The Week

Local adult Cooper's hawks with rat. The body of a hawk which died in Berkeley last week contained rat poison, which has frequently been known to kill predators.
Tony Brake
Local adult Cooper's hawks with rat. The body of a hawk which died in Berkeley last week contained rat poison, which has frequently been known to kill predators.
 

News

Peaceful BART Protest Disrupts Monday Night Service

By Erika Heidecker (BCN)
Tuesday August 16, 2011 - 10:33:00 AM

Sharlana Turner, a student and city worker in Berkeley, hoisted a sign that read "You can jail a revolutionary, but you cannot jail the revolution" at a San Francisco BART station Monday evening as demonstrators around her chanted "No justice, no peace -- disband the BART police." -more-


Updated: BART Officials React to Attacks, Plan Response to Today's Demonstration

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Monday August 15, 2011 - 03:25:00 PM

A BART spokesman defended today the agency's interruption of cellphone service to prevent a protest from happening at train stations in downtown San Francisco last week and said he hopes another protest planned for this evening remains peaceful. -more-


BART Rider Records Hacked
in Retaliation for Cell Phone Blackout
Another Protest at 5 Today

By SaraGaiser/ScottMiller (BCN)
Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 03:37:00 PM

Members of the MyBart.org website have been notified of a data breach in which personal details of hundreds of users were stolen and posted to the Internet, BART officials said Sunday. -more-



Telegraph Property Owners Move People's Park "Re-vitalizing" Proposal Closer to University Planners Tuesday at TBID Monthly Meet

By Ted Friedman
Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 02:48:00 PM
Some Telegraph Avenue businessmen at their monthly meeting at Durant Hotel near campus. Craig Becker at center--presiding--Doris Moskowitz to right. Roland Peterson at other end of table (not pictured).

A proposal for "revitalizing" present conditions in People's Park is headed for the university vice-chancellor's office as early as today,; but that proposal was put through a democratic meat-grinder at Tuesday’s Telegraph Avenue property owners monthly meeting before it emerged as more conciliatory to the university. -more-


Is Public Health and Safety Being Considered in the Construction of LBNL's New Biolab in Berkeley? (News Analysis)

By Jeremy Gruber, Tina Stevens and Becky McClain
Monday August 08, 2011 - 06:05:00 PM

In April of this year, U.C. Berkeley researchers announced the creation of the U. C. Berkeley Synthetic Biology Institute (SBI), which will ramp up efforts to “engineer” cells and biological systems.1 Part of its research will include experiments that insert manufactured stretches of DNA into existing organisms to create new, self-replicating artificial life forms—experiments that pose implications for worker safety, public health and environmental safety. A collaboration of university and industry, the SBI enterprise is designed to catapult basic research into profit making applications. From a press release, “SBI will be an important link in a constellation of research centers focused on synthetic biology at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), both of which have made the field a research priority. SBI is unique in its planned collaborations with leading companies, designed to translate leading research on biological systems and organisms efficiently into processes, products, and technologies.”2 -more-


Press Release: DHS to Pursue 'Secure Communities' Deportation Plans
Dismisses Widespread Protest of Dragnet Program

From the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Friday August 05, 2011 - 03:34:00 PM

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today that they would be rescinding the Memoranda of Agreement with over 40 states that allow the sharing of fingerprint data between local police and DHS under the Secure Communities (S-Comm) program. The announcement came as a surprise to immigrant community organizations and advocates who have sought an end to S-Comm and appeared to dismiss formal protest from a number of states, including Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York, about participation in the program. California is poised to pass legislation to halt its participation in Secure Communities. -more-


Press Release: UC Students Call for Implementation of State Auditor's Report

From Darius L. Kemp, Director of Organizing and Communications, University of California Student Association
Monday August 08, 2011 - 03:42:00 PM

On July 28, the California State Auditor released an Audit reviewing the University of California’s information related to public funds, auxiliary enterprises, student tuition and fees. UC students were very pleased with the Audit and are calling on the UC Office of the President to fully implement the Audit’s recommendations. -more-


Save The Bay's 50th Honored at Saturday Work Party

By Joe Eaton
Monday August 08, 2011 - 02:55:00 PM

It’s been 50 years since three extraordinary Berkeley women—Kay Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Esther Gulick—set out to halt the filling and degradation of San Francisco Bay. Save the Bay, the organization they founded, marks that milestone on Saturday August 13 with a “county fair” celebration at Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland. The event, from 9 am to 1 pm, will feature volunteer weeding along the shoreline, food, and games, including “wetland bingo.” -more-


Model Garage's 30th birthday party: Music, Good Food and Cars!

By Jane Stillwater
Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 03:07:00 PM

Many years ago I used to own a Volvo. First I had inherited it from my parents, and then my son drove it after that. It was blue—and a really sweet ride. And whenever it needed mechanical surveillance, I always took it to the Model Garage on Shattuck Avenue near Ashby. But then I bought a 1990 Toyota and had to switch to Campus Auto on Shattuck and Delaware, the Toyota's best friend. -more-


Avoiding Psycho Machete Hackers, Sneakers-Uppers, and Other Berkeley Crimes

by Ted Friedman
Tuesday August 09, 2011 - 01:38:00 PM
How safe are these students at Telegraph Avenue Monday? See any robbery opportunities?

In 1971, Berkeley was abuzz over a psycho machete hacker who sliced-and-diced Berkeleyans with his machete, and one night I barely beat him back to my car before he came after me on lower Hearst. I never forgot that avoided crime. I might have really hurt that guy. -more-


Historian of Science Roger Hahn Dies at 79

From UC Berkeley Office of Media Relations
Monday August 08, 2011 - 06:05:00 PM

Roger Hahn, emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leader in shaping the academic field of the history of science, died unexpectedly on May 30 in New York City. He was 79. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

NPR Plays "Let's Make a Deal" While Sky Falls

By Becky O'Malley
Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 02:07:00 PM

As summer winds down, the excitement over the struggle in Congress should also be cooling. The Congresspersons have gone to ground, many of them smugly convinced that by compromising they’ve once more saved the union. Well, not so fast, it’s not by any means over yet.

Yesterday NPR’s Morning Edition ran what might be called an “interviewette” with Barney Frank, the redoubtable representative from Massachusetts who’s not in the habit of mincing his words. The whole thing lasted barely five minutes, during which Barney made a Herculean effort to explain the insanity of what the Tea Party Terrorists had demanded that Congress do as the price for a normally routine vote to raise the debt ceiling to honor previously incurred debts. -more-


Cartoons

Cartoon Page: Odd Bodkins, BOUNCE

Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 11:15:00 AM

Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 03:37:00 PM

More about UC Berkeley -more-


Columns

Wild Neighbors: Hawks and Rodenticides: Another Berkeley Poisoning

By Joe Eaton
Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 02:46:00 PM

It’s the worst kind of déjà vu. Last month a juvenile Cooper’s hawk was found dead in a pool of blood on a west Berkeley sidewalk, not far from where three other hawks succumbed four years ago. This year’s victim tested positive for the anticoagulant rodenticide brodifacoum, with a trace amount of another rodenticide, diphacinone. Brodifacoum was also implicated in at least two of the 2007 deaths. -more-


The Public Eye: Obama: It Became Necessary to Destroy the Economy to Save It

By Bob Burnett
Monday August 08, 2011 - 02:32:00 PM

On February 7, 1968, US forces demolished Ben Tre, a provincial capitol in South Vietnam. An Army Major declared, 'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” On August 2, 2011, President Obama signed the draconian law to raise the US debt limit and unravel our social safety net. He should have quipped, “It became necessary to destroy the economy to save it.” -more-


Right-To-Work-For-Less Laws

By Ralph Stone
Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 03:31:00 PM

While vacationing in Charleston, South Carolina earlier this year, the local media were full of editorials complaining about the April 20, 2011, complaint issued by the National Labor Relations Board against Boeing Company alleging that Boeing’s decision to assemble large commercial aircraft at a new final assembly plant in South Carolina violated the National Labor Relations Act. The complaint alleges that Boeing illegally “transferred” work from its unionized assembly plant in Seattle, Washington to this new South Carolina facility. -more-


My Commonplace Book (a diary of excerpts copied from printed books, with comments added by the reader.)

By Dorothy Bryant
Sunday August 07, 2011 - 03:22:00 PM

“The liberal sees outer, removable institutions as the ultimate source of evil; sees man’s social task as creating a world in which evil will disappear. His tools for this task are progress and enlightenment. The conservative sees the inner unremovable nature of man as the ultimate source of evil; sees man’s social task as coming to terms with a world in which evil is perpetual and in which justice and compassion will be perpetually necessary. His tools for this task are the maintenance of ethical restraints inside the individual and maintenance of unbroken, continuous social patterns inside the given culture as a whole.” -more-


Senior Power: Reminiscing

By Helen Rippier Wheeler
Sunday August 07, 2011 - 03:18:00 PM

Bouquets of daffodils and odoriferous sweet peas appeared on the white metal stand next to my hospital bed, delivered to the Stamford Hospital children’s ward by person or persons unknown. They were from the garden of the Paradise sisters. -more-


On Mental Illness: Unfair Expectations

By Jack Bragen
Monday August 08, 2011 - 02:50:00 PM

If you are a person with mental illness who “presents well,” meaning that from looking at you and speaking to you, one couldn’t tell that there is anything “wrong” with you, people may expect too much of you. If you have a mental illness and your spouse doesn’t, it can create a headache for you when the spouse doesn’t have understanding of your disability. The same goes for parents, who might be laying guilt trips on you because you can’t seem to “make a go of it” in the work world. You could even be your own worst tormentor. You might be constantly comparing yourself to some unfair standard impossible to live up to. -more-


Arts & Events

Around & About Theater: Central Works' new Reduction in Force; SF Mime Troupe: 2012:The Musical; The Visit at Solano College (Love's Labour's Lost next)

By Ken Bullock
Tuesday August 09, 2011 - 01:24:00 PM

—Central Works' new show, "an economic comedy," Reduction in Force by Patricia Milton is onstage through the 28th at The Berkeley City Club and marks the company's 30 premiere of a new play since 1997. Directed by Gary Graves, assisted by Jan Zvaifler, with Michaela Goldhaber, John Patrick Moore and Kendra Lee Oberhauser, and Gregory Scharpen's sound design, Reduction in Force tells of the Icarus Wealth Management Group hitting the rocks & casting off ballast to stay afloat—namely "the little people"—and a career secretary finds her head on the chopping block. The audience is promised it'll witness "backstabbing, ass-kissing, survival of the sneakiest ...ageism, class warfare—and romance!" Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p. m., Sundays at 5, with a talkback this Sunday, 2315 Durant. $25-$ 14 sliding scale at the door. 558-1381; centralworks.org -more-


Around & About Opera: Verismo's Norma at the Hillside Club Sunday Afternoon

By Ken Bullock
Tuesday August 09, 2011 - 11:02:00 AM

Verismo Opera returns to the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar near Arch, this Sunday afternoon at 2 with Belllini's great opera Norma, featuring the Druid priestess in love with a Roman proconsul--love, war and sacrificial pyres ... -more-


Berkeley Arts Festival Concerts The Final Week

By Bonnie Hughes
Monday August 08, 2011 - 02:59:00 PM

Dylan Mattingly and Friends

Tuesday August 9, 8 pm -more-


BerkeleyMedhead-Artist Shows Her Stuff; It's Another Vinograd, but not Julia

By Ted Friedman
Wednesday August 10, 2011 - 02:57:00 PM
Opening night, Saturday, for Debbie Vinograd's and Tom Tuthill's art show at AutoBody Art-Space, Alameda. San Francisco artist, Chris Trian, is center (in colorful vest).

Medheads (Caffe Mediterraneum addicts) know the Vinograds, Julia, 67, and her younger sister, Debbie, 60, from a half century of shuffling past their front table at the Med. Only a few knew that Debbie was an artist, who had contributed drawings to her sister's books. -more-


Don't Miss This in August!

By Dorothy Snodgrass
Monday August 08, 2011 - 03:35:00 PM

Did you know that the month of August dates back to the Emperor Augustus Caesar, who ruled the Roman Empire in 27 B.C. until his death in A.D. 14? He was definitely not the sweetest guy in the world! Be that as it may, this August hopefully offers several programs of diversity and enjoyment. -more-