The Week

Mark Coplan
 

News

Berkeley High Opens Scheduling Committee Meetings to Public

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday May 26, 2009 - 04:35:00 PM

Berkeley High School will allow the public to participate in meetings held by a committee charged with planning a new schedule for the high school, Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Bill Huyett said Tuesday. -more-


Protesters Decry Proximity of Fast Food Outlets, Schools

By Rio Bauce Special to the Planet
Tuesday May 26, 2009 - 04:33:00 PM

Ten Berkeley citizens and leaders of Corporate Accountability International (CAI) protested in front of McDonald’s in downtown Berkeley Tuesday to draw attention to the restaurant’s proximity to schools. -more-


Police Arrest 150 in Prop. 8 Protests in San Francisco

By Bay City News
Tuesday May 26, 2009 - 04:30:00 PM

San Francisco police arrested at least 150 protesters this afternoon after a large crowd blocked a major intersection in response to the state Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. -more-


Testimony Continues in Mehserle Hearing

By Bay City News
Tuesday May 26, 2009 - 04:31:00 PM

OAKLAND — An Alameda County Superior Court judge said today he won’t allow witnesses to testify that they overheard former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle mention using his Taser stun gun before he fatally shot Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Day. -more-


State Election Results Impact Higher Education

By Rio Bauce Special to the Planet
Friday May 22, 2009 - 02:04:00 PM

The defeat of five of the May 19 special election ballot initiatives means trouble for the economic future of California’s universities, colleges and community colleges. -more-


Berkeley Police Identify Homicide Suspects

By Bay City News, Special to the Planet
Saturday May 23, 2009 - 05:45:00 PM
Samuel Flowers of Oakland

Two gang members who remain at large following a triple homicide in the East Bay last weekend have been identified, the Berkeley Police Department announced today. -more-


Berkeley City College Graduation

by Rio Bauce, Special to the Planet
Saturday May 23, 2009 - 12:05:00 PM

Zellerbach Auditorium was filled to capacity Thursday, May 21, for Berkeley City College's 2009 graduation ceremony. -more-


Drop in Berkeley’s Immigrant Students Leads to Loss of Federal Funds

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Saturday May 23, 2009 - 12:13:00 PM

A significant drop in the number of immigrant students in the Berkeley Unified School District has resulted in the loss of federal funding for some services and programs meant to help them. -more-


Police Announce Rewards in Two Recent Homicide Cases

By Bay City News Service
Friday May 22, 2009 - 02:02:00 PM

Berkeley police have announced rewards for information leading to -more-


API Scores Show Growth for State, Berkeley Schools

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 04:30:00 PM

Although the 2008 Base Academic Performance Index (API) report released Thursday shows progress for California’s public schools, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell warned that the mounting budget cuts to education could be a major threat to improving student achievement. -more-


Tentative Deal Gives Teachers A One Percent Pay Increase

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:49:00 AM

Berkeley teachers may have come to terms with the school district over their 2008-09 and 2009-10 contracts. -more-


Plaintiffs Win Pesticide Fight; Feds Withdraw Apple Moth Spray

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:52:00 AM

The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered a ban on two controversial sprays used to battle the light brown apple moth (LBAM), ending a lawsuit filed by attorney Stephan Volker on behalf of environmental activ-ists and the mayors of Albany and Richmond. -more-


More Pink Slips for District Classified Staff

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:53:00 AM
Ann Butts, an eight-year Berkeley Adult School employee, was one of 10 district classified employees to receive a pink slip in the latest round of layoffs.

Berkeley Unified School District sent pink slips to 10 classified employees Thursday, May 14, informing clerks, custodians and bus drivers that they would be losing their jobs at the end of the school year. -more-


Competing Downtown Plans Promise Lively Council Debate

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:53:00 AM

The Berkeley City Council got its first formal look at its competing Downtown Area plans, with disagreements erupting immediately over the differences, in-cluding a debate on whether or not the two plans were substantially different. -more-


Commissioners Finish With Downtown Plan

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:53:00 AM

Planning commissioners gave the downtown plan a final sendoff last week, passing their approval of the plan’s environmental review on to the City Council. -more-


Council Raises Fees, Sets Timetable for Pools Plan

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:57:00 AM

Even while the votes were being counted on statewide ballot measures whose defeat will hit Berkeley’s budget hard in the near future, the Berkeley City Council was approving a series of fee increases to deal with the budget problems of the immediate present. -more-


School Board Approves New Middle School Grading System

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:57:00 AM

The Berkeley Board of Education approved a new grading system for the city’s public middle schools last week, which will replace the traditional A through F scale on report cards with two grades. -more-


Education Foundation Honors Teachers, Administrators, Volunteers

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:55:00 AM
Cheese Board Collective members Cathy Goldsmith and Carrie Blake receive the Berkeley Public Education Foundation's award for distinguished business partner.

There were many celebrities at the Berkeley Public Education Foundation’s “Seeding the Vision” spring luncheon May 15, but the real stars of the evening were less conspicuous. -more-


Parents Question Arts Magnet Leadership

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:56:00 AM

About 20 angry parents from Berkeley Arts Magnet Elementary School (BAM) rallied in front of Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) headquarters Tuesday, May 19, to protest what they said was poor leadership at the school. -more-


BART Moves Forward With Oakland Airport Connector

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:58:00 AM

With a heavy majority of the Bay Area Rapid Transit directors now on record in favor of moving forward with its $550 million Oakland Airport Connector (OAC), proponents of an alternative rapid bus route are shifting their fight to a critical funding source for the proposed project: the Port of Oakland. -more-


Problems and One Bright Spot on Biofuels Horizon

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:58:00 AM

Pacific Ethanol, the corporate partner with UC Berkeley scientists in a pilot biofuel plant, filed bankruptcy petitions for its four refineries Monday, May 18. -more-


$1 Million Settlement in Suicide of Berkeley’s ‘Naked Guy’

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 09:59:00 AM

Santa Clara County will pay $1 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed over the suicide of Andrew Martinez, Berkeley’s “Naked Guy,” three years ago, attorneys representing his mother in the case announced Tuesday, May 19. -more-


Police Blotter

By Ali Winston
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:00:00 AM

Child murder -more-


Zoning Board, Landmarks Will Meet to Vote on New Lab

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:00:00 AM

A group of West Berkeley residents expressed concern Thursday regarding traffic, scale and the lack of historic preservation in Wareham Development’s proposed project on the Aquatic Park Campus. -more-


Homicide Suspects Identified

By Bay City News Service
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:01:00 AM

Police Monday released the names of two suspects who were arrested Saturday, May 16, after a fatal shooting in Berkeley that led to a vehicle pursuit and crash in Oakland that killed two bystanders. -more-


Obama Mural at King Middle School

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:23:00 AM

Mark Coplan -more-


Opinion

Editorials

Paying for the News Upfront, Part 2

By Becky O'Malley
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:03:00 AM

After what seems like years but in fact has only been months of reading everything available and going to endless panel discussions, lectures and conferences about the state of the News Biz, we’ve finally come to a conclusion. We’d like to say we were the first to have this immortal insight, but in fact it seems to be the same conclusion now being reached by our colleagues at other papers large and small. -more-


Cartoons

Proposition Zzzzz

By Justin DeFreitas
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 02:08:00 PM

The Many Faces of Nancy Pelosi

By Justin DeFreitas
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 02:06:00 PM

Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:04:00 AM

BULLIES -more-


Single Payer Struggle and Health Care Crisis

By Marc Sapir
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:06:00 AM

For President Obama, single-payer health care financing is now “off the table.” I’m told that Mark Leno, sponsor of SB 810 California’s Single Payer legislation (it passed last year as Sheila Kuehl’s SB 840 only to be vetoed by Governor Schwartenegger), thinks the Single Payer vote in the Legislature should be delayed to the 2010 session. Yet everyone from these politicians to the SF Chronicle admits that there is a health care crisis that must be addressed now. What exactly does the footdragging mean? -more-


Zyprexa: Illness of Body Or Mind

By Jack Bragen
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:07:00 AM

Since I became mentally ill in my early adulthood, it has been deemed by physicians, by family and by my own best judgment that it is necessary for me to always take psychiatric medications. For practical purposes, I don’t have a choice in the matter, since the alternative is a relapse into my psychotic condition, which itself is a trauma to my brain and which causes me to behave in strange ways, resulting in re-hospitalization. Once in the hospital, the first thing that happens is I am given medication, against my will and with a court order, if need be. This is what some mental health professionals call “the revolving door” of mentally ill patients. The revolving door begins when the psychiatric consumer decides that they would rather not take medication. Is this too much information? -more-


How to Solve the Developer Problem

By Carol Denney
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:07:00 AM

We don’t have a homeless problem. We have a de-veloper problem. You’ve probably been to the PowerPoint presentation by your local developers who wring their hands over the rising costs of construction and explain, as patiently as they can to people who don’t understand the business, that unless their project is aimed primarily at housing people who make $150,000 to $200,000 or more a year, it just won’t pencil out. -more-


Is the Berkeley Ferry Cost-Effective?

By David Fielder
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:08:00 AM

Having followed the planning process for the Water Emergency Transportation Authority’s (WETA) proposed Berkeley ferry project, most analyses to date appear to have focused on environmental and traffic issues. I would like to address what I perceive to be another important issue—the probability that the City of Berkeley will be expected to subsidize this expensive amenity. -more-


Obama Administration Writes a Flashback to the Future

By Marvin Chachere
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:08:00 AM

Since January 21 the Obama team has been struggling—with mixed success—to stabilize the ship of state, to plug its leaks, to change its direction and set a new course. The ship our 44th president took command of cannot be righted easily or quickly; it is foundering due to two terms of venal management by its previous captain. -more-


Is Color Blindness a Matter of Color Perception?

By Arturo Núñez
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:09:00 AM

Color-blindness. This term is often touted by those who claim that race, in our present day circumstance, is a somewhat over-used conceptor at least insignificant, in other words, that one will be measured by virtue of one’s work and character—not by one’s race. However, individuals who often ascribe to this philosophy—such as residents of North Berkeley, for instance—often live in areas where one would be hard pressed to find a black neighbor. Oh, I know a few middle-class blacks who actually live in North Berkeley, but they are the exception, trust me; they live in a city where recent census stats calculate the white population there to be 82 percent. So, my question is this: how can those who purportedly profess that race is insignificant also live in areas that statistically guarantee that racial complexity will be very low? If race was, as these individuals confess, truly insignificant, then it seems that they would likewise unassumingly or incidentally meander and drift into areas where racial diversity is proportionally higher. These enlightened individuals are, after all, “color-blind,” and they’re not attuned to artificial racial signifiers such as white, black, brown, red or yellow. Right? -more-


Ahmadinejad’s Speech to the UN Conference on Racism

By Carl Shames
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:09:00 AM

Franz Fanon, the revolutionary Algerian psychiatrist, noted that when darker-skinned, oppressed and colonized peoples begin to talk among themselves and plan their liberation, the colonizers, and those who have cast their lot with them, become very anxious and are prone to all sorts of irrational responses. -more-


Columns

Dispatches From the Edge: Swine Flu Fallout; Obama’s Stance on Columbia

By Conn Hallinan
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:02:00 AM

Swine Flu Fallout -more-


Local Transportation Policy Needs to Be Re-Oriented

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:03:00 AM

The battle over Bay Area Rapid Transit’s Oakland Airport Connector gives us a rare chance to look into the heart of our public transportation policies and priorities, so long as we are able to clear the inevitable political hyperbole out of the way. -more-


Wild Neighbors: Song Frontiers — East Meets West at Tumbler Ridge

By Joe Eaton
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:22:00 AM
Winter wren: how many cryptic species?

I saw my first winter wren in Tilden Park during the Ford administration, but I haven’t encountered many in the East Bay since then. The Contra Costa Breeding Bird Atlas (www.flyingemu.com/ccosta) shows them still nesting in the Berkeley and Oakland hills. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: A Viennese Epicure in the Athens of the West

By Daniella Thompson
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:20:00 AM
The courtyard at Cloyne Court, 2005.

There was a time when the University of California’s summer school was an instrument of adult education, created primarily for the benefit of elementary and secondary school teachers. Such was the case in 1905, when the eminent Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) was invited to teach at the summer school, his trip financed by university regent and patron Phoebe Apperson Hearst. -more-


About the House: The Trouble with New Construction Products

By Matt Cantor
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:21:00 AM

Well, once again, that miraculous, once-size-fits-all, end-of-all-your-troubles, maintenance-free thing turns out to be none of the above. This time it’s Trex decking, but there are lots of product defects out there so I’m certainly not going to single out Trex for lambasting. -more-


Arts & Events

Art Calendar

Tuesday May 26, 2009 - 10:40:00 AM

THURSDAY, MAY 21 -more-


Berkeley Actor Completes Bard’s Canon

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:10:00 AM

Berkeley actor Julian Lopez-Morillas has played in or directed every one of the 38 plays that make up the Shakespeare canon. -more-


Thoughts on Theatre Yugen’s 30th Anniversary

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:14:00 AM

During June, 1980, I was attending shows put on by Jean-Louis Barrault (best-known as Baptiste the pantomime in the movie Children of Paradise) at Zellerbach Auditorium. One night, performing “Language of the Body,” his “essay” on mime, Barrault showed us his piece-de-resistance from an adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying: a man taming, mounting and riding off on a bucking horse. Barrault played both man and horse (“this Centaur-horse”) I read later that night in the drama section at Moe’s, in Artaud’s Theater and Its Double almost 50 years before. Artaud, who had assisted his friend Barrault, wrote of the imagery and physical dynamism that made the piece a modern classic—and how its virtues limited it from touching deeper concerns—“But who has tasted the wellsprings?” -more-


Williams’ ‘Streetcar’ at Altarena Playhouse

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:15:00 AM

I’m keepin’ a little notebook of the quant phrases I’m pickin’ up around here,” says Blanche DuBois, an unexpected guest (in the grander sense of the word) in her sister and brother-in-law’s squalid little French Quarter “rooms.” -more-


SFMOMA Exhibits Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’

By R. M. Ryan Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:16:00 AM

I’ve been on the road, and so have a lot of you and here’s the road,” begins Jack Kerouac’s introduction to the 83 photographs in Robert Frank’s 1958 book The Americans. Frank commissioned Kerouac to write this introduction, and it still provides an insightful point of entry to this major work of American photography. -more-


Robin Blaser, 1925-2009

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:17:00 AM

Robin Blaser—poet, teacher, editor, librarian—died May 7 in Vancouver, British Columbia. -more-


Around the East Bay: Soul Jazz Sundays

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:17:00 AM

The Howard Wiley Organ Trio will perform “jazz from the ’60s and beyond, that simply sounds good” every Sunday in Oakland starting this week. Howard, on “tenor saxophone and jokes,” will be joined by fellow Berkeley High Jazz Band alumnus Mike Aaberg on organ and keyboards, and excellent bop drummer Sly Randolph. 5 p. m. every Sunday, at the Aqua Lounge (above Clancy’s Cantina), 311 Broadway (near Jack London Square). $5 donation requested, or free with dinner. 625-9601. -more-


Around the East Bay: Triumph of Love

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:18:00 AM

Chora Nova, conducted by Paul Flight, presents “Triumph of Love,” with chorus and two soloists (Rita Lily, soprano; Mark Mowry, tenor). It’s Carl Orff’s “lusty musical play Catulli Carmina (Poems of Catullus) under a different name, the lesser-known middle section of “Trionfi,” of which Carmina Burana is the best-known part, with Brahm’s “Liebeslieder Waltzes.” 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 24 at First Congregational Church. 2345 Channing Way. $10-20. (925) 768-5558 (Rick Stober). www.choranova.org. -more-


Around the Bay: Fresh Voices Festival

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:19:00 AM

Berkeley composers Sheli Nan and Jean Ahn (featured in Berkeley Symphony’s “Under Construction” last year) join a slew of other Bay Area composers and singers with operatic pieces presented by San Francisco Cabaret Opera for their “Fresh Voices IX Festival: Three Evenings and One Afternoon in Hell: Or Is it Heaven?” 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday, May 24 at Community Music Center, 544 Capp St. in San Francisco’s Mission District. $10-25. (415) 289-6877. www.goathall.org. -more-


Around the Bay: 'East 14th Street'

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:19:00 AM

East Oakland native Don Reed’s one man show, East 14th Street: True Tales of a Reluctant Player, was hailed off-Broadway (and by the NAACP). Reed plays all the parts, including his pimp father who pushed his son onto the straight-A, church-going, college grad path. Reed guest-starred on The Cosby Show and A Different World at Bill’s behest. 8 p.m. Fridays; 8:30 Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays at The Marsh, Valencia (near 22nd) in San Francisco $20-3- (sliding scale). (415) 826-5750; www.themarsh.org. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: A Viennese Epicure in the Athens of the West

By Daniella Thompson
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:20:00 AM
The courtyard at Cloyne Court, 2005.

There was a time when the University of California’s summer school was an instrument of adult education, created primarily for the benefit of elementary and secondary school teachers. Such was the case in 1905, when the eminent Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) was invited to teach at the summer school, his trip financed by university regent and patron Phoebe Apperson Hearst. -more-


About the House: The Trouble with New Construction Products

By Matt Cantor
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:21:00 AM

Well, once again, that miraculous, once-size-fits-all, end-of-all-your-troubles, maintenance-free thing turns out to be none of the above. This time it’s Trex decking, but there are lots of product defects out there so I’m certainly not going to single out Trex for lambasting. -more-


Community Calendar

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:01:00 AM

THURSDAY, MAY 21 -more-