An 18-year-old man was charged Friday with multiple felonies including murder, robbery, rape, attempted carjacking and elder abuse in connection with the death of a 72-year-old woman stabbed during an attempted carjacking in Berkeley. -more-

A 17-year-old Oakland boy who pleaded no contest to setting another teen's skirt on fire on an AC Transit bus last November was sentenced today to seven years in state prison, according to the Alameda District Attorney's Office. -more-

United States Postal Service workers in the Bay Area are speaking out today against looming cutbacks, processing center closings and cuts in service. -more-

Note: With a little help from our friends, a number of typos in this hastily published piece have now been corrected. We are very grateful to Rob Wrenn for leaping into the breach so that readers could get the election results as early as possible, and for sticking with the lengthy count.

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With all the absentee and provisional ballots now counted in Alameda County, Lori Droste finished ahead of George Beier by just 16 votes, 2072 votes to 2056 votes, or 50.19% to 49.81%.16 votes is a large enough margin that there is little chance that a recount would change the outcome.

Since she fell short of 50%, ranked choice voting determined the outcome. Beier was more popular than Droste among those who gave their first choice vote to Alvarez Cohen, but not by enough to overcome her lead in first choice votes.

Alameda County has until December 2 to certify the results of the election.

Turnout

Turnout in Berkeley was the lowest of the last 35 years. Only 39,092 ballots were cast this year, compared to 60,559 in 2012 and 49,099 in 2010. The previous low was 41,363 in 2002, and the voting age population has certainly grown in the last dozen years. -more-

A person might be stoned for heresy in Berkeley if they were to question belief in global warming. But, as a decades long, left leaning, KPFA listening and sponsoring, commuter bike riding, composting, plastic avoiding, bring your own cloth grocery bag environmental activist, I am seeing too much hypocrisy and closed minded smugness, and a lack of critical thinking on the part of those who I have always thought of as my people. I have come to the conclusion that those with liberal roots like me, have been sent on a fools errand, sucked into an unquestioning group-think and religiosity by a well-funded corporatized environmental establishment, that is scaring us into accepting top-down, pre-prescribed faux solutions that have never had public input and are designed to enrich bankers, diminish the rights of ordinary people, and funnel us into a controlled technocratic society. We hear plenty of talk about lowering parts per million of carbon while basic principles of environmentalism are violated, such as, don’t pollute, do no harm, local control, conservation, recycle, reuse, live simply, less technology, not more. The Democratic left has been hijacked and infiltrated, our ideals and beliefs distorted and twisted into a disciplinary social agenda, which demonizes rank and file humanity, and deflects responsibility away from the real perpetrators of the destruction of our natural world. -more-

Editor's Note: When we referred to "formerly", we meant 15 or more years ago.

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“In the city of Santa Cruz, the “Democratic Party” hacks endorsed the right wing slate, and since it was an at-large election conservatives now control this formerly progressive council. “ – Berkeley Daily Planet editorial, November 07, 2014

Setting aside whether Santa Cruz’s previous city council majority, which casually criminalized sleeping, can be appropriately called “progressive”, the election isn’t really confusing at all. Political parties are simply being treated as the relatively meaningless entities they have become. When “green” is interpreted as dense, open-space-free high-rise development and “progressive” includes efforts to criminalize poverty, many voters prefer, understandably, to call themselves independent of any party affiliation. -more-

Every day in every way our policy makers can figure out methods for getting low income families the medical, economical and intellectual help they need to change their low status to better. But our laws and policies suggest instead that proper people to protect are the millionaires. Furthermore, the rich control our media. We hardly hear anything about the challenges facing poor people in America. -more-

Every few weeks the local papers publish another weepy story about the Bay Bridge bike lane, its costs and delays. But the answer for the west side bike path is right under our noses, or rather, right under the road bed. Bridge authorities feed the media estimates approaching half a billion dollars, a price tag that guarantees it won't be built in my lifetime. -more-

The headlines say it all...not even close. "Pundits missed election tidal wave, " "How did pollsters miss GOP tsunami?" The pollsters were not askew in their predictions, they just didn't take into account how the Republicans rigged the election, by gerrymandering (redrawing) voting districts around the country, so they favored Republican politicians. That simple and easily verifiable. -more-

Dear Friends of Ponderosa Pine,

(November 11, 2014)—I regret to say that our good friend and activist Pondo was laid to final rest November 10 @ 5am in Loja, Ecuador. He died from kidney failure among a few other complications. His health had been failing in the recent months and it came to its peaceful final closure.

Myself and a few other close friends were with him in his final hours to send him off with love and support. He died very peacefully with no pain and no painkillers. His last moments were very peaceful with many smiles from us and from him. He was not afraid and was sent away from this body easily.

Please let us share a moment and send him our blessings to wherever he has been sent to for his next mission. All the best to all his friends and family who cared much for our friend Pondo. This will be the last message from this address.

Kind regards,

Chris

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Remembering a Memorable Environmental Activist

By Gar Smith / Friends of the Earth; Editor Emeritus, Earth Island Journal

The message from Ponderosa Pine's "Double Helix Office in the Global South White House" was not unexpected but it still hit with the force of a majestic redwood falling in the forest.

I had heard of Keith Lampe (aka Ponderosa Pine, aka Ro-Non-So-Te, aka Transition President of the Government of the USA in Exile) long before I had the pleasure of getting to know him as a friend and a colleague.

It was in 1969, as a staffer at the Berkeley Barb, that I first began reading Keith's unique self-syndicated fortnightly column, Earth Read-Out. It was the first "environmental column" to appear in the so-called Underground Press (or anywhere else, for that matter).

I eventually encountered Keith as few years later—appropriately enough, during an All Species Day Parade in San Francisco.

Spotting a fellow who stood out from the rest of the crowd, I was moved to ask: "Might you be Ponderosa Pine?" It was an easy guess on my part. The fellow I was talking to seemed to be the only marcher who was barefoot. He was certainly the only one dressed in an outfit fashioned entirely from tree bark. With a beaming smile and mischievous eyes peeking out between strips of tree-gleanings, he looked like a walking elm, both deciduous and impish.

Keith Lampe had a one-of-a-kind career arc—from reporter to soldier to activist to media mentor to social critic, philosopher, eco-guru, musical pioneer and much more. -more-

Dear Friends and Colleagues, Today's installment from my issue number two of Earth Read-Out (ERO) at the end of May '69 gives us an opportunity to understand how much more confidence people had in themselves then than now. -more-

The most intelligent analysis I've seen of Citizens United--clearly, the readers don't understand it however: -more-

We received this letter on Sunday morning:

Of course, all mail is capture by the United States of America. But I'm curious. Why are you providing the address of each of your readers to every other reader, to the controllers of the bots of those readers who happen to have an infected computer, and to the spammers the controllers sell addresses to?

Cordially, Joaquin

Answer: I hit the wrong button when I sent reminder letters to our list of subscribers by Gmail. Mistakes are made. This service is worth what you pay for it (free). Our doughty staff of 1.5 sometimes falls down on the job. If anyone out there is an expert on mass mailing software they're welcome volunteer to help. -more-

I urge Senator Dianne Feinstein (D. CA) to expedite the release of the Senate Torture Report before she loses her position as Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Once the Republicans take over the Committee, I fear the Torture Report will never see the light of day or if it does, it will be so heavily redacted by the CIA as to render it of little use to the public. The Torture Report has been approved for public release. The public has a right to know. -more-

One hundred sixty eight years ago this past July, two British warships—HMS Erebus and HMS Terror—sailed north into Baffin Bay, bound on a mission to navigate the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. It would be the last that the 19^th century world would see of Sir John Franklin and his 128 crewmembers.

But the Arctic that swallowed the 1845 Franklin expedition is disappearing, its vast ice sheets thinning, its frozen straits thawing. And once again, ships are headed north, not on voyages of discovery—the northern passages across Canada and Russia are well known today—but to stake a claim in the globe’s last great race for resources and trade routes. How that contest plays out has much to do with the flawed legacies of World War II, which may go a long way toward determining whether the arctic will become a theater of cooperation or yet another dangerous friction point. In the words of former NATO commander, U.S. Admiral James G. Stavridis, an “icy slope toward a zone of competition, or worse, a zone of conflict.”

There is a great deal at stake. -more-

There’s a rough consensus about why Democrats were pulverized in the midterm elections: losing Democratic candidates didn’t have a succinct positive message. To understand this problem, it’s informative to dissect the campaigns of three incumbent Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2014: Al Franken, Jeanne Shaheen, and Mark Udall. -more-

Aside from the "war on drugs" begun as far back as Richard Nixon and in spite of its hypocrisy as well as its draconianism, I do not believe that illegal drugs, alcohol, and appetite suppressants are good for persons with mental illness. -more-

Some more thoughts on the 2014 Oakland mayoral election before we move into the Mayor Libby Schaaf era:

Congratulations to Ms. Schaaf, not only for her victory, but also for running a campaign that did not bend the rules or outright cheat to win, at least as far as I can see. I'll probably have more to say about that campaign at a later time, but for now that's enough and-in my thinking-a lot.

Congratulations, as well, to Mayor Jean Quan for the graciousness she showed in defeat. Unlike former State Senator Don Perata, who continues to publicly pout about the results of the 2010 mayoral election, Ms. Quan did not make excuses for her defeat or put the blame on ranked choice voting. That, along with the mayor's decision to join Ms. Schaaf in a joint post-election press conference, will go along way towards assuaging the bitterness among her followers that inevitably results from a hard-fought election contest. -more-

What a preposterous, prolonged, pretentious pile-up of portentous poppycock! Interstellar, Christopher Nolan's latest movie, is visually spellbinding, resolutely inconsistent, exasperatingly illogical, and ultimately unsatisfying. Here is the plot in an astronautshell: The Earth is a goner but a heroic pilot and Intergalactic Escape Hatch will save humanity. Wormholes and technology to the rescue! -more-

"A character is a ghost that remains in the theater after you turn out the lights." -more-

Last weekend saw a very rich musical program at the First Congregational Church, with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Julian Wachner conducting, playing Bach, Handel and Telemann, with countertenor Andreas Scholl singing arias from Handel's Giulio Cesara and Rodelinda as well as the Bach Cantata No. 170, "Vernügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust." -more-

Cal Performances brought from Paris a production of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author staged by Théâtre de la Ville-Paris under the direction of Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota. Opening on Friday, November 7, in Zellerbach Hall, this French-language production (with English supertitles) brought to life – and I mean this in several senses of the words – this extraordinary adventure in modern theatre. Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, which incited a riot when first performed in Rome in 1921, is now credited with revolutionizing the theatre as it had been handed down from classical times, and inaugurating a modern, challengingly different notion of theatre. -more-

On hearing Mozart’s opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, Emperor Joseph of Austria memorably told Mozart, “Too many notes.” Well, someone who heard Gioachino Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola/Cinderella might well have said to Rossini, “Too many crescendos.” The crescendo, let it be said, is Rossini’s favorite trick. And he does it well. Rossini begins a theme softly and slowly, then gradually builds up the volume and rhythm to the point where all the singers plus the full orchestra are at full speed and maximum sound to close in a rousing climax. The problem is, however, that in Cenerentola nearly every musical number is given the crescendo treatment. Thus, every musical number begins to sound like every other musical number. Enough already. Too much of a good thing gets awfully tedious. -more-

--This weekend, Cal Performances is featuring two performances of an acclaimed production from the Barbizon in London of Benjamin Britten's opera 'Curlew River--a Parable for Church Performance,' based on the spare forms of medieval Japanese Noh theater and its tragic play 'Sumidagawa,' about a madwoman both acting out madness and consumed with grief at a ferry crossing, classical Japanese Gagaku rhythms and Medieval European Christian Mystery Plays. Noted Britten interpreter Ian Bostridge performs the Madwoman, the music and chorus supplied by the Britten Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia Voices. Friday at 8, Saturday at 2, Zellerbach Hall, UC campus near Telegraph Avenue & Bancroft Way.$30-$90 (discounts available). calperformnces.org; 642-9988. -more-

--"I think it was Tolstoy who said that all great stories start with either a man going on a journey or a stranger coming to town ... " -more-

Just as the Pacific Film Archive opens the latest installment in their ongoing Jean-Luc Godard retrospective--and 'Prenom Carmen'--1983, script by Anne-Marie Mieville, featuring Maruschka Detmers, plays Saturday night at 6:30), the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael will be presenting the West Coast exclusive premiere of Godard's latest: 'Goodbye to Language' in 3-D, through next Thursday, at the Center in downtown San Rafael, just off Highway 101. -more-