Page One

Firefighter’s Colleagues Recall a Memorable Man

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 15, 2008
While laughter at a funeral might seem incongruous, then so was Jay Walter. Speaker after speaker described a man both outrageously public and exceedingly private. -more-


Closed Section of Aquatic Park to Re-Open Today

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Results from testing water collected from the Berkeley Aquatic Park last week after a sewage spill showed no contamination, city officials told the Planet Monday. -more-


Controversy Continues Over OUSD Hiring of Interim Superintendent

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday April 15, 2008
A week after the newly empowered Oakland School Board announced that they had made their choice for an interim superintendent, controversy over the move continued to simmer. -more-


Controversy Continues Over OUSD Hiring of Interim Superintendent

Tuesday April 15, 2008
A week after the newly empowered Oakland School Board announced that they had made their choice for an interim superintendent, controversy over the move continued to simmer. -more-


Oakland Celebrates 110th Birthday of Paul Robeson

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday April 15, 2008
In the 400 years since the first slavery ships docked on the Virginia coast, the African-American Freedom Movement has raised up a continuing series of larger-than-life leaders—Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X. But arguably the most talented of that group, but perhaps the least appreciated, remembered, or studied, is the man whose 110th birthday anniversary is being celebrated this month—Paul Robeson. -more-


Jupiter Restaurant’s Expansion Will Replace Cafe Panini

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Jupiter Beerhouse and Restaurant’s proposed expansion into adjacent Café Panini would replace the cafe, zoning officials told the Planet Monday. -more-


Updates

Berkeley Mother Sentenced For Murdering Her Son, 9

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Posted Wed., April 16—A Berkeley woman who admitted murdering her 9-year-old son will spend at least eight years in prison under terms of a plea bargain announced Wednesday. -more-

38 BUSD Teacher Layoff Notices Rescinded

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Posted Wed., April 16—The Berkeley Unified School District rescinded 38 of the 60 potential layoff notices it sent out to teachers and counselors last month in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut $4.8 billion from the state education budget. -more-


News

Council Rejects Interim Density Bonus Proposal

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Berkeley’s City Council Monday spurned a Planning Commission proposal to have a city density bonus law in place in the event Proposition 98 passes in the statewide June 3 election. -more-

Work Begins on LBNL Guest House

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Construction begins Wednesday on the new guest house at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. -more-

B-Tech Addresses Increase in Latino Student Population

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Daniel "Nane" Alejandrez
Berkeley Technology Academy’s (B-Tech) hour-long discussion on youth violence with Barrios Unidos co-founder Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez Friday was the first of many events the school hopes to host for its Latino students, who make up 45 percent of the school’s population. -more-

Prosecutor Asks Jurors to Convict Hollis of Murder

Bay City News
Tuesday April 15, 2008
A prosecutor told jurors today that they should convict Christopher Hollis of murder for firing shots that killed his close friend Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a popular Berkeley High School graduate and Dartmouth College student. -more-

Car Collides with Berkeley School Bus

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday April 15, 2008
A red Pontiac Firebird collided head on with a Berkeley public school bus carrying five students from John Muir Elementary School at 3:50 p.m. Friday. -more-

Fire Department Log

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Campus evacuation -more-

Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Robbery -more-

Richard Brenneman
              Firefighters gathered from across Northern California to honor Jay Randall Walter, a Berkeley firefighter who died April 6 from cancer. Hundreds marched from Station 5 to St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church.
Richard Brenneman
Richard Brenneman Firefighters gathered from across Northern California to honor Jay Randall Walter, a Berkeley firefighter who died April 6 from cancer. Hundreds marched from Station 5 to St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church.

Editorials

Reader Commentaries

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday April 15, 2008

Commentary: Yoo’s Presence and the Faculty’s Silence

By Gray Brechin
Tuesday April 15, 2008
The recent disclosure of a memo by Boalt Law School faculty member John Yoo has given that school and the University of California itself a long overdue public relations nightmare. “Overdue” because quite enough was known about Yoo’s role in justifying the Bush regime’s claims to the dictatorial powers it has taken that a small group of concerned citizens held a weekly vigil outside his class several years ago. That vigil was almost entirely ignored by faculty and students too hurried or plugged in to their iPods to pause or take a leaflet let alone join. When Fernando Botero’s horrific paintings of torture came to Doe Library, few faculty members on panels organized to discuss them mentioned that the man largely responsible for the atrocities Botero depicted is a campus colleague. But when the New York Times published an editorial (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune on April 5) with the clause “Yoo, who inexplicably teaches law at the University of California,” mud finally stuck to Alma Mater’s teflon robes, and the administration had to act. -more-

Commentary: Bus Rapid Transit: Heed the Lessons of the BART Experience

By Steven Finacom
Tuesday April 15, 2008
The small number of Bus Rapid Transit supporters (one third or less of those who spoke) who showed up at the Planning Commission public hearing on BRT on April 9 spent much of their time urging the commission to endorse a “preferred alternative” route for BRT so AC Transit can move ahead with finalizing the environmental impact report on the project. -more-

Commentary: A More Perfect Perspective

By Marvin Chachere
Tuesday April 15, 2008
No matter how you look at it, Barak Obama’s March 18 speech on race was a Category 5 news event; it did for political reporting what Katrina did for disaster reporting. It lacked the ugly pictures but it generated a comparable multitude of comments buoyed by passion and collectively covering every conceivable aspect, from the super-sublime to the hyper-ridiculous. On the left it was rated breathtaking, historic, momentous, from the center it was deemed provocative, memorable, moving and conservatives tagged it hypocritical, duplicitous, deceptive. Titled “A More Perfect Union,” the speech arrived in the aftermath of a hurricane of publicity about the passionate preachments of a man of God, Obama’s pastor, but the devastation that came later was entirely an act of man, as was Katrina’s. -more-

Columnists

Wild Neighbors: Strawberry Canyon and UC’s Edifice Complex

by Joe Eaton
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Strawberry Canyon 1n 1870
Who was it who said that anyone who isn’t outraged just hasn’t been paying attention? -more-

Arts & Entertainment

Arts Calendar

Tuesday April 15, 2008
TUESDAY, APRIL 15 -more-

Aurora Theatre Stages ‘Trojan Women’

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Hecuba (left, Carla Spindt) and Helen (right, Nora el Samahy) face off in front of the chorus in The Trojan Women.
Here is the end of meaning; here is loss beyond comprehension.” A former queen—only the day before, queen of a great city—finds herself and her entourage of young women captives after their home has been overwhelmed by stealth, burned and demolished. Before they are taken away to a new life as slaves, as chattel in a foreign land, there are confrontations with other women that would seem to define, or refine, the terms of their grievous situation. -more-

Events Calendar

Berkeley This Week

Tuesday April 15, 2008