Responding to a package of proposals aimed at shoring up struggling businesses on Telegraph Avenue—more police, social services, better marketing, upgraded facades, brighter lighting, faster permitting and a new green machine to scrub the sidewalks—Marc Weinstein, owner of Amoeba Music, shared a unique perspective on the Avenue’s economic downturn at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. -more-

Tempers flared and jeers erupted Monday night at the first public meeting of the task force outlining the scope of a major private development on public land. -more-

A group of Laney College students received an unpleasant surprise in the mail earlier this month: a notice that because of budget problems, the Laney College Children’s Center was closing its infant and toddler day care program effective the end of this school year. -more-

Andrew Martinez’s funeral was Thursday, but a memorial will be held Saturday at 1 p.m. in People’s Park. -more-

Students are set to vote in the Berkeley High School elections Wednesday, but a communications snafu is casting a shadow over the democratic process. -more-

More than 200 Spanish-speaking parents and students received calls from Berkeley schools late last month, urging students to attend school May 1 or suffer consequences. -more-

Public financing of election campaigns is one way to shield public officials from the influence of big money. But when the question of placing a measure on Berkeley’s November ballot calling for public financing for all local elected offices came before the City Council Tuesday, councilmembers hesitated. -more-

A recent Stanford grad, Christian Pecaut, 25, is ready to change the world. He wants to start as Berkeley’s next mayor. -more-

Willa Klug Baum, an internationally respected oral historian, passed away on May 18, 2006, following back surgery. Her pioneering work in oral history methodology and interview techniques served as the foundation for the establishment and growth of oral history as a unique academic discipline. -more-

Power outage -more-

May 5 -more-

When I was a child, Memorial Day was called Decoration Day. It functioned as a paler Midwestern version of Mexico’s colorful Dia de Los Muertos, a day for the dead. We went out to a big cemetery where several deceased family members were buried—our family plot included the grave of my uncle who had died not long before in World War II—and actually decorated the graves, or at least straightened them up. We helped clear away the weeds which had accumulated since the last winter, ran around a bit, and thought as much as children can about what it means to be dead. -more-

On May 15 the City Council voted in favor of a “Del Norte Marijuana Dispensary Zone,” without a public hearing or local presence. Oakland’s “Oaksterdam” district and Richmond’s Pot Shops have shown how hard it is to help chronic pain sufferers while evading potential damage to “society.” Top quality cannabis can cost more than gold. If legalized, it could be grown as easily as, say, basil. The sick clamor for “at cost” medical use attracts idealists, profiteers and attorneys. Drug companies devise new methods for medical “inhaling.” Tobacco and liquor interests ponder ways on how not to be cut out of potential profits. The State and federal legal standoff is unlikely to be resolved soon. The broader pros and cons of legalization are well beyond being a local matter. -more-

“Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!” Nowhere else in Shakespeare are the elemental forces of nature so much in sync with primal human passions as in this tragedy of two dysfunctional families and a kingdom coming apart at the seams. -more-

As the general election for Oakland mayor approaches, the San Francisco Chronicle is working hard to elect Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente and to defeat his chief rival, former Congressmember Ron Dellums. -more-

Clean is a film about picking up the pieces and putting them back together, about kicking a drug habit, about winning back the love of one’s child, about forgiveness and compassion, and almost every other road-to-redemption cliché you can think of. And yet somehow it succeeds. -more-

After a year and a half of listening to many perspectives and extensive deliberations, the Creeks Task Force (CTF) has carefully crafted a set of recommendations to revise the Creeks Ordinance that respects private property owners’ interests and protects the natural environment. (See www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ planning/landuse/creeks). The CTF Recommendations are now before the City Council. -more-

Pacific Film Archive’s “A Theater Near You” series is a showcase for films that don’t make it to your local megaplex. This week PFA is featuring an encore screening of Baby Face, the notorious 1933 Pre-Code film that for decades was only seen in a heavily censored version. A negative of the original version was discovered in 2004 and the restored film has been circulating for about a year in advance of its upcoming DVD release. -more-

The “David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza,” intended to replace the city-owned parking lot at Oxford Street and Allston Way, recently received a key City Council endorsement. That’s noteworthy because this six-story development embodies admirable environmental and housing-equity goals. -more-

Columnist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is to be commended for devoting attention to the situation in the Oakland schools. It is unfortunate that he did not take the trouble to check his facts and ask for comments from the people directly involved before committing his thoughts to print. His grand conspiracy theory, in which the Oakland schools crisis was just a pretext for an alleged land grab, would not have survived performance of these basic journalistic obligations. -more-

Anyone who thinks the Bush administration is too far down in the polls to even contemplate attacking Iran should consider the following developments: -more-

Transportation—the stepchild of public issues—has suddenly resurfaced as a concern in certain Oakland political circles. -more-

It’s not at all strange for a bus half-filled with important local officials to roll through the streets of a California city, pointing out tracts and plots and buildings along the way. It is unusual when the other half of the bus is filled with longtime city residents and community activists, and the purpose of the tour is not so much to plot the city’s future as it is to make sure its past is understood. -more-

It’s a warm, breezy spring day. I’m sitting in the courtyard at Espresso Roma, lunching on a terrific spinach-mushroom frittata and watching the world of Elmwood pass by. Inside laptops silently hum while lattes are sipped. Though my meter is ticking I’m in no hurry to move. Once here, why would I want to leave? -more-

In the 1880s and ‘90s, few East Bay architects were as fashionable as Alfred Washington Pattiani (1855–1935). Italian name notwithstanding, Pattiani, who was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, was descended from a well-to-do German family. His paternal grandfather, Alois Fahrnbacher of Landshut, Bavaria, was a tobacco manufacturer, commercial court assessor, and a member of the Bavarian parliament. -more-

A friend of mine has a bassist living upstairs who is still working out the chords to In a Gadda Da Vida after living there for about 12 years. My friend is a patient person but she’s begun to exhibit something of a tick and often looks dolefully into space for long periods of time, returning from her reverie only when the music has stopped for some short spell. -more-

I rarely venture into my garden with constructive intent but without my Felco pruners and my hori-hori. Most of the time those hand tools are enough because I have a very small garden. Sometimes, though, I need to do something that requires two hands and a bigger tool, and I have my favorites among those too. -more-

What’s Under Your Bed? -more-