Berkeley’s 66-year-old ice-skating rink is up for sale, but some fear it will close before new operators take it on.  

Berkeley Iceland owners East Bay Iceland, Inc. placed the rink on the market Monday for $6.45 million, citing an inability to meet the increased costs of maintaining the facility. 

The rink, at 2727 Milvia St., is operating on an administrative use permit that expires in April. If not extended or if new owners don’t step in, the rink will shut down. 

Berkeley Iceland was forced to revamp its refrigeration system in October, when it was discovered that it contained potentially hazardous ammonia. The city of Berkeley granted Berkeley Iceland an administrative use permit until April, allowing it to operate with a temporary cooling system. 

But as the permit deadline approaches, the owners have decided that rather than fund a new permanent system—which could cost about $500,000, according to East Bay Iceland, Inc. General Manager Jay Wescott—they’ll seek new investors. 

“With everything we’ve been through economically, it’s just not making sense anymore” for the owners to keep the facility, Wescott said. 

The property is being sold by Gordon Commercial Real Estate Services. Buyers would pick up the cost of a new cooling system to bring the rink up to city code.  

Wescott is currently beseeching the city to grant a use permit extension, under the premise that it will make the rink a more desirable sale. 

But some skaters fear the worst.  

“It’s horrible,” said Chris McLaughlin, who has been skating at Berkeley Iceland since the 1970s. McLaughlin plays pick-up hockey games at the rink up to three times a week. His children learned to skate there. 

He guesses new management will be difficult to come by, given the aging facility is in need of costly renovations. 

“I think most people who skate here would like to see it stay open, but I think that’s a long shot,” he said. 

Sharon Derr echoed his sentiment. 

“It’s a tragedy,” she said. “It’s been here for 66 years and now it’s going to be gone.” 

Since 1994, Derr has skated at Berkeley Iceland, where she also teaches skating lessons. If the rink closes, she’ll hit the ice in Oakland or Vacaville, but said neither rink is as desirable. 

Berkeley Iceland was founded in 1940. At 100 feet by 200 feet, Wescott said, it is a rare international-sized skating rink. It held the U.S. National Ice Skating Championships in 1947, 1957 and 1966, and has played host to the Ice Capades and roller derby matches. In the late 1980s, Brian Boitono rehearsed the Olympic programs that earned him gold in Calgary in 1988. 

It hosts myriad programs, including skating schools and hockey and broomball leagues. 

Wescott hopes the community connection will be a selling point. 

“My God, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of people who have learned to skate here,” he said. “It’s been an incredible asset to the community.” 

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Nearly a quarter of a million residents went hungry in Alameda County last year, a new report said. 

A study released by the Alameda County Community Food Bank last week shows that 40,000 residents seek emergency food assistance each week, including 16,000 children and 6,144 seniors, many of whom skip meals because there isn’t enough food on the table. 

“It’s a sad fact that more children and seniors in our community are missing meals,” said Suzan Bateson, executive director of the county food bank, in a prepared statement.  

Part of a nationwide study, the report surveyed 407 local food assistance recipients in the first detailed portrait of hunger in Alameda County since 2001. The county food bank, which distributes foodstuff to 300 local pantries, soup kitchens and shelters, conducts the study every four years. 

Among the findings, many who received food assistance are the working poor, and nearly half report they’ve had to choose between eating and paying rent. 

Allison Pratt, director of policy and services, said one of the most alarming statistics is the sheer volume of residents seeking help, up 30 percent from 2001. 

“The number of people we’re seeing has gone up significantly,” she said. 

Pratt speculates that the skyrocketing cost of subsistence in the Bay Area is a major contributing factor. 

“Our cost of living is so much higher,” she said. “We have a lot of people who fall into the gap, who are earning too much to get food stamps but not enough to put food on the table.” 

According to the study, the median monthly income for food assistance recipients is $800; roughly three-fifths live below the federal poverty line. 

The report also details the underuse of federal nutrition benefits. 

One in five households receives food stamps, but an estimated 70 percent qualify. This is virtually unchanged from data released in 2001, when one in five households secured food stamps while 80 percent qualified.  

Yet nationally, food stamp use is up.  

According to the federal study, also released last week and jointly conducted by America’s Second Harvest, The Nation’s Food Bank Network and Mathmatica Policy Research, 35 percent of the nation’s food assistance recipients participated in the food stamp program in 2005. 

In 2001, Bateson told the Daily Planet the food stamp program is underfunded and difficult for Alameda County residents to navigate, a sentiment she echoed in a phone interview Friday. But she said the county food bank has been working with local agencies to improve accessibility and awareness. 

“We wanted to use that information (from 2001) to encourage more populations in Alameda County to become aware of the food stamp program and over the past four years, we have worked assiduously with the people in social services and Alameda County and I think we’re improving our enrollment,” she said. 

In addition to unused federal food benefits, Bateson said the study has shed light on the food bank’s need to address the hunger afflicting both senior citizens and the working poor. 

Van Yazarian, 66, lives off Social Security and after paying rent he says he takes home $200.  

“It’s barely enough to buy groceries,” he said. So Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he frequents the McGee Baptist Church at 1640 Stuart St., where he piles meat, potatoes, macaroni and leafy greens onto a plate and lunches among fellow Berkeleyans who are unable to make ends meet. 

On Friday at 12:30 p.m., the backroom of McGee Baptist was abuzz with hungry residents young and old enjoying a hot meal.  

Many have been coming for years, said chef Norman Franklin, who’s been turning out “down home cooking” at the church for nine and a half years. Diners call him Mr. Franklin. 

But recently he’s seen a spike in clientele, particularly among families and children.  

“We used to see 140, 150, now we see 180 to 200” people a day, he said. Some of them are as young as 5 or 6. Many are senior citizens. 

Rosalind Smith has noticed a busier dining room, too. She’s been coming to McGee Baptist Church for three years, and said of recent days, “It’s very, very crowded.” 

She’s not sure why the upsurge, but ventured a guess:  

“There are hungry people out there,” she said, adding with a laugh, “And Mr. Franklin is a good cook.” 

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Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto makes its African-American staff work in the back of its Fourth Street restaurant, away from most customers, according to the complaint in a lawsuit filed by the San Francisco law offices of Angela Alioto. 

Further, the complaint says, management has referred to African-Americans using racial slurs, such as “boy,” forces them to work more hours than their white counterparts without more pay, refuses them promotions, and derides them in public. It names Spenger’s owners, McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants, as defendants. 

Alioto attorney Steven L. Robinson says the allegations, filed on behalf of eight former employees, are particularly shocking, given Spenger’s location. 

“Berkeley is one of the most liberal places in the state, the country and the world,” he said in a phone interview. “If something like that happens here, it’s very bad. This is one of the most hostile work places we’ve ever heard of.” 

In a written response filed with the courts, McCormick & Schmick, which owns some 50 restaurants and catering operations around the country, denied all allegations. The company, founded in the early 1970s, asserted that it “maintain(s) and enforce(s) policies prohibiting discrimination, harassment and retaliation against its employees. These policies encourage employees to come forward with complaints of discrimination, harassment and retaliation and provide for discipline (including termination) of any employee (including supervisors) found to have violated [the company’s] policy prohibiting discrimination, harassment and retaliation.”  

McCormick & Schmick and their attorneys, Jackson Lewis LLP, did not return calls requesting comment before deadline.  

To illustrate the prejudicial attitude, the complaint alleges that at a management meeting in November 2004, the company’s vice president “specified the kind of people corporate wanted in the front of the restaurant are ‘bubbly blondes with long legs.’”  

In addition to racial discrimination, the complaint charges that overweight staff and those over 50 face bigotry at Spenger’s. Management allegedly told one of the plaintiffs to place obese and older staff in the back, saying that “the old prima donnas … need to retire.”  

Further, employees were directed to discriminate against African-American customers, the suit alleges. Management told one of the plaintiffs that “African-American customers are loud, complain too much and don’t spend as much money as the Caucasian patrons,” the suit says. When the plaintiff complained, the suit alleges that, in retaliation, he was overloaded with work. 

“The workplace itself is segregated,” Robinson said. 

The company “has no problem hiring (minority) bus boys and waiters,” he said, adding that a large percentage of this staff is African American, Filipino, or Latino. “The wait staff is mostly white,” he said. 

At the same time, Robinson said, the Alioto law firm is looking into charges of discrimination at other McCormick & Schmick restaurants, though they have not filed other lawsuits against the company. 

Robinson said the case is likely to go to trial, but no date has been set. 

?

One of the attorneys the Albany City Council hired to handle talks with a controversial Southern California developer over a project at Golden Gate Fields may have represented the developer on a similar project. 

According to a document filed with the state Court of Appeal, Michael H. Zischke, a partner with Morrison & Foerster, a powerful and well-connected law firm based in San Francisco, represented Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso in a legal battle over a contested mall development in Southern California. 

But Albany City Attorney Robert J. Zweben says there’s no conflict, and that the Zischke’s involvement in that case may be a big plus for the city. 

Two environmentalists disagree. 

“On the face of it, this appears to be a conflict of interest,” said Norman La Force, an attorney and Sierra Club activist. 

“What’s going on here?” asked former Albany Mayor Robert Cheasty, one of the founders of Citizens for the Eastshore Park (CESP), which, with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, opposes Caruso’s plans. 

“Why are we having Caruso’s former attorney represent us?” asked Cheasty. “And why wasn’t his representation of Caruso discussed?” 

Zischke was an attorney of record for Caruso Affiliated Holdings, the developer’s firm, as of Nov. 17, 2005, when the California Court of Appeals Second District issued an unpublished decision upholding Caruso and the city against the owners of the Glendale Galleria.  

Co-chair of his law firm’s Land Use and Environmental Law Group, Zischke was hired to help the city prepare an Environmental Impact Review of Caruso’s plans for the Albany waterfront. 

Caruso, aided by his employee and former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook, has been lobbying heavily to gain public support for his proposal, which would place an upscale, open air mall on the Golden Gates Fields parking lot adjacent to the base of the Albany Bulb to north of the race track. 

Zweben said that Zischke had been hired by the city of Glendale and its development agency to handle the environmental review process for the Caruso project. 

When the owners of the Glendale Galleria sued to challenge the approval of the EIR on that project as well as the development itself, the city and redevelopment agency joined with Caruso in a joint defense. 

“For the purposes of the litigation, they were conducting a joint defense, so technically you could say he was representing all the defendants,” including Caruso, said Zweben. “I do not see that there is any conflict of interest” with his relationship to the City of Albany. 

Cheasty said that city officials and the City Council should have been more open about the previous relationship between Caruso and the attorney before the city retained him to work on the Caruso project. 

“The subject was raised by speakers” at a recent council meeting, said Cheasty. ”He (Zischke) didn’t say anything. The city attorney didn’t said anything. It would have been appropriate to have discussed the issue.” 

Regardless of whether or not there is an actual conflict of interest, La Force said, “this is such a controversial project that the city shouldn’t have this issue hanging over its head.” 

Caruso’s plans call for a mall that would feature housing built over retail spaces.  

The developer’s projects in Southern California have become major draws, and the Grove in Los Angeles even outdraws the famous Farmer’s Market, located immediately next door. 

Initiatives ahead? 

Zweben said he had heard that the project has inspired two rival groups to prepare initiatives to take to the voters on the future of the waterfront. 

Under Measure C, passed by voters in 1990, developments on the Albany waterfront must be presented to voters for approval. 

Zweben said he has heard that two competing initiatives are in the works, one by development foes including CESP, the Sierra Club and Citizens for the Albany Shoreline, and a competing measure by the Albany Waterfront Coalition, a group that looks more favorably on the project. 

Zweben said that the developer is at least a two years away from taking the project to the voters himself. 

An environmental impact report would take about a year and a half and possibly longer, he said. 

›

The controversy over the removal of Oakland medical professional Gwen Sykes from the Alameda County Medical Center Board of Trustees descended into confusion this week. 

Alameda County Board of Supervisors President Keith Carson said that he had removed Sykes only after she had told him that she was going to resign but refused to do so. Alameda County Counsel Richard Winnie said that Sykes had actually resigned from the board by letter, but Sykes denied that she had resigned. 

The only thing all sides agreed on was that Sykes’ removal stemmed from her complaints about fiscal matters at the Alameda County Medical Center. The center includes Highland Hospital in Oakland, Fairmont Hospital in San Leandro, the John George Psychiatric Pavilion, and three county outpatient clinics. The center has been in financial difficulty for several years. 

Sykes said that she has retained an attorney and is considering legal action to fight her removal from the hospital trustee board. 

Winnie said that he had seen Sykes’ letter of resignation from the board, and promised to provide a copy if he had one available in his office, but had not done so by late Monday afternoon. 

Winnie agreed with the assertion in last week’s Daily Planet article that Carson by himself did not have the authority to remove Sykes from the board and that the bylaws of the Alameda County Medical Center only allow a trustee to be removed by a majority of members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. 

But asked by telephone if she had resigned from the board, Sykes said, “No, I never did. Several people with the hospital and the county tried to get me to do that, Richard Winnie included. But I didn’t resign.” 

Carson confirmed that. 

“She’d agreed on numerous occasions to step off the board,” he said in a telephone interview. He added he called a joint meeting of representatives of the trustee board, the board of supervisors, and county and medical center staff in early February to address Sykes’ concerns and “understood that at the end of the meeting she would step down. She elected not to do that.” 

Carson said that he knew that Sykes was considering an appeal of her removal and said that “she has every right to pursue that avenue, but I think she’s really damaging herself.” 

As reported last week in the Daily Planet, Carson announced in a Feb. 15 letter to the trustees that “effective Feb. 27, Dr. Gwen Rowe-Lee Sykes will no longer serve on the Alameda County Medical Center Board of Trustees.” Carson appointed Sykes to the board in March 2004. 

Even though the removal was to be effective this week, Sykes’ name and picture had already been removed from the ACMC Board of Trustees web page by late last week. 

“I drafted the letter to be ambiguous,” Carson said in his interview, “so that it wouldn’t impugn her integrity and that people reading it would not know that she had been terminated. I have tried to be protective of her.” 

According to Sykes, the situation reached a head during the Jan. 24 trustee meeting when she raised questions about the state of the medical center’s finances, which Sykes called “bleak.” 

“I told the board members at that meeting that we had been misled by Cambio,” she said. “We were told that we would meet our budget, but we will not. I asked why we were not reviewing Cambio’s contract for noncompliance.” 

Tennessee-based Cambio Health Solutions was hired by the medical center in February 2004 to analyze the medical center’s finances. Cambio’s involvement with the medical center ended with the appointment of Wright Lassiter as ACMC CEO last September. 

Carson’s February meeting of trustees and supervisors came as a result of the issues raised by Sykes at the Jan. 24 meeting. 

Sykes said that at that meeting former Pleasanton mayor Tom Pico, the recently-elected treasurer of the medical center’s trustee board, “invited me to join him on the finance committee. He renewed that request at the Feb. 6 meeting and told me that my questions about the accuracy of the financial statements coming from the staff were valid.” 

Pico could not be reached for comment. 

But Carson said that he removed Sykes from the board because she was getting no support for her concerns from other trustee members. 

“I tried to make sure her issues were heard by the appropriate body,” Carson said. “But when it gets to a place where she’s not being heard by her colleagues and there is a unanimous conclusion about her issues, then she’s not able to do good work any more.” 

“Nobody was trying to muzzle her,” Winnie said. “I know that she had a whole variety of complaints, and a subcommittee of the board was formed to hear them and document them. Keith [Carson] was interested in what she was saying. He made sure my office heard what she was saying. But she was raising very antagonistic charges against the staff and board members that were increasing in volume over time. They were very heavy charges.” 

Carson said that he “understood” from J. Bennett Tate, the president of the medical center board of trustees, that the issues raised by Sykes “are still being investigated.” 

But while Carson was giving guarded praise to Sykes, saying that he “thought she did a good job” while on the board, Sykes said that what disturbed her most about the situation was the lack of support by a fellow African-American. Both Carson and Sykes are black. 

“I can’t accept it when one African-American asks another one to do a task,” Sykes said, “and then, when she does it, she gets shot down by the same African-American who made the request.”

It was business as usual in front of Berkeley Honda Saturday. 

Dozens of demonstrators assembled at 2600 Shattuck Ave. with picket signs in hand to support the union strike that, for the past eight months, has pitted veteran Berkeley Honda service employees against dealership owners in a battle over workers, pensions and pay. 

The strike is going strong, picketers say. But they have new cause for concern. 

A Berkeley Honda employee filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month seeking an election to decertify the dealership’s service unions. If granted, workers could vote to dissolve union representation altogether.  

The unions, Machinists Local 1546 and Teamsters Local 78, called a strike June 15 when Danville businessmen Stephen and Tim Beinke assumed control of the auto shop, required employees to reapply for their jobs then declined to hire back roughly half the workforce. 

Instead, they opted for a pool of cheaper, less experienced workers—who are more qualified, they say—and refused to extend a union contract that expired at the end of June.  

The petition to summon an election was submitted by Assistant Manager Barry Strock, who was hired in June, and signed by at least 30 percent of the employees. The labor board is in the process of reviewing the petition and deciding whether an election is warranted and who is eligible to vote. 

Elections typically take place within 50 days of the petition filing date, according to the labor board website. However, area director of Machinists Local 1546 Don Crosatto said the board often breaches deadlines, and he doubts it will render a decision anytime soon. 

Crosatto said if employees cast votes today, there would be a draw. But if an election takes place after June 15—when strikers are no longer considered employees —anti-union workers would assume the catbird seat. 

Strike supporters say the petition is just the latest in a long line of tactics dealership management is using to bust the unions. Steve Haworth, general manager for Berkeley Honda, replied that it’s the workers—not the owners—who are fed up with union antics. 

“It has been very frustrating for those employees that have not walked out,” Haworth said.  

Berkeley Honda Internet Sales Manager Chris Regalia said strikebreakers are frustrated over the verbal abuse they’ve endured for the past eight months. (Strikers have made the same allegations.) 

But an election won’t change anything, Crosatto said, except to spark louder protest. 

“Even if this comes to pass, a boycott will continue,” he said. “We can boycott them forever.” 

The bi-weekly rallies in front of Berkeley Honda gather strikers, union supporters and general community members in urging passers-by to boycott the dealership. 

Both sides say the strike is exacting a toll on business. Though car sales are up 12 percent, Haworth admits service business has sharply declined. 

Bill Mixsell, a Berkeley Honda service advisor for 15 years who was re-hired in June then walked out, estimated the auto shop used to service about 60 cars a day. Now it sees 20—and sometimes as few as 12—a day, he said. 

Crosatto warns that ousting the unions won’t spell flourishing patronage. 

“Let’s say they get rid of us,” he said. “Business is not just going to pop back up.”  

In the meantime, both sides say they’re willing to negotiate. 

“[We’ve] been willing to talk,” said Harry Brill, of the Berkeley Honda Labor and Community Coalition, which formed to support the strike. “They basically didn’t want to bargain from the very beginning. We’re willing to make all kinds of concessions.” 

Haworth countered that management has been trying to cut a deal for seven months, much to no avail.  

“We all think the union was very quick to hold a preemptory call for a strike without sitting down at the bargaining table for us to work out at deal,” he said. “In doing so, I think they put themselves between a rock and a hard place.”  

At the crux of the dispute are worker pensions. 

In June, Berkeley Honda management declined to renew contracts that included pension coverage, among other benefits. Instead, workers were offered better pay and 401Ks but the unions rejected the offer. 

“The guys want to give me a raise but don’t want to give me a pension,” Mixsell said.  

“A pension will be more valuable when I retire,” he said. “They’re offering a 401K, but that doesn’t begin to compare to a pension.” 

Regalia says pensions are “terribly outdated”—insisting they bankrupted airline companies—and thinks workers should consider other options.  

Union representatives are slated to bargain with management March 9. 

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Construction of the Sugar Bowl, a $200 million tribal casino on industrial lands in unincorporated North Richmond, would have no negative environmental impacts so great that they can’t be mitigated, according to a recently released environmental impact statement (EIS). 

The document, prepared as one of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s requirements for transfer of land to reservation status, is the equivalent of an environmental impact report under California law. 

Both the state and federal documents require a detailed examination of the potentially negative impacts on the human and natural environments as well as proposed mitigations that would offset those effects. 

“Environmental analysis throughout the EIS has determined there are no unavoidable adverse environmental effects,” concludes the report, employing the technical jargon of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). 

The document was released in advance of a March 15 public hearing, starting at 6 p.m. in the Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs will continue to take written comments on the project until April 28. 

The site in question contains 29.9 acres of land along the eastern side of Richmond Parkway north of Parr Boulevard. It is one of two tribal casino projects now under development in the Richmond area, and the one closest to approval. 

The Guidiville Rancheria Pomo band in conjunction with Berkeley developer James D. Levine and Harrah’s Entertainment are planning a much grander casino with a larger entertainment venue and a hotel complex on Richmond’s Point Molate on the site of a former U.S. Navy fueling station. That project is about eight months behind the Sugar Bowl project in the approval process. 

Plans to expand an existing tribal card room, Casino San Pablo in San Pablo, into a full-scale gambling hall and hotel have been stalled in the face of opposition to massive expansion plans initially approved by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

The Sugar Bowl would be a major boon to the Scott’s Valley Pomos, a small and impoverished group which is developing the casino in conjunction with Noram Richmond LLC, a special purpose corporation formed by Noram LLC, a Florida firm which is part of the multi-corporate empire which has evolved from North American Sports Management. 

The companies were created by Alan H. Ginsburg of Maitland, Fla., a major player in the Native American gambling boom, with casino ventures spanning the nation from the extreme Southeast to the far Northwest. 

According to the EIS, of the Scott’s Valley Band’s 181 members, one-third of the adults are unemployed, 56.8 percent of tribal members receive some form of government assistance, and 95.5 percent are categorized as low income. 

Only 22.7 percent of tribal members have full-time jobs—though the majority of the tribal members—93 out of 181—were under the age of 18 in 2005, and 86 between the ages of 18 and 64 and two age 65 and older. 

Plans call for a 225,000-sqaure-foot building that would house a 79,320-square-foot casino, with a 24,000-square-foot showroom with seating for 1,500 plus a 250-seat venue for lounge acts and a 150-seat sports bar. It would feature a 600-seat buffet, plus a 120-seat restaurant and a food court. The facility would also have 3,549 parking spaces, 2,044 of them in a five-level structure. 

The document predicts the casino would generate an additional 14,000 weekday car trips, with 441 of them during the peak morning commute and 932 during the equivalent evening hour. The report concludes that the increase wouldn’t result in delays beyond a few seconds at intersections in the area with the traffic improvements suggested in the report. 

Because most employees are expected to be hired locally and Richmond now has 1,431 vacant housing units, the EIS concludes that the casino would not result in the need for new housing construction. 

Economic benefits 

The casino is presented as a major economic boon to the ailing Richmond economy, with construction labor costs estimated at $28.1 million, the equivalent of 553 fulltime builders working for a full year. 

The gain in jobs is one of the reasons that several prominent members of the African-American clergy in Richmond—a group traditionally opposed to gambling—have endorsed both the Sugar Bowl and the Point Molate casino projects. 

Once in operation, the casino is expected to create 2,279 new jobs, 1,937 of them full-time, with most predicted to be hired locally. The predicted net increase to the region is 1,885 jobs. 

Document available 

The massive document is posted on the Internet (www.analyticalcorp.com), and copies have been placed for public viewing with the Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, and the San Pablo Branch of the Contra Costa County Library, Suite D, 2300 El Portal Drive.  

Written comments on the project can be mailed to Regional Director Clay Gregory, Pacific Regional Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2800 Cottage Way, Sacramento CA 95825. They must arrive by April 28. 

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The long-anticipated proposed Peralta Community College District bond measure will come up to district trustees for consideration tonight (Tuesday), but district staff has still not decided on details of the $390 million measure. 

Trustees are scheduled to vote on the bond measure at 7 p.m. tonight (Tuesday) at the district administrative headquarters, 333 East Eighth St. in Oakland. The new bond measure is tentatively scheduled for the June ballot. 

The proposed bond measure lists no specific facilities projects in the trustee’s agenda packet, and Trustee Board President Linda Handy said that the proposed project list is still being finalized. 

“Faculty members and union officials are weighing in on priorities,” Handy said by telephone. “There’s a discussion going on, and I don’t think it’s a negative discussion. It’s the normal course of input. The board wants to know what staff members want. It’s their lives that we’re dealing with. They’re the ones who are in the trenches.” 

If the board cannot come to an agreement on the proposed projects, the bond measure could be moved to the November ballot. 

In November 2000, area voters passed a $153 million Peralta bond measure to repair and renovate classrooms, training facilities, science and computer labs, meet health and safety standards and replace inadequate electrical and sewage systems, as well as construct and acquire other facilities. 

Included in the 2000 measure was money for construction of the new Berkeley City College facility in downtown Berkeley, formerly Vista College. 

But Measure E money is almost used up, with district officials reporting last October that $141.9 million of the original $153 million is already spent or committed, and trustees and district administrative officials have been hinting for months that a new bond measure would be placed on the ballot.å

While the Sierra Club has endorsed Oakland City Councilmember Nancy Nadel in the city’s mayoral race, a spokesperson for the organization said the group is also “in the process of considering an endorsement” of her rival, former Congressmember Ron Dellums, and a dual endorsement is a possibility. 

While there are several Sierra Club chapters in the area, the organization authorizes individual chapters to make political endorsements in the name of the entire organization. 

Nadel, Dellums, and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente are the top candidates running to replace outgoing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown in the June 6 primary. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff in the November general election. 

Last week, Nadel’s campaign sent local media a press release on the Sierra Club’s endorsement of her mayoral candidacy, quoting the club’s Helen Burke as stating that “for over 20 years, Nancy Nadel has consistently been a leader on environmental issues. She’s one of the few elected officials in Oakland to work so hard for the environment.” 

In the press release, Nadel said that “as an Oakland city councilmember, I have worked on countless initiatives to make Oakland a cleaner, healthier city to live in. It’s important that the residents of Oakland know that they have a viable environmental choice for mayor. And that candidate is Nancy Nadel.” 

But Andy Katz, chair of the Northern Alameda County group of the Sierra Club, which includes Oakland, said this week that the Nadel endorsement “was done early, before Dellums entered the race.” 

He said that organization leaders were presently meeting on the issue, with an announcement expected the first of next week. 

While Katz said he would not comment on what the organization’s decision might be, he said that the Sierra Club “has done dual endorsements in the past.” 

Dellums regularly received high marks from environmental organizations during the years he served in Congress. 

In 1996 for example, the last year Dellums ran for Congress, a Sierra Magazine feature entitled “Who are you most looking forward to voting for in November?” quoted Sierra Club member Judith Kunofsky as saying, “Representative Ron Dellums. He is committed to the environment, with a League of Conservation Voters score that is invariably 100 percent. On almost all other issues, he holds views identical to mine as well. ... [I]t is nice to be able to cast one vote with no reservations whatsoever.”›

A series of blustery storms that pelted the Bay Area during most of the day and night Sunday drove locals indoors to enjoy the warmth and comfort of their homes. 

Michael Crim and his wife Beverly have no permanent home, but found warmth and welcome at Berkeley’s Emergency Storm Shelter located, since the roof fell in at St. Mark’s Church in early January, at the Trinity United Methodist Church on Bancroft Way. 

“On a night like this, this place saves us,” said Crim, a Vietnam veteran. 

Sunday evening he was sitting on one of the 50 or so cots, wrapped in an army surplus blanket, studying for Monday classes at Vista College, where he’s majoring in computer engineering. 

“This winter’s been very tough on everybody—a lot of rain,” he said. 

The city funds three winter shelters. One located at the Oakland Army base houses some 50 homeless persons each night from November through April. Berkeley residents get vouchers from service providers and can stay for 30 days. This shelter, which will probably not be available next year due to development of the property, also houses 50 people from Oakland.  

There are motel/YMCA vouchers available for between two and four medically fragile people each day for two-week periods. 

And then there’s “J.C.’s place.” That’s the emergency shelter where Michael Crim and his wife were staying Sunday night. 

“That man right there has helped a lot of people, J.C.,” Crim said. “He’s been doing it for years. It’s very helpful for us. A lot of people are grateful. I’m grateful.”  

J.C. Orton is the affable man associated with the Catholic Worker who runs the shelter and an emergency food program. Orton said this shelter is unusual because it enforces fewer rules than most. 

“There’s no intake assessment,” he said. “You don’t need referrals.” There’s no limit of days a person can stay. “You can come in and out.” 

Another man who asked that his real name not be used said he would not go to other shelters. 

“Basically this place is good,” he said. “People are nice. You don’t feel like you’re in a jail atmosphere. (At other shelters) they lock you in. This is not institutional. Right now, I have no tobacco, so I’m going to hop on my bike and go up the street and get some tobacco.” 

The shelter is bare-boned. 

“You can’t make lasagna when you want to and you can’t watch HBO,” the man said. “You can’t sit on the couch with your girlfriend, but you’re not exposed to the elements, which basically consists of policemen.” 

People don’t even have to identify themselves, Orton said, pointing to a sign-in sheet. “There’s a couple of John Does.” 

Also, if people come in with what he called a “situation,” and they’re boisterous, he or other staff will ask them to take a walk around the block and come back.  

Ultimately, shelters are not the answer, Orton said. 

“People need to get housing and retain housing,” he said. To keep their housing, some people need advocates working long term with them, he said. 

The county estimates that there are about 850 homeless people in Berkeley; 150 are housed in year-round shelters and another 150 are in winter emergency shelters. Others are in transitional housing. The city has no estimate of how many people are on the street each night, according to Shelter Plus Care Coordinator Jane Micallef. 

Michael Crim’s wife Beverly, who asked to be identified only by her first name, snuggled under a blanket on her cot, lined up with six other women’s cots and screened off from the much larger men’s section. Beverly said she was attacked and beaten on San Pablo Avenue and became prone to seizures as a result. She survives on state disability income. She and Michael would prefer a real home, but that’s not possible right now. 

“Everything is so high—first and last month’s rent,” Beverly said. “They want $400 for a place then they want $400 [for first and last month rent], then they want $50 more for the key. I don’t have it to spare. I’m not lazy or nothing. Before I knew it—it’s all my check.” 

Crim said he used to sleep in Strawberry Canyon, near the university.  

“That was kind of hard for Beverly, and it got so wet,” he said. “I lost a lot of clothes and books. We started moving around. The Berkeley police found us in one spot and they made us move. We went to the underground parking lot of a church and the UC police gave us a ticket. So then we went to Oakland and we were sleeping in the back of a school.” 

That works when it’s not raining. 

It’s not easy to find workers who can come in and spend the night at the shelter with little lead time, Orton said. Jnana Bryant is a massage therapist and able to combine both jobs. 

“The vast majority of them are very sweet, very tender, very caring,” she said. “It’s the part people miss. They just see somebody on the street begging. If you take a few minutes, and talk to that person you can have some of the most amazing moments of your life by talking to somebody. They have great perceptions because they are really living on the edge. They can teach us something.”

A man who calls himself “Cheddar Cheese” spent his 20th birthday recently singing and performing for spare change in front of the Powerbar building in downtown Berkeley, as he has every day since arriving in Berkeley last January. 

Homeless for almost 10 years, he hitched a ride with a UC Berkeley professor last New Year’s Eve and finally arrived at what is known as the mecca for the country’s homeless—Telegraph Avenue. 

“The rains gave me a hard time,” he said. “I thought of going to the public library but then if all the homeless went to the public library, there wouldn’t be much place for anyone else there.” 

Instead, Cheddar Cheese went to YEAH! 

The Youth Emergency Assistance Hostel (YEAH!) is a program that provides seasonal shelter for homeless youth in Berkeley. Four Berkeley women came together in the fall of 2002 to provide shelter for the growing number of young men and women living on the city’s streets.  

Although daytime services were provided in the form of drop-in centers, the youth had no legal place to sleep at night. With YEAH!, street kids in Berkeley had a place to go to for hot showers, peanut butter sandwiches, cough syrups, clean socks and, most important, a comfy bed. 

According to Jane Micallef, secretary of the city’s Homeless Commission, “Young people often avoid adult shelters because their pets are not allowed entry. Also they feel threatened by adults. Young people don’t want to be associated with the older homeless crowd.”  

However, Micallef also said that the city couldn’t force young people to leave the streets and seek shelter at YEAH! Many youths are afraid of rules and regulations and want to live a barrier-free life, she said, so they can be found snuggled up in nooks and corners all over the city, in the tree-lined pathways on the UC Berkeley campus, or just about anywhere the cops won’t be able to get a hold of them. 

“I was once harassed by the cops for sleeping near the back door of Rasputin Music,” Cheddar Cheese said. “They said it was a fire exit and gave me a citation. Sometimes people throw water at me when I sleep. Sometimes I don’t know if I am going to wake up in the morning. Sometimes I don’t want to wake up in the morning because it’s just another day of the same old problems.” 

Cheddar Cheese keeps going back to YEAH! because of its friendly staff and clean amenities, he said. If there is something that holds him back from not going there on certain nights it’s the other homeless youths in the program. “Would you want to sleep in a room full of crack heads every day of the week?” 

Robert Nelson, procurement coordinator at the New Bridge Foundation in Berkeley, volunteers every night at YEAH! 

“Our doors are open to anyone who needs us,” he said. “If we get kids under 18, we transfer them to DreamCatchers. For the mentally ill, we recommend the Mental Health Service. We try and make it as comfortable as possible for kids. Dinner is followed by a movie or reading and then it’s off to bed. Girls and boys get separate sections of the sleeping area. Someone watches over the kids all night.” 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington stressed the importance of having a service facility aimed especially towards the youth. 

“YEAH! is one of the most cost-effective programs in the City of Berkeley.” he said. “We need to extend the program from its limited amount of winter shelter hours.” 

Sara Isakson, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Cross whose congregation houses the homeless youths, told the Daily Planet that YEAH! was working with Mayor Tom Bates to turn the winter shelter service into a four-year program for 18-25-year-olds. 

“It will offer those fresh out of foster care with that much needed transitory phase to plan their lives more carefully,” she said. 

Osha Neumann, who runs a legal clinic for the East Bay Community Law Center, said that there’s no doubt about the fact that YEAH! was doing a great job. 

“The problem is that not all the youth can use it or will use it,” he said.  

Neumann added that shelters don’t provide permanent solutions. 

“It’s not a home—it’s not a place where you can find security and privacy,” he said. “We need to start thinking of these kids as individuals instead of lumping them together as ‘homeless.’ The government should think of introducing funding changes at the local level instead of wasting money on foreign wars. This is our country’s youth we are talking about.” 



Hyim Ross doesn’t look like a hero. He’s a 30-something musician and school teacher and, like many, he’s angry that money that is needed for schools is going to fight the war in Iraq. 

He has taken his convictions to the street. He spent the week of his school vacation fasting, chained to a bench on Grand Avenue across from the Grand Lake Theater. Around him were posters with anti-war messages, an American flag, a chair and a tent to shelter him at night.  

“I’m here saying my piece and trying to get the word out that we’re spending too much money and putting too much energy into the war in Iraq and that we need to put our energy and efforts into children,” he said.  

Hyim Ross was there to get attention and he was getting it. Radio, TV, print journalists came out to interview him. He was there to get out the message that our country needs to change direction. Brother Muzika, a fifth-grade teacher at Lakeview School across the street, said he could appreciate what that means. He brought his class, a group of 10- and 11-year-old girls and boys, over for a conversation with Hyim.  

The kids had some questions: “Are you a victim of this war?” one asked. 

Hyim didn’t have anyone in this war he told them, but his family had been affected by violence. A girl was concerned about his health because he was not eating. 

“Are you satisfied with doing this?” she asked. He assured her that he was, particularly he was satisfied meeting with them. 

“If you were president, would you stop the war?” one boy wanted to know.  

Another asked, “If you had a chance to talk to the president, what would you say to him?”  

The youngsters were not shy about expressing their own opinions to this reporter. “My name is Donnell and I want to say this war is stupid!” John demanded, “Bush, save our schools and stop the war.” 

A girl spoke more gently, “My name is Marnay and I just want to say, please Bush, give money to schools, give teachers their pay cuts back.” 

Some of the kids made posters and taped them up on the concrete wall behind Hyim’s tent. 

Everyone gathered around to talk about how to make change happen. Brother Muzika, the teacher, spoke of the civil rights movement. It was an example of how “a lot of people acting peacefully could bring about change.” 

That’s what Hyim is about, he said, adding, “I’m not doing anything violent. I’m out here because I care.” 

What is important is to get the word out, to get more and more people involved. Hyim asked the kids, “Have each of you told at least one other person about this?” All of the children raised their hands.

Berkeley police announced Monday that they would offer two $15,000 rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murders of Juan Ramos and Keith Stephens. 

Ramos, 18, of El Cerrito died on Feb. 10, stabbed to death while attending a party on Contra Costa Avenue and Keith Stephens, 24, was shot to death Feb. 19 on Carrison Street in Berkeley. 

According to statistics, rewards don’t typically help solve murders, said Officer Ed Galvan, police spokesperson. But he added it was worth a try in these cases. 

“We’d hate to not put something up and lose the opportunity that someone would (offer information) for the money,” he said. 

To date no credible tips have been offered and no suspects have been identified, Galvan said. Anyone with information about either case can call 981-5900. 

—

Two weeks ago the temperatures fell, and there was snow on Mt. Diablo and at other higher elevations. Also there was lots of TV coverage of snow storms on the East Coast and Midwest. I must admit that during the recently passed holiday season (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Super Bowl) I also kind of missed the snow, something that rarely happens in Berkeley. 

When it snows everyone looks better. With a hat pulled over your head, scarf wrapped several times around your face, layers of multiple sweaters on and wearing big boots—what’s not to like. You’re barely recognizable! Who needs to work out at a gym? With layers of clothes wrapped around you and a big overcoat on we all look kind of round and chunky, ear muffs instead of I-Pods! We all have one goal—trying to stay warm, unlike surfers who are trying to look cool. Snow makes people friendlier too. When it’s snowing people that don’t know each other jump-start each other’s car and dig out their neighbor’s driveways. Snow can be a mini disaster as well. It’s fine when you visit it (skiing), but it’s not so much fun when it visits you—it might not leave when you want it to.  

In Berkeley there is an unwritten law, that if you don’t call, don’t come. Everyone’s lives are so busy and planned that someone just dropping by unannounced, for an hour long visit because they happened to be in the neighborhood, is just out of the question. It could disrupt your whole day! You may visit, but you often won’t get pass the threshold. No tea, no crumpets and sometimes no invite inside at all. “I’m too busy right now” or “I was just on the way out”; “Call me and we’ll get together next week.” 

But if someone visits you during a snow storm it’s a completely different story. You hear them stomping the snow off their boots before they ring the bell, because they know that regardless of why they came you will let them in, before you tell them to leave. Usually if someone visits you when it’s snowing they truly want to see you, are not just passing by, and you’re surprised that someone has made such an effort in bad weather. 

Spring might be the time of mating for the birds and the bees, but we are neither fowl nor insect. Actually, in the winter when the snow’s falling, it may be the most romantic time of all. Should I spend the evening in? I have no choice, and to leave in the middle of the night in a snow storm could be a death sentence. 

I think Ray Charles and Betty Carter described the moment best in their classic recording, “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” How can I forget being snowed in at some lucky lady’s house with a tall glass of Thunderbird wine, sitting on a bean bag, “Voodoo Child” playing on the stereo, in front of a kerosene heater. When someone comes in out of the snow, it’s like a slow striptease show just watching them take off their outer garments. How sensuous. If you were born on the East Coast or Midwest between September and November, you may be a snow baby (count back nine months)!  

Oh but I wax nostalgic.  

I’m not sure I want it to snow in Berkeley, but maybe, sometimes, we should treat each other like it is snowing outside and say, “Come on in and get warm. ... Would you like some tea and soy muffins? I’ll go to the gym tomorrow.”  

Fake gun 

Alarmed civilians called police Saturday evening after they spotted a 17-year-old who appeared to be drawing a pistol as he walked along the 2900 block of King Street. 

Officers from the Berkeley Police Drug Task Force were the first to arrive, and when the young fellow spotted them, he leapt a fence and tried to outrun the police radios—a futile effort. 

Though he’d ditched his gun in his flight, officers found what turned out to be a fake pistol, and not the real thing. 

He was booked on suspicion of brandishing a fake firearm. 

Domestic spat 

Berkeley police arrested a 31-year-old South Berkeley man after he reportedly took a stick to the mother of his child just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday, said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan. 

The woman was not seriously injured and decline medical attention, said the officer.

Familial arson 

An arson-caused blaze did $100,000 in damage to the structure and contents of a home at 1212 Bonita Ave. last Tuesday afternoon. 

Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth said the fire was reported at 3:56 p.m. 

The alleged suspect, the daughter of the homeowner, was found nearby and taken into custody by police on a psychiatric hold pending an evaluation of her ability to stand trial, said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan. 

As of Monday evening, the woman was in custody at the county jail in Santa Rita. 

Orth said the fire was started in the basement of the residence and the flames spread to the bedroom above. The suspect allegedly used a spray mechanical lubricant to ignite the fire, Orth said. 

Bulbed out 

Residents of 171 Brookside Drive learned a hard lesson Friday: Believe those signs telling you what bulbs to use in a light fixture. 

Orth said the call that came in at 24 minutes after midnight started because the residents screwed three 200-watt bulbs into a metal ceiling fixture. 

The large bulbs were touching the fixture’s metal mounting plate, which transferred the heat to the overhead ceiling space, triggering the smoldering flames. 

The damage to the structure was estimated at $20,000, with another $5,000 in damage to contents, said Orth.  

“A single 100-watt bulb can produce 400 degrees of heat,” said Orth. “I’m not sure what a 200-watt bulb can do, but it’s got to be a lot more.”Ã

They had prayed and protested, gone to jail and gone to the media. On Tuesday, death-penalty foes celebrated a partial victory: the life of Michael Morales, the man who had stabbed, raped and bludgeoned to death 17-year-old Terri Winchell in 1981, would be spared—for a few months at least. 

“This gives hope to our whole country, because this is torture, this is absolute torture and that’s why we have to get rid of the death penalty,” said Cynthia Johnson of Kensington, who had come to San Quentin Tuesday evening with other members of the Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship to protest what was to have been Morales’ execution.  

“This is fantastic that one man’s life has been saved and that we’re one step further to eliminating the death penalty,” said Jes Richardson, with the St. Geronimo-based Ghandi Peace Brigade.  

Morales’ execution was first delayed Tuesday morning just after midnight when two anesthesiologists, who had agreed to monitor the execution by injection of a three-drug sequence, learned that they would have to intervene if Morales regained consciousness.  

The execution was canceled around 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. Earlier that day, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel had ordered that Morales would be executed with a single drug, a massive dose of sodium pentothal. Tuesday afternoon, however, the judge added that the drug must be administered directly into Morales’ vein by a medical professional and not administered by others through an intravenous tube. No medical professional could be found who was willing to carry out the procedure.  

Fogel scheduled a hearing for May 2 and 3 on constitutional questions regarding the lethal injection procedure. Until that time, there will be no executions in California. 

“This makes our argument very strong that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment,” said Crystal Bybee of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. “It’s great news for Michael Morales to get a stay of execution, but it also means something for people on death row.” 

Dr. Sureya Sayadi, who had joined the 40 or so other death penalty foes at San Quentin Tuesday evening and had protested at noon the day before with the group from the Berkeley Fellowship, was particularly outraged at the idea that doctors were being asked to help put people to death. 

Doctors learn to “do no harm, they learn how to help patents,” she said. “Even in times of war, if you see a patient from the other side, you take him as your patient.” 

On Monday, a dozen protesters from the Berkeley Fellowship blocked the east gate at the prison; three among them, Hal Carlstad and Cynthia Johnson of Kensington and Berkeley Peace and Justice Commissioner Phoebe Anne Sorgen, were arrested.  

Sorgen spoke to the Daily Planet by phone Monday soon after her release. “I can’t stand it that our state is an executioner, setting an example for our children and the world,” she said. “The U.S. did not choose to join the world in opposition to the death penalty.” 

The European Union has abolished the death penalty and all countries that wish to join the union must abolish it as well. Canada has outlawed the death penalty; Mexico did so last year.  

Sorgen said that at noon on Monday, about a dozen people blocked San Quentin’s east gate, in a symbolic gesture preventing entry of the medical personnel, who were to participate in the execution. When asked to stop blocking the gates, Carlstad, Johnson and Sorgen refused, were arrested and taken to the Marin County Jail, where they were cited for trespassing on state property and obstructing a public thoroughfare. They were released after being cited. 

Others would learn of their action through the media, Sorgen said. “People won’t feel such despair. It will give people cause to think and might push people to do something (against the death penalty).” 

Also on Monday, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in El Cerrito, some 50 people of various faiths gathered to pray, light candles and speak about how to end state-sanctioned murder. Many then went to join the vigil of about 250 people at San Quentin. 

While TV stories show the pain and hurt of the families of the victims—Terri Winchell’s family spoke out, saying Morales’ death would bring closure to the family—two people spoke at St. John’s about their personal loss to violence. Murray Richardson’s son was beaten to death when he was 10 years old. 

“Years later, I was able to forgive the killer of my son,” he said. “My firm belief is that killing is wrong.” 

Deacon Thom McGowan remembers when he got the news that his grandson was shot to death on the streets of Richmond. Vengeance and more violence is not the answer, he told the gathering. 

“The cycle of violence in which someone decides to take revenge is contagious. That’s something we seem not to have grasped clearly. We need to follow God’s rules.” 

Father John Maxwell is pastor at St. John’s, where vigils are held before each execution. “Even with bad people like Michael, life is sacred,” he said. “We can be protected by throwing away the key (to the jail.)” 

St. John’s parishioner James Vaughn asked the congregation to sign a petition calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. The idea is to take a time out from executions “until we can figure it out,” he said.  

A bill, AB 1121, proposed by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, died in the Assembly last year. On Tuesday, however, State Assembly members Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, and Koretz introduced Assembly Bill 2266 that would allow voters to decide whether to establish a temporary moratorium on executions in California. 

The moratorium would take effect in January 2007. The legislation must first be passed by the State Legislature then signed by the governor before going on the ballot..

Keith Stephens was “a good kid, very kind-hearted and giving,” said Latisha Stephens, his oldest sister.  

Stephens, 24, had his life cut short Sunday night, killed, according to police, by a rifle or shotgun blast at close range at around 7:10 p.m. on the 1200 block of Carrison Street.  

Latisha believes the murder of her brother, a popular football player when he was at Berkeley High, was related to an argument about a car, but police say they are not sure.  

Latisha said she talked to Keith about 20 minutes before the murder. 

“He was the youngest, but he was the strongest,” said Latisha. That Sunday, she called Keith on his cell phone to ask him for some advice about how to handle her 9-year-old son. A single mother, Latisha says Keith was a father figure to her son. 

But when she reached Keith, he had something else on his mind. 

“Tish, I’m so mad,” she said he told her. “I’m so tired of people using me.” 

Keith had sold a car to an acquaintance, giving the new owner time to pay him for it, but he hadn’t gotten the money. Instead the buyer had sold it to someone else and still hadn’t paid Keith what he owed him. 

Latisha advised him to go to his friend’s on Carrison Street to get away from the argument. His friend had a new baby. Latisha said that while he was at his friend’s there was a knock on the door and he went out. That’s when he was killed. 

He’s become a statistic, said Keith’s father, Kenneth Stephens. “Another young black man getting killed in the Bay Area,” he said. “It’s senseless. People don’t care about human life.” 

Kenneth said that people need to focus on what’s happening in their neighborhoods, rather than on the other side of the world. 

“People need to appreciate other people’s lives,” he said. “They need to say, ‘excuse me, I’m sorry.’” 

Police are not saying very much about the case. 

“I’m not sure if we interviewed the person who had a fight with him,” police spokesman Edward Galvan said, also noting that the coroner’s report has not been released, because it is part of the investigation. 

Stephens was featured in Class Dismissed, a book by Oakland author Meredith Maran in which she followed three students at Berkeley High. Maran said that in her book, “I tried to make the life of young men like Keith more comprehensible.”  

Maran underscored the support Keith always had from his family. “His mom was calling me on her cell phone three times a day to make sure he was in class,” she said.  

Stephens is the third young life taken by violence in Berkeley within seven months. On July 17, 19-year-old Dartmouth College student Meleia Willis-Starbuck was killed near UC Berkeley, allegedly by a friend whom she had called for help. On Feb. 10, Juan Carlos Ramos, 18, of El Cerrito was fatally stabbed at a house party on Contra Costa Avenue. 

And 15-year old Berkeley High School sophomore Alberto Salvador Villareal-Morales was killed Jan. 14 in a drive-by shooting in Oakland’s Fruitvale District. 

Keith Stephens’ funeral will be held March 3, at 11 a.m., at the Liberty Hill Baptist Church, 997 University Ave., Berkeley. 

A controversial trustee on the Alameda County Medical Center Board of Directors has been removed by the president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors because of complaints from fellow board members, but there is question whether Supervisor Keith Carson has the legal authority to do so. 

The Alameda County Medical Center includes Highland Hospital in Oakland—which serves the majority of Berkeley trauma and emergency patients—as well as San Leandro’s Fairmont Hospital, John George Psychiatric Pavilion, and three county outpatient clinics. The center is overseen by an 11 member board of trustees chosen by the County Board of Supervisors. 

Carson announced the removal of Dr. Gwen Rowe-Lee Sykes effective this coming Monday in a terse Feb. 15 letter to trustees that gave no cause for his action. 

But in a telephone interview, Carson called Sykes “a knowledgeable person who has raised a number of concerns” at the Medical Center, but said that “a majority of her colleagues said they were having a difficult time conducting business” because of Sykes’ actions on the board. 

“There was always a conflict about issues” between Sykes and other trustees, Carson said, adding that the conflicts “preceded over more than a year.” 

Sykes, who was appointed to the trustee board by Carson in March 2004, is the executive director of the Oakland nonprofit Bay Area Consortium for Quality Health Care, an organization that provides HIV/AIDS counseling as well as other health services in the Bay Area. 

She has chaired the Alameda/ Contra Costa County HIV/AIDS Planning Council and has been a board member of the Berkeley Women’s Health Center. In announcing Sykes’ appointment three years ago, Carson was quoted in the Oakland Tribune as saying that “she has the ability to look at things from a wide view. She understands the financial aspects of community-based organizations.”  

But Sykes says it was her delving into the financial details of ACMC operations that got her out of favor. 

“I was bringing out a lot of things that were critical about the medical center’s operations,” she said. “I was looking into ways to resolve our financial difficulties. My take was different than others, and that caused people to call Keith Carson with complaints about what I was doing. Ultimately, Keith told me he couldn’t handle the people calling him. I like Keith. I was floored by the way he was handling it.”  

Sykes called the financial situation at the medical center “bleak.” 

Sykes, who served as co-chair of the trustee board’s human resources committee and had recently been asked to join the finance committee, called her removal “an act of retaliation.” 

She said that Carson told her “that I had done things inappropriately. He told me that he didn’t want me to raise any more issues.” 

She added that when Carson appointed her in 2004, “he specifically told me to uncover bad management at the medical center. That’s what I was doing. I would never have gotten on the board if I knew it was all a set-up to massage the public.” 

Sykes added that while Carson’s letter put the effective date of her removal as Feb. 27, “I consider my last day was” Feb. 15. “He’s made his decision.” She did not say whether she would appeal her removal. 

Asked who authorized Sykes’ removal from the board, Carson said that he did on his own. 

“She was my appointee,” Carson said. “Supervisors make several such appointments to boards and commissions, and all of the people who are appointed understand that they serve at my pleasure.” 

That assertion is not supported by Alameda County government documents, however. 

An online list of board and commission vacancies posted by the Alameda County Clerk’s office notes that the ACMC’s trustees are “appointed by majority vote of the Board of Supervisors.” 

And the bylaws of the ACMC board, amended in 2003, state that “a Trustee may be removed by the Board of Supervisors during his or her term with or without cause … only upon the affirmative vote for removal of at least four members of the Board of Supervisors.” 

The Alameda County Counsel’s office could not be reached for comment on the issue of appointment or removal of Alameda County Medical Center trustees. 

The Medical Center has run into intense financial and managerial difficulties in recent years, with a deficit reaching as high as $70 million in 2003. The center went through nine CEOs in the past 11 years, including three in one week in 2003. 

In response to those difficulties, trustees cut $23 million from its budget, closed two of its five clinics, and fired the center’s CEO in the summer of 2003. Immediately after the vote, five trustees quit in protest.  

In November of 2003, Alameda County voters approved Measure A, a half-penny sales tax increase to generate $70 for the medical center.  

In February 2004, shortly before Sykes was appointed to the board, trustees installed Tennessee-based turnaround specialist Cambio Health Solutions to analyze the center’s finances at a cost of $3.2 million over 18 months. Cambio later came under criticism from the center’s unionized workers for its management practices, with Service Employees International Union members holding a one-day walkout and picket in August of 2004 to protest staff cutbacks. 

Cambio’s involvement with the medical center ended with the appointment of Wright Lassiter as ACMC CEO last September. 

In 2004, the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury issued a scathing report on the Alameda County Medical Center, noting that “the [Alameda County] Board of Supervisors and later the [medical center] board of trustees allowed top managers over the years to ignore efficiency and responsibility.” 

“As a result of turnover in the CEO position,” the report continued, “the administration is in shambles. ... Entire departments of employees have not received sufficient training or supervision to be able to adequately perform their duties.” 

Lucky for diners at Le Bateau Ivre, there’s ample parking available right out front. For motorcycles, that is. 

Late last year, Le Bateau Ivre owner Thomas Cooper noticed the two parking spaces in front of his restaurant on Telegraph Avenue at Carleton S treet had been re-designated a “Motorcycle Parking Only” zone. 

He also noticed that the lanes running along Telegraph from Dwight Way to the Oakland border were repainted to curve in at intersections. Along those bottlenecks: more motorcycle parking. The number of times Cooper said he has seen motorbikes park in front of his business: twice.  

“It was a bad idea,” he said of the reconfiguration that has replaced about 20 metered car spaces with free parallel parking for motorcycles. “There have been nume rous, numerous, numerous people who have tried to come into the restaurant, but couldn’t find a parking space.” 

Cooper isn’t the only Telegraph merchant reeling. Several shopkeepers have complained the loss of parking spots has hurt business and they wan t car parking reinstated. 

“Let’s get [the spaces] restriped and back with meters that work,” said David Howard, owner of the Caribbean Cove Restaurant on Telegraph at Blake Street. He claims he has yet to see a motorcycle park in front of his establishme nt, and patronage is down as a result. 

“Now I have fewer customers, my business suffers and the city of Berkeley suffers,” because it’s losing revenue from paid meters, he said. 

The Office of Transportation released a statement saying that the motorcycl e parking and wavy striping were installed as part of an effort to broaden Telegraph Avenue’s bike lane and parking space zone from 11 feet to 12 feet from the sidewalk curb. The extra foot aligns Berkeley with state standards aimed at ensuring the safety of bicyclists.  

But because concrete medians at some intersections prevent lanes from widening to 12 feet, city staff said they had to shrink adjacent parking spaces. Instead of red-curbing the areas, they installed motorcycle parking, so that “at least some parking use would be made of them,” the statement said.  

The Office of Transportation does not keep statistics on the number of motorcyclists in Berkeley. 

According to Traffic Commission Chair Sarah Syed, the reconfiguration was the brainchild of Associate Traffic Engineer Peter Eakland, who did not return a call for comment. The restriping was an attempt to fix the mistakes of a private contractor who incorrectly drew Telegraph’s bike lanes three years ago, she said, but the effort was misguided. 

“We now have 500 percent more motorcycle parking than we need,” she quipped. 

Syed said the project failed to achieve its ultimate goal: to make Telegraph’s bike lanes—which are not part of the city’s bike plan—safer. To add new lane stripes, workers ha d to ground out the old ones, leaving grooves in the road that are potentially hazardous to bicyclists, she said. She said she prefers to ride her bike on other streets. 

Opponents said they want the transportation staff to consider changing Telegraph’s current configuration to reinstate old parking spaces or to accommodate compact cars. Some have suggested trimming the concrete medians at intersections where pedestrians stop. 

And they want more involvement in the process. 

“None of us got told this was going to happen,” said Councilman Kriss Worthington, who represents the portion of Telegraph affected, in a phone interview Thursday. “It seems to me like it was not a smart thing to do. Why wasn’t anyone asked?” 

Some merchants echoed his sentiment, lame nting that they weren’t consulted before the parking spaces were removed.  

The Transportation Commission, which advises the City Council on transit issues, was also not consulted. Syed pointed out, “The Transportation Commission doesn’t review every single thing the city does.” 

But it will review this. The City Council unanimously approved a recommendation Tuesday, put forth by Worthington, that implores the commission to look into fixing Telegraph’s striping problems—again..

Berkeley City Councilmembers voted unanimously Tuesday to order the closure of Dwight Way Liquors, ending a decade-long and often confusing regulatory battle. 

The vote was 8-0-1, with Councilmember Darryl Moore, whose council district includes the store, unable to participate because his domestic partner operates a business next door to the troubled store. 

“I’m very happy,” said Richard King, an architect and neighbor who has been working for the store’s closure for nearly five years. 

David Bryden, the attorney who said he represented the owners of the liquor store at 2440 Sacramento St., near the intersection with Dwight Way, had little to say after the vote beyond, “I’m disappointed.” 

Asked if the owners would file an appeal, Bryden said, “Mr. Saleh will make a decision whether he wants to go to court or not.” 

But just who owns the store remained a question that city officials spent a long time trying to answer, ultimately without definitive results. 

While the records of the state department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) list only one owner, Bryden told councilmembers the store was owned by a partnership. 

Gregory Daniel, the city code enforcement officer who has been working on the case for more than a year, said that if the store was owned by a partnership, then the owners were violating state licensing law because only one name—Abdulaziz Saleh Saleh—appears on the license. 

State law, he said, requires that the true owners—all of them—appear on the document. 

ZAB members also tried to find out who else owned the store, but they had no luck either—though Bryden said it was because they hadn’t made “a formal request.” 

When Councilmember Dona Spring suggested that no such document existed, Bryden replied, “There exists a written partnership agreement between Mr. Saleh and Mr. Nagi. I’m sure it could be produced.” 

Nagi is Nasr Mosleh Nagi, who held the liquor license at the store from 1995 through November 1999, when it was transferred to Abdulsalam Mohamed Jobah after the store was cited for sale to a minor and failure to remove graffiti. The license was then transferred to Saleh on May 2004, following its suspension by the ABC for sales to a minor. 

ABC recorded three violations of Saleh’s license between April 16, 2005 and Jan. 8, each for violation of conditions that the agency had imposed on the license as a result of violations by the previous owners. Berkeley Police recorded 12 incidents of violations on one of the conditions—sale of single beer and malt liquor bottles—between August 2004 and August 2005. 

“In each case, Mr. Saleh himself made (the) sale,” noted a report by Daniel. 

Berkeley police reported 34 calls at the store between May 2004 and August 2005, including three for battery and two for alcohol poisoning.  

ZAB made the nuisance finding on Oct. 27, 2005. 

Bryden said he was willing to concede that “your staff initially responded in an appropriate way to legitimate concerns residents in that area” have raised, but said “we feel we should have been given an opportunity to abate” because the store is properly licensed “and the sole source of income to a handful of people.” 

“I have no sympathy for these gentlemen,” said Councilmember Betty Olds, “especially because one of them spit on a couple of people who testified” before the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB), which voted for the public nuisance finding the council upheld Tuesday. 

“It’s a good thing I don’t live down there because I couldn’t stand it. I’d either be dead or . . .” 

“I want them to stop today,” said Councilmember Laurie Capitelli. 

“It’s been going on way too long,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “They’ve had an opportunity to clean up their act . . . we have to send a message that this is not tolerated in Berkeley.” 

Upholding ZAB “is the right thing to do,” said Dona Spring, who noted that after the store’s license had been suspended for selling to a minor, “an undercover officer went in the store and the owner cracked off the lock of the liquor cabinet and sold to him.” 

While Olds criticized ABC for allowing the store to operate so long, Daniel and Police Chief Douglas N. Hambleton were quick to praise the ABC agents who had worked with the city to develop evidence against errant liquor stores. 

“For the last year and a half, Berkeley Police has been working very closely with ABC,” said Daniel. 

“ABC has a limited number of agents and they rely to a great extent on local law enforcement,” said Hambleton. He pointed to three recent ABC enforcement grants totaling $180,000 the city has received from the agency for targeted enforcement programs. 

While the audience was dominated by neighbors who held aloft signs protesting the store, only three spoke at the hearing, including King. All asked the council to uphold ZAB’s finding, as did Marie Bowman, who spoke on behalf of the Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA). 

Bowman praised the city-ABC efforts, and said the store has “a city-wide impact as a public nuisance.” She faulted the owners for failing to respond to the city’s questions, and declared that “shuffling of licenses is not acceptable.” 

Neighbors have reported finding bottles and drink paraphernalia in their yards and other intrusions directly related to the store. The signs they held up bore the slashed circle over phrases like “Dwight Way Liquors,” “Brawls in Our Streets” and “Urination in Our Yards.””

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and UC Berkeley’s representation on the panel helping formulate a new downtown plan were among the issues confronted by the City Council Tuesday.  

Councilmembers approved a recommendation by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) to ask UC Berkeley to appoint three ex-officio members to the panel, which is charged with helping to draft a new plan for the city center. 

The plan was mandated in the settlement of the city’s suit against the university’s Long Range Development Plan for 2020, which proposes a major expansion of university offices into the downtown area. 

The council rejected (6-2-1) a motion by Kriss Worthington to include a student and a staff member among the three and to require that the university name three DAPAC members to participate in its planning processes for their downtown additions. 

Only Dona Spring supported his motion and Max Anderson abstained. All three voted for the main motion, which carried unanimously, with the addition of a phrase urging the university to include city representation as it plans its expansion. 

Instant runoff voting 

Instant Runoff Voting, endorsed overwhelmingly by Berkeley voters in 2004 and hailed as a way to make elections more democratic, isn’t proving so instant. The process of making it happen in Alameda County has been paved with roadblocks. 

The council also delayed action on a Worthington proposal to place a measure on the June ballot amending Measure I, the 2004 ballot initiative approved by 72 percent of Berkeley’s voter endorsing so-called instant runoff voting (IRV). 

That measure approved adoption of IRV so long as it didn’t cost the city money, but the Alameda County Counsel’s office has said that IRV can’t be conducted in a regular consolidated election, while three city attorneys in the county—including Berkeley’s Manuela Albuquerque—disagree. 

If the city ran its own IRV election, costs could run as much as $300,000 to $400,000, said City Clerk Sara Cox. It would cost $80,000 to put Worthington’s proposed measure on the June ballot, said City Manager Phil Kamlarz.  

The council will take up the issue again on March 7.  

Other matters 

In other action, the council: 

• Upheld a Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) decision dismissing homeowner Merilee Mitchell’s appeal of its decision to approve an addition to a home at 1616 Delaware St. 

• Raised the price of flat-rate evening parking in the city-owned Oxford Street lot along Oxford between Kittredge Street and Allston Way from $2 to $4. The Transportation Commission had recommended $5—to match the charge at other city lots—but the council decide a 100 percent raise was enough. 

The lot could be closed as early as late autumn if all the needed funds have been raised to begin construction on the David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza housing that are scheduled to rise on the site. The project’s use permits require replacement of the existing parking spaces in an underground lot. 

• Approved two resolutions designating the Ed Roberts Center as the city’s first choice to be the recipient of a total of $5 million in funding from two federal agencies. The votes are in support of grant applications by the non-profit center for disability organizations that has been approved for construction on the eastern parking lot of the Ashby BART station. 

• Passed an ordinance allowing owners of Accessory Dwelling Units (otherwise known as mother-in-law apartments) constructed in garages or as additions to homes to tear them down without filing for a special permit from the city. 

Worthington and Spring voted no, saying they didn’t want to permit destruction of housing, but the council agreed with the planning commission, which had held that the ordinance would actually encourage creation of more such units. 

• Approved fee increases at city summer camps in Tuolomne County, at Echo Lake near South Lake Tahoe and the city day camp held at the Berkeley Marina. 

The highly popular camps are always booked, with Berkeley residents getting the first call on openings. The new fees will gradually eliminate reduced rates for Berkeley residents and make the camps more financially self-sufficient. 

• Agreed to hold a March 7 workshop on the city’s participation in the Community Choice Aggregation, a program created that allows cities to bundle commercial, residential and other electric power consumers for the purposes of buying bulk power at a discount.  

The program was created by state legislation in 2002 as a result of the California power crisis in which energy traders nearly bankrupted the state. Councilmembers said they want the workshop because they have questions they want answered before investing more city money in the program. 

• Directed the Transportation Commission and city manager to look into rectifying the impacts of new striping along Telegraph Avenue that merchants claim may be costing them customers. 

• Directed the city manager to report back to the council on whether or not Department of Homeland Security (DHS) computers tested by the city may have rendered city data bases vulnerable to federal snooping. 

According to privacy rights advocate Gene Bernardi, one server tested by the city is to be installed at the San Ramon Fire Department to provide location data in event of emergencies, and she said another server had been installed at city hall. 

The resolution was jointly sponsored by Wozniak and Spring..

Members of four city panels filed into the North Berkeley Senior Center Wednesday night to hear the university’s first formal presentation of its plans for the Memorial Stadium area.  

On hand were members of the Planning, Landmarks Preservation and Transportation commissions along with the Zoning Adjustment Board’s Design Review Committee. 

The university’s representatives included Emily Marthinsen, interim assistant vice chancellor for physical and environmental planning; Jennifer Lawrence, a principal planner in Marthinsen’s division, Catherine Koshland, vice-provost for academic planning and facilities; Robert De Liso, vice president of the university’s project management firm URS Corp, and Darryl Roberson, a principal of Studios Architecture in San Francisco, one of the designers of the stadium area projects. 

The stadium had been designated seismically unsafe in 1997, but plans for a retrofit had been on hold because state funds couldn’t be used for the project, Marthinsen said. 

Renewed interest came a year-and-a-half ago, “and it has to do with the success of the football program,” she said. 

Left unsaid was the demand by Cal Bears Coach Jeff Tedford that the stadium be renovated, as a condition of getting his signature on a five-year, $1.5 million annual salary contract. 

Also included in the plans is a structure across Piedmont Avenue from the Stadium where Boalt Hall School of Law and Haas School of Business have proposed a joint “connection” building to house offices and a common meeting area. 

Wednesday’s presentation focused on four projects, two planned in the immediate future and two planned for later.  

The immediate projects are a 180,000-square-foot Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC) along the stadium’s western wall and a four-level, 800-to-850-space underground parking lot at the site of the Maxwell Family Field immediately to the north of the stadium. 

Koshland said the SAHPC would house specialized training for the football teams and 12 to 13 other intercollegiate athletic teams.  

A seismic retroift to the stadium, including the addition of new seats, permanent lighting and other features will reduce seating from 72,000 to 60,000. Much of the reduction is to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Koshland said. 

Public Comments 

None of the public speakers who followed the university representatives enthused about the plans. 

Doris Willingham raised fears about the project’s impact on landmark structures. “The university apparently intends to demolish ... venerable, beautiful old buildings in its efforts to bring us what appears to me a high class office park,” she said. 

Frederica Drotos of Friends of Piedmont Way said she worried about the projects’ impacts on that streetscape—a city and state landmark—designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. 

Drotos lamented the apparent intent of the university to sacrifice a large stand of trees to the SAHPC, a point reinforced by Joanna Dwyer, who read off a list of species and numbers, which included 46 Coast Live Oaks and five mature redwoods. 

Zelda Bronstein, former Berkeley planning commission chair, called the event “a one-stop dog-and-pony show.” She said informed comment was almost impossible because the university had provided no detailed information. 

“What we’re reduced to is sound bites. It causes anger and distrust,” said Janice Thomas, another project neighbor. “My neighborhood is at risk for being destroyed.” 

Noting that the underground parking structure would house twice the number of cars as the city’s five-story Center Street parking garage in a difficult to access area, Panoramic Hill resident Bill Robbins said the project didn’t make sense from a transportation planning perspective. 

Daniella Thompson, a member of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, noted that stadium architect John Galen Howard hadn’t wanted to locate his stadium at the site. “It was one of the reasons he was fired,” she said. 

Thompson decried the projects as evidence of the university’s “megalomania, growth at all costs ... the community is not going to benefit in any way.” 

Official Questions 

Because the university has mentioned opening up the stadium and the common area of the law and business schools’ connection building to public events, landmarks commissioner Patti Dacey—also a member of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee—asked just what the events might be. 

“We’re struggling with this too,” said Marthinsen, who then noted that graduations had been held in the stadium and that John F. Kennedy had delivered an address there during his presidency. “We’re looking at it as a place for other very specific campus-related and community events. We are definitely not looking at it as a venue for rock concerts.” 

As for the venue across the street, Marthinsen said that events there would probably be informal interactions between students of the two schools—though gubernatorial debates were suggested by university officials during an earlier press briefing. 

“Why can’t the parking structure be located in a more sensible area?” asked Transportation Commission Dave Campbell. 

UC planner Lawrence said that location meets all the university’s goals, adding that the upcoming draft environmental impact report (EIR) on the projects would look at alternatives, including one in downtown Berkeley. The document would also examine the possibility of locating the athletic training center closer to the downtown as well, she said. 

Design Review Committee member Burton Edwards asked the university to provide more specific views of the projects, including elevations seen from the street, 

“I find it really hard to think about and talk about Piedmont Avenue and Gayley Way without knowing what’s going to happen to the row of important historic structures,” he said. 

Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman said that had the project been within city limits, officials would have demanded “a thousand times the information” presented at the meeting. 

What are the actual hours of use of the planned facilities, and the number of people who will be coming and going?, he asked. How many cubic yards of earth would be excavated during construction of the parking lot and training center? 

Poschman also asked if the university would be providing answers to a lengthy letter city Planning Director Dan Marks had sent the university in December during the solicitation of information to be considered in the EIR. Marks had blasted the school for providing few details and questioned the university’s honesty. 

The response, he was informed, would come in the EIR. 

While Planning Commission Chair Harry Pollack said he hoped the city would be able to respond with one voice, Poschman said he was skeptical that could be achieved. 

Landmarks commissioner Lesley Emmington said Marks’ questions needed to be addressed in the EIR. “We need to see the answers to that letter,” she said. 

Future events 

Marthinsen said the public’s next opportunity to learn more about the project would come on March 13, when the stadium would be made available for tours starting at 5:45 p.m. 

“There will be opportunities to talk with consultants and the occupants of the building,” she added. 

The university will reveal a draft EIR on the project in May, followed by a 45 day period in which the public and officials will be able to make comments to be considered in the report’s final draft..

Planning commissioners Wednesday voted to delay extending a provision of the city’s condominium ordinance setting cost levels for mandated “inclusionary” units. 

Those units, required by state and city law, are designed to make housing affordable to those who might not otherwise be able to buy a residence. 

The previous requirement that units be made affordable to would-be buyers making 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) expired on Feb. 19, along with four other provisions in the ordinance. 

Developer Aran Kaufer asked commissioners to extend the provision, saying that a project the commission approved that same evening at 2700 San Pablo Ave. couldn’t have been built had the law mandated the units be affordable to those making less. 

But Housing Advisory Commissioner Jesse Arreguin and Rent Stabilization Board member Jason Overman urged that the units be priced so they are affordable at 80 percent of AMI. 

Zoning Adjustments Board member Andy Katz, speaking as a private citizen, made the same plea. 

The three argued that only by lowering the affordability could the city ensure that homeownership was more broadly available to working people.  

Commissioners voted to make permanent the other provisions of the law which had expired because of sunset provisions, but voted to hold off on setting the income level to allow the Housing Advisory Commission time to make recommendations and give city staff an opportunity to comment. 

The commission also approved the condominium map for the 2700 San Pablo Ave. project, which features 30 resident units, four ground floor live/work spaces and a small commercial unit. 

Commissioners elected Vice Chair Helen Burke to step up the position of chair, as Harry Pollack’s term at the helm ended. David Stoloff was elected to fill Burke’s former slot..

Less than a month after Director Sharon Jackson hastily departed from the Berkeley Housing Authority, a new chief has stepped in to lead the agency through tough times. 

On Tuesday, Housing Department Director Stephen Barton announced that Beverli Marshall will fill the role of acting manager for the Berkeley Housing Authority, the governing body for Berkeley’s Section 8 housing assistance program and 75 public housing units. The authority is composed of city councilmembers and two tenant representatives. 

“I see this a great opportunity to make change for the better,” Marshall said of her new job Tuesday.  

Marshall, an employee of the city of Berkeley since 2003, has worked as the senior management analyst for the Parks Recreation and Waterfront Department and most recently as the finance manager for the Berkeley Public Library. Her work experience also includes employment for housing agencies in Alaska and San Francisco. 

She takes on the director’s position at a crucial moment in the authority’s history, as a deadline to revamp the city’s Section 8 program—or risk dissolution—fast approaches. 

Last year, the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Department, the federal agency that funds Section 8 vouchers, branded the Berkeley Housing Authority “troubled,” and demanded that it better manage its Section 8 program or surrender oversight duties to another agency like the Alameda County or Oakland Housing Authority. 

Among the deficiencies cited, the Berkeley agency has failed to meet annual deadlines re-certifying Section 8 recipients, has not completed ample unit inspections in a timely manner and has insufficiently reported its activities to HUD.  

Matters were further complicated when a recent audit revealed that someone logged false data on the incomes of 61 Section 8 clients. 

Jackson, who directed the authority for two years, announced Jan. 17 that she was under investigation for the incident then tendered her resignation. At the time, no causal connection between her departure and the allegations was found. Jackson has since gone on to direct the Benicia Housing Authority. 

Housing Department staff corrected the erroneous data, but at a cost. They will expend $17,000 to install a new security system. 

To meet the gamut of HUD’s requirements, the authority is expected to spend a total $60,000 on security, new software and personnel pay, Barton said. 

HUD attaches point values to its mandates, and according to a Feb. 21 report, the Berkeley Housing Authority must have 77 percent of the total points possible. It currently has 43 percent. The deadline for compliance is June 30. 

On Tuesday, Mayor Tom Bates asked Marshall if it was possible for the authority to meet its goals. She said yes, but when he asked if it was probable, she hesitated. 

“It’s too soon to commit to that,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday. 

Marshall has high hopes for a new data system that will automate reporting and lighten administrative duties for employees. It’s slated for installation March 6. 

By March 21, Marshall expects to have a clearer picture of the future of the Berkeley Housing Authority. 

Councilmember Darryl Moore hopes prospects are good. He fears that if the city loses control of its Section 8 program, “It will mean that we had failed at our public assistance housing program,” he said. “It’s a black mark on the city.” 

Though as a local entity, the authority is in a state of disarray, he said that appropriation by a federal agency leaves Berkeley Section 8 recipients vulnerable to too many unknowns, such as how cases will be managed and where residents will turn when they need further assistance. 

At Tuesday’s meeting, Moore, who has worked with Marshall in her capacity at both the Parks Recreation and Waterfront Department and the public library, said Marshall has “a Herculean effort” before her, but that “she is the person who is up to the task.” 

He said, “Hopefully, Beverli will be able to pull us out of this fire.””

It was one of those beautiful sunny days in Berkeley that makes you want to take the longest route to the Saturday morning farmers’ market. 

This is what Elliot Cohen decided to do one day last April. He was walking along Shattuck Avenue and thinking about a news article he’d just read about a drive-by shooting in the area. And so, he said, his curiosity was piqued when he saw four squad cars parked in random fashion near the corner of Shattuck and Durant avenues. His trajectory took him near the police officers, who seemed to be questioning an African-American woman with a shopping cart.  

Wondering what was going on, Cohen stopped and watched at a distance of about 20 feet from the officers and the woman.  

That’s when the police began to harass him, according to complaints Cohen filed with the Police Review Commission (PRC). On Jan. 30, a PRC hearing board sustained three of the four allegations: one complaint of discourtesy, one of abuse of discretion and one of an implied threat; one complaint of improper physical contact was not sustained. 

Berkeley attorney Osha Neumann said complaints such as discourtesy should be taken seriously and should not be ignored as a kind of police misconduct, he said. 

“It can be an early warning sign of other forms of police abuse.” he said. “It’s connected to attitude.” 

“The attitude of police who feel they can use their power in a negative manner starts with discourtesy,” said Annie Chung, PRC chair and member of the three-person panel that heard Cohen’s case.  

As he tells it, after Cohen had been observing the scene for several minutes, the woman being questioned by police called over to him, claiming that he had caused police to arrest her. 

Cohen was about to yell back that she was mistaken when Police Officer Mary Ann Jamison approached and asked Cohen if she could help him. 

Cohen said he told the officer he was “just watching.”  

According to the complaint Cohen lodged with the PRC, Officer Jamison responded to Cohen saying something like, “Didn’t your mom teach you any respect, dude?” Cohen called this response discourteous and the three hearing board members agreed. 

A charge of abuse of discretion stemmed from a verbal exchange between Cohen and Jamison. Jamison asked Cohen if he was OK and whether he needed a paramedic. While Jamison claimed the question stemmed from the fact that Cohen seemed agitated, the hearing board found the question inappropriate. 

A charge of discourtesy because of an implied threat was also sustained against a second officer, Malissa Kelly. Cohen had told Jamison that he didn’t need a paramedic but may need a lawyer (because of the alleged physical contact.) Jamison then told Cohen her sister was a lawyer and suggested he hire her. 

But when Cohen told Jamison he didn’t want to hire her sister, Officer Kelly responded, asking Cohen if that was because Jamison was African American. The board found it inappropriate to insinuate race into the discussion. 

“Unless Mr. Cohen made a racial remark or showed some bias against Officer Jamison, it was improper for Officer Kelly to ask if his actions were motivated by race,” the hearing board findings stated. 

The complaint was categorized as a threat because Cohen felt that the officer was setting up a scenario in which he could be called a racist if he brought a complaint against the department.  

A claim of improper physical contact was related to a charge that Jamison physically impeded Cohen from approaching the person being questioned. Jamison denied touching Cohen at all. The board found, however, that even if there had been physical contact, it had only been enough to stop Elliot from physically interfering in the situation, so improper physical contact against Officer Jamison was not sustained.  

Now that these allegations have been sustained, the officers have the right to contest the findings before an administrative law judge from the California Office of Administrative Hearings. The hearing and the findings are public and will be shared with the PRC, the police department and the city manager, according to Deputy City Attorney Sarah Reynoso. 

“In theory they could impose discipline,” Reynoso said. 

However, for the administrative law judge to impose discipline, complaints would have to have come to the judge within 120 days of the original complaint. In the case of Elliot Cohen, for example, the complaint was filed in April, the PRC hearing was not held until Jan. 30; the findings were released Feb. 17. If the officers appeal the findings, they will appear before the judge significantly beyond the 120 day limit. 

The process, however, is important, even if discipline is not imposed, Reynoso said. 

“The fact of having to appear and answer to the PRC is a deterrent,” she said, adding that if the PRC sees that there is a pattern with certain problems, they can recommend policy changes. 

Simply creating a public record of police officers’ records of complaints against them may cause them to change their behavior, said PRC Chair Chung. “If you can hold (the officer) accountable, you can prevent more severe problems.” 

For example, Jamison’s record shows there have been six complaints brought to the PRC against her. Three of those were not sustained and three were. In addition to Cohen’s two complaints against her, the PRC hearing board sustained a complaint of abuse of discretion in 2000 against the officer. 

In Kelly’s case, three complaints have been brought against her—one was dismissed, she was exonerated in another case and found to have been discourteous with an implied threat in Cohen’s case. 

Chung added that, even though he is not required to do so, the police chief will look at an officer’s complaint record when considering promotions. And if an officer with a number of complaints is promoted, the community, armed with the record, can protest the promotion. “The community can use the record as a measure,” she said. 

The PRC work is important in advocating both for the community and the Police Department, said Sharon Kidd, a PRC commissioner, who served on the panel that heard Cohen’s complaints. 

“There is no law enforcement agency that is perfect,” Kidd said. “If you make mistakes, you should accept the mistakes, so the problems won’t mushroom. If problems occur affecting one police officer, it should not tarnish the whole force.””

One of the important functions of the Police Review Commission is to recommend policy changes, based on the complaints the commission sees, according to Deputy City Attorney Sarah Reynoso. 

But for a year the PRC has lacked someone in the position of a Police Review Commission officer, a professional to head the PRC.  

Because there is no permanent professional in that position, “a lot of policy issues have been tabled,” said PRC Chair Annie Chung, pointing in particular to a need for new police policies with respect to citing homeless people sleeping in front of businesses. 

The PRC also should be looking at the police department’s mutual aid pact, in relation to dealing with terrorist suspects, she said. 

“We need an officer to initiate research,” she added.  

PRC Commissioner Jonathan Wafer agreed. 

“(The vacancy) is a gaping hole,” he said. “We need it filled to work in a timely fashion.” 

Commissioner Sharon Kidd was adamant, charging that city staff is keeping the commission out of the loop, with respect to hiring the PRC officer. According to Kidd, a member of the commission sat in with the hiring team—the city manager, the deputy city manager, and the city attorney—up until the hiring team reduced the applicant pool to the top five. At that point, the commission member was excluded. 

Kidd says she does not know why city staff did not choose one of the finalists. 

“Out of five people, is no one qualified?” she asked, adding that she thinks, since the PRC officer works with the commission, two commissioners should be part of the hiring team, up until the time the officer is hired. 

Chung said she wants the City Council to discuss the longtime vacancy and put some pressure on city staff to find a professional to fill the position, which pays $87,000 to $115,000 annually. 

Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna said the city wants to hire a person in that position. 

“It’s about finding the person with the most well-rounded overall qualifications,” she said. “We just try to be as cautious and careful as possible. Sometimes, it’s not a speedy process.” 

At the same time, Caronna said she feels the PRC is functioning well as it is. 

“We have somebody in that position now,” she said, pointing to acting officer Dan Silva, an investigator with the PRC. 

“We try to give people internally the opportunity for these positions,” she said, adding, “People internally have an opportunity to grow.” 

Table tennis is coming of age in America, according to players and coaches who descended on Berkeley from around the world last weekend. 

Just don’t call it ping pong. 

Sixty players, some among the best in the world, came to the two-day tournament to battle for the title of Western Open table tennis champion. 

By Sunday evening the tournament was down to two players. Defending champion Stefan Feth of Germany defeated 2001 U.S. Nationals Men’s Singles champion Eric Owens of Texas Wesleyan University in four straight games. 

Twenty-six-year-old Feth was the tournament favorite although other table tennis pros from around the world were in the hunt for their share of the $5,000 in prize money. Ranked 187th in the world, Feth recently won against the 49th world-ranked Danny Heister in the German Professional Bundesliga leagues. 

UC Berkeley’s Recreational Sports Facility, with its spacious wooden floors and common areas provided the players with perfect playing conditions, said Allen Williams, marketing director for North American Table Tennis, LLC, (NATT) the event organizer. 

The brainchild of Richard Lee, a former U.S. Junior Table Tennis Champion and Junior Olympic Gold Medalist, NATT currently is the top table tennis event management company in the United States. It has handled the U.S. Open Championships and the U.S. National Championships for the USATT since 2003.  

Williams said that since it is often difficult to make a living out of a sport like table tennis, cash prizes at tournaments encourage youngsters to participate by helping them to raise money for equipment or overseas training. 

Keith Evans, coach for the Texas Wesleyan University Table Tennis Team, stressed on the importance of the sport as a morale builder for young people. 

“It is good to see kids getting more enthusiastic about the sport every day,” he said. “This tournament in particular is a good one and is helping table tennis become more professional.” 

Kingston Gee of San Francisco, who runs the Lincoln Square Table Tennis Club in Oakland, agreed with him. 

“Tournaments like these are definitely good for the sport,” he said. “A lot of kids are drawn to it since the Bay Area is one of the major table tennis hotspots in the country.” 

Williams said it is best to start really young. 

“To be a world class player you need to be really quick and in complete control of your reflexes,” he said. “Any move which is less than one tenth of a second could spell disaster. Most players retire by 30.” 

After winning the tournament, Feth told The Planet that he was satisfied with the way things had shaped up during the finals but admitted that he had to be focused during every second of the game.  

Although Feth plans to retire from professional table tennis this year he will be moving to the United States to coach junior and local players in the Bay Area. 

“I want to take American professional table tennis to new heights,” he said. “I think there is a lot of untapped talent here. To become a top player requires a lot of practice and discipline and sometimes you have to give up other good stuff like parties and friends.” 

The 2006 North American Table Tennis Tour, sponsored by the Swedish sporting goods company STIGA, returns to Berkeley in September for the Berkeley Open. For more information, see www.natabletennis.com. 

Photo by Riya Bhattacharjee 

Competition was fierce at the Western Open Table Tennis Championship. 

Help Sought 

Berkeley police are asking the public’s help in identifying the man who hijacked a cab in San Francisco on Feb. 5. While he held a knife to the cabbie’s throat, the kidnapper had his victim drive to a parking lot on San Pablo Avenue, where he forced the driver to hand over his valuables. 

The suspect is described as an African American or Latino male between the ages of 40 and 50 who stands about six-feet tall, weighs about 190 pounds and has a light beard. 

Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to call Berkeley Police Robbery Detective Steve White at 981-5900 or to email police at police@ci.berkeley.us. 

Outboard gone 

The California Department of Fish and Game called Berkeley police on Feb. 16 to report that during the previous eight months, persons unknown had swiped an outboard motor from one of their boats stored in the Berkeley Marina. 

Robbed 

A 23-year-old Hayward man told Berkeley police that he was robbed that same day in Civic Center Park by a strongarm holdup artist who relieved him of his cash. 

Cell swiped 

A woman who was walking along the 1300 block of 67th Street late last Friday afternoon was struck in the face by one of two teenage bandits who then made off with her cell phone. The victim declined medical attention, said Officer Galvan. 

Takes on cop 

A 23-year-old man decided to take on an officer assigned to Berkeley PD’s Drug Task Force he encountered in the 1400 block of Ashby Avenue just before 6:30 p.m. last Friday. 

As a result, he now faces charges of battery on a police officer, interfering with a police office, a probation violation and a fourth count that could send him back to the slammer to finish out the rest of the sentence he was on probation from. 

Holdup pair 

Two men clad in black robbed a 40-something man of his cash as he walked along the 800 block of Shattuck Avenue last Saturday at 6 p.m. The bandits were last seen fleeing the scene on foot. 

Bandit bust 

Quick action by police ended in the arrest of a 16-year-old male officers say was one of the two suspects who robbed a 51-year-old Richmond man in front of the Long’s Drugs at 2300 Shattuck Ave. at 6:17 p.m. last Saturday. 

The second suspect remains at large. 

Shakes Spear? 

Police arrested a a 71-year-old man early Saturday evening after he was reported to be walking along the 1900 block of Hearst Avenue, brandishing a spear. 

He was booked on one count of possession of a dangerous weapon. 

Snoozes, loses 

Responding to a report of an apparently comatose and non-responsive fellow nodding behind the wheel of a parked vehicle with its engine running, police officers and an ambulance rushed to the 1700 block of La Loma Avenue at 9:26 a.m. Sunday. 

What they found was not a medical emergency, however. Further investigation revealed the fellow was in possession of a dangerous weapon, burglary tools and a quantity of Cannabis indica—the latter, perhaps, accounting for his deep sleep. 

Truck assault 

Police arrested a 38-year-old man just before 9:30 Sunday night after he rammed a stolen pickup truck in to six cars parked in the 1200 block of Gilman Street, said Officer Galvan. 

Because at least one of the cars was occupied by a Berkeley woman, police booked the suspect on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, as well as vehicle theft, probation violation and possession of marijuana. 

Armed robbery 

A 45-year-old Berkeley woman was robbed by a gunman who accosted her in the 1800 block of Solano Avenue at 4 p.m. Monday, said Officer Galvan. 

The gunman then fled in an older model car, possibly a Cadillac. 

Heist foiled 

A masked man carrying what his 31-year-old victim told police may have been a plastic gun failed to convince the San Francisco woman to fork over her valuables after he confronted her in the 800 block of Dwight Way just before 5 p.m. Monday. 

He departed in an older model car, possibly a Saturn. 

Home invasion 

A resident of the 1200 block of Hopkins Street answered the door late Monday afternoon, only to be confronted by two women, who forced their way into the dwelling and grabbed a laptop computer before heading back out the door and fleeing in a purple sedan, possibly a Cadillac. 

The suspect didn’t see a weapon, said Officer Galvan. 

Gang heist 

A woman called police at 8:41 p.m. Tuesday to report that she had just been confronted by a gang of youths, at least one of whom may have been carrying a small handgun, who relieved her of a backpack containing a laptop computer and an assortment of computer games. 

Robbed again 

Roxie Food Center at 2250 Dwight Way was the target of its third armed robbery in recent weeks just before 10 p.m. Tuesday when a man in a red jacket, his face covered by a stocking cap and carrying a pistol walked into the store and demanded the contents of the till. 

He was last seen fleeing on Ellsworth Street with his loot. 

Unhappy Heist 

A young gunman with what a clerk described as a large-framed semiautomatic pistol and with his face concealed by black nylon stocking, burst into Happy Donuts in the 1000 block of Gilman Street at 1 p.m. Wednesday and demanded cash. 

After the clerk complied, the gunman departed. 

?

A staple of daily newspaper journalism is an “expose” of the salaries paid to public servants of all kinds. The Contra Costa Times has been dining out for more than a year on salary information it obtained about Oakland employees who make more than $100,000 per year, gleaned from a successful California Public Records Act lawsuit against the city. Oakland’s unions, particularly the police union, fought tooth and nail to keep said information from coming out into the open. Lately, the San Francisco Chronicle has been engaged in a similar struggle to reveal information about compensation packages for top University of California officials, and the results have caught the attention of the state Legislature—both parties—in a big way. Putting such details in the public arena is laudable, and readers are certainly shocked to see it, but in some ways these stories miss their mark.  

It’s true that taxpayers have a right to know how their dollars are being transferred to whom and for what. That should be a matter of public record, and the papers that put it there deserve a good deal of praise. But it’s also important to take a look at where salaries paid to government officials fit into the overall economic picture, and if that’s done the data is not quite as impressive. 

The Chronicle of Higher Education calculated the total compensation paid to UC President Robert Dynes at $423,666, presumably among the highest salaries if not the very highest in the UC system. It’s above average for public university administrators, but still not in the top 20. And five private university presidents earned more than $1 million. Any of these figures add up to a hell of a lot of money by any calculation, especially as compared with the pay of service workers in the same institutions. Dynes himself lands just over the edge in the 99th percentile of pay scales in the United States, even if everyone else who works under him makes less. But an even more shocking story, one that doesn’t get as much ink, is who else is getting that last 1 percent, and how it affects those on the bottom.  

A recent paper by economists Emanuel Saez (of UC Berkeley) and Thomas Piketty shows that the top 1 percent of Americans now corral about 15 percent of all U. S. income, up from about 8 percent just since the 1960s and 1970s. The income share taken by the top 1 percent is again what it was in the Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th century. The overall income rise coming from increasing worker productivity is being sucked up by the top one percent. 

Super-hero economist Paul Krugman’s most recent column puts this into perspective with his discussion of another recent paper, this one by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University: “Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year... But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that’s not a misprint.” 

In other words, though public servants like UC administrators and Oakland police officers are doing reasonably well at taking care of themselves, “doing well by doing good” like Tom Lehrer’s Old Dope Peddler, the really big guys are doing much better, and having a more profound and long-lasting effect on the structure of American society. Even in what the bloggers call the MSM, the mainstream media, you can be pretty darn sure that the top executives are taking care of themselves in ways undreamed of by those who merely toil in the public sector. Just for comparison it might be instructive to take a look at the available financial information on executive compensation in the companies which own the Contra Costa Times (Knight-Ridder) and the San Francisco Chronicle (the Hearst Corporation) or even the East Bay Express (New Times, now transmogrified into Village Voice Media). It’s a relatively minor research project, though outside the scope of this space today. It might, in fact, be a good story idea for reporters in any of these organizations, but they might have some trouble getting management approval to do it. Even more, it might be an instructive and fun project for the former employees of such media conglomerates now at loose ends because of the endemic layoffs and buyouts in their industry, engineered to make sure that profits and thus executive pay at the top levels continue to stay high.  

It’s easy (and stylish) to take potshots at public employees, but the real problem with the American economy today is not that public employees on the whole are grossly overpaid. The biggest problem is that taxes are too low to pay for needed public services at any pay level, politicians are too cowardly to raise taxes, and the media let them get away with it. If marginal tax rates, the taxes on the excessive income at the very top of the scale in a progressive tax system, went back to what they were in the Eisenhower administration (90 percent) or even in the Kennedy administration (70 percent) we could go back to a decent level of public services without the looming specter of a deficit for which our children and grandchildren will pay. 

›

Daily Planet reporter Judith Scherr received a literate and thoughtful letter this week from a Contra Costa Avenue resident about the stabbing which occurred recently at a teen party on that street. The writer said that “I would like to offer a question that is worth some commentary. The question is—did the neighbors in the homes adjacent to the party exercise any social responsibility in contacting the Berkeley Police Department prior to the party getting out of hand and in offering assistance immediately after the stabbing?” 

It’s a good question, but the answer is not as easy as it looks. The Planet has not been able to obtain police call logs for the time period immediately preceding the stabbing, but our reporter believes, based on conversations with officers, that no calls were made earlier. This might mean that neighbors were reluctant to call, but it might also mean that the party wasn’t noisy, and the houses are not close together, so they weren’t aware of the problem. Some witnesses report that there was foot and automobile traffic, but that could also be the case for a harmless, well-supervised party. 

The letter writer has a theory: “In my own view, this lack of a sense of neighborly responsibility and involvement is a sad reflection on the deteriorating fabric of our urban society. Due to the time demands of work and family, and the frequent changes of residence based on employment changes, we have lost a sense of neighborhood and feel unconnected to those around us.” But 40 years ago, the stabbing murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens provoked a similar outcry, sparked by a newspaper story claiming that there were many witnesses to the attack who did nothing.  

The New York Times lead: “For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.” A number of subsequent reports said that the original Times story contained many factual errors. It now seems to most commentators that the 38 citizens didn’t actually know what was happening, and that the police were called as soon as someone realized that the attack was in progress. Nonetheless, the incident gave rise to a new theory of social alienation called the Genovese syndrome. 

Alienation is a common theme in discussions of modern life, going back at least as far as Marx. But it’s hard to believe that just as many unobserved crimes did not take place in pre-modern pre-urban society, or that they are not now taking place in rural society as well as urban society. Matthew Shepard was murdered on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming, population 27,000. And any reader of Thomas Hardy knows that rural societies where too much is known about everyone can be oppressive in different ways. 

This kind of crime has, thank goodness, been rare or almost non-existent in the Berkeley hills, which in many ways are more like suburbs than like the East Bay flatlands, where similar incidents among hot-blooded teenagers are all too frequent. A Berkeley young man, liked by his friends and beloved of his family, was shot to death in the flats just last weekend. But even in the well-heeled suburbs (Orinda, Lafayette, in recent memory) murders take place, usually without neighbors knowing about them.  

Our correspondent’s letter raises one more important question about connectedness in society. He or she ends with this paragraph: 

“Because I live on Contra Costa Avenue (but a good distance from the party house), I would rather not identify myself. I will say that I was aware of a lot of teenage foot traffic that evening, and that a party was occurring somewhere on the street. In that sense, I do not hold myself entirely blameless.” And the signature is “A Contra Costa Avenue Resident.” 

The letter was addressed to Scherr, not submitted to the opinion section for publication. If it had been, it would not have been published, because we have a firm policy against publishing anything for which the author is not willing to take responsibility. In rare cases, we agree to withhold from print names of people who face credible threats of serious retaliation, but even then we insist on knowing the name. That’s why this comment is based only on excerpts, though the letter was well-written and deserves publication in toto. 

Anonymous complaints can also be destructive to the social fabric—just ask anyone who has been harassed by the nameless neighborhood busybody who calls the police or the health department at the drop of a hat. Part of social responsibility is having the courage to attach your own name to your opinions. This particular letter writer was not reluctant to mention the names of some physicians living nearby who perhaps did not offer assistance to the stabbing victims. That’s unfair—they might not even have been home at the time. “Consider the source,” as my grandmother used to say, is always a good practice when evaluating criticisms of any kind. 

The headline of the White Elephant Sale article in last Friday's issue mistakenly reported the sale as taking place this past weekend. The sale is actually this coming Saturday and Sunday, March 4 and 5. Check the Oakland Museum website at www.museumca.org for details.O

PORT DEAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It seems to me that President Bush is getting his comeuppance on this business of a Dubai company managing our ports. 

Bush has used the politics of fear for some time now—the false weapons-of-mass-destruction justification for Iraq intervention, warrantless wiretaps and Patriot Act excess. Bush, of all people, should not have been surprised by the present public reaction. 

Steve Geller 

• 

CANARY PINES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ron Sullivan’s article on the majesty of Canary Pines brought tears to my eyes. Canary Pines are street trees on two streets in Berkeley. Hillcrest Road is one of those streets. The residents took pride in the trees until PG&E got ahold of them. We understand that Canary Pines have a shallow root system so we can only hope that they can withstand the butcher jobs PG&E requires. We are concerned about all street trees in Berkeley and in California that are subjected to PG&E’s brutality. Hillcrest Road residents have met with the arborist for the City of Berkeley and with the “arborists” for Davey Tree Service. Both say that PG&E supercedes any local regulations and that PG&E refuses to revert to its former practice of esthetically trimmed trees. 

Sally Williams 

• 

SCIENTOLOGY ADS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a faithful reader of the Daily Planet over many years, I was horrified to find a pink brochure tucked inside the Daily Planet, advertising the Church of Scientology. The brochure included 200 questions relating to a person’s personality. The brochure offered a free analysis for those who complete the test. Those who complete the test must supply name and address, phone number, etc., occupation, sex and age, and signature; those under 18 have a parent or guardian sign. 

My impression was that this was just another Scientology scam, inserting their propaganda inside the cover of a respectable newspaper to attract converts. My first decision was to call the paper and alert it that this had happened. But no! Embedded in the paper were three more advertisements. Why did this happen? 

In 2004, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to eliminate the Scientology “Narcanon” drug program from classrooms, stating that it taught pseudoscience, and was in fact a recruitment for vulnerable young people. Many families have been damaged by this pernicious cult. 

I thought better of your newspaper. And I am disappointed. 

Patricia Crossman 

• 

OAKLAND SCHOOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing this as a substitute teacher, who has been working for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) for over three years. It is really difficult to see why the OEA should worry about “scab” strike-breaking substitute teachers crossing picket lines to handle classes which are already difficult to teach.  

Although OUSD has been recruiting additional substitutes to use as a weapon in case of a union job action, it is hard to imagine how OUSD will actually use these scabs. The Subfinder System, which OUSD uses to call in substitutes, is already broken so often that beleaguered teachers and school principals are calling substitutes directly. The OUSD’s automated substitute calling system is already down about as much as it is up. Most of the substitute teachers who used to work with OUSD are now accepting job assignments primarily from other school districts.  

Imagine what is now like to be a substitute teacher, who receives calls from an automated telephone system in which nearly half the job assignments you receive do not even contain job site locations and where the Substitute Help Desk has been abolished. Then, imagine what is like when most of the remaining assignments you are called for by the Subfinder System do not resemble the profile you submitted when you originally signed up for the Subfinder System. Finally, imagine what it will be like if you decide to cross picket lines.  

The chances that there will be a large pool of willing and able substitute teachers eager to cross picket lines is an OUSD pipe dream. 

Joel Monkarsh 

San Leandro 

• 

SMART CANCER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I couldn’t agree more with Ray Kidd (Letters, Feb. 24). The falsely-named “Smart Growth” is the biggest load of useless hooey to come slithering down the pike in a long time. The answer isn’t “Smart Growth” but “no growth.” We have to stabilize our insane level of population growth. And the only way to do that is to cut way back on our insane level of legal immigration (which, by the way, is at a level unprecedented in human history) and eliminate illegal immigration. We’ve been adding three million new people to the U.S. population every year, almost entirely because of recent immigrants and their offspring. Does anybody happen to know where the three million new homes per year are where these people are going to live? I don’t think so. But I can tell you where millions of homeless Americans are: sleeping on the sidewalk. Ric Oberlink of the Sierra Club put it best: “Unrestrained, never-ending growth is a sign of a cancer, not a healthy organism. ‘Smart Growth’ makes about as much sense as ‘Smart Cancer.’”  

Peter Labriola 

• 

BLACKBERRY CREEK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mr. Kohler, in his Feb. 21 letter, related his perception of the opening of Blackberry Creek at Thousand Oaks School 10 years ago as being disharmonious. I would like to point out a few things about how it came about. 

The PTA at the school asked Gary Mason, a landscape architect, if he would help them write a request to the California Department of Water Resources for a grant to open the creek at the school site because the school was seismically unstable and would be replaced. The culverted creek was under where old play equipment was that the city was going to remove, because they were dangerous and not up to code. The city was not going to replace the equipment. At that time the city had no funds to replace play structures in their parks. They were partnering with citizens who could raise funds privately for new equipment that was up to code and the city would contribute its labor for installation. 

The PTA was successful in obtaining a grant for $144,000, which was co-sponsored by BUSD and City of Berkeley. The planning process included participation by a large number of diverse community members. There were indeed, advocates and critics (after all this is Berkeley), all of whom contributed to the process. When the tai chi group asked for the redwood tree (which was in the way of the planned creek channel) to be saved, the design was changed and tree is still there. 

There will always be problems with contaminants getting into streams. The students at Thousand Oaks School were instrumental in getting the city to persevere in searching for the main sources of the contaminants in the creek and successfully putting an end to that problem. It was a great learning experience for the students to learn how to deal constructively with problems both environmental and civic. There is sure to be other contamination, because of the aging infrastructure in the city. And we know that humans have trouble keeping their planet’s air, soil and water clean. The urban environment does have to deal with many man-made stresses, but then even the Sierran streams contain giardia and cryptosporidium bacteria, as well as toxins from mining operations. 

The City Council and the BUSD board of directors unanimously approved the PTA’s project. The BHS student member of the School Board spoke for the board when she remarked that in urban places where so much has been done to destroy the natural environment, that she could not believe that we would not take this opportunity to undo some of that damage to nature. 

Carole Schemmerling 

• 

BERKELEY DECISIONMAKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Feb. 24 article on the adverse effect of unnecessary motorcycle parking on local businesses is maddeningly typical of how important decisions affecting real people are too often made in Berkeley: 

A city department, or an employee, with virtually no accountability to anyone, perceives that there is a problem. No one bothers to check on whether there actually is a problem; the perception suffices. Another employee gets a Bright Idea for solution. With neither the knowledge of nor input from the community, the Transportation Commission or the City Council, the department implements the Bright Idea. After completion it is discovered that not only does the Bright Idea not solve the perceived problem, it has created others both unforeseen and undesirable. Now there is a real problem, though one quite different from the original perception. The law of unintended consequences is alive and well in Berkeley. 

Eventually the issue comes to light, and an irate public demands that the city retreat, reconsider, possibly rebuild. How much this fiasco costs the taxpayers is anyone’s guess. 

Examples of this process abound (Marin Avenue reconfiguration), but are by no means restricted to parking or vehicular traffic issues. Consider the Ashby BART air rights debacle. 

At the conclusion of the article, the chairperson of the Transportation Commission states the commission “does not review every single thing the city does.” Small wonder, since much of the city’s decision making process is beyond public scrutiny. 

Evelyn Giardina 

• 

ASHBY STAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a 30-year resident who lives near Fulton and Ashby, I was a little surprised and puzzled at an omission from Marta Yamamoto’s otherwise interesting piece on South Berkeley in the Feb. 24 edition of the Daily Planet.  

The Ashby Stage is now home to the remarkable Shotgun Players, who also use it to host other itinerant dramatic offerings. Patrick Dooley and his merry band are perfectly positioned both geographically, with BART a stone’s throw from their door, and artistically, with their go-for-broke, cutting edge offerings and stunning quality of acting and direction. They play a big role—you’ll pardon the double entendre—in both my family’s cultural life and in this area’s growing arts district aspirations. 

Which brings me to Joanne Kowalski’s very insightful letter in the same issue of the Planet. She questions what residents who are currently BART users would do during overlapping construction of the Ed Roberts Campus on the east parking lot at Ashby BART and a “transit village” on the west lot. (Never mind what they’ll do once both are built!) 

It is fashionable in some circles to assume that parking is useless, wasteful and “un-ecologically sensitive.” Everyone can just walk, bike, or I suppose arrive by helicopter. God help me, as an inveterate walker and bicyclist I used to feel a bit that way myself. But now that we’re no longer 29 and my husband is partially disabled, in order to use BART—which we do at every opportunity—we need to drive there and park. How will we do that if both parking lots are torn up and eventually gone? 

How does that serve BART’s goal of increasing ridership? 

And what of the impact on our beloved Ashby Stage? Keeping a performing arts venue alive takes tons of talent, bushels of hard work, and, as the old real estate phrase has it, location, location, location. Without parking at Ashby BART, theirs will be just that much less desirable. 

Can we please take these sorts of issues into account in the dialog on the “transit village”? 

And can the Planet do a feature on the Shotgun Players to make up for their omission in Yamamoto’s piece? 

Donna Mickleson 

• 

KRAGEN SITE PROPOSAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ah, if the situation was simply the esthetics of HudsonMcDonald’s modified project for the Kragen site. That the design is more “handsome” than the previous designed (described by ZAB members as resembling a prison or a cheap motel) is something we are grateful for, however a pig in a silk dress is still a pig, just a well-dressed one. 

Mr. Siegel’s wistful tone hoping for “sweetness and light” when the project goes to ZAB and the City Council reminds me of Rodney King’s plea for us to “all get along.” Beyond esthetics, some elements of the “modified” project which preclude neighborhood support include: 

• A project 11 percent (16,882 square feet) larger than the previous project. 

• A project five feet taller where it meets the residential neighborhood. 

• A project 20 units larger than the applicable zoning law and procedures require. 

• A project with severe traffic and parking impacts on residents and anyone who drives downtown or attempts to patronize the existing retail businesses along MLK and University Avenue. 

That the meeting was non-confrontational was by design: Its purpose was to offer a forum for HudsonMcDonald to present their re-designed project to neighbors and other interested citizens, answer questions, and receive comments. If HudsonMcDonald wants neighborhood support and hopes to avoid a lengthy and costly approval process they will implement staff and ZAB recommendations and produce a project no larger or taller than the previous design and offer effective traffic and parking control measures for the inevitable wave of shoppers a Trader Joe’s will draw into our neighborhood from all over Berkeley and surrounding communities. 

HudsonMcDonald has reached into the Planning Department Cookie Jar and chosen the biggest possible cookie—it remains to be seen if they can extract it without breakage. 

Stephen Wollmer 

Neighbors for a Livable  

Berkeley Way 

• 

FAST FOOD TAX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In your coverage of the Oakland City Council vote to tax fast food, liquor stores and convenience markets for littering Oakland streets, I was surprised you repeated the arguments of the Chamber of Commerce without analysis. These commercial establishments, by delivering every serving in throwaway containers, have increased their profits through the elimination of a huge portion of the true costs of doing business by shifting trash-related costs onto the city, the environment and the streets and since most fast food restaurants and coffee shops no longer deal with plates, forks, spoons and cups used by their customers, they no longer hire dishwashers, busboys (and girls), waiters or food servers. Gone are these entry level jobs. They put their product in cardboard and plastic. 

The overwhelming majority of their containers ends up in city-sponsored garbage receptacles, while a small percentage ends up on the street or in the gutter. The Oakland litter tax is a small recompense for the windfall profit they reap by eliminating these food service-related issues. 

These industries will claim “the customer wants the convenience of throwaway containers” or they blame it on the public’s penchant for littering, and threaten lawsuits. Let them squawk. While locals are busted and fined for illegal dumping of “household” or “business-related” garbage, the highest form of illegal dumping is your local McDonald’s franchise that expects the city to provide garbage service for free. These food corporations and restaurants have shifted their waste problem on to the city and the street. Kudos to Jane Brunner for her small attempt to shift the responsibility back where it belongs. 

But, you and I are not off the hook. Every one of us who takes a cardboard cup, a plastic lid, a paper or clamshell food container, whether dumped in the trash can, the garbage slot or the gutter, are complicit in this capitalist enterprise of shifting the costs of our convenience onto the earth, our children, the city and the future. 

Hank Chapot 

• 

MATH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Seven Emirs + 6 Ports = 1 dirty bomb = 1 martial law = 1 dictatorship.  

You do the math. 

James K. Sayre 

• 

RENT CONTROL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Feb. 14, the Daily Planet published an argument by Michael St. John arguing for relaxation of Berkeley’s current ban on condo conversions. On Feb. 17, Chris Kavanagh wrote to say that St. John’s idea “should be considered dead on arrival.” 

Unfortunately, Mr. Kavanagh does not answer St. John’s arguments. Condominiums are the best solution for lots of Berkeley problems. There is a surplus of rental units in Berkeley, where vacancy rates are well in excess of 5 percent. Rents have been falling, and when inflation is considered are even lower than in 1999. There is little incentive for landlords to renovate older, rent-controlled buildings, which are often in disrepair, and undervalued on the city’s tax rolls.  

At the same time there is a grave shortage of opportunities for persons who want to put down roots in the community. At a time when detached, small “starter homes” are selling for $700,000, tenants wanting to own their own homes have no choice but to leave. Condos are the last affordable alternative for firefighters, teachers, and other low– to moderate-income people who want an ownership stake in this city. 

Mr. Kavanagh ignores all of this. Instead he resorts to scare tactics, claiming that condo conversions result in “devastating, mass tenant evictions.” He says nothing about the legal rights Berkeley tenants enjoy: they may not be evicted except for narrowly defined “just causes.” Even where there is a bona fide owner move-in, local law effectively grants a life estate to five-year tenants who are either disabled or over 60 years of age. It also guarantees “relocation assistance” of $7000 per person to all displaced tenants, irrespective of age, income or disability status. These provisions, plus the very substantial costs of conversion, are ample protection against “mass evictions.” 

What Mr. Kavanagh forgets is that there are a lot of people out there who want a chance to own equity in the town where they live. Condo conversions, with reasonable controls, give them this. They would also result in tax relief to existing homeowners, and would rejuvenate neighborhoods, especially in the flatlands, where existing structures languish as a result of policies adopted decades ago, and never re-examined. 

David Wilson 

• 

MORE ON RENT CONTROL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I thank Chris Kavanagh (Feb. 17) for taking the time to reply to my Feb. 7 letter, but he doesn’t appear to have taken the time to actually read my letter. The issues I raised had to do with the enormous cost of the Rent Stabilization Program and with its punitive attitude toward landlords, not with the existence of a rent database. I pointed out that calling this database a “Rent tracking system,” or in his recent letter a “Rent monitoring system” makes it sound more complicated, and expensive than it should be. In “Mr. Mitschang’s world” there would be a database, but it would not cost $3 million. If the Rent Board was serious and honest about monitoring, by the way, it would admit the obvious—that market rents in Berkeley are dropping. 

Mr. Kavanagh, after setting up the straw man of my wanting to eliminate the rent database, fulminates for three paragraphs about my advocating a fearsome “information blackout,” and does not answer any of the specific questions about the actual work the program is doing. Does this remind you of certain national politicians when asked uncomfortable questions? What is needed is an audit of what the program is actually doing and the activities to which staff time is devoted. I think that it is only because the high fees are paid by a narrow segment of the community that they have been tolerated. 

In that regard I have a modest proposal: All 19,000- odd rent-controlled apartments in Berkeley should receive a $13 a month rent reduction. In return, every tenant would be billed the $156 per year that housing providers now pay. Do you think people will want to know what they’re getting for this money? 

Mike Mitschang 

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COLLISION COURSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Caribou and butterflies are colliding in my head, vying for attention, asking to be heard. Both ask me to recognize their plight, the danger to their home, their habitat. The porcupine caribou has been heard, at least for now, with the defeat of drilling plans for the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Caribou seem to loom large in our “American” psyche; we envision beautiful herds in an icy land, untouched by the despoiler’s hands. Our ancestral longing for purity and simplicity connect us to the Gwich’in and their ancient dance with the caribou. Collectively we scorn Senator Ted Stevens who described the Refuge as nothing but a “blank, white slate” ( may not be the exact quote). 

Butterflies dance in and out of our psyche, bringing moments of magic. But they can’t capture a place in our imagination. Unlike the caribou, they have no pristine wilderness that calls to mind something pure we may have lost within ourselves. How do we answer the call to save a habitat that more intimately connects with our own? How do we protect their vast habitat for the journey from Mexico to Canada? We seem not willing to protect their home in our backyards or in the “vacant lots” city leaders and developers are so delighted to infill. Because of our desire to civilize the natural world in which we reside, we are quickly destroying the ecosystems which give butterflies their life. No one scorns when an open space is depicted as a vacant lot—an open space filled with milkweed for larvae and nectar for butterflies. 

As I walk down San Pablo Avenue I am haunted by one of the new buildings under construction in the 2500 block—the former home of butterflies, bees and birds who counted on the “weeds” for survival. I don’t know what the new site will sell, but I do know that my soul and my survival do not need its wares, they need butterflies. 

Have we limited our love affair to the Alaska Wildlife National Refuge because it is as removed from our daily lives as we have become from the web of life? It asks nothing of us but a periodic call to our senators and a donation or two. To save the butterflies will require more thought and more change, more action and less romance. 

It won’t be enough to protect the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, the earth needs butterflies, the old growth redwood forest ecosystem and the bears being killed by winegrowers because they eat the grapes that have replaced their habitat. We are on the collision course. Through protection and restraint and change we just might recapture our souls and, in the process, save our web of life. 

L. Darlene Pratt 

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In her Feb. 24 letter to the editor, Carolyn Sell mentions both the David Brower Center and plans to develop Ashby BART, an interesting combination which, for me, is an invitation to comment on how the city plans for the use of publicly controlled space. 

But first, it’s important to correct a factual error in her letter and to describe what is actually being planned. 

She mistakenly says that the David Brower Center, which will be built on the city’s Oxford parking lot downtown, will be a “nine-story” building. In fact the Brower Center will be a four-story building, an entirely appropriate height for that downtown location. 

The Brower Center is expected to be a “LEED platinum” building, which is to say that it will be built to the highest “green building” standard set by the U.S. Green Building Council. Photovoltaic roof panels will produce electricity for the building. A number of environmental groups which had close ties to David Brower, including the Earth Island Institute, will occupy the offices in the Brower Center. To learn more, visit Earth Island’s website: www.earthisland.org. 

The Brower Center will be a model that other developers of office space should follow. 

In addition, 96 units of affordable housing will be built on the Oxford lot site. This is an excellent example of using public land for public benefit. Private for-profit developers have shown that they cannot meet the city’s need for below-market affordable housing, especially for families. Projects like Oxford Plaza, developed by non-profit developers, are needed to provide some affordable units in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets. 

Ms. Sell complains that another project, the Kragen project at University and MLK will not include units for families. This is indeed a problem with much of the housing that has been built downtown recently. While no data on new building occupants exists, anecdotal evidence suggests that a majority of the new units are occupied by students. 

Ms. Sell should be pleased to learn that the Oxford Plaza housing, being built in tandem with the Brower Center on the same site, will contain a large number of family-size units, including some of the few three-bedroom units to be built in Berkeley in recent years. 

To address the issue of public process: Ms. Sell implies that the Brower Center is the outcome of a backroom deal involving the mayor and developers (unnamed, of course). In fact, the Brower Center/Oxford Plaza development comes out of a public planning process conducted by the Planning Commission. This planning process contrasts sharply with the way the city started off the process of planning for Ashby BART. 

As chair of the Planning Commission’s Oxford lot subcommittee, I presided over numerous public meetings at which a range of ideas for developing the Oxford parking lot site were put forward. Many viewpoints were heard. 

After gathering public input, the Planning Commission made recommendations to the City Council about the site and the City Council approved them. An excellent team of developers was chosen on the basis of who could best realize the vision put forward in the recommendations approved by the council. 

I and many others look forward to seeing ground broken this year on the project which is consistent to a substantial degree with the recommendations that came out of the original public planning process. 

Unfortunately, the city got off on the wrong foot with another excellent publicly controlled opportunity site for development, namely Ashby BART. The city’s General Plan has policies regarding the development of housing on the Ashby BART site. In particular, at least 50 percent of the units on the site “should be affordable to low- and very-low-income hosueholds” to the extent that’s feasible. It needs to be understood that it is already city policy to develop the Ashby BART station site. 

The General Plan, itself the result of an extensive public planning process, also includes a “Citizen Participation” element which mandates “Community Involvement in Planning.” And, indeed, the city has a long tradition of involving the public extensively in its planning processes, the most recent example being the Oxford lot process itself. The city’s many area plans and strategic plans, including the West Berkeley Plan, the current Downtown Plan, the South Shattuck Plan, and the draft Southside Plan, all come out of planning processes in which the public had extensive and meaningful involvement. 

What’s needed for Ashby BART is a similar process that will involve all stakeholders and interested members of the public. The starting point for such a process should be the city’s General Plan policies, but no assumptions should be made about the number or specific type of housing units that should be built there. Nor should it be assumed that the flea market has to move. 

There are all kinds of possibilities for how this site can be developed. It is certainly possible to develop housing that will not have a negative impact on adjacent neighborhoods and which could in fact enhance the neighborhood and give a boost to local retail businesses. It’s possible to maintain space for the flea market. It’s not essential to cram as many units as possible on the site or to use the entire site. It’s possible to have multiple developers; it shouldn’t be assumed that a for-profit developer should be the exclusive developer of the site. 

The Ashby BART air rights are public space and, as with the downtown Oxford parking lot, should be developed to provide public benefit rather than to enrich private developers. Possibilities include building housing for the disabled, both those who are physically disabled and those who are developmentally disabled. This could be a good fit with the Ed Roberts Campus which is already planned for the Ashby BART site. 

Ed Roberts was an early advocate of independent living for the disabled. The Ed Roberts Campus will house organizations that work to assist the disabled to live independently. How about some housing units where the disabled can live independently at the same location? 

Other possibilities for the site include senior housing, which will be more in demand as the Baby Boom generation reaches retirement age, especially if the Republican assault on Social Security and retirement benefits continues and achieves some success. Many of the people who rent in Berkeley now, because they can’t afford to pay $700,000 for a two-bedroom bungalow, will find themselves hard-pressed to afford their rent when they reach retirement age and have to get by on less income. They will need affordable housing for their retirement years. 

Housing for families with lower-income breadwinners could work as well if designed with families in mind. Let’s not forget that lots of people in Berkeley work at low-paying jobs and lack the resources to pay a lot of rent, let alone buy a house. Think about how much rent you can afford if you only make $8 or $10 or $12 an hour, or you earn the current pitiful minimum wage of $6.75 an hour. 

The details of what should be built at Ashby BART need to be worked out in an extensive public process, not predetermined. There are many options to be considered. Let’s stand with Berkeley’s tradition of participatory democracy. 

As with the Brower Center/Oxford Plaza project, the city should consider mandating that anything built at Ashby BART be built to meet the highest green building standards. When public sites are developed, I think the city should set high aesthetic and sustainability standards and should not settle for mediocrity or for whatever a for-profit developer might consider to be suitable or compatible with projected profits. Public sites should be developed in accordance with publicly-generated visions and recommendations. 

Looking beyond Ashby BART, there is no reason why the city should not start thinking about what could be done at North Berkeley BART, which is obviously equally suitable for the kind of transit-oriented development that’s needed to ensure Berkeley’s future as a sustainable city. The city should be talking to BART about acquiring the rights to develop North Berkeley BART and should think about initiating a public planning process at some point in the future. 

Rob Wrenn is a member of Berkeley’s Transportation Commission and of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory  

Committee. 



Maintaining a setback of 30 feet makes good sense for Berkeley creeks and anything less is short-sighted for long-term restoration, ecological health, and city maintenance requirements. 

Some particular points are as follows: 

1. All natural creeks have have a relatively predictable pattern, dimension, and profile relative to their “bankfull” discharge. An essential component to natural functioning streams is the dimensions of their bankfull width, and flood-prone width. Bankfull width is the width of the active channel at flows that occur about 1.3 to 1.7 years on average. The flood-prone width is measured at a height that is two times the maximum bankfull depth. This represents the width of the channel that would flood during the more rare, infrequent large floods. The flood-prone width for stable channels can often be greater than 2.2 times the bankfull width. For example, this means that a creek that has a bankfull width of 25 feet and a maximum bankfull depth of three feet, must have a flood-prone width of 55 feet or more at a height of six feet in order to maintain a stable configuration, i.e., not aggrade or degrade its bed. However, it may laterally migrate. 

2. To prevent excessive lateral migration, natural channels typically need a healthy riparian corridor (along with the appropriate flood-prone width). Large roots add to the cohesion of banks, which help the bank resist erosion during large floods. An approximately 30-foot-wide buffer might make better sense for the rooting requirements and canopy sizes of healthy, mature riparian vegetation. Furthermore, if a healthy riparian canopy exists, structures will need to have a setback of 30 feet for clearance purposes to meet the code for fire hazard reduction. 

3. Large mature riparian vegetation will benefit streams not only for stability purposes, but for also adding shade and thereby maintaining cool water temperature for fish. A mature riparian corridor is important for long-term recruitment of large woody debris, essential for increasing diversity and structure of pools for fish habitat and other aquatic organisms. 

4. Many streams in Berkeley are highly entrenched and are eroding their nearly vertical banks. This is often an indication that they are trying to increase their flood-prone width. In our urban setting this is often the picture: a narrow, very deep channel, lined with various concrete walls, sacrete bags, rock riprap, or other types of revetments that are in various stages of disrepair, often collapsing into the channel. One of the restoration techniques available to deal with this kind of instability is to lay back the banks at a more stable angle and create an appropriately wide flood-prone width that permits the growth of riparian vegetation. Inner floodplain benches are often created. In order to apply this kind of restoration strategy that provides for the most natural kinds of stream functions, we need to have an appropriate amount of space available. Reducing the setback width will prevent future restoration efforts from being as successful as possible. Instead they will require expensive artificial retaining structures that will require costly maintenance in perpetuity. 

5. A 30-foot setback width allows access for large equipment along a creek for conducting repairs, maintenance, or restoration. A 10-foot setback limits this capability. 

6. Even in urban settings vegetation exceeds the benefits of concrete or other artificial structures that cause increases in water velocity and thereby increase erosive forces on the channel bed and induce more downcutting. As a result of increased velocity, flood peaks and thus flood risks are increased to the downstream urban setting. Having the future option to widen the flood-prone width of entrenched channels allows us or future generations to reduce the risks of urban flooding and property loss from bank erosion. This future option should not be eliminated by short-sighted planning. If structures are allowed to be built to within 10 feet of the banks, the channels will ultimately require expensive structural solutions that eventually fail and/or require expensive maintenance. Many of Berkeley’s streams are already underground, in storm drains or culverts. We are already dealing (or not dealing) with mistakes of the past. Creating a 10-foot buffer will likely lead to more “undergrounding” of streams that are no longer visible or viable. Natural processes that maintain stream functions are not limited to 10 ft buffers. 

7. Ideally, buffer size should be based upon appropriate flood-prone width and ecological requirements. These are founded in good science not politics. 

Laurel Collins is principal geomorphologist at Watershed Sciences in Berkeley.›

To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit  

www.jfdefreitas.com To search for previous cartoons by date of publication, click on the Daily Planet Archive.

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CASTING ASPERSIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

These days it’s so easy to dash off an e-mail. Easy, convenient, and irretrievable. I’ve got to believe that the writer who commented on the Hamas electoral victory (Letters, Jan. 27) must have dashed off his unkind missive in a fit of fury, pushed “send” and then thought better of it.  

When someone paints an entire group of people as “filled with hatred and steeped in the culture of suicide bombing,” it surely calls for an apology. What if he had substituted Jews, or African Americans, Mexicans, or Canadians for his judgment on the entirety of Palestinians? Would that be acceptable?  

Palestinians are not just a group in a far-away place who might never read his harsh letter. They are our neighbors in this community. They operate grocery stores, businesses and their children go to school with our children. They are our friends.  

Barbara Henninger 

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ASHBY BART AREA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the Ashby BART debate: No one seems to remember that area used to be businesses with housing above. My boyfriend (later my husband) lived above the business on the southeast corner of Ashby and MLK when we met. I can’t say yes or no to this particular proposal, because I’m not currently living in South Berkeley. I can say I’d rather see housing instead of a parking lot almost anywhere in Berkeley. Could Adeline Street (Ashby to the next signal light) be closed on the weekends for the flea market? 

Carol Beth 

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EDUCATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Recent editorial columns praise “President” Bush’s call for increased funding of education in mathematics and science. Recently the Charlie Rose program featured two prominent “science” personages to discuss the possibility that in the near future the United States may disastrously fall behind China and India in scientific discovery, invention, and technological innovation. 

While expressing strong belief that improvement in our grades K-12 are crucial, the Merck Company’s notable underlined that annually nearly half the recipients of U.S. universities’ Ph.D. degrees in the exact sciences soon take to other countries, usually of the students’ birth, their new U.S.-learned knowledge. 

In immediate reaction to this warning of—if not a brain drain—at least of the lessening of higher education slots for U.S. citizens, the other savant decried how the State Department assists in this dilution of our competitive edge in science: Students overseas who seek visas to enter the U.S. for advanced studies are asked whether they intend ultimately to return home, or will stay in the United States. Those who express a wish to remain in the United States receive visas less often than do those who intend to leave after completion of studies—often taken for personal economic advancement, rather than to serve needy homelands! 

Tie this with the fact that (at least the University of California, and probably at other public Ph.D. mills) foreign students pay appreciably higher tuition than that of state residents. Then contrast the complaints of teaching staffs, resident students and applicants with the complacency of overpaid administrators courted by prestige-greedy businessworld regents. 

Judith Segard Hunt 

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SMART GROWTH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Much praise to Jane Powell (Daily Planet, Feb. 21) for saying what is too seldom said: “smart growth” does not prevent suburban sprawl. Those who invoke such words as “urban infill,” “smart growth,” “elegant density,” “transit village,” etc. give a feel of good environmentalism cover to developers and their current crop of allied Development Democrats such as Perata, De La Fuente, and Brown (J. and W.). Meanwhile, sprawl and infill continue apace, side by side, unabated. 

A connection could be established between the two. It’s conceivable that some sort of arrangement between urban areas and suburban/exurban areas could be reached such that if urban areas allowed a certain amount of infill then nonurban areas would restrict sprawl. At present there is absolutely no mechanism for this, which is, of course, the point.  

Until there is a way to connect urban infill with restrictions on sprawl, the structuring of which would have to come at the state level, then no further urban infill should be accepted on the basis of sprawl prevention. Any developer or environmentalist making such a claim should have to show exactly what sprawl, both amount and location, is being forestalled. Otherwise, such claims for urban infill housing are only a rationale for, in Ms. Powell’s words, out of control development. 

Ray Kidd 

Oakland 

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JACK LONDON SQUARE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing in response to the Daily Planet’s Oct. 25, 2005 cover story entitled “Commercial Growth Lags Behind Oakland’s Downtown Housing Boom,” by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. 

The article talks about vacant commercial properties and other properties located in and around Jack London Square. It has long been my theory that there’s a missing off-ramp on the 880 Freeway, that causes traffic to bypass Jack London Square. 

When a freeway goes through town, the city gives the freeway access rights through the city. In return, certain concession are normally granted. In nearby Emeryville, for instance, the freeway wanted to widen itself in the City of Emeryville, they said, “Fine, as long as we get an overpass over the railroad track from the shopping center where Home Depot is located around to the shopping center where Ikea, Trader Joe’s and other stores are located.” Caltrans, in order to go through Emeryville, had to make that concession. We see that they have a ramp over the railroad tracks from 40th Street to the Frontage Road. 

In the City of Oakland, when one goes on 880 past the main post office on Seventh Street, there’s only one other off ramp, and it says, “To Alameda, Jack London Square, Downtown.” Anyone who knows where Jack London Square, Alameda, and Downtown are located would feel “That can’t be true! Downtown is two or three miles away!” That off ramp is indeed for the Port of Oakland, the city gets nothing! One goes around the curve from there thinking there has to be another off ramp. However, you quickly learn that City Hall, Downtown Oakland, Jack London Square and Alameda, have no off ramp. 

You are confronted with the logjam of 880 and 980 freeways before you can wave to the people of Oakland, as you pass though town on your way to the suburbs. There is no way to get off the freeway at that point. Curses and more to the responsible parties. Who did this? Sixteenth Street is the closest off ramp and that is a hell of a long ways from Downtown. That missing off ramp is just an oversight on the part of those brilliant freeway designers. 

There should be an off ramp at Jefferson Street. But no, that may interfere with the Port of Oakland’s on ramp. It is as if “What’s good for the Port of Oakland is good for Oakland.” Oops, I am sorry. You have to be careful what you say about the port. They will have the police shoot you in the face with some wooden bullets or maybe put some pepper spray in your eyes. Just fool with the Port of Oakland and you’lll be sorry. 

Jack London Square and downtown Oakland are suffering from the city fathers’ oversight. There is no through traffic. One only has to look at Chinatown and North Beach in San Francisco. Both had freeway off ramps until the ‘89 earthquake. They are now just a shell of their former selves. 

Catrans, the Port of Oakland and the city fathers have played anther cruel joke on the people of Oakland and the greater Bay Area. They have made me change my travel patterns. I never go to Jack London Square anymore. I really had some good times there. 

Richard Worthy 

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ESSENTIAL HISTORY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Don’t think for a minute that the issue of landmarks preservation is not a class issue.  

The hills neighborhoods have larger, fancier buildings, built by famous architects, architects with names which stir recognition and favor in society and history. Large, impressive structures built by famous people tend to garner signatures and political support with elegant ease.  

The flatlands, where Berkeley’s first settlements began, might more often have been farmland, factories, tin sheds, and smaller structures where less famous but more typical lives laid the first foundations of the town we know today. These people’s victories, and the places where they organized and worked, should be granted as much respect as the structures which celebrate our wealthier, well-connected ancestors.  

The pioneers of a geographical setting often had harder roads, literally, and harder lives. The more we strip our landscape of the structures of merit which are often the best reflection of the more common history of our neighborhoods, the more we erase even the possibility of remembering and appreciating the lives that came before us, lives that resemble our own more truly and more clearly than any pantheon of trophy buildings built for and lived in by the rich and famous.  

Mayor Tom Bates wants to eliminate the structure of merit designation, the only hope available for preserving the smaller, less impressive structures which reflect working people’s history, perhaps not realizing the danger which the few remnants of our history face without this minor protection.  

Some towns have three tiers of landmark protection out of recognition of the necessity of somehow recognizing , celebrating, and protecting historical elements in our landscape from the scalding onslaught of profit-driven developments, an idea the mayor has yet even to consider.  

The developers will always be there, waving money in front of politicians’ noses, ready to bulldoze and build. Our history will always be there, too. We just may slowly become blind to it, as politicians sometimes are, without the rare signposts that signal our sensibilities that we are just a moment in the passage of time.  

Carol Denney 

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IN DEFENSE OF ED CHURCH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I find it disturbing that in a city with Berkeley’s reputation for free speech and healthy debate, Ed Church’s integrity, qualifications, and honesty are under attack rather than the decision making process regarding the Ashby Bart Transit Village. Is it necessary and appropriate for people who don’t agree with your opinion or proposals to attack your character before they know all the facts? 

I‘ve known Ed for over 12 years, and have collaborated with him on several boards, committees and special projects. In the past he has been instrumental in leveraging substantial amounts of funding which have supported programs for both homeless and low income persons. I will admit we haven’t always been on the same side, and don’t agree on several issues, but he has always proven himself to be someone I can count on to give an honest answer whether I like it or not. I happen to believe him, and the mayor, when they recently said the planning process is open-ended, starts with a blank slate, everything is on the table and no specific number of units are predetermined.  

It’s fine to be impassioned over neighborhood issues (so am I), unfortunately it seems that some people live in a world that’s only black or white. If you don’t agree with them you’re the enemy and they will lob grenades at anyone that doesn’t join them in their foxhole. Can there be no gray area? Or since where in Berkeley how about green area (blue and gold, Cal’s colors, make green). As some people say, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game!” 

Winston Burton 

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UNIVERSITY AVENUE PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding your Feb. 17 story, “Neighbors Confront Developers over Project Proposal.” 

I was at the meeting about the proposed project at University Avenue and Martin Luther King Way, and (your headline notwithstanding) I was pleased that the meeting seemed more cooperative than confrontational.  

Several neighborhood people said the architectural design is handsome, and it is obviously a big improvement over the earlier design for the site.  

Many people wanted changes in details of the project. The most important of these was larger setbacks on Berkeley Way to avoid shadowing neighboring homes, and the developers seemed receptive to this suggestion.  

I didn’t hear people saying that they wanted to stop the project, rather than to improve some of its details. Maybe someone in the neighborhood wants to kill the project and preserve the Kragen parking lot and grease pit currently on the site, but I didn’t hear that at the meeting.  

I hope this cooperative tone continues when the project comes to the Zoning Adjustments Board, so we can get a design that works for the developers and for the neighbors.  

This project would be an immense improvement to this intersection. I hope it can move through ZAB quickly, and is not delayed so long that we lose the Trader Joe’s.  

Charles Siegel 

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PACIFIC STEEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The real story regarding Pacific Steel Casting is something you won’t read about in any newspaper. Judith Scherr reported on the recent community meeting regarding the 72-year-old long-time east bay polluter (Feb. 17). 

Some would like to characterize this battle as between jobs and the environment, others would say its a David and Goliath tale between a neighborhood and a stinky giant. Others would say it’s all about the money; Pacific Steel is very profitable and the city benefits from the tax revenue. Still others would say it’s a battle between workers and residents, or property owners vs. industrial workers. The truth is Pacific Steel is in business and they will do whatever it takes to stay in business. That’s what companies do. They fight for survival. The real story of the evening is that 200 workers showed up for the first time since this battle heated up and there is only one plausible explanation: Pacific Steel (with advice from Dion Aroner’s PR firm) told its workers ... “You had better be there...your jobs are on the line.” What else could the workers do? How else do you explain their appearance? It’s the first and probably only time any workers will appear. Pacific Steel is pushing the “neighbors vs. the workers” theme because it takes the pressure of Pacific Steel to clean their dirty business. 

Don’t be fooled and don’t take your eye off the ball. Pacific Steel is a long time polluter that has affected the quality of life and the health of residents in West Berkeley for over 72 years. It’s time for them to clean up and no amount of “spinning” the story is going to change that.  

Andrew Galpern 

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BROWER CENTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In agreement with all Glen Kohler (Letters, Feb. 17) had to say, I’d like to add a few comments of my own. Isn’t it lovely that our city government, in cahoots with the mayor’s buddies, the developers, is honoring David Brower with a massive, nine-story building downtown? Does anybody remember that what David cared most about was preserving open space? 

I’d also like to propose that in the future, all discussions about transit villages call them what they really are: transient villages. As developer Chris Hudson of the “Kragen project” arrogantly announced, we’re getting a five-story building, like it or not, with small apartments that are not intended for families. Does anybody else find it ironic that in a window on this very site sits a poster thanking Berkeley’s citizens for passing a measure for school bonds? How do you think Berkeley will vote next time around, with the erosion of our single-family community? 

Finally, to our Ashby BART friends, keep fighting. You are in our thoughts, and when they come after the North Berkeley BART station, we’ll be ready for them. 

Carolyn Sell 

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ASHBY PARKING IMPACT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Has anyone considered the impact construction on both Ashby parking lots will have on BART riders? Where will they park? In the neighborhoods beyond the lots? At the Berkeley Bowl? And how will riders get to and from the station? Are the planners aware how inconvenient it is to pick one’s way around a construction site particularly while wearing a suit? In a wheelchair? Pushing a stroller? Since construction on projects of the size proposed generally goes on for years, isn’t it likely regular riders will stop using BART and go back to their cars thereby contributing to BART’s already diminishing ridership which will in turn lead to more fare hikes and even funkier service? Isn’t this antithetical to what BART and transit villages are supposed to be about? Rather than building both projects at the same time, wouldn’t it be less disruptive to fully complete one before beginning the other? Or, if we really need a transit village in Berkeley sooner, wouldn’t it be better to build it at the North Berkeley station? Or is one planned for there, too, that we don’t know about yet? 

And what about our crumbling infrastructure? Is it wise to build more housing, add more people and more pressure when our sewers are about to collapse? Shouldn’t we fix that first? Is it true this will cost billions? And how many new police, firefighters and teachers will we need for our expanding population? Who is going to pay for all of this? Homeowners? Shouldn’t the developers be expected to compensate the city for the long-term infrastructure costs which their projects will entail? And what about the state? Shouldn’t it be expected to reimburse the city for infrastructure costs necessitated by (over)development on state land? What are our representatives in Sacramento doing to make sure this will occur? 

Will the high-end market continue to flock to our shores when faced with skyrocketing taxes, snarled traffic and backed up sewage on the floors? And will all those new firefighters, library workers and teachers be content to live (and raise a family) in a box in a concrete Village and BART to work while the people they serve live in real houses with real yards and drive real cars? 

These are just a few of the things I would like to know. 

Joanne Kowalski  

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TRAFFIC CALMING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ll second Myrna Sokolinsky’s comment in your Feb. 14 edition concerning the city’s intention to spend a further $200,000 on what it refers to as “traffic calming” circles. First, because I’ve never seen or heard any evidence for the necessity of calming traffic in my neighborhood. Second, because I regularly see evidence of them being potentially dangerous obstructions. Third, because Berkeley has many more really important needs on which $200,000 could be spent. And fourth, because, as a low-income citizen, I’m struggling to pay the tax demanded by the city simply to renew my business license. I could go on, but will only add that I hear people complaining about them all the time. Where’s the outrage, Berkeley? 

Whatever traffic needs calming is in areas of Berkeley with documented accident rates. I’m sure they are not in my West Berkeley neighborhood, which makes me wonder why we are getting so many.  

I think the traffic circles are a disgraceful waste of taxpayers’ money, which is especially galling as the city endlessly cries poor!  

Nicola Bourne 

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MARIN AVENUE UPDATE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Okay, have we had enough of the Marin Avenue reconfiguration experience? Maybe the bicyclists are happy—but I’ve seen only two bicyclists on Marin since the change—and I use Marin frequently. 

Maybe the residents are happy, but I don’t see why they should be because they have substituted traffic jams for speeders. (As for speeders, traffic officers could calm traffic and add to Albany’s coffers.) 

I used to live on Marin Avenue and kept my small children and pets out of traffic. I accepted that Marin was quite appropriately a four-lane thoroughfare and enjoyed its easy access to the freeway and local destinations. Now it’s a crowded mess. Anyone else for changing it back? 

Carolyn Bradley 

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CREEKS ORDINANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Paving or building right next to a creek may expose it to contamination. Channelization reduces or eliminates creek and riparian habitat. Daylighting sounds great. I understand these basic points, but what I haven’t seen explained, and don’t understand, is why 30 feet from the creek centerline is a magic number within which construction of a roofed structure is not allowed. When a stream cuts a deep channel you often have little riparian area, and there is no obvious reason why 60 feet (both sides) is needed everywhere.  

Why isn’t it possible to build within five or 10 feet of a creek without causing significant contamination of it? Do we need 30-foot clearances on both sides for flood plain control? Is there no compensatory value in the non-riparian land freed up when building next to the creek?  

Fallingwater has been described as the “... supreme example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s concept of organic architecture, which promotes harmony between man and nature...” but it probably wouldn’t be legal in Berkeley. Perhaps we should think a bit more about what it takes to make a healthy environment for both creek and people.  

Disclaimer: My backyard is a seasonal swamp, but my property does not abut a creek or culvert. The opinions expressed above are my own, and to my knowledge I have no conflict of interest with any LBNL policies (see Mark McDonald’s Feb. 17 letter to the editor).  

Robert Clear  

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TRANSIT VILLAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Redwood City resident Nicholas Kibre’s question (Letters, Feb. 17) why South Berkeley residents’ opinions on appropriate development at Ashby BART should outweigh those of others who “might like to live” in our neighborhood, that’s certainly debatable. 

However, Caltrans, BART, the City of Berkeley, and the controversial grant application all agree that they should. The Caltrans grant program is called Community-Based Transit Planning. The specific community is, per BART policy, a half-mile radius around the station. The grant application says that its “essential process is community-based action and public participation.” And the City of Berkeley’s resolution supporting that grant application says “a community-based planning process ... can help define appropriate development parameters for the site that meet ... community interests.” 

Kibre has a point that it’s unfair to cut nonresidents out of the planning process. One big defect in the grant application is its arbitrary and inappropriate exclusion of the several thousand Oakland residents within the half-mile radius. One flaw in Berkeley elected officials’ conduct of the process to date has been an apparent lack of interest in the concerns of our Oakland neighbors, some of whom live only a block or two from the station. 

Mr. Kibre, if you feel that you have a personal stake in planning for development at Ashby BART, I invite you to take an active part. However, since home prices and rents are cheaper in South Berkeley than in Redwood City, why not just move here? 

Robert Lauriston 

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It feels like a bad dream. Poorly drawn cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper spark deadly riots. In northern Nigeria at least 16 people die, many of them Christians, when rioters torch churches, shops and vehicles; in Libya 10 people die in clashes with police; in Afghanistan 12 people are killed and 20 injured. The Danish consulate is burned in Beirut. 300 Palestinian protesters attack an international observers’ mission in Hebron throwing rocks and bottles. Riot police in Delhi fire tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of student protesters; in Kashmir a general strike is called. And a Pakistani Imam announces his mosque will give $25,000 and a car to anyone who kills the single cartoonist he believes produced the offensive drawings. He says a local jewelers’ association would give another million.  

What are we (by “we” I mean us unbelievers—hippies, atheist Jews, anarchists, unrepentant wacko Surrealists, dogmatic leftists, liberals, and “progressives”) to make of all of this? As in a bad dream we have trouble orienting ourselves. We debate ad nauseum the balance between rights and responsibilities and end up sounding disconcertingly like our president who, sitting next to King Abdullah of Jordan informed the world: “We believe in a free press,” but “we also recognize that with freedom come responsibilities. With freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others.” He went on to say that the reaction to the cartoons “requires a lot of discussion and a lot of sensitive thought.”  

The best lack all conviction, while the worst 

Are full of passionate intensity 

We would not call ourselves “the best,” nor those enraged bearded men we see on TV waving their fists in the air “the worst.” We do not think that. But it does seem that only those to whom truth is pumped in a direct pipeline from God are filled with passionate intensity, while those of us whose values derive from some less certain source lack something in conviction. We have difficulty explaining how we get “ought” from “is.” We ring our beliefs with caveats and qualifications, and often retreat into a self-contradictory relativism. It is as if we’re a little ashamed that our rhetorical commitment to democracy and freedom—we would say “real” democracy and “real” freedom—and to human rights is expressed in language that is not that different from the rhetoric our leaders deploy before the bombs start dropping. 

It was not always so. It was not always only the God besotted who spoke with passion, whose eyes shone, whose voices cracked with emotion. Once the left was more certain of itself. It owned the opposition to the system. It defined that system—capitalist, racist, imperialist. It championed solidarity. It spoke the language of universals. It appealed to reason rather than revelation. It had its heroes—the Zapatas, and Che Guevaras, and Ho Chi Minhs and Mandelas. The religious leaders who marched in its ranks, the Martins and the Malcolms, did not attempt to impose on the rest of us an all-embracing religious orthodoxy.  

Now the left shares the stage uncomfortably with a third force we can not embrace, but cannot ignore. The inability of secular democratic movements to deliver on their promises opened the door to fundamentalism. The leaders of the free world were all too happy to see clean shaven communists and socialists tortured and killed by men with beards shouting “God is Great.”  

These days it sometimes seems as if the huddled tribe, the narrow coven of the faithful, has replaced the open circle, universally inclusive, inscribed by reason. Reason is tainted by its association with the irrationality of market driven consumerism. Those who wage holy war against the system frame their opposition as a jihad, a religious war against “Jews and crusaders.” They would not necessarily discriminate between Dick Cheney and me. The rebels and the plutocrats, the corporations and their critics, forces of law and order and the perpetually civil-disobedient, are all in their eyes corrupted with the virus of modernity. We on the left fight in the name of a justice that does not rain down from heaven, but grows from the soil beneath our feet. We fight, also, in the name of a liberated desire. We want to sing and dance and shake our bodies, blaspheme and offend. When our leaders speak of “responsibility” we know the police will soon be knocking on the door. None of us would look good in bourkas. 

Not that long ago we were all Salman Rushdie. We deplored Khomeini’s fatwa. Fellow writers rushed to his defense. Bookstores refused to remove his book from their display cases, never mind he had offended Islam by suggesting that mischief making devils might have inserted a few Satanic Verses into its sacred text. Unlike the unremarkable cartoons that are at the center of this current outburst, Rushdie’s novel had considerable artistic merit. But even bad art deserves a defense. And we have grown timid and responsible.  

“Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality,” wrote Andre Breton in the Manifestos of surrealism. “All power to the imagination,” shouted students on the barricades in Paris in 1968. It’s hard to see the Danish cartoons as works of the imagination. They’re pretty pedestrian. But it may be that “First they came for the bad artists, then they came . . .” 

There is a concept in First Amendment jurisprudence called “the heckler’s veto” The concept is easy to illustrate: A speaker gets up on a soapbox, begins an oration and gathers a crowd around him. Certain members of the crowd angered at what the speaker is saying, begin to heckle loudly and cause a disturbance. The police are called. They observe that the speaker is riling up the crowd, which has become unruly, loud, and potentially violent. The police go up to the speaker and tell him that he must stop because he’s provoking a disturbance. What the police have done is given the hecklers a “veto” over what the speaker is saying.  

We’ve given the Muslim rioters a heckler’s veto. Sometimes it’s a wise decision to stick your speech in your pocket, pick up your soap box and get out of town before things really get out of hand. But we shouldn’t pretend we’re acting on principle, that we are hightailing it out of town because of our tolerance, our desire not to offend, our respect for cultural difference. Call it what it is—intimidation. For if we keep going down this road, there’s no telling where we’ll end up. 

Osha Neumann is a civil rights lawyer, muralist, and sculptor. 

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Cleanaircoalition.net is now signing up people and families from the communities of Berkeley, Albany and El Cerrito. There is a growing number of individuals who feel it is necessary to turn up the heat on Pacific Steel Company (PSC). Specifically, we intend to file multiple lawsuits through Small Claims to force PSC to give us a better solution than the “settlement” BAAQMD has arranged or, failing that, make us pay us for PSC’s constant black air. We have contracted with Neighborhood Solutions and they are on board working and consulting with us to help this move forward quickly. 

BAAQMD and PSC recently settled on a partial toxic reduction plan but the community does not want to settle for the tiny steps offered. We were never included in the process. We weren’t asked to consider this settlement last December. We are literally being made ill on a daily basis and we cannot afford to wait for a substantive change to happen at this rate. We hope the suit will bring PSC back to the table—and answer to the community this time. 

Cleanaircoalition.net would like to share the following quotes from citizens who are now part of our mass claims action. Our members are sick and tired and feel that the settlement agreement has not protected the neighborhood’s interest: 

“We do not spend time out of doors when we smell the odor. We have decided not to cook outside with our barbecue and decided not to purchase a patio furniture set because we would not be able to use it on a consistent basis.” 

“I am angry and stressed about the potential long-term health effects of the noxious fumes. We experience burning eyes, nose and throat. We can’t go outside into our own yard and so stay confined to a stuffy, sealed up house. I will add that our sleep is affected nightly when the bag house is roaring at 2 a.m. and on through the night. We know that the odor will be present the next morning about 11:30 like clockwork. I am concerned about my property value. I certainly would not have bought in this area if the smell had been present in 1993.” 

“It’s difficult to enjoy outdoor activities in yard, riding bike to work, I gag.” 

“This afternoon,... I complained to BAAQMD about the noxious odors from Pacific Steel. Mr. Frederick Johnson came and initially told me he did not detect these odors despite their being present at the time. At my insistence he did offer to walk around the house and the odor was especially noticeable at the side of my house. He then agreed that there was ‘a faint odor’ and that he would attempt to track it down. I told him that I wouldn’t characterize the odor as ‘faint’ but, regardless, I didn’t wish to breathe toxic air pollutants. He then told me so much that I was wasting my time complaining because PSC has entered into an agreement with BAAQMD to address the problem and that complaining wouldn’t make them move any faster. I told him that, on the contrary, the settlement agreement provides for penalties each time PSC violates BAAQMD’s odor requirements and that, in my opinion, additional fines and penalties could very well serve as an incentive for PSC to do more and to address the problem quicker.” 

“The air stinks, it makes me feel unhealthy, like I’m being poisoned without my permission. It has made me nauseous, made my eyes burn, sore throat, and hurt my lungs. It lowers the quality of life in my neighborhood, makes me not want to go outdoors or spend time in the yard. I don’t think its right for anyone to wreck the air in neighborhood.”  

Please join cleanaircoalition.net to demand clean, fresh air for everyone! 

Willi Paul is the found and project director of cleanaircoalition.net. 

“Urge Your City to Adopt Community Control Over Local Energy!” That was the headline on the Sierra Club Environmental Action Alert that recently appeared in my mailbox. The alert was part of the club’s Bay Chapter campaign for Community Choice Aggregation (why do great ideas—single-payer health insurance is another example—have such mind-numbing names?). Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), the leaflet went on to say, is “a form of energy independence that takes the electricity-purchasing decisions out of the hands of huge corporations and gives control to local government.” CCA also promises to deliver electric power that’s greener and cheaper than what we now get from PG&E.  

Liberation from PG&E? Local control of electricity? And cheap, green power besides? It sounds too good to be true. Is it? Maybe, maybe not. What’s clear is that Community Choice Aggregation presents a huge opportunity—and complexity and risk to match.  

The catalyst for CCA was the 2002 passage of California Assembly Bill 117. Assembly Bill 117 gives California cities and counties the right to purchase electricity for power users in their communities. The law provides a public process for a city or county to solicit bids from energy service providers, to set higher goals for green power, and to use revenue bonds to finance new solar, wind, hydrogen and conservation facilities through monthly electric bill payments made by residents and businesses. Hence the term “Aggregation”: local governments get market clout by aggregating local users’ demands for electricity.  

CCA differs from municipal or public power, where a public agency, be it an arm of federal, state or local government, owns wires and/or power plants and wholesales power. Community Choice cities do not own or operate power plants or wire systems and do not form power agencies. Instead, companies called Electric Service Providers compete to deliver power to the Aggregation, from stipulated sources and at rates the community requires. A typical Community Choice contract lasts five to ten years. Millions of customers in Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey and Rhode Island now receive their electricity under CCA laws.  

To date, several dozen local governments in California, including Berkeley’s, have expressed interest in CCA. San Francisco is poised to be the first in the state actually to implement a CCA program, with the enabling legislation calendared on the March 7 agenda of the city’s Finance Committee.  

In Berkeley, Community Choice Aggregation has been a strong interest of the city’s Energy Officer, Neal De Snoo (pronounced Snow), since 1994, when he first went to work here. But until the passage of AB 117, CCA wasn’t a realistic option, says De Snoo, because users had to sign up individually. AB 117 enables local governments to form an opt-out organization: customers are automatically included unless they explicitly choose to stick with an investor-owned utility such as PG&E. Shortly after the law passed, the city invited bids from consultants to analyze the feasibility of a Community Choice program for Berkeley. The job went to Navigant Consulting.  

In April 2005 Navigant delivered a “Base Case Feasibility Evaluation” to Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland. The study recommended that the three municipalities implement CCA by entering into a Joint Powers Agency (JPA). That structure, said the report, would make it possible to reach a workable economy of scale, as well as providing “an appropriate financing vehicle.” Startup costs were estimated at $400,000, and generation investments at $0-128 million, depending on the supply scenario. Navigant listed the advantages of Community Choice Aggregation—among other things, cheaper electricity, stable rates, greener energy generation, lessened dependency on imported natural gas and hence greater energy security, and heightened municipal and regional economic competitiveness resulting from lower and more stable rates.  

But the Navigant study also marked the program’s considerable risks—above all, the possibility that CCA rates would turn out to be higher than comparable prices charged by PG&E, “causing customers to be dissatisfied with the program or attempt to return to PG&E service.” Ironically, “the single greatest obstacle to achieving cost savings through CCA in the next few years” is PG&E’s right to impose so-called “cost responsibility surcharges” on CCA customers, exit fees that are designed “to shield PG&E from any financial losses or cost increases that might result from customers switching to service by the Aggregator.” The cities, acting through the JPA, could impose exit fees on their own departing customers. But as the report observes, “those costs would be paid by the very constituents whose interests [Berkeley] represents.” PG&E customers also “ultimately bear the risks of PG&E’s energy procurement practices, but PG&E is not accountable to its ratepayers to the same degree as is the city.”  

In August 2005, peer reviewers concluded that while Navigant’s overall approach was valid, in numerous respects it had underestimated the risks of establishing CCA for Berkeley, Oakland and Emeryville. Navigant is supposed to provide an amended version of its report. The next step would be for the consultants to develop a business plan that, unlike the initial report, which took a generic approach, would address the specifics of an East Bay CCA. According to an item on the Berkeley City Council’s Jan. 17 agenda, a business plan will cost $104,192. The City of Berkeley has already paid Navigant $28,500 for the original and amended versions of the Base Study. The Jan. 17 item states that “the total cost of Navigant’s services [to the three participating cities, the California Energy Commission and the Department of Energy] is $580,031.”  

Noting that a contractor is already working on Phase 2 for Oakland and Berkeley, De Snoo hopes that the council will authorize the business plan at its March 7 meeting. He’s concerned that if the city lags behind, it may not be treated as an equal partner. But a March 7 approval seems unlikely, given that last Tuesday the council approved a request, submitted by Councilmembers Capitelli and Olds, for the city manager to schedule a council work session on CCA on that date. The council usually defers to a later date action on an item that is the subject of a work session. The councilmembers’ memo asked that the work session include a discussion of the Navigant report, its peer review, and “a panel of energy experts—outside of city staff, commission members and hired consultants—to offer a variety of perspectives in response to the report.”  

A council work session on Community Choice Aggregation is a good idea. CCA is a highly technical proposition. For a lay reader, just comprehending the acronyms in the 142-page Base Study—a page near the beginning of the report decodes 38 of them—is a daunting task. And before moving forward, councilmembers need to grasp far more than the acronyms.  

So do their constituents. Unlike most other major environmental initiatives undertaken in Berkeley, the push for Community Choice Aggregation has not been, shall we say, a community choice. Instead, it’s been driven by staff and professional consultants working largely behind closed doors. By contrast, the city’s many pathbreaking recycling programs grew out of vigorous grass-roots campaigns and community-based institutions, most notably, the Ecology Center, Community Conservation Centers and Urban Ore. A project as ambitious and momentous as CCA should be—indeed, already should have been—the object of intense public scrutiny and discourse. To that end, we need a lot more than a council work session, which allows no opportunities for members of the public to engage in dialogue with councilmembers or anybody else. We need a real public forum. Given the Sierra Club’s interest in Community Choice Aggregation, it would be fitting for the club’s Northern Alameda Group to sponsor such an event.  

If it does, one issue that should be high on the agenda is governance. Summarizing the benefits of a Joint Powers Agency, Navigant says: “The JPA may authorize the issuance of low cost bonds by ordinance subject to referendum but without a vote of the electors within the public entities comprising the JPA.” I suspect that many Berkeley citizens would look askance at a governmental agency that could issue bonds in their name but without their consent.  

And who should serve on the JPA? De Snoo’s reply to that question is not elected officials because that would politicize the decisionmaking. I got just the opposite answer from Paul Fenn, the author of both AB 117 and the legislation behind San Francisco’s CCA, and the founder and director of Oakland-based Local Power. (The Local Power website (www.local.org) is chock-full of accessible information about CCA.) Fenn thinks that the JPA should probably consist of the cities’ mayors, because, as he put it, “When they vote, they’re going to be accountable. Otherwise, you risk a backroom deal.” (Berkeley citizens might understandably wonder if putting the city’s current mayor on a JPA wouldn’t effectively guarantee a backroom deal.) I’d like to see De Snoo and Fenn, along with informed others, discuss governance and other CCA issues at a Sierra Club forum. It should be lively.  

My Feb. 6 Public Eye column contained several errors. The size of the Seagate/Arpeggio Building planned for Center Street is 186,000 square feet, not, as I wrote, 149,000 square feet. The correct address of the proposed West Berkeley Bowl is 920 Heinz St. Finally, I referred to the renamed Vista College as both Berkeley City College and Berkeley Community College; the former is correct.  

Friday night I went over to the Women’s Cancer Resource Center to view the art show, SNAP! SNAP! is a satellite exhibit of the larger Art of Living Black 2006 exhibition hosted by the Richmond Art Center through March 19. In addition to the WCRC show, there are satellite exhibits taking place at various locations throughout the Bay Area, and a cyberspace site at www.mesart.com. 

The Women’s Cancer Resource Center, at 5741 Telegraph Ave., provides many services for women with cancer and their supporters. One of its core values is to educate the general community about the disease, and it does so in a number of unique ways, including hosting several art shows throughout the year. The WCRC opens its doors Monday through Friday (9 a.m.-5 p.m.) to the general public in order to share in the celebration of life through art and to nurture awareness of the center’s many resources. SNAP! features the photography of David Johnson, Ron Moultrie Saunders, Saida Hagan Nassirruddin, Michael Johnson, Salongo Lee, Patricia Patterson, Tasin Sabir, and James Weeks.  

I went to the show specifically to see the photos taken by my neighbor, Joseph Robinson, and by father, long-time Berkeley resident Charles Robinson. Joseph, a graduate of Berkeley High School (class of ‘81), Columbia University, and California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s, spending time in the darkroom with his dad. A 1994 trip to Central America rekindled his interest in photography. Since then, he’s been working on a collection of father/child portraits for a book entitled The Path I Walk. About his work, Joseph says, “I’ve been enchanted with images of people who aren’t particularly rich, particularly famous, particularly good singers, or particularly good athletes—just folks who are all particularly talented and do particularly heroic things everyday. The mainstream media don’t do a good job of recognizing these heroes, so my work as a man of color is to shine a light on them.” 

In contrast, Charles has taken thousands of photographs of the famous and soon-to-be famous. As the official photographer for the 1970 and ‘71 Monterey Jazz Festival, Charles shot many musicians as their stars were rising. In the SNAP! show, Charles shares with his viewers black and white images of Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Paul Gonsalves, Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown and Percy Heath, to name just a few of his well-known subjects. 

Charles grew up on the eastside of Baltimore and became interested in photography while still a teenager. In 1952 he came to California to attend San Francisco State University, where he obtained an undergraduate degree in biology and a master’s degree in Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling. For 33 years he worked for the state of California managing unemployment offices while pursuing his love of photography on the side. He is co-authoring a book with California Poet Laureate, and close friend Al Young. Tentatively titled Jazz Idiom, it contains photographs and interviews and is scheduled for publication by HeyDay Books in 2007.  

“I’ve always been a frustrated musician,” says Charles. “Back in Baltimore there was entertainment everywhere: Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, Eubie Blake. Everyone was trying to tap dance and sing. The music was in me but I couldn’t express it through a musical instrument. That’s why I took up photography.” 

Joseph and Charles Robinson are just two of the more than 100 artists participating in the Art of Living Black exhibition. On March 4 and 5, many of them will be available to discuss their work at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium. This is a chance for the public to meet emerging and established artists and to purchase work directly from them. Items for sale will include paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, ceramics, stone carvings, textiles, jewelry, and mixed media work. Lunch is provided by the Gingerbread House, and a raffle will take place with proceeds going to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to the Friends of Faith, a cancer relief fund. For more information on this event and others, log onto www.therichmondartcenter.org or call 620-6772. For more on the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, go to www.wcrc.org.›

Ravens are complicated birds. Spend enough time with them and you’ll learn that there’s no such thing as “the raven”—a standard one-size-fits-all set of behavioral traits. They’re as wonderfully various as we are. 

Case in point: Bernd Heinrich, in his classic books Ravens in Winter and Mind of the Raven, talks about how wary and unapproachable the ravens in his Maine woods are. But that’s New England; elsewhere they’re entirely different. In the far north, they hang around native villages and hunting camps; there’s usually a raven or two underfoot in John Straley’s mystery novels, set in Alaska. I’ve been panhandled by ravens at the Grand Canyon and in the Petrified Forest. And last week at Point Reyes I had an unusually close raven encounter. 

We were having lunch at a picnic table at Drake’s Beach after a hike to Chimney Rock when the first raven, sporting a silver band on his left leg, flew in. He (as we inferred later) gave a series of soft grawks, and a second bird joined him. They billed a little, and the unbanded bird started preening the banded one; this was evidently a couple, with a breeding territory nearby. Then they turned their attention to our cars; the presumed male went up and pecked at one of the license plates. All this while we were finishing our sandwiches a couple of yards away and keeping up a running commentary on the action. The ravens seemed unconcerned with our presence. But when my friend wondered out loud if they’d like a carrot and reached for his bag of carrot sticks, one of the birds gave an indignant croak and both of them flew away, toward the visitors’ center. 

I had no idea that ravens were repelled by carrots. They’re not vegetarians, of course; they’ll happily scavenge from carcasses, and I once saw one kill, dismember, and eat a fair-sized pocket gopher. (Heinrich says his northeastern birds avoid roadkill; that’s not at all true of their western cousins). The ravens in the Tower of London eat apples, among other things. Maybe it was just that the carrots were unfamiliar objects, and that these mature birds were more conservative about novelties than they were as adolescents. 

But their tolerance of our proximity up until then was what impressed me. It could just be that the ravens in western parks have learned that no one is going to shoot at them. With their large (for birds) brains and complex social systems, ravens display an almost primate-like behavioral flexibility. They’re what the late biologist Ernst Mayr called “open-program” organisms, modifying their behavior as they learn about their environment.  

Heinrich feels they have what can meaningfully be called culture: shared learned behaviors—dialects, foraging techniques—that differ from group to group. His experiments with captive ravens have proved them capable of solving problems through insight. As far as I know, there’s no evidence of tool use by ravens—but nothing these birds do would surprise me. 

They’re adaptable enough to find homes in our cities. The Bay Area has experienced an urban raven boom in the last couple of decades, along with an even larger influx of crows. Ravens have become a familiar sight in Berkeley, although I don’t know where they’re nesting. There’s no love lost between the ravens and the crows, probably because of both species’ propensity for nest robbing. The local crows have a specific flat, nasal call that appears to mean “Here comes a raven—let’s chase it out of the neighborhood.” 

Given all that, though, there may be something different about California ravens. Ravens occur all through the Northern Hemisphere, south to Nicaragua, India, and North Africa, and all the populations looks pretty much alike, with minor variations in size. But as it turns out, that uniform appearance masks a deep genetic faultline.  

A few years ago, a group of biologists including William Boarman of the U.S. Geological Survey and John Marzluff at the University of Washington compared mitochondrial DNA samples from 72 ravens, collected throughout the species’ range. The specimens sorted into two lineages, or clades: a California clade and a Holarctic clade for the rest of North America, plus Eurasia, with a 5 percent genetic difference between them. “We have found that ravens from Minnesota, Maine, and Alaska are more similar to ravens from Asia and Europe than they are to ravens from California,” said Boarman. He speculated that the split may date back to two million years ago, when the ancestral California population was separated by glaciers from ravens in the rest of the continent. That scenario would be consistent with the evolutionary history of other North American birds, including the California-endemic yellow-billed magpie and the more widespread black-billed magpie. 

Boarman and his colleagues weren’t ready to call the California raven a new species. There’s a wide zone of overlap between the two clades in the Great Basin, from Washington and Idaho down to northeastern California, and it’s not clear whether Holarctic-clade and California-clade ravens are interbreeding there. If so, the two clades may be dissolving into a common gene pool. But if they’re not, that would mean the two groups are acting like distinct species, with some kind of behavioral barrier as an isolating mechanism. Maybe it’s vocal (Holarctic-clade ravens just sound wrong to California-clade birds?), or a subtle difference in habitat preference.  

So the jury is still out on the species issue, pending more research in the contact zone. It’s remarkable how much there still is to learn about this widespread and well-studied bird. Maybe someday science will even be able to account for that fear of carrots. 

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Eugene Jarecki’s documentary Why We Fight is playing at several Bay Area theaters, including downtown Berkeley’s Shattuck Cinemas. Although it won the grand jury prize for documentaries at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and made a much-touted appearance on the BBC, for a considerable period it appeared that the film wouldn’t be seen in the United States. Finally Sony agreed to distribute Why We Fight and it opened nationwide on Feb. 10. 

Given all the advance publicity and considering the importance of its primary subject, the dominant role of the military-industrial complex in the American economy and worldview, the film is surprisingly disappointing. It has such a heavy-handed propaganda tone that it is unlikely to be taken seriously by anyone who is not already part of the anti-war movement. More importantly, it raises important questions without bothering to answer them. 

The documentary is organized around President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous farewell address to the nation. On his last day in office, the former five-star general warned, “We have been compelled to create a permanent armament industry of vast proportions… The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” 

Jarecki interviewed Eisenhower’s son John, who remembers his dad’s concern, “God help the United States when someone is elected president, who doesn’t know how to deal with [the military-industrial complex].” Of course, since Eisenhower, no military professional has been president. The implication is clear: the military-industrial complex has out-maneuvered every president since Ike and, in the process, turned America into a permanent war economy, to our great detriment. The film hints at this conclusion but doesn’t make it clear or say what citizens should do about it. 

There are several threads that Jarecki could follow to illustrate the perfidy of the military-industrial complex. One would be to focus on the issue of “smart” bombs. The film’s most compelling footage is of a retired New York cop, Wilton Sekzer, who lost his son on 9/11. Sekzer supported the invasion of Iraq, going so far as to persuade the Pentagon to inscribe his son’s name on one of the new generation of smart weapons—bunker-busters—dropped on Iraq in the initial bombing runs.  

Jarecki followed this story to its conclusion. He interviewed two F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter pilots who bombed supposedly key Iraqi military facilities in two Baghdad locations early in the morning of March 20, 2003. The pilots explained how sophisticated their planes were and the accuracy of their EGBU-27 laser-guided bunker-busters, which had added satellite and inertial navigation. They’re convinced that in the opening salvo of the invasion they pummeled a major military facility, possibly killing key Iraqi leaders. 

The documentary follows up on their attack and reports that the bombs missed the intended targets and, instead, hit nearby civilian residences. Jarecki interviews a grandfather whose son and two grandchildren were killed in the attack. While the audience gets the point, the director misses the irony that a bomb sent to avenge one grieving father caused another to suffer. 

Next, Jarecki cut to TV footage of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, boasting that in the Iraqi invasion, America’s new bombing technology is 90-95 percent accurate. Rumsfeld claimed that there would be very few civilian casualties; our ordinance is only killing bad guys. Then the documentary flashes a graphic on the screen: Approximately 50 new-generation smart bombs were used in the opening days of the Iraq war. All missed their targets. 

What happened? Was the technology faulty? Was Rumsfeld deliberately lying? Was the military actually targeting civilians? Was the intelligence bad? Was it all of the above? Jarecki doesn’t provide answers. He followed a provocative thread but didn’t tie off the end. The writer-director failed to provide what seems to be the obvious conclusion: America’s military-industrial complex tricked the Department of Defense into paying zillions of dollars for weapons that don’t work.  

That’s illustrative of the general problem with Why We Fight. It asks important questions, but doesn’t provide substantive answers. Most of the probable audience for the film already knows that the military-industrial complex is bad for America; they just don’t know what to do about it. Nor, apparently, does Eugene Jarecki. 

See Page Seventeen for a review of Occupation: Dreamland, a documentary following the 82nd Airborne in Falluja in early 2004, just before the city became a major battleground in the Iraq war.  

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.  

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There is a certain boy-caught-with-matches quality to the Bush administration’s reactions regarding the U.S. port terminal transfers, like the little kid who has been busy setting fires all over the neighborhood and then finds, to his horror, that his own playhouse is suddenly threatened. 

For those who missed the story—and to do so, you would have had to stop watching cable and network news for the past several days and toss the front section of your daily newspaper—a company run by the United Arab Emirates has received U.S. government approval to purchase the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a deal which would give the Emirate company—Dubai Ports World—operational control over most port operations in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, and New Orleans. 

Does that mean U.S. security at those six ports will be less than it was before the Dubai Port World purchase? We’ll get to that, in a moment. Maybe. 

The story has its positive effects, one of them being a running geography lesson as our national leaders take us into new and interesting parts of the world. Google searches exploding all over the nation informed us that the United Arab Emirates is a collection of seven small countries—Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Qaiwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah—bordering on Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Instruction in the world economy is also taking place, as we have discovered this week that actually, “foreign-based companies already control more than 30 percent of the port terminals” according to the New York Times, including the operation of terminals in Oakland and Los Angeles by Singapore government-controlled APL Limited (you’ve probably seen the APL ships and trucks if you live in the Bay Area; you probably just never knew about the Singapore government connection). We learn in the same New York Times article this week from Philip Damas, research director at Drewry Shipping Consultants of London, in fact, that “the location of the headquarters of a company in the age of globalism is irrelevant.” 

Apparently not irrelevant to everyone. The proposed Dubai Port World U.S. port operation takeover—now scheduled for early March, but that could change—has come under intense criticism from national politicians of both parties in the United States, with the Republican governors of both New York and Maryland threatening legal action, Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, among others, releasing a letter that read in part that “our port security is too important to place in the hands of foreign governments” and Republican Senate leader Bill Frist stating that “if the administration cannot delay this process, I plan on introducing legislation to ensure that the deal is placed on hold until this decision gets a more thorough review.”  

In response comes the almost poignant notation in the New York Times this week that “some administration officials, refusing to be quoted by name, suggested that there was a whiff of racism in the objections to an Arab owner taking over the terminals.” 

Well of course there’s a “whiff of racism” here, which those unnamed “administration officials” ought to recognize, since it’s the same one that’s been gleefully fanned by the Bush administration over the past four and a half years to fuel its “war on terror.” 

This gets complicated, so let’s try to walk through it slowly. 

The Bush family is not anti-Arab, not by any means. The family’s long-held personal ties to the Saudi royal family in particular and Arab-operated oil companies in general is well documented (see Kevin Phillips’ Bush family exposé American Dynasty for a good rundown of the Bush/Saudi family connections). 

But to raise popular support for the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration had to covertly encourage the ugly, anti-Arab sentiment that peaked in the United States following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And so we had Mr. Bush’s famous post-9/11 remark that “this crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.” The president later “apologized” for using the loaded term “crusade,” which recalled Christian Europe’s several military invasions of the Middle East to seize the Holy Lands from the Muslims, and some commentators at the time tried to pass it off as one of Mr. Bush’s many dubya-dumbisms. Myself, I tend to think it both calculated and clever, and wink-and-nod signal to his religious right base that he was reviving the old Christian-against-Muslim/Arab Holy Wars, and with it the old cries of “death to the Saracens” and “on to Jerusalem.” 

In more formal settings and speeches, Mr. Bush has repeatedly denied and denounced the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim tendencies that began to rise in earnest in this country as far back as the first Gulf War. In a speech last October to the National Endowment For Democracy in Washington, for example, he tried to draw a distinction between Islam and terrorism, stating that the terrorists he is battling “serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam.” 

In such a manner did many Southern white politicians and civic leaders announce—in the dark days of the ‘20s and the ‘30s—that they were not “anti-Negro,” they were only against those “nigger brutes who lay in wait to rape white women.” Their hands washed pure and clean, these politicians and civic leaders were then able to pretend that they had no connection to—or responsibility for—the mobs who lynched innocent black men from Southern oak trees, burning them while still alive and then picking their “strange fruit” to keep souvenirs of fingers and ears in pickle jars on Mississippi mantelpieces. 

Thus, too, do Bush administration officials deny that they have any responsibilities for such things as the dungeons of Abu Grahib, the atrocities at Guantanamo, the declaration by Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Lieutenant General William Boykin that he was once able to defeat a Muslim Somalian leader because “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol,” the denial by Christian religious right leader Pat Robertson that Islam was a peaceful religion because “the founder of Islam preached violence” (ignoring the violent roots of Christianity which you can look up in the Bible), all reflecting the simmering, seething, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment in many areas of the country, resulting, in one small example, in the attacks by American terrorists on American Sikhs because Sikhs wear turbans and grow long beards and so can “easily” be mistaken by the careless and the thoughtless for Arab Muslim terrorists. 

But having sewn the wind of anti-Arab racism, as the old-time preachers used to say, the Bush administration is now reaping the whirlwind.  

Back to the original question: will U.S. security at those six ports will be less than it was before the Dubai Port World purchase? If that’s the only question that’s being asked, we’re missing what’s going on here. 



Symbiotically, the University of California and the city of Berkeley are partners, not always in harmony. Since 1873 when students, professors and their educational accouterments moved from downtown Oakland to the new site above Oceanview, both have prospered. 

University trustees wanted a solid community of homesteaders to exist outside campus boundaries, subdividing non-campus land on streets laid out in grids, those running north-south named after men of science, east-west after men of letters. Carried by horse-drawn trolley down Telegraph Avenue, students disembarked at the site of today’s Sproul Hall. Slowly, businesses catering to their needs blossomed: rooming house and hotel, café and restaurant, butcher and grocery, Chinese laundry. Southside was born. 

Today Southside Berkeley is home to diverse communities. Telegraph’s magnetic forces draw across the board but as you travel south, homes, businesses and needs quiet and mature.  

Named after the first telegraph line in the East Bay, today’s Avenue is a student’s dream. For those around longer than a university stint, it represents much more. Combining the fight for individual rights with history and a strong independent streak, Telegraph pulses with change while hanging on to the ‘60s voices of Free Speech and Power To The People.  

Strolling the six-block length carries you past historic landmarks, book and music shops, clothing both vintage and contemporary, a cornucopia of street vendors and over fifty eateries and cafes. A hive of free spirit and creative expression by artists, poets, musicians and the disenfranchised. Something for everyone. 

Many Telegraph merchants reflect new trends: Addidas and Shiekh, Hot Topic and Wicked, crepes and curry, shawarma and falafel. Others, like Bill’s Men’s Shop and Rexall Drugs, have endured through turmoil and peace. 

Moe’s Books occupies five floors, signaling both new and quality used offerings with a striking red and white striped awning, almost next door to Cody’s Books, able to satisfy every esoteric need. Across the street, Shakespeare Books retains the old style, used-book atmosphere. Multiple cases cram every dark space, the old book smell perfuming the air. 

Vintage is in, as evidenced at Mars Mercantile, where white tennis shorts share space with beaded evening gowns, netted petticoats and an entire rack of Brokeback Mountain denim jackets. Model your latest find by descending the black iron spiral staircase.  

Amoeba Music will buy, sell or trade, new and old. The whimsical metal assemblage band of musicians occupying front stage elicits instant smiles. Composed of washboards, hubcaps, rakes, hoses, molds and spoons, their music is faint but distinct. Rasputin’s draws you in with posters for the music of your choice, whether indies, punk, goth, soul, reggae or international. For music in person, Blake’s is renowned. Move your body and satisfy your soul. 

When hunger strikes, choices are vast. Café Intermezzo is packed, and for good reason, with huge portions at reasonable prices. Blondie’s and Fat Slice allow you to carry away lunch for $2 plus change. Mario’s La Fiesta has been serving authentic flautas, menudo and grilled burritos since 1959. 

Coffee cravings are easily met in a myriad of styles. The Mediterraneum seems quiet now, faded blue and white awning and black and white tiled floor unchanged. At The Musical Offering, classical CDs occupy the back of this long, narrow space while an airy convivial café fills the front. At Cafe Strada every outdoor table is always occupied. Espresso drinks crowd the tabletops while students crowd the benches. 

The heart of Telegraph’s history is People’s Park. A small stage sits before an expanse of lawn, verdant trees and shrubs. Room for vegetables, basketball and quiet repose barely echo the effort required to secure this sacred ground. Here the symbolism equals the land. For a graphic depiction of this struggle, the “People’s History of Telegraph” mural tells the story, required viewing for all Telegraph strollers.  

Southside Berkeley extends all the way to the Oakland border, serving multiple communities. Here Berkeley’s working classes have their physical and cultural needs met by a rich variety of venues. Among brown shingles, stick-Eastlake cottages, Victorians and recent constructions, residents’ work, play and thrive. 

Want to know what Berkeley’s all about? Show up at Berkeley Bowl Saturday morning when the parking lot is filling up and a peaceful crowd of almost 100 waits for the doors to open. These are Berkeley’s faces—all ages, all ethnicities, pure and mixed, as varied at the choices within.  

Inside, produce rules. More than 30 varieties of apples, same for citrus. Organic, heirloom, fancy, extra fancy, pesticide-free—take your pick. Want something esoteric? Try abalone, wood ear, black trumpet and yellow foot mushrooms. Carts converge, merge and intersect, not unlike an L.A. freeway. Patience is recommended. 

Beyond produce are hundreds of bins offering bulk grains, nuts, beans and exotic combinations. Marinated olives, fresh salmon, free range chicken, triple cream brie, dark chocolate brownie, pugliese, deep blue irises, all the way to laundry soap and toilet paper. A full service grocery plus atmosphere. 

When sated with the smells and tastes of food, activity is required. Within a 2,000-square-foot, Art Deco rink, Berkeley’s Iceland has been issuing skates since 1939. Forever a kitschy winter wonderland, with snow-capped trees and holiday lights, this gymnasium with floor of ice has a monthly calendar crowded with choices from morning till night. 

My recent visit seemed a step back in time, zamboni gliding over the ice, young girls laughing and skating. Classes, youth hockey, synchronized skate, birthday parties and school fundraisers are just the tip of the iceberg. 

Ready to remodel, prune or just repair the fence? A Berkeley Public Library card will get you in the door of the Tool Lending Library where the variety of possible rentals is vast. Coping saw, circuit tester, lopping shear and drain snake could be in your hands next weekend. Well-packed, peg-boarded, and binned, this library distributes banter as well as tools, both equally valuable. 

When food for the soul beckons three choices lead to different cultures. The Thai Buddhist Temple offers services and cultural events, another full calendar. To be transported to a Thai bazaar head to the back. Under blue and white awnings, corrugated metal and green plastic, tables fill every square inch, including alleyways. They’re necessary for the famous Sunday brunch where tokens are traded for a delicious array of Thai delicacies and hearty fare. 

The fare at the Black Repertory Group stirs the soul. Inside the distinctively painted theater, aglow in purple, orange and mustard, Mainstage Productions presents the work of black writers. Mentoring, apprentice and internship programs reach out to young adults; summer camp and acting classes help instill the “theater bug” in the young, providing instruction and a creative venue for expression. 

La Peña Cultural Center is at the heart of Berkeley’s life philosophy. A place where all cultures are welcomed, somewhere newcomers feel acceptance. Opened in 1975, La Peña offered refuge to thousands of South American exiles, many from Chile. With them came the tradition of La Peña, a gathering place for art, culture and discussion. 

From the vibrant front wall mural and the art filled Café Valparaiso to the halls where performances and discussions take place; La Peña is fulfilling its goals. Seeing the children of yesterday become today’s volunteers is proof the message has been absorbed.  

From the Gateway to the University to Oakland’s borders, neighborhood quietly hum. A stroll through bohemia, a latte and Bach, grocery bags brimming with goodies, public skate under disco lights, theater for the mind, Cuban music for the soul. Just a sample of life in Berkeley’s Southside. 

Berkeley Bowl: 2020 Oregon St., 843- 6929, www.berkeleybowl.com.  

Iceland: 2727 Milvia St., 647-1606, www.berkeleyiceland.com. 

Tool Lending Library: 1901 Russell St., 981 6101, www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/tool. 

Thai Buddhist Temple: 1911 Russell St., 849 3419.  

Black Repertory Group Theater: 3201 Adeline St., 652 8030, www.blackrepertorygroup.com. 

La Peña Cultural Center: 3105 Shattuck Ave., 849 2568, www.lapena.org.

For an object lesson in preservation go to the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Parker Street where the old Gorman building has emerged from an exemplary rehab project. This historic structure with roots deep in the 19th century can now ably serve the 21st. 

The city didn’t formally designate it as a landmark till about 2000, but the building had been a prominent feature along Telegraph for a nearly a century. Constructed in stages from 1880 to 1906, it housed for nearly all of its life what became Berkeley’s oldest continuing business. The firm that had been founded by John Gorman in 1876, and was renamed J. Gorman & Son in 1890, continued to sell furniture in Berkeley throughout the 20th century before moving to Oakland. 

Unfortunately at mid-century the building—like so many other historic structures during that period—was crudely “modernized.” The distinctive witch’s cap over the southwest portion was lopped off. The northern portion’s ornamental parapet was removed. The facades’ wood siding, and some of the windows, got covered over by asbestos siding.  

Several years ago plans were drawn up to rehab the old building. But that project stalled and for a while the structure sat forlornly empty. Then David Clahan bought the property and, with revised plans, energetically got the work done. Kudos to him for the result.  

It was a pleasure to watch the rehab work proceed as the building steadily came back into its own. Off went the asbestos, liberating to view the old wood siding behind it still in surprisingly good condition. The witch’s cap and the ornamental parapet were recreated to match their appearance in old photos. Tastefully repainted and with historic features revealed or compellingly restored, the building now sparkles. 

On the ground floor the rehab has created two commercial spaces. One of them has already been occupied by neighborhood standby Krishna Copy, which reportedly is doing quite well in this new location. On the upper floors a total of four apartments have been created that are big enough to house real families. Subdivision approval has been obtained for selling each of the commercial spaces and apartments as condo units. 

Landmarking doesn’t mean that nothing can change. To remain a living part of the community, and make good contemporary use feasible, landmarked buildings often need some alterations. This has been true with the Gorman’s rehab where, for instance, new doors have been created facing Telegraph that give access to the northerly commercial space and the upstairs apartments. But these have been placed and detailed to sensitively fit within the building’s overall design. 

With its historic feel strongly regained, the building now eloquently reminds us of the Southside’s past. It also speaks to the future. 

The reinvigorated building is a valuable catalyst within an interesting segment of Telegraph Avenue—from about Blake Street to Derby Street or so—for which a distinct character of its own seems to be subtly crystallizing. This stretch has the longtime and upscale anchor of Andronico’s, the familiar Le Bateau Ivre restaurant and coffeehouse, and such newer eating places as Unicorn. During recent years two sizable new mixed-use buildings have risen here, and a third is now under construction.  

The Gorman’s case illustrates that while rehab of a historic structure generally is well worthwhile, the road to achieving it isn’t necessarily smooth or fast. Patience is needed—and vision.  

A few years ago the property’s former owner and a would-be developer of it gave some concerned people a guided tour through the then-empty building. During the tour serious structural problems were pointed out and it was clear that the decrepit interior would need to be largely gutted. 

A staffer from the city’s Office of Economic Development grumped approximately, “What’s the point of keeping some ghost of this building’s former self?” 

Well, to slightly paraphrase a classic retort by Churchill, “Some ghost!” 

John English is a longtime resident of the Willard neighborhood. 



Dear Matt Cantor, 

Your information has been so helpful that I’ve have a question for you. I have to get a new roof on my four-bedroom, two-story, step-roofed house. The old roof has to be completely taken off. What should I look for in the roofers’ estimates? 

Thanks so much. 

—Nancy Ward 

Dear Nancy, 

Can you tell me a little about your roof, including approximate slope, type of roofing you currently have, the approximate age of the house and anything else you thing is relevant (where it has leaked, etc.). 

—Matt 

Dear Matt, 

My house is 79 years old. I can’t tell you the approximate slope but the upper part is very steep. It’s all composition shingles and has had partial roofing done many times but it hasn’t had a complete reroofing in the 40 years I’ve been here. I believe that parts of it have four layers. The part that leaked was on a part that was not the steepest. That has been repaired. 

Thanks.  

—Nancy 

O.K., here goes. 

There are lots of issues so take notes. The first thing is that four layers is too much. Roofing weighs a lot. There are a few of you out there who have surely helped install a roof and may recall climbing that ladder over and over again with bundles of shingles that seemed to weigh 40 pounds a piece. If you multiply that by 60 or so bundles on a roof (about 33 square feet to the bundle) and then times four layers (give or take some for varying material), you get a huge amount of weight. 

If you’ve ever been in an attic, you’ll note that the framing is often quite delicate. Roof framing has gotten beefier in the last 60 years or so but much of our housing stock has roof framing that uses 2x4’s laid out at wide spacing with very long spans. In short, far wider than we would ever allow for a floor. 

The presumption was that the roofing material was going to be the only weight and that high winds, snow or multiple layers never happened. The reality is that these things all happen and one thing more that we all need to be very much aware of: earthquakes. 

Earthquake forces interplay with heavy, weak or multi-layer roofs in interesting ways. First we need to remember that when earthquakes occur, it’s the earth moving, not the house. Actually, that’s the problem, if the house moved easily with the earth, it would do well. It’s the dissonance or struggle that’s the problem. 

The less flexible the house or the heavier the house, the more resistance there is to moving easily with the earthquake. Take a house and load the very top with a huge amount of excess weight and what happens? It has more inertia, more resistance to moving with the earth. So the bottom moves rapidly and the top is dragging behind and what this does is tear up or “shear” the section in the middle. This may be the walls, the “cripple” walls below the floor or the roof framing itself. 

So having less roof weight, fewer layers for example, is one way to decrease damage to the house during an earthquake. Therefore, when you replace your roof, take everything off except for the framing itself. 

In fact, I even recommend removal of the “skip” sheathing that is used to hold the original wooden shingles to the framing prior to installing plywood. You might have these skip sheathing boards and if you do remove them, you’ll end up with a better connection between the plywood sheathing and the framing. Plywood can actually increase the cohesion of an old roof framing if it’s well nailed and decrease damage in an earthquake. 

When you’re replacing your roof, be sure to replace all of the “flashings.” These are mostly metal components and are designed to prevent leakage between surfaces of different shapes or orientations. Some are used where pipes or chimneys penetrate a surface. Some are used in valleys where two surfaces coincide. Some are also used at edges to prevent water from reaching the edge of the sheathing material. These are cheap to install when you’re doing a complete roofing job there’s no good reason to short change this portion of the roofing job. 

If you have joints between a wall and a roofing surface, it’s wise to install wall-to-roof flashings here and make sure they ascend the wall behind the wall finish (shingle, stucco or what-have-you) at least a few inches. This often means removal and replacement of some of this surface. Leave a gap at the bottom so that splashing or wind-driven water can’t get under the siding edge. A couple of inches is best. 

You mentioned that you were thinking about replacing a “part” of your roof. It’s really best to do the whole roof at the same time if you are financially able. Now, sometimes I’ll see one part of the roof that’s just fine and I’ll know that there are viable methods to integrate one part into another but roofs, in general, are not like skin. They don’t heal and the joints between portions are vulnerable to leakage. 

A good roofer, under the right circumstances may be able to replace a portion of a roof and give reasonable assurances that the interconnect won’t leak but as a rule, it’s best to replace all of the roof at once because of the methodology of roofing. 

Roofs are made up, generally, of multiple layers from the wood decking, through underlayments and flashings through finished layers. These tend to be installed in a process that involves “stepping” up the incline and overlaying all the preceding vulnerabilities. 

When you cut through this or try to replace one part, you violate the protocol that does so much to keep things dry. This is one of the reasons that skylights often leak. They are often added after the fact and the joints around them don’t integrate into the roofing system adequately. So think about doing the whole thing if you can manage it. 

Lastly, consider the right material for the job. If you have steeply sloped portions, almost any roofing type will work and composition shingle is a good choice for low cost and good longevity. Although this kind of roof can be used on relatively shallow slopes as well, it is less reliable and I recommend switching to something like a “modified bitumen” roof for lower slopes and what we call “flat” roofs. 

Built-up roofs, like “tar and gravel,” can work but have shorter lives and are harder to fix. Also, I find that many of the installers of tar and gravel don’t pay close enough attention to the details.  

Choose a roofer who seems smart. One who can write a contract and speak intelligently about the way the roof will be done. Ask lots of questions and don’t pick the cheapest guy. The best person is almost never the cheapest, although they might not be the most expensive. 

If you can replace the gutters and downspouts at the same time, that’s worthwhile as well.  

One more thing to add to your list of things to think about when you’re roofing is to add or subtract anything that penetrates the roof at the time of the roofing. 

If you have an unused chimney flue (from the 1910 coal burner or stove), consider taking it down below the roof line prior to reroofing. Remove any other flues or vents that are no longer in use. If the bath fan vents to the attic, run it through the roof during the job. This is also the best to time to add a skylight, attic ventilation or a vent opening for the bath fan you’ll add next year. 

Talk to your neighbors in advance about the noise and mess. They’ll be less upset when things go wrong and ask the roofer to keep things clean (including the attic).  

I hope these thoughts will help you and your roofer produce a better product and avoid some of the potential dilemmas. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.ª

We’re nearing the end of bare-root tree season, but we can buy and plant a tree any time of the year here, lucky us. But picking out the right tree in a nursery can be confusing, and a tree is (one hopes) an investment that we’ll be living with for years.  

It’s always tempting to grab a bargain tree at from the warehouse store, along with that gallon of paint. But it pays, especially for beginners, to buy from people we can trust. A good nursery that values its client base and reputation will be careful to steer you right. Even there, it helps to be informed.  

Choose a tree with bigger caliper—the diameter of the trunk—over a taller one, even if Shorty costs a bit more. Look for healthy green foliage. 

Leaves, if they’re in season, shouldn’t be yellow-edged or mottled (unless it’s a variegated cultivar!) or brown-tipped. A yellowing conifer is a bad gamble: conifers tend to be dead before they even look sickly. The nodes that buds and twigs and branches emerge from should be relatively close together.  

It’s OK if it’s been pruned a bit to establish shape, but there should be no stubs, big scars, or torn bark. Unless you’re looking for special bonsai-type effects, a tree should be fairly symmetrical, and not conspicuously topped. All its twigs should be plump, resilient, and unwrinkled.  

Touch it; its leaves should be a little cooler than the air around it. This is subtle, and it helps to touch a lot of trees to educate your senses. Go ahead and fondle the foliage every time you’re in the park. (You do know what poison oak looks like, right?) 

If it’s a conifer, feel for needles as stiff and prickly or pliable and bouncy as its particular species ought to be. (Research that, too.) Broad leaves shouldn’t be drooping or, in most plants, sticky. Look underneath them for bugs.  

We don’t bother much with balled-and-burlapped trees around here, and we buy bare-root trees mostly because they’re cheaper, not of necessity. Nursery plants of all sorts do just fine in containers in our mild climate, so we have lots of choices. We still have to pay attention to the rootball.  

There should be no visible gap between the soil and the sides of the container; a gap allows water to run off without wetting the roots and suggests that the plant was allowed to dry out a lot at some point, which hurts and shrinks the rootball. 

It shouldn’t be easy to wiggle the tree in its pot, either; that suggests a very newly potted-up plant, “a four-inch plant in a gallon pot.” There are exceptions—some trees and others resent having their roots even slightly crowded—but you should get the size you’re paying for.  

Comparison shopping helps, and so does learning what’s healthy for the species you’re buying. The best idea is to find a flourishing individual of the species you want, in the wild or in someone’s garden, and have it in mind as a benchmark.  



TUESDAY, FEB. 28 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “The Digital Film Event” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

POV Bay Area Animation Festival at 9:15 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $5. http://povanimationfestival.blogspot.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jürgen Vsych reads from “The Woman Director” and shows clips from her films at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Bill Merritt describes “Fool’s Gold: A Story of Ancient Spanish Treasure, Two Pounds of Pot, and the Young Lawyer Almost Left Holding the Bag” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Larry Vuckovich, jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Chris Potter Underground at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Focusing on Photography” Vintage photographs from the Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

“Titled / Untitled” New works by Carol Dalton, Yvette Molina, Emily Payne and Michael Shemchuk opens at Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809-D Fourth St., and runs through April 2. 549-1018. www.cecilemoochnek.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Fox describes “Terra Antartica: Looking into the Emptiest Continent” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988.  

Music for the Spirit with Ron McKean on organ at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Boradway. 444-3555. 

Bruce & Lloyd’s Tri Tip Trio at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $18-$20. 525-5054.  

Jules Broussard Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

3 Strikez at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Orquestra Sensual at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Karen Casey Band, Flook at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Whiskey Brothers, old time and bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

THURSDAY, MARCH 2 

EXHIBITIONS 

Works by Ahmed Said, Egyptian sculptor at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

THEATER 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Family Alchemy” opens at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. Tickets are $12-$35. 415-522-0786.  

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Stepping Out” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free screening. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Stephen De Staebler: The Winged Figure” opening lecture with Dore Ashton at 6 p.m. at the Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. Reception at 5 p.m. at the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Exhibition runs through May 15. www.gtu.edu 

Richard Tarnas describes “Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Julia Serano, poet, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. 

Trailer Park Rangers Sextet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. 

Magnes Music Salon with guitarist John Scott at 6:30 p.m. at Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950.  

Kiran Ahluwalia at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Pieta Brown & Bo Ramsey at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Alexa Weber Morales at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$9. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Eric Swinderman, solo jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

FRIDAY, MARCH 3 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “The Master Builder” Wed. through Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through March 12. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “9 Parts of Desire” about women in war-torn Iraq, at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through March 5. Tickets are $30-$59. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Central Works “Shadow Crossing” Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

Impact Theatre, “Hamlet” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 18. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

The Marsh Berkeley “Strange Travel Suggestions” monologue by Jeff Greenwald, Thurs. and Fri. at 7 p.m. through March 3, at 2118 Allston Way. Tickets are $15-$22. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Family Alchemy” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through March 12. Tickets are $12-$35. 415-522-0786. www.atjt.com 

UCB Dept. of Theater, “Seven Lears” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun at 2 p.m. at the Zellerchach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14. 642-9925. http://theater.berkeley.edu 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Edward Weston: Masterworks from the Collection” Curator’s talk with Drew Johnson, Curator of Photography, at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Horizon: Uniting Earth and Sky” a group exhibition at ACCI Gallery, 1562 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. 

“Overhung 2: Hungover,” Works by over 100 Bay Area artists. Reception at 7 p.m. at Boontling Gallery, 4224 Telegraph Ave., Oakland.  

“Everyday People - Extraordinary Dreams” opens with a reception at 7 p.m. at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru St. Alameda. 523-6957. 

Motorcycle Art and Artwork Reception at 5 p.m. at the Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival Workshop with Christine Choy at 1 p.m. and “Long Story Short” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Semi-Finals #1 & #2, for youth aged 13-19, Fri. and Sat. at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 210 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $4 for youth under 20, $10 general. 415-255-9035, ext. 22. www.youthspeaks.org  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall , UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Dance Is 2006 at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Theater. Tickets are $5-$10. 925-798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.org 

The Pacific Boychoir “American Spirituals” at 7:30 pm at the First Presbyterian Church, 27th and Broadway, Oakland. 452-4722. www.pacificboychoir.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$12. 642-9988.  

Good Word at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Flip Tha Script with Kiwi, Golda Supanova, Feenix Solite at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Eddie Marshall’s “No Money Band” at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Radiohead Project with Adam Theis, Joe Cohen and Pat Korte at 8 p.m. at the Jazz- 

school. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Bucho and Soul at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$10. 548-1159.  

Gail Dobson Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Moodswing Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Houston Jones at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Frank Wakefield Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Linh Nguyen and Jamie Jenkins at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

XBXRX, Battleship, Mika Miko, Saboteurs at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Cas Lucas with Home at Last & Zak Hexum at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

SATURDAY, MARCH 4 

CHILDREN 

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Germar the Magician at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

The Art of Living Black 2006 with the works of over 50 artists on display Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Richmond Convention Center Memorial Auditorium. Sponsored by the Richmond Art Center. 620-6772. 

“Inforestation” an exhibition of drawings, sound, light, and organic materials is being shown at the Addison Street Windows Gallery, 2018 Addison St. Opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Exhibition runs to April 24. 981-7546. 

THEATER 

“Dust Storm: Art and Survival in a Time of Paranoia” on the Internement of Japanese Americans during WWII, at 2 and 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $1-$10. 800-838-3006. 

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Who Killed Vincent Chin” at 5:30 p.m. and “Confronting What Was” at 8 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Joseph Campana and D.A. Powell at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Bay Area Poets Coalition holds an open reading from 3 to 5 p.m., at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall , UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Dance Is 2006 at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Theater. Tickets are $5-$10. 925-798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.org 

The Real Vocal String Quartet, synthesis of world and roots music with jazz, classical and pop, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St., bet. Durant and Bancroft. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. http://trinitychamberconcerts.com  

Jewish Music Festival with the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars at 8 p.m. at the First Congregational Church Oakland. Tickets are $22-$26. 415-276-1511. 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$12. 642-9988.  

Emily Bezar, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $10 at the door. 

The K.T.O. Project at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Tickets are $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

Rhonda Benin and Soulful Strut at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mal Sharpe’s Big Money in Gumbo Band, featuring Lady Memfis, vocals, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Rhiannon at 8 p.m. at the Jazz- 

school. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Marley’s Ghost at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sotaque Baiano, Brazilian music, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159.  

SIster I-Live and the Remix Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Dale Miller and Friends at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Betsy Stern Trio and TC at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Green & Root with Eileen Hazel at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Lights Out, Hostile Takeover, Set it Straight at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 5 

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “I Have Seen...” at 1 p.m. and “Teach Our Children: Works by Christine Choy” at 3:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

EXHIBITIONS 

Photography of Brian Hastings Opening reception at 4 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

A Tribute to Zahra Kazemi & Dr. Hammed Shahidian with the Kavosh Iranian Women’s Group at 6 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Soli Deo Gloria, with guest conductor Chad Runyon, will present Latin Elegance, an a cappella choral concert at 3:30 p.m. at Zion Lutheran, 5201 Park Blvd., Piedmont. Tickets at the door are $15-$20. www.sdgloria.org 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall , UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Alarm Will Sound” works by John Adams at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Chamber Music Sundaes, with members of the San Francisco Symphony and friends at 3:15 .m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $9-$21. 415-584-5946. 

Kemo Sabe, The Pickin’ Trix, Val Esway & El Mirage and others in a benefit for Kirk Rundstrom from 2 to 10 p.m at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakland. Tickets are $5-$15. 444-6174. 

Terry Rodriguez Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Art Lande Trio “unstandards” at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazz- 

school. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Youthquake Performances, school-age band competition, at 6 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Twang Cafe with Dave Gleason’s Wasted Days at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. All ages show. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

Balafo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Elana Fremerman & Her Hot Hot Trio at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, MARCH 6 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Express with Nance Wogan at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Zilber-Muscarella Quartet & Invitational at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and Combos at at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s, Jack London Square. Tickets are $15. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

™

In the middle of the 20th century a happy coincidence made Berkeley home to two poets, Josephine Miles (1911-1985) and Alan Ginsberg, who bore at least a passing resemblance to a pair of their celebrated predecessors, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. 

By common agreement, Emily Dickinson, spinster, and Walt Whitman, roustabout, are the two great American poets of the 19th century. Whitman wrote the grandly expansive Leaves of Grass; Ginsberg roamed the American landscape, protesting loudly against our follies. Emily Dickinson spent her life in a small Massachusetts town, writing short, intense, unpublished poems; Josephine Miles also led what seemed to be a quiet a life here in Berkeley. She too wrote brief, highly chiseled poems. 

When you notice this parallel, it is irresistible, but it is mostly evocative. It breaks down as soon as you look at it in detail. Emily Dickinson did live and die in obscurity, but Josephine Miles had a long and successful career at a major university. She was, in her way, a public figure, and she published a lot of poetry and prose. 

Josephine Miles came to Berkeley from UCLA in 1932 to do graduate work, teach, and write poetry. She taught in the English Department for 38 years, 1940 to 1978, and was the first female professor to receive tenure. During her lifetime her poetry and criticism earned solid respect. When her Collected Poems appeared, she was saluted for the freshness, simplicity, and colloquial quality of her work. 

To achieve this she overcame obstacles even more daunting than the social barriers that confined Emily Dickinson. Afflicted by rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 2, her life was a perpetual struggle against an unrelenting disease. As Thom Gunn wrote, “The unavoidable first fact about Josephine Miles was physical. As a young child she contracted a form of degenerative arthritis so severe that it left her limbs deformed and crippled. As a result, she could not be left alone in a house, she could not handle a [coffee] mug...she could not use a typewriter; and she could neither walk nor operate a wheelchair.” 

Her appearance was shocking, so much so that her secretary tried to protect her from the unguarded reactions of students seeing her for the first time. She was my advisor in the early ‘60s, and when I came for my first meeting with her, the secretary gave me what I suppose were the standard warnings. I’m grateful that she did, even though they didn’t fully prepare me. When I entered her office I encountered a very small person who appeared to be propped up behind her desk. She was rather gray. Her body seemed shrunken. She had a large head, a round face, and notably large eyes. But she had a friendly demeanor, and her conversation was so involving that within minutes she put me at ease, and I ceased to be aware of her physical debilities. 

A sociable person, she enjoyed teaching and the company of students. In a poem called “Retrospective,” she says of her teaching career, “...a quarter-century of Chaucer went very fast.” I think she depended on contact with students for some kinds of knowledge of the world. Once, when Hemingway and Fitzgerald came up in a conversation, she asked me what I thought of Hemingway’s suicide (still a recent event). I replied that it surprised me, and she zeroed in on this, questioning and probing from different angles for the meaning of my surprise. Well, of course, I didn’t know what his death meant, hadn’t thought about it carefully, and had nothing responsible to say. Her questions quickly took me beyond my depth, and my answers must have disappointed her. After awhile, mercifully, she let it go. 

Subsequently it seemed to me that I had been, momentarily, her channel to the world of young people—even to the youth of the nation—and she had given me the responsibility of explaining their point of view on that tragedy. Because conversation was essential to her, she placed enormous value on real communication, and I felt vaguely as though I’d let her down. When I came to read this tough-minded poem, I thought of that occasion: 

The doctor who sits at the bedside of a rat 

Obtains real answers—a paw twitch, 

An ear tremor, a gain or loss of weight. 

No problem as to which 

Is temper and which is true. 

What a rat feels, a rat will do. 

Concomitantly then, the doctor who sits 

At the bedside of a rat Asks real questions, as befits 

The place, like Where did that potassium go, not What  

Do you think of Willie Mays or the weather? 

So rat and doctor may converse together.” 

Were we having a real conversation? Was “what do you think about Hemingway’s suicide” a real question? At that moment she was the doctor (of literature). Was I the rat? How many of us were her rats? Hmmm.  

Some years later, when I was writing an article about Louis Simpson, she gave me a marvelous interview which I count as an instance of her real generosity. Simpson had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1961, the year he came to Berkeley. He was known to local writers as one of the editors of The New Poets of England and America (1957). This enormously successful anthology seemed likely to give the poets in it a big advantage in audience recognition for decades to come. But there weren’t any Bay Area poets in it (except Thom Gunn, who was grouped with the English)! Local wounds were still bleeding when Simpson arrived; some people felt as though the enemy had occupied the town. He later complained about the clannishness of Bay Area poets, and wrote that he felt isolated in Berkeley. 

But Josephine Miles befriended him. In that wonderful interview, she told me she was surprised to read of his discontent in Berkeley. She spent many pleasant evenings with him and his wife and their friends in spirited discussions of the arts and the issues of the day. But, she said, she saw less and less of him as he became more involved in writing, anthologizing, and publishing. 

Once she went with him to a reading by Robert Duncan, and Simpson asked her, “Where are all the local writers? In New York everybody would treat this as an important event.” “I looked around and saw writers all over the hall,” she said, “It was just that Simpson did not recognize them! But if he had known more people, he might have written less.” Before returning to New York he gave a reading of his own work, and introduced what she remembered as “wonderful, wonderful poems.” “I’m glad,” she said, “those were Berkeley poems.” 

In the 1960s, beginning with the poems in Kinds of Affection, her own writing showed the influence of beat writers. It became less elliptical, more assessable. “Looser and freer in form,” in her own words. She also began to address local public issues, such as the ecology of San Francisco Bay. One of her most widely read poems, “Saving the Bay,” begins: 

When I telephoned a friend, her husband told me 

She’s not here tonight, she’s out saving the Bay. 

She is sitting and listening in committee chambers, 

Maybe speaking, with her light voice From the fourteenth row, about where 

The birds and fish will go if we fill in the Bay.” 

She wrote some of the finest poems inspired by the anti-war protests that engulfed Berkeley for so long. I’ve always thought her decent, loving concern for the well-being of the students, and her apprehension as to the outcome of some protests, was most eloquently expressed in “My Fear in the Crowd:”  

The thousand people stand in the sunlight, 

They are taking in the messages of the speakers 

Deliberately, they are weighing the judgments, 

They are making up their minds...” 

But there are many others equally as vivid, including “Witness,” “Officers,” and “Memorial Day.” 

She left her home to the university for use as a residence for visiting poets and a place for them to conduct informal seminars for student writers. Known as the Berkeley Writers’ Center, it was one of her final gifts to the university she had come to love. 

The editors of California Poetry see Josephine Miles as belonging to a line of poets that started with Emily Dickinson, and continued with Marianne Moore, Stevie Smith and Elizabeth Bishop. They quote Julia Randall’s description of them as “a company of eccentric, independent and unabashedly single ladies.” This seems fair enough, except for the word “eccentric.” It never seemed to me that there was anything odd or erratic about Josephine Miles. In her own anthology, The Poem, she distinguished herself from Emily Dickinson by describing Dickinson’s profession as “recluse.” If she had put any of her own poetry in that book, she would have identified herself as “poet and teacher” or “activist.” 

™

The shadowy figure of a ranchero, lightly strumming a guitar and intoning lines in Spanish about leaving home due to poverty and necessity, looms before the screen in the Berkeley City Club on which the tall cactus and stony land of the border are projected, along with an English translation of the song’s mournful words. 

This first, nocturnal image of Central Works’ production of Brian Thorstenson’s new play Shadow Crossing is immediately replaced by bright lights and nervous energy, a photo session in which Martin (John Patrick Moore) is “shooting” his camera-shy schoolteacher friend, Emily (Jan Zvaifler) for a passport, though Emily at first doesn’t seem to be going anywhere outside the country she’s proud of as the daughter of a Jewish refugee. She compares having a passport to owning a formal black dress—the right thing to have, even if seldom used. 

Martin, on the other hand, amid the affectionate banter and mutual teasing that marks their conversations, later lets drop that he’s applied for landed residency in Quebec. As a gay man, he’s convinced the backlash against equal rights has rendered him unwanted in American society. It becomes apparent his partner is dead, and Emily is an emotional mainstay for him in his grief. Emily seems to take his possible departure very personally, as a betrayal both of friendship and of country. 

Earlier, their quick repartee was interrupted by a young man in a baseball cap with a Latino accent, asking if Martin needs his windows washed. Martin tells him to come back later. Emily is edgy, suspicious, telling Martin that paying a possible illegal may be a crime. 

When Rafael (Michael Navarra) does return, an amusing affinity arises between the two men in Emily’s absence. Martin at first tries to tutor Rafael in presentability in business, until it becomes apparent the impish migrant knows the territory very well. 

Martin hires him as a shop assistant. It’s part of Martin’s Canadian pipe dream, having someone to care for the shop. Emily drops by, and is dumbfounded by Rafael holding down the shop while Martin’s on an errand. She confronts Martin about this. Angry remarks escalate; Martin throws his friend out. 

So far, Shadow Crossing is a sharp, dialogue-centered play of three different perspectives meeting, misunderstanding and clashing, or sympathizing at a distance, and admonishing. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the Shop on Main Street, the Jan Kadar film, which showed how social hysteria results from personal disappointments and domestic misunderstandings and accommodations. 

But, after intermission, the playwright throws in a new twist—a ghostly, multicultural photo session, and portentious meetings with those ghosts from the past—Ellis Island and Operation Wetback—both in the familiar brightness of the photo studio and the desert night at the border, with nocturnal songbirds, binoculars and cellphones.  

Brian Thorstenson’s dialogue is sharp, laden with pointed lines and exchanges: “You can’t have an ‘Us’ without a ‘Them,’ simple fact,” Emily snaps at Martin, who’s accused her of an “us vs. them” attitude. Or Rafael saying how his light skin has left him open to gibes from other Latinos about how he can pass for Anglo. “Blending in?” asks Martin; “No,” says Rafael, “it translates more like ‘fading into.’” “Just like an older gay man in San Francisco,” Martin quips dryly. 

The play has the courage to let disagreements play out, not to be blunted by false rapprochement. 

“When did you stop believing in this country,” Emily lashes out at Martin. “When did you?” Martin shoots back. 

Central Works, which really is the local chamber theater for current controversies to be played out “in camera,” in newly-developed works, holds up its usual high production standards, brilliantly exploiting the playing area in the City Club with Gary Graves’ direction and the design of Robert Ted Anderson (lights), Gregory Scharpen (sound), and Tammy Berlin (costumes). The acting is of high quality, all three cast members projecting multiple (and sometimes contradictory) emotions simultaneously, widening the scope of the script. 

There’s a little bit of technical innovation, too, that matches the occasionally fantastic touches of the script, changing the shape of the room in imagination through the use of projections, especially following the flash of Martin’s three-light photo set-up. “I love waiting for that split second, that flicker, when people reveal another side of the self; it’s startling.” 

Taking a loaded topic like immigration, one that has no easy or foreseeable outcome, and playing out a few of its ambiguities in the form of personal consequences, is a well-realized facet of Central Works’ mission. In a society of the descendants of immigrants, it’s difficult—and not encouraged—to look at the past without sentimentalism. 

“Men resemble their contemporaries even more than their progenitors,” Emerson said. To all three of these contemporaries applies the admonition offered by a spectral voice from a buried past: “The whole world is on the move; get used to it!” 

Central Works presents Shadow Crossing at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through March 26. Tickets $9-$25. For more information, call 558-1381 or see www.centralworks.org.›

Public school jazz education began in Berkeley in 1966 when Herb Wong, the principal at Washington Elementary, offered a jazz class to his music students. It wasn’t long before every school in the district had a jazz band. 

When Phil Hardymon, who had worked with Wong at the grade school level, became band director at Berkeley High in 1975, he parlayed all the work that had gone on in the lower grades into the top-rated high school jazz education program in the country.  

Berkeley High jazz bands and members regularly win state and national competitions and scholarships and have performed at the Monterey, Umbria, Montreux and North Sea jazz festivals—and why not when their alumni include such stellar artists as David Murray, Craig Handy, Josh Redman, Benny Green and Peter Apfelbaum? 

In fact, pianist Benny Green and saxophonists Craig Handy and Joshua Redman all paid their dues in Apfelbaum’s 17-piece Hieroglyphic Ensemble, which he founded in 1977 when he was 17. Last year, the Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble began talking to Peter about commissioning a piece from him and in the fall he began writing it. 

For the past week, he has been rehearsing with the band for a March 6 premiere of the composition at Yoshi’s. Even before that, some of Peter’s associates from his Hieroglyphic Ensemble, like percussionist Josh Jones, were working with and tutoring members of the Berkeley High group. What Herb Wong began has become a multi-generational community of teachers, alumni and students which gives the Berkeley jazz community a depth and resonance often lacking elsewhere. 

Peter said that the piece is still untitled, but it will be a 15-minute suite with five written sections, with solos performed within both the composed portions and the looser intervals between the written parts. Peter will sit in with the Ensemble when they perform the piece during both of their sets. 

All composers have to write something beautiful, but the jazz composer’s writing must also be a structure or catalyst which can generate inspired improvisation from the soloist-performer. The jazz composer has to trust that the players can creatively complete the creative act of composition in the creative act of performance. This involves a lot of trust from everyone and is one of the qualities that makes live jazz so exciting, a little like doing a trapeze act without a net. 

Part of that excitement comes from hearing young musicians pushing themselves to the limit playing cutting edge jazz. Eleven of the Ensemble players are seniors, most of whom have been in the band for four years and are now going on to further education at colleges and conservatories, many of them in New York City. Some have won national scholarships and fellowships making this a highly talented and cohesive group.  

The Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble featuring Peter Apfelbaum will present the premiere of a jazz suite by Apfelbaum at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, on Monday, March 6, at 8 and 10 p.m. Each set will feature a Berkeley High Jazz Combos as well. Tickets are $15. For more information, call Yoshi’s at 238-9200.

Ravens are complicated birds. Spend enough time with them and you’ll learn that there’s no such thing as “the raven”—a standard one-size-fits-all set of behavioral traits. They’re as wonderfully various as we are. 

Case in point: Bernd Heinrich, in his classic books Ravens in Winter and Mind of the Raven, talks about how wary and unapproachable the ravens in his Maine woods are. But that’s New England; elsewhere they’re entirely different. In the far north, they hang around native villages and hunting camps; there’s usually a raven or two underfoot in John Straley’s mystery novels, set in Alaska. I’ve been panhandled by ravens at the Grand Canyon and in the Petrified Forest. And last week at Point Reyes I had an unusually close raven encounter. 

We were having lunch at a picnic table at Drake’s Beach after a hike to Chimney Rock when the first raven, sporting a silver band on his left leg, flew in. He (as we inferred later) gave a series of soft grawks, and a second bird joined him. They billed a little, and the unbanded bird started preening the banded one; this was evidently a couple, with a breeding territory nearby. Then they turned their attention to our cars; the presumed male went up and pecked at one of the license plates. All this while we were finishing our sandwiches a couple of yards away and keeping up a running commentary on the action. The ravens seemed unconcerned with our presence. But when my friend wondered out loud if they’d like a carrot and reached for his bag of carrot sticks, one of the birds gave an indignant croak and both of them flew away, toward the visitors’ center. 

I had no idea that ravens were repelled by carrots. They’re not vegetarians, of course; they’ll happily scavenge from carcasses, and I once saw one kill, dismember, and eat a fair-sized pocket gopher. (Heinrich says his northeastern birds avoid roadkill; that’s not at all true of their western cousins). The ravens in the Tower of London eat apples, among other things. Maybe it was just that the carrots were unfamiliar objects, and that these mature birds were more conservative about novelties than they were as adolescents. 

But their tolerance of our proximity up until then was what impressed me. It could just be that the ravens in western parks have learned that no one is going to shoot at them. With their large (for birds) brains and complex social systems, ravens display an almost primate-like behavioral flexibility. They’re what the late biologist Ernst Mayr called “open-program” organisms, modifying their behavior as they learn about their environment.  

Heinrich feels they have what can meaningfully be called culture: shared learned behaviors—dialects, foraging techniques—that differ from group to group. His experiments with captive ravens have proved them capable of solving problems through insight. As far as I know, there’s no evidence of tool use by ravens—but nothing these birds do would surprise me. 

They’re adaptable enough to find homes in our cities. The Bay Area has experienced an urban raven boom in the last couple of decades, along with an even larger influx of crows. Ravens have become a familiar sight in Berkeley, although I don’t know where they’re nesting. There’s no love lost between the ravens and the crows, probably because of both species’ propensity for nest robbing. The local crows have a specific flat, nasal call that appears to mean “Here comes a raven—let’s chase it out of the neighborhood.” 

Given all that, though, there may be something different about California ravens. Ravens occur all through the Northern Hemisphere, south to Nicaragua, India, and North Africa, and all the populations looks pretty much alike, with minor variations in size. But as it turns out, that uniform appearance masks a deep genetic faultline.  

A few years ago, a group of biologists including William Boarman of the U.S. Geological Survey and John Marzluff at the University of Washington compared mitochondrial DNA samples from 72 ravens, collected throughout the species’ range. The specimens sorted into two lineages, or clades: a California clade and a Holarctic clade for the rest of North America, plus Eurasia, with a 5 percent genetic difference between them. “We have found that ravens from Minnesota, Maine, and Alaska are more similar to ravens from Asia and Europe than they are to ravens from California,” said Boarman. He speculated that the split may date back to two million years ago, when the ancestral California population was separated by glaciers from ravens in the rest of the continent. That scenario would be consistent with the evolutionary history of other North American birds, including the California-endemic yellow-billed magpie and the more widespread black-billed magpie. 

Boarman and his colleagues weren’t ready to call the California raven a new species. There’s a wide zone of overlap between the two clades in the Great Basin, from Washington and Idaho down to northeastern California, and it’s not clear whether Holarctic-clade and California-clade ravens are interbreeding there. If so, the two clades may be dissolving into a common gene pool. But if they’re not, that would mean the two groups are acting like distinct species, with some kind of behavioral barrier as an isolating mechanism. Maybe it’s vocal (Holarctic-clade ravens just sound wrong to California-clade birds?), or a subtle difference in habitat preference.  

So the jury is still out on the species issue, pending more research in the contact zone. It’s remarkable how much there still is to learn about this widespread and well-studied bird. Maybe someday science will even be able to account for that fear of carrots. 

'

TUESDAY, FEB. 28 

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the ducks here for the winter. Beginnners welcome, binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. This month we’ll visit Sindicich Lagoons. Meet at 10 a.m. at the north entrance to Briones Park on Briones Road. For information and to register call 525-2233.  

BHS Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. at BHS Library to discuss Safety and Attendance Data, Small Schools Data, and Academic Choice update. 525-0124. 

Cragmont Elementary School Afro American Celebration from 6 to 8 p.m. at 830 Regal Rd., with a New Orleans potluck dinner and performances. Free, but donations for Katrina relief welcome. 644-8810. 

“African Roots of Beijing” film screening with director Luke Mines at 7:30 p.m. in the Home Room, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $5. 642-9460. 

Kalimba Interactive Assembly with Carl Winters on the African thumb piano, in celebration of Black History Month at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. All ages welcome. 597-5017. 

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with Scott Williamson at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Balancing Hormones Naturally” with Dr. Jay Sordean at 7 p.m. at Curves, 701 University Ave. Sponsored by the Doctors Speakers Bureau. 849-1176. 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

“Our Spiritual Crisis: Recovering Human Wisdom in a Time of Violence” with peace scholar and activist, Michael Nagler at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to come join us the 2nd and 4th Tues, of each month, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. to sing (any voice will do), help plan our next gig, or write outrageously political lyrics to old familiar tunes, and have fun at Berkeley Gray Panthers office, 1403 Addison St., in Andronico’s mall. 548-9696. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Yarn Divas Basic Knitting at 7:30 p.m. at Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. Especially, but not exclusively, for women with cancer. Experienced participants are welcome. 420-7900, ext. 111. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also, Mon. noon to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Healthy Eating Habits Seminar at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 

“Explore Santa Fe Right of Way” with the Berkeley Path Wanderers on an easy walk covering the history and future of the Santa Fe Right of Way, from beginnings as a faltering narrow-gauge railway to exciting new community efforts. Meet at the north side of the BART station at 10 a.m. Bring water and a snack. 848-9358. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan Open House to identify specific ways to improve our streets for a safe and comfortable walking experience at 7 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-7062. 

Great Decisions Foreign Policy Association Lecture “UN Reform” with Richard Sklar, former ambassador to the UN at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Cost is $40 for the eight lecture series. 526-2925. 

Bookmark Book Group meets to discuss “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” by Thomas L. Friedman at 6:30 p.m. at 721 Washington St., Oakland. The Bookmark is the bookstore for Friends of the Oakland Public Library. 444-0473. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters welcomes curious guests and new members at 7:15 a.m. at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. at Milvia. 435-5863. 

Entrepreneurs Networking at 8 a.m. at A’Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcatraz. Cost is $5. For more information contact JB, 562-9431.  

Meditation and Discussion at 7 p.m. near the El Cerrito Plaza BART station. No commitment to a particular religious or philosophical viewpoint is required. Free. www.heartawake.com 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes. 548-9840. 

Sing your Way Home A free sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. every Wed. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MARCH 2 

Organic Beekeeping with Les Crowder who maintains over 100 hives without chemicals, contraptions or expense. At 7 p.m. at The Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Meeting on Burrowing Owl Habitat with the City of Albany Waterfront Committee to review a proposal for a burrowing owl habitat at the Albany Plateau. The plan would result in the creation of a protected area (fenced off) comprising about 10 acres of this approximately 20-acre site. At 7:30 p.m. at Albany City Hall, 1000 San Pablo Ave., Albany. 528-5760.  

“Ecological Gardening: Native Plants = Wildlife Magnets” with Corinne Greenberg at the Oakland Bird Club meeting, at 7:30 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 444-0355. 

Seed Paper Making at 4 p.m. at 604 56th St at Shattuck. A Free Skool class. www.barringtoncollective.org 

“Considering Program Choices for Berkeley Schools’ Future” at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library, enter on Allston Way, near Milvia St. We will discuss establishing educational priorities and funding for Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP) Measure and Measure B (the Bridge Measure) which will end in fall 2006. Child care provided. Spanish language translators available. If you cannot attend the meeting and would like to make a comment, please email publicinfo@berkeley.k12.ca.us or call 644-8549. 

Berkeley Public Library’s Teen Services invite teen readers to come and discuss classic and contemporary science fiction and fantasy titles, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue (at Ashby). We will discuss L. Frank Baum’s Oz books as political allegory, and debate the distinctions between science fiction and fantasy. 981-6133. 

“The Academy Awards Night with Harry Chotiner” at 7:30 pm. at the College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway. Cost is $5-$10. 339-7726. 

“Buddhism and Environment: The Birth of Flood Control Politics, and Disaster Management in the Battle for the National Sanctum of Tibet” with Per Sorensen, Professor, Institute of Central Asian Studies, University of Leipzig, at 5 p.m. at 341 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus.  

Historical & Current Times Book Group meets on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1249 Marin Ave. 548-4517. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, MARCH 3 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Jonathan Kolieb on “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

American Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at MLK Student Union, 5th Floor Tilden Room, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVELIFE.  

Three Beats for Nothing sings early music for fun and practice at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Berkeley Chess School classes for students in grades 1-8 from 5 to 7 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave., room 17. 843-0150. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

Shabbat Across America Shabbat dinner followed by service at 6:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St. 848-3988. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 4 

“Empowering Women Of Color” conference including panel discussions, workshops and cultural performances in the Lippman Room, Barrows Hall, UC Campus. 415-731-5627. http://ewocc.berkeley. 

edu/registration.php 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7-12 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

7th Annual Seed Swap Meet other local gardeners and trade seed. Bring seed, envelopes and pens or just show up and get seeds with a commitment to bring seed back to the Interchange Library. From 3 to 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

Early Spring Color in the Garden with Aerin Moore at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Landscape Nursey, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Sick Plant Clinic UC plant pathologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants from 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

“Heal a Woman, Heal a Child, Heal a Nation” Pampering for women, a 10 a.m. at 5272 Foothill Blvd., Oakland. Donation $8 and up. Benefit for Children’s Hospital. 536-5934. 

Honor the Abraham Lincoln Brigade on the 70th anniversary of its participation in the Spanish Civil War with a film and panel discussion at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6150. 

White Elephant Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to benefit the Oakland Museum of California, at 333 Lancaster St. at Glascock, Oakland. Free shuttle from the Fruitvale BART Station. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Small Business Seminar on Financial Management at 9 a.m. at Vista College, 2075 Allston Way. Cost is $26. To register see www.peralta.cc.ca.us 

Puppet Theater Workshop, for children ages 8 to 11, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Free, no registration required. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Ayurveda & Optimal Wellness A talk with Marc Halpern at 10 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Protest Rally at Berkeley Honda Shattuck and Parker every Thurs. at 4:30 to 6 p.m. and Sat. from 1 to 2 p.m. until the labor dispute is settled.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Spirit Walking Aqua Chi (TM) A gentle water exercise class at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $3.50 per session. 526-0312. 

Preschool Storytime for 3-5 year olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 5 

“Fermenting Berkeley” Lecture and oral history project with Charles Wollenberg and Linda Rosen at 3 p.m. at Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. 848-0181. 

March Around the Lake Learn about Jewel Lake in spring and who lives there at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park.  

Introduction to Compost with Molly Nakahara from noon to 2 p.m. at 604 56th St. at Shattuck. A Free Skool class. www.barringtoncollective.org 

White Elephant Sale from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to benefit the Oakland Museum of California, at 333 Lancaster St. at Glascock, Oakland. Free shuttle from the Fruitvale BART Station. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the Modern Physical Theory” with Sir Roger Penrose, Prof. of Mathematics, Oxford Univ. at 3 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. 642-0143. www.msri.org 

“Are You Good Enough to be Published?” a workshop with Alan Rinzler at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Telegraph Ave. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Diabetes Treatment with Natural Therapies A talk with Bonnie Levine at 11:30 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

“Ritual Triggers” a demonstration of paratheatre techniques with Antero Alli, Nick Walker and Sylvi Alli at 7:30 p.m. at The Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut, off University Ave. Cost is $5. 464-4640.  

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Yoga and Meditation Every Sun. in March from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

“Tibetan Meditation Practices for Spiritual Awakening” Dharma talk by Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche at 7 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Why Meditate?” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com  

MONDAY, MARCH 6 

National Organization for Women, Oakland/East Bay Chapter meets at 6 p.m. at the Oakland YWCA, 1515 Webster St. Luci Tyndall will discuss The Clean Money Bill, a bill which if passed would give candidates for state offices a more level playing field. 287-8948. 

Parenting Class in Spanish at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. To register call 658-7853. www.bananasinc.org  

“Castoffs” The Kensington Library Knitting Group meets at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. All levels welcome. Meets the first Monday of the month. 524-3043. 

Sing-A-Long from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

Free Business Loan and Business Plan Writing Boot Camp Mon. and Fri. from 9 a.m. to noon at 519 17th St., 2nd Floor, Ste. 200, Oakland, through March 31. 395-6003. 

Beginning Bridge Lessons at 11:10 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $1. 524-9122. 

World Affairs Discussion Group for seniors at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center. Cost is $2.50.  

McGee Avenue Toastmasters meets on the first and third Mondays of the month at 7:30 p.m. at McGee Ave Baptist Church, 1640 Stuart St. 501-7005. 

Critical Viewing An ongoing group to examine the art/craft(iness) of short films and television productions and its effects on our daily lives, at 1 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Free. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

ONGOING 

Free Tax Help—United Way’s Earn it! Keep It! Save It! program provides free filing assistance to households that earned less than $38,000 in 2005. To find a free tax site near you, call 800-358-8832 or visit www.EarnitKeepitSaveit.org 

Albany Library Free Drop-in Homework Help for students in third through fifth grades, Mon. - Thurs. from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Emphasis is placed on math and writing skills. No registration is required. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., Mar. 1, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Tasha Tervelon, 981-5190. www.ci.berk 

eley.ca.us/commissions/women 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs. Mar. 2, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/environmentaladvisory 

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 2, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/housing 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs. Mar. 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/landmarks 

Creeks Task Force meets Mon. Mar. 6, at 7 p.m. the North Berkeley Senior Center. Erin Dando, 981-7410. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/planning/landuse/Creeks/default.html 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/peaceandjustice 

FRIDAY, FEB. 24 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “The Master Builder” Wed. through Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through March 12. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “9 Parts of Desire” about women in war-torn Iraq, at 8 p.m. at the Trust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through March 5. Tickets are $30-$59. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group “The Piano Lesson” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St., through Feb. 25. Tickets are $7-$15. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “One Flew Over the Cockoo’s Nest” Fri. and Sat at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave. at Moeser Lane, El Cerrito, through Feb. 25. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Impact Theatre, “Hamlet” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 18. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

The Marsh Berkeley “Strange Travel Suggestions” monologue by Jeff Greenwald, Thurs. and Fri. at 7 p.m. through March 3, at 2118 Allston Way. Tickets are $15-$22. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org 

Masquers Playhouse "Over the River and Through the Woods" Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Feb. 25 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

The Sun & Moon Ensemble, “Luna” a multi-media performance, Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. through Feb. 26, at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Avenue at MLK Jr. Way. Tickets are $10-$15. 415-621-7978. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Snap” The Art of Living Black Satellite Show, in conjunction with the Richmond Art Center at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Reception at 6 p.m. 601-4141, ext. 111. www.wcrc.org 

FILM 

Human Rights Watch “Video Letters” Program 1 at 7 p.m. and “Justice” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Maile Meloy reads from her new novel “A Family Daughter” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Julie Orringer will read from her short story collection, “How to Breathe Underwater” at 8 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Barbara Keesling introduces “Sexual Healing” at 4 p.m. at Good Vibrations, 2504 San Pablo Ave. 841-8987.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony performs Mozart’s Overture to “Lucio Silla” and Dvorák’s “Stabat Mater” at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Pre-concert lecture at 7:05 p.m. Tickets are $15-$60. 652-8497.  

Rising Phoenix Brass Band with Ron Stallings and Berkeley High School Students at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14, $7 for students. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Sweet Honey & the Rock at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$46. 642-9988.  

Marvin Sanders, flute, Lena Lubotsky, piano at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont at Ashby. Cost is $12. 848-1228. www.giorgigallery.com 

The Castrati, Mr Loveless at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Bud Spangler All-Star Reunion Band at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

King Wawa & the Oneness Kingdom Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Listen, 4Hz beating patterns and guitar drones, at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Cost is $10-$18. www.studiorasa.org 

Cascada de Flores, Mexican traditional music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ojalá, Jme* Isman, Evelie Posch and others in a benefit concert at Changemakers for Women, 6536 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Donation $10-$100. RSVP to 655-2405. 

Ben Adams Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Wayblonde and Gery Tinkelberg at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Go it Alone, Verse, Deadfall, The First Step at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

John Howland Trio, Phonofly at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$8. 548-1159.  

Joe Rut, Goh Nakamura and The Great Auk at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

Joseph’s Bones, trombone reggae, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Hiromi at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $16-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 25 

CHILDREN  

“Junie Jones and A Little Monkey Business” theater for ages 5 and up, at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $13-$18. 925-798-1300. 

Derique the Clown at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Celebrate Mardi Gras the Cajun way from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

African American Quilters of Oakland Demonstration from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the West Oakland Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 1801 Adeline St. 238-7352.  

THEATER 

Central Works “Shadow Crossing” opens at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., runs through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381.  

FILM 

Human Rights Watch “Winter Soldier” at 5 p.m., “Occupation: Dreamland” at 7 p.m. and “State of Fear” at 8:40 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Frederick Douglas on Slave Music” with historian Dr. P. Sterling Stuckey at 3:30 p.m. at West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St. Oakland.  

“A Retrospective in Black & White and Color” with photographer Susan Sai-Wah Louie at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Bay Area Photographers Collective with Berkeley photographer Margaretta K. Mitchell on Ruth Bernhard at 2 p.m. at Harvey Milk Photography Center, 50 Scott St., downstairs, at Duboce St., SF. 415-554-9522. 

Lupe Jacobson, age 10, will sign her new book, “My Grandma Has a Blackberry” at 3 p.m. at Analog Books, 1816 Euclid. All proceeds from the book will go to the U’ilani Fund for breast cancer patients. 843-1816. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kensington Symphony Orchestra “American Portraits” at 8 p.m. at 25 Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $10-$15. 524-9912. 

Sacred & Profane “Works with Organ” at 8 p.m. at St. Ambrose Church, 1145 Gilman St., at Cornell. Tickets are $12-$18. 524-3611.  

Medea Sirkas Dance Theater at 1:30 p.m. at the Golden Gate Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5606 San Pablo Ave., in celebration of Black History Month. 597-5023. 

Amrit Dhara Pouring Nectar Odisi dance at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $12-18. 486-9851. 

Rhythm and Muse with Tres Santos, Chokwadi, Mark G. and Muteado, followed by open mic, at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. 

John Richardson Band at 9 p.m. at Circus Pub, 389 Colusa Ave., Kensington. 

Mareda Gaither-Graves, soprano, at 7:30 p.m. at Regents’ Theater, Holy Names Univ., 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $25-$40. 601-7919.  

Sacred and Profane, works for chorus and organ, at 8 p.m. at St. Ambrose Church, 1145 Gilman at Stannage. Tickets are $12-$18. 524-3611.  

Nika Rejto Quartet, CD release party, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Kotoja, Afro-beat at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 9 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. 

La Peña Commnity Chorus at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568.  

The Tenders, Gayle Lynn, The Hired Hands at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Andre Bush Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Chookasian Armenian Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. 

Unauthorized Rolling Stones at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886.  

Guaranteed Swahili at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373.  

Benny Lackner Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

EOTOE at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

Hali Hammer & Randy Berge at 7 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 558-0881. 

Trainwreck Riders, Lampshade Seranade at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 26 

THEATER 

Vagina Monologues will be performed in American Sign Language, and voiced in English at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater. Benefit for Deaf Hope. contact@deaf-hope.org, http://deafvday.tripod.com 

FILM 

Human Rights Watch “Living Rights” at 3:30 p.m. and “Video 

letters” Program 2 at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Prelim #3, for youth aged 13-19, at 7 p.m. at Youth Up Rising, 8711 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $4-$6. 415-255-9035, ext. 22. www.youthspeaks.org  

James P. Moore speaks on his new book, “One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America,” with music by pianist Peter B. Allen, at 3 p.m. at First Church of Christ, Scientist, 2619 Dwight Way. Cost is $10, benefit to Roof Fund. 925-376-3908.  

Poetry Flash with Sarah Arvio and W.S. Di Piero at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Progression of Black Music featuring Faye Carol in celebration of Black History Month at 4 p.m. at McGee Avenue Baptist Church, 1640 Stuart St. 843-1774.  

The Half Note Club—Then and Now at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, in celebration of Black History Month. 238-2200.  

Young Peoples Chamber Orchestra Winter Concert, at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College. Free. 595-4688. www.ypco.org 

College of Alameda Jazz Band at 2 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Free, families welcome. 748-2213. 

Nigah: Indian Classical Dance and Music at 4 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $7-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Patrick Street, Irish music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mauro Correa, Brazilian soul, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

A Class Act, Fine by Me, I Voted For Kodos at 5 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. All ages show. 848-0886.  

Joel Dorham Latin Jazz Octet at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Adrian West at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344.  

MONDAY, FEB. 27 

EXHIBITIONS 

African American Inventors and Scientists at the Junior Center of Art and Science, 558 Bellvue Ave., Lakeside Park, Oakland, through April 8. 839-5777. www.juniorcenter.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chilifiya Safaa will read from her new novel, “A Foreign Affair” on relationships through the Black Diaspora, at 7 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch Library, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

John Nielson discusses “Condor: To the Brink and Back: The Life and Times of One Giant Bird” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Poetry Express with Theme night: Hope, at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

CSU East Bay Jazz Ensembles with guest vocalist Jamie Davis at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$25. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, FEB. 28 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “The Digital Film Event” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

POV Bay Area Animation Festival at 9:15 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $5. http://povanimationfestival.blogspot.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jürgen Vsych reads from “The Woman Director” and shows clips from her films at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Bill Merritt describes “Fool’s Gold: A Story of Ancient Spanish Treasure, Two Pounds of Pot, and the Young Lawyer Almost Left Holding the Bag” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Larry Vuckovich, jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Chris Potter Underground at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Focusing on Photography” Vintage photographs from the Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

“Titled / Untitled” New works by Carol Dalton, Yvette Molina, Emily Payne and Michael Shemchuk opens at Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809-D Fourth St., and runs through April 2. 549-1018. www.cecilemoochnek.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Fox describes “Terra Antartica: Looking into the Emptiest Continent” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988.  

Music for the Spirit with Ron McKean on organ at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Boradway. 444-3555. 

Bruce & Lloyd’s Tri Tip Trio at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $18-$20. 525-5054.  

Jules Broussard Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

3 Strikez at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Orquestra Sensual at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Karen Casey Band, Flook at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Whiskey Brothers, old time and bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

THURSDAY, MARCH 2 

EXHIBITIONS 

Works by Ahmed Said, Egyptian sculptor at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

THEATER 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Family Alchemy” opens at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. Tickets are $12-$35. 415-522-0786.  

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Stepping Out” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free screening. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Stephen De Staebler: The Winged Figure” opening lecture with Dore Ashton at 6 p.m. at the Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. Reception at 5 p.m. at the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Exhibition runs through May 15. www.gtu.edu 

Richard Tarnas describes “Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus, through March 5. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. 

Trailer Park Rangers Sextet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. 

Magnes Music Salon with guitarist John Scott at 6:30 p.m. at Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950.  

Kiran Ahluwalia at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Pieta Brown & Bo Ramsey at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Alexa Weber Morales at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$9. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Eric Swinderman, solo jazz guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

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Start your spring cleaning and decluttering early. There’s less than a week left to get rid of your extra and unwanted, but useable, belongings by giving them to the White Elephant Sale (WES) at the Oakland Museum of California  

On Saturday and Sunday, March 4 and 5, thousands of shoppers will converge on the WES’s block-square warehouse on the Oakland Estuary waterfront looking for discounted treasures. 

Many of the items they buy will have arrived just days before, donated by those who wanted to enjo y a less publicized aspect of the sale—the opportunity to shop early, without crowds.  

Why go at all to this gigantic garage/rummage/estate/indoor flea market/Antiques Roadshow reject sale? Because you’ll discover things there that you always wanted or w on’t realize you want until you see them.  

Some people go with very specific goals in mind. On recent visits I crossed paths with a woman whose sole destination was the shoe section, and a man looking for additions to his collection of vintage airline silverware.  

The shopper in line behind me had stocked up on lampshades. Another was buying wicker baskets for a community gardening project. A third had a box of old trophies she intended to recycle, with new winner’s names applied, to her Cub Scout pac k. 

Others go for the serendipity and fun. A used bicycle? An early 20th century wooden sideboard with original beveled mirror? Sewing machines from virtually any era? A board game you haven’t seen since childhood? Persian carpets and luxurious comforters? A bag of homemade or vintage Christmas ornaments? A framed David Lance Goines poster? Stuffed animals? Chairs made out of wine barrels? Or a new entry for bragging rights about who owns the oddest or ugliest table lamp?  

All those things, and more, wer e for sale at the warehouse this past weekend. 

Here’s how to donate. 

The warehouse is open for donations from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through this Saturday. 

To shop during those hours, all you need to do is arrive with donations with a cumulative value of at l east $50 per person in your group. Your contributions will earn you a one-time, same-day, shopping pass. 

The volunteer staffers make a quick assessment of whether your donations are acceptable, but don’t assign specific values to them. So meeting the $50 minimum is up to you.  

Bring your donations to the Derby Street end of the warehouse, off Glascock Street, where there’s a large, roll-up, gate and concrete ramp. A red-vested volunteer will direct you inside to the donation counter.  

Parking for pi ck-ups and drop-offs only is allowed next to that entrance, so you’ll also need to find a place to park on nearby streets.  

If you’ve never been to the WES before, it’s arranged a bit like a department store. Take a quick walk around to familiarize yours elf with the location of each department—toys, housewares, books, electric, music, clothes, furniture, art, and so forth. 

When you select items to purchase, take them to the counter in the same department. The volunteer staffers will total prices, bag yo ur purchases, and give you a receipt. You’ll pay later. 

Leave by the main exit mid-way on the Glascock Street side of the warehouse with all your items. Volunteers will collect the receipt tags from your bags, total them up, and you pay for everything at on ce. Lines grow long, but also move fast, as each shopping day ends. 

There’s also a 10 percent surcharge added to the total price, in recognition of the privilege of “buying early.”  

A few do’s. Get a receipt form, which you fill out yourself, at the ent rance if you need a record that you made a donation. Keep track of your shopping badge, since it can fall off with the small pins provided. If you make a large or bulky purchase, there are metal shelves near the exit to store it until you’re ready to leav e. 

Some quick don’ts. Don’t bring children (although they’re allowed at the big March sale). Don’t bring food (you can’t eat it indoors there).  

Don’t lose the receipts stapled to your purchases; you’ll need them to check out. And don’t forget what your purchases look like. One friend spent a considerable time selecting a bag of books then, after getting home, discovered he had paid $16 for someone else’s bag of baby clothes he’d hurriedly picked up off the storage shelves. 

When parking outside, pay at tention to street signage and don’t block driveways, sidewalks, doorways, or railroad tracks on nearby streets. 

Finally, don’t bring useless junk to donate. The sale is for useable items, not your broken-down castoffs. And some sorts of donations—compute rs, for instance—can’t be accepted for various reasons. It’s very helpful to check the WES website to see the full list of unacceptable items. 

Everything goes to a good cause and a new home and your gift will make you feel good—and also make room for all the new things you’ll be bringing back home. 

The White Elephant Sale Warehouse is at 333 Lancaster St. in Oakland. Take 880 to the southbound Fruitvale Avenue exit. Immediately at the bottom of the exit ramp turn right onto Derby Street and go straight ahead three blocks to the warehouse door. 

Check the White Elephant Sale website at www.museumca.org/events/elephant.html for details and updates. 

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Travel writer Jeff Greenwald, primed to be the raconteur of stories from his books, improvised on the spot in answer to Strange Travel Suggestions, climbs the stage at The Marsh-Berkeley, and begins to explain his props: a gameshow-like wheel, the rim covered with odd symbols—and a huge Tarot card, featuring the romanticized image of The Fool from the Rider Pack, carrying a bindle on a stick and proceeding trippingly over a cliff while dandling a rose, as a little dog prances by his side ... 

“The Fool’s dressed as if he’s going to Burning Man, wearing Dr. Seuss boots,” Greenwald quips, and then states that the esoteric card is the perfect image of the traveler beginning the trip—the little dog, who some see as warning The Fool, being to Greenwald that impulse we all have that says “take me along!” 

(Research on the iconography of the Tarot has shown much of it to be drawn from the Carnival procession, and The Fool a zany who’d run alongside the triumphal cars—“trumps”—beating on them with his stick, an even more essential allegory of travel. The card game itself, Tarocchi, is thought by some scholars to have been invented by clerical diplomats, like Nicholas of Cusa, as “serious play” to kill time while traveling to, and during delays at interminable ecclesiastic conferences.)  

The game show wheel, Greenwald explains, is from another Tarot card, The Wheel of Fortune. The symbols on it are of his own invention; there’s a key in the program, and he requires a “co-Fool” to spin it, to come up with the Strange Travel Suggestions from such hieroglyphic cues as “The Birdbath of Memory,” “What’s That Smell?” or “Unexpected Gifts.” 

More to the point, and as a kind of appetizer, he offers two anecdotes: S. J. Perelman, after winning the Oscar for the script of Around the World in 80 Days, suggesting a producer take a trip around the world, only to get the reply, “but there’re so many other places I’d like to see!” (“The traveler versus the tourist: the traveler sees the world; the tourist sees what he came to see.”)—and the reply to Greenwald’s question to astronaut Buzz Aldrin, as they saw the full moon rise over La Brea Boulevard in Los Angeles, if he ever got nostalgic looking at the moon. “Just another place I got dust on my boots,” Aldrin said, humorlessly. 

The preliminaries over, and the mood of the upcoming tales established—a little bit playful, a bit mysterious—Greenwald gets audience members to spin the wheel. There’s a little reluctance, though much enjoyment of the proceedings. On finding out his second “co-fool” is son of the first, he quips, “It’s like a mafia here.”  

The rambling intro has now become, with the selection of the themes, a different kind of ramble—Greenwald pacing the stage, recounting tales, stringing vignettes together: the flash of recognition he had at a painted cave in India, like a revelation of a past existence, which later seems to get activated knowingly by a guru Greenwald interviews on camera. Within the bigger story are pictures, portraits: the wise man, Papa-ji, a former wrestler, soldier at Partition and avid cricket fan, cures a disciple’s fear of dogs by giving her a puppy and commanding her to raise it ... Or the fellow traveler on a Himalaya trek who becomes enamored of his map, and Greenwald’s attempt later to emulate him, only to find semanticist Korzybsky right: “The map isn’t the territory”—or at least not until it’s suffered the spills, stains and tears of handling during the trek; a pristine chart’s just a soulless topographic image. Or the little Italian captain with regal bearing (and a pungent stench) Greenwald meets on a tour ship like a floating Vegas, to whom the odor of garlic is “the smell of freedom” ... 

As a raconteur, Jeff Greenwald’s affable, engaging—even kind of the hale fellow, well-met ... but a mite precious. His chatty recountings get stuck sometimes between the grand gesture to the romance of travel (“they besought the deep blue sea to roll,” Henry James said of the Romantics) and the banality of so much of it, but without always getting the sense of the daily coin of small talk, like a good cabdriver or bartender. 

“Not the big notes, gentlemen, just the small change, please!” philosopher Edmund Husserl used to gently admonish his students of Phenomenology. The bits and pieces of Greenwald’s tales sometimes gleam through the the words he seems to be sifting. In time, mannerisms can become style. Like the map that isn’t the territory, the story’s different told to a familiar ear, on the page and from the stage. It’s an old literary conceit to travel only to discover what’s in your head. What’s interesting is the paradox of how far you have to go to find that out. In the first known account of climbing a mountain “because it’s there,” Petrarch stands on the summit of Mt. Ventoux and reads a passage at random in St. Augustine’s Confessions that casts doubt on his alpine enterprise. Paradoxes of that sort would make Greenwald a better metaphysical voyageur. 

And a little less false naivete—he has enough charm when he gets down to business, or even just jokes around. He ends with a benediction to the audience: “May all your travels make fools out of you.” 

Strange Travel Suggestions plays at 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays through March 3 at The Marsh, 2118 Allston Way. $15-22. (800) 838-3006 or www.themarsh.org.›

Early on in the documentary Occupation: Dreamland, soldiers of the 82nd Airborne are seen patrolling the streets of Falluja, talking with the city’s residents along the way. At one point an Iraqi man stands before a soldier and tells him that the Iraqi people simply cannot accept colonialism, that resistance is an innate part of the Iraqi identity. “Bear with me,” he says to the soldier. “This is something that is pent up inside our hearts … know it, record it, transmit it.” 

That line informs the film and the filmmakers, for directors Garrett Scott and Ian Olds do just that, removing themselves from the action and allowing the soldiers and Iraqi people to tell the story.  

The documentary follows members of the 82nd Airborne’s Alpha Company in Falluja in early 2004, before the city became a major battleground. Pacific Film Archive is screening the film at 7 p.m. Saturday as part of the traveling exhibition of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Occupation: Dreamland received much critical praise upon its release in 2005, including numerous awards, and is now available on DVD at www.occupationdreamland.com. 

We get to know the soldiers along the way; we learn their backgrounds, their politics, their plans for the future. There is no censorship here; the soldiers clearly have no reservations about expressing their opinions of their mission and of the war itself.  

On the homefront, the Left declares the war unwinnable and calls for these young men to be brought home, out of harm’s way. The Right tries to stifle criticism of the war by claiming that it undermines the morale of the soldiers on the front lines. But these young men hardly exist in a jingoistic vacuum.  

What Occupation: Dreamland makes clear is that it is not the opinions of the Cindy Sheehans and Bill O’Reillys that make them doubt the value of their mission; it is the murky justifications for and logistics of the mission itself. Whether they agree with the politics or not—and both sides are represented in Alpha Company—it is the danger and futility of their work that chips away at their resolve. 

As in Vietnam, the soldiers must fight an unseen enemy. Every day they roam the streets in search of a shadowy insurgency that is inflamed by the sight of soldiers roaming the streets. It is part of the madness of war, a Catch-22 that Joseph Heller’s Capt. John Yossarian could appreciate: Alpha Company venture forth from their barracks to put down an insurgency that is only provoked by the company’s visibility. 

“What exactly are we securing?” a company commander asks during a debriefing after an insurgency attack. The company had been providing security for a Falluja city council meeting when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) exploded on the road in front of them. “Raise your hand if you think they’re going to RPG the sheiks and all the important people in Falluja.  

“So what are we securing then? We’re securing, essentially, ourselves. So what exactly are we protecting? I don’t know.” 

Occupation: Dreamland provides a first-person glimpse of a city of rising tensions, just before it erupts into widespread violence. It is a harrowing portrait of the uncertainty of war and of the uncertainty of the young men we send to fight it.  

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival  

7 p.m., Friday, Feb. 24:  

Videoletters, Program 1 

8:35 p.m., Friday, Feb. 24:  

Justice 

5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25: 

Winter Soldier  

7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 25 

Occupation:  

Dreamland 

8:40 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 25: 

State of Fear  

3:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 26: 

Living Rights 

5:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 26: 

Videoletters, Program 2 

For more information: www.bampfa.berkeley.edu?

At 20 paces Ivan Thompson is a dead ringer for the late Hunter S. Thompson—a lean figure in jeans and 10-gallon hat, mysterious and rugged with eyes concealed by large dark sunglasses. However, Ivan—the self-styled “Cowboy Cupid” of director Michèle Ohayon’s documentary Cowboy del Amor, opening today at Shattuck Cinemas in downtown Berkeley—has none of the gonzo journalist’s mumbled, eccentric rapid-fire cadences. Instead he is a plain-spoken, down-to-earth southwesterner with the twangy, no-nonsense voice of a man who has spent his life on ranches, working hard and scraping by amid the tumbleweeds and dust. 

Yet his business has a certain gonzo flair: Thompson makes his living finding Mexican brides for lonely American men, placing ads in Mexican newspapers and shuttling his clients across the border to interview prospective mates. It’s as if Doonesbury’s opportunistic Uncle Duke has come to life, mining human frailty and geopolitical realities for mercenary gain. 

The film walks a moral borderline as well as a literal one, and consequently provokes mixed emotions. On the one hand, the people are sympathetic—it is easy to understand their pain, their loneliness, their need to find something new and their willingness to resort to such means to get it. On the other hand, the inherent misogyny of the operation is unsettling. The men, it seems, are looking for docile Mexican dolls to sit by their sides, to comfort them and prop them up, to come live in their homes and to generally behave themselves, while the women are looking for respect, love, security, equality and, perhaps most importantly, a shot at the American Dream.  

Doubtless there are success stories—Thompson has apparently made several dozen matches over the years—but it’s difficult to see how these conflicting desires could mesh for very long. The women are looking for a means to an end; their path is an upward trajectory, and marriage is just a first step. The men, however, are generally headed downward; their goal is simply to find someone to share their final years with, or perhaps to help slow the descent and level it off.  

Thompson himself is something of a harbinger of what’s in store for these couples. Already once divorced, he met and married a young Mexican beauty only to learn later that she had four children from a previous marriage. He managed to absorb that shock, but the second shock was insurmountable: Chayo wanted to learn to speak English. This was too much for Thompson; his wife was becoming “too American.” The conflict is a fundamental one: Chayo’s desire to reach her potential and fully engage with the American world in which she was living clashed with her husband’s desire to keep her as merely a part of his own private world.  

But Thompson doesn’t seem to fully grasp the significance of his experience and is all too eager to share the fruits of his mixed results with others. And there are plenty of takers. 

What kind of man is tempted by a billboard to hand over $3,000 to a broker to find him a Mexican bride? Well, pretty much just the kind of man you’d guess: middle-aged, perhaps older, with either a history of failure with women or no history with women at all; a man no longer ambitious, but rather resigned and disconsolate, desperate to gain some measure of control over his life and environment. These are lonely, broken men, “men without women,” as Hemingway called them, and the minimalism of the phrase aptly reflects the men it describes: dull, uninspired, uncertain and insecure. They are for the most part simple men, men who speak simply with simple words, if they speak at all. If there are fires burning in their bellies, they’ve long since learned to tamp them down and just get along. 

The women, on the other hand, are quite complex. They come from all walks of life; they are housewives, doctors, lawyers, secretaries. During the interviews they walk a delicate line, attempting to appear feminine and desirable while trying to subtly communicate their needs and backgrounds in non-threatening ways. It is only when Ohayon’s camera catches them alone that we begin to glimpse their real personalities. 

If you didn’t know going in that the film was directed by a woman, you’d soon deduce it from the scenes that follow. The women, away from the awkward casting-couch interview process, suddenly open up in private conversations in a way they didn’t and couldn’t before the scrutinizing eyes of Thompson and his clients. The cautiousness disappears, the flirtatiousness subsides, and we see these women relaxed, honest and contemplative, dropping the pretense and talking, woman to woman. And here we see their complexity and their pain—the pain of broken marriages and family tragedies, the longing for a better life, or at least another life, and the strained loyalties as they prepare to move away from the only homes and families they’ve ever known. 

Despite the charisma, kindness and humor of Ivan Thompson, the film is permeated with a certain sadness—the sadness that comes with the acknowledgment that life is not a story with a fairly-tale ending, but a series of compromises, of people making do with what they have. And the sadness is compounded by the realization that for these women, their only path to independence is through dependence on a man; and that these men, being American, believe that they can simply buy the happiness they’ve thus far been unable to find.  

There is at least one happy ending among the match-ups depicted in the film, yet that does not go very far in masking the film’s essential tragedy: wounded women trying to become Something after rising from Nothing, only to find themselves in the arms of men with a deep-seated need to keep them there.  

Though they may find consolation in having found a partner, in having someone to walk hand in hand with through that dusty, desolate landscape, we are left with the feeling that these couples are destined to always walk with an inviolable border between them. 

›

Symbiotically, the University of California and the city of Berkeley are partners, not always in harmony. Since 1873 when students, professors and their educational accouterments moved from downtown Oakland to the new site above Oceanview, both have prospered. 

University trustees wanted a solid community of homesteaders to exist outside campus boundaries, subdividing non-campus land on streets laid out in grids, those running north-south named after men of science, east-west after men of letters. Carried by horse-drawn trolley down Telegraph Avenue, students disembarked at the site of today’s Sproul Hall. Slowly, businesses catering to their needs blossomed: rooming house and hotel, café and restaurant, butcher and grocery, Chinese laundry. Southside was born. 

Today Southside Berkeley is home to diverse communities. Telegraph’s magnetic forces draw across the board but as you travel south, homes, businesses and needs quiet and mature.  

Named after the first telegraph line in the East Bay, today’s Avenue is a student’s dream. For those around longer than a university stint, it represents much more. Combining the fight for individual rights with history and a strong independent streak, Telegraph pulses with change while hanging on to the ‘60s voices of Free Speech and Power To The People.  

Strolling the six-block length carries you past historic landmarks, book and music shops, clothing both vintage and contemporary, a cornucopia of street vendors and over fifty eateries and cafes. A hive of free spirit and creative expression by artists, poets, musicians and the disenfranchised. Something for everyone. 

Many Telegraph merchants reflect new trends: Addidas and Shiekh, Hot Topic and Wicked, crepes and curry, shawarma and falafel. Others, like Bill’s Men’s Shop and Rexall Drugs, have endured through turmoil and peace. 

Moe’s Books occupies five floors, signaling both new and quality used offerings with a striking red and white striped awning, almost next door to Cody’s Books, able to satisfy every esoteric need. Across the street, Shakespeare Books retains the old style, used-book atmosphere. Multiple cases cram every dark space, the old book smell perfuming the air. 

Vintage is in, as evidenced at Mars Mercantile, where white tennis shorts share space with beaded evening gowns, netted petticoats and an entire rack of Brokeback Mountain denim jackets. Model your latest find by descending the black iron spiral staircase.  

Amoeba Music will buy, sell or trade, new and old. The whimsical metal assemblage band of musicians occupying front stage elicits instant smiles. Composed of washboards, hubcaps, rakes, hoses, molds and spoons, their music is faint but distinct. Rasputin’s draws you in with posters for the music of your choice, whether indies, punk, goth, soul, reggae or international. For music in person, Blake’s is renowned. Move your body and satisfy your soul. 

When hunger strikes, choices are vast. Café Intermezzo is packed, and for good reason, with huge portions at reasonable prices. Blondie’s and Fat Slice allow you to carry away lunch for $2 plus change. Mario’s La Fiesta has been serving authentic flautas, menudo and grilled burritos since 1959. 

Coffee cravings are easily met in a myriad of styles. The Mediterraneum seems quiet now, faded blue and white awning and black and white tiled floor unchanged. At The Musical Offering, classical CDs occupy the back of this long, narrow space while an airy convivial café fills the front. At Cafe Strada every outdoor table is always occupied. Espresso drinks crowd the tabletops while students crowd the benches. 

The heart of Telegraph’s history is People’s Park. A small stage sits before an expanse of lawn, verdant trees and shrubs. Room for vegetables, basketball and quiet repose barely echo the effort required to secure this sacred ground. Here the symbolism equals the land. For a graphic depiction of this struggle, the “People’s History of Telegraph” mural tells the story, required viewing for all Telegraph strollers.  

Southside Berkeley extends all the way to the Oakland border, serving multiple communities. Here Berkeley’s working classes have their physical and cultural needs met by a rich variety of venues. Among brown shingles, stick-Eastlake cottages, Victorians and recent constructions, residents’ work, play and thrive. 

Want to know what Berkeley’s all about? Show up at Berkeley Bowl Saturday morning when the parking lot is filling up and a peaceful crowd of almost 100 waits for the doors to open. These are Berkeley’s faces—all ages, all ethnicities, pure and mixed, as varied at the choices within.  

Inside, produce rules. More than 30 varieties of apples, same for citrus. Organic, heirloom, fancy, extra fancy, pesticide-free—take your pick. Want something esoteric? Try abalone, wood ear, black trumpet and yellow foot mushrooms. Carts converge, merge and intersect, not unlike an L.A. freeway. Patience is recommended. 

Beyond produce are hundreds of bins offering bulk grains, nuts, beans and exotic combinations. Marinated olives, fresh salmon, free range chicken, triple cream brie, dark chocolate brownie, pugliese, deep blue irises, all the way to laundry soap and toilet paper. A full service grocery plus atmosphere. 

When sated with the smells and tastes of food, activity is required. Within a 2,000-square-foot, Art Deco rink, Berkeley’s Iceland has been issuing skates since 1939. Forever a kitschy winter wonderland, with snow-capped trees and holiday lights, this gymnasium with floor of ice has a monthly calendar crowded with choices from morning till night. 

My recent visit seemed a step back in time, zamboni gliding over the ice, young girls laughing and skating. Classes, youth hockey, synchronized skate, birthday parties and school fundraisers are just the tip of the iceberg. 

Ready to remodel, prune or just repair the fence? A Berkeley Public Library card will get you in the door of the Tool Lending Library where the variety of possible rentals is vast. Coping saw, circuit tester, lopping shear and drain snake could be in your hands next weekend. Well-packed, peg-boarded, and binned, this library distributes banter as well as tools, both equally valuable. 

When food for the soul beckons three choices lead to different cultures. The Thai Buddhist Temple offers services and cultural events, another full calendar. To be transported to a Thai bazaar head to the back. Under blue and white awnings, corrugated metal and green plastic, tables fill every square inch, including alleyways. They’re necessary for the famous Sunday brunch where tokens are traded for a delicious array of Thai delicacies and hearty fare. 

The fare at the Black Repertory Group stirs the soul. Inside the distinctively painted theater, aglow in purple, orange and mustard, Mainstage Productions presents the work of black writers. Mentoring, apprentice and internship programs reach out to young adults; summer camp and acting classes help instill the “theater bug” in the young, providing instruction and a creative venue for expression. 

La Peña Cultural Center is at the heart of Berkeley’s life philosophy. A place where all cultures are welcomed, somewhere newcomers feel acceptance. Opened in 1975, La Peña offered refuge to thousands of South American exiles, many from Chile. With them came the tradition of La Peña, a gathering place for art, culture and discussion. 

From the vibrant front wall mural and the art filled Café Valparaiso to the halls where performances and discussions take place; La Peña is fulfilling its goals. Seeing the children of yesterday become today’s volunteers is proof the message has been absorbed.  

From the Gateway to the University to Oakland’s borders, neighborhood quietly hum. A stroll through bohemia, a latte and Bach, grocery bags brimming with goodies, public skate under disco lights, theater for the mind, Cuban music for the soul. Just a sample of life in Berkeley’s Southside. 

Berkeley Bowl: 2020 Oregon St., 843- 6929, www.berkeleybowl.com.  

Iceland: 2727 Milvia St., 647-1606, www.berkeleyiceland.com. 

Tool Lending Library: 1901 Russell St., 981 6101, www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/tool. 

Thai Buddhist Temple: 1911 Russell St., 849 3419.  

Black Repertory Group Theater: 3201 Adeline St., 652 8030, www.blackrepertorygroup.com. 

La Peña Cultural Center: 3105 Shattuck Ave., 849 2568, www.lapena.org.

For an object lesson in preservation go to the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Parker Street where the old Gorman building has emerged from an exemplary rehab project. This historic structure with roots deep in the 19th century can now ably serve the 21st. 

The city didn’t formally designate it as a landmark till about 2000, but the building had been a prominent feature along Telegraph for a nearly a century. Constructed in stages from 1880 to 1906, it housed for nearly all of its life what became Berkeley’s oldest continuing business. The firm that had been founded by John Gorman in 1876, and was renamed J. Gorman & Son in 1890, continued to sell furniture in Berkeley throughout the 20th century before moving to Oakland. 

Unfortunately at mid-century the building—like so many other historic structures during that period—was crudely “modernized.” The distinctive witch’s cap over the southwest portion was lopped off. The northern portion’s ornamental parapet was removed. The facades’ wood siding, and some of the windows, got covered over by asbestos siding.  

Several years ago plans were drawn up to rehab the old building. But that project stalled and for a while the structure sat forlornly empty. Then David Clahan bought the property and, with revised plans, energetically got the work done. Kudos to him for the result.  

It was a pleasure to watch the rehab work proceed as the building steadily came back into its own. Off went the asbestos, liberating to view the old wood siding behind it still in surprisingly good condition. The witch’s cap and the ornamental parapet were recreated to match their appearance in old photos. Tastefully repainted and with historic features revealed or compellingly restored, the building now sparkles. 

On the ground floor the rehab has created two commercial spaces. One of them has already been occupied by neighborhood standby Krishna Copy, which reportedly is doing quite well in this new location. On the upper floors a total of four apartments have been created that are big enough to house real families. Subdivision approval has been obtained for selling each of the commercial spaces and apartments as condo units. 

Landmarking doesn’t mean that nothing can change. To remain a living part of the community, and make good contemporary use feasible, landmarked buildings often need some alterations. This has been true with the Gorman’s rehab where, for instance, new doors have been created facing Telegraph that give access to the northerly commercial space and the upstairs apartments. But these have been placed and detailed to sensitively fit within the building’s overall design. 

With its historic feel strongly regained, the building now eloquently reminds us of the Southside’s past. It also speaks to the future. 

The reinvigorated building is a valuable catalyst within an interesting segment of Telegraph Avenue—from about Blake Street to Derby Street or so—for which a distinct character of its own seems to be subtly crystallizing. This stretch has the longtime and upscale anchor of Andronico’s, the familiar Le Bateau Ivre restaurant and coffeehouse, and such newer eating places as Unicorn. During recent years two sizable new mixed-use buildings have risen here, and a third is now under construction.  

The Gorman’s case illustrates that while rehab of a historic structure generally is well worthwhile, the road to achieving it isn’t necessarily smooth or fast. Patience is needed—and vision.  

A few years ago the property’s former owner and a would-be developer of it gave some concerned people a guided tour through the then-empty building. During the tour serious structural problems were pointed out and it was clear that the decrepit interior would need to be largely gutted. 

A staffer from the city’s Office of Economic Development grumped approximately, “What’s the point of keeping some ghost of this building’s former self?” 

Well, to slightly paraphrase a classic retort by Churchill, “Some ghost!” 

John English is a longtime resident of the Willard neighborhood. 



Dear Matt Cantor, 

Your information has been so helpful that I’ve have a question for you. I have to get a new roof on my four-bedroom, two-story, step-roofed house. The old roof has to be completely taken off. What should I look for in the roofers’ estimates? 

Thanks so much. 

—Nancy Ward 

Dear Nancy, 

Can you tell me a little about your roof, including approximate slope, type of roofing you currently have, the approximate age of the house and anything else you thing is relevant (where it has leaked, etc.). 

—Matt 

Dear Matt, 

My house is 79 years old. I can’t tell you the approximate slope but the upper part is very steep. It’s all composition shingles and has had partial roofing done many times but it hasn’t had a complete reroofing in the 40 years I’ve been here. I believe that parts of it have four layers. The part that leaked was on a part that was not the steepest. That has been repaired. 

Thanks.  

—Nancy 

O.K., here goes. 

There are lots of issues so take notes. The first thing is that four layers is too much. Roofing weighs a lot. There are a few of you out there who have surely helped install a roof and may recall climbing that ladder over and over again with bundles of shingles that seemed to weigh 40 pounds a piece. If you multiply that by 60 or so bundles on a roof (about 33 square feet to the bundle) and then times four layers (give or take some for varying material), you get a huge amount of weight. 

If you’ve ever been in an attic, you’ll note that the framing is often quite delicate. Roof framing has gotten beefier in the last 60 years or so but much of our housing stock has roof framing that uses 2x4’s laid out at wide spacing with very long spans. In short, far wider than we would ever allow for a floor. 

The presumption was that the roofing material was going to be the only weight and that high winds, snow or multiple layers never happened. The reality is that these things all happen and one thing more that we all need to be very much aware of: earthquakes. 

Earthquake forces interplay with heavy, weak or multi-layer roofs in interesting ways. First we need to remember that when earthquakes occur, it’s the earth moving, not the house. Actually, that’s the problem, if the house moved easily with the earth, it would do well. It’s the dissonance or struggle that’s the problem. 

The less flexible the house or the heavier the house, the more resistance there is to moving easily with the earthquake. Take a house and load the very top with a huge amount of excess weight and what happens? It has more inertia, more resistance to moving with the earth. So the bottom moves rapidly and the top is dragging behind and what this does is tear up or “shear” the section in the middle. This may be the walls, the “cripple” walls below the floor or the roof framing itself. 

So having less roof weight, fewer layers for example, is one way to decrease damage to the house during an earthquake. Therefore, when you replace your roof, take everything off except for the framing itself. 

In fact, I even recommend removal of the “skip” sheathing that is used to hold the original wooden shingles to the framing prior to installing plywood. You might have these skip sheathing boards and if you do remove them, you’ll end up with a better connection between the plywood sheathing and the framing. Plywood can actually increase the cohesion of an old roof framing if it’s well nailed and decrease damage in an earthquake. 

When you’re replacing your roof, be sure to replace all of the “flashings.” These are mostly metal components and are designed to prevent leakage between surfaces of different shapes or orientations. Some are used where pipes or chimneys penetrate a surface. Some are used in valleys where two surfaces coincide. Some are also used at edges to prevent water from reaching the edge of the sheathing material. These are cheap to install when you’re doing a complete roofing job there’s no good reason to short change this portion of the roofing job. 

If you have joints between a wall and a roofing surface, it’s wise to install wall-to-roof flashings here and make sure they ascend the wall behind the wall finish (shingle, stucco or what-have-you) at least a few inches. This often means removal and replacement of some of this surface. Leave a gap at the bottom so that splashing or wind-driven water can’t get under the siding edge. A couple of inches is best. 

You mentioned that you were thinking about replacing a “part” of your roof. It’s really best to do the whole roof at the same time if you are financially able. Now, sometimes I’ll see one part of the roof that’s just fine and I’ll know that there are viable methods to integrate one part into another but roofs, in general, are not like skin. They don’t heal and the joints between portions are vulnerable to leakage. 

A good roofer, under the right circumstances may be able to replace a portion of a roof and give reasonable assurances that the interconnect won’t leak but as a rule, it’s best to replace all of the roof at once because of the methodology of roofing. 

Roofs are made up, generally, of multiple layers from the wood decking, through underlayments and flashings through finished layers. These tend to be installed in a process that involves “stepping” up the incline and overlaying all the preceding vulnerabilities. 

When you cut through this or try to replace one part, you violate the protocol that does so much to keep things dry. This is one of the reasons that skylights often leak. They are often added after the fact and the joints around them don’t integrate into the roofing system adequately. So think about doing the whole thing if you can manage it. 

Lastly, consider the right material for the job. If you have steeply sloped portions, almost any roofing type will work and composition shingle is a good choice for low cost and good longevity. Although this kind of roof can be used on relatively shallow slopes as well, it is less reliable and I recommend switching to something like a “modified bitumen” roof for lower slopes and what we call “flat” roofs. 

Built-up roofs, like “tar and gravel,” can work but have shorter lives and are harder to fix. Also, I find that many of the installers of tar and gravel don’t pay close enough attention to the details.  

Choose a roofer who seems smart. One who can write a contract and speak intelligently about the way the roof will be done. Ask lots of questions and don’t pick the cheapest guy. The best person is almost never the cheapest, although they might not be the most expensive. 

If you can replace the gutters and downspouts at the same time, that’s worthwhile as well.  

One more thing to add to your list of things to think about when you’re roofing is to add or subtract anything that penetrates the roof at the time of the roofing. 

If you have an unused chimney flue (from the 1910 coal burner or stove), consider taking it down below the roof line prior to reroofing. Remove any other flues or vents that are no longer in use. If the bath fan vents to the attic, run it through the roof during the job. This is also the best to time to add a skylight, attic ventilation or a vent opening for the bath fan you’ll add next year. 

Talk to your neighbors in advance about the noise and mess. They’ll be less upset when things go wrong and ask the roofer to keep things clean (including the attic).  

I hope these thoughts will help you and your roofer produce a better product and avoid some of the potential dilemmas. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.ª

We’re nearing the end of bare-root tree season, but we can buy and plant a tree any time of the year here, lucky us. But picking out the right tree in a nursery can be confusing, and a tree is (one hopes) an investment that we’ll be living with for years.  

It’s always tempting to grab a bargain tree at from the warehouse store, along with that gallon of paint. But it pays, especially for beginners, to buy from people we can trust. A good nursery that values its client base and reputation will be careful to steer you right. Even there, it helps to be informed.  

Choose a tree with bigger caliper—the diameter of the trunk—over a taller one, even if Shorty costs a bit more. Look for healthy green foliage. 

Leaves, if they’re in season, shouldn’t be yellow-edged or mottled (unless it’s a variegated cultivar!) or brown-tipped. A yellowing conifer is a bad gamble: conifers tend to be dead before they even look sickly. The nodes that buds and twigs and branches emerge from should be relatively close together.  

It’s OK if it’s been pruned a bit to establish shape, but there should be no stubs, big scars, or torn bark. Unless you’re looking for special bonsai-type effects, a tree should be fairly symmetrical, and not conspicuously topped. All its twigs should be plump, resilient, and unwrinkled.  

Touch it; its leaves should be a little cooler than the air around it. This is subtle, and it helps to touch a lot of trees to educate your senses. Go ahead and fondle the foliage every time you’re in the park. (You do know what poison oak looks like, right?) 

If it’s a conifer, feel for needles as stiff and prickly or pliable and bouncy as its particular species ought to be. (Research that, too.) Broad leaves shouldn’t be drooping or, in most plants, sticky. Look underneath them for bugs.  

We don’t bother much with balled-and-burlapped trees around here, and we buy bare-root trees mostly because they’re cheaper, not of necessity. Nursery plants of all sorts do just fine in containers in our mild climate, so we have lots of choices. We still have to pay attention to the rootball.  

There should be no visible gap between the soil and the sides of the container; a gap allows water to run off without wetting the roots and suggests that the plant was allowed to dry out a lot at some point, which hurts and shrinks the rootball. 

It shouldn’t be easy to wiggle the tree in its pot, either; that suggests a very newly potted-up plant, “a four-inch plant in a gallon pot.” There are exceptions—some trees and others resent having their roots even slightly crowded—but you should get the size you’re paying for.  

Comparison shopping helps, and so does learning what’s healthy for the species you’re buying. The best idea is to find a flourishing individual of the species you want, in the wild or in someone’s garden, and have it in mind as a benchmark.  



FRIDAY, FEB. 24 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Frik Scott on “Overview of the Turmoil in Central Asia and Caucasus Region.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

McGee Family Night, in celebration of Black History Month at 6:30 p.m. at McGee Avenue Baptist Church, 1640 Stuart St. 843-1774.  

“Spiritual Enlightenment in Classical Islam” with Sufi Master Shaykh Hisham Kabbani at 7 p.m. at the Graduate Theological Union’s Starr King School, 2441 Le Conte Ave. 654-7542. 

How’d You Become Activists? What Now? with Peter Camejo of the Green Party and Jennifer Kidder, long-time peace, labor and voting rights activist, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donation of $10 requested. 528-5403.  

Chechnya’s Past and Present: Russia’s “War on Terrorism” with Professor Michaela Pohl, Vassar College and Musa Khasanov, Public Interest Law Initiative fellow and Grozny-based human rights lawyer, at 6:30 p.m. at Vista College, Room 1, 2020 Milvia St. 415-565-0201, ext. 12. 

American Sign Language Conversation Group at 4 p.m. at 604 56th St at Shattuck. A Free Skool class. www.barringtoncollective.org 

Three Beats for Nothing sings early music for fun and practice at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863. 

Berkeley Chess School classes for students in grades 1-8 from 5 to 7 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave., room 17. 843-0150. 

Berkeley Chess Club at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 548-6310, 845-1143. 

“Jews In The Modern World,” the third annual Scholar-in-Residence Weekend Seminar, sponsored by Kol Hadash and the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, through Feb. 26 at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. The fee for the series for non-members is $100. Individual sessions are $40 each. 415-543-4595. 

Kol Hadash Humanistic Shabbat with Madrikha Susan Averbach, at 7:30 p.m., Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Please bring finger dessert to share, and non-perishable food for the needy. Info@kolhadash.org 

SATURDAY, FEB. 25 

“Honoring Our Community Legends” A Black History Month Celebration with music and performances, at 1 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. 981-6674. 

African American Quilters of Oakland Demonstration from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the West Oakland Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 1801 Adeline St. 238-7352. www.oaklandlibrary.org 

Haiti Resistance Two Years After the Coup with Duclos Benissoit, President, Federation of Public Transport Workers of Haiti, a message from Father Gerard Jean-Juste, and music, at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Donation $5-$10. 483-7481.  

“World Social Forum: Report Back” with Earl Gilman at 2 p.m. at the Niebyl Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 

Puppet Theater Workshop for ages 8-11 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Dr. Seuss’ Birthday Party with a dramatization of “Green Eggs and Ham” at 11 a.m. at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. Tickets required. 524-3043. 

Disaster Preparedness Workshop on Neighborhood Organizing from 10 a.m. to noon at 997 Cedar St. Sponsored by the Office of Emergency Services. To register call 981-5506. 

“Healthy Schools Inside and Out” A workshop for Alameda educators, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Tyrrell Elementary, 27000 Tyrrell Ave., Hayward. The cost is $25, and scholarships are available. 665-3430. www.thewatershedproject.org 

“Energy Efficient Homes” from 9 to 11 a.m. at Truitt and White Conference Room, 1817 Second St. Free, but registration required. 649-2674. www.truittandwhite.com 

Vegetarian Cooking CLass “Demystifying Tofu and Tempeh” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $45. Registration required. 531-COOK. www.compassionatecooks.com 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on Compassion Teachings from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. Cost is $80, registration required. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

QiGong Healing Energy Session with Master Zi Sheng Wang at 7:30 a.m. at Chinese Garden Center, 275 Seventh St., Oakland. Cost is $35. 415-983-5303. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 26 

A Cover Up! Learn about the new spring ground covers and new leaves on the trees on a guided hike at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Frederick Douglas on Slave Music” with Dr. P. Sterling Stuckey at 3:30 p.m. at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St. Oakland. 

“The Half Note Club, Then and Now” at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. A Black History Month presentation. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement Panel discussion with Jimmy Rogers, Chud Allen and Donald Jelinek at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

“Teens Touch the Earth!” Habitat Restoration work and fun. Meet at 10 a.m. at Skyline Gate of Redwood Regional Park, Oakland. RSVP to 636-1684.  

“One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America” with author James P. Moore and music by Peter B. Allen at 3 p.m. at First Church of Christ, Scientist, 2619 Dwight Way at Bowditch. 925-376-3908. 

Report from the Front Lines of Struggle: West Africa, Venezuela and St. Petersburg, Florida with Gaida Kambon, National Secretary of the African People’s Socialist Party at 4 p.m. at Uhuru House, 7911 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland. 569-9620. 

“Have a Heart for Farm Animals” Benefit at 5:30 p.m. at New World Vegetarian, 464 8th St., Oakland. 925-487-4419.  

“Creating An Ecological House” with Skip Wenz on modeling houses on ecosystems, natural building materials, solar design and alternative construction methods, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. 848-7800. 

Wu-Wei Acupuncture & Healing Center Community Workshop about health and wellness from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 2880 Sacramento St. 704-0593. 

Interfaith Families at the Movies: “Rashevski’s Tango” at 4 p.m. at Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Rosalyn White on “Tibetan Sacred Art” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, FEB. 27 

Neighborhood Meeting on Center for Independent Living’s development of its Telegraph Ave. property at 6:30 p.m. at CIL, 2539 Telegraph Ave. 704-0130. 

“Jamaica: The History, Politics and Culture of the Black World” at 11 a.m. at Merritt College, Building A., Room 218, 12500 Campus Drive, Oakland. 434-3935. 

East Bay Impeach Bush Meetup at 7 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. 527-9584. 

“How do Tissues Turn into Tumors?” The role of the Microenvironment in breast cancer with Dr. Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff, at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2015 Addison St. 486-7292.  

Kensington Library Book Club meets to discuss “The Dive From Claussen’s Pier” by Ann Packer at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Positive Parenting Classes begin at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 658-7353. www.bananasinc.org 

World Affairs Discussion Group for seniors at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center. Cost is $2.50. 

Free Business Loan and Business Plan Writing Boot Camp Mon. and Fri. from 9 a.m. to noon at 519 17th St., 2nd Floor, Ste. 200, Oakland, through March 31. 395-6003. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 28 

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the ducks here for the winter. Beginnners welcome, binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. This month we’ll visit Sindicich Lagoons. Meet at 10 a.m. at the north entrance to Briones Park on Briones Road. For information and to register call 525-2233.  

BHS Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. at BHS Library to discuss Safety and Attendance Data, Small Schools Data, and Academic Choice update. 525-0124. 

Cragmont Elementary School Afro American Celebration from 6 to 8 p.m. at 830 Regal Rd., with a New Orleans potluck dinner and performances. Free, but donations for Katrina relief welcome. 644-8810. 

“African Roots of Beijing” film screening with director Luke Mines at 7:30 p.m. in the Home Room, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $5. 642-9460. 

Kalimba Interactive Assembly with Carl Winters on the African thumb piano, in celebration of Black History Month at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. All ages welcome. 597-5017. 

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with Scott Williamson at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Balancing Hormones Naturally” with Dr. Jay Sordean at 7 p.m. at Curves, 701 University Ave. Sponsored by the Doctors Speakers Bureau. 849-1176. 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

“Our Spiritual Crisis: Recovering Human Wisdom in a Time of Violence” with peace scholar and activist, Michael Nagler at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to come join us the 2nd and 4th Tues, of each month, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. to sing (any voice will do), help plan our next gig, or write outrageously political lyrics to old familiar tunes, and have fun at Berkeley Gray Panthers office, 1403 Addison St., in Andronico’s mall. 548-9696. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Yarn Divas Basic Knitting at 7:30 p.m. at Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. Especially, but not exclusively, for women with cancer. Experienced participants are welcome. 420-7900, ext. 111. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also, Mon. noon to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Healthy Eating Habits Seminar at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1 

“Explore Santa Fe Right of Way” with the Berkeley Path Wanderers on an easy walk covering the history and future of the Santa Fe Right of Way, from beginnings as a faltering narrow-gauge railway to exciting new community efforts. Meet at the north side of the BART station at 10 a.m. Bring water and a snack. 848-9358. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Berkeley Pedestrian Master Plan Open House to identify specific ways to improve our streets for a safe and comfortable walking experience at 7 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-7062. 

Great Decisions Foreign Policy Association Lecture “UN Reform” with Richard Sklar, former ambassador to the UN at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Cost is $40 for the eight lecture series. 526-2925. 

Bookmark Book Group meets to discuss “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” by Thomas L. Friedman at 6:30 p.m. at 721 Washington St., Oakland. The Bookmark is the bookstore for Friends of the Oakland Public Library. 444-0473. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters welcomes curious guests and new members at 7:15 a.m. at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. at Milvia. 435-5863. 

Entrepreneurs Networking at 8 a.m. at A’Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcatraz. Cost is $5. For more information contact JB, 562-9431.  

Meditation and Discussion at 7 p.m. near the El Cerrito Plaza BART station. No commitment to a particular religious or philosophical viewpoint is required. Free. www.heartawake.com 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes. 548-9840. 

Sing your Way Home A free sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. every Wed. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MARCH 2 

Meeting on Burrowing Owl Habitat with the City of Albany Waterfront Committee to review a proposal for a burrowing owl habitat at the Albany Plateau. The plan would result in the creation of a protected area (fenced off) comprising about 10 acres of this approximately 20-acre site. At 7:30 p.m. at Albany City Hall, 1000 San Pablo Ave., Albany. 528-5760.  

“Ecological Gardening: Native Plants = Wildlife Magnets” with Corinne Greenberg at the Oakland Bird Club meeting, at 7:30 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 444-0355. 

Organic Beekeeping with Les Crowder who maintains over 100 hives without chemicals, contraptions or expense. At 7 p.m. at The Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Seed Paper Making at 4 p.m. at 604 56th St at Shattuck. A Free Skool class. www.barringtoncollective.org 

“Considering Program Choices for Berkeley Schools’ Future” at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library, enter on Allston Way, near Milvia St. We will discuss establishing educational priorities and funding for Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP) Measure and Measure B (the Bridge Measure) which will end in fall 2006. Child care provided. Spanish language translators available. If you cannot attend the meeting and would like to make a comment, please email publicinfo@berkeley.k12.ca.us or call 644-8549. 

Berkeley Public Library’s Teen Services invite teen readers to come and discuss classic and contemporary science fiction and fantasy titles, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue (at Ashby). We will discuss L. Frank Baum’s Oz books as political allegory, and debate the distinctions between science fiction and fantasy. 981-6133. 

“The Academy Awards Night with Harry Chotiner” at 7:30 pm. at the College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway. Cost is $5-$10. 339-7726. 

“Buddhism and Environment: The Birth of Flood Control Politics, and Disaster Management in the Battle for the National Sanctum of Tibet” with Per Sorensen, Professor, Institute of Central Asian Studies, University of Leipzig, at 5 p.m. at 341 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus.  

Historical & Current Times Book Group meets on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1249 Marin Ave. 548-4517. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

ONGOING 

Free Tax Help—United Way’s Earn it! Keep It! Save It! program provides free filing assistance to households that earned less than $38,000 in 2005. To find a free tax site near you, call 800-358-8832 or visit www.EarnitKeepitSaveit.org 

Albany Library Free Drop-in Homework Help for students in third through fifth grades, Mon. - Thurs. from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Emphasis is placed on math and writing skills. No registration is required. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Creeks Task Force meets Mon. Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Erin Dando, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/planning/landuse/Creeks/default.html 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Feb. 27, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., Feb. 27, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Virginia Aiello, 981-5158. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/parksandrecreation 

Solid Waste Management Commission Mon., Feb. 27, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Tania Levy, 981-6368. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste