Habitot Children’s Museum “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. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins, and become little “dump” workers. $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. (closed Sundays, Memorial Day through Labor Day) Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Judah L. Magnes Museum “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 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter. “Ricky Swallow/Matrix 191,” Including new sculptures and drawings through May 27; “Five Star: the 31st Annual University of California at Berkeley Master of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition: Through May 27 $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; children age 12 and under free; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and Wednesday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 642-0808 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for year membership. All ages. May 25: Controlling Hand, Wormwood, Goats Blood, American Waste, Quick to Blame; May 26: Honor System, Divit, Enemy You, Eleventeen, Tragedy Andy; June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2: El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 22: Nigerian Brothers, Zulu Exiles, Umlilo; May 23: Paul Pena and Friends; May 24: Jai Uttal, Stephen Kent, Geoffrey Gordon; May 25: Jelly Roll; May 26: Carribean All Stars; May 27: Big Brother and the Holding Company; May 29: Andrew Carrier and Cajun Classics; May 30: Fling Ding, Bluegrass Intentions, Leslie Kier and Friends; May 31: Wake the Dead, David Gans 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 23: Willis Alan Ramsey; May 24: Nickel Creek; May 25: Gearoid O’Hallmhurain, Patrick Ourceau, Robbie O’Connell; May 26: Darryl Henriques; May 27: Shana Morrison; May 31: Freight 33rd Anniversary Concert Series: Bob Dylan Song Night and others; June 1: The Riders of the Purple Sage. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. May 22: Willy N’ Mo; May 23: Global Echo; May 24: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 25: The Mind Club; May 26: Rhythm Doctors; May 29: The Lost Trio; May 30: Zambambazo 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

Berkeley Chamber Performances May 22, 8 p.m. Presenting “Baguette Quartette” for an evening of Parisian Cafe music. $12 - $15 Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 525-5211 www.berkeleychamberperform.org 

La Pena Cultural Center May 24: Tato Enriquez, plus a video and photo exhibit from earthquake-devastated El Salvador; May 26: 7-9 p.m. in the Cafe Jason Moen Jazz Quartet, 9:30 p.m. Charanga Tumbo y Cuerdas; May 27: 4 p.m. in the cafe La Pena Flamenca; May 28: 7 p.m. Frank Emilio Flynn 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org  

Berkeley Lyric Opera Orchestra May 25, 8 p.m. John Kendall Baily conducting, Ivan Ilic on piano. Works by Back, Stravinsky, Mozart, Prokofiev. $15 - $20 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 Collage Ave. 843-5781  

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble, Combos and Lab Band May 25, 7:30 p.m. $5 - $8. Florance Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way www.bhs.berkeley.k12.ca.us/arts/performing/jazz 

New Millennium Strings Benefit Concert May 26, 8 p.m. Featuring pieces by Weber, Chabrier, Bizet. Benefits Berkeley Food Pantry $7 - $10 University Christian Church 2401 La Conte 526-3331 

Colibri May 26, 11 a.m. Latin American songs and rythms. West Branch of the Berkeley Public Library 1125 University 649-3964 

Himalayan Fair May 27, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation Live Oak Park 1300 Shattuck Ave. 869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

Kenny Washington May 27, 4:30 p.m. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Jupiter String Quartet May 27, 7:30 p.m. Works by Janacek and Haydn. $8 - $10. Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Benefit for Dolores Huerta June 9, 7 p.m. Come support this legendary local activist while enjoying an eclectic variety of performances. $20 in advance, $25 at the door. La Pena, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra June 21. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

“Sister, My Sister” May 20, 5 p.m. Poetry, photography and dramatic readings which give voice to women and children caught in homelessness. Admission is free, donations welcome. Live Oak Park Theatre1301 Shattuck Ave. 528-8198 

“Procession of the Sun and Moon” with Selected Solo Pieces by Maria Lexa May 27, 2 p.m. Full length drama with giant puppets and masked characters accompanied by live music. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 Collage Ave 925-798-1300 

“New Moon at Sinai” May 30, 7 p.m. Music, live puppet theater, shadows and images will take the audience from Egypt to Mount Sinai. Featuring music by Pharoah’s Daughter and Mozaik and the musical and ritual theater group The Puppet Players. $8 - $12. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 Collage Ave 925-798-1300 

“Conversations In Commedia” May 30, 7:30 p.m. Series continues with Mime Troupe playwright Joan Holden and veteran clown/actor/director/playwright Jeff Raz. $6 - $8. La Pena 3105 Shattuck Ave 849-2568 

“Big Love” by Charles L. Mee Through June 10 Directed by Les Waters and loosely based on the Greek Drama, “The Suppliant Woman,” by Aeschylus. Fifty brides who are being forced to marry fifty brothers flee to a peaceful villa on the Italian coast in search of sanctuary. $15.99 - $51 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 

“Planet Janet” Through June 10, Fridays and Saturdays 8 p.m., Sundays 7 p.m. Follows six young urbanites’ struggles in sex and dating. Impact Theatre presentation written by Bret Fetzer, directed by Sarah O’Connell. $7 - $12 La Val’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid 464-4468 www.impacttheatre.com 

“The Misanthrope” by Moliere Through June 10, Fri - Sun, 8 p.m. Berkeley-based Women in Time Productions presents this comic love story full of riotous wooing, venomous scheming and provocative dialogue. All female design and production staff. $17 - $20 Il Teatro 450 449 Powell St. San Francisco 415-433-1172 or visit www.womenintime.com 

“The Laramie Project” Through July 8, Wed. 7 p.m., Tues. and Thur. -Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Written by Moises Kaufmen and members of Tectonic Theater Project, directed by Moises Kaufman. Moises Kaufman and Tectonic members travelled to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepard. The play is about the community and the impact Shepard’s death had on its members. $10 - $50. The Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

Pacific Film Archive May 22: 7:30 Can Dialectics Break Bricks; May 23: 7:30 Casting Call; May 24: 7:00 Sampo; May 25: 7:30 E Flat; May 26: 7:00 Subarnarekha; May 27: 5:30 Stone Flowers. Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“An Evening of Handmade Films” May 23, 8 p.m. This show features short films created by direct manipulation of the film surface itself; “Mama Wahunzi: Women Blacksmiths” May 25, 8 p.m. This documentary chronicles the lives of three disabled East African women who designed and built wheelchairs for use on unpaved roads. $5 suggested donation. Fantasy Studios, 2600 10th St. at Parker, 549-2977. 

“Svetlana Village” May 26, 4 p.m. Subtitled “The Camphill Experience in Russia,” details community of organic farmers, nearly half of whom are developmentally disabled. World premiere benefit screening, Q & A with director and a Svetlana resident afterwards. $7-$15 Fine Arts Cinema 2451 Shattuck Ave 

“The Producers” June 10. Revisit this outrageous comedy classic, starring Zero Mostel and written by Mel Brooks. $2 Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

“Scapes/Escapes” Ink, Acrylic, Mixed Media by Evelyn Glaubman Through June 1 Tuesday - Thursday, 9 a.m. - 2:45 p.m. Gallery of the Center for Psychological Studies 1398 Solano Ave. Albany 524-0291 

“Elemental” The art of Linda Mieko Allen Through June 9, Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Traywick Gallery 1316 Tenth St. 527-1214 www.traywick.com 

Ledger drawings of Michael and Sandra Horse Exhibit runs through June 18. Gathering Tribes Gallery 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038 www.gatheringtribes.com  

“Alive in Her: Icons of the Goddess” Through June 19, Tuesday - Thursday, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Photography, collage, and paintings by Joan Beth Clair. Pacific School of Religion 1798 Scenic Ave. 848-0528 

Tyler James Hoare Sculpture and Collage Through June 27, call for hours. Party June 9, 5-9 p.m. with music by Sauce Piquante. The Albatross Pub 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473 

“Watershed 2001” Through July 14, Wednesday - Sunday Noon - 5 p.m. Exhibition of painting, drawing, sculpture and installation that explore images and issues about our watershed. Slide presentation on creek restoration and urban design May 31, 7:30 p.m. Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893 

“Musee des Hommages,” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the past, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Boticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours 2028 Ninth St. (at Addison) 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

“Tropical Visions: Images of AfroCaribbean Women in the Quilt Tapestries of Cherrymae Golston” Through May 28, Tu-Th, 1-7 p.m., Sat 12-4 p.m. Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 3023 Shattuck Ave. 548-9286  

ext 307 

“Queens of Ethipoia: Intuitive Inspirations,” the exceptional art of Esete-Miriam A. Menkir. June 2 through July 11. Reception with the artist on June 2, 1 - 3 p.m. Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 3023 Shattuck Ave. 548-9286 ext 307 

“The Decade of Change: 1900 - 1910” chronicles the transformation of the city of Berkely in this 10 year period. Thursday through Saturday, 1 - 4 p.m. Berkely History Center, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. Wheelchair accessible. 848-0181. Free.  

Readings 

Cody’s Books 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852 All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 22: Daniel Schacter talks about “The Seven Signs of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers”; May 24: Katie Hafner decribes “The Well: A Story of Love, Death and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community”; May 25: Nathaniel Philbrick talks about “In the Heart of the Sea”; May 29: David Harris talks about “Shooting the Moon: The True Story of An American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever”  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 All events at 7:30 p.m. unless noted otherwise May 23: Jon Bowermaster discusses his book “Birthplace of the Winds: Adventuring in Alaska’s Islands of Fire and Ice”; May 29, 7 - 9 p.m.: Travel Photo Workshop with Joan Bobkoff. $15 registration fee  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays 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. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. May 24: Stephanie Young with host Louis Cuneo; May 31: Connie Post with host Louis Cuneo Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Adan David Miller and JoJo Doig May 20, 7 p.m. Poetry and spoken word. Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo 548-3333 

Tours 

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

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park 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. 486-0623  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours All tours begin at 10 a.m. and are restricted to 30 people per tour $5 - $10 per tour May 19: John Stansfield & Allen Stross will lead a tour of the School for the Deaf and Blind; June 2: Trish Hawthorne will lead a tour of Thousand Oaks School and Neighborhood; June 23: Sue Fernstrom will lead a tour of Strawberry Creek and West of the UC Berkeley campus 848-0181 

Lectures 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Free Lectures All lectures begin at 6 p.m. May 20: Miep Cooymans and Dan Jones on “Working with Awareness, Concentration, and Energy”; May 27: Eva Casey on “Getting Calm; Staying Clear”; June 3: Jack van der Meulen on “Healing Through Kum Nye (Tibetan Yoga)”; June 10: Sylvia Gretchen on “Counteracting Negative Emotions” Tibetan Nyingma Institute 1815 Highland Place 843-6812 

All the Bush administration proposals for meeting the nation’s rising energy needs have just one thought in mind – to increase the amount of oil, gas, and electricity available to the public. 

Many people in California and other energy-deficient states may applaud this approach, but all Americans will suffer if U.S. leaders put all their efforts into expanding supply, rather than curbing demand. 

Every year, the United States consumes more energy than it did the year before. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, total energy consumption will grow by one-third between 2000 and 2020. 

Much of it will go for automobile and truck use; another large portion will power the Internet and other computer-driven systems. During the 1990s, when energy was relatively cheap, Americans got used to bigger, less fuel-efficient vehicles, and filling their homes with electronic devices. 

Now the administration is telling us that we can continue to increase consumption. “Leave the rest to us,” they say, “we’ll make sure that adequate supplies will be available when you need them.” 

Americans should be deeply suspicious of such talk. We would like more cheap energy, but we also know when to resist the claims of snake-oil peddlers. 

Even with a massive effort–on the level of the national mobilization during World War II–it is doubtful that we could do what the administration proposes: construct 1,900 new electrical power plants over the next 20 years, along with dozens (hundreds?) of new oil refineries and 38,000 miles of natural gas pipelines. 

Not only will this cost trillions of dollars –from sources yet to be identified – but it will also require overturning land-use restrictions in thousands of towns, cities, counties, and other jurisdictions. 

But this is not just a matter of practical impediments – many such obstacles can be removed. We must also calculate the harmful aspects of the administration’s plan. 

These include: 

• Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

Despite President Bush’s reassurances, there is considerable evidence that this would do irremediable harm to a pristine wilderness and threaten endangered species. 

• Increased use of coal. 

True, coal is relatively cheap and abundant, but it releases far more carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels when burned, thus accelerating the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. 

The technology to filter out these gases exists, but remains costly. And coal is not a practical fuel for trucks and automobiles – although we could go back to using it to power locomotives. 

• New nuclear reactors. 

Nuclear reactors release no carbon dioxide, but they do produce highly-toxic radioactive wastes that must be stored safely and there are still unanswered questions about the adequacy of existing storage procedures. 

• Additional natural gas pipelines. 

Although considered relatively safe, natural gas pipelines do pose enough risk of explosion to make many communities reluctant to allow them to traverse their territory. One possible solution is to locate them on the seabed (as with a proposed Texas-to-Florida system), but this is costly and entails environmental risks of its own. 

Obviously, the administration’s approach is dangerously misleading. 

We can, of course, increase the supply of energy. But we cannot achieve all of the increases contemplated by the White House without experiencing considerable harm. 

Our energy policy must, therefore, emphasize reducing demand as much as expanding supply. Fortunately, there are practical ways to limit demand. 

Most important, we must raise the fuel efficiency of automobiles and trucks – especially the SUVs that now constitute such a large share of the nation’s automobile fleet. This must be an urgent national priority. 

We can also mandate further increases in the energy efficiency of computers, appliances, light fixtures, and other electrical devices. 

Increased investment is also needed in solar, wind, and biomass energy systems. 

We have two choices. 

We can endorse the administration’s approach, and view demand for energy as an insatiable monster that must be satisfied at any cost, or we can choose an alternative strategy, aimed at taming the beast. 

The former has its undeniable attractions, but we will be doing ourselves a terrible injustice if we fail to choose the latter. 

Michael T. Klare, professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, is author of Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict.

Tuesday, May 22

“No Quiero Taco Bell” protest 

12:00 p.m. 

Taco Bell  

2222 Shattuck Ave.  

Join the UC Berkeley Farm Workers Support Committee and the Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas in their rally supporting the fair treatment of farm workers who grow the produce used by fast-food companies. 

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 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Strawberry tasting 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time 548-8283  

www.pacificcenter.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering &  

Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Solving Residential Drainage  

Problems 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Second day of two day seminar led by contractor/engineer Eric Burtt. Continued from Thursday May 17. $70 for both days. 

525-7610 

Wednesday, May 23

Regular meeting of the  

Planning Commission 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

The Planning Commission will review and take action on a recommended set of General Plan Subcommittee Ammendments to the Land Use Element. 

Healthful Building Materials  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by environmental consultant Darrel DeBoer.  

$35 per person 525-7610 

Regional Tranportation Talk 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Rebecca Kaplan of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition will talk about the Metropolitan Transportation Commision’s 25-year Regional Transportation Plan at the regular meeting of the Berkeley Gray Panthers. Open to the public. 

548-9696 

Forum on Small Learning  

Communities 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave 

Organized by Berkeley High Senior Nicole Heyman, panel of students, teachers and community members will discuss the achievement gap at Berkeley High and possible reform plans. Students encouraged to participate. $3. 

Thursday, May 24

Paddling Adventures  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Dan Crandell, member of the U.S. National Kayak Surf Team and owner of Current Adventures Kayak School, will introduce attendees to all aspects of kayaking. Free  

527-4140 

City of Berkeley Meeting 

2 - 4 p.m. 

2120 Milvia St. 

Second Floor Conference Rm. 

Bancroft-Durant Two-Way Street Proposal Meeting. Call Bike For a Better City 597-1235. 

West Berkeley Project Area  

Commission Meeting 

7 p.m. 

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth St. 

Among other topics, correspondance regarding Commissioner Training, Eastshore State Park planning meetings and proposal for commissioner advocate. 

705-8105 

Community Health  

Commission Meeting 

6:30 - 9:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Among other topics, a vote on Letter of Apology to Mayor. 

644-6109 

Friday, May 25

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  

Free Writing, Cashiering &  

Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Saturday, May 26 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Himalayan Fair 

10 a.m. - 7 p.m.  

Live Oak Park  

1300 Shattuck Ave.  

The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects.  

$5 donation 869-3995 www.himalayanfair.net  

Chocolate and Chalk Art  

Festival 

9 a.m. 

Registration at Peralta Park 

1561 Solano Ave. 

Areas of sidewalk will be assigned to participants to create their own sidewalk art. People who find all five of the chocolate kisses chalked onto Solano Ave. can enter raffle for cash prize. Chocolate Menu available listing various items for various chocolate items for sale from Solano businesses. Dog fashion show at Solano Ave. and Key Route in Albany at 2 p.m. Free. 527-5358 

Sunday, May 27

Himalayan Fair 

10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.  

Live Oak Park  

1300 Shattuck Ave.  

The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation 

869-3995 www.himalayanfair.net 

Getting Calm; Staying Clear 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Discussion of meditation and analysis. Free and open to the public. 843-6812  

— compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

Inside Interior Design  

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar led by certified interior designer and artist Lori Inman.  

$35 per person  

525-7610 

Monday, May 28 

Shavuot Ice Cream Party 

11 a.m. 

Berkeley Hillel 

2736 Bancroft Way 

Coeme hear the ten commandments. 

540-5824 

Tuesday, May 29 

People’s State of the City Address 

7:00 p.m. 

City Council Chambers 

2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

This community meeting will focus on housing, jobs, education, and disability and senior issues in the city of Berkeley. Food will be provided. Free. 

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 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

The Lois Club Meeting 

12 noon or 6 p.m. 

Venizia Caffe and Bistro 

1799 University Ave. 

Social gathering for people whose names are Lois. National organization, local chapter now has 75 members. Open to Loises and their guests. Join the club for lunch or dinner. Call 848-6254 by May 25 

Wednesday, May 30  

Dream Home for a Song  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by author/contractor/owner-builder David Cook.  

$35 per person  

525-7610  

Thursday, May 31  

Backpacking in Northern CA.  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Outdoors Unlimited’s director, Ari Derfel, will give a slide presentation on some of his favorite destinations for three-to-four-day backpacking vacations. Free  

527-4140 

Attic Conversions  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by architect/builder Andus Brandt.  

$35 per person  

525-7610  

League of Women Voters’ Dinner and Meeting 

5:30 - 9 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church 

941 The Alameda 

Featuring speaker Brenda Harbin-Forte, presiding judge of the Alameda County Juvenile Court on “What’s happening with Alameda County children in the juvenile justice system after Prop. 21?” $10 to reserve buffet supper. May bring own meal or come only for meeting/speaker. 

843-8824  

On Sunday – three days after Israel used U.S.-supplied, F-16 fighter jets to attack Palestinians in the West Bank (the deadliest day of violence in the conflict so far this year) – well over 100 people, most of whom were Jews and Palestinians, gathered at Cedar Rose Park in north Berkeley, calling for an end to Israeli oppression in Palestine. 

The gathering, led by an East Bay organization called Jews for Justice in Israel and Palestine, joined in a symbolic gesture of peace by planting an olive tree in the park. 

Jews for Justice was formed by Bay Area Jews who were angered by what they said was the injustice of Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestine. The organization demands an immediate end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and advocates a shared Jerusalem and full equality for Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel. 

The olive tree is a universal symbol of conciliation and good will, and it resonates as an important symbol of peace within the Jewish faith. But the significance of the symbol runs still deeper for those who attended the tree planting. The olive tree has very real and concrete implications within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

The ceremony was part of Jews for Justice’s larger Trees of Hope campaign, which seeks both to raise awareness of what they call the Israeli occupation (Israelis refer to Jewish enclaves in Palestine as settlements) and to raise money to replace the more than 1,500 olive trees which have been uprooted by Jewish settlers and Israeli military in the Palestinian village of Hares. 

Rabbi Burt Jacobson, founding rabbi of Kehilla Community Synagogue in north Berkeley, contended that neither Jewish scripture nor rabbinical commentaries could ever abide by such acts. 

“To destroy the trees is an act of insanity,” Jacobson said. “It’s an act of extreme cynicism. It’s an act that says there is no hope.” 

The levels of symbolism that the olive tree represents take place, therefore, on several levels. The olive tree is first, a traditional, Jewish symbol of peace; second, a symbol for the other trees Jews for Justice intends to replace in Hares; and finally, a symbol for the desperate need for healing between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Middle East right now. 

The ceremony functioned as a rally, seeking to create the kind of support and activism that will begin to move toward such healing. 

One of the ceremony’s speakers and organizers, Ilan Vitemberg, spoke candidly about the need for Jews to challenge Israel and denounce its treatment of Palestinians. 

“It is okay to be a Jew who criticizes Israel,” Vitemberg said. “You can support Israel and still criticize its actions. Let’s not kid ourselves.” 

Attendee and Berkeley community-member E. Arnon concurred with the critical thrust of Vitemberg’s words and those of others who spoke.  

“I think it’s important for the Jewish voice to be vocally and visibly showing opposition to the policies of the present government of Israel, which violate not only international law, but Israeli law as well,” Arnon said. 

“It’s a war they’ve declared on the Palestinian people,” Arnon said, “and it’s got to end.” 

Dan Spitzer, a travel writer who spent five years in Asia, Africa and Latin America, contends, however, that Palestinian leadership has appeared intent on prolonging the conflict and provoking Israeli retaliation. 

“Former Prime Minister Barak offered better than 90 percent of Gaza and the West Bank as a Palestinian state, along with a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem,” Spitzer said in a phone interview Monday, “but that was unacceptable to Arafat who responded with violence. 

“For Arafat, only the reintegration of 5 million Palestinians into Israel, which of course would make it no longer Israel, will bring peace to the Middle East,” Spitzer said. 

Hanan Rasheed, national executive director for the Palestinian-American Congress, spoke at the ceremony, and she spoke little of Palestinian leadership. She spoke of the sufferings of the Palestinian people and of the land she was born in before coming to the United States. 

Rasheed urged American citizens to challenge not only Israel’s actions, but the U.S. government’s present role in enabling these actions, supplying weapons such as the F-16 jets Israel bombed the West Bank with on Friday. 

“Israel is America’s only strong ally in the Middle East, and the American government sends over $3 billion in American-taxpayer money to Israel in weapons only,” Rasheed said. “We are helping Israel kill innocent children.”  

Rasheed was a welcome Palestinian voice at the ceremony, well-received by the crowd, but this wasn’t because she spoke guardedly about what is happening in the Middle East. She posed some earnest questions which audience-members, in their applause and cries of agreement, showed they seek answers to as well.  

“How are the Israelis going to face their God?” Rasheed asked. “How are they going to face their children at night after killing a Palestinian child?  

“If you are an Israeli, ask your country: Why are they changing the system of nature and adopting the laws of the jungle?” 

Who’s country? 

Editor: 

I wonder if the correspondent who called attention to the "pre-existing" land rights of Israelis (granted, no doubt, by the benevolent but biased God of Real Estate) is at this very moment packing so that the Native Americans, who without a doubt have pre-existing rights to the Americas, can move in. She will no doubt apologize for trespassing and send postcards from the land of her ancestors. 

Ruth Bird 

Berkeley 

Higher means more abodes 

Editor: 

I’m glad that Patrick Kennedy is willing to put up with the obstacle course of Berkeley zoning and give us some of our best new buildings. Even if he’s not doing a lot for affordable housing directly, at least his new projects will house some more of the well-off, and take price pressure off the older housing. 

Regarding the controversy about how many stories we can have in a building, I say Berkeley is not a small town; it’s a city; cities are where we build tall buildings. If people must have an unobstructed view out over the land, then let them buy one of those houses up in the hills. 

Steve Geller 

Berkeley 

It’s a question of quality  

Editor:  

One word in John Geluardi’s May 19-20 article on Berkeley’s Sewer Fund made a big difference – quality. I do not question the quality of the sewer system improvement work. Rather, I am concerned that the quantity be adequate to meet an agreement the city has with the Water Quality Control Board. The review program proposed by the Public Works Commission is to evaluate progress to date and develop a plan for the next 15 years that will ensure that we meet the terms of that agreement.  

From what I’ve seen, Public Works Department Staff has done a commendable job in moving a vital program which, unfortunately, is not the top listing of most Berkeley Citizens’ hot-button topics.  

John P. Piercy  

Chair, Public Works Commission  

Berkeley 

Beth El is good for the whole community 

The daily planet received the following letter addressed to the mayor and council: 

This is a letter of unqualified support for Congregation Beth El’s proposed plan for the Oxford Street site in Berkeley. I am not a member of Congregation Beth El, but my family and I have many close friends who are members of Congregation Beth El. We have lived in North Berkeley for twenty-two years, and over that time we have again and again experienced the positive influence and resources Beth El has provided in the North Berkeley community and schools.  

Our daughter attended the JCC early childhood center at Walnut Square with many Beth El kids, and many of our friendships started there. We have attended countless bar mitzvahs for kids at Beth El who were friends of our children. We have always felt completely included and welcome, even though we are not Jewish.  

We know many families who are members of Beth El who are diligent supporters, both in terms of time and money, of the public schools in Berkeley as well as other community activities that enrich life in Berkeley, such as organized league sports for children.  

We are personally acquainted with many of the children and now young adults who have attended the wonderful religious school program at Beth El. It is our belief that the character and values that are so obvious in virtually all of the dozens of young people we know from Beth El have been instilled by the strength and health of the Congregation that brought them up.  

By their contributions to the enrichment of the North Berkeley community and by their inclusiveness, the members of Beth El have earned and deserve the support of the City Council in their effort to move from their outgrown facility on Arch Street to the new site on Oxford.  

I believe Beth El has provided more than reasonable responses to criticisms of their plan for the new facility. Please approve Congregation Beth El’s proposed plan for the Oxford site as presented. 

Dennis J. White 

Berkeley

After months of bad news and gloomy predictions, the Berkeley Housing Authority received some good news – the Section 8 program didn’t hemorrhage units in April. 

Section 8, which provides low-cost housing to low-income people, lost only three units last month, according to a report to the BHA Board.  

In contrast, from the beginning of the year to the end of March, during one of the worst housing crushes in the city’s history, the program lost an average of 12 units a month.  

The loss of units from the Section 8 program has made it especially difficult for low-income families to find housing in Berkeley. 

One reason for the exodus of landlords from the Section 8 program was a lack of support from the BHA, said Frank Davis Jr., president of the Black Property Owners Association. Landlords had a hard time getting information from BHA staff and there was no assistance in filling out forms for property improvements, rental increases and help with problem tenants, Davis said. 

The BHA hired a new manager, Sheila Maxwel, in October to help reorganize the agency. Maxwell was given the task of streamlining the Section 8 application process and reaching out to the city’s landlords.  

But the new manager resigned in April, just six months after she was hired, dealing another blow to the agency. Maxwell was the fourth manager since 1991. 

Landlords were also enticed out of the program and into the open rental market by skyrocketing rents, due to a combination of a Bay Area economic boom and the shortage of housing. 

In April, the program enrolled 12 first-time Section 8  

voucher-holders and lost 15 due to tenant withdrawal from the program, landlord opt-outs and the death of Section 8 tenants. The result was the loss of three units, compared to the loss of 10 units in March. 

The Housing Authority, which is funded by the federal Housing and Urban Development Department according to the number of units successfully leased to Section 8 tenants, has been losing money for the last several years.  

Last year the BHA lost $255,000. This year Housing Director Stephen Barton estimates that the agency will lose $250,000 to $300,000. 

April’s loss of three units puts the number of leased Section 8 units at 1,236. HUD has approved up to 1,840 vouchers for Berkeley. 

“Staff is cautiously encouraged by the decrease in net unit loss since the beginning of the year,” the BHA report says. 

Even with the first sign of a turnaround, the report still does not suggest the housing authority is out of trouble. “Even with the most optimistic of projections, the trend does not suggest that the agency can achieve self-sufficiency any time in the near future,” the report says. 

Davis pointed out that BHA has recently raised Section 8 rents to a level more consistent with market rates. He said he believes that is the reason fewer landlords are opting out of the program. 

The budget battle raging between Alameda County Office of Education Superintendent Sheila Jordan and members of her board hasn’t exactly spilled over into the streets of East Bay cities. 

Few people are aware of the office or understand what it does. 

As Jordan put it in a recent interview: “It’s like nobody’s top priority.” 

But if Jordan and the seven member board don’t agree to pass their $30 million budget by the July 1 deadline, the office may well lose its funding. (Last year the board refused to approve Jordan’s budget until July 12, and this year it is threatening to submit its own budget without Jordan’s consent). 

“The financial consequences of not adopting and filing your budget as the law specifies are too great to disregard,” State Superintendent of Education Delaine Eastin wrote, in a letter addressed to Jordan and the board earlier this month.  

“I urge you to work out your differences. If you do not, I assure you I will cut off the flow of funds for the Alameda County Office of Education.” 

Why does it matter? 

The county office operates some small, specialized schools that serve about 600 of the most “at risk” students in the county, ranging from high school dropouts to youth incarcerated in Juvenile Hall. But perhaps the most widely publicized duty of the office, ironically enough, is to supervise the budgets of the county’s 18 local school districts, making sure they are submitted on time and in the proper format. 

“They provide us with advice and support when we have critical problems, and they have been very helpful in that regard,” said Berkeley School Board President Terry Doran. 

When the Emeryville Unified School District came up $650,000 short last year, it was the county office of education that stepped in to bail them out, said Emeryville Interim Superintendent Laura Alvarenga.  

“My hope, and I think the hope of everyone, is that the board and superintendent find a way to work out whatever issues they have at hand so they can continue to operate,” Alvarenga said. 

The battle between Jordan and her board members heated up last week when the board majority announced they were hiring their own financial advisor, allegedly because Jordan and her staff were not providing them with the information they needed to make sound budget decisions. 

“We don’t feel that we’ve been getting accurate or complete information since she took over as superintendent,” said board President Ernest Avellar Monday. 

Avellar said the board will proceed with plans to introduce a competing budget unless it is given better information from Jordan, and more input into Jordan’s budget. 

He said the board’s requests for more information often illicit no response. For example, Jordan and her staff have not explained how they will come up with the money for a proposed 10 percent raise in county teachers’ salaries despite repeated requests for that information, Avellar said. 

Avellar and other board members said they won’t tolerate cuts in county school programs to provide the money for a pay raise. 

Jordan said the board members opposing her are simply engaged in a “hostile political move” aimed at driving her or her staff out of office. This would allow it to appoint her replacement, she said. 

“It really has become this demoralizing slap in the face,” Jordan said. 

Jordan said she has made improving the quality of budget information available to the board a top priority since she came into office in 1998. She has broken down expenditures and revenue to the level of each individual school site, she said, so the board could pinpoint exactly why expenditures were exceeding revenues. 

The budget information available to the board today “is better than anything they have ever seen before,” Jordan said. 

As for the teachers’ raises, Jordan said she is examining a variety of different ways to come up with the money, including possibly combining some of the county office’s smaller school sites to create economies of scale. She said she has gone out of her way to involve the board in this planning process.  

The board’s newest member, Enrique Palacios, said Monday that he was content with the quality of budget information provided over the last year. 

“They actually have provided, throughout the year, a tremendous amount of information about the budget,” Palacios said. 

Palacios agreed with Jordan’s assessment that the board majority has political motives for threatening not to approve next year’s budget by the July 1 deadline. He said there has been bad blood between Jordan and certain board members since she was elected superintendent in 1998, defeating the candidate these board members had endorsed. 

“This whole year that I’ve been on the board these board members haven’t done a damn thing to improve the quality of education (in the county),” Palacios said. “There a lot that the county can do, but it requires everyone working together.” 

But Avellar maintained that he and other board members are simply fighting to have more input into the budget process. 

“We’re not looking at it as an adversarial thing,” Avellar said. “Maybe (Jordan) is.” 

The board will hold a special budget meeting tonight at 5 p.m. at the Alameda County Office of Education, 313 W. Winton Avenue. One item on the agenda is a possible 20 percent cut in Jordan’s salary, which Avellar said is in reaction to the board’s disappointment with Jordan’s leadership. 

At its meeting tonight, the City Council will consider a recommendation to transfer funding for the First Source Employment Program from the Sewer Fund to allocations from a variety of capital projects. 

The goal of the employment program is to promote the hiring of qualified Berkeley residents among businesses that contract with the city, especially construction contractors.  

A March audit performed by City Auditor Ann-Marie Hogan, concluded that the FSEP was being inappropriately financed by the Sewer Fund, which generates about $14 million a year for repair and maintenance of the city’s damaged and leaking sewer lines. According to Berkeley Municipal Code, it is a violation to use that money for any city program that is not sewer related.  

Hogan said in her report that when the FSEP was first established, it was only promoting local hiring on sewer projects and that over time the program started promoting hiring for other divisions, which created the funding problem.  

According to the report to council, The city manager is proposing individual capital projects fund for FSEP. If adopted by the council, each project would allocate 1 percent of its budget to the program. 

Low-income energy program 

The council will consider accepting a state grant of $97,600 to help low-income residents pay energy bills and fund energy efficient weatherization services for their homes and apartments.  

The state legislature authorized the California State Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program as a response to the energy crisis. 

To be eligible for the program, applicants must be at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty income. 

Both the bill payment assistance and the weatherization programs will give seniors and disabled residents priority. 

Public Hearings 

Zoning appeal 

The council will hold nine public hearings tonight. Among them will be the appeal of a zoning permit for the construction of a detached dwelling behind an existing structure at 1825 Berkeley Way.  

Neighbors are appealing the permit because the new dwelling would be within four feet and eight inches of the rear property line. Normally, the required setback for a rear property line is 15 feet.  

The city manager’s report recommends that the council deny the appeal and uphold the Use permit. 

The council could deny the appeal, send the project back to the Zoning Adjustments Board or reverse the ZAB’s decision. 

Lighting assessment 

The council will hold its annual street-lighting assessment public hearing. According to the Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972, the city must hold a public hearing each year prior to accepting the street-lighting assessment budget.  

The city manager estimates the city will spend $1.6 million during fiscal year 2002 for street-light upkeep. The current property owner and business assessment is $1.3 million. 

Businesses are assessed at four times the rate of residential property owners because commercial areas are on average four times brighter than residential areas. 

Consent items 

Some of the consent calendar items, those generally passed unanimously and without discussion, include: 

• An additional $12,000 to the Harrison Park air study to look at certain metals in the air at the park. 

• Repair of broken parking meters. 

• Ask the city manager to report at this meeting (an exception to the rules) on the status of staffing for traffic and pedestrian safety. 

Berkeley Housing Authority 

The Housing Authority will hold a meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers just prior to the regular City Council meeting. 

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. It is broadcast on KPFB at 89.3 and televised on B-TV, ch-25. 

CARRIZO PLAIN NATIONAL MONUMENT — For a thousand years, American Indians have made Painted Rock their canvas. 

The horseshoe-shaped sandstone monolith is known around the world for its red ocher drawings of horned figures and geometric shapes. 

Unfortunately, it also attracts modern scribblers. Now, federal and state officials are considering cameras, satellites and other modern technology to preserve the ancient site from vandals who write or chip their names into the rock. 

“We get graffiti at this site two to three times a year,” said Duane Christian, an archaeologist with the federal Bureau of Land Management. 

The rock is in the national monument created by President Clinton in January on 204,000 acres of grasslands between San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield. 

Policing the rock is difficult because the area is sparsely populated and the monolith is several miles from the nearest building. 

Vandals can be charged with a felony that carries a sentence of up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

Graffiti writers also violate religious strictures. The rock is sacred to the Chumash Indians, who hold summer solstice festivals there. 

In 1991, volunteers removed the worst damage. And recently, Christian and a half-dozen computer experts, engineers and law enforcement advisers visited Painted Rock to discuss ways of preventing further desecration. 

“This is such an internationally renowned site, our job is to protect what’s left of it,” explained Ron Fellows, field manager for the BLM in Bakersfield. 

Suggestions range from placing cameras to photographing cars entering the site to using an electronic beam to alert observers miles away. One problem with the beam idea, though, is that an elk or antelope could wander by and set off a false alarm. 

Another idea would be to monitor the site via satellite “remote sensing,” although Fellows said that is “probably impractical” because of it is so costly. 

Fellows said that once he gets a proposal from the research team, he will go to Washington, D.C., with a budget request. 

Meanwhile, low-tech sometimes has worked. One woman who carved her initials inside a heart on Painted Rock was caught because she had signed the registration book at the visitor’s center. 

The oldest graffiti on Painted Rock dates back to the 1870s, Christian said. But writings over 50 years old are considered historical and the government cannot remove them.

Not since the mid-’90s have more Californians believed the state is headed in the wrong direction. 

And it may get worse. Nearly 60 percent of state residents expect the economy to worsen in the next year, while about 40 percent see a brighter horizon, according to a new poll. 

The telephone survey of 2,001 adult Californians was done over eight days in early May by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. The poll was conducted in English and Spanish. 

The twin culprits were the souring economy and the electricity crisis. 

“Californians clearly see the electricity crisis as a harbinger of other growth-related problems,” said Mark Baldassare, the research institute’s survey director. “This crisis and general economic uncertainty have severely undermined public confidence in California’s future and in its leaders.” 

Change has come swiftly. 

In January, 62 percent of state residents said California was headed in the right direction, compared to 48 percent this month. 

Other key findings include: 

• 82 percent of respondents said population growth over the next 20 years will make California a less desirable place to live. 

• 86 percent of respondents said the electricity crisis will hurt the state’s economy. 

• 43 percent of respondents favor building more power plants, up from 32 percent in January. The second most popular solution, re-regulating the electricity industry, was the favored solution in January. 

• Traffic congestion, affordable housing, air pollution and a shortage of good jobs top the list of negative consequences respondents foresee from the state’s population growth.

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors told a state appeals court Monday they believe the Sara Jane Olson defense team is trying to delay her attempted-murder trial until “years from now when the witnesses have all died.” 

In a bid to get the trial started, Deputy District Attorneys Michael Latin and Eleanor Hunter asked the 2nd District Court of Appeals to reconsider their decision allowing a postponement of the trial until September. 

Defense lawyers J. Tony Serra and Shawn Chapman have said they need more time to plow through a mountain of evidence dating back 25 years in the case of the former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive. 

The appeals court, by a vote of 2-1, ordered the trial judge, Larry P. Fidler, to delay matters until Sept. 4 suggesting there was no pressing reason to force defense attorneys to begin trial when they say they are unprepared. 

Fidler, who took over the case this spring after the original judge was transferred, rejected a defense bid to delay the trial for five months and questioned the rising costs of the Olson defense, which is being partially funded by public money. 

In their appeal, defense lawyers argued that they were unprepared and that starting the trial soon would have denied Olson due process and a fair trial. 

“The prosecution has had 25 years to prepare its case and the unlimited resources of the city, county, state and federal governments, (while) the defense has had very little time to prepare,” said their written argument. 

In their new legal brief, the prosecutors say that the defense has had ample time and plenty of court-appointed help in going through evidence. 

“Instead of getting better prepared for trial as time progresses, Olson’s defense team is less and less willing to try the case,” said the prosecutors. 

Their latest request for continuance, they said, asks for “a reasonable time to prepare.” 

“The request is vague and indefinite,” said the motion. ”... To Olson and her team, ’reasonable’ time means years from now when the witnesses have all died.” 

The road to trial has become even more complicated in recent days with the filing of criminal charges against Serra and Chapman by the city attorney’s office. They are accused of disclosing the addresses and phone numbers of two police witnesses. 

That action, the lawyers say, may force them out of the case entirely because defending themselves will create a conflict of interest with their client. Hearings are scheduled on that issue before the June 22 date set for the appeals court to hear arguments. 

Olson, 54, is accused of attempting to murder Los Angeles police officers by planting bombs under police cars in 1975 in retaliation for the deaths of six SLA members in a fiery shootout in 1974. The bombs did not explode. 

Indicted in 1976 under her former name, Kathleen Soliah, she remained a fugitive until her 1999 capture in Minnesota, where she had taken on her new name and was living as a doctor’s wife, mother and active community member. 

LOS ANGELES — Sixteen members of a Congressional reform committee invoked a 1928 rule in a federal lawsuit filed Monday to gain the release of adjusted Census data they say will show minorities were undercounted. 

The lawsuit was filed in district court in Los Angeles against Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans by members of the House Committee on Government Reform. 

The action, which names 16 committee members as plaintiffs, invokes the “Seven Member Rule,” a 73-year-old statute that gives any seven members of the House Committee on Government Reform special access to federal records. It is believed to be the first time the rule has been invoked in a lawsuit. 

“The adjusted census data should have been released months ago,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “There is no valid reason for the Bush administration to withhold this data from members of Congress or the public.” 

Committee members sent letters to Evans in early April seeking the release of statistically adjusted population figures for the 2000 Census.  

They filed the lawsuit after receiving no response, court documents said. 

The Commerce Department, which oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, has been the target of several other lawsuits filed by cities and counties seeking the release of adjusted data, including a federal lawsuit filed by officials in Los Angeles. 

The debate has political overtones, with Democrats seeking adjusted figures to make up for traditional undercounts of minorities, the poor and children. 

Republicans have argued that adjusting the numbers through statistical sampling techniques would inject errors into a 2000 Census that has been proven to be more accurate than the 1990 count. GOP leaders also claim the Constitution calls for only a raw head count every 10 years for redistricting purposes. 

Both parties agree that district lines drawn with adjusted data could add more minorities, which likely would mean the addition of more Democrats to voter rolls. 

The Commerce Department in March agreed with a recommendation by Census Bureau statisticians who concluded that raw numbers should be released instead of sampled data for official redistricting purposes.  

The statisticians made their recommendation after finding discrepancies between adjusted data and other demographic surveys that could not be resolved before an April 1 statutory deadline for releasing Census figures. 

A 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars the use of adjusted numbers for reapportioning Congressional seats, but such data could be used for local districting purposes and the disbursement of government funds. 

The lawsuit filed Monday claims the Commerce Department violated the Administrative Procedure Act by refusing to release the data to committee members under the “Seven Member Rule.” 

“The fact that people have to go to this length to try to get the data is really a sad commentary on the (Bush) administration,” said Jessica Heinz, an assistant city attorney in Los Angeles.  

“The data, even though it may have problems according to the bureau, should be made available to the public so they can make their own conclusions on its quality and so outside statisticians can review the data and articulate their concerns.” 

The White House did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. 

Census officials previously have said that they are trying to reconcile the adjusted figures and hope to make a decision in the fall on whether the data should be released. 

In a related matter, Heinz said Los Angeles will file an appeal by the end of May of its federal lawsuit seeking the release of adjusted figures.  

Last month U.S. District Court Judge Gary A. Feess ruled against the city, which was joined in its federal lawsuit by Albuquerque, N.M.; San Antonio; Stamford, Conn.; the Bronx and Brooklyn boroughs of New York City; Toledo, Ohio; Santa Clara County.; Inglewood and other cities. 

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the use of raw numbers leads to an undercount of the poor and minorities in Los Angeles and could lead to a potential loss of $372 million in federal funding over the next 10 years. 

Cameron and Hidalgo counties in Texas also filed their own federal lawsuit earlier this month claiming the use of raw numbers is leading to an undercount that will cost the counties up to $175 million in federal funds over the next decade. 

On the Net: 

http://www.census.gov

SAN JOSE — Apple Computer Inc. is ready to make bulky cathode ray tube displays things of the past. 

“We are officially end-of-lifing CRT displays,” chief executive Steve Jobs said Monday in opening Apple’s week-long conference for thousands of software developers. “We will be the first with all LCD displays in the industry.” 

Apple already is selling a pair of flat-panel liquid-crystal displays, a 15-inch and a 22-inch, both of which were lowered in price Monday, to $599 and $2,499, respectively.  

Macintosh also will introduce a new 17-inch display for $999 early next month. LCD monitors offer higher resolution and take up far less space than traditional PC displays. 

The decision doesn’t involve Apple’s line of popular iMac computers, the colorful desktops that combine a computer and monitor all-in-one. Those models, which feature a 15-inch screen, will remain the only vestige of CRTs, Apple officials said. 

Citing heavy feedback from consumers, Jobs also said the company now is shipping all Mac computers with its latest OS X operating system, two months ahead of what the company had planned. Previously, users had to buy the $129 software separately. A version of OS X for servers also was released Monday. 

The new OS X is taking center stage at the developers conference in San Jose. It is the Cupertino-based computer maker’s first major platform overhaul since it introduced the Macintosh in 1984. 

Knowing the success of the operating system depends largely on the applications that could run on it, Jobs encouraged developers to act quickly. 

“You can be sure, we’re betting our future on OS X,” Jobs said. “The train has left the station, and now is the time to jump on board before the train is out of sight.” 

After a bruising first quarter in which Apple reported its first loss in three years, Apple returned to profitability in the second quarter, helped by a new line of products and the March 24 release of OS X. 

The company also is hoping to gain market share – it now claims less than 5 percent of the nation’s PC market – by opening up retail stores in high-traffic shopping areas. The company opened its first two stores of 25 planned over the weekend in McLean, Va. and Glendale. 

Jobs said the store openings drew 7,700 visitors, some of whom stood in line for three hours to get in. The stores sold a combined total of $559,000 of merchandise, he said. 

The momentum of Apple’s new products and retail stores has generated more enthusiasm among Apple developers. 

“Without developers seeing that Apple is a viable platform, they’re not going to develop applications for it, and we’re seeing the opposite of that,” said Frank Falco, chief executive of Recall Design, an Australian company that creates online applications.  

After years of developing OS X, and talking about “what’s on the horizon,” Jobs and other Apple officials said they were excited to finally be able to talk about the present. 

“We are at one of these key milestones in the company where all these great things are happening,” Philip Schiller, vice president of marketing, said in an interview. “Hopefully, it’ll have a great cumulative effect.” 

Apple shares were up 3 cents to close at $23.56 in trading Monday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. 

On the Net: 

http://www.apple.com

On a brutally hot day in Stockton, several members of the St. Mary’s track & field team didn’t have a chance to take a break at the Bayshore Regional championships. With qualifying spots for the Northern California Meet of Champions next week on the line, the Panthers’ top performers had to be at their bests. 

Eleven different Panthers qualified for multiple spots at the Meet of Champions by placing in the top seven spots in at least two events, and the boys won the team title with 135 1/2 points. The girls just missed the team title, scoring 109 points to James Logan’s 124 1/2. Berkeley High came in fourth with 38 1/2 points. 

Saturday at Diablo Valley College was another banner day for Halihl Guy, as the senior won both hurdles races and helped the Panthers’ 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams to victories. The trio of Asokah Muhammed, Solomon Welch and Trestin George qualified in both the long jump and triple jump, with Muhammed also finishing second in the 100-meter dash and Welch coming in just behind Guy in the 110-meter high hurdles.  

Courtney Brown won the 200-meter dash, finished third in the 400-meter and ran legs in both relays. Throw in qualifying spots in both hurdles races for Jason Bolden-Anderson and both throwing events for Phil Weatheroy, and the Panthers are headed to the Meet of Champions with a good shot at the boys’ team title. 

On the girls’ side, the Panthers were carried by Tiffany Johnson and Bridget Duffy. Johnson, who won her spots in a run-off on Tuesday because she missed the BSAL league meet with an injury, won the 100-meter dash by nipping favorite Cheri Craddock of James Logan by .01 seconds. She followed that with a school-record 38-11 in the triple jump, but scratched in the long jump when she had trouble hitting her marks in warm-ups. 

Duffy had possibly the most impressive double, winning both the 1,600 and the 3,200 despite the stifling heat, running the final lap of each race unchallenged. Also qualifying in both long-distance events was Berkeley’s Grace Nielsen. 

Danielle Stokes qualified in three events, winning the 300-meter low hurdles and taking third in both the 100-meter hurdles and the long jump. Kamaiya Warren, who was favored to win both throwing events, finished a disappointing second in the shot put, and wasn’t in the discus after scratching on all three attempts in the league meet. 

Berkeley’s Katrina Keith qualified in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes, and both of the ’Jackets’ relay teams qualified as well. 

The Northern California Meet of Champions will take place at Cal’s Edwards Stadium on Friday and Saturday.

Habitot Children’s Museum “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. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins, and become little “dump” workers. $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. (closed Sundays, Memorial Day through Labor Day) Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Judah L. Magnes Museum “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 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exhuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter. “Ricky Swallow/Matrix 191,” Including new sculptures and drawings through May 27; “Five Star: the 31st Annual University of California at Berkeley Master of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition: Through May 27 $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; children age 12 and under free; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and Wednesday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 642-0808 

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery” 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 “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. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” 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. “T. Rex on Trial,” Through May 28 Where was T. Rex at the time of the crime? Learn how paleontologists decipher clues to dinosaur behavior. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. Computer Lab, Saturdays 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium 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. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 orr www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for year membership. All ages. May 25: Controlling Hand, Wormwood, Goats Blood, American Waste, Quick to Blame; May 26: Honor System, Divit, Enemy You, Eleventeen, Tragedy Andy; June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2 El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 22: Nigerian Brothers, Zulu Exiles, Umlilo; May 23: Paul Pena and Friends; May 24: Jai Uttal, Stephen Kent, Geoffrey Gordon; May 25: Jelly Roll; May 26: Carribean All Stars; May 27: Big Brother and the Holding Company; May 29: Andrew Carrier and Cajun Classics; May 30: Fling Ding, Bluegrass Intentions, Leslie Kier and Friends; May 31: Wake the Dead, David Gans 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 23: Willis Alan Ramsey; May 24: Nickel Creek; May 25: Gearoid O’Hallmhurain, Patrick Ourceau, Robbie O’Connell; May 26: Darryl Henriques; May 27: Shana Morrison; May 31: Freight 33rd Anniversary Concert Series: Bob Dylan Song Night and others; June 1: The Riders of the Purple Sage. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. May 22: Willy N’ Mo; May 23: Global Echo; May 24: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 25: The Mind Club; May 26: Rythm Doctors; May 29: The Lost Trio; May 30: Zambambazo 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

La Pena Cultural Center May 24: Tato Enriquez, plus a video and photo exhibit from earthquake-devastated El Salvador; May 26: 7-9 p.m. in the Cafe Jason Moen Jazz Quartet, 9:30 p.m. Charanga Tumbo y Cuerdas; May 27: 4 p.m. in the cafe La Pena Flamenca; May 28: 7 p.m. Frank Emilio Flynn 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org  

Berkeley Chamber Performances May 22, 8 p.m. Presenting “Baguette Quartette” for an evening of Parisian Cafe music. $12 - $15 Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 525-5211 www.berkeleychamberperform.org 

Berkley Lyric Opera Orchestra May 25, 8 p.m. John Kendall Baily conducting, Ivan Ilic on piano. Workds by Back, Stravinsky, Mozart, Prokofiev. $15 - $20 St. John’s Presbytarian Church 2727 Collage Ave. 843-5781  

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble, Combos and Lab Band May 25, 7:30 p.m. $5 - $8. Florance Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way www.bhs.berkeley.k12.ca.us/arts/performing/jazz 

New Millenium Strings Benefit Concert May 26, 8 p.m. Featuring pieces by Weber, Chabrier, Bizet. Benefits Berkeley Food Pantry $7 - $10 University Christian Church 2401 La Conte 526-3331 

Colibri May 26, 11 a.m. Latin American songs and rythms. West Branch of the Berkeley Public Library 1125 University 649-3964 

Himalayan Fair May 27, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation Live Oak Park 1300 Shattuck Ave. 869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

Kenny Washington May 27, 4:30 p.m. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Jupiter String Quartet May 27, 7:30 p.m. Works by Janacek and Haydn. $8 - $10. Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Berkeley Ballet Theater Spring Showcase. May 21: 2 p.m. Youth Ensemble, 6 p.m. Adult Division $5 - 15. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 

“Procession of the Sun and Moon” with Selected Solo Pieces by Maria Lexa May 27, 2 p.m. Full length drama with giant puppets and masked characters accompanied by live music. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 Collage Ave 925-798-1300 

“New Moon at Sinai” May 30, 7 p.m. Music, live puppet theater, shadows and images will take the audience from Egypt to Mount Sinai. Players. $8 - $12. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 Collage Ave 925-798-1300.

What side are you on in the marijuana fight? 

Editor: 

Who's afraid of the U.S. Supreme Court? Not the medical marijuana patients’ movement. 

The May 14 ruling by the Supremes added no new onerous elements to the United States’ prohibitionist war on drugs. All Justice Clarence Thomas, writing the majority opinion, could do was refer to the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 and re-iterate its unscientific and highly political findings that “Congress has made a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception.” 

In other words, the Supremes’ response to the five year old medical marijuana patients’ movement is essentially, “read Congress’ lips,” to which I respond, “talk to the hand!” 

We have gone beyond the point where a corrupt group of judges (the recount in Florida proved that Gore won the popular vote there!) can tell us to follow the unscientific and politicized rulings made by a Congress who, for the most part, are indebted to large corporations (pharmaceutical, alcohol, tobacco and others) and to the Prison Industrial Complex. And we aren't going to be turned around! 

In 1979 (ten years after the Controlled Substances Act quoted by Justice Thomas) voters in Berkeley passed The Berkeley Cannabis Ordinance. The Ordinance mandated that cannabis law enforcement be the lowest possible priority of the police department. It also required the City Council to ensure that no city funds were spent for cannabis law enforcement and that there were no arrests for citations for cannabis law violations. The city has never been in compliance with the mandates of this ordinance. 

This year, after two and a half years of input and initiative from the Medical Marijuana movement, the Berkeley City Council adopted a conservative and controversial set of growing and possession standards for Medical Marijuana. In doing this the Council ignored he recommendation of its own Community Health Commission which, recognizing that there are indeed medical benefits to marijuana use, argued for the same (higher) standards as exist in Oakland. 

So what’s new. Politics, politics, politics. If it’s OK for the highest judicial body in the land to be anti-democratic and unscientific, then it must be OK for the Berkeley City Council. But who can blame them? After 30 years of the recent round of the war on drugs, a war that disproportionately negatively impacts communities of color, a war in which the prohibitionists have mastered the act of the big lie - say it loud enough and long enough and people will believe it — honorable people, even progressive people can get confused. 

Which is why I hearken to the words of Benson B. Roe, M.D., Emeritus Professor and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, who in October, 1996, stated: “Opponents [of medical marijuana] want us to worry about ultimate legalization of the ‘drug’ and question the scientific evidence of its medicinal value. More importantly we should question the scientific evidence for any harm or danger from its use and thus should ask what justification is there for outlawing it. Cannabis (marijuana) has been widely used for centuries (longer than tobacco) and no significant disease process or toxin has been identified with it. With firm medical certainty I would far rather have my kids smoke pot than either tobacco or alcohol, the lethal effects of which are well known.”  

Frederick Douglas, ex-slave and fighter for freedom, stated “Power surrenders nothing without a struggle.” The medical marijuana movement is a struggle for medical rights, a struggle for civil rights. The old union song asks, “Which side are you on?” Are you on the side of democracy, science and compassion, or are you on the side of corporate control, ignorance and cruelty? 

Robin M. Donald 

Berkeley 

Israel has hurt hopes for peace 

Editor: 

The taxpayers of America should not worry about the inefficient use of their hard-earned dollars. Israel used some of its exorbitant aid from the United States to hire two New York public relations firms, Rubenstein Associates & Morris, and Carrick & Guma, to help polish American-tailored sound bites. Its efficiency is evident from the number of Israel’s supporters parroting those test-marketed arguments (“We Must Seek Peace in the Middle East” 5/12-13/2001). 

Daryl Kutzstein starts his letter by making the point everyone agrees with: there should be peace in the Middle East. His startling claim mirrors Ariel Sharon’s statement at his swearing — in that Israel’s “hand is extended in peace.” 

Kutzstein furthers the Israeli government’s line that it is all for peace instead of looking at the reality that it shoots unarme Palestinians, assassinates officials, lays siege on villages, and enforces a colonial system of settlements. 

If that is Israel wanting peace, I would hate to see it wanting war. 

Palestinians actually know that all too well. Israel wanted war in 1948 and 750,000 civilian Palestinians paid with their homes. According to Kutzstein/Israeli government, that is all now irrelevant. He writes so arrogantly, “We must move from asking who did what and when.” The crime is always trivial to those who benefit but how can he have the nerve to ask the victims to forget? 

Now five million refugees keep their homeland in their memory and the catastrophe that forced their exile is central to their life. This catastrophe is Israel’s establishment. Israel refuses to accept accountabilty for this exile, even though it refused and still refuses them to return to their homes. How can you negotiate with a government that will not even acknowledge its own actions? 

Israel’s supporters do not help when they repeat arguments merely because they fit conveniently into a need to rationalize Israel’s bellicose behavior and Apartheid regime. It comes from a psychological need to reconcile one’s beliefs (Israel is good) with an unpleasant reality (pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting kids). 

For example, Kutzstein categorically dismisses the Students for Justice in Palestine occupation of Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley as anti-Semitic. 

He relies uncritically on several alleged incidents he surely did not witness, and certainly did not read in the official record. It is convenient and comforting to pass on hearsay spread by critics attempting to smear a successful and engaging event he is predisposed to disagreeing with. 

Kutzstein similarly sees no problem with uncritically repeating Israel’s claim that “Israel has offered ... the most generous peace ever.” It is a worthless claim because it is relative to a frankly unimpressive past. 

Their commitment to peace should not be measured by what they offered in the past, but whether they offered what is needed for peace. An Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, reported that this is uncorroborated. Israel’s supporters take it at face value without question or doubt. 

The fact is that Israel was only willing to give up partial administrative control over most of the West Bank and Gaza, which it illegally occupies anyways. What is it giving up by negotiating land it is obligated under international law to withdraw from? Israel was essentially negotiating its compliance with UN Resolution 242. 

If one starts with the conclusion that Israel is benevolent and genuinely interested in doing what it takes to bring peace, there can be no serious discussion about peace. The term peace has been so diluted and made meaningless by cynical use, we cannot even talk about ending the violence permanently until we begin by confronting the history and the fundmantal facts on the ground. The Palestinians are a displaced people. Israel is the country that displaced and continues to marginalize and repress them, and deny the Palestinians fundamental rights. Once we recognize that, we will understand what is needed for peace. First, we must be painfully honest. 

William Lafi Youmans 

Berkeley 

Green Party is all about saving Berkeley trees  

Editor: 

I would like to correct some factual errors which appeared in Carol Denney’s letter (May 8) regarding the library trees. 

Regarding the three “public input workshops” which were held on the Shattuck Avenue redevelopment project, Green Party members were in fact in attendance. As soon as it became clear that the proposed plan would call for the removal of nearly all the trees downtown, and that the planning group was not going to budge, we joined an organized effort to save the trees. Our members made phone calls, petitioned, and participated in a demonstration in which we symbolically “chained” ourselves to the very trees in front of the library that were subsequently destroyed. Our work to save the trees was done well before the proposal went to the City Council for its approval, not just after the fact. 

Unfortunately, the momentum at the time was too strongly on the side of the consultants, who were wedded to their downtown plan. The opponents of the plan had to struggle to get anything at all, even a compromise to relocate the trees. The alternative would have been a virtual clear-cut of Downtown. The compromise wasn’t at all what we would have preferred. However, the final plan saved or relocated many of the downtown trees, certainly a better alternative than the original plan going ahead unchanged. 

The City Council resolution explicitly stated that the trees in front of the library would be relocated. The outrageous decision to cut them down, after the Berkeley community had been assured that they would be relocated, was entirely the fault of irresponsible and unaccountable city employees who 

directly violated the City Council directive and the compromise agreement. The City Council and City Manager are also at fault since to date nothing has been done to address their actions. 

The Green Party was, is, and will continue to be committed to protecting trees in Berkeley and elsewhere from unnecessary destruction. 

Greg Jan 

County Councilor for the Green Party of Alameda County 

Liz O’Connell-Gates came to preschool with her kids on Saturday to get involved in a lesson plan that didn’t involve ABC’s or 123’s. At Step One School – located in the Berkeley hills – children, teachers and parents traded in crayons for gardening tools to participate in a countywide beautification project called “Spruce up for Kids Day.” 

More than 2,000 volunteers throughout Alameda county pitched in time at approximately 120 child care centers during the event made possible by the Alameda County Children and Families Commission, said Kathy Padro, the commission’s outreach coordinator. 

The commission collected some $250,000 in grants generated from Proposition 10, the 50-cent per pack cigarette tax that funds early childhood development and anti-tobacco education programs in California.  

“It’s important to get kids at an early age and teach them about gardening and tobacco,” O’Connell-Gates said. “Just like they say that love lasts a lifetime, I think that the wonderful things kids learn here last a lifetime and can be passed on.” 

“Spruce up for Kids Day” provided an opportunity to involve parents with their children’s’ schools and to involve kids with nature.  

“There’s a pretty active parent community here. It’s the only way you can make ends meet in a school like this,” said Eric Bjerkholt, father of one Step One Alumnus and two other children currently enrolled. 

Many preschools and childcare centers are non-profit organizations and are “traditionally under funded,” according to a press release put out by the commission.  

“We are in a crisis that’s been brewing basically because teachers already don’t get paid enough, and preschool teachers get paid even less,” said Sue Britson, co-director at Step One.  

Monday, May 21

Creation conversation 

7:30 - 10 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, founder of L.A.’s SpeedDating will review creation from the reference point of physics and compare this to the description classical Jewish sources have given for our universe and its creation.  

$10  

848-0237 x127 

Parks, Recreation and  

Waterfront Commissions  

Meeting 

7 p.m. 

Hs Lordships Restaurant 

199 Seawall Drive 

Berkeley Marina 

Meeting to discuss the proposed new Eastshore State Park. 

981-6334 

Solid Waste Management  

Commission Meeting 

7 p.m. 

Solid Waste Management Center 

1201 Second St. 

Among other topics, staff report on status of TV’s/monitors as hazardous material. 

Tuesday, May 22

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 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Strawberry tasting 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering &  

Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Solving Residential Drainage  

Problems 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Second day of two day seminar led by contractor/engineer Eric Burtt. Continued from Thursday May 17. $70 for both days. 

525-7610 

Time, Jews and Buddhism 

7 - 8 p.m. 

Judah L. Magnes Museam 

2911 Russell St. 

A discussion with Steven Goodman and Bill Chayes. $5. 

549-6950 

Wednesday, May 23

Healthful Building Materials  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by environmental consultant Darrel DeBoer.  

$35 per person  

525-7610 

Regional Tranportation Talk 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Rebecca Kaplan of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition will talk about the Metropolitan Transportation Commision’s 25-year Regional Transportation Plan at the regular meeting of the Berkeley Gray Panthers. Open to the public. 

548-9696 

Forum on Small Learning  

Communities 

7:30 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave 

Organized by Berkeley High Senior Nicole Heyman, panel of students, teachers and community members will discuss the achievement gap at Berkeley High and possible reform plans. Students encouraged to participate. $3. 

Thursday, May 24  

Paddling Adventures  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Dan Crandell, member of the U.S. National Kayak Surf Team and owner of Current Adventures Kayak School, will introduce attendees to all aspects of kayaking. Free  

527-4140 

City of Berkeley Meeting 

2 - 4 p.m. 

2120 Milvia St. 

Second Floor Conference Rm. 

Bancroft-Durant Two-Way Street Proposal Meeting. Call Bike For a Better City 597-1235. 

West Berkeley Project Area  

Commission Meeting 

7 p.m. 

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth St. 

Among other topics, correspondance regarding Commissioner Training, Eastshore State Park planning meetings and proposal for commissioner advocate. 

705-8105 

Community Health  

Commission Meeting 

6:30 - 9:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Among other topics, a vote on Letter of Apology to Mayor. 

644-6109 

Friday, May 25  

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  

Free Writing, Cashiering &  

Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Saturday, May 26 

Himalayan Fair 

10 a.m. - 7 p.m.  

Live Oak Park  

1300 Shattuck Ave.  

The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation 

869-3995 

Chocolate and Chalk Art  

Festival 

9 a.m. 

Registration at Peralta Park 

1561 Solano Ave. 

Areas of sidewalk will be assigned to participants to create their own sidewalk art. People who find all five of the chocolate kisses chalked onto Solano Ave. can enter raffle for cash prize. Chocolate Menu available listing various items for various chocolate items for sale from Solano businesses. Dog fashion show at Solano Ave. and Key Route in Albany at 2 p.m. Free.

This afternoon, ESPN will carry an NCAA postseason selection show, and after a lengthy absence, Cal will likely be among the participants. But this is no repeat of MarchMadness. Instead, the baseball team is aiming for their first run at the College World Series since 1995.  

“I’m not sure we’re in yet,” admitted Cal head coach David Esquer. “I’m very paranoid in that respect. Hopefully we’ll get our name called on Monday.” 

This year’s Cal team has defied expectations with their 33-23 record. After losing Xavier Nady and Mike Tonis to the draft, many believed that this team would suffer through ayear of hard knocks. Esquer himself was not sure of what to expect from his inexperienced squad. 

“We had a lot of inexperienced players in key roles,” said Esquer. “Conor Jackson was a freshman, Jeff Dragicevich was a freshman, (Brian) Horwitz... Carson White was a junior college transfer, so he hadn’t played in the Pac-10.”  

However, the team’s young bats were up to the challenge. Horwitz embarked on a school-record 25-game hit streak, Jackson finished with an even .300 average, and White hit .340, tied for the team lead with 49 runs batted in, and led Cal with a .575 slugging percentage. 

The one strength of this year’s team coming into the season was the pitching staff.  

“We got two arms back from injury in (Jason) Dennis and (Ryan) Atkinson, and Trevor Hutchinson was back as the ace,” said Esquer.  

Cal also had the benefit of an effective relief corps, an area in which they struggled during the 2000 season. David Cash (10-3), Blake Read, and Andrew Sproul were very effective as long relievers.  

“Plus, we knew we had a few freshman who would contribute in Brian Montalbo and Matt Brown,” Esquer said. 

Brown led the team with eight saves, and Montalbo, a 4th round pick of the Atlanta Braves, served as a long reliever and spot starter. However, Cal’s run towards the postseason really picked up steam when Hutchinson got into a groove.  

“The team didn’t play well behind Trevor early on; we needed to get him on a roll,” said Esquer.  

Since gutting out a victory against Arizona on April 20th, Hutchinson (6-6) has won four consecutive games.  

“It really helps to be winning going in; the team has a lot of confidence,” said the junior right-hander. “I had some bad luck early in the season, but now everything is going well.” 

Cal struggled early on, losing games in late innings and often by two runs or less.  

“We just had to improve on little things, fundamentals,” said Esquer. “When we play good defense, we can play with anyone.”  

The team faced its nadir on April 17th, when they dropped a 10-6 decision to St. Mary’s. At 22-19 overall, and 7-8 in the Pac-10 with three conference series left to play, the Bears took control of their postseason destiny. Cal took two of three from Arizona and Stanford, then swept UCLA in Los Angeles. As the dust settled, the Bears found themselves at the end of a 7-2 conference run that landed them in third place in the Pac-10.  

As the finish line approached, the Bears seemed to sense the postseason. They rallied to beat Santa Clara in their final home game on May 8th, then traveled to Kansas State and swept the Wildcats to cap a season-ending 9-2 run. “We’re playing with a lot of confidence right now,” said Hutchinson.  

Finishing ten games over .500, and in third place in the Pac-10 would seem to ensure Cal’s inclusion in the NCAA Regionals. However, Coach Esquer isn’t satisfied with a mere playoff invitation.  

“We can’t just be happy to be there,” he said. “Most teams are just happy to get there, then they go two (losses) and out. We have to believe we can win the region.”

As Berkeley school administrators decide what to do with more than $500,000 awarded to the district for improved standardized test scores, a growing core of frustrated Berkeley teachers are studying ways to protest the test. 

A Berkeley Federation of Teachers meeting at Rosa Parks Elementary School earlier this month drew more than 20 teachers from five Berkeley schools eager to join a growing movement against the state-mandated Stanford 9 test. 

A 10-hour test for students in grades two through 11, the Stanford 9 is intended to compare student grade-level achievement in reading and math from school to school throughout the state. 

The test is at the center of Gov. Gray Davis’ efforts to hold schools more directly accountable for meeting statewide education standards. Schools that perform well are eligible to receive monetary awards, in the form of teacher bonuses and student scholarships. Schools that perform poorly face sanctions and, in extreme cases, may even be taken over by the state.  

A growing number of students, parents and teachers are opposing the test and the way it is used. At two affluent high schools in Marin County earlier this month, enough students boycotted the tests to invalidate the results. The students called the test meaningless and a waste of time. 

Protesters in Oakland May 7 said the test was racist and unfair. Not only are individual test questions culturally biased in favor of affluent whites, they argued, but students of color tend to go to schools in poorer

A plan to install permanent lighting inside UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium has Panoramic Hill residents worried that glaring, unsightly lighting towers will be visible from all over the city. 

“The lighting stands will be visible from all around Berkeley,” said Mike Kelly, a neighbor of the stadium. “They’ll stick up from behind the Campanile like big ugly scarecrows.”  

According to a letter to the president of the Panoramic Hill Association from Jacki Bernier, the University’s principal planner, the idea of retractable lighting has been rejected by planners because of the high cost. The retractable lighting stands would not be visible during the day or when the stadium was not in use at night, Bernier added. 

The idea of permanent lighting at the stadium is unnecessary at best, Kelly said. The university has an average of one or two games a year, he added. 

“In the last 15 years there have been no more than nine night games,” he said. 

Kelly said Fox Television, which televises all the PAC 10 games, brings in temporary lights for those games.  

Panoramic Hill President Janice Thomas said that the lighting will likely increase the number of games played at the stadium at night. “This is a stadium that’s built on top of residential neighborhood,” she said. “With night games you’ll have as many as 75,000 pouring out at 11 p.m. at night, and besides traffic we’re bound to have rowdiness and drunkenness.” 

Thomas also said the glare from lighting would be intrusive. 

The university is planning to begin seismic work that will include shoring up the stadium’s north and south zones and constructing a new two-story press box. Bernier’s letter said the permanent lighting would likely be a part of the seismic work. 

In her letter, Bernier wrote that no lights would be installed for the 2001 football season. She added that the university is continuing to study the possibility of installing permanent lighting, she said, “with the goal of finding a solution that mitigates the neighbor’s most pressing concerns.”

There were at least as many questions as there were people at the Berkeley Alternative High School on Saturday. Yes, that’s right — on Saturday.  

About 70 Berkeley residents showed up for the first Community Summit meeting to discuss the potential break-up of Berkeley High School into “smaller learning communities.” 

For 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning, the place was pretty full. But it could have been fuller. 

“I was pleased at the number of people who were there,” said Michael Miller, a parent and active member of Parents of Children of African Decent. “But if you consider how (a shift to smaller learning communities) is going to impact people, it was a small turnout and not a very diverse one.” 

The project is now in the “pre-planning” stage. With the help of a $50,000 federal planning grant, teachers and parents have been organizing meetings for the last few months to promote public awareness and dialogue. 

The purpose of Saturday’s meeting was to formally introduce the idea to the community and to outline what stages have taken place so far.  

Berkeley High is considering moving towards smaller learning communities because research throughout the United States has shown that large high schools (such as Berkeley High) can combat campus violence, truancy, high teacher turnover and the racial achievement gap by creating smaller learning communities. Each community of about 500 students has a different focus to lure in students with particular needs. 

The coming months will be crucial if the Small Learning Communities Advisory Committee is to accurately gauge community support for the project.  

If there is support, then school officials can apply for federal grants this fall to create more small learning communties within Berkeley High.  

Because of the number of questions and limited time, meeting coordinators took pains to make sure everyone in the audience wrote out their questions to be addressed by the community at later meetings. 

Many of the questions asked during the lively question-and-answer session of the meeting surrounded issues of equality. 

“I want to know what is the process for evaluating underlying beliefs or ideologies — things that set us apart,” Yolanda Huang said. “In a community like Berkeley where you have such diverse communities with [diverse] opinions and backgrounds, how do you achieve a vision for all?” 

Steve Jubb, director of the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools, gave an initial response. 

“Young people and families do not all learn alike — for the same reasons, in the same ways — and they don’t all have the same sets of challenges,” Jubb said. “So choice will need to be an important part of [this project].”  

At the same time, Jubb recognized that the simple fact of having choices is not enough. Students and parents must believe that these new choices make equity possible. Otherwise, people’s decisions may affirm the same inequalities that have always been there.  

“What we know is that choice without advocacy reproduces inequity,” Jubb said. “So if you just give choices, then what tends to happen is people group and regroup according to their perceptions.” 

But some parents were concerned that, though choice seems like a good thing, there may be certain decisions — serious decisions about things like subject-focus or career-track — which many students might not be willing or able to make. 

Rick Ayers, the Berkeley High teacher charged with coordinating the small learning community discussions, spoke to some of these concerns. 

“We want to organize the kinds of programs that allow students to focus on a thematic core, and something that organizes all these curricula and activities. But it certainly doesn’t mean career path in the narrow sense.” 

But there are parents and community-members who think that separating Berkeley High into smaller schools based on things like subject-interest or career-interest or skill-level will promote inequality. It may also create the perception, by certain students, of being given an advantage or disadvantage among their peers.  

“I don’t want to see the School of Social Justice, I don’t want to see Common Ground, I don’t want to see Computer Academy,” said Irma Parker, parent liaison for the Rebound program. 

“I think if there’s going to be equity and fairness in this, that it should be school number one, school number two, school number three, and that the kids are assigned to those schools the same way we assign kids to the school here in the system. Otherwise I just don’t see the equity and the fairness there.” 

Parker also raised another question that had not yet been approached head-on — Do teachers feel committed to this project? 

“It’s a given in the community that most people feel Berkeley High schools staff — the teachers in particular — are entrenched in their own ideas and their own policies,” Parker said. “Most people can just point out the teachers who they feel are very committed to the students. I haven’t heard anybody talk about the commitment of the teachers who will be teaching these kids.” 

Miller felt afterwards that some progress had been made, but that there are still many over-arching, general issues that should not be pushed aside for the more specific ones. 

“The huge issue is the inequity in education. It seems to me a simple truth that it’s our job as a community to educate the members of the community, and we’re not doing that,” Miller said. 

“In my own observation at Berkeley High,” Parker said, “it seems to me that Berkeley High is really interested in educating the kids who are on the fast track. But there’s a certain segment of kids there they seem to want to police.” 

Miller acknowledges that the kinds of issues Parker raises are very difficult to address, but he also feels that, without addressing them, creating smaller learning communities will only delay the issues that face the community.  

“There are a fair number of number of people in the community,” Miller said, “who don’t understand what Irma (Parker) is talking about – who don’t want to go to that place,” Miller said. “That’s a hard place to go to.” 

“I am all for the small learning communities,” he said. “But I still think we have to know all the dynamics that exist that force us to move in this direction.”  

Next meetings: The next Community Summit will take place on Monday, June 18. There will also be a special student meeting at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) on Wednesday, May 23.

The University of California at Berkeley is offering summer courses at a discounted price for teachers from the Berkeley, Oakland, West Contra Costa and San Francisco unified school districts. 

The “100 Teachers” program will provide the “scholar teachers” with an exemption from course and lab fees - which run from $100 to $400 a class at Cal.  

The teachers will also get a $50 discount on the $325 enrollment fee, which means that they can take as many units as they can for $275 – hundreds of dollars less than the $900 the average student pays for a 5-unit course during the summer. 

The program is an attempt to lure more teachers into studying in the university during the summer, says Gary Penders, the director of the university’s summer program.  

Penders says the number of those teachers taking classes from the university in the summer dwindled beginning in 1979, when school cuts caused some school districts to cut back on subsidizing teachers’ summer courses.

LOS ANGELES – A death row inmate convicted of killing a police officer gave a tape-recorded address Sunday at a graduation ceremony for a private college. 

Unlike Mumia Abu-Jamal’s commencement address last year at Antioch College in Ohio, which brought hundreds of demonstrators, his speech at Occidental College drew no protests. 

Students chose Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1981 of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, to speak at the baccalaureate, a ceremony held for seniors before they graduate. 

“Had I known this was going on I would have gone down there and held up a picture of Danny,” the slain policeman’s widow, Maureen Faulkner, said in a telephone interview from her Southern California home. “He was in college when he was murdered and he never got a chance to graduate.” 

About 250 students and relatives attended the baccalaureate. Some cheered loudly as students introduced the 3 1/2-minute speech. 

“I think he has a message that fits perfectly with (Occidental) — radicalism, justice, activism,” said Bre Fahs, 21, a graduating senior who led the effort to have Abu-Jamal speak. 

Occidental College President Theodore Mitchell said he supported the students’ decision to invite Abu-Jamal. 

“This is a college that’s quite committed to the free expression of ideas,” Mitchell said. “So I’m pleased that we are able to provide a venue for Mumia to speak.” 

Abu-Jamal, 45, was convicted of fatally shooting Faulkner after the officer had a physical confrontation with Abu-Jamal’s younger brother during a traffic stop. 

He has repeatedly said he is innocent. His supporters contend he was framed because he was an outspoken radio journalist and a former Black Panther activist. 

Abu-Jamal did not refer to his own case in his taped speech, but spoke instead about the “loneliness and alienation” of life in prison. 

Prison is “a world that you do not know and hopefully you will never know,” Abu-Jamal said. 

Abu-Jamal noted that the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, yet houses 25 percent of its prison inmates. 

Two million people are now incarcerated in this country, he said. 

“Imagine, if these people were all assembled in one place,” they would “achieve the population of states like Idaho, Maine, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Nebraska,” Abu-Jamal said. “There are more people in U.S. prisons than the entire population of some nations.” 

Some relatives of graduates questioned whether Abu-Jamal should have been invited to speak. 

“To have a convicted killer as a baccalaureate speaker is probably inappropriate,” said Mary Wieand, 86, of Lombard, Ill. 

Abu-Jamal’s speech was not seen as controversial by the majority of students at the private, liberal-arts college located a few miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. 

“Everyone I know either supports it or doesn’t care,” said graduating senior Eric Way, 22. “Even if he is on death row he still has his First Amendment rights.” 

Faulkner said, “Danny was murdered at the age of 25 and he lost his freedom of speech. I feel (Abu-Jamal) should also lose his freedom to speak out on issues. 

“I feel the students who made this decision, if they ever have a tragedy in their own lives, I think they’ll look back and realize what a mistake they’ve made,” Faulkner said. “They make these criminals into heroes and the victims are forgotten.”

SAN FRANCISCO – Complaints against some of the state’s largest telephone companies are on the rise, according to an analysis of 47,000 complaints filed with state utility regulators over the past two years, a newspaper reported. 

Complaints against AT&T soared 87 percent, excluding its wireless unit, and went to 47 percent against Pacific Bell, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis. The gripes also more than doubled against Sprint PCS. 

Watchdog groups said the complaints signal the need for heightened consumer protection rules and increased enforcement of existing laws.  

Critics said regulators like the California Public Utilities Commission have failed to address complaints, including those concerning problems with high-speed Internet access via phone lines, wireless companies’ rapid growth and confusing long-distance fees. 

“I think it’s a pretty good sign the PUC has been asleep at the switch,” said Regina Costa of The Utility Reform Network in San Francisco. “People who think that this industry will run itself are crazy.” 

Early last year, the PUC took steps to address customer gripes. A telecommunications “bill of rights” was proposed, which would have protected consumers from cramming, slamming, hidden fees and other phone company abuses. 

PUC Commissioner Carl Wood had said the new rules could go into effect last fall.  

But regulators put the proposal aside last summer after the state was hit with threats of rolling blackouts and rising energy costs. 

Now, PUC officials don’t expect to vote on the proposal until at least this fall, possibly later. 

Meanwhile, phone companies say consumers don’t need any additional regulations to protect them. 

AT&T spokesman H. Gordon Diamond said the proposal could raise phone companies’ costs and force consumer rate hikes. He said more enforcement of existing legislation is in order, rather than new regulations.

SAN FRANCISCO – Higher power costs zapped restauranteur Marino Sandoval and his customers even before California regulators decided this week how to allocate a $5.7 billion electricity rate hike — the highest in the state’s history. 

Faced with soaring natural gas rates that tripled his utility bill, Sandoval last month raised the prices at his popular Mexican restaurant chain, El Balazo, by as much as 20 percent on some items. A giant burrito that cost $4.95 at the end of March costs $5.95 today. 

“We had to do it because it seemed like the price of everything, from our beans to our tortillas, was going up almost every day. Our higher prices have everything to do with the higher energy prices,” said Sandoval, who runs six restaurants in San Francisco and the East Bay. 

From hotels to bagel shops, businesses throughout California have been raising their prices or imposing special surcharges to offset rising power costs. Most of the increases so far have reflected higher natural gas costs, which utilities have been passing along to their customers throughout the state’s power crisis. 

Now, businesses and households are bracing for electricity rate increases that could balloon the bills of the largest users of the state’s two biggest utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co. 

The higher rates, which will begin appearing in June’s utility bills, threaten to jolt the state’s already jittery economy. 

“Pretty soon, we may see California staring down the barrel of a recession,” said Dave Puglia, a vice president for APCO, a public affairs firm hired by California business interests to study the economic effect of the state’s energy woes. 

Until now, California businesses have only had to pay a fraction of the state’s staggering electricity bill, which is on a pace to reach $70 billion this year — about 10 times more than in 1999. 

By itself, the $5.7 billion rate increase approved by the California Public Utilities Commission probably isn’t enough to topple the state’s roughly $1 trillion economy — the sixth largest in the world. 

“It will cause some hardships, particularly for some small business owners, but from the macro point of view, these rate increases aren’t going to have a major impact on California’s output,” predicted Sung Won Sohn, chief economist for Wells Fargo & Co., which runs the biggest bank headquartered in the state. 

But some business leaders are worried the hike will represent the coup de grace for many companies already reeling from rising expenses for gasoline, natural gas, health care benefits and workers’ compensation insurance. Against this backdrop, many employers also face pressure to raise their workers’ wages to help pay for California’s high housing costs. 

“If this keeps up, at some point, we are going to reach a breaking point in the economy,” said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. 

The California Chamber is part of the California Alliance for Energy and Economic Stability, a coalition that sought to shift more of the electricity rate increase from businesses to households. 

Under the plan approved by the PUC, businesses are expected to pay about $4.6 billion more for electricity and households will pay an additional $1.1 billion. 

Even if they are spared on their utility bills, consumers still will be pinched by higher prices for goods and services as businesses pass along their electricity price increases. 

Some California firms, particularly those making commodities sold around the world, won’t be able to substantially raise their prices without losing business from customers who will buy from competitors in other states and countries. 

Manufacturers of cement, glass, paper products and steel are among the companies that probably won’t be able to pass along their higher energy costs, Puglia said. 

The rate increases mean that utility bills will consume about 25 percent to 30 percent of a big manufacturer’s budget, Puglia estimated, up from about 15 percent now. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some companies go out of business because of this,” said Justin Bradley, director of energy programs for the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Association, a high-tech trade group. 

Even if they don’t shut down completely, many companies likely will lay off workers as they cut costs to pay for power. The California Manufacturers and Technology Association estimates that the energy crisis will result in the loss of 135,755 jobs — or about 40,000 more than the entire dot-com industry has laid off nationwide during the past 16 months. 

Painful though they may be, higher electricity rates and some resulting layoffs are a better alternative than the increased number of blackouts that probably would have occurred if retail prices hadn’t been raised, according to most economists. 

“People are wildly exaggerating how much this is going to hurt the California economy,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, a Palo Alto research firm. “The rate increases are part of a long-term solution for California. We needed them to stabilize the market. On balance, this is a good thing.” 

Even though his monthly utility bill at one of his restaurants rose from $1,500 last year to $4,500 this year, El Balazo’s Sandoval shares Levy’s optimism. After all, customers continue to pour into his restaurants, despite his restaurant’s higher menu prices. 

“Business is so good that I have been too busy to think about whether I am going to have to raise my prices again,” he said. “If I have to, I will. I don’t think people are going to stop eating because of this.”

LOS ANGELES – The head of the California Public Utilities Commission provided a state Senate committee with evidence showing three power generators reduced electricity production and then benefited from the resulting high prices. 

While testifying before the committee Friday, PUC President Loretta Lynch displayed charts that tracked electricity prices and power generation at three plants on a single day last November. 

According to the graphs, after the plants reduced production during the middle of the day, the state was forced to declare two separate power emergencies which indicate electricity reserves had fallen seriously low. 

After the shortfall in supply helped cause a spike in prices, the companies operating the three plants suddenly increased their electricity production to almost full capacity, allowing them to capitalize on the much higher rates. 

“We certainly see a pattern,” Lynch told the committee, which is investigating alleged manipulation of the state’s wholesale power market by energy suppliers. “Many generators are playing on their experience and playing, to an extent, California.” 

Maintenance records reviewed by investigators show that there were no valid reasons for the plants to cut back production, Lynch said. 

She would not identify the power plants involved, however, Lynch did say that they are owned by at least two companies. 

Sen. Joseph Dunn, who heads the special committee investigating alleged market manipulation, said Lynch’s testimony, on its face, is “very damning.” 

He said his committee has uncovered additional preliminary evidence showing that several power companies have allegedly engaged in similar behavior. 

During a break in Friday’s hearing, a spokeswoman for a trade group of major power suppliers told the Los Angeles Times that there have been no coordinated efforts to shrink supplies to increase profits. 

“There has been no collusion,” said Jean Muoz of the Independent Energy Producers Association. 

The PUC and state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer are jointly investigating the exorbitant wholesale power prices that have cost California billions and brought major utilities to financial ruin.

By Ron Harris 

Associated Press Writer 

SAN FRANCISCO – After years of complaints from parents about San Francisco’s crowded, ill-equipped and run-down schools, the FBI has been called in to find out whether the mess is more than just a matter of bad management. 

City and school authorities asked the bureau earlier this spring to determine whether the mishandling of millions of dollars was criminal. 

“This is a very broken school system,” said Arlene Ackerman, who has been superintendent for less than a year “The infrastructure and finances are very broken.” 

The FBI would not comment. But City Attorney Louise Renne said her office is working with the bureau in an investigation of current or former school staff members. 

In 1990 and 1997, San Francisco residents voted for school improvement and construction bonds totaling $90 million for the district, which has more than 66,000 students and an annual budget of about $500 million. 

The money was meant to cover earthquake-related repairs, fire and safety improvements, building renovations and construction. 

But $27 million went to other projects and needs without Board of Education approval, an audit by an accounting firm found. Some of it went to salaries to new staff in an administration Ackerman has called bloated. 

In addition, $14.6 million in state grant money to be used for new construction and modernization is unaccounted for. 

“That’s just a complete waste of money that’s out there that the district could be soliciting or putting to use,” said Maricela Valencia, who has a daughter in sixth grade. 

Valencia said she is putting her daughter back in private school — at $800 per month with a scholarship — after a one-year trial of the public system. 

“It disappointed me the most in that the number of children in the classroom is too much for the teacher to deal with,” she said. “The students are out of control.” 

Ackerman said the school district needs “tight accountability systems.” She refused to blame directly any previous superintendents or board members, saying only that her job is to fix things. 

Many parents and some district employees say the breakdowns in management and accounting came during the tenure of the previous schools chief, Bill Rojas. Rojas left to become superintendent of the Dallas system but was fired less than a year later after clashing with the board there. 

This week, he returned to San Francisco to answer the allegations. 

Rojas admitted that there were “weak internal controls” during his tenure, but said that the current administration is also to blame for failing to track the bond money. 

“How long, when budgets are produced year to year, are you going to blame Bill Rojas?” he said at a city Board of Supervisors meeting. “I may not have been the most popular superintendent, but you don’t have a single financial audit saying we weren’t solvent.” 

Parents have long complained about an administration in disarray, underpaid teachers, dilapidated buildings, classrooms without books and limited Internet access in one of the world’s most technology-oriented cities. 

Some of the schools are in such bad repair that they were cited in an ACLU lawsuit accusing the state and city of discrimination in funding. 

Bessie Carmichael Elementary School, for example, consists of dilapidated wooden buildings and World War II bungalows in a largely black part of town. A $4 million improvement project has ballooned to $16 million, with little progress toward a new campus. 

At the same time, Lowell High, which selects the city’s brightest students, is still waiting for campus-wide Internet access, despite qualifying for a $1 million state grant for the project in 1998. 

The Board of Education recruited Ackerman after learning of her successes running schools in Washington, D.C. The board also recently named Ramon Cortines, a former superintendent in San Francisco and New York City, to lead a citizens oversight committee. 

“I’m very saddened, but I’m not shocked or surprised,” school board member Dan Kelly said of the financial mess. “This is exactly the kind of activity that some of us thought was going on.”

MOUNT DIABLO – Several Bay Area state parks have resorted to hiring “hit men” to rid natural areas of a number of cloven-hoofed marauders. 

Naturalists and local wild land managers said they have now begun to control the region’s burgeoning wild pig population. 

The pigs are legendary for transforming green areas into muddy, furrowed plots with their rooting, while destroying the habitats of other animals.  

It is estimated that the area’s wild pig population ranges anywherefrom the hundreds to the thousands. 

The pigs, which were first sighted in the 1980s, are not native to California and accounts of how they got here vary. But park officials agree the porkers are here to stay. 

State funding dictates efforts to trap pigs in state and local parks. Since recreational hunting is not allowed in public parks, park and utility districts must either send members of their own staffs pig hunting or hire professional trappers. 

The “hit man” approach has proven effective, but there are costs associated. 

In Mount Diablo State Park, officials have quietly dispatched 244 wild pigs over the last two-and-a-half years. The park has a five-year contract with its trapper to the tune of $100,000. And pig money can dry up as fast as a mud-hole in July during tight budget years. 

“I would say there’s about 80 percent less damage (on Mount Diablo) since I started,” one trapper, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Contra Costa Times. The trapper said he wished to maintain a low profile to avoid possible animal rights controversies. 

He said pig control programs require constant maintenance year-round. Areas without such programs can become overrun with the swine in just a few years. 

“The pigs cannot multiply faster than I can kill them,” the trapper said.

SAN FRANCISCO – Two runners from Kenya won San Francisco’s most popular race Sunday, the 12K Bay to Breakers. 

James Koskei won the men’s race in 34:19 in his first time running the race. He said the steep Hayes Street hill presented some difficulty. 

“When we reached the hill, we had to struggle,” he said. “We started pushing then.” 

Jane Ngotho won the women’s race in 40:35, beating second-place finisher Jane Omoro, also of Kenya, by one second. 

“The race today was good,” Ngotho said. “The weather was good.” 

The cool, foggy weather at the 8 a.m. beginning didn’t deter some from running the race naked. The race draws serious runners and those out for a good time, many in costumes, such as the game Twister and Batman and Robin. 

The runners made their way down streets littered with tortillas, and as the winners crossed the finish line, some of the 60,000 runners and walkers were just reaching the one-mile mark – an hour after the race began. 

Defending champion Reuben Cheruiyot finished second in the men’s race, three seconds behind Koskei. Third was Moroccan El Arbi Khattabi, who finished in 34:40. The women’s third-place finisher was Gladys Asiba, of Kenya, who finished in 40:51.

For the fourth game in a row, the Berkeley Yellowjackets couldn’t put together a big inning. For the fourth game in a row, they gave the other team a big inning. So for the fourth game in a row, they lost. 

With the 6-3 loss on Friday to El Cerrito in the regular season finale at San Pablo Park, the ’Jackets also put themselves in a poor position to pick up an at-large bid for the North Coast Section playoffs. Head coach Tim Moellering will attend the NCS meeting on Sunday to apply for a spot, but losing four in a row to end the season isn’t exactly the way to impress the selection committee. 

“We’re probably a bubble team,” Moellering said. “We’re certainly capable of beating some teams in the playoffs, but we have to sweat it out.” 

The way the ’Jackets have played the last two weeks, however, they don’t look like they could beat much of anyone. They were outscored 26-11 in the four losses, and scored more than one run in an inning just once. And with Stanford-bound pitcher Moses Kopmar sidelined with a groin injury, their pitching has looked shaky, giving up four innings of four or more runs to their opponents. 

“We talked about those big innings, and the fact that that’s the best time to step up on defense, but we’ve just let the roof cave in on us,” Moellering said. 

The cave-in happened in the top of the fifth on Friday. Cole Stipovich had come in and snuffed an El Cerrito rally the previous inning, but walked nine-hitter Ken Hirose to start the fifth with the score tied 1-1. After a bunt single by James McDermott, Ryan De La Rosa dropped a sacrifice bunt down the first-base line. Berkeley first baseman Sean Souders started to charge the ball and couldn’t get back to the base in time to take Stipovich’s throw, loading the bases. 

The Gauchos had four bunt singles in the game, and the ’Jackets looked shaky covering every one of them. 

“We really only misplayed one bunt. They were all very good bunts,” Moellering said. 

Stipovich struck out Greg Murray, and it looked as if he might wiggle his way out of another jam. But Andy Davaran knocked a single into left field for two runs, and Jamonte Cox lined a single off of Stipovich’s leg to score two more. 

Berkeley finally got something going in the bottom of the sixth, as Noah Roper and Jeremy LeBeau had RBI singles to draw the ’Jackets within two runs. But the El Cerrito coaches lifted Murray and brought in fireballer Kenny Salyer with two outs and men on second and third. Salyer walked Souders to load the bases, but got Lee Franklin to fly out to left to end the threat. The Gauchos tacked on another run in the top of the seventh, and Salyer struck out the side in the bottom of the inning to end the game. 

So now the ’Jackets will have to wait until Sunday to find out if they will go on playing this season. There are 16 total spots in the NCS 3A playoffs, but Moellering said he really isn’t sure about his team’s chances of snagging one of them. 

“I really don’t know, because there are some leagues we haven’t heard from,” he said. “I just don’t have the information yet.”

Habitot Children’s Museum “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. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins, and become little “dump” workers. $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. (closed Sundays, Memorial Day through Labor Day) Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Judah L. Magnes Museum “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 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter. “Ricky Swallow/Matrix 191,” Including new sculptures and drawings through May 27; “Five Star: the 31st Annual University of California at Berkeley Master of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition: Through May 27 $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; children age 12 and under free; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and Wednesday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 642-0808 

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery” 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 “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. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” 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. “T. Rex on Trial,” Through May 28 Where was T. Rex at the time of the crime? Learn how paleontologists decipher clues to dinosaur behavior. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. Computer Lab, Saturdays 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium 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. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership. All ages. May 19: Punk Prom and benefit for India quake victims features Pansy Division, Plus Ones, Dave Hill, Iron Ass; May 25: Controlling Hand, Wormwood, Goats Blood, American Waste, Quick to Blame; May 26: Honor System, Divit, Enemy You, Eleventeen, Tragedy Andy; June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2 El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 19: 9:30 Kotoja; May 20: 8:30 p.m. Jude Taylor and His Burning Flames; May 22: Nigerian Brothers, Zulu Exiles, Umlilo; May 23: Paul Pena and Friends; May 24: Jai Uttal, Stephen Kent, Geoffrey Gordon; May 25: Jelly Roll; May 26: Carribean All Stars; May 27: Big Brother and the Holding Company; May 29: Andrew Carrier and Cajun Classics; May 30: Fling Ding, Bluegrass Intentions, Leslie Kier and Friends; May 31: Wake the Dead, David Gans 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 20: KALW’s 60th Anniversary Concert featuring Paul Pena, Orla and the Gasmen, Kennelly Irish Dancers, Kathy Kallick and Nina Gerber; May 23: Willis Alan Ramsey; May 24: Nickel Creek; May 25: Gearoid O’Hallmhurain, Patrick Ourceau, Robbie O’Connell; May 26: Darryl Henriques; May 27: Shana Morrison; May 31: Freight 33rd Anniversary Concert Series: Bob Dylan Song Night and others; June 1: The Riders of the Purple Sage. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. May 19: Solomon Grundy; May 22: Willy N’ Mo; May 23: Global Echo; May 24: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 25: The Mind Club; May 26: Rythm Doctors; May 29: The Lost Trio; May 30: Zambambazo 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

La Pena Cultural Center May 19, 8 p.m.: Carnaval featuring Company of Prophets, Loco Bloco, Mystic, Los Delicados, DJ Sake One and DJ Namane; May 20: 6 p.m. Venezuelan Music Recital; May 24: Tato Enriquez, plus a video and photo exhibit from earthquake-devastated El Salvador; May 26: 7-9 p.m. in the Cafe Jason Moen Jazz Quartet, 9:30 p.m. Charanga Tumbo y Cuerdas; May 27: 4 p.m. in the cafe La Pena Flamenca; May 28: 7 p.m. Frank Emilio Flynn 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org  

Satsuki Arts Festival and Bazaar May 19, 4 - 10 p.m. & May 20, Noon - 7 p.m. A fund-raiser for the Berkeley Buddhist Temple featuring musical entertainment by Julio Bravo & Orquesta Salsabor, Delta Wires, dance presentations by Kaulana Na Pua and Kariyushi Kai, food, arts & crafts, plants & seedlings, and more. Berkeley Buddhist Temple 2121 Channing Way (at Shattuck) 841-1356 

KALW 60th Anniversary Celebration May 20, 8 p.m. An evening of eclectic music and dance that reflects the eclectic nature of the stations’ programming. Performers include Paul Pena, Kathy Kallick & Nina Gerber, Orla & the Gas Men, and the Kennelly Irish Dancers. $19.50 - $20.50 Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse 1111 Addison St. 548-1761 or www.thefreight.org  

VOCI Women’s Choral Ensemble and Kairos Youth Chorus May 20, 7 p.m. Presenting “Songs From the Soul: A celebration of life, love, and the yearning for peace.” Works by Lassus, Back, Brahms, Vivaldi and others. $15 - $20. University Christian Church 2401 Le Conte 524-2604 

Berkeley Chamber Performances May 22, 8 p.m. Presenting “Baguette Quartette” for an evening of Parisian Cafe music. $12 - $15 Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 525-5211 www.berkeleychamberperform.org 

Berkeley Lyric Opera Orchestra May 25, 8 p.m. John Kendall Baily conducting, Ivan Ilic on piano. Works by Back, Stravinsky, Mozart, Prokofiev. $15 - $20 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 Collage Ave. 843-5781  

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble, Combos and Lab Band May 25, 7:30 p.m. $5 - $8. Florance Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way www.bhs.berkeley.k12.ca.us/arts/performing/jazz 

New Millennium Strings Benefit Concert May 26, 8 p.m. Featuring pieces by Weber, Chabrier, Bizet.  

Benefits Berkeley Food Pantry $7 - $10 University Christian Church 2401 La Conte 526-3331 

Colibri May 26, 11 a.m. Latin American songs and rythms. West Branch of the Berkeley Public Library 1125 University 649-3964 

Himalayan Fair May 27, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation Live Oak Park 1300 Shattuck Ave. 869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

Kenny Washington May 27, 4:30 p.m. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Jupiter String Quartet May 27, 7:30 p.m. Works by Janacek and Haydn. $8 - $10. Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Dance 

Berkeley Ballet Theater Spring Showcase. May 20: 11 a.m. Pre-Ballet, 2 p.m. Children’s Division, 7 p.m. Youth Ensemble Gala Performance with reception following; May 21: 2 p.m. Youth Ensemble, 6 p.m. Adult Division $5 - 15. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 843-4689  

Theater 

“Procession of the Sun and Moon” with Selected Solo Pieces by Maria Lexa May 27, 2 p.m. Full length drama with giant puppets and masked characters accompanied by live music. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 Collage Ave 925-798-1300 

“New Moon at Sinai” May 30, 7 p.m. Music, live puppet theater, shadows and images will take the audience from Egypt to Mount Sinai. Featuring music by Pharoah’s Daughter and Mozaik and the musical and ritual theater group The Puppet Players. $8 - $12. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 Collage Ave 925-798-1300 

“Conversations In Commedia” May 30, 7:30 p.m. Series continues with Mime Troupe playwright Joan Holden and veteran clown/actor/director/playwright Jeff Raz. $6 - $8. La Pena 3105 Shattuck Ave 849-2568 

“Big Love” by Charles L. Mee Through June 10 Directed by Les Waters and loosely based on the Greek Drama, “The Suppliant Woman,” by Aeschylus. Fifty brides who are being forced to marry fifty brothers flee to a peaceful villa on the Italian coast in search of sanctuary. $15.99 - $51 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 

“Planet Janet” Through June 10, Fridays and Saturdays 8 p.m., Sundays 7 p.m. Follows six young urbanites’ struggles in sex and dating. Impact Theatre presentation written by Bret Fetzer, directed by Sarah O’Connell. $7 - $12 La Val’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid 464-4468 www.impacttheatre.com 

“The Misanthrope” by Moliere Through June 10, Fri - Sun, 8 p.m. Berkeley-based Women in Time Productions presents this comic love story full of riotous wooing, venomous scheming and provocative dialogue. All female design and production staff. $17 - $20 Il Teatro 450 449 Powell St. San Francisco 415-433-1172 or visit www.womenintime.com 

“The Laramie Project” Through July 8, Wed. 7 p.m., Tues. and Thur. -Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Written by Moises Kaufmen and members of Tectonic Theater Project, directed by Moises Kaufman. Moises Kaufman and Tectonic members travelled to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepard. The play is about the community and the impact Shepard’s death had on its members. $10 - $50. The Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Sister, My Sister” May 20, 5 p.m. Poetry, photography and dramatic readings which give voice to women and children cuaght in homelessness. Admission is free, donations welcome. Live Oak Park Theatre1301 Shattuck Ave. 528-8198 

Films 

Pacific Film Archive May 19: 3:30 Starewicz Puppet Films; May 20: 5:30 The New Gulliver; May 22: 7:30 Can Dialectics Break Bricks; May 23: 7:30 Casting Call; May 24: 7:00 Sampo; May 25: 7:30 E Flat; May 26: 7:00 Subarnarekha; May 27: 5:30 Stone Flowers. Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“Svetlana Village” May 26, 4 p.m. Subtitled “The Camphill Experience in Russia,” details community of organic farmers, nearly half of whom are developmentally disabled. World premiere benefit screening, Q & A with director and a Svetlana resident afterwards. $7-$15 Fine Arts Cinema 2451 Shattuck Ave 

Exhibits 

“Scapes/Escapes” Ink, Acrylic, Mixed Media by Evelyn Glaubman Through June 1 Tuesday - Thursday, 9 a.m. - 2:45 p.m. Gallery of the Center for Psychological Studies 1398 Solano Ave. Albany 524-0291 

“Elemental” The art of Linda Mieko Allen Through June 9, Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Traywick Gallery 1316 Tenth St. 527-1214 www.traywick.com 

Ledger drawings of Michael and Sandra Horse. Meet the artists May 19, 20 (call for times). Exhibit runs through June 18. Gathering Tribes Gallery 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038 www.gatheringtribes.com  

“Alive in Her: Icons of the Goddess” Through June 19, Tuesday - Thursday, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Photography, collage, and paintings by Joan Beth Clair. Pacific School of Religion 1798 Scenic Ave. 848-0528 

Tyler James Hoare Sculpture and Collage Through June 27, call for hours. Party June 9, 5-9 p.m. with music by Sauce Piquante. The Albatross Pub 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473 

“Watershed 2001” Through July 14, Wednesday - Sunday Noon - 5 p.m. Exhibition of painting, drawing, sculpture and installation that explore images and issues about our watershed. Slide presentation on creek restoration and urban design May 31, 7:30 p.m. Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893 

Bernard Maisner: Illuminated Manuscripts & Paintings. Through Aug. 8 Maisner works in miniature as well as in large scales, combining his mastery of medieval illumination, gold leafing, and modern painting techniques. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library 2400 Ridge Rd. 849-2541 

“Musee des Hommages,” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Boticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours 2028 Ninth St. (at Addison) 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

“Geographies of My Heart” Collage paintings by Jennifer Colby through August 24; Flora Lamson Hewlett Library 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 

Images of Portugal Paintings by Sofia Berto Villas-Boas of her native land. Open after 5 p.m. Voulez-Vous 2930 College Ave. (at Elmwood) 

“Tropical Visions: Images of AfroCaribbean Women in the Quilt Tapestries of Cherrymae Golston” Through May 28, Tu-Th, 1-7 p.m., Sat 12-4 p.m. Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 3023 Shattuck Ave. 548-9286 ext 307 

Readings 

Cody’s Books 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852 All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 21: Ariel Dorfman reads “Blakes Therapy”; May 22: Daniel Schacter talks about “The Seven Signs of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers”; May 24: Katie Hafner decribes “The Well: A Story of Love, Death and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community”; May 25: Nathaniel Philbrick talks about “In the Heart of the Sea”; May 29: David Harris talks about “Shooting the Moon: The True Story of An American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever”  

Boadecia’s Books 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 19: Jessica Barksdale Inclan will read from “Her Daughter’s Eyes” 559-9184 or www.bookpride.com  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 All events at 7:30 p.m. unless noted otherwise May 23: Jon Bowermaster discusses his book “Birthplace of the Winds: Adventuring in Alaska’s Islands of Fire and Ice”; May 29, 7 - 9 p.m.: Travel Photo Workshop with Joan Bobkoff. $15 registration fee  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays 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. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. May 24: Stephanie Young with host Louis Cuneo; May 31: Connie Post with host Louis Cuneo Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Adan David Miller and JoJo Doig May 20, 7 p.m. Poetry and spoken word. Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo 548-3333 

Tours 

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

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park 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. 486-0623  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours All tours begin at 10 a.m. and are restricted to 30 people per tour $5 - $10 per tour May 19: John Stansfield & Allen Stross will lead a tour of the School for the Deaf and Blind; June 2: Trish Hawthorne will lead a tour of Thousand Oaks School and Neighborhood; June 23: Sue Fernstrom will lead a tour of Strawberry Creek and West of the UC Berkeley campus 848-0181 

Lectures 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Free Lectures All lectures begin at 6 p.m. May 20: Miep Cooymans and Dan Jones on “Working with Awareness, Concentration, and Energy”; May 27: Eva Casey on “Getting Calm; Staying Clear”; June 3: Jack van der Meulen on “Healing Through Kum Nye (Tibetan Yoga)”; June 10: Sylvia Gretchen on “Counteracting Negative Emotions” Tibetan Nyingma Institute 1815 Highland Place 843-6812 

Progressives? Call them radical 

Editor: 

I’m responding to a front page article in today’s issue on a squabble in the Berkeley City Council. You use terminology that is very misleading. 

Unfortunately this poor choice of words seems to have been accepted on all sides for years. I am referring to your calling the more left-of-center group progressive and the center group moderate. 

In my view the left-of-center group has never been progressive. It should be called left or left wing radical. The “moderate” group is hardly moderate. It is very progressive liberal and should be so designated. 

Misleading assignment of names verges on propagating falsehood.  

In Berkeley we ought to be able to call a spade a spade. 

Joseph E. Lifschutz, M.D. 

Berkeley 

Elected officials accountable for electricity crisis 

The Berkeley Daily Planet received this letter addressed to Elected Officials: 

Re: Electricity 

As the elected officials representing the districts that will be most impacted by the results of poor judgment and bad decision-making of “electorates past,” you are obligated to act on behalf of your constituents by making decisions that are in the best interest of the people you promised to represent. 

Your offices had the power to prevent this mess. Your offices have the power to correct it. 

Like many Californians, my income is dependent upon the uninterrupted flow of affordable electricity. Rolling blackouts, exorbitant rate hikes and tax increases to repay bonds are not options.  

Prove your allegiances.  

You should either place the burden of bond re-payment on California’s taxpayers and allow the ongoing exploitation of utility customers while the utility companies’ parent corporations continue paying dividend to their shareholders and implement rolling blackouts that will further threaten California’s economy. 

Or you should take control of the utility companies’ assets and generating plants. 

Legislate that the State of California and its citizens be reimbursed for costs incurred since deregulation. 

Return to the ratepayers (via rate reductions and credits) what they have been overpaying to the utility companies. 

Take this opportunity to introduce, and pass legislation that will prevent these catastrophes of greed from occurring in the future. You hold office at a time when the public is painfully aware of the issues at hand and we will stand behind your efforts to introduce positive and necessary reforms. 

Prove that you are working on behalf of your constituents and fulfilling the duties of your office, or prove that you are working on behalf of the utility companies in their efforts to exploit their ratepayers.  

I will hold you and your offices accountable for any revenues lost as a result of rolling blackouts, all excessive rates I am charged and all tax increases as a result of existing and future bond measures if these matters are not resolved in a manner that is beneficial to all Californians. 

Mitchell Triplett 

Albany 

Opposition to Beth El not about good works 

Editor: 

Recent articles and arguments in support of the Beth El project on Oxford and Spruce Streets have noted the good works performed by the Congregation and by many of its individual members.  

Such activities are to be applauded and both deserve and receive our respect. However, these good works have nothing to do with the zoning and planning issues at hand.  

Many organizations act for the good of humanity yet do not claim the right to do so in an area of single-family homes.  

There are two overriding problems with this project. The first is that it is simply too big. Where else in a single-family zone can one find a building of roughly 34,000 square feet? Even more important, Beth El has crossed the line between a church and school, which are conditionally allowed in single-family zones, and a commercial facility, which is not.  

Beth El’s plans call for an industrial size kitchen and banquet area. Beth El will rent this facility to its members which will act as a magnet for social occasions of all sorts.  

Having such a resource will be a powerful recruiting tool to attract new members to the Congregation, thus compounding the problem. Beth El may not maintain this type of commercial operation at its present site.  

As it is, the hosting of such social functions is directed to a variety of venues throughout the area that are equipped for and in the business of handling such events.  

Please don’t misunderstand. The social activities associated with Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and weddings are important and wonderful events.  

May the band play on joyously into the night. However, to expect to do so in a single family neighborhood is bad policy and bad planning, no matter how profound are the good works performed by the celebrants.  

Daniel P. McLoughlin 

Berkeley  

Beating a path through it all 

Editor: 

In defense of his pretty creekside backyard, Zack Cowan of Spruce Street raises one silly and one reasonable bone of contention with my plan for a public path along Codornices Creek that would connect Live Oak Park with the Rose Garden and Codornices Park. He comically claims that to put the stream under Spruce would be to build a rickety wooden bridge to carry the automobile and bike traffic on the street. Actually, my mode for going under Spruce is just two blocks away on Walnut, where there is not a bump in the asphalt and cars that pass easily over the creek and creekside path that run underneath and connect two parts of Live Oak Park..  

The serious point from Cowan is his question of how I can claim that no homes would need to be “eminent domained” when the creek runs directly under a home up on Glen. If I may get more specific than in my letter outlining the plan: The house with the creek in the basement can be avoided by running the path up to Glen street through the very large and wide backyard of an adjacent home. The path would resume on the uphill side of Glen by going through the undeveloped narrow strip separating the back walls of two small homes. The creek cascades down from the Rose Garden into their backyards. All homes that make space for the path would, of course, receive generous payment from the city. I don’t know where Cowan got the idea I intended the city to just take his yard.  

In surveying for the plan I noticed that many homes on Spruce and Glen have “save the creek” signs in their yards. And yet Mr. Cowan’s letter was not unexpected. A Spruce street resident, who was passing by while I was surveying, told me, pointing to where the creek bubbles under Spruce, “I support your idea but I suspect that the owner over there will give you quite a fight.”  

Ted Vincent  

Berkeley

Saturday, May 19

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Annual strawberry tasting 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Get to Know Your Plants 

1 - 4 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn what to look for and what and how to record it to more intimately know your plants.  

548-2220 

“Be Your Own Boss” 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

YWCA 

1515 Webster Street, Oakland 

Second Saturday of a two day workshop on starting up small businesses (see May 12). 

415-541-8580 

Community Summit on  

Smaller Learning  

Communities 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Alternative High School  

MLK Jr. Way (at Derby)  

All teachers, students, administrators, parents, and community members are encouraged to attend this meeting on smaller learning communities at Berkeley High. Translation, childcare, and food will be provided.  

540-1252 to RSVP for services 

Campaign for Equality Benefit  

7:30 - 10 p.m. 

Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club  

1650 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A comedy benefit with performances by Karen Ripley, Julia Jackson, Pippi Lovestocking, Darrick Richardson, and Nick Leonard. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the International Lesbian Gay Association Scholarship Fund for the 2001 ILGA Summit in Oakland.  

$15 - $20 466-5050 

Finish Carpentry 

9 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Carpenter/contractor Kevin Stamm leads workshop. $95. 525-7610 

Earthquake Retrofitting 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Seminar taught by structural engineer Tony DeMascole and seismic contractor Jim Gillett. $75. 

525-7610 

How to Prevent Home Owner Nightmares 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Dispute prevention and early resolution seminar taught by contractor/mediator Ron Kelly. $75. 

525-7610 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health (Lower Level) 

2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Program on physical and mental differences. Promotes acceptance and understanding. Free. 

549-1564  

Historical Society Walking Tour 

10 a.m. - noon 

Clark Kerr Campus 

East Entrace (off Warring St.) 

The “State Asylum for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind” moved to what is now Clark Kerr Campus in 1860. Learn about evolution of sight, history of the school. $10. 

848-0181 

Bicycle Treasure Hunt 

11 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

Meet at Downtown Berkeley BART 11 a.m. 

Meet at BART to travel down to Alameda for a four hour treasure hunt. $0 - $30. www.bayhunt.org 

Berkeley High Car Wash 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

Channing Way and Milvia 

Car wash fund-raiser by yearbook staff. $4-5. 

Preparedness Block Party 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

McGee St. between Oregon and Stuart 

To help residents prepare for earthquakes, rolling blackouts, and other emergencies. Key activities between noon and 2 p.m. Live music, BBQ, potluck, activities for children. 883-5280 

Community Workshop 

10 a.m. 

Alternative High School 

For those concerned about the future of students and Berkeley High School. 

644-4586 

Sunday, May 20

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting 849-0217 

Working with Awareness,  

Concentration, Energy 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Nyingma members discuss meditative awareness in everyday life. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812 

Salsa Lesson & Dance Party  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Kick up your heels and move your hips with professional instructors Mati Mizrachi and Ron Louie. Plus Israeli food provided by the Holy Land Restaurant. Novices encouraged to attend and no partners are required.  

$12 RSVP: 237-9874 

Mediterranean Herbs 

1:30 p.m. 

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

Tour of herbs. Learn myths and legends, ideas for planting in home gardens. 

643-1924 

Jazz on 4th Street Festival 

11 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

4th St. between Hearst and Virginia 

Performances by Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and two Berkeley High Jazz Combos, among others. Also 4th St. merchants, raffle prizes, arts and crafts. Free admission. Proceeds benefit Berkeley High Performing Arts.  

526-6294 

Monday, May 21  

Creation conversation 

7:30 - 10 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, founder of L.A.’s SpeedDating will review creation from the reference point of physics and compare this to the description classical Jewish sources have given for our universe and its creation.  

$10  

848-0237 x127 

— compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commissions Meeting 

7 p.m. 

Hs Lordships Restaurant 

199 Seawall Drive 

Berkeley Marina 

Meeting to discuss the proposed new Eastshore State Park. 

981-6334 

Solid Waste Management Commission Meeting 

7 p.m. 

Solid Waste Management Center 

1201 Second St. 

Among other topics, staff report on status of TV’s/monitors as hazardous material. 

Tuesday, May 22 

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 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Strawberry tasting 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Solving Residential Drainage Problems 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Second day of two day seminar led by contractor/engineer Eric Burtt. Continued from Thursday May 17. $70 for both days. 

525-7610 

Wednesday, May 23  

Healthful Building Materials  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by environmental consultant Darrel DeBoer.  

$35 per person  

525-7610 

Regional Tranportation Talk 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Rebecca Kaplan of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition will talk about the Metropolitan Transportation Commision’s 25-year Regional Transportation Plan at the regular meeting of the Berkeley Gray Panthers. Open to the public. 

548-9696 

Forum on Small Learning Communities 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave 

Organized by Berkeley High Senior Nicole Heyman, panel of students, teachers and community members will discuss the achievement gap at Berkeley High and possible reform plans. Students encouraged to participate. $3. 

Thursday, May 24  

Paddling Adventures  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Dan Crandell, member of the U.S. National Kayak Surf Team and owner of Current Adventures Kayak School, will introduce attendees to all aspects of kayaking. Free  

527-4140 

City of Berkeley Meeting 

2 - 4 p.m. 

2120 Milvia St. 

Second Floor Conference Rm. 

Bancroft-Durant Two-Way Street Proposal Meeting. Call Bike For a Better City 597-1235. 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission Meeting 

7 p.m. 

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth St. 

Among other topics, correspondance regarding Commissioner Training, Eastshore State Park planning meetings and proposal for commissioner advocate. 

705-8105 

Community Health Commission Meeting 

6:30 - 9:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Among other topics, a vote on Letter of Apology to Mayor. 

644-6109 

Friday, May 25  

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  

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Saturday, May 26 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Himalayan Fair 

10 a.m. - 7 p.m.  

Live Oak Park  

1300 Shattuck Ave.  

The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects.  

$5 donation 

869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival 

9 a.m. 

Registration at Peralta Park 

1561 Solano Ave. 

Areas of sidewalk will be assigned to participants to create their own sidewalk art. People who find all five of the chocolate kisses chalked onto Solano Ave. can enter raffle for cash prize. Chocolate Menu available listing various items for various chocolate items for sale from Solano businesses. Dog fashion show at Solano Ave. and Key Route in Albany at 2 p.m. Free. 

527-5358 

Sunday, May 27  

Himalayan Fair 

10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.  

Live Oak Park  

1300 Shattuck Ave.  

The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects.  

$5 donation 

869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net 

Getting Calm; Staying Clear 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Discussion of meditation and analysis. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812  

Inside Interior Design  

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar led by certified interior designer and artist Lori Inman.  

$35 per person  

525-7610 

Monday, May 28 

Shavuot Ice Cream Party 

11 a.m. 

Berkeley Hillel 

2736 Bancroft Way 

Coeme hear the ten commandments. 

540-5824 

Tuesday, May 29 

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 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

The Lois Club Meeting 

12 noon or 6 p.m. 

Venizia Caffe and Bistro 

1799 University Ave. 

Social gathering for people whose names are Lois. National organization, local chapter now has 75 members. Open to Loises and their guests. Join the club for lunch or dinner. Call 848-6254 by May 25 

Wednesday, May 30  

Dream Home for a Song  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by author/contractor/owner-builder David Cook.  

$35 per person  

525-7610  

Thursday, May 31  

Backpacking in Northern CA.  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Outdoors Unlimited’s director, Ari Derfel, will give a slide presentation on some of his favorite destinations for three-to-four-day backpacking vacations. Free  

527-4140 

Attic Conversions  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by architect/builder Andus Brandt.  

$35 per person  

525-7610  

League of Women Voters’ Dinner and Meeting 

5:30 - 9 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church 

941 The Alameda 

Featuring speaker Brenda Harbin-Forte, presiding judge of the Alameda County Juvenile Court on “What’s happening with Alameda County children in the juvenile justice system after Prop. 21?” $10 to reserve buffet supper. May bring own meal or come only for meeting/speaker. 

843-8824  

Battle lines are being drawn in the discussion about whether “small learning communities” could help Berkeley High School tackle problems with truancy, campus violence, teacher turn-over, and the achievement gap that separates Asian and white students from their African-American and Latino peers. 

With the help of a $50,000 federal planning grant, some Berkeley Unified School District teachers and parents have organized meetings in recent months to examine the potential of small learning communities at Berkeley High. One is taking place at the Alternative High School, 2701 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today. 

If enough community support for the small learning communities’ model emerges, the Berkeley school district could apply for implementation grants in the fall. 

Small learning communities have been used at large high schools in Chicago and other cities to make education more relevant to students by allowing them to choose among a diverse array of learning communities, rather than forcing them to conform to the traditional curriculum of one “comprehensive” school. 

Berkeley parents and teachers who support small learning communities for Berkeley High say they would allow teachers to give more individualized attention to struggling students, deepening their interest in academic topics. 

“It’s an incredible opportunity to turn people on to education through personalization,” said Berkeley High teacher Dana Richardson at a recent community meeting. 

Over time, such an approach would improve the attendance, behavior and test scores of students who have historically had problems in these areas, small learning community enthusiasts argue. 

But skeptics say Berkeley High could deal with these problems today, without reforming the entire school, if teachers and administrators would summon the will to enforce existing rules and lend support to programs already in place for addressing problem areas.  

“Give me one or two individuals beside myself and within two weeks you would have almost zero truancy on campus,” said Robert McNight, chair of the African-American Studies Department at Berkeley High. “We’re not doing anything to deal with the truancy problem.”  

McNight said attendance rules simply are not enforced for certain groups of students, whom he called the “academic untouchables”.  

“Nobody wants to teach them, nobody wants to deal with them,” McNight said. 

“I don’t see the reform movement as necessarily the answer is addressing the problems in education that we face today,” McNight added. “If anything it may prolong (those problems).” 

McNight said the current movement in support of small learning communities was alarmingly disconnected from the African-American community it purports to serve. He said all the talk of the “achievement gap,” for example, glosses over the fact that Berkeley High is preparing many of its African-American students for college and successful careers. 

“We just go all over the country looking at models that have worked in those communities, but we’re facing different kinds of challenges (in Berkeley),” McNight said. 

“Of course there needs to be improvements in the system,” he added. “If you want to put forth an effort, you support programs that have a history of being successful with this group of students.” 

McNight said the vast majority African-American students at Berkeley High who’ve passed through the African-American Studies program have gone on to four-year colleges. Students in the program are engaged in what happens in the classroom because they study the important contributions other African-Americans have made in American history, he said. 

“What would you want to reform an entire institution in order to correct a problem that could be affecting 5 percent of the students,” McNight said, referring to the estimated number of Berkeley High students who skip class habitually. “It doesn’t make sense.” 

But Berkeley High Social Living teacher John Fike, while he agreed that better enforcement of rules is part of the solution to Berkeley High’s problems, said he believed nothing short of comprehensive reform can rescue Berkeley High from its current “dismal state.” 

“I think it’s the only thing that will save Berkeley High,” Fike said. 

Fike said it is not just the habitually truant students who aren’t served by Berkeley High’s current structure, but a “majority” of the school’s students. 

“There’s a large group of students who are enduring high school,” Fike said. “They’re not really anywhere near meeting their potential of really having a constructive use of their high school years.” 

The research suggests to him, Fike added, that small learning communities “have a huge impact on issues of violence, on issues of truancy, and on issues of student and staff morale.” 

A recent community meeting to consider small learning communities at the high school drew many Berkeley parents who share Fike’s views. 

Berkeley High Parent Malcolm Howells admitted that he was “still mystified by some of the practicalities” of implementing small schools, but he said he thought small learning communities could make certain students feel less alienated. 

“Everybody agrees that Berkeley High is too big,” Howells said.  

“Our school is hemorrhaging teachers,” said Rick Ayers, the Berkeley High teacher charged with coordinating the discussions around small learning communities. “You can go down the list of great teachers who are leaving.” 

Small learning communities will help retain good teachers by freeing them to work more closely with students so they can feel they making a difference in those students lives, Ayers and others argue. 

But at least one parent in the audience that night echoed McNight’s concern that the discussion around small learning communities had not, to date, included enough input from parents of African-American and Latino students. 

“This is not a representative group here tonight,” said Beatriz Leyvva-Cutler. “Not at all.” 

Joan Blades, a Berkeley parent-activist helping to organize discussion of small learning communities, said she hoped more African-American and Latino parents would turn out for today’s meeting at the alternative high school. 

But even if a consensus in support of small communities emerges among Berkeley High parents in the months ahead, getting Berkeley High faculty to push ahead with the model will be difficult, Fike said. The school has a “track record of being resistant to change,” he said. 

For three years running some Berkeley High staff have been unable to come up with the votes needed to set aside minutes during the school day where teachers could work on collaborative strategies to meet students needs. It takes the vote of three quarters of the schools faculty to implement such a change and, although a sizable majority of teachers favor the plan according to Fike, the votes came up short. 

“A lot of teachers get really burned out trying to make change at Berkeley High” because it takes so long, Fike said. 

The Berkeley High crew team will compete in the state championship meet today, but they will be unique among the 15 teams racing at Lake Natoma. 

The Yellowjackets are the only crew team in the competition that is a public school varsity sport. In fact, Berkeley High is the only public school west of the Mississippi River that has crew as a varsity sport. Most high school-level teams are club sports, run by private organizations that bring together athletes from a wide region. 

In the 1960s, there were several public schools in the Bay Area that had varsity crew teams, but as schools began streamlining their athletic departments, crew was one of the first sports to go. Redwood High, for instance, had a very good team that had a strong rivalry with Berkeley High. But now the kids of Marin row for the Marin Rowing Association, a club that draws from every school in the county. But despite the smaller pool of athletes, the Berkeley High team has kept with their traditions, and are currently third in the Northern California Rowing Association, made up of 11 teams. 

“We have done well drawing just from Berkeley High, and now we’re starting to draw numbers like the bigger clubs,” Berkeley varsity boys coach Eric Christiani said. “But I’ve had to visit just about every eighth-grade P.E. class for the last three years.” 

Christiani, in his fourth year of coaching at Berkeley High, has 51 athletes on his team, with comparable numbers on the girls’ team. Those kids, he said, will draw their friends into the sport, keeping the cycle of participants flowing. 

“We tend to draw mostly freshmen, but we do get a few older kids,” he said. “I’m already getting calls from parents wanting their kids to be on the team next year.” 

Another challenge the team faces is funding. The Berkeley High athletic department kicks in a fair amount, but not nearly enough to cover everyone’s expenses. So the team has a parents organization that helps raise the rest.  

“The parent group makes running this team possible,” Christiani said. “It’s an expensive sport, so it’s always a struggle.” 

The ’Jackets are one of the few teams that doesn’t have a boathouse, so they make due with a spot at the Oakland Estuary. 

“We basically have a slab of concrete that we launch from,” Christiani said. “Our long-term goal is to put aside money for a facility, so we can put a roof over our heads and the boats.”

The City Council asked two commissions to monitor the city’s Sewer Fund, which generates about $14 million a year in local fees, because of “inappropriate use and allocation.” 

The Citizens Budget Review Commission and the Public Works Commission have begun an examination of Sewer Fund uses and the quality of sewer work performed as part of the city’s 30-year Sanitary Sewer Plan, which has so far cost city residents and businesses $71 million. 

The Sewer Fund is generated by fees collected by the East Bay Municipal Water District that bases the fees on a per-gallons rate. 

According to the Municipal Code the “Sewer Fund is a restricted fund reserved for the purpose of operation, maintenance, rehabilitation and improvement of the city’s sanitary sewers.” 

A legal opinion written by the city attorney in 1991 specified the funds could not be used for any other purpose. 

According to a report to the council by City Auditor Ann-Marie Hogan, the city’s sewer fund was being used to pay the salaries of two city workers employed by the First Source Employment Program “in apparent violation of the Berkeley Municipal Code.” The program oversees a city policy that requires companies that contract with Berkeley to offer available jobs to residents first. During 1999 and 2000, the Sewer Fund paid over $120,000 toward the employees’ salaries. 

Hogan said when the funds were first diverted from the sewer fund in 1988, it was appropriate because the vast majority of city contractors were working on the sewers. But as the city became involved in 

capital projects such as the renovation and seismic retrofit of the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center, the First Source program was overseeing a variety of projects which had nothing to do with the city’s sewers. 

Hogan said it was probably a budgetary oversight and not deliberate misuse of funds. “Using the funds had outgrown its rationale,” she said. 

Along with many Bay Area cities in the early 1980s, Berkeley was issued an order by the California Regional Water Quality Board to fix leaky and broken sewer pipes because raw sewage was finding its way into creeks and storm drains which were emptying into the Bay, according to the Sanitary Sewer Program Study prepared by the Public Works Commission.  

The Sewer Fund is partially used to pay for a 30-year program of replacing or repairing half of the city’s 2,745,600 feet of sewer lines. It is also used to cover sewer administration costs and regular maintenance of city sewers. The program was initiated in 1985. According to the study, over 15 years, the city has completed more than 29 percent of the repair work. 

While it appears the city is over half way to its 30-year goal, Commission Chair John Piercy says there is some question about the quality of the work, which is being overseen by the Public Works Department. 

Public Works Commissioner Carlene St. John told the City Council on Tuesday that at the end of the 30-year plan, the city will still have sewer problems that will require attention because of normal wear and tear and because the city is on a earthquake fault. “It’s like repainting the Golden Gate Bridge,” she said. “You got keep doing it and doing it.” 

The City Manager’s Office has proposed a 3 percent increase in Sewer Fund fees in next year’s budget to cover the rising cost of labor and an anticipated public information campaign to encourage property owners to repair sewer lines on private property known as upper laterals. 

Piercy said the Budget Commission and the Public Works Commission will work together to determine if the sewer plan is funded properly, the work is being carried out competently and that fees are being correctly charged.  

“We need to have some kind of clear statement about how these funds are being used,” said Mayor Shirley Dean at Tuesday’s meeting. “It has to be clear if these funds are being used or abused.” 

Councilmember Linda Maio thanked the two commissions for their presentation to council and for working very hard on “not one of your more sexy items.”

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A day after defeating Connecticut, 2–0, the second–seeded California Golden Bears used eight hits on offense and an excellent three–hit shutout pitching performance by junior Jocelyn Forest to defeat the Florida Atlantic Owls, 2–0, in the winner's bracket of the South Region of the NCAA Regional.  

Cal waited until the top of the third to break the scoreless 0–0 tie, plating two runs in the inning. Senior Pauline Dueñas began the inning with a single down the left–field line. Dueñas then advanced to second on a groundout by junior Candace Harper. Sophomore Veronica Nelson followed with a strikeout looking which brought sophomore Eryn Manahan to the plate, who singled back up the middle, bringing in Dueñas from second on a close play at the plate. On the play, Manahan moved to second and later scored on a line–drive single to center by sophomore Courtney Scott.  

FAU attempted to cut away at the Bears lead in the sixth, putting runners on first and second with one out, but Forest turned the threat away, getting the next two batters to fly out to center.  

Forest went the distance for Cal, allowing just three hits with six strikeouts and just one walk. She improves to 26–7 on the year.  

Nicole Myers took the loss for FAU, falling to 26–12 in 2001. 

Manahan, Scott and sophomore Kristen Morley each had two hits in the game for the Bears, while Ninya Ybarra had two hits for the Owls.  

With the win, the Bears tie a school record with 51 wins on the year with only 15 losses. The Owls fall to 46–20.  

The Bears return Saturday for a 3:30 game with any one of the three remaining teams (Florida, FAU or Florida State).

Berkeley Lite is an occasional column illuminating those who’d like to shine us on. 

Chalk up one more for Patrick Kennedy, winner of the most recent Battle of the Build.  

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think San Pablo Ave., where he’ll construct a four–story apartment/commercial building’s the most perfect place in the city for a few (but not blocks on end) four–story buildings. Kennedy’s project’s “in my back yard,” by the way.  

(At the same time, wouldn’t it be lovely to line Spruce Street, with its regular bus service in the North hills, with two–story, four–unit buildings?) 

My irradiated beef’s not with the masterful politico from Piedmont – whose hard-won project at Acton and University is yet to break ground – it’s with our wimpy council moms & pop, who give all sorts of lip service to affordable housing, but rolled over and gave Mr. K. the store, with only a drop of “affordable” housing.  

A politician with guts – one who truly wants to figure out a way for the $8–$10/hr. folk who work in Berkeley shops and restaurants to live near where they work – would have come up with a way to give Kennedy what he wanted ONLY in exchange for deeper affordability, and more than just the mandatory 20 percent of the units whose rents must be kept affordable by law to people who earn 80 percent of the area median income (which is about $50,000 for a family of three.)  

Councilmember Dona Spring said as much. She said she’d wanted to fight to get more low income units. But without her colleagues fighting with her, she said making the argument was futile. 

A shame the discussion among them didn’t happen in public. At least then the community would have been able to see which councilmembers were actually willing to fight for affordable housing. 

To his credit, Kennedy points out that he’s the only developer currently building multi-family housing in Berkeley. Also, he favors tenants already living here and especially those who might have to leave unless they get into one of his units.  

Further he argues that he is building housing for folks with moderate means, though this argument is open to interpretation. He says for the 80 percent of the units going at market-rate rents, he will be able to charge only “moderate” rates. That’s because most folks don’t want to live in “that” prostitute-infested neighborhood, he said. 

Spring also recalled that the council had either given or lent (Kennedy says lent) the developers $20,000 early in the process to secure the property because they said they were providing a number of low-income units. 

And now, what’s the council gonna do about all the other 11-odd parcels to be developed along SP Ave? Well, perhaps they’ll toss one or two to an “affordable” housing developer, adding to the divide between affordable & market–rate dwellers, instead of mixing them up in one building.  

And where’s the long–term vision? The group opposing the 2700 San Pablo project asked the question time and again, with no council response. Where are people without backyards going to play, have their “backyard” barbecues, let their children romp? San Pablo Park is heavily used by people from both inside and outside the area. Is the city willing to create new mini–parks for its new San Pablo Ave. residents? Will it demand builders pay for these? Where’s the long-term planning????  

••• 

Speaking of planning, since transportation planning’s one of the most talked–of topics in the city - remember bike-to-work day, flags on streets, Santa Rosa lights – you’d think Berkeley would have a top rate-transportation engineer in its planning department. Well, we had a traffic engineer who quit, then one who came for six months and left and now one who quit after one month. What’s up?  

••• 

Did you catch the rally outside the City Council Chambers almost two weeks ago? If you passed by you’d have heard the lively chants “Don’t take away our medicine” and seen the brightly–colored placards denouncing an evil-intended City Council for passing an ordinance to implement Prop. 215. Some 200 people participated.  

But a whole lot of them appeared misinformed, if not misled by those who were informed. A number of folks told me the City Council passed its ordinance to get rid of Prop. 215 and disallow their medicine. 

It just ain’t so.  

Now there’s plenty to argue about the ordinance itself. Ought patients to be allowed to grow more than 10 plants for medication? Some argue you need more, because some plants don’t make it. Like the six basil plants I stuck in the ground a couple of weeks ago. There’s two left. Do snails like pot as much as basil?  

But I’m getting off track. 

The argument goes on to say that patients need pot in its various growing stages, some plants ripe to pick and others getting ready. And some patients need more of the medicine than others. 

These are the arguments that informed people were making. 

The misinformed said the council wanted to do away with Prop. 215. But that’s the last thing you can say about our council. Even the most conservative, moderate or whatever-you-want-to-call the minority faction of the council, is in full support of sick people using medical marijuana. 

Now if you want a “bad” guy, try the supreme court.  

*** 

One more thing – it’s about those telephones. Remember Jim Keene, yeah, the former city manager, and the fight for the $2 million for the new system. Remember how he sold it to the council by saying the phones would be answered and the operators who answered the phones would stay with the callers until they got to the person who could answer their questions. No more voice mail hell, Keene said.  

Well, try it yourself: 981-CITY. 

STONE MOUNTAIN, Georgia – The No. 7-ranked California women’s tennis team suffered a major loss, when they fell in the NCAA Round of 16 to the No. 11-ranked Arizona State Sun Devils, 4-2, in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The Bears met up with the Sun Devils for the third time this year, the first two coming in the regular season.  

Though Cal defeated Arizona State on Mar. 9, the Sun Devils would take the next two, defeating the Bears, in Tempe, before knocking Cal out of the NCAA tournament. The Sun Devils opened the competition by sweeping the doubles point, the first time doing so in their three meetings this year.  

ASU would carry that momentum into singles, as they would grab three singles points for the victory at the No. 1, 3 and 6 spots. ASU’s Adria Engel, who was named ITA Player of the Month for April downed senior Anita Kurimay at the No. 1 court in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3. ASU’s other two wins would come in straight sets as well, as Raquel Kops-Jones lost, 6-2, 7-6, while Sekita Grant lost, 6-3, 7-5.  

Cal’s two points in singles came with wins from Christina Fusano and Jieun Jacobs at the No. 2 and 4 courts. Jacobs would tally a straight set victory over Faye DeVera, 6-2, 6-3, while Fusano would easily handle Karen Palme, 6-3, 6-3. In the three meetings this year between Cal and ASU, Fusano would be the only player on the Cal team to go undefeated in singles against her opponents.  

Individual singles and doubles competition begins on Monday, May 21, as the Bears will enter Kops-Jones, Fusano and Kurimay in singles. In doubles, Kurimay and Kops-Jones will team for a chance at Cal’s fourth straight NCAA doubles championship.

West Berkeley’s past is evident today through its diverse building stock. It presents a heterogeneous mix of old and new buildings, residential and industrial buildings often side by side.  

A lone Victorian house or a windmill behind an old grocery store evoke curiosity as might an anonymous concrete tilt-up building with no signage.  

There remains some industrial activity in west Berkeley, but the area is evolving.  

Because west Berkeley has not experienced massive redevelopment there is a visually interesting mix of building types and uses.  

Fragments of the past have been retained through the reuse of older buildings.  

The Heywood-Ghego House is the last pioneer building on this block of Fourth Street.  

The house was built for William B. Heywood, the son of pioneer Zimri Brewer Heywood.  

The Ghego family purchased the house in 1925 from descendants of the Heywood family and members of the Ghego family were still living in the house when the Redevelopment Agency purchased it in 1978.  

The house is a raised-basement Victorian with a symmetrical design that features tall paired sash windows topped with ornate bracketing.  

The hipped roof is flat in the center and, rather than coming together at right angles, the corners of the eaves were cut at a diagonal, which is an unusual feature. 

In 1992 the Redevelopment Agency sold the house to Abrams and Millikan, developers of the popular Fourth Street retail district, and it is now a unique feature of the Fourth Street commercial district.  

Susan Cerny writes Berkeley Observed in conjunction with the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association

A woman was battered and raped by two men who forced her into a bathroom on the Berkeley School District’s east campus about 2 a.m. Tuesday, police said. 

Formerly the home of the district’s continuation high school, the campus is used for administrative offices and some classes today, said Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes.  

Lopes said the bathroom was apparently left unlocked during the night Tuesday through oversite. 

The woman was originally approach by her two assailants while walking home along Ashby Avenue, Lopes said. 

Police found evidence of alleged drug use inside the bathroom where the attack occurred. 

The victim was transported to Highland Hospital where she was treated for minor injuries and released. Police have no suspects in the case. 

••• 

A brawl between half a dozen teenage girls wielding baseball bats and knives ended with two injuries and four arrests Tuesday, according to police. 

Lt. Lopes said the fight, was apparently the result of a long-term feud between two families living in different units of a south Berkeley apartment building,. 

The fight began about 3 p.m. when a 16-year-old girl allegedly assaulted a 15-year-old girl in a stairwell, striking her repeatedly in the head with a baseball bat. 

The initial attack lead to a series of alleged retaliatory attacks by members of the victim’s family, Lopes said.  

When the police arrived at the scene, on the 2900 block of Mabel Street near Ashby Avenue, they found a number of teenage girls still screaming at each other, bats in hand, Lopes said.  

Several windows had been broken out in the apartment building. 

The initial victim was transported to Alta Bates hospital with a “severe head injury”, Lopes said.  

Another girl was treated at Alta Bates for a severe cut in her hand caused when someone threw a knife through the air, Lopes said. 

Three teenagers and one adult involved in the brawl are in police custody, Lopes said. There is a warrant for the arrest of a fifth suspect, the 16-year-old who began the fight and fled the scene before police arrived Tuesday. 

••• 

Police are on the lookout for a man who they say has committed at least seven bank robberies in the last two months – three of them in Berkeley. 

The suspect struck Wednesday at the Bank of America at 1536 Shattuck Ave.  

Just before closing time the man, who police described as a black male in his late 30s, around 5 feet 10 inches and 170 pounds, wearing dark, wrap around sunglasses, allegedly passed a note to a Bank of America teller saying he had a gun and was demanding money. 

The man escaped with a “large quantity” of cash, Lopes said. 

Police believe the same man is responsible for similar bank robberies at two other Shattuck Avenue banks, one as recent as last Friday, Lopes said.

SAN FRANCISCO — After years of complaints from parents about San Francisco’s crowded, ill-equipped and run-down schools, the FBI has been called in to find out whether the mess is more than just a matter of bad management. 

City and school authorities asked the bureau earlier this spring to determine whether the mishandling of millions of dollars was criminal. 

“This is a very broken school system,” said Arlene Ackerman, who has been superintendent for less than a year “The infrastructure and finances are very broken.” 

The FBI would not comment. But City Attorney Louise Renne said her office is working with the bureau in an investigation of current or former school staff members. 

In 1990 and 1997, San Francisco residents voted for school improvement and construction bonds totaling $90 million for the district, which has more than 66,000 students and an annual budget of about $500 million. 

The money was meant to cover earthquake-related repairs, fire and safety improvements, building renovations and construction. 

But $27 million went to other projects and needs without Board of Education approval, an audit by an accounting firm found. Some of it went to salaries to new staff in an administration Ackerman has called bloated. 

In addition, $14.6 million in state grant money to be used for new construction and modernization is unaccounted for. 

“That’s just a complete waste of money that’s out there that the district could be soliciting or putting to use,” said Maricela Valencia, who has a daughter in sixth grade. 

Valencia said she is putting her daughter back in private school – at $800 per month with a scholarship – after a one-year trial of the public system. 

“It disappointed me the most in that the number of children in the classroom is too much for the teacher to deal with,” she said. “The students are out of control.” 

Ackerman said the school district needs “tight accountability systems.” She refused to blame directly any previous superintendents or board members, saying only that her job is to fix things. 

Many parents and some district employees say the breakdowns in management and accounting came during the tenure of the previous schools chief, Bill Rojas.  

Rojas left to become superintendent of the Dallas system but was fired less than a year later after clashing with the board there. 

This week, he returned to San Francisco to answer the allegations. 

Rojas admitted that there were “weak internal controls” during his tenure, but said the current administration is also to blame for failing to track the bond money. 

“How long, when budgets are produced year to year, are you going to blame Bill Rojas?” he said at a city Board of Supervisors meeting. “I may not have been the most popular superintendent, but you don’t have a single financial audit saying we weren’t solvent.” 

Parents have long complained about an administration in disarray, underpaid teachers, dilapidated buildings, classrooms without books and limited Internet access in one of the world’s most technology-oriented cities. 

Some of the schools are in such bad repair that they were cited in an ACLU lawsuit accusing the state and city of discrimination in funding. 

Bessie Carmichael Elementary School, for example, consists of dilapidated wooden buildings and World War II bungalows in a largely black part of town.  

A $4 million improvement project has ballooned to $16 million, with little progress toward a new campus. 

At the same time, Lowell High, which selects the city’s brightest students, is still waiting for campus-wide Internet access, despite qualifying for a $1 million state grant for the project in 1998. 

The Board of Education recruited Ackerman after learning of her successes running schools in Washington, D.C.  

The board also recently named Ramon Cortines, a former superintendent in San Francisco and New York City, to lead a citizens oversight committee. 

“I’m very saddened, but I’m not shocked or surprised,” school board member Dan Kelly said of the financial mess. “This is exactly the kind of activity that some of us thought was going on.”

A committee of nine ratepayer groups will not be allowed to take part in the proceedings involving the bankruptcy filing of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., a judge ruled Friday. 

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali agreed with PG&E that the ratepayer groups did not have a legal right to join other creditor committees in participating in the Chapter 11 case. 

U.S. Trustee Linda Eckstron Stanley, whose role is to appoint creditor committees in such cases, had taken the unusual step of appointing a committee of ratepayers – giving them legal standing and the ability to voice opinions. 

“While the UST no doubt acted with good intentions and with the interests of ratepayers in mind, she abused her discretion by going beyond the authority given her in the Bankruptcy Code, erring as a matter of law,” Montali wrote in his ruling. 

The judge agreed with PG&E that ratepayers do not qualify as creditors under bankruptcy law, and noted that the ratepayers have other venues to protect their interests. 

The utility argued ratepayers already have the ability to voice any concerns before the state’s Public Utilities Commission. 

“That is their forum. This is not their forum,” James Lopes, a PG&E attorney, told the judge during final arguments Friday. 

The judge also agreed with PG&E that the state Attorney General can represent ratepayer interests in the court process. 

“Pacific Gas and Electric Company is pleased that the court determined there was no basis in the Bankruptcy Code for the creation of a Ratepayers’ Committee. This decision allows for the continuation of an orderly and efficient reorganization process that the Bankruptcy Code provides,” PG&E officials said in a statement. 

The state, however, has hesitated to become involved in the case for fear it will lose the right to regulate PG&E. 

Gov. Gray Davis strongly denounced Monatli’s decision. 

“Bankruptcy proceedings are neither ‘efficient and organized’ as PG&E claims. They produce years of uncertainty,” Davis said in a statement released late Friday. 

“Today’s decision proves my point. Bankruptcy courts could care less about ratepayers.” 

Consumer and ratepayer advocates were also outraged by the ruling. 

“The judge has told us this is a rich man’s court,” said Robert Gnaizda, policy director of the Greenlining Institute, a coalition of minority groups.  

“The group that has the biggest morale authority to criticize PG&E is no longer involved, and you’ll have rich groups (of creditors) deciding how to split the spoils and then they’ll make the ratepayers pay for it.” 

Gnaizda said he will be asking the state Attorney General to reconsider getting involved. 

Stanley, the U.S. Trustee, maintained her decision to include ratepayers as creditors was allowed under the law, but said she will not file an appeal because it would take too long and the bankruptcy case would have to move forward in any case. 

She said she will meet with U.S. Trust attorneys next week to consider other options to include ratepayers in the bankruptcy proceeding. 

RIVERSIDE — Cities with their own power plants connected to the California power grid want exemption from rolling blackouts, saying their customers shouldn’t be deprived to help others. 

A group of California cities, all of them generating plenty of power to weather the summer energy crunch, faced a Friday deadline to ask the federal government to relieve them from blackouts. 

While most Californians pay large utilities like Southern California Edison Co. for power, about 25 percent of state households are billed for electricity by cities, counties or local districts with their own power plants. 

Four serving Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale and the Imperial Valley are independent of the power grid and don’t face outages. But about two dozen others are required by contract to give electricity back to the grid-controlling Independent System Operator by participating in rolling blackouts. 

“We believe our power was purchased for the citizens of Riverside and that we don’t have the right, nor does anyone else, to take it away from them when they need it,” Riverside utilities director Tom Evans said. 

“Our customers are being denied something that they are fundamentally entitled to.” 

The cities seeking exemptions argue that they are suffering for the ill-fated decisions made when California’s electricity market was deregulated. 

“It makes them wonder why they went out and did their jobs,” California Municipal Utilities Association attorney Tony Braun said. 

The exemption campaign is led by Vernon, a small city five miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Vernon filed a complaint last week asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to exempt it from rolling blackouts. 

Vernon’s utility has 2,000 customers, most of which are industrial operations such as glass manufacturers and meatpacking plants. The city power distribution system was designed to lure industry with low electric rates, spokesman Jorge Somoano said. 

FERC set a Friday deadline for other city utilities to support the campaign and up to half, including Riverside, were expected to either file their own complaints or documents supporting Vernon, said attorney Bonnie Blair, who represents municipal utilities in Azusa, Banning and Colton. 

FERC is expected to decide on the issue by mid-June, Blair added. 

“The obligation to share in (rolling blackouts) did not contemplate situations where some utilities were not meeting their basic obligation to provide resources to serve their customers,” Blair said. “If they are forced to participate in rolling blackouts, the effect is that the ISO is taking energy that has been bought and paid for by some customers and effectively giving it to somebody else that has been unable to buy it.” 

Cal-ISO vice president of operations Jim Detmers said they will fight the exemptions.  

He said excluding municipal utilities from blackouts would increase the share of those events shouldered by communities that do not have their own electricity distribution. 

Ronald Nunnally, Edison’s director of federal regulations and contracts, said the municipal utilities have an obligation to uphold the integrity of the power grid to which they are connected. 

“The ability to use the grid requires to keep it whole, if you will, under all circumstances,” he said. 

LOS ANGELES — The lawyer for a dying smoker suing tobacco giant Philip Morris Inc. suggested Friday that a jury award $10 billion in punitive damages. 

The company’s actions met the legal standards for punitive damages, attorney Michael Piuze told the Superior Court jury in closing arguments. 

Richard Boeken, 56, who has lung cancer that has spread elsewhere, claims fraud, conspiracy and negligence.  

He claims that Marlboro, the popular Philip Morris cigarette brand, was his favorite since he began smoking at age 13. 

Piuze said Boeken should get $270,000 for medical bills, $2.1 million for lost earnings and future earnings and $10 million for pain, suffering and general damages. 

He said that $100 million was “not nearly enough” for punitive damages and then wrote $10 billion over the  

word “Justice” on a large pad displayed on an easel. 

“Richard Boeken’s sin was that he believed Philip Morris,” Piuze said. 

Boeken kicked both heroin and alcohol, but not cigarettes because he heeded a 50-year tobacco industry campaign to cast doubt on rising health concerns, he said. 

After decades of smoking two packs or more a day, he was diagnosed in 1999 with lung cancer, which had spread incurably to his lymph nodes, lower back and brain. 

Boeken was “hooked” on cigarettes and tried several times to quit because of recurring bronchitis and his desire to run, but he never believed health warnings that smoking could cause serious illness, Piuze said. 

If the cigarette industry had “told America in 1955 or 1954 ... this stuff will kill you,” Boeken and “untold millions of other people would never have been smoking,” he claimed. 

Piuze argued that cigarettes are legally a defective product because they are unsafe. 

“The consumer was plunking down his or her good money and buying poison,” he said. He noted that Philip Morris did not dispute that its product caused Boeken’s cancer. 

Piuze contended the tobacco industry could have created a safe cigarette and prevented “millions of slow, agonizing, crummy deaths that cost a lot of money” if they had spent nearly 50 years on research instead of a “propaganda” campaign to cast doubt on health concerns. 

Piuze told jurors that Philip Morris was guilty of a “failure to warn” consumers of their products’ danger before the government issued warning labels in the 1960s. The company also had a “failure to instruct” how to use their lower tar products, he said. 

Showing jurors packages of regular Marlboros, Marlboro Lights and Marlboro Ultralights, he said government and industry knew that all three delivered the same amount of toxins, because consumers using the lower tar products took more puffs and breathed more deeply. 

“It’s only a secret from the people who used it” and mistakenly thought they were getting less tar, Piuze said. 

The company should have told consumers to not puff so deeply and so often, Piuze said. 

Boeken was “reassured,” by the tobacco industry’s stance, his attorney argued. But even if Boeken was partically responsible for his illness by continuing to smoke, “Philip Morris doesn’t walk just because someone was gullible enough to believe,” he said.

BREA — A 1,000-pound steer raised at a parochial school was slaughtered in front of more than 100 students, some as young as 5, to teach them where meat comes from – a demonstration that has drawn protests from some quarters. 

The youngsters had their parents’ permission to watch, but animal rights organizations objected along with teen-age protesters from outside the school, situated in a well-to-do rural area on the outskirts of this Orange County community. 

The 2-year-old steer named T-Bone was killed by a butcher Thursday at Carbon Canyon Christian School.  

Pastor and principal Dave Kincer on Friday defended the demonstration, which is part of an agricultural ranching program, noting the students who cared for and fed the animal knew it would be slaughtered. 

“We sent out a paper to all parents, saying that it was time to dress (the steer),” he said. “It was an awesome experience. It gave them a chance to see up close what they’ve been reading about in books all year.” 

More than half of the school’s 170 students observed after their parents signed permission slips. Some students got queasy and left during the lesson, but most were fascinated, Kincer said. 

It was the first time a steer was killed at the school and Kincer wouldn’t say whether it would happen in the future. 

The carcass was taken to a Brea meat market where it was being prepared for consumption and returned to the school, Kincer added. 

The school has been inundated with hundreds of phone calls from people upset about the demonstration and interview requests from the media. Some students have even been teased by other kids about Thursday’s event. 

Suzanne Daigle, 14, said she was outside a store when some students from a nearby school shouted “slaughterers” to her and her friends. Daigle, who aspires to be a surgical nurse, said she didn’t have a problem watching the event, but said “it also made me realize how quickly life can be taken.” 

“Studies have shown that when children view violence against animals, it desensitizes them to animal cruelty and makes them more aggressive,” said Lacey Levitt of Los Angeles-based Last Chance for Animals. 

About a dozen teenagers who do not attend the school tried to stop the slaughter by forming a human chain to keep the butcher from entering the campus. But police told them they could not block access. 

Anjali Heble, 15, said a friend who attends the school told her a few days ago about the slaughter. 

“Everyone was just shocked that this was going on,” said Heble, a sophomore at a nearby public school. “They were killing this cow in front of children who don’t have the ability to understand it. ... They don’t know how to handle this.” 

Some public school officials did not oppose the public slaughter, noting that 4-H clubs typically raise animals and learn about the food chain. 

“It can be shocking and disturbing to children if they aren’t prepared by school administrators,” said William Habermehl, superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education. However, he said, “there is no doubt it’s an educational experience as long as there is parental permission and it’s age-appropriate.” 

He said “age-appropriate” might depend on such things as whether the youngster was raised on a farm. 

Janice Broyles, a parent and a science teacher at the school, told the Register she welcomed the chance to show students how blood pumps from the heart and what tendons look like up close – lessons demonstrated as the animal was being cut apart. 

As for her three children, ages 7 to 11, she said: “I was concerned about my 7-year-old seeing it. It could be scary to see death. But he was really fascinated. I think it was an excellent lesson.” 

City Councilman Steven Vargas said Friday no laws were broken and no zoning violations occurred at the 43-acre campus. 

The school is nestled in the rolling hills of eastern Orange County. It is sandwiched between horse farms and a state park. 

“ALIVE IN HER: Icons of the Goddess” 

Tuesdays & Thursdays  

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Free. 

Museum of the Pacific  

School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave. 848-0528 

Joan Beth Clair’s exhibit at the museum of the Pacific School of Religion demonstrates that “Holy Hill” is far more advanced as a center of multicultural awareness and acceptance than one might guess.  

Here are images of the sacred goddess displayed in a Christian setting and expressions of ideas which, in a less enlightened place and time, might be condemned as blasphemy, rather than embraced as new manifestations of non-traditional spirituality.  

Some of the images focus on the relationships between roses and symbols of bondage vs. freedom, and others play with folded paper cranes in a natural setting. The final triptych lets the cat out of the bag: “Moon in the Hair of the Goddess,” “Snake/Rose” and “ALIVE IN HER: She who is Perfectly Empty and Perfectly Full” form the denouement of the show, as Clair paints her vision, allowing her brush to express what she had been striving for, or hinting about, in her photographs and collages.  

The multimedia pieces are nice enough, mixing elegant photographs with exquisite handmade paper that coyly displays its internal structures of imbedded flowers, leaves and fibers. But the message is different when the medium is different. The paintings are icons to the Goddess, while the collages focus on the relationship between Nature and the human-made world. The sense of philosophical play abounds in the collages: We are invited to reflect on the photo of a paper crane hovering on a flower stalk, but then we notice that the photographic paper is mounted on paper with real flowers imbedded in it.  

Where is the boundary between reality and imagery? Clair states in her introductory notes: “I have deliberately chosen not to frame my art because frames reinforce the idea of an ‘art' separate from life. I prefer the scrolls that are used in oriental art. There is less of a sense of ‘immortality' of the Artist and more a sense that ‘art' does not stop at a border.” The icons are also borderless scrolls, but even more pointedly: they are infinite. The final goddess image forms the “figure-eight” symbol of infinity and portrays the yin/yang koan-like contradiction of empty fullness. 

Although this is a small art show (alas! too small), there is much to ponder, for there is as much informed commentary as art. The 17 pieces are interspersed with an equal number of lengthy citations from writings by Jose Arguelles and William Blake, as well as reflections on Chinese aesthetics, Sioux cosmology and Balinese sociology. 

The museum visitor will also be rewarded by the displays in the other half of the hall, which contains a rich collection of pots, lamps, scarabs, glassware, seals, cuneiform tablets, and other artifacts spanning three millennia, from the excavation of Tell En-Nasbeh, an ancient city just north of Jerusalem. A happy juxtaposition places a case full of “Cult Objects,” featuring ancient fertility goddesses, just opposite Clair's modern painted icons. The official Museum commentary reads: “Cult practices that grew up around the goddess and her consort were believed to assure the fertility of both land and people. Though the (Old Testament) prophets condemned these practices even the Israelites often found the goddess irresistible.” This seems still to be true for many of us post-modern Berkeleyans.

Two years ago, Halihl Guy showed up for his first workout with the St. Mary’s track coaches. A junior transfer from Berkeley High, Guy wasn’t quite used to the workload the Panthers demanded. 

“Halihl would do great for the first third of the workout, but he would die really quickly,” says St. Mary’s head coach Jay Lawson. “It was a challenge for him to mentally adjust to the amount of work we wanted from him.” 

Flash forward to this year, and you’d never know it was the same Guy. The senior is one of the hardest workers at St. Mary’s, and that has translated into stellar performances in four events at nearly every meet. Guy, 17, runs both hurdles races, and is a member of the Panthers’ outstanding 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relay squads, and has turned into one of the team’s leaders both on and off the track. 

Guy, who lives in Hercules, will run all four races at Saturday’s North Coast Section meet at Diablo Valley College in Stockton. He is expected to qualify in both hurdles races for the California Interscholastic Federation state championship meet two weeks later, as are the relay teams. And once he gets there, Guy could rip off his fastest times yet. After all, he set a personal best at last year’s state meet in the 300-meter hurdles with a mark of 37.95 seconds, good for fourth at that meet and still his best time in the event. 

“We build all year towards the state meet; our coaches do that on purpose,” Guy says. “I want to win both hurdles at state. The only thing that can keep that from happening is me.” 

That confidence came slowly for Guy, who spent his first two years of high school training only sporadically before coming into the vaunted St. Mary’s program, which has won three straight boys NCS titles. 

“He would only train two or three days a week before he got here,” Lawson says. “He wasn’t used to the kind of things we do here.” 

But it didn’t take long for Guy to adjust, and he spent the last part of the season improving his times every week, culminating in his surprise finish at the state meet. 

“I think that month he finally started believing in the program, and he put up some times he didn’t think he could,” Lawson says. 

In addition to a tougher training regiment, Guy says better teammates have pushed him farther than he could go by himself. His main training partners are his relay teammates, Asokah Muhammed, Chris Dunbar and Courtney Brown. 

“When we practice, we all push each other, and that makes us all better,” he says. “We can feed off of each other’s success.” 

But while Guy works hard to be a key link in the relay teams, his main goal is to improve on the hurdles, which are the key to getting a scholarship for college. 

“I’m a hurdler first; the relays are just fun for all of us,” he says. “But the hurdles are what the college coaches want to see.” 

Guy is mulling offers from Washington State, Arizona State, Kansas and Cal. He says he would like to decide before the state meet, but wants to improve his times before making a decision. 

“It’s like trying to get a job: the more references you have, the better job you’ll get,” he says. “They’re going to wait as long as possible, so I need to impress them.” 

Guy isn’t all about individual accomplishments, however. He admits that even if he wins the hurdles at state, he won’t be satisfied unless the Panthers take the team title. 

“If I do good but the team does bad, no one else is happy, and that’s no fun,” he says. 

One key to that team title will be a showdown with the 4x100-meter relay team from Taft High (Woodland Hills). Taft put up the best time in the state in that event early in the season at 41.30 seconds, and the Panthers tied the mark at the Meet of Champions in Sacramento two weeks ago. Although the Taft team dropped the baton at their league meet and failed to qualify for sectionals, they were given a special spot and are expected to make the state meet. 

“I’m not happy that they got into it after they lost, but they’ll just make us run faster to win,” Guy says. “They can just run fast for second or third place.”

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership. All ages. May 18: Ensign, All Bets Off, Playing Enemy, Association Area, Blessing the Hogs; May 19: Punk Prom and benefit for India quake victims features Pansy Division, Plus Ones, Dave Hill, Iron Ass; May 25: Controlling Hand, Wormwood, Goats Blood, American Waste, Quick to Blame; May 26: Honor System, Divit, Enemy You, Eleventeen, Tragedy Andy; June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2 El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 18: 9:30 p.m. Reggae Angels with Mystic Roots; May 19: 9:30 Kotoja; May 20: 8:30 p.m. Jude Taylor and His Burning Flames 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 18: Todd Snider; May 19: Oak, Ash and Thorn; May 20: KALW’s 60th Anniversary Concert featuring Paul Pena, Orla and the Gasmen, Kennelly Irish Dancers, Kathy Kallick and Nina Gerber. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. May 18: Will Bernard and Motherbug; May 19: Solomon Grundy; May 22: Willy N’ Mo; May 23: Global Echo; May 24: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 25: The Mind Club; May 26: Rhythm Doctors; May 29: The Lost Trio; May 30: Zambambazo 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

La Pena Cultural Center May 19, 8 p.m.: Carnaval featuring Company of Prophets, Loco Bloco, Mystic, Los Delicados, DJ Sake One and DJ Namane; May 20: 6 p.m. Venezuelan Music Recital 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org  

Satsuki Arts Festival and Bazaar May 19, 4 - 10 p.m. & May 20, Noon - 7 p.m. A fund-raiser for the Berkeley Buddhist Temple featuring musical entertainment by Julio Bravo & Orquesta Salsabor, Delta Wires, dance presentations by Kaulana Na Pua and Kariyushi Kai, food, arts & crafts, plants & seedlings, and more. Berkeley Buddhist Temple 2121 Channing Way (at Shattuck) 841-1356 

KALW 60th Anniversary Celebration May 20, 8 p.m. An evening of eclectic music and dance that reflects the eclectic nature of the stations’ programming. Performers include Paul Pena, Kathy Kallick & Nina Gerber, Orla & the Gas Men, and the Kennelly Irish Dancers. $19.50 - $20.50 Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse 1111 Addison St. 548-1761 or www.thefreight.org  

Himalayan Fair May 27, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation Live Oak Park 1300 Shattuck Ave. 869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

“En Mouvement/In Motion” May 18, 19 7 p.m., May 19, 20 2 p.m. This production is a collection of works by student dancers/ $15. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 843-4689  

“Big Love” by Charles L. Mee Through June 10 Directed by Les Waters and loosely based on the Greek Drama, “The Suppliant Woman,” by Aeschylus. Fifty brides who are being forced to marry fifty brothers flee to a peaceful villa on the Italian coast in search of sanctuary. $15.99 - $51 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 

“Planet Janet” Through June 10, Fridays and Saturdays 8 p.m., Sundays 7 p.m. Follows six young urbanites’ struggles in sex and dating. Impact Theatre presentation written by Bret Fetzer, directed by Sarah O’Connell. $7 - $12 La Val’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid 464-4468 www.impacttheatre.com 

“The Misanthrope” by Moliere May 18 - June 10, Fri - Sun, 8 p.m. Berkeley-based Women in Time Productions presents this comic love story full of riotous wooing, venomous scheming and provocative dialogue. All female design and production staff. $17 - $20 Il Teatro 450 449 Powell St. San Francisco 415-433-1172 or visit www.womenintime.com 

“The Laramie Project” May 18 - July 8, Wed. 7 p.m., Tues. and Thur. -Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Written by Moises Kaufmen and members of Tectonic Theater Project, directed by Moises Kaufman. Moises Kaufman and Tectonic members travelled to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepard. The play is about the community and the impact Shepard’s death had on its members. $10 - $50. The Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Sister, My Sister” May 20, 5 p.m. Poetry, photography and dramatic readings which give voice to women and children caught in homelessness. Admission is free, donations welcome. Live Oak Park Theatre1301 Shattuck Ave. 528-8198 

Pacific Film Archive May 18: 7:30 The Cloud-Capped Star; May 19: 3:30 Starewicz Puppet Films; May 20: 5:30 The New Gulliver Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“Scapes/Escapes” Ink, Acrylic, Mixed Media by Evelyn Glaubman Through June 1 Tuesday - Thursday, 9 a.m. - 2:45 p.m. Gallery of the Center for Psychological Studies 1398 Solano Ave. Albany 524-0291 

Ledger drawings of Michael and Sandra Horse Meet the artists May 18, 19, 20 (call for times). Exhibit runs through June 18. Gathering Tribes Gallery 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038 www.gatheringtribes.com  

“Alive in Her: Icons of the Goddess” Through June 19, Tuesday - Thursday, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Photography, collage, and paintings by Joan Beth Clair. Opening reception May 3, 4 - 6 p.m. Pacific School of Religion 1798 Scenic Ave. 848-0528 

Bernard Maisner: Illuminated Manuscripts & Paintings Through Aug. 8 Maisner works in miniature as well as in large scales, combining his mastery of medieval illumination, gold leafing, and modern painting techniques. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library 2400 Ridge Rd. 849-2541 

“Musee des Hommages,” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the past, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Boticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours 2028 Ninth St. (at Addison) 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

Images of Portugal Paintings by Sofia Berto Villas-Boas of her native land. Open after 5 p.m. Voulez-Vous 2930 College Ave. (at Elmwood) 

“Tropical Visions: Images of AfroCaribbean Women in the Quilt Tapestries of Cherrymae Golston” Through May 28, Tu-Th, 1-7 p.m., Sat 12-4 p.m. Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 3023 Shattuck Ave. 548-9286 ext 307 

Readings 

Cody’s Books 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852 All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 18: Oscar London, M.D. copes with “From Voodoo to Viagra: The Magic of Medicine”; May 21: Ariel Dorfman reads “Blakes Therapy”  

Boadecia’s Books 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 18: Melinda Given Guttman will read from “The Enigma of Anna O”; May 19: Jessica Barksdale Inclan will read from “Her Daughter’s Eyes” 559-9184 or www.bookpride.com  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 All events at 7:30 p.m. unless noted otherwise May 23: Jon Bowermaster discusses his book “Birthplace of the Winds: Adventuring in Alaska’s Islands of Fire and Ice”; May 29, 7 - 9 p.m.: Travel Photo Workshop with Joan Bobkoff. $15 registration fee  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays 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. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. May 24: Stephanie Young with host Louis Cuneo; May 31: Connie Post with host Louis Cuneo Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Adan David Miller and JoJo Doig May 20, 7 p.m. Poetry and spoken word. Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo 548-3333 

Tours 

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

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park 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. 486-0623  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours All tours begin at 10 a.m. and are restricted to 30 people per tour $5 - $10 per tour May 12: Debra Badhia will lead a tour of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Arts District; May 19: John Stansfield & Allen Stross will lead a tour of the School for the Deaf and Blind; June 2: Trish Hawthorne will lead a tour of Thousand Oaks School and Neighborhood; June 23: Sue Fernstrom will lead a tour of Strawberry Creek and West of the UC Berkeley campus 848-0181 

Lectures 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Free Lectures All lectures begin at 6 p.m. May 20: Miep Cooymans and Dan Jones on “Working with Awareness, Concentration, and Energy”; May 27: Eva Casey on “Getting Calm; Staying Clear”; June 3: Jack van der Meulen on “Healing Through Kum Nye (Tibetan Yoga)”; June 10: Sylvia Gretchen on “Counteracting Negative Emotions” Tibetan Nyingma Institute 1815 Highland Place 843-6812 

West Bank, Gaza settlements illegal 

Editor, 

I was raised as a Zionist, and still consider myself to be one. But such drivel as sprouted from Carol Shivel (Forum, 16 May 2001) I have never heard or read in any of the basic sources of Zionist history. The basic legal document governing the existence of the State of Israel is not, as Ms. Shivel states the League of Nations Mandate of 1921, nor does that document give the Jewish Agency and its successors the power or right to govern. First, the legal documents that are pertinent are the United Nations resolution of 29 Nov. 1947 which divided the British Mandate in Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State, and the Israeli Declaration of independence of 14 May 1948. 

The League of Nations Mandate was a ratification of the Sykes-Picot agreement between Great Britain and France on the disposition of the Ottoman Empire dissolved by the Allied in World War Two. It gave Great Britain control of what we know today as Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan and Iraq. The French got Lebanon and Syria. As to that mandate giving the Jewish Agency any say, is ludicrous. (In 1922, Britain split the greater part of the mandate and created the hashimaite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan.) The remaining territory was ruled by a High Commissioner appointed by the home Office Office in London and all legislation was legislated in London, not in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, or anywhere else in the territory of the Mandate. 

As to what the Mandate actually said: it ratified the language of the Balfour Declaration at the end of the First World War recognizing a right for a Jewish Homeland in Palestine; it does not speak of a Jewish state, nor does it a priori allow for Jewish settlement in all of Palestine. At the time of the creation of the Mandate, the Jewish Agency did not yet exist. 

Yes, the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are illegal and if successive American administrations have said so; they just haven't felt compelled to insist on Israel's dismantling of said settlements, or used the power of the American purse (aid to Israel) to force a cessation to such settlements. They are illegal because they entail the transfer of Israel's citizens onto land which was seized in war and have the internationally recognized status of militarily “occupied territories.” This, like much of what we have been so clearly seeing in the past seven months, is a violation of the Geneva Conventions covering the conduct of war and the treatment of civilians in war. 

Israel and Israelis have no right to the land on which Palestinians live and depend upon for their existence. No abuse of history, no mis-reading of the documents will justify the unjustifiable. 

So, Ms. Shivel, let's stop trying to justify what the vast majority of Israelis know is unjustifiable except by the power of superior arms. I am an Israeli, and never in the last 31 years of Israel's occupation of these territories and its people have i felt so disgusted with what purports to be my government. 

E. Arnon 

Berkeley 

Cement industry role in energy crisis 

Editor: 

Do We Want the Cement Mafia Making Our Energy Decisions? Meet the Cement Mafia: 7 out of ten of the biggest electricity users in California are cement manufacturers. Like other large industrial customers, they have always paid a lot less than residential customers pay for electricity – and they made sure Governor Davis and the Public Utilities Commission kept it that way. 

Before the rate hike, residential ratepayers paid more than 14 cents per kilowatt hour, while big industrial users paid about 8 cents. Now, residential customers will pay 22 cents per kilowatt hour while large industries will pay only 12 cents! Agriculture will pay 14 cents, commercial 15 cents and small business nearly 17 cents. 

Davis said rate hikes should be equal - but that really means keeping rates totally unequal, so the cement companies, giant construction companies and other big industries continue to get a reward for using a lot of electricity. 

The big industrial users brought us deregulation in the first place. They had cheap rates already, but they wanted cheaper rates. Before deregulation, California utilities charged 50 percent more than utilities in the rest of the country, so these companies wanted to buy electricity from somebody else. They were sure that deregulated companies would offer cheaper power, so they pushed for deregulation. Boy were they wrong! 

Why were power costs so high back then? Because the nuclear power plants cost so much to build. Guess who made the money building them? Cement and construction companies! Cement companies made a fortune pouring eight-foot thick cement walls to “contain” deadly radiation. 

Nukes cost even more in California because Bechtel made so many mistakes building Diablo Canyon. Then the Public Utilities Commission made ratepayers pay the cost of California nukes, instead of making utility shareholders eat the overruns. 

Of course the Cement Mafia thought nuclear reactors would be great because the nuclear industry claimed they would produce power “too cheap to meter.” Wrong! The industry claims nuclear power is cheap today, but it appears that way because deregulation forced us to pay $20 billion to bail the utilities out of debt! 

Governor Davis just put six construction companies, headed by Bechtel, in charge of “expediting” power plant construction in California. Isn’t it interesting that the construction companies and President Bush and Davis are all screaming that we have to build big new power plants and new transmission lines all over California and the U.S.? Wrong again! We don’t need this obsolete, expensive technology. We need energy efficiency, solar panels on our rooftops, windmills and fuel cells located near the homes and businesses they serve. And we need honesty and fairness in our electricity rates. Innovative, inexpensive, locally based public power will give us all those things. 

Let’s give road builders a summer vacation. And give us time to think: do we really want the Cement Mafia making energy decisions for us any more?  

Barbara George 

Women’s Energy Matters 

Sacramento 

Keep safety officers 

(To the school board): 

Board President Terry Doran said he believed the budget you passed is “cautious and prudent.” While I sympathize with the difficulties of preparing a budget based on inadequate state funding, it is neither cautious nor prudent to cut school safety officers at Longfellow and Willard. The Healthy Start coordinator from Willard spoke to this point during the public comment session. Two parents from Longfellow would have spoken to this point, if their cards had been called. Given the serious public safety problems that have occurred at Berkeley middle schools this year, this is obviously an important point, yet none of the board members justified these cuts. 

When the shooting occurred on Ward Street as Longfellow students were coming to school earlier this year, it was one of our school safety officers who got the students to drop to the ground and led them into the building. There are only two school safety officers at Longfellow. If we have only one, what happens if that one is on the wrong side of the campus the next time an emergency occurs? 

In the two years I have been involved in analyzing the School Site Council family and student surveys at Longfellow, inadequate supervision of yards and hallways has been one of the few things about the Longfellow learning environment that has drawn a lot of criticism. Our principal, vice principal, and school safety officers work very hard, but as it is there are not enough of them. What is going to happen if there is only one school safety officer?  

Everyone I have spoken to at Longfellow has been horrified when they heard that one of our school safety officer positions has been cut. While all the budgets cuts under consideration are difficult, when you are cutting positions that provide direct service it is important that the people who will feel the brunt of this be informed, and that board members listen to what they have to say about it. I hope you reconsider this point. If we are being cautious and prudent, the risk of reducing the contingency fund by this $80,500 line item is less than the risk of leaving middle school students without adequate supervision in emergencies. 

Susan Dickey 

7th grade parent, Longfellow

Friday, May 18

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets.  

Call 644-6226 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Saturday, May 19

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Annual strawberry tasting 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 548-3333 

Get to Know Your Plants 

1 - 4 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn what to look for and what and how to record it to more intimately know your plants. 548-2220 

“Be Your Own Boss” 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

YWCA 

1515 Webster Street, Oakland 

Second Saturday of a two day workshop on starting up small businesses (see May 12). 

415-541-8580 

Community Summit on  

Smaller Learning  

Communities 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Alternative High School  

MLK Jr. Way (at Derby)  

All teachers, students, administrators, parents, and community members are encouraged to attend this meeting on smaller learning communities at Berkeley High. Translation, childcare, and food will be provided.  

540-1252 to RSVP for services 

Campaign for Equality Benefit  

7:30 - 10 p.m. 

Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club  

1650 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A comedy benefit with performances by Karen Ripley, Julia Jackson, Pippi Lovestocking, Darrick Richardson, and Nick Leonard. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the International Lesbian Gay Association Scholarship Fund for the 2001 ILGA Summit in Oakland. $15 - $20 466-5050 

Finish Carpentry 

9 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Carpenter/contractor Kevin Stamm leads workshop. $95. 

525-7610 

Earthquake Retrofitting 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Seminar taught by structural engineer Tony DeMascole and seismic contractor Jim Gillett. $75. 

525-7610 

How to Prevent Home Owner Nightmares 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Dispute prevention and early resolution seminar taught by contractor/mediator Ron Kelly. $75. 

525-7610 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health (Lower Level) 

2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Program on physical and mental differences. Promotes acceptance and understanding. Free. 

549-1564  

Sunday, May 20

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting 849-0217 

Working with Awareness,  

Concentration, Energy 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Nyingma members discuss meditative awareness in everyday life. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812 

Salsa Lesson & Dance Party  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Kick up your heels and move your hips with professional instructors Mati Mizrachi and Ron Louie. Plus Israeli food provided by the Holy Land Restaurant. Novices encouraged to attend and no partners are required.  

$12  

RSVP: 237-9874 

Mediterranean Herbs 

1:30 p.m. 

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

Tour of herbs. Learn myths and legends, ideas for planting in home gardens. 

643-1924 

Jazz on 4th Street Festival 

11 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

4th St. between Hearst and Virginia 

Performances by Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and two Berkeley High Jazz Combos, among others. Also 4th St. merchants, raffle prizes, arts and crafts. Free admission. Proceeds benefit Berkeley High Performing Arts.  

526-6294 

Monday, May 21

Creation conversation 

7:30 - 10 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish  

Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, founder of L.A.’s SpeedDating, will review creation from the reference point of physics and compare this to the description classical Jewish sources have given for our universe and its creation.  

$10 848-0237 x127 

Tuesday, May 22 

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 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Strawberry tasting 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street  

548-3333 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time  

548-8283 www.pacificcenter.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Solving Residential Drainage Problems 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Second day of two day seminar led by contractor/engineer Eric Burtt. Continued from Thursday May 17. $70 for both days. 525-7610 

Wednesday, May 23

Healthful Building Materials  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by environmental consultant Darrel DeBoer.  

$35 per person 525-7610 

— compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

Regional Tranportation Talk 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Rebecca Kaplan of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition will talk about the Metropolitan Transportation Commision’s 25-year Regional Transportation Plan at the regular meeting of the Berkeley Gray Panthers. Open to the public. 

548-9696 

Thursday, May 24

Paddling Adventures  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Dan Crandell, member of the U.S. National Kayak Surf Team and owner of Current Adventures Kayak School, will introduce attendees to all aspects of kayaking. Free  

527-4140 

Friday, May 25

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  

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Despite grave concerns of two of its members, the Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to make more than $4 million in cuts to balance its budget of about $65 million by June. 

“This has not been an easy decision,” said Board President Terry Doran.  

While he acknowledged the board’s decision last year to make higher pay for teachers a top priority contributed to the need for cuts this spring, Doran placed most of the blame squarely on Sacramento and what he called the state government’s failure to support public education “in an adequate way.” 

Board members Joaquin Rivera and Ted Schultz reiterated their objections to a piece of the plan that will cut the high school teaching staff by the equivalent of 3.6 full-time teachers next year. 

“This is going to add to our lack of credibility because of the support for (small) class size in the community,” Rivera said in an interview Thursday, referring to the fact that Berkeley taxpayers have repeatedly voted to tax themselves in order to keep K-12 class sizes small. 

Director John Selawsky said in an interview that he felt comfortable voting  

for the high school cuts because  

Berkeley High Principal Frank Lynch had indicated that the loss of teachers would not significantly impact class size at the 3,200-student school. 

Doran said the cuts amount to less than 2 percent of the total funding for teaching staff at the high school, a relatively modest cut given “the grave financial situation we’re in right now.” 

Carol Wilkins, a Berkeley High parent and a member of a budget advisory committee for the school district, said during the public comment period Wednesday that she was “deeply disturbed about the action this board has decided to take.” 

“The trust of the voters is one of the most precious commodities that this board has to rely on,” Wilkins said. A vote for fewer teachers at the high school two years in a row jeopardizes that trust, Wilkins added, pointing to the fact that some remedial classes at the high school already have 38 students apiece. 

The class-size reduction tax measure approved by Berkeley voters originally called for classes in grades seven through 12 to have no more than 27 students. 

The cuts approved Wednesday include: the elimination of two middle school safety officers; the elimination of the plant operations manager, attendance clerk and on-campus suspension manager at Berkeley High; the elimination of a half-time campus monitor at the alternative high school; and numerous cuts in administrative costs, ranging from legal expenses to travel expenses. 

The board is now creating a priority list of where to put money back into the budget next year should the district end up with more spending money than it anticipates. Rivera and Selawsky said they would reinstate the teaching positions cut from the high school first, should funding become available. Selawsky said Thursday that a decision to go ahead and fund these positions can still be made as late as September. The cut school safety officers could be added back at any time during the coming school year, he said. 

••• 

In other school board news Wednesday, several parents accused the high school of discriminating against Chicano and Latino students by relegating them to an English Language Learner program whose allegedly inferior curriculum they said fails to prepare students for college. 

“There is unequal treatment but, more important, there is the perception of unequal treatment,” said Berkeley High parent Frederico Chavez. 

Chavez described a situation where the parent of a student who was part Puerto Rican had to fight to get her son into an algebra course that is part of the required curriculum for students who want to be eligible for the University of California system. 

“These are the kinds of things Berkeley High is doing to Latino students,” Chavez said. “It doesn’t challenge them.” 

Several board members directed Interim Superintendent Stephen Goldstone to look into the situation. Rivera said Thursday he wants to review the procedure for placing students in the ELL program, which is intended for students with limited English. 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The second-seeded California Golden Bears got a fine pitching performance from junior Jocelyn Forest and senior Nicole DiSalvio to defeat the fifth-seeded Connecticut Huskies, 2-0, to advance to the winners bracket of the NCAA Regional. The Bears moved on to face Florida Atlantic, which defeated Florida, 3-0, in the second round. With the win, Cal improves to 50-15 on the year, just one win shy of tying its most wins in school history. The Huskies fall to 35-22 with the loss.  

The Bears jumped out to an early one-run lead in the second inning. After a fly out by sophomore Veronica Nelson, Cal sophomore Eryn Manahan singled for the first hit in the game. Sophomore Courtney Scott then reached first on a fielder’s choice followed by a single by senior Amber Phillips, sending Scott to second. Sophomore Mikella Pedretti then broke the scoreless tie with a single to right-center field, scoring Scott from second.  

Cal added to its lead in the fourth with an unearned run. With two outs and Phillips and Scott on second and third, sophomore Kristen Morley grounded to the shortstop, who mishandled the ball, allowing Scott to score the second Bear run.  

Forest started for Cal and went the first 3.1 innings (two hits and three strikeouts) before leaving the game with soreness in her back. DiSalvio closed the game out to earn the win and improve to 19-7 on the year. She allowed just two hits with a strikeout.  

Barb Cook went the distance for the Huskies in the circle and takes the loss to fall to 18-11. She allowed just two runs and six hits.  

Phillips had two hits on the day to lead the Bears offensive attack.  

The Bears return today for the 5:30 second-round game against Florida Atlantic.

Jen Collins parks bikes for a living and loves it.  

She was in her element at the downtown Berkeley BART bike station on Thursday, dubbed bike-to-work day by groups trying to promote bicycle transit.  

It was lunchtime and 75 people had already left their two-wheelers at the 18-month old secure valet parking Collins helps to manage. Usually there are 75 or so bikes signed in (and out) of the facility by the end of the day, she said.  

The valet parking is free, funded by the city and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, among others. It is run through a contract with BART by the Bicycle Friendly Berkeley Coalition.  

The secure parking operates between 6 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturdays. It is closed Sunday.  

“It’s an awesome job,” Collins said. “Everyone here is a dedicated cyclist.”

The City Council adopted an ordinance Tuesday that spells out exactly when some city commissioners have a conflict of interest due to outside employment and how to remedy the situation. 

The new section of the Berkeley Municipal Code states that all commissioners who are employed by any governmental entity, which includes UC Berkeley’s 20,000 employees and 3,000 employees at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will have to recuse themselves only on agenda items that directly affect their specific job responsibilities.  

A state law covers commission and board incompatibility issues as they relate to private employers but does not include government employees.  

The council approved the ordinance by a 5-4 vote with Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek and Councilmembers Dona Spring, Kriss Worthington and Margaret Breland voting in opposition.  

Spring made a substitute motion to create a broader ordinance that would require all government employees who serve on city commissions to abstain from voting on items that would affect their employers. That motion failed by a similar 5-4 vote. 

While Spring’s motion would have impacted a wider range of commissioners, those affected would have had to abstain only from voting on issues related to their employers. That means they could still offer their opinions and participate in discussions on related issues.  

Under the adopted ordinance, commissioners who may have a conflict of interest will have to recuse themselves from any commission discussion whatsoever. 

The ordinance was the result of an ongoing controversy with the Community Environmental Advisory Commission that began in January when City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque issued an opinion that CEAC Commissioner Gordon Wozniak’s employment was incompatible with his duties on the commission. 

Wozniak is a senior scientist at LBNL.  

Wozniak disagreed with Albuquerque and refused to disqualify himself or recuse or abstain from any commission action related to his employer. And the city had no legal recourse to remove him from the commission. 

At the time the CEAC was embroiled in a controversy over possible radioactive tritium leaks from LBNL. Tritium opponents were outraged that Wozniak, who does not work directly with the LBNL tritium facility, ignored Albuquerque’s opinion and the commission became deeply divided. The conflict resulted in the sudden adjournment of two CEAC meetings after several frustrated commissioners left the meetings. 

Under the new ordinance, Wozniak would not have to recuse himself on any tritium-related items before the CEAC commission. 

Councilmember Polly Armstrong, who appointed Wozniak, said the new ordinance was a good one. “This will allow employees of two huge employers of brilliant people (UC Berkeley and LBNL) to participate on city commissions and I think it just makes sense,” she said. 

Spring, on the other hand, said it’s just a way to allow the university and the laboratory to have influence over city policy. “Under this ordinance you could have five LBNL employees on the CEAC and they would not have to recuse themselves if they work in a different department of the same division,” she said. “They could all answer to the same boss, which is just going to erode public confidence because you would have the fox guarding the hen house.” 

Wozniak said he is happy with the council’s action and that he looks forward to continued work with the commission. “I think the ordinance is fair and will avoid the appearance of conflict of interest,” he said. “I hope we can handle the issues on our agenda in a timely manner without any further disruptions over this issue.” 

The new ordinance excludes the seven (out of 45) city commissions that award permits or recommend contracts – the Homeless Commission, Housing Advisory Commission, Human Welfare and Community Action Commission, Landmarks Preservation Commission, Planning Commission, Police Review Commission and the Zoning Adjustments Board. Members of these commissions who work directly or indirectly for the government, including UC Berkeley, would have to recuse themselves from participating on all issues related to their employers, whether the issue was directly related to their specific work or not. 

Two problems, the energy crisis and global warming, have a singular solution: turn off the lights, use public transit, save energy.  

Doing that will reduce carbon dioxide and other harmful gases emitted into the atmosphere and reduce global warming, said a group of experts speaking to some 40 people Tuesday evening gathered at the Redwood Garden Senior Housing Complex. 

Even if global warming were not a problem, it still pays to conserve energy, said UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Professor John Harte.  

“Indeed carbon dioxide levels are going up. As that happens we’re going to see warming. When and where? These details are difficult to predict,” Harte said.  

Although scientists don’t have all the answers concerning global warming, global temperatures have undeniably risen over the last century. 

“We’ve seen a 30 percent increase in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution,” Harte said. 

Carbon dioxide is the largest contributor to global warming. It is emitted through the burning of un-renewable fossil fuels used in cars, energy plants, and household appliances.  

Dr. Robert Gould, of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said the potential problems that may arise from global warming are tremendous. A significant increase in temperatures could cause disruptions in crop and livestock production, the thawing of the polar ice caps, and increases in air pollution, spore release, and mosquitoes. Such disasters could result in rising sea levels, starvation, and widespread respiratory, infectious and water born diseases, he said. These are only some of the potential risks.  

“There’s an inequitable distribution of the impacts of climate change. Global warming is a moral issue, affecting mostly low income people. We must demand a moral response from our government,” said Anja Miller of Redefining Progress.  

“We’ll all be paying . . . in one way or another by the damage we’re doing to our environment.”  

As the release of dangerous gases continues and temperatures rise, activists boost their efforts to raise community awareness and work toward future solutions by putting pressure on local governments. 

“We just don’t have any choice, so we’ve got to start doing something,” said Commissioner Susan Ode of the Berkeley Energy Commission.  

Ode is also the outreach coordinator for the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. Berkeley is one of nearly 100 cities nationwide participating in ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection Campaign. As participants in the campaign, the cities involved have made a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases throughout the local economy.  

“Cities are consumers themselves, therefore they emit a lot of fossil fuels into the environment,” Ode said.  

By implementing citywide programs to increase energy efficient systems and reduce fossil fuel emissions, money can be saved, then used in other areas.  

In Berkeley last year, greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by 375 tons, Ode said. 

There are many ways in which Berkeley has increased energy efficiency and reduced harmful emissions, according to Ode.  

Berkeley has begun replacing traffic lights with light emitting diodes, or LED’s. These energy efficient mechanisms are comparable to the difference between florescent and incandescent light bulbs. They use far less energy and heat to maintain the same functions.  

Berkeley parking enforcement officers drive electric cars.  

There are also two local ordinances, the Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance and the Commercial Energy Conservation Ordinance in effect to ensure such properties maintain certain environmental requirements when sold. 

“If you sell a home in Berkeley, you must bring it up to energy efficient standards. It’s the same for commercial property,” Ode said.  

As with most man-made environmental problems, within the global warming predicament there are man-made solutions.  

“We’re embedded in nature. The ways to resolve the problems in nature are within us,” said forum moderator Claire Greensfelder. “If there’s any place where innovative new ideas start, it’s here in Berkeley.”  

Greensfelder is on the board of directors at Plutonium Free Future, an international campaign designed to alert citizens to the dangers of plutonium associated with nuclear power. 

Forums such as Tuesday’s are just one way that local groups participate in doing everything they can to resolve such issues by raising community awareness. 

At the forum, Ecology Center Information Services Manager Steve Evans encouraged Power Down Days, a program to boycott energy use altogether during the first weekend of every month.  

“Go as far as you can, turn off your refrigerator, don’t drive,” Evans said.  

The Ecology Center’s curbside recycling program actively participates in the hands-on reduction of fossil fuels by using plant-based bio-diesel in their recycling trucks.  

While forums are held and activists and local governments work to enforce a shift in residential and commercial energy consumption, the community continues to function.  

“In the meantime, people are leaving their lights on,” Ode said. 

“It’s important that (individuals) be very aggressive about reducing our own fossil fuel use, and also that we raise consciousness.”  

The climate change forum was hosted by Women for Peace and co-sponsored by other groups including the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the Ecology Center, Plutonium Free Future, American Friends Service Committee, and Physicians for Social Responsibility.  

The money – $2,700 – fell from the sky for southwest Berkeley resident Romy Falck. 

Well, not exactly from the sky – it came from the hands of recyclers at the Ecology Center. Falck won this week’s Cash for Trash Contest on Thursday for having no items in her garbage that could have been otherwise recycled. 

“That’s so cool,” said Falck, a psychotherapist at Alta Bates Hospital. People from the Ecology Center came by Falck’s house and took her garbage, with her permission, early Thursday morning, then told her later that she was a winner. She had been randomly selected. 

Falck said she had heard about the contest, into which the Ecology Center deposits $250 each week, but she said she made no special recycling efforts because of it. “I recycle everything,” she said. “I’ve been in that habit as long as I’ve lived in Berkeley.” 

The Ecology Center puts $250 weekly into a fund and goes through a randomly- selected person’s garbage once each week. The kitty grows when there are no winners. 

The Cash for Trash Contest is an outreach project of the Ecology Center and the city of Berkeley and funded by the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board. Since February, $3,650 has been awarded to Berkeley residents for recycling well. Another $2,850 will be distributed before the contest ends in mid-July.

SAN FRANCISCO — Nonunion workers should not be required to pay union organizing fees, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, overturning an earlier decision by the National Labor Relations Board. 

“We hold that organizational activity is not necessary for the union’s performance of its duties as the exclusive representative of the employees,” the unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. “To require nonmember employees to fund such activity is not authorized.” 

Thousands of labor contracts require workers who choose not to join the union representing them to pay fees similar to what union members pay in dues. 

However, in a 1988 ruling the U.S. Supreme Court said that unions may not use money from nonunion workers for any purpose other than collective bargaining. 

In that case, 20 employees of AT&T in Maryland sued the Communications Workers of America, contending they should have the right to withhold a portion of their nonmember fees to avoid subsidizing union political goals they didn’t agree with. 

In the latest case, three supermarket and meat processing workers in Michigan, Colorado and California who quit the food workers union in 1989 complained they continued to be charged nonmember fees that helped pay for union organizing activities. 

Becky McReynolds, one of the suit’s original plaintiffs, worked as a cashier at a Colorado grocery store in 1989 and paid about $40 a month in union fees. 

“I felt that the union wasn’t doing a lot for our store,” she said Thursday from her home in Glenwood Springs, Colo. “I didn’t feel that we should have to belong to the union if we didn’t want to, and we shouldn’t have to pay these dues.” 

The NLRB, which acts as an out-of-court referee of labor-management disputes, ruled in October 1999 they should have to pay, saying that recruiting new members indirectly bolsters a union’s bargaining clout to the benefit of members, as well as nonmembers. 

But the appeals court took a dim view of that argument. 

“The Board does not have a free hand to interpret a statute when the Supreme Court has already interpreted the statute, ” the court said. 

David Rosenfeld, who represented United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1036 in Camarillo, said everyone benefits from organizing efforts because when unions have more members, everyone’s wages stay higher. 

“It’s an unfortunate decision,” he said. “But it won’t have a great impact. There’s so few people who take this position because they recognize the value the union serves to them.” 

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which opposes compulsory dues, praised the court’s decision — saying it would impact 7.8 million workers across the country who are forced to pay union fees as a condition of their employment. 

“The notoriously biased NLRB has again been caught red-handed fabricating its own vision for labor relations favoring union officials, even when it violates clear Supreme Court precedent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the foundation. 

The NLRB did not immediately return a call seeking comment. 

BREA — Teen protesters rallied against the slaughter of a steer on a Christian school campus Thursday, but school officials said the demonstration showed a key part of farm life. 

Anjali Heble, 15, led a group of about a dozen teens who tried to form a “human chain” to keep the butcher from entering the Carbon Canyon Christian School campus.  

Two officers from the Brea Police Department, however, told the protesters, who did not attend the school, that they could not block access to the private campus. 

Heble, a sophomore at a nearby public school, said a friend who attends the K-12 Christian school told her a few days ago about the slaughter. 

“Everyone was just shocked that this was going on,” Heble said.  

“They were killing this cow in front of children who don’t have the ability to understand it. ... There were 4-year-olds watching this. They don’t know how to handle this. They can’t understand.” 

Christine Lay, a school secretary, said the slaughter of the animal was a valuable learning experience for the students. 

The cow, named T-bone, was raised on campus and was about 2 years old. 

“They were wide-eyed and amazed,” Lay said. “They said, ‘Wow! This is where hamburger comes from.’ Some said, ’I can handle this. I can be a doctor.’ It was a very positive farm-type experience.” 

The school hired a professional who slaughtered the cow and told students about the process from slaughter to market. 

The butcher used a stun gun to kill the animal instantly and then skinned it and took out the organs. 

“It’s a natural process,” Lay said. “For city people, it’s probably a little shocking. But in America’s heritage, it’s not unusual. A lot of times kids don’t get to see the processes of life.” 

Lacey Levitt, of Los Angeles-based Last Chance for Animals, criticized the school for killing the animal in front of children. 

“Studies have shown that when children view violence against animals, it desensitizes them to animal cruelty and makes them more aggressive,” Levitt said.

LOS ANGELES — Lawyers for former SLA fugitive Sara Jane Olson went to court Thursday to defend themselves on criminal charges and later told a judge they may have to be removed from Olson’s trial. 

J. Tony Serra and Shawn Chapman said they have been forced into a situation where “there is a conflict of interest between us and our client.” 

Serra said he will file a motion asking to remove not only himself and Chapman but also the two prosecutors and the entire Los Angeles Superior Court bench from involvement in Olson’s attempted-murder case. 

“We are deeply aggrieved,” he said, referring to the latest developments as “a horrible mess.” 

The two lawyers, who were arraigned earlier on misdemeanor charges related to the release of witness information, said they were handed a list of potential prosecution witnesses in their case which included Olson, the two case prosecutors and a judge who formerly presided over the Olson case. 

Deputy District Attorney Michael Latin told Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler he would quickly answer Serra’s motion. 

“We welcome the opportunity to flesh out some of these issues early on,” he said. “This is a subject of very large proportions.” 

Fidler ordered the motion filed by May 29, the response by May 31 and set a hearing for June 4. 

Among the issues, Serra said, is whether he could be required to testify about confidential communications with his client. 

“There are so many issues there will be no recourse but to start all over again in the Sara Jane Olson case,” he said. “I think the whole Sara Jane Olson case could be put off another two years.... It’s my worst nightmare.” 

Serra earlier entered an innocent plea before a court commissioner to charges that he improperly released the addresses and phone numbers of police witnesses. 

Chapman did not enter a plea and said she expects the charges against her to be dismissed. 

Superior Court Commissioner Jeffrey M. Harkavy set a hearing for May 25 and said Serra would be granted a trial within 45 days unless he seeks a continuance. 

Serra said he wanted the matter resolved as quickly as possible. 

Outside court, Chapman said a previous judge in Olson’s case had determined she was not responsible for the release of information. She said the city attorney’s office, which charged her, was unaware of those proceedings and is now studying the transcripts to see if a dismissal  

is warranted. 

Both lawyers told reporters they believe the charges are an effort by prosecutors to cause a conflict of interest between them and Olson, who is awaiting trial on charges of attempting to murder police officers with pipe bombs. 

“This is not an attack on the lawyers,” said Serra. “It’s an attack on Sara Jane Olson. It’s their attempt to separate us from this case.” 

He and Chapman said the timing of the charges was suspicious, coming as the start of the trial neared. It has since been postponed. 

“They thought that we would be in jury selection and this would taint her with the public,” Serra said. 

City attorney’s spokesman Mike Qualls said he could not comment on Chapman’s claim that her charges were under review and he denied there was anything suspicious about the timing. 

“We don’t comment on the out-of-court comments of defendants in criminal cases, but as far as trying to taint jury selection, that’s ridiculous,” Qualls said. 

Chapman said that the defense team’s research has shown they are the only people to be prosecuted under a penal code section barring release of witness addresses and phone numbers by attorneys. 

The charges involve the posting of names and addresses of police witnesses James Bryant and John Hall on an Olson defense committee Web site. They have said they feared for their lives. 

Olson’s lawyers say the information was posted inadvertently by Olson supporters without knowledge of the legal team. It was removed following complaints. 

Olson, 54, is accused of putting pipe bombs under police cars in 1975 in retaliation for the deaths of six Symbionese Liberation Army members in a fiery shootout in 1974. The bombs did not explode. 

Indicted in 1976 under her former name, Kathleen Soliah, she was a fugitive until her 1999 capture in Minnesota, where she had taken on her new name and was living as a doctor’s wife, mother and active community member. She has said she is innocent and that she never belonged to the SLA.

A judge spared federal officials a contempt of court charge Thursday, but implied he might be less understanding if they don’t follow through on a deal keeping cattle off land reserved for the threatened desert tortoise. 

The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups asked the U.S. District Court for Northern California to hold the Bureau of Land Management in contempt for not meeting a March 1 deadline to stop grazing on more than 500,000 acres of public land. 

Judge William Alsup praised the BLM for developing a plan to meet a Sept. 7, 2001, deadline to comply with a consent decree reached in January, and told officials they must do what they can to reach it. 

“You have to come up with a plan to meet the dates you imposed on yourself,” he said. “I don’t want you to go away thinking the judge has modified the consent decree, and you don’t have to meet the Sept. 7 deadline, that you just have to try.” 

The judge had blasted the agency at a hearing earlier this month, saying its delay was politically motivated. He said it was trying to go back on the deal because it is more sympathetic to ranchers under the Bush administration. 

The BLM said the delay was a misunderstanding and resulted in part from the time it took to do a study on the land. 

The consent decree required the BLM to stop ranchers from allowing their cattle to graze on 10 public land grazing allotments in Kern, San Bernardino and Inyo counties from March 1 to June 15 and from Sept. 7 to Nov. 15, when the tortoise is in its mating and foraging periods. 

The problem with the grazing is that the cattle eat the plants that the tortoise feeds on and they often crush the tortoises’ burrows, said Daniel Patterson, a desert ecologist with the CBD. 

The tortoise has 3.4 million acres of land designated as critical habitat. 

The BLM missed its first deadline, and grazing has not been stopped on the high desert land. BLM spokeswoman Jan Bedrosian said the delay for implementing the ban is a result of a study of the land that the BLM did to determine the threat to the tortoise. 

The study was done to see if the BLM should remove the cattle on an emergency basis, or if it should follow its normal process of giving the public a chance to appeal. 

“We made the determination there was no threat to the resources and there was no emergency,” Bedrosian said. 

Now, the public will have 30 days – until June 15 – to appeal the recommendation to close the land to grazing. Interior Secretary Gale Norton has taken the step of ensuring a speedy decision on the issues, which will be heard by an administrative law judge. The judge will rule on them by Aug. 24, and any decision will be final. The removal of the cattle, if that’s what the judge decides, will take place two weeks later on Sept. 7. 

“There’s really no reason this couldn’t have happened in March,” said Patterson, of the CBD. ”(But) it looks like the tortoise will get some rest this fall.” 

Alsup scheduled a status hearing for June 14. 

DULZURA — Past the cardboard sign that reads “Ruckus,” at the end of a dirt road high in the Jamul mountains, protesters are training this week to take to the streets of San Diego during an upcoming biotech industry convention. 

The industry insists it is pioneering new technologies that benefit humanity by fighting disease and other health risks, increasing crop yields and eliminating pests. 

Opponents, however, are convinced that biotech companies are introducing potentially harmful, genetically engineered products into homes and farms, placing profits above people. 

In the past, the Ruckus Society has trained activists who have disrupted global trade meetings and political conventions. Now it’s preparing for the annual convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO, to be held June 24-27 in San Diego. 

San Diego police are anticipating that thousands of protesters will hit the streets next month. 

“We’re planning for the worst-case scenario: That is, thousands of demonstrators, some of whom plan on being violent or destructive,” Assistant Chief of Police John Welter said. “We will not tolerate violations of the law, and we will arrest and prosecute. But if they come here to demonstrate lawfully and peacefully, we want to work with them.” 

Han Shan, a spokesman for the Berkeley-based Ruckus Society, said he did not know how many people would protest in San Diego. But he hoped the turnout would surpass the turnout at the 2000 BIO convention in Boston, where police counted 2,500 demonstrators. 

The Ruckus Society believes violence is not the way to build support for its cause and distanced itself from the anarchists linked to chaos at the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle and other cities, according to Shan. 

“You want to talk about those folks, you should find some because you’re in the wrong place,” he said. “I’m not out there making enemies. I’m out there to change the debate.” 

More than 12,000 industry leaders and executives are expected to attend what BIO expects will be its biggest convention ever. The conventions have drawn large but peaceful demonstrations in other cities over the past three years. 

About 90 percent of the researchers and executives who plan to attend the San Diego convention are working on cures for cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions, according to BIO officials. 

But people training at the Ruckus Society’s BioJustice Action Camp east of San Diego believe profit-centered biotech firms are also unleashing genetically modified “frankenfoods” and other potentially devastating technologies on the unwitting public. 

“We think there is another agenda,” said 31-year-old Simon Harris of Berkeley, who attended the camp. “And that is control.” 

At past BIO conventions, activists have called for an end to the sale of genetically engineered products and tougher regulation of the industry.  

They have also singled out the practices of individual companies. 

Harris said his goal at the upcoming protests will be to “bring some sunshine on the biotech industry and make them more accountable for what they’ve been doing.” 

The 150 people attending the camp on the grounds of the Madre Grande Monastery explored the basics of nonviolent protest: forming blockades, climbing buildings to hang banners, political theater and tips on how best to deal with tear gas fumes.  

Actor Woody Harrelson, a veteran of California protests, was expected to drop by the camp by Saturday. 

San Diego police aren’t disclosing details of their plan involving the convention, but Welter said enforcement costs could reach $1 million. 

“We have to make sure we don’t overreact or underreact,” he said.  

“If you overreact, you look like you’re limiting freedom of speech. If you underreact, people say ’where were the cops?”’ BIO officials said they were prepared for the protests, which have had little impact on past meetings, according to Carl Feldbaum, the organization’s president. 

“The introduction of a technology into a raucous democracy is going to create controversies, and that’s something we have to expect.” 

“I wish some of the demonstrators would talk to their parents about what kind of diseases and conditions the biotech industry has already addressed,” he said. 

On the Net: 

Ruckus Society, www.ruckus.org 

BIO, www.bio.org 

Alternate “Biodevastation” convention, www.biodev.org

SACRAMENTO — A state Senate panel kept California’s high-speed rail project alive Thursday by approving $1 million for environmental studies for the 700-mile system. 

The action by the one of the Senate’s budget subcommittees means money for the environmental reviews is likely to be on the table when lawmakers negotiate a new state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. 

The state’s economic and energy woes have put funding for the project at risk. 

The current budget includes $5 million for the first of three years of environmental studies that will be needed before the state can begin building the $26 billion system. The California High-Speed Rail Authority requested another $14 million for the second year of the studies, but Gov. Gray Davis didn’t include the money in his budget proposals. 

The Assembly’s transportation budget subcommittee didn’t approve any more money for the studies, but its Senate counterpart agreed to add $1 million. 

Assuming the $1 million remains in the Senate’s version of the budget, funding for the studies will be an issue when a two-house conference committee begins budget negotiations later this month or in June. 

Medhi Morshed, the authority’s executive director, said the $1 million by itself wouldn’t do much to further the environmental work. “The best we could do would be to get some of the work to a logical conclusion and preserved for the future,” he said. 

He said he didn’t know how much less than the $14 million he would need to continue the studies on a meaningful level. “A lot of these environmental issues are perishable,” he said. “The work doesn’t have a long shelf life. We’d have to go back and see what we can do that has a longer shelf life and what we can put aside.” 

He said some of the consulting firms that are taking part in the studies may not be willing to continue working at a substantially reduced level. 

“Each contractor has made a commitment of assigning their key people to this project,” Morshed said. “If we’re not going to utilize them then obviously they want to put them somewhere else.” 

The subcommittee chairman, Sen. Byron Sher, D-Stanford, said it would be difficult to find additional state money for the studies but he said high-speed rail supporters plan to try to get some federal funding. The high-speed system would link Sacramento, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego with trains running at top speeds of 220 mph. Supporters say it will be needed to help relieve highway and air traffic congestion created by rapid population growth in the next few decades.

SACRAMENTO — The largest Catholic hospital system in the Western states has settled allegations that its Sacramento hospital made false Medicare and Medi-Cal claims and agreed to pay the federal government $10.25 million. 

U.S. Attorney John Vincent announced the terms of the deal Wednesday. San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West and Mercy Healthcare Sacramento admit no wrongdoing. 

“We are committed to complying with all applicable government rules and regulations,” said William J. Hunt, CHW’s chief operating officer for the Sacramento area. 

The most critical words came from Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hirst, who handled the matter with Assistant U.S. Attorney Adisa Abudu-Davis. 

“This is a case of systematic submissions of false claims,” Hirst said.  

“The evidence showed a deliberate choice, made at the highest levels, not to disclose” Medicare overpayments. 

The allegations were made by whistle-blower George Baca, who will receive nearly $2 million as his share of the settlement in accordance with the federal False Claims Act. 

mong the false billings alleged and covered by the settlement are: 

• Claims for nonreimbursable annual physical exams. 

• Claims that describe routine physician referrals as more expensive consultations. 

• Claims for undocumented lab work and other services. 

LOS ANGELES — The rugged men portrayed in Marlboro cigarette ads became the identity of a cancer-stricken smoker suing tobacco giant Philip Morris Inc., his attorney told a Superior Court jury in closing arguments Thursday. 

Unfolding a lengthytimeline chart peppered with the advertisements, attorney Michael Piuze said that his client, Richard Boeken, 56, even tried to emulate the tough-guy persona by joining the Navy and getting a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. 

“This was him,” the attorney said as he pointed to the Marlboro ads. “This grabbed him. This was his identity. He bought into it hook, line and sinker.” 

The attorney showed the jury a montage of Boeken’s Marlboro role models. 

“He saw cowboys, he saw tough guys, he saw people who said independence, cool,” Piuze said. 

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for allegations that include negligence, conspiracy and deceit, among others. 

Philip Morris lawyers, who were scheduled to begin their closing arguments Friday, claim Boeken knew the risks of smoking and stopped smoking in 1999 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, only to take it up again a year later. 

Boeken, of Topanga, testified he believed advertising that said smoking was good. He contends he became addicted to cigarettes when he started smoking at age 13, and the Philip Morris brand Marlboro became his favorite during 40 years of smoking. 

Piuze showed the jury videotapes of 1994 congressional tobacco hearings and decades-old Philip Morris memos in arguing that the company knew, but publicly denied, that tobacco was addictive and causes cancer. 

Piuze said it was not until last year that Philip Morris publicly agreed, on its Web site, that tobacco was addictive. 

He replayed a portion of the 1994 hearing in which then-Philip Morris President William Campbell told senators, “I believe nicotine is not addictive,” as did six other tobacco executives. On the contrary, Piuze said, Philip Morris is “the world’s biggest drug dealer, something that puts the Colombian drug cartels to shame.” 

Piuze said tobacco companies alarmed by rising health concerns in 1954 began a 43-year public relations campaign rather than investigating the problems. 

Only in the 1990s did they begin studies to find cancer-causing agents in cigarettes, Piuze said, after running “probably the largest human experiment in the history of the world.” 

Boeken began smoking “to be cool” adult and sophisticated, the lawyer said. 

Piuze conceded Boeken knew smoking was harmful but said he never believed it would cause serious illness or death because of an industry “disinformation” campaign. 

Piuze said a defense expert testified that Boeken was addicted to cigarettes. The attorney noted that Boeken tried numerous times to quit smoking, including undergoing hypnosis therapy, but returned each time. 

WASHINGTON — President Bush braced Americans on Thursday for a summer of blackouts, layoffs, business closings and skyrocketing fuel costs and warned of “a darker future” without his aggressive plans to drill for more oil and gas and rejuvenate nuclear power. 

“If we fail to act, Americans will face more and more widespread blackouts. If we fail to act, our country will become more reliant on foreign crude oil, putting our national energy security into the hands of foreign nations,” the president said in releasing a 163-page energy task force report in St. Paul, Minn. 

Seeking to dampen demand for fossil fuels and to appeal to conservation-minded citizens, Bush also offered tax incentives for people using alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power. 

“If we fail to act, this great country could face a darker future,” he said. 

Democrats and environmental groups raised a chorus of objections, promising a pitched battle over Bush’s regulatory and legislative initiative. 

“It focuses on drilling and production at the expense of our environment and conservation,” House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said. “And it does nothing to help people who need relief right now.” 

Even Republican lawmakers acknowledged the plan was filled with provisions that would be hard for some of their constituents to swallow. “Everybody understands there are a lot of ... problems out there,” said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. 

Bush, on the road in the Midwest, was hoping to build support for long-term solutions while many people are complaining about short-term energy woes. 

California Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, accused Bush of turning a blind eye to the state and tied the former Texas governor to the oil industry. “We are literally in a war with energy companies, many of which reside in Texas,” Davis said. 

Of the dozens of recommendations stuffed between the report’s glossy, blue covers, none offers immediate relief. 

“Unfortunately,” the report says, “there are no short-term solutions to long-term neglect.” 

In the report developed by Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush seeks to increase energy supplies by easing restrictions on oil and gas development on public lands, including a wildlife refuge in Alaska. He also will order agencies to expedite permits for energy-related projects. 

Bush also wants to give the federal government power to seize private property for the use of transmission lines. That “eminent domain” initiative was greeted coolly by lawmakers, including some Republicans. 

The report tables for further study some of the thorniest issues, such as fuel efficiency standards for automobiles and reusing spent nuclear reactor fuel. 

“We must work to build a new harmony between our energy needs and our environmental concerns,” Bush said. “The truth is, energy production and environmental protection are not competing priorities.” 

Many Republicans are worried that they will be punished by voters in the 2002 congressional elections if Bush doesn’t act quickly to bring down fuel costs. 

Some GOP lawmakers, including allies like Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., are pushing for a reduction in the 18 cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax over Bush’s public objections. 

They’re worried about voters like retiree James McCorkle, who voiced doubts about an energy plan proposed by two former oilmen, Bush and Cheney. 

“He should be trying to bring down the gas price,” said the 75-year-old St. Louis resident. 

“Doesn’t Bush want to give us a tax break so we can turn even more money over to the oil companies?” said salesman Hank Rogers, 37, of Chicopee, Mass. 

Recognizing the political risks, Bush and his advisers cast the nation’s energy picture in the most dire terms to prepare Americans for any sacrifices they’ll face this summer and the tough, long-term solutions Bush is proposing. 

The report says U.S. reliance on foreign oil is growing and shortages will only get worse without major changes: Energy supplies in 2020 will be 50 percent below demand without importing more energy, increasing efficiency or developing more domestic supplies. 

To make the point, Bush punctuated five sentences with the refrain “If we fail to act” – predicting higher energy prices, more blackouts, a dangerous reliance on imported oil and environmental damage unless his agenda is adopted. 

Breaking the bad news into regions, the report argues that energy shortages this summer will hurt Americans in almost every conceivable way. 

Farmers in the Midwest will pay more for fertilizer. 

Landlords in Illinois will charge more for rent. 

Businesses are closing in Washington state. Employees are being laid off in Arkansas. Brownouts are a threat in Connecticut. 

California is mentioned repeatedly, a measure of its political importance as well as the magnitude of its electricity shortages. 

The report compares today’s energy problems to the 1970s energy crisis, when fuel rationing and long lines at gasoline stations were the norm. 

Former President Carter, politically damaged by the 1970s crisis, accused Bush in a Washington Post article of using scare tactics to promote drilling on federal lands and other “environmental atrocities.” 

Urging opponents to tone down their rhetoric, Bush said, “We’ve yelled at each other enough. Now it’s time to listen to each other and to act.” 

WASHINGTON — More fathers are going solo in raising kids. 

It’s a change that single fathers say shows greater acceptance by American families and courts that sometimes the best place for children is with Dad. 

The 2000 census found: 

• In 2.2 million households, fathers raise their children without a mother. That’s about one household in 45. 

• The number of single-father households rose 62 percent in 10 years. 

• The portion of the country’s total 105.5 million households that were headed by single fathers with children living there doubled in a decade, to 2 percent. 

Single fathers say the numbers help tear down a long-standing conception that single fathers tend to abandon their kids, or at least not take as good care of them as single moms, said Vince Regan, an Internet consultant from Grand Rapids, Mich., who is raising five kids on his own. 

“In time, it goes a long way to helping society think that single fathers do help their kids and want to be part of their lives,” he said. 

Thomas Coleman, executive director of the American Association for Single People, attributed the rise in single dads to a variety of reasons, including more judges awarding custody to fathers in divorce cases and more women choosing their jobs over family life. 

The percentage increase in single-father households far outpaced other living arrangements. The “Ozzie and Harriett” household, where both parents raise the children like on the old TV show, increased by 6 percent, and single-mother homes were up by 25 percent. Father-headed households are still only a small percentage. Married couples with children make up 24 percent of all households – whether family or non-family. They were 39 percent of all homes in 1970. Single-mother homes made up 7 percent of all households in 2000, up from 5 percent over 30 years ago. 

Looked at another way, single father homes made up 3 percent of the country’s 71 million family households in 2000. Family households are those in which one or more people are related to the householder. 

Single fathers “need help just as much as single mothers,” said Darryl Pure, a psychologist from Chicago who has had sole custody of his three children for four years, but they have a harder time asking. 

“There’s often a fear among single fathers that if the mother steps in, she’ll regain custody, so single, custodial fathers don’t go after child support as much as single mothers do, and I know a lot of fathers that are really impoverished,” Pure said. 

The Census Bureau counts single fathers in a category that could allow other adults, such as the child’s grandparents, to be present, but bureau analysts said research shows that most of the men in the category are raising a child alone. 

The bureau released basic figures for 21 states and the District of Columbia this week on topics ranging from age to home ownership. Other states are scheduled to be released later this month. 

According to 2000 census data being released Friday, some of the biggest increase in single-father households occurred in southern and western states: up 126 percent in Nevada, and 74 percent in Delaware. 

On the Net: 

Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/ 

Responsible Single Fathers: http://www.singlefather.org/ 

Family Research Council: http://www.frc.org/

BOSTON — Two national studies of a widely used drug for colorectal cancer were suspended for new patients because the drug turned out to be more toxic than expected. 

Some doctors have viewed the five-year-old drug irinotecan, also known by the brand name Camptosar, as the most useful drug against advanced colorectal cancer in years.  

It is recommended as standard therapy in combination with other drugs. 

However, almost three times as many patients died taking the standard drug combination in the latest studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. 

The researchers reported their findings in a letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. Prompted by the urgency of the findings, the journal released the letter Thursday, although it is scheduled for publication June 21. 

In one study of 841 patients, the investigators tested irinotecan, as it is now approved for use, on advanced patients whose cancer has spread to other organs. In the other study of 1,263 so-called stage III patients, it had not yet spread.  

The patients came from across the United States and Canada. 

In each study, 14 patients died after they were given a standard drug combination with irinotecan. Just five died with other drug combinations in each study. 

Some of the dead patients had blood clots, blood poisoning, dehydrating diarrhea, or a drop in white blood cells.  

The investigators said it is not yet clear why certain patients suffered such effects. The researchers will review their findings in coming months for clues. 

The study of the advanced patients may resume within weeks with new patients on lower doses. The other study was reaching its target number of patients just as the toxicity data arose, so it won’t reopen. 

One of the study chairmen, Dr. Michael O’Connell, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., recommended that doctors in the field reduce the drug’s dose and watch more carefully for signs of toxicity. 

However, he and others said earlier studies prove the drug can prolong life in advanced cases – though for a limited time.  

“Irinotecan remains an important drug,” said the lead investigator of the stage III study, Dr. Leonard Saltz, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. 

Colorectal cancer – cancer of the colon and rectum – is America’s No. 2 cancer killer after lung cancer, claiming about 56,000 lives annually. 

About 15,000 patients with advanced colorectal cancer have been treated with the drug since it was approved as a first-line treatment last year, according to maker Pharmacia & Upjohn. Previously, it was used as a last resort. 

The manufacturer sent letters last week to cancer doctors around the country to advise them of the latest findings.  

Company Vice President Ivan Horak said it should remain a standard therapy for advanced colorectal cancer. 

The drug works by blocking the ability of fast-multiplying cancer cells to copy their genetic material and divide. Doctors advise people 50 and older to get regular checkups for colorectal cancer.

Q: I have a leaky bathroom faucet. Can you tell me some simple instructions to fix it? Please include specific tools, and parts needed. 

A: It sounds as though you might have a faulty gasket. Changing a faucet gasket is easy. But remember, if it is leaking from the valve housing it is the packing gasket or washer, and if it is leaking from the tip of the faucet it is the valve gasket. Please understand the previous terms before proceeding. Check out the Web site www.onthehouse.com and type valve gasket into the search engine. There you will find 800 words or so and a picture that will help walk you through the repair. By the way, the parts for the repair are under a dollar for two handle faucets and about $5 for single handle. 

Q: We own a 90-plus-year-old house. In the last nine months our hot water pressure has dropped to half of what our cold water pressure is. Our gas water heater is about six years old and we use city water. The pressure for the cold water seems normal at all faucets. We do not have soft water, and lime deposits killed our previous electric water heater after 10 years of use. Is the water heater bad again? 

A: The sudden drop in hot water pressure is often due to corroded nipples at the top of your water heater. Most of the time this is an easy do-it-yourself repair. First, turn off the water-supply valve to the water heater. Next, remove both supply pipes (usually flexible corrugated copper). Now you will have to remove the short piece of pipe at each of the openings. You’ll need a pipe wrench for these and supply lines. 

Here’s the glitch. Sometimes these pipes are so corroded they fall apart. Here is where you will either need to know about easy outs or where a call to the plumber is in order. In either case, once the old pipes are out, you will want to replace them with new Teflon-coated nipples. With these special nipples the corrosion won’t come back and your hot water will again be free to run at full force. 

By the way, you might want to take the extra time to replace your cathodic anode. It will extend the life of your water heater many times over.  

The nipples should cost about $5 and the anode about $15. If you want a good book on water heater maintenance, check out our Web site at www.onthehouse.com. Go to the bookstore and pick up a copy of “The Water Heater Workbook.” 

Asian manufacturers still No.1, but quality gap closing 

DETROIT — Asian automakers still lead the way on overall vehicle quality but Europeans showed the greatest improvement in the past year, according to the latest study by J.D. Power and Associates. 

European automakers have all but closed the quality gap with Asian automakers, who averaged 140 problems per 100 vehicles in this year’s study. 

The Europeans averaged 141 problems per 100 vehicles, after averaging 156 last year. Domestic automakers averaged 153 problems per 100 vehicles, the study says. 

Among the Europeans, Jaguar showed a 21 percent improvement over last year with 108 problems per 100 vehicles, or just more than one problem per vehicle – 21 fewer problems per vehicle than last year. 

Jaguar began a long, steady climb toward general quality improvement after being taken over by Ford Motor Co. in 1989, said Joe Ivers, executive director of quality and consumer satisfaction at J.D. Powers. 

Volkswagen AG also showed marked quality improvement, with an average of 159 problems per 100 vehicles, 30 fewer than in last year’s study. 

All three U.S.-based automakers – General Motors Corp., Ford and the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler AG – had top-ranked vehicles in the study, including the GMC Sonoma compact pickup truck, Ford Expedition full-size SUV, Chrysler Concorde and the Chevrolet Corvette. 

“We believe the J.D. and Associates results show that GM’s quality initiatives are having a positive and lasting effect on our products and customers,” Ronald Zarrella, GM’s president of North American operations, said in a statement. 

Vehicles built by Ford averaged 162 problems per 100 vehicles, the highest among domestic automakers and four more than last year. GM had 146, while DaimlerChrysler averaged 154. 

“Obviously we have lots of work ahead of us. We are accelerating all our efforts to improve. We’re not happy,” said Ford spokeswoman Marcy Evans. 

Vehicles produced by Toyota, including its luxury Lexus division, led in seven categories, by far the most of any automaker. 

Winners included Toyota’s Corolla in the compact car division, Lexus LS 430 in the premium luxury car category and Tundra among full-size pickups. 

Two of Toyota’s North American plants also took top honors in this year’s study. None of the domestic automakers’ plants scored in the top three in North America, but a Ford-owned Jaguar plant in England won second place in Europe. A BMW plant in Munich, Germany, was first. 

J.D. Powers’ Ivers said the secret to Toyota’s success in maintaining quality is its practice of “taking variation out of vehicle production,” which leads to consistency. 

The 2001 Initial Quality Study is based on survey responses from more than 54,000 new-vehicle owners and lessees after 90 days of ownership. This is the study’s 15th year.

The Berkeley High baseball team went into Wednesday’s showdown at Encinal still clinging to league title hopes. But after a 6-3 loss, the team’s third in a row, the ’Jackets are now just hoping to hang onto a North Coast Section playoff spot. 

The loss dropped Berkeley (16-7 overall, 7-4 ACCAL) out of the ACCAL championship picture, while Encinal (9-3 ACCAL) clinched at least a share of the title. Cory Dunlap went the distance for the Jets, giving up 10 hits but walking none for his seventh win of the year. Three of Berkeley’s hits didn’t leave the infield, and Dunlap managed to shut down the top of the ’Jacket order. The top three Berkeley hitters, Lee Franklin, DeAndre Miller and Clinton Calhoun, were just 2-for-12 at the plate. 

That lack of production really hurt when Matt Toma started banging the ball around the park. Toma made solid contact off of Dunlap in all four of his at-bats, including a towering home run in the second inning and an RBI double in the third. Toma got three hits in the game, all to the opposite field. 

“He was throwing me outside pitches, so today was the day to go to right for me,” Toma said. “We’re getting hits, but we’re just not stringing them together right now.” 

Berkeley head coach Tim Moellering complimented his slugger after the game. 

“Matt’s been a great hitter all year,” he said. “It was just our failure to get on base ahead of him that was the problem today.” 

Toma’s homer in the second tied the game at 1-1, but Dunlap said he wasn’t fazed by the shot. 

“I wasn’t really worried,” Dunlap said. “I know this is a hitters’ ballpark, so I don’t let the homers stress me out. I know those would just be doubles in other places.” 

But other than Toma’s power, the ’Jackets just couldn’t score. Meanwhile, an uncharacteristically wild Sean Souders struggled on the mound. The Jets scored a run in each of the first two innings, and the sophomore walked five batters before being lifted in the middle of the fourth with two more runs already in and men on first and second. Reliever Cole Stipovich wasn’t able to stop the bleeding before two more hits turned into two more Encinal runs. 

The ’Jackets had one last gasp left in them in their final at-bats. With one out in the seventh, Miller and Calhoun both hit singles. Toma hit another shot to right, but it was right at Encinal’s Eugene Smith, who snagged it for the second out. Catcher Paco Flores managed to drive in Miller with a single, and Berkeley had designated hitter Jeremy LeBeau at the plate representing the tying run. LeBeau put a charge into the ball, but it was right at Dunlap, who smothered the ball and threw to first to end the game. 

“We’re obviously not a high-powered offensive machine,” Moellering said. “Even in most of our big wins, we’ve only scored two or three runs.” 

Berkeley finishes the regular season at home against El Cerrito on Friday, then Moellering will have to attend the NCS meeting on Sunday to apply for a spot in the playoffs. 

“We just have to win our game Friday, then hope for an at-large bid,” Moellering said. “We can’t do anything else; it’s up to the committee.”

Habitot Children’s Museum “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. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins, and become little “dump” workers. $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. (closed Sundays, Memorial Day through Labor Day) Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Judah L. Magnes Museum “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 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter. “Ricky Swallow/Matrix 191,” Including new sculptures and drawings; Through May 27 $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; children age 12 and under free; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and Wednesday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 642-0808 

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery” 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 “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. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” 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. “T. Rex on Trial,” Through May 28 Where was T. Rex at the time of the crime? Learn how paleontologists decipher clues to dinosaur behavior. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. Computer Lab, Saturdays 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium 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. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership. All ages. May 18: Ensign, All Bets Off, Playing Enemy, Association Area, Blessing the Hogs; May 19: Punk Prom and benefit for India quake victims features Pansy Division, Plus Ones, Dave Hill, Iron Ass; May 25: Controlling Hand, Wormwood, Goats Blood, American Waste, Quick to Blame; May 26: Honor System, Divit, Enemy You, Eleventeen, Tragedy Andy; June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2 El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 17: 10 p.m. Dead DJ Night with Digital Dave; May 18: 9:30 p.m. Reggae Angels with Mystic Roots; May 19: 9:30 Kotoja; May 20: 8:30 p.m. Jude Taylor and His Burning Flames 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 17: The Rincon Ramblers; May 18: Todd Snider; May 19: Oak, Ash and Thorn; May 20: KALW’s 60th Anniversary Concert featuring Paul Pena, Orla and the Gasmen, Kennelly Irish Dancers, Kathy Kallick and Nina Gerber. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. May 17: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 18: Will Bernard and Motherbug; May 19: Solomon Grundy; May 22: Willy N’ Mo; May 23: Global Echo; May 24: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 25: The Mind Club; May 26: Rythm Doctors; ; 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

La Peña Cultural Center May 17, 8 p.m.: Tribu; May 19, 8 p.m.: Carnaval featuring Company of Prophets, Loco Bloco, Mystic, Los Delicados, DJ Sake One and DJ Namane; May 20: 6 p.m. Venezuelan Music Recital 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org  

Tribu May 17, 8 p.m. Direct from Mexico, Tribu plays a concert of ancestral music of the Mayan, Aztec, Olmec, Zapotec, Purerpecha, Chichimec, Otomi, and Toltec. Tribu have reconstructed and rescued some of the oldest music in the Americas. $12 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org 

Jazz Singers Collective May 17, 8 p.m. Anna’s Bistro 1801 University Ave. 849-2662 

Satsuki Arts Festival and Bazaar May 19, 4 - 10 p.m. & May 20, Noon - 7 p.m. A fund-raiser for the Berkeley Buddhist Temple featuring musical entertainment by Julio Bravo & Orquesta Salsabor, Delta Wires, dance presentations by Kaulana Na Pua and Kariyushi Kai, food, arts & crafts, plants & seedlings, and more. Berkeley Buddhist Temple 2121 Channing Way (at Shattuck) 841-1356 

KALW 60th Anniversary Celebration May 20, 8 p.m. An evening of eclectic music and dance that reflects the eclectic nature of the stations’ programming. Performers include Paul Pena, Kathy Kallick & Nina Gerber, Orla & the Gas Men, and the Kennelly Irish Dancers. $19.50 - $20.50 Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse 1111 Addison St. 548-1761 or www.thefreight.org  

Himalayan Fair May 27, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation Live Oak Park 1300 Shattuck Ave. 869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

“En Mouvement/In Motion” May 18, 19 7 p.m., May 19, 20 2 p.m. Part of the Berkeley Ballet Theater Spring Showcase, this production is a collection of works by student dancers/ $15. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 843-4689  

“Big Love” by Charles L. Mee Through June 10 Directed by Les Waters and loosely based on the Greek Drama, “The Suppliant Woman,” by Aeschylus. Fifty brides who are being forced to marry fifty brothers flee to a peaceful villa on the Italian coast in search of sanctuary. $15.99 - $51 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 

“Planet Janet” Through June 10, Fridays and Saturdays 8 p.m., Sundays 7 p.m. Follows six young urbanites’ struggles in sex and dating. Impact Theatre presentation written by Bret Fetzer, directed by Sarah O’Connell. $7 - $12 La Val’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid 464-4468 www.impacttheatre.com 

“The Misanthrope” by Moliere May 18 - June 10, Fri - Sun, 8 p.m. Berkeley-based Women in Time Productions presents this comic love story full of riotous wooing, venomous scheming and provocative dialogue. All female design and production staff. $17 - $20 Il Teatro 450 449 Powell St. San Francisco 415-433-1172 or visit www.womenintime.com 

“The Laramie Project” May 18 - July 8, Wed. 7 p.m., Tues. and Thur. -Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Written by Moises Kaufmen and members of Tectonic Theater Project, directed by Moises Kaufman. Moises Kaufman and Tectonic members travelled to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepard. The play is about the community and the impact Shepard’s death had on its members. $10 - $50. The Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Sister, My Sister” May 20, 5 p.m. Poetry, photography and dramatic readings which give voice to women and children cuaght in homelessness. Admission is free, donations welcome. Live Oak Park Theatre1301 Shattuck Ave. 528-8198 

Pacific Film Archive May 18: 7:30 The Cloud-Capped Star; May 19: 3:30 Starewicz Puppet Films; May 20: 5:30 The New Gulliver Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“Drowning in a Sea of Plastics” Video and Discussion Night May 16, 7 p.m. Join the Ecology Center’s Plastic Task Force for a viewing of “Trade Secrets” and “Synthetic Sea.” Free. Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220 ext. 233 

Cody’s Books 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852 All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 17: Lalita Tademy reads “Cane River”; May 18: Oscar London, M.D. copes with “From Voodoo to Viagra: The Magic of Medicine” 

Cody’s Books 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500 All events at 7 p.m., unless noted May 17: Jean Shinoda Bolen talks about “Goddesses In Older Women: Archetypes in Women Over Fifty”  

Boadecia’s Books 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 18: Melinda Given Guttman will read from “The Enigma of Anna O”; May 19: Jessica Barksdale Inclan will read from “Her Daughter’s Eyes” 559-9184 or  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 All events at 7:30 p.m. unless noted otherwise May 23: Jon Bowermaster discusses his book “Birthplace of the Winds: Adventuring in Alaska’s Islands of Fire and Ice”; May 29, 7 - 9 p.m.: Travel Photo Workshop with Joan Bobkoff. $15 registration fee  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays 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. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. May 17: Gregory Listach Gayle with host Mark States; May 24: Stephanie Young with host Louis Cuneo; Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Adan David Miller and JoJo Doig May 20, 7 p.m. Poetry and spoken word. Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo 548-3333 

Tours 

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

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park 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. 486-0623  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours All tours begin at 10 a.m. and are restricted to 30 people per tour $5 - $10 per tour May 12: Debra Badhia will lead a tour of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Arts District; May 19: John Stansfield & Allen Stross will lead a tour of the School for the Deaf and Blind; June 2: Trish Hawthorne will lead a tour of Thousand Oaks School and Neighborhood; June 23: Sue Fernstrom will lead a tour of Strawberry Creek and West of the UC Berkeley campus 848-0181 

Lectures 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Free Lectures All lectures begin at 6 p.m. May 20: Miep Cooymans and Dan Jones on “Working with Awareness, Concentration, and Energy”; May 27: Eva Casey on “Getting Calm; Staying Clear”; June 3: Jack van der Meulen on “Healing Through Kum Nye (Tibetan Yoga)”; June 10: Sylvia Gretchen on “Counteracting Negative Emotions” Tibetan Nyingma Institute 1815 Highland Place 843-6812 

Correcting the record on Beth El 

Editor: 

A May 11 letter to the Berkeley Daily Planet from Juliet Lamont and Phil Price opposing Congregation Beth El’s building plans is riddled with misstatements. It raises false images of Beth El, its programs and the conclusions of the extensive EIR conducted on the project. Here are a few of the real facts: 

• Beth El does not rent its sanctuary and social hall. It does not hold conferences or "cocktail parties."  

• Sound standards will not be exceeded “every day of the week” as claimed. The Environmental Impact Report on the project indicated that use of the parking lot during an eight- week summer camp could exceed the Berkeley noise ordinance by ONE DECIBEL, but only if people drop off twice as many kids as traffic engineers observed them dropping off in the actual situation. According to the EIR, no other Beth El activity is likely to generate even that much noise. 

• The highest point the roof of the planned sanctuary will be almost 35 feet, and the average height of the building, significantly less. Does 35 feet “dominate the landscape?” No, it is lower than several nearby houses and within the height limits of Berkeley’s zoning ordinance. 

• Is parking scarce in the neighborhood? There are no parking restrictions and no resident parking permits in the area, which are the usual signs of tight parking. Most importantly, several parking surveys have indicated many available parking spaces during all hours of the week. 

• Beth El moved its planned parking spaces away from the land over the underground part of the creek in response to opponents’ requests. That change did move parking closer to the path, a trade-off Zoning Board members approved. 

But truth and tradeoffs do not seem to be in the vocabulary of the opponents of this project. They twist the "facts" to suit their needs. Even worse, they demand total capitulation to a conflicting and constantly shifting list of demands, something that is not only unreasonable, but also impossible. 

Alex Bergtraun 

Berkeley 

State senator condemns medical pot ruling 

Editor: 

“I am appalled and infuriated by the truly awful decision of the United States Supreme Court effectively limiting the rights of Californians (and all Americans), to obtain and utilize upon advice of their personal physicians, marijuana to assist in prolonging life by making food more palatable, alleviating pain and assisting in their effective treatment. 

What a shame! 

This decision is: 

• Contrary to science; 

• Contrary to the will of the People of California and several other states where voters have passed initiatives legalizing the medical use of marijuana; 

• Contrary to the tenet of personal freedom on which our Constitution is based; and 

• Contrary to the doctrine of states’ rights on which our nation was founded. 

What a shame! 

The Supreme Court’s decision is especially obnoxious for its blind adherence to the findings of the United States Congress (way back in 1970) with respect to the medicinal efficacy of marijuana. There is a much higher authority whose experience–based knowledge I find far more trustworthy. Ask the patients whose pain and lives are at stake. Ask the physicians who treat them. Marijuana truly is effective in alleviating pain and providing relief for patients with AIDS, cancer and other lesser ailments. 

What a shame! 

This decision has been meted out by the same five (IN)Justices who otherwise routinely overrule that same Congress with respect to states’ rights on matters of much broader import. They have ruled recently, for example, that Congress cannot infringe on state’s rights to provide access laws as they see fit for the disabled–are not these patients’ needs every bit as legitimate for states to address? This ruling can only serve to drive patients yearning for relief towards the criminal underworld 

What a shame! 

Who can fail to note that it is the same five (IN)Justices who used our once proud United States Supreme Court politically to determine the outcome of the 2000 Presidential election? Now they extend their political operation to select amongst Congressional Acts and hence deny patients (and those doctors and others who would serve their needs) what they need to keep themselves healthy, even alive! 

What a shame! 

I hereby recommit myself to engage in every conceivable action in support of the cause of re-establishing the freedom of individuals and the rights of states to govern our own affairs – especially with respect to the medical uses of marijuana. 

I urge every Californian to register – in every non–violent way possible – her/his anger with and dissent from this court and this decision, and join me in a crusade to bring freedom and justice back to the judicial system and back to the people of California and the entire United States.” 

Sen. John Vasconcellos, 

D-San Jose 

Kids are born with spiritual roots 

Editor:  

Included in your article on raising children with religion (Interfaith Marriages, May 10), David Sauer boldly states that couples who do not choose “religious guidelines” for their children are somehow damaging them because they have “no spiritual roots.” In reality, every child has spiritual roots and can realize them without religious indoctrination when the parents are truly committed to spiritual values.  

Traditional peoples were able to offer their children an appreciation of their spiritual foundation since the beginning of time, without religion.  

They understood the value of freedom of thought as a first step to spiritual understanding . The authoritarian approach, as expressed by Mr. Sauer and Ms. Littman, is precisely why so many have turned their backs on religion long ago. 

Michael Bauce 

Berkeley

Thursday, May 17

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month. 869-2547 

“What is Queer Spirituality?” 

12:30 - 1:30 p.m. 

1798 Scenic Ave.  

Mudd Bldg., Room 100 

Bill Glenn, PSR alumni and leader of Spirit Group, will lead a panel discussion on the dynamic shape of queer spirituality today.  

849-8206 

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicity,” 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  

www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

Free Smoking Cessation Class  

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.  

Six Thursday classes through May 17.  

Call 644-6422 to register and for location  

LGBT Catholics Group  

7:30 p.m. 

Newman Hall  

2700 Dwight Way (at College)  

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Catholics group are “a spiritual community committed to creating justice.” This meeting is the spring barbecue.  

654-5486 

Solving Residential Drainage Problems 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

First day of two day seminar led by contractor/engineer Eric Burtt. Continues Tuesday May 22. $70 for both days. 

525-7610 

John Muir May Fair 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

John Muir Elementary School 

2955 Claremont Ave 

Cake walk, face painting, games, food and student performances, quilt raffle. Free. 

644-6410 

Friday, May 18

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets.  

Call 644-6226 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Saturday, May 19

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Annual strawberry tasting 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Get to Know Your Plants 

1 - 4 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn what to look for and what and how to record it to more intimately know your plants.  

548-2220 

“Be Your Own Boss” 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

YWCA 

1515 Webster Street, Oakland 

Second Saturday of a two day workshop on starting up small businesses (see May 12). 

415-541-8580 

Community Summit on  

Smaller Learning  

Communities 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Alternative High School  

MLK Jr. Way (at Derby)  

All teachers, students, administrators, parents, and community members are encouraged to attend this meeting on smaller learning communities at Berkeley High. Translation, childcare, and food will be provided.  

540-1252 to RSVP for services 

Campaign for Equality Benefit  

7:30 - 10 p.m. 

Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club  

1650 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A comedy benefit with performances by Karen Ripley, Julia Jackson, Pippi Lovestocking, Darrick Richardson, and Nick Leonard. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the International Lesbian Gay Association Scholarship Fund for the 2001 ILGA Summit in Oakland.  

$15 - $20  

466-5050 

Finish Carpentry 

9 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Carpenter/contractor Kevin Stamm leads workshop. $95. 525-7610 

Earthquake Retrofitting 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Seminar taught by structural engineer Tony DeMascole and seismic contractor Jim Gillett. $75. 

525-7610 

How to Prevent Home Owner Nightmares 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Dispute prevention and early resolution seminar taught by contractor/mediator Ron Kelly. $75. 

525-7610 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health (Lower Level) 

2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Program on physical and mental differences. Promotes acceptance and understanding. Free. 

549-1564  

Sunday, May 20

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

— compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

Working with Awareness,  

Concentration, Energy 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Nyingma members discuss meditative awareness in everyday life. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812 

Salsa Lesson & Dance Party  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Kick up your heels and move your hips with professional instructors Mati Mizrachi and Ron Louie. Plus Israeli food provided by the Holy Land Restaurant. Novices encouraged to attend and no partners are required.  

$12  

RSVP: 237-9874 

Mediterranean Herbs 

1:30 p.m. 

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

Tour of herbs. Learn myths and legends, ideas for planting in home gardens. 

643-1924 

Jazz on 4th Street Festival 

11 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

4th St. between Hearst and Virginia 

Performances by Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and two Berkeley High Jazz Combos, among others. Also 4th St. merchants, raffle prizes, arts and crafts. Free admission. Proceeds benefit Berkeley High Performing Arts.  

526-6294 

Monday, May 21

7:30 - 10 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, founder of L.A.’s SpeedDating will review creation from the reference point of physics and compare this to the description classical Jewish sources have given for our universe and its creation.  

$10  

848-0237 x127 

Tuesday, May 22 

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 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Strawberry tasting 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Solving Residential Drainage Problems 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Second day of two day seminar led by contractor/engineer Eric Burtt. Continued from Thursday May 17. $70 for both days. 

525-7610 

Wednesday, May 23  

Healthful Building Materials  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by environmental consultant Darrel DeBoer.  

$35 per person  

525-7610 

Regional Tranportation Talk 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Rebecca Kaplan of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition will talk about the Metropolitan Transportation Commision’s 25-year Regional Transportation Plan at the regular meeting of the Berkeley Gray Panthers. Open to the public. 

548-9696 

Thursday, May 24  

Paddling Adventures  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Dan Crandell, member of the U.S. National Kayak Surf Team and owner of Current Adventures Kayak School, will introduce attendees to all aspects of kayaking. Free  

527-4140 

Friday, May 25  

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  

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Saturday, May 26 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Himalayan Fair 

10 a.m. - 7 p.m.  

Live Oak Park  

1300 Shattuck Ave.  

The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects.  

$5 donation 

869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival 

9 a.m. 

Registration at Peralta Park 

1561 Solano Ave. 

Areas of sidewalk will be assigned to participants to create their own sidewalk art. People who find all five of the chocolate kisses chalked onto Solano Ave. can enter raffle for cash prize. Chocolate Menu available listing various items for various chocolate items for sale from Solano businesses. Dog fashion show at Solano Ave. and Key Route in Albany at 2 p.m. Free. 

527-5358 

Sunday, May 27  

Himalayan Fair 

10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.  

Live Oak Park  

1300 Shattuck Ave.  

The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects.  

$5 donation 

869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net 

Getting Calm; Staying Clear 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Discussion of meditation and analysis. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812  

Inside Interior Design  

10 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar led by certified interior designer and artist Lori Inman.  

$35 per person  

525-7610  

Tuesday, May 29 

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 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 9:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Wednesday, May 30  

Dream Home for a Song  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by author/contractor/owner-builder David Cook.  

$35 per person  

525-7610  

Thursday, May 31  

Backpacking in Northern CA.  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Outdoors Unlimited’s director, Ari Derfel, will give a slide presentation on some of his favorite destinations for three-to-four-day backpacking vacations. Free  

527-4140 

Attic Conversions  

7 - 10 p.m.  

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Seminar conducted by architect/builder Andus Brandt.  

$35 per person  

525-7610  

League of Women Voters’ Dinner and Meeting 

5:30 - 9 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church 

941 The Alameda 

Featuring speaker Brenda Harbin-Forte, presiding judge of the Alameda County Juvenile Court on “What’s happening with Alameda County children in the juvenile justice system after Prop. 21?” $10 to reserve buffet supper. May bring own meal or come only for meeting/speaker. 

843-8824  

SAN FRANCISCO – In a move affirmative action supporters hailed as a major victory, the University of California Board of Regents voted unanimously to drop its controversial 1995 ban on race-based admissions Wednesday.  

The vote does nothing to reinstate the use of racial preferences, a practice outlawed by Proposition 209. But supporters said it sends a message that the University of California system welcomes minority students. 

“I believe it is important for the Board of Regents to come together and send a message that we share a commitment to a diverse student body,” said Regent Judith Hopkinson, who introduced the resolution rescinding the affirmative action ban. 

Regent William Bagley, an outspoken opponent of the ban for the last six years, said Wednesday’s vote was about “repairing the reputation of the university.” 

“It’s more than symbolic,” Bagley said, after the vote. “It sends a message to the academic community of the world that we are no longer the sponsors of a national movement.” 

Many have credited the University of California with helping to launch a national movement to roll back affirmative action when it voted for the affirmative action ban. 

UC Berkeley student Alma Hernandez, a member of the California Statewide Affirmative Action Coalition (CSAAC) said Wednesday’s vote will make UC schools more inviting to minorities everywhere. 

“When you do recruiting...people will tell you, ‘I don’t want to go to UC Berkeley.’” said Hernandez, a graduating senior. “In terms of recruiting and retaining students, it does a lot for those efforts.” 

If not for last minute changes to the language of the regents’ proposed resolution, the political rhetoric surrounding Wednesday’s vote might have been quite different. 

More than 300 students from various University of California campuses came prepared to protest the vote Wednesday because they felt the proposed resolution was weakly worded and largely insignificant. 

“It’s just them washing their hands saying, you know, don’t bother us anymore,” said UC Berkeley freshman Gabriela Santizo, a CSAAC spokesperson. 

Members of the state legislature came prepared to denounce the Board of regents Wednesday for introducing a resolution which, they claimed, did not go far enough to disavow the affirmative action ban.  

In an interview Wednesday, Assemblymember Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, also criticized the proposed resolution for failing to give assurances that the board would consider real changes in admissions policy aimed at increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities admitted to the UC system. 

But, in negotiations that lasted right up until the moment the resolution was introduced Wednesday, a number of changes were put in place to mollify the politicians and win the support of all the regents.  

Language tending to praise the affirmative action ban was removed (for example, the following paragraph: “Since the adoption of (the affirmative action ban), some students at the University have expressed pride in knowing that they were admitted based on their own accomplishments.”) 

A letter written by board President Richard Atkinson in conjunction with the resolution was amended to include a promise that he would bring recommendations for reforming the admissions process to the Board of Regents within the next year. 

The practical impact of Wednesday’s vote could be quite limited. The approved resolution turned over the question of how the current admissions process can be reformed to admit more underrepresented minorities to the University of California’s Academic Senate, made up of professors, with the expectation that this body will bring its recommendations to the Board of Regents by the end of the year. 

What those recommendation will be and whether they have any impact on the number of minorities admitted to UC campuses, remains to be seen. 

The Academic Senate will decide, for example, whether to keep a current practice which says half of all students admitted to the UC system must be admitted based solely on “academic criteria,” which are based on the student’s grade point average and Scholastic Aptitude Test score. If it opts for a more “comprehensive” evaluation process for all students, the numbers of minorities admitted to the system could greatly increase, Aroner and others said Wednesday. 

The Academic Senate could also opt to drop the SATI test from the admissions process altogether, a move that Student Regent Justin Fong said would be a step towards equity in the admissions process since minorities historically perform worse than whites on the test. 

State Assemblymember Jerome Horton may have described the situation best when he addressed the regents at the Wednesday meeting: “It appears as though the door is cracking...Progress will depend on our ability to implement change, which will take some time.” 

Eight different sports and seven different decades are represented in the 2001 class selected for induction in the University of California Athletic Hall of Fame, the school announced this week.  

The eight individuals and one team induction group include a .400 hitter in baseball, the first one-handed shooter on the West Coast in the sport of basketball, a three-time Olympic water polo star and a five-time track and field All-American.  

The group will be formally inducted on Friday, Nov. 2, at the annual Hall of Fame banquet at Hs Lordships restaurant located on the Berkeley Marina. They will also be honored at halftime on Nov. 3, during the Bears home football game against Arizona.  

The class of ‘01 brings the total number of athletes enshrined in Cal’s Hall of Fame to 173 individuals and five crews, each of whom represent the best of Cal’s rich athletic heritage. The Cal Hall of Fame was inaugurated in 1986 and this year’s group represents the 16th class of inductees.  

• An outstanding outfielder who earned All-America honors in 1953, Tom Keough was a superior hitter who had a career batting average of .398, which remains No. 1 in Cal history. Keough hit .400 in 1952 and .396 in 1953, and then went on to play for the Boston Red Sox for several seasons. He was a versatile athlete who also played three years under Pappy Waldorf on the Bears football team, having the distinction of playing in the 1951 Rose Bowl.  

• The first player on the West Coast to use a one-handed shot to any extent, Joe Kintana earned All-Coast honors and was a first team All-America selection by the Helms Athletic Foundation as a senior in 1932. Kintana also led Cal to the conference title in 1932 and started as a junior in 1931, earning All-Coast honors that season as well.  

• One of the finest water polo players this country has ever produced, Chris Humbert earned All-America honors four straight seasons at Cal and led the Golden Bears to three NCAA Championships (1988, ‘90 and ‘91) during his career. Humbert was the NCAA Player of the Year as both a junior and senior and has been a starter on the U.S. Olympic team at the 1992, ‘96 and 2000 Olympic Games. 

• A five-time All-American middle distance star at Cal, Forrest Beaty helped the Bears to an NCAA Championship mile relay in both 1964 and ‘65. Beaty finished second in the NCAA 440 in 1965 and was on Cal’s national runner-up mile relay team in 1966. He won both the Pac-8 220 and the 440 in 1965, while also helping the Bears to first place finishes in the 440 relay and the mile relay. 

• Steve Rivera held Cal’s all-time leading receiving mark with 138 receptions in his three-year career from 1973-75 for 16 years (until the record was broken by Brian Treggs in 1991). Rivera earned consensus All-America honors in 1975 when he hauled in 57 catches, the most ever by a Cal player in a single-season. His 205 yards in receptions against Stanford in 1974 ranked as the second best single-game total in Cal history. 

• One of the great point guards in Cal history, Gene Ransom was only 5-9, but was extremely athletic. He ranks as the Bears 14th leading career scorer with 1,185 points in three years, a 14.8 average. Ransom led Cal in assists all three years he played and averaged 17.0 points a game during 1977-78 season. He ranks fifth on Cal’s career assist chart with 356 and led the Bears in steals with 2.3 per game in ‘77-78.  

• The 1980 Cal women’s crew captured the Bears first women’s team championship in any sport. Under first-year coach Pat Sweeney, a 1976 Olympic silver medalist from Great Britain, Cal dominated the National Championship, putting together possibly the finest regatta ever in the history of women’s collegiate rowing.  

• Chuck Thompson was one of the world’s best tumblers during his era and placed first in the NCAA tumbling competition in both 1948 and ‘49. Thompson also captured the Southern Pacific Division tumbling title in ‘48 and ‘49, won the NAAU Championship in 1947 and finished second in both ‘48 and ‘49.  

• Gene Smith played three seasons of tennis at Cal and was undefeated in conference singles matches at home during that time. He was a member of Cal’s 1933 conference championship team and, as a senior in 1934, defeated UCLA’s Jack Tidball, who had won the NCAA singles title the previous year.

A City Council task force, working to increase transit ridership and reduce fares, was derailed Tuesday because of bickering between progressive and moderate council factions. 

“Just another night in the sand box,” quipped Councilmember Polly Armstrong in response to arguments she deemed petty.  

The nine-member council is dominated by the five-member progressive faction. The opposing sides have a history of bitter disagreements over issues that include parking, development and homelessness.  

Some council watchers say the most acrimonious battles appear to occur between moderate Mayor Shirley Dean and progressive Councilmember Kriss Worthington. Both were key players in the collapse of the Transit Task Force during Tuesday’s meeting. 

A confrontation erupted over a recommendation by Worthington that would have ended the term of the Transit Task Force whose goal was to put together a citywide transit pass. 

The task force was created by the council in September 2000 after six months of wrangling. The citywide pass for Berkeley residents and workers might have been patterned on the UC Berkeley Class Pass program, for which students pay a fixed $18 fee twice a year, pick up a pass and ride buses free. The program has greatly increased bus ridership among students. 

The three-person task force, which has had only two meetings since it was created, consisted of Dean, Armstrong, both moderates, and Councilmember Linda Maio, the only progressive.  

Worthington said his recommendation to terminate the task force was due to the fact that it was mandated to “exist for a short duration of a few weeks.” 

Paradoxically, Worthington argued that he and moderate Councilmember Miriam Hawley, a former director with AC Transit, should be allowed to participate on the task force because both had been involved in transit issues.  

Maio then offered a compromise. She would resign and another seat would be created on the task force. That way, both Worthington and Hawley would be members.  

Worthington was agreeable to the compromise if Hawley was made chair, which would unseat Dean, the current chairperson. Hawley refused. 

“I just think we needed the mayor’s leadership on the issues we were dealing with to make it all come together,” Hawley said on Wednesday. 

Maio then suggested that Worthington and Dean co-chair the task force. Dean refused.  

“I’m declining to share the seat because I think it would be confusing and I think it’s insulting,” said Dean, who was clearly upset by the attempted coup de main. “I have some role to play on this council whether some people like it or not.” 

Progressive Councilmember Dona Spring made another motion: to make Worthington chair of the task force. Spring’s motion passed by a 5-4 vote, right along party lines.  

The result was that the councilmember who had recommended the task force be terminated because it had outlived its mandate, was suddenly the chair of that same task force. 

Worthington was chair for only moments before Armstrong resigned, quickly followed by Dean and Hawley. 

Armstrong said she resigned for two reasons. She didn’t think the complex project would move ahead without Dean’s leadership. “She has a reputation of working hard on things and seeing them through,” she said.  

“And the other reason is that I was ashamed of the councilmembers who, I felt, were publicly humiliating the mayor, when all she was doing was trying to move the city towards an ecological transit pass.” 

Hawley said she was amazed at the political infighting over a task force that is largely non-controversial. She said both the progressives and moderates want to increase transit use. “It’s a very tricky issue and we were just beginning to tease out the details to get an idea what the cost would be,” she said. “The fact that everything has come to a halt is a great loss for the city.” 

Worthington argued the conflict between the progressives and moderates was of substance. “There are very sharp differences of opinion about who is going to pay administrative costs for the transit pass program,” he said. “Mayor Dean won’t be so inclined to have businesses pitch in. I think businesses should pay their fare share.” 

Hawley disagreed with Worthington. “Who was going to foot the bill was not even on the table yet,” she said. “We were simply exploring our options.” 

Worthington also said that if he were the only progressive on the task force and Dean were chair, he would not be able to effectively participate. 

Spring agreed that Worthington would be “out gunned” if Dean remained as chair. 

Hawley said at the end of the meeting that the task force was worth saving and that she would try to come back to the council with another compromise.

Today’s the annual bike-to-work day and a number of city officials will bolt their cars in their garages and teeter tentatively from Channing Way and Milvia Street, three blocks north to city hall. 

There are a number of city workers, however, who bike to work regularly. One’s Detective Ed Spiller. “I try to (bike) as much as I can,” says the officer who rides five miles from home to the downtown Public Safety Building. 

Why does he bike? “I can use all the exercise I can get,” he said. “Health-wise, it’s the best thing.” 

It also beats walking 10 blocks. When he drives, he has to park his car outside the residential two-hour zone, then hustle to  

the office.  

And biking beats paying for gas. 

Spiller says his trek, much of it under the BART tracks in Albany, is fairly safe, which is why he admits to not wearing a helmet (though his wife says he should.) He’s had only one bad experience: A car pulled out of its parking space and knocked him over. But he wasn’t hurt, he said.  

“You’ve always got to watch for (car) doors opening,” he said. 

The officer owns a couple of bikes, one with a headlight and one without. Sometimes Spiller rides home in the dark without a light and says it’s dangerous because he can’t be seen. 

The Public Safety Building has no official bike parking, but the bike patrol officers share their locker space with the cops who ride their bikes to work, he said. 

Spiller said he’d like the city to provide an incentive program for its employees who bike to work, such as they have in the city of Alameda. 

In Alameda, they “do encourage workers to bike or take public transit,” said Kadeane Rowan, a clerk-typist who answered the phone in the Alameda city manager’s office. “They give them $2.50 per day” if the workers take transit or bike round trip.  

In Palo Alto, the city also offers its employees incentives to bike, said Joe Kott, who’s been transportation manager for about a month, but who’s returning to his old job in Palo Alto. (The traffic manager before Kott served about six months.)  

Palo Alto gives coupons redeemable in bike shops to city employees who are regular bike commuters, he said. With the coupons they can purchase items such as helmets or bike tools. “It worked there very well,” Kott said, noting that Berkeley is considering doing something similar. 

“Every bike means one less car (on the road),” said Kott, who, while working in Berkeley, rode his bike to work, essentially along the same route that Officer Spiller follows. He points out that when he turns east to ride up Hearst Avenue, he’s going uphill, but when he gets to Milvia, the ride is downhill. “It’s exhilarating to reach work on the downhill,” Kott said. “I’m oxygenated.”  

He said he was happy not to have to deal with traffic congestion, parking and that he could make a “little contribution” to a more healthy environment. When he returns to his old job in Palo Alto, he’ll continue to live in Albany, where his daughter attends school, he said and he’ll continue to avoid automobile use. He’ll bike to the North Berkeley BART station, BART to San Francisco, then take CalTrain to work. 

Over in economic development, Dave Fogarty, project manager, and his boss Bill Lambert both ride bikes. Fogarty doesn’t own a car and can be seen on his bike rain or shine.  

“When the sun shines, I ride three days a week,” said Lambert, a 15-year city employee. 

“It’s fun, good exercise and just as fast as taking my car,” he said. “It’s cheap. It’s free.” 

Lambert parks his bike in the free Center Street Garage bike racks. Soon there will be a secure place for employee bikes at the newly remodeled Civic Center Building, said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who bikes to work daily. 

While there are no programs encouraging city staff to ride bikes, Lambert said they do get occasional e-mails, aimed at motivating them in that direction.  

Bike-to-work day may be symbolic for some, but it can be the beginning of a regular bike ride to work, say member of Berkeley Friendly Bicycle Coalition, organizers of today’s bike-to-work day. 

In a press statement, Mayor Shirley Dean said as much: “The City of Berkeley is committed to making Berkeley a better place to live by ensuring that bicycling is a safe, simple and healthy alternative to driving. I hope that bike to work day will inspire more people in Berkeley to choose cycling.” 

BFBC is providing six “energizer” stations in honor of bike-to-work day, where there with be free bike-to-work shoulder bags, food, drinks, sun screen and other treats. The bike stations are located at Milvia and Channing, at the downtown BART station’s valet bike-parking area, at the Missing Link Bicycle Cooperative on Shattuck Avenue near University Avenue, at Hearst and Euclid avenues, Bowditch Street and Dwight Way and Telegraph Avenue and Russell Street. For information call 549-RIDE (7433).

LOS ANGELES — One of Sara Jane Olson’s defense lawyers plans to demand a quick trial – for himself – when he appears for arraignment on misdemeanor criminal charges related to the case of the former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive. 

J. Tony Serra, who is charged with improperly disclosing the addresses and phone numbers of witnesses, was scheduled for arraignment Thursday along with his co-counsel, Shawn Chapman. 

After the hearing, both lawyers were to appear in Olson’s case where the judge will set a schedule for hearing pretrial motions. Chapman and Serra may claim that they are too distracted by defending themselves to proceed with the Olson matter. 

Chapman said Wednesday she hopes the case against her will be dismissed because a judge in Olson’s case previously found that she had nothing to do with the alleged violation. 

She said that Serra, a San Francisco lawyer, will demand a trial within 45 days. 

“He’s very concerned because he didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “It’s outrageous.... We may be the only two people who have ever been charged under this statute.” 

Two police witnesses, James Bryant and John Hall, complained that a court document containing their names and addresses was posted on an Olson defense committee Web site. They said they feared for their lives. 

Olson’s lawyers said the information was posted inadvertently by Olson supporters without knowledge of the legal team. It was removed following complaints. 

Olson, 54, is accused of attempting to murder Los Angeles police officers by planting bombs under police cars in 1975 in retaliation for the deaths of six SLA members in a fiery shootout in 1974. The bombs did not explode. 

Indicted in 1976 under her former name, Kathleen Soliah, she remained a fugitive until her 1999 capture in Minnesota, where she had taken on her new name and was living as a doctor’s wife, mother and active community member. She has said she is innocent and that she never belonged to the SLA.

SACRAMENTO — California will no longer be held captive by energy suppliers charging high prices for power, Gov. Gray Davis said Wednesday as he officially put California into the electricity wholesale business. 

Davis approved a bill creating the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority – a new state agency that can issue up to $5 billion in revenue bonds to build, purchase, lease or operate power plants. 

Authority-financed plants will provide cost-based electricity to California consumers, Davis said, which will stabilize the state’s volatile energy market. 

The power authority is modeled after one in New York, which has 10 power plants, 1,400 miles of transmission lines and produces about 25 percent of the state’s power. Nebraska also has a power authority, which created a market in which residents pay 22 percent less than the national average, said Senate Leader John Burton, a San Francisco Democrat and the bill’s author. 

A higher-than-usual number of power plants under repair this year shows companies are manipulating the power market to drive up prices, Davis said, something the new authority fights by building more plants. 

Having a public power authority will “supplement not supplant” private energy sources, Davis said. 

“In a deregulated world, the only way you can guarantee reliable affordable power is to build it yourself if private companies won’t do it,” he said. 

The bill allows the authority to seize power plants, but Burton said if the state does so, he would prefer it happen through the governor’s emergency power, which is faster. 

“Sooner or later the state has got to let these buccaneers know that we’re not going to tolerate what they’re doing to us,” Burton said.  

“The only thing these exploiters understand is possibly a little counterterrorism.” 

Few Republicans in the Legislature supported the bill, saying the state shouldn’t get further into the power business.  

They also warned that it could discourage private companies from building plants. 

“It’s just $5 billion more in bonds borne by ratepayers to do something the private sector would gladly do, if we would get out of the way,” said Assemblyman Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks. 

The bill was sponsored by state treasurer Philip Angelides, who conceded that it won’t save California from blackouts this summer but will help stabilize the energy markets as more generators are built. 

With the authority, Angelides said, California will not be held hostage “by an unregulated private energy market run amok.” The authority is the “beginning of the end for deregulation ... which has proven to be a disaster.” 

Angelides repeatedly blamed the crisis on out-of-state power generators. 

“There is a tremendous drain on California because of generators’ prices,” he said.  

“And that drain is heading straight to the heart of Texas,” which is opening its energy markets. 

Severin Borenstein, director of University of California, Berkeley’s energy institute, said better ways exist to solve the state’s energy crisis, such as signing long-term contracts for power. 

The problem, he said, didn’t come from not enough public power plants but because “there are companies that have market power and there’s a real shortage and we didn’t hedge against that.” 

Private companies may not want to build plants in California if it looks like the state could be overbuilt and “there are pretty good reasons to believe that the government won’t be the most efficient builder and operator of power facilities,” Borenstein said. 

Also Wednesday, several key lawmakers urged Davis to join with the governors of Washington and Oregon to set a limit on the price the states would pay for power this summer, creating a “buyers’ cartel.” 

The states should set their own price ceiling on electricity in light of federal regulators’ refusal to set region-wide caps, said Fred Keeley, D-Boulder Creek, the Assembly’s point man on energy. 

The states would refuse to pay, under any circumstances, more than a predetermined price that would give electricity generators a “reasonable” profit, under a resolution sponsored by the nine Democrats. 

If generators refused to lower their prices, that would mean almost certain blackouts in California this summer, said Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, the measure’s author. 

But those will happen anyway, by all accounts, and the price cap would let the state better predict and manage the outages, he said. 

The resolution proposes that caps be installed for two years, until enough power plants can be built to allow the market to function naturally. 

The state has been buying power for the customers of three major utilities since mid-January. The utilities’ credit was cut off after they amassed debts of more than $14 billion dollars due to high wholesale electricity prices that they were unable to pass on to customers. 

PASADENA — A two-year-old project that harnesses spare computer time to hunt for signals from alien civilizations has signed up its 3 millionth volunteer, officials said Wednesday. 

The SETI(at)home project uses idle computers scattered among 226 countries to scan signals collected by the world’s largest radio telescope for traces of transmissions from extraterrestrials. 

Bernd Ziegler, a German physicist who first learned of the project a month ago, became on May 7 the 3 millionth person to download the free software used to crunch the radio data. 

“Is this a hoax?” he wrote in response to an e-mail telling him of the honor. 

So far, users of the program have contributed the equivalent of 664,000 years of donated computing time to the project, which has yet to find conclusive evidence of an alien transmission. About 550,000 computer users regularly participate. 

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project, run out of the University of California, Berkeley, is co-sponsored by the Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios. 

Ziegler will receive a lifetime membership to the Planetary Society, a copy of Carl Sagan’s COSMOS series on DVD and a SETI poster signed by the project’s chief scientist and project director. 

——— 

On the Net: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ 

LOS ANGELES — Where’s all the outrage? 

California motorists are paying some of the highest gasoline prices in the nation, averaging $2 per gallon for regular unleaded, according to a report released this week by the Automobile Club of Southern California. 

But they aren’t deluging consumer groups or politicians with complaints as they have in past years. 

Only about 15 people joined a protest Wednesday outside a gas station in South Central Los Angeles, where a grass-roots group called on President Bush and Gov. Gray Davis to temporarily suspend state and federal gasoline taxes. 

“That is breaking my pocket every day. I can’t even afford to give my kids money like I used to,” said Arlena Atkins, a mother of six who works as a security guard.  

“I don’t have no other choice but to go and pay for the gas.” 

“Why tax senior citizens? Why tax the poor?” said Lowe Barry, co-chairman of Citizens Against Higher Prices, estimating the taxes add 40 cents to 65 cents to the price of a gallon of gas. 

Elsewhere, motorists preferred conservation to controversy. 

The price has hurt “my fast-food lifestyle,” said Wayne Sanford, pumping $37.96 worth of gas into his battered Jeep Cherokee at a Los Angeles station. “I just stopped eating out.” 

A fill-up costs him $10 more than it used to, he said. 

Why aren’t more people outraged? 

“The economy’s better. People can actually afford it,” he said, but added jokingly: “I think I’ll be on the bus once it gets to two-fifty.” 

Prices have jumped 40 cents since mid-February. Some officials have predicted they will begin dropping again around Memorial Day, the traditional kickoff to the summer driving season. Jeffrey Spring of the Auto Club noted that prices have yo-yoed in recent years. 

“I think people are taking a wait-and-see attitude,” he said. “We haven’t seen any major changes in how people are planning their (summer) travel.” 

But daily sales are down about 25 percent at Malibu Texaco on the Pacific Coast Highway, which charges $2.09 for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. 

“When your rent is $13,000 a month, 600 gallons a day counts,” owner Hans Shahidi said. 

Customers “complain constantly,” he added. 

As for summer, “I’m looking at hopefully warmer weather. I don’t have anything else to look forward to,” he said. “It’s out of everybody’s hands and we are not the ones who can change anything, you know?” 

In Blythe, a desert town on the way to the Colorado River, the price at one Chevron station was $2.15 per gallon, among the highest in the state. 

Sales have fallen 15 percent to 25 percent in the past month, said a manager who only identified himself as Michael. 

“Right now, I have no cars on my islands. You could fire a cannon across here,” he said by telephone. 

His customers are grumpier, too. 

“We are ground zero. We get all the complaints: ’It’s highway robbery. You guys should be ashamed of yourself.’ Like I’m sitting here making a ton of money.” 

Although experts blame many factors for contributing to price hikes, the gas station manager said he believes it is a deliberate ploy of oil companies. 

“They’re gonna hike it up to probably $2.50 and then they’re gonna come down to $2.25 and we’ll all be pleased.” 

Don’t expect consumers to rise up and demand change, said Harry Snyder, a senior advocate for the West Coast office of Consumers Union in San Francisco. 

“The public is not outraged about this at the present time,” he said. “I think people have just gotten used to the fact that greed is going to dominate the marketplace.” 

California’s car-centered culture plays a role, too. 

”’I don’t go anywhere my wheels don’t go. The cost is just a pain ... but so what?’ That’s the mentality.” 

“Basically, you can’t lead a boycott. People need to drive their cars to work,” he added. 

But Harvey Rosenfield, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Los Angeles, sees a backlash coming. 

“I think the public is in a state of sticker shock over skyrocketing energy prices, whether it’s natural gas, electricity or motor vehicle fuel,” he said.  

“I think it’s going to take a couple weeks for this to sink in, and then I think we’ll have a ratepayer revolt in the streets this summer.” 

SACRAMENTO — For two years, California enjoyed a bulging state budget and soaring economy, but no more. 

Not only has the state been pummeled by a continuing and increasingly expensive power crisis, but it has also been stung by bleak economic news for three straight days. All of it has state officials struggling to cope with near-daily forecasts of a grim economic future. 

“We are being hit with these reduced financial estimates just when we are facing a critical need for more resources to get us through the power supply problems this summer,” said Tom Leiser, senior economist for the UCLA Anderson Forecast. “The timing is pretty bad.” 

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill added to the bad news Wednesday, as she predicted the state will face a $4 billion budget shortfall in 2002-03 unless legislators cut more deeply than Gov. Gray Davis proposed in his revised budget Monday. 

Davis reacted to the slowing economy Monday by saying he’ll cut almost $3.2 billion in new programs, tax cuts and spending increases he proposed in January. The planned $102.9 billion state budget also cuts the state’s reserves to $1 billion, down from the $6 billion in reserves included in the 2000-01 budget. 

In doing so, Davis blamed the slowing economy, not the crushing power crisis. No longer does California benefit from high revenues from taxes on stock options and capital gains. 

The power crisis, however, will have a greater influence on future budgets, forecasters said, when the increased electricity rates passed by the state Public Utilities Commission Tuesday reach customers. 

Hill said Davis’ revised budget doesn’t put the state in position to reach a balanced budget in a future that includes a slowing economy. Instead, she said, it makes too many one-time cuts and the chief analyst for the Legislature urged lawmakers to go deeper than Davis as they draft a final budget plan. 

“It will be much more difficult to correct a $4 billion problem (in fiscal year 2002-03) if they don’t start today,” Hill said. 

The Assembly and Senate still must approve a final budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. 

They’ll do so under the eyes of the financial world, which has reacted against the state’s economic condition in recent weeks. More evidence of that came Tuesday when Moody’s Investors Service downgraded California’s credit and cited the energy crisis’ stubborn drain on the state’s finances. In April, Standard & Poors also downgraded California’s credit, putting it near the bottom of all 50 states. 

Part of Wall Street’s concern comes from the state’s inability to approve the sale of $13.4 billion in revenue bonds to repay the state for the billions of dollars it’s spent to buy power for three troubled investor-owned utilities. 

Those bonds may not be sold until August, traditionally a slow time for bond sales nationwide, and also a time in which the state may find itself in a cash crunch. 

Davis’ budget assumes the state will be repaid by mid-August for at least $6.7 billion in power buys. Davis signed a bill last week authorizing the sale of revenue bonds to repay the general fund for the power buys. 

However, no one outside of the Davis administration knows how much the state is paying for power, and if the prices go too high, California could run out of money before the bond revenues can replenish the treasury. 

The lack of that money, combined with the effects of higher electricity rates could create a larger problem for state finances, analysts said. 

Despite the string of bleak economic announcements, California still is in far better financial shape than it was during the recession of the early 1990s when then-Gov. Pete Wilson was scraping to make up for a $14 billion budget shortfall. 

Sandy Harrison, spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said this year’s budget also suffers in comparison to those of the two previous years. “We’ve simply seen the end of a boom that was created by a soaring stock market.” 

Hill’s $4 billion shortfall estimate is “very high,” Harrison said, adding that Davis made one-time cuts because he made one-time budget additions when times were good. 

If the economy continues to struggle, Davis believes there could be a shortfall, Harrison said. 

Either way, Davis faces an increasingly aggressive cadre of Republican legislators who said Wednesday he fobbed off all the tough budget choices to legislators. 

Davis, said Assemblyman George Runner, the Lancaster Republican walking point for the GOP budget efforts in the Assembly, has “abdicated his responsibility to produce a responsible budget.” 

—— 

On the Net: Find a copy of the governor’s budget revise at www.dof.ca.gov 

SANTA BARBARA — Two years of consensus-building and compromise among fishermen and environmentalists failed Wednesday to produce a plan to establish the nation’s biggest marine reserve off California. 

Federal and state officials had been looking to the Marine Reserve Working Group to develop a community-based consensus on a reserve plan around the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park. 

Talks broke down Wednesday as the economic concerns of fishermen in the group butted heads with the environmental worries of other panelists. 

“Right now I can’t, as a representative of an industry that’s already struggling, ... give up what you want us to give up,” Robert Fletcher, a panelist representing the Sport Fishing Association of California, told environmentalists. 

Group members and the people they represent said they were disappointed they couldn’t reach consensus, adding that it would have given locals the ability to direct a marine reserve process that will now enter the state’s hands.  

But they were proud of the unprecedented amount of information gathered about where fish live and where fisherman catch them. 

“There would have been a lot of benefit in actually being able to walk arm-in-arm to the Fish and Game Commission,” said commercial diver Bruce Steele.  

“If you can achieve consensus in this day and age, there’s huge power in it.” 

Without that consensus, state officials will create their own plan for no-fishing zones along the California coast subject to federal approval. The deadline for a proposal already has been extended six months. 

Fishermen on the 17-member panel stressed that they had agreed to give up many fishing areas in the process and wanted their concessions forwarded to the state and federal officials who will decide the issue. 

“I feel a little bit like we were in a plane accident today, but we all survived,” said Dale Glantz, a kelp harvester who lived through a plane crash six years ago. 

The panel agreed to give the group that created it, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council, the map that illustrated the divide between fishermen and environmentalists. 

The map showed the 12 percent of the 1,200 square-mile sanctuary that all sides could agree on, as well as the 28 percent environmentalists argued were needed to make the fishery sustainable. 

Both numbers fall short of the 30 to 50 percent a science panel recommended for the working group.  

Fishing interests criticized the guideline, saying the science panel relied too much on modeling rather than data. 

Environmentalists said the panel’s report needed to make clear that the areas of agreement fell well short of what they consider necessary for a sustainable fishery. 

“I don’t want to vote and say here it is, I like it and it’s good,” said Greg Helms, a panelist representing the Center for Marine Conservation. “Where we are is not consensus, it’s the lowest common denominator.”

STOCKTON — With his mother’s ex-boyfriend opening fire behind him, a 10-year-old boy “ran like hell” as the gunman fatally shot the boy’s grandmother and killed his little sister and two cousins. 

The boy’s mother was seeking a restraining order Tuesday afternoon when Roger Leroy Johnson showed up at the rural house with a semiautomatic handgun and a knife, investigators said. 

Corey Burks told officers he saw a big gun when his grandmother, Pearl Burks, 48, opened the door to let Johnson in. When the shooting began, Corey “ran like hell” to a neighbor’s house for help, said Joe Herrera, a deputy San Joaquin County sheriff. 

Johnson, 48, shot Pearl Burks and slashed her neck with a knife, then turned his attention to the other children, investigators said. One child was found dead in the house and two others were found in the back yard, where tricycles, a swingset and a slide clutter the lawn. 

Corey Burks’ sister, Mikhala, 5, was killed, along with a cousin, Bobby Burks, 4. Another cousin, Ashley Burks, 6, was stabbed to death in the backyard. Investigators did not immediately have the causes of death of the two younger children. 

“Pretty gruesome” is the way Herrera described it. He said it was the worst killing in the county since the 1970s, when seven members of a family were killed. 

Johnson, a former trucker who is missing four fingers, was still on the run Wednesday, last seen driving from the neighborhood in a Chevy pickup truck. 

Rhonda Burks recently had received a threatening letter from ex-boyfriend Johnson, according to Jimmy Cook, whose grandson, Joey Cook, is dating Burks. 

“He told her ’until death do us part,”’ Jimmy Cook said Wednesday as he stopped by the house to view the scene. 

Jimmy Cook said that Rhonda Burks discussed the letter Sunday at a Mother’s Day barbecue. That same day, someone torched his grandson’s car in Burks’ driveway. 

Rhonda Burks and Joey Cook at first told investigators they believed a juvenile had burned the car, but later they said they thought it was Johnson. 

“He basically didn’t want to end the relationship,” Herrera said. “He wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” 

The charred car was sitting in Burks’ driveway Wednesday, but no one was home. Two dogs barked in the backyard and a man patrolling the neighborhood in his pickup truck told reporters to keep away. 

At Pearl Burks’ house on the outskirts of this city 85 miles east of San Francisco, the neighborhood also was quiet – save for a rumbling train, crowing roosters and construction workers pouring concrete in a nearby lot. 

Inside the house, children’s toys were scattered and videos, including “Pinocchio,” were stacked neatly on a shelf. Children’s fishing rods were visible in a window and three little pairs of shoes were outside the front door. 

What Corey Burks saw was not completely clear. His voice is difficult to discern on a 911 tape as his neighbor, Linda Baldwin, relays information from the boy to operators. 

Baldwin said she heard a burst of gunfire, a “boom, boom, boom real quick,” but thought nothing of it until the boy showed up at her house. 

“We live out in the country, so I paid no attention,” Baldwin told a 911 operator. “I didn’t hear any screaming or nothing.” 

Rhonda Burks called home from court to check on her children, Herrera said. When no one answered the phone, she didn’t follow through with her request for a restraining order and headed home to check on her children. 

By the time she got there, police tape was blocking the road. 

Rhonda Burks was in seclusion Wednesday and did not speak with reporters. 

WASHINGTON — President Bush, in his much-awaited energy plan, will warn on Thursday that the United States faces “the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargo of the 1970s.” He will order federal agencies to dismantle regulatory barriers that slow gas, electrical, coal and nuclear power production and propose opening federal lands for oil drilling. 

He also will encourage conservation, setting aside most of the $5 billion in new tax incentives for people who buy energy-efficient cars or use alternative energies.  

The 163-page policy, developed by a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, also orders review of fuel economy standards with an eye toward possibly requiring them to be more fuel efficient. 

“A fundamental imbalance between supply and demand defines our nation’s energy crisis,” says the report, a portion of which was released Wednesday night by the White House.  

“This imbalance, if allowed to continue, will inevitably undermine our economy, our standard of living, and our national security.” 

While Bush compared today’s problems to the 1970s, energy experts have noted that there are plenty of supplies of crude oil and gasoline. In the 1970s, a disruption of oil imports caused long gas lines and fuel rationing. 

The White House was releasing the report Thursday in connection with Bush’s speech on the topic in St. Paul, Minn. 

To sell his plan, Bush must navigate among hundreds of issue groups, governors and local officials with competing concerns. 

Even before it was released, Democrats said the policy would endanger the environment and do nothing to lower prices now. Some Republicans demanded quick fixes not found in the report, fearing the public will blame them in 2002 congressional elections if energy prices soar. 

Bush and Cheney are especially vulnerable to criticism because they made fortunes in the oil business. 

Feeling the heat, Bush promised on Wednesday that federal regulators will ensure that “nobody in America gets illegally overcharged” for energy. His advisers said for the first time his policy might offer some short-term relief, but only if the promise of future supplies drives down prices among investors who speculate in oil trends. 

“We’re going to solve this problem,” Bush said, previewing a report he said would be an honest, hard look at the reasons for the nation’s energy shortages. “This isn’t just a report that’s going to gather dust.” 

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said he hoped to get the energy package approved and ready for Bush’s signature by July 4. He conceded, however, that some recommendations, such as expanded drilling on federal land and taking private land for power lines, “will be hotly debated” by Congress. 

As if to make Lott’s point, House Minority Leader Dick Gephard, D-Mo., said, “The president has no program for the short term, telling people they are on their own. At a time when consumers are paying record prices, at a moment when energy companies are making record profits, we have an obligation to the American people to address their concerns.” 

The half-inch thick report, complete with glossy pictures and pie charts, contains 105 recommendations – some of which will go to Congress and others that will be carried out by executive order. Many table a sticky issue for further study by  

federal agencies. 

The White House rhetoric is focused on poll-tested conservation initiatives, with aides noting that 42 of the recommendations offer incentives for people and businesses to curb their fuel demands. But the president’s focus is on strategies to make the United States less reliant on foreign oil and less susceptible to aging electrical transmission systems. 

The report says Bush will sign an executive order this week that directs all agencies to include in any regulatory action that could “significantly and adversely affect energy supplies” a detailed statement on the rules’ impact. 

A second order would require agencies to expedite permits for all energy-related projects, in effect nationalizing the policy that allows electricity-strapped California to set aside some clean-air regulations and build power plants. 

Bush asks the Interior Department to study the “impediments” to drilling for oil and gas on public lands.  

He specifically calls for development of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

He would spend $2 billion over 10 years to pay for clean-coal technology. 

On nuclear power, Bush asked federal agencies to examine whether spent fuel from nuclear reactors can be reprocessed for the production of electricity.  

The technology, abandoned in the United States but used elsewhere, produces weapons-grade plutonium that can lead to national security risks. 

Bush also is asking agencies to study whether nuclear plants undergoing facility improvement need federal reviews, as currently required. The Justice Department will be asked to study lawsuits pending over the so-called new source reviews. 

The report calls for the “safe expansion” of nuclear energy by establishing a national repository for nuclear waste, but does not take a position on the controversial site in Nevada called Yucca Mountain. 

The report details $10 billion in tax credits over 10 years, most of which go to conservation and projections involving renewable energies such as wind and solar power.  

Half the money is already in Bush’s budget. About $1.5 billion will help facilitate the sale of nuclear power plants. 

The biggest chunk of the $10 billion is a $4 billion tax credit for the purchase of hybrid and fuel cell vehicles. 

The report directs the Transportation Department to review vehicle fuel economy standards, but said no changes would be made until the completion of a National Academy of Sciences study this summer.  

Bush advisers signaled that they might raise the standard for sports utility vehicles and small trucks, which under current rules are allowed less-stringent fuel requirement. 

Automobile manufacturers are opposed to raising the standards. 

On the Net: 

The White House: http://whitehouse.gov 

Energy Information Administration: http://www.eia.doe.gov 

North American Electric Reliability Council: http://www.nerc.com

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Colin Powell wants to meet this month with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a newly energized U.S. drive to end violence, help the Palestinian economy and find a way back to the negotiating table with Israel. 

In his diplomacy, Powell is using as a launch pad a report by a fact-finding commission that recommended a halt to construction of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza and acceptance by both sides of a cease-fire proposed by Jordan and Egypt. 

The main purpose of a Powell meeting with Arafat would be to try to end months of violence that has sidetracked peace efforts and brought death and injury to hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis. 

Powell already appealed repeatedly to Arafat to state publicly, in unambiguous Arabic, that his people should stop attacking Israelis. 

“We have not identified a time, a date or a place for this meeting,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday. 

Powell is flying Monday to Africa for a four-nation tour, then will go to Hungary. A meeting with Arafat would be added to that trip, the spokesman said. 

The secretary of state discussed an Arafat meeting, which would be their second, at the State Department on Tuesday with Mahmoud Abbas, top deputy to the Palestinian leader. 

Powell also is looking to use the report by a fact-finding commission, headed by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, as the basis of a new effort to curb violence and restart negotiations. 

Israel objects to the commission’s proposal that all construction activity in Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza be halted. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has promised not to start new settlements but has said expansion for natural growth would be continued. 

Stopping construction, then closing down all or most of the Jewish outposts, is a long-sought Arafat goal. 

Boucher said the Mitchell commission produced a “very fine report,” but he declined to say whether it had more than the administration’s “general endorsement.” 

Powell has said he also wants to use the joint proposal by Egypt and Jordan that would separate Israeli and Palestinian forces as a means of ending the violence. 

Early in the Bush administration, its plans were to keep its distance from the Arab-Israeli conflict, which it characterized as one of many difficult issues in the region. 

The pervasive violence, and a drumbeat of demands from Arab and other nations that the United States assume the kind of role undertaken by past administrations, combined to produce stepped-up U.S. diplomatic activity. 

This has included efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians into accord on security measures. 

Boucher said the Bush administration had been consistent in saying it would be engaged in the Middle East. 

“We are engaged. We are active. You’ve seen all the secretary’s phone calls, all the president’s meetings, all the diplomatic activity from our ambassador and our consul general and other representatives in the region,” he said. 

On a trip to the Middle East in February, Powell met with Arafat in Ramallah on the West Bank. 

The Palestinian leader has not been invited to the White House, but Sharon was the first Middle East leader to visit the new president. He was followed by several Arab leaders including President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan. 

Top Arafat aides are fanning out across the United States to promote the idea of restarting peace talks even as regional violence continues. Their efforts center on getting the Bush administration to embrace the Mitchell commission report. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said on a visit to Washington this month, and again in Israel on Wednesday, that his government opposes a halt in settlement construction.  

But Peres, a longtime dove who set in motion territorial concessions to Arafat, said differences on the issue can be resolved and suggested the Mitchell report could be used as a springboard for peace talks. 

The Palestinians largely have accepted the report, which followed an investigation into the violence, although the document is critical of their attacks on Israel. 

“The real test is how the Americans are going to handle the report,” senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Tuesday in New York. 

On the Net: State Department Near East desk: http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ 

WASHINGTON — FBI agents this week have found still more Oklahoma City bombing documents that may not have been turned over to Timothy McVeigh’s attorneys, FBI Director Louis Freeh said Wednesday. 

He told Congress his agency was guilty of “serious error” in dealing with documents in the case. 

Freeh’s comments on Wednesday, the day McVeigh had been scheduled for execution, came less than a week after the revelation that more than 3,000 pages of documents were withheld from McVeigh’s lawyers before his trial. That discovery led Attorney General John Ashcroft to postpone McVeigh’s execution for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. 

Freeh said he did not think the documents found this week or last week would change McVeigh’s conviction or sentence for the April 1995 federal building bombing that killed 168 people. 

“Although I fully support the attorney general’s decision to postpone the execution – fairness and justice, of course, demand that – I do not believe this belated disclosure of documents will affect the outcome,” he said. 

McVeigh’s lawyers met with him at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and said he was taking an active role in deciding what to do. McVeigh had declined to pursue further appeals, allowing his execution date to be set, but attorney Nathan Chambers said Wednesday that the inmate was “willing to consider all options that are available to him.” 

Freeh, in his first public statements about the FBI mishap, told a House Appropriations subcommittee he would be adding “a world-class records expert” and creating a separate office of records management and policy to ensure that documents aren’t mishandled in the future. 

He said he also will increase records training for agents and order the FBI to take time to review proper procedures for handling important documents. 

The McVeigh documents “should have been located and released during discovery,” Freeh said in one of his last appearances before Congress. “As director, I’m accountable and responsible for that failure, and I accept that responsibility.” 

Freeh recently announced he was retiring in June, two years before completion of his 10-year term. 

Only Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., was openly critical, calling the FBI “something close to a failed agency” and saying “the litany of troubles with the agency are truly astounding and regrettable.” 

“I just think this is a pitiful performance, which is feeding the paranoia of large sections of this country, and that’s the last thing that we can afford these days,” Obey said. 

Other lawmakers said the situation had been blown out of proportion. 

“You had 28,000 interviews, and you had tons of material that were turned over. And what we’re talking about here is really insignificant, irrelevant documents that have no bearing on the case,” said Rep. David Rogers, R-Ky. “Is that a fair statement?” 

“That is my understanding,” Freeh said. 

Freeh said agents were reminded constantly to send their material to the Oklahoma City field office. In 1995 and 1996, he said, field offices were told 11 times to send the documents. 

When it appeared that not all materials had been sent, Freeh said he sent a priority teletype to all field offices in November 1996 directing all materials be sent promptly. 

“As we now know, there were still many offices that had failed to comply fully or precisely with the instructions given,” Freeh said. 

FBI agents first realized they had documents that might not have been turned over to McVeigh in March when archivists started to store the documents, Freeh said. By the time they were sure that the documents hadn’t been shared, it was May, he said. The FBI turned the documents over to the prosecutors on May 8, who gave the documents to McVeigh’s lawyers on the same day. 

Freeh said he didn’t learn about the documents until May 10. He said more documents showed up this week, and they were discovered only after he ordered all of his deputies worldwide on Friday to do one last “shakedown” for any documents and warned them he would hold them personally responsible if all weren’t retrieved. 

“This latest scrubbing has produced additional documents which are currently being reviewed to determine whether they were covered by the discovery agreement and, if so, whether they have been produced,” Freeh said. 

Freeh said he suspects there won’t be one single answer to why all the documents in the case weren’t turned over earlier. 

“For example, some offices wrongly concluded that the information was so extraneous that it was not covered by the request related to these prosecutions,” Freeh said. “Some offices forwarded summary results of investigation but not the underlying documents. Some offices forwarded copies of originals. Some offices turned investigative inserts into 302s and forwarded only the 302s.  

ome offices overlooked material when culling out responsive documents. Finally, some offices believed they sent the material but, in some cases, not in a form that could be uploaded into our existing system.” 

WASHINGTON — Drawing on Reagan-era successes in undermining communism in Eastern Europe, a group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday to promote democracy in Cuba by providing dissidents cash, fax machines, telephones and other items. 

Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the proposed package of $100 million in aid over four years is “a blueprint for a more vigorous U.S. policy to liberate the enslaved island of Cuba.” 

He said the program would supplement the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward the island for 39 years. 

The legislation was endorsed by the Cuban-American National Foundation, the largest and most influential of the anti-communist Cuban exile groups. The bipartisan initiative has the support of 10 other senators, and companion legislation in the House is backed by more than 90 members. 

The Bush administration withheld immediate comment. 

Helms’ remarks on the Senate floor, and those of supporters at a news conference, were reminiscent of the Reagan administration’s support for pro-democracy groups in Poland. That effort helped bring down decades of communist rule there in 1989. 

In Poland, the opposition rallied around Solidarnosc, the Solidarity labor union. The legislation introduced Wednesday is the Cuban Solidarity Act of 2001. 

“The investment we made in the liberation of Eastern Europe has yielded immeasurable benefits,” Helms said. 

He said the legislation would give the president a mandate to increase all forms of U.S. support for pro-democracy and human rights activists in Cuba. In addition to office machines, he said it could also include food, medicines, books, educational material and financial support. 

Recipients may include political prisoners and family members, persecuted dissidents or repatriated persons, workers’ rights activists, economists, journalists, environmentalists and others. 

Activities may include support for independent libraries or agricultural cooperatives, support for microenterprise development by self-employed Cubans, U.S.-based exchange programs and nongovernmental charities. 

Cuba has been highly successful in preventing dissident groups from flourishing. Criticism of the government is permitted, but efforts toward political organization by dissidents usually are quashed through intimidation and other means. President Fidel Castro has been especially scornful of dissidents who receive support from the United States. 

In January, Cuban authorities arrested two Czechs – one a parliamentarian – and alleged they had planned to deliver a portable computer, diskettes and CD-ROMs to dissidents with the help of Freedom House, a New York-based human rights group. The Czechs were held for 25 days and released only after they admitted breaking the law by meeting with dissidents. 

Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the Cuban-American National Foundation, said the prospect that some Cuban dissidents might be imprisoned as a result of receiving U.S. help “should not be a reason for us not to do the right thing.” 

He said dissidents are imprisoned in Cuba irrespective of whether they receive outside help. 

Joining Mas at a news conference was Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., last year’s Democratic nominee for vice president. 

“Our foreign policy is at its best when it is based on values,” Lieberman said in endorsing the Solidarity legislation. 

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., added a bilingual touch, saying in both Spanish and English: “Help is on the way.” 

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said the legislation would add a new dimension to U.S. policy toward the nearby island. Once it is enacted, Graham said, “U.S. policy will no longer be simply to isolate the Castro regime but to support those working to bring about change inside Cuba.” 

On the Net: Sen. Jesse Helms: http://helms.senate.gov/ 

Other senators: http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm 

CIA profile of Cuba: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cu.html 

Library of Congress profile of Poland: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/pltoc.html

WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to preserve President Bush’s policy prohibiting $425 million in U.S. aid for global population assistance from going to groups that advocate abortion rights. 

The provision, which passed 218-210, was attached to an $8.2 billion State Department reauthorization bill, approved 352-73 late Wednesday evening. Thirty-two Democrats joined Republican supporters in passing the abortion provision. 

The House also passed a controversial amendment sponsored by Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos of California that would withhold about $625,000 in aid to Lebanon until that country secures its borders near Israel. The measure, which passed 216-210, also would direct the president to develop a plan for terminating millions of dollars in other aid if the Lebanese do not comply within six months. 

The abortion provision prompted the most intense debate on the bill. 

Bush signaled his support for abortion foes early on, implementing the aid ban by executive order during his first week in office. But Democrats on the House International Relations Committee included a provision overturning the president’s order in the committee’s version of the bill. Wednesday’s amendment removed that from the bill. 

The National Organization for Women said women in the United States and around the world “stand to lose access to critical health services at the hands of this Congress and this president.” Democrats attacked the policy as detrimental to international family planning efforts and dubbed it a “global gag rule” that assaulted the free speech rights of organizations abroad. Republicans argued that abortion does not belong in the family planning discussion. 

“I think it is important we not be hypocrites in dealing with this legislation,” said Lantos, who also serves as the ranking Democrat on the International Relations Committee. “It is not enough to talk about human rights and democracy. It is important we practice what we preach.” 

Democratic leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri said the issue was simple. “Do we empower women and families across the globe with the ability to plan for the number of children they will have? Or do we pull the rug out from under these important efforts?” 

Democrats pointed out that a 1973 federal law already prevented foreign organizations from using U.S. taxpayer money to pay for abortions. But GOP leaders accused foreign organizations of shifting money around to fund abortion efforts. 

“Nobody is being gagged,” said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and chairman of the International Relations Committee. “If you want to talk about abortions, talk away. But not on our dime.” 

“Abortion is not family planning,” said Hyde, a longtime leader of anti-abortion efforts in the House. “Family planning is helping you get pregnant or keeping you from getting pregnant. It is not killing an unborn child after you become pregnant.” 

President Bush had threatened a veto if lawmakers overturned his policy. Spokesman Ari Fleischer indicated Wednesday that the president could support the overall bill now that the abortion issue is resolved. “Unless there’s something else in there, the president will be supportive,” Fleischer said. 

Wednesday’s action drew dozens of lawmakers to the floor for an emotional debate. At one point, leaders extended the debate to accommodate the numerous members who wanted to speak. 

It was just the latest effort by House Republicans, buoyed by White House support, to push through abortion-related legislation. Last month, the House voted to make it illegal to harm a fetus while committing a crime against a pregnant woman. 

The evenly divided Senate has yet to take up any of the abortion measures. 

Overall, the bill authorizes dozens of State Department programs for the 2002 and 2003 fiscal years. 

In the Lebanese aid amendment, supporters said securing the border was essential to securing Middle East peace. They expressed worries about attacks on Israel by the guerrilla group Hezbollah, which operates out of Lebanon but is supported by Syria. Just Monday, the terrorist group fired two anti-tank missiles at an Israeli army outpost. 

“If we are to treat Lebanon as a sovereign nation it must fulfill its obligations,” said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. 

Still, opponents said the measure unfairly penalized the Lebanese. 

“It drives the Lebanese into the arms of the extremists and the terrorists,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. “Is that what we want?” 

Said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., “This amendment doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t send the signal you want it to send.” 

Last week, the House voted to withhold $244 million in overdue payments to the United Nations until the United States is restored to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Lawmakers have expressed outrage that the United States was ejected from the seat it has held since the panel’s creation in 1947. 

——— 

The State Department bill, H.R. 1646, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov 

SEOUL, South Korea — After a three-year manhunt, military detectives found Sgt. Maj. Park No-hang sprawled on the floor of a high-rise apartment just one mile from the Defense Ministry, a skin-care mask over his face. 

The 50-year-old alleged mastermind of South Korea’s largest draft-dodging scam sat straight up after a dozen agents slipped through the door or clambered off fire ladders into the windows. 

“Yes Sir,” a shaggy-haired Park said, military-style, when they called his name. 

Investigators filmed the April 25 raid and national television broadcast the footage, heightening public fascination with a crime long associated with South Korea’s political and business elite. Local media call it “Draftgate.” 

Park’s peaceful surrender could help authorities unravel the latest subterfuge to hit the draft, the linchpin of South Korean defense ever since the 1950-53 Korean War against the communist North. 

But there is concern that the government will not aggressively pursue prosecutions in a case believed to involve dozens of wealthy draft-dodgers and their parents, as well as military corruption. 

“I hope the investigation won’t resemble earlier ones that ended with a few arrests of sports stars and TV celebrities, apparently for publicity’s sake,” said Ahn Tae-sung of Transparency International Korea, a private anti-corruption group. 

“What worries us is the high violation rate among the people with power and money,” The Korea Herald, an English-language daily, said in an editorial. 

Park was indicted in a military court Monday on charges of receiving $240,000 for helping 21 people evade military service or win cushy posts.  

The military promised a thorough investigation. 

Park is suspected of influence-peddling in at least 100 more cases of alleged draft-dodging in the late 1990s.  

A military investigator for 28 years, he could face at least a decade in jail if convicted. 

Since Park’s arrest, a television actress and four others were arrested for allegedly bribing him to have their sons exempted. Thirty others, mostly parents, were temporarily banned from traveling abroad. 

Military prosecutors detained two warrant officers accused of helping hide Park, who received food and clothing from his sister.  

A former two-star general who led the hunt for Park in 1998 is under investigation. 

Citing investigators, local media said Park bribed military doctors to alter medical records or swap X-ray films to make draftees appear sick. 

All healthy South Korean men must serve in the 680,000-member military for 26 months, with many assigned to the tense inter-Korean border.  

There is widespread suspicion that politicians and business leaders often arrange waivers for their sons, but evidence is scant. 

Some South Koreans refer to the privileged few who skip the draft as “shin eui adeul,” or “sons of gods.” The majority who serve are “odoom eui jasik,” or “sons of darkness.” 

Military service in South Korea, once a source of honor and popular fodder for bar talk, is increasingly viewed by college graduates as an obstacle to a fast career track in business or some other  

civilian venture. 

“If I could, I would bribe someone like Park to save my precious time,” said Lee Jin-yong, a 20-year-old student who has yet to serve.  

“If you don’t serve, you get a two-year head-start.” 

About 2.4 percent of 400,000 potential draftees were exempted last year, but there are no estimates of how many cases were illegal. 

English-speakers covet liaison work on the bases of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. The well-equipped U.S. facilities are the envy of South Korean conscripts, who often complain about harsh, overbearing commanders in their own military. 

Park went into hiding in 1998 after the arrest of a recruiting officer who allegedly brokered his cases.  

The government sentenced the accomplice, Won Yong-soo, to eight years in jail and indicted about 160 people, mostly parents. 

Some received suspended prison terms and some cases are pending.  

Their sons were ordered to serve in the military. 

Life is tougher for conscripts in poor, totalitarian North Korea, where many in the 1.1 million-strong military must serve at least a decade.

At a forum Monday, Berkeley High School students said their new principal’s proposals for dealing with truancy will harm the kids most in need of help. 

“We need to come up with some service-based solutions, even before enforcement,” said Niles Xi’an Lichtenstein, student director on the Berkeley Board of Education, and a coordinator for the student group Youth Together, which sponsored the forum. 

Principal Frank Lynch said the school had to put something in place by next year to impact a truancy problem that’s costing the school district nearly $1 million a year in state education dollars forfeited due to lack of attendance. 

“If it’s love that will do it, wonderful. If it’s fear that will do it, wonderful, for right now,” Lynch said. 

In an interview Tuesday, Lynch said the school’s budget is based largely on state funding, which is determined by the average daily attendance rate. That rate currently stands at 94 percent at Berkeley High, Lynch said.  

In other words, the money the state gives the Berkeley Unified School District assumes a high school enrollment of roughly 3,000, when the school’s actual enrollment is 3,200. 

Lynch said Monday the problem is that the district hires teachers, buys education materials and so forth based on the 3,200 number. 

Lynch has proposed that students with nine unexcused absences in any one class be dropped from the class with an automatic “F.” After six unexcused absence, the students’ parents would be called in for a conference with the teacher, who would work to create a “plan of action” to get the student to attend class. 

Lynch has said repeatedly that he is not wedded to the number of unexcused absences that trigger intervention or a failing grade, just so long as the school puts a formal system in place to guarantee consequences for students who miss class frequently. 

“We’re in a position right now where we’ve got students hanging around just doing absolutely nothing,” Lynch said Tuesday. “We’ll do something. We just have to. It’s a big problem.” 

But several students at the forum said a crack down on attendance of the type proposed by Lynch fails to address the root causes of the problem. 

“If we’re not in school, then there is something that is missing in this education,” said Berkeley High student Eddy James. 

“If you’re going to hold the students accountable for being in class, you need to hold the teacher accountable for teaching,” said student Amani Carey-Simms, who alleged that one of his math teachers spends class time simply reading from the text book. 

Merle Fajans, a Berkeley High parent for six years up until this year, said both parents and teachers have complained about the quality of certain Berkeley High teachers for years to no avail. 

While her kids were at Berkeley High, Fajans said, they would come home some days and explain that they had not been in class that day because there was a substitute teacher who didn’t “know what they (were) doing,” or perhaps no substitute teacher at all on a day the teacher was absent.  

Fajans said some teachers were absent for more than a month of out of the 180-day school year. 

In a poll of 317 Berkeley High students conducted by Youth Together earlier this month, 82 percent of those surveyed disagreed with the statement: “The proposed truancy policy addresses the root causes of why students are not in class.” 

Seventy-two percent said the proposed policy would not encourage students to stay in class and improve their grades. “The root causes are going to be there still,” said student Maliah Coye Monday. “Kids are not going to go to class...making them get an ‘F.’” 

At the very least, students said, the school should not crack down on attendance until it has created some sort of alternative educational program for those students who will inevitably fail numerous classes under such a system. That way, instead of just being branded as failures and then left to their own devices, the students could be directed to specialized classes where they might feel more engaged. 

“Failure should never be an option,” said James. “How is failing somebody going to be for the better of their character?” 

The students also proposed the creation of a Peer Advocacy Program, where a group of Berkeley High students would be trained to act as intermediaries between the administration and their peers.  

The Peer Advocates could intervene with students before their absences become a discipline issue, the students suggested, showing them how to take advantage of tutoring, mentoring and health services available at the school and steering them into the “good classes” with “good teachers”. 

Lynch said Tuesday that he welcomes the idea of a peer advocacy type program as one component of any new policy for dealing with truancy, just so long as he has a specific proposal to take to the school board by next month. 

His own proposal, he said, calls for the creation of a School Attendance Review Team (SART), made up of students, teachers and staff. The SART would determine effective ways to intervene with frequently absent students.  

Lynch has also called for hiring a full-time truancy officer to track absent students and make sure the new truancy measures are being universally enforced. Many have criticized Berkeley High in the past for failing to address inconsistencies in the way different teachers enforce attendance. 

Wednesday, May 16

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets. 644-6226 

Thursday, May 17

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

“What is Queer Spirituality?” 

12:30 - 1:30 p.m. 

1798 Scenic Ave.  

Mudd Bldg., Room 100 

Bill Glenn, PSR alumni and leader of Spirit Group, will lead a panel discussion on the dynamic shape of queer spirituality today.  

849-8206 

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicity,” 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  

Free Smoking Cessation Class  

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.  

Six Thursday classes through May 17.  

Call 644-6422 to register and for location  

LGBT Catholics Group  

7:30 p.m. 

Newman Hall  

2700 Dwight Way (at College)  

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Catholics group are “a spiritual community committed to creating justice.” This meeting is the spring barbecue. 654-5486 

Solving Residential Drainage Problems 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

First day of two day seminar led by contractor/engineer Eric Burtt. Continues Tuesday May 22. $70 for both days. 525-7610 

John Muir May Fair 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

John Muir Elementary School 

2955 Claremont Ave 

Cake walk, face painting, games, food and student performances, quilt raffle. Free. 

644-6410 

Friday, May 18

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets.  

Call 644-6226 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Therapy for Trans Partners  

6 - 7:30 p.m.  

Pacific Center for Human Growth  

2712 Telegraph Ave. (at Derby)  

A group open to partners of those in transition or considering transition. The group is structured to be a safe place to receive support from peers and explore a variety of issues, including sexual orientation, coming out, feelings of isolation, among other topics. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Saturday, May 19

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Annual strawberry tasting 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

Get to Know Your Plants 

1 - 4 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn what to look for and what and how to record it to more intimately know your plants.  

548-2220 

“Be Your Own Boss” 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

YWCA 

1515 Webster Street, Oakland 

Second Saturday of a two day workshop on starting up small businesses (see May 12). 

415-541-8580 

Community Summit on  

Smaller Learning  

Communities 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

Alternative High School  

MLK Jr. Way (at Derby)  

All teachers, students, administrators, parents, and community members are encouraged to attend this meeting on smaller learning communities at Berkeley High. Translation, childcare, and food will be provided.  

540-1252 to RSVP for services 

Campaign for Equality Benefit  

7:30 - 10 p.m. 

Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club  

1650 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A comedy benefit with performances by Karen Ripley, Julia Jackson, Pippi Lovestocking, Darrick Richardson, and Nick Leonard. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the International Lesbian Gay Association Scholarship Fund for the 2001 ILGA Summit in Oakland.  

$15 - $20  

466-5050 

Finish Carpentry 

9 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Carpenter/contractor Kevin Stamm leads workshop. $95. 

525-7610 

Earthquake Retrofitting 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Seminar taught by structural engineer Tony DeMascole and seismic contractor Jim Gillett. $75. 

525-7610 

How to Prevent Home Owner Nightmares 

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Dispute prevention and early resolution seminar taught by contractor/mediator Ron Kelly. $75. 

525-7610 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health (Lower Level) 

2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Program on physical and mental differences. Promotes acceptance and understanding. Free. 

549-1564  

Sunday, May 20

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

Working with Awareness,  

Concentration, Energy 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Nyingma members discuss meditative awareness in everyday life. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812 

Salsa Lesson & Dance Party  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Kick up your heels and move your hips with professional instructors Mati Mizrachi and Ron Louie. Plus Israeli food provided by the Holy Land Restaurant. Novices encouraged to attend and no partners are required.  

$12  

RSVP: 237-9874 

Mediterranean Herbs 

1:30 p.m. 

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

Tour of herbs. Learn myths and legends, ideas for planting in home gardens. 

643-1924 

—compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

Jazz on 4th Street Festival 

11 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

4th St. between Hearst and Virginia 

Performances by Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble and two Berkeley High Jazz Combos, among others. Also 4th St. merchants, raffle prizes, arts and crafts. Free admission. Proceeds benefit Berkeley High Performing Arts.  

526-6294 

Jewish rights to Israel ‘pre-existing’ 

Editor: 

I write in response to a letter in the Friday, May 4 issue of The Berkeley Daily Planet, calling Israel’s settlements “immoral and illegal.” Even supporters of Israel often miss the point that the basic legal document governing the disposition of the territories in the League of Nations Mandate of 1921, which obliges the Jewish Agency or its successor, which today is Israel, to not only govern the land but to settle it. 

All other resolutions and agreements are not binding under International law. That is why, by the way, the United States calls the settlements nasty things at times, but it NEVER calls them illegal: it cannot. 

The Mandate did not “grant” the Jewish people the right to the Land of Palestine, as the British called it, it “recognized” the Jewish people’s ancient rights, meaning that Jewish rights are considered “pre-existing” rather than newly created. 

I have more detail concerning this subject, but though interesting and important, it may seem a little obscure to the general reader or the reader bent on attacking Israel. 

Carol Shivel 

Berkeley 

Parking minus ‘ing’ = transit 

Editor: 

What do you et if you take the “ing” out of Parking? You get a park. Does Berkeley need more parks or parking?  

At least a third of downtown Berkeley is paved in asphalt. Another 5/6 is committed to concrete. The last sliver is green. We can't afford to lose more land to automobiles. The BHS tennis courts were recently paved over for parking. Sounds like Martin Luther King Park is being considered for the next parking lot. Lovely. 

Downtown has enormous transit resources which could be better marketed, and marked. Though the bus schedules, which serve Berkeley, are the biggest mysteries in the universe, the busses actually run. The No. 51, for example, runs every ten minutes on weekdays. Amazing. There are a dozen more bus lines serving the downtown. 

If the political will in this community focused on public transit instead of automobiles, you'd have what's called a “win-win” situation.  

Deborah Green 

Berkeley  

Thanks for  

good works 

Editor,  

On behalf of Berkeley Youth Alternatives we would like thank Congregation Beth El for all the time and dedication that went into planning and carrying out the “Sukkot in April” project. They painted our building and it looks wonderful! We know how much work goes into putting together such an awesome community-building event, and we really appreciate all that they did in order to make it so successful.  

Our friends, families and children have all commented on how much more welcoming and brighter BYA looks. The effort and care that they put into helping BYA was a true Mitzvah! 

Niculia Williams, 

Executive Director, Berkeley Youth Alternatives 

New film brings out more than ‘mistrust’ 

Editor: 

That was an interesting article in the Monday Berkeley Daily Planet's Bay Briefs, “Asian Americans wary of movie's influence,” reporting on the apprehension of Bay Area Asian Americans over the new movie “Pearl Harbor.” However, the use of the sanitized word “mistrust” in describing the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in “relocation camps” during World War II was disturbing. I think the correct word is racism. 

Asian Americans have every reason to be apprehensive of this latest glorification of past wars in preparation of future ones. Just look at the kneejerk anti-Chinese racism that spewed forth in so much of the American media after the recent U.S. spy plane incident, including the notorious Oliphant cartoon that revived anti-Asian stereotypes that one would have hoped had ended when World War II did.  

Steve Wagner 

Oakland 

FBI withholding evidence not uncommon as seen in Peltier case 

Editor: 

The withholding of evidence and obstruction of justice appear to be habitual FBI practices. In recent months, this pattern has become frightfully clear. 

Revelations of FBI misconduct in Boston are appalling. The FBI manufactured evidence, which put two innocent men in prison, while the real murderer were protected and allowed to kill with impunity. 

Evidence about FBI misconduct in the Birmingham bombings is no less disturbing. For years the FBI did nothing to pursue the racist murderers of the four young girls, all the while knowing who the culprits were. And now it has been revealed that the FBI illegally withheld evidence relating to the Oklahoma bombing. Somehow, the news comes as no surprise. 

Equally troublesome is the case of Leonard Peltier, the Indigenous rights activist considered by Amnesty International a “political prisoner” who should be “immediately and unconditionally released.” The FBI is also withholding evidence in his case. 

Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents after the FBI coerced witnesses, utilized false testimony, and intentionally withheld a ballistic test reflecting his innocence at trial. The ballistic test was later released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and it prompted the U.S. Prosecutor to admit, “we can’t prove who shot those agents.”  

Yet, Peltier has remained in prison for over 25 years and the FBI refuses to release the 6,000 documents still held in secret files today. 

Before another victim is allowed to languish one more year in prison, Congress should hold investigations into the FBI’s handling of the Peltier case and subpoena the remaining 6,000 documents. 

When the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country considers itself above the law, each of us becomes a potential victim of injustice. 

Marco Barrantes 

Berkeley 

Try transit first  

Editor: 

Each day I walk my dog. I often fiddle. Many times a week I am in Civic Center Park. I shop at the Saturday Farmers’ Market and participate in many festivals held in the Park. I am dismayed to hear and am opposed to the park being torn up and its many festivals and the Saturday Farmers’ Market being unavailable to us while the Park is dug up to create an underground parking garage. 

I don’t want to lose my park, even temporarily. Don’t dig up Civic Center Park. 

Building such a garage will not help my street (one block from Civic Center Park) as everyone who parks up street while working or shopping nearby will continue to park on the street where it’s free! If the Civic Center Garage is free too these cars might move off my street, but I’m sure the city would not give free parking when the spaces cost so much to build ($22 million is $45,000. for each space). 

Before we even think about whether or not to build a garage, we should offer employees and shoppers transit incentives (discounts) to use alternate transportation first. It’s so much cheaper to let someone have a transit pass discount than it is to build that person a parking space. Even UCB did the class pass.  

Can’t the City of Berkeley be the leader we claim to be and take the lead? It might turn out that we don’t need a garage at all if enough people use transit once in a while. Let’s be the transit first Berkeley we’ve been saying we are.  

Morgan Fichter 

Berkeley

Habitot Children’s Museum “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. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins, and become little “dump” workers. $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. (closed Sundays, Memorial Day through Labor Day) Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Judah L. Magnes Museum “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 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exhuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter. “Ricky Swallow/Matrix 191,” Including new sculptures and drawings; Through May 27 $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; children age 12 and under free; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and Wednesday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 642-0808 

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery” 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 “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. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” 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. “T. Rex on Trial,” Through May 28 Where was T. Rex at the time of the crime? Learn how paleontologists decipher clues to dinosaur behavior. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. Computer Lab, Saturdays 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium 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. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership. All ages. May 18: Ensign, All Bets Off, Playing Enemy, Association Area, Blessing the Hogs; May 19: Punk Prom and benifit for India quake victims features Pansy Division, Plus Ones, Dave Hill, Iron Ass; May 25: Controlling Hand, Wormwood, Goats Blood, American Waste, Quick to Blame; May 26: Honor System, Divit, Enemy You, Eleventeen, Tragedy Andy; June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2 El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 16: 9 p.m. Creole Belles; May 17: 10 p.m. Dead DJ Night with Digital Dave; May 18: 9:30 p.m. Reggae Angels with Mystic Roots; May 19: 9:30 Kotoja; May 20: 8:30 p.m. Jude Taylor and His Burning Flames 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 17: The Rincon Ramblers; May 18: Todd Snider; May 19: Oak, Ash and Thorn; May 20: KALW’s 60th Anniversary Concert featuring Paul Pena, Orla and the Gasmen, Kennelly Irish Dancers, Kathy Kallick and Nina Gerber. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. May 16: Spank; May 17: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 18: Will Bernard and Motherbug; May 19: Solomon Grundy; May 22: Willy N’ Mo; May 23: Global Echo; May 24: Beatdown with DJ’s Delon, Yamu and Add1; May 25: The Mind Club; May 26: Rythm Doctors; May 29: The Lost Trio; May 30: Zambambazo 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

La Peña Cultural Center May 17, 8 p.m.: Tribu; May 19, 8 p.m.: Carnaval featuring Company of Prophets, Loco Bloco, Mystic, Los Delicados, DJ Sake One and DJ Namane; May 20: 6 p.m. Venezuelan Music Recital 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org  

The Crowden School Annual Spring Concert May 16, 7:30 p.m. $5-$10 St. John’s Presbytarian Church at College and Garber 559-6910 

Tribu May 17, 8 p.m. Direct from Mexico, Tribu plays a concert of ancestral music of the Mayan, Aztec, Olmec, Zapotec, Purerpecha, Chichimec, Otomi, and Toltec. Tribu have reconstructed and rescued some of the oldest music in the Americas. $12 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org 

Jazz Singers Collective May 17, 8 p.m. Anna’s Bistro 1801 University Ave. 849-2662 

Satsuki Arts Festival and Bazaar May 19, 4 - 10 p.m. & May 20, Noon - 7 p.m. A fundraiser for the Berkeley Buddhist Temple featuring musical entertainment by Julio Bravo & Orquesta Salsabor, Delta Wires, dance presentations by Kaulana Na Pua and Kariyushi Kai, food, arts & crafts, plants & seedlings, and more. Berkeley Buddhist Temple 2121 Channing Way (at Shattuck) 841-1356 

KALW 60th Anniversary Celebration May 20, 8 p.m. An evening of eclectic music and dance that reflects the eclectic nature of the stations’ programming. Performers include Paul Pena, Kathy Kallick & Nina Gerber, Orla & the Gas Men, and the Kennelly Irish Dancers. $19.50 - $20.50 Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse 1111 Addison St. 548-1761 or www.thefreight.org  

Himalayan Fair May 27, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. The only such event in the world, the fair celebrates the mountain cultures of Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Ladakh, Mustang and Bhutan. Arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance. Proceeds benefit Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, and Nepalese grassroots projects. $5 donation Live Oak Park 1300 Shattuck Ave. 869-3995 or www.himalayanfair.net  

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

“En Mouvement/In Motion” May 18, 19 7 p.m., May 19, 20 2 p.m. Part of the Berkeley Ballet Theater Spring Showcase, this production is a collection of works by student dancers/ $15. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 843-4689  

“Big Love” by Charles L. Mee Through June 10 Directed by Les Waters and loosely based on the Greek Drama, “The Suppliant Woman,” by Aeschylus. Fifty brides who are being forced to marry fifty brothers flee to a peaceful villa on the Italian coast in search of sanctuary. $15.99 - $51 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 

“Planet Janet” Through June 10, Fridays and Saturdays 8 p.m., Sundays 7 p.m. Follows six young urbanites’ struggles in sex and dating. Impact Theatre presentation written by Bret Fetzer, directed by Sarah O’Connell. $7 - $12 La Val’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid 464-4468 www.impacttheatre.com 

“The Misanthrope” by Moliere May 18 - June 10, Fri - Sun, 8 p.m. Berkeley-based Women in Time Productions presents this comic love story full of riotous wooing, venomous scheming and provocative dialogue. All female design and production staff. $17 - $20 Il Teatro 450 449 Powell St. San Francisco 415-433-1172 or visit www.womenintime.com 

“The Laramie Project” May 18 - July 8, Wed. 7 p.m., Tues. and Thur. -Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Written by Moises Kaufmen and members of Tectonic Theater Project, directed by Moises Kaufman. Moises Kaufman and Tectonic members travelled to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepard. The play is about the community and the impact Shepard’s death had on its members. $10 - $50. The Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Sister, My Sister” May 20, 5 p.m. Poetry, photography and dramatic readings which give voice to women and children cuaght in homelessness. Admission is free, donations welcome. Live Oak Park Theatre1301 Shattuck Ave. 528-8198 

Pacific Film Archive May 18: 7:30 The Cloud-Capped Star; May 19: 3:30 Starewicz Puppet Films; May 20: 5:30 The New Gulliver Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“Drowning in a Sea of Plastics” Video and Discussion Night May 16, 7 p.m. Join the Ecology Center’s Plastic Task Force for a viewing of “Trade Secrets” and “Synthetic Sea.” Free. Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220 ext. 233 

“Scapes/Escapes” Ink, Acrylic, Mixed Media by Evelyn Glaubman Through June 1 Tuesday - Thursday, 9 a.m. - 2:45 p.m. Gallery of the Center for Psychological Studies 1398 Solano Ave. Albany 524-0291 

“Elemental” The art of Linda Mieko Allen Through June 9, Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Traywick Gallery 1316 Tenth St. 527-1214 www.traywick.com 

Ledger drawings of Michael and Sandra Horse Meet the artists May 18, 19, 20 (call for times). Exhibit runs through June 18. Gathering Tribes Gallery 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038 www.gatheringtribes.com  

“Alive in Her: Icons of the Goddess” Through June 19, Tuesday - Thursday, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Photography, collage, and paintings by Joan Beth Clair. Opening reception May 3, 4 - 6 p.m. Pacific School of Religion 1798 Scenic Ave. 848-0528 

Bernard Maisner: Illuminated Manuscripts & Paintings Through Aug. 8 Maisner works in miniature as well as in large scales, combining his mastery of medieval illumination, gold leafing, and modern painting techniques. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library 2400 Ridge Rd. 849-2541 

“Musee des Hommages,” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Boticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours 2028 Ninth St. (at Addison) 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

“Geographies of My Heart” Collage paintings by Jennifer Colby through August 24; Flora Lamson Hewlett Library 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 

Images of Portugal Paintings by Sofia Berto Villas-Boas of her native land. Open after 5 p.m. Voulez-Vous 2930 College Ave. (at Elmwood) 

“Tropical Visions: Images of AfroCaribbean Women in the Quilt Tapestries of Cherrymae Golston” Through May 28, Tu-Th, 1-7 p.m., Sat 12-4 p.m. Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 3023 Shattuck Ave. 548-9286 ext 307 

Readings 

Cody’s Books 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852 All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 16: Tim Flannery describes “The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples”; May 17: Lalita Tademy reads “Cane River”; May 18: Oscar London, M.D. copes with “From Voodoo to Viagra: The Magic of Medicine”; May 21: Ariel Dorfman reads “Blakes Therapy”  

Cody’s Books 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500 All events at 7 p.m., unless noted May 17: Jean Shinoda Bolen talks about “Goddesses In Older Women: Archetypes in Women Over Fifty”  

Boadecia’s Books 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted May 18: Melinda Given Guttman will read from “The Enigma of Anna O”; May 19: Jessica Barksdale Inclan will read from “Her Daughter’s Eyes” 559-9184 or www.bookpride.com  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 All events at 7:30 p.m. unless noted otherwise May 23: Jon Bowermaster discusses his book “Birthplace of the Winds: Adventuring in Alaska’s Islands of Fire and Ice”; May 29, 7 - 9 p.m.: Travel Photo Workshop with Joan Bobkoff. $15 registration fee  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays 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. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. May 17: Gregory Listach Gayle with host Mark States; May 24: Stephanie Young with host Louis Cuneo; May 31: Connie Post with host Louis Cuneo Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Adan David Miller and JoJo Doig May 20, 7 p.m. Poetry and spoken word. Ecology Center 2530 San Pablo 548-3333 

Tours 

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

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park 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. 486-0623  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours All tours begin at 10 a.m. and are restricted to 30 people per tour $5 - $10 per tour May 12: Debra Badhia will lead a tour of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Arts District; May 19: John Stansfield & Allen Stross will lead a tour of the School for the Deaf and Blind; June 2: Trish Hawthorne will lead a tour of Thousand Oaks School and Neighborhood; June 23: Sue Fernstrom will lead a tour of Strawberry Creek and West of the UC Berkeley campus 848-0181 

Lectures 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Free Lectures All lectures begin at 6 p.m. May 20: Miep Cooymans and Dan Jones on “Working with Awareness, Concentration, and Energy”; May 27: Eva Casey on “Getting Calm; Staying Clear”; June 3: Jack van der Meulen on “Healing Through Kum Nye (Tibetan Yoga)”; June 10: Sylvia Gretchen on “Counteracting Negative Emotions” Tibetan Nyingma Institute 1815 Highland Place 843-6812 

Two nights a week about 11 p.m., UC Berkeley student Mike Barnes drops whatever he’s doing and walks the eight blocks from his fraternity to his second job. 

The job is simple. It rarely takes longer than an hour. In fact, much of his work time is spent watching the 11 o’clock news or discussing current events, new software programs, girlfriends. Though the job is simple, if Barnes doesn’t show up, it would drastically affect one  

person’s life. 

Barnes, a second-year political economy major, works as an attendant for Berkeley resident Scott Lupkin, a quadriplegic. After the two have socialized for a half-hour or so, Barnes prepares Lupkin for sleep. He helps Lupkin undress and then transfers him from his electric-powered wheelchair to bed. Barnes then plugs in the chair so it will be recharged the following day and heads back to Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity. 

Barnes chose the fraternity in the fall of 1999 specifically because of its commitment to assist people with disabilities. Besides working as attendants, fraternity members raise over $300,000 each year through its coast-to-coast Journey of Hope Bike Ride. 

“When I heard that, the deal was sealed for me,” said Barnes, who also works 20 hours a week at the campus Recreational Sports Facility. “I was worried at first because it’s a big commitment but it has really helped to shape me as a person.” 

In addition to gaining satisfaction from helping someone, Barnes earns an extra $100 for the eight hours he works for Lupkin each month. “It’s very rewarding to meet an interesting person,” Barnes said. “And it makes you feel good to help someone.” 

Attendant work seems like it would be the ideal part-time job. It requires little or no experience. The hours are flexible and the work can be both financially and personally rewarding. But despite these advantages, Berkeley’s disabled community is having an increasingly difficult time finding attendants.  

According to Sean Reidy, the Personal Assistant Coordinator at the Center for Independent Living, fewer people are submitting applications for attendant work. “Two years ago we were getting about 25 applications a month, from which we would end up with four or five decent attendants,” Reidy said. “Now we get an average of four applications a month.” 

The attendant shortage became so bad last year that the Personal Assistant Crisis Team was formed. PACT is a collection of organizations and private individuals that includes the Center for Independent Living, Easy Does It, a provider of emergency services for the disabled, and the Disabled Students Union. PACT has designed an information campaign, called the Frequently Asked Questions About Attendant Work program, aimed at students and others who can benefit from attendant work.  

Lupkin, an individual PACT member, said there are a number of reasons why there are fewer attendants. One is the strong economy that has created plenty of high-paying jobs. Another is there is a lot of misinformation about attendant work.  

One misconception is an idea that the tasks attendants perform require training or experience. According to the FAQs information sheet “most disabled employers can teach a new attendant what they need to know.” 

Another misconception is that attendants are required to perform highly personal tasks such as assisting with bodily functions.  

“Each disabled person is different in the kinds of tasks which he or she needs done. The tasks can range from running errands, to light housekeeping, to cooking, to more personal care like dressing or grooming,” the FAQs sheet reads. 

The sheet goes on to say that most people who are thinking about attendant work usually start by doing simple tasks and take on additional responsibility if they feel comfortable. 

Barnes discounts the fear of performing personal tasks. “If you can’t help someone undress by the time you’re in college… I mean most people in college should have that capacity,” he said. 

Barnes said any preconceptions or nervousness he had prior to helping Lupkin disappeared by his third shift with the disabled man. “It just goes away because you’re helping someone,” he said.  

Barnes, who is from Thousand Oaks in southern California, said he was introduced to working with the disabled by his mother when he was very young. His mother worked with disabled children as an adaptive physical education teacher.  

“I would visit her at a very young age and have always been very comfortable with disabled people,” he said. “It’s really not a big deal at all, they just want to be treated like everybody else.” 

For more information about attendant work go to www.cilberkeley.org/attendant-faq.html or call the Center for Independent Living at 841-4776. 

Activists in the movement to save listener-sponsored radio took their message to the halls of Congress Tuesday, when “dissident” Pacifica Foundation board members, fired staffers and banned volunteers spoke to members of the Progressive Caucus, in an informal hearing. 

Opening the hearings which he had called, Rep. Major Owens, D-Brooklyn (N.Y.), told caucus members that the Pacifica stations “fill a community gap for a significant number of citizens who...are poorly served by the mass media.” He also pointed out that the stations are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, and therefore ought to work “in accordance with their original government-approved purpose.” 

Those speaking out at the hearings, co-sponsored by  

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, alleged that the Pacifica  

Governing Board was no longer faithful to it’s stated mission. 

Pacifica radio, founded in Berkeley by pacifist Lew Hill in 1949, is a grouping of five listener-sponsored stations. Its governing board holds the stations’ licenses. Conflicts between Berkeley station KPFA and the board grew heated in March 1999 when Pacifica’s executive director terminated a popular station manager – activists alleged because she asked too many questions about finances – then fired or banned programmers who talked about the termination on the air. The board eventually shut down the Berkeley station, to which activists reacted with daily demonstrations, one as large as 10,000 people. 

At Christmas time, several staff at New York’s WBAI were similarly fired without warning; a number of other programmers and volunteers have since been banned from the New York station and a gag order has been enforced to varying degrees, prohibiting the staff from speaking about the situation. 

Pacifica spokesperson Angela Jones did not return calls. 

Owens had a personal reason for sponsoring the informal hearings: There was a March 5 incident at WBAI in which Owens, invited to participate in a WBAI talk show, had his microphone turned off by the station manager. 

In the following days, on the floor of Congress, Owens talked about the “weird and frightening experience of being gagged by a radio station manager in my own home city of New York.”  

Pacifica boardmembers had been asked to attend the session, but instead sent a person to read a brief statement. She was not authorized to respond to questions. Signed by Executive Director Bessie Wash, the statement asserted that the Pacifica Governing Board alone manages the stations. “It is ultimately responsible for essential station functions,” and not the Local Advisory Boards or local station personnel. 

Much of the impassioned testimony, broadcast over KPFA but not over any of the other Pacifica stations, got to the heart of the conflict within the governing board. 

Rob Robinson, board member from Washington, D.C.,’s station WPFW, asserted that the terms of Board Chair David Acosta and Vice Chair John Murdock expired and that the executive director has not been evaluated, even when she “permits harassment and incivilities occur to members of Congress.” 

Thomas Moran, who represents KPFA on the board, told the caucus that he had been unable to get Pacifica’s financial statements since October. And where he has seen the statements, he said he has been unable to get clarity on what the line items mean.  

“Money has been spent outside of Paciifca’s mission,” he said, naming “spin doctors, lawyers and armed guards.” 

Similarly, banned WBAI volunteer programmer Mimi Rosenberg talked about the Local Advisory Board’s attempt to find out how the station’s money was spent. “There was an infusion of capital from a trust of $2 million,” she said, but the board did not know from where the money had come. Further, it did not know where the station has invested its funds. “There’s not a line by line breakdown,” she said. 

Fired WBAI Program Director Bernard White talked about the numerous staff people who had been fired and the volunteer programmers who had been banned from the station. “Not only the people who work at the station have been victimized, so have the listeners,” he said. Calling on the caucus members, he said: “I hope you will raise your voice in opposition to this hostile takeover.” 

There was also a representative from the Houston Station who had once done a show geared to Native Americans, but had been taken off the air, along with other programmers whose shows were directed to the growing minority populations in Houston.  

Lee said the comments had shown her that the conflict between the governing board was not isolated to KPFA. “This is happening nation wide,” she said. 

Similarly programmer Larry Bensky, who now volunteers after having been fired from his paid public affairs post, agreed that taking the hearings to the national level was critical. 

In a phone interview, after his on-air anchoring of the hearings, Bensky pointed to the cumulative effect of several events: these hearings, the hearings last year before the State Joint Audit Committee and subsequent rulings by the Attorney General’s office permitting a lawsuit naming the Pacifica Foundation to move forward. 

“It’s not the end; (the Progressive Caucus) intends to investigate,” he said.  

Pacifica Foundation Board member Michael Palmer resigned Monday. Local KPFA staff and supporters showed no regrets. 

An e-mail Palmer accidentally sent to a KPFA activist during the summer of 1999, intended for a fellow board member, discussed the possible sale of Pacifica stations KPFA and WBAI and heightened the tensions already at boiling point between the board, and the staff and volunteers at the stations. 

“I’m sorry that his tenure has caused so much damage,” said Local Advisory Board Chair Sherry Gendelman. “I’m happy that he has taken this course of action.” 

In his resignation letter to Board Chair David Acosta, Palmer wrote: “I also offer encouragement to other board members to protect themselves from the tactics employed by a small number of individuals and groups in opposition to the progressive message of the Pacifica Foundation.” 

The real estate offices where Palmer works have been the target of pickets who oppose his role on the board. 

In his resignation letter, Palmer praised the board for its work: “Early results indicate that the foundation is on the cusp of financial health and that the listening audience is growing enough to fully fund all operations. I commend the stewardship of yourself (Acosta) and your predecessor (Mary Francis Berry).” 

Gendelman said she hoped the resignation signaled further departures from the board by those who had acted “contrary to the mission of Pacifica.” 

A alleged prostitute working on the 2800 block of San Pablo Avenue just after midnight Thursday was attacked and robbed by a suspected former pimp, police said. 

Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes said a man driving a white Cadillac pulled up beside the alleged prostitute Thursday, got out of the car and began demanding that the woman turn over all her cash. The woman, who claimed to have been assaulted by the man before, took off running across San Pablo Avenue, Lopes said. 

But the alleged pimp caught her on the median dividing San Pablo’s southbound and northbound traffic, Lopes said. As he beat the woman, another woman came running from the Cadillac to help search the victim for money, Lopes said. 

Police responded to a cell phone call from someone who witnessed the attack while driving past on San Pablo. Minutes after the attack, they found the Cadillac driving west on University Avenue, Lopes said. 

Both suspects were charged with robbery and assault, Lopes said. 

••• 

A man released from San Quentin prison Friday morning was back in jail that evening after fighting with a parole officer and attempting to seize the officer’s gun, police said. 

About 3 p.m. Friday a man entered the Berkeley Parole Office on the 1900 block of University Avenue demanding to see a certain parole officer, Lt. Lopes said. 

The officer in questions was not in the office, but another officer, noticing that the suspect had a heavy scent of alcohol on his breath, asked him to remain in the office. The suspect shouted obscenities before running out of the office, Lopes said. 

When the parole officer attempted to detain the man in front of the parole office, a struggle ensued. The suspect allegedly reached for the parole officer’s pistol, concealed underneath his jacket, before other parole officers managed to pull the two apart. 

The suspect was charged with attempted robbery, resisting arrest and violation of parole, Lopes said.  

••• 

An angry SUV driver allegedly attempted to run a man down in his car after a verbal altercation at a gas station Friday. 

About 4:30 p.m. Friday a man filling up at the ARCO station at 833 University Avenue was startled by the sound of a large white SUV crunching into his car’s bumper. 

The driver of the SUV got out of his car and began to berate the man whose car he had damaged, accusing him of having parked incorrectly by the gas pump, Lt. Lopes said. 

An argument ensued, Lopes said, until the SUV driver allegedly grabbed the other man by the neck and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.  

“I’m gonna run your white ass over,” the man allegedly said, as the victim lay sprawled on the ground. 

The assailant returned to his car, did a hasty U-turn, and attempted to run down his victim, Lopes said. But the victim had managed to climb to his feet and leapt out of the way of the SUV, Lopes said. 

Police investigators are still searching for the SUV and its driver, Lopes said. The victim was not seriously injured and declined medical attention at the scene.

SAN DIEGO — “Monty Montezuma,” San Diego State’s red-faced, spear-throwing mascot, got the heave-ho Tuesday by the university president, who wants a more dignified portrayal of the Aztec leader. 

The most significant change announced by President Stephen Weber is eliminating Montezuma as a cheerleading mascot and using him as a historically accurate “ambassador.” 

So, gone are the days of Monty wearing a loincloth and headdress, emerging from a shroud of smoke, dancing around and flinging a flaming spear into the turf moments before kickoff of football games at Qualcomm Stadium. 

And the school plans to gradually phase out the logo of a red-faced, glaring Indian that adorns stationery, literature, uniforms and the basketball court at Cox Arena.  

The changes are expected to be completed by fall 2003. 

“If we are to employ the symbols of another culture, and portray a particular historical figure within that culture, we have an obligation to do so in an accurate and respectful way,” Weber said at a news conference. 

Monty’s performance at football games, for instance, doesn’t quite meet that standard, Weber said. 

“The Aztecs considered fire sacred. In a broad sense, I think what well-intended people inadvertently did was drift a little bit north toward Hollywood.  

“And I think we’re going to drift back down to Mesoamerica, where we belong.” 

The name “Monty” also will disappear in official references and campus business establishments using the name will be renamed, Weber said.  

The only exception will be an alumni association award named The Monty. 

Weber said the school plans to have the new Montezuma at sporting events, but it’s yet to be determined what he’ll do and look like. Experts on Aztec culture will have a say in the process, Weber said. 

“Remember, this is a person who was the head of state, the head of the religion and the head of the military.  

“If you’re going to take on that portrayal, you have to do it with behaviors that are appropriate to a person of that stature,” Weber said. 

Montezuma also will have broader responsibilities for educating the public on Aztec culture, Weber said. 

Times have changed since Monty made his debut in 1941 when, during a homecoming game, he emerged from a teepee and chased young coeds. 

The representation evolved over the years.  

In 1983, he sat atop a pyramid among his attendants on the sidelines at football games.  

The next season, he returned to his role of firing up the players and fans. 

American Indian and Latino students long have complained the Aztec identity is racist and disrespectful. 

In September, the Associated Students Council called on Weber to retire the Montezuma mascot.  

It later organized a student referendum in which 86 percent of voters opted to keep the current logos and Monty depictions. 

Recently, a panel of 20 students, faculty, alumni and community members, recommended the school keep its Aztec identity but do away with inaccurate depictions of the 16th-century ruler. 

Weber’s announcement Tuesday failed to please Ron Gochez, a leader of the Chicano student group MEChA, because Montezuma still will be used to represent the university. 

“We’re not going to stand for it,” he said. “We were calling for the abolishment of any human figure.” 

Freshman Randall Mack, however, said the school should have honored the student vote. 

“It’s not like it’s making fun of Indians or American Indians or anything. It’s just a mascot representing the school,” Mack said. “It’s something to proud of. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” 

On the Net: 

http://www.sdsu.edu/identity/

State power regulators finally decided Tuesday how to spread the pain of the biggest electric rate hikes in California history, boosting rates by as much as 80 percent for residential customers who use the most power. 

More than half of the residential ratepayers served by the state’s two largest utilities will see no increase at all in their rates if they don’t increase their use. 

But Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers who consume the most will see their rates jump from 14.3 cents per kilowatt hour to 25.8 cents per kilowatt hour, which translates into an average increase of $85 per month for electricity. 

The plan, approved 3-2 by the state Public Utilities Commission, affects about 9 million customers of PG&E and Southern California Edison Co. 

Even after the vote, there was confusion within the PUC over the new rates. The commission released three sets of figures throughout the day, each with dramatically different rate hikes. Spokesmen for both PG&E and Edison said it will take at least a day of number crunching to know precisely how the rate hikes will affect the dozens of different customer classes. 

The new rates, which will appear on June bills, were approved nearly seven weeks after the PUC mandated a $5 billion rate hike. The split vote came after a week of intense lobbying by industrial, commercial, agricultural and residential groups – all hoping to shift more of the increases onto each other. 

“This is probably the worst economic calamity the state has ever seen,” said David Marshall, chief financial officer at Gregg Industries, a 400-person iron foundry in El Monte. “It has got ramifications well beyond anything that we can begin to understand.” 

Gregg already has switched its production cycle from during the day to a night shift to save electricity, Marshall said, but he expects the rate hike plan approved Tuesday to cost Gregg at least $1 million this year. 

Paul Clanon, director of the PUC’s energy division, said rate hikes on industrial customers would be capped at 49 percent. Rate hikes for agricultural customers are capped at 25 to 30 percent. Rate hikes for commercial ratepayers, such as banks, hospitals and restaurants, were not immediately clear due to conflicting numbers. 

Commissioner Richard Bilas said too high a percent of the hikes had been shifted onto commercial ratepayers. 

“While something has been done to tone down the impact on industrial customers, it appears to have been done at the expense of small and medium businesses, which make up the majority of businesses in this state,” Bilas said as he urged his fellow commissioners to vote against the proposal. 

The 80 percent figure for the biggest electricity users came from a chart released by Clanon after the vote. 

Under state law, a portion of every residential customer’s electric use – called baseline, a percentage of the average amount of electricity use in an area based on climate, geography and season – is shielded from rate hikes. 

The PUC could only raise rates on power use beyond 130 percent of baseline. Clanon’s chart shows an average 60 percent rate hike on all electricity use that exceeds 130 percent of baseline. 

The biggest losers are the biggest users. 

Residential power use is divided into five tiers, and electricity used within PG&E’s top tier will jump by 80 percent. About 9 percent of PG&E’s households fall in that top tier. 

Those hikes for the top tier translate into an average increase of $85 – from $232 to $317 – on monthly bills for such customers. 

For Edison’s heaviest residential users, the rate hike in the top tier is 71 percent – or an average increase from $194 to $265 on monthly bills. 

Even top-tier customers will not pay more for electricity use that falls within that first 130 percent of baseline. 

However, commercial, industrial and agricultural customers will have to pay their rate hikes on every kilowatt. 

Steve Strong, a plum and nectarine grower in Visalia, was optimistic the rate hikes won’t bruise his business. But with unstable weather, fluctuating costs and now the potential for blackouts that could hit refrigerated packing houses and shut down water pumps, agriculture is becoming an even riskier business. 

“I don’t have to go to Vegas or Tahoe, I’ve got enough gambling going on here,” he said. 

The rate hikes, which will begin appearing on June bills, will be retroactive to March 27 – the day the record rate hikes were approved – though those retroactive charges will be spread over a 12-month period. 

Commissioners were forced to shout their votes over the din of jeering protesters, who wore tombstone-shaped placards that read: “R.I.P. Affordable Energy.” 

PUC Commissioner Jeff Brown bellowed back at protesters: “We cannot walk away from it. We cannot pretend that this is some sort of problem that we can walk away from.” 

The final rates were a revised version of a proposal released by PUC President Loretta Lynch last week. Lynch postponed a scheduled Monday vote to rework her plan after a massive outcry from businesses proclaiming the proposed rate hikes would doom California’s economy, a critical statement from Gov. Gray Davis and pressure from fellow commissioners to lessen the impact on businesses. 

Since it unanimously approved the rate hikes in March, the PUC has crammed a year’s worth of work into six weeks, struggling to fashion rates that simultaneously recoup the $5.2 billion the state has spent buying power for the customers of the state’s two largest utilities and trigger enough conservation to help fend off some of this summer’s expected rolling blackouts. 

Customers of San Diego Gas and Electric Co. and those who buy electricity directly from energy wholesalers, such as the California university system, are shielded from rate hikes. 

WHAT’S NEXT 

• No power alerts Tuesday as electricity reserves stay above 7 percent. 

• A major credit agency downgrades California’s credit, citing the energy crisis’ increasing drain on the state’s finances. Moody’s Investors Services dropped the credit rating on the state’s general obligation bonds from Aa3 to Aa2. The credit change comes a day after Gov. Gray Davis’ release of a revised budget that trims $3.2 billion from his January proposal. 

• The North American Electric Reliability Council releases a report estimating that California could have 260 hours of rolling blackouts this summer. The report says the Northwest should have enough power to meet its needs this summer, but won’t have any excess to send to California. NERC also warns that transmission problems in other regions, such as New England and New York, could surface this summer. The report says Texas should be closely watched when it opens its market to full retail access. 

• State power regulators finally decided Tuesday, after a flurry of changing proposals, how to spread the pain of the biggest electric rate hikes in California history. Residential customers who use the most power could see their bills jump by 80 percent according to Paul Clanon, director of the PUC energy division. More than half of residential ratepayers served by the state’s two largest utilities will see no increase at all on their bills. Clanon said rate hikes for industrial customers are capped at 49 percent. Rate hikes for commercial users and farmers were not immediately clear due to conflicting numbers. 

——— 

On the Net: 

California Public Utilities Commission: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov 

Gov. Gray Davis: http://www.governor.ca.gov 

LOS ANGELES — The rising cost of gas appears to be prompting many Southern California motorists to find alternative ways of getting around. 

Subway ridership rose 5 percent last month, with the number of passengers on the Red Line subway in Los Angeles jumping from 119,000 in March to 125,000 in April. 

“While we’ve been seeing increases of one or two thousand per month, an increase of) 6,000 people on a daily basis is significant,” said Ed Scannell, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “It’s clear that a significant portion of that ridership was due to those gas prices.” 

Since March 23, the average price of regular self-serve gasoline has gone from $1.58 to $1.90 cents per gallon in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, analyst Trilby Lundberg said. 

The MTA also has seen an increase in bus ridership. 

Ridership increased from 1,161,490 in March to 1,196,042 in April. However, Scannell is less inclined to attribute most of that increase to the cost of gas. 

“A significant number of our bus riders are dependent on us because they don’t have cars, and while many of those who ride the rails also do not have cars, there are more people who have a choice,” he said.  

“There are more discretionary riders on the Red Line.” 

On Monday, the MTA unveiled a proposed $2.7 billion budget that would put more buses on the streets and more rail cars on the tracks. The spending package calls for adding 117 more buses along with more cars along the Blue and Green light-rail lines. 

The new budget would increase MTA spending by 6.7 percent, or $183 million a year. It anticipates that significant numbers of commuters will continue to move from cars to trains or buses. 

This summer, the Blue Line between downtown and Long Beach will increase the length of each train to three cars. Plans also call for the Green Line, which now runs one-car trains between Norwalk and El Segundo, to add an extra car. 

Rising fuel prices are also included. In the new budget, the transit agency’s bill for fuel is expected to jump 169 percent — or $17.5 million. 

Still, MTA officials believe they can stay within the budget without increasing fares. 

The Dalai Lama expressed hope for a more peaceful 21st century Tuesday night, saying humanity seems to have learned something from the bloody and violent one that just ended. 

“In the 20th century, there was more bloodshed, more pain and suffering,” he told a sold-out crowd of about 10,000 at Memorial Coliseum, capping his three-day visit to Portland. He leaves for San Jose today. 

As technology advanced, he said, so did destructive power. “Material development did not make us more humane. What was lacking was human compassion. Humanity is actually too much mechanized.” 

The Dalai Lama, 65, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of Tibet’s exiled government, is on a three-week American visit. His audience paid from $25 to $100 to attend the lecture titled “Ethics for a new Millennium.” A portion of the ticket price will go toward construction of a Buddhist cultural center in Portland. 

In wars of the past, he said, heroes used their strength, swords and spears. “At least it was an honest war,” he lamented. 

Now, he said, with modern warfare, one side can’t see the suffering it imposes on others. “Mechanized war is much more serious, much more dangerous,” he said. 

“If we combine our brilliant brain with a warm heart, human beings will have the potential to overcome their problems,” he said. “I think there are many signs of hope because of our past experiences.” 

He cited South Africa’s progress, Mahatma Gandhi of India and Martin Luther King Jr. 

In both World Wars, he said, people supported the government without question. During Vietnam, they not only questioned policy but demonstrated against it. 

While the talk was mostly serious, the Buddhist leader also displayed his gentle sense of humor. He said people attending the lecture with great expectations would be disappointed. Some, he said, believed that he had healing powers. 

“I want to show you my skin problem here,” he said 

The red-and-saffron-robed Dalai Lama, the 14th, is considered the reincarnation of his predecessor. He fled to India as a teenager in 1959 after a failed uprising against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. 

He decried the wide gap between rich and poor. Too much emphasis on material wealth is immoral, he said, when hundreds of thousands of people struggle to survive. 

“We must think to reduce this gap,” he said. “We have to develop a more civil, more contented way of life.” 

He urged self-discipline and the foregoing of short-term pleasures for long-term results. “If I take a drug I may get satisfaction, but eventually it will ruin the body,” he said as an example. 

He said man’s intellect gives him access to all processes and emotions, but it also gets him into trouble. 

If we want peace, he said, “no disturbances, a trouble-free world, all human beings should go to heaven. There should be no human beings on this planet.” 

But he said that while humanity can be a troublemaker, it is uniquely capable of absolute altruism. “We have great potential,” he said. 

He urged his audience to implement some of what he said, if they found it of some interest. 

“If you feel these points are not of much interest, then forget it!” he said to close the speech.

VALLEJO — Cal OSHA is investigating an accident at Marine World this weekend in which a woman fell off a ride and had to be hospitalized. 

It happened Saturday afternoon on the park’s Starfish. Marine World spokesman Jeff Jouett said the woman suffered a two to three-inch cut to the back of her head after falling about six feet. 

She was airlifted to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek where she was kept overnight for observation. Jouett said her injuries appear to be not serious. 

He said the ride was closed after the 4 p.m. accident Saturday and it won’t be reopened “until everyone is satisfied that it’s safe.” 

How the woman was injured isn’t clear. Safety lap restraints on the ride lock automatically and the ride won’t function if one of the restraints isn’t locked, Jouett said. 

“At this point, it’s not known whether it was mechanical design or passenger related, or a combination of those,” he said. 

In addition to Cal OSHA investigators, park engineers have inspected the ride. The ride is manufactured by Chance Rides in Kansas and a representative of that company is scheduled to be at the park Tuesday. 

Rides at the park are inspected on a daily basis, Jouett said. 

“And if there’s any cause for concern during the day, they’re reinspected.” 

The Starfish has been in the park since 1998 and Jouett said he doesn’t know of another accident involving the ride. 

The Starfish is a disc-shaped ride that goes in circles while tilting back and forth, much like a spinning plate. 

SACRAMENTO — Supporters of California’s proposed high-speed rail system hope lawmakers will provide some money to keep the project on track despite Gov. Gray Davis’ decision to cut off most funding. 

“I’m optimistic that we will be able to get something back in the budget, but it certainly will not be a very aggressive expansion in the next year or two,” Richard Silver, executive director of the Train Riders Association of California, said Tuesday. 

The current state budget includes $5 million to begin the three years of environmental reviews that are needed before the state could begin building the 700-mile, $26 billion system. 

High-speed rail planners had asked the governor for another $14 million to continue the studies during the fiscal year that starts July 1. 

But Davis included no money for the studies in the revised budget plan he unveiled Monday, although he left in place about $1 million to run the High-Speed Rail Authority, the agency overseeing the studies. 

The governor said a slowing economy had forced him to cut almost $3.2 billion in tax cuts and spending increases from the budget plan he initially proposed in January. 

“We were looking for areas to reduce rather than areas to expand,” said Sandy Harrison, a spokesman for Davis’ Department of Finance. 

Silver, whose group supports high-speed rail, said California has to develop the system to cope with population growth and that postponing the studies would cost the state more in the long run. 

By delaying the studies, the greater the chance the previous work will lose its value and force planners to start over again, Silver said. 

He said he hoped to convince lawmakers to add $5 million or $6 million to the budget to at least continue the environmental reviews on the route between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. 

“That’s probably the single most important development in high-speed rail,” he said.  

“It would benefit freight and passengers. If we can move forward on that there is some value to it.” 

The system would link Sacramento, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego with trains running at speeds of up to 220 mph.  

Advocates say it could be built in stages, with the Los Angeles-to-Bakersfield stretch as an obvious starting point. 

There’s no direct passenger train service between the two cities now, and freight trains are forced to take a long, slow route over the mountains between the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles Basin. 

Medhi Morshed, the authority’s executive director, cut short a stay at a high-speed rail conference in Milwaukee and was hurrying back to Sacramento on Tuesday after learning of Davis’ decision. 

He said he was surprised the governor didn’t include any study funding in his revised budget plan. 

“They’ve known all along that the environmental work would cost (a total of) $25 million,” Morshed said. “We could have avoided spending $5 million for no good reason.” 

He said he didn’t have enough information to predict if lawmakers would include any money for the studies in the budget bill they will send to Davis this summer. 

The governor could veto or reduce whatever lawmakers appropriate. 

On the Net: Read the plan at www.cahighspeedrail

WASHINGTON — A Democratic proposal to finance the hiring of thousands of public school teachers went down to narrow defeat in the Senate as the administration and its Republican allies sought to assert control over debate on President Bush’s education bill. 

Tuesday’s vote was 50-48 against an amendment by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and marked the first time in several fitful weeks of debate that the Senate rejected a move to add spending to the legislation or to tighten federal controls over its use. 

Murray, a former school board member, said her amendment was designed to reduce class size in public schools nationwide. The head of the Democratic senatorial campaign committee, she also said Republicans “will find their opponents talking about this in the next election.” 

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican whose name will be on the ballot next year, voted against the proposal. “I want to give school districts local flexibility for spending the money,” she said. To set classroom size as the “only priority, when schools have different needs depending on where they are, strikes me as a mistake.” 

At the same time, conservatives and GOP leaders said they intend to seek removal of some earlier spending add-ons when it comes time to negotiate a House-Senate compromise. 

“I think it’s getting financially irresponsible, but hopefully we will get it cleaned up,” said Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the Senate GOP whip. 

The developments came as the Senate plodded through another day of debate over Bush’s top legislative priority. The measure would mandate annual state-run testing of all students in grades three through eight in math and reading. Schools where test scores fall short of standards would receive additional federal support to improve, and after three years, students would be allowed to use federal money for tutoring or transportation to different public schools. 

A companion measure is scheduled for a vote in the House this week, and sponsors have been scrambling to shore up the support of conservatives unhappy with changes voted in committee. 

“We need to do a better job” of promoting the legislation to the GOP rank and file, said White House education adviser Sandy Kress. The White House issued a formal statement of support, coupled with recommendations for changes to restore elements of the president’s program that were taken out in committee. 

As part of the effort to reassure conservatives, the House Education Committee has issued a steady stream of material in recent days, including a letter of support from the Home School Legal Defense Association, an organization that supports home schooling. 

In addition, though, the White House and GOP leaders are crafting amendments designed to placate conservatives, including one to restore Bush’s plan for private school vouchers for students in failing schools. For their part, some conservative and liberal lawmakers may offer an amendment to remove the annual testing provision from the bill. 

“Too many teachers are spending time on crowd control instead of spending time on curriculum,” said Murray as she advanced her amendment. She said it would allow continuation of former President Clinton’s proposal to hire 100,000 new teachers, rather than combine that program with one that pays for teacher training, as Bush favors. Her measure also would have called for an additional $2.4 billion above what is in the bill. 

The amendment failed on a party-line vote, as all 50 Republicans voting against it. All 48 votes in favor came from Democrats. 

Education consistently ranks high in importance with the public in polling, and the debate is unfolding in a changing political atmosphere. 

The issue has long favored Democrats in congressional and presidential elections, but recent polls have shown parity or even a slight GOP advantage. Bush stressed the issue heavily in his bid for the White House, and congressional Republicans abandoned their effort to abolish the Education Department. 

Murray’s amendment was in a series that Democrats have offered in an attempt to maneuver Republicans into voting against politically attractive measures as they labor to approve legislation in line with Bush’s request. Also expected to come to a vote is a proposal to increase money for school construction. 

In recent days, the Senate has voted to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the education bill, much of it targeted at helping disabled children or poor students. Some amendments included actual funding, and some specified that financing would depend on future voting. Some of the proposal were merely advisory. 

Some or most probably will be jettisoned in the attempt to forge a compromise between the House and Senate. 

On the Net: Web sites for House members, committees: http://www.house.gov/

FORT MEADE, Md. — Once, the National Security Agency insignia, a bald eagle perched on a skeleton key, surveyed a barren terrain of top-secret letterhead, its forbidding stare known only to a privileged few. 

Now, it spreads its wings over teddy bears, tie-dye shirts and nail-trimmers sold to tourists, part of an effort to let Americans get a glimpse of what the nation’s premier eavesdropping agency does. 

Competing with a dozen other agencies for intelligence dollars, the largest and most secretive of them wants to spread the word about itself. 

Most of its work is still plenty hush-hush. 

Its openness around the edges is a departure for the 49-year-old organization jokingly called “No Such Agency” and perhaps best known for efforts not to be known at all. 

“It’s changed all right,” said author James Bamford. Twenty years ago he faced threats of prosecution for publishing NSA-related documents; recently he faced a crowd of agents at his book launch on the NSA campus. 

“Instead of putting me in jail,” he said, “they’re throwing me a book party.” 

The NSA’s director, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, accelerated the change after his 1999 appointment, perhaps most dramatically by making public two lacerating reports on agency deficiencies. 

“There are some things that we can say, that we ought to say,” he commented in an unusual interview with the History Channel. 

The end of the Cold War led some to question the need for a national eavesdropper and subjected intelligence budgets generally to a harder look. 

“Like everyone else in the intelligence community, the NSA is being forced to reveal more than it wants to about itself,” said Norman Polmar, who wrote “Spy Plane: The U2 History,” an NSA-related exploit gone wrong. 

The internal NSA reports released by Hayden said that “ineffective leadership” and “our insular, somewhat arrogant culture and position” had led Congress to cut money to the agency, which gets the largest share of the $30 billion intelligence budget. 

Openness only goes so far. A European Union team angrily left the United States last week when NSA and CIA officials refused to meet with its members. The team is investigating whether the United States engages in economic espionage. 

NSA agents were once what snoops called “top secret famous” – nameless shadows celebrated only among the select few in the intelligence community. 

Their coups were legion: Agency eavesdropping allowed President Kennedy to learn Soviet bluff lines during the Cuban missile crisis, and the NSA’s Berber linguists linked Libyan agents to the 1986 bombing of a German discotheque that killed a U.S. soldier. 

In recent years, the progenitor of information technology in the 1950s has been lagging behind Silicon Valley. 

In January 2000, the NSA’s overtasked computers shut down for three days. 

Hayden slashed staff and hired outside contractors. Last year, Congress increased intelligence funding by 7 percent. 

To be sure, sleight-of-hand tics persist at the NSA. Gift shop purchases appear on credit card statements credited to a mysterious Civilian Welfare Fund. 

The NSA museum, vaunted as the hallmark of its new openness, concentrates on World War II codebreaking. 

“It’s an outstanding tool in helping people understand what the NSA is about without getting into some of the problematic issues,” said agency historian Patrick Weadon. 

“It’s too much about war,” complained Sandro Dallaturca, a Belgian banking encryptologist who had been looking forward to learning about encoding techniques. 

Missy Spiegl, 15, whose father works for the NSA, thought the museum might give her some family insights. 

“I’ve been trying for years to get out of my dad what he does, but I can’t,” she said. 

Inside the agency, change has been palpable. 

The NSA has farmed out some research, allowed an ex-agent to publish an account of how he redesigned an internal communications system and cooperated on Bamford’s book, a largely sympathetic history of the agency by an author who favors more spending on intelligence technology. 

That may have been an astute move on the NSA director’s part, Polmar said. “Honey catches more than a fly swatter.” 

Spreading suburbs have brought neighbors close to the agency’s long-isolated campus. After a few mishaps, the NSA reached out to the community. 

“They are the hidden powerhouse of the county,” said Janet Owens, Anne Arundel County leader. She’s thrilled the NSA recently enticed General Dynamics to build a local plant. 

Staffers once forbidden to say where they worked now lead one of the nation’s largest blood drives. NSA firemen train local volunteers in how to contain a chemical attack. 

There’s the after-school tutoring: Linguists monitor drug traffickers by day and teach Spanish by night; code-cracking mathematicians walk teens through logarithms. 

And there’s a 4-year-old park commemorating the 152 people who have died in service to the agency and country. 

“I am military intelligence and I am always out front ... always,” reads the plaque. 

——— 

On the Net: 

NSA website: http://www.nsa.gov 

WASHINGTON — The record-high prices at the nation’s gas pumps should start going down around Memorial Day – even in especially hard-hit California and the Midwest, a top federal energy official said Tuesday. 

Prices may rise another nickel a gallon over the next two weeks, but unless new problems develop, they will begin falling, John Cook, director of the Energy Information Administration’s petroleum division, told a House Energy subcommittee. 

Refineries are winding up maintenance and increasing production, allowing supplies to creep up. Wholesale prices have dropped in the last two weeks, foreshadowing retail drops that lag two to four weeks behind, Cook said. 

The news comes just as Americans are about to kick off the summer driving and vacationing season. 

Gas prices hit a record high Tuesday, averaging $1.72 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA. Drivers in the Midwest – especially Chicago – are getting the worst of it, followed closely by those in California. The average price in Chicago on Tuesday was $2.08 a gallon. 

The cycle appears similar to last year, when gas went well above $2 a gallon in June in Midwestern cities like Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit, then dropped. 

Cook dismissed recent talk of possible $3-a-gallon gas. Even if everything goes wrong in the nation’s gasoline supply and distribution system this summer, prices won’t go that high, he said. 

“We aren’t going to see $3-a-gallon gasoline anywhere this year,” he said. 

The factors to blame for this year’s increases are familiar, Cook said. They include a tight crude oil market, lower gas inventories than last year, a patchwork of different, cleaner-burning gasoline blends required in many smoggy cities, and limits on refining capacity. 

The problem is especially acute in the Midwest and West because of special requirements placed on “reformulated” gasoline sold there in summer. 

In addition, recent fires at Tosco refineries in Los Angeles and Wood River, Ill., threatened supplies and helped prices surge. The Chicago market has been further squeezed by the closing of the Premcor Inc. refinery in Blue Island. 

Cook emphasized that inventories remain tighter than normal for this time of year, leaving the nation vulnerable if a refinery goes down or a pipeline breaks. “Today little cushion exists to absorb changing conditions,” he said. 

Midwestern inventories are particularly low, ending last week 10 percent below their five-year average, he said. 

Various energy users – a national retailer, a farm fertilizer manufacturer, the American Association of Retired Persons and others – told lawmakers they are hurting from high fuel costs, for electricity and natural gas as well as gasoline. The situation is cutting into business profitability, contributing to higher product prices for consumers and endangering farmers, they said. 

“Motorists by the millions are suffering massive sticker shock every time they pull in to fill up,” said Lon Anderson, public affairs director for AAA Mid-Atlantic.  

“We all know that over the long term, high fuel prices will literally fuel higher costs for virtually everything else from food to clothes to services and thus, fuel inflation.” The hearing was held as Democrats and Republicans debate how to chart the nation’s energy future. Congressional Democrats unveiled an energy blueprint Tuesday meant to draw a contrast with a plan expected to be released Thursday by the White House. 

On the Net: 

Energy Information Administration: http://www.eia.doe.gov 

AAA: http://aaa.com/news12/prmain.html 

NEW YORK — Wall Street got the interest rate cut it had been hoping for Tuesday, but that wasn’t enough to put investors in a buying mood. 

Instead, the market ended the session virtually unchanged, with blue chips falling slightly and tech issues managing a small gain. Analysts attributed the lukewarm reaction to the fact the reduction was expected, as well as broader concerns about still-weak business conditions. 

“The market got what is was expecting, so this is basically a non-event,” said Matt Brown, head of equity management at Wilmington Trust. “The good news is that with five interest rate cuts in four-and-a-half months, we’ve now got the wind at our back. The second quarter should still be weak but we’re very confident the economy will start to improve this fall.” 

The Fed indicated its decision Tuesday to lower interest rates by a half point was due to concerns about various drags on the economy, including a decline in business investment in new equipment. 

But the rate reduction failed to spark a strong rally on Wall Street, as many previous announcements have done. Although the major stock indexes did advance on the Fed’s move, those gains faded as the session wore on. In the technology sector, Microsoft fell 45 cents to $68.27, while Texas Instruments rose 24 cents to $37.03 after reiterating a second-quarter outlook that includes double-digit revenue losses. 

Retailing, manufacturing and other non-technology issues were also mixed. Wal-Mart slipped $2.35 to $52 after meeting previously reduced expectations for its first quarter but warning that double-digit growth won’t return until the second half of its fiscal year. 

The Fed’s move was closely watched because, in the absence of strong profits or other encouraging news, Wall Street has been increasingly looking to interest rate cuts as a catalyst on which to rally. As a result, the markets traded in a narrow range for much of the week leading up to the Fed’s announcement. Investors were also unnerved by speculation that the Fed would cut rates by less than a half percentage point. Now the market must look for other good news to advance on, but analysts say that might not come along for a while. 

— The Associated Press 

Pre-announcements for second-quarter results, which are expected to be weak, will start rolling in next month. And no one knows whether the Fed will cut rates again, although the statement issued Tuesday suggests that the action is not out of the question. 

The tone of and level of concern in the statement caught many off guard. 

“I thought their statement was surprisingly aggressive. They said that they may lower rates again if conditions continue to deteriorate,” said Bill Barker, investment strategy consultant at Dain Rauscher. “But we’ve got six weeks until their next meeting with the unlikely prospect of an intra-meeting cut before then.” 

Advancing issues led decliners 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.28 billion shares, compared with 1.02 billion Monday. 

The Russell 2000 index rose 2.99 to 489.63. 

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 1.3 percent. Germany’s DAX index advanced nearly 0.1 percent, Britain’s FT-SE 100 was up 2.7 percent, and France’s CAC-40 gained 1.0 percent.  

WASHINGTON — Zach Landau, 13, gets a weekly allowance of $6.50. He spends some on crickets and fleas as food for his menagerie of lizards, salamanders, tree frogs and other creatures. Some of it he saves. 

His parents don’t plan to give him or his siblings credit cards despite peer pressure. 

Nationwide, too many parents don’t make that decision, according to a survey of American parents.  

Drowning in credit card debt themselves, they set bad examples and fail to teach their children how to manage and save money, the survey said. 

Zach came with his father from Oak Hill, Va., to appear at a news conference where the survey results were released. The boy said he likes the idea of putting aside some of his allowance but admitted his approval is not total. 

By saving the money, Zach said, “You don’t really get the immediate gratification you’d like.” 

The survey by the American Savings Education Council and the Employee Benefit Research Institute released showed that 51 percent of parents believe they understand financial matters very well. 

Yet 55 percent said they carry over credit card debt from month to month, which often inspires the same behavior in their children, said Dallas Salisbury, the savings council’s chairman. 

“You’re setting them up for a lifetime of distress,” he said. 

Young people are bombarded by tempting products and messages urging them to buy now and worry later. 

At the same time, the average savings rate of Americans has plunged to the lowest levels since the Depression, hitting minus 1.3 percent in February.  

The EBRI-ASEC “Choose to Save” coalition, the banking industry and other groups are trying to get through to children early about the importance of saving. 

An overwhelming number of young people say they turn to their parents for financial education and guidance. 

What are they receiving? According to the survey, 61 percent of parents include their children in discussions about family finances; 29 percent have provided educational materials to help teach their kids about financial responsibility; 52 percent have taught them how to make budgets; and 61 percent have shown them how to set financial goals. 

All those are recommended by the EBRI-ASEC coalition as ways parents can teach their children about good money management. 

The survey, conducted Jan. 4 through 30, covered 1,000 adults around the country with one or more children age 6-17. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. 

Also at Thursday’s news conference were Lucinia Mundy and her daughter, Opal, a 10-year-old from Brandywine, Md., whose weekly allowance is $5. About half of that goes in the bank, and the other half is spent on video games and other goodies, she said. 

Before spending, “I think long and hard about it,” Opal said.  

“I need to know what is more important to me.” 

Lucinia Mundy said she requires her daughter to save at least 20 percent of her allowance and cash gifts she receives from relatives. 

Besides the other EBRI-ASEC recommendations, the coalition also suggests that parents encourage their children to learn from mass media about saving and handling of money.  

They also should explain about employment and pension and saving plans, the coalition says. 

On the Net: Survey at American Savings Education Council Web site: http://www.asec.org

SANTA CLARA — Applied Materials Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of chip-making equipment, reported Tuesday a “severe decline” in earnings during the second quarter and missed Wall Street expectations by a penny. 

For the three months ended April 29, the company’s net income was $269 million, or 32 cents per diluted share, excluding one-time items. That’s down 41 percent from $459 million, or 53 cents per share, for the same period a year ago. 

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call predicted earnings of 33 cents per share. 

In the first quarter, the Santa Clara-based company warned it was being pinched as the U.S. economic downturn hurt its customers.  

As part of a cost-cutting effort, the company said it would offer severance packages to up to 1,000 employees, reduce its temporary work force, defer raises and shut down for five days in the second quarter. 

“Our business continued to experience a severe decline during the second quarter as decreased demand for electronic goods resulted in reduced capital equipment investment by semiconductor manufacturers,” said James C. Morgan, Applied’s chairman and chief executive. 

Net sales were $1.91 billion, down 30 percent from $2.73 billion in the same period a year ago, the company said. 

Applied Materials closed Tuesday at $49.89, up 20 cents, on the Nasdaq Stock Market. It was at $49.95 in after-hours trading. 

http://www.appliedmaterials.com 

S.F. World Music Festival 

Ashkenaz Music  

& Dance Community Center 

1317 San Pablo Ave  

Tonight: Nigerian Brothers and Zulu Exiles Acoustic $12 

Wednesday : Shoko Hikage Ensemble and Paul Pena 

& Friends $12 

Thursday: World Trance Trio:  

Jai Uttal, Stephen Kent, Geoffrey Gordon $13 

All shows begin at 8:00 pm 

For information, call 525-5054 or click on www.ashkenaz.com  

Berkeley is doubtless one of the culture centers of the Bay Area. We prove this by hosting many important concerts, premiere plays and the like. 

We also show our place by routinely co-hosting parts of long concert series that are billed as San Francisco events.  

Recently the San Francisco International Film Festival showed quite a few of its feature films at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive, saving Berkelyans the trouble of crossing the Bay to participate in the SFIFF.  

Similarly, during the next few days, Ashkenaz will host the San Francisco World Music Festival for a trio of concerts that display the variety that the festival has to offer. 

Tonight, the SFWMF will bring two African bands into Ashkenaz. The Nigerian Brothers will play “unplugged” versions of highlife, juju and various other styles in their most primal, earthy incarnations.  

So bring your dancin’ shoes, and plan to enjoy the best dance venue in the East Bay. Or come to just kick back and be mesmerized and intoxicated by the sweet “palmwine” tunes of rural Africa.Ken Okulolo leads several of the most prominent African bands of the Bay Area, each focusing on a different style.  

The Nigerian Brothers present the most traditional sound, the village roots of so much modern popular music. 

Although the Zulu Exiles have also promised an acoustic set, I believe they, too, will strive to get the audience up on their feet. Have no fear: they will be able to move you without electric guitars and synthesizers. 

Consisting mostly of former members of the popular local band Zulu Spear, the Zulu Exiles bring the pan-African sound to a peak level of performance. 

On Wednesday night, the focus will be rather different, as Paul Pena and Shoko Hikage share the concert billing. Many will already know of Paul Pena’s recent triumphs as an American blues singer who travelled to Tuva (part of Mongolia) to take high honors performing Tuvan folk songs which he had learned from shortwave radio broadcasts and other recordings.  

A brilliant documentary film called “Genghis Blues” showed events surrounding this journey. This concert will be a chance to hear Pena’s unique combination of central Asian idioms and the Blues, of which he is an indisputed master.  

Shoko Hikage plays the Japanese koto, using experimental techniques to extend the expressive range of that noble ancient instrument. Not willing merely to recreate classical compositions in obedience to tradition, she boldly explores new melodic and technical territories along with the other members of her ensemble. It will be interesting to hear what insights their recent searching has produced. This concert will refute the old saying that “East is East and West is West and ne’er the twain shall meet.” We will hear the fruits of both hemispheres’ learning from the other while meeting and melting in music. 

Thursday night will mark the closing of the SFWMF at Ashkenaz.  

The theme of “World Trance” will be played with and developed by Jai Uttal, Stephen Kent and Geoffrey Gordon, each of whom has crafted a career of combining spiritual music traditions of the East with some elements of postmodern pop to bring the Spirit to the masses. Expect a dazzling display of instruments, lead by Kent's fluidly pulsing didjeridoos, Uttal’s exotic melodies on sarod and guitar, and Gordon’s broad palette of percussion.  

I suspect that there will also be guest artists contributing to a memorable swirl of various styles to craft sound into a tool of heightened consciousness. Any one of these trance masters can invoke a profound world of sound; their symbiotic play will certainly be amazing. 

Of course, parts of the San Francisco World Music Festival will take place in the city during the coming week and a half. For details about concerts in the other venues, click on www.sfworldmusicfestival.org. 

Miko Sloper can be reached at miko@cheerful.com

The glassy-winged sharpshooter and the Pierce's Disease that it spreads are seen as a major threat to the state's wine industry. 

But University of California at Davis plant pathologists say a group of five fungi are also a threat to young grape vines.  

The fungi cause what is known as young vine decline. And like the bacterium-caused Pierce’s Disease, there is no known treatment, the pathologists say. 

Fortunately, only about 1 percent of the state's vineyards are affected by young vine decline. Pierce's Disease in contrast has infested 13 state counties and threatens the state's $2.8 billion wine, table grape and raisin crops. 

Both diseases affect the grapevine’s water conducting capabilities and tissue. 

The earliest report of the fungi in the state was in the late 1950s, but has become of some concern in vine growing regions since the early 1990s, pathologists say. 

And while Pierce’s Disease affects other crops, such as almonds, citrus, alfalfa and peaches, the fungi affect only grapevines. 

Pathologists believe “environmental stresses,” such as inadequate irrigation water or fertilizer, improper planting or producing a crop of fruit on very young vines can trigger the disease. The fungi that cause it are found in most vineyards, pathologists say. 

Affected vines may grow more slowly, have a smaller trunk and less foliage than normal, and contain yellowed or wilting leaves. 

The fungi can enter the vines through wounds made during propagation or pruning. Only rarely does an entire vineyard show symptoms, pathologists say. 

Nurseries can halt its spread by making sure they sell only vines that are otherwise healthy and protected from environmental stresses.

The glassy-winged sharpshooter and the Pierce's Disease that it spreads are seen as a major threat to the state's wine industry. 

But University of California at Davis plant pathologists say a group of five fungi are also a threat to young grape vines.  

The fungi cause what is known as young vine decline. And like the bacterium-caused Pierce’s Disease, there is no known treatment, the pathologists say. 

Fortunately, only about 1 percent of the state's vineyards are affected by young vine decline. Pierce's Disease in contrast has infested 13 state counties and threatens the state's $2.8 billion wine, table grape and raisin crops. 

Both diseases affect the grapevine’s water conducting capabilities and tissue. 

The earliest report of the fungi in the state was in the late 1950s, but has become of some concern in vine growing regions since the early 1990s, pathologists say. 

And while Pierce’s Disease affects other crops, such as almonds, citrus, alfalfa and peaches, the fungi affect only grapevines. 

Pathologists believe “environmental stresses,” such as inadequate irrigation water or fertilizer, improper planting or producing a crop of fruit on very young vines can trigger the disease. The fungi that cause it are found in most vineyards, pathologists say. 

Affected vines may grow more slowly, have a smaller trunk and less foliage than normal, and contain yellowed or wilting leaves. 

The fungi can enter the vines through wounds made during propagation or pruning. Only rarely does an entire vineyard show symptoms, pathologists say. 

Nurseries can halt its spread by making sure they sell only vines that are otherwise healthy and protected from environmental stresses.

BERKELEY — The University of California, Berkeley, will seek permission next week to begin evaluating freshmen applicants on a combination of academic and personal factors. 

The school’s request is the first attempt to change admissions rules since the regents voted Wednesday to eliminate their 1995 policies banning racial preferences in admissions. 

The new policy would not reinstate racial preferences, which remain against state law. 

It would mean some students who might have been excluded from Berkeley in the past could get in, while others who might have been admitted under the current rules could be excluded. 

“We think we get better, more interesting, more talented students” by evaluating each applicant comprehensively as an individual, said Calvin Moore, chairman of Berkeley’s undergraduate admissions committee. 

Moore said Berkeley wants to move to a system similar to that used by Harvard, Stanford and Yale. 

Opponents say moving away from tiered admissions, where at least half of students are admitted based on academic performance alone, is a political act that by definition will produce a less academically qualified class. 

The proportion of Latino, black and American Indian students admitted to Berkeley and UCLA has dropped dramatically in the past six years. 

University of California policy requires that 50 percent to 75 percent of each freshman class be admitted based on academic achievement alone. The percentages vary from about 50 percent at Berkeley to nearly 75 percent at UC-Santa Barbara.

On Friday, a 19-year old woman was hospitalized with a presumptive diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. Public health officials confirmed Thursday that the diagnosis is meningococcal meningitis.  

They continue to look for anyone who has had intimate contact with the affected individual, whose name is not being released, or members of her social network. The investigation has revealed this case is linked to the death of a 9-year-old Berkeley girl on May 1. The child died of meningococcal meningitis.  

There is not a single, individual carrier of this bacterial strain, public health officials said. The spread of this bacteria is through multiple social contacts within a social network that engages in activities that allow for the spread of the bacteria.  

People who have engaged in the following behaviors with an infected person are at risk of becoming infected themselves: unprotected sex including oral sex, sharing intravenous needles; using drugs such as crack cocaine that has been in another person’s mouth; sharing cigarettes, joints, drinks, or pipes; deep kissing; sharing food or drinks in a way that saliva is passed on.  

The illness is characterized by a sudden high fever, headache and a stiff neck. Those symptoms are often accompanied by nausea or vomiting. A person with these symptoms, should contact a health-care provider or go to a hospital emergency room immediately.  

Public health officials stress that meningococcal meningitis is hard to get. It requires the direct exchange of bodily fluids with an infected person. Medical experts strongly encourage community members to carefully assess their real risk of exposure before deciding to take medication because medicating unnecessarily sometimes leads to medical complications such as liver problems and, most importantly, antibiotic resistance. For more information, visit the Meningitis Information Sheet at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/news/generalInformation.pdf or call public health nurses who are available to answer community questions or concerns from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, at 644-6500.

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Richard Riordan issued a stern warning Wednesday to street gangs that have issued a bounty for the wounding or killing of Rampart station police officers. 

“These are men and women in our police department who wear their blue in pride and put their lives on the line every day of the year,” Riordan said.  

“And I can tell these gang members who have made these threats that if they carry out one threat, I will spend the rest of my life helping capture you and helping punish you.” 

The mayor made his remarks Wednesday during a press conference to announce his endorsement in the city’s upcoming mayoral election. 

Rampart officers have been on heightened alert since the threats were first uncovered about two weeks ago. 

“We’ve heard of $10,000 for an injury to an officer and $25,000 for the death of an officer,” Rampart Capt. Michael Moore, a station commander, said Tuesday. 

Moore said the threats have not affected the way officers patrol the community of about 350,000 people. 

“They wanna make threats, they can make ’em. A threat is one thing, but to try to accomplish that threat is another thing,” added Rampart Sgt. Patrick McCarty, who said the threats are not new. 

“We’ve had them in the past. We’re just going to be on alert as always.” 

The street gang threats were the latest cloud to hover over Rampart. 

Former Officer Rafael Perez, the central figure in the city’s worst police corruption scandal, told of misdeeds by fellow anti-gang officers in exchange for a lighter sentence for stealing cocaine from an evidence room. 

Perez claims members of the station’s anti-gang unit allegedly robbed, beat, framed and shot suspects over a period of several years in the mid- to late 1990s. 

But residents in the gritty neighborhood just west of downtown remained appreciative. 

“If it wasn’t for police we wouldn’t be able to walk the streets,” Jose Canales told KCBS-TV.

OAKLAND — Yvonne Westbrook recalls when getting relief from the symptoms of multiple sclerosis meant venturing into seedy parks to buy bags of marijuana from drug dealers. 

So she worries that the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling Monday could mean a return of those days. “Now they’ve opened us up to the street and all the perils involved,” she said. 

The high court ruled 8-0 on Monday there is no exception in federal anti-drug laws for patients to use marijuana to ease their pain from cancer, AIDS or other illnesses. 

Westbrook is fearful the ruling could mean the end for the dozens of distribution clubs that sprang up after California passed Proposition 215, the state law allowing people to grow and possess medical marijuana. 

“With the clubs you’re able to go to a clean, safe, secure environment,” she said. On the street, “you never know what you’re going to get. You never know who’s lurking behind the bush to jump you.” 

Voters in Arizona, Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington also have approved ballot initiatives allowing the use of medical marijuana.  

In Hawaii, the Legislature passed a similar law and the governor signed it last year. 

Patients like Westbrook could still use marijuana for medical reasons in states that allow it, legal experts said in several states affected by the ruling.  

But it would be more difficult to obtain because distribution violates federal law. 

Dr. Robert Killian of Seattle, the primary backer of the Washington’s successful 1998 marijuana initiative, said the ruling was a blow to marijuana distribution networks, which hoped to be able to provide pot to patients who instead must grow their own or buy it illegally. 

“They were hoping for some validation,” Killian said. “They are and always have been operating extralegally.” 

But JoAnna McKee, of the Seattle-based Green Cross Patient Co-op, said the network would continue to operate. 

“We are a network of patients who help other patients – all with notes from our doctors,” she said. “If you’re starving to death, and I have food, it’s my moral obligation to help you get food. 

“The Supreme Court has been wrong before. It used to be against the law to teach black people to read and write – they were wrong about that,” she said. 

In Alaska, 191 people have registered to use the drug as medicine, and officials there said they expect them to simply grow their own. 

“The ruling is clearly about the distribution of marijuana, not the possession of marijuana,” said David Finkelstein, a former state legislator who led the Alaska petition drive to legalize medicinal marijuana use. 

“Basically what it says is that cannabis clubs can’t be opened up in Alaska,” Finkelstein said in a telephone interview.  

Some Alaskans who registered with the state to use medical marijuana don’t want to grow it, or can’t grow it, Finkelstein said. But “for most patients, it’s working well.” 

But in Arizona, officials said that while two voter-approved measures legalized marijuana for medical use under state law, doctors have not been prescribing it because doing so would violate a federal law – and now they are even more unlikely to do so. 

”(The court’s ruling) confirms that distribution, even for medical purposes, would violate federal law,” said Pati Urias, spokeswoman for the Arizona attorney general’s office. Robert Raich, an attorney who represented the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, one of six marijuana distributors challenged by the federal government, said the decision “is not the end of the line by any means.” 

Raich said the issue of medical necessity was just one of several legal arguments they are ready to make in the future in favor of cannabis distribution clubs. 

“We feel we have many other defenses left,” said Jeff Jones, executive director of the club.  

The club was prohibited from distributing pot but has remained open to issue identification cards to verified medical marijuana patients. 

Mendocino County District Attorney Norm Vroman said the ruling would not change the way his office prosecutes drug crimes. In Mendocino, people are permitted up to six mature plants and 2 pounds of dry marijuana. 

“If the feds want to prosecute these people they can,” he said. “In California, the law has not changed one iota.” 

Julie Roche, one of the sponsors of Amendment 20 legalizing medical marijuana in Colorado, said the state’s law does not address distribution and how patients obtain the drug so the Supreme Court ruling should have no effect on it. 

“The law says people in Colorado can possess and use marijuana, and they will continue getting it as they got it before.  

I think the federal government will continue their war on drugs looking for large amounts. I do not expect a crackdown on patients,” Roche said. 

Joel Karlin, a spokesman for Coloradans Against Legalizing Marijuana, cheered the court decision, saying the narcotic in marijuana is already available in a tablet and will soon be available in a patch. 

Karlin added that people who obtain marijuana illegally run the risk of impurities, dosage regulation and adverse effects from smoking it.  

“It’s right that the Supreme Court ruled the way it did. I don’t think there is any good need for it.” 

But Westbrook, 48, who lives in an east San Francisco Bay suburb, says she uses marijuana for pain relief and to control the spasticity that is part of her disease. 

“It’s not about getting high. I’m too old for that. What it does is provide me with the necessary relief I need in order to live a functional life,” she said. 

On the Net: 

Supreme Court site: http://www.supremecourtus.gov 

Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative: http://www.rxcbc.org 

Marijuana Policy Project: http://www.mpp.org 

DEA: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/agency.htm