The City Council approved Dec. 17, only part of a $50,000 request by Easy Does It, a nonprofit agency which provides emergency services to disabled residents. The balance of the request will be reviewed by the Commission on Disability. 

EDI asked for the funds primarily for improved office access for three new disabled employees and the addition of an in-house dispatching service. Currently, the agency contracts out for dispatching. 

The council unanimously approved $30,000 and sent the remaining $20,000, to the Commission on Disability for approval.  

EDI, which has had a limited contract with the city since 1995 – then expanded its services in 1999 after the passage of Measure E – provides the city’s disabled population with emergency services, such as transportation and personal attendant services.  

These can include everything from wheelchair repair to assistance with getting out of bed and grooming. It also has a case management division that assists the disabled with hiring and managing permanent attendants.  

Several members of the Commission on Disability attended the council meeting to argue that they should have had an opportunity to review the request for additional funds before the City Council voted on the recommendation.  

“This is awkward for us,” Commissioner Marissa Shaw told the council. “We’re asked to make planning decisions. We should see the budget before your approval.” 

Deputy City Manager Phil Kamlarz said the recommendation went directly to the City Council because EDI was considering a move and needed to know if the funds would be available.  

“It was probably my fault but there just wasn’t time,” Kamlarz said. “And then the day before the meeting it was determined the move wasn’t going to happen.” 

Although the move was canceled, EDI needed the additional funds for improving access to its current offices at 1732 University Ave. The agency recently hired three new employees who use wheelchairs and there is no independent access for them. In addition the nonprofit was anxious to begin its in-house dispatch program. 

There has been strain between EDI and the Commission on Disability since the passage of Measure E. The commission thought EDI was offering too few services and had inadequate fiscal accountability. In June, the council approved the two-year contract with EDI despite a unanimous vote by the commission to hire another company, Emergency Service Providers. 

“We were very frustrated when the council decided to ignore our recommendation,” said Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, commission chair. “But that’s not to say we can’t work with EDI.” 

Councilmember Dona Spring said the council decided to approve EDI’s bid at the time, because it had a track record and the other company did not. In addition she said a survey conducted by the City Manager’s Office showed a 75 percent approval rating among those who used EDI’s services. 

While the relationship between the commission and EDI has improved, there still is ongoing strain over the issue of EDI’s overuse policy, which limits service to clients. 

When people use the service 13 or more times in any month, they must pay a surcharge of $3 per call; after 19 calls, the surcharge jumps to $6 per call. In principal, service is suspended after 25 calls, although clients can appeal to an EDI subcommittee to show the need for the number of times the service has been requested. 

The subcommittee can grant extra usage or suspend service. 

“I’ve been told that three or four people have been suspended from service and I have to wonder what happens to those people,” Rodolfo-Sioson said. 

EDI Program Director Julie Yates said that it is very rare that anyone’s service is suspended and that the sub-committee, which is mostly comprised of disabled EDI directors, examines each case very carefully. 

According to Yates the overuse policy is in place to discourage people from relying on the service on a regular basis. She said the function of EDI is to provide emergency service not regular attendant service. 

“I hate the overuse policy,” Yates said. “But we need it as a disincentive for one person or handful of people to use the service all the time, which can affect others who are in emergency situations.” 

Kamlarz said one of the problems facing the disabled is the strong economy in the Bay Area. He said in the 60s and 70s there were plenty of students willing to work as attendants, but that is no longer the case. 

“There are too many jobs that pay more than being an attendant and it’s very hard work,” he said.  

Rodolfo-Sioson said that the commission will likely approve the remaining $20,000 EDI has requested. “We just want to take a look at the budget to see how much is coming from the capital budget and how much is coming from the fiscal year 2000 operating budget,” she said. 

Wednesday, Dec. 27

Magic Mike 

Noon and 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Special effects, magic, juggling, ventriloquism, and outrageous comedy is what Parent’s Choice Award winner Magic Mike is all about. Included in price of museum admission.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Tai Chi Chuan for Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Mr. Chang 

Call 644-6107 

Thursday, Dec. 28

Season of Lights  

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

The Imagination Company brings to life world winter celebrations and highlights the significance of light to several culture. Included in museum admission price.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Imani In the Village 

2 p.m. 

Claremont Library 

2940 Benvenue  

Percussionist James Henry presents a drumming and dance program for all ages. Audience participation invited.  

Call 649-3943 

Death of the Lecturer 

7 p.m. 

West Branch Library 

1125 University Ave.  

Calling all detectives, those who enjoy reading mysteries, playing Clue, and solving crossword puzzles to untangle the reason for the final fate confrontation.  

Call 649-3926 

Friday, Dec. 29

Earthcapades 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Join Hearty and Lissin as they blend storytelling, juggling, acrobatics, and more, to entertain and teach about saving the environment. Included in museum admission. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Saturday, Dec. 30

Bats of the World  

1 & 2:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Maggie Hooper, an educator with the California Bat Conservation Fund, will show slides, introduce three live, tame, and indigenous bats, and answer your questions about these fascinating creatures. Included in admission to the museum. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Kwanzaa Celebration 

4 p.m. 

South Branch Library  

1901 Russell St.  

Muriel Johnson of Abiyomi Storytelling is the featured storyteller at the library’s annual celebration which also includes a formal Kwanzaa ceremony.  

Call 649-3943 

Sunday, Dec. 31

Light Up the Lights! 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Popular songmeister Gary Lapow performs traditional holiday music from around the world. Included in price of museum admission. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Tuesday, Jan. 2

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Wednesday, Jan. 3

Berkeley Communicators  

Toastmasters 

7:15 p.m. 

Vault Restaurant  

3250 Adeline St.  

Learn to speak fluently without fear or hesitation.  

Call Howard Linnard, 527-2337 

Thursday, Jan. 4  

Snowshoe Tours  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Catherine Stifter of Backcountry Tracks presents a slide-show on her favorite ski and snowshoe tours off Highway 49 between Sierra City and Yuba Pass. Free 

Call 527-4140 

SAT is biased; time for UC to drop its use 

Editor: 

I read with great pleasure the Dec 18 article that discussed the UC proposal to drop the SAT. Its about time UC officials addressed the significant and persistent test score gaps between whites and most minorities, and examined the fairness and validity of the SAT. 

The passing of Proposition 209 in 1996 ended affirmative action in California, and since then minority enrollments in the UC system have plummeted. In 1998 the number of blacks in UC-Berkeley’s freshman class dropped 60% from the prior year, and Hispanic admissions were down 40%. At UCL, UC-San Diego, Davis, Irvine, and Santa Barbara, black admissions had dropped between 14 and 46 percent, and Hispanic admissions had declined anywhere from 9 to 33 percent. And yet UC Regent Ward Connerly (who led the fight in UC to drop affirmative action) maintains the system "is not broken"? 

A simple and effective solution to the problem of declining minority admissions would be to drop the SAT as an admission requirement. The fact of the matter is that the SAT does an extremely poor job predicting grades for all students, whatever their race.  

Crouse and Trushem, authors of The Case Against the SAT, argue that the improvement in prediction from adding scores to high school grades is so small it is meaningless.  

If first year grades are used as a measure of success, their figures show that using both class rank and SAT scores means only 1 – 3 percent fewer errors in prediction than using class rank alone.  

If graduation from university is the standard, adding the test scores makes a difference of less than one percent. 

So the SAT adds nothing to admissions decisions. But what does it take away? Crouse and Trushiem write: 

"The SAT affects colleges’ admissions outcomes much like the random rejection of additional blacks. It therefore acts with respect to actual admissions outcomes very much like a supplement to high school rank with zero validity that increases rejections of blacks. This is exactly the meaning of the test having an adverse impact on blacks when used to supplement high school rank."(page 108) 

Bias against Hispanic students takes a somewhat different form. Not only do Hispanic students tend to score lower, but an August 1993 article in the Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences reported that the scores also underpredict grades for Hispanic students.  

Yes, the admissions system is broken, but eliminating the SAT would go a long way toward fixing it. 

Chris Carter 

Oakland, California 

Fat Lady won’t sing after Bush’s inauguration 

Editor: 

Nationwide popular vote to dictate how the electoral college will go is time-honored, legally-established practice. Vote by the college, grudgingly tolerated, has been viewed as a mere meaningless out-dated formality to rubber stamp and redundantly certify the popular vote of the people.  

Al Gore indisputably won the national popular vote. Consequently, there should surely have been among those sent to cast votes for George W. Bush in the electoral college at least a handful who did not set party loyalty above a higher duty to serve honestly the whole nation, and would therefore break ranks to distinguish themselves nobly in the nation’s history as they accorded their winning votes to Al Gore, thereby supplanting the choice of a befuddled court with the people’s choice and reaffirming modern presidential election by popular vote.  

For shame George W. Bush and your electors! And for shame, Americans, if you accept this gunslingers’ thieving injustice! 

But remember, the fat lady can’t sing until after the inauguration. May a bannered calvacade of millions of the fair-minded - lawyers, doctors, students, families, war veterans, veterans of the Civil Rights struggle, etc. - descend on Washington for inauguration day and prevent the taking of the presidential oath by anyone but Al Gore.  

Not for a decade has there been a more worthy national reason for overwhelming numbers to best misguided authority. If need be, we can do without a president for a few days while we put our national house in fair order to match the voted will of the people.  

Judith Segard Hunt 

Berkeley 

Don’t condemn before judicial verdict 

Editor:  

Ms. Diana Russell, professor at Mills College, has anointed herself judge, jury, and prosecutor in the case against Berkeley landlord, L.B. Reddy and his family.  

Proclaiming herself as a spokesperson for Women Against Sexual Slavery, while seeking a City Council resolution to boycott Pasand Madras Cuisine, she in effect was leading the charge in trampling a fundamental American principle, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of peers.  

To underscore this point, on November 24, 1963, eighty million of us saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald live on television. But, until Ruby was tried, convicted, and sentenced in a court of law, he was referred to in the media as the alleged killer of Oswald. Mr. Reddy should be accorded the same constitutional protection as Jack Ruby.  

To their credit and our pride, Council members Polly Armstrong and Miriam Hawley dissented in the resolution to boycott Pasand's restaurant. Resisting the pressures of an emotionally charged atmosphere, they voted instead to defend a fundamental American principle.  

Dennis Kuby  

Berkeley

California sophomore forward Laura Schott and senior defender Tami Pivnick were named 2000 All-Americans by Soccer Buzz on Tuesday. The national collegiate women’s soccer Web site selected Schott to its first team and Pivnick to its third team.  

Schott and Pivnick are Cal’s first All-Americans since Erika Hinton earned National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) second team honors in 1993. The last Bear to be first team All-American was U.S. national team member Joy Fawcett in 1989.  

Earlier this month, Schott was the only Pac-10 player to earn first team All-America recognition from the NSCAA, and now she joins USC’s Isabelle Harvey as the only Pac-10 players to be named to Soccer Buzz’s top All-America list. Schott also earned first team All-West honors from both the NSCAA and Soccer Buzz.  

A first team All-Pac-10 pick from Wilsonville, Ore., Schott finished the season as the conference’s leader for points (47), goals (23) and game-winning goals (9). Her 23 goals tied Fawcett’s school record, set in 1987. Nationally, Schott concluded the year ranked second for goals per game at 1.15 and ninth for points per contest at 2.35. After two years in Berkeley, Schott ranks third in school history for goals (34) and fourth for points (77) and is on pace to break Fawcett’s records of 55 and 133, respectively.  

Pivnick helped anchor the 10th-ranked defense (0.645 goals per game) in the nation this season. The sweeper from West Hills also found ways to contribute to Cal’s attack in 2000, tying for fifth on the team with eight points (two goals and four assists). Her outstanding efforts on the field and in the classroom helped Pivnick earn selections to both the second team All-Pac-10 team and the first team Academic All-Pac-10 squad. She also was a second team All-West pick by Soccer Buzz and a third team All-West honoree by the NSCAA.  

Schott and Pivnick were named Cal’s Offensive and Defensive MVPs, respectively, at the annual team awards banquet.  

Their offensive and defensive exploits helped the Bears put together one of the best seasons in school history. Cal posted a 17-3-1 record, placed second in the Pac-10 at 7-2 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, where they fell 2-0 to eventual Final Four participant Santa Clara.  

The Bears’ 17 wins broke the previous school record of 16 set in 1986, ‘87 and ‘88. The Bears ended the year ranked as high as No. 4 by Soccer America.

Homeless individuals and families across Alameda County received an early Christmas gift Saturday when congressional representatives notified them that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had awarded more than $11.7 million to programs serving the 9,000 to 15,000 homeless people who live in Alameda County.  

A number of programs in Berkeley will benefit from the funds:  

• The Berkeley Emergency Food and Housing Project’s $487,000 grant was renewed to support its transitional housing program. The program offers 24-month housing with structured support services to help clients move to stable permanent housing and to achieve self sufficiency. 

• The Homeless Employment Center’s grant of $1 million was renewed to provide employment and training services to 300 General Assistance recipients or those eligible for General Assistance. 

• The Alameda County Homeless Youth Collaborative received a renewal of its $621,700 award which provides housing for Berkeley youth in a two-bedroom transitional house and for Oakland youth in an eight-bed transitional house. An additional 570 youth will receive services through this program, which include outreach, life skills training, mental and physical health care, employment, childcare, skills training and more. Partners in the project include Chaplaincy to the Homeless, Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency, Berkeley Youth Alternatives and others. 

• The Peter Babcock House, on the Oakland-Berkeley border serves homeless individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The facility houses five individuals in a supported, community living environment. The program operated by Affordable Housing Associates, with services provided by BOSS, will receive $112,000 to renew its grant. 

• Bridget House was awarded a new grant for $138,000. It is operated by Berkeley’s Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center and is a transitional housing program with case management support for homeless women and children. During the program year, it houses 12-18 individuals, approximately six families with up to 12 children. 

• The city-run Shelter-Plus-Care program will receive a renewed grant of $1.4 million. This is a city project that partners with seven community-based organizations to place individuals in housing, assign case managers to their applicants and provide a variety of services before and after housing has been found. About 30 percent of the clients who use these services have been diagnosed with mental illness and another 30 percent are disabled by chronic substance abuse. An additional 40 percent are dually diagnosed. 

• The Berkeley Supportive Housing Network is a new program that provides housing for severely mentally ill homeless individuals. It received $313,000. 

• Another new program to get funding is the Berkeley Interfaith Youth Initiative. Twelve churches joined together to form the initiative which will receive $97,000. One of its purposes is to establish drop-in centers for homeless youth or youth at risk of homelessness. They centers, run by Jubilee Restoration, Inc., will be located in south and west Berkeley. 

• A $99,000 grant renewal will go to Bonita House, which serves homeless adults with a dual diagnosis of severe persistent mental disability and a history of substance abuse.

In what some are calling the “Christmas coup” at KPFA’s sister station WBAI in New York, an interim station manager was installed and the station’s program director and a producer were fired Saturday. Tuesday, Pacifica added to the list of persona non grata by banning of at least three more people from the Manhattan station. 

WBAI, KPFA and listener-sponsored stations in Washington, D.C., Houston and Los Angeles, operate under a license controlled by the Pacifica Foundation. In the summer of 1999, Pacifica locked out the entire staff at KPFA, following the firing of a popular station manager and subsequent broadcasts about the firing, which had been banned by Pacifica. The lockout and censorship resulted in daily demonstrations, including one by 10,000 people. The battle between the local station and the Pacifica Board continues today through several lawsuits. 

The situation at WBAI was discussed in a Tuesday morning staff meeting at the New York station where “a strong consensus of the staff” called on the management to reinstate those who had been terminated and barred from the station, according to a person in attendance at the meeting who asked to remain anonymous. 

“The interim manager said that any such readmission would take time and left the meeting before a vote was taken,” the source said in a phone interview. 

There has been no explanation given to those people who have been barred from the station. “The bannings may be in revenge for prior discussions,” the source said. 

Among those not permitted inside the station is Eileen Sutton, a volunteer news producer active in a strike of Pacific Network News stringers. These radio journalists have refused to work for the Pacific News since the news director was terminated earlier this year.  

“I’m honored to be kicked out,” Sutton told the Daily Planet, explaining that she had been given no explanation for her termination. She was told that she could not re-enter the station by people attending the Tuesday morning staff meeting, she said. 

The WBAI audience has been very supportive to the staff, Sutton added, noting “There’s been 150-170 calls each day to a hot line” that updates people on the WBAI situation. 

The installation of Utrice Leid Saturday as station manager came about a month after Pacifica announced the termination of the former station manager. Calling the action “a tyrannical approach of Pacifica,” Northern California board member Tomas Moran said he received no notice of any of the New York actions. Further, Board Chair David Acosta has not responded to his inquiries, he said. 

Moran, programmers and the station’s Local Advisory Committee met Saturday to plan programming to keep KPFA listeners informed of the New York situation. Local Advisory Board members will continue to meet to discuss what kinds of further response should be taken.  

The situation in New York is somewhat different than the one in Berkeley during the summer of 1999. On air programmers are allowed to discuss the situation and only a select few have been locked out. It’s a new way to “spin” the situation, Moran said, underscoring that in both situations the decision-making is not democratic. 

The inside source at WBAI described the situation as one where a half-dozen security guards are scattered inside at various posts, not only to restrict the access of those banned from the premises, but, to watch and listen to those working inside the station.  

“It has a chilling effect on people, on the usual social intercourse,” he said. 

“We’re in Through the Looking Glass,” Moran said. “We’re on the other side of the glass.” 

Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash did not return calls on this story. Interim WBAI station manager Utrice Leid, installed in the early morning hours of Dec. 23 and Board Chair David Acosta were also contacted but did not return calls.

The Affordable Housing Advocacy Project in Berkeley released its first progress report on Christmas Day, promising to promote and improve the use of housing vouchers for low-income residents. 

“We are especially concerned that city staff and elected officials and, most importantly, voucher holders do not understand how the vouchers work,” according to the AHAP report. 

A so-called Section 8 voucher is a government rental subsidy that allows a low-income person to obtain housing, with federal financial assistance, in a privately owned building. 

Life in privately owned housing is viewed by many as preferable to life in a government housing project, which is perceived as dangerous because of the threat of violent crime and drug dealing. 

Harvard and Princeton universities jointly released a report in October, concluding that housing vouchers appeared to be succeeding, with families “enjoying more safety, fewer behavior problems among boys, and better health.” 

Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Assistant Secretary Xavier Briggs, now at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, said the positive results have been quick. 

“The theory has always been that it would take years for effects to register,” he said. “But when you leave neighborhoods behind where you’re ducking bullets and worried for your life, and for your children’s lives, every minute of every day, lo and behold it doesn’t take long for things to register at all.” 

In October 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the Quality Housing and Responsibility Act. This required local housing authorities to develop and submit both annual and five-year plans to the federal housing agency. 

One of the requirements is that residents of public housing be included in the planning process. 

Berkeley’s Affordable Housing Advocacy Project, which is funded by the City Council, is working to include public housing tenants and the Section 8 tenants as well. This is particularly true in the development of the city’s five-year and annual housing plans, and in the creation of “Watchdog Committees” to monitor housing activities. 

The project was developed out of the Save Section 8 Committee, a group founded by seniors living in subsidized housing. It was started in October 1999 as a joint project between Housing Rights, Inc., Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS), and the National Housing Law Project. 

The group also plans to educate rental property owners regarding vouchers.

A suspect who crashed a stolen car into a home at Cedar and California streets was locked up in the Berkeley jail Tuesday, according to police. 

At about 3 a.m. Tuesday, police received a call that suspects may be in the act of stealing a car at Shasta and Tamalpais roads. At around Cedar and Euclid Avenue, an officer thought he saw the car described as stolen and activated his lights and siren to get the suspect to stop, according to Lt. Russell Lopes. 

Instead of stopping, the vehicle fled down Cedar. The officer did not pursue, since that would have violated Berkeley municipal code which forbids pursuit of stolen vehicles, Lopes said. 

Minutes later the suspect car crashed into a home near Cedar and California. The car’s airbags deployed and the suspect was able to leave the vehicle unhurt. He was found 10 minutes later hiding in a nearby backyard, Lopes said.

Teenager killed in Richmond 

RICHMOND (AP) — One teen-age boy was fatally shot and another was seriously injured Tuesday while walking home from a friend’s house, police said. 

A bullet fatally struck a 14-year-old boy in the head, while a 16-year-old boy was shot in the leg, arm and back. Both were taken to an area hospital where the younger victim was pronounced dead. The older boy was listed in stable condition, said Richmond Police Sgt. Enos Johnson. 

The youths were walking on Potrero Avenue a few blocks from their home when they were approached by a vehicle carrying at least one gunman. 

The suspects got out of the car and at least one opened fire on the teen-agers, police said. The older boy ran two blocks to safety. 

Police are investigating the incident but do not have a motive for the shooting. 

Gay and lesbian center opening delayed 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The opening of a new gay and lesbian community center in San Francisco has been delayed by the discovery of toxic soil at the Market and Octavia construction site. 

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center was set to open in June during Gay Pride Week. The delay means it likely will not open until fall. 

The delay will also raise the cost of the center. The original price was set at a little more than $14 million, but cleaning up the toxins will add about $1 million to the bill. About $12 million has been raised for the center, first conceived in 1996. 

The center will consist of a 41,000-square-foot glass and steel four-story building connected to a century-old Victorian. It will provide office space to 11 nonprofit groups and will include conference rooms, a cafe and a childcare center. 

BART parking shortage 

OAKLAND (AP) — Commuting by Bay Area Rapid Transit is so popular that parking lots are filling up faster than ever and some riders are so desperate they’re accepting $25 tickets to park illegally. 

Surveys indicate motorists appear willing to pay the fines to park in spaces set aside for car pools and midday travelers. 

Those BART surveys also show illegal parking happens at nearly every station with a parking lot, but the problem seems to be worst at Pittsburg and Dublin-Pleasanton. 

BART officials said the parking problem is made worse by the boom in ridership, up 15 percent in the past year to 345,000 trips on most weekdays. 

BART wrote almost 60,000 tickets in the past year. That’s up from just over 45,000 the previous year. 

No clues to whereabouts of missing woman 

SAN LEANDRO (AP) — Despite an extensive search of the ravines and canyons on Crow Canyon Road there is still no sign of a San Leandro woman who disappeared last week after leaving for work. 

Authorities said they will continue the search Tuesday for Janet Vanden Bos. She was last seen Thursday morning as she left her parents’ San Leandro house and headed for her job in Danville. 

Friends and family say it isn’t like Vanden Bos to disappear without telling anybody. Her family says she has a serious asthma condition and did not have medicine with her for more than a day or two. 

Her family also says she has not been unhappy recently. She drove off in a red Volkswagen convertible with a black top, and the car also has not been seen.

SACRAMENTO – Ann Veneman, an attorney who is the daughter of peach farmers, emphasized foreign trade, food safety and education during her tenure as California’s agriculture director. 

Veneman, 51, a Modesto native, was expected to be named U.S. agriculture secretary Wednesday by President-elect Bush, The Associated Press has learned. 

“We have a very high regard for secretary Veneman,” Bill Pauli, president of the 90,000-member California Farm Bureau, said Tuesday. “What we’re really encouraged by is not only does she understand California agriculture, which is really important to us, but she understands national agriculture.” 

She was California’s agriculture director from 1995 until January 1999, appointed by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. She is the only woman to have held that cabinet post as the governor’s top farm adviser. 

Wilson sent her on trade missions to Asia and South America to try to increase California’s agriculture exports, which range from cotton to table grapes. 

From 1986 to 1993, she dealt with international trade issues in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She rose to deputy secretary, the number-two job in that office, under Bush’s father and was the highest-ranking woman to serve in that department. 

During her time in the federal department, Veneman helped negotiate the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade talks. 

“When you talk to agriculture people about what government can do to help, it’s ’help us open markets that are closed to us,”’ Veneman said in a 1995 interview. “I think that’s a real legitimate role that we can play.” 

Since Wilson left office, Veneman has been practicing law in Sacramento, but still keeping farm connections. In her firm of Nossaman, Guthner, Knox and Elliott, she has specialized in food, agriculture, environment, technology and trade issues. 

This month, she spoke at a University of California, Davis, seminar on agriculture in an Internet world. 

She said e-commerce will bring “fundamental changes” to farming, as farms begin exploring business-to-business Internet transactions, buying and selling everything from seeds to farm equipment. 

In October, she told an agriculture biotechnology conference in Monterey, “We simply will not be able to feed the world without biotechnology.” 

In 1999, she was hired by Nugget Distributors of Stockton to promote a new food safety training program on CD-ROMs for restaurant workers. A 1998 state law requires businesses selling unpackaged foods to have at least one worker certified in safe food handling. 

Pauli said Veneman’s background in agricultural trade agreements is “a really strong positive for California agriculture and for the nation’s agriculture.” 

Picking Veneman “was a really good start” for the Bush administration as far as food and agriculture policy is concerned, said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation of America’s Food Policy Institute. 

Veneman understands that USDA, which regulates meat processing and operates the government’s food assistance programs, is concerned about more than farming, Foreman said. She “will bring a modern view of the Department of Agriculture into that job.” 

Her roots are both in farming and politics. Her parents were peach growers in Stanislaus County in the San Joaquin Valley south of Sacramento. Her father, John Veneman, was a Republican state assemblyman and undersecretary of health, education and welfare in the Nixon administration. 

Veneman was an early Bush supporter and was one of six California Republicans named in mid-1999 to his exploratory committee in the state. At the GOP convention last summer, she was on the national steering committee of Farmers and Ranchers for Bush. 

She has a bachelor’s degree from UC Davis in political science, a master’s in public policy from UC Berkeley and a law degree from Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. 

She spent time during her tenure as state agriculture director visiting urban schools to talk about how food gets from the farm to them. 

“The big problem is children simply do not know where food comes from. They go to the grocery store and think milk just comes out of a carton, or fruit and vegetables just appear on that shelf,” she said a 1997 interview.

Sunday, Dec. 24

Ancient Winds 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1573 Solano Ave. 

One of many performers doing their stuff on Solano during the holidays. Performances every weekend afternoon till Christmas.  

Artists at Play Holiday Sale  

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1649 Hopkins St.  

Work for sale includes dishes, frames, floral ribbon pins, jewelry, monoprints, and more.  

Call 528-0494 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

With over 300 vendors and live musical entertainment, this years holiday fair will be larger than any in recent memory. Free shuttle from downtown Berkeley BART available. Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

Call Linda, 528-6983 for details 

Palestinian Solidarity Event 

1 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists 

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Noura Erakat, just returned from occupied Palestine, will present a slide show and discussion on why she believes U.S. military aid to Israel must stop.  

Call 524-6064 

Tuesday, Dec. 26

Kwanzaa! 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Join storyteller Awele Makeba as she shares tale and a capella songs from African and African-American history, culture, and folklore which celebrate the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Included with admission to the museum.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Big Fat Year-End Kiss-Off  

Comedy Show VIII 

8 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave.  

Featuring Will Durst, host of PBS “Livelyhood,” Johnny Steele, Debi Durst & Michael Bossier, Ken Sonkin the Magic Mime, and Steve Kravitz.  

$15  

Call for tickets, (925) 798-1300 

Blood Pressure Testing 

9:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Alice Meyers 

Call 644-6107 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Wednesday, Dec. 27

Magic Mike 

Noon and 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Special effects, magic, juggling, ventriloquism, and outrageous comedy is what Parent’s Choice Award winner Magic Mike is all about. Included in price of museum admission.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children  

Call 642-5132 

Tai Chi Chuan for Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Mr. Chang 

Call 644-6107 

Thursday, Dec. 28

Season of Lights  

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

The Imagination Company brings to life world winter celebrations and highlights the significance of light to several culture. Included in museum admission price.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Imani In the Village 

2 p.m. 

Claremont Library 

2940 Benvenue  

Percussionist James Henry presents a drumming and dance program for all ages. Audience participation invited.  

Call 649-3943 

Death of the Lecturer 

7 p.m. 

West Branch Library 

1125 University Ave.  

Calling all detectives, those who enjoy reading mysteries, playing Clue, and solving crossword puzzles to untangle the reason for the final fate confrontation.  

Call 649-3926 

Friday, Dec. 29

Earthcapades 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley. 

Call 642-5132

The WBAI “insider” stood locked out in the cold in front of the New York listener-sponsored station Saturday afternoon. 

“At approximately 11:45 p.m. (Friday) night, in a Pacifica-backed coup, three locksmiths came in and changed the locks,” said the individual, who asked that his name not be used for this story. 

The Pacifica Foundation holds the license to five community radio stations, including KPFA, where staff and volunteers were locked out of the station by representatives of the national board for three weeks during the summer of 1999. The Berkeley lockout occurred after programmers insisted on discussing the firing of a popular station manager on the air. Demonstrations, including one 10,000 people strong, ensued and staff returned inside the station. Listener and programmer lawsuits against Pacifica were filed and are moving forward. 

As the “insider” describes it, at 1:48 a.m. Saturday WBAI talk show host Etrice Leid came on the air and announced she had been named interim station manager in place of Valerie van Isler, whose termination was announced a month ago. Staff had no input into this unpopular decision, the insider said. 

Also on Saturday morning the lead producer of the morning news show and the WBAI program director both received termination notices via Federal Express. 

“They’ve hired a private security firm to be bouncers at the door,” the insider said. 

Programmers were being allowed into the building selectively in order to broadcast their shows on Saturday, the source said. 

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, whose show is broadcast nationally from WBAI, said Saturday that she, too, was locked out of the station and did not know whether she would be allowed in on Monday to broadcast her show. “It’s not clear what’s happening,” she said, “It’s a total crack down.”  

The lockout violates the station’s contract with its employee unions, she added. 

Local station KPFA reacted swiftly to the events broadcasting updates Saturday and planning coverage of the situation over the holiday weekend. 

Pacifica management did not return calls for this story. 

For updates call the WBAI listener hotline at (800) 825-0055 or go to the web at www.savepacifica.net.

Powell may not help ease tensions 

Editor: 

Pundits are saying that Colin Powell will be very good at solving international conflicts, for instance in the middle East.  

As a boy, Powell worked for a Jewish grocer in the Bronx and learned to understand and speak Yiddish.  

This will please Netanyahu and friends, but it is doubtful that the Arabs will be greatly impressed.  

Max Alfert 

Albany 

It’s in the First Amendment – read it 

Editor: 

From the start of Michael Yovino-Young’s letter of Dec. 16 & 17, you’d think he was avid civil libertarian with an inkling of an understanding of constitutional law.  

However, by the end of his letter, it is clear that Osha Neumann, who Yovino-Young complained about, has an understanding of the Constitution far greater than, say, Yovino-Young, who doesn’t understand who should or shouldn’t practice law or what “fascism” means.  

Neumann also has one thing going for him that Yovino-Young doesn’t seem to have; the lawyer has actually read the first amendment.  

“Congress (note the emphasis) shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” 

Too bad Yovino-Young hasn’t read any of the large body of juridprudential literature explaining what those words functionally mean.  

While the mainstream reaction again the Netanyahu demonstration is discouraging, not only because of people’s misunderstanding of freedom of speech but also because of their failure to see the war criminals among us and the subjugation that our government and major media are a part of, it sure is great to see lucid voices, like those of Joseph Anderson and Steve Wagner. And to see the staff of the Berkeley Daily Planet printing them.  

Oliver Luby 

Berkeley 

Feliz Navidad 

Editor: 

It's the Season of delightful music and lights, eating too much, and sharing joy with families and friends.  

As I stood in line waiting to buy that perfect gift for my husband, I found myself making a list of New Year wishes for this wonderful city.  

So here are some wishes that I invite you to join me in making come true.  

• Heading the list – cozy, affordable housing particularly for the elderly in danger of losing their homes and the working poor struggling to keep their families together.  

• Councilmembers that will put aside political maneuvering and work with all their colleagues for the good of the entire city. 

• Health care for everyone. I am happy to have helped 900 Berkeley residents get health insurance this past year, but this is a national problem that can't wait. 

• Safety for the South Berkeley neighbors who are fighting so hard for freedom from drug dealing, shots in the night and assaults on their children. 

• An excellent education for all of our youth. It is unacceptable to be afraid in school, deprived of adequate playing fields, to drop out or be denied training or work experience. As their Village, we must nurture them with love while setting limits to guide them. 

• Recognition that Berkeley needs and depends upon a vibrant business community to provide jobs and pay taxes which fund the services we all want and expect. 

• Support for my pre-natal through pre-school program which seeks to ensure that every Berkeley child is healthy and motivated to learn when entering kindergarten. 

• Improve the quality of life for everyone by fixing potholes, repairing sidewalks, and expanding parks.  

And, wouldn't it be nice if all the traffic slowed down and everyone was polite? 

Well, this is my wish list for the New Year and it's achievable, if we all work together! 

Mayor Shirley Dean 

Berkeley 

Save the Derby St. farmers’ market and save the neighborhood  

Editor: 

I am writing to you about the Derby Street Field. I strongly oppose the Derby Street Field trying to be built there. 

I do support the plan that would provide regulation soccer and softball fields, a tot lot, larger garden for the new alternative school, safer streets and spots to play for children, and for the Farmers' Market to stay there.  

Because I'm a 10 year-old I don't want to have to have bright lights and noise during the night and traffic problems. And also I love the Farmers' Market;I go over there every Tuesday after school. And it would be really bad if there was a huge stadium on Derby and not the market.  

People in the community should decide what happens and almost everybody in the community doesn't want it, but they think that nobody will listen to them.  

Thank You, 

Rio Bauce Berkeley 

Noise, traffic is for those living near new Beth El site 

Editor: 

This is with reference to Charles Meyers' letter to the Editor in the Planet's 12/23-25 issue. 

Mr. Meyer states that he lives "about a half-mile" from Beth-El; just far enough to view the proposed project from a lofty, unaffected attitude, i.e., not having to deal with heavy traffic, noise, parking problems and all the other issues imposed by this project which is inappropriate to an already highly urbanized neighborhood.  

When Mr. Meyers lives next door to such a project as I will, then perhaps I will be able to take his cavalier comments seriously. 

Carol Connolly 

Berkeley 

The recent opening of a Durant Avenue smoke shop may be in violation of city zoning laws. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district includes the south-of-campus area, said councilmembers received an e-mail from Mark Rhodes, director of current planning, that said a mistake was made in issuing a use permit to the University Gift and Smoke Shop at 2506 Durant Ave.  

Zoning regulations, specific to the Telegraph Avenue shopping area, prohibit new stores whose sales are made up of more than one-third tobacco products, unless there is a public hearing and subsequent issuance of a use permit.  

Rhodes was unavailable for comment Saturday. 

The opening of the Telegraph area shop spurred Councilmember Dona Spring to call for a citywide moratorium on new smoke shops.  

Spring has placed a resolution on the Jan. 16 City Council agenda calling for the moratorium until the city’s zoning regulations can be amended to restrict what she calls the “proliferation of smoke shops in Berkeley.”  

Spring said she hopes the Planning Commission regulations will target areas near schools – including UC Berkeley. 

“They like to put these shops near schools because kids are the easiest to get hooked on nicotine products,” Spring said. “Oakland has a ordinance forbidding tobacco shops near schools and I think Berkeley should, too.” 

According to Paul Fletcher a spokesperson for the American Lung Association, studies show there is a definite correlation between the opportunity to purchase cigarettes and the number of minors who smoke.  

“There are 150 places to buy cigarettes in Berkeley,” Fletcher said, “Clearly the area is already over saturated.” 

Fletcher cited a survey by the Berkeley police and the Berkeley Tobacco Coalition in which minors posed as cigarette buyers last summer. According to Fletcher, the sting showed that one-third of Berkeley cigarette vendors sold tobacco to minors. 

Berkeley resident Tim Moder is among those who have contacted Spring to voice opposition to the new Durant Avenue smoke shop. He said there should be no more than five stores that sell cigarettes in the city. “It would make it much easier to monitor these places to make sure they don’t sell to kids,” he said. “With 150 stores selling cigarettes there’s just no way.” 

The owner of the newly opened Durant Avenue smoke shop, Nabel Totah, also owns two other similar stores, one on University Avenue and another in Oakland. 

“Cigarette sales are a very small part of our business,” said Gena Garcia, a manager at Totah’s Oakland smoke shop. “If Mr. Totah knew that Berkeley didn’t want anymore smoke shops he certainly would have not invested money there.” 

Judith Scherr of the Daily Planet staff contributed to this story. 

“A house is a home when it shelters the body and comforts the soul.” – Phillip Moffitt. 

Two questions frequently asked by senior citizens are: “What’s Section 8?” and “How can I find a decent place to live?”  

In 1997, 622 subsidized units for Berkeley elderly were reported by the census; Alameda County Housing Authority’s Inventory of Subsidized Rental Housing identified 33 Berkeley buildings which include low-income or Section 8 senior or disabled rent-subsidized units. 

Section 8 refers to a portion of federal legislation administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It provides rent subsidies for low-income persons. People who qualify under Section 8, pay one-third of their incomes for rent, with the balance subsidized by HUD.  

This program has been one of the best possible uses of federal funds, because it countermands the need for costly welfare-type expenditures associated with sheltering seniors with small incomes who are eager and able to live independently.  

Seniors receiving Section 8 rent subsidies in today’s tight Bay Area housing market are at risk of losing their status and being evicted because landlords prefer other types of tenants and can get higher rents in the open market.  

Tenant-based Section 8 is administered by the Berkeley housing authority. In theory, it is possible for a low-income person to get on a periodically-open waiting list, obtain a Section 8 voucher from the housing authority, and – before the voucher expires – find a vacant apartment on the open market owned by a landlord who will accept both an aged tenant and rent subsidized by HUD!  

In Berkeley there are several Section 8 project buildings, owned by nonprofit and for profit organizations, not under the purview of the Berkeley Housing Authority. They consist of mostly single-room apartments, for example, Redwood Gardens and Stuart Pratt.  

Here are suggestions for easing a search for low-income housing for seniors. Contact rent-subsidized housing projects and landlords. Request an application form and information brochure, and complete the application form at once. Retain copies of all correspondence. Emphasize your strong points as a prospective tenant, for example, no pets, nonsmoker, excellent credit history, regular income. Resist the temptation to accept the advice of friends or building managers who say that “You will never get a place in that building” or “We never have vacancies.”  

If you currently rent in substandard conditions, make a formal request to the local housing department for an “inspection;” persist in obtaining a report of any code violations. If you are near-homeless, paying over half your income in rent, being involuntarily displaced, and or living in substandard housing, include these facts in your application.  

It may not be possible to apply to a building manager or see inside the building. Apply to the management company, which may require an interview; take a friend with you. After four weeks, if you have not received acknowledgment, follow up. After three months, if your application has not been accepted, telephone. Inquire about its status every month and at least once in writing.

SAN FRANCISCO – Authorities now believe a rogue wave, churned up by piling sea swells off the San Francisco coast, crashed ashore and swept away a 13-year-old boy Friday. 

The search continued Saturday, but turned up empty. The missing boy’s name has not been released. 

Witnesses say he was standing with his seven friends along the shoreline at Baker Beach when the wave suddenly towered above their heads and blindsided them. 

“They were taking a photograph of their group of eight and a rogue wave came and knocked them down,” said San Francisco Fire Department spokesman Pete Howes. “The beaches are very steep. They go from beach-side to deep water quickly.” 

Other members of the group went into the water and scoured the waves for the boy but never found him. They were treated for mild hypothermia and exhaustion and released from a local hospital. 

The waters off Baker Beach and nearby Ocean Beach are known for their unpredictable conditions and strong riptides that can easily take inexperienced swimmers out to sea. Just last month a fisherman drowned at Baker Beach while wading into the surf and stepping off a shallow sand shelf into deeper water. 

Warning signs reading “Hazardous surf. Swim at your own risk” are posted at Baker Beach. Rich Weideman, a spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area which oversees the beach, confirmed that 12 people have drowned at Baker and Ocean beaches since 1990. 

This time of year the conditions are often ripe for trouble. 

“We had a fairly high tide. It was some of the highest tide I’ve seen,” Weideman said of Friday’s conditions. “The warnings we had were between 10 and 15-foot-waves and it was going on for about 24 hours starting about 3 p.m. Friday ironically.” 

That was the time when the rogue wave struck the group of teens. 

The region’s deadly seas claimed another life on Nov. 30 when Scott Smith, bass guitar player for the 1980s pop band Loverboy, was swept from the deck of his sailboat by a 25-foot wave four miles off the coast of Ocean Beach. 

That wave was so strong it snapped off the boat’s steering wheel. Smith’s body was never recovered. 

A high surf advisory continued through Saturday for the region, but personal responsibility is a key component for beachgoers, Weideman said. 

“It’s up to the person and their abilities,” he said. “We just want people to be cautious. It’s always good to be watching the weather forecast.” 

Howes added that visitors to San Francisco should watch more than the weather report — they should keep an eye peeled on the surf which can quickly change from mild to wild. 

“If they’re out their children or pets they should be very cautious,” Howes said. 

Despite the dangers, swells from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay about 30 miles south are coveted by big wave surfers this time of year. Hot spots nicknamed “Mavericks” and the “Potato Patch,” with their thrusting shallow ocean shelves, offer consistent 40-foot waves during the winter for those brave enough to surf them.

SAN FRANCISCO – With the state in the throes of an energy crisis, alternative energy glows like a solar-powered beacon of relief for Californians beset by soaring gas prices and imminent rate hikes. 

But the energy generated by nature, or “green power,” constitutes only 12 percent of California’s power usage, and it won’t help bail out the state during this energy crisis for one important reason — it’s still too costly. 

Existing alternative power plants do not satisfy the state’s appetite for power. Windmills in Tehachapi and Altamont, solar energy farms in the desert, and the world’s largest geothermal field near Santa Rosa do not produce enough energy to meet the demand. 

And a major obstacle to expanding alternative energy is the startup cost. With gas costing just $2 to $3 per 1,000 Btu last winter, it simply didn’t make sense for utilities to build systems that use renewable sources. But last month, the price soared to $30. 

“We would like to increase the amount of generation from renewable resources in the state,” said Marwan Masri, manager of the California Energy Commission’s renewable energy program. “But the cost is high at first.” 

The state program offers incentives, such as payment of part of the startup costs, to get more companies and even homeowners to use renewable resources. The program is building up steam. 

“Today, market prices have been really high and these renewables are a bargain,” Masri said. “The question is not to lose momentum.” 

California uses, on average, about 34,000 megawatts of power a day, with 12 percent of that coming from renewable sources, such as wind, sun and the Earth’s own heat. Over the past three years, the amount of energy from alternative sources has increased by almost 4,000 gigawatt/hours — enough to power 600,000 homes for a full year. 

The rising gas prices and tight supplies have buffeted Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric. PG&E and SoCal Edison blame $8 billion in losses since May on rising wholesale costs and frozen customer rates. 

San Diego customers are not covered by the rate freeze and have seen their bills double or triple. Customers of the other two utilities will likely see their rates increase as early as next month, after the Public Utilities Commission said Thursday customers should pay more to keep the companies from going bankrupt. 

“If the gas prices stay where they are, this stuff looks a whole lot better,” said Rich Ferguson, research director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology. 

Still, natural gas remains the favorite because of the price. Until this year, gas has been among the cheapest sources, and utilities use it to generate almost 90 percent of the state’s energy. 

Alternative energy sources are expensive to set up, but once established, the fuel is fairly cheap. Natural gas plants, on the other hand, are cheaper to set up, but must continually spend money to buy fuel. 

Although alternative energy took off in the 1980s, it has been around since the turn of the 20th century, when small hydroelectric plants were scattered throughout the state. Large hydroelectric plants are not considered alternative energy. 

In the 1960s came geothermal energy, which harnesses heat from the Earth to generate steam and turn a turbine. Biomass, which comes from burning plant material; landfill gas, which can be harvested to drive generators; and other renewable sources grew in popularity in the 1980s. 

Right now, the cost of wind and geothermal energies are on par with natural gas, with wind averaging 5 cents a kilowatt hour and geothermal averaging 7 cents a kilowatt hour. Solar is among the most expensive, at 20 to 40 cents a kilowatt hour. 

Masri thinks the costs will eventually come down significantly, making alternative energies consistently competitive with natural gas. 

“The one trend we know is renewable energy gets cheaper and cheaper over time. The cost has been dropping,” he said. “It hasn’t dropped far enough, but it is declining.” 

Still, the price of electricity is tied to the cost of natural gas, because even alternative energy sources feed the same power grid, which is dominated by natural gas. So higher natural gas prices raise the cost of all electricity, no matter how it’s generated. 

That price is passed on to consumers of both traditional and alternative energy sources, but retailers of renewable energy often negotiate flat rates for their customers, which can keep them from being affected too much by rising prices. 

All seem to agree that with gas prices rising, renewable energies are more attractive, and to meet the need, new alternative energy plants are expected to generate 471 megawatts of power by the end of next year. That’s enough to power 471,000 homes for an hour. 

Those plants will be used to replace gas-fired plants or generate additional electricity, said Steven Kelly, policy director of the Independent Energy Producers Association. 

But Kelly said the way many gas-powered plants are designed makes it too hard to convert them to alternative energy plants, and that it would be easier to start over rather than to switch over. 

Kari Smith, manager of green power resources for PowerLight Corp., a Berkeley company that sells and installs solar panels, sees alternative energy expanding in the future. 

“The economics are changing. The price of natural gas has doubled in the last year, where the price of wind and solar is coming down,” Smith said. “We see it as a real promising sector.”

Cops spread holiday cheer with food boxes 

It’s nearly Christmas and three police employees are making their regular holiday rounds armed with 15-pound turkeys and boxes stuffed with cranberry sauce, yams and cookies. 

Police service assistants Brenda Logan and Tess Artizada and patrol officer Ross Kassebaum are volunteering their time crisscrossing Berkeley in a white Cherokee delivering holiday meals to needy residents as part of the Berkeley Booster Holiday Food Basket Program. 

Nelda O’Neal, her grandchildren shyly standing behind her, thank Kassebaum with a kiss on the cheek. “It such a pleasure to be acknowledged as somebody who deserves this,” she says. 

At about 6 a.m. Friday about 50 volunteers from various organizations gathered in front of the new Public Safety Building and began to sort 11,400 pounds of food including 3,900 pounds of turkey, 1,250 pounds of potatoes, 1,000 pounds of oranges and 1,000 pounds of yams. They put the food into baskets, each containing enough food to feed 10 people. 

The baskets were then loaded into a fleet of patrol vans, squad cars, parking enforcement scooters and a converted AC Transit bus known as the Mobile Sub Station to make the deliveries.  

The program began 16 years ago when Sgt. Bruce Agnew and Sgt. Alec Boga got the idea to raise money for the giveaway through a “Turkey Ride” in which police officers find sponsors for a 216 mile bicycle ride from Berkeley to South Lake Tahoe. 

Local organizations that participated in this year’s giveaway include the Berkeley Boosters, the Berkeley Rotary Club and Berkeley Kiwanis Club.

Saturday, Dec. 23

Farmers’ Market Craft Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.  

MLK Jr. Civic Center Park  

(Center at MLK Jr. Way) 

Local craftspeople will be selling a variety of handcrafted gifts. Also live music, massage, and hot apple cider. Free 

Call 548-3333 

Artists at Play Holiday Sale  

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1649 Hopkins St.  

Work for sale includes dishes, frames, floral ribbon pins, jewelry, monoprints, and more.  

Call 528-0494 

Royal Hawaiian Ukulele Band 

Noon - 2 p.m. 

1561 Solano Ave. 

One of many performers doing their stuff on Solano during the holidays. Performances every weekend afternoon till Christmas.  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

Ninth Annual Holiday Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

MLK Jr. Civic Center Park  

Klesmeh! Festival  

8 p.m.  

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave.  

A Hanukkah concert of Klesmer music and its mutations, featuring the San Francisco Klesmer experience. Hosted by Berkeley monologist/comedian Josh Kornbluth.  

$18 advance, $20 door; $16 kids and seniors  

Call 415-454-5238 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

With over 300 vendors and live musical entertainment, this years holiday fair will be larger than any in recent memory. Free shuttle from downtown Berkeley BART available. Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

Call Linda, 528-6983 for details 

Sunday, Dec. 24

Ancient Winds 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1573 Solano Ave. 

One of many performers doing their stuff on Solano during the holidays. Performances every weekend afternoon till Christmas.  

Artists at Play Holiday Sale  

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1649 Hopkins St.  

Work for sale includes dishes, frames, floral ribbon pins, jewelry, monoprints, and more.  

Call 528-0494 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

With over 300 vendors and live musical entertainment, this years holiday fair will be larger than any in recent memory. Free shuttle from downtown Berkeley BART available. Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

Call Linda, 528-6983 for details 

Palestinian Solidarity Event 

1 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists 

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Noura Erakat, just returned from occupied Palestine, will present a slide show and discussion on why she believes U.S. military aid to Israel must stop.  

Call 524-6064 

Tuesday, Dec. 26

Kwanzaa! 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Join storyteller Awele Makeba as she shares tale and a capella songs from African and African-American history, culture, and folklore which celebrate the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Included with admission to the museum.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Big Fat Year-End Kiss-Off  

Comedy Show VIII 

8 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave.  

Featuring Will Durst, host of PBS “Livelyhood,” Johnny Steele, Debi Durst & Michael Bossier, Ken Sonkin the Magic Mime, and Steve Kravitz.  

$15  

Call for tickets, (925) 798-1300 

Blood Pressure Testing 

9:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Alice Meyers 

Call 644-6107 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Wednesday, Dec. 27

Magic Mike 

Noon and 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Special effects, magic, juggling, ventriloquism, and outrageous comedy is what Parent’s Choice Award winner Magic Mike is all about. Included in price of museum admission.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Tai Chi Chuan for Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Mr. Chang 

Call 644-6107 

Thursday, Dec. 28

Season of Lights  

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

The Imagination Company brings to life world winter celebrations and highlights the significance of light to several culture. This event is included in museum admission price.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Imani In the Village 

2 p.m. 

Claremont Library 

2940 Benvenue  

Percussionist James Henry presents a drumming and dance program for all ages. Audience participation invited.  

Call 649-3943 

Death of the Lecturer 

7 p.m. 

West Branch Library 

1125 University Ave.  

Calling all detectives, those who enjoy reading mysteries, playing Clue, and solving crossword puzzles to untangle the reason for the final fate confrontation.  

Call 649-3926 

Friday, Dec. 29

Earthcapades 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Join Hearty and Lissin as they blend storytelling, juggling, acrobatics, and more, to entertain and teach about saving the environment. Included in museum admission. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Saturday, Dec. 30

Bats of the World  

1 & 2:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Maggie Hooper, an educator with the California Bat Conservation Fund, will show slides, introduce three live, tame, and indigenous bats, and answer your questions about these fascinating creatures. Included in admission to the museum. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Kwanzaa Celebration 

4 p.m. 

South Branch Library  

1901 Russell St.  

Muriel Johnson of Abiyomi Storytelling is the featured storyteller at the library’s annual celebration which also includes a formal Kwanzaa ceremony.  

Call 649-3943 

compiled by Chason Wainwright

Where has all the sewer money gone? 

Editor: 

Your Dec. 12 article on sewer overflows refers to the council item by Councilmember Maio which urges the city to crack down on homeowners who have illegally connected downspouts or storm drains into the sanitary sewer system, which results in overflows during heavy rains.  

An equally significant problem is where house sewer laterals were connected into the storm sewers which results in significant health problems as the storm sewers overflow during heavy rains. 

While the city has been working on the problem, Public Works Division Director Rene Cardinaux is quoted saying, “the department is limited by time and money...at the current rate, the city will take 50 years to complete sewer projects.  

If we had twice the allocation of funds we’d be able to make the kind of progress we’d like to see.”  

In the council packet for Dec. 12, item seven, which concerned a five year lease for 2.7 million dollars for Public Works engineering department to move to 1947 Center St. provides that half the rent will be paid from the sewer fund.  

The item elaborates by stating, “Payments for Engineering’s rent historically have been made from the sales tax and sanitary sewer funds.  

Rents will continue to be budgeted for and paid from these funds unless other sources are provided.” Sewer fund: $1,344,032. Contact person: Rene Cardinaux. 

This makes it very clear why the sewer problems will not get resolved in 20 years and probably not in 50 years.  

The sewer fund money is looked upon as a slush fund to pay for items desired by the city staff and council regardless of the illegality of the fund expenditures.  

The sewer fund was established in 1986 and was to put at least $6 million dollars a year into sewer replacement.  

Perhaps the auditor would like to review how sewer fund moneys have been expended. She could start with $300,000 last year to purchase the health building on Sixth St. and $43,000 to put in fiber optics lines to the corporation yard.  

Theodore R. Edlin 

Berkeley 

Beth El – good neighbors 

Editor:  

Although I am not one of the good people of Congregation Beth El, I live about a half-mile from their current proposed sites of operation, and I consider them good neighbors. Good where they are and potentially better if they are allowed to develop the derelict site on which they hope to build an appropriate expanded accommodation.  

Frankly, I am bewildered that some other neighbors are responding to the proposal as if a drug rehabilitation center or half-way house for felons was in danger of being plunked down in their midst.  

Historically, Beth El has been a force promoting spiritual values, civilized order and practical community support, and this proposed upgrade should be seen not as a threat to the status quo, but as an opportunity to improve Berkeley.  

Charles J. Meyers 

Berkeley

Lampley scores 25, Wethers hits career-high 21 in win 

Following one of the best games in college basketball this year, the Cal-Georgia finale of the Pete Newell Classic was satisfying for the Bears despite the lack of enthusiasm by the crowd. 

Cal (5-3) beat the Bulldogs (6-5) soundly, 85-64, in what was their best win of the young season. Unfortunately, half of the Calfornia college-record 19,804 people who attended the Stanford-Duke matchup to begin the doubleheaders left the Oakland Coliseum before the second game tipped off, and most of the folks who stuck around left during the second quarter. 

The absent fans missed a startling explosion of the Bear offense, with forward Sean Lampley leading the way as usual with a season-high 25 points on the night. The senior had a balanced night, scoring 12 points in the first half and 13 in the second. Point guard Shantay Legans continued his productive season with 13 points, including a perfect three-for-three from long range. 

“Sean Lampley was the key to this game. I told Sean that if he could duplicate what he did in the first half that we’d be okay,” Braun said. “I thought he played his best game of the year. Sean made every guy on our team play better tonight and that’s what great players do.”  

A surprise contribution came from swingman Brian Wethers, who scored 13 first-half points on his way to a career-high 21 in the game. Wethers hit his first five shots, including three three-pointers, the last giving the Bears a 38-23 lead late in the first half. 

“I thought Brian Wethers did a great job out on the floor,” Cal head coach Ben Braun said. “He certainly played hard today and that was a great thing for us.”  

With coaching legend and big-man specialist Newell sitting courtside, Lampley and fellow Newell Big Man Camp attendee Nick Vander Laan did their tutor proud. Lampley had 10 assists and six rebounds to go with his game-high point-total, and Vander Laan pulled off a double-double, pulling down 12 rebounds to go with 14 points. 

“You’d better be fundamental with Pete Newell watching the ball game. Pete is an inspiration to me and this team. Pete needs to come to all of our games and look over our big guys.”  

A seven-point Georgia run late in the first half cut the Cal lead to six, but Cal point guard Shantay Legans hit a runner with four seconds left in the half, and the Bears led 43-35 at halftime. 

Whatever Braun said to his team at halftime must have boosted their confidence, as the Bears came out of the locker room on fire. Legans hit wide-open three-pointers on the first two possessions, and Ryan Forehan-Kelly hit Lampley under the basket with a no-look pass as Cal scored eight points in a little more than a minute to start the half. 

“They just came out and made every shot. It looked like we weren’t even guarding them,” said Georgia head coach Jim Harrick. “I thought that maybe their practice could have been easier than what we were doing tonight.”  

The Bears also managed to turn the ball over just five times in the game, while Georgia committed 15 turnovers. Braun’s team has won every game this season in which they have won the turnovers battle, and all three Bears losses came when they turned the ball over more than their opponent. 

Center Solomon Hughes hit a hook shot to give Cal a 10-0 run and an 18-point lead before Georgia’s Anthony Evans made a layup to stop the bleeding. But the Bulldogs would never get closer than eight points again as the Bears held the lead almost the entire game. 

Evans, another player who attended Newell’s camp, was the only Bulldog who looked alive in the second half, dragging his team back into the game with his rugged inside play. The 6-foot-7, 265-pound senior scored 12 points in the second half to finish with 16, the most by any Georgia player. 

The Bears also outrebounded the Bulldogs 33-32, despite the presence of the beefy Evans and 7-foot-1 Robb Dryden, and held Georgia’s leading scorer, guard D.A. Layne, to 13 points on 6-of-15 shooting. 

The crowd was treated to a great game between No. 1 Duke and No. 3 Stanford to open the night. Stanford came back from a 15-point second-half deficit to beat the Blue Devils on a Casey Jacobsen shot with just 4.6 seconds remaining in the game.

“While the merry men pound the nails...the capitalists, who are to own the (Claremont) hotel...are thinking up new ideas that are calculated to put it in the front rank of modern hotels.” 

— From the Berkeley Advance, Dec. 23, 1906 as quoted by Susan Cerny in Berkeley Landmarks 

As today’s Claremont Hotel and Spa management contemplates a fresh expansion of its 279-room facility, neighbors are hunkering in, trying to preserve the residential character of their area.  

Oakland and Berkeley residents living near the hotel, united as the Berkeley-Oakland Neighbors of the Claremont, have been to Oakland’s Landmarks Advisory Board and filed an intent to landmark the hotel, which was designed early in the century by noted architect Charles Dickey. Although the hotel sports a Berkeley address, it is (mostly or entirely, depending on whom you ask) located in Oakland.  

The group has six months to file a formal application. 

Wendy Markel, who lives near the hotel, points out that the business “gets the benefits of being in a residential area. It’s not a convention center,” she said. “Landmarking would give it prestige.” 

It would also give the hotel hurdles to leap before they could make major changes. 

Noting that he had good meetings with the neighborhood group and had attended a Dec. 11 Landmarks Advisory Board meeting, Claremont’s General Manager Ted Axe said he had not yet decided whether the hotel would support the neighborhood application. “I don’t know,” he said. “The landmark (status) is a change of our zoning.”  

He said the document explaining the status was “over 1 inch thick” and he needed to study its implications. 

Axe was vague about expansion plans. “Our thoughts are potentially adding guest rooms,” he said. “We’re preparing to file for an application.” After that, the hotel will have to complete a state-mandated environmental report. 

While Claudia Cappio, Oakland’s manager of major development projects, underscored that no specific plan has been presented to her, she said the Claremont management had spoken of the expansion as two additions to the present structure, with a “total of over 100 new units.” A parking structure is also being contemplated, she said. 

And that’s what has jolted the neighbors into action. “We have a great fear of the excessive congestion” the expanded hotel would bring, Markel said. “We can hardly move here as it is.” 

Landmark status would add a layer of public input into any changes the hotel would propose. Oakland’s landmarks board advises the Planning Commission, which would rule on any major changes to the structure. The ruling could be appealed to the City Council. 

Landmark status would also mean that the Environmental Impact Report, a legal document required by the state for large projects, would have to carefully consider what impacts changes would have on the historic structure. 

Berkeley’s role would be an advisory one as well. Although both Oakland and Berkeley planners agree that Oakland has jurisdiction over the property, the exact status of the Claremont is still to be determined.  

Cappio said she believes the entire property is located in Oakland, while Mark Rhodes, Berkeley’s head of current planning, says there is a piece along the perimeter that is in Berkeley. 

Markel and others in her neighborhood group are urging the hotel to go along with the landmarks proposal.  

Its historic nature is a good selling point, she said, adding, “It would be a good bridge to the neighborhood if they come along with us.”

After only three years at Cal, Dennis Gates will achieve at the end of the spring semester a feat rarely accomplished by students, not to mention intercollegiate athletes. He will graduate as a junior with a degree in sociology.  

A team leader on the court with his tenacious defense and his uncanny hustle, Gates has been an inspiration for players to push themselves to the limit. He has demonstrated his love for basketball through his tireless work ethic.  

That same enthusiasm has found a place in the classroom, with Gates challenging both himself and his teammates academically.  

“During my first summer here, I wanted to keep myself from getting board and homesick,” said Gates, a 6-3 guard who was the Chicago All-Academic Player of the Year as a senior at Whitney Young High School. “I started to take summer school classes to stay busy. I tried to stay focused in school while developing my skills in basketball.”  

As Gates realized his potential, he began to focus on his education as a priority, using summer school as a way to advance academically. While summers had previously been a time to take a break, he decided to use them as a foundation for his achievements.  

“Dennis is a team leader in every aspect and has completely mastered the team concept,” said junior center Solomon Hughes, who is also on track to graduate early. “He is setting a standard academically for everybody on the team. Most freshmen want to go home for the summer and use it as a vacation, as if summer school isn’t even an option. Dennis uses the summer to get better both athletically and academically and is setting a trend for the rest of the team, motivating them to stay in Berkeley and use the summer sessions to their advantage.”  

Hughes has also been influenced by Gates’ persistence in the classroom, as he sees him as a driving force behind his own academic pursuits.  

“It’s a blessing being in his class,” Solomon said. “I’m on track to graduate this summer. I’m just trying to keep up with his pace. He’s really helped me to focus on my studies, and he encourages me to work hard in school.”  

Although it seems Gates may have chosen this path accidentally, he has been continuously guided by his mother when it comes to his education. Growing up in Chicago, Gates, the second oldest child and the oldest of three boys, has definitely been steered in the right direction.  

“My mom has always stressed academics,” he said. “Once when I was in grammar school, she threatened to take me off the team if I didn’t get good grades. I knew I couldn’t mess around when it came to school work.”  

With the combined influence of his mother and the opportunities available at Cal, both on the court and in the classroom, Gates hopes he can guide his two younger brothers into a direction that will lead them to similar achievements.  

“I want to be a role model for them,” he said. “They watch every step I make. I want them to see what I’m doing and try to do even better.”  

Gates not only wants to influence his siblings, but the intercollegiate athletes all over the country who see academic responsibilities as a weakness rather than a strength.  

“If athletes see what I’m doing,” Gates said, “then they know it can be done. I want them to know that playing sports and going to school doesn’t have to be a negative experience.”  

Gates attributes his motivation and success to his stubborn personality. He says he is determined to prove wrong all those who told him he could not graduate early, using their pessimism as a reason and an incentive to try even harder. In addition, he is aware that his accomplishments can help diminish many stereotypes about African American intercollegiate athletes.  

“There is a negative stereotype that I want to change,” Gates said. “People think it’s unheard of to get where I am. I want to prove it can be done. Athletes shouldn’t be considered dumb jocks.”  

The future for Gates looks promising as he intends to enroll in the Graduate School of Education at Cal. He hopes to use the resources at Cal as a way to help and influence other student-athletes get on the right track and accomplish their goals.  

After turning in his application to the Education Department a few weeks ago, Gates now looks forward to his final semester as an undergraduate.

Nefarious crimes have a natural home in libraries. Book lined shelves have witnessed murders, mayhem, lies and resolutions in hundreds of mystery stories by renowned authors such as Agatha Christie and Anne Perry.  

This holiday season another murder mystery will haunt another library – the West Berkeley Public Library. Dec. 28, five teens will transform into five suspicious suspects, each with a secret motive for murdering the victim. The audience, formed into teams of detectives, will spend about an hour interviewing suspects and gathering the vital information to solve the crime.  

Francisca Goldsmith, the senior librarian in the Teen Center of the west branch of the library has been organizing the murder mystery program for six years. She laughs just talking about it. 

“My favorite one we ever did was just so over the top in terms of incredibility,” she said. “When the murder was solved the mother was also united with her identical twin children – one of whom was male, one female, one white, one Asian.” 

Several teens volunteer to help Goldsmith write a new story each year, a process that, she said, “takes a lot of gestation time.”  

“It’s more the details that are difficult to make up, especially the red herrings,” she said, adding no matter how much they scheme, the script inevitably changes to highlight the talents of the actors performing it.  

Albert Kung, 16, helped write and act out the story for the performance both last year and this one. He enjoys the acting and, “the playing around with people’s minds,” he said, adding that the actors may not always tell the truth. 

The night of the performance, the actors situate themselves throughout the library – a “businesswomen” spends her time reading the Wall Street Journal and detectives move around to ask the questions. 

“We place the evidence among different library materials so that people realize, ‘Oh they do have videos,’ so there’s that kind of pedagogy going on,” said Goldsmith.  

She made it clear that the library tries to protect any sensitive audience members from the more macabre elements of the mystery story: no victim’s corpse, no gruesome murder weapon. 

“The victim is never sympathetic. The murder weapon is never something that could ever truly be lethal,” she said. “One year the whole murder evolved around the idea of chickens and we used a clay pigeon as the weapon.”  

Goldsmith carefully navigates the tension between verisimilitude and appropriate behavior for the public library. 

“On some occasions we’ve had a scream that starts it all,” she said, chuckling, “and at that point we’ve posted a sign for a week in advance saying, ‘There will be a scream in the library at 7 p.m.’” 

In years past, between 20 and 70 people have shown up to play. The Library Mystery is free, and requires no reservations, although the program is not recommended for children under 12, because of the level of difficulty. Interested participants should be at the library, 1125 University Ave., by 7 p.m. Dec. 28.  

Forget Colonel Mustard, the candlestick and the billiard room. This year it may have happened with a bicycle pump filled with poison gas, or perhaps with dangerous play-dough. But it definitely occurred in the library. 

On Sunday BART will be following its regular Sunday schedule with service beginning at 8 a.m. and running until midnight on three lines: Richmond-Fremont, Pittsburg Bay Point-Colma, and Dublin/Pleasanton-Daly City. 

On Christmas Day, BART will be operating on the regular Sunday schedule. AC Transit will also operate on a Sunday schedule for Christmas.  

On Dec. 26, BART will operate on a regular weekday service schedule with service beginning at 4 a.m. and running until midnight on all five lines. 

On New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, BART will operate trains until 4 a.m. for late-night celebrants on three lines: Fremont-Richmond, Pittsburg/Bay Point-Colma and Dublin/Pleasanton-Daly City.  

As an additional convenience to passengers, BART is selling “flash passes” for New Year’s Eve. The passes cost $5 and allow passengers unlimited rides on the BART system from 6 p.m., Dec. 31, until 4 a.m., Jan. 1. Passes are available at Albertson’s grocery stores, Long’s Drug stores or from BART’s Website, www.bart.gov.  

On New Year’s Day, BART will operate on a regular schedule as listed above for Dec. 24. AC Transit will operate on a regular Sunday schedule for Jan. 1.  

On both Dec. 24 and Jan. 1, AC Transit will also offer five Bay Bridge bus routes to and from downtown San Francisco. 

For additional information about BART services during the holidays, call (510) 465-BART. For additional information about AC Transit service during the holidays call 817-1717 (then speed dial 1,1,1,1). You can also find AC Transit information at www.transitinfo.org/AC.

SAN FRANCISCO — A city affirmative action officer says he was discriminated against, demoted and harassed on the job after testifying before a federal grand jury about alleged wrongdoing in the city’s minority contracting program. 

In a lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court, Kevin Williams, 46, alleges he was demoted from his managerial position at the San Francisco International Airport and harassed after the grand jury indicted a Human Rights Commission official earlier this year. 

Williams said the day after Zula Jones, 53, was indicted on 16 counts of defrauding the minority contracting program, she called him at home. 

“She asked me, what did I say to the grand jury?” Williams told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I was really taken aback. She accused me of turning state’s evidence on her.” 

Williams, a black man who has worked 15 years for the city, also alleges racial discrimination in his lawsuit because a white woman, Virginia Harmon, who has worked for the commission less than five years, was appointed acting director. The appointment was made after the former executive director told Williams he would be the obvious choice for the job, said Stephen Gorski, Williams’ lawyer. 

Harmon declined comment. The city’s chief labor attorney, Linda Ross, said she was not prepared to comment because the city had not yet been served with the lawsuit. 

“She’s someone who Kevin has to report to, and Zula Jones is still working there,” Gorski said. “We think there’s some sort of conspiracy going on among various people at the commission. ... There were certainly no problems until after his testimony.” 

Jones’ lawyer John Keker says Williams’ allegations are unfounded. 

“It is an absurd and false charge that Zula Jones had any effect on his employment status,” he said. “It’s just plain wrong.” 

Jones’ indictment is part of an ongoing FBI investigation probing suspected corruption in the awarding of city contracts. 

The indictment accuses Jones and four executives of a San Francisco construction firm of conspiring to receive public contracts set aside for minority-owned firms. The grand jury charged Jones with knowing the Scott-Norman Mechanical company set up a phony company to win the contracts. 

Gorski said Williams returned to work after about two weeks of medical leave to find someone else doing his job as lead compliance officer overseeing an airport expansion project. 

From there, he was moved to the downtown office and later to various positions where he had no experience, including handling obesity discrimination and disability issues. He also was given unrealistic deadlines and reprimanded for not meeting them, Gorski said. 

Williams then went on disability following an exacerbated back injury. His doctor ordered him back to work, but only after his office ergonomics were changed. Those changes took three months – instead of three weeks – to complete. Williams earned about $500 a week in disability pay, compared to his usual $1,500 a week, Gorski said. His salary, however, was not cut when he moved to the downtown office. 

“That’s an excessive amount of time to redo a desk and get a chair,” Gorski said. 

In the lawsuit, Williams is requesting back pay and reinstatement to his old job at the airport. Williams is also asking for an unspecified amount of money for damages. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Emergency crews searched the waters off Baker Beach late Friday for a 13-year-old boy who was swept off shore. 

The waves at the beach were six to eight feet high as they approached the shore making swimming unwise, according to Coast Guard Ensign Dale Vogelsang. 

A group of eight people were at the water’s edge at about 3 p.m., and the teenager was hit by a wave. His seven friends went back looking for him but failed to find him. They have been transported to a San Francisco hospital to be checked for hypothermia. The identity of the boy was not immediately available.  

The search efforts have been called off for the evening, and will resume at dawn Saturday.

SANTA ANA — Two students sued the Anaheim Union High School District for removing 10 biographies on homosexuals from their school library in what they contend is a violation of constitutional free-speech rights. 

The Orangeview Junior High School students said in the U.S. District Court lawsuit that the district censored a book series called “Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians.” 

The books include biographies on tennis player Martina Navratilova, economist John Maynard Keynes, and writers Willa Cather and James Baldwin. 

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit Thursday on behalf of the two unidentified students, demanded that the district immediately return the books to the library shelves. 

“We all know why these books have been banned,” ACLU attorney Martha Matthews said. “The books were banned because they had a positive statement to make to kids about gay and lesbian people. 

“The books were banned because of deep-seated prejudice.” 

Principal Barbara Smith removed the books and took them to the district office in September, the suit said. No reason was given by administrators, Orangeview library teacher Chris Enterline said. 

“In my heart, I know it’s because they are about gays and lesbians, and it says so on the front of the book,” Enterline said. 

Federal and state constitutions forbid schools from banning books because officials disapprove of their viewpoints. 

Enterline said she ordered the books over the summer because the library lacked biographies and she wanted students to have the chance to learn about gay and lesbian role models. 

“The books are not about sex. They are just about people who have led interesting, productive lives and also happen to be gay,” said Tom Kovac, the school’s library technician. 

It isn’t the first time the district banned books. 

Two years ago, the district removed the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison, because of complaints that it was too graphic in its descriptions of a slave who kills her daughter instead of having her live as a slave. 

SAN JOSE — A Santa Clara County superior court judge turned down the paint industry’s request to dismiss a suit filed against it by the county over allegedly dangerous levels of lead in paint. 

Superior Court Judge Gregory Ward’s order, made public this week, ruled that the county’s suit could continue. 

County officials allege that major paint companies sold lead paint for use on schools and playgrounds, despite knowing the dangers of the substance. Lead paint was banned in 1978, but the county claims lead poisoning continues throughout the region. 

The county is seeking to have the paint industry bear the cost of removing lead paint from schools, playgrounds, hospitals and other public areas. 

A lawyer for the paint companies said he was pleased with the judge’s decision because it scaled back some of the claims presented by the county in the suit.  

But Judge Ward kept the city’s central claim in tact – that the paint industry misrepresented the dangers of lead paint and committed fraud by doing so. 

Other efforts to sue the industry over similar claims have been unsuccessful. 

An attorney assisting the county admitted the case is still in its early stages, but keeping the suit alive is an important step. 

“But we’re now in a position few cases in the country have gotten into,” said Bruce Simon, a Burlingame attorney working with the county. “The lead paint industry has gone around the country getting these cases dismissed on a piecemeal basis.”

OCEANSIDE — The political honeymoon lasted only four days for the city’s new mayor who has been fending off demands for an apology after he told a civic group that the Police Department is plagued with “deep-rooted racism and sexism.” 

The biting comments from Mayor Terry Johnson – San Diego County’s first black mayor – hit a nerve in this military town where 55 percent of the residents and most of the Police Department’s top brass are white. 

The police officer’s union and three councilmembers have asked Johnson to issue an apology, but he has refused.  

Instead, the 48-year-old mayor has offered a clarification, saying he approves of the chief, who is white, but believes some police union officials are trying to thwart efforts to improve ethnic and gender diversity in the department. 

“I regret some of the words that I may have said out of poor judgment, particularly in my frustration with the leadership of the police union,” Johnson said at a City Council meeting Dec. 13. “It was inappropriate to direct them at the chief or the rank-and-file.” 

City records show that 58 claims of racial or sexual discrimination have been filed against the Police Department in the past 10 years. Of those cases, the city has paid $5 million to settle six cases of racial discrimination and five cases of sexual discrimination or harassment. 

“He didn’t pull this stuff out of thin air,” Sgt. Leonard Mata, who filed a discrimination claim against the department, said of the mayor’s comments. “You don’t get called the n-word or beaner. It’s more subtle.” 

Mata, a Latino who oversees the vice and narcotics investigations, has noticed that some patrol officers are less cooperative in giving his unit information from the streets, and he has heard white officers claim that promotions are based on ethnicity or gender. 

Mata also believes union officials who are the ones fanning the flames of divisiveness. 

“In general, the women and men of the department are really good people and certainly aren’t racist or people who fear diversity,” the sergeant said. 

Chief Michael Poehlman, who was hired in 1995, has said he is working to improve the number of women and ethnic minorities in the department. 

Ethnic minorities make up 43 percent of the city’s population but just 27 percent of the Police Department’s sworn officers. 

“We can always do better,” the chief said. 

Detective Scott Wright, chairman of the Oceanside Police Officers Association, said the mayor’s comments were “out of line.” The union seeks fair and equal treatment of all officers, Wright said. 

“We’ve gone through some stumbling blocks. ... Nobody’s perfect,” he said. “There’s been mistakes made on both sides of the fence.” 

Among the discrimination claims are allegations from four white officers who say they were passed over for promotion or denied upgrades because of their age or ethnicity. 

The department is reviewing its recruiting efforts and the city expects to hire a personnel specialist by next spring to help increase the department’s diversity and address discrimination issues, said Capt. Mike Shirley, a spokesman for the chief. 

The department also gives officers cultural diversity training and is in the process of establishing a team of officers to help recruit more women and ethnic minorities. 

As of Dec. 13, the department had 166 sworn officers, including 19 women. Besides the chief, the department’s two captains and five of six lieutenants are white. A third captain, a black officer formerly with Los Angeles Police Department, starts Jan. 2. 

Among sergeants, 18 are white, including one woman who is the highest ranking woman in the department; two are Latino; and two are Asian-American. Among the rank-and-file, 96 are white; 21 are Latino; 11 are Asian-American; six are black; and one is Pacific Islander/American Indian. 

Lt. Reginald Grigsby, the highest ranking black officer in the department, recently settled a discrimination lawsuit against the department. 

“There currently exists a climate where minorities are made to be scapegoats for the shortcomings of white officers; employees of color are not respected, nor are they afforded the same professional consideration as white employees,” according to his claim. 

Grigsby did not return phone calls seeking additional comment. 

Mata supports the chief and the mayor, and believes both men want to bring more women and ethnic minorities into the department’s upper ranks. 

“I don’t think (the mayor) used good judgment in what he said. But in a way, I think it’s going to force people to look at this department and it’s commitment to diversity,” he said. 

“The mayor may take the fall but maybe some good will come of it.” 

LOS ANGELES — University of California regents said Friday they will offer eligibility to certain high school students who applied for enrollment next fall but whose schools didn’t forward the necessary transcripts in time. 

Nearly a sixth of the state’s 852 public high schools didn’t submit the transcripts to the UC system for a program that offers guaranteed admission to the top 4 percent of students at any individual school. The program, which has been endorsed by Gov. Gray Davis, is intended to help those from low-income and minority neighborhoods. 

Schools that didn’t apply for the program will now have until Jan. 26 to submit the paperwork. 

The decision comes days after the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, along with seven high school seniors, sued the UC regents for unfairly keeping thousands of students from a guaranteed education. But UC officials maintain they haven’t done anything wrong. 

“This decision in no way implies that we concede the claims of the recent lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union,” said C. Judson King, a senior vice president for UC academic affairs. “On the contrary, UC made extensive efforts to inform schools of this program and to encourage their participation in it. We do not know why some of them did not participate.” 

An ACLU attorney said she did not know whether the lawsuit will be withdrawn but was encouraged by the regents’ action. 

“Before we decide whether this fully satisfies the requirements of fairness, however, we will need to evaluate the details of the university’s response,” attorney Rocio Cordoba said. “We look forward to learning the details of the university’s proposal to remedy the problems in its program.” 

High schools were required to file the paperwork by July 15 to take part in the program. 

The proper routing of the eligibility forms has been called into question. Some school officials said the applications were sent to individual sites but not mailed to district headquarters.

LOS ANGELES — A man sought in the fatal shooting of his estranged wife and a daughter and the wounding of two other daughters was found dead Friday after an apparent leap from a freeway into the shallow Los Angeles River, police said. 

The body was spotted in a few inches of water beneath an overpass. 

“It’s him. The detective had a photograph and confirmed it’s him,” Officer Raymond Rangel said near the scene north of downtown. The concrete-lined river has little flow. 

“It appears he may have jumped from the 134 Freeway,” Officer Jason Lee said. 

Gabriel Ghazelian, a San Fernando Valley resident, showed up at his wife’s house Thursday evening and asked for a ride  

to his car, which he said  

was broken. 

While riding in the family minivan he pulled out a handgun “for no apparent reason and with no warning” and opened fire, Detective Jose Carrillo said. 

Ghazelian killed his wife, Zabel Ghazelian, 40, from whom he’d been separated for over a year, and his daughter, Garine Ghazelian, police said. He wounded his 17- and 14-year-old daughters. He then fled. 

The surviving girls, whose names were not released, remained in critical condition Friday. Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said the 14-year-old was shot in the head and the 17-year-old in the cheek. 

The shooting occurred around 8:30 p.m. after the wife and daughters arrived home in Burbank to find Ghazelian, 49, claiming his car had broken down by Griffith Park, just south of Burbank and northeast of downtown Los Angeles. 

His wife agreed to give Ghazelian a lift, and as they drove they got caught in slow-moving traffic caused by Griffith Park’s popular annual light show. It was then Ghazelian began to shoot, police said. 

Carrillo said police were not certain of the motive but based on interviews with a few family friends, “I think it just has to do with the separation and possibly a pending divorce,” he said. 

Carrillo declined to say whether police knew of any history of violence in the family. 

LOS ANGELES — An explosion and flash fire severely burned five workers after a halogen lamp ignited lacquer fumes on the 23rd floor of a condominium near the UCLA campus. 

Third-floor resident Donna Currie said Thursday afternoon’s blast felt like an earthquake. 

“It was huge. It shook twice – boom, boom,” she said. “The automatic doors began closing. We saw water coming down the stairwells. If we felt it down this low, it was probably pretty rough where it occurred.” 

Three victims were in critical condition and breathing with the aid of respirators at the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks and were being prepared for “the first of many surgeries” this weekend, Grossman spokesman Larry Weinberg said Friday. 

“While their injuries are life-threatening, doctors at Grossman Burn Center hope and expect that they will recover,” Weinberg said. 

Weinberg identified the victims as: 

• Juan Jimenez, 25, of Santa Ana with second- and third-degree burns over 49 percent of his upper body. 

• Barry Ellegaard, 36, of Laguna Niguel with second- and third-degree burns to 55 percent of his upper body. 

• Armando Mesa, age and hometown unknown, with second- and third-degree burns to 35 percent of his upper body. 

One man was hospitalized at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center trauma unit with first- and second-degree burns to 30 percent of his body. A nursing supervisor said he was to be transferred to the burn center. 

Another, who was treated at the UCLA Medical Center earlier, had second- and third-degree burns to 75 percent of his body, she said. 

A preliminary investigation showed the men were working with flammable lacquer when the halogen light, used because of its brightness, was turned on, igniting the fumes. The flash-fire explosion shattered glass and set off fire alarms, Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said. 

The building’s emergency water sprinklers quickly doused the flames, he said. 

Officials with the 26-story, Wilshire Boulevard condominium said its residents include actors Rodney Dangerfield and Charlie Sheen. 

Regulators have voted for rate increases that would affect millions of customers across the state starting next month in an effort to rescue two shaky electric companies tangled in a deepening power crisis. 

The unanimous action by the Public Utilities Commission means that hikes likely would take effect beginning Jan. 4, affecting 10 million customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co. 

The two investor-owned utilities have been squeezed by California’s deregulation law. PG&E and SoCal Edison say they have absorbed $8 billion in losses since May, because a rate freeze prevents them from passing on to their customers the soaring costs of wholesale power. 

The PUC’s decision means that rate freeze is likely to be lifted. 

“This is crucial in light of the extraordinarily serious financial difficulties the dysfunctional wholesale markets have imposed on the utilities,” the PUC’s order said. “We believe that retail rates in California must begin to rise.” 

PUC President Loretta Lynch said the cost to the utilities of wholesale electricity has increased fivefold in the past three weeks. 

“We are operating on an emergency basis,” Lynch added. 

The PUC’s action brought a sharp response from consumer groups, who said the decision paved the way for a bailout for the utilities to please investors. 

“This is regulation by Wall Street. The commission has prejudged the case and decided, before any evidence has been presented, that the utilities will be granted a rate increase,” said Nettie Hoge, head of the utility watchdog group TURN. 

But Dan Richard, a senior vice president with PG&E, said Wall Street’s approval was vital to PG&E’s fiscal health. 

Barring dramatic action by the PUC, Standard & Poor’s this week threatened to relegate the credit ratings PG&E and SoCal Edison to “junk” status, a move that would make borrowing money difficult, if not impossible. S&P planned to update its views on the utilities’ finances Friday afternoon. 

The stocks of both utilities had both plunged by nearly $3 Thursday before the PUC reassured some kind of rate increase is likely. 

“It looks like the PUC isn’t going to let these companies go bankrupt so that’s a positive,” said utility analyst Mike Worms of Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co. 

Public hearings are planned next week on the PUC’s order, and the commission is expected to formally approve the order at its Jan. 4 business meeting. 

Lynch said the increase would likely go into effect immediately, and would show up in bills sent to consumers in February. 

But the size of the increases were unclear. Richard said PG&E would set up a “rate-stabilization plan” that would spread out the spikes over time. The company earlier proposed a 17 percent hike, which would raise the average $54 monthly bill to about $63. 

Both PG&E and SoCal Edison said they were unhappy that the PUC did not act earlier. 

“The good part is, they’re doing something. The bad part is, they didn’t act in October,” Richard said. 

SoCal Edison, in a written statement attributed to its corporate communications department, said it “wished the commission had acted more decisively.” 

Meanwhile, with electricity imports slowing to a trickle, managers of the state’s power grid declared another Stage 2 alert Thursday, meaning that power reserves fell below 5 percent. 

Consumers were asked to conserve and some commercial customers were warned that they may have to turn off some power. There have been nearly three dozen power alerts since June. 

Consumer groups denounced the PUC action. 

“The big utilities are looking for a fantastic Christmas present,” said Dan Jacobson of California Public Interest Research Group. 

Chris Jones of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN, which helps low-income residents, said workers just got an increase in the minimum wage, but are losing that with utility bills. 

“They got one dollar and have to give back four just to keep warm” he said. 

Utility bills doubled and in some cases tripled in San Diego this year after the rate freeze was lifted for California’s third-largest utility, San Diego Gas and Electric, when it completed deregulation. 

The 1996 deregulation law, and PUC regulations, required utilities to gradually sell off their generating assets. Once that is done, the rate freeze is lifted. The goal was to lower prices through competition. Instead, wholesale electricity prices rose and SDG&E passed the costs on to its customers. 

PG&E and SoCal Edison aren’t as far along in the transition to deregulation, and so remain subject to the rate freeze. 

——— 

On The Net: 

Standard and Poors: http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings 

Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights: http://www.ratepayerrevolt.org 

LOS ANGELES — California’s energy crisis has some of the state’s most powerful players, including lawmakers, public utilities and consumer watchdog groups, calling for the return of a regulated market. 

Among the potential options on the horizon are a voter initiative and legislative proposals to create a publicly owned system of power generation and distribution. 

Utilities warning of possible bankruptcy want to be able to generate some of their own power rather than being forced to buy all of it on an open market. 

“We’re calling for an end to this failed experiment,” said Tom Higgins, a senior vice president of Edison International, the holding company for Southern California Edison. “The market has to be reformed and brought back to a cost-based system on pricing electricity, as opposed to what we have today, which is a cartel.” 

Edison, which originally embraced deregulation, has launched a publicity campaign to lobby for ending it. 

But even those who want to reduce the threats of rolling blackouts and rein in spiraling energy costs concede that undoing the state’s four-year-old deregulation experiment is like trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle. 

The out-of-state energy wholesalers that bought power plants after deregulation took effect in 1996 counted on an open marketplace. 

“We didn’t enter California to participate in a regulated market,” said Tom Williams, a spokesman for Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy, one of six companies that spent more than $3 billion to buy power plants in the state after deregulation. “We entered California to participate in a deregulated market.” 

Opposition to fully re-regulating the market also could come from the federal government. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission supports deregulation and so far has resisted establishing a firm price cap on wholesale energy prices. 

Gov. Gray Davis has called for a special session of the state Legislature next month to deal with the crisis. Creating a public power authority and allowing utilities to retain their generation capabilities are among the options, said Steven Meviglio, a Davis spokesman. 

“California is looking at some amount of re-regulation, whether it’s price caps or public power facilities,” said Evan Goldberg, chief of staff for state Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, who heads the Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communication Committee. “The question is, ’To what degree is it going to occur?”’ 

California’s deregulation law forced the state’s major investor-owned utilities – Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric and San Diego Gas and Electric – to sell their dams and power plants by March 2002. They also were required to buy power on the open market. 

San Diego Gas and Electric completed its sell-off first, lifting a rate freeze imposed by the law. The result: Summertime utility bills doubled and in some cases tripled for ratepayers when wholesale energy prices soared. 

Edison and PG&E remain subject to the rate freeze, preventing them from passing along the skyrocketing wholesale costs to their customers.  

That scenario has led both to warn of insolvency. 

Utilities have been lobbying for a 20-percent rate increase and were before the state Public Utilities Commission on Thursday asking for permission. 

Customers of the state’s 30 smaller utilities already owned by the public don’t face the same prospect of higher rates. 

Industry watchdog groups said the investor-owned utilities have exaggerated their losses to justify a rate hike. They favor a wide range of re-regulation proposals to protect consumers. 

The Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has proposed a statewide voter initiative that could be on the ballot in 2002 or be considered sooner by the state Legislature. 

In late November, the group filed papers with the Secretary of State to form a campaign committee, Californians for the Protection of Ratepayers, to sponsor the initiative. 

A draft of the measure calls for taxing the excess profits of power generators to pay refunds to customers who faced higher electricity bills because of deregulation. 

It also would create a state power authority to build and operate new power plants, transmission lines and distribution facilities. The state also would be able to buy existing plants and distribution lines or acquire them through eminent domain. 

“It ought to be public power,” said Harvey Rosenfield, the foundation’s executive director. “I don’t see the virtue of having this commodity in the hands of private companies whose sole purpose is to maximize profits.” 

Any re-regulation proposal, however, is likely to hit stiff opposition from power generators. 

Duke Energy, for example, bought three California power plants for $501 million and has earmarked $1.1 billion for building new plants, investments it doesn’t want to jeopardize if it loses the ability to operate in a free market, said Williams, the company’s spokesman. 

“We have a lot of money at risk in this market and we’re working to develop solutions,” he said. 

LOS ANGELES — Plagued with financial troubles that nearly led to her eviction, the woman who threw her two young daughters off a downtown courthouse before jumping to her own death appeared to have grown increasingly despondent, family members said. 

Still, they said they had no reason to believe 27-year-old LaShanda Crozier was capable of such a tragedy. 

“I still don’t believe it,” her husband, Davon Lewis Richardson, said Thursday, tears spilling from his eyes. “She didn’t want her children to live in a world and go through what she went through. ... She didn’t have to leave and do me like this.” 

Michelle Spencer said she didn’t know why her sister-in-law felt she had to take such drastic measures. 

“If it was that bad, she could have killed herself. She didn’t have to take the kids out,” she said. 

Crozier had been in court a day earlier and had reached a settlement with her landlord to gradually pay $925 in back rent owed on her apartment unit near the University of Southern California. 

Crozier and her family left the courtroom in the afternoon, but Crozier returned about 5 p.m. with the girls, Breanna, 7, and Joan, 5. 

Witnesses told authorities they saw the woman toss two objects, later identified as the girls, off the building. Both landed on a fourth-floor ledge. 

Crozier jumped as a sheriff’s deputy was trying to talk her down, landing on the ground. 

Word of the tragedy stunned Crozier’s neighbors. 

“The first thing I thought when I heard about it was, why?” said Yanita Escobar, 18, who lives just a few doors from Crozier’s first-floor apartment. 

The Santa Monica City College student said the girls always seemed happy. 

“She was always with them,” Escobar, a nursing student, said of Crozier. 

Noemi Reyes, who lived above Crozier in the 20-unit apartment, said the woman was frequently seen playing outside with her daughters. 

“I don’t know what came over her,” she said. 

Crozier’s landlord said the woman seemed embarrassed about her financial straights and wanted the opportunity to catch up on rent. 

He said the couple told him that Crozier had spent several days in the hospital after a miscarriage, an episode that cost her a hotel cleaning job. 

“I wish I could have talked to her a little bit more, told her, you know, things are going to be OK, that people have their ups and downs,” landlord Raul Almendariz told the Los Angeles Times. “Somebody should have known how depressed she was.” 

Family members on Thursday described Crozier as a troubled woman who struggled economically and emotionally. 

In recent years, she had occasionally given up custody of her daughters to an aunt, Marietta Snowden, who lives in the Kern County community of Rosamond. 

“She was sometimes unstable,” Snowden said. 

Snowden had been trying to gain custody of the girls because she was concerned about living conditions at the apartment and Crozier’s mental state. 

Snowden said Breanna sensed there was something wrong with her mother and father: “She said, ’Auntie, I love my mama, but I don’t want to stay with her,”’ 

As his expedition pushed into the upper reaches of the Missouri River nearly two centuries ago, Meriwether Lewis marveled at the “scenes of visionary enchantment” in the cliffs and promonotories along the shoreline. 

“I should have thought that nature had attempted to rival the human art of masonry,” Lewis wrote in his journal on May 31, 1805. 

The area Lewis described remains much the same as when he and Capt. William Clark first saw it, and deserves to be protected as a national monument, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said Friday. The Upper Missouri River Breaks is one of five areas Babbitt recommended to President Clinton for preservation as national monuments. 

The other areas include Pompeys Pillar, where Clark carved his name and left the only remaining archaeological evidence of his team’s epic journey through the West. The others include one of the last remaining swaths of pristine grassland in central California and two areas of coral reefs swarming with marine life in the U.S. Virgin Islands. “These natural landscapes are unique, historic American treasures,” Babbitt said in a statement. “They need more care and protection than we are giving them now.” 

Monument designations would give greater protection to the five areas, which are already owned by the federal government. The new protections would likely include bans or restrictions on vehicle use, mining and oil drilling. 

President Clinton has created 11 national monuments and expanded two, using a 1906 law to bring new restrictions to millions of acres, mostly in the West. Critics – including President-elect Bush – call Clinton’s actions unnecessary and unilateral, though they acknowledge that overturning a monument designation in Congress is highly unlikely. 

“It’s the big, strong arm of the government coming in and telling people what they can do,” said Rep. Rick Hill, R-Mont. 

Environmentalists have cheered Clinton’s monument decisions and asked him to create more. 

“If you look at the monument proclamations, all of these protect resources of interest that are national treasures that have either been overlooked in the past or because of political controversy, have not been able to achieve congressional protection,” said David Alberswerth of The Wilderness Society. “It’s not a land grab. These are federal lands to begin with, so you can’t really grab them.” 

Babbitt’s action Friday does not ensure that the areas will be given monument status, though Clinton has not turned down any Babbitt monument recommendation so far. Friday’s recommendations also do not include areas in Arizona and New Mexico which Babbitt has said also deserve to be monuments. 

Environmentalists are strongly urging Clinton to declare the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a national monument to prevent oil drilling on the refuge’s coastal plain in the Arctic. President-elect Bush strongly supports drilling in the refuge, and opponents of the plan say a law governing federal land in Alaska prohibits new monuments there without congressional consent. 

The monuments Babbitt proposed Friday include: 

• Upper Missouri River Breaks, 377,000 acres along 149 miles of the river in north-central Montana. The sparsely populated area is home to a wide variety of wildlife including elk and bighorn sheep. 

• Pompeys Pillar, a 150-foot sandstone outcropping along the Yellowstone River east of Billings, Mont. Clark named the feature after his nickname for the young son of their Shoshone interpreter, Sacagawea. 

• Carrizo Plain, 204,000 acres of rolling grasslands between San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield, Calif. The area is home to wildlife including several endangered species, American Indian sacred sites and a portion of the San Andreas Fault. 

• Virgin Islands Coral Reef, a nearly 13,000-acre area offshore of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The area is adjacent to the Virgin Islands National Park and includes “all the elements of a Caribbean tropical marine ecosystem,” the Interior Department said, including mangroves, sea grass beds and coral reefs. 

• An expansion of the Buck Island Reef National Monument in the Virgin Islands, which was first created in 1961. The expansion area includes 18,000 offshore acres of coral reefs, including unusual “haystacks” of elkhorn coral.

MIAMI — A test conducted minutes before the polls opened on Election Day showed that 13 of 20 voting machines were faulty at the two Miami-Dade County precincts with the highest rates of discarded ballots, The Miami Herald reported Friday. 

But poll workers did not take the machines out of service as rules required, perhaps causing more than 200 ballots to be improperly marked, according to the newspaper. 

Supporters of Vice President Al Gore argued unsuccessfully after the Nov. 7 election that thousands of ballots in Miami-Dade and statewide were improperly marked because of faulty voting machines, perhaps costing him the presidency. President-elect Bush won the state by 537 votes out of 6 million cast, and Florida’s 25 electoral votes proved to be decisive. 

County election officials said the machines were fine, and that the tests were flawed. They said the machines performed properly in earlier tests. 

The testers probably didn’t press hard enough or failed to make punches at the proper positions on the ballots, officials said. 

The machines require voters to slip a cardboard ballot into the machine and mark their candidates by punching out premarked holes, or chads. If the chads are not dislodged, the votes are not counted by the tabulation computers. The vote also is not counted if two or more candidates for that office are selected. 

During the test before Election Day, “We punch through every single position just to make sure everything is OK,” said John Clouser, assistant director for the supervisor of elections. “If it’s OK, we send (the machine) out.” 

Precinct workers deny that they tested the machines improperly. Sherrill Blue, who initialed three test ballots, said she did not know why the documents show the machines failed the test, but that workers “always make sure the holes go through.” 

Larry Williams, who worked at the same precinct, said he had trouble punching one of the ballots he tested. “I had to work it a little, but it went through,” he said. 

Yet, one of the test ballots he handled was missing punches, including one at Gore’s position. 

The two precincts in question had the highest rates – about 13 percent – of discarded presidential ballots in the county. That was more than double the discard rate in the 1996 presidential election. 

Ballots are rejected when counting machines don’t read punched holes or a voter marks too many candidates. 

The Herald’s review of election documents showed missed punches on six of the 10 machines at one of the precincts and on seven of the 10 machines at the other. 

WASHINGTON — Here’s the story line: In a bizarre and hotly contested election, the son of a U.S. president is installed as chief executive, barely edging a Democratic former U.S. senator from Tennessee who won the nation’s popular vote in the general election. 

The election turmoil drags on week after week. Eventually the president’s son, a Harvard University graduate whose family name helped smooth the path to the presidency, overcomes the Tennessee Democrat, who had campaigned on a platform that said the president must fight for the people and whose supporters are increasingly convinced the election was stolen. 

Sound familiar? That was early in 1825, when the House finally decided the previous year’s November election – and for the first time elevated a president’s son to the White House. 

History offers extraordinary parallels between the contest 175 years ago and the 2000 election. 

“The election of 2000, pitting the son of a president against a candidate from Tennessee, is destined to join the election of 1824, when (there was) the same personal dynamic as one of the closest in our nation’s history – John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson,” former President Bush told a recent White House dinner. 

The former president was clearly intrigued by what he called the “potential historical parallel between the Adams and the Bush families.” 

As he spoke, his son, Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, and Vice President Al Gore, a former Tennessee senator, were deadlocked in the excruciatingly long recount and legal contest to determine the winner of the 2000 presidential election.  

The nationwide popular vote tally gave Democrat Gore the relatively narrow margin over Bush of a little more than 500,000 votes among almost 105.4 million voters. 

But after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against a hand recount sealed Bush’s win in Florida, where he led by fewer than 1,000 votes, Bush gained the Electoral College majority and was elected officially when the electors met Monday. 

Not since John Quincy Adams had the son of a president won the office. Adams was a Harvard graduate, in 1787; George W. Bush received a masters in business administration from Harvard, in 1975. 

Jackson was elected as Tennessee’s first congressman in 1796 and became a senator from that state the next year. Gore was elected to Congress from Tennessee in 1977, then served in the Senate from 1985 to 1993. Jackson and Gore both campaigned for president as champions of common people. 

In his election, Jackson won 41 percent of the popular vote to Adams’ 31 percent. Most of the remaining votes went to House Speaker Henry Clay and Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford. The popular vote was cast by state legislators and not citizens in six of the 24 states. 

No one captured a majority of Electoral College votes, so the election fell to the House, where Clay held sway. He threw his support to Adams, and using the constitutional formula of one vote for each state’s delegation, Adams won 13 votes to seven. Crawford got three votes. 

Adams became president at age 57 in 1825. 

Unlike Adams the younger, 54-year-old George W. Bush lacks prior federal experience and does not advocate a strong role for the government. Where Adams was groomed for the presidency and famously enigmatic, Bush did not spend his life preparing for the job and has a more outgoing personality. 

The parallels are stronger between the patriarchs of the Bush and Adams families. 

Bush, the 41st president, and John Adams, the second president, were born in Boston-area towns less than 10 miles apart, attended Ivy League schools, served as U.S. diplomats and had one-term presidencies dominated by foreign conflicts. Their political successes transformed patrician families into prominent household names continued by their sons. 

The younger Bush still is different from his father, said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah. 

“I love his father, but his father is an uptight New England preppy who is determined to render public service as a matter of public duty,” said Bennett, who began his 1998 re-election campaign in Utah with former President Bush by his side. George W. Bush “is much more of his own man than a lot of people think. He’s got more Barbara in him than George.” 

“W. is the frat boy who went to Yale and said all these guys are stuffed shirts. He’s looking around thinking, ‘I ain’t ever going to president, and if I am someday, I ain’t ever taking any of these guys with me.”’ 

Bush graduated from Yale in 1968. Gore graduated from Harvard in 1969. 

Jackson and Gore both were tall and commanding in demeanor, but “Old Hickory” Jackson was a rambunctious man, a hard drinker and gambler and a national war hero. Gore focuses on protocol and seems strait-laced and wonkish. 

“Gore should compare himself to Jackson,” said Vanderbilt University political scientist Erwin Hargrove. “Gore has the moral legitimacy, he won more votes. He’d be smart to lay off and wait, come back in four years and win.” 

Which is exactly what Jackson did. 

——— 

On the Net: National Archives Electoral College box scores: http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/ecfront.html 

AUSTIN, Texas — President-elect Bush, promising a Justice Department “guided by principle, not by politics,” on Friday nominated Sen. John Ashcroft, a staunch conservative, to be attorney general. In a delicate balance, Bush also tapped moderate New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman as environmental chief. 

In announcing Ashcroft, defeated last month as Missouri senator, Bush said, “He will be faithful to the law, pursuing justice without favor. He will enforce the law and he will follow the truth.” 

Several hours later, Bush promoted Whitman, once a rising GOP star, saying, “She has been able to balance the demands for economic growth and at the same time she supported environmental protection measures.” 

Ashcroft, 58, is a former governor and attorney general of Missouri. He was elected to the Senate in 1994, and served on the Judiciary Committee. He lost re-election this year to Gov. Mel Carnahan, who died in a plane crash some three weeks before Election Day. Carnahan’s widow, Jean, has been named to succeed Ashcroft next month. 

Ashcroft said at a news conference that political defeat “brings more than emotion and pain, it brings perspective.” 

A favorite of GOP conservatives who had maneuvered against more moderate choices for the Justice Department, Ashcroft said he would “strive to be a guardian of liberty and equal justice.” Ashcroft, an ardent foe of abortion, said the rule of law “knows no class, sees no color and bows to no creed,” and that will be his guideline. 

“I will administer the Department of Justice with integrity, I will advise your administration with integrity and I will enforce the laws ... with integrity,” he promised Bush. 

Bush said, “John Ashcroft will perform his duties guided by principle, not by politics.” 

Many Republicans have accused Attorney General Janet Reno of playing politics for refusing to appoint an independent counsel to investigate President Clinton and Al Gore for alleged campaign fund-raising abuses. Bush, asked how his department would differ from the Clinton administration, said he didn’t want to “look backwards.”  

Bush defended Ashcroft against complaints from civil rights groups that he helped defeat the nomination for a federal judgeship of Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White, the first black on the high court. 

Julian Bond, NAACP board chairman, strongly criticized the Ashcroft pick. “Any pretense of unifying the nation has ended with this nomination,” Bond said in an interview. “This confirms the correctness of blacks voting 9-to-1 against Governor Bush.” 

Conservatives rallied around Ashcroft. 

“He has a solid conservative legal and judicial philosophy combined with a moderate personal persona which will help him get along with all the people he will need to deal with,” said Republican Gary Bauer. 

Ashcroft and other Cabinet picks require Senate confirmation. 

At the Department of Justice, Ashcroft would manage an agency whose budget this year is $21.8 billion. It comprises the FBI, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and federal prosecutors, marshals and prisons, among others. 

Bush also named Mitch Daniels, senior vice president of the drug giant Eli Lilly Corp. in Indianapolis, to be director of the Office of Management and Budget. Daniels will be responsible for preparing the federal budget and managing spending for all federal agencies. 

On the political front, Bush picked Virginia Gov. James Gilmore to head the Republican National Committee. 

In a bow to environmentalists, Bush emphasized in naming Whitman that he intended to keep the EPA position at the Cabinet-level, a change first made by Clinton that some Republicans opposed. 

“This job will be a challenge,” said Whitman, who grew up on a horse farm. She said it is possible to build “a more prosperous America while meeting our environmental obligations to those who follow us.” 

Whitman, 54, a moderate who favors abortion rights, has angered social conservatives. As governor, she has championed open-space preservation in New Jersey and refused to abandon an unpopular auto emissions test designed to reduce air pollution. Her term ends in January 2002. 

Conservatives such as television evangelist Pat Robertson had signaled impatience with Bush for looking at moderates for his Cabinet. Robertson said on a Thursday night show, “The trust is growing thin” with Bush. 

Republicans close to the president-elect said he had decided to put conservatives in key Cabinet jobs, including attorney general, health and human services and defense, partly to please the GOP right.

America’s protracted election, the tug-of-war over Elian Gonzalez and the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole ranked as the top news stories of 2000, according to The Associated Press annual survey of its members. 

No. 1 was no contest: George W. Bush’s nail-biting triumph in Florida in an extraordinary presidential race resolved by the nation’s highest court five weeks after Election Day. The story received a first-place ranking from 281 of the 312 AP newspaper and broadcast members who took part in the news cooperative’s survey. 

AP members also turned to Florida for the No. 2 story: The bitter custody battle with political overtones that centered on whether young Elian Gonzalez, rescued from the sea while fleeing Cuba with his mother, should stay with relatives in Miami or be returned to his father. 

Fifty overseas subscribers, in a separate poll, also chose the U.S. presidential battle as the top story. But they ranked the ouster of Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic second, followed by Israeli-Palestinian violence. Next were the Aug. 12 disaster aboard the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk and the historic summit between leaders of the two Koreas. 

U.S. editors ranked Milosevic’s toppling No. 9, the Middle East conflict No. 11, and the Russian sub tragedy No. 12. They did not place the Koreas summit among the top 20 stories – ranking it lower than the 2000 Olympic Games and Tiger Woods’ three Grand Slam wins. 

This was the 65th year that the AP polled its members. A first-place vote gave a story 10 points, a second-place vote nine points, and so on. The top story last year was President Clinton’s impeachment trial. 

Here are the top 10 stories of 2000 as ranked by AP members: 

1) The presidential election: George W. Bush emerged the winner in an overtime election that took unprecedented legal and political twists. 

2) Tug-of-war over Elian Gonzalez: After months of political and legal wrangling, armed federal agents seized the 6-year-old boy from his Miami relatives, and he was ultimately returned him to his father in Cuba. 

3) USS Cole attack: Seventeen U.S. sailors died Oct. 12 when explosives transported in a small boat ripped open the hull of the 505-foot destroyer in Yemen. 

4) Oil prices: Crude oil prices soared as OPEC curtailed production, leading to a worldwide outcry over higher fuel costs and prompting the United States to dip into its strategic reserves. 

5) Firestone’s troubles: The tire maker recalled more than 6 million tires after complaints of tread separations, blowouts and other problems that led to accidents.  

6) Microsoft breakup: A federal judge ordered Microsoft Corp. to split up in an antitrust case that, if upheld, could result in the largest government-ordered restructuring since AT&T’s breakup in 1984. 

7) Genetic code mapped: New medical frontiers opened when scientists announced that they had virtually deciphered the human genetic code. 

8) The Year 2000: The new year arrived mostly glitch-free, with millennium celebrations drowning out doomsday predictions of Y2K computer problems. 

9) Milosevic toppled: Following a disputed election, the 13-year rule of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ended abruptly when thousands of people stormed parliament and forced him to hand power to rival Vojislav Kostunica. 

10) Tobacco verdict: A jury ordered the tobacco industry to pay a record $145 billion in punitive damages to sick Florida smokers.

NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court on Friday threw out the murder conviction of Wilbert Rideau, saying the celebrated prison journalist was the victim of racially biased selection of the grand jury that indicted him in 1961. 

The court ordered that he be set free if the state does not quickly retry him. 

The prosecutor plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Rideau has been held at Louisiana State Prison at Angola for nearly 40 years. In 1976 he was named editor of The Angolite and transformed it from a mimeographed newsletter into a slick bimonthly magazine that has won a string of awards. 

Rideau, 58, has never denied he killed a bank teller in 1961. The black inmate argued that blacks were excluded from the predominantly white grand jury that indicted him. On Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. 

Only one black was on the 20-member grand jury that indicted Rideau. The appeals court said blacks were excluded in violation of equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. 

“The state produced no evidence to rebut any portion of Rideau’s prima facie case in either the two state evidentiary hearings or the federal district court proceedings,” the appeals court said. 

“Rideau’s conviction must be reversed and his unconstitutionally obtained indictment quashed,” it said. 

Said Julian Murray, Rideau’s attorney: “It’s been a long time in coming, but I’m glad its finally here.” 

Calcasieu Parish District Attorney F. Wayne Frey said he couldn’t comment in detail because he didn’t have a copy of the opinion, but he did say that his office would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola had rejected Rideau’s plea for freedom last year, saying that he had prejudiced the state’s chances in any retrial by waiting so long to appeal. By now, most of the witnesses are dead, the judges are dead, the murder weapons cannot be found and grand jury records from the time have been discarded, Polozola said. 

Polozola also said there was no evidence that the grand jury list was compiled to systematically exclude blacks. The Louisiana Supreme Court also ruled, twice, that there was no such evidence. 

But now, the case goes back to Polozola with instructions that the state be given a reasonable time to reindict and retry Rideau, or he must be freed. 

In 1961, when he was just 19, Rideau robbed a bank and took three hostages. While they begged for their lives, he shot them. One of the victims escaped. One, shot in the neck, feigned death. The third tried to crawl away and Rideau stabbed her and slashed her throat. 

He was convicted and sentenced to death, but while waiting for his date in the electric chair, Rideau was reborn. He taught himself to read and began writing. 

“I didn’t want a criminal act to be the final definition of me,” Rideau said in a 1999 Associated Press interview. “I picked up a pen and tried to do something good. It allowed me to weave meaning into what would have been a meaningless existence. It also gave me a chance to try to make amends.” 

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s death penalty and Rideau was resentenced to life. 

Refused a job by the then all-white staff of the prison magazine, The Angolite, Rideau started his own publication, The Lifer, and began writing a weekly column for a group of black newspapers. In 1976, he was named editor of The Angolite and transformed it. 

More recently, he gained attention for helping make a documentary about Angola, “The Farm,” which was nominated for an Oscar and won a prize for documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998. 

Rideau bills himself as “The Most Rehabilitated Prisoner in America.” He has gained Pardon Board recommendations for release since 1984, but so far a series of governors have refused, including Edwin Edwards who pardoned 89 murderers before leaving office in 1996. Supporters say he is the only one of 31 murderers sent to Angola in 1962 who has not been freed. 

“If all those people were still in prison, I’d say what’s happened to me is fair,” Rideau said last year. “But they aren’t. I get post cards from a former inmate who killed four people. He’s out and I’m not.” 

Prison officials at Angola said Rideau would not be made available for comment Friday. 

“We’re the keeper of the keys and we’ll do whatever the courts tell us to do,” said Cathy Jett, prison spokeswoman. 

SAN JOSE — In a case provoking tough questions over who controls the Internet, Yahoo! Inc. is asking a federal judge to block a French court’s order that the popular Web portal keep computer users in France from accessing auctions of Nazi paraphernalia. 

In papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose on Thursday, attorneys for Santa Clara-based Yahoo! contended that the French court violated the company’s free speech rights and does not have jurisdiction over content produced by an American business. 

Yahoo! asked the U.S. court for “declaratory relief” and hoped it would reassure the Internet industry that such orders are unenforceable. Yahoo! is also considering filing an appeal in France. 

Swastika-emblazoned flags and other Nazi collectibles are among the thousands of items for sale at http://auctions.yahoo.com. A user in Washington state was offering an “Ultra Rare Nazi Banner MUST SEE!!” for $600 on Friday. 

In April, two French groups, the Union of Jewish Students and the International Anti-Racism and Anti-Semitism League, sued Yahoo! for allegedly breaking France’s strict hate laws. It is illegal in France to display or sell racist material. 

Last month, Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez gave Yahoo! three months to find a way to prevent French users from accessing auction pages with Nazi-related objects, and said Yahoo! would be fined $13,000 for each day after the deadline that it did not comply. 

Yahoo! associate general counsel Greg Wrenn said at the time that Yahoo! would ignore the ruling and refuse to pay the fines unless a U.S. court enforced it. The company contended that blocking all French users would be technically impossible. 

Civil liberties organizations in the United States have warned that if the French decision is allowed to stand, repressive governments in other countries could use the same tactic against Web sites run by democracy groups and human-rights activists. 

Ygal El Harrar, president of the Union of Jewish Students of France, said Yahoo! has a moral obligation to take responsibility for the auctions it facilitates. 

“Instead of trying to put in place filters, they’re trying to use every legal recourse possible,” he said Friday. “I’m wondering if Yahoo! doesn’t want to promote Naziism. What I’m saying is tough. But I just wonder what Yahoo! wants out of this affair.” 

Yahoo! competitor eBay.com also has dozens of Nazi collectibles for sale, though the site warns sellers not to accept bids on such items from people in France, Germany, Austria or Italy because of anti-Nazi laws in those countries. An eBay spokesman would not comment on the Yahoo! case. 

SAN FRANCISCO — A hacker broke into the computer systems of Egghead.com, forcing the online retailer to alert credit card companies and 3.5 million customers to the security breach and the possibility that their financial information was accessed. 

Egghead had been in the process of upgrading its computer systems over the past few months, but the improvements were no match for the unknown online invader who hacked the system earlier this week. 

“Egghead.com has discovered that a hacker has accessed our computer systems, potentially including our customer databases,” the company said in a statement released Friday. 

The break-in was under investigation and a spokeswoman for Egghead said the Menlo Park-based technology products retailer had notified credit card companies and the local FBI office. 

The hacker did not deface the Web site or shut the service down, but did manage to infiltrate sensitive computer areas. The company said the FBI is investigating how long the hacker was in the system and what he or she did while there. 

“The San Francisco division of the FBI’s computer intrusion squad is working with Egghead to make an assessment of the security of the hack,” said Andrew Black of the FBI. Federal investigators would continue examining the hack over the weekend, Black said. 

In response to the hacker activity, Egghead has also hired computer security specialists. 

”(Egghead) hired Kroll Worldwide, which is one of the leading security firms in the world, to evaluate the system and make sure something like this doesn’t happen again,” said Egghead spokeswoman Shoreen Maghame. 

Egghead CEO Jeff Sheahan was to e-mail each of the Web site’s registered users Friday and explain the company’s actions in response to the hack. 

The hacker attack was reportedly a first for Egghead. There is the possibility that the Egghead customer information was not accessed, Maghame said. 

Credit card theft from online repositories has plagued several Web sites this year. 

Last week, the FBI in Los Angeles confirmed they were looking for a hacker who put thousands of stolen credit-card numbers from creditcards.com on the Web after a $100,000 extortion demand was ignored. 

Western Union took its Web site off-line for five days in September after hackers stole 15,000 credit or debit card numbers.  

In February, a hacker infiltrated the computers of RealNames, an Internet search service with as many as 20,000 card numbers on file.  

On the Net:www.egghead.com

NEW YORK — Santa Claus finally arrived on Wall Street on Friday, giving the beleaguered Nasdaq composite index its strongest performance in more than a week and its fifth-biggest percentage gain ever. 

A late round of holiday buying sent tech and blue chip stocks soaring as bargain-hunting investors capitalized on the massive selloffs earlier this week. But analysts cautioned against attributing the gains to anything more than seasonality and the market’s oversold condition. 

“This is a bounce. The basic nuts and bolts of why we came down, the cooling economy and earnings warnings, haven’t gone away,” said Larry Wachtel, market analyst at Prudential Securities. “Just because we’re able to go up after more than a week on the downside for the Nasdaq doesn’t mean it’s a brave new world. It’s just the law of averages.” 

“Typically the last week of the year tends to be a strong period, and with tech stocks having been devastated in the last two or three weeks, there’s a lot of bargain hunting going on,” said Peter Anderson, chief investment officer at American Express Financial. 

Trading was light in anticipation of Monday’s holiday, when the market will be closed. 

— The Associated Press 

Bargain hunting lifted the Dow by 168 points and Nasdaq by 7 points on Thursday – breaking a seven-session losing streak for the tech-heavy index – and the same happened Friday. 

Tech stocks led the way. Computer and printer company Hewlett-Packard, a Dow component, rose $2.81 to $32.19. Microsoft also gained ground, up $3 at $46.44. 

Non-tech gains were solid, buoyed by rises in financial issues. Banker J.P. Morgan rose 50 cents to $167.88 and Citigroup rose $1.31 to $50.06. Drugs and consumer staples, however, showed some weakness. Merck fell $2 to $90.50; Procter & Gamble was off 75 cents at $73.75. 

Ford fell $1.38 to $22.81 after warning that soft demand would affect its sales and results. 

Earnings worries have dogged the market since Labor Day, but those concerns have intensified in recent weeks because of new reports suggesting the economy is quickly slowing. 

The market plunged Tuesday and Wednesday, rattled by earnings worries and the realization that the Federal Reserve would not cut interest rates before the holidays. 

Also Friday, Litton jumped $15.31 to $77.94, a 24 percent gain, on news the defense contractor was being acquired by rival Northrop Grumman for $3.8 billion in cash. Northrop fell $7.81 to $74.13, a 9 percent drop. 

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.32 billion shares, compared with nearly 1.77 billion Thursday. 

The Russell 2000 index rose 15.96 to 462.99. 

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average was virtually unchanged, rising 0.03 percent. Germany’s DAX index was up 0.8 percent, Britain’s FT-SE 100 was down 0.3 percent, and France’s CAC-40 was up 0.4 percent. 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

Playing a team that was missing five starters and only played with 10 men, the Berkeley boys’ soccer team didn’t let up Thursday, pummeling Encinal 12-1. But there’s a good reason for the blowout. 

“I don’t apologize for beating them like that,” said Berkeley head coach Eugenio Juarez. “With our league only getting one playoff spot, you can’t let up when it comes to goal differential.” 

While Juarez does have a point, that knowledge didn’t make the beating any prettier for an outmanned Encinal (1-4-1, 0-4 ACCAL) squad. Following a 10-1 loss to ACCAL leaders Richmond, coach Ruben Avalos had to watch his team give up 27 shots on goal while taking just three. Avalos attributed the loss to his missing starters, most of whom are taking advantage of the winter break, and the fact that Berkeley (6-4, 3-1) plays on a unique field in the East Bay. 

“This is the biggest field we’ve played on, and our guys got tired chasing them around,” Avalos said. “The artificial turf didn’t help. We had most of our players playing in sneakers.” 

The ’Jackets took a while to get the scoring going, as their first goal came after 10 minutes had passed in the first half. Junior midfielder Liam Reilly found himself in the clear at the top of the goal box, and he calmly slotted the ball past beleaguered Encinal goalkeeper Kevin Schmeirer, who had seven saves in the game. After Berkeley forward Amadeo Alvarez had a shot cleared off the line by defender Randy Garchar, the floodgates opened. 

Alvarez finished a quick forward move off of an assist from midfielder Chris Davis in the 18th minute, and the race was on. Forward Vicente Bermejo narrowly missed a goal shortly after play resumed, and Alvarez scored a solo goal just three minutes later. Less than two minutes after that, a loose ball came free to Davis, who snuck the ball through a crowd and past Schmeirer from 30 yards out. Reilly scored his second goal of the game in injury time to close the first half at 5-0. 

“We needed to win by at least nine goals, so I told the players to keep going forward,” Juarez said of his halftime talk. 

The ’Jackets did just that, as freshman Kamani Hill twice bolted down the right side before setting up a pair of easy goals for senior Stefan Isaksen. Off the next kickoff, Alvarez got a long breakaway, finishing nicely to complete his hat-trick for the day. Hill scored soon after that, and Berkeley had completed its objective of a nine-goal lead. But they weren’t done scoring. 

Defender Cameron Parkinson got into the scoring column after finishing a cross from Reilly, and midfielder William Vega followed soon after with a goal of his own. 

The ’Jackets may have let down after that goal, understandable with an 11-0 lead. An Encinal player was dragged down in the box, and Schmeirer gained a pinch of revenge by burying the resulting penalty kick in the left corner of the net for his team’s only score of the day.  

But there was no moping for the Berkeley fans, as Isaksen scored soon after to score a hat-trick of his own. 

“We played well and met our objectives, and that’s pretty much all we can ask in a game like that,” Juarez said. 

Berkeley will face Washington (Fremont) Thursday at home at 1 p.m. Washington was a North Coast Section semi-finalist last year.

Habitot Children’s Museum Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue “Back to the Farm.”An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels like an earthworm, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more.  

Cost: $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 2911 Russell St. 549-6950 Free. Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.“Telling Time: To Everything There Is A Season” 

Through May, 2002 An exhibit structured around the seasons of the year and the seasons of life with objects ranging from the sacred and the secular, to the provocative and the whimsical. 

“Second Annual Richard Nagler Competition for Excellence in Jewish Photography” Through Feb., 2001. Featuring the work of Claudia Nierman, Jason Francisco, Fleming Lunsford, and others.  

UC Berkeley Art Museum 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley Wednesday – Sunday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Open Thursdays til 9 p.m. “Amazons in the Drawing Room”: The Art of Romaine Brooks through Jan. 16, 2001  

Predominantly a portrait artist, Brooks paintings were influenced by elements of her life and are a visual record of the changing status of women in society. “Tacita Dean/MATRIX 189 Banewl” through Jan. 28, 2001 

A film instillation by British conceptual artist Tacita Dean of the total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999.  

Pacific Film Archive Theater Gallery 2625 Durant Ave. “Continuous Replay: The Photographs of Arnie Zane” through Jan. 8, 2001Best known as the cofounder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Zane began his exploration of the human form through photography.  

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery,” open-ended. A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection. “Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. 

“Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. 

“Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

642-0808. 

UC Berkeley Museum of  

Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley 

“Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 by 40-foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. “Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821. 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. “Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended. This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history.“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing.This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. $2 general; $1 seniors; $.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 643-7648 

Lawrence Hall of Science “A Spirited Celebration of Kwanzaa with Awele Makeba,”  

Dec. 26, 1 p.m. Featuring tales and songs from African and African-American history, culture, and folklore celebrating the seven principles of Kwanzaa. “Magic Mike,” Dec. 27, noon and 1:30 p.m. A performance of dazzling special effects. “Season of Lights,” Dec. 28, 1 p.m. The Imagination Company brings world winter celebrations to life and highlights the significance of light to several cultures.“Earthcapades,” Dec. 29, 1 p.m. Hearty and Lissin blend storytelling, juggling, acrobatics and more to entertain and teach about saving the environment. “Bats of the World,” Dec. 30, 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. Maggie Hooper of the California Bat Conservation Fund shows slides, introduces three live bats, and answer questions about these animals.$7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5; free children age 2 and younger. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Dec. 24, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. “Gary Lapow's Light Up the Lights!” Dec. 31, 1 p.m. A performance of traditional holiday songs from around the world celebrating Las Posadas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 6; free children under age 3.“Math Rules!” Ongoing. A math exhibit of hands-on problem-solving stations, each with a different mathematical challenge.“Within the Human Brain” Ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “In the Dark,” through Jan. 15, 2001. Plunge into darkness and see amazing creatures that inhabit worlds without light. “Saturday Night Stargazing” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. “ChemMystery,” through Jan. 1, 2001. The LHS becomes a crime scene and a science lab to help visiting detectives to solve two different crime scenarios. Call 643-5134 for tickets  

$7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 

Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; (510) 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu 

Music 

924 Gilman St. 

All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted 

$5; $2 for a year membership 

525-9926 Dec. 22: Dead and Gone, Phantom Limbs, Angel Dust, Justin Bailey, The Fleshies; Dec. 23: Hammers of Misfortune, Dekapitator, Black Goat, Kalmex and the Riff Merchants; Dec. 29: Nerve Agents, American Nightmare, Kill Me Kate, PBR Streetgang; Dec. 30: The Unseen, F-Minus, Intreped A.A.F., Broken Society, Stockyard Stoics; Dec. 31, 1 p.m.: Crucial Section, W.H.N.?, Scott Baio’s Army, Godstomper 

Ashkenaz 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com Dec. 22: Trancemission, 9:30 p.m., $10; Dec. 23: Warsaw, George & the Wonders, KGB, and DJ; JahBonz, 9 p.m., $10 ; Dec. 29: Surco Nuevo, 9:30 p.m., $11; dance lesson with Felipe Martinez, 8:30 p.m.; Dec. 30: Legion of Mary with Martin Fiero, New Monsoon, 9 p.m., $10; Dec. 31: Balkan New Year's Eve Party, 8 p.m.;  

Featuring Vassil and Maria Bebelekov, Edessa, Anoush, Joe Finn. $12; Jan. 11: Benefit concert for Food First featuring: Ten Ton Chicken, Tree o’ Frogs, The David Thom Band and Buffalo Roam, $10 - $15  

Eli’s Mile High Club 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

All shows at 8 p.m.Dec. 22: Bolden & Birdlegg; Dec. 23: J.J. Malone; Dec. 29: Little Johnny & the Giants ; Dec. 30: Carlos Zialcita 

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. 548-1761 

Dec. 22: Freight Holiday Review with: Laurie Lewis, Tom Rozum, Street Sounds, Kathy Kallick, Brittany & Natalie Haas; 

Dec. 23: We Be 4: Rhiannon, Linda Tillery, Joey Blake & David Worm; Dec. 29: Peppino D’Agostino (Italian fingerstyle guitar); 

Dec. 30: Oak, Ash & Thorn (A Cappella of british isles) 

Albatross Pub 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473All shows begin at 9 p.m., unless noted. Dec. 26: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Dec. 28: Keni “El Lebrijano” (flamenco guitar); Dec. 31, 10 p.m. - 1 p.m.: Dave Widelock Jazz Trio;  

Crowden School1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 559-6910 

Sundays, 4 p.m.: Chamber music series sponsored by the school.  

Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

All shows at 4:30 p.m.Tickets are $10 - $12  

Jan. 14: Afro-Jazz with Pascal Bokar ; Jan. 21: The BlueJazzHouse Party with Brenda Boykin and The Eric Swinderman Quartet  

Solano Holiday Performers Solano Ave.  

On weekend afternoons until Christmas, various artists will be performing. Dec. 23 & 24, Noon - 6 p.m. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 

841-2800 Performance dates include Jan. 31, April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96  

Strolling Musicians & Carolers Downtown Berkeley 

Sponsored by the Downtown Berkeley Association and co-sponsored by the Daily Planet and the City of Berkeley. 

Performances are 5 - 7 p.m. Dec. 22: Berkeley Community Chamber Chorus & These “R” They Gospel Youth Choir  

Klesmeh! Festival Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 415-454-5238 Dec. 23, 8 p.m. A Hanukkah concert of Klesmer music and its mutations, featuring the San Francisco Klesmer experience. Hosted by Berkeley monologist/comedian Josh Kornbluth. $18 advance, $20 door; $16 kids and seniors  

“Flamenco Fiesta” Cafe de la Paz 1600 Shattuck Ave. 843-0662 Dec. 31, 8:30 p.m. Dancer Lourdes Rodrigues and guitarists Keni “El Lebrijano” and David Gutierrez will perform along with additional dancers and singers Kati Majia and Sarita Ayala in a dinner show and a midnight countdown show.  

Tickets for dinner show, $50. Tickets for midnight countdown show, $21 (midnight countdown show begins at 11 p.m.) 

Dia de los Reyes Concert St. Joseph the Worker Church  

1640 Addison (415) 431- 4234 Jan. 13, 8 p.m. Performing will be Coro Hispano de San Francisco and Conjunto Nuevo Mundo with the Jackeline Rago Ensemble de la Pena.  

$12 - $15  

Theater 

“Dinner With Friends” by Donald Margulies Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. Through Jan. 5, 200.1 845-4700, www.berkeleyrep.org 

“The Weir” by Conor McPherson Aurora Theater Company 

Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. Through Dec. 30, Tuesday - Saturday, 8 p.m. ; Sunday, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m. 

$30 general Call 843-4822 

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst)  

Jan. 5 through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. 

$8 - $12 Call 234-6046 

Films 

New Iranian Cinema Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) Featured films include Mariam Shahriar’s “Daughters of the Sun,” Rassul Sadr Ameli’s “The Girl in Sneakers,” and Parvi Shahbazi’s “Whispers,” and many others.  

Jan. 4 - 13 $7 for one film, $8.50 for double bills Call 642-1412 for tickets and info.  

Exhibits 

Toki Gallery 1212 San Pablo Ave. 524-7363 “Heads of the Class,” ceramic sculptures by seventh and eighth grade students at the East Bay Science & Arts Middle School.  

Through Jan. 10, Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.  

Kala Art Institute 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977 

Over sixty artists affiliated with the Kala Art Institute will show works ranging from wood block prints to digital media.  

Through Jan. 16, Tuesday - Friday, Noon - 5 p.m. 

Artists at Play Holiday Sale 1649 Hopkins St. 528-0494 The work of four artists creating various items: serving dishes, frames, ornaments, jewelry, monoprints, cards, and more.  

Dec. 23 & 24, Noon - 4 p.m.  

Traywick Gallery 1316 Tenth St., Berkeley 527-1214 or www.traywick.com Group show by Traywick artists, Through Dec. 23. Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Nexus Gallery 2701 Eighth St., Berkeley 531-9229 “The Glitter Reminder,” paintings by Michele Theberge, prints and textiles by Sharon Jue, photographs by Amy Snyder, sculpted water environments by C.R. Mitchell and Tom Mataga and textile installations by Claudia Tennyson. Through Dec. 23 Gallery hours: Monday - Friday, Noon - 6 p.m., Saturday & Sunday 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society 1931 Center St. Call 848-0181 

“Berkeley’s Ethnic Heritage.” An overview of the rich cultural diversity of the city and the contribution of individuals and minority groups to it’s history and development.  

Thursday through Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m. Free.  

Pro Arts Gallery 461 Ninth St., Oakland.  

763-9425 2000 Juried Annual, Through Dec. 30. This years show features 79 works by 70 artists. This show is juried by Larry Rinder, curator of contemporary art at the Whitney Museum. Wednesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

“Art of Ethan Snyderman,” French Hotel 1538 Shattuck Ave. (between Cedar and Vine) 763-1313 At the ripe old age of nine, Snyderman creates canvases with “figures reminiscent of Matisse and Modigliani.” Through December  

Readings 

Boadecia’s Books 398 Colusa Ave.  

Kensington 559-9184www.boadeciasbooks.com 

All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 6: Gaymes Night; come play Balderdash, Sequence, and others and enjoy pizza, company, and teamwork.  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

549-2970 Mondays, Jan. 5 through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 All free events at 7:30 p.m. (unless noted) 

Jan. 11: Kristan Lawson & Anneli Rufus discuss their book “California Babylon: A Guide to Sites of Scandal, Mayhem, and Celluloid in the Golden State.”; Jan. 16: Various travel authors discuss the spiritual aspects of traveling, “Travel as Pilgrimage.”; Jan. 18: Berkeley resident, restaurant and move critic John Weil, through a slide presentation and talk, takes attendees on a unique tour through the rich artistic and cultural heritage of Berkeley and Oakland.  

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours $2. The fourth Sunday of every month except December, between noon to 4 p.m.  

2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800 

Golden Gate Live Steamers Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size.Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Botanical Garden, Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/ 

Lectures 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series 

Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St. 848-0181 Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested Jan. 14: Richard Schwartz on “Berkeley 1900,” the history of Berkeley at the turn of the century; Jan. 28: “The Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings,” a panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history; March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago.  

Developer is not for affordable housing 

Editor: 

Patrick Kennedy and his supporters have portrayed him as a friend of affordable housing. Yet in the proposed development at 2700 San Pablo, (now before the City Council), he has allocated just 10 percent of the development for affordable housing - not the 20 percent required by city regulations! In fact, in separate legal action he is trying to undo Berkeley’s regulation concerning that requirement. This is a friend of affordable housing? 

Mr. Kennedy’s definition of a building “story” leaves many of us scratching our heads. His Gaia building - a supposed “seven stories” he says is 106 feet tall.  

That comes out to 15 feet per story. I call that a TALL story. By the same measure a “five story” building at 2700 San Pablo could reach 75 feet! These are the kinds of stories we neighbors fear. 

Bob Kubik Berkeley 

City’s tradition is not free speech, but blocking it 

Editor: 

We should stop pretending that Berkeley attaches special value to free speech.  

Episodes in which a speaker is shouted down or prevented from addressing an audience are commonplace in Berkeley and have been for at least the past thirty years.  

They occur in all of our public forums in the city and on the university campus.  

After each violation of our right to speak, some official complains that our tradition of tolerance has been stained. Mayor Dean is the latest to recite this mantra, which always lacks proposals aimed at enforcing respect for the right to speak and listen freely.  

There are appropriate administrative and legal measures which can always be taken.  

In “The Berkeley Archipelago,” Joseph Lyford defined our principal problem years ago. He said we have accommodated ourselves to the “uncivil conduct of symbolic politics.”  

The Planet could help to restore a civil atmosphere in Berkeley by doing a story that lists all the speeches that have been suppressed by protesters (it makes a long and gaudy list), and updating it whenever necessary.  

Suppression of the right of free speech interferes with everyone’s right to listen, learn, and form opinions of his or her own.  

If we change our ways, eventually Berkeley will be a community which really does have a right to take pride in a tradition of free speech.  

Phil McArdle 

Berkeley 

Citizens can influence three-strikes outcomes 

Editor: 

Since passage of California’s notorious three strikes law a few judges up and down the state have refused to preside over cases where conviction would mandate a “three strikes” 25-years-to-life sentence.  

Some district attorneys have refused to prosecute a third-strike case when conviction would result in a long sentence, hugely disproportionate to past expectations. But, unfortunately, both altruistic DAs and judges need to earn a living.  

To nullify the three strikes law, we the citizenry must look to ourselves; called to jury criminal cases, anyone can help affect needed reform - without loss of time or money.  

Questioned by judge and attorneys in California’s criminal courts, every prospective juror should ask if the case is a third felony case.  

If told it is, he or she should state that he or she is opposed to the three strikes law and, if impaneled, conscience dictates that he or she must vote for acquittal.  

If information is refused as to whether or not it is a third felony case, a prospective juror should state that their conscience also requires them to acquit.  

Few can welcome jury duty for its meager pay. Declaring oneself unable to serve impartially as juryman when one’s conscience says a trial’s outcome can only be unjust will bring rich recompense in one’s pride at setting a good example which may thereby be spread and grow to stifle the three strikes law.  

Judith Segard Hunt 

Berkeley 

Analysis shows Gore won  

Editor: 

Just as the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese inspired President Roosevelt to declare Dec. 7, 1941 as a date which will live in infamy, I will declare Dec. 13, 2000 as a date that will live in infamy, as this was the day we learned that our votes didn’t count; as the loser of the 2000 presidential election suddenly became the winner through a complicated and calculated coup d’etat.  

Let me state right off the bat that I am not a diehard Gore supporter and therefore am not suffering from sour grapes syndrome. However, I do believe in the sanctity of our right to vote and choose our leaders through fair elections but this election was not fair. Far from it.  

Like many Americans, I became confused by all the various lawsuits, pregnant chads and the like, and felt compelled to do some homework. If I could make sense of this mess, I thought to myself, I could have a deeper understanding of our political system. 

After doing some research, I came to the following cut and dried conclusion. Vice President Al Gore won this election. He won the popular vote and with his victory in Florida, the electoral vote as well.  

You may be asking yourself, what victory in Florida? Didn’t the supreme court settle that matter once and for all? Yes, the supreme court did make its decision in Bush’s favor but it was a politically biased one as I discovered.  

Following are some of the reasons I came to that conclusion: 

The Miami Herald commissioned a statistical analysis of voting patterns in all Florida’s precincts to determine what would have been the result of the election, had there been no problems with chads or butterfly ballots. The result - Al Gore wins by more that 20,000 votes as opposed to the mere 100 or so officially certified for Bush. This study was reviewed and confirmed to be accurate by several of the nation’s top statisticians.  

Steven Doig, a professor at Arizona State University and an expert in computer assisted reporting, had the following to say about the analysis: “I’m no psychic. I don’t know what they really intended to do, but I do know that almost anywhere in that margin, Gore wins. You can argue about where in the range it should be.”  

Mr. Doig also noted the following: 

1) Urban democratic strongholds such as Broward and Palm Beach counties, both punch-card counties, were nearly three times as likely to have their ballots rejected as those in optical counties. The rejection rate for punch-card counties was 3.9 percent.  

2) 11,000 of the 23,000 projected for Gore in the study would come from Palm Beach County.  

3) Only 11 percent of the precincts recorded no discarded ballots. 

The analysis even tested higher percentages of non-votes, ranging from 10 percent to 90 percent of the discarded ballots. Gore won in all instances.  

Perhaps the most disturbing of my findings, though, is of how the African American vote in Florida may have been suppressed or at least compromised.  

ChoicePoint, a private firm with strong republican ties, was hired by the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to create a “scrub list” of purported felons.  

Early this year, ChoicePoint handed over to Ms. Harris’s office, a list of 8,000 ex-felons to scrub from their list of voters. It turned out that none of the 8,000 were ever guilty of a felony, only misdemeanors.  

Moreover, it is estimated that in Florida, where 173,000 men and women were on Katherine Harris’s “purge list,” at least 30 percent of black men were not allowed to vote.  

In a state where 93 percent of the African American vote was for Gore, it would be reasonable to assume that a large percentage of these men would have voted for Gore.  

And to put the icing on the coup d’etat cake, was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who voted in favor of upholding the Leon County rulings on absentee ballots. Funny that little was written about the fact that both Scalia’s sons worked in the very law firms that represented Mr. Bush in both the federal and state courts. Should he have rescued himself from the monumental task in front of him? You bet he should have.  

So there you have it. This is the part that scares and angers me. Bush knows if the votes are counted he lost. He knows that he lost the popular vote and the electoral vote, but yet he uses all the power he can muster from his friends and connections in Florida to prevent the will of the people.  

Yes, Dec. 13, 2000 is a sad date in American history. This is the day our president was upseated in a complex coup d’etat. You will hear the talking heads on TV talk about how the nation must heal and stand behind its new president. But to truly heal, we need to understand the nature of our illness.  

We need to forgive ourselves for allowing this to happen and to create safeguards so it never happens again. After all, we have to live four more years with George W. Bush as our first illegitimate president.  

Steve Pinto 

Albany  

Keep kids on campus and feed them there 

Editor: 

Please help me understand. A logical solution for the lunch time problem at berkeley high and the downtown area is to be keep students on campus, which is being attempted by providing vendors. Whatever happened to school lunch programs and students bringing their own lunches? Are schools no longer providing lunch for its students? What about making a school rule to keep students on campus during lunch? 

Suzan Bollich 

Berkeley

Santiago Casal has been dreaming of a sun calendar memorial for over 20 years, and he’s willing to wait as long as it takes to bring the project to fruition. 

“I’m going to work on this forever ’til the day I die. This is my contribution,” he said on his way to the site of the proposed project to celebrate the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.  

“I’m a person of the ’60s so all the instincts of rebellion, that political awareness of our roots, it came a lot from that,” he said. 

The sun calendar, planned for a hilltop in Cesar Chavez Park, would be a memorial to Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers. 

Various Berkeley sites are named after Chavez, including both the park and the UC Berkeley student resource center. 

Casal said he hopes his project will be on a larger scale. He wants to draw visitors from all over the United States and Mexico. 

While visiting Tikal, Guatemala, Casal saw a sun calendar that suddenly seemed the perfect memorial, recognizing ancient cultures and paying tribute to the ancient agricultural systems. “These places dramatize something that’s basic to being human.” 

Thursday’s was the tenth solstice that Casal has  

celebrated on the same hill in the park, overlooking the San Francisco Bay. The site is a no-longer-used landfill, with methane gas pipes running underneath it. That limits the kind of architecture that can be used. Planners must be wary of shaking the ground. But each changing season has made the project firmer. The group supporting the memorial has presented the project to the Waterfront Commission, the City Council and the School Board.  

Although the city has set aside the land for the calendar, Casal hesitated to call the sun calendar memorial a certainty. 

“I think the city is behind it,” said Casal. “But it’s not certain until you start construction. That’s just the nature of Berkeley.” 

In between pounding posts into the ground to mark the direction of the setting sun, Casal explained the blueprints of the memorial. The structure would start with two berms – mounds of earth made into flat shelves – that would encircle a 90-square-foot area.  

A few notches will be carved into the tops of the earthen walls, like those in the walls of a medieval castle. But these notches will be specifically placed to frame the setting sun of the solstice, to “try to bring more drama to it,” said Casal.  

Chinese gardens are an example of how structures can be used to frame pieces of landscape and “views.” How the sunset will be framed on the sun calendar project is, said Casal, “subject to art.” 

The advisory board that will help to define the sun calendar project consists of architects, artists, educators and astronomers, as well as people from the Cesar Chavez foundation. So far donations have been small, but the group is looking to local businesses and foundations to provide some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars the project will cost.  

The initial estimate is $500,000, but Casal said that may only pay for the skeleton of the project. Once some of the money is raised the advisory board will solicit artistic proposals. The complexity of the proposals will determine how much the project costs.  

Casal envisions bright colors. Another visionary wants to use light reflection to illuminate particular portions of the memorial on different days of the year, like Chavez’s birthday. The four cardinal points will represent four of the virtues Chavez is famous for, including courage and forgiveness.  

Alan Gould, director of the planetarium at the Lawrence Hall of Science, is a member of the board who waved good-bye to the winter sun Thursday in Cesar Chavez park. “Culturally, people have noticed through the ages that times get harder and harder as winter moves on and easier as spring comes,” he said. “People noticed a correlation between how the sun behaves and the bad and good times.” Cultural traditions grew up surrounding the movement of the sun, he said. 

Vida Bateau and her family, the only participants at the solstice event not affiliated with the project, came as part of that continuing tradition.  

“We do celebrate the solstice every year to welcome back the sun. I feel connected to it because it’s the oldest holiday.” She came to the solstice to greet the days of longer light. “It’s been very dark,” she said. 

Friday, Dec. 22

Music in the Streets 

5 - 7 p.m. 

Strolling through downtown  

Berkeley 

Berkeley Community Chamber Chorus & These “R” They Gospel Youth Choir 

Holiday Celebration 

Noon 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Includes a holiday meal and an opera, “Kiri’s Coventry Xmas.”  

Call 644-6107 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

Free shuttle from downtown Berkeley BART available. Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

Call Linda, 528-6983 for details 

Saturday, Dec. 23  

Farmers’ Market Craft Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.  

MLK Jr. Civic Center Park  

(Center at MLK Jr. Way) 

Local craftspeople will be selling a variety of handcrafted gifts. Also live music, massage, and hot apple cider. Free 548-3333 

Artists at Play Holiday Sale  

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1649 Hopkins St.  

Work for sale includes dishes, frames, floral ribbon pins, jewelry, monoprints, and more. 528-0494 

Royal Hawaiian Ukulele Band 

Noon - 2 p.m. 

1561 Solano Ave. 

One of many performers doing their stuff on Solano during the holidays.  

Klesmeh! Festival  

8 p.m.  

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave.  

A Hanukkah concert of Klesmer music and its mutations, featuring the San Francisco Klesmer experience. $18 advance, $20 door; $16 kids and seniors 415-454-5238 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

Free shuttle from downtown Berkeley BART available. Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

Call Linda, 528-6983 for details 

Sunday, Dec. 24  

Ancient Winds 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1573 Solano Ave. 

One of many performers doing their stuff on Solano during the holidays. Performances every weekend afternoon till Christmas.  

Artists at Play Holiday Sale  

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1649 Hopkins St.  

Work for sale includes dishes, frames, floral ribbon pins, jewelry, monoprints, and more. 528-0494 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

Free shuttle from downtown Berkeley BART available. Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

Call Linda, 528-6983 for details 

Palestinian Solidarity Event 

1 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists 

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Noura Erakat, just returned from occupied Palestine, will present a slide show and discussion on why she believes U.S. military aid to Israel must stop. 524-6064 

Tuesday, Dec. 26  

Kwanzaa! 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Join storyteller Awele Makeba as she shares tale and a capella songs from African and African-American history, culture, and folklore which celebrate the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Included with admission to the museum.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 642-5132 

Big Fat Year-End Kiss-Off  

Comedy Show VIII 

8 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave.  

Featuring Will Durst, host of PBS “Livelyhood,” Johnny Steele, Debi Durst & Michael Bossier, Ken Sonkin the Magic Mime, and Steve Kravitz. $15  

(925) 798-1300 for tickets 

Blood Pressure Testing 

9:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Alice Meyers 

Call 644-6107 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 531-8664 

Wednesday, Dec. 27 

Magic Mike 

Noon and 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Special effects, magic, juggling, ventriloquism, and outrageous comedy is what Parent’s Choice Award winner Magic Mike is all about. Included in price of museum admission.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students;  

$3 children 3-4 Call 642-5132 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Chi Chuan for Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Mr. Chang 

Call 644-6107 

Thursday, Dec. 28

Season of Lights  

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

The Imagination Company brings to life world winter celebrations and highlights the significance of light to several culture. Included in museum admission price.  

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Imani In the Village 

2 p.m. 

Claremont Library 

2940 Benvenue  

Percussionist James Henry presents a drumming and dance program for all ages. Audience participation invited.  

Call 649-3943 

Death of the Lecturer 

7 p.m. 

West Branch Library 

1125 University Ave.  

Calling all detectives, those who enjoy reading mysteries, playing Clue, and solving crossword puzzles to untangle the reason for the final fate confrontation.  

Call 649-3926 

Friday, Dec. 29

Earthcapades 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Join Hearty and Lissin as they blend storytelling, juggling, acrobatics, and more, to entertain and teach about saving the environment. Included in museum admission. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Saturday, Dec. 30

Bats of the World  

1 & 2:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Maggie Hooper, an educator with the California Bat Conservation Fund, will show slides, introduce three live, tame, and indigenous bats, and answer your questions about these fascinating creatures. Included in admission to the museum. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Kwanzaa Celebration 

4 p.m. 

South Branch Library  

1901 Russell St.  

Muriel Johnson of Abiyomi Storytelling is the featured storyteller at the library’s annual celebration which also includes a formal Kwanzaa ceremony.  

Call 649-3943 

Sunday, Dec. 31

Light Up the Lights! 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Popular songmeister Gary Lapow performs traditional holiday music from around the world. Included in price of museum admission. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Tuesday, Jan. 2

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Wednesday, Jan. 3

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters 

7:15 p.m. 

Vault Restaurant  

3250 Adeline St.  

Learn to speak fluently without fear or hesitation.  

Call Howard Linnard, 527-2337 

Thursday, Jan. 4

Snowshoe Tours  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Catherine Stifter of Backcountry Tracks presents a slide-show on her favorite ski and snowshoe tours off Highway 49 between Sierra City and Yuba Pass. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Friday, Jan. 5

Zen Buddhist Sites in China 

7 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

1000 Oak St.  

Oakland 

Andy Ferguson, author of “Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings,” presents a slide show of Zen holy sites in China. Ferguson will read from the book and engage the audience in a brief meditation session. Included in museum admission. 

$6 general, $4 seniors and students with ID 

Call 1-888-OAK-MUSE 

Taize’ Worship Service  

7:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Loper Chapel  

(adjacent to) First Congregational 

Church of Berkeley  

Dana St. (between Durant & Channing) 

Call 848-3696  

“Waiting for Godot” 

8 p.m. 

La Val’s Subterranean  

1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 

Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Yoni Barkan, director of last summer’s “A Midsummers Night Dream.”  

$8 - $12  

Call 234-6046 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Tuesday, Jan. 9  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Wednesday, Jan. 10  

Kids Dance Open House & Class 

5 - 6 p.m. 

El Cerrito Community Center 

7007 Moeser Lane 

El Cerrito  

Parents are invited to explore how dance relates to cognitive, kinesthetic, and socio-emotional development in their children. For ages three to seventeen. Free  

Call 530-4113  

Thursday, Jan. 11 

Toni Stone and the Negro Baseball League 

1 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

1000 Oak St.  

Oakland 

Marcia Eymann, curator of historical photography, discusses memorabilia of Toni Stone, a woman who played in the Negro Baseball Legue in the 1940s. Free. 

Call 1-888-OAK-MUSE 

Benefit Concert for Food First 

8 p.m. 

Ashkenaz  

1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 

Featuring the David Thom Band, Buffalo Roam, Tree o’ Frogs, and Ten Ton Chicken. All proceeds benefit Food First.  

$10 - $15 donation 

Call Kevin Doyle, 843-6389 x201 

California Babylon  

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore  

1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose)  

Kristan Lawson & Anneli Rufus discuss their book “A Guide to Sites of Scandal, Mayhem, and Celluloid in the Golden State.” Free 

Call 843-3533  

Free Anonymous HIV Testing 

5:15 - 7:15 p.m. 

Check in 5 - 7 p.m. 

University Health Services 

Tang Center  

2222 Bancroft Way 

Drop-in services and limited space is available.  

Call 642-7202 

“Waiting for Godot” 

8 p.m. 

La Val’s Subterranean  

1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 

Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Yoni Barkan, director of last summer’s “A Midsummers Night Dream.”  

$8 - $12  

Call 234-6046 

Ski & Snowboard Descents  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Paul Richins, author of “50 Classic Backcountry Ski and Snowboard Summits in California - Mt. Shasta to Mt. Whitney,” presents in slides some of his favorite ski mountaineering and backcountry snowboard descents. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Friday, Jan. 12 

“Who’s Really In Charge Anyway?” 

7:30 p.m. 

Unitarian Hall 

1924 Cedar St.  

The subject to be discussed is the guru dilemma and individual spiritual mastership. Hear about the spiritual path of light and sound and the ancient teachings of the saints.  

Call Unitarian Hall, 841-4824 or visit www.masterpath.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Saturday, Jan. 13 

“Dyke Open Myke!” 

7:30 p.m. 

Boadecia’s Books  

398 Colusa Ave. (at Colusa Cir.) 

Kensington 

A coffeehouse-style open mic. night for emerging talent. 

Call Jessy, 655-1015  

or Boadecia’s Books, 559-9184 

Dia de los Reyes Concert  

8 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church  

1640 Addison  

Performing will be Coro Hispano de San Francisco and Conjunto Nuevo Mundo with the Jackeline Rago Ensemble de la Pena.  

$12 - $15  

Call (415) 431- 4234 

Sunday, Jan. 14 

Teaching Chinese Culture in the U.S.  

2 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

1000 Oak St.  

Oakland 

Educators from Bay Area Chinese schools explore issues related to teaching Chinese culture and language. Included in museum admission.  

$6 general; $4 seniors and students with ID 

Call 1-888-OAK-MUSE 

LesBiGayTrans Parenting 

11 a.m. 

Boadecia’s Books 

398 Colusa Ave. (at Colusa Cir.) 

Kensington 

These two groups meet on the second Sunday of each month. The group meeting at 11 a.m. is for prospective parents, the one at noon for parents.  

Call 559-9184 

“Berkeley, 1900” 

3 - 5 p.m. . 

Berkeley History Center 

1931 Center St.  

Richard Schwartz gives an oral history of Berkeley at the turn of the century.  

A-Singin’ and a Chantin’ 

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers 

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Pagan recording artist DJ Hamouris shares some songs and chants. 

Call 848-8443 

Free Feng Shui Class 

3 p.m. 

Eastwind Books of Berkeley  

2066 University Ave.  

Taught by Lily Chung, author of “Calendars for Feng Shui and Divination.” 

Call Eastwind, 548-3250 

Tuesday, Jan. 16  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

“Travel as Pilgramage” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore  

1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose)  

Various travel writers discuss the spiritual aspects of travel. Free 

Call 843-3533  

Avalanche Safety Course  

6 - 9:30 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Dick Penniman, internationally known avalanche instructor and consultant, presents a slide lecture and video presentation on the fundamentals of avalanches and rescue techniques.  

$20  

Call Dick Penniman, (877) SNO-SAFE 

Wednesday, Jan. 17  

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters 

7:15 p.m. 

Vault Restaurant  

3250 Adeline St.  

Learn to speak fluently without fear or hesitation.  

Call Howard Linnard, 527-2337 

Thursday, Jan. 18  

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.  

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

Combating Congestion  

1 - 5 p.m. 

Pauley Ballroom 

Student Union Building  

UC Berkeley 

A one-day transportation conference featuring Martin Wachs and Elizabeth Deakin, both of UC Berkeley. Co-sponsored by the Institute of Transportation Studies and the UC Transportation Center.  

Call 642-1474  

“Waiting for Godot” 

8 p.m. 

La Val’s Subterranean  

1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 

Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Yoni Barkan, director of last summer’s “A Midsummers Night Dream.”  

$8 - $12  

Call 234-6046 

Become Berkeley City Smart 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore  

1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose)  

In a slide presentation & talk, Berkeley resident, restaurant and movie critic John Weil takes attendees on a unique tour through the rich artistic and cultural heritage of Berkeley and Oakland. Free 

Call 843-3533  

Journey Across China 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Eugene Tsiang, Shanghai native, will give a slide presentation on his two-month journey last spring by train and four-wheel drive vehicle across China’s Shaanxi, Gansu and Xinjiang Provinces. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Friday, Jan. 19 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Monday, Jan. 22  

Berkeley Rail Stop Community  

Design Workshop 

7 - 9 p.m. 

West Berkeley Senior Center 1900 Sixth St.  

The public is invited to suggest ideas and comment on plans for design-development at the rail stop/transit plaza area of West Berkeley.  

Call 644-6580 

Urban Homelessness  

& Public Policy Solutions 

9 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Alumni House  

UC Berkeley  

This day-long conference will include key scholars, service providers, and policymakers in the homelessness field. Some of the subjects to be covered will be: Homeless population dynamics and policy implications, health issues in homelessness, and legal and political issues in homelessness. Free and open to the public.  

For more info, visit: http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/homeless.htm 

Tuesday, Jan. 23 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Thursday, Jan. 25  

Spirits in the Time of AIDS 

6 - 8 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland 

Pro Arts reception for the opening of their new exhibition seeking to expand the understanding of HIV and AIDS and the people who are affected by them.  

Call 763-9425 

Climbing Mt. Everest  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Bob Hoffman, organizer and leader of four environmental clean-up expeditions on Everest, will give a slide presentation on the Inventa 2000 Everest Environmental Expedition’s recent ascent. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Friday, Jan. 26 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Saturday, Jan. 27  

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno 

8 p.m. 

Crowden School  

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.  

$15 - $20  

Call 658-3382  

“Waiting for Godot” 

8 p.m. 

La Val’s Subterranean  

1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 

Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Yoni Barkan, director of last summer’s “A Midsummers Night Dream.”  

$8 - $12  

Call 234-6046 

Cuddly, Soft, Furry Things & Friends 

10 - 10:50 a.m. & 11:10 a.m. - Noon  

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley  

A special workshop for two - three year-olds to meet, pet, and feed rabbits, doves, and snakes.  

$22 - $25, $10 for additional family members, registration required  

Call 642-5134 

Sunday, Jan. 28  

Clori, Tirsi & e Fileno 

7 p.m. 

Crowden School  

1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 

Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company, will be performing Handel’s story of jealousy in love. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before the performance.  

$15 - $20  

Call 658-3382  

Tuesday, Jan. 30 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Wednesday, Jan. 31 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.  

$10 - $35  

Call 841-2800 

Friday, Feb. 2 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Saturday, Feb. 3 

“Waiting for Godot” 

8 p.m. 

La Val’s Subterranean  

1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 

Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Yoni Barkan, director of last summer’s “A Midsummers Night Dream.”  

$8 - $12  

Call 234-6046 

Sunday, Feb. 4 

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.  

Call 841-2800 

Friday, Feb. 9  

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Sunday, Feb. 11  

Ruth Acty Oral History Reception 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

In 1943 Miss Ruth Acty became the first African American teacher to be hired by the Berkeley Unified School District. She taught thousands of students until her retirement in 1985. Oral History Coordinator Therese Pipe interviewed Acty in 1993-94 for the Berkeley Historical Society. Free  

Thursday, Feb. 15 

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.  

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

Basics of PCs 

9 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley 

A class for adults that will cover file management, loading software, software management, downloading pages from the Web, and more. 

$30 - $35, registration required  

Call 642-5134  

Friday, Feb. 16 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Friday, Feb. 23 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Sunday, Feb. 25  

“Imperial San Francisco: 

Urban Power, Earthly Ruin” 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley History Center 

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

Gary Brechin speaks on the impact and legacy of the Hearsts and other powerful San Francisco families. Free 

Call 848-0181 

Tuesday, March 13  

Berkeley Rep. Proscenium Opening 

8 p.m. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater 

2015 Addison St.  

Featuring the premiere performance of “The Oresteia” by Aeschylus. Opening gala dinner held prior to performance. Performance will be at 8 p.m. 

Call 647-2949 

Thursday, March 15  

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.  

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

Saturday, March 17  

Berkeley Rep. Community Open House 

Noon - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater 

2015 Addison St.  

Tour the Berkeley Reps. new theater facility, a 600-seat proscenium stage theater. 

Call to reserve a tour, 647-2900  

Sunday, March 18  

“Topaz Moon” 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley History Center 

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

Kimi Kodani Hill speaks on artist Chiura Obata’s family and the WW II Japanese relocation camps. Free 

Call 848-0181 

ONGOING EVENTS 

Sundays 

Green Party Consensus Building Meeting 

6 p.m. 

2022 Blake St. 

This is part of an ongoing series of discussions for the Green Party of Alameda County, leading up to endorsements on measures and candidates on the November ballot. This week’s focus will be the countywide new Measure B transportation sales tax. The meeting is open to all, regardless of party affiliation. 

415-789-8418 

Mondays 

Baby Bounce and Toddler Time 

10:30 a.m. 

Oct. 16 - Dec. 11 

Berkeley Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

For children ages 6 to 36 months. Get those babies off to a good start with songs, rhymes, lap bounces, and very simple books. 

649-3943  

Tuesdays 

Easy Tilden Trails 

9:30 a.m. 

Tilden Regional Park, in the parking lot that dead ends at the Little Farm 

Join a few seniors, the Tuesday Tilden Walkers, for a stroll around Jewel Lake and the Little Farm Area. Enjoy the beauty of the wildflowers, turtles, and warblers, and waterfowl. 

215-7672; members.home.com/teachme99/tilden/index.html 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2-7 p.m. 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Berkeley Camera Club 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda 

Share your slides and prints with other photographers. Critiques by qualified judges. Monthly field trips. 

531-8664 

Computer literacy course 

6-8 p.m. 

James Kenney Recreation Center, 1720 Eighth St. 

This free course will cover topics such as running Windows, File Management, connecting to and surfing the web, using Email, creating Web pages, JavaScript and a simple overview of programming. The course is oriented for adults. 

644-8511 

Wednesdays  

10:30 a.m. 

Preschool Song and Story Time 

Berkeley Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

Music and stories for ages 3-5.  

649-3943 

Thursdays 

The Disability Mural 

4-7 p.m. through September 

Integrated Arts 

933 Parker 

Drop-in Mural Studios will be held for community gatherings and tile-making sessions. This mural will be installed at Ed Roberts campus. 

841-1466 

Free Anonymous HIV Testing 

5:15 - 7:15 p.m. 

Check in 5 - 7 p.m. 

University Health Services 

Tang Center  

2222 Bancroft Way 

Drop-in services and limited space is available.  

Call 642-7202  

Saturdays 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m.-3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Poets Juan Sequeira and Wanna Thibideux Wright 

2nd and 4th Sunday 

Rhyme and Reason Open Mike Series 

2:30 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2621 Durant Ave. 

The public and students are invited. Sign-ups for the open mike begin at 2 p.m. 

234-0727;642-5168 

Tuesday and Thursday 

Free computer class for seniors 

9:30-11:30 a.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. 

This free course offers basic instruction in keyboarding, Microsoft Word, Windows 95, Excel and Internet access. Space is limited; the class is offered Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Call ahead for a reservation. 

644-6109 

Compiled by Chason Wainwright 

The City Council’s approval of a resolution Tuesday to support the boycott of Pasand Madras Cuisine has raised questions about the owners’ constitutional rights to the presumption of innocence. 

The council voted to support Women Against Sexual Slavery’s boycott of the Shattuck Avenue restaurant owned by Berkeley landlord Lakireddy Bali Reddy and his family. WASS is boycotting the restaurant because of Reddy’s alleged involvement with illegally bringing aliens, including minor teens, into the country for cheap labor and sex. The resolution passed by a 7-2 vote with Councilmembers Polly Armstrong and Miriam Hawley voting in opposition. 

Newly seated on the council, Hawley said the approval of the resolution was premature. “I thought it was improper,” she said Thursday. “It’s one thing for an individual to take part in a boycott but it’s quite another for the City Council to take an official position when no one’s been found guilty.” 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington who made the recommendation along with Councilmember Linda Maio and Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek, argued that the owner has basically admitted that he was involved. 

“It seems pretty clear from the information that’s been presented that there’s a very serious problem,” he said. “We think that everybody, women and men, should be doing what they can to end sexual slavery in all its manifestations.” 

Five members of Reddy’s family have been in plea negotiations with Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kennedy – Reddy, his sons Vijay Kumar Lakireddy, 32, Prasad Lakireddy, 42; his brother Jayaprakash Lakireddy, 47; and Jayprakash Lakireddy’s wife, Annapurna Lakireddy, 46.  

The five had been in negotiations with Kennedy to enter guilty pleas, but Prasad Lakireddy announced in court Dec. 11 that he would withdraw from negotiations and not plead guilty to any charges. 

Prasad Lakireddy’s attorney, Paul Wolf, denounced the resolution saying the council ignored his client’s rights and that the boycott may be unfairly hurting innocent family members and their employees. He argued the City Council must not be aware of the fact that only two of the restaurant’s owners have been charged with sex-related crimes. 

Among other allegations, Reddy is charged with bringing young women into the country illegally for his sexual gratification and his younger son, Vijay Lakireddy is charged with helping him to accomplish this. 

The three other family members are alleged to have brought aliens into the country illegally, but are charged with no sex-related crimes, Wolf said. 

“Should we punish the rest of the family because they’re related by blood?” Wolf asked. “Where in the American tradition do we do that?” 

WASS member Diana Russell, who has been picketing in front of Pasand Restaurant since January, said she was “thrilled” with the council’s resolution, but thought it did not go far enough. She said Reddy should be held responsible for the death of one of the women he is charged with bringing to the United States illegally for sex. “Mr. Reddy should be prosecuted for negligent homicide or homicide depending on whether (Chanti Jyotsna Devi) Prattipati was alive when he arrived or not,” she said. 

Russell was referring to the Nov. 24, 1999 incident in which Chanti Jyotsna Devi Prattipati, 17, died from carbon monoxide poisoning in one of Reddy’s apartments at 2020 Bancroft Way. Police have ruled Prattipati’s death accidental.  

It is alleged that Reddy was called to the apartment at the time but failed to call for an ambulance. A passerby told police she saw someone fitting Reddy’s description attempting to put Prattipati’s body into a waiting van identified as belonging to Reddy Realty. 

Prasad Lakireddy, part owner and manager of Pasand, said he was surprised by the council’s approval of the resolution.  

“So much of what people have been saying is not true,” he said. “It is very sad and I have to look at it philosophically. I have no ill-feelings for anyone.”

It seems Nick Slater has hit a nerve with a petition drive claiming that a George W. Bush presidency would be illegitimate.  

Since an interview Tuesday on KPFA radio, Slater, a Berkeley resident, has gotten dozens of e-mails and calls for petitions, three offers to set up Web sites and several calls for interviews by other media. 

As far as he knows, the petition is being circulated in San Diego and as far away as Pennsylvania, in addition to northern California. 

“I’m trying to ensure the integrity of the election process,” Slater said, explaining the petition as a way for people to express their frustration with the recent electoral process. “I put the petition together because I did not want to remain silent,” he said. The petition argues that a democratic government’s authority rests on “the freely given consent of its citizens” and that consent is given through elections. 

“Since democracy has not been seen to be done and the true and final result of the Florida vote in the recent presidential election is not yet known, as the Supreme Court acknowledges, we feel that we, as citizens of these United States, are unable to grant our authority and consent to the appointment of candidate George Bush as president,” the petition says. 

It further argues that two of the Supreme Court Justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, have conflicts of interest and should be removed for having participated in the process. 

“Justice Scalia had two sons working for the law firm representing Bush. Justice Thomas’ wife worked for the Heritage Foundation which is helping to choose the Bush cabinet,” says a letter by Slater accompanying the petition. 

Slater, who works in business services at UC Berkeley and comes originally from Great Briton, said he was shocked at the lack of outrage following the Supreme Court decision, even among those who call themselves progressive. 

“People feel powerless,” he said, arguing that citizens don’t care who is president “as long as they’ve got full bellies and SUVs.” 

He said that attitude sends a negative message to the entire world. “There are thousands of people who fought and died for the right to vote,” he said. 

Slater says, though an active shop steward at UC Berkeley, he’s never done anything like this before. He has no staff to answer phones and e-mails or funds to send out endless petitions, but he said he’s trying. “I’m making it up as I go along,” he said. “I don’t represent anybody or any organization.” 

The petitions, which call for a thorough re-count by hand in Florida, will be delivered to congressional representatives before the Bush inauguration, with copies back to Slater so he can tally the response. 

Calls for comment to the Republican Party offices in San Leandro and Walnut Creek were not returned. 

Slater can be contacted at P.O. Box 13466 Berkeley, 94712-4466 and e-mailed at: medieval@e-mail.com. 

California officials have submitted a plan to expand a low-cost health insurance program for children to cover some parents as well. 

The Healthy Families program, jointly funded by state and federal governments, provides medical care to children in families where the annual income is less than 21/2 times the federal poverty level. 

That means a family of four with an annual income of less than $42,625 a year would qualify. Families pay premiums of $4 to $27, depending on how many children are enrolled. 

Under the proposal submitted Thursday to the federal Health Care Financing Administration, parents earning up to twice the poverty level, or less than $34,500 for a family of four, would be eligible for coverage. The adults would pay an additional $20 to $25 per month for each parent, depending on income. 

State and private experts believe there are about seven million Californians – including two million children – currently without health coverage. 

State officials estimated that 290,000 adults could be covered by the expanded program. 

It will cost an additional $192 million in the 2001-02 fiscal year to expand coverage, with the state paying $71 million of that and the rest paid by the federal government, said officials with the California Health and Human Services Agency. 

Anne Marie Flores, co-chair of the Pacific Institute for Community Organization, which advocates for the working poor, said the adult coverage plan was good, but she added that it should cover adults in families making up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level. 

The premium rates “seem reasonable,” she added. 

California officials hope to have the plan approved by the end of February and to begin implementing it in July. 

Last week, Congress approved a bill that allows California to keep about $350 million in federal funds for the Healthy Family program. 

States that hadn’t spent their full federal share will be allowed to keep about 60 percent of their 1998 funds. 

On the Net: 

For more information visit www.healthyfamilies.ca.gov

The Associated Press 

SAN FRANCISCO— San Francisco Bay area air quality officials released a new smog-reducing plan to cut emissions from water heaters, concrete coatings and wood varnishings. 

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District board, which oversees nine counties, voted Wednesday to call on consumers to use wood products with less solvents and stricter standards for coatings applied to concrete piles, traffic barriers, underground vaults and other structures. Under the plan, households planning to replace their gas-fired water heaters would find only cleaner-burning ones on the market. 

The agency estimates these measures will cost $1,000 to $11,400 per ton of pollution saved. 

ougher regulations are expected in 2003, when a study for better emissions savings is completed, said Jean Roggenkamp, district planning manager. 

Roggenkamp said the region met California’s stiff pollution standards — 30 percent tougher than federal standards — for 99 percent of the year. 

Emissions have dropped 1,500 tons per day 10 years ago to 1,100 tons today. That’s despite the region’s 30 percent population jump in the past 20 years. 

Roggenkamp said that reduction is mainly due to cleaner automobile engines. 

Environmentalists, however, say officials aren’t working aggressively enough to control traffic or come up with new mass-transit initiatives. 

LOS ANGELES — In what prosecutors call the largest case ever involving fraudulent medical bills submitted by a California laboratory, a federal grand jury has indicted four people on charges of billing the Medi-Cal program for nearly $20 million worth of bogus blood tests. 

The 23-count indictment handed down Wednesday names Luisa Gonzalez, 55, and Juan Carlos Ciraolo, 59, owners of the now defunct Los Angeles Bio-Clinical Laboratory in Glendale, and Roberto Calderon, 39, and Alfredo Morales, 37, operators of La Guadalupana Clinic in Hawthorne. 

The indictment charges that over a three-year-period, the defendants obtained confidential billing information about patients and doctors enrolled in Medi-Cal, the federally subsidized medical program for the poor. 

Los Angeles Bio-Clinical Laboratory then used that information to bill Medi-Cal for tests it performed on blood that was bought from donors recruited off the street, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurice Suh. 

Until it closed in 1997, the lab submitted bills for reimbursement totaling about $40 million; half of the bills were fraudulent, the indictment said. La Guadalupana, which offered donors cash for their blood, appears to have been the lab’s main supplier, Suh said. The money made from the fraudulent billing allegedly was laundered through Gonzalez and Ciraolo’s personal bank accounts. 

“This case represents the most unconscionable acts of health care providers who pilfer the health care delivery system, which results in higher health care costs for everyone,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge James V. DeSarno Jr. 

Although not indicted Wednesday, a doctor who runs a San Gabriel clinic has agreed to plead guilty in connection with the alleged fraud, Suh said. An FBI affidavit said Dr. Luis Lombardi made up reports showing he had examined Medi-Cal patients and then asked Bio-Clinical to conduct comprehensive blood tests, some costing up to $550. 

Agents arrested Ciraolo and Gonzalez on Nov. 17. They were freed on $250,000 bond and are scheduled for arraignment Dec. 26. Calderon and Morales are fugitives who have fled Los Angeles, Suh said. 

LOS ANGELES — Every few minutes Thursday, someone would lean over the ninth floor courthouse balcony, standing on tiptoes to peer over the wall. 

Next to a single bouquet of red and white carnations, they craned their necks to see the roof five stories below where a young mother threw her two young daughters to their deaths, then jumped to her own. 

When sheriff’s deputies saw the 27-year-old woman on the ledge of the downtown courthouse about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, they didn’t know she had already thrown her children, ages 5 and 7. 

The deputies tried to talk her down. About five minutes later, she jumped. 

“Anyone with the resolve to throw their own children off the roof certainly is unlikely to be talked down themselves,” police Capt. Charlie Beck said. 

The dead woman was identified as LaShanda Crozier of Los Angeles, said coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier. The dead girls had not yet been identified, he said. 

The woman and her husband were in court earlier in the day for an eviction hearing, but “it was not contentious,” said sheriff’s Capt. Jay Zuanich of the courts service’s central bureau. 

The family had agreed to make payments that would allow the family to stay in their southwest Los Angeles home, Zuanich said. 

Police said the family left the courthouse, but the woman and her daughters later returned after the father went to work. 

How quickly they returned was not immediately clear. A courthouse employee who spoke on condition of anonymity said he saw the three about two hours before they died on the other side of the building’s wraparound balcony. 

He pointed to a foot-high wooden crate against the 4-foot-high balcony wall and said the woman stood on it, looking over the edge while her children played. “I just thought, ’I don’t know why you need to stand on a crate when you’re on the ledge, anyway.”’

Here we are in the 21st century, and still infusing life into our winters with cut evergreen boughs, just as did the ancient Egyptians, Persians, Jews, Christians, and Druids. 

Just a few evergreen boughs tied together and accented with a red ribbon make a doorway more inviting or a room more cozy. But going one step further with the greenery, to a wreath, creates something special. The actual making of a wreath can be an end in itself, particularly to the accompaniment of a warm fire, friends, and children. 

To make a wreath, start with a base. This might be a sturdy ring of wire (from a coat hanger, for example), straw that has been bound into a bulky circle with string, or a woven vine of grape, honeysuckle, or wisteria.  

The base might be all, or just about all, that is needed for a simple wreath. Poke in some sprigs of wild rose to add color, along with some overlapped sprigs of lavender, thyme, or rosemary, bound with thin wire, for fragrance. Keep thyme’s wiry stems somewhat loose and, along with the tiny stems, they can add body to a wreath. 

Perhaps you’re more drawn this time of year to wreaths that have rich, green color and are almost gaudy with ornamentation. The base for such a wreath is some evergreen plant. Not all evergreens are suitable, because some drop their leaves too readily indoors. Among needle-leaf evergreens, juniper, white pine, mugho pine, red pine, and spruce are good choices. Mahonia, holly, rhododendron, and English ivy are suitable broad-leaf evergreens for a wreath, although they won’t hold their leaves as long as the needle-leaved ones. Wire, glue or tuck small bunches of evergreens onto the base, with all the bunches facing the same direction. Don’t be stingy, for this mass of green color is what is going to visually unite the whole wreath. Next, add accent. Ornaments that are darker shades, or blue or green, make a quieter wreath than ornaments that are lighter shades, or red or yellow. Lively ornaments might include chains of shiny red cranberries or popcorn threaded together. And tinsel, of course. 

Lee Reich is a features writer for 

The Associated press.

Along fields and in the woods over much of North America, your eye could catch some bright color even this time of year.  

Look for plump, red winterberries, made even more dramatic for the way they cling closely to and contrast the plants’ almost black twigs. 

With good reason, the plant is also known as Christmasberry, coralberry, or Michigan holly.  

The plant is, in fact, a deciduous species of holly – our most widespread and cold-hardy native species. 

To plant winterberry for its fruits, you need a male and a female.  

Many varieties are available, some notable for being dwarf (Nana); some for their orange fruit (Afterglow); some for their yellow fruit (Chrysocarpa), and some for their particular abundance of fruit (Winter Red). 

Instead of buying a named variety, wild plants could be your source of plants. 

No need to dig up a wild plant, though. Just pluck a few berries for seeds, or prune off a few twigs for cuttings. 

The most important ingredient in growing winterberries from seeds is time. The seeds need 18 months to germinate.  

These seedlings will yield a mix of males and females, usually about one female for every three to 10 males.  

Unfortunately, you cannot distinguish males from females until they are old enough to flower. 

Stem cuttings, taken now or in early summer, are a quicker way to make plants.  

Those taken in early summer are especially easy to root.  

Cuttings have the advantage that they fruit sooner than do seedlings and, if the bush furnishing the cuttings had fruit, you know it’s a female. 

Winterberry is very forgiving about soil.  

Wild plants are often found growing in shade and in areas too wet for most other cultivated plants.  

Winterberry, however, can be grown equally well a site with full sun and well-drained soil. 

Winterberry does require a very acidic soil, one with a pH in the range of 4.5 to 5.5.  

Plenty of acidic peat moss, or some sulfur, can bring the  

soil pH down to that range,  

if necessary.  

A soil this acidic, incidentally, also is perfect for rhododendrons and mountain laurels, whose evergreen leaves make a nice backdrop for the winterberry fruits in winter. 

Even without that backdrop of evergreen leaves, winterberry makes a cheery winter sight, especially against lily-white snow.  

And indoors, the stems with their plump, bright fruits make fine decorations – another holly with which to “deck the halls.”

Q: Our 16-year-old painted redwood house has a terrible mildew problem, even during periods of bright sunshine. The inside of the house seems to sweat and the inside surfaces of the window frames are peeling. We would eventually like to have aluminum siding, but first we must solve the mildew problem. What do you suggest? 

A: You have probably checked the obvious sources of moisture such as a lack of kitchen and bath fans, and poor exterior landscaping that may allow rainwater to run into your basement and crawl space. Moisture rising from these areas is a common source of this problem. 

If you do not know the source of excessive moisture in the house, you should introduce some dry air from the outside. There are a number of air exchangers on the market that are designed for do-it-yourself installation and are reasonably priced. These units usually have a fan that moves fresh air in, over or through ducts that are heated by heated air from the interior of the house moving out through the same unit. 

This is not only a solution for excess interior moisture but an answer to super tight homes that suffer a lack of fresh breathing air. 

Q: Our house was built about 1925, with a cypress shingle roof installed on 1x4-inch wood strips, 8-inches on center. The attic has no ventilation or insulation. I would like to install a painted sheetmetal roof over the wood strips. My concern is condensation on the bottom of the sheetmetal. What is the best way to do this? 

A: Providing ventilation and a vapor barrier in the attic will control the moisture buildup and resulting attic condensation. You should also insulate the attic. Even though your house is located in a warm climate, insulation is cost-effective and will help make the house more comfortable. 

Check with your local utility company to determine the recommended amount of insulation for your attic. It is more practical to install insulation batts with an attached vapor barrier rather than using a separate vapor barrier. Place the batts on the attic floor between the joists with the vapor barrier facing toward the rooms below. 

You should also use at least two vent openings – to allow for air movement. Installing watertight vents in the sheetmetal roof may be difficult, so your best bet would probably be to use gable vents. A combination of gable and soffit vents would be even more effective. 

Since there will be a vapor barrier in the attic, the size of the vent openings can be less than it would be without a vapor barrier. Remember, the vent’s effective area is less than its actual opening. Screens or louvers can reduce airflow through a vent by as much as 50 percent. The effective area should be at least one-three-hundredth of the attic floor area. 

To submit a question, write to Popular Mechanics, Reader Service Bureau, 224 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. The most interesting questions will be answered in a future column. 

Organic food could become cheaper and more widely available now that uniform federal organic standards, a decade in the making, have finally become law. The standards are expected to draw big growers into the small but growing market. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture standards, released Wednesday, are the result of years of false starts and intense lobbying. Foods that meet the new standards will bear a seal that reads “USDA Organic.” 

“It’s going to mean an additional standard of integrity in the marketplace and the ability to move product from state to state and country to country,” said Ray Green, organic program manager for California’s Department of Agriculture. 

“In terms of the old supply and demand thing, it’s going to create more integrity, consumer confidence and legitimacy, and that will fuel growth.” 

Organic growers in California, who have led the nation in the push to eliminate pesticides and other manmade chemicals from the food supply, were concerned that a weak federal standard would dilute the power of the state’s tough organic standards.  

But the final version of the federal rules for growers, processors and retailers turned out to be equally tough, if not more so in some areas. 

“As long as the federal law respects our chosen third-party certifiers, I don’t have a problem with it,” said Jonathan Steinberg, co-owner of Route 1 Farms in Santa Cruz. “We’re long-term organic growers. We’ve been in this 22 years. It probably won’t affect the way I grow much, but it’ll be interesting to see if it affects my costs and if I see more competition.” 

The federal standard also is the culmination of an effort begun in 1973, when a small cooperative, California Certified Organic Farmers, began inspecting and certifying each other’s farming methods and setting standards for just what “organic” means. 

The USDA’s first effort at setting national rules generated overwhelming objections from consumers, farmers and others, since it would have included genetically modified products, irradiated food and even sewage sludge as fertilizer. 

The final version bans genetic engineering or irradiation of organic products, which must be grown without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. The rules also govern such things as composting temperatures and feed for livestock being raised organically. 

To use the “organic” label in supermarkets, an organic farm or processing plant must pay an independent certifier – not a government agent – to inspect its operation. Until now, farms and plants that touted themselves as organic did not have to be certified. 

In California, “organic” farms and plants only had to register with the state and promise to comply with the rules, but state inspectors rarely checked to see if they were being followed. Now, any farm or business producing more than $5,000 in products annually must get certified each year. 

“I think it’s a great thing,” Green said. “The consumer will know that when they buy organic, they get what they pay for.” 

Of the 10,000 farms nationwide that claim to be organic, fewer than 7,000 are approved by the 88 different state or private certifying agencies around the country. Nineteen states have no regulations for organic farming. Eleven others have production standards but no certification process for ensuring that farmers comply with them. 

Consumers can expect to see an increase in organic processed products, since companies now know that if they take the extra effort to produce organic foods, they can get premium prices selling with the “organic” label anywhere in the United States, said Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz. 

“Why we have been so supportive of this and working so hard for so long is it’s consumer friendly,” he said. “There’s finally a labeled product that allows consumers the right to know how their food is grown and processed.” 

The new rules may make organic farming and processing more attractive to bigger growers, especially because supermarkets now have a standard for labeling and marketing their organic foods. And having large-scale producers involved could drive prices down. 

“I think, because they’re federal, we’ll see more of the large retailers getting into organics,” said Brian Leahy, the executive director of CCOF, which inspects operations throughout the state. “I think we’ll see prices getting closer to conventional.” 

Bu Nygrens, the purchasing manager for Veritable Vegetable, a San Francisco wholesaler, said the new rules will mean less work for her company, which has supplied organic fruit and vegetables to specialty supermarkets since 1978. 

Without the federal standard, “individual companies would have to do their own investigation not only of growers and shippers, but evaluating certification industries and finding out what their standards are,” she said. 

“We’re really looking forward to accreditation of growers by a third party and harmonizing export and import, so we don’t have to ask the same questions over and over.” 

LOS ANGELES — Hughes Electronics Corp., which operates the DirecTV satellite television network, is buying Telocity, a nationwide provider of high-speed Internet access, for $180 million in cash, the companies announced Thursday. 

Hughes, of El Segundo, will pay $2.15 for each share of Telocity, which is based in Cupertino. 

Hughes also announced Thursday it has begun shipping its new two-way satellite broadband service, called DirecPC. The company already offers DirecPC Internet service, but it only provides high-speed access for downloads. Messages and files sent from a consumer’s home travel via a 56k modem through a standard telephone line. 

The new service, which should be widely available in three months, includes broadband access in both directions. 

Hughes said the Telocity acquisition will allow it to market broadband services to its current 9 million DirecTV subscribers. The company said the DSL option will complement its DirecPC service and give consumers greater options. 

“This is a true gateway into the home for entertainment and information services,” Michael T. Smith, Hughes chairman and chief executive officer said during a conference call Thursday. “This makes DirecPC and DirecTV even more competitive with digital cable.” 

The acquisition of Telocity gives Hughes a comprehensive offering of services, including its satellite television packages, many of which come bundled with digital recorder devices and options such as AOL TV and Ultimate TV from Microsoft. 

With Telocity, the company can now offer satellite or terrestrial high-speed Internet access and can soon offer broader services, including video on demand, home security and home networking. 

Telocity offers a proprietary gateway unit that is installed by the customer without the need for a service call. Telocity said it currently reaches about 40 percent of the country’s population in 140 metropolitan areas. 

Through its gateway, Telocity offers additional services, including automatic backup of computer files and Internet-based telephone service. 

Smith said DirecPC offers faster speeds than the Telocity DSL option, but at a higher cost to consumers. The satellite also has a limited capacity. 

“This gives us the opportunity to reserve that capacity for areas not well-served by DSL,” Smith said. 

“By bundling Telocity’s capabilities with the high-quality offerings of DirecTV, we will offer consumers the best of both worlds — digital satellite entertainment and high-speed DSL Internet access — though a single portal into their homes,” Edward W. Hartenstein, senior executive vice president of Hughes, said. 

The tender offer to Telocity’s shareholders will begin Feb. 1 and expire April 2. As part of the deal, Hughes has agreed to provide Telocity with $20 million in “interim funding” before completion of the tender offer. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.hughes.com 

http://www.telocity.net 

The California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of a state law that exempts religious organizations from local preservation laws and lets them raze and replace historic church buildings. 

The court, voting 4-3, said the 1994 law did not provide improper state assistance or endorsement of religion. 

“The exemption does not provide governmental assistance to religious organizations carrying out their religious mission,” Justice Marvin R. Baxter wrote for the majority. “By providing the exemption, the state simply stepped out of the way of the religious property owner.” 

The 1994 law stops cities and counties from enforcing historic landmark preservation laws against noncommercial property owned by religious organizations. A religious organization can alter or demolish a historic building if it decides the change is necessary for religious or financial purposes. 

In a dissent, Justice Stanley Mosk wrote that the Legislature is mingling in religious affairs while granting the religious groups broader powers than available to the lay public. 

“They impermissibly single out religious organizations for a special exemption from generally applicable historic landmark preservation laws at the expense of other property owners and to the detriment of the local community’s ability to preserve its history and character,” Mosk wrote. 

The law was sponsored by then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown to aid San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn, who was in the process of closing nine Catholic churches with damaged foundations and declining congregations.  

Some parishioners threatened to sue under landmark preservation laws. 

Brown is now mayor of San Francisco, which challenged the law. 

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Joe Gray ruled in 1996 that the law established an unconstitutional state preference for religious organizations. 

But the 3rd District Court of Appeal overruled him last year and said the law merely removes a potential burden from the practice of religion by allowing religious organizations to decide which of their buildings to preserve. 

San Francisco and preservation groups said in court papers that the appellate decision “gives the Legislature a green light to exempt religious organizations, for purely economic reasons, from all kinds of legislation.” 

The case is East Bay Asian Local Development Corp. vs. California, S077396. 

SAN FRANCISCO — In the strongest sign yet that millions of Californians will soon be paying sharply higher electric bills, state utility regulators Thursday said consumers should pay more to keep the state’s largest electric companies from going bankrupt. 

“We believe that retail rates in California must begin to rise. It’s our intent to maintain the utilities’ access to capital on reasonable terms,” said the Public Utilities Commission, which ordered an independent audit of the utilities’ books before it formally decides whether to lift a rate freeze. 

PUC Chairwoman Loretta Lynch said the new rate increase – its amount is still unknown – would take effect Jan. 4 and show up on consumers’ bills shortly thereafter. 

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said it would raise bills gradually to “protect the consumers against rate shock.” 

With electricity imports slowing to a trickle, managers of the state’s power grid declared another “stage two” alert Thursday, meaning that power reserves are falling dangerously low, below five percent. Consumers were asked to conserve and some commercial customers were warned that they may have to turn off some power. 

In private negotiations with Gov. Gray Davis and other key politicians and regulators, the utilities have asked that customers pay for 20 percent or more of the companies’ debt. 

Before making any such deal, the PUC wants to confirm just how bad the financial picture is for PG&E and Southern California Edison, which together have taken on more than $8 billion in debt buying energy on the open market, but are constrained by a rate freeze from passing the costs on to consumers. San Diego customers, who are not covered by the rate freeze, have seen their bills double or triple. 

The PUC’s action Thursday requires the utilities to open their books to independent auditors and financial analysts selected by the commission. The audits were scheduled to begin Friday morning. 

“We have a public trust to keep the lights on,” Lynch said before the commission unanimously approved the plan. “We need to obtain the facts and we have a legal duty to make sure the facts are accurate.” 

The PUC will hold emergency public hearings next Wednesday and Thursday on the utilities’ finances, allowing consumer advocates, utilities, and power producers to have their say on the rate hikes. 

Consumer advocates say the crisis has been manufactured, and denigrated Standard and Poor’s warning Wednesday that the utilities could lose their credit rating and no longer afford to buy power. They likened it to financial blackmail, designed to scare Davis and the PUC into approving higher rates to protect the interests of investors. 

“Wall Street seems to think that every time a big company gets into trouble, there has to be a bailout by the customers or taxpayers,” said Harvey Rosenfield, executive director of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based watchdog group. 

Those suspicions were echoed Thursday by Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who accused electric companies of manipulating prices. Electricity that normally costs $30 per megawatt hour is now selling for $500 to $1,200 per megawatt hour, Locke said, while some electricity generating plants in California are lying dormant for unexplained reasons. 

“It is pretty obvious there is price manipulation going on,” said Locke, a Democrat. He said high energy costs are resulting in a “massive transfer of wealth, not only out of Washington but out of the West.” 

The utilities have said plants were taken down for needed maintenance when unusually cold weather hit, but they also argue that construction of new power plants has not kept up with growing demand. 

Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, a Republican, said ratepayers throughout the West can expect to pay more for power – even those who live in states like Utah, which generates more power than it consumes. California “has a regulatory system that is clearly not working,” Leavitt said, but the rest of the states in the grid will be affected by it. 

“The bottom line is, the market is solving the supply problem,” Leavitt said. “We just haven’t received the bill yet.” 

It wasn’t immediately clear if the PUC’s action on Thursday was enough to buy the utilities more time with Standard & Poors. PG&E vice president Dan Edwards said the utility expects to hear from the credit-rating agency on Friday. 

The political stakes couldn’t be higher for Gov. Davis, who has enjoyed high approval ratings but has been accused of failing to take action to avert the energy crisis, which has led to almost daily threats of brownouts and concerns that the state’s economy could suffer if the utilities go under. 

“He’s walking a tightrope,” said the governor’s spokesman, Steve Maviglio. Davis must balance consumer outrage over higher electric bills against the need for the utilities to stay solvent. 

Initial reaction from consumers suggests they won’t quietly accept the higher bills. 

“I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t think they should have deregulated it in the first place,” said electrician Lynn Barron, 43, of Fontana, in San Bernardino County. “It’s going to hurt my pocketbook.” 

Davis has little power over the energy market – only the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can set price controls or force energy wholesalers to lock in prices with long-term contracts, two solutions advocated by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. 

But the governor, who has strong influence on the PUC, can sign legislation to re-regulate California’s energy market, and use state money to help consumers or bail out the utilities. And even if they do go bankrupt, he could order them to continue providing electricity, with the state stepping in to guarantee their credit. 

After the PUC vote Thursday, utility watchdogs expressed skepticism about the audits as well, noting that with combined assets of $71 billion, Edison International and PG&E are major clients of virtually all the Big Five auditors. 

“The danger is that the audits become a whitewash of the utilities’ cooked books,” said Doug Heller, a consumer advocate with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. 

Utility critics contend that the utilities have made billions off their own power plants since 1998 while also profiting from energy market conditions that worked to their advantage until this year. In 1998 and 1999, for instance, PG&E’s electricity revenues exceeded its electricity costs by $9.6 billion. So far this year, PG&E has paid $4.6 billion more for electricity than it has received from customers. 

Out-of-state energy suppliers worry they too could go under if PG&E and SoCal Edison can’t pay them. Arizona’s New West Energy, which was powering 600,000 California homes, said Wednesday it was cutting off supplies, although it still would have to sell its excess energy to California under an emergency order from Richardson. 

Besides mulling rate increases, Davis and Richardson are pushing for a $100 per-megawatt-hour rate cap on all wholesale electricity sold in the Western states, but other Western governors are wary, and S&P said that proposal won’t solve the problem. 

——— 

On The Net: 

http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings 

http://www.ratepayerrevolt.org 

NEW YORK — Investors sought bargains on Wall Street Thursday, sending blue chips soaring while leaving the Nasdaq in positive territory for the first time in eight sessions. 

Overall, the market shrugged off a spate of profit warnings and its fears that the economy is slowing too much.  

“We’ve got a sense that a lot of the bad news has been priced into the marketplace. We are very oversold,” said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst for Jefferies & Co. “This is a bargain hunters market. 

Stocks have been trending lower since around Labor Day, as investors have sold off stocks – mainly in the high-tech sector – on fears that an economic slowdown, high interest rates and decreased consumer confidence would further soften profits. High-tech stocks, which had been premium priced, have been hit the hardest.on March 10, 2000. Investors on Thursday were somewhat optimistic that the newest sign of an economic slowdown would prompt the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates before it meets again at the end of January, analysts said. 

The government earlier in the day revised its annual growth rate from 2.4 percent to 2.2 percent in the summer, saying the gross domestic product was even weaker than previously believed. as the trade deficit deteriorated further. 

The Dow industrials posted nearly across-the-board advances, a reverse from the widespread losses seen Wednesday. Wal-Mart climbed $2.81 to $51.75, and Coca Cola rose $3.13 to $59.38. 

Tech issues also bumped up the Dow and the Nasdaq. Microsoft gained $1.94 to close at $43.44, and Intel moved $1.19 to $33.13. 

Investors want a sustainable rally but won’t commit to setting off one yet, analysts said. 

“Emotionally, investors are ready to do that. Whether there is a catalyst for them to do that is another issue,” said Alan Ackerman, executive vice president of Fahnestock & Co. “All eyes are on the Fed.” 

Until the Fed lowers rates, market watchers expect investors to continue to dump companies whose profit outlooks are weak. 

Earnings warnings early Thursday from Lucent Technologies and Xerox sent those shares downward but had little effect on the overall market, analysts said. 

Lucent lost $1.31 to trade at $14.19. Before the market opened, Lucent warned of poor first-quarter profits and announced a restructuring plan that will lead to cuts in excess of $1 billion 

Xerox, which said it likely will have a softer-than-expected fourth-quarter performance, was off $1.19 to $4.81. 

“We are used to those companies warning,” said Hogan, the analyst for Jefferies. “Lucent is four (quarters) for four. I don’t think the market had that major of a reaction to it.” 

Dow industrial AT&T, which warned that fourth-quarter earnings would be disappointing after the market closed Wednesday, fell $1.88 to $17.06. 

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 7 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange where volume was 1.40 billion shares, down from 1.42 billion on Wednesday. 

The Russell 2000 Index, which tracks the performance of smaller companies, was up 3.23 at 447.03. 

Overseas markets were lower. Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 3.5 percent, and Germany’s DAX index tumbled 0.8 percent. Britain’s FT-SE 100 lost 1.0 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.1 percent. 

——— 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

HODGKINS, Ill. — Not counting Santa’s workshop, or maybe Macy’s on Christmas Eve, it would be tough to find a busier place during the holidays than UPS’s mammoth package-processing plant outside Chicago. If the slowing economy has put a chill on holiday shopping, no such evidence was visible at the frenzied facility Tuesday on “Peak Day,” the busiest shipping day of the year. 

Nearly 11,000 workers scrambled against an unmissable deadline, processing more than 1.7 million packages and documents. Worldwide, United Parcel Service estimated it would ship 19 million packages this past Tuesday as momentum from the online shopping boom carries it and its competitors to another record-breaking holiday season. 

“It’s really intense. Everything is on the go, on the go,” said Brandon Ashana, 20, a “jam-breaker” assigned to help prevent parcels from getting mashed as they speed through the dizzying 65-mile network of conveyor belts. 

A fleet of 3,800 trucks ferried parcels in and out of the plant, while next to snowy railway tracks 200 yards away, workers loaded one of a dozen trains full of UPS goods that were due to depart by day’s end. 

One in every 10 of the 325 million packages that UPS anticipates delivering worldwide between Thanksgiving and Christmas will come through this little suburb, which Atlanta-based UPS chose as its main shipping point because of Chicago’s transportation hub and large labor pool. 

The facility – the world’s biggest and busiest package distribution facility, according to UPS – is as long as three aircraft carriers and twice as wide. 

The explosive growth in Internet shopping may be slowing. Commercial shipping leaders UPS and FedEx warned last week that revenues for the holiday period will not be as great as predicted because of public uneasiness with a slipping economy. 

But nearly 45 million Americans are expected to do holiday shopping online this year. 

FedEx spokeswoman said the overnight delivery company shipped 6.5 million packages on Monday, its busiest day, up 5 percent from last year’s holiday peak. The Postal Service estimates it will handle 191 million packages during the holidays, also a 5 percent increase from 1999. 

UPS handles more than half of all online purchases, and the fate of some e-retailers may ride on whether the company delivers their Christmas orders on time. 

After some Christmas Day disappointments in 1999 that resulted from bad planning by dot-coms, the shipping giant spent considerable time coaching them to improve coordination this year. UPS also continues to upgrade the heavily computerized plant, where conveyor belts speed at up to 500 feet per second, 80,000 sensors keep track of them, and dozens of employees man computer banks in a room that looks like Mission Control. 

With three days to go and overtime pay opportunities flowing, employees were in a holiday mood despite the din of conveyor belt rollers, clanging warning bells and motorized carts. 

On the Net: 

UPS: http://www.ups.com 

FedEx: http://www.fedex.com 

DHL: http://www.dhl.com 

Postal Service: http://www.usps.com 

After neighbors of a proposed antennae site raised concerns about exposure to electromagnetic radiation emissions, the City Council adopted a 45-day moratorium Tuesday on the placement of all new antennae that support wireless communications. 

The council unanimously approved the recommendation by Mayor Shirley Dean and Councilmembers Mim Hawley and Betty Olds, which sends the question of antenna placement to the Planning Commission. Commissioners will try to determine exactly what the city can legally do to restrict antennae in residential neighborhoods. 

“I don’t know if the city can do an outright ban in residential areas,” Dean said. “But if there’s a possibility of restricting antennae based on health concerns, then we should do it.” 

The city’s 1996 Wireless Communications Guidelines strongly discourages antennae in residential neighborhoods, but the Zoning Adjustments Board has approved every residential antennae application that has come before it.  

Commissioners and city staff have said that, according to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, municipalities are  

precluded from regulating the location of above-ground communications equipment for any reasons other than aesthetics. 

In a related action, the council set a public hearing for Jan. 23, for an appeal of the 12 antennae atop the Oaks Theater on Solano Avenue. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board approved a Nextel Corporation application for the antennae Oct. 12. The appeal was filed by a neighbor concerned about health risks. A number of concerned neighbors oppose the location of the antennae, including those who cite studies in the United Kingdom, which claim a growing body of evidence that exposure to electromagnetic radiation from cell phones and wireless communication antennae is hazardous, especially to children.  

“I’m sure the neighbors will have something to say and the folks who want to put up the antennae will probably be there,” said Councilmember Mim Hawley, who moved the resolution to set the appeal date. 

Allen Michaan, the owner of Renaissance Rialto, which runs the Oaks Theater said the property owner was responsible for the antennae application. He said he is upset about a neighborhood perception that he is responsible. 

“We’re very unhappy to be in the middle of this,” he said. 

The Daily Planet was unable to reach the owner of the theater property, Don Lee, in time for this story. 

The ZAB also had been considering an antennae application from Sprint Corporation for placement of seven antennae on the roof of the Jewish Community Center on Walnut Street, however the JCC Board of Directors has temporarily withdrawn the application because of member concern. There are several preschool programs and an after-school program, which operate at the JCC. 

*** 

A related issue was the adoption of a Telecommunications Ordinance by the council Tuesday night. Some residents hoped the ordinance would include restrictions on locating the antennae.  

As long as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 restricts most local regulation for the antennae, however, the local ordinance would be unable to include placement regulations.  

So, at the meeting Tuesday, Berkeley resident Erica Etelson asked the council to delay approving the new local ordinance until the conclusion of a pending Supreme Court case, Citizens For Appropriate Placement of Communications Facilities vs. the Federal Communication Commission, which is challenging the portion of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that prohibits municipalities from restricting antennae placement for health concerns (the case can be found on the web at www.emernetwork.org). 

“The case has received a lot of (supporting) briefs from other municipalities,” Etelson said. “There should be a decision by the court next summer.” 

The council approved the new ordinance 7-1-1 with the assurances of City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque that it can be amended according to any changes in FCC law. Councilmember Kriss Worthington opposed the ordinance and Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek abstained.

Thursday, Dec. 21

Berkeley Metaphysic  

Toastmasters Club 

6:15 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. 

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysic come together at Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters. Meets first and third Thursdays each month. 

Call 869-2547 or 643-7645 

Workshop on seasons 

3:45 p.m. 

Cesar Chavez Park: on the high ground overlooking the bay, about 300 yards south of Spinnaker road 

An informal workshop on the astronomical reasons for the seasons, an update on the progress of the solar calendar project, and to watch the setting of the solstice sun. 642-3375 

Free Anonymous HIV Testing 

5:15 - 7:15 p.m. 

Check in 5 - 7 p.m. 

University Health Services 

Tang Center  

2222 Bancroft Way 

Drop-in services and limited space is available. Call 642-7202 

Environmental Musicfest  

8 p.m. 

La Pena  

3105 Shattuck Ave.  

Alicia Littletree and Timothy Hull, both known for commitment to social and environmental issues, perform.  

$5 - $7  

Call 415-927-1645 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

Free shuttle from downtown Berkeley BART available. Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

528-6983 for details 

Friday, Dec. 22

Music in the Streets 

5 - 7 p.m. 

Strolling through downtown  

Berkeley Community Chamber Chorus & These “R” They Gospel Youth Choir 

Holiday Celebration 

Noon 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Includes a holiday meal and an opera, “Kiri’s Coventry Xmas.”  

Call 644-6107 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph.  

Call Linda, 528-6983 for details 

Saturday, Dec. 23

Farmers’ Market Craft Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.  

MLK Jr. Civic Center Park  

(Center at MLK Jr. Way) 

Local craftspeople will be selling a variety of handcrafted gifts. Also live music, massage, and hot apple cider. Free 

Call 548-3333 

Royal Hawaiian Ukulele Band 

Noon - 2 p.m. 

1561 Solano Ave. 

One of many performers doing their stuff on Solano during the holidays. Performances every weekend afternoon till Christmas.  

Berkeley Farmers’ MarketNinth Annual Holiday Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

MLK Jr. Civic Center Park  

Klesmeh! Festival  

8 p.m.  

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave.  

A Hanukkah concert of Klesmer music and its mutations, featuring the San Francisco Klesmer experience. Hosted by Berkeley monologist/comedian Josh Kornbluth.  

$18 advance, $20 door; $16 kids and seniors Call 415-454-5238 

Telegraph Holiday Street Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. (between Dwight and Bancroft) 

Validated parking will be offered at UC’s West Anna Lot, located on Channing Way just east of Telegraph. 528-6983 for details 

Sunday, Dec. 24

Ancient Winds 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

1573 Solano Ave. 

One of many performers doing their stuff on Solano during the holidays. Performances every weekend afternoon till Christmas.  

Tuesday, Dec. 26

Kwanzaa! 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

Join storyteller Awele Makeba as she shares tale and a capella songs from African and African-American history, culture, and folklore which celebrate the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Included with admission to the museum. $7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 Call 642-5132 

Blood Pressure Testing 

9:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Alice Meyers 

Call 644-6107 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Wednesday, Dec. 27 

Magic Mike 

Noon and 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Special effects, magic, juggling, ventriloquism, and outrageous comedy is what Parent’s Choice Award winner Magic Mike is all about. Included in price of museum admission. $7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 Call 642-5132 

Tai Chi Chuan for Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) Call 644-6107 

Thursday, Dec. 28

Season of Lights  

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

The Imagination Company brings to life world winter celebrations and highlights the significance of light to several culture. Included in museum admission price. $7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Imani In the Village 

2 p.m. 

Claremont Library 

2940 Benvenue  

Percussionist James Henry presents a drumming and dance program for all ages. Audience participation invited. Call 649-3943 

Death of the Lecturer 

7 p.m. 

West Branch Library 

1125 University Ave.  

Calling all detectives, those who enjoy reading mysteries, playing Clue, and solving crossword puzzles to untangle the reason for the final fate confrontation. 649-3926 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Friday, Dec. 29

Earthcapades 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Join Hearty and Lissin as they blend storytelling, juggling, acrobatics, and more, to entertain and teach about saving the environment. Included in museum admission. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Saturday, Dec. 30

Bats of the World  

1 & 2:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Maggie Hooper, an educator with the California Bat Conservation Fund, will show slides, introduce three live, tame, and indigenous bats, and answer your questions about these fascinating creatures. Included in admission to the museum. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Kwanzaa Celebration 

4 p.m. 

South Branch Library  

1901 Russell St.  

Muriel Johnson of Abiyomi Storytelling is the featured storyteller at the library’s annual celebration which also includes a formal Kwanzaa ceremony.  

Call 649-3943 

Sunday, Dec. 31

Light Up the Lights! 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive 

UC Berkeley 

Popular songmeister Gary Lapow performs traditional holiday music from around the world. Included in price of museum admission. 

$7 adults; $5 children 5 - 18, seniors and students; $3 children 3-4 

Call 642-5132 

Compiled by Chason Wainwright 

When eligible voters do not participate, what do you expect? 

Editor: 

We have just witnessed an audacious demonstration of partisan politics on the part of the U.S. Supreme court, the Florida legislature, their Secretary of State and the Republican party at large. This abuse of democratic principle did not, however, develop in a vacuum.  

Had there been a healthy participation in the process by most eligible voters it would have been very unlikely that these political power brokers could have gotten away with what they did.  

This kind of cancerous exploitation of the body politique is made possible by the anticipation of voter apathy and the endemic complacency that characterizes modern American politics.  

Does anyone really believe with a voter turnout of 80-90 percent that we would have what is essentially a tie in Florida? Or, that the Republicans could fly their legislative and judicial hypocrisy in the face of an involved and informed voting public? Or that Ralph Nader, the only candidate who generated any real passion, could be kept out of the national television debates by a commission cynically created by and for the two major parties? 

As long as 50 percent of the eligible voters sit on their hands in supercilious relation to their responsibilities as citizens of a democracy, we are inviting these kinds of outrages and insults to the integrity of the process we supposedly esteem.  

There was no excuse for not voting in this election. A wide range of choices across the political spectrum was on that ballot. Moreover, there are always local elections, bond issues and initiatives to consider.  

People forget that young men got their guts blown up on the beaches of Normandie and elsewhere so as to protect our  

right to vote and have that  

vote counted. 

Those of us who are too busy or cynical to bother educating ourselves and spending a few hours each year making reasoned decisions on who shall lead us and how our lives should be governed don't deserve to live in a country based on these values.  

Eligible nonvoters should be fined and if still unconvinced, deported to a country where they DO THE VOTING FOR YOU! 

Freedom is part and parcel of the ethos of our country. But the freedom to do nothing is not part of that social-political contract. It's time to send these holier than thou parasites a strong message: Take your smug, self-satisfied complacency....elsewhere. 

Marcus O'Realius 

Oakland

Riding a three-game winning streak, Cal hopes to maintain its momentum when the Bears meet Georgia in the fourth annual Pete Newell Challenge Thursday, Dec. 21. Cal is also a perfect 3-0 in previous Challenges, with wins over BYU (68-64 in 1998), North Carolina (78-71 in ’99) and Gonzaga (72-64 in ’00).  

However, the Bears must overcome the effects of a 10-day layoff for final exams before facing the Bulldogs. Earlier this season, Cal had a 14-day break between games (from Nov. 15-29) and came back with a pair of losses on the road at Saint Louis and UC Irvine.  

This time, though, the Bears are essentially at home at the Oakland Arena, where they have won 17 of their past 20 games. In addition, Cal is playing its best basketball of the young season. The Bears held high-scoring Colorado to more than 31 points below its season average in a 75-63 win Dec. 9. Cal then shot a season-high 50.8 percent from the floor in a 95-61 victory over Albany two days later.  

Individually, senior forward Sean Lampley continues to pace the team in both scoring (16.0 ppg) and rebounding (7.4 rpg). He has reached double figures in points six times in seven games to move up to 13th on Cal’s career scoring chart (1,283 points). In addition, Lampley has shot 53.5 percent from the floor in his last four games.  

The Bears are also getting strong inside play from centers Solomon Hughes and Nick Vander Laan. Hughes, who has come off the bench the last four games, leads the Pac-10 in field goal shooting at 71.9 percent and has scored at least 10 points in all four home games. Vander Laan ranks second to Lampley in rebounding with 6.9 per game and scored a season-high 12 points vs. Albany.  

On the outside, point guard Shantay Legans seems to have found his offensive rhythm, averaging 13.0 ppg and 5.0 apg his last two times out. During that span, he has made 50.0% of his field goal attempts, including 5-of-9 from three-point range.  

Cal’s best outside threat, though, is junior Ryan Forehan-Kelly, the Bears career leader in three-point percentage (44.3%). This season, Forehan-Kelly is 11-for-24 from behind the arc (45.8%) and is averaging 8.3 ppg. 

The Bulldogs (6-4) have won four of their last five games, but are coming off of a 75-57 loss to Wake Forest. They are led by guard D.A. Layne, their leading scorer at 16.3 points per game. Coach Jim Harrick’s team doesn’t have a true point guard, as Layne leads the team in assists with just 2.7 per game, but have three solid shotblockers in Shon Coleman, Anthony Evans and Robb Dryden. They will likely try to pound the ball inside against Hughes and Vander Laan, as Legans should be able to dominate in the matchup at point. 

No. 1 Duke will play No. 3 Stanford in the opening game of the Pete Newell Classic at 6 p.m.

As Californians wait for the energy crisis to send utility rates through the roof, the City Council is looking into the possibility of running its own electric company. 

On the recommendation of the Commission on Aging, the City Council adopted a resolution to have the Energy Commission thoroughly examine the possibility of the city becoming an electricity provider. The motion was approved by an 8-1 vote with Councilmember Polly Armstrong the only vote in opposition. 

Chairman Charlie Betcher said the Commission on Aging approved the recommendation largely because of concern for the city’s 20,000 seniors and disabled who live on fixed incomes. 

“These are people who will have to decide after paying rent each month whether to buy food or pay utilities,” Betcher said. 

The state declared a Stage two alert both Tuesday and Wednesday when power reserves dipped below 5 percent.  

PG &E reportedly will have to lay off employees and will absorb billions of dollars in losses. 

In the present environment, the Energy Commission will have to carefully consider the pros and cons of starting up an electric company. 

“It’s not clear if municipalization is the answer,” said Neal DeSnoo, secretary of the Energy Commission.  

“Whatever company is formed would have to purchase energy from the same wholesalers that existing utility companies do.” 

DeSnoo said Berkeley has an aging infrastructure of poles and wires and the cost of maintenance may eat up any potential cost savings. He said PG&E can spread out high maintenance costs in areas like Berkeley with lower costs from newly developed areas like Hercules.  

In their recommendation, the Commission on Aging referred to the City of Alameda and other municipalities, which run their own electric companies. But DeSnoo said they were formed a long time ago in an environment more favorable to municipal ownership.  

He said an example was the Federal Public Preference Program in which municipalities were given discounts on hydroelectricity produced in the northwest. 

“That program hasn’t existed in over 10 years,” he said.  

Crises in housing, health care and the environment are just a few of the issues stacked regularly on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ plates. 

Alice Lai-Bitker, appointed to the board Tuesday in a unanimous vote by the four board members, doesn’t flinch from the tasks ahead. 

“I’m ready to take the challenge and do the work,” she said Wednesday. 

As soon as she is sworn in, Lai-Bitker will take the place of former Supervisor Wilma Chan, D-Alameda, elected to the State Assembly seat formerly held by Green-turned- independent-turned-Democrat Audie Bock. Lai-Bitker worked as an assistant to Chan for six years. 

While Lai-Bitker does not directly represent Berkeley – Supervisor Keith Carson does – she says she will be an ally in addressing some of the issues Berkeley faces.  

One of her goals is to address the problem of the uninsured, people who earn too much money to receive MediCal, but who do not get adequate insurance benefits from their employers. 

Skyrocketing housing costs and rents that cause some to leave the county and others to go out on the streets is another issue Lai-Bitker plans to address. “Housing issues are not jurisdictional,” she said. 

She said she plans to work with Carson, especially on health care and housing issues. 

Carson said he is looking forward to working with the new supervisor, whose district includes parts of Oakland, San Leandro and Alameda. 

“She has been visible in the health committee meetings,” Carson said, adding that Lai-Bitker will work for solutions to the housing crisis.  

The greatest challenge Lai-Bitker might encounter, Carson said, “is that she’s “never been the policy maker.” But Carson, once an aide himself to former Rep. Ron Dellums, acknowledged that he had to go through the same learning curve when he was voted into office. 

Lai-Bitker, who was born in Hong Kong and emigrated as a graduate student to the Bay Area in 1983, will be the lone Asian on the board, as her predecessor was. “It’s good government when you have as many diverse voices at the decision-making table (as you can),” Carson said. 

The soon-to-be supervisor agrees. “It’s important to have that representation,” said Lai-Bitker whose volunteer efforts have included voter registration and education in the Asian community. 

Lai-Bitker lives in Alameda and is married to KCBS sportscaster Steve Bitker. She has two children 14 and 9. 

“I do not have the ambition of higher office,” Lai-Bitker said in her application to the supervisors for the post. “In fact, I am seeking the appointment only because I care about the district and the county, and I want to make a difference in people’s lives.” 

*** 

On Tuesday, in addition to voting Lai-Bitker into office, the supervisors declared an emergency in Alameda County housing. Some 200 people spoke in favor of adopting the state of emergency at the meeting, Carson said.  

Approving the resolution means setting “truly low-cost” housing high on the priority list for the supervisors, Carson said. 

The omnibus budget bill that passed Congress last week allocated $350,000 to improve the safety and security systems at Berkeley High School.  

Meanwhile, in Berkeley, administrators plod through the steps of bringing the project to fruition. 

The entire security system became the focal point of attention after several arson fires at Berkeley High School during the 1999-2000 school year. 

“Our City Council had been very concerned about how to keep students and staff alerted to emergency situations,” said Arrietta Chakos, the city manager’s chief of staff.  

Press releases from both Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, announcing the appropriation, mentioned the incidents of arson to indicate need for an improved safety and alarm system. 

The federal money will be used to improve the current intercom so that in case of an emergency the principal will be able to reach each classroom, said Karen Sarlo, public information officer for Berkeley Unified School District.  

“What we have right now is a working intercom system that goes from room to room and room to office,” said Leu Jones, manager of facilities planning for the school district. “What we don’t have are speakers that allow general announcements.”  

He said they also hoped to put speakers in the hallways. 

Chakos said the school district did estimates ahead of time for the cost of the system, so that the funding would be sufficient for the project.  

“What we’re likely to do is expand the existing intercom system we have, in which case (the federal money) may be enough to cover it,” Jones said. 

If they discover that they need to redo many parts of the system, the federal money may be supplemented by bond money, he said. 

The Office of the City Manager will administer the federal funds. “The whole effort was initiated by our City Council and our mayor, who wrote to congresswoman Lee and Senators Feinstein and Boxer,” said Chakos. “Their staff searched around for the appropriate funding vehicle.” She said that the process began in April, and those involved continued to send letters over the subsequent months. 

“Generally at the end of the legislative session they will roll bills together and pass them as one omnibus bill,” said Andrew Sousa, Lee’s press secretary. “It’s easier to pass one large bill.” 

Turning the federal grant into communication wires will not happen overnight.  

Jones said that figuring out the pieces needed will take between three and four months, and the bidding process for contractors will take another three months. 

Another portion of the security system, a camera surveillance project, has already been in the works for months. Sept. 6 the school board voted to install video cameras, which will tape footage to be reviewed in case of any incidents.  

In order for the project to begin, the school district must invite contractors to submit bids to provide materials and labor. The school district must then accept the lowest bidder meeting certain criteria. If a bidder for the cameras is found this go round and the school board approves the contract in January, “The contract can start the next day,” schools spokesperson Sarlo said. In earlier bidding periods, she said, no responsible bidder was found, slowing up the process.  

Today the bids for the surveillance project were opened: the two components of the contract, materials and labor, each received two bids. The bids ranged from $150,00 to $250,000, and Jones estimated that the entire project may cost approximately $400,000. 

Bond AA, which passed on Nov. 7, set aside $1.1 million for high school safety and communications systems. Money that doesn’t go to the surveillance cameras or intercom project – up to $700,000 – can be used for other purposes. 

“The security cameras are not covering everything on the campus. We might try to expand that,” said Jones, adding that they also might try new forms of communication, perhaps via television sets. “There’s a number of ways to approach it,” he said. 

Gerry Tenney encourages his audience to sing very high and “fancy” in a rendition of a song to teach vowels as part of a series of events the library is calling “A Season of Family Celebrations.” Tenney performed at the West Berkeley Public Library Wednesday afternoon. The last session in the series will be “Drumming and Dance” with percussionist James Henry at 2 p.m. Dec. 28 at the Claremont branch of the library at Benvenue and Ashby avenues.

OAKLAND— Conventional wisdom holds that the pre-Christmas rush can lead to depression, but one mental health expert says emotionally vulnerable people should pay closer attention to the calm after the storm. 

Richard Bee, a mental health professional at a Berkeley extension of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, says people may actually feel better, not worse, in the time leading up to December 25. 

“I feel there is a decrease (in depression) over Christmas because people get together with family. It's after Christmas that the bomb may drop so to speak,” he said. 

Bee is uniquely qualified to know the patterns of holiday depression. As admissions liaison for the Herrick Campus, a Berkeley psychiatric center owned by Alta Bates Summit, Bee serves as a preliminary go-between for the psychiatric center and patients, often determining who needs help and what kind. 

“In my experience we have more admissions over New Year’s than over Christmas,'' he said. 

Bee said deflated expectations of the holiday – reality checks such as family strife or wistfulness for more innocent times – is what can lead to Christmastime depression. But it's a feeling that tends to set in after the holiday is over, he said. 

Oakland psychiatrist Dr. Paul Guillory, whose office is located near the Summit hospitals, was not convinced that Christmas Day marked a cutoff for patterns of depression. He said such feelings arise during the whole season, not necessarily after Christmas is over.  

“I think the holidays in general can be both exciting to some people and more depressing to others,” he said. “It's more the season I think than Christmas Day itself.” 

Guillory agreed, however, on the cause of holiday depression. 

“There's certainly a lot of hype around Christmas that some people don't feel.” 

He said while this is a shared experience during the holidays, some people are more susceptible to clinical depression due to past experiences, chemical predisposition, or other factors. 

EMERYVILLE — Assemblymember Dion Aroner, D-Oakland/Berkeley, has scheduled meetings with Alameda County Superintendent Shiela Jordan and State Superintendent Delaine Eastin to discuss the financial status of the Emeryville School District. 

In a report released last night at the Emery Board of Education meeting, it was revealed that the school district is nearly $2 million in debt. This potentially triggers a state takeover of the troubled school district. 

“The district is clearly in trouble and needs some assistance,” said Aroner.  

“It is going to be very difficult for them to pay their bills and employees without some help from the state. I plan on meeting with Superintendent Jordan and Superintendent Eastin today to discuss options.  

“However, at the level of assistance we are talking about, the state is probably the only one who can afford to help us.” 

Aroner plans to introduce legislation to help bail out the district and to create a new system of checks and balances for superintendents. Emery Unified School District recently changed superintendents after the former superintendent, J.L. Handy resigned amidst allegations of financial mismanagement. Handy left the Compton School District $5 million in debt before taking over Emeryville's schools in 1993. The Emery Unified School District now may have to endure the same fate that faced Compton; the prospect of having a state administrator step in and manage the school district. 

OAKLAND — A woman who murdered her sister and impersonated her in public after stuffing her dismembered body in a freezer was sentenced Tuesday to life without parole. 

Sarah Mitchell, 50, of Oakland, was found guilty Nov. 21 of murdering her sister, Stevie Allman, a 52-year-old anti-drug crusader. 

The Alameda County jury spent more than three days in deliberations before returning the verdict against Mitchell, who was charged with murder with the special circumstance of financial gain. 

Prosecutors had requested the death penalty, but Deputy District Attorney Terry Wiley said he respected the jury’s decision. 

Wiley had argued that Mitchell’s plan was to impersonate her sister to withdraw money from her trust accounts. 

In the summer of 1997, Mitchell began posing as Allman. When the home they shared burned down, Mitchell claimed they had been the victims of a firebombing and blamed it on disgruntled drug dealers. 

Mitchell fooled others and received $3,600 in sympathy checks. Then-Gov. Pete Wilson offered a $50,000 reward for information in the case. 

Police soon discovered Allman was really Mitchell. Then, on July 16 of that year, they found Allman’s body. She had been murdered, dismembered and stuffed into a freezer sealed with duct tape in the ruins of her home. 

SACRAMENTO — In education offices around the state, brightly colored textbooks with bunnies and tigers on the front promise to help California teachers make their students math whizzes. 

Despite their cute look, the shiny new books are supposed to teach serious math – not the “fuzzy math” that the state rejected in 1997. 

The state Board of Education next month decides which of 23 sets of books should make the approved list of textbooks that local districts can buy with state money. 

They are the first books for elementary and middle schools aimed at complying with California’s tough 1997 skills-based math standards that specify what children in each grade should master. The books, produced by 15 publishers, are on public display through Jan. 8 in 24 county education offices. 

The state board’s Jan. 10 vote is one of the final steps in a process to toughen California schools that began in the mid-1990s as a response to sagging test scores. 

Teachers can use the new books to prepare students for the challenge of algebra, now taken by fewer than two-thirds of California students. Today’s ninth-graders will have to complete algebra and pass a new high school exit test that includes algebra to graduate. 

That formula is reflected in recommendations by the board’s 16-member Curriculum Commission, the final of four advisory committees of math experts, teachers and community members that have spent 18 months reviewing the books. 

The commission recommends that the board approve 12 of the textbook sets. It also recommends for eighth grade three sets of algebra books by two publishers. 

Using state funds that have greatly increased in the last two years, teachers in California’s nearly 1,000 districts who have tried to meet the standards with old materials will now have brand-new books. 

“It means the children will have available to them textbooks that represent our rigorous standards,” says Kerry Mazzoni, Gov. Gray Davis’ education secretary. 

Mazzoni says teachers and schools have complained that the state judges them on student test performance without supplying “the kind of textbooks they needed to provide the kind of education we expect for our children in California.” 

For the publishers, ranging from industry giants to small new companies, a spot on California’s list means a piece of the nation’s largest market – its 8,000 schools, six million children and a state book budget of $780 million this year. 

No one knows how many of the pre-standards “fuzzy math” books, from the state’s 1994 list, are still in classrooms. 

“It’s a patchwork, even within districts, even within schools,” says David Klein, a mathematics professor at California State University, Northridge. 

“Replacing abysmal books with high-quality books should significantly benefit California’s children,” says Michael McKeown of Mathematically Correct, a national group started in San Diego and that lobbies for skills-based math teaching. 

When the state adopted the standards in 1997, the battle was between advocates of traditional, back-to-basics math instruction and proponents of math reasoning, which uses group instruction and calculators and aims at deeper understanding. The basics, skills-based side won. 

Klein says the math reasoning system encouraged students to “invent arithmetic all by themselves” in groups with calculators. 

“You end up not learning a lot of arithmetic and there’s a big crash in high school and college, if they get that far,” he says. 

“California led the U.S. in first adopting the latest fad,” says McKeown, also a professor of medical science at Brown University. “Luckily, California has been one of the first to come to its senses.” 

Ruth Cossey, president of the California Mathematics Council, whose 10,000 members are math educators from preschool through college, agrees that it’s critical teachers and students have current materials. 

However, she says other books not on the list could also help students improve their math. 

“Some were never submitted because they did not think they would get a fair hearing,” says Cossey, also a professor of math education at Mills College in Oakland. 

ON THE NET 

Find an office where you can view the books  

through Jan. 8 at:  

www.cde.ca.gov/cilbranch/eltdiv/lrdc.htm 

Read the math standards at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/board/pdf/math.pdf 

Read about mathematics instruction at 

http://mathematicallycorrect.com 

http://cmc-math.org 

WASHINGTON — The on-again, off-again mission to faraway Pluto may be a go if NASA can do it on the cheap and without imposing long delays on a planned exploration of one of Jupiter’s moons. 

Ed Weiler, the chief of space science, announced Wednesday that the agency was seeking proposals that would make it possible to send a robot craft to Pluto before the most distant of solar system planets sweeps out of reach. 

A launch planned in 2004 to Pluto, the only planet not yet visited by a robot probe, was  

canceled in June when costs  

spiraled. 

Weiler said at the time that rising expenses for the Pluto-Kuiper Express were threatening the schedule for a higher-priority mission: sending a probe to Europa, a Jupiter moon that may harbor an ocean and possibly life. 

The costs of the Europa and Pluto missions had risen from $650 million to $1.5 billion, said Weiler, who acted to stay within budget and preserve the Europa mission. 

The decision prompted protests from space-oriented organizations such as the Planetary Society and the American Astronomical Society. 

Planetary scientists were concerned that the opportunity to explore Pluto would be lost for years. Reaching Pluto with current technology requires a spacecraft to first pass by Jupiter, picking up speed with a gravitational boost.  

After 2006, Pluto will move out of alignment for such a boost from Jupiter and the opportunity for a Pluto mission could be lost for about 20 years. 

Under the new plan, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is soliciting proposals for a cheaper Pluto mission that would have only a modest impact on the Europa mission launch plans. A delay of the Europa mission to 2008 would be acceptable, Weiler said, but not much beyond that. The Europa mission has a high interest and support because early studies suggests that the Jovian moon has an ice-capped ocean.  

Some scientists believe that if this is true, then there is a possibility life may exist there.  

The search for life beyond the Earth is one of NASA’s highest priorities.  

Weiler said NASA will accept Pluto mission proposals from any organization, including universities, aerospace companies and even NASA centers, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was in charge of the canceled Pluto mission. 

“We’ll leave it to the best minds in the country to determine the mission,” he said. “We are trying to cast the net wide to see what ideas are out there.” 

Weiler said NASA is open to considering any “viable option” but is not committed to a Pluto mission. 

At least two of the proposals, which are due March 19, will be picked in May for more study. If NASA concludes a Pluto mission is possible, the announcement will be made next fall, Weiler said. 

The proposals require that a spacecraft, with specific scientific and imaging capabilities, reach Pluto by 2015 and cost no more than $500 million. 

“We are gratified that NASA is trying to restore the Pluto mission to its launch schedule,” Louis Friedman, director of the Planetary Society, said in a statement. 

He said both the Europa and Pluto missions are “essential steps in exploring our planetary environment” and NASA “must find a way to launch missions to both worlds in the next eight years.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

Pluto-Kuiper Express site: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ice—fire//pkexprss.htm 

Europa Orbiter site: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ice—fire//europao.htm 

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on Wednesday extended for a week an order requiring Western generators to sell electricity to power-strapped California. 

Richardson, who supports a  

regionwide cap on wholesale electricity prices, also urged Western governors to work together to solve problems that have created power shortages in California and tripled prices for some consumers. 

Richardson met with five governors at an emergency meeting of the Western Governors Association. 

The five, some of whom were skeptical of the price cap, called for several specific steps to help alleviate the problems, starting with major conservation efforts in California and other western states. 

In addition, they asked President-elect Bush to create a team to work with the governors, while he is forming his Cabinet. 

They also asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate the cause of California’s skyrocketing electricity prices, who benefits from the prices and whether any generating capacity has been withheld. 

FERC Chairman Jim Hoecker said he anticipated that information could be given to the governors within several weeks. “We have audit  

teams looking at this market as we speak,” he said. 

Hoecker also speculated that a regional price cap would not be much help. 

“Nationally, we have not improved our infrastructure enough to meet demands,” Hoecker said. 

The governors at the meeting represented Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. California Gov. Gray Davis did not attend, staying home to address the crisis. 

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber supported the proposed cap. 

“Naively, perhaps, those of us in the Northwest thought ourselves immune to power shortages, but the energy emergency that started this summer continues and threatens to engulf the entire West,” Kitzhaber said. 

Last week, Richardson issued an emergency order forcing 75 Western generators to supply electricity to California. The producers had been reluctant to supply power because they were concerned about receiving payment from California’s two largest utilities, both of which are in financial trouble. The order expired at midnight Wednesday, when the extension went into effect. 

FERC approved a flexible rate cap of $150 per megawatt hour that allows suppliers to charge more if they can prove a higher price is warranted. Davis and California’s major power utilities ridiculed the flexible cap as ineffective. 

Davis wants a firm regional price cap of $100 per megawatt hour, a concept that appears to be winning favor among some Western states worried that California’s energy problems could spread. 

Wholesale electricity prices peaked at $1,400 per megawatt hour this month in California after a $250 per megawatt hour price cap was dropped. 

The California-only price cap exacerbated the state’s energy shortage because suppliers stepped up their sales to other Western states willing to pay higher rates. 

Energy suppliers, who have been raking in record profits, fiercely oppose price caps. They warn that restrictions could hurt California in the long run by discouraging construction of new power plants. 

California’s two biggest utilities, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric, have accumulated more than $8 billion in debt buying high-priced electricity they must resell to households and businesses at dramatically lower prices under a 3-year-old rate freeze. 

STAGE TWO ALERT 

The Independent System Operator, the group that oversees the transmission lines that handle about 80 percent of California’s electricity, declared a Stage Two alert shortly after 2 p.m. 

The action, intensifying an alert issued earlier in the day, means that reserves dipped to below 5 percent. 

The ISO said the Stage Two alert would remain in effect until midnight.  

Peak electricity usage was expected in the early evening, at 33,720 megawatts. One megawatt is enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. 

On the Net: 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: http://www.ferc.gov 

Western Governors Association: http://www.westgov.org 

SACRAMENTO — Connecting Southern California, where power plants are humming along, and Northern California, which confronts a dwindling supply, is a congested transmission system known as Path 15. 

Located south of Los Banos and running to Harris Ranch, the 80 miles of 500,000-volt lines cut through largely rural areas. For weeks, the line has been operating at its peak capacity, pushing 3,000 megawatts north. 

When a line at the south end of Path 15 went out of service Tuesday, it immediately prompted the state to declare a power alert. Soon after, the Independent System Operator invoked a federal order requiring generators to sell power to California. 

The three major conduits moving power between north and south narrow to just two 500,000-volt lines at Path 15. In past days, when Northern California has been strapped for energy, plants in the south that have available power weren’t able to move it up the bottlenecked lines. 

The Path 15 transmission lines are “in overload mode and have been for several weeks and will be until spring” when the demand for electricity typically decreases, said Kellan Fluckiger, the ISO’s chief operating officer. 

It’s not a new problem, he said. The lines move power north when the Northwest turns generators down to conserve water — typically overnight. Power runs south on Path 15 during hot summer months, when generators in the cooler Northwest have plenty to export. 

“The problem managing Path 15 have gotten larger, larger, larger until this year,” Fluckiger said. “What’s needed is the addition of a third 500,000-volt line. It’s like a bottleneck.” 

But getting new transmission lines approved is a lengthy and expensive process. The lines cross county and city boundaries and over private property — but not without permission from each party. Between siting, permits and environmental paperwork, it takes five to seven years to build a line. 

And they don’t come cheap. Another 500,000-volt line could cost Pacific Gas & Electric Co. around $200 million, said Jeff Butler, PG&E vice president of operations. 

The utility evaluated the need to expand Path 15 in 1998, but determined it didn’t make sense, said Rod Maslowski, PG&E director of electric system operations. 

That’s because generators are already planned for Northern California, so customers wouldn’t need to import energy from the state’s south along Path 15. 

“If there was a significant amount of generation online today or built in Northern California,” Maslowski said, “that additional 500,000-volt line would quickly be of little use.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

California Energy Commission: http://www.energy.ca.gov/ 

SACRAMENTO — About 400,000 people, half of them in California, could get immigration amnesty they were previously denied under a bill awaiting President Clinton’s signature. 

The bill is an attempt to end a long legal battle. 

The bill “resolves most of the ultimate issues, but the courts still have to protect class members from deportation and joblessness pending the start-up of the (late-amnesty) application process,” said Carlos Holgein, an attorney with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. 

The Los Angeles-based group has represented the immigrants through what one federal appellate judge termed  

“a long and unhappy history” of  

overlapping lawsuits. 

The new legislation, passed as part of a budget package last week, follows the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which permitted illegal immigrants who’d been in the United States continuously since at least Jan. 1, 1982, to seek amnesty. 

Nearly 2.7 million immigrants obtained amnesty under that law. Many others, though, were denied, including those who’d traveled briefly outside the United States. 

“The INS interpreted the law excessively strictly,” said Cecilia Munoz, of the National Council of La Raza. “They were telling people they were ineligible when they weren’t.” 

Lawsuits challenged the denials. Federal courts ordered the INS to grant work authorizations to those who were part of the class-action suits. This permitted the immigrants to work legally while waiting for final court decisions. It also prompted an unhappy Congress in 1996 to essentially strip federal courts of their jurisdiction. 

Now, Congress has given members of the class-action suits another shot at their amnesty applications. Immigrants must demonstrate they entered the United States before 1982. The American Immigration Lawyers Association estimates that 150,000 plaintiffs might be able to provide the necessary proof. 

“We may take a lenient attitude,” Don Riding, officer in charge of the Fresno-based Immigration and Naturalization Service office, said Monday, “but we’re still going to ask that they prove that they were here before 1982.” 

In the Central Valley from Stockton to Yuba City, 30,000 to 50,000 people could benefit from late amnesty, estimated Salvador Santillan, director of the California Hispanic Resource Council in Sacramento. 

Most of the potential beneficiaries are Mexican natives, and large numbers of people from Central America and Asia may also have reason to celebrate, he said. 

The late-amnesty provision is one of three major immigration measures soon to gain Clinton’s signature. 

Another establishes a new visa program to clear up some of the backlog of spouses and children of legal U.S. residents. The third extends for four months a program enabling certain immigrants to pay a $1,000 fine instead of having to leave the country before obtaining permanent U.S. residency.

NEW YORK — Investors’ hopes for a happy end to Wall Street’s most dismal year in a decade are vanishing in a seemingly unending string of stock selloffs. 

With an interest rate cut now ruled out until January, the market isn’t likely to find a catalyst for a sustainable rally until early 2001, many experts believe. 

“We’re talking bounces if anything, not a rally,” said Richard Dickson, a technical analyst with Scott & Stringfellow Inc. “It’s going to take a long time, in my opinion, to repair the psychological damage that is being done and has been done to tech stocks.” 

That’s not to say the stock averages won’t move higher during the six remaining trading days in 2000, when low volume of trading around the holidays can exaggerate gains or losses. 

It just means that short of a miracle, 2000 is slated to be the worst-ever year for the 29-year-old Nasdaq composite index. The technology-focused gauge is down more than 50 percent from its high for the year. 

The Dow Jones industrials, down 13 percent from its year-high, and S&P 500, off more than 18 percent, are also suffering. 

This week’s spectacular selloffs, including the Nasdaq’s seventh consecutive decline on Wednesday, haven’t helped – although they may make it likely the market will have to snap back at least a little bit. 

“The way the market’s going down, I’d say we should see a bump up. But will it go down again? That’s still the question,” said Yale Hirsch, author of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, who believes the market is so oversold and stock prices so low that it may be especially attractive to bargain hunters and other buyers. 

Most market observers say it will take an interest rate cut from the Fed to turn the stock market around. The Fed doesn’t meet until Jan. 30-31, and any action before then would be extraordinary. A couple of other January events could also prove key. 

Fourth-quarter earnings are due in the middle of the month. Warnings from some companies about those numbers have pushed stock prices lower, but the market could still react negatively to the actual results. 

“My sense is that maybe if you can meet your fourth-quarter numbers, we’ll be OK,” said Nick Sargen, a market strategist for J.P. Morgan. 

There’s also the market’s tendency to rise at the beginning of January as the previous tax year ends and investors stop selling stocks for tax purposes. 

But nothing is a sure thing. 

Although the consensus is that the Fed will lower interest rates at the end of January, Sargen worries that Wall Street will get ahead of itself, and rally on overoptimistic expectations. That’s what happened this week, when the Fed didn’t cut rates as the market had hoped, and instead just tilted toward cutting rates in the future. 

“Will the market have worked itself into a frenzy so that if the Fed cuts 25 basis points (0.25 percent) instead of 50 basis points it won’t be enough?” he said. “Nobody knows.” 

For investors, 2000 has been less about stock market theories and more about destruction. 

Although a few non-tech stocks have had spectacular returns this year – Boeing and Phillip Morris, for example, have more than doubled from their 52-week lows – most investors will be poorer this New Year’s Eve than they were in 1999. 

It’s a big change after five years of some of the strongest stock returns ever, but Pat Borchers, an office manager in Minneapolis, is keeping it in perspective. 

“It’s been a horrible year as far as the techs have been concerned and for stocks in general. The economy has definitely turned down a little bit,” she said. Her investment club hasn’t given up buying stocks, though. “We’ve bought Cisco three times now and it keeps going down. But I do think over the long-term it will do fine. Just now, it’s a little painful.”

NEW YORK — Christmas came early for investors in 2000. It came in March, as a matter of fact. Stocks were rising, confidence was soaring, homebuilders and carmakers couldn’t keep up with the demand. 

People exuded the spirit of the season. No gift for the family was too expensive – a cruise, a vacation house, trip to a theme park, a week of skiing – and you could always borrow the money and pay back later. 

What a wonderful discovery the wealth effect was. You didn’t have to worry about your future because your stocks and your home equity were making you richer every day in spite of your efforts to spend more. 

You could feel the vibrations of exuberance, of confidence in the future. Confidence breeds confidence, it was explained, just as a rapidly rising stock generates even more momentum. The evidence was there. 

The experts agreed: Materialism was great, even if occasionally it might mean overlooking a minor value or two. At no time in recent economic history were more experts giving their expert opinion that the economy would continue to boom, stocks rise and inflation behave. 

You really couldn’t blame Santa Claus for misreading the calendar. Besides, people were telling him that Christmas wasn’t just for December anymore. Get with it, they told him, this is new new Millennium. 

Just then, as ordinary people and experts prepared for a summer of fun, the cold winds of reality swept down upon the marketplace and stripped away its pretentions and revealed it as a pompous phony. 

The reality is still hard to grasp – the Nasdaq is down about 50 percent from its March high, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 is off by 15 percent or so. 

The housing price rise has slowed, cars are being cleared from lots by discounts and rebates, inflation has infected some areas of the economy, dot-coms are failing, consumer confidence is down four straight months. 

More subtly, the economic commentary that never ends, only recently illustrated with positive observations and opinions, is now filled with negative items, making things appear even worse than they are. 

There is no recession, but there are plenty of forecasts of such. The New Economy still exists, but you might have the impression is has gone puff. Jobs are still plentiful, and wages and benefits are actually creeping up. Though weakening, profits are still being made. 

You don’t have to look hard to find comments about getting coal in your stocking, but if you do look hard you can spy the glimmer of gold in the future. Confidence may be down, but it can quickly rebound. 

A great deal of what’s wrong about the economy has been made right, even if not totally. If need be, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve grinch, may turn gracious and inject new vitality into the economy. 

The slowdown could worsen, but it isn’t yet at recession level; the expansion continues, but at a slower rate. Americans are more realistic and smarter about possibilities than they were in March. 

And they are likely to be far more inclined to do their homework, understand their own finances, and assume personal responsibility instead of taking the word of those whose shingle declares they are “expert.” 

Reality beats the dreamworld at Christmas, when hopes converge with the emergence of a new day. 

John Cunniff is a business writer for The Associated Press.

NEW YORK — Fears about a harsh economic slowdown and continuing weakness in corporate earnings sent stocks sliding Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrials giving up more than 260 points and the Nasdaq hitting another low for the year. 

Disappointed that the Federal Reserve declined to lower interest rates Tuesday and scared that the Fed has acknowledged the economy may be slowing too much and too fast, investors dumped both high-tech shares and blue chips. 

“Investors are seeing a confirmation from the Fed that the economy is very weak and that earnings are going to be pretty poor and that assistance from the Fed is not going to be right away,” said A.C. Moore, chief investment strategist for Dunvegan Associates in Santa Barbara, Calif. 

President-elect George W. Bush’s appointment of Alcoa chairman Paul O’Neill as the new treasury secretary seemed to hold little sway with investors, analysts said. 

Stocks have been heading lower since around Labor Day, as investors have sold off stocks – mainly in the high-tech sector – based on fears that profits would be further pinched by an economic slowdown, high interest rates and decreased consumer confidence. Meanwhile, a litany of companies have warned that future earnings would indeed be disappointing. 

“We’ve actually had a crash over the last few weeks, not a one-day crash,” said Ricky Harrington, a technical analyst for Wachovia Securities. “I think we are getting close to a short-term bottom, the beginning of a technical rebound.” 

— The Associated Press 

Typical year-end tax-loss selling compounded Wednesday’s drop in the market, analysts said. 

But with the year almost over and with most stocks at bargain basement prices, “we are very close to a start of a spectacular January rally,” Harrington said. 

A rally early next year likely will be concentrated among tech stocks, which have plummeted from premium prices, Harrington said. Blue chips haven’t been hit as hard, because investors have been redirecting their tech investments into shares of popular consumer brands, drug makers and financial companies. 

Another analyst predicted investors could abandon their Scrooge-like way of selling to bid stocks up later this week. 

“The rally starts very soon,” said Larry Rice, chief investment officer at Josephthal & Co. “We are ridiculously oversold.” 

Still, most analysts believe the any upcoming rally will be a short rebound and that the market will remain bearish through the first quarter. 

Wednesday’s high-tech losers included Cisco Systems, which skidded $5.25 to close at $36.50 in extremely heavy trading after Merrill Lynch cut its rating on the network equipment maker. 

Other tech stocks brought the Dow lower. Computer makers Hewlett-Packard and IBM, which slumped after Merrill Lynch also downgraded those stocks. Hewlett-Packard fell 88 cents to $30.44, and IBM tumbled $4.13 to $86. 

But the Dow’s losses were practically across the board. General Motors fell $1.88 to $50, and AT&T lost $1.63, closing at $18.94 before warning that fourth-quarter earnings will fall short of expectations. 

Retail stocks, battered by declining consumer confidence and a lackluster holiday shopping season, posted more losses. Despite faring better than most competitors, Target fell 56 cents to $28.19. Home Depot, which is a Dow industrial, slipped $1.50 to $41.13. 

But drug makers gained ground. Merck rose $1.88 to $93.38, and Johnson & Johnson climbed $1.44 to $100.63. 

The Commerce Department reported earlier that housing construction rose 2.2 percent in November, the biggest jump in nine months. But builders — like investors — are worried that a slowing economy will crimp their business. 

Declining issues outpaced advancers slightly more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange where consolidated volume was 1.74 billion shares, ahead of the 1.59 billion on Tuesday. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller companies, fell 14.98 to 443.80. 

Overseas markets also were lower. Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 1.5 percent, and Germany’s DAX index tumbled 3.6 percent. Britain’s FT-SE 100 lost 1.9 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 3.2 percent. 

——— 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Gray Davis urged Californians Tuesday to save electricity and called for the construction of new power plants. But he said he wouldn’t offer his plan to deal with the state’s electricity crisis until Jan. 8 – four days after state regulators decide how much to boost ratepayers’ bills. 

The Democratic governor signaled his continued support for deregulation, while noting that there are problems and “we have to move on several fronts so that down the road deregulation can work.” 

The governor, in an interview in Washington, D.C. with Nightly Business Report, said the state Public Utilities Commission had the principal authority to take action to soothe California’s deregulated energy market, which has been rocked by shortages and spiraling wholesale electricity costs. 

“The PUC is the legal body that will make a determination,” the governor said. When asked what he thought the PUC should do, he said: “It doesn’t matter what I think.” 

“There are no magic bullets. We just have to work our way through this problem,” Davis added. 

The interview was significant for what he did not say. 

The governor did not mention that the PUC is composed of gubernatorial appointees, and that within a week he will have the authority to appoint another member of the five-member panel, giving his appointees a majority. 

He said wholesale power sellers are driving the current crisis, but he did not discuss potential penalties, whether the wholesalers should provide refunds to the utilities, pay taxes on their profits or to what degree utilities should shoulder the burden of high energy costs. 

He has said ratepayers will need to bear some of the costs of protecting the utilities’ solvency, but he did not give specifics and did not discuss his private negotiations currently under way with the utilities in Sacramento. 

Earlier in the day, Davis said he met for two hours with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers about the economic implications of California’s electricity problems. He did not provide details. 

A spokesman for a consumer group that favors reregulating California’s electricity market, deregulated by a 1996 law, said Davis was “passing the buck at every turn, seeking to distance himself from rate hikes that will be pinned on him.” 

“It all comes down to Davis. He is the one setting up the meetings with the utilities, he has the authority to appoint the PUC majority, he could step in,” said Doug Heller of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. 

The PUC earlier declared that California’s two huge investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co., needed rate increases to help cover some $8 billion in losses they’ve incurred since June. 

The scope of that increase remained uncertain, however, as PUC-hired auditors were examining the companies’ books. 

The two utilities, serving a total of 10 million homes and businesses, have paid sharply higher prices for wholesale electricity, but because they operate under a rate freeze they have been unable to pass those costs on to their customers. 

The PUC plans to meet Jan. 4 in San Francisco to decide on lifting the rate freeze. On Jan. 8, Davis said he will unveil in his State of the State address to the Legislature his suggestions to deal with the crisis. 

One of the Legislature’s ranking Democrats said the state could purchase PG&E’s and SoCal Edison’s hydroelectric dams, valued at more than $4 billion, which he said would help the utilities stave off insolvency and protect ratepayers from huge high bills.

First Bay Area Chinese teacher dies at 95 

LAFAYETTE – Alice Fong Yu, the first Chinese American public school teacher in San Francisco, died earlier this week. She was 95. 

Yu died Tuesday at a nursing home. 

Yu came to San Francisco in 1916 from the small gold-mining town of Washington, Calif. She applied to and graduated from the San Francisco State Teacher’s College in 1926, only to be told by administrators that Chinese Americans were not being hired. 

But the principal of Commodore Stockton Elementary School insisted that his campus needed a bilingual teacher and Yu was hired, a first for San Francisco. She went on to teach public school for 44 years. 

The San Francisco Unified School District recently named its Chinese school after Yu. 

Yu was also the founder of the 67-year-old Chinese women’s service organization called the Square and Circle Club which serves charitable causes. She received many acknowledgments for her achievements over the years including the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Distinguished Service Awards in 1975 and the Women of Achievement, Vision and Excellence award in 1986. 

Yu is survived by two sons and two grandchildren. 

New Examiner loses another editor 

SAN FRANCISCO – Yet another editor has left the new San Francisco Examiner. 

Managing editor Bob Porterfield has been fired, becoming the third editor to leave the newspaper since it released its first issue a month ago. 

Porterfield told The Associated Press Friday he was fired “for exercising an action that I believed I had the right to exercise as managing editor.” 

When the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner was hired by publisher Ted Fang, some saw it as an indication that the paper would set a high standard for his journalism. 

In its first few weeks, the Examiner has been bedeviled by such problems as front-page misspellings, stories that ended in midsentence, improperly sized type that made reading difficult and relatively few staff-written stories. 

The newspaper replaced executive editor Martha M. Steffens Dec. 11, and editorial page editor Susan Herbert resigned a week earlier. 

Porterfield said he could not elaborate about his Dec. 15 termination, referring questions to his lawyer Alan Exelrod, who did not return calls made late Friday and early Saturday seeking comment. Calls to Fang were referred to his spokesman, Ken Maley, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

The Examiner, which launched the publishing empire of William Randolph Hearst, ended a 113-year run as a Hearst-owned newspaper last month. Fang, a publisher of giveaway neighborhood papers, hired a new staff and now competes for morning readers against the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle.

MARTINEZ — A former foster mother convicted in 1996 of abusing two babies will get a new trial after a judge found the woman’s lawyer erred in his defense. 

Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Peter Spinetta on Thursday overturned the conviction of Yvonne Eldridge, 48, of Walnut Creek, on grounds her lawyer, Bill Egan, did not give her a fair trial. Spinetta’s decision said Egan did not call a medical witness to testify about other possible reasons for the babies’ ill health. 

During a September hearing, Egan testified that a doctor he consulted with said there was no certain cause for the babies’ ailments. The doctor now says if he had received all 30 volumes of the babies’ medical records he would have been able to testify about non-abusive explanations for the babies’ illnesses. 

“I don’t know how I could feel any better,” Eldridge said. “This is the best Christmas present anybody could ever have.” 

Prior to her conviction, Eldridge was a nationally honored foster mother, even receiving an award at the White House. In her 1996 trial, prosecutors argued the babies, which were born prematurely to drug-addicted mothers, suffered worse health problems due to abuse from Eldridge. 

No one testified about the babies’ health in order to corroborate Eldridge’s version of their symptoms. 

State officials have said Eldridge suffers from a rare ailment called Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, in which people injure others to get medical attention. 

Eldridge immediately appealed her conviction and has been free on bail ever since. A new trial date is scheduled to be set Jan. 9.

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal and state agencies systematically deny benefits to California’s homeless and disabled by failing to evaluate their claims fully, a group of attorneys from the San Francisco Bay area claim. 

Lawyers from Berkeley’s Homeless Action Center and the San Francisco office of Heller Ehrman White and McAuliffe filed a class action suit in U.S. District Court Wednesday, saying that federal and state agencies do not make enough effort to consult medical records or to contact doctors who have treated applicants in the past. 

Instead, the lawyers say, the Social Security Administration, its Center of Disability and Regional Offices and the state Department of Social Services lean too often on the opinions of their own contracted doctors to evaluate claims – which places applicants with inaccessible or absent medical records at a disadvantage for benefits. 

“The case really aims at trying to be sure that the most disfavored group of Social Security applicants – poor people with mental disabilities – get fairly evaluated on their medical record,” said Robert Borton, partner in the litigation group at Heller Ehrman White and McAuliffe. 

The Social Security Administration contends that it follows all federal guidelines for collecting evidence, though a spokesman said the agency would not comment on the suit until it was reviewed. 

“The best evidence always comes from an applicants’ own doctors, but there are times when that evidence is either not enough or it’s too old,” said Lowell Kepke, a spokesman with the San Francisco Regional Office of Social Security Administration 

Blanca Barna, a DSS spokeswoman, said the agency knew of the suit but would not comment until it had been served. 

Homeless applicants are often uninsured and are treated at county hospitals. That can make records and visits to doctors hard to track down, said Steven Weiss, staff attorney with the Homeless Action Center. But that’s no excuse, he added. 

The state DSS gets about 80,000 new disability claims each year, and those applicants must meet stricter requirements to qualify for disability insurance or payments from the Social Security Administration, Kepke said. The case was brought on behalf of eight plaintiffs and a class of potentially thousands of Californians, the attorneys say. 

The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages, but say they are asking for a court order requiring the agencies to follow the law and to grant disabled people who were unlawfully denied benefits the chance to have their claims reviewed. 

“Many people have their cases poorly developed by the state and then in three years their health is deteriorated, they’re uninsured. “People become homeless waiting for their claims to be approved, so there’s a lot of harm,” Weiss said. 

A two-alarm blaze gutted an unoccupied three-story home on Thousand Oaks Boulevard early Wednesday morning. 

At about 3 a.m. firefighters were summoned to the area by neighbors on Yosemite Road who thought the blaze might be in their back yard. Rather, firefighters found “a fully involved fire coming out of the windows” in a home at 1854 Thousand Oaks, the street behind Yosemite, said Assistant Fire Chief David Orth. 

Losses are estimated at about $850,000 Orth said. 

He said the property had been recently sold and was undergoing renovations. Fire inspectors were unable to enter the house Wednesday to determine the cause of the fire.  

“They tried to enter the house. They started falling through the floor,” said Orth. “The stairways were gone. The roof was gone.” 

Five engines, two trucks, an ambulance, PG&E crews as well as East Bay Municipal Utility District personnel were called to the scene, Orth said.