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Press Release: City of Berkeley Police Department (BPD) PIO Email Summary - Chief Meehan Son's Stolen iPhone

From Sergeant Mary C. Kusmiss S-6 BPD Public Information Officer
Tuesday May 22, 2012 - 12:27:00 PM

 

We have received wide interest in this incident. This is the summary of the incident (with some clarifications added) that was provided to two media outlets that had independently inquired about it.
 

Chief Meehan is out of town today.

Let us know if you have further questions.
Thank You.
Mary S-6
Sgt. MC Kusmiss
City of Berkeley Police Department
Public Information Officer
Office of the Chief of Police
(510)981-5780
Mon-Thurs 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.
City of Berkeley Police Department (BPD) PIO Email Summary - January 11, 2012 Incident Involving BPD Chief Michael K. Meehan Son's Stolen iPhone 052212
“On January 11, 2012, Chief Michael K. Meehan son’s iPhone was stolen at Berkeley High School. The stolen iPhone was equipped with tracking software, which was providing its general location in real time.”
“Chief Meehan showed his own phone with the in progress tracking of his son’s stolen phone to the BPD Property Crimes Detective Sergeant. Given the active signal of the stolen phone, the Detective Sergeant decided to take his team to try to locate it. As the signal was moving into the City of Oakland, the Detective Sergeant called the Drug Task Force (DTF) to ask for some additional assistance and members of that team offered to help. Chief Meehan did not order anyone to investigate.”
“The team followed the signal from Berkeley into Oakland until the signal stopped updating its position. Members of BPD attempted to contact residents at several homes in the vicinity of the last known signal of the stolen phone. The area was 55th Street and San Pablo Avenue in North Oakland. No community members in that neighborhood were able to provide any useful information and the team ended the investigation. Four detectives (One Sergeant and 3 detectives) extended their shifts for approximately two hours each and were given overtime.”
“It is common for BPD officers to actively investigate an in-progress tracking signal from a stolen electronic device. (e.g. Laptops, Smartphones and Tablets) These investigations can involve a Supervisor and multiple officers depending on the circumstances of the case and the location(s) of the signal(s).” (examples forthcoming)
“No report was written, an oversight that came to our attention when researching your questions. The team did not call the City of Oakland Police Department (OPD), although this is a courtesy and not required.”
“BPD has long recommended that community members use tracking software on their devices or load such software in order to support an investigation and the possible recovery of stolen property. This incident demonstrates the importance of safeguarding your property, a theme continually emphasized by the BPD.”
This is a feature on the BPD website - http://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=74160


New: Passenger Killed in Berkeley Crash was UC Student

By Zack Farmer (BCN)
Tuesday May 22, 2012 - 01:58:00 PM

A passenger who died in a solo-vehicle accident in Berkeley early Friday morning was identified by the Alameda County coroner's bureau as 22-year-old Milanca Alicia Lopez, a UC Berkeley student. 

Lopez was killed when the Cadillac she was riding in hit a roundabout and a tree near Allston Way and California Street at about 1:10 a.m. She was pronounced dead at the scene, Berkeley police said. 

Lopez was a student at the University of California at Berkeley where she studied social welfare and Chicano studies, university spokeswoman Janet Gilmore said. 

The male driver of the car and a child who was also in the vehicle suffered serious injuries in the crash and remained in the hospital as of today, police said. 

Police said they are investigating the cause of the collision, including whether the driver was impaired.  

Anyone with information is asked to call police at (510) 981-5980.


New: Berkeley's Bayer Stung by Critics

By Gar Smith
Sunday May 20, 2012 - 07:16:00 AM
Bee Protest
Gar Smith
Bee Protest
Bee Die-in
Gar Smith
Bee Die-in

"Inch by inch, row by row,

Gonna make this garden grow…

Till my body and my brain

Tell the music of the land."

It was mid-afternoon on May 16 when more than 30 activists began arriving at San Pablo Park. The crowd was greeted by the lyrics of David Mallett's "Garden Song," performed by the guitar-wielding, guerilla trio known as Occupella. Passersby could tell this was not your average Berkeley demo (as if there were such a thing). First clue: Half the crowd was dressed up as bees.

This West Berkeley park was the staging ground for a self-declared human "Bee-in at Bayer." The goal: to call attention to the chemical maker's role in producing a pesticide linked to "Colony Collapse Disorder," a mysterious syndrome that suddenly turns once-healthy hives into empty shells devoid of bees. 

"Our entire ecological system depends on pollinators," the organizers noted in a handout. "Ninety percent of our food crops are pollinated by bees." Occupella underscored this point by breaking into another song that chorused: "For every third bite of food, thank the bees." 

In addition to protestors in bee-garb, several people showed up in full-body beekeeper suits, complete with netted hats. Turns out they really were beekeepers. Underneath one wide-brimmed and netted hat was Kathryn Gilje, co-director of the Pesticide Action Network. Asked how her backyard hive in Oakland was faring, she replied: "The bees are doing just great. Producing lots of honey." Not every hive is so lucky as to have a member of PAN as a caretaker. 

Another less-fortunate local bee-host explained how she became concerned when her own local community of backyard bees suddenly started to spiral into decline. Her research led to the discovery of two neonicotinoid pesticides—Imidacloprid and Clothianidin. Both are currently among Bayer's best-selling products. 

The trade-off could not be clearer. While the EPA's review of neonicotinoid hazards is due to last through 2018, one third of the country's honeybees are continuing to vanish every year. As an emailed call-to-arms from the Berkeley East Bay Gray Panthers put it: "We can't afford to play the odds with extinction so that Bayer can continue to make exorbitant profits." 

Bayer recently made good on a seven-year-old promise to halt production of Class 1 pesticides that threaten human health but has done nothing to reduce or halt the production of Clothianidin and Imidacloprid, both of which target "social insects" like bees. 

(A passing thought: Have you ever wondered whether pesticide companies intentionally create tongue-tangling names for their products? It certainly makes it hard to complain about a chemical if you can't even pronounce it.) 

Back at the park, new volunteers, who arrived dressed in black, were being wrapped in circles of yellow ribbons that turned their black-bloc regalia into a rough semblance of apian attire. A few more heartfelt speeches and we were ready to march off to bee-devil Bayer the Slayer. The plan was simple: make a beeline for the Bayer plant on Ninth Street and "Swarm!" 

A parade of people bedecked as bees is certain to stir up enthusiasm from neighbors and drivers and, sure enough, horns were tooted in sympathy as the colorfully bee-decked activists flashed signs reading "Honk If You Like Bees." One protestor was spotted holding a placard that read: "WASPS 4 BEES. White Anglo-Saxon Protestor Against Bayer." Another protest sign drew attention to Bayer's historic role as a major chemical weapons maker for Nazi Germany. 

At one point, someone in the parade began singing, "All we are saying is: Give Bees a Chance." It caught on immediately. In between the chorus, the marchers also gave bees some chants (thanks to the family of one young agitator who stayed up late into the night crafting the following shout-outs): "Our Food System's Fallin' without the Bees' Pollen"; "Bees for Our Nation, Not for your Corporation"; "No Bees, No Farms, No Food"; and the inevitable "Whose Bees? Our Bees!" 

As the bee-dazzled throng passed the Good Vibrations shop on San Pablo, a reporter pointed out the company's motto, painted on the front door: "Creating a buzz since 1977." Shouts of "Join us!" ensued. 

While Bayer's Berkeley facility doesn't make Clothianidin, it's a fair target for anger directed at the parent company. When no one at the plant offered to meet with the circling swarm of drum-banging activists at the closed side gate, several organizers delivered a short speech and symbolically presented Bayer with the "Poisoned Heart Award." The prize took the form of a disgusting-looking plastic sack stuffed with lumps and oozing a thick coating of Hershey's chocolate sauce. 

The swarm then took flight and alighted at Bayer's nearby Main Gate for a die-in. 

One by one, the bees shook, stumbled, and fluttered to the ground. Their final, ad-libbed cries were poignant enough to elicit tears among the bystanders. 

"But… I don't WANT to die!" moaned one young woman as she collapsed on the pavement. 

"My honey!" another woman cried out, "I haven't finished making my honey!" 

As the bees sprawled silent and unmoving on the asphalt, bystanders looking past the metal gate blocking entry to the plant noticed a strange, sinister-looking cloud of vapor. It rose from behind a building and wafted slowly across the facility, driven by the evening's breeze. Below the cloud, two solemn protester stood holding a large banner. It read: “Mystery Solved! Bayer Is Killing Bees.” 

Resources: 

TakingBackOurFoodSystem.org 

OptionsEducation.org 

BeeCharmers.org 

Pesticide Action Network, www.panna.org


Driver, Child Remain Hospitalized After Fatal Berkeley Crash

By Sara Gaiser (BCN)
Friday May 18, 2012 - 01:44:00 PM

A man and a child remain hospitalized following a fatal crash in which a car struck a roundabout in Berkeley early this morning, according to police. 

One passenger, a woman in her 20s, was pronounced dead at the scene following the 1:13 a.m. solo-vehicle collision, police said. 

The male driver and a child who was also in the car remain hospitalized this afternoon with what police described as serious injuries. 

The car, a Cadillac, appears to have been traveling north on California Street when it struck a roundabout at Allston Way, then hit a tree on the east side of California just north of Allston, according to police. 

Police said they are investigating the cause of the collision, including the possibility that the driver was impaired. 

The roundabout is intended to be a traffic-calming feature. While there have been collisions at such features in the past, police said in a statement that "the number is not remarkable enough to suggest that they are a significant issue in this collision." 

This is the second fatal collision in Berkeley this year. 

Tyler DeMartini, 18, was struck by a car at Marin and Tulare avenues in North Berkeley on Jan. 20 as he was riding his skateboard home and later died of his injuries. 

The driver who hit him, a 54-year-old Berkeley man, cooperated with police and was not intoxicated, according to police.


Reinstated Telegraph Cop Patrols Spotty, as Teley Street Life Continues to Eat the Street—An Ontology

By Ted Friedman
Friday May 18, 2012 - 12:45:00 PM
Scene outside Amoeba, Wednesday.
Ted Friedman
Scene outside Amoeba, Wednesday.
At last! UCPD/BPD Teley foot patrol in person.
Ted Friedman
At last! UCPD/BPD Teley foot patrol in person.

Initial South-side response to announced resumption of Telegraph Avenue police foot patrols—after a five year absence—was met with cynical skepticism born of years of inconsistent avenue policing. The two-man patrols team Berkeley and U.C. police. 

As one veteran avenue homeless man put it, "they always increase their policing this time of year, especially during graduation, when parents are here. After graduation, the street patrols will be gone." 

Dazzled by police statements that the patrols would be "permanent," some Teley businessmen were so busy making with hosannas they forgot to see if in fact the patrols were more than wishful thinking. 

Teley businessmen, when not bitterly complaining about slow or unresponsive cop-response, have constantly entreated police over the years for stepped up avenue policing. Just when it seemed their efforts were succeeding, they now face one last obstacle. 

That obstacle…harsh reality. 

Police have previously said they must "keep our options open." And in both departments, budget cuts may have taken their toll.  

The usual scene of ten to twelve street-sitters and layers outside Amoeba's annex was cleared last weekend by a passing cop in a cop car—not on the foot patrol. 

But the same scene was permitted, days later, to stay within a police designated area by an officer with a different policy. 

"We have to consider the rights of everyone." the more lenient officer told me. 

I set out last week to look for the patrols, both on foot and on bicycle, and was "shocked, shocked" to find a cop-dearth. That's when I popped in on university police, where I button-holed a hurried captain who said the patrols are proceeding on schedule and that they are "permanent." 

Sunday patrols have been announced as a possibility. 

"I'm not saying they're not out there, or shirking their duties," I told the captain. "I'm just saying that I haven't seen them." 

After flashing a dark look, the captain had to go. He was leaving the station when he talked to me. 

Urban Strider, who covers the Berkeley street, says he saw the patrols in their first outings, but not thereafter. 

The usual street suspects report that police street patrols have been out and about. I have seen a reduction in objectionable street behavior, especially the absence of a mob which encamps at Cody's where a new no-trespassing sign is posted. Or was this a chimera? 

Have the claimed patrols changed the avenue? Two telegraph officers, not foot patrol, have said—no, although it may be too early to say. Doris Moskowitz, carrying on for Moe, rated any change as "slight." 

Lt. Eric Tejada, UCPD public information officer, acknowledges "cross-currents" in staffing, including last minute sick leaves. But, he says, "we intend to patrol at our stated hours. The stated hours: 11 a.m.—9 p.m., Monday through Saturday. 

Tejada reports seven arrests and seventeen citations in the first week of the patrols. 

The patrols must be out there. 

Kriss Worthington, Dist. 7, councilman is awaiting a report on patrol accomplishments from both Berkeley police chiefs. "But success [of the patrols] "does not depend on arrests, but on "prevention," he adds. 

Berkeley's animal control officers, who team periodically with what seem to be periodic cop foot patrols, have issued some animal control citations. I talked Monday to the recipient of a dog citation, who was having trouble clearing his ticket. Sprawling pit-bulls on Teley are allegedly scaring students and shoppers. 

I know the street patrols are patrolling, but where and when? I've searched for the patrol up and down the avenue on my bike many times at many times. 

Last week Mercury News Group published a People's Park photo of the foot patrol making a bust of a South Carolina man wanted for attempted murder in Carolina. The park is on the patrol route. According to Tejeda that bust began with the patrol's investigation of a shopping cart in the park. 

It wasn't as big a bust as the Phillip Garrido case, but it was a major bust, according to Tejada. Three years ago UCPD arrested Garrido, a rapist, who had abducted Jaycee Lee Dugard, holding her captive eighteen years in Antioch. 

So I know the foot patrols are out there, okay? 

Last year, demonstrations against a no sit-lie proposal that would eliminate sitting as well as lying in city business districts signaled opposition to the proposal—a possible first step to changing the scene on Teley. 

The proposal, for which a first draft, will be submitted in time for the November ballot has not yet been written, according to Craig Becker, president of Teley property owners, and sit-lie demonstrators have turned to occupy actions. 

With the apparent "spotty" Teley foot patrols, we wonder about the enforcement of such an ordinance. No smoking within 25 feet of city businesses, approved by voters, is now enforced only sporadically, usually as an option for police. 

THE STORY MIGHT HAVE ENDED HERE…BUT HOW DID I MISS THE PATROLS? 

I took one last step before submitting the above story. I called Al Geyer at Annapurna, 43, an historic Teley head shop. "They just walked by," Al said. 

At that, I was out the door and on my bike, finding them in People's Park, where we speculated on my foot patrol problems. Immediately officer Melissa Kelly diagnosed me with a bad case of "logical fallacy"—thinking that if I didn't see it, it didn't happen. 

Carol from the hat shop, another historic Teley business, believes my problems run deeper. And she told how only moments before she had "hailed" the patrol, which she said often checks in on her store. She was, she said, asking the police to deal with a drunk outside her store. According to Carol, the drunk got by with a no-smoking ticket and a move along. 

A veteran man-of-the-streets suggested I was moving faster than the patrols, and by some weird law of physics, was outpacing them. 

Another street friend noted that she has friends who tell her they haven't seen her around for weeks, even though she's on the same regular schedule. 

Kelly said there were lots of reasons I might not have caught the patrols in action. She was interrupting her patrol Thursday to attend an award ceremony for a fellow officer. 

Kelly asked if I had seen the patrol on Bowditch, which runs parallel with Teley. I had but couldn't stop. 

Kelly pointed out that they stop regularly in shops to see if shop owners are having street problems. 

Kelly reported that Sunday patrols are more than a proposal, and will happen soon. 

Later, I played spot the patrol with two foot patrollers just below Bancroft. They gave me further logistical information; the most important detail: they can always be called away to an emergency. 

Trust me, they're out there, and soon on Sundays. 


Ted Friedman, self-appointed "Voice of the South-side," asks his readers to keep him posted on Teley foot patrols @berkeleyreporter.com.


Press Release: Berkeley Residents Urge Police Reforms

From George Lippman, Coalition for a Safe Berkeley
Friday May 18, 2012 - 04:59:00 PM

A coalition of Berkeley residents and civil rights groups will return to the City Council on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 8 pm in Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, in support of protections for civil rights and civil liberties in local policing. On May 15, the Council postponed for one week consideration of recommendations to increase civilian oversight of the Berkeley Police Department (BPD). 

Under Berkeley law, the City Council must approve all agreements between the BPD and outside law enforcement agencies. During a review of these agreements and policies in February 2012, members of the Council expressed concern about the City’s participation in federal programs that share non-criminal intelligence and provide paramilitary training to local police departments. The Council asked the Police Review Commission (PRC) to review existing agreements and certain internal BPD policies, and make recommendations to the City Council.  

On April 11, 2012, the PRC voted to recommend that the City should: (1) NOT allow BPD to renew its agreements with two federal law enforcement agencies unless specific conditions are met; (2) amend Berkeley’s Jail Policy to limit ICE detainers to specific criminal situations; (3) amend Berkeley’s Criminal Intelligence Policy to protect speech, assembly, political and religious freedom; and (4) amend Berkeley’s Mutual Aid Policy to evaluate whether to respond to mutual aid requests from other jurisdictions when the request is a reaction to First Amendment activity in the other jurisdiction.  

According to Diana Bohn, a member of the Coalition for A Safe Berkeley, a group of local residents and civil rights groups that have been advocating for these reforms, “Currently, BPD has secret agreements with federal agencies, and it seems that these so-called ‘Homeland Security’ agreements take priority over real public safety. The City Council also has the opportunity to reaffirm Berkeley’s commitment as a City of Refuge. The Council should direct the police to stop turning innocent people over to ICE, based on ICE civil detainers. On May 22 the City Council has the opportunity to increase civilian oversight of local police, and to ensure that the highest priority of the Berkeley Police Department is protecting public safety.” 

 

 

#### 


 

FACT SHEET 

 

The Coalition for a Safe Berkeley urges the City Council to direct the BPD to: 

 

  • Sever ties with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), the locus of suspicious activity reporting. In contravention of city law, the BPD has made available no written agreement with NCRIC.
  • End the submission, to any outside law enforcement agencies, of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) about people who have not been charged with a crime; and about people who have been charged with offenses arising out of non-violent CD offenses.
  • Sever ties with the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI). As with NCRIC, no written agreement with UASI has been released. UASI is the major funder of NCRIC. UASI is also the conduit for Berkeley’s participation in the Urban Shield program, which has been criticized as a militaristic and anti-dissent model for local policing.
  • Call on UC Berkeley to follow the City’s police procedures when operating within our jurisdiction. In particular, UC should adopt the City’s policy against car impoundment for failure to produce a driver’s license.
  • Modify the Mutual Aid policy to refrain from responding to requests from other jurisdictions, or making requests on them, when solely First Amendment activity is occurring. Encourage the police commander to remove forces from a mutual aid activity if tactics appear unsafe, unwise, or unlawful. Report to the PRC and City Council about each response or request for mutual aid involving civil disobedience or First Amendment activities.
  • Exclude those engaging in solely non-violent civil disobedience offenses from police investigation and intelligence collection.
  • Modify police policy so that no person be held in Berkeley jails solely because of civil immigration detainer requests.
 

 

 

Member and supporting groups of the Coalition for a Safe Berkeley include:  

 

American Civil Liberties Union Northern California (Berkeley/North East Bay Chapter), Asian Law Caucus, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Council on American Islamic Relations, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, FMLN Berkeley, Hope for Coralito Committee, Law Offices of Timothy P. Rumberger, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Berkeley), National Lawyers Guild (SF Bay Area Chapter), National Network on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Committee of Pacific Steel Workers, Somos Familia, USEU—Salvadoran Student Union, University Lutheran Chapel, Veterans for Peace, Ch. 162 (S.F. East Bay) 

 

WHO: Berkeley residents, clergy, civil rights organizations, city officials 

WHAT: Berkeley City Council discussion & vote on BPD agreements and police reforms 

Speakers in support of protections for civil rights and civil liberties in local policing 

WHEN/WHERE: 8pm, Tuesday, May 22, 2012 

City Council Chambers, 2nd Floor, Old City Hall 

2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

 

 

Contact: 

COALITION FOR A SAFE BERKELEY 

 

George Lippman, 510-517-8379 

Email: geolippman.pjc@earthlink.net


The Wild Mustard Grass (First Person)

By Daniel Borgström
Friday May 18, 2012 - 12:39:00 PM

Just south of Albany Hill there's a sizable piece of pristine farm land, grown up in wild mustard grass, surrounded by urban housing, known as the "Gill Tract"--what's left of it anyway--the 104 acre Gill Farm, which has been carved up and developed piece by piece over the years, whittling it down to a mere 14 remaining acres. It's the last such piece of farmland in this part of the East Bay. 

Activists have been struggling for over a decade to save this land from development and turn it into a community farm. Finally, on April 22nd, Earth Day, a procession of 300 marched to Albany and occupied the Farm. On their way, they marched right past my house, band playing, banners flying. 

Hearing the loud music, I ran out to the sidewalk to see what was happening. There were several people I knew. "Come with us!" they called out. "We're going to occupy . . ." 

"Occupy the Farm," the banners read. "Take back the tract," "Free the Land," "Resistance is Fertile," and "Compost Capitalism." 

I didn't even have my shoes on, and I was right in the middle of a project I felt couldn't wait. I took a leaflet and returned to finish what I was doing. 

That evening I walked over to see how the farm was going; it's only a mile from where I live. A chain link fence surrounded the farm, and at first I couldn't find the entrance, nor could I see any signs of habitation. Had riot police already evicted the Occupiers? The sky was overcast, the night was dark and there were no lights. I kept walking around the perimeter; the tract is unexpectedly large, a good-sized city block. Peering through the murk, I finally saw the shapes of several tents out in the middle of the field. Continuing on, I found my way onto the tract. 

A bit further in, I was greeted by a familiar voice, telling me that a meeting was being held in a tent up ahead. I groped my way along a lane bounded by what I first took to be bales of hay, and later learned were uprooted mustard grass stalks. On one side, I could see the rows of cultivated field, which had been completed that afternoon, I was later told. That's where all the uprooted mustard stalks had come from. 

The lane led to what looked to be tables stacked with food utensils, and behind them were a dozen tents. The nearest tent was moderately large, and as I approached it, I could hear the voices of the meeting going on in the pitch darkness inside. The bulging tent itself didn't look large enough to hold more than 10 or 15 people at the most; actually there were 30 or 40, plus a dog which let out a woof from time to time. I joined the small overflow of people sitting outside the tent, leaning back comfortably against a wind-break of uprooted mustard stalks, protected from the cold wind. 

The night was fairly quiet, deep in the farm, a fair distance from the noisy traffic on San Pablo Avenue, so, even sitting outside, there was no difficulty hearing what was being said, or participating in the meeting. Voices in the dark, like the general assemblies of the past winter at the Oakland Plaza; I couldn't see well enough to tell if any were persons I knew. 

I took out a notebook and jotted notes which I hoped I'd be able to decipher afterwards. 

". . . land--the word is important," a woman's voice was saying. "Words empower, words disempower. Land is our word. Their word is property, it's the word they use when they set out to privatize and pour concrete, turning farmland into shopping malls and parking lots. Property is the word that entitles them, and if we use their word we're empowering them. So it's very important that we be careful to use our own words, words which define who we are and what we're here for and how we view the world. Our word is land, and when we defend it, and farm it, we call it the land. We call it the land because we are farmers." 

From a leaflet, and also from looking on websites, I'd learned that UC Berkley administers this land, and now plans to sell off yet another slice of it, to be paved into a parking lot, a grocery supermarket, and senior housing which will rent for $4,000 to $7,000 per month--an amount that few seniors can afford. The long term master plan is to continue developing the entire farm, a piece at a time. 

The ground we were sitting on would eventually be paved over with concrete or asphalt, according to the UC plan. The UC administrators were supposed to be the stewards of this parcel of public land, but who ever told them it was theirs to develop? I thought of the 19th century philosopher who famously defined property as theft. 

A woman who'd arrived after I had, spoke from outside the tent, identifying herself as a neighbor, a student living across the street in the UC Village. Hearing that, people in the tent applauded. She liked what these occupying farmers were doing, and wanted to support them in their efforts. More cheers. 

Not long after her, two more people from the immediate neighborhood also arrived while I was there, also expressing support. It was really encouraging to hear this. Later someone told me that the neighborhood seemed to be about 70% in favor of the farm occupation. 

Several things were discussed in the course of the meeting The police had been there that afternoon, warning the farmers that they were trespassing, subject to arrest, then left. The farmers didn't expect a raid that evening, but the police were likely to return. What to do then? "We'll ignore them. We'll just keep on farming. We're farmers." Discussion moved on to the Albany City Council, which would be meeting in a few days. 

The next afternoon I returned to help with the farm work, and on arriving, the first thing that caught my eye was: what happened to the tents? There were only a couple of them, instead of the dozen or more I'd seen the night before. 

Unlike the other Occupys, this was not meant to be a permanent encampment, but it did require a core group to spend their nights as well as days here, protecting their work from destruction by UC management. Housing the homeless, though important, would have to be elsewhere, because this was farmland, this land was not for housing. So the farmers were making it a policy to fold up their tents by 9 a.m. each day. This was a farm and people were here to work. 

Well, that's the way it is on any farm anywhere, in any country--when you set foot on a farm, they put you to work. And it did indeed look like these people had been working. The cultivated area was now twice the size it had been the night before, extending farther out towards Marin Avenue. 

People were busy at various tasks. Some were tending children in a circular playpen fashioned of mustard stalks. The kids seemed to love it, and it reminded me of how I used to enjoy playing in the hay when I was little. Nearby were two small chicken coops on wheels; the chickens seemed to be on their own. 

About forty people were working in the fields, some planting seedlings, others watering them, and a team was even making a scarecrow. I've always wondered if scarecrows really work; later I saw a crow alight on the field, only to be chased away by a barking dog who dashed after it. 

I joined a bunch who were pulling mustard stalks at the north edge of the cultivated area. Actually, the mustard stalks were surprisingly easy to pull, and I spent several hours on my hands and knees, helping with that, chatting with the others. One was Ariel, a 2nd-year student at UC Berkeley, who was majoring in ecological history. Others were Brian and Dante. There was Stephanie, an older woman who'd spent much of her life here in Albany, and a young fellow recently from Massachusetts who went by the nickname of "Wildebeest." 

Every so often we'd hear the sharp Putt! Putt! Putt! of an engine starting, and someone would run a rotary tiller along the ground we'd just cleared, adding another row or two, moving the cultivated area ever closer to Marin Avenue. We were quite close to the avenue by now. Passing drivers honked to express support, and we waved back. 

"Look! Look!" someone yelled, and we turned to watch a deer bounding across the field, moving at full speed, then leaping over a fence in into the wooded area where the UC wants to plant a supermarket. 

Wild turkeys were also said to live here; I saw one the next day, but not that afternoon. Earlier in the day a nest of field mice had been accidentally turned up and destroyed by the rotary tiller, and people were quite disturbed by the incident--a sad experience, such as the one immortalized by Robbie Burns in "To a Mouse" -- a poem he wrote after turning up a mouse's nest while plowing his field, back in 1785. 

"Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin it's feeble walls the winds are strewing." 

The project was progressing, but the UC managers were not taking it well. The previous day they'd already sent their campus police to threaten and annoy the farmers. Today they'd agreed to come out to the farm for a meeting at 2 p.m. But when two o'clock came, the administrators never showed up. Instead, they shut the irrigation water off, so water for the plants would now have to be hauled in. This was not an insurmountable problem, but for those of us who weren't familiar with the UC administration, a learning experience. 

Fire hydrant water was also turned off. That's illegal, and an obvious fire hazard, but the UC seems to get away with stuff like that. 

That evening the farmers invited the neighbors to a community potluck, followed by a public meeting. We all sat in a circle, sitting or leaning back against a ring of mustard stalks for an open-air, open-mic discussion. It began with a brief presentation by Jackie Hermes-Fletcher, an Albany teacher and activist; the rest was public comment and Q & A. I counted 82 people at the meeting. From what people were saying, I gathered that most were neighbors, and most supported the project. 

During the days and now weeks that have followed, the Occupiers have continued with both farm work and community outreach--meetings, potlucks, forums, and workshops to which the public has been invited. There was also an Albany City Council meeting where the farmers and also neighborhood people came and spoke; reportedly the speakers were about 12 to 1 in favor of the Occupiers. 

The UC countered with a PR campaign, a SLAPP suit, and various threats of arrests and criminal charges. On the morning of Wednesday, May 9th, UC police announced over a bullhorn that they might use chemical agents, presumably tear gas or pepper spray. A raid? I heard about it on KPFA; so three of us jumped in a car and rushed over. 

The UC had blockaded one of the gates to the farm with a huge piece of concrete that had been installed using heavy equipment. But there were only a handful of UC police, and they were not in riot gear. The next day, Thursday, May 10th, the UC locked the front gate, the one to San Pablo Avenue, allowing people to leave but not enter. Half a dozen campus police were guarding it. Albany city police were conspicuously absent; the city seemed to want no part in this. 

The Occupiers called a rally that afternoon, held at the gate on San Pablo. I estimated 200 people, probably a lot more attended as people were coming and going. The rally included people from all over, but they seemed to be mostly from the surrounding neighborhoods. (The farm is in Albany, right on the edge of Berkeley, which is only a block away.) We held up signs that read "WE DIG THE FARM" for passing motorists who honked and waved to us. 

Peering through the fence and across the fields, we could see the farmers in the distance tending the crops. The high point of the rally was when twenty of them marched up the lane, coming to greet us at the gate. We pressed against the chain link gate from the outside and they from the inside, separated by this metal curtain between us, touching hands, exchanging expressions of gratitude for being there, and hearing accounts of how it was going inside the farm.


Community Service Award for Jack Bragen

By Sam Greyson,Member, Alameda County Mental Health Board
Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

Berkeley Daily Planet columnist Jack Bragen was honored with a Community Service Award by the Alameda County Mental Health Board at a dinner May 16 for his column in the Berkeley Daily Planet "On Mental Health". Among other honorees that night was Brian Copeland for his one man play "Exit Strategy'. Because I was the one who nominated Jack (but not on the Selection Committee that chose him among six candidates in the Consumer category) I was privileged to introduce him and I read portions of one of his columns to the audience, which was extremely well received.  

The Berkeley Daily Planet also deserve kudos for publishing Jack's column which appears to me to be unique in journalistic history, in providing a look at mental illness from the inside. Mental illness is one of the last conditions that our society stigmatizes without reflection. Jack's column shows the humanity of someone with mental illness and goes a long way to reducing that stigma. Congratulations to Jack and the Berkeley Daily Planet!


Opinion

Editorials

Local Theaters Demand Statistics from Reviewers

By Becky O'Malley
Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

What is it about “free” that’s so hard to understand?

Someone who frequently provides the Planet—gratis—with his excellent reviews of local theater productions forwarded to us a letter he received which displays the truly remarkable sense of entitlement which afflicts some members of the Bay Area theatrical industry.

It’s from the flacks who work for a few local theaters—oh sorry, from “PR representatives for nine of the most prominent theaters in the Bay Area.” 

The first paragraph contains fulsome expressions of solidarity and exhortations to teamwork, with which I won’t bore you. In the next two grafs, however, they cut to the chase: 

“As we all know, ongoing changes in our culture have transformed the way people access information. Traditional print media continue to thrive, despite dire predictions of their demise, yet all of us have seen the increasing importance of online news sites, blogs, and social media. We appreciate your role as a citizen journalist. Yet everyone knows a life in the theater isn’t likely to make you rich, and every complimentary ticket we offer is lost income at the box office. It is essential for theaters to be careful stewards of our resources in these difficult economic times. Therefore, we must be able to demonstrate to our employers that the press passes we issue deliver a meaningful return on investment.  

“So we’re writing to you today to ask your assistance: please help us demonstrate the impact of your reviews so that we can continue inviting you to our shows. Going forward, to receive press passes, online critics will be expected to submit a report from Google Analytics, Visistat, or a similar service that documents web traffic on your reviews. This report should show the total hits and the number of unique visitors in the past six months or more. If you publish reviews on a personal blog, the report may be for the site as a whole. If you publish reviews on a large site such as Examiner.com, Forallevents.com, Huffington Post, or another host that aggregates content, the report must reflect actual traffic on your page or your posts. Please submit your report to info@charleszukow.com by June 15.” 

(If you really care, you can read the whole mawkish epistle here.) 

Of course, it’s arrant nonsense. 

We don't even get the Planet’s stats in the specific form they demand, so it would take a non-trivial amount of effort to provide them that way. 

FYI, the Planet’s unique hits still number in the tens of thousands, depending on how you count, but that’s beside the point. What's not to like about free publicity, even if it's on a blog with only a few readers? 

Do the math, people. If the online critic has only ten readers, but two of them buy tickets, you’ve recouped the cost of a pair of comps for the blogger. 

If the theaters are really concerned about losing revenue, all they have to do is give suspect critics tickets that are void if the performance is sold out (sadly, few are) and then they won’t lose a penny on the tickets. 

This letter was particularly annoying to us because one of the signers was the flack for the Berkeley Repertory Theater. During the eight long years when we were subsidizing the print version of the Planet, Berkeley Rep consistently refused to advertise with us. 

The excuse given was that the Planet had “the wrong demographic”. It’s obvious that the Rep’s demographic is predominantly bridge-and-tunnel suburbanites from points east, but a fair number of Berkeleyans probably buy tickets too. 

An ex-employee offered another explanation of why the Rep refused to advertise: that one of their executives was swayed by pressure from the campaign against the paper pursued by people who thought criticism of Israel equaled antisemitism. That one can’t be proved, but for whatever reason the Berkeley Repertory Theater never did advertise in the Planet. 

Nonetheless, turning the other cheek, we continued to pay our reviewers to publicize Berkeley Rep’s plays. And now that we can’t pay reviewers, they’ve generously continued to cover local theaters with no pay but complimentary tickets, and we’ve gone on publishing their work as a public service. 

No more. Putting out even an online publication requires a considerable amount of work and a certain amount of expense, and we’re just not willing to assume the added cost, in both time and money, of reporting to self-important local theaters about who reads our reviews, especially when they didn’t support the paper when it was an attempt at a commercial venture. 

The signers of the letter are: Charles Zukow and Kevin Kopjak, on behalf of ACT, Beach Blanket Babylon, Marines Memorial Theatre, etc.; Terence Keane, Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Erin Garcia, SHN; Sasha Hnatkovich, Marin Theatre Company; Marilyn Langbehn, California Shakespeare Theater; Erica Lewis-Finein, Aurora Theatre Company; Carla Befera, on behalf of TheatreWorks, Bay Area Cabaret, Smuin Ballet, etc. 

It’s simple. If any of these companies refuse to give our reviewers free tickets without adding to our editorial workload by demanding reports, they just won’t see any more reviews of their productions in the Planet. That’s not a hard decision to make. 

If you’re a theatergoer and you’d like to comment, the email address is info@charleszukow.com

And send us a copy of your letter.  


Public Comment

New: The Chronicle Wipes Palestine Off the Map

By Gar Smith
Saturday May 19, 2012 - 01:57:00 PM

Note: The following is a copy of a letter to the editor sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and to Michael Collier, the paper's National-Foreign Editor. Since a week has passed with no response, I am now sharing this letter with the Daily Planet.

Dear Editors:

The Chronicle's World section for Sunday, May 12, contained a curious inconsistency. The first three pages featured six stories, five of which were introduced with "sky heads" identifying the location of the story—Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Greece and Russia. The only exception to this rule was the story about the imminent destruction of farming villages in the West Bank. Instead of a sky head reading "Palestine," "West Bank," or "Occupied Territories," readers were offered a region—"Middle East."

Also curious: While the headline on the original AP story read "In West Bank, barrier threatens Roman terraces," the Chronicle reconfigured the headline to read "Ancient ways threatened in farming village." 

By comparison, the Washington Post's headline read "West Bank village fears Israeli barrier will destroy ancient farming landscape" while the New York Daily News went with "Israel's separation barrier threatens ancient Palestinian farming practices." 

Only on its Website did the Chron use the headline favored by a majority of the media: "Palestinian village's ancient farming in danger." 

Why the seeming reluctance to use the words "Palestine" or "West Bank" in the Chronicle's print edition? 

In West Bank, barrier threatens Roman terraces 

The Associated Press 

West Bank village fears Israeli barrier will destroy ancient farming landscape 

Washington Post‎ - 

Israel's separation barrier threatens ancient Palestinian farming practice 

New York Daily News‎ 

Palestinian village's ancient farming in danger - SFGate 

www.sfgate.com 

Last headline was the one most often used


Destroying West Berkeley = $ for City Employees and Developers

By Barbara Gilbert
Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

After years of mismanagement and denial, the City is at the end of the fiscal line. There is over $1B in unfunded liabilities for employee benefits and capital improvements and inadequate annual revenues to keep up with annual costs. About $262M, about 80% of the City budget of $325M, goes toward employee costs, with almost nothing left over to put toward these unfunded liabilities. The City has even cut worthwhile community social service agencies just to preserve its own employee structure. 

In a desperate and duplicitous effort to get more revenue to support the bloated City structure and its developer friends, City Council is strong-arming a drastic up-zoning of West Berkeley that would destroy a thriving and unique residential/artisan/artist district as well as destroying Aquatic Park. Most Council members and their Planning Commission clones are pushing for several new super-huge r&d sites plus multifamily housing, with drastically increased heights and bulk and severe environmental detriments (traffic, shadows, view destruction, possible toxic leakage, interference with bird habitat, excessive density, etc.). 

I am not opposed to good compensation and benefits for our City employees. However, what we have in Berkeley is literally off the charts. We have the highest number of employees per capita, the highest total compensation per employee, and ZERO employee contribution to pension and health care. The first order of City business should NOT be to mess with our neighborhoods, but to renegotiate City employee contracts (all expiring on June 30, 2012) to get a 15% -20% annual giveback, $40M-$50M. This can be achieved by requiring contributions to retirement and health plans that most other public and private employees make and, if necessary, by downsizing the number of employees. 

In a weird way, what is transpiring in Berkeley reflects what is happening nationally--destroy the middle class through taxation and new rules for the benefit of the rich and the establishment, with crumbs going to the poor. Nationally, the crumbs would be the purported new jobs that only the rich can supposedly create. In Berkeley, the real benefits of new taxes and up-zoning go to the City bureaucracy and developers and the crumbs go to Berkeley's poor in the form of so-called required "community benefit packages". 

We must let our Council representatives know that this is not what we want for Berkeley. We must vote accordingly. We must support the FACTS initiative. We must not support any new taxes at this time. We must oppose drastic up-zoning of perfectly adequate areas of Berkeley. We must demand labor contracts that are fair to the rest of us. We must not vote for any politician who does not understand the issues. 


Berkeley/Albany/UC Police Want Armored Vehicle

By Gene Bernardi SuperBOLD, Berkeley
Friday May 18, 2012 - 12:29:00 PM

Three North Alameda County Police Departments; Berkeley, U.C. and Albany, known as the North County Tactical Working Group (NCTWG) have identified common concerns which have “a nexus to terrorism”. Mentioned are these large incidents: Cal Games, Solano Stroll and “in progress crimes or warrant services”. The plan is to request funding for an Armored Tactical Intervention Vehicle from the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) a Homeland Security program now in place in Berkeley, and apparently the adjoining agencies. 

The UASI and NCRIC, (No. Calif. Regional Intelligence Center) programs, merely verbal agreements with the FBI and Homeland Security, and which are said to be linked, are now up for renewal by the Berkeley City Council. The core of NCRIC is the sending of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) based on non-criminal behaviors; photographing a building, writing in a notebook, wearing a headscarf, etc., to a data fusion center. Mayor Bates postponed the Council’s consideration of these and other police department agreements to a Special Meeting on Tuesday May 22, 8pm. 

A local politician was questioning how we might get funds for “equipment” without fully participating in the funding agency’s (UASI’s) program under which Urban Warfare exercises (“competitions”) are conducted with local police departments. We wondered what more equipment the riotclad police, witnessed at Occupy demonstrations, needed? Now we know; an Armored Tactical Intervention Vehicle known as Lenco BearCat. 

The NCTWG states their goal is to “enhance their ability to disrupt, investigate and apprehend criminals”. If persons are “known” to have committed a crime, they should be immediately arrested and charged. How would you feel being near an armored vehicle whose occupants have the ongoing capacity to “investigate” the surrounding activity, and the capacity to shoot without fear of identification or harm? 

To meet the all consuming need for equipment, unmanned drones may be next. Small versions hovering over “large incidents” such as Big Bank demonstrations will pose no threat to police, operating them remotely. 

If you are concerned about the ever growing Surveillance Society and the militarization of our police departments, please attend and express your views at the Special City Council Meeting Tuesday, May 22, 8pm at 2134 M.L. King Jr. Way, Berkeley


We Need to Change Our System to Protect All

By Romila Khanna
Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

Enough is enough. How many more shooting deaths will turn the attention of our lawmakers and attorneys towards ending the easy access to guns and other firearms to end the untimely deaths in neighborhood?  

Why do we ignore the loud crying sounds from the weaker section of our society? What is the law and what is our true Constitution? Why are the poor and needy in our society not protected? Our way of thinking reflects our concern only for our own benefit. It seems that other people's lives are not important when we are dealing with the painful issue of random shootings taking place in every day in different parts of this country. We may have to make our laws so strict that every Tom, Dick or Harry can’t hold firearms or guns in their hands. People claim that owning guns will save them from the cruelty of others when they are in danger but what law is protecting the families of those who lose their dear sons or daughters to random violence? Some countries have the law of a life for a life. I feel that our judicial system is nervous about inflicting capital punishment. 

Maybe this strong punishment may save the pain of those families who feel that injustice have been done to them. At the same time the every member of our community must receive empathy training. All schools and colleges must add this compulsory subject to their curriculum . Every person taking the oath of citizenship must pass written and practical tests in compassion and empathy. 

Let us all make this important change to save our society from the random gun shooting deaths which plague our cities.


Jesse vs. Mayor Tom Bates?

By Merrilie Mitchell
Monday May 21, 2012 - 05:57:00 PM

Remember the saying, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” 

Here is some important history re Jesse vs. Mayor Bates development strategies from the last (2010) election: 

Jesse Arreguin, Councilmember for Berkeley’s Downtown District #4, volunteered to run the campaign against Mayor Bates’ Downtown Plan --Measure R. Measure R doubles the area and triples allowable heights for Downtown Berkeley! Jesse agreed to take the leadership role against Measure R, but dropped the ball leaving no organized opposition to the Mayor’s well-financed plan. Jesse did not notify all those who had given him arguments or contributions to fight the Mayor’s plan, the folks who could have taken over for Jesse and run the campaign. 

Shocked when I learned Jesse had dropped the ball on the "No on R" campaign, I was told by Jesse’s campaign office that there would be something late in the campaign. This turned out to be worse than nothing. It was “No on R” yard signs, where the R looked like a P from a few feet away or more. So the yard sign confused voters, and wasted time, energy, and thousands of dollars donated to oppose Mayor Bates Downtown Plan! 

More could be said about this grim history, but the future is before us. 

Jesse and his friends now want to lead the Referendum campaign vs. Mayor Bates West Berkeley, Master Use Permit (MUP) zoning. MUP zoning could allow 100-foot tall laboratories on block-long sites or much larger, in little West Berkeley by Aquatic Park and the Bay. 

Meanwhile, Jesse is running a lot! He is running for the Democratic Central Committee (in June), and has offered to run the Referendum on West Berkeley MUP (which could start soon). Jesse says that after those he’s considering running vs. Tom Bates for Mayor. But if Jesse changes his mind or drops the ball again, it will be too late for someone else to put together a winning campaign.


New: Bank of America Refuses to Meet with Community People

By Harry Brill
Saturday May 19, 2012 - 12:32:00 PM

A delegation of nine of us, peaceful and mainly senior citizens from ages 60 to 85 years walked into the Albany branch of the Bank of America to discuss with the bank manager community concerns about its foreclosure practices and its poor record of providing mortgage modifications to homeowners in trouble. Also, the BofA has recently agreed to reduce mortgages up to 35 percent on homes whose value is lower than the mortgage payments. We want to make sure that the Bank fulfills its promise. 

The bank manager, after conferring with his superiors, not only refused to meet with us then but ever. We should submit our concerns in writing, and they will respond to us only in writing. We asked for just 15 minutes, and we gave him assurance that we would not request his views. But we wanted him to hear ours, which includes members of the delegation with accounts at the bank. We still couldn't persuade the manager. In fact, He even refused to give us his business card. 

When we take into account the considerable -- and justifiable -- criticism of the BofA, its paranoia may seem understandable. On the other hand, if the bank seriously intends to turn over a new leaf they should have seen us as an opportunity to relate to a group of community people. That they were anxious about meeting with us suggests that we have good reason to be worried about the bank's promises to reform. A financial institution that doesn't trust the community should not itself be trusted. It is mandatory that the BofA's practices be carefully monitored by all communities. 

To inform the public of the BofA's arrogance and malpractices, we are rallying at its Albany branch (Solano & Neilson), Monday, May 21st, 5-6pm.


Is the Climate Change Movement a Grassroots Movement?

By Vivian Warkentin
Friday May 18, 2012 - 12:54:00 PM

Is the Climate Change movement actually a grassroots movement, or a well-funded top-down power grab which has hijacked the grassroots? 

Why do the Rockefellers, who ARE unarguably Big Oil incarnate, fund all the major environmental groups, whose number one agenda is “Climate Change” and whose CEO’s make an average of $500,000/yr, Didn’t the Rockefellers kill the municipal railways and the electric car and many a small entrepeneur’s energy saving idea by buying them out? BP is another big sponsor. 

Why do the current brand of environmentalists not call to simplify and conserve, but instead condone fascist, corporate, top-down techno-solutions like “smart grid” and smartmeters which will hurt our health, use more energy not less, and pollute the environment with exponentially more and more escalating electromagnetic radiation, affecting bees, bats, trees and other living things? 

Why does the current environmental “movement” condone “cap and trade”, a corporate banker-enriching scheme that will tax little people and reward Wall Street for destroying the environment as corporations like BP grab land and cut forests to grow their polluting GMO biofuels for carbon credits?. 

Why do these self-proclaimed protectors of the earth never question or investigate government, corporate and military scientists, including NASA, who have been manipulating our weather, putting all kinds of chemicals and “charged dust” in our atmosphere, probing and perturbing the ionosphere, and otherwise experimenting recklessly with our atmosphere for decades? 

Other dire environmental issues, even nuclear disasters, are eclipsed by the convenient world wide “pollutant” carbon, which back in the grade schools of yesteryear was taught to be necessary to the life of plants. The Tar Sands issue is framed as a carbon problem at the expense of the untold local pollution and land grabbing that it will cause. 

Will activists terrified of carbon accept the insane earth-killing “solution” of elite corporate university “climate” scientists like Ken Caldiera of Stanford and David Keith of Harvard, to block sunlight from the earth via chemical jet aerosols aka geoengineering? Will fear-driven left wing environmentalists stand down for the corporate and military takeover of our natural weather and planetary systems? 

The grassroots is not leading, but following the Big Money who is telling them that the problem is carbon and feeding them the pre-prescribed solutions that promise more for themselves, a la “disaster capitalism”.


Columns

ECLECTIC RANT: Report on Our Annual Trip to the Big Apple

By Ralph E. Stone
Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

My wife and I just returned from our annual, week-long visit to New York City. Long ago, we did the usual tourist stuff such as visits to the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations, the Cloisters, and a ride on the Staten Island ferry. Now we concentrate on seeing as many shows as possible -- usually eight -- and visits to museums. This year, we saw eight plays and visited the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Act, and the Neue Gallery. 

Shortly after arrival, we headed for the Visitor's Center on 7th Avenue near 53rd Street to see what they had to offer for discount tickets. We then went to the theater box offices to get tickets. That done, I am charged with standing in line for discount tickets at the TKTS discount booth at Duffy Square located in Times Square for that night’s or matinee performance. Times Square is a great people-watching spot. 

This year was a strong year for drama and comedy. We are not especially interested in musicals, although in past years, we did see the revised version of "West Side Story," "The Lion King," and yes, even "Cats." We also saw “Next to Normal” in 2008, a rock musical about a woman dealing with a bipolar disorder, which won the Pulitzer prize and a Tony.. 

No musicals this year. We did see "Clybourne Park," the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner and Tony nominee this year for best play, and in our opinion a worthy choice. The play is set in the same house in middle-class Chicago, Act I in 1950 in a white neighborhood where the homeowners are about to sell to a black family, and in Act II in 2009, the neighborhood is now mixed and a white couple plans to extensively remodel the house. Its about race. The play begins where Lorraine Hansberry’s “Raisin in the Sun” ended. It is both funny and stimulating. 

We also saw a powerful production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman” with superb performances by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of Willy Loman, Andrew Garfield as his son Biff, and Linda Emond as Willy's long-suffering wife Linda. "Death" has been nominated for a Tony for best revival of a play, Mike Nichols for best direction, and Hoffman, Garfield, and Emond for their performances. "Death" is not dated at all. Miller's portrait of a failed American dream still resonates in our current uncertain economic times. 

"The Columnist" starred John Lithgow as Joseph Alsop with Boyd Gaines as his brother Stewart. Joseph Alsop was an influential columnist who saw his influence wane, especially after John F. Kennedy's assassination. Lithgow was in top form. He is a Tony nominee for best actor. Grace Gummer has a role; she is one of Meryl Streep's daughters. 

Tennessee Williams' "Streetcar Named Desire" with a cast of mostly African American actors, including Blair Underwood as Stanley and Nicole Ari Parker as Blanche. Both were excellent. However, I was taught in college that Blanche represented a fading, surface gentility masking a decaying white south, while Stanley represented the new brash, confident new white south. I am not sure a black Stanley and black Blanche captured that symbolism. 

"The Lyons" starring Linda Lavin played, as New York Times critic Ben Brantley opined, "a suffocating, esteem-shrinking Jewish mother -- the one blamed for all her children's unhappiness . . . " And Lavin did it with humor. Lavin is a Tony nominee for best actress. 

"Other Desert Cities" by Jon Robin Baitz with Stockard Channing, Stacy Keach, and Judith Light is a nice blend of comedy and intense family drama with politics thrown in. The play was a pleasant surprise to us as we chose it not knowing too much about it. "Cities" is a Tony nominee for best play and Channing and Light are nominees for best actress. 

"Lonely, I'm Not" is a satisfying, small off-broadway play about two star-crossed lovers, one a burnt out corporate "ninja," mending from a divorce and a nervous breakdown and a blind workaholic business analyst. Will they ulitmately get together? 

Finally, we saw Athol Fugard's "My Children! My Africa!” at the new Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street. We are unabashed Fugard fans ever since we saw "Master Harold and the Boys" with a young Matthew Broderick. Fugard's plays are about pre- and post-apartheid South Africa. Over the years, we have seen a number of his plays, usually off-broadway. In June 2011, Fugard received the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award. Any Fugard play, including this one, is worth seeing. 

The Tony award winners will be announced on June 10, 2012. 

In addition to our theater binge, we managed visits to the Metropolitan Museum , the Museum of Modern Art and the Neue Gallery (www.neuegallerie.org). When we visit the Met each year, in deference to my wife, we visit the costume exhibit. This year's exhibit ”Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” featured costumes by Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, two Italian designers from different eras. An imagined conversation between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada were projected on the walls with Judy Davis playing Schiaparelli. We also visited the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia, especially the spectacular Damascus Room and the Moroccan Court. 

At MoMA, we stopped at the Cindy Sherman exhibit. Working as her own model for more than 30 years, Sherman has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting. The exhibit is well worth seeing. 

The Diego Rivera exhibition is also well worth seeing. In 1931, Rivera was given studio space at MoMA and produced five portable murals. Later, Rivera added three more murals. The current exhibition includes the eight 1931 murals and designs for his famous Rockefeller Center mural. As you remember, Rivera wanted to include a portrait of Lenin in the mural. Rockefeller asked him not to. Rivera included Lenin in the mural anyway. Rockefeller paid Rivera for the mural and then proceeded to have the mural plastered over. There is a carbon copy of Rockefeller's letter to Rivera asking him not to include Lenin. And photos of the mural taken clandestinely before it was destroyed. 

On the way to the Metropolitan, we stopped at the Neue Gallery on 5th Avenue near 86th Street. The Neue Gallery is devoted to early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design. This year Neue featured "Heinrich Kuehn and his American Circle: Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen," featuring photographic prints and autochromes by Kuehn and other important photographers. The Neue also has an excellent cafe, which unfortunately we missed this year because of the long line of people waiting to be seated. Instead, we lunched at the Metropolitan. 

All in all, this year was a great trip to the Big Apple.


SENIOR POWER: resolved to grow fat

By Helen Rippier Wheeler
Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

“I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty; And then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and twenty.” Flormel, “a maid of honour” in The Maiden Queen (1667), a tragicomedy by John Dryden (1631–1700), said that.  

Stella, a well reputed, going on sixty woman of honor who played the church organ, was fat and foolish. She delighted in shopping and candy, seemingly resolved to become obese. He was a lush who left pampered and naïve Stella destitute when he died early. Their mansion was taken over by the Home Owners Loan Corporation, a government agency that attempted to recoup defaulted properties.  

When we met in 1935, Stella was transitioning into rooming house manager slash piano teacher. She was allowed to live and give piano lessons in what had been the front parlor and to share the first floor bathroom.  

For 8 years, I took 50-cent piano lessons from Stella. In her bathroom, I weighed myself and wondered how she got into the bathtub and onto the scale. From her music stand, I snitched candies. As we sat next to each other at the piano, I was aware that she used a smelly ointment for arthritis compounded by her overweight. 

Knee surgery left now-aged Stella immobile. With no family and unable to care for herself, she was incarcerated in a state hospital-- a huge facility generally regarded as an insane asylum and dumping ground for eccentric adults without families.  

xxxx 

Overweight, fat, and obese are differing conditions. They also vary in their relationships to healthy aging.  

Obesity is a medical condition. Excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and increased health problems. You can calculate your Body Mass Index, a measure applicable to adults of body fat based on height and weight. Underweight is 18.5; normal weight, 18.5–24.9.  

The BMI defines people as overweight (pre-obese) if their BMI is between 25 and 29.9, and obese when it is 30 or greater. Calculate your BMI using the standard calculator on Google. Obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer (e.g. breast after menopause, and colon and rectum), and osteoarthritis.  

Overweight is generally defined as having more body fat than is optimally healthy. Excess weight has been observed across all age groups. Being overweight is a common condition where food supplies are plentiful and lifestyles are sedentary. Being only 10 pounds overweight increases the force on one’s knee by 30-60 pounds with each step. Overweight women have nearly 4 times the risk of knee osteoarthritis; for overweight men, the risk is 5 times greater. 

The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) is a self-described non-profit civil-rights organization in the U.S., dedicated to improving the quality of life for obese persons. NAAFA works to eliminate discrimination based on body size and to provide fat people with the tools for self-empowerment through public education, advocacy and member support. As part of its ongoing campaign, NAAFA also opposes airline policies regarding charging fat people for each seat they use. 

"There's good news tonight!" Remember newscaster Gabriel Heatter (1890-1972) of the mellifluous voice and the nightly good news? According to new studies, aging overweight people stay happy. Elderly obese have a slightly lower risk of death, and excess fat may be protective in seniors over age 85! 

xxxxx 

NEWS 

Senior Power gets around! I’ve received an email from the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, Inc. of Union City, Georgia inviting me to come experience the magic of Las Vegas! It’s proud to announce its 75th Annual National Convention & Exposition which will convene at the Mirage Resort & Casino in August.  

On May 16, 2012, you may have been online and attracted by AP’s “More senior living centers in U.S. allow more pets,” or you may have read the article, which appeared on page C - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle. Unfortunately, this reportage misleads by omission on several points. It may be true that “Hundreds of retirement communities across the country now allow seniors to live with their pets and more and more keep house pets that provide the benefits without the responsibility.” These assisted living facilities, living centers, and skilled nursing homes sound great for some elders and their families. There is, however, no mention of the many low-income and or disabled senior citizens who, if they’re lucky, rent a Section 8 subsidized unit. A Place for Mom, said to be the nation's largest senior living referral service, dedicated to being a comprehensive senior living resource, “aspires to be leader[s] in the senior care industry.” Industry, that is! 

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Here are the answers to last week’s Senior Power column questions about hearing loss. 

1. True or false? Hearing loss affects 4 of every 5 people age 80+. True 

There is general agreement that nearly two-thirds of Americans age 70+ have hearing loss, and about half of all people age 75+ have some age-related hearing loss! Hearing loss affects 4 of every 5 people age 80+. Hearing loss becomes more common with age, affecting 18% of adults 45-64 years old and 30% of adults age 65-74 as well. 

2. Why is hearing loss considered one of the “hidden impairments of old age?” 

It can begin in early adulthood but usually does not interfere with ability to understand conversation until much later. Although genetically variable, it is a concomitant of aging, distinct from hearing losses caused by noise or disease.  

3. T or F? With the aging of baby boomers, the incidence of hearing loss can be expected to decrease. FALSE 

It will increase.  

4. Does hearing impairment differ from deafness?  

Not really—just my opinion.  

5. T or F? Hearing loss remains largely untreated.  

True 

6. #__ % of senior citizens who need hearing devices actually have them.  

Only 14% of seniors who need hearing devices actually have them. 

7. T or False? Hearing loss can be a cause of a senior’s loss of sense of balance.  

True 

8. Gradual hearing loss is the most common chronic condition of old age after  

hypertension and ______, according to the American Association on Hearing Loss. 

arthritis 

9. T or F? Research suggests severe hearing loss late in life goes hand in hand with an older adult's risk of dementia.  

True 

10. T or F? According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Viagra and Cialis have been found to cause temporary or permanent hearing loss.  

True 

11. One of several reasons that older adults who have been tested and who acknowledge that they cannot hear nevertheless hesitate to buy hearing aids is _____. 

The technology can overwhelm some older people. Experts contend that some seniors are too proud to acknowledge need for amplification and some too vain to wear hearing aids. Major reasons that older adults do not purchase hearing aids are the considerable cost, and they are not covered by Medicare.  

12. “Your hearing is not going to get better—it’s only going to get worse” is a [check one] bromide, cliché, platitude, truism, all of these, none of these. 

All of these 

13. Age-related hearing loss is called ________ a progressive hearing impairment accompanying aging, typically affecting sensitivity to higher frequencies. 

Presbycusis 

  1. T or F? Presbycusis usually occurs in both ears.
True – usually. 

15. T or F? Medicare pays/reimburses for some but not all hearing aids. 

False 

16. In what way(s) does an otolaryngologist differ from an audiologist? ____ 

 

A physician who is an ear-nose-throat specialist is an otolaryngologist. An audiologist is trained to test hearing and is able to dispense hearing aids.  

17. T or F? Age-related hearing loss is progressive, which means it slowly improves. False. It slowly worsens. 

18. Hearing-impaired persons usually find [select one:] men's voices easier to hear than women’s, OR women’s voices easier to hear than men’s. _______________ 

men’s voices easier to hear than women’s___ 

19. The following are 3 of the factors that can contribute to age-related hearing loss: family history, smoking, and _____________________.  

Medications (e.g. some antibiotics and diuretics, likewise Viagra and Cialis). Some medications cause irreversible damage to the ear, and are therefore limited in their use. Some medications may reversibly affect hearing; they include some diuretics, aspirin, NSAIDs, and certain antibiotics. Sedatives significantly increase the risk of falling. Cardiovascular medications can contribute to falls.  

20. T or F? Age-related hearing loss tends to run in families.  

True 

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MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Be sure to confirm. Readers are welcome to share by email news of future events and deadlines that may interest boomers, seniors and elders. Daytime, free, and Bay Area events preferred. pen136@dslextreme.com.  

Saturday and Sunday, May 19 and 20. 10 A.M. – 4 P.M. Friends of the Albany Library BOOK SALE. 1247 Marin Ave. For information, email friendsalbany@yahoo.com or phone 510-526-3720. Please do not bring donations during the two weeks prior to the sale. 

Monday May 21. 7 P.M. Kensington Library Book Club: Color of the Sea by John Hamamura. Each meeting starts with a poem selected and read by a member with a brief discussion following the reading. New members are always welcome. Free. 61 Arlington Av. 510-524-3043. 

Tuesday, May 22. 3 – 4 P.M. Central Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Tea and Cookies at the Library. A free monthly book club for people who want to share the books they have read. 510-981-6100. 

Wednesday, May 23. 12:00 noon - 1:00 PM One-on-One Computer Tutoring: Reservation Required. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Sign up at Reference Desk. 510-526-3720.  

Wednesday, May 23. 1:30 P.M. Gray Panthers. North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 510-981-5190. 

Wednesday, May 23. 1:30 - 2:30 PM Great Books Discussion Group: Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Group meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month. Rosalie Gonzales facilitates the discussion. Come to one meeting, or all meetings. Books are available at the Library. Contact: Ronnie Davis(510) 526-3720 x16 

Sunday, May 27. 130-4:30 P.M. Book Into Film: Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn at Central Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. Read the book at home. Watch the movie together. Discuss the book, film and adaptation as a group. Registration required- call 510-981-6236 to sign up. 

Wednesday, May 30. 12 Noon-1 P.M. Playreaders at Central Berkeley Public Library.  

2090 Kittredge. Meets weekly to read aloud from great plays, changing parts frequently. Intended for adult participants. 510-981-6100. 

Saturday, June 2. 10 A.M. – 4 P.M. Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Semi-annual Book Sale. Books sold for 50 cents each. 510-524-8378 or berkeleylibraryfriends.org

Monday, June 4. 6:30 P.M. "Castoffs" - Knitting Group. Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. An evening of knitting, show and tell, and yarn exchange. All levels are welcome and help will be provided. Free. 510-524-3043. 

Wednesday, June 6. 12 Noon-1 P.M. Playreaders at Central Berkeley Public Library.  

2090 Kittredge. Meets weekly to read aloud from great plays, changing parts frequently. Intended for adult participants. 510-981-6100. 

Wednesday, June 6. 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney who will clarify your situation, advise you of your options, get you started with a solution, and make a referral when needed. Sign up in person at the Reference desk or call 510-526-3720 ext. 5 during library hours. 

Also August 1, Sept. 5, Oct. 3, Nov. 7 and Dec. 5.  

Thursday, June 7. 3:00-5:P.M. At the Rockridge Library in Oakland, 5366 College Avenue. 51A, 605 bus lines stop in front of the library; walk 5 blocks south from Rockridge BART station. "Explore Your Future" workshops for people age 50+, sponsored by Coming of Age: Bay Area (a national nonprofit initiative.) Free 4-session series of classes. Meet with a group of people and a skilled counselor to really think about and envision your next steps. 888-308-1767 or 415-474-7787. 

Sunday, June 10. 2 P.M. Blue Suede Jews. Central Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. Local rock historian Richie Unterberger presents lecture/footage of Jewish musicians in the golden age of rock roll, including Bob Dylan, Carole King and many more. 510-981-6100.  

Wednesday, June 13. 12 Noon-1 P.M. Playreaders at Central Berkeley Public Library.  

2090 Kittredge. Meets weekly to read aloud from great plays, changing parts frequently. Intended for adult participants. 510-981-6100. 

Thursday, June 14. 8:45 P.M. Cafe Literario. West Berkeley Public Library, 1125 University Av. Facilitated Spanish language book discussion. June title: Margarita, Está Linda la Mar by Sergio Ramirez. 510-981-6270. 

Saturday, June 16. 5 P.M. Claremont branch, Berkeley Public library, 2940 Benvenue Av. Melanie O’Reilly will perform original music inspired by Joyce’s writings. 510-981-6280. 

Monday, June 18. 7 P.M. Art historian Michael Stehr will discuss Gian Lorenz Bernini, the Michelangelo of the Baroque. He will also present a slide show. Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Avenue. Free. 510-524-3043. 

Wednesday, June 20. 12 Noon-1 P.M. Playreaders at Central Berkeley Public Library.  

2090 Kittredge. Meets weekly to read aloud from great plays, changing parts frequently. Intended for adult participants. 510-981-6100. 

Monday June 25. 7 P.M. Kensington Library Book Club: The Chosen by Chaim Potok. 61 Arlington Av. Free. 510-524-3043. 

Tuesday, June 26. 3-4 P.M. Tea and Cookies. Central Berkeley Public Library. 2090 Kittredge. A book club for people who want to share the books they have read. 510-981-6100.  

Wednesday, June 27. 12 Noon-1 P.M. Playreaders at Central Berkeley Public Library.  

2090 Kittredge. Meets weekly to read aloud from great plays, changing parts frequently. Intended for adult participants. 510-981-6100. 

Wednesday, June 27. 1:30-2:30P.M. Great Books discussion group. July’s People by Nadine Gordimer. Rosalie Gonzales, group facilitator. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. 510-526-3720.  

Sunday, July 8. 1 – 4:30 P.M. The 2012 Berkeley Rent Board Convention will be held in the main meeting room of the downtown, central Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge, corner of Shattuck. A slate of candidates for the November 2012 election will be chosen. Contact: www.berkeleyrentboard.org 510-981-6100. 

Wednesday, July 11 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney who will clarify your situation, advise you of your options, get you started with a solution, and make a referral when needed. Sign up in person at the Reference desk or call 510-526-3720 ext. 5 during library hours. 

Also August 1, Sept. 5, Oct. 3, Nov. 7 and Dec. 5.  

Wednesday, August 1. 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney who will clarify your situation, advise you of your options, get you started with a solution, and make a referral when needed. Sign up in person at the Reference desk or call 510-526-3720 ext. 5 during library hours. 

Also Sept. 5, Oct. 3, Nov. 7 and Dec. 5.  

Wednesday, August 22. 1:30-2:30P.M. Great Books discussion group. Selections from The Bhagavad Gita. Rosalie Gonzales, group facilitator. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. 510-526-3720.  

Wednesday, Sept. 5. 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney who will clarify your situation, advise you of your options, get you started with a solution, and make a referral when needed. Sign up in person at the Reference desk or call 510-526-3720 ext. 5 during library hours. 

Also Oct. 3, Nov. 7 and Dec. 5.  

Wednesday, Sept. 26. 1:30-2:30P.M. Great Books discussion group. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Rosalie Gonzales, group facilitator. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. 510-526-3720.  

Wednesday, Oct. 3. 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney who will clarify your situation, advise you of your options, get you started with a solution, and make a referral when needed. Sign up in person at the Reference desk or call 510-526-3720 ext. 5 during library hours. 

Also Nov. 7 and Dec. 5.  

Wednesday, October 24. 1:30-2:30P.M. Great Books discussion group. Troth, by Gregor von Rezzon. Rosalie Gonzales, group facilitator. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. 510-526-3720.  

Wednesday, Nov 7. July 11 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney who will clarify your situation, advise you of your options, get you started with a solution, and make a referral when needed. Sign up in person at the Reference desk or call 510-526-3720 ext. 5 during library hours. Also Dec. 5.  

Wednesday, November 28. 1:30-2:30P.M. Great Books discussion group. Sunday Morning, by Wallace Stevens. Rosalie Gonzales, group facilitator. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. 510-526-3720.  

Wednesday, Dec. 5. 6-8 P.M. Lawyer in the Library. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Av. Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney who will clarify your situation, advise you of your options, get you started with a solution, and make a referral when needed. Sign up in person at the Reference desk or call 510-526-3720 ext. 5 during library hours. 

An invitation. Candidates for election are welcome to share statements of their accomplishments and plans vis a vis senior citizens and elders. Please email them to me at pen136@dslextreme.com.  


ON MENTAL ILLNESS:Mood Disorders

By Jack Bragen
Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

In the past year and six months, I have covered mostly the subject of schizophrenia, and sometimes bipolar, and the ramifications of these conditions. Yet, I have also been diagnosed with a mood disorder. I experience chronic anxiety and depression on a daily basis, and they have become part of my more recent diagnosis: Schizoaffective Disorder. This diagnosis means that I have psychotic problems and also have a mood disorder. Consequently, I can take treatment for my psychotic problem and I become a sane but miserable person. 

Mood disorders like anxiety disorders and clinical depression are mostly distinct conditions from psychotic and bipolar disorders. Still, it is common for a person diagnosed with a major psychiatric disorder to have a mood disorder along with it. Many persons with mental illness get a mixed bag of conditions for which they are prescribed a cocktail of numerous medications. In some instances, it is better to just live with some emotional or cognitive problems rather than trying to medicate all issues. Yet, sometimes, the mood problems can be uncomfortable to the point of being unbearable. 

Meditation often helps me deal with my mood disorder and so do some medications. Meditation doesn't work when I do not have adequate focus or adequate concentration. The medication I take doesn't always fix the mood problems because I don't take the really strong stuff for moods, such as a stimulating antidepressant or a member of the benzodiazepine family. (A more powerful antidepressant would interfere with my antipsychotic medication, while a benzodiazepine could be habit forming.) 

Some of the time, I have to just tolerate the emotional suffering. I have learned that (for everyone and not just for persons with mental illness) a certain amount of suffering and discomfort must be tolerated in life. 

I am subject to anxiety attacks that force me to sit still and not do anything for a couple of hours. Most people in the non-afflicted mainstream would not tolerate this amount of inactivity. Some of the time, I believe my anxiety disorder serves the purpose of making me slow down and recuperate. 

Being subject to mood problems also means that there are certain times when I won't be persuaded into doing something I don't really want to do. If too much activity is unbearable, it causes me to be assertive when I otherwise wouldn't, and this requires the other person involved to be more flexible. 

I don't know if the genes I inherited for the mood disorder are the same genes as for the schizophrenic disorder. I think it is possible that the two disorders were inherited separately. I remember that my grandmother had some symptoms of an anxiety disorder. Meanwhile, the ancestors or cousins with bipolar or schizophrenia seem to be on the other side of the family. One of my two brothers is also schizophrenic but does not appear to have the same mood disorder that I have. 

Sometimes a sibling will experience a lower level of the same disorder, or a mood problem, but does not have a full-blown mental illness. Such a sibling is generally able to work full-time and perform at an average or better than average level at most things in life.


Arts & Events

Berkeley Arts Festival Continues Through May

By Bonnie Hughes
Friday May 18, 2012 - 02:23:00 PM

The Berkeley Arts Festival has been extended through May 31. All performances will take place at 2133 University Avenue in downtown Berkeley. 

 

May 18: Jerry Kuderna piano concert, 12 noon 

Kuderna plays works from classics to new music 

May 19: Sarah Cahill and Regina Schaffer, piano concert, 8 pm 

Duo performs the complete four-hand piano music of Terry Riley, including "Cinco de Mayo" and "Etude from the Old Country." 

 

May 23: Trio of Ochs, 8 pm,  

Larry Ochs, tenor sax; David Rempis, alto sax; and Darren Johnston, trumpet 

 

May 25: Jerry Kuderna piano concert, 12 noon 

 

May 26: Dean Santomieri and Thea Farhadian concert, 8 pm 

This new duo will perform structured and free improvisations for violin and guitar. 

The evening also includes solo performances from each performer-Violin & Interactive Electronics and Electric Resonator Guitars and spoken word. 

Thea Farhadian: Acoustic violin, violin & interactive electronics, and 13-stringed Monstrosity. 

Dean Santomieri: Electric resonator guitars and spoken word. 

 

May 31: Goat Hall Production: BRECHT!, 8 pm 

A Cabaret performance of songs featuring the provocative poetry of Bertolt Brecht 

and the incomparable music of Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. 

 

suggested donation $10-$20 

 

for more info and concerts through the year: 

www.berkeleyartsfestival.com


Press Release: Berkeley Symphony Announces 2012-2013 Season

From Jenny Lee, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra
Tuesday May 15, 2012 - 01:49:00 PM

Music Director Joana Carneiro and Berkeley Symphony today announced programming for the 2012–2013 Season, including a world premiere commission on each of the four subscription concerts. Maestra Carneiro’s critically acclaimed partnership with Berkeley Symphony will continue for an additional five years with the announcement that her contract has been renewed through the 2016–2017 Season.  

Recognized for its exuberant spirit and steadfast commitment to presenting original and unique programs, including ASCAP awards for adventurous programming in eight of the past eleven seasons, Berkeley Symphony continues this commitment with a 2012–13 Season that combines new works from Steven Stucky, Dylan Mattingly, Andreia Pinto-Correia and Paul Dresher, along with masterworks such as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2. Internationally renowned artists Shai Wosner and Lynn Harrell join the orchestra to perform György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto and Witold Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto. 

 

Paul Dresher, a composer whose music is acclaimed for its exceptional individuality and beauty, will present a new work to open the season featuring two of his unique invented instruments: the  

Quadrachord, a stringed instrument resembling a guitar that can be plucked or bowed, and the Hurdy Grande, a larger version of the traditional stringed music instruments that produces sound by a crank-turned rosined wheel. Steven Stucky will participate in an extended residency throughout the season, which includes his participation on the adjudication panel to choose composers for the orchestra’s Under Construction New Music Series/Composers Program and the incorporation of his recorder concerto, Etudes, in Berkeley Symphony’s Music in the Schools program. The composer, a world-renowned expert on the music of Witold Lutosławski and a recipient of the Lutosławski Society’s 

medal, will be in residence during the February concert week, facilitating the pre-concert talk and participating in other artistic activities. Stucky will continue his residency in April, at the world premiere of his own work, The Stars and the Roses, a song cycle for tenor and orchestra set to the poetry of Nobel Prize–winning poet Czesław Miłosz, featuring former Adler Fellow Noah Stewart. 

 

“I am thrilled that the incredible chemistry I feel with this orchestra is recognized by our audiences,” says Music Director Joana Carneiro. “I am humbled by how openly our musicians embrace adventures and I revel in their virtuosity. Nothing is too challenging, whether it is a complicated new work or a masterpiece like Bruckner 4. With this orchestra and audience, I feel free to express myself as an artist and musical leader and I’m deeply honored to continue my association here.” 

 

Berkeley Symphony’s acclaimed initiative focusing on composers and new works continues in the 2012–13 Season. The Under Construction New Music Series/Composers Program is designed to foster an appreciation of modern symphonic music among a new generation of listeners and to serve as an artistic incubator for emerging Bay Area composers to experiment with symphonic music writing. It was this program that introduced Berkeley Symphony to young composer Dylan Mattingly in 2005.  

 

The 2012–13 Season also brings an expansion of Berkeley Symphony’s already vigorous education program, which serves all eleven public elementary schools in Berkeley. The nationally recognized program consists of musician classroom visits, instrument lessons, and performance opportunities for students from kindergarten through the fifth grade. The students grow with the program year after year, building on their knowledge while learning with and performing alongside the orchestra. This season, the Music in the Schools program will incorporate composer Steven Stucky’s recorder concerto, Etudes, as part of the in-class curriculum to demonstrate the different musical elements. Suzanne McCulloch, Berkeley Unified School District’s Visual and Performing Arts Supervisor, called Berkeley Symphony’s music education programs “an invaluable asset.”  

 

“The 2012–13 Season firmly establishes Berkeley Symphony’s ‘mission to commission’ under the artistic leadership of Joana Carneiro,” says Executive Director René Mandel, “and I’m extremely grateful that major funding institutions such as the Hewlett Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Creative Work Fund and New Music USA are taking note of our commitment to the music of our time. Each of our subscription concerts is programmed with a distinct flavor, offering our audiences unique insights into symphonic music by setting side by side the great masterpieces of the standard repertoire with brand-new or rarely performed works. We are fortunate to have passionate and committed audiences, and we strive, at each concert, to leave them challenged and delighted.” 

 

ZELLERBACH HALL CONCERT SERIES 

Berkeley Symphony opens the 2012–13 Season on Thursday, October 4, 2012, with a world premiere by Paul Dresher, featuring the composer in performance with the orchestra on two of his unique invented instruments: the Hurdy Grande and the Quadrachord. The opening night program begins with Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question, scored for flutes, strings and trumpet. Musicologist Jan Swafford describes the powerful piece: “Entirely with tones and a simple dramatic program, Ives makes a philosophical point: a question is better than an answer, in the immensity of creation. And those determined to force the answers are apt to look foolish in the face of that immensity. In all his work Ives was getting at something, always in his singular way. In The Unanswered Question we see the elements of his art in a nutshell: a work at once timeless and revolutionary, spiritual and concrete, comic and cosmic.” Beethoven’s glorious Symphony No. 7 concludes the program. 

 

On Thursday, December 6, 2012, Joana Carneiro and Berkeley Symphony will celebrate both the newest voices of contemporary music and one the most timeless masterpieces of classic repertoire. The evening begins with a world premiere commission from Dylan Mattingly, a 21-year-old Bay Area native who serves as co-artistic director of New York’s new music group Contemporaneous. Mattingly, a student at Bard College Conservatory of Music and a protégé of John Adams, was first introduced to Berkeley Symphony in 2005 through his participation in the Under Construction New Music Series. “Dylan Mattingly is a hugely talented young composer who writes music of wild imagination and vigorous energy,” said John Adams. “Having grown up in Berkeley, he is now a major player in the New York underground scene, part of a generation of new composers who are already making their mark on contemporary music. It’s exciting to watch him at this important stage in his development.” Young Israeli pianist Shai Wosner joins the orchestra for György Ligeti’s intricate Piano Concerto, considered by the composer to be his most complex and demanding score. The program concludes with Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, a favorite of Music Director Joana Carneiro. 

 

Joana Carneiro will lead Berkeley Symphony on Thursday, February 7, 2013, in a program featuring a new work by Portuguese composer Andreia Pinto-Correia, co-commissioned with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon. Reflecting her common heritage with Carneiro, the work is inspired by the charismatic Lisbon neighborhoods and the fado melodies found in traditional Portuguese folk music. The composer’s work has been called “mysterious, elegant, magical” by New Music Box and like “an aural fabric of piercing sustained harmonies, restless melodic bits and gurgling instrumental bursts” by the New York Times. Maestra Carneiro will lead the European premiere in Lisbon in April 2013. World-renowned cellist Lynn Harrell, a consummate soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, conductor and teacher, joins Berkeley Symphony to perform Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto. Written originally for Mstislav Rostropovich, the work “brims with muscular themes, splendid orchestration, vibrant colors, exciting rhythms…and is quite reminiscent of Bartók’s famous work of the same name” (Blair Sanderson, All Music). Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, a lively and lush orchestral suite based largely on Russian folk and sacred music, completes the program.  

 

Joana Carneiro and Berkeley Symphony conclude the 2012–13 Season at Zellerbach Hall with a fourth commission on Thursday, April 4, 2013. Pulitzer Prize–winner Steven Stucky’s new work for tenor and orchestra, The Stars and the Roses, features the poetry of Nobel Prize–winning Polish poet and former UC Berkeley professor Czesław Miłosz. Noah Stewart, who recently made his debut at London’s Royal Opera House and was a former San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow, joins the orchestra for these performances. Bruckner’s magnificent Symphony No. 4, also known as the Romantic and one of the composer’s most celebrated works, completes the program. 

 

UNDER CONSTRUCTION NEW MUSIC SERIES/ COMPOSERS PROGRAM 

Berkeley Symphony will present two Under Construction concerts on Sundays, December 9, 2012, and April 7, 2013, respectively. One of the few programs of its kind nationwide, Under Construction reflects the orchestra’s decades-long commitment to cultivate the next generation of composers and audiences of new music by presenting the works of emerging Bay Area composers in open rehearsal–style concerts. Selected composers will participate in the yearlong mentorship program. Each will write a substantial symphonic work and receive artistic and career guidance from Music Director Joana Carneiro and composer Gabriela Lena Frank as well as from orchestra musicians and guest composers. The composers for the 2012–13 Under Construction Series will be announced in early September. 

 

MUSIC IN THE SCHOOLS  

As part of the Symphony’s effort to expand the music repertoire in the schools, every third grader in the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) will learn to play the recorder, using Steven Stucky’s recorder concerto, Etudes, as a way to teach young people about various musical elements including rhythm, tempo and melody. Since 1992, Berkeley Symphony’s Music in the Schools program, in partnership with the BUSD, has provided a comprehensive, hands-on and age-appropriate music curriculum to elementary school students in Berkeley. This award-winning program includes more than twenty interactive in-school concerts and hundreds of classroom musician visits. In addition, Berkeley Symphony will continue to host its annual “Meet the Symphony” and “I’m a Performer” Family Concerts on Saturdays, November 3, 2012, and April 13, 2013, respectively. The latter concert will be a community collaboration in which both adults and children are invited to perform with the orchestra.  

 

FUNDING 

Funding for Berkeley Symphony’s 2012–13 season comes in part from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The $150,000 grant over a three-year period will provide support to the Symphony’s collaborations with world-class artists, the commissioning of local and international composers, and its award-winning Music in the Schools education program. Paul Dresher’s commission is also supported by the Creative Work Fund (a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation). The Residency of Steven Stucky is made possible through Music Alive, a residency program of the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA. This national program is designed to provide orchestras with resources and tools to support their presentation of new music to the public and build support for new music within their institutions. Funding for Music Alive is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and The ASCAP Foundation. The Symphony also received an additional grant for both commissioning projects from the National Endowment for the Arts.  

 

ABOUT JOANA CARNEIRO 

As Music Director, Joana Carneiro has captivated the public with her commanding stage presence and adventurous programming that has highlighted the works of several prominent contemporary composers, including John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Gabriela Lena Frank. Maestra Carneiro’s commitment to expanding the community base of Berkeley Symphony and upholding the orchestra’s artistic excellence was recognized by the League of American Orchestras, which honored her with the Helen M. Thompson Award in 2010. She was appointed Music Director of Berkeley Symphony in January 2009, succeeding Kent Nagano as only the third Music Director in the 40-year history of the orchestra. 

 

Noted for her vibrant performances in a wide diversity of musical styles, Joana Carneiro is considered one of the most exciting and outstanding young conductors today. Prior to her Berkeley Symphony appointment, she served as Assistant Conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 2005 to 2008, where she worked closely with Esa-Pekka Salonen and led performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. Together with her leadership in Berkeley, she is the official guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in her native Lisbon and an active guest conductor worldwide.  

 

Increasingly in demand as an opera conductor, Carneiro made her Cincinnati Opera debut in June 2011, conducting John Adams’s A Flowering Tree, which she also recently debuted with Chicago Opera Theater and La Cité de la Musique in Paris. In January 2010, Carneiro led performances of Peter Sellars’s stagings of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms at the Sydney Festival. In 2008–2009, she worked again with Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Paris Opera’s premiere of Adriana Mater by Kaija Saariaho, where she served as assistant conductor, and led critically acclaimed performances of Philippe Boesmans’s Julie in Bolzano, Italy. 

 

ABOUT BERKELEY SYMPHONY 

Founded in 1969 as the Berkeley Promenade Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony has established a reputation for presenting major new works for orchestra alongside fresh interpretations of the classic European repertoire. Berkeley Symphony has been recognized in eight of the past ten seasons with an Award for Adventurous Programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). In addition to its subscription concerts and UnderConstructionSeries, Berkeley Symphony regularly partners with Cal Performances, the performing arts presenter and producer of the University of California, Berkeley, to provide music for visiting artists. Berkeley Symphony’s award-winning yearlong Music in the Schools program reaches every public elementary school student in Berkeley. San Francisco public radio station KALW 91.7 FM is Berkeley Symphony’s broadcast partner, airing all Berkeley Symphony subscription concerts. 

 

TICKET INFORMATION 

2012–13 season subscriptions to the Zellerbach Hall Concert Series (4 concerts) will go on sale on Tuesday, May 15. Prices range from $30 to $244. Half-priced packages are available for first-time subscribers and full-time students. Subscribers can save up to 50% off single ticket prices, and enjoy a 10% discount on additional single ticket purchases throughout the season, as well as 50% off Under Construction Series priority admission. The Under Construction New Music Series tickets are $20 for priority admission and $10 for regular admission. The Family Concerts tickets are $5 for children under 18 and $10 for adults. All single tickets will go on sale August 15, 2012. Orders for 2012–13 season subscriptions can be placed online at berkeleysymphony.org, over the phone at (510) 841-2800, faxed to Berkeley Symphony’s box office at (510) 841-5422, or mailed to 1942 University Avenue, Suite 207, Berkeley, CA 94704. Students with a valid student I.D. receive a 50% discount. Discounts are also available for groups of six or more. For more information or to request a brochure, call Berkeley Symphony at (510) 841-2800, e-mail tickets@berkeleysymphony.org, or visit berkeleysymphony.org.  


BERKELEY SYMPHONY 2012–2013 SEASON  

 

Zellerbach Hall Concert Series 

 

Season Opening Concert 

Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 7 pm 

 

Performers Joana Carneiro, conductor 

Paul Dresher, soloist 

 

Program Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question 

Paul Dresher, New Work (World Premiere Commission) 

Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 

 

Zellerbach Hall Concert II 

Thursday, December 6, 2012 at 8 pm 

 

Performers Joana Carneiro, conductor 

Shai Wosner, piano 

 

Program Dylan Mattingly, New Work (World Premiere Commission) 

György Ligeti, Piano Concerto 

Schumann, Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61 

 

Zellerbach Hall Concert III 

Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 8 pm 

 

Performers Joana Carneiro, conductor 

Lynn Harrell, cello 

 

Program Andreia Pinto-Correia, New Work (World Premiere Commission) 

Witold Lutosławski, Cello Concerto 

Rachmaninoff, Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 

 

Zellerbach Hall Concert IV 

Thursday, April 4, 2013 at 8 pm 

 

Performers Joana Carneiro, conductor 

Noah Stewart, tenor 

 

Program Steven Stucky, The Stars and the Roses (World Premiere Commission) 

Bruckner, Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, Romantic 

 

Pre-concert lectures begin at 7:10 pm on December 6, February 7, and April 4. 

 

Under Construction New Music Series  

Dates Sunday, December 9, 2012 

Sunday, April 7, 2013 

 

Time 7 pm 

 

Location To be determined 

 

Tickets $20 Priority Admission / $10 Regular Admission 

Available by phone at (510) 841-2800 or online at www.berkeleysymphony.org 

 

Family Concerts 

Dates Saturday, November 3, 2012, “Meet the Symphony”  

Saturday, April 13, 2013, “I’m a Performer”  

 

Times 10 am and 11:30 am 

 

Location Malcolm X Elementary School Auditorium 

1731 Prince Street, Berkeley 

 

Tickets $10 Adult / $5 Child 

Available by phone at (510) 841-2800 or online at www.berkeleysymphony.org 


Don't Miss This in June

By Dorothy Snodgrass
Friday May 18, 2012 - 12:39:00 PM

We're all aware, of course, that June is traditionally a month of weddings, outdoor picnics, and band concerts in Oakland's Ozawa Plaza. To say that summer festivals abound in the East Bay would be a gross understatement. Indeed, "June is Busting Out All Over" aptly describes the astonishing number of entertaining/educational events available throughout the month. Listed below are just a few of such events. 

"East Bay Open Studios," a self-guided tour of local artist studios. June 2-3. Preview exhibition through June 10. 150 Ozawa Plaza, Oakland. WWW.Proartsallery.Org

"Berkeley World Music Festival," Sat. June 2nd, Noon - 9 p.m. People's Park, Telegraph Avenue; Amoeba Music Concert, continuous music outdoors and in cafes. www.berkeleyworldmusic.org.

"Summer Fund at Jack London Square," June 7 and 14; "Sound Waves", 5:30 - 7:30. Enjoy live music on the waterfront. "Dancing Under the
Stars," June - August. Kick up your heels and learn to Salsa, Cha Cha, Tango and more. "Jack's Night Market"; shop under the stars for Oakland products, vegetables, fruit, crafts, with amazing performances. Sundays, 9 a.m - 2 p.m. Free Yoga. Webster and Water St. on the Waterfront.
www.jacklondonsquare.com.

"37th Annual Fine Arts Sidewalk Festival," Montclair Village, Mountain at LaSalle, June 23, 24 and 26, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. The Village sidewalks come alive with fine arts and crafts, featuring more than 90 professional artists from across the western U.S. www.montclairvillage.com.

"First Fridays at Studio One," Studio One Art Center, 365 45th St. Join poetry enthusiasts and story tellers, from well known poets to up-and-coming writers. 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. Come early and enjoy outdoor gourmet food trucks. www.oakland parks.com.

"42nd Annual Live Oak Park Fair," Fine arts and original crafts, fresh festive food and family entertainment. June 9 & 10, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Free Shuttle service from North Berkeley Bar Station.
(510) 227-7110.

"Summer Sounds Concerts," Outdoor concerts every Wednesday, noon - 1 p.m. City Center Plaza State, Oakland.

"16th Annual Chocolate and Chalk Art," eat chocolate and make chalk art. Sat., June 2nd, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Gourmet Ghetto, North Shattuck Ave.
(510) 540-6444.

"Buzz Downtown for First Fridays on the free "B" shuttle." Yearning to try a hot downtown restaurant for lunch or dinner? Looking to catch a late-night downtown hotspot? Ride the free Broadway Shuttle. It's easy, fast, and fun. MeetDownTownOak.com.

So—you insist that there's little doing in the Bay Area in June? Think again!


PlayGround’s first Film Festival of local playwrights shows in Berkeley on May 24 & 26.

By John A. McMullen II
Friday May 18, 2012 - 12:34:00 PM

PlayGround has teamed up with film makers to transform five of their award-winning scripts into short films including one animation.

Next week, you can see these at the Elmwood Theatre on College near Ashby on Thursday, or at Zaentz Media Center on 10th Street on Saturday.

The Film Festival features five short films adapted from short plays originally developed and premiered at the Best of PlayGround Festival, created by teams of local filmmakers, writers, actors and technicians. 

PlayGround partnered with “Dances with Light” to inaugurate the PlayGround Film Festival. 

Each playwright adapted their own work for the screen. 

The featured short films include: 

The Beginning by Tom Swift (Brian Tolle, filmmaker. On a cold dark night two naked strangers struggle to connect.  

Ecce Homo by Jonathan Luskin (Jonathan Luskin /Mark Leialoha/Flying Moose Pictures, filmmakers), Two vaudevillians in love confront the new technology of the movies. 

The Etymology of Zero by Katie May (an animated short; Seth Podowitz, filmmaker) 

A feminist fairytale: Rapunzel locks herself in a tall tower and concocts a story of an evil stepmother to focus on her blossoming love of mathematics and avoid the attentions of a young prince. 

Wednesday by Daniel Heath (Jennifer Arzt, filmmaker): A couple decides to liven up their evening one ordinary Wednesday with a question-and-answer drinking game. A few drinks in, Eve asks Robert a question that puts their marriage to the ultimate test. 


Reunion by Kenn Rabin (Gregory Runnels and Mark Runnels, filmmakers) is a story of a convicted sex offender, recently released from prison, who finds a new home with Deb, a woman determined to stand up for his rights and live down her own past. (Rabin’s documentary and feature credits include PBS’ “Eyes on the Prize and Vietnam: A Television History,” Sean Penn’s “The Indian Runner,” George Clooney’s “Good Night and Good Luck,”, Steven Soderbergh’s “The Good German,” and Gus Van Sant’s “Milk.” ) 

The Berkeley screenings will be at: 

  • Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave on Thursday May 24 at 7pm and 9pm
  • Zaentz Media Center/Fantasy Studios, 2600 10th Street on Saturday May 26 @ 6pm and 8pm.
In San Francisco, the Festival shows at Thick House on Tue & Wed May 22 and 23 at 6pm and 8pm), (where the 16th annual Best of PlayGround Festival short plays is currently running Thu-Sun through May 27). 

In San Rafael, at 32TEN Studios (formerly the George Lucas Theater) on Fri May 25 at 8pm. 

For the complete schedule and tickets, visit http://playground-sf.org/filmfest 

Since 1994, PlayGround has been a leading incubator for some of the Bay Area’s most promising new playwrights. It has premiered 110 original short plays by 57 Bay Area emerging playwrights through its Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series at Berkeley Rep and Best of PlayGround Festival.  

PlayGround has also commissioned 41 new full-length plays and supports the premiere of many of these works in partnership with Bay Area theatres through its innovative New Play Production Fund. 

PlayGround alumni include a who’s who of the Bay Area’s best up-and-coming writers, including Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Daniel Heath, Ken Slattery, among others, with many having their first professional production through PlayGround. 

 

 

PlayGround has teamed up with film makers to transform five of their award-winning scripts into short films including one animation.  

Next week, you can see these at the Elmwood Theatre on College near Ashby on Thursday, or at Zaentz Media Center on 10th Street on Saturday. 

The Film Festival features five short films adapted from short plays originally developed and premiered at the Best of PlayGround Festival, created by teams of local filmmakers, writers, actors and technicians. 

PlayGround partnered with “Dances with Light” to inaugurate the PlayGround Film Festival. 

Each playwright adapted their own work for the screen. 

The featured short films include: 

The Beginning by Tom Swift (Brian Tolle, filmmaker. On a cold dark night two naked strangers struggle to connect.  

Ecce Homo by Jonathan Luskin (Jonathan Luskin /Mark Leialoha/Flying Moose Pictures, filmmakers), Two vaudevillians in love confront the new technology of the movies. 

The Etymology of Zero by Katie May (an animated short; Seth Podowitz, filmmaker) 

A feminist fairytale: Rapunzel locks herself in a tall tower and concocts a story of an evil stepmother to focus on her blossoming love of mathematics and avoid the attentions of a young prince. 

Wednesday by Daniel Heath (Jennifer Arzt, filmmaker): A couple decides to liven up their evening one ordinary Wednesday with a question-and-answer drinking game. A few drinks in, Eve asks Robert a question that puts their marriage to the ultimate test. 

Reunion by Kenn Rabin (Gregory Runnels and Mark Runnels, filmmakers) is a story of a convicted sex offender, recently released from prison, who finds a new home with Deb, a woman determined to stand up for his rights and live down her own past. (Rabin’s documentary and feature credits include PBS’ “Eyes on the Prize and Vietnam: A Television History,” Sean Penn’s “The Indian Runner,” George Clooney’s “Good Night and Good Luck,”, Steven Soderbergh’s “The Good German,” and Gus Van Sant’s “Milk.” ) 

The Berkeley screenings will be at: 

  • Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave on Thursday May 24 at 7pm and 9pm
  • Zaentz Media Center/Fantasy Studios, 2600 10th Street on Saturday May 26 @ 6pm and 8pm.
 

In San Francisco, the Festival shows at Thick House on Tue & Wed May 22 and 23 at 6pm and 8pm), (where the 16th annual Best of PlayGround Festival short plays is currently running Thu-Sun through May 27). 

 

In San Rafael, at 32TEN Studios (formerly the George Lucas Theater) on Fri May 25 at 8pm. 

 

For the complete schedule and tickets, visit http://playground-sf.org/filmfest 

Since 1994, PlayGround has been a leading incubator for some of the Bay Area’s most promising new playwrights. It has premiered 110 original short plays by 57 Bay Area emerging playwrights through its Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series at Berkeley Rep and Best of PlayGround Festival.  

PlayGround has also commissioned 41 new full-length plays and supports the premiere of many of these works in partnership with Bay Area theatres through its innovative New Play Production Fund. 

PlayGround alumni include a who’s who of the Bay Area’s best up-and-coming writers, including Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Daniel Heath, Ken Slattery, among others, with many having their first professional production through PlayGround. 


Local Theaters Ask Online Critics for Traffic Report

Friday May 18, 2012 - 11:11:00 AM

 

 

From: "Terence Keane" <tkeane@berkeleyrep.org>
To: info@charleszukow.com
Cc: "Charles Zukow" <charlesz@charleszukow.com>, "Kevin Kopjak" <kevink@charleszukow.com>, "Erin Garcia" <EGarcia@shnsf.com>, "Sasha Hnatkovich" <commdir@marintheatre.org>, "Marilyn Langbehn" <mlangbehn@calshakes.org>, "Erica Lewis-Finein" <elewis@auroratheatre.org>, "Carla Befera" <carlab@cb-pr.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 11:41:35 AM
Subject: Local theaters ask online critics for traffic report 

Dear friend, 

Thank you for the passion you bring to the local arts community. As PR representatives for nine of the most prominent theaters in the Bay Area, we share your enthusiasm and commitment to this cause. In an effort to better serve local audiences, we’re teaming up for a comprehensive review of the reach and effectiveness of online theater coverage – and we hope you’ll be part of the team! We would greatly appreciate your help, and we encourage you to read through this message and respond with information that will help all of us flourish. 

 

As we all know, ongoing changes in our culture have transformed the way people access information. Traditional print media continue to thrive, despite dire predictions of their demise, yet all of us have seen the increasing importance of online news sites, blogs, and social media. We appreciate your role as a citizen journalist. Yet everyone knows a life in the theater isn’t likely to make you rich, and every complimentary ticket we offer is lost income at the box office. It is essential for theaters to be careful stewards of our resources in these difficult economic times. Therefore, we must be able to demonstrate to our employers that the press passes we issue deliver a meaningful return on investment. 

 

So we’re writing to you today to ask your assistance: please help us demonstrate the impact of your reviews so that we can continue inviting you to our shows. Going forward, to receive press passes, online critics will be expected to submit a report from Google Analytics, Visistat, or a similar service that documents web traffic on your reviews. This report should show the total hits and the number of unique visitors in the past six months or more. If you publish reviews on a personal blog, the report may be for the site as a whole. If you publish reviews on a large site such as Examiner.com, Forallevents.com, Huffington Post, or another host that aggregates content, the report must reflect actual traffic on your page or your posts. Please submit your report to info@charleszukow.com by June 15. 

 

Please don’t fret about this! The report you send will not automatically qualify or disqualify you for attendance at any theater. Each of our companies retains the right to set its own policies with regard to press passes, and this report is only one of many factors we consider when dealing with reviewers. The traffic data it provides will simply allow us to make a fair and informed comparison of the many opportunities offered to us for online coverage – and to clearly explain those opportunities to leaders at our theaters who are understandably concerned about the number of complimentary tickets we distribute. 

 

We look forward to collaborating with you on this project, and please know that it is our hope to retain you on our lists. We are grateful for your support of local theater, and for the many years you’ve devoted to covering the local scene. 

 

Sincerely yours, 

Charles Zukow and Kevin Kopjak, on behalf of ACT, Beach Blanket Babylon, Marines Memorial Theatre, etc. 

Terence Keane, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 

Erin Garcia, SHN 

Sasha Hnatkovich, Marin Theatre Company 

Marilyn Langbehn, California Shakespeare Theater 

Erica Lewis-Finein, Aurora Theatre Company 

Carla Befera, on behalf of TheatreWorks, Bay Area Cabaret, Smuin Ballet, etc.