Sylvia McLaughlin, a leader in the San Francisco Bay Area environmental movement, died quietly at her home in Berkeley on Tuesday. She was 99.

McLaughlin, Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick founded Save San Francisco Bay Association—which became Save The Bay—in 1961 to stop the city of Berkeley from adding 2,000 acres by filling in a part of the Bay.

"Sylvia and her friends just wanted to stop the Bay from being destroyed," Save The Bay Executive Director David Lewis said in a statement.

The three feared the Bay could become just a shipping channel if all the infill plans around the Bay became reality.

In 2007, when she was in her 90s, she joined former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean and former Councilmember Betty Olds perching in an oak tree in U.C. Berkeley's Memorial Grove, in an ultimately futile attempt to dissuade the university from cutting down the grove to expand Memorial Stadium. -more-

A powerful video opinion on what's happening in Speculation City: -more-

Dear Downtown Berkeley Stakeholder:

How are we doing?

PLEASE TAKE SURVEY HERE

The Downtown Berkeley Property-Based Business Improvement District (PBID) commenced operations four years ago in January 2012, with cleaning, landscaping, hospitality, marketing and other services. We are committed to doing an annual survey measuring our performance in meeting the goals of the PBID.

You--the property owners and business owners--are our customers. Hence it is critical that we measure your customer satisfaction, priorities, and perceptions of progress in the Downtown. Your individual responses will be kept confidential, however we will present results in aggregate, and comparison to prior survey, once the survey is completed. -more-

Kriss Worthington announced recently in an e-mail to the community that ,"Item 35 to adopt a resolution declaring a homeless crisis was unanimously approved by the City Council." "This simple common sense measure was only delayed twice from Dec 15 and Jan 12 before last night’s successful adoption." He goes on to gently remind the reader that this is but one small step and the next battle is over the Homeless Task Force Tier one recommendations on February 9th. -more-

Some of us might remember Reaganomics, and the idea that lower taxes for the rich would somehow put more money in the pockets of the non-rich. Now a similarly absurd approach is being used to "fight" global warming.

Greenwashed toys only the rich can afford, which will do nothing to reduce global warming, are predicted to cause non-rich people to do other things that will reduce global warming.

Two examples come to mind: Tesla and the California High Speed Rail project. -more-

The world renowned human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, has called for all companies to cease doing business with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The group’s new report, titled "Occupation, Inc.," also calls on countries like the United States to "withhold funding to the Israeli government in an amount equivalent to its expenditures and related infrastructure in the West Bank." The settlements have been declared illegal under international law. The report comes on the heels of a statement by the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, in which he accused Israel of the abominable treatment of Palestinians. He stated that Israel “having two standards for adherence to the rule of law in the West Bank—one for Jews and one for Palestinians. He added "Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities. Too much vigilantism goes unchecked. And at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law—one for Israelis and another for Palestinians." -more-

Op-ed: Library Gardens before and after the tragedy

Disabled Berkeley tenant faces apartment eviction over prolonged hospital stay

I’m beginning to believe Bernie Sanders can win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency.

Sunday night, January 17th, I watched the Democratic presidential debates with my wife, a Hillary Clinton supporter, and stepson, an Edward Snowden fan. After two hours – of a real debate – they concluded Bernie Sanders had won. (That was the critical consensus.)

Since Bernie announced his candidacy, I’ve been torn. On the one hand, I’ve long admired Sanders. It’s hard not to respect someone who was born the same year that I was and has paid his dues as a liberal activist and politician. On the other hand, I feel it’s time for a woman to be President and I like Hillary. And, given the slate of truly dreadful candidates, any Democrat is preferable to whomever the GOP eventually nominates. -more-

Sarah Palin, winner of the 1984 Miss Wasilla beauty pageant, former Alaska governor, and 2008 Republican Vice presidential nominee, has endorsed Donald Trump for president. Since leaving office, Palin has endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement. Palin is a lifetime member of the NRA, opposes abortion, against same-sex marriage, in favor of capital punishment, opposes the legalization of marijuana, rejects amnesty for illegal immigrants, and opposes ObamaCare. She's Trump's kind of woman -more-

Hard knocks can do a person some good, but only if something is learned as a result. (This is not to say that you should go looking for them.) If a situation goes south, and if it is painful enough, you can learn from it, and try not to repeat the same mistakes. Or you could do otherwise; for example, blame someone else, and continue the flawed behavior. -more-

On Saturday evening, Jan. 16, I (James Roy MacBean) attended a much anticipated dance event by the London-based Company Wayne McGregor, a group that formerly went under the name Random Dance. For this event, held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre under the aegis of San Francisco Performances, I was accompanied by local dance choreographer Kathryn Roszak, who had indicated she would enjoy contributing occasional reviews of dance events to Berkeley Daily Planet. After the performance, Kathryn and I launched into a dialogue about the piece entitled “Atomos” we had just seen. I began by asking her how she would situate the boundary-crossing mixed media explorations of Wayne McGregor within contemporary dance. -more-