With the window of opportunity closing quickly, developer John DeClerq of TransAction Companies and the Downtown Berkeley YMCA are hammering out a deal to salvage 100-public parking spaces and end merchant opposition to Library Gardens—the biggest housing development ever proposed for the city center. -more-

TUESDAY, DEC. 23 -more-

TUESDAY, DEC. 23 -more-

Editors, Daily Planet: -more-

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is the closest thing we have to a modern sacred text, and there’s only a few days left to catch it. Like the older scripture from which it arises, it connects social morality with the transcendent, this life with the promise or warning of what is to come. Its plot—the cynic’s conversion—is the model for every Christmas movie, from It’s A Wonderful Life to A Christmas Story to this year’s Elf. -more-

A trip to an African-American greeting card and calendar design and distribution business in an out-of-the way North Oakland warehouse—tucked back in that little sliver between the Berkeley and Emeryville borders—demonstrated to me once more how small and close-knit the East Bay’s African-American extended family community once was. -more-

GIVING THANKS -more-

As Berkeley High Senior Marco Espinoza finishes off his college applications, he knows his future looks bright. -more-

Following the start of the winter break, many international students and scholars have chosen to stay and welcome in the New Year in Berkeley. -more-

For some, the holiday season means shopping, eating, and relaxing with a cup of warm cocoa, but for others—me included—it means the start of ski season. -more-

Mothers can be difficult. I know. I am one, and have had my share of eyes rolled at me, and sighs of exasperation vented my way. -more-

Every year at Christmastime I think of my friend and neighbor, Mrs. Gerstine Scott. She was born on Christmas day, 1930, in a dirt poor Texas town close to the Louisiana border. In the late 1940s she moved by herself to the Bay Area, raised a son and a pack of foster children, worked for 30 years as a cook and maid at various UC Berkeley fraternity houses, and presided over our North Oakland neighborhood with an iron fist. -more-

Bank Robbery -more-

I dread the holiday season. As a psychotherapist with over 20 years experience in private practice, listening to clients’ sorrows, pain and suffering has been a tolerable part of the holiday blues. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO—It’s Christmastime, and that means nearly 100 relatives and friends of the Shott family are awaiting the arrival my mother’s several-page, handwritten, wisecracking, tree-hugging, unapologetically left-wing Christmas letter. -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This one in a continuing series by UC Berkeley students on the paths of Berkeley. -more-

In rapid-fire, back-to-back actions Thursday afternoon, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he was restoring the lost Vehicle License Fund (VLF) fees to California’s cities and counties, and Berkeley City Council immediately authorized joining a lawsuit in order to make sure the governor keeps his promise. -more-

FRIDAY, DEC. 19 -more-

Elton John wrote a song called Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word, He, of course, was referring to human relationships. The quagmire in the Middle-East, though certainly not romantic in nature, surely could benefit from the application of such a maxim. There is plenty of “sorry” to go around there, and it cannot be confined to the Israelis, despite George Bishrat’s implications to the contrary, in his recent commentary for the Berkeley Daily Planet. -more-

Do you hate wasting the few sunlit hours at this time of year on indoor shopping trips? Berkeley offers great outdoor shopping, and it’s even environmentally friendly. -more-

FRIDAY, DEC. 19 -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District will consider tearing up its former high school tennis courts to put up a better parking lot—and maybe more. -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of two articles on the Mayor’s Task Force on Permitting and Development. This article addresses the final Task Force report. -more-

Our family is big on greens—chard, kale, rapini, greens of all kinds, fresh organic greens that are simmered slowly in a big cast iron skillet with lots of garlic. The basic recipe I learned from my mother, who learned from hers. Neither ever cooked from a book. Over time several cooks in our family have come up with a few special touches for birthdays and holidays. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District has found the legal champion they hope can beat back a lawsuit that threatens to end racial balance in its elementary schools. -more-

CURB CUTS -more-

When Christopher Edley Jr. won the post of dean of Boalt Hall law school last week, those in the know hailed the appointment as a major coup for UC Berkeley. -more-

The neighbors of Berkeley’s “floating cottage” won a significant victory Tuesday night when City Council voted 7-0 to deny owner Christina Sun’s appeal, sending the 3045 Shattuck Ave. project back into the hands of the Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB), and into an uncertain future. -more-

NEW YORK—As the North American Free Trade Agreement commemorates its 10th anniversary this month, the United States, Canada and Mexico are confronting an unexpected challenge: China. -more-

Councilmember Kriss Worthington and former Councilmember Diane Wooley have added their names to the arguments opposing Measure J. The March 2004 referendum, put on the ballot by Berkeley City Council, would add new requirements to running for office in Berkeley if it is passed by Berkeley voters. -more-

The campaign of presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, has not garnered the same high media profile enjoyed by some of his Democratic opponents such as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and retired U.S. general Wesley Clark. ABC News has announced it will stop having producers travel full time with the candidate’s campaign. Kucinich says it is this kind of corporate control of media, industries and government that he will fight against as president. It is stifling free speech, he says. -more-

The woman police say assaulted three shoppers at Mr. Mopps Children’s Books last week and was then yanked from her car by officers and detained face-down on the pavement for approximately 20 minutes will face a judge today (Friday, Dec. 19). -more-

Class acts in American public life are so rare these days, even the term itself has fallen into disuse. It’s noteworthy, therefore, to witness two examples occurring in the same issue, and coming from the same family. -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Rob Wrenn spent some time as a Gonzalez campaign volunteer in the final week of the campaign. He makes no claims to being an impartial observer. -more-

At the north end of Lake Merritt, the fabulous urban lake in the center of Oakland, is the “downtown” of a whole neighborhood. Grand Avenue has morphed from an old-fashioned shopping street, highlighted by the Grand Lake Theater with its colorful neon signs, to a few blocks where nail salons outnumber bookstores by eight-to-one and ethnic restaurants abound, along with a chain supermarket and several savings and loans. -more-

We still call the refrigerator at our house “the icebox,” which confuses the grandchildren. On the door of the icebox we have many things, some very old. We have a magnetic promo for a state senate candidate who was elected, served, and termed out. There’s the driver’s license which one of our daughters got in high school, retrieved from behind the dryer 20 years later. And there’s a collection of fully yellowed bits clipped from papers, including a picture of a youthful, elegant Rosa Parks walking up the stairs of the Montgomery courthouse (not as published at the time—we’re not that old!) A Jon Carroll column tells how the premature death of a friend inspired him to give up his onerous day job and start doing work he enjoyed (I hope he kept a copy in case he needs to think about that now.) And there’s Ellen Goodman’s brilliant Thanksgiving column from November of 1993, containing this telling observation: “For most of the year, it is quite enough to fail to live up to Hillary Clinton. At holidays, we get a second chance to fail to live up to Martha Stewart.” (Writers can add a third chance: to fail to live up to Ellen Goodman.) In her column 10 years ago she summed up the challenge facing contemporary women around the holidays: to do almost everything their mothers did, almost everything their fathers did, and to do it in double-time with a big smile and a well-toned physique. We’ve added another wrinkle since 1993: do it all while maintaining constant communication with everyone who counts by cell phone and e-mail. -more-

We reprinted Professor George Bisharat’s essay (Daily Planet, Dec. 9-11) on Palestinians’ desire to return to the homes they left after 1948 at the request of a Jewish friend, who believed that it was a moving and temperate piece of personal history and opinion. She feared, however, that it would provoke some angry letters from her fellow Jews, and she was right—it did. We’ve reprinted many of them, leaving out a few which were scatological or ungrammatical, and we’ll probably print more. Painful though it is, we believe that letting everyone express their point of view in an open venue is a crucial first step to resolving conflicts. -more-