, a nationwide organization representing balloon manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers, is committed to this education.   

The Balloon Council has been informing consumers about smart balloon use for years and is now launching a revamped “Smart Balloon Practices” campaign. Balloon retailers at small card shops, gift stores, grocery stores, florists and other locations will soon be provided with consumer information sheets and other educational materials to make sure that their customers understand the smartest ways to use and enjoy balloons.  

Balloon releases can easily be executed in a responsible way and it is unnecessary to outlaw them, a move that would negatively impact small businesses in the area. It would be unwise, especially in today’s difficult economy, to place a needless burden on these companies.   

Smart balloon practices can make balloon release safe and fun.  

Only latex balloons should be used in mass releases and, as industry guidelines require, those balloons should be self-tied and have no attached strings or ribbons. In this way each released balloon is 100 percent biodegradable.  

Rarely do released balloons return to the earth’s surface intact. Studies show these balloons usually rise to an altitude of about five miles. At that point, freezing and air pressure cause “brittle fracture,” creating spaghetti-like pieces that scatter.  

While some balloons don’t reach this altitude, research indicates that in an average 500-balloon release, the unexploded-balloon-return density is no greater than one per 15 square miles.  

Research shows that, regardless of the latex balloon’s ultimate form, when it lands it will decompose, forming a natural soil nutrient at the same rate as a decomposing oak leaf. And extensive review of government and environmental databases show no direct scientific evidence that any sea animal has been harmed or killed by a latex balloon involved in a release.  

Consumers need to remember that care needs to be taken when using any product, including balloons. That’s why the Balloon Council is enhancing its education efforts with its recent campaign.  

Public education about the best ways to enjoy balloon releases is a far better way for the Berkeley City Council to accomplish its goals than by banning the wholesome enjoyment of balloons. 

Dan Flynn is the chairman of the Balloon Council, a trade group of manufacturers and retailers. 

The city of Berkeley has now released its plan for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on Telegraph Avenue, arguing that this system will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed project may make us feel good that we are doing something but in fact is more likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions than reduce them.  

What is Bus Rapid Transit? BRT involves using buses like trains: buses run on their own lanes and cross intersections with “grade separation,” on overpasses, so they don’t have to stop at lights. Unlike normal buses, they don’t have stops every quarter mile but have less frequent stops and nice stations, more like a rail system. BRT has been tremendously successful in Latin American cities like Bogota, Quito, and Curitiba. These successful cases have some key elements in common: 

1. Large populations of poor people who don’t own cars and who need to travel from population centers to industrial/commercial centers. 

2. Buses that have their own lanes and cross over intersections on overpasses. 

If it works in Latin America, shouldn’t it work here? Not necessarily. In the San Francisco Bay region, most of us have cars: we have over 800 cars per 1,000 households, compared to around 100 cars per 1,000 households in Latin American cities. Moreover, the natural market for BRT is already served by BART and AC express buses. The proposed line in Berkeley and Oakland would follow Telegraph Avenue and International Boulevard down to San Leandro, essentially duplicating the BART Fremont line.  

Moreover, the proposals for Berkeley and San Francisco are better described as “BRT-lite.” While the Telegraph Avenue line would have its own lane (impacting vehicular traffic), it would not have grade separation at intersections, so travel times will not be that different from those of the existing buses.  

Looked at objectively, it’s not at all clear that our Bus Rapid Transit would deliver the promised benefits if implemented as proposed. And the costs will be substantial. The Telegraph Avenue BRT project is projected to $250 million, and generally the costs will result in a public subsidy of around $8 per ride. And it will create worse traffic problems on Telegraph Avenue. 

Prior to the November 2008 election, Berkeley residents received a glossy flyer in the mail—the flyer featured a polar bear and intoned “We can’t afford to wait…” The flyer argued that we must implement transit projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and we should oppose a citizen initiative to require voter approval of BRT.  

But to really reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need to get people out of their single-person cars and into mass transit. It’s not at all clear that the BRT-lite proposed for Berkeley would accomplish this. There would be other benefits for the politicians involved: federal grants, a big construction project, jobs, and the favorable “buzz” that we are progressive because we have BRT. But the costs would be high. Moreover, once you factor in the energy and resources involved in the construction, and the effect of poaching riders from BART, the net greenhouse gas emissions are more likely to increase as a result of BRT as proposed. It may make us feel good, it may benefit politicians, but the BRT proposed for Berkeley is unlikely to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

Matt Kondolf is professor of environmental planning at UC Berkeley, where he is co-director of the environmental sciences program, and teaches Introduction to Environmental Science, among other courses.

I appreciated the opportunity to vent my frustrations with the process for the new Berkeley Animal Shelter. Responses to your Letters page and e-mails I have received indicate that many people share the sense of being under-informed, misinformed or flat out excluded from a truly open public process.  

• There have been no community meetings, no surveys of user groups including volunteers, no notifications to interest groups to participate and provide input. That reveals that the city doesn’t understand what this facility is—a high-traffic community center. Compare this process to the extensive public meetings about renovation of the branch libraries, and you get a sense of how great a misunderstanding there is of what the animal shelter actually does. 

• The lack of an affordable wellness clinic for our community as part of the design is really a problem. This was a crucial part of the campaign, and with more people struggling financially, the inclusion of this feature is more important than ever. Our recent low-cost vaccine clinic sponsored by the East Bay Humane Society, the Berkeley Animal Welfare Fund and the shelter had people waiting in line for two hours to see a vet, receive vaccines, and get a brief well-pet exam for their pets. For some it was the first time these animals had ever seen a vet. 

Even in my lengthy opinion piece I didn’t have room to tell it all:  

• I was always told that including art in a new public building was a Berkeley city mandate—1.5 percent of overall budget of any new construction—but the art component was left out of the bond language on this project. So we now have an important public building being built in Berkeley without any funds for public art. 

• The Humane Commission was told Berkeley had a flood easement across a neighboring property, which might have been used to provide rear access to the new building, but then we were told that the easement had been a “good idea” but never actually obtained. 

• The design shows that there is just one single door for the main entrance—not a double door, not a sliding door. People with dogs are coming in and out of this entrance, because the walkway at the back of the building is so narrow that in order to avoid dog conflicts it can be used only to take dogs out for walks, not back in after their walks. 

• We have seen no drawings of what the indoor spaces look like, except for the bare technical drawings. Not a single one shows what the building looks and “feels” like from the inside. 

• The misleading report to the Zoning Adjustments Board stated baldly that there were usually no more than three or four people on site, including staff and volunteers. The shelter rarely has fewer than 10 people on site and often more than 20 or 30 at any given time. 

• The only access to the facility is at the northern tip of Aquatic Park. The city is in denial as to the impact of traffic, delivery vehicles, animal control vehicle access, rendering truck—that’s the truck that picks up the dead bodies—on that opening which is where pedestrians, bicycles, joggers, etc., access the pedestrian bridge over the freeway. The gate to the sally port is not tall enough for delivery trucks, and there is no room to turn vehicles around in that area, necessitating them reversing out in front of the entrance to the shelter. 

• There is an EBMUD easement across the front of the property that covers a 66-inch sanitary interceptor built in 1958. What happens if that easement needs to be accessed and there is NO rear access to the animal shelter? 

City staff have chosen to rush this process forward and, while doing so, taken potshots at the messengers raising the alarm. The lack of public process on this major public facility has been disappointing at best. And so I ask the city again—stop, think and choose another way, including sitting down with the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society to discuss the overwhelming benefits to both agencies to creating a joint facility, sharing hospital, sheltering, training and adoption facilities.   

Jill Posener is a member of the Berkeley Humane Commission.                 

The Auxiliary Store Operations Board of the Associated Students of the University of California voted to offer terms to the Bear’s Lair food court vendors that the students on the board negotiated last spring. Those terms were offered to each vendor in June 2009 by the Auxiliary in the presence of two board members, Chief Victoria Harrison and former student Co-Chair David Rhoads. Two of the vendors accepted the terms, one did not. They were asked by the board at the time the terms were offered if they had any concerns. The principal concerns expressed to the board by the two vendors who accepted the terms were the length of the lease, the terms for any extension options and the number of months of partial payment when school is not in session. The board adjusted the lease language to extend the length of the lease and to alter the terms of the option and months or partial payment. In October, after the language was completed by the campus, one of the vendors, The Coffee Spot, signed. We are working with the Coffee Spot on the physical improvements. The owner has expressed nothing but satisfaction with the new lease and our relationship. 

The other vendor who accepted the terms in June had a full month to express his concerns and did not. Then, yesterday, two days before his deadline to sign, comes an announcement of a strike in conjunction with the vendor who did not accept the board’s offer in June and was aware that by doing so she had forfeited her right to an extension.  

The Tully’s contract was negotiated and approved by the board in advance of the terms offered to the food court vendors. All leases are discrete and distinct, based on a variety of factors, costs of improvements, risk, location, and other conditions. The Tully’s lease was approved just as the economy crashed, they paid for substantial improvements to the location to make it meet the campus requirements, and they were assuming a risk in a new business location that was untested. The board voted to approve the terms unanimously on Sept. 23, 2008.  

Each of the Bear’s Lair vendors spoke to the board months later, in May 2009, insisting that they would be happy to make significant physical improvements and pay larger rents to remain in their locations. Based on those promises, the board overturned its December 2008 decision to go out to bid on all the spaces and agreed to negotiate new terms for an extension of the vendors’ leases. A subcommittee of the board, made up entirely of students, discussed the terms and presented them to the board. The board adopted the new terms, and the offers were made in June 2009 well after the Tully’s lease had been negotiated and approved. One of the vendors has lived up to his commitment to sign the lease and to his statements to the board last spring. The Bear’s Lair vendors proposing the strike have ovens and hoods that allow them to cook on site and create costs for them that vendors such as the Coffee Spot and Tully’s do not pay at their current locations. These critical amenities (they are the only vendor spaces where cooking can take place on site) also make their sites much more attractive in the marketplace. A recent proposed vendor, who did not get board approval, was willing to pay almost $1,000,000 for physical improvements to get similar conditions for its proposed site. 

If you have questions about the decisions made by the board, you should speak to the board chair, Nish Rajan. 

Nad Permaul is director of the ASUC Auxiliary.

In the article on the approval by the City Council of former Seattle top cop Michael Meehan as Berkeley’s new police chief (Daily Planet, Nov. 12–18), Mr. Meehan is quoted as saying with reference to Seattle’s voter-approved policy of making marajuana arrests the lowest police priority, “I don’t want to send a message to kids that drug use is ok.” That wasn’t just a personal opinion. That was a professional judgment. Moreover, a majority of Seattle voters thought differently and passed the ordinance but Meehan was against them and it.  

  We have a similar policy in Berkeley. If Meehan still thinks the same way, then from the onset of his Berkeley tenure, he is out of step with the majority of voters here. Councilperson Worthington is quoted as saying of Meehan: “It will take some time for him to fit into Berkeley, but hopefully, he will acclimatize.” That “hopefully” is pitiful. 

  Does Meehan’s annual salary of $205,400 plus a $500,000 housing loan from our generous city, begin before or after he fits in and acclimatizes or is that what on-the-job training gets these days? 

  The article also states that Meehan tried to make changes to Seattle’s ordinance by indicating rising drug-crime rates “although the data showed the opposite.” So then, he’s not a reliable source.  

  Even more troubling is that while Seattle’s lowest priority law did result in a decrease in marijuana arrests and prosecution, there was “a racial disparity in the number of arrests.” Meaning, institutionalized racism strikes again! This is what our Council has brought us. 

  More telling is Dominic Holden, Seattle writer and editor of an alternative newsweekly’s assessment of Meehan: “a police chief cut from the mold of the Bush-era drug policy.” Holden is quoted saying that he’s surprised that Berkeley choose Meehan. I myself am disappointed but not surprised, given the mayor and the majority on the city council that we have. 

  Additionally, any intelligent person who calls marijuana a drug, and especially a police chief to be of our city, is revealing his own ignorance. He should know it’s a mild euphoric that even the APA states is non-addictive. It’s the prohibition of marijuana that’s dangerous. Legalize it and that’s the end of the crime surrounding it. 

  Mr. Meehan may turn out to be no better and perhaps worse than our last chief, but until we know how he implements Berkeley law, he will have to be carefully monitored. 

Maris Arnold is a Berkeley resident.

Today, at the end of my rope, I wrote President Obama the attached letter.  

Failing to get any response from the Berkeley City Attorney, the City Manager, two senators and the Governor—yes, I emailed them this story—I had to turn to the White House! 

A sad state of affairs if that is your last resort! It says a lot about whether cities and government officials are taking to heart the President’s call to expedite, aid, and abridge red tape to help people who have lost their jobs get back on their feet. 

I am now also turning to the media. I need someone to help me, to shine a light on the ways our officials delay, deter and discourage new businesses. 

Dear President Obama, 

It is with great sadness that I find I have to resort to writing your office about my situation. After 15 years of service with AT&T I was suddenly laid off in June. I received a severance package that would pay my expenses for eight to nine months if spent with care. I have a 14 year old in junior high school and a daughter at UC Berkeley. 

In April my daughter pleaded with me to look at a recently vacated space across from the university. I have catered parties and events on the side for many years, and love cooking. Knowing I couldn’t leave my job, I explored the space just for fun, thinking how perfect it would be for a small to-go café … a lifelong dream. 

The landlord wanted too much, so I backed off. Two weeks later he called. He said that since he loved my menu and concept he’d accept my offer. I thought my sister-in-law could run the place. So in mid-June we signed the lease—just a few days before I got the call about losing my job! Providence, I think. 

I am a single mom, so I had to expedite what I needed to do to get the café going. I taught myself how to draw plans—couldn’t afford an architect—tried to show electrical upgrades needed, researched equipment I needed and bought much of it used. I learned what the plumbing upgrades and floor needed, etc. With only $45,000 ($30,000 from investors) to spend, it was a challenge to find people who might work for less pay per hour. 

Since then I have been going through the very lengthy, un-user friendly, complex process of getting my permits so I can begin upgrading the space. Naively, I was hoping to open when the kids returned from summer break—beginning of September, but that was not to be. 

I spent over 100 hours drawing floor plans, electrical plans and plumbing plans in Excel, and talking with anyone who was willing from the city planning department to ensure I am addressing code requirements. The Health Inspector was wonderful and visited the empty space twice to help in light of my financial situation. Finally, the first week of October I received approvals to move ahead from the fire, health, public works departmenst and the landmarks committee. 

On the last day he had to respond, Mr. Jeff Thomas, the Sr. Building and Safety Engineer talked to me on the phone to clarify why my plans weren’t up to par. He sent me a long list of changes, including page numbering and a couple of questions that did not pertain to my to-go café. I dissolved into tears from the stress of thinking that now I had to redo the plans and wait two more weeks for a response. 

I submitted the changes. He had 10 days to respond, and he took the whole 10 days. 

He wasn’t pleased that I hadn’t hired an architect to do the drawings. Given my budget how can I afford a $150 an hour architect, I asked? He responded that since I’m allegedly losing $400 a day by not being open, maybe it was a mistake not to have hired one! How does my loss of income increase my current budget? I was very upset by his remark. And yet, others in the department complimented me on such well rawn documents! 

I was very anxious that I would now lose another two weeks. Again Mr. Thomas called the last day, and said certain things were missing—some of which were actually in the plans. It was clear to me that he had barely scanned them before calling me. 

Very jarred, I scrambled for three days to gather answers to his requests, consulting an architect who works for my boyfriend’s boss, a contractor friend of his and a friend who runs a pizza chain. I requested a face-to-face meeting on Nov.3 to make sure I had everything Mr. Thomas wanted. He asked for drawings to demonstrate how I would spend 20 percent of my budget on ADA improvements. Dazed that I had to find another $5000 to spend, I almost said “forget it.” I found ADA entrance and bathroom requirements and drew them. Mr. Thomas said to make an appointment with him in a couple of days, and he’d try to turn the docs around in three days. 

I called to make an appointment on Nov. 5, but he said he didn’t have time to meet with me! So just drop them off per the usual process. I couldn’t just drop them off, I had to make an appointment for the next day, Friday, Nov. 6. I was crestfallen. On Tues., Nov. 10, Mr. Thomas said he’d retrieved my plans and would ‘try’ to look at them in the next couple of days. I left voicemails two days in a row. On Thurs. Nov. 19, he called and said to stand by my phone all day in case he had questions, and that he’d try to approve that afternoon or Friday at the latest. I believed him. I modified my plans to stay in an area with good cell phone reception. He said he’d call me back that evening either way. He did not call. On Friday, no word, no email. 

Today, Monday, Nov. 16, he wrote that he was going to look at them. I didn’t expect him to follow up, because it is very clear to me, my family, friends and partners tracking this insane, business-unfriendly process that Mr. Thomas intends to drag out the full two weeks he has a second time. He is not interested in helping me at all. 

So here I am…it is Nov. 16 and I am still not able to even begin the work needed to open the café! I hired our employees in August/September when I thought all this could be done in 60 to 90 days. I have lost two of them. I have had a plumber, electrician and flooring person standing by for weeks! 

I am now paying rent, and my personal money is dwindling. I have lost another five days. It will take two weeks to do the work, then I have to pass inspections, another week. Then we install and test the equipment—four to five days. Even if Mr. Thomas were to get back to me tomorrow, the earliest I can open my doors will be Dec. 14! Students leave for Christmas one week later, and don’t return until Jan. 10! I am sunk!  

I believe that you, Sir, have asked banks, officials and cities to help people get back on their feet, to expedite small business owners to open their shops, and skip “red tape” when possible. I don’t know that people feel the urgency of your call. It is infinitely clear that city officials happily hide behind inflexible “rules” so they don’t have to evoke their humanity and compassion. 

For example, Mr. Thomas didn’t want to do a simple calculation to determine the space’s Occupancy Load—I had no idea what that was—but he was willing to tell me where to go find the formula! It took me an hour to do what he could have done in two minutes! He had all the information needed. 

Is this America heading for Change? Is this America trying help people help themselves? I am devastated and am considering giving up on my dream. The stress is making me ill.  

I am at my wits end. I have lost $400 a day since Nov. 1st thanks to Mr. Thomas alone. I will make $0 this year. 

Who in the world do I have to turn to? Neither the Governor, nor the city manager responded to my plea for help. There is no one looking out for us. 

At the beginning of Caryl Churchill’s one act, Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza, one can not determine the ethnicity or nationality of the voices that are conflicted about what to tell a young girl about the terrible tensions and conflicts in her life, the history of her people and the lives of those around her. Brought by Anne Hallinan and Patricia Silver’s Agora Theater to the Ashby Stage in a polished reading directed by Hal Gelb this play was contrasted with another—What Strong Fences Make, by Israel Horovitz—solicited by Theatre J in Washington, D.C., in response to Churchill.  

  After the readings, the audience was asked to engage with the plays as theater and to try to keep the political heat down. The discussion was not charged. Most of the questions and discussion pertained to Churchill’s play, which was written without characters—except the girl who is not allowed to be present. In an unusual playwright’s twist, Churchill left the director the task of dividing the script—a series of intensely emotional assertions contrasting what this little Jewish Israeli girl should and should not be told about her relatives in the Holocaust, about the Palestinians, bombings, destruction of olive orchards, the wall, about all the fears that abound in the lives of the adults—among any number of characters, men or women. The dialogue is at times heated as the characters discuss what is the right approach and the wrong approach to the young girl’s edification.   

  As Gelb pointed out in discussion, the play circles around the idea of fear as a manipulative social and political force that allows people to justify retributive brutality and to consider using even fearful intimidation of one’s own children as a means of justification of one’s own adherence to brutal behaviors. The play effectively evokes some of the polarity in the Jewish psyche and the Jewish community over Israel’s conundrum, but from the very first audience question there were those who wondered aloud whether one could produce a play purportedly about the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians without a single Palestinian voice uttering one word.  

  Indeed, the absence of the Palestinian voice does leave a telling void. This became clear when one audience member asserted that the dialectic in the dialogue held a certain universality that could easily be viewed as Palestinian or another people. In fact, a young Palestinian American actress in the audience herself thought that in the stark contradictions and angst within the Jewish Israeli passion that the Palestinian reality was represented. Having spent time on the West Bank last year, I cannot but differ strongly from this view. As usual in the U.S.-Israel paradigm about the holy land the backgrounded Palestinians are there but as props to discuss the “Jewish” dilemma, as if universal morality is solely a Jewish question.  

  I would venture that when any liberal—or progressive if you prefer the word—Jewish-American Zionist sees this play she/he will recognize aspects of Israeli thought and behavior that they abhor along with those they identify with. And while this may be a worthwhile dialectic to explore in the Jewish community, it does not even begin to touch on the perspective of a people whose existence and rights are less clearly recognized and barely given lip service in the United States than any other people on earth.  

  In showing how historical fears and anguish contribute to Israeli violence, the play is effective, if somewhat didactic. But one problem that does not surface is the actuality that Israel is today a largely American, and Jewish-American project and would have to transform into a more peaceful secular democracy without that support—from the U.S. I am reminded of how connected Jewish America has been to the development and shaping of the Jewish State every time I look at my 1961 Brandeis yearbook—I was class of ’63—which shows Israel’s first president, David Ben Gurion, as the honored guest at commencement the previous year. And then I recall that two of our professors in that time, John Roche and I. Milton Sachs, were key “liberal” Democratic Party advisors who helped create and defend the justification of the Vietnam war for Democratic Presidents—Roche at the time had a regular column in the NY Post—while they were also helping assure Israel’s power within the U.S. political landscape.  

  Of course there are many Jewish Americans who do not support the idea of Israel as a “Jewish” State, but many Jews do, even if/when they are uncomfortable with the way that Israel treats a people it has subjugated. And among the Zionists are some of the most powerful Americans including more than a few who hold duel Israeli-American citizenship—such as Rahm Emanuel.  

  The audience at the Churchill play reading, like most readers of this paper, was an audience that is generally aware of these contradictions. And yet the play allows an audience to simultaneously be repelled by the most eggregious and anti-social behaviors of the Jewish state but also to still accept the premise upon which the oppression is based—an untenable inequality, an untenable contradiction. 

  By leaving out the Palestinian perspective Churchill avoids the central question that would have been unsettling to any audience. This is known as Israel’s “existential” question and discussing it fully is as taboo as Salmon Rushdie’s criticism of fundamentalism was to the Ayatollah. Israel exists on land stollen from an indigenous people whose diaspora is not going to go away. And in the modern world the most rational and viable settlement of that contradiction involves a transition to an egalitarian state with full equality of citizenship rights for all peoples living there. Of course this is true anywhere in the world under any government.  

  As implied by the US Supreme Court in Brown vs Bd of Education in 1955, equality can never be guaranteed if there are different classes of citizenship—or non-citizenship—rights. This pertains to any religious—or ethnicity—based state be that state Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, or Christian. And no matter the pretense of fairness. And in this respect Israel—as a Jewish state— will always share more with the Ayatollahs, Christian fundamentalists and the anti-abortion Catholic Church than it does with the moral precepts of Judaism or democracy. Likewise, its brutalization of the Palestinian people will continue unabated until we force the United States—and other nations—to sever the military and economic ties that bind us to that tyranny.

When the recession hit, my business was put through unbelievable turmoil here in California. Everyone who had ever worked for me started to file for unemployment, and many laborious hours were put into filling out claims to EDD and other authorities. People started to apply for low-income everything, from transportation, to welfare, to housing. 

My insurance rates skyrocketed. My clients went from 28 to eight and our contracts in California all got reduced by three percent. My profit margin went down by about ten percent, but the most tragic part is that besides not getting new clients, the work ethic of everyone except for my very dedicated office staff, crumbled right before my eyes. People stopped showing up for work, people got sick and couldn’t show any medical documentation—probably because they didn’t have any medical insurance—then there are the people who apply to work for you, they promise you the moon, you hire them, and they give a big nothing. 

After hearing the news of Friday that the unemployment rate for the country was 10.2 percent, this did not surprise me. Because I run a home health care agency, I found it very coincidental that they were interviewing a woman at an unemployment center who happened to be a home health care worker, and that they said this was a “growing field.” But of course with CNN there are always questions as to the legitimacy of what they cover, and how they cover it. If this woman at the unemployment office, was only working four days a week as a home care worker, then why didn’t she take on my shifts, and why was she at the unemployment office when she already had a job. If she was such a good home care worker, then why didn’t she pick up more hours with her agency, or go and find someone in need of homecare. 

It can be said that I am just a disconnected person who owns a company, but I choose to disagree. Not only am I the owner and director of a business, but I have dealt with home care workers every single day of my life due to my cerebral palsy. I work in my business over 80 hours a week. I have to pay rent, bills, buy into my long-term care and my health insurance, which I get through the state. Sometimes I feel like workers in the state of California have simply given up hope. They don’t want to work, or if they dp want to work, they want to work just on their own terms and at their own schedule, and only if they need to work. Maybe they believe the Governor will just pick up their tab. But the catch-22 is that when they get their paychecks, they are stunned to see how much is taken out. 

The trickledown effect of the almighty dollar can only be overpowered by one thing, the power of the people, because ultimately that is who it affects. In my business, when people don’t show up for work, people really do suffer. People who are children, the elderly, and people with mental disabilities have to go without care. It would be nice to see the work ethic come back, to find people who do their job not just for the low wage, but because they truly care about the person. I never hear my staff ask when they call out of a job “What’s going to happen to Oliver, will he have to go without, will there be someone who can replace me?” 

Besides the issue of the work ethic coming back in California, the other more critical issue is non-medical emergency response homecare services. This means that when someone has a non-medical emergency or their care providers cannot show up, that there is an on-demand service that people can call in their area that will respond, and take care of their needs. Let’s see California put some money into that.  

Nicholas Feldman resides in Berkeley with his fiancé and runs a homecare business called Dare to Dream Attendant Services. 

Oakland is a complicated city, impossible to understand in a single season or to explain in a single story. For Mayor Ron Dellums, especially, there is no overall way to explain all of his actions of the past three years. You must search and pay attention, and put together pieces from disparate places and times. 

A colleague once told me his analysis of our current mayor is based largely on the fact Mr. Dellums had to be enticed to return to Oakland to run for the job. “He never wanted to be mayor,” my colleague told me, “and he’s acted like that ever since. He’s never put full time into the job.” 

The comment, I believe, demonstrated a lack of understanding both of human nature and of world political history. The persons who beat the drums earliest and loudest for a particular cause are very often the ones who abandon it at the first sign of crisis or discomfort. On the other hand, those who are reluctant to sign on—and do so only after much intensive soul-searching—often see the business to the bitter end. 

Thomas Becket begged King Henry II of England not to appoint him the Archishop of Canterbury. Henry the King ignored Becket’s objections, and Becket thereafter took the job so seriously—and so against Henry’s political interests—that the king had him assassinated in the church sanctuary. 

Robert E. Lee was famously opposed to Southern secession. Yet General Lee became the Confederacy’s greatest soldier. In explaining why he joined and led a cause whose goals he did not support, General Lee often said that his loyalties lay with his native Virginia, and when Virginia left the Union, he was obliged by duty to follow. 

While Mr. Dellums’ initial reluctance to take on the Oakland job may explain why it took him until that raucous, emotional Laney College rally to make his decision, I think it fails as a barometer to judge his subsequent actions following his election. Mr. Dellums, I believe, feels he has a responsibility of service to Oakland, a responsibility to both carry on the legacy and work of his uncle, C.L. Dellums—the railroad porters union leader and organizer whose statue stands at the entrance to the Oakland Train Station—as well as to give back something tangible to the city of his birth and the voters who supported him, year after year, so that he could make his mark and make history in Congress. 

Whatever one thinks of the quality of the decisions Mr. Dellums has made as mayor, I believe that it is this sense of responsibility of service and doing what he thinks is best for Oakland—not necessarily what is best for himself—that is the foundation of his work. 

(This is not the same as my saying I believe that everything Mr. Dellums does is what’s best for Oakland; it’s only a belief that this is what Mr. Dellums himself believes.) 

This belief crystallized during the mayor’s September 2008 press conference—almost two years into his administration—in which Mr. Dellums introduced his proposals to close the pending $37.4 million deficit in the 2008–09 Oakland City Budget. That was Mr. Dellums at his best, speaking for 35 minutes on budget details without notes or documents in front of him and, as I wrote at the time, “indicating the depth of his involvement in the budget process.”  

Aside from the clear demonstration that Mr. Dellums was putting in long hours of work on the budget, I was struck by two other points that day. 

In his presentation, Mr. Dellums proposed a detailed combination of $13 million in revenue increases and $15 million in staff cuts and fund transfers, suggesting that the City Council could close the remaining $10 million gap either by a once-per-week city business shutdown or 120 additional layoffs. 

But what struck me at the time was the mayor’s position on Oakland’s longstanding practice of making up similar budget deficits—or “finding” money for popular new programs after earlier declaring that all the money in the budget had been allocated—by drawing the dollars out of various city funds outside the General Fund, carrying over those auxiliary fund liability deficits for years. It was a hidden debt that would sometime have to come due. Mr. Dellums called this Oakland’s “long-term, systematic, historical structural problems with the budget.” 

Mr. Dellums could have used the same tactic that was popular in the Jerry Brown–Robert Bobb years—putting off the problem down the road—but declared flatly that the fund-borrowing practice was finished. “This cannot continue to happen,” he said at that September 2008 press conference. “We’ve got to stop engaging in this ‘magic.’ ‘Magic’ is what got us into this problem. There is no ‘magic.’ It’s all over.” I wrote at the time that “the mayor said as soon as the current budget-deficit problem is addressed, he will move forward in the next budget cycle with proposals to end the city’s process of carrying over structural fund deficits.” 

    Mr. Dellums could have ensured his own political popularity by drawing from future revenue, leaving a legacy of shiny new buildings or programs with the Dellums imprint on them, but also leaving a city severely weakened in its ability to cope with future budget difficulties. That’s when I concluded that—at least for a bright and shining moment—Mr. Dellums was putting the city’s long-term economic health ahead of his own short-term political gains. 

Contrast the Dellums administration proposal a year ago to close the 2008–09 $37.4 million deficit with last month’s proposal to close the pending $18.8 million deficit in the 2009–10 budget. For one thing, the new proposal suggests closing the gap by—you guessed it—transferring part of the General Fund’s liabilities to so-called “healthier funds.” In other words, just the type of budgetary “magic” that Mr. Dellums de-nounced only a year before. 

Meanwhile, this month’s budget-balancing proposal—written by the City of Oakland’s Budget Office and Finance and Management Agency—was not actually a Dellums proposal at all but passed on to the City Council by City Administrator Dan Lindheim without recommendation. These “suggestions” or “discussion points,” we should call them, were described by Mr. Lindheim as “ideas and proposals [that are] not meant as a full catalogue of what can be done, should be done or might be done.” 

A year ago, you may remember, the Dellums administration proposed a similar “discussion” point on alternative solutions, but only with $10 million of the $37.4 million deficit, and by giving two alternative strategies—one-day city business closings or staff layoffs—to reach the same $10 million goal. 

   This year, the Budget Office and Finance and Management Agency’s proposed budget solutions add up exactly to the $18.8 million shortfall. While Mr. Lindheim said these gap-closing solutions—including the highly controversial proposed sale of the Oakland Convention Center and the Kaiser Convention Center—were only meant to generate discussion, the practical effect was that if the City Council does not adopt the budget office plan, the council must come up with its own alternate solutions. 

That caused at least two councilmembers to criticize the mayor’s office for failing to exercise leadership in the current budget crisis. 

“The mayor cannot just provide suggestions or provide ideas,” Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente said. “It’s the administration’s responsibility to give its recommendations, good or bad.” Good point. 

So is this an indication that Mayor Dellums has thrown in the towel, has given up all thought of a second term, and is simply riding out the string on his first term, leaving the tough decisions to someone else? 

Actually, I think the indications lean in the opposite direction, at least in terms of the second term thing. 

The 2009–10 Budget Office and Finance and Management Agency budget gap document—and the accompanying Lindheim indication that these are “suggestions” rather than “proposals”—are what you might normally expect from a first-term mayor facing a tough re-election challenge from the sitting head of the City Council Finance Committee (Jean Quan) and the recently retired president of the California State Senate (Don Perata). This was an intensely political performance and, if I were being cynical, I would say that it was specifically designed to put the onus of the tough budget cuts or possible tax increases on mayoral challenger Quan—through whose Finance Committee the proposals will first go—rather than on the mayor himself. 

I don’t think that in a year’s time Mr. Dellums has abandoned his goal of doing what he thinks is best for Oakland. Instead, it seems more an indication that Mr. Dellums may believe that what’s best for Oakland is for Ron Dellums to be mayor for a second term, when the long-term budget reforms he proposed a year ago can be achieved, and his recent actions are being taken to enhance his re-election chances. Or, as I’ve often said, he wants—at the very least—to keep open the option that he can run for mayor again, and win. 

Or do you think I’m reading too much into this complicated man and complicated scenario?

Before the Obama administration buys in to General Stanley McChrystal’s escalation strategy, it might spend some time examining the Aug. 12 battle of Dananeh, a scruffy little town of 2,000 perched at the entrance to the Naw Zad Valley in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. 

Dananeh is a textbook example of why counterinsurgency won’t work in that country, as well as a study in military thinking straight out of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. 

According to the United States, the purpose of the attack was to seize a “strategic” town, cut “Taliban supply lines,” and secure the area for the presidential elections. Taking Dananeh would also “outflank the insurgents,” “isolating” them in the surrounding mountains and forests.  

What is wrong with this scenario? 

One, the entire concept of a “strategic” town of 2,000 people in a vast country filled with tens of thousands of villages like Dananeh is bizarre. 

Two, the Taliban don’t have “flanks.” They are a fluid, irregular force, not an infantry company dug into a set position. “Flanking” an enemy is what you did to the Wehrmacht in World War II. 

Three, “Taliban supply lines” are not highways and rail intersections, they’re goat trails.  

Four, “isolate” the Taliban in the surrounding mountains and forests? Anyone in the Pentagon ever read the story of Brer Rabbit? “Please don’t throw me in the briar patch, Brer Fox”? Mountains and forests are where the Taliban move freely. 

It also appears that the Taliban were not the slightest bit surprised when the United States showed up. When the Marines helicoptered in at night, all was quiet. At dawn—the Taliban have no night fighting equipment—the insurgents opened up with rockets, mortars, and machine guns. “I am pretty sure they knew of it [the attack] in advance,” Golf Company commander Captain Zachary Martin told the Associated Press. 

Pinned down, the Marines brought in air power and artillery and, after four days of fierce fighting, took the town. But the Taliban had decamped on the third night. The outcome? A chewed up town and 12 dead insurgents, if you accept that there is no difference between an “insurgent” and a villager who didn’t get out in time, so that all the dead are automatically members of the Taliban.  

“I’d say we’ve gained a foothold for now, and it’s a substantial one that we’re not going to let go,” says Martin. “I think this has the potential to be a watershed.” 

Only if hallucinations become the order of the day. 

The battle of Dananeh was a classic example of irregular warfare. The locals tip off the guerrillas that the army is coming. The Taliban set up an ambush, fight until the heavy firepower comes in, then slip away. 

“Taliban fighters and their commanders have escaped the Marines’ big offensive into Afghanistan’s Helmand province and moved into areas to the west and north, prompting fears that the U.S. effort has just moved the Taliban problem elsewhere,” writes Nancy Youssef of the McClatchy newspapers. 

When the Taliban went north they attacked German and Italian troops. 

In short, the insurgency is adjusting. “To many of the Americans, it appeared as if the insurgents had attended something akin to the U.S. Army’s Ranger school, which teaches soldiers how to fight in small groups in austere environments,” writes Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post. 

Actually, the Afghans have been doing that for some time, as Greeks, Mongols, British, and Russians discovered. 

One Pentagon officer told the Post that the Taliban has been using fighting in the Korengal Valley that borders Pakistan as a training ground. It’s “a perfect lab to vet fighters and study U.S. tactics,” he said, and to learn how to gauge the response time for U.S. artillery, air strikes, and helicopter assaults. “They know exactly how long it takes before…they have to break contact and pull back.” 

Just like they did at Dananeh. 

General McChrystal has asked for 40,000 new troops in order to hold the “major” cities and secure the population from the Taliban. But even by its own standards, the plan is deeply flawed. According to the military’s “Counterinsurgency Field Manuel,” one needs a ratio of 20 soldiers for every 1,000 residents. Since Afghanistan is slightly over 32 million, that would require a force of 660,000 soldiers. 

The United States will shortly have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, plus a stealth surge of 13,000 support troops. If 40,000 additional troops are sent, that will bring U.S. forces to 121,000. Added to that are 35,000 NATO troops, though most alliance members are under increasing domestic pressure to withdraw their soldiers. McChrystal wants to expand the Afghan army to 240,000, and there is talk of trying to reach 340,000.  

One does not need a calculator to conclude that the counterinsurgency formula—even with the larger Afghan army—is 150,000 soldiers short. 

And can you really count on the Afghan army? It may indeed reach 340,000—although it doesn’t have the officers and sergeants to command those numbers—but the counterinsurgency formula calls for “trained” troops, not just armed boots on the ground. And according to a recent review, up to 25 percent of recruits quit each year, and the number of trained units has actually declined over the past six months. 

On top of which, it is not a national army. If Pashtun soldiers are deployed in the Tajik-speaking north, they will be seen as occupiers, and vice-versa for Tajiks in Pashtun areas. If both groups are deployed in their home territories, the pressures of kinship will almost certainly overwhelm any allegiance to a national government, particularly one as corrupt and unpopular as the current Karzai regime. 

And by defending the cities, exactly whom will U.S. troops be protecting? When it comes to Afghanistan, “major” population centers are almost a contradiction in terms. There are essentially five cities in the country, Kabul (2.5 million), Kandahar (331,000), Mazar-e-Sharif (200,000), Herat (272,000), and Jalalabad (20,000). Those five cities make up a little more than 10 percent of the population, over half of which is centered in Kabul. The rest of the population is rural, living in towns of 1,500 or fewer, smaller even than Dananeh. 

But spreading the troops into small firebases makes them extremely vulnerable, as the United States found out in early September when eight soldiers were killed in an attack on a small unit in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan province. The base was abandoned a week later and, according to the Asia Times, is now controlled by the Taliban. 

While McChrystal says he wants to get the troops out of “armored vehicles” and into the streets with the people, the United States will have to use patrols to maintain a presence outside of the cities. On occasion, that can get almost comedic. Take the convoy of Stryker light tanks that set out Oct. 12 from “Forward Operating Base Spin Boldak” in Khandar province for what was described as a “high-risk mission into uncharted territory.” 

The convoy was led by the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles designed to resist the insurgent’s weapon-of-choice in Afghanistan, roadside bombs. But the MRAP was designed for Iraq, which has lots of good roads. Since Afghanistan has virtually no roads, the MRAPs broke down. Without the MRAPs the Strykers could not move. The “high-risk” mission ending up hunkering down in the desert for the night and slogging home in the morning. They never saw an insurgent.  

Afterwards, Sergeant John Belajac remarked, “I can’t imagine what it is going to be like when it starts raining.”  

If you are looking for an Afghanistan War metaphor, the Spin Boldak convoy may be it. 

McChrystal argues that the current situation is “critical,” and that an escalation “will be decisive.” But as former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst A.J. Rossmiller says, the war is a stalemate. “The insurgency does not have the capability to defeat U.S. forces or depose Afghanistan’s central government, and…U.S. forces do not the ability to vanquish the insurgency.” 

While the purported goal of the war is denying al Qaeda a sanctuary, according to U.S. intelligence the organization has fewer than 100 fighters in the country. And further, the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Omar, pledges that his organization will not interfere with Afghanistan’s neighbors or the West, which suggests that the insurgents have been learning about diplomacy as well. 

The Afghanistan war can only be solved by sitting all the parties down and working out a political settlement. Since the Taliban have already made a seven-point peace proposal, that hardly seems an insurmountable task. 

Anything else is a dangerous illusion. 

At the “Open University” meeting organized by UC protesters last week, art history Professor T.J. Clark spoke of “imagined communities” made up of networks of participants who connect via the newest technologies. Indeed the students who barricaded themselves inside UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall last Friday used cell phones and Twitter to communicate not only with the crowd of 2,000 supporters surrounding the building, but also with those occupying buildings at other UC campuses. This new statewide movement, which brings together faculty and campus workers as well as students, aims to save public education. Can it succeed?  

The protesters make a persuasive case that the cutbacks at UC and the radical increase in student fees are not only harmful to education, they are also unnecessary. Professors Bob Meister at Santa Cruz and George Lakoff and Emeritus Charles Schwartz at UC Berkeley have done exhaustive research into university finances, showing that there are alternatives to the regents’ draconian policies. 

It’s true that those policies correlate with the financial crisis that faces California and the entire nation. But the way that that crisis plays out—who suffers and who benefits—is profoundly political. The decisions made by the Regents give expression to the political priorities of the governor and of the conservative anti-government forces that support him. 

These forces won’t be easily thwarted. Today’s campus activists clearly recognize the magnitude of the challenge that lies before them: the social movement required to reverse the severe cutbacks to public education must be broad and deep. It must galvanize support throughout the California public school system, from pre-kindergarten to the university. Ultimately that movement has to convince the voters in this state that public education is not just a commodity like any other, it is a basic human right and essential to preparing the next generation to think critically, work creatively, and address the problems that endanger the world. 

Sophomore Jenny Lu, one of the students barricaded inside Wheeler Hall last Friday, said that protesters will in the future closely coordinate their activities statewide. Indeed they have understood from the beginning that a winning campaign must link the UCs, the California state universities, and community colleges to form a movement capable of taking on the regents, the state Legislature, and the governor. Last week, the protesters marched from UC into Berkeley City College, linking the protest at UC’s flagship campus in Berkeley to the parallel struggle a few blocks away at Berkeley’s two-year college, which is also experiencing drastic funding cuts. Their march expressed more than a symbolic solidarity—it exemplified the unification of efforts that will be essential if the protest is to grow and win over the public. 

In a recent New York Times interview, UC President Yudof was asked whether he blames Gov. Schwarzenegger for the university’s financial troubles. Given the UC administration’s alliance with the governor’s office, his answer is not surprising: “I do not. This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic…. The shine is off of [education]. It’s really a question of being crowded out by other priorities.”  

Yudof represents himself as the executioner of an inevitable downsizing and privatizing of the university. Lyle Fearnley, a graduate student instructor in anthropology, says that the Yudof administration regards the university as a business that delivers a private, no longer a public, good: “Students spend four years and invest their time and money in their education, and the payoff is that they get more employment opportunities ... This is a very limited, instrumental vision,” Fearnley adds. 

As the CEO of the largest university in the world, Yudof has the institutional authority to implement this constricted view of higher education. He and the regents and governor hold the commanding heights of power in California—a terrain that the protest movement will have to contest in order to win. 

The protesters’ teach-ins and marches and building occupations are indeed inaugurating a new “imagined community.” But this community, if it aims to gain not only headlines but substantial social change, cannot sidestep the “long march through the institutions” that German activist Rudi Dutschke recommended back in the 1960s. This march will bring activists to the halls of government in Sacramento, will engage them in the campaign to raise taxes on corporate profits, to elect a progressive governor and state legislature, and to repeal the rule requiring a two-thirds vote of the legislature to pass a budget. This campaign will be nationwide as well, insisting that federal resources support public education. 

Although the path forward for today’s campus advocates of public education is a challenging one, they will have many of us whose school years are in the past to keep them company. 

Raymond Barglow participated in UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement in 1964 and is the founder of Berkeley Tutors Network. 

Hindsight is, indeed, 20/20. Ah, that I knew then what I know now. Oh well. That’s just the way things are. Nonetheless, it’s embarrassing when you’re supposed to know all about a subject and, in reality, you’ve made plenty of the same mistakes that everyone else has made. 

Well, they say you should shoot the Buddha if you meet him on the road (which seems a little over the top to me; can’t I just shove him or maybe ignore him altogether?). In any event, I don’t tend to believe those experts who haven’t made mistakes themselves (or claim such), and I also have to wonder how much they actually know. So let me walk this dog proudly as my entry point to a very useful subject. 

When I remodeled my house in 1986 I was still young and there was a lot about construction that was fairly new to me. Tile installation (ceramic tile) was one of these things. I had a good feel for how to work with materials, but there are things you just won’t get in the beginning. You either have to make a bunch of mistakes or get really good guidance from those who have already made those mistakes. A combination of the two, along with quite a bit of reading, makes for what I consider a good education in construction. I’m not sure what they do in the classrooms, but I’m fairly certain that without some real-world experience (read: screwing up a bunch of times), you just won’t get there. 

We had decided to install ceramic tile on our counters and all around our sink area. We went to Import Tile in Berkeley where we met the amazing Tom Langlois. He’s still there and he’s still someone you want to meet; wonderful guy, Tom. We picked out, tile including what is called a V-cap. This was a piece that went over the front edge of the tile, covered the front of the plywood substrate and provided a small rise to hold water back from rolling off the edge. We ran them all the way around the front edges, including right across the front edge of the flush cast-iron sink. It looked really nice and we were, initially, quite happy with our choices. There were at least three different tiles that we worked with and they formed a fun pattern. For that, I have no regrets. What I didn’t know (nor, apparently, did my tiler, who now, believe it or not, works as a psychic—ah, Berkeley!) was that without a sufficiently well-sealed wooden substrate, and without enough of a cementitous backing, these angled tiles that capped over the front edge would, over time, get pushed outward to the front, just enough to snap them in two. 

What was happening was that moisture was getting though the grout (which is common, as grout is inherently porous, though it can be sealed to some extent by use of a liquid silicone sealer) and was saturating and swelling the plywood substrate below the tile. The swelling applied a force in both the upward and forward directions, thus snapping the angled tile at its crux. It took me some time to figure out precisely what was going on and I actually replaced a whole bunch of these once, only to find that they would, over time, suffer the same sad fate. Eventually, it was clear that the entire tiled counter had to go, in order to properly and semi-permanently (nothing is permanent, right?) repair the problem. 

This time, my friend, the amazing Tim Volz of Precision Tile in Berkeley, did the heavy lifting, replacing the plywood and installing a moisture barrier and a “mortar bed.” We did the tiling ourselves once the more complex part was done, and it’s been serving us well for years. Problem solved. 

I see a lot of failing tile installations and quite a few have some relationship to my personal tale of woe. But there are actually a number of different types of failures that I’m apt to see. Understanding these can help you to see them when you’re looking at a new house (or your current one) and to have some idea of what you’ll want to look for when a tiler is working for you. 

One of the things I do when examining tile installations is tap. No, not with those cool shoes— they’re way down in the bottom of the closet—but with my knuckles. Tapping and listening will show you (and teach you) a lot about a tile installation. When tile is properly installed, it will have good adhesion with the substrate (backing). This is achieved by the uniform distribution of the adhesive mortar (generally “thinset” mortar, which, as the name indicates, only needs a very thin layer to create a strong bond) on the substrate and good contact with both the substrate and the tile. If the mortar is the right consistency and properly spread over the backing material, it will grip a high percentage of the back of the tile. Tile installation guidelines call for specific percentages of contact area but it’s sufficient to say that something close to 90 percent is desirable. Poor installations can have contact area of well under 50 percent and these are much more apt to detach over time. They also allow water to flow behind the tile to a great extent, thus increasing the likelihood that the substrates will get wet and swell. You remember what happens when we get swelling, right? 

When you tap on tiles, you can hear whether or not they are well attached. If they’re barely hanging on, they will have a highly discernible hollow sound, as though there is a space behind them (which there is). If you do this tapping on enough tiles on a floor, counter or shower enclosure, it will generally be very clear whether there is a difference in adherence in the various tiles. A shower is a great place to do this test. It is quite common for tiles to loosen near the valves and tub spout over time and when you tap on these versus those at the other end of the tub, it’s often quite noticeable. That said, if you have a good installation, and this may be 50 years old (many of the old ones are still in great shape, though they may be somewhat cracked or chipped) you won’t hear a difference in the sound. 

So the take-home message to this portion of our penny analysis is that proper selection and proper distribution of the adhesive mortar is key, and failure to do this is one of the most common ways in which tile installations fail. By the way, I have found entire kitchen floors that were loose through this method, so don’t trust your eyes, trust your ears. 

It is very common for me to see floors where there seems to be a pattern of cracking running through the floor and, occasionally, I’ll even see floors where individual tiles seem to have been crushed under the footfall of normal daily activity. What’s important to understand is that tiles are brittle and of limited strength. If there are voids behind the tile and if people apply pressure to those voids, they are going to crack or crush those tiles. Now tiles do vary in strength and floors should be tiled using “flooring” tiles (OK, you can say duh, if you want, but this is new to many and nothing is obvious). I’ve seen many a floor installed using cheap low-strength tiles from big-box stores and many of these were cracked, chipped or crushed after only months of wear. Flooring tiles are more like stoneware then like china, having been fashioned from higher strength clays and fired at higher temperature. Still, this is not the main event.  

The big message is that tiles need to be uniformly supported from below, and this means several things. It means good adhesion, as we mentioned above; uniform distribution of adhesive so that we have no fulcrums on which to bend and break the tile; and a solid, relatively rigid base. This last part is critical and often overlooked. Tile doesn’t bend (at least not much), and when you try to bend it, it cracks. So the floor (floors are where we tend to get into the most trouble) needs to be made less flexible than it would normally be for a tile installation. 

Making a floor rigid can look something like the following procedure. However, your results may vary, as they say in the ads. Start with your old vinyl floor. Remove all the layers that take you down to the wooden “subflooring” (around here, that will often be a tongue-and-groove 1x4 fir flooring). Watch out for asbestos materials in the old flooring. This is most commonly seen in 9-inch square linoleum tiles. Once you have gotten to your wooden subflooring (this may also be plywood, oriented-strand-board or just about anything) you need to decide if the finished level of tile will end up being too high.  

A really good installer may choose to remove the subfloor, trim the top of joists (an engineer may need to be consulted if you’re removing more than just a bit) and then install a thick rigid plywood, using moisture-resistant screws and glue so that the end effect is a floor with less bounce. Also, you will then want to have enough height allowance left to install either a concrete tile-backer board or, better, a dry-pack mortar bed installed by a skilled professional like Tim.  

This last part requires tremendous experience and is not for the beginner. This process can square up rooms and level floors in such as way that the grid of tile that follows will not shine a beacon on the deformities of the room or slope of the floor. The mortar bed can vary in thickness on the walls or floors so that we end up with an easier tile installation and a better look. Tile backer board and dry-pack should both be installed over a moisture barrier. Anything that can be done, including sealing plywood, should also be considered. Today, we have a range of bituminous (tarry) flashing materials that do a fabulous job of sealing wooden substrates. We also have a range of liquid-applied ones and they, too, can provide a genuine edge against failure. When showers are being done, the belt and suspenders method may warrant a wetsuit and a whole range of polymeric sheet-goods are available. Shower pans generally want a Chloroloy membrane below the mortar (or something similar) since the level of attack by water is much higher. In a steam shower, I’d be tempted to use Chloroloy top to bottom although membranes like Chloroloy are generally only used at the bottom. 

I’ve said a lot and there’s a lot more than could be said but suffice it to say that when the gardener says that he or she can do tiling too, you might want to think twice. There’s a lot that can go wrong…and I haven’t even shown up with my tap shoes. 

ASK MATT 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net.

When I worked in San Francisco, I could see the walls of three neighboring highrises and a narrow slice of sky from my cubicle. There were few signs of life: a hummingbird checking out the flowers on a 10th-floor balcony, a passing gull, once every few months a window washer. Mostly there were pigeons. Singles and pairs stopped by to preen, court or just hang out. I came to appreciate them as a connection, however tenuous, to the natural world. 

And I started paying attention to them as part of the street scene. Apart from the spectacle of synchronized flying, there was always some small drama going on. Courting males, their neck feathers puffed out, pursuing females; fighting pigeons pushing, shoving, and whapping each other with their wings. What would pigeons fight about, anyway? Food, which can include anything from the corner of an office worker’s sandwich to KFC leftovers; maybe real estate. 

Once while waiting for a light to change near Market Street, I saw a pigeon fly into the housing for the red light with a twig in its beak. A second pigeon was hunkered down on top of the light in a loose bed of plant material. When you think about it, a traffic light is not the worst possible nest site, especially if you insist on breeding in December. It’s sheltered from the weather, safe from predators, and presumably warm, although I would imagine the flashing off and on would get to you. 

But then, who knows what would get to a pigeon? Although they’ve been popular lab subjects since the heyday of B. F. Skinner, their mental processes remain mysterious and they are still capable of surprises. Psychologist John Pearce found that pigeons could discriminate between pictures of trees and pictures of non-trees, and you can see the adaptive value of birds being able to recognize trees. But then he went on to establish that his subjects could tell Picassos from Monets. Clearly these birds are capable of pattern recognition on a pretty sophisticated level. 

Then there’s the homing business. Tiny nodules of magnetite in their brains help them orient by the earth’s magnetic field. In the 1970s Cornell ornithologist Charles Walcott equipped pigeons with portable Helmholtz coils which reversed the field’s polarity and consequently screwed up the birds’ navigation. There’s speculation that electromagnetic pulses from explosions on the sun may also disorient pigeons, and may account for the disappearance of about a thousand racing birds in Pennsylvania in 1998, although some blame cell phone traffic. Science fiction writer Bruce Sterling says this would be “a rare and choice example of one medium directly killing another.”  

Pigeons have been used as messengers since at least the time of the pharaohs. Roman magistrates took pigeons along to the theater in case they were delayed and had to send word home. Pigeons carried the results of the ancient Olympics, relayed Genghis Khan’s battle orders, linked besieged Paris with the outside world in the Franco-Prussian War. As late as World War I the British Air Force employed 20,000 homing pigeons. Even today a Police Pigeon Service is used in the Indian state of Orissa. 

The human–pigeon relationship is an ancient one. Wild pigeons, also known as rock pigeons, nested on coastal cliffs and in mountainous parts of Eurasia. They found human structures an acceptable substitute for natural cliffs, with handy food sources as a bonus. When the first towns rose in the Middle East, the pigeons moved in. Domestication followed, first for culinary use. 

By the 19th century, pigeon breeders had tweaked the wild stock into a dizzying variety of plumages, shapes, and behaviors: aerobatic tumblers, bizarrely feathered Jacobins, pouters, shakers. Charles Darwin used pigeon breeding as a model for the shaping force of natural selection. With typical Darwinian thoroughness, he joined two London pigeon clubs and tried his hand at breeding. You could argue that pigeons had more to do with the origin of The Origin of Species than Darwin’s famous finches. 

Domestic pigeons crossed the Atlantic with European immigrants and found a new home in the cities of North America. And it was in the cities that pigeons reentered the natural food chain. Peregrine falcons, originally cliff nesters like the wild rock dove, will also use buildings and bridges, and urban peregrines rely on pigeons as a prey base. Thanks in part to pigeons, peregrines are back from the brink of extinction and established as breeders in San Francisco, Oakland and elsewhere.  

Herb Caen may have disparaged them as feathered rats, but I have to admit a grudging respect for the city pigeon. They’re not just peregrine chow; they’re resilient creatures, with abilities we’re only beginning to understand. I can almost forgive the Venetian pigeon that guano-bombed me in the Piazza de San Marco years ago. 

There are two truisms in this world about budgeting and finance. The first is, never shop in a supermarket when you’re hungry. The second is, never sell property when you’re desperate for cash. In the first instance, you’ll almost always buy more than you need. In the second, you’ll almost always settle for less than it’s worth. 

The City of Oakland’s Budget Office and Finance and Management Agency, unfortunately, has proposed to do the second, and in so doing threatens to betray the city’s voters, sell off a major portion of the city’s heritage and potential future earning capacity, and continue in the worst tradition of the Jerry Brown administration. 

With the City of Oakland projecting an $18.87 million budget deficit for the remaining seven and a half months of the current fiscal year—after the administration and City Council having to close an $83 million gap this summer just to keep the city solvent—the Budget Office is now proposing that the city raise $11.6 million of that deficit by selling two city-owned properties: the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center and the George P. Scotlan Convention Center. 

Oakland City Administrator Dan Lindheim passed the proposals on to the Oakland City Council with no recommendation, telling Oakland City Councilmembers at a special Tuesday afternoon meeting on the budget crisis that the proposals in the Budget Office’s report “are ideas and proposals [that are] not meant as a full catalogue of what can be done, should be done, or might be done” but were intended by his office to generate discussion. 

So let’s discuss it. 

In their report and recommendation to Mr. Lindheim that was passed on to the council, Oakland Budget Director Cheryl Taylor and Finance Director Joseph Yew—who cosigned the report—said precious little about the rationale for the proposed property sale, writing only that “Staff is currently reviewing the City’s portfolio of assets that could be sold in the current fiscal year. Such assets might include the George P. Scotlan Convention Center and the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center and are anticipated to generate significant one-time revenue of $11.6 million. The sale of assets in the current real estate market will be challenging; there are few buyers who have available resources (either capital or credit) to minimally pay the insured value of the City’s properties.” 

Even if the double convention center sale were a good idea for the City of Oakland, one wonders where the $11.6 million figure came from? 

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilmember Desley Brooks said the two properties, together, were valued at $149 million. That figure, it turns out, comes from a 1992 action in which Oakland took out municipal bonds on the two properties through the California Statewide Communities Development Authority, assessing the value of the Kaiser and Scotlan centers at that time at $149,825,000 (April 24, 2001 memo from the Oakland Financial Services Agency to Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb. Even in a declining real estate market, it’s hard to imagine the value of the property plummeting $138.2 million in 17 years. 

If this were to go through, somebody would be set to make a sweet profit on the deal, and it wouldn’t be the residents and taxpayers of Oakland. 

The Scotlan Convention Center is the downtown facility currently used for Oakland’s conventions and major gatherings, and is located in the same structure as the Oakland City Center Marriott. CMI Group purchased the Marriott in 2007—the latest in a string of owners who have tried to make that location—and manages the Scotlan Convention Center on behalf of the city. Presumably, the proposed sale of the Scotlan Center would be to CMI, presuming they could find the capital to do so. But if that were done, Oakland would still need a convention center—every “world class city” does—and so, presumably, we would turn around and rent the Scotlan space back from CMI whenever we needed it. That would be the equivalent of selling one’s house to solve an immediate debt problem, and then renting the house from the person you sold it to. The long-term debt problem is not solved, and you have incurred a new monthly obligation on top of the previous monthly obligations you have been struggling to meet. In addition, the city would lose whatever revenue we are currently getting from renting out the Scotlan Center for trade shows and other non-city events. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, that amounts to $14 million in annual revenue for the city. 

I’m no city or budget economist, but how this particular proposal makes fiscal sense is beyond me. 

Now to the Kaiser Convention Center, the grand old white-façade building that sits across the 12th Street-14th Street roadway from the western edge of Lake Merritt. This was Oakland’s convention center beginning in 1915, operating under the name Oakland Auditorium, until the Scotlan facility replaced it in 1983. For the next 20 years, the Kaiser Center served as an entertainment, sports, and community events venue. It was closed in 2006 by the Jerry Brown administration, with the approval of the City Council, supposedly because its $400,000 per year operating expense could not be supported while the city was facing a two year, $32 million budget deficit.  

There were some attempts made to reopen the Kaiser Center with a new operating mandate, as a world trade center, as part of an entertainment complex that would include housing the Peralta Community College District’s Performing Arts Department, and as part of the abortive plan by the east coast developers to purchase the Oakland Unified School District’s Paul Robeson Administration Building. But those deals fell through, and the Kaiser Center has sat forlorn, lonely, unoccupied, and unused across from Lake Merritt for the last three and a half years. 

In May of 2005, I wrote an article giving several reasons why closing the Kaiser Convention Center was a mistake, including the following: “Closing the Kaiser Convention Center on the first of January also appears a little shortsighted, considering what’s about to happen along the Lake Merritt Channel between Lake Merritt proper and the estuary. As all observers of recent Oakland history know, the channel is due to be opened up with money approved by Oakland voters three years ago in the water bond Measure DD. In that same measure, Oaklanders voted to do away with that highway-like 12th Street-14th Street bypass between the lake and the convention center. Nobody at the present knows what the new configuration will look like, except that when it is finished, the Kaiser Convention Center will be accessible by pedestrian traffic from both Lake Merritt and lower 14th Street. Presumably Mr. Brown does not just want to close the center down, but he wants to sell it—either as a building intact, or for its land—to some willing developer, waiting in the wings. But waiting to sell the Kaiser after the Lake Merritt Channel renovations are actually done would make it a far more valuable property. Someone whose interests were in making more money for Oakland would wait. Of course, someone who wants to get a better deal for a developer would rush the sale through early. I’m not making any accusations about Mr. Brown, or anyone else. I’m just passing out observations.” 

With the Measure DD work in the western Lake Merritt area just beginning, that is as true today as it was in late 2005. 

At Tuesday’s special council meeting, two Oakland City Councilmembers threw cold water on the entire building sale idea. Brooks, who released the $149 million figure as the value of the two buildings, added that overall, the budget balancing proposals suggested by the Budget Office “aren’t viable for the solvency of the city.” And Council Finance Committee Chair Jean Quan said that “because of legal difficulties, the sale of the assets is probably not realistic.” 

But some Councilmembers bit on portions of the building sale idea. 

Councilmembers Nancy Nadel and Pat Kernighan opposed the sale of the Kaiser building, but said they would not be opposed to the sale of the Scotlan Center. And Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan and Ignacio De La Fuente suggested that the sale of the Kaiser Center might be feasible if it went to a buyer who, according to Kaplan, promised to preserve the current public cultural use of the building. 

No immediate action was taken on the budget proposals, but Ms. Quan suggested that a vote might be taken by the council in December or January. 

If any portion of the proposed convention center building sales goes through, it would be the second time in less than a decade that Oakland sold away what citizens had thought to be core civic property. In 2001 and ‘02, the Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners under former Mayor Jerry Brown sold off the heart of publicly-owned Jack London Square to private developers, including the properties holding the Barnes & Noble Bookstore and what was then the popular Spaghetti Factory restaurant. Mr. Brown was interested in getting on the good side of developer interests in order to help finance his successful drive for the position of California attorney general, and potentially to return to the office of California governor. 

But one wonders whose interests the proposed sale of the Kaiser Convention Center and the Scotlan Oakland Convention Center serve? As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said in an entirely different context, this proposed building sale is a bad idea. 

A year after Barack Obama won the presidential election, it’s apparent the change he promised isn’t going to come easy. The Nov. 3 election results indicate a rising level of discontent with Obama and Democrats, in general. Confronted by massive problems, Washington is moving at a glacial pace. What should be done to quicken the tempo, to make change happen more rapidly? 

It’s tempting to say that America is burning while Congress dithers; to suggest that while the United States is beset by enormous challenges—the economy, healthcare, global climate change, the war in Afghanistan, to mention only a few—many senators and representatives don’t seem to get it. The arduous path of healthcare reform indicates how difficult it is to move significant legislation through Congress. And, unfortunately, the Senate seems to be able to only tackle one big bill at a time, so there is a rapidly growing queue of necessary legislation: things that should be done, but have an uncertain outcome. 

While it’s convenient to blame everything on Congress, particularly those senators—mostly Republicans—who object to change and drag their feet on all significant legislation, the problem goes deeper. There are four parts of the problem: the president, Congress, Washington culture, and the American people. But the buck has to stop somewhere and that’s on Obama’s desk. 

While the president’s approval ratings have stayed relatively constant over the past few months—53 percent of Americans think he’s doing a good job and 41 percent disagree—there’s been a rising level of concern about his decision-making style. The latest Gallup Poll indicated that 72 percent of respondents felt that Obama “is willing to make hard decisions” and 66 percent regarded him as “a strong and decisive leader.” Nonetheless, there was a marked difference depending upon affiliation: 90 percent of Democrats regarded him as “a strong and decisive leader,” while only 42 percent of Republicans shared this perception. And Obama’s level of support has dropped among Independents. 

Meanwhile, in the blogosphere, there is increasing discontent with both Obama’s style and his priorities. Recently, Paul Krugman observed, “President Obama came into office with a strong mandate and proclaimed the need to take bold action on the economy. His actual actions, however, were cautious rather than bold. They were enough to pull the economy back from the brink, but not enough to bring unemployment down.” A fellow New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert wrote: “More and more Americans are questioning [Obama’s] priorities, including millions who went to the mat for him in last year’s election. The biggest issue by far for most Americans is employment.” 

Both Krugman and Herbert imply Obama should deemphasize healthcare—let it take however long it takes to wend its way through Congress—and focus exclusively on the economy. That seems impractical; if Obama doesn’t push healthcare legislation it is likely to flounder and that would spell catastrophe for Democratic hopes in the mid-term elections and Obama’s presidency, in general. On the other hand, the current situation finds Obama with three number one priorities: employment, healthcare, and Afghanistan. That’s not a good situation. 

By year end, the president needs to make a decision about Afghanistan, get Congress to pass healthcare reform, and then focus on the economy. 

Those who know Obama say his natural inclination is to build consensus, but when his back is against the wall he can stiffen his spine and adopt a more directive style. That happened during his 2008 Presidential campaign and that’s what’s called for now. 

An important aspect of Obama’s mandate was changing Washington’s “business as usual” ethos. He’s tried to work with Republicans and, in general, to work within the Washington culture. Obviously, that hasn’t worked. Republicans haven’t made any effort to meet Obama halfway and Washington insiders are stuck in the dysfunctional pattern adopted during the Reagan era. Meanwhile, America’s problems have grown more severe and Americans more depressed. 

Americans have short memories. When voters go to the polls on Nov. 2, 2010, they will look at the economy and ask themselves: Am I better off since Barack Obama became president? If their answer is no, they are going to punish Democrats. Obama has 12 months to get it together. 

Change starts at the top. The tone in Washington has to change. The sense of urgency has to change. The president’s style has to change. 

Democrats have the votes to pass a job-creation bill, healthcare reform, changes to the US financial system, and other essential legislation. They must do this even if it means abandoning the Senate’s precious cloture policy. The United States is in crisis mode. The president must adopt a more forceful manner. Now is the time for Obama to get tough. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.

The birds continue to surprise us. We think we know their routines, their travel schedules, and then someone comes up with evidence that at least five North American species—yellow-billed cuckoo, Cassin’s vireo, yellow-breasted chat, and hooded and orchard orioles—have been leading double lives. These birds, according to newly published research by Sievert Rohwer at the University of Washington, rear one brood in the United States, then fly to western Mexico and produce a second brood. Some, at least, continue on to South American wintering grounds. This is a bit like learning that your Uncle Henry, the Amtrak conductor, has a second family at the end of his route in Sacramento. 

Such behavior, which has been called “itinerant breeding,” had been thought to be rare in birds. It has only been documented in a few species, like the European quail, the dotterel, and the notorious red-billed quelea of Africa. Phainopeplas may be itinerant breeders, but the jury still seems to be out on that one. It’s known that these odd crested mistletoe-eating birds breed in late winter in the Sonora and Colorado deserts, then in spring in the California foothills. Whether the desert phainopeplas fly north to nest again has not been determined. 

More typical neotropical migrant birds breed just once (or twice, if the season is unusually favorable), then head south. Until Rohwer’s field studies in Baja California Sur and Sinaloa, no one suspected that some of them were stopping for a second nesting bout along the way. 

There’s no question that the birds Rohwer and his colleagues observed in Mexico over three consecutive summers were nesting. “We found many active nests for orchard orioles and hooded orioles, and males of all five species were singing and defending territories or guarding females,” they write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Other males that were collected had enlarged gonads, indicative of breeding condition. The females had dry and featherless brood patches, suggesting that they had already nested earlier in the year. 

How did they know the birds weren’t Mexican residents? One species, the Cassin’s vireo, had not previously been known to nest on the Sinaloan coast. Besides that, there’s persuasive biochemical evidence. Stable isotopes—how did we ever manage without them?  

Biologists have learned that birds accumulate variant forms of hydrogen (the isotope deuterium), carbon, and nitrogen in their feathers and flesh. The ratio of deuterium to plain old hydrogen varies by latitude and can indicate how far north the bird was when its tissues grew. By that criterion, many of the migrants caught in the act in Sinaloa had come from farther north. One subtle refinement: the muscle tissue that had powered their migratory flight had northern deuterium signatures, but their reproductive tissues had been built in Mexico.  

The northern and southern nesting habitats of these double-breeding birds can be radically different. In California, what’s left of the yellow-billed cuckoo population nests in lush riparian growth. In Sinaloa, cuckoos nest in coastal thorn forest. Raising a second brood in Mexico during the monsoon season at a time when dry summer conditions are limiting potential insect prey in the north may be a form of bet-hedging. That has major conservation implications for both the cuckoo and the yellow-breasted chat, since the Mexican thorn forest is being converted to industrial farmland: both northern and southern breeding environments need to be protected or restored. 

There’s plenty of room for follow-up studies here. Do double-breeding migrants behave differently in Mexico? Phainopeplas—assuming we’re talking about the same phainopeplas—are fiercely territorial when they nest in the desert, but sociable, even semi-colonial in the California hills. It may be a matter of how food resources, berries in this instance, are distributed. The orioles, chats, vireos and cuckoos may go through comparable behavioral changes.  

We don’t know whether pairs of these birds migrate and rear a new brood together, or whether they find new partners for the southern season. We don’t know whether or how nest spacing, clutch size, or hatchling survival differs between the two nesting habitats. We don’t know what predators and nest parasites the birds encounter in Mexico. We don’t know when or where double-breeding birds undergo their annual molt. 

And the mysteries of migration are only compounded by the discovery. “How do the offspring of cuckoos and orioles hatched in eastern North America orient southwest in their migration, whereas offspring hatched from the same parents in west Mexico orient southeast in their migration toward a presumably common winter range?” ask Rohwer and his co-authors. How indeed? Remember that first-year neotropical migrants travel on their own, without parental guidance. Their itinerary must be innate. But how can the same parental genes produce one set of offspring programmed to travel in one direction and a second set programmed for the opposite direction? And how do the Mexican hatchlings get back to their parents’ northern starting point? 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

David Berkeley at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Ray Cepeda Latin Jazz at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Kickin’ The Mule at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Montuno Swing at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Trio of Doom at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

THURSDAY, NOV. 26 

Happy Thanksgiving 

FRIDAY, NOV. 27 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Fat Pig” through Dec. 13, at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $15-$55. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater “Sparkle: The Stage Play” Thurs.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through Dec. 20. Tickets are $10-$45. 652-2120. 

Berkeley Rep “Tiny Kushner” Short plays by Tony Kushner at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, through Nov. 29. Tickets are $33-$71. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Heretic’s Potentially Offensive Comedy (2) Hour(s)” Featuring the work of Benjamin Garcia, Erin Phillips and writer/director Clay Rosenthal, at 8 p.m. at The Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets at the door are $15. 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Lucky Stiff” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Dec. 6, at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $18, $11 for 16 and under. 524-9132. www.cct.org 

Impact Theatre “Large Animal Games” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 12. Tickets are $12-$20. impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “The Rocky Horror Show” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, and runs through Dec. 12. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Bundles, Webs, Remains” work by Carol Lee Shanks. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Garage Gallery, 3110 Wheeler. Exhibition continues Sat. and Sun. from 1 to 5 p.m. to Dec. 13. www.berkeleyoutlet.com 

“Holidayland” A joint exhibition at The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave., Oakland and Blankspace, 6608 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Reception at 6 p.m. Exhibitions run to Dec. 20. www.thecompoundgalley.com, www.balckspacegallery.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Golden Gate Boys Choir Outdoor Holiday Performance at 4 p.m. at Alameda Town Center, Otis Drive, Alameda. Free. www.ggbc.org 

Kelly Park Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Trio Garufa, Argentine Tango at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Maria Muldaur’s Garden of Joy Jug Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Blind, Commisure, Orchestra of Antlers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Fender Cronin and guests at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

The P-PL at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Igor & The Red Elvises at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $15, available through ticketweb.com  

Joshi’z 3 at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 28 

CHILDREN  

The Snow Queen Puppet Show Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 and 4 p.m. at at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 296-4433.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Metaphysical Abstraction” Closing party with documentary film on Agnes Martin at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $5, free for BAC members. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“What’s Cooking” Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Potters Guild, 731 Jones St. at 4th St. to Dec. 24. 524-7031. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Curl reads from “For All the People: Uncovering th Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America” at 6 p.m. at Fig Tree Gallery, 2599 8th St., Studio #42, in the Sawtooth Building. 540-7843. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kenney Washington & Michael O’Neill Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. East Coast Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sonic Safari Swing at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Fred Randolf Jazz at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Michael Shiono and friends at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Wave Array, James Winton Band at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Steve Carter Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 29 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Aurora Theatre Company Script Club Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” 7:30 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

John Curl reads from “For All the People: Uncovering th Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America” at 3 p.m. at Book Zoo, 6395 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 654-2665. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Erik Jekabson & Bay Area Composers’ Big Band at 7 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Family Square Dance with Pearson’s Pork Pies at 3 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mahealani Uchiyama, world, Afro-Polynesian at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

An Irish Christmas in America at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, NOV. 30 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Subterranean Shakespeare “Twelfth Night” staged reading at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Tickets are $8. 276-3871. 

Jeffrey Haas reads from his new book, “The Assassination of fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther” at 7 p.m. at Books, Inc., 1760 Fourth St.  

“Japanese Fairy Tales: Powerful Unattainable Woman” with author Marie Mockett on her new novel “Picking Bones From Ash” at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $5. 644-2967. 

.Poetry Express theme night on “poems about why you write poems” at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Classical at the Freight at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $8.50-$9.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

TUESDAY, DEC. 1 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Andrew Carierre & the Zydeco and Cajun Allstars at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/Zydeco dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Issa at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2 

CHILDREN 

Annie Barrows, author of the Ivy & Bean series, at 4:30 p.m. at Black Pine Circle School library, 2027 7th St. Free. www.blackpinecircle.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley City College Digital Art Club recent work on display at La Peña Cultural Center, through Jan. 31. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Tree of Life” Works by students of the Walden Center and School at Addison Windows Gallery. A sidewalk opening reception from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 2018 Addison St. 981-7533. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with music for the Javanese and Balinese Gamelan at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Los Cenzontles Feliz Navidad concert at noon at 12th and Broadway, Oakland.  

Body Music Festival Opening Party at 8 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10.www.crosspulse.com  

Matt Eakle Band at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Zabava at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Balkan dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Sage Jazz Trio at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Orquestra Universal at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Tin Hat, chamber folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

THURSDAY, DEC. 3 

CHILDREN 

”The Nutcracker” Children’s dance program at 6:30 p.m. at Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. For ages 3 and up. 524-3043. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Pairings” Photographs, photograms, polaroids and paintings by Jim Doukas. Artist talk at 7:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. 465-8928. 

“Gratitude Altar Show” opens at 7 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 Twenty-fifth St., Oakland. Exhibition open sat. from 2 to 5 p.m. to Jan. 9. oakopolis@gmail.com 

FILM 

“La Danse: Le Ballet de l’Opera de Paris” Frederick Wiseman's latest documentary at 7 p.m. at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave. at Ashby. Tickets are $20-$50. Benefits the Parachute Fund which provides grants to members of the Bay Area dance community facing HIV/AIDS or other life-threatening illnesses. 415-920-9181. www.dancersgroup.org/benefit.php 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Body Music Festival Lecture Demonstration with Braulio Berrera, Kenny Muhammad, Fatima Moreno Gonzalez and others at 8 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $12. www.crosspulse.com  

Canyon Sam reads from “Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History” at 7 p.m. at Books Inc. 1760 4th St. 525-7777. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tammy Hall “Jazz at Noon” at 12:15 p.m. at the Art & Music room, 5th flr., Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck. Free. 981-6241. 

Gerardo Balestrieri and members of The Fishtank Ensemble at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mike Vax Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Women Jam at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995.  

The Flux, Eaglehead at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

FRIDAY, DEC. 4 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Fat Pig” through Dec. 13, at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $15-$55. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater “Sparkle: The Stage Play” Thurs.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through Dec. 20. Tickets are $10-$45. 652-2120. 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Lucky Stiff” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Dec. 6, at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $18, $11 for 16 and under. 524-9132. www.cct.org 

Impact Theatre “Large Animal Games” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 12. Tickets are $12-$20. impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “The Rocky Horror Show” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, and runs through Dec. 12. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Shotgun Players “The Threepenny Opera” Thurs.-sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Jan. 17. Tickets are $18-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBTITIONS 

“New Images of Man and Woman” Curated by Peter Selz and Cameron Jackson. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Alphonse Berber Gallery, 2546 Bancroft Way. Exhibit runs to Jan. 30. info@alphonseberber.com 

“Light on Lake Merritt” Photographs by Laura Sutta. Artist’s reception at 5 p.m. at Alameda County Law Library, 125 Twelfth St., Oakland. 208-4830. www.acgov.org/law 

“Elemental: New Work at Mercury 20” an overview of recent painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, drawing and mixed media by East Bay artists. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave., at Broadway, Oakland. www.mercurytwenty.com 

“The Maker Show” a sampling of Makers from the Maker Faire. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, 480 23rd St Oakland. 415-577-7537. www.chandracerrito.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Frederick Hertz talks about “Making It Legal: A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage, Domestic Partnership and Civil Unions” at 7 p.m. at at Books Inc., 1760 4th St. 525-7777. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sacred & Profane “Spain and the New World: A Holiday Concert” at 8 p.m at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft. Tickets are $15-$20. www.sacredprofane.org 

Advent Lessons and Carols at 6 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 849-8239. 

Sally Light, mezzo-soprano, and Miles Graber, pianist, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Suggested donation is $20, but no one will be turned away. 525-1716. 

Sarah Eden Davis & All-Star Band at 8 p.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $15-$20. 486-8700. 

7 Potencias, Afro-Cuban, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $20-$22. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Bossa Five-O at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

WomenGig@Trieste featuring The Jill Knight Trio and poet Dian Sousa at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. Suggested donation $10-$15. 548-5198. www.womengig.com 

Forro Barzuca, Samba de Raiz, Brazilian, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Body Music Festival Concert at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761.  

Jean White and Friends at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Eric Mcfadden Trio , Sistas in the Pit at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

The Aggrolites, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $14. 548-1159.  

Soul Burners at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Tres Mojo at 7:30 at Art House Gallery, 2905 Shattuck Ave. Donation $5-$10. 482-3336. 

SATURDAY, DEC. 5 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Gary Lapow at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Susan Gal talks about “Night Lights” the story of a child’s evening routine through all of the different kinds of lights that shine in the night at 11 a.m. at Books Inc., 1760 4th St. 525-7777. 

“Here is the Arctic Winter” with author Madeline Dunphy at 1 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 538 9th St., Oakland. Free. 465-8770.  

The Snow Queen Puppet Show Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 and 4 p.m. at at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 296-4433.  

Andy Z Music Concert at 11 a.m. at Studio Grow, 1235 10th St. Cost is $9. 526-9888. 

THEATER 

Stone Soup Improv Comedy at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $7-$10. www.stonesoupimprov.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

R. Pocekay, Henry Epstein and Raul Jorcino, paintings. Opening reception Dec. 5 at 5 p.m. at Deco Art, 5495 C. Claremont Ave., Oakland. 593-4575 

FILM 

“Power Trip - Theatrically Berkeley” on the green movement in Berkeley at 7 p.m. at Brkeley Fellowship of Unitarian universalists, 1924 Cedar St. http://powertripberkeley.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Gene Luen Yang discusses his graphic novels “American Born Chinese” and “Eternal Smile” at 3 p.m. Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading from 3 to 5 pm. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street. 527-9905. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus and Otto Voci “Baby It’s Cold Outside” at 7:30 p.m. at Lakeshore Baptist Church, Oakland. 1-800-706-2389. www.oebgmc.org, www.BrownPaperTickets.com  

Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir Holiday Concert at 7:30 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$40. 465-6400. www.oigc.org 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Gloria! A Holiday Celebration” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $25 and up. 415-392-4400. www.cityboxoffice.com 

Anna Maria Mendieta Candlelight Christmas concert for harp and percussion at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. 

Venezuelan Music Project “Gaitas 2009” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $16. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Jazz Express at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Musical Night in Africa with Kotoja, Bab Ken & West African highlife Band, Afro-beat Connexion and Nigerian Brothers at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Tara Linda, accordionist at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo A., El Cerrito. 

Saturday Afternoon Gallery Acoustic, a songwriters open mic, with Susan Newman and Eliza Shefler, at 2 p.m. at Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru at Lincoln, Ave., Alameda. 523-6957. www.frankbettecenter.org 

Sotaque Baiano at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Karla Bonoff at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Strange Angel Blues Band at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

The China Cats, Pat Nevins at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Marcus Shelby Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SUNDAY, DEC. 6 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley City College Digital Art Club Opening reception for recent work at 3 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Exhibit runs through Jan. 31. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

PEN Oakland 19th Annual Josephine Miles Literary Awards at 3 p.m. at at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Egyptology Lecture “The Tale of Two Tombs: Field Work in the Theban Necropolis, and New Discoveries in the Nile Delta, Site of Ancient Mendes” with Drs. Susan and Donald Redford, Pennsylvania State University, at 1:30 p.m. at Barrows Hall, Room 20, Barrow Lane and Bancroft Way, UC campus. 415-664-4767. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco Mandolin Orchestra at 4 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Donation $10-$15. www.st-albans-albany.org 

The Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus and Otto Voci “Baby It’s Cold Outside” at 5 p.m. at Lakeshore Baptist Church, Oakland. 1-800-706-2389. www.oebgmc.org, www.BrownPaperTickets.com  

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra “Gloria! A Holiday Celebration” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way). Tickets are $25 and up. 415-392-4400. www.cityboxoffice.com 

Canto Con Vivo “Tis the Season” at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 27th and Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$40. www.cantoconvico.org 

Symphonic Wind Ensemble at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Free. The Pacific Alumni Association and University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music reception at 1:30 p.m. Cost for reception is $10. RSVP for reception to 866-575-7229. 

Soli Deo Gloria with Orchestra Gloria “Songs of Nativity” at 3:30 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church, 1700 Santa Clara, Alameda. Tickets are $20-$25. Students grades K-8, free. 888-SDG-SONG. www.sdgloria.org 

“Messiah Sing in Baroque Style” at 6 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Suggested donation $10-$15, no one turned away. 525-0302. www.uucb.org 

Trombonga at 1 p.m. outside Mrs. Dalloway’s, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

t 5 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Tickets are $$5-$15. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Bomba y Plena Afro-Puerto Rican rhythms, song and dance at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Eva Scow & Ami Molinelli Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Ray Cepeda Latin Jazz at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Israeli Folkdance with Allen King at 1:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Cris Williamson at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ava Bird and Friends A shakti soulstice celebration at 7 p.m. at 2905 Shattuck Ave. Donation $10. 

Maria Muldaur, “interpreter of Americana music since long before that genre even had a name,” and an unusual highlight, An Irish Christmas in America, grace the Freight and Salvage Coffee House this Friday and Sunday at their new downtown location on Addison Street. 

“Maria will be hawking her new CD with the same title as her show,” said Lisa Manning of The Freight, commenting on Friday’s show of Maria Muldaur and Her Garden of Joy Jug Band, a true reunion of where the Bay Area singer came from, at least into popular awareness.   

The album includes appearances by John Sebastian and David Grisman—both members of the Even Dozen Jug Band, which Maria joined at the behest of blues singer Victoria Spivey, who recorded the group on her own label in ’60s New York. Other favorites on the record include Taj Mahal, Berkeley fiddler extraordinaire Suzy Thompson and the late Fritz Richmond. 

Richmond was a jug and washtub bass player with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, the Boston-based recording group Maria joined after the Even Dozen folded. (As a teenaged groundsworker, this writer recalls, with exhilaration, Maria’s performance of her first hit, “I’m a Woman,” both campy and impassioned, with the Jug Band on Mt. Tamalpais at the Magic Mountain Festival in 1967.)  

After a stint as a duo act with her then-husband Geoff (from Kweskin’s Jug Band), Maria put out her famed platinum hit, “Midnight at the Oasis,” going on to immerse herself in roots music, recording duets with Dr. John, and garnering a nomination for the W. C. Handy Award.  

Her 1999 “Meet Me Where They Play the Blues,” featured the last recorded appearance of the great (and longtime East Bay resident) crooner-pianist, Charles Brown.  

For her show, Maria will be joined by her new discovery, also on the album, ragtime guitarist Kit Stovepipe, the Gallus Brothers, Devin Champlin and Lucas Hicks from the Crow Quill Night Owls. In addition, there’ll be some new tunes penned especially by Dan Hicks of Hot Licks notoriety. 

In “a nice kickoff for the holidays,” according to Manning, Sunday’s An Irish Christmas in America will feature Sligo fiddler Oisin MacDiarnada and bodhian player Tristan Rosenstock from Teada, Kerry singer and accordionist Seamus Begley, young dancer Brian Cunningham, harper Grinne Hambly and uilleann bagpiper Tommy Martin.  

“It’s their third year doing this,” said Manning, “and it’s charming and well put together, with storytelling and different kinds of entertainment between, singing, dancing and playing. A wide array of entertainment, truly something for all ages. I’m encouraging my parents to come. With the liveliness of the music and the mixture of the show, kids can hang with it. It’s both interactive and intimate. It’s like an Irish village shares its holiday with you. Some of the lore, like Wren Boys at the New Year, was news to me.” 

A CD of An Irish Christmas in America is available at the show. 

Maria Muldaur’s  

Garden of Joy Jug Band 

8 p.m. Friday 

$18.50–$19.50 

An Irish Christmas in America 

8 p.m. Sunday 

$20.50–$21.50 

Freight and Salvage, 2020 Addison St. 

548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org. 

Wheeling your decrepit uncle from Atlantic City through Monte Carlo for one last fling, no matter how venal the motive (like garnering an inheritance in seven figures that will otherwise—literally—go to the dogs) is one thing. But if it’s your never-before-met old uncle, a Jersey gangster —your never-before-met late Jersey gangster uncle —in that wheelchair, rolling around for a week in the clubs and casinos ... 

What you have then is Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ 1988 musical comedy, Lucky Stiff, now playing to appreciative—guffawing, even—audiences at Contra Costa Civic Theater. 

With Amy Nielson’s stage direction and Sierra Dee leading the trio onstage from the keyboard (with Ted Gould, bass; Poh Soon Teng, drums and percussion), the cast of 12 puts on a tight, not to say constricted, show. As is appropriate to this style of parody—or burlesque—musical, it’s the little things that count, and that’s what the show aims for. 

John Brown and Sharon Rietnick, a bright new face, are just right as the unlikely romantic leads: an English former shoe salesman, worried by the dogs in his London rooming house, and Annabel Glick of the Universal Dog Home, shadowing him to make sure he keeps his uncle’s wishes to the letter (or he’ll forfeit a few mil to the hounds). 

But there are others, maybe with only a moment of the audience’s undivided attention: Steve Yates as Luigi Gaudi, who tries to force himself on shoe salesman-“caregiver” Harry as a guide, who all but stops the show with a “confession” that borders on pure exposition; or Brian Dauglash, who paddles vigorously in the waters of a Monte Carlo nightclub as a comic emcee; or Kerry Chapman as Rita, purblind mistress to Uncle Anthony, packing the pistol she nearsightedly shot the old gang- 

ster with, all the way to Monte Carlo  

to claim the inherited loot. Or Eric Neiman as Vinnie, Rita’s optometrist brother, unwittingly along for the ride. Or Joe Fitzgerald in the most deadpan role ever ...  

Whether as principals, characters appearing for a moment to supply color, or all together as ensemble, it’s a sharp troupe onstage, gliding through one set-up after another, Eugene De Christopher’s set, Adam Fry’s lighting and Travis Rexroat’s sound design underpinning the fluidity. The costumes by Jenine Hillaire, with the director’s collaboration, are occasionally jokes by themselves, not just props for the same. 

Well into the action, Harry has a dream, a nightmare-become-production number, “Welcome Back, Mr. Witherspoon,” in which all the people in his life appear, snouted and muzzled like dogs—the dogs he hates, from his rooming house. 

Less penetrating are the moments when Harry is winning, for the first time in his life, at the tables, with his uncle’s roulette system. Or drinking champagne, arms locked with Dominique, the chanteuse, who sings “And now you’re speaking French.” 

Lucky Stiff can be a very funny romp, and the CCCT folks—all of them, onstage and off—do their best to carry you with them onto the playing fields of a contemporary burlesque of musical comedy, one which reaffirms the norm at its best with funny, exuberant action.  

No wonder the lyric it ends on: “It’s good to be alive!” 

Lucky Stiff 

Presented by Contra Costa Civic Theatre at 8 p.m. Friday–Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 6 at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. $11–$18.  

524-9132. www.cct.org.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of two holiday event roundups. The second will appear in the Dec. 10 edition. 

On the brink of The Holidays—and many feel a bit of vertigo—there is, as in past years, a dazzling array of both traditional and up-to-date ways to celebrate, or distract yourself, all around the East Bay and throughout the Bay Area.  

Starting with the ultra-traditional, even revivalistic, real Yuletide stuff, MusicSources (1000 The Alameda, at Marin) has announced its early music supergroup-in-residence, the remarkable quartet Canconier, will perform “Now Is Yool Coming,” festive music of the Middle Ages, 7:30 p. m. Fri., Dec. 16. For ticket info: 528-1685; www.musicsources.org.  

And what would a Bay Area holiday season be without The Revels, the annual celebration in music, song, dance and pageantry of the Winter Solstice, with the audience joining in song and a dance, this year featuring the folklore of 19th-century Bavaria, with Berkeley’s Robert Sicular as Sankt Nikolaus, Friday, Saturday and Sunday matinees and evenings, Dec. 11-20, at the Scottish Rite Theater on Lakeside Drive, by Lake Merritt, Oakland. $12-$50. 452-8000; www.calrevels.org. 

Another, non-European Solstice celebration, Return of the Sun, features Indian, Afro-Peruvian, Mayan and Korean dance with Brenda Wong Aoki’s storytelling, in Noh and Kyogen styles of theater movement, appropriately of the Shinto myth that’s claimed as the origin of Japanese performing arts, the tale of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, wooed from hiding to fill the dark earth with light. Accompanied by musicians led by Mark Izu, Asian American jazz pioneer. 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Sat. Dec. 5, San Francisco Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. (at Presidio Ave.), San Francisco. $15–$25. 415-292-1233; www.jccsf.org. 

And another perspective on characters familiar to many in biblical story, Moses and the Shepherd, from the great sufi poet Rumi’s Masnavi, staged with Persian and contemporary music, with an accomplished reciter of the Quran in the title role, will be performed at 6 p. m. Dec. 6 at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, a beautiful century-old Moorish-style building at 1433 Madison, near the Main Library in downtown Oakland. $10. 

Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir uplifts the spirit with their annual show of gospel and spirituals, under the direction of Terrance Kelly, 7:30 p.m., Dec. 5, at the Paramount Theatre on Broadway (near 19th St.), Oakland. $10–$40.  

Also at the Paramount, the annual Let Us Break Bread Together, which brings together the Oakland East Bay Symphony, Michael Morgan conducting, with the Oakland Symphony Chorus, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Mt. Eden High School Choir and klezmer band Kugelplex. $15–$40.  

One more at the Paramount—and cause for holiday rejoicing for fans of ballet: despite Ronn Guidi’s departure, 28 dancers from the Oakland Ballet Co. and Peninsula Ballet Theatre will join forces to dance Carlos Carvajal’s acclaimed version of the holiday classic The Nutcracker to Tchaikovsky’s music on the choreography’s 15th anniversary. Four performances, including matinees, Dec. 24-27. Tickets: $11.25–$50. Paramount Box Office: www. paramounttheatre.org. 

An old holiday treat for the family was watching The Wizard of Oz on TV. Better yet, Berkeley Playhouse has it onstage through Dec. 6 at the Julia Morgan Center, 2640 College Ave. $19–$33. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. 

An unusual holiday fair, Chaat & Chats, with authors offering autographed books and artists with their work, will be at Taste of Himalayas Restaurant, 1700 Shattuck (at Virginia) 11:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., Dec. 5. www.chaatandchats.com. 

Of course, it only works when you know what you need,” smiles lingerie salesman Jimmy (Jai Sahai), as his sheer, firetruck red wares sparkle in their closet—and will throughout the play. 

“My attitude is this,” explains Valerie (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong), a forlorn African-American accounts-payable clerk, hefting a safari rifle with scope, “if you take the time to really kill something, you want to do it right.”  

Factor in Rose (Elissa Dunn), who tells her best friend Nicole (Cindy Im) about bringing her “escort” to a bullfight (Roy Landaverde as Miguel) on her vacation to Spain back home with her (“But he doesn’t speak English!” Nicole objects, to which Rose sighs, “Isn’t it amazing?”), followed by Nicole’s serial dreams of a shirtless matador Miguel with herself as the bull—and Alicia (Marissa Keltie), a young woman with a grand manner and a big rock she keeps flashing on her left hand, who discovers to her dismay what her “perfect” fiance Stan (Timothy Redmond) wears underneath when she wants him to slip on the polo shirt she bought, so he can join Daddy at the country club (“I never would’ve guessed that’s where you got your swagger!” she later tells him) ... 

And you have the human ingredients for Impact Theatre’s production of their third Steve Yockey (playwright-in-residence at Marin Theatre Company) play, Large Animal Games, a co-premiere with Dad’s Garage Theatre in Atlanta, directed by Impact artistic director Melissa Hillman. 

There are lots of clever plays out there—or plays trying to be clever, even profound—that rehash sitcom material, or insert a thoughtful moment in same, most of them a little bit less theatrical than a rerun of “Friends” (often directed, after all, by veterans of The Committee and other venerable comic theaters), merely performed live, apparently without canned laughter. 

But Large Animal Games is a little bit different—and a lot more enjoyable—than these two-dimensional hybrids. Employing the live stage and its conceits, it expands on an amusing roommate/friend/fiance milieu situation, a pretty typical post-adolescent “aha!” fest, and graces it with a touch of ambiguity, a little fantasy, tweaking the plot and dialogue, letting both—and the actors—stretch a little. 

As Valerie tells the audience how her “be-in-charge” safari gets derailed by an encounter in Kenya with a dewy-eyed gazelle, Jimmy the ubiquitous lingerie salesman breezes into her evocation, helpful as ever, cheerfully intoning “Everybody needs something.” When Valerie protests “Get out of my grassland! You’re ruining my vacation!” he mildly replies, “Is it a grassland? I think it’s a savannah.”  

The cast is right; it’s directed with a light enough touch, and the material is light and smart, up to date—very much in the spirit of Impact’s mission to entertain. 

Large Animal Games 

Presented by Impact Theatre at 8 p.m.  

Thursday–Saturday through Dec. 12  

at La Val’s Subterranean,  

1834 Euclid Ave. $12-$20.  

www.impactheatre.com.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bird Walk at Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the large spherical cage near Nature Center at Perkins and Bellevue. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

“In Grave Danger of Falling Food” A documentary about permaculture at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. 548-9840. 

THURSDAY, NOV. 26 

Give Thanks and Honor the Native Community Vegetarian pot-luck from 6 to 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Free Thanksgiving Meal from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Cafe Gratitude, 1730 Shattuck. www.cafegratitude.com 

Free Community Thanksgiving Dinner noon to 2 p.m., Interfaith service at 11:30 a.m., at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., Point Richmond. 236-0527. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 27 

After Thanksgiving Docent Guided Garden Tour Learn about California native plants in a beautiful, naturalistic 10-acre setting at 2 p.m. at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Regional Park, Wildcat Canyon Road and South Park Drive. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Peace Corps Open House Learn about serving in the Peace Corps from noon to 2 pm, 1301 Clay St., North Tower 5th Floor Conference Room, Oakland. Please bring picture ID because you will need to pass through security. RSVP 452-8442 or SFevents@peacecorps.gov  

Houdini Magic Weekend at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Fri.-Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $10-$15. 932-8966. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Stand With Us Stand for Peace Stand with Israel vigil every Friday from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. www.sfvoiceforisrael.org 

SATURDAY, NOV. 28 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Working with Wool Watch as the spinning wheel turns wool into yarn, try a drop spindle, and create a felted ornament to take home, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

Berkeley Artisans Open Studios Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For map see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Womyn of Color Arts and Crafts Show, Sat. and Sun. from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $14-$16. 849-2568.  

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, NOV. 29 

Fireside Storytime Warm yourself by the fire and sip hot cocoa while listening to nature stories, at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

The Buzz About Bees Learn the natural, cultural and cuinary sides of honey, at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

“Microcosmos” A documentary on bugs for the whole family, at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 528-2261. 

A Woman’s Voice “An Examination of Choice: Who has it —who doesn’t — and the implications of that difference” with Dr. Robin Lakoff, Prof., Dept. of Linguistics, UCB, at 4 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street at Arch. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2967. www.hillsideclub.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. at 2 p.m. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Responding from the Heart”at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, NOV. 30 

“A Single Woman” A documentary about Jeannette Rankin, the first U.S. Congresswoman, at 7 p.m. at BFUU, 1924 Cedar. Cost is $5-$10. 841-4824. 

East Bay Track Club for ages 3-14 meets at 6 p.m. at the running track of Berkeley High School. For more information call Coach Walker at 776-7451. 

TUESDAY, DEC. 1 

Planning the Berkeley North Branch Library Community discussion on the design process, space layouts, historic features and the new wing, at 6:30 p.m. at North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda. 981-6195. berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

World AIDS Day Chapel Service at 11:10 a.m. and free HIV testing from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. For information see www.clgs.org 

Berkeley School Volunteers, New Volunteer Orientation from 3 to 4 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Bring a photo ID and two references to the orientation. Returning volunteers do not need to attend. For further information 644-8833. 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Arrowhead Marsh in Martin Luther King Regional Shoreline. Bring water, field guides, binoculars or scopes. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 544-3265. 

Family Storytime, for ages preschool and up, at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Homework Help at the Albany Library for students in grades 2 - 6, Tues. and Thurs. from 3:15 to 5:15 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Emphasis on math and writing skills. No registration is required. For more information, call 526-3720. 

Homework Help Program at the Richmond Public Library Tues. and Thurs. from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at 325 Civic Center Plaza. For more information or to enroll, call 620-6557. 

27 Days of Change: Practice Period A six-point personal change program at Center for Transformative Change, 2584 Martin Luther King Jr Way. Free. For information see www.27daysofchange.com 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2 

Berkeley Path Wanderers: Northbrae Paths & Rock Parks a self-guided walk following Pat DeVito’s May 1999 walk and her short history of the Northbrae neighborhood. Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner Santa Barbara and Spruce. 520-3876. www.berkeleypaths.org 

East Bay Science Cafe H1N1 Swine Flu: An update with Arthur Reingold, Prof. of Public Health, UCB, at 7 p.m. at Cafe Valparaiso, at La Pena, 3105 Shattuck Ave.  

“Science, Consciousness and God” A lecture by Peter Russell at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Free. 526-3805. 

“March of the Penguins” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 10 a.m. to noon at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Laney College, ASLC Offices, 900 Fallon St., Oakland.To schedule an appointment go to www.helpsavealife.org 

“Digestive Health” at 6:30 p.m. at the Center for Holistic Health, 5273 College Ave., Oakland. Free, but reservations required. 652-2302. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

Berkeley CopWatch Drop-in office hours from 6 to 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

THURSDAY, DEC. 3 

“The Rebirth of Environmentalism” with author Douglas Bevington of Environment Now, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-3402. www.ecologycenter.org 

“La Danse: Le Ballet de l’Opera de Paris” Frederick Wiseman's latest documentary at 7 p.m. at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave. at Ashby. Tickets are $20-$50. Benefits the Parachute Fund which provides grants to members of the Bay Area dance community facing HIV/AIDS or other life-threatening illnesses. 415-920-9181. www.dancersgroup.org/benefit.php  

Shu Ren International School Open House A Mandarin immersion program for Pre-K through 3rd grade. From 6:30 to 8 p.m. at 1333 University Ave. 981-0320.  

Legal Document Assistants Who are they, and what can they do to help you? At 6 p.m. at the Alameda County Law Library, 125 12th St., Oakland, Cost is $5. 272-6483. www.acgov.org/law 

Babies and Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

FRIDAY, DEC. 4 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Mr. Ken LaJoie on “A Geologic Train Ride Down the San Mateo County Coast: The Natural and Unnatural History of a Despoiled Coastline” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $15, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 527-2173.  

Treesit Community 3rd Anniversary Reunion Potluck at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship UU, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. 547-7486. sunsetmoonrise@riseup.net 

Jingletown Holiday Art Walk opening at 6 p.m. at Gallery 420, 420 Peterson St., between Ford and Glascock sts, Oakland, and continues Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. 6 p.m. between the Park and Fruitvale St. bridges. 

CAB+ Holiday Ceramic Art Show Ceramic artists from Berkeley and the bay area from 5 to 10 p.m. at Leslie Ceramic Supply, 1212 San Pablo Ave. 524-7363. 

Meditation I: practice of the body at 7 p.m. at Center for Transformative Change, 2584 Martin Luther King Jr Way. snipurl.com/fearlessmeditation1 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Stand With Us Stand for Peace Stand with Israel vigil every Friday from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. www.sfvoiceforisrael.org 

SATURDAY, DEC. 5 

“Power Trip - Theatrically Berkeley” A film on the green movement in Berkeley at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. http://powertripberkeley.com 

UC Regents’ Lecture with Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, at 7:30 p.m. at 150 Stanley Hal, UC campus. free. 495-3505. bcnm.berkeley.edu 

Rabbit Rescue Craft, Gift and Food Fair with proceeds supporting rabbit rescue and adoption efforts, from noon to 4 p.m. at RabbitEars, 377 Colusa Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. www.rabbitears.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market Holiday Fair, with music, crafts and organic produce and lunches, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Civic Center Park, Center St. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Artisans Open Studios Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For map see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Heyday Holiday Open House and book sale from noon to 4 p.m. at Heyday Books, 1633 University Ave. 549-3564, ext. 316. 

Chaat and Chats with Authors and Artists: A Holiday Fair from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Taste of the Himalayas, 1700 Shattuck Ave. at Virginia. http://chaatandchats.com 

Shibumi Artists Holiday Group Show from 5 to 8 p.m. at 1402 Fifth St. www.shibumigallery.com 

Holidays at Dunsmuir Walk back in time through a beautifully decorated mansion, enjoy live holiday music, have breakfast with Father Christmas at 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. Weekends though Dec. 20. For details see www.dunsmuir.org 

Pie, Chai & Art Please join us for refreshments and sale of art and jewelry created by homeless children, adults from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 1208 Peralta Ave. To RSVP or for more information 649-1930. 

Jingletown Holiday Art Walk Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. between the Park and Fruitvale Street bridges bordered by the estuary separating Oakland from the island of Alameda. www.jingletown.org 

World of Good Fair Trade Warehouse Sale Half of proceeds will be donated to the non-profit, World of Good Development. Sat. and Sun. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 6315 Doyle St. Emeryville. 

Unity of Berkeley Gala Gift Sale with music and prizes Sat. from noon to 4p.m., Sun. from noon to 3 p.m. at 2401 Le Conte at Scenic Ave. 849-8160. 

Lighten Up Family workshop to make a candle holder from wood, tin and paints, Sat. and Sun. from 1 to 3 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 538 9th St., Oakland. Cost is $3-$7. 465-8770. www.mocha.org  

Close the Farm Say goodnight to the animals from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

“Get Sharp: The Cutting Edge Food” with local food writers at 1 p.m. at The Pasta Shop, 1786 Fourth St. 250-6004. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Corpus Christie Church Gymnasium, 322 St. James Dr., Piedmont. To schedule an appointment go to www.helpsavealife.org 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Calvary Christian Center, multi-purpose room, 1516 Grand St., Alameda. To schedule an appointment go to www.helpsavealife.org 

Political Affairs Readers Group will discuss “Socialism is the Future, Build It Now” from 10 a.m. to noon at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library for Social Research, 6501 Telegraph Ave. 595-7417. www.marxistlibr.org 

Rollercoaster Movies at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $10-$15. 932-8966. www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. at 2 p.m. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, DEC. 6 

Urban Drought Solutions: Greywater, Rainwater Catchment, Earthworks a workshop at Berkeley’s Ecohouse. Cost is $10-$15. Pre-registration required. 548-2220, ext. 239. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Path Wanderers: Ft. Winfield Scott and the Presidio Walk. Follow Adah Bakalinsky's route from Stairway Walks in San Francisco to explore this lovely historic part of the Presidio. Meet at 11 a.m. at Barnard Hall, 1330 Kobbe Ave., San Francisco. 520-3876. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Fireside Nature Stories with Lindsey Sanders at 10:30 a.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

Holiday Decorations - Naturally Create wreaths, garlands and other seasonal decorations using natural materials, from noon to 3:30 pm. at Tilden Nature Center. Bring clippers, a large, flat box, and a bag lunch. Not appropriate for children under eight. Cost is $25-$51. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Richmond Art Center Annual Holiday Arts and Music Festival from noon to 5 p.m. at 2540 Barrett Ave., at 25th St. Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

Congregation Beth El Chaunukah Bazaar with menorahs, candles, dreidels, gelt, decorations, games, books, jewelry from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1301 Oxford St. 526-4917. 

Chanukah Sing-Along and Fair from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Congregation Netivot Shalom, 1316 University Ave. Cost is $4 for ages 12 and under, $14 for others. www.brownpapertickets.com 

East Bay Hella Free Day Give what you can, take what you need and everyone gets what they want from noon to 4 p.m. at the northside of Lake Merritt at the collanade near the Grand Lake Theater. eastbayfs@gmail.com 

“The Camera and Eye” A free photography workshop offered by Treve Johnson from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at Albany Public Library, Edith Stone Room. Bring your camera, your camera manual, and some of your photos that you like. 841-0905. 

Personal Theology Seminars with John McNally on “Fear of Dying: Is it Justified?” at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

JYCA Program Info Session for High School Aged Teens Learn about joining Jewish Youth for Community Action. All high school aged youth are welcome, from noon to 2 p.m. at Kehilla Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. jycajenny@gmail.com 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “An Awakened Vision of Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000.  

ONGOING 

Food Donations for the Homeless and Hungry From Nov. 17 to Nov. 25 please drop off food donations to Berkeley Food & Housing Project at 2362 Bancroft Way. Contact Wanda Williams at 649-4965, ext. 506. wwilliams@bfhp.org 

Volunteers Needed for United Way’s Earn It! Keep It! Save It! The Bay Area’s largest, free tax-assistance program, is now recruiting volunteers to serve as greeters, language interpreters and tax preparers for the 2010 tax season. Training begins in November, and free tax sites will open in late January. No previous tax preparation experience is necessary. There is a special need for volunteers who can speak Spanish. Register at www.earnitkeepitsaveit.org 800-358-8832. 

One Warm Coat Drive Donate outwear including rain coats in all shapes and sizes at the Bay Street Management Office, below AMC Theaters. www.OneWarmCoat.org 

THURSDAY, NOV. 19 

FILM 

“Jesters and Gestures: Performing Yiddish Culture from Silent Cinema to Avant-Garde Film” at Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $4.50-$9.50. 642-0808. bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Druid Ireland Artist Talk An interview with the artists of “The Walworth Farce” at 4 p.m. in Zellerback Playhouse, UC campus. tdps.berkeley.edu 

Lierre Keith, author of “The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability,” reads at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Patrizia Chen on her memoir of an Italian childhood, “Rosemary and Bitter Oranges” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Cecile Pineda, Mexican American novelist, reads from and discusses her work at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Free. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Opera “Dark River: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Nov. 22 at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 Third St., Oakland. Tickets are $28. 763-1146. oaklandmetro.org 

Scorpio Variety Showcase with Bronkar Lee, beatbox, John Staedler, guitar sax, Joshua Walters, comedy at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10, Scorpios free. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Dr. K’s Home Grown Roots Revue with the Wronglers, Harmon’s Peak, the roadoilers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $14.50-$15.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kelly Park Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Loyd Family Players, Antioquia at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Truth Be Told, hip hop jam, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Backyard Tarzans at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

The Shure Thing at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Ian McFeron Band with Paul Manousos at 8:30 p.m. at Speisekammer, 2424 Lincoln Ave., Alameda. Free. 522-1300. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 20 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Fat Pig” through Dec. 13, at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $15-$55. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater “Sparkle: The Stage Play” Thurs.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through Dec. 20. Tickets are $10-$45. 652-2120. 

Berkeley Rep “Tiny Kushner” Short plays by Tony Kushner at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, through Nov. 29. Tickets are $33-$71. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

Central Works “Blastosphere!” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through Nov. 22 at The Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $14-$25. 558-1381. centralworks.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Lucky Stiff” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Dec. 6, at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $18, $11 for 16 and under. 524-9132. www.cct.org 

Impact Theatre “Large Animal Games” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 12. Tickets are $12-$20. impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “The Rocky Horror Show” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, and runs through Dec. 12. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

“Reality Playthings” experiments in experience with Frank Moore at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. www.eroplay.com 

UC Dept. of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies “Silences and Salutations” Seven one act plays through Nov. 22 at Durham Studio Theater, UC campus. 642-8827. tdps.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeffrey Haas reads from his new book, “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther” followed by panel discussion, at 6:30 p.m. at Marcus Books, 3900 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, Oakland.  

“If This You See: Staging Stein” A panel discussion iwth Prof. Lyn Hejinian, Prof. Peter Glazer and others at 4 p.m. in the Durham Studio Theater, UC campus. tdps.berkeley.edu 

John Greenlee and Saxon Holt on “The American Meadow Garden” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Alison Gopnik on “The Philosophical Baby” in a benefit for Habitot in a private home in Piedmont at 7 p.m. Donation $150. 647-1111, ext. 31. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance Brigade “The Great Liberation Upon Hearing” based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m., through Nov. 22, at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St. at 8th. Tickets are $17-$23. www.brownpapertickets.com 

John Santos Sextet in a celebration of Latino Heritage at 8 p.m. at Merritt College, Newton Seal Student Lounge, Building R, 12500 Campus Drive, Oakland. Tickets are $15, students, $5.  

Silvia Nakkach, Val Serrant, Francine Lancaster and friends in a benefit concert for The Stupa Peace Park at 7 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2401 Le Conte Ave. Tickets are $20-$30. vajrayana.org 

Celebrating the Bolero and the Vals Criollo at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Lisbeth Scott at 8 p.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $15-$20. www.rudramandir.com 

The Jolly Gibsons at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Los Boleros, Tito y su Son de Cuba at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cuban salsa dance lesson at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Corrine West at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Silver Kittens at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Buxter Hoot’n, Guns for San Sebastian, Fred Torphy at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Green Machine at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Kev Choice Ensemble at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Joshi’z 3 at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 21 

CHILDREN  

Mariela, bi-lingual songs at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Snow Queen Puppet Show Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 and 4 p.m. at at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 296-4433.  

Duo Amaranto, songs in English and Spanish, at 11 a.m. at Studio Grow, 1235 10th St. Cost is $9. 526-9888. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Spontaneous Smiley Project” Photographs of the Smiley Face in everyday objects. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Photolab Gallery 2235 Fifth St. 

Rita Sklar “Spiritual Paintings” Opening reception at 1:30 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., at Fairview, Piedmont. 

“Trois Femmes de Metal” works by Gabrielle Curry, Elizabeth Dante and Angie Garberina at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228.  

THEATER 

Country Joe’s Tribute to Woody Guthrie Benefit for California Coalition for Women Prisoners at 7 p.m. at BFUU, 1924 Cedar. Tickets are $25 and $100. 841-4824. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Sarita Echavez See discusses her new book “The Decolonized Eye: Filipino American Art and Performance” at 3 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

Abdulziz Sachedina on his new book “Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights” at 6 p.m. at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, 1433 Madison St, between 14th and 15th, Oakland. Cost is $5-$7. 832-7600. www.iccnc.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sandra Soderlund, organ recital, Baroque and neo-Baroque music at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. 684-7563. www.brownpapertickets.com 

Chora Nova All-Beethoven concert at 8 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, 2407 Dana, between Channing and Haste. Tickets are $10-$20. 336-3307. www.choranova.org 

Michael Jones & John Burke Violin & piano music of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Strauss and Dukelsky at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www. 

trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Passamezzo Moderno & Duo Solace “Across the Alps: The Italian Baroque Moves North” at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College at Garber. Tickets are $10-$25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

Oakland Opera “Dark River: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Nov. 22 at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 Third St., Oakland. Tickets are $28. 763-1146. oaklandmetro.org 

Lilia Valitova, solo piano concert, at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $18, children 13 and under, free. www.LiliaValitova.com 

Works in the Works 2009 Choreographers’ Performance Alliance and Eighth Street Studio performance series Sat. and Sun at 7:30 p.m. at Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. at Dwight. Tickets are $10 at the door. 527-5115. 

Celebrating Songwriters Showcase, hosted by Caren Armstrong at 8 p.m. at Left Coast Folk, Left Coast Cyclery, 2928 Domingo Ave. Cost is $10. 204-8552. www.celebratingsongwriters.com 

Three Voices in Harmony with Becky Reardon, Terry Garthwaite, and Betsy Rose at 7:30 p.m. at Avonova, 417 Avon St., Oakland. Donation $15-$20. Reservations suggested. 652-8440. 

Frankye Kelly & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mark St. Mary at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/Zydeco dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Strange Journey Fall Tour at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Crooked Still at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Wayne Wallace and Rhythm & Rhyme: A evening of Latin Jazz at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Paul Manousos at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Strange Angel Blues Band at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Band of Zeroes, featuring Larry Ochs, Ben goldberg, Mathais Bossi, Jon evans, Wil Blades and Scott Amendola at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Steve Carter Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 22 

EXHIBITIONS 

Mayan Textiles Exhibition of textiles from the Mayan weavers’ cooperative Jolom Mayaetik of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, from 1 to 5 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. at Arch. 843-8724. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

David Swanson reads from “Daybreak,” an investigation of the Bush/Cheney years, at 3 p.m. at Diesel, 5433 College Ave., Oakland. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Prometheus Symphony Orchestra at 3 p.m. at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. Concert is free and families and children are welcome.  

Trio CGY works by Beethoven, Brahams, Faure, Ravel at 3 p..m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., corner W. Richmond Ave., Point Richmond. 236-0527. 

Gospel Chorus “Those Singin’ Sistahs” at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-9988. 

Jupiter String Quartet at 7:30 p.m. at The Org, 2601 Durant Ave. 665-5988. 

Anne Sadjera Ensemble at 7 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Rebecca Riots at 3 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mark Levine’s Kenny Garret Project at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373.  

Po’ Girl at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Jim Page, Hali Hammer and Clara Bellino at 7 p.m. at Art House, 2905 Shattuck Ave. Suggested donation $5-$12. 

Josh Allen Large Ensemble, Henry Kaiser Trio at 8 p.m. at Flux 53 Theater, Foothill and Fairfax, Oakland. Suggested donation $10. 338-2432. 

Bacon at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

MONDAY, NOV. 23 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Whipped Creamy White, Bing Cherry Red” Group at show at Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts Annex Lobby, 1428 Alice Street, No. 100, off 14th St., Oakland. through Jan. 21. 238-7221. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Subterranean Shakespeare “A Winters Tale” staged reading at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, 1924 Cedar Tickets are $8. 276-3871. 

Poetry Express with Mark States at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

TUESDAY, NOV. 24 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Bluesbox Bayou Band at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/Zyeco dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

David Berkeley at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Ray Cepeda Latin Jazz at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Kickin’ The Mule at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Montuno Swing at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Trio of Doom at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

THURSDAY, NOV. 26 

Happy Thanksgiving 

FRIDAY, NOV. 27 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Fat Pig” through Dec. 13, at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $15-$55. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater “Sparkle: The Stage Play” Thurs.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through Dec. 20. Tickets are $10-$45. 652-2120. 

Berkeley Rep “Tiny Kushner” Short plays by Tony Kushner at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, through Nov. 29. Tickets are $33-$71. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Heretic’s Potentially Offensive Comedy (2) Hour(s)” Featuring the work of Benjamin Garcia, Erin Phillips and writer/director Clay Rosenthal, at 8 p.m. at The Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets at the door are $15. 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Lucky Stiff” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Dec. 6, at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $18, $11 for 16 and under. 524-9132. www.cct.org 

Impact Theatre “Large Animal Games” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 12. Tickets are $12-$20. impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “The Rocky Horror Show” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, and runs through Dec. 12. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Bundles, Webs, Remains” work by Carol Lee Shanks. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Garage Gallery, 3110 Wheeler. Exhibition continues Sat. and Sun. from 1 to 5 p.m. to Dec. 13. www.berkeleyoutlet.com 

“Metaphysical Abstraction” Closing party with documentary film on Agnes Martin at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $5, free for BAC members. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“Holidayland” A joint exhibition at The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave., Oakland and Blankspace, 6608 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Reception at 6 p.m. Exhibitions run to Dec. 20. www.thecompoundgalley.com, www.balckspacegallery.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Golden Gate Boys Choir Outdoor Holiday Performance at 4 p.m. at Alameda Town Center, Otis Drive, Alameda. Free. www.ggbc.org 

Kelly Park Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Trio Garufa, Argentine Tango at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Maria Muldaur’s Garden of Joy Jug Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Blind, Commisure, Orchestra of Antlers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Fender Cronin and guests at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

The P-PL at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Igor & The Red Elvises at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $15, available through ticketweb.com  

Joshi’z 3 at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 28 

CHILDREN  

The Snow Queen Puppet Show Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 and 4 p.m. at at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $7. 296-4433.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“What’s Cooking” Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Potters Guild, 731 Jones St. at 4th St. to Dec. 24. 524-7031. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Curl reads from “For All the People: Uncovering th Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America” at 6 p.m. at Fig Tree Gallery, 2599 8th St., Studio #42, in the Sawtooth Building. 540-7843. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kenney Washington & Michael O’Neill Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. East Coast Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sonic Safari Swing at 7 p.m. at Chester’s Bay View Cafe, 1508 Walnut St. 849-9995. 

Fred Randolf Jazz at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Michael Shiono and friends at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Wave Array, James Winton Band at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Steve Carter Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 29 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Aurora Theatre Company Script Club Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” 7:30 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. auroratheatre.org 

John Curl reads from “For All the People: Uncovering th Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America” at 3 p.m. at Book Zoo, 6395 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 654-2665. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Erik Jekabson & Bay Area Composers’ Big Band at 7 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Family Square Dance with Pearson’s Pork Pies at 3 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mahealani Uchiyama, world, Afro-Polynesian at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

An Irish Christmas in America at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Behind a scrim decorated with concentric circles, framed by cotton bolls, Emmett Till is dancing (performed by Hannefah Hassan-Evans), high-stepping in his Chicago finery, until he acknowledges a white woman passing—after which, two white men in black beat him in a brutal, stylized assault that turns his dance into writhing. 

That’s where Oakland Opera’s world premiere of Mary D. Watkins’ Dark River: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story takes off: with the reaction of the rural African-American community to Till’s murder in the mid-1950s. The staging employs a broad, long ramp that leads through the audience to the main stage, where the ensemble gathers in a cotton field to mourn Till and other victims of lynch law. It seems as if every spare foot of the Oakland Metro Operahouse, off Jack London Square, is in use; later, the audience will turn to watch scenes in a sharecropper’s home, positioned like a loft, opposite the main stage. 

In a flashback to the late ’20s, a black woman and two young girls are sorting cotton when one of the girls, seeing the schoolbus pass by, asks why she can’t go to school like the white kids. Jeanine Anderson, as her mother, sings beautifully, giving perspective and comfort to her daughter, one of 20 children. Bolanle Origumwa and India Wilkerson accompany her well as the two girls. The daughter, wondering why she can’t go to school, will grow up to be Fannie Lou Hamer, who will lead the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to the ’64 Democratic Convention.  

When the story jumps ahead to 1962, it starts to take off. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers arrive in rural Mississippi; Fannie Lou (sung and acted by the splendid Raina Simons) is surprised to learn she has a constitutional right to vote—and becomes more and more deeply involved in the movement, at first to the consternation of her husband, Papp (a prepossessing Jo Vincent Parks)—and for good reason. While attempting to be registered as a voter, Hamer and her family are thrown off the plantation where they’ve sharecropped. 

Twenty-three scenes, with an intermission, take the audience through Hamer’s odyssey and the mushrooming of the civil rights movement—from the treacherous fieldwork of voter registration and providing the indigent with food and necessities through demonstrations and the decision to work with white students, the beatings and murders of movement workers, to the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Party and its challenge of the Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City in 1964. And finally, to Hamer’s dismissal for her integrationist views in 1966 by a reconstituted SNCC, responding to Stokely Carmichael’s call for Black Power. 

Mary Watkins’ music, played by a sextet conducted by Deirdre, with music director Skye Atman on piano, lucidly propels and embellishes the action throughout, a complex and often harrowing series of events, epic in scope, over four years’ time, crystalized in the figure of Hamer, a middle-aged wife and mother with a sixth-grade education, who heroically takes up the cause of civil rights, finally believing it to be that of human rights.  

For those who remember the events, the opera often touches some of the same nerves, has the same sense of tension and urgency that gave—and gives—a feeling both of immediacy and of history in the making. 

The score is fluid, constantly shifting—the composer later remarked on its many rhythmic and harmonic changes—with a low, dark, insistent sound, driven by strings and percussion, alternating with more lyrical moments, brightened by woodwinds. Stylistically, it’s an ambitious and successful amalgam of modern compositional modes with jazz orchestration and gospel themes, all shifting in and out, kaleidoscopically, with the action, the sung dialogue and speeches.  

There was comment about the pageant-like quality of the opera, the first half in particular. The lyrics come through most clearly when figures of speech are rendered as simple poetry, and with quotations of scripture, especially Hamer’s quoting of Proverbs 26 to a penitent Sheriff’s Wife (after an aria beautifully sung by Cary Ann Rosko): “He who digs a pit for another will fall therein ... and he of ill will who rolls a stone will see it return.” Much of the narrative seems taken directly from a wire service teletype; it’s made caustic, satiric in moments like J. Edgar Hoover (Kenneth Woods) announcing, “If you turn up dead, we’ll investigate,” lightened by humor and the vernacular: “Fanny Lou, they’re playing your speech on the picture tube!” Papp exclaims over the phone, long distance. 

With the scene in jail and a lively skit where the men re-enact with brooms blacks defending themselves against nightriders, ending on a hilarious note night riders, ending on a hilarious note when a “mean old woman” and her two sons send Klansmen scurrying when they shoot the gas tank in their car, the first half ends. After intermission, the opera doubles in intensity, with the Freedom Democratic Party’s trip to Atlantic City. In his boxer shorts, a cigarette-smoking LBJ (Woods again) calls from his hotel room to deflect the possible damage to the southern voting bloc if the official Mississippi delegation is unseated in favor of the “One Man, One Vote” Freedom Party. Hamer meets with NAACP chief Roy Wilkins (Charles Alston), who tells her to go home, go back to the farm; let the educated staff do the work. An ebullient Hubert Humphrey (Alan Cochran) tenders crocodile tears and a scant compromise, while his beaming secretary (Hassan-Evans again) flutters humorously about him like a moth.  

Much of this is based on the original events, all in counterpoint to the speeches by Aaron Henry (a splendid Darron Flagg), civil rights attorney Joseph Rauh (Alexander Frank) and Hamer, famously asserting, “I question America” and “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Sound familiar? 

The cast of 20, whether singing as a chorus or delivering the many individual roles, can’t be praised enough for its singing and acting. It’s a real opera, in that all the different production elements come to the fore, a highlight of every Oakland Opera performance. Darryl V. Jones of Cal State East Bay directed, choreographed (with Hassan-Evans) and served as dramaturge; Oakland Opera Artistic Director Tom Dean designed the set with Jesse Miller; Robert Anderson lit it; Susan Swerdlow produced and did the ensemble music direction. And there are more involved in the project produced by the composer, Oakland Opera and Cal State over the past few years. It’s emerged, a moving, singing scroll of modern history, like the old Popular Front and WPA murals, illuminated by and illuminating the story of one brave woman who stepped forward for the good of all. 

DARK RIVER: THE FANNIE LOU HAMER STORY 

Presented by Oakland Opera at 8 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 22 at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 Third St., Oakland. $28. 763-1146. oakland-metro.org.

The visitor to the still new and stately exhibition space at the Kala Art Institute will encounter a large picture of an octopus on the right wall. The artist, Harry Clewans had read about the mollusks with their eight arms, their unusual intelligence, memory and ability to hide from their predators, and he made this picture of a large scary animal, which looks almost alive in its leafy habitat.  

The work has all the appearances of a painting, but it’s much more complicated: Octopus (2006) is a large, 56-by-60-inch woodcut collage of ink and gold leaf on paper mounted on a wood panel.  

As in all his pieces in the exhibition, the artist first made a drawing directly onto wooden blocks, then hand-carved and printed the images. He would then, working like a jigsaw puzzle, assemble them and collage them into a large composition, which consists of a multitude of found components. For Octopus he used an earlier drawing of a seedpod, which he also employed in the context of other pictures. In Octopus it serves as the mottled and puckered skin of the animal’s arms.  

He used the same detail for different functions. In the large Fireplace (2007), it serves as part of the wall decoration. This woodcut shows an elaborate and luxurious interior with a golden Baroque mantelpiece that rises to a gold crown and enfolds a mirror that reflects part of the salon’s interior. 

Clewans’ way of working requires a laborious, almost obsessive process. It can take six months to complete a finished woodcut, and all the pieces are unique—no editions. There are a total of eight works—the product of three years work in the show. Pile of Grief (2006) shows a large accumulation of debris, arranged in the form of a pyramid with a head that appears like a gas mask on top. It was motivated by the death of his mother and like other works, it shows a preoccupation with dying. What We Know (2005), depicts a prone figure of a man (Clewans’s self portrait), stretched out horizontally, reminiscent of Renaissance paintings of the dead Christ. Waiting is a memorable image of a man’s bust with an elaborate structure of bones of his skull and a raven sitting on his shoulder. The richly colored surface against its gray background creates an ominous feeling. The work was inspired by a portrait of Bruce Conner, an artist greatly admired by Harry Clewans. 

Clewans is almost entirely self-taught. He studied briefly with Gordon Cook and Joan Brown, but not for long. He is by no means unknown, however; he has been in numerous exhibitions not only in the Bay Area but also in Los Angeles, Seattle, Minnesota and in venues as far removed as Belarus and Uzbeckistan. The latter was a show curated by Kala, and Clewans was also a recipient of a Kala Fellowship. The present show, which Clewans shares with the photographer Maizie Gilbert, constitutes this year’s James D. Phelan Award, for which each artist received a $5,000 cash prize. It was juried by Larry Rinder, director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

The way many people see Yiddish culture is often one-sided, flat. Knowing just a little, they project fantasies: ‘the poor little shtetl!’” 

Zehavit Stern was talking about “Jesters and Gestures: Performing Yiddish Culture From Silent Cinema to Avant-Garde Film,” the series she curated with Jeffrey Skoller, which will feature its final two screenings Sunday and Tuesday. 

Yiddish cabaret stars Shimon Dzigan and Yisroel Shumacher appear in Jolly Paupers (Poland, 1937) with their short subject, I Want to Be a Boarder, made in the United States the same year; and on Tuesday, Ken Jacobs’ Urban Peasants (United States, 1975) with the short, Unititled (Part 1) (1981), Ernie Gehr’s portrait of the last Jewish immigrants of the Lower East Side that year.  

“Jesters and Gestures” came from a meeting between Stern and Stoller “two years ago, when I taught a class at UC Berkeley,” Stern recalled. “Jeffrey teaches film; it was from a combination of our interests—and from not having to talk about Yiddish culture as an museum artifact!” 

The series features seven shows in just over two weeks, including a rare live performance, West and East, by the Sala-Manca Group—a “translation” from the 1923 Austrian silent film East and West, starring great Yiddish actress Molly Picon.  

Stern wryly recalled reactions she’s encountered: “When I tell people I speak Yiddish, they’ll say, ‘Why do you want to do that?’” 

She talked about the upcoming Jolly Paupers. “It’s really special. Since we called the series ‘Performing Yiddish Culture,’ we wanted a broad spectrum of performances—and some would like it all at once! Humor, singing, dancing, plot, cantoral chanting, a wedding ...  

“This is an excellent performance of humor from Lodz in Poland, between the wars. They had very good—really crazy-funny—writers, and it gives you a sense of their stage performances, of cabaret, though there almost seems to be a plot. It sometimes feels like brief sketches. When Dzigan and Shumacher performed in Yiddish after the war in Israel, they were ‘persecuted’—though that’s too strong a word!—forced to live in hotels for years, because the rule was that Yiddish performers were foreign artists, not Israeli.” 

Stern commented on their short film, made in the States: “It gives a sense of American vaudeville—Jewish Fred Astaire? I don’t know!—so there’re two kinds of humor from one team on one program, in a way.” 

Of the film by the well-known experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, composed of family home movies from Brooklyn in the 1930s and ’40s, alternating with “situations” from an LP, Instant Yiddish, Stern said, “Ken Jacobs plays with it, with the absence of Yiddish culture. So many people interview their parents about the Holocast; this is so experimental, so contemporary, engaging—touching! And it uses something like a Yiddish Berlitz guide: How to Book a Hotel Room in Yiddish, How to Go to the Bank ...” 

Of the unusual live performance by the Sala-Manca Group, Stern said, “They were accompanying their own film, with images from the original screenplay, the night after the original showed, so some people saw both. They’re very political: the protagonist is the grandson of the original film’s, who went from being a practicing Jew to secular, maybe assimilated, in America ... the grandson’s orthodox, lives in Israel ... They call it a translation; there’s also the notion of mis-translation, translating Hebrew to Yiddish, Yiddish to English, Hebrew to Yiddish, Yiddish to English, and vice versa, through Babylon, that translation software. All kinds of cultural encounters—and perfectly aware of the gaps.” 

Mentioning the reaction to a live performance in their theater by the PFA staff, Stern said, “They were very excited. And they had to pull out every piece of their equipment! It’s not a performance space.” 

The reaction to the series has been gratifying to Stern. “I was surprised. People came up afterwards, more than I expected. There was even a sense of community. Feeling connected. In discussion, we sounded like we knew each other. Many of them I do know came with the East Bay Group Yiddisher Cabaret, in which people meet every month in someone’s house. But film studies people came, too. I’m always glad to see it’s not necessary to have a background to be interested.”  

JESTERS AND GESTURES: PERFORMING YIDDISH CULTURE FROM SILENT CINEMA TO AVANT-GARDE FILM  

Dzigan & Shumacher in Jolly Paupers with short I Want to Be a Boarder (both 1937), 3 p.m., Sun., Nov. 22, introduced by Zehavit Stern; Ken Jacobs’ Urban Peasants (1975) with Ernie Gehr’s Untitled (Part 1) (1981), 7:30 p.m., Tues., Nov. 24, introduced by Jeffrey Skoller. Pacific Film Archive Theater, 2575 Bancroft at Bowditch (near Telegraph). Tickets: $5.50–$9.50. 642-1124; bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Dr. Abdulaziz Sachedina, who will appear Saturday night at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California in downtown Oakland to discuss his new book, Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights (Oxford, $25), says that religion can help persuade its own adherents to respect other humans. 

“The role of religions is to forge better relationships,” he said. “The original impulse of religious texts is to recognize the other, create better camraderie ... Secular advocates say religion has no role in these questions, that it’s historically problematic, that it would be better for people to just believe in what they believe and leave it at that. But that would be to deprive religion of a voice, of its best offer to humanity. Human rights need religion, which teaches and has the ability to persuade emotionally ... Religions need to learn that those outside religion itself have human respect, dignity. Religion can’t afford to be exclusive when it comes to human relationships.” 

Sachedina spoke specifically about Islam in relation to his study and work on the role of religion in human rights. 

“We need to search in our sources, to see what the Quran really does say,” he said. “Is it saying others are less than you? The Quran says all human beings are endowed with a divine nature, naturally understood in dignity. We also have responsibility for the earth, for a peaceful environment. God’s right to be worshiped is not to objectify human beings, but in loving one another, in working for the betterment of the earth. It’s not a ritual where we sit down and close our eyes. To work to improve the quality of life on earth is a human responsibility. That’s the fulfillment of God being worshiped, part of the commitment to do God’s bidding. God does not need to be worshipped. We worship God when we recognize each other.” 

Sachedina, originally from Tanzania and of East Indian extraction, studied in Canada, India and Iran, where he was a student of Dr. Ali Shariati’s. Sachedina speaks 10 languages and has taught since the 1970s. He is chair of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. 

Sachedina said he sees the violation of human rights in many countries, including in the Muslim world, as a major concern.  

“It is important to convince many people in the faith to recognize that human dignity, the ability to tell right from wrong, is part of our nature and comes from the divine,” he said. “People of the faith need religion to play a role in persuading its own adherents of the necessity to respect other human beings—to be citizens of the world, caring for the environment, for the world as a whole, to participate in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” 

Sachedina emphasized that his “life goal, not simply an academic concern, is to be engaged in trying to make people aware of the humanity of others, of belief, of gender, of race—to respect certain inalienable rights as human beings.” 

He said that we all had work to do in this regard, and that the Muslim community can’t be self-righteous regarding the dignity of others.  

“We should be looking for variety,” Sachedina said. “Human beings have a lot to learn.” 

ISLAM AND THE CHALLENGE OF HUMAN RIGHTS 

Dr. Abdulaziz Sachedina discusses his new book, 6 p.m., Sat. Nov. 19 at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, 1433 Madison, Oakland. $5-$7. 832-7600. www.iccnc.org.

Opening and closing with Bing crooning “An Irish Lullaby,” and proceeding with snatches and strains of other airs and songs, including “Ireland United At Last,” accompanying abrupt—yet endlessly repeated—gestures, speeches and quick changes from one ratty costume and wig to another, the performance by Druid Ireland of Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce at Zellerbach Playhouse is by turns silly, disconcerting, uproarious, dismaying, hysterical and strangely tragic—an unexpected triumph of gestural theater and histrionic storytelling in the service of what cannot be easily articulated or shown. 

In an engaging cellphone conversation, director Mikel Murfi, appearing in Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom in New York (the two plays will coincide at UCLA in two weeks) employed the term “sublime” along with a comparison of The Walworth Farce to the Three Stooges—an apt mismatch of categories to qualify a play about a father who keeps his grown sons locked inside their ramshackle apartment-in-exile, ceaselessly play-acting a squalid melodrama of his own, questionable account of quitting Cork for London years before, in a big hurry. 

The father, Dinny (Michael Glenn Murphy), appears as himself, as he would be seen, in the self-justifying potboiler, when he isn’t taking off his rug and rubbing cream on his pate, railing at or cajoling his grown boys as they adroitly jump through the hoops, playing a plethora of overlapping roles ... Dinny lifts his trophy high in exultation at his own genius, or is reduced to tears, impressed by his own abject state. His sons, Sean (Tadhg Murphy) and Blake (Raymond Scannell), follow his lead like terriers, breathlessly posing and reciting, finding a brief moment here and there to speak together like brothers, in a low voice, of the reality of their lot—the enforced reality of fantasy.  

Sean can recall the events predicating his father’s departure and seems to hold an uneasy secret. But the two captive brothers have known little of the world since they were 4 or 5, bred in a trunk if not born in it, and are wary of, if attracted by, what’s outside the multiply-bolted door, even remarking on the rapacity of the Outsiders, who might break through and immolate their strange family romance as performed for their own audience. 

But when the outside does come innocently knocking, over something simple like a switch of grocery bags, the perspective changes differently than expected—and Druid’s actual audience at first sees what represents the normal world outside (Mercy Ojelade as an unwitting envoy of sanity) just as comically as the weird men bonded within, before the normal is pressed into theatrical service, all of it oiling the relentless dynamo of Dinny’s delusion. 

It’s the implacable nature of this play-within-a-play and its perverse relation to reality which connects The Walworth Farce to the deepest stratum of theatricality, what various commentators have referred to as the histrionic urge or impulse. There’s something in Dinny’s homemade spectacle that seems like a backwards version of The Mousetrap, the play-within-a-play in Hamlet, played out in broad, vaudevillean manner to “catch the conscience of the king.” In fact, the whole dynamic of The Walworth Farce is somehow reminiscent of the great Baroque revenge melodramas Hamlet capitalized on, awful pantomimes of the madness of human nature, teetering on the brink of burlesque. 

But the final overtones of Walsh’s “farce” are distinctly tragic, or hyper-tragic, in the sense of Artaud’s eulogy on Euripides: “In Aeschylus, Man is very evil [or sick], but with Euripides, the floodgates are open—and in the end, we don’t know just where we are.”  

If the territory’s not the map, there’s still something familiar about this sordid terrain, this pied-a-terre rather than The Ould Sod, rickety home-away-from-home. With the immediacy of real theater, the action’s unexpected, yet strangely familiar, inevitable. As the plot—or plots—unfold, everything retroactively falls into place with the sense of inevitability that once described fate—another connection with classical tragedy. The three sorry madcaps endlessly rehearse a ritual—and, as in tragedy, it’s the variation or breakdown of that ritual, something of its hollowness (Artaudagain: “To perform the Mass again and again until we see the nothingness it comes from”) that presages the genuinely tragic. Yet, with all the verbiage, all the sense of fateful necessity, what’s tragic is that which is breakaway from fate, the irony of silence that conjures a new meaning at the frontiers of language.  

Walsh’s “farce” and Druid’s performance of it fulfill these difficult terms of engagement, with art as well as with the human condition, with a production the director described as “talky physically without saying anything.” A great deal is spoken, even more articulated through body language—“And the rest is silence.” 

Mikel Murfi, a student of Jacques Lecoq, in the ongoing mainstream of gestural theater that began a century ago with the rediscovery of vaudeville, circus and Commedia by Jacques Copeau and V. S. Meyerhold, has taken his cast and his art pretty close to the limit, coming to grips with what he referred to as the multiple rollercoasters—“three, when the audience expects two”—of the action of Walsh’s play, and the “new form of English” in the unfamiliar “distortions” of “the Cork patois” the actors employ sometimes with affection, sometimes deploy as rapiers.  

Murfi spoke of Walsh going at his work, his characterizations “with hammer and tongs ... he doesn’t sanitize, but starts punching until the lights go out ... jumping from second to second, with the audience not knowing who’s in charge or what comes next.” 

Murfi also drew parallels to the recent news stories—here and in Austria—of parents (or self-appointed surrogates) imprisoning their children for years to provoke a nightmarish parody of family life with endless rehearsals of incest. 

And Murfi spoke of his excellent players in their roles, performing “locked away, not supposed to be good actors, but not such bad actors either. “Once it takes off, Enda doesn’t let the audience sit wallowing in it for too long; he wants to give the audience no chance to rationalize it to themselves. He doesn’t give us time to think. Enda takes a huge risk, it being as constantly confused as it can be, until the audience gives over.”  

Gives over and just watches. Experiences action as overloaded and seemingly inexplicable as intense experiences are in life. Yet this intense experience was written, rehearsed and is performed again and again, like Dinny and his kids have done, maniacally cranking out their own private show for a couple decades ... something of the mystery of theater, not to mention social behavior. The audience on the first night of The Walworth Farce in Berkeley celebrated that with a big ovation.  

I’m going to talk a good deal about Fred Hampton,” said Jeffrey Haas, “how he became a revolutionary leader—but, even more, who he was. How impressed I was hearing him speak, seeing him. He had a real desire for justice. He had wanted to be a lawyer but said he didn’t have enough time to get a law degree. And he died when he was only 21.” 

Haas was one of the attorneys involved in litigation for the family of Fred Hampton, killed by Chicago Police while sleeping, early in the morning of Dec. 4, 1969. Haas will speak about his new book, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther (Lawrence Hill, $26.95), and engage in conversation with attorney John Burris and Dr. Raye Richardson, San Francisco State University Professor Emerita and owner of Marcus Book Stores, Friday evening at Black Repertory Theatre in Berkeley. The event is co-sponsored by Marcus Book Stores and Black Rep. 

Haas was part of a group of lawyers in Chicago that Hampton had recruited attorneys from and that formed the Peoples’ Law Center of Chicago, still in operation. Haas himself is no longer affiliated with PLCC but notes it is still vigorously alive after 40 years. He and attorney Flint Taylor of the PLCC initiated litigation on behalf of Hampton’s family, settling for $1.85 million after 13 years—the settlement paid equally by the city, state and federal governments. 

“What was surprising to us was how the raid was set up by the FBI. They monitored Fred Hampton’s every movement. And they provided the Chicago Police with a map of Panther headquarters. This came from the COINTELPRO program of the Nixon Administration: ‘Prevent the rise of the messiah, who will unify and electrify the masses,’ read one of its documents, saying Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Elijah Muhammed could be such a one.” 

Haas spoke of how the police portrayed the Panthers as the attackers, “but it was 99 shots to one, the bullets coming from the direction of the police, not the Panthers.” 

Haas talked about Fred Hampton, the young man. “I learned a lot after I got to know the family better,” he recalled. “They’d migrated to the West Side of Chicago from Louisiana. Fred Hampton’s mother babysat Emmitt Till—they knew him as ‘Boo’—and the funeral home Till’s body was sent back to after he was murdered down South was the same place Fred Hampton’s body was, 14 years later.” 

Haas spoke of Hampton’s “real desire for justice. And he wanted to be with the people on the street. In his neighborhood, he brought kids together, brought them home for breakfast—at 10, he had his own breakfast program. He led a walkout at his high school over black girls not being considered for homecoming queen. And he led a march to the City Council to demand a recreation center with a swimming pool for his neighborhood. That was successful; the center is named after him today. He began speaking at 15 or 16, learning by memorization the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and picking up the cadences in church. I think he knew he had the ability to inspire people.” 

Haas talked about the long-term effects of the assassination and its aftermath. “The black community was somewhat divided over the Panthers—but they came together, uniting over this. Eventually, it was the same coalition that elected Harold Washington mayor. And that’s why Obama came to Chicago, thinking something could be done under Washington.” 

Haas returned to Bennington College, receiving a degree in Creative Nonfiction “so I could tell this as a story, not argue it as a lawyer.” Writing the book was like “reliving it; doing it again, going back and seeing the places, the people involved.”  

Coming to Berkeley on tour for him is like coming “to a centerpoint for the ’60s, like Chicago in many ways. A hotbed of political activity. There’s definitely a connection.” 

As a final connection between the events surrounding Hampton’s murder and more recent events, Haas recalled “when the Church Committee proposed an overseeing of intelligence, after some of the facts of Cointelpro emerged, the two people who convinced Gerald Ford to veto it—and the veto was overruled—were Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney! So, one of the lessons of this is to hold government accountable.” 

THE ASSASSINATION OF FRED  

HAMPTON: HOW THE FBI AND THE CHICAGO POLICE MURDERED A BLACK PANTHER  

Author Jeffrey Haas discusses his book with Dr. Raye Richardson and attorney John Burris at 6:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 19, at the Black Repertory Theatre, 3201 Adeline St., Berkeley. $5. 652-2120. marcusbookstores.com.

Impact Theatre continues with Large Animal Games, by Steve Yockey, directed by Melissa Hillman at 8 p.m. Thursday–Saturday through Dec. 12 (La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid; $12–$20; impacttheatre.com); while Contra Costa Civic Theatre has opened Lucky Stiff, a musical comedy–murder mystery based on “The Man Who Broke the Bank At Monte Carlo,” Friday–Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Dec. 6 (951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito; $15–$24; 524-9132; ccct.org). Berkeley Playhouse is putting on The Wizard of Oz at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays and 4 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 6 (Julia Morgan Center, 2540 College Ave; $19-$28; 845-8542; berkeleyplayhouse.org). Druid, Ireland’s extraordinary theater company, is presenting Enda Walsh’s uproarious “gothic comedy,” The Walworth Farce, at 8 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, with an interview of the performers onstage (free admission) 4 p.m. Thursday (Zellerbach Playhouse; $72; 642-9988; calperfs.berkeley.edu). 

In San Francisco, Golden Thread, specializing in plays about the Middle East, presents its annual ReOrient Festival of short plays, with one series beginning Friday, another Saturday, both at 8 p.m., and afterwards running Thursday–Saturday through Dec. 13 (Thick House, Potrero Hill; $12–$20, passes at reduced rates available; (415) 401-8081; goldenthread.org). 

THURSDAY, NOV. 19 

Bus Rapid Transit Public Workshop on the Local Preferred Alternative at the Transportation Commission meeting at 6 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst.  

Claremont Branch Library Rennovation Plans Meet the architects and learn about the project at 6:30 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue at Ashby. 981-6195. 

2020 Vision for Berkeley’s Children and Youth Initiative Community Meeting at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Technology Academy auditorium, 2701 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Childcare provided. 845-7103. www.berkeleyalliance.org. 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets at 7:30 p.m. at the LeConte School. karlreeh@gmail.com 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Field Trip to Berkeley Fishing Pier Meet at 8 a.m. for a leisurely walk in search of Surf Scooters, scaup, loons, grebe and gulls. Bring a scope if you have one. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

Berkeley Sustainablity Summit and Green Gathering, with keynote speaker Robert Reich, at 4 p.m. at the David Brower Center. Tickets are $35. www.ecologycenter.org/ggss 

“Effective ‘Boss’ Management” at Assoc. of Women Scientists at 6:30 p.m. at Novartis, Building X-310, 5300 Hollis St., Emeryville. All welcome. http://ebawis.org 

Community Yoga Class: Gentle Yoga, Thurs. at 10 a.m. at James Kenney Parks and Recreation Center, 8th St. and Virginia. Cost is $6. Mats provided. 207-4501. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 20 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Adair Lara on “Write Your Memoirs: You Owe It To Your Family” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $15, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 527-2173.  

Senior Healthcare Policy Forum from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at The Cathedral of Christ in Light Conference Center, 2121 Harrison St., Oakland. Tickets are $35-$50. To register go to shpf.elders.org or call 839-3100. 

Say No to War! Bring our troops home now. Rally for Peace from 2 to 3 p.m. at the corner of Action and University. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Stand With Us Stand for Peace Stand with Israel vigil every Friday from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. www.sfvoiceforisrael.org 

SATURDAY, NOV. 21 

Worm Composting Workshop at 10:30 a.m. at Berkeley Horticultural Nursery, 1310 McGee Ave. Free. 526-4704. www.berkeleyhort.com 

City of Berkeley’s All Storm Day Volunteer to clean storm drains from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meet neighbors, protect neighborhoods, and clear debris that otherwise ends up in the Bay. Sign up by phone or email. If there is a particular drain you want to clean and keep from backing up, the city also will teach you to safely clean storm drains and supply equipment through its Adopt-A-Drain program. Stenciling projects for groups also available. 981-6418.  

Friends of Five Creeks Restoration Project on Cerrito Creek Meet at 10 a.m. at Creekside Park, south end of Santa Clara Ave., El Cerrito. 848-9358. www.fivecreeks.org 

Work Party at Strawberry Creek Lodge New planting and weed removal. Meet at 10 a.m. at the front door or in the Lodge’s backyard, 1320 Addison St. Please email if you’d like to join in. kyotousa@sbcglobal.net 

Close the Farm Say goodnight to the animals from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

Giftmaking with Recycled Materials inlcuding an origami gift box, note-pad, and printed holiday cards, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. To register call 548-2220, ext. 239. 

Benefit for the Zapatista Autonomous Communities with Carlos Marentes Director of Sin Fronteras Border Agricultural Workers Project, and musical performance by Mamacoatl, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. $5-$20. Dinner reception at 5:30 p.m. for $30.  

“Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights” with author Dr. Abdulziz Sachedina at 6 p.m. at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, 1433 Madison St, between 14th and 15th, Oakland. Cost is $5-$7. 832-7600. www.iccnc.org 

“What’s Next for Haiti?” with Euvonie Georges Auguste and Rea Dol at 4 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $7-$25, no one turned away. www.haitisolidarity.net 

The Hillside Club’s Annual Arts & Crafts Benefit Show from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2286 Cedar St. 508-6242. www.hillsideclub.org 

Friends of the Albany Library Book Sale with vintage, rare and collectible items from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720. 

“Cosmic Fireworks: The Explosive Deaths of Massive Stars” at 11 a.m. in the Genetics and Plant Biology Building, Room 100, UC campus. Admission is free and no science background is required. 

Diesel Car Maintenance Workshop and information on biodiesel from noon to 6 p.m. at 2465 4th St. at Dwight. Cost is $30 for lecture only, $140 for lecture and workshop. Registration required. 653-9450. dieselworkshops@gmail.com  

Floral Design Class with Devon Glaster from 1 to 3 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. Cost is $25. 644-4930. 

“Get Well!” Alternative practitioners talk about healing from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd Flr Community Room, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6107. 

Enchanting Autumn Art for children ages 2 to 5 and their families to make leaf rubbings and enjoy other autumn activities from 4 to 5 p.m. at the future home of happytogether Preschool, Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Admission is free. Please RSVP to 705-2849. 

California Writers Club “Do You Really Need an Agent to Get a Publisher?“ with Kathy Briccetti, a 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble Booksellers Event Loft, Jack London Square, 98 Broadway, Oakland. www.cwc-berkeley.com 

Berkeley Lacrosse Club For boys and girls ages 7-14. Registration ongoing through Nov. 30. Some scholarships available. 525-5789. berkeleylacrosse.org 

Houdini Magic Weekend at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $10-$15. 932-8966. www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org 

Socio-Religious Analysis A theological education workshop for laypersons from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 849-8239. 

Creating Jewish Home Traditions for Young Children at 10:30 a.m. at Jewish Gateways, 409 Liberty St., El Cerrito. RSVP to rabbibridget@jewishgateways.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. at 2 p.m. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, NOV. 22 

Nature, News and Nosh Enjoy a cup of coffee or cocoa while getting the latest news on wildlife sightings and native plants in the park, at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

“Thangs Taken” Rethinking Thanksgiving hosted by Ariel Luckey at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$25. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency & Forming a More Perfect Union” with author David Swanson at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Cost is $6-$25. Tickets available at brownpapertickets 841-4824. 

“20 Years Later: Remembering the Jesuit Martyrs” in solidairty with the annual protest at the School of the Americas, at 5 p.m. on the front steps of St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison. 499-0537. 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, the “little castle” designed by Julia Morgan from 1 to 4 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. 848-7800. 

“Sewer Laterals: Am I at Risk? Be Sewer Smart” A free lecture with plumbr Peter Langes at 10 a.m. at Buildig Education Center, 812 Page St. 525-7610. 

Leslie Gallery of Animal Art Holiday Party at 1 p.m., 100 feet west of 2427 San Mateo St. Richmond Annex. http://directory.ac5.org/PALeslie 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. at 2 p.m. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism “Path of Liberation” lecture series begins with “Traveling the Path to Liberation” by Jack Petranker at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000.  

MONDAY, NOV. 23 

Kensington Book Club meets to discuss “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

East Bay Track Club for ages 3-14 meets at 6 p.m. at the running track of Berkeley High School. For more information call Coach Walker at 776-7451. 

TUESDAY, NOV. 24 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit the Bear Creek Staging Area, Briones Regional Park. Bring water, field guides, binoculars or scopes. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 544-2233. 

Over the Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older explore Tilden Park, Inspiration Point, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. For details call 544-2233. 

“A Balancing Act - Defending our President Against Right Wing Attacks vs. Promoting Our Progressive Agenda” with Peggy Moore, Organizing for America's California Political Director, at the El Cerrito Democratic Club, at 6:30 p.m. in Fellowship Hall, El Cerrito United Methodist Church, 6830 Stockton Ave., at Richmond Ave., El Cerrito. 527-5953. panterazero@gmail.com 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St., corner of Eunice. meldancing@comcast.net 

Magic Classes for ages 7 and up from 6 to 8 p.m. at Playland-Not-at-the-Beach at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $25. Call to enroll 232-4264, ext. 24.  

Richmond Emergency Food Pantry Volunteers needed to help organize cases of canned food, from 9 a.m. to noon at 2369 Barrett Ave. Richmond. Ability to lift 50 pounds helpful.  Help needed on Fridays also. 235-9732. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bird Walk at Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the large spherical cage near Nature Center at Perkins and Bellevue. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

“In Grave Danger of Falling Food” A documentary about permaculture at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. 548-9840. 

THURSDAY, NOV. 26 

Give Thanks and Honor the Native Community Vegetarian pot-luck from 6 to 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Free Thanksgiving Meal from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Cafe Gratitude, 1730 Shattuck. www.cafegratitude.com 

Free Community Thanksgiving Dinner noon to 2 p.m., Interfaith service at 11:30 a.m., at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., Point Richmond. 236-0527. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 27 

After Thanksgiving Docent Guided Garden Tour Learn about California native plants in a beautiful, naturalistic 10-acre setting at 2 p.m. Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Regional Park, Wildcat Canyon Road and South Park Drive. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Peace Corps Open House Learn about serving in the Peace Corps from noon to 2 pm, 1301 Clay St., North Tower 5th Floor Conference Room, Oakland. Please bring picture ID because you will need to pass through security. RSVP 452-8442 or SFevents@peacecorps.gov  

Houdini Magic Weekend at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Fri.-Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $10-$15. 932-8966. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Stand With Us Stand for Peace Stand with Israel vigil every Friday from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. www.sfvoiceforisrael.org 

SATURDAY, NOV. 28 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Working with Wool Watch as the spinning wheel turns wool into yarn, try a drop spindle, and create a felted ornament to take home, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

Berkeley Artisans Open Studios Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For map see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Womyn of Color Arts and Crafts Show, Sat. and Sun. from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $14-$16. 849-2568.  

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, NOV. 29 

Fireside Storytime Warm yourself by the fire and sip hot cocoa while listening to nature stories, at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

The Buzz About Bees Learn the natural, cultural and cuinary sides of honey, at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

“Microcosmos” A documentary on bugs for the whole family, at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 528-2261. 

A Woman’s Voice “An Examination of Choice: Who has it —who doesn’t — and the implications of that difference” with Dr. Robin Lakoff, Prof., Dept. of Linguistics, UCB, at 4 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street at Arch. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2967. www.hillsideclub.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. at 2 p.m. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

ONGOING 

Food Donations for the Homeless and Hungry From Nov. 17 to Nov. 25 please drop off food donations to Berkeley Food & Housing Project at 2362 Bancroft Way. Contact Wanda Williams at 649-4965, ext. 506. wwilliams@bfhp.org 

Volunteers Neede for United Way’s Earn It! Keep It! Save It! The Bay Area’s largest, free tax-assistance program, is now recruiting volunteers to serve as greeters, language interpreters and tax preparers for the 2010 tax season. Training begins in November, and free tax sites will open in late January. No previous tax preparation experience is necessary. There is a special need for volunteers who can speak Spanish. Register at www.earnitkeepitsaveit.org 800-358-8832. 

One Warm Coat Drive Donate outwear including rain coats in all shapes and sizes at the Bay Street Management Office, below AMC Theaters. www.OneWarmCoat.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., Nov. 19, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 19, at 6 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7061.