Page One

Berkeley Girl Makes Good (Again) in Washington

Friday December 11, 2015 - 01:51:00 PM

Berkeley's own Betty Reid Soskin (formerly of Reid's Records on Sacramento, now living in Richmond) the nation's oldest National Park Ranger at 94, introduced the President at the National Tree Lighting in Washington: -more-



Updated: Motion on the 2211 Harold Way Project

From: Councilmembers Anderson and Arreguin
Friday December 11, 2015 - 01:07:00 PM

EDITOR'S NOTE: These motions were introduced by the two councilmembers on Tuesday. They display an excellent grasp of the relevant issues, but unfortunately they were summarily rejected by the council. majority


Move that the Berkeley City Council remand:


  1. The Environmental Impact Report for the 2211 Harold Way project for further analysis, revision and recirculation on the following issues: -more-



Public Comment

New: Board of Library Trustees Meets Tomorrow Evening--Be There

From Hale Zukas, for SavetheBPLbooks
Tuesday December 15, 2015 - 05:16:00 PM

ALERT: Your powerful presence THIS WEDS at the Board of Library Trustees Meeting—Library's 3-year strategic plan to be discussed!!!

Wednesday, December 16, 6:15 pm — Tarea Hall Pittman (formerly South) Branch Library, 1901 Russell Street at MLK

Your presence this Wednesday keeps our concerns front and center. We expect Interim Director, Beth Pollard, to talk about the previous director, Jeff Scott’s, strategic plan. This is an important document outlining how the library proceeds (and spends your money) over the next couple of years. There may be elements you feel need revisiting in light of what has happened during the first year of the plan! So we urge you to attend and voice your vision. The plan is available here Library Strategic plan (PDF) and slideshow links from the library's homepage). -more-


Religious Terror and Bans at the Borders (Letters the Chron Wouldn't Print)

Gar Smith
Friday December 11, 2015 - 01:58:00 PM

In his December 7 address to the nation, President Obama stated: "Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al Qaeda promote." He added: "It is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization."

Would that Obama had made similar demands of the Christian community after Robert Lewis Dear's deadly rampage at a Planed Parenthood facility in Colorado. -more-


Candidates like Cruz

Bruce Joffe
Friday December 11, 2015 - 04:05:00 PM

Republican presidential hopefuls like Ted Cruz oppose gun registration, regulation, and restriction because they don't want "the government" to have more intrusive powers. What other institution do Americans have to protect them from no-fly-list terrorists, mentally unstable people and criminals acquiring guns? Our government agencies require people to pass a test before they are licensed to drive a car, practice law, or even cut hair. Surely the purchase of killing machines and ammunition should require passing a background check, a safety test, registering in a national database, and screening for subsequent infractions that would disqualify gun ownership. -more-


Demolishing the Berkeley Cinema

Harry Brill
Friday December 11, 2015 - 12:26:00 PM

Six members of The Berkeley City Council approved on Tuesday (Dec.8) a major development project in the downtown Shattuck Avenue area, south of University Ave. Max Anderson, Jesse Arreguin, and Kris Worthington voted against it. The Council decision will be very costly to small businesses and their employees. We will certainly see as a result of the development project an escalation of bankruptcies and layoffs.

Here's why. One piece of the development project is the construction of an 18 story luxury high rise apartments. To do so, the developer will demolish the ten screen Berkeley Cinema. That is of course the equivalent of closing ten movie houses. The Berkeley Cinema attracts up to several thousand movie goers every week. Many of these movie goers enjoy dinner or desert downtown, and they also shop at the many business establishments in the area. The net business volume that will be lost as a result of demolishing the movie house will be substantial. -more-


Puerto Rico

Tejinder Uberoi
Friday December 11, 2015 - 02:33:00 PM

Protests have erupted in the island of Puerto Rico over the federal government’s unequal payments to the island’s Medicare and Medicaid programs. For decades, Congress has capped federal reimbursements to Puerto Rico’s healthcare costs, bringing the system to the brink of collapse. Puerto Rico faces a humanitarian crisis unless Congress takes steps to address its crushing debt. The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, took the unusual step of marching in solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico in San Juan a few weeks ago to highlight the discriminatory practices of the U.S. federal government towards their colonial step child. -more-


Elizabeth Warren, COLAs, and the Kochs

Gar Smith
Friday December 11, 2015 - 02:14:00 PM



Senior citizens have been told not expect the usual cost-of-living increase in their Social Security payments. The same message has gone out to millions of other citizens who depend on veterans' benefits, disability payments, and other critical monthly allotments from the Federal safety net.

Today, two-thirds of retired Americans rely on Social Security benefits to supplement (or cover) the constantly rising costs of food and housing. With Social Security checks averaging just $14,375 a year, increasing costs of food, housing and medical care simply cannot be met if payments remain capped.

-more-


U.S. Drones

Jagjit Singh
Friday December 11, 2015 - 04:09:00 PM

The terrorist attack in San Bernardino has caused revulsion and anger because the victims were innocent civilians. Just imagine similar attacks occurring in far off lands at much greater intensity and frequency. This is precisely what is happening as a result of our drone wars. The U.S. drone wars have "fueled intense feelings of hatred that has given rise to terrorist groups like ISIS." That’s the conclusion of four former Air Force service members who are speaking out for the first time. Theyissued a letter to President Obama warning the U.S. drone program is one of the most devastating driving forces igniting terrorism. They accuse the administration of lying about the effectiveness of the drone program, saying it rarely kills terrorists but invariably kills innocent men, women and children. -more-


Editorial

Hill Street Blues: Banksters Buy Berkeley's Downtown

Becky O'Malley
Friday December 11, 2015 - 03:21:00 PM

To the surprise of almost no one, the good citizens of Berkeley presented quarts, pounds, volumes of evidence at Tuesday's City Council Special Meeting proving conclusively that profit figures supplied by Hill Street Realty of Los Angeles, the applicant for The Residences at Berkeley Plaza (also known as the Harold Way Alley Project) were phony, perhaps fraudulently so.

The Bates Bunch voted enthusiastically to rubberstamp the project, of course.

For more factual information about what happened on Tuesday , there's an excellent professional report by Tom Lochner in the Bay Area News Group papers: Berkeley council OK's downtown high-rise project

What do I think caused the Berkeley City Council to grease the skids for this one?

“My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts.”

That’s what my father used to say, parodying adolescent insistence on what he thought were foolish plans.

On Tuesday night, the Berkeley City Council made foot-stamping teenagers look like thoughtful deliberators.

The announced scenario was that they would let anyone who had anything to say about The Residences at Harold Way talk just about as long as they wanted. However, councilmembers never promised to listen, and certainly not to discuss the points raised and facts presented, and they didn’t: “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts.” -more-


Columns

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Employment and Self-Worth

Jack Bragen
Friday December 18, 2015 - 01:48:00 PM

Society's "work ethic" can be a source of self-punishment, usually in the form of self-critical thoughts. The terminology people use, "working" and "not working," are non-coincidentally the same terms we use when a vacuum cleaner or television are either operating properly or broken and in need of repair. -more-


SENIOR POWER: ‘Special consideration’ for elders who commit crimes?

Helen Rippier Wheeler, pen136@dslextreme.com
Friday December 11, 2015 - 02:01:00 PM

Editor's Note: Congratulations to Helen for this column, which is #200 in an outstanding series contributed for Planet readers!


Crime is yet another aspect of the problems aging populations are likely to experience… and sometimes to cause. Elder abuse crimes -- that is, crimes against senior citizens or in which elders are victimized -- fall into four main categories: physical abuse, physical neglect by a caregiver, psychological (mental) abuse, and financial (fiduciary) abuse, including theft of such personal items as cash, investments, real property and jewelry belonging to an elder. Recent criminal activity among senior citizens has been attributed to such things as handling the hours of daily loneliness, novelty-seeking, poverty, anxiety over the future, money having become important, financial stress, a lifelong habit, the early stages of dementia, topping up pension benefits, and fear of being put in a retirement home.

In most nations, young men still commit a disproportionate share of crimes. Bloomberg Business attributes increased criminal activity among senior citizens to loneliness and poverty. But as year 2015 ends, rates of crimes committed by senior citizens are rising in Britain and other European and Asian nations, while the U.S. appears to have escaped the trend. -more-


THE PUBLIC EYE:Republicans are from Mars; Democrats are from Venus

Bob Burnett
Friday December 11, 2015 - 02:39:00 PM

For those seeking an explanation of US politics, there was no better primer than President Obama’s December 6th address to the nation and the Republican response. The President made six points and Republicans rejected most. The two political parties might as well live on different planets. -more-


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Intolerance, Ostracism, and Condescension

Jack Bragen
Friday December 11, 2015 - 02:12:00 PM

Persons with various disabilities, compared to others, are generally more tolerant of people who are different. Those "mainstream" Americans who, without too much difficulty, have found material success, often do not understand persons with mental illness or other disabilities. The epitome of this is Donald Trump, who has become known as the candidate with the most bigoted and ignorant attitude of anyone running for President.

A symptom of society's lack of understanding is the standard work ethic. Since when can someone get away with taking a day off from work because they are just too depressed to go to work that day? The work ethic decidedly doesn't acknowledge excuses not to perform that stem from something happening between the ears. When taking a day off from work due to a flare-up of mental illness, it is usually necessary to fabricate a physical excuse. -more-


DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE:Syria: Shooting Down Peace?

Conn Hallinan
Tuesday December 08, 2015 - 12:23:00 PM

Why did Turkey shoot down that Russian warplane?

It was certainly not because the SU-24 posed any threat. The plane is old and slow, and the Russians were careful not to arm it with anti-aircraft missiles. It was not because the Turks are quick on the trigger. Three years ago Turkish President Recap Tanya Endogen said, “A short-term violation of airspace can never be a pretext for an attack.” And there are some doubts about whether the Russian plane ever crossed into Turkey’s airspace.

Indeed, the whole Nov. 24 incident looks increasingly suspicious, and one doesn’t have to be a paranoid Russian to think the takedown might have been an ambush. As Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney (ret), former U.S. Air Force chief of staff commented, “This airplane was not making any maneuvers to attack the [Turkish] territory,” the Turkish action was “overly aggressive,” and the incident “had to be preplanned.” -more-


ECLECTIC RANT: Gun Violence, As American as Apple Pie

Ralph E. Stone
Friday December 11, 2015 - 02:06:00 PM

Another mass killing in the U.S. This time in San Bernardino — 14 dead, 21 wounded. We say ho-hum as gun violence has now become an expected event in our every day lives. Consider that since 2006, there have been more than 200 mass killings in the U.S. Americans have seemingly come to accept gun violence as long as it doesn’t directly affect them or their love ones personally. -more-


Arts & Events

New: Garrick Ohlsson at Zellerbach

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Saturday December 12, 2015 - 08:23:00 AM

Veteran pianist Garrick Ohlsson gave a masterful recital on Sunday, December 6 at Zellerbach Hall. Originally from White Plains, New York, Mr. Ohlsson now makes his home in San Francisco. He was heard last Fall with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto conducted by Juraj Valčuha, (See my review of that concert in the October 17, 2014 issue of this paper.) At Zellerbach this Sunday, Mr. Ohlsson featured Beethoven’s Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110, Schubert’s Fantasy in C major, D. 760, “Wanderer,” and, after intermission, selections from Enrique Granados’s Goyescas. -more-


Back Stories

Opinion

Editorials

Hill Street Blues: Banksters Buy Berkeley's Downtown 12-11-2015

Public Comment

New: Board of Library Trustees Meets Tomorrow Evening--Be There From Hale Zukas, for SavetheBPLbooks 12-15-2015

Religious Terror and Bans at the Borders (Letters the Chron Wouldn't Print) Gar Smith 12-11-2015

Candidates like Cruz Bruce Joffe 12-11-2015

Demolishing the Berkeley Cinema Harry Brill 12-11-2015

Puerto Rico Tejinder Uberoi 12-11-2015

Elizabeth Warren, COLAs, and the Kochs Gar Smith 12-11-2015

U.S. Drones Jagjit Singh 12-11-2015

News

Berkeley Girl Makes Good (Again) in Washington 12-11-2015

Updated: Motion on the 2211 Harold Way Project From: Councilmembers Anderson and Arreguin 12-11-2015

Columns

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Employment and Self-Worth Jack Bragen 12-18-2015

SENIOR POWER: ‘Special consideration’ for elders who commit crimes? Helen Rippier Wheeler, pen136@dslextreme.com 12-11-2015

THE PUBLIC EYE:Republicans are from Mars; Democrats are from Venus Bob Burnett 12-11-2015

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Intolerance, Ostracism, and Condescension Jack Bragen 12-11-2015

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE:Syria: Shooting Down Peace? Conn Hallinan 12-08-2015

ECLECTIC RANT: Gun Violence, As American as Apple Pie Ralph E. Stone 12-11-2015

Arts & Events

New: Garrick Ohlsson at Zellerbach Reviewed by James Roy MacBean 12-12-2015