A 2.5-magnitude earthquake was reported this morning in Berkeley, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 

The quake was reported at 7:42 a.m. and had a depth of 3.7 miles, USGS officials said. 

The quake was centered just west of the University of California at Berkeley Clark Kerr Campus, according to the USGS. 

 

Characterizing the landlord’s eviction notice as a “transparent attempt to circumvent the provisions of local rent control” protections, the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District upheld a ruling by the Berkeley Rent Board and the Superior Court (Alameda County Case No. RG 13702962) that a landlord who makes a “false representation that [he] intend[s] to occupy the premises” cannot then “re-rent the premises at a higher rental rate than could have been charged to the former tenant.” The case (A 143671) has been certified for publication – http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A143671.PDF 

After serving his long-term tenant an eviction notice stating that he would move into the rental unit and after the tenant agreed to move out, the landlord “withdrew” the notice and did not move in. Instead, he re-rented the unit for more than twice what the evicted tenant was paying. Berkeley Rent Board Regulation 1016 explicitly prohibits such rent increases. 

The court upheld the Berkeley Rent Board’s regulation, calling it “a reasonable means of discouraging a landlord from evicting a tenant based on the false representation.” Rent Board chief staff attorney, Matt Brown, called the victory “important affirmation by the court that landlords must operate within the regulatory structure set forth by Berkeley voters. Without Regulation 1016, landlords like this could displace tenants without good cause and contrary to the established protection of state and local law. Skyrocketing rents give landlords increased incentive to displace long-term tenants and then charge new tenants significantly higher rents.” 

According to state law, when a tenant “voluntarily vacates” a rent controlled apartment, the landlord is entitled to raise the rent to whatever the market will bear. Additionally, when a landlord serves a no-fault eviction notice, such as a notice that the landlord intends to move into the property, the tenant has no choice but to move out or face a lawsuit. The court ruled that when a landlord uses an eviction notice as “negotiating leverage” to secure an agreement that the tenant would “voluntarily vacate” the unit, the tenant did not actually vacate voluntarily. 

Calling the landord’s approach a “bad faith assertion” that constituted “subterfuge”, the court ruled that the Berkeley Rent Board “can create an administrative deterrent to discourage landlords from serving less than good faith owner move-in notices.” The court also reasoned that “[m]aintaining the rent level of the former tenant is a rational and proportional deterrent to the use of such an artifice in the future.” 

Rent Board Executive Director, Jay Kelekian, was pleased with the ruling. “A woman who made this apartment her home for 28 years was forced to move without good cause. The landlord never intended to move in but instead claimed his constitutional right to occupy the unit as cover for his true motivation – significant financial gain. In the current rental market, long-term tenants are ever more vulnerable to this kind of subterfuge. The court has sent a clear message that Regulation 1016 is not only legal but a necessary tool to prevent landlords from engaging in this behavior. This is a significant victory for rent control and underscores the need to protect the ever diminishing supply of affordable housing,” he said, “as well as a victory for local control at a time when gentrification purges valued members of our community.”

A Berkeley water main broke this morning, shutting off water in a residential neighborhood, according to the East Bay Municipal Utility District. 

Shortly after 8 a.m., EBMUD crews responded to reports of a broken water main located on Seventh Street near Virginia Street in Berkeley.  

EBMUD spokeswoman Abby Figueroa said 15 homes had lost access to water service due to the main break. 

Seventh Street is currently closed from Delaware Street to Virginia Street as EBMUD crews repair the pipe, Figueroa said. 

According to Figueroa, the cause of the main break is a combination of the pipe's age, corrosion, seismic activity and surrounding soil conditions. 

EBMUD officials expect the water main to be repaired by this afternoon.  

"These types of repairs usually take about eight hours unless crews find the pipe in worse condition," Figueroa said.

Transit agencies are pitching in get people between the East Bay and San Francisco this weekend as BART's Transbay Tube closes for three days.

San Francisco Municipal Railway, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, San Mateo County Transit District and Golden Gate Transit will team up to provide 77 buses to take people across the Bay, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said. 

Buses will leave every minute from BART's 19th Street station in Oakland to San Francisco's Transbay Terminal during most of the day and less frequently later in the day, Trost said. 

Trost said the buses will run from 8 a.m. to midnight Sunday and Monday. Saturday service will start at 6 a.m. and last until 1 a.m. to serve people leaving the Billy Joel concert at AT&T Park in San Francisco, she said. 

The buses hold about 90 people and drivers will be leaving even if the bus is not full, Trost added. 

"There's really no wait for the bus," she said. 

The trip across the Bay takes about 20 minutes under normal traffic conditions, she said. 

Service is also doubling this weekend on the San Francisco Bay Ferry between Alameda, Oakland and San Francisco, Water Emergency Transportation Authority officials said. One additional ferry is also being added each day to the Vallejo/San Francisco route. 

WETA officials are suggesting riders arrive early and have a backup plan because they don't know how many people will be using the ferries. 

Regular BART train service will resume for the Tuesday morning commute.

A person was shot multiple times Saturday evening at the Rockridge BART station in Oakland, BART police said.  

Police received several 911 calls at about 6:30 p.m. to report shots fired at the station, Lt. Michael Hayes said.  

Oakland and BART police officers found evidence of gunshots and learned that the suspects fled into the surrounding neighborhood, he said.  

Officers set up a perimeter around the area and detained one suspect who was interviewed by detectives, Hayes said. 

Police found the victim inside a vehicle on a nearby city street, he said. The victim had injuries not considered life-threatening, he said.

One of my minor obsessions is European royalty, the British monarchy being the one about which I know the most. For this reason, ever since Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, I’ve been idly wondering when, exactly, Elizabeth would pass her great-great-grandmother Victoria’s length of reign. The answer—as the whole world now surely knows—is this Wednesday, September 9^th, on which day Elizabeth will become the longest reigning monarch in all of English history, which, if one counts in the Anglo-Saxons, and the Celts before them, disappears eventually into the misty reaches of the long ago legendary past. (William of Normandy, the conqueror of 1066, is the first king we know of who reigned over a unified island—Scotland and Wales of course, excepted.) 

The Daily Mail online, in honor of Elizabeth’s achievement, on Sunday posted pictures from each year of her reign, some of which are more interesting than others. The one that really caught my attention, though, was a picture of the queen smiling with unusually genuine feeling just after the quiet wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles. It was accompanied by a comment that was also unusually fervent and earthy from a woman who takes extraordinary care to be bland in public utterances. “My son,” the queen said, “is home and dry with the woman he loves.” 

These words opened for me a window into the misery she must have felt during the 15 years of Charles and Diana’s very publicly horrific marriage. (It also helps, perhaps, to explain why Elizabeth failed at first to catch the depth of public grief at Diana’s death—a failure which some believe put the monarchy at risk.) 

I see Diana as a sacrificial figure, the last woman in European royal history to be wed for reasons of state. Remember that she was a Spencer, from “one of Britain’s preeminent aristocratic families” (Wikipedia). As the late Alexander Cockburn liked to point out—he hated the entire Windsor clan and was an open Diana partisan—her ancestor was one of those who, passing over numerous closer, but Catholic, claimants, invited Charles’s ancestor, the non-English-speaking but Protestant George of Hanover, to come rule in England after Queen Anne died without heir (1714). 

Apparently it was on her honeymoon that Diana learned she had been selected to carry on the role of dynastic wives throughout history, that is, to produce an heir and a spare and accept that she would be seeing very little of her husband, who was in love with someone else. We all know how this turned out. 

We also know—at least those of us who have ever seen the cover of a celebrity magazine while waiting in the supermarket line—that Diana’s son Prince William married Kate Middleton, whose great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side was a coal miner. What may be less well know is that virtually all the members of Europe’s remaining royal houses of William’s generation, and even some who are older, are married to commoners. 

Prince Albert of Monaco, for example, (himself the son of American Grace Kelly) sired two illegitimate children (a highly traditional behavior) before (untraditionally) marrying in his fifties a 20-years-younger South African, a former Olympic swimmer, who swiftly produced twins, thus doubly settling any issues of legitimate succession. 

King Felipe VI of Spain is married to a former television news anchor (and divorcée). Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, is married to an Australian he met in Sydney while attending the Olympics in 2000. Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway, is married to a woman he met at a rock festival. She was, when they met, the single mother of a child whose father had been convicted of drug-related offenses. Although adopted by Haakon, her son cannot inherit the throne. 

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden is himself married to a commoner and so are all three of their children. Crown Princess Victoria married her personal trainer (the entrepreneurial founder of a chain of health clubs). Prince Carl Philip married his long-time girlfriend, a model, in June. The most interesting case, though, is that of Princess Madeleine. She is married to a British-American businessman who rejects the entire royalty thing. Since he refused a title, the couple is referred to as Princess Madeleine and Mr. Christopher O’Neill. They have recently relocated to London since, as O’Neill told an interviewer, he is the family breadwinner and he wants to sit down to dinner with his wife and children, not live in hotel rooms. 

I feel very much that it was Diana’s openly miserable marriage—and perhaps even more her horrifying death in the post-divorce company of the totally unsuitable Dodi Fayed—that gave impetus to this extraordinary change: royalty marrying for love without respect to bloodlines. Certainly Queen Elizabeth’s words about “home” and “dry” and “woman he loves” (echoing her uncle’s speech of abdication) implies a conviction that marrying a commoner for love—even a divorced commoner—may well prove to be a better option than marrying an aristocrat for other reasons. When we remember that once upon a time Elizabeth refused her own sister permission to marry the—divorced—commoner her heart desired (another reason why Cockburn hated the queen), we can see that a huge attitudinal shift took place in the half-century between 1953 and 2005. 

There was a time in European history—not all that long ago—when even aristocrats would not do. Royalty married only royalty. On the eve of the First World War, the English king, the Russian tsar, and the German kaiser were all first cousins, grandchildren of Queen Victoria. The tsar and kaiser addressed each other fondly as Willy and Nicky, and King Edward VII and Tsar Nicholas II looked so alike that it’s hard to tell them apart in photographs. 

In that sense World War I was the last feudal war of Europe, a quarrel amongst hopelessly intermarried families. But the scale of death, the industrial killing process with tens of thousands of men dying in a single day for no discernible advantage, put paid to that romantic state of affairs forever. Unfortuately, it was war that continued unabated and became (and becomes) ever more technological and deadly; it was the marriages of cousins that ended. 

One last story of what serious havoc royal love can cause. For whatever his reasons, Crown Prince Rudolph, heir to the Habsburg throne (Austro-Hungarian Empire)—unhappily married, but with a mistress—convinced the impressionable teenager, Baroness Mary Vetsera, with whom he was also having an affair, that it would be glorious to join together forever in death. On January 30, 1889, at his hunting lodge in Mayerling, he killed her and himself by gunshot. 

As a result, Emperor Franz Joseph’s nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, eventually became heir apparent. The two men hated each other for many reasons but the major point of contention was Franz Ferdinand’s marriage. Over the emperor’s ferocious objections, he insisted on marrying the woman he passionately loved, the Hungarian countess, Sophie Chotek. 

The Habsburg court was the most Catholic, reactionary, hidebound, protocol-ridden court in all of Europe—and Sophie was not royal. Although the marriage was finally begrudgingly permitted, it was morganatic, and Sophie, due to her lowly rank, was forbidden to participate with her husband in any royal duties or pleasures. She could not enter a room with him, nor stand in a receiving line, nor attend state dinners. She was not allowed to ride in the royal carriage or sit in the royal box at the theater, und so weiter. 

Needless to say, Franz Ferdinand stayed away from Vienna as much as possible, preferring domestic life at his country estate. Nevertheless, the desire to have Sophie by his side as the recognized and admired consort of the future emperor must have been strong indeed. I can think of no other reason why, when Franz Ferdinand in 1914 was due to visit Bosnia-Herzogovina for his annual inspection of the Austrian troops stationed in that restless province, he went out of his way to convince his uncle to let him add on an official visit to Sarajevo—with Sophie. Everyone knew the city was riddled with irredentist Serb assassins and, thus, highly dangerous for Austrian officialdom. 

But there, on the far fringes of the empire, where protocol did not quite reach, Franz Ferdinand’s beloved Sophie could put on a pretty dress and a big hat and for one day ride in an open car next to her husband, waving to those who had come to see them as royalty does and should. If you go online, you can find a photo of the couple, seated side by side, smiling, on the day of their deaths. Franz Ferdinand’s last words were, “Soph! Soph! You must live for the sake of the children.” 

The consequences of World War I are almost incalculable: the collapse of three empires and the remaking of Europe’s map, the Russian revolution, the Versaille treaty and German reparations, the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the greedy and heedless carving up of its former territories, the rise of the Axis Powers and World War II, the worldwide post-war anti-colonial struggles, the Cold War and the bomb, the age of U.S. dominance and neo-colonialism. What Gavrilo Princip’s act set in train has by no means come to an end. 

Many historians believe that, given the rigid alliances and mutual suspicions of pre-1914, the war was inevitable and would have been triggered, if not by the assassination, then by something else, but Christopher Clark in his (enormous and exhaustive) book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 argues no. It always seems rational, he says, after the fact, to believe that what happened could not have been otherwise, but while it is happening, history is always contingent. There are always other choices at the moment of choosing and other choices lead to different results. 

As a general rule, I do not care for counter-factual narratives, but I feel I can state with complete certainty that if Franz Ferdinand had not been in Sarajevo on June 28^th, 1914, he would not have been killed there—and at the very least that would not have been the day on which the horrific history of the 20^th- and (so far) 21^st-centuries was given the push which started it rolling. Perhaps Clark is right and a different incident somewhere else, on a different day, with other people in other offices responding, would have led to an entirely different future. That we will never know. But as far as I’m concerned, the true beginning of this story, the one that happened, wasn’t that summer day in Sarajevo. It was fourteen years earlier nearly to the day: July 1^st, 1900, when a royal heir, his entire family conspicuously not in attendance, despite them all married the woman he loved. 

Labor Day weekend used to be about more than backyard barbecues and mall sales—and in some places it still might be. Seems to me there used to be an Alameda County Labor Day picnic. A quick Google produced no evidence for 2015, though there was one in 2014—but I might just have missed the notice.

Labor, in this context, has always meant union labor, but the percentage of workers represented by unions continues to shrink. In January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the 2014 union membership rate nationwide—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—was 11.1%, down 0.2 percentage point from 2013. And this doesn’t even take into account all those people who wish they had jobs, but can’t find them. The latest figures seem to say that unemployment is dropping, the lowest it’s been since 2008 at 5.1%, but job growth—the number of new jobs created—was a good deal slower than the gurus thought it should be.

Labor Day picnics I have known in the past, both here and in Michigan, were an opportunity for Democratic primary candidates to show their chops and press the flesh with union members, but these days money seems to speak louder than glad-handing at picnics. Candidates of both parties, however, continue to promise Jobs, Jobs, Jobs—but what exactly does that mean? 

The ordinary meaning of a job, the one candidates and economists reference, is work done in exchange for money, and customarily it’s regular work, not just a one-time thing. There’s a lawsuit right now over whether Uber drivers have a real job or not, whether they’re employees. People who don’t have “real jobs” are called in legal jargon “independent contractors”—and dispute over exactly what these terms mean provides steady jobs for labor lawyers (who are not usually union members). 

Here in the Bay Area there’s a lot of discussion about the job-housing balance. The technical corporations which originally proliferated in the area around Stanford, once called the Santa Clara Valley but now re-dubbed Silicon Valley, are starting to gravitate toward the sexier city of San Francisco, and their highly skilled workers (mostly non-union) are moving to The City even faster than their employers. The result is that places to live in the city and its environs, for what used to be called working people or perhaps the lower middle class in our supposedly classless society, are increasingly scarce. Even the middle and upper-middle classes are feeling pinched. 

But at the same time politicians continue to promise to bring more jobs into an already crowded Bay Area. Workers qualified for the booming technical economy are doing fine and are able to pay top dollar for housing, but those who lack the skills needed for high-tech jobs are not. 

What should such people do to make a living? 

In 1928 famed economist John Maynard Keynes suggested that a hundred years later technical progress would make it possible for most people to work much less, since what needed to be done would be done with many fewer workers aided by technological progress. Sadly, however, our society doesn’t seem to be on the road to recognizing or appreciating that this might be possible. 

The standard solution, espoused sometimes even by progressive gurus like Paul Krugman, is that we should create more jobs by building more stuff. But on a planet threatened by climate change, this is often a really bad idea. 

Building stuff just to create jobs, especially when built out of steel and concrete, is adding a huge amount to the world’s carbon footprint. And it’s not just in China’s ghost cities, those immense new towns with no inhabitants. 

In the already-developed world international flight capital is spearheading the construction of enormous and unneeded luxury buildings in all major cities. But the reasonable scale buildings needed for affordable housing go unbuilt and the existing viable housing stock and the built infrastructure are allowed to rot. 

Even in Berkeley, progressive Berkeley. On Thursday the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board will spend a scant hour considering whether or not an 18-story project which promises to create 250 to 300 union construction jobs for the two and a half year period the project is under construction would be a significant community benefit or a grievous error which would add significantly to global warming. 

The last Berkeley ZAB meeting on this project was attended by a delegation of five or six burly men whose tee-shirts proclaimed that they were members of the Ironworkers’ Union. Their spokesperson, a statuesque African-American woman with a resonant voice and a lot of personal magnetism, spoke of her union’s fervent support for the project in question, and it’s not hard to understand why they’d want it to be approved. 

But is it really a good idea to build an environmentally costly building which will consume copious amounts of energy-intensive concrete, steel and water in order to provide jobs for a relatively small number of construction workers for a relatively short period? 

Is building an unneeded luxury apartment complex a significant benefit for the community as a whole, or just for a couple of hundred well-paid union workers for a couple of years? Especially in a city where our civic built environment (e.g. the Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall, Willard Pool, the Berkeley Rose Garden etc. etc.) is drastically in need of work? 

I’m aware that ironworkers have not been trained to restore existing structures, which is why they want to promote construction of new steel-frame projects. They could be retrained, however, to do more sustainable and more needed construction jobs in areas like restoration and solar retrofitting. 

And here’s a really radical idea. Maybe it’s time to start moving the construction industry in the direction Keynes envisioned. Maybe we should think a whole lot harder about making it possible for people to make a decent living while working less. And without accelerating global warming to boot. 

I’ve seen two unions, the ILWU (longshoremen) and the ITU (typographers), work out reasonable accommodations to technological change that protected their members. It can be done. 

In Sunday’s S.F. Chronicle, Berkeley economist Robert Reich riffed on Keynes’ theory. He mused on a few ways under the current capitalist system that would make it possible to pay people more for working less. Read it and think about it. 

Is it possible that Professor Reich could be persuaded to attend Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board study session on Thursday to join in the discussion about how ironworkers and other construction unions could make a decent living without building environmentally destructive projects that we don’t need? 

If you know him, you might ask him to come. It’s at the (disintegrating) Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall on Thursday at 6. 

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P.S. at 10 a.m. on Sept.7, thanks to Igor Tregub for forwarding: 

From the desk of Josie Camacho Executive Secretary-Treasurer [Alameda County Labor Council] 

Please join us at the Labor Day Picnic! 

Monday September 7th 2015
Alameda Point, 11:30am-4:30pm 2700 Saratoga Street Alameda 

FREE ADMISSION, FOOD, AND FUN FOR MEMBERS
AND THEIR FAMILIES! BRING BLANKETS, CHAIRS AND OTHER PICNIC ITEMS! 

DIRECTIONS:
1) 880 NORTH, TO BROADWAY TO WEBSTER STREET TUBE.
2)MAKE A RIGHT ON ATLANTIC
3)MAKE A RIGHT ON MAIN
4)MAKE A LEFT ON NAVY (GUARD SHACK) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proposed 2211 Harold Way project needs revisiting (DAILY CAL)

Berkeley's 2010 Measure R calls for meeting "Berkeley's climate action goals by concentrating housing, jobs and cultural destinations near transit, shops, and amenities, preserving historic resources, enhancing open space, promoting green buildings; and allowing for 2 residential buildings and 1 hotel no higher than our existing 180 foot [sic] buildings."

The 2211 Harold Way project fails to meet several of the Measure R requirements. It is at least ten feet taller than our existing tall buildings. It endangers a landmarked historic resource. Demolition of the very successful cultural destination the Shattuck Cinemas is a huge detriment that would not be successfully mitigated by the developer's new proposal to include ten screening rooms in the project.

The Berkeley Downtown Area Plan requires that taller exceptions to height limits must contribute significant community benefits.

The mitigation of an extreme detriment, demolition of Berkeley's highly-valued cultural and economic resource the Shattuck Cinemas, and its inadequate replacement cannot be claimed as a Significant Community Benefit. 

First, it is quite likely that a rigorous geological assessment of this landmarked block, which should be protected from inappropriate development, will not allow for building beneath the Shattuck Hotel. This is Strawberry Creek floodplain, likely susceptible to liquifaction during an earthquake and unsuitable for the 194-foot proposed building, let alone excavation beneath the foundation and basement of the landmarked hotel. This is no way to preserve a historic resource. 

Second, to demolish and replace the existing ten street level theaters—enhanced by hand-painted interiors to recall the ornate Egyptian and middle-eastern decor of 1920s movie palaces—with screening rooms some of which are deep underground is not even an adequate mitigation of detriment and certainly not a new community benefit. 

Third, there is no effort to mitigate the loss of this cultural destination during the years of construction of the project: the developer has failed to provide a temporary space for the ten-screen cinemas during the construction period, putting out of work 26 employees and depriving the several hundred thousand people who attend the Shattuck Cinemas every year of this significant cultural resource for the three-year construction period, with no guarantee of new theaters unless a geologist's assessment finds the site suitable for deep excavation. 

As my previous comment documented, our existing tall buildings are ten feet or more shorter than 180 feet, so the error in the Measure R language needs correction before this or any other project that requires a zoning exception is approved by the city. 

It is incredible that the developer Joseph Penner and consultant Mark Rhoades have the audacity to propose, after hearing the outrage of many Berkeleyans and the East Bay community over their plan to demolish the Cinemas, that including ten screening rooms in their huge development project should be their major Significant Community Benefit. 

They are required by Berkeley's Measure R to provide the city with a previously lacking benefit, not to destroy a cultural and economic benefit and then claim its utterly inadequate restoration as a benefit. This is absurd and it fails to respect the clear intent of the requirement. Devised as a reaction to the hostility to this project on the part of many of the several hundred thousand annual attendees of the theaters, it exposes the failure of the developer and Mr. Rhoades to address the intent of Measure R's requirement. Hoping to kill two birds with one stone, they have put forth this mitigation and want it to be accepted as a significant benefit.  

A serious proposal for a significant community benefit might be restoration of Old City Hall or the Veterans Building and its fine auditorium. Or the repair of Berkeley's now-closed pier. Or a berm to protect Aquatic Park from the noise and pollution of the freeway. Or establishing a low-interest revolving fund to put solar panels on homes and schools in Berkeley. But demolishing our theaters and then claiming inclusion of theater spaces in this totally ill-sited project as a significant community benefit is an insult to the community.

If you haven’t taken a walk around downtown Berkeley and neighborhoods in the last few weeks, please do so as soon as possible. The drought is taking a toll on our mature trees and young trees too. While we work hard to decrease our water usage and stop watering, the fallout is dying mature trees and the number is rapidly increasing. The impact can easily be seen on McKinley behind the Police Station at 2100 Martin Luther King Jr Way and along many streets and even on UC Berkeley Campus. If you are one of the conscientious citizens conserving water, you may have drought stressed trees and dying trees in your own yard and/or neighborhood.

This situation brings us to rain water capture, gray water reuse. The climate scientists tell us we can expect perpetual drought with an occasional wet year. Climate change with increasing temperatures is accelerating and it is critical that rainwater capture and gray water reuse is included in all new construction from first design and not an inadequate gesture as an after thought from public pressure.

Two large buildings under review have the potential for significant rainwater capture should those desired rains ever come. The Center Street Garage in a normal rain year would have over 500,000 gallons of rainwater for potential capture. 2211 Harold Way would have over 400,000 gallons of rainwater for potential capture. 100% rainwater capture is not realistic, but certainly the proposed 7500 gallon cistern at the Center Street Garage and promised 20,000 gallon cistern at 2211 Harold Way are wholly inadequate. 

Capturing rainwater is not only a smart response to drought, it also reduces the load on the fragile sewer system which is already noted as inadequate with problems popping up at BHS (Berkeley High School) and Shattuck Hotel. The EBMUD letter in the 2211 Harold Way FEIR (Final Environmental Impact Report) on pages 31-34 coupled with the BUSD (Berkeley Unified School District) and BHS responses to the FEIR noting back up of sewage on the athletic field puts warnings in writing. Connecting an 8” lateral from the proposed 2211 Harold Way project to a 12” main doesn’t solve the sewer problem. It just means that all the sewage from the expected Harold Way occupants estimated to be somewhere between 500 (developer) and 1200 (community experience of packing students in to meet the market rate-luxury pricing) will get all building sewage into the overstressed sewer system. 

On Friday, August 28 as the 2211 Harold Way site tour sponsored by Save Shattuck Cinemas rounded the corner onto Allston Way, they were met with the unpleasant sewage smell and a construction hole in search of the broken sewer pipe. It is apparently fixed now, but it is yet another warning that infrastructure needs fixing before more stress is added. 

The much enjoyed book fair over the summer received support from City Council for a repeat next year. Why aren’t we planning multiple fairs for the community on rainwater capture, gray water reuse and renewable energy? Citizens could benefit in learning how to update their existing homes and it looks like the developers, architects, builders and contractors need this even more than the public. Conservation and renewable energy is not just the right thing to do, it is sound economics for the future. And, of course, we need to make sure our infrastructure is in order, before we add more stress

Author's Note: This op-ed was written (struggled over) for a couple of weeks before today’s (Wednesday, September 02, 2015) announcement that Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), will support the Iran agreement, insuring that it will be veto-proof in the Senate and thus implemented. As I have here argued, I believe the president’s victory has major implications for U.S.-Israel relations and for Israel’s American Jewish supporters.

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On the U.S. left, there has long been a “which is the dog/which the tail?” argument with regard to our government and the state of Israel. Is the Israel lobby so powerful that it controls the foreign policy of the World’s Only Superpower? Did we actually go to war in Iraq because it was good for Israel? Or—as Noam Chomsky, for example, has long argued—is Israel’s power merely apparent because Israel serves U.S. interests and will therefore evaporate the moment Israel shifts from the asset to the problem category?

 

Upcoming soon is an event which should finally resolve this question: the congressional vote on the Iran nuclear agreement. It’s hard to imagine a starker test. The Obama administration negotiated long and hard to reach the agreement and backs it fully for rational geopolitical reasons. The four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—China, Russia, the U.K., and France—are signatories, as are Germany and the European Union. And every country in the world which has stated an opinion has expressed approval—except Israel and North Korea. Finally, many U.S. companies are eagerly anticipating the lifting of sanctions and the chance to enter a large, wealthy market which has been closed for so long. 

This time it absolutely is the entire world—including the U.S. corporate lobby, which usually gets what it wants—versus a tiny country half a planet away. That the outcome is not only still far from clear but that it is even in doubt is already a testament to Israel’s amazing power. 

How is that power exercised? Let’s look at a simple but all-important fact. Of the world’s roughly 13 million Jews, about 45% reside in Israel and 45% in the United States. 

Two different countries, two different everything. But due to a relentless propaganda campaign, the Jews of the United States (at least those who are paying any attention to it) are convinced of two things. First, that all Jews, taken together, constitute “a people.” And second, that Israel is their state, the “state of the Jewish people.” 

Consider this sentence from the handbook accompanying the Shalom Hartman Institute’s nine-week lecture series Engaging Israel: Foundations for a New Relationship. “Israel cannot be the project of Israelis alone, with the rest of world Jewry acting as spectators. The new covenant must grant world Jewry the rights and responsibilities that come with being a partner in building and shaping the future of Israel.” 

Since non-citizens lack actual “rights” and “responsibilities,” this is code for: (1) send us money and (2) do our political work for us in your country because we’re a foreign government and are therefore not allowed to. 

American Jews can, by the way, carry out the latter function because in a process of massive circularity, both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, despite their fervent desire to compel AIPAC (and its forerunner, the American Zionist Council) to register as agents of a foreign government, were prevented from doing so by the American Jewish lobby. 

Thus Israel has the perfect set-up: a powerful agent legally and openly operating in the U.S. which can directly lobby; indirectly give and withhold cash as needed; and pass on instructions to thousands of brain-washed workers who, despite being American citizens, believe that Israel is in some way “their state” from which it is perfectly kosher (if you will forgive the expression) to take marching orders. 

This is not hypothetical nor do I exaggerate. On August 4^th, for example, Benjamin Netanyahu—a man without limits and without shame—under the auspices of the Jewish Federations and the member organizations of the Congress of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations (I name these two in full because they are the major conduits for passing on directions to the cadres) directly addressed 10,000 Americans (presumably most of them Jewish) via conference call and webcam. “The days when the Jewish people could not or would not speak up for themselves, those days are over,” he exhorted. “Today we can speak out. Today we must speak out.” 

He meant of course, get out there and prevent the Iran deal. 

Nor was his directive without results. For example, on a pro-Israel website (American Thinker), a blogger boasts that “four to five volunteers from around the country in less than a week” persuaded 190 retired generals and admirals to sign a letter urging Congress to vote no. The most successful of these volunteers, “a woman named Marsha Halteman from New Orleans,” in 2014 received the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) for her fund-raising on behalf of military personnel and their families. She is the former director of programs for JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a Washington-based outfit which primarily treats American military officers and law-enforcement executives to all-expense-paid trips to and training sessions in Israel. 

The retired military count on Obama’s side, by the way, is 36. The implication, sadly, is that certain Jewish Americans, working at the behest of and on behalf of a foreign country, have managed to foster closer, friendlier relations with America’s top brass—the kind of relations on the basis of which a favor can be elicited by a mere phone call—than has the president of the United States. 

It might be hard to believe that the prime minister of any country has the chutzpah (if you will forgive the expression) to directly address citizens of another country urging them to pressure their own government on behalf of his government’s desires. And this in the name of some mystical connectedness that appears to transcend every legal and political category. And yet this is the way Zionism has always operated since the days when Theodor Herzl raced from sultan to tzar to kaiser to pope seeking sponsorship for his project, while operatives rabble-roused the impoverished Jewish immigrants of London’s East End. Israel would never have come into existence without the lobbying efforts of Jewish citizens of potential sponsor countries, mainly in Britain and the U.S., and the Zionists did not give up what works in 1948 simply because they had successfully created a new nation. Their needs grew even greater, and “the Diaspora” remains an apparently inexhaustible resource on which to draw. 

The great question now is how long can this state of affairs continue? How long are other nations—the U.S. in particular—going to allow it? And my tentative answer is…not forever. Even, possibly, not a great deal longer. And that is because for the past fifty years U.S. and Israeli objectives have—usually—been aligned and Israel has—mostly—proved so useful that its drawbacks could—in the main—be ignored. 

But the times are changing. (1) With the end of the two-state solution, Israel is now officially apartheid and this makes Western governments deeply uncomfortable. (2) The boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign is proving to have broad popular appeal, and international grassroots pressure is building with increasingly significant results. (3) In light of (1) and (2) above, Israel is rapidly tossing aside all attempts to present itself in appealing ways, shifting instead to the “why bother, they’re all anti-Semitic” approach (see, for example, the recent appointment of Danny Danon—variously described as ultra rightwing and “a thug”—as Israel’s ambassador to the U.N.: not your diplomat’s diplomat). Finally, and perhaps most important, (4) under current conditions Israel can no longer fill its longstanding role as cop on the Middle East beat: it is now just one of the countless warring parties, each with its own agenda. All of this together implies that the potentially fatal slippage from asset to liability may already be well underway. 

Note that Israel’s “mowing the grass” operations, such as last year’s attack on Gaza; and its settlement operations, such as the planned bulldozing of the tiny hamlet of Susya, now on hold; and its pogrom operations, like the house arson which in July killed a Palestinian two-year-old and his father, are suddenly attracting a kind of international attention—and even official protest—such as they have never received in the past. 

Note too that Israel’s current meddling has already had significant consequences within the American political system. For example, after 60 years of carefully building bipartisan support, AIPAC is now overtly aligned with the Republican Party—mostly through the largesse of one very rich Jew, Sheldon Adelson. Israel’s current ambassador to the U.S., the American-born (and only recently Israeli) Ron Dermer, is a former Republican party operative, a protégé of Frank Luntz. Further, with the defection of the powerful senator Chuck Schumer (and NJ’s Robert Menendez), a specifically Israel lobby wedge has now split the Democratic Party. The Democrats, at least, have a lot of reason to be angry. 

Perhaps that is why, in his August 5^th speech at American University (coincidentally, the day after Netanyahu’s webchat), President Obama, in his usual calm, reasonable tones, pointed to Israel’s machinations as a major—if not the major—obstacle to his campaign for congressional approval of the Iran deal (and according to some readings may even, a couple of weeks earlier at the VFW convention, have obliquely fingered certain Jewish neocons as responsible for the 2003 invasion of Iraq). This is not absolutely unprecedented. Other presidents have occasionally squeaked, and as recently as last March, John Kerry, testifying before Congress, blamed Israel for the final collapse of Oslo. But those were moments of exhaustion and loss of control. This was a planned and vetted script from which the president read. 

While AIPAC runs a $10 million advertising campaign and the troops are out and about doing their duty, some American Jewish leaders have been accusing Obama of anti-Semitism for suggesting that Jews would even dream of doing such things. Mike Huckabee talks menacingly of ovens and headlines abound about who is throwing whom under the bus. But if I were one of those American Jewish leaders, I hope I would look up now and then and notice that the passing scenery is changing. 

Because doesn’t it seem that Israel has in fact created an under-the-bus situation for the American Jewish establishment, no matter what the outcome? If Congress approves the Iran deal, then an all-out no-expenses-spared no-holds-barred campaign by the Israel lobby will have been defeated, and I would guess that politicians (and others) who may be sick and tired of kowtowing will take serious note. If, on the other hand, Congress rejects the deal and U.S. companies are therefore denied entry into an Iran market open to the whole rest of the world, the Israel lobby may well find it has made more enemies—and more powerful enemies—than winning Netanyahu’s battle could possibly be worth. 

Tucked on Vallejo’s waterfront, less that one mile from our revitalizing downtown, is an old mill that the City wants to turn into a cement factory.

The draft Environmental Impact Report was secretly completed and placed -- without notice -- on the City website. Citizens now have about 40 days to respond and only one public meeting is planned. 

According to the draft EIR: 

• ships from China will offload waste material (called “slag” in the cement industry) into a three-storey grinder which will make cement.
• the grinder will operate 24 hrs. a day, seven days a week.
• 300 trucks a day, loaded with toxic dust, are expected to use the facility.

There are more than 200 families living with a half-mile of the facility. Some homes are less than 100 yards away. 

The company ORCEM, is based in Ireland and Texas. ORCEM will pay Vallejo about $360,000 a year in taxes. The ORCEM cement factory, once completed, will only employee about 20 people, according to ORCEM. 

This is very bad for Vallejo a city still struggling to clean up the toxic sites left by the Navy. 

Under pressure, ORCEM has admitted that it will make “regular” cement alongside its so-called lower emission “green” cement. 

This facility is planned for a primarily African-American neighborhood. 

Citizens are urged to send their questions to The City of Vallejo at: http://www.cityofvallejo.net/cms/One.aspx?portalId=13506&pageId=685362

I enjoyed your editorial "Building Berkeley Better," which makes the point that I made with the Flexible Work Time Initiative, Measure Q on the 2014 ballot: we would have a smaller carbon footprint and we would be happier, if we worked shorter hours to spread the useful work, rather than producing things we don't need and don't want to create more unnecessary work. 

I think the world will have to realize this some time in this century, if we are to avoid global warming and other ecological crises. 

One minor correction: Keynes wrote the essay you mention ("Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren") in 1930. At the time, many people believed that there was a Depression because our economy was so productive that people did not want to consume as much as we could produce. 

Our per capita GDP today (after correcting for inflation) is about five times as much as it was in 1929 and about twice as much as it was during the very prosperous 1960s.  

It is time for us to ask how much is enough and to shift our focus from promoting the most rapid economic growth possible to promoting the best quality of life possible - by reducing inequality so everyone has enough income to live comfortably and reducing work hours so everyone has enough free time to live well.

The GOP presidential wannabees have taken a hard right turn from the sublime to the ridiculous – in a virtual twilight zone. 

The next debate will be held at the presidential library of Ronald Reagan, the much loved patron saint of Republican conservatism. 

Largely ignored is Reagan’s real legacy. Contrary to Grover Norquist’s much touted Americans for Tax Reform, the 40th president raised taxes eleven times in his eight years in office. The federal workforce increased markedly and the debt skyrocketed from $700 billion to $3 trillion. He also massively expanded the Pentagon budget. 

Contrary to the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Trump and his cohorts, Reagan granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants, stating “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here for some time and may have entered illegally”. He opposed supporting federal initiatives to provide blacks with civil rights and pledged his opposition to the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. 

Finally, he raised the debt ceiling 18 times during his tenure Republican – a complete heresy in modern day Republican orthodoxy.

On Monday, September 14, 5-6pm near the top of Solano the East Bay Tax The Rich Group will be celebrating its fourth year birthday. Four years ago, to protest the extraordinary and unjustified inequality that most Americans experience, we decided to have a one day rally. We were repelled by the unjust practices of big corporations and the federal government, particularly toward racial minorities and low income Americans generally. 

In response to the favorable public reaction we received that day, we agreed to continue our rallies once every week. One of our favorite political posters captures our indignation - "THE RICH HAVE LOOPHOLES. WE GET POTHOLES." 

Still, for good reason we are proud of our achievements. Among our accomplishments is the important role we played persuading the public to vote for Prop. 30, which is a tax law that raises millions of dollars for the -K-12 public schools. 

Collaborating with other organizations, our most recent victory has been persuading the Berkeley City Council to adopt a minimum wage law. But the law is not good enough. So we are now mobilizing the public along with other groups to persuade the Berkeley City Council to pass a much better ordinance. Between campaigns we do what we can to keep the public informed and to involve others in political activity. 

Our Tax the Rich group is an unusual group --it is a musical political movement. We have been successful in attracting talented and well known musicians to perform people's music every week. Among the musicians are Hali Hammer, Bonnie Lockhart, and Nancy Schimmel.  

Not least, we have built a solid social community. We enjoy each other's company and many friendships have been built over the years. In fact, we have proven that political engagement is not only serious and demanding. It can be a hellava lot of fun as well.

Mercifully, Congress has pledged enough votes to support the nuclear deal with Iran. What is disturbing about this debate is the number of lawmakers who support Prime Minister Netanyahu against their own commander in chief. Perhaps the free junket to Israel seized by many lawmakers may have persuaded some members of Congress to ‘switch sides.’ What is most striking about the demagoguery is the ostrich in the sand mentality to ignore historical precedents.  

Negotiating with adversaries to create a more stable world has long been practiced by Republican presidents. Richard Nixon normalized relations with our nemesis, China. Ronald Reagan signed a landmark missile agreement with the Soviet Union. He even held secret negotiations with Iran, selling it arms in its war with Iraq, using the proceeds to arm Nicaragua’s contra rebels in defiance of Congress – an impeachable offence! President George Bush entered into an agreement with Iran establishing nuclear limits in 2006. The five major powers, the United Nations Security Council, most American nuclear experts and scores of leading American diplomats — have endorsed the pact as the best way to limit Iran’s nuclear bomb making capabilities. America projects strength when important national security decisions have bipartisan support. Sadly, none of this seems to matter to the accord’s opponents, who refuse to be deterred by the facts. Finally, shouldn’t the US negotiate with other nuclear powers, including Israel, to eliminate all these terrifying weapons? 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia has employed the navy to stop boats packed with refugees, from reaching Australia’s shores. Others have been held at detention centers on small islands where many of the children have suffered sexual abuse; many of the detainees are given marijuana in exchange for sex, a dirty secret that the Austrian government has gone to great lengths to hide. Reporters face up two years for blowing the whistle; contrast that with lengthy sentences’ for failure to report similar abuses in Australia. Abbot seems to be suffering from a serious bout of amnesia, conveniently forgetting that Australia was colonized by convicts from the UK. 

Donald Trump and many Republicans must be envious of Abbot’s creative solutions. The right to lifers may want to break their long silence. Scream loud when fetuses are aborted but stifle a yawn when refugees succumb from their travails. 

Abbott has urged European leaders to follow his creative model. 

The UK has taken 260 refugees. Germany by contrast has agreed to accept in excess of 800,000. The refugee crisis is likely to intensify with increase conflicts, depleting resources and rising sea levels. Perhaps President Bush could atone for his illegal war in Iraq by offering to open his Texas ranch to Iraqi refugees. Likewise Dick Cheney could accommodate more refugees on his Wyoming ranch from the proceeds of his ill-gotten gains from Halliburton. 

 

j

I’m not sure what’s more horrifying- the amount of historical inaccuracy in Joanna Graham’s essay or the casual way she dismisses all of Scotland and Wales. 

The obsequious giddiness over the soap opera celebrity of English royalty enables Americans to trot by centuries of ruthless exploitation. If Ms. Graham sees “Diana as a sacrificial figure” it’s because she’s more interested in looking at history through the curious blinders of the myth of royalty than the hundreds of thousands whose lives and autonomy were destroyed in royalty’s name. 

And if Diana hadn’t figured out that she was a dynastic place-holder until her wedding night, then, with all due respect, she was an idiot.

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

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

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

This is a Very Good Deal. Go for it! 

New York real-estate mogul and media personality, Donald Trump, is the odds-on favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination. Here are the top ten reasons why Trump will prevail. 

10. He’s the best of a weak field. The latest Huffington Post National Republican Primary poll of polls shows Trump in first place (30.7 percent), followed by Surgeon Ben Carson (12.1 percent) and 15 candidates in single digits. The early favorites Jeb Bush (8 percent) and Scott Walker (4.8 percent) have faded. 

Moreover, rank-and-file Republicans don’t like their Washington leaders. Before Trump came on the scene, most observers thought that the real leader of the Republican Party was Roger Ailes, head of the Fox News Network; now it’s “the Donald.” 

9. Trump is a media magnet. Before the first GOP debate, 538 noted that Trump attracted far more media attention than the other candidates. After debate, the Los Angeles Times observed, “Trump gained the most Twitter followers during the debate, was the most discussed on Facebook, and was involved in the majority of incidents in which candidates brought their opponents into the discussion.” 

8. Trump speaks for the GOP base. Trump’s stance on immigration has gotten a lot of press but what hasn’t been noted is that on many issues his position is at odds with the GOP leadership.. For example, Trump’s attitude on trade differs from that of the Washington establishment: he’s opposed to the Trans Pacific Partnership. As another example, Trump doesn’t care for Wall Street. A recent poll found that 65 percent of Trumps’ Iowa supporters, are either “unsatisfied” or “mad as hell” at Wall Street; among other things, Trump opposes the “carried interest loophole” the Financial industry loves. 

7. Republicans like his brashness. A recent article noted that Trump leads among evangelical voters because of: the weakness of his competitors, his attacks on President Obama, his link between religious liberty and religious persecution, and his brashness. 

6. He’s consistent in his inconsistency. Trump is more accessible to the press than any of the other GOP contender. When he bloviates, it doesn’t hurt him. In the first GOP debate Trump called Obamacare a disaster. Then he was asked why he had once supported a single-payer system. Trump responded, “[single payer] works in Canada… in Scotland. It could have worked in a different age, which is the age you’re talking about here.” 

5. He won’t back down. Since Trump announced his presidential candidacy, on June 16th, he’s made numerous inflammatory statements: He said John McCain was not a war hero. After the initial Republican debate, Trump said Fox News star Megyn Kelly had questioned him unfairly, “she had blood coming out of her wherever.” Trump refused to apologize for these remarks. (MSNBC found that in the past fifteen years Trump has only apologized twice.) 

4. Trump seized the initiative on the number 1 GOP concern. A recent NBC News/WSJ poll found that Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on the top issues facing the US. 27 percent of Republicans think “national security and terrorism” is the biggest issue; another 8 percent say it’s “immigration.” Trump has linked these two issues and staked out a position so extreme that none of the other GOP contenders can outflank him. 

3. He’s a narcissist. Duh! All politicians are narcissists but some more than others; among the most successful Republican politicians are uber-narcissists such as Ronald Reagan. Psychologist Maria Konnikova notes that Trump has all the signs of “narcissistic personality disorder” including “an exaggerated sense of self-importance,” “a sense of entitlement,” and a lack of empathy. 

2. Trump is funding his own campaign. A recent CBS News poll found that one-third of Republicans prefer candidates that self-fund. When Bush, Cruz, Fiorina, Rubio, and Walker “interviewed” with the Koch brothers, Trump tweeted: "I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?" 

1. Trump represents White Power. It’s been fifty years since Republicans launched their southern strategy taking advantage of southern white democrats disillusioned by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While GOP presidential candidates – Nixon, Reagan, Bush(s) – flirted with racism, none staked out the extreme territory that Trump inhabits. ( McCain and Palin came close with angry rallies where spectators called Obama a “socialist,” “traitor,” and “terrorist.”) Trump has tapped into deep-seated racial antagonism. A new Public Policy poll found that “Sixty-six percent of Trump's supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim... Sixty-one percent think Obama was not born in the United States.” Unsurprisingly, Sixty-three percent of Trump’s supporters want to eliminate birthright citizenship. At Southern rallies Trump supporters yell, “white power.” 

Hold onto your sanity! We’re going to be seeing a lot more Trump. 

---

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net

The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD Act) changed how credit card issuers must apply your credit card payments.  

With a credit card, it’s possible to borrow money at different interest rates. For example, you could transfer a balance from another card to take advantage of a zero percent introductory rate. Meanwhile, you could have purchased an item (or items) subject to a purchase rate of 14.99 percent. Maybe you wrote a credit card convenience check that was charged a cash advance interest rate of 19.99 percent. 

The CARD Act states that when a cardholder sends more than the minimum payment (extra money), the additional payment must be applied to the highest interest rate portion of the balance. However, when you send only the minimum payment, it is typically applied to the balance with the lowest rate. 

Act change ensures that extra sums are applied to the balance with the highest interest rate first. This is good for consumers because they end up paying less in interest on their total card debt over the long term. 

However, if you buy something under a “deferred interest” plan (meaning you are allowed to make payments for a specific time period with no accumulating interest), you can choose to apply any part of a payment over the minimum to the deferred interest balance. This can help you pay off the interest-free balance before the deadline, when retroactive interest is charged on the entire amount you borrowed if you haven’t paid in full by that time. If you don’t request this, only the last two payments you make before the deferred interest period ends will be applied to the deferred interest balance automatically. This may not be enough to pay the balance in full and thereby avoid retroactive interest. 

The CARD Act benefits consumers. Consumers can help themselves by paying more than the minimum which will help them retire debts earlier. Consumers should also consider carrying only one interest rate balance on their cards at one time. And avoid cash advances, convenience checks, and promotional offers on any card used for regular purchases.

When a number of challenges exist at once, it can seem overwhelming, as though the universe wants to do us in. Things can snowball in our thinking to the point where we feel as though we are having a crisis. However, some of the time, not all of the time, the perception of crises is merely a perception. This perception could be reinterpreted and downgraded to the feeling that we are in a "difficult time" that we must just muddle through.  

Mentally speaking, it may help not to look at the big picture, but to instead focus on small parts of it, at any given time. Microsoft, Apple, and other computer companies have something in common with those who design automobiles and skyscrapers. The entire design of something isn't tackled all at one time. When building something big, engineers divide it into smaller components, and then they subdivide those into even smaller ones. You can do the same thing.  

Focusing on what needs to be done in a day, within an hour, or in the moment, as opposed to looking at a whole month, helps us deal with each smaller part of a bigger enterprise. If there is something you can do to partway fix a situation right now, stop reading and do that thing. This page will still be here when you're done.  

If you have a list of ten things, getting one or two of those things done can be seen as an accomplishment. If some of those things must be postponed, so be it.  

Pacing ourselves helps, and this entails getting a rest break when we need it, and doing things in a slow, steady, organized manner. I once saw a bumper sticker on a friend's car that said, "Don't sweat the small stuff." It helps to figure out what can wait, versus what must absolutely be done.  

At one time, I saw a very great therapist who I was able to pay out of pocket with earnings from a job. When I said to him that I felt like I was up against a giant amount of anxious or unhappy feelings (I don't recall the exact words), he suggested that I pinpoint each individual thought, and deal with those thoughts individually. If you can get in a habit of identifying specific worries, it can prevent a giant wave of depression or anxiety.  

One technique is to distinguish between the worry about a thing, versus the actual thing, and deal with the two items separately. For example, if you have to change a tire on your car, you could be dealing with the emotional upset over it, but also you must deal with the actual task of changing the tire.  

If the emotion is dealt with first, or if you have a way of suspending it, you can then focus on the actual task without being impeded in your work by an emotional boogeyman.  

An immediate crisis, such as taking a friend to a hospital when they are sick at two in the morning, can also be helped by division into steps. Anything you can do to ease the emotional component will be helpful in handling the external, actual problem. Also, if there is something you just can not safely handle, such as being asked to drive or operate heavy machinery when fatigued or otherwise compromised, we must learn to say no.  

When I went to traffic school in 1989 for a speeding ticket, I recall that the instructor said, "Stress will kill you." I would add to that by saying worry generally does nothing for you.  

In some instances, if something feels wrong in your gut, you should follow your gut instinct. On the other hand, excessive feelings of doom and gloom, excessive anxiety, or too much propensity for getting frustrated are false negatives that impede dealing effectively with problems.  

Not all persons with mental illness live without responsibilities. Being unaccustomed to responsibility is a bigger barrier than the presence of a psychiatric disability. Having a lack of income has made me unused to doing a number of things that many people would take for granted. However, sometimes we all need to be pushed somewhat beyond our comfort zones.

When the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was finally signed, women were provided the right to vote in 1920. It had been introduced 42 years earlier. Sixteen other nations had already guaranteed this right… 

Why then, is an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution necessary? Because it would be designed to guarantee equal rights for women and men. Alas, that guarantee continues to be needed.  

Eleven states have adopted constitutions or constitutional amendments providing that equal rights under the law shall not be denied because of sex. Most of these provisions mirror the broad language of the ERA, while the wording in others resembles the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Fourteenth Amendment. 

It was Congressional Representative Bella Savitsky Abzug who said, “The inside operation of Congress—the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building—is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.”  

Seventy-eight year old Bella (D-NY) introduced in Congress legislation designating August 26 annually as Women's Equality Day in the United States of America. Women's Equality Day this year is Wednesday, August 26. A few years ago there was a poll that queried, should Women's Equality Day be a federal holiday? The results were: 

• Yes, make it a federal holiday on August 26 (69%)
• Yes, but make it a moveable feast, something like the last Monday in August (25%)
• No federal holiday---just leave it (6%)

What does all this have to do with senior power, with old Americans? One might well also ask whether old people vote. In the United States, the oldest citizens are the most likely to cast their ballots, which gives us political clout beyond our numbers alone. 

The U.S. Statistical Abstract records that in 2010, 72.5% of persons 65+ years old registered in Congressional elections (57.9% of males, 61.5% of females). And 58.0% of persons age 65+ voted (40.9% of males, 42.7% of women.) Why don’t women vote for women? When there is unanimity about reforms women want, why don’t they vote themselves into power? In the 2012 Presidential election, Barack Obama carried 55% of the female vote.  

Elections are decided by the people who show up at the polls. Senior citizens are more likely to vote than younger people because we have a vested interest in protecting the benefits received from the federal government-- Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid (California’s Medi-Cal), etc. If these popular government programs were to change, it would dramatically affect the lives of most retirees.  

The voter registration process is another reason older people vote in greater numbers than do younger people. They tend to be more stable in where they live, whereas younger voters tend to be more mobile. Every time a person moves to a new address, she or he must re-register to vote. The longer someone is in a place, the more ties there are to the community, and the more likely are campaigns to mobilize her/him. Older voters are thought to have more time and disposable income as well as willingness to contact politicians.  

Some political scientists contend that voters who are away from home, at college for example, are at a great disadvantage voting-eligibilitywise. Having lived in university neighborhoods and worked at polling places on election days, I am aware of a phenomenon of just the opposite-- young twice-voters.  

xxxx 

RECOMMENDED CURRENT READING: 

http://savethebplbooks.org/ 

"New guidelines may encourage end-of-life discussions," (Public Broadcasting System Newshour, August 8, 2015). A print, video and audio (running time 9 minutes 49 seconds) transcript is available at the site. 

"GOP (Grand Old Party--Republican Party) wants to abolish Medicare," by John J. Dunphy (Alton [Illinois] Telegraph, August 11, 2015). Opinion piece. 

"Republicans (Party) think skimpy Social Security checks are too big," by Irwin Kellner (marketwatch.com, August 11, 2015). Opinion piece. 

"California's largest nursing home owner sued," by Marjie Lundstrom (Sacramento Bee, August 12, 2015). 

"(Presidential candidate) Donald Trump's political bluster part of a dinosaur's arsenal," by Rosemary Mcleod (Dominion Post [Wellington, New Zealand], via stuff.co.nz, August 13, 2015). 

"1 in 4 Senior Women in U.S. Has Osteoporosis: CDC (Centers for Disease Control)," by E.J. Mundell (HealthDay News, August 13, 2015). 

"Analysis Raises Concerns About Nursing Homes' Medicare Billing" (californiahealthline.org, Aug. 17, 2015).  

"Reauthorization of Older Americans Act needed to show our nation's elderly population is a priority," by Victoria Wasserman (Newark [New Jersey] Star-Ledger, Aug. 17, 2015). 

##

Front Steps of Berkeley Public Library, Shattuck at Kittredge, downtown Berkeley

6:15 Sign up for public comment at the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) meeting
6:30 Speak out at the BOLT public comment session

The library director, Jeff Scott, resigned under pressure, effective today.
But the rampant weeding, mistreatment of staff and breach of trust with the community is not just about one person.

We're calling for an immediate investigation of what went wrong, and how the library can learn from these mistakes.

We're calling for the 34 librarians to be returned to their work of buying and weeding the book collection, and having access to the book budget.

We're calling for BOLT to leave the Deputy Director position open to allow for continuing applications. This will enable the new Director to choose a Deputy from the greatest, professional pool of applicants.

Please meet up on this WEDNESDAY evening to persuade the BOLT to renew, rebuild and restore the community's trust in the library.

And get your friends to sign the petition!

Thanks!
www.savethebplbooks.org

On Sunday, August 30, The New Esterházy Quartet presented the third and final concert at Berkeley’s Hillside Club in their series devoted to the Late Quartets of Ludwig von Beethoven. The Sunday program featured the14th Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, and the Grosse Fugue. Prior to performing these works, New Esterházy violist Anthony Martin noted that they would play these works through without stopping to re-tune their period instruments between movements; and he begged our indulgence if by the end of each work their instruments were no longer in tune. This, of course, is a problem with period instruments and gut strings. I for one do not mind the re-tuning between movements that occurred, for example, during Wednesday evening’s concert, though some members of the audience had problems with this. (Pace Larry Bensky.) My attitude toward period instruments is to cherish the advantages they offer while tolerating their limitations. In any case, on a hot, humid Sunday afternoon, in a packed to the brim Hillside Club where 200 bodies were seated in the audience, thereby raising both the room temperature and the humidity, both of which are inimical to gut strings, The New Esterházy Quartet managed to complete each work without a pause and without sounding out of tune. To this I can only say “Bravo!” 

Beethoven’s C-sharp minor Quartet, Op. 131, has been hailed by J.W.N. Sullivan as “the most mystical of the quartets, and the one where the mystical vision is most perfectly sustained.” This is a debatable proposition, for I’m by no means sure what is meant here by the term “mystical.” Sullivan also asserts that, “the opening fugue [of the C-sharp minor Quartet] is the most superhuman piece of music that Beethoven has ever written.” This too is debatable, especially in the context of a concert program offering both the C-sharp minor Quartet and the Grosse Fugue. One might just as readily name the Grosse Fugue as the most superhuman piece of music that Beethoven – or anyone -- has ever written. I think what Sullivan is trying to get at is the way these Late Quartets of Beethoven often venture into transcendental realms where words no longer suffice to communicate an experience far beyond our ordinary human, all-too-human lives. In any case, Beethoven himself considered the Op. 131 Quartet his finest quartet, though this work was never performed in concert during Beethoven’s lifetime. 

Sticking to the music itself of the C-sharp minor Quartet, we note the soft, poignant opening notes played only by the first violin. The 2^nd violin and viola quickly add their soft voices. Thus begins the opening fugue, which will undergo a myriad of sublime and quite serene variations throughout this slow movement, becoming ever-changing yet remaining ever-the-same. After the exultant trills of the last variation, the music assumes a lilting and lively quality. This airy dance music is ushered in by stepping a semi-tone up the scale. This seems an expression of pure gaiety. A bit later, there are lovely little duets between viola and cello. There are also amusing four-way echoes of pizzicato plucking that resound among each of the instruments in turn. There are also strenuously choppy rhythms here and there. But these do not betoken struggle. Rather, they too seem part and parcel of a serene vision.  

Maynard Solomon takes note of both the totally integrated quality of the C-sharp minor Quartet and of its pressures towards discontinuity. Of the latter, he notes, “six main keys, thirty-one changes of tempo (ten more than in Op. 130), a variety of textures, and a diversity of forms within the movements – fugue, suite, recitative, variation, scherzo, aria, and sonata form –which makes the achievement of unity all the more miraculous.” In the finale, marked Allegro, Beethoven uses fragments of the fugue theme from the work’s opening movement. Thus the work is rounded off, ending where it began, yet having traveled far and wide. Is this a mystical vision? I’ll leave that for others to debate. Whatever else it may or may not be, it is beautiful music – and it was here beautifully played by The New Esterházy Quartet. 

Following an intermission, The New Esterházy Quartet returned to play Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue. However, violist Anthony Martin announced that they would first play a 30-second piece of music for string quartet marked Allegretto that was found in the early 20^th century in Beethoven’s papers. After this little gem, Martin announced, they would play the Cavatina from Beethoven’s B-flat Quartet, Op. 130, which originally led into the Grosse Fugue before Beethoven, at the urging of his publisher, detached the Grosse Fugue from Op. 130 and issued it as a separate work, substituting a more accessible finale to the B-flat Quartet. The Cavatina, of course, is a heart-wrenching expression of anguish. What this anguish is about I discussed in my review of Wednesday’s concert. Suffice it to say here that after writing the Cavatina’s testament to an anguished struggle, Beethoven, in the Grosse Fugue, seems to say, “Now I’ll show you how a musician, a composer, overcomes sorrow, struggle, and pain.” He goes back to Bach and the basics of classical music, and he tears into this primary material in the most courageous, even ferocious manner, mastering it in ways that no one else has achieved before or since.  

Though it may seem artificial to do so, the Grosse Fugue may be divided into three major sections – an introduction, a slow movement in a new key, and a scherzo finale. All throughout this work, however, innumerable variations of the basic fugal material are explored. So thorough is this exploration that one has the impression that no uncharted territory remains once the work is completed. If the first five movements of the Op. 130 Quartet expressed the pain and suffering of Beethoven’s struggles, one may well see in that work’s original finale – the Grosse Fugue – Beethoven’s Herculean overcoming of all obstacles, of all pain and suffering, in the creation of a courageous, totally uncompromising piece of music. As played here by The New Esterházy Quartet, the Grosse Fugue was a fitting climax to this group’s three-concert series featuring Beethoven’s Late Quartets. 

Errata: In my review of Wednesday’s concert, I stated that Berkeley’s Hillside Club is a 100-seat theater. This is erroneous. In its theater set-up it seats 200 people, though a 100 seat limit is enforced when set-up for serving dinners. I thank Bruce Koball of the Hillside Club for this clarification.

Alex Gibney's new biopic about Steve Jobs—the charismatic force-and-face forever associated with the rise of the iRevolution—is a long (127 minute) scramble of a film that lacks the designed beauty and functional simplicity of an Apple product. It's more like the kind of term paper compiled in the era of Google searches. 

The film sometimes feels like an obsessive's scrapbook, filled with every public domain photo of Jobs that could be found within easy reach and video clips of middling interest culled from scores of public and private archives. It took exhaustive research to pull all these scraps together. Unfortunately, the experience of wading through it all onscreen is also exhaustive. 

 

There are revelations aplenty about the private life of Mr. Jobs—kick-started into life as an orphan, unable to feel fully comfortable with children of his own, a self-made man who was, by turns, creative cheerleader of innovation, a cunning curmudgeon and a cutthroat, manipulative backstabber. 

The documentary floods the screen with the Many Faces (and haircuts and beards) of Steve Jobs—but to the point that it becomes consistently off-putting. One moment we're looking at the iconic image of Jobs with his Beatles-era hairdo (and looking too much like Ashton Kutcher), the next minute, we're tossed a black-and-white photo of Jobs as a toddler, followed by an interview with a gaunt Jobs ravaged by disease, followed with a shot of a clean-shaved Jobs, beaming in a suit and tie, framed by a follow-up portrait plucked from his high school yearbook.

Instead of a chronological, evolutionary experience of watching a talented young man slowly age into a sick and ravaged elder, it's more like spending two hours in a house occupied by 16 different competing physical versions of the host—constantly crossing paths on a roller coaster ride through a time warp. 

Gibney captured 50 great interviews for his film, with speakers ranging from scholars of Electronica, to former friends and coworkers and one former girl friend. 

One of Gibney's expressed goals in this documentary was to illuminate the "contradictions" of Jobs' personality. In an interview with Chronicle, Gibney provided an example of some of these contradictions, calling Jobs a "fantastic performer" but noting he could also be "ruthless, cruel and totally self-aggrandizing." But these are not contradictory traits. (Think Donald Trump.) 

The contradictions in the Jobs saga stem from the discord between two competing versions of the Jobs persona. On one hand, there is the widely embraced public perception of Jobs as a talented, self-possessed maverick, a handsome and gifted public speaker and a Disrupter for the Common Good. 

On the other hand, there is the shadow side of Jobs, the personality that was never on public display and was only known to those close to the entrepreneur. In Gibney's film, the rumors of the angry, tyrannical Jobs remain just that—rumors. We hear his partner Steve Wozniak, complain about Jobs lying about a large check in order to walk off with most of the proceeds. We hear several unsung coworkers reminisce about the pressures (and then gleefully recall the highs) of working for Apple. We hear Chrisann Brennan, Jobs' girl friend talk about the growing friction in their relationship and how he greeted the news that she was pregnant ("His jaw clenched," he stormed out of the house and slammed the door behind him). 

Even though Jobs was worth millions, he tried to claim poverty to avoid paying childcare for his daughter Lisa—when that ruse failed, he finally agreed to pay $500 a month. (And then he added insult to injury by naming his first Apple computer—his real "baby"—the "Lisa.") As Brennan tells Gibney: "He didn't know what human connection was, but he was part of creating technology that connected the world." 

But the negative impressions don't stick. We largely see Jobs as the genial, silver-tongued charmer. We don't see footage of him disparaging underlings or hurling verbal flame-grenades at colleagues or competitors. There's only one scene of Jobs presiding over a meeting of Apple "creatives." He is clearly in charge and he's dismissive of challenges but he does not allow the cameras to catch him being a thundering bully or a Class-A A-hole. 

One of the problems with the film's interviews is that Gibney's disembodied, off-camera voice is heard throughout, steering the conversations. But Gibney didn't bother to wear a microphone so his comments are often dim and difficult to hear. 

Gibney makes good use of his interview with Sherry Turkle, whose best-selling book, Alone Together, describes how electronic devices and "social" media have actually damaged the experience of human interactions. An entire generation has now grown up entranced by portable electronic devices that solicit our constant attention. Contemplating these "electronic navels" can leave people feeling connected to hundreds of friends and strangers around the world but, at the same time, leave them totally estranged from the people who are actually standing and sitting alongside them in real time and real space. 

Inevitably, Gibney prominently features Apple's 1984 Superbowl ad (the one where the legions of mindless, grey minions march into a theater to watch their Leader on a large screen, only to be blasted out of their State-inflicted stupor by a young blond rebel in spandex shorts who throws a sledge-hammer at the screen, smashing it to smithereens). It was widely understood that the Leader in this Orwellian presentation was Microsoft. This was Apple's declaration that rebels, discontents and insurgents (all code words for "young people") could topple the established giants. 

But what came in the aftermath of Apple's first personal computers? The iPod. If you think about it, the iPod was the antithesis of the anti-1984 Hammer of Freedom. It was far from "liberating." It was a device that turned self-directed individuals into tractable masses—much like the slack-faced, grey-suited spectators in the 1984 Apple ad. The iPod was a device that, once plugged into your ears, unplugged you from society. The iPod provide a personalized playlist of sonic escapism and social retreat. No need to listen to the roar of traffic, the babble of nearby conversations, the sound of encroaching alarms—you carried a thousand sound tracks in your pocket and an endless parade of rock bands in your head. 

How many people were in on the unspoken joke? The iPod, after all, was an incarnation of a famous sci-fi nightmare. Remember "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," a cautionary tale about aliens who infiltrated cities and slowly took control of human bodies by attaching "pods" to the back of human necks? 

One of the most effective points Gibney makes in this documentary comes near the end, when he explores the working conditions of Apple's Chinese employees. Long hours and low pay (that routinely drives workers to jump to their deaths from the upper stories of their factories) and hazardous conditions (that repeatedly resulted in deadly and horrific fires inside locked work-lofts with no means of escape). 

Here is one the worst of the actual contradictions Gibney unearths. Both Apple and Google have cultivated a sense that they were "different" from the grey-faced corporate monoliths that proceeded them. Unlike Microsoft and IBM, Apple and Google sported fun-loving, self-mocking names and dressed their corporate logos in a kindergarten array of bright, primary colors. 

But, as Gibney points out, both Apple ("Think Different") and Google ("Do No Harm". "Don't Be Evil") draw obscene profits off the backs of overworked low-wage labor in overseas sweatshops. And both corporations secretly set up off-shore tax havens (in Apple's case, in Ireland) to avoid paying US taxes. 

And Jobs secretly conspired to "back-date" stock purchases to enrich himself and his closest partners. And, during a videotaped court deposition filmed in the last months of his life, Jobs lies to the camera, claiming he knows nothing about how such deals work. 

This is one of the few, true moments where the word "contradiction" rings true. For, finally, this is not the sweet-faced, Beatle-haired Steve we grew up loving. This is a wounded and dying man, in obvious pain and discomfort, perjuring himself while sitting uncomfortably in a courtroom chair. 

After Gibney's doc, I think I'm ready for a little escapism. Up next, I'll be renting Danny Boyle's "true story of the life of visionary Apple CEO Steve Jobs" starring Michael Fassbender in the title role. 

 

And then there's Ashton Kutcher taking on the job of Jobs in the 2013 film.