Public Comment

Civil Rights for Persons with Disabilities

Helen Walsh, Mary Behm-Steinberg
Friday December 13, 2019 - 11:25:00 AM

Dear Mayor and City Council:

We’re writing as a follow-up to disability issues mentioned by Mary Behm-Steinberg during the public comment period.

Ironically, that meeting also had accessibility issues, and they were issues that would cost little or nothing to correct. In the case of one of them (having at least 2 copies of the agenda in 18 point type), we have been asking for well over a year and it still has not happened. This is absurd, especially for something so simple and cheap, particularly in the home of the disability rights movement, and especially when both Oakland and San Francisco have demonstrated that it is easy and possible to do.

The other problem last night a lack of seating designated for mobility impaired individuals, especially during a meeting everyone should have known would be packed. We both have mobility issues, and we had to move multiple times to have a place to sit. There were very few individuals who offered a seat, and while we are always thankful for those who do (and we did accept), the lack of awareness on this issue only grows when it is reinforced by an administrative structure that demonstrates similar types of insensitivity to basic needs. -more-


Harold Way — New Plans Call for New Review

Gale Garcia
Sunday December 15, 2019 - 03:50:00 PM

2211 Harold Way is one of three 18-story downtown projects allowed by Ballot Measure R of 2010, which also mandated that significant community benefits be provided by the project. Located at the current site of Landmark Cinemas and the historic Shattuck Hotel, this project probably received more citizen opposition than any other in Berkeley history. -more-


Part Three: Party on Until the Apocalypse

Bob Silvestri
Sunday December 15, 2019 - 10:41:00 AM

They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Yet, that’s precisely what we’re trying to do when we base political and societal decisions only on financial considerations and outcomes.

In 2007, just one year before the economic collapse of 2008, Nassim Nicholas Taleb famously wrote a book called “The Black Swan.” The title refers to the fact that for hundreds of years, people in Europe “knew” that swans were always white. White and swans were synonymous. Until one day they saw a flock of black swans …and everything changed. The title is a metaphor for our inability to account for unforeseeable events: what Taleb called, “The impact of the highly improbable.”

Nassim’s fundamental thesis is that the future cannot be predicted because, in reality, it can only be based on past experience. And because of this, we always think that in the future everything will somehow just work out because it always has.

Until it doesn’t.

In the first part of this series, I wrote about what psychologists might call the “toxic co-dependency” that currently exists between public credit and equity markets, central bankers, and the financial health of government, public agencies, pension obligations, and the associated risks to middle-class taxpayers in an economy driven primarily by personal consumption.

In the second installment, I wrote about the increasingly precarious relationship between state-mandated, unsustainable growth, the resultant public and private indebtedness, and the risks of future financial burdens on us all.

Together, these two articles paint a picture of the financial morass we find ourselves heading into, the very same moment in history when we need massive amounts of capital to address an increasingly long list of socio-economic problems and inequities.

Equal access to healthcare, education, and jobs training are on that list. Any system that fails in those areas ends up paying many times the costs in lost productivity, crime, social support services, and much more. The need to reform government agencies and services and bring them into the 21st century, technologically, so they function more effectively is another major challenge. The grossly inefficient (and often illegal) use of taxpayer dollars by local, regional, state and the federal government, and the legacy of entitlements and pension/benefit largess they are adding, daily, only compound our problems.

And, of course, we need to address the mounting failures in providing basic public services, which go hand in hand with rebuilding our infrastructure: our roads, bridges, tunnels, power grids, water systems, sewage and waste treatment systems, railways, waterways, docks and ports, airports, and a long list of other fundamental systems, without which our society cannot continue to function.

Overall, our endgame is not looking good for the average and even above average earners, much less the poor and disadvantaged. This is exacerbated by unsustainable growth and the way we measure “success” or “failure,” using antiquated financial metrics, such as Gross Domestic Product.

For the rest of the article, click here. -more-


All I Want for Christmas is My PRA

Carol Denney
Sunday December 15, 2019 - 11:08:00 AM

Dear Santa,

I filed a Public Records Request on September 14th, 2019 to try to find out why they fenced off Triangle Park, the little park at the corner of Dwight Way and Telegraph Avenue. You're supposed to hear back within ten days according to the law. I'm still waiting.

I called a few times, the and lovely staff at the City Manager's office routes me to a phone machine where I leave a message. No one ever returns my call. I'm polite. It's almost Christmas, and I'm still waiting. -more-


Editorial

Berkeley Needs Full-Spectrum Access

Becky O'Malley
Sunday December 15, 2019 - 10:59:00 AM

There’s an excellent letter to the Berkeley City Council in today’s issue from Helen Walsh and Mary Behm-Steinberg which calls attention to the city of Berkeley’s neglect of appropriate accommodations for people with mobility problems and other disabilities. I particularly appreciate it since I banged up a leg when I tripped on a porch stair, and have needed to use a cane and even a walker to get around for several months. I go to a fair number of meetings with a city planning focus, and what I’ve belated started to notice is how little attention is paid to the needs of people with intermediate levels of mobiity impairments.

It turns out that there are lots of stages between riding a bicycle around town and using a power wheelchair. I’m so old that I’m a year or two ahead of the enormous boomer demographic, but right behind me there are a whole lot more folks who are going to need some help getting around, if they don’t already. I’m getting around better these days, but I’m under no illusion that full mobility lasts forever for most of us. -more-


Columns

THE PUBLIC EYE: Capitalism has Failed

Bob Burnett
Friday December 13, 2019 - 11:30:00 AM

In the seventies, I was privileged to hear the British economist E.F. Schumacher -- author of "Small is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered" -- speak in Palo Alto. Schumacher observed that we were all living in the new age of dinosaurs, where our economy is ruled by giant corporations that roam the earth crushing everything in their path. Schumacher cautioned his audience to be prepared for the day when corporations collapsed. That's where we are now: giant corporations are beginning to disintegrate. Capitalism has failed and the end times have come for mega corporations. Donald Trump is a harbinger of the death throes of capitalism.

Even though the holidays are just around the corner, December 2019 has been unusually depressing. Every day we receive new warnings that the environment is in perilous straits (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/10/arctic-sea-ice-cover-falls-to-alarming-low-as-temperatures-rise). There are riots throughout the world. And, of course, there's the omnipresent news about mad emperor Trump.

These aren't isolated events. Global Climate Change is the result of unfettered capitalism; corporations pillaging the planet. Social unrest is most often the result of economic injustice produced by the unequal distribution of income and capital that are the byproducts of the dominant economic system. And, as Robert Reich notes (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/08/donald-trump-citizens-united-anti-democracy-decade?), Donald Trump is the logical consequence of unfettered capitalism.

Rather than dismiss Trump as a pathological politician, it's necessary to see him as the extreme symptom of unfettered capitalism. It's important to defeat Trump in 2020, but even more important to address cancerous capitalism that threatens the soul of democracy as well as the well-being of the planet.

There's a lot to say about Donald Trump, but we can begin by recognizing that he's the consummate capitalist. In all circumstances, Trump places his own interests above other ethical (and legal) considerations. (Donald favors the crony capitalism, corporate bailouts, and corporate welfare that characterize capitalism in 2019.) Trump is resolutely committed to the maxim: "the ends justify the means." (This explains his astonishing willingness to lie, as well as his predilection for self-dealing.) And Trump typifies the paternalism that permeates giant corporations. -more-


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Those Who Last

Jack Bragen
Saturday December 14, 2019 - 03:02:00 PM

Some individuals with psychiatric conditions have a strong edge, in which they might be narcissistic, or may just impose their own version of reality. It is a character trait that could sometimes work in their favor, or sometimes against them. If it is mixed with violent tendencies, it is a recipe, truly, for their own demise. Another character trait, one that tends to work against a person, is a lack of flexibility in which people cannot accommodate the needs of others. Having money is an enabling factor that allows some people to get away with either of the above, but only for a limited period. -more-


ECLECTIC RANT: Planet Earth Sizzles While Politicians Fiddle

Ralph E. Stone
Saturday December 14, 2019 - 03:30:00 PM

I’m afraid the race against the climate change clock is lost. The international community has too long ignored the empirical evidence showing that the climate crisis is real and is largely caused by man. This is not a theory; it is a fact. If someone tells you this is untrue, then they are lying or ignorant or stand to benefit by ignoring it. -more-


SMITHEREENS: Reflections on Bits & Pieces

Gar Smith
Saturday December 14, 2019 - 03:12:00 PM

BART Art: A Door Adorably Adorned

Riding back from SF on BART recently, I noticed an odd warning sign on the door of BART car #2570. One of the windows on the automatic door had a small, illustrated sign warning: "Don't Block the Doors." The adjacent window had a similar illustrated sign that read: "No Cross-country Skiing."

Say what?

Looking closer, I discovered that some anonymous BART jokester had pasted an official-looking-but-bogus warning over a sign that originally read: "Do Not Hold Doors."

Sure enough, the drawing of a passenger holding two vertical bars apart in the open position DOES look like a skier holding two cross-country ski poles!

My Nominee for City Employee of the Week

Making a run to the Main Post Office last week, I pulled into a parking spot on Harold Way. After exiting my car, I had to dance around a city employee who was busy power-washing the sidewalk. On my return, the hosing was still in progress and, I noted—with a mix of amazement and amusement—that the fellow wielding the hose was also pausing to spray each of the cars parked along the curb.

Ducking back inside my car, I caught his eye and gave him a smile and a salute. He returned the salute and set about power-washing my Nissan until it gleamed, allowing me to execute a clean getaway. -more-


TECH TOPICS: Notes from the Mac Help Desk

Glen Kohler
Friday December 13, 2019 - 11:42:00 AM

On the Desktop

PC/Windows tech Juan Castillo recently made the first valid criticism of the macOS I have heard from a Windows user: whereas Windows makes users put documents in the documents folder and pictures in the pictures folder, the Mac OS allows us to put any kind of file almost anywhere.

And do we ever. -more-


Arts & Events

Takács Quartet Performs Bartók’s Complete String Quartets

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Sunday December 15, 2019 - 10:54:00 AM

The renowned Takács Quartet returned to Berkeley’s Hertz Hall on Saturday-Sunday, December 7-8, to perform all six of Bela Bartók’s String Quartets. Appearing under the auspices of Cal Performances, the Takács Quartet played Bartók’s string quartets 1,3,5 on Saturday evening, and the composer’s quartets 2,4,6 on Sunday afternoon. Due to Saturday evening’s stormy weather, I did not attend that concert; but I was present for Sunday’s 3:00 PM concert. The Takács Quartet is comprised of violinists Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, cellist András Fejér, and violist Geraldine Walter. Only András Fejér remains of the founders of the original Takács Quartet, which began in Budapest in 1975. -more-


MESSIAH Yet Again at Grace Cathedral

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Sunday December 15, 2019 - 10:58:00 AM

Every year for the past 22 years American Bach Soloists has performed Handel’s MESSIAH in Grace Cathedral during the early weeks of December. Last year, I found their performance brilliant, and moreover I had something of a revelation regarding how much the MESSIAH libretto by Charles Jennens suggests Christianity’s debt to earlier pagan religions. So this year I returned to Grace Cathedral hoping for another brilliant performance and maybe even a deepened understanding of the libretto. Well, the latter did ensue, but, unfortunately, this year’s performance lacked the vocal brilliance of last year’s superb cast. -more-


Events

The Berkeley Activist's Calendar, Dec. 15-22

Kelly Hammargren, Sustainable Berkeley Coalition
Saturday December 14, 2019 - 02:36:00 PM

Worth Noting and Showing Up:

Future

  • Holiday and Reduced Service Days for the Week of December 22 – 29
    • Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are City reduced service days. Wednesday the City offices are closed for the Christmas Holiday


Sunday, December 15, 2019

People’s Park Holiday Concert, 12 – 5 pm at People’s Park

https://www.facebook.com/events/2005718136198559/

Civic Arts Commission – Policy Subcommittee, 3:30 - 5 pm at 2180 Milvia, Cypress Room, 1st Floor, Agenda: Development of Public Art Ordinance, Capital Grant Program and Arts Education Program, Policy for City Poet Laureate, Certifying artists and cultural workers for affordable housing.

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/CivicArtsCommissionHomepage/ -more-


Back Stories

Opinion

Editorials

Berkeley Needs Full-Spectrum Access 12-15-2019

Public Comment

Civil Rights for Persons with Disabilities Helen Walsh, Mary Behm-Steinberg 12-13-2019

Harold Way — New Plans Call for New Review Gale Garcia 12-15-2019

Part Three: Party on Until the Apocalypse Bob Silvestri 12-15-2019

All I Want for Christmas is My PRA Carol Denney 12-15-2019

Columns

THE PUBLIC EYE: Capitalism has Failed Bob Burnett 12-13-2019

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Those Who Last Jack Bragen 12-14-2019

ECLECTIC RANT: Planet Earth Sizzles While Politicians Fiddle Ralph E. Stone 12-14-2019

SMITHEREENS: Reflections on Bits & Pieces Gar Smith 12-14-2019

TECH TOPICS: Notes from the Mac Help Desk Glen Kohler 12-13-2019

Arts & Events

Takács Quartet Performs Bartók’s Complete String Quartets Reviewed by James Roy MacBean 12-15-2019

MESSIAH Yet Again at Grace Cathedral Reviewed by James Roy MacBean 12-15-2019

The Berkeley Activist's Calendar, Dec. 15-22 Kelly Hammargren, Sustainable Berkeley Coalition 12-14-2019