As a pregnant sophomore at Berkeley High School two years ago, Linda Carcamo thought a child would mean the end of her education. But then she saw a newspaper story about the school district’s Vera M. Casey Parent Child Education Center and everything changed. 

A week and a half after giving birth to her daughter, Miriam, Carcamo placed her at the Casey Center, across the street from Berkeley High, and returned to classes. Two years later, she is on track to graduate and begin training as a medical assistant at Heald College in Hayward. 

“It has given me a second chance,” Carcamo said of the 30-year-old Casey Center, which provides young mothers with support services in addition to day care. “I cannot believe I’m graduating.” 

But Carcamo may be one of the program’s last success stories. With a multi-million dollar deficit hanging over its head, the Berkeley Board of Education voted to shut down the program next fall as part of an $8 million package of cuts approved in February.  

The board also dropped a pair of high school guidance counselors, raised some ninth-grade class sizes and gave pink slips, effective next year, to 220 of the Berkeley Unified School District’s 652 teachers. 

The board plans to rescind as many as 145 of those pink slips by June, when it must approve a final budget, and has already taken back 25 - providing a small reprieve for a demoralized faculty.  

But the budget situation only promises to get worse in the coming months. According to district officials, the school board must cut at least $500,000 more from this year’s budget and $3.8 million from next year’s budget to pay its bills.  

The cuts could go even deeper if the state Legislature, as expected, makes heavy cuts in education funding to help close a $26 to $35 billion statewide budget shortfall.  

Indeed, if the governor’s proposed budget passes, according to the district’s director of fiscal services, Song Chin-Bendib, Berkeley Unified could take an additional $900,000 hit next year.  

District officials are considering new cost-cutting measures that range from a reduction in elementary school library services to, in a worst-case scenario, the closure of two elementary schools and the elimination of school busing.  

In the meantime, program cuts and pink slips already approved by the board have had a devastating impact on parents, instructors and administrators. 

“Morale is pretty low - it’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Joan Edelstein, president of Berkeley High School’s Parent Teacher Student Association. “When kids are telling you, ‘My teacher is angry,’ then you know there’s a serious problem and it’s affecting what’s happening in the classroom.” 

“It’s pretty discouraging,” said Jennifer Landaeta, one of 13 teachers at Washington Elementary School who received a pink slip. “I’m invested in this school.” 

Washington, which has sizable minority and low-income student populations, has revamped its faculty and leadership structure in the last five years and seen consistent growth in test scores. 

Now, with 13 of 19 teachers receiving pink slips – only one of them rescinded at this point – the Washington community is worried the school’s progress might be disrupted. 

Angry instructors who received layoff notices have placed large, pink signs in their windows with the words “Pink Slipped Teacher” scrawled on the front. And, two weeks ago, parents and teachers from Washington turned out in force at a school board meeting, dressed in black, to voice their concerns.  

Principal Rita Kimball is particularly concerned about how the layoffs will affect the school’s level of service to black and Hispanic students. Three of Washington’s four minority teachers have received layoff notices, she said, and five of the eight staff members involved in a staff development program focused on teaching to black and Hispanic children got pink slips. 

“We’ve made really positive progress,” Kimball said. “The group has learned individually and together so much about teaching practices for [minority] kids. If they are laid off, we will really have to start over again.” 

District officials are sympathetic but say that seniority rules forbid them from choosing who they let go. 

“Quite honestly, I don’t know what the board can do about this right now,” said school board director John Selawsky. 

That sense of helplessness extends to broader budgeting issues as well. District officials say the deficit is due, in large part, to factors beyond their control - spiraling health care costs, a declining economy and proposed state cuts that, all together, have resulted in an estimated 10,000 teacher pink slips across California.  

“This is a problem in public school funding, and not a bad school board with bad policies,” said school board director Nancy Riddle. 

Critics acknowledge the impact of larger forces, but still take the local leadership to task on a number of issues - including the pink slips. 

Under state law, school districts are required to provide notice by March 15 to any teachers they might lay off next year. Because Berkeley Unified’s budget picture was not clear by mid-March the district, like many across the state, issued layoff notices to a larger chunk of its faculty than it actually intends to let go - providing the school board with some flexibility as the June deadline for a final budget approaches. 

Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, acknowledges the need for breathing room, but says the district went overboard in noticing 220 teachers. 

“Two hundred plus is excessive,” Fike said, warning that many young teachers, unsure of work next year, might seek a new job in the coming months. And with few teaching jobs available statewide, Fike added, many will be forced to leave the profession. 

Critics also raise questions about the quality of the district’s financial management. Two weeks ago, the Sacramento firm of Gilbert Associates, Inc. presented the district’s annual independent audit and reported 14 problems with the district’s financial infrastructure, including several serious “material weaknesses.” 

The report followed years of accounting errors that have made headlines and embarrassed the district – including the double payment of a large block of employees on one occasion and months of health care payments for employees no longer on district rolls. 

But officials say the district has made substantial progress in the past 16 months, under new Superintendent Michele Lawrence. With the help of the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, Berkeley Unified has put a new payroll and data processing system in place and begun to implement standard accounting practices that, experts say, should have been in place years ago. 

Officials at the Alameda County Office of Education, which oversees Berkeley Unified, say it will take time to rebuild a broken central office. 

“It takes several years for a district to run down,” said Associate Superintendent of Business Services Mike Lenahan. “It takes several years to bring it to where it should be.” 

Still, some worry that the district is suffering unduly in the meantime. Supporters of the Vera Casey Center say the district has mishandled the program’s funds and inaccurately projected a shortfall next year - leading to an unfair decision to close its doors next year. 

“This is no way to run a show,” said Berkeley’s former state Rep. Dion Aroner, who is lobbying the district on behalf of the Casey Center. 

Lawrence acknowledges that the district’s original projection of a $100,000 deficit for the program was high, but she says a significant shortfall is still likely. The district may be able to postpone the center’s closure beyond September, she says, but Berkeley Unified will have to close the center shortly thereafter if it cannot find new money to keep it afloat. 

If the program doesn’t survive the budget battle, Linda Carcamo says her peers will suffer. 

“Teens, a lot of times, they have kids and they just drop out,” she said. 

A newspaper? Why a newspaper? Why now? We’ve been asked these questions often by friends and family in the last three months. From time to time, we’ve even asked ourselves why we’re doing this. It’s a lot of work. It’s time consuming. It’s expensive. We were comfortably retired from the business world, enjoying our grandchildren. 

There is a standard repertory of high-minded answers to these questions. A very few newspapers, perhaps in the low hundreds nationally, are locally owned. Berkeley’s Ben Bagdikian has devoted many years of his life to documenting this depressing story. Most metropolitan papers have been swallowed up by national chains which themselves have become part of monopoly media conglomerates. Even the weekly press, once touted as the alternative to chain papers, has been taken over by out-of-town organizations. The Berkeley Voice and the Montclarion, once lively local products, are now run by the Knight-Ridder empire on an ever-diminishing budget. The Oakland Tribune briefly flourished under Bob Maynard’s stewardship, but was sold to a dull suburban chain after his untimely death. The East Bay Express, formerly a literate local alternative, is now owned by the shrill and formulaic New Times corporation. 

Why does it matter who runs newspapers? Tip O’Neill, then Speaker of the House, once said, “All politics is local.” News is local, too, especially coverage of local government. In towns like Berkeley, daily life for many residents is most affected by action or inaction on the local level, but without a local newspaper citizens can’t find out what’s going on at City Hall, and why. The Bay Guardian continues to offer an independent perspective for San Franciscans, but it doesn’t really cover Berkeley. The San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times occasionally publish reruns of their standard Beserkeley story, but not much more. 

The Daily Planet, founded about four years ago by three young MBAs from out of town, endeared itself to Berkeley readers by the ingenious technique of simply reporting, in a straightforward way, the news about local government that people needed to know. When we took it over, concerned commentators opined that we would use it as a vehicle for advancing our own political agenda. That’s true, we will. What they don’t know is what our agenda is. 

Among the bits and pieces of newspaper paraphernalia we acquired as the Daily Planet’s assets was a desk calendar published by the Freedom Forum, the nonprofit foundation established by the heirs of the Gannett newspaper family. It’s a nice design. Each daily page reprints the First Amendment in full, coupled with a fresh quote about the importance of a free press. Some of the authors are surprising. Who would have thought that Newt Gingrich said, “One of the things that almost never works is secrecy -- particularly secrecy in defense of dumbness”? We like this calendar a lot. 

We are really old-fashioned liberals at heart, brought up on liberal slogans like “the truth will make you free” and “open covenants, openly arrived at.” We have a measured belief that progress is possible, and have often supported “progressive” candidates in elections, but we don’t believe that all change is progress. We have also acted on our belief that the best of the past should be preserved for future generations to enjoy. 

Our agenda is a simple one: Tell people what’s going on, give them a paper to discuss it in, and trust that they’ll make the right decisions. The last few months have tested our belief in the wisdom of an informed public. One of the most discouraging aspects of the country’s turn toward the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive aggression is not how poorly it’s been covered in print. In fact, the failed effort to head off the Iraq war has produced an outpouring of some of the best prose this country has ever seen. Molly Ivins, Norman Mailer, Henrick Hertzberg, Tony Lewis, Jon Carroll. There’s a seemingly endless supply of cogent argument from articulate writers, and it doesn’t seem to have worked. 

But we still want to do what we can with what we’ve got. Local coverage well done can still give local citizens the information they need to take responsibility for the actions of local government. How this translates to the national and international levels is a discussion that should be going on right now. It can take place in a newspaper like this, among other places. Joe Liebling, a cynical commentator on the press in the middle of the last century, used to say that the press was free for those who owned one. Now that we seem to own one, we want to share it with Berkeley citizens, so that together we might be able to figure out how to save the world. 

And what better place for a free press than Berkeley? Berkeley was chartered on April Fools’ Day and named for a philosopher. Carol Denney likes to remind us that Berkeley was the home of the Free Speech Movement because of the University of California’s determined opposition to free speech, not because free speech was protected here. Berkeley needs a newspaper which remembers its complex and paradoxical past, and which understands and accepts its responsibility ty for shaping the future.

Berkeley with a view of the bay and San Francisco, and one two three bridges, or Berkeley where a dumpster is the most colorful item in sight through the smudged air? 

Whose Berkeley? The aging Nisei couple on the porch of their bungalow with its immaculate yard, very like the house their parents were forced to sell cheap in 1942, do they live in the same town as the high-tech success jogging past them to his $750,000 brown shingle a block away?  

What is Berkeley to the commuter who drives past the Claremont Hotel and blocks of manicured green toward an office in the business school? To the men, talking to each other in Spanish or Mixtec, lined up outside the lumberyards a couple of miles west hoping to get a day’s work? To the African-American police officer who grew up here but had to go 40 miles up the freeway to find a house he could afford for his own family?  

Seasons here are marked less by changes in the weather than by the swelling of the population -- some 33,000 students who come, spend money, take parking places, then disappear almost overnight, leaving restaurant owners nervously hoping they can survive until the new semester begins.  

With faculty and staff, the university involves 55,000 people, more than half the city’s population. Yet it could be on another planet for many in day-to-day Berkeley. Most spend the day working elsewhere, and are early to bed. Many with no visible means of support rise late, drink a lot of coffee, have a glass of red wine at dinner and could vote for a green candidate. 

These last few days they talk of a war half a world away, but present on every newspaper front page and every television screen. They are saddened, feel helpless, seek ways to act, and call upon another Berkeley, usually near invisible.Old-timers will show you its landmarks -- unnoticed by any commission -- buildings and places where they planned and sometimes fought the first battles of a revolution that never arrived. 

And before that, once upon a time, not so very long ago, Berkeley was bathed in light. Fruit trees on every street, cheap eats, low rents and lots of love, all kinds of love, grass everywhere and free music, good music. And before that Hinks, a fine store here at home, where your change came swooping down a wire track from the cashier’s office and across the street clouds of blue-rinsed ladies enjoyed afternoon tea at Edy’s, and in summer kids went sliding straight down the grassy hills for unobstructed blocks on sheets of cardboard. 

Can the Daily Planet speak to, write about all these Berkeleys? Have something to say to people who never heard of Clark Kent? To the man fishing on the city pier at 1 a.m. who talks with longing about his home place in the Punjab? The once-professionals who now fix cars, work in restaurants, solve drainage problems?  

In other words, can we reach and represent the typical resident in a town where there is no typical resident? 

We’re sure gonna try. 

Peter Solomon, a Berkeley resident, is a former editor of The Flatlands, an Oakland-based biweekly, and The Montclarion. 

IN THE DARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was sad when you disappeared but am overjoyed at your return. We need an honest voice in a city whose leadership is failing. 

An example is the abuse and controversy over the lot at 2517 Sacramento St. Even while the city is being sued in part due to their failure to act in good faith by notifying the surrounding neighborhood of meetings regarding the property, members of Neighbors for Sensible Development were kept in the dark about a meeting of the Design Review Commission.  

The meeting took place March 20. The only two signs posted to announce the meeting were posted March 21, one day after the meeting took place. We should have been notified 10 days in advance. Why weren’t we? 

Please investigate and let the citizens of Berkeley in on the secret of contractors and developers taking our berserk little village away from us. 

Elizabeth Campos 

• 

GOOD LUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We look forward to the revived non-daily Berkeley Planet. I really miss news about the city, in particular about the schools, which are in so much need of support.  

You had done a great service previously covering them, which is crucial for the citizenry. Also, getting full exposure to the nutty – and hopefully in the future less nutty – Berkeley politics was valuable and ultimately serves the purpose of helping the politicians stay in line a bit, because more attention is drawn not only to their good deeds but also to their shenanigans. 

One more thing about the schools: Because of an article I read in the Planet, I volunteered for the Berkeley High School Writer’s Room Program, which provides a terrific service to Berkeley’s students (one-on-one writing coaching for entire classrooms by eager cadres of community volunteer writing coaches). Without your periodic attention to activities such as this, people simply don’t know about them, and they and the kids miss out. 

You have been sorely missed. My heart skipped a beat when I saw your notice on the boxes: “We will be back.” Good luck. 

Monika Eisenbud 

• 

VOTERS’ RIGHTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last spring, as an emergency move to quell proposals allowing very tall or dense structures in many parts of Berkeley, people from various communities put together an initiative for the ballot to establish maximum building heights. 

At that time, members of the group set up a booth at the Earth Day Festival and got dozens of signatures from citizens willing to circulate petitions. Of the more than 50 visitors talked with that day, only three were in favor of high-rise development, indicating high support in the ecology community. 

When the text of the final initiative was completed and legally formatted, the document was submitted to city officials as the last step before being circulated for voters’ signatures. The city attorney issued an opinion declaring the proposed measure was beyond the powers of voters to enact as an initiative. 

Furthermore, to do so would require a charter amendment. To our disadvantage, the collection of enough signatures to amend the charter would require three times the number needed for an initiative. By the time this legal judgment was delivered April 3, it was not feasible to collect the over 6,000 signatures in one month before the presidential election deadline. As a consequence the project was shelved. 

Maximum height advocates might go for a charter amendment with more than a year in which to do the petitions. First, a clarification of the city attorney’s judgment needs to be made in view of the fact that the City Charter itself gives direct legislative powers to voters in the initiative section, Article XIII: 

“The qualified voters of the city shall have power through the initiative and otherwise, as provided by this charter and general laws of the state, to enact appropriate legislation to carry out and enforce any of the powers of the city or any of the powers of the council.” 

Since a questionable city attorney opinion, of interfering with a city commission, has been headlined in local newspapers, yet another complaint should be aired involving the initiative process. 

What are our rights as voters under charter Article XIII? Why is the initiative process being limited? Would a City Council workshop on the issue be appropriate? 

Martha Nicoloff 

• 

The Berkeley Daily Planet accepts Letters to the Editor at opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com. Letters can also be sent by mail to 3023A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705. Include address and phone number. Please keep letters succinct, and they may be edited for space. 

IN THE DARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was sad when you disappeared but am overjoyed at your return. We need an honest voice in a city whose leadership is failing. 

An example is the abuse and controversy over the lot at 2517 Sacramento St. Even while the city is being sued in part due to their failure to act in good faith by notifying the surrounding neighborhood of meetings regarding the property, members of Neighbors for Sensible Development were kept in the dark about a meeting of the Design Review Commission.  

The meeting took place March 20. The only two signs posted to announce the meeting were posted March 21, one day after the meeting took place. We should have been notified 10 days in advance. Why weren’t we? 

Please investigate and let the citizens of Berkeley in on the secret of contractors and developers taking our berserk little village away from us. 

Elizabeth Campos 

• 

GOOD LUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We look forward to the revived non-daily Berkeley Planet. I really miss news about the city, in particular about the schools, which are in so much need of support.  

You had done a great service previously covering them, which is crucial for the citizenry. Also, getting full exposure to the nutty – and hopefully in the future less nutty – Berkeley politics was valuable and ultimately serves the purpose of helping the politicians stay in line a bit, because more attention is drawn not only to their good deeds but also to their shenanigans. 

One more thing about the schools: Because of an article I read in the Planet, I volunteered for the Berkeley High School Writer’s Room Program, which provides a terrific service to Berkeley’s students (one-on-one writing coaching for entire classrooms by eager cadres of community volunteer writing coaches). Without your periodic attention to activities such as this, people simply don’t know about them, and they and the kids miss out. 

You have been sorely missed. My heart skipped a beat when I saw your notice on the boxes: “We will be back.” Good luck. 

Monika Eisenbud 

• 

VOTERS’ RIGHTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last spring, as an emergency move to quell proposals allowing very tall or dense structures in many parts of Berkeley, people from various communities put together an initiative for the ballot to establish maximum building heights. 

At that time, members of the group set up a booth at the Earth Day Festival and got dozens of signatures from citizens willing to circulate petitions. Of the more than 50 visitors talked with that day, only three were in favor of high-rise development, indicating high support in the ecology community. 

When the text of the final initiative was completed and legally formatted, the document was submitted to city officials as the last step before being circulated for voters’ signatures. The city attorney issued an opinion declaring the proposed measure was beyond the powers of voters to enact as an initiative. 

Furthermore, to do so would require a charter amendment. To our disadvantage, the collection of enough signatures to amend the charter would require three times the number needed for an initiative. By the time this legal judgment was delivered April 3, it was not feasible to collect the over 6,000 signatures in one month before the presidential election deadline. As a consequence the project was shelved. 

Maximum height advocates might go for a charter amendment with more than a year in which to do the petitions. First, a clarification of the city attorney’s judgment needs to be made in view of the fact that the City Charter itself gives direct legislative powers to voters in the initiative section, Article XIII: 

“The qualified voters of the city shall have power through the initiative and otherwise, as provided by this charter and general laws of the state, to enact appropriate legislation to carry out and enforce any of the powers of the city or any of the powers of the council.” 

Since a questionable city attorney opinion, of interfering with a city commission, has been headlined in local newspapers, yet another complaint should be aired involving the initiative process. 

What are our rights as voters under charter Article XIII? Why is the initiative process being limited? Would a City Council workshop on the issue be appropriate? 

Martha Nicoloff 

• 

The Berkeley Daily Planet accepts Letters to the Editor at opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com. Letters can also be sent by mail to 3023A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705. Include address and phone number. Please keep letters succinct, and they may be edited for space. 

The Fine Arts Cinema building was leveled by a bulldozer Monday, bringing an end to the last physical legacy of Berkeley’s repertory cinema heyday and clearing the way for construction of a new 250-seat theater on the Shattuck Avenue site. 

The proposed cinema, to be completed in August 2004, is part of a five-story, mixed-use development plan proposed by real estate developer Patrick Kennedy that includes 100 units of housing.  

Under the proposal, the theater’s current leaseholders will run the new movie complex under a 20-year lease. 

Kennedy faced opposition to his plan last year by artists, preservationists and former patrons of the theater, including renowned poets Michael McClure and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who said the theater was a monument of the Beatnik subculture that helped distinguish Berkeley as a mecca of radical art and politics during the 1950s and 1960s.  

They also said it was the birthplace of repertory theater and the impetus for the American Film Movement, an era marked by a new-found fervor for rare, old and foreign films among intellectuals and artists. 

“For us to have cavalierly torn down the most viable remnant of that period is irresponsible and short-sighted,” said Leslie Landberg, who earlier this year led the failed attempt to convince the Landmarks Commission to declare the building a historical landmark, a designation that might have saved it from demolition. “It’s an assault against the history and culture of the people of Berkeley.” 

Landberg is the daughter of Edward Landberg, the man many film experts say established the first repertory cinema house in the country. In 1961, the elder Landberg extensively remodeled the building that became known as the Fine Arts Cinema. That cinema was the second repertory film house Landberg built. The first theater, originally called the Cinema-Guild, was established in 1953 on Telegraph Avenue near Haste Street. The Berkeley theaters were joined by a third, The Gateway, in San Francisco in 1968. All three theaters were managed and programmed by Landberg and, until 1960, his first wife Pauline Kael, a pioneering film critic who would later go on to write for The New Yorker. 

Landberg lost his rep houses to his second wife after their divorce in 1969. Unable to keep the theaters financially viable, she sold out to the Mitchell Brothers, a San Francisco porn theater company. Following the Mitchell Brothers’ stint, the cinema had various occupants, including an Indian film showcaser and the Landmarks Theaters chain. It became the Fine Arts Cinema in 1988, providing a repertory art house oasis amidst a landscape of commercial, mainstream multiplexes. 

Kennedy said the Fine Arts Cinema leaseholders probably would have shut it down had he not come in with his redevelopment plan.  

“They probably wouldn’t have been able to afford to do the seismic retrofitting, fire safety and ADA remodeling required,” he said. 

Fine Arts Cinema leaseholder Keith Arnold plans to team with the Cinema Preservation Society, a nonprofit organization that will operate a film museum and screening room on the site.  

But the plan to include the museum doesn’t soften the position of the theater’s defenders, who say the old building was a “living legacy” worthy of preservation for its role in shaping the spirit and culture of a community.  

“Once the building is gone, the history only exists in photographs, in libraries and in the memories of the people who were there,” said Harold Adler, co-curator of the Free Speech Cafe.

I’m a technology reporter and columnist for the San Francisco 

Chronicle. Or at least I was until last Wednesday, when I was 

suspended, without pay, for getting arrested in peaceful 

civil disobedience against the war. 

The offense the Chronicle is charging me with is falsifying my time card, but this is a bogus, 

after-the-fact cover for an act of political retaliation and an 

attempt to intimidate other employees. The truth is that the 

paper’s senior editors ordered my column pulled from the paper before I had even filled out the time card. Not because of any objections to the column’s contents (it was about spam, and they hadn’t even read 

it), but simply because I had been arrested the day before, just as I had previously informed my supervisors I would be. 

Here’s the sequence of events: On March 14 I applied for a 

month’s leave of absence from my job so I could devote myself to anti-war work. That request went to the paper’s top editorial honchos, editor Phil Bronstein and managing editor Robert Rosenthal. And though I heard nothing from them about it - still haven’t - I was informed indirectly that they had “concerns.” On Wednesday, March 19, after the bombing of Baghdad began and I got home from a long protest march in the rain, I e-mailed my immediate supervisors informing them that I planned to get arrested the following morning and wouldn’t be in to work until I got out of jail. 

Early the next morning, my wife, my daughter and I joined thousands of others protesting the war in San Francisco’s Financial District. We helped block the intersection of Market and Sansome streets, in front of Citicorp and the British Consulate. When the police ordered us to leave we sat down, and a little after 8 a.m. they hauled us off. We were kept in jail until around 10 p.m. that night and then released, after being cited 

for being a pedestrian in a road (an infraction) and refusing an order to move (a misdemeanor). 

I returned to work the next day and finished my column. Late in the day I filled out my time card for that week. For the day I spent in jail, I took a sick day. I did so because I was sick - heartsick over the beginning of the war, nauseated by the lies and the arrogance and the stupidity that led to it, and deeply depressed by the death and destruction it would bring. 

Ironically, on the day I was suspended the Chronicle had a front-page article clearly explaining the ailment I was suffering from. It ran under the headline “The Home Front: Battles with depression, stress are 

taking their toll,” by health writer Ulysses Torassa. 

Nevertheless, claiming sick pay for the day wasn’t a point of 

principle for me. My supervisor knew exactly why I was out of work that day. If he had objected to the sick-day claim (even though the Chronicle does not, as far as I can tell, have a formal definition of what qualifies as sickness) before signing the time card, I would cheerfully have changed it to make the day a personal day, a vacation day or simply an unpaid day. 

On Monday, March 24, another supervisor informed me that I could not write anything for the paper until further notice. 

On March 26, I was called to a meeting with Rosenthal and Cynthia Burks, vice president of human resources. A representative from my union, the Northern California Newspaper Guild, accompanied me. Burks asked me to explain what I did last Thursday and why I took a sick day. After I had done so, she informed me that I would be suspended, without pay, to give the paper time to “investigate” my “falsification” of the time card. She originally did not put a time limit on the suspension, but when my guild representative asked, Burks said it would be for at least two weeks. 

Like the majority of the peo 

ple of the world, I consider this 

war immoral, illegal and unnecessary. Whatever the outcome, it’s sure to compound the suffering of the Iraqis, to waste American lives and resources, to turn fair-minded people the world over against us, and to increase the risk of terrorist attack. Under these circumstances, the civil disobedience I took part in last Thursday was an act of conscience - I’d act the same way if I had it to do over. I’m only sorry that the Chronicle feels it has to retaliate against me, on a patently ridiculous technicality, for demonstrating my opinion on the most important issue of the day. 

Henry Norr is a Berkeley resident. 

and are early to bed. Many with no visible means of support rise late, drink a lot of coffee, have a glass of red wine at dinner and could vote for a green candidate. 

These last few days they talk of a war half a world away, but present on every newspaper front page and every television screen. They are saddened, feel helpless, seek ways to act, and call upon another Berkeley, usually near invisible.Old-timers will show you its landmarks -- unnoticed by any commission -- buildings and places where they planned and sometimes fought the first battles of a revolution that never arrived. 

And before that, once upon a time, not so very long ago, Berkeley was bathed in light. Fruit trees on every street, cheap eats, low rents and lots of love, all kinds of love, grass everywhere and free music, good music. And before that Hinks, a fine store here at home, where your change came swooping down a wire track from the cashier’s office and across the street clouds of blue-rinsed ladies enjoyed afternoon tea at Edy’s, and in summer kids went sliding straight down the grassy hills for unobstructed blocks on sheets of cardboard. 

Can the Daily Planet speak to, write about all these Berkeleys? Have something to say to people who never heard of Clark Kent? To the man fishing on the city pier at 1 a.m. who talks with longing about his home place in the Punjab? The once-professionals who now fix cars, work in restaurants, solve drainage problems?  

In other words, can we reach and represent the typical resident in a town where there is no typical resident? 

We’re sure gonna try. 

Peter Solomon, a Berkeley resident, is a former editor of The Flatlands, an Oakland-based biweekly, and The Montclarion. 

I’m a technology reporter and columnist for the San Francisco 

Chronicle. Or at least I was until last Wednesday, when I was 

suspended, without pay, for getting arrested in peaceful 

civil disobedience against the war. 

The offense the Chronicle is charging me with is falsifying my time card, but this is a bogus, 

after-the-fact cover for an act of political retaliation and an 

attempt to intimidate other employees. The truth is that the 

paper’s senior editors ordered my column pulled from the paper before I had even filled out the time card. Not because of any objections to the column’s contents (it was about spam, and they hadn’t even read 

it), but simply because I had been arrested the day before, just as I had previously informed my supervisors I would be. 

Here’s the sequence of events: On March 14 I applied for a 

month’s leave of absence from my job so I could devote myself to anti-war work. That request went to the paper’s top editorial honchos, editor Phil Bronstein and managing editor Robert Rosenthal. And though I heard nothing from them about it - still haven’t - I was informed indirectly that they had “concerns.” On Wednesday, March 19, after the bombing of Baghdad began and I got home from a long protest march in the rain, I e-mailed my immediate supervisors informing them that I planned to get arrested the following morning and wouldn’t be in to work until I got out of jail. 

Early the next morning, my wife, my daughter and I joined thousands of others protesting the war in San Francisco’s Financial District. We helped block the intersection of Market and Sansome streets, in front of Citicorp and the British Consulate. When the police ordered us to leave we sat down, and a little after 8 a.m. they hauled us off. We were kept in jail until around 10 p.m. that night and then released, after being cited 

for being a pedestrian in a road (an infraction) and refusing an order to move (a misdemeanor). 

I returned to work the next day and finished my column. Late in the day I filled out my time card for that week. For the day I spent in jail, I took a sick day. I did so because I was sick - heartsick over the beginning of the war, nauseated by the lies and the arrogance and the stupidity that led to it, and deeply depressed by the death and destruction it would bring. 

Ironically, on the day I was suspended the Chronicle had a front-page article clearly explaining the ailment I was suffering from. It ran under the headline “The Home Front: Battles with depression, stress are 

taking their toll,” by health writer Ulysses Torassa. 

Nevertheless, claiming sick pay for the day wasn’t a point of 

principle for me. My supervisor knew exactly why I was out of work that day. If he had objected to the sick-day claim (even though the Chronicle does not, as far as I can tell, have a formal definition of what qualifies as sickness) before signing the time card, I would cheerfully have changed it to make the day a personal day, a vacation day or simply an unpaid day. 

On Monday, March 24, another supervisor informed me that I could not write anything for the paper until further notice. 

On March 26, I was called to a meeting with Rosenthal and Cynthia Burks, vice president of human resources. A representative from my union, the Northern California Newspaper Guild, accompanied me. Burks asked me to explain what I did last Thursday and why I took a sick day. After I had done so, she informed me that I would be suspended, without pay, to give the paper time to “investigate” my “falsification” of the time card. She originally did not put a time limit on the suspension, but when my guild representative asked, Burks said it would be for at least two weeks. 

Like the majority of the peo 

ple of the world, I consider this 

war immoral, illegal and unnecessary. Whatever the outcome, it’s sure to compound the suffering of the Iraqis, to waste American lives and resources, to turn fair-minded people the world over against us, and to increase the risk of terrorist attack. Under these circumstances, the civil disobedience I took part in last Thursday was an act of conscience - I’d act the same way if I had it to do over. I’m only sorry that the Chronicle feels it has to retaliate against me, on a patently ridiculous technicality, for demonstrating my opinion on the most important issue of the day. 

Henry Norr is a Berkeley resident.

On Saturday the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Ga., held a rare weekend press conference to address growing global concern regarding Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, better known as SARS. 

“We are very concerned about the spread of this virus,” CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said. “It is a respiratory virus. It does appear to be transmitted very efficiently, and what we know about respiratory viruses suggests that the potential for infecting large numbers of people is very great. We may be in the very early stages of what could be a much larger problem.” 

As of March 31, there were 69 suspected cases under investigation across America, 14 cases in California, and two in Alameda County. According to the Alameda County Public Health Department, there are five reported possible cases in our community. 

Dr. Thomas Aragon, executive director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness, is concerned.  

“Because there is intense travel between the Bay Area and Asia, there are multiple options to introduce SARS into this population and there is great opportunity for this disease to spread.”  

While there have been no SARS-related deaths in the United States, four Canadians have died from SARS and the current global mortality rate appears to be as high as four percent.  

World Health Organization (WHO) and CDC officials suggest that SARS transmits itself primarily through large respiratory droplets.  

When a person coughs or sneezes they expel large airborne droplets that can carry the disease and contaminate surfaces all around them.  

It’s believed the virus, which has been identified as a corona-virus similar to the common cold, can survive for three hours outside the body.  

“If you touch the patient or any of the surfaces that have been contaminated, and then touch your mucous membranes you can transmit the disease,” Aragon said.  

He continued, “We want to be aggressive in educating people, especially heath care providers, on how to avoid becoming infected. If we can delay the infection rate we may be able to get a better handle on how to treat this. We want to delay the infection rate because it is going to spread everywhere.”

Berkeley, in spite of its allure, has an eccentric reputation. Berkeleyans delight in their quirkiness and would never aspire to be conventional. 

Berkeley is a unique place, full of contrast and contradiction. It’s blessed with awesome assets and great natural appeal. It’s the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement and home to strict political correctness. It’s a city with tacky buildings next to architectural jewels. It’s a secular city with dozens of religious congregations of all types. One of the world’s great universities facilitates a rich and varied intellectual life. Berkeleyans care as much about the big issues – peace, the environment – and the little-known ones – organic coffee, rights of naked people – as they do about potholes and parking meters. The national media chides Berkeley whenever they have nothing else to do, but their quips about the city do not deter passionate advocacy. 

Berkeley has more than its share of aging revolutionaries, bold innovators and creative thinkers. Its productivity is a tribute to the people of Berkeley, since Berkeley’s countless capabilities are not publicly supported. Longstanding conflicts make for poor civic planning and use of public resources. 

Intense partisan quarrels have been a persistent feature of Berkeley politics for decades, and the city has paid a heavy price. Political gridlock works its way down to boards, commissions and city staff, who get mixed signals – or no signals at all – about priorities and expectations. 

Berkeley politics is dominated by two political organizations: the Berkeley Democratic Club (BDC) and Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA). Neither organization provides strong civic leadership or holds its endorsed, elected officials accountable. Yet without their help it is extremely difficult to get elected to the City Council and only a bit easier for the school board. 

The BDC is liberal, the BCA progressive. There is no formal communication between the two. While it was possible for Soviet and American officials to have dinner together during the Cold War, I’m not aware that the BDC president and the BCA chair have ever had lunch. 

In the 40 years that I’ve lived in Berkeley, the political left and right have become distinguishable from each other less by issues than by labels and personalities. When I first came to Berkeley, the right talked about business and the left talked about real property – mostly how to distribute it. Today, the left raps about profits and the right has discovered the electoral potency of affirmative action. 

Berkeley inspires passion. Its unconventional informality, its nonviolent diversity and its crusty loveliness are not much diminished by its convoluted politics. But Berkeley needs strong leadership to flourish. Shirley Dean, the former mayor, managed to accomplish a lot in spite of an often hostile City Council. The new mayor, Tom Bates, has a friendlier council, and he is highly motivated to leave a sterling legacy. We should wish him well. 

Harry D. Weininger is a long-time resident of Berkeley.

Berkeley, in spite of its allure, has an eccentric reputation. Berkeleyans delight in their quirkiness and would never aspire to be conventional. 

Berkeley is a unique place, full of contrast and contradiction. It’s blessed with awesome assets and great natural appeal. It’s the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement and home to strict political correctness. It’s a city with tacky buildings next to architectural jewels. It’s a secular city with dozens of religious congregations of all types. One of the world’s great universities facilitates a rich and varied intellectual life. Berkeleyans care as much about the big issues – peace, the environment – and the little-known ones – organic coffee, rights of naked people – as they do about potholes and parking meters. The national media chides Berkeley whenever they have nothing else to do, but their quips about the city do not deter passionate advocacy. 

Berkeley has more than its share of aging revolutionaries, bold innovators and creative thinkers. Its productivity is a tribute to the people of Berkeley, since Berkeley’s countless capabilities are not publicly supported. Longstanding conflicts make for poor civic planning and use of public resources. 

Intense partisan quarrels have been a persistent feature of Berkeley politics for decades, and the city has paid a heavy price. Political gridlock works its way down to boards, commissions and city staff, who get mixed signals – or no signals at all – about priorities and expectations. 

Berkeley politics is dominated by two political organizations: the Berkeley Democratic Club (BDC) and Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA). Neither organization provides strong civic leadership or holds its endorsed, elected officials accountable. Yet without their help it is extremely difficult to get elected to the City Council and only a bit easier for the school board. 

The BDC is liberal, the BCA progressive. There is no formal communication between the two. While it was possible for Soviet and American officials to have dinner together during the Cold War, I’m not aware that the BDC president and the BCA chair have ever had lunch. 

In the 40 years that I’ve lived in Berkeley, the political left and right have become distinguishable from each other less by issues than by labels and personalities. When I first came to Berkeley, the right talked about business and the left talked about real property – mostly how to distribute it. Today, the left raps about profits and the right has discovered the electoral potency of affirmative action. 

Berkeley inspires passion. Its unconventional informality, its nonviolent diversity and its crusty loveliness are not much diminished by its convoluted politics. But Berkeley needs strong leadership to flourish. Shirley Dean, the former mayor, managed to accomplish a lot in spite of an often hostile City Council. The new mayor, Tom Bates, has a friendlier council, and he is highly motivated to leave a sterling legacy. We should wish him well. 

Harry D. Weininger is a long-time resident of Berkeley.

Berkeley Camera Club meets every Tuesday at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Begins at 7:30 p.m. Call Don, 525-3565.  

www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Household Energy Conservation Class begins at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. Topics include do-it-yourself insulation, weatherization and metering, appliance use, and law and no-cost solutions to energy problems. 

981-5435. 

energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Self Assessment for Career Change, a four-part workshop for people contemplating career change, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., Tuesdays through April 22. Cost is $85 for YWCA members; $95 nonmembers. For preregistration contact Leah Antignas 848-6370. Class held at the YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way. 

www.ywca-berkeley.org 

Brown Bag Career Talk 

Dual Career Couples: Tips and Tools for Making it Work, a session with career counselor Alan Hochman, from noon to 1 p.m. at the YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft. Cost is $3. 

www.ywca-berkeley.org 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil gathers at 6:30 p.m. for a 7 p.m. walk. Meet in downtown Berkeley at the BART station at Shattuck Ave. and Center St. 528-9217. 

vigil4peace@yahoo.com  

www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Amnesty International Berkeley Community Group meets at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1606 Bonita Ave., at Cedar St. Come join other human rights activists to promote social justice. 872-0768. 

Community Dances in Berkeley, with traditional English and American dance, take place at 8 p.m. Wednesdays at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Cost is $9. Also the first Sunday of the month at 7 p.m.; cost is $10. Call Mary at 233-5065. www.bacds.org 

Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1 FM holds a public meeting at 7 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190. 

UC Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets at 7 p.m. at 

109 Dwinelle Hall, on the UC Berkeley campus. 

Fourth Annual Seed Swap of the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library takes place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Meet local gardeners and trade seed. Also, free seed giveaways and a short talk on seed saving. Bring seed, pens and envelopes or come with a commitment to bring seed back to the Interchange Library. Call 548-2220 ext 233. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, sponsored by members of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, begins at noon on the grass near the west entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions welcome.  

496-6000, ext.135.  

http://www.bpf.org/ 

No War Rally, sponsored by the Coalition for Peace and Justice, meets at 11 a.m. at Mosswood Park, MacArthur Blvd. and Broadway. March begins at 11:30 a.m. with a 1:30 p.m. rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway. 654-6966. 

Sick Plant Clinic takes place from 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr.  

Experts will diagnose your plant woes as part of this free service. 643-2755. 

www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden 

Block Captain’s Workshop on Disaster Preparedness begins at 6 p.m. at the Public Safety Building, 2100 MLK Way. This annual event encourages contact between neighborhood block organizers. Call Community Services Bureau, 981-5808. 

Women In Black Vigil, held daily from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph Ave. 

548-6310, 845-1143. 

wibberkeley@yahoo.com 

Residential Energy Conservation Contest, deadline April 10. If you are a Berkeley resident who has reduced your electrical energy use and has lived in the same location for at least one year you are eligible to enter the Berkeley Unplugged II contest and win one of several prizes. Winners will be announced at Berkeley Earth Day, April 19. For information and registration: Energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us, telephone 981-5435, or TDD 981-6903. 

Free Disaster Preparedness Classes, offered by the Berkeley Office of Emergency Services. Topics include basic personal preparedness, disaster first aid, light search and rescue, fire suppression, disaster mental health, shelter operations  

and earthquake retrofitting. 

Register online at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html or call 981-5605. 

Theater of the Oppressed 

with Julie Sparling, M.Ed. 

Theater of the Oppressed uses movement, storytelling and tableauz to explore how images of one’s personal experience reflect universal issues of power and change. Takes place at the YWCA, 2600 Bancroft Way, on Sundays April 6 through May 4 (excluding April 20), from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Cost varies from $90 to $140. UC Berkeley Racial Justice program. 594-1377. 

Spring Break Theater Lab 

for middle school students, session one from April 7 to 11; session two from April 14 to 18. Runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Curriculum includes clowning/acrobatics, acting, improv, musical theater and hip hop. Cost is $250. 647-2978. 

school@berkeleyrep.org 

jseelig@berkeleyrep.org 

City Council Special Meeting, April 1 from 5 to 6:30 p.m., at City Council chambers, 2134 MLK Way. Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/default.htm 

City Council meets April 1 at 7 p.m. at City Council chambers, 2134 MLK Way. 

Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 

981-6900. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/default.htm 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets April 7 at 7 p.m. in City Council chambers, 2134 MLK Way. Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent/  

Commission on the Status of Women meets April 2 at 

7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 

1901 Hearst Ave. Ruby Primus, 981-5160. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/women/default.htm  

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets April 3 at 7 p.m. at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/environmentaladvisory/default.htm  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/health/default.htm  

Fire Safety Commission meets April 2 at 7:30 p.m. at 997 Cedar St. David Orth, 981-5502. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/firesafety/default.htm  

Housing Advisory Commission meets April 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. Oscar Sung, 981-5410. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/housing/default.htm  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets April 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/landmarks/default.htm  

Peace and Justice Commission meets April 7 at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/peaceandjustice/default.htm  

Public Works Commission meets April 3 at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks/default.htm  

Youth Commission meets April 7 at 6:30 p.m. at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/youth/default.htm

Berkeley, known around the globe for its strident political activism, will celebrate its 125th anniversary today with a series of quiet, apolitical events. 

A walking tour of downtown Berkeley, a community photograph on the steps of Old City Hall at 4:30 p.m. - with the entire city invited to take part - and an exhibit honoring the city’s namesake, the Irish bishop George Berkeley, will be among the signature events (see page 2 for a full listing). 

Organizers say a busy city staff and a late start to the planning process contributed to the modest scale of the celebration, arguing that there was no conscious decision to downplay Berkeley’s history of political activism. 

“We’ve just been very busy lately,” said Arrietta Chakos, chief of staff for City Manager Weldon Rucker. “If we had a lot of time to deal with this, and an events coordinator, we would have remembered everything we should have remembered.” 

Cisco DeVries, chief of staff for Mayor Tom Bates, suggested the city might benefit from the focus on other aspects of its past. 

“I think people are much more familiar with Berkeley from 1963 on,” he said. “We wanted to make sure this wasn’t just about the sixties.”  

Berkeley’s 125th anniversary celebration actually began in Newport, R.I. 

In November 2001 Steven Finacom, an amateur historian who works in UC Berkeley’s planning department, visited Newport’s International Berkeley Society, which honors Bishop Berkeley, during an East Coast trip. 

Finacom’s visit resulted in an exhibit on the bishop, which began Jan. 9 and runs through April 26, at the Berkeley Historical Society. 

Planning for the larger 125th anniversary celebration grew out of that exhibit when the historical society joined with the city, merchants and the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association to form a birthday committee. 

The architecture group will lead an historic house tour on May 11. This week, some 40 to 50 merchants will offer their customers deals this week, including various items priced at $1.25 or $12.50 in commemoration of the 125th anniversary. 

Centering the event around Bishop Berkeley has generated a small-bore controversy in this town. In 1726 the churchman and philosopher, as part of a failed bid to construct a college in Bermuda, penned a poem called “On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America” that included the line: “Westward the course of empire takes its way.”  

The phrase, on its face, doesn’t seem to square with the city’s current anti-imperialist bent. But Finacom said Berkeley probably didn’t have visions of conquest when he wrote the poem. 

“He was probably talking about a perfect civilization as opposed to political and military domination,” Finacom said. 

The bishop, Finacom contends, is apt for the city because his philospohy was one of tolerance and anti-materialism. 

Whatever the meaning, it inspired Frederick Billings, one UC’s founders, to name the local campus after the bishop in 1866. Twelve years later, the city incorporated under the same name. 

Amid the discord over the war in Iraq, one group strives to bring a harmonious tone to anti-war protests in the Bay Area. 

The Musicians Action Group, armed with piccolos, harmonicas, drums, tubas and banjos, exercises a melodic version of free speech. Members range in age from pre-teens to octogenarians. They include students in local grade school bands and professionals who have been playing since the Vietnam War. 

Berkeley resident, carpenter and musician Gene Turitz is considered one of the quasi-leaders of this nearly anarchic band simply because he’s been doing it for 30 years. He’s the fellow who usually calls out the songs and counts out the beats. 

“We have a book that has 24 tunes in it,” Turitz said. “If you come to the demonstration you get the book. We call out the number of the tunes, we count ‘em off and we play ‘em. Getting more than 24 tunes makes the book a little heavy and difficult to deal with, so when we add new tunes or make new arrangements, we have to take out tunes.”  

At the San Francisco peace rally on March 15, the band led protesters in rousing renditions of “De Colores,” which was used by the United Farm Workers, and “Wade in the Water,” a spiritual from the days of slavery. They also played protest standards such as “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More,” John Lennon’s “Imagine,” “Down by the Riverside” and “We Shall Overcome.” 

Berkeley pediatrician Bert Lubin plays drums with the band. His son, Danny Lubin-Laden, is a Berkeley High School student who’s been playing trombone for about two years; Danny’s friend, Seth Rosenberg from College Prep, plays saxophone, and the two attended their first MAG performance at the March 15 rally in San Francisco.  

“I'm against the war,” said the senior Lubin. “I think you have to do everything you possibly can. I worry about the violence but I think you have to make a statement.” 

His son agrees. “I don’t believe it’s a just cause,” Danny said. “I'm against the war and I enjoy music and I think you’ve got to speak out any way you can.” 

At the March 15 rally the band’s attire ranged from tie-dye T-shirts to classic, activist flannel plaids. There was also a small mixed-gender contingent in wedding gowns representing the “Brides of March.” 

Jeff Mertens, a Berkeley-based painting contractor, has played trombone in the group for the past 20 years.  

“I like to play music because music is a renewable resource. War is not,” he said. “Music creates energy and people seem happy when we play. They smile and sing along. At these events there are usually political speeches, and speeches tend to make people feel angry and makes them want to do something. Our music brings people together so people can think about the speeches, but they also hear the music and can feel good. The music creates an action, marching and good feelings.” 

Jeff’s wife, Mardi Sicular-Mertens, a Berkeley High School teacher, recently began playing tambourine with the band. 

“Music has always been a part of my life,” she said. “I’ve been marching in demonstrations since I was six years old. I guess you could say I was a red diaper baby. We marched for civil rights. We marched for the farm workers. Every year we march on Hiroshima Day. I’ve been marching all my life but it doesn’t feel like I do enough.” 

The group’s roots run deep in the East Bay’s activist community.  

“Some of us started playing for these marches 30 years ago,” Turitz said. “And we’re still doing it, and people like it. On almost every march that we’ve played people come up and say, ‘Oh this is really great. I wish I could do that with you.’ So they do.” 

The band doesn’t have meetings or leaders or an organizational flow chart. The whole operation runs off a mailing list. Turitz said if someone wants to play all they have to do is e-mail Magband@aol.com, provide an address, indicate their instrument and ask to be notified of the next gathering. 

“It’s very easy,” Turitz said. “While many of the members are professional musicians, the only audition required is showing up. Mostly, everyone plays pretty well, but there’s no criteria other than a willingness to show up. We had a band in 1973 called the Bay Area Progressive Musicians Association — BAPMA. That was a real organization. We had meetings and rehearsals.” 

That association broke up by 1979, but a few of the musicians stayed in touch and continued playing together. They form the nucleus of the current band, which now has about 70 musicians on the mailing list. 

At the March 15 rally in San Francisco, about 50 MAG members came to play. They were also joined by other music groups. 

“I’ve played at demonstrations with as little as three people,” Turitz said at the demonstration. “It was very hard but we had a good time — the three of us. Generally speaking a functional size is 15. It depends on how people feel about the march. Right now a lot of people are interested in playing.” 

More information about the Musicians Action Group can be found on their web site, http://www.musiciansactiongroup.org/.

“So, let me get this straight,” said my recently-transplanted-from-the-East-Coast friend. “Is everybody in Berkeley a foodie?” 

Well, yeah, pretty much. 

And why not, surrounded as we are with a profusion of truly fabulous foods. From nationally recognized restaurants to locally acclaimed coffee shops, from cheese merchants to pasta purveyors, from the Monterey Market to the Farmers’ Market, there’s a whole lot of good eatin’ out there. And if it is indeed the end of the world as we know it, as the Mayan Calendar, Nostradamus and the Bush Imperium all seem to indicate, so little time in which to eat it.  

So I thought I might take this opportunity to force myself upon some of Berkeley’s most talented chefs and weasel recipes out of them appropriate for the home cook. You, dear reader, can then amass over time a Berkeley Dish Cookbook for free, a useful strategy in a tanking economy! Just another public service brought to you by the Berkeley Daily Planet.  

Tough times require carbohydrates, and plenty of them; hence my decision to inaugurate this column at my favorite bakery, Crixa, with a recipe from its gifted proprietess, Elizabeth Kloian. 

Crixa, with its pale saffron walls and beamed ceiling, provides an oasis of delicious calm on busy Adeline Street, just a stone’s throw from the Berkeley Bowl. 

Elizabeth takes inspiration from the Russian bakeries of her youth, explaining how her sophisticated creations attempt to balance textures and tastes, the sweet with the tart and the sour, providing a rounded-mouth feel. 

“But I think of Crixa as the quintessentially Berkeley bakery,” she adds. “I am influenced by all the different cultures here, and by all the extraordinary ingredients available. I don’t want to be limited in my baking to just the usual suspects.”  

Her display case is filled with wondrous delicacies, like Tiramisu cakes and miniature Boston Cream pies. Seasonal fruits grace flaky tarts and gallettes, while such old-fashioned treats as a Dolly Madison Whim cake are also proffered.  

Nobody does tea better. An interesting selection brewed in individual teapots is served up on small silver platters, a lovely little luxury. Add an almond tea cake or a poppyseed rugelach, and even the most looming anxiety attack can be successfully navigated. You can also choose from an array of coffee and espresso drinks (organic milk only, of course). 

Whether you order a deeply chocolate Soprano cake for a birthday celebration or a homey piece of gingerbread, you’ll definitely experience a spike in your serotonin levels. And speaking of ginger, Elizabeth offered a recipe for soft, spicy ginger cookies that’s both tasty and easy to make.

Budget workshop 

Prior to the regular City Council meeting, the council will hold a budget workshop at 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers to hear presentations from Information Technology Director Chris Mead and Animal Care Services Manager Kate O’Conner about existing services and resources. In November, 2002, Berkeley voters approved a $7.2 million bond to build a new animal shelter. 

Wireless antennae appeal 

The council will consider the appeal of a group of North Berkeley neighbors who are challenging the Zoning Adjustments Board approval of three Sprint wireless communication antennae on the rooftop of a two-story building at the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Cedar Street. 

Neighbors have filed two separate appeals with a total of 19 appeal issues that range from poor public notice to concerns about health consequences from exposure to radiation emitted from the antennas.  

The City Manager has recommended the council deny the appeal and allow the project to proceed. 

Public hearing: 2508-2514-2516 Benvenue and 2500 Benvenue 

The council will continue the public hearing on the ZAB’s approval of the American Baptist Seminary of the West’s request to demolish single-family dwellings at 2514 and 2516 Benvenue Street to allow the construction of a five-story mixed-use building, which will include 23 dwelling units and 22 dormitory-style beds.  

Also at 2508 Benvenue, the ZAB’s approval of the renovation and reconfiguration of an existing building to add six new dwelling units for a total of 21 units.  

Concerning 2500 Benvenue, the hearing will be continued on the ZAB’s approval of the renovation of a 12-unit building including the addition of 12 units for a total of 24 units. 

Razor fences get cut 

The City Council is expected to approve the second reading of a new ordinance that will prohibit the use of sharp edged or otherwise dangerous fences in residential districts.  

The council considered banning razor fences when several residents complained that their neighbors had installed the fences creating a hazard. Some of the neighbors said they had been injured by the sharp edges while gardening on their properties. The new ordinance will go into effect 30 days from the second reading. 

The City Council meets in the City Council Chambers at 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Live broadcasts of the meetings can be heard on KPFB Radio 89.3 and Cable -TV Channel 25 & 78.