Page One

Cal “Occupy” Emerges Once Again (Photo Essay)

By Steven Finacom
Friday February 10, 2012 - 03:36:00 PM

The first good rainstorm of the year last week, and the fine weather that has followed, seem to have sparked a newly fertile “Occupy” demonstration on Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus. -more-



Occupy is Back at UC Berkeley

By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Friday February 10, 2012 - 03:32:00 PM

Occupy Cal protesters have set up seven tents on Sproul Plaza on the University of California at Berkeley campus, according to a spokesman for the group. -more-



Berkeley People's Park Tree-Poker Convicted for Convictions While Sticking Up For Indian Rights

By Ted Friedman
Friday February 10, 2012 - 06:38:00 PM

Even though I had vowed to cover the story to the bitter end, the end became too bitter for me. -more-



Mental Health Day at Caffe Med Goes Haywire; Cops, Once More, Invade Coffee House of Whack

By Ted Friedman
Friday February 10, 2012 - 05:54:00 PM
Rat-trapped at Caffe Med, Friday, a mentally-ill man, with flare, is surrounded by police, who "just want to help."

You could almost have seen it coming. -more-



Public Comment

February Pepper Spray Times

By Grace Underpressure
Friday February 10, 2012 - 07:22:00 PM

Editor's Note: The latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times is now available.

You can view it absolutely free of charge by clicking here . You can print it out to give to your friends.

Grace Underpressure has been producing it for many years now, even before the Berkeley Daily Planet started distributing it, most of the time without being paid, and now we'd like you to show your appreciation by using the button below to send her money. -more-


Reviving Berkeley Restaurants in Tents on Burned-Out Building Site: How It Could be Done

By Thomas Lord
Friday February 10, 2012 - 03:46:00 PM

There's plans afoot to perhaps reboot Raleigh's and Intermezzo using modified shipping containers and tents in lieu of a more elaborate structure to get them going quickly. A third restaurant may enter the picture.

I think that's clever and has a lot of relevance to the local economy as impacts the 99%, so to speak.

So I wrote this open letter to the architect: -more-


Editorial

CIR-BayCit Merger: What's in It for Places like Berkeley?

By Becky O'Malley
Monday February 13, 2012 - 01:16:00 PM

What’s up with local news these days? How is it going to be possible, in the brave new world of the corporate future, to find out what’s going around home? Here’s what one Berkeley-based superflack has to say about it on her blog:

“Merging CIR with The Bay Citizen and Berkeleyside.com would be a northern California media lover's wet dream.”

Do we believe that? And even, do most consumers of local news know what she’s talking about? -more-


The Editor's Back Fence

Why We've Been Slow and How Not to Miss Anything

Monday February 13, 2012 - 10:56:00 PM

Our server, maintained by a third party and located on their premises, has been subject to unexplained slowwdowns in the past few days, which is why we've been late posting some articles. Please check the front page, including the list of the articles over the last week in its right-hand column, to be sure not to miss anything. We hope that the problem has been fixed. -more-


Columns

ECLECTIC RANT: Jim Crow Never Left

By Ralph E. Stone
Friday February 10, 2012 - 07:23:00 PM

In his article, "The Caging of America" in the January 30, 2012 issue of The New Yorker , Adam Gopnik quotes Robert Perkin's "Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire," who argues that the South is "the fountainhead of subjugationist discipline." That is, America's prison system is a slave plantation, a way of reimposing Jim Crow. -more-


THE PUBLIC EYE: The GOP Problem: “It’s Halftime for America”

By Bob Burnett
Friday February 10, 2012 - 05:01:00 PM

This year’s Super Bowl program contained a commercial ”It’s Halftime in America”, featuring Clint Eastwood. Initially this seemed to be a public service pep talk for the nation, then a promo for Detroit, and it turned out to be a Chrysler ad. The commercial outraged Republicans. It’s an indication of their core problems in the 2012 Presidential contest. -more-


WILD NEIGHBORS: The Albatross and the Anarchist

By Joe Eaton
Friday February 10, 2012 - 06:34:00 PM
Courting Laysan albatrosses on Tern Island, Hawaii.

One of the science blogs I check regularly is Darren Naish’s Tetrapod Zoology, currently hosted by Scientific American. Naish has a taste for the gratifyingly obscure, and the blog’s science-to-polemic ratio is high. He recently wrote about a remarkable case of mutualism—a reciprocally beneficial cooperative relationship between organisms of different species—that was described by a group of Japanese scientists in the journal Marine Biology. -more-


SENIOR POWER:On Dining Alone…

By Helen Rippier Wheeler
Friday February 10, 2012 - 04:38:00 PM

There were few people with whom gastronome M. F. K. Fisher cared “to pray, sleep, dance, sing, or share her bread and wine.” In an essay sprinkled with foody tidbits, she contended that A Is for Dining Alone. “I drive home by way of the corner Thriftmart to pick up another box of Ry Krisp, which with a can of tomato soup and a glass of California sherry will make a good nourishing meal for me as I sit on my tuffet in a circle of proofs and pocket detective stories.” -more-


MY COMMONPLACE BOOK (a diary of excerpts copied from printed books, with comments added by the reader.)

By Dorothy Bryant
Friday February 10, 2012 - 06:29:00 PM

You don’t inquire what is selling these days. You don’t worry about what editors or reviewers may like or not like. -more-


Odd Bodkins: Trouble on the Border (Cartoon)

By Dan O'Neill
Friday February 10, 2012 - 06:59:00 PM

Bounce: Friends (Cartoon)

By Joseph Young
Friday February 10, 2012 - 07:18:00 PM

Arts & Events

Around & About Opera: Goat Hall's Valentine's Party This Sunday—Songs, Arias & Duets

By Ken Bullock
Friday February 10, 2012 - 04:33:00 PM
Eliza O'Malley

Goat Hall Productions always come up with the most refreshing—and fun!—modus operandi for putting on a show of opera new and old. This Sunday at 8, they're throwing a benefit party for Valentine's Day at the Julia Morgan Chamber Arts House on Ashby ... and the m. o.'s been to hand over the role of impresario to the principal donors, over a dozen of whom have staked $100 per singer to hear their favorite operatic numbers, from Mozart to Puccini, Mahler and Debussy, including Goat Hall's founders, Harriet March Page and Mark Alburger performing his fine music, and Eliza O'Malley singing Delibes and Schubert. -more-


EYE FROM THE AISLE: Counter Attack at Berkeley's Ashby Stage—a delicious slice of theatre a la mode!

By John McMullen II
Friday February 10, 2012 - 05:07:00 PM
Lynne Hollander, Joan Mankin, Arthur Holden

With COUNTER ATTACK at the Ashby Stage, Joan Holden has written a moving tale of an aging waitress, capturing the craziness of the profession, the lure of the tips, the regulars, the banter, and what happens when your legs ain’t what they used to be. -more-


AROUND AND ABOUT FILM: Rare Gregory Markopoulos Retrospective at the Pacific Film Archive

By Ken Bullock
Friday February 10, 2012 - 07:44:00 PM

Gregory Markopoulos (1928-92) was one of the most creative American filmmakers who emerged during or just after the Second World War. From Toledo, Ohio, on of Greek immigrants, he made his first film at 12, and studied with Josef Von Sternberg as a teenager. His sense of place, of the subliminal (Markopoulos might've said said "mythic"), of person was volatilized by an extraordinary, "almost Mannerist" use of color ("Color is Eros") and his own signature in montage, eventually expressed through rapid cutting and unusual soundtracks, with and without music. -more-


THEATER REVIEW: 'Body Awareness' at the Aurora

By Ken Bullock
Friday February 10, 2012 - 05:14:00 PM

Body Awareness Week on campus at Shirley State college in Vermont, and the feminist professor in charge (Amy Resnick as Phyllis) bravely plunges into welcoming the audience to the festivities—while at home, her domestic partner Joyce (Jeri Lynn Cohen) is verbally scrimmaging with her post-adolescent son Jared (Patrick Russell) over his ongoing onanism, spiraling phone bills for sex calls, and her suspicions (along with Phyllis) he has Asperger's Syndrome. But Jared is having nothing of it, sniping at his mother while delving into his passion ... etymology. -more-


Back Stories

Opinion

Editorials

CIR-BayCit Merger: What's in It for Places like Berkeley? 02-13-2012

The Editor's Back Fence

Why We've Been Slow and How Not to Miss Anything 02-13-2012

Cartoons

Odd Bodkins: Trouble on the Border (Cartoon) By Dan O'Neill 02-10-2012

Bounce: Friends (Cartoon) By Joseph Young 02-10-2012

Public Comment

February Pepper Spray Times By Grace Underpressure 02-10-2012

Reviving Berkeley Restaurants in Tents on Burned-Out Building Site: How It Could be Done By Thomas Lord 02-10-2012

News

Cal “Occupy” Emerges Once Again (Photo Essay) By Steven Finacom 02-10-2012

Occupy is Back at UC Berkeley By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN) 02-10-2012

Berkeley People's Park Tree-Poker Convicted for Convictions While Sticking Up For Indian Rights By Ted Friedman 02-10-2012

Mental Health Day at Caffe Med Goes Haywire; Cops, Once More, Invade Coffee House of Whack By Ted Friedman 02-10-2012

Columns

ECLECTIC RANT: Jim Crow Never Left By Ralph E. Stone 02-10-2012

THE PUBLIC EYE: The GOP Problem: “It’s Halftime for America” By Bob Burnett 02-10-2012

WILD NEIGHBORS: The Albatross and the Anarchist By Joe Eaton 02-10-2012

SENIOR POWER:On Dining Alone… By Helen Rippier Wheeler 02-10-2012

MY COMMONPLACE BOOK (a diary of excerpts copied from printed books, with comments added by the reader.) By Dorothy Bryant 02-10-2012

Arts & Events

Around & About Opera: Goat Hall's Valentine's Party This Sunday—Songs, Arias & Duets By Ken Bullock 02-10-2012

EYE FROM THE AISLE: Counter Attack at Berkeley's Ashby Stage—a delicious slice of theatre a la mode! By John McMullen II 02-10-2012

AROUND AND ABOUT FILM: Rare Gregory Markopoulos Retrospective at the Pacific Film Archive By Ken Bullock 02-10-2012

THEATER REVIEW: 'Body Awareness' at the Aurora By Ken Bullock 02-10-2012