Demographic data describing the people Berkeley police stop is now on a city online portal, police announced Friday. -more-

I am not a member of any identifiable minority community, nonetheless, on four separate occasions, I have found myself targeted by weapons held in the hands of armed police.

In 1965, during the Vietnam War, a military guard threatened to shoot me if I trespassed onto the Concord Naval Weapons Station. I told him I was an unarmed peace activist. When a truck loaded with napalm bombs approached, I walked through the main gate and stopped in front of the truck, forcing it to a halt. Fortunately, the young soldier decided not to open fire.

One night, working late in my downtown office, I heard a noise in the hallway. When I opened the door, the hallway lights were out. Suddenly, I was surrounded by three strangers shouting, brandishing weapons, and demanding that I put my hands in the air. They turned out to be Berkeley police. After determining that I was unarmed, they explained that they had received a report of a burglary in progress.

One day in downtown Berkeley, I attempted to take a news photograph of a Brinks armored car guard holding a shotgun as he stood next to the Wells Fargo building. As I looked through my viewfinder, I saw the guard shoulder his rifle and point it in my direction. He shouted a blunt warning: "Drop the camera or I'll shoot."

On another occasion, while leaving Berkeley's Ecology Center late one night, I made a perfectly legal U-turn on San Pablo Avenue. When a nearby police car announced its presence with a siren blast and flashing lights, I realized that I had neglected to turn on my headlights.

Embarrassed by my lapse, I pulled over, parked the car and emerged laughing. I began to offer an apology. "Sorry!" I told the officer, "I know why you stopped me."

I expected to find the driver of the cop car grinning and sharing my embarrassment. What I saw stopped me in my tracks: The police officer was cowering behind the open door of her squad car with her service revolver aimed directly at my chest.

She subsequently explained something about criminal behavior that I was not aware of. "When a police officer stops you," she said, "you are supposed to remain in your vehicle. Only the bad guys get out of the car."

Well, live and learn. (Or, as sometimes happens in these spooked-cop cases, you learn and die.)

The Mindset of the Modern Cop

All of these incidents have something in common: they were all rooted in the presumption that I posed a threat to these officers—even though they were the ones who were armed. -more-

At a recent Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) session in Berkeley considering a proposal to build an 18 story apartment building in downtown ( Sept. 30, 2015), a claque of people called for “market rate housing” as the only way to resolve the current housing crisis. They prevailed over critics of the project.

Let's get something straight. The term “market rate” with respect to housing is not a "standard" or calibration of anything. It is a result. “Market rate” is the effect of other causes. It cannot be used to standardize a social category in the same way the notion “median income” can calibrate a community’s economic potential. Yet “market rate” appears as a number.

As an effect, and though it appears as a number, “market rate” is not an economic term. It is a political term. It refers to a political environment in which price structure is neither regulated nor controlled. That is a political environment because its opposite, rent control and housing regulation, are themselves political acts that relate housing rents and condo prices to residents rather than to landlords. Rent control, affordable housing, and subsidized rent are all attempts to rescue people from the being victimized by artificially high housing costs. They are all political issues, responding to an economic state. When a community calls for a "moratorium" on market rate housing development, as the San Francisco Mission district community has done, it is demanding a political change in the domain of housing. “Market rate” simply refers to that sector of the housing situation that is not under any control or regulation. It refers to what some people are willing to pay for unregulated and uncontrolled housing.

"Affordable" housing ties rent levels to income. It provides, through a government office or program, that a tenant family will pay only 30% of its income for rent. Thus, it stands opposite market rate housing. In Berkeley, the majority of people pay a lot more for housing than 30%. Indeed, tens of thousands of people pay more than 50% of their income for housing. For them, market rate housing belongs to a market to which they have no access. “Market rate housing” is an exclusionary term. And as such, it becomes a form of victimization insofar as housing is a human right and a necessity. To have a job, to get and education, to make use of social services, one has to have a place to live.

What was really at issue in the Berkeley ZAB meeting was economics. There were actually two different versions of economics presented by the two sides at the meeting. They were not only at loggerheads; they showed that they lived in different worlds. -more-

Last Monday, the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations reached an agreement on the largest trade accord in history, - the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Negotiations have been conducted in almost total secrecy, bar a few details released from WikiLeaks. It will encompass a staggering 40 percent of the global economy and is generally regarded, if enacted, to be a huge victory for US corporations, especially pharmaceutical companies who will enjoy extended monopolies on their life saving drugs and an early death for those who can only afford the generic versions. In short, TPP will be price gouging at the cost of lives for companies who already enjoy obscene profits. It may very well be described as a reverse Robin Hood or the anti-Christ bill. -more-

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. -more-

The deadly American airstrike on the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, run by Doctors Without Borders (DWB), is an absolute travesty. The initial Pentagon statement - that the airstrike may have caused “collateral damage” was grossly insensitive and dehumanizing. The US military has a long history of obfuscation and damage control to deflect accountability. Truth is usually the first casualty following such incidents. General Campbell tripped over his initial story justifying the bombing as a necessary response to protect American lives. He later tried to pin the blame on Afghan forces claiming that they had come under fire from Taliban forces near the hospital. This claim was hotly disputed by Arjan Hehenkamp, director of DWB, who stated there were no fighters near the hospital. -more-

Recently, a friend of mine became a US citizen. Now she wonders what she let herself in for: “I don’t understand US politics. Are Republicans crazy? What candidates like Trump are saying makes no sense.” I said, “Welcome to bipolar America. Democrats and Republicans have radically different visions of the US.”

Professor Robert Reich wrote an insightful essay, The lost Art of Democratic Narrative observing “there are four essential American stories:” two about hope and two about fear. In the 2016-campaign cycle, Republicans have seized hold of the myths about fear: “the mob at the gates” and “rot at the top.”

In the “mob at the gates” narrative, “the United States is a beacon light of virtue in a world of darkness, uniquely blessed but continuously endangered by foreign menaces.” This is a fearful perspective, one that suggests that if Americans are not continuously vigilant we will be overwhelmed by the forces of evil. -more-

In spite of a well-financed scare campaign, and a not very subtle effort by the European Union (EU) to load the dice in the Oct. 4 Portuguese elections, the ruling rightwing Forward Portugal coalition lost its majority in the parliament, Left parties garnered more than 50 percent of the vote, and the austerity policies that have paralyzed the country for four years took a major hit.

Along with last month’s Greek election, it was two in a row for the European Left. -more-

On October 1, 2015, ten people were killed and another seven injured after Christopher Harper-Mercer, a 26-year-old gunman, opened fire in a classroom at Umpqua Community College in southern Oregon. Harper-Mercer then took his own life. President Obama vowed to continue pushing new gun policies that he said would prevent further mass shootings. Will this mass killings be a tipping point resulting in passage of reasonable federal gun control legislation? Probably not. -more-

This week's column will contain some discussion of intangible things. Consciousness isn't something you can pick up and hold in your hand, look at under a microscope, or poke and prod with physical tools. Yet, physical things affect consciousness. Consciousness also has characteristics and parts to it that people can learn to describe.

What you eat, how much exercise you get, the levels or types of stimuli in your environment, and the biochemical composition of your nerve cells and synapses are some of the physical things that affect consciousness. Around whom you spend your time affects consciousness. Do you live with a "complainer"? Do you live with an abusive individual? Or, do you live with someone more uplifting? -more-

The California Department of Public Health says bedbugs are parasitic insects that feed on the blood of mammals and birds; they live in mattresses, bed linens and headboards, walls, flooring and other furniture. But they are not considered a public health hazard because they do not spread disease. They are considered a nuisance, however, and should be removed by licensed pest control operators. They feed at night. It is claimed that most people do not feel their bites. They might, however notice itchy welts that appear immediately or a few days later. And they might lose their housing…

The public health community’s laissez-faire attitude is attributable to the experts who say bedbugs are not disease-carrying pests. But the tiny vampires, which feed on human blood, surely cause health-related problems if left unabated — chief among them mental, physical and economic anxiety. -more-

The NEBA Board invites you to participate in a conversation with Dee Williams-Ridley who was recently appointed as Interim City Manager following the sudden and unexpected departure of Christine Daniels to the City of Oakland. -more-

--Berkeley Symphony will play its first concert after Summer break this Wednesday, October 14, instead of the usual Thursday evening time, with Joana Carneiro conducting Berlioz's Les Nuits d'ete (in remembrance of summer nights gone by ... sung by soprano Simone Osbourne), Laterna Magica by Kaija Saariaho and Ravel's flamboyant Bolero. all at Zellerbach Hall, on campus near Telegraph and Bancroft.

(Saariaho and her French composer husband Jean-Baptiste Barriere are in residence at UC Berkeley, and will attend the concert. This month, a parade of Saariaho's music will be presented in concert around the Bay Area. Details at: berkeleysymphony.org )

And the Symphony is offering a special two-fer ticket deal for this program--buy one full-price ticket, enter (or say) the code MAGIC15, get one for free. Tickets: $15-$74. 841-2800x1 or berkeleysymphony.org

--The Philharmonia Baroque struck up the opening of Scarlatti's rare Glory of Spring serenata The Glory of Spring in the First Congregational Church last Sunday, dedicated to a new heir to the Imperial throne in Vienna, hopefully bringing peace to Europe after years of warfare over succession--and the seasons themselves decried the violence and praised the newborn who'd hopefully keep the peace ... "May we never again hear the martial trumpets sound ... War no longer batters the land ... Our heroes wear the olive leaves of peace." -more-

Join us at 7:30 Sunday evening, Oct. 18 at Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley for the latest crop of new music from the East Bay. Visit http://sonicharvest.org for details. -more-