The Week

The Cal Band highlighted a mid-day rally on a packed Sproul Plaza at Cal Day on Saturday.
Andy Liu
The Cal Band highlighted a mid-day rally on a packed Sproul Plaza at Cal Day on Saturday.
 

News

Kayaks Stolen: Youth Summer Program in Jeopardy

By Cheryl La Rosa Longo,Executive Director
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 07:08:00 PM

The Berkeley Boosters report that a trailer with twelve ocean kayaks has been stolen and that their summer outdoor youth program may now be in jeopardy. -more-


Demonstrators Confront Wells Fargo Shareholders

Photos by David Bacon
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 07:13:00 PM

Press Release: Berkeley Police Identify Suspect

From Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, BPD Public Information Officer
Monday April 23, 2012 - 09:32:00 PM

“The City of Berkeley Police Department (BPD) is identifying the suspect who was arrested after shooting at BPD officers on the night of April 13, 2012 as Calvester Stewart, a twenty (20) year old Berkeley resident.” -more-


Updated: Activists Occupy Albany Plot Owned by U.C. Berkeley

By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Monday April 23, 2012 - 04:24:00 PM

About 40 activists who are part of a group calling itself "Occupy the Farm" are planting 15,000 seedlings on a 10-acre plot of land in Albany that is owned by the University of California at Berkeley, a spokesman for the group said today. -more-


University of Michigan's Dubious Deal with Dow Chemical (News Analysis)

By Carol Polsgrove
Friday April 20, 2012 - 04:47:00 PM

The terms of Dow Chemical's $10 million gift to the University of Michigan ought to raise eyebrows in universities across the country.

Under the gift agreement made public by the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, Dow Chemical would have its own paid representative on the committee that chooses Sustainability Fellows funded by the gift.

As far as many environmentalists are concerned, Dow and Sustainability are a contradiction in terms. The idea that the university would give Dow any control at all over an academic sustainability program suggests a sell-out of monumental proportions. -more-


BART Honors Berkeley Accessibilty Advocate Hale Zukas

By Lydia Gans
Friday April 20, 2012 - 04:12:00 PM

More than 100 people gathered at the Ed Roberts Center on Wednesday to honor disabled activist Hale Zukas for forty years of work and advocacy for accessible public transportation. Many of the people there were old folks - many in wheelchairs or having other disabilities. These people remember when their lives were severely limited , when wheelchairs were not accommodated on BART or buses, when people who were visually or hearing impaired there had no way to get directions, before curb cuts or station elevators and a host of other things we now take for granted were available. -more-


Hippy Hotel Replacement, Additional Parking, Could Signal Revival on Telegraph

By Ted Friedman
Friday April 20, 2012 - 02:47:00 PM
This is the view which Ken Sarachan gave Eddie Monroe, well-known Telegraph artist, when he requested an artist's rendering for his architect on the hippy hotel. The resort hotel in Cappadocia Turkey is carved from ancient rock formations. Carved steps to left are similar to those which will wend their way to the roof top gardens of the Hippy Hotel.

It's not really a hotel and the hippy part is weak, but there's a sense in which Ken Sarachan's plans for an ambitious redevelopment of the Berkeley Inn burned-out site at Telegraph and Haste is best understood as a hippy hotel. The barren site has served as a sullen reminder of the bygone hippy era for more than twenty-five years. -more-


Cal Day Picture and Weather Perfect (Photo Essay)

By Steven Finacom
Monday April 23, 2012 - 04:15:00 PM

Nature delivered beautiful, balmy, weather for the Saturday, April 21, 2012 “Cal Day” annual open house on the UC Berkeley campus. -more-


STEVE L. DROBINSKY
1948 - April 15, 2012

By Katherine Davis
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 10:17:00 AM

Steve Drobinsky (63), proud owner of Ohmega Salvage died peacefully, April 15th, at his home in Oakland after a courageous battle with cancer.

He was born in Estelline, South Dakota and grew up in Los Angeles. Steve ran Ohmega for over 30 years, turning salvage into gold and establishing a landmark in the East Bay. -more-


JOHN LOUDEN REID
August 25, 1938 – April 11, 2012

By Laura Morland
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 10:13:00 AM

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”

William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, I:I

John Louden Reid, 73, died peacefully in his sleep at home in Berkeley, after a brief illness.

John was born to Linnie Louden and Robert Franklin Reid of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He spent his teenaged years running high school track and perfecting his skills as a prankster and handyman. He earned a B.A. in English from Northwestern University in Evanston, where he met his wife, Susan Smith. Recipient of a prized Woodrow Wilson Scholarship, John entered the English doctoral program at U.C. Berkeley in 1960, where, as a graduate student instructor, his gift for guiding his students to literary insight blossomed into brilliance. -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Over-Reporting the "Mommy Wars" and Under-Reporting the Situation

By Becky O'Malley
Friday April 20, 2012 - 03:48:00 PM

The recent brouhaha about a Democratic consultant’s casual comment that Mrs. Romney had never worked a day in her life is a prime example of how desperate the media are for trivia which will let them avoid talking about the real situation in the upcoming election. -more-


Cartoons

Odd Bodkins: Our Daily Chicken (Cartoon)

By Dan O'Neill
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 11:44:00 AM

Odd Bodkins: McGinty (Cartoon)

By Dan O'Neill
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 11:41:00 AM

Bounce: No One's Perfect (Cartoon)

By Joseph Young
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 11:49:00 AM

Public Comment

Press Release: Occupy the Farm Activists Reclaim Prime Urban Agricultural Land in SF Bay Area

Sunday April 22, 2012 - 06:36:00 PM

(Albany, Calif.) Occupy the Farm, a coalition of local residents, farmers, students, researchers, and activists are planting over 15,000 seedlings at the Gill Tract, the last remaining 10 acres of Class I agricultural soil in the urbanized East Bay area. The Gill Tract is public land administered by the University of California, which plans to sell it to private developers. -more-


Berkeley Police Review Commission Okays Suspicious Activity Reports

By Gene Bernardi, SuperBold
Friday April 20, 2012 - 02:26:00 PM

May 15th the Berkeley City Council will consider their fiscal 2012 Police Department (PD) agreements. April 11, the Police Review Commission (PRC) voted to recommend that the City Council approve the PD’s verbal agreements with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) and the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) on condition that they be “reduced to writing”.

Additionally, PRC advised, per Councilmember Arreguin’s proposal, that Suspicious Activity Reports be submitted to NCRIC only on individuals/groups that have been charged with a crime, exempting individuals/groups who have only committed non-violent civil disobedience offences.

The verbal agreement with UASI includes a “direction” to the City Manager and Police Chief that the police should not be allowed to use tactics, they have been drilled in under UASI, if they are contrary to Berkeley PD policies. Further “direction” asks for a disclosure and oversight process, involving the PRC, of all training as long as it excludes specific tactics.

What’s wrong with this picture? -more-


Columns

ECLECTIC RANT: Stopping Those Irritating Robocalls

By Ralph E. Stone
Friday April 20, 2012 - 02:36:00 PM

Thousand of people receive calls from telemarketers selling debt reduction services or credit cards with promised lower interest rates; selling extended auto service contracts after telling them their warranties were about to expire; or telling consumers that they have won or are specially selected to receive a vacation package.

Many of these worthless or dubious deals are offered by companies operating "autodialing" businesses, which deliver prerecorded messages that allow clients to deliver large numbers of prerecorded phone calls, or “robocalls.” The prerecorded messages would last just a few seconds. If a call recipient who received a prerecorded message pressed “1” during the message, the recipient would be transferred to a live operator who would attempt to sell the product or service. -more-


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Attempts at Working While Medicated

By Jack Bragen
Friday April 20, 2012 - 04:32:00 PM

Most of the persons with mental illness who I have encountered have some level of difficulty with employment. Being able to work, for persons with mental illness, is often incorrectly perceived as symbolic of being a worthy human being. Being diagnosed with a mental illness took away self esteem for many of us. It may seem to us that being able to keep a job could restore most of that self esteem. In fact, we deserve to like ourselves whether employed or not.

-more-


THE PUBLIC EYE: The Disunited States: Can This Marriage be Saved?

By Bob Burnett
Friday April 20, 2012 - 02:30:00 PM

Now that it’s clear Barack Obama will be the 2012 Democratic nominee for President and Mitt Romney the Republican nominee, we’ll probably hear from a prominent third-Party candidate. He or she will promise to end the savage partisanship that characterizes US politics – pledge to bring us together, save the marriage. But America doesn’t need a counselor; we need a good divorce attorney. -more-


SENIOR POWER A Simple Life

By Helen Rippier Wheeler
Friday April 20, 2012 - 04:25:00 PM

Sixty-five year old Ann Hui On-Wah is a film director, producer and screenwriter, one of the most critically acclaimed of the Hong Kong New Wave. Born to a Japanese mother and Chinese father, she moved to Macao, then to Hong Kong when she was five years old. After studying film-making at the London International Film School, Hui returned to Hong Kong in 1975. She joined TVB, a major Hong Kong TV network, as a producer of serials and documentaries. -more-


Arts & Events

Flash: Berkeley Symphony Conductor Injured; Replacement Scheduled for Tomorrow Night

Wednesday April 25, 2012 - 05:48:00 PM

According to an article by Sue Gilmore in the Contra Costa Times, Berkeley Symphony conductor Joana Carneiro will not be able to conduct tomorrow night's Berkeley Symphony concert at U.C. Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall because she has injured her shoulder. -more-


New: Berkeley Symphony on Thursday: Gabriela Lena Frank premiere, Kodaly, Bartok

By Ken Bullock
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 07:08:00 PM

Berkeley Symphony, conducted by Joana Carneiro, finishes its season this Thursday at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium, with a world premiere of Berkeley's Gabriela Lena Frank's 'Holy Sisters,' commissioned by the Symphony, with soprano Jessica Rivera, whom the piece was written for, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus--as well as Zoltan Kodaly's 'Dances for Galanta' (premiered in Budapest, 1933) and Bela Bartok's 'Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta' (premiered 1937, in Basel). -more-


Press Release: How Democratic is California?
22nd Annual California Studies Conference in Oakland This Saturday

From Richard Walker
Tuesday April 24, 2012 - 12:21:00 PM

A day-long investigation into what can be done to restore the power of the people

Democracy” is supposed to be the guiding ideal of American politics: a belief in popular sovereignty and representative government. Yet recent developments, from the USA Patriot Act to the Citizens United decision and from enrichment of the 1% to financial collapse, have shaken our faith in democracy. It leads us to ask: what is the present state of Democracy in California and what should be done to restore the power of the people?

In an effort to stimulate ideas and discussion on this timely subject, the California Studies Association will convene scholars, community activists, journalists, policy specialists, historians and writers for a multi-faceted discussion on the responsibilities and challenges of becoming full participants in this nation’s democracy. We hope to engage the general public in a broad but facilitated on how democracy has failed and prevailed in the recent history of our state as well as current movements, issues, and topics such as "Elections and Exclusions," "Citizenship and its Discontents," and "Popular Protest and its Enemies." -more-


5 Bay Area Artists at the Berkeley Arts Festival

By Bob Brokl
Monday April 23, 2012 - 04:00:00 PM

The Berkeley Arts Festival continues at the historic Acheson Building, 2133 University Ave., in Downtown Berkeley, with a new group of artists, though Labor Day. -more-


EYE FROM THE AISLE: “What shall we do with Russia?”—Tony Winner at Shotgun Players

By John A. McMullen II
Friday April 20, 2012 - 04:19:00 PM
Christy Crowley, Nesbyth Rieman, Nick Medina, Joe Salazar, Caitlyn Louchard.

Voyage by Tom Stoppard at Shotgun Players is a beautifully produced, very dense play by arguably the greatest living playwright. It is the first play in the trilogy “Coast of Utopia” which won the Best Play Tony Award in 2007. This first segment is a historical drama of Russia from 1833 to 1844—a time of Revolution in Europe. -more-


Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra Performs Dvorak Requiem

By Elaine Hooker
Friday April 20, 2012 - 04:32:00 PM

The Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra will give three free performances next month of the rarely heard “Requiem Mass, Op. 89” by Antonin Dvorak.

The concerts will be Saturday, May 5, at 8 p.m.; Sunday, May 6, at 4:30 p.m.; and Sunday, May 13, at 4:30 p.m. All concerts will be at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St., Berkeley. The church is wheelchair-accessible. -more-