Page One

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

Tuesday December 18, 2007
The former San Pablo Florist and Nursery at 1806 San Pablo Ave.—a key piece of pre-World War II Japanese history and one of the last standing links to Berkeley’s hidden Japantown—was reduced to rubble early Saturday to make way for condos in West Berkeley, although property owner Syed Adeli had told the Planet on Dec. 7 that demolition wouldn’t occur for two months. Tonight he’s expecting the City Council to defer $315,588 in fees so that he can start construction before his building permit expires on Friday. Photograph by Richard Brenneman. -more-

Lodi Superintendent Tops BUSD List

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Bill Huyett, superintendent of the Lodi Unified School District, has emerged as the leading candidate for the new superintendent of the Berkeley Unified School District. -more-

Recycling Contract Scrutinized by Council, Community

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday December 18, 2007
“Talkin’ trash” will take on new meaning at today’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting when contracts for hauling rubbish from the city’s Second Street Solid Waste Transfer Station will be considered. -more-

Council Considers Aquatic Park Dredging, Downtown Plan

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Councilmember Darryl Moore wants to get to the bottom of the surprise dredging of an Aquatic Park lagoon in early November. -more-

West Berkeley Plan Changes Raise Questions for City

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 18, 2007
While the proposed new zoning standards for West Berkeley are officially dubbed “relaxed,” that adjective didn’t necessarily apply to area business owners and developers addressing the Planning Commission Wednesday night. -more-

Seismologists Warn of Looming Quake on Hayward Fault

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday December 18, 2007
When geologists across the country observe the 140th anniversary of the 1868 Hayward earthquake next year on Oct. 21, they will have more than speeches and slideshows on their mind. -more-

News

Zoning Board Postpones Alta Bates Parking Violations

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday December 18, 2007
The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board on Thursday postponed discussing the Alta Bates Medical Center parking violations until April . -more-

King Swim Center Users Unhappy With Compromise

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday December 18, 2007
King Swim Center regulars now have the option of doing laps at the Downtown Berkeley YMCA while their pool gets a facelift over winter. -more-

Lab Project, West Berkeley Top Planning Commission Agenda

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Berkeley planning commissioners take up LBNL building plans and West Berkeley housing questions when they gather for their final meeting of 2007 Wednesday night. -more-

Five-Day Nurses’ Walkout / Lockout Ends at Alta Bates

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Once again, a two-day nurses’ strike at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center turned into a five-day affair, with a three-day lockout added by corporate parent Sutter Health. -more-

China Must Go Green, and Soon

By Jun Wang, New America Media
Tuesday December 18, 2007
When it comes to environmental issues like global warming, America and China behave like a couple in a bad marriage, playing the blame game. But to tackle the problem of global warming, neither country can go it alone. -more-

News Analysis: Militarism and Global Warming

By Steve Martinot
Tuesday December 18, 2007
U.S. militarism has to be considered under three headings. First, the U.S. military is the largest single consumer of fossil fuel in the world. Second, the U.S. economy, the largest national consumer of fossil fuel in the world, has shown that its primary mode of maintaining a supply of fossil fuel for itself is through military action (assault, intervention, occupation of other oil-producing nations). Third, the U.S. military operates in the interest of a corporate economy, of which it (the military) is the foremost sector in the U.S. -more-

First Person: What’s On Your Mantel?

By Winston Burton
Tuesday December 18, 2007
As we get closer to election time, and I’m beginning to get more literature, photos, and slogans, I’m pondering what should I keep, display or throw in the garbage (recycle). Nowadays people express their beliefs, passions and identity on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and even tattoos! But I still like to look at what’s on people’s mantels. -more-

The former San Pablo Florist and Nursery at 1806 San Pablo Ave., the front page photograph of Friday's Planet, was reduced to rubble early Saturday to make way for condos in West Berkeley.
The former San Pablo Florist and Nursery at 1806 San Pablo Ave., the front page photograph of Friday's Planet, was reduced to rubble early Saturday to make way for condos in West Berkeley.

Editorials

Editorial: Politically Correct Shopping is Getting Harder

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday December 18, 2007
First, let’s stipulate that the Planet was delighted to get the lively and well-written commentary about the virtues of some of our distinctive local businesses from Deborah Badhia of the Downtown Berkeley Association which ran in our last issue. We’ve patronized many of them ourselves over the years, and we have a healthy appreciation even for some we’ve had no occasion to try. (I don’t usually need to buy electric guitars, but I appreciate Fatdog at Subway because of his community participation.) -more-

Reader Commentaries

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday December 18, 2007

Commentary: Illegal Fee Deferral, Immoral Demolition

By Gale Garcia
Tuesday December 18, 2007
On tonight’s City Council agenda is a very interesting request from Councilmembers Maio and Capitelli to “defer” permit fees. It is Item 36 on the agenda and I encourage all to read it. -more-

Commentary: Budget Cuts for Food and Housing Project

By Terrie Light
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Last month I watched as boxes and bags of food came into Berkeley Food and Housing Project generously donated by our supporters. I watched as those items went out as quickly as they came in as they left with our graduates who have moved into housing, but are still forced to manage their lives on the edge economically. -more-

Commentary: Oakland Should Not Bet on the Wrong ‘Green’ Horse

By Nazreen Kadir
Tuesday December 18, 2007
I can understand why Oakland’s elected officials would want to be seen as team players in the Bay Area Green Corridor grand scheme. After all, Oakland was not even included in the biosciences industry Bay Area life sciences strategic planning several years back, yet when it was time to lobby for the stem cell institute to be located in the Bay Area, the same industry lobby wasted no time obtaining letters from Oakland City Council members endorsing the project and offering up land in Oakland. Earlier this year, an outside consulting firm, linked to the same industry lobby, referred to Oakland as a “hole-in-a-donut” when it comes to promoting technological innovation. -more-

Commentary: Don’t Blame Economic Woes on Street Dwellers

By Glen Kohler
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Last Tuesday at midnight the temperature outside fell to near-freezing as I left my heated apartment in search of a restaurant open at that hour. The trip began as an adventure; bundled in scarf and gloves to ride a bicycle in the bracing air. But all sense of adventure died as I wheeled past the dark, silent figures sitting and lying on Telegraph Avenue, mute and stoic in the penetrating cold. These are the people that Thomas Lord (in a Dec. 11 Daily Planet commentary) and Tom Bates, et. al., want us to see as “potentially dangerous.” -more-

Commentary: Bush Executive Order Denies Public Access to History

By Charles N. Davis
Tuesday December 18, 2007
If your holiday shopping this season finds you in a bookstore, take a moment and do me a favor. -more-

Columnists

Wild Neighbors: December: Time to Count the Kinglets

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday December 18, 2007
This weekend, against my better judgment, I will be doing a couple of Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts, one in Marin County, the other in Solano. (The Christmas Bird Count arose as a humane alternative to the traditional Christmas Side Hunt, whose object was to shoot every bird you saw. The data compiled by this annual exercise in citizen science has become a mother lode for ornithologists studying trends in North American bird populations.) -more-

Arts & Entertainment

Arts Calendar

Tuesday December 18, 2007
TUESDAY, DEC. 18 -more-

The Theater: ‘The Shaker Chair’ at Ashby Stage

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Obie winner Adam Bock’s new play, The Shaker Chair, at Ashby Stage in a joint production of the Shotgun Players with Encore Theatre Co., opens with one woman sitting on the title piece, expostulating with another woman, who’s curled up in another kind of chair crying over a book. -more-

Akademie Ensemble Presents Bach, Beethoven, Strauss

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Berkeley Akademie Ensemble, Berkeley Symphony’s new program jointly directed by conductor Kent Nagano and violinist Stuart Canin to present music in “a multifaceted structure,” a tradition of Akademies which “trace their origin all the way back to what one might call the democratization of music,” will perform their debut concert 8 p.m. Wednesday at the First Congregational Church with renditions of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue and Richard Strauss’ “Metamorphosen.” -more-

Sidney Howard: From Berkeley to Broadway and Hollywood

By Phil McArdle, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Everyone who knew Sidney Howard (1891-1939) testified to his exuberant vitality. Barrett Clark said he had an “irrepressible youthfulness, a tremendous enthusiasm for life.” He was admired for his generosity to other writers, and his own plays were described as “among the best ever written in America.” He was one of the first important Broadway playwrights to go to Hollywood. -more-

Events

Berkeley This Week

Tuesday December 18, 2007