Full Text

Jesse Strauss
 

News

Homemade Bottle Bomb Found in Berkeley’s Tilden Park

By Bay City News
Sunday July 11, 2010 - 06:10:00 PM

A homemade bottle bomb found in Berkeley's Tilden Regional Park late Friday morning was determined to be safe, police said today. 

Tilden Regional Park staff found the suspicious device around 11:30 a.m. in the park's Inspiration Point parking lot, according to the East Bay Regional Park District Police Department. 

The Walnut Creek bomb squad as well as the Contra Costa Hazardous Material Unit responded to the scene to investigate the device and determined it was a homemade bottle bomb. 

Once the device was rendered safe, the hazmat unit took possession of the device for disposal, police said. 

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call police at (510) 881-1833.


New: First Person: Witness to a Friend's Arrest at Oakland Demonstrations

By Pamela Drake
Saturday July 10, 2010 - 05:33:00 PM

What follows is an account of what I saw and experienced last night, and an account from my friend who experienced police brutality and arrest at the demonstration and afterwards. She was not released until late this morning. 

First off, as many have documented even in the mainstream media, the gathering was peaceful if not happy from 5:30 until much later in the evening. I saw and heard young person after young person get up on the podium and speak with their full hearts and minds. Some of them I knew, most I did not. 

I saw Council members Quan, Kaplan, Nadel, Brooks, Reid, and Brunner and many local lawyers who were monitoring or protesting: Walter Riley (subsequently arrested), Dan Siegel and Anne Weills, and their son, Michael Siegel. The group from Bikes 4 life put on the event and it was positive and hopeful- a real speak-out.  

Most of the speakers, while angry, called for unity and a peaceful response to the daunting task of demanding justice yet again. Most were not satisfied with the verdict and recalled the types of penalties others have received for much lesser offenses than (seemingly cold-blooded) murder. 

As soon as the official demonstration was over (although music and some speeches continued at the Plaza ampitheatre), an incident occurred somewhere down Broadway a block or so away and the crowd broke into a run.  

I headed down the street to see if any more trouble could be headed off and saw the council members still in the area. When I got up to the police phalanx, I could see that they were in riot gear. I turned onto 13th Street and attempted go down it away from the gathering crowd. Having lived through the 60’s, I’ll admit I don’t like getting cornered by police in riot gear. I always check my escape route, including from a stampeding crowd. 

The police blocked my escape saying that I had to go up Broadway. The police at that point started announcing that this was an unlawful assembly and issuing instructions to move up Broadway. After purchasing a snack at DeLauer’s, I rested for a minute in a bus stop enclosure where I met 2 teachers (another government teacher, don’t know if she was laid off like me). I then sought an exit from the closing police ranks.  

All of the streets were blocked. Finally, I located a small opening in the plaza and circumvented the box the police had been forming around the demonstration. I ended up behind police lines and remained in that area during the period when the looting of the Footlocker was apparently taking place. 

I began to see some small groups of onlookers, some of them excited by the impending violence converge on the area but by the next hour, most were gone. 

Since then, I’ve become aware that some professional looters did arrive with window smashing implements, sickening but not really shocking. 

By the time I reached the Oakland Local “offices” on 14th Street, a few minutes before 10 PM, my friend, Susan Harman, a retired principal of an East Oakland charter school, called me to tell me that she was in an ambulance on her way to Highland Hospital having been injured by the police. 

Now, let me tell you, my friend, despite being 69-years-old, a cancer survivor (quite small) and diabetic is very feisty. She had linked arms with some young people and Council Members, Quan and Kaplan, in hopes of keeping the protestors separated from the police phalanx. She told me the young men linking arms with her were actually trembling as they stood in front of the police in riot gear but they held firm. 

The police line was pushing slowly forward and she was conversing with the officer opposite her who said that he was trying to respect her age and move her slowly down the street. At that time (and at no time)did she see any bottles or rocks thrown but she was aware of the tension building on both sides. 

When they reached the chess game that had been going on in the street since early in the evening, they insisted that she keep moving. She protested that she was not willing to walk on them. 

There was a momentary pause in the action and suddenly, the police line surged forward and she went down as she fell or was shoved into the chess game. She was hit on the head by a police baton and her hands were roughly yanked behind her as an officer clamped handcuffs on her wrists. She tried to tell them that she had an old shoulder injury but no one heard or no one cared. 

They dragged her across the pavement, she has the bruises and scrapes to prove it, yanked her onto her feet and put her in an ambulance after Jumoke Hinton Hodge, the West Oakland School Board Director also under arrest, yelled, “your head, you’re bleeding.” 

She called me repeatedly from the hospital, saying she did not know whether she was under arrest. However, since her shoulder was causing her pain and her head had begun to hurt, she told me that she wished to be seen by a doctor. I offered to pick her up when she was through but, once again, she did not know if she was under arrest. However, no one had been monitoring her as she sat in the ER waiting room so we assumed that she was free to go. 

At some point she got concerned about her growing headache and got up to inquire at the desk about seeing the doctor. An officer (county sheriff) was there a heartbeat later and grabbed her wrist, twisting it as he shoved her into a seat. She asked him to stop hurting her and said, “I’m doing what you’re asking.” Other patients objected as they could see she was a gray-haired lady, but at that point they handcuffed (metal cuffs) to the chair and left her there. 

Susan told me that there were two other patients in the hospital with her from the demonstration. One was a young White man-who had been taking pictures- and a young Black man. The Black man had an open wound on his forehead but she never saw him get any treatment. He was also handcuffed to a chair and repeatedly asked for water but the officers only taunted him. 

I had gone to wait at Highland as I was hoping that she would be released; but on the way, I got a call from Susan’s cell which turned out to be from an Officer Magill (sp?) of the Sheriff’s Department who told me not to come, that she was in custody, and I could not see her. I told him about some of her medical conditions and that I hoped she would be able to remain the hospital, but he hung up. 

As a result of a call from Dr. Floyd Huen, the doctors at Highland were made aware of her medical status and provide care; but later at the city jail, she asked for her nightly insulin shot and was refused. They left her in a small holding tank for hours with 12 others, among then Jumoke Hinton Hodge. Later they moved them to a larger cell that contained twenty prisoners and no beds. 

Still sitting up in the crowded cell, she was released at 10 AM this morning, her blood sugar level dangerously high. At this writing, activists, lawyers, and council members are still trying to get Hinton Hodge released. 

One thing the jail officers did remember to do was require my 69-year-old friend to take a pregnancy test, presumably so there would be no liability on their part to the fetus. 

My question remains. Who was in charge last night? The city policy makers, the Council, clearly was not. Was Dellums the commander-in-chief? If so, did he order the police to charge the crowd? Was it necessary to force a confrontation? Were the troublemakers out-of-towners, crazed anarchists , angry youth, criminals out to grab some goodies, or did it really have to happen this way, really, folks?  

I don’t know the answers to those questions but we must ask all of them. We can’t stop everyone from dangerous or irresponsible behavior but that behavior should not be perpetrated by those who are empowered to serve and protect. 


New: Dellums is “Proud” of How Oakland Responded to Mehserle Verdict

By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Friday July 09, 2010 - 06:16:00 PM

OAKLAND (BCN)— Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums said today that he's "incredibly, extraordinarily, unwaveringly proud" of the way city residents responded to the involuntary manslaughter conviction for former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle for the death of Oscar Grant III. 

 

Dellums said "people came out with pain and anger" at a rally in downtown Oakland Thursday night shortly after the verdict was announced, but he believes most Oakland residents protested peacefully. 

 

Speaking at a new conference at the city's emergency services office, Dellums said, "We saw acts of courage and great dignity last night" at the rally, which was attended by nearly 1,000 people. 

 

The mayor also praised his city's Police Department for "showing great restraint and respect for civil rights" in responding to protesters. 

 

Many downtown business suffered property damage, such as broken windows, and there was looting at some stores, such as the Foot Locker shoe store at 1430 Broadway. 

 

Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts said three-fourths of the 78 people who were arrested when the protest turned violent were from outside Oakland and appeared to be anarchists who were intent on creating havoc. 

 

"People are coming from outside Oakland to cause problems and that needs to stop," Batts said. 

 

He displayed various items that police seized while making arrests, such as gas containers used in making Molotov cocktails, tennis shoes from the Foot Locker store, baseball bats and spray paint that was used to spray graffiti on downtown buildings. 

 

Batts said his officers "stood tall last night in the midst of people spitting at them, throwing rocks at them" and shouting racial slurs at them. 

 

"I apologize to the businesses that were impacted" by property damage, Batts said. 

 

He said, "We moved as quickly as possible to limit the damage." 

 

A large group of Oakland police officers stood by and didn't respond initially when a group of people broke into the Foot Locker store and stole shoes and other items. 

 

Batts said, "You can't just run into a crowd" and noted that officers had been overrun by protesters earlier in the evening when they tried to remove two men who were trying to block an AC Transit bus that was traveling on Broadway. 

 

He said, "The crowd reacted to us and you can't just have police squads go right in" because they might get surrounded. 

 

Dellums said protesters had "a legitimate constitutional right to assemble" and he didn't want police to respond in an "oppressive and militaristic" manner. 

 

But he admitted that some people took advantage of their freedom to assemble and "exploited the openness." 

 

Batts said his department, which was assisted by 15 other law enforcement agencies Thursday night, is preparing for possible additional protests tonight and over the weekend. 

 

However, he said his department hasn't heard of any more protests so far. 

 

 

 

 


New: 78 Arrests in Oakland Protests

By Bay City News
Friday July 09, 2010 - 12:18:00 PM

  OAKLAND (BCN)--    A total of 78 people were arrested Thursday night in downtown Oakland during protests that followed the announcement of the verdict in the Johannes Mehserle trial, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office said today.  

 

   Mehserle, a former BART officer, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday for the shooting death of Oscar Grant III on a platform at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009.  

 

   The majority of those arrested, 66 people, will be released today  because they only face misdemeanor charges, many for "unlawful assembly,"  which is not obeying an order to disperse, Alameda County sheriff's Sgt. J.D.  Nelson said.  

 

   The others face felony charges and will be kept in custody, Nelson said.  

 

   Six of the 12 people are facing felony charges for breaking parole, and other charges include arson, causing property damage, and using an explosive device, Nelson said.  

 

   Of the 78 people arrested, 60 were male and 18 female.   

 

   Nineteen of those arrested are from Oakland, 28 are from the Bay Area outside of Oakland, 19 are from California outside of the Bay Area, and 12 are from out of state, Nelson said.  

 

   Nelson did not have any information about whether the people from out of state were the so-called "outside agitators" who instigated the destructive parts of the protest, but he said it was not out of the question.  

 

   "You have to question why they came from out of state, and why they were in the streets in the middle of the night," he said.  

 

   Several businesses were damaged along Broadway between 12th and 20th streets, where most of the protesters gathered. A few banks, a Whole Foods Market, a Foot Locker shoe store, and a Subway sandwich shop were among the businesses that were damaged.  

 

   Protesters smashed windows; some looted stores, busted down doors, or sprayed graffiti on storefronts.  

 

   Of the 66 people arrested who are scheduled for release, only 16  have been released as of shortly before 11 a.m. because processing is slow  since the jail facility is understaffed due to budget cuts, Nelson said.  


First Person: Searching for Justice as Oakland Streets Turn Lawless

By Jesse Strauss
Friday July 09, 2010 - 09:38:00 AM
Jesse Strauss
Jesse Strauss
Jesse Strauss
Jesse Strauss
Jesse Strauss

As the Oakland community begins to understand the meaning of Johannes Mehserle’s involuntary manslaughter verdict, the streets exploded angrily last night. 

Mehserle is the former BART cop who killed Oscar Grant on New Year’s morning, 2009. As Grant was lying face down on a BART platform, Mehserle stood up, grabbed his firearm, aimed down, and shot Grant. Mehserle’s next action was to handcuff the wounded 22 year old father before calling for any kind of medical assistance. Oscar Grant was killed that morning, but the Oakland community will never forget his name. 

Yesterday at 4pm, an LA courthouse announced the jury’s verdict, that Mehserle killed Grant with “criminal negligence”, receiving the charge of involuntary manslaughter. From what I understand at the time of this writing, the verdict could mean that Oscar Grant’s killer will serve anywhere from two to fourteen years in jail. 

It’s clear, though, that the Oakland community does not consider the conviction strong enough. Speaker after speaker at the 6pm rally in downtown Oakland told the crowd of at least a thousand that they were disappointed with the verdict. Many folks spoke out about their feelings in different ways, but no one seemed comfortable with what had happened. At the same time, no one seemed uncomfortable by the huge amount of support given by the larger Bay Area. What many sources have called “outside agitators”, many people in the streets last night recognized as community support. 

While we think about the mainstream narrative of “outsiders”, it seems important to keep in mind that Oscar Grant himself lived in Hayward, and Mehserle was not an Oakland cop, but a BART officer, which meant his jurisdiction spanned across a range of cities throughout the Bay Area. Oakland simply and justifiably is at the center of this action. 

The “inside agitators”, who are mostly Oaklanders (although I did see some people from Berkeley, Hayward and Vallejo), clearly played a strong role in the community response to the verdict. As the formal rally came to a close at 8pm when organizers were ordered to shut it down by the city, it became clear that the police forces, whether Oakland cops, California Highway Patrol, or others from nearby cities, were excited and ready to use their new training and equipment on the people who came out to voice their opinions 

. Once the rally ended, at least two people had already been arrested, but it was not clear to any of us witnessing the events what prompted those arrests. Only a few minutes later, I was told that a block away a Footlocker’s windows were broken and its contents ransacked by community members. When I arrived there, I watched some young people grab shoes in the store and run out before two others blocked the entrance, telling others that justice for Oscar Grant does not look like what we were seeing. 

But what does justice look like? 

As I walked away from Footlocker, I saw freshly sprayed graffiti covering windows and businesses with statements like “Justice 4 Oscar Grant” and “Off The Pigs”. Continuing down the street, I saw protesters running in any direction they could find to avoid confrontations with police, who were slowly marching up Broadway Avenue in Downtown Oakland. 

Then the shattering started. Much of the next few hours became a blur. I watched numerous windows at the downtown Oakland Sears fall to the ground as someone lit small fireworks nearby. Sirens echoed in every direction and police announced that the gatherings were illegal and we would be arrested and possibly “removed by force which could cause serious bodily injury”. Minutes later, the wind carried a draft of pepper spray toward me as I walked by three large flaming dumpsters in the middle of Telegraph Avenue. 

In the midst of all the action I searched for some kind of organization—some kind of unified goal or idea of justice. The community is angry, and there is no correct platform to address that anger. For those who are sure that Mehserle should be charged with a crime stronger than involuntary manslaughter, the legal approach did not work. 

While leadership and organization seemed to have flown out the window, it did seem that the rebellions were much more calculated than those just after Grant’s murder, as most of the broken windows were concentrated at corporate giants like Footlocker and Starbucks. The strongest organization I witnessed in Oakland’s streets last night was the groups of people preventing attacks on local businesses. 

The police came in as a close second. They didn’t seem to know how to deal with what was going on, but they would march in formation down a street, only to watch new trash cans light up and windows shatter another block down. While they may have been organized within their small army, officers had no idea how to deal with the realities of last night. In fact, it became clear to me that they made Oakland’s streets very unsafe. 

As I walked from Telegraph to Broadway on Grand Avenue, first watching a Starbucks window broken and then that of a sushi restaurant, I realized the night was getting out of hand for everyone. Trying to stay connected with some sort of normality and step away from the crazy streets, I called a friend. As soon as my conversation was over I looked down at my phone to hang up. Then a hand came out of nowhere, perhaps over my shoulder, and grabbed the phone. I tried to hold onto it until I was startled and disoriented by a fist slamming into my eye and I let the phone disappear as blood began dripping from just above my left eyelid. 

But where were the police to respond to a robbery and assault in the middle of a major intersection in downtown Oakland? They were clearly not making it safe for me to be in that space, and it is still unclear who or what they made it safe for. The person or people who have the phone and gave me a black eye and some possible medical bills were not crazy and violent Oaklanders that need to be policed to help or save people like me. These were people who took advantage of a lawless space that our law enforcement officers created themselves. 

The night started with people moving and becoming angry (or angrier) because police declared a peaceful gathering in the street to be illegal. Windows were broken because people were angry and moving quickly down the streets with nowhere to voice their anger safely. 

Hours later, I’m lying in bed with a black eye and a gash above my eyelid. I can only imagine how my night would have ended if the police hadn’t declared the peaceful gathering illegal and created a sense of lawlessness in Oakland’s streets. 

This is not justice for Oscar Grant. But what is? From Grant’s murder to those of us who were endangered by police last night, law enforcement needs to be held accountable to the communities they serve. That at least seems like a good starting point.  

Born and raised in Oakland, Jesse Strauss is a producer for Flashpoints (www.flashpoints.net) on Pacifica Radio. His articles have been published on Truthout, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Consortium News, and other sources. Reach him at jstrauss (at) riseup.net. --


Downtown Oakland is Calm Again

By Chris Cooney/Janna Bancolini (BCN)
Friday July 09, 2010 - 08:27:00 AM

OAKLAND (BCN)-- Relative calm has returned to the streets of downtown Oakland this morning as most protesters unhappy with the verdict in the Johannes Mehserle trial have abandoned the area and police and business owners continue to assess the damage inflicted by rioters Thursday night. 

 

Protesters defaced several storefronts along Broadway, with businesses between 12th and 20th streets sustaining smashed windows, sporadic looting, busted doorways and walls newly scrawled with graffiti. 

 

Banks in the area were hit hard. Local branches of California Bank and Trust and Chase bank on Thomas L. Berkley Way near 20th Street sustained smashed doorways and windows. Oakland police and Alameda County Sheriff's deputies remained at the banks on guard in riot gear at 12:30 a.m. 

 

A Whole Foods Market on Bay Place near Harrison Street was vandalized by rioters at around 11:15 p.m., according to witnesses and a security guard still on duty this morning. Again, windows and doorways were smashed and destroyed, but there was not heavy evidence of looting, according to the guard, and the grocery store was still scheduled to open on time at 8 a.m. 

 

There were no updated numbers on total arrests as of 1 a.m., police said. Patrol officers confirmed that the downtown areas were mostly deserted aside from police, and that protesters and residents appeared to have left. 

 

There had been about 50 arrests earlier on Thursday, when protesters refused to adhere to a dispersal order issued by the Police Department at around 9:30 p.m. 

 

"A number of protesters failed to adhere to that legal mandate," Police Chief Anthony Batts said at about 10:30 p.m. 

 

Batts said looting and vandalism occurred, particularly in the 1700 blocks of Broadway and west Franklin Street, and near the intersection of west Grand Avenue and Broadway. 

 

A Foot Locker at 14th Street and Broadway was broken into, vandalized and robbed, witnesses said. Nearby, protesters broke windows of a Subway sandwich shop and a Far East National Bank. 

 

They also pushed large trash bins into the street and set them on fire, Batts said. 

 

There were no outstanding fires burning at 1:30 a.m., a dispatcher with the Oakland Fire Department said. 

 

Batts said he was proud of the way police responded, but he admitted to being disappointed by the minority of protesters who damaged property and attacked police and other protesters. 

 

"To come to this city and destroy this city and to do the damage is something I frown upon," he said. "We deserve better. This city is not the wild, wild West. We will not tolerate it." 

 

0158a07/09/10 

 

 

 

 


Updated: About 50 Protesters Arrested; Oakland Police Expect Number to Double

By Janna Brancolini (BCN)
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 11:44:00 PM

Police have arrested about 50 people in Oakland and expect to double that number by the end of the night as officers respond to protests following the Johannes Mehserle verdict, police Chief Anthony Batts said. 

 

The evening started off peacefully with about 800 people gathering downtown to voice their opinions, but at about 8 p.m., a small, hostile crowd began moving toward a police line that had been held for several hours, Batts said. 

 

About 50 people wearing black masks, bandanas, hooded sweatshirts and backpacks threw rocks and bottles at the officers, Batts said. 

 

He described the protesters as anarchists and said their goal was to go into crowds and cause people on both sides to overreact. 

 

At 20th Street and Broadway, officers dispersed smoke to break up the crowd, but no tear gas was used, Batts said. 

 

Police issued a dispersal order and said over a loudspeaker that the protest had been declared an unlawful assembly, Batts said. 

 

The crowd was reduced to about 300 people by 9:30 p.m. 

 

"A number of protesters failed to adhere to that legal mandate," Batts said at about 10:30 p.m. "We have them boxed in and are making arrests since we gave them ample time to leave." 

 

Batts said looting and vandalism occurred, particularly in the 1700 blocks of Broadway and west Franklin Street, and near the intersection of west Grand Avenue and Broadway. 

 

A Foot Locker at 14th Street and Broadway was broken into, vandalized and robbed, witnesses said. Nearby, protesters broke windows of a Subway sandwich shop and a Far East National Bank. 

 

They also pushed large trash bins into the street and set them on fire, Batts said. 

 

Still others threw M-1000 fireworks at law enforcement officers and other demonstrators, Alameda County sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson said. 

 

Batts said he was proud of the way police responded, but he admitted to being disappointed by the minority of protesters who damaged property and attacked police and other protesters. 

 

"To come to this city and destroy this city and to do the damage is something I frown upon," he said. "We deserve better. This city is not the wild, wild West. We will not tolerate it." 

 

A Los Angeles jury today convicted Mehserle, a former BART police officer, of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting unarmed passenger Oscar Grant III on New Year's Day 2009. 

 

The jury also found true the allegation that Mehserle deliberately used his gun. 

 

Mehserle now faces between five and 14 years in prison when he is sentenced. 

 

After the shooting, a riot broke out in downtown Oakland. Batts said about 75 percent of the people arrested during the riot were from outside of Oakland. 

 

He said he expected many of the people arrested tonight would turn out to be residents of other cities. 

 

Mayor Ron Dellums emphasized that the response to the verdict was generally constructive despite the violence that erupted late in the protests today. 

 

He especially thanked the area's young people for expressing themselves in a "courageous" way. 

 

"This was a positive event given the pain and agony in the Bay Area in response to this," he said. 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


New: Arrests in Oakland Protest; Anarchists Blamed

By Janna Brancolini (BCN)
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 05:33:00 PM

Police have issued an unlawful assembly order and made several arrests in downtown Oakland as responses to the Johannes Mehserle verdict have begun to turn violent, police Chief Anthony Batts said. 

At about 8 p.m., a crowd began moving toward a police line that had been held for several hours and threw rocks and bottles at the officers, Batts said. 

He said the unruly crowd was comprised of about 50 people wearing black masks, black hooded sweatshirts and backpacks. 

Batts described them as anarchists and said their goal was to go into crowds and cause people on both sides to overact. 

Police issued a dispersal order and said over a loudspeaker that the protest had been declared an unlawful assembly, Batts said. 

"Most people did disperse, but a number did not," he said. 

Police tried to push the crowd north, away from downtown, to minimize damage, Batts said. Officers also began making arrests. 

Looting and vandalism were reported at some businesses, though. 

A Foot Locker at 14th Street and Broadway was broken into and robbed, and members of the crowd broke the windows of a Far East National Bank, according to witnesses. 

Batts said the remaining protesters were there for "bad reasons." 

"We're taking our time, pushing, allowing them to leave," he said. "There will probably be more arrests." 

Batts said no injuries had been reported for several hours. 

Earlier in the evening, a woman was hit by a police car bumper when the car was backing up through a crowd. 

The car was moving at a slow speed, and the woman suffered a minor injury. Batts said police would follow up with her. 

Mayor Ron Dellums said he was pleased with the police response so far. He added that both sides have shown restraint in moments of anguish. 

"I want to thank the residents of Oakland who went out there to express themselves passionately, vocally, even angrily, but in a way that was respectful of Oscar Grant, his family and the community," he said. 

Tony Coleman, a community organizer with Oakland Assembly and the New Years Movement for Justice for Oscar Grant, said the violence was preceded by a peaceful, productive rally. 

"The speak-out was a total success, everybody got a chance to speak. We did our thing," Coleman said. 

The speeches were heartfelt and emotional, he said. 

"It was going so good, we left at a high point, and that way folks will be more interested in maybe coming to the community meeting," Coleman said. 

He said the group will hold a meeting next Thursday at the Continental Club at 1658 12th St. to discuss the next steps in light of the verdict. 

 


Press Release: Bart Statement on Verdict

Thursday July 08, 2010 - 05:33:00 PM

Regardless of the outcome of the criminal trial, BART has always taken responsibility as a civil matter for the terrible tragedy that occurred on the platform of the Fruitvale BART Station on the morning of January 1, 2009. 

 

A young man lost his life because of the actions of a former BART police officer. It is a heartbreaking fact that no one can change that sad day. We continue to deeply regret the loss of life. 

 

While we cannot change the past, the tragedy has served as a catalyst to change the future of BART for our customers and the communities we serve. Oakland, indeed the whole Bay Area, is one of the best places to live in the entire world. We must not let the initial emotional reaction of the verdict have long-lasting negative effects on the place we call home. 

 

Although BART continues to enjoy unprecedented success as the Bay Area’s premier public transportation system, this tragic incident has justifiably forced us to take a hard look at ourselves, specifically the BART Police Department. We have done so with tremendous assistance from the community and the Oscar Grant family. In the past 18 months we have identified steps needed to improve the way our police operate in the community. I believe we have taken landmark steps. Specifically: 

 

We have hired two independent firms to: 

 

1. Provide an objective third-party account of the tragic night and; 

 

2. Provide an objective analysis of the areas that needed improvement in the BART police department. Both firms have submitted their reports and we have acted on many of their recommendations, including increasing both the scope and amount of our officer training, increasing the visibility of officers on trains and in stations and ensuring policies, practices, procedures and best practices are regularly updated 

 

3. We are also on the verge of implementing independent oversight of our police force; all that remains is the Governor’s signature on a bill unanimously passed by the State Legislature, a measure introduced at BART’s request by Assemblyman Sandre Swanson; 

 

4. We have terminated the employment of officers Tony Pirone and Marysol Domenici whose conduct on the platform in the minutes before the shooting have been under criticism by the media and public; and 

 

5. Upon the retirement of Chief Gary Gee, we have hired a new police chief who brings a reputation for community policing. It’s our fervent hope that our new police chief will not only implement the changes the BART Board has made but work tirelessly to re-establish the trust and confident of our communities and customers by meeting the high standards they expect and deserve. 

 

We have always accepted the responsibility for this tragedy as a civil matter. In the civil case, a federal judge has helped mediate a financial settlement that will provide for Oscar Grant’s 6-year-old daughter Tatiana’s future. 

 

Finally, it is my belief that the overwhelming majority of the BART Police and BART staff are good and dedicated public servants who are desirous of serving the needs of the communities in which BART travels. It was extremely unfortunate that it took this tragic loss of life for BART to reexamine and improve critical parts of our mission in serving our public.


Updated: Protest Turns Violent, Rocks Thrown, Looting Reported

By Bay City News
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 05:09:00 PM

Protests in downtown Oakland sparked by the verdict in the Johannes Mehserle trial appear to be taking a violent turn.  

Oakland City Councilwoman Jane Brunner said shortly before 9 p.m. that she had just left downtown because part of the crowd had turned unruly.  

"They were running up and down and it looked like they may have been starting to throw rocks," Brunner said.  

Earlier in the night, Brunner had participated in a small, organized demonstration at the corner of 14th Street and Broadway. She said a microphone had been set up for people to voice their views about Oscar Grant and the verdict.  

A band started playing at City Hall Plaza sometime around 8 p.m. and continued to play as the situation began to turn volatile, she said.  

A witness reported that an increasing number of protesters are donning bandanas over their faces, and that at least one window at a nearby Subway shop has been broken.  

Looting has been reported at a Foot Locker store, and windows are said to have been broken at the Far East National Bank opposite City Hall.  

Brunner said she understands why people are upset.  

"I know that the family is unhappy, and I support that, but I also believe that this is the first time in people's memory that a police officer was charged when it had to do with an African American male who was hurt,” Brunner said.  

She noted that "with the addition of the gun charge there may be significant time."  

A Los Angeles jury today convicted Mehserle of involuntary manslaughter for Grant's fatal shooting on New Year's Day 2009. The jury also found true the allegation that Mehserle deliberately used his gun.  

Mehserle now faces between five and 15 years in prison when he is sentenced.


DOJ to Review Mehserle Case, May Prosecute under Federal Law

By Bay City News
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 09:45:00 PM

The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct an independent review of the Johannes Mehserle case in order to determine whether or not the shooting merits federal prosecution, according the department. 

"The Justice Department has been closely monitoring the state's investigation and prosecution," the department said in a statement. 

"The Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the FBI have an open investigation into the fatal shooting and, at the conclusion of the state's prosecution, will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution." 

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said she has been in touch with the justice department. 

"I remain in close contact with the Department of Justice and will continue to work with them, the family and the community in the days ahead," she said in a statement. 

The statement also addressed local reactions to the Mehserle verdict. 

"Understandably there is grave concern in the community," Lee said. "However, during this time our city must come together peacefully so that we can begin to heal." 

Lee said she stands with Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, the City Council and community leaders in supporting people who want to express themselves. 

 


Oakland Groups Gather for Peaceful Protests at 6 p.m.

By Dan McMenamin/Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 05:02:00 PM

Several groups are gathering in downtown Oakland this evening in the wake of the involuntary manslaughter conviction of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle. 

A spokeswoman for the Oakland General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant says the group will hold a rally at 6 p.m. at Broadway and 14th Street. 

Other groups, including By Any Means Necessary, also plan to join the 6 p.m. rally. 

Oakland City Councilwoman Desley Brooks said in a statement that a separate rally, sponsored by the Community Working for Peace, Healing and Justice, will be held at Frank Ogawa Plaza near the corner of Broadway and 14th Street from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. 

Brooks said the rally will include religious leaders, family and friends of Oscar Grant, elected officials and live music. 

Five community centers and youth organizations have been listed on the city of Oakland's website as places for people to "express yourself in positive ways." 

The locations are the East Bay Asian Youth Center at 2025 E. 12th St.; the Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center at 7701 Krause Ave.; the Mosswood Recreation Center at 3612 Webster St.; Youth UpRising at 8711 MacArthur Blvd.; and Attitudinal Healing Connection at 3278 West St. 

A statement was released by Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts, Mayor Ron Dellums and the City Council encouraging the community to "express...grief in a healthy manner that will not endanger our safety, livelihood or reputation as a city." 

"We are asking for the community to come together, look out for one another and stay safe," the statement read. "We will not tolerate destruction or violence. We live here, and we love Oakland." 

 


Press Release: District Attorney Nancy E. O'Malley Comments on Verdict

From the Alameda County District Attorney's Office
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 04:33:00 PM

District Attorney Nancy E. O'Malley announces that the Los Angeles jury in the case of People v. Johannes Mehserle returned a guilty verdict of involuntary manslaughter against the defendant. The jury also found true the allegation that the defendant used a gun and rejected the defense that the defendant believed he was using his taser. The verdict reflects that the killing was unlawful and done with criminal negligence and recklessness. 

Ms. O'Malley makes the following statement: A criminal trial is a search for the truth. Prosecutor Dave Stein and the entire trial prosecution team did the best job possible in presenting the case. While the jury rejected the defense contention that the defendant be relieved of criminal liability, it nevertheless did not agree with the prosecution's belief that Oscar Grant was murdered by Johannes Mehserle. The District Attorney filed charges of murder against the defendant. This decision to charge a sworn officer with murder was based on all the evidence the prosecution believed supported the most serious charge. 

The prosecution team has worked on this case for more than 18 months, and for the last two months, 15 dedicated District Attorney staff, under the leadership of Prosecutor Dave Stein, relocated to Los Angeles and worked 7 days a week while conducting the trial in Los Angeles. The District Attorney dedicated all resources needed by the prosecution team to ensure a just verdict. The Prosecutors fought hard, always with the goal of justice and truth. All evidence was presented to the jury and they ultimately decided the outcome. While it is not the verdict sought, the District Attorney's Office respects the role of jurors, respects the criminal justice process and ultimately, respects and accepts the jury's verdict. The District Attorney's Office fulfilled its Mission with dignity; I am both thankful to and extremely proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Prosecutor Dave Stein and each member of the District Attorney's office who put justice first and ahead of themselves. We have the highest respect for a judicial system that strives to protect the innocent, hold accountable the guilty and ensure that victims' rights are upheld. 

The case is a tragedy in every respect. Oscar Grant should never have been killed at the hands of a sworn officer. But, let us not allow the actions of one former officer dictate how we as a community move forward. In Alameda County there are more than 1,500 upstanding members of the law enforcement who dedicate their lives every day to protecting our citizens and our communities by upholding and enforcing the laws. Oscar Grant's death has created a stronger platform for ongoing dialogue in our community so that we shall grow from this tragedy and we shall be a better community, with better communication and a greater understanding of each other and those profound issues that impact our safety and our lives. 

As evidenced by this prosecution, the District Attorney's Office discharges its duty fairly, regardless of who is the perpetrator of the crime. We join other community leaders who are calling for peace after this long trial. Our profound condolence goes out to the family of Oscar Grant. He shall not have died in vain. His memory can be best honored through open, forthright and candid communication without being steered by violence, judgment or hatred. I urge those in our community to use their voices in a nonviolent manner. Let their important message not be lost in violence.


Press Release: National Lawyers Guild Criticizes Mehserle Verdict As Gross Injustice: Calls On Law Enforcement to Respect Civil Liberties As Community Reacts

From the National Lawyers Guild
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 04:12:00 PM

The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLGSF) condemns the involuntary manslaughter verdict in the criminal case against former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. The trial judge, Robert Perry, acted inappropriately by allowing irrelevant information about the victim, Oscar Grant, before the jury. 

“The verdict is a painful example of what we already know, the criminal justice system treats white, police officers with deference and poor people of color with hostility,” said Carlos Villarreal, NLGSF Executive Director. “It is shameful that irrelevant aspects of Grant’s past were put before the jury and troubling that the jury included no African Americans.” 

There has been much attention on the potential for violence in the aftermath of this verdict, and the NLGSF is also concerned with the potential for violence. “We are extremely concerned with the possibility that law enforcement will treat any street actions, with or without vandalism, as an excuse to violate the rights of civilians in potentially violent ways,” said Teague Briscoe, NLGSF President. 

Last year, Oakland police made a number of arrests of activists and journalists during uprisings in response to Grant’s killing and the lack of response from the District Attorney and other authorities. Roughly 100 individuals were arrested with fewer than a dozen ultimately prosecuted, mostly for minor offenses. Most of those were ultimately dropped. Despite the claims of the Oakland Police Department, the vast majority of the arrestees were from Oakland and surrounding Bay Area. 

The NLGSF has a history of opposing police violence and regularly sends legal observers to political actions and protests throughout the Bay Area. The organization has hundreds of trained legal observers who are on call and prepared to monitor the actions of law enforcement. Criminal defense and civil liberties lawyers are also on call. 

The NLGSF is an association of lawyers, legal workers, law students and jailhouse lawyers with hundreds of members in the Bay Area. See www.nlgsf.org for more information. 


Flash: Mehserle Verdict: Involuntary Manslaughter

By Bay City News
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 04:12:00 PM

A Los Angeles jury has convicted former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle of involuntary manslaughter. 

The verdict was read at about 4 p.m., according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.  

Mehserle, 28, was charged with murder for the shooting death of unarmed passenger Oscar Grant III on the platform of the Fruitvale station in Oakland early on New Year's Day 2009. 

Jurors in Mehserle's trial only deliberated for the equivalent of about one full day. 

Jurors deliberated for two hours and 20 minutes after getting the case at 1:40 p.m. on Friday, then adjourned for the long holiday weekend. 

They didn't deliberate on Tuesday because a juror was sick. On Wednesday, they started from scratch after one juror had to be replaced because he went on a previously planned vacation. 

Jurors then deliberated for only two and a half hours on Wednesday because one of the jurors had a medical appointment. 

Mehserle's lawyer, Michael Rains, has admitted that Mehserle shot and killed Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward resident, on the platform of the Fruitvale station in Oakland shortly after 2 a.m. Jan. 1, 2009, after he and other officers responded to a report that there was a fight on a train. 

But Rains claims the shooting was an accident and Mehserle, 28, who's free on $3 million bail, meant to use his Taser stun gun on Grant. 

 


Flash: Mehserle Verdict Soon

By Bay City News
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 04:01:00 PM

Jurors in the trial of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle have reached a verdict. 

The verdict will be read at 4 p.m., according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.  

Mehserle, 28, is charged with murder for the shooting death of unarmed passenger Oscar Grant III on the platform of the Fruitvale station in Oakland early on New Year's Day 2009. 

Jurors in Mehserle's trial have only deliberated for the equivalent of about one full day. 

Jurors deliberated for two hours and 20 minutes after getting the case at 1:40 p.m. on Friday, then adjourned for the long holiday weekend. 

They didn't deliberate on Tuesday because a juror was sick. On Wednesday, they started from scratch after one juror had to be replaced because he went on a previously planned vacation. 

Jurors then deliberated for only two and a half hours on Wednesday because one of the jurors had a medical appointment. 

Mehserle's lawyer, Michael Rains, has admitted that Mehserle shot and killed Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward resident, on the platform of the Fruitvale station in Oakland shortly after 2 a.m. Jan. 1, 2009, after he and other officers responded to a report that there was a fight on a train. 

But Rains claims the shooting was an accident and Mehserle, 28, who's free on $3 million bail, meant to use his Taser stun gun on Grant. 


New: Bart Trains Filling Up Before Mehserle Verdict at 4.

By Bay City News
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 03:59:00 PM

BART officials are asking passengers -- especially those riding near the downtown San Francisco and downtown Oakland stations -- to be patient with service because the trains are very full as a result of the Mehserle verdict.  

The verdict is going to be read at 4 p.m.  

"All of our trains are on time; however, they are very packed with passengers," BART spokesman Linton Johnson said. 

Noah Klein was one of the passengers trying to get on a train at the 12th Street/Oakland City Center station. 

Klein works in the Elihu M. Harris State Building in downtown Oakland, and was told to go home early after word came in that a verdict had been reached. 

"It was a mob almost," he said. "It wasn't rushing or angry or trying to push, but everyone was trying to make their way down to a train." 

He said, "everybody's pretty calm, just a little concerned." 


Berkeley YMCA Death Report Confirmed by Authorities

Thursday July 08, 2010 - 01:20:00 PM

Berkeley police spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss today confirmed anecdotal reports to the Planet that a woman was found dead in the Berkeley YMCA on June 30. Based on their preliminary investigation, police believe that she hid in the building until it closed and then committed suicide by hanging herself in a first floor restroom. The Alameda County coroner has identified the dead woman as Amy Gitelman, 47, and has notified next of kin.  

The coroner’s office will not make their final determination of the cause of death for eight weeks.


Press Release: Community Rally at Oakland City Hall after Mehserle Verdict

Sponsored by the Community Working for Peace, Healing and Justice
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 10:27:00 AM

The shooting of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station was a devastating event for one young man, his friends and family and his whole community. A jury is currently deliberating on the fate of his accused shooter Johannes Mehserle, and a verdict is expected in the very near future. We would like to invite you to a community rally to promote healing and support Oscar Grant’s family, friends and community. The event is to be held in front of City Hall on the day of the verdict. 

 

Please join community members, religious leaders, family and friends of Oscar Grant, and elected officials for a rally which will include: 

     

  • Live Music
  • Spoken Word
  • Speakers
  • Faith Leaders
  •  

WHAT: Day of Verdict Rally 

 

WHERE: Frank H. Ogawa Plaza (14th and Broadway) 

 

WHEN: 6pm to 9pm 

 

Sponsored by the Community Working for Peace, Healing and Justice


News Analysis: Oakland Transforms as it Prepares for Street Rebellions

By Jesse Strauss
Thursday July 08, 2010 - 10:12:00 AM

The trial of Johannes Mehserle, the cop who killed Oscar Grant, has reawakened a rebellious campaign against police brutality in Oakland, California. Oscar Grant, of course, was the unarmed young father who was pulled off a BART car for allegedly fighting early in the morning of January 1, 2009. After being detained by police, along with a group of his friends, he was shot in the back by Mehserle while lying on his belly on the BART platform. All this, of course, in front of a train full of witnesses, many of whom recorded the killing on cameras and cell phones. Although there is no doubt in the minds of many community members who have seen those videos as to what happened on that BART platform, the jury at Mehserle’s trial in Los Angeles may see something differently. 

 

Throughout the past week, graffiti has appeared all over Oakland. Around Lake Merritt, powerful messages have shown up around the walkway; from “BART Targets Black People” to “Justice for Oscar Grant III or Else,” it was one of the first major public awareness campaigns to remind Oakland, as well as the law enforcement community, that the city will not rest while Johannes Mehserle’s trial comes to a close. 

 

The graffiti that’s been appearing is only a small part of the community’s early response to, and anticipation of, the verdict. While painting these words seems to be an anonymous warning to the city, other visual cues are suggesting Oakland will be ablaze. 

 

Ghost town images of boarded up buildings are another way the community has begun preparing for the verdict. Many businesses have covered their windows in anticipation of street rebellions which could echo those from last year. During those actions, only a few days after Grant was killed, thousands of community members took to the streets, expressing their anger over Grant’s death by marching, chanting, and in some cases, damaging cars and the property of local businesses. Those demonstrations resulted in over 100 arrests. 

 

On the city government’s side, it seems like there is a strong potential for Oakland to rapidly turn into a police state. Reports have been out for weeks, saying that the Oakland Police Department is preparing with nothing less than intensive riot control training. Police have taken over a part of the Port of Oakland to use as both a training ground and a home base for what they are calling “Operation Verdict.” There are also rumors that the National Guard is already on its way with hundreds if not tens of thousands of troops. 

 

Law enforcement training and presence could inflame community response to the verdict. Is their preparation helping or hurting our situation? Does seeing police train for intensive action make people angrier, and therefore justify use of riot-control techniques and possibly violence by Oakland law enforcement? 

 

As Oakland visually shifts with anti-brutality graffiti and boarded up windows, the city government could be pushing potential protesters into the streets and intensifying the militancy of already protest-bound community members. 

 

On the other hand, from town hall meetings to boarded up windows, all sides of the community are much more organized than they were last year. No matter how people participate, an explosive potential could hit Oakland as Mehserle’s verdict comes out. 

 

No matter the outcome of the trial, or for that matter what happens in the streets, police have turned these events into another win for themselves. That is, at least in the sense that they are capitalizing off a potentially volatile situation. Just as we hear that eighty police officers have been laid off in Oakland, hundreds more are getting days, possibly weeks, of free training with new crowd control and dispersal technology (toys). Moreover, overtime pay adds to the ways police are benefitting from Oscar Grant’s death. Not only are the police then capitalizing off of the trial by getting new training and toys, but they are benefitting financially from what could turn into just another day in Oakland; that is, if the community is satisfied with the verdict. 

 

Is there potential for a satisfying verdict? 

 

Nothing will bring Oscar Grant back to life. Nothing will allow him to raise his young daughter. At the very most, his killer could be convicted of second degree murder, which would put him away for forty or more years. 

 

If not, it is sounding more and more likely that the Oakland community will not let our legal system make a ruling on justice. Given that legal means will have fallen short, for a community which is positive of the perpetrator of this crime, justice may be taken into the community’s hands. If the legal system is not holding the perpetrator accountable, maybe the legal system is broken. 

 

Continuing around Lake Merritt, another piece of graffiti appeared, demanding justice as a price for peace: “No justice? No peace!” It is a community call to action that, for me, echoes those surrounding the Rodney King verdict. 

 

If justice rains down, we could be preparing for a massive celebration. If not, a massive confrontation could see community members arrested or wounded. Either way, the police have already capitalized off the situation; but so has the Oakland community, which seems organized, focused and determined for justice. As graffiti artists, shopkeepers and Oakland police transform the city in anticipation of a verdict, the transformation itself could be the explosive element that lights Oakland ablaze with rebellion. 

 

Born and raised in Oakland, Jesse Strauss is a producer for Flashpoints (www.flashpoints.net) on Pacifica Radio. His articles have been published on Truthout, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Consortium News and other sources. Reach him at jstrauss (at) riseup.net. 


Press Release: Money for Energy Efficiency

Wednesday July 07, 2010 - 03:29:00 PM

Starting today, Berkeley residents and building owners can apply online for cash rebates through the Money for Energy Efficiency (ME2) Program. ME2 is a federally funded program that provides rebates, incentives and direct installation of energy upgrades such as attic, wall and floor insulation and draft and duct sealing for Berkeley homes and businesses. The program covers Berkeley residential units at all income levels as well as commercial, industrial, and multifamily buildings. 

ME2 for Berkeley is designed to:
• substantially lower the cost of energy efficiency improvements;
• help Berkeley residents and businesses save money on their energy costs;
• improve building comfort, safety, and durability; and
• reduce our community’s carbon footprint. 

Money for Energy Efficiency is funded through a million dollar federal stimulus grant awarded to the City of Berkeley by the U.S. Department of Energy. 

The City of Berkeley is providing rebates of up to $5,000 for single-family/duplex units (for a total of $8,500 including PG&E rebate) and mini-grants of up to $30,000 for multifamily buildings and commercial properties. These cash incentives are available for deep energy retrofits that result in at least a 20 percent energy improvement. Comprehensive energy audits are required before and after the energy upgrade. Funding is available for more than 400 residential and multifamily units for energy-saving projects. 

The ME2 program is an important component of the City’s Climate Action Plan and is designed to help the community achieve a 33 percent reduction in GHG emissions by 2020. Through the program, the City of Berkeley expects that residents and business owners will save more than $100 million dollars in net energy savings by 2020 and create 19 local green jobs this year alone.  

"The Money for Energy Efficiency program demonstrates how protecting the environment can create jobs and help businesses and property owners save money," said Neal DeSnoo, Energy Officer for the City of Berkeley.  

Find out which ME2 program is right for you (based on property type, income level and geographic location). Learn more and apply at: www.cityofberkeley.info/me2/ (Note that you may not apply before 8 AM, July 6. In order for your reservation to be considered, you must print, sign and return the Application for Money for Energy Efficiency (ME2) within 14 days of filing your application.) 


Contact: Neal DeSnoo, Office of Energy and Sustainability, (510) 981-7439 


Updated: Summer School Student Robbed at Knifepoint on UC Berkeley Campus

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Wednesday July 07, 2010 - 02:22:00 PM

A 23-year-old woman was robbed at knifepoint on the University of California at Berkeley campus this weekend, according to police. 

The robbery was reported at 3:01 p.m. Sunday by the victim, who said she had been robbed about 10 minutes earlier while she walked on a service road between Minor Hall and the Women's Faculty Club on the east side of campus, police said.  

The woman, a student taking summer school classes at the university, said she was listening to her iPod when two men approached her. They demanded her property, and one of the suspects held a knife to her stomach.  

The woman gave the suspects her iPod, as well as her phone and wallet. The men then fled north toward the Women's Faculty Club, according to police. 

The victim was uninjured in the robbery. Police responded and searched the area, but the suspects were not found. 

Both are described as white men in their mid 20s. One is described as 6 feet 1 inch tall and 175 pounds, with a thin build and light brown hair. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, and had pierced ears. 

The other suspect is described as 5 feet 9 inches tall and 160 pounds with a thin to medium build and brown hair. He was wearing a white T-shirt. 

Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to contact the UC Berkeley Police Department's criminal investigations bureau at (510) 642-0472 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and (510) 642-6760 at all other times.  

 

 


Updated: UC Berkeley Police Investigating Suspicious Death on University Property

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Wednesday July 07, 2010 - 12:22:00 PM

A 21-year-old man died after suffering a head injury near the University of California at Berkeley campus on Friday morning, but how he suffered that injury is still not clear, a police captain said today. 

UC Berkeley police responded to a report of an unconscious person in the 2500 block of Haste Street at 9:02 a.m. Friday., campus police Capt. Margo Bennett said. 

The victim, Nicholas Bailey, appeared to have suffered some sort of head trauma and was taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland where he died Sunday, hospital spokeswoman Andrea Breaux said. 

An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday that Bennett said will hopefully shed some light on how Bailey died. 

"Right now we do not have any information that can identify for us how he suffered his injuries," she said. "Was it an intentional infliction of injuries or was it accidental? We don't have any info that can say one way or another." 

Bailey was last seen at about 1:30 a.m. Friday at Blakes On Telegraph, a nightclub at 2367 Telegraph Ave., before being found by police several hours later, according to police. 

"I know the family wants answers about what happened to their son," Bennett said. "I'd want those same answers." 

Bailey played basketball at Holy Names University, a small Catholic university in the Oakland hills, during his freshman year of 2007-08, before transferring to California State University at Sacramento. 

Dennis Jones, men's basketball coach and athletic director at Holy Names University, said Bailey "was a good kid, worked hard. It's just sad." 

Jones said the school is holding a basketball camp this week, and "a lot of guys at the camp, they know him ... the mood is definitely a somber one." 

Campus police, rather than the city's Police Department, are handling the case because Bailey was found on university-owned property, Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said. 

Bennett declined to say where exactly Bailey was found since the investigation is ongoing. 

Investigators are asking the public for help in piecing together the events that led to Bailey's death. Anyone with information is asked to call the UC Berkeley Police Department's criminal investigations bureau at (510) 642-0472 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., or (510) 642-6760 at all other times.


Information Sought in UC Berkeley Campus Death over the Weekend

Wednesday July 07, 2010 - 10:13:00 AM

The University of California Police Department has announced that it is seeking the public’s assistance for information about the suspicious death of a young man who was found unconscious in the south campus area early Friday morning. 

The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that the victim, who died on Sunday, has been identified as Nicholas Bailey, 21, of Sacramento. 

The UC department posted the following information: 

 

“On Friday, July 2, 2010, at 9:02 a.m., UCPD responded to the 2500 block of Haste Street regarding a call of an unconscious person, possibly suffering from seizure and unknown injuries. Within minutes, UCPD arrived on scene and located the victim. UCPD Officers observed that the victim sustained possible head trauma and the victim was transported by the Berkeley Fire Department to Highland Hospital for medical evaluation and treatment. The victim has subsequently succumbed to his injuries. Investigation revealed that the victim was last seen at Blake’s on Telegraph (2367 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley) at approximately 1:30 a.m. in the early morning of July 2nd. UCPD is seeking from the public any information regarding the events leading to the victim’s injuries or other relevant details to this suspicious circumstance. 

The victim is described as:  

A 21 year-old Black male with short-cropped black hair, 6’ tall, 175 pounds. At the time of discovery by UCPD, he was wearing a black jacket, a grey/white plaid shirt, a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of black athletic shoes. The victim is not affiliated with UC Berkeley. Identity and a photo of the victim will soon be released.” 

 

In an email, City of Berkeley Police Information Officer Sergeant Mary Kusmiss told the Planet that 

this is not a Berkeley Police Department case, that it is a University of Califomia Police Department investigation only. A commentator on a local blog claims that the body was found in the Anna Head building parking lot, which is University of California property.


New: Berkeley Video Store Seeks Help to Stay Open

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 07:10:00 PM

A popular video rental store in Berkeley is asking for donations from community members and movie lovers as it fights to stay in business after its parent company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. 

Reel Video, located at 2655 Shattuck Ave., is trying to raise at least $200,000 by the end of July to stay afloat, assistant store director James Lemon said today. 

If not, more than 80,000 movies, many of which are rare or decades old, will leave a community full of movie lovers and film students at the nearby University of California at Berkeley, Lemon said. 

The closure of the store is looming after its parent company, Movie Gallery, Inc., which operates the Hollywood Video chain of stores, filed for bankruptcy in February. 

The company purchased Reel Video more than a decade ago, but the store has sought to maintain an independent feel by focusing on older, hard-to-find movies rather than new releases. Store officials said the store is still profitable despite the financial problems of its parent company. 

Lemon said as of today, one person has pledged to donate $50,000 to help buy the business, and two other people have also expressed interest in donating large amounts. 

Store officials have not received word about a set deadline for when they need to come up with the money, but "I suspect we only have until the end of this month," Lemon said. 

"There's also been a lot of talk about a fundraiser concert with a bunch of bands playing," but nothing has been confirmed, he said. 

Store officials have talked to East Bay Media Center, a local nonprofit, about potentially helping to provide additional services if the store is saved, such as in-store film screenings and discounts for educational materials or movies shown in film classes. 

If the store cannot be saved, it would be liquidated and closed by the parent company. 

"Basically a couple people would come and buy up all the movies, and the building would be vacant until another business decided to rent it out, which is a drag too. Another huge vacant building in South Berkeley," Lemon said. 

Information about the store and how to help is available at www.savereelvideo.com or by sending an e-mail to savereelvideo@gmail.com. Those interested can also go to the store or call (510) 548-1118 and ask for James or Stephen during regular business hours, which are 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. everyday. 

 


Mehserle Trial Deliberations Suspended

By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 11:54:00 AM

Jury deliberations in the murder trial of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle were suspended today because one of the jurors is sick. 

A Los Angeles County Superior Court spokeswoman said Judge Robert Perry hopes that deliberations will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday, assuming that the juror who is sick today is feeling better. 

However, the spokeswoman said another juror will be replaced because he is going on vacation, which is something Perry and the attorneys in the case were aware of when he was selected. 

That juror will be replaced by an alternate and the panel will have to start their deliberations from scratch, the spokeswoman said. 

However, jurors only deliberated for two hours and 20 minutes on Friday after getting the case at 1:40 p.m. and they then adjourned for the long Fourth of July weekend. 

Mehserle is on trial for the fatal shooting of unarmed passenger Oscar Grant III on the platform of the Fruitvale station in Oakland early on New Year's Day 2009. 

His lawyer, Michael Rains, has admitted that Mehserle shot and killed 22-year-old Grant but claims the shooting was an accident and that Mehserle, 28, meant to use his Taser gun. 

Mehserle is free on $3 million bail. 

In giving jurors their legal instructions on Friday, Perry said they will have the option of convicting Mehserle of second-degree murder or the lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. Jurors will also have the option of finding Mehserle not guilty of all charges. 

The trial was moved away from Alameda County because of concerns about whether Mehserle could get a fair trial because the extensive publicity the fatal shooting received and the passions it aroused in the community. 

 

 


Cigarette Starts Berkeley House Fire

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 10:05:00 AM

A cigarette apparently sparked an early morning fire that caused about $700,000 in damage at a home in Berkeley, an assistant fire chief said. 

The two-alarm fire was reported at 1:41 a.m. at a home in the 2500 block of Etna Street, Assistant Fire Chief Sabina Imrie said. 

The elderly couple living in the home were alerted to the blaze by smoke detectors. They escaped uninjured, Imrie said. 

Investigators believe a cigarette that was not fully extinguished sparked a fire on the second story of the home, according to Imrie. 

Firefighters responded within minutes and controlled the blaze. 

The fire caused an estimated $500,000 in damage to the structure and $200,000 to the home's contents, Imrie said. 

The elderly couple have been displaced and are staying with neighbors, she said. 

Firefighters were able to save an adjacent home that was initially also in danger of catching fire. 

The neighboring home sustained "very little scorching," but three windows were cracked due to the heat from the blaze, according to Imrie. 


Disabled Protesters To Extend Their Berkeley Camp

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Sunday July 04, 2010 - 02:39:00 PM

A tent city has sprouted up for the second time in as many months on the median of a Berkeley street in protest of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts to in-home support services, an organizer said today. 

"Arnieville" is made up of a couple dozen people camping out on the median near the intersection of Adeline and Russell streets to protest the proposed cuts, organizer Dan McMullan said. 

The group started camping out on June 21 and planned to stay at the intersection until Tuesday, McMullan said Saturday, but organizer Jean Stewart told the Planet on Sunday that there are now plans to extend the demonstration for an indefinite period because it's been so successful. They held a similar demonstration in May when Schwarzenegger made his latest budget proposal. 

The governor's proposal called for drastic cuts to in-home support services, which McMullan said would likely "put severely disabled people and elderly people in nursing homes instead of being able to stay in their own homes." 

McMullan, director of the Disabled People Outside Projects, said the tent city was a last resort after other actions brought no results. 

"We've tried marching, tried going to Sacramento, tried just about everything, but we're not getting any kind of results," he said. 

McMullan said dozens of people gather during the days at the intersection to take part in the demonstration, and a core group of about two dozen people sleep there in tents overnight. 

A large statue of Schwarzenegger was made and shown at the intersection along with other posters and signs expressing discontent with the proposed cuts, McMullan said. 

"We're the model of independent living throughout the entire world" and the governor "is tearing that apart," he said. 

Schwarzenegger's office was not immediately available for comment.


First Person: Arnieville Update

By Jean Stewart
Sunday July 04, 2010 - 02:36:00 PM

I came home last night for another brief R&R before returning to ArnieVille in an hour or so...What a difference hot water & shampoo make! 

Yesterday we threw a "media event" which still has me really jazzed. Well, we called it a media event, but since only one media representative (the Daily Cal newspaper) showed up, I'm re-dubbing it a community event, since the disability community turned out in droves. Here's the backstory: we've been building a sculpture at ArnieVille since Wednesday. It's the brainchild of my dear artist friend David Cook, who argued that since other towns & villages have a statue in their town square honoring their namesake, we should follow suit! So he constructed an armature of steel wire, and a team of enthusiastic sculptors-in-training, including four 10-year-olds as well as 83-year-old Bob, laid on papier mache as well as strips of cloth. Arnold is now ten feet tall; in one hand he grips a big fat stogie, and in the other--upraised & ready to slash--an axe. He's not done yet; we still need to put some finishing touches on him--like adding those vicious teeth, for instance--& paint him. 

Anyway, at yesterday's event, after the speakers had concluded their statements, our MC said to the crowd, "And now we want to pay our respects to the man for whom our village is named..." Various people drum-rolled on upturned fruit bowls and empty water jugs (using salad tongs & wooden spoons as drumsticks), and then six of us wheeled up to Arnold in our chairs and pied him. Well, five of us. The sixth person was Bob, who climbed up on a ladder to pie Arnold in his face. Poor Arnold. 

So I've finally washed the whipped cream out of my hair. 

But let me tell you about the speakers! All are members of our core group. Adrienne Lauby has severe asthma but doesn't "look disabled," whatever that means. Sheela Gunn-Cushman is blind and an out Republican. Vanessa Castro rides a power wheelchair, has CP, and uses an electronic communicator to speak. And our MC, Ramona Galindez, is black & deaf. What a mix, wheee! Ramona did her introductions through the brilliant services of ASL interpreter Sherry Hicks; Vanessa prepared her speech in advance & programmed her device so that all she had to do was hit a button, & her fabulous words unfurled. Sheela, who compared our struggle for independence (tomorrow is the 4th of July) to the historic fight for independence from England, used her Braille device to prompt her memory. The marvelous Abril Tamayo interpreted the proceedings into Spanish. I was weeping with joy & huge pride... 

In case you're wondering why so few media turned out for the event, I think that some of them probably felt they'd already covered us a week ago when they came to our previous press conference. I'm guessing that as our numbers grow--I think we're now up to about 17 campers in about 13 tents--the media will find us more & more newsworthy. We do seem to be very much on the media radar, despite yesterday's low press turnout. We're ALL OVER cyberspace; media stories about us sprout on the Internet like weeds! If you visit our website &/or Facebook page, you'll see what I mean. (BTW, you don't have to be a member of Facebook--I'm not--to view the page.) Our website is finally finished. 

So far, the city and the cops still support us. Knock on wood. We're being extremely careful: a policy of zero tolerance for alcohol & drugs, clean site, etc. 

We REALLY need you Californians to get involved in the city council letter campaign. Use our Berkeley city council letter (attached) as a boilerplate, take it to your own city councilmember or superviser, and persuade her/him to urge the council/board of supes to send it to the governor. It's a really effective way to spread the message throughout CA, so that it doesn't simply remain "a Berkeley thing." The letter strongly opposes the budget cuts & the unannounced visits to IHSS recipients' (that would be ME, folks) homes. 

I can't spend much longer at the computer, but I want to thank those of you who responded to my previous email with your kind words and financial contributions--you're an amazing lot. To those of you who haven't yet managed to stop by ArnieVille, come on down & lend us your physical presence. Help us stop these dreadful budget cuts. We're on the grassy median strip on Adeline St. at Russell in Berkeley, opposite the original Berkeley Bowl. And to those of you who plan to send a donation but haven't yet got round to it, we really do need cold hard cash to cover our big-ticket items like the porta-potty & sink rental, and the cost of sign language interpreters. You can visit the DREDF (Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund) website and make a contribution using the Pay Pal button. We're a (informal) project of DREDF, so your contribution is tax-deductible. You might want to send a separate email indicating that your donation is for ArnieVille. Or you can send a check by trusty snail, payable to DREDF; write ArnieVille on the memo line and mail it to 2212 Sixth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710. 

Our most pressing need, in terms of goods & services: donated ASL interpreter services (we now have 3 deaf folks in our group). Please, please, please consider volunteering an hour or 2. Call DREDF to schedule your time: 644-2555. 

One last note. The reporter from the Daily Cal who came to our media event yesterday? She got so pumped, she's planning to join us & camp out at ArnieVille, as soon as she files her story. Ditto the reporter from the SF Public Press. Ditto the KPFA producer who interviewed us yesterday. ArnieVille is contagious, I tell you. Come on down & catch the spirit! 

 


AC Transit Board Imposes New Contract on Union as Talks Stall

By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Friday July 02, 2010 - 01:58:00 PM

AC Transit's board of directors has imposed a new contract on the bus agency's 1,600 union employees after talks on a new contract stalled.  

A three-year contract for bus drivers, mechanics and clerks expired on Wednesday and the board voted to impose a new contract Wednesday night because leaders of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 refused to make the concessions that management was seeking, according to Sam Singer, an outside spokesman for AC Transit.  

Singer said the bus agency, which serves parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, was seeking $15.7 million in labor cost savings to help close a projected $56 million funding gap for the two-year period ending June 30, 2011.  

But he said that during three months of contract negotiations that began in March, the union's offer was "nowhere close" to $15.7 million.  

ATU Local 192 lead negotiator Claudia Hudson couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. In a prepared statement, Hudson said the union offered $9 million in savings for the first year of a new contract with "substantial savings" in the second and third years.  

However, Singer said management believes that the concessions offered by the union only total $2 million to $3 million.  

Singer said the new contract imposed by the board saves $15.7 million by freezing wages as well as initiating work rule changes, co-pay policies for medical care and employee health insurance, and a two-tier pension plan.  

He said union employees "will continue to have excellent benefits and pensions but will have to make health insurance premium payments and co-pays."  

Singer said the district has taken other steps to reduce its budget gap by raising its fares, reducing its service and cutting management positions.  

He said that because an impasse has been declared, the union has the legal right to strike but hasn't announced any plans to do so at this point.  

AC Transit said in a statement, "The agency has advised all of its employees of the potential for a strike in the coming days or weeks and is poised to modify the district's operations should a strike occur."  

The union has filed a lawsuit seeking to have a judge order the bus agency to participate in binding arbitration. A hearing has been scheduled for July 16.  

But Singer said management believes that the union's suit will be dismissed because California courts have ruled that key financial decisions should be made by an elected board of directors instead of a non-elected third party such as an arbitrator.  

Singer said the new contract that's being imposed by the board goes into effect on July 18 and will remain in effect until an agreement is reached between management and the union.  

 

 


Rebecca's Books Prepares to Close

By Ken Bullock
Monday July 05, 2010 - 05:16:00 PM

Rebecca's Books, the homey little community-oriented poetry bookshop at 3268 Adeline, is featuring a storewide sale over the next few weeks in July, anticipating its closing, said founder Mary Ann Braithwaite. 

 

"Everything's for sale--books, artwork, fixtures and furniture," Braithwaite said. "I'm here until I'm gone.' 

 

Remarking that closing would be a bittersweet thing, she also said "Thank you to my customers--to those who supported me. Thanks for all your support!" And Braithwaite said she'd miss her neighbors at The Other Change of Hobbit bookstore. 

 

Rebecca's Books opened October 27, 2007, celebrated with a performance by the Morning Star Choir, from Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Braithwaite and her son had once sung with the choir, the members of which drove up for the opening. 

 

Named after Braithwaite's mother, who recently passed away, Rebecca's Books features a unique selection of poetry books and artwork, handpicked with help from Braithwaite's old friends, Oakland artist Woody Johnson and the late poet Reginald Lockett. Artwork and family pictures decorate its walls. In the back is Polly's Room, after Braithwaite's mother's childhood nickname, a children's room. 

 

Over the past few years, poets and other writers have read at the store, including former state poet laureate Al Young, former San Francisco city laureates devorah major and Jack Hirschman, Alameda city laureate Mary Rudge--and other creative performers, like Word Wind Chorus, poet-musicians Lewis Jordan, Q. R. Hand and Brian Auerbach. 

 

"I'm going now, but I will be back," Braithwaite said. "Berkeley hasn't seen the last of Rebecca's Books!" 

 

(323-855-9477; www.rebeccasbooks.biz

 


The Tea Party and the New Right-Wing Christian Feminism

By Ruth Rosen
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:07:00 PM

Most Americans are not quite sure what to make of the sprawling right-wing Tea Party, which gradually emerged in 2009 and became a household name after it held nationwide Tea Party rallies on April 15th 2010, to protest paying taxes. Throwing tea overboard, as you may remember, is an important symbolic image of the colonial anger at Britain’s policy of “taxation without representation.” 

Many liberals and leftists dismissed the Tea Party as a temporary, knee-jerk response to the recession, high employment, home foreclosures, bankruptcies, and an African American president who had saved American capitalism by expanding the government’s subsidies to the financial, real estate, and automobile industries. Perhaps it is a temporary political eruption, but as E.J. Dionne, columnist at The Washington Post has argued, the movement also threatens the hard-won unity of the Republicans. “The rise of the tea party movement,” he writes, “is a throwback to an old form of libertarianism that sees most of the domestic policies that government has undertaken since the New Deal as unconstitutional. It typically perceives the most dangerous threats to freedom as the design of well-educated elitists out of touch with “American values.” 

Who are these angry people who express so much resentment against the government, rather than at corporations? Since national polls dramatically contradict each other, I have concluded that the Tea Party movement has energized people across all classes. 

One important difference, however, is race. At Tea Party rallies you don’t see faces with dark complexions. Another important distinction is that men and women are drawn to this sprawling movement for a variety of overlapping but possibly different reasons. Both men and women seem to embrace an incoherent “ideology” which calls for freedom from government, no taxes, and an inchoate desire to “take back America,” which means restoring the nation to some moment when the country was white and “safe.” 

Men drawn to this movement appear to belong to a broad range of fringe right-wing groups, such as militias, white supremacy groups, pro-gun and confederacy “armies. Some of these groups advocate violence vow to overthrow the government, and have even begun to use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to spread their hatred through social media. 

Women also play a decisive role in the Tea Party and now make up fifty-five percent of its supporters, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll . Hanna Rosin reports in Slate magazine that “of the eight board members of the Tea Party Patriots who serve as national coordinators for the movement, six are women. Fifteen of the 25 state coordinators are women.” 

Why, I’ve wondered, does this chaotic movement appeal to so many women? There are many possible reasons. Some of the women in these groups are certainly women who love men who love guns and who hate the government and taxes. Professor Kathleen Blee, who has written widely about right-wing women, suggests that there are probably more religious right-wing women than men in general, that tea party rallies may attract more women who are not working and therefore can attend them, and that the Tea Party emphasizes family vulnerability to all kinds of external danger. 

Many men and women attracted to the Tea Party also belong to the Christian Identity Movement. They are right-wing Christians who promote fundamentalist views on, abortion, and homosexuality. But women come to the Tea Party from new and surprising venues, like the Parent -Teacher Association or groups organized specifically to elect women to political office. As Slate magazine recently noted, “Much of the leadership and the grassroots energy comes from women. One of the three main sponsors of the Tax Day Tea Party that launched the movement is a group called Smart Girl Politics . The site started out as a mommy blog and has turned into a mobilizing campaign that trains future activists and candidates. Despite its explosive growth over the last year, it is still operated like a feminist cooperative, with three stay-at-home moms taking turns raising babies and answering e-mails and phone calls.” 

Some of these religious women also have political aspirations and hope to use the Tea Party to gain leadership roles denied by the Republican Party to run for electoral office. To counter Emily’s List, which has supported liberal women for electoral politics, right-wing conservative women created the Susan B. Anthony List , which is successfully supporting right-wing women in their efforts to run for electoral office. To blunt the impact of liberal feminists, Concerned Women for America , a deeply religious group, supports women’s efforts to seek leadership positions within the Tea Party. The Women’s Independent Forum, a more secular group of right-wing women, seeks to promote traditional values, free markets, limited government, women’s equality and their ability to run for office. 

Some of these women are drawing national attention because they have embraced a religious “conservative feminism.” Among them are evangelical Christians and, according to a recent cover story in Newsweek magazine, they view Sarah Palin--- who ran for the vice presidency in 2009, has five children and a supportive husband, describes herself as a feminist, gave up the governor’s office in Alaska to become a celebrity and millionaire--- as the leader, if not prophet of the Tea Party. As a result, Palin is mobilizing right-wing religious women across the nation. They like that she wears make up, still looks like a gorgeous beauty queen, and yet is bold and strong minded. They don’t seem to care that she uses “Ms.” instead of Mrs. Nor are they bothered by her crediting Title IX (legislation passed in 1972 that enforced gender equality in education and sports for her athletic opportunities. On ABC News she told her interviewer, Charles Gibson, “I’m lucky to have been brought up in a family where gender has never been an issue. I’m a product of Title IX, also, where we had equality in schools that was just being ushered in with sports and with equal opportunity for education, all of my life. I’m part of that generation, where that question is kind of irrelevant because it’s accepted. Of course you can be the vice president and you can raise a family”. 

Palin belongs to a group called Feminists for Life whose slogan is “Refuse to Choose.” When she described herself as a feminist at the start of her vice-presidential campaign, she explained that she was a member of this group, led by Serrin Foster, who has carved out a successful career on the lecture circuit by trying to convince young women that you can be a feminist by making the choice not to have an abortion. When I interviewed Foster several years ago, I asked her how very poor or teenage girls were supposed to take of these unwanted children. Since she is against taxes and government subsidies for social services, she evaded my question. She said that women should not be alone, that others should help. In the end, the only concrete solution she offered is that adoption is the best solution for these young women. 

Just recently, Palin once again dubbed herself a “feminist” and set off an explosive debate about what constitutes feminism in the United States. She describes religious conservative women as “Mama Grizzlies” and urges them to "rise up” and claim the cause of feminism as their own. Palin encourages her followers to launch a "new, conservative feminist movement" that supports only political candidates who uncompromisingly oppose abortion. 

The response to Palin’s effort to draw women into the Tea Party varies widely. Her "sisterly speechifying”, writes Jessica Valenti in The Washington Post. “is just part of a larger conservative bid for the hearts and minds of women by appropriating feminist language." 

Writing in the conservative National Review Kathryn Jean Lopez, responds, “Palin isn't co-opting feminism, She's reclaiming a movement that was started by Susan B. Anthony and other women who fought for the right to vote — and were staunchly pro-life.” This is true; nineteenth century suffragists wanted to protect the status of motherhood and were against abortion. "The "feminist" label doesn't have to be so polarizing,” argues Meghan Daum in The Los Angeles Times: “Boiled down, feminism just means viewing men and women as equals, and seeing your gender "as neither an obstacle to success nor an excuse for failure." So if Sarah Palin "has the guts to call herself a feminist, then she's entitled to be accepted as one." 

Here is a great irony. Since 1980, when the backlash began attacking the women’s movement, young secular American women have resisted calling themselves feminists because the religious right-wing had so successfully created an unattractive image of a feminist as a hairy, man-hating, lesbian who spouted equality, but really wanted to kill babies. Now, Palin is forcing liberal feminists to debate whether these Christian feminists are diluting feminism or legitimizing it by making it possible to say that one is a feminist. 

When I read what women write on Christian women’s web sites, I hear an echo from the late nineteenth century when female reformers sought to protect the family from “worldly dangers.” Frances Willard, leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union [18], urged millions of women to enter the public sphere in order to protect their families, to address the decadent consequences and casualties of capitalism, to win suffrage, and to fight for prohibition, all in the name of protecting the purity of their homes and families. 

For many contemporary evangelical Christian women, their motivations are similar. They want to enter the public sphere or even run for office to eliminate abortion, protect marriage, contain sexual relations, oppose gay marriage and clean up the mess made by the sexual revolution. All this is part of a long and recognizable female reform tradition in American history. 

At Tea Party rallies, you often see women carrying signs that read “Take back America.” Not everyone is sure what that means. At the very least, however, it means taking back America from an expanding government, from taxes, and more symbolically, from the changing racial complexion of American society. 

Within a few decades, the non-white population will constitute a majority of the citizens in the U.S. Many white evangelical Christians feel besieged and the women, for their part, feel they must publicly protect their families from such rapid and potentially dangerous changes. They feel that some faceless bureaucrats or immigrants or minorities, described as “they,” have taken over our society and threaten the moral purity of American society. What they don’t fear is that corporations have taken over the American government and have distorted its democratic institutions. 

Washington Bureau Chief Adele Stan of AlterNet, who has 15 years of close scrutiny of the extreme Right under her belt, has warned that we take the Tea Partiers seriously and dismiss them at our peril. 

The Tea Party panders to fear and resentment. But they are hardly a lonely minority. A recent USA Today/Gallup survey found that 37 percent of Americans said they "approved" of the Tea Party movement. It is not a movement that Americans should ignore. History reminds us that the politics of fear and resentment can quickly turn into a dangerous and powerful political force. 

But the Tea Party is not only a grassroots movement. Behind the women at the kitchen table, there is money, and plenty of it. Writing in The New York Review of Books, Michael Tomasky reminded readers that "Money is the ultimate lubricant of politics and that the potential money supply for Tea Parties and other ….contributions is virtually limitless." 

Tomasky also underscores the fact that the Tea Party is not about short- term electoral victories. It’s about the long term project of resurrecting the power to protect free markets, deregulation, and for the religious right to gain political power. 

Men and women may not join the Tea Party for the same reasons, but without its grassroots female supporters, the Tea Party would have far less appeal to voters who are frightened by economic insecurity, threats to moral purity and the gradual disappearance of a national white Christian culture. 

For good or ill, Christian women have moved mountains before in the America past. The abolition of slavery and the prohibition of liquor are just two examples. Now they have helped organize the Tea Party and their new conservative feminism may just affect American political culture in unpredictable ways. Perhaps they will gain a new self- confidence and political influence by straying from the Republican Party. Or, as in the past, they may disappear into their homes and churches and become a footnote in the history of American politics. For now, it is too soon to tell how the Tea Party, let alone its female members, will fare in the future. 

Ruth Rosen 

Professor Emerita of History, U.C. Davis 

Visiting Professor of History, U.C. Berkeley 

rrosen@berkeley.edu
www.ruthrosen.org


News Analysis: Cell Phone Health Hazards: Better Safe Than Sorry

By Ralph E. Stone
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 10:26:00 AM

As of June 2009, there were an estimated 4.3 billion cell phone (mobile phones) users worldwide.In the United States, it is estimated that more than fifty percent of children own their own personal cell phones.A growing body of scientific evidence shows that there are significant health hazards to their use, including brain tumors; damage to DNA, an undisputed cause of cancer; blood-brain barriers (BBB) leakage (BBB protects the brain from many molecules that are toxic to the brain; and male fertility damage by cell phone use because men, especially teenagers, put their cell phones in their pockets when not in use, causing a deleterious effect on sperm count and sperm motility. 

 

Introduction 

On May 6, 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel reported that “the true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated” and named cell phones and other wireless technologies as potential causes of cancer that demand further research and precaution. 

On June 15, 2010, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in a preliminary vote, voted to require retailers to post in their stores notices on the level of radiation emitted by the cell phones they offer.Mayor Gavin Newsom said he would sign the legislation once it reaches his desk.The proposed ordinance would not ban the sale of certain cell phones, but would require retailers to provide the "specific absorption rate" (SAR) -- a measurement of radiation registered with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) - next to phones displayed in their shops. Consumers also would be notified about where they can get more educational materials.If passed, the 

San Francisco would be the first to enact such legislation in the country. 

On June 30, 2010, U.S. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) stated that he will introduce a bill for a federal research program on the affects of cell phone radiation on users. The bill will also call for a warning label on cell phones. 

Telecommunications Act of 1996 

The telecommunications industry helped write Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Act), 47 U.S.C. § 332,Under the Act, communities have rights over the general placement, construction, and modification of cell phone towers, but cannot ban them altogether.Nor can they set zoning regulations based on "the environmental effects of radio-frequency emissions, to the extent that such facilities comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations concerning such emissions."It is still in dispute as to whether Section 704 covers the environmental (health) effects.It will ultimately be up to a federal court to decide whether a city or town can refuse a request to build a tower or other installation based on the health effects of radio-frequency (RF) emissions. 

As of now, the FCC standards are based only on the thermal effects or the RF's ability to heat tissue, not on non-thermal effects.The FCC has neither the money, manpower nor inclination to properly monitor radiation output of tens of thousands of commercial wireless installations and admits that it does not have the ability to physical test radiation output. 

 

Catch 22 

A plaintiff seeking to challenge an industry member's non-thermal health hazards of a cell phone or cell phone tower faces a Catch 22 situation.All the industry member has to prove is that it complies with FCC regulations concerning thermal emissions.The FCC has no regulations concerning non-thermal emissions.As there is seemingly contradictory research on whether non-thermal emissions are hazardous to health, the courts so far have ruled for the industry. 

However, an August 25, 2009 report, "Cellphones and Brain Tumors: Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern. Science, Spin and the Truth Behind Interphone," endorsed by more than 40 scientists and officials from 14 countries, found that: studies that are independent of the telecom industry consistently show there is a "significant" risk for brain tumors from cell phone use; the electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure limits advocated by industry and used by governments are based on a false premise that a cell phone's EMF has no biological effects except for heating; and the danger of brain tumors from cell phone use is highest in children, and the younger a child is when he/she starts using a cell phone, the higher the risk. 

The Report persuasively argues that if there is any inconsistency among the research, it is between industry-funded research with flawed design study protocols and independent research.The industry-funded research tends to underestimate the risk of brain tumors from cell phone use while the independent research tends to show a significant risk of brain tumors from cell phone use.In addition, the Report points out that there are thousands of studies showing biological effects -- non-thermal effects from EMF -- at exposures far below the thermal effects authorized by FCC regulations. 

The Report further points out that Dr. George Carlo, leader of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association's (CTIA) $25 million research project found a statistically significant doubling of brain cancer risk. 

In addition, independent studies conducted by Professor Lennart Hardell in Sweden found significant increased risk of brain tumors from ten or more years of cell phone use with the risk of brain cancer increasing by 5 percent; for every year of cell phone use the risk of brain cancer increases by 8 percent; after ten years or more years of digital cell phone use, there was a 280 percent increased risk of brain cancer; and for digital cell phone users who were teenagers or younger when they first started using cell phones, there was a 420 percent increased risk of cancer.This suggests that the two highest risks are ten or more years of cell phone use and the cell phone was held on the same side of the head where the tumor was diagnosed. 

Finally, the telecommunications industry, on the one hand, disputes the non-thermal risk of cell phones, but yet, their user manuals warn customers to keep cell phone away from the body even when the cell phone is not in use.Are these industry members erring on the side of caution or are the warnings an implicit admission that a health hazard exists? For example, Nokia 1100 warns:"This product meets RF exposure guidelines . . . when positioned at least 1.5 cm (about 1 inch) away from the body . . . and should position the product at least 1.5 cm away from your body."Similarly, Motorola V195 GSM manual warns to keep the mobile device 2.5 cm from the body.And the BlackBerry 8300 manual warns to keep the device at least 0.98 from the body and "should not be worn or carried on the body."But how many owners read their manuals?If the warnings were meant to be read, they should be on the device itself.And if these companies were truly concerned about safety, the device could be manufactured so it cannot be used closer than the "safe" limits. 

 

Children's Use of Cell Phones 

In April 2009, the European Parliament by a vote of 559 to 22 (8 abstentions) voted for a set of changes based on the health concerns associated with EMF.Among the actions called for are a review of the scientific basis and adequacy of the EMF exposure limits, finance a wide ranging awareness campaign aimed at young people to minimize their exposure to cell phone radiation, to increase research funding, condemnation of marketing campaigns for the sale of cell phones designed solely for children, require labeling requirements on all wireless operated devices, and expressing concern that insurance companies are tending to exclude coverage for the risk of EMF liability insurance. 

There have also been numerous governmental warnings about children's use of cell phones.France is about to make it illegal to market cell phones to children and recently banned cell phones in elementary schools, is requiring manufacturers to develop a new kind of cell phone for children under eight, which would allow only the receipt and sending of text messages so the cell phone would not be placed at the side of the head.Russian officials have recommended that children under the age of 18 not use cell phones at all.Similarly, the United Kingdom, Israel, Belgium, Germany, and India have discouraged the use of cell phones by children.Toronto's Department of Public Health has advised that children under eight should only use cell phones in emergencies and teenagers should limit calls to ten minutes. 

The Report recommends a number of personal actions parents can take to reduce their children's exposure to cell phone radiation.Children should use a wired headset (not a wireless headset like Bluetooth), or use the speaker-phone mode, or only send text messages.The cell phone should be kept away from the body or use a belt holster designed to shield the body from cell phone radiation when not in use. Avoid cell phone use in a moving car, train, or bus, or in buildings -- particularly with steel structures -- as this will increase the power of the cell phone's radiation.Keep the cell phone off until you want to see who called.Whenever possible, use a corded land-line phone instead of a wireless phone.Do not allow children under 18 to use a cell phone except in emergencies.I do not underestimate the difficulty parents will have in enforcing this last recommendation. 

 

Shifting the Burden of Proof 

Who should have the burden of proof on the health hazards of cell phones: the industry or the individual user?Assuming for argument'ssake that the scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive or uncertain, if there are reasonable scientific grounds for concern about the potentially dangerous effects on the environment, human, animal or plant health, the burden should shift to the industry.After all, a drug cannot be sold without proof that it is safe, nor can a food be launched without prior approval.Yet, we can use mobile telephony, including masts, and introduce WiFi and cell phones, without restrictions around our children, a double-standard gone insane. 

 

Report Recommendations 

The Report recommends the following: 

* Ban marketing campaigns of cell phones designed solely for children. 

* Require proof of liability insurance coverage for potential health risks associated with cell phones and similar wireless devices prior to their being offered for sale. 

* Review the scientific basis and adequacy of the EMF exposure limits. 

* Allocate research funding independent of industry funds and influence, to evaluate long-term effects from cell phones and other harmful effects from different sources of EMF, particularly where children are involved. 

* Finance a wide-ranging awareness campaigns aimed at young people to minimize their exposures to cell phone radiation. 

* Require warning labels on all wireless devices. 

* Make available maps showing exposure to high-voltage power lines, radio frequency and microwaves from telecommunications cell towers, radio repeaters, and telephone antennas. 

 

Conclusion 

The following is a quote from L.Lloyd Morgan, the main editor of the Report: 

"Exposure to cell phone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has over 4 billion participants enrolled.Science has shown increased risk of brain tumors from use of cellphones, as well as increased risk of eye cancer, salivary gland tumors, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia,The public must be informed." 

San Francisco'sproposed legislation and Rep. Kucinich's proposed bill requiring retailers to post in their stores notices on the level of radiation emitted by the cell phones they offer is a modest beginning to warn the public about a serious health problem.It is better to be safe than sorry. 

Finally, I highly recommend reading the Report; it is a sobering read.


Press Release: Will the Gulf Oil Spill Affect Backyard Birds? Scientists ask bird watchers to monitor nests

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 10:12:00 AM
Red-winged Blackbird
Ted Schroder
Red-winged Blackbird

Ithaca, NY—As oil washes ashore along the Gulf Coast, theCornell Lab of Ornithology is asking birders to keep an eye on nesting birds—not just near water, but hundreds of miles inland.  

“Wildlife biologists are monitoring species such as pelicans and plovers in the immediate path of the oil,” said Laura Burkholder at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “But we need bird watchers across the country to help us find out if birds that pass through or winter in the Gulf region carry contamination with them, possibly creating an ‘oil shadow’ of declines in bird reproduction hundreds of miles from the coast.” 

To help, Burkholder said that anyone with an interest in birds can learn how to find and monitor nests as part of the Cornell Lab’s NestWatch project (www.nestwatch.org). It involves visiting a nest for a few minutes, twice per week, and recording information such as how many eggs it contains, how many chicks hatch, and how many leave the nest.  

“Many birds that nest in backyards all across North America, such as Red-winged Blackbirds and Tree Swallows, spend part of the year along the Gulf of Mexico, where they could be affected by the oil spill,” Bukholder said. “Toxins often have profound effects on reproduction, and it’s possible that toxins encountered in one environment can affect the birds in another environment, after they arrive on their breeding grounds.”  

When participants across large regions contribute information, Burkholder said, scientists can assess changes in nesting success in relation to environmental factors such as habitat loss, climate change, and pollution.  

Citizen-science participants have helped the Cornell Lab monitor the success rates of nesting birds for 45 years. Now, Burkholder said, it’s especially critical to capture data on nesting birds to reveal the health of birds before they encounter the oil spill—as well as in the years ahead, to detect possible long-term effects.  

To help the effort, visit www.nestwatch.org. In addition to accepting observations from the general public, NestWatch is available as a data repository for wildlife agencies and scientific organizations to support their research on the impacts of the oil spill.


New: Barry Elbasani, 1941–2010

By Kenneth Caldwell
Wednesday July 07, 2010 - 02:31:00 PM
Barry Elbasani, 1941–2010
Barry Elbasani, 1941–2010

Barry Elbasani, an architect whose master plans and buildings were frameworks for revitalizing downtowns throughout the country, died on Tuesday, June 29, 2010, at his home in Berkeley, California. He was 69. 

The cause of death was brain cancer, said his wife, Kathleen, and his son, Colin. 

Mr. Elbasani, one of the founding principals of ELS Architecture and Urban Design in Berkeley, was responsible for major buildings and plans in Milwaukee; Portland, Oregon; Phoenix; Summerlin, Nevada; Los Angeles; Austin; and Coral Gables. Grounded in a belief that architecture and urban design were interdependent, his designs drew on the principles of thriving urban streets. 

Mr. Elbasani and his firm came to national prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s with a series of collaborations with the Rouse Company. The first was the Grand Avenue in Milwaukee, which linked two existing department stores two blocks away from each other by connecting them through a historic arcade and a new arcade. 

The next project with Rouse was the mixed-use center Pioneer Place in downtown Portland, Oregon. ELS initially worked for the Portland Development Commission, preparing a four-block master plan for the downtown that accommodated the planned light rail system. While local codes would have allowed a 40-story building, the ELS/Rouse Company design for Pioneer Place instead placed a three-story retail pavilion on the multiblock site’s prime location, across the street from the historic courthouse. The approach preserved the human scale of the city and allowed the project to build a market for the project, which includes an office tower and an additional block of retail built as a later phase. By creating a sense of place, the project served as a catalyst for other development downtown. 

The Shops at Arizona Center, in Phoenix, Arizona, also for Rouse, took a similar approach by creating a retail center that formed an edge to an oasis landscape, designed by the SWA Group and flanked by office buildings. The public space and the restaurants establish a sense of place, allowing the retail to follow the market, which turned out to be food and entertainment. “Sometimes a piece of the pro forma may not make sense at first—a low-rise building, a collection of shops in a downtown—but the fundamental idea of respecting a historic landmark, or creating a new open space where there isn’t any, that makes sense,” Elbasani said in an interview. “That distinguishes the development.” 

One of Mr. Elbasani’s last projects with the Rouse Company before General Growth Properties purchased Rouse in 2004 was the Village of Merrick Park in Coral Gables, Florida, a mixed-use retail/office/residential development oriented around a public garden. 

The son of Albanian immigrants, Mr. Elbasani was born May 16, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a public high school in New York City that specializes in mathematics, science, and technology, and graduated in 1960. He received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Cooper Union in 1964 and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1965. At Harvard, he studied with Spanish Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert and Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. 

After leaving Cambridge, he took a position as a senior designer at Victor Gruen’s office in Los Angeles, where he gained an early appreciation for retail design. He then moved to Berkeley, worked for the Oakland Redevelopment Agency, and became a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design, where he led studios in the Architecture Department’s Masters program. In 1967, he and two other architects, Donn Logan and Michael Severin, won a national competition held by the American Institute of Architects to design the Broome County Arena in Binghamton, New York. The trio formed ELS (then known as ELS Design Group) that same year. 

The arena, which ultimately landed on the cover of the December 1973 issue of Architectural Forum, served as a springboard for much of the firm’s work: the client’s representative for Broome County, Steve Dragos, went on to work for the Milwaukee Redevelopment Corporation, where he introduced ELS to Laurin B. “Monk” Askew of the Rouse Company. 

In addition to working with Rouse, Mr. Elbasani also collaborated extensively with General Growth Properties on projects such as Summerlin Centre in Summerlin, Nevada. To guide new development in this fast-growing community, ELS created a master plan for Summerlin’s future downtown core. In deliberate contrast to the Las Vegas strip, the plan creates a traditional mixed-use downtown setting, integrating a network of streets, landscaped boulevards, and public open spaces to provide gathering places and enhance land values. 

Under Mr. Elbasani’s direction, the firm designed the Denver Pavilions, a two-block, three-level complex that opened in 1998. It revitalized Denver’s historic 16th Street Mall with an open-air environment that blends with the existing urban fabric. 

Among Mr. Elbasani’s most recent projects is the 39-acre master plan for Mueller Town Center in Austin, Texas. Located within the 711-acre redevelopment of the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, the sustainably designed mixed-use district includes retail, entertainment, residential, office, hotel, and cultural components and will serve as a town center for the surrounding residential neighborhoods and medical campuses. 

Mr. Elbasani’s work also included historic renovations, such as the restoration in the early 1990s of the Mission Inn in Riverside, California, and entertainment centers, such as the NOKIA Theatre L.A. LIVE for AEG, which opened in 2007. 

A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the Institute for Urban Design, Mr. Elbasani was also a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Mixed Use Council, the International Council of Shopping Centers, and Lambda Alpha International. He also served on ULI’s advisory panels for downtown San Jose, Cincinnati, Springfield, and West Palm Beach. 

In 1992, after the fall of communism in Albania, Mr. Elbasani was able to visit his parents’ native country and reunite with more than 50 cousins, who had been separated from their American relatives for 40 years. He facilitated the immigration of several of his cousins and was extremely proud of their accomplishments in their new homeland. 

Mr. Elbasani is survived by his wife, Kathleen; son, Colin; brother, Jerry; nephews, Barry Elbasani II and Zachery Conger; niece, Dr. Kim Conger; sisters-in-law, Marsha and Sharon Tinkler; brother-in-law, Bill Tinkler; and numerous cousins. He was preceded in death by his son, Marc Daja Elbasani. 

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Elbasani Memorial Scholarship Fund in the Department of Architecture at the College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley. Donations can be made payable to the Elbasani Memorial Scholarship Fund and mailed to Department of External Relations, c/o Adrienne Livoni, College of Environmental Design, 235 Wurster Hall, Mail Code 1820, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1820. 

 

A memorial service will be held at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre in Berkeley, California on July 18, 2010, at 1:30PM. For more information, contact Rachel Heath, ELS 

Architecture and Urban Design, at 510-549-2929, or visit elsarch.com.


Jury Still Out in Mehserle Trial

By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Friday July 02, 2010 - 01:58:00 PM

Prosecutor David Stein and defense attorney Michael Rains completed their closing arguments today in the trial of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle on a murder charge for the fatal shooting of unarmed passenger Oscar Grant III. 

 

A Los Angeles County Superior Court spokeswoman said Judge Robert Perry began giving jurors legal instructions before their lunch break and continued giving instructions when they came back to court. Video equipment was set up in the jury room at 1:15, and deliberations began at 1:40. Jurors left at 4 p.m. today and will come back to court at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. 

 

Rains has admitted that Mehserle shot and killed Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward man, at the Fruitvale station in Oakland shortly after 2 a.m. Jan. 1, 2009, after he and other officers responded to a report that there was a fight on a train. 

 

But Rains claims the shooting was an accident and Mehserle, 28, who's free on $3 million bail, meant to use his Taser stun gun on Grant. 

 

On Wednesday, Perry said jurors will have the option of convicting Mehserle of second-degree murder or the lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. Jurors will also have the option of finding Mehserle not guilty of all charges. 

 

The legal instructions Perry is presenting today explain the differences between the various types of homicide charges jurors will consider. 

 

Back in Oakland, Mayor Ron Dellums and other community leaders scheduled a news conference at 1 p.m. to call for unity, peace and justice as the city awaits the verdict in Mehserle's trial. 

 

In a statement, Dellums said, "We are calling on every person in our community to stand together, united in our commitment to bring peace to our streets and economic opportunity to our neighborhoods." 

 

He said, "We acknowledge the anger and frustration that arises with the tragic loss of life in our community. That emotion needs to be expressed constructively and peacefully." 

 

Dellums said community leaders are encouraging people to channel their emotions in positive ways. 

 

He said community leaders will also discuss what other options are being considered no matter what the verdict is, such as a proposed federal civil rights investigation. 

 

The news conference was to be held at Youth Uprising, located at 8711 MacArthur Blvd. in Oakland. 

 

Among those expected to participate were youth leaders, the Urban Peace Movement, Youth Uprising, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and faith leaders. 

 

 

 

 


Thursday July 08, 2010 - 01:58:00 PM


Ask Mayor Tom

Thursday July 08, 2010 - 10:43:00 AM

H


Opinion

Editorials

New: Oakland Shows Grace under Pressure, All Things Considered

By Becky O'Malley
Friday July 09, 2010 - 05:07:00 PM

The unsung heroes and heroines at Bay City News did themselves proud in Oakland last night, producing a steady stream of accurate on-the-spot reports which appeared online in, at least, the Berkeley Daily Planet, the SF Appeal, the Bay Citizen, and on the website of more than one TV station. The Planet was also fortunate to get a couple of excellent submissions “over the transom” from an Oakland resident we hadn’t known previously. 

The poor old Chron didn’t do nearly as well, greeting readers this morning with a huge umpty-ump-point front page headline, biggest I’ve seen there in years, VIOLENCE FLARES AFTER MEHSERLE CONVICTION. Well, yes, that’s what we call in the trade a self-fulfilling prophecy. What happened in Oakland last night was a lot more complicated than this set of stories and photos, which had a full dozen bylines and at least four photo credits attached to it. You can be sure that when a paper assigns sixteen of its ever shrinking pool of employees to a story it will be a Big Story. Or else. 

 

The major part of the evening, the part that accounted for “1,000 angry protestors”, was a typical Oakland event: mellow, multi-cultural, disorganized. We went down to see the event which was scheduled to take place at 6 on the day of the verdict in Johannes Mehserle’s trial for shooting Oscar Grant.  

The announced location was Frank Ogawa Plaza, a mini-amphitheatre carved out of the concrete in front of Oakland City Hall. The invitation to the anticipated peaceful rally we received by email came from Oakland Council president Jane Brunner, but nobody seems to have told the cops. Intersections for blocks away in every direction were barred by police cars, but we managed to find a semi-legal parking place fairly close in after driving around the periphery to check out the action 

But when we got there, not long after 6, we found that the action was not in front of City Hall, but a block or so away, in the intersection of 14th and Broadway, where about 500 people had already gathered. A steady stream of irate speakers stepped up to the microphone of the modest sound system, but it was impossible to see or hear them unless you were very close indeed, so mostly people just milled around and greeted friends. 

There were lots and lots of cops, with lots and lots of fancy gear, and lots and lots of newsies, ditto. In fact, at a glance it was clear that people in those two categories outnumbered protesters.  

Among protesters, people not of African descent seemed to outnumber those who were, but as always in Oakland people of indeterminate ethnicity with a pretty good amount of melanin were in the majority overall. The melanin-challenged contingent seems to be composed of equal parts of surly youth with extreme hairdos and tattoos and earnest grey-haired folks, among whom I recognized several of my old lefty friends from Berkeley, plus a number of doughty UUs from Oakland’s First Unitarian Church with hand-made signs.  

Police had formed a line blocking off 14th street at Harrison, creating a nice open space which was promptly commandeered by stunting skateboarders. And there was a jolly little brass and drum band which played for a while. 

We walked over to check out Frank Ogawa Plaza—still nothing going on, though there was a good deal of sound equipment and many security personnel, none of whom knew anything about the plans. Finally we connected with two middle-aged men in clerical garb who were there representing Oakland’s African-American clergy and also, as they told us, God. They thought the program was scheduled to start at 7, but 7 came and went without anything happening. 

On the way back to the rally on the corner we encountered an older lefty lady friend who was walking with a cane. She was in some distress because she’d taken BART from the Rockridge station like a good citizen, only to discover that they’d closed the 12th street BART station after she got there. Since it was getting colder and later, we offered to drive her back to Rockridge to pick up her car. 

On the way there, I observed cynically that if they closed all the parking and public transport near the rally site, the resulting percentage concentration of healthy young men with excessively active testosterone was sure to cause trouble. And sure enough, when it got dark, that’s what happened, and we were gone. The old folks went home and the young men got rowdy. BCN reports today that 60 males and only 18 females were arrested, many simply for refusing to leave when the police ordered them to. . 

Only 19 of all the arrestees were from Oakland, by the way. Who were the rest? One clue: a major target for vandalism was Whole Foods. Your typical Oaklander is not consumed with Whole Foods Envy, having more pressing things to worry about. 

Considering the major catastrophe which segments of the press were greedily anticipating, things didn’t go all that badly, in truth. Mayor Dellums was justly proud of the outcome, despite a few misdeeds. 

My other observation of the evening was that if I were up to no good, I’d be sure to do my evil acts almost anywhere except at 14th and Broadway, because all the police in the county, not to mention the highway patrol, were tied up there. And sure enough, two guys were shot dead on different street corners in East Oakland early last night.


Sounds Like a Plan: No Plan on the Ballot Come November

By Becky O'Malley
Monday July 05, 2010 - 01:17:00 PM

Last week’s Berkeley city council meeting was yet another Cassandra Moment for me. You remember Cassandra, don’t you?She was the gal in ancient Greek mythology who was stuck with the role of always predicting the worst and having no one believe her until it was too late.

As a social class, pretty much everyone likely to be reading this shared a Cassandra Moment after we marched in the millions to say that we thought invading Iraq was a really bad idea. Turns out we were right, but a lot of good it did us, and the big cheeses who thought it was going to work aren’t nearly as embarrassed as they should be.

At the Berkeley level, we Cassandras don’t get no respect either.A few of us consistently doubt the rosy predictions of the Candides (“this is the best of all possible worlds’) who manage to get elected to office around here, and to mix in another metaphor, we are widely considered to be Chicken Littles (shouting “the sky is falling!” when it’s not).

Yes, I am talking about the profoundly depressing discussion of the late unlamented Downtown Area Plan which was featured at last week’s city council meeting. 

Those of you with long memories may recall that creating a new plan for Berkeley’s downtown was supposedly “mandated” by the city’s settlement of its abortive lawsuit against…against what?Something involving UC Berkeley, for sure. Betcha can’t even remember now. 

Well, in any event, we were told once upon a time that Berkeley really really needed a new downtown plan, or we’d lose big bucks from UCB, so 22 good-hearted citizens of various persuasions were suckered into giving up at least two years worth of Thursday nights to make one. Expensive consultants were engaged to draft reports. The Planet was suckered into assigning way too much time of a first rate reporter to cover their deliberations

The Cassandras among us predicted that this effort would turn out to amount to bupkes, an old Yiddish term for not much. And lo, bupkes is exactly what it’s added up to. 

From initial dissent the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) progressed to final compromise, crafting a complete and thoughtful analysis of the present and future of downtown Berkeley, an area consistently challenged by fate in the last 40 years or more. Which the Planning Commission, by that time packed with political appointees who worked in the development industry, promptly junked. 

They substituted in its place the shoddy product of a few hasty meetings in which key votes were largely influenced by which side a commissioner’s bread was buttered on. And then, not satisfied, the Berkeley City Council weakened that draft even further and passed a new version in a rush, presumably to comply with some imagined deadline. 

And then outraged citizens, led by former DAPAC members, cancelled the Council’s sloppy decision with a referendum which brought it all back to square one. 

The council made a few quick passes at starting over to create a new plan to go on the November 2010 ballot, then kicked the matter back to the planning commission and the planning staff long about February of this year. Lots of people, paid and unpaid, did lots more work. 

City Planning Department director Dan Marks was finally ready with a report on their conclusions at last week’s city council meeting. And then Mayor Bates and council cronies parachuted in from right field with a bomb. No more plan for the November ballot—instead just a pseudo-plan which would let the council do it all again next year. 

Suspecting some such scheme was in the works, in the past few weeks I’ve already dipped much too deep into my bottomless well of Cassandra-like metaphors for what the Mayor’s now pushing. Yes, it turned out to be “a blank check with a few of the blanks filled in with indelible ink.”Yes, he said something which meant “Just Trust Me, road map to follow after you give me the keys to the car and a tank full of gas.” 

Here’s a new metaphor: a cotton candy concoction with a poison pill in the middle. If the council really endorses this one before it takes off for its long vacation, voters will be asked to vote in November on a bunch of feelgood language espousing some sort of nebulous “Green Vision”, with almost no effect except a little sleeper provision designed to make it much easier to tear down old buildings, a Very Not-Green idea. 

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Anyone who cares about how the city is governed ought to force himself or herself to watch the whole discussion in the online video of the meeting.You can jump directly to Item 14, which starts about 3 and a half hours into the video. 

As a guide, and for those who can’t watch it for themselves, here are few salient quotes from key players: 

“Who in their right mind is going to read all of this?” (Mayor Tom Bates, referring to the update of the 50-page DAPAC plan which volunteer community members have just completed, which Councilmember Jesse Arreguin asked the Council to place on the November ballot as an alternative to the Mayor’s non-plan.) 

“So the voters will know exactly what is being proposed..” (The Mayor’s characterization of his own intentions in producing five pages of fluff for the November voters to approve.”) 

“There have been abuses, I don’t care what people say, there have been abuses where people don’t know” what buildings they’re free to tear down. (The Mayor’s response to a report by former Landmarks Commissioner and Planet writer Steven Finacom showing that no major downtown project in thirty years has actually been stopped by landmarking.) 

“People say to us, give us some certainty, and that’s all we’re doing.” (The Mayor again, referring to his desire to satisfy developers’ desire to have their downtown holdings treated differently from the rest of the city in determining whether a building is a historic resource.) 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington: “The 5 pages [in the mayor’s resolution before the council] is what we’ll be voting on?” Planning Director Dan Marks: “I’ll refer to the mayor, because it’s his proposal.” Worthington: “This is not a plan…this is a plan to have a plan..someday… maybe. … At a bare minimum, [it means] another year’s delay.” 

Councilmember Jesse Arreguin: “To say that this is clear and specific language, that there is no ambiguity, is simply not true.” Question by Arreguin to city attorney Zac Cowan: “This is not legally a plan, is that correct?” Cowan: “That’s correct…Section 3 has some policies which would be binding on the council in any future plan…Section 4 is advisory.” 

Arreguin:“Is the city legally obligated to have to adopt a downtown plan based on this measure?” Cowan: “No. A ballot measure has to be legislative in nature, and the courts have held that telling someone to do legislation is not legislation itself.” 

Only Arreguin, Worthington and Max Anderson spoke in favor of putting the DAPAC/Community draft on the November ballot, so it is unlikely to come before the voters unless it’s placed on a future ballot by citizen petition as an initiative. So here’s the bottom line: as of now no real Downtown Plan will be up for a vote in November, though some councilmembers will do their best to convince you otherwise between now and then. 

The mayor and five councilmembers (Capitelli, Maio, Wozniak, Moore, Wengraf) voted instead last Tuesday to put the Mayor’s phony-baloney plan-like resolution on the November ballot. The final draft of the resolution is scheduled to be passed at the July 13 city council meeting. It will be mostly armwaving, but will have just a couple of binding provisions making substantive changes to land use which sponsors hope to slip past naïve November voters who are easily fooled because they don’t pay much attention to local politics. 

Here’s another prediction: the few binding policies which the ballot measure incorporates will be carefully calculated to optimize the opportunities for certain pre-selected downtown properties for which intensive development is planned as soon as the market recovers. Topics to watch: historic resources, definition of the downtown core area, building heights. 

Owners of these properties will contribute heavily to the campaign for the measure, but they’ll use captive “smart growth” non-profits to greenwash their money so we won’t know who they are. For reference, review the campaign for Measure LL, the failed 2008 attempt to gut the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. 

(And by the way, speaking of greenwashing, whatever happened to that so-called “mandate” that grew out of the UC settlement?It seems to have been greenwashed right down our overloaded sewers, doesn’t it?)


The Editor's Back Fence

Ask Mayor Tom

Thursday July 08, 2010 - 10:19:00 AM

Here’s a golden opportunity: a local blogger has scored a one-on-one with Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, and he’s asking readers what questions he should ask. It’s your big chance to be part of the inner circle. And feel free to copy your questions to opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com to make sure they get heard.


Cartoons

Odd Bodkins: True Confessions

Dan O'Neill
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 09:41:00 AM

In Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari, if you click on this image, it will be magnified. This no longer works in the latest Internet Explorer.


Odd Bodkins: Smug

Dan O'Neill
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 09:44:00 AM


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 11:31:00 AM

Tearing Down Libraries is Waste, Not Green; Bates and Council Thumb Their Noses at the Public; Anger Management; Fire Wall?; Intimidation; Guns; Palin’s Opinion; Afghanistan — the U.S. between a rock and a hard place 

Tearing Down Libraries is Waste, Not Green 

I've just read the Daily Planet article on the plans for our branch libraries (http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2010-06-22) and am sickened. It's bad enough to see the wasteful, barbaric demolition of the Public Health building downtown—taking months because the building had been retrofitted. To contemplate demolition of two of Berkeley's libraries, instead of the renovation we approved, is truly depressing. Anyone who studies the issues of our carbon footprint and climate change is aware that demolition is deeply irresponsible. Large amounts of energy, fossil fuel, even water are used in the process of demolishing a building, more gas and oil for removal of the debris. The materials from which the original building was constructed are wasted, including cement which is so environmentally costly to make, and it contributes needlessly to a landfill somewhere else. 

Ii is inexcusable to use our tax dollars, so generously given to our libraries when needed, to demolish library buildings in Berkeley. And the renovations offer shockingly little if any added shelf space for books, with the reference desks to be eliminated in favor of "roving" librarians. I urge that the city council ask the library commission to reconsider these plans and do the right thing for the loyal, library-loving residents of Berkeley. Surely I'm not the only one who thinks of our libraries as a home for books and for readers, with social and computer spaces secondary and surely not a justification for demolition. 

If the city council wishes to call Berkeley a green city, it cannot approve demolition of our libraries and the zoning variances requested by the library commission's plans. 

Charlene Woodcock 

*** 

Bates and Council Thumb Their Noses at the Public 

The June 29th city council meeting, a 5-hour marathon, was an ABCs lesson on how Mayor Bates, with the pained support of his ham-strung council, promotes the rule of city employees over the interests of our community. 

On the council consent calendar agenda was a seemingly innocuous Item #2. It was crafted by Phil Kamlarz, the city manager, and provided for taxpayer funding of $231,000 to subsidize city employee memberships to the YMCA. So what was at issue?Here are excerpts from citizen letters to the mayor and council: 

“We urge you to unanimously reject Item 2 in its entirety and to instruct the City Manager to redirect these funds to programs that benefit our community rather than our employees. At your June 22nd Special Meeting you rejected funding for keeping the Willard pool open to the public and you declined minimal financial support for programs such as Options and the Womens’ Drop-In Center. You rebuffed the many people who came to plead for these causes. 

“You, Mr. Mayor and council, have continuously supported, even irresponsibly augmented, the rich status quo of our city employees. You have done this in spite of citizen objections and to the ultimate detriment to Berkeley residents, to our infrastructure, our financial viability, and to our values. 

“You are now considering a $231,000 taxpayer expenditure to fund perks for employees while our citizens and services literally go begging. Shame on the city manager for having the effrontery to present this measure, and shame on you if you endorse it.” 

But approve it they did. At the same time they again denied funding to keep Willard pool open to the public and all whom it serves ($84,000), and again rejected monies for important civic programs ($35,000). It seems we can afford to send our city employees to the Y, but can’t afford to send the south-side community’s children to the local swimming pool. The City Manager also announced that new taxes would likely be forthcoming on refuse and other services, so as to close our budget gap, a gap created by ignoring reform of the unsustainable advantages city employees enjoy. Y-passes are just the tip of the iceberg. 

What’s not to like?From my point of view that would be a self-serving city manager, a bullyingmayor who ignores all public input, and a city council that doesn’t protect our interests. Do you sense a building mistrust in city hall and their ability to represent us?Do you sense some anger here?Yes you do. And I hope some of you are equally outraged. 

Victoria Peirotes
Berkeley Resident 

*** 

Anger Management 

I've given serious thought of late to signing up for an anger management program. Why the anger? Simply put, it has to do with the Oscar Grant/Mehserle trial. While I'm truly sorry for the shooting of Grant as such an early age, I have no opinion on the guilt or innocence of Mehserle in that shooting. This is clearly a matter for a jury and a judge to decide. 

What's driving me up the wall is the repeated showing of those amateur videos at the Fruitvale Bart Station. Week after week, month after month, the videos have been aired on morning, noon and evening television programs. If I've seen the videos once, I've seen them fifty times, and, frankly, I've had it up to here! 

Adding fuel to my anger is the widespread discussion of the violence that may likely erupt once a verdict is reached. 

People are cautioned to stay calm and refrain from violent protests. The Oakland Police have organized mock-riot exercises involving more than 450 officers. Even the July 2 New York Times carried the headline "With Verdict in Officer's Trial Near, Oakland Braces for Violence." To my way of thinking, all of these dire warnings by the media can only egg on would-be protesters, eager to smash store windows and damage automobiles for any cause. I'm dreading the jury's verdict when it's announced to the public and I'm bracing myself for the out-of-control demonstrations that will surely follow, thanks to the media's irresponsibility! 

Dorothy Snodgrass  

*** 

Fire Wall? 

In the Great Depression in 1933, the act that was passed—the Glass-Steagall Act and the bank act that was a part of the connector to that—transformed the landscape. It disallowed banks to take risks and hold our customer deposits. And it gave an incentive to banks that held deposits that they would be supported by the government, that the FDIC was created to back our money. But then they would also not be allowed to speculate and trade and create esoteric, complex instruments that are difficult to understand and don’t have a market and can collapse an entire economy. That was a big bill. 

1956, there was a Bank Holding Act. That said, banks can’t merge across state lines, they can’t buy insurance companies, they can’t by investment banks. They wanna do plain banking, they do plain banking. That was as a solidification of the Glass-Steagall Act. That was strengthening the act. This does none of that. This allows all of that complexity, it allows banks to hold insurance companies and investment back and trade and speculate and have government backing for deposits. 

Two major things were not addressed in the new bill, the most important things: first of all, it does nothing to put the fire wall back up between regular banking commercial activity and those investment firms on Wall Street. That distinction was critical to protect all of us from this kind of collapse. This bill does not fix it. The second thing is it does not do anything serious about these institutions, these investment companies and others that are too big to fail. And too big to be safe for America. It does not handle that. So the two biggest issues are not resolved—pretend this is somehow the kind of reform we needed to avoid the financial collapse is really not being honest with the American people. 

Ted Rudow III,MA 

*** 

Intimidation  

I would like to commend Mal Burnstein for his courageous account of the intimidation City Councilmember Capitelli was subjected to when he planned to introduce a resollution at the City Council meeting condemning Israel for their attack on the flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Palestine. As Mal mentioned these intimidations are the same that helped cause the demise of the Berkeley Daily Planet and the same individuals of a Jewish Zionist group are at it again. How long are people in Berkeley willing to tolerate these tactics? This reminds me of a small scale mafia and I urge Councilmember Capitelli to come forward and tell us what threats he received before he was silenced. 

Andree Julian 

*** 

Steele’s Gaffe 

Poor Michael Steele, getting beat up for following the Republican line too closely, not the line that approves war in Afghanistan, but the line that says Obama is always wrong. However, Mr. Steele understands what others fail to: Republicans must relentlessly portray the President as an utter failure, with no variation. Such a strategy is easy to remember, and doesn’t require much thinking (a plus for Mr. Steele). GOP hopes all come down to pure, unprincipled opposition to everything Obama says and does. And here it is, a few days after Mr. Steele’s gaffe, many GOP spokesmen have joined Mr. Steele in claiming that President Obama started the war in Afghanistan. They've seen the light. After all, these are the same voters that handed Bush Jr. a second term as President, and are not likely to get all bothered over a lie or two, no matter how ridiculous. What’s more, the hurricane season is upon us. Maybe they can blame Obama for that as well! 

SK Phillips 

*** 

Nuclear Event Inevitable 

Without an enhanced and deliberate policy of engagement, our international scene is likely to produce at least one singular hostile nuclear event within a simple arms reach of 20 years, or less. 

What effects will we see in our communities, once this occurs? 

Who will become the victims? I predict the frontlines, the police, are likely to fall first and hardest, when all hell breaks loose. 

Can't we put reality and negotiation, above posturing and propaganda? 

Let our society crumble, and let the police blood spill without rhyme nor reason, when all hell breaks loose. 

Is it safeto ride a bike in Berkeley, post Mehserle verdict? 

Guess again, Rodney II. 

Dave Mouton
Arcata California 

*** 

Oil Spill 

To do something about the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster we can at least start driving less and buying local. About 250 million vehicles are on American road and each one uses on average about ten gallons of gasoline per week. Cutting back would fight back against big oil companies with their lack of preparedness for an oil disaster. Each week if we use three gallons of gasoline less, each car would reduce greenhouse gases from emissions by 63 pounds and cut American dependence on imported oil in half. We would then be able to put twice as much money into our own economy. 

Walk
Bicycle
Use public transportation
Carpool (Post a carpooling sign in offices near your workplace)
Save for an electric car (especially if you go 25+ miles per day)
Buy local food 

Frozen foods on your table represent 90% more energy than fresh foods. Processed foods like ketchup represent 1300 miles to your plate. A corporation buys tomatoes in California, transports them to the Midwest to be made into ketchup and then transports them back to our supermarkets. In addition, there is packaging and other energy-consuming processes involved in that bottle of ketchup. Buying a tomato at a farmers market, slicing it and using it in a sandwich saves a lot of enrgy. Also, look at labels and see how far some items like apple juice have travelled compared to the juice or fruit you buy at a farmers market. 

Ask your supermarket if they could mark shelves with local products 

Grow your own tomatoes, beans, lettuce, spinach, etc. (even on windowsills you can grow lettuce and spinach) 

Ask your city council to pay the fees farmers are charged at farmers’ markets 

Jane Harada 

*** 

War in Afghanistan 

The Afghanistan war serves no purpose. We will not recover out lost dignity in Vietnam (or Korea) by winning in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The amount of treasure squandered in both theatres could have made the US oil independent by now. 

Russ D'Arensbourg 

The US military has been in Afghanistan for ten years now, occupying a mountainous tribal country during its long civil war. Every drone launched from Nevada kills more civilians and drives more recruits to the Taliban. This occupation cannot be "won." If the war is really about claiming land for a future oil pipeline, this too is useless, as the only way out of peak oil is to shift as soon as possible to the sustainable economy required to save civilization. The war appropriations should be stopped, and the money poured into building the new green economy needed by the US. 

Helene Knox 

These wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have proved to be interminable, costly in American lives lost, and tragic in the humanitarian disaster to the societies of both those countries. At a time when our own economy is nearly in shambles, we can ill afford to be pressing a continuing military presence where the cost of victory escalates daily. In the last 60 years, both Britain and the Soviet Union have failed to establish governments in Afghanistan that were amenable to western interests. It is time to withdraw and to formulate a more humane diplomatic and political strategy for achieving our foreign policy aims in the mideastern region. 

Richard Kalman 

One million dollars a day per district for this endless stupid war. Afghanistan did not invade "us" and the U.S. must stop this pointless occupation. It's not our job to change THEIR government and society. 

Brenda Hillman 

Please be brave enough to end the occupation of Afghanistan. We are currently traveling in Turkey, and cannot tell you how deeply enraged people are over the occupation. "American does not have any friends," they say, "It only has interests". In the case of Afghanistan, we have no interest in being there as a military occupation force. What we are doing is counter productive to our real interests. 

Tom Miller 

*** 

Guns 

A letter writer (6/29) states that "there are numerous ways" a potential victim can defend themself but doesn't give any of these alleged numerous reasons! The Supreme Court ruling simply upholds the Second Amendment as subject to the same standard of individual rights as the rest of the Bill of Rights. It doesn't strike down laws preventing minors or felons from owning weapons. Nor does it in any way excuse the misuse of a gun. The fact is that in my former hometown of Washington, D.C. criminals were the only ones with guns and they knew in advance that their victims would be legally disarmed. Now a would be robber or rapist is going to have to worry about the possibility of lethal resistance, the threat of which is the only deterrent to the criminal mentality. The DC ruling in 2008 only applied to Federal territory hence the necessity of the ruling in Chicago's identical ordinance denying the right of self-defense. The "liberal" distrust of fellow individuals to properly exercise their rights is most revealing of their real authoritarian philosophy. As far as leaving guns up to the police (this during the current BART officer trial!) and the military thanks but no cigar. The Second Amendment was adopted precisely with the thought of governmental tyranny in mind. It had nothing to do with hunting ducks as Bill Clinton once claimed. Furthermore, contrary to the writer's assertion, individual citizens are much more likely to be held accountable than the cops or the military. As Elena Kagan told Senator Feinstein yesterday this is now settled law whether you like it or not.  

Michael P. Hardesty 

*** 

Palin’s Opinion 

The Tea Party's Sarah Palin is already offering her opinion about California's race for governor. Predictably, she's not so much giving support to any candidate as she is trying to tear someone down. 

She claims Jerry Brown was a bad governor and "started; us down the road that has led "us" to our current economic problems. 

Those of us old enough remember Brown being called "Governor Moon-Beam" by his critics, in large part because he ditched the expensive limos and mansions that were such a drain on California's economy. 

Whatever else you might think about him, as governor Jerry Brown was among the best we've had in my lifetime. He didn't raise taxes, in fact he cut them repeatedly during his term in office. He left California at the end of his term having created millions of jobs. 

Ms. Palin - the half-term governor of Alaska - is not someone who should have anything to do with California's future. 

Palin makes political talk for cable newsbite fans and "red state" conservatives. She is so out of touch with the California scene. 

Ron Lowe 

*** 

Afghanistan—the U.S. between a rock and a hardplace 

Afghanistan now produces 90 percent of the world’s opium, which ends up on the streets of the world as heroin. According to one U.S. report, the area devoted to poppy production has nearly tripled in the last two years, and the country is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state. You can see why—drugs are about the only thing that poor country has that anyone else wants tobuy! 

The funny thing is, the U.S. is acting as the chief drug lord there, in a way, because it made it possible for all the smaller drug lords to come to power. Now the U.S. is between a rock and a hard place. So the U.S. hasn’t exactly been a virtuous liberator, because while it proclaims how it’s installed a new, more democratic government in Afghanistan, what it’s actually done is set the drug lords and warlords free to operate again, who control most of the country outside Kabul, thecapital.  

The U.S. has also taken advantage of Afghanistan’s lawlessness to convert its bases there into what one human rights advocate called “an enormous U.S. jail.” You see, since 9/11, one of the strategies of the U.S. in its “war on terror” has been to lock up anyone considered a suspect on any sort of grounds whatsoever, and where better to do it than Afghanistan, where there’s no legal system to challenge them and very few lawyers or human rights advocates to harass them and complain. Especially in the U.S., where most Americans stopped caring about Afghanistan a long timeago! 

Ted Rudow III,MA 

Former Commandant of the U.S. Marines, Maj. General Smedley D. Butler said it best in his frank expose titled "War is a Racket": 

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes." In another often cited quote from the book Butler says: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." 

Stop the murder and racketeering in Afghanistan and Iraq NOW! 

Glen Kohler


New: Planning Commission to Discuss Future of West Berkeley on Wednesday

From the WEBAIC Newsletter
Friday July 09, 2010 - 05:43:00 PM

There’s a key Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday July 14th to decide the future of protected industrial spaces and the location and definitions of research and development. The Planning Commission is set to have their last discussion (before a final Commission Public Hearing in September) on opening up now-protected industrial space, on Wednesday, July 14th, 7pm, at the North Berkeley Senior Center - MLK at Hearst • As at the May 19th meeting, the Commission will likely take a "sense" vote on the issue.* 

 

Why Attend: 

As these protections are the central mechanism by which West Berkeley maintains a viable, local-serving industrial base with over 320 companies & almost 7000 family-wage jobs, your attendance at this meeting can accomplish three critically important things: 

1. It can assure that the Planning Commission doesn't reverse its May 19th decision to not open up 

protected manufacturing space. 

2. It can convince the Commission that their ill advised vote to open up the protections on all Wholesale  

Trade & Warehouse space (almost 2 million sq ft, over 1000 jobs) is: 

a.) Unnecessary to accomodate R&D. WEBAIC has already agreed to allow millions of R&D sq ft (able 

to accomodate many times more R&D than projected demand) on large Master Use Permit sites. 

b.) Destructive of existing economic activity (R&D uses are documented as paying on average 3X  

protected uses, creating displacement pressure on functioning companies and productive jobs), and 

c.) Not legal (violates West Berkeley Plan and Berkeley General Plan Goals and Policies, and hasn't  

studied as required (in the West Berkeley Project Draft Environmental Impact Report) potential 

environmental impacts from the opening up of this large amount of space to uses (R&D) generating 

50% more traffic than existing uses. 

3. It can assure that where R&D locates on now-protected space in West Berkeley (ideally on MUP sites), 

it has an industrial character requiring wet lab or bench space, thus making sure that the precious 4% of 

Berkeley's land base set aside for industrial production & distribution uses isn't taken up by pure office 

uses that are already allowed to locate on the large land base in all Commercial districts and on the 

large amount of West Berkeley space not under protections. 

The West Berkeley Plan intentionally put R&D outside the protected category because R&D is more highly capitalized and would displace protected uses. This fact is as real today as when the policy was enacted. Even in this economic downturn, Berkeley aggregate vacancy rates for warehouse and manufacturing space are the second lowest of all East Bay cities, (lower than for offices), revealing the resiliency of these sectors. This is also no time to be putting displacement pressure on the jobs of people who've taken the brunt of regressive federal economic policies over the last several decades and who are most likely to be a paycheck or two away from foreclosure, loss of healthcare, or other economic calamity. These jobs are the linchpin of Berkeley's economic and ethnic diversity and are recognized as such in the West Berkeley Plan. The City should be seeking to expand, not contract, them. 

 

Express Chimes In 

Even the East Bay Express, a paper previously showing no understanding of WEBAIC's efforts, put the article: "Factories for the Future...momentum shifts toward preservation of land suitable for light manufacturing" as their cover story on the June 30-July 6th issue. As cities everywhere are recognizing the value of maintaining a PDR (Production, Distribution, & Repair) base, it's up to all of us together to guide the Planning Commission away from its present unsustainable course and in the direction of rational, equitable, and productive policy choices that recognize the value of the revenue, jobs, goods, and services that flow from West Berkeley's successful industrial and artisan economy and culture. 

Master Use Permit and other Proposals at Wednesday, July 28th PC Meeting 

The last Planning Commission Meeting until the fall will be held on July 28th (same place & hour) on the critical issues relating to the Master Use Permit. Among these issues are allowable heights and density (FAR - Floor Area Ratio), how much of West Berkeley will be subject to this permit and over what period of time, what are permitted uses on these sites, and how development on these sites will affect the residents & homes in the Mixed Use Residential (MUR) districts. 

When Democracy is Denied, the Antidote is More Democracy: 

At the May 19th meeting, the Planning Commission denied many business owners, employees, and residents the basic democratic right to inform decision-makers with their opinions and experience on issues critical to their lives and livelihoods before those decision-makers voted on these issues. Since only a short period of time was set aside for public comment before this important vote, many of the citizens packing the room were relegated to speaking late at night (if they were even able to stay), after the decisions had been made. Though violating the spirit of democracy, this action was likely "legal" due to the "vote" taken (though clearly setting direction for staff) somehow not qualifying as an "official" vote. 

Voting before citizens have their say reveals a deep disrespect toward citizens taking valuable time from their lives and families to exercise their right to express their opinions in a timely manner. If Commissioners don't possess the patience or energy to listen to citizens they're tasked with serving, there are adequate numbers of able citizens willing to shoulder this responsibility.  

In the face of such action, it's more important than ever to show up and respectfully express our opinions until such time as the weight of our facts, experience, passion, and dare we say, sometimes wisdom, result in a positive outcome for West Berkeley and the Berkeley community as a whole.


Berkeley City Council to Take Final Vote on Library Exemption from Zoning Variances

By Peter Warfield, Executive Director, Library Users' Association
Monday July 05, 2010 - 05:34:00 PM

Berkeley's City Council is scheduled to vote tonight, July 6, 2010, on a second, and presumably final, passage of legislation that would exempt the Berkeley Public Library (BPL) from having to obtain zoning Variances for any future renovations to, or demolitions with replacement of, existing buildings, including the downtown Central library.

 

At a contentious City Council meeting June 29, during which members of the public and then Council members raised questions about the legality and propriety of Measure FF (2008) being used to demolish two branch libraries, the Council nonetheless voted 10-0, with one abstention (Arreguin) to approve the legislation on first reading.

 

There were several problematic aspects to what happened, particularly regarding the accuracy of information provided to the City Council by the Planning Department and Board of Library Trustees (BOLT).

 

A Planning Department memo to the Mayor and City Council, dated June 29, 2010, asserted that the City Attorney gave advice about the legality of the library's planned demolition of South Branch and West Branch prior to planned replacement with new buildings.  But when we caught up with the author of the memo, we were told that the advice had been given orally -- not in writing.  We found this surprising, to say the least.

 

We are accustomed to seeing City Attorney opinions on significant matters made in writing.  These are typically carefully worded products of research and experience, often containing citations to legal cases.  The opinions usually state the question asked, and may extrapolate to questions not asked but still relevant to the matter at hand.

 

Additionally, we found an apparent serious error in the Planning Department memo's statement about the wording of Measure FF.  The memo says, "Measure FF expressly referred to 'construction,' and therefore its funds "may be used for construction of new libraries."  But we double-checked the wording and there is no mention of "construction" in the measure itself.  The word "construction" is only used in the "City Attorney's Impartial Analysis of Measure FF."

 

The Planning Department memo additionally says Measure FF "does not prohibit demolition," and that "the City Attorney has also advised that Measure FF funds should not be used for demolition...."  In somewhat tortured logic, the memo says, "current plans are to use other funds for demolition." 

 

Susan Kupfer, Chair of the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT), sent a letter to the City Council dated June 18, 2010, in which she makes some interesting statements.  One of them is this:  "While the existing buildings are grandfathered in place, and the planned renovations and/or new construction are not an expansion of library collections or services, the lots on which they are located are small and there is the need to provide upgraded and compliant facilities which might require variances of the current code."

 

But in fact, it is not the case that the new library facility designs "might" require variances -- all three designs for all three branches whose designs are at the Planning Department DO require variances under current code.  We noted this in a previous Daily Planet Article in the June 22, 2010 issue,  "Berkeley's Branch Library Plans: Two Demolitions Instead of Renovation, Book Cuts and Permanent Changes to Zoning Variance Requirements."        

 

North Branch's planned blockbuster two-story addition, which would extend close to Josephine Street, would add 77% to existing square footage, and would exceed the currently allowable 40% lot coverage.  The plans would increase lot coverage to 43%, from the current 32%.

 

South Branch, currently planned as a demolition and complete rebuild, would violate current zoning codes regarding both lot coverage and setbacks.  Allowable lot coverage now is 50%, while the existing building covers 38%.  The planned building's lot coverage would be 61%.  The planned building would also violate existing setback requirements on two of its sides. 

 

And Claremont Branch plans would also increase lot coverage beyond what was approved in the early 1970s as a variance allowing 60% coverage where 50% was and still is the maximum allowed.  The newly planned expansion would make the building cover 63% of the lot.

 

Here is the exact wording of the Planning Department's June 29, 2010 paragraph regarding Measure FF and the library's demolition plans:

 

"Regarding the concerns raised by community members as to whether the proposed projects are consistent with Measure FF, the City Attorney has confirmed that Measure FF does not require expansion or retention of book shelving, and does not prohibit demolition.  However, the City Attorney has also advised that Measure FF funds should not be used for demolition absent a validation action.  Thus, at present there are no plans to use Measure FF funds for demolition.  Rather, current plans are to use other funds for demolition.  Because Measure FF expressly referred to 'construction,' Measure FF funds may be used for construction of new libraries."

 

This is wording of "City of Berkeley Bond Measure FF":  "Shall the City of Berkeley issue general obligation bonds not exceeding $26,000,000 to renovate, expand, and make seismic and access improvements at four neighborhood branch libraries, but not the Central Library, with annual reporting by the Library Board to the City Council?"

 

And here is the second paragraph of the "City Attorney's Impartial Analysis of Measure FF": 

 

"This bond measure would authorize the issuance of $26 million of general obligation bonds.  The bond measure specifies that bond proceeds would be limited to renovation, construction, seismic, and disabled access improvements, and expansion of program areas at the City's four neighborhood branch libraries, but not the Central Library downtown.  Current plans for renovation include restoration and refurbishment of historic features at the branch libraries as part of any renovation."

 

 

 

Peter Warfield is Executive Director of Library Users Association.

 

 Recent articles about BPL's library renovation and construction plans include "Opposing Zoning Ordinance Changes Regarding Demolishing Libraries," May 25, 2010, and "Berkeley's Branch Library Plans: Two Demolitions Instead of Renovation, Book Cuts and Permanent Changes to Zoning Variance Requirements," June 22, 2010.


On the Beach in 2010

By Gray Brechin
Monday July 05, 2010 - 10:16:00 AM

Arthur C. Clarke and director Peter Hyams proved less than prophetic in the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, but they gave the audiences of 1984 what they wanted to hear. Cosmonaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) — who in the movie 2001 disappeared into a mysterious black monolith orbiting Jupiter — reappears as a literally starry-eyed apparition on his widow’s TV set between commercials. He tells her that “something wonderful” is about to happen. It does hours later when exponentially proliferating monoliths send Jupiter critical, igniting a second sun in the solar system. Forewarned by Bowman’s specter, Russian and U.S. cosmonauts hightail it out of the Jovian neighborhood on the cusp of a blast of hot plasma. The two nations at home narrowly avert their own thermonuclear Armageddon. In the closing scene, cosmonaut Heywood Floyd (Roy Schneider) rejoins his wife and son for a happy reunion on the beach under double suns.  

Like the Hollywood president of 1984, 2010 was a handsome feel-good movie good for the box office. Its special effects were state of the art. There is no hint of poverty in that future, the major characters on the spaceship are largely noble, and although terrestrial politicians are foolish enough to nearly incinerate their own planet, they pull back in wonder at the new star in Earth’s sky as well as the proof of Other Intelligence in the universe. Human technology works. 

But what if David Bowman had told his wife that “something terrible” is about to happen? How would she — and ticket buyers — have responded? 

As few at the time understood that a second sun would so upset the Earth’s delicate heat balance that it would snuff out life, few also knew that President Reagan’s “morning in America” was its twilight. Although many people at the time feared that the president’s cowboy posturing with the Soviets and his seeming incomprehension of the apocalyptic power at his command might precipitate the catastrophe avoided in 2010, his free market ideology and suave salesmanship set in motion events that would lead to something very like that fate. The year after the movie’s release, the Wall Street Journal quoted a White House source as saying that Reagan’s advisors intended to “starve the beast” of government through tax cuts in order to force it to wither — a reverse New Deal that would, in subsequent years, spectacularly benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. 

The means to do so rode out of the Golden West along with Reagan himself. California’s Proposition 13 of 1978 radically slashed property taxes while giving a minority the power to veto any future tax increases. Prop. 13 was the opening salvo in the popular tax revolt that spread across the country. Reagan surfed that tsunami into the White House, persuading voters that they could have it all without paying for it as businessmen-run bureaus rooted out waste and inefficiency and conducted government more like the ever more vaunted private sector. Something wonderful would happen. It might make little sense on the street, but it was box office magic in the theater of the absurd that was and remains Reaganomics. 

The age of limits, Reagan declared, was over — except for the revenues that government needs to provide for the common good. Shortly after moving into the White House Reagan ordered the solar panels Jimmy Carter had installed on its roof removed. There would be no more talk about energy conservation from cardigan-wearing losers like Carter. Voters loved it. Stretch limousines with smoked windows appeared and proliferated on U.S. streets as corollaries to the growing legions of beggars watching them pass. McMansions, SUVs, private jets, and prisons inflated while critical public infrastructure decayed and, on occasion, collapsed. The hyper wealthy retreated into an alternate universe of staggering privilege while the public realm grew ever junkier and dispirited. California went broke.  

Free trade agreements and deregulation permitted industries to consolidate and move their factories offshore in search of the cheapest labor and nonexistent environmental constraints. Within a few years, the mighty U.S. steel, textile, and garment industries evaporated, and with them trade unions. Their disappearance left entire cities washed up on the Rust Belt with soaring rates of poverty and the drug trade and gunfire that attend it. Increasingly choked of funding, public education began a precipitous slide, but few who mattered noticed as entertainment and seductive new gadgetry more than filled the void that it left. Those who could afford to sent their children to private schools and universities; those who could not went deeply into debt to do so as well in order to compensate for what taxes had once provided for the majority. Legislators and academic administrators threw public universities onto the marketplace where, claimed neoliberal guru Milton Friedman and his acolytes, they belonged along with everything else. There was no alternative, said those at the top; the money had simply run out. 

It had not for the military whose budgets engorged on the conviction that the U.S. could should, and, indeed, must police the planet like a frontier sheriff patrolling an unruly mining camp. Reagan’s successors and disciples called that fantasy “full spectrum dominance.” In the twenty-first century, Congress unstintingly funded foreign wars while further slashing taxes on the wealthy. The emaciated “beast” of public services at the core of democratic governance not so much slouched as staggered and gasped toward its terminus, its mangy hide stretched taut over brittle ribs. 

Freed of constraining regulation and barriers, the world economy morphed into a hybrid pawn shop and casino, its winners luring suckers into the pool with promises of ever-increasing prosperity. Few alive remembered the year 1929 and what followed. Then, in 2008, the house came down. 

Two years later, in the year 2010 as opposed to the movie 2010, no signs of alien intelligence appeared to entice humans to a larger shared purpose near Jupiter or anywhere else, let alone to an understanding of their planet’s fragility and their place in the cosmos. The United States disunited as racial tensions, gun lust, and other unresolved wounds of the first Civil War tore open once again. Commercials went uninterrupted by David Bowman telling us that something wonderful would happen.  

But something terrible did. It was, in fact, the culmination of many planetary assaults that had been accelerating in number and ferocity for centuries. Battered and sapped by ever rising human population and consumption, the Earth’s complex life support systems had quietly sickened, grown threadbare and febrile. Few distracted by entertainment, gadgets, and faith in a sky god noticed the actual emptiness of those skies or the poverty of the oceans. The perpetual noise of machines — of rock, rap, and preachers invoking God and the divine blessings of wealth — more than covered the growing quiet in the forests and the fields. Pollinating bees mysteriously disappeared, coral reefs everywhere bleached and died. Despite more freakish and violent weather events, energy companies successfully coaxed millions to believe that venal scientists and demonic liberals had devised the hoax of climate change to steal their liberties and hard-earned money. Some biologists claimed that the Earth was in the throes of a sixth mass extinction comparable to those that ended the Permian and Jurassic ages. 

Those convinced that the Earth was less than 7000 years old and Darwin a fraud knew that it had no time for Permian or Jurassic ages let alone extinction events. Many who denied climate change acted to speed it. A shrill chorus of “Drill, baby, drill,” erupted from the far right wing of the political spectrum. The very Democratic president whom that wing loathed responded by opening much of the offshore U.S. to oil exploitation while promising lavish public subsidies to jumpstart a renaissance of nuclear energy. Bold new technology, he assured his countrymen, had made both energy sources safe as banks. 

Safe as banks that had just collapsed, perhaps. The petroleum industry had, for decades, made wastelands of the Niger River delta, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Ecuadorian jungles, and more, but as long as the oil kept flowing, few in the developed world cared. And then they had to. 

On April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded fifty miles off the Louisiana coast, killing eleven workers and injuring many more before dropping into the mile-deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Despite BP’s best (and sometimes worst) efforts at damage control, estimates of the volume of crude and gas erupting from the sea floor continued to climb from a thousand barrels a day to as many as 100,000 and more. Try as it might with dispersants, BP could not hide the horrific effects of its eruption on the surface of the Gulf. Relying upon the very company that had caused the mess to fix it, the president and his Coast Guard commander appeared to work for the oil industry itself. Indeed, such was the logical end game of thirty years of extreme free market ideology.They, and Congress, virtually did.Government in 2010 wasn’t so much being run like a business as by and for business rather than its citizens.  

The Gulf blowout demonstrated that technology had limits and risks never voiced by its proponents. As BP assured the public that it would clean up its mess and the president promised (“make no mistake about it”) that the Gulf Coast would return to normal, it became clear that no one knew what to do. The president gave his first Oval Office address, invoking the spirit and know-how with which Americans had won World War II and landed men on the moon, then wound up asking for prayer. Americans prayed, but the oil kept coming in with the dying pelicans and porpoises. 

That president had, after all, staffed his administration with bright but blinkered technocrats who, as critic Chris Hedges remarked, “mistake the art of manipulation with knowledge.” His Nobel Prize-winning Energy Secretary — who had earlier brokered a lucrative marriage of BP and the University of California to develop genetically altered biofuels without mentioning the dangers entailed — announced a “dream team” of the nation’s best and brightest scientists and engineers to devise a solution to the gusher, and then fell mute. 

If BP and the government could not contain the blowout they could try to control the flow of information about it. Since reporters and the public had little access to that information, reports and rumors spread on the internet that vast clouds of emulsified oil and toxic dispersants were moving below the surface toward the Atlantic Gulf Stream, killing everything that encountered them. A Youtube home video showed oil falling with the rain in New Orleans. Unknown numbers of birds, turtles, and dolphins were dying or being incinerated out of sight and mind, and volatilized petrochemicals were sickening workers and Gulf Coast residents. Oil was gushing from multiple vents in the sea floor. Climatologists predicted a very bad hurricane season that would shut down containment and recovery efforts and hurl oil, toxic gas, and dispersants over the continent.  

What Chernobyl was to land, the Deepwater Horizon gusher was to the ocean, but unlike Chernobyl, this eruption could not be stanched.  

The Gulf blowout reminded me of another movie nearly twice the age of 2010. Stanley Kramer produced On the Beach in 1959 as a cautionary tale of how technology could set in motion forces that humans were incapable of stopping. 

The nuclear holocaust narrowly averted at the end of 2010 happens before On the Beach opens. After an exchange of bombs devastates the northern hemisphere, the movie’s cast in Australia can only wait as planetary winds carry lethal radiation to their continent. The Australian government distributes suicide pills to spare them the agony of radiation sickness when the lethal cloud arrives. Each character must decide what to do with what time is left to him or her and to those they love. In the final scenes, newspapers blow through the empty streets of Melbourne as a banner flaps in the radioactive wind proclaiming “There Is Still Time… Brother.” 

I was twelve years old when my mother took me to see On the Beach. As we drove away from the theater, she said that she did not like the movie because it left no room for hope. The dread it and others such as Dr. Strangelove implanted, and the skepticism about the wisdom of leaders who could launch such a cataclysm, shaped me as I believe it did the generation of the 60s. 

Youth half a century on is maturing in a very different world. Ever more umbilically dependent upon machines and the fossil fuel-derived energy that drives them, they live with a young technocrat in the White House who promised change but who — bereft of any vision of how the earth’s resources could be more equitably distributed and its technology more wisely used — delivered instead the status quo. As the lethal cloud spreads unchecked in the sea, few yet understand that a dead ocean means dead land. 

Those in On the Beach knew what was coming as few today do. As the worsening news from the dying Gulf becomes chronic, it retreats into the inner pages of dying newspapers, displaced from the front page by the World Cup and Tiger Woods’ comeback. That much of life could be ending on Planet Earth would be a bummer for many, and very bad for business. The lights must never go out, wrote Auden at the outbreak of World War II, the music must always play. 

That may soon change. There will be no security in high-riding Hummers or in fully loaded automatics. There will be no escape or refuge for the hyper wealthy in their pre-fueled private jets as the life support systems of Planet Earth go down. Their sybaritic retreats like Atlantis in the Bahamas could soon submerge under dead and oily water. Each person may soon be forced to decide what to do with what time is left to him or her and to those they love. They might turn back to the words with which biologist Rachel Carson ended the introductory “Fable for Tomorrow” in her 1962 warning Silent Spring: “No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.” 

 

Gray Brechin is a resident scholar at the U.C. Berkeley Department of Geography. He is the author of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin.


UC Berkeley DNA Study

By Jude Ya
Sunday July 04, 2010 - 02:46:00 PM

When UC Berkeley planned the “On the Same Page” project to request first year students provide DNA for analysis and subsequent discussion it is doubtful anyone anticipated the vigor of public reaction. One concern cited was is the accuracy of the genetic testing kits and that the testing technology under scrutiny of the FDA. 

 

The reality is that accurate genetic testing technology was established some time ago. Currently DNA is collected from convicted offenders, analyzed, and profiled electronically in all 50 states. Typically labs analyzing offender DNA use a pre-assembled set of reagents that allows the lab to conduct a standard DNA extraction, quantitation or amplification. For the “On the Same Page” project the research scientist will probably run a standard set of reagents, but only report the results for folic acid, lactose and alcohol metabolism to students.  

 

The scientist will still have the entire DNA profile for each student submitting a sample. The idea that the students' DNA samples will be destroyed after analysis is disingenuous. It is the DNA profile which is derived from the DNA analysis that is key. In 1994 the FBI was authorized to create an offender DNA database, the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), to contain offender DNA profiles from across the country. States do not submit offender DNA samples to CODIS, but the DNA analysis profile. 

 

The States also store all offender DNA profiles electronically for access by law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. Research scientists can also gain access to offender profiles. Scientists carried out a familial/kinship study in 2005 to identify offenders based on their DNA who are related, but may not know each other. "Finding Criminals Through DNA of their Relatives," was published May 11, 2006 in Science Express. The results described in a Berkeley Memo to the Media: “ We may not be our brother's keeper, but our brother's DNA could help land us in jail...investigators could reap a significant boost in leads if they were to use DNA kinship analysis methods to search offender DNA databases to aid in locating potential criminal suspects that use matching DNA samples from other databases.” 

 

Kinship searching of the offender database can help catch a novice criminal, who is not himself in the database, through his brother or father who is a cataloged offender," says Charles Brenner, a visiting scholar in the Forensic Science Group at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health and one of the authors of the report. Does this mean that the first year student DNA could be analyzed for a offender kinship study? Yes, for the “On the Same Page” project the collected DNA data is considered anonymous which was approved by the UC Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects. 

 

Any Berkeley scientist is now able to propose research to the UC Berkeley Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects and request an exemption from review based on 45 Code of Federal Regulations Part 46 Protection of Human Subjects 101(b)(4) “Research involving the study of existing...specimens...in such a manner that subjects cannot be identified...”. 

 

One would expect and hope that UC Berkeley would ensure human subject protection is in place for its students who take part in this project and should be the responsibility of the UC Berkeley Committee for the Protection of Humans Subjects. Unfortunately the UC Berkeley Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects has for some time fail to adequately administer the UC Berkeley human subject protection program and is currently undergoing a site visit audit by investigators from Washington for the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protection regarding serious violations of the Federal Regulations for the Protection of Human Subjects. 

 

Interesting irony should the federal audit become a criminal investigation and a CPHS administrator is convicted of wrongdoing and required to give a DNA sample. UC Berkeley should replace the “On the Same Page” DNA testing project with a project about the ethical conduct of DNA research. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The Deliberative Process and Politics as Unusual (A Window into Berkeley Political Dynamics)

By H. Scott Prosterman
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 11:57:00 AM

The failure of Measure C last month brought an end to the warm pool at Berkeley High School, and the closing of Willard Pool. The measure was popular, but not popular enough to gain the 2/3 majority mandated by Proposition 13 for local bond issues.  

Ultimately, blame it on Reagan – really, blame it on Reagan – he set the table for Howard Jarvis to generate the hysteria in 1978, which brought Proposition 13. This presents yet another manifestation of the urgent need to repeal that draconian law; it has created administrative stonewalls to creating a state budget in a timely manner many years running. It has shrunken the state’s tax base to the point where government can no longer provide essential services, and it has decimated our state education system from pre-school to the University system. But I digress. 

In the recent Measure C campaign, the “No on Measure C” campaign shamelessly dispensed wrongful information in a manner that was reckless. They argued that there was ample funding for parks improvement in the city’s coffers – not true. They argued that the city’s relationship with the Berkeley YMCA presented an option to the warm pool. Not true. The “Yes on Measure C” campaign enlisted politicians representing the entire political spectrum of Berkeley – democrats and democrats. “Yes on Measure C” enjoyed unanimous support of Mayor Tom Bates and the entire City Council. Mayor Bates and most council members attended rallies supporting Measure C and offered unqualified endorsements. 

Why then did Mayor Bates vote against shifting money, on June 22, from a single street paving project to Parks & Rec so that Willard Pool could remain open? Why did council members Linda Maio, Laurie Capitelli, Darryl Moore and Susan Wengraf effectively vote against keeping Willard open after joining the Mayor in GRANDSTANDING in support of Measure C? These council members did not actually vote against the vote to save Willard Pool. Rather, they engaged in what is known as a “walk-out” in the State Assembly. They willfully abstained from voting, KNOWING that Bates’ lone “No” vote would be sufficient to kill the motion. They voted “No” by not voting. These four council members were all phoned and e-mailed seeking a response for this story, and all have declined comment. 

Constituents of Maio, Capitelli, Moore and Wengraf should not allow these lawmakers a moment of peace or a good night’s sleep until they explain why they offered visible support of Measure C, but then turned their backs on Berkeley’s aquatic system , when Kriss Worthington offered a thoughtful, however temporary solution. Worthington made a motion at the June 22 Council meeting to “move” money from a single street paving project in his district, to the Parks and Rec budget so that Willard could remain open this year. Generally, council members cede to a district’s representative when he offers such a sacrifice. The four “walk outs” had no motivation for letting Willard Pool die, other than some mysterious political motivation prompted by Mayor Bates. What was Bates’ motivation and why are these four so blindly loyal to him? 

This dynamic is telling of the dysfunction and corruption that arises when “one party rule” squelches thoughtful debate. Many Berkeley citizens wrongfully operate on several skewed assumptions: 

1.) All democrats are good, therefore all Berkeley council members are good. As long as there are no republicans, it’s all good. 

2.) Blind ignorance: it’s been astonishing to learn how few people in Berkeley, no matter how bright, have no clue about the political dynamics that run their town. Many people don’t know that Mayor Bates and State Rep. Loni Hancock are married; that both were termed-out of their prior positions. Bates served 20 years in District 14, which Hancock represents now. And people forget that Hancock was mayor of Berkeley from 1986 to 1994. Because “all democrats are good” in Berkeley, no one noticed when Hancock and Bates changed sides of the bed and swapped jobs. 

3.) Because Bates is a democrat he is above corruption or distasteful political maneuvering. This good citizen has been wrongfully shut out of Council debate on two occasions by Bates’ unlawful manipulation of the agenda. 

4.) Most Berkeley citizens have no clue that Bates is trying to play “Monopoly” with Downtown Berkeley. If his goal is to create new housing for 5,000 new residents in a college town that is already bursting at the seams, how is that different from the game we play, where the goal is to put as many houses and hotels on a single piece of property as possible as possible, and charge exorbitant rents to anyone who happens to stop by? Who exactly stands to benefit from that? 

5.) Because Berkeley is run by democrats and has such a great progressive history, the Mayor and council members can always be trusted to do the right thing. This is hard to discern because some City Charter codes deliberately obfuscate the voting record of some politicians. Votes that DO NOT PASS the council are NOT entered into the public records of the Clerk’s office, per City Charter Article VII S44 (1) and (2). I learned this in researching the voting on Worthington’s June 22 motion to “move” money to save Willard Pool. The information was NO WHERE on the COB website. I received an e-mail from City Clerk Deanna Despain explaining, “As I explained yesterday, our annotated agendas (and minutes) only reflect actions that are adopted. In other words, we do not include failed motions.” So why not investigate how this violates numerous public information and open meeting laws? 

The good news is that Council Member Worthington is bringing another motion to “move” money from a single street paving project in his district, to save Willard Pool at the next meeting on July 13. This means that all Berkeley pool users need to contact Council Members Maio, Moore, Capitelli and Wengraf and DEMAND that they make good. Demand that they make good on their original support of Berkeley’s aquatic system. Demand that they account for their support of Measure C, and their shameful “walk out” on the vote when they abstained on June 22. DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY FROM THE BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL. They rarely face such demands, because everyone assumes that because they’re all democrats, they’re all good. Call them, write them, e-mail them and go see them, but don’t let them off the hook. 

The City of Berkeley and Berkeley City Council have a proud record of initiating thoughtful and progressive legislation, and starting national political trends. But the current crop of leadership has been content to cruise on the accomplishments of their predecessors, while contributing NOTHING positive to the tradition of progressive legislation. They’d rather play Monopoly. DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY FROM THE BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL.


I Can't Believe You Printed This...

By Roosevelt Secrease
Monday July 05, 2010 - 04:12:00 PM

Response to “The railroading of Michael Vick and the machine gunning of Deondre Brunston", by Jean Damu: 

I'm not sure what foul Mr. Damu is crying or why he chose these two cases to cry foul on. Is he saying racism was behind the Michael Vick case and the shooting of Deandre Brunston? If so, maybe he should dry his eyes and look at the facts. 

Michael Vick was involved with dogfighting and I won't even rehash the details. I've personally known people involved with dogfighting and I've seen up close and personal what can happen to a dog when their owner loses twelve grand and the dog didn't die in the fight. To take an animal who is basically dependent on you for care and treat them in the manner that I've personally witnessed and did read about in the Vick case is heinous (yes Mr. Damu, that word again), inhuman and cowardly to the infinite degree. 

I liked Michael Vick on the football field with Atlanta, the dude was just badass. Michael Vick was also arrogant. When first confronted with the dogfighting allegations he could have simply just told the truth. Michael Vick was the Messiah for the Atlanta Falcons and I'd be willing to bet $1.25 Arthur Blank (co-owner of the franchise) would have used all of his considerable power to protect the franchise player had he been given the chance. Instead Michael lied until he couldn't lie any longer (thanks to the media) and Arthur wasn't given the opportunity to use his considerable power in his behalf. He allowed his situation to escalate to him being sentenced to 21 months in prison and his story becoming the media circus we heard and read about daily. Did he get what he deserved? I don't think so; but I don't think the dogs did either. 

It's heartbreaking to see Mr. Brunston die like this but the truth is; Deandre Brunston in this video is NOT sitting on a porch communicating with police as Mr. Damu stated. The brother is actually on one knee with a hand at his waitband telling the police if they release their dog he's going to shoot it. And not just the dog but "everything."
And the police dog doesn't suddenly charge him as Mr. Damu stated. For the first three minutes of the video you can hear the police asking and warning him numerous times to drop his gun (a gun he doesn't actually have, but he say he has a gun, and he looks as if he's about to pull one); It's a full three minutes into the video before the dog appears, which seems to be after the first bullet is fired. 

Did they shoot too fast and too many times? OH HELL YEAH! I said the first bullet seemed to have arrived before the dog (hell they actually shot the dog) and it did sound like a machine gun, fully automatic. But even if it wasn't a fully automatic machine gun, another truth is; it's obvious the L.A. county sheriffs department intended to kill this black man. You can tell by his (Mr. Brunston) reaction to the dog being released (as soon as he saw the released dog whatever it was he had in his hand, reportedly a flip flop sandal; he tossed to the ground. It appeared that in that moment he was showing he didn't have a gun but as I said the first bullet seemed to have arrived before the dog got there so that particular action was too little, too late; especially after stating numerous times “I’m going to start shooting”) he up to that point didn't think his words and actions could escalate to him losing his life; he thought he knew his rights. What Mr. Brunston was thinking, I haven't the slightest idea; but this is not an Oscar Grant type shooting. This brother sounded G'ed up. He was asking/demanding to talk to his girlfriend or die in a hail of bullets and gunsmoke. Whatever you want to be; is just what you'll be in the end; even if that's dead. This young brother without realizing it; used the L.A. County Sheriffs department to commit suicide. (That's what it looked like to me.) 

I'm not an advocate of any police department and I've never in my 54 years met Officer Friendly but I do understand that they will kill you. Also, I'm not at all convinced that some of them aren't actually looking for a situation like Mr. Brunston's where they can kill you; a fact that should not be lost on the black male. 

For the record: 

I lived in Berkeley until I was 13 when in 1969 I was moved to racist Hillsboro, Texas where segregation was still alive and well. There in racist Hillsboro I discovered I was a suspect to many small crimes committed in this one horse town; based on the color of my skin, my perceived rebelliousness, and the fact that I had never learned to fear white people. I was taught by my mom to fear no man but once in racist Hillsboro, my guardians became afraid that my outspoken personality would keep me in trouble so they began to teach me avoidance. I didn't bite my tongue but I learned to choose my words. For the short time I was there I didn't slink around afraid but at the same time I didn't go where I knew there was potential for trouble. I tell you this because I want you to understand I'm not one of those people who claim racism doesn't exist or that our police departments across America aren't filled with blood lusting criminals. 

BUT... 

Racism was not the reason calamity befell Mr. Vick or Mr. Brunston. That would have to lie at the feet of ignorance. Mr. Vick and Mr. Brunston both were ignorant to the power of the truth. That ignorance cost Mr. Vick millions of dollars, his starting job in Atlanta and possibly future acknowledgement in the NFL hall of fame. Mr. Brunston however lost his life because of it (I use the term ignorance in the sense of being “uninformed.”) Mr. Brunston was so uninformed that he thought the police couldn’t kill him because he hadn’t displayed a gun; even though he had stated numerous times he was going to start shooting. 

Crying racism or using the race card “just because” is careless; like crying wolf when there really is no wolf. How do people react when there really is a wolf or racism really is the matter? If I’m correct in my assumption of what Mr. Damu is insinuating, he was careless in using these two cases; to make what point? and you guys should have never provided space for his delusions.


A Mother's Plea for Justice

By Ellen Hoeft-Edenfield
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 09:33:00 PM

On May 13, 2010 my only child, Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield, was found guilty of 2 nd degree murder for the tragic death of a UC student in a trial that shattered my belief in the fairness of our court system. To begin with, the DA put me on her witness list, which kept me out of the courtroom, but then she never called me. This manipulation barred me from attending my own son’s trial.  

 

Two years before this verdict, on May 3, 2008, Christopher Wooten, a fraternity member at Sigma Pi, was killed while engaged in a violent brawl on frat row near U.C. Berkeley.  

 

My son Andrew was then a student at Berkeley City College and working part-time at Jamba Juice. It was simply unimaginable to those who know him, that Andrew, who had no criminal record whatsoever, could be involved in this tragedy.  

 

The morning after this nightmarish night, I found Andrew at the police station with a battered and bruised body. His elbow was shredded and it looked like half of his kneecap was gone; there were shoe prints on his back where he was kicked and stomped. His head was full of multiple bloody cuts and welts where he had been kicked in the head. My son’s friend had also been badly beaten. None of the frat boys were arrested for the assault. Chris sustained only one stab wound.  

 

That night Andrew had been at a birthday party down the street from the university’s fraternity row. After he and one of his friends left the party, they walked in front of Sigma Pi. One fraternity member testified that he decided my son was a troublemaker because he wore baggy clothes and had an earring. Inflammatory words were exchanged, and another fraternity member testified that my son and his friend left the scene.  

 

Sigma Pi fraternity members then chased Andrew and his friend up the street and into a parking lot. Several frat members involved admitted on the witness stand that they intended to challenge Andrew. Other testimony indicated that 10-15 Sigma Pi members and their friends formed a circle around Andrew and his friend. Anyone would have been terrified.  

 

During the trial, instead of focusing on the facts of what happened that night, the district attorney was allowed to present irrelevancies such as my son's 9 th grade backpack, on which he’d scrawled "thug life," the title of a popular Tupac Shakur album, claiming this indicated my son had a "thug mentality.” She also brought in school records from elementary school that said he’d thrown rocks at cars when he was 11½.  

 

That my son was a Boy Scout for many years and was very close to becoming an Eagle Scout was not allowed as evidence. His scout leader wanted to testify about my son’s days in scouting, but this too was not allowed. At Andrew’s bail hearing we had 10 character witnesses at the hearing who were also not allowed to testify on my son’s behalf. One of the witnesses was a previous employer who planned to offer Andrew a job if he was allowed out on bail.  

 

More recent, serious and pertinent evidence about Chris’s background was excluded, including that the fact that he’d been in a very similar fight just six months before. Chris had also had been thrown out of Kips, a local bar, for aggressive behavior. We had a witness who’d had his hair pulled out of his scalp and both of his arms broken by frats. The judge would not allow him to testify either.  

 

What is probably most important is that evidence was excluded about the ongoing culture of alcohol and violence that has become a part of fraternity row, not just in Berkeley, but also around the nation. The US Department of Health identifies alcohol as a special health risk in colleges.  

 

On the night he died, Chris Wooten had an alcohol blood level of .21, far beyond the level that causes intoxication. The corner’s report indicated he had 30 bruises on his body from other fights and on his MYSPACE blog he boasted about how he and his frat brothers had outnumbered another young man in an earlier incident and ground his face into the sidewalk while kicking his ribs and head.  

 

This culture of alcohol abuse and violence has led to a pending class action lawsuit against the fraternities at U.C. Berkeley filed by the South of Campus Neighborhood Association. One neighbor has security surveillance videotapes of frats breaking into his house and of regular violence in the area posted on his web site at www.ucfrats.com . Information about the many neighbors who have suffered from fraternity unruliness was also not allowed, although it was essential to understanding the social problems that led to the attack on Andrew and to Chris’s death.  

 

California law gives each of us the right to self-defense. The community does not benefit when all the blame is placed on just one person--my son Andrew--and everyone else is absolved of responsibility.  

 

The law allows self-defense because people have the right to protect themselves when they are attacked and outnumbered 10 against 2 by drunk, aggressive and violent young men. Most of those convicted of 2 nd degree never receive parole.  

 

I have great compassion for the Wooten family and the loss of their child, which is probably the greatest loss any human being can experience. Further compounding this tragedy is the injustice dealt to my son. If Andrew had not defended himself he could very well be on life support or dead himself.  

 

To learn about how to support Andrew and ways to curtail alcohol abuse and violence by fraternities, please follow this link to the Lawsuit Against UCB Frat houses: livepage.apple.com 


Deception/Distraction

By R.G. Davis, Ph.D.
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 10:03:00 AM

            How does international political deception and distraction work? Take the matter of Iranian nuclear development as a tool for the Israelis to direct attention away from their barbarism in the Palestinian territories. 

In order to deflect attention from arrests, shelling, assassinations, seizure of houses, territory and marginalizing all the Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem while punishing all in the Gaza strip, the Israelis cry wolf loudly again and again (in the US): Iran is on the road to making a bomb. And, tacitly, that bomb or two bombs will cause 200 Israeli atomic weapons to be less then effective — because? Because you can't trust the Iranians not to use the bomb whereas the Israelis who have invaded assassinated broken international laws, killed 9 Turks this month, and more Palestinians yesterday, today and tomorrow — can be trusted: Whereas the Iranians can't but the Israelis can. That must be the way (dual citizen) Rahm Emanuel makes his presentations to Barrack Obama, the President of the US-Israeli special relationship.

 

The Israeli foreign policy is to insist it has a security problem. Which is essence true: They have been placed and placed themselves in the middle of Arab countries and allowed to seize land, expand, kill off the Palestinians, and drive them into the sea. For some reason a number of countries and people find it horrendous and don't trust the Israelis therefore—consistently want to get rid of or at least stop that country.

 

            Many people in the world don't trust the USA either for the same reasons. When the US drops thousands of troops and hundreds of missiles on Afghanistan and Pakistan many people in these areas don't trust the USA either. How ungrateful they are that the US has come to invade, destroy, occupy, and the people there are not thankful that the US democracy in its capitalist military mode has come to save them from the Taliban and Al Queda. Don't they know this is done for US security reasons; over there rather than over here? [Song: WWI “Over There.”]

 

            Israelis have the same belief in their reason to exist while killing, destroying, attacking, torturing and imprisoning Palestinians. The Palestinians, in the US press, aren’t able to explain they have rights to resist such tactics as many people have done and will do. Contrariness mounts when the US provides funds for Israeli weapons, and for dissidents in Iran (450 million voted for in Congress), and also is blocking its international trade, sends naval war ships to the Gulf (to pollute there), while bringing democracy at the end of a battleship or in packages wrapped by the CIA.

 

            Meanwhile the Israelis threaten attack, a counter-productive move, since it drives the dissidents to unite with the mullahs to defend Iran, just as the pacifists in Israel are drowned by the religious Jewish fanatics who would erase Palestinians

 

The Israelis may not win this one. There is a point, a tipping point in ecological climate change studies, that states that crisis will increase 'positive feed back’, which means exponential reactions. As the anti-apartheid movement increases, along with picket lines in front of Israeli ships, Israelis will apparently assist by doing more damage, while the USA makes it even more contradictory by selling nuclear materials to India (and China?) while reducing its stockpile of nuclear bombs and upgrading others.

 

The systemic proposition that unites these conflicting and contradictory maneuvers is the presumption the USA is a moral democratic nation and its military can be trusted to kill civilians along with resistance fighters, just like Israel, the only totally militarized democracy/theocracy in the Middle East that has an apartheid policy, is engaged in ethnic cleansing, and thus is correctly in need of security. Get it? It is Biblical logic, the Iranians can’t be trusted, they will attack Israel, the militarized 200 atom bomb nation also defended by Obama’s military. 

 

Hail to the people who formed the picket line blockade in Oakland— again, again, again. 

 

 

 

R.G. Davis, Ph. D., was the founder of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. His father was Jewish and his mother was an Italian Communist who was interested in Ecological Aesthetics. He also supports the Irish Old Leftists who always hate the Brits.
 


 

 

 


Columns

Dispatches From The Edge: The Guns of August in the Middle East?

By Conn Hallinan
Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 11:50:00 AM

Crazy talk about the Middle East seems to be escalating, backed up by some pretty ominous military deployments. First, the department of scary statements: 

First up, Shabtai Shavit, former chief of the Israeli spy agency Mossad, speaking June 21 at Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv on why Israel should launch a pre-emptive strike at Iran: “I am of the opinion that, since there is an ongoing war, since the threat is permanent, since the intention of the enemy in this case is to annihilate you, the right doctrine is one of presumption and not retaliation.” 

Second up, Uzi Arad, Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security advisor, speaking before the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem June 22 on his belief that the “international community” would support an Israeli strike at Iran” “I don’t see anyone who questions the legality of this or the legitimacy.” 

Third up, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi speaking to reporters at the G-8 meeting in Toronto June 26: “Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power [so] the members of the G-8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react preemptively.” 

Fourth up, Central Intelligence Director Leon Panetta predicting on ABC’s “This Week” program June 27 that Iran could have two nuclear weapons by 2012: “We think they [Iran] have enough low-enriched uranium for two weapons…and while there is continuing debate [within Iran] right now about whether or not they ought to proceed with a bomb…they clearly are developing their nuclear capacity.” He went on to say that the U.S. is sharing intelligence with Israelis and that Tel Aviv is “willing to give us the room to be able to try to change Iran diplomatically and culturally and politically.” 

A few points: 

1) Iran and Israel are not at war, a fact Shavit seems confused about. 

2) Since the recent rounds of sanctions aimed at Iran would have lost in the United Nations General Assembly, it unclear who Arad thinks is the “international community.” 

3) Berlusconi is a bit of a loose cannon, but he is tight with the Israelis. 

4) An Iran that is different “diplomatically and culturally and politically” sounds an awful lot like “regime change.” Is that the “room” Panetta is talking about? 

And it isn’t all talk. 

Following up the London Times report that Saudi Arabia had given Israel permission to fly through Saudi airspace to attack Iran, the Jerusalem Post, the Islam Times and the Iranian news agency Fars report that the Israeli air force has stockpiled equipment in the Saudi desert near Jordan. 

According to the Post supplies were unloaded June 18 and 19 outside the Saudi city of Tabuk, and all civilian flights into the area were canceled during the two day period.The Post said that an “anonymous American defense official” claimed that Mossad chief Meir Dagan was the contact man with Saudi Arabia and had briefed Netanyahu on the plans. 

The Gulf Daily News reported June 26 that Israel has moved warplanes to Georgia and Azerbaijan, which would greatly shorten the distance Israeli planes would have to fly to attack targets in northern Iran. 

The U.S currently has two aircraft carriers—the Truman and the Eisenhower—plus more than a dozen support vessels in the Gulf of Hormuz, the strategic choke point leading into the Gulf of Iran. 

The Saudis have vigorously denied the reports they are aiding the Israelis, and Shafeeq Ghabra, president of the American University of Kuwait, says “It would be impossible for the Saudis to allow an Israeli attack on Iran.” 

But Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Ramat Gan, Israel, argues that Saudi Arabia and Israel both fear a nuclear-armed Iran. “This bring us together on a strategic level in that we have common interests. Since the Arab world and Saudi Arabia understand that President Obama is a weak person, maybe they decided to facilitate this happening.” He also said the story might not be true because “I don’t think the Saudis want to burden themselves with this kind of cooperation with Israel.” 

According to military historian Martin van Creveld, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,“The real fear is that someone will get carried away by his own rhetoric and fear mongering” and start a war. He also thinks, however, that Israel should not take a preemptive strike “off the table.” 

Trita Parsi of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington argues that the escalation of rhetoric is dangerous. “When you have that kind of political environment, you are leaving yourself no space to find another solution,” he told the Christian Science Monitor. “You may very well end up in a situation where you are propelled to act, even though you understand it is an unwise action, but [do so] for political reasons.” 

The rhetoric is getting steamy, the weapons are moving into position, and it is beginning to feel like “The Guns of August” in the Middle East.


Wild Neighbors: A Death in the Family

By Joe Eaton
Monday July 05, 2010 - 01:38:00 PM

A couple of days ago, I got word of the passing of another local celebrity. Although never the shot-blocker that Manute Bol was, she had her own dedicated following. She was a beaver, the matriarch of the Alhambra Creek clan in downtown Martinez. 

Heidi Perryman’s Martinez Beavers website www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress has all the details. 

Mom, as she was generally known, was thought to be about six years old. (The longevity record for a North American beaver, according to the Animal Ageing and Longevity Database genomics.senescence.info/species, is just over 23 years.) Recognizable by a distinctive notch in the side of her tail, she had been observed in the Alhambra watershed before she paired with her mate and got down to the business of dam construction in the fall of 2006. 

Mom and her mate produced three litters of four kits each, beginning in 2007. Two of the first batch succumbed to parasitic roundworms; the survivors took off on their own. Of the 2008 litter, one died, two dispersed, and the fourth hasn’t left the natal pond. All four of last year’s kits were killed by predators, possibly mink. 

The female lived just long enough to see a third litter enter the world. They were first reported June 9 and are thought to be old enough to feed themselves. The two-year-old sibling is keeping an eye on them. No word yet on Dad’s status. I can’t speculate about the grieving process in beavers. 

Perryman had noticed about the time the kits appeared that the mother was looking less well groomed than usual. Beavers are meticulous creatures, so that was cause for worry. Mom may have been applying the secretions from her castor gland to the new kits rather than her own fur. 

On June 24, Perryman wrote that “Mom beaver is looking much worse and appears to be near the end of her remarkable life…Beavers generally try not to die in the lodge, and mom appears to be staying to the banks, curling up weakly.” The beaver also seemed to be having difficulty eating. Perryman and other Martinez beaver advocates agonized over what to do. 

Last Saturday, the beaver was on the creek bank, listless, wet, and disoriented, staggering when she tried to move. Volunteers nudged her into a pet crate and drove her to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum’s hospital in Walnut Creek. 

On examination, she was emaciated—down to 34 pounds; normal weight could be as much as 60 pounds. Her magnificent wood-gnawing incisor teeth had finally failed her: one of her upper incisors was broken, and the two lower incisors had grown into her upper palate. (Incisor malocclusion and overgrowth can be a serious health issue for pet rodents and lagomorphs.) Too far gone for treatment, she was euthanized. 

In her short but prolific span, the female beaver was an effective good-will ambassador for her species. The Martinez family, just by being beavers, did a lot to enhance consciousness of the beaver’s role as an ecosystem engineer. Public support forced city officials to back off from an initial plan for lethal control and to work out a modus vivendi with the rodents. 

What happens now? Will the two-year-old sibling stay on as a parent-surrogate? Will the widowed male mate again? Will one of the dispersers return? Stay tuned. 

 

 


BlogBeat: Explosive City Streets

By Thomas Lord
Monday July 05, 2010 - 05:13:00 PM

Today’s items: South West Berkeley celebrates the 4th; why might rational people riot over the BART shooting verdict?;Berkeley-based law firm wins ADA victory for blind computer users. 

Pop, Pop, Pop – Then Screams 

The loud pops seemed to break out nearly simultaneously on every street surrounding us here in South West Berkeley.The screaming followed instantly. 

Of course, it was the loud pops of firecrackers and fireworks of dubious legality and the delighted screams of young children, teens, and appreciative adults. The streets – well, some of the streets around here – broke out in celebration of the 4th. As the hunger-inducing smells of the afternoon and evening barbecues faded along with the light, out came the pyrotechnics. 

I’d really expected little more than bottle-rockets, loud flash-bangs on the ground, and perhaps the odd roman candle or two. Evidently I’m behind the times. The sky lit up with with miniature versions of the colorful flower-blossom explosions we associate with fireworks displays. The kids were delighted – one carefully videotaping the proceedings.The pyrotechnics were handled in ways that made some adults nervous but under the active supervision of older siblings, parents, and grandparents.Events were briefly interrupted once or twice when someone called “CAR!” to let some unsuspecting driver pass through.The street overall was in fine spirits and reminded me why I like my neighbors. 

Occasionally there were glimpses visible of a larger, fancier display far off – presumably the official show of a nearby city. I can’t help but think that a lot more fun was had around here and, thankfully, with no injuries or fires started by this legally questionable display. 

For obvious reasons, I’ve no web link for more info. 

Your Regularly Scheduled Riot Will Resume After a Brief Message 

If you keep up with local news at all you are no doubt aware that Oakland is bracing for a riot especially in the event that the jury in the trial of Johannes Mehserle comes back with less than a second degree murder conviction. Mehserle, a now former BART police officer, was charged with the murder of Oscar Grant after shooting Grant in the back as Grant lay face down on a BART platform, pinned down by another BART police officer. The killing previously inspired riots in Oakland in January of 2009. 

Also widely reported is that the Oakland Police and Fire Department have been training and planning in anticipation of further rioting when the verdict comes in.(See http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7506312

 

What you may not have heard much about is what motivates at least some of those who might participate in such a riot. It’s a refrain we’ve encountered quite a bitwhile digging around the blogosphere. Here is how it is expressed by the Revolutionary Frontlines Struggle blog (see http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/oscar-grant-trial-chronicle-of-a-riot-foretold/ ): 

“What [fear ofmore riots] neglects is one basic fact, indeed the most basic fact regarding the Oakland rebellions: that it was only as a result of those rebellions of January 2009 and the fear that they might be repeated that Mehserle was even arrested and put on trial in the first place. Those rebellions were, in fact, the basic precondition for this limited form of “justice” to even be possible.” 

Another blogger, Shasen, writes (see http://thehive.modbee.com/node/20276

“When the elite only had cameras they killed the Indians and they killed the blacks then denied the truth, but today technology is in the hands of the common folk…now we have a tape; and the tape tells no lies….we have seen the police lie Oscar Grant down and shoot him in the back execution style. Are we to now let this killer cop off the hook?!!” 

And this theory behind the riots really is on the streets. Here is a video of a rally addressed by a representative from the local political group BAMN (By Any Means Necessary)(see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PElcxjQpTw

Given such street sources and extreme left political sources, it is tempting to dismiss the notion that only these riots led to Mehserle being charged. Not so fast - “the establishment” produces its own critics of the slowness to prosecute. In particular, shortly before the shooting, another officer – apparently with no apparent justification in the videos – punched Oscar Grant in the face.In 2009, rawstory.com quoted a pair of UC scholars:(see http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Oscar_Grant_punched_in_face_before_0125.html

“"There's no question in my mind that that's vivid powerful evidence that he committed a vicious physical assault, unprovoked on a citizen, for absolutely no reason," said UC Hastings and Golden Gate law professor Peter Keane, who believes the officer should be fired and charged with assault. "That punch was totally unjustified... That officer is committing a crime." 

and, Berkeley’s own Franklin Zimring: 

“U.C. Berkeley law school professor Franklin Zimring said the district attorney must charge another BART officer with a crime. "If the district attorney is saying he's not going to charge any officer except Mehserle in my opinion, he's not doing his job," Zimring says in the video below. "Police officers are not...immunized from the normal laws that govern when assault is criminal conduct."” 

Certainly there is no clear argument, from the academics, the leftists, or the street that justifies the random violence and property destruction associated with the riots. What is clear is that simple calls for calm and peace don’t address the concerns of those who think the riots do some good. If there is indeed a widespread perception that even highly imperfect justice is obtained only after such demonstrations – then such demonstrations won’t be quelled by appeals to vague higher ideals. 

Lastly, Some Happy News 

As it turns out, the designers of the software behind the World Wide Web tried to be quite careful and ensure that the web would be accessible even to those with disabilities that might otherwise get in the way.As a simple example, when a web site coder adds an image, say a photograph to a page, the software allows that coder to also include an alternative – some text describing the image – as an aid to blind viewers. Most users see just the picture.Users using specially configured browsers get the alternative text. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in part requires businesses to accommodate various disabilities in some circumstances. For example, the doors that let you into a Target store must be wide enough to accommodate a wheel chair an the store must be navigable from a chair. 

According to the web site askfamilys.com, a Berkeley based not-for-profit law firm, Brown, Goldstein & Levy who “[specialize] in high impact cases on behalf of people with disabilities” has overcome the first court hurdle in a suit that demands Target make its web site more accessible to the blind.(see http://askfamilys.com/sub/g718921064912141oi/c90381348512

The case is far from over. The recent victory is only that the court has rejected a motion by Target to dismiss the case entirely. What is legally significant is that the court agreed that ADA can apply to web sites. 

Until next week, please be in touch: lord@emf.net


Senior Power:“You got end-of-life issues?”

By Helen Rippier Wheeler
Monday July 05, 2010 - 11:08:00 AM

Nationwide, 59%-75% of long-term caregivers are women. With an estimated 3.4 million caregivers, California leads. There appear to be at least 2 caregiver species: one is paid and comes via a third party, usually a government or for-profit agency. The other is often a woman family member. A potential problem associated with freelance or independent care-giving is the likelihood of no employer-provided benefits. 

Food for thought: Joy Loverde serves as a “consultant to…the fast-growing eldercare advisory industry.” Her “Complete Eldercare Planner” refers to “caregivers” and to “Caregivers, professional.” She associates the professional ones with case managers, dissatisfaction, in-home helpers, jobs contracts, and tax considerations. 

A problem inside and outside nursing homes is elder abuse and neglect. In 2006, 20% of reported elder abuse involved caregiver neglect. Both family caregivers and nursing-home staff often feel frustrated, isolated, and stressed. Nursing-home staff may be underpaid, overworked, and inadequately trained and supervised. Such conditions increase the likelihood of abuse because, despite less than ideal working conditions,family members and nursing-home staff have power over patients. Currently, there is an increase in both nonprofit and for-profit agencies that purport to recruit, train and supervise “professional” caregivers... But “professional” means learned, expert.  

The aging population has twice as many women as men over the age of 85. “Long term care and aging” is one of the current legislative concerns of the California Commission on the Status of Women. Because women are more often than men in care-giving roles and also outlive male spouses, a burden hits them doubly-- having first to interpret and make decisions for loved ones, then having to ensure their own wishes are respected when their time comes. With only 1 in 4 persons having an advance directive in place, critical decision-making may be left to others at the end of life.  

I know an R.N. associated with a geriatrician’s practice. Patients were reporting dissatisfaction with “agencies” – long delays in dispatching someone, abuse, etc. She follows-up, eliciting patients’ evaluations of caregivers and their sources, and has evolved her own list of caregivers. If a patient is not satisfied with the caregiver whose name she has provided, the referral is stricken from her list.  

To commemorate Mother's Day 2010, OWL (Older Women’s League—The Voice of Midlife and Older Women) featured end-of-life issues in its 30th Anniversary report. With Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Earl Blumenauer, OWL held a Capitol briefing “to begin a more civil discourse on end-of-life decision-making.” 

xxxx 

What happens to senior citizens when they become elderly and alone —where and how do they live, and with whom?Aging-in-place is a term heard these days, said to be the ability to live in one's own home, wherever that might be, for as long as confidently and comfortably possible. It is also said that “Livability can be extended through the incorporation of universal design principles, telecare and other assistive technologies.” I wonder who pays? Who care-gives? Who cares?  

Many senior citizens have lost the homes they once owned, or they may have always been renters. Many aged persons have no family. In rural communities especially, old women may have worked all their lives caring and nurturing family and community members but have never been on a payroll with “benefits.” 

Dependency on a paid caregiver and subsidized housing can be precarious for an elder. Approximately 25% of elder abuse occurs in nursing homes and other retirement facilities. English may not be the victim’s “first language.” There is fear of losing the rent subsidy. Building management may be hostile, indifferent. And there may be fear of losing an adult child’s approbation. 

xxxx 

Here are a few people within my ken. I’ll give them names. 

Norman spent his final decades in a low-income seniors/disabled persons’ rent-subsidized housing project. He was all 3: low-income, elderly, disabled. He was alone and without family. Marginal. The county dispatched Miranda “caregiver” who jabbed, pushed and yelled at him. When not with Norman, she was often chatting with building staff. The small studio reeked. While inventorying his possessions during one of his hospital stays, she was overheard to comment to Mollie, “We can sell this.” When asked why he didn’t request a different caregiver, he responded “I’m afraid.” No eccentric recluse, he wanted to be out and about. When no building staff were on the premises, he would walk the corridor, leaning on his walker. 

Mollie volunteered at the Community Center. She had raised 2 children and worked as a caterer. During her first 10 years in her senior housing room, she served as president of the residents’ association and prepared the annual Thanksgiving dinner. During her final decade when her health began to wane, several unsatisfactory care-givers supplied by the county and independents, came and went. She was 95 years old when she emerged from her apartment late one night, fell and could not get up. Much later a neighbor saw Mollie in fetal position in a dark corner of the unlit lobby and summoned paramedics, despite her “Don’t tell my daughter” plea. Within the month, she was gone to “assisted living.” 

Tiny caregiver Michiko is standing at the curb of a major thoroughfare managing a wheelchair occupied by Roy, a former academic.He broke his hip several years ago while in the office of the apartment building where he lives, when he fell off a chair that had a broken arm. An hour or so later, both are still waiting. A taxi pulls up and parks on the opposite side of the street, then drives away. Finally, another taxi appears where they are waiting. Roy needs access to the front passenger seat. Singlehandedly, Michiko manages to move him out of the wheelchair and into the front seat. Then she hauls the wheelchair around to the back of the taxi and strains to lift it into the taxi trunk. She returns to buckle Roy’s seat-belt and “tuck him in,” then gets into the back of the vehicle. 

Ahmad and Leili speak almost no English. They are Medi-Medi, i.e. have Medicare and Med-I-Cal. She shepherded him to a clinic and was encouraged to return for a physical examination for herself. A large “mass” was discovered, and she was referred for a mammogram. He was able to get the form interpreted by displaying it to a neighbor. Surgery followed. The good news is that in-home supportive services has provided a genuine giver-of-care, a nice guy I’ll call Ron. He is bilingual and has a car, helpful in this situation. 

Senior citizen Lily apologized constantly. She confided that during her middle years, she had had 42 ECS treatments. Her life was built around a cat, for which the landlord required a signatory. In order to hide her deteriorating health, she ventured nightly from her fourth floor studio via the emergency stairwell. Ultimately, she was placed in a mental institution several communities distant. 

People often questioned that Hillary, who lived alone in a subsidized rent unit, actually had no family. She needed surgery and was assured that a caregiver would be provided following discharge from the post-surgery rehabilitation center. She was returned home by ambulance; the social worker handed her a blank application (no accessible phone number) for a caregiver and suggested getting an Alert emergency button. This situation was also in part attributable to the surgeon’s refusal to record in patient’s chart need for post-hospitalization stay at the rehabilitation center and subsequent care.  

On a positive note … Grandma W was a farm wife. Sometime around 1908, she was widowed “early.” She raised 10 children, determined that “the state” would not take them and that each would get through 8th grade. As she aged, other than rheumatic knees, she was in good health-- in winter, in her rocking chair in the warm kitchen doing something productive-- stringing beans, peeling potatoes, etc. 

In 1957 I visited for her eighty-seventh birthday. We were sitting together on the porch when an old-fashioned horse and buggy drove by, and she said wistfully “Your grandfather courted me in a buggy like that.” Her reputation as a strong, caring woman had grown, and now she was being cared for. 

To earn money in ways country women could, my grandmother and a daughter had converted the living room into a U.S. Postal station, boarded the summer minister in the spare bedroom, and cared for more than 50 state foster children who had called her ‘grandma,’ been kissed good night, and received an occasional slap. Grandma W was so highly respected and well known that her funeral in 1963 drew crowds that overflowed the Grange hall in the isolated community. When she died, she was 93 years old. There had been no thought of “putting her in a nursing home.”  

xxxx 

Since publication of the “Awareness, prevention, and confrontation of elder abuse” column (Planet, June 8, 2010), I have received informative emails from people throughout the United States. I’ll share some of their great ideas and leads: 

Emily Grose for the National Council on Aging (NCOA) provided information about a new film, An Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America. A national screening initiative to distribute it and 11 other videos has been launched. Community organizations, senior centers, and all others are invited to host screenings in order to raise awareness about the silent issue of elder abuse.Additional information at http://elderjusticenow.org/host-a-screening/  

Several people reported disgruntlement regarding American volunteerism and ombudsmanship. Advocate Sam Perlin wrote to commend Ombuddies.org, the unofficial website for Harris County Long Term Care Volunteer Ombudsmen. The “official” website is at the Center on Aging at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston School of Nursing.  

xxxx 

For your consideration: 

A lot of old people and students wear their keys on a chain or cord around their neck. But be sure to insert the keys-end of the cord into your bosom/chest. Do not walk around the streets with the keys dangling visibly!  

Thursday, August 5 at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Easy parking. “Laughter is still the best medicine with proven physiological and psychological benefits” declares the Albany County Library Program for Older Adults. No reservations required for Laughing for the Health of it! With Bev Bender – Certified Laugh Leader. Refreshments. Also at library branches throughout the County; see www.aclibrary.org.  

Helen Rippier Wheeler can be reached at pen136@dslextreme.com 

No email attachments; use “Senior Power” for subject.


Restoration Comedy:Weather or Not?

By Jane Powell
Monday July 05, 2010 - 10:48:00 AM

Greetings from Indiana, where in some towns you can pick up a pretty nice house for $30,000- not because there have been lots of foreclosures, but because that’s how much they go for.  

Admittedly, in the Indianapolis neighborhood where I spent part of my childhood, they go for more like $350-$400K- in fact the Foursquare across the street is currently on the market for $389,000. It’s a lovely city, but I’m not tempted to move. Why? Because they have weather. And bugs. When I got here it was 92 degrees and humid. A couple days later there was a humongous thunderstorm- we’re not talking rain, we’re talking deluge. Although there is air conditioning, it essentially means you are trapped inside your house, because even when it cools off (slightly) in the evening, you can’t sit outside because you will be eaten alive by mosquitoes. I’m not talking a few mosquitoes like we have in California, I’m talking swarms. And there are gnats- they don’t bite, they just get in your face. Fireflies, which are lovely, and one of the few things I miss about the Midwest, do not make up for the other bugs. 

Meanwhile, back at the mortgage modification, I finally got to talk face to face with an actual human at NACA. His advice was that I attend one of their Save the Dream events (there was one at the Cow Palace last fall, and another coming up in September in Sacramento.. These are events at which they gather a whole bunch of mortgage modification people from the various banks and other servicers, and you can meet with them and get the modification done right on the spot, at least in theory. It certainly removes one of the most common excuses used by the servicers, which is that they can’t find your paperwork and you have to send it again. According to reports I see, some people’s paperwork has gotten lost more times than even incompetence could account for, but I would not want to suggest that perhaps it is being “lost” on purpose. Oh hell, yes I would. 

Speaking of which, some homeowners who are being foreclosed on in states where the process requires going to court (CA doesn’t require this) have had their lawyers demand that the servicer produce the original note, as well as the documents that are supposed to be filed each time the note is sold. As some mortgages have been sliced and diced numerous times, this turns out to be quite a pile of paper. And how nice to turn the tables and be demanding ridiculous documentation from the servicer instead of vice versa! I do hope they have to include all the pages that say “This page intentionally left blank!” And as it turns out, many lenders cannot actually produce this documentation. Of course, in response to this need, document mills have sprung up to basically forge these documents after the fact. Apparently some judges have caught on to the forgeries, and some cases have been dismissed “with prejudice”- meaning the judge has basically thrown out the mortgage, the homeowners get the house free and clear, and the lender is banned from bringing another foreclosure action against them. 

Recently an audit report from the Government Accountability Office was released which found that potentially thousands of homeowners were denied the opportunity to modify their mortgages due to servicer errors and inadequate oversight by the Treasury Department. Really? Really? The GAO noted that Treasury “has yet to establish any specific consequences or penalties for non-compliance.” Duh. 

In any case, the next Save the Dream event is in Washington DC starting July 16th- they’re going to be running it 24 hours a day for five days, in order to help as many people as possible. The person at NACA said it would behoove me to go if I could afford it, instead of waiting till September. This, my friends, is what frequent flier miles were made for. I’ll be flying on the 15th, so I can get there to line up early in the morning on the 16th. I’ll keep you posted. 

Jane Powell writes for the Planet whenever she feels like it. On a plane trying to distract herself from a child across the aisle who has been screaming for three solid hours is one of the times she feels like it, not that she wouldn’t be writing on the plane anyway. If this article doesn’t make sense, that would be why. She can be reached at hsedressng@aol.com, and of course her many fine books can be purchased at www.janepowell.org, which she naturally encourages you to do.


Arts & Events

Classical Music-San Francisco Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:51:00 PM

COMMUNITY MUSIC CENTER  

"SfSoundSeries," July 16, 8 a.m. Featuring EKG, Matt Ingalls, John Ingle, Christopher Jones and Monica Scott. $8-$15.  

544 Capp St., San Francisco. (415) 647-6015, www.sfcmc.org.

 

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM The museum, formerly known as the Jewish Museum San Francisco, has a new addition designed by Daniel Libeskind and is dedicated to exploring the richness and diversity of Jewish thought and culture.  

GALLERY TOURS -- Sunday and Wednesday, 12:30 p.m. Free. 

Dan Plonsey with Dandelion Dancetheater, July 11, 1 p.m. Featuring Plonsey's "Bar Mitzvah.'' Choreography by Eric Kupers. $18-$22.  

$4-$5; free for children under age 12; free third Monday of every month. Sunday -Thursday, noon-6 p.m. DEC. 25, NOON TO 4 P.M.; CLOSED JAN. 1. 736 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org.

 

DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL  

Idina Menzel with the San Francisco Symphony, July 9, 8 p.m. Rob Fisher conducts. $15-$70.  

San Francisco Symphony, July 10, 8 p.m. Works by Beethoven. Donato Cabrera conducts. $15-$70.  

San Francisco Symphony, July 15 through July 16, 8 p.m. Featuring music from the "Final Fantasy'' video game series. $30-$105. (415) 864-6000. 

San Francisco Symphony, July 17, 8 p.m. Featuring Bernard Herrmann's music from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho.'' $30-$70. (415) 864-6000. 

201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org.

 

ELECTRIC WORKS  

Duo Sonidos, July 17, 7 p.m. Traditional and contemporary Latin and Spanish repertoire. $10.  

Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 130 8th St., San Francisco. (415) 626-2396, www.sfelectricworks.com.

 

HERBST THEATRE  

"Schwabacher Summer Concert," July 16, 7:30 p.m. Featuring extended scenes from "Il Barbiere di Siviglia,'' "Werther,'' "Rodelinda,'' "The Bartered Bride'' and "The Merry Wives of Windsor.'' $25-$40. (415) 864-3330. 

401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com.

 

LEGION OF HONOR MUSEUM DOCENT TOUR PROGRAMS -- Tours of the permanent collections and special exhibitions are offered Tuesday through Sunday. Non-English language tours (Italian, French, Spanish and Russian) are available on different Saturdays of the month at 11:30 a.m. Free with regular museum admission. (415) 750-3638.  

ONGOING CHILDREN'S PROGRAM --  

"Doing and Viewing Art," For ages 7 to 12. Docent-led tours of current exhibitions are followed by studio workshops taught by professional artists/teachers. Students learn about art by seeing and making it. Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to noon; call to confirm class. Free with museum admission. (415) 750-3658. 

ORGAN CONCERTS -- 4 p.m. A weekly concert of organ music on the Legion's restored 1924 Skinner organ. Saturday and Sunday in the Rodin Gallery. Free with museum admission. (415) 750-3624. 

$6-$10; free for children ages 12 and under; free for all visitors on Tuesdays. Tuesday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street, San Francisco. (415) 750-3600, (415) 750-3636, www.thinker.org.

 

OLD FIRST CHURCH  

Daniel Glover, July 18, 4 p.m. Works by Barber and Chopin.  

1751 Sacramento Street, San Francisco. (415) 474-1608.< 

 

OLD ST. MARY'S CATHEDRAL  

Noan Nagano, piano and Kay Stern, violin, July 13, 12:30 p.m. Works by Geminiani, Enescu and Sibelius.  

$5 donation requested. 660 California St., San Francisco. www.oldsaintmarys.org/.< 

 

SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC  

"3rd Milton and Peggy Salkind International Piano Duo Festival," through July 10, 8 p.m. Works by Gottschalk, Lecuona and Cables/Munson. $10-$25. (415) 705-0846. 

American Bach Soloists, July 12 through July 14, 8 p.m. Music from 17th century Italy and Germany. $20-$40. (415) 621-7900. 

Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute, July 15 through July 18, Jul. 15-17, 8 p.m.; Jul. 18, 2:30 p.m. "La Calisto'' offers a glimpse of the love affairs between divine and earthly beings. $20-$35.  

"Midsummer Mozart Festival Program One," July 16, 8 p.m. All-Mozart program features performances by pianist Audrey Vardanega and violinist Robin Hansen. George Cleve conducts. $20-$65. (415) 627-9141. 

American Bach Soloists, July 16, 8 p.m. Featuring works by Baroque masters. $20. (415) 621-7900. 

American Bach Soloists, July 17, 8 p.m. Featuring Handel's "La Resurrezione.'' $20-$40. (415) 621-7900. 

$15 to $20 unless otherwise noted. Hellman Hall, 50 Oak St., San Francisco. (415) 864-7326, www.sfcm.edu.

 

ST. MONICA'S CHURCH  

Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute, through July 3 and July 9 through July 3, 7:30 p.m. Program features scenes from operas such as "Carmen,'' "Don Giovanni,'' "Abduction from the Seraglio'' and more. $15-$25.  

 

470 24th Ave., San Francisco. (415) 751-5275.< 

 

STERN GROVE FESTIVAL The annual summer performing arts festival takes place in the outdoor amphitheater of Sigmund Stern Grove and features popular and classical music by Bay Area, national and international performers. 

San Francisco Symphony, July 11, 2 p.m. Works by Copland, Beethoven and Gershwin. Free.  

Free. Sundays, 2 p.m. Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard, San Francisco. (415) 252-6252, www.sterngrove.org.

 

SUNDANCE KABUKI CINEMAS  

"Bach and Friends," July 14, 7 p.m. San Francisco Classical Voice presents a documentary film by Michael Lawrence. $20-$25.  

1180 Post Street, San Francisco. (415) 929-4650.<


Classical Music-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:51:00 PM

CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD  

Temescal String Quartet, July 18, 7 p.m. Works by Mendelssohn and Brahms. $12-$15.  

1005 Hearst Ave., Berkeley. (510) 549-1433, www.goodshepherdberkeley.org.

 

CROWDEN MUSIC CENTER  

Lee/Graber Duo, July 16 through July 23, Jul. 16, 20, 23, 7:30 p.m. Wayne Lee and Miles Graber play the complete Beethoven violin sonatas. Free. (510) 388-7437. 

1475 Rose St., Berkeley. (510) 559-6910, www.crowdenmusiccenter.org.

 

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY  

"Midsummer Mozart Festival Program One," July 18, 7 p.m. All-Mozart program features performances by pianist Audrey Vardanega and violinist Robin Hansen. George Cleve conducts. $20-$65. (415) 627-9141. 

2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-3696, www.fccb.org.

 

FIRST COVENANT CHURCH OF OAKLAND  

"Summer Sing-ins," through Aug. 10, 7 p.m. Jul. 13: Brahm's "Requiem,'' conducted by Vance George.  

4000 Redwood Road, Oakland. (510) 531-5244, www.oaklandfcc.org.

 

LESHER CENTER FOR THE ARTS  

"Madama Butterfly," July 10 through July 18, Jul. 10, 13, 16, 8 p.m.; Jul. 18, 2 p.m. Conducted by Joseph Marcheso and directed by Brian Staufenbiel on a set designed by Matthew Antaky. $39-$100. (925) 943-7469. 

1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. (925) 943-7469, www.lesherartscenter.com.

 

SMITH CENTER AT OHLONE COLLEGE  

"Madame Butterfly," July 9, 8:15 p.m. A live fully-staged broadcast of San Francisco Opera's production of Puccini's opera. $10.  

"Don Giovanni," July 16, 8:15 p.m. Film presentation of San Francisco Opera's performance of this work by Mozart. $10-12.  

43600 Mission Blvd., Fremont. (510) 659-6031, www.smithcenterpresents.com.

 

ST. JOHN'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH  

"Sacred Offering," July 17, 7 p.m. Classical Indian and world music, featuring Kit Walker, John Wubbenhorst and others. $20.  

2727 College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 845-6830, www.stjohns.presbychurch.net.<


Popmusic-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:44:00 PM

924 GILMAN ST. -- All ages welcome. 

Jokes for Feelings, Smilodons, Insert, Big City Bombers, Pollo Cero, Joint Venture, July 9, 7 p.m. Free.  

Sabertooth Zombie, Owen Hart, The Helm, Xibalba, Purple Mercy, July 10, 7:30 p.m. $8.  

Short Attn Span, Holiday Bowl, Dresden, The Parish, Side Effects, Agro Crag, July 11, 4 p.m. $7.  

Zolar X, Swann Danger, Terran Traumatics, Kill the Capulets, The Need, July 17, 7:30 p.m. $8.  

$5 unless otherwise noted. Shows start Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 924 Gilman St., Berkeley. (510) 525-9926, www.924gilman.org.

 

ALBATROSS PUB  

Whiskey Brothers, First and third Wednesdays, 9 p.m. Free.  

Steve Carter Jazz Trio, July 10, 9:30 p.m. $3.  

Free unless otherwise noted. Shows begin Wednesday, 9 p.m.; Saturday, 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 1822 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 843-2473, www.albatrosspub.com.

 

ARMANDO'S  

Craig Horton Blues Band, July 9, 8 p.m. $10.  

Half Coconut, July 10, 8-11 p.m. $10.  

Derek Rolando, Ray Obiedo and Friends, July 11, 3-6 p.m. $10.  

Blues Jam, July 12, 7 p.m. $3.  

"West Coast Songwriters Assn. Songwriters Competition," July 14, 7 p.m.  

$5.  

The California Honeydrops, July 15, 8-10 p.m. $10.  

Matt Eakle Band, July 16, 8 p.m. $10.  

Red Hot Chachkas, July 17, 8 p.m. $10.  

Garageland Rodeo Unplugged, July 18, 3 p.m. $5.  

707 Marina Vista Ave., Martinez. (925) 228-6985, www.armandosmartinez.com.

 

ASHKENAZ  

Sambada, Mucho Axe, July 9, 9 p.m. $12-$15.  

Mabrak, Mr. Majestic, Earl Zero, July 10, 9:30 p.m. $13.  

CZ and the Bon Vivants, July 13, 8:30 p.m. $10.  

Mamadou and Vanessa, July 15, 8:30 p.m. $10.  

Pellejo Seco, July 16, 9:30 p.m. $10-$13.  

Zulu Spear and Kalahari: Voices of South Africa, July 17, 9:30 p.m. $10-$13.  

Asheba, July 18, 3 p.m. $4-$6.  

1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.

 

BECKETT'S IRISH PUB  

Rhythm Doctors, July 9.  

SpearCracker, July 11.  

Fun with Finnoula, July 14.  

Guns for San Sebastian, July 16.  

DiiGiin, July 17.  

Free. Shows at 10 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2271 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 647-1790, www.beckettsirishpub.com.

 

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST HALL  

"Open Mic with Vic Sadot and Trevor Fletcher," July 9, 7 p.m.  

1924 Cedar St., Berkeley. (510) 495-5132, www.bfuu.org.

 

BLAKE'S ON TELEGRAPH  

Why I Hate, Punk Funk Mob, Bullheads, July 9, 9 p.m. $10.  

Tonic, July 10, 8 p.m. Free.  

Bird By Bird, Please Do Not Fight, Buckeye Knoll, James Leste, July 11, 7 p.m. $8-$10.  

Warbringer, Bonded by Blood, Savage Machine, July 16, 9 p.m. $10.  

For ages 18 and older. Music begins at 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2367 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 848-0886, www.blakesontelegraph.com.

 

CRAB COVE VISITOR CENTER At Crab Cove, you can see live underwater creatures and go into the San Francisco Bay from land. You can also travel back in time to Alameda's part. The goal is to increase understanding of the environmental importance of San Francisco Bay and the ocean ecosystem. Crab Cove's Indoor Aquarium and Exhibit Lab is one of the largest indoor aquariums in the East Bay. 

Fito Reinoso, July 9, 5:30-7:30 p.m.  

Free unless otherwise noted; parking fee may be charged. 1252 McKay Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-6887, www.ebparks.org.

 

CRAIG HORTON, BLIND LEMON PHILLIPS July 9. Point Richmond Music presents a free oudoor summer concert. Event held at the corner of Park Place and Washington Ave. in downtown Point Richmond. 

5:30 p.m.www.pointrichmondmusic.com.< 

 

FOX THEATER  

Neil Young, Bert Jansch, July 11 through July 12 and July 14, 8 p.m. $85-$199.50.  

1807 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 452-0438.< 

 

FREIGHT AND SALVAGE  

"Freight Open Mic," Tuesdays. $4.50-$5.50.  

Tin Hat, July 9. $20.50-$21.50.  

Blame Sally, July 10. $20.50-$21.50.  

Rosie Flores, July 11. $20.50-$21.50.  

Tannahill Weavers, July 13. $18.50-$19.50.  

Suzy Bogguss, July 14. $24.50-$25.50.  

Dr. K's Roots Revue: Susie Glaze and Hilonesome Band, Dr. Elmo and Wild Blue, The Tuttles with A.J. Lee, July 15. $14.50-$15.50.  

Ed Gerhard, July 16. $20.50-$21.50.  

Houston Jones with Stevie Coyle and Joe Craven, July 17. $18.50-$19.50.  

Music starts at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 548-1761, www.freightandsalvage.org.

 

GREEK THEATRE  

Michael Franti and Spearhead, Brett Dennen, July 16, 8 p.m. $37.50.  

Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road, Berkeley. (510) 548-3010, www.apeconcerts.com.

 

JACK LONDON SQUARE  

P-PL, Bill Norwood, July 9, Noon-2 p.m.  

House of David, July 13, Noon.  

Joshua Cedar, July 16, Noon.  

Foot of Broadway, Oakland. (866) 295-9853, www.jacklondonsquare.com.

 

JAZZSCHOOL  

Christopher Almada, July 9, 8 p.m. $10.  

Afi Ayanna, Avelina Brown-Nunez, July 10, 8 p.m. $15.  

Horace-Scope, July 11, 4:30 p.m. $10.  

Rising Stars, July 11, 4:30 p.m. $10.  

Chris Sullivan Quartet, July 16, 8 p.m. $10.  

Jua Howard, Andrea Claburn, July 17, 8 p.m. $15.  

Happy Hour Jam, July 18, 7:30 p.m. $5-$10.  

Malachi Whitson Quintet, July 18, 4:30 p.m. $10.  

Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2087 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 845-5373, www.jazzschool.com.

 

JUPITER  

"Americana Unplugged," Sundays, 5 p.m. A weekly bluegrass and Americana series.  

"Jazzschool Tuesdays," Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Featuring the ensembles from the Berkeley Jazzschool. www.jazzschool.com. 

8 p.m. 2181 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 843-8277, www.jupiterbeer.com.

 

KIMBALL'S CARNIVAL  

"Monday Blues Legends Night," 8 p.m.-midnight. Enjoy live blues music every Monday night. Presented by the Bay Area Blues Society and Lothario Lotho Company. $5 donation. (510) 836-2227, www.bayareabluessociety.net. 

522 2nd St., Jack London Square, Oakland. < 

 

LA PENA CULTURAL CENTER  

Climbing PoeTree, July 9, 8 p.m. $15-$50.  

Flamenco Al Andaluz, July 11, 8 p.m. $25.  

Go Ohana, July 15, 7:30 p.m. $10.  

Berta Olivia y su Mariachi Mexicanisimo, July 16, 8 p.m. $20-$35.  

John Santos and His Sextet, July 17, 8 p.m. $14-$16.  

3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org.

 

THE NEW PARISH  

California Honeydrops, Tri Tip Trio, July 9, 9 p.m. $10.  

579 18th St., Oakland. (510) 444-7474, www.thenewparish.com.

 

ORACLE ARENA  

Justin Bieber, Sean Kingston, July 17, 7 p.m. $29.50-$49.50.  

Hegenberger Road and Interstate 880, Oakland. (510) 625-8497, (925) 685-8497, (415) 421-8497, www.ticketmaster.com or www.theoaklandarena.com.

 

SHATTUCK DOWN LOW  

"It's the Joint," Thursdays, 9:30 p.m. Featuring DJs Headnodic, Raashan Ahmad and Friends. $5.  

"King of Kings," Doors 10 p.m. $6-$8.  

"Live Salsa," Wednesdays. An evening of dancing to the music of a live salsa band. Salsa dance lesson from 8:30-9:30 p.m. $5-$10.  

"Thirsty Thursdays," Thursday, 9 p.m. Featuring DJ Vickity Slick and Franky Fresh. Free.  

DJ D-Sharp, JahYzer, Santero, Aebl Dee, July 10, 9 p.m. $10.  

Conjunto Rovira, July 14, 8:30 p.m. $10.  

Forrest Day, July 17, 9 p.m. $8-$10.  

For ages 21 and older. 2284 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 548-1159, www.shattuckdownlow.com.

 

STARRY PLOUGH PUB  

The Starry Irish Music Session led by Shay Black, Sundays, 8 p.m. Sliding scale.  

For ages 21 and over unless otherwise noted. Sunday and Wednesday, 8 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-2082, www.starryploughpub.com.

 

UPTOWN NIGHTCLUB  

Dandelion War, Silian Rail, Manatee, July 9, 9 p.m. $8.  

Audrye Sessions, Picture Atlantic, Man in Space, Steve Taylor, July 10, 9 p.m. $10.  

Oakland Active Orchestra, July 13, 9 p.m. Free.  

Dusty Fingers, July 15, 9 p.m. Free.  

Birdmonster, July 16, 9 p.m.  

Hella Gay, July 17, 9 p.m. $7.  

1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 451-8100, www.uptownnightclub.com.

 

YOSHI'S  

Dwele, July 9 through July 11, Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 7 and 9 p.m. $28.  

Bill Bell and the Jazz Connection Quintet, July 12, 8 p.m. $16.  

Gary Nunez and Plena Libre, July 14, 8 and 10 p.m. $12-$20.  

Pete Escovedo 75th Birthday Celebration Latin Jazz Orchestra featuring Sheila E., Juan and Peter Michael Escovedo, July 15 through July 18, Thursday-Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. $18-$28.  

Shows are Monday through Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m., unless otherwise noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. (510) 238-9200, www.yoshis.com.<


Readings-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:42:00 PM

BOOKS INC., BERKELEY  

Steve Duno, July 11, 6 p.m. The author talks about "Last Dog on the Hill.''  

Neil Fiore, July 12, 7 p.m. The author talks about "Awaken Your Strongest Self.''  

Julia Whitty, July 13, 7 p.m. The author talks about "An Intimate Ecology.''  

Mark Sumner, July 14, 7 p.m. The author talks about "The Evolution of Everything.''  

Matt Stewart, July 15, 7 p.m. The author talks about "The French Revolution.''  

Oren Hartman, Kathleen Price, Annamarie Price, July 16, 7 p.m. The authors talk about "The Price Price of Altruism.''  

1760 4th Street, Berkeley. (510) 525-7777, www.booksinc.net.

 

DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE  

"Poetry FLash -- Sixteen Rivers Press Reading," July 11, 3 p.m. Featuring Dan Clurman, Sharon Doubiago, Susan Kolodny, Priscilla Lee, Jack Marshall and Al Young.  

5433 College Avenue, Oakland. (510) 653-9965.< 

 

EASTWIND BOOKS  

Lian Gouw, July 18, 3 p.m. The author talks about "Only a Girl.'' Free.  

2066 University Ave., Berkeley. (510) 548-2350.< 

 

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY  

Christopher Hitchens, July 15, 7:30 p.m. The author talks about "Hitch 22.'' $12.  

2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-3696, www.fccb.org.

 

MOE'S BOOKS  

Marvin Brown, July 11, 4 p.m. The author talks about "Civilizing the Economy.''  

Megan Prelinger, July 12, 7:30 p.m. The author talks about "Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race, 1957-1962.''  

Dale Pendell, July 14, 7:30 p.m. The author talks about "The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse.''  

10 a.m.-11 p.m. daily. 2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2087, www.moesbooks.com.

 

MRS. DALLOWAY'S  

Allegra Goodman, July 14, 7:30 p.m. The author talks about "The Cookbook Collector.''  

2904 College Avenue, Berkeley. (510) 704-8222.<


Professional Dance-San Francisco Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:43:00 PM

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM The museum, formerly known as the Jewish Museum San Francisco, has a new addition designed by Daniel Libeskind and is dedicated to exploring the richness and diversity of Jewish thought and culture.  

GALLERY TOURS -- Sunday and Wednesday, 12:30 p.m. Free. 

Dan Plonsey with Dandelion Dancetheater, July 11, 1 p.m. Featuring Plonsey's "Bar Mitzvah.'' Choreography by Eric Kupers. $18-$22.  

$4-$5; free for children under age 12; free third Monday of every month. Sunday -Thursday, noon-6 p.m. DEC. 25, NOON TO 4 P.M.; CLOSED JAN. 1. 736 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org.

 

DANCE MISSION THEATER  

Kara Davs and Sarah Zaharako, July 9 through July 11, 8 p.m. Featuring the premiere of "Symbiosis.'' $18-$20.  

Run For Your Life!  It's a Dance Company! And Gadung Kasturi Balinese Dance and Music, July 16 through July 17, 8 p.m. Two diverse dance companies share the spotlight. $12-$18.  

3316 24th St., San Francisco. (415) 826-4441, www.dancemission.com.

 

FORT MASON CENTER  

Azahar Dance Foundation, July 9, 8 p.m. Flamenco meets the rhythm of Arab music in "Zahara.'' $15-$29.  

Marina Boulevard and Buchanan Street, San Francisco. www.fortmason.org.

 

PENA PACHAMAMA  

"Carnaval Del Sur," Saturdays, 8:30 p.m. Sukay, Eddy Navia and the Pachamama Dancers present a program of Latin music and dance. $13.50.  

"Cuban Nights," Fridays, 8:30 p.m. Fito Reinoso, Sukay and Eddy Navia present Latin dancing Buena Vista style. $13.50.  

"Flamenco Thursdays" with Carola Zertuche, Thursdays, 8:30 p.m. Music and dance with performers of traditional flamenco. $10.  

Georges Lammam Ensemble, Sundays, 8:30 p.m. Event features music and dancing from the Middle East. $10.  

For ages 21 and older. 1630 Powell St., San Francisco. (415) 646-0018, www.penapachamama.com.

 

SAN FRANCISCO OLD MINT  

Joe Goode Performance Group, through Aug. 1, Wednesday-Sunday, 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 p.m. Program features "Traveling Light.'' $30-$37.  

88 5th St., San Francisco. www.themintproject.org.<


Stage-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:41:00 PM

ASHBY STAGE  

CLOSING -- "Left of Oz," by Stephanie Reif, through July 18, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. Follow Dorothy as she comes out to Aunt Emma and goes to San Francisco to seek out womanly love. $25. www.leftofoz.com. 

1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. < 

 

BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE  

CLOSING -- "Speech and Debate," by Stephen Karam, through July 18, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m.; Jun. 22 and 29, 7 p.m.; Jun. 23, 30 and Jul. 7, 8 p.m. Sex. Secrets. Videoblogs and blackmail. Just another day in the life of a teenager in Salem, Oregon. $15-$55.  

2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949, (888) 4BR-Ttix, www.berkeleyrep.org.

 

CALIFORNIA SHAKESPEARE THEATER  

OPENING -- "Mrs. Warren's Profession," by George Bernard Shaw, through Aug. 10, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 4 p.m.; Tuesday-Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Forthright Cambridge student Vivie Warren comes home to discover a shocking secret about her mother and the source of her family fortune.  

$112-$220 for series. Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. (510) 548-9666, www.calshakes.org.

 

CEDAR ROSE PARK  

"Posibilidad," July 17 through July 18, 1:30 p.m. San Francisco Mime Troupe presents this modern song and tango about politics in the workplace featuring a live band. Free. (415) 285-1717, www.sfmt.org. 

1300 Rose St., Berkeley. < 

 

CONCANNON VINEYARD  

OPENING -- "Romeo and Juliet," by William Shakespeare, July 10 through Aug. 7, Jul. 10-11; 18, 24, Aug. 1, 6-7. Featuring Patrick Jones, Jennifer Le Blanc, Hope Mirlis, Ryan Taster, Joseph Salazar, Ashley Wickett, William Wolak and Tiffany Hoover. $25-$39.  

OPENING -- "The Real Thing," by Tom Stoppard, July 16 through July 31, Jul. 16-1, 23, 25, 30-31. Featuring Patrick Jones, Jennifer Le Blanc, Hope Mirlis, Ryan Taster, Joseph Salazar, Ashley Wickett, William Wolak and Tiffany Hoover. $25-$39.  

4590 Tesla Road, Livermore. < 

 

DIABLO ACTORS ENSEMBLE THEATRE  

OPENING -- "Laughter on the 23rd Floor," July 16 through Aug. 7, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. A team of writers vie for the approval of Max Prince, the star of '50s TV variety show. $10-$25.  

1345 Locust Street, Walnut Creek. (925) 482-5110, www.diabloactors.com.

 

DOUGLAS MORRISSON THEATRE  

CLOSING -- "I Love a Piano," through July 11, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. The works of American composer Irving Berlin are the subject of this musical which follows the journey of a piano from 1910 through the 1950s. $20-$28. (510) 881-6777. 

22311 N. Third St., Hayward. (510) 881-6777, www.dmtonline.org.

 

EAST BAY IMPROV  

"Tired of the Same Old Song and Dance?" 8 p.m. East Bay Improv actors perform spontaneous, impulsive and hilarious comedy on the first Saturday of every month. $8.  

Pinole Community Playhouse, 601 Tennent Ave., Pinole. (510) 964-0571, www.eastbayimprov.com.

 

JOHN HINKEL PARK  

"Much Ado About Nothing," by William Shakespeare, July 10 through July 11 and July 17, 1 p.m. Woman's Will presents an all-female production.  

2 Southampton Ave., Berkeley. < 

 

JULIA MORGAN CENTER FOR THE ARTS  

OPENING -- "The Mothers of Ludlow," July 16 through July 25, Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Youth Musical Theater Company presents a world premiere musical drama about the massacre of striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado in 1914. $12-$22.  

2640 College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org.

 

THE MARSH BERKELEY  

CLOSING -- "Loveland," by Ann Randolph, through July 11, Jun. 25, 7 p.m.; Jun. 26, 5 p.m.; Jul. 2, 7 p.m.; Jul. 9, 7 p.m.; Jul. 11, 2 p.m. Randolph recounts the emotional, hilarious and deeply human journey of Frannie Potts, an irreverent, lovable woman as she travels to her childhood home. $25-$50.  

The Gaia Building, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. Info: (415) 826-5750, Tickets: (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org.

 

MASQUERS PLAYHOUSE  

CLOSING -- "Fuddy Meers," by David Lindsay-Abaire, through July 10, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Claire, a sweet amnesiac, wakes up each morning remembering nothing. Her family must teach her who she is, each day. When she is kidnapped, the adventures really begin. $18.  

105 Park Place, Point Richmond. (510) 232-4031, www.masquers.org.

 

WILLOWS THEATRE COMPANY  

"Avenue Q," through Aug. 1, Wednesday, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. This "adult Sesame Street'' romp features puppets and live actors in high-energy, naughty fun. $25-$30.  

Willows Theatre, Willows Shopping Center, 1975 Diamond Blvd., Concord. (925) 798-1300, www.willowstheatre.org.

 

WOODMINSTER AMPHITHEATRE  

"Hairspray," by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, July 9 through July 18, Jul. 9-11 and 15-18, 8 p.m. The dreams of a teenage girl play themselves out in equal parts social commentary and dance numbers. $10.  

3300 Joaquin Miller Road, Oakland. (510) 531-9597, www.woodminster.com.<


Stage-San Francisco Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 12:36:00 PM

ACTORS THEATRE OF SAN FRANCISCO  

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," July 16 through Sept. 4, Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m. A wealthy Southern family deals with a shocking revelation. $26-$38.  

855 Bush St., San Francisco. (415) 345-1287, (866) 468-3399, www.actorstheatresf.org or www.ticketweb.com.

 

BEACH BLANKET BABYLON This long-running musical follows Snow White as she sings and dances her way around the world in search of her prince. Along the way she encounters many of the personalities in today's headlines, including Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harry Potter, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Britney Spears, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, George and Laura Bush, Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Tom Cruise, Angelina, characters from Brokeback Mountain and Paris Hilton. Persons under 21 are not admitted to evening performances, but are welcome to Sunday matinees. 

"Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon," Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.  

$25-$78. Club Fugazi, 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. (formerly Green Street), San Francisco. (415) 421-4222, www.beachblanketbabylon.com.

 

CHANCELLOR HOTEL UNION SQUARE  

"Eccentrics of San Francisco's Barbary Coast," Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Audiences gather for a 90-minute show abounding with local anecdotes and lore presented by captivating and consummate conjurers and tale-tellers. $30.  

433 Powell St., San Francisco. (877) 784-6835, www.chancellorhotel.com.

 

CLIMATE THEATRE  

"The Clown Cabaret at the Climate," First Monday of the month, 7 and 9 p.m. Hailed as San Francisco's hottest ticket in clowning, this show blends rising stars with seasoned professionals on the Climate Theater's intimate stage. $10-$15.  

285 Ninth St., Second Floor, San Francisco. www.climatetheater.com.

 

THE CUSTOM MADE THEATRE CO.  

CLOSING -- "Durang Me," by Christopher Durang, through July 10, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m.; No show Jul. 4. Featuring two of Durang's scripts, "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You'' and "The Actor's Nightmare.'' $18-$28.  

965 Mission St., San Francisco. < 

 

EUREKA THEATRE  

"Piaf: Love Conquers All," through Aug. 7, Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 3 and 8 p.m. Naomi Emmerson stars in this musical tribute. $25-$36.  

215 Jackson St., San Francisco. (415) 255-8207, (415) 978-2787, www.42ndstmoon.org/42newweb/finding/eureka.htm or www.ticketweb.com/.< 

 

EXIT THEATRE  

"Obscura -- A Magic Show," through Aug. 14, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Featuring illusionist Christian Cagigal. $15-$25.  

"San Francisco Olympians Festival," through July 31, 8 p.m. No Nude Men Productions presents staged readings of 12 new full-length plays by 14 local writers, each focusing on one of the 12 Olympian gods of ancient Greece. Plays include "Dionysus'' by Nathan Tucker (Jul. 8), "Apollo'' by Garret Groenveld (Jul. 9), "Poseidon'' by Bryce Allemann, Danca Constance and Kathy Hicks (Jul. 10), "Hermes'' by Ben Fisher (Jul. 15), "Artemis'' by M.R. Fall (Jul. 16), "Zeus'' by Helen Noakes (Jul. 17), "Demeter'' by Claire Ann Rice (Jul. 22), "Aphrodite'' by Nirmala Nataraj (Jul. 23), "Ares'' by Sean Kelly (Jul. 24), "Athena'' by Ashley Cowan (Jul. 29), "Hera'' by Stuart Bousel (Jul. 30) and "Hephaestus'' by Evelyn Jean Pine (Jul. 31). $10.  

156 Eddy St., San Francisco. (415) 673-3847, www.theexit.org.

 

FORT MASON  

CLOSING -- "Foresight," by Ruben Grijalva, July 9 through July 18, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 8 p.m. A terminally ill Silicon Valley pioneer migrates his personality into an advanced computer. $22-$27.  

Building A, San Francisco. (415) 441-5706.< 

 

GOLDEN GATE THEATRE  

"Young Frankenstein," by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, through July 25, Wednesday and Sunday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. When Frederick Frankenstein, an esteemed New York brain surgeon and professor, inherits a castle and laboratory in Transylvania from his grandfather, deranged genius Victor Von Frankenstein, he faces a dilemma. Does he continue to run from his family's tortured past or does he stay in Transylvania to carry on his grandfather's mad experiments reanimating the dead and, in the process, fall in love with his sexy lab assistant Inga?$30-$99.  

1 Taylor St., San Francisco. (415) 512-7770, www.shnsf.com.

 

KIMO'S BAR  

"Fauxgirls," Every third Saturday Drag cabaret revue features San Francisco's finest female impersonators.  

1351 Polk St., San Francisco. (415) 885-4535, www.denkitiger. com/.< 

 

MAMA CALIZO'S VOICE FACTORY  

CLOSING -- "Blackbird: Honoring a Century of Pansy Divas," by Seth Eisen, through July 10, 8 p.m. Show blends puppetry and a hybrid of live performance, movement, music, video, song and storytelling. $20-$25.  

1519 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 368-1244, www.voicefactorysf.org.

 

THE MARSH  

"The Mock Cafe," Stand-up comedy performances. Saturday, 10 p.m. $7.  

"The Monday Night Marsh," An ongoing series of works-in-progress. Monday, 8 p.m. $7.  

CLOSING -- "Reading My Dad's Porn and French Kissing the Dog," by Cherry Zonkowski, through July 17. Zonkowski takes you on a tour of the suburban living rooms, crowded dungeons and ultra-hip warehouses of San Francisco's sex and artist party scenes.  

EXTENDED -- "The Real Americans," by Dan Hoyle, through Sept. 25, Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 5 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. Hoyle connects liberal city life with small-town America. $18-$50.  

1062 Valencia St., San Francisco. (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org.

 

NEW CONSERVATORY THEATRE CENTER  

"Cowardly Things," through July 31, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Cindy Goldfield and Scrumbly Koldewyn explore and evaluate the work of Noel Coward. $20-$28.  

25 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org.

 

ORPHEUM THEATRE  

CLOSING -- "Wicked," Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m.; Oct. 11 and Dec. 27, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 27, 2 p.m.; Dec. 21 and 28, 8 p.m. "Wicked'' is the untold story of the witches of Oz. Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. "Wicked'' tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. $30-$99.  

1192 Market St., San Francisco. (415) 512-7770, www.shnsf.com.

 

OUR LITTLE THEATER  

"What Mama Said About Down There," through Aug. 28, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. An "educational show'' for ages 18 and up. $15.  

287 Ellis St., San Francisco. (415) 928-4060.< 

 

RRAZZ ROOM AT HOTEL NIKKO  

CLOSING -- "Kinsey Sicks: Each Hit and I," through July 18, Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. The "dragapella'' beautyshop quarter present a brand new musical show. $35-$40.  

222 Mason St., San Francisco. (415) 394-1111, www.therrazzroom.com.

 

SAN FRANCISCO COMEDY COLLEGE CLUBHOUSE (800) 838-3006, www.clubhousecomedy.com.  

"Naked Comedy," A comedy showcase featuring some of the best comedians in San Francisco. BYOB for 21 and over. Saturdays, 9 p.m. $10. 

"Hump Day Comedy," Host Rich Stimbra and a variety of stand-up comics will get you over the Wednesday work hump. BYOB for 21 and over. Wednesday, 8 p.m. $5. 

414 Mason St., Suite 705, San Francisco. (415) 921-2051, www.sfcomedycollege.com.

 

SHELTON THEATER  

"Shopping! The Musical," by Morris Bobrow, A quick-paced musical about those obsessed with buying things. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m. $27-$29. www.shoppingthemusical.com. 

Big City Improv, Friday, 10 p.m. $20. (510) 595-5597, www.bigcityimprov.com. 

533 Sutter St., San Francisco. (415) 433-1227, www.sheltontheater.com or www.sheltontheater.com.

 

STAGE WERX THEATRE  

"Bi-Poseur," by Paolo Sambrano, June 6 and July 18, 7 p.m. Paolo Sambrano stars in this one-man show about a possibly bi-polar man coping with life. $15. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/109491. 

533 Sutter Street, San Francisco. < 

 

THICK HOUSE  

CLOSING -- "Beijing, California," by Paul Heller, through July 17, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. An unflinching study of one nation's invasion by another - but this time, the victim is not Iraq or Afghanistan; rather, it is America, and the invader is China $15-$25.  

1695 18th St., San Francisco. www.thickhouse.org.<


Galleries-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:49:00 PM

"BAY AREA HEART GALLERY," -- Exhibit consists of photographs of children, youth and families, accompanied by their compelling stories. The joint exhibit opens in the Alameda County Administration Building, 1221 Oak Street, Oakland and at the Eden Area Multi-Service Center, 24100 Amador Way, Hayward. 

Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.< 

 

ALBANY ARTS GALLERY  

"Silk Painting," through July 31. Works by Natasha Foucault.  

1251 Solano Ave., Albany. (510) 526-9558.< 

 

ALPHONSE BERBER GALLERY  

Kamau Patton, through Aug. 7. Works by the artist.  

2546 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. < 

 

BEDFORD GALLERY  

OPENING -- "Unbound: A National Exhibition of Book Art," July 11 through Sept. 19. Works by Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Sas Colby, Lisa Kokin, Francesca Patine, Maria Porges, Nancy Selvin, Richard Shaw and others.  

$3 general; $2 youth ages 12 through 17; free children ages 12 and under; free Tuesdays. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. (925) 295-1417, www.bedfordgallery.org.

 

CHANDRA CERRITO CONTEMPORARY  

"Stillness," through July 24. Works by Keira Kotler.  

480 23rd St., Oakland. (415) 577-7537, www.chandracerrito.com.

 

EXPRESSIONS GALLERY  

"Labor and Art," through Aug. 6. Group art show features paintings, photography, sculpture, mixed media, digital art, monotypes and more.  

Free. Wednesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m.; Sunday, noon-3 p.m. 2035 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 644-4930, www.expressionsgallery.org/.< 

 

GALLERY 555 --  

Nemo Gould, through July 30. Presented by the Oakland Museum of California.  

Free. Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-7 p.m.; third Thursdays, 7 a.m-8 p.m. Oakland City Center, 555 12th St., Oakland. < 

 

HALL OF PIONEERS GALLERY  

"Oakland Chinatown Pioneers," Twelve showcases, each focusing on historic leaders and personalities of the community.  

Free. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Chinese Garden Building, 275 Seventh St., Oakland. (510) 530-4590.< 

 

K GALLERY  

"The Locals II," through July 31. Works by Jon Kerpel, Ginny Parsons, K.C. Rosenberg, Peter Tonningsen and Danielle Wallis.  

Free. Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. 2515 Blanding Ave., Alameda. (510) 865-5062, www.rhythmix.org.

 

LAFAYETTE GALLERY  

"Summer Daze," through Aug. 7. Works by Nancy Hartley and Jill Landau.  

50 Lafayette Circle, Lafayette. www.lafayettegallery.net.

 

PHOTOLAB  

"Between Borders," through July 31. Works by Patricia Monaco.  

2235 5th St., Berkeley. (510) 644-1400, www.photolabratory.com.

 

ROYAL NONESUCH GALLERY  

"Alula Editions," through July 30. Works by Jason Jagel.  

4231 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (415) 690-3041, www.royalnonesuchgallery.com.

 

SUN GALLERY  

"High Art," through Sept. 25. Works by local high school students and high school homeschoolers.  

1015 E. St., Hayward. (510) 581-4050, www.sungallery.org.

 

TRAYWICK CONTEMPORARY  

OPENING -- "2-D/3-D," July 18 through Sept. 18. Works by Mari Andrews, Jessica Martin, David McDonald, Aurora Robson and Lucrecia Troncoso.  

 

895 Colusa Ave., Berkeley. (510) 527-1214.<


Exhibits-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:49:00 PM

CARMEN FLORES RECREATION CENTER  

"El Corazon de la Communidad: The Heart of the Community", Painted by Joaquin Alejandro Newman, this mural installation consists of four 11-foot panels that mix ancient Meso-American and contemporary imagery to pay homage to local activists Carmen Flores and Josie de la Cruz.  

Free unless otherwise noted. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. 1637 Fruitvale Ave., Oakland. (510) 535-5631.< 

 

CREATIVE GROWTH ART CENTER  

"Straight to the Bone," through July 23. Works by Regis-R, Prince of Plastic and Creative Growth artists.  

Free. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 355 24th St., Oakland. (510) 836-2340 X15, www.creativegrowth.org.

 

DAVID BROWER CENTER  

"Water, Rivers and People/ Agua, Rios y Pueblos," through Aug. 31. Exhibition depicts those who are fighting to defend rivers and the people who depend on them.  

2150 Allston Way, Berkeley. < 

 

FLOAT  

"Surrender," through July 31. Digital paintings by Android Jones and light sculptures by Michael Clarke.  

Free. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; by appointment. 1091 Calcot Place, Unit 116, Oakland. (510) 535-1702, www.thefloatcenter.com.

 

JOHANSSON PROJECTS  

CLOSING -- "If Only ," through July 17. Works by Rune Olsen.  

Free. Thursday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. 2300 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 444-9140, www.johanssonprojects.com.

 

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"NanoZone," Discover the science of the super-small: nanotechnology. Through hands-on activities and games, explore this microworld and the scientific discoveries made in this area.  

"Forces That Shape the Bay," A science park that shows and explains why the San Francisco Bay is the way it is, with information on water, erosion, plate tectonics and mountain building. You can ride earthquake simulators, set erosion in motion and look far out into the bay with a powerful telescope from 1,100 feet above sea level. The center of the exhibit is a waterfall that demonstrates how water flows from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Bay. Visitors can control where the water goes. There are also hands-on erosion tables, and a 40-foot-long, 6-foothigh, rock compression wall.  

"Real Astronomy Experience," A new exhibit-in-development allowing visitors to use the tools that real astronomers use. Aim a telescope at a virtual sky and operate a remote-controlled telescope to measure a planet.  

"Biology Lab," In the renovated Biology Lab visitors may hold and observe gentle animals. Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

"The Idea Lab," Experiment with some of the basics of math, science and technology through hands-on activities and demonstrations of magnets, spinning and flying, puzzles and nanotechnology.  

"Math Around the World," Play some of the world's most popular math games, such as Hex, Kalah, Game Sticks and Shongo Networks.  

"Math Rules," Use simple and colorful objects to complete interesting challenges in math through predicting, sorting, comparing, weighing and counting.  

"Kapla," The hands-on exhibit features thousands of versatile building blocks that can be used to build very large, high and stable structures and models of bridges, buildings, animals or anything else your mind can conceive.  

$6-$12; free children ages 2 and under. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of California, Centennial Drive, Berkeley. (510) 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org.

 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

EXHIBITS --  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ART AND DISABILITIES  

"Word Play," through Aug. 20. NIAD artists manipulate and repeat letters to create their own language, transform words into hybrid forms, utilize captions to tell a story, or their autograph can become a focal point of their work.  

551 23rd St., Richmond. (510) 620-0290, www.niadart.org.

 

OAKLAND ASIAN CULTURAL CENTER  

"Oakland's 19th-Century San Pablo Avenue Chinatown," A permanent exhibit of new findings about the rediscovered Chinatown on San Pablo Avenue. The exhibit aims to inform visitors about the upcoming archaeological work planned to explore the lives of early Chinese pioneers in the 1860s.  

Free. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Pacific Renaissance Plaza, 388 Ninth St., Suite 290, Oakland. (510) 637-0455, www.oacc.cc.

 

OAKLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT  

"Going Away, Coming Home," A 160-foot public art installation by Mills College art professor Hung Liu. Liu hand painted 80 red-crowned cranes onto 65 panels of glass that were then fired, tempered and paired with background panes that depict views of a satellite photograph, ranging from the western United States to the Asia Pacific Area. Terminal 2.  

Free. Daily, 24 hours, unless otherwise noted. Oakland International Airport, 1 Airport Drive, Oakland. (510) 563-3300, www.flyoakland.com.

 

OAKLAND MARRIOTT CITY CENTER  

"Spirits Known and Unknown," through July 31. Photographs of Kamau Amen-Ra.  

1001 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 451-4000.< 

 

SCULPTURE COURT AT OAKLAND CITY CENTER  

Shawn E. HibmaCronan, through July 30. Presented by the Oakland Museum of California.  

Free. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; third Thursdays, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oakland City Center, 1111 Broadway, Oakland. < 

 

WOMEN'S CANCER RESOURCE CENTER  

OPENING -- "Benny's Garden," July 9 through Sept. 3. Works by Benny Alba, Jen Downey, Anna Edwards, Jeremy Qwan and L. Hickox Robinson.  

5471 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. <


Theatre Revue Review: Q: Visitors? A: BEACH BLANKET BABYLON

By John A. McMullen II
Monday July 05, 2010 - 05:22:00 PM
Past performer Linda Bulgo and current director and alum
              Kenny Mazlow in BBB at Club Fugazi a la 1990 © SSPI 2010
Past performer Linda Bulgo and current director and alum Kenny Mazlow in BBB at Club Fugazi a la 1990 © SSPI 2010

When you have people come to visit, not taking them to Beach Blanket Babylon is like not taking them to Chinatown or Ocean Beach. And about once a decade or so, you should just go and enjoy. 

It hasn’t changed much; if it ain’t broke…. This is the newest version, though it seems like it was written during the last presidential campaign. 

First-class belters with amazing stamina who could each be on Broadway, 300 lbs. hats (yes, that heavy!), corny, corny segues that give them any old excuse to break into song accompanied by outrageous puns (e.g., somebody says “Can-Can” and they all come out dressed as Parisians with garbage cans on their heads!). There is a fast and furious parade of well-known caricatures: Obama, James Brown, Elvis, Madonna, Jon and Kate, Octomom, Al Gore, even Hassidim with Mogen David bottles on their head, a Yiddishe Mama, et. al. 

And, of course, Snow White, who is played by Shawna Ferris as an annoying little twit looking from SF to Rome to Paris for her Prince—the twit part is just a set-up for her amazing, flying transformation. This time Glinda is a Big Black good Witch with a terrific voice (Renee Lubin) who never passes on a chance to make a joke out of Snow’s name. 

When I saw it thirty years ago having just arrived in SF, I thought it ranked right up there with sliced bread; but I wasn’t a theatre critic then. A thousand plays later, going back to see it was just a good time sentimental journey. 

It’s kitschy vaudeville that is the longest still-running musical revue—1974 and still going strong—and a living monument to Steve Silver who started it on a itsy-bitsy stage hardly big enough for the hats, up at the Savoy Tivoli on Grant Street before it moved to Club Fugazi. Not many productions have the very street they are located on named for them—but it sure makes the place easy to find.  

There aren’t really any funny lines per se, and it’s pretty sophomoric humor overall, but the extraordinary voices, costumes, ENORMOUS HATS AND WIGS, and quick-changes make up for it. Ninety minutes of every song you ever knew the lyrics to. One particularly well-conceived and executed skit a la Les Miserables featuring the political sextet of Bill, Hillary, McCain, Palin, the President and First Lady. Replete with exceptional talent, right down to Jacqui Heck’s classic abs with much displayed navel appearing often as centerpiece.  

Three stand-out memorable moments: Tammy Nelson’s “Crazy” with her own entrancing, behind-the-beat styling. It doesn’t matter that she’s dressed like a French whore with a lamppost sticking four feet out of her bouffant wig while she sings it; Curt Branom as Mel Brooks’s Louis “It’s Good to be King” XVI; Kirk Mill’s incredible falsetto as Elvis. 

It will be the highlight of your visitors’ vacation, with enough gay humor so that the folks from Cedar Falls can tell all their friends back home they’ve really experienced Baghdad by the Bay. 

And, if by some incredible cultural oversight, you have never personally seen BBB, well, you just ought to be ashamed of yourself and moved to go out and immediately right this self-perpetrated indignity. By the way, I’ve never been to Alcatraz. 

 

BEACH BLANKET BABYLON  

678 Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard (Green Street), North Beach, San Francisco 

Wed & Thu 8:00 pm, Fri 6:30 pm, Sat 6:30 & 9:30 PM. Sun 2:00 & 5:00 PM (Mats) 

Tickets/Info: (415) 421-4222 / www.beachblanketbabylon.com 

 

Created by Steve Silver, written by Kenny Mazlow and Jo Schuman Silver, produced by Jo Schuman Silver, directed and choregraphed by Kenny Mazlow, asst. director/choregrapher Mark Reina, musical director/conductor/arranger Bill Keck. 

 

WITH: Curt Branom, Paulino Duran, Shawna Ferris, Jacqui Heck, Doug Magpiong, Caitlin McGinty, Kirk Mills, Tammy Nelson, Renee Lubin, Ryan Rigazzi, and Phillip Percy Williams.


New: Packed Mendocino Music Festival Preview at Berkeley City Club

By Ken Bullock
Wednesday July 07, 2010 - 02:28:00 PM

Emphasizing the connections between Berkeley and Mendocino, Susan Waterfall and Allan Pollack, co-founders of the 24 year old Mendocino Music Festival, performed an unusual, rich concert as a free preview of Waterfall's narrated multimedia program, July 15 at the Festival, Hallelujah, America!, a celebration of how American music became American, to a packed, attentive audience in the members lounge at the Berkeley City Club last Tuesday. 

Pollack talked about the personal background of the Festival, his meeting Waterfall, an old schoolmate from Chicago, and their creation of the Festival with friends and supporters. 

The music from Waterfall's program showed its variety, from cellist Burke Schuchmann's playing, with Waterfall on piano, of George Gershwin's Preludes, from the 1920s, re-scored for violin by Jascha Heifetz, then to cello by Yo-Yo Ma, to soprano Erin Neff's "tightrope" recital of Aaron Copland's settings of Emily Dickinson poems from 1949-50, accompanied by Waterfall--to a mother-son duet: Waterfall and Julian Waterfall Pollack, on two pianos, playing John Adams' dynamic Hallelujah Junction. 

Waterfall's programs have been featured at the Festival the past decade. Innovative, reflecting deep research and consideration of the music, she endeavors to place it in context with a narration and projected artwork and photographs. "Like Proust's madeleine, music can transport us," Waterfall said, "We can conjure the era of the music, the sources of the composers' creativity." 

Her two previous shows from the Festival, Degenerate Music, about the Weimar era compositions and cabaret of Schoenberg, Weill and Hanns Eisler, and They Left A Light, on music in prisoner of war and concentration camps in World War Two, were both later staged at the Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley. 

The Festival, with the stunning backdrop of Mendocino's land-and-seascape, features classical music, opera (this year, Bizet's Carmen), jazz (a big band with vocalist, as well as Julian Pollack's trio, featuring his fellow Berkeley High Jazz Band alums), bluegrass and dance.  

(707) 937-4041; mendocinomusic.com


Restoration Comedy:Weather or Not?

By Jane Powell
Monday July 05, 2010 - 10:48:00 AM

Greetings from Indiana, where in some towns you can pick up a pretty nice house for $30,000- not because there have been lots of foreclosures, but because that’s how much they go for.  

Admittedly, in the Indianapolis neighborhood where I spent part of my childhood, they go for more like $350-$400K- in fact the Foursquare across the street is currently on the market for $389,000. It’s a lovely city, but I’m not tempted to move. Why? Because they have weather. And bugs. When I got here it was 92 degrees and humid. A couple days later there was a humongous thunderstorm- we’re not talking rain, we’re talking deluge. Although there is air conditioning, it essentially means you are trapped inside your house, because even when it cools off (slightly) in the evening, you can’t sit outside because you will be eaten alive by mosquitoes. I’m not talking a few mosquitoes like we have in California, I’m talking swarms. And there are gnats- they don’t bite, they just get in your face. Fireflies, which are lovely, and one of the few things I miss about the Midwest, do not make up for the other bugs. 

Meanwhile, back at the mortgage modification, I finally got to talk face to face with an actual human at NACA. His advice was that I attend one of their Save the Dream events (there was one at the Cow Palace last fall, and another coming up in September in Sacramento.. These are events at which they gather a whole bunch of mortgage modification people from the various banks and other servicers, and you can meet with them and get the modification done right on the spot, at least in theory. It certainly removes one of the most common excuses used by the servicers, which is that they can’t find your paperwork and you have to send it again. According to reports I see, some people’s paperwork has gotten lost more times than even incompetence could account for, but I would not want to suggest that perhaps it is being “lost” on purpose. Oh hell, yes I would. 

Speaking of which, some homeowners who are being foreclosed on in states where the process requires going to court (CA doesn’t require this) have had their lawyers demand that the servicer produce the original note, as well as the documents that are supposed to be filed each time the note is sold. As some mortgages have been sliced and diced numerous times, this turns out to be quite a pile of paper. And how nice to turn the tables and be demanding ridiculous documentation from the servicer instead of vice versa! I do hope they have to include all the pages that say “This page intentionally left blank!” And as it turns out, many lenders cannot actually produce this documentation. Of course, in response to this need, document mills have sprung up to basically forge these documents after the fact. Apparently some judges have caught on to the forgeries, and some cases have been dismissed “with prejudice”- meaning the judge has basically thrown out the mortgage, the homeowners get the house free and clear, and the lender is banned from bringing another foreclosure action against them. 

Recently an audit report from the Government Accountability Office was released which found that potentially thousands of homeowners were denied the opportunity to modify their mortgages due to servicer errors and inadequate oversight by the Treasury Department. Really? Really? The GAO noted that Treasury “has yet to establish any specific consequences or penalties for non-compliance.” Duh. 

In any case, the next Save the Dream event is in Washington DC starting July 16th- they’re going to be running it 24 hours a day for five days, in order to help as many people as possible. The person at NACA said it would behoove me to go if I could afford it, instead of waiting till September. This, my friends, is what frequent flier miles were made for. I’ll be flying on the 15th, so I can get there to line up early in the morning on the 16th. I’ll keep you posted. 

Jane Powell writes for the Planet whenever she feels like it. On a plane trying to distract herself from a child across the aisle who has been screaming for three solid hours is one of the times she feels like it, not that she wouldn’t be writing on the plane anyway. If this article doesn’t make sense, that would be why. She can be reached at hsedressng@aol.com, and of course her many fine books can be purchased at www.janepowell.org, which she naturally encourages you to do.


Highlights-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:47:00 PM

ALAMEDA COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS  

"A Day at the Races," July 10, Noon-6 p.m. Includes buffet lunch, a lesson on places bets, horseracing and more. Proceeds benefit Axis Community Health. $50. www.axishealth.org. 

4501 Pleasanton Ave., Pleasanton. (925) 426-7600, www.alamedacountyfair.com.

 

BOOKS INC., BERKELEY  

Steve Duno, July 11, 6 p.m. The author talks about "Last Dog on the Hill.''  

1760 4th Street, Berkeley. (510) 525-7777, www.booksinc.net.

 

FOX THEATER  

Neil Young, Bert Jansch, July 11 through July 12 and July 14, 8 p.m. $85-$199.50.  

1807 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 452-0438.< 

 

FREIGHT AND SALVAGE  

Rosie Flores, July 11. $20.50-$21.50.  

Music starts at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 548-1761, www.freightandsalvage.org.

 

MOE'S BOOKS  

Megan Prelinger, July 12, 7:30 p.m. The author talks about "Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race, 1957-1962.''  

10 a.m.-11 p.m. daily. 2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2087, www.moesbooks.com.

 

THE NEW PARISH  

California Honeydrops, Tri Tip Trio, July 9, 9 p.m. $10.  

579 18th St., Oakland. (510) 444-7474, www.thenewparish.com.

 

YOSHI'S  

Pete Escovedo 75th Birthday Celebration Latin Jazz Orchestra featuring Sheila E., Juan and Peter Michael Escovedo, July 15 through July 18, Thursday-Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. $18-$28.  

Shows are Monday through Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m., unless otherwise noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. (510) 238-9200, www.yoshis.com.<


Museums-San Francisco Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:46:00 PM

"TARGET ARTS AND WONDER FREE FAMILY EVENT," -- July 16 through July 18. The de Young Museum, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, The Museum of the African Diaspora, Zeum and Yerba Beuena Gardens Festival take turns opening their doors to the public for free with free art making activities. See website for more information. 

www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/target.< 

 

ASIAN ART MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO The Asian Art Museum-Chon-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture recently unveiled its new building in San Francisco's Civic Center. The building, the former San Francisco Public Library, has been completely retrofitted and rebuilt to house San Francisco's significant collection of Asian treasures. The museum offers complimentary audio tours of the museum's collection galleries.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"In a New Light," There are some 2,500 works displayed in the museum's new galleries. They cover all the major cultures of Asia and include Indian stone sculptures, intricately carved Chinese jades, Korean paintings, Tibetan thanksgas, Cambodian Buddhas, Islamic manuscripts and Japanese basketry and kimonos.  

ONGOING FAMILY PROGRAMS --  

Storytelling, Sundays and the first Saturday of every month, 1 p.m. This event is for children of all ages to enjoy a re-telling of Asian myths and folktales in the galleries. Meet at the Information Desk on the Ground Floor. Free with general admission.  

"Target Tuesday Family Program," first Tuesday of every month. Free with general admission.  

"Family Art Encounter," first Saturday of every month, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Drop in to make art related to the museum's collection. Children must be accompanied by an adult. In the Education Studios. Free with admission.  

DOCENT-LED ART TOURS -- The museum's docents offer two types of tours: a general introduction to the museum's collection and a highlight tour of specific areas of the collection. Free with museum admission.  

ARCHITECTURAL GUIDES -- Tuesday through Sunday at noon and 2:30 p.m., Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Learn about the former Main Library's transformation into the Asian Art Museum on this 40-minute tour. Free with museum admission.  

RESOURCE CENTER -- Tuesday through Sunday, 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Watch a video, or learn more about Asian art with slide packets, activity kits and books. Free with museum admission. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Free with general admission unless otherwise noted.  

"Shanghai," through Sept. 5. Exhibition features more than 130 artworks including oil paintings, Shanghai Deco furniture, revolutionary posters, works of fashion and more.  

"Japan's Early Ambassadors to San Francisco, 1860-1927," through Nov. 21. Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the ship Kanrin Maru and the first Japanese embassy to the United States, this thematic exhibit focuses on some of the first Japanese diplomats and cultural emissaries in San Francisco, and how they responded to the experience of being in America.  

$7-$12; free children under age 12; $5 Thursday after 5 p.m.; free to all first Sunday of each month. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. 200 Larkin St., San Francisco. (415) 581-3500, www.asianart.org.

 

BEAT MUSEUM Formerly located on the California coast in Monterey, the Beat Museum now sits in historic North Beach. The Museum uses letters, magazines, pictures, first editions and more to explore the lives of leading beat figures such as Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and many others. A gift shop and bookstore are open to the public free of charge. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"North Beach Walking Tour,", A 90-minute walking tour of North Beach with Beat Museum curator Jerry Cimimo. See the bars, coffeehouses, homes, and other Beat-related highlights of North Beach. Call for info. $15. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$4-$5. Monday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. CLOSED MONDAY. 540 Broadway, San Francisco. (800) KER-OUAC, www.kerouac.com.

 

CABLE CAR MUSEUM The museum is located in the historic Cable Car Barn and Powerhouse. Visitors can see the actual cable winding machinery, grips, track, cable and brakes, as well as three historic cable cars, photo displays and mechanical artifacts. The best way to get to this museum is by cable car; street parking is practically non-existent. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

Free. April 1-Sept. 30: daily, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Oct. 1-March 31, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1201 Mason St., San Francisco. (415) 474-1887, www.cablecarmuseum.org.

 

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES  

"Nightlife," Thursdays, 6 p.m. Every Thursday night, the Academy transforms into a lively venue filled with provocative science, music, mingling and cocktails, as visitors get a chance to explore the museum.  

"Where the Land Meets the Sea," Exhibition features sculpture by Maya Lin.  

BENJAMIN DEAN LECTURE SERIES --  

"Extreme Mammals," through Sept. 12. Exhibition features a far-reaching survey of members of the mammal family.  

$14.95-$24.95. Daily, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org.

 

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY  

HISTORY WALKABOUTS -- A series of monthly walking tours that explore the history, lore and architecture of California with veteran tour guide Gary Holloway. Walks take place rain or shine so dress for the weather. Reservations and prepayment required. Meeting place will be given with confirmation of tour reservation. Tour price includes admission to the Museum.  

MUSEUM -- The museum's permanent collection is made up of the Fine Arts Collection, consisting of 5,000 works of art that represent the history of California from pre-Gold Rush days to the early decade of the 20th century; and The Photography Collection, containing nearly a halfmillion images in an array of photographic formats documenting the history of California in both the 19th and 20th centuries. The Library and Research Collection contain material relating to the history of California and the West from early exploration time to the present including texts, maps, and manuscripts.  

"Landscape and Vision: Early California Painters from the Collections of the California Historical Society," open-ended. An exhibit of oil paintings including a large number of early landscapes of California, from the museum's collection.  

"Extreme Mammals," through Sept. 12. Exhibition explores mammals, from the towering to the tiny.  

"Think California," through Feb. 5. Exhibition features artworks, artifacts and ephemera exploring California's colorful history.  

$1-$3; free children under age 5. Wednesday-Saturday, noon-4:30 p.m. 678 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 357-1848 X229, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org.

 

CARTOON ART MUSEUM  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"An Exploration of Cartoon Art," This exhibit explores the history of cartoon art including works from the most renowned and creative cartoonists of the last century. The exhibit traces the evolution of cartooning through its many forms including animation, comic strips, comic books, editorial cartoons and underground cartoons.  

CARTOONING CLASSES FOR KIDS -- Saturday, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. For children ages 6 to 14. Call for schedule. Free with admission. 

"60 Years of Beetle Bailey," through Sept. 19. Exhibition showcases the comics of Mort Walker.  

$2-$6; free children ages 5 and under; the first Tuesday of the month is paywhat-you-wish day. Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 655 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 227-8666, www.cartoonart.org.

 

CHINESE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA The CHSA Museum and Learning Center features a permanent exhibition, "The Chinese of America: Toward a More Perfect Union'' in its Main Gallery, and works by Chinese-American visual artists in its Rotating Galleries.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Leaders of the Band," An exhibition of the history and development of the Cathay Club Marching Band, the first Chinese American band formed in 1911. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$1-$3; free children ages 5 and under; free for all visitors first Thursday of every month. Tuesday-Friday, noon-5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-4 p.m. 965 Clay St., San Francisco. (415) 391-1188, www.chsa.org.

 

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM The museum, formerly known as the Jewish Museum San Francisco, has a new addition designed by Daniel Libeskind and is dedicated to exploring the richness and diversity of Jewish thought and culture.  

GALLERY TOURS -- Sunday and Wednesday, 12:30 p.m. Free. 

"Jews on Vinyl," through Aug. 22. Exhibition showcases the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s.  

"As It Is Written: Project 304,805," through Oct. 3. Exhibition centers around a soferet (a professionally trained female scribe) who writes out the entire text of the Torah, at the Museum, over the course of a full year. She will be one of the few known women to complete an entire Torah scroll, an accomplishment traditionally exclusive to men.  

"Reinventing Ritual: Contemporary Art and Design for Jewish Life," through Oct. 3. The first major international exhibition to examine the reinvention of Jewish ritual in art and design.  

"Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)," through Oct. 26. The first major museum survey of the award-winning illustrator, author and designer.  

$4-$5; free for children under age 12; free third Monday of every month. Sunday -Thursday, noon-6 p.m. DEC. 25, NOON TO 4 P.M.; CLOSED JAN. 1. 736 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org.

 

DE YOUNG MUSEUM The art museum has now reopened in a new facility designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog and de Meuron and Fong and Chan Architects in San Francisco. It features significant collections of American art from the 17th through the 20th centuries; modern and contemporary art; art from Central and South America, the Pacific and Africa; and an important and diverse collection of textiles. 

ARTIST STUDIO PROGRAM -- Wednesday-Sunday, 1-5 p.m. A monthly interactive program during which the public can meet and work with a featured artist. Demonstrations take place in the Kimball Education Gallery, which does not require paid admission. (415) 750-7634. 

CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES --  

"Children's Workshops: Doing and Viewing Art and Big Kids-Little Kids," Saturdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon and 1:30-3 p.m. Family tour and art activity for ages 4-12. 

LECTURES AND SYMPOSIA --  

LECTURES BY DOCENTS -- These lectures are free and are held in the Koret Auditorium unless otherwise noted.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Friday Nights at the de Young: Cultural Encounters," 5-8:45 p.m. The de Young stays open until 8:45 p.m. each Friday night and hosts special events including live music, dance, film, lectures and artist demonstrations.  

Aug. 22: "Cultural Encounters presents Hot Brazilian Nights.''  

Event features music by Forro for All and art-making for the entire family.  

Aug. 29: "Cultural Encounters.''  

Event features live music by the Scott Amendola Trio. Free with admission. 

"Poetry Series," 7-8:30 p.m. $8-$12. (415) 750-7634. 

"Photo/Synthesis," through Oct. 3. Exhibition highlights the dynamic trend in the field of contemporary photography, collages, assemblages, and other multi-part or composite photo-based projects.  

"Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay," through Sept. 6. Exhibition puts forth nearly 100 works by the famous masters who called France their home during the mid-19th century and from whose midst arose one of the most original and recognizable of all artistic styles, Impressionism.  

$6-$10; free for children ages 12 and under; free for all visitors the first Tuesday of every month. Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m.; Friday, 9:30 a.m.-8:45 p.m. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco. (415) 863-3330, www.deyoungmuseum.org.

 

EXPLORATORIUM A hands-on museum of science, art and human perception.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Tactile Dome," ongoing installation. The dome is composed of many chambers, which are pitch black inside and full of different tactile sensations. The only way to find one's way through is by using the sense of touch. Reservations required. $12 includes museum admission.  

"Distorted Room," Watch your friends inside the room grow to twice their size by walking left to right or shrink to half their size by walking in the opposite direction. A series of geometric tricks and optical illusions in the room makes the brain think that people shrink and grow before one's eyes.  

"Play Lab," An area for children ages 4 and under, designed to help them develop their motor skills and exercise their imaginations and social skills.  

"Listen: Making Sense of Sound," This "ears-on'' exhibit helps visitors focus on subtle and profound aspects of hearing, experiment with new ways of listen deeply and carefully, and think about how others hear the world. 

"Geometry Playground," through Sept. 6. Explore giant 3d shapes, curved mirrors and more.  

"Geometric Threads," through Aug. 22. Experience geometry as found in traditional handicrafts and contemporar design as artisans demonstrate the mathematics in crafts across the globe.  

$9-$14; free children ages 4 and under. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Dec. 24, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; CLOSED DEC. 25. 3601 Lyon St., San Francisco. (415) EXP-LORE, (415) 563-7337, (415) 561-0360, www.exploratorium.edu.

 

GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM The museum is a project of the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) Historical Society. 

EVENTS --  

EXHIBITS --  

$2-$4. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. 657 Mission St., Suite 300, San Francisco. (415) 777-5455, www.glbthistory.org.

 

INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN  

EVENTS --  

101 Howard Street, Suite 480, San Francisco. (415) 543-4669, www.imow.org/home/index.< 

 

LEGION OF HONOR MUSEUM DOCENT TOUR PROGRAMS -- Tours of the permanent collections and special exhibitions are offered Tuesday through Sunday. Non-English language tours (Italian, French, Spanish and Russian) are available on different Saturdays of the month at 11:30 a.m. Free with regular museum admission. (415) 750-3638.  

ONGOING CHILDREN'S PROGRAM --  

"Doing and Viewing Art," For ages 7 to 12. Docent-led tours of current exhibitions are followed by studio workshops taught by professional artists/teachers. Students learn about art by seeing and making it. Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to noon; call to confirm class. Free with museum admission. (415) 750-3658. 

ORGAN CONCERTS -- 4 p.m. A weekly concert of organ music on the Legion's restored 1924 Skinner organ. Saturday and Sunday in the Rodin Gallery. Free with museum admission. (415) 750-3624. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- In the Gould Theater unless otherwise noted. $4 after museum admission unless otherwise noted. (415) 682-2481. 

"Sunday Jazz Brunch," 11 a.m.-3 p.m. $21-$53. 

"Very Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine," Oct. 31. Exhibition explores the modern scientific examination of mummies providing new insights into the conditions under which the Egyptians lived, bringing us closer to understanding who they were.  

"Impressionist Paris: City of Light," through Sept. 26. Exhibition explores various aspects of life in and around the city in which artists came of age. Visitors to the exhibition are transported to Impressionist Paris as represented in over 150 prints, drawings, photographs, paintings, and illustrated books from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and several distinguished private collections.  

$6-$10; free for children ages 12 and under; free for all visitors on Tuesdays. Tuesday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street, San Francisco. (415) 750-3600, (415) 750-3636, www.thinker.org.

 

MARKET STREET RAILWAY MUSEUM The museum will permanently display a variety of artifacts telling the story of San Francisco's transportation history, including dash signs, fare boxes, a famed Wiley "birdcage'' traffic signal and more. 

Free. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. 77 Steuart St., San Francisco. (415) 956-0472, www.streetcar.org.

 

MEXICAN MUSEUM  

THE MEXICAN MUSEUM GALLERIES AT FORT MASON CENTER ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED --  

The Mexican Museum holds a unique collection of 12,000 objects representing thousands of years of Mexican history and culture within the Americas. The permanent collection, the Museum's most important asset and resource, includes five collecting areas: Pre-Conquest, Colonial, Popular, Modern and Contemporary Mexican and Latino, and Chicano Art. The Museum also has a collection of rare books and a growing collection of Latin American art. 

Fort Mason Center, Building D, Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. (415) 202-9700, www.mexicanmuseum.org.

 

MUSEO ITALOAMERICANO The museum, dedicated to the exhibition of art works by Italian and Italian-American artists, has a small permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper by such renowned artists as Beniamino Buffano, Sandro Chia, Giorgio de Chirico and Arnaldo Pomodoro.  

DOCENT TOURS -- Wednesdays, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Free. 

$2-$3; free children under age 12; free to all first Wednesday of the month. Wednesday-Sunday, noon -4 p.m.; first Wednesday of the month, noon-7 p.m. Fort Mason Center, Building C, Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. (415) 673-2200, www.museoitaloamericano.org.

 

MUSEUM OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY  

EXHIBITS --  

Free. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Humanities Building, Room 510, SFSU, Font Boulevard and Tapia Drive, San Francisco. (415) 405-0599, www.sfsu.edu/~museumst/.< 

 

MUSEUM OF CRAFT AND FOLK ART The museum, now open at a new downtown location, features craft and folk art from various cultures, both past and present, and includes styles ranging from utilitarian objects to contemporary art. 

"Clare Rojas: We They, We They," through Aug. 22. Where neo-folk meets contemporary art, artists operate as "authors'' of the collective voice. The new exhibition showcases the first solo exhibition of the Bay Area artist who identifies and inserts herself in the folk art continuum. MOCFA is proud to present new work that has yet to be seen by the public.  

$4-$5; free for youths under age 18. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 51 Yerba Buena Lane, Mission Street between Third and Fourth streets, San Francisco. (415) 227-4888, www.mocfa.org.

 

MUSEUM OF PERFORMANCE AND DESIGN  

EXHIBITS --  

Free. Wednesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue at McAllister, 4th Floor, San Francisco. (415) 255-4800, www.mpdsf.org.

 

MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA A new museum exploring and celebrating the influence of the African Diaspora on global art and culture through interactive, permanent and changing exhibits and special programs. The museum occupies the first three floors of the new St. Regis Hotel at Third and Mission streets.  

PERMANENT EXHIBITS --  

"Celebrations: Rituals and Ceremonies," "Music of the Diaspora,'' "Culinary Traditions,'' 'Adornment,'' "Slavery Passages,'' and "The Freedom Theater.'' 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Urban Kidz Film Series," Noon-3 p.m. An offshoot of the San Francisco Black Film Festival, featuring a striking assemblage of short and feature films designed to spark the imaginations of the 5-to-12-year-old set. $10 adults; children free. (415) 771-9271. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$5-$8; free children age 12 and under. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; CLOSED MARCH 13 THROUGH MARCH 21. 685 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 358-7200, www.moadsf.org.

 

NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM LIBRARY (THE J. PORTER SHAW MARITIME LIBRARY) Closed on federal holidays. The library, part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, focuses on sail and steam ships on the West Coast and the Pacific Basin from 1520 to the present. The museum library holdings include a premiere collection of maritime history: books, magazines, oral histories, ships' plans and the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park's 250,000 photographs. 

Free. By appointment only, Monday-Friday, 1-4 p.m., and the third Saturday of each month. Fort Mason Center, Building E, Third Floor, Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. (415) 560-7080, (415) 560-7030, www.nps.gov/safr/local/lib/libtop.html.< 

 

PACIFIC HERITAGE MUSEUM The museum presents rotating exhibits highlighting historical, artistic, cultural and economic achievements from both sides of the Pacific Rim. The museum features a permanent display documenting the history and significance of the Branch Mint and Subtreasury buildings. 

Free. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 608 Commercial St., San Francisco. (415) 399-1124.< 

 

RANDALL MUSEUM  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Earthquake Exhibit," Learn about plate tectonics. Make a small quake by jumping on the floor to make a "floor quake'' that registers on the seismometer in the lobby. See the basement seismometer that registers quakes around the world. Walk through a full-size earthquake refugee shack that was used to house San Franciscans after the 1906 earthquake that destroyed so many homes.  

"Creativity and Discovery Hand in Hand," A photography exhibit that gives visitors a look into the wide variety of programs the Museum offers in the way of classes, workshops, school field trips, and special interest clubs.  

"Toddler Treehouse," Toddlers may comfortably climb the carpeted "treehouse'' and make a myriad of discoveries, from the roots to the limbs.  

"Live Animal Exhibit," Visit with more than 100 creatures including small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, raptors and small birds, insects, spiders and tide pool creatures.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Saturdays Are Special at the Museum," Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A series of drop-in ceramics and art and science workshops. All ages are welcome, though an adult must accompany children under age 8. $3 per child, $5 per parent-child combination.  

"Bufano Sculpture Tours," first and third Saturdays of the month, 10:15 a.m. A tour of the giant animal sculptures of Beniamino Bufano. The sculptures were carved out of stone in the 1930s and include a giant cat and a mother bear nursing her cubs.  

"Animal Room," Visit some of the animals that live at the museum, including reptiles, raptors, tide pool creatures and small mammals.  

"Meet the Animals" Saturdays, 11:15 a.m. to noon. See the Randall's animals close-up and in person.  

"Animal Feeding," Saturdays, noon. Watch the animals take their meals.  

"Golden Gate Model Railroad Exhibit," Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

DROP-IN ART AND SCIENCE WORKSHOPS -- 1-4 p.m. $3-$5.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Drop-in Family Ceramics Workshop," Saturday, 1:15-2:15 p.m. 

"Animal Feeding," Saturday, noon. 

"Third Friday Birders," 8 a.m. The hike through Corona Heights Park allows participants to enjoy the early morning views and learn more about the feathered inhabitants of the area. Children aged 10 and older if accompanied by adult. 

"Drop-in Family Ceramics Workshop," Saturday, 10:15-11:15 a.m. $5. 

"Film Series for Teenagers," Fridays, 7 p.m. 

"Meet the Animals," 11:15 a.m.-noon. 

"Meet the Animals," Saturdays, 11:15 a.m. Learn about the animals that live at the Randall Museum. 

"Golden Gate Model Railroad Exhibit," Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Free. All ages welcome; an adult must accompany children under age 8. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; CLOSED ON CHRISTMAS. 199 Museum Way, San Francisco. (415) 554-9600, www.randallmuseum.org.

 

SAN FRANCISCO CABLE CAR MUSEUM The museum is located in the historic Cable Car Barn and Powerhouse. Visitors can see the actual cable winding machinery, grips, track, cable and brakes, as well as three historic cable cars, photo displays and mechanical artifacts. The best way to get to this museum is by cable car; street parking is practically non-existent. 

Free. October 1-March 31: Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; April 1-September 3-: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Closed on New Year's Day, Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving and Christmas. 1201 Mason St., San Francisco. (415) 474-1887, www.cablecarmuseum.com.

 

SAN FRANCISCO MARITIME NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK One of only a few "floating'' national parks, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park includes four national landmark ships, a maritime museum, a maritime library and a World-War-II submarine named the USS Pampanito.  

HYDE STREET PIER -- Demonstrations, ship tours, programs, music and special events offered throughout the day. Check ticket booth for schedule. At the foot of Hyde Street, Hyde and Jefferson streets.  

Entering the Pier is free but there is a fee to board the ships.  

HISTORIC SHIPS AT THE HYDE STREET PIER -- The historic ships at the Pier are the 1886 square-rigger "Balclutha,'' the 1890 steam ferryboat "Eureka,'' the 1895 schooner "C.A. Thayer'' (not available at this time due to restoration), the 1891 scow schooner "Alma,'' the 1907 steam tug "Hercules,'' and the 1914 "Eppleton Hall,'' a paddlewheel tug.  

"Balclutha." This historic ship, a three-mast square-rigger, has undergone extensive repairs and preservation work. She now contains more original materials and fittings than any other historic merchant square-rigger in the United States. The Balclutha is a designated National Historic Landmark. At Hyde Street Pier.  

"Eureka." Explore this 1890 ferryboat with a 40-foot walking-beam engine. The boat once carried passengers and autos across the San Francisco Bay. At Hyde Street Pier. Daily, call for times of boat tour.  

"C.A. Thayer." A three-mast schooner used in the lumber and cod fishing trades. At Hyde Street Pier.  

"Alma." Between 1850 and the early 1900s, the best highways around the San Francisco Bay area were the waterways and the delivery trucks and tractortrailer rigs of the time were the flat-bottomed scow schooners. Able to navigate the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta region's shallow creeks, sloughs and channels, the scows' sturdy hulls could rest safely and securely on the bottom providing a flat, stable platform for loading and unloading. Made of inexpensive Douglas fir, scow's designs were so simple they could be built by eye or without plans.  

"Hercules." Tugs in the early part of the 20th century towed barges, sailing ships and log rafts between Pacific ports. Because prevailing north/west winds generally made travel up the coast by sail both difficult and circuitous, tugs often towed large sailing vessels to points north of San Francisco. In 1916 Hercules towed the C.A. Thayer to Port Townsend, Wash., taking six days to make the trip. At the end of the sail era, the Hercules was acquired by the Western Pacific Railroad Company and shuttled railroad car barges back and forth across San Francisco Bay until 1962.  

"Eppleton Hall." Built in England, the steam side-wheeler plied the Wear and Tyne rivers of Northeast England. Designed to tow ocean-going colliers (coal-carrying sail vessels) the tugs saved transit time getting the sail vessels upriver to load. The side-wheelers were also used to tow newly built ships out to sea. From 1969 to 1979, the Eppleton Hall served as a private yacht. She was modified for an epic steam via the Panama Canal to San Francisco, passing through the Golden Gate in March of 1970.  

HISTORIC SHIP AT FISHERMAN'S WHARF --  

"USS Pampanito." This World-War-II-era submarine is berthed at Fisherman's Wharf. The submarine celebrated her 50th anniversary in November of 1993 and is perhaps best known for her participation in a "wolf pack'' attack on a convoy of enemy ships during World War II. The entrance fee includes a taped audio tour that describes what life on this submarine was like. At Pier 45, near foot of Taylor Street. Monday through Thursday, Sunday and holidays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. $9 general; $5 seniors, $4 active duty military, $4 youth ages 6 to 12; free children under age 6. (415) 775-1943.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Historic Ship Volunteer Work Party," Saturday, 9 a.m. Become part of an effort to preserve four of the park's nautical treasures. Work on a different ship each Saturday. Bring work clothes, work shoes and lunch. Call for meeting place. (415) 332-8409.  

Unless noted otherwise, events take place on the Hyde Street Pier, located at the foot of Hyde Street on Jefferson Street. 

EXHIBITS -- Current Exhibits at the Visitor Center:  

"What's Your Pleasure? Recreational Boats of California's Past," openended. This exhibit includes 1940s Sacramento Hydroplanes, a Russian River launch from the 19th century, classic wooden motor launches and motor boats, and other smaller crafts.  

"Hydroplanes and Racing Boats," open-ended. A small exhibit showcasing 1930s racing engines and hydroplane boats.  

"Frisco Bound," an exhibition about immigration to San Francisco, clipper ships, and the Gold Rush era.  

"Hyde Street Ship Models," an exhibit of models of the historic ships at the Hyde Street Pier.  

"Discovery Room," a preview of the Maritime Library where visitors can look up documents and photographs.  

(415) 447-5000. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Adventures at Sea: Life Aboard a 19th century Sailing Ship," Daily, 2:15 p.m.-3 p.m. Take a guided tour of the sailing ship Balclutha and learn about the hardships and awards of the sailors show fought for survival during the treacherous Cape Horn passage. Vessel admission. 

VISITOR CENTER -- Daily, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.  

Entering the Pier is free but there is a fee to board the ships. The fee allows access to all ships and is good for seven days. $5; free children under age 16. May 28-Sept. 30: daily, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; Oct. 1-May 27: Daily, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Foot of Hyde Street, San Francisco. (415) 561-7100, www.nps.gov.

 

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF CRAFT AND DESIGN A museum celebrating and promoting the art of contemporary craft and design. The museum showcases diverse exhibitions from regional, national and international artists, working in mediums such as wood, clay, fiber, metal and glass. 

EVENTS --  

"FourSite: 4 Artists, 4 Materials, 4 Sites," through Sept. 18. Artists Tanya Aguiniga, Paul Hayes, Tom Hill and Christine Lee transform the museum space with four distinct, large-scale installations of fiber, paper, metal and wood.  

$2-$4; free youths under age 18. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 550 Sutter St., San Francisco. (415) 773-0303, www.sfmcd.org.

 

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Matisse and Beyond: The Painting and Sculpture Collection," This newly reconceived exhibition of SFMOMA's modern art collection features paintings, sculptures and works on paper from the first 60 years of the 20th century. Featured artists include: Joseph Cornell, Ellsworth Kelly, Yves Klein, Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Andy Warhol and Paul Klee.  

"Between Art and Life: The Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Collection," This new presentation of the SFMOMA collection features works from the past five decades by Louise Bourgeois, Robert Gober, Eva Hesse, Anish Kapoor, Sherrie Levine, Brice Marden, Gordon Matta-Clark, Barry McGee, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg and Kara Walker.  

"The Art of Design: Selections from the Permanent Collection of Architecture and Design," The exhibit will feature 100 selections from their architecture, graphic design and industrial design collections on a rotating basis. It features classic works plus new designs by up-andcoming artists.  

"Picturing Modernity: Photographs from the Permanent Collection," Photography is possibly the quintessential modern art medium because its 160-year history corresponds almost exactly with Modernism's duration as a cultural movement. This exhibit looks at the photograph's unique pictorial ability and its ever-growing pervasiveness in modern culture, putting the medium in dialogue with paintings and other kinds of art.  

KORET VISITOR EDUCATION CENTER -- This facility includes multimedia display technology, "Pick Up and Go'' guides for adults and children, art videos, and a community art gallery created by participants in school, teen and family programs. Thursday, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Tony Labat's I Want You," The latest installment in the newly launched program series "Live Art at SFMOMA.'' The artist invites denizens of the Bay Area to make their own demands of the public which riffs on the iconic "I Want You'' army recruitment campaigns of World Wars I and II, he asks you what you would do if you had only one minute to seize the voice of authority, to be the finger-pointing Uncle Sam. 

"Paul Klee: Three Exhibitions from the Djerassi Collection," through Aug. 1. Carl Djerassi's generous promise to give SFMOMA a substantial group of intimate works - mostly drawings, prints, and watercolors - by Paul Klee allowed the museum to begin in 1984 what would become an ongoing series of exhibitions devoted to this beloved artist.  

OPENING -- "Calder to Warhol," through Sept. 19. Exhibition showcases the quality of the Fisher Collection, much of which has never been seen by the public.  

$7-$12.50; half price on Thursdays after 6 p.m.; free for all visitors on the first Tuesday of every month. Monday, Tuesday and Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-8:45 p.m. 151 Third St., San Francisco. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org.

 

SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMING ARTS LIBRARY AND MUSEUM  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Dance in California: 150 Years of Innovation," This permanent exhibit traces the history and artistic range of modern dance in California, with photographs and documents highlighting the achievements of Lola Montez, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, the Christensen brothers, the Peters Wright School, the company of Lester Horton, Anna Halprin and Lucas Hoving.  

"Maestro! Photographic Portraits by Tom Zimberoff," This permanent exhibit is a comprehensive study of a generation of national and international conductors. In Gallery 5.  

"San Francisco 1900: On Stage," In Gallery 4.  

"San Francisco in Song," In Gallery 3. 

Free. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 1-5 p.m. San Francisco War Memorial Veteran's Building, 401 Van Ness Ave., Fourth Floor, San Francisco. (415) 255-4800, www.sfpalm.org.

 

SEYMOUR PIONEER MUSEUM The museum, owned by The Society of California Pioneers, houses a permanent research library, art gallery and history museum. Exhibits include a photography collection documenting California history. 

$1-$3. Wednesday-Friday and the first Saturday of the month, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Society of California Pioneers, 300 Fourth St., San Francisco. (415) 957-1859, www.californiapioneers.org.

 

TREGANZA ANTHROPOLOGY MUSEUM AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY The museum, founded in 1968, houses collections of archaeological and ethnographic specimens from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and North America as well as small collections from Central and South America. There are also collections of photographs, tapes and phonograph records from Africa and Europe. In addition, there is an archive of field notes and other materials associated with the collections. The museum also houses the Hohenthal Gallery that is used for traveling exhibits as well as exhibits mounted by students and faculty. 

Free. Museum office: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-noon and 1 p.m.-4 p.m.; Hohenthal Gallery, SCI 388: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Science Building, SFSU, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco. (415) 338-2467, www.sfsu.edu/~treganza/.< 

 

ZEUM Zeum is a technology and arts museum for children and families featuring exhibits and workshops that cover a variety of fascinating subjects. 

EVENTS --  

$6-$8. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Wednesday-Sunday. 221 Fourth St., San Francisco. (415) 820-3220, www.zeum.org.<


Museums-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:46:00 PM

AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY AT OAKLAND The Oakland Public Library's museum is designed to discover, preserve, interpret and share the cultural and historical experiences of African Americans in California and the West. In addition, a three-panel mural is on permanent display. 

Free. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5:30 p.m. 659 14th St., Oakland. (510) 637-0200, www.oaklandlibrary.org.

 

ALAMEDA MUSEUM The museum offers permanent displays of Alameda history, the only rotating gallery showcasing local Alameda artists and student artwork, as well as souvenirs, books and videos about the rich history of the Island City. 

OPENING -- "Cross Currents," through July 30. Works by 38 California artists in various media.  

Free. Wednesday-Friday and Sunday, 1-4 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 2324 Alameda Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-1233, www.alamedamuseum.org.

 

BADE MUSEUM AT THE PACIFIC SCHOOL OF RELIGION The museum's collections include the Tell en-Nasbeh Collection, consisting of artifacts excavated from Tell en-Nasbeh in Palestine in 1926 and 1935 by William Badh, and the Howell Bible Collection, featuring approximately 300 rare books (primarily Bibles) dating from the 15th through the 18th centuries. 

"Tell en-Nasbeh," This exhibit is the "heart and soul" of the Bade Museum. It displays a wealth of finds from the excavations at Tell en-Nasbeh, Palestine whose objects span from the Early Bronze Age (3100-2200 BC) through the Iron Age (1200-586 BC) and into the Roman and Hellenistic periods. Highlights of the exhibit include "Tools of the Trade" featuring real archaeological tools used by Badh and his team, an oil lamp typology, a Second Temple period (586 BC-70 AD) limestone ossuary, and a selection of painted Greek pottery.  

"William Frederic Bade: Theologian, Naturalist, and Archaeologist," This exhibit highlights one of PSR's premier educators and innovative scholars. The collection of material on display was chosen with the hopes of representing the truly dynamic and multifaceted character of William F. Badh. He was a family man, a dedicated teacher, a loving friend, and an innovative and passionate archaeologist.  

Free. Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Holbrook Hall, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave., Berkeley. (510) 848-0528, www.bade.psr.edu/bade.< 

 

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE  

"Thom Faulders: BAMscape," through Nov. 30. This commissioned work, a hybrid of sculpture, furniture, and stage, is the new centerpiece of Gallery B, BAM's expansive central atrium. It is part of a new vision of the gallery as a space for interaction, performance, and improvised experiences.  

CLOSING -- "What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect," through July 18. This retrospective surveys the witty, idiosyncratic, and introspective work of William T. Wiley, a beloved Bay Area artist and "a national treasure'' (Wall Street Journal). Layered with ambiguous ideas and allusions, autobiographical narrative and sociopolitical commentary, Wiley's art is rich in self-deprecating humor and absurdist insight.  

"Perpetual and furious refrain / MATRIX 232," through Sept. 12. Exhibition features works by Brent Green.  

"Marisa Olson: Double Bind," through Aug. 31. With a pair of provocative YouTube videos, Olson unravels the promise and pitfalls of online participatory culture.  

"Himalayan Pilgrimage," through Dec. 19. Exhibition features sculpture and painting dating from the ninth to the eighteenth centuries and drawn from a private collection on long-term loan to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.  

OPENING -- "Hauntology," July 14 through Dec. 5. Drawn primarily from the museum's recent acquisitions of contemporary art, this exhibition explores a wide range of art through the lens of the concept of "hauntology,'' a term coined by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in 1993 to refer to the study of social, psychological, and cultural conditions in the post-Communist period.  

2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. < 

 

BLACKHAWK MUSEUM  

AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM -- The museum's permanent exhibition of internationally renowned automobiles dated from 1897 to the 1980s. The cars are displayed as works of art with room to walk completely around each car to admire the workmanship. On long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution is a Long Steam Tricycle; an 1893-94 Duryea, the first Duryea built by the Duryea brothers; and a 1948 Tucker, number 39 of the 51 Tuckers built, which is a Model 48 "Torpedo'' four-door sedan.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"International Automotive Treasures," An ever-changing exhibit featuring over 90 automobiles.  

"A Journey on Common Ground," An exhibit of moving photographs, video and art objects from around the world exploring the causes of disability and the efforts of the Wheelchair Foundation to provide a wheelchair for every person in need who cannot afford one.  

ONGOING EVENT --  

Free Public Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. Docent-led guided tours of the museum's exhibitions. 

$5-$8; free for children ages 6 and under. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 3700 Blackhawk Plaza Circle, Danville. (925) 736-2280, (925) 736-2277, www.blackhawkmuseum.org.

 

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY  

HISTORY WALKABOUTS -- A series of walking tours that explore the history, lore and architecture of California with veteran tour guide Gary Holloway. Walks are given on specific weekends. There is a different meeting place for each weekend and walks take place rain or shine so dress for the weather. Reservations and prepayment required. Meeting place will be given with confirmation of tour reservation. Call for details.  

678 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 357-1848, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org.

 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. 

"Beyond Blastoff: Surviving in Space," An interactive exhibit that allows you to immerse yourself into the life of an astronaut to experience the mixture of exhilaration, adventure and confinement that is living and working in space.  

"Chabot Observatories: A View to the Stars," Explore the history of the Chabot observatories and how its historic telescopes are used today. Daytime visitors can virtually operate a telescope, experiment with mirrors and lenses to understand how telescopes create images of distant objects and travel through more than a century of Chabot's history via multimedia kiosks, historical images and artifact displays.  

EVENTS --  

"Daytime Telescope Viewing," Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. View the sun, the moon and the planets through the telescopes during the day. Free with general admission. 

"Galaxy Explorers Hands-On Fun," Saturday, noon-4 p.m. The Galaxy Explorers lead a variety of fun, hands-on activities, such as examining real spacesuits, creating galaxy flipbooks, learning about telescopes, minerals and skulls and making your own comet. Free with general admission. 

"Live Daytime Planetarium Show," Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Ride through real-time constellations, stars and planets with Chabot's full-dome digital projection system. 

Center Admission: $14.95; $10.95 children 3-12; free children under 3; $3 discount for seniors and students. Telescope viewing only: free. Wednesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Also open on Tuesdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m. after June 29. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 336-7300, www.chabotspace.org.

 

HABITOT CHILDREN'S MUSEUM A museum especially for children ages 7 and under. Highlights include "WaterWorks,'' an area with some unusual water toys, an Infant Tree for babies, a garden especially for toddlers, a child-scale grocery store and cafe, and a costume shop and stage for junior thespians. The museum also features a toy lending library.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Waterworks." A water play gallery with rivers, a pumping station and a water table, designed to teach about water.  

"Little Town Grocery and Cafe." Designed to create the ambience of shopping in a grocery store and eating in a restaurant.  

"Infant-Toddler Garden." A picket fence gated indoor area, which includes a carrot patch with wooden carrots to be harvested, a pretend pond and a butterfly mobile to introduce youngsters to the concept of food, gardening and agriculture.  

"Dramatic Arts Stage." Settings, backdrops and costumes coincide with seasonal events and holidays. Children can exercise their dramatic flair here.  

"Wiggle Wall." The floor-to-ceiling "underground'' tunnels give children a worm's eye view of the world. The tunnels are laced with net covered openings and giant optic lenses. 

"Architects at Play," This hands-on, construction-based miniexhibit provides children with the opportunity to create free-form structures, from skyscrapers to bridges, using KEVA planks.  

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$6-$7. Wednesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Closed Sunday-Tuesday. 2065 Kittredge St., Berkeley. (510) 647-1111, www.habitot.org.

 

HALL OF HEALTH A community health-education museum and science center promoting wellness and individual responsibility for health. There are hands-on exhibits that teach about the workings of the human body, the value of a healthy diet and exercise, and the destructive effects of smoking and drug abuse. "Kids on the Block'' puppet shows, which use puppets from diverse cultures to teach about and promote acceptance of conditions such as cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, leukemia, blindness, arthritis and spina bifida, are available by request for community events and groups visiting the Hall on Saturdays.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"This Is Your Heart!" An interactive exhibit on heart health.  

"Good Nutrition," This exhibit includes models for making balanced meals and an Exercycle for calculating how calories are burned.  

"Draw Your Own Insides," Human-shaped chalkboards and models with removable organs allow visitors to explore the inside of their bodies.  

"Your Cellular Self and Cancer Prevention," An exhibit on understanding how cells become cancerous and how to detect and prevent cancer. 

Suggested $3 donation; free for children under age 3. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 549-1564, www.hallofhealth.org.

 

HAYWARD AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM The museum is located in a former post office and displays memorabilia of early Hayward and southern Alameda County. Some of the features include a restored 1923 Seagrave fire engine and a hand pumper from the Hayward Fire Department, founded in 1865; a Hayward Police Department exhibit; information on city founder William Hayward; and pictures of the old Hayward Hotel. The museum also alternates three exhibits per year, including a Christmas Toys exhibit and a 1950s lifestyle exhibit. 

EVENTS --  

50 cents-$1. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 22701 Main St., Hayward. (510) 581-0223, www.haywardareahistory.org.

 

JUDAH L. MAGNES MUSEUM The museum's permanent collection includes objects of Jewish importance including ceremonial art, film and video, folk art and fine art, paintings, sculptures and prints by contemporary and historical artists. 

"Projections," Multimedia works from the museum's extensive collections of archival, documentary and experimental films. Located at 2911 Russell Street.  

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$4-$6; free for children under age 12. Sunday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. CLOSED APRIL 3-4 AND 9-10; MAY 23-24 AND 28; JULY 4; SEPT. 3, 13 AND 27; OCT. 4; NOV. 22; DEC. 24-25 AND 31. 2911 Russell St., Berkeley. (510) 549-6950, www.magnes.org.

 

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"NanoZone," Discover the science of the super-small: nanotechnology. Through hands-on activities and games, explore this microworld and the scientific discoveries made in this area.  

"Forces That Shape the Bay," A science park that shows and explains why the San Francisco Bay is the way it is, with information on water, erosion, plate tectonics and mountain building. You can ride earthquake simulators, set erosion in motion and look far out into the bay with a powerful telescope from 1,100 feet above sea level. The center of the exhibit is a waterfall that demonstrates how water flows from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Bay. Visitors can control where the water goes. There are also hands-on erosion tables, and a 40-foot-long, 6-foothigh, rock compression wall.  

"Real Astronomy Experience," A new exhibit-in-development allowing visitors to use the tools that real astronomers use. Aim a telescope at a virtual sky and operate a remote-controlled telescope to measure a planet.  

"Biology Lab," In the renovated Biology Lab visitors may hold and observe gentle animals. Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

"The Idea Lab," Experiment with some of the basics of math, science and technology through hands-on activities and demonstrations of magnets, spinning and flying, puzzles and nanotechnology.  

"Math Around the World," Play some of the world's most popular math games, such as Hex, Kalah, Game Sticks and Shongo Networks.  

"Math Rules," Use simple and colorful objects to complete interesting challenges in math through predicting, sorting, comparing, weighing and counting.  

 

"Animal Discovery Room,,' 1:30-4 p.m. Visitors of all ages can hold and touch gentle animals, learn about their behavior and habitats and play with self-guided activities and specimen models.  

"Forces That Shape the Bay," This science park shows and explains why the San Francisco Bay is the way it is, with information on water, erosion, plate tectonics and mountain building.  

"Ingenuity in Action," Summer 2010. Enjoy the best of the Ingenuity Lab. Engage your creative brain and use a variety of materials to design, build and test your own innovations.  

"Kapla," Play with simple, versatile building blocks that can be used to build very large, high and stable structures.  

"KidsLab," This multisensory play area includes larger-than-life blocks, a crawl-through kaleidoscope, the Gravity wall, a puppet theater and a reading area.  

"NanoZone," Discover the science of nanotechnology through handson activities and games.  

"Planetarium," Explore the skies in this interactive planetarium.  

"Science on a Sphere," Catch an out-of-this-world experience with an animated globe. See hurricanes form, tsunamis sweep across the oceans and city lights glow around the planet.  

EVENTS --  

"Scream Machines -- The Science of Roller Coasters, through Jan. 2. This head-spinning, stomach-churning exhibition for thrill-seekers features interactive exhibits, artifacts and images to explore.  

"Summer Fun Days," through Aug. 18. Become a raptor expert, learn the science of the trapeze, engineer the perfect boat or test the ice cream that you yourself make.  

$6-$12; free children ages 2 and under. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of California, Centennial Drive, Berkeley. (510) 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org.

 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

EXHIBITS --  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

 

MEYERS HOUSE AND GARDEN MUSEUM The Meyers House, erected in 1897, is an example of Colonial Revival, an architectural style popular around the turn of the century. Designed by Henry H. Meyers,the house was built by his father, Jacob Meyers, at a cost of $4000.00. 

EXHIBITS --  

$3. Fourth Saturday of every month. 2021 Alameda Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-1247, www.alamedamuseum.org/meyers.html.< 

 

MUSEUM OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE VILLAGE A science museum with an African-American focus promoting science education and awareness for the underrepresented. The science village chronicles the technical achievements of people of African descent from ancient ties to present. There are computer classes at the Internet Cafi, science education activities and seminars. There is also a resource library with a collection of books, periodicals and videotapes. 

$4-$6. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, noon-6 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.-6 p.m. 630 20th St., Oakland. (510) 893-6426, www.ncalifblackengineers.org.

 

MUSEUM OF CHILDREN'S ART A museum of art for and by children, with activities for children to participate in making their own art.  

ART CAMPS -- Hands-on activities and engaging curriculum for children of different ages, led by professional artists and staff. $60 per day.  

CLASSES -- A Sunday series of classes for children ages 8 to 12, led by Mocha artists. Sundays, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

OPEN STUDIOS -- Drop-in art play activities with new themes each week.  

"Big Studio." Guided art projects for children age 6 and older with a Mocha artist. Tuesday through Friday, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. $5.  

"Little Studio." A hands-on experience that lets young artists age 18 months to 5 years see, touch and manipulate a variety of media. Children can get messy. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. $5.  

"Family Weekend Studios." Drop-in art activities for the whole family. All ages welcome. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. $5 per child.  

FAMILY EXTRAVAGANZAS -- Special weekend workshops for the entire family.  

"Sunday Workshops with Illustrators," Sundays, 1 p.m. See the artwork and meet the artists who create children's book illustrations. Free. 

EVENTS --  

"Saturday Stories," 1 p.m. For children ages 2-5. Free. 

CLOSING -- "What the World Needs Now." through July 15. Exhibition features artwork by Bay Area children in grades K-12 on themes of social justice, community awareness and world peace, selected by a jury of artists, professionals and community leaders.  

Free gallery admission. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m. 538 Ninth St., Oakland. (510) 465-8770, www.mocha.org.

 

OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Art a la Carte," Wednesdays, 12:30 p.m. Art docents offer a variety of specialized tours focusing on one aspect of the museum's permanent collection. Free with museum admission.  

"Online Museum," Thursdays, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Explore the museum's collection on videodisks in the History Department Library.  

Docent Gallery Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. 

"Explore our New Gallery," through Dec. 2. The new Gallery of California Art showcases more than 800 works from OMCA's collection-one of the largest and most comprehensive holdings of California art in the world.  

"Gallery of California History," through Dec. 2. This new gallery is based on the theme of Coming to California.  

"Mini Okubo: Citizen 13660," through Aug. 1. Curated by Senior Curator of Art Karen Tsujimoto, this small exhibition of Okubo's poignant works on paper from the Museum's collection charts Okubo's odyssey.  

$5-$8; free for children ages 5 and under; free to all on the second Sunday of the month. Special events are free with museum admission unless noted otherwise. Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; first Friday of the month, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. 1000 Oak St., Oakland. (510) 238-2200, www.museumca.org.

 

PACIFIC PINBALL MUSEUM  

"Pinball Style: Drama and Design," through Aug. 1. Exhibition comments on pinball art from the 1940s through the 2000s.  

1510 Webster St., Alameda. www.pacificpinball.org.

 

PARDEE HOME MUSEUM The historic Pardee Mansion, a three-story Italianate villa built in 1868, was home to three generations of the Pardee family who were instrumental in the civic and cultural development of California and Oakland. The home includes the house, grounds, water tower and barn. Reservations recommended. 

EVENTS --  

$5; free children ages 12 and under. House Tours: Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sundays by appointment. 672 11th St., Oakland. (510) 444-2187, www.pardeehome.org.

 

SAN LEANDRO HISTORY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY The museum showcases local and regional history and serves as a centerpiece for community cultural activity. There are exhibits on Ohlone settlements, farms of early settlers, and contributions of Portuguese and other immigrants. There will also be exhibits of the city's agricultural past and the industrial development of the 19th century.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Yema/Po Archeological Site at Lake Chabot," An exhibit highlighting artifacts uncovered from a work camp of Chinese laborers, featuring photomurals, cutouts and historical photographs. 

Free. Thursday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. 320 West Estudillo Ave., San Leandro. (510) 577-3990, www.ci.sanleandro. ca.us/sllibrarymuseum.html.< 

 

SHADELANDS RANCH HISTORICAL MUSEUM Built by Walnut Creek pioneer Hiram Penniman, this 1903 redwood-framed house is a showcase for numerous historical artifacts, many of which belonged to the Pennimans. It also houses a rich archive of Contra Costa and Walnut Creek history in its collections of old newspapers, photographs and government records. 

EXHIBITS --  

$1-$3; free-children under age 6. Wednesday and Sunday, 1 p.m.-4 p.m.; Closed in January. 2660 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek. (925) 935-7871, www.ci.walnut-creek.ca.us.< 

 

SMITH MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, HAYWARD The museum houses significant collections of archaeological and ethnographic specimens from Africa, Asia and North America and small collections from Central and South America. The museum offers opportunities and materials for student research and internships in archaeology and ethnology. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

Free. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Meiklejohn Hall, Fourth Floor, 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd., Hayward. (510) 885-3104, (510) 885-7414, www.isis.csuhayward.edu/cesmith/acesmith.html.< 

 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY  

"Native California Cultures," This is an exhibit of some 500 artifacts from the museum's California collections, the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world devoted to California Indian cultures. The exhibit includes a section about Ishi, the famous Indian who lived and worked with the museum, Yana tribal baskets and a 17-foot Yurok canoe carved from a single redwood.  

"Recent Acquisitions," The collection includes Yoruba masks and carvings from Africa, early-20th-century Taiwanese hand puppets, textiles from the Americas and 19th- and 20th-century Tibetan artifacts.  

"From the Maker's Hand: Selections from the Permanent Collection," This exhibit explores human ingenuity in the living and historical cultures of China, Africa, Egypt, Peru, North America and the Meditteranean. 

$1-$4; free for children ages 12 and under; free to all on Thursdays. Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Sunday, noon-4:30 p.m. 103 Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Avenue, Berkeley. (510) 643-7648, www.hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu.

 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY MUSEUM OF PALEONTOLOGY  

"Tyrannosaurus Rex," A 20-foot-tall, 40-foot-long replica of the fearsome dinosaur. The replica is made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing.  

"Pteranodon," A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22 to 23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.  

"California Fossils Exhibit," An exhibit of some of the fossils that have been excavated in California. 

Free. During semester sessions, hours generally are: Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m.-10 p.m. Hours vary during summer and holidays. Lobby, 1101 Valley Life Sciences Building, #4780, University of California, Berkeley. (510) 642-1821, www.ucmp.berkeley.edu.

 

USS HORNET MUSEUM Come aboard this World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. The Hornet, launched in 1943, is 899 feet long and 27 stories high. During World War II she was never hit by an enemy strike or plane and holds the Navy record for number of enemy planes shot down in a week. In 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule containing the first men to walk on the moon, and later recovered Apollo 12. In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now docked at the same pier she sailed from in 1944. Today, visitors can tour the massive ship, view World War II-era warplanes and experience a simulated aircraft launch from the carrier's deck. Exhibits are being added on an ongoing basis. Allow two to three hours for a visit. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to climb steep stairs or ladders. Dress in layers as the ship can be cold. Arrive no later than 2 p.m. to sign up for the engine room and other docent-led tours. Children under age 12 are not allowed in the Engine Room or the Combat Information Center.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Limited Access Day," Due to ship maintenance, tours of the navigation bridge and the engine room are not available. Tuesdays.  

"Flight Deck Fun," A former Landing Signal Officer will show children how to bring in a fighter plane for a landing on the deck then let them try the signals themselves. Times vary. Free with regular Museum admission.  

"Protestant Divine Services," Hornet chaplain John Berger conducts church services aboard The Hornet in the Wardroom Lounge. Everyone is welcome and refreshments are served immediately following the service. Sundays, 11 a.m. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Closed on New Year's Day. 

"Family Day," Discounted admission for families of four with a further discount for additional family members. Access to some of the areas may be limited due to ship maintenance. Every Tuesday. $20 for family of four; $5 for each additional family member. 

"Living Ship Day," Experience an aircraft carrier in action, with simulated flight operations as aircraft are lifted to the flight deck and placed in launch position. Some former crewmembers will be on hand. 

"Flashlight Tour," Receive a special tour of areas aboard the ship that have not yet been opened to the public or that have limited access during the day. 

"The World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra," July 17, 8 p.m. Keeping the sound and spirit of the legendary World War II era big band leader alive, this swingin' concert will be in the perfect location, the historic aircraft carrier USS Hornet. $45-$98. 

$6-$14; free children age 4 and under with a paying adult. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Pier 3 (enter on Atlantic Avenue), Alameda Point, Alameda. (510) 521-8448, www.uss-hornet.org.<


General-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:48:00 PM

ALAMEDA COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS  

"A Day at the Races," July 10, Noon-6 p.m. Includes buffet lunch, a lesson on places bets, horseracing and more. Proceeds benefit Axis Community Health. $50. www.axishealth.org. 

4501 Pleasanton Ave., Pleasanton. (925) 426-7600, www.alamedacountyfair.com.

 

ASHKENAZ  

"I Like My Bike Night," First Friday of the month, 9 p.m. This monthly series brings bicycle innovators, enthusiasts, artists and organizations together under one roof, as well as encourages regular Ashkenaz show-goers to leave their cars in the driveway and arrive at the venue by bicycle instead. $8-$25.  

1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.

 

AUCTIONS BY THE BAY  

"ArtiFacts: A Lecture Series for Collectors," Guest curators, scholars and conservation experts from throughout the Bay Area discuss the art of collecting. First Sunday of every month, 3 p.m. $7.  

Auctions by the Bay Theater-Auction House, 2700 Saratoga St., Alameda. (510) 835-6187, www.auctionsbythebay.com.

 

BAY AREA FREE BOOK EXCHANGE  

"Free Books," Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Donate your unwanted books and receive new titles for free.  

10520 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. (510) 526-1941, www.bayareafreebookexchange.com.

 

CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY AND LIBRARY  

"California Genealogical Society and Library Free First Saturday," 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Event takes place on the first Saturday of every month, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Trace and compile your family history at this month's open house event. Free. www.calgensoc.org. 

2201 Broadway, Suite LL2, Oakland. (510) 663-1358.< 

 

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY  

HISTORY WALKABOUTS -- A series of walking tours that explore the history, lore and architecture of California with veteran tour guide Gary Holloway. Walks are given on specific weekends. There is a different meeting place for each weekend and walks take place rain or shine so dress for the weather. Reservations and prepayment required. Meeting place will be given with confirmation of tour reservation. Call for details.  

678 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 357-1848, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org.

 

CALIFORNIA MAGIC THEATER  

"Dinner Theater Magic Show," Friday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Enter the joyous and bewildering world of illusions and magic while chowing down on a home cooked meal. Each weekend features different professional magicians. Recommended for ages 13 and older. $54-$64 includes meal.  

729 Castro St., Martinez. (925) 374-0056, www.calmagic.com.

 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. 

Center Admission: $14.95; $10.95 children 3-12; free children under 3; $3 discount for seniors and students. Telescope viewing only: free. Wednesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Also open on Tuesdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m. after June 29. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 336-7300, www.chabotspace.org.

 

DUNSMUIR HOUSE AND GARDENS HISTORIC ESTATE Nestled in the Oakland hills, the 50-acre Dunsmuir House and Gardens estate includes the 37-room Neoclassical Revival Dunsmuir Mansion, built by coal and lumber baron Alexander Dunsmuir for his bride. Restored outbuildings set amid landscaped gardens surround the mansion.  

ESTATE GROUNDS -- Self-Guided Grounds Tours are available yearround. The 50 acres of gardens and grounds at the mansion are open to the public for walking Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Booklets and maps of the grounds are available at the Dinkelspiel House. Free.  

GUIDED TOURS -- Docent-led tours are available on the first Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (except for July) and Wednesdays at 11 a.m. $5 adults, $4 seniors and juniors (11-16), children 11 and under free. 

Dunsmuir House and Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. (510) 615-5555, www.dunsmuir.org.

 

EXPRESSION COLLEGE FOR DIGITAL ARTS  

Danny Young, July 16, 6-8 p.m. The graphic designer offers his perspective on the future of the design profession. Free.  

6601 Shellmound St., Emeryville. (510) 654-2934, www.expression.edu.

 

FRANK OGAWA PLAZA  

"Oakland Artisan Marketplace," Fridays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The City of Oakland and Cultural Arts & Marketing Department presents a weekly market featuring fine arts and crafts of local artists. Free. (510) 238-4948, www.oaklandartisanmarketplace.org. 

14th Street and Broadway, Oakland. < 

 

JACK LONDON AQUATIC CENTER  

"Oakland Artisan Marketplace,"' Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sundays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The City of Oakland and Cultural Arts & Marketing Department presents a weekly market featuring fine arts and crafts of local artists. Free. (510) 238-4948, www.oaklandartisanmarketplace.org. 

115 Embarcadero, Oakland. < 

 

JACK LONDON SQUARE  

"Dancing Under the Stars," July 9 and July 16, 8:30-10 p.m. The Linden Street Dance Studio provides free dance lessons to all at the foot of Broadway.  

P-PL, Bill Norwood, July 9, Noon-2 p.m.  

"Dog Days of Summer," July 11, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Take your dog for a walk and join the Oakland SPCA in getting a photographic portrait of your pet.  

House of David, July 13, Noon.  

Joshua Cedar, July 16, Noon.  

Foot of Broadway, Oakland. (866) 295-9853, www.jacklondonsquare.com.

 

JC CELLARS  

"Annual Beach Party," July 10, 1-4 p.m. Featuring wine, food, music and a children's craft table. $25-$30.  

55 Fourth St., Oakland. (510) 465-5900.< 

 

LA PENA CULTURAL CENTER  

Richelle Donigan, Sparlha Swa, July 9, 8 p.m. $15-$50.  

Flamenco Al Andaluz, July 11, 8 p.m. $20-$25.  

Viva el Mariachi, July 16, 8 p.m. $20-$35.  

3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org.

 

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"NanoZone," Discover the science of the super-small: nanotechnology. Through hands-on activities and games, explore this microworld and the scientific discoveries made in this area.  

"Forces That Shape the Bay," A science park that shows and explains why the San Francisco Bay is the way it is, with information on water, erosion, plate tectonics and mountain building. You can ride earthquake simulators, set erosion in motion and look far out into the bay with a powerful telescope from 1,100 feet above sea level. The center of the exhibit is a waterfall that demonstrates how water flows from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Bay. Visitors can control where the water goes. There are also hands-on erosion tables, and a 40-foot-long, 6-foothigh, rock compression wall.  

"Real Astronomy Experience," A new exhibit-in-development allowing visitors to use the tools that real astronomers use. Aim a telescope at a virtual sky and operate a remote-controlled telescope to measure a planet.  

"Biology Lab," In the renovated Biology Lab visitors may hold and observe gentle animals. Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

"The Idea Lab," Experiment with some of the basics of math, science and technology through hands-on activities and demonstrations of magnets, spinning and flying, puzzles and nanotechnology.  

"Math Around the World," Play some of the world's most popular math games, such as Hex, Kalah, Game Sticks and Shongo Networks.  

"Math Rules," Use simple and colorful objects to complete interesting challenges in math through predicting, sorting, comparing, weighing and counting.  

 

HOLT PLANETARIUM Shows on Saturdays and Sundays. Programs recommended for ages 6 and up unless otherwise noted. $2.50-$3 in addition to general admission.  

$6-$12; free children ages 2 and under. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of California, Centennial Drive, Berkeley. (510) 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org.

 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE Exploring cinema from the Bay Area and cultures around the world, the Pacific Film Archive offers daily film screenings, including rare and rediscovered prints of movie classics; new and historic works by world famous directors; restored silent films with live musical accompaniment; retrospectives; and new and experimental works. Check Web site for a full schedule of films.  

"First Impressions: Free First Thursdays," first Thursday of every month. Special tours and movie presentations. Admission is free. 

Single feature: $5-$8; Double feature: $9-$12 general. PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, MORRISON LIBRARY  

"Lunch Poems," First Thursday of the month, 12:10-12:50 p.m.  

2600 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-3671.< 

 

USS HORNET MUSEUM Come aboard this World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. The Hornet, launched in 1943, is 899 feet long and 27 stories high. During World War II she was never hit by an enemy strike or plane and holds the Navy record for number of enemy planes shot down in a week. In 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule containing the first men to walk on the moon, and later recovered Apollo 12. In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now docked at the same pier she sailed from in 1944. Today, visitors can tour the massive ship, view World War II-era warplanes and experience a simulated aircraft launch from the carrier's deck. Exhibits are being added on an ongoing basis. Allow two to three hours for a visit. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to climb steep stairs or ladders. Dress in layers as the ship can be cold. Arrive no later than 2 p.m. to sign up for the engine room and other docent-led tours. Children under age 12 are not allowed in the Engine Room or the Combat Information Center.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Limited Access Day," Due to ship maintenance, tours of the navigation bridge and the engine room are not available. Tuesdays.  

"Flight Deck Fun," A former Landing Signal Officer will show children how to bring in a fighter plane for a landing on the deck then let them try the signals themselves. Times vary. Free with regular Museum admission.  

"Protestant Divine Services," Hornet chaplain John Berger conducts church services aboard The Hornet in the Wardroom Lounge. Everyone is welcome and refreshments are served immediately following the service. Sundays, 11 a.m. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Closed on New Year's Day. 

"Flashlight Tour," Receive a special tour of areas aboard the ship that have not yet been opened to the public or that have limited access during the day. 

"Living Ship Day," Experience an aircraft carrier in action, with simulated flight operations as aircraft are lifted to the flight deck and placed in launch position. Some former crewmembers will be on hand. 

"Family Day," Discounted admission for families of four with a further discount for additional family members. Access to some of the areas may be limited due to ship maintenance. Every Tuesday. $20 for family of four; $5 for each additional family member. 

"The World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra," July 17, 8 p.m. Keeping the sound and spirit of the legendary World War II era big band leader alive, this swingin' concert will be in the perfect location, the historic aircraft carrier USS Hornet. $45-$98. 

$6-$14; free children age 4 and under with a paying adult. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Pier 3 (enter on Atlantic Avenue), Alameda Point, Alameda. (510) 521-8448, www.uss-hornet.org.<


Outdoors-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:45:00 PM

ARDENWOOD HISTORIC FARM Ardenwood farm is a working farm that dates back to the time of the Patterson Ranch, a 19th-century estate with a mansion and Victorian Gardens. Today, the farm still practices farming techniques from the 1870s. Unless otherwise noted, programs are free with regular admission.  

ONGOING PROGRAMS --  

"Blacksmithing," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Watch a blacksmith turn iron into useful tools.  

"Horse-Drawn Train," Thursday, Friday and Sunday. A 20-minute ride departs from Ardenwood Station and Deer Park.  

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3-4 p.m. Help slop the hogs, check the henhouse for eggs and bring hay to the livestock.  

"Victorian Flower Arranging," Thursday, 10:15-11:30 a.m. Watch as Ardenwood docents create floral works of art for display in the Patterson House.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Horse-Drawn Train Rides," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10:15 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Meet Jigs or Tucker the Belgian Draft horses that pull Ardenwood's train. Check the daily schedule and meet the train at Ardenwood Station or Deer Park. 

"Country Kitchen Cookin'," Sundays, 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Enjoy the flavor of the past with treats cooked on Ardenwood's wood burning stove. Sample food grown on the farm and discover the history of your favorite oldtime snacks. 

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3 p.m. Feed the pigs, check for eggs and bring hay to the livestock. 

"Toddler Time," Tuesdays, 11-11:30 a.m. Bring the tiny tots out for an exciting morning at the farm. Meet and learn all about a new animal friend through stories, chores and fun.  

"Potato Harvesting," Learn the spectacular history of this New World native as you dig with your spade and help find the spuds. 

"Satisfying Sugar Cookies," July 10, Noon-1 p.m. Help roll and press cookies. 

"Chores in the Vegetable Garden," July 10 and July 17, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Plant seeds and turn compost in the vegetable garden. 

"The Art of Victorian Gardening," July 11, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Explore the Heirloom Vegetable Garden. 

"Have a Marvelous Moo-Tastic Day," July 17, 10:30 a.m. Listen to stories and color a cow picture. 

"Afternoon Fun and Games," July 17 and Aug. 28, 2-3 p.m. Try old-fashioned games. 

"Oreos Galore," July 17, 1-2 p.m. Learn about the famous cookie's past. 

"Rope Makin' and Hay Hoistin," July 18, 10:30 a.m. Learn to make rope. 

"The Little Red Hen," July 18, 11 a.m. Meet a Rhode Island Red and help read the story of the Little Red Hen. 

"Fixin' Feed," July 18, Noon-1 p.m. Learn about the many types of corn. 

$1-$5; free children under age 4. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 34600 Ardenwood Blvd., Fremont. (510) 796-0199, (510) 796-0663, www.ebparks.org.

 

BAY AREA RAIL TRAILS A network of trails converted from unused railway corridors and developed by the Rails to Trails Conservancy.  

BLACK DIAMOND MINES REGIONAL PRESERVE RAILROAD BED TRAIL -- This easy one mile long rail trail on Mount Diablo leads to many historic sites within the preserve. Suitable for walking, horseback riding, and mountain biking. Accessible year round but may be muddy during the rainy season. Enter from the Park Entrance Station parking lot on the East side of Somersville Road, Antioch.  

IRON HORSE REGIONAL TRAIL -- The paved trail has grown into a 23 mile path between Concord and San Ramon with a link into Dublin. The trail runs from the north end of Monument Boulevard at Mohr Lane, east to Interstate 680, in Concord through Walnut Creek to just south of Village Green Park in San Ramon. It will eventually extend from Suisun Bay to Pleasanton and has been nominated as a Community Millennium Trail under the U.S. Millennium Trails program. A smooth shaded trail suitable for walkers, cyclists, skaters and strollers. It is also wheelchair accessible. Difficulty: easy to moderate in small chunks; hard if taken as a whole.  

LAFAYETTE/MORAGA REGIONAL TRAIL -- A 7.65 mile paved trail converted from the Sacramento Northern Rail line. This 20-year old trail goes along Las Trampas Creek and parallels St. Mary's Road. Suitable for walkers, equestrians, and cyclists. Runs from Olympic Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road in Lafayette to Moraga. The trail can be used year round.  

OHLONE GREENWAY -- A 3.75-mile paved trail converted from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway. Suitable for walkers, strollers and skaters. It is also wheelchair accessible. The trail runs under elevated BART tracks from Conlon and Key Streets in El Cerrito to Virginia and Acton Streets in Berkeley.  

SHEPHERD CANYON TRAIL -- An easy 3-mile paved trail converted from the Sacramento Northern Rail Line. The tree-lined trail is gently sloping and generally follows Shepherd Canyon Road. Suitable for walkers and cyclists. It is also wheelchair accessible. Begins in Montclair Village behind McCaulou's Department Store on Medau Place and ends at Paso Robles Drive, Oakland. Useable year round. 

Free. (415) 397-2220, www.traillink.com.

 

BAY AREA RIDGE TRAIL The Bay Area Ridge Trail, when completed, will be a 400-mile regional trail system that will form a loop around the entire San Francisco Bay region, linking 75 public parks and open spaces to thousands of people and hundreds of communities. Hikes on portions of the trail are available through the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council. Call for meeting sites.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

ALAMEDA COUNTY -- "Lake Chabot Bike Rides." These rides are for strong beginners and intermediates to build skill, strength and endurance at a non hammerhead pace. No one will be dropped. Reservations required. Distance: 14 miles. Elevation gain: 1,000 feet. Difficulty: beginner to intermediate. Pace: moderate. Meeting place: Lake Chabot Road at the main entrance to the park. Thursday, 6:15 a.m. (510) 468-3582.  

ALAMEDA-CONTRA COSTA COUNTY -- "Tilden and Wildcat Bike Rides." A vigorous ride through Tilden and Wildcat Canyon regional parks. Reservations required. Distance: 15 miles. Elevation gain: 2,000 feet. Difficulty: intermediate. Pace: fast. Meeting place: in front of the North Berkeley BART Station. Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. (510) 849-9650. 

Free. (415) 561-2595, www.ridgetrail.org.

 

BICYCLE TRAILS COUNCIL OF THE EAST BAY The Council sponsors trail work days, Youth Bike Adventure Rides, and Group Rides as well as Mountain Bike Basics classes which cover training and handling skills.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Weekly Wednesday Ride at Lake Chabot," Wednesdays, 6:30 p.m. A 13- to 20-mile ride exploring the trails around Lake Chabot, with 1,500 to 2,000 feet of climbing. Meet at 6:15 p.m. in the parking lot across from the public safety offices at Lake Chabot in Castro Valley. Reservations requested. (510) 727-0613.  

"Weekly Wednesday 'Outer' East Bay Ride," Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m. Ride some of the outer East Bay parks each week, such as Wild Cat Canyon, Briones, Mount Diablo, Tilden and Joaquin Miller-Redwood. Meeting place and ride location vary. Reservations required. (510) 888-9757. 

Free. (510) 466-5123, www.btceb.org.

 

BOTANIC GARDEN  

EVENTS --  

Intersection of Wildcat Canyon Road and South Park Drive, Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. www.ebparks.org.

 

COYOTE HILLS REGIONAL PARK The park is located on the shoreline of Fremont Bay and features rich wetland areas as well as Ohlone Indian shellmound sites. Hiking in the park allows scenic views of San Francisco Bay and southern Alameda County. The 12-mile Alameda Creek Trail runs from the Bay east to the mouth of Niles Canyon and features an equestrian trail as well as a bicycle trail; hikers are welcome on both. The park conducts naturalist programs and has a visitor center with a nature store and Ohlone, natural history and wildlife exhibits.  

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Free unless otherwise noted.  

"Skulls of the Past," July 17 through , 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Construct a California Native-style tule mat from a marsh plant. 

"Ohlone Village Site Hike," July 18, 10 a.m.-noon. Visit an Ohlone site and learn about their way of life. 

Free unless otherwise noted; A parking fee may be charged. Registration required for events. April through October: daily, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; October through April, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., unless otherwise posted. 8000 Patterson Pass Road, Fremont. (510) 636-1684, (510) 795-9385, www.ebparks.org.

 

CRAB COVE VISITOR CENTER At Crab Cove, you can see live underwater creatures and go into the San Francisco Bay from land. You can also travel back in time to Alameda's part. The goal is to increase understanding of the environmental importance of San Francisco Bay and the ocean ecosystem. Crab Cove's Indoor Aquarium and Exhibit Lab is one of the largest indoor aquariums in the East Bay. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Sea Squirts," 10-11:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Discover the wonders of nature with your little one. Registration is required. $6-$8. 

"Catch of the Day," Sundays, 2-3 p.m. Drop by to find out more about the Bay and its wildlife through guided exploration and hands-on fun. 

"Sea Siblings," Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Explore the natural world and take part in a theme related craft. Designed for the 3-5 year old learner. Registration is required. $4. (888) 327-2757. 

"Seaside Sun Catchers," July 10, 1-2 p.m. Make a sun catcher and learn about sea life. 

"Nature Games by the Bay," July 17, 11 a.m.-noon. Play nature themedgames. 

"Beach Art by the Bay," July 18, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Transform found objects into art. 

Free unless otherwise noted; parking fee may be charged. 1252 McKay Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-6887, www.ebparks.org.

 

DUNSMUIR HOUSE AND GARDENS HISTORIC ESTATE Nestled in the Oakland hills, the 50-acre Dunsmuir House and Gardens estate includes the 37-room Neoclassical Revival Dunsmuir Mansion, built by coal and lumber baron Alexander Dunsmuir for his bride. Restored outbuildings set amid landscaped gardens surround the mansion.  

ESTATE GROUNDS -- Self-Guided Grounds Tours are available yearround. The 50 acres of gardens and grounds at the mansion are open to the public for walking Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Booklets and maps of the grounds are available at the Dinkelspiel House. Free.  

GUIDED TOURS -- Docent-led tours are available on the first Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (except for July) and Wednesdays at 11 a.m. $5 adults, $4 seniors and juniors (11-16), children 11 and under free. 

Dunsmuir House and Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. (510) 615-5555, www.dunsmuir.org.

 

FIFTY-PLUS ADVENTURE WALKS AND RUNS The walks and runs are 3-mile round-trips, lasting about one hour on the trail. All levels of ability are welcome. The walks are brisk, however, and may include some uphill terrain. Events are held rain or shine and on all holidays except Christmas and the Fifty-Plus Annual Fitness Weekend. Call for dates, times and details. 

Free. (650) 323-6160, www.50plus.org.

 

FOREST HOME FARMS The 16-acre former farm of the Boone family is now a municipal historic park in San Ramon. It is located at the base of the East Bay Hills and is divided into two parts by Oak Creek. The Boone House is a 22-room Dutch colonial that has been remodeled several times since it was built in 1900. Also on the property are a barn built in the period from 1850 to 1860; the Victorian-style David Glass House, dating from the late 1860s to early 1870s; a storage structure for farm equipment and automobiles; and a walnut processing plant. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Public tours available by appointment. 19953 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon. (925) 973-3281, www.ci.sanramon. ca.us/parks/boone.htm.< 

 

GARIN AND DRY CREEK PIONEER REGIONAL PARKS Independent nature study is encouraged here, and guided interpretive programs are available through the Coyote Hills Regional Park Visitor Center in Fremont. The Garin Barn Visitor Center is open Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In late summer, the Garin Apple Festival celebrates Garin's apple orchards. The parks also allow picnicking, hiking, horseback riding and fishing. 

Free; $5 parking fee per vehicle; $2 per dog. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 1320 Garin Ave., Hayward. (510) 562-PARK, (510) 795-9385, www.ebparks.org/parks/garin.htm.< 

 

GREENBELT ALLIANCE OUTINGS A series of hikes, bike rides and events sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance, the Bay Area's non-profit land conservation and urban planning organization. Call for meeting places. Reservations required for all trips.  

ALAMEDA COUNTY --  

"Self-Guided Urban Outing: Berkeley," This interactive smart growth walking tour of central Berkeley examines some of the exciting projects that help alleviate the housing shortage in the city as well as amenities important to making a livable community. The walk, which includes the GAIA Cultural Center, Allston Oak Court, The Berkeley Bike Station, University Terrace and Strawberry Creek Park, takes between an hour-and-ahalf to two hours at a leisurely pace. Download the itinerary which gives specific directions by entering www.greeenbelt.org and clicking on "get involved'' and then "urban outings.'' Drop down and click on Berkeley. Free. 

Free unless otherwise noted. (415) 255-3233, www.greenbelt.org.

 

HAYWARD REGIONAL SHORELINE With 1,682 acres of salt, fresh and brackish water marshes, seasonal wetlands and the approximately three-mile San Lorenzo Trail, the Hayward Shoreline restoration project is one of the largest of its kind on the West Coast, comprising 400 acres of marshland. Part of the East Bay Regional Park District. 

EVENTS --  

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 3010 W. Winton Ave., Hayward. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org/parks/hayward.htm.< 

 

HAYWARD SHORELINE INTERPRETIVE CENTER Perched on stilts above a salt marsh, the Center offers an introduction to the San Francisco Bay-Estuary. It features exhibits, programs and activities designed to inspire a sense of appreciation, respect and stewardship for the Bay, its inhabitants and the services they provide. The Habitat Room offers a preview of what may be seen outside. The 80-gallon Bay Tank contains some of the fish that live in the Bay's open waters, and the Channel Tank represents habitats formed by the maze of sloughs and creeks that snake through the marsh. The main room of the Center features rotating exhibits about area history, plants and wildlife. Part of the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Exploring Nature," An exhibit of Shawn Gould's illustrations featuring images of the natural world. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Nature Detectives," 11 a.m.-noon. An introduction and exploration of the world of Black-Crowned Night-Herons. Ages 3-5 and their caregivers. Registration required. 

"Weekend Weed Warriors," 1-4 p.m. Help the shoreline to eliminate the non-native plants that threaten its diversity. Ages 12 and older. Registration required. 

"Waterfowl of the Freshwater Marsh," 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Join an expert birder to go "behind the gates'' to areas of the marsh that are not open to the public. 

"West Winton Bird Walk," July 10, 8-10 a.m. Watch for Willet and Curlews.  

"Lil' Snake Charmers," July 11, Noon-1 p.m. Learn about the gopher snake.  

Free. Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 4901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. (510) 670-7270, www.hard.dst.ca.us/hayshore.html.< 

 

JOHN MUIR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE The site preserves the 1882 Muir House, a 17-room Victorian mansion where naturalist John Muir lived from 1890 to his death in 1914. It was here that Muir wrote about preserving America's wilderness and helped create the national parks idea for the United States. The house is situated on a hill overlooking the City of Martinez and surrounded by nine acres of vineyards and orchards. Take a self-guided tour of this well-known Scottish naturalist's home. Also part of the site is the historic Martinez Adobe and Mount Wanda.  

ONGOING EVENT --  

Public Tours of the John Muir House, Begin with an eight-minute park film and then take the tour. The film runs every 15 minutes throughout the day. Wednesday through Friday, 2 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.  

MOUNT WANDA -- The mountain consists of 325 acres of grass and oak woodland historically owned by the Muir family. It offers a nature trail and several fire trails for hiking. Open daily, sunrise to sunset. 

JOHN MUIR HOUSE, Tours of this well-known Scottish naturalist's home are available. The house, built in 1882, is a 14-room Victorian home situated on a hill overlooking the city of Martinez and surrounded by nine acres of vineyards and orchards. It was here that Muir wrote about preserving America's wilderness and helped create the national parks idea for the United States. The park also includes the historic Vicente Martinez Adobe, built in 1849. An eight-minute film about Muir and the site is shown every 15 minutes throughout the day at the Visitor Center. Self guided tours of the Muir home, the surrounding orchards, and the Martinez Adobe: Wednesday-Sunday, 1 a.m.-5 p.m. Public tours or the first floor of the Muir home: Wednesday-Friday, 2 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Reservations not required except for large groups.  

$3 general; free children ages 16 and under. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 4202 Alhambra Ave., Martinez. (925) 228-8860, www.nps.gov/jomu.< 

 

KENNEDY GROVE REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The 95-acre park contains picnic areas, horseshoe pits and volleyball courts among its grove of aromatic eucalyptus trees.  

$5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs Through September: daily, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. San Pablo Dam Road, El Sobrante. (510) 223-7840, www.ebparks.org.

 

LAKE CHABOT REGIONAL PARK The 315-acre lake offers year-round recreation. Services include canoe and boat rental, horseshoe pits, hiking, bicycling, picnicking and seasonal tours aboard the Chabot Queen. For boat rentals, call (510) 247-2526. 

Free unless noted otherwise; $5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs. Daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. 17930 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

EXHIBITS --  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

 

LIVERMORE AREA RECREATION AND PARK DISTRICT  

4444 East Ave., Livermore. (925) 373-5700, www.larpd.dst.ca.us/.< 

 

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. SHORELINE This 1,200-acre park situated near Oakland International Airport offers picnic areas with barbecues and a boat launch ramp. Swimming is not allowed. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Grove, a group of trees surrounding a grassy glade, is at the intersection of Doolittle Drive and Swan Way. The area also includes the 50-acre Arrowhead Marsh (part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network) and a Roger Berry sculpture titled "Duplex Cone,'' which traces the summer and winter solstice paths of the sun through the sky. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted Doolittle Drive and Swan Way, Oakland. (510) 562-PARK, Picnic reservations: (510) 636-1684, www.ebayparks.org.

 

MILLER-KNOX REGIONAL SHORELINE A 295-acre shoreline picnic area with a secluded cove and swimming beach, and a hilltop offering panoramic views of the north Bay Area. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted. 900 Dornan Dr., Richmond. (510) 562-PARK, Picnic Reservations: (510) 636-1684, www.ebparks.org.

 

MOUNT DIABLO STATE PARK The 3,849-foot summit of Mount Diablo offers great views of the Bay Area and an extensive trail system. Visitors to the park can hike, bike, ride on horseback and camp. Notable park attractions include: The Fire Interpretive Trail, Rock City, Boy Scout Rocks and Sentinel Rock, Fossil Ridge, Deer Flat, Mitchell Canyon Staging Area, Diablo Valley Overlook, the Summit Visitor Center (open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.), the Art Gallery, the Observation Deck and the Mitchell Canyon Interpretive Center. 

Free. $6 per vehicle park-entrance fee; $5 for seniors. Daily, 8 a.m. to sunset. Mount Diablo Scenic Boulevard, from the Diablo Road exit off Interstate Highway 680, Danville. (925) 837-2525, www.mdia.org or www.parks.ca.gov.

 

PLEASANTON RIDGE REGIONAL PARK This 3,163-acre parkland is on the oak-covered ridge overlooking Pleasanton and the Livermore Valley from the west. A multi-purpose trail system accommodates hikers, equestrians and bicyclists. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Foothill Road, Pleasanton. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

POINT PINOLE REGIONAL SHORELINE The 2,315-acre parkland bordering Pinole, Richmond and San Pablo offers views of Mount Tamalpais, the Marin shoreline and San Pablo Bay. There are trails through meadows and woods, and along the bluffs and beaches of San Pablo Bay. Visitors can hike, ride bikes or take the park's shuttle bus to reach the 1,250-foot fishing pier at Point Pinole. 

$5 per vehicle; $4 per trailered vehicle; $2 per dog (guide/service dogs free). Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted. Giant Highway, Richmond. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

QUARRY LAKES REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The park includes three lakes sculpted from former quarry ponds. The largest, Horseshoe Lake, offers boating and fishing, with a swim beach that will open in the spring. Rainbow Lake is for fishing only, and the third lake, Lago Los Osos, is set aside for wildlife habitat. In addition, there are hiking and bicycling trails that connect to the Alameda Creek Regional Trail. The park includes three lakes sculpted from former quarry ponds. The largest, Horseshoe Lake, offers boating and fishing, with a swim beach that will open in the spring. Rainbow Lake is for fishing only, and the third lake, Lago Los Osos, is set aside for wildlife habitat. In addition there are hiking and bicycling trails that connect to the Alameda Creek Regional Trail. 

$5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs; boat launch fees; Park District fishing access permit fee of $3. Through Labor Day: daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sept. 6 through Sept. 30, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. 2100 Isherwood Way,, between Paseo Padre Parkway and Osprey Drive,, Fremont. (510) 795-4883, Picnic reservations:: (510) 562-2267, www.ebparks.org.

 

ROBERT SIBLEY VOLCANIC REGIONAL PRESERVE East Bay residents have several volcanoes in their backyard. This park contains Round Top, one of the highest peaks in the Oakland Hills. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 6800 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

RUTH BANCROFT GARDEN One of America's finest private gardens, the Ruth Bancroft Garden displays 2,000 specimens from around the world that thrive in an arid climate. Included are African and Mexican succulents, New World cacti, Australian and Chilean trees, and shrubs from California. 

DOCENT TOUR SCHEDULE -- Saturdays, 10 a.m. Docent-led tours last approximately an hour and a half. Plant sales follow the tour. By reservation only. $7; free children under age 12.  

SELF-GUIDED TOURS -- Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-noon; Friday, 9:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. Self-guided tours last two hours. No reservations required for weekday tours; reservations required for Friday and Saturday tours. Plant sales follow the tours. $7; free children under age 12.  

Gardens open only for tours and special events listed on the garden's telephone information line. 1500 Bancroft Road, Walnut Creek. (925) 210-9663, www.ruthbancroftgarden.org.

 

SHADOW CLIFFS REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The 296-acre park includes an 80-acre lake and a four-flume waterslide, with picnic grounds and a swimming beach. Water slide fees and hours: (925) 829-6230. 

$6 per vehicle; $2 per dog except guide and service dogs. May 1 through Labor Day: daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; shortened hours for fall and winter. Stanley Boulevard, one mile from downtown, Pleasanton. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

SULPHUR CREEK NATURE CENTER A wildlife rehabilitation and education facility where injured and orphaned local wild creatures are rehabilitated and released when possible. There is also a lending library of animals such as guinea pigs, rats, mice and more. The lending fee is $8 per week.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Toddler Time," Learn about animals by listening to stories and exploring. Themes vary by month. Call for schedule. $7 per family.  

"Day on the Green Animal Presentations," Meet an assortment of wild and domestic animals. Wildlife volunteers will present a different animal each day from possums to snakes, tortoises to hawks. Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 p.m. 

CHILDREN'S EVENTS --  

Free. Park: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Discovery Center: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Animal Lending Library: Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Wildlife Rehabilitation Center: daily, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 1801 D St., Hayward. (510) 881-6747, www.haywardrec.org/sulphur_creek.html.< 

 

SUNOL REGIONAL WILDERNESS This park is full of scenic and natural wonders. You can hike the Ohlone Wilderness trail or Little Yosemite. There are bedrock mortars that were used by Native Americans, who were Sunol's first inhabitants. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Sunol Sunday Hike," Sundays, 1:30-3 p.m. A natural history walk in Sunol Regional Wilderness. 

"Sunol Sunday Hike," Sundays, 1:30-3 p.m. A natural history walk in the wilderness. 

"Early Hike to Magpie Swale," July 11, 7-10 a.m. Discover where the magpies dwell. 

"Stream Creatures," July 11, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Explore Alameda Creek for the mysterious creatures beneath the surface. 

"Valley Nature Ride," July 18, 10 a.m. Learn about this preserve on a horseback ride. $25-$29. 

Free unless otherwise noted; $5 parking; $2 dog fee. Geary Road off Calaveras Road, six miles south of Interstate Highway 680, Sunol. (510) 652-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

TILDEN REGIONAL PARK This park is large and contains hiking trails, a golf course, a miniature scaled train to ride, The Brazilian Building and picnic areas. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Sushio Workshop for the More Adventurous," July 10, 11:30-2:30 p.m. Make and taste seven of the more exotic varieties of sushi. $30-$40. 

"Get Your Fish Face On," July 10, 2-3 p.m. Explore a day in the life of a fish. 

"A Butterfly Bonanza," July 11, 2-3 p.m. Capture and release buckeye butterflies, ringlets, swallowtails and more. 

"Toddler Nature Walk," July 11, 10:30-11:30 a.m. A nature adventure for young children and their grown-up friends. 

"Personal Acts, Global Impacts," July 18, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Learna bout ecological footprints. 

"Flutter by Butterflies," July 18, 2:30-4 p.m. Tour the butterfly garden. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Entrances off Wildcat Canyon Road and Grizzly Peak Boulevard, Berkeley. (510) 525-2233, www.ebparks.org.<


Dance-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:50:00 PM

ASHKENAZ  

Balkan Folkdance, July 14, 8 p.m. $7.  

"Hipline Bellydance Recital," July 18.  

1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.

 

ELKS LODGE, ALAMEDA  

"All You Can Dance Sunday Socials," Sunday, 4-6 p.m. Marilyn Bowe and Robert Henneg presents monthly socials with ballroom, swing, Latin and rock & roll themes. www.dancewithme.info. 

2255 Santa Clara Ave., Alameda. (510) 864-2256.< 

 

JACK LONDON SQUARE  

"Dancing Under the Stars," July 9 and July 16, 8:30-10 p.m. The Linden Street Dance Studio provides free dance lessons to all at the foot of Broadway.  

Foot of Broadway, Oakland. (866) 295-9853, www.jacklondonsquare.com.

 

SHATTUCK DOWN LOW  

"Live Salsa," Wednesdays. An evening of dancing to the music of a live salsa band. Salsa dance lesson from 8:30-9:30 p.m. $5-$10.  

For ages 21 and older. 2284 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 548-1159, www.shattuckdownlow.com.

 

SOLAD DANCE CENTER  

"Persian Dance," Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:30 and 10 p.m. Rosa Rojas offers traditional dance classes. $10.  

Citrus Marketplace, 2260 Oak Grove Rd., Walnut Creek. (925) 938-3300.< 

 

STARRY PLOUGH PUB  

"Ceili and Dance," Traditional Irish music and dance. The evening begins with a dance lesson at 7 p.m. followed by music at 9 p.m. Mondays, 7 p.m. Free.  

For ages 21 and over unless otherwise noted. Sunday and Wednesday, 8 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-2082, www.starryploughpub.com.<


Kids-East Bay Through July 18

Tuesday July 06, 2010 - 01:47:00 PM

ARDENWOOD HISTORIC FARM Ardenwood farm is a working farm that dates back to the time of the Patterson Ranch, a 19th-century estate with a mansion and Victorian Gardens. Today, the farm still practices farming techniques from the 1870s. Unless otherwise noted, programs are free with regular admission.  

ONGOING PROGRAMS --  

"Blacksmithing," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Watch a blacksmith turn iron into useful tools.  

"Horse-Drawn Train," Thursday, Friday and Sunday. A 20-minute ride departs from Ardenwood Station and Deer Park.  

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3-4 p.m. Help slop the hogs, check the henhouse for eggs and bring hay to the livestock.  

"Victorian Flower Arranging," Thursday, 10:15-11:30 a.m. Watch as Ardenwood docents create floral works of art for display in the Patterson House.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Horse-Drawn Train Rides," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10:15 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Meet Jigs or Tucker the Belgian Draft horses that pull Ardenwood's train. Check the daily schedule and meet the train at Ardenwood Station or Deer Park. 

"Country Kitchen Cookin'," Sundays, 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Enjoy the flavor of the past with treats cooked on Ardenwood's wood burning stove. Sample food grown on the farm and discover the history of your favorite oldtime snacks. 

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3 p.m. Feed the pigs, check for eggs and bring hay to the livestock. 

"Toddler Time," Tuesdays, 11-11:30 a.m. Bring the tiny tots out for an exciting morning at the farm. Meet and learn all about a new animal friend through stories, chores and fun.  

"Potato Harvesting," Learn the spectacular history of this New World native as you dig with your spade and help find the spuds. 

"Chores in the Vegetable Garden," July 10 and July 17, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Plant seeds and turn compost in the vegetable garden. 

"Satisfying Sugar Cookies," July 10, Noon-1 p.m. Help roll and press cookies. 

"The Art of Victorian Gardening," July 11, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Explore the Heirloom Vegetable Garden. 

"Afternoon Fun and Games," July 17 and Aug. 28, 2-3 p.m. Try old-fashioned games. 

"Oreos Galore," July 17, 1-2 p.m. Learn about the famous cookie's past. 

"Have a Marvelous Moo-Tastic Day," July 17, 10:30 a.m. Listen to stories and color a cow picture. 

"Rope Makin' and Hay Hoistin," July 18, 10:30 a.m. Learn to make rope. 

"Fixin' Feed," July 18, Noon-1 p.m. Learn about the many types of corn. 

"The Little Red Hen," July 18, 11 a.m. Meet a Rhode Island Red and help read the story of the Little Red Hen. 

$1-$5; free children under age 4. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 34600 Ardenwood Blvd., Fremont. (510) 796-0199, (510) 796-0663, www.ebparks.org.

 

BAY POINT LIBRARY  

"Monthly Craft Night," Last Friday of every month, 4-5 p.m. Each month features a different themed craft.  

Riverview Middle School, 205 Pacifica Ave., Pittsburg. (925) 458-9597.< 

 

BLACKHAWK MUSEUM  

AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM -- The museum's permanent exhibition of internationally renowned automobiles dated from 1897 to the 1980s. The cars are displayed as works of art with room to walk completely around each car to admire the workmanship. On long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution is a Long Steam Tricycle; an 1893-94 Duryea, the first Duryea built by the Duryea brothers; and a 1948 Tucker, number 39 of the 51 Tuckers built, which is a Model 48 "Torpedo'' four-door sedan.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"International Automotive Treasures," An ever-changing exhibit featuring over 90 automobiles.  

"A Journey on Common Ground," An exhibit of moving photographs, video and art objects from around the world exploring the causes of disability and the efforts of the Wheelchair Foundation to provide a wheelchair for every person in need who cannot afford one.  

ONGOING EVENT --  

Free Public Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. Docent-led guided tours of the museum's exhibitions. 

$5-$8; free for children ages 6 and under. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 3700 Blackhawk Plaza Circle, Danville. (925) 736-2280, (925) 736-2277, www.blackhawkmuseum.org.

 

BUILD-A-BEAR WORKSHOP An interactive place where children, and adults, can learn how a stuffed animal is made, then choose an animal pattern from the offering of bears, elephants, dogs and rabbits; stuff the chosen animal; dress it; and create a birth certificate. Closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

$10-$25; clothing and accessories extra. Mondays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Broadway Plaza, 1248 Broadway, Walnut Creek. (925) 946-4697, www.buildabear.com.

 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. 

Center Admission: $14.95; $10.95 children 3-12; free children under 3; $3 discount for seniors and students. Telescope viewing only: free. Wednesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Also open on Tuesdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m. after June 29. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 336-7300, www.chabotspace.org.

 

CHILDREN'S FAIRYLAND A fairy tale theme park featuring more than 30 colorful fantasy sets. Designed especially for children ages 10 and under, there are gentle rides, a train, the "Peter Rabbit Village,'' puppet shows, story-telling and lots of slides and animals. Admission price includes unlimited rides, special shows, guest entertainers and puppet shows.  

OLD WEST JUNCTION -- Children's Fairyland's newest attraction is a Wild West-themed town sized just for children, with a livery stable, bank, jail and a water tower slide.  

PUPPET SHOWS -- Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. All shows are at the Open Storybook Theatre. Free with regular Fairyland admission.  

ARTS AND CRAFTS CENTER -- Activities on Saturday and Sunday, noon to 3 p.m.  

ANIMAL OF THE DAY -- Saturday and Sunday, 1-1:20 p.m. at the Humpty Dumpty Wall. Learn about one of Fairyland's animal friends. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Animal of the Day!" Saturdays and Sundays, 1-1:20 p.m. Come up close and learn about Fairyland's creatures. 

"Arts and Crafts," Noon-3 p.m. Event features arts and crafts projects for children and their families. $6. 

"Puppet Show: The Petrified Princess," July 10 through July 11 and July 17 through July 11, 11 a.m., 2 and 4 p.m. Baron Bullyrag wishes to marry the lovely princess. The baron owns most of the lands and the poor, indebted princess is being forced into marriage. When she refuses, he turns her to stone. The knight Puff Louse has twenty four hours to find the ingredients to reverse the curse.  

"The Golden Reed," July 10 through July 11, 12:30 and 3 p.m. A dragon is kidnapping the children, and a young boy sets out to rescue them.  

John Weaver, July 10 through July 11, 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. Weaver entertains with his lively, humor-filled stories for children of all ages.  

"Mariposa," July 17 through July 18, 12:30 and 3 p.m. A play woven from Latin American folktales about butterflies.  

Owen Baker Flynn, July 17 through July 18, 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. A lively show featuring juggling, fire eating and a multitude of surprises.  

$6; free for children under age 1; $2 for a Magic Key. No adult admitted without a child and no child admitted without an adult. Summer (June through Labor Day): Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fall and Spring: Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Winter: Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CLOSED DEC. 25-JAN. 4. 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. (510) 452-2259, www.fairyland.org.

 

COYOTE HILLS REGIONAL PARK The park is located on the shoreline of Fremont Bay and features rich wetland areas as well as Ohlone Indian shellmound sites. Hiking in the park allows scenic views of San Francisco Bay and southern Alameda County. The 12-mile Alameda Creek Trail runs from the Bay east to the mouth of Niles Canyon and features an equestrian trail as well as a bicycle trail; hikers are welcome on both. The park conducts naturalist programs and has a visitor center with a nature store and Ohlone, natural history and wildlife exhibits.  

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Free unless otherwise noted.  

"Skulls of the Past," July 17 through , 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Construct a California Native-style tule mat from a marsh plant. 

"Ohlone Village Site Hike," July 18, 10 a.m.-noon. Visit an Ohlone site and learn about their way of life. 

Free unless otherwise noted; A parking fee may be charged. Registration required for events. April through October: daily, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; October through April, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., unless otherwise posted. 8000 Patterson Pass Road, Fremont. (510) 636-1684, (510) 795-9385, www.ebparks.org.

 

CRAB COVE VISITOR CENTER At Crab Cove, you can see live underwater creatures and go into the San Francisco Bay from land. You can also travel back in time to Alameda's part. The goal is to increase understanding of the environmental importance of San Francisco Bay and the ocean ecosystem. Crab Cove's Indoor Aquarium and Exhibit Lab is one of the largest indoor aquariums in the East Bay. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Sea Siblings," Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Explore the natural world and take part in a theme related craft. Designed for the 3-5 year old learner. Registration is required. $4. (888) 327-2757. 

"Catch of the Day," Sundays, 2-3 p.m. Drop by to find out more about the Bay and its wildlife through guided exploration and hands-on fun. 

"Sea Squirts," 10-11:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Discover the wonders of nature with your little one. Registration is required. $6-$8. 

"Seaside Sun Catchers," July 10, 1-2 p.m. Make a sun catcher and learn about sea life. 

"Nature Games by the Bay," July 17, 11 a.m.-noon. Play nature themedgames. 

"Beach Art by the Bay," July 18, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Transform found objects into art. 

Free unless otherwise noted; parking fee may be charged. 1252 McKay Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-6887, www.ebparks.org.

 

DUNSMUIR HOUSE AND GARDENS HISTORIC ESTATE Nestled in the Oakland hills, the 50-acre Dunsmuir House and Gardens estate includes the 37-room Neoclassical Revival Dunsmuir Mansion, built by coal and lumber baron Alexander Dunsmuir for his bride. Restored outbuildings set amid landscaped gardens surround the mansion.  

ESTATE GROUNDS -- Self-Guided Grounds Tours are available yearround. The 50 acres of gardens and grounds at the mansion are open to the public for walking Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Booklets and maps of the grounds are available at the Dinkelspiel House. Free.  

GUIDED TOURS -- Docent-led tours are available on the first Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (except for July) and Wednesdays at 11 a.m. $5 adults, $4 seniors and juniors (11-16), children 11 and under free. 

Dunsmuir House and Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. (510) 615-5555, www.dunsmuir.org.

 

FOREST HOME FARMS The 16-acre former farm of the Boone family is now a municipal historic park in San Ramon. It is located at the base of the East Bay Hills and is divided into two parts by Oak Creek. The Boone House is a 22-room Dutch colonial that has been remodeled several times since it was built in 1900. Also on the property are a barn built in the period from 1850 to 1860; the Victorian-style David Glass House, dating from the late 1860s to early 1870s; a storage structure for farm equipment and automobiles; and a walnut processing plant. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Public tours available by appointment. 19953 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon. (925) 973-3281, www.ci.sanramon. ca.us/parks/boone.htm.< 

 

HABITOT CHILDREN'S MUSEUM A museum especially for children ages 7 and under. Highlights include "WaterWorks,'' an area with some unusual water toys, an Infant Tree for babies, a garden especially for toddlers, a child-scale grocery store and cafe, and a costume shop and stage for junior thespians. The museum also features a toy lending library.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Waterworks." A water play gallery with rivers, a pumping station and a water table, designed to teach about water.  

"Little Town Grocery and Cafe." Designed to create the ambience of shopping in a grocery store and eating in a restaurant.  

"Infant-Toddler Garden." A picket fence gated indoor area, which includes a carrot patch with wooden carrots to be harvested, a pretend pond and a butterfly mobile to introduce youngsters to the concept of food, gardening and agriculture.  

"Dramatic Arts Stage." Settings, backdrops and costumes coincide with seasonal events and holidays. Children can exercise their dramatic flair here.  

"Wiggle Wall." The floor-to-ceiling "underground'' tunnels give children a worm's eye view of the world. The tunnels are laced with net covered openings and giant optic lenses. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

"Bastille Day," July 14, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Decorate French berets, put on a chef's hat, read from a French menu and try French food.  

$6-$7. Wednesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Closed Sunday-Tuesday. 2065 Kittredge St., Berkeley. (510) 647-1111, www.habitot.org.

 

HALL OF HEALTH A community health-education museum and science center promoting wellness and individual responsibility for health. There are hands-on exhibits that teach about the workings of the human body, the value of a healthy diet and exercise, and the destructive effects of smoking and drug abuse. "Kids on the Block'' puppet shows, which use puppets from diverse cultures to teach about and promote acceptance of conditions such as cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, leukemia, blindness, arthritis and spina bifida, are available by request for community events and groups visiting the Hall on Saturdays.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"This Is Your Heart!" An interactive exhibit on heart health.  

"Good Nutrition," This exhibit includes models for making balanced meals and an Exercycle for calculating how calories are burned.  

"Draw Your Own Insides," Human-shaped chalkboards and models with removable organs allow visitors to explore the inside of their bodies.  

"Your Cellular Self and Cancer Prevention," An exhibit on understanding how cells become cancerous and how to detect and prevent cancer. 

Suggested $3 donation; free for children under age 3. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 549-1564, www.hallofhealth.org.

 

HAYWARD SHORELINE INTERPRETIVE CENTER Perched on stilts above a salt marsh, the Center offers an introduction to the San Francisco Bay-Estuary. It features exhibits, programs and activities designed to inspire a sense of appreciation, respect and stewardship for the Bay, its inhabitants and the services they provide. The Habitat Room offers a preview of what may be seen outside. The 80-gallon Bay Tank contains some of the fish that live in the Bay's open waters, and the Channel Tank represents habitats formed by the maze of sloughs and creeks that snake through the marsh. The main room of the Center features rotating exhibits about area history, plants and wildlife. Part of the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Exploring Nature," An exhibit of Shawn Gould's illustrations featuring images of the natural world. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Nature Detectives," 11 a.m.-noon. An introduction and exploration of the world of Black-Crowned Night-Herons. Ages 3-5 and their caregivers. Registration required. 

"Weekend Weed Warriors," 1-4 p.m. Help the shoreline to eliminate the non-native plants that threaten its diversity. Ages 12 and older. Registration required. 

"Waterfowl of the Freshwater Marsh," 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Join an expert birder to go "behind the gates'' to areas of the marsh that are not open to the public. 

Free. Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 4901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. (510) 670-7270, www.hard.dst.ca.us/hayshore.html.< 

 

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF THE EAST BAY  

"Shabbat Celebration for Young Children," Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Join other families with young children to sharethis weekly Jewish holiday of joy and renewal.  

1414 Walnut St., Berkeley. (510) 848-0237, www.jcceastbay.org/.< 

 

JUNIOR CENTER OF ART AND SCIENCE A center dedicated to encouraging children's active wonder and creative response through artistic and scientific exploration of their natural urban environment. The center's classes, workshops, exhibits and events integrate art and science.  

EXHIBITS -- Three educational exhibits are mounted in the "Children's Gallery'' each year. A docent-led tour, demonstrations, hands-on activities and art projects are available to school groups throughout the year.  

"Jake's Discovery Garden," Jake's Discovery Garden is a new interactive studio exhibit designed for preschool-aged children and their adult caregivers that teaches young visitors about the natural environments found in their backyards, playgrounds and neighborhoods. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

Free; programs and special exhibits have a fee. September through May: Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June through August: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 558 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. (510) 839-5777, www.juniorcenter.org.

 

LAKE CHABOT REGIONAL PARK The 315-acre lake offers year-round recreation. Services include canoe and boat rental, horseshoe pits, hiking, bicycling, picnicking and seasonal tours aboard the Chabot Queen. For boat rentals, call (510) 247-2526. 

Free unless noted otherwise; $5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs. Daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. 17930 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"NanoZone," Discover the science of the super-small: nanotechnology. Through hands-on activities and games, explore this microworld and the scientific discoveries made in this area.  

"Forces That Shape the Bay," A science park that shows and explains why the San Francisco Bay is the way it is, with information on water, erosion, plate tectonics and mountain building. You can ride earthquake simulators, set erosion in motion and look far out into the bay with a powerful telescope from 1,100 feet above sea level. The center of the exhibit is a waterfall that demonstrates how water flows from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Bay. Visitors can control where the water goes. There are also hands-on erosion tables, and a 40-foot-long, 6-foothigh, rock compression wall.  

"Real Astronomy Experience," A new exhibit-in-development allowing visitors to use the tools that real astronomers use. Aim a telescope at a virtual sky and operate a remote-controlled telescope to measure a planet.  

"Biology Lab," In the renovated Biology Lab visitors may hold and observe gentle animals. Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

"The Idea Lab," Experiment with some of the basics of math, science and technology through hands-on activities and demonstrations of magnets, spinning and flying, puzzles and nanotechnology.  

"Math Around the World," Play some of the world's most popular math games, such as Hex, Kalah, Game Sticks and Shongo Networks.  

"Math Rules," Use simple and colorful objects to complete interesting challenges in math through predicting, sorting, comparing, weighing and counting.  

 

HOLT PLANETARIUM Shows on Saturdays and Sundays. Programs recommended for ages 6 and up unless otherwise noted. $2.50-$3 in addition to general admission.  

$6-$12; free children ages 2 and under. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of California, Centennial Drive, Berkeley. (510) 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org.

 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

 

MUSEUM OF CHILDREN'S ART A museum of art for and by children, with activities for children to participate in making their own art.  

ART CAMPS -- Hands-on activities and engaging curriculum for children of different ages, led by professional artists and staff. $60 per day.  

CLASSES -- A Sunday series of classes for children ages 8 to 12, led by Mocha artists. Sundays, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

OPEN STUDIOS -- Drop-in art play activities with new themes each week.  

"Big Studio." Guided art projects for children age 6 and older with a Mocha artist. Tuesday through Friday, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. $5.  

"Little Studio." A hands-on experience that lets young artists age 18 months to 5 years see, touch and manipulate a variety of media. Children can get messy. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. $5.  

"Family Weekend Studios." Drop-in art activities for the whole family. All ages welcome. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. $5 per child.  

FAMILY EXTRAVAGANZAS -- Special weekend workshops for the entire family.  

"Sunday Workshops with Illustrators," Sundays, 1 p.m. See the artwork and meet the artists who create children's book illustrations. Free. 

EVENTS --  

"Saturday Stories," 1 p.m. For children ages 2-5. Free. 

SPECIAL EVENT --  

"Saturday Stories," 1 p.m. For ages 2-5. Free. 

Free gallery admission. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m. 538 Ninth St., Oakland. (510) 465-8770, www.mocha.org.

 

OHLONE COLLEGE  

"Ohlone for Kids and Teens," through Aug. 12. Learn about biology, try lego robotics, journey into outer space and more. www.ohloneforkids.com. 

43600 Mission Blvd., Fremont. (510) 659-6285, www.ohlone.edu.

 

POINT PINOLE REGIONAL SHORELINE The 2,315-acre parkland bordering Pinole, Richmond and San Pablo offers views of Mount Tamalpais, the Marin shoreline and San Pablo Bay. There are trails through meadows and woods, and along the bluffs and beaches of San Pablo Bay. Visitors can hike, ride bikes or take the park's shuttle bus to reach the 1,250-foot fishing pier at Point Pinole. 

$5 per vehicle; $4 per trailered vehicle; $2 per dog (guide/service dogs free). Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted. Giant Highway, Richmond. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

ROBERT SIBLEY VOLCANIC REGIONAL PRESERVE East Bay residents have several volcanoes in their backyard. This park contains Round Top, one of the highest peaks in the Oakland Hills. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 6800 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

SAN RAMON LIBRARY  

"19th Annual International Storytelling Festival," July 12 through Aug. 2, 7 p.m. Jul. 12: Diane Ferlatte.  

Jul. 19: Megumi.  

Jul. 26: Linda Gorham.  

Aug. 2: Bharata Natyam Free.  

100 Montgomery St, San Ramon. (925) 973-2850.< 

 

SHADOW CLIFFS REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The 296-acre park includes an 80-acre lake and a four-flume waterslide, with picnic grounds and a swimming beach. Water slide fees and hours: (925) 829-6230. 

$6 per vehicle; $2 per dog except guide and service dogs. May 1 through Labor Day: daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; shortened hours for fall and winter. Stanley Boulevard, one mile from downtown, Pleasanton. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.

 

SULPHUR CREEK NATURE CENTER A wildlife rehabilitation and education facility where injured and orphaned local wild creatures are rehabilitated and released when possible. There is also a lending library of animals such as guinea pigs, rats, mice and more. The lending fee is $8 per week.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Toddler Time," Learn about animals by listening to stories and exploring. Themes vary by month. Call for schedule. $7 per family.  

"Day on the Green Animal Presentations," Meet an assortment of wild and domestic animals. Wildlife volunteers will present a different animal each day from possums to snakes, tortoises to hawks. Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 p.m. 

CHILDREN'S EVENTS --  

Free. Park: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Discovery Center: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Animal Lending Library: Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Wildlife Rehabilitation Center: daily, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 1801 D St., Hayward. (510) 881-6747, www.haywardrec.org/sulphur_creek.html.< 

 

TILDEN REGIONAL PARK This park is large and contains hiking trails, a golf course, a miniature scaled train to ride, The Brazilian Building and picnic areas. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Sushio Workshop for the More Adventurous," July 10, 11:30-2:30 p.m. Make and taste seven of the more exotic varieties of sushi. $30-$40. 

"Get Your Fish Face On," July 10, 2-3 p.m. Explore a day in the life of a fish. 

"A Butterfly Bonanza," July 11, 2-3 p.m. Capture and release buckeye butterflies, ringlets, swallowtails and more. 

"Toddler Nature Walk," July 11, 10:30-11:30 a.m. A nature adventure for young children and their grown-up friends. 

"Personal Acts, Global Impacts," July 18, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Learna bout ecological footprints. 

"Flutter by Butterflies," July 18, 2:30-4 p.m. Tour the butterfly garden. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Entrances off Wildcat Canyon Road and Grizzly Peak Boulevard, Berkeley. (510) 525-2233, www.ebparks.org.

 

USS HORNET MUSEUM Come aboard this World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. The Hornet, launched in 1943, is 899 feet long and 27 stories high. During World War II she was never hit by an enemy strike or plane and holds the Navy record for number of enemy planes shot down in a week. In 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule containing the first men to walk on the moon, and later recovered Apollo 12. In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now docked at the same pier she sailed from in 1944. Today, visitors can tour the massive ship, view World War II-era warplanes and experience a simulated aircraft launch from the carrier's deck. Exhibits are being added on an ongoing basis. Allow two to three hours for a visit. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to climb steep stairs or ladders. Dress in layers as the ship can be cold. Arrive no later than 2 p.m. to sign up for the engine room and other docent-led tours. Children under age 12 are not allowed in the Engine Room or the Combat Information Center.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Limited Access Day," Due to ship maintenance, tours of the navigation bridge and the engine room are not available. Tuesdays.  

"Flight Deck Fun," A former Landing Signal Officer will show children how to bring in a fighter plane for a landing on the deck then let them try the signals themselves. Times vary. Free with regular Museum admission.  

"Protestant Divine Services," Hornet chaplain John Berger conducts church services aboard The Hornet in the Wardroom Lounge. Everyone is welcome and refreshments are served immediately following the service. Sundays, 11 a.m. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Closed on New Year's Day. 

"Family Day," Discounted admission for families of four with a further discount for additional family members. Access to some of the areas may be limited due to ship maintenance. Every Tuesday. $20 for family of four; $5 for each additional family member. 

"Flashlight Tour," Receive a special tour of areas aboard the ship that have not yet been opened to the public or that have limited access during the day. 

"Living Ship Day," Experience an aircraft carrier in action, with simulated flight operations as aircraft are lifted to the flight deck and placed in launch position. Some former crewmembers will be on hand. 

"The World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra," July 17, 8 p.m. Keeping the sound and spirit of the legendary World War II era big band leader alive, this swingin' concert will be in the perfect location, the historic aircraft carrier USS Hornet. $45-$98. 

$6-$14; free children age 4 and under with a paying adult. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Pier 3 (enter on Atlantic Avenue), Alameda Point, Alameda. (510) 521-8448, www.uss-hornet.org.<