Posted 1/21—Berkeley Design Review Committee members gave a qualified thumbs up Thursday night to plans for a controversial and long-delayed condominium project on University Avenue. 

Zoning Adjustments Board members had approved the project at 1698 University Ave. nearly three years ago, but the project had fallen into limbo. 

Then Pinole real estate broker Brian Baniqued brought the property, obtained new financing, submitted new designs and sought approval of a modification of the original use permit. 

Known informally as the Tune-Up Masters project because of the auto maintenance business that once occupied the site, the building plans had sparked heated debate at ZAB before they approved it in April 2005. 

After an unsuccessful appeal by neighbors to the City Council was defeated three months later, the project fell into development limbo. 

Beyond the objections of neighbors who worried about the building’s impact on homes on Addison Street to the rear of the site, ZAB members were concerned at learning the city had differing affordable housing requirements for condo projects and apartment buildings. 

Ownership projects were required to set aside 10 percent of units for buyers making 120 percent of the area median income, while apartment builders are required to set aside twice as many. 

In return for providing the affordable units, developers are entitled to density bonuses, allowing them to increase the size of their projects above the maximums that would otherwise apply under city zoning regulations—though just how much has been a bone of contention between city planning staff and some of the citizen commissioners and city councilmembers. 

Concerned, ZAB created a density bonus subcommittee to study the issue and formulate policy recommendations, and the city council later added members from the Planning and Housing Advisory commissions. 

When the subcommittee’s mandate was ended, the matter was handed on to the Planning Commission, which is currently pondering the issue. 

Meanwhile, Pacific Bay Investments, the original developers, sold the property and its already approved development rights to Baniqued. 

The new owner hired Berkeley architect KwanLum Wong to modify the project, in part to address neighborhood noise and privacy concerns. 

“This is a really, really big building for our neighborhood,” said Robin Kibby, an Addison Street resident who had fought the project three years earlier. 

Kibby said she was happy that a roof deck had been pushed back and plantings added to meet privacy concerns, but she was still concerned about traffic and a design she described as “industrial.” 

While committee members said they were concerned about several design issues, Baniqued said that if their concerns threatened to prolong the project, he would simply move forward under the existing permit. 

With his funding commitment about to expire, Baniqued said, he had no other option. 

The committee will still have one more chance to make small modifications—color scheme was one issue—after he takes the project to ZAB for approval of the new permit. 

Posted 1/20—Concord, New Hampshire, Thursday, Jan. 3, 8:30 a.m., 4°F. It’s hard to believe we actually get votes and elect presidents this way—standing on street corners waving signs and yelling, driving miles and walking miles and missing three dozen people, talking to a dozen more who aren’t even slightly interested just so we can talk to one or two people who might possibly, with a lot more coaxing and contact, be persuaded to vote our way.  

It is, after all, the way they really want to vote, the candidate so many say they agree with, but no, they’re going to vote for (fill in name here). We have a hard time understanding that. We’re frustrated about it and talk about it all the time; we come up with responses but no resolution.  

We’re a small, underfunded campaign and there are only eleven of us for this town and the towns around it. We’re vastly outnumbered and months late getting to each person and neighborhood. So how come we’re so excited about doing it? 

I left my house at 2 a.m. yesterday to get a plane to New Hampshire, via Chicago. I’ve only flown three other times since 2001. Before that I had a job that involved charter flights—lots of room and personal attention and few rules. So to me flying is misery now, compounded by my views on living in a police state.  

But the train cost three times as much—a reminder of why I’m supporting the candidate I am. What’s old hat to many is new and annoying to me—seats too close for a laptop or stretch (I’m 5’10”, a statistically average man), too many people to climb over to bother getting up. The seats are perfectly sized to be absolute—well, I was going to say torture, but what’s coming makes me pause.  

I have a choice—sit up straight and let my head loll around hurting my neck as I doze and wake, or hurt my low back by scrunching down so the seat supports my head. I go back and forth so both hurt half as much. When I’m not amusing myself with that I read—The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.  

The first chapter is about how the CIA perverted electroshock, an already perverse method of “therapy”, into torture. With the help of a few psychologists they combined it with all the familiar abuses we’ve been hearing about, into a scientific program to break people. Two of the chief techniques are sleep deprivation and stress positions so I am in an appropriate state to read this. No hallucinations yet but everything about this trip feels a little unreal to me already. 

Friday, Jan. 4, 11°F 

Couldn’t get to my stored winter clothes so before canvassing the first night I bought a hat and gloves. Now when I get smiles talking to people I can’t decide if it’s the funny hat, the hat hair, ice on my beard fellow volunteers call my Mountain Man look, or sheer delight in the democratic process. No, I’m not being sarcastic.  

People—most people—in New Hampshire seem to love this: being first, the “retail politics” of the state, not the media blitzkrieg but the door-to-door neighbor-to-neighbor Norman Rockwell-Frank Capra extraordinary ordinariness of it. Most of them even seem to love us, funny-sounding southern flatlander radicals from California, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey who have come here because we believe in the process, believe our candidate deserves a hearing, and want to help him get it.  

We hold that belief in the way that a child holds the belief, early Christmas morning, that s/he actually will get the pony. That is, we believe in the potential of the process, even though it’s knocked us down and kicked us senseless more times than we can count. We hope that a better-than-expected vote here will lead to coverage which will lead to money which will lead to votes in the next primary and so on, the underdog insurgent everybody agrees with but nobody votes for.  

The hope is held through the week, immovable at first, then rising and falling in response to 12-hour days in the cold, caffeine, blood sugar, excitement from supporters and wannabe supporters “I really like your guy, but he can’t win. I’m voting for __________.” We show people the poll graph—76 percent of the people in our party agree with him most, out of all the candidates running, on the issues.  

The People are unmoved; the circular logic of ‘nobody will vote for him because he can’t win because nobody will vote for him’ is unassailable. Trying to avoid antagonizing, and because he is ‘ the peace candidate’ after all, we restrain our impulses to beat people with our signs and clipboards.  

As we go on, the hope dips lower and lower between the highs, and the highs and high fives are predicated on less and less—one yes instead of ten in a neighborhood, jokes and encouragement among ourselves, the rare media mention of our candidate or an actual issue, a meal that’s not pizza.  

We’re frustrated that we weren’t here six months ago, by the disorganization of the campaign, by the overwhelming odds we face out in the streets, in the media, and at people’s doorways. “Yeah, I love your guy on the issues. I think he’s the best candidate. But I’m voting for ____________.”  

Saturday Jan. 5, 21°F 

So many people are not home when we canvas we’ve been looking forward to getting out on the weekend. Saturday, 40 minutes into a 45 minute drive to Hooksett, neighborhoods divvied up, enthusiasm high again, the phone rings. It’s campaign headquarters; we go back to Concord and then Manchester (via Hooksett) for a spouse’s forum.  

There’s Elizabeth Kucinich—who yes, is gorgeous—and Whitney Gravel. Fifty people are in the audience; maybe 30, I learn as the week goes on, are my candidate’s volunteers and interns. All the other spouses declined or cancelled.  

At least we’re inside. And Elizabeth is smart, informed and articulate—besides, you know, that other thing. The two almost agree on almost everything; all is cordial and civilized. We have lunch in a booth next to Chris (Hardball) Matthews. The televisionless among us (me) have to be told that. 

The congressman has been excluded from the Democratic debate outside Manchester tonight, so we go, he goes, all the volunteers in the state go, and in the medieval/post-Apocalyptic scene, with snow and camera lights and steam rising in the darkness and a dozen different chants going without a pause for hours, we march around chanting “Let him debate!” until we can’t. He does some TV interviews, they have the debates without him, we chant some more and then go home. I write, then read a bit more.  

Klein is talking now about parallels between personal and political shock—neoconservative economics that have destroyed so many countries and the mutually reinforcing military and torture policies pioneered here in the U.S., where they are also now being applied. I’m reminded again why I’m in New Hampshire. 

Sunday Jan. 6, 25°F 

Frustrated desire to actually recruit votes is making some of the volunteers manic. The phone rings: the congressman, his wife and Viggo (Aragorn) Mortensen are coming to Concord. We have four hours to make flyers, distribute them, notify the local media, get two hundred people there, and by the way, clean the office—a jumble of snack food, campaign literature, computer cables and winter clothes. We look outside, see only people carrying Hillary and Obama signs.  

We fan out, we drive to all the video stores in and near town: three chain stores and one little VHS-only independent. I’m reminded again why I’m here. All goes well; “Gondorians for the Congressman” and all the usual signs and balloons on the walls. As the sun sets and cold settles we go out to canvas. The primary is two days off; people are turning off lights when they see us coming.  

The last two days are more of the same: canvassing; corners; events; rising temperature no longer a factor. Almost everyone’s mind is made up.  

We become aware we’re fishing for an ever-tinier segment of the small primary electorate for one party in a small atypical state. The first primary hasn’t even been held and the decision is made already—has been for months, in fact. The miracle we’re hoping for—the pony, is beginning to seem impossible even to us. Is this really how we choose presidents? And the answer, it seems to us, is no.  

The candidates are sorted early into ‘supported by corporate money’ and ‘not’; only a vanishingly narrow range of views is heard, and the longer the race and the polls go on the narrower it gets. The news is about who has more money and who’s ahead in the polls (that ole devil, circular logic again) broken up by the occasional furor over the most foolish and trivial matters possible. Haircuts. Tears.  

It reminds me of an argument I had once about painting a room. It took five minutes to eliminate all colors but one. And then hours to choose between cream, ivory, eggshell, ecru or beige. Turns out it wasn’t about the paint. We broke up and I painted the room her choice—yellowish-ivory. Sunny mornings it was nice. 

Tuesday, Jan. 8, the day of the primary 

We scattered to polling places and stood with signs. I gave up handing out literature—too late and too … profane? ... for this place this day. So I just handed out copies of the Constitution. It was why I was here, after all. And Walt, the guy standing next to me, holding a sign promoting alternative energy. The local Congresswoman left and the sun went down.  

Walt’s wife, sitting in a wheelchair next to him, didn’t speak to me the whole time he and I talked—an hour, I’d guess. She has MS and dementia; he had given up his job and benefits and impoverished them both to take care of her. Just one of her medications costs $3000 a month, he said.  

The house was next; he didn’t know how they were going to live. Across the street were enormous signs for one of the other, tax-cutting candidates. “ I hope this never happens to any of them,” he said. “But you know it would change their tune about government.” 

“I like your guy, though,” he said. I offered a Constitution to someone walking toward the poll; she shook her head and kept going. Who refuses a Constitution? I thought. 

“You going to vote for him?” I asked, feeling stupid and regretful, simultaneously collapsing and bracing for it. “No, I voted for _______. Your guy can’t win.” 

Posted 1/19—While Albany is preparing to take an aggressive stand in opposition to aerial spaying intended to eradicate the light brown apple moth—epiphyas postvitattana—Berkeley has adopted a wait-and-see attitude. 

“We don’t really have enough information,” said Dr. Linda Rudolph, the city’s public health officer. The city will know more after state officials make their presentation to the City Council, rescheduled from Jan. 15 to Feb. 26. 

The state will make a presentation at the Albany City Council meeting this Tuesday. Also on the Albany agenda is a resolution by Mayor Robert Lieber, opposing aerial spraying of the moth. The meeting begins at 8 p.m. at 1000 San Pablo Ave. 

Albany is taking a proactive stance. “We don’t want to wait and have only two weeks advance notice of the spraying,” said Nan Wishner, chair of the Albany Integrated Pest Management Task Force.  

The state had originally planned to spray in the Berkeley area beginning in March, though Steve Lyle, spokesperson for the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), said the state has not determined if or when it will spray in Alameda County. 

In a phone interview Friday, Lyle called the invasion of the moth, a native of Australia, a “significant national threat.” Total eradication is necessary because of the moth’s ability to spread quickly, dining on a variety of some 2,000 host plants, Lyle told the Planet in a phone interview Friday. It could spread to 80 percent of the country, he said. 

The state conducted aerial spraying in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties in the fall. A public outcry followed, with hundreds of people complaining to the CDFA that the spraying had made them ill. Symptoms included asthma attacks, bronchial irritation, coughing, skin rashes, nausea and more. 

Lyle, however, said he had stood with the California Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura beneath the planes as they sprayed and neither suffered adverse effects. 

The process as Lyle described it, is an aerial spraying of synthetic pheromones, which are scents designed to confuse the male moths to keep them from mating.  

When sprayed from the air, the pheromones are contained in microcapsules with other inert ingredients. 

“You can breathe them in and they disintegrate in the lungs,” said Albany Mayor Lieber, a registered nurse. “It’s a public health issue.” 

Paul Schramski of Sacramento-based Pesticide Watch told the Planet Friday that the concern is not with the pheromones themselves, as long as they are used in traps on the ground. In fact, he said he supports their use as part of an integrated pest management process, where the least amount of harmful substances are used.  

The problem is that when the pheromones are delivered through aerial spraying, potentially harmful ingredients including formaldehydes and isocynates are used. 

The inert ingredients “have not been proved safe or effective,” Schramski said. 

“The pesticide mixture is packaged in minute plastic capsules that are inhaled by anyone exposed to the spray,” wrote Wishner in a January 2008 report, “Aerial Pesticide Spraying the East Bay for the LBAM.” 

Speaking to the Planet Friday, Wishner said the state is able to go directly to spraying, rather than using other means such as cleaning up debris by trees and bringing in natural predators and parasites. The CDFA declared a “state of emergency,” which means it does not have to do an Environmental Impact Report, which would show the need for spraying and allow for the public to comment on the issue. 

The city and county of Santa Cruz, among others, are suing the CDFA for failing to do an EIR. The suit is pending. 

“There has been no reported quantifiable damage done by the LBAM in Santa Cruz County,” wrote Daniel Harder, executive director of the Arboretum of UC Santa Cruz, in his expert testimony as part of the Santa Cruz lawsuit. “In other areas of the globe, such as New Zealand, the only real threat LBAM presents is the imposition caused by export regulations for products like apples,” he wrote. 

Lyle, however, said the infestation has the potential of seriously harming California’s grape crop. 

The Albany resolution says, in part, that “aerial and other blanket pesticide applications have repeatedly been shown in the past to upset natural ecosystem balance in unpredictable and often catastrophic ways and … have repeatedly been shown in the past to cause unintended, unpredictable and often serious human health effects.”  

It calls on the state CDFA to protect the health and welfare of the residents of Alameda County and to conduct a long-term study of the health and environmental effects of the aerial sprayings that took place in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. 

The resolution also “supports the introduction and passage of state legislation requiring explicit consent of affected residents before any aerial spraying program can be implemented.” 

A community meeting on the aerial spraying question will be held Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m. at the Center for Environmental Health, 528 61st St., Oakland.  

Faced with some two dozen irate small business owners, the Berkeley City Council reversed itself Tuesday, backing away from a December decision to charge bars, restaurants and liquor stores $467 each year to inspect for  

substandard conditions—graffiti, sidewalk drinking, sales to minors and the like. 

The body also voted to take a new look at a law passed in March making it mandatory for those who serve or sell alcoholic beverages to be certified in alcohol sales. 

At a public hearing on the fees at the Tuesday council meeting, business owners argued that they are not the culprits targeted by the inspection program; the scofflaws are, in fact, nuisance neighborhood liquor stores, they said. 

While the council approved the standards at its Dec. 11 meeting, rules mandate a second reading of the ordinance to become law. The second reading was on the agenda Tuesday. 

A separate item on fees for inspections had been approved in concept by the council in Decem-ber and required the public hearing that was held Tuesday. 

“We’d rather have the problem-makers take the burden,” said Jean Spencer, owner of The Musical Offering café on Ban-croft Way across from the UC Berkeley campus, addressing the council at the public hearing.  

“I support the general idea of standards,” she added. 

Code Enforcement Supervisor Gregory Daniel spoke to the need for standards to create “a level playing field,” so that all business owners know exactly what is expected of them. 

Ralph Adams of the Berkeley Alcohol Policy Advocacy Coali-tion (BAPAC), the community group that has been fighting to curb problems created by alcohol abuse and that helped to write the standards, urged the council to adopt the standards and fees.  

“I’ve dealt with a lot of nuisance behavior in my neighborhood” due to alcohol sales from liquor stores, he said, underscoring that the $467 fee should be affordable to any person whose business is viable. 

Speaking at the hearing, restaurant owners said the proposed fees were inequitable: liquor stores were to be inspected four times annually and restaurants only once—all would pay the $467 fee. Logically, they said, with fewer inspections, they should pay a lesser annual fee. 

Others said there should be a fee differential between small owner-operated stores, for whom beer and wine is a tiny percentage of sales, and large grocery and liquor stores that sell greater quantities of alcohol.  

C.J. McGowen, has owned Berkeley Bait and Tackle on San Pablo Avenue near Bancroft Way for 23 years. He’s at work in his shop from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. most days. Fishing poles dangle from the ceiling of the small shop and fishing hats decorate the walls. Customers come in for worms and hooks, tell stories of the really big one and eye the gear that fills the shelves.  

McGowen also sells soda, bottled water and beer. People come in and buy a six-pack to take with them when they go fishing, he told the Planet in a short interview Wednesday at his shop. 

He told the council Tuesday night that alcohol is just a fraction of his business. He doesn’t sell wine in his shop, he said. 

“This man has a bait and tackle shop. I’m sure he’s going to sell a few cases of beer each week—that the same as Andronico’s?” asked Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, questioning the one-fee-fits-all concept. 

Public speakers also expressed outrage at a law passed last year mandating certification for all those who serve or sell alcoholic beverages. They pointed to a dearth of free classes provided by the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control and the high cost of private training sessions: $30-to-$70 per individual. 

They underscored that the high turnover of part-time restaurant workers means that restaurateurs must pay thousands of dollars annually to certify their workers. 

Daniel, the city code inspection supervisor, told the council that owners can get certified to run the classes and certify their staffs. 

The council voted to put both the standards and fees laws on hold and appointed Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Gordon Wozniak and Darryl Moore to revise the fee schedule and take a new look at the ordinance that mandates certification for those who sell alcohol. The meetings will be noticed and open to the public.  

Photograph by Judith Scherr. 

C.J. McGowen, Berkeley Bait & Tackle owner, sells six or seven cases of beer a week. Under a City Council proposal—now under revision—he would have had to pay the same alcohol inspection fees as large grocers such as Andronico’s.

The mayors of Berkeley, Oakland and Emeryville, along with the UC Berkeley chancellor and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, met under the TV cameras’ glare in early December to unveil the East Bay Green Corridor Part-nership. 

At its meeting Tuesday night, a unanimous Berkeley City Council voted to sign onto the partnership that promises support for green industries and “green collar” jobs. 

For some, the substance of the partnership is unclear: how do its members interpret “green?” what is the structure of the partnership and will the community be able to interact with it?  

The partnership was the last issue before the council Tuesday night. Councilmember Kriss Worthington challenged Mayor Tom Bates, saying he should not have signed the partnership’s statement of principles without first getting City Council ap-proval. Unlike Oakland, which is governed by a “strong mayor,” Berkeley has a council-manager form of government. 

“I think this is very appropriate that this is finally coming to the City Council,” Worthington said. 

“I don’t see that the mayor has the power to sign something like this,” according to the City Charter, he said. “The mayor is a ceremonial figurehead according to the charter.” 

Bates cut off Worthington: “It doesn’t say anywhere that I’m obligating the city to do anything, Kriss.” 

Acting City Attorney Zach Cowan agreed with the mayor, saying that the principles signed by Bates were not binding, therefore the mayor’s signing the statement was not problematic. 

Speaking to the Planet on Thursday, however, Worthington said it was wrong for the mayor to have committed staff to work on an issue without first getting council approval. 

Bates underscored the intent of the partnership: “The idea is that the mayors and their staffs would get together to see how we could leverage funds for jobs in the East Bay to have a workforce available for the jobs of the future,” he said. 

But speakers from the public questioned what the mayor means when he says “green.” 

Merrilie Mitchell pointed out that LBNL Director Steven Chu supports development of nuclear energy, something that has long been controversial in the environmental community.  

Mitchell also asked if the Green Corridor Partnership was going to support BP. UC Berkeley recently entered into a $500 million partnership with the oil giant to develop biofuels, a gasoline substitute questioned by scientists such as UC Berkeley’s Ted Patzek and Ignacio Chapella. 

Amy Beaton, a LBNL employee on leave, dressed up to speak to the council in a BP Bear costume, complete with pompoms.  

She said that when she had first heard of the green corridor partnership, she had envisioned a swath of land in which high school kids would be planting trees—instead, she said she feared it would be supporting projects such as the BP-university deal. 

“I want to remind the City Council that their job is to protect us as citizens,” she said. 

Bernard Marszalek works at the Inkworks printing collective, a union shop that has won awards for its use of green printing methods including soy inks and recycled paper. He spoke to the council representing both Inkworks and West Berkeley Artists and Industrial Companies, making a plea to protect the small businesses in the area. 

“We’re glad the mayors are getting together to talk about creating green jobs—we’re providing green jobs. We can provide a lot more green jobs,” he said. “What we need is … a way of bringing in more businesses that compliment businesses that are in West Berkeley. 

“We need affordable rents; 80 percent of the businesses in West Berkeley rent. What’s protecting those rents? What’s protecting those jobs? The West Berkeley Plan,” Marszalek said, referring to a push by some West Berkeley developers to make changes in the West Berkeley Plan that some say would permit laboratory space where it is currently prohibited. 

“We make a plea for you to talk to people providing green jobs and include them in this,” he said. 

Councilmember Dona Spring supported the public speakers. “The BP deal is very controversial,” Spring said. “We don’t want something that benefits the multinationals. We want to support the grass roots.” 

Worthington tried to formalize inclusion of the community in the East Bay Corridor Partnership process, asking for the participation of the community colleges as equal partners with the mayors, UC and the labs and for meetings to be open to the public.  

But Bates said that he could not speak for the others in the partnership. 

“I can‘t impose on the other cities, the chancellor or the other people,” Bates responded saying there would be one annual open public meeting. “Yesterday, I met with Gavin Newsom and Ron Dellums—am I supposed to follow the Brown Act to meet with the mayors?” 

It is already hard to call a meeting and get all the players there; adding participants would make it even more difficult, he said 

Bates added, however, that, while the partnership now has no formal structure, that could change. “If we receive the grants, then we would have to figure out how we would administer it—we don’t really know.” 

Bates said there have been preliminary conversations with Rep. Barbara Lee on getting federal funds, but assured councilmembers that he would come back to council to get approval for any grants the city may apply for.  

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak lauded Bates’ role in the partnership. “I think our mayor deserves a lot of credit,” he said, arguing against causing the group to become more bureaucratic.  

“This is our opportunity,” he said, pointing out the importance of the Bay Area getting federal green funds. “We want to make sure they don’t end up in Texas,” he said. 

Berkeley city officials turned thumbs down on a request by UC Berkeley officials to build yet another fence surrounding the tree-sitters encamped near Memorial Stadium. 

The university needed city approval because they wanted to build the enclosure—which would have been the third concentric ring of woven wire around the protest site—because part of the fence line would intrude on the city’s right of way along Piedmont Avenue to the west of the site. 

“The university requested the extension based on safety concerns along the sidewalk area,” said Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna. 

“They are very concerned about the safety of the people in the trees as well as the safety of people on the sidewalk being hit by things falling from the trees,” said the city official. 

“Yeah, like Chicken Little,” said Karen Pickett of the university’s contention that measures were needed to protect passing pedestrians from debris from the trees. 

Pickett, of Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters, is a prominent supporter of the protest who has helped organize events at the Grove. 

“If they were really concerned about the health and safety of the tree-sitters, they wouldn’t be denying them food and water,” she said. 

But Dan Mogulof, executive director of the university’s Office of Public Affairs, said that “when we talk about public safety, we talk about the safety of the 30,000-plus students on campus, faculty members and other employees and members of the community. Our concern for the health and safety of the people in the trees isn’t at the top of our list. 

”The people in the trees can’t have it both ways, “ he said. “If they continue to violate the law and court orders, they must be willing to accept the consequences.” 

But Caronna said the city denied the request “because we didn’t see the need for any sidewalk closure, and because we didn’t have the authority to close the sidewalk based on the information we had,” Caronna said. 

The city has jurisdiction over the sidewalk, but has no say over what happens on the adjacent university property—though the city is fighting a court battle challenging the legality of the university’s approval of environmental documents which would pave the way for a slate of building projects in the area. 

The tree-sitters, who first ascended the branches of the grove west of the stadium more than 13 months ago, are demanding that the university relocate the $125 million high tech gym now planned for the site. 

A legal challenge by the city, neighbors on Panoramic Hill and environmentalists contends the UC Board of Regents improperly approved the projects in votes last November and December. 

They contend the Student Athlete High Performance Center—the four-level gym and office complex planned at the grove—violates state law governing construction with 50 feet of an active earthquake fault. 

The stadium sits directly on top of the Hayward Fault, judged by federal geologists as the likely origin of the Bay Area’s next major earthquake. 

The battle over approval of construction of the gym and the broader environmental impact report covering the gym, a large underground parking lot northwest of the gym and a large nearby office and meeting complex joining functions of the university’s law and business schools is currently under consideration by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller.  

Judge Miller must make one key decision before ruling in the case, and that is whether or not to take new expert evidence to help her decide a key issue raised in the legal arguments by both sides. 

The plaintiffs charge that the two buildings are connected, with the gym being an extension of the stadium. The university contends the buildings are separate. 

Stephan Volker, the plaintiff’s attorney representing California Oak Foundation, said the petitioners have argued that the judge should decide the case based on evidence already received. 

Attorneys for both sides made their arguments during a hearing last Friday, with the university supporting the judge and the plaintiffs opposed. The judge promised a quick decision. 

“We’re confident that there’s no basis for the court to reopen the record,” Volker said. But if the judge does seek expert statements, he said “we are confident that we can introduce expert testimony that they are interconnected and interdependent,” he said. 

In December, two months after both sides had rested, Miller ask both sides to present declarations from building code experts to help her decide.  

If she finds the gym to be an extension of the stadium, her ruling would place severe restrictions on the amount of money the university could spend on the project. The Alquist-Priolo Act limits the cost of additions or renovations to buildings within 50 feet of faults to half of the value of the existing structure.  

Just how to establish the value of the aging and ailing stadium is another key question in the case, the university pushing for replacement value for a new up-to-current-code structure, while the plaintiffs are arguing for the appraised resale value of the current structure. 

Mogulof said the university has used the delays caused the legal challenge to explore a variety of options about project construction methods, seismic safety issues and timing—and to address needs of both the public and students who will be using the facility. 

If the judge gives the green light, Mogulof said, “we will be able to begin construction immediately.”

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums flipped the script in his first State of the City address Monday night—as the hip-hoppers like to say—focusing on policy recommendations for the coming year rather than on listing accomplishments for the old, and largely abandoning the rhetorical flourishes for which he is best known, replacing them with a more sober and businesslike recitation of details. 

“We wanted to challenge Oakland to see its destiny as the model city,” Dellums said. “We have been consistent in moving forward to that goal.”  

He closed saying that “I believe we can meet our destiny to be a beacon of light in this state and in this nation.” 

The mayor spoke for an hour and eight minutes without notes. While the overflow crowd of some 800 seated inside at the Marriott Hotel ballroom and several hundred more watching on monitors in the foyer outside interrupted him several times with applause, Monday’s event was nothing like the electric excitement that greeted Dellums’ announcement in early 2007 of his intention to run for mayor, or the enthusiasm that greeted many of his speeches in the spring campaign that followed. 

Instead, the audience listened intently and quietly to their city leader as he devoted the bulk of his speech to Oakland’s most serious and nagging problem: crime and violence. 

“Scores have been murdered and hundreds have been adversely touched by violence and crime in Oakland,” Dellums said, saying it was a fundamental right to be guaranteed by the city for people “to go about their lives in peace, security, and safety.”  

While saying that murders in Oakland are down 15 percent this year from last and overall crime “is at a level pace” during a year when crime in the nation is up 6 percent, Dellums said “that is not enough. When a journalist is killed on the streets of Oakland or a young boy is in the hospital, paralyzed by a shooting, we can take no comfort in that.” 

Responding to the repeated calls from several quarters in Oakland for more police on the streets, Dellums said that “we must commit to join together to do whatever it takes so that at the end of this year, we will have the full [authorized strength of] 803 police officers.” 

The 803 police strength authorization was originally approved by Oakland voters in 2004 in the violence prevention ballot Measure Y during the administration of former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, but difficulties in getting enough recruits through the tough police academy course and offsetting retirements by veteran officers during the last Brown years and the first Dellums year have kept Oakland’s police strength only a little over 700. 

To meet the 803 authorization by the end of the year and to determine how many police Oakland will need, at what cost, in the future, Dellums gave a list of eight specific proposals [see sidebar]. 

The mayor also said that he would soon order all city department heads “to deploy and align their staff” in the same three geographical divisions recently developed by Police Chief Wayne Tucker and to coordinate their efforts with the police under an overall public safety plan, a hint that a promised comprehensive public safety plan that has been worked on by the mayor’s staff for many months may be soon finalized and released to the public. 

But while repeatedly praising the city council for its cooperation in his first year’s work and asking for their help in future projects, Dellums also fired a warning shot across the Council bow to those who might think he had no defense against charges that the lack of full police strength was his fault. 

Saying that “we should have known by 2000” that the retirement of the baby boomer generation of police officers would overwhelm efforts to recruit new police, Dellums said that something should have been done earlier to address that problem. He also said that the low police levels were exacerbated by the 2002-04 police hiring freeze instituted by the Oakland City Council, most of whom still hold their seats. For both events, Dellums said that “I make no judgment. There may have been good reasons for it. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. It wasn’t on my watch.” 

But Dellums said that adding more police was not enough, and that the city “must address the underlying causes of crime and violence.” 

Noting that some 3,000 ex-offenders return to Oakland every year, Dellums said that these persons are responsible for 40 to 50 percent of the crime in the city. “They leave prison with $200 in their pockets” given to them by the state, the mayor said. “When that $200 is gone, where is the next $200 coming from? It’s ‘stick ‘em up.’”  

Dellums said that “we must deal with their problems of re-entry into society, give them a sense of pride, train them, and provide them with the resources necessary.” 

The mayor said that he has already employed an ex-offender re-entry specialist in his office, and said that $200,000 in Measure Y money has been allocated to go to a local institution to retrain ex-offenders for employment. 

In another violence prevention initiative, Dellums said that his request for $575,000 in funding has been authorized by the city council out of Measure Y money to put violence prevention outreach workers in East Oakland, West Oakland, and the Fruitvale in a pilot project to deal with conflict resolution in the troubled streets of those neighborhoods before those conflicts flare up into violence. 

In other policy announcements: 

• The city will be sending out an RFQ “in the next few weeks” for the city’s plans to develop the old Oakland Army Base. Dellums said he hopes the project will eventually bring in $10 million a year in revenue and 10,000 new jobs to the city. 

• Declaring that “people who live in Oakland should have the right to stay in Oakland,” the mayor said he will be presenting his comprehensive housing policy to the city council “in the next couple of weeks” to ensure that “we will not sacrifice the richness and diversity of Oakland.” The council is currently set to discuss two highly controversial affordable housing proposals concerning inclusionary zoning and condominium conversion, and has been waiting for the mayor’s plans to assist in its deliberations. 

• He announced two health care initiatives, one an upcoming three year demonstration public-private collaboration project to eventually put health care clinics in every high school and middle school in Oakland, the second to collaborate with the Peralta Community College District to put health clinics—with community access available—in every Peralta campus. 

• He has committed $350,000 in city money for an ultimate $1 million “Green Corps” project to train low income Oakland residents for entry into the area’s growing green industry. 

Dellums’ first State of the City address was a marked departure from the practice of past mayors. While former Mayor Jerry Brown gave his major State of the City speech annually to a breakfast meeting of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which the Oakland public could attend by paying a $50 fee to the chamber, Dellums chose to give his speech at an evening event which the public could attend for free. Dellums, as was Brown’s practice, gave a shortened followup address to Oakland City Council on Tuesday night. 

[The mayor’s State of the City speech can be heard online at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kalw/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1212138. The mayor’s accomplishments during 2007 were listed in a 24-page booklet handed out at the address and available for download at the mayor’s website at http://www.mayorrondellums.org/.]

Brandishing posters, placards and signs at the Berkeley Board of Education meeting Wednesday, more than 30 Berkeley High School teachers urged board members to construct the new classrooms approved for the high school by August. 

The board approved a $2 million project on Jan. 9 to create four new classrooms through remodeling and to buy six portables in order to add 10 classroom spaces. 

The lack of space at Berkeley High has compelled its teachers to hold classes inside the Washington Elementary School portables and in the Community Theater lobby. 

“We have reached a critical situation for space at Berkeley High,” said district spokesperson Mark Coplan, who explain-ed that recent voter-mandated reductions in class sizes have meant an expansion of classes. “The trade-off for having smaller class sizes meant we would have a lack of space,” he said. 

According to a survey conducted by the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) in 2007, 70 percent of Berkeley High teachers not connected to a small-school program either shared a classroom or moved around from room to room. 

“They take their belongings in a cart and move along,” said BFT President Cathy Campbell. “It’s really hard getting from one class to the other. It’s hard to be on time and hard to get the room arranged and hard for the students to find their teachers. You can’t think and plan and analyze properly. Most teachers are doing that work at home, and for a lot of us with families, it’s not the best plan.” 

Campbell said that it was important to have the new spaces ready by mid-August. 

“Beginning of the school year is such a critical time,” she said. “We’d prefer to have the students in the new classrooms by fall rather than have them change rooms in January or February.” 

Dozens of children attending Hasmig Minassian’s freshman seminar class in the Washington Elementary portables wrote letters to board members asking them to provide teachers with their own rooms. 

“Our teacher never stays after class to answer our questions,” wrote freshman Michelle Casimiro. “We don’t know where she is if we have something important to ask her.” 

Others complained about not being able to post their work on any classroom wall. 

“For students these spaces will mean that when they enter their classroom their teacher will be there, greeting them at the door, calm and ready to use every possible instructional minute to its fullest potential,” said Shannon Erby, who has taught at Berkeley High for three years.  

“The homework will be written on the board and the desks will be preconfigured to support the lesson,” she said. “Baskets of extra handouts and clear places to turn in homework will be available. Student work and visual resources will adorn the walls, and the entire whiteboard at the front of the room will be available to support visual learners.” 

Erby added that more classrooms would improve student achievement, strengthen student-teacher relationships and assist in teacher retention. 

“I am one of Berkeley’s finest teachers, but I don’t need a classroom ... I have this,” Berkeley High teacher Tim Mullering said, exhibiting a black marker to the school board. “We could have a class in the park, in the steps of the Community Theatre or in the warm pool ... But it’s very difficult for my students. I volunteered to write letters of recommendation for 40 of them and they had a tough time looking for me.” 

“As a teacher it’s really hard to be taken seriously by your kids when you don’t have your own space,” said Jordan Winer, who teaches drama at the high school. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence—who will retire Feb. 2—informed the teachers that it would be difficult to have the spaces available before next spring. 

Lawrence will be replaced by Bill Huyett, who until recently served as superintendent of the Lodi Unified School District. 

“At least three rooms will be ready for use in September,” Lawrence said. “It will be tough to get it all done by August, even if we pull out all the stops.” 

Lawrence reminded the group that the portables were more of a temporary solution to the space problem and that the district hoped to build permanent classrooms after demolishing the Old Gym. 

“The issue about overcrowding really needs to be heard by the community,” she said. “Some momentum will help us get through the issues of licensing and the environmental impact report.” 

Lawrence reported that the lawsuit by Friends Protecting Berkeley’s Resources to block the demolition of the old gym and warm pool was delaying the plans for the proposed three-story classroom building from moving ahead. 

According to a report submitted to the school board by district’s facilities director Lew Jones last week, Berkeley High doesn’t have enough space for its 3,172 students, and the crunch will only increase as the student body is projected to keep growing until 2011. The report also states that the school currently has 114 available classrooms, as opposed to the need for 128 regular education classroom. 

The 10 new classroooms, which would supplement the four Washington Elementary portables, include recapturing one space from Berkeley Community Media, dividing three larger rooms and adding six classroom portables and a restroom portable. 

Although the Berkeley High administration have identified the school’s softball field as the best location for these buildings, nothing definite has been decided yet.

Rebuilding Berkeley’s therapeutic warm pool hit troubled waters Tuesday, when a City Council majority balked at expressing its intent to place a bond measure for the pool on the November ballot without first having details on operational costs. 

Several councilmembers indicated, as well, that they wanted to wait until all the possible bond measures—which could include taxes for sewers and storm drains and for police and fire—were before them to decide which to place on the ballot. 

“There are many needs in the city,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “We have trouble keeping the other pools open.” 

Wozniak pointed out that four years earlier proposed taxes went down to defeat because of the number of them on the ballot. “I haven’t heard what the competing things are,” he said. 

Councilmember Dona Spring said she was anxious to get council approval for the $15 million bond to go before the voters. “We really need to go forward putting this on the ballot; we need to start working on a campaign that will pass this measure,” she said, urging her council colleagues to vote their intent to put the measure on the ballot and at the same time allow the city manager until Feb. 12 to finalize cost estimates. 

In 2000, Berkeley voters passed a $3.25 million bond measure to refurbish the warm pool at Berkeley High. The pool is used primarily by disabled people and seniors. Subsequently, the school district decided to demolish the warm pool at its current location. After discussions with the city, the school board approved dedicated space in its Master Plan on a former tennis court east of Milvia Street for a new warm pool. 

The estimated $15 million project would cost taxpayers about $5.59 per $100,000 of assessed property value annually. 

City manager Phil Kamlarz told council that another wrinkle in the project is that the school district’s Surplus Site Committee first has to declare the site as surplus, which won’t happen for a number of months. 

But district spokesperson Mark Coplan, speaking to the Daily Planet on Wednesday, said that, while it’s true that the committee needs to formally surplus the site, the school master plan clearly states that a former tennis court east of Milvia is dedicated to the warm pool.  

He added that the school board has clearly recommended siting the warm pool there and that the board, not the committee, has the final word on the question.  

Wozniak added another concern: Operational costs cannot be estimated without a study of the demand for a warm pool, he said. “We have no idea where operating funds are going to come from,” he told the council, further pointing out that 40 percent of those who use the pool come from outside the city.  

“If there’s not a contribution from other cities, I’m going to be hard pressed to go to Berkeley voters saying ‘Gee, cough up $15 million and we’re going to be letting all these other people use it free,’” he said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, however, said the responsible thing for the council to do is to express its intent to place the question before the voters, particularly because the voters already showed support for the pool in 2000 by authorizing funding for refurbishment.  

Seeing that only Worthington supported her recommendation to place the measure on the ballot, Spring withdrew her motion, saying that she was willing to wait until Feb. 12 when the city manager would have more detailed information. 

The council needs to be clear and demonstrate that they will support a warm pool, she said. “If they don’t, then don’t just string [the public] along any more,” she said. “People have to decide whether they want to go ahead with it or kill it.” 

In other city business, the council unanimously approved easing building code restrictions on retrofit work for soft story and brick buildings, placing the Patient’s Access to Medical Cannabis Act on the November ballot (the courts ordered it resubmitted to voters after 2004 problems in a recount, because the county did not retain some ballots), and approved enhanced controls over the city’s taxi script program for low-income seniors and disabled people. 

Last month, Berkeley lost one of the individuals who make Berkeley Berkeley. Robert “Bob” (to some) Kinzie Ewing passed on to the great atheistic beyond. He was 75. A Berkeley resident since 1957, Robert spent a quarter century among the “old men” at Peet’s on Vine and on “The Bench” at Fat Apples debating the Constitution, the press and human rights.  

Robert carried the banner of social democracy all his life, whether he referred to it as Marxist, Socialist, or even the Democratic Party. His politics were rooted in his personal history. Born in Hope, Ark. in 1932 and orphaned as an infant, Robert was raised in Jackson, Tenn. by his grandmother and his maternal aunt. At college in Knoxville, Tenn., a philosophy class inspired him to leave his Methodist upbringing in favor of more radical politics. He moved to California and never looked back.  

In true Socialist style, he dropped out of Boalt Hall School of Law and labored as an EBMUD meter reader for 27 years, and was a strong voice for the union. For Robert, politics were personal, and inadequately understood by most of his fellow humans. He felt we all paid too much attention to labels and not enough to content. A tall spitfire of a man, he was instantly recognized also by the duct tape obscuring any brand name or logo on his clothing, hat or belongings.  

Robert’s charm was empathy and keen observation of the human condition, and it transcended all social barriers. He connected with people of every race, class, age and occupation. He cared enormously about family—his own four children, and yours, too. He remembered names, personal stories and life issues, and held personal struggle in high regard. Everyone was important. No one can know how much of this was his Tennessee upbringing or simply his personality, but he certainly had more than his share of what might be called “Southern Charm.” He was tall and handsome and could be quite a flirt (as well as the recipient of same). 

Robert was a powerful presence. We who had the privilege of his company give thanks for having known him. 

A memorial will be held this Sunday at the Live Oak Park community center, at 1 p.m. for those who wish to share stories of Robert.  

Several of Robert’s family members contributed to this article. 

Posted 1/17—Brandishing posters, placards and signs at the Berkeley Board of Education meeting Wednesday, more than 30 Berkeley High School teachers urged board members to construct the new classrooms approved for the high school by August. 

The board approved a $2 million project on Jan. 9 to create four new classrooms through remodeling and to buy six portables in order to add 10 classroom spaces. 

The lack of space at Berkeley High has compelled its teachers to hold classes inside the Washington Elementary School portables and in the Community Theater lobby. 

“We have reached a critical situation for space at Berkeley High,” said district spokesperson Mark Coplan, who explained that recent voter mandated reductions in class sizes have meant an expansion of classes. “The trade-off for having smaller class sizes meant we would have a lack of space,” he said. 

According to a survey conducted by the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) in 2007, 70 percent of Berkeley High teachers not connected to a small school program either shared a classroom or moved around from room to room. 

“They take their belongings in a cart and move along,” said BFT President Cathy Campbell. “It’s really hard getting from one class to the other. It’s hard to be on time and hard to get the room arranged and hard for the students to find their teachers. You can’t think and plan and analyze properly. Most teachers are doing that work at home, and for a lot of us with families, it’s not the best plan.” 

Campbell said that it was important to have the new spaces ready by mid-August. 

“Beginning of the school year is such a critical time,” she said. “We’d prefer to have the students in the new classrooms by fall rather than have them change rooms in January or February.” 

Dozens of children attending Hasmig Minassian’s freshman seminar class in the Washington Elementary portables wrote letters to board members asking them to provide teachers with their own rooms. 

“Our teacher never stays after class to answer our questions,” wrote freshman Michelle Casimiro. “We don’t know where she is if we have something important to ask her.” 

Others complained about not being able to post their work on any classroom wall. 

“For students these spaces will mean that when they enter their classroom their teacher will be there, greeting them at the door, calm and ready to use every possible instructional minute to its fullest potential,” said Shannon Erby, who has taught at Berkeley High for three years.  

“The homework will be written on the board and the desks will be preconfigured to support the lesson,” she said. “Baskets of extra handouts and clear places to turn in homework will be available. Student work and visual resources will adorn the walls, and the entire whiteboard at the front of the room will be available to support visual learners.” 

Erby added that more classrooms would improve student achievement, strengthen student-teacher relationships and assist in teacher retention. 

“I am one of Berkeley’s finest teachers, but I don’t need a classroom ... I have this,” Berkeley High teacher Tim Mullering said, exhibiting a black marker to the school board. “We could have a class in the park, in the steps of the Community Theatre or in the warm pool ... But it’s very difficult for my students. I volunteered to write letters of recommendation for 40 of them and they had a tough time looking for me.” 

“As a teacher it’s really hard to be taken seriously by your kids when you don’t have your own space,” said Jordan Winer, who teaches drama at the high school. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence—who will retire Feb. 2—informed the teachers that it would be difficult to have the spaces available before next spring. 

Lawrence will be replaced by Bill Huyett, who until recently served as superintendent of the Lodi Unified School District. 

“At least three rooms will be ready for use in September,” Lawrence said. “It will be tough to get it all done by August, even if we pull all the stops.” 

Lawrence reminded the group that the portables were more of a temporary solution to the space problem and that the district hoped to build permanent classrooms after demolishing the Old Gym. 

“The issue about overcrowding really needs to be heard by the community,” she said. “Some momentum will help us get through the issues of licensing and the environmental impact report.” 

Lawrence reported that the lawsuit by Friends Protecting Berkeley’s Resources to block the demolition of the old gym and warm pool was delaying the plans for the proposed three-story classroom building from moving ahead. 

According to a report submitted to the school board by district’s facilities director Lew Jones last week, Berkeley High doesn’t have enough space for its 3,172 students, and the crunch will only increase as the student body is projected to keep growing until 2011. The report also states that the school currently has 114 available classrooms, as opposed to the need for 128 regular education classroom. 

The 10 new classroooms, which would supplement the four Washington Elementary portables, include recapturing one space from Berkeley Community Media, dividing three larger rooms and adding six classroom portables and a restroom portable. 

Although the Berkeley High administration have identified the school’s softball field as the best location for these buildings, nothing definite has been decided yet.

Posted 1/16/08—For many years the Bay Area-based Sunset Magazine, self-described “magazine of Western living,” has been sponsoring “idea houses” in partnership with builders and manufacturers. 

Ranging from subdivision homes to country retreats, these structures are temporarily opened to the public to showcase their design concepts and fixtures.  

It’s a bit like a decorator show house, but with the architecture and building systems promoted as much as the décor. 

The latest Sunset project is in San Francisco’s Mission District. It’s their first Idea House on a solidly urban site, and incorporates a mass of “green” features and materials from a power-generating wind turbine to sustainably harvested wood paneling. 

Sunset’s literature describes it as “one of the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified residential remodels in the nation.” 

The curious can tour it for $20 per adult this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as Jan. 25, 26, and 27, after which it closes to the public for good.  

The house—not owned by Sunset—was originally scheduled to premier in August 2007 and close in October, but didn’t open until late November, accompanied by a cloud of rumor and speculation that’s detailed, denied, and discussed on local real estate blogs. 

The building has two units. The smaller one is described as 1,229 square feet. Sunset’s literature doesn’t give the size of the main house, but some on-line sources say it’s 3,600 square feet. 

Surrounding buildings are a mix of Victorian and Edwardian houses and apartment structures, some intact, others remodeled. 

The Idea House, on a corner lot, is resolutely modernist, an asymmetrically angular structure in trendy green hues, designed by San Francisco architect John Lum. 

It’s supposedly “transformed from a 1908 commercial structure,” but I couldn’t spot a visible stick or shred of anything earlier than the 21st century from the site. 

Let’s go inside and take a look. 

The saying “your home is your castle” certainly applies here. A barbarian with a battering train would find it hard to penetrate the fortress-like main entry where two enormous metal doors sandwich a vestibule.  

The ground floor of the main unit is dominated by one of those “endless swimming pools” in which a current allows you to swim in place, along with a sauna, spa room, and half-bath. 

The second floor contains the private living quarters, bisected lengthwise by the stair atrium and a walnut-walled corridor. A guest room and bath, children’s bedroom, and spaces described as “craft room” and children’s “powder room” line up along the street side. 

The craft room has a striking bay window at the corner of the house, with northwest views and a built-in window seat below a light sculpture. The opposite wall is a rather impressive sculptural composition made up of scores of wood scraps left over from the hallway paneling. 

Across the hall a laundry room connects through to the master closet, as big as the guest bedroom. The master bedroom has two floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the interior courtyard, and is divided from the adjacent master bath by an interesting pass-through storage wall. 

The bath features a walk-in glass-walled shower, opaque glass wall facing south, and sculptural concrete counter and sink. 

Rising through the building core, the main staircase emerges in the center of the top floor. Although the floor plate here is smaller than the lower levels, the space seems large since there are no partition walls, except those enclosing a half-bath tucked in a corner. 

A glass bridge across the stairwell allows uninterrupted circulation around the perimeter. An “L” shaped kitchen with a long, concrete-topped island, a dining area, lounge area and an adjacent sitting area and wet bar occupy the four quadrants. 

A wrap around outdoor terrace surrounds much of this level and also provides a visual setback from the street below and buildings across the street. Huge doors (both solid wood, and sliding glass) and window-walls that fold back allow much of the floor to be opened up to the exterior. 

The roof sports plantings, photovoltaics, and solar water heaters. 

This top floor has a very comfortable feel with extensive views, lots of light and air, and ample outdoor space. We were there on a not-too-warm January day but it was quite mild inside, even with some of the window walls open. 

(Unfortunately, what a docent cited as “liability concerns” exclude visitors from the terrace. You can only peer through the windows at the outdoor spaces on this level). 

The main unit is filled with built-in and customized storage spaces. An unobtrusive elevator flanks a light well. The central stair is both functional and sculptural, with layered glass treads, glass landings, and balusters made out of tautly angled cables. 

The main unit has a ground level patio in the southeast corner of the lot with plantings, pavers, patio, and an “L” shaped pond. The metal column of the wind turbine rises from one corner. 

There’s a sculptural tower of succulents and strawberries, a recycled plastic deck, and that must-have feature of all Sunset projects, an outdoor “barbecue bar” with the heft and presence of a jet engine. 

Floor to ceiling windows and glass doors divide the patio from the indoor pool. A two-car garage, a mechanical room the size of some studio apartments, and a second exit to the street complete the patio perimeter. 

Sunk beneath the patio are water storage/collection tanks, fed by an artistic “rain chain” that drains the roof. 

In the corner behind the wind turbine two steel beams project from the wall, presumably supports for a future switchback outdoor staircase that the floor plans show descending from the third floor terrace to ground level. 

The smaller second unit, with its own street entrance, hugs the western street side of the building. The ground floor has a master bedroom with no exterior windows, a gigantic master bath, a much more modest second bath, and two spaces—one with a modern murphy bed unit—that can be partitioned off from the circulation core by huge wooden doors that roll on tracks. 

There are no conventional windows on this level, only thick, opaque, glass walls along the sidewalk. A narrow planting verge between building and sidewalk is filled with bamboo for a second layer of privacy screening. 

The upstairs level of the unit has a laundry closet, half-bath, open kitchen/dining/living area, and a nice outdoor patio on the roof of the garage. 

In this unit, look above the stairs for the fascinating photovoltaic sculpture/fan by Mark Malmberg that animates itself, and the small planted “green wall” facing the street from the roof deck. 

I left with these impressions.  

First, the pluses:  

• The really livable open third floor of the main residence and the intelligent approach of putting the “living” areas on top and the bedrooms on the middle level. 

• A good effort to provide functional and pleasant roof terraces; there should be more of these in San Francisco, with its many flat roofs. 

• Solar systems for hot water heating and power. The jury is out on the urban advisability of the wind turbine. It wasn’t moving during our visit, but both a Sunset employee and a neighbor commented it was pretty audible when spinning. 

• The water systems that make extensive use of rainwater and gray water, and also help reduce storm and sanitary sewer runoff. 

• Lots of storage spaces, some too modern for my taste, but cleverly designed and fitted in throughout the building. 

The Minus:  

• Excess. Does any individual Bay Area home really need a luxury kitchen plus a built-in cooking station in the garden, elaborate suites for children, bedroom sized closets, three refrigerators, two bars, two dishwashers, seven sinks, and its own sauna, spa, and indoor swimming pool? 

This house incorporates so many high-end appliances, fixtures, finishes, and design features that it’s improbable the average homeowner could afford to replicate them, at least in this quantity, quality, and combination. 

In the second unit bathroom, for instance, a docent said that the alluring Lumicor divider panels made of “architectural resin” and encasing thousands of tiny pieces of bamboo, cost $13,000. To me, that’s eco-porn. 

This isn’t light or simple living. It’s luxuriousness, albeit with a smaller carbon footprint than a conventional McMansion would generate. 

Such an outcome is to be expected from a project where numerous manufacturers and appliance suppliers want to showcase their wares, but it doesn’t make the result any less unsettling. 

There’s also the size of the main unit. “Faux Density,” was the reaction of the designer who accompanied me. This is not the “smart growth” that urbanization advocates idealize; it’s suburban size in an urban shell. 

The development is lower density than most of the surrounding neighborhood. Each floor of the main residence alone has enough square footage to be a comfortably sized apartment or condo unit.  

There’s also a huge amount of technical complexity. It’s a “green” house where most of the window coverings appear to be moveable only with electric motors, where hundreds of cables coil within closets and cabinets, and where the “mechanical room” is the size of a small garage and sports more fixtures, pipes, and motors than some research wet labs. 

I counted more than 80 separate cables bundled in the back of one closet alone. Presumably a corps of service and repair technicians will be needed in future years until that inevitable day when someone says “can’t get parts for this old thing anymore,” and it all has to be taken out and redesigned. 

Maybe some day Sunset will sponsor an urban home that’s functional, modest, and enduring. Now that’s an Idea! 

IF YOU GO... 

The Sunset Idea House is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. the next two weekends only, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, through Jan. 27. 

Sunset doesn’t publicize the street address, and encourages visitors to park or gather at the San Francisco General Hospital parking garage (2500 24th St.) and catch a free shuttle to the Mission District house. The last shuttle leaves the garage at 3:15 p.m. 

Visit the Sunset website www.sunset.com or call their recorded information line, 1-800-786-7375 for official details. 

$20 per person at the door of the main unit. $15 for seniors on Friday, no children under the age of 10. 

There are docents throughout and lots of wall labels describing spaces and features. 

Each visitor gets a glossy brochure that’s part description, part product advertising. The back of the brochure has useful floor plans that are slightly different from the as-built structure. 

A stop in the garage will yield a hefty armload of free product materials, brochures, and advertising for all of the various manufacturers and others partnering on the project. 

The house is not wheelchair accessible. Improbably, there are three concrete steps from the front door to the interior elevator. 

Posted 1/16/08—Faced with some two dozen upset small business owners, the Berkeley City Council reversed itself Tuesday, backing away from a December decision to charge bars, restaurants and liquor stores $467 each year to inspect for substandard conditions such as graffiti, sidewalk drinking, sales to minors and the like. 

The body also voted to take a new look at a law passed last year making it mandatory for those who serve or sell alcoholic beverages to be certified in alcohol sales. 

Restaurant owners argued that they were not the culprits targeted by the inspection program; scofflaws were in fact neighborhood liquor stores, they said. 

The council had approved the standards at its Dec. 11 meeting; but a second reading of the ordinance, before the council Tuesday night, was required for the measure to become law. A separate item on fees had been approved in concept by the council in December and required the public hearing that was held by the council Tuesday. 

“We’d rather have the problem-makers take the burden,” said Jean Spencer, owner of The Musical Offering café on Bancroft Way, addressing the council. 

Code Enforcement Supervisor Gregory Daniel spoke to the need for the standards, which the council put on hold until the question of fees for inspections is determined: “Now we have a level playing field” with standards spelled out, he said. 

Ralph Adams of the Berkeley Alcohol Policy Advocacy Coalition (BAPAC) urged the council to adopt the standards and fees. “I’ve dealt with a lot of nuisance behavior in my neighborhood” due to alcohol sales from liquor stores, he said, adding that the $467 fee should be affordable to a person whose business is viable. 

Speaking at the hearing, restaurant owners said the proposed fees were inequitable: liquor stores were to be inspected four times annually and restaurants only once— for the same $467 fee. Logically, they said, with fewer inspections, they should pay a lesser annual fee. 

Others said there should be a fee differential between small store owners, for whom beer and wine is a tiny percentage of sales, and large grocery and liquor stores that sell greater quantities of alcohol.  

Speakers also expressed outrage at a law passed last year mandating certification for all those who serve or sell alcoholic beverages. They pointed to a dearth of free classes provided by ABC (California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control) and the high cost of private classes—$30-to-$70 per individual. They underscored that the high turnover of part-time restaurant workers meant that restaurant owners would be paying thousands of dollars annually to have workers certified. 

The council voted to put the standards and fees laws on hold and appointed Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Gordon Wozniak and Darryl Moore to revise the fee schedule and take a new look at the ordinance that mandates certification for those who sell alcohol. 

Between November and April each year, as California newts migrate in large numbers across South Park Drive in Tilden Park, the road is closed to motor vehicles. As if on cue, these small brown and orange amphibians emerge from their summer homes and strut clumsily along the roadway.  

They are joined in this winter celebration by locals and their dogs who stroll on the suddenly quietened artery of Tilden. This is one of the jewels to be found in the East Bay, where off-leash joy is plentiful.  

Trails, normally accessible only by car, branch off the main road and access all other parts of this amazing park system. I walk silently with my dogs, past a rushing creek, and out into a clearing where redwoods and fir trees tap the sky and hawks circle hungrily overhead. It is possible to imagine I am anywhere but here in the increasingly frenetic Bay Area. Of all the hundreds of ways to indulge my love for my four-legged companions, it is the shared experience of damp air and green hills, the crunch of gravel underfoot as I hike miles of open trails with my dogs by my side that is the richest of them all. 

Among all the ‘Tree-Hugging’, ‘Hate Bush’, ‘Peace’ and ‘Rainbow’ bumper stickers adorning Berkeley’s cars, a locally grown one, in simple white type on a black background, has become the catch-phrase for canine crazy humans across America: ‘Dog Is My Co-Pilot’ encapsulates the deep devotion of contemporary pet ownership—or guardianship. BARK magazine, dedicated to ‘canine culture’ is distributed nationally but is as iconic a Berkeley institution as Chez Panisse or KPFA—the synthesis of a lifestyle and progressive philosophy.  

But open almost any publication, from Fortune Magazine to The New York Times, or watch a movie—from Jodie Foster’s recent ‘The Brave One’ to ‘The Game Plan’ with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and become aware of how pets have morphed from family companion to family member. Visit online community sites and see how many dogs have their own MySpace pages. Get a date online and find out that your relationship with dogs and cats is likely to be an important part of the get-to-know-you process. Divorce lawyers are catching on to the importance of pet custody issues among separating ‘boomers’. It’s easy to understand why the pet business is now a $40 billion a year industry. 

There are organic diets, raw diets, and diets for specific breeds; homeopathic vets, holistic vets, opthamologists & endocrinologists for our animals; dog biscuit bakeries and cat B&B’s where Horatio and Alger can stretch out in a ‘condo’ or be allowed uncaged time if they agree not to spray on the cat toys in the wicker basket; Honda promotes their easy to clean ‘dog suitable’ vehicle in local canine publications with names like FETCH and Bay Woof, and pet photographers are booked months ahead.  

You can spend more on a designer collar than for a great meal, and that couture dog bed may cost more than a plane ticket to visit your aging mother in New Jersey.  

Invite a behaviorist into your home to find out why Trixie pouts when she can’t watch Animal Planet from the sofa, and fill your bookshelves with the torrents of new books gushing about the ‘special bond’ between dogs and humans. Scores of bored professionals have re-invented themselves as ‘animal professionals.”  

There are dog trainers, schools to train dog trainers, academies to train dog walkers and a dog walking company which loads photos onto Flickr—in real time—so that while you’re at your desk in San Mateo, making the kind of money you’ll need to pay for all the above, you can see that Max or Cody are getting nice and muddy in the park. Or that your cat is getting petted—as requested and paid for. 

It is, in short, an industry tailormade for the kind of lifestyle indulgence we do so well in the Bay Area. If you’re new to the area: welcome—we speak dog and cat here (and iguana at the amazing Vivarium on 5th Street).  

But wait. Isn’t this supposed to be the heart of the anti-corporate world of conspicuous consumption and consumerism? 

When all is said and done, the fiercest pleasures shared with our four-legged companions are those simple ones that cost us nothing, or next to nothing at all. And Berkeley and the surrounding area will give you enough moments of exquisite peace with your dog(s), it will make all the frustrations of living in the capital of political correctness seep away—if only temporarily.  

If you haven’t got a dog or cat yet, but you have signed a lease with a pet friendly landlord, head down to the animal shelter with the lowest euthanasia rate in all of California—Berkeley Animal Care Services on 2nd Street. And if you want to take a pit bull or mix into your heart, a range of training options are available from pioneering advocacy group BadRap.  

If you don’t find a companion there, your choice of local agencies to adopt from includes the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society on Carlton Street or one of the many animal welfare groups who host mobile adoptions across the East Bay including Home At Last, The Milo Foundation, Hopalong Animal Rescue and breed specific groups like Greyhound Rescue. If a cat or dog seems too ambitious, the House Rabbit Society can provide you with, well, a rabbit. 

While the East Bay Regional Parks offer hundreds of miles of off leash trails in cities from Fremont to Pinole, including the dedicated dog park, Point Isabel with its own dog washing facility Mudpuppies, other enclosed parks and recreation areas provide different forms of dog activity, notably the new small dog exercise areas in Mosswood Park in Oakland and in Alameda.  

Local waterfront parks are renowned (though some of us chafe at encroaching limitations on access) and my favorite remains the hotly contested Albany Waterfront Park (known affectionately as the Landfill), where local artist and civil rights lawyer Osha Neumann still ventures to create some of the best and most exciting outsider art, including a stunning wooden sculpture of a dog, made from found materials.  

Great dog parks? Best pet store? Cheapest pet food? Friendliest neighborhood? Bars with outdoor patios where you can take your dog? Best place to adopt or ‘rescue’ a pet? Whatever your vote is—until Berkeley becomes like everywhere else, this is a great place to own or be a guardian to a pet. One more reason to fight the forces of conformity! 

WHERE TO . . . 

Get information:  

Local dog paper Fetch and Bay Woof are available at most vets and pet stores and list information and services, as well as a comprehensive list of area municipal and non-profit animal shelters. 

Have fun with your dog: 

There are wonderful parks all over the area. Here are some of my favorites. Always observe the ‘pick up poop’ rules, and leash your dog where posted. 

• Lake Anza /Tilden Park.  

• South Park Drive (between November and April) /Park at the Wildcat Canyon Rd end/ Tilden Park 

• Albany Bulb and Plateau, Buchanan St. exit off I-80 / Albany 

• Roberts Regional Park/ Skyline Blvd/ Oakland 

• UC Berkeley Strawberry Canyon Fire Trail/ access off Centennial Way or Grizzly Peak/ Berkeley 

• Point Richmond Hills /east of Miller Knox Regional Park/ Point Richmond 

Find enclosed dog runs: 

Most public parks allow dogs but usually only on leash. 

The following allow off leash dogs in an enclosed run area. 

• Ohlone Dog Park/ Hearst & MLK Jr Way/Berkeley 

• Mosswood Dog Run & Small Dog Park/ MacArthur & Webster/ Oakland 

• Crown Beach Park (no beach access)/ 8th & Otis/ Alameda 

Find pet food and basics: 

• Alpha Pet Supply, 960 San Pablo Ave., Albany  

• Animal Farm, 1531 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley 

Find small stores with knowledgeable staff who know their stuff, and both have a loyal fan base: 

• Paws and Claws 2023 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland 

• Natural Food Store and BathHouse has become a valuable resource for 

local pet owners 

• Your Basic Bird, 2940 College Ave., Berkeley. The name says it—this is a favorite haunt for anyone who needs great advice on birds. They also show cats for adoption! 

• Pet Food Express. A bit corporate, but a local company and they support local animal welfare groups with Love My Mutt photo program which you can enjoy when you pass their window displays. 

Pet Boutiques: 

Each of these stores has a unique feel—one thing they have in common—you will meet other dog fanatics who will give you more advice on how to enjoy your dog in this area! And they all support animal welfare organizations. 

• Dog Bone Alley, 1342 Park St., Alameda  

• Holistic Hound, 1510 Walnut St., Berkeley 

• George, 1844 4th St., Berkeley 

• RedHound, 5523 College Ave., Oakland 

Favorite places to eat or drink with your dog: 

This isn’t Europe that’s for sure—where dogs sit right by your side in many restaurants, bars or pubs. But many places locally have outdoor spaces where your canine pal can hang with you. Some personal favorites: 

• The Pasta Store / Tacubaya /Café Rouge / Peet’s Fourth Street Shopping area, Berkeley, where you can sit at one of the outdoor tables that serve all these businesses, with your dogs.  

• Kitty’s, 6702 Hollis St., Emeryville. A hipster bar that made this 50 something feel welcome with my two dogs for a cold beer on the patio on a warm evening  

• Town House Bar & Grill, 5862 Doyle St., Emeryville. A good lunch spot or dinner spot with your leashed dog on the outdoor patio 

Photograph by Jill Posener. 

Dogs and their caretakers at the Albany Bulb.

The corridor that stretches from Oakland to Richmond could become a vibrant, green version of Silicon Valley, attracting venture capital and federal dollars to support green industry and green jobs. 

The mayors of Richmond, Emeryville, Oakland and Berkeley got together with the chancellor of UC Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and unveiled that vision for the East Bay Green Corridor at a press conference in December. 

At tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting, Mayor Tom Bates is asking the council to sign on formally to become part of the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership and to authorize the partnership to request federal funds for “green collar” job development. 

Still, at least one councilmember is asking what the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership is, whether the group will meet in public and how its decisions will be made. 

The council meeting begins at 7 p.m. Other items to be discussed include putting the warm pool and access to medical marijuana on the November ballot, making it easier to retrofit soft story buildings, and fees for alcohol outlet inspection programs. 

There was to have been a 5 p.m. workshop on the Department of Food and Agriculture’s plan to conduct aerial spraying over Berkeley and surrounding areas to eradicate a recent infestation of the Light Brown Apple Moth. However, the department asked for a postponement to allow them time to further review data and to formulate recommendations for action.  

“We have been assured that no aerial spraying will be scheduled until local review and community engagement processes have been completed,” Deputy City Manger Lisa Caronna wrote the council.  

Green corridor 

The mayor surprised even the city’s Energy and Sustainable Development Division head on Dec. 3 by announcing in a joint press conference the formation of the East Bay Green Corridor project comprised of the mayors of four East Bay cities and the heads of the Berkeley labs and the university. 

The Green Corridor principles, signed before the TV cameras last month by UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director Steven Chu, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, Emeryville Mayor Nora Davis and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, promised, in part, to “create conditions that support new and emerging green industry.” 

The principles state: “As new green technologies emerge and become commercialized, our jurisdictions will cooperate to create conditions that spark new companies, incubate their growth and give them the opportunities to expand in the region ... 

“Research now being conducted at the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will yield new processes, products and services that will help drive local environmental entrepreneurship. Efficient lighting technology, solar energy and biofuels are just a few of the areas where cutting edge research is making vast strides.” 

While he supports cooperating with nearby cities to create green jobs, Councilmember Kriss Worthington says he wants more details on the proposal and the partnership. 

“This proposal doesn’t say very much,” Worthington told the Planet on Monday. “It’s an implied blank check.”  

No one knows how decisions will be made, Worthington said, or what the various members see as “green” jobs or technology. 

“Does a majority vote decide what the policy is?” he asked. The statement “is silent on jurisdictional issues.” 

Worthington said his concerns could be addressed if the Green Corridor group holds publicly noticed open meetings. “They should voluntarily make it subject to sunshine [open meeting] laws,” Worthington said. 

Peter Scheer, an attorney and executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said he thought that the question of whether the East Bay Corridor Partnership is covered by the Brown Act’s open meeting and noticing requirements would have to be decided by the courts. 

Given that that each of the four mayors is part of jurisdictions covered by the Brown Act, “They should act as if they were covered by the Brown Act,” Scheer said. “That would add to the legitimacy of anything they may do.” 

Councilmember Darryl Moore told the Planet he is less concerned with how the group does its work; he’s looking at the results. 

“I’m comfortable that the mayors can get together to form a green corridor—Hopefully, the mayor will come back with more details,” he said, adding, “this is just a place holder. It allows us to apply for federal funds.” 

Moore said he hoped the funds create green jobs, especially for unemployed African Americans, Latinos and Asians in the Berkeley area.  

“I don’t want the concept to bypass minority communities,” he said, noting that former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown recently held a green business fair in Hunters Point. 

Councilmember Max Anderson said he thinks the Green Corridor will be able to “create well-paying jobs” for people trained locally. 

For that to happen, corridor participants will have to decide on an already existing entity—such as the Private Industry Council (PIC)—to carry out the job training. Anderson said he would like to see benchmarks for putting the training and job creation into place. The council should get progress reports, he said. 

Councilmember Linda Maio told the Planet that in her experience with the earlier East Bay Safety Corridor—when the East Bay cities got together to address public safety issues under then Mayor Loni Hancock and then-Assemblymember Tom Bates— the advantage for the grouping of the cities was access to federal funds.  

“We can look more like San Francisco,” a city and a county, Maio said. 

She also pointed out that this partnership may be able to facilitate the Oakland-Berkeley-Emeryville Community Choice Aggregation project the city is exploring, which would have the three cities take control of power distribution, now in the hands of Pacific Gas and Electric. 

Maio said she thinks the Green Corridor meetings should be announced publicly and that the public should be permitted to attend.  

Economic Development Division Director Michael Caplan will have a key role meeting with other similar managers in the partnership. He said he expected green business spin-offs from the labs and universities. While he said he would expect jobs would be created for people with doctorates from the university, there would also be lab tech and solar installation jobs for those without university degrees. 

Once the area becomes known as a center for green business, it will attract venture capital, he said. 

The mayor’s office did not return a call for comment.  

Warm pool on ballot? 

While the Commission on Disabilities wants the City Council to place an item on the Nov. 4 ballot which would ask voters to tax themselves to build a therapeutic warm pool for seniors and disabled people, the city manager apparently wants the council to wait and refer the question to city staff.  

The city manager’s proposal was not available Monday. 

The need for a new warm pool arises out of the likelihood that the Berkeley High warm pool will be demolished. In 2000, voters approved a bond to refurbish the warm pool. The money was never collected because of the school district’s decision to demolish the pool.  

The school district is making a site now used as a parking lot, on the east side of Milvia Street, available for construction of a new warm pool. The price tag for construction is estimated at $15 million, costing property owners about $5.59 per $100,000 of assessed value over 30 years.  

Cannabis access for ill back on ballot 

The council is being asked to formally place the Patients Access to Medical Cannabis Act back on the ballot. 

The measure, a citizens initiative on the 2004 ballot, was narrowly defeated. A recount was ordered and it was found that some of the electronic voting machine records had not been retained by the county. As a result of a court case won by Americans for Safe Access, a judge ordered that the measure be resubmitted to Berkeley voters. 

The Patients Access to Medical Cannabis Act includes provisions that lift existing limits on the amount of medical marijuana a qualified patient or primary caregiver can possess or cultivate and allows cannabis dispensaries to be established with a use permit, eliminating the requirement for a public hearing. 

Soft-story retrofits 

In order to encourage owners of soft-story and brick buildings to seismically retrofit their properties, city staff is recommending some changes to the Soft-Story and the Unreinforced Masonry ordinances. 

Soft-story and brick buildings are vulnerable to collapse during earthquakes.  

The changes would allow owners of these properties to perform seismic upgrades with limited planning department review, even when the upgrades cause encroachment into yards, exceed height restrictions, exceed allowable lot coverage and remove or reduce parking. 

Taxi Script audit 

The council will be asked to approve the auditor’s recommendation that the city manager report back by March on the implementation of corrective measures for the city’s Taxi Script Fund. 

The fund provides eligible seniors and disabled people with script providing free rides in commercial taxicabs or vans. Auditor Anne-Marie Hogan found a number of problems with the fund, including that it was not properly monitored or reconciled, the written procedures were not updated to reflect current practices, the procedure of counting cash under dual custody control was not followed and that whiteout was used to alter the log to record cash-in and cash-out from the safe. 

Is Berkeley going dry? Dorothee Mitrani-Bell said there’s cause for concern in light of rising city regulatory and financial pressures. 

“Is Berkeley going Prohibition on us?” asked the proprietor of La Note at 2377 Shattuck Ave. and Cafe Clem at 2703 Seventh St. 

Her concern—shared by other small business owners who run restaurants and neighborhood stores—is that a new $467 annual inspection fee piled onto other license and training costs for businesses that sell alcohol places a heavy burden on those least able to afford it. 

The new fees would be imposed should the City Council vote tonight (Tuesday) to adopt an ordinance to implement the law it passed Dec. 11 titled Operating Standards for Alcohol Outlets. 

One concern, said an official of the Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA), is that the smallest shops and restaurants must pay the same fee as major chain liquor stores. 

“It’s an equity issue,” said DBA Executive Director Deborah Badhia. 

The law applies to all vendors, whether small restaurants or corner stores with beer and wine licenses or full-scale liquor stores selling hard liquor by the bottle and case. 

The council’s unanimous vote in December followed a long campaign by the Berkeley Alcohol Policy Advocacy Coalition (BAPAC). 

Before that vote Councilmembers Linda Maio and Kriss Worthington argued for a tiered fee system, only to see their proposal fall on a 4-2-3 vote. 

Maio had argued that liquor stores should pay more because they produced more problems than restaurants. 

In addition to the annual fee, violators would be charged an additional $225.71 an hour for additional inspections made to ensure their compliance. 

In a memorandum to the council submitted in advance of tonight’s meeting, City Code Enforcement Supervisor Gregory Daniel said the fees are needed to cover the $150,000 annual costs of the program, which requires the hiring of 1.5 new city employees. 

The program calls for annual inspections of the 224 licensed vendors who sell drinks to customers and four inspections yearly for each of the 86 merchants who sell carry-out beer, wine and liquor. 

Passage of the ordinance would mark the culmination of more than two years of work by BAPAC and Students for a Safer Southside as well as churches and neighborhood organizations and other advocacy groups. 

BAPAC’s efforts have already led to enactment of two other ordinances last year. 

The first, dubbed the “social host” ordinance, levies penalties on adults who host gatherings where alcohol is served to minors. 

The second, the Responsible Beverage Service Training Ordinance, requires that anyone who serves alcohol—including waiters at restaurants and clerks at stores—must receive training within 90 days of starting the job from an instructor certified by the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. 

Long struggle 

Tonight’s vote will be the culmination of an eight-year campaign that started with a group of neighbors concerned about drug dealing outside an Adeline Street liquor store. 

“We met with the store owner and the property owner, and it took them a while to come around,” recalled Ralph Adams, one of the founders of BAPAC. 

“They all started cleaning up around the property. They installed a camera and called police” when the dealers returned, he said. 

But when the same old characters started to return, neighbors decided broader action was needed and began meeting one night a week, bringing in a community organizer, creating a plan, adopting the BAPAC name and holding regular meetings with councilmembers and other community groups. 

Presenting the proposals to the City Council in April 2006, they eventually won a council directive for the city manager and city attorney to work with BAPAC on coming up with implementation measures. 

“There was a tremendous reluctance on the part of the city attorney’s office and Manuela Albuquerque,” Adams said of the city’s recently retired top lawyer. 

It was Zach Cowan, now acting city attorney, who came up with the written ordinances, including the final measure set for consideration tonight. 

“The only question is how to apportion the fees,” Adams said. “Both the city manager and we feel a flat fee is the fairest way. We had at least two meetings with stakeholder groups, and all they said was they wanted to make sure it was clearly spelled out.” 

Adams said he feels restaurants contribute as much to the city’s alcohol problems as do liquor stores, citing the results of recent state-funded enforcement efforts that found sales to minors at the majority of the city’s alcohol serving eateries. 

As for the amount of the fee, Adams said, “If they are open six days a week it comes out to a buck and a half a day. If they can’t afford that ...” 

Owner’s concern 

But Mitrani-Bell wrote that the new fee adds to the problems she already faces while trying to run a business in downtown Berkeley. 

She said her concerns include “Nightmarish parking practices (which turn people away), missed garbage pickups (and charge you a fee when they don’t come, attracting rodents), increases in fuel charges, minimum wages, taxes and insurance increases ... it is killing us.” 

Badhia said she will be attending the council meeting to share the concerns raised by Mitrani-Bell and other downtown business owners. 

“It’s a problem for the smaller establishments,” she said. “But itself, it’s not unreasonable, but in combination with other pressures, it’s a concern.” 

Mitrani-Bell said she was also concerned with the training program for servers for $30 per employee, which she said the state offers only infrequently and for small groups. 

Badhia said that commercial training is also available, and that the DBA is urging the ABC to allow for business owners to offer training in their own establishments.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) pollutes San Francisco Bay with illegal levels of metals and nitrogen compounds, charge environmentalists who have filed notice of their intention to sue. 

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the Strawberry Creek Stewardship Group have served notice on UC Regents, LBNL Director Steven Chu and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. 

Gates was notified because the lab operates under the joint auspices of the university and the Department of Defense. 

Michael Lozeau, the Alameda attorney representing both organizations, said he mailed certified copies the 16-page letter announcing his intention to file suit in 60 days after the Jan. 7 mailing. 

The lawyer, who specializes in environmental law, is a key player in another suit that targets the regents, challenging the Student Athlete High Performance Center and other projects at and around Memorial Stadium. 

Lozeau represents the Panoramic Hill Association in that action. 

The federal Clean Water Act mandates the 60-day notice before the filing of any legal action brought under the law’s provisions. 

“They’re failing to comply with the permit that applies to their stormwater discharge,” Lozeau said. “We have reviewed the last five years of data and they have consistent excedances of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) levels of concern.” 

Lozeau said he has brought 50 or 60 similar actions in the Bay Area and California’s Central Valley in the last three years, usually winning a satisfactory response before the cases reached the courtroom. 

Ron Kolb, the lab’s chief Public Information officer, said Monday afternoon that he hadn’t seen the letter, but would comment Tuesday after he had a chance to review the document. 

Lozeau said that the lab’s remedy would be to “beef up their control measures” using the best available technology achievable (BAT) and the best pollutant control technology (BCT). 

The highest relative concentrations of contaminants involve magnesium, with a federal benchmark level of 0.06 milligrams per liter of runoff versus measured LBNL runoff levels reaching up to 29 milligrams per liter—or 456 times the figure the federal EPA says can be achieved with appropriate technology. 

Lozeau said the figures, provided by the lab, may be ambiguous because questions remain about how they are collected and whether or not they included contaminants arising up-slope from the lab. 

While the lab’s permits require the facility to reduce contaminant levels, “we allege their stormwater pollution plan is not adequate because it is not knocking the numbers down,” he said. 

Of all the contaminants, the nitrates and nitrites in the runoff may have the most potential to harm fish downstream, he said. “They can be pretty nasty, and they can have pretty profound effects on fish.” 

With a federal benchmark level of 0.68 milligrams per liter, lab runoff measurements run as high as 13 milligrams. 

Lozeau said the numbers also raise questions about the Draft Environmental Impact Reports submitted for the Helios and Computational Research and Theory buildings now planned for the lab. 

While the documents propose that the new construction will not be adding to the lab’s cumulative water quality impacts, Lozeau said the fact that the lab isn’t in compliance with its current stormwater discharge permits raises questions about the accuracy of the documents. 

“The more the lab is built out, the more you can expect to see cumulative effects,” he said. 

The good news in the report is that the figures give no indications of runoffs of tritium—a radioactive isotope of hydrogen—or any other radioactive materials, Lozeau said. Tritium is present in subsurface groundwater plumes that have been documented at the lab, but it doesn’t appear to be contaminating surface runoff. 

As for the other contaminants which do appear, “They are supposed to put in the best technology available to reduce those numbers to something that is insignificant,” Lozeau said.

Troubled Oakland homeowners packed the floor and gallery of the Oakland City Council chambers Saturday morning to gather information from city, state, and national officials and private home counseling organizations on how to keep their dwellings from going into foreclosure.  

Folding chairs had to be brought into the council chambers to accommodate the crowd, and it was standing-room only along the back walls. 

The crisis surfaced when many homeowners around the country bought homes, or were lured into taking out mortgages, based on loans that initially had affordable monthly payments, but then saw those monthly payments balloon into the unaffordable after a period of a few years.  

Banks and other lenders have been foreclosing on these homes in large numbers over the past two to three years, collapsing what had been a booming housing market and drying up available capital.  

The three-hour Consumer Home Mortgage Town Hall, the first such community gathering in the state since the subprime mortgage crisis hit, was co-sponsored by a coalition of political leaders, including Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and several members of the Oakland City Council, Oakland City Attorney John Russo, Congressmember Barbara Lee, Assemblymembers Sandré Swanson and Loni Hancock, and several state and national agencies.  

Oakland has been particularly hard-hit by the flood of home foreclosures growing out of the collapse of the subprime mortgage system, with African-American and Latino communities the most devastated.  

Giving out a series of bleak statistics, Oakland City Attorney John Russo said that in two East Oakland zip codes alone—94621 and 94603—15 of every 1,000 homes were seized by banks in 2007 in foreclosure actions, a total of 1.5 percent of all the homes in those zip codes.  

Russo said that African-American and Latino borrowers were four times more likely than Anglo borrowers to be shunted into the shakey, hi-cost subprime loans that are causing so much of the foreclosure problem, even when homeowners from those three racial groups had similar incomes and financial data. 

Nationally, 2.2 million subprime loans have gone into foreclosure in recent years. 

Congressmember Lee said that 180,000 of those foreclosures were in California in the two years of 2005 and 2006. In Oakland alone, Lee said, “21.3 percent of subprime loans made in 2006 are expected to go into foreclosure.” 

Lee said that Congress has several bills passed or pending to ease the crisis, but that President George Bush “has been blocking most of those efforts.” But she said that she and other Congressmembers are moving forward with legislative action. “This could have been prevented,” Lee said. “The lending laws in this country could have been reformed.” She added that her ultimate goal “is to have these predatory loans wiped off the books.” 

Dellums told the gatherers that the Oakland workshop was “the local response to a national epidemic. Thousands of people stand on the brink of financial disaster. Our obvious hope is that everyone can keep their homes and move forward. But we want options for those who cannot.” 

The Oakland mayor said that “in the not-too-near future,” he would be convening a meeting of local bankers and lenders “to step up and help in this crisis.” 

That concern was echoed by Assemblymember Swanson, who said “I hope today that this will be a message to lenders. We ask them to do something. Help work out solutions with consumers to help ease the pain. Lending institutions are going to have to have some compassion. We are all in this together.” 

Following short presentations by local and state leaders, residents split up into several home mortgage workshops held throughout City Hall, as well as to receive private, one-on-one counseling. 

An hour-long workshop on foreclosure mitigation in one of the City Council hearing rooms, presented by Community Housing Development Corporation of North Richmond senior homeownership counselor Katrina Vizinau, showed the anguish and the pending disaster being faced by many local homeowners.  

One woman asked advice on how she could hold off the pending foreclosure sale of her longtime home. The sale was scheduled for Tuesday, giving the woman only one more business day to act. 

After several suggestions came from moderator Vizinau and audience members, many of them with either personal experience or expertise in homeowner foreclosure problems, one woman chimed in, “Whatever you do, don’t waste your time contacting HUD (the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development). They’ll leave you for dead, they’re so slow. Your house will be gone before they come out to help.” 

Vizinau repeated over and over that unless they were extremely knowledgeable about mortgages and had extensive sales experience, homeowners with pending foreclosure sales should not try to negotiate with bankers or other lenders themselves. Instead, she suggested homeowners contact a counselor from one of several local credit counseling agencies familiar with home mortgages to do the negotiations for them (see sidebar for list). Vizinau said that in many instances, she and other counselors have been able to forestall imminent home foreclosures and work out new payment plans affordable to beleaguered homeowners. 

“Many of the lenders are now saying the crisis is so great, they don’t want to foreclose,” Vizinau said. “They want to work with the homeowners.” But she said that the message often hasn’t gotten down to company agents who are “working off of old screens.”  

Vizinau said that counselors can help push the discussion up to higher levels at the lending agency, where appreciation for the devastation of the many foreclosures on the lending institutions themselves is better appreciated. 

Earlier in the general session, Carrie Lopez, director of the California Department of Human Affairs, urged homeowners to contact their lenders as soon as they begin anticipating problems in meeting their mortgage payments. 

“Pick up the phone and negotiate with your lenders,” Lopez advised. “Don’t let it get out of hand.” 

Dale Bonner, Secretary of the California Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency added that “there are a significant number of people in the state who, we learned, never had a conversation with their lenders about their payment problems until their houses went into foreclosure. Either they never called the lender or, when they did, they got a negative response. We found both of those to be very distressing.” 

RESOURCES 

The Oakland City Attorney’s office has set up a foreclosure hotline at 510-BE-ALERT (510-232-5378) for homeowners who want to get advice on possible mortgage scams, and for homeowners facing pending foreclosure or for tenants in buildings that are facing pending foreclosure. 

Local credit counseling agencies that can provide counseling to affected homeowners: 

ACORN Housing Corp.: 436-6532 

Community Housing Development Corporation of North Richmond: 412-8920 

The Unity Council Homeownership Center: 535-7181 

NID-Housing Counseling Agency: 268-9792 

Housing Rights, Inc.: 548-8776 ext. 310 

NeighborWorks Rep: (877) 316-8913

An unidentified gunman shot and killed a young Berkeley man early Saturday as he arrived outside the San Rafael club where a friend was celebrating her birthday. 

Jerell Lamont Blackmon, 26, was pronounced dead at Marin General Hospital moments after he arrived by ambulance from Club 101, which is located adjacent to a southbound freeway onramp. 

San Rafael Police spokesperson Margo Rohrbacher said Blackmon had just arrived from Berkeley as a passenger in a car at the time of the shooting. 

“A single gunman walked up to the victim and shot him multiple times,” Rohrbacher said. 

Police were called at 2:25 a.m. and arrived moments later. The shooting victim was found on the parking lot pavement, several yards from the club’s entrance. 

Witnesses told officers that three cars sped from the scene immediately after the shooting, including a late model Chevrolet Impala driven by the gunman. 

“Perhaps it was a coincidence, or perhaps there was more than one person involved,” Rohrbacher said. The only shots fired came from the semiautomatic pistol wielded by the Impala’s driver. 

The Marin County coroner’s office completed their autopsy Monday afternoon, confirming the death by gunshot, but Rohrbacher declined to say how many times the dead man had been struck. 

Even though Blackmon was walking in a group at the moment he was shot, no one else was injured. 

“It appears that he was the target,” Rohrbacher said. “Fortunately no one else was hurt.” 

The shooter is described as an African American with a light complexion who is 5’7” tall and weighs about 150 pounds. He was wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. 

Police Monday were conducting a forensic examination of the car in which Blackmon arrived, and interviewing his companions, club employees and others who were present at the club. 

Rohrbacher asked anyone with information about the crime to call the department at (415) 485-3000. Callers who wish to remain anonymous can call Crimestoppers at (415) 472-2746.

Bus drivers and mechanics from AC Transit’s Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 will hold a strike authorization vote on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, the first public indication of problems in contract negotiations between the 1,400 member local and the East Bay’s public bus agency. 

The vote will be taken over a 24-hour period at the union headquarters on Enterprise Way in East Oakland. 

AC Transit and Local 192 have been without a contract since July of last year. 

This week’s union member authorization vote only seeks membership approval to call a strike, and does not mean an AC Transit strike is imminent. Such strike authorizations have been approved by Local 192 members several times in recent years during contract negotiations as ways of turning up the heat on the agency, but the last actual agency strike was a 69 day walkout in 1977. 

There was no word from either side on what issues may be holding up settlement of the new contract, a two-year pact approved in the summer of 2005. 

In a notice sent out to union members announcing the strike authorization vote, Local 192 officials said that the union “continues to negotiate with the district in good faith. However, we must take the next step in preparation for a strike in the event the union and the district are unable to reach an agreement.” 

Local 192 union officials did not return a Daily Planet telephone message seeking comment for this story, and AC Transit Board President Chris Peeples was out of town this week and unavailable for comment. 

“We’re not anticipating any imminent strike,” AC Transit Media Affairs Manager Clarence Johnson said in a telephone interview. Johnson said he could not comment on any details on the negotiations themselves, or on any possible strike contingencies being prepared by the transit agency.

For women of a certain age, and residents of the Bay Area, “doing Fourth Street” is a favorite activity—almost a monthly ritual.  

Although a relatively small area—no more than five or six blocks—one can easily while away an entire afternoon here, taking time out for lunch at Bette’s Diner, or Cafe Rouge (budget permitting).  

In sharp contrast to Telegraph Avenue and Elmwood, Fourth Street clearly attracts an upper-crust clientele. No Birkenstocks or blue jeans here; woman are dressed to the nines. In fact, I’m somewhat intimidated by those high-scale women’s apparel shops. I imagine the elegant saleswomen murmuring to themselves, “She must have picked that outfit up at The Dress Barn.” (I did NOT—I got it at Ross’s!)  

Anyway, back to Fourth Street with its incredible diversity of designer fashions, great restaurants and wonderful stores, such as Restoration Hardware. (I do wish they’d drop “Hardware”: this is most certainly not an Ace or True-Value type store.)  

Heading up the street, I drop in at my old favorites, Thousand Cranes and Castles in the Air, making a few modest purchases. Crossing the street, I pop into Sur La Table: A Cook’s Paradise, featuring handcraft kitchen tools and Le Creuset pots. Being a Marie Callender and Lean Cuisine type myself, this place is wasted on me. So I wander next door to “The Stained Glass Window,” lamenting that I lack the artistic ability to create something spectacular.  

Just down the street is The Gardener, a really lovely store. However, being an apartment dweller, I have no need of gardening tools and fertilizer.  

My next stop is a fairly new shop, La Folie, specializing in rather naughty black lingerie. I’ve noticed that husbands, dragged along by their wives and obviously bored silly, perk up in this store and spend considerable time looking at catalogs and selecting skimpy undergarments.  

Another store new to me is Flight 001, featuring travel items for jet- setters and avid cruise patrons, which I take these well-heeled shoppers to be.  

I’m always thrilled and relieved to see that Cody’s Book Store, on a busy corner, is alive and flourishing. I spend a good hour there checking new books and making a note of writers’ appearances, bemoaning the fact that I can no longer attend such events at the old Telegraph Avenue store.  

Having devoted myself almost exclusively to the “arty” businesses along Fourth Street, attention should be called to the more practical stores. For example, one couldn’t ask for better furniture stores. If sleek. modern design suits your taste, there’s Slater Marinoff.  

Or, if you tend towards the more opulent furnishings, head off in the other direction to Traditions, worthy of any Piedmont estate.  

Last but not least, I would urge you to visit Builders Booksource: “Books to inspire and teach on architecture, interior design, landscaping, and do-it-yourself construction.”  

So, as already mentioned, a visit to Fourth Street is always a delightful adventure. Even if you can’t afford the treasures on display, or if you give in to sinful pleasures, it’s nonetheless a glorious way to spend an afternoon.

Snowy egrets and coal-black cormorants roosting in trees—in Oakland? Hansel and Gretel along with the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, brought to life with a Magic Key—in Oakland? A Daimyo Oak Bonsai, in cultivation since Abraham Lincoln’s term as President—in Oakland? Venetian gondolas gliding across sparkling waters under fairy lights—in Oakland? Discover these wonders and more, in Oakland’s Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt. 

Lake Merritt is man-made, a combo of fresh and salt water. Covering 155 acres, it’s a delightful focal point smack in the middle of urban Oakland. Thanks go to Dr. Samuel Merritt who donated dammed tidal water from the headwaters of Indian Slough for its creation. As part of well-maintained Lakeside Park, it’s a welcome oasis of green with expansive lawns and shade-giving trees, offering a host of possibilities to add fun to any day of the week. 

After a long absence, I rediscovered Lake Merritt on a crisp, brilliantly sunny Saturday morning. The park and most of its inhabitants were in a mellow mood. It wasn’t too early for enthusiasts cruising the level, paved 3.4-mile path around the lake. A mixed bag of joggers, walkers and cyclists passed across my field of vision. All ages, solo, in pairs and small groups, chatting, attached to cell phone or iPod, attired in the latest techno fitness garb, comfortable sweats or everyday wear, they circled the perimeter, not even pausing to partake of appealing lake-view benches. 

Being on a fact-finding mission, I set out to investigate the activities on hand and was drawn to the least mellow area of the park, the Wildlife Refuge. A cacophony of bird conversations filled the air—shrills, cries, honks and coos—a just representation of the wealth of bird life inhabiting two islands and the lakeside refuge. A population surge of Canada geese, not satisfied with only one settlement area, roamed everywhere in the park. More selective avians restricted themselves to occupying island tree-side perches. Fan-like white plumage marked nestled egrets while cormorants masquerading as black-clad sentinels staked out the highest branches. 

A National Historic Landmark and the nation’s oldest wildlife refuge, the mixture of tributary fresh water and tidal salt water provides seasonal and permanent homes to birds, fish and invertebrates. Much of this wildlife is well represented inside the Rotary Science Center, aiming to bring people and nature together learning about estuary ecology. The faces of three school-age boys didn’t move far from the glass fronting a buzzing beehive on the day of my visit. I was more interested in the wall-length display of bird life and a case full of skulls within this rustic, but informative center. 

Outside, young children focused their interest on the pint-size playground, all bright colors, wood and molded plastic, atop a sand base perfect for digging and building. Turquoise slide, purple bars, yellow rings and lavender fire pole like delicious candies waiting to be sampled. What birds? 

My next stop was the Boating Center, where aquatic choices for multiple visits lay in wait. Whether you fancy sailing an El Toro, windsurfing, kayaking, paddling a canoe, rowing a boat or exercising your feet with a paddleboat, this would be the right place. And the next time you need to impress that special someone, what could be more romantic than a moonlight gondola ride? Who needs Italy? 

In the Demonstration Gardens I was greeted with a placard announcing composting classes and another signifying this as a Bay Friendly Garden. Appearing as a work-in-progress, there was plenty here to please the eye and tingle those green thumbs. Well-defined paths wander among mature growth and newly planted beds. Among the eclectic combinations thrive fuchsias, cacti, lilies, herbs and palms. In the raised vegetable beds of artichoke, Swiss chard and arugula, I was cheered by the profusion of sweet peas in reds, pinks and violets, as well as bright yellow marigolds. 

A peaceful haven surrounds the koi pond where the soothing sounds of cascading water, orange bird-of-paradise, blue agapanthus, and an orange Torii Gate dedicated to the memory of Frank Ogawa abide. A mallard couple almost hidden on the banks agreed. 

the banks agreed. 

Within the grounds of the Lakeside Garden Center, behind a traditional wood fence capped in steel-gray is located another tranquil refuge, the Bonsai Garden. Over 100 bonsai and suiseki of amazing quality and beauty are lovingly displayed on raised wood platforms in the setting of a simple Japanese garden. Coast live oak, Monterey cypress, Chinese quince, shrunken in an Alice-in-Wonderland world yet perfect in form and detail, rest among a dry riverbed and stone ornaments. Along with the gift to Lincoln’s Ambassador to China, I admired a trident maple, identical to a park-side shade tree, yet only three feet tall. 

Saturday morning was too early to see action at the Lawn Bowling Greens, but the rectangles of neatly trimmed lawn bordered by benches appeared poised for future matches. At the Edoff Memorial Bandstand music was a faint memory, perhaps still heard by the gentleman practicing tai chi. Even without a concert, this 1923 multi-columned platform topped with a red tiled roof trimmed in coppery patina is a handsome sight. 

Ahead a stream of strollers and wide-eyed toddlers all seemed to be heading in one direction, the music of the calliope, a Pied Piper drawing them forth. I caught up with them at the Shoe, the one with so many children, and the entrance of Children’s Fairyland, around since 1950. What child could resist a magic kingdom where beloved stories and imagination come to life, where gentle farm animals await their attention, where adults are not admitted unless accompanied by children? 

Saturday morning was not too early for action here. The line was long; birthday party guests were arriving in pastel dresses and white Mary Janes and the child-sized Ferris wheel’s enclosed cages were slowly rotating. Though paint colors may have faded, the magic remains. 

In 1925, 126 lampposts with 3,400 bulbs lit up the circumference of Lake Merritt for the first time. Any visit is incomplete without following this Necklace of Lights. Glancing from the blue expanse toward buildings fronting the lake, one notes the presence of Oakland’s past through its architecture: bas-reliefs and carved moldings on stately stucco and brick, brimming flower boxes reflecting the park’s natural setting, a curved edifice with aqua tinted glass carrying the water skyward, high rise businesses with faceless windows and smooth lines. 

From park settings to open expanses, the circle of lights leads you. Sample the benches, sit and take in aqua depths, great cityscapes, joyous fountains, feasting Canada geese and fellow outdoor enthusiasts. Egrets, cormorants, gondolas, bonsai, Cinderella, fairy lights. In Oakland? Yes, making Lake Merritt much more than the sum of its parts.  

Lakeside Park/Lake Merritt:  

Lakeside Drive, Oakland. 

Rotary Science Center 

600 Bellevue Ave. 238 3738 

Lake Merritt Boating Center 

568 Bellevue Ave. 238 2196 

Lakeside Demonstration Gardens 

666 Bellevue Ave. 238 2197. 

Bonsai Garden 

666 Bellevue Ave. 763-8409. 

Lawn Bowling Greens 

660 Bellevue Ave. 625 9937. 

Children’s Fairyland 

699 Bellevue Ave, 452 2259.  

www.fairyland.org. 

Photograph by Marta Yamamoto. 

Oakland’s Lake Merritt is home to many different kinds of birds.

I have always enjoyed walking, so when I moved to Berkeley in 2004, I set out on foot right away to get to know my new home.  

I had already planned on walking all of the streets in my immediate neighborhood when in early 2005 I read a short piece in the New Yorker about a man who had walked every street in Manhattan. I immediately expanded my goal to walking every street in Berkeley, and further widened the project to include the city’s more than 100 passable pathways after purchasing the Berkeley Path Wanderers map to track my project.  

Near the end of 2007 I completed my goal of walking every street in Berkeley. 

The miles of walking turned out to be the easy part of this project. More difficult was explaining to friends and acquaintances why I decided to do the walk in the first place and, after it was over, summarizing what I learned from the walk. I discovered so much about the character of Berkeley and about walking in general that I decided mid-way through 2006 to start a blog to share what I found. 

Every block in Berkeley holds something new to see. This project took much longer than I expected simply because I was stopping on every block to look at interesting buildings, at gardens, plants, art, signs, and more. I noticed details that I would never have seen in a car. I found myself looking at patterns, at styles of architectural elements, sidewalk markings, fliers posted in windows and on bulletin boards, plants and animals, and at creative sculptures, metalwork, and other art found in front yards.  

I learned that walking every street in Berkeley was allowed me to look objectively at the city as opposed to forming preconceived opinions based on historical events or knowledge of familiar neighborhoods. There is a lot going on here for a small city.  

Following are a few highlights of places in Berkeley that I discovered during the walk: 

Panoramic Hill 

An escape from the busy Cal campus and Telegraph Avenue area can be found by walking east along the south border of the campus on Bancroft Avenue to a small network of paths leading to the Panoramic Hill neighborhood. Although you can look down and see the Cal Memorial Stadium and sports facilities from here, it seems like you are a world away from the campus.  

In addition to the amazing views implied by the name of the neighborhood, this area is a nice place for walking because it offers access to the Claremont Canyon and Strawberry Canyon fire trails. Although the neighborhood is small, it is a nice spot to revisit, taking different routes up and down the paths and around the loops of Panoramic and Dwight Way for interesting views. 

West Berkeley 

West Berkeley, the area west of San Pablo Avenue and out to the bay, has a history of industrial activity like much of the zone surrounding the rest of the bay. While some other industrial areas may just be places that are passed through in a car, West Berkeley can be easily accessed and explored on foot.  

Many of the older buildings in West Berkeley are still somewhat intact, with some occupied with new industry and others empty. North of University Ave., many of these buildings are in the blocks on either side of the railroad tracks. South of University, the streets that start at 7th and dead end at Aquatic Park are particularly interesting to explore, as are Murray and Folger streets west of San Pablo.  

Don’t pass up the chance to explore an area with an interesting mix of industrial, retail (Fourth Street) and wholesale outlets, restaurants, apartment buildings, regular houses, and newly built “live-work” and loft buildings. 

San Pablo Avenue 

Like many old highway roads, San Pablo Avenue is a varied and interesting street to walk. For the full effect of this street, I suggest walking the entire length of it in Berkeley from Albany to the Oakland border. Starting at the north end, you will pass outlet stores and sporting goods businesses, and then what some people call “gourmet ghetto west” at Cedar Street (where you might want to fuel up for your walk with some bread from Acme or a coffee from Cafe Fanny).  

As you continue south through the University and San Pablo intersection, you’ll see Indian businesses, Mexican and Halal groceries, auto repair shops, and restaurants. Near the intersection of Dwight is an area that has attracted a number of vintage clothing retailers, antique stores, and other small retail outlets. With the opening of Caffe Trieste, this corner has become a lively neighborhood gathering spot.  

Two blocks south of Ashby is the Berkeley border, where you can turn around and head back on the other side of the street or venture into West Berkeley for some more walking. A similarly varied walk is University Avenue from I-80 all the way to the Berkeley campus. 

Thousand Oaks 

There are several rock parks in the Thousand Oaks area of Berkeley, city parks that feature rock outcrops popular with climbers, geology enthusiasts, and anyone who enjoys views across the bay. This is a great place to bring visitors to show them a very unique area of Berkeley.  

On my first walk or two in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood beyond the rock parks, I observed that it was a very pleasant neighborhood for walking but did not expect to find anything out of the ordinary. When I finally got to Vicente Avenue, all of this changed. I had not realized there were other large rocks throughout the neighborhood beyond the rock parks. Giant boulders appear in front yards, and in some cases rocks have been incorporated into the houses’ architecture.  

Claremont 

Upper Claremont, the neighborhood above Tunnel Road, is a fascinating place to explore because of its very different architecture from most of the other Berkeley neighborhoods. This area has many new homes that have been built since the East Bay Hills fire in 1991, quite a few of which have very contemporary designs.  

I had a strong reaction to a few of the houses up here; although I am a fan of mid-century modern architecture and modest, well-designed contemporary architecture, I found myself saying “What were they thinking?” while looking at some of the homes. 

But this is precisely why I enjoy walking here: there is much to ponder while walking through here, about architecture, how homes and landscaping are constructed in fire-prone areas, and what drives people to build and re-build homes in areas that are prone to natural disasters.  

The best way to access this neighborhood and avoid much of the Tunnel Road traffic is to take the Short Cut path off Tunnel to the left, soon after Ashby turns into Tunnel. Then walk along Alvarado Road and Vicente Road (not to be confused with Vicente in Thousand Oaks, mentioned above), and on the Sunset Trail and Willow Walk paths. 

Northbrae 

Many Berkeley visitors and newcomers are familiar with Telegraph Avenue and the Fourth Street shopping district in West Berkeley. After a bit of walking, however, I discovered many smaller commercial districts throughout Berkeley.  

One of my favorites for walking is the small shopping area along Hopkins Street near Monterey, which has the feeling of a European town where you could go from shop to shop filling up your basket with the day’s ingredients for meals.  

During the day and especially on Saturdays, the street is bustling—people drinking coffee and reading newspapers at Espresso Roma, filling their carts from the huge piles of produce at Monterey Market, and chatting with neighbors and with the owners of the small stores that sell fish, bread, cheese, pizza, and other foods.  

In the surrounding neighborhood known as Northbrae, short walks will take you to the beautiful North Berkeley Branch Library, to the busy King School Park, and to the Edible Schoolyard at King Middle School.  

This is just a sampling, of course, of what you’ll find walking around Berkeley. Of course you don’t need to walk each and every street of the city; you will see a lot by walking somewhere that you would normally drive, by taking a different walking route from your normal routine, or by hopping on the bus or BART and getting off in a new neighborhood.  

Jennifer English’s blog is at http://walkingberkeley.wordpress.com. 

Photograph by Jennifer English. 

A front yard boulder in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood.

One of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to start using Berkeley’s extensive network of pedestrian footpaths, ramps and stairways. They connect our hilly neighborhoods to commercial areas, Tilden Park, and public transportation and offer endless opportunities for leisurely hikes, scenic rambles, and fitness walks.  

It’s hard to say exactly how many paths there are. One hundred thirty-six paths comprise the official system of named and numbered paths, but some of those have more than one section. Other public walkways have no names or numbers, including those crisscrossing the UC-Berkeley campus and the Berkeley Marina and running inside city parks. Others have names but no numbers, like the sections of the Ohlone Greenway and the Santa Fe Right of Way that run through Berkeley. 

Developers built most of the paths along with houses in the city’s hilliest neighborhoods during the boom years after the San Francisco earthquake. City planners envisioned a community where the north-south streets followed the natural curves of the topography, and the paths would provide vital east-west connections.  

Using the paths, pedestrians could reach parks, schools, and shopping areas as well as the East Bay’s stellar network of streetcar lines, including routes across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. The arrangement worked well for many years. But as the automobile came to rule transportation, momentum to complete the system waned. Some of the lesser-used paths were neglected, and others that had been planned were never built.  

In the end, only about three-quarters of the planned paths were installed. The remaining city-owned rights of way become increasingly difficult to find—let alone walk on—as weeds and brambles took over, and some neighbors extended fences, landscaping, decks, and even dog runs over them. 

The 1991 Berkeley-Oakland fire brought new attention to the paths because they enabled firefighters and their hoses to reach the flames. Increasing interest in ecology and physical fitness further fueled the perception that the paths were a valuable public asset and critical for emergencies. More and more residents and hikers began to discover them and wonder about their state of disrepair.  

That concern led four Berkeley women to found the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association 10 years ago to preserve, restore, and encourage people to use the paths. The first meeting had 55 attendees. The group now counts more than 600 members. 

Although the city maintains the paths it owns, Path Wanderers began to advise Berkeley officials on which ones most needed attention and to lobby for simple repairs to steps and railings. The group also worked with the city to replace missing signs.  

Next, Path Wanderers volunteers started to resurrect those long-neglected and lost paths. The group sponsored weekend work parties to clear encroaching vegetation and install timber steps. The successful partnership with the city has led to the construction of two concrete staircases on particularly steep slopes, and the opening of the three-part Glendale Path. Chiefly under the direction of Path Building Chair Charlie Bowen, the group has opened or improved 23 paths. 

Perhaps best known for its popular Berkeley Pathways map, Path Wanderers have sold nearly 17,000 copies since it appeared in 2000. Printed on durable, water- and stain-resistant paper, the easy-to-read map was the first one that clearly showed the location of all the paths, both the passable and the impassible. It also included the location of creeks still flowing through Berkeley and the course of historic ones, like Potters Creek, that were diverted into culverts long ago.  

The fourth edition of the map, released last summer, adds a street index, shows more paths in adjacent communities and parks that link to those in Berkeley, and marks the location of traffic barriers. The $7 map is available in local stores and through the Path Wanderers website (www.berkeleypaths.org).  

The map makes it easy to plan routes along the paths. Walks can be planned to feature interesting architecture, local history, impressive gardens, works of art, or even bird watching. The names of the paths—Keeler, Berryman, Bret Harte, Anne Brower—provide a who’s who of Berkeley luminaries. Regardless of the paths you take, you can enjoy spectacular views and a good aerobic workout. And, of course, making walking the paths part of your routine saves energy and helps the environment. 

Path Wanderers also offers two guided walks a month, on first Wednesdays and varying Saturdays.  

On Saturday, Feb. 9, the route includes two Berkeley waterfalls and dramatic volcanic rocks. Path Wanderers also hosts public lectures on local history, architecture, geology, and flora and fauna.  

Dr. Gordon Frankie of UC Berkeley will speak on the importance of native bees and other pollinators at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 7 at Redwood Gardens (2951 Derby St.). All events are free and open to the public. Membership, which includes the group’s newsletter, is just $5 per year.  

More information about the paths, their history, and the activities of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association is available at www.berkeleypaths.org. 

Photograph by Mary Lynch. 

Path building leader Charlie Bowen checks a step installed by Meredith Kaplan during the construction of Stoddard Path that runs between Miller Avenue and Grizzly Peak.

How better to celebrate the new year than with a trip to the coast, not all the way to the Pacific, but just a few miles from home in the town of Alameda? With beaches, lawned picnic and playing areas and a scene-setting visitor center, it would be a challenge not to enjoy a day at Crown Memorial State Beach and Crab Cove! 

The site of today’s regional park in the quaint town of Alameda has a history as rich as its natural resources. From the 1880s to the outbreak of World War II, Crown Memorial was home to the largest amusement center on San Francisco Bay. People in the thousands flocked to spend the day on the beautiful sand beaches and sample the warm shallow waters. Known as “Coney Island of the West,” Neptune Beach lived up to its billing with huge saltwater bathing spas featuring sky-high diving platforms, dance pavilion, concerts, roller coaster, prizefights, baseball games, publicity stunts and the invention of the snow cone. 

The war brought the festivities to an end. The land was purchased by the government for use as a training base for Merchant Marine commanders. Today’s visitor center occupies the former base infirmary. In 1959 it became a State Park and was transferred to Regional Park status in 1967. 

I began my outing at the Crab Cove Visitor Center, brimming with exhibits that teach about the unique marine and estuarine environments and the need for their preservation. Outside, an Interpretive Panel identifies this area as California’s first marine reserve on an estuary. 

The center’s exterior welcomes you at first sight. Constructed of driftwood-brown wood trimmed with brick-red and marine-blue and shaded by mature trees, this building would please any number of inhabitants. A spacious outdoor deck is decorated with marine motifs—a bat ray, shark, crab and sea snail—just teasers for the delightful surprises that await you. 

Inside you’ll feel you’ve stepped into an underwater environment, worthy of a Visitor Center Award. Walls are painted blue, illustrated and hung with life-size marine models. The ceiling is lowered with narrow cloth panels in watery shades of blue, shaped to resemble waves. Interactive stations and freestanding exhibits make learning fun. One exhibit focuses on invertebrates, in one display comparing crab “innards” to those of humans. Another exhibit compares life at low and high tides, describing mud flats as underground cities. 

Multiple aquariums, one holding 800 gallons, teem with the bay’s creatures: perch, sculpin, sand dabs, goby, shark and flounder. An eerily lighted display case reminiscent of Art Deco holds the bay’s alien invaders in sealed jars. Green and mitten crabs, striped bass and a New Zealand sea slug are some of the plants and animals that have made their way into the bay. 

Illustrated pier pilings and an old wooden boat suspended from the ceiling remind us of the barnacles, mussels and anemones who call submerged wood structures home. Old wood is also the dominant feature in the Old Wharf Classroom. Here classes are held with participants seated on weathered wood crates gazing at a welcome aboard plaque, two white life preservers, an illustrated backdrop of an old wharf and a room-wide diorama of bay and estuary life forms. Cozy as the hold of a ship, I could almost smell the salt tanged air. 

To explore further, I followed the path to Marine Reserve Cove where the park’s rich wildlife was in full display. A flock of Canada geese were sharing the waters with several brown pelicans. The geese were repeatedly dipping their backs, heads and necks into the water, extending their wings and flapping them vigorously, some were even engaged in complete body rotations. The pelicans, meanwhile, performed their own routine by swimming as a group, extending necks and flapping their wings, then scooting across the water. An audience of cormorants occupying a cement jetty extending far into the water was much more sedate, merely opening their wings in the weak morning sun. 

Tearing myself away I continued into Crown Park consisting of several acres of well-maintained lawns, multiple picnic areas, two fresh-water lagoons, sand dunes and a 2.5-mile shoreline. I passed gaggles of plump Canada geese, some foraging on the lawns, others at attention surrounding a picnic area, as if waiting for the cookout to begin.  

Being on foot and wanting to maximize my coastal experience I opted to walk at the water’s edge with firm sand, rather than pavement, below my feet. It’s an odd juxtaposition, ambling on an urban beach. Clumps of seaweed at your feet, small waves lapping on the shore, multihued dune grasses dotting the sandy hills, cool breeze at your face, but across the street multistoried housing side by side and the San Francisco skyline across the bay. Soon I was lost in the enjoyment of my surroundings and the city seemed far away: beachcombing through assortments of driftwood, shells and rocks; playing the seaweed I.D. game amid the iodine-rich red algae and two types of bright green algae; watching gulls bobbing in the waves; a lone fisherman on his camp chair anchored rod awaiting a strike; kayakers and fishing boats cruising the bay. 

At the southern end of Shoreline Path stands the Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary, the site of an interesting ecological dilemma, that of the endangered California clapper rail versus an invasion of non-native cordgrass.  

The California clapper rail once flourished along the coastal marshes of central and northern California. Its clattering call could be heard among salt water, brackish marshes and tidal sloughs. Today that habitat has been reduced to the San Francisco Bay. This endangered bird’s population has actually increased in recent years, in part due to the spread of Spartina alterniflora, an alien species of bright green seven-foot-tall cordgrass choking out native flora and fauna as it slowly converts mudflats to meadows. 

The taller denser alterniflora provides more cover, protecting the clapper rail from predators and their nests from washing away with the tides. Now covering over 1,000-acres, this alien has upset the delicate ecological balance of the estuary and drastically reduced diversity. This is especially true in the case of native pickleweed, an important habitat for the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse. 

Standing at the end of the observation platform I looked out over the sea of cordgrass, beautiful but dangerous. Under gunpowder gray skies, the bright green and yellow stalks stood out in proud defiance, strongly asserting their strength. Nearby, placards warned of upcoming plans to clean up this botanical pest, signaling that a choice had been made. 

Choices abound to prolong this estuarine adventure. A bike path and road continue over a bridge to Bayfarm Island where homes built around lagoons and Shoreline Park offer a more recent environment for exploring. If you prefer going back in time, amble down Alameda’s Park Street or Webster Street where yesterday and today meld pleasantly with browse worthy shops and mouth watering eateries that will satisfy everyone in your party. 

East Bay Regional Park District Trail Challenge: 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org. 

Getting there: Take I-580 east and I-980 (Downtown Oakland). Exit I-980 at 11th/12th Streets, go several blocks and turn left onto 5th Street. This will take you through the Oakland/Alameda Tube onto Webster St. Webster St. dead ends on Central Ave. Turn right on Central to reach the Crab Cove entrance at McKay Ave. on the left. Distance 15 miles. 

Crab Cove Visitor Center: 1252 McKay Ave., 521-6887, Wed.-Sun. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., through November. For schedule of programs and classes call or go to www.ebparks.org/events. 

Crown Memorial State Beach: Eighth Street and Otis Drive, 5 a.m.-10 p.m., $5/car, $2/dog (on leash in picnic areas, not allowed on beach). Street parking available.

After spending the 1970s in North Beach and the 1980s in Berkeley, I moved into a house overlooking Mountain View Cemetery at the east end of Piedmont Avenue in North Oakland.  

The cemetery was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Manhattan’s Central Park and the Capitol Grounds in Washington, D.C. Piedmont Avenue was laid out in the 19th Century paralleling a series of creeks.  

Across from the Chapel of the Chimes (Julia Morgan was the architect) is Pleasant Valley Creek, which is mostly underground these days. The creek surfaces again beyond MacArthur Blvd. and is then referred to as Glen Echo Creek. Each Earth Day a dozen of us neighbors pick up trash from the bushes bordering the creek.  

Piedmont Avenue has the scale of an early 20th century village. Today’s sidewalks are far too narrow for the current foot traffic. Lining the avenue are a series of shops, bars and restaurants that are heavily patronized. When Peet’s Coffee decided to expand from it s flagship in North Berkeley, it was Piedmont Avenue that got the nod. Then Old Uncle Gaylord started pushing Java down the block. And, to bring the coffee wars into full bore, that other place, the one that distributes CDs by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, opened between the other two.  

When I bring out-of-town guests to Piedmont Avenue, they usually comment on the charm of the area. I’ll take them to Tropix for Caribbean food and we’ll languish in the back patio watching the sunlight stream through the beach-hut decor. Sometimes my guests won’t want to leave and they’ll drink one too many of those colorful drinks with the tiny umbrellas.  

If Piedmont Avenue could be said to have a heart, it would beat at the off-kilter intersection at 41st Street. Located there is the Piedmont Branch of the Oakland Public Library, two large murals depicting local characters and history and a small plaza where the Key Route train stopped once upon a time.  

Dozens of people sit at tables outside the aforementioned coffee shops and a new restaurant, Cesar, down the block. Across the street is Ninna’s Thai Restaurnat, where a gorgeous long-haired male waiter is frequently mistaken for a woman.  

Further down is Piedmont Avenue School which has a predominately Afro-American student body with a predominately Euro-American neighboring populace. There are three large assisted-living facilities nearby and you often see elderly people with walkers on the avenue.  

Recently I watched the Cal-Arizona football game at the Kerry House, the local bar. I struck up a conversation with a guy who I took to be Afghani. He told me he was a direct descendant of an Afghan king. It could be true or maybe it’s like the Irish: everyone is a descendant of Irish kings. He was drinking a Guinness I noticed. We talked about how great it was to be in Kabul in the mid-1970s, which was when we were both there. That was, of course, a few years before the Soviet invasion that nearly demolished Kabul.  

Piedmont Avenue comes alive whenever there’s a holiday. On Halloween the streets are overflowing with ghosts and goblins. At Easter time there are 10,000 tulips blooming at Mountain View Cemetery. The past few years the Chapel of the Chimes has hosted musical concerts. The first ones were attended mostly by neighbors. When the word spread, they turned into Woodstock-like affairs with cars over the horizon and people from Richmond, Walnut Creek and San Francisco gawking at the gothic madness.  

After 15 years on Pleasant Valley Court, the house I lived in was sold. The owner, who lived there for 80 years, went into a rest home. I moved to Rockridge but still bicycle down Piedmont Avenue daily enroute to the Oakland YMCA.

Let’s build our dream candidate, shall we? Experienced, smart, African-American, from an immigrant family though born in the U.S.A., and female.....wouldn’t we all be proud to support that person, don’t we wish she were running this year? Well, folks, I’ve been there, done that, in 1972, no less. I was one of the core group (non-hierarchical, of course) who ran the Michigan primary campaign for Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, and it was a huge success: We got 5 percent of the vote. It was an enormously satisfying experience, right up until Richard Nixon was re-elected in a landslide vote. It’s all been downhill since then. 

Elections, unfortunately, are about more than self-expression. That’s why it’s profoundly depressing to see people who should know better expressing themselves loudly in public places (e.g. the New York Times op-ed pages) about how various candidates make them feel. Some women and men who should know better are reviving the pointless old debate about whether women or black people have been more oppressed in this country. One of them, Gloria Steinem, was part of the Chisholm campaign like me, yet she leaped into the arena at the first hint of a controversy between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over whether gender or race counted for more sympathy points in the contest for the nomination.  

She and Melissa Harris Lacewell, African-American and Princeton professor, locked horns on Amy Goodman’s show in an embarrassing exchange of postures that did neither candidate any good. Luckily Amy Goodman viewers don’t swing many elections. 

What’s most annoying about the media’s attempt to build up a few tense words between the candidates or their followers is that Hillary Clinton is not the Average White Woman, and Barack Obama is not the Average Black Man. Oppression in this country and many other countries has always been as much about class as it has been about gender and race.  

All over the world throughout history, certain women attached to the ruling class (and every society has one) have had a kind of free pass from some forms of gender oppression. That was true in Renaissance Britain, where rival queens Elizabeth I of England and the Irish pirate queen Grace O’Malley once took tea. Elizabeth would have been no one without Henry VIII, and Gráinne Ní Mháille (the Gaelic version) learned everything she knew about sea-faring from her father. Benazir Bhutto is the most obvious contemporary example of daughters learning from fathers how to get ahead. 

But even for men in the United States it’s been conventional for family members to play off the success of their relatives, going all the way back at least to the two presidents named John Adams. It’s one career strategy, and as often beneficial for the country as harmful. John Kennedy was a pretty good president, and his brother Bobby would have been a better one. Ted Kennedy has been an excellent senator, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. has had an honorable career with more perhaps to follow. On the other hand, we have the Bush family, but gender is not the problem there.  

Hillary Clinton has had all the advantages of an upper middle class woman in her cohort. She received an excellent education with little trouble and no student loans to pay off. Her choice to throw in her lot with another smart young lawyer, Bill Clinton, was sensible, and has worked as expected. But her gender shouldn’t count either for her or against her for Democratic voters trying to make up their minds before Feb. 5. 

Barack Obama has similarly had many more advantages than those African-Americans who are the descendants of slaves and of recent ancestors who have suffered under segregation and racism. His African father seems to have been a member of the ruling class in his country of birth, and his European-American mother’s family was solidly midwestern upper-middle class, probably a lot like Hillary Clinton’s family. He has undoubtedly experienced a measured amount of race-based prejudice in his lifetime, but nothing compared to the experience of African-Americans from families long oppressed in this country. But again, this shouldn’t count much either for or against his candidacy. 

The candidates seem to have made a real effort in the last couple of days to counter the attempts of frivolous commentators like Maureen Dowd to turn the Democratic primary campaign into the feud between Britney Spears and her ex-boyfriend. They have participated in staged Kumbaya moments, and said nice things about one another. It would be great if they could keep it up, at least until Super Tuesday.  

What role will racism, the plain old-fashioned ugly kind, play in voters’ decision at that point? Not all that much, I’d be willing to wager. Most Americans have gotten, finally, to the point where they’d actually like to be able to vote for someone like Obama, just as they enjoy being fans of the right African-American music or sports celebrities. (This tells you nothing about their opinions on racial hot button issues like crime or welfare, however.)  

The racial component in choices made by voters, if there is one, will come from the handicapper mentality. It seems that increasingly, particularly in primaries, voters think that their job is to bet on the winner. In the Democratic primary, that leads some of them to this convoluted reasoning path: “I’m not racist myself, and I’d like see Obama as president, but since other people are racist, perhaps I’d better not vote for him.” This kind of one-degree-of-separation racial analysis could harm Obama’s prospects in the remaining primaries, if too many otherwise well-meaning Democrats fall for it.  

In the week in which we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, it’s useful to remember the exhortation which he made popular in the civil rights movement: Keep your eyes on the prize. What we’re trying to do here is choose a president, folks. 

In grade school we were asked to debate the question of “who was the greatest president, Washington or Lincoln?” I never had a moment’s doubt arguing for Lincoln, because of the whole log cabin thing: He’d overcome his humble background to rise to the top, a trajectory most admired in America.  

But in maturity I realize that there’s more to the story than that. Even if Hillary Clinton does represent women overcoming gender discrimination, or if Barack Obama does represent triumph over racial discrimination, those aren’t the best reasons to vote for either of them in 2008.  

It’s better to choose our elected officials on the basis of what they will do if elected, instead of on what they represent as symbols. Much more relevant is evaluating the choices they’ve made.  

It’s not the fact that Hillary Clinton chose to hitch her wagon to Bill’s star that counts against her, it’s what they, admittedly as a team, did with the presidency. She has experience, all right, but there is little to be proud of and much to be ashamed of in the Clinton record. The obvious comparison is to Eleanor Roosevelt, who made the same decision about her career, though she never had a chance to run for office on her own, but did much more good with her chosen path.  

Sen. Barack Obama has the advantage of an essentially clean slate. He is often compared to Sen. Jack Kennedy, who did a fair job with the presidency in the short time he had, but Obama, the same age as Kennedy was when he was elected, has achieved much more on his own than Kennedy had at the same point in his life. Kennedy was never a scholar like Obama, nor did he devote any time to community service jobs as Obama does.  

But in the last analysis, even by studying history, it’s impossible to predict with certainly what any candidate will do if elected. Like it or not, we fall back in the end on image: what a candidate seems to stand for.  

John Edwards is a tempting choice because his campaign invokes the best of the Democratic party’s past, but at the same time he reminds us of the party’s failures to solve many problems. Hillary Clinton has only experience as her product, only her partnership with Bill as her resume, and that’s tainted by his obvious shortcomings. What the Obama campaign is selling is not much more than hope that the future will be different from the recent past, but hope is a potent prescription. It might be the one that works this time. 

“Last fall, Wolfgang Homburger wrote an opinion piece in the Berkeley Daily Planet attacking Bus Rapid Transit. Friends of BRT researched his claims and found that many of them were inaccurate. Unfortunately, the Berkeley Daily Planet failed to publish our response to Wolfgang Homburger, though it was much better researched than most of their opinion pieces—perhaps as a result of their bias against BRT.”  

—Leonard Conly and Charles Siegel, on the Friends of BRT Blog, Jan. 10 

Well, no. As far as I can remember, the Berkeley Daily Planet has never taken any position pro or con the Bus Rapid Transit proposal now being floated by AC Transit. The Berkeley Daily Planet as such doesn’t take positions on topics like this, or on any topics. The executive editor, in signed pieces like this one, sometimes expresses her own opinions, but as far as she can remember she’s never expressed her opinion on the BRT proposal. She might not have one. 

The paper has, of course, published many many letters and commentaries on this topic, much to the dismay of many of our readers who just don’t care about it. It has published many communications on the topic from Mr. Conly and Mr. Siegel themselves, as well as from the four other members listed on the Friends of BRT blog site. It has also published letters from some BRT opponents, which might be the reason that Mr. Siegel and Mr. Conly now charge the paper with bias. It is even possible (I haven’t checked) that we skipped one letter from Mr. Siegel and Mr. Conly somewhere along the line—we do run out of space occasionally. Anyone who still wants to see it can find it at http://berkeleybrt.blogspot.com, and if we indeed missed it in these pages, there might be room for it sometime soon. 

But there have been enough letters from parties who support or oppose the specific BRT proposals in the draft environmental impact report put forward by AC Transit that interested readers can make up their own minds on the factual aspects of the plan. Most of the writers on both sides are articulate and persuasive. Few readers should need additional guidance from the editor of the Planet at this point.  

Many of us are neither pro nor con in this battle of the century. Few would dispute the need to convert as many Californians as possible to mass transit patrons. Climate change makes it mandatory that we all abandon our addiction to one-person-one-car.  

But many of us never plan to travel between Bayfair Mall (wherever that is) and downtown Berkeley, by bus or any other means, so the prospect of saving 20 minutes or so of travel time on that trip, as promised in the BRT scenario, doesn’t excite us unduly. Many of us note the diesel behemoths, some of them double-length, already rumbling through city streets with three or four passengers on board, and have trouble believing that some day they’ll be filled with smiling faces, though miracles do happen. 

There are plenty of transit innovations which most people in Berkeley would happily endorse, even the most fervent BRT naysayers. It’s the little things that make a difference, like making sure reliable bus schedules are posted at every stop, with electronic updating in case a bus gets delayed. Running small feeder vans to existing BART stations would make more difference than building elaborate station structures along the BRT route. Stopping UC from building ever more parking lots for its employees and giving them free transit passes instead would help a lot. 

It’s now virtually impossible for would-be travellers to get accurate information about transit choices. I’ve been a sophisticated computer user for 40 years, so I spent a few minutes trying to use the “trip planner” software on the 511.org web site. It is, I regret to say, a joke.  

I tried three different destinations. The first time, the system didn’t recognize my home address of 35 years as a valid starting point. The second time, I asked for a Santa Cruz destination, and got a choice of five possibilities, including Emeryville and San Mateo, but no Santa Cruz. It’s possible the system doesn’t go as far as Santa Cruz, but if so it should have just told me that, not offered lunatic alternatives. The third time, I tried a destination in El Cerrito which I happen to know is easily served from my house by the No. 7 bus, and the program did eventually give me a correct response, though at first it refused to recognize the destination as a real address.  

But the main problem with the El Cerrito trip as planned by the software is that it was predicted to take more than an hour in the middle of the day with no bus changes. By car, the same trip takes only 25 minutes. At night the program reported that a bus change on San Pablo is needed, probably daunting for timid riders, and the whole trip takes a minimum of an hour and 15 minutes—barring transfer glitches, which can be expected. 

This kind of service will never get anyone out of their car. Few users who own cars will decide that they have enough spare time to accommodate such a bus schedule. BRT, if implemented, wouldn’t make any difference for trips like this one. 

A major cause of transit problems is competition among empires. Coordinating BART and AC Transit has never been made to work. Each agency jealously defends its own turf, and neither is willing to make the concessions necessary to give the hapless consumer a meaningful range of transit options. The lack of what is called, in the software world, “interoperability” among Bay Area transit systems is scandalous. It’s the first problem that needs to be remedied, long before any capital-intensive hardscape “improvements” are constructed by AC or any other player in the game. 

But perhaps we won’t have BRT to kick around much longer, if we’re to believe Gov. Schwarzenegger’s dire predictions about the state’s economy. Perhaps whoever’s paying the bill, federal, state or local, just won’t be able to afford spending the $400 million dollars it’s estimated to cost. 

The city of Berkeley, however, still seems to have plenty of cash. As I was leaving home yesterday a city truck with three employees in it pulled up on my corner, parking in the red zone. Their mission? To change a big sign saying “street not through” to a bigger one saying “no outlet.” If we can fund important tasks like that, perhaps we can also pay what it takes to build the bus stations on Telegraph and the whole BRT project.  

It would be entertaining and informative to see the debate on the BRT project which opponent Doug Buckwald has repeatedly proposed, but supporters haven’t yet had the courage to accept his challenge. They take themselves and their cause pretty seriously, and Buckwald has an antic sense of humor which tends to outrage the sententious. He’s promised to avoid light verse in his presentation, and perhaps jokes at the expense of BRT devotees could also be banned if they would agree to take part.  

In fact, perhaps the Planet could sponsor a whole debate tournament for those who feel that they haven’t gotten enough spaces in our pages. The first half could be on Bus Rapid Transit, and the second could be devoted to what’s happened at KPFA. Does anyone have a hall they’d make available for such an event? It doesn’t have to be a very big one, I imagine. 

CELL PHONE ANTENNAS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

People sometimes say that our mayor has below-normal intelligence. This seems to be corroborated by his willingness—indeed, eagerness—to let his developer friends, along with several cell-phone companies, put up a thicket of cell-phone towers on the old Bekins building in South Berkeley, only a few blocks from the mayor’s own house!  

A number of respected scientific studies have shown that people living near such towers experience significantly increased cancer rates, so it would appear that the mayor is perfectly willing to risk his own life, and that of his wife, not to mention the lives of his neighbors, just to keep the developers and the corporations happy. That, to me, is definitely a sign of below-normal—in fact, dangerously below-normal—intelligence. 

Peter Schorer 

• 

PEDESTRIANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Was Bernie Lenhoff trying to be serious with his absurd letter (“Pedestrian Safety,” Jan. 15) blaming pedestrians for disturbing his auto utopia and implying we pedestrians deserve our injuries and fatalities? Driving a car is a privilege, not a right, and motorists have a responsibility to be alert, to obey laws and to look for and yield to pedestrians. Buried in the same issue’s commentary page (“Traffic Calming,” by Michael Jerrett), is the all too frequent fact that “Drivers on many occasions have challenged my family and others in the cross walk by speeding directly at us and not slowing down until we back away.” 

Since drivers seem to be granted a 10-15 mph buffer over the posted speed limits before tickets are issued, Berkeley should lower its posted speed limits by this margin so drivers will really limit themselves to a 20-25 mph cap in residential areas. Instead of motorists viewing pedestrians as worthless, crushable insects who are slowing down one’s all-too important journey, the driving paradigm needs to recognize that most everyone’s loved ones occasionally walk, and that every time a driver sets a bad example, the people who “learn” from that example might influence others, mispaying it back to the motorist and the motorist’s own loved ones. 

Motorists need to create a safe environment for pedestrians and bicyclists, recognizing that it is in the motorists own best interest to encourage others to walk, to bicycle, and to leave more vacant parking spaces. 

Sadly, people are in a hurry, and the incentive to shave a few seconds off one’s journey has insufficient consequences. The city should install automated speed cameras in key locations to change the rush-rush driving paradigm! The cameras pay for themselves either by well-deserved citations or by priceless lives saved. 

Mitch Cohen 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please tell me that Bernie Lenhoff’s Jan. 15 letter is a satire. He’s trying to be funny, right? 

I walk to work and back along Telegraph Avenue every day. Whenever or wherever I walk, I go out of my way to cross at traffic lights, braving ridicule from family and friends for being so overly timid. Despite crossing on green lights, where the state of California says I have the right of way, I experience near-misses with cars every week, most particularly at the intersection of Webster and Telegraph, just behind Whole Foods. I don’t step in front of speeding cars. I wait for a clear crosswalk, and then venture out. Inevitably, about mid-point in the crossing, some one-handed left or right turner barrels into the intersection, cell phone in the other hand (is that a law? no turns without using a cell phone?), on his or her mission to buy prebiotics and carbon offsets. I stop walking. Best case, the car stops, I cross, no problem. Less good case, car slows down and keeps moving, making me either stop or keep apace—pretty intimidating. What if I trip on a pothole and fall down? Worst case, the car definitely doesn’t seem to be slowing or stopping. I usually stand still, the car speeds by, or screeches to a stop, the driver glares at me. I glare back. Sometimes I yell things. I fantasize about pulling the drivers out of their cars and pummeling them with their iPhones. (Actually, I fantasize something much more satisfying, but probably even the nut who wants to put laser sensors up their emissions would object.) 

Aija Kanbergs 

Oakland 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Much Jan. 15 commentary focused on parking, traffic, and pedestrian fatality. Both Roy Nakadegawa and Michael Jerrett cite other cities around the world where these problems are addressed by increased taxation of automobile use through special access and parking fees and added fuel taxes. This seems an obvious first step, but the next question is how to apply that funding to real solutions. 

Nakadegawa opts for a transit solution, arguing for BRT and dismissing local shuttles to BART. I think that small frequent shuttles offer the better solution. One might argue that they’re costly due to a small rider to driver ratio, but look at all those nearly empty AC buses - and that’s one use for the added revenue. Above all, we need a regional transit authority with real power to override the turf wars and impose synchronized schedules and fee exchanges among AC, BART and Muni. 

Jerrett argues for traffic calming and offers encouraging research on its effectiveness. I’m skeptical, and suspect that the research may be skewed. He cites a paper “showing that in areas of Oakland with speed humps, traffic injuries to children requiring hospitalization were cut it half compared to other areas without the humps". Yeah, because traffic from the hump areas has all moved to the non-hump areas. This is a zero-sum game. Create obstacles in one area and all the traffic moves to another area - it doesn’t just disappear. And I submit that speed humps and traffic circles are not “traffic calming” but traffic enraging. Moving traffic out of residential streets is desirable, but it necessarily channels frustrated and impatient drivers onto our bumper-to-bumper main thoroughfares.  

What to do? In his Jan. 4 comments on the tragic pedestrian death on Marin, Laurie Capitelli says “All parties were obeying the traffic signals". That says it all! Simple stoplights don’t protect pedestrians. The implementation of traffic signals in Berkeley lags decades behind that in Albany, El Cerrito and Emeryville. On our overcrowded main arteries, every pedestrian crossing needs left turn arrows and timed pedestrian walk signals. Meanwhile, Bernie Lenhoff’s Jan. 15 letter should be required reading for every pedestrian in Berkeley. And a personal note to Dr. Jerrett: If those were my kids, and unless they’re somehow disabled or terminally lazy, I’d damn sure tell them to walk a couple extra blocks and cross Shattuck at Cedar, where there is a traffic light.  

Jerry Landis 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Though I find Bernie Lenhoff’s contention that “the greatest danger to pedestrians in Berkeley are the pedestrians themselves” extreme (Jan. 15), there is some truth to what he says. I am astonished to watch (usually young) people ambling nonchalantly against red lights and then flip the bird or scream at rattled drivers forced to brake violently to avoid killing them. I have also had several near collisions with pedestrians wearing dark clothing at night who are almost impossible to see until one is upon them. On the other hand, I recently noticed that about a third of the drivers barreling down Hearst Street had only one hand on the steering wheel while they talked animatedly on their cell phones. 

I wish that European-style public transit made cars unnecessary in Berkeley, but until that happy day that will never come, pedestrians and drivers must share some responsibility for our increasingly deadly streets. 

Gray Brechin 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Measures A and B 

Until Children’s Hospital Oakland, a private hospital, asked the public to pay for a $300 million bond measure—40 per cent of the construction costs of a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility—the salaries of the top CHO executives weren’t really an issue to me. But since they are asking, in the interest of transparency and accountability, voters might be interested to know (according to CHO’s 2006 IRS 990 forms) what salaries CHO pays to those at the top: 

• CEO Frank Tiedemann made more than $673,000 in cash and employee benefit plan contributions that year. 

• Senior vice president Mary Dean made more than $317,000 in 2006 after getting a 15 per cent raise. 

• Chief operating officer and chief financial officer Doug Myers made $420,000. 

• Senior vice president of research Bert Lubin made $362,000. 

• Chief administrative officer Pamela Friedman made nearly $230,000. 

These are only some of CHO’s senior vice presidents. 

By comparison, the CEO of the public Alameda County Medical Center, which includes Highland General, John George, Fairmont and three outpatient clinics, made $351,000. 

CHO might do a little belt-tightening of their own executives’ salaries before coming to the public for a handout. 

Please vote No on A and B. 

Robert Brokl 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

The good news: Susan Parker’s back, funny and feisty as ever! Keep ‘em coming! 

The bad news: Now we have Ron Lowe (not even in the Bay Area, no less) not once but twice in recent issues. How about giving someone else a chance? 

On a more significant note: Children’s Hospital, caught in the act of sideswiping the public, has now been public relations savvy enough to back off from Measure B. Don’t be fooled: Measure A, its replacement, would still deal a blow to the county. Not that I’m against helping sick kids—who is?—but let’s not forget that Children’s Hospital is a private venture and we must direct our ever-more-meager resources to public institutions such as Highland, the place of last resort for low-income Alameda County residents—especially now with terrifying budget cuts being proposed by the governor. Children’s can seek big bucks from foundations and some of those super-rich I.T. and Hollywood folks our state has spawned; schools and other county services can’t. 

Rhoda Slanger 

On Thursday, Jan. 24, the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board will decide whether to allow the demolition of five sound rent-controlled housing units at 1923 Ninth St. and their replacement with condominiums. The case potentially represents a dangerous precedent in a city whose economic diversity depends on rent control, and whose single-family home prices have skyrocketed in recent years. The ZAB should follow San Francisco’s lead and only allow the demolition of sound rent-controlled housing when the units are replaced with new rent-controlled housing on-site, an outcome readily achievable at 1923 Ninth St. 

The scenario at 1923 Ninth St. is all too common: An owner seeks to increase density on what they perceive as an underutilized site. When increasing the number of housing units on a site brings accompanying social benefits, this is a good thing. But as currently proposed, approving the demolition of rent-controlled housing at 1923 Ninth St. is both bad policy and a violation of city law. The ZAB must reject this outcome. 

Let’s start with the policy.  

No city that cares about preserving economic diversity should allow the loss of rent-controlled housing. Absent rent control, Berkeley’s population would be far whiter and wealthier, and more closely resemble Mill Valley than the racially and economically diverse city it has been since the 1960s. 

San Francisco understands the value of rent-controlled housing. A recent experience at the Trinity Plaza Apartments at 8th and Market Streets provides a model for the type of “win-win” solution available at 1923 Ninth St. 

Trinity Plaza currently consists of 370 units, 360 of which are rent-controlled. In 2003, Trinity owner Angelo Sangiacomo announced plans to demolish Trinity and replace it with 1,400 new units. This proposal would have eliminated the rent-controlled housing, and displaced over 100 tenants. 

In response to this plan, I drafted an anti-demolition ordinance that barred the destruction of sound housing. The measure passed the Board of Supervisors, only to be vetoed by Mayor Newsom. We then proceeded to take the measure to the November 2004 ballot, only to have it removed from the ballot by an anti-tenant judge. 

Tenant groups felt strongly enough about saving Trinity’s rent-controlled housing that we began a new signature drive to hold a special election on our anti-demolition initiative. But before we could get started, Sangiacomo agreed to replace all of the rent-controlled housing on site. 

The result is that construction will soon begin on a 500-unit building that will contain 360 rent-controlled units. Since state law prohibits rent controls on newly built housing, this restriction must be part of a development agreement and rent limitations included in the deed. 

None of Trinity’s tenants will be displaced. Instead, all will stay in their homes until the new building is completed, and then move to the much finer apartments at their same rent. 

The 1900-unit complex at the new Trinity Plaza will be San Francisco’s largest new apartment development in over 50 years. It was made possible because the rent-controlled housing at the site was preserved. 

1923 Ninth St. is capable of a similar solution. The city can increase its housing supply from five to fifteen units without sacrificing rent-controlled units or permanently displacing existing tenants. 

All the ZAB has to do is encourage the owner to make five of the 15 new condos subject to rent control via a development agreement and deed restrictions. If tenants must be temporarily displaced by the demolition, the owner must subsidize their rents until they can return to units in the new building. 

Unfortunately, some, and perhaps a majority, of ZAB members appear to believe that eliminating rent-controlled housing can be mitigated by the owner’s payment of replacement housing fees. But there are two problems with this.  

First, there is no certainty that such fees will actually create the same number of affordable units as the rent-controlled units lost.  

Second, such funds are typically allocated to projects that would have been built anyway, so a net loss in rent-restricted housing occurs. 

In addition to the policy reasons for preserving rent-controlled housing, city law appears to require denial of the owner’s proposal. 

A series of opinions from the city attorney’s office makes it clear that Sections 23C.08.030 (E) and (F) of the Berkeley Demolition Ordinance apply to the rent-controlled units at 1923 Ninth St. In order to approve the demolition, the ZAB would have to find that denial of the project would either effectively constitute a “taking”—a claim that has never been suggested and could not succeed, or that the building’s condition is so deteriorated that demolition is necessary—which also does not apply to 1929 Ninth Street. 

The legal obstacles to demolition should encourage the owner to support a revised project that maintains five rent-controlled units on site. 

Rents in the San Francisco Bay Area rose 8.6 percent in 2007, well above the inflation rate. There could not be a worse time for Berkeley officials to encourage the elimination of rent-controlled housing. 

As 2008 begins, the ZAB could help set a new tone in Berkeley’s land-use wars by encouraging a solution that increases density while protecting tenants and rent-controlled housing. If Angelo Sanciagomo, whose rent increases in 1979 spawned San Francisco’s enactment of rent control, sees the wisdom of preserving rent-controlled housing, there is no reason the same outcome should not occur at 1923 Ninth St. 

Randy Shaw is the director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and editor of the online daily newspaper BeyondChron.org. He can be reached at randy@thclinic.org. 

Appealing as Barack Obama’s politics of dialogue and inclusivity may be to the broader electorate, his non-confrontational rhetoric is troubling to some on the Left—people who are accustomed to having to do battle with corporate America for the reforms that will bring about economic and social justice. People like me. 

A prominent spokesperson for this disquiet is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. In a Dec. 17 column, Krugman labels Obama’s approach naïve, arguing that “[a]nyone who thinks the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world.”  

These are serious concerns that I have also heard from some of my progressive friends. But I don’t share them. 

Progressives know that there is one overriding reason corporations exert disproportionate influence in the political process. To get elected, candidates need to advertise profusely, and to pay for those ads, candidates need bucketloads of corporate money. Nothing about this lamentable system will change in the 2008 elections, which means that virtually every member of Congress will owe his or her position in some degree to the corporations and scions of business who funded their campaigns.  

Unless and until we enact (and the Supreme Court upholds) true campaign finance reform, corporations are going to have an important seat at the table for every significant economic reform that a Democratic president proposes. Is it naïve to acknowledge this fact and to express willingness to have a reasoned discussion with affected business interests? Hardly. 

Given the likelihood that the Senate will not have a filibuster-proof 60 Democrats—let alone progressive Democrats—we have a better chance of gaining the needed Republican and moderate Democratic votes if our president refrains from inflammatory rhetoric. 

In our broken campaign finance system, I have learned not to expect any more from a Democratic president and Congress than decent compromise in the direction of progressive reforms. Still, alone among the Democratic candidates, Obama gives me hope for something better. 

Drawing on the difficult life lessons he has learned as the son of a black man from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, and learning from his experience as a community organizer in poor communities in Chicago, Obama has a keen sense of social justice. The power of Obama’s oratory comes not just from his delivery but from the depth and thoughtfulness of his words and the conviction behind them. (Just as one example, read his recent “Call to Serve” speech. ) 

Having read Obama’s autobiography, listened to many of his speeches, and studied his positions on the issues, I have allowed myself to hope that Obama’s words will inspire Americans of all persuasions to focus less on self-interest and more on our common interest in creating a just society. I even have hope that, for the issues that really matter, Obama will convince enough members of Congress to risk alienating their corporate contributors (after respectfully listening to them) and to dare to pursue the reforms we need for the long-term health of our nation. 

But, in voting for Obama and his call for civil political discourse, wouldn’t we be squandering a rising anti-corporate populist tide? I don’t think so. Frankly, economic conditions are (fortunately) not sufficiently bad for enough Americans to elect a firebrand progressive president and a take-no-prisoners Congress. Although the economy could deteriorate significantly in the next 10 months, we do not appear headed into the type of devastating economic depression that freed FDR from the need to worry about the politically weakened corporate sector derailing his progressive reforms.  

In this economic climate, John Edwards’ heated rhetoric about fighting corporate greed—as comfortable as it may sound to many progressives—is doomed to failure in the general election. In the face of relentless Republican general election ads decrying “class warfare,” Edwards’ message will not win over sufficient independent voters. Nor will it help that Edwards’ fiery rhetoric does not square with his moderate voting record as a senator. 

I have focused on domestic politics thus far, but I believe that the promise of an Obama presidency shines brightest in the international arena. Our nation’s standing among reasonable people around the globe has never been lower. In the last seven years, the Bush administration debacles have only reinforced our reputation throughout much of the developing world as clueless neo-colonialists.  

Obama would be an American president the likes of which the world has never seen: He has extended family in Kenya leading hard-scrabble lives; and, as a child, he lived for several years in modest circumstances in predominantly Muslim Indonesia. With such roots in the Third World, Obama has the capacity to understand in personal terms the issues faced by developing nations and to steer a more compassionate foreign policy. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism is arguably the most important foreign policy challenge of our time, and Obama is uniquely equipped to understand and defuse the forces that are fueling this dynamic. Obama’s willingness to engage in a dialogue even with leaders whose views we find abhorrent is exactly the right antidote to the arrogant, hubris-driven Bush foreign policy that has swelled the ranks of our enemies and only served to further undermine our safety and security. 

Americans are weary of politicians whose themes are driven by polling and focus groups. Obama seems to be the opposite—a candidate whose commitment to social and economic justice is a core conviction forged from life experience. Yes, Obama will foster a civil political dialogue, but he shows no signs of abandoning his fundamental progressive convictions.  

Albany resident Thomas Long was a consumer attorney for the Utility Reform Network (TURN), an advocacy group, for many years, and now is an attorney for the city and county of San Francisco. The opinions expressed here are his own.

MANTRA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here’s a quick-mantra for the world today: Those few of us who profit obscenely from “free market capitalism,” make absolutely sure that those of us who don’t, are successfully silenced.  

Robert Blau 

• 

SCHOOL DIET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was like listening to what happens after the Berlin Wall Comes down. It was Ann Cooper giving her presentation this past Wednesday, to the School Board, on what has changed with the public school’s food program, and it was everything that I had wished for. She began by saying that in the past 28 months, she’s gotten rid of all transfats and high fructose corn syrup in school food. Bravo, I clapped. She said that all milk at lunch is organic, and the hamburger they serve only once a month, is grass fed, and that she tries to spend most of her budget on local farms, within 100 miles of Berkeley. And every school has a garden program. 

It’s a miracle! Berkeley is so lucky. We have Michael Pollan teaching and talking and writing here, we have Alice Waters and a slew of master cooks, and now all our schools have the best school food and garden program in the world. 

Beebo Turman displayed her four three-inch inch binders of notes and agendas—representing eight hard years of long meetings. Eric Weaver, who started working on this when his son was in kindergarten and is now half-way through high school, sat in the audience. 

Those of us who wrote the original Food Policy and insisted on the word organic, sent this news around the world. Berkeley, being Berkeley, our comet of a food policy made the news in 140 countries. And while it took six years before Berkeley schools even began to implement the guts of this policy, good school food is now mainstream, laws in many states, and Berkeley’s food policy is the basis of the school food policy in Great Britain. 

We have outlasted administrators who told us that our dreams were foolhardy and unaffordable, who rolled their eyes when we talked about fruits and vegetables, and who looked at us as gargoyles from outer space when we talked about fresh-cooked rather than factory-made food. And most of all about childhood obesity, and that kids can’t learn, can’t sit still on high sugar, high salt, high fat, laced with preservatives fake color and chemical flavoring. (But heh, that stuff was vitamin fortified.) 

And I remember a prior food administrator who said, kids don’t eat vegetables. And now, every garden teacher and every nutrition cooking teacher at each school, can attest. Kids don’t eat vegetables, they wolf them down. 

It’s all true today! All of it.  

So this is a shout out, to all those above, and to Michele Lawrence who opened the door, to Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse Foundation for helping with the funding, to the Center for Ecoliteracy for supporting school gardens and the mantra “eat local, eat local.” And to all those folks who work with our great school garden programs, to you department chairs of the weeding department, kudos! 

Yolanda Huang 

• 

UC POLICE DOUBLE STANDARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Standing in front of the Oak Grove at the last home game of the football season (Nov. 10), an enthusiastic fan jabbed my eye with outpointed fingers. My eye still hurts everyday.  

I had to insist twice, with help from witnesses, that the UCB cops stop the guy. A police report was filed (so I can prove this story is true), yet I was not allowed to press charges against the guy. I did nothing to provoke the guy, which the cops understood. But the cops explained that sometimes when there’s a crowd and a tense situation, people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. The guy was let go with no charges filed, no citation issued. My eye hurts every day. 

I may have, it seems, poured a little water on a cop during a tense incident one night at the Grove. Yes, water, not an “unknown chemical substance.” I was held that night, the following day, and that following night. That second night I was held post-bail, a bail which the cops tried unsuccessfully to set at a whopping $35,000. Despite having a disability, I was held without access to appropriate medical care which I did need at the time and asked for multiple times. Cops everywhere I was shuffled around to all believed I used “unknown chemical substances,” so my rights were often violated. I was denied access to a phone for over 24 hours.  

The media believed the embellishment. All the papers printed the bogus story about “unknown chemicals.” But it was water, a fact which even the cops now admit. But still because how they lied about what I did, people did believe “unknown chemicals.” 

And despite slandering me, having me held like a terrorist, and having to pay some bail, the cops want to punish me further. For water. They are taking me to trial; going to kick me when I’m down. I have no clue what the punishment will be, but the charges are four misdemeanor counts of battery on police officers. For water. My eye hurts every day. 

There is obviously a double standard about what constitutes battery, and who is allowed to press charges. Anyway, we’ll see how far I get in court with “sometimes when there’s a crowd and a tense situation, people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.” 

Nathan Pitts 

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Vincent Casalaina’s letter last Friday in opposition to the potential Bus Rapid Transit project was flawed in two respects: It based its argument on obsolete data, and it used faulty circular logic. 

Casalaina continues to argue that what’s included in the draft environmental impact report (released in 2006) is what inevitably will be built. He thereby fails to understand the very good reason why environmental review requires two stages: the draft EIR uncovers issues of community concern so that the final EIR is highly likely to address them. Casalaina’s concern with parking is a perfect example: it has risen to the top of local issues people care about when looking at BRT in Berkeley, so it’s certain that the issue will be fully explored. AC Transit has already committed to describing potential mitigations for any final scenario chosen by the City of Berkeley as its “preferred local alternative.” As a basis for opposition, therefore, the draft EIR is about as reliable as last month’s weather forecast. 

Casalaina was also “concerned about spending any more time and money to develop a preferred alternative if we feel that all of the alternatives will be disastrous for Berkeley.” There’s the bad logic: how, exactly, will we know if any alternatives will be “disastrous” without analyzing at least one of them in detail? Once the final EIR has laid out the preferred local alternative and its negative impacts along with their mitigations, we will be able to discuss potential “disastrousness”—but surely not until then. Let’s reach our conclusions after we see the evidence, not before. 

Finally, anyone who proposes Rapid Bus as the adequate alternative to BRT has never actually ridden the 1R on Telegraph or in downtown at rush hours. Without the amenities of a full BRT implementation—dedicated lanes wherever practical, pre-board ticketing, signal priority and more—the 1R will never be more than another local bus stuck in our increasingly challenging commute-hour traffic. 

Alan Tobey 

Friends of BRT 

• 

AC TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Police vehicles, ambulances, and fire trucks have long had a way of traveling quickly without requiring an empty lane to use at all time. Their method has not required workers and shoppers to give up hundreds of parking spaces. How do they do it? They have the law saying they have the right of way. They are permitted to use flashing lights and unique noises to remind people to let them pass. 

If AC Transit can prove that 1) its buses would actually make better time with a freed up right-of-way, and 2) the improved speed would attract a worthwhile number of additional passengers, then they have a long-established means of achieving their goal. The appropriate legislative bodies could pass ordinances or laws giving the buses the right-of-way over regular traffic. The buses could be equipped with flashing lights and some unique warning sound. Drivers hearing a couple of bars of (for example) “the wheels of the bus go round and round” played on diesel horn would quickly learn to pull to the side to let these efficient vehicles pass. 

Drivers and parkers would be inconvenienced only when there is a bus behind them trying to pass. The city could collect its meter revenues, and local businesses would continue to be able to sell to people who, for whatever reason, need a car. Costs would be minimal to specially equip a couple of dozen buses for particular chosen routes. 

Peter Liederman 

• 

MARIN AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am so sorry Sandra Graber was killed crossing Marin on Dec. 31. 

As someone who advocated for years to improve Marin’s safety through reconfiguration, I must seriously consider Mr. Chamberlin’s charge that the elimination of the small pedestrian islands due to the reconfiguration is at fault. This was discussed recently by the Albany Strollers and Rollers, and a different perspective emerged. Like Colusa, Santa Fe Avenue intersects Marin at an acute angle. At this angle, the driver turning left onto Marin often has their view of the cross walk blocked by the roof column between the windshield and the side window. This has been observed to cause some conflict between pedestrians and drivers at Santa Fe and Marin. Having recognized this hazard, Albany applied for a grant last fall to install left turn signals on Santa Fe to eliminate this conflict. Perhaps a similar solution is needed at Colusa and Marin. 

As to the reconfiguration not slowing down traffic on Marin, it is true that the follow-up survey did not show this to be the case. This was because traffic volumes were so much less at the time of this survey, apparently due to rainy weather. Albany’s speed survey last September did show a dramatic reduction in average speed, however, to 27 mph with a daily traffic volume of 19,500. This is the first time the average speed has been under 30 mph in at least a decade, and is 5 mph less than the average speed in April, 1997, the last time the traffic volume was near 20,000. While a 5 mph, 15 percent reduction may not seem very significant, average accident severity correlates to the square of the speed rather than just the speed. Therefore this reduction should reduce average accident severity by almost 30%. On this measure alone, the reconfiguration has been a success in making all of Marin safer. Of course, the reconfiguration also eliminated the passing lane, which presented an additional hazard to pedestrians beyond just vehicle speed alone. This situation was unequivocally responsible for a pedestrian fatality on Marin in the summer of 2003. 

Preston Jordan 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 

Earth Science Division 

• 

PEDESTRIAN SAFETY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To state the glaringly obvious: the greatest danger to pedestrians in Berkeley are the pedestrians themselves. Whatever the many virtues of walking, the overwhelming majority of pedestrians consistently behave ignorantly, arrogantly, and/or selfishly when entering our roadways, putting themselves and others at risk. They seem to believe their moral superiority (“I’m an ecological pedestrian, you’re a planet-killing driver”) or perceived legal right-of-way (“All cars must halt for MEEEEE”) will magically stop all vehicles. Or maybe they are just too busy zoning to their iPods, or exchanging important gossip on their cell phones to care. Unfortunately, in the real world, vehicles don’t always stop in time. 

The collisions are not, as has been suggested, predominantly a result of Berkeley car culture, but rather of Berkeley pedestrian culture. Instead of rushing to blame speeding cars, we should be asking why pedestrians are in such a damn hurry to cross the street. If Berkeley pedestrians simply treated cars as the dangerous 2.5 ton missiles they are by 1) avoiding crossing streets in front of nearby oncoming vehicles, and 2) crossing cautiously under all conditions, vehicle-pedestrian collisions would be entirely eliminated except for the most unique unfortunate circumstances. Regardless of whether drivers behave recklessly or responsibly, pedestrians are nearly always “in the drivers seat” in regards their own safety. Right now, they invariably choose to drive their safety off the nearest cliff and take their chances. “Precaution” does not exist in the vocabulary of the Berkeley pedestrian, and THAT is the problem. 

Having spent nearly 40 of my 50 years elsewhere, and speaking as both a driver and pedestrian, the lack of regard Berkeley pedestrians show for their own safety is appalling. I’m amazed the injury and fatality rates aren’t much higher. It’s time Berkeley pedestrians grew up and behaved responsibly— that is, if they truly want to protect themselves instead of digging up scapegoats to fit whatever irrational ideology they’ve adopted to support their narcissistic behavior. I look forward to the day when a Berkeley pedestrian actually looks both ways before crossing a street (especially when they are pushing a baby carriage; even looking one way would be an improvement), or waits for a line of twenty cars to pass instead of forcing them all to brake and idle, wasting gas and spewing emissions, so one single solitary self-absorbed “green” pedestrian can mosey across. 

Bernie Lenhoff 

• 

DIRTY POLITICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Is everybody ready for the Republican election year assault on our senses; ready for down and dirty politics in ‘08. The GOP will do anything to win the upcoming elections. There will be the usual distortion and confusion of facts, half-truths, the dredging up of past inaccuracies, character assassination, false charges, feeding the fires of fear and scare tactics galore. Plus, no one has yet fixed the flawed and vulnerable electronic voting process. Maybe the GOP has changed its ways. 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

• 

EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Marvin Chachere offers us another thoughtful article (Jan. 8) this time on the last days of the American Republic, in which he reflects on “the drift of the ‘American experiment’ from its mooring as a republic towards a de facto empire.” Recently Naomi Wolfe, author of The End of America, wrote an essay in the Guardian entitled “Fascist America, in 10 easy steps” listing those steps that have been used repeatedly to subvert democracies into totalitarian states, and equating them with tactics employed by the Bush administration to undermine democratic processes in the United States. Her address detailing this can be seen on YouTube. 

Mr. Chachere says, “I look at the nation we have become and I see a pearl of promise being uncultivated, ignored and debased.” He describes, of course, our country, but that statement may be applied in microcosm to every child in an American public school. The neglect of education in America is at the root of the impending collapse of our democracy. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

KPFA ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In her Jan. 4 article “Clashes Continue Inside KPFA,” Judith Scherr updates issues of Pacifica/KPFA management and politics, including the Station Board election. I would’ve liked to see some items included or covered more carefully and accurately: 

Larry Bensky’s e-mail blast violation was ruled a clear, primary campaign practices violation by National Election Supervisor (NES) Casey Peters because the message was sent on the station e-mail server, not from Bensky’s private website as he implies. The server is clearly identified as @lists.kpfa.org in the e-mail header and footer. There’s really no question, I don’t think even KPFA management denies this; only Larry and his Concerned Listeners (CL) pals are playing dumb. The e-mail list itself is actually a station resource accumulated over the years he was on staff hosting Sunday Salon. Further, Sasha Lilley’s usual disingenuous denial of management and programmers being aware of or ignoring the NES prescribed remedies and penalties, besides partly refuted by Casey’s message to the interim GM, doesn’t a) address their continued refusal to provide access as ordered to the three independent candidate slates to transmit short messages to the list or b) mitigate Bensky’s continued on air appearances which flaunt the controlling cabal’s disregard and contempt for the NES prohibition/authority and Pacifica democratic election process. 

Pacifica interim Executive Director Dan Siegel’s letter to the Pacifica Community. This flagrant, critical violation of Pacifica bylaws, campaign rules and California corporations code is even more blatant than Bensky’s in using Pacifica positions and resources to intervene and influence the election—and likely had more adverse impact early in the voting period when it was practically the only election statement available to voters on the station and foundation websites or on air. So while Scherr perhaps couldn’t adequately cover both violations in one article, this one should’ve been referenced or at least mentioned. 

Peoples Radio is not alone in criticisms and complaints of myriad campaign violations and station management’s blackout of election information and collusion with the CL group. The collective letter to the NES (signed by 25) and the Open Letter from the Committee on Fair Elections (60 and counting; to be published as a commentary) were endorsed by multiple candidates and supporters of the three independent, pro-listener democracy slates, including Voices for Justice and I-Team, current and former Board members, active listeners and staff. 

Note: A public forum on KPFA/Pacifica elections is planned for February. 

Bob English 

2007 KPFA Board Candidate 

• 

PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As an old (83) man I have many opportunities to test primary care physicians (PCPs) for competence. What is an added aid to this endeavor is that my HMO requires that you be referred to a specialist by your PCP. This is not good for your health but good for my investigation. 

In the future I will audition a new PCP. I will give you an example from my experience (tendon completely torn off the shoulder; diagnosed as bursitis by my PCP.) 1. Ask your PCP what he would do if you came to him with sore shoulders that resulted from raising a window several mornings. Would he ask you if you had difficulty brushing your teeth, combing your hair, putting a dish on a high shelf? (symptoms specific for rotator cuff tear.) 2. Would he test you for rotator cuff tear? (A very simple test with an unambiguous result if you have a detached tendon.) 3. Would he say he wasn’t sure what your problem was and send you immediately to orthopedics? Any of these would be correct. My PCP just asked if I was getting better; said I had bursitis. I was getting better. I was reassured. After a year I quit improving so asked for a referral. The orthopedic surgeon said MRI showed the tendon completely torn off the bone. The muscle now atrophied. It was now too late to attempt repair. I said I had been improving. Surgeon said that was misleading. It was due to the three remaining attached muscles partially compensating for the detached muscle. 

Lost my hearing completely one day. Ears felt stopped up. PCP prescribed a nasal decongestant. I recovered. Lost hearing again. This time I only recovered partial hearing. Asked for referral. Otologist tested me with a tuning fork and determined my problem was an inner ear problem, not a middle ear problem as the PCP guessed. The PCP didn’t use a tuning fork. The otologist said most PCPs don’t have tuning forks! Otologist said MRI showed no tumor but permanent damage to auditory nerve. The primary treatment is prednisone within 48 hours. Too late. 

Daughter had malignant melanoma diagnosed as a harmless mole. PCP said she could see a dermatologist if she liked. She went. Had biopsy then immediate surgery. Dermatologist said melanoma diagnosis is tricky. Said PCPs should never guess but send patient to a specialist. I found the specialists excellent. The PCPs guessed and were wrong. It was as though the PCPs took a survey course in “medicine appreciation” rather than rigorously studying the profession. 

If you can afford it choose a medical plan that allows self-referral. Some HMOs are dropping the PCP-only referral due to poor PCP diagnoses and treatments. Medicine has advanced to the point where a PCP can’t cover the whole field. What’s frightening is that some PCPs don’t know that. 

Sam Craig 

• 

BUS PASSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are in a new year and it is still the same thing. The price of the bus pass for both seniors and the disabled is still $20. How can the Alameda-Contra Costa Transportation District do this to both of these groups? Don’t they realize that both seniors and the disabled use the bus as their only form of transportation? By doing so they are helping to fight global warming. 

I think the transportation district should lobby politicians in Sacramento and Washington D.C. for more funding so that they can lower the bus prices. The politicians in Washington have money to fund the war in Iraq, they should have money for seniors and the disabled. 

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland 

• 

ALTERNATE ROUTE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Highway 580 westbound toward the Bay Bridge, where drivers are going to Route 80, has long been a problem, as drivers merge to the left. 

The alternate route is to use West MacArthur. Caltrans has a new onramp which is used very little. Persons leaving the Kaiser Hospital can go up to the front of the line if they are headed north on Route 80. 

Charles Smith 

• 

LIBRARY COMPUTERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wish to bring to the attention of the public an issue concerning the children’s computers at the Berkeley Public Library. The library’s stated policy “affirms the right and responsibility of a parent to determine and monitor their child’s Internet access.” However, there is no monitoring at the library itself. Children of all ages are able to view any site they wish to, including pornography and chat rooms. 

Children’s computers “for the exclusive use by children” are available at the library. These computers recognize a special card granted to children 13 and under. However, the child does not have to use the children’s computer and can use that or the adult computer. MySpace, a predator hangout and site of a recent child suicide, required people who access their site to state that they are 14 years or over. A child using the children’s card is theoretically not eligible for MySpace, yet the library allows the child to access this and other “age-restricted sites” on either the adult or children’s computer. 

Parents, who know that their child has a children’s computer card, are lulled into believing that the library has parental controls, as many parents do at their homes. This is not the case. The library enables youngsters’ access to dangerous and questionable Internet sites and parents are most likely not aware of it. The library has issued an Internet use policy that basically washes their hands of any responsibility. Most parents are not aware of this and are not aware that their children have access to predatory sites. 

I worked at the library until recently and quit my position there when it was made clear to me that I could not intervene to protect children by upholding age restrictions on sites viewed. 

Thomas Lynch 

• 

IMPEACH BYBEE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bob Egelko in the Jan. 5 San Francisco Chronicle reminded us that some three years ago George Bush (unwittingly? or, probably, purposefully?) seated on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco one Jay Bybee, former Justice Department supervisory signer of John Woo’s now notorious memo to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advising that the Bill of Rights’ (geographically restricted!) prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments (torture) allows the infliction of pain up to that as severe as is caused by “organ failure, impairment of bodily functions or even death.” 

Gonzales is now gone from the federal government, and revolted students repeatedly protest Woo’s being on Boalt Hall’s faculty, but Jay Bybee, obvious adherent of Woo’s advocacy of extreme pain to extract dubious “information” from unindicted suspects remains on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges can be removed from our courts by impeachment by Congress. Action to impeach Jay Bybee is long overdue. 

Judith Segard Hunt 

• 

CRIMES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As if it isn’t enough of a scandal that the point is even being mooted as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture, we now have the administration, that same administration which showed no compunction at outing a CIA operative to serve their own political ends, claiming protection of the identity of the interrogators (read torturers) as the rationale for the destruction of tapes documenting the practice. 

This, given all the technology at hand at Langley—those pixilation and voice modification potentialities we are all now so familiar with from CNN—is sure to go down as one of the lamest excuses to date from the most corrupt administration since Harding, and would be almost laughable, were the stakes not so high. 

The motivation is no secret. It is the same motive that drove the Nazis to destroy whatever evidence they could of the camps—and the enormity of that crime should not blind us to the fact that it differs by degree only—an all too human impulse: to destory the evidence of their crimes. Hopefully, some still have a sense of shame as well. 

R.W. “Red” Snapper

Two tragic pedestrian deaths in the past month emphasize how urgently the City of Berkeley needs a new approach to pedestrian safety. This new approach would rely on area-wide traffic calming, paid for by financial charges to drivers. Councilmember Capitelli’s appeal to the moral side of drivers is not enough to improve pedestrian safety in Berkeley.  

Two important points have emerged from many years of study and experience in pedestrian safety: 1) drivers will behave badly if given the opportunity and no appeal to their better side will change this fact, and 2) area-wide traffic calming prevents accidents and saves lives. Mr. Capitelli correctly notes that traffic volume, speed and dangerous driving are on the top of many peoples’ minds in Berkeley. But to assert that he doesn’t actually “think the answer is always a tangible change to the streetscape” defies many years of research.  

Some of the most comprehensive studies to date show that traffic calming in the form of traffic circles and speed humps reduces accidents by between 75 percent-82 percent and even modest measures such as stop signs will reduce accidents by 70 percent. Locally, pediatrician Dr. June Tester published an important paper in 2004 showing that in areas of Oakland with speed humps, traffic injuries to children requiring hospitalization were cut in half compared to other areas without the humps. Internationally, recent studies indicate that countries such as England that have implemented aggressive speed control policies have seen deaths from crashes, including those with pedestrians, drop by 34 percent, while in the United States the equivalent number was only 6.5 percent over the 1990s. Controlling speed with traffic calming saves lives.  

Berkeley was the first city in the United States to implement traffic calming, but it has rested on its laurels for too long now and this has created inequities in safety and quality of life. Some neighborhoods like the wealthy Claremont are fortresses that do not allow cars to traverse anything but main streets. In other neighborhoods, such as the Northside of the UC Berkeley Campus where I live, near Spruce and Virginia, many cars and trucks cut through at high speed with virtual impunity. Similarly Mr. Capitelli’s Thousand Oaks neighborhood is also overrun with traffic, but under-served by traffic calming, and we have just witnessed the horrible consequences that can result from this type of inequity. Much of the inequity has historic roots, when progressive forces in well-organized neighborhoods pushed for changes in the 1980s and 1990s. By the mid-1990s, there was a moratorium placed on speed humps, one of the most cost-effective forms of traffic calming.  

Since then drivers in the city have had the upper hand. The prohibitively high cost of traffic circles (about 5 or more times the cost of speed humps for equivalent safety benefits) left many neighborhoods with virtually no protection. Slowly residents have aligned with the Safe Routes to School movement and others interested in safety and improving physical activity to scratch out minor improvements. There are too many gaps from this ad hoc approach. My own children must walk across Shattuck Avenue at the uncontrolled intersection of Virginia, with over 30,000 vehicles per day passing. A pedestrian was killed there in 2006, but there are still no improvements to pedestrian safety on this unsafe route to school. Drivers on many occasions have challenged my family and others in the cross walk by speeding directly at us and not slowing down until we back away. If drivers cannot muster their best behavior when the lives of little children are in the balance, what can we expect at other intersections such as the one at Marin and Colusa, which has claimed two lives in the past year?  

Fortunately after 14 years without the most cost effective traffic calming tool, the city is now piloting a new version of the speed hump, known as the speed cushion, which allows for better emergency vehicle access. But speed cushions and other traffic calming measures are almost always more likely to land in areas of highly organized or wealthy communities. While the concerns of residents must always play a role in decision-making, more often than not this reactive approach to pedestrian safety only worsens inequalities.  

Rather than approach these problems on a complaint or accident basis, the councilmembers should resolve in 2008 to implement area-wide traffic calming. Area-wide traffic calming would systematically address large sections of the city to ensure that all residents benefited equally, not just those who are wealthy, organized, educated or particularly concerned because they have children. The key to area-wide measures is that they are integrated and will not just push traffic from one street to the next. Instead these measures slow traffic everywhere within a specified zone. The evidence from the academic literature is clear: area-wide traffic calming prevents accidents and saves lives. 

This type of traffic calming will require money, which could be paid for by direct charges on drivers entering sensitive areas of Berkeley. This can be implemented through increased levies on parking, on congestion charges for persons commuting from outside the city, on delivery companies who frequent residential neighborhoods, on additional sales taxes on all goods related to automobiles, and from a variety of other user fees that hit drivers in the pocket book. London, England, has implemented a congestion zone charge that has been effective enough that they are planning to expand the area in the next few years. New York City and San Francisco are considering similar plans. By charging drivers directly, our city can also ensure that commuters and delivery companies who use our streets as a cut-through on their way to employment hubs here pay their fair share, something that for too long has gone as a free ride. When the true costs of driving become apparent to commuters, their incentive to drive alone into Berkeley is reduced. Trucks will see cheaper routes and commuters may take public transit or form car pools.  

There are proven solutions available to Berkeley, but will politicians and city staff resolve to put pedestrian safety first, and move forward to again become a leader in protecting public health from this serious risk?  

Michael Jerrett is associate professor of geographic information science and spatial analysis in UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s Division of Environmental Health Sciences.

Opponents of Bus Rapid Transit complain about parking and traffic problems, but they ignore the fact that parking and traffic problems will increase whether BRT is built or not. They also ignore an issue that Berkeleyans overwhelmingly agree that we need to address: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.  

Studies overwhelmingly show that, if we do not reduce GHG emissions, the consequences will be unimaginable and dire. Yet some people look at how BRT will affect the parking and congestion they deal with only in the present or status quo, and they do not consider how it will affect our children and future generations. 

These people should acknowledge that transportation generates more than half the GHG emissions in our region. Legislation and industry efforts to reduce GHG emissions will not accomplish the 20-30 percent reduction needed in the next 20 years. Reaching that goal will also require individual efforts to change how we live and travel. 

BRT will reduce emissions far more than current buses operating in mixed flow traffic. BRT will provide faster more convenient and reliable service, attract more riders, and having more passengers per bus will further reduce emissions. Some say we already have BART, but to access BART is generally beyond walking distances and to ride a feeder bus and transfer will take up more time than the trip time on BART, so it will not be faster or as convenient for local trips up to 10-12 miles. 

Berkeley’s recent Downtown Plan calls for coordinating development with transit and essentially accepts BRT on dense transit corridors. With this sort of coordinated planning, BRT can provide frequent, reliable service that lets people reach their destinations in about the same time that it takes to drive and park their cars. 

In the last 20 years even without much development while Berkeley lost population, Berkeley’s traffic and parking has gotten worse. In the near future because of increasing population, jobs and development, traffic will increase along with congestion and parking problems and without a good transit alternative, we will be worse off in congestion and parking. 

Congestion and parking problems are inevitable, so we must focus on transit and non-motorized modes of transportation and provide better transit that is convenient, more reliable and faster to attract riders to reduce GHG emissions. 

Parking is a universal problem, and cities in other countries are taking much stricter measures than we are. Tokyo, Japan, requires car buyers to prove they have a guaranteed off-street parking space before they can purchase a car. In Sweden, there are pedestrian-oriented Transit Villages with communal parking lots, where drivers may have to walk a block or more to use their cars. 

In addition, in most Western European countries, fuel taxes alone exceed the $3 per gallon that we pay as the total cost of gasoline. Their total gasoline cost is $6 to $8 per gallon, and they rarely provide free parking for they still have problems of increased traffic congestion and parking. 

Also since auto use affects livability, costs and parking needs, other countries have imposed many forms of pricing on the use of the auto to pay for roadway and parking infrastructure and maintenance as compared to California where the general public pays a substantial cost through sales tax and bonds. Other countries are imposing tolls on the use of the expressways, higher auto registration and license fees and taxes and permit fees on parking. Some countries are using pricing to reduce congestion and parking needs by imposing tolls to enter central business district, and the revenues collected are used to improve transit, which improves their environment and quality of life. One country even limits the number of auto registration. 

Because they have better transit and denser urban areas, these countries produce only about half the per capita GHG emissions than we do in America. Yet, their cities are more livable and more convenient than in America.  

Therefore, In the discussions of BRT, rather than complaining about congestion and parking problems, which will always be with us no matter what we do, we should focus on our overall quality of life and on the urgent imperative to protect the global environment that will affect us locally by controlling global warming caused by excessive emission of GHG.  

Roy Nakadegawa P.E. is a retired traffic engineer, a member of Friends of BRT, and served as an elected transit director 32 years (20 years with AC Transit and 12 with BART). He also serves on Transportation Research Board (a branch of the Academy of Science) on their Standing Committee on Public Transportation and Development. 

To make Berkeley the first pure green city in the planet, the City Council has to make all polluters compensate society for the damage caused by their pollution. The promotion of cleaner city vehicles, energy-efficient lighting, and “spare the air” days are very nice, but there is no good substitute for a comprehensive policy if we are to be serious about minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. 

The rationale for pollution charges is that people should be responsible for the social costs of their actions. A complete green-city policy would cover pollution from all sources: manufacturing, buildings, vehicles, and pedestrians. The most effective policy is to focus the charges on actual, measured pollution, rather than proxies such the ownership and use of cars or of the contents of houses. Charging for pollution would also minimize invasions of privacy and not cause damage to the local economy. 

Pollution charges should not be confused with energy efficiency. One can have a very inefficient car or heating system that pollutes very little. If people want to waste money with inefficient appliances, that is their problem, not society’s problem. 

The technology to measure pollution is already available. Devices include diffusion tubes that trap samples of pollutants such as ozone, and pumps that push air through a collector. Such instruments should be used to measure both particulate matter such as dust and soot, as well as gases. After collection, they are sent to laboratories for analysis.  

To make Berkeley pure green, the city should place measuring devices by factories and also periodically inspect the area around all buildings, both commercial and residential, for pollution. This measurement could be coordinated with the activities of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the U.S. and California Environmental Protection Agencies. 

There is no need to enter any residence, as what matters for greenhouse gasses is the pollution emitted from the building. The owners would then be sent monthly bills with pollution charges in proportion to the environmental damage done by the emissions. A homeowner with a large bill would be invited to consult with city officials to reduce the pollution. 

Smokers are banned from indoor places such as restaurants, but they pollute the air with a trail of smoke by walking down the street, their arm swinging a burning cigarette. Street and park smokers could be fined $10 for each smoking incident, enforced by parking meter officers who spot them. 

Much of the air pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area is from vehicles, and regulations such as smog tests, gasoline additives, and engine requirements have failed to eliminate this source of emissions. A more effective way to minimize emissions from cars is to charge the owners. Most auto emissions come from about ten percent of vehicles. The cleanest 90 percent of automobiles generate less than 15 percent of the pollution. Therefore pollution charges can be effective if they are placed on the few cars that pollute the most. 

The City of Berkeley cannot control the pollution from California-controlled freeways, but the city should have authority over its streets. Berkeley could measure the actual pollution from cars with remote sensors, such as those pioneered by Donald Stedman. These devices emit an infrared beam across the street, and as a car passes, the exhaust absorbs the beam’s light waves. The sensor can measure the concentrations of pollutants in the exhaust and differentiate among various types of pollution, such as carbon monoxide versus carbon dioxide. 

Berkeley could place these sensors on street intersections and freeway entrances along with video equipment that reads the license plates of the cars passing by. If theft or destruction is a problem in some places, the devices can be put in the backs of vans and moved around. If a car exceeds a limit several times, the owner would be sent a pollution bill. The remote sensor devices are inexpensive, and the pollution charges would more than pay for the cost. Some drivers could try to thwart the sensor readings by covering their license plates, but that can be spotted and penalized by the Berkeley police. 

Vehicles whose owners live outside of Berkeley would be charged just as much as residents. A visitor to Berkeley has to pay sales tax on purchases here, some of which goes to the city. Likewise, a nonresident could be fined for littering in Berkeley. So the same principle applies to nonresidents who pollute the city. They are causing damage to the residents of Berkeley, as well as to the planet, so they should be fined. 

These pollution charges would be adjusted in response to the reduction in emissions. If cars and buildings continue to pollute after a remote sensor and billing system is in place, the charges can be increased until we achieve the reduction to the 80 percent target set by Measure G. Charging for pollution would be a great way to push car owners to go green. 

I wrote the argument against Measure G because it was not green enough, as it did not specify how pollution would be reduced, and the target date of 2050 is too far in the future. The Kitchen Democracy vote on the target date was in favor of an earlier year, 2020. We can best achieve a swift reduction of greenhouse gasses without disrupting the economy with pollution charges. 

Indeed, most likely the pollution levies will be greater than the enforcement costs. The revenue generated by pollution charges could be used to reduce taxes, such as on utilities. Pollution charges would make Berkeley pure green both by reducing pollution and by compensating society for the pollution that remains.  

A successful implementation of pollution charges would make the whole world pay attention. Berkeley would be the global leader in the effort against global warming. The City of Berkeley will decide his year on how to implement Measure G. We could do this best with pollution charges. 

Fred Foldvary teaches public finance and real estate economics at Santa Clara University. 

Dispatches From the Edge is going to start off 2008 by revisiting two stories the column covered in 2007. 

So what was that Sept. 6 Israeli bombing of Syria all about? The official line is that Israel flattened a Syrian nuclear reactor, which may have been designed by the North Koreans, although with all the chaff being thrown up, it hard to tell what really happened (“chaff “is metallic foil used to confuse radar systems). 

Aviation Weekly reports the facility was first spotted by an Israeli Ofek 7 satellite, and Tel Aviv relayed the intelligence to the Bush Administration. Neither the Israelis nor the Americans will say a word in public, but one “U.S. official” told the New York Times, “There wasn’t a lot of debate about the evidence. There was a lot of debate about how to respond to it.” 

But according to an investigation by B. Michael on the Jewish website Ynet.news.com, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad likely told the truth when he said the raid hit an “unused military building” and blew up “nothing of consequence.” 

First, recently released photos indicate that U.S. intelligence had known about the place since at least 2003, making it far more likely that the United States told the Israelis rather than visa-a-versa. 

Second, the moment people got a chance to look at the photos, the nonsense about its “remote” location began to disassemble. The Dewar az Zawr facility is just over one mile from the major tourist magnet at Halabiya, where rafting trips down the Euphrates are organized. 

Third, as Michael points out, “This ‘reactor’ is not surrounded by any fence. There is no wall there either, no watchtowers, no residential structures, no patrol roads, no anti-aircraft positions, and no barracks.” There is not even a guard post. 

The Israeli explanation for this rather casual approach to security is that the facility was so secret, not even the Syrian Army knew about it, hence the lack of defensive measures. Michael acidly suggests, “this reactor was so secretive that nobody in Syria knew about its existence. Only the Israelis knew.” 

So a case of bad intelligence? Or are some people up to no good?  

Rightwing Israelis used the issue to argue that Syria should have been excluded from the recent Annapolis conference between Israelis and Palestinians. 

U.S. neo-conservatives, like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, argue that the U.S. should withdraw from the six-party talks with North Korea over disarming that country’s nuclear weapons program because of the charge that North Korea may have helped design the so-called “reactor.” “There’s a growing suspicion that the veil of secrecy about Syria doesn’t have to do so much with intelligence as with protecting the six party talks and the Annapolis conference,” Bolton told the Financial Times. 

The evidence for a “reactor” at Dewar az Zawr is thin. Much has been made of one building close to the Euphrates that is identified as a “pumping station”—water is essential to cool a nuclear reactor—but it doesn’t appear in early images of the facility and neither the Israelis nor the Bush Administration have presented any evidence that the building is a coolant facility.  

“It’s a box on a river,” says Jeffery Lewis, an arms control expert for the New America Foundation. “I am amazed that people can say they know the function just because of its dimensions.” 

The only other evidence is negative: the facility was razed following the bombing, which the U.S. says proves that it was a reactor. Or maybe the Syrians tore down a bombed building? In any case, they have started rebuilding it, same size, same shape, but with a different roof. 

Michaels concludes the attack was all about politics: “A sequence of circular and manipulative intelligence schemes, piles of nonsense premised on tidbits of information, and the exploitation of this entire mess for the sake of political objectives of various leaders and their camps, both here (Israel) and in the United States.”  

This past February, the Bush administration announced the formation of African Command (Africom), the goals of which were “development, health, education, democracy and economic growth.” 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Teresa Whalen said the initiative was aimed at “promoting security” and helping African nations to overcome “instability that has toppled governments and causes so much pain on the continent.” Confronted with widespread suspicion in the region, Whalen said, “while there are fears that Africom represents a militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Africa …That fear is unfounded.” 

Jump ahead nine months. 

Mogadishu, Somalia (Reuters)—Insurgents dragged the bodies of dead Ethiopian soldiers through the streets of the capital after another flare-up of fighting that killed at least 21 people and sent thousands fleeing the volatile city …The scene recalled the 1993 downing of two United States Black hawk helicopters by Somali militiamen, when dead Americans were dragged through the streets, precipitating American withdrawal and contributing to the end of a United States peacekeeping organization. 

According to Reuters, Ethiopian troops killed more than 60 Somalis in revenge and sent thousands of refugees streaming out of the capital. 

The Ethiopians invaded Somalia to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which had brought a modicum of peace to the warlord-riven country. The Addis Ababa regime was acting on behalf of Washington, which charged that the ICU was associated with al-Qaeda, although neither country has ever presented evidence for any such connection. The U.S.—which arms Ethiopia to the tune of $500 million a year—fed the Ethiopian Army satellite intelligence, and bombed and shelled supposed ICU insurgents in Southern Somalia, killing more than 70 civilians according to the UN. 

The outcome of such “stabilizing” activities is that Somalia has now passed Darfur as the major humanitarian crisis on the continent. According to the United Nations, malnutrition rates in some areas of Somalia are 19 percent. Darfur’s rate is 13 percent, and the UN considers 15 percent to be the emergency threshold. 

“The situation in Somalia is the worst on the continent,” said the UN’s top official in Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah. 

Eric Laroche, who heads up the UN’s humanitarian services in Somalia, says that conditions were better under the ICU. “It was much more peaceful and much easier for us to work. The Islamists didn’t cause us any problems.” 

Besides actively participating in the invasion of Somalia and initiating the current humanitarian crisis, the United States is also backing Ethiopia’s suppression of insurgents in its southeastern Ogaden region. When human rights groups and the Red Cross protested Addis Ababa sealing off aid supplies going to the vast desert area, the Bush administration backed up the Ethiopians. 

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said the embargo was justified, because the rebels of the Ogadan National Liberation Front (ONLF) were “trying to get contraband in through those trade routes. Weapons, arms trafficking is taking place with the same trucks bringing in rice.” 

Western aid agencies deny this is the case. 

The result of the embargo, according to the UN, is that 21 percent of Ogaden children are malnourished, an even worse situation than in Somalia.  

The United States is also conducting military maneuvers with 10 countries that border the Sahara, and is expanding naval operations in the Gulf of Guinea, which harbors the vast Bulk of the continent’s oil reserves.  

West Africa currently provides 15 percent of the oil imported to the United States, a figure that will rise to 25 percent by 2015. 

The U.S. is also pouring arms into the region. According to Forecast International, Africa’s “changing geopolitical environments” and “hydrocarbon-derived wealth,” creates “major opportunities for western defense enterprises.” 

The report’s author, Matthew Richie, says, “There is a collection of African nations demonstrating procurement characteristics reminiscent of the Middle East decades ago.” So far, Algeria, Libya and Nigeria are the major buyers. 

And who is selling those arms? Between 1990 and 2006, the United States and European share of that market rose from 34 to 37 percent.

It should come as a surprise to no one—should it?—that the issue of race resurfaced in the Democratic primary campaign as soon as that campaign dropped down I-95 from the snows of New Hampshire to the sandhills and seashores of South Carolina. However it tries to escape or pretend otherwise, the Palmetto State continues to live in the long shadow of the slaverytime plantations. 

I love South Carolina. I spent close to 20 years there, where three of my children were born. California is my native home and where I live, but Carolina is where my heart lies. Still, I have no pretenses about the state. 

South Carolina was one of the gateways into America of the African slave trade and as late as the middle of the last century, and slavery and its aftermath dominated the state up to and through the civil rights and black empowerment eras. Its rotten residue remains. 

In the old citadel square in the center of Charleston, a statue of South Carolina’s most famous politician—John C. Calhoun—towers above the close-cropped grass where tourists lounge and local workers eat their lunches. Mr. Calhoun, once a vice president of the United States, was the chief promoter of the “nullification” philosophy, in which it was reasoned that any individual state had the right to toss out federal law if that federal law clashed with the wishes of that state’s leaders. The law in question, in Mr. Calhoun’s day, was the right of individuals to “own” other people and keep them in bondage as slaves. The so-called Southern “fire-eaters” of the following generation used Mr. Calhoun’s nullification philosophy to justify the break with the union that created the Confederacy and sparked the Civil War, which began both with South Carolina’s withdrawal from the union as well as its firing on federal troops at Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor. Southern segregationist leaders later used the Calhoun philosophy to justify the denial of civil rights to African-American citizens.  

To this day, Mr. Calhoun’s statue glares across the Charleston landscape, looking to the sea that brought in both African captives and union gunboats. The finger of one of the statue’s hands pointing dramatically downwards. Of old times, African-American men sunning themselves on the park benches below used to joke that Calhoun’s last and everlasting message in that pointing gesture was a warning to his followers to “keep the niggers down.” 

South Carolina’s second most famous politician was Ben Tillman—one-eyed, “Pitchfork Ben,” once a governor and later a United States senator—who led the forces that drove African-Americans out of political power at the end of Reconstruction, using “fraud and violence,” by his own words. Countless African-American leaders and officeholders were assassinated by Tillman’s “red shirt” white terrorist militias during the 1870s and 1880s, homes burned, black citizens driven back onto the plantations and into re-subjugation. Old-timers in Edgefield County, where Mr. Tillman lived, told me of his last days when he sat as a virtual crazy man on his porch, waving a cane at passersby with a withered hand, screaming out, “Keep the niggers off the polls! Keep the niggers off the polls!” Mr. Tillman reportedly died in fits of screaming, visited, the story goes, by demons and the ghosts of many thousands gone. 

South Carolina’s third most famous politician—longtime United States Senator Strom Thurmond—was a boyhood pupil of Mr. Tillman’s, who often said that he learned his politics at the old man’s knee. Both were from Edgefield. A decade ago, I wrote of my impressions of that county: 

“Edgefield is peach country and, on the surface, is beautiful. The orchard rows of sweet-flowered trees stretch on for mile after rolling mile. Along the main north-south highway that runs from Savannah to Charlotte stand clean, white-board houses and restored colonial mansions dotted here and there between acres of farmland and groves of green woods.  

“Wave to folks, both white and black, and they will smile and wave back. Passing through in your car you think that this is where you might want to return when you retire. But stop and stay long enough, and you will catch the odor. It does not take long to recognize it.  

“It is the smell of fear so old and ingrained that it taints the very earth. It is the smell of terror. It is the smell of death. Stay long enough and you will understand the real Edgefield County, sprawling along the Georgia border like some great sick beast sullen and brooding, uneasy, malevolent, the stench of its old segregated systems buzzing its blacktop highways like hot flies on the rotting veins of a dying regime, the clayed ground so dank and red it seems as if it was oozing up blood from the bodies of the murdered martyrs buried in its fields and creek banks. Black martyrs.  

“ ‘I don't even much go through there,’ I once was told by an older African-American woman who lived in neighboring Aiken County. ‘I just drives around it, always. It's bad things happened up in Edgefield. It's bad things still happening.’  

“One flees Edgefield County in deep fear, hoping you can leave the images behind you. But you cannot. Ghosts first emerge from their own graveyard, but they do not remain there. Like some deadly, unidentified disease, the Edgefield Terror has slowly spread itself north and west, infecting the entire country.”  

Strom Thurmond, of course, is the epitomy of America’s tortured tanglings in the race thickets. His political career revolved around the embrace of segregation and white rights. Once, as a South Carolina circuit court judge in the 1930s, he allowed a white mob to take an African-American defendant from his courthouse and lynch him on the town square. In those days, lynch mobs didn’t even bother to hide their identities but Mr. Thurmond, later one of those “law and order” advocates, never pursued charges against the lynch mob who murdered a man on the public commons. In 1948, Mr. Thurmond later broke briefly with the Democratic Party over the issue of civil rights, running for president as a Dixiecrat against Harry Truman. He later defected for good from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party over the same issue, his belief that the party was promoting rights for African-Americans that we, ourselves, for the most part, weren’t even interested in exercising. 

But as we later discovered, Thurmond’s own relations with African-Americans was as tangled as America’s. He had several African-American half-brothers—children of his father—who lived for many years in Aiken, across the county line from Edgefield. Mr. Thurmond himself was the father of a child by an African-American woman. Privately, Mr. Thurmond acknowledged Essie Mae Washington as his daughter, and helped her get through college at South Carolina State, where he sometimes visited her at the African-American home where she boarded. And Thurmond was a great friend of black colleges—what we now call “historically black colleges”—helping to funnel state and federal money to them.  

There is a high school in Edgefield named after him—Strom Thurmond High—a largely African-American school in the post-segregation days of the 1970s and 1980s, and in those years he used to go to every graduation and hand out the diplomas, the long lines predominant with black children filing past him in their graduation hats and robes, the bleachers filled with proud black parents. It was an odd spectacle for those who were introduced to Mr. Thurmond as an enemy of civil rights, and only made sense when you began to understand that Mr. Thurmond, like South Carolina, like America, both loves and hates the African-Americans amongst us, sometimes simultaneously, is both repelled by and attracted to African-Americans, doing his best to both get away from us and get close to us, is both proud of African-Americans and America’s treatment of us and ashamed of African-Americans and America’s treatment of us, and, most importantly, is bound to us, both from the beginning, and forever. 

And given South Carolina’s long history of white men impregnating African-American women—both before and after the end of slavery—and then suffering alternating bouts of shame, denial, and confusion in the face of the offspring of those “events,” it is totally unsurprising that it is this state where Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential ambitions foundered and fell after the forces of George W. Bush whispered the rumor that Mr. McCain was the father of a black child. 

And so, shortly before the New Hampshire primary but as South Carolina loomed—with its long racial history and its large contingent of black Democratic voters—it is equally not surprising that Senator Hillary Clinton also succumbed to Carolina’s fever, trying to disparage comparisons of Sen. Barack Obama’s speaking style to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. by implying—carelessly, foolishly, stupidly—that President Lyndon Johnson was actually the determinant of the civil rights victories of the 1960s, not the Reverend King and his followers. 

Ms. Clinton later tried to explain that she hadn’t meant to denegrate Mr. King, but the damage was done, and there followed a round of race-based fighting between the Clinton and Obama camps that was nasty, brutish and, thankfully, short. 

Fueled and egged on by the national media and Republicans on the sidelines, Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama appeared be in a downward death spiral, destined to savage themselves with race-bloodied knives until both campaigns crashed into the swamp, the “winner” unable to recover for the November election. What is remarkable about the events of the past two weeks is that, instead, the two United States senators did manage to pull themselves out, almost apologetically, both seemingly embarrassed by the quick mess they had made of things. That they did is a credit both to them and to whoever pulled their respective coattails and advised them to “stop this, at once, or you will bring both yourselves, the Democratic Party, and perhaps the country down.” 

But going into South Carolina will do that. Like America’s long experience with slavery and the issue of race, South Carolina—a state of unsurpassing beauty and ugliness—tends to bring out both the worst and the best in you. 

When we will break completely and forever away from the ghost of America’s racial past? Like the South Carolina folks say, my eyes don’t see that long. But the last couple of weeks in the Democratic primary has demonstrated, once more, how close to the surface the body lies. 

For many years the Bay Area-based Sunset Magazine, self-described “magazine of Western living,” has been sponsoring “idea houses” in partnership with builders and manufacturers. 

Ranging from subdivision homes to country retreats, these structures are temporarily opened to the public to showcase their design concepts and fixtures.  

It’s a bit like a decorator show house, but with the architecture and building systems promoted as much as the décor. 

The latest Sunset project is in San Francisco’s Mission District. It’s their first Idea House on a solidly urban site, and incorporates a mass of “green” features and materials from a power-generating wind turbine to sustainably harvested wood paneling. 

Sunset’s literature describes it as “one of the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified residential remodels in the nation.” 

The curious can tour it for $20 per adult this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as Jan. 25, 26, and 27, after which it closes to the public for good.  

The house—not owned by Sunset—was originally scheduled to premier in August 2007 and close in October, but didn’t open until late November, accompanied by a cloud of rumor and speculation that’s detailed, denied, and discussed on local real estate blogs. 

The building has two units. The smaller one is described as 1,229 square feet. Sunset’s literature doesn’t give the size of the main house, but some on-line sources say it’s 3,600 square feet. 

Surrounding buildings are a mix of Victorian and Edwardian houses and apartment structures, some intact, others remodeled. 

The Idea House, on a corner lot, is resolutely modernist, an asymmetrically angular structure in trendy green hues, designed by San Francisco architect John Lum. 

It’s supposedly “transformed from a 1908 commercial structure,” but I couldn’t spot a visible stick or shred of anything earlier than the 21st century from the site. 

Let’s go inside and take a look. 

The saying “your home is your castle” certainly applies here. A barbarian with a battering train would find it hard to penetrate the fortress-like main entry where two enormous metal doors sandwich a vestibule.  

The ground floor of the main unit is dominated by one of those “endless swimming pools” in which a current allows you to swim in place, along with a sauna, spa room, and half-bath. 

The second floor contains the private living quarters, bisected lengthwise by the stair atrium and a walnut-walled corridor. A guest room and bath, children’s bedroom, and spaces described as “craft room” and children’s “powder room” line up along the street side. 

The craft room has a striking bay window at the corner of the house, with northwest views and a built-in window seat below a light sculpture. The opposite wall is a rather impressive sculptural composition made up of scores of wood scraps left over from the hallway paneling. 

Across the hall a laundry room connects through to the master closet, as big as the guest bedroom. The master bedroom has two floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the interior courtyard, and is divided from the adjacent master bath by an interesting pass-through storage wall. 

The bath features a walk-in glass-walled shower, opaque glass wall facing south, and sculptural concrete counter and sink. 

Rising through the building core, the main staircase emerges in the center of the top floor. Although the floor plate here is smaller than the lower levels, the space seems large since there are no partition walls, except those enclosing a half-bath tucked in a corner. 

A glass bridge across the stairwell allows uninterrupted circulation around the perimeter. An “L” shaped kitchen with long, concrete topped, island, a dining area, lounge area and an adjacent sitting area and wet bar occupy the four quadrants. 

A wrap around outdoor terrace surrounds much of this level and also provides a visual setback from the street below and buildings across the street. Huge doors (both solid wood, and sliding glass) and window-walls that fold back allow much of the floor to be opened up to the exterior. 

The roof sports plantings, photovoltaics, and solar water heaters. 

This top floor has a very comfortable feel with extensive views, lots of light and air, and ample outdoor space. We were there on a not-too-warm January day but it was quite mild inside, even with some of the window walls open. 

(Unfortunately, what a docent cited as “liability concerns” exclude visitors from the terrace. You can only peer through the windows at the outdoor spaces on this level). 

The main unit is filled with built-in and customized storage spaces. An unobtrusive elevator flanks a light well. The central stair is both functional and sculptural, with layered glass treads, glass landings, and balusters made out of tautly angled cables. 

The main unit has a ground level patio in the southeast corner of the lot with plantings, pavers, patio, and an “L” shaped pond. The metal column of the wind turbine rises from one corner. 

There’s a sculptural tower of succulents and strawberries, a recycled plastic deck, and that must-have feature of all Sunset projects, an outdoor “barbecue bar” with the heft and presence of a jet engine. 

Floor to ceiling windows and glass doors divide the patio from the indoor pool. A two-car garage, a mechanical room the size of some studio apartments, and a second exit to the street complete the patio perimeter. 

Sunk beneath the patio are water storage / collection tanks, fed by an artistic “rain chain” that drains the roof. 

In the corner behind the wind turbine two steel beams project from the wall, presumably supports for a future switchback outdoor staircase that the floor plans show descending from the third floor terrace to ground level. 

The smaller second unit, with its own street entrance, hugs the western street side of the building. The ground floor has a master bedroom with no exterior windows, a gigantic master bath, a much more modest second bath, and two spaces—one with a modern murphy bed unit—that can be partitioned off from the circulation core by huge wooden doors that roll on tracks. 

There are no conventional windows on this level, only thick, opaque, glass walls along the sidewalk. A narrow planting verge between building and sidewalk is filled with bamboo for a second layer of privacy screening. 

The upstairs level of the unit has a laundry closet, half-bath, open kitchen / dining / living area, and a nice outdoor patio on the roof of the garage. 

In this unit, look above the stairs for the fascinating photovoltaic sculpture / fan by Mark Malmberg that animates itself, and the small planted “green wall” facing the street from the roof deck. 

I left with these impressions:  

First, the pluses: The really livable open third floor of the main residence and the intelligent approach of putting the “living” areas on top and the bedrooms on the middle level. 

A good effort to provide functional and pleasant roof terraces; there should be more of these in San Francisco, with its many flat roofs. 

Solar systems for hot water heating and power. The jury is out on the urban advisability of the wind turbine. It wasn’t moving during our visit, but both a Sunset employee and a neighbor commented it was pretty audible when spinning. 

The water systems that make extensive use of rainwater and gray water, and also help reduce storm and sanitary sewer runoff. 

Lots of storage spaces, some too modern for my taste, but cleverly designed and fitted in throughout the building. 

The Minuses: Excess. Does any individual Bay Area home really need a luxury kitchen plus a built-in cooking station in the garden, elaborate suites for children, bedroom sized closets, three refrigerators, two bars, two dishwashers, seven sinks, and its own sauna, spa, and indoor swimming pool? 

This house incorporates so many high-end appliances, fixtures, finishes, and design features that it’s improbable the average homeowner could afford to replicate them, at least in this quantity, quality, and combination. 

In the second unit bathroom, for instance, a docent said that the alluring Lumicor divider panels made of “architectural resin” and encasing thousands of tiny pieces of bamboo, cost $13,000. To me, that’s eco-porn. 

This isn’t light or simple living. It’s luxuriousness, albeit with a smaller carbon footprint than a conventional McMansion would generate. 

Such an outcome is to be expected from a project where numerous manufacturers and appliance suppliers want to showcase their wares, but it doesn’t make the result any less unsettling. 

There’s also the size of the main unit. “Faux Density,” was the reaction of the designer who accompanied me. This is not the “smart growth” that urbanization advocates idealize; it’s suburban size in an urban shell. 

The development is lower density than most of the surrounding neighborhood. Each floor of the main residence alone has enough square footage to be a comfortably sized apartment or condo unit.  

There’s also a huge amount of technical complexity. It’s a “green” house where most of the window coverings appear to be moveable only with electric motors, where hundreds of cables coil within closets and cabinets, and where the “mechanical room” is the size of a small garage and sports more fixtures, pipes, and motors than some research wet labs. 

I counted more than 80 separate cables bundled in the back of one closet alone. Presumably a corps of service and repair technicians will be needed in future years until that inevitable day when someone says “can’t get parts for this old thing anymore,” and it all has to be taken out and redesigned. 

Maybe some day Sunset will sponsor an urban home that’s functional, modest, and enduring. Now that’s an Idea! 

The Sunset Idea House is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. the next two weekends only, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, through Jan. 27. 

Sunset doesn’t publicize the street address, and encourages visitors to park or gather at the San Francisco General Hospital parking garage (2500 24th Street) and catch a free shuttle to the Mission District house. The last shuttle leaves the garage at 3:15 p.m. 

Visit the Sunset website www.sunset.com or call their recorded information line, 1-800-786-7375 for official details. 

$20 per person at the door of the main unit. $15 for seniors on Friday, no children under the age of 10. 

There are docents throughout and lots of wall labels describing spaces and features. 

Each visitor gets a glossy brochure that’s part description, part product advertising. The back of the brochure has useful floor plans that are slightly different from the as-built structure. 

A stop in the garage will yield a hefty armload of free product materials, brochures, and advertising for all of the various manufacturers and others partnering on the project. 

The house is not wheelchair accessible. Improbably, there are three concrete steps from the front door to the interior elevator.

My Quake Resolutions... 

My new year’s suggestion is to set a reasonable time table to do these things to make your family and your home safer: 

• If your home has a “crawl space,” have your retrofit checked 

• Make sure you have emergency kits at home, in the cars, at the office 

• Get an automatic gas shut-off valve installed at your gas meter 

• Secure all your tall/heavy furniture, your wall hangings, and your appliances 

If you have any questions about what to do, call or email me – my passion is earthquake preparedness and I’m happy to talk with you.  

Make your home secure and your family safe. 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing and kit supply service. Contact him at 558-3299 or see www.quakeprepare.com to receive semi-monthly e-mails and safety reports.  

A few years ago, Joe and I got a tour of Garvan Woodland Gardens, a newish botanical garden in Hot Springs, Arkansas, courtesy of Uncle Leonard and Aunt Evelyn. We were all toted around in a golf cart, and a docent told us about the origins and current state of the garden, about the plants and other features we were seeing.  

After all these years, Eastern North America has come to seem somewhat exotic to me. I grew up in south-central Pennsylvania, in a biotic blend zone that I’ve come to appreciate only after learning more about the one I live in now. The Ozarks have a lot in common with that zone, being much farther south but more elevated. When I recognize a plant from either of those places, it’s as something I should have known but inexplicably didn’t.  

That half-familiarity attended me in the Hot Springs woodland too, strengthened by the newly familiar horticultural favorites scattered under the pines. Something about them gave me little “Hey, wait! What?” moments, more so than the Arkansas natives I’d encountered on visits to Joe’s home state over the years.  

We weren’t far from the home of Louisiana iris, for example, but I didn’t think I’d’ve been looking at the ‘Black Gamecock’ cultivar—one I like enough to have in a tub in our backyard—unless someone had put it in that little stream eddy down the hill. Those oakleaf hydrangeas scattered artfully through the understory, or the dogwoods: both natives, but disturbances in the leaf litter and mulch suggested they were newly planted.  

Here’s where my own gardening history was getting in the way. I came to gardening via the study of California native plants, and to that via California ecosystems, and to that via birding. I’ve always felt a certain tension between “natural” places and artifactual, even artistic settings.  

I can’t resist planting tropicals and oddities and scented plants and pretty flowers in my own patch, and played with all those as well as natives in the gardens I planted for clients, back in the day. But when I’m walking in the woods I have certain bone-deep expectations. I expect to be surprised by unmediated and unrepeatable experiences, by something foreign to my whole species, yet integral to our lives and souls. I suppose that’s what people mean by “Nature” or “the Wild.”  

Maybe it’s a matter of class, or a relict of a suburban childhood. In my neighborhood, there were yards—sometimes but not always “gardens”—and there was The Woods, also known as “Private Property” (pronounced “private propitty”) because it was thus posted. The Woods was a patch of wild, of sugar maple and violets and who-knows what else, less than a block in area and bordered by The Creek (“d’ Crick”).  

Private though it was, I thought it was natural. Maybe it was. Nothing had been dug (until I stole one of those violets to plant in our yard) or planted. It marked me with an expectation of refuge, unsocial, nonhuman, but mine.  

Still more, next week. 

http://www.garvangardens.org/ 

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

I’ve spent the last two months campaigning against Measure A. That’s the $300 million parcel tax on the Feb. 5 ballot which calls for Alameda County property owners to subsidize construction of a 12-story high-rise for Children’s Hospital Oakland, a private medical center serving northern California.  

The proposed 180-foot-tall building, crowned by a helicopter landing pad will be located at the end of my block, five doors from my home.  

My neighbors and I first learned about the tower at a community meeting on Sept. 13. At the time I was too stunned to ask any questions. I could not imagine a 12-story building in a neighborhood of one and two-story homes. The closest structure of that size is the Kaiser pediatric building located on Broadway, near McArthur and 580. When I found out it would be my own tax dollars helping to pay for it, I began to get cranky. 

Since then I’ve been doing all I can to uncover Children’s plans. I’ve learned that California hospitals must meet earthquake safety standards by 2013, but that Children’s doesn’t need to build a 180-foot tower in a residential neighborhood in order to meet these requirements. A new report by the California Health Care Foundation says that nearly half of California’s hospitals won’t meet the deadline, and many won’t meet the final 2030 deadline.  

As of this writing, Children’s has no architectural drawings, no master plan, and no contingency plan if the ballot measure doesn’t pass. The only thing my neighbors and I have seen is an aerial photograph of the four blocks between MLK and the freeway, and 52nd and 54th streets. In that photo you can see a little gray speck near the intersection of Dover and 54th streets. That’s my house. Half a block away my neighbor Bob’s house is covered in red. He’s in the footprint of the tower, a home that will not exist if CHO has its way. 

For several weeks I have stood at the entrance to the Temescal Farmers Market, passing out flyers, explaining to patrons what the passage of Measure A means to the neighborhood. Many are shocked to learn that Children’s is a private hospital asking for Alameda County tax dollars to pay for a facility that serves all of Northern California. They wonder if a 12-story tower is necessary. When they ask if there are alternative building plans, or if the neighborhood has had any input, I have to shrug my shoulders and say no.  

A few days ago my next door neighbor, Jenna, and I dragged ourselves over to the office of Mary Dean, CHO’s Senior Vice President of External Affairs, to ask her some questions. I say dragged because Jenna is nine months pregnant, about to give birth at any moment. The three-block walk to Mary’s office was about as far as Jenna could go. During the meeting, Jenna raised many of our neighbors’ concerns. How much sunlight will be blocked by the tower? How much noise and light pollution can we expect? How long will construction take and how will traffic patterns change? Can the building be smaller and built further away from residential homes? Can’t Children’s keep the helicopter pad where it already is, between the freeway and the MLK off ramp, so that it is not directly above our heads?  

Then Jenna got down to the nitty gritty. “What will be at the end of our block?” she asked. “Is our neighborhood going to be the butt of the hospital, the place where all the trash, poisons, and medical waste is removed?”  

Mary said she didn’t know.  

“I don’t want to be the butt of anything,” said Jenna. And then we left because I didn’t want Jenna to grow more upset and have her baby on Mary Dean’s office floor, albeit it was a pretty nice office, and we could have probably found someone relatively knowledgeable to help with the delivery.  

I was interested to note that Kathleen Wong, who was (briefly) my editor at the late California Wild, has an article in the current Bay Nature about the California ground squirrel. It’s a nice summary of several decades’ work of research by Donald Owings and Richard Coss at UC Davis, who have discovered remarkable things about the relationship between ground squirrels and rattlesnakes.  

Adult ground squirrels in rattler-infested areas are immune to the snakes’ venom, but their pups are vulnerable. So the squirrels have developed a whole behavioral repertoire for dealing with snakes. They can assess the potential danger from an unseen rattlesnake by the sound of its rattle, and will goad a visible snake into striking so they can gauge its reach. They can also distinguish visually between venomous rattlesnakes and nonvenomous gopher snakes, although the two reptile species may have similar patterns. 

Wong also covers the recent finding that the squirrels communicate with the snakes—pit vipers that sense heat—in the snakes’ own medium. The squirrels are able to divert body heat to their tails as they wave them, sending an infrared warning to the reptiles. Nothing like this had ever been documented. 

But there’s more. According to Davis graduate student Barbara Clucas, the lead author of an article published in the journal Animal Behaviour last fall, ground squirrels use the shed skin of rattlesnakes for defensive purposes. They chew up the skin and anoint themselves by licking their fur. 

Clucas makes a good case that this odd behavior, documented in both California ground squirrels and closely related rock squirrels, serves to mask the squirrels’ own odor from prowling rattlers. She tested a couple of other hypotheses, though. One was that essence of snakeskin might discourage fleas and other ectoparasites; another, that snake scent application has something to do with aggression between male squirrels. 

The anti-parasite idea was suggested by the phenomenon of anting in birds. Birds of several species (mainly songbirds and woodpeckers) have been observed rubbing crushed ants over their feathers. Some use millipedes, and I once watched a Swainson’s thrush rubbing itself with what appeared to be a beetle. There’s apparently some evidence that the formic acid and other insect secretions repel feather lice and mites. 

Then there are the self-anointing hedgehogs. These odd creatures have a predilection for chewing various substances—from coffee beans to toadskin—and working up a kind of lather, which they then spread over their bristles. Clucas categorizes this as antipredator behavior, with a possible social role; its frequency seems to vary seasonally. I suspect that no one is quite sure what’s going on with the hedgehogs. 

And don’t forget the tendency of wolves—including domestic dogs—to roll in what for purposes of this discussion we will call filth. There’s actually a word for this canine behavior: xenosmophilia, a preference for foreign smells. Some suggest it may have served to disguise a hunting wolf’s smell from its prey; others claim a social function.  

I remember, years ago, going to Monterey in a small car with a friend and her two generally well-behaved dogs. We stopped at a picturesque beach which was littered with windrows of red pelagic crabs. The dogs, a cocker spaniel and a miniature poodle, went wild. They rolled in the dead crabs with abandon. Then they ate a few. And on the way back to Berkeley, they threw up in the car. It was a long trip. Xenosmophilia indeed. 

But back to the ground squirrels. Juvenile ground squirrels have heavier flea loads than adults. If snake scent application is an ectoparasite defense, juveniles should indulge in it more than adults. Although Clucas found that juveniles did it more frequently than adult males, there was no difference between juveniles and adult females. 

Were the squirrels using the borrowed snake scent to intimidate their rivals? Adult males are more aggressive than either adult females or juveniles, but they had the lowest rates of snake scent application. 

So Clucas concludes that an antipredator function is most likely. Juvenile ground squirrels, after all, would be a rattlesnake’s prime targets, and it’s the females who tend the young and defend them against snakes. This, like the hot-tail warning, would be something unprecedented in animal behavior.  

It’s been known for a long time that some insects acquire chemical protection from the plants they eat (monarch butterflies and milkweed). A few vertebrates—arrow-poison frogs and the pitohui bird of New Guinea—similarly sequester insect toxins, and there’s at least one snake that stockpiles toad toxin. But “no vertebrate has clearly been demonstrated to use a self-applied chemical from a foreign source in predator defense.” Until now. Those squirrels are just full of surprises. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan. 

California ground squirrel at  

rattlesnake-free Cesar Chavez Park.  

Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column on East Bay trees.

FRIDAY, JAN. 18 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Barefoot in the Park” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $10-$12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Wait Until Dark” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Encore Theatre Company & Shotgun Players “The Shaker Chair” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m., at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Jan. 27. Tickets are $20-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Masquers Playhouse “Angel Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. through Feb. 23 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Heart of the Matter” an exhibition by Laney College students. Sidewalk reception at 5 p.m. at Addison Street Windows Gallery, 2018 Addison St. 981-7546. 

FILM 

“The 400 Blows” with Laura Truffaut in person at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Shelby Steele describes “A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

Kazue Sawai, Japanese koto master, lecture and demonstration at 4 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

MamaCoAtl, Steve Taylor-Ramírez and Alfredo Gomez “Songs of Love and Protest” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Sam Adams Quartet with Jarrett Cherner, Hamir Atwal, Anthony Diamond at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Kirsten Strom Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Native Elements with Dub Fix and Faya at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Pam & Jeri Show at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198. 

Phil Berkowitz & Louis’ Blues at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Calvin Weston and Monster Cock Rally, Slydini, Phillip Greenlief with Thomas Doyle at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Avengers, Pansy Division, R’N’R Adventure Kids at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Oh-no Stonesthrow, Zeph & Azeem, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $12. 548-1159.  

Macabea at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Bobby Hutcherson with Russell Malone, Joe Gilman, Dwaybe Burno and Eddie Marshall at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun.. Cost is $18-$24. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, JAN. 19 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Abby and the Pipsqueaks at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences “Little Women” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m., through Feb. 3, at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $14-$18. 925-798-1300.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St., Oakland. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

“Oakland Cityscapes and Landscapes” Photographs by Richard Leon. Reception at 6 p.m. at Luka’s Lounge, 2221 Broadway, Oakland. 451-4677. 

“Art in Nature” Paintings by Mari Kearney. Reception at 1 p.m. at Piedmont Yarn & Apparel, 3966 Piedmont Ave., Oakland.  

THEATER 

San Francisco Theater Project “Aftermath of War: in their own words” Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$20. 925-798-1300.  

FILM 

“The Magic of George Melies” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Justin Frank talks about “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dream Kitchen with John Schott, Marc Bolin and John Hanes at 8 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave., at Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$10, children under 12, free. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Four Seasons Concerts Borealis Wind Quintet, and Leon Bates, pianist, at 7:30 p.m. at Regents Theater, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $35-$40. 601-7919.  

Bach to Bachianas Brasileiras with The Wiley-Husbands Duo at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. 

Novella Quartet at 4 p.m. at a home in North Berkeley. Space is limited, please make reservations. 452-8202.  

Anatolian Rhythms with Yore and Collage Dance Ensembles at 8 p.m. at Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $15-$30. 647-2949.  

Jazz Fourtet at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Saoco, Latin Hip Hop, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Faye Carol & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Shimshai with Tina Malia, Jagadambe at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Moment’s Notice improvised music, dance & theater at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Cost is $8-$15. 992-6295. 

Charming Hostess and Tsipi Gabbai at 8 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $10-$12. 848-0237. 

High Diving Horses, Luther Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Robert Gastelum Group at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Gandolph Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Other Perspectives in Improvised Music at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Port, Melodic Jones, Jamie Jenkins at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Jeffree Star, Von Iva, Bob Weirdos at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JAN. 20 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“3” Works by Diana Guerrero-Maciá, Kelsey Nicholson, Lena Wolff opens at Traywick Gallery, 895 Colusa Ave. 527-1214. www.traywick.com 

“Color, Color, Color” Paintings by Julie Ross at Poulet, 1685 Shattuck, though Jan. 

FILM 

“The Nibelungen Part 1: Siegfried’s Death” at 1 p.m. and “Part 2: Kriemhild’s Revenge” at 4 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“In the Name of Love” Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, Rhiannon and Terrance Kelly, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Oakland Children’s Community Choir and Oaktown Jazz Workshop at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Dr. Tickets are $6-$22. 800-838-3006. www.mlktribute.com 

Chamber Music Sundaes with musicians and friends from the San Francisco Symphony at 3 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $18-$22. 415-753-1792. 

Rebecca Riots in a family-friendly concert at 4:30 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue,1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Tickets are $5-$15. 1-800-838-3006. www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/24792 

Live Oak Concert with Temescal Trio, Karen Wells, clarinet, Madeleine Prager, viola, John Burke, piano at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. Tickets are $10. 644-6893. berkeleyartcenter.org 

Anna Carol Dudley, soprano, will celebrate her birthday by giving a free public recital at 2 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Channing and Dana. 205-8826. 

Jazz at the Chimes with Bruce Forman, guitar, at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 228-3218. 

Gil Shaham, violin, and Akira Eguchi, piano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$62. 642-9988.  

Grupo Falso Baiano at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Mariospeedwagon at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Jazzschool Studio Band at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $25. 845-5373.  

MONDAY, JAN. 21 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Speeches of a Dream” Spoken word in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., from 2 to 5 p.m. at Malonga Casquelourde Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. 238-7219. 

PlayGround Six emerging playwrights debut new works at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St.Tickets are $18. 415-704-3177. 

Ann Wright and Daniel Ellsberg discuss “Dissent: Voices of Conscience” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

Ivan Arguelles and John M. Bennett read their poetry at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express on “Other People’s Poems” at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. Email poetryexpress@gmail.com for rules. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ellis Island Band, klezmer, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100.  

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

West Coast Songwriters Competition at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5. 548-1761. 

Corey Harris and the 5x5 Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$20. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, JAN. 22 

CHILDREN 

Bill Nemoyten “The Hornman” for ages 3 and up at 6:30 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

FILM 

Experimental Documentaries “Milk n the Land: Ballad of an American Drink” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761.  

Gabor Gyukics, poet and translator, at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Charles Halpern introduces “Making Waves and Riding Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Courtableu at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

David Lindley at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761.  

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

Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Festival, featuring Cyril Pahinui, Dennis Kamakahi & George Kahumoku at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 23 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Cycle of Life: Awakening” Works by Asian women artists, opens at the Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton St., 6th flr. Exhibit runs to May 15. 642-2809. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Introduction to Film Language” with Prof. Marilyn Fabe at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Mona Sutphen and Nina Hachigian describe “The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Vikram Chandra reads from “Sacred Games” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Sue Miller reads from “The Senator’s Wife” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Writing Teachers Write at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

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  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

David Lindley at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761.  

Erik Jekabsen Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Balkan Folk Dance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Code Name: Jonah at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Cyrus Chestnut at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JAN. 24 

FILM 

African Film Festival “Bamako” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jacqueline Shea Murphy in Conversation with Hertha Dawn Sweet Wong on “The People Have Never Stopped Dancing: Native American Modern Dance Histories,” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Hillary Gravendyk and Logan Ryan Smith, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Sudhir Venkatesh describes “Gang Leader for a Day” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Emam & Friends, Kirtan and world music, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Kelly Joe Phelps at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Count Basie Tribute Orchestra Benefit at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

The David Thom Band, Jacob Groopman and The Mountain Boys at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082  

Son de Madera at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$15.. 849-2568. g 

Cyrus Chestnut at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Planet Loop, electro-jazz, worldbeat, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

AFTERMATH OF WAR—IN THEIR OWN WORDS  

A well-staged, engagingly performed show by the San Francisco Theater Project runs this weekend at the Julia Morgan Center, 2640 College Ave. SF City College students recite and enact the words of American Iraq War campaigners. Less a play than a kind of performance pageant, it also draws sparingly from mothers and wives of G.I.s, including Cindy Sheehan. The occasional live music is good, including a rendition of Marty Balin’s “I Saw You.” Tickets $15-$20. Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7:30 p.m. (925) 798-1300.

ReOrient, the annual festival of short plays about the Middle East, a production of Golden Thread, founded by Torange Yeghiazarian of Oakland, this year features performances by Berkeley favorite Julian Lopez-Morillas and Danielle Levin of Oakland. 

It also features a play, 22 Minutes Remaining, by Filipino playwright and Oakland resident Ignacio Zulueta, directed by Evran Odcikin (also of Oakland), about the tense yet humorous dialogue that develops when an Israeli officer makes a “courtesy call” to a woman in a Lebanese village to inform her of its imminent bombing.  

The festival runs through Feb. 3 at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center. Info at (415) 626-4061 or goldenthread.org 

Golden Thread for years has produced plays and workshops at Berkeley venues like the Ashby Stage and at UC. This year’s offering of five plays is an unusually taut yet diverse pairing of themes and styles. 

It leads off with Zulueta’s piece, in which the young Israeli encounters a yenta, albeit a muslim one, he being the same age as the son from whom she waits by the phone in vain to hear.  

The program continues with an ambitious staging of Nobel nominee Simin Behbehani’s poem “I Sell Souls.” The ancient ghazal poetic form—perhaps best-known in the U.S. through Rumi’s lyrics—has been thematically expanded by Behbehani’s innovations, adding theatrical subjects and conversation. It includes projections of objects in nature and closeups of faces and feet walking, which play with scale against the forlorn figures of the players, including Lopez-Morillas. 

“The Monologist Suffers Her Monologue” features Sara Razavi (directed by Arlene Hood) in Yussef El Guindi’s acerbic and reflexive piece on Palestine and Palestinians, an ongoing monologue hindered from dialogue by its “nonexistence.”  

“Pistachio Tales,” by Lebanese American Laura Shamas (directed by Mark Routhier) is a humorous but bittersweet story-within-a-story about the Patriot Act, a perhaps misinterpreted gift of rare red pistachios--and the breakdown of friendly meeting and conversation with the threat of surveillence. 

The longest and most challenging piece is “Between This Breath and You,” contributed by MacArthur and Obie Prizewinner British political playwright Naomi Wallace. Lopez-Morrilas, Levin and a clownish Ali El-Gassier are the principals in a strange confrontation between a janitor and nurse in a West Jerusalem clinic closed for the evening and a patient (in every sense) from East Jerusalem who won’t leave the waiting room.  

Impressive performances mark a wayward, gamey allegory that keeps changing tack, from a catch phrase in an old Police hit song, to the tale about an organ donor, becoming the image of unwitting symbiosis, unsuspected familial relation. 

Jack Tucker of Richmond—theater critic, retired columnist for the Contra Costa Times, who the Guinness Book of Records named “Oldest Known Living Newspaper Columnist” in 2005—died Dec. 27, 93 years of age.  

A memorial gathering will be held Saturday from 3:30-5:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (in Kensington). Information and directions are on Tucker’s website, where his reviews appeared after his retirement, www.clickjacktucker.com 

Tucker, the emeritus of the Bay Area theater critics scene, knew both sides of the proscenium, acting in many local productions over the years. Dory Ehrlich, Berkeley actress and publicist for the Masquers Playhouse in Pt. Richmond, recalled acting with Tucker in a production of A. R. Gurney’s Scenes from American Life at Contra Costa Civic Theatre in 2002. 

“It was a PlayMakers production, directed by Louis Flynn [founder of CCCT, also recently deceased, age 86], who hand-picked his cast, all of whom had worked at CCCT before—as Jack said in his column, ‘a sort of old-home week reunion for many, fittingly all together again as a stage family.’ Jack played a dance instructor, and I can picture him with his bow-tie and his stick, patiently tapping out the rhythm for the less than perfect dancers. As always, he was a gentleman, onstage and off.” 

Of his lively writing style, entertainment publicist Kim Taylor noted, “Jack had the kind of flair that could make any fellow writer jealous; there were times he made me downright pea-green with envy. He could always spin my submissions into wittier, tighter items. I’ve lost a friend and mentor and the theater community has lost one of its biggest supporters.” 

Born in Tennessee, Tucker wrote as society columnist for the Detroit Free Press and theater critic for the San Diego Tribune (now the Union). He’d mention as asides in conversation his presence at the surrender of Japanese troops in Korea at the end of World War II, or spotting Huey Long at the sidelines of a ballgame and engaging him in a chat.  

In recent years, he posted his Thurberesque cartoons on his website (and on mugs), appeared on a float in the How Berkeley Can You Be? parade and held annual Weird Food parties with his wife, horticulturalist Gail Morrison, in their pioneering sustainable and edible garden. Morrison noted that, despite his rich personal experience, the only person Tucker never covered in his columns was himself.  

For many years the Bay Area-based Sunset Magazine, self-described “magazine of Western living,” has been sponsoring “idea houses” in partnership with builders and manufacturers. 

Ranging from subdivision homes to country retreats, these structures are temporarily opened to the public to showcase their design concepts and fixtures.  

It’s a bit like a decorator show house, but with the architecture and building systems promoted as much as the décor. 

The latest Sunset project is in San Francisco’s Mission District. It’s their first Idea House on a solidly urban site, and incorporates a mass of “green” features and materials from a power-generating wind turbine to sustainably harvested wood paneling. 

Sunset’s literature describes it as “one of the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified residential remodels in the nation.” 

The curious can tour it for $20 per adult this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as Jan. 25, 26, and 27, after which it closes to the public for good.  

The house—not owned by Sunset—was originally scheduled to premier in August 2007 and close in October, but didn’t open until late November, accompanied by a cloud of rumor and speculation that’s detailed, denied, and discussed on local real estate blogs. 

The building has two units. The smaller one is described as 1,229 square feet. Sunset’s literature doesn’t give the size of the main house, but some on-line sources say it’s 3,600 square feet. 

Surrounding buildings are a mix of Victorian and Edwardian houses and apartment structures, some intact, others remodeled. 

The Idea House, on a corner lot, is resolutely modernist, an asymmetrically angular structure in trendy green hues, designed by San Francisco architect John Lum. 

It’s supposedly “transformed from a 1908 commercial structure,” but I couldn’t spot a visible stick or shred of anything earlier than the 21st century from the site. 

Let’s go inside and take a look. 

The saying “your home is your castle” certainly applies here. A barbarian with a battering train would find it hard to penetrate the fortress-like main entry where two enormous metal doors sandwich a vestibule.  

The ground floor of the main unit is dominated by one of those “endless swimming pools” in which a current allows you to swim in place, along with a sauna, spa room, and half-bath. 

The second floor contains the private living quarters, bisected lengthwise by the stair atrium and a walnut-walled corridor. A guest room and bath, children’s bedroom, and spaces described as “craft room” and children’s “powder room” line up along the street side. 

The craft room has a striking bay window at the corner of the house, with northwest views and a built-in window seat below a light sculpture. The opposite wall is a rather impressive sculptural composition made up of scores of wood scraps left over from the hallway paneling. 

Across the hall a laundry room connects through to the master closet, as big as the guest bedroom. The master bedroom has two floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the interior courtyard, and is divided from the adjacent master bath by an interesting pass-through storage wall. 

The bath features a walk-in glass-walled shower, opaque glass wall facing south, and sculptural concrete counter and sink. 

Rising through the building core, the main staircase emerges in the center of the top floor. Although the floor plate here is smaller than the lower levels, the space seems large since there are no partition walls, except those enclosing a half-bath tucked in a corner. 

A glass bridge across the stairwell allows uninterrupted circulation around the perimeter. An “L” shaped kitchen with long, concrete topped, island, a dining area, lounge area and an adjacent sitting area and wet bar occupy the four quadrants. 

A wrap around outdoor terrace surrounds much of this level and also provides a visual setback from the street below and buildings across the street. Huge doors (both solid wood, and sliding glass) and window-walls that fold back allow much of the floor to be opened up to the exterior. 

The roof sports plantings, photovoltaics, and solar water heaters. 

This top floor has a very comfortable feel with extensive views, lots of light and air, and ample outdoor space. We were there on a not-too-warm January day but it was quite mild inside, even with some of the window walls open. 

(Unfortunately, what a docent cited as “liability concerns” exclude visitors from the terrace. You can only peer through the windows at the outdoor spaces on this level). 

The main unit is filled with built-in and customized storage spaces. An unobtrusive elevator flanks a light well. The central stair is both functional and sculptural, with layered glass treads, glass landings, and balusters made out of tautly angled cables. 

The main unit has a ground level patio in the southeast corner of the lot with plantings, pavers, patio, and an “L” shaped pond. The metal column of the wind turbine rises from one corner. 

There’s a sculptural tower of succulents and strawberries, a recycled plastic deck, and that must-have feature of all Sunset projects, an outdoor “barbecue bar” with the heft and presence of a jet engine. 

Floor to ceiling windows and glass doors divide the patio from the indoor pool. A two-car garage, a mechanical room the size of some studio apartments, and a second exit to the street complete the patio perimeter. 

Sunk beneath the patio are water storage / collection tanks, fed by an artistic “rain chain” that drains the roof. 

In the corner behind the wind turbine two steel beams project from the wall, presumably supports for a future switchback outdoor staircase that the floor plans show descending from the third floor terrace to ground level. 

The smaller second unit, with its own street entrance, hugs the western street side of the building. The ground floor has a master bedroom with no exterior windows, a gigantic master bath, a much more modest second bath, and two spaces—one with a modern murphy bed unit—that can be partitioned off from the circulation core by huge wooden doors that roll on tracks. 

There are no conventional windows on this level, only thick, opaque, glass walls along the sidewalk. A narrow planting verge between building and sidewalk is filled with bamboo for a second layer of privacy screening. 

The upstairs level of the unit has a laundry closet, half-bath, open kitchen / dining / living area, and a nice outdoor patio on the roof of the garage. 

In this unit, look above the stairs for the fascinating photovoltaic sculpture / fan by Mark Malmberg that animates itself, and the small planted “green wall” facing the street from the roof deck. 

I left with these impressions:  

First, the pluses: The really livable open third floor of the main residence and the intelligent approach of putting the “living” areas on top and the bedrooms on the middle level. 

A good effort to provide functional and pleasant roof terraces; there should be more of these in San Francisco, with its many flat roofs. 

Solar systems for hot water heating and power. The jury is out on the urban advisability of the wind turbine. It wasn’t moving during our visit, but both a Sunset employee and a neighbor commented it was pretty audible when spinning. 

The water systems that make extensive use of rainwater and gray water, and also help reduce storm and sanitary sewer runoff. 

Lots of storage spaces, some too modern for my taste, but cleverly designed and fitted in throughout the building. 

The Minuses: Excess. Does any individual Bay Area home really need a luxury kitchen plus a built-in cooking station in the garden, elaborate suites for children, bedroom sized closets, three refrigerators, two bars, two dishwashers, seven sinks, and its own sauna, spa, and indoor swimming pool? 

This house incorporates so many high-end appliances, fixtures, finishes, and design features that it’s improbable the average homeowner could afford to replicate them, at least in this quantity, quality, and combination. 

In the second unit bathroom, for instance, a docent said that the alluring Lumicor divider panels made of “architectural resin” and encasing thousands of tiny pieces of bamboo, cost $13,000. To me, that’s eco-porn. 

This isn’t light or simple living. It’s luxuriousness, albeit with a smaller carbon footprint than a conventional McMansion would generate. 

Such an outcome is to be expected from a project where numerous manufacturers and appliance suppliers want to showcase their wares, but it doesn’t make the result any less unsettling. 

There’s also the size of the main unit. “Faux Density,” was the reaction of the designer who accompanied me. This is not the “smart growth” that urbanization advocates idealize; it’s suburban size in an urban shell. 

The development is lower density than most of the surrounding neighborhood. Each floor of the main residence alone has enough square footage to be a comfortably sized apartment or condo unit.  

There’s also a huge amount of technical complexity. It’s a “green” house where most of the window coverings appear to be moveable only with electric motors, where hundreds of cables coil within closets and cabinets, and where the “mechanical room” is the size of a small garage and sports more fixtures, pipes, and motors than some research wet labs. 

I counted more than 80 separate cables bundled in the back of one closet alone. Presumably a corps of service and repair technicians will be needed in future years until that inevitable day when someone says “can’t get parts for this old thing anymore,” and it all has to be taken out and redesigned. 

Maybe some day Sunset will sponsor an urban home that’s functional, modest, and enduring. Now that’s an Idea! 

The Sunset Idea House is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. the next two weekends only, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, through Jan. 27. 

Sunset doesn’t publicize the street address, and encourages visitors to park or gather at the San Francisco General Hospital parking garage (2500 24th Street) and catch a free shuttle to the Mission District house. The last shuttle leaves the garage at 3:15 p.m. 

Visit the Sunset website www.sunset.com or call their recorded information line, 1-800-786-7375 for official details. 

$20 per person at the door of the main unit. $15 for seniors on Friday, no children under the age of 10. 

There are docents throughout and lots of wall labels describing spaces and features. 

Each visitor gets a glossy brochure that’s part description, part product advertising. The back of the brochure has useful floor plans that are slightly different from the as-built structure. 

A stop in the garage will yield a hefty armload of free product materials, brochures, and advertising for all of the various manufacturers and others partnering on the project. 

The house is not wheelchair accessible. Improbably, there are three concrete steps from the front door to the interior elevator.

My Quake Resolutions... 

My new year’s suggestion is to set a reasonable time table to do these things to make your family and your home safer: 

• If your home has a “crawl space,” have your retrofit checked 

• Make sure you have emergency kits at home, in the cars, at the office 

• Get an automatic gas shut-off valve installed at your gas meter 

• Secure all your tall/heavy furniture, your wall hangings, and your appliances 

If you have any questions about what to do, call or email me – my passion is earthquake preparedness and I’m happy to talk with you.  

Make your home secure and your family safe. 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing and kit supply service. Contact him at 558-3299 or see www.quakeprepare.com to receive semi-monthly e-mails and safety reports.  

A few years ago, Joe and I got a tour of Garvan Woodland Gardens, a newish botanical garden in Hot Springs, Arkansas, courtesy of Uncle Leonard and Aunt Evelyn. We were all toted around in a golf cart, and a docent told us about the origins and current state of the garden, about the plants and other features we were seeing.  

After all these years, Eastern North America has come to seem somewhat exotic to me. I grew up in south-central Pennsylvania, in a biotic blend zone that I’ve come to appreciate only after learning more about the one I live in now. The Ozarks have a lot in common with that zone, being much farther south but more elevated. When I recognize a plant from either of those places, it’s as something I should have known but inexplicably didn’t.  

That half-familiarity attended me in the Hot Springs woodland too, strengthened by the newly familiar horticultural favorites scattered under the pines. Something about them gave me little “Hey, wait! What?” moments, more so than the Arkansas natives I’d encountered on visits to Joe’s home state over the years.  

We weren’t far from the home of Louisiana iris, for example, but I didn’t think I’d’ve been looking at the ‘Black Gamecock’ cultivar—one I like enough to have in a tub in our backyard—unless someone had put it in that little stream eddy down the hill. Those oakleaf hydrangeas scattered artfully through the understory, or the dogwoods: both natives, but disturbances in the leaf litter and mulch suggested they were newly planted.  

Here’s where my own gardening history was getting in the way. I came to gardening via the study of California native plants, and to that via California ecosystems, and to that via birding. I’ve always felt a certain tension between “natural” places and artifactual, even artistic settings.  

I can’t resist planting tropicals and oddities and scented plants and pretty flowers in my own patch, and played with all those as well as natives in the gardens I planted for clients, back in the day. But when I’m walking in the woods I have certain bone-deep expectations. I expect to be surprised by unmediated and unrepeatable experiences, by something foreign to my whole species, yet integral to our lives and souls. I suppose that’s what people mean by “Nature” or “the Wild.”  

Maybe it’s a matter of class, or a relict of a suburban childhood. In my neighborhood, there were yards—sometimes but not always “gardens”—and there was The Woods, also known as “Private Property” (pronounced “private propitty”) because it was thus posted. The Woods was a patch of wild, of sugar maple and violets and who-knows what else, less than a block in area and bordered by The Creek (“d’ Crick”).  

Private though it was, I thought it was natural. Maybe it was. Nothing had been dug (until I stole one of those violets to plant in our yard) or planted. It marked me with an expectation of refuge, unsocial, nonhuman, but mine.  

Still more, next week. 

http://www.garvangardens.org/ 

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

FRIDAY, JAN. 18 

“Celebrate the Dream” Opening Ceremony, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 79th Birthday, with a speech by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway, Oakland. 444-CITY. 

Iraq Moratorium Vigil to Protest the War from 2 to 4 p.m. at the corners of University and Acton. Sponsored by the Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenents Assoc. and the Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

Conscientious Projector Films “The Story of Stuff” and “The Timber Gap” documentaries on the resources of the planet at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar, at Bonita. Donations appreciated. No one turned away. 528-5403. 

Teen Playreaders meets to read “Hamlet” and other plays based on the classic, at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue at Ashby. 981-6121. 

Friday Films for Teens at 3:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd flr., 2090 Kittredge St. For details call 981-6121. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Mike Goldstein, Office of General Counsel, UCB on “The Tree Dwellers of UC Berkeley: The Univesity’s Perspective” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

SATURDAY, JAN. 19 

“Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St., Oakland. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

Weed Wrenchers Work Party From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pt. Isabel, Rydin Rd, off Central Ave. near Costco, Richmond. Sponsored by Greens at Work. kyotousa@sbcglobal.net 

Solo Sierrans Bayshore Walk in El Cerrito Meet at 2 p.m. at small parking lot at Rydin St., off Central Ave. Bring binoculars to observe the many shore birds. Optional oriental dinner at Pacific East Mall. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 234-8949. 

California Writers Club with Charles Rubin, author of “Don’t Let Your Kids Kill You” at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Youth Rugby Clinic sponsored by Bay Area Rugby from 9 a.m. to noon at San Pablo Park, Oregon St. 599-8499. 

BANA Meeting at 10 a.m. in the Church Lounge, Westminster Hall, 1st Flr at First Pres. Church of Berkeley, 2407 Dana St. 

Preschool Storytime, for ages 3-5, at 11 a.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Drawing Our Days A series of three free classes with Jan Wurm at 10:30 a.m. at Berkeley Public Library, Art and Music Dept., 2090 Kittredge St. Other classes are Jan. 26 and Feb. 2. 981-6100. 

Martin Luther King Day Potluck Dinner at 6 p.m. at Mormon Temple, 4770 Lincoln Ave., Oakland. Free. 925-458-1298. 

Techno Geek Art Challenge from 1 to 4 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 528 9th St., Oakland. 465-8770. 

Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes Law, The East Bay Chapter will meet at 1 p.m. to plan to collect 700,000 signatures at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. arinkarolweitzman@yahoo.com  

“Enough Cancer! Nutrition to Stop This Plague” Learn about cancer protective food, culinary and medicinal herbs and dietary supplements at 10 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Teen Knitting Circle at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 4th floor, 2090 Kittredge St. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, JAN. 20 

“Spiritual Peace Walks, Preservation of Sacred Sites” with Miwok Elder from Vallejo, Wounded Knee de Ocampo, at 10:30 a.m. at Unitarian Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita. 548-3223. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 526-7377. 

“Arrogant Humanism versus Respectful Humanism” with Sterling Bunnell at 11 a.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

MLK, Jr. Celebration: Faith in California from noon to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Music, discussions, photography exhibit, and hands-on activities for the whole family. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Grandmothers for the Oaks Celebration Bring warm clothes to donate, hot food and songs of solidarity at 2 p.m. at Memorial Oak Grove. www.saveoaks.com 

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott Tribute Concert at 7:30 p.m. at Love Center Ministries, 10400 International Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $30-$40. 593-0805.  

“At the River I Stand” screening at 5 p.m. followed by a discussion, in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito.  

“Crossing the Line: Multiracial Comedians” A documentary, followed by discussion, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568.  

Berkeley Cybersalon Explores the Next Spiritual Frontier with Steven Vedro, author of Digital Dharma: A User's Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Age of the Infosphere at 4 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cos tis $15 at the door.  

“Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” A celebration of Faith in California at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St., Oakland. 238-2022.  

East Bay Atheists Gene Gordon and Larry Hicok will jointly speak about Materialism at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 3rd floor meeting room, 2090 Kittredge St. 222-7580. 

MONDAY, JAN. 21 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bike Trip “Eastshore State Park” Meet at 9 a.m. at El Cerrito Del Norte BART. Bring lunch and bike helmet. 843-2222. 

Martin Luther King Day of Service to remove litter and non-native, invasive plants, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Arroyo Viejo Park, 7701 Krause Ave. or Knowland Park/Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd. For information call 655-3508. www.thewatershedproject.org 

Martin Luther King Day Volunteer Restoration Project from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at MLK, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Garretson Point at the end of Edgewater Drive, Oakland. 562-1373.  

“Make the Dream Real” Martin Luther King National Holiday Celebration from 10 a.m. to noon at Taylor Memorial Methodist Church, 1188 12th St., at Adeline, Oakland. 652-5530. 

CodePINK “Fierce Voter Pink Tea Party” from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. RSVP to 524-2776. 

“How Modern DNA Studies Inform our Understanding of the History and Pre-History of the Eastern Mediterranean” Lecture presentation by Roy King, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stanford University, at 3:30 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave., Room 6, (entrance next to Chapel). 849-8218. www.psr.edu  

TUESDAY, JAN. 22 

Pacific School of Religion Earl Lectures on religion, environment and social justice, with Chandra Muzaffar, Karen Baker-Fletcher and others, Tues.-Thurs. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. For details see www.psr.edu 

“Exploring Mongolia: An American Journalist’s Perspective” A slide presentation with Michael Kohn at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Berkeley PC USers Group meets at 7 p.m. at 25 Dartmouth in the Hiller Highland area above the Claremont Hotel. 841-4411. 

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. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704.  

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. Monthly field trips. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 23 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Field Trip “Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park” with Hilary Powers. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the large spherical cage near Nature Center at Perkins and Bellevue to look at wintering birds. 843-2222. 

BASIL Seed Library meeting to plan annual Garden Seed Swap and The Library’s future, at 6:30 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo. basil@ecologycenter.org 

Early Voting Ballot Discussion with Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington and AFT Local 2121 President Ed Murray, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. Sponsored by the Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 

“Reel Bad Arabs” A documentary on the degrading images of Arabs in cinematic history, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Who’s Putting the Heat on Barry Bonds ... And Why?” A dscussion at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

Let It Snow Day Make snow and conduct ice experiments. Storytelling at 11 a.m. at Habitot Children's Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111.  

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

“New Year Detox & Weight Loss” at 7 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

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 

After-School Program Homework help, drama and music for children ages 8 to 18, every Wed. from 4 to 7:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $5 per week. 845-6830. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, JAN. 24 

“Google and Sources of Information in a Global Age” Lecture by Douglas Merrill, Vice-President of Engineering at Google, at 7 p.m. in the International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $5. 642-9460. 

Easy Does It Board of Directors’ Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1636 University Ave. 845-5513. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 10 to 11 a.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Make a tax-deductible donation while disposing of your ewaste appropriately and helping those in need. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600. www.svdp-alameda.org 

Help a Newt Cross the Road Every year newts migrate across Hillside Drive to reach their breeding pools in Castro Creek. Volunteers prevent many of these creatures from being crushed by cars. We need volunteers every evening during January and February in El Sobrante. The newts are most active on rainy nights. annabelle11_3@yahoo.com 

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832. www.EarnItKeepItSaveIt.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Tues, Jan. 22, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Tues., Jan. 22, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers. 981-7368.  

Civic Arts Commission meets Tues., Jan. 22 , at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7533.  

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Jan. 23, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7550.  

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Jan. 23, at 7 p.m., at 997 Cedar St. 981-5502.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Jan. 23, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Jan. 24, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5400.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs. Jan. 24, at 5 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213.

TUESDAY, JAN. 15 

FILM 

Experimental Documentaries “Best in the West” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

JCC Film Salon “The Unkown Soldier” at 7:30 p.m. at at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $6-$8. 848-0237. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Marc Lecard, mystery novelist, reads at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Laurie R. King reads from her new mystery “Touchstone” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Albany High School Jazz Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

East Bay Women Artists “Begin the Beguine” Reception at 6 p.m. at Royal Ground Gallery, 2058 Mountain Boulevard, Oakland. 841-0441. 

FILM 

The Medieval Remake “The Valley of the Bees” at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Penny Rimbaud, poet, with saxophonist Louise Elliotat 7:30 p.m. at Moe's Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Cafe Poetry, hosted by Paradise, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Fred Luskin describes “Forgive for Love: The Missing Ingredient for a Healthy and Lasting Relationship” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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 

Whiskey Brothers, old-time and bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Beatitude Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Swing Fever at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dacne lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Neurohumors at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Anais Mitchell at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

David Hildalgo and Louie Perez of Los Lobos at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $30. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JAN. 17 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Cultural Connections” Group show in various media with a special tribute to Chauncey Bailey. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Bldg. Atrium, 1515 Clay St. 622-8190. 

FILM 

“Lola Montez” with film historian Stefan Drossler in person at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michael Parenti discusses “Contrary Notions” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Open Secrets: The Literature of Uncounted Experience,” with author Anne-Lise Francois at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Marion Bundy reads Dorothy Parker at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Glenn Staller, classical guitar, at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 5th flr., 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Beau Soleil with Michael Doucet at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $13-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Reid Whatley Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Disappear Incompletely, Adam Shulan Quartet at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

David Hildalgo and Louie Perez of Los Lobos at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $30. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, JAN. 18 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Barefoot in the Park” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $10-$12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Wait Until Dark” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Feb. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Encore Theatre Company & Shotgun Players “The Shaker Chair” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m., at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Jan. 27. Tickets are $20-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Masquers Playhouse “Angel Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. through Feb. 23 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Heart of the Matter” an exhibition by Laney College students. Sidewalk reception at 5 p.m. at Addison Street Windows Gallery, 2018 Addison St. 981-7546. 

FILM 

“The 400 Blows” with Laura Truffaut in person at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Shelby Steele describes “A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

Kazue Sawai, Japanese koto master, lecture and demonstration at 4 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

MamaCoAtl, Steve Taylor-Ramírez and Alfredo Gomez “Songs of Love and Protest” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Sam Adams Quartet with Jarrett Cherner, Hamir Atwal, Anthony Diamond at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Kirsten Strom Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Native Elements with Dub Fix and Faya at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Pam & Jeri Show at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Phil Berkowitz & Louis’ Blues at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Calvin Weston and Monster Cock Rally, Slydini, Phillip Greenlief with Thomas Doyle at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Avengers, Pansy Division, R’N’R Adventure Kids at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Oh-no Stonesthrow, Zeph & Azeem, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $12. 548-1159.  

Macabea at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Bobby Hutcherson with Russell Malone, Joe Gilman, Dwaybe Burno and Eddie Marshall at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun.. Cost is $18-$24. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, JAN. 19 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Abby and the Pipsqueaks at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences “Little Women” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m., through Feb. 3, at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $14-$18. 925-798-1300.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St., Oakland. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

“Oakland Cityscapes and Landscapes” Photographs by Richard Leon. Reception at 6 p.m. at Luka's Lounge, 2221 Broadway, Oakland. 451-4677. 

“Art in Nature” Paintings by Mari Kearney. Reception at 1 p.m. at Piedmont Yarn & Apparel, 3966 Piedmont Ave., Oakland.  

THEATER 

San Francisco Theater Project “Aftermath of War: in their own words” Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$20. 925-798-1300.  

FILM 

“The Magic of George Melies” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Justin Frank talks about “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dream Kitchen with John Schott, Marc Bolin and John Hanes at 8 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave., at Allston Way. Tickets are $5-$10, children under 12, free. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Four Seasons Concerts Borealis Wind Quintet, and Leon Bates, pianist, at 7:30 p.m. at Regents Theater, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $35-$40. 601-7919.  

Bach to Bachianas Brasileiras with The Wiley-Husbands Duo at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. 

Novella Quartet at 4 p.m. at a home in North Berkeley. Space is limited, please make reservations. 452-8202.  

Anatolian Rhythms with Yore and Collage Dance Ensembles at 8 p.m. at Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $15-$30. 647-2949.  

Jazz Fourtet at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Saoco, Latin Hip Hop, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Faye Carol & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Shimshai with Tina Malia, Jagadambe at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Moment’s Notice improvised music, dance & theater at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Cost is $8-$15. 992-6295. 

Charming Hostess and Tsipi Gabbai at 8 p.m. at the JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $10-$12. 848-0237. 

High Diving Horses, Luther Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Robert Gastelum Group at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Gandolph Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Other Perspectives in Improvised Music at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Port, Melodic Jones, Jamie Jenkins at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Jeffree Star, Von Iva, Bob Weirdos at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JAN. 20 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“3” Works by Diana Guerrero-Maciá, Kelsey Nicholson, Lena Wolff opens at Traywick Gallery, 895 Colusa Ave. 527-1214. www.traywick.com 

FILM 

“The Nibelungen Part 1: Siegfried’s Death” at 1 p.m. and “Part 2: Kriemhild’s Revenge” at 4 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“In the Name of Love” Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, Rhiannon and Terrance Kelly, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Oakland Children’s Community Choir and Oaktown Jazz Workshop at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Dr. Tickets are $6-$22. 800-838-3006. www.mlktribute.com 

Chamber Music Sundaes with musicians and friends from the San Francisco Symphony at 3 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $18-$22. 415-753-1792. 

Rebecca Riots in a family-friendly concert at 4:30 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue,1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Tickets are $5-$15. 1-800-838-3006. www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/24792 

Live Oak Concert with Temescal Trio, Karen Wells, clarinet, Madeleine Prager, viola, John Burke, piano at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. Tickets are $10. 644-6893. berkeleyartcenter.org 

Anna Carol Dudley, soprano, will celebrate her birthday by giving a free public recital at 2 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Channing and Dana. 205-8826. 

Jazz at the Chimes with Bruce Forman, guitar, at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 228-3218. 

Gil Shaham, violin, and Akira Eguchi, piano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$62. 642-9988.  

Grupo Falso Baiano at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mariospeedwagon at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Jazzschool Studio Band at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $25. 845-5373.  

MONDAY, JAN. 21 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

PlayGround Six emerging playwrights debut new works at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St.Tickets are $18. 415-704-3177. 

Ann Wright and Daniel Ellsberg discuss “Dissent: Voices of Conscience” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

Ivan Arguelles & John M. Bennett read their poetry at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express on “Other People’s Poems” at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. Email poetryexpress@gmail.com for rules. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ellis Island Band, klezmer, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

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

West Coast Songwriters Competition at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Corey Harris and the 5x5 Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Theater’s just starting up after a hiatus that featured mainly holiday shows in December. After increasingly vigorous seasons over the past two years, it will be intriguing to see what Berkeley area stage companies have come up with to follow the wealth of productions in the immediate past.  

The resident companies are gearing up with shows to be launched in the coming week or two—and further work that will go up by spring. Berkeley Rep is hosting hip-hopper solo artist Danny Hoch in Taking Over, directed by the Rep’s Tony Taccone. In February, author-actress-Hollywood to-the-manor-born Carrie Fisher, also directed by Taccone, appears in her own solo piece, “a sobering look at her Hollywood hangover,” Wishful Drinking. 

Next door on Addison, the Aurora opens Diana Sen’s Satellites, in a West Coast premiere, as a Korean-American architect and her African-American husband move into a new neighborhood and find a brick thrown through their window. Directed by Kent Nicholson.  

In April, Aurora founder Barbara Oliver directs Ellen McLaughlin’s adaptaion of Euripides’ tragedy The Trojan Women. Oliver helmed Aurora’s production of McLaughlin’s version of Aeschylus’ The Persians a couple of years ago; this is—quite literally—another classic about the effects of a foreign war ... in this case, the misery of the conquered. 

More than a month before The Trojan Women opening in April, Oliver will direct Euripides’ seminal—and still hair-raising—late tragedy, performed in Athens only after the tragedian’s death in exile, The Bacchae, for the UC Berkeley Department of Theater and Dance at the excellent Zellerbach Playhouse, from Feb. 29 to March 9. Euripides pits the self-proclaimed forces of reason and order against ecstatic religiosity and sexuality. This was the favorite play of theatrical visionary and poet Antonin Artaud. 

At Shotgun, where Adam Bock’s acclaimed The Shaker Chair is on through Jan. 29, innovative Banana Bag & Bodice will put on their performance extravaganza of Beowulf (A Thousand Years of Baggage, directed by Ron Hipskind. Coming this summer is Ubu for President, Josh Costello’s adaptation of the original scandal of the Paris avant-garde, directed by artistic director Patrick Dooley. 

The community theaters are also opening with their newest shows. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley goes up this weekend at Live Oak Theatre with Neil Simon’s original ’60s hit, Barefoot in the Park.  

On Jan. 25, Contra Costa Civic Theatre (whose founder, Louis Flynn just died after a long career, appearing onstage in Meet Me in St. Louis last summer as a trolley driver) will open yet another Marx Bros. musical—The Coconuts (music by Irving Berlin, book by Kaufman and Ryskind) at their theater in El Cerrito.  

And in Pt. Richmond, the Masquers will make audiences quake with Frederick Knott’s thriller chestnut, Wait Until Dark, opening this weekend.

In December 2005, a group of women met to form Grandmothers Against the War, planning their first action—a Valentine’s Day 2006 rally and attempt to enlist at the Oakland Induction Center.  

While at a planning meeting for other independent street actions and joint actions with other groups, someone looked around and suddenly tossed out, “The women in this room must represent more than half a century of activism in almost every good cause anyone could name.”  

Another woman quickly caught her message and tossed back, “Our experience is worth something. We have stories to tell, experiences to pass forward.”  

From that exchange came the question, “How about letters to our grandchildren, biological or virtual?” 

On June 9, 2006, the Grandmothers’ Letters Project put out a call to other grandmother groups across the nation, asking for letters of 200 to 1,000 words, telling stories of real experiences, addressed to actual or imagined young people of any age.  

Letters Project coordinators agreed that the writer need not be actually a grandmother or even a woman, just a concerned person with a “grandmotherly attitude” toward the person addressed.  

Letters could be e-mailed or mailed to a Berkeley address. A page for “Love, Grandma” letters was added to the Grandmothers Against the War website www.gawba.org 

Soon letters were arriving from all over the country, narrating a wide variety of experiences. Some writers had led safe lives in America and knew war only as a distant disaster. Some had lost friends or relatives on some battlefield or in some besieged city. A few had themselves lived through horrendous experiences, like losing most of their family in the Holocaust or surviving the literal pulverizing of their small village between opposing armies. 

Wouldn’t such stories only frighten and depress young people? One Grandma letter might be reassuring. A German-American woman recalled learning from her parents and all other adults that Nazis were evil people who must be killed. Then, one day, at a Midwest ice cream social, a man called her “kind of pretty for a Nazi kid.” At this sudden revelation of her evil identity, the girl became haunted by fear, wondering when her parents would discover she was a Nazi, and would they then have to kill her?  

That story should remind us that as children we seldom found honest accounts of reality too much to bear; it was usually a misunderstanding that led to unspeakable, imagined horrors and gave us nightmares; honest stories of the ordeals of survivors and/or activists inspired us more than our favorite fairy tales of imaginary heroes. 

Now over 50 of the letters are available in a print edition. Some letters are from people whose life-long commitment is rooted in and strengthened by religious tradition, while others take a staunchly secular or rationalist stance against all religious faith.  

One writer credited her father for repeatedly telling her the story of his father taking him to witness a lynching, a sight that awakened a thirst for justice he was determined to pass on down the generations. Some recalled a childhood incident in which they discovered, on their own, that adults in authority were misinformed or lying.  

Some letters were poems; some were full of advice and analysis; some began with questions from their real grandchildren: “You asked why you’re always seeing me in the newspaper wearing a crazy hat and carrying a big sign ...” Some admit to doubts that never cease: “I asked myself what am I doing camped out here? What good is it? But then I thought, how could I tell you I’d given up trying to pass on a better world to you?” 

Implicit in all the letters collected in Love, Grandma is a sense of community, even joy, that reminds me of my marching buddy back in the days of the Vietnam War. I would call him and say, “Hey, Al, there’s a demonstration in San Francisco tomorrow. Shall we go?” And Al would answer, “Hell, yes, it’s been a while since our last religious experience!” 

Love, Grandma is available for a donation of $7.50 plus shipping. Go to www.lulu.com and put “Love, Grandma” in the search box. Then click on “add to cart” and follow lulu instructions on ordering and payment. The print edition of Love, Grandma is also available at Cody’s Books in Berkeley and at Walden Pond Books in Oakland. 

(Disclaimer: this article is adapted from the introduction to Love, Grandma, which I wrote, in a shameless effort to lure the susceptible into this conspiracy of troublesome old [and some young] ladies [and some men]—Grandmothers Against The War.) 

At a lively press conference at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center in Chinatown Friday, Oakland East Bay Symphony music director and conductor Michael Morgan introduced San Francisco jazz composer, pianist and educator John Jang, whose piece “Chinese American Symphony” was commissioned by the symphony and will premiere at the symphony’s Sounds of China: Celebrating Chinese New Year concert Friday, Feb. 22, at the Paramount Theatre, along with music by Academy Award-winning Chinese composer Tan Dun, John Adams and Igor Stravinsky. 

The conference also served as a preview for an innovative season for the East Bay Symphony, one that demonstrates their commitment to diversity and community building with unusual, provocative programming. 

Sounds of China includes Stravinsky’s short orchestral piece, “Fireworks” (1908).  

“You would expect Tan Dun on a program for Chinese New Years, and John Adams for ‘Nixon in China,’” Morgan said, “but not expect Stravinsky. It’s a four-minute piece. We hope the audience will see the connection to China, the East-West tie: we both have fireworks, and they come from China.” 

Shared experience was the keynote to Morgan’s commentary.  

“A diverse audience can just enjoy a great piece of music together,” he said, “then later younger people may go back out of curiosity to find out about the historical side—and older people can suddenly see different levels of experience, go back and fill in the gaps ... Even if we can’t talk about it, we can understand it together. It’s what we have in common, so we can begin to make a real community.” 

Jang endorsed Morgan’s vision. “I remember seeing an Oakland East Bay Symphony concert,” he said, “where people of all different backgrounds, all the different colors embraced Mozart under Michael’s leadership, seeing that this music is for everybody.” 

Jang’s “Chinese American Symphony” (with no hyphen; “it looks like a minus, less than American!” he said) is a tribute to the Chinese workers, from a nation “hurt by the Opium War” with England, “going to what they hope is a better land, to make money building the railroad, but the U.S. was hostile.”  

He explained various melodies, orchestral sounds, colors and movements he uses to tell that story.  

“It’s so immediate, audiences can latch onto the story,” Morgan said. “It’s why we commissioned a piece like this, and why we use composers who have the gift for making a connection for the audience: to transcend differences, bring people together who might not be able to communicate verbally.” 

Jang explained the use of the two-stringed Chinese classical “violin,” the erhu, which will be played by erhu virtuoso Jiebing Chen, and a wealth of meaningful correspondences he’s built into the piece. “One movement’s 24 minutes intentionally—‘no work stoppage.’ The Chinese workers were incessant, working 24/7.” 

“I’m hearing that for the first time!” laughed Morgan. 

A little bit later, Jang paused in his spirited delivery for an aside: “Maybe I should stop here; this is getting more epic than the piece!” 

Morgan discussed “Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra” (1998), written in memory of composer Toru Takemitsu by Dun, famed for his film score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  

“The violin section actually has splash guards! It features percussionist Ward Spangler, who at one point plays the gong while it’s immersed in water—a completely different sound. And there’s the rhythms of splashing water like children in a bathtub. There’s lots of imagery people will get—in John Adams’ very theatrical ‘The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra’ (1985), a spinoff of ‘Nixon in China,’ with Madame Mao dancing with an effigy of her husband while Nixon plays cocktail piano ...  

“All new pieces have an impact on coming generations,” Morgan continued, “who will associate the train in John’s piece with the erhu, will put the story together and understand why the elements go together ... learning history through music, making an initial association, then learning later what it means—like those of us who learned classical music through Bugs Bunny!” 

Both Morgan and Jang spoke about how his piece brings out a hidden history, something untold, that would have an impact on second-generation Chinese Americans—a point ratified by audience members at the conference. 

Upcoming programs 

Other upcoming programs aim at the same diversity in music and audience experience: following Sounds of China is Notes from Persia on Friday, March 14, for Persian New Year, Nowwuz, the lunar spring holiday, dating back to a Zoroastrian holiday, celebrated around the Middle East and Central Asia.  

The program is also musically diverse, with mezzo-soprano Raeeka Shehabi-Yaghmai singing Persian songs, composer Aminollah Hossein’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1946), Loris Tjeknavorian’s Suite from the opera ‘Rostam and Sohrab’ (1985), as well as Richard Strauss’ ‘Don Juan’ (1889) and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’ (1934). Pianist Tara Kamangar of the Royal Academy of Music in London will be featured. 

I was interested to note that Kathleen Wong, who was (briefly) my editor at the late California Wild, has an article in the current Bay Nature about the California ground squirrel. It’s a nice summary of several decades’ work of research by Donald Owings and Richard Coss at UC Davis, who have discovered remarkable things about the relationship between ground squirrels and rattlesnakes.  

Adult ground squirrels in rattler-infested areas are immune to the snakes’ venom, but their pups are vulnerable. So the squirrels have developed a whole behavioral repertoire for dealing with snakes. They can assess the potential danger from an unseen rattlesnake by the sound of its rattle, and will goad a visible snake into striking so they can gauge its reach. They can also distinguish visually between venomous rattlesnakes and nonvenomous gopher snakes, although the two reptile species may have similar patterns. 

Wong also covers the recent finding that the squirrels communicate with the snakes—pit vipers that sense heat—in the snakes’ own medium. The squirrels are able to divert body heat to their tails as they wave them, sending an infrared warning to the reptiles. Nothing like this had ever been documented. 

But there’s more. According to Davis graduate student Barbara Clucas, the lead author of an article published in the journal Animal Behaviour last fall, ground squirrels use the shed skin of rattlesnakes for defensive purposes. They chew up the skin and anoint themselves by licking their fur. 

Clucas makes a good case that this odd behavior, documented in both California ground squirrels and closely related rock squirrels, serves to mask the squirrels’ own odor from prowling rattlers. She tested a couple of other hypotheses, though. One was that essence of snakeskin might discourage fleas and other ectoparasites; another, that snake scent application has something to do with aggression between male squirrels. 

The anti-parasite idea was suggested by the phenomenon of anting in birds. Birds of several species (mainly songbirds and woodpeckers) have been observed rubbing crushed ants over their feathers. Some use millipedes, and I once watched a Swainson’s thrush rubbing itself with what appeared to be a beetle. There’s apparently some evidence that the formic acid and other insect secretions repel feather lice and mites. 

Then there are the self-anointing hedgehogs. These odd creatures have a predilection for chewing various substances—from coffee beans to toadskin—and working up a kind of lather, which they then spread over their bristles. Clucas categorizes this as antipredator behavior, with a possible social role; its frequency seems to vary seasonally. I suspect that no one is quite sure what’s going on with the hedgehogs. 

And don’t forget the tendency of wolves—including domestic dogs—to roll in what for purposes of this discussion we will call filth. There’s actually a word for this canine behavior: xenosmophilia, a preference for foreign smells. Some suggest it may have served to disguise a hunting wolf’s smell from its prey; others claim a social function.  

I remember, years ago, going to Monterey in a small car with a friend and her two generally well-behaved dogs. We stopped at a picturesque beach which was littered with windrows of red pelagic crabs. The dogs, a cocker spaniel and a miniature poodle, went wild. They rolled in the dead crabs with abandon. Then they ate a few. And on the way back to Berkeley, they threw up in the car. It was a long trip. Xenosmophilia indeed. 

But back to the ground squirrels. Juvenile ground squirrels have heavier flea loads than adults. If snake scent application is an ectoparasite defense, juveniles should indulge in it more than adults. Although Clucas found that juveniles did it more frequently than adult males, there was no difference between juveniles and adult females. 

Were the squirrels using the borrowed snake scent to intimidate their rivals? Adult males are more aggressive than either adult females or juveniles, but they had the lowest rates of snake scent application. 

So Clucas concludes that an antipredator function is most likely. Juvenile ground squirrels, after all, would be a rattlesnake’s prime targets, and it’s the females who tend the young and defend them against snakes. This, like the hot-tail warning, would be something unprecedented in animal behavior.  

It’s been known for a long time that some insects acquire chemical protection from the plants they eat (monarch butterflies and milkweed). A few vertebrates—arrow-poison frogs and the pitohui bird of New Guinea—similarly sequester insect toxins, and there’s at least one snake that stockpiles toad toxin. But “no vertebrate has clearly been demonstrated to use a self-applied chemical from a foreign source in predator defense.” Until now. Those squirrels are just full of surprises. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan. 

California ground squirrel at  

rattlesnake-free Cesar Chavez Park.  

Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column on East Bay trees.

TUESDAY, JAN. 15 

The Berkeley Garden Club meets at 1 p.m., at Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. The speaker will be Amy Meyer, Co-Chair, GGNRA, speaking on “The Creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Its Ongoing Ecological Restoration.” Cost is $3, free for members. 845-4482.  

Solo Sierrans Hike in Tilden Park to explore watersheds, newts and winter topics, on a trail that might be muddy. Meet at 1:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Optional dinner follows. 234-8949. 

“Meeting Resistance” Molly Bingham and Steve Connors’ documentary on the the Iraq insurgency at 7:30 p.m. at Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland. Cost is $10. 452-3556. 

“The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez” Film screening followed by discussion of the impact of war and military recruiting on immigrant youth, at 4 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Cesar Chavez Branch, 3301 E. 12th St., Ste. 271 Free for youth. 535-5620. 

Retirement Community Information Fair with representatives from 12 East Bay retirement communities and the Adult Day Network of Alameda County from 1 to 3 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Martin Luther King Way. 848-1960, ext. 246.  

“If These Walls Could Talk” Video at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

“What is Everyday Creativity?” with Ruth Richards at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, 2304 McKinley Ave. 848-3440. www.ahimsaberkeley.org 

The Café Literario, book discussion group in Spanish, meets to discuss “El Túnel” by Ernesto Sábato at 7 p.m. at the West Branch Library, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

“Winter Mountaineering: Basic to Advanced” A slide presentation with Tim Keating at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

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. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 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, JAN. 16 

“Caught in the Crossfire” A documentary on the plight of civilians in Fallujah and “Children of Abraham” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

War and Peace Book Group meets to discuss “A Very Long Engagement” by Sebastian Japrisot at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

THURSDAY, JAN. 17 

Alan Alda in Conversation with Bob Osserman on Alda’s lifelong interest in science at 7 p.m. at The Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $14-$22. 647-2949. www.msri.org 

Golden Gate Audubon Society “Antartica: An Unforgettable Journey” with Eleanor Briccetti at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 843-2222. 

“Workshop: Zen and the Art of Mushroom Hunting” Discover the world of mushrooms with Debbie Viess in an evening slide lecture (and a field trip on Sat. the 19th) at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of CA, 1000 Oak St., at 10th St., Oakland. Cost is $35. Registration required. 843-2222. www.museumca.org 

Cell-Phone Antenna Dispute in Point Richmond at 7 p.m. at Richmond Planning Commission, City Hall, 1401 Marina Way South, Richmond.  

Berkeley Democratic Club General Membership Meeting with Prof. David Tabb, on “The Presidential Primary” at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, Parlor Room, 941 The Alameda. www.berkeleydemocraticclub.com 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets at 7:30 p.m. at the LeConte School cafeteria. (Please use Russell St. entrance.) Agenda includes a discussion of ways to make our homes and streets safer and Board election for 2008. karlreeh@aol.com 

Appreciating Diversity Film Series “Aging Out” about foster youth who “age out” of the system at 7 p.m., followed by discussion, at Ellen Driscoll Theater, 325 Highland Ave., Piedmont. Appropriate for children 12 and older. www.diversityfilmseries.org 

“Dissent: Voices of Conscience” Celebrate the release of Col. Wright’s new book at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Cost is $5-$10. 488-3559. 

Computer and Office Technology Classes begin at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. Enrollment open through Feb. 9. www.peralta.edu. 981-2800. 

“Sustainable Urbanism” with David Baker at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 4 to 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Small Business Panel and workshop for people thinking of starting, mamnaging and growing a small business at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512.  

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

FRIDAY, JAN. 18 

“Celebrate the Dream” Opening Ceremony, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 79th Birthday, with a speech by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway, Oakland. 444-CITY. 

Iraq Moratorium Vigil to Protest the War from 2 to 4 p.m. at the corners of University and Acton. Sponsored by the Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenents Assoc. and the Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

Teen Playreaders meets to read “Hamlet” and other plays based on the classic, at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue at Ashby. 981-6121. 

Friday Films for Teens at 3:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd flr., 2090 Kittredge St. For details call 981-6121. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Mike Goldstein, Office of General Counsel, UCB on “The Tree Dwellers of UC Berkeley: The Univesity’s Perspective” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

SATURDAY, JAN. 19 

“Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St., Oakland. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

Weed Wrenchers Work Party From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pt. Isabel, Rydin Rd, off Central Ave. near Costco, Richmond. Sponsored by Greens at Work. kyotousa@sbcglobal.net 

Solo Sierrans Bayshore Walk in El Cerrito Meet at 2 p.m. at small parking lot at Rydin St., off Central Ave. Bring binoculars to observe the many shore birds. Optional oriental dinner at Pacific East Mall. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 234-8949. 

California Writers Club with Charles Rubin, author of “Don’t Let Your Kids Kill You” at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Drawing Our Days A series of three free classes with Jan Wurnm at 10:30 a.m. at Berkeley Public Library, Art and Music Dept., 2090 Kittredge St. Other classes are Jan. 26 and Feb. 2. 981-6100. 

Techno Geek Art Challenge from 1 to 4 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 528 9th St., Oakland. 465-8770. 

Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes Law, The East Bay Chapter will meet at 1 p.m. to plan to collect 700,000 signatures at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. arinkarolweitzman@yahoo.com  

“Enough Cancer! Nutrition to Stop This Plague” Learn about cancer protective food, culinary and medicinal herbs and dietary supplements at 10 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Teen Knitting Circle at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 4th floor, 2090 Kittredge St. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, JAN. 20 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 526-7377. 

“Arrogant Humanism versus Respectful Humanism” with Sterling Bunnell at 11 a.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

Grandmothers for the Oaks Celebration Bring warm clothes to donate, hot food and songs of solidarity at 2 p.m. at Memorial Oak Grove. www.saveoaks.com 

“At the River I Stand” screening at 5 p.m. followed by a discussion, in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito.  

“Crossing the Line: Multiracial Comedians” A documentary, followed by discussion, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568.  

Berkeley Cybersalon Explores the Next Spiritual Frontier with Steven Vedro, author of Digital Dharma: A User's Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Age of the Infosphere at 4 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cos tis $15 at the door.  

“Trading Traditions: California’s New Cultures” A celebration of Faith in California at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St., Oakland. 238-2022.  

East Bay Atheists Gene Gordon and Larry Hicok will jointly speak about Materialism at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 3rd floor meeting room, 2090 Kittredge St. 222-7580. 

MONDAY, JAN. 21 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bike Trip “Eastshore State Park” Meet at 9 a.m. at El Cerrito Del Norte BART. Bring lunch and bike helmet. 843-2222. 

CodePINK “Fierce Voter Pink Tea Party” from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. RSVP to 524-2776. 

Contra Costa Chorale rehearsal at 7:15 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navallier St., El Cerrito. New singers welcome. 527-2026. www.ccchorale.org 

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Make a tax-deductible donation while disposing of your ewaste appropriately and helping those in need. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600. www.svdp-alameda.org 

Help a Newt Cross the Road Every year newts migrate across Hillside Drive to reach their breeding pools in Castro Creek. Volunteers prevent many of these creatures from being crushed by cars. We need volunteers every evening during January and February in El Sobrante. The newts are most active on rainy nights. annabelle11_3@yahoo.com 

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832. www.EarnItKeepItSaveIt.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Jan. 15, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci.erkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Jan. 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6950.  

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Jan. 17, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5400.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Jan. 17, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7010.