With its $67 million Center Street campus construction project on schedule for completion in January 2006, Berkeley’s Vista Community College is planning a birthday bash this week to celebrate its 30th anniversary. -more-

Jubilee Restoration Inc., in response to a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) investigation into misuse of funds, released records last week showing that it spent federal grant money designated for a homeless youth outreach program to pay employees working for its housing development arm. -more-

A small but vocal group of demonstrators rallied for an hour in front of the KGO-TV offices in San Francisco on Monday morning, protesting what they called “media silence on 2004 election irregularities.” Demonstrators later marched to the San Francisco offices of United States Senator Barbara Boxer where organizers met with Boxer’s staff. -more-

A one-day strike at Berkeley’s Alta Bates Medical Center and 12 other Sutter Health hospitals in Northern California commencing at 6 a.m. Wednesday will cost strikers five days of pay. -more-

With battles still raging over new development in Berkeley, the three newly elected Berkeley City Councilmembers are facing plenty of scrutiny as they prepare to name members to commissions that have a big say on the future face of the city. -more-

Cal graduates: Did you, like me, get your MBNA/MasterCard though membership in the California Alumni Association? -more-

President George Bush’s re-election has some European politicians on the far right and the far left scrambling to rethink the role of faith in the daily life their constituencies, as well as their position on Christian values. -more-

My wife and I hosted one of the over 1,600 house meetings held Sunday night to chart the future of MoveOn PAC. The tightly structured event asked participants to select their top issue and strategy for the next two to four years, but left no time for the larger questions about how people can get involved in grassroots activism in between elections or how the group should prioritize its funds. -more-

“Purses, clothing, weavings, holiday décor” and jewelry, with many items priced $10 or less, are among the gifts offered at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Holiday Craft Fair Dec. 11-12 at the First Congregational Church. Most crafts for sale are made by indigenous women in cooperatives in Central America, Asia, Haiti, and Africa. -more-

ACCIDENT INFO -more-

Click here to view the latest work by Daily Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas> -more-

Berkeley, Vallejo Men Slain in Emeryville -more-

Two years ago my husband and I waited, with others, for an AC Transit bus on the corner of 55th Street and Telegraph Avenue. When the bus came, the driver stopped and allowed the able-bodied people on. Then he closed the doors. “I’m running late,” he sho uted at us. “You’ll have to wait for the next bus.” -more-

With the election over it is distressing to hear our City Council and staff continue to distort the citizens’ reasons for voting down all of the city’s tax proposals. The latest example is Kriss Worthington’s Nov. 16 condemnation of the groups opposed to eliminating one of the city’s fire truck companies. He accused them of “spreading hate and lies.” -more-

Progressives and Democrats (not always the same thing) are still licking our wounds from Nov. 2. But we’ve begun a vigorous discussion about how to rebuild our capacity to win elections and influence people. Some of us debated this with a few thousand of our closest friends on Sunday, Nov. 21, courtesy of MoveOn.org’s national house party and online discussion board. Here’s my contribution to the fray: -more-

The colorful, vivid imagery born in the West Berkeley studio of artist Juana Alicia that graces buildings across the nation may soon appear on the walls of a five-story building on University Avenue. -more-

In this history of the American experience of free speech during war time, Geoffrey Stone explodes the myth that elite professors cannot write compelling prose. Stone’s narrative of the ups and downs of the First Amendment in times of national emergency is a gripping read, full of free speech heroes and villains, victories and defeats. -more-

Many of us come to understand the Iraq War through the lens of newspaper and TV journalists who track our forces on the battlefield and in Pentagon briefings. -more-

TUESDAY, NOV. 30 -more-

There aren’t many native live oaks on our streets, though we can see them easily enough up in Tilden Regional Park, in private yards, and in some public places like the UC Berkeley campus. The ones on campus are survivors (so far) of an unfortunate rash of deaths caused not by Sudden Oak Death Syndrome but by landscape errors. -more-

TUESDAY, NOV. 30 -more-