Public Comment
Letters to the Editor
SPEND TIME WITH FAMILY
Editors, Daily Planet:
I think Christmas is not about presents. It is about spending time with your family and friends! A lot of people shop for grandkids and children. The kids don’t always need presents, they need you and your love! I know this may be hard! Kids like presents, but they probably would like you to do Christmas carols and other fun things. You should try it out and see if I’m right or wrong! Just to tell you, I’ll try it out and see how I like it too!
Sylvia Sawislak
3rd Grade, Malcolm X School
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LET NO CHILD MOVE AHEAD
Editors, Daily Planet:
“Let No Child Move Ahead,” that should be the title of Berkeley High School Principal Slemp’s plan to eliminate all science lab hours, including for AP courses. Dumbing down advanced courses doesn’t solve the equity issues at BHS; it just hides them, meanwhile penalizing everyone prepared to do college-level work while still in high school. Lowered AP test scores will make our graduates less attractive to colleges and less likely to get college credit for those watered-down courses.
Berkeley parents are pretty sophisticated, and they may calculate that a year or two at a private high school is worth the money saved by shaving a year off college. Our AP teachers are a dedicated bunch—our grandson’s AP chemistry teacher, on her own time, gives evening lectures to cover the material. But teachers like her are probably already polishing up their resumes and getting ready to shop them around to places where they will be appreciated.
And none of this will help our equity issues, which are very real and utterly deplorable. We should all be shocked that hundreds of students are entering BHS with only fifth- or sixth-grade math and reading skills. Those grades and lower are exactly where our efforts and public funds should go. By ninth grade, it’s too late.
The school board and everyone who cares about equity should be working hard and with an open mind on dramatic changes to improve performance in lower grades: charter schools, higher pay for teachers who show results, more quantitative feedback to parents—whatever works.
Arthur Luehrmann
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NO SCIENCE LABS
Editors, Daily Planet:
The idea of not having science labs that compliment the lectures at Berkeley High School is shocking and insane! Science requires experimentation to prove theory. Have we completely forgotten that kids have different learning styles? I think that what will engage kids—all kids, and especially ones who are struggling with the more academic parts of class—is the practical hands-on aspect of the labs! I know from my recently BHS-graduated daughter that the labs saved her in all of her science classes—from biology and chemistry to AP environmental science. She would come home excited about what happened in lab, whereas she wasn’t raving about the lectures and was, at times, struggling with the assignments. The labs are how she was able to put a practical face on what she learned in the lecture. The idea of not having labs in science class is as idiotic as UC closing its libraries at midterm! My god! What is BHS thinking? BHS has to view the science labs as essential for the sake of all students and for the future of learning about science and the natural world.
Nadja Lazansky
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SCIENCE PROGRAMS
Editors, Daily Planet:
At my East Bay high school, after-school labs are populated almost exclusively by Asian-American students—our school is predominantly African-American and Latino. I suspect the same is true at Berkeley High School. So when I read in your newspaper about the decision of the Berkeley School Governance Council (BSGC) to eliminate before-school and after-school science labs I was inspired to ask some follow-up questions:
First, am I correct in my assumption that these existing science labs are attended primarily by Asian students?
Second, is it fair to say that the BSGC’s strategy for closing the achievement gap is to reduce programs that serve Asian and white students and use that money to help African-American and Latino students?
Third, specifically, what kinds of classes or programs will be added with this money?
Fourth, what effort will be made to insure that these new programs are not dominated by the same Asian students who now attend the labs? For surely there will be no closing of the gap if advantaged students use these new opportunities. Will the design of these new programs include some kind of measures to segregate them along racial or socio-economic lines or by test scores?
Jerry Heverly
Oakland
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CHARTER SCHOOL
Editors, Daily Planet:
I was intrigued by the Dec. 17 letters to the editor section, specifically the two letters written addressing the charter school issue. Do you know, by any chance, if the writers of these letters are employed by intelligence agencies in their cryptograph sections? I mean to say I couldn’t make heads or tails of the meanings of the letters due to the constant use of coded language and acronymns. Myself being a recent arrival on Planet Earth, I have no idea what a BOCA is. Is it anything like a BOA constrictor? What in the world does a snake have to do with a charter school? One writer explained he has a certain number of African-American males in his AP calculus class. Does the Associated Press publish calculus instruction booklets? Please explain.
Jean Damu
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PLACES TO STUDY
Editors, Daily Planet:
In Riya Bhattacharjee’s Dec.17 story about the Wheeler Hall arrests the morning of Dec. 11, student Marika Iyer is quoted as saying: “They knew about this all along. A lot of us were in there to study. That was the only building on campus that was open.”
Amazing that 35,000 other students could find places to study. Also note that the Moffett library was open 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. that week, and, furthermore, that both Doe and the Moffett libraries were open 24/7 from Thursday morning all through finals, so she could have moved over to more comfortable surroundings freely.
Gene Rochlin
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A QUESTION OF RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM
Editors, Daily Planet:
In its Dec. 3, edition, the Berkeley Daily Planet published a letter from an Atlanta man who egregiously claimed that Zionist Jews conspired with Eichmann and Hitler in the Final Solution. In the letter, he stated, “Zionists collaborated in sending the bulk of Hungary’s Jews to the gas chambers in exchange for allowing your relatives and a few rich Jews to leave and go to Palestine as the basis for a Zionist state.”
This type of repellent fiction may be commonplace on neo–Nazi websites where Jews are often blame for their own victimization, but any responsible newspaper would reject this erroneous and inflammatory statement.
However, the Daily Planet has a history of making Jews scapegoats. Israelis and their American Jewish supporters have more than once been compared to Nazis. Local American Jews have been called spies and fifth columnists for Israel. A writer once gloated that she was lucky that she did not marry a Jew. In 2006, the Daily Planet printed a letter from India which claimed that the Jews got what they deserved in the Holocaust and then repeated numerous anti-Semitic canards. Many of us communicated to the Daily Planet our rejection of this hatred at that time.
No one is saying the paper does not have a right to print viewpoints that are critical of Israel. We are saying that it has a responsibility to our community to not print anti-Semitic falsehoods. We understand that Daily Planet Executive Editor Becky O’Malley professes free speech “absolutism” as her reason for publishing these anti-Semitic calumnies. However, she has recently stated that she would never publish junk science that might harm the public good (e.g., that the swine flu vaccine is dangerous), and she has never, to our knowledge, published any hate speech directed at other minorities. Is it too much to ask that she likewise desist from publishing false, hateful speech directed at Jews?
Again, what we are requesting is not a call for censorship. Rather, we are requesting that the publisher and editor of the paper exercise substantially more responsibility in what they print and cease publishing dishonest and hate-filled speech against Jews in general and against Israel in particular, where nearly half the Jews on earth reside.
Jonathan Bernstein, Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League
Gordon Wozniak, Berkeley City Council
Rabbi James Brandt, Executive Director, CEO of the Jewish Community
Federation of the East Bay
Rabbi Ferenc Raj, Rabbi Emeritus,
Temple Beth El
Rabbi Jane Litman, Western Regional Director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
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FREE SPEECH
Editors, Daily Planet:
I broadly support you and your periodicals commitment to report openly and fairly. I know this is an old issue for you, however, I was bothered recently upon learning of the efforts of some in the Berkeley/East Bay community to stifle the opinion of those who do not hold the belief that Israel and things Israeli are off limits for criticism. In a thinking community, no thing or nation can have such status. Their actions are embarrassing to us who hold Berkeley in high esteem. To those who have encouraged your advertisers to leave the Berkeley Daily Planet, I would encourage them to grow some. That lobby misses the point that their actions are counterproductive. What they are providing is more evidence that there really is a “protection racket” out there for the tiny Middle-East nation of 6 million. You are brave to call ’em as you see ’em. How hard it must be to call the player out at home plate in the face of an agitated crowd that is threatening to throw you, the editor bum, out of the park. I am one of the ordinary observers in the stands that holds you in high regard and respects your stance on the principle of free speach. Thank you for holding up what you believe to be true under such difficult circumstances.
I am a graduate of the business school who comes back to Berkeley and the East Bay from time to time. Next time I am there, I will make it a point to support the advertisers who have stayed with you this past year. I’ll also go out of my way to avoid supporting those advertisers who for the reasons above decided to stop advertising in your paper. Easy enough to do some quick research to see whose ads stopped appearing over the past 18 months, you know. Those establishments will be on my “don’t go to” list!
Paul Raneri
South Bay Area
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KPFA FLASHPOINTS
Editors, Daily Planet:
Last week KPFA management eliminated the Board Operator position of the 5 p.m. Flashpoints investigative journalism program and then cut the salary by 50 percent of Nora Barrows Friedman who produces all the programming from inside the Palestinian territories. The current managers and their core staff and “Concerned Listener” colleagues who were voted out of the station board majority just a month ago, have often insisted that KPFA is not running in the red, and that such claims were scare tactics by opponents of the station. Now that their fiscal mismanagement and the need for staff cuts can no longer be hidden, they distract attention from their culpability by not only blaming others, but by an assault on the rights of the Palestinian people through an attack on Nora personally; it has gotten very personal in terms of invective inside the paid staff Union dominated by management supporters.
Nora Barrows Friedman almost single-handedly organized a Palestinian news bureau in the occupied territories, directed by Kristen Est and staffed by numerous young Palestinian reporters who Nora and Kristen have trained quite professionally. Nowhere in the United States is there available equivalent information from Palestinian sources on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. As Free Speech Radio News reported today, the U.S. is currently funding an underground wall that Egypt is constructing to block and prevent the flow of vital goods into Gaza under the pretense that the smuggling is mainly military goods to the Hamas government. But there is documentation that at least seventy percent of the subsistence needs of 1.5 million people has to be smuggled through tunnels from the Egyptian border because of the continuing Israeli blockade of basic needs of the Gaza population. This is their lifeline and the U.S. raises not a finger nor a voice to assure that adequate supplies can enter Gaza. In this context of U.S. sponsorship of the deprivation of Palestinians, and the context that much of the advanced weaponry that killed 1,400 Gazans including over 300 children during Israel’s assault exactly one year ago was supplied by the US, we in Berkeley are treated to the spectacle of a KPFA management and their allies targeting unique coverage of that desperate situation.
Beyond unacceptable, such behavior rises to the level of criminality and collaboration in the war crimes outlined by Judge Goldstone’s Report. And ironically it also rises to the level of comparison with the suppression of information about the plight of the Jews in Nazi Germany by Hitler’s many collaborators around the world, including in the United States. Have we not yet learned the meaning of justice for all? Please support Nora who risks her life every time she travels to the occupied territories where 56 journalists have been killed by the Israelis in recent years.
Marc Sapir
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PLUTO
Editors, Daily Planet:
In his Dec. 17 article “When Is a Tanager Not a Tanager,” Joe Eaton errs in his description of Pluto’s so-called “reclassification” in 2006. That reclassification was done in violation of the International Astronomical Union’s own bylaws and is widely contested in the astronomy community.
Only 4 percent of the IAU voted on the controversial demotion, and most are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto.
One reason the IAU definition makes no sense is it says dwarf planets are not planets at all! That is like saying a grizzly bear is not a bear, and it is inconsistent with the use of the term “dwarf” in astronomy, where dwarf stars are still stars, and dwarf galaxies are still galaxies. Also, the IAU definition classifies objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were in Pluto’s orbit, according to the IAU definition, it would not be a planet either. A definition that takes the same object and makes it a planet in one location and not a planet in another is essentially useless.
Pluto is a planet because it is spherical, meaning it is large enough to be pulled into a round shape by its own gravity—a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium and characteristic of planets, not of shapeless asteroids held together by chemical bonds. These reasons are why many astronomers, lay people, and educators are either ignoring the demotion entirely or working to get it overturned.
For more on the view supporting Pluto’s planet status, check out Dr. David Weintraub’s book Is Pluto a Planet? and Alan Boyle’s book The Case for Pluto.
Laurel Kornfeld
Highland Park, NJ
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JESUS
Editors, Daily Planet:
This letter is in response to Jack D. Forbes’ fantasy piece that Jesus was a Palestinian.” While I enjoyed the sentiments expressed, the lack of historic and cultural accuracy was disturbing.
What Mr. Forbes refers to as the “Canaan” (Kanaan) dialects or languages are almost indistinguishable from Hebrew. However, Mr. Forbes was mistaken when he stated that, “The name Palestine came to be applied first in ancient times to the coastal region, an area occupied by a sea-going people known as the Filistines (Philistines).” The Phillistines were an invading Hellenic, non-Semitic, seafaring people who left Crete and arrived in Canaan at the beginning of the 12th century B.C.E. They were called “Peleshtu” or “foreign invaders” by the Hebrews, rather the Filistines.” which is the much later developed word in Arabic as Arabic lacks the letter “P.”
In the year 136 C.E., the Romans destroyed the Jewish nation, imposed the term Palestrina to refer to the region in an attempt to minimize the Jewishness of the land, the imposition of a name of punishment, representing the Jewish loss of sovereignty along with the destruction of the Temple, the renaming of Jerusalem as “Aelia Capitalina,” and dispersal and exile of the Jewish people. The Arabic use of the term Filastin is from this Latin root. However, this re-naming occurred well after the events described in the New Testament. Jesus would not have known what a Palestinian was but would have identified himself as a “Judean” and likely spoke Aramaic, the lingua franca of the region as well as Hebrew. As a Jew reading the New Testament, it is obvious that Jesus was a Jew, who by the standards of today would be considered Orthodox, and who expressed himself in the manner of one having beliefs in keeping with those of a Pharisee.
It seems to me that anyone that was once called, the “Prince of Peace” etc., would have a problem with those people that advocate the use of qassam rockets and suicide bombers.
Rfael Moshe
Hayward
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SAVE POINT MOLATE
Editors, Daily Planet:
As early as Jan. 15, the Richmond City Council could turn over Point Molate, 415 acres of bayside open space, to Upstream Developers and the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians for the construction of a casino resort.
The 266-acres of planned development will devastate the regions rare plants and habitats. The proposed ferry and water sports will destroy the 50-60 acres of eelgrass beds at the southern tip of the region, the largest eelgrass beds in the San Francisco Bay.
The developer asked an environmental umbrella group, Citizens for East Shore Parks, to drop a lawsuit against them, and ensure other environmental groups follow suit, in exchange for land elsewhere. This is unacceptable.
Please tell the Richmond City Council and Secretary Ken Salazar to support an alternative plan that protects our bay, preserves open space for everyone, and avoids the crime, pollution, addiction, and economic impacts that accompany casinos.
Pam Stello
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COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
Editors, Daily Planet:
Maybe it’s because I am recovering from a wicked bout of the flu or maybe I have some kind of holiday dysphoria, but it seems to me that the quality of writing and editing in allegedly journalistic publications has deteriorated. Do any writers write drafts, revise, reshape second and even third drafts before getting published online? Lately, even columnists for the NY Times seem to just pop off like undergrads who have just discovered the internet, and just discovered they can write anything off the top of their heads, no one pays attention to cohesion, theme, beginning, middle, end.
Like I said, I might be bleary from the high fevers that were burning me up for several days—the fever seems to be gone but my sense of disorientation grows.
Ms. O’Malley, I love your newspaper. And I feel some affinities with you. We seem to be about the same age—I am 56—no offense if you are younger, I’ve never met you so I am not commenting on your appearance. We have both raised families. We both used to be lawyers. We are both transplants. And we both seem to have liberal hearts and minds.
I mostly stumbled into living in Berkeley, choosing my current home for its proximity to BART and its affordability. But Berkeley fits me. It’s liberal-leaning politics—I don’t assume that contemporary Berkeley reflects Berkeley’s history as a hotbed of radicalism leftover from the sixities. I am aware that Berkeley seems to be infected by the dogmatic, scary, conservative backlash in this culture but everywhere seems to be so infected and why would Berkeley escape that toxin? There are all kinds of things I love about my new home. Barring unforeseeable life changes, I imagine that I will be living here the rest of my life. And it’s all, mostly, good.
And one of my favorite things is your newspaper. I had no idea a real, community newspaper still existed. I am very aware of what is happening in the field of journalism. I am happy that Berkeley Daily Planet exists, and I hope it manages to remain alive.
Now, to your editorial about Lieberman. I have only read it twice. I still need to read it again because after two readings, I am not really sure what you are talking about. You mush up a lot of discussions all under the confusing title of Lieberman.
You begin talking about Lieberman—then you are talking about local councilmembers and you seem to switch topics over and over—and, by the end, I am not sure what your point was?
An engaged citizenry needs an engaged punditry. I wish you had written a more controlled analysis of Joe Liberman, without blending local politics into the national tragedy that is Joe.
Tree Fitzpatrick
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OPTIONS NEEDS HELP
Editors, Daily Planet:
At Options Recovery Services, we help anyone who’s ready to fight their addictions—whether they can afford it or not. We’ve found cost-effective ways to provide substance abuse and mental health treatment for Berkeley’s indigent. Hundreds of street addicts and alcoholics now have the “option” to live differently. I joined the staff because, as a Berkeley Police captain, I saw every day how Options improved our city’s quality of life.
Until now, dedicated staff, volunteers, and funders have enabled us to expand to meet the need. But the recession and state budget cuts have forced us to consider reducing services for the first time. In order for us to maintain our positive cash flows and financial stability our austerity plan will soon require laying off key counseling staff and closing the acupuncture and men’s afternoon programs. This will greatly reduce our impact on the community in need that we serve.
We’re grateful that the City of Berkeley and Alameda County Behavioral Health Services is working with us to address some of our shortfalls.
We’re asking members of the Berkeley community to maintain Berkeley’s quality of life, by matching their commitment and giving what you can to Options Recovery Services.
Please give what you can and mail your donations and checks to Options Recovery Services, 1931 Center St., Berkeley, Ca 94704. Or make a contribution on line at www.optionsrecovery.org.
Bobby Miller
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RECYCLING
Editors, Daily Planet:
In all the back-and-forth on climate change, it seems to me that there’s a lot we can learn from recycling. In the last 30 years we’ve learned how to change the destination of our discards from one big hole in the ground to numerous points-of-use where products and materials can be repaired, reused, or recycled. This “revolution” has been relatively painless and numerous households and businesses are putting more than 90 percent of their weekly discards back into the economy as feedstocks for reprocessing, composting, mulches, etc. The recent Green Festival in San Francisco produced 48,745 pounds of discards with 980 pounds—slightly more than two percent—going to a landfill.
With climate change all we need to do is look at “where do you get your energy?” rather than “where do your discards go?” Fossil fuels are like landfills, maybe not a bad idea in small doses but not a way to supply the needs of a developed world with six times as many people as a century ago. Sadly, it’s those whose ox is getting gored who most resist the changes necessary for all of us to “get along” but hopefully a clear picture of the future and learning from our recent past in recycling can help.
Arthur R. Boone
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LIES IN HEALTH CARE BILL
Editors, Daily Planet:
The lies about the Senate health care bill from both the White House and the Senate must be admitted, revealed, and used as basis to reject this fraudulent rip-off of the American people. Shame on Mr. Obama and shame on the corporate-owned Senators who stand in the way of health care for all Americans!
Glen Kohler
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PROGRESSIVES
Editors, Daily Planet:
Progressives won the last two elections and now a conservative agenda is still being followed. What makes the Democrats think that people win turn out and vote for them again when nothing is really changing at the institutional level?
Don DeLaCruz
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PUBLIC OPTION
Editors, Daily Planet:
I cannot think about a true health care reform without a public option which is placed to compete against private insurance companies. I urge representatives of my support to reveal the scum and voice our opinions.
Junko Kenmotsu
