Oakland Unified School District trustees dramatically changed the debate over the district’s downtown properties this week, introducing a proposal to build a “new, permanent, state of the art education center” on the 8.25-acre property currently occupied by the district’s administration building and five educational facilities. Under a resolution drafted by veteran school board trustee Noel Gallo, the new facilities would house a kindergarten through high school program, the two early childhood development centers currently on the property, and the district administrative offices. 

Meanwhile, Oakland residents continued to criticize the original proposal by an east coast development partnership to buy the properties and put up high-rise condominiums, with Oakland attorney Barbara Ginsberg telling board members at a public hearing this week that “We’re like the cellphone commercial; citizens of Oakland are standing behind you in opposition to this sale.” 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell is currently in negotiations to sell the OUSD downtown property to east coast developers TerraMark/UrbanAmerica, who plan to put five high-rise luxury condominium towers on the site along with commercial facilities. O’Connell has the authority to sell the school under the 2003 state legislation that authorized the state takeover of the Oakland Unified School District. Under that legislation, the Oakland school board has no legal power to halt the sale. 

Sale of the Oakland school properties to TerraMark/Urban America has generated opposition from several organizations and leaders in Oakland, including six of the seven OUSD trustees and all eight members of the Oakland City Council. 

On a motion by trustee Gary Yee during a hearing Wednesday night on the proposed OUSD property sale, trustees tabled Gallo’s proposal until the third and last property sale hearing on Sept. 6. Yee said following the meeting that he requested putting off a vote on the proposal for procedural reasons. “We promised at the beginning of the property sale hearing procedure that board would make its recommendation at the close of the third hearing, so it was premature for us to take a position before that,” Yee said. In addition, Yee requested that Gallo’s proposal be posted on OUSD’s website “so that other groups around the city can read it, comment on it, and consider it for adoption themselves.” 

Gallo’s proposal also included a resolution putting the board formally on record opposing the property sale, citing the facts that there is currently no appraisal of the fair market value of the downtown properties, replacement costs of the schools and administration building currently on the property would have to be borne by the district and not the developers, and that expanded school facilities are needed in the area due to projected population increases. Gallo said that the construction would be eligible for funds under Measure B bond funds recently passed by Oakland voters, with La Escuelita already approved for $22 million in construction money from the earlier-passed Measure C construction bond. 

The board proposal came only days after TerraMark/UrbanAmerica proposed modifying their original development proposal to include space for Met West High School and La Escuelita Elementary School, which are currently located on the downtown properties. 

Under TerraMark/UrbanAmerica’s original plans, Met West and La Escuelita would have had to relocate their facilities, along with Dewey High School and the Yuk-Yau and Centro Infantil early childhood development centers. Met West and La Escuelita supporters packed the first public hearing on the property sale last month, arguing that the two schools should not be moved from the downtown site. OUSD interim administrator Kimberly Statham, who replaced the departed Randolph Ward this week, said that the developers “made significant changes in their plan as a response to comments at the first hearing.” 

Under that proposal, TerraMark/UrbanAmerica would still purchase the entire 8.25-acre parcel, but would lease an acre back to the district at $1 per year for the purpose of housing the two schools. 

At Wednesday night’s hearing, board trustees and members of the public said that the developers’ concessions were not enough. Representatives of the developers attended last month’s public hearings on the proposed sale, but were not in attendance at Wednesday’s hearing. 

Trustee Alice Spearman called it “disturbing that there was no other option than for Dewey to be relocated.” Spearman said that the sites where the district is considering relocating Dewey “would not be accessible to students from deep East Oakland. It would not be accessible to students who look like me. Most students at Dewey look like me.” Spearman is African-American. Dewey, an alternative high school of 280 students, has a student population that is 65 percent African-American. 

Dewey principal Hattie Tate told trustees that “Dewey should be centrally located,” and added that “like other taxpayers, I am appalled that we would destroy an $8 million school in less than five years to give developers a chance to build more empty nest condominiums.” 

Dewey’s current campus on the downtown site was completed in 2005 with Measure C bond money. 

TerraMark/UrbanAmerica’s concession to retain Met West and La Escuelita on the property also drew fire from speakers at Wednesday’s meeting, with trustees Dan Siegel—who opposes the sale—and Terry Hammil—the lone trustee supporting it—both saying that one acre was not enough for the two schools to operate on. 

And Leslie Santiago, a senior at Met West, told trustees “this is our land. The little that we have left is our land. Why should we have to go and find more land for our school? It’s clear that these developers don’t have any idea what is good for Oakland. We shouldn’t have to get the little scraps that are left from their proposal.” 

Another speaker, La Escuelita adult volunteer Grace Cooper, said that La Escuelita deserved more attention in the proposal. “We don’t want our children to be an afterthought,” Cooper said. 

State regulators have sued Berkeley’s Pacific Steel Casting Company (PSC), demanding either an accurate, up-to-date emissions list or a $10,000-a-day fine. 

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (AQMD) filed suit Monday, demanding that the firm comply within 30 days or start coughing up the fines. 

The action filed in Alameda County Superior Court charges PSC with “failure to meet statutory deadlines for reporting air emissions, and for violating the schedule contained in a recent settlement agreement designed to resolve an ongoing series of air quality complaints.”  

“We have been working with Pacific Steel Casting for more than a year to address air quality concerns, culminating in last year’s settlement agreement,” said AQMD Executive Officer Jack P. Broadbent in a statement Monday. 

“Unfortunately, PSC’s inability to meet their agreed-upon deadlines forces us to take this measure,” he said. 

The suit seeks civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each day that the emissions inventory is not submitted and an order requiring PSC to install a carbon absorption filtering system at Plant 3 as originally scheduled. 

The agency has identified Plant 3 as the source of the maximum complaints that have led neighbors to make repeated calls for tighter regulation of the facility. 

“PSC is already running late by two months. We are in the litigation phase now and they have to respond within 30 days,” said AQMD spokesperson Darrell Waller. “We hope that PSC will take their responsibility to protect the well-being of the community seriously.” 

Elizabeth Jewel of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the company’s public relations consultants, said Wednesday that PSC hadn’t seen the AQMD’s complaint. “It is very difficult to say something about a lawsuit we haven’t seen yet,” she said. 

The action alleges that “PSC failed to obtain timely governmental approvals from the City of Berkeley and the district for installation of the odor abatement system as called for in the settlement agreement.”  

The system, officials said, “is expected to significantly reduce odors” from the plant. 

The suit also charges PSC with “failure to meet its May deadline under the state Air Toxics ‘Hot Spots’ Act of 1987 for submitting an updated emissions inventory report,” delaying a planned health risk assessment “intended to identify potential localized health impacts from toxic air emissions at the facility.” 

“We are sorry that it had to come to this,” said Nabil al-Hadithy, the City of Berkeley’s hazardous materials manager and secretary for the Community Environmental Advisory Commission. 

“However, it is totally within the rights of AQMD to demand the inventory report and we support their action. We hope Pacific Steel will comply.” 

Hadithy said that the city has hired TetraTech, a private firm, to oversee all aspects of the actual data collection and health risk assessment at PSC’s expense. 

He said that it had been a complete waste of time for them to go down to Bay Area AQMD to start the process because there had been insufficient data from BAAQMD. 

“We are very concerned with every aspect of why they are withholding the emission reports. I have asked Elizabeth Jewel for a reason for why PSC is doing this. She has yet to come back to me with an explanation,” he said. 

Hadithy said he had “heard, but cannot confirm that PSC’s lawyer Mr. Rubin, has asked his client not to hand over the emissions report because they want to review it for quality, completion and what have you.” 

“That’s incredible,” said Willi Paul, director of Cleanaircoalition.net, a neighborhood watchdog group which—along with other environmentalists—has repeatedly demanded the report’s release. 

“This is empowering news for the many sick and tired West Berkeley, El Cerrito and Albany neighborhoods under constant attack by the dirty profits and choking black air from PSC,” he said. 

“Perhaps now the community can get to the truth concerning the emissions pouring down our streets and toxifying our lives day and night,” he said. 

Steve Ingraham, a long-time Berkeley clean air activist and alliance member, agreed. “This is the type of regulatory action the air district should have been doing all along. We hope this will turn the heat on PSC.” 

Paul and Ingraham are joining with Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, and other neighborhood groups for a PSC Protest March Sept. 16 to demand the immediate release of the heath impact emission reports. 

Communities for Better Environment, another community watchdog group, filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on Thursday, asking the court to order PSC to stop violating their 2.5 ton emission limit for source 14. “Source 14 is one of the main sources for the facility in terms of producing emissions,” said Adrienne Bloch, senior attorney for the organization. “We have also asked that the court to order PSC to report the emission tests immediately,” she said..

Neighbors of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley are irked by very loud construction noise at the hospital site, which they say has been going on for the last two weeks or more. 

Community members have bombarded the city manager’s office with e-mails and phone calls for the last week, that complain about what they call a violation of the construction permit that Alta Bates had applied for and the lack of neighborhood input on the matter. 

In an e-mail to Deputy City Manager Lisa Coronna, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district Alta Bates is located in, outlined the following five neighborhood complaints: 

(1) Very loud construction activity by East Bay Municipal Utility District for Alta Bates until 5 am; 

(2) Construction activity by Alta Bates contractor on days not permitted in permit; 

(3) Plans by the contractor to do additional work on days or times not permitted by the permit; 

(4) Loud beeping sounds for hours on end by trucks backing up; and 

(5) Ongoing loud noise on a daily basis, possibly from new equipment. 

“The project is late [being finished] and they are working at weird hours,” said Worthington. “On many days, there is nobody working between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Why can’t they work from 9 to 5 rather than at night and on weekends?” 

Susan Fuentes, project manager for the construction, apologized for the violations that have occurred at the hospital. 

“[It is] correct that running a compressor beyond the approved weekend work hours is not acceptable,” said Fuentes in an e-mail to neighbors. “We apologize for any inconveniences this has caused the neighborhood … In the future, we will insure better communication among the team to make sure this won’t happen again.” 

Carolyn North, nearby resident of twenty years, describes the irreversible impacts on her health and well-being caused cumulatively by construction at Alta Bates over the years.  

“One thing I have learned is that [the construction noise] destroys your adrenal system,” she said. “I’m sort of amazed that western medicine doesn’t realize the effects of noise pollution on the human body. Adrenals go through an alarm state, after being subjected to so much noise, and your body flushes itself with adrenaline. When the situation is over, they go back to normal. But when this happens on an ongoing basis, the adrenals empty and can no longer function. This is what happened to me. All the muscles in my stomach contracted and stayed contracted. I went to Kaiser [hospital] in a state of shock. They were ready to lose me.” 

North said that she is especially concerned about children in the neighborhood. 

She said, “We have a bunch of small babies in the neighborhood and it has an effect on them whether you know it or not … we have a park by the hospital. I want to go and say to the parents of the children, ‘don’t let them play here. Play elsewhere.’ This is serious. The irony is that this is a hospital.” 

Peter Shelton, a resident of Prince Street, said that he’s worried about the noise as well as the flooding that the construction is causing. “The permit requires that the city clean up the dirt on a daily basis, but they are not doing so. As a result we have our kids playing with the muddy water whenever we take them to visit the nearby park.” 

On Wednesday afternoon, City of Berkeley Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin discussed with city staff the city’s response to these egregious violations. 

“I am writing a letter to Alta Bates to notify them that they violated their use permit,” said Cosin. “There aren’t going to be any fines imposed on the hospital now. If there are any more noise violations, we will likely fine.” 

Worthington commented, “I am concerned that the neighbors aren’t being treated reasonably. I appreciate the fact that the city is stepping up to the plate … the city needs to pressure them to finish the project. I am grateful to the city for sending them a warning letter.” 

Alta Bates has a history of disputes with its neighbors over construction. In 1983, the Bateman/Willard/Fairview Park Neighborhoods sued Alta Bates over some construction that the hospital had done. 

“The hospital created a lot of noise and gobbled up 34 houses,” said Julie Shearer, a long term resident of the neighborhood. “In order to expand their center, twenty-three residential houses were removed for the hospital and eleven for subsequent medical buildings … The settlement allowed Alta Bates to expand and mandated street closures in exchange for building two street parks and provided other things to the community.” 

According to Shearer, the neighbors heard that construction was going on once again in 1997. “Kriss Worthington had just been elected to the City Council at that point and he wanted to meet with the hospital to get acquainted. Much to his surprise, he discovered illegal demolition and construction. Alta Bates was forced to pay $87,000 when the city investigators found illegal demolition and construction had occurred then. When will they ever learn?” 

Worthington concurred,”Hopefully the city’s warning letter will wake up the project manager, and we won’t have neighbors getting woken up nights and weekends anymore.”

The Nov. 7 local office elections will see five candidates competing for three open seats on the five-member Berkeley Board of Education. 

First time candidates David Baggins and Norma Harrison are up against incumbent School Board directors Nancy Riddle and Shirley Issel and challenger Karen Hemphill, who previously lost a bid for the board in 2004. Issel is finishing her second four-year term, while Director Nancy Riddle is finishing her first. 

Baggins, a professor of political science at California State University, East Bay, announced his candidacy Aug. 10. He holds a doctorate in public administration, a Juris Doctorate, and has authored three books, including Drug Hate and the Corruption of American Justice and The Question of Privacy in Public Policy. 

“I made the decision to run at the last minute because I want to bring up issues that I feel are not being addressed enough in the elections,” Baggins said. “The heart of my campaign is a call to keep what’s wonderful about Berkeley schools while admitting honestly what is not. I particularly hope to address the issues of violence in the schools, the problem of historic under-enforcement of residency for registration, and the need to help low-performing students without holding back the other bright and inquisitive youths of Berkeley.” Baggins’ campaign slogan reads “The Best Schools for Berkeley’s Kids.” 

Baggins’ goal is to engage the community in a discussion about the potential to make Berkeley’s schools as fine a place as the city itself.  

He says Berkeley’s registration system has serious flaws which need to be corrected. “Berkeley cannot credibly claim to be an example to the nation in governance until it achieves safe and excellent schools,” he said in a press release. “As a city we are generous to our children, matching state funds with local money. However ignoring the failure of the registration process undermines this generosity and threatens the schools. We cannot be the alternative choice available to the East Bay through ineffective registration. At a sum over $65,000 local taxpayer money per pupil (K-12) this is not a trivial concern.” 

Baggins also wants to address how expensive it is for teachers to live in Berkeley. He says the city needs to develop moderately priced public housing for the teachers so that they are able to live where they work.  

“While Berkeley is asking itself what kind of public housing it wants,” Baggins said, “I think we should pursue the idea of a teachers’ village, where we give them modest rent.” 

Baggins’ wife Teddi is a volunteer with WriterCoach Connection at Martin Luther King Middle School and also serves on the Board of Citizens for East Shore Parks. Their two children are currently enrolled in Berkeley public schools. 

Norma Harrison, 71, is a self-employed realtor and former public school teacher who has never run for public office.  

“I want to make available a discussion to try and determine why we don’t like schools and to determine what we want,” Harrison said. “I want to understand how we want to live here and enjoy it.” 

Harrison added that the root of the word “education” is “educere” which means to bring forward ideas from people and to encourage “forward thinking.” 

“Children come to schools as vessels to be filled,” Harrison told the Daily Planet. The board so far has addressed only structural matters and the PTA is also very stymied. I want to create a forum for discussion where we can learn how to enjoy our learning instead of commodifying it.” 

Karen Hemphill, an assistant to the city manager in Emeryville, will become Berkeley’s first new African-American School Board director in years if she goes on to win one of the three open seats. Hemphill has previously held posts on the City of Berkeley’s Civic Arts Commission and the City of Berkeley’s Committee on the Status of Women. 

As a parent of two sons in Berkeley schools, Hemphill wants to see BUSD grow into a model urban district that uses community resources to prepare its students for the 21st Century.  

“I want to develop my knowledge of organizational development and budgeting to ensure that the student achievement plan is tied to a sound fiscal plan—a plan that includes partnerships with government, private foundations, and other such organizations,” she said. 

Hemphill’s biggest priority is to try and deepen the school district’s relationship with the community. “The school district does not have a district- wide student achievement plan based upon data. This creates a negative impact on students of color. I want to address this issue in particular.” 

Shirley Issel, a clinical social worker, has served on the School Board for the last eight years. “I pledge to continue using my skills as a professional social worker and educational reformer to build on the progress we have made and to critically improve teaching and learning,” she said. 

Issel also wants to improve support for students with learning barriers and to train staff to measure student progress. 

Nancy Riddle, chief financial officer for Monster Cable Products, is currently finishing her first term. She seeks to continue working to remove barriers in education and to bolster a transparent and open budget process that reflects the values of the Berkeley community. Riddle is currently away on vacation and was unavailable for comment. 

Tax measure renewal 

In other matters, the School Board’s tax measure renewal is also coming up in the November elections. These two existing special taxes which are up for renewal are altogether worth $19.5 million. Although the current tax measure expires in December, the money is carried through to June. 

“It is important to remember that this is not a new tax, but one that replaces the dollars that we get from BSEP of 1986 & 1994 and Measure B of 2004. They pay for almost one third of the teachers in the BUSD, most of the music program and our school libraries, both materials and staff, as well as other enrichment in the classrooms,” said BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan.

While the fate of Berkeley’s existing landmarks law remains an open question, a joint committee made it clear Tuesday night that they want to follow its criteria in the new downtown plan. 

The group, formed of four members each from the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), will advise the full DAPAC on landmarks issues. 

One of the key elements of the plan, required by local policy and by the California Environmental Quality Act, is a survey of historic structures in the area.  

By the time the meeting had ended, many of the members had said they wanted the survey to follow the city’s current landmarks criteria, rather than following a staff suggestion to create new ones just for the task before them.  

The move toward a new downtown plan is a product of the city’s settlement of a lawsuit filed against the university that challenged the school’s Long Range Development Plan through the year 2020. 

The university plans 800,000 square feet of new projects in the expanded downtown area encompassed by the new plan, along with 1,000 new parking spaces. The plan was proposed to help shape the course of that development. 

The university owns several landmarked buildings downtown. One project now in the planning stages calls for demolition of the landmarked University of California Press Building at 2120 Oxford St. and its replacement by a complex featuring an art museum and the Pacific Film Archive. 

Tuesday’s meeting featured a presentation by the survey firm hired by the city, Architectural Resources Group (ARG) of San Francisco. The same firm is currently working on a restoration of Berkeley’s landmarked First Church of Christ, Scientist. 

Team leader and ARG senior associate Bridget Maley attended with colleagues Jody Stock and Lauren MacDonald. 

Under the terms of the city’s contract, the firm is to conduct a survey that will include preparation of detailed reports on 30 structures and which uses forms provided by the state Department of Parks and Recreation’s Office of Historic Preservation. 

The work will unfold in three stages, Maley said, starting with an initial reconnaissance phase, followed by detailed research examining individual buildings and their relationships, and culminating in a report that will examine the buildings in their detailed contexts. 

Matt Taecker, the city planner hired to prepare the plan, told the committee they would develop their own criteria to use in evaluating the structures—a remark that drew an immediate response from Jill Korte, one of the LPC representatives on the panel. 

“I am concerned,” she said, “because we already have an ordinance and there are criteria in that ordinance.” 

Korte said she was concerned because city staff had sent members a package listing criteria from other cities, “but we have our own local criteria. It’s a law here.” 

“I’m not sure that we have any other choice if something’s a law,” said Wendy Alfsen, a DAPAC member. 

“We have local criteria. It’s called the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO),” said retired planner John English, a preservationist and one of four audience members attending the gathering in the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

John McBride, secretary of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), said the survey should also be mindful of the importance of the area’s mixture of architectural styles to the downtown’s overall character. 

Steven Winkel, vice chair of the LPC, said the survey should be extended to include structures on the opposite sides of boundary streets—one example being Berkeley’s Old City Hall. 

Other questions focused on whether the survey would note whether some already modified buildings had the potential to be restored, and just what level of alteration could disqualify a structure from consideration. 

The plan will also consider so-called opportunity sites suitable for new developments. 

Members and the public participants discussed the breadth of issues to be considered in the survey, and added several categories to those suggested by the ARG consultants—including the relationships of structures to their surroundings, the entries for historical and cultural associations of the buildings and assemblages of buildings, and a list of outstanding or unique features. 

Patti Dacey, a DAPAC member recently ousted from the LPC by City Councilmember Max Anderson, said she was concerned about whose interests the consultants would serve. 

“I’ve been very questioning of the DAPAC process and I feel the client is the city staff who want to upzone and tear down. I want the client to be DAPAC,” Dacey said. 

“Our client is the city as a whole,” said Maley, “not the staff, the mayor or the council.” 

The joint committee will hold its next meeting on Sept. 13 from 7 to 10 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

Their work is being conducted during a period in which the city’s existing landmarks law is facing both a possible major revision at the hands of the city council and a November ballot initiative. 

The electoral measure was drafted by supporters of the current law, with revisions they say answer any legal timeline problems with the existing law as raised by the city attorney’s office. 

The rival measure, a new ordinance that passed the city council on first reading in July, also makes timing changes and creates a two-year exemption period during which property would be exempt from landmarking efforts unless preservationists acted quickly after the exemption was requested. 

Mayor Tom Bates, principal advocate of the council proposal, pulled the measure pending the outcome of the November vote on the ballot initiative. 

If voters nix that measure, the council could make the new ordinance law by voting yes on a second reading.

Despite best efforts of activists and legislators, California Coast Guard troops serving in Iraq won’t be heading home to resume stateside duties.  

Legislation authored by Assemblymember Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley and supported by Code Pink, the American Friends Service Committee, Veteran’s for Peace, Gold Star Families Speak Out and others, died in the Veteran’s Affairs Committee meeting Wednesday, in a 3-3 vote, with three committee members absent. 

The nonbinding measure would have called “upon the Governor to ensure that the president and congress take immediate steps to initiate the return of California National Guard troops to the state.” Voting in favor were committee Chair Joe Nation, D-Marin; Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa and Lori Saldaña, D-Dan Diego; voting in opposition were Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine; Bob Huff, R-Dimond Bar and Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster; absent were Joe Canciamilla. D-Martinez; Ed Chavez, D-City of Industry and Jenny Oropeza, D-Carson. 

Passage of the non-binding resolution would have been “a way for the California legislature to stand with the people of California, to send a message to the Congress and president …that we want (the Guard) home,” Hancock said in a phone interview after the vote. “Many of us are heartsick as we continue in this quagmire,” she added. 

Nadia McCaffrey’s son Patrick, a 34-year-old father of two, was a California Guardsman killed in Iraq two years ago. A member of Gold Star Families Speak Out and Tracy resident, McCaffrey went to Sacramento Wednesday to lobby for the resolution. She spoke to the Daily Planet on Thursday.  

“Patrick enlisted after 9/11. He thought he would be helpful to the state,” McCaffrey said. “If he had wanted to fight, he would have joined the Marines or the Army.” She further noted that, as a guardsman, her son rode around in vehicles with sandbags and plywood rather than armor. He even had to buy his own boots, she said. 

Major General Paul Monroe (ret.), who headed the California National Guard from 1999 to 2004, argues that the United States should not be fighting in Iraq at all. “There was no reason to start a war in Iraq,” he said. 

Historically, there was a reason to deploy the California Guard. “In World War I and World War II the country was at war,” he said. “The country is not at war today. The military is at war.”  

Monroe, who was born in Berkeley and has resided here most of his life, has another reason to question the policy of “federalizing” the California guard: his son, a father of two, has been deployed to Iraq twice.  

Anxious for his son to come home next month from Iraq, where he’s been for almost a year, Monroe is also acutely aware of the difficulty military people have re-entering day-to-day life after deployment. “They are nervous being in vehicles; they don’t like being in crowds,” he said. 

Another “big problem” Monroe pointed to is that the Guard leaves its equipment, such as helicopters and trucks, in Iraq. “They can’t be used for emergencies here,” he said. 

In an interview before the committee vote, Monroe said he supported the concept of Hancock’s resolution, but given its nonbonding nature, “I don’t think it will go anywhere,” he said. 

Had the resolution passed, it likely would have been disregarded by the governor, according to Bill Maile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s deputy press secretary. “The governor does not take a position on measures which do not require him to act,” Maile said in an email. “However, the governor cares deeply about all of California’s sons and daughters fighting in the war on terror and prays for their safe return as soon as possible.”  

Major Daniel Markert, spokesperson for the California Coast Guard, who was deployed in Iraq, argues that people join the Guard with full knowledge that they will become reserve military personnel. In fact, he said, “Some join specifically to go to Iraq.” 

According to Markert, there are 2,000 federalized California Coast Guard troops in Iraq and Afghanistan—down from 6,000 last year. He said that the deployment does not affect local operations such as fighting wild fires, or stepping in during other local emergencies such as earthquakes. 

Twenty-one California Guardsmen have been killed since 2003 in Iraq, he said. “Every one is very personal,” he said. “All are very precious; all are very painful.” 

Meanwhile, Corinne Goldstick of Code Pink, who helped organize the 50 or so people who attended the committee meeting, argued: “The Coast Guard was sent there illegally. There was no emergency in Iraq. They signed up to look after us here in California. They should come home.”  

In September, the Berkeley City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for the president and congress to “take immediate steps to withdraw the California National Guard troops from Iraq now.” 

Photograph by Judith Scherr 

Catherine Orozco and Corrine Goldstick embarked Wednesday morning for Sacramento, where they unsuccessfully lobbied the Veterans Affairs Committee.

A magnitude 2.9 earthquake jostled some Berkeley residents awake at 5:58 Thursday morning—a short, sharp reminder of the presence of the Hayward Fault’s fitful presence. 

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the temblor occurred 4.5 miles beneath Wildcat Creek and just six tenths of a mile east of Grizzly Peak Boulevard and directly beneath the Tilden Park Gold Course. 

Within hours of the quake, 1,048 users had reported their own experiences of the quake on the USGS web site, with reports coming from as far away as Pacifica and Petaluma. 

For quake buffs, the USGS site offers links to maps, seismograph recordings and event reports. The Bay Area map is located at http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/ Maps/122-38.html. 

A second, smaller tremor—technically a microquake—followed at 9:05 a.m., but the 1.5 event didn’t merit a reporting page of its own. 

Earthquake experts have predicted that the Hayward fault—which runs directly beneath Memorial Stadium on the UC Berkeley campus—is the fissure most likely to spawn a major Bay Area earthquake in the next two decades.

The Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club’s electoral committee heard from a host of candidates Wednesday night and recommended that the full club endorse Andy Katz for East Bay Municipal Utilities District, Nancy Skinner for the East Bay Regional Parks Board, Anne Marie Hogan for Berkeley auditor, Dave Blake for Berkeley Rent Board, and Jason Overman over Gordon Wozniak for Berkeley District 8 City Council.  

The committee also voted to oppose the Condominium Conversion Initiative. 

The full club endorsements are slated to take place Sept. 7. 

Katz, Hogan and the rent board slate, which, in addition to Blake, includes Lisa Anne Stephens, Howard Chong, Chris Kavanagh and Pam Webster, are running unopposed. The Wellstone Club was unable to endorse the full Rent Stabilization Board slate because Stephens, Chong, Kavanagh and Webster all are members of the Green Party. Democratic Clubs are prohibited by Democratic Party rules from endorsing Greens. 

Skinner is running against E. J. Shalaby of Richmond, who did not attend the meeting.  

District 8 

The District 8 candidates made presentations and fielded questions, although, following the club’s format, they did not appear together. Both Overman and Wozniak claimed progressive credentials, with Wozniak reminding the audience that he had helped found the April Coalition in 1971 and the Berkeley Citizens Action group which grew out of it. He also touted endorsements from Mayor Tom Bates and Bates’s spouse Assemblymember Loni Hancock. He is also endorsed by state Sen. Don Perata.  

Saying, “I am proud to be the only progressive running for this seat,” Overman pointed to his newly-won Alameda County Central Labor Committee endorsement, and noted that Wozniak had not supported the Claremont Hotel workers’ demands for a union contract.  

Contending that he is “a strong advocate for affordable housing,” Overman, who is a UC Berkeley student and a Rent Stabilization Board member, attacked Wozniak for his uneven low-income housing support.  

Wozniak explained in his presentation, however, that the housing projects he had not supported were not cost effective. “I voted against Brower,” he said, pointing to the $350,000 price tag for the low-income units that will be built at Oxford Street and Allston Way. 

Asked if he supported the Condominium Conversion Initiative that will be on the November ballot, Wozniak said he hadn’t taken a position. “I don’t think it’s good to legislate by initiative,” he said, adding, however, that he doesn’t like the city’s current Condominium Conversion Ordinance because it doesn’t help people buy the unit they’re living in.  

Wozniak said that he hoped to increase home ownership by going back to an earlier council policy of subsidizing the down payment on housing units for moderate-income people. He also said he’d like to see the city’s Housing Trust Fund monies used to purchase older buildings and remodel them, rather than subsidizing new construction. 

Listing his accomplishments over the last four years in office, Wozniak pointed to his demand for accountability that includes a quarterly report by police on crime statistics and quarterly reports on employee accidents. The incumbent did not mention his opponent during his presentation. 

Overman, on the other hand, didn’t point to his record on the Rent Stabilization Board but criticized Wozniak on several counts. He argued that Wozniak did not appoint students and people of color to commissions and he opposed Wozniak’s vote against public financing of Berkeley elections.  

“We need ‘clean money’ now,” Overman said.  

Berkeley City Auditor 

Running unopposed, Ann-Marie Hogan was first elected auditor in 1994. An active member of the National Women’s Political Caucus, Hogan said she first got involved in politics through the anti-Vietnam War movement. “I believed in non-violent direct action, not electoral politics,” she said. That changed over time. 

Rather than campaigning, Hogan spent her time explaining to club members what an auditor does. “We do performance auditing,” she said; she gave as an example looking at police staffing—why does the department use a sworn officer rather than a civilian in a particular position? 

Hogan’s audits are varied: a recent one looked at why patches were failing in utility trenches. The auditor’s reports can be viewed at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/auditor. 

East Bay Municipal Utilities District Board 

Andy Katz, who campaigned unsuccessfully for the District 8 seat four years ago, is running unopposed to fill the Ward No. 4 seat now occupied by David Richardson, who is not seeking re-election. Ward No. 4 includes Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, El Cerrito and Kensington and a small part of Oakland.  

Katz preached water conservation, use of home graywater (reusing shower water, for example) and toilets whose water use can be varied, as well as the increased use of solar energy. He promised to give up some of his activities—his position on the Zoning Adjustments Board and the Sierra Club board of directors. 

The EBMUD board is often a springboard to higher office. Oakland Councilmember Nancy Nadel and former Councilmember Danny Wan both served on the EBMUD board. 

East Bay Regional Parks District 

Nancy Skinner, once a Berkeley City Council member, was appointed to fill a vacant position on the East Bay Regional Parks District Board in March and is now running for the seat. She talked about balancing needs in the parks, such as places for dogs and for nesting birds. She applauded the use of park land at the foot of Gilman Street for playing fields, saying that it will bring more people to the park.

There will be no more massive turnovers in the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees, at least for now. 

Two years ago, four incumbent trustees chose not to run for re-election, leading to a majority of the board as first term members after the November, 2004 elections. 

This November, however, two of three of the remaining incumbents will be unopposed, with no one filing against trustee Bill Riley in Area 5 or Linda Handy in Area 3. In Area 7, two-term incumbent Alona Clifton is being challenged by educational consultant Abel Guillen. 

Clifton said in a telephone interview that among her major concerns “is being able to increase diversity among the faculty and classified staff and in our contracts; that’s one of my mainstays.” Clifton said that she will be “looking into how we might be most effective in use of the [recently passed] Measure A bond money to improve the educational environment at the Peralta Colleges. That will be really exciting. But the area that concerns most of us is insuring that we have student success. That means making sure students have adequate access to classes and facilities. Retention of existing students is also a big issue, probably more so with community college students. They are more challenged because many of them are working or have children, along with their student responsibilities.” 

Meanwhile, Clifton’s opponent, Abel Guillen, got a boost this week with endorsements from both the Peralta Federation of Teachers PAC and the Peralta Chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 790.  

Saying that “we need Peralta,” Peralta Federation of Teachers PAC Secretary Helene Maxwell said in a prepared statement that “Abel is smart and progressive [and] has a clear vision of how the Peralta Colleges can better serve students and our community. We are confident that, if elected, Abel will use his considerable skill and experience to help steer Peralta in a more positive direction.”

European Media Probe Dangers of Secret  

Surveillance Systems 

Just after noon on Friday, July 21, Adamo Bove—head of security at Telecom Italia, the country’s largest telecommunications firm—told his wife he had some errands to run as he left their Naples apartment. Hours later, police found his car parked atop a freeway overpass. Bove’s body lay on the pavement some 100 feet below.  

Bove was a master at detecting hidden phone networks. Recently, at the direction of Milan prosecutors, he’d used mobile phone records to trace how a “Special Removal Unit” composed of CIA and SISMI (the Italian CIA) agents abducted Abu Omar, an Egyptian cleric, and flew him to Cairo where he was tortured. The Omar kidnapping and the alleged involvement of 26 CIA agents, whom prosecutors seek to arrest and extradite, electrified Italian media. U.S. media noted the story, then dropped it.  

The first Italian press reports after Bove’s death said the 42-year-old had committed suicide. Bove, according to unnamed sources, was depressed about his imminent indictment by Milan prosecutors. But prosecutors immediately, and uncharacteristically, set the record straight: Bove was not a target; in fact, he was prosecutors’ chief source. Bove, prosecutors said, was helping them investigate his own bosses, who were orchestrating an illegal wiretapping bureau and the destruction of incriminating digital evidence. One Telecom executive had already been forced out when he was caught conducting these illicit operations, as well as selling intercepted information to a business intelligence firm.  

About 16 months earlier, in March of 2005, Costas Tsalikidis, a 38-year-old software engineer for Vodaphone in Greece had just discovered a highly sophisticated bug embedded in the company’s mobile network. The spyware eavesdropped on the prime minister’s and other top officials’ cell phone calls; it even monitored the car phone of Greece’s secret service chief. Others bugged included civil rights activists, the head of Greece’s “Stop the War” coalition, journalists and Arab businessmen based in Athens. All the wiretapping began about two months before the Olympics were hosted by Greece in August 2004, according to a subsequent investigation by the Greek authorities.  

Tsalikidis, according to friends and family, was excited about his work and was looking forward to marrying his longtime girlfriend. But on March 9, 2005, his elderly mother found him hanging from a white rope tied to pipes outside of his apartment bathroom. His limp feet dangled a mere three inches above the floor. His death was ruled a suicide; he, like Adamo Bove, left no suicide note.  

The next day, Vodaphone’s top executive in Greece reported to the prime minister that unknown outsiders had illicitly eavesdropped on top government officials. Before making his report, however, the CEO had the spyware destroyed, even though this destroyed the evidence as well.  

Investigations into the alleged suicides of both Adamo Bove and Costas Tsalikidis raise questions about more than the suspicious circumstances of their deaths. They point to politicized, illegal intelligence structures that rely upon cooperative business executives. European prosecutors and journalists probing these spying networks have revealed that:  

• The Vodaphone eavesdropping was transmitted in real time via four antennae located near the U.S. embassy in Athens, according to an 11-month Greek government investigation. Some of these transmissions were sent to a phone in Laurel, Md., near America’s National Security Agency.  

• According to Ta Nea, a Greek newspaper, Vodaphone’s CEO privately told the Greek government that the bugging culprits were “U.S. agents.” Because Greece’s prime minister feared domestic protests and a diplomatic war with the United States, he ordered the Vodafone CEO to withhold this conclusion from his own authorities investigating the case.  

• In both the Italian and Greek cases, the spyware was much more deeply embedded and clever than anything either phone company had seen before. Its creation required highly experienced engineers and expensive laboratories where the software could be subjected to the stresses of a national telephone system. Greek investigators concluded that the Vodaphone spyware was created outside of Greece.  

• Once placed, the spyware could have vast reach since most host companies are merging their Internet, mobile telephone and fixed-line operations onto a single platform.  

• Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, BND, recently snooped on investigative journalists. According to parliamentary investigations, the spying may have been carried out using the United States’s secretive Bad Aibling base in the Bavarian Alps, which houses the American global eavesdropping program dubbed Echelon.  

Were the two alleged suicides more than an eerie coincidence? A few media in Italy—La Stampa, Dagospia and Feltrinelli, among others—have noted the unsettling parallels. But so far no journalists have been able to overcome the investigative hurdles posed by two entirely different criminal inquiry systems united only by two prime ministers not eager to provoke the White House’s wrath. In the United States, where massive eavesdropping programs have operated since 9/11, investigators, reporters and members of Congress have not explored whether those responsible for these spying operations may be using them for partisan purposes or economic gain. As more troubling revelations come out of Europe, it may become more difficult to ignore how easily spying programs can be hijacked for illegitimate purposes. The brave soul who pursues this line of inquiry, however, should fear for his or her life. 

Jeffrey Klein, a founding editor of Mother Jones, recently received a Loeb, journalism’s top award for business reporting. Paolo Pontoniere is a New America Media European commentator. 

As the investigation into covert CIA’s and local rogue intelligence operatives in Europe expands across the continent, Italy’s emerges as the thinking head of a hydra whose tentacles reach far into worldwide communication net and backward into the history of international conspiracies. 

Because of its unique politically hybrid nature—Italy contains both a strong Christian Democrat constituency as well as the largest Communist Party of a Western country—the nation has as been at the crossroads of political exchanges between East and West. This has been true since the end World War II and remained so until the fall of the Berlin Wall. The crossroads was economic, too; affinities between Christian Democrats, Italian Socialists and Communists and political parties and leaders in the Middle East and the socialist countries made it easy for Italy to win strategically important contracts in the field of energy, construction and telecommunications.  

Some of those contracts are still operative, like those international telecommunications routing through Italian networks coming from North Africa, the Middle East and some of the world’s remaining Communist countries. Telecommunications apparatus that formerly belonged to STET, the Italian state-owned telephone company, today are owned by Telecom Italia.  

Italy is not new to convoluted networks that bind security and military elites to conservative business leaders in long-term secret pacts to carry out subversive activities. Historically such networks have morphed into massive bribing machines.  

The Masonic Loggia P2 and Gladio are just two examples. The first, a network comprised of about 2,000 military officers, public servants, bankers, journalists and business-people, operated between the 1970s and the ’80s, some say in concert with the CIA. Its secret goal was to keep Italy solidly in the hands of center-right administrations. The P2 network is reputed to have begun the “Strategia della Tensione,” a concoction of terrorist attacks, political unrest and economic crises that created a feeling of uncertainty among Italians, which in turn led them to vote for centrist administrations.  

In the case of Gladio, a much wider intelligence and military net was created to prevent the rise to power of the Communist and Socialist Parties in Italy. Although supposedly disbanded at the beginning of the 1990s, this network is said to have transformed into the Department of Anti-terrorism Strategic Studies, a neo-fascist organization that in 2004, to benefit economically from funding made available to fight al-Qaeda, didn’t hesitate to disseminate false information about an impending attack on Milan’s Linate International Airport and on the city’s historical Duomo. 

Some European prosecutors and journalists are now trying to discern how today’s covert intelligence networks altered political discourse on the continent. 

Are you trying to eat better? Do you describe yourself as a vegetarian, a vegan, or a raw-foodist? Have you had trouble finding good healthy food for a reasonable price? Here are a few local restaurants to get you started. 

Manzanita Restaurant and Bakery 

4001 Linden St. at 40th Street, Oakland. 985-8386. 

Located in the old Macrobiotic Center in Oakland, Manzanita is an all organic, vegan, and macrobiotic restaurant. Macrobiotic cuisine is a plant-based diet centered on whole grains, beans and vegetables. A typical dinner is creamy onion shitake soup, brown rice, black-eyed peas with kombu, sweet potato and kabocha squash casserole with walnuts, steamed greens with sesame-arame topping, and a salad with mustard-tahini dressing. This place is a must-eat for anyone trying to eat healthier food. 

Open everyday, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.-9:00 p.m. Weekend brunch 11:30 am-2:30 p.m.  

Daily menu posted at: www.manzanitarestaurant.com. 

Razan’s Organic Kitchen 

2119 Kittredge St., Berkeley. 486-0449. 

Razan’s Organic Kitchen has stood at 2119 Kittredge St. for the past eight years as one of the only 100 percent percent organic restaurants in the area. Owner Shihadeh Kitami named this all-organic restaurant after his daughter Razan. They use only the freshest organic vegetables, wild fish, and free-range meats. Items such as the Mediterranean plate and super nachos are favorites. This place is usually pretty clean, but can get quite loud at certain times. The prices range from as little as $3.95 for corn chips and guacamole to as much as $16 for a red snapper plate. 

Open 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. 

Cha-Ya 

1686 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. 981-1213. 

When you are walking down Shattuck Avenue in North Berkeley, you might notice a line down the street, leading to a restaurant. Chances are that this is Cha-Ya. Cha-Ya is the hippest vegan Japanese restaurant in town. Known for its appeal to even non-vegans, Cha-Ya serves soups, salads, rice bowls, noodle bowls, sushi, and many specials. It is one of the few restaurants in Berkeley that also offers brown rice. Many rave about the tempura sushi (it’s just like it sounds) and the senroppen salad (with carrots, daikon, pine nuts, tofu, etc.). 

Open for lunch noon-2 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; open for dinner 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 p.m. to 10p.m. Friday and Saturday. 

Café Gratitude 

1730 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (415) 824-4652.  

The new raw food revolution has hit big in the Bay Area and there is no place better to take part than than Café Gratitude. Located in North Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto on Shattuck Avenue north of University, this restaurant’s atmosphere beats all others. The menu is full of raw food items, along with a few cooked items. They have a huge list of drinks and deserts. Additionally, there are raw food products and ecological items in the front of the restaurant, such as Nutiva’s raw extra-virgin coconut oil and a Café Gratitude t-shirt. Big hits are things such as the “I Am Bountiful,” a bruschetta topped with fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, stone ground olive oil and brazil nut parmesan, and also the “I Am Flourishing,” a Mediterranean plate of walnut-almond falafels served with sprouted almond-sesame seed hummus, spicy olive tapenade, seasoned almond toast and cucumber tzatziki salad. Café Gratitude is the haven for raw-foodists, or people who just want to give it a try. 

Menu available at www.withthecurrent.com/menu.html. 

Open 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. for Sunday brunch. 

Thai Delight 

1700 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. 549-0611. 

This family-owned Thai restaurant has graced Berkeley for many years. It is the one of the few Thai places that offers a selection of organic food, with free-range meats and organic, fresh vegetables in a comfortable atmosphere. There is a large selection of vegetarian and vegan options, and the restaurant proprietors and workers try their best to please their customers. Conveniently enough for Berkeley customers, if your order is over $25, they deliver the food right to your door.  

Menu available at www.shopinberkeley.com/t/thaidelightcuisine/index.php. 

Open 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. every day. 

Hoodied heisters 

Two teens clad in the traditional black hoodies and packing a matching pistol robbed a 21-year-old man of his wallet and two cell phones as he walked on Emerson Street near the Shattuck Avenue intersection just before 11 p.m. on Aug. 3. 

Grill robbery 

No, it wasn’t the cooking kind that was stolen, but the fancy gold gear that slips over front teeth. 

A 17-year-old Berkeley fellow was relieved of his dental accouterment as well as his cell phone and a small amount of cash by a rat pack of four or five young fellows who punched him in the head as an inducement to cough up the goodies. 

The crime went down just after 6 p.m. on Aug. 4 near the corner of Adeline Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan.

The Zoning Adjustments Board on Thursday passed a motion to continue a use permit modification request for the South Berkeley Police Substation until the Police Department has met with community members in order to get their feedback on the plan. The change in use would allow expansion for employee lockers and vehicle storage.  

Board members asked that police and property owners address concerns about appropriate storefront usage and parking before the 1,472-square-foot space on 3192 Adeline St. could be converted into storage space. The building formerly housed the Nickelodeon Theater, an antique store and a jazz club. 

The site was chosen by the Police Department because of its central location and because it would offer a police presence in a high crime area. Representatives from the South Berkeley Police Substation told the board on Thursday that the South Berkeley business community found the current police operation valuable to the neighborhood, and said that the reorganization of city functions elsewhere and staffing changes had led to the requirement for additional floor area to accommodate staff and equipment. Although the Police Department and the Office of Economic Development pursued other locations in the area in 2002 to accommodate the need for additional space, negotiations for suitable alternate locations were unsuccessful, leading the city to consider an expansion of the existing facility. 

Under the current application, the South Berkeley Police Substation would be expanded into the former retail space to provide additional parking area for seven parking enforcement vehicles and an expanded employee locker room and bathroom.  

The building’s exterior would be modified to install five windows and a door, and the deteriorated wood siding would be repaired. The existing driveway from Fairview Street would also provide access to the new space. Vehicles would drive through 3194 Adeline to get to 3192. 

Board member Bob Allen pointed out that the increase in parking would lead to a major problem as there would be a shortage of space for the neighbors to park. There are currently only 16 parking spaces for the 34 employees at the substation, who will very soon be joined by five more employees.  

Board members also asked the substation to consider alternate transportation for employees, such as BART, which is located right across the street, but city staff said that parking space was decided not on the number of employees but on square footage of the property.  

Huck Rorick, one of the owners of the property, stressed that although crime still persists in the area, the police presence has proved beneficial for the community. He added that the remodeling would help to alter the poor appearance of the substation, especially with the addition of a facade. 

Sam Dyke, who spoke on behalf of the Adeline-Alcatraz Merchants’ Association, said that he disapproved of the pro-ject. “We should put something better there than storage and locker rooms. It’s a thriving area for business and the space could be put to commercial use,” he said.  

United We Stand and Deliver (UWSD) activist Martin Vargas echoed Dyke, saying that it is essential to bring commercial businesses to South Berkeley. “We need creativity as well as sensitivity in South Berkeley,” he said. 

Sinan Sabuncuoglu, owner of the Berkeley Design Center across Adeline, expressed disappointment in the city and the city’s planners . He said that the plan lacked detail, care and sensitivity, and called it a “monkey cage.” 

Board member Jesse Anthony agreed that the space needed to be used more creatively. “It bothers me that you were unable to find a renter who would use it as commercial space,” he told Rorick. “The city is renting it now and soon the Police Department will start renting it and the place will be an eyesore for the next five years,” he said. 

Allen said that since the Police Department was a positive presence in the neighborhood they should allow the public to see them inside the building in order to make their presence felt.  

“The storefront needs to look like a storefront. It should not look like a garage, which would do nothing to help the commercial nature of the area,” said ZAB vice-chair Dave Blake. 

The board agreed that the Police Department either needed to get more officers on the street, open up the windows so that people could see the officers inside or use the empty space in a way that would attract people to the area. 

The Police Department and the building owners were asked to get together with the neighbors in order to decide what would suit the community’s needs best and then come back with a report to the Sept. 14 ZAB meeting. Both parties agreed. 

In other matters, the board approved a use permit for applicant Iqbal Abdul Rahman Shah of 1187 Delaware St. to legalize construction that vertically extended existing, non-conforming front and side yard setbacks and brought an end to a dispute between Mr. Shah and his neighbors Michael Fretz and Elizabeth Buchanan of 1191 Delaware, who had expressed concern about the city’s process for correcting and enforcing compliance for theconstruction that occurred at the property without a permit. 

Board member Jesse Anthony said that both buildings had been violating building codes. “It makes no sense for this issue to come up at the meeting in the first place. Since both houses were built almost a hundred years ago, they both need code changes,” he said. 

The board agreed on the project construction as long as the windows on the west side that serve the lower story comply with the fire rating standards of the Uniform Building Code. 

On the consent calendar, the board approved a use permit for 1801 Shattuck Ave., which would allow the owners to convert three retail lease spaces in order to allow a range of two to six lease spaces among other things. Use permits for 157 and 161 Vicente Road were continued without discussion.  

The board also approved a use permit for establishing a full-service 48-seat restaurant with incidental service of beer and wine in an existing building which has no off-street parking at 2502 Telegraph Ave., and allowed the demolition of three small industrial buildings in order to facilitate the removal of contaminated soils and groundwater on the Flint Ink property on 1350 Fourth St. 

The board also decided to postpone a decision on 1490 Glendale Ave., advising the property’s owners that that the proposed 2,500-square-foot, four-bedroom requires more than one parking space. A decision on a major addition to a residential property on 704 Keeler Ave. was also postponed.

Every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the last 37 years, the New Light Senior Center, located in the South Berkeley YMCA, has provided seniors with healthy, organic, nutritionally balanced food at a low price. That might end on Sept. 1, when the program founded by former Councilmember Maudelle Shirek will have to close its doors because of funding problems. 

“There aren’t that many nutritionally balanced meals these days for seniors,” said Jackie DeBose, who took over as director of New Light when Shirek retired. “We shop at Berkeley Bowl and serve food without salt or sugar. There is a great variety of high-quality food.” 

DeBose said that the combination of high costs and reduced funding has contributed to the need for termination of the program. The expenses of gas, food, and food packaging have been high. However, she says that this is because a lot of seniors have utilized this program. 

“We serve approximately 15,000 meals a year,” said DeBose. “Around 30 to 40 people come each day for the three days. Most people get three meals a week, while people with a high need get two or three meals a day delivered to their door.” 

Harry Gans, a Berkeley resident, has been going to the New Light program for a little under a year. He describes the program as a sanctuary. 

“It’s not only a lunch program,” says Gans. “People come there for not only the food but also the company. We engage in conversation. It’s been a really extraordinary program. Everyone seems to like each other.” 

Shirek, a former city councilmember and political activist, started the program because she wanted seniors to have quality, healthy food available to them in a social setting. New Light now receives funding from the City of Berkeley and Alameda County Meals on Wheels. 

DeBose says, “I am hoping that if people read about this, there will be a bunch of people hoping to save the program who see how important this agency is.” 

How much money would they need to continue to operate? 

“We would need $40,000 to get us out of deficit,” comments DeBose. “We use about $2,000 a month for services, which is not a lot for a non-profit to operate.” 

District 4 Councilmember Dona Spring wants the program to stay open. She is proposing that if funding is found within the community to keep the program open for a month ($2,000), she would make a plea to the City Council at their Sept. 11 meeting to get $40,000 of emergency funding to keep the center open. 

“I would like us to try to find the money,” said Spring. “I think that the city should provide funding…this program has been in existence for a long time. If we can gather $2,000 from the community, I would bring it up on the 11th.” 

Councilmember Betty Olds said that if Councilmember Max Anderson wants the City Council to continue to support the center, she would be on board. 

“I would certainly support that,” commented Olds. 

Anderson could not be reached for comment by deadline.  

Donations may be sent to the New Light Senior Program, 2901 California Street, Berkeley, 94703. For more information on the program, call 549-2666. 

When filings closed for Berkeley’s incumbents in the mayoral, City Council, city auditor and School Board races Friday, four would-be candidates had dropped out. 

Non-incumbents still have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to file for school and rent stabilization boards. 

The city’s namesake candidate, would-be Mayor Richard Berkeley, abandoned the field, but incumbent Tom Bates and three other challengers—former Planning Commission Chair Zelda Bronstein, recent Stanford graduate Christian Pecaut (who moved to Berkeley just to run for the job) and Native American activist Zachary Running Wolf—turned in their papers Friday. 

Potential mayoral candidate and former Mayor Shirley Dean also dropped out, declining to return the papers taken out on her behalf by Merrilee Mitchell. 

All three remaining mayoral candidates filed their nomination papers Friday.  

Another dropout was Joshua May, who took out papers on July 13 to challenge incumbent Kriss Worthington for his District 7 City Council seat. Worthington and his remaining challenger, George Beier, both filed Friday. 

The fourth dropout was Berkeley Unified School District board member John Selawsky, who opted not to return papers he’d taken out in mid-July to challenge Berkeley’s popular and well-respected City Auditor Ann Marie Hogan, who returned her papers Wednesday. 

With Selawsky’s withdrawal, Hogan will be the only incumbent to run in November without opposition. 

District 1 City Councilmember Linda Maio, who filed Thursday, faces a challenge from grandmother, teacher and self-described do-gooder Merrilee Mitchell, the Friday filer who had also taken out mayoral papers for Shirley Dean. 

District 4 Councilmember Dona Spring filed for reelection Thursday, as did her lone challenger, Mechanics Bank branch manager Raudel Wilson. 

District 8 incumbent Councilmember Gordon Wozniak filed Friday, along with his challenger, Rent Stabilization Board Commissioner Jason Overman. 

By the close of filing Friday afternoon, all five prospective candidates who had taken out nomination papers for three seats open on the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) board had filed their papers. Incumbent Shirley Issel filed her nomination papers Tuesday, and fellow incumbent Nancy Riddle filed Wednesday. The third seat was held by board Chair Terry Doran, who is not seeking reelection.  

David Baggins filed his nomination papers Wednesday, Norma Harrison followed on Thursday and Karen Hemphill filed Friday. Unlike the City Council, School Board members are not elected by district but on an at-large basis. 

Rent Stabilization Board member Robert Evans didn’t return the nomination papers he took out earlier, meaning he’s out of the race. Vice Chair Pinkie Payne didn’t bother taking out papers at all, and incumbent Selma Spector is being forced out by term limits, said Acting City Clerk Sherry Kelly. 

Challenger Howard Chong has filed his papers for the Rent Board, as did Pam Edwards. 

Non-incumbents for the school and rent stabilization boards have until the close of business Wednesday to file. 

Other cities 

Two City Council seats are up for grabs in El Cerrito, with incumbents Janet Abelson and Sandi Potter facing David Boisvert and Andrew Ting. Candidates run at large, with the top two vote-getters taking home the prize.  

Two Richmond councilmembers, Gayle McLaughlin and Gary Bell, are challenging incumbent Irma Anderson in the mayor’s race. 

In the Richmond City Council races, incumbent Tony Thurmond is running unopposed for a two-year term. Candidates for the four-year terms will pit incumbents Richard Griffin, Jim Rogers and Maria Viramontes against Cortland “Corky” Booze, James Jenkins and Ludmyrna Lopez. Those races are city-wide. 

In Albany, incumbent City Attorney Robert Zweben was the only candidate to file for that seat, for which nominations closed Friday, said City Clerk Jacqueline Buchholz. 

Four candidates have had filed for the Albany City Council through Monday afternoon, including Marge Atkinson, Joanne Wile, Francesco Papalia and Fred O’Keefe. Incumbent Mayor Alan Maris was forced out by term limits and Councilmember Robert Good did not file for reelection.

A year after Jerry Brown was elected mayor of Oakland, San Francisco publisher Phil Bronstein introduced him at a luncheon of the American Society of Newspaper Editors as a politician who was trying to get big money out of politics. 

“[H]e took over the [California] Democratic Party chairmanship, but quit complaining very bitterly about the influence of money in politics,” Bronstein said of Brown. “In ‘92 he ran for president again, beating Bill Clinton in six state primaries, and was the only other candidate to make it all the way to the convention. In those races, as in his run for mayor of Oakland last year, he refused contributions over $100.” 

Three years later, at a convention of the economic think-tank Miliken Institute in Los Angeles, Brown was asked if he supported the position of Republican Bill Simon, who was running against Gray Davis and attacking the incumbent governor for his massive political fund-raising activities. 

“Obviously,” the Sacramento Bee quoted Brown as saying. “I’m the guy who limits my contributions to $100. I’m definitely concerned about the political process and how it’s become profoundly distorted by money.” 

Running in the November general election for California attorney general, these distortions no longer seem to bother Jerry Brown. The $100 figure is mentioned on Brown’s campaign contribution website (https://jerrybrown.org/contribute?amount=) but only as the lowest suggested donation amount. 

An analysis reveals that in the two months between June 10 and Aug. 10, Brown collected $658,000 in contributions of $5,000 or more. Of those, 55 came from individuals contributing between $5,000 and the legal individual limit of $5,600 to Brown’s attorney general campaign. In the same period, Brown’s Republican opponent collected $167,525 in contributions of $5,000 or more. 

As of last week, Brown had collected $4.473 million since the first of 2005, with $4.4 million on hand as of the end of May. In contrast, Poochigian had collected $2.2 million in contributions since January of 2005, with $3.2 million on hand as of the end of May. 

A recent Field Poll shows that Brown’s lead in the opinion polls mirrors his lead in fund-raising, with Brown preferred over Poochigian 54 percent to 33 percent by Californians likely to vote in the November election. 

The analysis shows that Brown’s financial support is broad-based, with large contributions coming from unions, corporate interests, law enforcement associations and law corporations, and casino interests, as well as individuals. That ability to attract money from both ends of the political spectrum is evident in the mayor’s contributions from two widely varied state political action committees in the past two months: Brown received $5,600 apiece from Oakpac, the Oakland political fund that promotes business interests, and the Los Angeles County Council on Political Education, an AFL-CIO-based fund which said its purpose was “promoting working families issues” in its filing papers with the state as a political action committee. 

Brown’s single largest interest group support in the last two months was from unions, from which he took in $192,300, the largest coming from labor organizations connected with the building trades industry. Brown has led a residential building boom in Oakland during his two terms as mayor, a policy that has benefited building trades unions. 

Meanwhile, Brown’s most controversial contributions came from gambling interests, with $16,800 from casinos, and another $5,600 from the California Tribal Business Alliance State Candidate PAC. 

The fight over control of California’s gambling industry between the traditional card clubs and the Native American-sponsored tribal land casinos has grown into enormous proportions in recent years, with the attorney general’s office expected to have influence over their eventual outcome in the next term. 

Brown once proposed backing Muwekma Ohlone tribe for a casino at the old Oakland Army Depot, an idea that eventually fell through. 

Brown took in $55,400 in contributions from corporations in the last two months, including $5,600 apiece from the Bank of America PAC in Atlanta, Kroger Supermarkets in Los Angeles, and the Hilton Hotels Corporation in Tennessee. 

In the past two months, $26,700 went to Brown’s campaign from law corporations, and $16,200 from law enforcement associations. In contrast, Poochigian’s single largest contribution came from the California Republican Party, which gave him $32,125 of the $174,525 Poochigian’s campaign received in the past two months. 

Jerry Brown’s top campaign contributions in the past two months 

California State Pipes Trades Council Political Action Fund: $11,100 

California Teachers Association: $11,100 

International Union of Operation Engineers Local 12: $11,100 

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union Local 11: $11,100 

Northern California Carpenters Regional Council: $11,100 

Pipe Trades District Council #36: $11,100 

Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 447 Federal Political Action Fund: $11,100 

Plumbers & Steamfitters Local No. 467: $11,100 

Political Action for Classified Employees of California School Employees: $11,100 

SEIU United Healthcare Workers West: $11,100 

Southern California Pipe Trades Council #16: $11,100 

State Building & Construction Trades Council of California: $11,100 

United Food and Commercial Workers Region 8 States Council: $11,100  

Chuck Poochigian’s top campaign contributions in the past two months 

California Republican Party/Victory 2006: $32,125 

California Restaurant Association PAC: $5,600 

Consulting Engineers & Land Surveyors PAC: $5,600 

Allergan Corporation (drug manufacturers): $5,600 

Fieldstead & Company (conservative fund): $5,600 

Duane R. Roberts (Owner, Chairman and CEO, Entrepreneurial Capital Corporation, Newport Beach): $5,600 

Hilary Poochigian: $5,600 

Richard J. Riordan (former Los Angeles Mayor and California Secretary for Education): $5,600

The UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund will distribute $200,000 in Berkeley this year in the form of grants which will support 15 projects through partnerships between local community groups and the university. 

Established by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, the fund is part of a 2005 agreement between the campus and the city following the adoption of the UC Berkeley 2020 Long Range Development Plan. The annual amount is being counted by the mayor’s office as part of the $1.2 million total compensation the city receives from the university for its impacts on city services. 

“I am very happy to see the university reach out to the community,” Mayor Tom Bates said. “I understand that some of the grants will be matching grants which will help in economic development as there will be public as well as non-profit companies who will come forward to match the amounts. This is a boost towards the good will of the city.” 

The mayor’s office, however, played no role in the selection of the grant recipients, which was handled entirely by the Community Partnership Fund Advisory Board.  

The advisory board, which is comprised of community leaders and representatives from both the city and UC Berkeley, includes UC Berkeley Associate Chancellor John Cummins; UC Berkeley Community Relations Director Irene Hegarty; Carolyn Henry-Golphin, chair of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors; Assistant City Manager Jim Hynes; and Julie Sinai, senior aide to Tom Bates, among others. 

Sinai called the experience of serving on the advisory board very exciting and added that the huge number of applications that the board had received had made the process challenging.  

“We received $900,000 in applications and made $200,000 in grants. It was very hard to prioritize because all the applications were compelling,” Sinai said. She added that the response in terms of applications was very positive, given that it was the grants’ first year, though the University of California has made previous grants to East Bay organizations. “What was great about this is that the grant acted like a catalyst for the university’s partnership with the community,” she said. 

As a result of this partnership, UC students are getting trained to do community outreach. “The purpose of this grant is really to engage the intellectual and research capacity of the faculty and the students to help the local community,” said Sinai. “A perfect example of this is the Berkeley High Student Court partnering with the Center for Social Justice at the Boalt School of Law. The first year has seen a positive start in building crucial partnerships such as this and we hope to do more such good work in the future.” 

After developing the goals, criteria and process for awarding the partnership grants and reviewing and recommending the grant awards, the advisory board chose 15 winning projects from 45 grant proposals. Chancellor Birgeneau had the final say in all the selections. 

“Nine of the grantees are community support and service projects which will enhance the economic, social or cultural well-being of Berkeley residents, and seven are neighborhood improvement projects that will enhance the physical environment of Berkeley neighborhoods or of facilities,” said UC Berkeley Community Relations Director Irene Hegarty. 

According to Hegarty, the following community service projects will be receiving funding for 2006-2007 which total $94,260: 

• Berkeley High Student Court ($10,000), which will provide a positive alternative to suspension for Berkeley High School students facing disciplinary action. 

• WriterCoach Connection Literacy Support for Berkeley Middle Schools ($5,000), which will extend an existing program that pairs trained writers with 7th and 8th grade students at Longfellow Middle School 

• Cal in the Classroom Partnership ($10,000), in which UC Berkeley graduate students in the sciences will enhance the science curriculum for elementary school students through outreach and presentations.  

• West Berkeley Outreach Project ($20,000), an outreach to West Berkeley parents through recreational and educational activities and mental health services. The project will engage parents more effectively in their children's well-being and education and support the development of healthy families.  

• Poetry Flash Community Poetry Series ($8,000), which will expand and improve accessibility to nationally recognized poetry readings and help fund a Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival. 

• Youth Emergency Assistance Hostel Volunteer Coordination Expansion ($21,260), which will fund a volunteer coordinator to recruit and train UC Berkeley students to become peer mentors to homeless youth and expand community volunteer participation.  

• Dorothy Day House Homeless Breakfast & Shelter Project ($5,000), which will support a breakfast program and emergency storm shelter for homeless people, including the recruitment of student volunteers and interns.  

• Housing Opportunities Ex-panded (HOPE) Project ($10,000), in which students will be trained and will assist chronically homeless clients to access permanent housing and social services. 

• Jazz Masters Workshop Series ($5,000), which will offer hands-on workshops for young Berkeley musicians taught by selected professional artists scheduled to perform in Cal Performances’ 2008-2009 season.  

The following neighborhood improvement projects will also be receiving funding, which will total $103,871.  

• Piedmont Avenue Landscape Rehabilitation Plan ($30,000), a draft plan for historic Piedmont Avenue between Dwight Way and Gayley Road based on the original design by Frederick Law Olmsted.  

• Halcyon Commons Rejuvenation Project ($13,640), which will add two new elements to this community-designed and -built park in South Berkeley. 

• Berkeley Orphaned Monuments Project ($15,000), which will conserve, preserve and restore Berkeley’s public architectural features and is a first phase of a larger project to inventory, map, assess and document historic features such as walls, stone pillars, steps and walks.  

• Kingman Hall Creekside Amphitheater Restoration ($15,000), the first phase of a larger project which will include vegetation management and planning for total restoration of a community amphitheater and creekside. 

• Rebuilding Together: Energy, Green & Earthquake Teams ($11,000) will expand home and facility safety projects for elderly and disabled people to include specialized environmental and earthquake teams.  

• Greening Berkeley Hands-on ($19,000), a program to recruit volunteers and buy materials for restoration of people-friendly, biodiverse green spaces in several Berkeley neighborhoods. 

The remaining $1,869 will be carried over to 2007. 

At the end of this month, a new free, public charter school open its doors in Oakland. Funded primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the California Department of Education, Urban Renaissance School of Arts & Technology (often referred to as Urban but not to be confused with the San Francisco private school of the same name) is committed to preparing kids for college and having a small school community. Urban is dedicated to small class sizes, with no more than 25 students per class. The high school is open to students in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. 

“We want our kids to go to college,” said Co-Principal John Oubre. “All of our classes are aligned with the UC and CSU standards.” 

Urban is a member of Envision Schools, a group of Bay Area public charter high schools. The mission of Envision Schools is to create high-performing high schools that meet college requirements and that provide an ideal learning environment.  

Urban students will be assigned an advisor, who will aid them in their journey from high school to college.  

“Each student at Urban will have an advisor who works with no more than 18 students,” said Co-Principal Alcine Mumby. “It is the task of the advisor not only to support the academic needs, but also to help with the psychological and social challenges—especially as students transition into high school.” 

For the school’s first year, Urban plans to start with a ninth-grade class of 125 students. Every year they will add a grade until, by 2009, they hope to have a full high school of grades 9 through 12. 

Oubre says that student safety will be a number one priority.  

“This campus will be safe,” Oubre said, because we have chosen it to be so. I like young people. We need to work with them as long as we can.” 

Urban is a little different from other schools. Rather than being focused on nightly homework, it is centered on projects, the reasoning being that projects combine work in the classroom with real-life experience to give students a more balanced education. 

As its name states, the focus at Urban is technology and the arts. Art is not an elective at this school but a required course, with students allowed to choose anything from music to computer design. Technology is implemented into the school curriculum as well. Urban prides itself on the low computer-to-student ratio of 1:3. The entire campus will have free wireless Internet service. 

Oubre tells the Daily Planet that parents of prospective students are showing a strong interest in Urban. 

“Everyday, we receive four to five calls inquiring about Urban,” says Oubre. 

Urban receives its charter from the Alameda County Office of Education. Envision Schools originally applied to the Oakland Unified School District for their charter but were turned down. 

Urban was awarded $405,000 from the California Department of Education, which will be dispersed over a period of two years, and $360,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over a period of three years. 

Asked what effect might this charter school have on arts programs in the Oakland schools, like those at Skyline High School and Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), Oakland Unified School District Communications Director Alex Katz said, “In one sense, it will make competition, which can be good. We only exist to serve the students. If that school can do a good job serving students, we don’t want to stand in the way.” 

Steven Goldstine, a consultant at OSA, speculates how a school like Urban got such a large grant from the Gates Foundation. 

“It’s very unusual to get a large grant for something that doesn’t exist yet, unless they know someone in the Gates family,” said Goldstine. 

However, Goldstine thinks that it’s better for the students to succeed rather than focusing on competition. He noted that “the graduating class at OSA went on to some remarkable institutions.” Urban will be hosting an open house every Thursday from 6:30 to until 7:30 p.m. through Aug. 24.  

Urban Renaissance School of Arts & Technology will open its doors at 967 Stanford Ave. in Oakland later this month. Photo by  

Rio Bauce.

Investigation continues 

The investigation of a Berkeley police officer suspected in the theft of evidence continues, reports department spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan. 

“Since it’s an ongoing investigation, I can’t comment about who’s involved,” Galvan said. 

The officer, reportedly the son of a high-ranking official, was the subject of official searches by agents of the Department of Justice, sources have reported. Galvan declined to confirm or deny those reports. 

Rape reported 

A 16-year-old San Leandro girl told police she was raped by an acquaintance near the corner of Prince and Tremont streets—near the Ashby BART parking lot—about 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 2. 

The young woman identified the suspect, and an investigation is continuing, reports Officer Galvan. 

Boy robs boy 

A 15-year-old called police just after 9 p.m. on July 27 to report he’d just been relieved of his cell phone and cash by another youth, 17 or older, who made his getaway on a shiny red bike with chopped handles. 

The incident took place near the corner of Dwight Way and San Pablo Avenue. 

Now that’s mean 

That’s the judgment Officer Galvan pronounces on the mean-spirited man who robbed a 19-year-old Irish tourist of his wallet, cell phone and glasses near the corner of Bancroft Way and Shattuck Avenue about 11:30 p.m. on the 27th. 

“I guess he didn’t want him to see where he was going,” said Galvan. “But the poor guy is going to be thinking about that every time he remembers his trip to Berkeley.” 

Beatdown heist 

A 16-year-old Berkeley boy staggered into a liquor store near the corner of Eighth Street and Allston Way at 7 p.m. July 28 to report that he’d just been slugged in the face and robbed of his cash by another youth. 

Boxcutter attack 

A 50-something man armed with a boxcutter slashed a 21-year-old Berkeley man outside the UA Theater about 9 p.m. on the 28th. 

Paramedics took the injured man to the emergency room for a neck injury sustained in the attack. The suspect had already departed and was last seen headed south of Shattuck Avenue. 

Van flight 

A 34-year-old Forest Knoll man was robbed by a pair of bandits as he walked along the 3100 block of Telegraph Avenue just after 2 a.m. on the 29th, said Officer Galvan. 

The baddies boogied in a white car with a sliding door, said their victim. 

Razor slasher 

A 48-year-old Oakland man was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon after he slashed a 36-year-old Berkeley woman with a razor blade on July 29. 

Officers arrived in the 1200 block of 10th Street just before 5 p.m. in response to reports of a fight between a man and a woman inside a parked car. 

The car sustained a broken window and the woman received a minor cut, which paramedics treated at the scene. The man was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. 

Armed robber 

A young gunman with a black pistol robbed an Oakland couple of their valuables as they walked along Channing Way near the corner of Ellsworth Street shortly before 11 p.m. on the 29th. 

The victims, ages 77 and 74, lost a wallet, a purse and cash. 

Rat pack 

A gang of six teenagers surrounded and robbed a 60-year-old Oakland woman as she walked along the 2100 block of San Pablo Avenue just after 11:30 p.m. on the 29th. 

The woman said none of the robbers appeared to be more than 15 years old. 

Trash arson 

After firefighters responded to a series of trash can fires near the corner of Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue at 5:30 a.m. on the 31st, a cabbie flagged down an officer to report that he’d seen a homeless man set the blaze. 

The nomadic torch remains at large. 

Felony shoes 

A gunman robbed Bows & Arrows, a boutique in the 2800 block of Telegraph Avenue, of both the contents of the till and four pairs of sneakers—often dubbed “felony shoes” by the badge-and-gun set because of the preference shown them by fleet-of-foot felons. 

The robber, who pulled off his caper just after 2 p.m. on the 31st, had extricated himself from the scene before the first prowl car arrived. 

Smash and grab 

She couldn’t say whether the robber hit her with his fist or the long silver gun he was packing, but the blow was enough to convince her to give the man her wallet and cell phone after he attacked her in the 1300 block of Hopkins Street at 9:30 p.m. on the 31st, said Officer Galvan. 

Rec Center arson 

Someone smashed a window at the San Pablo Recreation Center late in the evening of July 31st, dumped something fluid and flammable on a couch and set it ablaze. 

While the fire did little damage to the concrete structure itself, the smoke and the water sprayed by firefighters did significant damage to the contents, said Officer Galvan. 

Fourth Street heist 

The last clerk to lock up at a trendy shop in the 1800 block of Fourth Street found herself in a confrontation with a pair of bandits as she was locking the descending storefront grate in place just before 2:30 a.m. on Aug 1. 

Unable to rob the shuttered store, they settled for her purse and wallet. 

Home invasion 

A pair of thugs forced their way into a home in the 2600 block of Sacramento Street just before 11 a.m. on Aug. 2, forcing the two occupants to hand over their cash before the two suspects, one aged about 25 and the other about 35, fled in the direction of Longfellow Elementary School. 

Robbers thwarted? 

Police stepped up surveillance of a section of West Berkeley after a series of armed robberies in late July and early August, apparently convincing the bandits to head for safer pastures, reports Officer Galvan. 

In each of the stickups, a pair of bandits, one armed with a black pistol, would approach their marks, then make their play. 

The first incident was reported just after midnight on the 1st, when a woman was robbed of her purse and lunch box in the 1300 block of 10th Street. 

Similar crimes followed in the Walgreen’s parking lot just off the corner of University and San Pablo avenues and in near the Pik ‘N’ Pak market. 

Million-dollar cigarette 

The careless disposal of a smoldering cigarette butt is the probable cause of the three-alarm fire that caused heavy damage and injured firefighters last Wednesday. 

Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth said one of the tenants had been smoking, and the discarded butt ignited the blaze that caused more than $1 million in damage to a five-unit apartment at 2626 Hillegass. 

Six people were injured in the blaze, none seriously. 

Orth said two firefighters are still recovering from their injuries. Those injured were hurt by flames, molten tar dripping from the roof, heat and exhaustion. Two firefighters were treated for injuries at a local emergency room, though no one was hospitalized, Orth said. 

Wiring fire 

A wire crimped during the recent installation of a pool maintenance system at UC Berkeley’s Recreational Sports Facility caused a fire that did $5,000 damage late Thursday afternoon, Orth said. 

The fire erupted after the wire overheated because it had been crimped against the wall during the installation of heaters atop the carbon dioxide tanks used to equalize the pH of water in the facility’s pool, Orth said.  

The system was installed in a room underneath the pool in the complex at 2351 Bancroft Way. 

Dorm fire 

Firefighters responded to UC Berkeley’s Unit 2 dorm at 3:39 a.m. Saturday, catching a trash blaze before it could do more that $250 in damage, said Orth. 

The fire broke out in a trash chute, he said.

Sunday morning we enjoyed a visit to the DMV offices on Claremont Avenue in Oakland. That’s a first—when has anyone ever enjoyed a DMV trip? The reason it was a pleasure is that we weren’t actually visiting the DMV, but were taking advantage of Oakland’s newest urban amenity, the Sunday farmers’ market which has set up shop in the parking lot there, just blocks from our home on the Berkeley border. It’s a tasty mixture of organic produce, booths for specialty cooking and a rotating roster of craftspeople and selected musicians.  

This week the market also hosted an act in the liveliest ongoing series of political psychodramas: The People Try To Take Back Their Cities from The Evil Planners. Petition gatherers for the referendum opposing the project plan which the Oakland City Council majority has approved for Oakland’s huge “Oak to Ninth” waterfront area were much in evidence, along with men handing out fliers urging shoppers not to sign the petitions. As non-residents, we couldn’t sign the petitions, but that didn’t stop the antis from tackling us. I bearded one of them, trying to find out a bit about why he was so anxious to keep the referendum from getting on the ballot. 

He started out by saying that “the circulators are all paid.” Well, I happened to recognize one of them, Oakland architect James Vann, an active volunteer with the Oak to Ninth Referendum Committee, who works for the Pyatok firm in Oakland, well-known for its affordable housing project designs, so he lost me on that one, as well on his second claim that affordable housing proponents all support the project. Another reason he wanted to keep the referendum off the ballot, he said, is that the project as approved would provide jobs. Well, yes, but for whom? I asked. Construction workers, he said. Like you? I asked. He (a middle-aged white guy) allowed as how he was a sheet metal worker. Where did he live? I asked. Martinez, he said. I suggested that projects which simply brought established white workers into Oakland from their rural homes might not be the kind of job creation Oaklanders need, and that their auto commuting to the job site would be a net loss for the environment. But perhaps they’re planning to take transit to work? In any event, he disengaged from the conversation pretty quickly after that, so I didn’t find out. 

I learned later that referendum circulators had been having run-ins with opponents who were not nearly as polite as the guy I talked to on Sunday. They’d sent a letter to the Oakland City Council on Saturday night complaining about it:  

Today, at various locations around the city, many petition circulators were harassed and interfered with by a groups of unnamed individuals. We were able to ascertain that at least some of the harassers were from a Sacramento labor union group. At each of the locations where harassment occurred, the same leaflet was being handed out. The leaflet did not identify any organization and gave no contact information. When asked, the circulators provided vague responses, if any, about who they were, or where from, or who ordered the interfering harassment. It seemed apparent to our circulators that the groups that appeared today had been hired by, and/or directed by someone. 

Their e-mail asked the City Council and/or the police to do something about it, since such harassment is illegal. That’s probably what produced the relatively civil exchanges I saw on Sunday. But League of Women Voters member Helen Hutchison told me that she’d received a call on her cell phone Saturday night from an official of the Central Labor Council calling her e-mail “scurrilous and libelous.” Not good PR for the unions, that’s for sure. 

Yesterday (Thursday) the Referendum Committee sent out a triumphal press release announcing that 30,000 signatures had been collected for submission, when fewer than 19,000 are needed. This brings the curtain down on Act I in this particular drama. Now it’s up to the Oakland City Council to decide whether to withdraw their approval of the project as it stands and try again, or to place it on the ballot as-is for a popular vote up or down.  

Things have changed somewhat in Oakland since a divided council first approved the plans. They were influenced, perhaps unduly, by an early stampede of some of the “good guy” groups to endorse what turns out to be a pretty poor deal for the public interest. The Greenbelt Alliance, for example, green-stamped the project early on, though the more judicious Sierra Club is now supporting the referendum. Greenbelters don’t seem to understand that protecting the environment means more than a green ring around increasingly crowded and unpleasant acres of urban concrete.  

And the promised “jobs” offer no more than 6 or 7 percent to local workers, as contrasted with, for example, the 40-50 percent local hiring developer Phil Tagami promises for his rehab of the Fox Oakland theater. Even the affordable housing promises are sketchy—the vast majority of buyers in the proposed project will just be newbies using its pricey condos as stepping stones to suburban McMansions.  

Berkeley’s sister drama, the initiative to save its Landmarks Preservation Ordinance from developer-driven emasculation, is definitely on the ballot for November. Berkeley council members have missed their chance to avoid a confrontation over that one. But Oakland’s new mayor, Ron Dellums, is well-positioned to give Oakland a second look at a bad deal. If he wants to get his term off to a positive start, he would be well-advised to bring all parties back to the drawing board to see if they can’t do a lot better by what everyone agrees is a world-class opportunity. It’s such a good site that it merits a seriously big-time international design competition, instead of just another routine Big Ugly Box condo development on steroids. 

Members of two city panels will gather tonight (Tuesday) in an effort to resolve issues surrounding the role of historic buildings in the future of downtown Berkeley. 

Four members each from the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) will meet at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center at 1901 Hearst Ave. 

The issue at hand represents the newest front in the long-running struggle being waged between pro-development interests and preservationists. 

Tonight’s meeting will focus on the survey of historic resources and structures to be carried out in conjunction with the creation of a new plan for an expanded area of downtown Berkeley. 

That plan was mandated in the settlement of the city’s lawsuit that challenged elements of UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan covering expansion plans for the university campus and pro-jects planned for the city center. 

Members of the two bodies will hear a presentation by the Architectural Resources Group (ARG), a San Francisco architecture and consulting firm retained to help city staff prepare the survey of downtown historic assets. 

The ARG team is scheduled to present an overview of state and federal criteria for historic resources, to describe criteria used by other California communities and to present an overview of the survey process. 

Chair Robert Johnson and fellow commissioners Lesley Emmington, Jill Korte and Steven Winkel will represent the LPC, while Wendy Alfsen, Patti Dacey, Carole Kennerly and Raudel Wilson will represent DAPAC. 

Dacey served on the LPC until earlier this year, when she was removed from the post by City Councilmember Max Anderson. She and Emmington were the commission’s most ardent preservationists, while Korte was more closely aligned with them than with Johnson and Winkel, if past votes are any guideline. 

Several DAPAC members, most notably Dorothy Walker, a former UCB official, have called for the demolition of some historic structures to make way for larger, new structures. 

The subcommittee will carry out its work during the run-up to the November elections, when Berkeley voters will decided on a ballot initiative that would keep—with minor changes—the city’s tough landmarks law. 

If that measure fails, the City Council could then enact a rival measure from Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli that preservationists contend represents a threat to the city’s historic character. 

Pro-development activists contend the current law blocks creation of needed affordable housing, and that the Bates/Capitelli measure protects developers and property-owners from NIMBY responses to individual projects.

RENT CONTROL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his Aug. 11 commentary assailing, once again, Berkeley’s voter-approved Rent Stabilization Ordinance, John Koenigshofer conveniently ignores rent control’s central, fundamental purpose: to protect renters from unwarranted, unanticipated, arbitrary rent level increases.  

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, for example, Bay Area rent levels increased dramatically—and unexpectedly—as a consequence of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and subsequent crude oil price shock. In addition, state Proposition 13, passed in 1978, slashed rental property owners’ taxes by 75 percent or more.  

In response, scores of California municipalities, including Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco, passed local rent control measures to protect renters from these unanticipated, egregious rent increases at the time. 

Again, during the dot-com economic surge between 1998 and 2001, Bay Area rent levels jumped dramatically and unexpectedly. Fortunately, hundreds of thousands of Bay Area renter households were shielded from these rent increases because of existing local rent control ordinances.  

Currently in San Francisco, average rent levels have increased by 15 percent since January 2006 for new renters moving into units. Existing tenants in San Francisco’s 200,000 rent-controlled units, however, have remained protected from these steep—and ongoing—increases. 

Without Berkeley’s 1980 Rent Stabilization Ordinance, the city’s unique, colorful character and low- to middle-income renter population would most likely have disappeared long ago. 

Chris Kavanagh  

• 

CONDO CONVERSION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Nancy Friedberg (Letters, Aug. 11), didn’t much grasp my concern about the Condo Conversion Initiative on the November ballot, which would denude Berkeley of a vast amount of rent-stabilized tenant housing. 

The present law, written by the City Council, maintains the rights of existing tenants while allowing for the annual conversion of 100 units into condominiums. The ballot initiative instead proposes to convert 500 units a year while giving tenants only 30 days to come up with the wherewithal to buy their residences at market price. Tenants who can’t buy can instead accept a 2 percent-of-sale-price immediate move-out inducement. This carrot-and-stick approach in essence amounts to eviction, since condos are largely exempt from rent stabilization and tenants who stay face the escalation of their rents to an uncontrolled level. 

The gulf between market price and stabilized rent price that’s arisen in the last six years of the heated Bay Area real estate market represents a potential conversion windfall that will instigate a rush of conversions. Duplexes, triplexes and quadriplexes, which contain about 5,000 of our rental units, are the most homey units; they also house the most longer-term tenants (and therefore offer the greatest potential windfall for their owners) and those tenants will be forced out first. The tenant population of our flatlands neighborhoods will mostly evaporate inside the next seven years if the initiative passes. As social policy the eviction-by-condo initiative is a near-perfect embodiment of the Bush administration housing goal of creating a “nation of homeowners” by studiously sacrificing everyone else’s housing interests. 

I hope to serve for the next four years on the Rent Board, but I also hope we won’t be facing a rental market whose supply is rapidly shrinking. Our existing rental stock is a blessing both for our tenants and our diversity, and should be preserved. 

Dave Blake 

• 

TABLOID TRASH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I like to think that I’m intelligent, well-educated and fairly sophisticated—certainly not one to be attracted by the lurid tabloids to be found at the check-out stand at supermarkets. I wouldn’t be caught dead buying one. However, last weekend while in line at Safeway, my eye fell on two of these sleazy publications, which I’ll not name. One magazine blazoned the bold title, “Bush and Condoleezza to Wed!” The other tersely stated, “Bush Divorce—Laura Wins.” 

Now this was hot stuff! Glancing around to be sure I wasn’t observed, I snatched up the two offending rags (no way was I going to fork over hard-earned money for such trash), and moved my basket to the longest line in the store. There I devoured the sensational allegations, chortling with glee. Normally I wouldn’t place much credence in these stories, but I was willing to make an exception in this case. 

Bush and Condoleezaa! My joy knew no bounds! Were ever two people more deserving of each other? 

Laura, honey—don’t fight it. Let go, Sweetheart! If these rumors prove to be true, consider yourself blessed. 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

LET’S HEAR IT FOR EVASION! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

TV and print agencies deliver news that is crafted mainly to advertise, entertain or persuade, rarely to inform. Example: The media showered General Abizaid, our military man in Iraq, with praise for his forthright responses before a Senate committee last week. Journalists unanimously agreed that his was the voice of a capable leader willing to face unpleasant realities.  

However, the general’s answer to Chairman Warner about whether the killings in Iraq constitute a civil war contains three evasive, non-forthright qualifiers. 

He said, “If not stopped Iraq could move toward a civil war.” I have underlined the words signaling the qualifiers. 

Why not simply declare that Iraq is engaged in a “low intensity” civil war?  

The reason the general does not want to admit that there is civil war in Iraq is that it would necessitate a new Congressional resolution—resolutions being the de facto manner that has come to replace the de jure constitutional way of declaring war.  

As Senator Warner implied, Congress might demand assurances that civil war referee is the last formulation in the series of reasons—WMDs, Liberation, Democracy—for expending vast amounts of treasure, human and fiscal, over there.  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

NOTES ON NIMBYISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent pieces by Sharon Hudson made more sense to me than anything I have read in a long time. 

Erica Cleary 

• 

BERKELEY SCHOOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to Julie Holcomb’s letter defending our public school district, the data is irrefutable that despite the large amount of local tax money we pump into our schools, achievement lags in Berkeley, and the achievement gap in Berkeley is huge and inexcusable. 

Berkeley High School’s dropout rate of almost 14 percent is higher than the county average of 10.3 percent. Pacific Islanders have a whopping 33 percent dropout rate at Berkeley High, compared to an 11 percent dropout rate county wide. For Hispanic students, the dropout rate is just as alarming: 26.3 percent versus a county average of 13.8 percent. And even for white students, Berkeley High’s dropout rate is higher than the county average (9 percent versus 6 percent). 

People like to hem and haw and say that Berkeley’s numbers are because Berkeley is a “diverse, urban area.” This is a poor excuse for low achievement. I support children, and I support public school education but simply giving more tax money to BUSD without requiring quality performance from the school district is not the answer. BUSD needs performance auditing so it can explain to taxpayers, why student achievement is not commensurate with the spending.  

If studies show that the most important factor in student learning is the classroom teacher, what is BUSD doing to improve teaching? Why are Berkeley teacher salaries significantly lower than other school district’s? Palo Alto’s starting teacher salary is $45,000. Berkeley’s starting teacher salary is only $33,800. How can we attract the qualified teachers needed to produce excellent schools with a starting salary of $33,800?  

What is BUSD doing to control expenses? Why does Berkeley spend almost a quarter of a million dollars more than Palo Alto for its superintendent and board, even though Palo Alto has 18 percent more students than Berkeley? Think of what the music program, or libraries, or the garden programs could do with an extra quarter of a million dollars. Berkeley’s school board and superintendent cry poor, but is it really poor or just not well managed? Let’s look at the data some more. 

Yolanda Huang 

• 

MISHEARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Driving around the Northwest this morn, I was happily tuned to the Stephanie Miller political satire show on Air America Radio, as is my traveling wont. One of her Eric Idlers was parodying Dubya spokesjoke Ken Melman and his insistence on “Stay the Course.” I heard it as “Save the Corpse!!” 

Arnie Passman 

• 

PLANETARY CONCERNS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If Pluto is not a planet, then how can the Berkeley Daily—which, despite its name, has a multiple-day orbit—be one? On the other hand, if all of Pluto, Ceres, Charon and Xena are planets, anything that goes around comes around, and I say somebody back when neglected to plan it. 

Ray Chamberlain 

• 

UC AND DEMOCRACY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund grants may be a thankful welcome to some important community groups, it is really not the way a democracy should function. If Tom Bates hadn’t sold out the city of Berkeley by settling with UC we probably would be getting a more fair share of payment from the University to the city for all the services they use. Then the City of Berkeley, using our democratic method would decide where it would spend our money. UC is not democratically run. The citizens of Berkeley have no power in deciding how this grant money will be allocated. And given UC’s past contempt for the history and democratic decisions of our city it is frankly frightful to hand over the allocation of what should be city funds to the chancellor. 

Cyndi Johnson 

A nation that loses its cherished freedom and protections will often discover that it has been a victim of spin and counter spin. This is not difficult to understand when we consider that a significant majority of our citizens still believe that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The truth of the matter is that it is difficult for humans to accept that they are continually being brainwashed. 

It is for the explicit purposes of addressing our conditioned state of mind and reclaiming our values and freedom—both environmental and political—that I, Zachary Running Wolf, a Native American leader and elder, is seeking the position of mayor for the city of Berkeley. You may wonder what a mayor can do to influence national and local policy. Simply stated, my native background, which is steeped in fundamental fairness towards all people and my concern for the protection of my land, gives me the courage to take on anyone—dictator or political terrorist to remedy the situation.  

In the 1960s and ’70s Berkeley was the epicenter for the movement to end the Vietnam War. Then in the ’80s, Berkeley residents and students led the march to divestment in South Africa. Out of concern for our planet, we then initiated curbside recycling. Today we are the home base for Cindy Sheehan in her campaign to end an unnecessary war. Now, I see clearly that Berkeley can be the leader in the much needed effort to curtail global warming. I draw my inspiration from the wisdom of my Native American ancestors whose teachings demand that before anyone of us makes a decision we should first consider how it will affect the next seven generations.  

Firstly, I will demand that solar panels be placed on all city-owned buildings. I also plan to initiate a solar bonds measure so that we can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Clearly, it is high time for all of us to adopt a more reasonable way of harnessing energy from nature. We cannot afford to have another mayor who cancels programs which reduce greenhouse gases. The truth of the matter is that global warming is a reality and we must remove those who pretend that it is not.  

Another thing we can do about global warming is to protect our trees. When Tom Bates ran for mayor he promised to protect our trees but, contrary to his promise, he opposed an initiative to create a tree ordinance. The failure to protect our trees is exacerbated by the fact that Bates is promoting inappropriate mega-development plans that encroach up on the property line. This is a major problem because it reduces sidewalk space which could otherwise be used for planting trees. As your mayor I will insist that all developments should somehow add to the number of trees in our city.  

Mayor Bates unmistakably stands for the elimination of open spaces. In a city that desperately needs parks and trees, Bates has led an effort to reduce open space by putting condos in the Ashby BART parking area. Clearly, this measure denies hard working merchants an opportunity to make a cultural and spiritual contribution to the area.  

Upon taking office Bates created an Agenda Committee, which was originally so extreme that even the city attorney labeled it as “illegal.” Bates’ explicit intent in creating secretive committees was to keep important items off the City Council agenda. This smacks of the very actions that are being instituted by the Bush administration. I am advocating a strong sunshine ordinance which encourages every resident to participate in open government. 

After curtailing City Council debate, Bates next sought to silence city commissions by creating hand-picked task forces. These task forces were designed to circumvent important city issues. Bates began to impose such a practice when he abolished the budget commission after they rejected his proposed tax increases as unnecessary. Clearly, we can no longer tolerate officials who want this country to be without free speech and balance. 

Furthermore, Bates has made it more difficult for citizens to challenge incumbents by failing to institute that Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) Act and the Clean Elections Amendment which were designed to make each candidate operate on a level playing field. It is merely an excuse to state that implementation was a problem.  

By far, what should be very troubling to the residents of Berkeley is the secret settlement that the Bates had reached with UC Berkeley. The agreement gives control to the university over the downtown development. Consequently, the university now retains power to build downtown even if the facilities have nothing to do with UC Berkeley’s educational mission. One consequence of such a deal is that UCB does not have to pay local property taxes. This loss of tax revenue will have to be subsidized by Berkeley home owners while the UCB Board of Directors receive pay hikes—uup to $300 million in perks alone! 

Additionally, as a Native American leader and elder, I understand the importance of sovereignty. People as well as nations (in this case city) have the right to control their land. That is why the mayor’s Downtown Plan is patently deplorable. Fortunately Anne Wagley and some other brave citizens have filed suit against Mayor Bates to save our city from this nightmare. I will use the opportunity offered by that lawsuit to settle the case. This will involve rescinding the UC agreement signed behind closed doors and without Berkeley’s residents’ voice.  

You should know that in Zachary Running Wolf, you will not find statements are akin to empty promises. Nay, I plan to bring a new way of doing politics in this great city. This will inevitably require public participation in the highest degree. It will also involve honesty and integrity. I realize that it is the people who can make this happen. So I appeal to the residents of Berkeley: Help me get elected and I will help this city to become what you alone want it to be—a decent home for all of us to live peacefully. 

Zachary Running Wolf is a candidate for mayor of Berkeley. www.runningwolformayor.org.

By JOAN LEVINSON 

I’m having an identity crisis as I sort out how to think about our political world. I’ve always thought of myself as a progressive lefty. At this moment I am becoming an anachronism. Not a vibrant label. 

Being a progressive means, for me, an adherent of bedrock American values—equal rights for everyone, legal justice and fairness, a continuous if zigzag march toward ever wider distribution of the national wealth. Government has been the main artery for facilitating that progress. Portions of that wealth have traditionally been dedicated to projects for the common good. Basic tenets of the U.S.A., right? Lately—wrong.  

The tide has turned, and the business of life is now slanted in one direction only. That other early goal—individual wealth—has moved to center stage. We’re finding ourselves in one of those recurrent cycles of “grab all you can get and get it now.”  

Money uber alles. 

But not for all of us. Just those who are economically well placed and have a head start—selective individualism writ large. Gone is the concern for others—whether American others or Afghan others. Where has all our concern for humans gone? 

It’s almost getting hard to remember that so recently so many of us were members of the brigades of change. We worked on many fronts right here in town—ending the Vietnam war, poverty, health, women’s equality, schools, elders, employment fairness, inclusiveness. We believed in the changes we were making and the process of making them. The moment was propitious. The culture had, unexpectedly, become expansive, experimental, full of hope. There was movement because of the multiple “movements” that had broken ground for change; “Here Comes the Sun” was the theme music.  

And it was fun too, even getting laws passed, partly because we were working together in truly cooperative ways pooling our knowedge and skills. There was minimal competition because, for the moment, the hoped for result was far more important to us than our individual egos. Many of us were thoroughly and deeply ‘at home’ in trying to make changes. And the parties, the music that helped to fuel us, the late night dancing into the dawn ... the feeling of being joyous AND doing good in our small world. 

We can’t bring back the spirit of the sixties and seventies which we found so morally “right.” It was a good run. Nobody could have imagined such a moment coming out of the grim realities of the Vietnam war, the uphill battle of the long civil rights movement, the narrow conformity of the 1950’s. 

That was then, and this is now. All such periods of intense excitement and change—a wider way of thinking and being —are short-lived. They are a true ‘high’ and the intoxication of those who help create them or even just live through them neither lasts nor disappears.  

So we in Berkeley are living in a deep deep post-high nostalgia which we love and nourish and want to talk about in order to preserve it if only in words.  

We don’t want our physical/psychic landscape to alter, so against all odds we resist. We try to save our cityscape of two-story houses, book stores, green spaces, historical places, artists’ space, small post offices. We point to hazards like radioactivity in Strawberry Creek, in our library books and cell phone towers, industrial smoke stink. Once in a while we have a victory—sometimes it’s real, sometimes it isn’t. 

We write heated letters to the editor, we picket unfair labor practices, we badger city commissions, we shout indignantly at City Council meetings. We listen to Dylan and Judy and Joan and Mick albums to remind us it was all real. Disheartened, we predict Doom. 

Our previously progressive politicos make alliances with builders throwing up too tall, too ugly, too expensive apartment buildings on every bit of open ground. Or they form public relations businesses and serve as skilled spokesmen for industry or institutional bureaucracies. Who can judge them? That’s where the action is-- and the money. There’s no immediate livelihood in having their too liberal ideas and trying to change the world. 

From the fifites’ civil rights movement to the anti-apartheid campaign of the eighties the quest for human betterment drove the engine of change. Like the train that goes backward in the railyard, the mean mood in the country is rapidly narrowing our scope of action. We try to shore up the remnants of what was good. Small fingers in large dykes.  

So my identity has become Conserver. I have become a true conservative—save the good parts. Work around current reality. Look for cracks in the walls. 

Joan Levinson is a sporadic activist.

A few points about Peter Buckley’s Aug. 15 response to my May 26 commentary on the proposed David Brower Center/Oxford Plaza megastructure: 

As for environmental leader David Brower’s feelings toward his namesake development, I’ll readily defer to those who had the privilege of knowing him. As for the high environmental and housing-equity intentions of the project’s designers, I acknowledged these upfront. Not at length, though, because the Brower Center project has never lacked good PR. What it has lacked is serious scrutiny. 

There are no “greedy developers” here. Quite the opposite: virtuous, underfunded, nonprofit developers. These are exactly the kinds of partners the city should choose for most development projects. 

But here, my concern is that the Brower/Oxford project has been designed beyond these nonprofits’ financing capabilities, and beyond the city’s ability to bail them out. And if we keep diverting city housing funds to a project that ultimately gets significantly downsized or canceled, the real cost will be the viable affordable-housing units that won’t get built elsewhere. 

Many people—including past Brower/Oxford supporters—have told me I got this point exactly right. Then there’s the George Orwell factor. 

If one chooses to build a new structure to honor an environmentalist of David Brower’s stature, it seems fair to expect a few basic things. First, kill no trees. (But this project would destroy several mature, graceful eucalyptuses of a locally rare species.) 

Second, ensure that the new office space is really needed, and really goes to effective environmental groups. (But this project’s cost overruns have already tacitly evicted those intended tenants. The office space, you see, is already being shopped to UC.) 

Third, make sure the building is wisely sited, through integrated planning. And make sure it’s designed to respect its neighbors—including, in this case, the campus’ adjacent green edge. 

Not the Brower project. Its website (www.browercenter.org/index_building.cfm) celebrates a promised “170-seat theater, an art gallery, various meeting rooms, and a café,” together creating a “cultural and educational gathering place for visitors.” All these visitors would descend on a structure providing no new public parking for them. 

That theater would be nearly PFA-sized, but would sit just a block from where UC proposes to destroy a landmark building in order to relocate PFA itself. It would be within another few blocks from three existing movie theaters that have gone dark. Huh? Could town and gown perhaps coordinate on building—or better still, reusing—a single theater that would be viable? 

The site shows a chunk of Brooklyn (the brick housing block) beside a flying wedge of West Hollywood (the Brower tower). The latter is a tall structure with no setback for its aggressive Allston Way facade. Its top few floors would actually overhang Allston Way, blocking neighbors’ solar access. 

Is this really the way to memorialize David Brower? 

This project’s defenders keep pointing to its intended (until the money runs out) “green design” standards. These are certainly better than conventional—brown?—construction practices. But all new construction has huge environmental impacts, embedded both in its materials and in the building process. 

After living in a construction zone for 10 years, I can testify that buildings aren’t erected by magic elves who ride public transit to work. Nor do construction tradespeople typically carpool, or creep up in Priuses. It’s their culture to each drive alone—in the biggest honking pickup truck they can finance, even if its cargo bed is basically empty 360 days a year. 

One construction overseer told me recently, “The ‘greenest’ option is to build nothing”—and to adaptively reuse existing structures where possible. Now with vacant commercial space glaring up and down University and Shattuck avenues, can anyone seriously argue that environmental groups are suffocating for lack of a new four-story office complex? Whose rent they won’t even be able to afford? 

When I worked for David Brower’s Friends of the Earth—yes, I’ve paid some dues to the Archdruid—we operated quite efficiently out of a Washington, D.C., commercial storefront. 

In retrospect, my May 26 piece stated a few things more caustically than it needed to. I didn’t mean to imply that anyone was acting out of anything but the best of intentions. Good intentions abound among the Brower Center’s champions. That’s the whole problem. 

Good intentions are what produced a David Brower “tribute” sculpture too monumental and ugly to site anywhere in Berkeley. It’s hard to find the right scale to take the measure of a giant. 

Couldn’t we just name a redwood grove (or other existing green space) after the Archdruid, and forever forbid development there? Trees rarely embarrass their sponsors or honorees. Save the trees. 

I wanted to get a discussion going about the proposed Brower Center’s real viability and impacts. And it seems I have. I’ll be delighted to be proved wrong about any of my warnings. 

Michael Katz compiles the annual list of Berkeley’s worst-dressed buildings. 

NIMBYISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My backyard is a special place, so you can put me on the NIMBY list. In my yard over the years I planted fruit trees in all directions while my husband cautioned that someday I might not be able to find my way back. And beyond the harvests, what better place for kids to be in, what better place to host the annual party “to verify our existence”? 

Another yard I’m keen on is one nearby labeled Wild Life Habitat, which is full of trees and greenery of all kinds to harbor its namesakes. As I stood at the gate marveling at this unexpected find, a whirr of wings emerged out of the yard’s green recesses to fly up and away. 

There are other backyards to preserve. To deprive them of their growing, present or future, would be far worse than being a NIMBY. It would be criminal. 

Dororthy V. Benson 

• 

PECAUT’S FAUX PAS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We were disturbed to read the inaccurate and mean-spirited letter from Christian Pecaut (Daily Planet, Aug. 11). Mr. Pecaut, who was completely unknown to any of us at the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, sent an e-mail requesting the club to include him in our endorsement process for mayor of Berkeley. We invited him and allotted him equal time with Zelda Bronstein and Tom Bates. Zelda is a member of our club and a long-time activist, and Tom has been a friend of the progressive community during more than 30 years of public service. Although we assumed that club members would be choosing between them, in the sprit of democratic inclusiveness, we decided to invite Mr. Pecaut as well. 

After each candidate had spoken and answered questions for the same length of time, and the time allotted this point on the agenda had been exhausted, the chair (Jack Kurzweil) closed this part of the endorsement session and began to move the agenda to the next item. There was a protest against this, and a motion was made to suspend the agenda and allow the candidates further time to question each other and respond in depth to all the issues raised. The overwhelming majority of the club members voted against the motion and to move on.  

Mr. Pecaut clearly did not like the results of that vote. That’s the funny thing about democracy. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. Does Mr. Pecaut think that democracy means that his viewpoint prevails? We take votes in the Wellstone Club and we respect the outcome of those votes. 

But respect is not Mr. Pecaut’s strong suit. We have no problem with Mr. Pecaut being critical of the policies of any other candidate. However, hearing Mr. Pecaut, who admitted in the question period that he had lived in Berkeley for only four months, arrogantly savage others who have long and proven track records of serving this community, leads us to suggest that he should look for another line of work. America has more than its quota of mean-spirited politicos. 

We knew nothing about Mr. Pecaut when we invited him to speak. Now we do.  

Matthew Hallinan 

Jack Kurzweil 

Wellstone Democratic  

Renewal Club 

• 

MISLEADING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Stevie Corcos, in her letter to the Daily Planet, makes several false or misleading claims, and I’d like to address just three of them. 

She says that she “is opposing the new parcel taxes BUSD is seeking,” when she must know that in November we will be voting to renew existing parcel tax funding for our schools, at rates already approved by Berkeley voters. BUSD is not proposing any new taxes or any tax increase. 

Furthermore, she claims that “Berkeley pays the highest parcel taxes in the state for education.” This is also flat-out false. I did just a little checking on EdData, the state’s website on education, and quickly found at least two school districts with far higher parcel taxes for education than ours. In Piedmont, it’s $1559/parcel, and in Palo Alto it’s currently $1014 per parcel, while my own 2004-2005 property tax statement shows that I paid $222.80 for “Berkeley School Tax.” Our parcel tax is calculated by house size, and mine is probably about average size for Berkeley. Some people have much larger houses and pay more, but not many can be five to seven times the size, which is what they’d have to be to pay what every parcel is charged in Palo Alto or Piedmont. 

In addition, she repeats a charge printed in an article in the Daily Planet, stating that Berkeley has “the highest achievement gap” in the county. This is true, but misleading. Piedmont Unified, for example, has no economically disadvantaged students or English-language learners; their small “achievement gap” is between white students and Asian students. Oakland Unified also has a narrower gap between the highest performing group (white), and lower performing groups (economically disadvantaged, English language learners, African American, Hispanic, etc.), but only because their white students do not perform as well as Berkeley’s white students. Berkeley’s excellent public schools attract more children of well-educated white households than do public schools in many, if not most, diverse urban areas. Our teachers and administrators are dedicated to improving student learning at every level. Let’s work together to renew local BSEP funding for our Berkeley Schools, and continue to support academic achievement for all of our students. 

Julie Holcomb 

• 

LESS THAN RELIABLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Once again the Daily Planet shows itself as a less then reliable source for facts by simple sloppy reporting. I refer to Richard Brenneman’s piece on the LPC’s Aug. 3 meeting in which he writes “...Commissioners delayed acting on Gale Garcia’s petition to landmark Iceland, acting on a request of the owners’ attorney, Rena Rickles...” While Gale has been an active supporter of landmarking Berkeley Iceland, I think she would be surprised to know she is the petitioner. A simple search of your own archived articles would have shown that the LPC itself moved to designate Berkeley Iceland as a Landmark ( Daily Planet, April 14) and a look at the application for landmarking, a public document, would have shown that Elizabeth Grassetti and I submitted the necessary paperwork. 

The article also fails to mention that Elizabeth and I, as the applicants, supported the owners request for a continuance. We know from our communication with both the owners representatives and the city officials that serious talks on the future of the rink are taking place. We would rather have the limited management resources of Berkeley Iceland focused on these talks rather then landmarking. By getting facts wrong and incomplete on facts that are easy to confirm, it makes one wonder about facts in articles that are less familiar to the reader. 

Tom Killilea 

SaveBerkeleyIceland.org 

• 

SENIOR LUNCH PROGRAM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Due to budget cuts and rising costs, the South Berkeley Senior Center will be forced to discontinue the senior lunch program at the end of August. Balanced lunches have been available to Seniors on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for a number of years. Dora (in her eighties) has called the lunches her main meal of the day. The lunch attendants have bonded and made the occasion a social and supportive event looked forward to. The closing will be a very sad event.  

Harry Gans 

• 

PROGRESSIVE  

CATCHPHRASES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

John Koenigshofer’s recent commentary argued that “blind endorsement of progressive catchphrases and associated programs (smart growth, affordable housing, rent stabilization) lead us down a road of unintended consequences.” True enough, but the dilemmas that are at the heart of the problem bear closer examination. Many, perhaps most, of the opponents of current building development trends agree that Berkeley needs more housing and that it’s sensible to place larger residential buildings along major transit corridors or downtown. The problem is the excessive bulk, density and/or height of many of the new buildings already in place or in the works. This feature increases visual and other impacts on the surrounding neighborhood. Who wouldn’t be a NIMBY when faced with some of these buildings as a neighbor? 

The excess bulk partially results from the tool progressives have crafted as an alternative to rent control (which the state Legislature effectively quashed years ago). This tool is the requirement for provision of below-market units in new buildings. As Berkeley and other progressive cities in California moved in this direction, however, the more developer-friendly state legislature enacted provisions to require cities to give builders something in return—more units than local zoning would otherwise allow. The result is that some lucky tenants (or condo buyers) benefit, the neighbors lose, and the developers come out more or less even. 

The unfortunate reality in a town like Berkeley is that, for people of modest means, affordable housing equals below-market housing. And in a market economy, private developers are not too keen on providing such housing without something in return. Progressive cities can try to shift some of developers’ profits into subsidies for below-market housing, but the power of developers (and their fellow travelers in construction unions) at the state level will likely limit such tactics. The tough question that requires some honest discussion is this: how do we make housing in Berkeley affordable for the less well-off without unfairly harming residents who live near the areas earmarked for new buildings? 

Steve Meyers 

• 

WASTEFULNESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am very concerned about the wastefulness and destructiveness of our American way of life. We consume far more than our share of the world’s resources, thus contributing greatly to pollution and global warming. I want to help form a “network for responsible living” to support one another in caring, sharing, and being ecologically mindful. Interested people can contact me at: arthurgladstone@hotmail.com. I would be glad to have comments and suggestions.  

Arthur Gladstone  

• 

TERRORIZED BY THREATS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was taught growing up that one’s character is measured by the smallest thing that arouses one’s anger.  

Arrests in England and Pakistan of young men plotting mass murder dominate not only headline news but cause authorities to disrupt everyday life for hundreds thousands of travelers. Is our courage measured by the things that frighten us? 

Not only is the union of nations impotent to stop massive state and non-state destruction but our future prospects as individuals are frozen in myopic fear. Safety trumps sanity. Are we, as a nation, no bigger than the couple of dozen obsessed young men who might have committed mass murder?  

Given human-on-human bloodletting on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, spoliation of our habitat, global poverty, crime and disease, etc. our reaction to a threat of what might have happened hardly does us credit.  

On the tree of life we rank high, “…a little below the angels...” it says in Psalm 8, verse 5. Yet, we succumb to an all encompassing fear, we abandon the “crown and glory,” the enabling courage, extolled in the Psalm. 

Is state security what we have in mind when we ask “God [to]bless America”?  

Marvin Chachere  

San Pablo  

• 

EDUCATION AND TRUTH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If anything can save our earth from it’s own human destruction, it will be our new vast world-wide network of education. Lies, propaganda, ignorance, are probably inescapable, but now the truths are as well.  

Thank you, Berkeley Daily Planet, for being an important part of this process. 

Gerta Farber 

• 

FREE SPEECH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a working member of the press (Laney Tower), I applaud the free speech perspective expressed by Becky O’Malley in her Aug. 11 editorial “The Importance of Protecting Free Speech.” I encourage all interested in free speech to participate in the California First Amendment Coalition’s First Amendment Assembly to he held in Berkeley Sept. 29-30. It’s free of charge if you register early at www.CFAC.org.  

Joe Kempkes 

Oakland 

• 

CUBAN FIVE 

Editors, Daily Planet 

On Aug. 9, 2005, the Atlanta 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the unjust convictions imposed on five Cubans. Arrested in 1998, these men were monitoring terrorist groups in Miami. Although the five were fighting terrorism, the same administration that has launched the so-called “war on terrorism” has kept them imprisoned. These courageous men are not criminals; they were only defending their country from terrorist acts. Groups operating out of Southern Florida have caused the death of more than 3,500 Cubans. The U.S. government has not just turned a blind eye to these terrorist groups but has supported, trained, sponsored and financed them from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to the Bush administration. Why is it that while the five are languishing in U.S. prisons, these terrorists walk the streets of Miami free? One year has passed since the reversal of their convictions, but they are still imprisoned. The world demands justice for the Cuban Five. It is time for them to go home. 

Alicia Jrapko 

Oakland 

• 

WHAT TO DO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I need advice!  

I have lived at Savo Island Co-operative Homes, Inc. for 26 years. I moved in on the day before my son was born—and he will be 27 years old in October. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter pushed legislation through Congress that gave every city and town in America a HUD housing development exactly like ours. So far so good. 

But here’s the problem: After 26 years, the place is falling apart. The roofs leak. The cedar shingles are falling off the sides. The drainage system sucks eggs. We need a rehab! But it appears that not only are we not getting one, we will be facing foreclosure as well. 

Why? 

Because, after years of resistance to this rehab project from three of our market rate co-op board members (we are a totally project-based Section 8 housing co-op) because they are afraid that a rehab loan might cause their rent to go up, we still haven’t gotten the rehab. And the board members on market rate and their allies are still stalling the rehab—even though they know that if their rent goes up too much they will then be eligible for Section 8. 

All of us board members just got a letter from our bank’s loan officer. It said, “...we request [the board’s] approval in extending [an agreement with Savo Island’s management company] through at least the permanent loan closing,” approximately two years from now. “Should [the contract] not be extended through at least this time period, we may not be in a position to provide a positive underwriting review.” That’s banker talk for we won’t get the loan. And then HUD will foreclose on Savo Island. And I’ll be living in a cardboard box under the freeway. 

At a board meeting on Tuesday night, the board voted to table approving the new management contract “for further study.” HUD is getting very antsy. Our lender is getting ready to back out of the deal. Our roofs are decaying. The drainage is bad. This next rainy winter is going to be our doom. We can’t get rid of the board because some of the market rate board members won’t be up for re-election until January. And by that time it will be too late! 

What should I do? 

Jane Stillwater 

• 

TELEGRAPH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

First, what great news to hear that the hard work of Telegraph Area Association’s (TAA) Neighborhood Partnership on Homelessness has resulted in the creation of a bona fide detox center for Alameda County. Bravo to Bill Riess for his determination to see this through for Telegraph and to the countless other “unlikely allies” who came together to make this story a success. 

Second, thanks for the report on the new focus on addressing Telegraph’s community and economic development issues. However, I need to make several corrections for the record. I have not been hired by the City of Berkeley as a consultant to address Telegraph issues. I have been retained by TAA’s Executive Committee to address TAA’s financial and operational issues only. Once those issues are addressed, TAA’s Board of Directors will then decide whether to disband TAA, reorganize TAA, or propose that TAA’s non-profit shell be utilized by others with a similar mission to revitalize the area. Lastly, I appreciate the time the reporter took to explain how low-income college neighborhoods are not necessarily seen as low-income by necessity but by choice when applying for grants. I’m not sure if this is implied or not, but there are many people living in the Southside, who are not students, who are near the poverty level and who live in the Southside out of necessity—not choice. For these residents, who cannot afford to pick up and move on a whim, it’s critical that neighborhood concerns be quickly addressed so that they too can enjoy the quality of life that more prosperous areas have. 

Kathy Berger 

San Anselmo 

• 

BERKELEY JOB LOSSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many of the neighbors that I have been talking to on the campaign trail are increasingly frustrated over the number of businesses leaving Berkeley. Cody’s, Habitot, Power Bar, Radston’s, Gormans, Clif Bar —the list is getting longer by the day. I was particularly vexed over an article I saw in the Berkeley Daily Planet regarding the departure of Power Bar. The first paragraphs of the story focused on how gleeful some residents were that the PowerBar sign would be coming down from the building. Wait a minute...the sign? We’re going to lose 100 jobs and we start off talking about the sign? Come to think of it, it was kind of irritating that the employees of Cody’s on Telegraph were hogging up the coffee shops during their work breaks and all those noisy toddlers from Habitot—can’t we get those young-ins to keep quiet? And if only the Berkeley Rep or the Aurora would go away so I could get a table at Downtown or La Note on a Saturday night. 

Seriously, Berkeley needs to wake up to all of these jobs lost. Loss of business revenue drives up taxes and fees. I volunteer for a drug and alcohol rehab center from time to time. The other day one of our house managers—with no income at all—got a $200 ticket for riding his bike on the sidewalk. Good grief. Losing hundreds of job is not progressivism. It’s nihilism.  

It’s become trendy to beat up on the university, and it’s sometimes justified. What the clattering class should realize, however, is that, as businesses leave, soon Uncle Charlie will be the only business we have left.  

If you’d like to join the conversation, please check out www.georgebeier.com/blog. 

George Beier 

Candidate for Berkeley City Council, District 7 

Some politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and anti-Castro activists in Florida have been waiting so long for the passing from the scene of Cuban president Fidel Castro, that now that he has actually ceded power, it remains to be seen whether or not they can restrain themselves from attempting to provoke an event or series of events that would force Cuba to turn to its military for political stability and military defense during this transition period.  

As far as Cubans likely are concerned, of all the circumstances that could have initiated the transition of political power, the one currently unfolding is best. By ceding power to Raul Castro, Fidel’s younger brother, presumably while Fidel is still alive, the government has given time for the Cuban people to psychologically prepare for a new leader.  

Having been born since the advent of the Cuban Revolution the majority of the population has known no other political leader. As they wait to hear a definitive statement on Fidel’s health the emotional tension now must be overwhelming. The military waits as well.  

Contrary to prevailing wisdom in the U.S. press, this is not the first time Fidel has ceded power to Raul. In the 1970s Castro underwent another medical situation and temporarily handed power to his brother. Then the mood was not nearly as somber as now.  

Correctly the U.S. press has focused on four men whom are considered to be top candidates to replace Fidel. The four, Raul Castro, Foreign Minister Felipe Roque, National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon and Cuba’s top economist Carlos Lage are all eminently qualified and politically skilled. Of the four, however, it would seem Roque, just 41, is the one who has been most diligently groomed for the job. In addition he commands the most passion among Cubans.  

Many consider Roque the most likely long term replacement. He is a former head of the Young Communist organization and in the Cuban perspective is considered politically sound. Raul Castro on the other hand has often been considered to the left of Fidel and he is a sterner person. He does not generate emotion in the people in the way his brother does.  

But for the time being Raul Castro is the head of the Cuban government, not because his brother says but because the Cuban Constitution says. Therefore now Raul is not only the head of the Cuban state but he is also head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.  

Raul Castro is not the head of the Cuban armed forces the way George Bush is head of the U.S. armed forces. Raul, as a youth was a member of the Cuban Communist Party’s Young Communist League and broke party discipline to join the armed July 26 Movement that brought his older brother to power. He is now a highly trained and more importantly highly experienced militarist, having attended numerous advanced military courses in the former Soviet Union and overseeing Cuba’s highly successful military expeditions in Angola and Ethiopia. Most often in public he is seen wearing his uniform.  

Furthermore, Cuban are comfortable with the army in their midst. Unlike the United States where most military units are confined to military reservations and are seen only on television or in parades, the Cuban army is integrated into the people’s everyday life. The army, in particular, is seen everywhere from doing security work at office buildings and large apartment complexes to working in agricultural enterprises. In Cuba the RAF are mostly self-sustaining and control nearly 11 percent of the economy. It participates in the tourist sector of the economy by running hotels and in agriculture by operating sizeable and productive farms.  

In addition to all this the Cubans are already organized into a paramilitary organization that has access to arms, the Committees to Defend the Revolution. Most Cubans participate in the CDRs, many even donning uniforms on special occasions, especially when they feel threatened by war sounds coming from Washington. Georgina Chebou, a leading member of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee told this writer not long ago, “We’ve always felt if we were ever to solve our energy problems, Washington would invade us.” 

One would be hard pressed to convince Cubans they are all paranoid conspiracy theorists. As far as they are concerned all their enemies are real. History would seem to bear them out. Fabian Escalante, a long time head of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior (in charge of state security) recently revealed he believes there have been in excess of over 600 assassination attempts against Fidel.  

Also, this writer, as a guest of Cuban general Arnaldo Tomayo, has been inside the fortified tunnels that surround the U.S. naval installation at Guantanamo. Reportedly the existence of these tunnels is not unique in Cuba. Clearly any military incursion the U.S. might launch into Cuba would create a far, far more complicated and militarily ferocious response than what took place during 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.  

No one in Cuba in their right mind would want the military to take over the Cuban government, unless the United States creates the conditions to warrant it.  

The best course for everyone involved, especially the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and Florida, is to keep their distance and to allow this uniquely Cuban transition of power to continue peacefully. 

Jean Damu can be contacted at jdamu2@yahoo.com  

I would like to clarify just a few of Mr. Katz’s misstatements that relate to the David Brower Center: 

Mr. Katz’s May 26 commentary begins by acknowledging that the Brower Center/Oxford Plaza development project is indeed two separate projects, The David Brower Center (non-profit offices/conference facilities/restaurant/gallery) and Oxford Plaza (affordable family housing), but the ensuing torrent of mischaracterization fails to distinguish between the two projects. The distinction is quite important because each of these worthy projects has separate ownership, developers, management, mission, and financing. 

Psuedo-ecological name: Really? The Brower Center project was discussed with and approved by David Brower himself before his death in 2000. Ken Brower, David’s oldest son, is a board member of the David Brower Center, which is the project’s non-profit owner. Shirley Richardson Brower, Executive Director of the South Berkeley YMCA, has appeared at numerous times at public events to speak in support of the Brower Center. Indeed, all Brower family members are in full public support of the project. 

Greenwash by making exaggerated claims: The Brower Center is on track to be built at a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum Standard, the highest possible Green Design standard established and monitored by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The USGBC is an independent certifying authority and there are only a handful of LEED Platinum buildings in the entire USA. Please visit www.browercenter.org for detailed information about the innovative green design features planned for the David Brower Center. 

Land for free: An offer was made to purchase the property from the city, in which case the city would have had cash but no parking lot, and no control over the development. The City Council decided instead to retain control through a Development and Disposition Agreement (DDA) that has resulted in attracting over $22 million of downtown investment for the Brower Center alone ($10 million of private philanthropic donations, which leverage $12 million in conventional financing, tax credit financing, and program related loans from Foundations) while also creating employment opportunities, conference facilities that support the entire non-profit sector, and a vibrant center that will attract international attention while serving the progressive non-profit community through the coming decades, plus Oxford Plaza’s 96 units of sorely needed, cost-effective affordable/workforce family housing. In addition, the city also gets to keep its parking lot. Mr. Katz seems to believe that just having a parking lot is a better deal. 

Greedy developers: Mr. Katz characterizes the Brower Center owners as greedy developers pulling hidden strings for their own enrichment. So who are these demons? The building owner is the David Brower Center 501c(3) non-profit, which in turn is controlled by its board of directors. A visit to www.browercenter.org will give interested parties the complete list of board members and their biographies. What you will find are dedicated individuals who have devoted their working lives to improving environmental and social conditions for the whole community, which includes Mr. Katz. Apparently the few computer keystrokes required to call up that website were beyond the effort or imagination of Mr. Katz. 

The mission of the David Brower Center is to inspire and nurture current generations of activists and to build a foundation for future generations. That’s what we agreed with David Brower to do, and that is what we are building. Building for the future. 

Peter K. Buckley is the chairman of the David Brower Center.

History is the story we tell ourselves in the present about the past, but how we punctuate the story, where we put the periods, the commas and the ellipses, depends not on everything that happened, but on who is telling the story, where we stand in the narrative, and what outcome we want. 

Tel Aviv. An Israeli patrol was ambushed July 12 by Hezbollah terrorists near the Lebanese border. Three solders were killed and two others kidnapped. Israel launched a counterattack in an effort to retrieve them. This is the story Israel and the United States tell about the incident that touched off the Lebanon war. But Hezbollah also has a story, though the punctuation is different. 

Beirut. Resistance fighters captured two members of the Israeli Defense Force July 12 in order to exchange them for three Hezbollah soldiers Israel has held since 2000. The operation was also part of efforts to expel Israel from the Lebanese territory of Shebaa Farm. 

There is a counter for both of these stories: Hezbollah’s rockets threaten Israeli sovereignty; rockets were fired only after Israel bombed and shelled Lebanon. Hezbollah is ignoring United Nations Resolution 1559 to disarm. Israel has ignored at least five UN resolutions to withdraw from the West Bank and the Golan Heights. What about the Holocaust? What about the Crusades? Yahweh gave us this ground; Allah gave us this land.  

People punctuate stories so as to establish causality and to assure themselves that they stand with the angels. But such stories can kill, because when they reinforce narratives of victimization, they may perpetuate endless cycles of righteousness and revenge.  

Is humanity then locked into a world of subjective point and counterpoint? Doomed, like Sisyphus, to neverending efforts? By no means, but when it comes to solutions, it may be necessary to edit our stories even if they are true.  

There is at least one historical example that suggests there is a way to short-circuit the narrative loop. 

For just under 837 years, the English and the Irish have warred against one another. Terrible things have been done in those long centuries and the Irish have endless stories about them. They know when it began: On Aug. 23, 1170, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke waded ashore with 200 Norman knights and 1,000 of men-at-arms near Waterford on Ireland’s southeast coast.  

Thus began the longest war in European history. For more than 40 generations the Irish seethed at the occupation, rising up time and again to fling themselves in bloody rage at armies they could not hope to defeat.  

The Irish call it “the long sorrow,” and they can recite it with the precision of a rosary.  

The stories, poems and songs that the Irish wrote about these events taught each generation about courage and resistance, but also about hatred, tribalism, and a certain kind of suicidal madness the poet William Butler Yeats called “an excess of love.”  

What are the stories Hezbollah will tell about Bint Jbail, which the most powerful army in the Middle East never fully secured? Like the English did to Dublin in 1916, the Israelis flattened the place with artillery and bombs, but that will not extinguish the narrative that Hezbollah held out against the mighty Golani Brigade. 

What are the stories the Israelis will tell about life in the shelters and the scores of dead and wounded civilians? Will they conjure up the spirit of Masada? Will they tell themselves that once again tiny Israel is beset by enemies on all sides? 

Both of these narratives will end up with a lot of people dead and homeless, econ-omies derailed, infrastructures shattered, while pumping up a tribalism that says, “We are special, we are better, we are owed this, and the wrongs we do to others are canceled out by the wrongs others have done to us.” 

History does not mark all roads, and all analogies are fraught with danger. Like the Oracle of Delphi, it many times predicts what we want it to predict. But the recent history of Ireland is worth some study. 

Starting in 1992, the principal antagonists in Northern Ireland began to talk with one another, in large part because majorities in both communities were fed up with the sectarian violence. It was not easy, but the talks led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which has kept the peace for the most part between warring Catholics and Protestants. It was a process the United States helped along, unlike the role the United States is playing in the current Middle East crisis. To reach an agreement, the parties had to get past a series of myths. 

The first myth is that force will get people to do what you want them to do. It never did, it never will. If Qassams and Katyuschas have not caused the Israelis to throw in the towel, why would Israel think that bombs and artillery would force Hezbollah or Hamas to give up? To suggest that Arabs will react any differently to violence than the Jews or the Irish is simply racist.  

The second myth is that that you can design someone else’s country. You cannot tell the Lebanese what their internal politics should be, nor the Palestinians that they can have a nation but only if it is riddled with Jewish settlements and surrounded by a wall. Such a Palestinian state is not a country but an open-air prison, much like Gaza is today.  

All the settlements will have to go, the borders returned to the 1967 Green Line, and Jerusalem will have to be shared. The occupation is illegal, immoral, and clearly not in Israel’s interest, despite being of its making. No one listened to David Ben-Gurion when he urged Israel to withdraw from the lands conquered in 1967. 

In return, the Palestinians will have to abandon the right of return and accept a deal that compensates them for the lands they lost in 1948. Regardless of the injustice behind the original expulsions, asking Israel to unilaterally dismantle itself is a non-starter. Israel is a country, if for no other reason than the Holocaust made it so.  

But Israel cannot continue to hide behind the argument that it won’t negotiate with “terrorists.” If England could talk to Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army, Israel can to talk to Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel recently held a two-day seminar on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the King David Hotel by the Jewish resistance. The blast killed 92 people. One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.  

There are those in the Middle East who will resist such a settlement, just as there are hardliners in the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland who reject the Good Friday Agreement. But in Northern Ireland those forces have been increasingly marginalized, and for all its fragility, the pact is generally holding.  

The world does not need more tribal allegiances and stories that tell us it is all right to blow up pizza parlors in Israel or flatten towns in Southern Lebanon. It needs solutions anchored in the real world, and a moral order that says there is no difference between a dead Jewish child and a dead Arab child. The living weep for them equally and no pain is greater or less because of the weight of history.

When I was coming up, I used to attend Vacation Bible School, and faithfully study my daily passages, and then ask many questions that often seemed to annoy the teacher in charge of the class. 

One such passage was the parable of the responsible shepherd. “If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray,” Jesus is supposed to have told his disciples, “doth he not leave the 90 and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?” 

“What makes the shepherd in this parable so good,” our Sunday School teacher explained, triumphantly, “is that he cares so much for each of his sheep, he will not abandon even one if that one is in trouble.” 

That was a puzzlement for me. “But what if some wolves attack his flock and kill the rest of the sheep while he’s off looking for the one?” I asked. “Don’t that make him a really bad shepherd?” 

I never got an answer. And I must confess that reading Chip Johnson’s recent San Chronicle column on Aimee Allison, Jerry Brown, and Mr. Brown’s Oakland Military Academy, I still don’t get the point. 

OMI, in case you have forgotten, was one of the two charter schools (the other was the Oakland School For The Arts) Mr. Brown tried to get authorized by the Oakland Unified School District board early in his first term. 

In his August 15 column “Anti-war City Council candidate up in arms over Oakland Military Institute,” Mr. Johnson writes that Ms. Allison, who is in a runoff for Oakland’s Second District City Council seat, “worries that, like other military high schools, the Oakland school will funnel students toward military careers. … As a council member, she would ask that the school’s continued operations be the subject of discussion with the Oakland school board.” Mr. Johnson adds that “the board, you may recall, balked at the idea [of the Oakland military charter school] when Brown proposed it in 1999, for some of the same reasons that Allison opposes it.” 

Actually, that’s not what I recall from the meetings in which the Oakland school board considered Mr. Brown’s military school proposal. Although most of the board trustees expressed uneasiness about the military aspect of the school, their main complaint was that the charter school proposal was all over the map, with city staff members presenting the plan for Mr. Brown unable to decide whether they were organizing an elite, college-prep school for Oakland’s top students, or a no-nonsense academy where students having trouble in other public schools could transfer and learn discipline. Another source of board concern was that the school made the state mandated pupil-teacher ratio by relying heavily on volunteer class supervisors sent over by the California National Guard. That proved a valid concern because the Guard, you may remember, ended up having other concerns than classroom duties a few years later, with the invasion of Iraq. 

Eventually, the deciding vote on the OUSD board against authorizing Mr. Brown’s military school came from one of Mr. Brown’s appointees to the board, Wilda White, a self-described “army brat” who said her father had been a career military man while she was growing up, and who was careful to explain that her opposition to the Oakland Military Institute charter did not reflect an opposition to the military itself, but only perceived flaws in the proposal. 

But misunderstanding the history of the opposition to Mr. Brown’s military charter school is not the main problem with Mr. Johnson’s August 15th column—it is his assertion that the issue of the military school is really one of having more choices in Oakland education. He writes that “Bruce Holaday, the [OMI] superintendent, said [the] military school certainly isn’t for every Oakland student and simply represents another option for Oakland students.” And then Mr. Johnson quotes Mr. Brown as saying that the military school “is a very high-quality, academic environment, and if people want this choice, why can’t they decide for themselves? OMI is a college-prep school that’s grown from zero to 500 kids at the same time the public schools are losing 1,500 students a year, and it’s unconscionable for an Oakland politician to take away an educational opportunity that parents want.” 

But what about the choices for the rest of Oakland’s public school students? 

A year after his election to his first term as Oakland mayor, Mr. Brown convinced Oakland voters to pass Measure D, giving him the power to appoint three additional members to the seven-member Oakland school board (Wilda White, who later voted against Mr. Brown’s military charter school, was one of those appointees). 

In his ballot argument asking for the school board appointment power, Mr. Brown wrote that “Everyone knows that the Oakland public school system is in crisis. … Families by the thousands have fled Oakland because they could not get the kind of education they believe their children deserved. Less than a third of our elementary school students read and solve math problems at grade level. In the higher grades, it is worse. … Vote YES on Measure D and create the mandate for dramatic public school improvement in Oakland. By authorizing the Mayor to appoint three at-large members of the school board, you will inject a new dynamic into the governing of our schools. You will signal that the status quo is unacceptable and that the time for dramatic change has arrived.” 

Voters who approved Mr. Brown’s request understandably believed that he would follow through on his promise for “dramatic public school improvement in Oakland,” expecting that Mr. Brown would spend considerable time and energy in reforming the public school system. 

Instead, Mr. Brown appeared to lose interest in the public school system once Measure D was adopted, focusing instead on trying to get his two charter schools approved. No one knows the amount of staff hours the City Manager’s office put into the approval process, but it was massive. 

The diversion of city staff members to Jerry Brown charter school duty did not end with the approval process. Once the OMI was approved and opened, City Manager’s office employee Simon Bryce moved his offices from City Hall to the OMI headquarters at the Oakland Army Base, working on the city payroll but spending much of his time coordinating OMI activities. Imagine if Mr. Brown’s office had put as much effort trying to help OUSD get out of state receivership? The City of Emeryville did, ending up in an innovative—and perfect legal—transfer of money to Emery Unified that allowed the school district to pay off their state loan. 

But Mr. Bobb and Mr. Bryce were not the only city employees working extensively on Mr. Brown’s private charter school on city time. So was Mr. Brown himself. 

On five separate days in July and August of 2005, for example, Mr. Brown’s official schedule shows entries of between three and five hours of something called, simply, “OSA Phoning with Marianne,” all taking place in the middle of the work week. On July 28th and 29th he is listed as working at this OSA phoning business for two straight days, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, and again from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday. I have no idea who Marianne is or why they needed to take up the bulk of the mayor’s working time, but you are free to make your own guesses. No other single activity took up as much of Mr. Brown’s time during the period of January 2005 through April 2006, the period in which UnderCurrents received copies of the mayor’s schedule. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Brown did list a meeting with OUSD State Administrator Randolph Ward during that period, but the subject of that meeting was not the problems in the Oakland schools, but, rather, “OMI Facility.” 

Could Mr. Brown have helped make “dramatic public school improvement”—as he promised in 2000’s Measure D—if he had put his full attention to solving Oakland’s school problems? It’s impossible to say. 

All we know is that while Mr. Brown was putting much of his time into his two charter schools, Oakland’s public schools were going into state receivership, with children sometimes vainly trying to learn amidst continuing chaos. For most Oakland students, there is no choice. Divorcing himself from the problems he said he was going to solve might make Mr. Brown a clever politician, and perhaps the next California Attorney General. But it also makes him a piss-poor shepherd. 

Thus endeth today’s lesson. 

Radicals of the 1860s, they broke the rules and moved out of their studios. Away from poised portraits and still lives, they painted open-air scenes meant to capture everyday subjects in a passing moment. They painted with un-mixed vibrant colors in broad and daubed brushstrokes creating shimmering canvases bathed in light. The Impressionists turned their backs on academic painting, commanded attention and revolutionized the world of art. 

Claude Monet has been called the father of Impressionism. A collection of his paintings from Normandy is now on exhibit at the Legion of Honor. This exquisite body of work will whet your appetite for more, requiring a slightly longer field trip. Across the Atlantic, in Paris’ Musee D’Orsay, the artists of Impressionism offer a window on the evolution of a movement that spread beyond France and beyond visual art into music and literature. 

“Monet in Normandy” is the first exhibit highlighting Monet’s relationship with the area in which he spent much of his life. Its natural beauty—craggy limestone cliffs, crashing waves, seaside villages and harbors, quiet riverbanks—supplied inspiration for a lifetime of painting. In Normandy, Monet studied the light, atmosphere and nuances of season. 

Representing a span of over sixty years, fifty-three paintings reflect the stages of Monet’s life and career. In the 1860s the north coast featured prominently and The Garden at Sainte-Adresse is one of his most important seaside landscapes. The colors are bold and vivid with glittering sunshine on the sand and water. As with most of Monet’s work the perspective changes as the viewer moves back watching the scene shift. 

In 1870 Monet married and The Honeymoon at Trouville, along with several others, documents his honeymoon. Here, and in his Seaside Campaigns of the 1880s, the daubing technique becomes evident. In three weeks Monet created twenty paintings of the sea where swirling brushstrokes of purple, blue, green and white sequined power to the waves. 

As Monet’s relation with nature intensified he returned to the coast, focusing on landscapes and a recurring motif, the stone cottage. It was only when he needed money for his growing family that Monet added figures, creating paintings more saleable to his Paris clients. These landscapes, so reminiscent of our north coast, are my favorites. Bright sweeps of fields I ‘see’ as wildflowers, on closer examination, are mere daubs of paint, as are the figures themselves. 

Etretat, one of Normandy’s coastal treasures, was already a popular resort when Monet arrived. His solution was to select new, more challenging vantage points from which to capture the natural forms. In The Manneport and The Cliff, Monet’s geometric format brought order to a wild landscape; with his brushwork he created a mood of light and shadow.  

In 1883 Monet moved his family to Giverny and turned his attention to the surrounding countryside, the Seine, and his famous gardens. Twenty-five canvases were devoted to grainstacks with the light as much a subject as the stacks themselves, both infused with bands of soft pastels. 

A radical depiction of a religious icon sealed Monet’s reputation as an abstract artist. In Rouen, the capital of Normandy, Monet painted the cathedral repeatedly, from different angles and at different times of day, focusing on subtle changes in light. His Morning Effect canvas in soft toned blues that appear to be melting downward seemed to some viewers to be profane, making an integral part of history appear to dissolve. 

As the new century emerged the Giverny water gardens drove Monet. Inspired by the Japanese, the water, air and plant life combined into pattern, light and color, the culmination of Monet’s intimacy with nature. Canvases became larger as in the abstract Wisteria, with ribbons of color anchoring the composition, and Water Lilies, colors richly blending to create an overall mood of warmth and richness. 

In truth, Monet in Normandy was for me a very special encore, the main performance having taken place earlier during my stay in Paris. Touring the Musee D’Orsay, I feasted on the structure itself and its collection of 19th century French paintings. 

A reincarnation of the Gare d’Orsay, the Musee’s cathedral-like dimensions soar into a framework of glass and iron topped by a wonderful vaulted ceiling and two magnificent clocks. As I walked among the collections of fine arts, it was hard to imagine trains rumbling beneath my feet. 

Even if you’re there for the paintings, touring the ground floor sculpture promenade is a must. It’s here that you feel the full impact of the architecture while admiring the conservative slant of 19th century statuary. Balanced poses with perfect anatomy and curving lines in gleaming white stone are represented in La Source, Carpeaux and Lion Assis. On the mezzanine, Ours blanc resembles the Pepsi Polar bear, with simple lines and gentle face. 

A special vignette was my glimpse of future art enthusiasts. A group of French school children was seated before a marble sculpture, listening intently, occasionally jotting facts in a notebook, as the museum guide described the work and the artist. Later the scene was repeated before a display case of Degas sculptures. 

Away from architectural distractions, on the upper level, I toured galleries housing the museum’s collection of paintings. Never before had I encountered entire rooms devoted to the work of one artist, never before had I seen sufficient works to trace the evolution of a movement. Here I reveled in both. 

The Impressionist canvases of Renoir, Degas and Monet illustrate the birth of the movement: Renoir searching for the ideal in Bladu Moulin de la Galette, a waltzing blur of bright yellows; Degas’ interplay of realism and art in Au Cafe; Monet’s Coquelicots and Nympheas blue, flowers seeming adrift in field and pond. 

The paintings of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne carried me toward Post-Impressionism, emphasizing structure and subject. In Van Gogh’s Self Portrait and La Meridienne the colors and swirling, curving brushstrokes hold strong emotion, even inanimate objects are infused with life. Cezanne’s canvases appear more impersonal, his still life edges more defined and the composition of greater importance than the subject matter. 

Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat and Gauguin moved further from the Impressionist ideal. Painting Montmartre’s underworld of outcasts, Toulouse-Lautrec caught his models in candid poses as in Jane Avril dansant. In Le Cirque, Neo-impressionist Seurat’s controlled daubs developed into pointillism, maximizing the luminous quality. Away from France, Gauguin painted his South Seas’ Eden using bright pure colors and simple flat images defined in black. The children in Le repas ou les bananes evoke the richness of their environment. 

Though continents apart, both exhibits were a feast for the eyes and soul. Art movements may come and go, the Impressionists transcend time and place. As close as San Francisco, as far as Paris, get lost in their color and form, applaud their courage and be thankful that museums exist to share these wonders. 

MONET IN NORMANDY  

Through Sept.17 at the Legion of Honor. 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Adults, $15; 13-17 years, $11; 12 and under, free. Lincoln Park, 34th and Clement, San Francisco, (415) 863-3330. www.thinker.org/legion.  

Smooth stone benches below an ornate ceiling seem the perfect spot to draw scuptures in the messanine of the Musée D’Orsay. Photograph by Marta Yamamoto.

Pressurizing the entire municipal water system is not an easy matter. I’m sure glad I don’t have to do it. Everyone’s bound to be unhappy. If you’re down in the flats or close to a pumping station, you’re pressure is going to be very high. If you’re waaaaay up at the top of the hills, it’s going to be much lower. We pump up the system to a pressure that will make sure that the person furthest from the pump will still have enough pressure to get a decent shower, even when her darned husband flushes the toilet (If I’ve told that man one time, I’ve told him…). 

Given this scenario, it’s inevitable that some of us are going to end up with very high pressure in the interest of other getting enough (like the rich guy at the top of the hill!). One of the reasons that this is such an important issue for homeowners is that high pressure leads to leaks and these can be major. One of the most common leaks occurs at washing machine hoses. According to one source, washing machine hose breakages cause over $100 million worth of damage each year. Coming home to a flood in your home caused by the breakage in a $10 part is both unnecessary and traumatic. I’m no statistician but I’ve personally met a few people who this has happened to. My friend John just told me last week that this happened to his house a few weeks ago while he was out of town and it’s been devastating. If the leak occurs in the upstairs of a two- or three-story house, it can do a tremendous amount of damage. 

An easy way to help prevent this tragedy is to install metal-woven “no-burst” hoses on the back of your washing machine. They can manage much higher pressure and are far less likely to burst in response to high pressure.  

One can also use these same metal-jacketed hoses on the hose connections below fixtures such as toilets and sinks. Many of these are currently made of plastic with machine-crimped metal fittings at either end. A man named “Jonny” makes these for you and usually starts getting primed for partyin’ (if you catch my drift) early on Friday to get in the mood for his big night out. He runs the crimping machine and he’s probably made a few of those hoses for your house. Jonny’s hoses are cheaper, but I’m going for the metal ones. 

Just in case the higher pressure decides to cause a leak inside the washing machine or the water heater, I’d suggest adding a pan with a drain below these devices, especially if they’re higher up than the basement. I’ve mentioned these before in a different context but it bears repeating. 

Another thing that can be done to decrease the likelihood of leakage in the case of higher pressure is to install a pressure reducing valve on the entire house. This is particularly important if the pressure at your house is above 100 pounds per square inch (PSI). I’ve seen houses where the pressure was as high as 160 PSI and the likelihood of leakage is far higher in such cases because the water is pressing so hard on every hose and length of pipe and inside every appliance that it’s just a matter of time before something bursts. Even when pipes don’t burst, slow leaks are more common and more copious. A device of this kind cost around $100 and can be in the realm of $300-$500 to install if access isn’t too bad. 

These aren’t the only things that happen when the water pressure is high in your home. Another thing is that valves are harder to operate and quicker to wear out. This applies to all sorts of valves. 

Let’s take manual spigots for starts. When the pressure is high, it’s harder to turn the water all the way off and harder to adjust it to the pressure to the specific level that suits you. You’ll tend to wear washers out faster since you’re grinding them harshly in order to turn the water all the way off. You may find yourself replacing washers every few years in such a setting.  

Several types of machines, including dishwashers and clothes washers, have automatic electrically controlled water valves that operate several times during every wash cycle. When the pressure is very high, these tend to slam open every time they’re operated, gradually wearing them out and making quite a bit of noise. On occasion, I’ve been in a house and hear the bang of the washing machine every time a cycle started and then discovered that the pressure was quite high. A whole-house pressure-reducing valve is the solution in these cases and might help save your machines from costly repairs or premature replacement due to high water pressure. 

Beyond that noise maker, there is the very common water hammering that we’ve all heard. This is most commonly heard when a faucet is shut off. This sounds like the pipes are banging against something and can be quite noisy and unpleasant, especially if it’s the middle of the night and someone’s trying to sleep. 

Water hammering can be lessened by lowering house pressure but can also be addressed in a couple of other ways. One way is to install air chambers on the top ends of two or more pipes so that air becomes trapped at the top of these lengths of piping. The air is more easily compressed than water (lower density) and acts as a spring or cushion every time the pressure in the pipe changes rapidly (when you open, or more likely, shut a valve rapidly). There are also fancier ones available that can be pumped up with air from a compressor. Water hammering can also be lessened by the installation of an adequate number of pipe straps. When piping isn’t adequately strapped in place, it’s more free to jump around as pressures change (again, mostly from rapidly turning off the water). It’s easy to add straps wherever there is access to the pipes, such as in a basement so this is a good place to begin. 

Some final thoughts on this issue should be devoted to old vs. new piping. If you have really old and obstructed piping, it may be the high pressure that’s making a shower possible. So this issue, like many is more complex than first meets the eye. Nonetheless, I don’t really recommend this set of choices. If you’ve been coping with old galvanized piping that’s so filled in with mineral encrustment that it take 20 minutes for the toilet to refill, you may want to replace that old piping with copper. If you have copper, don’t be afraid of much lower pressures. I swear that I’ve measured houses at less than 30 PSI and found the showers to just gush, even when a toilet was flushed. Higher pressure isn’t the answer to adequate flow, pipe volume is. Nonetheless, if you’re coping with very old and sluggish piping, keep in mind that despite the poor flow, high pressure can still cause leaks and floods. 

Now this is not a dangerous matter and we’re just talking about money, comfort and possible water damage but, hey, if you can afford it, reducing the effects of high water pressure might offer you a better night’s sleep in more ways than one. 

Being a night person gives you a different look at things. Strolling at night or commuting to a night shift, especially when the moon’s out, you get to see gardens that no one else sees, even their owners. Silver leaves glow at night, and reshape a garden’s contours. White-flowered groundcovers make a garden float, changing perspectives and lifting a viewer off her own feet. Noises are damped, and what you hear is framed and given significance. There’s a feeling of privilege, of witnessing what mortals routinely miss. I can see where the stories of fairies in the bottom of the garden come from.  

We don’t usually get to visit nurseries at night, so choosing a night garden’s plants takes some thought. There are useful books, including Barbara Damrosch’s Theme Gardens which includes the lovely conceit of a crescent-shaped “moon garden.” Check out restaurant courtyards and take evening walks; quick photos or sketches help remember the plants you like.  

In our climate, a night garden needs shelter from cold fog and wind. You might be able to locate it in a convenient nook east or south of your house, or of the house next door. Otherwise, a planted or constructed screen of some sort is practically essential. If you can’t shelter your whole garden, give yourself a warm place in which to sit and watch it.  

You don’t want day-bright lighting; shadows and inference and leaving lots to the imagination give you a second garden, entirely different from the day’s scene. Most of us already have plenty of light, from streetlights and security lights and tall neighboring buildings. You might even want to plant a trellised vine or set up a bamboo screen to fend off the light from next door.  

You’ll need to light steps and hazards. Strings of tiny white bulbs, a couple of candles, luminaria, or a tiki torch can illuminate garden parties. Uplighting a dramatic tree is a common strategy because it works in any season, and might be the only light you need.  

Plants that are drought-adapted often have gray or silvery leaves. With good drainage, our native artemisia sages and their relatives like wormwood are tough and handsome. A cluster of these, with an echo of white blossoms at another strategic point, can be enough to reshape the perception of a small garden entirely.  

White flowers look good as a mass, or salted among other plants. An entirely white-blooming garden is automatically night-friendly. (If you use flowers for highlights, research your species to be sure they don’t, like white varieties of California poppy, close up after sunset.) Silver proteas are striking by day, otherworldly by night, and so are brugmansias. Clematis’ moplike seedheads catch light shining behind them; don’t overlook seedheads in general, especially the fluffy windborne kind, for late-season interest.  

Brugmansia, nicotiana, and other bat- and moth-pollinated flowers also reserve their fragrance for night, and so does night jessamine. Give that last some space; it can be overwhelming. It has white berries, too, and so does native snowberry bush; mockingbirds love both, and a bachelor mockingbird might sing all night in your garden. 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in East Bay Home & Real Estate. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.  

Will Uncle Sam Save Us? 

Many people wrongly believe that the U.S. government will rescue them financially if they suffer losses in an earthquake. The truth is that federal disaster assistance is only available when the president formally declares a disaster. Even if you do get disaster assistance, it is usually a loan that must be repaid with interest.  

Grants may be available, but are designed to meet only your most immediate needs, not to replace your losses. The average FEMA grant is less than $15,000—not nearly enough to rebuild a damaged home.  

The bottom line: As the folks in New Orleans sadly learned, you can’t count on any level of government to provide timely or significant help. Prepare yourself and your home, and start by having your home retrofitted, or have your existing retrofit evaluated. 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

Summer is here! Vacation time! Where shall I go? Usually I head straight for the wilderness—where I have spent much of my life—far from electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, and the teeming masses. But since I have spent even more of my life in one of the highest density parts of Berkeley, the more interesting question is: What has enabled me to stay in town most of the time? 

When I moved to north Willard, it was a green place graced by rows of towering elms, and was far enough from the university to be relatively peaceful (UC has crept much closer now). It was close to interesting activities, and I could satisfy almost all my daily needs by foot. Since then, however, almost all the nearby amenities have disappeared. Meanwhile, small tree species have replaced our giant elms, huge UC buildings have blocked out the hills, new UC staff fill our neighborhood parking spaces, and thousands more students pack our sidewalks (with cell phones, so even solo pedestrians now make noise). The new dorms send continuous mechanical drone into my bedroom window, car alarms proliferate, and clattering recycling and garbage pickups have doubled. The unending roll of UC construction trucks, which may last another decade or forever, tops it off. 

What led to this deterioration? Or more accurately, why does the city not view this as deterioration? Because this change was not caused by lack of planning; instead it exemplifies our planning, and it is as much our city’s “urban plan” as it is the university’s. For example, in 2002, the Planning Department and Zoning Adjustments Board supported replacing two of our residential street’s few remaining historic single-family homes with a six-story building containing UC classrooms. The planning staff insisted that this would have “no significant impact” on our struggling neighborhood, and the developer claimed it was “smart growth.” This is typical.  

But what’s “smart” about destroying neighborhoods? Why are those who try to improve civilized life vilified as NIMBYs? Why are self-proclaimed “environmentalists” trying to destroy our urban environment? How did saving “greenspace” translate into destroying Berkeley?  

Americans have a changing relationship with the natural environment. For the colonists, the wilderness was a dangerous wasteland to be feared and avoided. But by the late 1800s, the dangers of the frontier had receded and more people had been exposed to the spectacular American landscape, which was now considered to reflect the “sublime” face of God. The first national parks were designated, and heroic paintings celebrated the Western wilderness, initiating a wave of nature tourism—ironically, more or less coinciding with the foreseeable disappearance of the very landscape that people were coming to see. This urgent sense of simultaneous discovery and loss was not unlike what many of us experience today regarding exotic ecosystems.  

Already imbued with Rousseau’s romanticization of the “primitive,” the wilderness came to embody the American identity, the rugged individualist. It was viewed as noble, pristine, wild, free, and true, while civilization came to be viewed as corrupt, polluted, artificial, restraining, and false. Even though the “wilderness” had shared space with native Americans, missionaries, frontiersmen, and farmers for centuries, in the urban mind, only an entirely uninhabited, untouched wilderness could be “sublime.” 

Thus emerged a dualistic view of man and nature, separate and unequal: nature as pure and noble, and man and everything he touches as defiled. Over the 20th century, this philosophical duality increasingly became an earthly reality. Industrial America treated the landscape as a soulless resource to be mined, dammed, polluted, paved, logged, and plowed over, destroying irreplaceable ecosystems, and ultimately, perhaps, the planet as we know it. No wonder, then, that people of conscience who came of age in recent decades are likely to view human beings, subconsciously at least, as a loathsome plague upon the planet.  

After several years of analyzing the deterioration of neighborhoods, and watching “smart growth” extremists lionize urban life while simultaneously destroying it, I realized that the dualistic environmental model is at the heart of our problems. It has created “environmentalists” who, astonishingly and without irony, despise the urban environment—even though Urbania is the primary ecosystem for the most populous species on the planet. Self-contempt, shame over mankind’s planetary abuse, and Berkeley’s omnipresent “liberal guilt” combine forces to create unproductive extremism in urban and transportation planning. Berkeley “environmentalists” would never advocate marginal, artificial environments for other species, but for humans they propose an unpleasant and inhumane urban environment, devoid of aesthetic and spiritual sustenance and often even the basic requirements of good health. People who love and respect themselves or others would not be so misanthropic and punitive.  

The fact that almost all the pain falls on the shoulders of those with lesser means and few choices might, in other times, have given good liberals pause. But hysteria over the shortage of “affordable housing” has trumped that concern, making inhumane warehousing for the poor (“it’s better than no housing”) fashionable once again. But unless we want to forfeit both our democracy and our freedom, any policy based on forcing people who do have choices into unpleasant surroundings and behaviors is doomed. If we do not want our species to head toward the greener grass of Suburbia and beyond, we must lovingly create a physically, socially, psychologically, and spiritually attractive and sustainable urban environment for ourselves.  

Urban planners must never forget that human beings are animals; our animal nature is part of our human nature. We evolved in a natural environment and gain a profound tranquility from the sights, smells, sounds, and feel of the natural world. People cannot drive off into the wilderness every time they want to connect with their humanity; it’s not practical, ecological, or even possible for many. We must connect with our humanity where we live, every day, in an urban ecosystem that is nourishing and fulfilling. We should think of this as our vital “minimum daily requirement” of nature. Only by building into Urbania a connection to nature—which is our own nature—can we create sustainable urban health and “livability.”  

And this approach is most likely to ultimately preserve the wilderness as well. Urban children must be the future stewards of our natural environment. But I have known urban teenagers who have feared to take a step into the woods. I knew a young man from Hong Kong who was delighted to finally have a tiny vegetable garden in Berkeley, and then chopped the entire garden to the ground after being traumatized by a tomato worm. Will those who do not feel “at home” in nature have a passion to maintain the natural world for their children and grandchildren? I fear not. 

Environmentalist William Cronon writes: “Idealizing a distant wilderness too often means not idealizing the environment in which we actually live, the landscape that for better or worse we call home. . . . [P]eople should always be conscious that they are part of the natural world, inextricably tied to the ecological systems that sustain their lives. Any way of looking at nature that encourages us to believe we are separate from nature . . . is likely to reinforce environmentally irresponsible behavior. . . . Home, after all, is the place where finally we make our living. It is the place for which we take responsibility, the place we try to sustain so we can pass on what is best in it (and in ourselves) to our children.” Amen. 

Sharon Hudson is a 35-year Berkeley resident with a special interest in land use issues. 

I was not a writer before my husband Ralph had a bicycling accident that left him paralyzed below the shoulders. I worked at an international adventure travel company (located in Berkeley), leading bicycling trips to exotic locations like Tasmania and Bali. The only things I wrote were postcards, grocery lists, and, occasionally, copy for the company’s travel brochures. But in the spring of 1994 after Ralph’s accident, all writing, with the exception of completing medical and legal forms, became obsolete. I spent my days dealing with doctors, therapists and social workers. At night, I lay in bed alone, wondering what would happen to us.  

While Ralph was still in ICU fighting for his life, a friend advised me to write down everything that was happening to us. He thought that I might need these notes for a lawsuit. He bought me three spiral notebooks and a pen, and I dutifully jotted down what I saw, heard, smelled, and thought. This may have been the beginning of my writing career, but once Ralph returned home, I never referred back to the notebooks. Years later, when I found the books in the corner of a messy closet, I threw them away without looking at them. I knew they were full of bleak, depressing thoughts.  

Six months after we returned home from the hospital, I began to keep a journal. I scribbled down the things that happened to us—what I saw with my new eyes as a stay-at-home caregiver; who I met; how the world reacted to our new status as a disabled man and his helper. I was encountering people who I never would have run into before: neurologists and psychiatrists, acupuncturists and kinesiologists, out-of-luck-home-health-aides—the folks I had come to depend on for Ralph’s care, and for my own sanity.  

We were in and out of the emergency room so often that I started to think of it as my office. Waiting there took an average of seven hours. But I always had a notebook and pen with me. The ER became my home away from home.  

I had plenty to write about, and oddly enough, I found the time to write: late at night and early in the morning when Ralph was asleep, during prolonged stays in the hospital, and in the waiting rooms of doctors and counselors. Since we didn’t have much of a social life, and I no longer did the activities I used to do such as running, biking and skiing, I substituted writing for friendship, exercise, and sex.  

I didn’t show my writings to anyone for a long time. A year after Ralph’s accident, Leah Garchik, a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, asked her readers for stories about “serendipity.” I sent her a description of a serendipitous experience Ralph and I had had. The ambulance driver who had driven Ralph to the hospital after his accident had tracked us down. He came to our front door bearing carnations. He told us that Ralph had been very brave as he lay in the middle of Claremont Avenue unable to move. He explained that he had not thought Ralph would survive. My essay about this unexpected meeting was too long for the newspaper, but Leah encouraged me to keep at it, and 12 years later, I still am.  

Now I can’t imagine not writing. It’s the first thing I do in the morning before leaving my bedroom, and the last thing I do at night before falling asleep. The art of writing has taught me a new way to look at the world; it has provided me with new friends, new goals, and many wonderful opportunities. It’s brought me closer to my family, united me with strangers and lost acquaintances, made me feel worthwhile and useful.  

We’ve got lots of troubles here at my house, and many obstacles to overcome. But still, there is no doubt—writing has saved my life.  

Hovering over the shallows in search of a fish, the Forster’s tern embodies grace and elegance. Its long, pointed wings and forked tail combine aerodynamic function and esthetic appeal. John Reinhold Forster did not deserve this bird. 

Forster was one of the naturalists on board the Resolution during Cook’s second Pacific voyage in the 1770s. The botanist Joseph Banks, who had accompanied Cook on the Endeavour, had planned a repeat trip, but Cook couldn’t accommodate Banks in the style to which he felt entitled, and Banks called it off. A mutual friend recommended Forster as a substitute, and he joined the expedition with his 17-year-old son George.  

The elder Forster was a Prussian minister who had lost his church and attempted to make a secular living first in Russia, then in England by publishing pamphlets on zoology and botany. Cook could have used a Darwin or a Huxley, but that wasn’t what he got.  

Cook’s biographer J. C. Beaglehole describes Forster as “dogmatic, humourless, suspicious, censorious, pretentious, contentious, demanding.” He didn’t get on with Cook, who once had to throw him out of his cabin; with Cook’s lieutenant Charles Clerke, who threatened him with arrest; with the master’s mate, who knocked him down on one occasion; or with the crew. Forster was always muttering about complaining to the King; the men mocked him. 

George Forster, on the other hand, seems to have been a nice guy, perhaps trying to compensate for his difficult father. But it was the father after whom Thomas Nuttall named the tern, in recognition of John Forster’s treatise on the birds of Hudson Bay, which, as far as I can tell, Forster had never visited.  

The tern has another dubious distinction that’s a bit more serious than being named for an unpleasant man. Forster’s terns in San Francisco Bay have been found to have higher levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers—PDBEs—in their tissues than any other wildlife species sampled, anywhere in the world.  

PDBEs have been in use as chemical flame retardants for about 30 years. They’re in children’s pajamas, computers, hair driers, coffee makers, building materials, and polyurethane foam carpet padding.  

The North American market demand for the stuff in 2001 was 33,100 metric tons. California’s flame retardant standards are the strictest in the US, and the state presumably leads the nation in PDBE use. Health effects are still being explored, but PDBEs appear to harm the brain and reproductive organs during development, and have been shown to disrupt the thyroid and estrogen hormone systems in rodents. 

Like other problematic chemicals, PDBEs bioaccumulate in fatty tissues, and biomagnify. Tiny planktonic creatures take in small quantities, fish eat the plankton, birds, marine mammals, and humans eat the fish, and PDBE levels increase as you go up the food web. By the time you get to the Forster’s tern, the concentration, as measured in tern eggs, is 63 parts per million. That tops the previous record holder, the peregrine falcon, with 39 ppm. 

The tern’s diet has not been studied as intensively as that of the endangered California least tern and the larger Caspian tern, which has an unfortunate taste for salmon and steelhead. One study in Monterey Bay found shiner perch, anchovy, and arrow goby to be the predominant prey species. All three are abundant in San Francisco Bay. 

How do PDBEs get into the bay? Municipal wastewater appears to be a major source. Landfill leaching, storm drains, and industrial effluent discharges also contribute. PDBEs are likely to be with us for a while, joining the array of what pollution-control folks call “legacy pollutants.” So far, concentrations are highest in the lower South Bay. 

That’s also the part of the Bay that has historically had the largest Forster’s tern nesting colonies. (History in this instance goes only as far back as 1948, when the terns were first detected breeding inside the bay. They had previously nested in freshwater marshes in the Central Valley and on the Modoc Plateau.) The birds’ numbers have declined in recent years, and various culprits have been suggested: disruption of nest sites by California gulls, whose population has burgeoned; predation by introduced red foxes and feral cats; fluctuating water levels within the South Bay salt ponds; disturbance during levee maintenance. But since PDBEs are hormone disruptors, you have to wonder if the terns’ chemical load is affecting their reproductive success. 

This isn’t just about the birds, of course. The researchers—toxicologist Jianwen She and colleagues—who reported the elevated PDBE concentrations in tern eggs had another disturbing finding: women in the Bay Area have some of the highest PDBE levels ever reported in humans. I am reluctant to drag that overworked canary through the coal mine one more time, but it does serve to reinforce that we’re all in this together. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan 

What’s in that fish? A young Forster’s tern (left) accepts dinner from its parent.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 

THEATER 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Merchant of Venice” at the Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. through Sept. 3. Tickets are $15 and up. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Encore Theatre Company and Shotgun Players “The Typographer’s Dream” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 3. Tickets are $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Impact Theatre “House of Lucky” Written and performed by Frank Wortham, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Aug. 26. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

FILM 

Kenji Mizoguchi “Osaka Elegy” at 7 p.m. and “Ugetsu” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Friends of African Film Mama Africa Series will show three films of modern Africa by women film makers at 7:30 p.m. at 464 Van Buren, at Euclid, Oakland. friendsofafricanfilm@yahoo.com 

“Darshan: The Embrace” a documentary on Amma, “The Hugging Saint” opens at Elmwood Theater, 2966 College Ave. Cost is $5-$8. 649-0530. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Bronzes Sculptures by Rey Hernandez Artist reception at 5:30 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Gallery hours Tues. - Sun. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 848-1228. 

“My Life in FLamenco” Flamenco dance paintings by Roberto Zamora opens at 6:30 p.m. at Temescal Cafe, Telegraph Ave. at 51st. 595-4102. 

“Blue Side of Town” New Orleans art by Craig Fairburn at Julie’s Garden, 1223 Park St., Alameda, through Aug. 30. 865-2385. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Impeachapalooza Open Mic at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Cafe, 2475 Telegraph. Donation $5-$20, no one turned away. RSVP to nfoster@alamedanet.net  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Vladimir Vukanovich, Peruvian guitarist, at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

Ben Harper After Party at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Aaron Bahr Jazz Quintet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Bruce & Lloyd’s Tri Tip Trio Binghi Ghost with Donny Dread & Nubian Natty, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mamadou and Vanessa, Mali blues, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

“Secret Life of Banjos” with Jody Stecher and Bill Evans at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Doug Arrington Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Splintered Tree and Sean Brooks at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

20 Minute Loop, Memoir at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Tenebre, The Martyr Index, Holy Ghost Circuit, at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Atman Roots, from New Orleans, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Lee Ritenour with special guests Dave Grusin & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $15-$26. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19 

THEATER 

San Francisco Shakespeare “The Tempest” Free Shakespeare in the park at 4 p.m. at Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt, corner of Perkins and Bellevue, Oakland. Sat. and Sun. through Aug. 27. 415-865-4434. 

Shotgun Players “Ragnarok: Doom of the Gods” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkle Park, through Sept. 10. Free, with pass the hat donation after the show. 841-6500.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“deja vu” Photography and sculpture by Janeyce Ouellette and Kelly Steinauer. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at 1091 Calcot Place, Unit # 116, located in the front of the historic cotton mill studios, Oakland. 535-1702. 

FILM 

Frank Borzage “Three Comrades” at 6:30 p.m. and “The Mortal Storm” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “The Joy Luck Club” at dusk on Ninth St., between Broadway and Washington. Limited seating, bring your own chair or blanket. Free. 238-4734. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

BHS Jazz Qurtet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Old Puppy at 10 a.m. at Nabalom Bakery, 2708 Russell St. 845-BAKE. 

Junius Courtney Big Band, featuring Denise Perrier, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568.  

Big Business, Replicator, The Ettes at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100.  

Audrey Auld Mezera and Tamra Engle at 8 p.m. at Left Coast Cyclery, 2928 Domingo Ave. Donation $15. 204-8550. 

Candido Oye-Oba, West African, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Danny Allen and Val Esway at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Oak, Ash & Thorn at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Ben Harper After Party at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Gaucho at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473.  

Dave Matthews BLUES Band at 4 p.m. on the stage at Harbor & MacDonald Ave., Richmond. 236-4050. www.richmondmainstreet.org 

Gram Rabbit, 86, Luca at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

The Regiment at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

S.M.D., Weekend Nachos, Until the Fall at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 

FILM 

Frank Borzage “Desire” at 5:20 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Judy Stone reads from “Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World” at 6:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Abby Wasserman on “Tosca’s Paris Adventure” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave.  

Elmaz Abinader, Lebanese poet, reads at 3 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Songs & Stories from the ‘20s & ‘30s, featuring Dave Shank on the piano at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., Point Richmond. Suggested donation $10. 236-0527. 

Tryte, Duct Tape Mafia at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mark Spoelstra at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Americana Unplugged with The Donner Mountain Bluegrass Band at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Claudia Calderón and the Piano Llanero at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568.  

Philips Marine Duo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 21 

CHILDREN 

Rafa Cano, Spanish sing-along for children, at 10:30 a.m. at PriPri Cafe, 1309 Solano Ave., Albany. Free. 528-7002. 

FLILM 

Beat Back Bush Workout dance video at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Donation $5-$10. www.bbbwork.net 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Express with Julia Vinograd at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Anton Schwartz at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com  

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22 

FILM 

Screenagers “Seventeen” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Geoffrey Nunberg explains “Talking Right: How the Right Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left Wing Freak Show” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Uzodinma Iweala introduces “Beasts of No Nation” at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Beep at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jane Bunnett & Radio Guantanamo featuring Kevin Breit at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23 

FILM 

Frank Borzage “Moonrise” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Treasures Series A conversation with Richard Whittaker at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“Writing Teachers Write” with special guest Jane Juska at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Tucker Malarkey reads from his new novel “Resurrection” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Jewish Writers in the Bay Area with Reuven Goldfarb on “Baseball Kabbalah” and “Sane Terrain”at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 465-3935. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Terrance Brewer Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” An evening of satirical songs, at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way, through Aug. 24. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org  

Japanther, This Bike is a Pipe Boms, KIT, and others in a benefit concert for the Prisoners Literature Project and Berkeley Liberation Radio at 7 p.m. at Lobot Gallery, 1800 Campbell St. and 18th, Oakland. Donation $7-$20. 290-81512. 

The Hooks, Fetish, Stone Cutter, Mike Rogers at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Orquestra Candela at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Jean Fineberg & Saxophunk at 5 p.m., and Mingus Amungus at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Michael Coleman Trio Jazz Jam at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Bring your instrument. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Jane Bunnett & Radio Guantanamo featuring Kevin Breit at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24 

FILM 

Beyond Bollywood “Masala” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ray LeMoine and Jeff Neuman describe their travels to “Babylon by Bus” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Noon Concert with United Capoeira Association at the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Free. www.downtownberkeley.org 

18th Annual Annual Freight Fiddle Festival at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sara & Swingtime at 6 p.m. at La Note, 2377 Shattuck Ave. 526-6080. www.lanoterestaurant.com 

Mo’ Rockin Project at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Girl Talk at 5 p.m. at Ristorante Raphael, 2132 Center St. 644-9500. www.ristoranteraphael.com 

Tom Duarte at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Free Peoples, Phoeniz & Afterbuffalo at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Laurie Antonioli & Zilberella at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Kenny Washington Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

David Weckl Band at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

CV1 at 8 p.m. and Black Edgars Musicbox at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

At outdoor cafe tables topped with Cinzano umbrellas the actors loll, idly watching video screens arranged around an open-work structure’s beams like townhall clocks at the points of the compass, facing the audience. Watching as a platinum-bewigged young woman, dolled up in loud fashion but draped in a sleek tawny fur with beige boots, flops into a chair, pushes back her sunglasses, reaches for her bag as if a beached globe-trotter, and impatiently tosses wads of play money onto the stage ... Watching as a bearded financier doffs “the badge” of his “Jewish gabardine” to bathe in cash as he reclines in a dumpster ... Watching as a suitor woos his intended by hefting a black plastic garbage bag of loot to throw his hat in the ring. 

Actors laconically watching these vignettes, while smoking, drinking and chit-chatting in blank verse: this is The Merchant of Venice, as conceived by Daniel Fish for CalShakes in Orinda, a play about money and fashion. 

The Bard certainly meant his comedy of love to be centered around allegories of lending and borrowing, and of reclaiming forfeited debts, with adroit business surrounding the choosing of metal coffers—here, shiny carrying cases—for a betrothal, the giving—and furtive giving again—of rings as tokens of endless love, and the bonding of a debt, meant to finance another’s offer of a bride-price, with a pound of flesh close to the heart. This is shown with all the trappings of ultra-contemporary fashion—“bravery,” as The Bard would put it—to dress up the intrigues and counter-plots of a chatty menage that ends up together at the end on a deflating air bed, a polymorphous perverse wedding night to end a romantic comedy hinging on a cross-dressed Humanist scholar finely parsing a point  

of law. 

This production has the virtue of being able to play self-consciously with its many conceits, matching its sometimes astringent, sometimes tongue-in-cheek air of world-weariness with a careless (if not exactly carefree) sense of tossing off the most elaborate lines and situations of the original with the more elaborated fixings of Fish’s conception. But the results are mixed. At times streamlined and clear, at others bogged down by too many asides and interruptions in the guise of business, the offhand quality of the actors (best represented by Jenny Bacon as Portia, watching the dialogues of her fellows on the big screen with drooping eyes and acerbic smile like a distracted traveler in an airport, or lipsync’ing a movie version of Merchant on her laptop, which we see above the stage) reduces the moments of engagement to events to be idly watched. It’s a kind of feed-back that can make the actors come on a bit soap opera-ish when it’s finally their turn to deliver, playing scales or hitting a single whole note instead of sounding the semitones of a developing character. 

The trouble lies with the often clever direction, which succeeds in outwitting itself. The cast is quite capable, with CalShakes regulars like Delia MacDougall (always a trouper), staunch Andy Murray, sly Danny Sheie and T. Edward Webster joined by Bacon, David Chandler (a business-like Shylock, who moonlights as a Jewish stand-up comedian at intermission’s close), Andrew Weems (a fine Antonio), Nick Westrate (who plays the other suitors as well as golden boy Bassanio), Max Gordon Moore and new face Elvy Yost (who in a good bit as Shylock’s daughter Jessica converted to Christianity, sings an old Sunday School number: “Jesus Loves Me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!"). And the staging, with all its consumer gimmicks, proceeds from modern dramaturgy.  

But it becomes Modern Theater Lite: despite fitful flashes of illumination, with all the “events” (or “attractions” as they were called on the Russian experimental stage) the self-distancing gets too involved—with itself. All the sense of an incestuous milieu fizzles into mere self-consciousness and tricked-up fun instead of reflection—or even refraction. With all its twists and turns, the angle isn’t acute. It’s as straight as a suburban boulevard, suitable for commuting or cruising, but in any case a drive through, with too few points of interest to take attention away from the distraction of the accessories, the “optional features.” 

Pyramid Alehouse kicks off its annual Outdoor Cinema series this Saturday with a screening of the 1969 Robert Redford-Paul Newman classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  

Each year Pyramid selects a nonprofit to co-host the series and take home the profits. This year, Pyramid General Manager Jeffery Crane has selected Epic Arts Studio, the South Berkeley cultural center, and they’ll be adding their own twist to the proceedings: Each screening will feature live music, thematically tied to the movie it will precede. 

Crane first came in contact with Epic Arts when Epic took over the How Berkeley Can You Be? Parade. Epic has co-produced the September parade for three years, but this year they will take full control, renaming it the How Berkeley!? Festival. Pyramid and Epic worked together on one of the features of this year’s event—a focus on local breweries—so when Pyramid went looking for a nonprofit to host this year’s film series, Epic came to mind and proved itself a perfect fit. All proceeds from admission and food and beer sales will benefit Epic’s ongoing arts programming. 

Epic Arts Program Director Justin Katz oversaw the band selection process for the Outdoor Cinema series, in some cases booking the bands himself, in other cases turning the evening over to a particular producer. The Sept. 23 screening of This is Spinal Tap allowed Katz a nostalgic indulgence: The movie will be preceded by a live performance by the Rocket Queens, a cover band with a very specific repertoire—they only cover Guns ’n’ Roses, and only the band’s debut album, Appetite for Destruction, complete with hair and clothes circa 1987. 

Apparently the Rocket Queens bring back fond memories of high school for Katz. 

“I’ve been dying to book this band for a long time,” Katz says. 

Another example demonstrates the care and creativity that went into linking the performances with the films: The Aug. 26 screening of Young Frankenstein posed an interesting set of creative challenges, requiring Katz and his colleagues to find a band that could somehow complement the humor of Mel Brooks and a plot centering on a homemade monster pieced together from disparate elements. The result was that Epic booked Baseline Dada, a band with highly literate lyrics and a hilarious live act that cobbles together household objects as instruments in the creation of a sound Katz characterizes as “politically charged grammarian funk.” 

For this week’s showing of Butch Cassidy, Epic Arts has enlisted the production talents of Twang Cafe impresario Tom Wegner to find just the right countrified down-home tone for the event. Wegner’s Twang Cafe, a monthly series held every first Sunday night at Epic Arts, features local country, folk, bluegrass and Americana musicians performing in Epic’s small, intimate Ashby Avenue studio. For the Outdoor Cinema show he has managed to lure two well-known local acts: J. J. Schultz and the JewGrass Boys. 

J. J. Schultz hails from Wegner’s own Wisconsin, and seeks to capture the essence of rural Midwest life in his music. The JewGrass Boys fuse a number of styles and sounds into their music, blending the rootsy sound of Kentucky bluegrass with “the semitic assimilation into and appropriation of America’s cultural heritage,” according to the band’s website. 

“Schultz is a great songwriter with a distinctive voice,” says Wegner, “and he’ll be performing with a full band, including slide guitar and upright bass. The JewGrass Boys are a lot of fun. They play high-tempo bluegrass and really know how to rev up an audience.” 

The series runs every Saturday through Sept. 30 (with the exception of Sept. 2) and features classics and cult classics projected on a large screen in the brewery’s parking lot at Gilman and Eighth streets. Pyramid encourages people to bring their own seating; folding chairs are most common, but in past years audience members have shown up with sofas, beds, patio furniture—even a canoe. Gates open at 7 p.m., with shows scheduled to start at 7:30. 

Other films in the series include Planet of the Apes, The Seven Year Itch and Hitchcock’s Notorious. 

PYRAMID BREWERY’S  

OUTDOOR CINEMA SERIES 

901 Gilman St. 

www.epicarts.org/cinema 

Doors open at 7 p.m.; show at 7:30 p.m. $5 suggested donation.  

All ages welcome. 

Aug. 19: Butch Cassidy and the  

Sundance Kid 

Music by the JewGrass Boys and the JJ Schultz Band, presented by the Twang Cafe 

Aug. 26: Young Frankenstein 

Baseline Dada 

Sept. 2: no show 

Sept. 9: Notorious  

Music by Loretta Lynch 

Sept. 16: Planet of the Apes  

Music by Inspector Double Negative 

Sept. 23: This is Spinal Tap  

Music by the Rocket Queens 

Sept. 30: The Seven Year Itch  

Music by Project Pimento

Radicals of the 1860s, they broke the rules and moved out of their studios. Away from poised portraits and still lives, they painted open-air scenes meant to capture everyday subjects in a passing moment. They painted with un-mixed vibrant colors in broad and daubed brushstrokes creating shimmering canvases bathed in light. The Impressionists turned their backs on academic painting, commanded attention and revolutionized the world of art. 

Claude Monet has been called the father of Impressionism. A collection of his paintings from Normandy is now on exhibit at the Legion of Honor. This exquisite body of work will whet your appetite for more, requiring a slightly longer field trip. Across the Atlantic, in Paris’ Musee D’Orsay, the artists of Impressionism offer a window on the evolution of a movement that spread beyond France and beyond visual art into music and literature. 

“Monet in Normandy” is the first exhibit highlighting Monet’s relationship with the area in which he spent much of his life. Its natural beauty—craggy limestone cliffs, crashing waves, seaside villages and harbors, quiet riverbanks—supplied inspiration for a lifetime of painting. In Normandy, Monet studied the light, atmosphere and nuances of season. 

Representing a span of over sixty years, fifty-three paintings reflect the stages of Monet’s life and career. In the 1860s the north coast featured prominently and The Garden at Sainte-Adresse is one of his most important seaside landscapes. The colors are bold and vivid with glittering sunshine on the sand and water. As with most of Monet’s work the perspective changes as the viewer moves back watching the scene shift. 

In 1870 Monet married and The Honeymoon at Trouville, along with several others, documents his honeymoon. Here, and in his Seaside Campaigns of the 1880s, the daubing technique becomes evident. In three weeks Monet created twenty paintings of the sea where swirling brushstrokes of purple, blue, green and white sequined power to the waves. 

As Monet’s relation with nature intensified he returned to the coast, focusing on landscapes and a recurring motif, the stone cottage. It was only when he needed money for his growing family that Monet added figures, creating paintings more saleable to his Paris clients. These landscapes, so reminiscent of our north coast, are my favorites. Bright sweeps of fields I ‘see’ as wildflowers, on closer examination, are mere daubs of paint, as are the figures themselves. 

Etretat, one of Normandy’s coastal treasures, was already a popular resort when Monet arrived. His solution was to select new, more challenging vantage points from which to capture the natural forms. In The Manneport and The Cliff, Monet’s geometric format brought order to a wild landscape; with his brushwork he created a mood of light and shadow.  

In 1883 Monet moved his family to Giverny and turned his attention to the surrounding countryside, the Seine, and his famous gardens. Twenty-five canvases were devoted to grainstacks with the light as much a subject as the stacks themselves, both infused with bands of soft pastels. 

A radical depiction of a religious icon sealed Monet’s reputation as an abstract artist. In Rouen, the capital of Normandy, Monet painted the cathedral repeatedly, from different angles and at different times of day, focusing on subtle changes in light. His Morning Effect canvas in soft toned blues that appear to be melting downward seemed to some viewers to be profane, making an integral part of history appear to dissolve. 

As the new century emerged the Giverny water gardens drove Monet. Inspired by the Japanese, the water, air and plant life combined into pattern, light and color, the culmination of Monet’s intimacy with nature. Canvases became larger as in the abstract Wisteria, with ribbons of color anchoring the composition, and Water Lilies, colors richly blending to create an overall mood of warmth and richness. 

In truth, Monet in Normandy was for me a very special encore, the main performance having taken place earlier during my stay in Paris. Touring the Musee D’Orsay, I feasted on the structure itself and its collection of 19th century French paintings. 

A reincarnation of the Gare d’Orsay, the Musee’s cathedral-like dimensions soar into a framework of glass and iron topped by a wonderful vaulted ceiling and two magnificent clocks. As I walked among the collections of fine arts, it was hard to imagine trains rumbling beneath my feet. 

Even if you’re there for the paintings, touring the ground floor sculpture promenade is a must. It’s here that you feel the full impact of the architecture while admiring the conservative slant of 19th century statuary. Balanced poses with perfect anatomy and curving lines in gleaming white stone are represented in La Source, Carpeaux and Lion Assis. On the mezzanine, Ours blanc resembles the Pepsi Polar bear, with simple lines and gentle face. 

A special vignette was my glimpse of future art enthusiasts. A group of French school children was seated before a marble sculpture, listening intently, occasionally jotting facts in a notebook, as the museum guide described the work and the artist. Later the scene was repeated before a display case of Degas sculptures. 

Away from architectural distractions, on the upper level, I toured galleries housing the museum’s collection of paintings. Never before had I encountered entire rooms devoted to the work of one artist, never before had I seen sufficient works to trace the evolution of a movement. Here I reveled in both. 

The Impressionist canvases of Renoir, Degas and Monet illustrate the birth of the movement: Renoir searching for the ideal in Bladu Moulin de la Galette, a waltzing blur of bright yellows; Degas’ interplay of realism and art in Au Cafe; Monet’s Coquelicots and Nympheas blue, flowers seeming adrift in field and pond. 

The paintings of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne carried me toward Post-Impressionism, emphasizing structure and subject. In Van Gogh’s Self Portrait and La Meridienne the colors and swirling, curving brushstrokes hold strong emotion, even inanimate objects are infused with life. Cezanne’s canvases appear more impersonal, his still life edges more defined and the composition of greater importance than the subject matter. 

Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat and Gauguin moved further from the Impressionist ideal. Painting Montmartre’s underworld of outcasts, Toulouse-Lautrec caught his models in candid poses as in Jane Avril dansant. In Le Cirque, Neo-impressionist Seurat’s controlled daubs developed into pointillism, maximizing the luminous quality. Away from France, Gauguin painted his South Seas’ Eden using bright pure colors and simple flat images defined in black. The children in Le repas ou les bananes evoke the richness of their environment. 

Though continents apart, both exhibits were a feast for the eyes and soul. Art movements may come and go, the Impressionists transcend time and place. As close as San Francisco, as far as Paris, get lost in their color and form, applaud their courage and be thankful that museums exist to share these wonders. 

MONET IN NORMANDY  

Through Sept.17 at the Legion of Honor. 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Adults, $15; 13-17 years, $11; 12 and under, free. Lincoln Park, 34th and Clement, San Francisco, (415) 863-3330. www.thinker.org/legion.  

Smooth stone benches below an ornate ceiling seem the perfect spot to draw scuptures in the messanine of the Musée D’Orsay. Photograph by Marta Yamamoto.

Pressurizing the entire municipal water system is not an easy matter. I’m sure glad I don’t have to do it. Everyone’s bound to be unhappy. If you’re down in the flats or close to a pumping station, you’re pressure is going to be very high. If you’re waaaaay up at the top of the hills, it’s going to be much lower. We pump up the system to a pressure that will make sure that the person furthest from the pump will still have enough pressure to get a decent shower, even when her darned husband flushes the toilet (If I’ve told that man one time, I’ve told him…). 

Given this scenario, it’s inevitable that some of us are going to end up with very high pressure in the interest of other getting enough (like the rich guy at the top of the hill!). One of the reasons that this is such an important issue for homeowners is that high pressure leads to leaks and these can be major. One of the most common leaks occurs at washing machine hoses. According to one source, washing machine hose breakages cause over $100 million worth of damage each year. Coming home to a flood in your home caused by the breakage in a $10 part is both unnecessary and traumatic. I’m no statistician but I’ve personally met a few people who this has happened to. My friend John just told me last week that this happened to his house a few weeks ago while he was out of town and it’s been devastating. If the leak occurs in the upstairs of a two- or three-story house, it can do a tremendous amount of damage. 

An easy way to help prevent this tragedy is to install metal-woven “no-burst” hoses on the back of your washing machine. They can manage much higher pressure and are far less likely to burst in response to high pressure.  

One can also use these same metal-jacketed hoses on the hose connections below fixtures such as toilets and sinks. Many of these are currently made of plastic with machine-crimped metal fittings at either end. A man named “Jonny” makes these for you and usually starts getting primed for partyin’ (if you catch my drift) early on Friday to get in the mood for his big night out. He runs the crimping machine and he’s probably made a few of those hoses for your house. Jonny’s hoses are cheaper, but I’m going for the metal ones. 

Just in case the higher pressure decides to cause a leak inside the washing machine or the water heater, I’d suggest adding a pan with a drain below these devices, especially if they’re higher up than the basement. I’ve mentioned these before in a different context but it bears repeating. 

Another thing that can be done to decrease the likelihood of leakage in the case of higher pressure is to install a pressure reducing valve on the entire house. This is particularly important if the pressure at your house is above 100 pounds per square inch (PSI). I’ve seen houses where the pressure was as high as 160 PSI and the likelihood of leakage is far higher in such cases because the water is pressing so hard on every hose and length of pipe and inside every appliance that it’s just a matter of time before something bursts. Even when pipes don’t burst, slow leaks are more common and more copious. A device of this kind cost around $100 and can be in the realm of $300-$500 to install if access isn’t too bad. 

These aren’t the only things that happen when the water pressure is high in your home. Another thing is that valves are harder to operate and quicker to wear out. This applies to all sorts of valves. 

Let’s take manual spigots for starts. When the pressure is high, it’s harder to turn the water all the way off and harder to adjust it to the pressure to the specific level that suits you. You’ll tend to wear washers out faster since you’re grinding them harshly in order to turn the water all the way off. You may find yourself replacing washers every few years in such a setting.  

Several types of machines, including dishwashers and clothes washers, have automatic electrically controlled water valves that operate several times during every wash cycle. When the pressure is very high, these tend to slam open every time they’re operated, gradually wearing them out and making quite a bit of noise. On occasion, I’ve been in a house and hear the bang of the washing machine every time a cycle started and then discovered that the pressure was quite high. A whole-house pressure-reducing valve is the solution in these cases and might help save your machines from costly repairs or premature replacement due to high water pressure. 

Beyond that noise maker, there is the very common water hammering that we’ve all heard. This is most commonly heard when a faucet is shut off. This sounds like the pipes are banging against something and can be quite noisy and unpleasant, especially if it’s the middle of the night and someone’s trying to sleep. 

Water hammering can be lessened by lowering house pressure but can also be addressed in a couple of other ways. One way is to install air chambers on the top ends of two or more pipes so that air becomes trapped at the top of these lengths of piping. The air is more easily compressed than water (lower density) and acts as a spring or cushion every time the pressure in the pipe changes rapidly (when you open, or more likely, shut a valve rapidly). There are also fancier ones available that can be pumped up with air from a compressor. Water hammering can also be lessened by the installation of an adequate number of pipe straps. When piping isn’t adequately strapped in place, it’s more free to jump around as pressures change (again, mostly from rapidly turning off the water). It’s easy to add straps wherever there is access to the pipes, such as in a basement so this is a good place to begin. 

Some final thoughts on this issue should be devoted to old vs. new piping. If you have really old and obstructed piping, it may be the high pressure that’s making a shower possible. So this issue, like many is more complex than first meets the eye. Nonetheless, I don’t really recommend this set of choices. If you’ve been coping with old galvanized piping that’s so filled in with mineral encrustment that it take 20 minutes for the toilet to refill, you may want to replace that old piping with copper. If you have copper, don’t be afraid of much lower pressures. I swear that I’ve measured houses at less than 30 PSI and found the showers to just gush, even when a toilet was flushed. Higher pressure isn’t the answer to adequate flow, pipe volume is. Nonetheless, if you’re coping with very old and sluggish piping, keep in mind that despite the poor flow, high pressure can still cause leaks and floods. 

Now this is not a dangerous matter and we’re just talking about money, comfort and possible water damage but, hey, if you can afford it, reducing the effects of high water pressure might offer you a better night’s sleep in more ways than one. 

Being a night person gives you a different look at things. Strolling at night or commuting to a night shift, especially when the moon’s out, you get to see gardens that no one else sees, even their owners. Silver leaves glow at night, and reshape a garden’s contours. White-flowered groundcovers make a garden float, changing perspectives and lifting a viewer off her own feet. Noises are damped, and what you hear is framed and given significance. There’s a feeling of privilege, of witnessing what mortals routinely miss. I can see where the stories of fairies in the bottom of the garden come from.  

We don’t usually get to visit nurseries at night, so choosing a night garden’s plants takes some thought. There are useful books, including Barbara Damrosch’s Theme Gardens which includes the lovely conceit of a crescent-shaped “moon garden.” Check out restaurant courtyards and take evening walks; quick photos or sketches help remember the plants you like.  

In our climate, a night garden needs shelter from cold fog and wind. You might be able to locate it in a convenient nook east or south of your house, or of the house next door. Otherwise, a planted or constructed screen of some sort is practically essential. If you can’t shelter your whole garden, give yourself a warm place in which to sit and watch it.  

You don’t want day-bright lighting; shadows and inference and leaving lots to the imagination give you a second garden, entirely different from the day’s scene. Most of us already have plenty of light, from streetlights and security lights and tall neighboring buildings. You might even want to plant a trellised vine or set up a bamboo screen to fend off the light from next door.  

You’ll need to light steps and hazards. Strings of tiny white bulbs, a couple of candles, luminaria, or a tiki torch can illuminate garden parties. Uplighting a dramatic tree is a common strategy because it works in any season, and might be the only light you need.  

Plants that are drought-adapted often have gray or silvery leaves. With good drainage, our native artemisia sages and their relatives like wormwood are tough and handsome. A cluster of these, with an echo of white blossoms at another strategic point, can be enough to reshape the perception of a small garden entirely.  

White flowers look good as a mass, or salted among other plants. An entirely white-blooming garden is automatically night-friendly. (If you use flowers for highlights, research your species to be sure they don’t, like white varieties of California poppy, close up after sunset.) Silver proteas are striking by day, otherworldly by night, and so are brugmansias. Clematis’ moplike seedheads catch light shining behind them; don’t overlook seedheads in general, especially the fluffy windborne kind, for late-season interest.  

Brugmansia, nicotiana, and other bat- and moth-pollinated flowers also reserve their fragrance for night, and so does night jessamine. Give that last some space; it can be overwhelming. It has white berries, too, and so does native snowberry bush; mockingbirds love both, and a bachelor mockingbird might sing all night in your garden. 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in East Bay Home & Real Estate. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Daily Planet.  

Will Uncle Sam Save Us? 

Many people wrongly believe that the U.S. government will rescue them financially if they suffer losses in an earthquake. The truth is that federal disaster assistance is only available when the president formally declares a disaster. Even if you do get disaster assistance, it is usually a loan that must be repaid with interest.  

Grants may be available, but are designed to meet only your most immediate needs, not to replace your losses. The average FEMA grant is less than $15,000—not nearly enough to rebuild a damaged home.  

The bottom line: As the folks in New Orleans sadly learned, you can’t count on any level of government to provide timely or significant help. Prepare yourself and your home, and start by having your home retrofitted, or have your existing retrofit evaluated. 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

Friends of African Film Mama Africa Series will show three films of modern Africa by women film makers at 7:30 p.m. at 464 Van Buren, at Euclid, Oakland. friendsofafricanfilm@yahoo.com 

Conscientious Projector Series “A Case of Reasonable Doubt” on Mumia Abu- Jamal, capital punishment and the prison-industrial complex at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Donations welcome. 528-5403 

Impeachapalooza Open Mic at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Cafe, 2475 Telegraph. Donation $5-$20, no one turned away. RSVP to nfoster@alamedanet.net  

“Be Wise: Prevent Scams, Fraud and Identity Theft” a presentation by Elder Financial Protection Network and SAIF and Assemblymember Loni Hancock at 11 a..m. at Richmond Annex Senior Center, 5801 Huntington Ave, Richmond. RSVP to 559-1406. 

Urban Renaissance High School Open House from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 967 Stanford Ave., Oakland. 302-9199. www.envisionschools.org  

Circle Dancing Simple folkdancing in a circle, beginners welcome, at 8 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. at University. Donation $5. 528-4253. 

Berkeley Folk Dancers Community Classes and Teacher Workshop, for ages 8 and up, at 7:45 p.m. at Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck. Cost is $5. 

Ballroom Dancing at 8 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building, 200 Grand Ave., Oakland. Live band and refreshments. Cost is $10. 925-934-9129. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19 

Ohlone Dog Park Cleanup at 10 a.m. on Hearst between MLK Jr. Way and Grant. www.phlonedogpark.org 

Saturday Stories Listen to nature inspired stories in an outdoor setting at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Hizbollah, Syria and Iran: Partnership and Rivalry in a Dangerous Neighborhood” with author and professor Fred H. Lawson, at 7 p.m. at the Home of Truth Center, 1300 Grand St., Alameda. Sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum. www.alamedaforum.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class: Hearty Italian Cuisine from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $45 plus $5 food/materials fee. Registration required. 531-COOK.  

Hunt for Bugs on Cerrito Creek Discover interesting bugs, learn how to photograph them, and learn which ones are useful in the garden. From 10:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Cerrito Creek at the foot of Albany Hill. All ages welcome, younger children must be accompanied by an adult. If you have them, bring a camera, hand lens, clear plastic container or net. Registration required. Donation of $2-$5 requested. 848-9358. 

Butterflies, Birds and Bees Search for winged pollinators on an easy 3-mile walk for the entire family. Meet at 2 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Plant Parenthood Party Volunteers needed to prepare seedlings for local restoration projects in Stege Marsh. From 9 a.m. to noon at 1327 South 46th St., Richmond. 665-3689. 

Historical and Botanical Walking Tour at 10 a.m. at the Chapel of the Chimes 4499 Piedmont Ave, Oakland. Free 228-3207. 

Brooks Island Voyage Paddle the rising tide across the Richmond Harbor Channel to Brooks Island from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For experienced boaters who can provide their own canoe or kayak and safety gear. For ages 14 and up with parent participation. Cost is $20-$22. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Tomato Tastings from 10 am. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. Cooking demonstration at 11 a.m. 548-2220. 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of Inner Elmhurst from 10 a.m. to noon. Meet at Arroya Viejo Recreation Center, 7701 Krause Ave., at 77th St. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Urban Releaf Tree Tour of Oakland and workshops in urban forestry that teach tree planting, maintenance, GIS/GPS systems, and community advocacy. For information call 601-9062. www.urbanreleaf.org  

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “The Joy Luck Club” at dusk on Ninth St., between Broadway and Washington. Limited seating, bring your own chair or blanket. Free. 238-4734. 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Spiritwalking: Aqua Chi(TM) at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $5.50, $3.50 seniors & disabled. Bring your own towels. 526-0312. 

Yoga for Peace at 9:30 a.m. at Ohlone Park, MLK at Hearst. Bring a yoga mat, warm blanket, and peace sign.  

Adult Fast Pitch Softball at noon. For location call 204-9500.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 

Streamside Saunter An easy 3 mile walk along shady Wildcat and Laurel Creeks to discover diverse plant and animal communities. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of Fruitvale “Mushroom City” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meet at the Fruitvale Hotel, 3221 San Leandro St. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Bike Tour of Oakland A leisurely two-hour trip covering about 5 miles, led by museum docents. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance of the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations required. 238-3514. 

Solo Sierrans Bike Ride from Emeryville to Berkeley Marina Waterfront. Meet at 3 p.m. in front of the Watergate Clipper Club, 6 Captain Drive, Emeryville. Registration required. 923-1094. 

“The Human and Legal Issues Surrounding Immigration” with a screening of “Dying to Live,” on the plight of migrants from Mexico and Central America crossing the Arizona desert, at 4 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. Sponsored by Progressive Democrats of the East Bay. 636-4149. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m., at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby & Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. 

Summer Reading Celebration with crafts, stories and music with Gary Laplow, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum, 1000 Oak St. Free to children who completed the Summer Reading Program.  

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair flats from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Healthy Home An introduction to sustainable living at noon at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Summer Sunday Forum with Dr. Chris O’Sulivan on the Middle East at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Erika Rosenberg on “Opening to Feeling” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 21 

Summer Science Week for ages 9 to 12, covering biology and other natural science topics from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mon. - Fri. in Tilden Park. Cost is $160. Registration required. 636-1684.  

Community Conversations on the Crisis in the Middle East with Yitzhak Santis of Jewish Community Relations Council at 7:30 p.m. at JGate in El Cerrito, near El Cerrito Plaza and BART. 559-8140.  

Beat Back Bush Workout dance video at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Donation $5-$10. www.bbbwork.net 

“Discuss Your Values to Find Your Passion” monthly discussion group at 6:45 p.m. at Heartwalker Studio, 4920 Telegraph Ave. at 49th. Donation $15. 415-839-1074.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22 

Tuesday is for the Birds A tranquil early morning walk. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. Call for meeting place. 525-2233. 

Tomato Tastings from 2 to 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Derby St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-2220. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! Meet at 10 a.m. at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden to look for reptiles. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to join us the 2nd and 4th Tues, of each month, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. to sing (any voice will do), help plan our next gig, at Berkeley Gray Panthers office, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23 

Benefit for Lebanese Refugees, hosted by Dar Al Amal and Amnesty International at 6 p.m. at Youth Radio Café, 1801 University of Grant. Donation $12 and up. 499-9402. 

Disaster Preparedness for Your Pet presented by Noah’s Wish, an organization which provided shelter for animals after Hurricane Katrina, at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society, 2700 Ninth St. at Carleton. Donation of $10 requested. Seating limited. 845-7735, ext. 22. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

Conversation with Bob Watada, father of Lt. Ehren Watada, first U.S. Military officer to publicly resist illegal war and occupation of Iraq, at 10:30 a.m. in Heller Lounge, Student Union Building, UC Campus. ninakfallenbaum@hotmail.com 

Making Another World Possible: Beyond Debt Cancellation, Who Owes Whom? at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1606 Bonita near Cedar. 527-3917. 

Berkeley Adult School Open House for Career and Technical Education programs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at 1701 San Pablo Ave. at Virginia. 644-8973.  

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! Meet at 10 a.m. at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden to look for reptiles. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. For reservations call 238-3234.  

“Farenheit 451” a film based on the novel by Ray Bradbury on Cold War fears, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. at the downtoen berkeley BART. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24 

Symposium on Employment Conditions for College and University Teachers with union representatives and Joe Berry, author of “Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

“Nurses vs. Arnold” A new Robert Greenwald documentary premieres at 7 p.m. at the Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland. www.Yes on89.org 

Berkeley Community Gardening Collective Potluck at 6 p.m. at the Malcom X School Garden, Ellis St. and Ashby Ave. The speaker will be Melanie Okamoto of the California Nutrition Network. 883-9096. 

Family Fun Night at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline at 6 p.m., includes presentations by naturalists and arts and crafts projects for the whole family. 525-2233. 

League of Women Voters Community Luncheon, with Christopher Edley, Jr., Dean of Boalt Hall School of Law, at 11:30 a.m. at Hs Lordships at the Berkeley Marina. Cost is $75. 843-8828. 

Ecovillages Presentation Find out what an ecovillage is and how the ecovillage movement affects the environment, the economy, and social justice issues at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. 

Easy Does It Disability Assistance Board of Directors’ Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1744A University Ave. All welcome. 845-5513. 

ACCI Seconds Sale from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Sun. at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. 

Clothing Swap and Silkscreening Workshop, at 6:30 p.m. at Nabolom Bakery, 2708 Russell St. 845-BAKE. 

The names of two candidates were incorrectly reported in the Aug. 15 story “Incumbents Hit Filing Deadline.” 

The correct names of the candidates are Pam Webster, a Berkeley Rent Stablization Board candidate, and Caryl O’Keefe, who is running for Albany City Council.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15 

CHILDREN 

Swazzle Puppets “Rex & Boots: Super Sleuths” at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Paul Robeson: The Tallest Tree in Our Forest” Tues.-Sat., noon to 5:30 p.m. at The African-American Museum, 659 14th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to Aug. 26. 637-0199. 

“Mercury Rising” New works by 15 Bay Area artists. Reception at 5 p.m. at Robert Tomlinson Studio, 25 Grand Ave., Oakland. Exhibition runs to Aug. 31. Gallery hours are Thurs.-Sat. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.  

FILM 

Screenagers “Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“William Morris: Socialist and Shopkeeper” with Alan Crawford at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club. Sponsored by Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. Suggested donation $15. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Whiskey Brothers Old Time and Bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Frank Morgan with special guests Sean Jones & Ronnie Matthews at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

Craig Williams Quartet at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16 

FILM 

Frank Borzage “History Is Made at Night” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“La Jette” A film from 1962 about a man sent back in time to save a war-ravaged world at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lewis Buzbee reads from “The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Café Poetry hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” An evening of satirical songs, Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way, through Aug. 24. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org  

The Widows, Stiff Dead Cat and Pickin’ Trix at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Orquestra La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

The Baby Mammals at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Rachel Goldstar, Tomihira, Foxtail Somersult at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Michael Coleman Trio Jazz Jam at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Bring your instrument. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Tashina & Tristan Clarridge at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Frank Morgan at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 17 

THEATER 

Works in Progress Works by five East Bay playwright/performers at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $3. 849-2568. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Sculpture by Armando Ramos” Opening reception at 5 p.m. at the Sculpture Court, 1111 Broadway, Oakland, through Nov. 1. 238-6836. 

“Light Markers” Sculpture by David Ruth. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at Gallery 555, 555 12th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to Nov. 10. 238-6836. 

FILM 

Beyond Bollywood “Bad Girl with a Heart of Gold” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“For Review” Deborah Kirshman in conversation with Peter Selz, author of “Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond” at 6:30 p.m. at Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

Celeste Lipow MacLeod presents “Multiethnic Australia: Its History and Future” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Frank Portman, author of “King Dork” will read and sing at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Radical Open Mic at 6:30 p.m. at Nabalom Bakery, 2708 Russell St. 845-BAKE. 

Word Beat Reading Series with Jenne Lupton & Janell Moon at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Noon Concert with Rhonda Benin and Soulful Strut at the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Free.  

Upside Down & Backwards, blues, jazz and rockin’ roll at 9 p.m. at Eli’s Mile High Club, 3629 MLK, Jr. Way, West Oakland. Cost is $5. 654-4549. 

Brave Combo, rock, polka, jazz, Tex-Mex at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054.  

Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Joni Davis at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

The Highway Robbers, Bob Harp at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082  

Lee Ritenour with guests Dave Grusin & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $15-$26. 238-9200. 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 

THEATER 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Merchant of Venice” at the Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. through Sept. 3. Tickets are $15 and up. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Encore Theatre Company and Shotgun Players “The Typographer’s Dream” at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 3. Tickets are $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Impact Theatre “House of Lucky” Written and performed by Frank Wortham, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Aug. 26. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

FILM 

Kenji Mizoguchi “Osaka Elegy” at 7 p.m. and “Ugetsu” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Friends of African Film Mama Africa Series will show three films of modern Africa by women film makers at 7:30 p.m. at 464 Van Buren, at Euclid, Oakland. friendsofafricanfilm@yahoo.com 

“Darshan: The Embrace” a documentary on Amma, “The Hugging Saint” opens at Elmwood Theater, 2966 College Ave. Cost is $5-$8. 649-0530. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Bronzes Sculptures by Rey Hernandez Artist reception at 5:30 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Gallery hours Tues. - Sun. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 848-1228. 

“My Life in FLamenco” Flamenco dance paintings by Roberto Zamora opens at 6:30 p.m. at Temescal Cafe, Telegraph Ave. at 51st. 595-4102. 

“Blue Side of Town” New Orleans art by Craig Fairburn at Julie’s Garden, 1223 Park St., Alameda, through Aug. 30. 865-2385. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Impeachapalooza Open Mic at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Cafe, 2475 Telegraph. Donation $5-$20, no one turned away. RSVP to nfoster@alamedanet.net  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Vladimir Vukanovich, Peruvian guitarist, at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

Ben Harper After Party at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Aaron Bahr Jazz Quintet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Bruce & Lloyd’s Tri Tip Trio Binghi Ghost with Donny Dread & Nubian Natty, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mamadou and Vanessa, Mali blues, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

“Secret Life of Banjos” with Jody Stecher and Bill Evans at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Doug Arrington Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Splintered Tree and Sean Brooks at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

20 Minute Loop, Memoir at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Tenebre, The Martyr Index, Holy Ghost Circuit, at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Atman Roots, from New Orleans, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Lee Ritenour with special guests Dave Grusin & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s. Cost is $15-$26. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19 

THEATER 

San Francisco Shakespeare “The Tempest” Free Shakespeare in the park at 4 p.m. at Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt, corner of Perkins and Bellevue, Oakland. Sat. and Sun. through Aug. 27. 415-865-4434. 

Shotgun Players “Ragnarok: Doom of the Gods” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkle Park, through Sept. 10. Free, with pass the hat donation after the show. 841-6500.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“deja vu” Photography and sculpture by Janeyce Ouellette and Kelly Steinauer. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at 1091 Calcot Place, Unit # 116, located in the front of the historic cotton mill studios, Oakland. 535-1702. 

FILM 

Frank Borzage “Three Comrades” at 6:30 p.m. and “The Mortal Storm” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “The Joy Luck Club” at dusk on Ninth St., between Broadway and Washington. Limited seating, bring your own chair or blanket. Free. 238-4734. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

BHS Jazz Qurtet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Old Puppy at 10 a.m. at Nabalom Bakery, 2708 Russell St. 845-BAKE. 

Junius Courtney Big Band, featuring Denise Perrier, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568.  

Big Business, Replicator, The Ettes at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100.  

Audrey Auld Mezera and Tamra Engle at 8 p.m. at Left Coast Cyclery, 2928 Domingo Ave. Donation $15. 204-8550. 

Candido Oye-Oba, West African, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Danny Allen and Val Esway at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Oak, Ash & Thorn at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Ben Harper After Party at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Gaucho at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473.  

Dave Matthews BLUES Band at 4 p.m. on the stage at Harbor & MacDonald Ave., Richmond. 236-4050. www.richmondmainstreet.org 

Gram Rabbit, 86, Luca at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

The Regiment at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

S.M.D., Weekend Nachos, Until the Fall at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 

FILM 

Frank Borzage “Desire” at 5:20 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Judy Stone reads from “Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World” at 6:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Abby Wasserman on “Tosca’s Paris Adventure” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave.  

Elmaz Abinader, Lebanese poet, reads at 3 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Songs & Stories from the ‘20s & ‘30s, featuring Dave Shank on the piano at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., Point Richmond. Suggested donation $10. 236-0527. 

Tryte, Duct Tape Mafia at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mark Spoelstra at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Americana Unplugged with The Donner Mountain Bluegrass Band at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Claudia Calderón and the Piano Llanero at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568.  

Philips Marine Duo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 21 

CHILDREN 

Rafa Cano, Spanish sing-along for children, at 10:30 a.m. at PriPri Cafe, 1309 Solano Ave., Albany. Free. 528-7002. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Express with Julia Vinograd at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Anton Schwartz at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com  

Hovering over the shallows in search of a fish, the Forster’s tern embodies grace and elegance. Its long, pointed wings and forked tail combine aerodynamic function and esthetic appeal. John Reinhold Forster did not deserve this bird. 

Forster was one of the naturalists on board the Resolution during Cook’s second Pacific voyage in the 1770s. The botanist Joseph Banks, who had accompanied Cook on the Endeavour, had planned a repeat trip, but Cook couldn’t accommodate Banks in the style to which he felt entitled, and Banks called it off. A mutual friend recommended Forster as a substitute, and he joined the expedition with his 17-year-old son George.  

The elder Forster was a Prussian minister who had lost his church and attempted to make a secular living first in Russia, then in England by publishing pamphlets on zoology and botany. Cook could have used a Darwin or a Huxley, but that wasn’t what he got.  

Cook’s biographer J. C. Beaglehole describes Forster as “dogmatic, humourless, suspicious, censorious, pretentious, contentious, demanding.” He didn’t get on with Cook, who once had to throw him out of his cabin; with Cook’s lieutenant Charles Clerke, who threatened him with arrest; with the master’s mate, who knocked him down on one occasion; or with the crew. Forster was always muttering about complaining to the King; the men mocked him. 

George Forster, on the other hand, seems to have been a nice guy, perhaps trying to compensate for his difficult father. But it was the father after whom Thomas Nuttall named the tern, in recognition of John Forster’s treatise on the birds of Hudson Bay, which, as far as I can tell, Forster had never visited.  

The tern has another dubious distinction that’s a bit more serious than being named for an unpleasant man. Forster’s terns in San Francisco Bay have been found to have higher levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers—PDBEs—in their tissues than any other wildlife species sampled, anywhere in the world.  

PDBEs have been in use as chemical flame retardants for about 30 years. They’re in children’s pajamas, computers, hair driers, coffee makers, building materials, and polyurethane foam carpet padding.  

The North American market demand for the stuff in 2001 was 33,100 metric tons. California’s flame retardant standards are the strictest in the US, and the state presumably leads the nation in PDBE use. Health effects are still being explored, but PDBEs appear to harm the brain and reproductive organs during development, and have been shown to disrupt the thyroid and estrogen hormone systems in rodents. 

Like other problematic chemicals, PDBEs bioaccumulate in fatty tissues, and biomagnify. Tiny planktonic creatures take in small quantities, fish eat the plankton, birds, marine mammals, and humans eat the fish, and PDBE levels increase as you go up the food web. By the time you get to the Forster’s tern, the concentration, as measured in tern eggs, is 63 parts per million. That tops the previous record holder, the peregrine falcon, with 39 ppm. 

The tern’s diet has not been studied as intensively as that of the endangered California least tern and the larger Caspian tern, which has an unfortunate taste for salmon and steelhead. One study in Monterey Bay found shiner perch, anchovy, and arrow goby to be the predominant prey species. All three are abundant in San Francisco Bay. 

How do PDBEs get into the bay? Municipal wastewater appears to be a major source. Landfill leaching, storm drains, and industrial effluent discharges also contribute. PDBEs are likely to be with us for a while, joining the array of what pollution-control folks call “legacy pollutants.” So far, concentrations are highest in the lower South Bay. 

That’s also the part of the Bay that has historically had the largest Forster’s tern nesting colonies. (History in this instance goes only as far back as 1948, when the terns were first detected breeding inside the bay. They had previously nested in freshwater marshes in the Central Valley and on the Modoc Plateau.) The birds’ numbers have declined in recent years, and various culprits have been suggested: disruption of nest sites by California gulls, whose population has burgeoned; predation by introduced red foxes and feral cats; fluctuating water levels within the South Bay salt ponds; disturbance during levee maintenance. But since PDBEs are hormone disruptors, you have to wonder if the terns’ chemical load is affecting their reproductive success. 

This isn’t just about the birds, of course. The researchers—toxicologist Jianwen She and colleagues—who reported the elevated PDBE concentrations in tern eggs had another disturbing finding: women in the Bay Area have some of the highest PDBE levels ever reported in humans. I am reluctant to drag that overworked canary through the coal mine one more time, but it does serve to reinforce that we’re all in this together. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan 

What’s in that fish? A young Forster’s tern (left) accepts dinner from its parent.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15 

Tuesday is for the Birds A tranquil early morning walk through Kennedy Grove. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. Call for meeting place. 525-2233. 

“Get Out More: Tips from Backpacker Magazine” at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Islamic Responses to Current World Issues” with Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, at 7 p.m. at the Islamic Cultural Center, 1433 Madison St., Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 832-7600. 

American Red Cross Blood Services is holding a volunteer orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. in Oakland. Help support the more than 40 blood drives held each month all over the East Bay. For more information call 594-5165.  

Discussion Salon on Parmaceutical and Alternative Medicine at 7 p.m. at 1414 Walnut by Rose. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16  

Introduction to Urban Permaculture Hear and see local permaculture designers from the Ecological Division of Merritt College’s Landscape Horticulture Department discuss what is possible in a city, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. For reservations call 238-3234. 

Religion and the Contemporary World Conference from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Islamic Cultural Center, 1433 Madison St., Oakland. Speakers include Drs. Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Khaled Abou el Fadl. Cost is $25-$50. 832-7600. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

JumpStart Networking Share information with other entrepreneurs at 8 p.m. at A’Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcatraz. Cost is $10. 652-4532. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 17 

Family Fun Night at Tilden Park includes presentations by naturalists and arts and crafts projects for the whole family. At 6 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Family Fun in the Garden for ages 5 and up accompanied by an adult, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $14-$18 for one adult and child. Registration required. 643-2755. 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets from 6:45 to 8:30 p.m. at Spud's Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

Friends of African Film Mama Africa Series will show three films of modern Africa by women film makers at 7:30 p.m. at 464 Van Buren, at Euclid, Oakland. friendsofafricanfilm@yahoo.com 

Conscientious Projector Series “A Case of Reasonable Doubt” on Mumia Abu- Jamal, capital punishment and the prison-industrial complex at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Donations welcome. 528-5403 

Impeachapalooza Open Mic at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Cafe, 2475 Telegraph. Donation $5-$20, no one turned away. RSVP to nfoster@alamedanet.net  

“Be Wise: Prevent Scams, Fraud and Identity Theft” a presentation by Elder Financial Protection Network and SAIF and Assemblymember Loni Hancock at 11 a..m. at Richmond Annex Senior Center, 5801 Huntington Ave, Richmond. RSVP to 559-1406. 

Urban Renaissance High School Open House from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 967 Stanford Ave., Oakland. 302-9199. www.envisionschools.org  

Circle Dancing Simple folkdancing in a circle, beginners welcome, at 8 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. at University. Donation $5. 528-4253. 

Berkeley Folk Dancers Community Classes and Teacher Workshop, for ages 8 and up, at 7:45 p.m. at Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck. Cost is $5. 

Ballroom Dancing at 8 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building, 200 Grand Ave., Oakland. Live band and refreshments. Cost is $10. 925-934-9129. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19 

Ohlone Dog Park Cleanup at 10 a.m. on Hearst between MLK Jr. Way and Grant. www.phlonedogpark.org 

“Hizbollah, Syria and Iran: Partnership and Rivalry in a Dangerous Neighborhood” with author and professor Fred H. Lawson, at 7 p.m. at the Home of Truth Center, 1300 Grand St., Alameda. Sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum. www.alamedaforum.org 

Vegetarian Cooking Class: Hearty Italian Cuisine from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $45 plus $5 food/materials fee. Registration required. 531-COOK.  

Saturday Stories Listen to nature inspired stories in an outdoor setting at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Hunt for Bugs on Cerrito Creek Discover interesting bugs, learn how to photograph them, and learn which ones are useful in the garden. From 10:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Cerrito Creek at the foot of Albany Hill. All ages welcome, younger children must be accompanied by an adult. If you have them, bring a camera, hand lens, clear plastic container or net. Registration required. Donation of $2-$5 requested. 848-9358. 

Butterflies, Birds and Bees Search for winged pollinators on an easy 3-mile walk for the entire family. Meet at 2 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Plant Parenthood Party Volunteers needed to prepare seedlings for local restoration projects in EWest Stege Marsh. From 9 a.m. to noon at 1327 South 46th St., Richmond. 665-3689. 

Historical and Botanical Walking Tour at 10 a.m. at the Chapel of the Chimes 4499 Piedmont Ave, Oakland. Free 228-3207. 

Brooks Island Voyage Paddle the rising tide across the Richmond Harbor Channel to Brooks Island from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For experienced boaters who can provide their own canoe or kayak and safety gear. For ages 14 and up with parent participation. Cost is $20-$22. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Tomato Tastings from 10 am. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. Cooking demonstration at 11 a.m. 548-2220. 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of Inner Elmhurst from 10 a.m. to noon. Meet at Arroya Viejo Recreation Center, 7701 Krause Ave., at 77th St. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Urban Releaf Tree Tour of Oakland and workshops in urban forestry that teach tree planting, maintenance, GIS/GPS systems, and community advocacy. For information call 601-9062. www.urbanreleaf.org  

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema“The Joy Luck Club” at dusk on Ninth St., between Broadway and Washington. Limited seating, bring your own chair or blanket. Free. 238-4734. 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Spiritwalking: Aqua Chi(TM) at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $5.50, $3.50 seniors & disabled. Bring your own towels. 526-0312. 

Yoga for Peace at 9:30 a.m. at Ohlone Park, MLK at Hearst. Bring a yoga mat, warm blanket, and peace sign.  

Adult Fast Pitch Softball at noon. For location call 204-9500.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 

Streamside Saunter An easy 3 mile walk along shady Wildcat and Laurel Creeks to discover diverse plant and animal communities. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Oakland Heritage Walking Tour of Fruitvale “Mushroom City” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meet at the Fruitvale Hotel, 3221 San Leandro St. Cost is $5-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Bike Tour of Oakland A leisurely two-hour trip covering about 5 miles, led by museum docents. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance of the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations required. 238-3514. 

Solo Sierrans Bike Ride from Emeryville to Berkeley Marina Waterfront. Meet at 3 p.m. in front of the Watergate Clipper Club, 6 Captain Drive, Emeryville. Registration required. 923-1094. 

“The Human and Legal Issues Surrounding Immigration” with a screening of “Dying to Live,” on the plight of migrants from Mexico and Central America crossing the Arizona desert, at 4 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. Sponsored by Progressive Democrats of the East Bay. 636-4149. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m., at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby & Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. 

Summer Reading Celebration with crafts, stories and music with Gary Laplow, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum, 1000 Oak St. Free to children who completed the Summer Reading Program.  

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair flats from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Healthy Home An introduction to sustainable living at noon at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Summer Sunday Forum with Dr. Chris O’Sulivan on the Middle East at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Erika Rosenberg on “Opening to Feeling” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 21 

Summer Science Week for ages 9 to 12, covering biology and other natural science topis from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mon. - Fri. in Tilden Park. Cost is $160. Registration required. 636-1684.  

Community Conversations on the Crisis in the Middle East with Yitzhak Santis of Jewish Community Relations Council at 7:30 p.m. at JGate in El Cerrito, near El Cerrito Plaza and BART. 559-8140.  

“Discuss Your Values to Find Your Passion” monthly discussion group at 6:45 p.m. at Heartwalker Studio, 4920 Telegraph Ave. at 49th. Donation $15. 415-839-1074.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

ONGOING 

Energy Saving Program for Residents CYES is running its 7th annual summer program, providing direct-installation of CFLs, retractable clotheslines, showerheads, and more. Services available in Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond. Free. 665-1501. 

Child Care Food Program is available without charge to all children enrolled in the BUSD Early Childhood Education progam, based on income eligibility guidelines. Please call for details, 644-6358. 

Each One Teach One Mentoring Program of the Oakland Unified School District is curbing student absenteeism, decreasing suspensions and increasing student participation with the help of volunteer mentors like you. For more information call 495-4010, 495-4011.  

Berkeley Adult School Register for programs in High School Diploma, GED Preparation, Citizenship and ESL classes, Mon.-Thurs. 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., Fri. 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1701 San Pablo Ave. 644-6130. http://bas.berkeley.net