The following letter was sent to Dee Williams-Ridley,Interim City Manager,City of Berkeley.
Dear Ms. Williams-Ridley:
I am writing to inquire about the armed robbery that occurred at 2450 Sacramento Street on Monday, July 27, 2015, and the subsequent area-wide search by the Berkeley Police Department and what appear to be other agencies, resulting in the closure of major streets, a door-to-door search, and the use of military-style uniforms, armaments and vehicles.
While the robbery took place in Council District 2, it was directly across the street from my district, and the following area-wide search resulted in the closure of streets and properties searched in District 4.
As the elected representative of Council District 4, I received numerous reports from constituents expressing concern over the nature and scale of the police response. While I very much appreciate the rapid response and determination by our Berkeley Police to apprehend a potentially dangerous suspect, this incident raises questions of whether the response was proportional to the crime, particularly considering the resources expended and the impacts on the surrounding community. I understand that this is not the first time BPD has responded to a pursuit of a suspect with officers dressed in military-type uniforms and with guns drawn in neighborhoods.
Additional questions have been raised given the concerns expressed by the Mayor and City Council over the last few years regarding the increasing “militarization” of local police departments, and the subsequent decision of the Council to not pursue the purchase of a Bearcat armored vehicle. Given expressed concerns over having a tanklike vehicle roaming the streets of Berkeley, the Department received funding for an armored van as an alternative. Did the City ultimately purchase an armored van? If yes, why was the van not used? In 2012, there was extensive conversation not only regarding the purchase of an armored vehicle but our participation in the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) which provides grants and training for local departments, including participation in the UrbanShield training. UASI grants have funded military-type equipment, such as armored vehicles and drones for other departments.
Provided Council’s concerns over the purchase and use of an armored vehicle in the City of Berkeley, we adopted Resolution No. 65,901-N.S. in September 2012 to require review and approval of all grant applications for equipment, if the equipment is being provided to the Police Department through Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) funds. Our Chief told us that the Department would not be purchasing a Bearcat Armored vehicle, yet we have either allowed other departments to bring a Bearcat into Berkeley during mutual aid or it appears we have borrowed their armored vehicle. This is contrary to the express wishes of the Council.
To that end I have several questions:
• How many of our officers were involved in the response to the armed robbery? What is the estimated cost of the response?
• Which other agencies were involved in the response and what support was provided?
• Which agency provided the armored vehicle? Was the vehicle specifically requested? What are the situational thresholds that BPD considers appropriate for the usage of an armored vehicle?
• Given other recent armed robberies, and that no victims reported physical harm in this particular case, what aspects of this armed robbery triggered the scale of our response? Was there additional reason to believe the suspect to be an enhanced threat to public safety?
• What are the circumstances in which Special Response teams are used?Your prompt response would be greatly appreciated given the questions and concerns I have received from my constituents over this incident.
Sincerely, Jesse Arreguín City Councilmember, District 4
Steve Jones
Media Specialist, Oceans Program
Center for Biological Diversity
Wednesday July 29, 2015 - 04:00:00 PM
GOLETA, Calif.— Emergency officials are responding to a two-mile oil sheen off the California coast near the town of Goleta in Santa Barbara County. The slick extends to Platform Holly, an offshore drilling platform.
Officials have yet to confirm the source of the slick, which follows a massive oil pipeline rupture near Santa Barbara in May that spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude into the Pacific Ocean and blackened beaches down to Los Angeles.
“This new oil slick is another disturbing reminder of the ugly risks of offshore drilling,” said Kristen Monsell with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re waiting for more information on the source of this sheen, but we already know that offshore oil production endangers our beaches, wildlife and climate. We’ll see spill after spill if we don’t shut down these aging oil platforms and pipelines.”
Oil spills are a common consequence of drilling for oil. The Plains All American pipeline that ruptured and caused the Refugio Oil Spill was 28 years old. Preliminary findings indicate that the pipeline was badly corroded, and many of the offshore pipelines in the Pacific Ocean are even older. Federal pipeline data shows the risk of pipeline failures increase substantially after 30 years
The sheen is reportedly near Platform Holly, which was built in 1965. The pipeline connecting the platform to shore was constructed in 1969, with the surfzone portion replaced in 1997. A June 2010 inspection of the crude oil emulsion pipeline identified “‘extensive’ corrosion, primarily internal and found along the bottom half of the pipeline, ranging in wall loss from 20 percent to 67.3 percent.”
“Fear of yet another oil spill in Santa Barbara is strong because people are still reeling from the Plains pipeline spill that killed hundreds of birds and marine mammals,” Monsell said. “The best way to prevent these devastating spills is to retire California’s aging oil platforms.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Sinn Féin's Gearóid Ó hEára has suggested Derry should be twinned with the US city of Berkeley in California.
Mr Ó hEára, Sinn Féin candidate in the upcoming Westminster election, said;
"The city of Berkeley is known throughout the world for its promotion of civil rights, its famous university and its arts festivals.
"Derry has so much in common with Berkeley in terms of our history and the organic link between our two cities.
"One of Derry's most famous and internationally recognisable landmarks, Free Derry Corner, adapted its iconic slogan from the civil rights struggles at Berkeley University in the 1960s.
"Derry and Berkeley also produced many of the figures who became leading figures in our respective civil rights campaigns.
"Both cities have seen their economic fortunes rise and fall over the decades but the commitment to social justice has been constant.
"Berkeley, like Derry, is also known for its rich cultural history and promotion of the arts.
"I have been in contact with a number of prominent residents of Berkeley to explore the possibility of formalising those links by twinning Derry and Berkeley.
"They are supportive of the plan and have said there is an appetite in the city for twinning with Derry.
"I am currently working with contacts in Berkeley to set up a working group there to further explore the possibility and to work towards making it a reality."
Berkeley has a new interim city manager, a new interim deputy city manager and a new interim fire chief.
Dee Williams-Ridley, whose appointment as interim city manager was announced by Mayor Tom Bates on July 2, began her new job last Saturday.
Williams is replacing Christine Daniel, who had been city manager since November 2011, but announced on June 2 that she was resigning her position to become one of two assistant city administrators in Oakland.
Friday was Daniel's last day in Berkeley and she will start her new job in Oakland on Aug. 10.
Williams-Ridley recently announced that she has appointed Berkeley Fire Chief Gil Dong to be interim deputy city manager. Dong began his new job last Saturday.
Williams-Ridley also said she appointed Deputy Fire Chief Avery Webb to be interim fire chief and Webb assumed that post on Saturday as well.
In a memo to the Berkeley City Council, Williams-Ridley said she is "very pleased" that she will be working closely with Dong, who began working for the Fire Department 25 years ago as a firefighter/paramedic and rose through the ranks.
Williams-Ridley said Dong "exemplifies a strong commitment to public service, leadership and integrity" and "his ability to work across department lines will serve him well in this next role."
Williams-Ridley said Webb has been with the fire department for 30 years and has been in the executive command for the past seven years.
The University of California has released its annual report on systemwide employee compensation for calendar year 2014. The report is available at https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/. UC annually discloses employee payroll information as part of its commitment to transparency and public accountability.
Police searched a Berkeley neighborhood for hours for a suspect who robbed a laundromat this morning but concluded the search without making an arrest, according to police.
The robbery at the laundromat in the 2400 block of Sacramento Street was reported at 8:31 a.m., police said.
As of noontime, police were still searching the surrounding neighborhood for a suspect.
Residents have been warned that the suspect is believed to be armed. The suspect is described as a black man under 30 years old standing 5 feet 11 inches tall with a slim build, police spokeswoman Officer Jennifer Coats said.
He was wearing a long-sleeved gray hooded sweatshirt during the robbery and may have silver teeth, Coats said.
Residents were advised to stay inside their homes and call 911 if they saw or heard anything suspicious.
Rampant weeding decimates public library book collection
Blowing loud whistles and raising colorful signs, library users and members of the public will gather on the steps of the Central Berkeley Public Library to support brave library employees.
WHEN: TUESDAY, JULY 28th, 11:30 AM
WHERE: Central Berkeley Public Library, Front Steps 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck, downtown Berkeley
The public requests an absolute guarantee against punitive action for any library worker who’s participated in the Board of Library Trustees meetings, or in meeting with the library director, Jeff Scott.
Librarians signed and delivered a letter to the Board of Library Trustees requesting that the Library Director reconsider new collection development and maintenance plans. Thousands and thousands of books have been tossed without the librarians” professional input. 80% of the current librarians have no confidence in the library director’s plan for collection development or weeding. Other workers have attended the Board of Library Trustees meetings in support. There are threats of retaliation for speaking up in meetings.
The public requests protection for the library workers, a moratorium on rampant weeding, and a return of the librarians to their work in buying and selecting books: actual input by all librarians, not just two managers and four helpers.there will be an interlude of artistic whistling during the rally.
BACKGROUND: Thousands and thousands of books at Berkeley Public Library have been rampantly tossed out the back door and pulped over the past months. The new library director has stated that all books on the shelves that haven’t circulated in the last three* years must go. *ten years for Art & Music Books, but ratcheted to seven years last week deviating from standard library practice, librarians are locked out of book selection and weeding, with no direct access to the book budget. Previously, 34 professional librarians had been doing the book buying and weeding—now, two managers alone do it, with partial input from only four other librarians. Berkeley Public Library—once a destination library—is now becoming a decimated library.
Time is of the essence, as hundredsof books are being lost daily.
Trudy the Titan Arum bloomed today at the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, garden officials said.
Trudy is a tropical plant and "one of the world's largest and rarest flowering structures," according to the garden's website. It's also known as the Corpse Flower.
Trudy opened a little Saturday evening at about 6 p.m. and was flowering more at about 9 p.m. when garden officials left for the day, associate director for visitors services Jonathan Goodrich said.
By the end of today it will have run its course.
"It's a very quick event," Goodrich said.
Titan Arums are also known for their distinct odor as well as their size.
"Like mega dirty socks wrapped around a rotting steak," Goodrich said. He said the odor is strongest when the plant first opens.
The odor was fading and could be smelled only near the plant as of about 3:45 p.m. today, he said.
Goodrich said the garden has had its busiest day today in 12 years, with easily more than 1,000 visitors. Many have gone to see Trudy.
About 200 people visit the garden on a typical Sunday, Goodrich said. The garden is open until 7 p.m. tonight, with the last entry at 6:30 p.m. But Goodrich said there is little parking in the area.
Visitors today have filled up the garden's parking lot and the lot of the nearby Lawrence Hall of Science, he said.
Titan Arums bloom on average about every six to seven years, Goodrich said. The botanical garden has eight under propagation, but he couldn't say when the next one would open.
Family members of four students from Ireland who were injured in a balcony collapse in Berkeley that killed six other people last month issued a statement today thanking those who have helped them since the incident.
The balcony outside a fourth-floor apartment at the Library Gardens complex at 2020 Kittredge St. collapsed when a large group of people gathered on it during a party at 12:41 a.m. on June 16.
Of the six people killed, five were Irish nationals -- Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller and Eimear Walsh. The sixth victim was 22-year-old Rohnert Park resident Ashley Donohoe.
Seven other people were injured in the collapse but survived.
Family members of four of them, Aoife Beary, Clodagh Cogley, Hannah Waters and Niall Murray, said in a statement, "As traumatic and difficult as the past five weeks have been for Aoife, Clodagh, Hannah and Niall, our constant thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families and friends of Eimear Walsh, Ashley Donohue, Olivia Burke, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcán Miller and Eoghan Culligan. May they rest in peace."
The families said, "We are also very mindful of the many friends who were there in Berkeley that terrible night, some of whom were also seriously injured and others who responded so tenderly to the needs of our children at the scene and in the immediate horrific aftermath. They could never have imagined such a tragic end to their J1 (summer program) experience."
The families said, "Others stayed on to continue to help their injured friends. We are so grateful for what they have done and for what they are continuing to do. They too will take time to heal."
In addition, the family members thanked Berkeley police and fire department staff, ambulance paramedics, the people of Berkeley and surrounding areas, Philip Grant and his staff at the Irish Consulate in San Francisco and the Irish Immigration Pastoral Centre in San Francisco.
The family members also thanked Aer Lingus for offering free flights to and from San Francisco since the accident during their busy peak season. The family members additionally thanked the Bay Area hospitals where the surviving victims have been treated: Highland Hospital in Oakland, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, California Pacific Medical Center and UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco and Stanford Hospital.
They said Beary, Cogley, Waters and Murray "are now continuing their long treatment and recovery under the care of the superb doctors, nurses, therapists and other staff and management at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center."
The family members said, "We obviously share everyone's wish for speedy recoveries but we have found that every new week brings more complexity and that the road to recovery is far from straight, even in the very best of clinical environments."
They said, "We hope that our children will be able to make their way home in the coming weeks and months when they are individually ready and sufficiently strong enough to do so."
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said last month that her office is conducting a criminal investigation into the balcony collapse.
A Berkeley woman today won the women's division of The San Francisco Marathon for the third consecutive time, race officials said.
The race started at 5:30 a.m. at the Ferry Building along The Embarcadero.
Anna Bretan, 30, won the women's marathon in a time of 2 hours, 49 minutes and 41 seconds, race officials said. San Anselmo resident Devon Yanko, 33, was second and San Jose resident Joanna Reyes, 23, was third, according to race officials.
Chris Mocko won the men's division in a time of 2:26:22. Race officials said Mocko has won other marathons in Northern California such as the Oakland and Napa marathons.
Castro Valley resident Benjamin Eversole, 22, finished second and Mill Valley resident Jorge Maravilla, 37, finished third.
This year The San Francisco Marathon became a qualifying race for the 2016 Olympic Team Trials, but no runners qualified, race officials said.
Winners took home prizes such as Tiffany & Co. CT60 watches and Tiffany crafted crystal. Runners also raised more than $200,000 for charity, race officials said.
Community leader and neighborhood activist David Allen Baker, 72, died on July 8, 2015, after a long and difficult illness.
David will be missed, not only by his personal friends, but also by all Berkeleyans who have benefitted and continue to benefit from his efforts. David was one of a dwindling handful of neighborhood stewards in the north end of Willard Neighborhood, between Dwight Way and Derby Street. Whatever remains of that neighborhood’s charm and livability is in large part due to David’s efforts.
David was a man of brilliant energy who had studied English literature, but whose primary passion was science, especially astronomy, evolutionary biology, and ecology. Charismatic and inspiring, contrary and cantankerous, David was also sociable, compassionate, and generous in both spirit and in deed. Although his life was far from easy, he determined to meet every day with joyous spontaneity. He loved nature, especially the star-gazing in the Pinnacles, and I fondly remember our rambling camping trips through Mendocino and Monterey Counties.
David bought his beloved Victorian house on Parker Street in the 1960s. For decades he looked after the local common spaces and even the properties of nearby absentee landlords. He viewed the urban landscape, no matter how damaged, as an ecosystem worth protecting. Though fully aware that it was city policy to let students ruin his and other neighborhoods around campus, he looked after his student neighbors with grandfatherly affection. However, he brazenly confronted anyone who impinged on others’ rights in the arenas of noise and light pollution, vandalism, and other blights.
I first met David in 2002, when our neighborhood learned that we were about to become the unwilling recipient of a 5-story classroom/office building. David and I quickly became best friends and co-leaders of the new Benvenue Neighbors Association. David had always been a passionate environmentalist and radical small-d democrat. I was a total newcomer to land use issues. But we had complementary abilities, so we made a good team. David was the one who rounded the neighbors up for meetings—reminding the forgetful, encouraging the timid, prodding the recalcitrant, praising the helpful. He orchestrated our political presentations into compelling theater. He was able to listen to lies without showing visible anger, and to calmly anticipate and argue “the other side” en route to our own strategy. He frequently kicked me under the table when he sensed me gearing up for some counterproductive truth-telling. “Kiss ass now; kick ass later,” he used to tell me, when I wanted to give a piece of my mind to someone with power over our neighborhood’s fate. It’s a good precept for the impatient.
David’s formidable intelligence and political insight brought vital victories for neighborhood livability. In the 1990s he landmarked a number of historic properties in north Willard, and after a long struggle, the Benvenue Neighbors defeated the big office building. David’s endless battle against glaring lights and loud parties created a quieter and more peaceful neighborhood. Less visible were David’s preemptive monkey-wrenching of the occasional incipient mini-dorm here and there, his efforts against university blight, his support of rational Southside planning, and his impassioned participation in democratic neighborhood organizing.
David and I became lasting intellectual companions. His input and feedback were instrumental in many articles I wrote for the Daily Planet. He was unmatched at finding the essence of any issue and the vocabulary to present it. It was David who, based on his knowledge of English history, suggested using the concept of “the commons” to frame public access rights to amenities such as quiet, open space, sunlight, parking, and history. The idea for my “Urban Bill of Rights,” which was published in a British planning journal in 2011, arose when I was visiting David at his property in Soledad. The new “infill” dorms built on Dwight Way in 2006 had filled my apartment with unremitting HVAC noise. The university had erected what David called its “stone wall of indifference,” and I was mad as hell to discover that as a mere tenant and not a property owner, I had little legal recourse. “But I have a goddamned right to open my window at night without hearing that goddamned noise from that goddamned university!” I argued to David. I grabbed a piece of paper and started writing a “tenants’ bill of rights.” A half-dozen rights later I said, “But of course, all urban dwellers, not just tenants, need these rights.” I worked on the “Urban Bill of Rights” over the next few years (google it), with David as my deepest sounding board, and finally dedicated my article to him.
David was a neighborhood leader, but he was not alone. Unfortunately, many of the other long-term residents who battled with him to keep university blights and bad planning at bay have also died—all too early. This includes local historians Susanna Barrows and Jerry Sulliger, and the inimitable activist Patti Dacey. Other neighborhood anchors moved away to escape the deterioration. It was painful to watch people who owned property in Berkeley fighting for their lives, but I was a renter, so when the university destroyed the livability of my apartment, I moved to a quiet house in Oakland. Meanwhile, David, sounding fatigued, told me he had begun to wear ear protectors while working in his garden.
Fighting City Hall to protect one’s neighborhood from bad planning takes a heavy toll on one’s time, health, wealth, and psyche. Very few people will do it once, and virtually nobody does it twice. But David came to the rescue of his neighborhood time after time, at great personal cost. The scars of being utterly betrayed by one’s own government never go away, and the depths of dishonesty achieved in the Mark Rhoades planning era astonished even David. Nor was he naïve about the long-term prospects for his neighborhood—or the planet. Yet David remained upbeat, always “thinking globally, acting locally.” As his friend, I will miss most his luminous intellect, but for his community, David’s legacy is that he was an honorable man who simply—but far from simply—took care of his small corner of our pale blue dot. And did it very well.
A churlish commenter on Berkeleyside.com, posting under the pseudonym of Shutter, said of Tracey Taylor’s Storify coverage of the “Why Berkeley” event at the new Book, Inc. location: “With all due respect, a series of reposted tweets is a poor substitute for a well-written article.”
I couldn’t disagree more.
This technique, which allowed many photos and a sentence or two from a baker’s dozen of 5 minute speakers, was the ideal representation of the “Berkeley Lite” tone of the feel-good event. The room was packed with Berkeleyans of the older generation, many of whom I know and like, and regardless of political views everyone seemed to have a good time. Berkeley has always loved bookstore chats, ever since Fred and Pat Cody started them sometime in the last millennium.
It was not the time or place for naysayers. Though I recognized plenty of chronic critics in the room, they kept their quibbles to themselves. Panel members with a couple of exceptions limited their comments to gentle reminiscences on the announced theme of “Why Berkeley?”—mostly how they got here and why they stayed. By and large, a love fest.
Presiding over all was genial elder Malcolm Margolin, of the Heyday Books publishing company. Sadly perhaps, I got the most interesting part of my education in the ever-cynical Cal French Department, way back in the day before the school expropriated the name “Berkeley”, so I was irresistibly reminded of a favorite character in a book on my reading list, memorialized thus by Leonard Bernstein:
The evening was dominated by the kind of optimism preached by Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide. Speakers for the most part spoke of their delight at discovering Berkeley and what the city still meant to them. The two most notable exceptions, not surprisingly, were two of the four minority speakers, both of whom, perhaps significantly, no longer live in Berkeley. Here I’ll just quote Tracey’s excellent notes [typos fixed]:
“ [Maxine Hong] Kingston on 2211 Harold Way: To build high rise that will block that sacred view (from Campanile) will create bad feng shui.” She told of a visit to Berkeley with her high school teacher, who pointed out the Campanile and said it was calling her. Never a woman to mince words, Maxine, now a proud Cal alumna, must have encountered the petition started by the current generation of Cal students, who are objecting to the eighteen-story obstruction that now threatens the Campanile viewshed. (This will be the subject of a special Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting on August 13.)
“ Ishmael Reed said racism is alive and well in Berkeley, as evidenced by experience of black playwright at Berkeley Rep…Going from his home in Oakland to College Ave. is like the Freedom Rides: going into segregated territory.” (He’s more right than you might think. The African-American population of Berkeley has declined from 30% to 10% and is shrinking fast.)
The others on the panel were mostly sunnily nostalgic for the Berkeley of the imagination, a territory reminiscent of Candide’s El Dorado, who said their rulers “ordained, with the consent of the whole nation, that none of the inhabitants should ever be permitted to quit this little kingdom; and this has preserved our innocence and happiness.”
Here’s the Bernstein version:
Tracey Taylor’s business partner, Frances Dinkelspiel, a Stanford alumna, delivered a very mild reproof of the dominant Berkeley paradigm in her five minute slot. She talked about coming to a Model U.N. or some such event on the U.C. campus with her classmates from her San Francisco private high school in the late 70s and being disgusted with the seedy hotel on Telegraph where they were housed. She said her husband, looking for something less urban than The City, persuaded the family to move to a house in the Berkeley hills high above the Claremont Hotel—just in time to be burned out in the big fire. But they rebuilt, and she stayed around to co-found Berkeleyside.com. Here’s the gripe: she’s tired of the constant criticism she sees here, as exemplified by a snarky comment she quoted from her site about too many oldsters on the panel.
[Here’s a little tip: if you don’t like disagreeable letters, and who does, if you require commenters to sign their real names, first and last, the trolls will go back under their bridges. Both the Planet and the East Bay Express have that rule, and it makes for a much more interesting discourse. The anonymous SF Chronicle commenters, on the other hand, are awful, and many dreadful ones find their way to Berkeleyside. The one she quoted was from a person whose real name I know, someone characterized by a consistent prose style easily recognized by an old Comp Lit major like me, who uses a panoply of pseudonyms. And the letter writer is no youngster herself, ironically. ]
John King, another speaker, is part of the tradition of San Francisco architecture critics who extoll the virtues of the modernist urban landscape in The City but live in pleasant traditional Berkeley neighborhoods. His predecessor at the Chronicle, Allen Temko, lived near me in the Elmwood, and King says he has a modest bungalow in North Berkeley, next door to the kind of Berkeley brown shingle house he lived in when he came here to school, which he praised as an iconic Berkeley style.
When I transferred to Cal in 1959 as a junior, I lived in one of those brown shingle rooming houses myself. My housemates were very smart girls from Taiwan who were studying physics and biochemistry, from whom I learned how to dismember a chicken Chinese-style, lickety-split with a big cleaver, leaving no fingers behind. That house is still there near the corner of Channing and Telegraph, but it has been lavishly remodelled inside and out in a flashy multi-colored Thai motif to suit the current owners’ restaurant.
Is that progress? I kind of enjoy the change, non-traditional though it is.
From my classmates I learned how to protest, joining a neighbor in my next house who’d been raised on a Petaluma chicken farm in demonstrating against the House Un-American Activities committee, which was then persecuting old lefties like her family. That’s what Berkeley gave me, inspiration for action which went beyond the ideas I’d been raised with, though pointed in the same direction.
As several of the panelists pointed out, the old Berkeley civic tradition was conservative. I seem to remember that when I came here the town had both a Republican city council and a Republican congressman. I married in 1960 and moved to Ann Arbor for graduate school. When we came back in 1973 the old-time conservatives had been scared out of town by school integration, the Free Speech Movement and People’s Park, leaving Berkeley for a couple of decades to be managed by what we used to call “progressives”.
My prediction that our post-progressive mayor might not appear was half right: he came, late, but he didn’t say anything much—nothing even worth Storifying about. His minder, Councilmember Maio, who sits next to him on the dais at council meetings, invoked the past but said little about the present or future.
Storify quote: “Margolin says that Vice Mayor @LindaMaio has been in office since 1992, so she has perpetually been in meetings.” During Maxine Hong Kingston’s passionate defense of the view from the Campanile, Maio’s face displayed what my seldom-vulgar companion described as a “shit-eating grin.”
Now, it seems to me, Berkeley is returning to its Republicanesque roots as a toney bedroom suburb for San Francisco. The Claremont neighborhood was built as a “streetcar suburb”, with trains to San Francisco’s financial district coming right up to the Claremont Hotel. The Uplands was one of the original transit-friendly developments.
Houses in the Claremont-Elmwood neighborhood dropped precipitously in price after the tumultuous ‘60s. When we moved to upper Ashby, to a house we bought at a bargain price, we were surrounded by communes, but lately investment bankers have been moving in. There goes the neighborhood! Prices are now back in the stratosphere.
Now downtown Berkeley is on the verge of becoming the same thing. Easy transit to The City is fostering development of expensive luxury housing which will be convenient for well-paid people who work in San Francisco, viz. The Residences at Berkeley Plaza project now being promoted for 2211 Harold Way. The prices of family-size houses in all parts of town are skyrocketing. And the demographic profile is reverting to the status quo ante, mostly white.
Can anything be done about this? The panelists, by and large, expressed no awareness that the Berkeley they celebrate may be changing out from under them. Since they skewed mature, it might not be their problem.
Us old folks will get nothing much out of saving Berkeley from itself, it’s true. Those of us who were canny enough to snag a house or a rent-controlled apartment when it was still possible just might make it home free.
I hope the bookstore survives on North Shattuck. My fear is that Berkeley is no longer a book-dominated culture—that we’ve shifted from a literary scene to a foodie enclave.
Alice Waters is supposed to be signing books (though not talking) at Books Inc. as I write this on Thursday afternoon.
She’s another French Department alumna, I see from her online bio. After a brief fling with Free Speech Movement activism, she started an unpretentious neighborhood restaurant that’s become every bit as good as the similar (though less pricey) ones I just tried in France. A marketing genius, she’s gone on to propagating what she learned in the restaurant business in more do-goodish contexts. Waters’ event is billed as a benefit for her Edible Schoolyard Project, which teaches kids about growing vegis and nutrition.
Candide said it first: “Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
This key phrase can be translated as “It’s necessary to cultivate our garden,” or “We must cultivate our garden.”
The implication of the seminal quote was being debated while I was in college, and it’s still being questioned. The best essay on Candide I’ve seen lately was Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker piece in 2005.
Here’s Gopnik: “The force of that last great injunction, ‘We must cultivate our garden,’ is that our responsibility is local, and concentrated on immediate action.”
Here in Berkeley, immediately, the threat is and continues to be that international speculators are being allowed to buy up everything in town to extract maximum profit and then depart. One of the better commenters on Berkeleyside compared the process to strip mining, and she’s nailed it.
One might ask the local gardeners, Alice Waters among them, if they’ve noticed that construction is taking place on every flat surface in flatland Berkeley, that there will all too soon be no place for children to cultivate their own gardens. Nothing will grow in the shadow of 18-story luxury apartment buildings.
We should all recognize our local responsibility, and concentrate on action. Our El Dorado is at risk.
For our grandchildren’s sake, il faut cultiver notre jardin.
"we can not transfer people out... " - Thomas Lord
Thomas Lord would benefit by reading the most recent study of San Francisco's homeless/street population, who are indeed from San Francisco. And if he takes a closer look at Berkeley's policies he would discover that our community has for years been "transfer(ing) people out" in a variety of ways. All it takes is the current city council majority's dedication to providing a severely inadequate number shelter beds, low-income housing, and case management money for voucher placement, which has been the case for decades. This is not because Berkeley doesn't have the money. This is because Berkeley's city council majority doesn't want poor people here, preferring to build high-end condos.
Berkeley is dedicated to providing less than what's needed so that people get emergency placement - in Richmond, etc., anywhere but here. Berkeley is generous, all right, if all you need is a bus ticket back home. The night the police surrounded and "cleaned out" the People's Park Annex protesters, that's exactly what they got; either an arrest or a bus ticket out of town.
Medicaid is the nation's largest health insurer. About 70 million low income Americans are its beneficiaries compared to about 50 million who are covered by Medicare. In California, Medi-Cal, which is what the State calls its Medicaid program, has over 12 million members, which is more than twice the number of California residents who are enrolled in Medicare. Medi-Cal recipients include, incidentally, many small business owners and those who are self-employed.
Very important, Medicaid offers programs that provide a range of services which are unavailable to Medicare beneficiaries. Medicaid is the main source of coverage and financing for nursing homes, and also community-based services so that the elderly and disabled can stay at home. There are now 1.5 million institutional residents and 2.9 million who are community based residents.
July 30 is the 50 year birthday of both Medicare and Medicaid. President Johnson put his signature on both programs in 1965. So it is very disappointing that across the nation only Medicare is being celebrated. It is especially surprising since Medicaid is a much larger program, is available to low income Americans of any age, and provides a very wide range of services. Moreover, Medicaid is currently providing assistance to 21% of Medicare beneficiaries.
Nevertheless, although I regret that Medicaid was not also given top billing, it is immensely important that we celebrate Medicare. I will be attending a major birthday celebration of Medicare in Oakland at Frank Ogawa Plaza on Thursday, July 30, noon. I hope you will be attending also.
The political demands of the celebration -- Medicare for All -must be supported. So the more who attend this event, the better!
“If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia. And if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.”
“This is not about Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great power. There is a high probability that he will intervene in the Baltics to test NATO’s Article 5.”
It is not just defense secretaries and generals employing language that conjure up the ghosts of the past. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used a “Munich” analogy in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a common New York Times description of Russia is “revanchist.” These two terms take the Ukraine crisis back to 1938, when fascist Germany menaced the world.
Yet comparing the civil war in the Ukraine to the Cold War—let alone Europe on the eve of World War II—has little basis in fact. Yes, Russia is certainly aiding insurgents in eastern Ukraine, but there is no evidence that Moscow is threatening the Baltics, or even the rest of Ukraine. Indeed, it is the West that has been steadily marching east over the past decade, recruiting one former Russian ally or republic after another into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Nor did the Russians start this crisis.
It began when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych turned down a debt deal from the European Union (EU) that would have required Kiev to institute draconian austerity measures, reduce its ties to Russia, and join NATO through the backdoor. In return, Ukraine would have received a very modest aid package.
Moscow, worried about the possibility of yet another NATO-allied country on its border, tendered a far more generous package. While the offer was as much real politic’ as altruism, it was a better deal. When Yanukovych took it, demonstrators occupied Kiev’s central square.
In an attempt to defuse the tense standoff between the government and demonstrators, France, Germany and Poland drew up a compromise that would have accelerated elections and established a national unity government. It was then that the demonstrations turned into an insurrection.
There is a dispute over what set off the bloodshed—demonstrators claim government snipers fired on them, but some independent investigations have implicated extremist neo-Nazis in initiating the violence. However, instead of supporting the agreement they had just negotiated, the EU recognized the government that took over when Yanukovych was forced to flee the country.
To the Russians this was a coup, and they are not alone in thinking so. George Friedman, head of the international security organization Stratfor, called it “the most blatant coup in history,” and it had western fingerprints all over it. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt were recorded talking about how to “midwife” the overthrow of Yanukovych and who to put in his place.
Besides making Kiev a counterproposal on resolving its debt crisis, no one has implicated the Russians in any of the events that led up to the fall of Yanukovych. In short, Moscow has been largely reacting to events that it sees as deeply affecting its security, both military and economic.
Its annexation of Crimea—which had been part of Russia until 1954— followed a referendum in which 96 percent of the voters called for a union with Russia. In any case, Moscow was unlikely to hand over its strategic naval base at Sevastopol to a hostile government.
Somehow these events have morphed into Nazi armies poised on the Polish border in 1939, or Soviet armored divisions threatening to overrun Western Europe during the Cold War. Was it not for the fact that nuclear powers are involved these images would be almost silly. NATO spends 10 times what Moscow does on armaments, and there is not a military analyst on the planet who thinks Russia is a match for U.S. To compare Russia to the power of Nazi Germany or Soviet military forces is to stretch credibility beyond the breaking point.
So why are people talking about Article 5—the section of the NATO treaty that treats an attack on any member as an attack on all—and Munich?
The answer is complex because there are multiple actors with different scripts.
First, there are the neoconservatives from the Bush years that have not given up on the Project for a New American Century, the think tank that brought us the Afghan and Iraq wars, and the war on terror. It is no accident that Nuland is married to Robert Kagen, one of the Project’s founders and leading thinkers. The group also includes former Defense Department Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, and former UN Ambassador John Bolton.
The neocons believe in aggressively projecting American military power and using regime change to get rid of leaders they don’t like. Disgraced by the Iraq debacle, they still have a presence in the State Department, and many are leading foreign policy advisors for Republican presidential candidates, including Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush. They are well placed and persistent, and if Bush is elected president there is talk that Nuland will become Secretary of State.
Then there are the generals, who have a number of irons in the fire.
There is a current in NATO’s leadership that would like to see the alliance become a worldwide military confederacy, although the Afghan disaster has dampened the enthusiasm of many. In fact, there is not even a great deal of support within NATO for enforcing Article 5, and virtually none for getting involved with sending arms to the Ukraine. Most NATO countries don’t even pony up the required level of military spending they are supposed to, leaving the U.S. to pick up 70 percent of the bills.
But there is nothing like conjuring up a scary Russian bear to loosen those purse strings. And indeed, a number of former scofflaws have upped their military spending since the Ukraine crisis broke.
The military and its associated industries—from electronics companies to huge defense firms—need enemies, preferably large ones, like Russia and China, where the weapons systems are big and the manpower requirements high.
Right now there appears to be a split among U.S. decision makers over whether Russia or China is our major competitor. For the neocons and most of the Republican candidates, the Kremlin is the clear and present danger. For the Obama administration and most Democrats—including Hillary Clinton—China is the competition, hence the so-called “Asia pivot” to beef up military forces in the Pacific and establish a ring of bases and allies to obstruct Beijing’s ability to expand.
One can make too much of this “division,” because most of these currents merge at some point. Thus the sanctions targeting Russia’s energy industry also squeeze China, which desperately needs oil and gas.
In response to sanctions, Russia is shifting its supplies and pipelines east. Russia and China have also begun establishing alternatives to western dominated financial institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. Organizations like the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—have established a development bank and currency reserves, and the new Chinese-initiated Asian Infrastructure Development Bank has already attracted not only Asian nations, but the leading European ones as well. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization now embraces over three billion people.
The U.S. has tried to derail a number of these initiatives.
The sanctions against Russia have made it difficult for Moscow to develop oil and gas in the arctic, and Washington pointedly told its allies that they should not join the China development bank. Both campaigns failed, particularly the latter. Only Japan and the Philippines heeded the American plea to boycott the bank. And Asia’s need for energy is overcoming many of the roadblocks created by the sanctions.
However, the campaign against Russia has damaged the Kremlin’s energy sales to Western Europe. The EU successfully blocked a Russian pipeline through Bulgaria, and the Americans have promised that its fracking industry will wean Europe off Russian energy. Fracking, however, is in trouble, because Saudi Arabia stepped up production and crashed oil prices worldwide. A number of U.S. fracking industries have gone belly up, and the industry is experiencing mass layoffs.
Stay tuned for EU-Russian energy developments.
Why are we in a dangerous standoff with a country that is not a serious threat to our European allies or ourselves, but does have the capacity to incinerate a sizable portion of the planet?
At least part of the problem is that U.S. foreign policy requires enemies so that it can deploy the one thing we know best how to do: blow things up. The fact that our wars over the past decade has led to one disaster after another is irrelevant, explained away by “inadequate” use of violence, lack of resolve or weak-kneed allies.
Americans are currently looking at a host of presidential candidates—excluding the quite sensible Bernie Sanders—who want to confront either Russia or China. Both are hideously dangerous policies and ones that are certainly not in the interests of the vast majority of Americans—let alone the rest of the planet.
It is really time to change things, and, no, the bear is not coming to get you.
For persons with a severe mental illness, it is helpful to recognize symptoms early, and to steer clear of a relapse before it happens, rather than allowing the illness to sneak up on us. If we are undertreated or overstressed, symptoms can occur and judgment can become compromised. This can then lead to becoming "noncompliant" because insight has been obliterated by symptoms.
A symptom that might indicate worsening of the illness could be something like "talking to god" and having god talk back to us. It is fine to be religious. However, obsessions with certain aspects of religion could be a symptom of worsening psychosis.
And there are other examples as well. "Unusual thoughts" can be a signal of creativity, or are sometimes a symptom. Believing that there is a conspiracy to do something to us is usually an example of a paranoid delusional system. Believing that we have special powers is usually another example of a delusion.
If mentally ill and having a few symptoms, it doesn't always mean we should panic that we are getting worse. Some amount of problems will remain even when medicated and stabilized.
(I am having some dilemma with pronoun use, and I am not using the royal "we.")
Many people considered normal have a low level of delusions, depression, or other symptoms. The difference is that it isn't severe enough to necessitate intervention with meds. I know of several people who have had some amount of depression or delusions, yet they have no diagnosis, have regular jobs, and never need medication.
While I am in treatment and on medication, it helps me a lot to do a mental "virus scan" in which I attempt to recognize and remedy delusional thoughts soon after they occur. If I am uncertain of a thought, as to whether or not it is paranoid and delusional, I might ask someone like my wife or a counselor (hopefully neither of whom are subject to delusions) if a thought sounds reasonable or paranoid.
Getting the thoughts aired out rather than keeping them to ourselves is very helpful. This is fine so long as the listener isn't taking what we are saying literally. It is important to be aware of to whom we are talking, and to not share bizarre things with people we don't know very well.
If we have an excess of problematic thoughts (which for psychotic people would be delusions and for a depressed person might be thoughts of doom or hopelessness) it might be necessary to raise medication or switch medications. If thoughts are okay but when there are an excess of medication side effects, it might be time to reduce dosages or switch to something less strong.
If it seems like a psychiatrist is wrong or out in "left field" we can get a second opinion from another psychiatrist.
Medication allows a psychotic person to have the potential for tracking reality. It doesn't guarantee being free of delusions. There is no potion of any kind that can guarantee that any human being, mentally ill or not, will have clarity and accuracy of thought. Someone with an untrained mind will have more errors compared to someone who has learned more about how their mind sometimes can fool them.
However, medication to treat psychosis has a tendency to make accurate thinking become at least possible. When the mind has spun into psychosis partially through a biological cause, everything is scrambled and we can't even begin to look at thoughts and weed out the bad ones.
Medication in the absence of other help will not make a psychotic person well.
Learning to recognize the early warning signs of a possible relapse can save a mental health consumer from some very bad experiences. If there are problems with getting enough sleep, and/or if there is a loss of appetite to a point of becoming underweight, this could be a sign that we are headed for a relapse.
Rather than expecting that someone other than oneself knows how to prevent a relapse, or expecting that they somehow know we are having problems, we should realize that we could be the first one to know. Being proactive, and telling a treatment professional, "I'm having problems…look at these symptoms…" or something to that effect, is a way to catch it sooner.
Mental illnesses are considered by most doctors to be medically produced problems. And, just like with other physically caused diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and so on, mental illness is best caught early and treated rather than allowing it to worsen.
Unlike with other diseases, which generate sympathy, get well cards, and kind words--of the sufferer being "brave" and "a fighter"--those who suffer from mental illness are considered depraved, weak, crazy, and possibly stupid. This is one reason why it can be so hard to convince someone with mental illness of the need for treatment.
Society's stereotypes of mentally ill people are part of the predicament that keeps sufferers stuck. Only unconditional self-approval can allow us to love ourselves regardless of perceived "defects" and can allow us to stop believing we are "broken" people. This may be the key to a lasting commitment to being proactive in treatment, and thus preventing relapses.
It’s the responsibility of a presidential frontrunner to set the terms of the debate. On July 13th, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton did this in a New York city speech, describing her plans to address economic inequality and related concerns.
Technically, this was a “framing” speech where Clinton established certain themes and phrases. The title was “a new plan to build a fair and growing economy” and the dominant theme was “raising incomes for everyday Americans.”
Clinton asserted that it is possible for the US economy to continue to grow while the distribution of returns is altered, becoming more equitable. “While America is standing again, we are not yet running the way we should. Corporate profits are at near record highs and Americans are working as hard as ever. But paychecks [have merely] budged in real terms.” Clinton used a chart showing that over the course of 65 years US productivity has grown 240 percent but hourly compensation has increased only 108 percent.
The candidate established the framing pillars of her address: “To raise incomes we need: strong growth plus fair growth resulting in long-term growth.”
For Clinton, “strong growth” has two sectors: stimulus for business and new opportunities for workers. Clinton said:
Small businesses create more than 60 percent of new American jobs on net, so they have to be a top priority… throughout this campaign, I’m going to be talking about how we empower entrepreneurs with less red tape, easier access to capital, tax relief and simplification.
The candidate promised to push for “business tax reform” and to close “loopholes that reward companies for sending jobs and profits overseas.” She also touted public investment such as, “an infrastructure bank that can channel more public and private… funds to finance world-class airports, railways, roads, bridges and ports.”
Clinton also promised to breakdown barriers “so more Americans participate more fully in the workforce.” The candidate emphasized she will champion progress for women, noting that, “The US ranks 19th out of 24 developed countries in women’s labor force participation.” Clinton continued:
another engine of strong growth should be comprehensive immigration reform… Bringing millions of hardworking people into the formal economy would increase our gross domestic product by an estimated $700 billion over 10 years.
For many Democrats, the heart of Clinton’s economic agenda was her proposals for “fair growth.” “Inequality is a drag on our entire economy.” Her proposals include raising the minimum wage and strengthening Obamacare. Clinton continued:
I will produce ways to encourage companies to share profits with their employees. That is good for workers and good [for] businesses. Studies show that profit sharing that gives everyone a stake in the company’s success can boost productivity and put money directly into employees’ pockets.
She added, “ it’s time to stand up to efforts across our country to undermine worker bargaining power.”
Clinton called for tax-code reform:
First, hard-working families need and deserve tax relief and simplification. Second, those at the top have to pay their fair share. That’s why I support the Buffet Rule, which makes sure millionaires do not pay lower rates than their secretaries.
The third pillar of Clinton’s economic agenda is long-term growth: “Too many pressures in our economy push us toward short-termism.” “I will soon be proposing a new plan to reform capital gains taxes to reward longer-term investments that create jobs, more than just quick trades.” She spoke of incentives that would encourage businesses to improve productivity by training workers and raising their wages.
Clinton concluded:
I’m running for president to build an America for tomorrow, not yesterday, an America built on growth and fairness, an America where if you do your part, you will reap the rewards, where we don’t leave anyone behind.
How does the Hillary Clinton vision contrast with that of the Republican frontrunners? Jeb Bush plans to grow the economy 4 percent per year but hasn’t said how he will do that. He also plans to cut government spending but declined to specify where. In the past year, Bush has talked about income inequality saying he would deal with it “by tax reform, entitlement reform, regulatory reform."
Donald Trump has a five-part plan. The centerfold is a vast tax-reduction plan including elimination of corporate taxes and the inheritance tax. Trump would also lower taxes on capital gains and dividends. (This is ‘trickle-down economics taken to a new extreme.) Trump would also crackdown on illegal immigrants and China’s currency manipulation.
In contrast to Bush and Trump, Scott Walker’s economic plan is embryonic. Walker plans to cut taxes and to reduce federal spending but is not specific. (Walker’s economic record as Governor of Wisconsin has been unimpressive.)
It seems likely that income inequality will be a major topic in the 2016 presidential contest. Given her July 13th speech, it seems that Hillary Clinton is best prepared to address this. The likely Republican candidates are stuck with a reprise of failed Reagan-era trickle-down policies: cut taxes for the rich, eliminate regulations, and reduce public services.
Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net
On July 14th, the U.S., China, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia reached an agreement with Iran to “to limit Tehran’s nuclear ability in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions.” In reality, the negotiations were less about curbing nuclear proliferation and more about international trade and U.S. prestige. On balance, this Iran nuclear agreement is realistic, pragmatic and, on balance, good for the U.S.
Opponents of the agreement wanted an Iran unconditional surrender. However, these were negotiations -- a dialogue between Iran and six nations with a goal of reaching a mutually beneficial outcome.
The negotiation was not about the continuation of sanctions or war. A war with Iran is not a viable option. After Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. is in no position to start a war with a well-armed opponent like Iran. And the negotiations were not about Iran's nuclear-weapons program. Why, because Iran has no nuclear weapon. Even Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, says there's no evidence of such a program.
What was really at stake in these negotiations was international trade and U.S. prestige. Iran has roughly 10 percent of the proven petroleum reservesl and a population of more than 77.45 million seeking goods in exchange for this oil. Iran wants to trade with other countries and other countries want to trade with Iran. Sanctions stand in the way.
The reputation of the U.S. was also at stake. If the U.S. didn't reach a deal with Iran, China and Russia probably would and there is no guarantee that the United Kingdom and Germany would stick around if the U.S. walked away from the negotiations. The alternative was for the U.S. to reach a deal or find itself on the sidelines.
The main opposition to the agreement with Iran comes from Israel. The Israelis fear Iran dominance in the region and want an Iran hobbled by sanctions. Predictably, the Israel lobby opposes the agreement. It is no secret that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) -- widely regarded as the most powerful foreign-policy lobby in Washington -- is exerting its influence on members of Congress. The agreement has exacerbated the longstanding frictions between Obama and Netanyahu. But isn't it time for the U.S. to begin a less pro-Israel approach to Middle East affairs?
I note that while several Jewish groups are opposing this Iran nuclear agreement, the liberal pro-Israel advocacy organization J Street has begun a multimillion dollar national campaign in support of the agreement.
I urge Congress to fully support this Iran nuclear agreement.
West Edge Opera’s Music Director, Jonathan Khuner, has close family ties to the music of Alban Berg. Jonathan’s father was a string player who launched an international career when he performed in the première of Berg’s Lyric Suite Quartet in Germany in 1927. Later, Jonathan says he debated with his father over the respective merits of Berg’s two operas, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (1937). Judging from the passion for Lulu showed by Jonathan Khuner in bringing this difficult opera to West Edge Opera, I think he clearly prefers Lulu to Wozzeck.
This is a preference I wholeheartedly share. I have now seen Lulu five times, and it never fails to make a positive impression. Wozzeck, on the other hand, can drive me up the wall, as it did in a Vienna Staatsoper production I saw in Berlin in 1987. Since that time, I have assiduously avoided Wozzeck. However, when West Edge Opera scheduled Berg’s Lulu for performance in an abandoned train station in Oakland, I made sure to attend the opening night show, on Saturday, July 25. I was not disappointed.
I have seen some great Lulus in my day – Anja Silja in San Francisco in 1971, the brilliant Teresa Stratas at the Met in 1981, and Ann Panagulias in San Francisco in 1989 – but I must credit local soprano Emma McNairy for her own striking interpretation of the role of Lulu in the current West Edge Opera production. As Jonathan Khuner says, Lulu is all about sex! Well, Emma McNairy as Lulu fairly exudes sex from every pore of her body, and she reveals all in several nude scenes. And, oh yes, Emma McNairy sings brilliantly in this terribly difficult, often strident vocal material. Berg wrote this opera in his twelve-tone style, and most of Lulu’s singing is quite dissonant, full of violent leaps and jagged edges.
The story of Berg’s Lulu is derived from the so-called Lulu plays of Frank Wedekind, a turn of the 20th century German playwright considered a forerunner of German Expressionism. His Lulu plays are all about sex. More specifically, they are about modern society’s inability to deal with this primal sexual urge in anything resembling a healthy way. West Edge Opera’s choice of the vast, high-ceilinged main hall of an abandoned train station on Oakland’s Wood Street proved a dramatically appropriate venue for this opera about the moral decay of modern industrial society. My only reservation is that the supertitles, of which there were a huge number, were very faintly projected on the stone walls on either side of the stage, and they followed one another in all too rapid succession.
In Berg’s opera, Lulu starts off as a lusciously beautiful young woman trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man. In the opening scene, after a brief orchestral Prologue, an artist is seen painting her portrait at the request of Lulu’s husband. When the husband leaves the studio, the painter makes a pass at Lulu, to which she responds with gusto. They get it on, when, suddenly, the elderly husband returns to the studio, catches them in flagrante delicto, and keels over with a fatal heart attack. Thus rid of her old man, Lulu marries the painter, a marriage facilitated by the enigmatic Dr. Schön, who sees to it that the painter becomes much in demand and earns a fortune. As the painter, tenor Michael Jankowsky sang with an almost Wagnerian heldentenor’s heroic tone, and in his marriage with Lulu he vociferously declared himself to be utterly blissful. However, Dr. Schön takes it upon himself to disillusion the painter by revealing that all the while he, Dr. Schön, has been Lulu’s secret lover. Shattered by this news, the painter stabs himself to death. Lulu has lost a second husband. There now follows a lyrical orchestral interlude.
Soon Dr. Schön is ensconced as Lulu’s protector and lover; but he becomes insanely jealous of the innumerable lovers he imagines Lulu consorting with. In the role of Dr. Schön, veteran bass-baritone Philip Skinner was outstanding. Vocally, he sang robustly, and he fully acted the part of the jealous lover. Among the people he suspects as Lulu’s lovers are the mysterious old man Schigolch, sung by bass Bojan Knežević, and the lesbian Countess Geschwitz, sung by mezzo-soprano Buffy Baggott. When Dr. Schön discovers Alwa, his own son, and Lulu in flagrante delicto, he threatens to shoot Lulu. She wrests the pistol from him and shoots him instead. An intermission ensues.
Part Two begins with an orchestral prelude, here accompanied by video material depicting the arrest, trial and imprisonment of Lulu for the killing of Dr. Schön. The Countess Geschwitz, slavishly devoted to Lulu, visits her in prison, exchanges clothing with her, and takes her place, thus allowing Lulu to escape. Now a fugitive, Lulu returns to Dr. Schön’s residence, is reunited with his son Alwa, on whom she works her wiles. In the role of Alwa, lyric tenor Alexander Boyer sang exultantly of his fatal attraction to Lulu, apostrophizing her body in musical terms as he ran his hands over every inch of her lovely form. Lulu, for her part, just seems to know how to survive by working her wiles on the next man who might protect her. Now she and Alwa decide to flee Germany together.
Arrived in Paris, Lulu and Alwa are indebted to various bankers who have provided them money. They cannot repay their debts, but with the help of the mysterious Schigolch, who has trailed Lulu to Paris, they outrun their creditors. Lulu, Alwa and Schigolch then go to London. Down and out, with no money, Lulu uses the only asset she has – her body -- to earn a few bucks as a streetwalker. One of the johns she picks up happens to be none other than Jack the Ripper, sung by bass-baritone Philip Skinner. She haggles with him over her price, settles for half of what she initially asks, and for her efforts gets strangled to death, bringing Berg’s Lulu to a tragic but fitting end. As a closing remark, I must mention the outstanding staging of this opera by director Elkhanah Pulitzer and the brilliant conducting by Jonathan Khuner. Together with this excellent cast headed by the stunning Emma McNairy, they made Berg’s Lulu come vibrantly alive.
Every year, the Mendocino Music Festival--finishing this weekend its 29th season of a panoply of musical styles, from classical and contemporary orchestral pieces to big band, from jazz vocals and choral groups to international folk and popular music---stages an opera, inviting the public to the afternoon rehearsals leading up to a single evening presentation, this year producing Rossini's comic masterpiece, 'The Barber of Seville,' preceded by a lecture given by stage director and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu, who also sang the title role of the rascally barber Figaro.
Brancoveanu talked about the stylized clowning of the Commedia Dell'Arte, sometimes performed in a tent ... and cast his eyes upward humorously at the big top the Festival stages its evening productions under ...
In addition to his remarks about Commedia--"in English, the Comedy of Craft ... people lying to tell the truth, masked characters unmasking the self"--Brancoveanu mentioned the revolution Rossini effected in opera with his new treatment of vocal ornamentation for Bel Canto. "When someone hears a Rossini opera today, they'll say it's standard repertoire. But in his time, he was the avant-garde, very controversial."
("In Handel's time, ornament took the form mostly of long trills," said Lisa Scola Prosek, opera composer and longtime student of Bel Canto. "Rossini turned it into rapid-fire syllabic articulation, pure vocal and word play. Or taking something simple, saying it 50 times, until it becomes ridiculous. Comic opera after him, like in Gilbert & Sullivan, was just following Rossini's lead.")
Add that to the lazzi--in plain Yiddish, shtick--of the Commedia, and you have what was then a new style of Opera Buffa, like 'The Barber of Seville.'
And in a most refreshing way, the Mendocino Festival production brought it back to popular musical theater, to the delight of the audience.
"You have to be a little crazy to produce a fully-staged opera--and sing the lead!--in ten days," quipped Brancoveanu; the end result had all the insouciance and energy of the farce it's based on, none of the awkwardness of a prematurely staged opera.
The cast played and sang with that sort of sometimes half-careless brilliance that almost seems planned, so much in the spirit of the opera--and Brancoveanu's conception of it--at times they seemed to be rapt.
Shtick sometimes played off breathtaking vocal style and ornament, as in the famous first aria by Figaro--which could and has stood as emblematic of opera itself--with Brancoveanu's vocal and stage presence and clear enjoyment, both in character and himself, asif looking on, of the mischievousness of the impish rogue, barber and procurer, singing so cleverly that it proved a show-stopper, the audience cheering above its own applause.
The next show-stopper came with Rosina's aria, Una voce poco fa, as soprano Nikki Einfeld acted her physical comedy like a bored and love-crazed girl, but sang with a knowing and mature voice, always exciting in passages of high melisma throughout the opera.
As the young and elegant Count Almaviva, tenor Chris Bengochea excelled both in ornamental wordplay and in the sweetness of the love songs, and acted with deft humor, disguised as a drunken soldier seeking to be quartered, or as a conspiratorial music student, in both cases to be near Rosina.
Bass Igor Vieira and Dennis Rupp put in good turns as Doctor Bartolo, Rosina's overly-doting guardian, and Basilio, a clownish clerical music teacher, in cahoots with Bartolo. Vieira--singing and acting brilliantly--played the curmudgeon, knowing everyone's out to get him, quickly switching to falsetto, cruelly mimicking the others; Rupp was broadly and hilariously slapstick in his acting, completely deadpan in facial demeanor and singing--a perfectly gratuitous hypocrite who becomes the butt of the cast's practical jokes..
The minor roles, too, were well-performed. Soprano Adina Dorband as the superannuated old maid governess Berta stirringly rendered il vecchiotto cerca moglie--and baritone James Russell, as the Officer, who doesn't speak or sing (except in the chorus at the end), had the audience in hysterics, as he tried to arrest the music student, who with a gesture proves himself a disguised nobleman--and the whole cast goes frozen in tableau vivant as Russell's features slowly oscillate between pure rubber-faced mugging, as if giving a demonstration of clowning, and wry expressions of fear, disorientation and loathing, as Figaro, the Count and Rosina sing in trio.
The piquant action of the four scenes took place in and around--and underneath and at the windows of--the parlor of Doctor Bartolo's apartment, curtained off in green for the first scene, but with stylized window frames hanging before the curtains. A hand emerges and tosses a rose through one frame, or Rosina's face appears for a second through the curtain, with the Count and Figaro miming looking up from the "street," as they stand on the stage: this was how the opera began, with spare action and sparse population, progressing after the servants drew the curtains to display a rectangular box of a room onstage, which by degrees becomes crowded with characters hiding behind potted plants, secretly watching and listening, or engaging broadly in all manner of slapstick, all on a stage-upon-a-stage with the sense, both enclosed and exposed, of the carnival wagons and festival carts the old comedians did their routines on during the medieval centuries, the Renaissance and on through the Baroque, well into modern times.
The four scenes ran a gamut of comic--and, yes, serious, even sentimental--emotions, well-rendered by the Festival Orchestra under the baton of Festival co-founder and artistic director Allan Pollack, buoying up the singing and occasionally soaring above it, but not drowning its articulation.
--One of the rarer of Shakespearean plays is in its last weekend: 'The Tragedy Cymbeline, King of Britain,' produced as early as 1611, is onstage for four more shows--two on Sunday--outdoors under the stars (and a Sunday matinee) at Forest Meadows Amphitheater, Dominican University in San Rafael, the home of Marin Shakespeare, whose artistic director Robert Currier directs a cast featuring Paul Abbott as in the title role.
With all the trimmings--a secret wedding, a young woman disguised as a man, a young hero visited by the ghost of his father--'Cymbeline' sounds at times like a compendium, too, of The Bard's plays of various genres, tragic, comic, romantic ... Indeed, academics have long argued over whether it's a Tragedy, as titled, or a Romance, like The Winter's Tale, which it in some ways resembles.
The story was freely adapted from Holinshed and Geoffrey of Monmouth--part of the Matter of Britain, whence came Arthurian Romance--about an ancient Celtic ruler, Cunebeline--in Welsh, maybe more like Cymbelyn with a hard "c," so yet another piece of evidence pointing to The Bard's elusive "Welsh connection," which (among others) American kabuki specialist (and Scriabin biographer) Faubion Bowers was investigating when he died a decade ago.
In any case, it's a satisfying story and spectacle, definitely one of a piece with Shakespeare's Canon--and rarely staged.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p. m. with a Sunday matinee at 4, Marin Shakespeare at Forest Meadows Amphitheater, parking at the Conlan Recreational Center, 1475 Grand Avenue (at Acacia Avenue), Dominican University, a half mile north of central San Rafael. $10-$35. marinshakespeare.org
--And for something onstage, less Bardic, more up-to-date verbally, David Mamet's masterpiece, 'Glengarry Glen Ross'--produced around the Bay a few times lately--is onstage through the end of August right now with an unusual credit: its director, Sasha Litovchenko.
Litovchenko was trained in Russian theater (the point of origin of the Method, which Mamet's plays are often thought to be the present day exemplar of--as well as unusual forms of stylized art) in Kiev, became associated with filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov ('Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,' 'The Color of Pomegranates [Sayat Nova]') and is co-founder of Creative Association ARK in San Francisco, where he produces, directs and acts in both Russian and English-language shows.
'Glengarry Glen Ross,' Thursdays through Saturdays at 8, Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter (between Powell and Mason), downtown San Francisco. $25-$50 (discounts available) sheltontheater.org/
Woody Allen's Irrational Man is a mildly amusing film (arguably without a single major laugh line) that revisits the director's familiar neurotic landscapes through the filter of Abe Lucas, a depressed, alcoholic philosophy professor. Once a famous author (and equally famous as a womanizer), Abe is now reduced to bouncing between jobs at second-tier universities. In the first scene, he's barreling down a narrow country road to the music of "The In Crowd" with one hand on the wheel and the other hand on a whiskey flask. (Here's an odd take-away from the film: Have you ever noticed how "The In Crowd" resembles the gospel standard, "Wade in the Water"?)
In his first meeting with the administrators at a leafy northeastern college, Abe (mumbled to perfection by Joaquin Phoenix in his patented meta-Brando mode) can barely offer one-word grunts to the effusing academics eager to sing his praises. But, although he's ill at ease and monosyllabic in social settings, when he's in the classroom, he is in his element—discussing and dissing existentialism with an ease and panache that leaves his young students spellbound.
Abe is unusual character. On one hand he is presented as a world-weary professor and, at the same time, a disillusioned social activist who has reportedly spent time trying to save the world's poor in foreign lands and also toke time to comfort the victims of Hurricane Rita in the waterlogged precincts of New Orleans.
It's not enough that Abe can find no comfort in Heidegger or Kant, his social activism has also convinced him that engaging in small acts of altruism to solve big problems is also a useless waste of time. Existence in empty; life is meaningless; Woody Allen is in the house.
Fortunately, as the script would have it, one of Abe's students is Jill (Emma Stone), who (according to Abe) displays a keen aptitude for advanced philosophical rumination.
At first blush, it's hard to see what attracts Jill to this wasted, potbellied woe-meister. She tells her family and boyfriend that she finds Abe irresistible because he is "brilliant" and "in need." But even when Abe warms up and mellows out, it may be hard for some viewers to imaging these two actors as real-world lovers.
One day, Abe and Jill chance to overhear a conversation in a café that triggers the rebirth of Abe's optimism and vitality. If it is futile to undertake small acts in hopes of solving large problems, Abe reasons, maybe it is possible to solve a small problem by staging a big act.
Later in the film, there is a stand-out dinner table scene where everyone offers a theory to explain a mysterious death—and the audience enjoys a special "seat at the table" because we know "who did it."
Irrational Man takes a surprising turn by exploring the moral limits of intervention. Can a criminal act be excused if it alleviates the suffering of a poor, unjustly mistreated soul? For most of this debate, Allen allows the audience to champion this radical assumption. But, in the end, all is not well as the escalation eventually leads to a mortal face-off at an elevator.
In many of Allen's films much of the humor comes from the audience laughing at the self-importance of the characters on the screen. There is more sympathy for the characters in this film—and, consequently, less opportunity for belly laughs at the expense of intellectual pretenders and blowhards.
To be sure, there are some Allenesque moments near the end when Phoenix and Stone lapse into familiar spasms of mutual sputtering, stuttering incoherence, waving their hands and clutching their heads in helpless frustration. You can hear Woody's voice and see his familiar body language in every gesture.
In this end, Irrational Man's impact is somewhat compromised by a "writer's stretch." When a story is told in parallel voiceovers, this usually works because it is assumed both parties are offering their competing narratives in the form of a recollection—dictating their stories after-the-fact. In the case of Irrational Man, however, in order for the two narratives to work, they would have to have been caught on-the-fly and archived in The Cloud.
I can't say more without risking a Spoiler but, if you see the film, you'll see what I mean.
