Opinion

Ever since George W. Bush rode off into the Dallas sunset, there’s been a void on the national scene. Even Dick Cheney has largely faded from sight. The other Republicans, the ones still in Congress are annoying, but predictably so. But just in time, there’s a replacement in Bush’s old slot of The Man You Love to Hate. Based on his behavior in the last three months or so, not to mention in the last several years, Joe Lieberman is the winner and new champ for that title. -more-

BOCA AND CHARTER SCHOOL -more-

People who choose to move to Berkeley are aware of the importance of our local history as it has impacted global trends. As a Michigan grad, I’m especially proud of the connection between Ann Arbor and Berkeley for their parallel traditions of academic excellence and positive activism. The Free Speech Movement began as an organic movement in Berkeley in reaction to the last days of the HUAC ugliness—possibly the ugliest chapter in domestic American history. But some historians ask if the FSM would have been as dynamic or effective as it has been without the support it drew from Students for a Democratic Society, which began two years earlier in Ann Arbor under Tom Hayden. I was proud to follow in Hayden’s footsteps in Ann Arbor as a campus leader and point-man activist for important causes. -more-

I thought it might be helpful to recall that Yehoshu’a (Jesus) was a Palestinian. The district of western Asia long known as Palestine has a history which needs to be understood as we try to sort out the conflicting claims of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the present day. -more-

If you’re smart enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, literate enough to write two very good books, clever enough to gain the Democratic Party’s nomination for president and wily enough to defeat the Republican nominee, then you’ll most certainly be able to obtain the assistance of the best and the brightest. Thus, it is no surprise that President Obama, in humbly accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, would deliver a speech that was magnificent in every way. It was erudite and didactic; it had depth and breath; it was a political masterstroke that at once quieted shrill prior criticisms, satisfied nervous supporters and disquieted unattached progressives like me. -more-

AC Transit is steadily cutting local bus service, while not cutting the often empty, huge regional Rapid buses. The strategy appears to be that AC Transit is transforming their Rapids and Locals into a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system of four lines. Victoria Eisen, Susan Wengraf’s Planning Commissioner, recently asked city staff to add studying BRT for University Avenue, and on North Shattuck/Solano, to the environmental studies for the Telegraph Avenue/Downtown BRT line. -more-

During the past eight years, I have heard this question asked many times—Why are we in Afghanistan? Some of what I’m about to say here on this matter has been recently declassified, but is still not well known. During the Carter administration, National Security Advisor Zbignew Brezhinski—who currently advises Obama—proposed a covert operation to destabilize the than secular Afghan government, which was getting way too friendly with the Soviets. His idea, approved and put into effect by Jimmy Carter, was to provoke the Russians into getting involved into a Vietnam-type guerrilla war in Central Asia. The goal here was to wear down and eventually destabilize the Soviet Union. In order to accomplish this, the CIA supported and funded the most staunchly anti-Communist groups in Afghanistan, who also happened to be radical fundamentalist Muslims. Brezhinski himself said words to the effect that Islamic fundamentalism was the most effective weapon against Communism, and to this day, he speaks of having no regrets for his actions. -more-

The General Plan is the law. In California, when a city’s General Plan designation for a site conflicts with the city’s zoning for the site, the General Plan supersedes the zoning. Not only is this the law, it has also been tested in court and the court ruled that this is the correct application of the law, further establishing a legal precedent for this interpretation of the law. A few years ago in Temescal there was a lawsuit filed against an approved project over this very issue and the lawsuit failed. -more-