At 2:15 this afternoon a person alleged to have a gun was shot by UC Berkeley Police in the computer lab of the school's Haas Business School, according to UC Police Officer Alex Yao. The victim's name has not been released. Yao said at a 3:15 press conference that he is now being transported to Highland Hospital.  

Kaulin Krebs, 24, a junior at UC, said he was just going into the lab when he heard what sounded like about ten shots. Looking into the room, he heard someone say, "Drop to the ground, a guy has a gun," and saw about 15 of his fellow students crouched on the floor. He did not see the person who was shot, but he said that it appeared to him that no one else had been shot, which was confirmed by Officer Yao.  

"All students and faculty have been evacuated," university spokesman Dan Mogulof said. "The suspect, who was brandishing a weapon, has been taken into custody."  

The shooting happened in a third-floor computer lab. 

Mogulof said an employee spotted what appeared to be a weapon in the suspect's bag and told a supervisor, who then contacted police. 

Haas School of Business spokesman Lyle Nevels said he was working on the fifth floor when he heard something was happening and headed downstairs to the computer lab.  

He said he saw the suspect, whom he described as a man in his 20s weighing about 180 pounds, sitting at a computer terminal. He said the man didn't look out of place in the lab. 

Nevels didn't see the shooting but said several police officers showed up at the computer lab and he heard at least one yell "Drop your gun, Drop your gun!" 

He said he then heard several shots fired. 

No more information has been released at this time, but in answer to questions at the press conference Yao said it was "an isolated incident" not necessarily connected to the Occupy Cal protest going on at the same time.

Hundreds of protesters blocked traffic on Bancroft Way near the University of California at Berkeley this afternoon.  

The protesters marched through campus and had filled the street at Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue at about 2:30 p.m.  

They carried signs, some reading "Make banks pay," and "Student power."  

Afterwards, the march moved on to downtown Berkeley. 

The protesters are part of the Occupy Cal movement, which drew about 2,000 University of California at Berkeley students and workers to a noon rally at Sproul Plaza today. 

The crowd is expected to be joined later today by Occupy Oakland protesters, who are scheduled to march from Frank Ogawa Plaza to the campus at 2:30 p.m. 

Occupy Cal protesters will hold a general assembly at 5 p.m., at which they are expected to decide whether to make another attempt to set up an encampment on campus.

Protestors will call on bank execs on higher education boards to “make banks pay” to end cuts to higher education 

Following widespread student protests and an emerging #OccupyCal movement calling on higher education board members to make banks pay instead of cutting funds to higher education, thousands of students will converge on the corporate offices of the UC Regents in the San Francisco Financial District and at the CSU Trustees' meeting in Long Beach on Wednesday. 

The location of the convergence in San Francisco was changed yesterday to reflect the UC Regents’ decision to cancel their meeting, previously scheduled to take place on Wednesday at UCSF Mission Bay. The thousands of students, teachers, and others who planned to go to the meeting will gather at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, followed by a march on banks and corporate offices of the UC Regents and ending with a People's Assembly for Public Education at the State Building. Students in Southern California will proceed with the planned convergence at the CSU Trustees meeting in Long Beach, where the Trustees are set to consider proposed fee increases for the 2012-2013 academic year (see full schedule and site contacts below). 

Last week, over 10,000 students across California took to the streets, blocking traffic and marching on banks, demanding that bank executives and other corporate elite on the three boards overseeing California’s higher education system sign a pledge to make banks pay to stop cuts to higher education. Over 14 college campuses saw protests and rallies including Fresno State, CSU Sacramento, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, CSU Long Beach, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, San Diego State and San Francisco City College. The Berkeley protest ended when police used violence against the students and workers, who continued to be non-violent in the face of the baton-wielding police. On Tuesday, Berkeley students and faculty held a general strike to reject the actions taken by police and continue to call on higher education board members to sign a pledge to make banks pay to refund higher education. 

Many members of the university boards hold leadership positions at some of the nation’s biggest banks, financial institutions and corporations, which are the target of nationwide Occupy protests – including Monica Lozano, UC Regent and Bank of America Board Member. As these banks and their executives continue to profit, the California higher education system has suffered deep budget cuts resulting in the layoffs of thousands of teachers and workers, cuts to research projects vital for progress in public health and other areas, and record tuition hikes that have caused students – especially students of color – to drop out or delay education plans. 

The effort is being organized by Refund California, a statewide coalition of students, teachers, homeowners, workers, community members and faith leaders working to make Wall Street banks pay for a crisis they helped to create. 

Leading up to last week’s protests, the coalition sent a letter to the members of the Board of Regents of the University of California, the California State University Board of Trustees and the Community Colleges Board of Governors, calling on them to sign a pledge saying they will support five specific demands that will make banks pay their fair share to stop cuts to higher education, restore needed state revenue and improve the economy for California families. The demands include a federal sales tax on Wall Street financial transactions, which would generate needed revenue for education, and the reduction of underwater mortgage debt, which would put more money in the pockets of middle class families. 

**LOCATION DETAILS** 

SAN FRANCISCO 

Convergence on corporate offices of the UC Regents in the San Francisco Financial District 

12 pm - Rally at Justin Herman Plaza 

1 pm - March on banks in San Francisco Financial District 

4 pm - People's Assembly for Public Education at the State Building, 455 Golden Gate Ave 

Site contact: Charlie Eaton, 510-220-1520 

LONG BEACH 

Convergence at CSU Trustees Meeting, Chancellor’s Headquarters, 401 Golden Shore Drive 

8:30-9:30 am - Students arrive at meeting (Trustees expected to vote on fee cut around 10am) 

Immediately following - March on banks along Ocean Boulevard, ending at Wells Fargo, 111 West Ocean Boulevard 

Site contact: Bahar Tolou, 323-899-3399 

FOLLOW THE PROTESTS ONLINE: 

Facebook – “Like” Make Banks Pay California for updates, links, pictures, and videos. 

Twitter – Follow @ReFundCA and the hashtag #makebankspay 

Web – www.MakeBanksPayCalifornia.com

Students, workers, faculty and community members rallied on the University of California at Berkeley campus today as part of the Occupy Cal strike. 

Last week, hundreds of people who participated in a Nov. 9 general assembly on the campus voted for a campus "strike" to be held today. 

More than two-dozen teach outs, workshops and performances were scheduled between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. People converged on Sproul Plaza at noon, and a general assembly is scheduled for 5 p.m. 

According to the university, the protesters have renewed a call for establishing an encampment, which campus administrators have said is prohibited. 

Members of the Occupy Oakland protest were expected to march to the Berkeley campus, meeting at 2:30 p.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, according to the Occupy Oakland website.  

Robert Slaughter, who said he was one of the demonstrators who was arrested during the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal protest, spoke about his arrest and detention at a rally near campus at Bancroft and Telegraph avenues. 

Slaughter, a student at St. Mary's College in Moraga, had been issued an order to stay away from the Berkeley campus. He claims he was racially profiled and harassed by police and sheriff's deputies, and that after his arrest he was separated from the rest of the protesters in county jail and was held longer than anyone else.  

This evening, an annual lecture that honors the memory of Mario Savio, a key member of the 1964 Free Speech Movement that began on campus, was moved to Sproul Plaza from its original location in Pauley Ballroom, which is in the student union across from Sproul Hall.  

Robert Reich, professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and former U.S. labor secretary, will deliver the annual memorial lecture at 8 p.m. on the steps of Sproul Hall.  

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau on Monday issued a statement about last week's protests and granted amnesty to the students arrested for attempting to prevent the removal of the occupation's tents.  

Birgeneau also announced the creation of a review board to assess the police response to the protests. Several people, including Slaughter and Celeste Langan, a tenured associate professor in the English Department, have accused police of using excessive force.  

"When the student in front of me was forcibly removed, I held out my wrist and said 'Arrest me! Arrest me!" Langan wrote in a blog post about her experience.  

"But rather than take my wrist or arm, the police grabbed me by my hair and yanked me forward to the ground ... The injuries I sustained were relatively minor ... but also unnecessary and unjustified," she said.

A group of University of California at Berkeley students and community protesters who say they were victims of police brutality during a Nov. 9 "Occupy Cal" demonstration announced today their lawsuit against the university and multiple UCPD police officers. 

Ronald Cruz, a lawyer with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigration Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN, said today that the organization is planning to file the suit on behalf of seven protesters who claim to be victims of police violence and false arrests. 

In the lawsuit, which Cruz said BAMN plans to file later this month, the plaintiffs will also call on Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to resign. 

University spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said this afternoon that university administrators were unaware of the planned lawsuit and declined to comment on any pending litigation. 

Gilmore said Birgenau plans to issue a memo to the campus community today related to the Occupy Cal movement. 

"The police repeatedly beat students, especially women students, in the ribs, stomach, arms, legs and face," UC Berkeley senior and BAMN organizer Matt Williams said in the statement released today. 

Yvette Felarca, a BAMN national organizer, said she was one of the first women targeted by police during the Nov. 9 protest. A now-viral YouTube video shows a police officer yanking her by the hair, Felarca said. 

Felarca said she is still recovering from a beating she endured at the hands of UC Berkeley police officers that day. 

"I was one of the people beaten pretty badly -- and I saw so many other people, especially women, who were viciously attacked and I feel very much that it's a matter of principle that we have to hold those police officers accountable, and hold the chancellor accountable," Felarca said today. "Nobody had the right to beat us, much less police ordered by administrators." 

Cruz said Felarca has been instrumental in bringing together many of the students who say they were victimized or falsely arrested by UC Berkeley police officers that day. 

The number of plaintiffs in the lawsuit may grow as BAMN organizers are considering finding more protesters who were victimized by campus police on Nov. 9, he said. 

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit plan to join thousands of other UC Berkeley protesters Tuesday in an Occupy Cal strike with a planned afternoon march from Oakland to the UC Berkeley campus, Cruz said.

Robert Slaughter, a political science major at nearby Saint Mary’s College, was one of those arrested during the 'Occupy Cal' protest on the night of Wednesday, November 9th. Slaughter, who is Black, was subjected to what appears to be a clear case of racial profiling. 

Slaughter has been charged with three misdemeanors and has been issued a stay-away order from the Berkeley campus, but he plans to hold the UC administration to account by speaking about his arrest and detention at a 2:20pm rally just off campus on Bancroft and Telegraph during the upcoming student strike on Tuesday, November 15th. 

After being thrown to the ground and beaten by police in the process of arrest, he was separated from the rest of the protesters in County Jail and held longer than anyone else. 

After being bailed out by the UNITE HERE hotel workers union on Friday afternoon, Slaughter, who had never been arrested before, recounted how Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies had harassed him: “They yelled at me ‘what gang are you in!?’ and ‘where are your tattoos!?’” 

Rob was put in a separate area that held black and brown people who were there for gang related activity. The initial holding cell was filthy with urine and fecal matter.

The kind of violence exhibited by police against peaceful protesters at Occupy Oakland and Occupy Cal in the past weeks is unnecessary and intolerable. We (a group of mathematicians at UC Berkeley and SF State) are taking a stand against police brutality by doing what we do best: mathematics! Come to our anti-police-brutality teach in on Wednesday, November 16th from 11am to 5pm. We will be lecturing at Dwinelle Plaza (just north of Sather gate). 

Tentative Schedule of Talks:

We are being support by the wonderful folks at the MGSA! They have been so kind as to make us a great poster. 

Abstracts

• Introduction to Tropical Geometry: Instead of addition and multiplication, tropical arithmetic uses alternative ways of combining numbers. I will describe some basic features of tropical geometry, which is the study of the solutions to equations in these alternative operations. If time permits, I'll describe how tropical geometry makes an appearance in some interesting places, like mathematical biology.

• The Mathematics of Altruism and Civil Involvement: Mathematics can, and should, inspire hope! No one person has the power to change everything, but simple order-of-magnitude calculations can often show that altruistic behaviors like voting and civil involvement have a huge expected impact. For example, if the goal is to benefit yourself, voting probably isn't worth the 30 minutes it takes out of your day, but if the goal is to benefit others, then well-informed voting can be a highly effective charity, equivalent to something like turning $1 of your own money into $1000 for your country. We'll also talk about how to represent doing-your-part activities (like half-vegetarianism, carpooling, recycling, and saving water) as "curve moving", which looks and feels a little like moving a mountain all by yourself.

• Introduction to the Riemann Hypothesis: The aim of the talk is to familiarize the listeners with one of the greatest unsolved problems of the century. In order to be able to formulate the Riemann Hypothesis, I will define the Riemann-Zeta function and present some of its properties. Moreover, I will try to explain the importance of the Riemann Hypothesis in modern mathematics.

• The Plank Problem: This talk will address a simple question with an obvious yet hard-to-prove answer: Is it possible to cover a disc with a number of planks whose total widths are less than the disc's diameter?

• Geometry, the Majority Vote and the Power of Agenda Control: Many political choices, such as budget decisions, can be represented as points in space. This has huge consequences for the dynamics of the majority vote: An individual with the power to control the agenda (to decide which bills are up for vote) can lead voters to agree to *anything* of their own free will!

FAQ

• Q: What is the nature of the teach in? A: We will be giving introductory lectures on a number of exciting mathematical topics. Each speaker has chosen his or her own topic; some topics were specifically chosen to have more direct societal relevance, while others were chosen because they are just plain cool.

• Q: How does this do anything about police brutality? A: We could host a debate about exactly when what forms of violence are justified, and if linking arms constitutes nonviolent protest, etc. Instead, we'll leave that to the experts, and do what we are expert at: mathematics. However, throughout the day, we'll be reminding listeners why we are outside instead of cooped up on the top floors of Evans Hall. We do not condone the kind of violence used by police against students at Occupy Cal on Wednesday, November 9th. We hope that our presence at Dwinelle will make this statement loud and clear.

• Q: What can I do to help? A: Come to the lectures! Invite your friends, students, family, and enemies! Bring snacks for everyone. If it looks like it will be cold, bring tea and blankets to share.

• Q: Why aren't you doing this on Tuesday during the general strike? A: Firstly, some of our lecturers had other obligations on Tuesday. Secondly, while many of us sympathize with Occupy Cal, we are promoting a distinctly different message, namely, a condemnation of police brutality.

• Q: What about the Occupy Regents on Wednesday? A: We don't want to discourage anyone from attending the Occupy Regents protest. If you were planning on doing so but now are torn between going there and coming to our teach in, please go there. We believe that there are a large number of people who will be interested in our teach in who weren't planning on going to Occupy Regents.

Links

• Petition condemning police violence for teachers at UC Berkeley.
• An open letter for memebers of the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department.

The University of California Board of Regents announced today that it is canceling its meetings in San Francisco this week because of "credible intelligence" indicating that violence was possible. 

The regents' announcement follows criticism that University of California at Berkeley police were overly aggressive in responding to "Occupy Cal" protests on Wednesday that drew thousands of people and resulted in dozens of arrests. 

UC regents were scheduled to meet at UC San Francisco's Mission Bay campus on Wednesday and Thursday. 

But Board of Regents chair Sherry Lansing, vice chair Bruce Varner and UC President Mark Yudof said in a statement today that "late last week, University of California law enforcement officials came to us with concerns about credible intelligence they had collected in advance of the Board of Regents meeting." 

"From various sources, they had received information indicating that rogue elements intent on violence and confrontation with UC public safety officers were planning to attach themselves to peaceful demonstrations expected to occur at the meeting," they said. 

Lansing, Varner and Yudof said it appears there was a real danger of "significant violence and vandalism." 

"They have advised us further that this violence could place at risk members of the public, students lawfully gathered to voice concerns over tuition levels and any other issues ... They recommended to us, in the strongest of terms, that we cancel or postpone the meeting as scheduled," the statement read. 

They said the meeting would be rescheduled, possibly at another venue, and that they would announce the date as soon as possible. 

They declined to disclose details about the intelligence or the potential violence.  

The agenda for this week's meeting included updates from UC staff members on several initiatives that have been launched in an effort to offset state disinvestment in the university and provide alternate revenue streams beyond tuition and taxpayer support. 

They said that work will continue to go forward and "contrary to some public misperceptions, a tuition increase was never a part of the agenda for this meeting."

Leading up to protests at Wednesday’s UC Regents and CSU Trustees meetings, strikers will call on UC, CSU board members to sign pledge to make banks pay to end cuts to higher education . [Editor's Note: The Regents' meeting has been cancelled.}  

Following excessive police force used against last week’s protests to make banks pay to end cuts to higher education, Berkeley students and faculty will strike on Tuesday to reject the actions taken by police and call on higher education board members to sign a pledge to make banks pay to refund higher education. The all-day strike will include a massive non-violence training at noon, a 2pm rally at Sproul Plaza followed by a march on banks in downtown Berkeley, and the reestablishment of the Occupy Cal Encampment (see full schedule of events below). 

The effort is being organized by Refund California and Occupy Cal as part of a Refund California week of action. Refund California is a statewide coalition of students, teachers, workers, homeowners, community members and faith leaders working to make Wall Street banks pay for a crisis they helped to create. 

Last week, over 10,000 students across California took to the streets, blocking traffic and marching on banks, demanding that bank executives and other corporate elite on the three boards overseeing California’s higher education system sign a pledge to make banks pay to stop cuts to higher education. Over 14 college campuses saw protests and rallies including Fresno State, CSU Sacramento, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, CSU Long Beach, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, San Diego State and San Francisco City College. The Berkeley protest ended in an attack by police on non-violent protestors and nearly 40 arrests. 

Statement on the Nov. 15 UC Berkeley Student Strike by the Partners of ReFund California: 

Today we announce a student strike at UC Berkeley on Tuesday, Nov. 15th to reject the excessive police force used against our protests to make Wall Street – and the corporate elite on the boards governing our universities – pay for refunding public education. Some faculty are expected to join the student strike, and the actions will add to the growing momentum for statewide convergences at the CSU Trustees meeting in Long Beach and the UC Regents meeting at UCSF Mission Bay on November 16th. 

We call on the UC Regents and CSU trustees to devote their meetings on November 16 to a discussion of how they - many as corporate leaders - can carry out the ReFund California Pledge to make the 1% pay to refund public education. The CSU and UC boards should open the meetings to all as equal participants. And we ask that they promise not to use police force against nonviolent mobilizations at these meetings and during the Tuesday strike. 

There is a crisis today for California’s students and their families, but not for the Wall Street and corporate elites who control the economy and dominate the governing boards of California’s universities. 

California leads the nation in tuition increases with nearly 100 percent rise in tuition costs since 2008, inflating student loans to $1 trillion nationally. We keep paying the price while Wall Street and corporations are left off the hook. We didn’t cause the economic crisis—they did. 

That's why we call on the board members and executives of our universities to sign the ReFund California pledge to support real solutions to fund public education and improve the economy for California families. They should join the community whose interests they say they represent instead of irresponsibly using police force to silence our freedom of expression. 

Signed, 

Academic Professionals of California, CSU - Mobilizing Committee AFSCME 3299 - UC patient care and service employees Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment 

Berkeley Faculty Association 

California Nurses Association Communities for a New California The Council of UC Faculty Associations 

SEIU 721 - Southern California school and public service employees SEIU - United Service Workers West 

UAW 2865 - UC student employees UAW 4123 - CSU student employees UAW 5810 - UC postdoctoral researchers UC Berkeley Student Labor Justice Project 

UC Student Association UPTE-CWA, 9119 - UC professional, research and technical employees 

Schedule for Tuesday, Nov. 15th Student Strike 

8am-5pm: All day open university activities (teach-outs, workshops, public readings, installations, etc.) at Sproul Plaza and surrounding areas. 

Noon: Mass convergence at Sproul Hall and formal inauguration of day-long open university. 

Noon – 2pm: Teach-outs in Sproul Plaza. 

2pm: Rally against violence by police and the 1% against students and workers. 

2:30pm: March on the banks to be joined by Berkeley City College and Berkeley High. 

5pm: General Assembly at Sproul Plaza. 

Around 8 pm: Reestablishment of Occupy Cal Encampment. 

8pm: Robert Reich will move his annual Mario Savio lecture to the steps of Sproul Hall where the encampment will be set up.

Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said police will allow protesters to re-enter Frank Ogawa Plaza late this afternoon but will remove anyone who tries to camp out there.

He said the police sweep at the plaza early this morning went more smoothly than the raid three weeks ago, in part because he said no one threw rocks at officers this time.

All of the protesters were gone from the plaza, except for Zachary Running Wolf, a tree-sitter raised in Berkeley who is perched atop a small wooden platform in a tree there.

Jordan said police are leaving him alone for now as they look into what his legal rights are to be there.

This morning, he could be heard shouting from the tree, "This is native land. I'm not coming down."  

Thirty-two people were arrested in the raid this morning, and another person was arrested around noon for spitting at an officer at 14th Street and Broadway.  

Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said that in addition to spitting at officers, that man threw a gallon of water onto them and knocked down barriers at the plaza.  

Jordan said that once the city finishes cleaning up the plaza, people can't be kept away because it is a public space. But he said police will monitor the plaza all night to make sure tents aren't set up again.  

He also said that if anarchists show up tonight trying to cause trouble, "We intend to have sufficient officers to arrest people who break the law." 

Jordan said officers from other agencies will be available again tonight if necessary. 

This morning, Oakland police were assisted by officers from the San Leandro, San Francisco, Hayward and Fremont police departments, and sheriff's deputies from Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. 

Jordan said nearly 100 Oakland police officers and 300 officers and deputies from other agencies participated in this morning's enforcement. No injuries were reported to officers or protesters, he said. 

City Administrator Deanna Santana said Oakland is paying between $300,000 and $500,000 for today's mutual aid. 

Oakland is paying in full for the assistance, since the raid was a planned event, Jordan said. However, if protests get out of hand tonight, that would constitute an emergency and a mutual aid agreement would be activated, meaning Oakland wouldn't have to foot the whole bill for the response. 

Occupy Oakland protesters plan to hold a rally at 4 p.m. today. 

"We expect a large, peaceful rally," Jordan said. 

He said police will "facilitate" the rally by escorting protesters as they march from the Oakland Public Library to Frank Ogawa Plaza.  

Jordan said there are about 25 tents at a second encampment at Snow Park, near Lake Merritt, which is about half a mile away from Frank Ogawa Plaza.  

He said police plan to remove people in the tents from the park eventually but that it's not a high priority now because "Snow Park has never been a problem for us since there has been no violence or drug dealing." 

Crews were still cleaning up Frank Ogawa Plaza early this afternoon.

Hundreds of "Occupy Oakland" protesters have gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza this evening for a general assembly meeting after their encampment was dismantled by police this morning. 

City officials released a statement late this afternoon saying that the plaza was open to the public after crews completed debris removal at Frank Ogawa Plaza less than 12 hours after this morning's raid at around 4:30 a.m. 

Public works personnel removed more than 27 tons of debris and about eight tons of green waste, according to the city. 

As of 6 p.m., the protest has been "very peaceful," according to police spokesman Jeff Thomason. 

There are more officers at the plaza this evening then there were on Oct. 25 after the city's first raid on the encampment, Thomason said, however their presence is still moderate. 

City officials said this afternoon that there will be a strong police presence at Frank Ogawa Plaza 24 hours a day and that mutual aid is available to assist Oakland police this evening. 

City officials also said that they are monitoring activities at Snow Park, where about 25 tents were set up as of this afternoon. The Snow Park encampment will be cleared in the near future, authorities said.

Thirty-two people were arrested this morning in what appears to have been a largely peaceful police sweep of Frank Ogawa Plaza to clear out the Occupy Oakland encampment that has stood outside City Hall for weeks.

At a morning news conference at the city's Emergency Operations Center after the raid, Police Chief Howard Jordan said only nine of the people arrested are Oakland residents.

He said there were no injuries to police officers or protesters. 

"I'm very proud of the way the officers acted today," Jordan said. 

Oakland police were assisted by officers from the San Leandro, San Francisco, Hayward and Fremont police departments, and sheriff's deputies from Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, he said. 

City Administrator Deanna Santana said Oakland is paying between $300,000 and $500,000 for today's mutual aid.  

Mid-morning, cleanup crews were going through the disassembled encampment and there were no protesters in the plaza, except for a man who has climbed a tree and refuses to come down, Jordan said. 

Jordan said the city is looking into the man's legal rights to be there before trying to remove him.  

Meanwhile, city employees were being told not to come to work until 10 a.m., and residents are advised to avoid visiting City Hall today unless they have urgent business there.  

Downtown merchants were being asked to consider delaying the start of their work days as well.  

Mayor Jean Quan sounded hoarse as she spoke at the news conference, saying a number of protesters left the encampment voluntarily before police moved in. 

"We met with multiple groups within the camp and asked them to leave," Quan said. "Many of them have, and I want to thank them for that." 

She asked people throughout the Bay Area to respect the city's decision to shut down the encampment, and refrain from engaging in "destructive acts." 

After the camp was raided the first time on Oct. 25, protests downtown turned violent, resulting in injuries to both police and protesters, and downtown businesses were damaged.  

In response to a reporter's question, Quan also briefly discussed the departure of her unpaid legal adviser Dan Siegel, who resigned over Quan's decision to raid the camp.  

She said she and Siegel went to college together and sometimes disagree.  

"He's moving on, I'm moving on," Quan said.  

The mayor admitted to being tired today.  

"As the mayor of Oakland, this has been a very difficult situation," Quan said.  

She said she believes the "Occupy" movement is morphing into a movement larger than just encampments, but that the protesters who were removed from Frank Ogawa Plaza today are trying to find private property to move onto.  

In the meantime, some of the campers have relocated to Snow Park, near Lake Merritt.  

Jordan said there is no plan to raid Snow Park today. 

Santana said city officials hope to have Frank Ogawa Plaza cleared and available for public use, including demonstrations, by 6 p.m. She said, however, that camping will not be allowed. 

Jordan said there will be a "strong police presence" at the plaza.  

"We are going to be having a very strict no-lodging policy," he said. 

Police moved in on Frank Ogawa Plaza beginning at 4:30 a.m., and by 5 a.m. officers in riot gear had blocked streets surrounding the plaza. 

Rumors had spread among Occupy Oakland protesters that a police raid was imminent this morning, and protesters gathered in the street at the corner of 14th Street and Broadway early this morning to wait for police action. 

Protesters announced on the Occupy Oakland website that they plan to reconvene at the Oakland Public Library at 125 14th St. at 4 p.m. 

Police plan to hold another media briefing at 1 p.m.

Lynne Hollander Savio has informed people on the Will Call list for the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture, this year to be delivered by Professor Robert Reich, that the event, orginally scheduled for Pauley Ballroom on the UC Berkeley campus, has been moved to the Mario Savio Steps in Sproul Plaza. It will take place at 8 p.m. on Tuesday. 

Here is the text of her email: 

The Mario Savio Memorial Lecture and Young Activist Award Board of Directors and Robert Reich, the scheduled lecture speaker, have been asked by the Occupy Cal General Assembly to transfer the event to the Mario Savio Steps in Sproul Plaza at 8 p.m. Tuesday evening, instead of holding it inside Pauley Ballroom. This is in protest against the use of excessive police force against non-
violent demonstrators who were peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech in a symbolic encampment. Although we recognize that this change of venue may pose a physical hardship for some of the attendees, it was unanimously agreed that we would be violating our mission statement (see below) to reject the request. Depending on the exact circumstances at the time, a somewhat shortened presentation of the Young Activist Award will be held, and the award winners will speak.

The following efforts are being made to ensure people's comfort and safety as far as possible.

1 - The students are planning to erect a few tents on the grass in front of one side of Sproul Hall at 6 p.m. Based on past experience, they believe the police will either seize the tents pretty
immediately or wait until late at night. In other words, a confrontation is very unlikely to occur during the period of the lecture, especially with a large number of people in the Plaza.

2 - Professor Reich is likely to start speaking at 8:40, not earlier. This will be preceded by the Young Activist Award speakers.

3 - the students intend to set up an area with chairs for those in need. If you can sit low down and still get up, please bring a cushion or a low beach chair. All of the rest of the audience will also be asked to sit on the ground so as not to block the view..

3- Dress warmly. Rain is not expected. The temperature is likely to be in the low 50s.

4 - There will be amplification.

Please do not attend if you feel the circumstances would be too difficult for you. We also want you to be aware that it is possible (though the students feel it is unlikely), that if the tents are taken down earlier, the
atmosphere might remain too charged and too chaotic for the lecture to be held.

If you contributed to the Lecture fund in order to secure seats in the reserved section, you may choose between having your donation refunded or letting us keep it and receiving a CD of the lecture, if one can be made.

We apologize for your inconvenience and disappointment, but, as Mario Savio said: There comes a time...

Thank you for your interest and your support.

Lynne Hollander Savio and the Board of the MSML&YAA

Mission Statement: To honor the memory of Mario Savio and the spirit of moral courage and vision which he and countless other activists of his generation exemplified;

To promote the values that Mario Savio struggled to advance throughout his life: human rights, social justice, and freedom of expression;

To provide a forum where young people can connect with older activists to understand their common ideals and find inspiration and nourishment for activism today;

To recognize and encourage young activists engaged in the struggle to build a more humane and just society.

Police began withdrawing from Broadway at around 6:30 a.m. today, after blocking off Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza and arresting people remaining in the plaza.

Police are in the process of dismantling what remains of the Occupy Oakland camp that has occupied Frank Ogawa Plaza for most of the last month.

Police blocked off the plaza shortly before 6 a.m. today with lines of riot police. Most protesters had already moved into the street at 14th Street and Broadway before police arrived.

One protester [identified by the San Francisco Chronicle as Zachary Running Wolf of Berkeley] climbed a tree in the plaza and has remained there for several hours. It was not immediately clear if police arrested him when they blocked off the plaza. 

Protesters on Broadway chanted and played music as they watched police dismantling the tents. 

"We've got the power, people power" protesters chanted as arrestees were led out of Frank Ogawa Plaza. 

Some of those arrested were from the camp's Interfaith Leaders tent, who held a vigil tonight waiting for police to arrive. 

Dozens of Oakland police, assisted by Alameda County Sheriff's deputies and several other local police agencies from as far away as Pacifica and Foster City moved into the area around Frank Ogawa Plaza this morning to enforce continuing violations in the plaza related to the encampment, according to city of Oakland officials. 

Police moved in beginning at 4:30 a.m. and by 5 a.m. officers in riot gear had blocked streets surrounding the plaza. 

Rumors had spread among Occupy Oakland protesters that a police raid was imminent this morning, and protesters gathered in the street at the corner of 14th Street and Broadway early this morning to wait for police action. 

The 12th Street BART station in Oakland remains closed thi s morning due to the police activity in the area, BART officials said. Protesters announced on the Occupy Oakland website that if the camp is evicted they will reconvene at the Oakland Public Library at 125 14th St. at 4 p.m. 

Occupy Oakland amassed at the same library on Oct. 25 after a raid earlier that morning forcibly evicted protesters from the camp.  

Dozens were arrested as police tore down tents, dragged sleeping protesters out of the area, and reportedly used smoke grenades and tear gas to disperse campers. 

Protesters had occupied the plaza in front of Oakland City Hall since Oct. 10. 

After gathering at the library in the afternoon, protesters marched back to 14th Street and Broadway, just outside of the plaza, but were blocked from proceeding by barricades and dozens of riot police. 

Police used smoke grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters, who reconvened and returned to the corner repeatedly throughout the night. 

After the raid drew international media attention and many criticized Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and interim police Chief Howard Jordan's handling of the protests, police presence was minimal the following day and protesters were allowed to return to the plaza. 

After staging a one-day "general strike" that peacefully shut down the Port of Oakland on Nov. 2, smaller protests that night again ended in confrontations with police involving tear gas. 

Dozens of downtown Oakland businesses were vandalized during the clashes, and pressure began mounting for city officials to again remove the camp. 

The Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce issued several statements that said the ongoing encampment was harming downtown businesses, a claim which protesters disputed. 

After 25-year-old Kayode Ola Foster was fatally shot near the camp on Thursday, Quan and police increased pressure for protesters to leave the plaza peacefully.  

Police have issued several eviction notices over the last several days, demanding protesters immediately leave the area, but many protesters have remained camping in the plaza.

The man killed in Thursday's shooting near the Occupy Oakland encampment has been identified as Oakland resident Kayode Ola Foster, Oakland police said this evening.

Foster, 25, had been staying at Frank Ogawa Plaza in the protest camp, according to his family, said Officer Johnna Watson.  

Foster was killed just before 5 p.m. in the 1400 block of Broadway on Thursday.  

Witnesses have said the suspect was also a frequent resident at the camp in the days before the shooting. He has been described as a male African American, 20-25 years old, 5 feet 9 inches tall and 150 pounds with short hair. He was wearing a white t-shirt.  

Police are also seeking a second suspect, described as an African American male, in his 20s to 30s, 5 feet 9 to 5 feet 11 inches tall, 250 pounds and wearing long dreadlocks with red tips. He may have had a tattoo on the back of his neck, and was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt. 

Oakland Police and Crime Stoppers are offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in this shooting.  

Anyone with information is asked to contact major crimes unit at (510) 238-3529.

Pressure on Occupy Oakland protestors increased today, with police issuing a third notice this afternoon ordering protestors to vacate the area-and all city parks.

The most recent notice notifies protestors that they do not have permission to stay on any city property or parks, including Frank Ogawa Plaza, Lafayette Square Park, Jefferson Square and Snow Park.

Some Occupy Oakland activists issued a statement this afternoon noting that there were rumors some protestors might have met with the mayor and discussed moving the protest to Jefferson Park. However, the group indicated that if such a conversation had taken place, it did not represent Occupy Oakland's General Assembly-and the city's notice to vacate does not exclude any parks.

Protestors were issued a formal notice to vacate Frank Ogawa Plaza on Friday after a fatal shooting near the camp.

A man in his early 20s was killed just before 5 p.m. in the 1400 block of Broadway in Thursday's shooting. His identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Police said today that the suspect, described as a male African American, 20-25 years old, 5 feet 9 inches tall and 150 pounds with short hair, has been a frequent resident at the encampment over the past several days.  

They are also seeking a second suspect, described as an African American male, in his 20s to 30s, 5 feet 9 to 5 feet 11 inches tall, 250 pounds and wearing long dreadlocks with red tips. He may have had a tattoo on the back of his neck, and was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt. 

Police also issued a warning on Saturday to members of the media, noting that a member of the media had been assaulted while reporting on the shooting on Thursday. Police said an anarchist blog had also called for violence on the media, and warned news personnel that their safety might be at risk. 

Police have also reported that emergency personnel were called to the camp at 4 a.m. Friday to assist a 20-year-old man who seemed to be suffering from an overdose.  

That same day, at about 7:25 a.m., police responded to a disturbance where people were reportedly armed with 2x4s in front of City Hall. 

Also, ongoing problems with vandalism have been reported near the encampment. 

There were 160 tents today, down from 180 on Nov. 8, according to Quan's office.

For insight into the Occupy movement, one of the best places to look is Tricia Shapiro’s new book on the movement against mountaintop removal – Mountain Justice, published by AK Press in Oakland.

When young urban anarchists joined with longtime Appalachian residents in the Mountain Justice Summer campaign of 2005, Shapiro signed on as the campaign’s chronicler. She sat in on strategy sessions and scrambled up a mountain during the night with demonstrators. She listened. She asked questions. She recorded what people said, and she understood what she heard.

An experienced author of young adult histories and biographies under the name Tricia Andryszewski, Shapiro had written about the movements for civil rights and gay rights. She had described the devastation of the Dust Bowl. She wrote then as a historian.

For Mountain Justice, she has written as a reporter, and the movement could not ask for a better one – she is both sympathetic and honest, frank about the disagreements that arose, clear about the failures as well as the successes. 

I wish the book had included images of the devastated wastelands that were once tree-covered mountains. They are a graphic symbol of what happens when corporate power meets political power: the target of the Occupy movement. But those images are abundant on the web (see http://ilovemountains.org/multimedia#photo_gallery). 

What Shapiro has given us is a powerful story—its end not yet in sight. When I talked with her recently in Asheville, she said she had thought the book would be just about Mountain Justice Summer – that it would be a story with a clear end. Instead, she found herself still writing several years later, following the twists and turns of the struggle against coal companies and government agencies until finally, the story unfinished, she ended the book: 

“The fight against MTR in Appalachia is also a fight for better choices for all of us. Free people are choosing to engage in that fight not just to defend their own freedom….but also to make it possible for more and more of their fellow citizens to freely chose to live, in grace and comfort, in ways that are good for the land and its people everywhere. Their fight is our fight too.” 

(Carol Polsgrove is author of Divided Minds: Intellectuals and the Civil Rights Movement. For her interview with Tricia Shapiro, see http://carolpolsgrove.com.) 

As Occupy Oakland vies with Occupy Manhattan for world-attention, and Occupy Cal revives memories of the sixties' Free Speech Movement (40 arrests in two days), Occupy Berkeley is struggling to find its voice amid a vast national movement of same-sayers. 

Will the real Occupy Berkeley please stand up? 

After more than a month, the still fledgling Occupy Berkeley movement is positioned to carry the banner of the City of Berkeley into the battle against money-sucking corporations. 

With nary an arrest, and the support of the City of Berkeley and its police, Occupy Berkeley may be starting to see its strength--longevity and community activism. 

Discussion at Thursday's planning meeting--the ideological core of OB--focused on whether to merge with Cal or stick to its own principals. As some dedicated participants in the small meeting (20) are realizing, OB speaks for Berkeley while OC speaks for university students. 

While some OBers note that Cal is a big chunk of Berkeley and entitled to its fair share of representation, others say the students' issues are narrow--especially tuition complaints. Some see OC as an upstart. "It's too early to judge them; they just started," said a Thursday member of the general assembly.  

The divide--if it is a divide--is currently a hot topic on the Occupy Berkeley Google Groups discussion forum as it was at Thursday's planning meeting. The competition from a nearby occupy movement (Cal), which has not yet acknowledged OB as comrades-in-arms, may be facilitating OB to define itself. 

Occupy Berkeley is presently a homeless encampment . Berkeley and Oakland homeless citizens pitched their tents in October when it became apparent that OB had succeeded in encamping despite a city directive against overnight camping. 

Although initially there were tensions between the homeless encampment and the occupiers, those tensions have eased as homeless citizens have voluntarily worked in occupies' interests--and their own. 

A key person from the homeless encampment has pitched his commodious tent with Occupy and has emerged as a key security resource, who recently rid the encampment of troublesome drug users, who had encamped at the South east corner of Civic Center Park near a Berkeley High School lawn lunch-spot. 

According to the unsung hero, the departure will keep police Chief Michael K. Meehan, his lieutenant, and Mayor Tom Bates from stumbling over syringes as they make their regular goodwill tours of the park. 

Camp security, which has its own reports at general assemblies, although untrained and mostly un-appointed, has done enough of a good job that Chief Meehan told me Tuesday at City Council, he regards the encampment, "an effective protest." 

Emerging late Tuesday from city council, OB's neighbor, I walked into the middle of a camp security "intervention", enforced by OBers encamped that night, and homeless campers. The fracas involved an alleged sex-offense, a tempest in a tent, in the OB tent encampment, but involving homeless citizens of Oakland. 

Another unsung hero from the homeless encampment forcefully escorted the alleged perp from the camp. When the accused returned, he was finally yelled out of the park by Raven, self-appointed head of camp security. 

Ersatz or not, it worked. It's all good at camp OB. For now.  

City manager Phil Kalmarz told me Tuesday he plans no actions against the camp, and that from the city manager's point of view "things are going well in the city's maintenance of the park." Asked whether his hands-off policy could burden his interim successor (Kalmarz leaves office Nov. 25th), Kalmarz replied, "I'm against burdens." 

City Councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Max Anderson, and Jesse Arreguín succeeded in a "baby step" towards council endorsement of OB with the passage Tuesday of a council approval of a Cal Faculty endorsement of the national anti-Wall Street movement. 

With all this support from the City of Berkeley, the ball is now in OB's court. 

In fact, OB is feeding and supporting a tent city of homelessness sandwiched between old and new City Hall. Sometimes the favor is returned, as when the homeless cooked up a meal and delivered it to the general assembly last week, or when homeless citizens participate in GA. 

Occupy Cal, which is in conflict with its university's encampment policies, and having its tents regularly confiscated, is unable to provide community services. Some OBers have suggested the city reimburse them for their social service activities. 

Another faction within the GA recommends aligning with as yet unformed "regional spokescouncils," and "affinity groups" which might stage large regional actions. But, according to another participant, an "inter-communications working group" has "dissolved" like other working groups, which have either languished or are re-forming. 

A discussed action to "shut down Chase" downtown has been postponed until next week, while issues involving a co-operative downtown action with Cal can be resolved. 

The Chase action, which is now being vetted for effectiveness by the GA, may have grown out of the charge from a camp key-person (there are no leaders) that OB was "wimpy and ball-less." Some of the big balls have been caught up in the hormonal upsurge at Cal and may not return to allegedly "ball-less" occupy. 

Hormones or homeless? Stay tuned as Berkeley's indigenous Occupy community writes a new chapter in Berkeley's history of political activism. 

__________________________________________________________________  

Ted Friedman is now known at Occupy as "Uncle Ted," (see Ted's "Occupy Yourself" commentary in Planet and Thomas Lord's, "About Ted's Position").  

University of California at Berkeley police on Thursday defended their actions during demonstrations on campus the day before when the newly formed "Occupy Cal" movement drew thousands of people and resulted in dozens of arrests. 

The protest became violent Wednesday night when police arrived to dissemble the makeshift encampment. 

Police arrested 39 people Wednesday, including 32 students and a UC Berkeley English professor. An additional protester, who is not a student, was arrested Thursday morning for attempting to prevent an officer from removing a tent he had put up earlier that morning, UC Berkeley police Capt. Margo Bennett said. 

Protesters were warned before Wednesday's unrest through an email Monday from UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau that said camping on campus property and occupying buildings would not be tolerated. 

Bennett said, "Our charge was to make sure there were no tents. In the course of moving those tents we met resistance ... some people resisted us more than others. 

She said, "The goal was not to arrest people, the goal was to bring down the tents," Bennett said. 

Officials said that all of those arrested were charged with willfully obstructing, interfering, or delaying police action, and all but one were cited with failure to leave an unlawful assembly. Two of those arrested were charged with battery on a police officer. 

Bennett said that police would take no further action as long as there were no tents. 

"That's the deal. They have the right to come talk and speak as much as they want but they cannot camp," she said. 

When asked about videos circulating of what protesters allege was excessive force in Wednesday's raid, Bennett said, "We're going to review it" to see if it was appropriate or if there are areas to be improved on. 

Since the arrests, the occupation has stayed fairly peaceful. The group met Thursday night at a General Assembly where group decisions are made through a vote. 

Protesters have called for a student strike on the UC Berkeley campus for Tuesday, and are planning protests to coincide with the UC Regents meeting at UC San Francisco's Mission Bay campus on Nov. 16 and 17 to protest proposed tuition and fee hikes, and to more generally protest cuts to public education throughout California.

Friday, November 11, 2011 was a work or school holiday for many in Berkeley, including this writer. But it’s probably safe to say that very few people in Berkeley commemorated the date either for the original reason it was established, or for its later, broadened, purpose. 

Now it’s called “Veteran’s Day”, an occasion for generic recognition of servicemen and women. Before that, it had a more specific meaning. 

Combat on the Western Front in World War I—then called the “Great War”—ended with a negotiated armistice on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” or November 11, 1918. The day was designated by most of the Allied powers as a permanent memorial occasion, called Armistice Day or Remembrance Day. 

Like many cities, Berkeley once commemorated Armistice Day with ceremonies and parades. There were solemn flag raisings, cannon or rifle salutes boomed in Downtown, and veterans and various other contingents marched along Shattuck. In the 1920s and 30s hundreds of locals would regularly participate in what was called the “Service on the Waters”. A chartered ferryboat took them out on the Bay where they dropped wreaths and flowers in a ceremony designed to remember airmen and seamen killed in service. 

Local events often centered on Berkeley’s Veterans Memorial Building, completed in 1928, and sited prominently on one side of what was then only a proposed civic center park site. The building housed offices and meeting spaces for Berkeley’s numerous veterans groups. The large auditorium was, for decades, one of the most heavily used facilities in Berkeley, ensuring for generations that locals would be familiar with the memorial. 

Berkeley veterans included organized groups of Union Army (Grand Army of the Republic) Civil War veterans, Spanish-American War veterans, World War I veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The GAR men had pride of place, and some were alive in Berkeley well into the 1930s, more than seven decades after the end of the Civil War. Berkeley even hosted, in the 1930s, two “encampments” of GAR men and their families and supporters. 

There were also many local affiliate or “auxiliary” groups, including women’s organizations representing spouses, mothers, and/or daughters of servicemen. Some worked hard to remember and honor veterans. Others, from the newspaper accounts I’ve read, seemed to have devolved into primarily social clubs or organizations from which the living could derive prestige from association with the dead. 

Berkeley also had many war or veteran memorials from different eras from a Spanish-American war cannon that once stood Downtown to California Memorial Stadium. Last year I identified eleven memorials on the UC Berkeley campus alone, which a UC Media Relations staffer organized into an on-line slideshow that can be seen here. 

Off-campus, Berkeley also once had numerous veterans’ monuments. The largest of course is the Veterans Memorial building itself, but there were also many plaques, memorial trees, and other smaller monuments donated and dedicated over the decades. My guess would be that there were at least a dozen veterans and war memorials dedicated off campus in Berkeley, and most likely many more. 

As far as I know there is no comprehensive list of these, and many have fallen into disrepair or even been obliterated. Most are on public property but I’m not sure that anyone in local agencies off the UC campus pays much attention. 

If you go to City Council meetings you’ll pass several largely unnoticed veteran’s monuments. In the lobby of old City Hall, for example, there’s a 1940 stone bench honoring GAR veterans. Outside the building are several trees and monuments at the northwest corner of MLK, Jr. Way and Allston Way. They were put there as prominent memorials, but now attract little attention. There are plaques in place honoring tree plantings that no longer seem to exist, and other trees that have no plaques, but appear to be memorial plantings, as well as unidentified memorial fragments. 

I’ve come across mentions of many of these monuments in old newspaper articles and other accounts, and by happenstance. John Aronovici at the Berkeley Historical Society has done good work unearthing local veteran’s monuments and memorabilia. 

This year alone I noticed two monuments I’d never seen before. At the Berkeley Rose Garden there are two towering giant sequoias just east of the tennis courts, apparently planted as a Civil War memorial; sadly, one of them had its roots partially chopped up by a repaving project. And on University Avenue, outside the largely vacant old West Campus, there’s a curbside monument to former students of Burbank Junior High School who served and died in World War I. 

The most recent off-campus veteran’s memorial in Berkeley is a plaque to local servicemen who died in Vietnam. Country Joe McDonald wrote a description of the project to create the Berkeley Vietnam veteran’s memorial in the 1880s and 90s, here. 

Some years ago I participated in an ad hoc committee that worked to revive a local Veteran’s Day event in Berkeley. A few were held, but then the activity died out again. During that process I realized that, as with most historical issues and causes, people are primarily interested in those anniversaries with which they have a personal connection (a side prediction; a half century from now, almost no Americans will be participating in, or paying much attention to, “9-11” commemorations). 

The veterans on the Berkeley committee were largely Vietnam era servicemen. They were very respectful of those from earlier conflicts, but their identification and enthusiasm was largely focused on connecting with veterans and issues from their own war. That’s quite understandable. 

I also understand that many locals have a justifiable distaste for the overly political “patriotism” that can overlie activities honoring veterans and provide cover for hard right ideologues to promote their destructive agendas. 

As many others have pointed out, during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts “supporting our troops” has all-too-often become the self-contradictory mantra of those who are most enthusiastic about putting those same troops indefinitely in harm’s way in conflicts with murky motives, justifications, and outcomes. 

Yet it should be possible, particularly in cities like Berkeley, to honor servicemen and women for their personal risk and commitment and at the same time avoid jingoism. But that can only come about if people view memorial commemorations as something worth doing even if they weren’t personally involved. 

As Vietnam veterans age and pass away, veterans commemorations will largely center on Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan veterans around the country, and it will be generally left up to “someone else” to remember earlier conflicts and veterans. 

Who that will be in Berkeley, I don’t know. But take a moment during Armistice Day / Veteran’s Day to remember. 

A man in his early 20s was fatally shot near the "Occupy Oakland" encampment in downtown Oakland this evening, a police spokeswoman said. 

Officers responded at 4:57 p.m. to the shooting at 14th Street and Broadway, directly in front of the protesters' encampment, although at this time there is no apparent connection between the shooting and the demonstration, police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said. 

"At this time it does not appear to be related," Watson said, but added that the shooting is still under investigation. 

Watson said no suspects are in custody and the victim had not been identified as of 7:30 p.m. 

Nyake Tarmoh, 31, a protester with the Occupy Oakland movement, said he witnessed the shooting while standing in line at the camp's food tent. Tarmoh said he saw six suspicious-looking males, between the ages of 15 and 22, walking around the camp and they appeared to be looking for someone. 

The suspects spotted the victim standing near portable toilets and they ran over, punched him and beat him while he was on the ground, according to Tarmoh. 

Tarmoh said the suspects became aware of the fact that some Occupy Oakland members were watching and stopped.  

The victim got up and was running away from the suspects when one male with dreadlocks and a black hooded sweatshirt pulled out a gun and shot him in the head, according to Tarmoh.  

Tarmoh said he saw two of the suspect run into a BART station, while the shooter ran down Broadway. 

He said camp medics rushed to give the victim first-aid before an ambulance arrived and took him to a hospital. 

Tarmoh also stressed that the shooting was not related to the encampment. "They are not part of the Oakland movement," he said. 

Occupy Oakland members had been planning to hold a party tonight to celebrate its one-month anniversary but have decided to cancel the festivities out of respect for the victim, protesters said. 

Barucha Peller, who is part of the Occupy Oakland encampment, said the shooting happened next to the camp, not in it. 

"The only direct Occupy Oakland involvement was in order to provide emergency first-aid services," she said.  

Motorist Drew Sowyrda was driving west on Telegraph Avenue on his way to the gym when, as he was passing 27th Street, he saw "cop cars driving faster than I've ever seen through the traffic." 

"Right at the junction of Broadway and Telegraph they stopped a white car and pulled out the driver at gunpoint," Sowyrda said. 

He said the male driver was handcuffed and put into a police car, and he overheard police explaining to two female passengers in the car that there had been a shooting. 

He said they began to block off Broadway at that point.  

BART spokesman Jim Allison said the 12th Street station in Oakland was temporarily closed this evening as police searched two trains for possible suspects. 

Some people ran into the station after the shooting and it was initially believed that they were suspects, Allison said. 

However, officials have since determined that those people were "probably just frightened" and wanted to get away, he said. 

The station reopened at around 5:25 p.m. 

Several city officials showed up at the scene after the shooting, including Police Chief Howard Jordan and City Council President Larry Reid, who was among council members who held a news conference Wednesday saying the encampment must go.  

After learning that Occupy Oakland medics had helped the person who was shot tonight, Reid said, "I appreciate their efforts to help save the life of the victim in this situation." 

Although many at the scene insist the shooting wasn't related to the encampment, Reid said it should be part of the larger conversation about the camp.  

"I think it puts us in a position of having to look at this problem in a more comprehensive manner," he said, saying that there were knife fights on 14th Street earlier this week.  

Early this afternoon, Mayor Jean Quan said that a plan to remove the encampment "has to be done thoughtfully" and "has to take time." 

Quan said she wants to "continue dialogue" with protesters who have been in Frank Ogawa Plaza for a month before the city takes any action. 

Chief Jordan told reporters earlier today that, "I'm not at liberty to announce if and when we'll take any action" to remove protesters from the plaza. 

City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, who is one of the members urging the immediate removal of the encampment, said, "We're waiting for the mayor and her administration to deal with the situation but it gets worse and worse every day." 

De La Fuente said he thinks the longer the protesters are allowed to stay at the plaza the harder it will be to remove them. 

"More and more people are camping out in the plaza, not less," he said. 

Earlier today, the mayor's office released a statement saying that three to five electrical breakers had been tripped on Monday on 14th Street and the interior plaza bench areas. 

City officials said staff has not been able to check the light poles to see what tripped the breakers so they have not been reset. 

Tonight, the lights were still out and a number of protesters at the crime scene were angrily yelling, "Turn the lights on," saying that the darkness leads to more crime.  

Others lit candles all around the scene of the shooting, and one man sat cross-legged and meditating near the police tape.

Protesters in the burgeoning "Occupy Cal" movement at the University of California at Berkeley are continuing to congregate outside Sproul Hall on campus today after demonstrations on Wednesday drew thousands and resulted in dozens of arrests. 

As of 3:30 p.m. today, demonstrators remained on Sproul Plaza continuing to occupy the space and waiting for today's General Assembly meeting at 6 p.m., though no tents were pitched on the lawn outside of the administration building.  

Two UC Berkeley police officers were standing guard in the area where protesters tried to set up tents Wednesday, said Ramon Quintero, who was arrested during Wednesday's demonstrations. 

Quintero was one of 39 protesters arrested throughout the day Wednesday, in demonstrations that lasted well into the night. Quintero was arrested during initial confrontations between police and protesters during the afternoon, when police used clubs to break through lines of protesters who linked arms to protect several tents pitched on the lawn. 

Quintero said he moved to stand in front of the police because he saw a young girl he knew and was worried she would be hurt as police in riot gear moved in. 

He said he was worried she would not be prepared for the police response. "I've been here for three years and I know the UCPD are more violent than any police department I've seen in action," Quintero said. 

Quintero said he is currently a research fellow at the university, and received a degree from UC Berkeley in geography and ethnic studies in 2010. He said that the confrontation with police left him bruised and sore today, and that when police attempted to arrest him they tore his clothes off and ripped his hair. He said that he spent hours in a small holding jail used by the UC Berkeley police, and was released at about 2:30 a.m. today. 

He views the confrontations as an attempt to stifle free speech on campus. "Of course that has to be challenged, because we can't let people in power define what free speech is," Quintero said. 

Quintero said a total of six were arrested in his group, identified by UC Berkeley police as students Sonja Diaz, Zahinde Atli, Timothy Fisken, Zakary Habash, and one faculty member, English professor Celeste Langan. 

Throughout the night, 33 more were arrested as protesters continued pitching tents in the plaza, and police moved in to tear them down. Of the 39 arrested, 32 were students at the university, and six had no affiliation with the campus. 

Officials said that all of those arrested were charged with willfully obstructing, interfering, or delaying of police action, and all but one were cited with failure to leave an unlawful assembly. Two of those arrested were charged with battery on a police officer. 

Demonstrations started with picketing and "teach-outs" in the morning, followed by a rally and brief march at noon, and a general assembly meeting at 1:30 p.m., when protesters voted overwhelmingly to establish an encampment. Protesters were warned by an email from UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau on Monday that camping on campus property and occupying buildings would not be tolerated. 

At one point during the confrontations, Harry le Grande, vice chancellor of student affairs, addressed the crowd and told protesters they could gather in Sproul Plaza 24 hours a day for the week, but no tents, sleeping bags, or sleeping would be permitted. 

After a vote, protesters rejected the proposal, and continued attempting to establish a camp that police would later move in to tear down. 

A handful of protesters were still in the plaza early this morning, guarding a lone tent that still remained on the steps of Sproul Hall. Protesters have vowed to gather throughout the day, and to hold a general assembly meeting tonight at 6 p.m. 

Protesters have also called for a student strike on the UC Berkeley campus for Tuesday, and are planning protests to coincide with the UC Regents meeting at UCSF Mission Bay on Nov. 16 and 17 to protest proposed tuition and fee hikes, and to more generally protest cuts to public education throughout California.

We are writing this as we have received inquiries, calls and emails and wanted to offer accurate information to those who have questions or inquired.

There has been some widespread confusion as to the law enforcement entities that were involved in the Occupy Cal events of last evening. Members of the City of Berkeley Police Department (BPD) were not part of any mutual aid or assistance last evening/night. We have received calls and emails about our presence there. Out of respect and policy, we defer to UCPD to speak to their jurisdiction, activities and what assistance they sought.

City of Berkeley Police department (BPD) did manage the protest/demonstration during a part of the afternoon of November 9, 2011 when the group of several hundred marched onto City of Berkeley streets which are our jurisdiction. Groups have often done this when protesting or demonstrating in the past. BPD had bike officers, motor officers, parking enforcement officers and patrol officers to maintain community safety, the safety of participants, officer safety and to monitor the group for any unlawful activity. There was much verbal energy but no arrests were made. It went fairly smoothly. BPD managed the march until the group returned to UC campus.

Police have dismantled an encampment at the University of California at Berkeley tonight and protesters continue to hold their ground. 

Officers in riot gear forced their way through a crowd of demonstrators who were chanting "peaceful protest" and "Who's university? Our university" at around 9:30 p.m.  

Protesters said more people were arrested tonight in the second confrontation with police. 

Earlier today, at around 3:40 p.m., dozens of police pushed their way through a human chain using their batons and began taking the tents down, leading to scuffles between police and protesters.  

Six people had been arrested as of 7 p.m. and protesters were reporting that some demonstrators were injured during the police raid. 

Shortly before 4 p.m., police withdrew and the protesters quickly reestablished an encampment. 

University officials told the protesters they could use the site as a gathering spot for the week but could not camp out. 

Protesters tonight continue to face off with police who are standing in front of Sproul Hall.

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A day designated to “Occupy Cal” included dawn to dusk protest activities on the UC Berkeley campus on Wednesday, including outdoor classes, a large noontime rally, a slightly smaller but still vigorous march to the Telegraph Avenue Bank of America, debate and establishment of a small tent occupation on campus, and a mid-afternoon confrontation with UC Police which resulted in removal of some of the tents and a few arrests.

As dusk fell and a full moon rose over the Berkeley Hills, three news helicopters thrummed above Sproul Plaza and hundreds milled about two tents set up after the afternoon occupation.

Most of the protest occurred quite close to my campus office so I was able to take a late lunch to watch part of the rally and march. Later, when shouting arose I stepped outside for a short mid-afternoon break to watch the tent confrontation, then returned after work to see what remained.

Two photo essays will be posted here, a combination of my pictures and other contributed pictures. The first essay traces the events of the day in roughly chronological sequence. The second shows the wide variety of protest signs that were hoisted during the demonstrations. 

My rough estimate was that the lunch hour Sproul Plaza crowd numbered over a thousand active participants, and perhaps as many curious and interested spectators. The short Southside march included hundreds, and perhaps three or four hundred reassembled on campus and were involved when the tent confrontation occurred. Evening saw several hundred participants and curious passersby in Sproul Plaza and on the Mario Savio Steps. 

The Telegraph marchers left the campus at Bancroft and Telegraph, moved down one block to Durant while Berkeley Police motorcycle officers stopped north and eastbound traffic, chanted in front of the entrances to the Bank of America branch, then turned eastbound up Durant before returning to the campus. 

Protest and rally activities then centered in the Sproul Plaza area, particularly around the northwest corner of Sproul Hall. 

Good event-by-event coverage of the protests can be found on the Daily Californian website and live blog, especially the on-going evening events as UC administrators met with the students. Go to http://www.dailycal.org/ for the most recent stories and for the live blog see http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/09/live-blog-day-of-action-2/ 

The protestors are following some of the protocols of the rest of the “Occupy Movement” including no formal leaders, “General Assemblies” where speakers are heard and mass votes are taken, and crowd members repeating the sentences of speakers so what’s said can carry to the edges of the audience. Calls of “Mic Check!” are shouted out when someone is about to speak. 

The protestors voted to endorse two proposals at the afternoon General Assembly. They’re posted on Daily Cal website here: 

The UC Berkeley official NewsCenter also posted an on-going blog with updates on activities, which can be found here: 

See the sidebar of that blog for links to official statements by Chancellor Birgeneau and other campus leaders, and “messages” from the Graduate Assembly and the ASUC. 

A photo chronology of the November 9, 2011 “Occupy Cal” Day of Protest

A sampling of the creative signs at the November 9, 2011, “Occupy Cal” Protest. Captions provide the text of the signs.

At the Home of the Free Speech Movement the UCPD appears to have suppressed Free Speech Again! Please join us in questioning this behavior and challenge the UCPD to respect the Free Speech Rights of Occupy Cal. 

Below is an email I sent to the UC Chancellor and Police Chief: 

Dear Chancellor Birgeneau and Chief Celaya, 

I wanted to bring to your attention that banners with Free Speech content appear to have been seized by UCPD in front of Sproul Plaza. The banner was not attached to any tent so should not be in any questionable legal territory as validly permitted. It is hard to imagine that such an act could occur at the exact location of Berkeley where the Free Speech Movement began. 

I respectfully request that you promptly inform your officers to STOP seizing banners that are legitimately in the hands of students and protesters. I also request that you return the banners that were inappropriately seized. You can imagine that the sense of irony will not be lost on the public, that the UCPD violated the Free Speech rights of protesters at this particular location. 

I understand that there are lot of people at the Occupy Cal event and that such an event can cause a lot of stress on you and officers. Nonetheless, in the United States and in Berkeley, we have clearly established parameters that allow posters and Free Speech banners. We request your prompt attention to this negative blotch on the UCPD on the very first day of Occupy Cal. 

These students have made a firm commitment to no violence and no vandalism . The University should be commending the thousands of students that are participating. For many, this could be their very first political protest of their life. They are protesting specifically for additional financing for the University of California. The University should support this enthusiasm and help encourage this to be an effective protest that helps the University and our country. 

It is unfortunate and unacceptable that the UCPD are vandalizing and removing free speech banners from the event. Please stop this behavior now. 

Thank you for your prompt attention to this important issue. 

Police have broken through a line of protesters on the University of California at Berkeley campus this afternoon and are taking down a half-dozen tents set up by the demonstrators. 

At least one protester has been arrested.  

The tents had been erected on the lawn in front of Sproul Hall after a noon rally and march to protest tuition and fee increases for university students and funding cuts to all levels of public education. 

The demonstration is intended to be in the style of "Occupy Wall Street," "Occupy Oakland" and similar protests, and participants planned to set up an encampment that would stand for at least a day.  

The protesters had set up the tents on the lawn after a 1:30 p.m. general assembly, and had linked arms and formed a circle around the tents to prevent police from removing the small encampment.  

However, around 3:40 p.m., dozens of police in riot gear pushed their way through the human chain using their batons and began taking the tents down. 

There were scuffles between the officers and protesters, and the crowd began chanting, "Stop beating students." 

Before police moved in, UC Berkeley police Lt. Eric Tejada reminded the demonstrators that camping is illegal there.  

"Remove your tents now," he said.  

On Monday, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau sent a letter to students, faculty and staff saying that while the university supports the principles behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, camping will not be allowed on campus. 

"Any activities such as pulling fire alarms, occupying buildings, setting up encampments, graffiti, or other destructive actions that disrupt with anyone's ability to conduct regular activities -- go to class, study, carry out their research, etc. -- will not be tolerated," the letter stated. 

Students and University of California at Berkeley employees are setting up an encampment on the campus today to protest tuition and fee increases for university students and funding cuts to all levels of public education. 

The encampment will be in the style of "Occupy Wall Street," "Occupy Oakland" and other encampments across the world that have been established to bring attention to a broad range of economic and political issues. 

The camp is only anticipated to last two days, but some protest organizers said it could go on longer. Many other "Occupy" encampments have been set up indefinitely. 

Tanya Smith, president of the Berkeley chapter of UPTE-CWA 9119, a union of health care workers, researchers and technical employees, said her union supports the protests. 

"We passed a resolution supporting the Occupy movement and supporting their basic needs," Smith said.  

"At least a couple of members have talked about camping out," she said. "We want to help students with resources to the extent that we are able, we certainly will be around them and with them." 

The protests began with picket lines and "teach-outs" at several locations around the campus this morning. A rally began at Sproul Plaza at noon and was scheduled to be followed by a short march and a general assembly at 1:30 p.m. 

More than 800 people said on a Facebook page set up for "Occupy Cal" that they would be attending today's protest.  

Smith said protesters would likely discuss how long the camp will stay at today's general assembly. 

"I think some of those decisions will come up there. I don't think it's going to be ongoing but I'm not sure," Smith said. 

On Monday, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau sent a letter to students, faculty and staff saying that while the university supports the principles behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, camping will not be allowed on campus. 

"Any activities such as pulling fire alarms, occupying buildings, setting up encampments, graffiti, or other destructive actions that disrupt with anyone's ability to conduct regular activities -- go to class, study, carry out their research, etc. -- will not be tolerated," the letter stated. 

Smith said she objects to the characterization of an encampment as disruptive.  

"This is not intended to disturb anyone's education, it's intended to broaden education," she said. 

Protests are also planned for the Nov. 16 UC Regents meeting at UC San Francisco's Mission Bay campus.

It was a beautiful late October day, ideal weather for enjoying the sweeping panorama from atop the hills north of the Berkeley Marina. It was a lovely day for soaking up the sun and inhaling great gasps of fresh Bay breeze. And it was also a perfect day for grabbing pick-axes, shovels and a hundred small boulders to gussy up the perimeter surrounding the César Chávez Memorial Solar Calendar. 

The Solar Calendar is a special site. Every Solstice and Equinox, it draws a crowd of students, environmentalists, activists, astronomers and Wiccans. In between, it draws curious stares from dog walkers and excited laughter from school children on field trips. 

The Solar Calendar (Note: Don't call it a "sundial") sits in the center of a grass-fringed summit, encircled by a mini-Stonehenge of earth-backed berms and four clusters of signs detailing various aspects of the life of United Farm Workers' leader César Chávez. Each of the four points of the compass is marked by a stone bearing one of the cardinal virtues epitomized by Chávez' life of service and sacrifice — Hope, Determination, Courage and Tolerance. 

In addition to providing one of the Bay Area's best scenic vantage points, the summit's celestial monument also puts visitors in the position of being at the virtual "helm of Spaceship Earth." Standing alongside the three-foot-tall stone gnomon as it casts a shadow across the face of the Meridian Calendar, visitors can mark the slow course of the planet as it moves eastward on its axis. Standing on this spot and watching the slow progress of the ever-moving shadow, visitors can feel as if they are "driving the planet" from this unique perch. (An illusion, of course, since none of us are Captains of this ship: we are all merely Passengers.) 

Berm, Baby, Berm! 

Santiago Casal, the visionary sociologist and designer who created the memorial — and who continues to nurture its ever-evolving transformations — was on hand to greet volunteers, which today included Karen Fox-Reynolds leading a delegation of students from the Marin School in Albany and nearly a dozen members of the East Bay Conservation Corps. "The Corps has been involved in the creation of the site since the very beginning," Casal says. 

Casal looks over the 1.5-acre site and sighs. "The berms seem to have become ground squirrel hotels," he says, "Not sure what to do about that." But quickly turning back to the day's work, he explains that volunteers will be "resetting some of the stones on the berms to achieve a greater esthetic and we will be lengthening the tail of the Calendar to accentuate the southern orientation and aerial image of the site." And, he adds, "new signage is in the works." 

By day's end, the eastern and southern berms will be enhanced with new stone walls with eight large boulders marking the site's coordinates. The smaller stones used to build the encircling berms were donated by American Soil and Stone while the soil used to back the new berms was donated by Brickyard Excavations. 

Armed with picks, shovels and strong backs, the Conservation Corps crew swarms over the site while down the hill, an earthmover is busy rebuilding the path that leads uphill to the site. Wiping his brow, one of the young Corps workers pauses to laugh and exclaims: "Man! I'm exercising muscles I didn't even know I had!" 

Overseeing the work is a beaming Bill Ritchie. A building coordinator with the City of Oakland, Richie works with members of the Neighborhood Service Department and has had a hand in the Chavez Memorial from the earliest days. Or, as Richie puts it: "When we were just piling dirt on top of dirt." Richie grew up cash-poor but in a resilient environment — his family home was small but there were chickens, goats and dogs in the backyard as well as a thriving food garden. These days, Richie admits he's concerned about social collapse. "We need to get back to the basics — back to the land," he says. He believes sites like this are part of the solution. 

James LaFemina, the site's stonemason (who prefers to go by the name "JL") explains that we will be "dry-stacking" the stone walls. No mortar is being used, so the trick is to find the one stone that fits near-perfectly into the niche that's been created by all the other stones previously placed. This is a "special spatial" puzzle where the "solution" does not pre-exist but happens spontaneously at the moment you find the perfect stone to drop into place. 

JL admits that he likes to finish his workdays by returning home, kicking back and filling out crossword puzzles. Finding the right word to complete a line or a block "is just as satisfying as placing the right stone," he smiles. 

JL instructs his apprentice masons to take care to place the stones with their colorful, weathered sides facing outward. "It can take 100 years to grow one square inch of lichen," he notes. He also alerts us to "the five minute rule": if you can't find a fit in five minutes, move on to a different part of the wall. We roll and rotate each of the 10-20-pound rocks, checking their shapes and size. It takes more than one trip to the wall to find a stone that fits. And we do our best to honor the lichen. 

A salute to some unsung heroes: The Solar Calendar's current crew of volunteer Stewards includes: Tory Brady, Kathy Churchill, Beck Cowles, Curtis Gray, Steve Haflich, Carlos Hill, Russell Nelson, Mojgan Saberi, Chuck Soper,Cathy Sponseller and Jim Shallenberger. For more information: http://solarcalendar.org 

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, October 25th, police raided the encampment of Occupy Oakland. We'd gotten word that it was likely to occur this night, and, as I headed out to join my companions at the Plaza, I was thinking of an incident from local history--the police attack in the Port of Oakland on the morning of April 7, 2003. 

On that day antiwar demonstrators were picketing at the docks, peacefully protesting war profiteering by shipping companies, when police attacked. It was pretty brutal. Fifty-nine persons, including protesters, dock workers, and journalists were injured. Presumably the attack was intended as a message, something like: "Don't ever enter this port again! Don't even think of it!" 

Exactly five weeks later, on May 12th 2003, several hundred protesters marched back into the Port, with banners flying and band playing. We successfully shut it down. 

And that wasn't the end of it. The following year (2004), protesters commemorated the anniversary of the infamous attack by again returning to the Port, again shutting it down. Since then the Port has been picketed and shut down on several occasions, most recently in June 2010, to protest the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. 

Some people do learn from history. But what about Mayor Jean Quan? --former Maoist, veteran of the student movement of the 1960's, and now, a liberal Democrat. With her experience as a former radical activist, she should've understood the dynamics. It seems that she did not. 

For our part, at the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland, we'd decided by consensus vote that we'd defend our camp as best we could. If driven out and scattered, we'd reassemble the next afternoon at 4 p.m. in front of the library. That was the plan. Sentries were posted at each corner of the Plaza. I shared a post with two others of the security team, and it was on our watch that the raid began. We first sighted the police at 2:20 a.m. After determining that they were staging for a raid, we sounded the alarm and woke the camp. "Everybody up! Everybody up!" 

More than two hours passed before the police actually made their move. Hundreds of them suddenly dashed out of the shadows, surrounded our camp, then halted. I glanced up at the clock on the Tribune Tower; it was 4:40 a.m. Police from 17 agencies. They just stood there for what seemed like a very long time, motionless, not moving, their Darth Vader helmets glittering ominously in the dim light. The very sight of such overwhelming numbers was absolutely terrifying. Shock and Awe. 

We scattered among the tents. Finally regaining our composure, we returned to the perimeter, linked arms, and began chanting, "Cops go home! Cops go home!" The riot police just stood there, still not moving. And we stood where we were, also not moving. I glanced at the people around me, nearly all were young, excepting myself and two or three others. About half of us were women. Twenty minutes passed. 

Eventually a loudspeaker crackled; the police were telling us to leave the Plaza. A few minutes later there was a loud explosion and a bright flash of light--a "flash bang," and the helmeted police advanced towards us, tearing down our barricade as they approached. 

This time our line didn't waver. We chanted to the police, "You are also the 99%!" and "We are fighting for you!" 

They pulled us apart, one by one. 105 were arrested, according to the police. Despite the scariness of it all, the police mostly acted with restraint. I wasn't hurt, nor were most of the people around me. As repression goes, it was gentle--if you discount a few injuries and the fact that they razed our tent city, destroying our equipment. Not to mention the sheer terror of the experience. 

While waiting to be hauled off to jail, we talked with our captors, and found that they didn't like Wall Street either. "We're following orders," they told us. We overheard one officer saying to another, "Why are we arresting these people? Haven't we got something better to be doing?" 

They kept us in jail for about fifteen hours. Some were held longer. Jail food was awful. Meanwhile, over a thousand people met at the library at 4 p.m., then marched to the jail where we were being detained and held a vigil, a very loud one. From inside the jail we could hear them, and it felt really great. From there they continued on to the Plaza which had been the site of our camp. That's when police got really violent. Tear gas in the streets, people clubbed, an Iraqi war veteran critically injured. 

The next evening, Wednesday October 26, we returned to the Plaza and held a General Assembly attended by upwards of three thousand people. Many left to defend Occupy SF, where a raid was reportedly about to begin (At the last minute it was called off). Those of us remaining at the Plaza voted (1,442 in favor, 34 opposed, and 73 abstaining) to call for a general strike on November 2nd. As we did so, I kept thinking of an aphorism from the French May '68 rebellion: "Be realistic--demand the impossible." Meanwhile, greetings were coming in from occupations around the country including Occupy Wall Street and even from Tahrir Square, the mother of all occupations. The world was watching us, and we knew it. 

"Oakland! Oakland!" we chanted, "The world is watching Oakland!" 

The response to the attack at the Port of Oakland back in 2003 had seemed really big at the time, but it was small compared to this. 

Our eviction from the Plaza, a project on which city officials must've spent a huge amount of taxpayer money, had lasted about thirty-six hours. 

Tents began to reappear. First one, eight or nine more the next day. Soon there were twenty, and by the end of the week most of the Plaza had been re-tented. All our tents, sleeping bags and other gear were destroyed by the raiders, but we're rebuilding. The Plaza is our base of operations, our citadel, our symbol of hope. But this is not classical warfare where survival ultimately depends on holding a key position, however important. If driven from the Plaza again, we will again regroup and reoccupy. 

--- --- --- DANIEL BORGSTRÖM was at the Port of Oakland on April 7, 2003 and has taken part in several Port actions since, most recently on Nov 2nd. He writes on progressive topics and his website is at: http://danielborgstrom.blogspot.com/

Back to Berkeley, after the excitement in Oakland seems to have settled into a long slog, this week we have an example of the unintended consequences of the city management’s latest attempt to squeeze more moolah out of the citizenry.

You may remember that The Management, rubberstamped as usual by a complaisant group of electeds, has been sold Smart Boot, a computerized scheme for rapid collection of outstanding traffic tickets. Like many innovations which glom on to “Smart” branding, it’s a dumb idea which is looking dumber and dumber all the time.  

Case in point: we’re having some painting done by a friend who’s an excellent painting contractor as his day job, besides being a well-regarded acoustic bass jazz musician in the rest of his time. On Friday he needed to drop off some equipment at our house, so he parked his van, just for a few minutes, across our driveway.  

(No one ever puts a car in this driveway, because to get out you’d have to back into Ashby—and you’d better write your will first if you try that. Nevertheless, zoning requires us to maintain both the driveway and the garage which has never had a car in it since we’ve owned the house.) 

Guess what? That’s right, when he came out the van had been booted. Yes, Virginia, he had some unpaid traffic tickets, an occupational hazard of two professions which require unloading of either ladders or a bass at many stops. And no, he can’t transport these on a bicycle, in case the self-righteous among you are tempted to ask. 

However, he’d recently renewed his license, and he thought he’d paid all the tickets then. He called whatever number the booters gave him to ask about this, and whoever he talked to said cheerfully “yes, we make a lot of mistakes. You should talk to the city.” So he headed for City Hall. 

Catch 22: As you may be aware, The City is officially furloughed on many Fridays, including this one. So he had to leave the booted car in the driveway over the weekend, making it impossible for us to roll out the garbage cans in time for the Monday pickup. 

And that’s not the end of it. 

On Saturday night he had a gig in downtown Berkeley, for which he borrowed his wife’s car. (Oh, they also have teenagers to transport, especially the one who plays the cello, and that has caused them to get more tickets on that car.) 

Guess what? You got it, another boot job.  

And not only that, he reports that six or seven other cars were booted in the same block of Addison on Saturday night. That’s a few patrons of the fabled Berkeley Arts District who probably won’t be back any time soon. 

This is where the Puritans among you will pop their heads up and say, they all deserve it. They shouldn’t park illegally. If they do, they should pay their tickets right away, instead of putting it off until license renewal time. In fact, that’s just what my conscientious painter/musician friend said as he kicked himself.  

But not so fast—consider the social consequences. As a painting contractor, he’s providing jobs for three or four guys who would otherwise be unemployed, so when his business loses time and money over the boot incident it’s a net loss to society.  

As a musician, he’s attracting badly needed paying customers to downtown Berkeley and its various small businesses.  

As a parent, he’s raising two more musicians who seem likely to make a great contribution to the community, and as a husband he’s helped his his wife to get her degree from U.C. as an over-40 student, so that she now fills an important social service job.  

Balance all these social costs against the money raised for the public coffers by booting his vehicles. 

I don’t have complete figures, but the Smart Boot corporation gets $140 off the top from every transaction. The tickets themselves are now serviced by an out-of-town company which gets a piece of the action. All in all, I’d be surprised to hear that the City of Berkeley nets more than a couple of hundred dollars from each boot, while the average bootee probably pays close to $1000 to get his or her car back. 

Balance that against the city’s ongoing expenses. For example, there are currently 75 City of Berkeley retirees whose pensions exceed $100,000. The City Manager’s pension when he retires this year will be close to $300,000. The modest sums collected off the backs of hard-working people like my musician friend by the boot scheme are a drop in the bucket by comparison. 

Last year’s shortfall from uncollected parking tickets was only about $1.5 million. If that amount is collected under the Smart Boot scheme at a net gain to the city of only about $200 per boot, it will pay for no more than 15 of those 75 pricey pensions. 

And there will be 7500 outraged drivers with attendant social losses—is it really worth it? 

The Smart Boot system just started on October 18, but there’s undoubtedly already a good crop of horror stories as bad as, or worse than, what happened to my musician friend. If you have one, the Planet would like to hear from you.

Berkeley's small but vocal band of ignorami has been wondering aloud in venues open to them about what critics of last Wednesday's UC Berkeley police riot would have done instead. Here's a sample quote from an anonymous bloviator on a local site: "You'd think that people who were so worked up would have their much better solution at the ready, but I guess not. "

Well, actually, Ty Alper, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law, has explored the topic on Huffington Post.

He notes that "In response to November 2009 violence between police and protestors at UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall, the Police Review Board issued a thorough, comprehensive report recommending all sorts of improvements to the way it handles exactly the kind of demonstration that occurred again on campus this week."

Unsurprisingly, Professor Alper concludes that the Review Board's advice was not followed on Wednesday—to say the least.

How many of them are in the 1%? Figure it out. Thanks to Zelda Bronstein for this link.

There's an interesting article in the San Francisco Bay View about the influence of business improvement districts in Oakland and elsewhere. A business improvement district has been approved for downtown Berkeley. 

For an account of what happened late last night and lots of pictures, see Steve Leibel's blog post with overview of events & a little editorializing ...

Joseph Young

Dan O'Neill

we are having quite a slice of occupy
hot, fresh, wild, delicious occupy
stir it up a nice hot cup of occupy
share it with your friends and neighbors
taste the fruit of all your labors
be the first one on your block to occupy
wind it up and set your clock to occupy
tell the cops and tell the mayor
you’ve become an occuplayer
have yourself a slice of occupy

 

grab your tent and screw the rent come occupy
join the slackers and the hackers occupy
meet the folks who lost their homes
meet the folks who never owned one
meet the folks down to the bone you’ll
find you’ll never be alone
grab a sign and join the line at occupy
admit you’re the 99 and occupy
if your tent don’t get reception
change your channel of perception
have yourself a slice of occupy

 

don’t you love the great outdoors
there’s no bureaucracy
but your meeting might be endless
it’s democracy – you gotta love it

 

don’t be late no need to wait just occupy
have yourself a heaping plate of occupy
hop on your bike and be the mike at occupy
the rich are going to miss the fun
but afterwards we’ll all be one
lose your frown and dance around at occupy
boot the blues and make the news at occupy
this ain’t no occupy in the sky
and there’s more to occupy than meets the eye
come have yourself a slice of occupy
(we really mean it)
have yourself a slice of occupy

 

In a letter ^[2] addressed to Oakland’s Mayor Jean Quan on Nov. 8, two little-known entities, the Lake Merritt/Uptown District Association (LMUDA) and Downtown Oakland Association (DOA) implored Mayor Quan to “step up and provide cohesive, common sense leadership.” Cohesive leadership, according to these two organizations, means giving the Oakland Police Department a green light to eradicate the now month-old Occupy encampment. “It’s time for Frank Ogawa Plaza to be given back to the people of Oakland,” they conclude.

Who are the LMUDA and DOA? What gives them the authority to make such demands? Further, who are the “people of Oakland” referred to in their letter? If those occupying the plaza do not constitute the people of Oakland, then who are the rightful owners of this contested public space? 

The privatization of public administration

Because they have the power to levy and spend taxes, BIDs must be formed via a petition process and then by majority vote of businesses and property owners within the chosen area and finally approved by the City Council. However, once the BID is established, it largely operates under its own discretion. It does what it wants with its money, which can involve funding events, contracting for extra sanitation and trash services, and even hiring private security to patrol public space. 

The Lake Merritt/Uptown District and Downtown District are two of nine BIDs established in Oakland since 2001. The others include Fruitvale, Koreatown/Northgate, Lakeshore/Lake Park, Laurel, Montclair, Rockridge and Temescal/Telegraph Avenue. 

BIDs began to emerge nationally in the 1970s as vehicles for gentrification and the militarization of urban space. Laws enabling the incorporation of these districts have spread to nearly every state, and most major U.S. cities contain multiple special districts run mostly by real estate developers and large tourism and entertainment companies, with smaller businesses – restaurants and retailers – as junior partners. BIDs especially took off in the 1990s as real estate capital focused its energy on urban zones from which it had previously divested. 

BIDs are a strategic response of real estate businesses to the political backlash against the Civil Rights Movement. Because much of the public sector was de-funded through tax cuts and capital and wealth were withdrawn into newly rich suburban enclaves buoyed by white flight or into private institutions, cities found themselves tax-starved and unable to raise revenues for the public services that many place-dependent businesses once depended on. Many small urban businesses were ruined. 

BIDs are a strategic response of real estate businesses to the political backlash against the Civil Rights Movement.

The LMUDA and DOA districts are administered by nonprofit management corporations under contract with the City of Oakland. Each corporation is governed by a board of directors. The acting presidents, J.C. Wallace and Deborah Boyer, are employees of San Francisco-based real estate investment and management companies SKS Investments and the Swig Company, respectively. Both have speculated on properties in Oakland and stand to profit from increased rents generated by gentrification. 

Before joining SKS, J.C. Wallace was a “relationship manager” with Wells Fargo’s Real Estate Group, responsible for a $300 million portfolio. John Bruno of the Los Angeles-based CIM Group, a real estate investment firm with over $9 billion in managed assets, sits on both boards, as do members of the San Francisco-based CAC Real Estate Management Co., Inc. The board of the DOA also boasts two employees of Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis, the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm, which owns much property in Oakland. 

^[3]

The Occupy Oakland encampment has brought some of the issues previously discussed only in the hood to downtown, where big business rightly feels threatened. – Photo: Dave Id, Indybay

The LMUDA, for example, can circumvent the law enforcement pensions deadlock and yearly general fund budget shortfalls affecting the city’s police force and subcontract instead with the private security company Block by Block to provide additional security personnel in the downtown area. 

A subsidiary of the SMS Holdings Corp., which made Inc. magazine’s list of fastest growing private companies in 2011, Block by Block specializes in staffing BIDs. Block by Block runs BIDs in 42 U.S. cities, including Berkeley, Oakland, Pasadena, LA, West Hollywood and Santa Monica. Block by Block’s non-union, minimum wage workforce effectively reduces the costs of city services for corporations and allows these same corporations to determine who benefits from these services, while undermining better-paid, unionized city employees who would provide services to all residents under the ultimate authority of elected officials, not private corporate boards. 

A small gang of primarily non-Oaklanders

This small gang of corporate directors and their associated companies are equipped with the resources needed to disrupt the encampment and discredit the organizing coming from the steps of City Hall. SKS, for example, has four lobbyists registered in Oakland since February 2011. SKS has maintained a lobbying presence in Oakland for years, most recently meeting with Mayor Quan to discuss what sorts of business development activities she envisions as the new mayor. 

The interests of big business have become the law of the land.

The people of Oakland vs. the product Oakland

The transition New City America and similar consultants are promoting – the neoliberal urban shift – ultimately boils down to the privatization of public space and the elimination of democratic politics from city budgeting and services. In the words of New City America: 

“The business district must be seen as a product to be defined, marketed and sold to a target audience. A business district, just as a business product, is subject to the laws of supply and demand. The district must distinguish itself from other districts or malls because of its own unique assets and resources.” 

The encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza, now dubbed Oscar Grant Plaza, offers many alternative visions of what the people of Oakland desire for the future of their city. In the section of the Oct. 8 statement of the General Assembly addressed to the people, Occupy Oakland declared, “The purpose of our gathering here is to plan actions, to mobilize real resistance, to defend ourselves from the economic and physical war that is being waged against our communities.” 

In the days to come, as speculation swirls regarding a second police raid and demolition of the encampment, the larger war rages on to determine who are the rightful people of Oakland, and whose vision will be adopted for a future as yet unwritten. 

Adrian Drummond-Cole is a writer, organizer and musician who lives in Oakland. Darwin BondGraham is a sociologist and author currently visiting Occupy encampments across the U.S.; he can be reached at darwin@riseup.net ^[4]. 

Related Posts

• The police raid on Occupy Oakland was nothing new for this city ^[5]
• My thoughts on Occupy Oakland after the murder and one-month anniversary ^[6]
• Notes from Occupy Oakland ^[7]
• Call for GENERAL STRIKE Nov. 2 – plus Occupy updates ^[8]
• Gang injunctions, unfettered police power gentrify Oakland ^[9]

URL to article: http://sfbayview.com/2011/whose-streets-oakland%e2%80%99s-shadow-government-presses-city-hall-to-end-the-occupation/ 

URLs in this post: 

[1] Image: http://sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Occupy-Oakland-Alameda-County-Sheriff-deputies-in-riot-gear-102511-by-Jay-Finneburgh.jpg  

[2] letter: http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2011/11/08/11.8.11.oakland_letter_fin-mayor.pdf  

[3] Image: http://sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Occupy-Oakland-Welcome-to-Oscar-Grant-Plaza-102111-by-Dave-Id-Indybay.jpg  

[4] darwin@riseup.net: mailto:darwin@riseup.net  

[5] The police raid on Occupy Oakland was nothing new for this city: http://sfbayview.com/2011/the-police-raid-on-occupy-oakland-was-nothing-new-for-this-city/  

[6] My thoughts on Occupy Oakland after the murder and one-month anniversary: http://sfbayview.com/2011/my-thoughts-on-occupy-oakland-after-the-murder-and-one-month-anniversary/  

[7] Notes from Occupy Oakland : http://sfbayview.com/2011/notes-from-occupy-oakland/  

[8] Call for GENERAL STRIKE Nov. 2 – plus Occupy updates: http://sfbayview.com/2011/call-for-general-strike-nov-2-%e2%80%93-plus-occupy-updates/  

[9] Gang injunctions, unfettered police power gentrify Oakland: http://sfbayview.com/2011/gang-injunctions-unfettered-police-power-gentrify-oakland/

The UC Student Association learned this morning that the UC Regents have cancelled this week’s meeting in response to concerns about public safety. UC students are strongly opposed to this decision.  

“The decision to cancel this week’s Regents meeting came abruptly and without any consultation with students or other stakeholders. We do understand the concerns about public safety, yet the Regents also have a responsibility to the students and people of California to hold open meetings that allow for public access and participation. Cancelling the meeting is not a solution to any short term issues,” said UC Student Association President Claudia Magana.  

UCSA would expect the UC Regents and UC Police Department to have better prepared plans to ensure that Regents meetings can take place, so that students and others can exercise their free speech rights, and that public safety is protected. “It is concerning that the UC Regents and UCPD were not properly prepared for this meeting, given the ‘credible intelligence’ that was gathered. UCPD deals with student demonstrations on a regular basis, and their top priority should be ensuring student’s ability to demonstrate safely. By cancelling this meeting, the UC Regents have done a great disservice to students, and our ability to participate in the governance of our University system,” said Magana.  

UCSA is part of the ReFUND Coalition, made up of student groups, labor unions, and other stakeholders, which helped to organize the planned peaceful demonstrations for Wednesday. Along with the other members of the coalition, UCSA calls on the UC Regents to stand with us in advocating for new taxes on the wealthy and big businesses in 2012 and reforming Prop 13. “The UC Regents need to stand with us, not run away. In order to fully fund education, the state needs new revenue, and our UC Regents should support this goal. This is all that students wanted to hear this week from the UC Regents,” said Magana.  

The University of California Student Association is the official voice of over 200,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students from the eleven UC campuses. It is our mission to advocate on behalf of current and future students for the accessibility, affordability, and quality of the University of California system.

Editor's Note: This was received by the Planet before the Occupy Oakland protestors were evicted, but some of the points made by the correspondents are still relevant to the discussion of what happened there.

I think you might find this exchange between a student and me about Occupy Oakland and the Oakland community of some interest. There is a rumor that there may be a new violent confrontation hours from now as the occupiers refuse to leave (the mayor had previously offered for us to be able to stay 24/7 but without tents--in other words, just as people coming to present our ideas, but not as occupiers. Let me hasten to add that I believe that the police riot 12 days ago was totally unjustified, and believe that the police who were involved should be sent to prison like others who violate the law. The violence of Oakland police is a daily reality for people of color in Oakland and many other American cities, and always a shock to everyone else because it is only when it happens to white people that the media stays on the story for more than a day or two!

So here is the letter I received on email this morning: 

JORDAN ASHE wrote: 

Dear Rabbi Lerner: 

My name is Jordan Ashe and I am a student member of your Tikkun community. I attended the Oakland camp yesterday. I washed dishes, observed, and engaged in conversation. My children left sidewalk chalk drawings as gifts to the occupiers. It felt good to be part of the 99%. It felt good to give of myself to others and to see my legacy-my family-do the same. 

To my horror, however, I observed and heard things that left me in a state of great concern. The 99% need healing, they need repair, they need transformation. The camp was ripe with hostility towards police. My conversations with the occupiers revealed little or any willingness to forgive and seek atonement from the police. Even more horribly, the occupiers seemed content to forget or even ignore the basic lessons our great non-violent leaders left for us. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said the most dangerous thing about violence is its futility. This great leader recognized that fighting violence with violent resistance leads to a continuing cycle of inter-generational trauma and hatred. 

Yet many of the occupiers seemed ready for a violent fight-some welcomed it- and many more were unready to forgive. I fear this movement is in need of spiritual guidance less it lead to the same horrible cycles history has witnessed many times over. This guidance was sorely lacking at the occupation and even as I journeyed throughout the camp, I was unable to find a spiritual center. It is the lack of spiritual consensus and guidance that, I believe, is responsible for what I observed next. 

The highlight of the day was a speech and a reading from the Egyptian movement that was followed by a "Solidarity March." The reading was disturbing to hear because its focus was on the justification for violent resistance. Although the need for violent aggression may be debatable in Egypt, it is not here in America. The activists of our past changed this county by being willing to die, not by being willing to kill. What shocked me more was that no one (including myself) booed or hissed. We sat there and many applauded. Worse followed. 

A leader of a Palestinian youth group read his own speech. "Down with Israel," he said near the end of a speech that focused on past wrongs. There was resounding applause. Then one of the leader's crew standing next to me said "fucking Jews," and in the face of this I could stand it no longer. I told him that I believed it was racist to say that and that forgiveness and atonement is the only hope for peace in the middle east. I told him that I forgave him and he should be careful with his thoughts and words. I told him that my best friend is Palestinian and I am close to many Jews and I wished sincerely to see the differences reconciled for the sake of the innocent generations of the future. Then I had to leave because I was overcome with tears and wanted to scream out to the crowd (I wish I had). The Solidarity March went out shortly thereafter but some people stayed out of the march for the same reasons I did. After all, it makes no sense to march in a "Solidarity March," when the speeches before the march openly contradict the concept of solidarity. 

I wish our American youth and people around the world would use the tools passed down by the legacy before them. Organized Non-Violent Non-Cooperation is a gift of strategy from our greatest activists. MLK, Gandhi, Cesar Chavez-these are men who changed the world by doing but not by killing and we squander their memory and their message when we ignore their teachings. How quickly the world forgets. To the religious and faithful and spiritual around the world (those like myself), I would ask: Does God want us to kill in God's name? Or, Does God want us to be willing to die in God's name? Shall we sacrifice the lives of others before we sacrifice of ourselves? Shall we win the battle against our external enemies yet loose the battle against our inner self? In the struggle against oppression, against fear, against the machine of death and war, perhaps our greatest weapons will be forgiveness, atonement, selflessness, and love. I hope people arm themselves with these weapons and I hope they fight back with all their might. I would give my life to that kind of fight. 

I am not sure why I wrote to you. But I am sure that writing to you helped me put the sadness of this event behind me. Thanks for reading and for being there. 

-Jordan Ashe 

Law Student, Father, Husband, 99%er 

Dear Jordan, 

Thanks so much for this letter. I share your sadness at the distortions within Occupy Oakland. 

I have been participating both in Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco, and I feel that the Occupy movement nationally has made a tremendous contribution to our society. By formulating things in terms of “the 99%” it finally did what many other progressives have failed to do—namely, identify us as having a common interest in protecting ourselves from the class war that has been waged against us, all of us, for the past 30 years by the 1% and their representatives in the government, media, academia and military. So I remain a passionate supporter of this movement. 

Yet some of the strengths that exist elsewhere are notably lacking in the core group that led people into the struggle in Oakland. Let me be clear, however: I know that at least 90% of the people who marched on Nov. 2nd during the General Strike and marched to the Port of Oakland are people who agree with you. But there is a determined group of violent self-described "anarchists" who ideologically believe in violence and seek it out. They correctly note that destruction of property is not the same as destruction of human beings, and they correctly note that the amount of violence against human beings built into our global economic and political systems makes any violence that they do pale in comparison. Moreover, the violence of the Oakland police has been a central reality in the lives of people of color in Oakland, and only stays in the attention of the media for more than a day or two when the victims are white (or in this case, a former US soldier back from Iraq and Afghanistan). So there is a built in hypocrisy when the media makes the story "the violence of the demonstrators." 

But those arguments are, in my view, not good reasons to allow violence or provoke violence or property destruction by demonstrators, for two reasons: 1. We should be non-violent because it is the right way to treat other human beings created in the image of God, and should not seek to create circumstances in which police violence is inevitably triggered unless we do so by ourselves being totally nonviolent in action and words. I'm in favor of non-violent disruptions of oppressive institutions (e.g. a sit-in in the Bank of America or in a Wall Street firm or in a corporation involved in illegitimate foreclosures or in producing military equipment or at the State Dept or the various offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Services given their vicious processes) as long as we keep a 100% non-violent stance. I do not think people need to sit down and get arrested--though that works in many cases; it is also legitimate to do nonviolent disruptions using mobile tactics in which demonstrators disrupt and then withdraw to disrupt somewhere else--as long as the demonstrators avoid destruction of property or creating a situation in which violence is inevitable. Non-violence does not mean passivity, but it must mean a fundamental respect for human life and for the dignity of human beings, including those with whom we strongly disagree. Our actions must reflect that sense of respect for the humanity of the Other--because that is precisely what is absent from the policies and practices of the 1% and those who do their bidding. 2. Though breaking windows or destroying property is not the same as breaking bones, it is perceived by much of the American public as a wrongful act, and a movement that engages in that activity quickly loses public support and isolates itself no matter how much the American public agrees with its goals. That is why the FBI and other elements of the "security apparatus" of the US government have consistently planted their youngest employees inside social movements with the goal of trying to encourage acts of violence so as to provide an excuse to repress those movements with public approval. 

But non-violence has not been the stance of the inner core at Occupy Oakland. I was deeply disturbed, and have withdrawn from active involvement with, a group of clergy who were meeting to discuss how they could assist in Occupy Oakland. At the third meeting I attended I proposed that we urge Occupy Oakland to officially endorse non-violence, train monitors to non-violently restrain violence-oriented demonstrators, and appeal to the majority of demonstrators to support these monitors to restrain the violence-oriented ones. To my shock, the clergy voted that down. They were only willing to endorse a resolution saying that they themselves supported non-violence, but they objected to the notion that they should call upon OO to share this same orientation. 

Not surprisingly, then, a few days later when one of the participants at OO suggested a resolution for non-violence, without the active support of this clergy group the people who agreed with him felt silenced after some part of the crowd actively booed when he mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi's commitments and teachings for non-violence. 

The dominant reason given by the clergy for their cowardice was that "we have no right to impose our view on those who are taking the risks of sleeping outside at Occupy Oakland; we should respect their process." But advocating is not imposing, and a movement that claims to speak for 99% of the population ought to have some mechanism to pay attention to the sensibilities of the people whom they claim to be speaking for! If those of us who have been in the movement, marched with the movement, and publicly advocated for the movement, do no have a legitimate voice in that movement, it seems transparent that such a movement cannot claim to be fighting for democracy. It thus undermines itself. 

I watched this same thing happen in the 1960s and early 1970s when a small group of violence-oriented Weathermen, and the FBI agents who infiltrated the anti-war movement and a few of their more suggestible followers, managed to play an important role in undermining support for the entire movement by demeaning people who weren't ready to "prove their commitment" by violent or property-destroying acts. Not only did the violence provide public justification for an increase in repression of the anti-war movement, it also soured the millions of people who were attracted to the possibility of building a different kind of world based on love, kindness, generosity and caring for others. The mass of participants in our movement abandoned it once the violence-prone got the attention of the corporate media, and I fear that the same thing is happening now. 

There's yet another twist in our current situation. The Occupy movement is meant to challenge the class war being waged against the 99% by the 1%. Sitting in front of a particular building to make that point was a useful tactic. But the people who are there have turned the tactic into a fetishization of the encampments, as though the movement was really about their right to set up tents and stay their all night, rather than about challenging the materialism and selfishness of the global marketplace and the lack of democracy in a society that allows the wealthy and the corporations to give endless monies to elect people (in both major parties) who in turn support the corporate agenda and the tax benefits for the rich. I personally believe that the city governments should actively help the demonstrators find a place to demonstrate in an area adjacent to the forces they are demonstrating against. But if they don't, we should not make that the center of the struggle, because there are a myriad of other tactics to keep the issue on the front burner. 

I share with you a deep distress at the hatred toward Israel and/or toward Jews you encountered. I've seen little of that in the days that I've been down there, but I'm not surprised that a handful of people retain those feelings. Again, I feel it is the obligation of the clergy and the adults to stand up to this publicly, raise the issue and challenge those who misuse legitimate outrage at the current policies of the current government of the State of Israel as their excuse for delegitimating the State of Israel itself or for expressing anti-Semitism. While I fully reject the attempt to label all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, and have myself been subject to attacks and death threats from right-wing Zionists who have labeled me a "self-hating Jew," I do think that we should insist that our friends in the Occupy movement or any other activist movement of progressive bent challenge anti-Semitism or the double standard applied to Israel by a handful of people who thereby sully our movements and give ammunition to those who seek to discredit us entirely! 

Warm regards, 

Rabbi Michael Lerner, 

Editor, Tikkun & Chair,The Network of Spiritual Progressives 

After a mass rally and march of over 3,000 people, and repeated police assaults on the Occupy Cal encampment, the general assembly at UC Berkeley decided on the night of November 9th -- with over 500 votes, 95% of the assembly -- to organize and call for a strike and day of action on Tuesday, November 15. We ask that all classes be cancelled or held at Sproul Plaza. 

The Open University strike is both a response to the University’s violent raid on the encampment, and an action against the defunding and privatization of public education in California. 

We will strike to reassert our collective right to freely assemble, both at the University and elsewhere, so that we are able to build public spaces where we can discuss and counter the various crises affecting our communities. We stand in solidarity with the Occupy movement, and especially with Occupy Oakland, which has been, and may again soon be, repressed by the city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department. 

We will also strike to reaffirm our determination to fight for a truly public and free University, and for the refunding of all levels of public education and public services. Since the crisis of 2008, the UC Regents have accelerated their push to privatize the University, subjecting students to unsustainable levels of debt, excluding increasing numbers of students, and further re-segregating public education in California. The policy of privatization also subjects workers to layoffs, work speedups, and drastic benefits reductions. All these regressive transformations are forms of structural violence, which the police enforced against the assembled students, faculty, and workers on November 9th. 

We call upon all sectors of public higher education in California to take actions on Tuesday, November 15th, up to and including strike actions, and to join the mass convergences on November 16th at the UC Regents meeting and the CSU Trustees meeting. We also call upon workplaces and K-12 schools to join us, either by taking actions at their sites or by converging on UC Berkeley and helping us to open up and transform the University from which most Californians have been systematically excluded. 

We do not think that property destruction is a useful tactic and we ask those who join the Open University to respect this sentiment. At the same time, we do not think that it is a good strategy to use physical force against those who might engage in such acts. 

Please join us on November 15th as we stop business as usual at our University in order to open up and transform our campus, and as we reestablish the Occupy Cal encampment. 

Occupy Cal’s Demands

Local Demands

Statewide Demands

Nationwide Demands

----- 

Schedule for November 15 Open University Strike at UC Berkeley

Noon: Mass convergence at Sproul Hall and formal inauguration of day-long Open University. 

Noon – 2pm: Teach-outs in Sproul Plaza. 

2pm: Rally against police violence and other, related forms of violence, including dispossession, privatization, and debt. 

2:30pm: March to Berkeley High and Berkeley City College. 5pm: General Assembly at Sproul Plaza. 

----- 

Endorsers of the Nov. 15 Strike and Day of Action

On Wednesday, November 16 there will be a mass convergence starting at 7am at the UC Regents meeting at the UCSF Mission Bay campus to protest cuts to all levels of public education and to call to refund California by making the banks and super rich pay.

An Open Letter to Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, University of California, Berkeley

Cc: President Mark G. Yudof, George W. Breslauer, Henry Le Grande, Jonathan Poullard

Re: A concerned parent's objection to police in riot gear beating non-violent students on University grounds on the evening of November 9, 2011

I am a parent of a student at University of California, Berkeley. I was appalled to see police in riot gear using excessive force on the evening of November 9, 2011 against peaceful student protesters on the grounds of the University of California, Berkeley.  

When I inquired as to who was responsible for sending the police in riot gear against students, I was told you are in command. If you are not to blame for this particular incident, your position, nonetheless, incurs responsibility. I am expressing parental, civic and moral disapproval of your actions. 

As a parent I disapprove of your actions in the strongest possible terms. It is inappropriate for you to bring in riot police to harm non-violent students. I am angered that you have allowed police to use excessive force on these young people. In this incident, the students' welfare was in your hands and you failed miserably. 

I offer civic disapproval in the strongest possible terms. As a young person in the Occupy Movement said, "If money is free speech, then tents are free speech." This logic is compelling. Riot police clearing student tents with force, is an abysmal over-reaction. Berkeley has strong ties to the Free Speech Movement. I ask you to remember this history. 

I am expressing moral disapproval in the strongest possible terms. Your thoughtless and reckless treatment of young people is unconscionable. A Chancellor of a great University should have the ability to walk among students and talk to them. It is called education. It is called dialogue. These bright and engaged students may have something to teach you. They are our future. Try listening and perhaps they will listen in return. 

Sending in riot police is a knee-jerk reaction that is unworthy of your office and of the University you serve. It is a shameful act. I am saddened to say, that if you sanctioned these police actions, then your approval of violence against students, has trampled the civic and the moral fabric of a great University. Not to mention, physically harming students. I am very disappointed as a parent, as a citizen and as a moral human being. 

With all due respect, I ask you to cease using violence against peaceful student protesters at Berkeley. Their discontent is obviously part of a larger movement in our country to seek redress of grievances. It is time to listen to the students and not over-react. It is time to teach. Find the compromise that is needed so their voices can be heard and the security of Berkeley can be maintained. The future is theirs and they are trying to shape it. 

I ask that a person of your eminence and standing in the community, reconsider your position from the standpoint of a larger and more inclusive picture of moral and civic responsibility. Education takes place all over the grounds at Berkeley, not just in the classroom. The police, under your guidance, can do better than to beat unarmed students. Use the least amount of force to secure Berkeley. Act with restraint. Act with the mental and physical welfare of the students in mind. 

As a Berkeley parent, I ask that no more students be harmed.

Who: Ad Hoc Labor Activist Assembly of veteran Oakland area labor organizers
What: Urgent Call to Alameda Labor Council for Labor Defense of Occupy Oakland
Why: Threat of Imminent Police Action to Attack and Evict Occupy Oakland
When: November 12, 2011

The following urgent proposal was unanimously adopted today at an ad hoc Labor Activist Assembly, and signed by more than 30 veteran labor activists: 

We, the Ad Hoc Labor Activist Assembly, in light of the imminent threat of police action to evict Occupy Oakland, call on the Alameda Labor Council Executive Board to adopt and implement the following: 

The Alameda Labor Council declares the Occupy Oakland encampment to be a sanctioned picket line. The Council's Executive Board calls on every one of its affiliates to immediately mobilize members to defend the encampment, dispatching pickets in shifts, beginning tonight (November 12) and continuing as long as the threat persists. 

SIGNATURES (organizations listed for identification only) 

Jack Gerson, OEA retired 

Zev Kuithy, CFT 

Susan Schacher, Peralta Federation of Teachers 

Bob Mandel, OEA/AFT retired 

Peter Brown, Peralta Federation of Teachers 

Steve Miller, OEA 

Loretta Franke, Operating Engineers retired 

Jack Heyman, ILWU Local 10 retired 

Stan Woods, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee 

Richard Tan, Librarian 

Pete Turner, IFTPE 21 

Henry Johnson 

Richard Mellor, AFSCME 444 retired 

Robert Irminger, IBU/ILWU 

Caray Dau,ILWU 6 

Adam Balou, Occupy Oakland 

Jenna Woloshyn, IBT 10 

John Reimann, IWW 

Matt Meyer, BFT 

Marcus Holder, ILWU 10 

Mary Beth Schuler 

Mike Parker, UAW 1700 

Bill Balderston, OEA 

Bill Cherneau, SEIU 1021 

Ruth Maguire, Grandmothers against the war 

Ying Lee, BFT retired 

Ann Weills, National Lawyers Guild 

Michael Rubin, SEIU 

Rosalind Makris OEA 

Dave Welsh, Letter Carriers 214 

Frank Martinez Campo, SEIU 1021

The U.C. Police Department recently used violence against Berkeley students, workers, faculty and community supporters on November 9. This was unprovoked, unexpected, unjustified and unreasonable. The General Assembly at the event had publicly and clearly committed to nonviolence, and the participants appear to have maintained their nonviolence despite the violence inflicted on them. The police clearly could have arrested individuals rather than repeatedly hitting them with batons and grabbing them by their hair. There are multiple videos documenting the police use of excessive force. The Stephen Colbert commentary mentions “spearing a small Asian girl in the spleen first” but there appeared to be a true reflection of diversity in Black, White, Asian, Arab and Latino students and workers equally assaulted by the Police. 

I believe it is important for the community to stand up and speak out against this injustice. See suggestions below. To avoid confusion, the City of Berkeley Police have not been reported to be part of this violence, it is the U.C P.D. 

U.C. Police also appear to have violated multiple people’s legitimate rights to free speech and freedom of assembly. There are reports of U.C. Police tearing down legally posted notices of the event. U.C. Police also confiscated at least one banner and a banner or poster at the event and the U.C. Police Chief declined to answer my questions why. Instead the U.C. Police Chief’s unprofessional response was “I know what I am doing. I’ve been in law enforcement for twenty-nine years, and how many years have you done it?” From the antagonistic tone of the response I knew this was an overly stressed person, but I counted on the Chancellor to provide leadership, so I emailed both the Chancellor and the Chief. Unfortunately the Chancellor was apparently out of town and has subsequently sought to justify the U.C. Police violence by blaming the nonviolent protesters. I was personally present for most of the afternoon and evening and saw only one-sided violence by the Police and none by the students. (Admittedly, some of that time, I was on my cell phone addressing blighted buildings, helicopter noise complaints, returning calls, and taking care of City business, but I still had my eyes and ears out for any problems on Sproul.) 

As I stated in my email to the Chancellor before the U.C. Police violence: “ These students have made a firm commitment to no violence and no vandalism . The University should be commending the thousands of students that are participating. For many, this could be their very first political protest of their lives. They are protesting specifically for additional financing for the University of California. The University should support this enthusiasm and help encourage this to be an effective protest that helps the University and our country. “ 

I believe it is important for the community to stand up and speak out against this injustice. This is a moral issue, not just a political issue. There are multiple ways to help. These include: 

1. Writing a letter or email to the Chancellor, and/or the media. Chancellor@berkeley.edu 

2. Asking your friends or groups to write letters or sign petitions. 

3. Become an observer to reduce the likelihood of violence when more people are watching. 

4. Donate time or money to support these courageous students, and/or hold a fundraiser/educational event. 

5. Show up on Sproul on Tuesday November 15 starting at noon. 2 p.m. is the rally and 5 p.m. is the General Assembly for the follow up event organizers have titled Open University 

6. Join those of us who are pledging to put our bodies with, or in between the U.C. Police and the students to discourage U.C. Police from further violence. Please email Alejandro Soto-Vigil if you are willing to make this pledge at asoto-vigil@cityofberkeley.info 

7. Advocate for dropping the trumped up charges against these nonviolent protesters. 

8. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to help, or have any suggestions for what we should do. 

Chancellor Birgeneau emailed the UC Berkeley Community on Thursday. I quote: “It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience.” 

The idea that linking arms and blocking officers is violent (what “not non-violent” means) is wrong, and taken to it’s logical conclusion denies the possibility of effective non-violent civil disobedience and justifies the use of force in response. This is bad thinking leading to bad policy and wrong action. 

The Chancellor distinguishes between “true non-violent disobedience” and “not non-violent disobedience.” There is a difference, but the student’s disobedience is violent only if they prevent police from stopping a violent crime. Otherwise wherein lies the violence? If the linking of arms is violent on its own merits we are forced to conclude that violence stems from disobedience, and therefore there can be no disobedience without violence. 

If this is true there can be no non-violent disobedience. And if this avenue is closed, then what recourse is left? The Chancellor’s position on this matter is dangerous indeed.

Somebody needs to report this story. During Chief Jordan's press conference Thursday someone yelled, "Turn on the lights," but Jordan ignored the comment and this issue hasn't hit the MSM yet. But it should. If OPD knew the camp was dangerous and deliberately turned off the lights, then they're culpable in the killing that followed. Tonight the lights are still off and it's pitch black in there. The Fire Dept has brought in a large floodlight to illuminate the area where the victim was killed. Evidently the Fire Dept is the only agency in town with any common sense.

Blog comments and a photo story ...

http://stevelimages.tumblr.com/


Additional pics ...

https://picasaweb.google.com/101309416971895678042/OccupyOakland11Nov2011

The other day I was at a bus stop in Berkeley waiting for a bus to Oakland. The bus was late. I had already walked a distance to get to my stop. I kept checking the arrival time indicated on the bus route board. A fellow commuter looked at me and said, “Are you joining the protestors today to benefit the millions who live in Oakland? “I am going to a professional meeting,” I said, “but my method would be to peacefully ask those who are well-off to support the needy. I don't like to hurt anyone even they are hurting us all the time through their discriminatory actions. I believe in the Gandhian way of finding common ground. Activating natural kindness in people will take us closer to our goal. Until then we have to remain calm and peacefully demand our rights. We should not forget our human duties to others even when we are being taken advantage of.”  

By then the bus arrived and my fellow-commuter and I got separated. But I kept thinking as I rode the bus that in the midst of all the confusion and discrimination prevailing today democracy is still alive in the US. The commuter and I were able to talk without any ill feeling between us.

After a day of demonstrations (Nov. 9) to protest increasing tuitions at a state funded university, to protest cuts in staff and curriculum in an era of horrendously large administrative salaries and bonuses, though not yet calling for a return of the university to an educational rather than career focus, students at UC Berkeley decided to "Occupy" the campus. They set up a few tents on Sproul Plaza, as occupiers had been setting up such encampments all over the country. 

The UC police attacked the small encampment, tore down the tents, used their truncheons on anyone who got in the way, and arrested a few students. One woman, in the face of the vicious force the police exhibited, held out her hands to be handcuffed, and said "arrest me." She was charged with "resisting arrest." She wasn't the only one. 

That evening, more students gathered on Sproul Plaza, with more tents. They set them up, and surrounded them with their bodies. There were some 300 people there. The university had said it would come and talk with the students. That is, dialogue with them. When the administration representatives showed up, they presented their conditions and left. They said, you can be here all you like, but we won't allow tents or sleeping bags. Then they turned and left. 

The students had tents and sleeping bags, and decided to defend them. The police attacked later that night, and beat anyone in their way as they waded through the bodies to get to those tents and sleeping bags, and tear them out of the world. The students simply placed their bodies in the way of the police assault, in defense of the tents. They did not counterattack. There was no assault against the police. They simply tried to be a barrier between the police and the tents. It is so easy to say, and so difficult to think about. Many were badly hurt. One student ended up in the IC unit in the hospital. 

The next evening (Nov. 10), the students had a General Assembly meeting to decide what to do. One proposal was that they set up the tents on the sidewalk outside the university. A university cop (a number were close by listening) then contacted one of the facilitators and told her that if the students set up tents on the sidewalk outside campus, they would be treated the same as they had been on Sproul Plaza. 

From that moment on, the basic premise of the discussion was, "if we set up tents, we will be beaten." 

That is, it wasn't, "if we do this, we will be breaking the law." It wasn't, "if we do that we will get a ticket." It wasn't, "if we do that, we will be indicted for insurrection." All those niceties of judicial procedure, in which an action, such as setting up a tent, is not a crime until it is proven that it violated the law – something which, in common parlance goes, "a person is innocent until proven guilty" – had been dispensed with. 

To make this clear, if I am in a bar, and punch someone, I have not committed a crime of assault until it is proven through judicial procedure that I did not act in self-defense, but rather initiated an aggressive act. 

But those niceties of judicial procedure are gone. Instead, people are beaten, and are told that they will be beaten right there in the street if they do a certain thing. 

To beat someone under circumstances in which they cannot fight back, or defend themselves, because of either physical, social, or legal constraints, constitutes torture. It is torture because it is the immobilization of persons in order to inflict pain and the inflicting of pain on someone consciously to get something from them – whether it is information or obedience, it is the same process. For the police to beat people in the street or on campus is to torture them in public. For the state or the university administration to sanction such beating renders it state sanctioned torture. I am simply calling a spade a spade. 

State sanctioned torture is a violation of international law, of international treaty of which the US is a signatory, and thus a violation of the Constitution of the US, which establishes ratified treaties as part of the law of the land (Article VI). It is unknown to me whether state sanctioned torture, such as the police beating people in the street or on a campus, is illegal according to US legislated law. It is possible that it is not, just as no Congress in the history of the US has managed to pass a law prohibiting lynching. 

When the occupations around the country call for expelling the corporations and corporate power from our day to day politics and our elections, they are only calling for a solution to a part of the problem. We now can see, in the words of the campus police, that we have a government that is criminal, because it sanctions acts that have been declared criminal by international agreement.

As veterans and historians of the 1964 Free Speech Movement that established the rights of students to freely express their concerns over critical social issues within the boundaries of the University of California's campus, we were shocked by the actions of campus police who seized banners from students peacefully demonstrating in Sproul Plaza and on the Sproul Steps. 

We join Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington in demanding that the banners be returned and that University Administrators condemn this unconscionable police assault on Free Speech. 

The University is a commons dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. It appears that the campus police are in need of remedial education concerning fundamental protections offered by the US Constitution -- including First Amendment rights to Free Speech and Free Assembly that were clearly recognized and enshrined on the UCB campus 47 years ago on these very steps. 

We further condemn the actions of the armed police who beat and arrested students and faculty. We deplore the decision of University officials who, once again, opened the campus to armed and club-wielding Alameda County sheriffs. And we applaud the inspiring example of the students who bravely and nonviolently held their ground against police batons. 

Dear Oakland City Council,

You are getting internationally known public figures visiting and publicizing Oakland in a positive way. Are you people SERIOUS about trying to remove something you've been wanting for years to create? 

You have been working for years for business to improve in Oakland. Now celebrate something positive, world-wide, and stand with Oakland-on-the-map in this historic moment. Many of us have been asking business owners in Oakland in a neutral way what they think of the Occupiers. By far the majority of answers have ranged from complete support and jubilence to "some customers seem a little afraid, but if the city and media would publicize what's actually happening, customers would realize it's safer and more lively than before." 

Just a sampling of positive publicity has come from Tavis Smiley, Amy Goodman, CBS, CNN, KGO, and Egypt! 

If you want to concentrate on what's not working, you can ALWAYS find trouble. Do you want to get rid of the Raiders because some fans always start fights? You have a vast number of allies within the Occupy encampment calling on disrupters to cease any vandalism. 

Please do all you can to work with the Occupiers, many of whom are young. They have infused the country with hope that seemed dead! I know Ms. Brooks pitched a tent, but most also are aware that she has not actually needed to stay in it. 

As far as any safety violations are concerned, work with the campers. They are, by and large, quite organized and on your side. You will doubtless have more not fewer public safety officers available for serious crimes elsewhere if you'd use the help you have here. 

Virginia Browning 

(employed in Oakland, and more frequent than before -- downtown Oakland customer)

I was thinking about Ted's "occupy yourself!" rant. I'd seen some people take offense at it and at some of Ted's other takes on Occupy. I was thinking about what to say to those people. It's this:

Ted's bent here is just run of the mill cynical nihilism. There's a lot of that around here, particularly among people of a certain generation. They think: Grass roots revolutionary change is impossible, wrong-headed, and pitiful -- don't you know? Anything that smells vaguely like ideology is almost certainly meaningless. Uncle Ted will share his views on the absurdities and vacuousness of the whole affair... he's seen it all unfold before.

Which is a perfectly reasonable position for Ted to take, even if he's wrong. 

Remember that it is within living memory for many in Berkeley that, well, the revolution started more than 40 years ago. It even resulted in an apparently permanent occupation of People's Park. Yes, pretty words were spoken and parts were groovy but this was The Real Deal: the national guard used a helicopter to crop-dust parts of campus with tear gas; people were beaten; James Rector was shot to death in Berkeley, by the police, for no good reason, and Alan Blanchard blinded that same day by the same kind of buck shot fired from police rifles for the same absense of any good reason. 

Against the outrages, hopes ran high. Not only were similar protests happening around the nation but, indeed, around the world. "Same song all around the world," crowed Abbie Hoffman, back from some travels. 

Many organized factions competed for leadership, sometimes fighting among themselves and sometimes forming coalitions. Multiple flavors of marxists, hippies, multiple flavors of Black nationalists, and white liberals. Some militant, some not. 

Imposing yourself as leadership was easier back then. If you tied into a national organization, you had an easier time communicating with people in other cities (in those pre-Internet days). If you tied into those organizations, you had easier access to money and you had a shiny air of authority. Hell, just having decent access to a mimeograph machine (you might have heard of them) gave one a measure of authority and power. 

There wasn't much on TV back then so this revolution stuff was pretty stimulating! 

There were competing theories, then as now, about what was happening politically. There were those who it seemed were just there for the party and the free food and the hook-up opportunities. There was then, like today, no easy answer to "why are they doing this? this causing a ruckus and such?" 

For a while, the dissidents could believe that in spite of the organizational and ideological chaos, somehow it would all converge and things would Change with a capital C. It didn't. It kind of fell apart. 

Sure, some changes happened. But... 

It all turned very sour and people went their own ways and a lot, to this day, are rightly skeptical and cast a jaundiced eye over something like Occupy thinking "Yeah. Cute. Talk to me in a few years. I'll try not to say I told ya' so. That stuff never works." 

Says Ted: "Occupy Yourself! [....] The occupation is over," and in between he fills in a kind of darkly sarcastic parody of the old "change begins within" mantra. 

We feel your pain, Ted. 

Now Ted, take a deep breath and go back to the Med and get the stories you're great at getting. Give this one a rest. And here's why: 

Ted this isn't the same old same old. Things really are different this time. No, really. Stop chuckling. Geeze. 

See, all the bad ways in which things fell apart back then -- the impossibility of naive political organizing -- the harsh limitations of protest .... 

That's all in living memory. We're aware of that. We are familiar with those stories. We are not recapitulating those earlier days. We are taking them as informative background. 

The young people today are, to put it simply, cannier than the young people back then. And also in better touch with one another -- less need for "leaders". 

And you've got cynicism, Ted? Ha! You don't know cynicism. You're an amateur compared to the youth of today. You're a cynicism amateur compared to even me and I'm somewhere around half way between you and the youth of today. 

It's in spite of widespread recognition that, really, Occupy can't possibly work -- that it's absurd to even try .... 

It's in spite of knowing how similar efforts failed in the past.... 

People are choosing to, anyway, at least try. But try this time a little more cleverly. And clever we've been. 

There is power in that. There is power in a movement that leads people to attempt the absurd -- because its the best option they can see on the table. 

Counts vary, Ted, but how many 10s of thousands do you think came out to support the general strike and shut down the port of Oakland? And that was organized in a matter of days. It drew upon people from all walks of life. It was a direct and visceral convulsion of, yes, the middle class standing up in support of the protests and against the political and economic powers arrayed against the people. The general strike cowed the police and the city, Ted. Undeniably. 

People on all sides are comparing this to a labor action of 1946 - not a 1968 protest. Something, you ought to admit in the end, is bigger and better this time. 

The occupation is not over. It's barely just begun.

On tonight's news, they featured various segments covering protests at Occupy Oakland, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Denver, Occupy Seattle, Occupy New York, Occupy Austin, Occupy Chicago, etc. And tonight I was also a part of "Occupy Cal". And the university police charged into a mass of student demonstrators like they were going after bank robbers or bad guys instead of just students protesting HUGE tuition hikes. And the students stood their ground on Sproul Plaza against great odds. 

The police seized tents and banners from the students -- and what do you know? The students seized them right back! 

And, later, when there was a lull in between various attacks on students, I had a chance to talk to some of the cops. "Are other local police forces involved in this operation -- or is it only the U.C. police?" 

"Just the university police, ma'am. Not the city police. But the chancellor stated that he would not allow tents to be erected on campus." And so the chancellor apparently chose to give an order to take the tents down. 

Bad choice. 

"I used to protest here at this very same spot back in the 1960s," I then told the boys in blue. 

"Some things never change," one cop replied. Well, guess what? Things had pretty damn well better change -- or else! 

Or else what? 

Or else there will be a hit-and-run type of protest movement from the rest of us 99% -- that will go on and on and on at different places daily all over America until things DO start to change. The corporatists don't have the money or the manpower to control all of us everywhere. A non-violent hit-and-run guerrilla protest movement? Yay. 

And I just heard that U.C. Santa Cruz students have also gone out on strike. 

And will a plaza or university or town square or bank near you be next? 

PS: U.C. students in Berkeley are very well-represented by their district's councilperson, Kriss Worthington, who was also on Sproul Plaza, backing his young constituents up. Here's what he told the Berkeley Daily Planet tonight: 

"At the home of the Free Speech Movement, the UCPD appears to have suppressed Free Speech again! Please join us in questioning this behavior and challenge the UCPD to respect the Free Speech Rights of Occupy Cal." 

Worthington then went on to admonish Chancellor Birgeneau and U.C. police chief Calaya for their violent actions against non-violent protestors. "I wanted to bring to your attention that banners with Free Speech content appear to have been seized by UCPD in front of Sproul Plaza. ...It is hard to imagine that such an act could occur at the exact location in Berkeley where the Free Speech Movement began." Worthington nailed it exactly. 

"You can imagine that the sense of irony will not be lost on the public, that the UCPD violated the Free Speech rights of protesters at this particular location. ...These students have made a firm commitment to no violence and no vandalism. The University should be commending the thousands of students that are participating. For many, this could be their very first political protest of their life. They are protesting specifically for additional financing for the University of California. The University should support this enthusiasm and help encourage this to be an effective protest that helps the University and our country." 

PPS: Of course it is unacceptable that police are violently shutting down freedom of speech at the very spot where the Berkeley Free Speech Movement was born. But even more unacceptable is the fact that free speech movements all over the United States are also being shut down -- here in America, in the Land of the Free. 

I mean, seriously. With Veterans Day almost upon us, we can only speculate why our heroic troops fought and died in foreign wars -- if the very Freedom that they fought so hard for abroad is being violently shut down right here at home.

I have just finished watching some of the videos of the police attacking unarmed students on the UC Berkeley campus. The beatings are appalling. And the reappearance of "non-lethal" shotguns on campus inexcusable. (Question: Was the office who shot a demonstrator with a beanbag blast during the last campus incursion ever identified and held accountable?) But, in addition to seeing more evidence of deplorable police behavior, I also saw something new, remarkable and inspiring -- it was expressed in the decorum of the students. 

In a powerful demonstration of nonviolent resistance, they held their ground -- despite repeated body blows from police batons -- and continued to calmly protest.  

Instead of hurling obscenities, they tried to disarm the cops with reason. Many attempted to engage the police in "common ground" conversations. Chants directed at the police were positive -- "We are doing this for your children."  

I may be reading too much into the videos but it looked to me as though the calm, resolute, nonthreatening nature of the students helped lower the anger and apprehension in the frontline of cops. After the initial charge and blows failed to scatter the students, the cops seemed to take a second look and started to realize that these young people were not behaving like thugs and lawbreakers but looked more like their own sons and daughters.  

There was a lot of bravery on display during yesterday's confrontation, thanks to the students, no thanks to the armed police.

Please direct inquiries for the president's office to: 

Office of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607 

Email: president@ucop.edu 

Although President Yudof reads all correspondence sent to him, please be aware that such correspondence also may be read or answered by members of his staff or appropriate campus personnel. Please also note that the Office of the President retains copies of all correspondence sent to the president, and that all correspondence is considered a matter of public record and is, therefore, subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act. 

Administrative office hours:
Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

You may contact Governor Jerry Brown by mail at: 

Mailing address: 

Governor Jerry Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814 

Phone: (916) 445-2841 9am -5pm
Fax: (916) 558-3160 

email at http://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php

Occupy Judaism is Not Jews for Jesus 

Occupy Judaism is NOT, under any circumstances, Jews for Jesus. We are a group of Jewish activists, including rabbis, rabbinical students and Jewish educators, who support Occupy Wall Street and who have organized Shabbat meals and High Holiday services at Zuccotti Park. 

Daniel Sieradski 

Editor's note:The error in the commentary we published has been corrected.

Beginning with Occupy Wall Street in September 2011, a protest movement spread across the United States to 70 major cities and hundreds of other communities. Similar actions emerged in scores of other nations.

For the first two weeks, the corporate-owned mainstream media along with NPR did what they usually do with progressive protests: they ignored them. These were the same media that had given the Tea Party supporters saturation coverage for weeks on end, ordaining them “a major political force.”

The most common and effective mode of news repression is omission. By saying nothing or next to nothing about dissenting events, movements, candidates, or incidents, the media consign them to oblivion. When the Occupy movement spread across the country and could no longer be ignored, the media moved to the second manipulative method: trivialization and marginalization. 

So we heard that the protestors were unclear about what they were protesting and they were “far removed from the mainstream.” Media cameras focused on the clown who danced on Wall Street in full-blown circus costume, and the youths who pounded bongo drums: “a carnival atmosphere” “yongsters out on a spree,” with “no connection to the millions of middle Americans” who supposedly watched with puzzlement and alarm. 

Such coverage, again, was in sharp contrast to the respectful reportage accorded the Tea Party. House Majority Leader, the reactionary Republican Eric Cantor, described the Occupy movement as “growing mobs.” This is the same Cantor who hailed the Tea Party as an unexcelled affirmation of democracy. 

The big November 2 demonstration in Oakland that succeeded in closing the port was reported by many media outlets, almost all of whom focused on the violence against property committed by a few small groups. Many of those perpetrators were appearing for the first time at the Oakland site. Some were suspected of being undercover police provocateurs. Their actions seemed timed to overshadow the successful shutdown of the nation’s fourth largest port. 

Time and again, the media made the protestors the issue rather than the things they were protesting. The occupiers were falsely described as hippie holdovers and mindless youthful activists. In fact, there was a wide range of ages, socio-ethnic backgrounds, and lifestyles, from homeless to well-paid professionals, along with substantial numbers of labor union members. Far from being a jumble of confused loudmouths prone to violence, they held general assemblies, organized themselves into committees, and systematically took care of encampment questions, food, security, and sanitation. 

One unnoticed community protest was Occupy Walnut Creek. For those who don’t know, Walnut Creek is a comfortable conservative suburb in northern California (with no known record of revolutionary insurrections). Only one local TV station gave Occupy Walnut Creek brief attention, noting that about 400 people were participating, average age between 40 and 50, no clowns, no bongos. Participants admitted that they lived fairly prosperous lives but still felt a kinship with the millions of Americans who were enduring an economic battering. Here was a contingent of affluent but rebellious “middle Americans” yet Walnut Creek never got mentioned in the national media, as far as I know. 

The Occupy movement has promulgated a variety of messages. With a daring plunge into class realities, the occupiers talk of the 1% who are exploiting the 99%, a brilliant propaganda formula, simple to use, yet saying so much, now widely embraced even by some media commentators. The protestors carried signs condemning the republic’s terrible underemployment and the empire’s endless wars, the environmental abuses perpetrated by giant corporations, the tax loopholes enjoyed by oil companies, the growing inequality of incomes, and the banksters and other gangsters who feed so lavishly from the public trough. 

Some occupiers even denounced capitalism as a system and hailed socialism as a humane alternative. In all, the Occupy movement revealed an awareness of systemic politico-economic injustices not usually seen in U.S. protests. Remember, the initial and prime target was Wall Street, finance capital’s home base. 

The mainstream news outlets not only control opinions but even more so opinion visibility, which in turn allows them to limit the parameters of public discourse. This makes it all the more imperative for ordinary people to join together in demonstrations, hoping thereby to maximize the visibility and impact of their opinions. The goal is to break through the near monopoly of conservative orthodoxy maintained by the “liberal” media. 

So demonstrations are important. They have an energizing effect on would-be protestors, bringing together many who previously had thought themselves alone and voiceless. Demonstrations bring democracy into the streets. They highlight issues that have too long been buried. They mobilize numbers, giving a show of strength, reminding the plutocracy perched at the apex that the pyramid is rumbling. 

But demonstrations should evolve into other forms of action. This has already been happening with the Occupy movement. It is more than a demonstration because its protestors did not go home at the end of the day. In substantial numbers they remained downtown, putting their bodies on the line, imposing a discomfort on officialdom just by their numbers and presence. 

At a number of Occupy sites there have been civil disobedience actions, followed by arrests. In various cities the police have been unleashed with violent results that sometimes have backfired. In Oakland ex-Marine Scott Olsen was hit by a police teargas canister that busted his skull and left him hospitalized and unable to speak for a week. At best, he faces a long slow recovery. The day after Olsen was hit, hundreds of indignant new protestors joined the Occupy Oakland site. Police brutality incites a public reaction, often bringing more people out, just the opposite of what officials want. 

Where does this movement go? What is to be done? The answers are already arising from the actions of the 99%: 

--Discourage military recruitment and support conscientious objectors. Starve the empire of its legions. Organize massive tax resistance in protest of corrupt, wasteful, unlawful, and destructive Pentagon spending. 

--Transfer funds from corporate banks to credit unions and community banks. Support programs that assist the unemployed and the dispossessed. It was Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s embattled finance minister who declared: “Salvate il popolo, non le banche” (“Save the people, not the banks”). It would be nice to hear such sentiments emanating from the U.S. Treasury Department or the White House. 

--Coordinate actions with organized labor. Unions still are the 99%’s largest and best financed groups. Consider what was done in Oakland: occupiers joined with longshoremen, truckers, and other workers to close the port. Already there are plans for a general strike in various communities. Such actions improve greatly if organized labor is playing a role. 

--We need new electoral strategies, a viable third party, proportional representation, and even a new Constitution, one that establishes firm rules for an egalitarian democracy and is not a rigmarole designed to protect the moneyed class. The call for a constitutional convention (a perfectly legitimate procedure under the present U.S. Constitution) seems long overdo. 

--Perhaps most of all, we need ideological education regarding the relationship between wealth and power, the nature of capitalism, and the crimes of an unbridled profit-driven financial system. And again the occupiers seem to be moving in that direction: in early November 2011, people nationwide began gathering to join teach-ins on “How the 1% Crashed the Economy.” 

We need to explicitly invite the African-American, Latino, and Asian communities into the fight, reminding everyone that the Great Recession victimizes everyone but comes down especially hard on the ethnic poor. 

We need to educate ourselves regarding the beneficial realities of publicly owned nonprofit utilities, publicly directed environmental protections, public nonprofit medical services and hospitals, public libraries, schools, colleges, housing, and transportation--all those things that work so well in better known in some quarters as socialism. 

There is much to do. Still it is rather impressive how the battle is already being waged on so many fronts. Meanwhile the corporate media ignore the content of our protest while continuing to fulminate about the occupiers’ violent ways and lack of a precise agenda. 

Do not for one moment think that the top policymakers and plutocrats don’t care what you think. That is the only thing about you that wins their concern. They don’t care about the quality of the air you breathe or the water you drink, or how happy or unhappy or stressed and unhealthy or poor you might be. But they do want to know your thoughts about public affairs, if only to get a handle on your mind. Every day they launch waves of disinformation to bloat your brains, from the Pentagon to Fox News without stint. 

When the people liberate their own minds and take a hard clear look at what the 1% is doing and what the 99% should be doing, then serious stuff begins to happen. It is already happening. It may eventually fade away or it may create a new chapter in our history. Even if it does not achieve its major goals, the Occupy movement has already registered upon our rulers the anger and unhappiness of a populace betrayed. 

Between 2001 and 2006, there was a dramatic increase in Listener Support at KPFA due to the expanding economy and interest in the Iraq-Afghan War. KPFA added many paid staff during this period; however, between 2007 and 2010 Listener Support declined dramatically as the whole economy crashed. 

Payments to Pacifica were reduced to reflect the decline in Listener Support, but similar cuts to Salaries and Benefits were not made, and in the fall of 2010 KPFA faced insolvency. The Pacifica Foundation, which is fiscally responsible for the network of five stations, stepped in and made cuts in staffing. 

Initially, Pacifica offered voluntary severance to all employees. Seven people accepted the offer, and in the end, two people were laid off, Aimee Allison and Brian Edwards-Tiekert. Edwards-Tiekert had seniority bumping rights which he did not exercise until several months later. 

The layoffs were done in accordance with the union contract which says: “In cases where skill, ability, knowledge and job performance are all equal, or could be equal in the opinion of the Employer after reasonable orientation and training, seniority shall prevail”. 

Following was the seniority of the paid hosts of Public Affair shows in November of 2010: 

Kris Welch - Living Room & Saturday Talkies Host/Producer 

Philip Maldari - Sunday Show Host/Producer 

Dennis Bernstein - Flashpoints Host/Producer 

CS Soong - Against the Grain Host/Producer 

Davey D. - Hard Knock Radio Host/Producer 

Anita Johnson - Hard Knock Radio Host/Producer 

Sasha Lilley - Against the Grain Host/Producer 

Miguel Molina - Flashpoints Host/Producer 

Brian Edwards-Tiekert - Morning Show Host 

Mitch Jeserich - Letters & Politics Host/Producer 

Aimee Allison - Morning Show Host 

If one single show was to be cancelled based on seniority, it was going to be either the Morning Show or Letters & Politics; however, Communication Workers of America (CWA) claimed that the layoffs violated the terms of the union contract and filed three grievances with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and asked for an arbitrator to rule on reinstating Edwards-Tiekert and Allison to the Morning Show. These claims led many labor supporters to voice solidarity with the CWA and to believe that in fact there had been management misconduct. 

In February of 2011, Brian Edwards-Tiekert did exercise his bumping rights and returned as a part-time news reporter. In April, the NLRB issued an advice memo dismissing one of the three CWA grievances and CWA withdrew the two remaining grievances. In July, the arbitrator ruled against Allison’s reinstatement. 

Pacifica was vindicated on all counts associated with or having to do with labor issues. Unfortunately, as in any conflict, partisan rhetoric prevailed and continues. 

Some claimed that the layoffs were not necessary and that there had been union busting on the part of Pacifica. They also claimed that layoffs were politically motivated. 

Some claimed that Pacifica was trying to take over KPFA and make it an all-volunteer station. 

Some claimed that Pacifica was taking too much. Audited budget reports show that Payment to Pacifica is pegged to Listener Support, so if Listener Support goes down Payment to Pacifica goes down proportionately. 

Some tried to conflate professionalism with paid positions; however, being a paid staff does not confer competence, and it is generally agreed that there are many unpaid staff that are thoroughly professional. 

Some tried to cast the cuts as a management-union issue. KPFA is not a traditional corporation where management can make tradeoffs between wages and other expenses (e.g. dividends). At KPFA all the income goes to fixed expenses or Salaries and Benefits, so if the revenue goes down and there are no reserves, there must be cuts to staff. 

The reason this conflict arose is because there are real underlying differences at the station. 

One is historical. In 1997 CWA became the station union and the unpaid staff lost representation which exacerbated the divide between the paid staff and the unpaid staff. In 2003, in response to the attempted takeover of Pacifica by a group headed by Mary Frances Berry, new bylaws were put in place which called for a democratically elected Local Station Board. This understandably introduced an element of uncertainty for many of the established staff. 

Another has to do with assuring the income stream. Naturally, the station would like to see a steady source of income and one way to do this is to appeal to more affluent audience. Some are wary of shows which they fear offend some audiences or appeal exclusively to less affluent and/or narrower audiences. 

All this came to a head in the fall of 2010. While it is understandable that people want to keep their jobs and it is the union’s duty to help keep those jobs, the layoffs in 2010 were the consequence of the extraordinary boom and bust cycle of the preceding decade. 

KPFA must find a way to continue to raise adequate revenue and produce uncompromised progressive programming. 

One lesson from the recent boom and bust cycle is that the station should maintain a paid staffing level that is sustainable over the long term and not subject to economic ups and downs. As always, the most reliable way to keep an even income is to broaden the listener support. This can be best achieved by relentless efforts to produce good programming. Ever improving and relevant programming is bolstered by a strong apprenticeship program and lively, ongoing evaluation of programs. When a new person joins the station, whether a worker or a manager, the old timers must all extend a hand to help the new person become part of the KPFA family. 

Pacifica Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt and KPFA Interim General Manager Andrew Phillips and Interim Program Director Carrie Core all deserve our thanks for stepping into a very difficult situation and managing with dignity and generosity. 

Around the bay area, all the Occupy franchises are Occupy_______(add your city's name), but in some parts of the world, occupiers have gamed the name. 

Take, for instance, a franchise near New York's Zuccotti Park, Jews for Jesus calling themselves Occupy Judaism. And reportedly there's a group in Arizona which objects to the occupy brand and is calling itself un-occupy. Can you imagine calling a McDonald's un-McDonalds (although we've all been to a few of these). 

A sign near Boalt Hall recently read: Occupy Boalt Hall. Why couldn't you then occupy your church, or your kitchen? 

I asked one of the key Occupy Berkeley people about splinter chapters, and he said these spin-offs dilute the force of the protest. 

But what if that weren't so, and that feathers wouldn't be ruffled? 

Occupy yourself! 

You'll save on gas or bike tires and won't have to do any heavy lifting. 

All you need to do is figure out what's wrong with you that you have become one of ninety-nine percent, or, if you are part of the one percent earning over $375,000, what's up with that? 

Go figure. 

Are you not giving back because you feel that your money is your money and that you resent being asked to give any of it up? Do you feel $375,000 is barely adequate? 

Do you give to panhandlers, or do you secretly despise them for loafing on the walks? 

Are you greedy? What exactly is that—pigging out at an all-you-can-eat? Do you tend to have too much stuff? Have you misplaced gadgets because you can't keep track of them, or battery chargers? 

Is your home much bigger than your garage? Could you live comfortably in your garage if all your hoard were not in the way? 

Have you spent a lot on cars, jewelry or watches? Or do you "read" all those expensive watch ads in the New York Times and feel sorry that you can't afford one. Do you believe that $50,000 is too much for a car? Do you drive? 

Been to Vegas? Lied about winning? About losing? 

Are you a corporation? Why not? It has its advantages. Have you ever been sued? (One of the advantages). 

Did you know that most people are doing better than you (as you see it), and some are doing much worse, which you would rather not think about because you are too busy feeling sorry for yourself. 

When was the last time you loaned someone money? Did you get it back? 

Do you influence any politicians (family members excluded)? 

Would you prefer that the whole subject of money not come up? Why are you like that? 

Consider your background. 

Does the word Wall Street send chills up your spine? Do you like the feeling? Ever worked or applied for work there? Can you imagine yourself in an office on Wall Street with a bunch of financial reports on your desk? 

Have you ever read a financial report? Your bank account statement? The denomination of your currency? 

Do you consider yourself broke? But do you have a broker? Do you know what brokers do? 

Have you ever visited (perish-the-thought) Wall Street? Who paid for the visit? 

Subscribe to cable T.V.? Apped out? 

Are you unable to afford medical or dental treatment and prescription drugs, or do you have a cabinet full of "medicine"? You may count marijuana as a drug, a very expensive drug. 

Do you drink cheap wine, or do you believe it's worth hundreds of dollars for a good glass of wine? Would you spend for that? 

By now you should be identifying with either the ninety-nine percent or the one percent. 

What do you think made you that way? Fate, accident of birth, or your own achievements? 

Do you have advice on how to get into the one percent? Why don't you tell the world the secrets of your success? "Then they would no longer be secrets" is not an option. 

Nor is most people can't do what I did, unless you are a test pilot, a physicist, a pro athlete, or famous actor. 

Could someone write a book on your poverty that would arouse pity? Someone like Charles Dickens? 

Do you sometimes think that being in the one percent is a liability? Is this because you don't have enough money? 

What's the least amount of money you could live on? Your entire income is not the least. 

Are you uncomfortable being occupied, even though you are also the occupier? 

Would you donate to a foundation, except that you consider most of them corrupt? 

Do you feel uncomfortable in South Berkeley or downtown when you are well-dressed? 

Does this keep you on the North side, on Solano, or in the Elmwood? Do you shop in thrift stores because they have all the good stuff that someone else with more money than you picked out, or because you prefer the ambiance? 

Would you drive to a Crate and Barrel, but resent that you couldn't afford Neiman Marcus? 

Do you want to save the world or to just get it off your back? 

Do you feel that people pay too much attention or envy people of wealth? Would you take the envy with the wealth? 

By now you should more fully understand yourself. 

The occupation is over. 

I am an indifferent viewer of sports. If another activity such as a movie, a concert, the theater, or a social activity beckons, I choose that activity over watching a game. However, I am interested in how the 49ers, the Raiders, Stanford and Cal football did. I therefore read the sports section of the newspaper or turn on ESPN for the latest scores. Recently, the media -- ESPN in particular -- has been overly absorbed in the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) scandal where Jerry Sandusky, a long-time assistant to now former PSU football coach Joe Paterno, allegedly molested eight troubled young boys over a 15-year period at times at PSU satellite campuses. PSU administrators knew about it but allegedly covered it up. 

Unfortunately, very little media attention is being paid to the betrayals of trust that these young victims had for their mentor. The effects of this sexual abuse can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, propensity for further victimization in adulthood, and even physical injury to the child. What if anything, will be done for these already troubled children? Why hasn't the media focused on the effects Sandusky's alleged molestation will likely have on these young victims? Did PSU reach out to the parents of these children and offer the children counseling? Or would that be admitting liability?  

I assume there will be many future lawsuits against Sandusky and PSU.  

Unfortunately, the media frenzy surrounding the scandal is more a concern about the effect it is having on PSU, Joe Paterno's legacy, and even last Saturday's football game against Nebraska. There is no mention of what role big-time sports might have had on the coverup, or what kind of role models coach student-athletes at universities like PSU. I get the feeling that PSU just wants the scandal to fade away. 

It is no secret that big-time college sports are fully commercialized. Billions of dollars flow through them each year. The NCAA makes money, and enables universities and corporations to make money, from the unpaid labor of young athletes.  

PSU gets its share of the money pie. PSU's athletic department is a self-sufficient auxiliary unit of the university. The income generated by the unit is greater than its expenses. The PSU athletic department’s self-sufficiency places it in elite company. According to a report released by the NCAA, only fourteen Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools reported profits from their athletic departments in 2009. PSU athletics made $18 million in profit in 2009-2010. No tuition money goes towards the PSU athletic department. In fact, the athletic department contributed $12 million to the University’s general operating budget in the form of tuition for all of its scholarship athletes. PSU must be worried about the effects the scandal will have on future fund raising for its profit-making athletic department 

What should the role of a coach be at colleges or even high schools? The primary role should be to teach athletics. In turn, college athletes look upon their coaches as leaders, teachers, and mentors. Coaches teach discipline, teamwork, and sportsmanship. Coaches often become the face of the university, especially coaches like Paterno, the winningest college football coach in history. I wonder how much the average American knows about PSU other than its football coach was JoePa (an affectionate nickname for Joe Paterno).  

The classical ideal of athletics is a sound mind in a sound body. Athletics should be about fair play, hard work, dedication, personal excellence, obedience to rules, commitment, and loyalty. However, a win-at-all cost mentality can lead to elitism, sexism, racism, nationalism, over competitiveness, abuse of drugs, gambling, and a number of other deviant behaviors. When the administration and coaches at PSU allegedly ignored and covered up the sexual molestation of children by one of its coaches, the true spirit of sports was lost. Can it be regained? Only time will tell. 

PSU at one time was known as Happy Valley. Happy Valley is anything but these days.

—oh, celestial, soothing, sanctifying process, with all the high, sane forces of the sacred time, fighting through it, on my side. Henry James (1843—1916) 

Written in the last decade of his life, when James was in a bad patch and trying to summon up the energy to get back to writing, this has the tone of fervent prayer. We don’t know what was troubling him; he was not the kind of writer who exposes his personal travails all over the page. 

What we do know from this “prayer” is that James was not the kind of artist who said, “I can’t do my work because (someone or something) makes it impossible for me to think or work creatively!” He knew that sitting himself down to the work, the “soothing, sanctifying process,” was the thing most likely to bring “sane forces . . . fighting through it, on my side.” 

In other words, that, when all else is wrong in the world (and it always is) one thing—the work—is always on my side, keeping me sane, and even, perhaps, producing something worthwhile. 

He sets a vital example, not only for writers and artists, but for everyone, whatever the work—mental/physical, major/menial, interesting/boring—provided the work harms no one. The only people who are deserted by the “high, sane forces of the sacred time” are those whose work does harm, no matter what admiration and riches it may accumulate. 

(Send the Berkeley Daily Planet a page from your own Commonplace Book)

Occupy Wall Street is getting positive reviews and is viewed favorably by most Americans. Does OWS indicate the US political process has hit bottom and Americans are ready for radical change? 

Recent polls indicate that Americans view Occupy Wall Street favorably. Poll respondents have a more favorable view of protestors than they do of Washington politicians or denizens of Wall Street. What counts most is public sentiment on key issues and here, too, Occupy Wall Street seems to be winning. The most recent CBS News/New York Times poll asked: "Do you feel that the distribution of money and wealth in this country is fair, or do you feel that the money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed among more people?" 66 percent of respondents answered yes. 

Nonetheless, it’s one thing to believe that money and wealth is distributed unfairly or that government is broken or that the US is spiraling downward, and quite another thing to say “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Are American voters – the 99 percent – at the point where they are willing to take to the streets and join Occupy Wall Street? No. 

Americans may be disgusted with the way things are going, but they’re not in enough pain to get up out of their easy chair and take action. That’s the conclusion VANITY FAIR contributing editor Michael Lewis reached in his article California and Bust. Lewis considered “the pressure point in American finance: the fear that American cities would not pay back the money they had borrowed.” “The states that had enjoyed the biggest boom were now facing the biggest busts.” Not surprisingly, the biggest problem is California. Lewis discussed California with former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the mayor of almost bankrupt San Jose, and the city manager of Vallejo that declared bankruptcy in 2008. 

Mayor Chuck Reed remarked that San Jose suffers from “service-level insolvency,” adding, “I think we suffered from a series of mass delusions.” UCLA neuroscientist Peter Whybrow observed, “We’ve created physiological dysfunction. We have lost the ability to self-regulate, at all levels of society.” Lewis concluded that Californians “want services and not to pay for them.” 

California’s situation reminded Lewis of “Bernard Madoff’s investment business. Anyone who looked at Madoff’s returns and understood them could see he was running a Ponzi scheme; only one person who had understood them bothered to blow the whistle, and no one listened to him.” 

Occupy Wall Street is a collective exercise in whistleblowing. Judging from the number of ordinary folks stepping forward to describe how the American system has failed them OWS is asking us to recognize that the US economy has become a form of Ponzi scheme – where the wealthy 1 percent take money from the 99 percent with promises of returns that do not materialize. Sadly many of the 99 percent have been brainwashed to not listen to the grim truth. 

Americans entered the twenty-first century hypnotized by three basic tenets of Reagonomics: 1. Greed is good:helping the rich get richer would help everyone else, 2. The free market is your friend: global markets were inherently self correcting and therefore there was no need for government regulation; and 3. Government is your enemy: trust the market. 

Then came two calamities. On September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the United States. The message from Washington to the 99 percent was “we’ve got this handled; go on with your lives; don’t worry, keep shopping.” Then on September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers Investment Bank filed for bankruptcy triggering a financial meltdown. Once again the message from Washington to the 99 percent was “we’ve got this handled; go on with your lives; don’t worry, keep shopping.” 

The Reagan era sold the Ponzi scheme with its dogma that unrestrained self-interest ultimately benefitted everyone. But the Bush Administration took the same magical thinking to an absurd new level with its assertion that the US could engage in two wars and not pay for them. Then in 2008 the Bush White House told the biggest fib of all “we can’t hold any of the big banks responsible for the financial meltdown, because that would be bad for the economy, so we will bail them out but you, the average citizen, won’t be affected.” 

More than a decade of dreadful leadership has produced the current crisis: the US is broken financially and politically. But during the same period many Americans were lured into a “cult” that preached: “self-indulgence is good,” “government is bad,” “debt is good,” and “You can enjoy government services without paying for them.” While many of the 99 percent feel the current system is unfair they’re stuck in a state of conditioned helplessness. As a consequence, they won’t be able to take action until they are deprogrammed. 

Occupy Wall Street is a step in the right direction, but it won’t produce radical change until most of the 99 percent take control of their lives. That’s asking a lot. It’s unlikely to happen until conditions in the US get much worse. 

Many people think that the main cause of relapse for a person with mental illness is noncompliance with taking medication. However, much of the time, persons with mental illness are doing everything they’re supposed to do (including taking medication, attending therapy, and being a participant in life) and yet a relapse still takes place. Furthermore, when noncompliance is a major factor in a relapse, it is not always something that happens on a mere whim. Often, the person with mental illness first deteriorated to an extent, and this led to the poor judgment of choosing noncompliance. A very large percentage of people with schizophrenia, possibly more than half, will have a relapse within a year of getting stabilized—and this is despite being medication compliant. 

In my case, stopping medication against medical advice always preceded a major relapse. I was able to stay well for about six years at a time until I finally had a lasting realization that I could not stop the medication. My last total relapse into psychosis was in the spring of 1996. I hope to never have another relapse of this kind. 

The experience of relapsing to psychosis and then coming back to tracking “reality” in a psychiatric hospital is like a chess player being checkmated, getting frustrated and knocking all the chess pieces off the checkered board. And then, another game can be played. (No, I am not under the misconception that that is how “real” chess players behave.) The comparison is like saying that the mind gets scrambled and then reset; the person with mental illness must in many ways start over. 

During my second to last relapse, in 1990, I experienced coming back to reality upon watching a videotape of the movie “Field of Dreams” that was being played in the psychiatric ward. The experience of watching a movie relaxed me and also took me off the delusional track of consciousness in order to follow the story. Staff told me that night that they could start planning for my release. 

I met the woman who would become my wife, Joanna, about a year before I experienced my most recent and hopefully last episode of severe psychosis. 

The relapse that I experienced in 1996 was devastating; I lost a lot of ground in my ability to do things that many people take for granted. Upon being re-medicated, my delusions didn’t clear up nearly as fast. I felt as though my mind was scrambled. The vulnerability made me the dupe of some people’s jokes. In the years since then, I have grown stronger. At the beginning I had to deliberately do a “retraining” to clear up a lot of my mind’s delusions. In the first six months that followed the relapse, I spent several hours per day sitting in the back room of my apartment with pads of paper and pens, a portable radio, and massive amounts of coffee and cigarettes. I did exercises to learn once again how to think. 

I came out of this training with more “marbles” than I originally had prior to the relapse. I don’t recommend the above process to anyone. For one thing, something that worked for me will probably not work for other people. Secondly, I continue to have other problems such as agoraphobia and sensitivity to getting stressed out. Furthermore, I began the retraining with considerable experience under my belt at meditating and at analyzing my own innards. Such a training as this doesn’t eliminate the need for medication. It merely installs “software” which is supported by a medicated and properly working brain. 

Upon middle age, the prospect of going off medication and relapsing becomes a serious threat to physical well-being. There are severe stresses on the body that take place during a psychotic episode; stresses that someone past thirty will not always survive. 

Relapsing and recovering is a huge setback from which it takes years, not months, to recover. However, it also provides an opportunity for relearning. It is not something you would voluntarily choose, any more than you would choose to have a car accident that gave you the near death experience that gave you new insights into life, but that also left you crippled. Relapses are best prevented, and being medication compliant is a part of how to accomplish that. 

Living alone, in fiction, nonfiction and even children’s books, is generally regarded as unfortunate, something to be avoided. Being alone is assumed unpleasant, probably the result of misfortune. Aloneness is often associated with consolation, solitude, even secrecy 

Neuroscientist John T. Cacioppo contends that chronic loneliness is an unrecognized syndrome. In his 2008 book, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, he relates it to depression and offers reasons for it.  

The first part of this column, then, is mostly about solitude vis-a-vis older and middle-aged people. 

xxx 

Only-children (singletons)] often have a hard time and are likely to feel lonely, isolated and overwhelmed by their parents’ problems and to be accused of being spoiled. Their loneliness may carry over into adulthood.  

When we met as University of Chicago graduate students in 1954, I was impressed by a fellow International House resident, a middle-aged, never-married, career Army officer. Henry and his twin sister had been orphaned, but he considered that she too had done well, because she had married and was at home with children. Despite the distance, his vacations were spent with them. They were home for him, so he was not alone. (I had not yet recognized the possible sexism in his equating feminine success with marriage and children. 

Florida Pier was born in 1884 in Orange Park, Florida and educated at home. She grew up in Pittsburgh, and moved to New York at fifteen to become an actor. In 1910 she married John Scott-Maxwell and moved to her husband's native Scotland, where she worked for woman suffrage and as a playwright. They divorced in 1929 and she moved to London. An actor, writer of plays and short stories, and homemaker in her youth, at age fifty she began training as an analytical psychologist, studying with Swiss psychologist-psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). She was in practice as an analytical psychologist in both England and Scotland, and she spent decades working as a therapist before she retired 

The Measure of My Days is Florida Pier Scott-Maxwell’s most well known book, usually the only one in public libraries’ collections. It is the private notebook of a remarkable woman of eighty-two encountering the challenge of old age. It was published in 1968. This collection of sensitive and perceptive journal entries documents experiences and emotions while alone in her eighties, and includes a time of ill health. 

Here’s a paragraph entry from The Measure of My Days that focuses on the positive side of living alone. Scott-Maxwell, a grandmother, is wondering if living alone makes her more alive. She believes it has made her more “natural.” She speaks of her “duty” not to be a problem for those who care for her. A few sentences later she questions, “I wonder if we need to be quite so dutiful.” She continues by speaking of a special feeling of life’s intensity and energy that she is experiencing in her eighties 

“I wonder if living alone makes one more alive. No precious energy goes in disagreement or compromise. No need to augment others, there is just yourself, just truth—a morsel—and you. You went through those long years when it was pain to be alone, now you have come out on the good side of that severe discipline Alone you have your own way all day long, and you become very natural. Perhaps this naturalness extends into heights and depths, going further than we know; as we cannot voice it we must just treasure it as the life that enriches our days. 

Later, she recalls a time when she had left her marriage. She begins to be aware of what every old woman knows.  

“After a time of trouble I found a likeable flat which was to be my home. I had had a long need of one, so it was also my dead shelter. My daughter and I moved in one evening with two suitcases two beds, three pots of bulbs, a kettle and tea things. … That was many years ago, but only last year I passed a supermarket and saw coming out a slut [slovenly] of a woman. She was fat, unwashed, unkempt in hair and dress, with a large three-cornered tear in her overall [smock]. She looked large-hearted and vital, and as our eyes met something passed between us, we liked each other. ..We know who we are even though we lack the precise name for it.” 

“I never understood myself less. The humid summer makes me listless, age empties me, and this nervous exhaustion proves me truly spent. I feel profound lassitude, yet I am not ill. If someone comes and I talked I call up energy that I do not possess, and I may pay for it with an aching head lasting two or three days. I must talk less, I must become laconic. A smile, a nod, how unlikely, yet excessive talk must be based on vanity, an assumption that you are the fountainhead of interest. Age insists that I be dull as a further disability. No one else will mind, perhaps not even notice. Others might prefer me silent. I will try.” 

Her experiences have led her to believe that “Age insists that I be dull as a further disability.” What do you think of her conclusion that she will try to be silent? 

Following hospitalization, surgery and a “nursing home,” she writes: 

“I had one fear. What if something went wrong, and I became an invalid? What if I became a burden, ceased to be a person and became a problem a patient, someone who could not die? That was my one fear, but my changes were reasonably good, so all was simple and settled and out of my hands. Being ill in a nursing home became my next task, a somber dance in which I knew some of the steps. I must conform. I must be correct. I must be meek, obedient and grateful, on no account must I be surprising. If I deviated by the breadth of a toothbrush, I would be wrong.” 

What do you think of Scott-Maxwell’s apparent willingness to be “meek, obedient and grateful”? Would she celebrate November as National Caregivers Month? 

xxxx 

Go to Google. Type: Alameda County Area Agency on Aging 

The Area Agency on Aging (AAA) is the local arm of the national aging network. Federal, state, local governments, not-for-profit as well as for profit private agencies work together to advance the social and economic health and well being of elders (60 and over) in Alameda County. The AAA is based in the Alameda County Social Services Agency’s Department of Adult & Aging Services at 6955 Foothill Boulevard, Suite 300, Oakland, CA 94605. It provides free Information & Assistance by telephone (1-800-510-2020 or 510-577-3530).  

The Advisory Commission on Aging (ACA), made up of representatives concerned about the needs and interests of elders in Alameda County, and appointed by the Board of Supervisors, the Conference of Mayors, and the ACA, works with AAA staff to develop, plan, and administer programs designed to assist elders and their caregivers in the county. I served on the ACA, while AAA staffer Louis Labat was its coordinator. In the August 17, 2010 Senior Power column, I reported on his retirement experiences 

Every four years, the AAA prepares an Area Plan that directs the provision of services provided by community-based organizations for seniors.  

Periodically, it conducts a Needs Assessment includes surveys that seniors (60+) fill out, consumer focus meetings with seniors (over 55), and key informant meetings with providers and other groups that work with seniors. The information from all of these activities is assembled and compiled in a publication that provides a detailed look at the demographics, issues and concerns of seniors in our community. The information is shared and is used to inform the development of planning for and providing services for seniors throughout the county. A wide response to the survey is necessary. You can assist by completing it online. 

The Alameda County Area Agency on Aging also conducts focus groups attended by persons involved in providing services to the aging. I sat in on a Focus group last week led by Lisa Ho with Belinda LLaguno, who will be updating our Area Plan demographic data. Participants were asked three main questions: 

1. What services or systems are currently working well for older adults in Alameda County? 

2. What are the most critical unmet needs for older adults to help them live independently at home? 

3. What other possible new services of partnerships can be fostered to address the unmet needs of older adults living in Alameda County? 

xxxx 

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Be sure to confirm. Readers are welcome to share by email news of future events that may interest boomers, elders and seniors (define these any way you like!) Daytime, free, and Bay Area events preferred. pen136@dslextreme.com.  

Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011. 12 Noon. Beef Bowl Anime Club meeting for adults. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. 510-526-3720 x 16. 

Monday, Nov. 14, 11:30 A.M. & 12 Noon. J-Sei Center, 110 Carleton St., Berkeley. Lecture “Do You Have the Right Insurance?” Speaker: Darrell Doi-CLTC Financial Advisor. To place a reservation for the lecture and/or lunch, call 510-883-1106. 

Monday, Nov. 14. 12:30 P.M. – 1:30P.M. Brown Bag Lunch Speaker’s Forum: Bob Lewis, Birds of the Bay Trail cosponsored by Albany YMCA and Albany library at 1257 Marin Av. 510-526-3720 x 16. 

Monday, Nov. 14. 7 P.M. The Greek Isles-- History and Travel. Laura Bushman will talk about and present a slide show depicting the white washed villages overlooking the Aegean Sea. She will also address, briefly, the current economic condition in Greece.  

Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Avenue. Free. 510-524-3043. 

Tuesday, Nov. 15 is Annual National Memory Screening Day. http:///www.nationalmemoryscreening.org. 

Tuesday, Nov. 15. 1 P.M. Falls Prevention Discussion Group. Senior Injury Prevention Project. Participants will receive a Falls Prevention Manual and other useful, easy to read information. Mastick Senior Center, 1155 Santa Clara Av., Alameda. 510-747-7506 

Tuesday, Nov. 15. 7 P.M. Author Showcase. Annette Fuentes, investigative reporter and author of Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse, is an op ed contributor to USA Today. El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Avenue. 510-526-7512. 

Wednesday, Nov. 16. 11 A.M. Outreach Specialist Colleen Fawley (510-981-6160) will visit J-Sei Senior Center, 1710 Carleton Way, Berkeley, to answer questions and take requests for books and magazines available from the Berkeley Public Library in Japanese and English. 510-883-1106. 

Wednesday, Nov. 16. 12:15-1 P.M. The Nocturne. Faculty Recital: Louise Bidwell, Piano. Nocturnes by J. Field, Chopin, C. Schumann, M. Szymanowska, and Fanny  

Mendelssohn. Free. UC,B Hertz Concert Hall, free. 510-642-4864. 

Wednesday, Nov. 16. 7 – 8 P.M. Adult Evening Book Group. Facilitated discussion . Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av., 510-526-3720.  

Thursday, Nov 17. 10 A.M. – 12 Noon. Free dental consultation with Dr. Alfred Chongwill. By appointment only. Mastick Senior Center, 1155 Santa Clara Av., Alameda. 510-747-7506 

Thursday, Nov. 17. 12:30 P.M. Birthday Celebration. Mastick Senior Center, 1155 Santa Clara Av., Alameda. 510-747-7506 

Thursday, Nov. 17. 1:30 P.M. Volunteer Instructor William Sturm presents “Musical Grab-Bag” medley of pieces by composers discussed in the Music Appreciation Class for 2011. Mastick Senior Center, 1155 Santa Clara Av., Alameda. 510-747-7506 

Saturday, Nov. 19. 10 A.M. – 4 P.M. Friends of the Albany Library Book Sale, 1247 Marin Av. Includes sales of collectibles and holiday items as well as books. Please do not bring donations the week prior to the sale. 510-526-3720 x 16. Also Sunday, Nov. 20 11 A.M. – 4 P.M. 

Saturday, Nov. 19. 11 A.M. Landlord/Tenant Counseling. Central Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 510-981-6241. 

Sunday, Nov. 20. 1:30P.M. Book Into Film. An Education. From a chapter of Lynn Barber’s 2009 memoir of the same title. Central Berkeley Public Library. 2090 Kittredge. Free, but registration is required. 510-6148. 

Tuesday, Nov. 22. 3 P.M. Tea and Cookies. Central Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 510-981-6236.  

Wednesday, Nov. 23. 1:30-2:30 P.M. Great Books Discussion Group: John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. 510-526-3720.  

Wednesday, Nov. 23. 1:30 P.M. Gray Panthers’ monthly meeting. At the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. Free. 510-981-5190, 548-9696. 

Monday, Nov. 28. 2 – 3:30 P.M. “Vigee-LeBrun:Woman Artist in an Age of Revolution” presentation by Brigit Urmson. Mastick Senior Center, 1155 Santa Clara Av., Alameda. 510-747-7506. 

Monday, Nov. 28. 7 P.M. Book Club. Silas Marner by George Eliot . Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Free event. 510-524-3043. Each meeting starts with a poem selected and read by a member with a brief discussion following the reading. New members are always welcome. 

Wednesday, Nov. 30. 12:15-1 P.M. Gamelan Music of Java and Bali. Performed by classes directed by Midiyanto and I Dewa Putu Berata, with Ben Brinner and Lisa Gold. UC,B Hertz Concert Hall. Free. 510-642-4864. 

xxxx 

Monday, Dec. 5. 6:30 P.M. "Castoffs" Knitting Group. Kensington Library, 

61 Arlington Ave. Free. 510-524-3043. An evening of knitting, show and tell and yarn exchange. All levels welcome. Some help will be provided.  

Wednesday, Dec. 7. 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Llibrary, 1247 Marin Av. Free. 510-526-3720.  

Monday, Dec. 19. 7 P.M. Book Club. Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Tey is known as the mystery writer for those who don’t like mysteries! Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Free event. 510-524-3043. Each meeting starts with a poem selected and read by a member with a brief discussion following the reading. New members are always welcome. 

Wednesday, Dec. 28. Great Books Discussion Group. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Holiday lunch and selection discussin. 510-526-3720 x 16. 

Have you noticed that songbirds are getting bigger? Good. Neither had I. But it’s happening, according to an article by PRBO Conservation Science biologist Rae Goodman and colleagues recently published online by the journal Global Change Biology. (Has enough time elapsed that we don’t have to say “formerly Point Reyes Bird Observatory” any more? These people may have a branding problem; maybe they should hire another consultant, or try a contest.) The differences are subtle; we’re not talking about chicken-sized song sparrows. They are, however, measurable and consistent—and may be related to global warming, if in an unexpected way. 

The data Goodman et al analyzed came from long-term bird banding records at two locations: 40 years for the Palomarin Field Station down the road from Bolinas, 27 for the Coyote Creek Field Station near Alviso in the South Bay. Combining both data sets, wing length of banded birds has steadily increased at a rate of .024 to .084 percent per year. (I told you it was subtle.) Changes in body mass were not always significant, but when they were the trend was similar to wing length: .040 to .112 percent per year. 

It would be reasonable to wonder if the wing-length trend, at least, had something to do with migratory behavior. Apparently not: there was no difference between the rates of change in long-distance and short-distance migrant species, or between local breeders and those that nested north of the banding sites. 

Both trends came as a surprise. “It’s one of those moments where you ask, ‘What’s happening here?’’ said San Francisco State biologist Gretchen LeBuhn, a co-author. That’s mainly because they ran counter to other studies, most in Europe and the Middle East but one in Pennsylvania, that appeared to demonstrate size decreases in a similar range of bird species. And that result made sense in terms of Bergman’s Rule. 

Bergman’s Rule (note that it isn’t quite a law), named for the 19^th-century German biologist Karl Georg Lucas Christian Bergmann, holds that within a given species of warm-blooded vertebrate, subspecies from cold climates tend to be larger-bodied than subspecies from warm climates. Why? The ratio of surface area to body weight decreases as body weight increases, so a large body loses proportionately less heat than a small one. The song sparrow provides a good illustration of Bergman’s Rule: the subspecies in the Aleutians is a relative monster, although still not chicken-sized. 

So the association between warmer climate and shrinking birds was intuitive. If natural selection had been favoring large-bodied individuals better able to survive the rigors of cold regions, warming would reduce the selection pressure. More runts would live to adulthood, breed, and pass along their small-body genes. They might even have an adaptive advantage over their large-bodied relatives, in which case the proportion of small-bodied individuals in the population would increase. It’s classic microevolution. 

But why would birds in the Bay Area, which is warming along with the rest of the state, buck the trend? Remember that climate change isn’t just a matter of the mercury rising. It also involves an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events: winter storms, floods, droughts. Maybe larger-bodied birds are able to build up larger fat reserves to see them through extreme climatic events. Maybe change is increasing the nutritional value of the birds’ food, either plants or plant-eating insects. 

That’s what the authors speculate, at least. Their article doesn’t address the wing-length increase at all. Maybe the trait is genetically linked with body mass. Maybe not. 

It would be nice to know what species are represented in these data sets. That information, unfortunately, is in a spreadsheet that I couldn’t persuade UC’s computers to open. All I can tell you from the article itself is that the seasonal highs were 45 species in spring at Palomarin and 38 in spring at Coyote Creek. The extent of overlap is unknown. 

I suspect the piece will fly below the radar of the climate change denialists. We shouldn’t be that surprised if not all the biological trends associated with global warming are in the same direction. Nobody ever said it would be simple.

Why is the Obama Administration creating obstacles and throwing cold water on talks with North Korea, and why is it binding itself to right-wing South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, whose politics just took a shellacking in the recent race for mayor of Seoul?

The answer seems to be a convergence of U.S. concerns over the growing power of China, a desperate battle by American arms manufacturers to fend off military budget cuts, and a fantasy by President Lee of a uniting the Korean Peninsula under the banner of the South. 

Consider the following: 

The day after Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special envoy on North Korea, described two days of talks in Geneva between the Americans and North Koreans as “very positive and generally constructive,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dismissed the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough. “I guess the word skepticism would be in order at this time as to what may or may not happen in those discussions.” 

Panetta was in Seoul as part of a weeklong swing through Asia firming up U.S. alliances in the region. The Secretary not only blew off the talks, he threatened the use of atomic weapons. The U.S. he said “will insure a strong and effective nuclear umbrella over the ROK [Republic of Korea] so that Pyongyang never misjudges our will and capacity to respond decisively to nuclear aggression.” 

Unless it is raining, President Lee is a dangerous guy to whom to hand an umbrella. According to the Guardian (UK), a Wiki leak cable from the U.S. Embassy says “Lee’s more conservative advisors and supporters sees the current standoff as a genuine opportunity to push and further weaken the North, even if this might involve considerable brinkmanship.” 

According to Peter Lee in the Asia Times, “Lee’s dream” is of “unifying the entire peninsula and its population of 75 million under the banner of the democratic, capitalist South in alliance with the United States, replacing Japan as the primary U.S. security and economic partner, and confronting China with the prospect of a major pro-western power on its doorstep while reaching out to the sizable Korean minority in China’s northeastern provinces.” 

While at first glance Lee’s “dream” would seem more poppy-induced than policy driven, South Korean -U.S. joint maneuvers have war gamed scenarios that envision a North Korean collapse and a subsequent intervention by Washington and Seoul. In August of last year, an 11-day drill involving 56,000 South Koreans and 30,000 Americans—Ulchi Freedom Guardian— practiced exactly that. 

According to the Korea Times, Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in Korea, the exercise was aimed at responding “to various types of internal instability in North Korea,” which is a rather different mission than the one that Panetta was talking about during his Seoul visit. 

And the North is not the only target in these exercises. 

During a visit to Italy in October, Panetta said, “We’re concerned about China. The most important thing we can do is to project our force into the Pacific—to have our carriers there, to have our fleet there, to be able to make very clear to China that we are going to protect international rights to be able to move across the oceans freely.” 

Coincidently, naval forces, with their $5 billion aircraft carriers, numerous support vessels, submarines, and high tech aircraft are expensive, big-ticket items that arms companies are fighting to keep in the military budget. 

The month before the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drill, the U.S. and South Korea carried out a major naval exercise in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea that included the aircraft carrier George Washington Certainly China had no illusions about the objective of the war game. “In history, foreign invaders repeatedly took the Yellow Sea as an entrance to enter the heartland of Beijing and Tianjin,” said Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, deputy secretary general of the Academy of Military Science. “The drill area is only 500 kilometers away from Beijing,” adding a metaphor from Mao that seems to lose something in the translation: “We will never allow others to keep snoring beside our bed.” 

It was the second time in less than a year that an American carrier had taken part in maneuvers in an area China considers a “military zone.” 

Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have continually put pre-conditions on any negotiations with the north, including ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and accepting responsibility for the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in September, 2010 that killed 46 sailors. 

This past January when Kim Jong-il said Pyongyang was “ready to meet anyone anytime anywhere,” U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that before any talks, North Korea “needs to demonstrate its sincerity” by getting rid of its nuclear weapons and admitting to culpability in the Cheonan incident. 

A delegation to North Korea aimed at easing tensions, featuring former president Jimmy Carter, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, former Irish president Mary Robinson and ex-Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, was ignored by Washington and dismissed by South Korean Foreign minister Kim Sung-Hwan as a “purely personal” trip. 

According to Seoul, the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, but that conclusion is hardly a slam-dunk. The team of “international experts” that examined the evidence was handpicked by the South Korean military, and Russian and Chinese experts who examined the evidence are not convinced. Indeed, a poll commissioned by Seoul University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies found that only 32.5 percent of South Koreans were confident in the findings. 

North Korea is hardly going to unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons while its two major enemies are designing war games to “stabilize” Pyongyang in the advent of major unrest. The recent NATO bombing of Libya certainly caught the attention of the North Koreans, who essentially said that it would never have happened if the Gaddafi regime had not abandoned its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Libya is “teaching the international community a grave lesson” an unnamed Foreign Ministry official told the Korean Central News, “The truth that one should have power to defend peace.” 

South Korean President Lee and the U.S. have put the onus for current standoff with North Korea on China. “I think China can do more to try to get North Korea to do the right thing,” argued Panetta, while Lee said he hoped that “China will continue to play an important role in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and leading North Korea to reform and openness.” 

According to the New York Times, President Obama told Chinese President Hu Jintao that unless Beijing took a “harder line” toward North Korea, the U.S. would increase its buildup of military forces in Northeast Asia. 

There is no question that Beijing has influence in Pyongyang—China is North Korea’s main trading partner—but the theory that the Chinese can simply dictate to the North Koreans is a myth. In any case, since China is convinced that the U.S. military buildup in Asia is directed at them, not impoverished North Korea, why would Beijing expend political capital to aid potential adversaries? 

The North Korean regime is an odd duck, with a system of succession more akin to the 12^th century than the 21^st, and a penchant for bombastic rhetoric. But is it a threat to other countries in the region? By the terms of a 1953 treaty, the U.S. would come to South Korea’s defense if the North attacked, and the Pyongyang government is well aware of what would happen to it in a confrontation with the U.S. 

If the U.S. is seriously interested in denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, it should ratchet down its joint war games with South Korea and stop threatening to use nuclear weapons on China’s doorstep. The U.S. may view North Korea’s nukes as destabilizing, but it was not Pyongyang that introduced nuclear weapons into the region, but the Americans. 

The six-party talks, which collapsed in April 2009, may or may not resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, but they are the only game in town. Instead of throwing up roadblocks, and casting its lot with the increasingly unpopular South Korean president, the Obama administration should be pressing to reopen the discussions as a way to dampen tensions in the region and bring the North Koreans to the table. 

Read Conn Hallinan at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com, and middleempireseries.wordpress.com

Maybe it is time for Americans to contact the members of the Super Committee to demand that its recommendations include raising taxes on the rich with that money to be used to provide relief for those Americans on the bottom of the economic pile, and no cuts in Medicare, Social Security, and other vital programs. A failure by the Super Committee to compromise will be just another symbol of a failed government. 

As we now know, the compromise debt ceiling law (“The Budget Control Act of 2011”) created a bi-partisan, 12-member special joint committee -- the “Super Committee” -- with the goal of achieving at least $1.5 trillion in budgetary savings over 10 years, from spending cuts or tax revenue. It will take seven of the twelve members to approve any recommendations. 

The special committee must report a bill with its recommendations by November 23, 2011. The recommendations would then have to be voted on by the full House and Senate under special rules. If the joint committee or Congress fail to act by December 23, 2011, the Act calls for automatic across-the-board cuts, split 50-50 between defense and non-defense spending.  

The Act also requires the House and Senate to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which would require a 2/3 majority in both houses. That vote must take place by December 31, 2011.  

The Super Committee could ask for an extension of time to report a bill with its recommendations 

The Super Committee members are: Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Co-Chair; Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wa) Co-Chair; Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT); Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA); Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI); Rep. James Clybum (D-SC); Sen. John Kerry (D-MA); Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ); Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH); Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA); Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI); and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). 

According to a Bloomberg-Washington Post national poll conducted October 6-9, more than two-thirds of all Americans back higher taxes on the rich and an even larger number think Medicare and Social Security benefits should be left alone. And 53 percent of self-identified Republicans back an increase in taxes on households making more than $250,000. It should be noted that Hensarling, Kyl , Toomey, and Camp are on record as no-taxers, who along with the GOP presidential candidates and the Tea Party, seem at odds with the American people. 

Unfortunately, the Tea Party-supported members of Congress became beholden to the Tea Party platform, which in part means no new taxes even if the taxes are on the rich.. House members are up for election every two years. Thus, a vote for taxes on the rich by Republican members of the Super Committee would probably lose them Tea Party support in the next election..  

Thus, the chances of new taxes on the rich and closing tax loopholes will be difficult for the Republican members to support. Thus, across the board cuts will be the likely result, which will probably mean more reductions in the safety nets for the poor, unemployed, the elderly, and the sick. 

Many experts are warning of disastrous consequences if the Super Committee fails, including a repeat of last summer’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, a possible double-dip recession, increased market instability, a lost decade of economic growth, at least a 10 percent reduction in defense and non-defense discretionary spending (Medicare and Social Security are not discretionary spending), and a setback for any hope of future deficit reductions. 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just nine percent of likely U.S. Voters rate the job Congress is doing as good or excellent. Sixty-three percent view Congress’ job performance as poor. It is high time for Congress to raise its approval rating by finally working together to find a compromise solution to this country’s economic troubles. It begins with the Super Committee. I am as always hopeful, but not optimistic.

Truth be known, when you pass the big six-oh, sleep doesn’t come easy. Six am the eyes click open like some crazy baby doll and there is no rolling over to snooze. The tension –filled job, a world of worry, and the double espressos don’t help. By 8:30 pm dozing sets in. Not great for a theatre critic, but if my anecdotal observation is true, I seem to be the median age of the average theatre-goer, so it’s a good barometer. And when you see two or three plays per week, often one’s concentration slips, “watcher-fatigue” sets in, and the mind wanders. Thus, if I don’t doze, if I am rapt throughout, it is a good barometer of the quality of the production and performance.  

At IMPACT THEATRE on a Thursday I was not bored for a moment and completely engaged with the performances in THE CHALK BOY by Joshua Conkel. Four talented young women, vastly unlike one another physically, temperamentally, even in vocal timbre, take an interesting but young playwright’s work and give us insight into the world and worries of high-schoolers in this early 21^st C.  

A classmate has disappeared, and he’s the most popular, cutest boy in the school. The disappearance of young men has been a regular, if sporadic occurrence in a small Northwestern town. The women’s involvement with Jeff Chalk, real or vicarious, is a pivot point of the play. Christianity, witchcraft, homoerotic love, vicious gossip and vindictiveness, preemptive spreading of rumors and reputation busters, the shifting friendships and allegiances of BFFs are all in play here. 

Luisa Frasconi is the in-denial rebel looking for love. I’ve lauded this new actress’s performance in Impact’s “Romeo & Juliet”; she captures the eye and has never failed to give a shining performance. Maria Giere Marquis plays the Christian moral and scholastic exemplar with her own secrets; she shone in “Of Dice and Men,” and her transformations of character make you shake your head to remember it’s the same actor. Newcomer to Impact Caitlyn Tella delivers a cinematic naturalism that doesn’t happen often on the stage; portraying the would-be lover of the rebel girl in the throes of her first lesbian crush, it’s hard to take your eyes off her. Chris Quintos is the whining girl with that teenager drone, and does it so well and true that you want to smack her; she ping-pongs between vulnerability and emotional disconnect which is seemingly true of young women in this confusing time. Her comic portrayal of a snuffling wreck of a teacher with coke-bottle glasses is a blend of just real enough and caricature to invest your imagination and make you laugh.  

The direction of Ben Randle in that band-box of stage underneath the pizza joint is easy and apt with no false moments of staging. He does not seem to have interfered with their natural talent and expression. 

It is a bare set of a few hardback chairs, and backpack full of props. The green chalk boards lining the walls on which the women mark the play’s progress is a brilliant device, whether concocted by the playwright or the director. Monochromatic wavy special projected effects periodically are used well to translate dream states/drugged states that come straight from the experience of near-psychotic anxiety or chugging a bottle of Robitussin. 

The writing is episodic and gives the women a template to revisit all the vicissitudes of adolescence they have recently graduated from. Most translations of female teenage angst in our culture are often cartoonish, from “Heathers” to “Mean Girls” to after-school specials. Only occasionally do we get a “Girl, Interrupted” foray into the stress of going through that confusing chrysalis. And too seldom are their circumstances investigated in the theatre. Young playwrights writing for young audiences is a genre Impact embraces, and their offerings are most absorbing and less pretentious than most new drama. More six-oh folks should go up to Euclid off Hearst and eat pizza, drink beer, and find out what’s in the minds of young folks these days. 

THE CHALK BOY by Joshua Conkel runs Thu-Sun through December 10 

Impact Theatre performs at La Val's Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berkeley 

www.impacttheatre.com 

With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away, many of us are thinking Turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Sadly however, the term "Thanks" has given way in recent years to "Spend", with department stores remaining open all day, followed by "Black Friday" -- an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Despair not, friends -- there are a host of heart warming and traditional holiday programs awaiting your pleasure through November and into January, as you'll see from the list to follow.  

Unless you're "Nutcrackered" out, you may want to see the S.F. Nutcracker Ballet, Dec. 9 - 27 at the War Memorial Opera House. From the ornate drawing room of a Victorian home to the dazzling halls of the 1915 Panama Pacific International exposition. (415) 865-2000.
"The Christmas Ballet: Beyond Belief", Smuin Ballet, Lesher Center for the Arts, Nov. 26, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. (925) 943-7469.
"Hot Mikado", Masquer's Playhouse, Richmond, Fridays and Saturdays through Dec. 17, also 2 p.m. Nov. 20 and Dec. 4. $20. (510) 232-4031.
"The Velveteen Rabbit", a tale of love, loyalty and hope. Novellus Theatre, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Nov. 25 - Dec. 11. Tickets start at $15. (415) 678-5956.
"The Soldier's Tale", based on Igor Stravinsky's 1918 musical, directed by Tom Ross, through Dec. 18. 1/2 price tickets for people under 30. (510) 843-4822.
Shen Yun (an exhilarating show of classical Chinese dance and music) Jan. 3 - 8, S.F. Opera House. (888-633- 6999).
Dunsmuir-Hellman House, a 37-room Italianate revival mansion. The Hellman family lived there for several decades. Dec. 3 -4, 10-11, and 17-18. 2960 Peralta Court, Oakland. (510) 615-5555.
Holidays at Ralston Hall Mansion, 1860's Italianate Villa, now the campus of Notre Dame de Namur. Nov. 20, tickets $45-50. (650) 508-3501.
"The Laramie Project", a docudrama that explores the murder of a gay college student in Wyoming. Cal State East Bay, Hayward, Nov. l8-l9, 8 p.m. and 2 p.m. Nov. 20. (510) 885-3118.
"Fella," an ecstatic phenomenon, radiating joy, with Shawn "Jay-3" Carter. Curran Theatre, Nov. 15 - Dec. 11. (888) 746-1799.
Christ the King Annual Holiday Boutique, Sat. Nov. 19, 1 p.m. - 7 p.m. Sun. Nov. 20, 7 a.m. - 2 p.m. 199 Brandon Rd. Pleasant Valley.
"A Christmas Carol" , Charles Dickens' definitive yuletide tale. Previews begin Dec. 1. Runs Dec. 6-24. American Conservatory Theatre, 418 Geary St. S.F.
(415) 749-2228.
Contra Costa Ballet (another Nutcracker!) Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m., Dec. 2 ,4:30 and 7:30. p.m. www.Contracostaballet.org.
Finally, if you're not keen on preparing a big dinner, you can have a Thanksgiving Feast at the Claremont Hotel for a mere $89. (Children free!)


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

With “Occupy” movements currently agitating our very urban inner Bay Area turf, it’s perhaps a strange time to think about bucolic landscapes. But there’s a good reason to switch mental gears, at least for a few hours, in the next month.

The expanded and renamed museum at St. Mary’s College of California is hosting a splendid exhibit of the artwork of William Keith the prolific, famed California landscape painter—and once-notable Berkeley resident, I should add—of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

The exhibit, entitled “The Comprehensive Keith”, commemorates the centennial of the death of the painter in April 1911. It runs through December 18 and features well over one hundred of his oil paintings and some watercolors. Most are landscapes, but there’s also a selection of his lesser-known portrait paintings. 

William Keith grew up in the same part of Scotland as John Muir where both were born in 1838. But they didn’t meet and become friends until 1872 when Keith went to Yosemite with a letter of introduction to Muir.  

Keith captured in paintings what Muir expressed in words—the magnificence of the California landscape. The Sierra and the then-largely undeveloped countryside around San Francisco Bay gave Keith many of the settings for his best-known works of art—grand scenes of nature, sprinkled for scale with human influences—a few figures, a group of cattle, a wood cabin. 

St. Mary’s has what is believed to be “the world’s most comprehensive collection of William Keith paintings” (185 works), thanks to Brother Cornelius, one of the faculty, who discovered Keith art in 1908 and became an avid collector, promoter and, later, the definitive biographer, of the painter. 

In the exhibit you experience several stages of the development of Keith’s artistic style. First, as a younger artist he prolifically participated in the realistic recording of the amazing natural wonders of the West in paintings—some truly heroic in size—that carefully chronicled scenes down to individual leaves on an oak tree or the petals on a poppy. 

His later art turns more impressionistic. The natural settings and detail are still recognizable, but conveyed in a much looser form. You could put some of these paintings anonymously in a show of Impressionist Masters and they would fit right in and very favorably compare.  

Finally, as his skill and ability matured, Keith produced what is perhaps the most popularly recognized form of his art today—moody, evocative, landscapes, often drenched in shadow or light and focused down from mountain ranges and sweeping panoramas to the more intimate level of a forest glade, a mountain hillside, a meadow.  

The quintessential Keith painting in this later era is a orange red sunset glowing through mysterious woodland, and there are a number of examples in the exhibit—but there are also scenes I didn’t know Keith had painted, such as the wonderfully titled “Joy Comes With Morning”, where white light floods through what looks like a redwood grove along a stream, or paintings of Alaska scenes. 

There are other spectacular pieces that kept drawing my attention as I wandered through the exhibit. Keith painted marvelous skies and clouds. “After The Storm” from 1896 looks down a partially wooded vale at a distant landscape—overhead there’s blue sky to the left, shading into puffy clouds, then the trailing edge of a gray downpour, all depicted with amazing ability. 

Keith executed thousands of paintings in his career. What’s as impressive is that after many of the paintings he had sold—and his entire San Francisco studio—were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, he sat right down and started creating a whole body of both replacement and new work. 

Much of that painting was done in his Berkeley studio and home, which stood on Atherton Street, where Edwards Track Stadium is now located and where he lived with his second wife, Mary McHenry Keith.  

Is her name familiar to Berkeleyans? It should be. A pioneering woman lawyer in California, she was an ardent women’s suffrage advocate. It seems a tragedy that one of her political triumphs—the passage of votes for women in California in October, 1911—came just a few months after her husband died. 

There are a number of named or recognizably likely Berkeley scenes in the exhibit including one of Strawberry Creek and others of the Berkeley Hills. Keith was a regular walker through the Berkeley campus, taking the train back and forth from Downtown to the San Francisco ferries.  

If you’ve hurried or strolled through the Grinnell Natural Area on the campus following the footpath up from Center Street—well, that’s where Keith walked, too, a century and more ago. 

The exhibit also includes some three dimensional items associated with Keith, including a Japanese bell he kept in his studio and a massively scaled wooden desk believed to have come from his Berkeley home. 

Although 120 paintings may seem like a lot to take in at one viewing, the exhibit can easily be wandered in an hour or less. 

There’s also a pricey ($45) but detailed soft cover book about Keith and his art available in the Museum gift shop. 

Staff at the entrance / security kiosk can give you directions to parking adjacent to the Museum. Admission is a modest $5 per person, and the Museum is open 11:00 to 4:30, Wednesday through Sunday. 

In addition to the Keith exhibit, there are two other small gallery spaces with varied displays. 

The Museum website is here

—Massenet's 'Sapho' will receive a staged reading by Opera Lab, its cast of singers accompanied by Robert Ashens, this Sunday at 3 at the Chapel of the Chimes, 4496 Piedmont Avenue in Oakland. Sung in French with explanatory commentary. Refreshments will be served. Free. Donations requested. Reservations (space limited): operalab@rocketmail.com

—Sunday night, Berkeley Arts Festival will feature the trio of Phillip Greenlief, tenor saxophone; Soren Kjaerkgaard, prepared piano; and Tim Perkis, electronics at 8, followed by Empty Cage--Jason Meers, saxophone & clarinet; Kris Tiner, trumpet; Ivan Johnson, bass; Paul Kikuchi, drums, at 9. $10. 2133 University Avenue by Ace Hardware (near Shattuck) berkeleyartsfestival.com
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—The Dazzling Divas--Pamela Connelly, Kathleen Moss and Eliza O'Malley, accompanied by Hadley Mc Carroll--return to the Bateau Ivre next Wednsday, November 16, 7-9, with arias and duets from Puccini, Verdi, Bellini, Bizet and Delibes--plus a new trio from Mozart. No cover. 2629 Telegraph. 849-1100

—An old bum in a trench coat and hat, a spray of white hair under the brim, steers his walker—smiley-face helium balloon floating above—through the audience towards the stage at The Marsh, Berkeley ... With the grudging help of a deadpan pianist, the arriviste starts to talk, then sing, croon, put on a show—a kind of manic geriatric cabaret, but not the type you see indoors, at least not on a stage; maybe in the mirror of a furnished room ... 

It's Randy Rose, lead singer for The Residents, the SF band shrouded in mystery over the past few decades, performing in clubs, museums, auditoriums where the audience can't see their faces. The Residents are presenting this show Randy wrote and performs, 'Sam's Enchanted Evening, A Dark & Dreamy Song Cycle'—a kind of homage to or impersonation of his old friend Sam, who's seen much better days, as well as worse—and tells us about them—as he in turn impersonates, does homage to the music he grew up, went to college and to war on, from Bo Diddley through Sinatra to the Rolling Stones, with plenty of everything else in between thrown in, blues to pop, lounge, protofunk, and back to rock. 

Jim Cave has directed Randy with contrapuntal sensitivity, bringing a completeness to Sam's meandering story of his life and transient loves—his one true love perhaps his Pontiac—as he grows up privileged and white in the South, hangs out listening to the blues and R&B, flunks out and takes it on the chin, sent to Vietnam. At first something of a lark, Southeast Asia goes black with his tale of once again being singled out, becoming a kind of Ishmael ... 

Meanwhile, he grimaces, gesticulates, exhorts the impassive pianist, prances stiffly, croons, shouts, spits out the songs that have traveled with him in a closet stadium show, sans band but nobly followed on the ivories by Residents faithful Joshua Raoul Brody, who gets to comp creatively to Sam's gruff delivery of the tunes. 

A little Grand Guignol before it's over, in true Residents fashion, as Sam hits the road—and the bottle—again. 

Thursdays & Fridays at 8, Saturday at 8:30 through November 26. 2120 Allston Way (near Shattuck). Thursdays, $15-$20; Fridays-Saturdays: $20-$35 (sliding scales). Reserved seating: $50. (415) 826-5750; themarsh.org 

* * * 

—Jet-lagged, sans travel guide and phrase book, business emissary Lowell gravitates towards a sign with his name on it, held up by a statuesque beauty in the airport—and right away finds himself doing a little dance of contrition, in Anne Washburn's 'The Internationalist,' staged by Just Theater, in its West Coast premiere at Ashby Stage. With Pay What You Can at the door, it's the best deal in town by a little company that consistently puts good work onstage. 

"Would you like a cigarette?" —"I don't smoke." —You could hold it ... " 

Rebounding off what he's told in English by the locals—"Yes, they have some English," his lovely contact tells him in perfect English ("more perfect than yours, maybe") ... "They're just not happy about it."—he finds himself gawking uncomfortably as they switch gears and race on in their own tongue. Throughout the play, Lowell—and the audience—will never be quite sure where he is, what he's hearing—or what's expected of him. And the emotional center he raggedly pursues seems just as elusive. 

His well-appointed contact turns out to be an office girl; the politics of the workplace are opaque—or obtuse. Neither business nor sightseeing nor fraternizing with the locals—or going native—seems to wash out that funny taste ... 

Romance in any sense of the word is provisional and nuanced, oddly self-conscious, in this unnamed land. Lowell's told of a scenic spot: "The Nazis loved this bar. It a great view ... and every now and then, the bartender would poison a Nazi!" 

Awkward and witty, the dialogue—in two tongues, much of it rattled off by the fluent cast (in seemingly a Central European blend—maybe more of coffee or tobacco than words)—and gestures, either oddly reserved or absurd, are made quite stageworthy by the excellent cast—Nick Sholley as Lowell; Alexandra Creighton as Sara, his first contact; Michael-Barrett Austin, Loren Bloom, Kalli Johnson and Harold Pierce as the arcane office staff, as well as various street people and ethnic "types"—all directed with finesse by Jonathan Spector. 

Spector also directed Washburn's 'I Have Loved Strangers' at the City Club a few years ago, a splendid production which featured some of the same company members onstage. 'The Internationalist' is not quite so absorbing; entertaining enough, but not as fleshed out, not as much of a play. Though amusing, the first half indulges in a variation of the English Speaker Abroad kind of humor, common enough in movies and on television the past couple of decades or so. The dialogue carries the show so far with its cockeyed wit, its signature. 

The play takes a markedly theatrical turn in the second half, with Lowell engaging in a frustrated, mean-spirited soliloquy, about cultures that win and lose, in the mirror while shaving—and hears Sara's fleeting voice begging the question ... After wandering sight-seeing (""The things they did to saints. The saints must have been really really annoying"), wading through chance meetings with locals, there's an encounter and odd conversation with a colleague in maybe the same scenic bar Sara told Lowell about, something as ambiguous—or more so—as a good scene in a spy movie, strange and droll, all under the fixed grin of the mustachioed bartender. 

The lingering almost-connection between Sara and Lowell's also ambiguous ... "You said, the other night at dinner that it would be a gift for me to speak to you truthfully," he reminds her. "I wanted you to be truthful then, at that moment," she replies, "but it wasn't a carte blanche." 

Swinging back and forth between moods, like the jetlag Lowell suffers from—and maybe a form of vertigo from an exasperated ego—'The Internationalist' offers one moment, seductively, a hint of romance, of escape—and the next, insouciantly, glibness and incomprehension, international business-as-unusual. 

Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby (across from Ashby BART). Thursdays-Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 5. Pay What You Can at the door; advance sales: sliding scale, $15-$30. 306-1184; justtheater.org

—David Moss, a talented performer on Bay Area stages over the past decade and more, will reprise his show 'Cracked Clown' Friday & Saturday the 11th & 12th at 8 p. m., the same show that sold out here in August, at the East Bay Media Center, which has initiated a live performance series over the past few months. 1939 Addison, just west of Milvia, in the Berkeley Arts District. $12. 843-3646; eastbaymediacenter.com 

—Virago Theatre, co-founded by Berkeley residents, usually producing in Alameda, is staging the premiere of local playwright Jon Brooks' 'Shoot O'Malley Twice' at Stagewerx 446 in downtown San Francisco. Brooklyn Dodgers vs. NY Giants—for the last time—1957; Robert Moses, a psychic & the Savannah Kid. Directed by Angela Dant. 553 Sutter, just west of Powell. $15-$20. (510) 865-6237; viragotheatre.org 

—Gestural Vocabularies, a lecture with a 10-minute video of Kathakali performed, will be presented, free, at Dwinelle Hall #370 on the UC campus, Tuesday the 14th, 5-7 p. m. Kalamandalam M. P. Sankaram, former principal of the great Kathakali school, and Kunju Vasudevan, visting scholar at Butler University, will talk about the complex, grammatical gestural vocabularies of mudra, in Vedic ritual, Kootiyattam theater (dating from the 10th century) and the colorful, better-known Kathakali, which dates from the 17th century, texts from the Mahabhurata & Ramayana sung as non-speaking, heavily made-up & costumed actor-dancers move & gesture in mudras to drumming. 642-3608; berkeley.edu/events

Improvisations conjured by Fred Frith; roaming drunken shaman expelling high-end drugstore vibrations on a mystical pocket fm radio and guitar along with Theresa Wong; cave dwelling amateur magician and high priestess of the vocal disorder meet in trio for the first time with court jester and pianist, Søren Kjærgaard to channel anything, everything and sometimes nothing through spirited sonic outbreaks. 

Fred Frith (guitar), Theresa Wong (cello/voice) with special guest from Copenhagen, Denmark, Sren Kjrgaard (piano)2133 University Avenue 

www.berkeleyartsfestival.com