It’s the biggest mystery swirling through Berkeley City Hall these past few days. What possessed Councilmember Margaret Breland to sack her appointee to the Planning Commission, John Curl, one day before the Wednesday night meeting where Curl appeared set to be elected vice chair of the commission? 

“She was talking to someone who convinced her to make a change,” said Councilmember Linda Maio, who, like many of her colleagues on the City Council, had many questions but no definitive answer for why the progressive councilmember from the flats of Southwest Berkeley would dump a kindred spirit in favor of Tim Perry—a moderate stalwart from the Berkeley Hills. 

The political intrigue could have lasting implications for development in West Berkeley. The West Berkeley Plan is up for review next year, and developers are actively seeking new projects on Ashby Avenue and Gilman Street.  

Curl, a woodworker based in West Berkeley, had fought to preserve the area’s industrial roots. Perry, on the other hand, has promoted new development especially along Gilman Street, where he hopes a new ferry terminal will one day be located.  

Breland, who has historically voted to preserve manufacturing in West Berkeley, refused to return calls to the Daily Planet. 

Maio said that in recent conversations Breland, the West Berkeley councilmember told her that she had made the switch because “there was too much politicking going on in the Planning Commission.” Maio also said that Breland, who remains home recovering from a mild stroke and may not seek reelection in November, had assured her that Perry was a temporary appointment. 

The brewing controversy, however, appears likely to exacerbate the commission divide, which has its own groupings of progressives and moderates independent from the councilmembers who appointed them. The nine-member body is torn between a faction of four progressive commissioners that included Curl. To varying degrees, these progressives want to closely manage development, especially in West Berkeley. On the opposite side is a group of four moderates who actively promote development. The ninth member, Jerome Wiggins, does not fall into either category.  

With Harry Pollack, a moderate, assured the deciding fifth vote from Wiggins for commission chairman, Curl appeared to have the five votes necessary to defeat moderate David Stoloff for vice chair. Stoloff is a Mayor Tom Bates appointee.  

Pollack was elected chair. But with Curl off the commission at Wednesday night’s meeting, his replacement, Perry, cast the deciding fifth vote for Stoloff, who progressives believe had a role in ousting Curl. 

Stoloff told the Planet Thursday that he had campaigned hard for the post, but never wanted Curl replaced. “I asked several people to support my being Vice Chair. I expect at least one person did talk to Margaret, but I can’t say who or what the conversation was about,” Stoloff said. 

“Stoloff has no pull over Margaret,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “That’s why this secret person is such a big question. Was it Patrick Kennedy? Was it Gordon Choyce (Breland’s pastor who reportedly help secure her support for a project for Temple Beth El)? Whoever it is, the person should come forward and confess.” 

Curl suspects the invisible hand belongs to Bates. 

“All I can come up with is that Tom wants his appointee to be vice chair of the Planning Commission and that’s what it’s about,” Curl said.  

That’s a charge the mayor denies. “I was very surprised [Breland] made that change,” he said. Bates added he had never spoken to Perry, who in 2002 supported Bates’ rival, former mayor Shirley Dean, during the hotly-contested mayoral race. 

Curl thought his commitment to West Berkeley also played a factor in his ouster. Asked if Breland had explained her decision to him, he replied, “There was no need to. We both know what this is about. I represent West Berkeley as it is. I think it’s a dynamic place that works. I don’t want to that be swept away by a building boom,” he said. “Margaret is lining herself up with the winning team. Tom’s got a big agenda and he’s pushing it through. He’s very good at getting things done.” 

Last spring, Curl, and Commissioners Gene Poschman and Zelda Bronstein prepared a report on implementation of the 1993 West Berkeley Plan that sought to protect Berkeley’s industrial base from office encroachment. 

Pollack won a 5-4 vote to table discussion of the report. He told the Daily Planet Friday that the report focused too much on office space and didn’t reflect the West Berkeley Plan’s emphasis on providing a balance of uses. 

Stoloff said he expected the commission to revisit the plan this year. The commission might also take up a proposed new Berkeley Bowl store and distribution center on Ashby Avenue. Curl had opposed that project at its presently proposed scale. 

The vice chair position is largely ceremonial, but Stoloff expects to wield some authority. “I hope to be much more active,” he said. “Harry and I will form a team to work with staff and make sure we’re working collaboratively on development issues in an orderly and an expeditious way.” 

He criticized the outgoing leadership of the commission for wasting time fighting with planning staff. “We have a mile long list of zoning amendments that haven’t been acted on,” he said. “[Outgoing Chair] Zelda [Bronstein said it wasn’t proper to meet with staff in private. That makes it hard to get work done.” 

Bronstein, who often clashed with former Planing Director Carol Barrett, said she conferred frequently with her successor, Dan Marks, and challenged Stoloff’s assertion about work not getting done. 

“Let’s talk about who among the planning commissioners really does work on the Planning Commission,” she said. “Certainly John Curl was one of the hardest working commissioners.” 

The ire surrounding the presidency of George W. Bush officially made its way to the Berkeley City Council Tuesday night when the council voted 8-0, Dona Spring abstaining, to support MoveOn.org’s efforts to censure President Bush.  

A competing proposal by the city’s Peace and Justice Commission to request Congressmember Barbara Lee to initiate impeachment actions against the Republican president was put off by the council after reports that Lee did not think impeachment had much chance of getting through Congress. The impeachment postponement vote also passed 8-0, with Spring again abstaining. 

Both measures were based upon criticism of Bush’s conduct in initiating last spring’s Iraqi war. The votes followed a pro-impeachment rally on the steps of Old City Hall prior to the council meeting, with speakers that included anti-war icon Daniel Ellsberg. 

For censure supporters, including Councilmember Kriss Worthington, it was a sweeping victory. 

“The most important message is that George Bush has conducted illegal military acts [and] given inaccurate information,” said Worthington. “To call for a censure is a dramatic step.”  

But the vote left those pushing for impeachment with mixed feelings, some glad the council made the move to take a stance and others disappointed they did not go further.  

Mark MacDonald, the Peace and Justice commissioner who introduced the impeachment resolution, agreed that censure was a move in the right direction but disagreed with the theory—credited to progressive Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich—that a move to impeach Bush would create sympathy for the president and only garner him more support. 

“I don’t buy that,” said MacDonald. “That’s not a good enough reason not to pursue the truth.” MacDonald noted that the cities of Santa Cruz and Arcata have already passed resolutions for impeachment. 

Councilmember Spring was one of several residents who spoke at the pro-impeachment rally. She suggested a friendly amendment to the censure vote that would have added a request for an investigation but not used the word impeachment. 

“I agreed with the community that we needed something stronger than censure,” she said. “But I understand that it is a question of strategy.” 

During the council debate on the impeachment issue, which was often interrupted by impeachment supporters, both Mayor Tom Bates and councilmember Linda Maio cited the fact that congressmember Lee had poured cold water on the impeachment idea during a late January meeting with Berkeley activists.  

“Everyone wants to get rid of [Bush],” Maio said. She added, however, that “I have to defer to [Congressmember Lee].” 

Jeffrey Thomas, Lee’s district director, said in a telephone interview that “there’s no Congressmember who is more interested in getting George Bush out of office than Congressmember Lee.” After speaking over the prospects of impeachment with John Conyers (D-Michigan), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, however, Thomas said that Lee was “not enthusiastic about the prospect of getting enough votes for impeachment in a Republican Congress. The votes are simply not there.” 

Commissioner MacDonald said he realized Representative Lee needed more of a groundswell to introduce the request for an impeachment investigation. 

“She doesn’t want to stick her head into the guillotine,” he said, 

Nonetheless, he said, he still thinks the move to impeach will aid and not hinder the move to oust Bush. 

“Impeachment is a good election issue. Even if you don’t win, you bring the spotlight in Bush’s crimes,” he said.

The project director of the proposed Berkeley UC hotel and conference complex stated this week for the first time, at least publicly, that the massive downtown development project will have to come under the city’s zoning ordinances and permit process. UC Senior Planner Kevin Hufferd told a Tuesday afternoon meeting of the Planning Commission’s UC Hotel Complex Task Force, however, that the hotel would probably exceed the city’s downtown height restrictions, leaving the distinct impression that it is the zoning ordinance itself which will have to give if the project is to go through. 

At the same meeting, Hufferd announced that the university had selected a developer for the $150 million to $200 million, 200-room project slated for the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street: Cambridge, Massachussetts-based Carpenter & Co. 

In a press statement released the day of the task force meeting, Mayor Tom Bates said Carpenter & Co. has “pledged to work closely with the Berkeley community and has agreed, along with the university, that the hotel project will fall under the city’s land use jurisdiction. This was an important change as the university had previously asserted that, as a university-related facility, the project would be exempt from the city’s land use laws.”  

The sudden switch on the university’s zoning stand was in line with a controversial private memo, written by Deputy City Attorney Zach Cowan to Mayor Tom Bates last November, in which Cowan outlined a procedure to bring the project through Berkeley’s zoning procedure in order to “bulletproof” any possible zoning amendments to accommodate the UC hotel development. The memo was leaked to the Daily Planet and published last month. 

Carpenter & Co. was picked by UC to develop the project over three other finalists: Champion Partners, Lowe Enterprises, and Faulkner USA/Hilton Hotels. The winning developer signed a six-month agreement to perform a feasibility study on the project, estimated to cost between $150 million and $200 million. A decision on going forward with the project itself will not be made by the university and the developer until after the feasibility study is completed. 

Carpenter and Company is best known for building the Charles Hotel, next to Harvard University, and is currently developing the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco that will include condominiums and the African American Diaspora Museum. 

In addressing a planning commission subcommittee on the hotel project Tuesday, UC Senior Planner Kevin Hufferd touted the company’s track record in cooperating with activist communities and developing multi-purpose projects.  

Carpenter & Co. President and CEO Richard Friedman told to the subcommittee that he had no delusions of a simple planning process. “We’re used to dealing in high energy communities such as this,” he said. “Maybe we’ll regret it, but we’ll take a shot at it.”  

Though originally planned as a UC development, Hufferd said Tuesday that the university hoped that Carpenter & Co. would ultimately buy the plot from Bank of America, making the hotel a purely private venture. 

Friedman said his first call of action would be to hire an architect and urban design firm to work with the city and university on designing the development. He said he has already signed on Interstate Hotels, an independent chain, to run the future complex. 

The current concept calls for putting the hotel and conference center at the Bank of America site and, in a second stage, locating the museums at the landmarked UC Print Press at Oxford and Center streets and the University Hall Parking Structure at Oxford and Addison streets. 

Friedman said he envisioned the development also having some housing, parking and restaurants, and that he remained open to other concepts, including shuffling around the buildings. The eventual designer, Friedman said, could be selected by a competition or by a financier. 

“We come to the project without any preconditions. We’re completely clean slate,” he said. 

Mayor Tom Bates lauded the university’s decision to pick Friedman’s company from a pool of eight applicants. “We’re fortunate to get a team like this,” Bates said. “We’re a challenging community and I’m sure [Friedman] will work with us. 

City officials estimate the proposed complex, announced last November, could raise upwards of $1 million in tax revenue annually for Berkeley, which in recent years has lost hotel guests to a slew of new hotels in Emeryville.

Wednesday morning’s walkout at El Cerrito High School was one protest that left Principal Vince Rhea smiling. 

Not that he necessarily wanted 300 or so students marching off campus and through the nearby residential streets. “Any time there’s a walkout, we’re very concerned, and we want to make sure they’re not destroying property,” Rhea said. 

But the principal said he did approve of the students’ motive, which was to rally community support to save endangered programs at the school. 

A $16.5 million budget deficit announced Monday night has left Western Contra Costa County high schools in turmoil. After school officials proposed eliminating athletic programs and school libraries as well as ending school counseling, students held walkouts at several district schools this week. 

The El Cerrito Police Department was clearly worried about Wednesday’s El Cerrito High walkout. “I’ve never seen so many cop cars,” one teacher was overheard saying to another. “All their black-and-whites and the undercover cars, too.” 

But the students gave police no reason for concern. After the march they filed quietly back onto campus, where many headed to the football field. There they waited patiently while Rhea and his staff got things ready for an open mic session where students could share gripes. 

“Throughout the week, we’re going to be having a series of forums so students can vent their frustrations,” Rhea explained beforehand. 

About a hundred students gathered for the stadium meeting, which Rhea began with a plea. “I know you’re worried about the cuts, but we lose money every period you’re not in classes,” he said. “I want you to know I’m not going to let this high school close down.” 

The cowboy books and Western style belt and buckle that stood out from his otherwise business-like garb prompted a reporter to ask Rhea where he hailed from. “Berkeley,” he said. “My dad was a pediatrician.” 

But the principal’s style was pure Wall Street compared to the look affected by Corey Mason, the Spanish teacher and radio producer Rhea calls “my right-hand man.” 

While the principal sports a neat short and very Western mustache, Mason wears two braids—the first descending from the top of his head and well down his back and the second from the underside of an otherwise clean-shaven chin.  

Applause and cheers greeted Mason when he rose to take the mic. 

“I learned about walkouts 15 years ago,” he said. “We need to invite the people of El Cerrito and the businesses to help us.” Mason told the students that both the administration and the police “were very supportive.” 

A succession of students and one parent stepped up to the microphone to air their grievances. 

“They’re cutting football here,” a student athlete said. “My cousin’s coming here starting next year, and football’s his ticket to college, like it is for a lot of people I know.” 

Another student added that he knew “a number of people have been looking to come here and play. Now they’re gonna be disappointed. I heard about a few of them who say they’re going to Oakland.” 

Dominique Brown, a senior and a cheerleader, declared, “They say they’re concerned about our diet, and they’ve changed some of the food, but now they’re gonna cut sports? Grades are going to go down too,” she complained, “because a lot of students keep their grades up so they can stay in sports.” 

Loss of the library and counselors drew more expressions of concern than the possible loss of the athletic programs. “With the counselors gone, who’s going to help us apply for college?” asked a second cheerleader. “All seniors need them.” 

A volleyball player urged her fellow students to “tell your parents and all your friends to write letters. To the governor, to the legislature, to everyone. That’s the only thing that’ll work.” 

Jan, a senior, said “It deeply saddens me that we live in a society where people don’t care about their children anymore, about their education.” She pointed to the failure earlier this month of ballot Measure J, which would have increased school funding for the West Contra Costa district. 

“How did we get to the point where we’re losing athletics and music?” demanded the only parent at the gathering. “That’s the way out for a lot of our students.” 

“Without our counselors, who’s gonna help us with our college applications next year,” worried one junior. “We only have two now. But to have none? That’s gonna jeopardize everything. And what’re we gonna do without the library? Not everyone here comes from a home where they can afford a computer, so they write their papers on the ones in the library. If there’s no library, the district is basically robbing us of our education. Our future is in crisis. If these budget cuts take away our future, we’re dirt. If they care about us, they wouldn’t do this. I’m really concerned about not getting into college.” 

Photography teacher Jeremiah Holland praised the students (“You guys are great. You deserve the best.”) and offered practical advice for future demonstrations. “You need signs. You need posters. You need sticks to carry them. You need talking points.” 

Another teacher present was Philip Morgan, who runs the district’s highly popular and nationally known KECG radio station, which teaches students the basics of broadcasting—another program up for the chop. “We’re on the list,” said Morgan. “But we’re working on it.” 

Principal Rhea told students he was actively exploring corporate sponsorship for the sports teams. “There are a number of corporations interested in underwriting athletics in the East Bay. We’re looking at SBC and the Oakland A’s.” He also promised to personally relay the students’ concerns to Superintendent of Schools Gloria Johnson and other district officials.›

FRIDAY, MARCH 12 

Berkeley Schools Now Celebration with Assemblymember Loni Hancock, BHS Principal Jim Slemp, and Rosa Parks Principal Shirley Herrera at 3:30 p.m. at Rosa Parks School Library.  

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Izaly Cemtsov- 

ski, Prof. Slavic Studies, UCB, “Today’s Music in Central Asia.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925. 

Free Speech Movement Retrospective with Michael Rossman and Lynne Hollander Savio at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 528-5403. 

Literary Friends meets at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to discuss Jane Austen. 232-1351. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART at 5:30 p.m. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 548-6310. 

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. 655-6169.  

Overeaters Anonymous meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 13 

National Nutrition Month celebration with cooking demonstrations, taste testing and nutrition education from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Flea Market, Ashby BART Station. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org  

Mini-Gardeners: Seeds Learn the plant cycle and see where seeds come from, for ages 4-6 accompanied by an adult, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $3, $4 non-resident. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Good Night Little Farm Rain or shine the animals need to be fed and put away for the night. Join us from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Little Farm. Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Compost Give-Away as part of the National Nutrition month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Seed Saving Workshop We’ll cover seed saving in detail, including botany and pollination, types of seeds, wet and dry seed processing methods, equipment, and seed storage. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $15 general, $10 EC members. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

School Garden Conference on starting or enhancing gardens in Bay Area Schools. Workshops will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will begin at the Lawrence Hall of Science and move to the UC Botanical Garden. Cost is $10. 495-2801. 

Alternative Materials: Cob and Strawbale A workshop on two natural building methods. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610.  

Hands-on Ecological Restoration for Youth Enjoy a fun-filled, muscle building day working on a native plant restoration project at Shoreline Park in Oakland from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Participants should be 12 to 16 years old. Gloves, tools and snacks provided. Cost is $10. 238-3818.  

Stream Restoration Workshop taught by Ann Riley, author of “Restoring Streams in Cities,” from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Urban Creeks Council, 1250 Addison St., #107-C. www.urbancreeks.org 

Help Build a Native Plant Nursery and Restore a Marsh Join the effort to restore West Stege Marsh, along the south Bayshore of Richmond, for the endangered Clapper Rail and other wildlife. From 9 a.m. Pre-registration preferred. 231-5783. martha@aoinstitute.org 

Introduction to Renewable Energy This workshop will introduce solar, wind and micro-hydro systems to homeowners who want to become their own utility companies by generating electricity with renewable energy technologies. At the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 970-963-8855. www.solarenergy.org 

Spring Care and Feeding of Roses with Deb McKay at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

78th Annual Poets’ Dinner at 11:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn in Emeryville, with guest speaker Richard Silberg. Tickets are $22, available from 841-1217. 

Story Dressmaking Workshop with artist Patricia Bulitt, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Live Oak Center, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Commemorate a woman or girl who influences your life with collaging onto a brown paper cut out dress. Bring art supplies such as paint, glue, stapler, scissors. Photos, buttons, ribbons, whatever you bring to remember her. Suggested for 8 years and older. Cost is $25-$50 at the door, no one turned away for lack of funds. 841-6612.  

South Berkeley Annual Crab Festival from 5 to 7 p.m. at the South Berkeley Community Church at 1804 Fairview St. at Ellis. Music will be provided by the Stacy Wilson Trio. Tickets are $35.00 for adults and $17.50 for children. 652-1040. www.sbccucc.org 

“Honoring Transition Beyond Identity” a workshop on gender and identity awareness from noon to 5 p.m. at Toltec Center of Creative Intent, 2300 Roosevelt at Bancroft. Cost is $55-$85, sliding scale. To register call 649-0352, ext. 4. 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., from 10 to 11 a.m. 848-7800. 

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 14 

Green Sunday The Green Party and the 2004 Presidential Race, panel discussion at 5 p.m. at the Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland.  

Butterfly Club for ages 8 and up. Learn about these colorful insects, growing native plants and habitat restoration. From 1 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Singing in the Rain Join us on a hike from 1 to 3 p.m. and learn how to identify slender salamanders, singing tree frogs and the California newt. Dress for mud and rain. At Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

“The Fourth World War” with Stephen Funk, imprisoned for refusing to fight in the Iraq War at 3 p.m. at Fellowship of Humanity Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. 644-6466. 

“From Risk to Action: Women and HIV/AIDS in Ethopia” a film presentation and discussion at 3 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Sponsored by Priority Africa Network, Citizens League of Ethiopian Americans and Concentric Media. 650-568-4340. 

Workshop on Creating Character for the whole family from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater, 2071 Addison St. Admission is free, please bring a children’s book as a donation to the John Muir School Library. 647-2972.  

Storytelling Women Performance at 3 p.m. at Live Oak Center, Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck Ave, at Berryman. Cost is $15-$35, no one turned away. 841-6612.  

Beth El Diversity A panel discussion with Gary and Diane Tobin from 2 to 4 p.m. at Beth El, 2301 Vine St. 848-3988. 

Summer Camp Fair from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Temple, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Learn about summer camp options for you and your children. Sponsored by the American Association of University Women. For a free directory of camps call 800-362-2236.  

Tibetan Buddhism, with Erika Rosenberg on “Emotions in Mind” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MARCH 15 

Tea at Four Enjoy some of the best teas from the other side of the Pacific Rim then take a walk to see wintering birds and dormant ladybeetles, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. Cost is $5 for residents, $7 for non-residents. Wheelchair accessible. 525-2233. 

Waves, Wetlands, and Watersheds Educator Workshop Held in Berkeley from 3:45 to 5:45 p.m. 415-597-5888. www.coastforyou.org/  

Kerry-oke! for John Kerry for President Sing your own or traditional lyrics to popular songs that are pro-Kerry, pro-America at the Hotel Shattuck Lounge, 2086 Allston Way from 7 to 10 p.m. A $50 contribution for John Kerry’s campaign is requested. To RSVP call 504-7152. 

Classroom Matters Fundraiser for middle school tutoring scholarships at 6:30 p.m. at Downtown Restaurant, 2102 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $75 available from 540-8646. 

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthening at 1:15 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, MARCH 16 

Tuesday Morning Birdwalk at Tilden Nature Center to see recent spring arrivals, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Call if you need binoculars. 525-2233. 

Tilden Tots, a nature adventure program for 3-4 year olds accompanied by an adult. This month we will learn about reccoons. Cost is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Garden Club presents “Let's Talk Dirt” by Buzz Berto- 

lero, E.V.P. of Navlet’s Garden Centers at 1 p.m. at Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. Guests are welcome. 524-4374. 

National Nutrition Month “Eat in Season” from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Derby St. at MLK. Cooking demonstrations, recipes and nutrition education. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Friends of Strawberry Creek meets at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library 3rd floor Meeting Room, 2090 Kittredge St. Senior Environmental Scientist at UCB, Karl E. Hans will present the 18 year history of the Strawberry Creek Restoration Program. For more info, contact jennifermaryphd@hotmail.com 

“How Can Progressives Unite to Defeat Bush?” A roundtable discussion at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 27th and Harrison, Oakland. www.democraticrenewal.us 

“The Media at War: The US Invasion and Occupation of Iraq” A three-day conference with participants from The New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, Al Jazeera, NPR, CNN and many others. Sponsored by UC Berkeley Grad. School of Journalism. Details of the events can be found at http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ 

conf/mediaatwar/index.html 

“Mountain Bike Basics” with expert James Lanham at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

American Red Cross Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed 594-5165. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 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. 845-6830. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672.  

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17 

Tilden Tots, a nature adventure program for 3-4 year olds accompanied by an adult. This month we will learn about reccoons. Cost is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Great Decisions 2004: “Latin America Overview” with Prof. Peter H. Smith, Visiting Scholar, UCB, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

Berkeley Schools Excellence Project Community Forum to discuss the option of reauthorizing the special tax measure for the November ballot, at 7 p.m. in the new library at Berkeley High. 644-8717, 644-6320. 

West Street Community Forum The third and final meeting on the former Santa Fe Railroad Right of Way Improvement Project for Bikeway and Pedestrian Path that will run from Delaware St. to University Ave., at 7 p.m. at Ala Costa Center, 1300 Rose St. For information call Niran at 981-6396 or Michael at 981-2490. 

Gray Panthers at Night Prepare for the March 20th action in San Francisco. Light supper served. At 7 p.m. at 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

Report Back from the World Social Forum in Mumbai Proceeds benefit the National Radio Project. At 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10, sliding scale. 251-1332 ext. 106. 

Fun with Acting Class every Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome, no experience necessary.  

“Building a Social Network in Ecuador in the Era of Globalization,” with Alfredo Palacio Gonzales, Vice President of Ecuador, who will discuss his work with indegenous communites at 7 p.m. in the Auditorium, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Ecuador, and the World Affairs Council. 642-2088. 

San Francisco Flower and Garden show opens today at the Cow Palace and runs through March 20 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sun. March 21 to 6:30 p.m. Single day tickets are $20. www.gardenshow.com 

“Images of Christ in the Early Church” with Maureen O’Brien, at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Parish, 2220 Cedar St. 848-1755. 

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets at 7 p.m. in 255 Dwinelle, UC Campus. www.berkeleystopthewar.org  

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. For information call Robert Flammia 524-3765. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MARCH 18 

The New Kingdoms of Life Alan Kaplan, naturalist at Tilden Park, discusses how the study of DNA has changed many assumptions about plant and animal classification, at 12:45 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of CA, 1000 Oak St., at 10th St., Oakland. 238-2200.  

“The Solar Cat,” with author Jim Augustyn, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Biotic Baking Brigade Book Launch Party with Agent Apple at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

LeConte Neighborhood Association monthly meeting at the LeConte School, 2241 Russell, at 7:30 p.m. Agenda includes traffic circles, bus rapid transit, neighborhood organizing. For information, please contact KarlReeh@aol.com 

“A Human Rights Policy for a Democratic Mexico” with Mariclaire Acosta, the former subsecretary for Human Rights and Democracy in the Secretariat of Foreign Relations Office in Mexico at 4 p.m., Women’s Faculty Club, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Simplicity Forum Laura Hendry, professional organizer, will speak about the ramifications of clutter at 7 p.m. at the Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 549-3509. www.simpleliving.net 

Nutrition Awareness at 1 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

ONGOING 

Family Activist Resource Center where parents and caregivers can come with their children and do their political work while their children are cared for in a creative, respectful and nurturing manner. For information on the next meeting, 841-3204. 

“Freedom from Smoking” a free six-week smoking cessation program offered Mondays from March 29 for May 3, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Tobacco Prevention Program. To register call 981-5330 or email QuitNow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Find a Loving Animal Companion at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Adoption Center, open 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Tues. - Sun. 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Medical Care for Your Pet at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society low-cost veterinary clinic. 2700 Ninth St. For appointments call 845-3633. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Spring Bulb Bonanza at the Botanical Garden, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., March 15 - April 15, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

Free Income Tax Help is available on Tuesday mornings between 10 a.m. and 12 noon at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Ozzie Olson, AARP trained tax preparer is available by appointment. 845-6830.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Mar. 15, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon. Mar. 15 at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

City Council meets Tues., Mar. 16, at 7 p.m. with a Special Meeting at 5 p.m., in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., Mar. 16, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. ww.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/housingauthority 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Mar. 17, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/humane 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., Mar. 17, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Lisa Ploss, 981-5200. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/aging 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed., Mar. 17 at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/welfare 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs. Mar. 18, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Anne Burns, 981-7415. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/designreview  

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 18, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Prasanna Rasaih, 981-6950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/faircampaign 

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 18, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Peter Hillier, 981-7000. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/transportationˇ

After months of painful debate among parents about letting their young children vote on an issue heavy with racial overtones, students at Jefferson Elementary School will have final say on a controversial petition drive to change the school’s name. But they will participate only from the confines of their homes. 

With Superintendent Michele Lawrence in attendance, the Jefferson PTA Tuesday averted a showdown at the Board of Education by permitting students to sign a community-driven petition to rename the school so that it doesn’t bear the mark of a slave holder. 

As required under district policy, the compromise gives a voice to students, even those too young to read the petition. However it takes the student portion of the participation outside of the walls of the school itself, where several parents feared that teachers or fellow students could manipulate the process. 

“I’m not comfortable with kids voting here,” said Chris Hudson, a parent who offered the compromise. He said the issue had been more divisive than he expected and that he would feel better “if the petition came home and we’d have a chance to discuss it.” 

In accordance with district rules that require support from 20 percent of parents, staff and students in order to consider changing a school name, opponents of Jefferson last spring collected signatures from 40 percent of parents and 32 percent of staff. However their drive stalled on the issue of taking the petition to students.  

Many parents argued that the petition—which holds that as a slaveholder, Jefferson was unfit to be honored by the school—presented issues too complex for young children to grasp fully, and which could potentially lead to strife in classrooms. 

Although several parents Tuesday held firm to their contention that seeking student approval for the petition was “nonsensical,” nearly all agreed it was preferable to prolonging the dispute that has virtually paralyzed the PTA. 

The nearly unanimous vote to include students came in stark contrast to the February PTA meeting in which parents voted overwhelmingly to petition the school board for a waiver exempting the school from following the district policy. The PTA later backed off that vote at the behest of Superintendent Lawrence, who opposed a waiver. She said other schools, including Rosa Parks Elementary, had followed the name change procedures, and warned that a decision by the board probably wouldn’t come until May.  

“I’m glad the process is moving forward,” said Derrick Miller, a parent who has questioned the name change. 

Had the dispute not been resolved this school year, the names of parents whose children graduate in June would have been disqualified, potentially causing the process to start from scratch. 

With the agreement now in place, Principal Betty Delaney will send the petition to students’ homes along with a letter to parents explaining its significance. Teachers will devise lessons on Jefferson in the weeks leading up to the mailing, she said. 

If 20 percent of students return a signed petition, as expected, a committee consisting of parents and staff will devise a process for selecting alternative names.  

Delaney said the committee would eventually select one or two names to compete with Jefferson in a final vote. The name that wins the votes of more than 50 percent of parents, staff and students will be submitted to the school board for official approval. 

Parents on both sides of the debate had reservations about the compromise, but expressed relief the dispute over the student vote was behind them. 

Kevin Adkinson said he would have liked to see the vote and debate more “out in the open.” Bernhard Leidewigt agreed that the dispute made for a good learning opportunity, but maintained that the decision should be left to parents and staff. “It’s appropriate for students to be involved in the discussion,” he said. “What’s not appropriate is for students to make judgments based on historical knowledge they don’t have.” 

›

The Board of Education voted Wednesday night to approve the latest incarnation of the Identity and Ethnic Studies (IES) program, Berkeley High’s most maligned class. The move came despite a call for ending IES from the student senate, which claimed it exacerbates racial tension on campus and costs students valuable electives. 

By a 4-2 margin, the board backed a new curriculum for IES—a full-year course mandated for all ninth-graders that combines health and ethnic studies. First year Principal Jim Slemp said that proposed reforms would answer critics who have charged for years the class was academic fluff that only satisfied the district’s penchant for political correctness. 

The vote was one of several Wednesday that will have lasting impacts on the high school. The board also approved a second small school to begin next fall and voiced support for a new attendance policy linking attendance to grades. Attendance and ninth-grade curriculum have long been Achilles heels for the school. In 2001, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, as part of the school’s accreditation process, listed both of them among Berkeley High’s top five problems. 

Boardmembers made clear that when it came to reforming IES, their support was more an act of faith in Slemp than a vote of confidence in the class. 

“There have been so many revamped versions of this class. It’s really hard for me to have any faith this will be better,” said Director Nancy Riddle. 

Student criticism of the class was more pointed.  

Student Director Bradley Johnson lodged a familiar charge, that instead of acclimating students to a diverse school, the class actually stokes racial tensions. He read an excerpt from a recommended text, “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, aimed at white students who McIntosh believes are the beneficiaries of white skin privilege: “My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor.” 

“This is completely inappropriate in teaching students,” Johnson charged. “We need to make sure this type of indoctrination doesn’t happen. I’ve talked to students who have contemplated violent actions because of what’s discussed in the class.” 

Though IES has many critics, scheduling difficulties make it tough to dump. In 2000, the board voted to align social science classes with state standards and testing schedules. That meant pushing back World History to 10th grade, American History to 11th grade and Economics and Government to 12th grade, leaving a gaping hole for freshman and little opportunity for seniors to take social science electives. 

To fill the gap for freshman, the board combined a state-required semester of Health and board-required semester of Ethnic Studies into one full-year class, thus creating IES.  

Next year will be the first that the policy is fully implemented. Now with four mandated social science classes but no money to hire more teachers, the cash-strapped district must cut an estimated 23 elective classes, leaving students furious. Last week the student senate issued a counter proposal that would eliminate IES and restore the former order of social science classes, freeing up the senior year for electives. 

Slemp, however, said he favored keeping social science classes aligned to state standards and that a revised curriculum for IES could have merit. “Freshmen need a core academic piece and issues of identity and culture make a lot sense,” he said. 

Slemp’s plan couples IES with an English class, to be known jointly as Freshman Seminar, which he hopes will win UC accreditation. He calls for a more rigorous curriculum including an honors section, summer staff development time to train new teachers, and an independent review at the end of next school year. 

The board also backed Slemp’s attendance reform, which has raised student ire as well. 

After student absences last year cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding, starting in September the district will lower the grades of chronically truant students. Under the new school procedure, five unexcused absences from a class during the 45-day report card period equals one full letter grade drop, with the provision that the lowest a student’s grade can be dropped due to attendance is D-minus. Excessive tardies will also result in grade drops. Appeals to grade drops will be allowed. 

To make sure that parents are given fair warning of their children’s transgressions, the school is organizing community volunteers to contact the parents of truant students. Currently, the district uses an automatic dialer, but Slemp acknowledged that students often pick up the phone or erase messages so parents are never alerted. 

Peter True, editor of the Berkeley Jacket, doubted the plan could solve the schools attendance woes. “Students are aware of the policy. They’ll just write down notes to get absences excused,” he said. “We don’t have signature experts.” 

In a less controversial decision, the board bestowed small school status on The Community Partnership program, formerly known as the Computer Academy. Community Partnership is the second program within Berkeley High to attain “small school” status, following Communications Arts and Sciences, which won board approval last year.  

By fall 2005, the school plans to split into one medium-sized school and five small schools, each of the small schools serving between 250 and 400 students. Other small schools are being planned that will focus on Visual and Performing Arts, Social Justice and Ecology and International Studies. 

›

A proposal that could change the way Berkeley calculates how much can be built in a single development—and aimed at cutting down the size of future projects—was passed unanimously by the City Council Tuesday night. 

The proposal to adopt a new city methodology for calculating development densities, brought by Councilmember Dona Spring, now goes to the city manager’s staff for review. Staff is expected to report back to the council with possible changes within a month. 

Spring used a power point presentation on the University Avenue area to show how the calculations for density are resulting in three to four times the amount of density called for in the city’s General Plan. 

“If these [current] calculations are allowed to stand, the residential development potential on University Avenue from [Martin Luther King Jr. Way] to Sacramento will be nearly ‘used up’ by three developers,” she said during her presentation. The current process will leave Berkeley “stuck with a few massive projects and a lot of unimproved buildings and sites.” 

In a follow-up interview, Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that the current density interpretation “benefits rich developers who want to build big developments by building the minimal number of affordable units.” 

Councilmember Linda Maio said that the calculations for density on University Avenue use the entire space from Sacramento Avenue to MLK instead of individual plots or acres. When the figures for density are calculated using such a large area, she said, the threshold for density is very large, resulting in the buildings being approved at a maximum density. If the same buildings then get a 25 percent affordable housing density bonus, Maio said, the result is “big, bulky buildings.” 

According to Maio, Spring’s proposed changes would reduce the area which the city uses to calculate the density allowed in any individual development. A smaller calculation area means smaller individual projects. Maio said she hoped the changes proposed by Spring would “create an accurate balance.” 

In other matters: 

City Health Officer Poki Namkung reported on the health risk associated with cell phones and cell phone base station antennas. The report was a follow-up to the contentious debate over the Sprint cellphone antennae facility at 1600 Shattuck Ave., approved by the City Council last month. According to Namkung, the radio frequencies that cell phones and base stations emit are non-ionizing radiation, energy too low to break chemical bonds and damage the genetic material of cells. The base stations, said Namkung, would be dangerous only if a person stood directly in front of one. Because cell phones are used in close proximity, they present more of a health hazard than the towers, she added.  

After the presentation, Councilmember Worthington asked Mayor Tom Bates to help the city look for the information written by scientists who disagreed with Namkung’s conclusions. 

The City Council also rejected, unanimously, a Citizens Humane Commissions proposal to change the way funding is allocated for community groups working in conjunction with the city’s animal shelter. The proposal had been made on behalf of community groups facing cuts in city grants.  

In rejecting the request to separate the community groups’ funding from the city shelters, however, several of the councilmembers promised to find a way to ensure the groups’ funding.›

Oakland school district officials announced today that they won’t be sending layoff notices to tenured teachers this year. Last year the school district sent layoff notices to 1,160 teachers only to find itself seeking in the summer and fall to rehire them or find replacements. 

State Administrator Randolph Ward said at a news conference at district headquarters that no tenured teachers will be laid off this year. Instead, he said the district estimates it will be recruiting as many as 200 teachers for the new school year next fall. 

Sheila Quintana, president of the union that represents 3,500 teachers, joined Ward at the news conference and said “this is phenomenal news.’’ She said the lay off notices the teachers received last year were devastating.  

“We’ll never be able to assess the terrible effects that had on teacher morale,’’ Quintana said. 

—Bay City News›

Robbery Victim Shot 

A person was shot Wednesday night during a robbery at the intersection of Dohr and Ward streets. Police spokesperson Kevin Schofield said the victim was shot in the shoulder and was taken to Highland Hospital, but the injuries were not considered serious. The victim was mugged and physically attacked at 9:21 p.m. by two men, both with handguns, Schofield said. After the victim lost his money, he got into a physical confrontation with the assailants, one of whom then shot him. The two robbers fled the scene and remain at large, Schofield said. 

Motorists Robbed 

Two men, one armed with a knife, stole a wallet Tuesday night from two victims who had stopped in a car at Ninth and Pardee streets, Schofield said. 

Downtown Beatdown 

On Saturday afternoon, approximately 10 teenagers jumped a man at Center and Milvia streets, Schofield said. The youth did not rob the victim, who did not suffer serious injuries in the attack.Ã

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Once touted as the centerpiece of the Silicon Valley dream, San Jose now seems to be collapsing from the inside. In the past few weeks: A father was mistakenly killed downtown by a state drug agent, a Sikh man killed three other Sikhs in a park, longtime Bay Area families were threatened with deportation, and growing reports of abuse came out of our Santa Clara Juvenile Hall.  

I just heard that a man, an ex-DJ and drug counselor, was killed downtown by police last night, within a block of where I am writing this. The police say the man committed “suicide by cop.”  

Perhaps no other tragedy speaks to the chaos more than the killings of Hari Singh, 65, Satnam Singh, 70, and Kulwant Singh, 45, who were shot to death while playing cards at Overfelt Gardens in east San Jose in late February. Had it been a hate crime, we would have had some framework to understand the tragedy and target our outrage. But when the shooter is also Sikh, who can we march against?  

Still, despite the confusion, and amid the silence of local city officials, young grassroots leaders are emerging to lead the city out of this morass. Emerging from their jobs selling phones at the mall, or from studying for their next big final, the victims of the chaos have turned into overnight community organizers. While most of us have been keeping our heads down, bracing for more budgets cuts and continuing unemployment, they have fueled movements here that no one saw coming, but we all knew we needed.  

A Daughter’s Tale: Regina Cardenas  

The last time I saw Regina, at her father’s vigil, she was a mixture of shock, loss and fury. Rudy Cardenas, a father of five, was shot downtown by a state drug agent who mistook him for someone they had been staking out. The agents chased Rudy and shot him in a back alley.  

It was just two days after her father’s death, and Regina already sounded part media spokeswoman, part grieving daughter. “I had never been to any rallies or vigils or anything before this, but I need to start,” she said softly with a slight smile, before walking away to console another relative.  

Like many 25-year-olds, Regina’s life was in transition. She was in the middle of moving in with a girlfriend in mid-town San Jose, and had recently picked up a new job as a materials coordinator at a Milpitas medical company. But her life since her father’s death has been about arranging and attending meetings. She meets with lawyers about lawsuits, community organizations about rallies, funeral homes about costs.  

Several days after the vigil, Regina is speaking with me by cell phone minutes before a strategy meeting. She has hooked up with a neighborhood association to organize a march to the federal building. “We just can’t let the awareness die, we need to be constantly in the media for the community to be energized.” Regina hasn’t taken a break raising awareness or organizing since the shooting.  

“I feel like I have to be strong for the family. Of course I have breakdowns, but I don’t do it in front of others.” When I ask her how she does it, she says she gets help from friends and family, but her strength surprises even her.  

She’s getting a call on the other line and has to go; it’s about the upcoming meeting. As I stumble through another offer of condolence, she interrupts me to make a pitch for my attendance at an upcoming meeting she has organized, on how to hold law agents more accountable. “Bring anybody, it doesn’t even have to be people who know about my father’s case, but just people for the cause. We want to have a big turnout.”  

With family members, Regina organized a vigil with over 150 people, only a week after the first. In the corner, wearing a baseball cap pulled low, Regina raised money for funeral expenses by selling cookies, and shirts with Rudy Cardenas’s image and the words, “In Loving Memory.”  

Weapon of Mass Mobilization: Dale Cuevas  

Last December, after Dale took his last final at De Anza Community College, his mother showed him a letter from the Homeland Security’s Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. It told his family they had 70 days to voluntarily deport themselves to the Philippines. The U.S. government had rejected his family’s appeal for green cards.  

“Since that moment it’s been like a dream I can’t wake up from,” says Dale. The voluntary departure day has come and gone. But Dale says he’s too busy saving his family to be deported.  

Dale, 23, has lived in Fremont for 19 years, since his parents and two sisters fled political turmoil in the Southern Philippines. He’s about as Bay Area as you can get—he’s slightly hip-hop, knows more Spanglish than Tagalog and makes car payments. He studies business management at San Jose State and is a cell phone salesman.  

When I first met Dale at a community forum in a coffee shop in Union City, he was already comfortable with a microphone in his hand. “Our family’s coming forward may inspire other families to stand up too,” he tells a packed audience of media and immigrant rights organizations. The professional advocates at his side are left with nothing to say; the young man on whose behalf they were to speak is doing just fine himself. Dale lays out plans to put pressure on Sen. Dianne Feinstein to sponsor bill to allow his family to stay, then vanishes into his sea of friends. They look like young Filipinos you usually see at a break-dancing competition, a buzzing of Obey T-shirts and Van Dutch trucker hats. These are the foot soldiers in Dale’s immigrant rights movement.  

From the start, Dale has been placing his family story in local and national publications, making the press calls himself. “I saw how the lawyer’s public relations guy did it with the San Francisco Chronicle, then started calling every media outlet I could think of.” Dale has, in a way, already been trained in community organizing. “I am able to speak comfortably with people because of my sales background.” He explains to me that there are two types of salesmen: the “bait-and-switch kind,” who say they are going to give you something and then don’t, and “the ones with integrity.” Dale says he’s been “telling it like it is,” speaking on the glaring contradictions of Homeland Security policies that are threatening to deport hard-working families, to whomever will listen. “I mean, come on, my family is not making weapons of mass destruction,” he says.  

The possibility of being deported has brought Dale closer to his Filipino identity. “I always had all kinds of friends, and never really saw the point of getting together with the Filipino organizations.” But in the past two months, Dale Cuevas arguably has done more to spotlight the plight of Filipino immigrants than any other voice in recent history.  

Outside Agitator: Fernando Campos  

At 18, Fernando Campos looks at least 20 years younger than everyone else sitting at the meeting of Civil Rights for Children in Tutti’s bar and restaurant in South San Jose. He is not a parent, but an ex-detainee who joined the group that fights abuses within the Santa Clara Juvenile Hall as soon as he got out.  

Fernando is busy folding a stack of flyers while the parents are exchanging stories of recent assaults they have heard about from sons and daughters. Norm Towson, the founder, booms, “I just want them to stop beating up our kids and calling them assholes!” Fernando strolls by my chair and says calmly, “Don’t worry if it gets a little loud, people here are just passionate because they’re talking about their own kids, you know?” Fernando was incarcerated for seven months and was both witness to and victim of abuses and insults during his stay inside. The Santa Clara Juvenile Hall, once claimed to be the best youth detention center in the country, is now being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for abuses of its detainees.  

Fernando has no obvious obligation to try to change a system most would try to get away from as quickly as possible. He has a good job at a medical equipment assembly company, which will help him pay for college. He is helping his family pay automobile and home bills. But, he says, “When I was inside, my mom starting going to these meetings. I was impressed that there was a group like this. Nobody else seemed to care about us.”  

Civil Rights for Children has been a vocal critic of the Hall. They have protested in downtown San Jose, brought media attention and investigations, and are now pushing for a “Juvenile Justice Monitor” program to inspect the institution regularly.  

Scanning the room, Fernando says he met most of the sons of these parents in the Hall. “It was like we had our own little group in there, cause we had parents that were talking about us to each other.” Fernando knows he brings something more to this group than just another pair of hands to fold flyers. “When the parents see me here, see that I’m staying out of the system, I think it gives them hope because they can see their kids in me.”  

Fernando did go back inside the Hall a week later—to attend a meeting between Civil Rights for Children and top juvenile hall administrators. Dressed in a suit, he got off work early to represent the group with his mother. Once again, as tensions flared and voices grew louder, it was Fernando who asked everyone to calm down, speak in turn and respect each other.  

The Return of Community Organizing  

Tragedy often breeds activism. But within the context of harsh unemployment and budget cuts that have hit San Jose harder than most California cities, most people are scrambling just to get by. This is what makes the emergence of this new generation of San Jose leaders so surprising—they just shouldn’t have this much fight left in them.  

The new activists aren’t funded by foundations, don’t have nonprofit tax ID numbers, and don’t ask for permits for their marches. They use bars and coffee shops to hold meetings, sell cookies to fundraise and at times are as much support group as advocacy organization. The return of organizing in Silicon Valley is simply about everyday folks finding that they are stronger together than alone.  

Raj Jayadev is the editor of www.siliconvalleydebug.com, the voice of young workers, writers and artists in Silicon Valley. 

NORMAN, Okla.—Defending his decision to support a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, President Bush declared that the “union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith.”  

Well, not exactly.  

Several religious leaders rushed to confirm Bush’s claim about the universal definition of marriage, but what qualifies them as experts on cultures outside their own?  

When social scientists get together to talk about this issue—and that’s frequently these days—we cringe at the way opponents of same-sex marriage attempt to justify what may be personal beliefs with anthropological “evidence.” Believe what you wish, but let’s keep the facts straight.  

The American Anthropological Association, the national professional organization of teachers and scholars who study human organization across the world, denounced the proposed amendment. They know that over a century of research has shown that marriage between one man and one woman is not the only or even the most successful way to organize a family.  

I teach an introductory class in cultural anthropology, and one of the first things students hear is to examine marriage not as an institution that predates culture, but as a dynamic, flexible contract that responds to the demands of each culture.  

Although monogamy between opposite sexes is the most common arrangement for joining spouses around the world, few societies find it beneficial to restrict marriage only to this form.  

Polygyny, the marriage between one man and two or more women, is often found in societies like the Egyptian Bedouins, who live with scarce resources and find large families an asset. Where it occurs, polygyny is associated with high status, since only a wealthy man can marshal the resources necessary to provide for several wives.  

Rarer is polyandry, a marriage between one woman and several men. Still, this form of marriage is considered desirable in Tibet, where arable land is at a premium. Rather than dividing the family’s plot among several sons and their wives, all the brothers marry a single woman, keeping the land intact and maximizing economic resources.  

The Inuit of northern Alaska practice a form of group marriage in which two monogamous couples swap sexual partners. The foursome does not live together, but comes to establish a bond of reciprocity that ensures mutual aid in an unforgiving environment. Children born to either couple consider each other siblings, further extending the pool of potential support and avoiding any sense of jealousy.  

Where monogamy—-just one spouse—is the norm, there are nevertheless examples of marriage between two people of the same biological sex: two men or two women. This is the case in many Native American societies that recognize a third gender, the berdache, who is anatomically male but spiritually neither male nor female. A berdache may live with a man, fulfilling the role of wife.  

In societies where descent is traced through the males of the family, keeping the lineage going is more important than restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Among the Kwakiutl Indians of the Pacific Northwest, a man may marry the male heir of a tribal chief as a means of inheriting certain privileges from his father-in-law.  

Similarly, a Nuer father in Sudan who has only daughters may ask one of them to adopt the social role of a man and take a bride. The female “husband” then selects a male mating partner for the wife. Any children born to the wife refer to the “husband” as father and become heirs of the paternal grandfather.  

Contact with missionaries, changing work patterns and the integration of once-distinct communities into national states have diminished some of the diversity of marriage forms present in the world today.  

Still, what remains constant is the relative novelty of the romance factor: affection between one man and one woman as a motivation for marriage is not the rule, or even the ideal in many places. No matter what shape they take, marriages across the world generally transcend the relationship between two individuals. They enhance solidarity between two groups.  

While pastors may say same-sex marriage violates sacred tenets, neither they nor President Bush have the weight of world cultures on their side when they say that marriage has always been between one man and one woman. Anthropologists can attest: there is nothing natural or preordained about marriage “American style.”  

Peter S. Cahn teaches at the University of Oklahoma and is the author of All Religions are Good in Tzintzuntzan: Evangelicals in Catholic Mexico (University of Texas Press, 2003).  

›

If society is judged by the way it raises its children, what does the present condition of the East Bay’s major school systems say about us? 

Some months ago, the public schools of Oakland were seized by the state because of what was called financial mismanagement. It’s always been an interesting point—at least to me—that we have never had an impartial, public accounting of how that financial mismanagement actually took place. But we’ll get to that in a moment. Oakland’s schools got seized for failure to balance its books by the state of California (which, if one is paying attention, has been having its own considerable troubles in that regard; California might be looking over its shoulder with no small amount of worry, except that our national administration appears to be busy these days gorging itself on small countries). In any event, Oakland got seized, and around the state they gave knowing nods and gave that small, seemingly-innocent gesture of wiping over the backs of their hands to denote skin coloration and said, well, after all, it’s Oakland, you know. And the state went about its business. 

Berkeley—with its radical traditions and active citizens—may be a portion too gnarly for even the State of California to swallow. Still, the Berkeley schools find themselves under the thumb of that peculiar, state-initiated institution called FCMAT (the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team), which was called in to…ummm…assist the local educators after said educators overreached themselves a bit on the financial side. Having gotten its entry into Berkeley’s kitchen, however, FCMAT has taken to dipping its spoon into a multitude of the school district’s pots—facilities and public relations and even curriculum—all of which had nothing to do with the reasons FCMAT was summoned up in the first place. This has caused some considerable grumbling in and around the classrooms and district offices, but no sign, as of yet, of open revolt. And around the state, they shrugged and said, yes, but that’s Berkeley, the place where old men tie up their hair in ponytails, so it’s no wonder they couldn’t balance their checkbooks. 

Now comes the situation in West Contra Costa County. A decade ago, or so, they were forced to take a loan from the state to keep their schools afloat. They did—stay afloat, that is—but only just barely, listing badly like an abandoned rowboat in a bay backwater until, this week, we are informed that they must gut both sports programs and school libraries or else face a plummet straight to the bottom. No small part of the problem is that the West Contra Costa County schools must pay a million or so a year back to the state in loan payments. Iraq, the Bushites argue, must be forgiven its debts in order to move into the new world order of nations. But nobody cries for Richmond and El Cerrito, apparently. 

None of these East Bay, inner city school districts stands seriously accused of pocketing gobs of money for other than legitimate purposes. Their sin, it appears, is that they tried to juggle the balls of two realities…one, their mandate to provide adequate education for their young charges, and two, to do so within the context of a state climate that has increasingly squeezed out all sources of revenue to carry out that mandate. The Oakland schools, for example, got into its present troubles by merely attempting to bring its teacher salaries up to the median level of the Bay Area. How dare they?, we can hear the shocked rejoinders over sips of Starbucks in San Anselmo. Don’t they know their place? 

(This is the point where we pause and say that—the Dennis Chaconas county school board race being over—the time has come for an independent look at how the Oakland schools were lost. Such an investigation might be able to lure out the elusive Mr. Yasitis, who served at the center of the storm and could, presumably, provide interesting enlightenment (under oath, and with supporting documentation, one would hope). But such a public accounting should certainly entail not only the financial details, but the political as well, since only the naive would believe that politics played no role in the Oakland takeover. It is difficult to say who in authority might call for such an investigation. Not Mayor Brown, certainly, nor County Superintendent Sheila Jordan nor State Attorney General Bill Lockyer nor State Superintendent of Education Jack O’Connell, any of whom, in other circumstances, might be the logical persons to make such a call, with the exception that in this case each of them played a significant role in the state takeover and, therefore, might be expected to be disinclined to prosecute a vigorous inspection of their own selves. In any event, think on that a bit, folks, and give me some help on who might lead this charge. Isn’t anybody—anywhere—in the least bit curious as to how all of this came to be?) 

But back to the whole East Bay. 

One of the jobs of journalists and columnists and commentators is to ferret out connections that otherwise might not be apparent to the general public, but this one is too easy, friends. The present problems of the East Bay’s three major public school systems have all been treated as if they have occurred in isolation…each with its own peculiar, individual causes…but one does not need the cognitive powers of a Holmes or an Easy Rawlins to see the broad pattern, here. The problems of Oakland and Berkeley and West Contra Costa are not idiosyncratic…dumb, local administrators who cannot meet the bottom line, and airy school board members who cannot hold them to account. There is something larger, and more structural, at work here. We have, it appears, been gotten. 

We have grown up in a world of free, universal, adequate public education. We have come to believe that this was always the case, and will always be. Neither is true. What we are seeing—in the crisis in the East Bay schools—is a possible end to public education as we have known it. Someone is damming up the source of the common stream and, unless we wish to sit around and thirst to death, we ought to get up and walk over and encourage them to stop. If we want to have any say in what comes next, we need to roll up our sleeves and—as they say in Arkansas—get to gettin’. 

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Since last fall, Berkeley Design Advocates (BDA), a group of architects, planners and developers, has been promoting its vision of a gentrified West Berkeley.  

As described in the organization’s newsletters and at its monthly breakfast meetings, the area around Gilman Street west of San Pablo Avenue would be transformed into something very like the new Emeryville—plus a ferry terminal.  

Gilman would become a regional retail strip mall anchored by the coming Target in Albany, off Buchanan just north of the Berkeley city line; REI on San Pablo; and a mid-size “box” store on the now vacant site at Sixth and Gilman streets. There would be housing—some mixed with retail—on both sides of Gilman and beyond. The street itself would be widened to four or six lanes, prettified with landscaping, and thereby transformed into a pedestrian corridor stretching from San Pablo all the way to the bay. And on the waterfront would be the ferry terminal, along with a hotel, some retail and more housing.  

The latest step in the BDA campaign to Emeryvillize West Berkeley was taken last Saturday at the Doubletree Hotel on the marina. The plan was to have a morning session in which several design teams prepared maps and schematic drawings embodying different aspects of the BDA vision. In the afternoon, the teams were to present their work to “political people and decisionmakers,” who, it was hoped, would come away “inspired.”  

These sessions did take place, but to judge from the opinions expressed by the dozen or so speakers who responded to the afternoon presentations, the overwhelming reaction to the BDA scheme was not inspiration, but aggravation. A few people embraced the concept of a commercialized Gilman Street neighborhood. But the great majority vigorously objected to the BDA’s disregard of the light manufacturing that currently occupies most of the area, and of the city’s official policy of industrial retention that is the heart of the West Berkeley Plan.  

The objections came from a wide range of sources: former City of Berkeley staff—an economist and a city planner—who helped to conceive and implement the West Berkeley Plan; current planning commissioners who support the plan’s goals of maintaining a diverse light manufacturing base and good blue-collar jobs; a longtime, major West Berkeley manufacturer; one of the owners of Urban Ore, which was forced by inflated property values to move from Sixth and Gilman to its present location at Folger Avenue; a resident of the area who supports light industry; and a West Berkeley artisan who helped organize the broad coalition of manufacturers, artists and artisans, African-American clergy, organized labor and property-owners that collaborated on the plan. In addition, two environmentalists protested locating a ferry terminal and other intensive development west of the freeway, the location of the Eastshore State Park, which was been in the making for decades. The ferry terminal, they said, belongs at the Berkeley Marina.  

Others who were waiting to voice their unhappiness never got a chance. The BDA organizers cut the meeting short, ending at 3:30 p.m. a discussion that, according to the notice in the Daily Planet, was supposed to have gone until 5 p.m.  

What’s particularly disturbing about the BDA campaign is that bigtime planning is being left to private parties who involve only those they think will be sympathetic to their cause. BDA held two private workshops in the fall, to which it invited only property-owners in the area, who stand to profit from the conversion of their land from industrial to retail and housing uses. Few of the manufacturers whose businesses are on or near Gilman Street were notified. Nor were they notified about the event at the Doubletree last Saturday. The citizens who attended the meeting found out about it through other means.  

Of course, BDA is a private group, under no obligation to alert the public at large to its doings. The City of Berkeley, on the other hand, is a public entity with obligations to the whole community, not just special interests within it. In particular, city staff have responsibility to carry out policies formulated through public planning processes and enacted into law by the City Council—for example, the West Berkeley Plan. That plan was worked out in over a decade of intensive collaboration among many varied stakeholders, and then unanimously approved in 1993 by the City Council.  

In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that city staff have not been upholding the West Berkeley Plan’s goal of retaining light industry. Nor have staff followed through on the plan’s protections for artists and artisans, whom the Berkeley Zoning Ordinance counts as industrial. The city doesn’t even know how much industry we have in Berkeley, due to staff’s failure to do the comprehensive inventory of manufacturing space that is one of the basic tasks stipulated by the plan. If you don’t know what exists, you can’t enforce the rules that protect it. Questions have also been raised about the city attorney’s behind-the-scenes, stroke-of-the-pen alteration of the law intended to prevent gratuitous conversion of industrial space to other uses.  

With the dot-com bust, the threat of gentrification in West Berkeley now comes from the development of retail and housing not offices. We do need housing—at least affordable housing—but West Berkeley is the only part of the city zoned for manufacturing, and there are other places in town where it can go. Ditto for retail: As I said to the BDA presenters last Saturday afternoon, “You should be helping us revitalize retail in downtown and along San Pablo Avenue.”  

The West Berkeley Plan worked: Whereas other cities let their industrial sectors languish, we still have a manufacturing district. An independent consultants’ report on the local economy made last summer to the University of California stated that Berkeley’s industrial market “historically reflect[s] one of the lowest vacancy rates in the region.”  

Americans have suddenly become aware that in an industrialized world, a solid manufacturing sector is essential to a nation’s continued prosperity, and to its people’s ability to enter the middle class and stay there. Instead of ignoring the threats to our light industry and the people it employs, or, worse yet, contributing to those threats, we should be working to make Berkeley’s manufacturing stronger yet. Giving the West Berkeley Plan the respect it deserves would be a good start.  

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LEADERSHIP GAP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read with interest Matt Artz’s coverage of the deferred accountability at Berkeley High’s Attendance Office (“Berkeley High Gets Tough on Chronic Absentees,” Daily Planet, March 5-8). Surely any operating procedure that results in $116,399 in lost funds in a single year—not to mention the 30 years of Director Doran’s involvement with the district and BHS, during which time truancy has been a “hot issue of debate”—deserves greater effort to resolve the contentions of the various stakeholders.  

Mr. Johnson, as student director, is of course a latecomer to the table, and his concerns about student satisfaction and equity must be answered head-on. BHS leadership on the issue, however, can be regarded as far too little and far too late: When Mr. Doran proclaims that there are “consequences for truant students” and unflinchingly describes the attendance rules as “never mandatory or enforced,” it is clear that there is a leadership gap at BHS. 

The community—the entire BHS staff and student body included—is entitled to the wisdom of the district and of the principal, especially in the wake of 30 years of failure to reach consensus. When seven administrators and 150 teachers cannot reach an adequate response to the current challenge, it is customary to allocate the principal’s direction to break the deadlock, or to allocate the principal’s salary to offset the operating loss. 

I look forward to Mr. Artz’s efforts to bring to light the district’s response to the students and to the resident dogmatics who currently believe that any consequence for truancy is a punitive one, that classroom instruction is somehow “not relevant” to students with academic performance in the top 25 percent of their class, or that students who are fortunate enough to have the supportive advocacy of a parent or guardian will be exempted from whatever Solomonic wisdom emerges from the current debate 

The district’s decorated leadership continues to turn up its nose at each $10 per day per student attendance offered by the California Department of Education, yet remains willing to bring this core civic institution not only to the brink of bankruptcy, but to add BUSD to a nationwide list of public agencies losing their accreditation and thereby their entire reason for existence. 

James Tharp 

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FERRY TERMINAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks to Matt Artz for taking the time last Saturday to cover the Gilman Corridor design charrette, sponsored by Berkeley Design Advocates (“Gilman Street on the Faultline of Development Wars,” Daily Planet, March 9-11).  

However, I’d like to correct his description of my position on the location of a future Berkeley/Albany ferry terminal. I’m delighted that the recent passage of Regional Measure 2 will provide funding to make a Berkeley/Albany ferry possible. However, I don’t, at this point, favor any particular site for its terminal. The next step for us all is to thoroughly study all aspects of the various potential sites through a comprehensive, site-specific EIR, in the normal way of all major projects. Only then can the best site, and the one most likely to succeed, be identified. We need to do it right this time. 

Linda Perry 

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GILMAN CORRIDOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks for your March 9 article reporting on the Gilman Corridor planning charrette organized by Berkeley Design Advocates. On behalf of BDA I’d like to express our thanks for the Daily Planet’s coverage. At the same time I’d like to clarify BDA’s purpose and role in sponsoring the charrette. 

BDA does not have a plan for the Gilman Corridor. But we recognize that change on both sides of the Berkeley/Albany border has impacted the Gilman neighborhood. We believe that neither the neighborhood nor Berkeley as a whole are well-served by ignoring these events. Our purpose in conducting the Gilman Corridor charrette was not to choose a best alternative for Gilman’s future but rather to bring these developments to public attention and to help all Berkeleyans begin to think about and discuss the corridor’s future in an informed and thoughtful manner. 

I’d also like to correct the Planet’s description of Berkeley Design Advocates as a “trade group” of design professionals. We are a community organization whose membership is open to all persons who are concerned about thoughtful planning, sound environmental design and improvement of the Berkeley environment. Our membership includes both design professionals and interested citizens of all stripes. For 20 years BDA has served as an independent voice about Berkeley design and planning issues, seeking to improve our built environment through public education, lively debate, thoughtful commentary and informed criticism.  

John Blankenship 

Chair, BDA Steering Committee 

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CALL FOR FREER PRESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are missing a balanced discussion of Cuba in the mainstream press. The recent tightening of measures which oppose traveling to Cuba is one example.  

Licenses of hundreds of organizations whose members have traveled under the congressionally mandated people-to-people trips have been revoked or not renewed. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and “Send a Piana to Havana,” founded by former Berkeley resident Ben Treuhaft, are among them. The Piana people will no longer be allowed to send donated and refurbished pianos to Cuban schools and churches and to contribute to a workshop for piano tuners. Why? 

In the mainstream media reports and articles about the recent situation in Haiti we have not seen any mention of the fact that for the last five years Cuba has had a medical team in Haiti (including 332 doctors) who has saved an estimated 86,000 lives. Cuba is also giving technical assistance to Haiti’s agriculture and a radio-based literacy program and other (not military) aid.  

All these facts are available on the Internet. However, to avoid being criticized as being mere propaganda agents for the government, our daily papers and TV news should also present investigative reports on these subjects. 

Lenore Veltfort 

East Bay Women’s Internal League of Peace and Freedom 

Oakland 

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NEW BUSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to say that I, and many other riders, do not like these new AC Transit buses and have written them about it. They are very hard on the elderly and disabled. 

1. There aren’t as many seats, as 90 percent of the time you’re standing. 

2. There’s no railing to hold on to when getting on and off. 

3. You have to push a button to open the door. 

4. They have bucket seats and are high up. 

5. When you get off, it’s a very high step. 

6. Between the high step and lack of a railing, you just pray you don’t fall! 

Everyone I’ve talked to about this feels the same way about these buses. We all wish that AC Transit would sell these and use whatever money they get for them to fix up the others! 

Janis O. Brien 

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DANGEROUS INTERSECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What does it take to get something done to improve an intersection in Berkeley that has far too many accidents? Tonight there was yet another bad crash at the corner of Hearst and Oxford streets, this time involving three cars. Too often I’ve heard the horrible sound of screeching brakes and crumpling metal, called 911, only to observe the same scenario repeat and repeat. It’s a terribly designed intersection. How many more accidents do there have to be before there are life-saving changes made? At any one moment there are cars, buses, bicyclists and pedestrians, simultaneously crossing, turning left and right, making U-turns and accelerating down hills across a wide and widely used intersection. There are no left turn lights. There are double left turn lanes with cars on a collision course towards others making U-turns. Motorists making right turns are not always given the right of way, and people making left turns are not clear which lane they’re turning into. It’s a mess. Please print the statistics of how many accidents have occurred there in the past few years to increase public awareness and to help get immediate improvements made before more people get hurt. 

Susan Archuletta 

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REDEFINING MARRIAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Marriage is under attack. People are trying to redefine marriage, and in the process lowering the moral fiber of our community. Marriage is all about family values. Marriage is designed to celebrate the creation of children to pass on our genetics to following generations. George Bush has called for a constitutional amendment to codify marriage as between a man and a woman. This is a good start, but let’s not stop there. There are other couples who are using marriage to gain legal status without furthering family values. We need to extend the marriage constitutional amendment to exclude these couples: Those not planning on having children, those with an infertile member, senior couples incapable of having children. The best amendment would not allow anyone to marry until they have children. Couples could only be engaged when the woman becomes pregnant, and if there is a miscarriage or a death in childbirth, no marriage! Call your senators and congressional representatives now and demand they not pass Bush’s weak amendment, but rather demand a real marriage amendment. Join your local chapter of Special People Envisioning Real Marriages and Everyone Gets Grandkids (SPERM & EGG). 

Lee Amosslee 

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WEBSTER SAYS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Anyone who is confused about the meaning of “marriage” should look it up in the dictionary. The three I have at home define it as the union of a man and a woman as husband and wife. No religious or political arguments necessary. I trust Webster to define terms, not people with their own agendas. 

Glen Jordan 

El Cerrito 

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THOMAS JEFFERSON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I want to take issue with some of Ms. Talley-Hughes’ points in her hit piece on Thomas Jefferson (“Thomas Jefferson: A Man of His Time?”, Daily Planet, March 9-11). His wealth: Yes, he was well off in a system that relied on slaves. His wealth enabled him to be a leader in the noblest political experiment in human history, and deserves credit for inserting ideas into the Declaration of Independence that would enable future generations to abolish slavery. And because so much of his energy and attention went to these public service activities, he neglected his personal wealth and business, and died over $1,000,000 in debt. That was a lot of money in those days. There’s real danger in applying political correctitude to people who lived centuries ago. Does Ms. Talley-Hughes drive an internal combustion auto? If her home was raided and searched, would we find products made by slave labor in China, or sweatshops of Mexico or Indonesia? There are alternatives to these products. Two hundred years from now people might see these as “crimes” worthy of severe condemnation. Is the fine point that she doesn’t actually own these workers, just supports the system that keeps them in this situation? And let’s keep in mind that Berkeley has at least one school named for a convicted felon. 

Dick Bagwell 

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GAY MARRIAGE? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What will happen if we allow gays to marry? Will there be more gays or lesbians? No, because we can’t turn straights into gays, nor gays into straights. A lot of effort has been expended by clergy and psychiatrists trying to make gays straights. It doesn’t work, and not allowing them marriage is undemocratic. 

Encouraging gays to marry promotes their mental and physical health. Monogamy among both straights and gays helps fight AIDS and other STDs, which are more prevalent among singles that married people. Loving married couples, whether the same sex or hetero, take care of each other, thus relieving a burden on society. Even under the best of circumstances, it’s tough being gay in our intolerant society. Choosing to change from hetero to homosexual is not a choice. Gays and Lesbians are part of America’s fabulous diversity, They are entitled to the same rights as the rest of our citizens. 

Gay marriage will prove helpful, not harmful to society; then, hopefully, our fear and prejudice will gradually fall away. So let’s support San Francisco Assemblyman Mark Leno, who is sponsoring the same-sex marriage bill AB1967. 

Deena Andrews 

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MALCOLM X FLOODS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As someone who as actually had the responsibility of keeping the drains at Malcolm X open, I just had to go back and take a look. It’s plain to see, the recent remodeling extended the building and added an enormous amount of concrete, thereby magnifying rain runoff. The newly extended west side of the school runs over 70 yards, much of it below grade, and all the additional runoff drains into pre-existing seven tiny holes, each the size of soda cans, which drains from the school, under the building and sidewalk, depositing water on the west side. During the floods, 32 inches of water pooled in the new amphitheater, causing a heavy wood desk to float. The city drain Bruce Wicinnas blamed is uphill from the school. It’s BUSD’s downhill drains that could not handle this much water. 

The recent floods at Malcolm X Elementary School highlight a fundamental problem with Berkeley Unified’s administrators. Many are not qualified to do the work. The smart thing would have been to have replaced the antiquated drains while doing the extensive Measure A remodeling. However, the Director of Facilities, Lew Jones, didn’t do that. He oversees our multi-million dollar school construction program, and his training is as a journeyman carpenter. 

Current Director of Maintenance Rhonda Bacot started out as a painter. Her solution was to try and find someone in the District who had expertise and knowledge, a civil engineer. Given BUSD’s slow financial system, hiring anyone is a lengthy process. Two months wasn’t enough time to hire an outside consultant and have that consultant actually do some work. One simple stopgap action would have been to install ejector pumps or sump pumps, which unfortunately didn’t occur. 

These are well-intentioned people, but they’re not qualified to do the job. School Baord members have mouthed words “accountability,” but up to now, have failed to implement it. School Board members can enact accountability by hiring experienced, and well-qualified administrators who have a proven ability to providing high quality competent services. 

Sally Reyes, Former BUSD maintenance employee 



The proposed downtown hotel and conference center poses an unprecedented risk to Berkeley’s unique character. This is not just another development fight, as the stakes are far greater. Defeating this project requires rare unity among longtime combatants in the city’s development wars. 

The problems with the project are obvious. It would allow an architecturally dull high-rise hotel to loom over the heart of Berkeley. The project forever forestalls the use of the site for a more dynamic and creative space for attracting shoppers and residents. This is a proposal suited for homogenized Walnut Creek, not Berkeley. We have long refused to become yet another cookie-cutter city, and Berkeley must continue to oppose America’s march toward urban standardization. 

Berkeley is often immersed in battles over proposed rental housing construction. The debate has pitted those focused on increasing the city’s rental housing supply against those who either oppose such housing altogether or seek smaller and less dense projects. 

This battle over housing is often wrongly depicted as a battle over development itself. But there is a big difference between supporting a large-scale housing project like the Gaia building-which provided desperately needed new rental housing in an optimum location-and supporting a high-rise hotel project that does nothing to address the city’s housing shortage. 

Over a decade ago, the City of Oakland was told that development of its downtown required a quality hotel in the area. The city then subsidized the construction of a Hyatt Hotel. But the hotel project failed to revitalize Downtown Oakland. Instead, millions of scarce Oakland economic development funds were squandered that could have been more productively spent by boosting neighborhood businesses. 

The Hyatt boondoggle was subsequently eclipsed by the Raider travesty. The Raider deal required Alameda County taxpayers to guarantee team revenue, which the media claimed was no risk because the Raiders would always sell out. This reliance on future ticket sales has cost our county about $17 million annually, as Raiders sellouts are a rarity. Raider ticket sales, like hotel guests descending on downtown Berkeley, was said to be a sure thing. 

The Oakland Coliseum was ruined as a baseball stadium in order to secure the Raiders deal; now folks are talking about destroying Downtown Berkeley for phantom hotel guests. 

Let’s go beyond the hype and look at the potential hotel market. The proposed hotel is envisioned to attract visiting scholars, those attending campus conferences/meetings, and visitors to museum exhibits. 

Few academic conferences will occur at UC Berkeley during December, January, June, July or August. May and September are also questionable, meaning that for most of the year there would be no need for visiting scholars to stay at the new hotel. 

The UC Art Museum is a fine facility but it will not become a magnet for visitors who decide to spend the night in downtown Berkeley. Visitors to the Bay Area on museum tours are far more likely to stay in San Francisco. In addition, a downtown hotel that simply siphons business from the Berkeley Marriot or Hotel Durant provides no new hotel tax revenue to Berkeley. 

Proponents of the hotel have claimed that Bay Area visitors who come to conferences in Berkeley will spend the night here if quality downtown lodgings were available. But nearly all of such visitors are here on expense accounts, and cash-strapped public entities and bottom-line focused businesses are unlikely to allow a Dublin or Livermore resident to stay overnight in Berkeley. 

The need for new conference space in Downtown Berkeley is also doubtful. There are many buildings on the Berkeley campus regularly available for weekend conferences, and large conventions will continue to meet in San Francisco. The conference center part of this proposal seems to have been included to give the hotel project the aura of being only one part of a larger vision. 

The economic benefits to surrounding businesses from the proposed hotel is also greatly exaggerated. During my 25 years working in San Francisco, I have seen time and time again how hotels fail to generate revenue for existing businesses. This is particularly true when hotels rely on large groups, the chief market for the proposed UC hotel.  

Here’s how it works. The group usually has breakfast brought to its meeting site and has dinner at a prearranged restaurant with a separate dining space large enough to hold the big group. Lunch would be eaten on campus or at the conference site. While group members may purchase coffee or buy postcards at local businesses, the only real money goes to the large dinner site, which currently does not exist anywhere near the proposed hotel. Tourist hotels are like sports stadiums in that neither provides anywhere near the economic injection into local businesses provided by far less costly alternatives such as new housing. I have heard the complaints about lack of tourist revenue from merchants in the areas bordering Union Square and Powell Street, and the business failure rate in these areas is high. 

Project boosters are so giddy with the prospect of new revenue streams coming to the city that they are accepting at face value the same baseless projections commonly seen with proposed taxpayer supported stadiums and other urban redevelopment schemes. Mayor Bates initially responded to the proposal by claiming it would bring Berkeley over $1 million annually in new revenues. But a failed project, like the Hyatt and Raider deals, will cost us funds. 

Proponents also claim that the project will create badly needed living wage construction jobs, provide a long-overdue “focus” for Downtown Berkeley, and finally create the town-gown link that was always the ideal of the university’s founders. 

But a hotel that sits semi-vacant for much of the year, like the Oakland Hyatt, becomes a symbol of a city’s decline. Anything built on the proposed site will create jobs, and even more jobs could have emerged had city officials solicited proposals for the site prior to the hotel plan’s emergence. 

This whole deal smacks of the same backroom university process that I have long been dealing with in regard to Hastings Law School’s ambitious plans for the site diagonally across from the Federal Building in San Francisco. Every few years Hastings would ask a few of us to meet about their development plans, not caring that they had been created without community input. 

In late 2001, Hastings told us of their plans to build an eight-story, 885-space parking garage on the site. The project was so far along that even the street trees had been selected. As the Hastings Board was set to approve the massive project in June 2002, I had to join with others in disrupting the final board meeting, which led State Senator John Burton to intervene to stop the project. We now get along better with Hastings as they develop new plans for the site, but it took Burton’s threat to rescind the school’s 2002-2003 budget before the school gave in. 

The point is that UC is a very powerful adversary. UC cannot be “worked with” like private developers, because it always believes it has constitutional powers to do whatever it wants. When UC uses terms like “community input,” it means that it wants to hear how they can build support for their massive project. You can be sure that those who see the project as a terrible idea that merits no further discussion will not be welcome on the various “task forces” designed to expedite the project. 

I know from two decades dealing with a succession of Hastings deans and legal counsel that its specific individuals that are the problem—rather it’s the sense of institutional prerogative held by all those filling top positions at UC. That’s why UC is falsely claiming it is not bound by local zoning laws in building the hotel—the institution knows how and when to powerfully assert its supremacy to get what it wants. 

Our city leaders must not do anything to weaken our local barriers to the university’s downtown land-grab. I almost fell out of my chair when I read in the Feb. 20 Daily Planet that Planning Commissioner Rob Wrenn is willing to change the zoning in exchange for the right “tradeoffs” and “mitigations.” This is the route to disaster, as there as nothing UC can do to “mitigate” its seizure of a downtown block for a 12-story hotel. 

Once our city officials head down the road of deals and tradeoffs, the signal has been sent to UC that the hotel is a done deal and now its only about the terms. UC has used its educational exemption from local zoning laws to run amok over neighborhoods—but Berkeley has the leverage now and its time to just say no. 

As Berkeley Deputy City Attorney Zach Cowan has correctly concluded, the hotel project violates local land use laws and does not constitute the “educational purpose” that triggers UC immunity. Current zoning laws are our only bulwark, and if our City Council stands firm the university will have to sponsor a ballot measure to rezone the site. 

The university will spend lavishly to pass their initiative, but if those on both sides of the housing wars unite, we will prevail. By just saying no to UC’s plans, the stage will be set for inviting proposals for a use of the site that reflects Berkeley’s uniqueness. 

Berkeley resident Randy Shaw is the director and supervising attorney of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and author of The Activist’s Handbook. 

Out of a whole year filled with most improbable and sometimes inelegant arm movements, bow or baton in hand, there is only one Monday when I always come to work with a sore wrist. That’s usually the first or second Monday of February, after the annual weekend of auditions for the Junior Bach Festival, now in its fifty-first year in Berkeley. 

Founded to promote the appreciation of the master among young musicians, the festival draws hundreds of students from the Bay Area and beyond to its annual auditions. I have for several years had the honor and pleasure of being one of the dozens of local musicians engaged as judges for this extraordinary event. 

The auditions are a logistical marvel. All the judging (except for vocalists) is done behind screens; judges are grouped in panels of three-violin panels, piano panels, cello panels, and so on. Thanks to careful maneuvering among the classrooms of UC Berkeley’s Morrison Hall, we judges do not see auditioners enter or exit. Though we may run into them in a hallway before or after they’ve played, we never really know who played what. To give the audition something more of the feeling of a performance and less of a grilling, the players enter in small groups (five or six at a time, say) and perform for each other-and those mysterious figures in the back behind the screen. 

This festival is not a competition in the sense of having a first prize winner; judges are not asked to make a ranking of all the players (indeed, how would it be possible?) but to offer their opinion as to whether a given performer or group is ready to perform at the festival’s high standard-more or fewer performers may be selected. This year, as many as nine programs are planned featuring those selected from this weekend to perform. But it could be eight. It all depends. 

Yet this is only part of the judges’ task, and from my point of view, not even the most important one. For as we listen to each eager young performer, we scrawl comments (usually furiously) on a small sheet of paper (hence the sore wrist on Monday). Our comments are clipped and copies sent to the students’ teachers. We try to gauge our advice to what we are hearing—suggestions of a technical nature, observations on interpretation, encouragement—as much as we can come up with in an impossibly short time. 

And there is so much to say! Over several hours my two judicial companions and I heard dozens of young string players, and the fruits of hundreds if not thousands of hours of preparation. Some played short single movements, others groups of movements, still others complete concertos, or entire partitas for unaccompanied violin. Sure, some were more assured than others; some have better control of their fingers and bow, some have thought more about what they want the music to say (these two groups are not always the same!). Some valued rigor, others exuberance. Some sounded nervous, others swaggeringly confident. 

Yet every single one of them was, for that brief moment at the very least, fully invested in a great enterprise-one that has occupied and fascinated students ever since Johann Sebastian first sat his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann down and started to teach him to play. Any comments we judges might offer on the spur of the moment can only have a certain small value. Bach’s music admits of so many possible interpretations and responses. The real work is going on in the mind, the heart, the soul of that young person on the other side of the screen. To those invisible young players, embarking on what I hope is a lifetime of engagement with our joyous art, I offer my heartfelt best wishes and profound gratitude, as I look forward to another sore wrist a year from now. 

The Junior Bach Festival continues at several Bay Area venues through Sunday, March 21. For more information visit the Junior Bach Festival website at www.juniorbach.org. 

George Thomson is a conductor, violinist, violist and director of the Virtuoso Program at San Domenico School, San Anselmo.›

Maybe if we all go over to the university and picket Zellerbach Playhouse we can persuade the university’s theater department to extend the run of their present production of Marat/Sade past this weekend. 

It would definitely be worth your while to beg, borrow, or bribe your way into this terrific production of a modern masterpiece. And the truth is that you probably won’t have an awful lot of other opportunities to see it. It’s just too large a project for theater groups to stage who have to pay for their talent. (Even with the entire cast doubling or tripling their roles this production requires thirty actors). But the university is blessed with a cooperative pool of novice theater professionals whom they can gently coerce into working for free. 

The net result is ticket prices that run from $8 to $14. And when you consider that the directors and other backbones of the productions are experts within their fields, it’s a theater buff’s dream come true. 

But enough about money. Marat/Sade would be memorable no matter what they charged. It’s a great presentation of a tremendous work. The actual title of the play gives a clue that you’re in for something remarkable—it’s just too long to be used very much: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Clarenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. 

From the play’s first appearance in West Berlin in 1964, Marat/Sade was recognized as one of the great plays of the 20th century. That seems formidable, and, underneath, the play is exactly that, of course. But the lightness of hand with which the complexity of the message is handled keeps it from overwhelming. There is no pain in this production. One could argue that the play’s brilliance lies in the use of comic techniques for a non-comic purpose.  

Behind everything is the use of the aftermath of the French Revolution as a metaphor for the complexity of power and political struggles. Set in 1815 at the height of Napoleon’s reign, the play speaks to the unpredictability of human action: The fact that the French Revolution did not lead to the relatively simple goal of individual freedom that the participants expected.  

But as with other truly great plays, this one is multi-layered and hooks you on many levels. It is absolutely possible to see this production in total ignorance of European history and still experience it as a knockout performance.  

The setting is suitably large, requiring a big chunk of the Zellerbach Playhouse’s space. From time to time some of the characters wander into the audience, some looking quite normal, others rather odd indeed. But they’re played a space or two outside of reality, meandering about, seemingly spontaneously taking various ridiculous actions.  

Entirely appropriately, the cast is identified as an “ensemble” with no distinction made between the actors. However, it is interesting to see how coolly Chris Cotone manages the role of de Sade. Much of his acting is done without words, sitting silently, detached, almost immobile, completely absorbed and completely untouched by the drama he controls.  

Without doing a single thing, he is most appropriately scary. It’s a chilling performance. But singling him out is not to suggest that he is alone in the quality of his performance. It differs only in that he is, after all, one of the few identifiable characters.  

The university’s theater department is to be congratulated on an awesome theater event.  

›

Let me begin my completely biased and highly arbitrary list of events by telling you about the Oakland Museum Jazz Series. Four days of the week you can grab an inexpensive lunch, sit in the light-filled room that is the dining area, and hear bassist Ron Crotty accompany one of three fine Bay Area pianists who are in rotation there: Brian Cook, Terry Rodriguez, and Bliss Rodriguez. Terry was the fellow playing when I stopped in recently. 

He’s got an approach reminiscent of Bill Evans (those big, fat Ravel chords), and his lines are fluid and imaginative. As for bassist Crotty, he’s an elder statesman of jazz that played years back with Dave Brubeck. 

It’s unusual these days that jazz players happen onto a regular gig where they can grow used to one another, developing repertoire and rapport. And the piano-bass setting, perhaps the most intimate combination in jazz, is always a special pleasure when it’s handled well, as it is here. The musicians seem almost to breathe together. Wednesdays. Thursdays. Saturdays and Sundays at the Oakland Museum: 1000 Oak St. 238-2200. 

This Saturday night, Amy X. Neuberg is having a record release party with Herb Heinz at the Oakland Metro, down there at the base of Broadway. We’re talking now of a larger, noisier, and altogether zanier approach to music. 

Amy’s a strikingly talented singer / percussionist who likes to combine these skills in her band, playing Midi-controlled samples and singing energized material that falls considerably left of center. 9 p.m. Saturday, March 13 at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146. 

As a study in contrasts, let’s move on to Richard Wagner. Regarding the Berkeley Opera’s “Legend of The Ring,” there was a rave published in this very paper a few days back. Suffice to say that if you can get a ticket, you should report to the Julia Morgan Theater this Friday, March 12 at 7 p.m. or Sunday for the 2 p.m. matinee. (925) 798-1300. 

Next week—Friday, March 19—the Oakland East Bay Symphony has pulled together a program that deserves some sort of medal for eclecticism. Beethoven’s 7th and Ravel’s Bolero share the bill with Paul D. Miller (AKA the legendary D.J. Spooky), who will be holding forth on computer, mixing board and turntable. Composer Anthony DeRitis has created a score for the orchestra (it appears that both he and Mr. Spooky are working with the Beethoven and the Ravel as source material). As concepts go, this one’s got my vote. Sink or swim, it’s going to a wild evening. For those who haven’t heard D.J. Spooky’s recordings, the beats come and go (personally, the beats are not my thing), but the soundscapes he creates with loving care lend credence to the idea that there’s some strange and welcome beauty to be found in all this technology. 465-6400. 

On Tuesday March 16, Kent Nagano conducts the Berkeley Symphony at Zellerbach Hall in “21st Century Cellos,” the second in this series. You get Elliott Carter (with Joan Jeanrenaud the featured soloist), Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (with Laszlo Varga), and Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony in the same program. 841-2800. 

Also March 16, if you need an alternative (or if you’re feeling frisky after the show), go hear Kitty Margolis at Yoshi’s. She’s a wonderful, fiery, fun-loving singer with a deep understanding of the tradition. 

Then, March 17-21, also at Yoshi’s, you have a rare opportunity to hear pianist Ahmad Jamal. I’m not sure what I need to say about this one, except “Go.” Ahmad Jamal has influenced most everyone in jazz, including the late Miles Davis, who likely got some of his “less-is-more” approach from this quarter. Jamal’s trio has been together longer than Methuselah. They play only the necessary notes, and in all the right places. 

Ligeti and Penderecki represent the Eastern Bloc, John Adams the West Coast, Yu-Hui Chang the Pacific Rim in a concert by the Empyrian Ensemble at the Berkeley City Club at 2315 Durant Ave. on Tuesday, March 23. The Empyrian is an invaluable Bay Area resource, an ensemble that continues to present, year after year, premieres and contemporary repertoire with the very highest standards. Marjorie Merryman’s “Hidden Boundaries,” for clarinet, cello, and piano, is also on this program. www.berkeleychamberperform.org  

I’m going to wind up with a pitch for G.S. Sachdev’s concert at St. John’s later this month. Each of us, I suspect, has a soft spot for a particular instrument. I find, for me, the wood flute has some inexplicable magic that instantly has me enthralled, ready to fall into something like a fugue state. If you have a similar compulsion-or if you’d like to develop one-come and celebrate bamboo flute master G.S. Sachdev’s seventieth birthday on Saturday, March 20 at St. John’s. Sachdev is joined by Swapan Chaudhuri on tabla. The Bay Area is, happily, home to some of the world’s finest practitioners of the classical Indian music tradition. Here’s a chance to hear two of them at St. John’s Presbyterian, 2727 College Ave. The concert is at 7 p.m. www.bansuri.net 

Not long ago, I got mail from a friend who’d gone to hear a show I’d recommended. He told me it hadn’t been so great. Not that he expected me to get his money back or anything—he was pretty sanguine. But it did get me thinking about the peculiar nature of doing a column like this, and about the risks that we all take when we pony up for tickets. To dispense with the obvious, my cup of tea may be arsenic to you. Moreover, I can’t predict what shows will be terrific before they happen. But my friend’s complaint made me reflect on the ways in which the cards are stacked against live performance these days. We’re living in an age when we can relive, on CD, carefully edited performances by players captured at the height of their powers, playing works that are tried and true. I have, for instance, a recording of Heifetz performing eight of the major violin concertos. I’ve been playing this lately for anybody who’s got an extra few minutes, just so we can both be in the same room with a miracle. 

And recordings are miraculous. But if you think back to the seminal experiences that made you fall in love with music, many of these experiences were surely live. There’s something irreplaceable about being in the same room with the performers, witness to the risks they’re taking, hearing those molecules of air being jostled and displaced for the first time. We pays our money and takes our chances, knowing now and then we’ll win big. The disappointments we can always use for conversation. 

›

FRIDAY, MARCH 12  

CHILDREN 

Let’s Clown Around, with storyteller Laura Shennum at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “The Secret Language of Youth” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry Reading “Contemporary Poets on Writing, Meditation, and Buddhism,” at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum Theater, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Berkeley Opera, “The Legend of the Ring” at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$40 available from 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen, at 8 p.m. and runs through April 11. 647-2917. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater, “Street Soldier The Play” a benefit for Omega Boys Club and celebrating Black History month at 8 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $20. 1-800-SOLDIER. 

Central Works, “The Duel” a new play adapted from Chekhov’s novella, at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Runs Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through March 27. Tickets are $8-$20. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

Everyday Theater, “The Bright River,” a show by Tim Barsky, at 8 p.m. at the Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. Through March 20. Tickets are $12-$20 and are available from 644-2204. 

Impact Theatre, “Say You Love Satan” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Runs through March 13. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

“Marat/Sade,” by Peter Weiss, directed by Philip Charles Sneed at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse. Also March 13 at 8 p.m. and March 14 at 2 p.m. UC Dept. of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. Tickets are $8-$10. 866-468-3399. http://theater.berkeley.edu 

Youth Musical Theater Commons “West Side Story” performed by 7th-11th grade youth at 7:30 p.m. at Longfellow Auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 848-1797.  

Un-Scripted Theater “Imrov Survivor” at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, and runs to April 3. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.un-scripted.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Charles Hamilton and the Alums of Berkeley High at 8 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theatre, Allston Way between MLK & Milvia. Tickets are $5 students, $10 adults, $12 reserved. 464-4631. 

Jr. Bach Festival at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $5-$10. 843-2224. www.juniorbach.org 

UC Men’s Octet performs at 8 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$10. 642-3880. 

Back Like I Never Left with Game, Kahlil Almustafa, Kirby Dominant at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Happiness, Anton Barbeau and Val Esway at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Tangria Jazz Group performs blues and tunes by Monk at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $7-$10. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Steve Lucky & The Rhumba Bums with Ms. Carmen Getit at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Captured! By Robots, Hurting Crew, The Dead Hensons at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Ian Butler, Blue on Green, Hy Brassyl at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Point Blank at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Danny Caron, jazz and blues guitar, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

DJ & Brook, jazz trio, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

John Santos Quartet, Latin jazz, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Married Couple, alt-jazz, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Phenomenauts, Rock’N’Roll Adventure Kids, The Secretions, The Paranoids, Safeway at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 13 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Los Mapaches at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Wild About Books” storytime at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

Pop Art Superstar Workshop, for ages 12-17, at 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. Bring a light colored t-shirt or pillow case to print on. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org  

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Katsunori Hamanishi, mezzotint prints, reception 6 to 8 p.m. at Shurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. Exhibition runs to March 31. Gallery hours are Weds.-Sat., 2-6 p.m. and Sun. 11a.m. -3 p.m. 524-0623. 

THEATER 

Confessions of a Cha Cha Feminist, with performance artist Maria Elena Fernandez at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Herstories, “Bone Songs: Echoes of the Unknown Mother” at 8 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph Ave. Tickets are $10-$25 sliding scale. 594-1377. 

Youth Musical Theater Commons “West Side Story” performed by 7th-11th grade youth at 7:30 p.m. at Longfellow Auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 848-1797.  

“Orphans of Delerium” a series of performance rites presented by ParaTheatrical ReSearch at 9 p.m. at Wildcat Studio, 2525 Eighth St. $10 suggested donation. 464-4640. 

FILM 

Muslim Film Festival, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 2050 Valley Life Science Building, UC Campus. Tickets are $7-$10. www.muslimfilmfestival.org 

“Angel’s Ladies” about a legal Christian brothel in Nevada at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

Women of Color Film Festival “The Liberation of Everyday Life” at 6:30 p.m. and “Ways of Love” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Sign-language interpreted guided tour at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Gallery Conversation with artists featured in The Kala Gallery’s current exhibition, “The Drawing Room,” at 2 p.m. 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

Steven Saylor, author of “Roma Sub Rosa,” speaks to the California Writers Club at 10 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 2 and 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Netherlands Bach Society with guest soloist Marion Verbruggen at 8 p.m. at First Congragational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $38 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival with Berkeley Arts Magnet Percussion at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

Jr. Bach Festival at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. 843-2224. www.juniorbach.org 

UC Men’s Octet performs at 8 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$10. 642-3880. 

Gamelan Sari Raras at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. 642-9988. http://music. 

berkeley.edu/concerts.html 

Flamenco Spirit with Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos at 6 and 9 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $42-$55 and includes dinner. For reservations call 843-0662. www.cafedelapaz.net 

Dress Up/Dress Down, a collection of stories told through outlandish dresses, dance and music at 8 p.m. at the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd. Tickets are $10-$15. 587-0770. www.movingout.org 

Youth Movement Records Artists at 8 p.m. at Youth Radio Cafe, 1801 University Ave. Cost is $3. 435-5112.  

Angel Magik, hiphop, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Tree Leyburn at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Pisces Party at the 1923 Teahouse at 9 p.m. All ages welcome. Suggested donation of $7-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Post Junk Trio at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Barbara Higbie, pianist, fiddler, singer and composer, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kotoja at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson with Comfort Mensah at 9 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Fountain St. Theater Band, Wart and Sonic Orange at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Sheldon Brown Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com  

Acme Observatory presents Vivian Corringham with Tim Perkis, Scott Looney, Toyoji Tomita and Gino Robair at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Admission is free, donations accepted. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Farma, Crooked Jades, The Shiftless Rounders at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Eric Shifrin and the In Crowd at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Amy X. Neuberg and Herb Heinz at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

All Bets Off, Daughters, Some Girls, Chinese Stars, Paint the Light at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 14 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4 for children, $6 for adults. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

THEATER 

Berkeley Opera, “The Legend of the Ring” at 1 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$40 available from 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Herstories, “Bone Songs: Echoes of the Unknown Mother” at 2 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St. at 27th, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$25 sliding scale. 594-1377. 

Dress Up/Dress Down, a colection of stories told through outlandish dresses, dance and music at 4 p.m. at the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd. Tickets are $10-$15. available from 587-0770. www.movingout.org 

“Orphans of Delerium” a series of performance rites presented by ParaTheatrical ReSearch at 9 p.m. at Wildcat Studio, 2525 Eighth St. $10 suggested donation. 464-4640. 

FILM 

“The Dybbuk,” in Yiddish with English subtitles, at 2 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $2. 848-0237.  

Women of Color Film Festival “Endurance of Spirit” at 3 p.m. and “Truth Has a Perfect Memory” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Guided Tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Poetry Flash with Devorah Major and Marc Bamuthi Joseph at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Epicenter: San Francisco Bay Area Art Now” a discussion with authors and artists at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Creative Project Institute students read from their books and discuss the process of writing a book-length project, at 4 p.m. at Boadecia's Books, 398 Colusa Ave. on the Kensington Circle. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Baroque Choral Guild, “Rachmaninoff Vespers,” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing. Tickets are available from 650-424-1410. 

Music from Scotland, England and Beyond with Jim Malcolm at 7:30 p.m. Donation of $15. For reservations and location email sally@greenberg.org 

Jr. Bach Festival at 3 and 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. 843-2224. www.juniorbach.org 

Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. Benefits the Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Thought Riot, Life in Pictures at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Ledisi, featuring the Marcus Shelby Trio, at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Alasdair Fraser with Muriel Johnstone, Scottish fiddler and pianist, at 2 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Joni Mitchell Song Night at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Deaf Electric at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations $8-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

John Schott and Ben Goldberg at 4 p.m. at Spasso Cafe, 6021 College Ave. at Claremont. 

MONDAY, MARCH 15 

THEATER 

Woman’s Will 24-Hour Playfest Female playwrights, directors and actors race to write, rehearse and perform seven new plays in 24 hours, and will present the results at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$25 available from 420-0813. 

Playground, the Bay Area’s lab for developing playwrights, performs at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $6-$12. 415-704-3177. www.PlatGround-sf.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Zach Unger, Berkeley resident and Oakland Firefighter, describes “Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express, featuring Tom Odegard from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

Walter Liggett, Dorothy V. Benson, and Marda Woodbury will read from Lorna De Sosa's new book of poetry “Who Turned the Grass On?” at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. at 2 p.m. 981-5190. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kelly Joe Phelps, blues slide guitarist, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

TUESDAY, MARCH 16 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“IN/Vision: Creating Museums of Learning” with Steve Seidel, Director of Project Zero at Harvard Univ. Grad. School of Education, at 7 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Ars. Free. Sponsored by the California College of the Arts Center for Public Life. 594-3763.  

Neely Tucker describes “Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoire” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Travels Though the Center of the Sahara Desert” a slide show and lecture by Philip Hassrick at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, “21st Century Cellos” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $21-$45. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

Golden Gate Wind Quintet, “Gigi’s Fabulous Adventure” a marriage of pop, free jazz, contemporary classical, and cyberfunk at 8 p.m. at 1111 Solano Ave. Tickets are $20, available from 524-1696.  

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

The Black Brothers: Shay, Michael and Martin at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a showcase of ensembles at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17 

FILM 

Film 50 “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” at 3 p.m. and Meet Your Makers: “Since” at 9:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chang-Rae Lee introduces his new novel “Aloft” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Suzy Becker recounts “I Had brain Surgery, What’s Your Excuse?” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Café Poetry and open mic, hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Stump Tail Dog celebrates St. Patrick’s Day at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Green and Root, CD release party at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Traditional Irish Music with Driving with Fergus at 5 p.m. at The Starry Plough. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

St. Patrick’s Day with Don and Michele Clark, Steven Donaldson, Cathryn Bauer and Frineds at 8:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Jules Broussard, Bing Nathan and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Stolen Bibles, American-rooted rock and roll, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

THURSDAY, MARCH 18 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Fluid Exchange” exhibition of graduate art work from the Califonia College of Arts, at Worth Ryder Gallery, Kroeber Hall, UC Campus Reception from 4 to 9 p.m.  

“Lisboa” photographs on Lisbon, Portugal by Dennis Letbetter, taken with a 6x7 cm panoramic camera. At North berkeley Fram and Gallery, 1744 Shattuck Ave. 549-0428.  

THEATER 

Central Works, “The Duel” a new play adapted from Chekhov’s novella, at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Runs Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through March 27. Tickets are $8-$20. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

“The Vagina Monologues” performed by the women and men of LUNA Bar at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $25 and are available from 647-2949 or 888-427-8849. 

FILM 

Film and Video Makers at Cal at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Guided Tour at 12:15 p.m.at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Simryn Gill/Matrix 210 Gallery Talk at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bamcroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“The Inextinguishable Symphony: a True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany” with Martin Goldsmith at 7 p.m., Durham Studio Theater, UC Campus. http://LS.berkeley.edu/CollegePresents 

“The Fourth World and Folk Art,” with Nelson Graburn, Prof. of Anthropology, at noon at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, corner of College Ave. and Bancroft Way. 643-7648. http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Avenue, Berkeley "Museums of Learning" Explored at Julia Morgan CenterSteve Seidel, Director of Project Zero at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, discusses a new initiative to create "museums of learning": places (actual and virtual) to examine the products, processes, theories, problems and possibilities of teaching and learning. This event, sponsored by the California College of the Arts Center for Public Life, is free and open to the public. For more information call 510-594-3763,capl@cca.edu, cca.edu/capl. 

Karen Armstrong describes “The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkenss” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congragational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. $10 donation requested. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Debra Ginsberg introduces “About My Sisters” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. www.codysbooks.com 

David K. Shipler, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, describes “The Working Poor: Invisible in America” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Rita Flores Bogaert and Adam David Miller, followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. For information call 526-5985 or 205-1749.  

Jonathan Kirsch discusses “Gods Against the Gsds: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Raskidus, Jah Fly and Unda P at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Rachel Garlin at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Transcender, Slow Poisoners, Evergreen Dazed at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

David Maloney, “The Great Blight,” a folk opera, at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

San Francisco Medicine Ball at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Flowtilla at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Years ago I had a duck who would have killed for a tomato. I almost feel the same way about scalloped potatoes. When the potatoes have grown in one’s garden, the pleasure is doubled. Yet each year I fail to achieve the maximum crop, in spite of having tried nearly every known method of cultivation. Could it possibly be that potatoes have their limits—about two pounds per plant—and never will fill a twenty gallon garbage can with tubers, as is so often stated? 

My current way of growing these essential staples, rich in vitamin C, is to construct cylinders of wire approximately three feet across and five feet high, anchored with tall stakes. I place a small whole seed potato in the center of each cylinder, and cover it with four inches of commercial potting soil. As the potato leaves shoot up, I toss into the cylinder a mixture of soil and hay, so that just the upper leaves peek out. After a while I grow tired of doing this and apart from hosing the leaves from time to time, forget about them. 

When flower buds appear, I grope around the base of the plant, whose leaves by this time tower above the cylinder, and invariably unearth a couple of whopping potatoes and a few baby ones. The small ones, still attached, I leave to continue to grow. I make sure that all tubers are well covered, because in sunlight they become green and inedible. When the leaves have died I dig the entire crop and store it in the refrigerator. The earth is superbly conditioned by then, ready for a different vegetable, the wire having protected the plants from wildlife. Be sure to avoid planting a vegetable from the same family, Solanaceae. Crop rotation helps to prevent diseases.  

Seed potatoes appear in local nurseries in January. Choose small ones, put them in a brown paper bag in a cool shady place (such as a garage or north porch) and leave them for a month. If they become soft, so much the better. This procedure is called chitting, from an early English word for a young thing, a shoot, a sprout. Sprouted or not, plant them in February if weather permits, certainly no later than St. Patrick’s Day. Staggered plantings are possible through mid-July and if the garden is frost-free, fall planting is possible too. Depending on variety (red potatoes perform well in my cool garden) and number of plants, self-sufficiency can be year-round.  

As for the scalloped potatoes, when the mania overtakes me, I slice a large red potato on the mandolin side of my metal box cheese grater. I arrange the slices on a microwavable plate and dot them sparingly with butter and oil. Cover the plate. Microwaved for three minutes and lightly salted, these potatoes hit the spot. If a crisp golden crust is desired, they brown rapidly on the stove top. The microwave, an underused, underrated precision tool, efficient and economical, is an ideal means for a heartwarming bite. 

For a more substantial version, parboil slightly thicker slices, anoint sparingly with milk and small pieces of sheep’s feta cheese, and microwave on a covered plate as before. (Parboiling is not essential. It speeds cooking time and improves absorption.) Turn them over if not done, for a few more minutes. The cheese combines with the milk to make a rich sauce. This dish makes a satisfying light lunch, served with salad. 

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A grass-roots project organized by Berkeley parents and supported by State Assemblymember Loni Hancock will be distributing $66,500 between Berkeley’s 17 public schools on Friday as part of a fundraising drive to help the district which has been hit hard by budget cuts. 

The project, Berkeley Schools Now! (BSN), has raised over $85,000 since last spring, initially asking parents who declared dependent children to donate last year’s increased tax refund. Since then the project has mushroomed, receiving donations from over 350 Berkeley community members. 

The project’s success is due at least in part to co-founder and executive board member Zasa Swanson who envisions BSN as part of what could be a state-wide effort to increase the involvement of the community in their schools. A versed community activist, Swanson said she saw the various needs that Berkeley schools and schools around state have that are not being met. 

“For me, Berkeley Schools Now! is a big cry for help, it’s a coming together,” she said. “It’s about if you see it, let’s do something about it.” 

The money raised by BSN is being allocated on a per-student basis by each school’s site council, a committee of parents and staff who work together to make funding for each school. 

The distribution will be attended by Loni Hancock and site councilmembers, and will take place at the Rosa Parks School Library at 3:30 p.m. Friday. 

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.  

—Colette, Paris From My Window, 1944 

Exploring local footways, the members of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association (BPWA) have found many occasions to bless the generous neighbors who offer seating to passers-by. A rest is welcome whether the walker is puffing up a hill, stopping to admire a view or enjoy the sun, or headed home from store or bus. 

And since this is Berkeley, there are plenty of occasions to admire craft and imagination. Berkeley benches come in myriad shapes and styles, from rustic logs to starkly sculptural concrete to simple slats backed by a stunning mural. Using the same inexpensive, “store bought” bench, one neighbor surrounds it with flowers, while another provides a small fountain complete with dog bowl. 

Motivations, too, are many. Sculptures support a memorial bench at 1328 Walnut St. Uplands residents have placed two benches honoring living neighbors. Benches at M.L. King School Park, Berryman Path at Live Oak Park, and Atlas Path were placed by neighborhood and community groups, supported by the Berkeley Parks mini-grant program. 

BPWA is collecting bench photos on its website, www.berkeleypaths.org. Take a look. Or better, explore on foot for yourself. 

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Berkeley gets another sobering look at the reality of the Era Of Diminishing Budgets tonight (Tuesday, March 9) when the director of the Berkeley Public Library is expected to propose laying off 16 employees and closing the main library on Sunday. The proposal will be presented at the City Council’s 4:30 p.m. work session at the Old City Hall, where City Manager Phil Kamlarz will present some $14 million in total proposed budget reductions for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. 

Berkeley’s main library on Kitteridge Street presently opens from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sundays, while the four branch libraries—Claremont, North Branch, South Branch, and the Tool Lending Library—are currently closed on that day. 

And while in the midst of resolving local and state budget problems, the City Council takes another shot at national and international issues tonight at its regular 7 p.m. meeting, when it takes on competing resolutions concerning the administration of President George W. Bush. The City Council will be faced with no disagreement about whether Bush is bad for the country—only over what to do about it. 

The Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission has requested that the council support a resolution “requesting an investigation as to whether impeachable offenses were committed” by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The alleged impeachable offenses center around the president and vice president’s actions leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the toppling of the Iraqi government. 

A pre-council meeting impeachment rally co-sponsored by such organizations as the National Lawyers Guild, Veterans for Peace, the Gray Panthers, and the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarians has been set for 6 p.m. tonight (Tuesday) on the front steps of Old City Hall. 

A competing proposal—to censure President Bush for the same Iraqi actions—has been introduced to the City Council by Councilmember Kriss Worthington on behalf of MoveOn.org. 

The two resolutions come before the City Council almost one year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. 

Meanwhile, in one of the most anticipated staff reports in several years, Planning Director Dan Marks will brief the City Council at the 7 p.m. meeting on compliance of recently-built Berkeley residential developments with various Berkeley ordinances. 

The request for the report came from Councilmember Dona Spring last fall in the wake of revelations that the Gaia Building in downtown Berkeley—built and managed by Berkeley development powerhouse Panoramic Interests—had failed to be billed for certain Berkeley tax assessments. Spring had asked the city manager’s office to report on the status of fee waivers, tax assessments, affordability, and occupancy of three recently-built Panoramic properties. At the request of Councilmember Betty Olds, that inquiry was expanded to include any residential project of 20 or more units approved for construction in Berkeley since 1997.<

The Zoning Adjustments Board will soon have to decide whether or not to overrule the Landmarks Preservation Commission and give developer Ruegg & Ellsworth permission demolish the historic Blood House. 

On March 11, ZAB will hear both sides of the debate, with preservationists pushing an alternative plan that would restore the Blood House to its original use as residential housing, and developer Ruegg & Ellsworth arguing that it is impossible to come up with a financially feasible plan to develop the site without razing the century-old building. 

“This is a difficult call and will require a fair amount of analysis,” said principal planner Debbie Sanderson, speaking to ZAB commissioners at their Feb. 26 meeting. 

Preservationists have argued that the developer has no right to tear down the house, which was designated a “Structure of Merit,” and thus a historic resource, by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1999. The designation brings the Southside area building, located at 2526 Durant Ave. and one of three remaining Victorians in the immediate neighborhood, under the protection of the California Environmental Protection Act (CEQA). That means the city must adopt a Statement of Overriding Considerations, which says that the merits of a proposed project outweigh the loss of a historic resource, before approving destruction of the building. In weighing whether or not to adopt the statement, the city must also make sure that all reasonable alternatives to demolition have been considered. 

Ruegg & Ellsworth has maintained that the addition of 44 housing units, seven of which are affordable, constitutes a community benefit that overrides the loss of the building. But so far, ZAB commissioners have not been convinced, twice ordering the developer back to the drawing board to come up with more viable alternatives to demolition. Since the first ZAB meeting about the issue last June, Ruegg & Ellsworth has proposed six plans that would preserve the Blood House, either by relocating it off site or by moving it to another place on the lot. But, according to project manager Brendan Heafey, the developer would lose between $1.4 to $2.9 million under any of those alternative plans. 

But activists pushing to save the house say the developer hasn’t exhausted all the options. And at the March 11 ZAB hearing on the case, they will present a proposal that calls for renovating the Blood House for use as a three-story, five-unit apartment building and surrounding it with a L-shaped building containing up to 35 residential units and a commercial section. They say the plan, devised by architect Mark Gillem, would provide almost the same number of housing units of about the same size while providing a profit comparable to that yielded by the developer's preferred plan. 

They also note that the preservation proposal allows for more light and open space on the site, as well as amenities within the buildings, such as computer-room alcoves and bay windows. The catch? The preservation plan includes no parking lot, a modification that is necessary in order to free up space that will instead go to the Blood House, whose basement level will be raised two feet and turned into a livable unit. 

It’s not a sacrifice the developer is willing to make. Although parking is not legally required on the site, Heafey said it is necessary. For one, he said, eliminating parking will make it more difficult to market the units to professionals and other non-students. “No parking will contribute to a more homogenous Southside population,” he said, adding that most of the 1,500 Southside-area housing units recently built or undergoing construction are intended for students. He also said area businesses would suffer. “Merchants complain that customers from outside the area cannot conveniently drive to their shops,” Heafey told us. 

Preservationists disagree, noting that the draft Southside plan, a long-range planning guide for the city, encourages development that minimizes car use in the dense area north of Dwight Way. John McBride, a member of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), which hired Gillem to devise the plan, said Gillem is providing a public service to the city, which could be sued if it approves the plan without thoroughly considering alternatives to demolition. 

“I see myself as an unbiased player in this,” Gillem said. “This is not a case where people are trying to stop development; the community wants to see development. We are not trying to punish the developer. We wanted to create a good project for the developer, one that would be profitable for them.” He added that the case presents a test of the city’s stated commitment to car-free development. “If it can’t work here, it can’t work anywhere,” he said. 

The preservationists’ challenge is convincing ZAB that their alternative plan, yielding a profit of at least 8.01 percent, is financially feasible. 

The developer says it is not. 

In a letter to city planner Greg Powell, Heafey said BAHA had underestimated the cost of its plan by about $1.5 million. That figure was based on the findings of three consultants, including Oliver & Company and BBI Construction. “The plan is simply infeasible,” Heafey said. 

The disagreement over projected costs revolves around two issues: the cost to renovate the Blood House and the type of construction used in the new building. According to Heafey’s consultants, the cost to convert the house to a three-story apartment building would actually run from $285 to $375 per square foot, 36 percent to 79 percent higher than the cost estimate provided by BAHA. 

But McBride said the developer’s figures are based on misinformation. “Their consultant says in their letter that we propose adding an additional story. But our plan doesn’t call for adding a floor,” McBride said. “We just want to elevate the basement two feet to make it livable.” 

Heafey countered that this does, in effect, constitute adding another story. “There’s nothing down there now. You will have to put in the kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, so forth,” he said. 

A more complicated matter is the type of construction called for in BAHA’s plan. The original plan submitted by Gillem proposed using concrete construction on the ground floor and wood framing for the top four stories, at a cost of $135 per square foot. Gillem’s plan had to be revised, however, after Heafey presented evidence showing that the California Building Code forbids residential uses on the ground floor of a building that has wood frame construction above a ground-floor concrete podium. 

Heafey said the only way Gillem’s plan could work is if the building were constructed using metal frame construction, a change that would raise the cost to at least $175 per square foot. 

Gillem’s latest proposal calls for removing the fifth floor of the new building and making the fourth floor units lofts instead. That revision, Gillem says, eliminates the need for the troublesome—and relatively expensive—concrete podium, which is required in buildings that have more than four stories. Under the new proposal, the new building would have 38 units instead of 40. BAHA says the loss of the units would be offset by the reduction in total building area, bringing the cost to no more than $135 per square foot. 

But Heafey isn’t so sure of this. He said wood frame is not necessarily less expensive to do and doubts if building lofts can compensate for the loss of the fifth floor units. 

“I haven’t seen a drawing on this latest plan,” he told us. “Until I know what it looks like I won’t be able to see if it meets building code requirements. It’s all up in the air at this point.” 

A

The Grand Old Party has declared war on MoveOn.org’s Voter Fund’s television ads critical of President Bush, and MoveOn founder Wes Boyd is furious. 

On Friday, the Republican National Committee sent letters to 250 television stations across country Friday, warning of potentially dire consequences should they air the ads from the Berkeley-based activist organization. 

In the three-page letter, RNC Chief Counsel Jill Holtsman Vogel told broadcasters they “have a responsibility to the viewing public, and to your licensing agency, to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity.” 

“That’s outrageous,” Boyd said Monday. “They’re lying. We’re operating under the law. But this is getting to be a standard tactic of the RNC to silence opposition.” 

The GOP letter doesn’t seem to have had the intended effect. Boyd said he talked to MoveOn’s media buyer Monday afternoon, and not one station had bumped the group’s commercials. 

MoveOn launched the ad campaign Thursday, buying $1.9 million in broadcasting time in 67 media markets in 17 states. The ads highlight worker job insecurity and White House plans to eliminate overtime pay for eight million jobs. The group responded to the RNC letter by announcing plans to add another $1 million in advertising buys to the campaign. 

The Republicans claim the ads are illegal because they are funded in part by a seven-figure donation from George Soros, while the law limits such ads to funding by contributors who give $5,000 or less. 

Because the ad “clearly attacks and opposes President Bush. . .and is being broadcast in states commonly considered crucial to the outcome” of the November election, Holtzman wrote, “the MoveOn.org Voter cannot use soft money” for the ad “and must register with the Federal Election Commission.” 

The letter concluded with an ominous last line: “Now that you have been apprised of the law to prevent future violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station’s broadcast rotation.” 

But Joseph Sandler, MoveOn.org’s own lawyer, sent a letter of his own to broadcasters, charging that the missive was part of “the RNC’s cynical and dishonest efforts to silence the voices of citizens who dare to criticize the president. . .and to intimidate broadcasters into complicity with that indefensible attempt at censorship.” 

Sandler said MoveOn.org’s ads “are entirely lawful under the federal campaign finance laws.” 

Broadcasters are walking on eggs recently, in light of the recent Clear Channel purge of shock jock Howard Stern after he turned against the president and the outburst of conservative rage following Justin Timberlake’s bearing of Janet Jackson’s breast during the Super Bowl halftime show. 

One thing Super Bowl viewers didn’t see on CBS was a MoveOn ad the network refused to air, saying they wouldn’t run advocacy ads during the biggest game on the American broadcasting calendar. CBS also killed an ad from the animal rights group PETA on the same grounds. But CBS did air another advocacy ad during the show, a product of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Just as voters approved a bond measure last week filling AC Transit’s coffers with money for new infrastructure projects, cash shortfalls are once again threatening basic AC Transit service. After eliminating 43 lines last December to close a $50 million deficit, AC Transit now finds itself $17 million in the red and is mulling more service cuts, the sale of its top-of-the-line buses, and another service-saving ballot measure—the third in the last five years. 

An interim financial report, released last month, reported that soft sales tax revenue—about 50 percent of AC Transit’s funding—had opened up deficits of $4 million for this fiscal year and $13 million for 2004-05. 

AC Transit General Manager Rick Fernandez outlined 22 deficit reducing measures in a document released last week, but if revenues continue to slide, a request for another public bailout is possible. The transit agency has approved $60,000 for a political consultant to advise them on taking a possible tax hike to county voters, presumabl y in November. 

Talk of further cuts comes right as voters passed Measure 2, the regional transportation initiative on the March Ballot that earmarks $167 million for AC Transit projects including a Bus Rapid Transit System from Downtown Berkeley to San L eandro. 

The money, however, cannot be used to offset AC Transit’s operational deficit. “It’s so frustrating for people to see us improving our infrastructure, but then cutting service,” AC Transit Board Member Greg Harper said. “A normal business would s top innovating when revenues are hamstrung, but if we stop doing improvements we won’t be able to bring in new riders.” 

To help close the budget gap in the meantime, AC Transit is negotiating the sale of 25 brand new Belgian-made buses to transit operato rs in Washington DC, a move that would pare $8 million from the deficit. 

AC Transit Assistant General Manager Jim Gleich said service cuts had eliminated the need for the new Van Hool buses—Europe’s 2003 Bus of the Year. AC Transit has already deployed 1 33 Van Hools on its major lines. In the sale to Washington, DC, AC Transit would recoup all of its expenses, Gleich said, including the roughly $80 thousand spent last year sending mechanics to Belgium to learn how to maintain the vehicles. 

Meanwhile tra nsit planners are mapping out future service reductions as a last resort if the budget outlook remains dim. 

“We’d be foolish not to plan for another round of cuts,” Harper said. Since the economy soured in 2000, AC Transit has devoured its $50 million r ainy day reserve fund, he added. “We don’t have a cushion anymore so even the small stuff has to be sweated.” 

The only way to salvage AC Transit and other regional bus agencies is to offer more stable and diverse funding sources, said Stuart Cohen of the pro-mass transit Transportation and Land Use Coalition. “It’s been a perfect storm of events,” he said pointing to cuts in state and federal funding, sales tax shortfalls and increased unemployment that have derailed bus agencies throughout the state. He fears that downcycles damage AC Transit’s long-range viability because riders affected by cuts will ultimately stop using the bus. “It’s a cycle we need to get away from,” he said. 

To weather the storm AC Transit has won voter support for a series tax h ikes. In 2002 voters approved a parcel tax, netting the agency $7.5 million a year and in 2002 voters passed a half-cent sales tax totaling roughly $300 million.  

Separate from the current budget deficit, AC Transit is committed to a roughly $4.5 million service cut this June. The cut, which affects 13 lines—none in Berkeley—was supposed to go into effect with other cuts last December. AC Transit delayed implementation in hopes an innovative method to fund union pensions could raise money to spare the se rvice, but the plan fell through, Gleich said. 

Though it won’t be targeted in the scheduled June cuts, Berkeley has felt its share of pain from the service reductions. In December Berkeley lost Routes 17 and Transbay Route HX, and suffered reduced service on Routes E, G, H and 9. Last June AC Transit eliminated Route 8 and reduced service on Routes 65, 67, 51 and 52. Chris Ramirez, a junior at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, has seen his travel time from the Berkeley hills nearly double to 1.5 hours after AC Transit cut service on his bus lines in June and again in December. 

“Since they reduced frequency to every half-hour the buses aren’t as reliable and aren’t timed with BART,” he said.  

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TUESDAY, MARCH 9 

“Commencement for Cuts” a mock graduation to kick-off the campaign to protest higher education budget cuts, at noon at Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. 

Impeachment Rally with Daniel Ellsberg, Dona Spring, member, Berkeley City Council, Riva Enteen, National Lawyers Guild, and Gus Newport, former mayor of Berkeley at 6 p.m., Old City Hall, 2134 MLK Jr. Way. 843-2152. 

Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters (BACH) Meeting Forest activists unite and discuss strategy. Topics include the Humboldt county DA recall funded by Pacific Lumber, the DA fraud lawsuit against PL, a new market campaign against PL redwood lumber, and much more. Bring snacks and liquid to share. At 7 p.m. at Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave. 548-3113, bach@headwaterspreserve.org 

Stop the War on the Black Community, a discussion on the war in U.S. inner cities. Keynote speakers are Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Bakari Olatunji. At 7 p.m. at Fellowship of Humanity Hall, 390 27th St & 411 28th St, between Telegraph & Broadway, Oakland. Donation $5-$25. 625-1106. 

“Trekking in Bhutan” a slide presentation with Himalayan guide Peggy Day, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Traditional Regional Foods of Spain, with co-authors of “Cesar: Recipes from a Tapas Bar,” James Mellgran and Olivier Said, at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose, 843-3533. 

“Rotten Foundations: The Reclamation Act and Urbanization of the West” with Gray Brechin, author and research fellow, Dept. of Geography, UC Berkeley, at 5:30 p.m. in 105 North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Water Resources Center Archives. 642-2666. 

Writing Workshop on the art of writing imminent fiction with Pamela Cranston and Michael Kurland at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

Death Penalty Vigil, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley BART station. Sponsored by Berkeley Friends Meeting. 528-7784. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Blood pressure checks at 10:30 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 

Great Decisions 2004: “Diversity in Islam” with Prof. John L. Hayes, UCB Dept. of Near Eastern Studies, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“The Patriot Act and Our Civil Liberties” with Jack Newman, Deputy Attorney General, State of California, speaking from his personal viewpoint, at 7 p.m. at the Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave.  

“Faith and Environmental Injustice” A GTU Faculty Panel Discussion, at 6:30 p.m. at the Dinner Board Room, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2560. 

“The House We Live In” A film on how our laws, the courts, customs and real estate practices affect race relations and the accumulation of wealth, at 7 p.m. at Albany High School, Multi-Purpose Room, 603 Key Route Blvd.  

“Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It” with Judge James Gray, senatorial candidate and author at 6 p.m. at 2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Campus. Hosted by Cal Libertarians. wonder_son@yahoo.com 

“Generation E” A film about the R.A.V.E. Act, the electronic dance scene, and the war on drugs and youth culture at 7 p.m. in 2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Campus. Donations requested. Hosted by Students for Sensible Drug Policy. 882-8334. 

“The Crippling Effects of Landmines” with author John Gray at 7 p.m. at 145 Dwinnelle Hall, UC Campus. The East Bay Chapter of the United Nations Association. Admission is free, donations will go to landmine clearance programs. 540-8017. 

“Renaissance Images of Christ” with Jason van Boom, GTU, at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Parish, 2220 Cedar St. 848-1755. 

“Street Skills for Cyclists” a lecture and discussion from 6 to 10 p.m. at Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave. Sponsored by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. Free, but registration required 433-7433. 

Poetry Writing Workshop, led by Danna Zeller, 7 to 9 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room, Albany Public Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 20. 

Fun with Acting class meets at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome. 985-0373. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Prose Writers Workshop We’re a serious but lively bunch whose focus is on issues of craft. Novices welcome. Meets 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut, at Rose. For information call 524-3034. 

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets at 7 p.m. in 255 Dwinelle, UC Campus. www.berkeleystopthewar.org  

Berkeley CopWatch open office hours 7 to 9 p.m. Drop in to file complaints, assistance available. 548-0425. 

Community Dances, traditional English and American dances, 8 p.m. every Wednesday, $9. 7 p.m. first Sunday, $10. Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. 233-5065. www.bacds.org 

Free Feldenkrais ATM Classes for adults 55 and older at 10:30 and 11:45 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237.  

THURSDAY, MARCH 11 

“Agriculture Under Occupation: Farming in the West Bank” Local landscaper and compost consultant Jon Bauer has returned from Israel and will share his findings on the ways in which the Occupation of the West Bank affects Palestinian farmers and farming in this fertile land. Accompanied by a slide show. At 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. $5 donation requested. This is a benefit for the Wheels of Justice Tour. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

“Dabru Emet (Speaking the Truth): A New Statement on Jews and Christians for Our Time” at 7 p.m. in the Great Hall, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, 2770 Marin Ave. 649-2482. 

"The House We Live In” A film on how our laws, the courts, customs and real estate practices affect race relations and the accumulation of wealth, at 7 p.m. at YWCA, 2600 Bancroft Way. 

East Bay Mac User Group for all levels, software demos, tips, presentations. From 6 to 9 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St. www.expression.edu 

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers meets at 7 p.m at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. in Kensington. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 12 

Berkeley Schools Now Celebration with Assemblymember Loni Hancock, BHS Principal Jim Slemp, and Rosa Parks Principal Shirley Herrera at 3:30 p.m. at Rosa Parks School Library.  

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Izaly Cemtsov- 

ski, Prof. Slavic Studies, UCB, “Today’s Music in Central Asia.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925. 

Free Speech Movement Retrospective with Michael Rossman and Lynne Hollander Savio at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 528-5403. 

Literary Friends meets at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to discuss Jane Austen. 232-1351. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m. 

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. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169.  

Overeaters Anonymous meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 13 

National Nutrition Month celebration with cooking demonstrations, taste testing and nutrition education from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Flea Market, Ashby BART Station. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org  

Mini-Gardeners: Seeds Learn the plant cycle and see where seeds come from, for ages 4-6 accompanied by an adult, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $3, $4 non-resident. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Good Night Little Farm Rain or shine the animals need to be fed and put away for the night. Join us from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Little Farm. Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Compost Give-Away as part of the National Nutrition month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Seed Saving Workshop Introduction to seed saving for the backyard, school, and community gardener. We’ll cover seed saving in detail, including botany and pollination, types of seeds, wet and dry seed processing methods, equipment, and seed storage. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $15 general, $10 EC members. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

School Garden Conference Join teachers, school volunteers, and youth gardening enthusiasts for a one-day conference on starting or enhancing gardens in Bay Area Schools. Workshops will will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will begin at the Lawrence Hall of Science and move to the UC Botanical Garden. Cost is $10. 495-2801. 

Alternative Materials: Cob and Strawbale A workshop on two natural building methods are currently undergoing renewed popularity. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610.  

Hands-on Ecological Restoration for Youth Enjoy a fun-filled, muscle building day working on a native plant restoration project at Shoreline Park in Oakland from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Participants should be 12 to 16 years old. Gloves, tools and snacks provided. Cost is $10. 238-3818.  

Stream Restoration Workshop taught by Ann Riley, author of “Restoring Streams in Cities,” from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Urban Creeks Council, 1250 Addison St., #107-C. www.urbancreeks.org 

Help Build a Native Plant Nursery and Restore a Marsh Join the effort to restore West Stege Marsh, along the south Bayshore of Richmond, for the endangered Clapper Rail and other wildlife. We will be building potting tables, erecting a shade house, and of course tending our new little plants. From 9 a.m. Pre-registration preferred. 231-5783. martha@aoinstitute.org 

Introduction to Renewable Energy This workshop will introduce solar, wind and micro-hydro systems to homeowners who want to become their own utility companies by generating electricity with renewable energy technologies. At the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 970-963-8855. www.solarenergy.org 

Spring Care and Feeding of Roses with Deb McKay at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

78th Annual Poets’ Dinner at 11:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn in Emeryville, with guest speaker Richard Silberg. Tickets are $22, availabel from 841-1217. 

Story Dressmaking Workshop with artist Patricia Bulitt, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Live Oak Center, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Commemorate a woman or girl who influences your life with collaging onto a brown paper cut out dress. Bring art supplies such as paint, glue, stapler, scissors. Photos, buttons, ribbons, whatever you bring to remember her. Suggested for 8 years and older. Cost is $25-$50 at the door, no one turned away for lack of funds. 841-6612.  

The American Red Cross Classes in CPR and preparedness training at Patten College and Trinity Lutheran Church. Different locations will offer classes in English, Spanish and Cantonese. For more information or to register, call 1-888-686-3600, or register online at www.bayrea-redcross.org 

South Berkeley Annual Crab Festival from 5 to 7 p.m. at the South Berkeley Community Church at 1804 Fairview St. at Ellis. Music will be provided by the Stacy Wilson Trio. Tickets are $35.00 for adults and $17.50 for children. For further information, please call 652-1040. www.sbccucc.org 

“Honoring Transition Beyond Identity” a workshop on gender and identity awareness from noon to 5 p.m. at Toltec Center of Creative Intent, 2300 Roosevelt at Bancroft. Cost is $55-$85, sliding scale. To register call 649-0352, ext. 4. 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. For further information and to register, call 848-7800. 

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 14 

Green Sunday The Green Party and the 2004 Presidential Race, panel discussion at 5 p.m. at the Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland.  

Butterfly Club for ages 8 and up. Learn about these colorful insects, growing native plants and habitat restoration. From 1to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Singing in the Rain Join us on a hike from 1to 3 p.m. and learn how to identify slender salamanders, singing tree frogs and the Clafornia newt. Dress for mud and rain. At Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

“The Fourth World War” with Stephen Funk, imprisoned for refusing to fight in the Iraq War at 3 p.m. at Fellowship of Humanity Hall, 390 27th St., between Telegraph and Broadway, Oakland. 644-6466. 

“From Risk to Action: Women and HIV/AIDS in Ethopia” a film presentation and discussion at 3 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Sponsored by Priority Africa Network, Citizens League of Ethiopian Americans and Concentric Media. 650-568-4340. 

Workshop on Creating Character for the whole family from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater, 2071 Addison St. Admission is free, please bring a children’s book as a donation to the John Muir School Library. 647-2972.  

Storytelling Women Performance at 3 p.m. at Live Oak Center, Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck Ave, at Berryman. Cost is $15-$35, no one turned away. 841-6612.  

Beth El Diversity A panel discussion with Gary and Diane Tobin from 2 to 4 p.m. at Beth El, 2301 Vine St. 848-3988. 

Summer Camp Fair from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Temple, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Learn about summer camp options for you and your children. Sponsored by the American Association of University Women. For a free directory of camps call 800-362-2236. www.acanorcal.org 

Feldenkrais Resources Open House from noon to 5 p.m. at 830 Bancroft Way at Sixth St. 287-5748. 

MONDAY, MARCH 15 

Tea at Four Enjoy some of the best teas from the other side of the Pacific Rim and learn their cultural and natural history. Then take a walk to see wintering birds and dormant ladybeetles, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. Cost is $5 for residents, $7 for non-residents. Wheelchair accessible. 525-2233. 

Waves, Wetlands, and Watersheds Educator Workshop An overview of activities and programs. Copy of “Waves, Wetlands, and Watersheds” included. Held in Berkeley from 3:45 to 5:45 p.m. Pre-registration required by 3/11. 415-597-5888, afrankel@coastal.ca.gov, www.coastforyou.org/  

Classroom Matters Fundraiser for middle school tutoring scholarships at 6:30 p.m. at Downtown Restaurant, 2102 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $75 available from 540-8646. 

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthening at 1:15 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. 548-0425. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Mar. 9., at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Mar. 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Paul Church, 981-6342. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/disability 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Planning Commission meets Wed., Mar. 10, at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481. www.ci.ber 

keley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Mar. 10, at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Barbara Attard, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti. 644-6376 ext. 224. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., Mar. 11, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 11, at 6:45 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/health 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 11, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Mar. 11, in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/zoning±

Elise Blumenfeld’s voice resonates enthusiasm as she guides a reporter through a verbal tour of Berkeley’s newest officially recognized historic district. 

“Usually, when people think of the history of Berkeley, they think in terms of the university. But here in West Berkeley, there were a lot Spanish-speaking immigrants, especially from Chile, and the Irish, who fled here from the famine,” she said. 

Blumenfeld’s passion for what has now become Sisterna Tract Block 106 Historic District began as a drive to preserve a collection of houses and quickly turned into fascination with the discovery of a rich, unexpected history, peopled with immigrants driven from distant homelands by poverty, famine and despair. 

Her effort culminated on March 1 in the official declaration by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission after the panel received a copiously illustrated 48-page report written by Blumenfeld and Sarah Satterlee from the extensive research of 14 other volunteers, including an architect, a woodworker and an archaeologist. 

On Sunday afternoon, neighbors drawn together by the struggle to save their block from the further metastasis of the large apartment buildings and major remodelings that have been invading their neighborhood, gathered over carrot cake, chips, dip, cheese, crackers, cookies, sparkling water and wine to fete their victory at the now-landmarked colorful “Carpenter Gothic” at 2110 Sixth St.  

Blumenfeld, who holds a doctorate in clinical social work, and her spouse and colleague Neal Blumenfeld had restored the building in 1989, 101 years after it was built. Counselors and the California Institute for Social Work now occupy what have been offices since 1929. 

Inside, the original moldings and ornamentation have survived, and 10-foot ceilings keep the interior quite cool, despite the unseasonable warmth outside. 

The new historic district includes the Blumenfeld building and eight other houses on the northern half-blocks of Fifth and Sixth streets south of Addison Street, and two on Addison between Fifth and Sixth. Two other lots are included in the district, but not the structures that now occupy them. 

Blumenfeld credits Hank Mooney with discovery of much of the district’s fascinating history, and Todd Boekelheide with the images in a report that begins with the Ohlone people who inhabited the region long before the arrival of Europeans. 

The following history comes from their account. 

The parcel derives its name from Rosario and Carmelita Sisterna, a Chilean immigrant couple who bought a large dairy farm including the block in 1858.  

The Spaniards, in the person of Luis Peralta, were the first Europeans to seize the land from the Ohlone people—who left three shell mounds within a few minutes stroll of the Sisterna Tract. Holding a land grant from the Spanish crown, Peralta laid claim to the site along with much of the East Bay in 1820. 

In 1842, Peralta subdivided his grant, giving the hunk that includes the Sisterna Tract and most of modern-day Berkeley to his son, Domingo. With the influx of gold-seekers and the Mexican surrender of California to the U.S., both in 1848, his lands were fenced off and his cattle seized by interlopers. 

Surrendering to reality, Peralta sold the last of his holdings five years later to a San Francisco consortium which managed to corral title to all of modern-day Berkeley and Oakland. The speculators sold a parcel south of Strawberry Creek—including the new historic district—to Yolo County dairy farmer James J. Foley, who in turn sold the land in 1858 to the Sisternas, Chilean immigrant who’d been burned out of their farm in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow. 

After the fire, the Sisternas had headed for Gold Country, making their pile before returning to the East Bay, where they bought Foley’s farm. 

The district’s larger neighborhood got its name after a sea captain from Massachusetts, William J. Bowen, built an inn at what is now the intersection of San Pablo Avenue and Delaware Street. The stagecoach line that stopped there dubbed the site Ocean View, and the name stuck. 

Bowen and fellow captain James H. Jacobs sparked early industrial development. Jacobs built a wharf at the foot of Delaware Street—today Jacobs’ Landing—and set up a freight hauling business. A grist mill, a soap factory, and a wood planing mill soon followed, bringing still more industries in the wake. 

Workers for the new enterprises poured in from Europe, Mexico, and South America. The largest group was Irish, fleeing the great famine, but many, like the Sisternas, came from Chile. 

In 1873, Jacobs and a collection of Ocean View entrepreneurs—plus retired UC president Henry Durant—formed the Berkeley Land and Town Improvement Association and proceeded to subdivide between San Pablo Avenue and the Bay from Cordonices Creek to Bancroft Way. 

The Sisternas sold shares in their land to Jacobs’ consortium, retaining title and the right to subdivide and sell off lots. Block 106, Berkeley’s newest historic district, was settled over the next decade by immigrants from Mexico, Chile, Ireland, and Germany. 

Five years later, faced with the growing political clout of Oakland and fearing they’d be swallowed up by the growing city, Ocean View residents joined with the university to incorporate the City of Berkeley. 

Political activism has been an Ocean View traditional from the start, and the district provided an organizational hotbed for the California Working Man’s Party—a major player in the incorporation drive. 

Today, the neighborhood retains the ethnic diversity that marks its beginnings, with the old wave of Spanish-speaking immigrants replaced by a new one.  

The oldest of the new landmarks bears a name that may be either Portuguese or Hispanic. The Juan Velasca House at 2109 Fifth St. still preserves most of the classically inspired ornamentation that defines the Italianate Victorian.  

The Velasca House name is that of the original owners, Juan and Margaret Velasca, who bought the lot from the Sisternas on Aug. 6, 1877, and built their home that same year. Juan Velasca declared himself a tanner, and probably plied his craft with the help of the tannic acid in the plentiful supply of acorns yielded by native oak trees. 

Though 2105 Fifth boasts two bay windows to 2107’s one, the two Italianate cottages are otherwise nearly identical, though 2107 was built in 1889, six years after 2105—originally the home of French-born blacksmith Peter Haller, who built the near-twin for his stepson, Thomas F. Dowd. Satterlee is the proud owner of 2105, which she is presently restoring. 

Though the building is modern, the land at 800 Addison once housed Haller’s carriage shop, built in 1888—enough to win the plot itself inclusion in the district. 

Todd Boekelheide, who collected the illustrations for the landmark application, owns 814 Addison—named after Joseph McVay, a Missouri-born contractor, teamster and developer who built the Queen Anne cottage in 1888. 

McVay also bought the house next door at 816 in 1892. Today a duplex, the home may have begun as an older house moved in and elevated, or as the conversion of a barn known to have once stood on the site. 

In 1892, McVay’s brother Edward built the newly landmarked house at 2100 Sixth St., the largest and costliest to build of the newly landmarked homes—a lavishly ornamented and lovingly restored Queen Anne cottage. He was also married to Isabella Moore, granddaughter of the Sisternas. 

Clara Ballard, the original owner—in 1892—of the Victorian at 2104 Sixth was a sister to the McVays. The home is a virtual twin of the Blumenfeld’s building two doors down. 

The home at 2108, originally built in 1888 and subjected to major remodeling later, was exempted from the district, though the land beneath was included. 

The last house, a Carpenter Gothic at 2112 Sixth, was another Haller creation, built in 1888 and described by Blumenfeld and Satterlee as a reverse twin of Blumenfeld’s building next door. 

“We’re really delighted with the landmark designation,” Satterlee said. “Working together, we’ve helped preserved the a unique part of Berkeley’s history.”o

With a Target store moving in next door, a resort hotel envisioned a few blocks further north and transbay ferry service beckoning at its shore, Gilman Street—part of Berkeley’s industrial core—is emerging as ground zero in the city’s planning wars. 

“There are turf battles everywhere,” said Linda Perry, a supporter of putting a ferry terminal near the mouth of Gilman and an organizer of a Saturday workshop, sponsored by Berkeley Design Advocates on the future of Gilman from San Pablo Avenue to the waterfront. 

The chief tug-of-war pits development advocates who see Gilman as a burgeoning commercial and residential center against manufacturers, who fear that new development would raise property values and force them out of Berkeley. The current West Berkeley Plan favors industry, but the BDA argues that by precluding retail and housing development, the plan depresses property values and potentially costs the city valuable sales tax money, which Albany is positioned to capture.  

“Gilman is an area with a lot of potential for the city,” said JWC Design President, Jay Claiborne. He added that the confluence of development in Albany and the potential for a ferry terminal spurred him and others at Berkeley Design Advocates—a trade group of local architects, planners and urban designers—to take a fresh look at developing Gilman. “Some areas are really deteriorating,” he said. “There are a lot of empty sites that don’t look viable for manufacturing activities.” 

The city’s Office of Economic Development didn’t send a representative to the meeting nor did it not return phone calls requesting information on vacancy rates or the business climate in West Berkeley. 

Saturday’s workshop on Gilman was the BDA’s third over the past several months. Claiborne said that “after hearing from numerous sources that the street had limited retail opportunities,” the BDA has focused more on housing to create a base for future retail development in the area.  

The concept presented Saturday calls for putting housing alongside quiet industries like graphic designers between Sixth Street and San Pablo Avenue, where residents would have easy access to mass transit. The section of Gilman west of Sixth Street would be reserved for industries with loud machinery or frequent truck pickups that wouldn’t fit in a residential neighborhood. 

To make their concepts a reality, the BDA wants to revisit the 11-year-old West Berkeley Plan, up for review in 2005. Their suggestions, said Planning Director Dan Marks, would essentially change the focus of the plan along Gilman, from Harrison Street to Camelia Street, from preserving manufacturing jobs to providing housing. He added that city staff had no opinion on such a change, which would ultimately be determined by the City Council. 

Though the brainstorming session, known as a Charrette, had no binding authority, Claiborne said he hoped to bring the group’s ideas before the city’s Planning Commission and work with those involved in formulating the current West Berkeley plan. 

Some planning commissioners in attendance Saturday were hostile to tinkering with the plan that took years to hammer out. John Curl argued that West Berkeley was not blighted and that the meeting was solely motivated by “developers wanting to develop something.” Planning Commission Chair Zelda Bronstein warned that a change would be a “body blow” to the West Berkeley Plan. 

Manufacturers said that inconsistent enforcement of zoning regulations has allowed retailers onto Gilman and sent rents spiraling. Two years ago Urban Ore, an industrial re-use business, lost its lease at Gilman and Sixth streets when the property owner demanded a rent hike from $7,500 to $18,000.  

That property, now owned by the Berkeley Unified School District, is pivotal to the debate over Gilman. Mayor Tom Bates told the Planet in November that he was working to find a different home for the school district, because the Sixth Street property was located on one of Gilman’s few budding commercial centers. 

“There’s not a lot of commercial opportunities on Gilman,” Bates said in November. “But if you have a vacant lot, I’d like to explore the revenue opportunities.” 

The district, however, failed to close a deal on a property at Eighth and Carleton streets and with rental expenses for their current bus lots totaling $450,000, it plans to push ahead with the Gilman project, said Lew Jones, the district’s director of facilities and maintenance.  

Concepts offered by DBA designers sparked heated debate among the roughly 30 people in attendance. 

Responding to Landscape Architect Karen Burkes’ vision of a ferry terminal, hotel and light rail system on the Gilman waterfront, the Sierra Club’s Norman LaForce minced few words. “We will sink any ferry boat that tries to get into Gilman.”  

Environmentalists want to locate the future ferry terminal—approved in a ballot measure last week, at a yet-to-be-determined site in Berkeley or Albany—at the Berkeley Marina, away from the Eastshore State Park which they worked decades to secure. They are currently fighting a hotel and entertainment center, planned by the Magna Entertainment Corporation, set to rise just east of the park and blocks from Gilman at Golden Gate Fields racetrack. 

Few West Berkeley residents attended the meeting, but most who were present favored a modest amount of new development. “Right now all we have are vacant lots, abandoned buildings and graffiti. How is that better than development?” said Alvin Jackson and Randal DeLuchi, who moved into the neighborhood eight years ago. “It’s gentrifying and everyone loves it. This plan would be our dream,” they said. 

ˇ

For almost 14 years, Rebecca Dennison has been fighting one of the world’s toughest fights. Since testing positive for HIV in 1991, Dennison, who is a Berkeley resident, has also become one of the leading advocates for women living with HIV/AIDS. She was honored for her work last Saturday when she was inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame. 

Dennison, who originally founded WORLD, or Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases, out of her living room, just recently stepped down from the helm of the organization that now reaches 12,000 women in 85 countries. Here in the East Bay alone they serve 200 families. 

According to Dennison, she originally founded the organization because outreach services for women with HIV/AIDS didn’t exist at the time. 

“I felt like women and the people who care about them needed a place to share information, resources and strategies for living with HIV/AIDS,” said Dennison. 

Today WORLD’s resources include a newsletter, retreats and peer advocates who serve as a bridge between women and services such as doctors. The organization boasts many success stories, and has also helped Dennison in her own struggles. 

When she learned she was positive she said she immediately thought she would quickly die and, even if she lived, never be able to have children. But with the information she got through WORLD, she found ways to reduce the risk of transmission. She eventually learned that she is a non-progressor, which means that her disease does not progress quickly. 

“By belonging to this community there were a lot of things that I had, and the most important was having the information about reducing the risks of my children being infected,” said Dennison. 

It took Dennison five years to get pregnant and she said it was the hardest decision she ever made to try. 

Today, however, she is the proud mother of twin girls who will turn eight next week, both of whom are HIV negative. 

“If I hadn’t had the support or information that the organization provides, I might have delayed getting pregnant and lost time with my kids,” she said. 

A group of concerned homeless residents came knocking at the city’s door on Friday, asking officials to help them find a way to keep a temporary shelter at Oakland’s old Army Base open until the weather dries out and warms up. 

More than a dozen people gathered in a ground-floor conference room with Steve Barton, director of the city’s Housing Department, Andrew Wicker, a community support specialist with the Housing Department, and Cisco DeVries, aide to Mayor Bates, to ask the city to find a way to help them keep the shelter open. The group had earlier pleaded its case to Oakland officials. 

“We don’t want to point the finger, we want to help,” said Dwight Stallings who has used the shelter for most of the winter. Stallings said he and other called the meeting not to protest the upcoming closure but as a way to try and facilitate a way to find more money. 

“We need the housing, we’re people with skills and trades and we just need a little more time,” he said, adding that many of those at the meeting are trying to transition into more permanent housing. 

The Operation Dignity Temporary Winter Shelter, which has 100 beds and provides showers and two meals a day along with counseling and health services, usually stays open through or until the middle of April. It is now a victim of pending budget cuts. According to Alex McElree, executive director of Operation Dignity, the organization that runs the shelter, a $50,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that came through in previous years was cut off for this year. 

According to McElree, as of Monday Oakland had proposed re-allocating $30,500 which will keep the shelter open until April 2. It costs the shelter $2,500 to per day to run operations. 

Andrew Wicker, from Berkeley’s Housing Department, said the city will not be able to contribute as much as Oakland, but will contribute almost $20,000 pending approval from the city manager and or the City Council. 

Wicker said the funds will come out of the Housing Department’s unused pool for emergency shelter vouchers for families or people with disabilities. That pool, he said, was not drained as much as expected this year. 

Berkeley contributed $56,000 to the Army shelter’s budget earlier this year because it serves large parts of the homeless community here in Berkeley that cannot get into other city shelters. The city also allocated $42,000 for travel vouchers on BART that the homeless can use to get to the shelter. 

“On the one hand the city should be responding to the concern of its citizens,” said Wicker. “We support their goals and I’m very impressed that they’re working to make things happen.” 

“On the other hand it’s frustrating that we’re scrambling to come up with resources.” 

According to McElree, the shelter serves a vital role for those who cannot get into other shelters, especially during the county’s rainiest and coldest months. He said the county only has 1,000 beds for an estimated 3,500 people. 

“We take the homeless who are hardest to serve, the people who will not come in from the rain, the most needy,” said McElree. 

McElree said the center is also a home base of sorts for homeless veterans. Operation Dignity runs a number of veteran services and veterans make up 22 percent of shelter residents. 

A young man who declined to give his name but said he had just returned from Iraq after serving with the 82nd airborne said the shelter was one of the only places he could turn because people had continually turned him down for jobs, fearing he might have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 

“I spent 120 days serving, and I get kicked back on the street, that’s what I get, that’s my reward,” he said. “I’m hitting brick walls everywhere I go.”

UC Berkeley and Federal Express have agreed to fund Fulbright fellowships jointly for graduate students denied funding after a FedEx error caused applications to be picked up past the deadline. 

FedEx will contribute about half of the grant money, with the rest coming from the university’s fellowship endowment, Chancellor Robert Berdahl said in a statement. 

In January the Department of Education, which oversees the Fulbright-Hayes program, denied consideration to the 30 UC students. Upon the request of UC officials, The U.S. Department of State, which also oversees Fulbright programs, agreed to manage a special review of the students’ applications, but held UC responsible for funding the fellowships. 

Last year half of Berkeley’s 30 applicants received grants ranging from $19,593 to $63,947, according to the university. 

“All parties agreed that the students were the focus,” said Sandra Munoz, spokesperson for Federal Express. “This agreement means these students will get a chance to fulfill their dreams.” 

UC officials did not say if devoting campus fellowship money to the Fulbright students might cost other students fellowship opportunities.›

Burglar Caught 

Police responded early Sunday morning to a 911 call from a resident on the 2300 block of Ellsworth Street, who overheard people talking about a burglary they had committed. Officers responded and detained one man at the scene. An area search located bags filled with computers and jewelry determined to been stolen from a Berkeley heist hours before. Police arrested Alhondro Myers, a 26-year-old nomad, for possession of stolen property, trespassing and showing a false ID to a police officer. 

Landlord Trespassing 

Tenants at an apartment on the 900 block of Grizzly Peak Boulevard called police Wednesday evening when their landlord illegally entered their home. Landlords must give notice before entering a tenant’s residence. Police documented the case, but arrived after the landlord had left the premises, police spokesperson Kevin Schofield said. 

Telephone Worker Scuffle 

A PG&E crew member traded blows with a passerby at a job site at Hilldale and Marin avenues Wednesday, police said. The two men struck each other with their hands, said police spokesperson Kevin Schofield. Neither combatant was believed to be injured in the scuffle.›

One of the great modern California folk myths is that African-Americans did not show up west of the Sierra Nevadas until the opening of work for black folk at the World War II shipyards. In fact, African-Americans were migrating into the state in signifi cant numbers as early as the mid-19th century, and in the East Bay had formed a stable, diverse, and well-defined community by the turn of the last century. One of the survivors of that pre-World War II black community—Berkeley native Dorothy Reid Pete—ce lebrated her ninetieth birthday last week. 

The event was held in Oakland at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, the establishment of Dorothy Pete’s youngest son, local businessman Geoffrey Pete. 

A portion of Dorothy Pete’s family originally came to California from Virginia during the turmoil immediately preceding the Civil War, when plantations were being broken up and families and servants shipped out of the South in anticipation of the bloody battles soon to come. Her great-grandfather, William Henry Galt, was h onored by a California governor for his work with the state militia in helping to keep California out of the Confederacy. 

Other members of Pete’s family were active in significant California and national events. One of her grandfathers, Edward Parker, is listed in the Great Register of San Francisco County Voters as having registered to vote on April 15, 1870, the first day African-Americans were allowed to vote under the protection of the 15th Amendment. A great-cousin, Berkeley native William Patterson, was the leading black member of the U.S. Communist Party during the 1930s and 1940s, and wrote the 1951 petition delivered by Paul Robeson to the United Nations charging the United States with genocide against the African-American people. 

Dorothy Pete was born in Berkeley in 1914, the ninth of 13 children of Tom Reid Sr. and Virginia Parker Reid. Three of her younger sisters—Florence Lewis (the widow of former lightheavyweight champion John Henry Lewis), Maybelle Allen, and Hazel Huff—are all still liv ing. 

The Reid family grew up in South Berkeley, living on both California and Oregon streets. Like most East Bay African-American families of the early 20th century, much of their recreation and social life centered around Berkeley’s San Pablo Playground, where national Negro League teams often came to play and give exhibitions on Saturdays and Sundays. 

One of Dorothy Pete’s brothers, Charles Reid, was an accomplished semi-professional baseball player and a longtime recreation director at Shields Park i n North Richmond, later named Shields-Reid Park in his honor. Another brother, Paul Reid, was a cofounder (with cousin Mel Reid) of Reid’s Records on Sacramento Street, one of the oldest still-existing black businesses in Berkeley. Paul Reid was also a no ted radio gospel deejay. After his death he was honored by the City of Berkeley as a South Berkeley Pioneer, with a banner with his image placed along Adeline Street. 

Dorothy Reid Pete graduated from Berkeley High School, worked as a secretary at the the n-segregated Linden Branch of the Berkeley YWCA, and later integrated the downtown YWCA as a staff worker. She married Herman Pete, a star athlete from Alameda, and moved to Oakland after living in Berkeley for several years. They had two other sons besi des Geoffrey: Gregory, a journalist and counselor, and Dennis, who had an early career with both the Black Panther Party and briefly as a defensive back with the Oakland Raiders, and has since become a church youth counselor on the east coast. 

J. Dougla s Allen-Taylor is the nephew of Dorothy Reid Pete. 

?

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN—Although temperatures sometimes drop below freezing, farmers have already planted this year’s opium poppy crop in fields just outside Kandahar city. It’s no secret to the government of interim President Hamid Karzai or the U.S. troops who patrol the area. Opium poppy is virtually the only winter crop. 

Akhtar, a major opium growing farmer who asked that his full name not be used, says his and other nearby villages producing drugs never see any U.S. anti-drug officials. The farmers are quite open about their business, even offering visitors bowls of salt-roasted marijuana seeds, a byproduct of another major commodity in the village: hashish. 

Akhtar and other villagers say producing drugs is a simple matter of capitalist economics. They can earn three times as much growing poppy and marijuana as raising wheat, their traditional crop. 

“Because these two crops don’t require a lot of water,” said Akhtar, “we make a better profit when we sell it.” 

Afghanistan has once again become the number one exporter of heroin in the world. Drug trafficking accounts for a startling 50 percent of Afghanistan’s estimated gross domestic product, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. 

Mirwais Yasini, head of Afghanistan’s Counter Narcotics Department in Kabul, says his government is making some progress in the fight against drugs. The government is educating farmers, cracking down on heroin labs and “eradicating the opium plants,” said Yasini. He said the U.S. Army has a new policy of destroying heroin labs and poppy fields when they encounter them during normal operations. 

So far the results are not encouraging, however. While poppy production decreased last year in some provinces such as Kandahar, entrepreneurs shifted production to other parts of the country. Overall opium cultivation increased by eight percent from 2002-03, according to the UN’s 2003 Opium Survey. 

Opium poppies have grown in Afghanistan for centuries, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that significant amounts were processed into heroin. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the mujahadeen guerrillas discovered that heroin smuggling was a lucrative means to finance their anti-Soviet jihad. Weapons for the mujahadeen arrived in Karachi, Pakistan, traveled by truck to the Afghan border and then by mule over the mountain passes. The heroin followed the same trail in reverse. 

Within a few years after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, factional fighting among the mujahadeen led to chaos. Heroin quickly became the country’s number one export as warlords financed their armies with drug smuggling. By the time the Taliban seized power in 1996, Afghanistan produced roughly 75 percent of the world’s heroin, and the fundamentalists at first did little to address the problem. 

Under tremendous pressure from the U.S., however, the Taliban reversed course and banned poppy growing in 1999. Within two years, poppy cultivation dropped by over 90 percent, according to UN aerial surveys. It continued only in areas controlled by the Northern Alliance, the U.S.-backed guerrillas that later helped topple the Taliban. 

Within months after the US invasion in 2001, when Afghanistan had no effective government, farmers planted poppy and heroin smuggling surged once again. Interim President Karzai has tried to crack down on the drug trade, but the government has limited resources, according to drug czar Yasini. For example, only 430 of the proposed 17,000 Afghan national police will be assigned to anti-drug efforts, because the government’s priority is fighting the Taliban and maintaining security. 

The government would like to provide alternative crops to impoverished farmers. “We are thinking about saffron as an alternative crop, olives, and all types of vegetables and fruits,” he said. 

Yasini concedes, however, that the government has no money for such projects. The drug trade, on the other hand, finances the country’s warlords and their underlings known as commanders. One high government official said flatly that drug corruption reaches extremely high in both the national and provincial governments. 

“If you give me a list of all the commanders in the country, I will point out the few who are not involved in the drug trade,” he said. 

For example, the former governor of Kandahar province, Gul Agha Sherzoi, helped protect drug smugglers, according to Sarah Chayes, until recently head of the non profit Afghans for a Civil Society in Kandahar. One day she saw him lunching with “the top opium trafficker in the region.” On another occasion, a tanker truck carrying 9,000 kilos of hashish into Pakistan “had provincial governor license plates,” said Chayes. The driver carried “a safe conduct written on provincial governor stationery.” 

Sherzoi, a staunch US ally, is no longer governor of Kandahar Province. Karzai promoted him to minister of housing in Kabul. Minister Sherzoi was not available for comment despite numerous phone calls to his office. 

Back in the village outside Kandahar city, farmers are tending their fields. They understand the social problems caused by drug addiction. “But what option do we have? asked poppy farmer Akhtar. 

“We don’t like to grow this, but we’re obliged to,” he said. “If God brought us something to grow instead, we would immediately change.” 

As we prepared to leave, Akhtar had an additional thought. “It’s interesting to know that people in America know we’re growing poppy, but they don’t know we’re not getting food.” 

Reese Erlich is co-author, with Norman Solomon, of “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You” (Context Books, 2003).ˇ

What’s the first stop you make after spending two months in the west wing of Oakland’s Kaiser Permanente ICU? If you are anything like my husband, Ralph, you go directly to Fentons Creamery and Restaurant, the venerable 110-year-old ice cream institution located just a few blocks up the street from the hospital, but a million miles away in terms of sweetness, atmo, and calorie counts. 

Because Fentons is completely wheelchair accessible, it was easy for Ralph to get through the wide front doors and navigate to a table with a view of Piedmont Avenue. Cold glasses of ice water were immediately delivered to us. A huge laminated menu with every conceivable frozen dessert concoction imaginable gave Ralph a moment of pause. For most of his time in ICU he had been nourished via a feeding tube placed strategically up his nose. It was only in the last few days of his seven-plus week stay that he had eaten any solid food. He hadn’t been happy with the hospital cuisine. We smuggled in hot pastrami sandwiches from nearby A.G. Ferarri’s Italian delicatessen, and chocolate devil’s food cake from their next door neighbor, Just Desserts. 

At Fentons, Ralph finally settled on a Black and Tan ice cream sundae, made with homemade vanilla ice cream and chocolate and caramel syrups, and topped with shaved almonds, whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. It came in a tall, beveled glass, a beautiful creation fit for a man who has just been sprung from Intensive Care. Ralph ate with gusto and when he was finished he sampled my monstrous banana split and then, still hungry, he ordered a root beer float. 

Normally, I would have advised against such an impulsive decision. Normally, he wouldn’t have wanted a second dessert. Normally, I wouldn’t order a banana split. But this was no ordinary occasion. Ralph had survived 51 days in ICU, 49 of them on a ventilator. He had endured irregular heartbeats, a tracheotomy, plummeting blood pressure, skyrocketing fevers, IV’s in his neck, arms and wrists. He had missed the Super Bowl, his sixty-fifth birthday, the Stanford-Cal basketball game, and Valentine’s Day. He deserved this small moment of pleasure. 

And I deserved it too. I hadn’t bothered telling him about the emergency root canal I had while he was in the hospital, or the 45 minutes I was stuck underwater on a hot, crowded BART train in the trans bay tube. I neglected to mention my trip to Santa Rita Jail to visit one of his attendants, the backed-up kitchen sink, or the leaky bathroom faucet . He had other, more important concerns, like staying awake and breathing. 

Neither of us has any illusions that this will be his last visit to Intensive Care. His health is fragile. The tracheotomy literally opens a new location for potential infections to invade his body. But at this moment we are happy. He is out of the hospital. He is home. He can eat a pastrami sandwich or two ice cream sundaes in a row and no one, least of all me, is going to offer objections. And as soon as our friend in Santa Rita gets paroled, we’re heading right back to Fentons.

ALBANY ZONING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For over five months now I have been part of a community group that respects the need for commercial development along San Pablo Avenue, but would like the City of Albany to respect our wishes to leave the neighboring streets residential. In less than five months, we have drafted a well-thought out and detailed Alternative to the Planning and Zoning Commission’s commercial expansion proposed along San Pablo Avenue and we have attracted over 400 supporters from all over the city (not just the so-called “NIMBYs”). By contrast, it took some members of the commission more than seven years to come up with a radical expansion proposal that only he and one other member can support with a straight face. Unfortunately, these two have married themselves to a proposal that would ruin the spirit of Albany for no other reason than to preserve their fragile egos. 

Four-story buildings built up to the property line of single family homes would destroy the neighborhood—plain and simple. A radical increase in large commercial buildings would increase crime, traffic and pollution; such changes would have a negative impact not only on the neighboring streets but anyone living in Albany and anyone attempting to drive through Albany, especially via San Pablo Avenue. This is not a case of “NIMBYism.” Keep in mind that San Pablo Avenue runs through the majority of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. You could be the next homeowner with a Wal-Mart opening in your backyard. I am amazed and appalled that the powers that be have let the voices of a few drown out the voices of hundreds. We just want to be heard! 

We have started a petition and urge potential supporters of reasonable, respectful development to contact us before the next Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on Tuesday, March 9. We have a hotline at 527-0923, and our website is http://stopsanpabloexpansion.com. 

Kamala Appel 

• 

WHAT NEXT? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Schwarzenegger’s office gravely warns the public that gay marriages being performed at San Francisco’s City Hall will cause mayhem, that it will “lead to anarchy.” Other foes of gay marriage warn of a “fierce backlash.” 

What now: Will Washington policymakers initiate preemptive military strikes against San Francisco—as they did in Kabul, Khandahar and Baghdad? 

Will Gov. Schwarzenegger or President Bush call in the U.S. military to drop cluster bombs on civilian wedding parties—as in Afghanistan? 

I suppose we should take the warnings seriously. After all, there’s no knowing from one minute to the next what this administration will drop on our heads, or—God forbid—on the heads of others. 

Sheila Newbery 

• 

AN ELECTION TALE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We just voted in the March 2 California Primary, believing that this fundamental exercise of our democracy is more important than ever. Unfortunately, we have no proof that we voted, or that our vote will be counted. We are deeply alarmed to find that even here in Alameda County, a stronghold of responsible political thinking, balloting procedures and technology have become sloppy and mysterious. 

This is our experience: 1) No proof of identification was requested. 2) At the point where the plastic voting card was issued, there was no reliable verification that we had signed in, and anyone could have stepped in line to have simply requested a voting card. 3) The touch screen voting system did not allow for any paper trail. 4) When we asked for a receipt showing that we had voted, we were told that no receipts exist and the voting officials tried to convince us that the “I voted” sticker (available in a dish) could serve as proof of voting. 

In this historical moment when we are trying to reclaim our country and democracy from the theft of a presidential election, this is more than outrageous. 

Joanna Macy and  

Michael Leaver 

• 

ART PROGRAMS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I can’t agree more with Bonnie Hughes’ commentary in your last issue regarding the Seagate Plan and how the current process continues to hinder arts programs in Berkeley. 

Everyone has a responsibility to recognize the importance of the arts, especially in a city who has developed much of it’s history and reputation on 

liberal arts and the freedom of expression. In the very same edition of the Berkeley Planet in which Ms. Hughes expressed her concerns, there was a front page story of another tangled web between city government, corporate development, and Berkeley’s art community centered around the Gaia Building project. 

It’s time we fully utilize the systems that have been put into place such as the Civic Arts Commission and the Cultural Trust. These groups exist for a reason. To develop the arts in Berkeley. To speak on behalf of the people of Berkeley. To speak on behalf of the artists of Berkeley. 

Rob Woodworth 

• 

ELP GETS THE AXE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The corporate University Extension decided to lop one of its finest appendages. The English Language Program has taught English as a second language for over three decades with sensitivity both to the different cultural backgrounds of scholars and to local academic culture. ELP training allowed scholars to participate fluently and gracefully in the life of the University.  

ELP teachers have included some of the most engaging people we have ever known, versed in the humanities and attuned to individual differences. We have met students over the years at social events held for them by their teachers. For the students we met (many more than were interviewed in 

deciding to cut the Program), ELP provided a supportive beginning for their academic pursuits here. It was an enclave of comity that students were willing to pay more for than other English language instruction. 

Now more than ever we need to retain humane settings for international education. 

The English Language Program is Berkeley quality, is Berkeley appropriate, as long as Berkeley has any soul left. 

Horst and Eva Bansner 

• 

GAIA CONTROVERSY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many thanks to Richard Brenneman for his lucid and revealing article on the Gaia Building controversy (”Gaia Building Criticized For Lack of Arts Tenants,” Daily Planet, March 5-8). It is interesting that he is able to include a quote from Patrick Kennedy, the developer, to the effect that he plans to complete the work necessary “in a few weeks” for Anna De Leon to be able to move her new club “Blackbird” into the building in a matter of maybe a few months from now. I for one will keep my eye on this.  

Rick Kalman  

• 

UC LANGUAGE PROGRAM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I very much appreciate your coverage of a decision with great impact on both Cal and the city of Berkeley in your article, “Fate of English Language Program Debated” (Daily Planet, March 5-8). I work on campus and was at the rally. The one error that I wish could be corrected is that many of the people attending that rally were members of CUE, the clericals’ union, whose efforts on campus you have covered so well and so thoroughly in the past. We protest any situation where we see UC staff being laid off as a result of what we consider questionable reasons, and you couldn’t ask for a better example than the closing of this program. 

Jude Bell 

Dept. of Art Practice 

UC Berkeley 

• 

MINOR CORRECTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have one minor correction to make to Lesley Emmington’s wonderful article about the Blood house and the continuing destruction of Berkeley’s historic resources (“Blood House Catalogs Southside History,” Daily Planet, Feb. 24-26). While the Southside, and indeed much of the city, did support and benefit from the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance, it was in fact authored by Martha Nicoloff along with the Oceanview Committee in response to the wholesale bulldozing of houses in the West Berkeley Redevelopment Project Area. Committee members threw themselves prostrate in front of bulldozers and then unsuccessfully sued to force the Redevelopment Agency (which at the time was a separate board headed by the city manager) to comply with the newly adopted NPO and to stop the razing of some of the oldest houses in the city. It was then that the City Council became one of the first in California to declare itself to be the Redevelopment Agency and they created a plan to restore the Oceanview neighborhood. A fragment of the original committee continues to exist as the Oceanview Tenant and Neighborhood Association and we’re still waiting for the city to fulfill the promises that it made so long ago.  

Rhiannon 



Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder. Allowing a Berkeley school to remain named for him is a tacit, but, powerful statement that owning more than 150 slaves was a minor or excusable part of his legacy. Citing selected pieces of his writing to characterize him as an opponent of slavery goes against the common sense notion that “actions speak louder than words.” To minimize the fact that he bought, sold and worked other human beings for his personal profit is disrespectful to the memory of those for whom slavery was not a concept to be pondered, but a life that was lived. It is equally disrespectful to the memory of the many white Americans of Jefferson’s era who actively resisted the institution of American slavery. 

Thomas Jefferson has a prominent place in American history books and has schools named for him because he owned slaves, not in spite of that fact. Slave labor was the source of his wealth; and so, also the source of his political power and his prominent place in American history books. The argument that Jefferson was “a man of his time and place” cannot be supported by history which considers the lives and actions of individuals beyond the most wealthy and powerful to which the average school textbooks are limited. Research reveals many men and women (perhaps less prominent and wealthy) of Jefferson’s time who were possessed of a morality which led them to resist, rather than personally profit from, the abomination of African-American slavery. With that information, we do not need to rely on contemporary ethics and morality to find Jefferson lacking in the integrity and courage which generally define a hero. 

Jefferson’s neighbor and friend, Edward Coles, made the bold decision to sell his plantation and move to Illinois so that he could free his slaves. Once in that free state, he gave each former slave family 160 acres of land. As the second governor of Illinois, he worked to keep Illinois a free state. His support of that cause lost him a great deal of popularity, and pretty much ended his political career. His former slaves and the state of Illinois, however, remained free because of his efforts. 

In 1794, the Society of Friends (Quakers) declared that it was wrong “to live in ease and plenty by the toil of those whom fraud and violence has put in (one’s) power.” More important than their words, brave Quakers living in Jefferson’s time had already begun the practical effort of helping slaves escape via the “Underground Railroad.” In 1786, George Washington complained that “a society of Quakers, formed for such purposes, have attempted to liberate” one of his slaves. These Americans not only declined the personal gain associated with slavery, but in many cases risked their own safety to oppose it. 

The actions of many other lesser known men and women give evidence that Thomas Jefferson was only one kind of “man of his time and place.” He was the kind of man who elicited forced labor from other individuals with the use and threat of physical violence. When one of his slaves escaped, he advertised a bounty for that man or woman’s capture and return. If the slave was caught, Jefferson ordered a severe punishment—flogging or being sold away from their family. This was an example meant to discourage other men and women from attempting to gain their freedom. Jefferson, just as all other slave holders, relied on the threat of physical violence to keep his plantation profitable. African-American slaves simply did not give up their freedom willingly to do Jefferson’s work for him. To be a slave holder, one is required to be a tyrant. 

Thomas Jefferson “talked the talk.” He did it beautifully and quotably. At no point in his life, however, did he “walk the walk.” There were many other Americans living in his era who not only knew what was right, but did what was right. They were not only “men and women of their time and place,” they were the true—if unsung—heroes of their time and place. 

It is not easy to give up long-held, sentimental misconceptions about our nation’s history and “heroes.” I believe, though, that as responsible citizens: When we have the opportunity to know the truth, we must hear it. When we have the opportunity to tell the truth, we must speak it. When we have the opportunity to respect and honor the humanity of others, we must do so expressly and openly. When we have the opportunity to exercise our own humanity, we must embrace it. These opportunities are presented to the Jefferson School community as we reconsider what kind of statement we would like to make with our school name.  

Marguerite Talley-Hughes is a second grade teacher at Jefferson School.

Welcome to the second installment of my “Ask Mayor Tom” column. If you have a question or an issue you would like covered in this column, please drop me a note (my contact information is at the bottom).  

Dear Mayor Tom, 

I am writing about the air raid siren at Indian Rock Park. It is defunct and just sits there to the detriment of the park. It needs to come down and anything you can do would be great. I have lived here all my life and would be willing to help take it down.  

Bill Somerville 

Dear Bill, 

I’m familiar with the old siren. It is a large ugly structure with concrete footings that was originally put in by the federal government. It hasn’t been used for decades. I would love to remove this eyesore, but city staff have estimated that the removal will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. With our budget uncertainties, this just is not at the top of the city’s priority list because it is not an active safety hazard. However, I would be happy to work with the neighborhood to raise money to help pay for the removal. If you or anyone else from the neighborhood would like to talk to me about that, please give me a call. 

Dear Mayor Tom, 

I am one of the dwindling number of Berkeley street vendors/artists on Telegraph Avenue. Here are some suggestions for changes if you would like to see us remain as an attraction on Telegraph. First, better lighting. Second, access to power outlets. Third, parking. Fourth, Make the mental health crisis team a permanent fixture on Telegraph—the are the best thing that has happened to Telegraph in years. Fifth, Consider making Telegraph a pedestrian zone without the threat of buses (or at least avoid widening the road for buses because that would take away our vending spaces). 

Philip Rowntree 

Dear Philip 

I have been working with the Telegraph Avenue Association, the Telegraph Business Improvement District, UC Berkeley and AC Transit to explore options for improving the Telegraph Avenue Area. Right now, we are in the process of contracting with a group called Project for Public Spaces that has had great success in improving areas like Telegraph Avenue. We are close to finalizing an agreement and I will for sure put forward your suggestions—so stay tuned! Lastly, I suggest you tell all your patrons to park at the Sather Gate Garage. We’ve made changes to the parking system, so there are almost always spaces available throughout the day. 

Dear Mayor Tom, 

Isn’t there some city rule or sanction prohibiting full-time City of Berkeley employees from sitting on city boards and commissions? For example, I know of several aides to city councimembers that also serve on city commissions. Could we please stop this illegal process? It is a way for staff to rule the citizen commissions. 

Jeanne Burdette 

Dear Jeanne, 

City staff members are already prohibited from serving on a commission that overlaps with their work responsibilities. For example, the city does not permit an employee of the Parks Department to serve on the Parks Commission because it would be a conflict of interest. However, if an employee (who is also a resident of Berkeley) works for the Department of Information Technology, the rules would allow that person to also serve on the Parks Commission.  

You specifically raised the issue of councilmember aides serving on commissions. Council aides do not direct city staff, they work with constituents to solve problems and develop policy initiatives. If a councilmember doesn’t see a problem with their aide participating as a commissioner in an area in which they have an interest, I would leave it to their discretion. We are lucky to have so many people volunteering their time and energy on our more than 35 commissions. 

Please send questions, concerns, and ideas that you’d like to see discussed in this column to “Ask Mayor Tom,” care of the mayor’s office: 2180 Milvia St., Berkeley, 94704. E-mail: mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us. Fax: 981-7199. Phone: 981-7100.

Finally, after 25 years as an amateur community opera, the Berkeley Opera has taken a first step toward becoming a small professional company. By presenting Wagner’s Ring at Berkeley’s Julia Morgan Theatre in a three-and-a-half-hour condensed version designed to be produced by small companies, the opera makes this work accessible to the general public at a reasonable price. Jonathan Khuner, the artistic director, took a risk and broke the ground for further explorations in this direction. Cast with professional singers rather than local amateurs, and staged by the brilliant young stage director Mark Streshinsky, with stunning projections by both Streshinsky and Jeremy Knight, the general quality of the production was well above what has previously been seen at the Berkeley Opera. Hopefully it will be the dawning of a new age for this company.  

Director Khuner chose a reduction of the work that had already been performed at the Nuremberg Pocket Opera. It was created by David Seaman, conductor at the Welsh National Opera. Seaman took as his goal the telling of the tale itself, eliminating back narrations, musings, repetitions, and segments written for large orchestra. There are only eight singers in the Berkeley production, appearing as different characters identified by similarity in psychological prototype and voice. For example, Marie Plette sings the sweet Woglinde, the innocent Freia, the winsome Forest Bird, and the vulnerable Sieglinde. Clifton Romig appears first as the ambitious Wotan, later as power-hungry Gunther, and finally as The Wanderer. Similarly, the orchestra members must play two or more instruments as well as perform as soloists, reflecting and commenting upon the drama. 

The music and text, except for a few brief transitional chords, are directly from Wagner’s score. It is a formidable task for everyone involved, as both the singers and the orchestra members must perform throughout the opera, all the time. The challenges of presenting scenes from the Rhine to Valhalla—from forests to dragon’s lairs to the circle of fire to the final apocalypse and rebirth of the world—were masterful visual components that could stand on their own as artistic achievements. They served to powerfully propel the drama forward. 

The three sopranos (Marie Plette, Catherine Cook, and Christine Springer) shone forth in all their incarnations. While Marie Plette’s voice glows with extreme beauty and Catherine Cook’s luscious sound was perfect for Fricka, the revelation of the evening was Christine Springer. Here is a singer born to sing Wagnerian heroines—commanding presence, authoritative sound, and trumpeting high voice. Indeed, all three singers are rarities—they are born Wagnerians, who give life to the declamatory style in impeccable German.  

Another discovery was Jo Vincent Parks, who used his rich tone with both eloquence and subtlety as Alberich and Fasolt. With the exception of Marie Plette, who is already embarking on an international career in this repertoire, the extraordinary capabilities of these artists would still be unknown had they not been given this opportunity by Jonathan Khuner.  

The rest of the cast, Clifton Romig, William Pickersgill, Roy Stevens, and Gary Ruschman, were all excellent as well.  

There were the predictable opening night glitches onstage, but these should be smoothed over in future performances. The orchestra was four rehearsals short of an opening night, due to the exceedingly severe financial constraints under which this production was mounted. It may be hoped that the day will come when the superb conductor Khuner will have enough money to pay for the orchestra he deserves, and the time needed to rehearse them adequately. It is testimony to Khuner’s and Streshinsky’s love of art that four evenings of such a work could be produced on less money than a major company might spend to build 10 costumes. 

Olivia Stapp is a retired Metropolitan Opera Soprano and former director of Contra Costa County’s Festival Opera.o

At Berkeley High School, students usually congregate on campus and in the park to laugh, eat lunch and make plans for the weekend. But for many Berkeley High students, recent gatherings include memorials, funerals and grief support groups, as they come t o grips with the accidental deaths of two popular students. 

Nic Rotolo and Miguel Caicedo passed away last month in two separate accidents, Rotolo in a hockey game, and Caicedo in a traffic accident. Their untimely deaths have left a huge void in the liv es of their family members, as well as their friends.  

But after the memorials are over, students are left on their own to grieve for their friends. Family members are seen as survivors and are supported in their grief, but classmates are expected to mov e on more quickly.  

Berkeley High students are fortunate to have a health center that offers grief support, but students in private schools in the area don’t have these services.  

Students throughout the city are grieving with one another the best way t hey can—sharing funny stories about their friends, wearing sweatshirts with their classmate’s picture emblazoned on them, and making bracelets out of hockey shoestrings in remembrance of the hockey player who died. Some of them are just hanging out togeth er, wondering what to do with this huge void in their lives.  

Oftentimes, some parents aren’t even aware of how a classmate’s death has affected their child. What does grief look like in teenagers? Grief can be complex and unique to every teenager, and t he needs of the bereaved teenager have been overlooked for decades. It is hard to teenagers to receive – or know who to ask for – support when they are grieving. While teenagers might look like men or women, they’re not. And they need consistent and compa ssionate support as they grieve.  

So how can parents understand the unique ways in which teenagers grieve? According to an article by Dr. Alan Wolfelt, author, educator and director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, " Bereaved teens give out al l kinds of signs that they are struggling with complex feelings, yet they are often pressured to act as if they are doing better than they really are." While they are working towards their independence and looking toward the future, teenagers are experiencing a sense of loss while they break away from their parents and seek to gain a sense of their own independence. The experience of a classmate’s death compromises this normal development, and makes teenagers vulnerable to stress.  

For teenagers, common grief reactions include confusion, depression, shock, guilt and anger. While adults feel an immediate intensity of loss and experience grief for long periods of time, teenagers can experience very brief grief reactions several times a day. Parents can observe, for example, if their kid may not be sick, but might want to stay home from school just to curl up in bed. Give them permission to grieve. They need the stability and presence of their parents and other caring adults. 

A simple hug or a few minutes to talk to a teenager never hurts, either. Give them time to work through their grief, as well as keeping them involved in activities they enjoy. For teenagers who like to write, give them journals to express their thoughts. Art supplies and music are als o excellent tools to help teens cope with their grief. 

Books and websites that parents might find helpful in supporting their teenagers through the grief process are: I Will Remember You: A Guidebook Through Grief for Teens (L. Dower); Part of Me Died, T oo. Stories of Creative Survival Among Bereaved Children and Teenagers , (V. Fry); The Dougy Center website, www.dougy.org; and www.bereavedfamilies.ca/Library/Teenage 

_Grief. 

lies.ca/Library/Teenage_Griefµs

Someone once said that in order to understand the culture and history of a people, you must “flush the johns.” You might also consider visiting a shopping mall. If you’re retail consultant Paco Underhill (a “tall, bald, stuttering research wonk on the cusp of his fifty-third year”), you would spend your time sniffing around 300 malls all across the country, observing American shoppers in their sweatpants and sneakers and taking copious notes. 

For all the time he spends in malls, Mr. Underhill seems to hate them, and he has his reasons. “The fact is that the mall phenomenon came along and took the place of the town square, the public zone,” he writes in Call of the Mall, his second book dealing with the science of consumerism. “The mall is a monument to the moment when Americans turned their back on the city.” This comes from a man who lives in Manhattan, and who describes urban centers as the crowning democratic achievement of our civilization. But he also acknowledges that, “Increasingly, cities are becoming the province of the rich, the childless, or the poor.”  

Malls have stepped in to take their place as one of the only environments where community life is on view, families can relax together and the citizens of different generations and economic classes can mingle.  

Unfortunately, malls—now well past their prime—are failures on many levels. The complaints range from bad architecture, greasy food and filthy bathrooms to insinuations of racism and censorship. The reason for all this, Mr. Underhill believes, is that malls are not designed or built by retailers, architects or city planners, but by real-estate-development companies whose only concern is the bottom line. 

What does it mean when corporations control the “public” spaces? For one thing, it means they aren’t public anymore. Their capitalist owners regulate who goes in and out in the name of protecting their investments. Shopping malls are big business—$308 billion in annual sales, and 14 percent of all U.S. retailing—and their investors’ primary concern is maximizing profit per foot. Mr. Underhill illustrates the resultant tradeoffs by walking us through a typical shopping center (just outside New York City) and deconstructing it toilet by food court by window display. Though he neglects the broader social and political implications of this disturbing trend, focusing instead on improvements that would benefit the mall retailers themselves (who are his real-life paying clients), Call of the Mall nonetheless makes for entertaining reading. 

“If you need proof of suburban malls’ smug, insular nature, consider this—they can almost never be easily reached by public transportation,” Mr. Underhill writes. (The same might be said of suburbs generally, which are completely hostile to the carless.) He describes one of the consequences: in 1995, there was a ban on city buses stopping near a mall in Buffalo, and an African-American teenage girl was killed trying to cross a seven-lane highway to reach it. There were accusations of racism and a lawsuit filed by the dead girl’s family against the mall, which settled for $2 million. On the positive side, most malls’ marble walkways are “tranquil” and “lulling,” partially due to restricted access. 

Mall developers are open about wanting to discourage youths from marauding in their courtyards. (At what point does restricted access become discrimination?) Mr. Underhill questions the developers’ logic, citing low crime rates and explaining that poor people tend to avoid wealthier shopping areas of their own volition, but he doesn’t dig much deeper. 

The developers and their fiscal concerns influence even the most mundane details. Have you ever thought, for example, about why the restrooms at any shopping center are down a dank, out-of-the-way corridor, so isolated that you fear for your life as you scurry towards them? Mr. Underhill explains that from the developers’ point of view, the bathroom is a “necessary evil” with no sales potential; they have zero incentive to make it comfortable. This state of affairs is a particular affront to women, who make up the greatest proportion of shoppers and of restroom users. Mr. Underhill wonders: do male mall executives not value the goodwill of their female market base? His answer is a defense of the executives’ position. He cites insurance and liability issues associated with bathrooms and suggests that we should be thankful that malls provide any facilities at all. His prescription? The mall should take advantage of this “captive audience” by showing new DVD’s on restroom walls, selling advertising space on stall doors and having the local Body Shop supply the soap. “An entrepreneurial approach to the well-appointed restroom could turn even this place into a profit center,” he concludes gleefully. (The same forward thinking brought TVs to yellow cabs.) 

It helps that Mr. Underhill understands the absurdity of his job. “No wonder we look at the mall—at the ambition of it, at the reality, at that already obese teenager stuffing her jaw with a drooling Cinnabon—and we can’t help but wonder, is this the best we could do?” Unfortunately, he weighs down his narrative with clunky dialogue that distracts from the flow of interesting information. He also constantly reminds us that he’s writing mostly for his potential consulting customers—the Gaps and Starbucks of the world. (This criticism was also leveled five years ago against his first book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping.) 

In a long section of his new book, Mr. Underhill analyzes mall store window displays and berates retailers for making poor use of their entrances. The driving design philosophy is to let shoppers see as far into the store as possible from the corridor, which creates an unsightly bowling-alley effect—in his opinion, it’s one giant wasted opportunity. Worse, “the mall aesthetic has now infected the urban shopping experience.” Anyone who’s strolled down Fifth Avenue recently will heartily agree—and anyone who’s been to the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle knows that an actual mall has now landed in Manhattan. A discussion of the impact of all this homogenization might have been interesting, but that’s a whole other, weightier book. Mr. Underhill deserves credit for at least raising the questions and for doing it with spunk. 

“Theoretically, we could all grow our own food and make our own clothes and build our own houses. But it would be boring,” he writes in an introduction that betrays a creeping insecurity about the importance of his work. “So let’s agree that the saga of humankind can be told at least in part through the story of shopping.” Try to hold onto that lofty sentiment next time you find yourself fighting over a pair of shoes at a sample sale. 

Call of the Mall, by Paco Underhill. Simon and Schuster, 227 pages, $24.95. This review first appeared in the New York Observer. 

ˇ

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 

FILM 

Asian American Film Festival: “On the Road: A Document” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Orin Starn reflects on “Ishi’s Brain: In Search of America’s Last “Wild” Indian” 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., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744.  

www.thejazzhouse.com 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazz- 

school at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Pete and Joan Wernick, with Dr. Banjo of Hot Rize fame, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 

THEATER  

Berkeley Opera, “The Legend of the Ring” at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$40 available from 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

FILM 

Film 50: “Charulata” at 3 p.m. and Asian American Film Festival at 7 and 9 p.m. Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Mark Katz remembers “Clinton & Me” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Café Poetry and open mic, hosted by Ira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donation requested. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7,  

$5 with student i.d. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

Jean Thompson reads from her new novel, “City Boy” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert Early Keyboard Music with Davitt Moroney at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-4864.  

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Anthony Paule & Mz. Dee Band at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ragas and Talas, classical Indian music open jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Slack Key All-Stars at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Nicole and the Sisters in Soul at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Jules Broussard, Bing Nathan, Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Ben Adams Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Moped, earRotator, Sign for Stereo at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

THURSDAY, MARCH 11 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Picturing Berkeley: UC Students Take a Closer Look” at the Addison St. Windows, 2018 Addison. Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Exhibition runs to April 12. 845-3449. 

FILM 

Film and Video Makers at Cal: “Music, Story, Expectation” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ayelet Waldman in a benefit reading of “Food for Thought” for the Alameda County Community Food Bank from 7 to 9 p.m. at Verbena, 1111 Broadway, Oakland. Suggested donation $40. Reservations required. 843-3663, ext. 328. events@accfb.org 

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Guided Tour at 12:15 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Paul Belz and Marc Elihu Hof- 

stadter, followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. For information call 526-5985 or 205-1749.  

Brad Land talks about “Goat,” on the fears and isolation of young adults, at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Georgia-Chechnya Border: An Anthropological Survey” with Shorena Kurtsikidze, lecturer in the Dept. of Slavic Languages at 6:30 p.m., 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 643-7648. 

Robert Scheer and Christopher Scheer discuss “The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq” at 7:30 p.m. Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Charlene Sprenak reads from her new book, “Missing Mary” at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

The Algerian National Ballet presents an evening of traditional dances at 8 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside, Oakland. Tickets are $25-$40 available from 800-769-9669.  

New Century Chamber Orchestra, recording sneak preview, at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 415-392-4400. www.ncco.org 

Evergreen Dazed, Bob O’Magic at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Jackie Greene, folk and blues, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mushroom and Eddie Gale at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $5. 763-1146. 

The Katie Jay Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Loretta Lynch, Real Sippin’ Whiskeys, Yardsale at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Joshi Marshall Project at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 12  

CHILDREN 

Let’s Clown Around, with storyteller Laura Shennum at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “The Secret Language of Youth” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry Reading “Contemporary Poets on Writing, Meditation, and Buddhism,” at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum Theater, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Berkeley Opera, “The Legend of the Ring” at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$40 available from 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen, at 8 p.m. and runs through April 11. 647-2917. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater, “Street Soldier The Play” a benefit for Omega Boys Club and celebrating Black History month at 8 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $20. 1-800-SOLDIER. 

Central Works, “The Duel” a new play adapted from Chekhov’s novella, at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Runs Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through March 27. Tickets are $8-$20. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

Everyday Theater, “The Bright River,” a show by Tim Barsky, at 8 p.m. at the Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. Through March 20. Tickets are $12-$20 and are available from 644-2204. 

Impact Theatre, “Say You Love Satan” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Runs through March 13. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

“Marat/Sade,” by Peter Weiss, directed by Philip Charles Sneed at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse. Also March 13 at 8 p.m. and March 14 at 2 p.m. UC Dept. of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. Tickets are $8-$10. 866-468-3399. http://theater.berkeley.edu 

Youth Musical Theater Commons “West Side Story” performed by 7th-11th grade youth at 7:30 p.m. at Longfellow Auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 848-1797.  

Un-Scripted Theater “Imrov Survivor” at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, and runs to April 3. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.un-scripted.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Charles Hamilton and the Alums of Berkeley High at 8 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theatre, Allston Way between MLK & Milvia. Tickets are $5 students, $10 adults, $12 reserved. 464-4631. 

Jr. Bach Festival at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $5-$10. 843-2224. www.juniorbach.org 

Back Like I Never Left with Game, Kahlil Almustafa, Kirby Dominant at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Happiness, Anton Barbeau and Val Esway at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Tangria Jazz Group performs blues and tunes by Monk at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $7-$10. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Steve Lucky & The Rhumba Bums with Ms. Carmen Getit at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Captured! By Robots, Hurting Crew, The Dead Hensons at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Ian Butler, Blue on Green, Hy Brassyl at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Point Blank at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Danny Caron, jazz and blues guitar, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

DJ & Brook, jazz trio, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

John Santos Quartet, Latin jazz, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Married Couple, alt-jazz, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Phenomenauts, Rock’N’Roll Adventure Kids, The Secretions, The Paranoids, Safeway at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 13 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Los Mapaches at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Wild About Books” storytime at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

Pop Art Superstar Workshop, for ages 12-17, at 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. Bring a light colored t-shirt or pillow case to print on. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org  

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Katsunori Hamanishi, mezzotint prints, reception 6 to 8 p.m. at Shurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. Exhibition runs to March 31. Gallery hours are Weds.-Sat., 2-6 p.m. and Sun. 11a.m. -3 p.m. 524-0623. 

THEATER 

Confessions of a Cha Cha Feminist, with performance artist Maria Elena Fernandez at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Herstories, “Bone Songs: Echoes of the Unknown Mother” at 8 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph Ave. Tickets are $10-$25 sliding scale. 594-1377. 

Youth Musical Theater Commons “West Side Story” performed by 7th-11th grade youth at 7:30 p.m. at Longfellow Auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 848-1797.  

“Orphans of Delerium” a series of performance rites presented by ParaTheatrical ReSearch at 9 p.m. at Wildcat Studio, 2525 Eighth St. $10 suggested donation. 464-4640. 

FILM 

Muslim Film Festival, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 155 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $7-$10. www.muslimfilmfestival.org 

“Angel’s Ladies” about a legal Christian brothel in Nevada at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

Women of Color Film Festival “The Liberation of Everyday Life” at 6:30 p.m. and “Ways of Love” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Sign-language interpreted guided tour at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Youth Speaks Poetry Slam at 8 p.m. at Youth Radio Cafe, 1801 University Ave. Cost is $3. 435-5112. 

Gallery Conversation with artists featured in The Kala Gallery’s current exhibition, “The Drawing Room,” at 2 p.m. 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

Steven Saylor, author of “Roma Sub Rosa,” speaks to the California Writers Club at 10 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 2 and 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Netherlands Bach Society with guest soloist Marion Verbruggen at 8 p.m. at First Congragational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $38 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival with Berkeley Arts Magnet Percussion at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

Jr. Bach Festival at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $5-$10. 843-2224. www.juniorbach.org 

Gamelan Sari Raras at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. 642-9988. http://music. 

berkeley.edu/concerts.html 

Flamenco Spirit with Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos at 6 and 9 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $42-$55 and includes dinner. For reservations call 843-0662. www.cafedelapaz.net 

Dress Up/Dress Down, a collection of stories told through outlandish dresses, dance and music at 8 p.m. at the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd. Tickets are $10-$15, available from 587-0770. www.movingout.org 

Angel Magik, hiphop, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Tree Leyburn at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Pisces Party at the 1923 Teahouse at 9 p.m. All ages welcome. Suggested donation of $7-$10, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Post Junk Trio at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Barbara Higbie, pianist, fiddler, singer and composer, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kotoja at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson with Comfort Mensah at 9 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Fountain St. Theater Band, Wart and Sonic Orange at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Sheldon Brown Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com  

Acme Observatory presents Vivian Corringham with Tim Perkis, Scott Looney, Toyoji Tomita and Gino Robair at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Admission is free, donations accepted. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Rock and Roll with Nicole at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Farma, Crooked Jades, The Shiftless Rounders at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Eric Shifrin and the In Crowd at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Amy X. Neuberg and Herb Heinz at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

All Bets Off, Daughters, Some Girls, Chinese Stars, Paint the Light at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926.π

The ceanothuses are blooming! Ceanothi? Or is “ceanothus” like “moose”—singular and plural? Either way, it’s almost not a street tree, but the plantings on the University Avenue median are too gorgeous right now to let semantics stand in the way.  

Those big shrubs/little trees in the median look like Ceanothus thyrsiflorus ‘Skylark’ to me, just on a drive-by ID. They’re very nicely pruned, to show off their soft-gray trunks and masses of bloom in fanned-out domes. The thing I’ve always liked about that public planting is that, at the right time of day (usually morning) in the right kind of weather, the blue of the flowers precisely matches the blue in the distant folds of the Marin headlands that backdrop the view down the avenue. That combination plays delightful tricks with the eye, tricks of depth and distance and the color qualities of clear air.  

I’m identifying the planting so tentatively because a singular quality of the genus Ceanothus is its plurality: The Jepson California plant manual mentions 45 species, and many of those have assorted varieties within the species, and as a group they hybridize merrily for still more multiplicity. Horticulturists have used that tendency well, and given gardeners lots of cultivars to play with. And almost every one of them is a different shade of blue.  

So are their wild cousins. I’ve stood on a Sonoma hillside (somewhere up Ida Clayton Road) for a great view of a whole chaparral valley dappled with ceanothus, wave after wave of blues ranging from fresh indigo to cold-sky to a palest dust, and white. I wouldn’t begin to estimate how many species I was looking at.  

Ceanothus is called “blueblossom”—sensible, if economical—and “California (or wild) lilac,” which is a stretch. Its flowerheads are much more compact, and their scent more subtle, than that of lilacs. You wouldn’t think of blueblossom as a scent plant at all unless you stood in a mass of them, or stuck your nose right into the blooms.  

Be careful if you do that; bees like ceanothus. I’ve seen honeybees and our native bees working the flowers. Deer eat some species (though they’re generally among the plants optimistically called “deer–resistant”) and between the large and the small, they’re an integral bit of several native systems. Unusually for a non-bean, they’re nitrogen fixers, and so enrich the soil for other plants. Humans use them, too, for more than ornament. Coppiced, they put out sprigs for basketry; some species are smoked, some used for medicine, and you can produce a shampoo by rubbing blossoms in water between your hands.  

They want native conditions in your garden—summer drought, especially around the base of the trunk. Their only drawback is that they’re short-lived for a shrub/tree, tending to die after ten or 15 years. So that garden in the median isn’t planted for the ages, but in a city, who could count on that anyway? The beauty is worth the grief; sometimes it pays to burn the horticultural candle at both ends. 



Okay, the vernal equinox is creeping up on us. It’s light outside when we wake up in the morning, and the birds have launched their spring programming. As noted in these pages, stuff is blooming all over the place. It’s the time when the thoughts of many turn to romance. And, also, when the thoughts of some turn to politics. 

Two political agendas are currently preoccupying the activist wing of the greater Berkeley chattering class. First, the easy one: Will we or won’t we be able to swallow our pride and work for John Kerry? Even in greater Berkeley, the active chatterers are not, in the last analysis, crazy. There’s a lot of hemming and hawing on the usual suspect Internet list-servs, but precious few of the contributors, though they’ve been whining a lot, have any intention of sitting this one out. The challenge now, for those of us in California, is to figure out if there’s any strategy for adding more than money to the Fire Bush effort. We hope that California is safe for the Democrats, though that assumption needs to be regularly challenged. If it is, what else can we do to help?  

MoveOn.com is our local hero, constantly working on thinking up news ways to make a difference. A new group, America Coming Together, has targeted 17 key states for the Nov. 2 presidential election. They’re using traditional voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns. In my birthplace, St. Louis, for example, election officials report that their staff has been swamped by more than 32,000 new voters registered sinc e July. It has occurred to me that I should organize a family reunion to bring my 18 politically correct first cousins and their offspring back to the old home state to organize it against Bush. The only difficulty is that a fair number of them now live in Florida, another swing state where their help will be needed. 

But the presidential race is the easy one, as I said. Here in Berkeley, political minds are cogitating on prospects for the November City Council election. The four senior matriarchs of the council are up for re-election, and there is inevitably speculation about whether anyone’s going to retire this time. Mim Hawley has already announced that she’s on her way out, and affable real estate agent Laurie Capitelli hopes to take her place, so fa r without challengers. The other three are still officially on the fence. Margaret Breland has missed many council meetings recently because of poor health. Betty Olds is in her eighties, and Maudelle Shirek is in her nineties. Potential candidates are jo ckeying for position “just in case” one of them decides to retire. It’s an awkward situation, because true friends of all three have been heard to say privately that “she ought to retire in order to leave her legacy intact,” but no one is willing to say s uch things publicly. The inevitable result is that if an opening does develop in any of the three districts by the August filing date, candidates will most likely emerge from backroom deals instead of from an open public process. The new rule which lets a candidate win with 40 percent of the vote will make that outcome even more probable.  

All three, though they don’t necessarily agree on many topics, are well respected for their long history of generously contributing to Berkeley. That’s why all three o ught to give that legacy question a good hard look this year (and every four years). They owe it to themselves. 

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Daily Planet.›a

Things you’d never know if you didn’t read the papers…even the local Knight-Ridder-CocoTimes-Lesher-Hills-faux-front offspring that appears in driveways in upscale zip codes from time to time. From the Berkeley manifestation of this conglomerate publishing empire, we learn that our mayor was “frosted” because a memo addressed to him by a city attorney found its way into the Berkeley Daily Planet. Since the mayor’s office didn’t honor us with his comments, we’ll quote the full item from Knight-Ridder’s Berkeley Voice, for those of you who live in the flats and don’t see it: 

“A security lockdown is taking place at City Hall as a result of a recent story in a local newspaper that quoted a confidential memo from Assistant City Attorney Zach Cowan to Mayor Tom Bates.  

“Locks have been changed, computer passwords have been replaced and city staffers will no longer be able to access their files from home.  

“‘Somebody either broke into our office or hacked into our computer to get that memo,’ said Bates.  

“‘Either way, it was a serious violation of lawyer-client confidentiality. We’re not going to go on any witch hunts, but we have to prevent it from happening again. But it breaks my heart to see the openness with which we have traditionally conducted the public’s business in Berkeley so badly abused.’ 

“Adding insult to injury, Bates said, ‘What really frosts me is that despite all the underhanded lengths they went to, they still got the story wrong!’” 

What’s wrong with this silly scenario? Quite a lot, actually. First, what the Planet got was an anonymous copy of a fax of a printout of an e-mail. Given today’s electronic technology, changing the locks at City Hall and changing computer passwords won’t do much to stop that kind of leak, which could easily have originated in a recycling bin somewhere. And “a serious violation of lawyer-client confidentiality?” The attorney-client privilege has never been construed as banning the press from reporting on information about legal opinions provided to government by staff, and we hope no one in the city attorney’s office has told Mayor Bates that it does.  

Also, what’s this about getting the story wrong? What story? We got a copy of what seemed to be a memo from a city attorney. Those of us who had seen previous memos from the same attorney decided, on strictly literary criteria analyzing prose style, that it was authentic, so we printed it. Period. No one from the city has stepped forward to deny the memo’s authenticity or authorship. Is there anything more that we might have missed? 

What’s more important is how good the attorney’s advice was, and how the mayor intends to use it. The memo opines that UC is claiming exemption from city zoning. But another anonymous source, this one inside the University of California, tells the Planet that UC’s planners and attorneys have been taking for granted, for a long time, that UC is already required to follow local zoning restrictions for commercial projects like hotels. An internal memo to that effect has circulated inside the UC administration, seen by many. (And no, we didn’t have to break into an office or hack a computer to get that tip. People trust us with important information, perhaps even more than they trust their employers.) The source gave us the case references on which UC’s belief is based. We looked them up, and they seem to check out. So why have the city attorney and the mayor been strategizing about how the city can change its zoning to accommodate UC, in the memo’s words, to “bulletproof any city approval”? Whose side are they on, anyway?  

If the office of the mayor wants to answer some of these questions, or to complain about anything that appears in the Planet about their activities, our pages are open to them, as always.  

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Daily Planet.