These two behemoths will dismantle the Sequoia Tuesday. In the foreground is the crane; in the background, the jaw.
Ted Friedman
These two behemoths will dismantle the Sequoia Tuesday. In the foreground is the crane; in the background, the jaw.

Extra

New: We Came to See it Fall, But Sequoia OutStood Us: The Games We All Played While Gawkiing

By Ted Friedman
Monday November 28, 2011 - 10:30:00 PM

We came to see it fall, but stayed to see it outlast us.
City Officials reported the Sequoia would be "demolished" Monday morning, but a few things interfered on the way to demolishment.

The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, in a tautly-written letter to Berkeley's new city manager, Christine Daniel, argued that the Sequoia has a unique heritage that must be preserved.

But preservation apparently gave way to the city's argument favoring "public safety." -more-


Flash: U.C. Berkeley Faculty Senate Registers 10-1 Vote Condemning Administration Response to Occupy Berkeley Protesters

Monday November 28, 2011 - 05:27:00 PM

The Berkeley Division of the University of California Faculty Senate endorsed, by a 10-1 margin (336-34), a group of four resolutions expressing, with varying degrees of specificity, their lack of confidence in the way Berkeley administrators have handled student protests.

Three U.C. Berkeley executives, Chancellor Robert Birgenau and two of his subordinates, attempted an explanation of their actions on November 9, when students and faculty were clubbed by police. They were greeted with stony silence by the faculty members in the front of the International House auditorium where the meeting was held, and with audible snickers from the students in the back of the room.

Professor Judith Butler, one of the sponsors of the original no-confidence resolution, moved the acceptance of her motion plus three more which had been submitted by other faculty members. -more-


Updated: U.C. Regents Finish Meeting Interrupted by Protesters

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Monday November 28, 2011 - 06:49:00 PM

A University of California Board of Regents meeting held via teleconference at four UC campuses wrapped up this afternoon after being briefly interrupted by protesters who criticized recent police actions in Davis and Berkeley and rising tuition costs. -more-


Press Release:

An Open Letter to UC Berkeley Students, Faculty, Administration & Regents from the UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association

From Mary Jo Rossi
Monday November 28, 2011 - 05:48:00 PM

It is our hope that this letter will help open the door to a better understanding between UC Berkeley police and the University community. -more-


Demolition at Fire-Damaged Berkeley Building Starts Today

By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Monday November 28, 2011 - 05:48:00 PM

Demolition work is expected to begin today on the top two floors of a four-story apartment building near the University of California at Berkeley that was badly damaged in a five-alarm fire earlier this month, the head of a local merchants' group said. -more-


Dozens Speak Out at U.C. Regents' Meeting

By Dan McMenamin (Bay City News Service}
Monday November 28, 2011 - 05:20:00 PM

Dozens of University of California students, employees and others spoke at a Board of Regents meeting held via teleconference at four UC campuses today, sharply criticizing recent police actions in Davis and Berkeley, as well as rising tuition costs. -more-



Page One

CUCFA Letter to President Yudof Opposing Decision to Hire Bratton

From Robert Meister, President, Council of UC Faculty Associations
Sunday November 27, 2011 - 09:39:00 PM

This evening, The Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) sent the following letter to President Yudof in response to his decision to hire the Kroll Security Group, and its Chairman William Bratton, to to conduct an investigation of police violence at UC Davis.

Dear President Yudof,

The Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) protests your decision to hire the Kroll Security Group, and its Chairman William Bratton, to conduct what you call an independent investigation of police violence at UC Davis. We take no position here on Mr. Bratton’s personal qualifications; our objection is to the conflicts of interest of Kroll Security itself, which is already a major contractor with UC on security matters. According to its website, Kroll’s services are not confined to securing databases and facilities from attacks by criminals and terrorists. It also protects many global financial institutions and other multinationals against threats to “operations” that may come from public criticism and direct political action.

By deepening UC’s links to Kroll, you would be illustrating the kinds of connection between public higher education and Wall Street that the Occupy UC movement is protesting. Kroll’s parent company, Altegrity, provides data-mining, intelligence and on-the-ground security to financial institutions and governments seeking to head off and defeat both private sabotage and public protest. In addition, Altegrity’s parent company, Providence Private Equity, is a major global investor in for-profit higher education companies that benefit from the decline of publicly funded higher education. -more-



New: Ford Mustang Flips-Out After Bizarre Collision With Beemer at Channing Way and Telegraph

By Ted Friedman
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 04:59:00 PM
Saturday, 11a.m. moments after Mustang (center) flips out after grazing maroon car (right) which was reportedly emerging from parking space at Channing and Telegraph. Man in wheel chair, center comes to aid of Mustang Driver.

Writing a new chapter in physics, a Ford Mustang convertible, traveling under 30mph hit a BMW leaving the curb, and then launched into the air and landed, upside-down, on its rag-roof. It happened Saturday, just before noon at Channing Way and Telegraph.

Although both drivers were taken to the hospital, they were not seriously injured, according to rescue workers at the scene.

The driver of the Mustang was wrenched from under his steering wheel by a good-samaritan street vendor, who rushed over from his Teley street stand. -more-



Flash: U.C. Berkeley Faculty Scheduled to Vote on UCPD Violence on Monday Afternoon--But They've Lost Their Email Access

By Richard Brenneman
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 11:10:00 AM

The UC Berkeley Academic Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on a resolution condemning the use of violence against students exercising their First Amendment rights.

From the meeting announcement:

Monday, November 28, 2011 – 3:00pm – 5:00pm
A special meeting of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate will be held in the Chevron Auditorium of the International House (2299 Piedmont Avenue). The Notice of Meeting and the resolution to be presented can be downloaded by clicking here.

We will be meeting to deliberate and reach conclusions upon a specific topic: The role of protest at Berkeley, the protests of November 2011 and events surrounding them including police and administration responses, and related policies.
In addition to the initial resolution, three others have since been introduced, and we’ll reprint them all.

But UC Berkeley’s email system suddenly shuts down

But before we do, we’ll like to call your attention to an email we’ve just received revealing that a critical mode of discussion used by the faculty members has conveniently broken down over the weekend.

Here’s what one faculty member reports:


The Berkeley email is disabled this weekend, at a critical time of organization and discussion leading to a special meeting of the Academic Senate on Monday. Those using berkeley.edu addresses are out of email from the morning after their Thanksgiving dinners (Friday morning) until the Monday when the Academic Senate meeting takes place. The meeting is intended “to deliberate and reach conclusions upon a specific topic: The role of protest at Berkeley, the protests of November 2011 and events surrounding them including police and administration responses, and related policies.” Some see this meeting as potentially leading to a vote of no-confidence in the Chancellor, Robert Birgeneau. In my personal experience, this kind of outage is not accidental. -more-



"Knit-In" at Occupy Berkeley Site to Make Warm Clothing for Protesters

By Erika Heidecker (BCN)
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 09:15:00 AM

Some crafty Occupy Berkeley members are showing solidarity with their Occupy brethren in cold-weather areas by holding a "knit-in at the sit-in" today.

Organizers are inviting the public to join them as they knit and crochet hats, mittens and scarves to send to cold-weather encampments that are facing dropping temperatures and snow as winter approaches.

The knit-in will be held at noon, rain or shine, at Civic Center Park at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Center Street. -more-



Andronico's Telegraph Berkeley Store Is Closing

By Bay City News
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 09:11:00 AM

Andronico's, the supermarket chain that opened its first store in Berkeley in the 1920s, announced today that it will close its Telegraph Avenue store in Berkeley.

The store was called "Park and Shop" when it opened, but the name was later changed to reflect family ownership.

The closure is related to the chain's restructuring after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this August, according to a representative for the markets.

Five stores will remain open and "will receive the company's full attention" as part of a capital improvement plan expected to begin early next year, according to a statement released on behalf of the company. -more-



Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Saturday November 26, 2011 - 09:43:00 AM

Eids; Why the Super Committee Was Doomed; U.C. Berkeley Police;Resignation Vs. Moratorium;The Super Commitee's Failure; A Thought about Needed Change -more-


New: What Occupy is About: An Opinion

By Thomas Lord
Monday November 28, 2011 - 05:47:00 PM

Occupy is about mass organizing to directly address big, structural problems that create intolerable inequities and injustices.

Occupy focuses on a malevolent concentration of political and economic power in a relatively small elite who seem to exercise their power so as to increase those inequities and injustices.

Occupy attempts to organize resistance under a "big tent", improvising and using techniques of Real Democracy. -more-


Berkeley, There Will Be No Santa Claus.

From Jacquelyn McCormick, Coordinator, Berkeley Budget SOS
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 04:55:00 PM

While citizens of Berkeley are nestled snug in their beds, City Councilmembers are dreaming, not of sugar plums, but of ways to fund the City’s failing infrastructure.

At several recent Council workshops, the demise and needs of our parks, marina, pools, storm drains, sewers and streets were discussed in detail. To date there has been no mention of City buildings (except that Old City Hall is a death trap if there is a significant earthquake, so Council is pondering a new location) – although rebuilding the solid waste transfer station and recycling center was briefly mentioned last spring.

Mid-December should reveal the “total” capital project dollars that are needed for all the necessary improvements but it is looking as though that number is close to $600million. That works out to approximately $5,300 per resident, including students. Couple that with the $253 million debt for employee benefits related liabilities – most owed to CALPERS and you end up with close to $850million in unfunded liabilities, or a whopping $7,500 per resident. And we call it unfunded because, sadly, it is. Unless significant budgetary changes are made, there is no money to fund any of this and Berkeley taxpayers and the City treasury are tapped out. -more-


Why, Why Occupy?

By Kevin Gorman
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 10:39:00 AM

I’m a student at UC Berkeley - and lately, an Occupier. In the last month, I have seen hundreds of people from many different backgrounds sitting down in the public sphere and talking about what they think is going wrong in our country right now. It has been inspiring to see such a diverse group of people coming together hoping to make the world a better place.

I’ve also found myself on the wrong side of police barricades more times than I ever imagined happening. I've seen peaceful protesters in Oakland tear-gassed and shot with 'non-lethal' weapons. I've seen peaceful students on Sproul Plaza beaten viciously. The scenes I have seen – both the good and the bad – are not unique to the bay area, they've been repeated in dozens of other cities across the country. -more-


Editorial

Yudof Gets It Wrong Again

By Becky O'Malley
Wednesday November 23, 2011 - 11:07:00 AM

The University of California bureaucracy is all over the Occupy scandal, now that it’s gone viral. Seldom have I experienced such a fast response to my online opinions—but University of California President Mark Yudof seems to have hopped to, with alacrity. Unfortunately, he's only made things worse.

Last Wednesday I predicted that U.C. administrators would continue their longstanding tradition of trying stupid repressive measures against students exercising free speech. Right on cue, the dumb cops at U.C. Davis on Friday assaulted passive non-violent students with pepper spray—on camera yet. -more-


Columns

Wild Neighbors: Los Machos Furtivos

By Joe Eaton
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 09:18:00 AM
Red-sided garter snake: deceptive pheromones.

Hot news from Europe: in a population of western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus) in France, 40 percent of the males are crossdressers . Typical males of this hawk species, a close relative of our northern harrier, have overall streaky-brown plumage. Females have whitish heads and shoulders, and so do female-mimicking males. Typical males don’t seem to recognize the mimics as rivals. Audrey Sternalski, Francois Mougeot, and Vincent Bretagnolle report in Biology Letters that typical males attack decoys with their own kind of plumage at a higher rate than those with female-mimic plumage. What the mimics get out of it is access to the mates—up to three, depending on available resources—of territory-holding typical males. -more-


Senior Power … “Age insists that I be dull as a further disability.” [Florida Scott-Maxwell at 83. The Measure of My Days.]

By Helen Rippier Wheeler
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 09:27:00 AM

Disability, impairment, handicap. They’re different. While old age is not a disability, the weakening of the body’s resources exacerbates the impact of debilitating trauma or chronic disease that is likely to accompany old age. -more-


Arts & Events

Theater: Another Slew of Reviews:'Shoot O'Malley Twice' (Virago); 'Annie' (Berkeley Playhouse); 'The Soldier's Tale' (Aurora); 'Rumi x 7' (Golden Thread).

By Ken Bullock
Saturday November 26, 2011 - 10:47:00 AM

—'Shoot O'Malley Twice' (Virago Theatre Company) Since this review is running in the Planet, a note of disclosure—and reassurance—is in order at the start. The title of Jon Brooks' (who has written for the Mime Troupe) amusing play, about betting on "shooting fingers" while the Giants and Dodgers are betraying New York and Brooklyn by moving to the West Coast, refers to Walter O'Malley, owner of the Dodgers, object of such distain by the Brooklyn Faithful that—the saying goes—if you had Hitler, Stalin and Walter O'Malley together in a room and your gun had only two bullets, what would you do? "Shoot O'Malley Twice!" -more-


Back Stories

Opinion

Editorials

Yudof Gets It Wrong Again 11-23-2011

The Editor's Back Fence

And a Happy Thanksgiving to You 11-23-2011

U.C. Police in Berkeley and Davis Are Savages--the U.C. Executives Responsible Should be Fired 11-21-2011

Cartoons

Odd Bodkins: My Surreal Period By Dan O'Neill 11-26-2011

Public Comment

Letters to the Editor 11-26-2011

New: What Occupy is About: An Opinion By Thomas Lord 11-28-2011

Berkeley, There Will Be No Santa Claus. From Jacquelyn McCormick, Coordinator, Berkeley Budget SOS 11-26-2011

Why, Why Occupy? By Kevin Gorman 11-26-2011

New: Thoughts on the Sequoia Apartments By Kirk E.Peterson 11-25-2011

New: Alarming News! Trees in Strawberry Canyon to be Clearcut for UC Berkeley, Lawrence Lab By Lesley Emmington, for Save Strawberry Canyon savestrawberrycanyon.org 11-24-2011

There Should Be a Moratorium on the Use of Pepper Spray By Carol Denney 11-23-2011

Letter from Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association to Owners of Sequoia Apartments Per Carrie Olson, President 11-21-2011

Why They Go After the Students: Reflections on Police Actions at Davis and Berkeley By Michael Song Lim 11-21-2011

News

New: We Came to See it Fall, But Sequoia OutStood Us: The Games We All Played While Gawkiing By Ted Friedman 11-28-2011

Flash: U.C. Berkeley Faculty Senate Registers 10-1 Vote Condemning Administration Response to Occupy Berkeley Protesters 11-28-2011

Updated: U.C. Regents Finish Meeting Interrupted by Protesters By Dan McMenamin (BCN) 11-28-2011

Press Release:

An Open Letter to UC Berkeley Students, Faculty, Administration & Regents from the UC Berkeley Police Officers’ Association

From Mary Jo Rossi 11-28-2011

Demolition at Fire-Damaged Berkeley Building Starts Today By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN) 11-28-2011

Dozens Speak Out at U.C. Regents' Meeting By Dan McMenamin (Bay City News Service} 11-28-2011

CUCFA Letter to President Yudof Opposing Decision to Hire Bratton From Robert Meister, President, Council of UC Faculty Associations 11-27-2011

New: Ford Mustang Flips-Out After Bizarre Collision With Beemer at Channing Way and Telegraph By Ted Friedman 11-26-2011

Flash: U.C. Berkeley Faculty Scheduled to Vote on UCPD Violence on Monday Afternoon--But They've Lost Their Email Access By Richard Brenneman 11-26-2011

"Knit-In" at Occupy Berkeley Site to Make Warm Clothing for Protesters By Erika Heidecker (BCN) 11-26-2011

Andronico's Telegraph Berkeley Store Is Closing By Bay City News 11-26-2011

Press Release: Faculty Senate to Take up No-Confidence Resolution By Public Affairs, UC Berkeley 11-23-2011

Sequoia Fire Investigation Ongoing;
Businesses Open, Temporary Traffic Routes
By Steven Finacom 11-23-2011

Five Who Survived By Ted Friedman 11-23-2011

Forty-Seven Berkeley Faculty Members Sponsor No Confidence Resolution Against Birgeneau: Meeting to Take Place Monday Afternoon From the U.C. Berkeley Academic Senate Website 11-23-2011

Press Release: President Yudof Launches Initiatives to Address Policing and Protests From Steve Montiel, University of California Office of the President 11-23-2011

Fire-Damaged Sequoia Building Part of Berkeley's Heritage By Steven Finacom 11-23-2011

UC Delays Decision on Second Campus For Berkeley Lab By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN) 11-22-2011

Press Release: Berkeley Lab Second Campus Preferred Site Announcement Expected in 2012 From Jon Weiner 11-22-2011

New: Oakland Chamber of Commerce Executive Board Member Charged with Committing $19.75 Million Corporate Fraud by Darwin BondGraham 11-22-2011

Occupy Cal Quiet, But Still Present, on Monday By Steven Finacom 11-22-2011

UC President Condemns Police Response to Berkeley and Davis Protesters, Calls for Thorough Investigation By Bay City News Service 11-21-2011

Fire a Death-Blow To Lower Telegraph? (News Analysis) By Ted Friedman 11-21-2011

Press Release: President Yudof Acts in Response to Campus Protest Issues From Steve Montiel, Media Relations Director, UC Office of the President 11-20-2011

UC Faculty Associations Council Condemns Police Violence at Berkeley, Other Campuses By Scott Morris (BCN) 11-20-2011

Occupy Oakland Protesters Set Up Camp on Lawn of Foreclosed Home By Bay City News 11-22-2011

Columns

Wild Neighbors: Los Machos Furtivos By Joe Eaton 11-26-2011

Senior Power … “Age insists that I be dull as a further disability.” [Florida Scott-Maxwell at 83. The Measure of My Days.] By Helen Rippier Wheeler 11-26-2011

New: The Public Eye: Thanksgiving Politics: Top Ten Reasons to be Thankful By Bob Burnett 11-23-2011

On Mental Illness:Remembering to Give Thanks By Jack Bragen 11-23-2011

My Commonplace Book (a diary of excerpts copied from printed books, with comments added by the reader.) By Dorothy Bryant 11-22-2011

Arts & Events

Theater: Another Slew of Reviews:'Shoot O'Malley Twice' (Virago); 'Annie' (Berkeley Playhouse); 'The Soldier's Tale' (Aurora); 'Rumi x 7' (Golden Thread). By Ken Bullock 11-26-2011

New: Neil Marcus: Fantastic Spastic By Dorothy Snodgrass 11-23-2011

Berkeley Arts Festival Hosts Piano--and Pianists By Bonnie Hughes 11-21-2011