Janice Thomas lives on Panoramic Hill just southeast of Memorial Stadium, close enough to keep track of Cal football games by the yells of the crowd and the blasts of the nearby cannon. This past Saturday morning, as the city filled up for the Big Game against Stanford, Thomas had a big problem. -more-

Berkeley’s medical marijuana Measure R—presumed defeated on election night—has been quietly but steadily increasing its percentage of the vote during Alameda County’s count of provisional and absentee ballots, and is now within striking distance of a possible victory. -more-

Members of Berkeley’s Design Review Committee (DRC) last week hurled stinging rebukes at a former city employee turned developer and his five-story condominium and retail building planned for the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Derby Street. -more-

As many as 7,000 nurses and other hospital workers are planning to strike Dec. 1 at 14 Bay Area Sutter hospitals including Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, union leaders said Friday. -more-

Community and religious leaders, workers, and representatives from various unions stood outside 38 Bay Area Safeway stores on Friday asking customers to sign cards pledging their support for workers in the event of a strike or boycott as contract negotiations between the two sides drag on. -more-

I’ve spent the last two years of my life receiving an education from De Anza Community College, behind my family’s back. During that time I had the audacity to tell them that I had already graduated. In fact, I was barely passing English 101. -more-

For people who want to give a little time and effort to help those in need this Thanksgiving, several organizations in Berkeley would be happy to receive a helping hand. -more-

While trucks, backhoes and a dredging machine moved earth outside, anxious neighbors of the hazardous waste-filled Campus Bay project gathered with state officials Friday morning to unload some dirt of their own. -more-

Geneva Agnes Gates Foote, a widely-admired and wise woman, writer, naturalist, spiritual seeker, and Westbrae neighbor, passed away peacefully on Tues., Nov. 9 surrounded by friends and loved ones. She was 81 years old. -more-

For the first time ever, an American company will be put on trial for human rights abuses committed by a government with which it did business. -more-

The 2004 presidential exit polls were wildly off the mark in swing states; the difference between the expected and actual results was not randomly distributed, it was all in Bush’s favor. -more-

Several nights ago I cooked a pot roast for the very first time. It turned out well, and was so appreciated by the people who live with me, that I decided to cook another. Preparing two pot roasts two nights in a row got me wondering why I waited 52 years in order to tackle a roast. This led me to question just what I’d been doing in the kitchen for the past 40 years, since making my first peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the age of five. If I’d cooked only two roasts, then how many turkeys have I prepared in my lifetime, and of those, how many were for Thanksgiving dinner? -more-

FINISHING THE JOB -more-

Click here to view Justin DeFreitas' latest work ? -more-

Trio Robs Duo -more-

In September of this year an organization was formed to represent homeowners on creek properties, who are traditionally the stewards and caretakers of Berkeley’s many creeks. This group, Neighbors on Urban Creeks, through public interest, brought about a revision of that part of the creek ordinance which would have prevented the rebuilding of creekside homes destroyed by fire or quake. -more-

As a senior in the Planning Profession and an avid watchdog for deviations in socially and environmentally responsible urban and regional planning in the Bay Area, I am alarmed by the unilateral actions by the City of Richmond giving developer J.D. Levine “approval” to build a “world class” casino resort at Point Molate (“Developer Wins Pact to Build Point Molate Casino,” Daily Planet, Nov. 12-15). -more-

The Democrats’ defeat in the Nov. 2 national election comes as yet another temporary setback to progressive politics in this country. However, while there is much to be concerned about (from election fraud to the Supreme Court to the war in Iraq), we must all recognize that now is not the time to fall into an indulgent stupor of defeatism, but rather to energize ourselves once again. Life isn’t easy, and neither is politics. -more-

British playwright Michael Fry is clearly no Jane Austen. And nobody is going to claim that he’s a dramatic genius. But for those of us who either never knew or have forgotten Emma, Austen’s comic masterpiece, and are simply out looking for an evening’s amusement, the Aurora Theatre’s new production of Fry’s play pays off. -more-

TUESDAY, NOV. 23 -more-

In his journal entry for March 23, 1856, Henry David Thoreau got to brooding about what New England had lost since it was settled by Europeans: “The nobler animals have been exterminated here—the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene [sic], wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc.” -more-

TUESDAY, NOV. 23 -more-