BOSTON — Was it the Boston Common or the Boston Morgue this past Sunday? Only about 1,500 protesters showed up at what was to be the marquee protest event during this Democratic National Convention (DNC). The absence of many protesters at the march may be the greatest indication yet that the American left, if not embracing John Kerry for President, simply does not want to get into any political food fights this year and possibly end up with another four years of George W. Bush. -more-

Although sure to entertain, Berkeley’s upcoming Cavalia multimedia horse show has some union members pointing to the drudgery behind the dazzle. -more-

As the long-running dispute between the American Baptist Seminary of the West and its neighbors threatens to boil over once again, the city Planning Department sought advice from Robert Humphrey, a long-retired city zoning officer. -more-

The first public official to pose a serious public challenge to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lives—where else?—in the City of Berkeley. -more-

The newest addition to the Berkeley political scene, the non-partisan, non-profit Bay Area Center for Voting Research, warns that the Democratic Party is within a hair’s breadth of losing its majority hold on Bay Area voters. -more-

Bullet Holes Discovered, Twice -more-

Charcoal Ashes Ignite Deck -more-

At Scrabble last week Rose was telling us about the play she had just seen, Betrayal by Harold Pinter. “It was terrific. I highly recommend it. In fact, I went to see it twice.” -more-

ACTORS ENSEMBLE -more-

NO CLUE -more-

Many readers will ask why anyone in their right mind would go to either the Democratic or Republican convention, why I would willingly submit to endless queues for security checks, only to spend even more hours enduring formulaic political harangues. The answer is that I’m here because at age 63, after forty plus years of voting for Democratic candidates, I still nourish the hope that my party will emerge as the DEMOCRATS—as the unmistakable champions of human dignity, peace and justice, and saving the planet. From my experience at the 2000 convention, held in Los Angles, I know that I will not be alone in nurturing these hopes, that for every professional politician, lobbyist, or celebrity groupie, there will be several participants that want to take back our country, who continue to believe that America can be a beacon of democracy. -more-

In this era of university expansion and controversies over damaging encroachments on residential neighborhoods, Berkeleyans might look to how the current illegal use of the campus of the American Baptist Seminary of the West (ABSW) will be resolved to see how Berkeley will protect its neighborhoods. On July 12, the City of Berkeley’s legal and planning staff declared the ABSW to be clearly in violation of both “the intent [and] the letter of [its] existing use permit,” which is solely to educate up to 250 graduate ministry students. The University of California is the other major participant in this violation, which is surely not in keeping with UC’s stated intent to respect municipal codes and enhance community livability. -more-

When I first heard James Carter, then 26 years old, at the old Yoshi’s on Claremont in 1995, it felt like what I imagine it would have been like to hear Charlie Parker in 1945 or Ornette Coleman in 1960. I was too young to have experienced the halcyon days of bop or free jazz and did not start listening consciously to jazz until 1962, but I did see Roland Kirk in 1965, Archie Shepp in 1966 and John Coltrane in 1967. Carter had that same kind of energy, as if you were present at the birth of something new and exciting, something that could make you begin all over again. My notes from that first Bay Area appearance by Carter include these words: beautiful, remarkable, phenomenal freedom, weird, experimental, totally accessible, unending stream of ideas, incredible, passionate. This was heady stuff. -more-

There is a commodity in life that is more precious than gold, and that is water. In the Golden State of California water is more than precious, it is endangered, because we have but two seasons, wet and dry, and in some years the wet season is a dry one too. -more-

When Avenue Books, long a favorite on College Avenue in Elmwood, fell victim to the post-9/11 economic crunch, neighbors mourned the loss. -more-

The number one seller on Amazon.com, The 9/11 Commission Report, is flying off the bookstore shelves across the country. A bookstore in my little Indiana town sold out its first 100 copies in two days. Barnes and Noble on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley is out, too. -more-

It’s my firm conviction that you can’t have too many field guides. They’re indispensable to anyone who’s intrigued by the names and relationships of living things: birds, trees, dragonflies, mushrooms, whatever. Although you can find guides for almost every group of organisms (with some gaps; I know a park ranger who was so frustrated by the absence of a guide to freshwater invertebrates that she wrote and published her own), the bird books far outnumber the rest. -more-

The National Arbor Day Foundation has issued a pocket-sized booklet titled What Tree Is That? that’s worth the modest investment if you order in bulk—$3 for one, $25.25 for 35, $189.00 for 270, plus $4.95 for shipping and handling of any quantity. It calls itself a guide to the more common trees found in the western United States, from the Rockies to the Pacific shore. It’s one of those dichotomous keys—“If A, go to 13BS”—that drive me nuts to use but are useful for things that sit still for examination. -more-

TUESDAY, JULY 27 -more-

You can hear it over the traffic on Shattuck Avenue: a high-pitched chittering, coming from somewhere overhead. Looking up, you may be able to spot a couple of small, torpedo-shaped black-and-white birds with an elegant Art Deco look, looping through the air above the downtown buildings. They’re white-throated swifts, foraging the urban canyons for airborne insects. -more-

TUESDAY, JULY 27 -more-