Opinion

It’s official. The apartment shortage is over, the apartment glut begins. The end of Homefinders, a worthwhile enterprise which served a lot of needy customers in its heyday, is the final nail in the coffin of Berkeley’s haphazard building boom. While it lasted, it lined the pockets of a few already well-fixed investors, notably UC’s B-School Prof. Teece. Its legacy is demolished landmarks (the Doyle House, the Fine Arts Theater), crumbling buildings (the Gaia Building) and vanished institutions (the Gaia Bookstore, Anna’s Café on University). In its wake are promises: Anna’s really will re-open sometime in the Gaia Building; the fake marquee on the Fine Arts apartment building touts shows which will never play there. (Red Diaper Baby Josh Kornbluth shouldn’t let his good name be used for this particular scam.) -more-

Adultery (cheating on his wife with two different mistresses, simultaneously). Bribery. Mob ties. Abuse of authority. Incompetence. Shady business deals. You name it, Bernie Kerik can be, and has been, accused of it, in news reports which started surfacing over the weekend. The laws of probability suggest that he might have done some of it, if not all of it. No matter, his unforgiveable sin seems to have been paying for the hire of a nanny and a housekeeper whose immigration papers were not in order. -more-