On the day the Water Transit Authority announced it had received a major infusion of federal funds to all but guarantee a new ferry line in Berkeley, the City Council made clear that a terminal at the mouth of Gilman Street was off-limits. -more-
East Bay little leaguers could have five new playing fields by 2007, after the State Department of Parks awarded $2 million in grants Tuesday for the Gilman Street Playing Fields in Berkeley. -more-
Berkeley Unified got bad news and good news under the federal No Child Left Behind Act this week, with Rosa Parks Elementary entering the fifth year of low performance “program improvement” status, and John Muir Elementary winning national “blue ribbon” honors for program excellence. -more-
Despite its name, the San Francisco Foundation showed this week that it has not forgotten the East Bay. Three of the four recipients of the foundation’s annual awards this year at Tuesday’s Herbst Theater ceremonies were either from the East Bay or were recognized for activities undertaken in the East Bay. -more-
What began as one of the more contentious development/preservation battles in recent Berkeley history ends with both sides reasonably happy this Sunday when the First Presbyterian Church dedicates its new Geneva Hall and refurbished McKinley Hall facilities. -more-
A Berkeley organization that sends elementary school children from different income levels into nature together to help them better understand one another was awarded the Agape Foundation’s 2005 Peace Price. -more-
Two years ago when Carl Farrington and his four partners bought the three-unit building where they now live, they hoped to one day convert it to condos. -more-
The City Council meets Tuesday Sept. 27. Items on the agenda include: -more-
Five years ago Theresa Johnson of South Berkeley headed off to work at Federal Express, a healthy 30-year-old woman with two jobs and a fiancee. -more-
An article in the Sept. 20-22 issue about Jonathan Kozol mistakenly reported that a reception would precede his appearance at Martin Luther King Middle School tonight (Friday) at 7:30 p.m. There will be no reception. -more-
Police are have made no arrests in a suspected arson early Saturday that badly damaged the Tilden Park Golf Course offices. -more-
EDITOR’S NOTE: The avian flu virus, H5N1, has the potential to kill millions once it learns how to jump from human to human. So far, most people who become infected have worked with live chickens. But scientists say it’s a matter of time before avian flu makes the leap. The virus most recently surfaced in Indonesia, where four people have died. Pacific News Service and New California Media editor Andrew Lam spoke with Dr. David Relman, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University. Lam is author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, forthcoming in October from Heyday Books. NCM is an association of over 700 print, broadcast and online ethnic media organizations founded by PNS and members of ethnic news media. -more-
HOUSTON (Sept. 13)—Outside the Houston Astrodome earlier this week, dozens of tents for State Farm Insurance, the Bank of America, Chase, Veteran’s Aid, and many more seemed to promise a quick return to something like shopping-mall normalcy. It was easy to sign up for a credit card. An ATM city had sprung up, so you could slide your new card in and get cash right away, and pay the bill later. -more-
When former Oakland resident, now Haiti-based filmmaker Kevin Pina and Haitian journalist Jean Ristil Jean-Baptiste were arrested Sept. 9 in Port-au-Prince while covering a police search of the home of a political prisoner/possible presidential candidate, the wheels of justice ground forward. -more-
http://www.jfdefreitas.com/index.php?path=/00_Latest%20Work -more-
At a recent performance, Bill Maher noted that 36 percent of Americans continue to believe that George Bush is doing a good job. The political comedian shook his head and wondered what it would take for them to change their opinion, “On [Bush’s] watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans.” Despite his many blunders the President continues to get stolid support from his base; he’s viewed positively by 81 percent of Republicans. One factor accounts for this loyalty: Bush supporters trust that he is a Christian. -more-
My children and I all have birthdays this week, mine sandwiched between theirs, usually neglected. This year my husband wanted to do something special so he packed up the kids and took them to New York for five days. My gift was to stay home alone and as it’s turned out, it has been a real treat. -more-
Even when you’re crawling around on the bottom by your own admission, it’s sometimes possible to sink to a new low. And so comes the item “Dellums vs. De La Fuente?” by East Bay Express columnist Will Harper in this week’s “Bottom Feeder” column about a possible heavyweight matchup in the 2006 Oakland mayoral race. -more-
John Gertz’s commentary titled “Anti-Israelism: Only in Berkeley” misses the mark on multiple levels. While the foundation of some observations are valid, his assumptions about people he doesn’t understand destroys any sense of context. -more-
Again I find myself having to respond to a commentary liberally spiced with mistruths and disinformation written by Tim Lubeck, an employee of Berkeley Honda (owned by Stephen and Tim Beinke and Steve Haworth.) Mr. Lubeck claims he is a service writer at Berkeley Honda. This is the person customers count on to tell them the truth about what services and or repairs are needed on their cars. If this commentary represents how he does his job at Berkeley Honda, I would hope he get more training quickly. Perhaps the fact that he acts like an assistant service manager and is being paid a guaranteed wage in the six-figure range when the old service writers were being paid well within five figures may explain some of the statements that Mr. Lubeck makes on behalf of his “benevolent” employers. By the way, nobody walked away from a six-figure job at Berkeley Honda; only the non-union new hires such as Mr. Lubeck were offered that kind of money. -more-
Amichai (Ami) Kronfeld’s death on Sept. 1 deeply saddened the extensive group of his family, friends, and colleagues here and abroad. It represents a major loss to the activist peace community. -more-
“In our town, we like to know the facts. About everybody.” -more-
Our Town author Thornton Wilder, winner of three Pulitzer Prizes, best remembered for his stage portraits of small town American family life, went to Emerson Grammar School in Berkeley’s Elmwood District, and was an alumnus of Berkeley High School class of 1915. -more-
I have to say at the outset that I’m an old friend of Jerry Carlin, indeed, a fellow realist and sometime “plein air” artist. Such closeness and affinity make it difficult to lash-out at the odd picture or period that I don’t really like, as I probably would faced with half a cow suspended in formaldehyde in a plate-glass tank! Fortunately I love and admire most of Jerry’s work, so am urging readers to go see some of it for themselves, especially in such an enjoyable setting. -more-
Ever since he moved into the neighborhood earlier this year, Don Oppenheim wished for the demise of Grove Liquor in the heart of the fledgling Ashby Arts District. -more-
Berkeley police waited too long to call for paramedics as a man died in their custody last year, a three-person panel of the Berkeley Police Review Commission concluded. -more-
Former gubernatorial and vice-presidential candidate Peter Camejo told a gathering of progressives in Oakland Saturday that recent events in New Orleans and the drop in American support for the occupation in Iraq “is a tremendous opening for the Green Party. This is a peculiar moment where we can win over people massively by explaining to them what is happening in our country and in the world.” -more-
What is the shame of the American nation? -more-
Amtrak passengers no longer have to leap onto commuter trains at Berkeley’s rail stop. -more-
String is not a material known for its lasting qualities. Just right for tying up a package, substituting for a shoelace or belt, fashioning a phone between two cans or serving as a memory enhancer tied around your finger, you wouldn’t expect to find your accountant’s office hung with string assemblages. String wouldn’t be your first choice for a grocery list or message to a friend. -more-
BATON ROUGE, La.—The New Orleans Stare. You can see it in the faces of Katrina survivors here at the evacuation shelter at the River Center in Baton Rouge. -more-
On Sept. 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo gave the grito (shout) and launched the Mexican war for independence from Spain. Meanwhile, a convention in the Kingdom of Spain was debating a constitution for representative government for the homeland and the colonies. Similarities appear in having debates in Spain for a constitution for Mexico, and debating one for Iraq, not in Iraq proper, but in the Green Zone, under the watchful eye of the U.S. top representative. -more-
NEW DELHI—In Pakistan, Sarabjit Singh is an “Indian spy’’ whose death sentence has been upheld by the country’s Supreme Court for his alleged involvement in 1990 bomb blasts in Lahore. In India, Sarabjit is an innocent man, a farmer and father of two teenage girls, who mistakenly ventured into Pakistan 15 years back in an inebriated condition and was picked up by Pakistani security personnel, as happens quite often. -more-
http://www.jfdefreitas.com/index.php?path=/00_Latest%20Work -more-
“Pregnant,” people echo, their faces lighting up—most with true hormonally induced baby fever, others because they sense it’s expected of them. And then—“Congratulations!” -more-
I have to go to the bank today because it is payday at our house. Every day is payday at our house so, in fact, it will be my 292nd visit to the bank this year, but who’s counting? -more-
Jonathan Wornick, Councilman Wozniak’s appointee to the Peace and Justice Commission, has already written at least two op-eds in the Daily Planet attacking a U.S. Department of Peace (DOP). His most recent, entitled “Is Free Speech Dead in Berkeley?”, not only continued that attack, but personally tried to brand me and others in the peace movement as radical leftists. In fact, he used that term no less than eight times. -more-
“We don’t care, we don’t care” was the chant of pro-war, pro-Bush hecklers across the street from the Camp Casey peace vigil in Crawford, Texas, in late August 2005. This “we don’t care” chant pretty much sums up the attitude of the Bush Syndicate toward the rest of us in America. Actually, Bush, Cheney and the rest of this idiotic neoconical government believe that the only true function of the federal government is to create private moneymaking opportunities for themselves, their friends, and their corporate contributors. Any activity other than waging aggressive war to invade, colonize and steal other countries’ natural resources falls into the category of “we don’t care.” -more-
In the year 2001, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was created in response to the lack of international presence in Palestine. ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with two resources: international protection and a voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming and brutal military occupation force—a military occupation fully funded by U.S. tax dollars. -more-
As we longtime residents know, Berkeley can be an odd place. We have led the nation in some great directions. But sometimes our national reputation for nuttiness is actually well deserved. I happened to be in Germany the day the Berlin Wall fell. It was an amazing scene watching hordes of East Germans flood across the old barrier for their first look at freedom. Several days later I arrived back at SFO and grabbed a cab home. As soon as I said I was going to Berkeley, the driver identified himself as a Berkeleyan. He proceeded to give me a long harangue about how wonderful it was that the Wall had fallen because now everyone will know what an evil Stalinism had been, and what an evil Leninism had been. Now the whole world, at long last, will welcome the great truth of Trotskyism. Right! Only in Berkeley. -more-
In a stark circle of light a man sits on the floor, shackled, humming “Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me,” the title—not title song—and the opening scene of Frank McGuinness’s play about hostages in Beirut, now at the Berkeley City Club as staged by Wilde Irish Productions. -more-
Long before Labor Day, the shorebirds began moving south. I’ve been seeing good numbers since early August: black-bellied plovers still in their dapper breeding plumage, least and western sandpipers working the tidelines, red knots, dowitchers, curlews. Among the migrant throngs, in singles and small clumps, are a couple of personal favorites, the small chunky sandpiper relatives called turnstones. -more-
A professor friend called me on Thursday morning, furious. She’d just heard a radio report on a committee formed to advise the University of California Board of Regents which is recommending that seven U.C. executives, who already make more than $350,000 a year, now need to have raises funded by private donations. Why did that make her so mad? Well, she’s the chair of a science department at a state university, and with seven years experience and a four-course teaching load she has yet to take home $60,000 a year. I was already planning this editorial on the topic, because I’d seen an excellent piece by Tanya Schevitz in the Chronicle earlier in the week with all the facts and figures. An example of shocking data: one senior vice president, a committee member who is listed as making $350k, actually pays taxes on more than $450k, probably because of bonuses on top of his salary. And, if we are to believe the report, he and his cohorts want even more. That’s greed, plain and simple. Obscene greed, actually. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District Board of Directors meets Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Items on the agenda include: -more-
