A number of African-American students at Willard Middle School walked out of a classroom in protest Wednesday after a teacher allegedly used a racial slur, according to sources at the school. 

Willard administrators declined to comment on the alleged incident Friday. 

Berkeley Associate Superintendent of Administrative Services David Gomez said Friday that he was “aware of the allegations” and had taken “appropriate” action. 

The teacher has been suspended from work pending an investigation into possible misconduct, Gomez said. 

“Our policy is, as soon as we get a complaint against any of our teachers we separate the teacher from the situation so the district can do an investigation,” Gomez said.  

After students accused the teacher of referring to two students as “niggers” Wednesday, Willard Principal Gail Hojo quickly removed the teacher from the classroom, said Lee Berry, a parent volunteer at the school.  

But Berry said he was dismayed to find the teacher back on campus Thursday. 

“I got so angry my eyes about popped out of my head,” said Berry, an African American. 

By Friday, Berry said he was relieved to see the district had taken action. 

“What she did was wrong,” Berry said of the teacher’s alleged slur.  

But he added: “After getting over my anger and reading statements from about six different kids and reading a statement from (the teacher), I really don’t think she meant anything malicious by it.” 

If the teacher did in fact used a racial slur, then the district is warranted in suspending her from work, Willard PTA President Joanie Hamasaki said Friday. 

“Berkeley is a diverse city. Every diverse group in Berkeley should be respected,” Hamasaki said. “A teacher should be there to be a friend and mentor (to students).”

Saturday, June 2

Car Seat Safety Clinic 

10:00 a.m. 

Kittredge St. Parking Garage, second level 

The Berkeley Police Department will demonstrate proper techniques for car seat installation and use, and offer safety checks and tips. Families are welcome to visit the Habitot Children’s Museum located across the street from the garage. Free. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

www.cal-sailing.org  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 548-3333 

Family Storytime  

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Main Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Storyteller Olga Loya tells tales from around the world. Geared for children three to eight and their parents. Free 649-3964 

Commission On Disability  

Hearings 

1 - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St. 

Open forum, opportunity for public to present ideas and concerns about barriers for people with disabilities and accessibility of City facilities. Public comment on Berkeley’s proposed “Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan.” Will continue on June 13. 

981-6342 

Longfellow Middle School’s  

Outdoor Arts Festival 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Longfellow Courtyard 

1500 Derby St. 

Live music performances, silent auction of student and community art, BBQ and bake sale. Talent showcase and awards ceremony from 2 - 3 p.m. Free admission, open to the public. 665-1980 

Birdwatching Walk  

and Breakfast 

8 a.m. 

Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

This is the time of year when the greatest variety of birds can be found in the Garden, including some rare species. Join Chris Carmichael and Dennis Wolff for breakfast and a walk. $25, limited space, call to reserve. 

643-2755 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Walking Tour 

10 a.m. - noon 

Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

Tour of Thousand Oaks School and neighborhood. $5 - $10, reservations required. 848-0181  

Junior Solar Sprint Challenge 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

UC Berkeley 

Kids will race and display their solar-powered model cars. 

642-5132 

Public Workshop on Oxford St. Parking Lot 

10 a.m. - Noon 

Lee Frank Building 

2200 Shattuck Ave. 

The City of Berkeley Planning Commission Subcommittee is holding a workshop to discuss the proposed uses and design for the Oxford Street parking lot. 

981-5400 

Sunday, June 3

Rosa Parks Spring  

Celebration and Fund-raiser 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Rosa Parks 

920 Allston Way 

Silent auction, quilt raffle, cake walk and field events. 644-8812 

Music and Meditation 

8 - 9 p.m. 

The Heart-Road Traveller 

1828 Euclid Ave. 

Group meditation though instrumental music and devotional songs. Led by Lucian Balmer and Baoul Scavullo. Free. 496-3468 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club,gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

www.cal-sailing.org  

Hands-on Bicycle  

Repair Clinics  

11 a.m. - Noon  

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn how to adjust front and rear derailleurs from one of REI’s bike technicians. All you need to bring is your bike. Free 527-4140 

Healing Through  

Tibetan Yoga 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Slow movements of Kum Nye encourage self-healing and deeper spiritual dimensions in experience. Demonstrated and discussed by Jack van der Meulen. Free and open to the public. 843-6812 

Family Day at Magnes  

Museum 

12:30 - 3 p.m. 

2911 Russell St. 

A celebration of cultural heritage, the day is co-sponsored by the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society. Free admission.www.magnesmuseum.org 

Dedication of TROTH 

2 - 4:30 p.m. 

Northside Community Art Garden 

On Northside St. 1 block N. of Hopkins 

TROTH, a special earth wall toolshed and product of nearly 3 years of volunteer labor, will be dedicated today. Potluck meal and words from gardeners, City representatives and BART. 

841-3757 

— compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

China Forum 

2 p.m. 

Moffitt Building 101 

UC Berkeley 

Wu JiaXiang, social/political critic and writer, talks about the Tiananmen paper and the June 4 massacre. Free. 

Monday, June 4

“Boys Will Be Men” 

6:45 p.m. 

Longfellow Theater 

1500 Derby St. 

Special Father’s Day showing of the acclaimed documentary for Berkeley teen’s and their families. Introduced by Tom Weidlinger, followed by audience discussion. Free. 

849-2683 

www.berkeleypta.org 

Rent Stabilization Board Meeting 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Council Chambers, 2nd floor 

Among other items, the board will hear the appeal by both the tenants and the landlord of 2223 and 2227 Bonar Street of the decision of the hearing examiner. 

644-6128 

Tuesday, June 5

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. 

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 

Intelligent Conversation  

7 - 9 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

A discussion group open to all, regardless of age, religion, viewpoint, etc. This time the discussion topic is open and will follow the conversation. Informally led by Robert Berend, who founded similar groups in L.A., Menlo Park, and Prague. Bring light snacks/drinks to share. Free  

527-5332 

Bike for a Better City Action Meeting 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

1356 Rose St. 

www.bfbc.org 

Wednesday, June 6

Fishbowl: “Everything you always wanted to know about the opposite sex but were afraid to ask” 

7 p.m.. to 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. 

Find out what the other half really thinks! The Fishbowl is an interesting way to anonymously ask those burning questions. $8 for BRJCC members, $10 for general public. 848-0237 x127. 

South Berkeley Community Action Team  

Advisory Group Meeting 

7 p.m. 

Over 60’s Clinic 

3260 Sacramento, 2nd Floor 

All South and West Berkeley residents invited to the regular meeting. Among other agenda items, the planning of upcoming Town Hall meeting. Refreshments provided. 

665-6809 

Corp yard still noisy, polluting 

Editor: 

Almost a decade has elapsed since a small group of West Berkeley residents living around the city’s Corporation Yard came together to protest the impacts of the vehicle maintenance facility on the community. This public outcry was directed towards the maintenance facility’s traffic, fueling station, and the almost complete absence of any environmental protections.  

Topping the list of community concerns were issues of air quality, chemicals and hazardous waste storage, and storm water pollution controls. Public Works argued that management was actually environmentally pro-active and blamed the  

operational impacts on the rundown eighty-year old facility. However, local residents found out firsthand that the facility’s age was just part of the problem.  

In April 1992, while on a tour of the facility, the community witnessed a street sweeper illegally dumping the liquid portion of its street collection into the Yard’s storm drain, a clear violation of the Clean Water Act. This public incident, though quite embarrassing for city staff, reinforced the neighborhood’s contention that the time had come for changes in both the facility and its municipal maintenance activities.  

Over the next several years, Public Works met regularly with the neighbors to address the operations of the vehicle facility. However, few changes actually occurred. Residents should have realized early on in the community process that the Yard meetings were being used to silence public discussion.  

Neighborhood involvement was reduced to little more than a series of public relations meetings while Public Works waited politely for residents to talk themselves out and go away. And so they did, but the environmental compliance problems remained. 

The 1992 sweeper dumping incident also revealed to the community that such Corporation Yard activities require a Federal discharge permit. Moreover, Berkeley was, and is, a member of Alameda County’s storm water program. One of the program’s central components is that of municipal maintenance activities and best management practices for environmental protection. The county program responded by both reprimanding Berkeley and encouraging the city to move forward in modernizing its maintenance operations. The choice, since that time, has been Berkeley’s.  

Unfortunately, the city’s choice, like other county storm water members, has been to view this area of capital improvement as a very low priority. This has only reinforced public criticism that the county’s storm water program amounts to little more than revenue enhancement for the city. 

Two weeks ago, the Corporation Yard was cited for polluting the storm drains in the Yard. The Notice of Violation made public the fact that there had been prior notices for corrective actions dating as far back as 1995. The citation, written on a rainy day, was linked directly to the antiquated and inadequate protection and containment of sand, asphalt, hazardous wastes, equipment and contaminated soils on site. It should be noted that the Yard’s EBMUD discharge permit is currently out of compliance for this same reason. From a management perspective, this long-term Public Works failure to comply with environmental regulations is outrageous.  

Last November, Berkeley’s Public Works celebrated being the first city in the state to receive an accreditation for excellence by the Public Works Association. It’s not surprising that the accreditation team, as it toured the Corp Yard, apparently overlooked these obvious shortcomings. It should be remembered that environmental protection is a relatively new mandate for Public Works activities here and across the nation. The time has come to fully capitalize an upgrade of Corp Yard activities and storage areas. Let’s do it right. Being responsive to environmental protection and compliance requires real commitment and cash. It’s really not an option. Today, it’s the law! 

L A Wood 

Berkeley 

Don’t build parking under Civic Center 

Editor: 

Mayor Dean’s proposal to put underground parking beneath Civic Center Park at Martin Luther King Jr. Way is a bad idea that will increase congestion, waste taxpayer money and damage the environment. Claiming the scarcity of downtown parking justifies the proposal, the mayor implies that those opposing the idea are acting punitively toward drivers. Although I drive and would welcome additional parking I oppose the mayor’s proposal. During construction the project will decrease the availability of parking, increase traffic congestion, disrupt the Farmers Market, destroy trees, reduce access to the park, increase noise levels, and pollute the air with diesel exhaust and particulate matter.  

Construction is the problem, not the solution. Excessive downtown construction has eliminated dozens of parking spaces. Parking and access to several businesses, are suffering as a result the library retrofit and Gaia project. When completed new construction seems to shrink available parking. This was the the case when the mayor and City Council voted to spend a quarter million dollars on downtown “improvements,” that destroyed dozens of trees and added concrete “bulbs”, which eliminated parking spots on University Avenue. 

While an underground garage would add some parking to the downtown area we need to ask at what price. How much would it cost taxpayers? How many trees would be destroyed? What impact would it have on the Farmers Market? What effects would trucks, bulldozers, cranes, jack hammers and tons of building materials have on noise levels and the environment? What effect would the garage have on the park above? Trees, plants and grass that are sustained through contact with the earth would instead be planted atop a concrete structure that would permeate the soil with fumes from auto exhaust. How would this pollution affect the health of young children that play in the park? What type of vision is this for a park that sits aside a Farmers Market, and is the annual staging area for Earth Day festivities and dozens of other celebrations?  

The solution to scarce parking is not to hide the problem underground. In the immediate future a moratorium on excessive downtown construction would preserve precious parking space. Construction blocks visibility and access, causing retail stores and restaurants to loose business. Berkeley should create a system of frequent shuttle busses to major shopping areas. The City Council should work with BART and AC transit to give proof of mass transit travel, and encourage merchants to provide private incentives to people who bicycle or utilize mass transit. Dedicate one street for the exclusive use by bicycles. 

Long term solutions such as the creation of a City-wide AC transit pass are an excellent idea. But the Council must wake up to the reality that AC transit provides deplorable service. Simply stated, if buses ran frequently and served commuters well, fewer people would be using automobiles.  

The Council should also place a bond measure on the ballot to build a comprehensive Berkeley-wide light rail system. By raising funds to go it alone Berkeley may prod AC transit into acting on the long talked about plans to create a regional light rail system.  

For too long drivers in this City have been pawns in a political game that reduces the availability of parking. Those who favor development use driver frustration to gain support to create parking facilities.  

Those who oppose automobiles think punishing drivers by reducing parking will force them to abandon their cars.  

Both approaches have failed miserably. Long term planning that reduces the need for automobiles, rather then quick fixes like building more parking, or punishing drivers by making it difficult to park, is what’s needed to reduce automobile traffic in the City of Berkeley.  

Elliot Cohen 

Berkeley

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  

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  

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 year membership. All ages. June 2: El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast; June 8: The Enemies, Pitch Black, The Fleshies, Supersift, Texas Thieves; June 9: Groovie Ghoulies, The Influents, Red Planet, Mallrats, Goat Shanty. 525-9926  

Albatross Pub Music at 9 p.m unless noted otherwise. June 6: Whiskey Brothers; June 7: Keni “El Lebrijano” Flamenco guitar; June 9, 6 - 8 p.m.: Sauce Piquante, 9 p.m. - Midnight: Whiskey Brothers; June 12: Mad and Eddie Duran. 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

Anna’s Music June 2: Robin Gregory and Bliss Rodriguez, 10 p.m.: The Ducksan Distone; June 3: Danubius; June 4: The Renegade Sidemen; June 5: Open Mike; June 6: Bob Schoen with Cheryl McBride; June 7: Irrationals; June 8: Anna and Susie Laraine and Sallie Hanna-Rhine, 10 p.m.: Bluesman Hideo Date; June 9: Robin Gregory and Bliss Rodriguez, 10 p.m.: The Ducksan Distone; June 10: Choro Time with Ron Galen and Friends. $2 weeknights, $3 weekends. 1801 University Ave. 849-ANNA  

Ashkenaz June 2, 9:30 p.m.: Zydeco Flames; June 3, 3 - 6 p.m. Brassworks, 7 p.m The Wavy Gravy Camp Winnarainbow Benefit Boogie, with music by the Flying Other Brothers, Pete Sears of Jefferson Airplane, Greg Anton and David Gans; June 5, 8 p.m.: Berkeley High Ki-Swahili Club Trip to Africa benefit, hip-hop/reggae dance party; June 6, 9 p.m.: Aux Cajunals; June 7, 10 p.m.: Dead DJ Nite with Digital Dave; June 8, 9:30 p.m. Ali Khan with Bellydance Troupe Lunatique; June 9, 9:30 p.m.: Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers; June 10, 7 p.m.: Food Not Bombs with Goodbye Flowers and INKA. 1370 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com 

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. June 2: Rebecca Riots; June 3: Hurricane Sam; June 6: Freight 33rd Anniversary concert series with Leni Stern, Jenna Mammina, Jill Cohn, Pig Iron. June :7 Alice Stuart, Folk blues, $17.50; June 8: Cats & Jammers Hot swing. $17.50; , June 9.: Danny Heines & Michael Manring; June 10: Roy Tyler and New Directions; June 12: Keith Little with Del Williams; June 13: Danu. $17.50.1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

La Peña Cultural Center “Cantiflas!” June 7 and June 8, 8 p.m. Herbert Siguenza, of the critically acclaimed trio Culture Clash, stars in this bilingual work-in-progress about legendary Mexican comedian Marion Moreno. $16. 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. 849-2568 www.lapena.org  

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. June 2: Avi Bortnick Group; June 5, Alias Smith; June 6, Lithium House; June 7, Beatdown with DJs Delon, Yamu, Add1; June 8, Harvey Wainapel Quartet; June 9, Om Trio; June 12, Ben Graves Trio 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

The Berkeley TEMPO Festival of Contemporary Performances All performances begin at 8 p.m. June 2: Roscoe Mitchell with George Lewis, David Wessel and Thomas Buckner; June 5: Music of Edmund Campion with dancers; June 6: Shafqat Ali Khan, Pakistani Khyal vocals with David Wessel and Matthew Wright; June 8: Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players; June 9: John Scott, John Abercrombie, George Marsh, Rich Fudoli, Mel Graves. $15 Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus www.tempofestival.org 

Empyrean Ensemble June 2, 8 p.m. Final concert of the season, featuring soprano Susan Narucki in the world premiere of Mario Davidovsky’s “Cantiones Sine Textu,” as well as works by other composers. 7 p.m. panel discussion with the composers. $14 - $18 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave 925-798-1300  

Berkeley High Jazz Combo June 3, 4:30 p.m. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Schubert Festival June 3, 4 p.m. Mini-Schubert Festival as part of the Sundays at Four Chamber Music series. Will feature Schubert’s Trout Quintet, String Trio, and more. $10 Crowden School 1475 Rose St. 559-6910 www.thecrowdenschool.org 

The Farallone String Quartet June 10, 7:30 p.m. Quartets by Haydn. $8 - $10 Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. 

World Harmony Chorus June 10, 2 p.m. Vocal music from around the world. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

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

Dance 

Sungugal Ballet June 10, 4:30 p.m. Featuring master percussionist Djibi Faye and West African Band with traditional West African dance. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Theater 

“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 

“Cymbeline” June 2 through June 24, Tues. - Thur. 7:30 p.m., Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sun. 4 p.m. Opening of the California Shakespeare Festival features one of Shakespeare’s first romances, directed by Daniel Fish. $12 - $146. Bruns Memorial Amphitheater off Highway 24 at the Shakespeare Festival Way/Gateway Exit. 548-9666 or www.calshakes.org 

“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 traveled to Laramie, Wyo., after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepherd. The play is about the community and the impact Shaper’s death had on its members. $10 - $50. The Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“A Life In the Theatre” Previews June 8, 9, 10, 13. Opens June 14, runs through July 15. Wed. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. David Mamet play about the lives of two actors, considered a metaphor for life itself. Directed by Nancy Carlin. $30-$35. $26 preview nights. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant 843-4822 

Films 

Pacific Film Archive June 2, 7:00: A River Called Trash; June 3, 5:30: Ruslan and Ludmila; June 5, 7:30: From the East; June 6, 7:30: Prank and Parody; June 7, 7:00: Viy; June 8, 7:30: Aerograd; June 8, 9:15: The Letter That Was Never Sent; June 9, 7:30: Comic and Avant-Garde Shorts; June 10, 5:30: Pitfall, 7:25: Woman In the Dunes. Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“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. 

Nomad Videofilm Festival 2001 June 1, 10:40 p.m. Featuring world premieres from four S.F. Bay Area mediamakers: “Roadkill” by Antero Alli, “Forest” by Farhad J. Parsa “Visit” by Jesse Miller, B, “Fell Apart” by Doan La Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640, pix & details: http://www.verticalpool.com/nomad.html 

“TRAGOS: A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt” an Antero Alli film June 2, 10:40pm Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640, pix & details: http://www.verticalpool.com/tragos.html 

Exhibits 

“Elements of Art” June 2, 4 - 6 p.m. Youth Arts Studio, an art show and reception exhibiting the work of 15 Berkeley Middle School Fine Art Students. Free. All Souls Episcopal Church 2220 Cedar St. 848-1755 

“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 

East Bay Open Studios June 9 & 10, 16 & 17, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Jennifer Foxly: Oil paintings and 2-d mixed media works 3206 Boise St.; Lewis Suzuki: Scenes from California to the Philippines, florals to nudes 2240 Grant St.; Guy Colwell: Painted replicas and recent original work 2028 9th St. (open until 7 p.m.) 

Wosene Kosrof June 13, 7 - 8:30 p.m. Ethiopian-born Berkeley resident will be exhibiting and discussing his paintings. One piece will be up for auction, proceeds to benefit the YMCA. Free. Crystal Room, Shattuck Hotel 2086 Allston 848-9622 ext. 3541  

PASSING: The Re-Definition of Sex and Gender Through the Personal Re-Presentation of Self Through June 16, Mon. - Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Black and white photographs by Ann P. Meredith. Free. Reception with the artist June 7, 6 - 8 p.m. Photolab Gallery 2235 Fifth St.  

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 

Ako Castuera, Ryohei Tanaka, Rob Sato June 5 - June 30, Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Group exhibition, recent paintings. Artist’s reception June 9, 6:30 - 9 p.m. with music by Knewman and Espia. !hey! Gallery 4920 B Telegraph Ave., Oakland 428-2349  

“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. Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893 

Bernard Maisner: Illuminated Manuscripts and 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) 

“Queens of Ethipoia: Intuitive Inspirations,” the exceptional art of Esete-Miriam A. Menkir. 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 Berkeley in this 10 year period. Thursday through Saturday, 1 - 4 p.m. Berkeley History Center, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. Wheelchair accessible. 848-0181. Free.  

Readings 

Cody’s Books 2454 Telegraph Ave. All events at 7:30 p.m. June 3: Sheldon Greene reads from “Burnt Umber”; June 4: Alan Rinzler facilitates last part of a writer’s workshop with “GET THAT MANUSCRIPT OFF THE SHELF!”; June 5: Timothy Ferris will read from “Life Beyond Earth”; June 6: Ralph Dranow and Carla Kandinsky read poetry; June 7: Dr. Amit Goswami talks about “The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist’s Guide to Enlightenment”; June 8: Scott Carrier reads from “Running After Antelope”; June 9: Richard Russo reads from “Empire Falls”, June 10: Irvine Welsh talks about “Glue.” 

Cody’s Books 1730 Fourth St. All events at 7 p.m. June 6: Peter Mayle teaches “French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew; June 8: For the younger readers, Eoin Colfer reads from “Artemis Fowl”; June 9: For the younger readers, Lemony Snicket reports on “The Vile Village.”  

Weekly Poetry Nitro Mondays 6:30 p.m sign up, 7 - 9 p.m. reading. Performing poets in a dinner atmosphere. Featured poets: June 4, Gaya Jenkins; June 11, Ivan Arguelles. Cafe de la Paz 1600 Shattuck Ave. 843-0662 

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. 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 

What was supposed to be the culmination of Halihl Guy’s high school track career nearly went down in flames Friday night at the CIF State Championship Meet qualifiers, but everything turned out fine in the end. 

Guy’s first event at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento was the 4x100-meter relay, in which the Panthers held the third-best time in the state this season. St. Mary’s main concern was the health of relay member Chris Dunbar, who hadn’t run in a meet for three weeks while nursing a hamstring pull. Dunbar ran well, if tentatively, and the Panthers qualified for Saturday’s final in 41.65 seconds, a fifth-best in the meet. That time is .45 seconds slower than the team’s best time, and Dunbar said he ran at about 85 percent after his hamstring bothered him late in his second leg of the race.  

“I got out pretty good, but I tightened up in the last 20 meters,” Dunbar said. “But it was OK for my first time going full-speed for three weeks.” 

St. Mary’s head coach Jay Lawson decided to hold Dunbar out of the 4x400-meter relay on Friday to rest the injury, but Dunbar said he would “run both races tomorrow, definitely.” 

Although the Panthers finished fifth in the preliminaries, the second through fifth places were all within .1 of a second of each other. If Dunbar can let it fly today, the Panthers could take home the gold. Their main competition appears to be Granite Hills, which flew through their heat to a time of 41.16 seconds, the best time in the state this season. Taft, whose mark Granite Hills broke on Friday, had baton trouble and failed to qualify for the final. 

Guy’s next event was his weakest, the 110-meter high hurdles. Although his coaches didn’t expect him to finish in the top nine places to qualify for Saturday’s final, Guy was out to prove a point after winning the North Coast Section title with a personal best last weekend. Guy was a little too pumped up, however, and false started during his heat, disqualifying himself. 

Guy’s best event is the 300-meter low hurdles, and he quickly took the lead in his heat. But he again made a big mistake, hitting the last hurdle with his lead leg. Guy stumbled, barely managing to stay in his lane across the finish line. His stagger caused two more runners to crash into each other, causing a pileup at the finish line. 

“I don’t know what went wrong for Halihl in that race,” Lawson said. “I guess he just didn’t drive hard enough over that last hurdle. I don’t need that kind of stress.” 

The Panthers hopes for a boys’ team title is still alive going into the finals despite Guy’s errors. Triple jumpers Asokah Muhammed and Solomon Welch both qualified for today’s competition, with Muhammed jumping 48-10, a personal best. 

“There are a bunch of teams still in the mix, and it’s all about who’s still alive on Saturday,” Lawson said. “We definitely accomplished what we needed to today.” Also qualifying for Saturday’s finals were two St. Mary’s girls. Kamaiya Warren had the second longest throw to qualify in the shot put, and Bridget Duffy finished third in her heat of the 1,600-meter race with a time of 5:00.39. 

Warren’s best throw on Friday was 44-06.75, but she came in a distant second to San Luis Obispo’s Karen Freburg by more than six feet. Freburg has come close to breaking the national prep record in the event several times, and barring a rash of fouls on Saturday should take the state title easily. But Warren said she doesn’t get discouraged finishing so far behind Freburg. 

“My thing is to chase after her,” Warren said. “I know that the closer I get to her, the better I am. Besides, you never know what can happen.” 

The Berkeley High girls’ relay team will be the school’s lone representative today, finishing in seventh place with a time of 47.67 seconds. The St. Mary’s team finished eleventh in the event. 

Berkeley High’s surprise entrant on Friday, North Coast Section 400-meter champion Stephon Brooks, got a rude awakening at the state meet. Brooks finished dead last in his heat. But Brooks is just a sophomore this year, so you can expect to see him again. 

The results for the 4x400-meter relays and girls triple jump, both of which had Berkeley entrants, were unavailable at press time. 

QUALIFIERS 

300- meter low hurdles, boys 

Halihl Guy St. Mary’s 

Shot put, girls  

Kamaiya Warren St. Mary’s 

1,600-meters, girls  

Bridget Duffy St. Mary’s 

Triple jump, boys  

Asokah Muhammed St. Mary’s Solomon Welch St. Mary’s 

4x100 relay, boys  

St. Mary’s 

4x100 relay, girls Berkeley

The Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville chapter of the League of Women Voters joined forces last year with Californians for Justice, Coleman Advocates for Youth and Families and other organizations to fight against Proposition 21, the Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act.  

The League is concerned with the effects of Proposition 21, and on Thursday night, more than a year after the proposition passed, 60 members of the chapter came out for the group’s annual meeting to learn about juvenile justice in the post-Proposition 21 era. 

“We’re very much concerned with youth and youth at risk. Our positions point to wanting to help teenagers and younger children get back on the right track,” said Jo Ann Price, president of the League of Women Voters’ local chapter. That concern led the chapter to invite Alameda County Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte to address the group’s annual meeting at the Northbrae Community Church. 

According to Harbin-Forte, Alameda County has seen only four or five cases in which the district attorney referred a young person to adult court to be tried, as Proposition 21 allows.  

Proposition 21 increased the number of circumstances under which a juvenile offender can be sent directly to the adult court system; eliminated discretion in juvenile sentencing and increased the penalties for youth convicted of certain offenses. 

Harbin-Forte said she believes the juvenile justice system needs reform, including more prevention programs for young people and rectification of the problem of the over-representation of youth of color in the system. She encouraged the League of Women Voter members to become involved with children in the juvenile justice system by becoming court-appointed children’s advocates. 

Although the local chapter of the League of Women Voters voted at the Thursday night meeting to continue to support juvenile justice policies which “promote services to meet the needs of Alameda county youth and minimize delinquency,” it has no plans to take any action to demand reforms in the juvenile justice system.  

Its priorities for the next year are education (specifically, closing the achievement gap), the completion of the Berkeley General Plan, and housing in Albany, Berkeley and Emeryville. 

The state League of Women Voters, on the other hand, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Proposition 21. Along with Coleman Advocates and Peter Bull of the Youth Law Center, the state League has filed a lawsuit contending that the proposition addressed three issues: juvenile court, gangs, and three strikes legislation. According to the California Constitution, an initiative may only address a single subject. The case is on hold while other cases challenging Proposition 21 are considered by the California Supreme Court. 

The Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville chapter of the League of Women Voters has 400 members, the third largest in California and is “very energetic,” says one member who’s been involved with League chapters throughout the state. 

Its decision making process is slow but thorough. Before deciding to take action on an issue, a chapter studies the question for two years. Then its actions are usually limited to lobbying for legislation or filing a lawsuit on concerns ranging from campaign finance reform to energy deregulation. For more information or to become a member, call the chapter office at 843-8824. 

To kick start the use of alternative energy in residences, the mayor will ask the City Council on Tuesday to consider fast-tracking the city’s permit process and waiving fees for those who install solar devices. 

If approved, the city manager will work with the Planning and Development Department to determine the best way to speed up the permit process.  

“I thought we’d better get this on the agenda, because I want to make sure we are on the fast track on these issues,” said Mayor Shirley Dean. 

Dean made energy conservation a priority during her State of the City speech on May 1. She has been a strong advocate of recent technological developments in photovotaic power, a form of solar power that turns the sun’s energy into electricity. 

Photovotaic panels can be installed in homes and apartments for about $10,000 per unit, according to a report from the mayor’s office. That cost can be offset by two state rebate programs, which can reduce the cost to as low as $3,000, according to the report. 

In addition, Pacific Gas & Electricity is offering a program that will hook photovotaic-equipped residences up to the power grid thereby allowing them to sell excess energy produced by the panels back to the utility.  

Dean said she is meeting with local banks to see if they will offer low-interest loans to homeowners who install the systems. 

At the People’s State of the City Address on Tuesday, Councilmember Dona Spring proposed a bond measure that would raise funds to pay for all homes and apartments to be equipped with photovotaic systems at no cost to the property owner. 

Planning and Development Interim Deputy Director Vivian Kahn said she had not seen the mayor’s recommendation and could not comment on any specifics, but she said Oakland’s Planning Department had adopted a similar program. 

“Streamlining the process could take amending the zoning ordinance and adopting a new fee schedule to waive application fees,” she said. 

On other energy fronts, Dean said she has been meeting with the 14 Alameda County mayors to discuss an effective way to influence the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is responsible for setting “just and reasonable” energy rates for gas and electricity. The commission has not set a rate cap on the wholesale price of natural gas or electricity despite skyrocketing rates set by energy wholesalers. 

In Dean’s written recommendation, she states that California paid 28 cents for 1 million Btus of natural gas in 1998. Within two years that price has soared to $8.14. 

“We’re quite serious about this and have not ruled out a possible Mayors’ March on Washington to get FERC’s attention,” Dean said. “This is a bipartisan issue in the county and state, lights go out for Republicans the same way they do Democrats.” 

The issue will be considered by the council on June 5. The “special” meeting is scheduled to start at 5:15 p.m. with public comment. Then the council will go into closed session to discuss two issues. It will then recess to open session again to consider the energy recommendation.  

The council will convene a second meeting at 7 p.m. to hold a public hearing on the Temple Beth El project at 1301 Oxford St. The meetings will take place in Old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Berkeley Observed 

Looking back, seeing ahead 

The Thousand Oaks district of north Berkeley was subdivided in 1909 by John Spring (1862-1933) a local capitalist who was involved in much of the land speculation in Berkeley, Albany and El Cerrito around the turn of the 20th century. He was associated with Francis Marion “Borax” Smith (who assembled the Key System electric streetcar line), Duncan McDuffie, Louis Titus and Frank Haven.  

The expansion of public transportation through the North Berkeley Tunnel and down Solano Avenue in 1911 made it possible to live several miles from the center of town.  

This location was known for its rock formations and spreading oaks interspersed with grassy glades. It was a favorite place for walking and picnics. Because of its beauty a bond measure was proposed to set aside 100 acres for a public park but the measure failed. Perhaps, as this picture shows, there was so much open space the need to fund parks seemed unnecessary. While there is a wide diversity of style and size of homes in this neighborhood, the rock outcroppings are a distinctive feature of Thousand Oaks. There is a large rock behind this house, (on the left side of the picture). Many houses on Vicente Road (above Colusa Avenue) have large rocks in their front gardens and some houses are even built on top of the rocks. The house was designed by James W. Placheck a prolific Berkeley architect. He designed many buildings including the Main Branch of the Berkeley Public Library.  

Susan Cerny writes ‘Berkeley Observed’ in conjunction with  

The Berkeley Historical Association

La Peña event honors activist, union leader Dolores Huerta 

Teacher, community activist, union leader, lobbyist, organizer, advocate and mother of 11, Dolores Huerta has won many awards and public recognition for her dedication to farm workers’ rights, women’s rights and the environment.  

She will be honored for her work June 9 at La Peña Cultural Center’s 26th anniversary. 

In 1955, Huerta began work as a grassroots organizer with the Community Service Organization. Seven years later, in Delano she met Cesar Chavez, with whom she created the National Farmworkers Association, a precursor to the United Farm Workers. 

The event, which costs $20, will help defray some of Huerta’s recent medical expenses. 

Huerta herself will be present, as well as Dulce Mambo, Piri Thomas, La Paz, Jose Luis Orozco, Raphael Manriquez, Herbert Siguenza and Father Bill O’Donnell. Maria Chavez will present a slide show. The event begins at 7 p.m. at 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

YMCA art gathering  

fund-raiser features auction  

Wosene Kosrof, an Ethiopian-born artist who lives in Berkeley, has donated a painting to the Berkeley YMCA. The piece will be sold at a silent auction and all proceeds will benefit youth at the YMCA. Kosrof’s work explores the aesthetic dimensions of Amharic, one of the major languages of Ethiopia.  

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, the Rockefeller collection, the United Nations and many others have Kosrof in their collections. The YMCA is hosting an art gathering in the Crystal Room of the Shattuck Hotel at 8:30 p.m. on June 13 where Kosrof will exhibit and discuss his paintings and the YMCA piece will be up for auction. The Shattuck Hotel is at 2086 Allston Way. Admission is free. 

Groundbreaking celebration for Computer Technologies Program 

The Computer Technologies Program will be celebrating the groundbreaking of its new facilities in the ARTech building at 2101 Milvia at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.  

The ceremony represents the culmination of the three year project by CTP and Panoramic Interests to create a multi-use building in downtown Berkeley. 

The CTP, a nonprofit organization that provides computer job training to students with disabilities, will occupy the entire second floor of the new building, almost tripling the size of its facilities. A cafe will occupy the ground floor and 20 housing units will comprise the top three stories. The outside of the building will feature works of several local artists and include a wrought iron gate, tile murals and mosaic benches. 

— staff reports

HAYWARD — An unemployed crime lab technician has been found guilty on all 11 counts, including attempted murder, for planting bombs under the homes of Fremont’s police chief and other city officials. 

The verdict, reached Thursday but read in Alameda County Superior Court early Friday, followed a week of deliberations and months of testimony in the case. 

Rodney Blach, 54, has said federally trained agents carried out the six bombings, and that he was being framed. 

His lawyer, William Linehan, argued the case was largely circumstantial, relying only on Blach’s motive and opportunity. He said he was disappointed with the verdict and would ask for a new trial. 

The six bombs were planted during a 48-hour period in March 1998. 

The first one ripped a 10-foot hole in the roof of police Chief Craig Steckler’s home and set the front porch on fire. The same afternoon, City Councilman Bob Wasserman, Steckler’s predecessor as police chief, found an explosive in a brown paper bag on his front walk. Authorities defused that bomb. 

Two pipe bombs damaged newly constructed homes and another explosive went off at a water tank. Police detonated a sixth bomb. 

No one was injured. 

Blach, who was a chemical engineer with the Chicago Police Department crime lab from 1974 to 1979, taunted investigators and seemed to savor his role as a suspect during the 18-month investigation. 

He said he planted keys in his San Diego home and taped notes with clues beneath his desk and a shaving cream can to see if investigators could find them. He lived in the Fremont neighborhood where he planted the bombs, but moved to San Diego after he became a suspect. 

Blach, who had no prior criminal record, has been described by acquaintances as a conspiracy theorist. According to grand jury testimony, he planted a pair of time-delayed pipe bombs under a Fremont home because he thought it was going to be bought by a prominent family he considered to be the “Afghan Mafia.” 

The less potent explosives at the homes of the police chief and city councilman were diversions, according to court records. 

Prosecutors said Blach had a long-standing grudge against Fremont resident Terry Lee Ritter, 48, and his wife, Shamim Siddiq Ritter, 42, a real-estate loan agent. He believed they had purchased the $1.4 million-plus Corte del Sol home. 

However, the family neither bought the house nor moved in. When the bombs did detonate in March 1998, a girl from a different family that had purchased the residence was shaken but not injured. Investigators believe Blach could face life in prison.

SAN FRANCISCO — Hank Ketcham, whose lovable scamp “Dennis the Menace” tormented cranky Mr. Wilson and amused readers of comics for decades, died early Friday morning at age 81. 

Ketcham had suffered from heart disease and cancer, said his publicist, Linda Dozoretz. 

“He passed away very peacefully. He had had some bad spells and he slipped away in his sleep,” said Ellen James, a neighbor and family friend. 

Ketcham stopped drawing the weekday strip at the end of 1994 but let it continue under a team of artists and writers. 

Inspired by the antics of his 4-year-old son, Ketcham began the strip in 1951. In March, Ketcham’s panels celebrated 50 years of publication — running in 1,000 newspapers, 48 countries and 19 languages. 

“It just took my breath away,” said Brian Walker, who writes “Hi and Lois” with his brother, Greg. “Like the rest of the cartoonists in his generation, he died with his boots on. He may have said he was retired, but he was still working.” 

Despite its longevity, the strip changed little since the 1950s. Dennis was always a freckle-faced “five-ana-half” — an appealing if aggravating mixture of impishness and innocence. 

“Mischief just seems to follow wherever Dennis appears, but it is the product of good intentions, misdirected helpfulness, goodhearted generosity, and, possibly, an overactive thyroid,” Ketcham wrote in his 1990 autobiography, “The Merchant of Dennis The Menace.” 

“But what a dull world it would be without any Dennises in it! Peaceful, maybe — but dull,” he said. 

Dennis also inspired several books of cartoons, a musical, a television series, a 1993 movie and a playground in Monterey, not far from Ketcham’s studio in Pebble Beach. 

“It’s a joyful pursuit realizing that you’re trying to ease the pain of front-page news or television,” Ketcham told The Associated Press in a March interview. There’s some little bright spot in your day that reminds you that it’s fun to smile.” 

A Seattle native, Henry “Hank” Ketcham dropped out the University of Washington in 1938 after his freshman year to pursue his childhood dream. He got his first job as an animator for Walter Lantz, the creator of “Woody Woodpecker,” and then for Walt Disney, working on “Pinocchio,” “Bambi,” “Fantasia” and others. 

He was pulled away to Washington D.C. by the Navy during World War II where he drew cartoons for military posters, training material and war bond sales. He then moved to Carmel as a freelance cartoonist. 

It was there in October 1950 that Ketcham’s first wife, Alice, burst into his studio exasperated after their 4-year-old son, Dennis, destroyed his bedroom instead of napping. 

“Your son is a menace!” she screamed. 

Just five months later on March 12, 1951, “Dennis the Menace” was born in 16 newspapers. Ketcham couldn’t believe the audience his blond, freckle-faced boy in droopy overalls attracted. 

“I’m not a big social butterfly. I don’t worry about people out there and what they feel about it,” Ketcham said. “I don’t even realize there are people looking at it and following it so closely until I’ve traveled and then I realize, ’Holy smokes how come everybody knows about Dennis?”’ 

One of those times came during his first trip abroad in 1959. He had set up a humor exchange with the Soviet Union to swap Dennis drawings out for Soviet-sketched cartoons during the Cold War. 

When the CIA got wind of his plans, they asked him to take snapshots with a spy camera and draw anything that might be useful to intelligence. 

“We were flying from Moscow to Kiev, and it was during the day and I looked out the window and I saw some shapes. Big circles and long rectangular shapes,” he said. “I had my sketch book and I would put them down and the flight attendant would walk by and I would put a big nose and some eyes and make the whole thing into a funny face. So I had a whole book full of funny-face cartoons at the end that I didn’t know how to read.” 

Sometime later, Ketcham met a CIA official and mentioned his days behind the Iron Curtain. 

Ketcham said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t have anything to report. He said, ’Yeah, I know, Hank, we haven’t sent any more cartoonists on any more missions.”’ 

Ketcham stayed in Europe, drawing Dennis from Geneva, Switzerland for nearly 20 years. He took the real-life Dennis, then 12, with him after the boy’s mother died of a drug overdose in 1959. But when Dennis struggled with his studies there, he was sent to boarding school in Connecticut. Ketcham and his second wife, Jo Anne Stevens, remained in Europe. 

Dennis went on to serve a 10-month tour of duty in Vietnam and returned suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He has little contact with his father today. Still, he’s kept “Dennis the Menace” books, dolls and other cartoon paraphernalia displayed at his house. 

“He’s living in the East somewhere doing his own thing,” Ketcham said in March. “That’s just a chapter that was a short one that closed, which unfortunately happens in some families.” 

Ketcham moved back to California in 1977 with his third wife, Rolande and their two children, Scott and Dania, and drew the comic from his home along scenic 17 Mile Drive. 

Unlike “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz, who insisted on drawing every panel himself and had a clause in his contract dictating that original drawings would end with his death, Ketcham stopped drawing Sunday panels in the mid-1980s. 

and retired from weekday sketches in 1994. Ketcham’s assistants, Marcus Hamilton and Ronald Ferdinand, handled the bulk of the work after that with Ketcham overseeing the feature daily by fax. The team will continue the panels despite his death. 

“People used to ask me, ’What will happen when Mr. Ketcham isn’t still around?”’ Hamilton said. “He never directly told me this, but I think he was trying to say, ’Pay attention to how I train you because someday you may have to train someone else.”’ 

After putting down his pencil, Ketcham grabbed a brush and began a decade of painting oils and watercolors of jazz musicians, dark portraits of women’s faces, cartoonists and golf scenes. He even painted the birthing center at a hospital in Monterey, which worked as physical and mental therapy after his own stint in the hospital. 

But even as a cartoonist, Ketcham is remembered as one of the master artists. 

“One thing about Hank that I feel, he is the best pen and ink line artist in America today,” said Bil Keane, who created “Family Circus,” syndicated since 1960. “He still is a brilliant technician when it comes to drawing the lines that make his cartoons so beautifully artistic.” 

Brian Walker, the son of “Beetle Bailey” and “Hi and Lois” creator Mort Walker, put together a 50th anniversary “Dennis the Menace” exhibit at the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Fla., which opened Saturday and runs through Aug. 26. 

Ketcham’s son Scott attended the opening and called Ketcham frequently with feedback from the tribute, Walker said. 

“That’s so wonderful for Hank Ketcham ... that he knew he was being honored by his peers,” said Jan Eliot, who draws “Stone Soup” and once asked Ketcham for guidance on her work. “I admired his drawing very much. His humor was of another generation, and it’s the generation that we’re losing now.” 

The comic will likely live on for years without Ketcham. 

“It’s just classic. The material as well as the art is well done,” Jim Davis, who created “Garfield,” said in March. “You can relax and just enjoy the feature. You know you’re in good hands when you’re reading something as classic as Dennis.” 

Ketcham is survived by his wife, Rolande; his daughter, Dania Ketcham and his two sons, Scott and Dennis Ketcham. 

CARRYING THE LEGACY 

SAN FRANCISCO — As Marcus Hamilton waited Friday for workers to fix his fax machine that had been struck by lightning while he was away at the National Cartoonist Society awards, he got a call saying cartoonist Hank Ketcham had died. 

Hamilton began drawing “Dennis the Menace” for Ketcham in 1994. He was trying to fax his latest sketches of America’s favorite 5-year-old towheaded tornado for Ketcham’s final approval. 

“Today was very sad,” said Hamilton, who will continue drawing the weekday 50-year old comic panel. “He’s really been like a second father to me. He’s directed my life for the last eight years.” 

But Hamilton said Ketcham passed on a high note. His lifetime of cartooning was honored at the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton where a 50th anniversary “Dennis the Menace” exhibit will be displayed through Aug. 26. 

“I was honored to work on this tribute, and I’m glad we successfully completed it and that Hank knew what a success it was,” said Brian Walker, the son of “Beetle Bailey” and “Hi and Lois” creator Mort Walker, who assembled the display. 

Hamilton said he is now proud to continue the comic with Ronald Ferdinand, who began drawing the Sunday panels in the mid-1980s. 

Hamilton considers it pure luck that he received that honor. He said his career with Ketcham began after he saw the veteran cartoonist on television promoting a “Dennis The Menace” film in 1993. Ketcham said he would like more time to play golf, paint and travel, and Hamilton picked up the phone, seeing a job opportunity. 

“This is his little boy that he’s trained me to draw,” Hamilton said. “I am still flabbergasted that this has all occurred.” 

On Wednesday evening, Hamilton said Ketcham sent his last e-mail, which Hamilton printed for future inspiration. 

It read: ”... This if of course a continued training exercise to sharpen your talents and prepare you for producing Dennis all on your own.” 

“I think he must have had an inkling of an idea that his time was growing short,” Hamilton said. “He was such a teacher.” 

REDLANDS — A first-grade teacher died suddenly from meningococcal disease but her students were at little risk of contracting the bacterial infection, officials said Friday. 

Barbara Schroeder, 54, of Redlands, died at 3 a.m. Thursday, about 12 hours after arriving at Redlands Community Hospital, spokeswoman Jane Dreher said. 

The mother of three taught at McKinley Elementary School. On Friday, flags flew at half-staff and counselors were on campus to help children deal with the shock of losing their teacher overnight, said Ken Tolar, a spokesman for Redlands Unified School District. 

Classes continued with a substitute teacher. Youngsters at the school 70 miles east of Los Angeles put up a poster with hand-painted red hearts and the message: “McKinley rules! Mrs. Schroeder was the best!” 

On Thursday, the school sent letters home with all 400 of its students to notify parents of Schroeder’s death. Included was public health material on meningococcal disease, a rare, rapidly progressing infection of the bloodstream. 

Typical symptoms include a sudden fever combined with a headache and a stiff neck, often accompanied by nausea and vomiting. A purplish rash may develop. 

The illness can only be passed along through contact with the nose or throat discharges of an infected person. It is treatable with antibiotics. 

The bacteria that cause the illness cannot live outside the body for more than a few minutes. 

“If the organisms are coughed onto a desk or toy, for example, they will soon die,” said a letter from school Principal Toni Bristow. “They are not spread by casual contact or by simply breathing the air near a person.” 

“Our students are not at risk unless they had had some type of very close personal contact and our understanding is that they’re at no greater risk than anyone else in the community,” said Cindy Andrews, a school district spokeswoman. 

Kim Woods, a San Bernardino County public health epidemiologist, said those most at risk would be immediate family members who might have shared a drink or a kiss with an infected person. 

Typically, there are 300 to 400 cases of meningitis a year in California, state health officials say. Meningitis killed three people in the San Francisco Bay area this spring, including two students, and sickened several others. 

The county sees a handful of cases each year, Woods said. 

But the severity of the disease and the rapidity with which it develops make it especially scary for parents. 

There is “no rhyme or reason why some people become sick and some don’t,” she said. “That’s why it is so sad. This one will strike healthy people.”

LOS ANGELES — An environmental group has launched a door-to-door campaign to remind 250,000 Californians to conserve energy this summer. 

The California Public Interest Research Group announced Thursday it wants to encourage residents statewide to reduce electricity use and urge their elected officials to expand alternative solar, wind and geothermal power. 

“Unfortunately, most of the debate is revolving around the ’dig it up and burn it up’ methods of old, dirty energy sources,” said Kathleen Barr, the group’s energy campaign director. 

Although President Bush and Gov. Gray Davis have backed increases in alternative energy and conservation, fossil fuels continue to occupy center stage. 

Bush’s recently released energy policy calls for more oil and gas drilling, expanded use of nuclear power and 1,300 new power plants over the next 20 years. Davis has accelerated the schedule for approving new power plants, lifted pollution restrictions and is considering changes that would allow emergency diesel generators – among the dirtiest energy sources – to run more often to stave off rolling blackouts. 

But Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio said the governor also is working to reduce the state’s dependence on fossil fuels.  

He recently signed legislation authorizing more than $800 million in conservation incentives, Maviglio said, adding California has the nation’s most lucrative benefits for installing solar and wind systems. 

CALPIRG’s efforts “are in sync exactly with what the governor’s doing,” Maviglio said. 

The CALPIRG campaign, which began about two weeks ago, is intended to drum up support for state legislation that would require energy providers to get 20 percent of California’s power from renewable sources by 2010.  

Those sources currently make up about 10 percent of the state’s electricity. 

CALPIRG is handing out postcards to Davis urging him to support that legislation, written by Sen. Byron Sher, D-Stanford. The group also expects to collect 40,000 comments to send to Bush and Davis, urging them to support cleaner energy sources. 

Previous CALPIRG summer campaigns focused on supporting increases in electric-vehicle production and improving water quality, said David Rosenfeld, field director for the energy campaign. 

The current campaign is unique, he said, because people are so familiar with the power issue. 

“It’s the best thing we’ve ever canvassed in terms of awareness of the problem,” he said. “The stakes are so high.”

BAKERSFIELD — Gov. Gray Davis announced a “Buy California” program Friday, promoting native farm products as part of an initiative to invigorate economic growth in the farm-rich Central Valley. 

The governor called on lawmakers to support the marketing plan, which would cost $5 million for the state and $5 million from agricultural interests to promote produce, dairy and poultry. 

“You’re all familiar with the success of ’It’s the Cheese,”’ Davis said, referring to a dairy marketing campaign on TV and billboards.  

“Coming soon it will be the almonds, the grapes, the cherries, the tomatoes, the alfalfa, and the sweet potatoes too.” 

Davis made his announcement at the second Central Valley Economic Summit, which brought together local, state and federal officials from across the valley to discuss the challenges faced in this part of the state. 

While the valley is home to the nation’s richest agricultural land, it’s also a place of great disparity, with high unemployment and rural poverty.  

Farmers face a shortage of water, law enforcement faces a mounting methamphetamine problem and bad air quality plagues the region. 

At the same time, the region stretching from Bakersfield to Redding is experiencing some of the fastest population growth in the state as migrant workers come to work the fields and Bay Area commuters relocate in search of cheaper housing. 

“We’re putting a lot of money in the Central Valley because this is where the growth is, this is where people are going to be for the next 25 to 40 years,” Davis said. 

But one lawmaker in the audience said the valley’s lack of state funding, compared with other regions, required the governor’s commitment to combat the legislative strongholds from urban areas. 

“Historically, we’re long on words and short on dollars,” said Assemblyman Dean Florez, D-Shafter.  

“We simply lack the funding and can’t match the 22 legislative votes of the Los Angeles delegation.” 

Davis said he has given the valley more attention than any previous governor and pointed to commitments in education, including the University of California campus in Merced that he has pledged to have open by 2004. 

Lack of education is one of the greatest barriers to leading the valley to prosperity 

As the valley changes demographically, more doctors will be needed from different cultural backgrounds to treat the diverse communities, said Dr. Deborah Stewart, an associate dean the University of California, San Francisco medical program in Fresno. 

However, one of the areas biggest problems is that so many students don’t go to college or pursue advanced degrees. 

“They don’t believe they can do it,” said Stewart.  

“No one in their family has gone to college, nevermind med school.” 

He also announced an additional $32 million in statewide grants and bonds for groundwater storage and water conservation projects, with about half that money for the San Joaquin Valley. 

Davis couldn’t avoid the topic of energy – his “least favorite subject.” 

As he has done throughout the state’s power crisis, Davis distanced himself from the cause of the problem, bashed out-of-state companies that own the power plants for price gouging, and trumpeted his fast-track approval of a plants throughout the state. 

He also thanked Kern County for hosting the greatest number of new plants proposed and reminded farmers that $70 million is available to help them install energy efficient equipment and save money on power bills. 

Law enforcement officials spoke with Davis about the continuing meth problem in the valley. Davis was shown household chemicals that could easily be purchased to cook meth. The center of the state is becoming the epicenter for production of the highly addictive, mind-altering drug. 

The governor proposed $45 million to fight the drug, but the Legislature whittled that figure down to $30 million, which is still considered significant because the federal government has only provided $1.4 million, said Stanislaus Sheriff Les Weidman. 

“From our vantage point, what’s killing us isn’t the energy, it’s the meth epidemic,” Weidman said. “Thirty million, that’s a huge boon to us.” 

SUSANVILLE — Firefighters battling a 4,459-acre blaze in the Sierra Nevada were forced to deal with windy conditions Friday. Gusts up to 40 mph pushed estimates for full containment to Monday. 

Weather forecasters issued a “red flag” warning for 15 to 20 mph west winds. 

The blaze was 85 percent contained, however, and personnel have begun to demobilize, dropping the number of those fighting the blaze to 1,700. 

The fire, which began Sunday, has cost $4.4 million in firefighting expenses and destroyed $2.5 million worth of timber, mostly on national forest lands. 

It began near Susanville, about 80 miles northwest of Reno, Nev., on private timberland. The blaze was sparked by a man shooting targets in the woods, said state Dept. of Forestry spokeswoman Wendy McIntosh. The man, whose name was not released, was cited for causing a fire and letting it escape. 

Two firefighters were injured while battling the blaze. 

The fire skirted eight homes, coming as close as 30 feet to some of them. About 140 residents were evacuated, but most had returned to their homes by Thursday. 

In southern New Mexico, a wildfire that has burned about 1,900 acres in the Guadalupe Mountains was 90 percent contained Friday, with full containment hoped for by Sunday, a fire information officer Karen Takai said. 

Some 376 firefighters and support personnel were fighting the blaze, burning in the Lincoln National Forest about 10 miles from Carlsbad Caverns National Park. No buildings had been threatened by the blaze, and no injuries were reported. 

California power regulators can still order the state’s largest utility to perform an accounting change the company claims will end its chance to recover billions in undercollected electric rates from its customers, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Friday. 

In his decision, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali dismissed Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s complaint against the Public Utilities Commission, saying the bankrupt utility must defer to the PUC’s regulation. 

“The public interest is better served by deference to the regulatory scheme and leaving the entire regulatory function to the regulator, rather than selectively enjoining the specific aspects of one regulatory decision that PG&E disputes,” Montali wrote in his decision. 

The decision settles weeks of speculation over whether PG&E could successfully avoid what it considered an illegal order from the PUC by asking Montali to halt the request, hence, potentially pitting the federal bankruptcy court against a state regulatory agency. 

The dispute emerged after the cash-starved utility filed for federal bankruptcy protection April 6, unable to collect enough money from ratepayers to pay its expenses due to a rate freeze and soaring wholesale power prices. 

The PUC had ordered PG&E, as well as fellow financially floundering utility Southern California Edison Co., to rebalance their accounts to better reflect how much money they earned selling off power plants under the state’s 1996 deregulation law against how much money they lost being unable to charge the full cost of electricity. 

The accounting change order emerged from a request by San Francisco-based consumer group The Utility Reform Network. The group told the PUC that without the change, ratepayers would be forced unfairly to empty their pockets to rescue the utility from its debt. 

PG&E has repeatedly called the change illegal, and one of its first motions after bankruptcy was to ask Montali on April 9 to block the PUC’s March 27 order. 

In a printed statement Friday, PG&E said it was “disappointed that the court did not grant immediate relief from the unlawful and retroactive CPUC order. However, today’s decision was not on the overall merits of the CPUC action.” 

The utility “will continue to pursue all legal challenges to this unlawful CPUC decision,” the statement said. 

In its own printed statement, the PUC said it was pleased by Montali’s decision to dismiss PG&E’s complaint against the commission. 

“The Commission is pleased, but not surprised, that Judge Montali has ruled that PG&E cannot evade proper state regulation by choosing to file for bankruptcy and seeking protection from Bankruptcy Court,” said PUC President Loretta Lynch. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.pge.com 

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov 

http://www.canb.uscourts.gov 

SAN DIEGO — An elderly American cancer patient who says he traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, to buy Valium to relieve his pain has been arrested and jailed on suspicion of drug smuggling. 

George Paul Murl, 81, of Oxnard was being held Friday in a state penitentiary in Tijuana after he was arrested outside a pharmacy with 600 Valium pills, U.S. and Mexican authorities said. 

Murl was arrested on May 24 because he did not have a legitimate prescription for the pills, said Lorenzo Garibay, a spokesman for the Tijuana police department. 

Police turned the case over to federal prosecutors, which is standard in drug cases, Garibay said. 

“If you have a prescription it’s no problem,” he said. “If not, you can be arrested as a drug trafficker.” 

But an American minister who has visited Murl in prison said the elderly man did have a prescription and has been buying Valium in Tijuana for several years because it is cheaper than in the United States. 

The minister, David Walden of San Diego, said Murl has prostate cancer and should be released from prison on humanitarian grounds. 

“He’s sick. He needs medical attention,” said Walden, who has carried food and other supplies to American prisoners in the Tijuana penitentiary for six years. 

Tijuana’s many pharmacies have long attracted U.S. consumers with lower prices. But arrests for illegally buying certain drugs are fairly common. 

Walden said several of the 48 U.S. citizens currently at the penitentiary were arrested on similar offenses but Murl is the oldest by far. 

Murl, a World War II veteran, was told that he faces up to five years in prison if convicted, Walden said. 

A representative of the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana has visited Murl and found him in “good condition given the circumstances,” said consular spokesman Clint Wright. 

“In view of his age and health condition, we’re encouraging Mexican authorities to expedite the case,” Wright said. 

Two rare amphibian species in the Sierra Nevada are in danger of extinction and likely would be protected under the Endangered Species Act except for a federal moratorium on new listings, a government biologist acknowledged Friday. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imposed the moratorium in November, citing a backlog of lawsuits by environmentalists, and announced it would act only in response to court orders. 

So environmentalists have taken that route again, suing to force protection of the Sierra Nevada mountain yellow-legged frog and the Yosemite toad. 

“I think unless things dramatically change in the near future they deserve to be listed,” said Jason Davis, a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento who has studied the demise of the frogs and toads. 

“The species probably won’t go extinct in the next three to four years, but they could shortly thereafter if something isn’t done,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. 

Conservationists say the decline of the frog and toad from Yosemite National Park north to Lake Tahoe reflects the degradation of aquatic ecosystems throughout the West. 

“We’re on the brink of losing what were once the two most common amphibians in the high Sierra,” said Jeff Miller, spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity in Berkeley, Calif. 

“More than half of the native amphibians in Sierra Nevada watersheds are in serious decline and in need of formal protection,” said David Bayles, conservation director for the Pacific Rivers Council in Eugene, Ore. 

Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund filed the suit on behalf of the two groups in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Thursday. 

“The Fish and Wildlife Service’s delay in protecting the frog and toad ... is illegal and potentially dangerous for these declining species,” said Laura Hoehn, the lead attorney for Earthjustice. 

Pesticides, air pollution, livestock grazing near streams and introduction of non-native fish are among the factors contributing to the decline of both species, the lawsuit said. 

The groups petitioned the agency for the listings 15 months ago and the agency concluded in October that the listings might be warranted. 

But the agency missed legally mandated deadlines in March to issue final decisions on the frog and the toad, as it has in the case of dozens of other listing petitions in recent years, citing a shortage of money and backlog of higher priority species. 

“We probably should have had a proposed rule in this case,” Davis said. 

“Currently, the moratorium mandated by the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service says we need to halt all listing actions except those being driven by a court order,” he said. “I’ve been basically told to box up all my stuff and wait for further word.” 

The agency’s former director, Jamie Clark, told regional directors Nov. 17 to halt work on any listing actions not under court order or settlement agreement, saying “it will not be practical for the service to respond to any new petitions this fiscal year,” ending Sept. 30. 

The Bush administration has proposed increasing Fish and Wildlife’s budget for endangered species by $2 million to $8.5 million, but that remains well short of the $120 million the agency says it needs to clear out a backlog of listings. 

The new lawsuit says the Yosemite toad has disappeared from 47 percent of its historic habitat in the national park and surrounding national forests. The Sierra Nevada population of mountain yellow-legged frog has suffered similar declines. 

The Yosemite toad is found along lake shores and ponds at high elevation. The female has a colored mosaic of dark blotches on an olive-tan background, and adult males mature to a bright lemon color. 

Davis said the stocking of non-native trout appears to be the biggest cause of the loss of frogs because the rainbows and browns feast on the tadpoles. 

“They wipe out the frogs and force them into more marginal habitat,” he said. 

On the Net: 

Center for Biological Diversity: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: http://www.fws.gov 

Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund: http://www.earthjustice.org

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nkosi Johnson, a boy who was born with HIV and became an outspoken champion of others infected with the AIDS virus, died Friday of the disease he battled for all 12 of his years. 

Nkosi was praised for his openness about his infection in a country where people suspected of carrying the AIDS virus often are shunned by their families and chased from their communities. Former South African President Nelson Mandela called him an “icon of the struggle for life.” 

“Children, such as Nkosi Johnson, should be enjoying a life filled with joy and laughter and happiness,” Mandela said in a recent statement. “On a frightening scale, HIV/AIDS is replacing that joy, laughter and happiness with paralyzing pain and trauma.” 

Nkosi collapsed in December with brain damage and viral infections, and had not been expected to live much longer. His foster mother, Gail Johnson, said he died peacefully in his sleep in the morning. 

During his short life, Nkosi successfully contested the policies that kept HIV-infected children out of public schools. He talked about his own infection, challenging people to re-examine their fear of those afflicted with AIDS. 

“He had an awareness of the threat to his life and the importance of his life in lessening the threat to other people with AIDS,” High Court Justice Edwin Cameron, who is also infected with the virus, said recently. Nkosi was “a person with maturity far beyond his years, with the wisdom and courage of many adults accumulated together,” Cameron said. 

Nkosi was born Feb. 4, 1989, with the virus that causes AIDS. His mother could not afford to bring him up, and Gail Johnson became his foster mother when he was 2. Nkosi’s mother died of AIDS-related diseases in 1997. 

That same year, Gail Johnson and Nkosi successfully battled to force a public primary school to admit him despite his infection. The fight led to a policy forbidding schools from discriminating against HIV-positive children, and to guidelines for how schools should treat infected pupils. About 200 HIV-positive children are born in South Africa each day, but most die before they reach school age. 

Nkosi became internationally known with a speech at the opening of the 13th International AIDS conference last July in Durban, South Africa, in which he asked that AIDS sufferers no longer be stigmatized. 

Nkosi helped raise money for Nkosi’s Haven, a Johannesburg shelter for HIV-positive women and their children. He was crushed when a 3-month old baby his foster mother cared for died of AIDS. 

“He hated seeing sick babies and sick children,” Johnson said. 

The experience led to his speech at the AIDS conference, where he urged the South African government to start providing HIV-positive pregnant women with drugs to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus during childbirth. 

A year later the government is still studying proposals to use the drugs. 

”(Nkosi) was a symbol of resistance in a different sort of way, and I hope that this is now a lesson for us as government to do our best to deal with this AIDS scourge,” Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a member of parliament and head of the ruling African National Congress’ women’s league, told 702 talk radio. 

Gardening is a favorite pastime for both of us. While neither claims to have a green thumb, we can hold our own. 

When we were kids, we and our two sisters helped our dad tidy up the garden every Saturday. Weeding, raking, trimming, sweeping and planting were a weekend ritual. 

James acquired experience at an early age. From the time he was 9 until he graduated from high school, he cared for an elaborate and large garden of an aunt and uncle. 

The garden consisted of four large turf areas, a formal rose garden, a baronial hedge that bordered the property, a fruit orchard, decorative planting borders and potted plants galore. James soon discovered that there was more to gardening than pulling weeds and raking leaves — although there was plenty of that, as well. The art of pruning roses, trimming hedges and tilling soil soon became a part of James’ routine. 

If you have less than desirable soil, take several samples gathered from various locations throughout your yard to your local nursery or garden professional. The pro will be able test the pH of the soil and make specific recommendations concerning the types of organic material that should be used to “amend” the soil. Soil amendments should be mixed in with the existing soil using a rototiller.  

If the idea of major excavation and soil replacement or amendment isn’t your cup of tea, and all you want are a few top-quality planting areas for vegetables or flower beds, think “garden beds.” There are two types of garden beds – one is dug directly into the ground – an “in-ground bed” and the other is raised, and is appropriately named a “raised bed.” 

In both cases, a wood frame is built as a border to the bed. In the case of the in-ground bed, the wood framing at the perimeter is partially embedded into the soil with about 6 inches exposed above ground. The boards for a raised bed are higher (about 1 inch to 18 inches above ground) and essentially act as retaining walls. 

What’s the difference between the two? Is one better than the other? Actually both styles accomplish the goal of better quality soil and improved drainage. The raised bed, however, has a couple of advantages that the in-ground bed doesn’t. The soil in a raised bed warms earlier in the spring and has better drainage. What’s more, since raised beds aren’t subject to foot traffic, the soil remains loose and easy for roots and water to penetrate. 

Making a planting bed is easy. You’ll need a circular saw (a hand saw will work if you need the exercise), a driver-drill, a small sledgehammer, a pick, a shovel and a steel rake, some lumber, wood stakes, construction screws and soil. 

First, decide how large you want your planting bed to be and whether you want it in-ground or raised. When considering size, remember that the center of the bed should be reachable from the edges. Say your bed will measure roughly 4 feet by 8 feet and be in-ground. Your material list should consist of two 4-foot pressure-treated 1-by-8’s and two 8-foot pressure-treated 1-by-8’s. Don’t forget six 1-foot redwood or cedar stakes and construction screws to attach the boards to the stakes. 

Note: pressure-treated material is suggested because it is more rot- resistant. If you will be using the garden bed for vegetables, use redwood or cedar due to potential soil contamination from the toxic chemicals contained in pressure-treated material. Before building the frame, lay out the location on the ground and rototill and amend the soil. This will prevent damage to the frame by the rototiller after installation. 

Start the box construction by attaching the two 4-foot lengths of wood to the 8-foot lengths, using the construction screws. Next, place the box in the desired location and use a pick and shovel to create a shallow trench that the box will recess into – a few inches will be adequate. Drive stakes at all four corners and one at the center of each of the two long sides for added stability. The top of the stake should be driven slightly below the top of the boards. Drive construction screws through the outside face of the boards into the stakes. 

If you have your heart set on a raised bed, substitute the 1-by-8’s with 2-by-12’s and use 2-by-2 stakes that are 18 to 24 inches long. Finish the job by filling the box with premium soil, seeds or plants and water. You’ll be the envy of your neighborhood. 

For more home improvement tips and information www.onthehouse.com. 

James and Morris Carey are feature writers for The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The Nasdaq surges more than 41 percent over seven weeks and then drops back nearly 10 percent in just five days. 

The Dow industrials climb 20 percent over a two-month period before falling 4 percent in six sessions. 

After a protracted slump on Wall Street, it might look like the market moved a little too high too fast during its spring rally. It also might seem, given the still-uncertain outlook for earnings, that many investors didn’t learn enough from the painful lessons of the past two years. 

But some analysts, looking behind the percentages, find reasons to believe investors are right to be buying at their recent clip. 

“It’s part of the process of rebuilding confidence in the market. It’s just natural to have the upswings and the profit-taking and backing and filling that we’ve seen,” said Jim Herrick, managing director of trading for Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee. There was plenty of backing and filling in the market this past week, which saw the Dow tumble 166 points Wednesday and then recover a combined 117 on Thursday and Friday. The Nasdaq suffered hefty 75- and 91-point declines Tuesday and Wednesday, but recouped 65 the next two days. 

More retrenching – perhaps a lot of retrenching – is anticipated because the market is just starting warnings season, the period when companies that are expecting disappointing earnings release their forecasts. Those predictions and the release of actual second-quarter results starting in early to mid-July are likely to shake investors’ resolve and set off some substantial selling. But analysts, still believing the worst is over on Wall Street, don’t expect the declines to be serious. 

“We’re quite sure that the bear market ended the beginning of April,” said Eugene Mintz, financial markets analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Like other analysts, Mintz noted that investors have a lot of money and they are now intent on buying, where a few months ago their inclination was to sell. 

If the market’s handling of a warning this past week from Sun Microsystems Inc. is an indicator, it should in the end be able to cope with bad earnings news. 

Sun said Tuesday that the revenue in its fourth quarter, which ends June 30, could fall as much as 24 percent from a year ago, while per-share earnings would come to between 2 and 4 cents, compared with the 6 cents Wall Street expected. Wall Street initially was unnerved by the news, leading to Wednesday’s big drop. But by Thursday the market had a moderate rebound and it continued its advance Friday despite dim profit outlooks from DuPont Co. and BellSouth Corp. 

What the market has going for it is its tendency to be a leading indicator for earnings and the economy, rising six to nine months before a significant improvement in fundamentals becomes a reality. 

With the Federal Reserve widely expected to lower interest rates for the sixth time this year when it meets in late June, the market is likely to advance on expectations of healthier profits in the first quarter of 2002. 

Still, analysts aren’t predicting the market will rally in the near future at the pace it enjoyed during the spring. 

“As we come out of difficult times in the stock market, you will have these surges again and plateau for a while,” said Joseph Battipaglia, chief investment strategist at Gruntal & Co. 

“There’s a tug of war,” he said. “On one hand, the Fed is easing interest rates, and there’s news on the economy that speaks to something better than recession. On the other hand, there’s earnings season and companies’ confessionals and analysts downgrading their investment ratings. It makes the market volatile in the short term.” 

The Dow ended the week little changed, falling 14.96 or 0.1 percent, to 10,990.41 after a gain of 78.47 Friday. 

The Nasdaq fell 101.59 or 4.5 percent for the week after rising 38.95 Friday to 2,149.44. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index had a 17.22 or 1.3 percent loss for the week, rising 4.85 Friday to 1,260.67. 

The Russell 2000 index fell 6.90 or 1.4 percent for the week after gaining 5.22 Friday to close at 501.72. 

The Wilshire Associates Equity Index — which represents the combined market value of all New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq issues — ended the week at $11.671 trillion, off $178.420 billion for the week. A year ago the index was $13.734 trillion. 

End adv for weekend editions 

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler arm reported sharp declines in U.S. auto sales for May, while General Motors Corp. managed a slim gain. 

Ford, in the midst of a costly program to replace 13 million Firestone tires, said domestic sales dropped 12 percent. Chrysler said its sales last month were off 8 percent. 

GM, the world’s largest automaker, said its sales inched up 1 percent. 

The companies’ results excluded sales from foreign brands. 

While sales of GM passenger cars dropped 8 percent last month, a 9 percent jump in truck sales accounted for the automaker’s overall sales increase. 

“It was a very good month for the industry” coming off a record 2000, said Paul Bellew, GM’s executive director for market and industry analysis.  

Last year, sales by U.S. automakers totaled a record 17.4 million. 

George Pipas, Ford sales analysis manager, blamed the drop-off in sales on increased competition, higher gas prices and “the U.S. economy not growing as much as a year ago.” 

Profits were also hurt by weak sales of Ford’s sport utility vehicles. Sales of the restyled 2002 Explorer dropped 16.5 percent from sales of its predecessor a year ago. 

Ford announced the tire recall last week after concluding Wilderness AT tires installed on several of its SUVs, including the best-selling Explorer, would fail at a greater rate than competitors’ tires.  

Ford will take a $2.1 billion after-tax charge this quarter to pay for the program. 

Some foreign automakers fared better. Honda reported its best-ever May with a 5.4 percent rise.  

Nissan showed an almost 7 percent sales increase. BMW’s sales jumped 32 percent and sales of Hyundai vehicles soared 34 percent. Volkswagen sales rose 4 percent. 

On the Net: 

Ford Motor Co., http://www.ford.com 

DaimlerChrysler AG, http://www.daimlerchrysler.com 

General Motors Corp., http://www.gm.com/

SAN JOSE — The technology economy’s downturn has opened the eyes of personal computer makers to the nation’s booming Hispanic population, which has grown 58 percent to 35.3 million in the past decade. 

The overall U.S. market for computers is saturated. Computer ownership among white households is 55.7 percent; among Asians, it’s 65.6 percent. 

Yet just 33.7 percent of Hispanic households owned a PC in August 2000, according to the latest available data from the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. 

“It’s simple math,” said Eric Newburger, a statistician with the U.S. Census Bureau.  

“If you’re selling computers, you’ll see that a lot of the Hispanic population doesn’t have computers.” 

Computer marketers, their sales badly sagging, are waking up to Latino customers like Otelia Mendoza. 

A Mexican immigrant living in East Palo Alto, Mendoza recently bought a Gateway computer to help her five children through school. 

“It took a long time for them to notice us – computers have been around for 10 years,” said her 13-year-old, Genaro Lombera Jr. “Just because we’re Mexicans doesn’t mean we don’t need computers.” 

The nation’s top PC vendors – Dell Computer Corp., Compaq Computer Corp., IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Corp., Gateway Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. – all have some services aimed at Spanish speakers, including multilingual help desks or Web sites. 

But none have marketing campaigns as intensive as Gateway, which drew 20,000 visitors to its small store in Stockton, in California’s Central Valley, by inviting champion boxer Oscar de la Hoya. 

The San Diego-based PC maker was the first to make a major push, increasing its Spanish-speaking call center staff from nine to 65 beginning in September, and putting merchandise and staff dedicated to Hispanics in nearly half its 300 stores. 

Compaq plans its own Spanish-language initiative by the end of July, offering Presario 5000T desktop models with Spanish-language software, operating manuals and keyboards, including such characters an “n” with a tilde, which were previously available only in Latin America. 

IBM, meanwhile, is increasing its involvement with Hispanic associations and businesses; HP is setting up product booths at cultural festivals. 

“We realized we weren’t talking to them, we were talking at them,” said David Turner, vice president of marketing for Gateway’s consumer division. “Now we’re talking to them, and they’ve responded favorably.” 

Gateway said it made three times the revenue from Hispanic customers in the first quarter of 2001 than in all of 2000. By year’s end, it expects revenue from Hispanic customers will be 13 times greater than in 2000. 

Partnering with Univision Communications Inc., which owns the nation’s leading Spanish-language broadcast network and Internet service provider, Gateway also runs television commercials that are made from scratch – and not just a translated version – for a Spanish-speaking audience. 

Marketing experts who have seen Gateway’s ads say the PC maker has smartly captured the attention of Hispanic viewers, appealing to their strong family values and aspirations to succeed. 

One ad features a middle-class Latino family gathered around a PC, the father commenting on how Gateway helped his family fulfill a seemingly impossible dream of getting a computer. 

Gateway officials are being careful to avoid the hall of shame of Hispanic marketing – ads that lose their relevance or manage to insult their audience by mangling translations. 

For instance, a Spanish version of a “Got Milk?” commercial had to be pulled off the air because the translation asked the equivalent of “Are you lactating?” 

Compaq, based in Houston, is equally ambitious about targeting Hispanics. 

“We see this as a potential gold mine,” said Mark Vena, director for consumer desktops in Compaq’s Home and Office division. 

None of the companies would say what they’re spending on these marketing initiatives, but all say the efforts will pay off. 

The new focus could have come earlier, said Felipe Korzenny, principal and co-founder of Cheskin, a market research and consulting firm. 

“They’ve been under the wrong impression that making specific cultural efforts were not relevant to their category,” he said. 

Compaq officials admit targeting the nation’s Hispanic segment wasn’t on their radar until PC sales slowed. 

“When you were looking at 20- to 30-percent growth rates over the last two or three years, you can afford to not do something like this,” Vena said. 

Now, PC makers need new markets. The first quarter of this year saw the industry’s first-ever U.S. revenue decline. 

The numbers are more promising among Hispanics, now even with non-Hispanic blacks as the nation’s largest minority group. 

According to a Cheskin market study, the percentage of Hispanic non-computer owners who intended to buy one rose to 40 percent last year. More than two-thirds didn’t have a preferred brand. 

At the moment, it’s anybody’s market to dominate. 

Compaq leads with an 18 percent share of computers owned by Hispanic adults; IBM and Gateway follow with 15 percent each, according to the Cheskin study. Apple has 13 percent; HP, 11 percent; and Dell, 8 percent. 

Advertising experts say high-tech players should learn from Old Economy companies that have long catered to Hispanic consumers, such as Coca Cola or Procter & Gamble, one of the first to make product labels in Spanish. 

Such companies have invested millions in time, money, and community involvement to lure Hispanics – and have won their consumer loyalty in return. 

“People are looking for comfort levels,” said Robert Grayson, a consultant and 20-year veteran in marketing. “Having a tilde key (on a computer keyboard) is great, but it goes beyond the need of the tilde because you can still write ’senor’ without the tilde. What that says is, ’You’re thinking of me,’ – and that’s ethnic marketing.” 

Heading into the final track & field event of the season, the St. Mary’s Panthers are in better shape than ever before. But even with nearly every hopeful on the team qualified for the CIF State Championships this weekend at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento, the Panthers will need to achieve perfection to win a team title. 

“This is the first time we’re heading to the state meet feeling like we can really compete for a team championship,” St. Mary’s head coach Jay Lawson said. “But for that to happen, everything would have to go perfect for us.” 

With several athletes owning impressive marks in various events, Lawson’s team does indeed have the potential to take home the state title on the boys’ side. The Panthers only qualified athletes in five of the 16 events, but are expected to at least qualify for Saturday’s finals in all five. 

The burden will fall most heavily on the shoulders of senior Halihl Guy, who will be involved in four of the five events. Guy won both hurdles races at the North Coast Section championship meet last weekend, and is expected to challenge for a top-three finish in the 300-meter low hurdles. He is also a key component of St. Mary’s two relay teams. 

Success in the relays for the Panthers will depend on the health of Chris Dunbar. The junior was scratched from the NCS meet due to an injury, and is still questionable for this weekend. If Dunbar is able to go, the 4x100 team should challenge for first place, as the Panthers own the third-best time in the state this season. If Dunbar is unable to perform at his peak level, the team’s title hopes could go down the drain. 

Triple jumpers Solomon Welch and Asokah Muhammed will try to gather points in their event, an Muhammed will also run in the relays. 

For the St. Mary’s girls, it will be a full day on Friday, as they have entrants in 10 of the 16 events. But other than thrower Kamaiya Warren and distance runner Bridget Duffy, the Panthers’ girls may struggle just to qualify for Saturday’s finals. 

Warren was expected to be a dual entrant, but scratched on all three attempts in the discus in the BSAL league championship meet. Although Warren felt she had a better shot at a state title in that event, she should finish high in the shot put on Friday, as she owns the fourth-best throw in the state this year. But Warren has a big mountain to climb; Karen Freberg of San Luis Obispo has thrown more than six feet farther than Warren, nearly breaking the national prep record in the event. 

“You know, anything is possible. I won’t ever say that I can’t do something,” Warren said of her title hopes. “We’ll just have to see how things work out this weekend.”

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, 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. $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 $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”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. “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 year membership. All ages. June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2: El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast; June 8: The Enemies, Pitch Black, The Fleshies, Supersift, Texas Thieves; June 9: Groovie Ghoulies, The Influents, Red Planet, Mallrats, Goat Shanty. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz June 3, 7 p.m The Wavy Gravy Camp Winnarainbow Benefit Boogie. This event benefits the multicultural circus and performing arts camp  

in Mondocino County. With music by the Flying Other Brothers, Pete Sears of Jefferson Airplane, Greg Anton and David Gans. $10 to $15. 1370 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com 

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. June 1: The Riders of the Purple Sage; June 2: Rebecca Riots; June 3: Hurricane Sam; June 6: Freight 33rd Anniversary concert series with Leni Stern, Jenna Mammina, Jill Cohn, Pig Iron. June :7 Alice Stuart, Folk blues, $17.50; June 8: Cats & Jammers Hot swing. $17.50; , June 9.: Danny Heines & Michael Manring Virtuoso guitar and bass. $17.50.1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

La Peña Cultural Center “Cantiflas!” June 7 and June 8, 8 p.m. Herbert Siguenza, of the  

critically acclaimed trio Culture Clash, stars in this bilingual work-in-progress about legendary Mexican comedian Marion Moreno. With guest performers Eduardo Robledo and Tanya Vlach. 

$16. 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2568 www.lapena.org  

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. June 1: New Monsoon; June 2: Avi Bortnick Group 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

The Bill Horvitz Band and the Adam Levy Threesome June 1, 8 p.m. TUVA Space 3192 Adeline  

The Berkeley Festival of Contemporary Performances All performances begin at 8 p.m. June 1: Steve Coleman and Five Elements; June 2: Roscoe Mitchell with George Lewis, David Wessel and Thomas Buckner. $15 Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus www.tempofestival.org 

Empyrean Ensemble June 2, 8 p.m. Final concert of the season, featuring soprano Susan Narucki in the world premiere of Mario Davidovsky’s “Cantiones Sine Textu,” as well as works by other composers. 7 p.m. panel discussion with the composers. $14 - $18 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave 925-798-1300  

Berkeley High Jazz Combo June 3, 4:30 p.m. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Schubert Festival June 3, 4 p.m. Mini-Schubert Festival as part of the Sundays at Four Chamber Music series. Will feature Schubert’s Trout Quintet, String Trio, and more. $10 Crowden School 1475 Rose St. 559-6910 www.thecrowdenschool.org 

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

“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 

“Cymbeline” June 2 through June 24, Tues. - Thur. 7:30 p.m., Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sun. 4 p.m. Opening of the California Shakespeare Festival features one of Shakespeare’s first romances, directed by Daniel Fish. $12 - $146. Bruns Memorial Amphitheater off Highway 24 at the Shakespeare Festival Way/Gateway Exit. 548-9666 or www.calshakes.org 

“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 traveled to Laramie, Wyo., after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepherd. The play is about the community and the impact Shaper’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 June 1: 7:30 Reason, Debate, and a Tale; June 2: 7:00 A River Called Trash; June 3: 5:30 Ruslan and Ludmila. Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“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. 

Nomad Videofilm Festival 2001 June 1 10:40p.m. featuring world premieres from four S.F. Bay Area mediamakers: “Roadkill” by Antero Alli, “Forest” by Farhad J. Parsa “Visit” by Jesse Miller, B, “Fell Apart” by Doan La Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640, pix & details: http://www.verticalpool.com/nomad.html 

“TRAGOS: A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt” an Antero Alli film June 2, 10:40pm Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640, pix & details: http://www.verticalpool.com/tragos.html 

“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  

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. 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 

A compromise for the Beth El dilemma 

Editor: 

As a near-daily user of Berryman Path, a former member of Beth El temple, and a frequent creek cleanup participant, it seems to me that there’s a compromise solution to the Beth El / Codornices Creek controversy. It relies on the historical accident of Berryman Path being legally a street.  

Because of this, the path’s slice of land is unusually wide - 20 feet, while most of Berkeley’s paths are more like 10 or 5 feet. According to project maps (Alternative Parking 1 and 2), Beth El’s proposed parking and drive-through area just barely overlaps the 60-foot-wide creek corridor.  

So, my proposed compromise: The city deeds over Berryman Path to Beth El. Beth El moves the parking area 20 feet north, daylights the creek, builds a 5-foot-wide walking and biking path next to the creek, and gives the city a permanent easement for public use of the new path. 

Beth El would still have to make some other changes in their plan, for instance moving the fenced perimeter and building at least one pedestrian bridge over the creek.  

However they would be getting a large chunk of extra land for their trouble, which seems like a good deal. Also, this idea doesn’t solve any of the non-creek-related objections to the project, but my impression is that those objections are secondary and Beth El has already done a reasonable job of addressing them. 

I hope all involved parties will consider this idea seriously. 

Jef Poskanzer Berkeley 

Vandalism at garage senseless 

Editor: 

Can someone please explain to me the reason for defacing someone’s personal property?  

Is it for laughs? Out of spite? Jealousy? Or sheer boredom? 

Since starting her new job three months ago, my wife began parking in a downtown Berkeley garage.  

One month ago we purchased a new black convertible to further enjoy the divine weather we have all grown accustom to here in Northern California. Being recent transplants from the Northeast, this was just what the doctor ordered. 

Three weeks ago to the day our new car, which has yet to adore a California license plate, was senselessly keyed while my wife was at work.  

The entire passenger side of the car was damaged along with the rear trunk lid.  

All of which occurred in broad daylight. Does anyone monitor these garages?  

Does the garage have no responsibility for maintaining a safe and secure environment? After all we do pay a monthly fee to park in the garage, it’s not free. 

The cost to repair the vehicle was $1,500, most of which came directly out of our own pocket, and the repair process itself took three weeks.  

We also learned of another car (same make) which had been keyed the very same day. 

It’s anyone’s guess how many others failed to file a complaint with the garage.  

This act of violence and destruction should not be tolerated in our community.  

Worst of all this was not an individual targeting another, but rather someone simply destroying a stranger’s property. 

This morning, a mere three weeks after the incident and only one day out of the shop, the car was keyed a second time. Apparently, several others in the garage were also damaged.  

This time, in addition to filing a complaint with the garage, the police were called.  

Of course, this will solve nothing.  

I have a difficult time understanding how this happens not once, but numerous time in the same garage.  

For those looking for parking, there is one more free spot available downtown.  

You’re welcome to it. 

Douglas Scalia Concord 

Need staff to monitor our environment 

Editor: 

Berkeley is the “Eco-city” with the environmentally progressive reputation, right? WRONG!! It appears that Berkeley’s priorities have changed. 

The Toxics Management Division is the department that Berkeley citizens, the Council, and the Environmental Commission rely upon to provide local environmental protection from exposures to substances such as chromium, lead, dioxin, pesticides, radioactive materials, airborne chemicals, hazardous waste, etc.  

Recently I learned from the city finance director that the additional critically-needed staff position for the TMD has been cut from this year’s city budget proposal. According to the TMD manager, without the needed additional staff, the department not only will be unable to implement already approved but unfunded programs such as lead abatement, woodsmoke education, dioxin curtailment, and well surveying, but will have to drastically cut back on many of the services it currently provides such as dealing with pollution from manufacturers in West Berkeley and timely response to newly discovered environmental threats.  

For example, you probably have read about the hexavalent chromium (CR6) recently uncovered in a groundwater plume at the Harrison Playfield site and the arsenic in wood in play structures in children’s play parks.Is this gross misprioritization of the use of city resources OK with you?  

If not, it is not too late, but I urge you to act quickly because the budget package is due to be voted on by the City Council on June 26.  

Without council intervention, senior city staff fully intends to let this happen. Please call your City Councilmember and/or Mayor Shirley Dean and tell them that they must vote to reinstate the TMD position in this year’s budget. Your councilmember’s office phone number is listed in the White Pages of the telephone directory or you can obtain it and email addresses by calling the City Clerk at 644-6480. 

Jami Caseber Berkeley 

Director, Citizens Opposing a Polluted Environment 

Berkeley 

Friday, June 1

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 

“Rumi: Mystic and Romantic  

Love, Stories of Masnavi” 

5 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Free public talk by Professor Andrew Vidich. Childcare and vegetarian food provided. 

707-226-7703 

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. Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17.  

$8 - $35 sliding scale per session  

Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Board of Library Trustees  

Special Meeting 

12 noon 

Department of Human Resources 

Bay Laurel Room 

2180 Milvia, 1st floor 

Regular meeting with public comments followed by closed interview session for the Director of Library Services position. 

City Commons Club,  

Luncheon and Speaker 

11:15 a.m. 

Berkeley City Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

This week featuring Joe Garrett, speaking on “Survival in the Banking Wars.” Lunch served at 11:45 for $11-$12.25. Come at 12:30 to hear the speaker only for $1, students free. Reservations required for three or more. 

848-3533 

Saturday, June 2

Car Seat Safety Clinic 

10:00 a.m. 

Kittredge St. Parking Garage, second level 

The Berkeley Police Department will demonstrate proper techniques for car seat installation and use, and offer safety checks and tips. Families are welcome to visit the Habitot Children’s Museum located across the street from the garage. Free. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Family Storytime  

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Main Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Storyteller Olga Loya tells tales from around the world. Geared for children three to eight and their parents. Free  

649-3964 

Commission On Disability  

Hearings 

1 - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St. 

Open forum, opportunity for public to present ideas and concerns about barriers for people with disabilities and accessibility of City facilities. Public comment on Berkeley’s proposed “Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan.” Will continue on June 13. 

981-6342 

Longfellow Middle School’s  

Outdoor Arts Festival 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Longfellow Courtyard 

1500 Derby St. 

Live music performances, silent auction of student and community art, BBQ and bake sale. Talent showcase and awards ceremony from 2 - 3 p.m. Free admission 665-1980 

Birdwatching Walk  

and Breakfast 

8 a.m. 

Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

This is the time of year when the greatest variety of birds can be found in the Garden, including some rare species. Breakfast and a walk. $25, limited space. 643-2755 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Walking Tour 

10 a.m. - noon 

Thousand Oaks Elementary School Tour of Thousand Oaks School and neighborhood. $5 - $10, reservations required. 848-0181  

Sunday, June 3  

Rosa Parks Spring  

Celebration and Fund-raiser 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Rosa Parks 

920 Allston Way 

Silent auction, quilt raffle, cake walk and field events. 

— compiled by 

Sabrina Forkish 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics  

11 a.m. - Noon  

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn how to adjust front and rear derailleurs from one of REI’s bike technicians. All you need to bring is your bike. Free  

527-4140 

Healing Through Tibetan  

Yoga 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Slow movements of Kum Nye encourage self-healing and deeper spiritual dimensions in experience. Demonstrated and discussed by Jack van der Meulen. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812 

Family Day at Magnes  

Museum 

12:30 - 3 p.m. 

2911 Russell St. 

A celebration of cultural heritage, the day is co-sponsored by the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society. Free admission. 

www.magnesmuseum.org 

Dedication of TROTH 

2 - 4:30 p.m. 

Northside Community Art Garden 

On Northside St. 1 block N. of Hopkins 

TROTH, a special earth wall toolshed and product of nearly 3 years of volunteer labor, will be dedicated today. This “cob” building was created from 50 years of soil, and is the newest of many local works which showcase art and eco-technology. Potluck meal and words from gardeners, City representatives and BART. 

841-3757 

Monday, June 4

“Boys Will Be Men” 

6:45 p.m. 

Longfellow Theater 

1500 Derby St. 

Special Father’s Day showing of the acclaimed documentary for Berkeley teen’s and their families. Introduced by Tom Weidlinger, followed by audience discussion. Free. 

849-2683 

www.berkeleypta.org 

Tuesday, June 5

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. 

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 

Intelligent Conversation  

7 - 9 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

A discussion group open to all, regardless of age, religion, viewpoint, etc. This time the discussion topic is open and will follow the conversation. Informally led by Robert Berend, who founded similar groups in L.A., Menlo Park, and Prague. Bring light snacks/drinks to share. Free  

527-5332 

Bike for a Better City Action Meeting 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

1356 Rose St. 

www.bfbc.org 

Wednesday, June 6 

Fishbowl: “Everything you always wanted to know about the opposite sex but were afraid to ask” 

7 p.m.. to 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. 

Find out what the other half really thinks! The Fishbowl is an interesting way to anonymously ask those burning questions. $8 for BRJCC members, $10 for general public. 848-0237 x127. 

Thursday, June 7  

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 

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 

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 session will be a community meeting.  

654-5486 

Skin Cancer Screening Clinic 

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center 

Summit Campus  

2450 Ashby Ave. 

Markstein Cancer Education Center 

Skin cancer screenings are offered only to people who, due to limited or no health insurance, would be able to have a suspicious mole or other skin changes examined. Appointments are required.  

869-8833 

Summer Noon Concerts 2001 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza 

Shattuck at Center St. 

Weekly summer concert series. This week Advanced Jazz Workshop under direction of Mike Zilber. 

Friday, June 8  

Strong Women - The Arts, Herstory and Literature 

1:15 - 3:15 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 cultural studies course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

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 

Backpacking Essentials 

7 p.m. 

REI 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Review the fundamental how-tos of selecting gear for a weekend backpacking trip. Free 

527-4140 

City Commons Club, Luncheon and Speaker 

11:45 a.m. 

Berkeley City Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

This week featuring Doris Sloan, Ph.D., on “Treasures Along the Silk Road Oases.” Come early for social hour. Lunch at 11:45 for $11-$12.25. Come at 12:30 to hear the speaker only for $1, students free. Reservations required for three or more. 

848-3533 

Saturday, June 9 

Live Oak Park Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Celebrates original crafts, international diversity, and community life. One hundred artists and craftsmakers display their work, with live performances and a variety of food. Free admission.  

Call 986-9337 

The Bite of REI 2001 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

REI 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Taste some of the best, lightweight backpacking food and energy snacks available. At 1 p.m. Rick Greenspan and Hal Kahn with demonstrate how to turn your outdoor trips into gourmet adventures. Free 

527-4140 

La Pena 26th Anniversary  

Benefit to Honor Dolores Huerta 

7 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Music performances, slide show and raffle in honor of special guest Doloras Huerta, farm worker’s and women’s rights advocate. Huerta worked with Cesar Chavez to establish and lead the National Farm Workers Association in the 1960’s, and has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of farm workers for decades. Proceeds will go to La Pena and Huerta’s medical expenses. $20 - $25. 

849-2568 www.lapena.org 

Sunday, June 10 

Counteracting Negative Emotions 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Exercises presented by Sylvia Gretchen, Dean of Nyingma Studies. Free and open to the public. 

843-681 

Live Oak Park Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

One hundred artists and craftsmakers display their work, with live entertainment and food. Free admission.  

Call 986-9337 

“Kindertransport: A Personal Account” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. 

Hear the moving story Ralph Samuel, who escaped Nazi Germany as the age of eight. Samuel was one of an estimated 10,000 children who were rescued through the efforts of the Kindertransport operation. $4 BRJCC members, $5 for general public. Admission includes brunch. 848-0237. 

Tuesday, June 12 

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 

Cooking for BEFHP Women 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

BEFHP Women’s Resource Center 

2140 Dwight Way 

Come help the Berkeley Emergency Food and Housing Project prepare, serve, and cleanup a hot meal prepared for Berkeley’s homeless women and children. Teens 16+. 

Wednesday, June 13  

Defining Diversity 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

Different interpretations of biological and cultural diversity and how it’s used for very different purposes.  

548-2220 

Commission On Disability Hearings 

4 - 6 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St. 

Open forum, opportunity for public to present ideas and concerns about barriers for people with disabilities and accessibility of City facilities. Public comment on Berkeley’s proposed “Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan.”  

981-6342 

Lead-Safe Painting and Home Remodeling 

6 - 8 p.m. 

Claremont Branch Library 

2940 Benvenue Ave. 

Free course on how to detect and remedy lead hazards in the home. 

567-8280 

“Illusions of the ‘New Economy’” 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Talk by professor and author Dick Walker. $5 donation requested. 

415-863-6637  

Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association General Meeting 

7:30 - 9:30 p.m. 

St. Clement’s Episcopal Church 

2837 Claremont Blvd. 

Covers area of Berkeley south of Dwight Way and east of Collage Avenue. Presentations on neighborhood issues. 

549-3793 

Thursday, June 14 

Summer Noon Concerts 2001 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza 

Shattuck at Center St. 

Weekly concert series. This week Berkeley High Folklorico De Aztlan. 

Friday, June 15  

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 

Strong Women - The Arts, Herstory and Literature 

1:15 - 3:15 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 cultural studies course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

City Commons Club, Luncheon and Speaker 

11:45 a.m. 

Berkeley City Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

This week featuring Edward Fox on “Regional Development Plans of The Wilderness Society.” Come early for social hour. Lunch at 11:45 for $11-$12.25. Come at 12:30 to hear the speaker only for $1, students free. Reservations required for three or more. 

848-3533 

Saturday, June 16  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Berkeley Arts Festival Music Circus 

1 p.m. - 5 p.m. 

Shattuck Ave. between University Ave. and Channing Way 

The Music Circus will feature dozens of eclectic performances ranging from string quartets to blues and jazz. Free bus fare to and from the event offered by AC Transit. 665-9496. Free. 

Tuesday, June 19 

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 

Intelligent Conversation  

7 - 9 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

A discussion group open to all, regardless of age, religion, viewpoint, etc. This time the discussion will center on frugality, generosity, simplifying life, and dealing with money. Informally led by Robert Berend, who founded similar groups in L.A., Menlo Park, and Prague. Bring light snacks/drinks to share. Free  

527-5332 

Fibromyalgia Support Group  

Noon - 2 p.m.  

Alta Bates Medical Center 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus  

2001 Dwight Way  

This session will be a rap session.  

601-0550 

Thursday, June 21 

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 

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 session will be a “Pride Mass.”  

654-5486 

Summer Noon Concerts 2001 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza 

Shattuck at Center St. 

Weekly concert series. This week Capoeira Arts Cafe. 

Friday, June 22 

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 

Strong Women - The Arts, Herstory and 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 cultural studies course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

City Commons Club, Luncheon and Speaker 

11:45 a.m. 

Berkeley City Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

This week featuring Jeffrey Riegle, Ph.D., on “Historical Reasons for China’s Current Conduct.” Come early for social hour. Lunch at 11:45 for $11-$12.25. Come at 12:30 to hear the speaker only for $1, students free. Reservations required for three or more. 

848-3533 

Saturday, June 23 

“Feast of Fire” benefit for the Crucible 

10:30 p.m. 

The Crucible 

1036 Ashby Ave. 

Act III, The Flight of Icarus, will feature live music, and performances by several groups including Capacitor and Xeno. Price of admission benefits the Crucible, a multi-disciplinary community arts center. $20 at the door. 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Sunday, June 24 

Hands-On Bicycle Repair Clinics  

11 a.m. - Noon  

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn how to fix a flat from one of REI’s bike technicians. All you need to bring is your bike. Free  

527-4140 

Thursday, June 28 

Summer Noon Concerts 2001 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza 

Shattuck at Center St. 

Weekly concert series. This week Berkeley Opera performs pieces of Carmen. 

Friday, June 29  

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 

Strong Women - The Arts, Herstory and Literature 

1:15 - 3:15 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 cultural studies course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Saturday, June 30 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Students get taste of Elizabethan Era with ‘Summer’ play 

Oxford Elementary School fifth-grade teacher Dana Wahlberg doesn’t have the luxury of speaking in Elizabethan English herself. 

Between lessons Thursday Wahlberg was multitasking at a dizzying pace. With one eye on documents and one ear to the phone, she still managed to fire off comments, commands and questions to her students, her head swiveling back and forth across the room like a tennis instructor’s ball machine. 

“What’s the matter?” Wahlberg asked one student, having somehow picked a crestfallen face out of the flurry of activity in the room, through the tiniest of glances in the girl’s direction.  

“You don’t look too happy,” she said. “You were great. Just a little louder tomorrow.” 

Question, comment, praise, and advice in just 16 words. How Shakespeare’s head would spin! 

And yet it is no doubt thanks to people like Wahlberg that Shakespeare is alive and well in the age of sounds bites and 60-hour work weeks. 

For the last 12 years, Wahlberg has made it her personal mission to involve each student who passes through her class in a Shakespeare production.  

It’s not part of a specially funded after-school program.  

It’s not part of a districtwide arts curriculum. It is one woman’s crusade to expose her students to the work of a playwright some scholars credit with “inventing” the English language. 

“This is the most important thing I do for their education,” Wahlberg said. 

While math, science and history lessons might sail out of a student’s memory by the end of the summer, Wahlberg said, “Every single child in this room will remember when they’re 50 years old that they were ‘blank blank’ in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ ” 

For Wahlberg, it isn’t about giving students a quick taste of Shakespeare. She will accept nothing less than the total immersion that comes from memorizing Shakespeare’s lines and bringing them to life before an audience of peers. 

“My students speak Elizabethan English at home,” Wahlberg said. “They take to (Shakespeare) faster than adults. They just really, really understand it because Shakespeare’s themes are so universal.” 

For the last six weeks, Wahlberg’s 23 students have been busy memorizing lines from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” For the last two weeks they have hiked up the hill to Codornices Park once a day to rehearse in the blazing sun. Thursday morning was dress rehearsal day, in front of an audience of kindergartners. The main performance is at 10 a.m. today at the north end of Codornices Park at Euclid Avenue and Eunice Street. 

“She should teach high school drama,” Oxford student Tim Hewitt said of Wahlberg after the rehearsal Thursday. “She makes us work so hard for just fifth graders.” 

But Wahlberg is unapologetic. All students secretly want a chance to perform on stage, she said, because it gives them a chance to shine. Furthermore, she said, the experience of overcoming stage fright and seeing a difficult performance through to its end does wonders for a fifth grader’s self-confidence. 

Anyone present at the rehearsal could see all the hard work had paid off. The enthusiasm, energy and thought the students put into the delivery of their lines – many of them lines that could twist the tongues of the most literate adult – was enough to make the kindergartners buckle over with laughter. 

It was even enough to spark an uncharacteristic burst of verbosity from Wahlberg. 

“This is the best dress rehearsal I’ve ever seen,” Wahlberg told her students, as the gathered in the shade after the show. “You were tremendously great.” 

An hour later, as they prepared for the start of a new lesson back at Oxford school, the remark still seemed to be ringing in the students’ ears. 

“She thinks we can do anything,” said Spencer Moody, one of the lead characters in the play. 

Hewitt pondered the remark a moment before responding. 

“Basically, we can,” he said.

Kirsten McKnight, a veteran of the Pacific-10 Conference, has been named assistant women’s basketball coach at the University of California, head coach Caren Horstmeyer announced Thursday.  

McKnight fills the vacancy created when Sue Phillips-Chargin opted to return to her previous job as head women’s basketball coach at Archbishop Mitty High School. Her hiring completes the Cal staff, which also includes assistant coaches Shaunice Warr and Camille Burkes.  

“We’re excited with our new addition to the Cal coaching staff,” said Horstmeyer. “Kirsten brings well-rounded experience from her time coaching at Oregon. She knows what it takes to build a program into a consistent championship-caliber team.”  

McKnight’s responsibilities at Cal will include assisting with recruiting and working with the development of the guards. Horstmeyer also announced that Warr would be assuming additional recruiting responsibilities as the senior member of her staff.  

McKnight returns home to the Bay Area after serving for three seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Oregon. During her tenure, the Ducks won two Pac-10 championships and competed in three NCAA Tournaments. 

The Larkspur product also competed in four NCAA Tournaments as a guard for the Oregon women’s basketball team beginning with the 1994-95 season. She began her collegiate playing career as a walk-on and was awarded a full scholarship by her junior season, and was voted by her teammates as the 1998 Bev Smith Most Inspirational Player.

The Parks and Waterfront Department released an environmental study Wednesday on the proposed Harrison Street Skate Park nearly seven months after discovery of a chrome 6 groundwater plume halted work on the project. 

The study, or Subsequent Mitigated Negative Declaration, explained that its intent was to “describe the re-design of the skate park in light of the Hexavalent chromium (chrome 6) found in the groundwater and to provide for public view of this information.” 

The study reviewed actions the city has taken and solutions implemented since the discovery of the chrome 6 plume. 

Since the Stop Work Order was issued for the 18,000-square-foot skate park in November, the city has spent at least $295,000 in cleanup and re-design fees. Ed Murphy, project manager for the skate park said the cost of city staff time has not been estimated yet. 

One city commissioner said the additional costs could have been avoided had the Parks and Waterfront Department followed normal procedures.  

“As soon as the skate park design called for digging nine feet down for the skate bowls, the city should have ordered a study of the groundwater,” said Community Environmental Advisory Commissioner LA Wood. “When you do things backward you end up spending more money and that so far has been the legacy of Harrison Field.” 

Parks and Waterfront Director Lisa Caronna said her department went forward with the project based on a 1999 initial environmental study that did not indicate there was chromium 6 in groundwater below the construction site.  

But the 1999 study did not consider the excavation of the skate bowls, which had not yet been planned. 

“Let me just say that we had been involved with the site for four years before the project began and we did testing, testing and more testing,” Caronna said. “But we are not avoiding the fact that we made a mistake.” 

The skate park is located at Fifth and Harrison streets immediately adjacent to the Harrison Soccer Field. The soccer field and skate park are flanked by Interstate 80, train tracks and a variety of industrial businesses. 

Chrome 6 is a Class A carcinogen that is harmful if swallowed and especially dangerous if inhaled, according to Environmental Protection Agency. According to the study, the groundwater in the skate bowls contained levels of chrome 6 between 1,200 and 2,100 micrograms per liter. 

A December study by the Emeryville-based SOMA Corporation determined that there was little threat to humans because the site had been closed off and there were no apparent pathways for human intake. 

Problems for the skate park began last November when groundwater flowed into pits being excavated for the bowls. Bill MacKay, one of the owners of Western Roto Engravers Color Tech on Sixth Street, happened to be across the street from the site, noticed the water and immediately notified Toxics Management Department that the water may contain chrome 6. 

MacKay suspected the presence of the chrome 6 because his company was responsible for the plume. He said he reported the plume to the city in 1990 and has since spent nearly $1 million to remove the responsible tanks from his shop and monitor the plume’s movement, which he regularly reported to the city. 

Since the discovery, the city hired private toxic management contractors to haul away 45,000 gallons of contaminated water and another 80,000 gallons were stored next to the site in 20,000 gallon tanks where it was treated and released into a nearby storm drain, according to Hazardous Materials Supervisor Nabil Al-Hadithy. 

Murphy said the clean up of groundwater was completed Thursday. 

According to the study, the skate park design has been altered so the five bowls will be mostly above ground. In addition, Murphy said the excavated bowls were compacted with gravel, covered with thick sheet of plastic and will soon be covered with six-inches of concrete to assure the groundwater is completely sealed off from the surface area of the skate park. 

“Ideally we’d like to have the park completed something this year,” Murphy said. 

Two air quality studies are about to begin at Harrison within the next week. One will monitor airborne particulate matter generated by the heavy traffic on Interstate 80, diesel fuel emissions from trains and the garbage transfer station at Second and Gilman streets.  

The other study will monitor the air over the park for chrome 6. Murphy said the results of the studies won’t be available for at least a year. 

“We have spent more money evaluating the environmental conditions of this site and know less about it that any other site I know of,” Wood said.

The Cal men’s varsity eight won its opening round heat at the IRA National Championship regatta on the Cooper River in Cherry Hill, N.J., on Thursday. The win advanced the Bears to the semifinal in the Varsity Challenge Cup.  

The top three finishers in the each of Friday’s two semifinals will advance to the grand final and race for the National Championship on Saturday, June 2. 

“It was a good day for all our crews,” said Cal head coach Steve Gladstone. “They started the regatta with some solid performances.”  

In the varsity heat, the Bears got off to a quick start and immediately took a four-seat advantage over Wisconsin. Cal had a length by the 750-meter mark and had broken open water by the 1000. Cal controlled the race from the front, taking the win and advancing to the semifinal. Cal’s winning time was the slowest of any varsity heat, but it was evident that there was plenty of untapped speed as the crew rowed the final 500 meters at approximately 30 strokes per minute. Princeton, Brown and Penn won the other heats and advanced with Cal to the semifinal round, while the other semifinalists will be determined in the repechage round.

Options for building a new courthouse in Berkeley are practically nil, Deputy City Manager Phil Kamlarz said Thursday. 

Kamlarz and City Manager Weldon Rucker met with county officials Wednesday to try once more to push for time to explore building a new county courthouse somewhere in Berkeley. But time seems to have just about run out, Kamlarz said.  

The county is ready to remodel the building at 2120 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, making it earthquake safe, more secure, improving the ventilation and bringing it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, said Assistant County Administrator Dona Linton. Court representatives are pushing the county to have the building ready by the end of 2003.  

Linton said that as soon as the county supervisors approve a resolution that will be before them on Tuesday, the county can begin to develop the project. 

“We have to move forward right away,” she said Thursday. 

Kamlarz, on the other hand, said he thought the city had until June 30 to convince the county to evaluate new sites. He said even if a site were found, he doubted the city could come up with the funds for a project of this magnitude. It would take a ballot measure to raise the funds, he said. Costs for a new building have been variously estimated at $20 to $65 million. 

Building a new Alameda County Courthouse in Berkeley has been in the eye of a political firestorm ever since the courts showed interest in the project more than a decade ago. 

City Council factions fought over different sites and community organizations took sides as well. Among the locations rejected was a site near Addison Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Objections included the removal of affordable housing units and a landmarked building.  

Another location considered was the “Hinks” parking garage, located next to the downtown library. The owner reportedly didn’t want to sell the property and downtown businesses objected to the location. 

Other sites considered and rejected included the Ashby BART station and the North Berkeley BART station.  

More recently the Pacific Gas & Electric building on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Center Street has been under consideration. A PG&E spokesperson said it is for sale. Old City Hall, where the school administration is currently located, has also been considered. 

Meanwhile the county has redirected funds it once had set aside for Berkeley to a new courthouse it plans to build in Dublin. 

Only $3 million remains. It will be spent on the remodeling, Linton said. 

Part of the Civic Center planning process that included the new Public Safety Building was an Environmental Impact Report. Open space where the county court now sits was part of that plan and considered in the approval of the EIR, a document mandated in certain instances by the California Environmental Quality Act. Remodeling rather than razing the courthouse “may be a violation of the civic center EIR,” said City Councilmember Dona Spring, underscoring the importance of keeping a court building and court functions in the city. 

Linton said any question of problems with the EIR will have to be addressed by the city and not the county. 

If the city is obligated to accept the courthouse where it stands, Spring said the county ought to hire a consultant to design the building facade to be compatible with the historic Old City Hall to the south and the new Public Safety Building to the North.  

Mayor Shirley Dean agreed. 

“When we sited the Public Safety Building (next to the courthouse), we did not plan on that old building being there,” said the mayor, who has participated in many of the meetings with county officials. 

While tearing the building down is now out of the question, Linton said redoing the facade is part of the plan.  

“The county is in the position to call the shots,” Spring said. 

Readings 

‘Hit Below the Belt: Facing  

Up to Prostate Cancer’ 

By F. Ralph Berberich, M.D. 

Ten Speed Press 

Cody’s  

(2454 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley) Tues., July 17, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. 

Barnes & Noble  

(2352 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley) Thurs., July 19, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. 

What happens when a socially and financially secure 55-year-old, white male Berkeley resident, who is a pediatrician and a former oncologist is stricken with that most common and (considered) humiliating of conditions? Prostate cancer.  

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second-most prevalent cancer afflicting American men. Skin cancer is the first. Men over the age of 50 are at most risk, and black men are twice as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than whites. 

All the rates of prostate cancer in America are currently on the rise. 

“Hit Below the Belt: Facing Up to Prostate Cancer” by F. Ralph Berberich, M.D., tells the story of one medically-savvy patient’s progress – from the awful shock of the initial diagnosis to the doctor’s weary and battered arrival on the wary plateau of remission.  

Unlike most first person accounts of having had prostate cancer, “Hit Below the Belt” is written in the most physically and emotionally graphic style imaginable.  

Seemingly everything Berberich experienced is described such as sexual responses of a man newly deprived of the male hormone, testosterone: “It’s one thing to read that you may lose sexual interest, and it is another to walk down the street, see a gorgeous woman, and have your mind register familiar sexual attraction but only in theory (while another more powerful imposed hormone force repulses any sexual response).” 

Berberich describes the exacting torment of waiting for medical results. He vividly enumerates the experience of radiation treatment. Riveting descriptions of the way a surgeon’s knife cuts through the tissue planes are also supplied. 

Dr. Berberich provides detailed accounts of virtually every prostate cancer treatment option available to western medicine in the United States and Canada, ranging from radical prostatectomy to hormone deprivation. Since this is a patient well-ensconced in the medical profession, he is able to phone, e-mail and visit numerous specialists; he is able to spend about a year exploring and understanding an array of medical journals; and, with the help of contacts, he gains relatively easy emergency access to a helpful and expensive drug not covered under his medical insurer’s formulary.  

In a horrible twist of fate the author’s partner is told she has been diagnosed with endometrial cancer on the very day that Berberich is given the diagnosis of prostate cancer.  

Berberich praises his partner for the way she takes care of him. And he discusses the importance of his family, religion, and other support networks in assisting a patient on the road toward health. 

One of the author’s mentors once told him, “With cancer, ya never know.” 

Will having cancer lead to the renewed hope of long life or to a quickly approaching physical death? Will the patient experience psychological or spiritual renewal or will he become increasingly self absorbed?  

For a physician, accustomed to being an authority on other people’s health, being afflicted with a serious illness – and trying to meet the enormous challenges therein – can be especially poignant.

SAN FRANCISCO — A year after California’s electricity price shocks began, regulators say they are close to proving how power wholesalers aggravated a crisis that so far has raised customer rates by $5.7 billion, saddled two utilities with $8.2 billion in losses and dumped a $13 billion bailout bill on taxpayers. 

California lawmakers and regulators are determined to recover some of that money from the power wholesalers who have cashed in on the crisis. 

Toward that end, the California Public Utilities Commission, Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the California Electricity Oversight Board are trying to prove out-of-state wholesalers illegally manipulated the market to create artificial supply shortages that have driven wholesale electricity prices as high as $1,900 per megawatt hour. 

Before California’s power woes began in June 2000, wholesale prices on the spot market rarely climbed above $150 per megawatt hour. 

California’s Legislature also has formed two special investigative committees to look into the allegations of market misconduct. And at least five suits, including one filed by San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne, are seeking damages from power wholesalers on behalf of all Californians. 

At the very least, the investigators say they will show the wholesalers violated federal laws against “unjust and unreasonable” electricity prices. 

“I don’t think these are going to be very hard cases to make,” said Owen Clements, chief special litigator for San Francisco. “Even if they didn’t break the letter of the law, they clearly have violated the spirit of the law.” 

The investigators also suspect that the wholesalers have orchestrated a variety of more sinister abuses, possibly by colluding. Those allegations will be hard to prove, according to legal and energy experts. 

The power wholesalers say they have done nothing wrong, arguing that they are being turned into scapegoats by a 1996 deregulation law sculpted by California lawmakers and the two utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison, that have reported a combined $8.2 billion in losses since June 2000. 

Michael Aguirre, a San Diego attorney handling one of the private suits, fears California regulators and politicians are spending more time rattling cages than digging into the labyrinthine operations of the power wholesalers. 

“Investigations like this require a lot of hard work, not a lot of rhetoric,” Aguirre said. “So far, everyone seems to be talking loudly while carrying a small stick.” 

The PUC investigation appears to be the farthest along. 

With the help of former utility workers hired to assist in the investigation, the PUC has been poring through power plant documents in an effort to prove that some facilities shut down unnecessarily — sometimes at the direction of Houston energy traders monitoring the market over the Internet — to diminish supply and drive up prices. 

Once prices spiked, the plants ramped up production to reap big profits, under the theory being investigated by the PUC and Lockyer’s office. 

“I feel very confident that we are finding compelling evidence to prove our case,” said Gary Cohen, the PUC’s general counsel. 

Cohen said the PUC could file a civil suit against the wholesalers by the end of June. Lockyer expects to wrap up his investigation in late July, at the earliest. 

“The (wholesalers) say they are just playing the market the way that it was set up to operate, and to a certain degree, that’s true,” Cohen said. “We need to come up with a legal theory to show what they did was wrong.” 

Both the PUC and Lockyer also are investigating allegations that the power wholesalers used industry Web sites to accumulate sensitive supply and demand information in a possible violation of antitrust laws. 

To gain insight into the behind-the-scenes decisions made by wholesalers during the past year, Lockyer is offering multimillion dollar rewards to power plant workers and energy traders who provide the state with inside information that helps prove the power companies manipulated the market. 

Power wholesalers say regulators are way off base in their probes. Industry officials maintain that the plants, many of which are 30 to 40 years old, shut down for legitimate equipment repairs and maintenance. 

“No one in our industry cuts back on production so a competitor can make more money. It just doesn’t happen, at least not on planet Earth,” said Gary Ackerman, executive director of the Western Power Trading Forum, a Menlo Park trade group. 

——— 

LONG BEACH LAWSUIT 

Sick of what they call outrageous monthly gas bills, 12 Long Beach residents sued their city Thursday, saying officials violated the law by charging much more than neighboring Southern California Gas Co. 

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, claims $38 million in damages. It was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. 

“A lot of people have experienced 600 percent rate increases here,” lead plaintiff John Donaldson, a 55-year-old retired executive, said. 

“To be fair, gas has gone up for everybody. Everyone is paying double what they did a year ago. But if you live in Long Beach, you are paying four to six times more than you did a year ago,” Donaldson said. 

The suit alleges that the city, which runs its own gas utility, began overcharging in December 2000. For the previous 20 years, the city had based its rates on Southern California Gas, a formula required by city law, the suit says. 

Long Beach City Attorney Robert E. Shannon blamed the high rates on the city’s suppliers, saying they charged “grossly inflated rates” that the city had no choice but to pass on to residents. 

“While the city of Long Beach recognizes and sympathizes with its natural gas consumers who were subjected to an outrageous rise in natural gas rates beginning in December 2000, the rate increase was due to an unlawful conspiracy by other parties to restrict the supply of gas purchased by the city,” Shannon said in a statement issued Thursday. 

He said the city sued those suppliers earlier this year and if it wins any damages it will pass them on to consumers. 

Attorney Virginia Keeny, who represents those suing Long Beach, complained that her clients have been trying for months to get relief from their City Council, only to be told to “wear warmer sweaters.” 

“It is outrageous and unfeeling, especially in light of the fact that may of the people who were coming to the City Council meetings were elderly and poor and were facing cutoff notices because of $500 gas bills,” she said. 

Those suing also say the city brought on the crisis itself by illegally spending money it was supposed to have kept in a reserve account to cover price increases. 

In the past 10 years, the city has transferred a total of $250 million from its gas department into its general fund, Donaldson said. But he wasn’t sure how much of that money might have been improperly moved. 

“There is nothing wrong with taking extra funds and putting them in the general fund,” he said. “There is something wrong with doing that at the expense of making sure the utility is being run responsibly.” 

On The Net: 

California Public Utilities Commission: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov 

California attorney general: http://www.caag.state.ca.us 

LOS ANGELES — Astronomers are finding a new batch of binary asteroids – space rocks locked in an orbital dance with a partner. 

The latest discovery was announced Wednesday when radar images showed that asteroid 1999 KW4 is actually a pair of objects separated by about a mile, something that had been suspected for the past year. 

Radar images show a small moon just one-quarter of a mile across running clockwise around a companion three times as large. 

The discovery boosts to roughly 10 the number of binary asteroids imaged by radar since 1993 when the spacecraft Galileo spotted the first, 243 Ida and its tiny moon Dactyl. Another seven suspected pairs haven’t been confirmed. 

The small tally is expected to grow as astronomers refine the techniques used to view the miniature planetary systems. 

“Some day, people will go to a binary asteroid and what an interesting sky they will see,” said Steven Ostro of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

Observations of paired craters on the Earth and other bodies led astronomers to suspect that binary asteroids existed. 

On Earth, the craters – all of equal age – are too large and too far apart to have been formed by a single asteroid breaking up in the atmosphere. The odds of two asteroids hitting the Earth in the same location and at the same time are slim – unless they were paired before impact. Not all asteroid moons orbit asteroids. The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, are probably asteroids captured in orbit by the planet’s gravitational tug. 

Czech astronomer Petr Pravec said the study of near-Earth asteroids is becoming more important – especially if scientists are going to entertain ways to defend the planet from potential asteroid impacts. 

“If some of them are on a collision course with the Earth in the future, it will be more difficult to divert them than if they were a single asteroid,” Pravec said. The asteroid pairs found so far vary in their size and relationship. Pairs like 90 Antiope are nearly twins, each 50 miles or so across. Some, like 2000 DP107, are also of about equal size, but just hundreds of feet in diameter. Others are far more lopsided, like the case of 87 Sylvia, which at 176 miles across dwarfs its moon, just 5 percent as large. 

Collisions may have formed many of the binary asteroids, meaning each little moon is, literally, a chip off the old block. In other cases, passing close to Earth may have pulled off material, dumping it into a mini-orbit. 

In the case of 1999 KW4, the objects may be the remnants of an extinct comet. Orbital observations will allow astronomers to determine the mass, density, composition and porosity of each member of the pair. 

“That tells us an awful lot about these things without having to go there,” said Bill Merline, a senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., who has discovered three binary asteroids.

LOS ANGELES — Environmental groups are offering a deal they hope federal officials can’t refuse: Some relief from lawsuits in exchange for quickly getting species declared endangered. 

Members of two groups well-known for filing lawsuits to protect declining species — the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife — said their offer would break through a moratorium on listings to protect some of the nation’s most imperiled animals and plants. 

But they added that a deal would be only a stopgap. In a report released Wednesday, the groups also called on President Bush to increase funding for endangered species and scrap a proposal that would weaken protections. 

“There are species out there that could literally be extinct in a month or two,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Tucson, Ariz.-based center. For example, he said, the Mississippi gopher frog’s habitat has shrunk to a single pond that itself is shrinking; National Guard units have been pumping water to keep the species alive. 

The groups are offering to allow what effectively would be extensions of court-ordered deadlines for Fish and Wildlife to establish critical habitat for endangered plants and animals. Suckling said the groups may allow reprieves of six months or a year. He wouldn’t say which species are being offered up for delays. 

With the money Fish and Wildlife wouldn’t have to spend complying with court orders, the agency would list some of the most imperiled animals and plants, possibly including the gopher frog, the Aleutian sea otter and the Miami blue butterfly. 

Fish and Wildlife spokesman Hugh Vickery said a deal would free up much-needed funding. “We’re desperate to try to get species on the list,” Vickery said, especially 37 species already proposed for listing. 

Fish and Wildlife banned almost all new listings in November. This month it added one species to the list – the Ventura marsh milkvetch – because most of the work had already been completed. A court order will require the agency to add another species, the yellow billed cuckoo, in July, Vickery said. 

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which declared the white abalone an endangered species Tuesday, does not have a moratorium on listings. 

Vickery said money is tight because environmentalists have been “clogging the works” with lawsuits demanding critical habitat for listed species. When the government declares an area to be critical habitat for a species, Fish and Wildlife biologists must be consulted for any work requiring federal approval. 

Wednesday’s report said the problem is not too many lawsuits, but too little money. Scientist Jane Goodall, actors and seven environmental groups unveiled the report at a press conference where they called on Bush to expand funding and to abandon a proposal that would restrict the public’s ability to sue for more species protections. 

The world’s species “are like rivets in an airplane, and how many rivets can we lose in the airplane that holds all of us aloft?” actor Ed Begley Jr. asked. 

The Bush administration has proposed increasing Fish and Wildlife’s budget for endangered species by $2 million to $8.5 million, but that remains well short of the $120 million the agency says it needs to clear out a backlog of listings. 

Environmental groups propose eliminating the backlog by spending $24 million a year for five years. 

SUSANVILLE — Nearly 2,000 firefighters and support personnel battling a forest fire that threatened homes and forced evacuations in the Sierra Nevada expected to have the 4,300-acre blaze fully contained by Friday. 

So far, the mountain fire that burned up to the Susanville city limits about 80 miles northwest of Reno, Nev., has cost $3.7 million in firefighting expenses and destroyed $2.5 million worth of timber, mostly on national forest lands, federal officials said Thursday. 

More than 150 fire engines, 10 helicopters, four air tankers and 18 bulldozers worked to complete containment lines around 70 percent of the so-called Devil fire late Thursday afternoon. 

It was expected to be fully encircled, or contained, late Thursday and the fire fully under control by Monday, June 4, the Susanville Interagency Fire Center said. *The fire threatened the town of Susanville on Sunday, forcing evacuations of 60 homes and a hospital and coating streets with dark soot. 

Gusty, erratic winds caused the fire to jump the Susan River to the north late Wednesday, burning a 5-acre area and again threatening homes in the Thumper Hill and Britt Road areas. But “aggressive attack by helicopters, fire engines and ground crews resulted in containment of the spot with no damage to homes,” said the statement from the fire center, which is staffed by the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, National Park Service and California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Susanville blaze started about seven miles west of town Sunday on private timberland after being sparked by a man shooting targets in the woods, said state Dept. of Forestry spokeswoman Wendy McIntosh. The man, whose name was not released, was cited for causing a fire and letting it escape. 

Two firefighters were injured while battling the blaze, including one with a possible broken arm. 

The fire skirted eight homes, coming as close as 30 feet to some of them. About 140 residents were evacuated, but most had returned to their homes by Thursday. 

Q: I have a plumbing problem wherein the toilet appears to bubble up water and the bowl completely fills with water upon flushing. It requires about 30 minutes for the water to drain out. When it does, it almost completely drains out. I have tried using a plunger, but to no avail.  

A. It sounds like you have a clog somewhere in your sewer line.  

To clear a clog, get a mirror and use it to look deep into your toilet’s drain. If you see nothing, remove the toilet and see if anything is stuck in the lower portion of its drain.  

If the toilet is A-OK, the next step is to use a closet auger (a short flexible coil-spring cable that is used to dislodge debris in a sewer line). It’s usually safe to attempt to dislodge debris with a closet auger. A closet auger is made for short cleaning runs and doesn’t have the potential to damage a sewer line like its full-size big brother. The sales clerk at the hardware store can explain how to use the smaller device. 

Once the sewer line has been cleaned, the toilet will have to be reinstalled. Don’t forget to use a new wax ring to create a watertight seal between the toilet and the sewer line.  

This is one place you definitely don’t want a leak. The old wax ring will almost certainly leak. A closet auger often solves the problem and eliminates a call to a plumber. 

Q: We have a small sink in our family room. The faucet ran hot and cold water slow, but it came out. Then one day it just stopped, no water at all, why? 

A. This is a common problem that can be fixed in one of three ways: by cleaning the aerator at the tip of the faucet spout, by checking or changing the faucet valve gasket(s) or by replacing the nipples (short pipes) that protrude through the wall beneath the sink. 

The first thing you should check is the faucet spout. Unscrew the aerator tip to remove it and turn on the water.  

If water comes out, it means your culprit is a clogged aerator. Clean it with vinegar and a toothbrush. If the aerator isn’t the problem, remove the valve stems to see if the gaskets inside are preventing the free flow of water. 

(For detailed instructions and a picture go to www.onthehouse.com, and type “faucet repair” into the search engine.) 

If your investigation of the faucet proves fruitless, and nothing looks clogged, it’s time to scrutinize the nipples that come out of the wall.  

The nipples are connected to angle stops (shut-off valves) that are below the sink and against the wall. The nipples and the shut-off valves are usually made of different materials.  

Electrolysis occurs when dissimilar metals are in contact. The resultant corrosion can completely clog the inside of a nipple.  

We have no idea why the valve always seems to skate through unscathed. Shut off the main water valve, remove the shut-off valves, remove and replace the nipples with modern Teflon-coated nipples (they won’t corrode because they prevent electrolysis from occurring) and put everything back the way you found it. 

WARNING: The fittings and pipes in the wall could possibly be corroded, as well. This means that the project could turn out to be a big job. Be prepared for this possibility.

SAN FRANCISCO — A steady influx of young immigrant families, coupled with an exodus of older, wealthier residents, has helped California resist the graying seen across America during the last decade. 

The patterns, revealed in new Census Bureau data, will reshape everything from education to crime to public health. And while some see California aging gracefully, others fear dynamics that will pit schools against nursing homes. 

“It’s our youthful immigrants who will take care of us as we’re older, so we better figure out a way to help them now,” said Fernando Torres-Gil, director of UCLA’s Center for Policy Research on Aging. 

Because of its size, California remains the state with the largest number of elderly, according to Census 2000 data. 

Even so, Californians’ median age is just a few months past 33, a full two years younger than the median for the United States. In 1990, with a median age of 31, Californians were about 18 months younger than the rest of the country. 

Only four states are younger. Residents of Utah, with a median age of 27, have not yet celebrated their 10th high school reunion. On the other end, West Virginians – with a median age just short of 39 – live in the state with the oldest population. 

While California is younger than the rest of the country, the state also isn’t aging as quickly. 

One major reason: California is adding kids more quickly than the nation. Nationally, the number of people 19 years old or younger rose 13 percent during the 1990s. In California, the increase was 18 percent. 

Demographers attribute this baby boomlet to the state’s burgeoning population of immigrants, who generally arrive in their late 20s and tend to have more kids than native-born residents. 

Without immigrant-headed families, the state’s average resident would be three years older, according to Steve Camarota of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. 

The divergent interests between an older, whiter population and younger immigrants could inflame debates about who gets public funds. 

“There are plenty of school districts in the Bay Area who a few years back fell into the trap of thinking they wouldn’t need as many facilities,” said Paul Fassinger, research director at the Association of Bay Area Governments. “And now we see prefabricated buildings being wedged into the corners of campuses.” 

Such school districts are searching for new properties in a tight market. Older property owners, some of whom have no kids in local schools, shoulder that tax burden. 

“That is a recipe for political turmoil,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates restricting the flow of immigrants. 

Political tension over immigration has subsided in recent years. Meanwhile, communities that attract new immigrants are growing – and remaining relatively young. 

Nowhere is that clearer than the immigrant-heavy Central Valley. The state’s seven youngest counties are all there, with Merced County the youngest at a median age of 29. 

Immigrant families with four or more kids are no exception in cities such as Fresno. That’s where Socorro Acosta lives with her husband and four kids, ages two months to 14 years. 

“Rent is not that high and there is always work here, in the field or the packing companies,” said Acosta, who came to the United States 12 years ago as a 19-year-old. “Here there are many programs that help the immigrants.” 

In contrast, counties in the state’s northern reaches and Sierra Nevada foothills grew older for two reasons – retirees arrived from places such as the San Francisco Bay Area, and younger workers left a moribund economy. Sparsely populated Trinity County in the far north, and Calaveras County in the Sierra Nevada foothills, are the oldest counties. The median age for residents in both is close to 45 years. 

Meanwhile, droves of Californians are electing to live their golden years outside the  

Golden State. 

Estimates vary, but demographers agree that hundreds of thousands of people left California during the recession of the early-mid 1990s. Most projections show that trend continuing into 1999, when somewhere between 80,000 and 115,000 more people left the state than came to stay. 

Many went to Western states such as Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Colorado, though Texas received the most former Californians, according to demographer William H. Frey of the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. 

Some of those emigrants were low-skilled, younger workers. But many were wealthier people looking to cash out home equity for the autumn of their lives, Frey said. 

“The pre-retirees are people moving here for their last job,” said Jeff Hardcastle, Nevada’s state demographer. 

California’s high cost of living is also a factor – not only does it deter seniors from moving here, it also pushes some to leave. 

“It’s a little cheaper than L.A., the taxes are better,” said Marilyn McVey, a 56-year-old who moved from Los Angeles to a planned community in Las Vegas more than a year ago. 

Not that all state residents are buying a one-way ticket for their 60th birthday. 

“California will not be wanting for elderly at all levels of the socio-economic stratus,” Frey said. 

On the Net: 

Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

ATLANTA — Social worker Anthony McWilliams says he sees it every day – a new generation of gays and bisexuals numb from years of endless AIDS statistics and warnings about the epidemic. 

“It becomes blah, blah, blah – noise to them,” said McWilliams, a counselor for AID Atlanta. “It’s just not getting through to them. They need to hear it a new way.” 

Two decades after the discovery of AIDS, a new government survey suggests gay men and bisexuals too young to remember the disease’s explosive first years are contracting it at alarming rates. 

The survey shows 4.4 percent of gay and bisexual men ages 23 to 29 are newly infected each year with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  

For blacks in that group, the figures are staggering: One in seven becomes HIV-positive each year – roughly the same infection rate currently found among adults in South Africa. 

“The numbers we’re publishing right now are more like the findings you see in the ’80s than the findings you see in the ’90s,” said Linda Valleroy, who led the survey for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Left unchecked, the infection rates could lead to a resurgence of AIDS after years of progress to control it. 

“We have to stop and take a look at the devastation that potentially could occur among these young men,” said Dr. Helene Gayle, the CDC’s AIDS chief. “These are precious and important lives.” 

AIDS prevention groups called the figures extremely disturbing, saying the country needs to devise new ways to reach young adults at risk. 

“These are young people who didn’t see their friends dying, didn’t lose lovers and friends and people who were important to them,” said Marty Algaze, a spokesman for Gay Men’s Health Crisis. “It’s very scary. This is a new generation of people who should know better, but don’t.” 

Health officials were particularly concerned about the infection rates among young black gays and bisexuals, saying the stigma in the black community of having HIV or AIDS may be keeping testing rates low. 

The study included nearly 3,000 gay and bisexual men who were tested anonymously for HIV from 1998 to 2000 in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle. 

Government analysts acknowledged the data could be flawed: The men were recruited only at dance clubs, bars, shopping centers and gay-and-lesbian community centers, so the true rates for all young gay and bisexual men could be different. 

There are no comparable historical data on infection rates for young black gays and bisexuals. 

A CDC study earlier this year found HIV infections disturbingly common in large U.S. cities among gay men of all races in their 20s.  

That study found that 3 percent of Asians, 7 percent of whites, 15 percent of Hispanics and 30 percent of blacks are infected with the virus. 

And a San Francisco study found the rate of new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men in that city nearly tripled from 1997 to 1999. 

The government’s effort to contain HIV/AIDS may be cursed by its own success, CDC analysts said. 

New HIV infections have leveled off in America at about 40,000 a year and improved medicine allows AIDS patients to live longer, healthier lives. 

“People don’t perceive that you get infected and you die in two months anymore,” said Phill Wilson, executive director of the African-American AIDS Policy and Training Institute at the University of Southern California. 

“There’s all these posters around that say you can climb mountains and do whatever with HIV and AIDS.  

“There’s not enough messages about the price you have to pay,” he said. 

Since the discovery of AIDS – first reported in a June 5, 1981, government health bulletin as a strange form of pneumonia – there have been about 750,000 reported cases in America. Nearly 450,000 of those patients have died. 

In Washington, Surgeon General David Satcher hailed the nation’s HIV and AIDS prevention efforts Thursday, but he called the anniversary a solemn milestone. 

“Twenty years into the AIDS epidemic, as a nation and as individuals, we may need a stark reminder that the best way to stop AIDS is to prevent HIV infection in the first place,” he said. 

On the Net: 

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov 

Coalition AIDS anniversary site: http://www.20yearsofaids.org 

Gay Men’s Health Crisis: http://www.gmhc.org 

AID Atlanta: http://www.aidatlanta.org

Business leaks 300 to 400 gallons of ammonia 

Berkeley firefighters called for a shelter-in-place on Wednesday, for a number of blocks surrounding the Takara Sake Factory in west Berkeley, where an ammonia spill occurred about 3:45 p.m. 

Assistant Fire Chief Michael Migliore said no reports of injuries came in following the spill. He said a leak of between 300 and 400 gallons of ammonia was reported at the factory, located at Fourth and Addison streets. 

The problem apparently arose as workers there attempted to transfer the volatile material from one tank to another and a gasket or a similar device failed. 

The shelter in place order was lifted before 8 p.m., Migliore said. 

About 35 people were evacuated in the area between Fourth and Fifth streets and Allston Way and Addison Street. Those who did not wish to leave were asked to remain indoors during the four-hour incident. 

A larger area – from Fourth Street to Bancroft Way, including University Avenue and down to Aquatic Park – was temporarily cordoned off to keep people from getting into the problem area. 

Ashkenaz hosts Camp  

Winnarainbow Benefit  

For 29 years children have been coming together at Camp Winnarainbow to learn juggling, tightrope walking, improvisation, music, dance and other performing arts. This multicultural circus camp was founded by local activist and clown Wavy Gravy and his wife, Jahanara, to provide an arena where children of all backgrounds can work and play together in a supportive atmosphere, according to a press statement. Wavy Gravy will appear at Ashkenaz Sunday at 7 p.m. in a benefit on behalf of the camp’s Scholarship Program. Also performing are The Flying Other Brothers with Pete Sears and Greg Anton, David Gans and surprise guests.  

Junior college transfer numbers rise for UC 

Students transferring from community colleges to the University of California increased by more than 9 percent for the fall of 2001, with minorities up nearly 18 percent, the university announced today. African Americans, American Indians and Latinos accounted for the large leap in minority transfers with respective increases of 14 percent, 85 percent and 16 percent. 

UC President Richard Atkinson said, “Transferring from the community colleges is an excellent and affordable way to come to the University of California, so it is encouraging to see the increases in transfer students this year.” 

A partnership between the university and Gov. Gray Davis calls for a 6 percent annual increase through 2005-06 of transfer students from community colleges to the university. The university said the recent findings indicate that the partnership is well on its way to attaining that goal. 

“Increasing student access to UC through the transfer route is one of the university's highest priorities,” Atkinson said. 

— staff, wire reports

The Associated Press 

SAN JOSE — People across the country who sell things on eBay are furious with the auction site because of its recent move to charge subscription fees for a popular piece of software that makes it easier to list items. 

In irate notes on message boards and e-mails to the company, sellers accuse eBay of getting greedy and belying its warm and fuzzy community-focused image. Some are threatening a class-action suit because older versions of the software, which cost as much as $200, stopped working. 

Everyone else who uses the Internet should take note. 

An increasing number of companies, including giant Microsoft Corp., are expected to embrace subscription models and move away from selling software for a one-time fee. The companies say they simply can’t afford to keep giving away free upgrades. 

“The trend is undeniable – it’s just a question of how long it’s going to take,” said Rob Enderle, a research fellow with Giga Information Group. “The existing model isn’t working. You can certainly try to live in the past, but whether you’re a Microsoft or an eBay, you’re probably going to get bypassed.” 

Microsoft has introduced subscription-based options for business software, including the new Office XP, and called the move a “first step toward offering software as a service” — meaning subscription plans for all users. Oracle Corp. gives away sales force management software for now, but has indicated it eventually will charge a subscription. 

The eBay software was known as Auction Assistant, and now is called Seller’s Assistant. Because it helps eBay users post attractive presentations of their products and manage the transactions, it is popular among people who list several items at once. 

It was created by Pennsylvania-based Blackthorne Software, which eBay acquired in 1999. 

Users say they bought Auction Assistant and its supercharged version, Auction Assistant Pro, for $50 to $200 over the years with the understanding that Blackthorne would upgrade the software for free when improvements were available, or when needed because of technical changes in the massive eBay site. 

In February, Blackthorne informed users Auction Assistant was being upgraded, taking on the new Seller’s Assistant name and switching to a subscription model – $4.99 a month for the basic version, $15.99 for Pro. Existing Auction Assistant users were told they could get a year’s subscription to the new software for free. 

On April 1, Blackthorne’s president, John Slocum, wrote on the company’s online discussion board that almost two-thirds of Auction Assistant users had switched to Seller’s Assistant. He added that, after April 30, Blackthorne “cannot assure users that Auction Assistant will continue to be fully functional or compatible with the eBay site.” 

Despite the warning, many users were caught off guard when their Auction Assistant programs stopped working last week. They accused eBay of intentionally making Auction Assistant useless to force them to buy the new software. 

“Why weren’t we just grandfathered in, since we already owned the same program?” said Cindy Izon of Tulsa, Okla., who sells decorative dolls on eBay. “It makes me so mad.” 

Dan Rushing of Albuquerque, N.M., lamented what he called eBay’s “extreme arrogance.” 

Collectibles seller Carol Hudson of Chattanooga, Tenn., wrote in an e-mail interview: “Most of us have been angry with them for two or three years because of their ‘do it our way or get lost’ attitude. But this time, they have really gone too far and shown their true colors.” 

EBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said nothing was done intentionally to disable older versions of Auction Assistant. He said what occurred is most likely “the natural obsolescence that’s going to be developing any time a piece of software ages.” 

He also said the subscription model is necessary to finance continued improvements to the Blackthorne software, and disputed suggestions the company was taking unfair advantage of its dominating position in the online auction business. 

“I realize that’s a fairly common remark when any customer has a certain level of frustration, but it doesn’t do the business any good to ‘bleed people dry,”’ Pursglove said. “We want users to continually come to eBay, to continually use the Blackthorne programs to sell on eBay.” 

Arthur Newman, head of Internet research at ABN Amro Inc., supported eBay’s stance and said it is part of the new economics of the Web. 

“I think the Internet over the last few years has spawned a whole generation of people who expect to get everything for free and forget you have to pay for services,” he said. “If people can’t make money providing them, they’re going to stop providing them. There’s a limit to good will. EBay is hardly alone in starting to charge for things.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

Main site: http://www.ebay.com 

Message boards: http://pages.ebay.com/community/chat/index.html 

In sweltering heat, about four dozen high school athletes are doing drills while coaches bark instructions at them. These players won’t actually play a game for another four months, but they know that starting jobs can be on the line even today. 

Welcome to spring football at Berkeley High. The 50 or so juniors- and seniors-to-be that are on the field for the next two weeks are the immediate future of the team, and will be put through their paces as if the season started next month. With a new varsity coach in charge, few of the players know what to expect. 

Although new head coach Matt Bissell has coached most of these players before as the junior varsity coach over the past two seasons, this will be his first crack at spring football, since it is only for varsity players. He has to plan the next four months, and that’s just to get to the first game. 

“I’ve been running around like a guy with his head cut off,” Bissell said. “There’s a lot of things for me to do every day.” 

Bissell not only had to adjust to life in the fast lane when he was chosen varsity coach earlier this year, but he’s had to round up an entire coaching staff, as none of last year’s assistants stuck around after former head coach Gary Weaver decided to leave. Weaver had some success in his only year at BHS, tying for the ACCAL title and missing the playoffs by a tie-breaker.  

Working both inside and outside the school, the new coach has managed to put together a staff of 10 assistants. 

“They’ve come from all over. Some of them called me, some got to me over the Internet, and a couple of faculty members approached me,” Bissell said. 

The most work will need to be on the offense, as Bissell decided to change from last year’s pro-style offense to a mix of several different systems.  

“We’re doing variations of some things we’ve seen from successful local high school programs,” he said. “There will be a lot more movement than last year, which should play to our strengths.” 

The new offense will be complex, meaning the returning players will have to make a fast adjustment. They will also be adjusting to a new offensive coordinator, who is a former head coach at another Bay Area program. But Bissell is confident that between spring ball and summer workouts, things will come together. 

“We’re throwing a lot of stuff at them right now, and they’re a little confused,” he said. “But I know almost all of these kids, and they’re responding really well.” 

Bissell is also impressed at the effort shown by most of the returning starters. According to him, very few players are taking their positions for granted. 

“You’ve always got the mantra of ‘no job is safe,’ but between what I saw of some guys last year and how hard I’ve seen them work so far, I can’t help but pencil in some guys,” he said.

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 $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 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for year membership. All ages. June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2: El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast; June 8: The Enemies, Pitch Black, The Fleshies, Supersift, Texas Thieves; June 9: Groovie Ghoulies, The Influents, Red Planet, Mallrats, Goat Shanty. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 31: Wake the Dead, David Gans. 1370 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 31: Freight 33rd Anniversary Concert Series: Bob Dylan Song Night and others; June 1: The Riders of the Purple Sage; June 2: Rebecca Riots; June 3: Hurricane Sam; June 6: Freight 33rd Anniversary concert series with Leni Stern, Jenna Mammina, Jill Cohn, Pig Iron. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. June 1: New Monsoon; June 2: Avi Bortnick Group 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

The Bill Horvitz Band and the Adam Levy Threesome June 1, 8 p.m. TUVA Space 3192 Adeline  

The Berkeley Festival of Contemporary Performances All performances begin at 8 p.m. June 1: Steve Coleman and Five Elements; June 2: Roscoe Mitchell with George Lewis, David Wessel and Thomas Buckner. $15 Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus www.tempofestival.org 

Empyrean Ensemble June 2, 8 p.m. Final concert of the season, featuring soprano Susan Narucki in the world premiere of Mario Davidovsky’s “Cantiones Sine Textu,” as well as works by other composers. 7 p.m. panel discussion with the composers. $14 - $18 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave 925-798-1300  

Berkeley High Jazz Combo June 3, 4:30 p.m. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Schubert Festival June 3, 4 p.m. Mini-Schubert Festival as part of the Sundays at Four Chamber Music series. Will feature Schubert’s Trout Quintet, String Trio, and more. $10 Crowden School 1475 Rose St. 559-6910 www.thecrowdenschool.org 

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

AfroSolo Theatre Company May 31, 7:30 p.m. Theater, dance, spoken word and poetry. $5 - $10 La Pena 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 

Camp Winnarainbow Benefit Boogie June 3, 7 p.m. Featuring The Flying Other Brothers with Pete Sears and Greg Anton, David Gans, Wavy Gravy and surprise guests. Camp Winnarainbow is a multicultural circus and performing arts camp founded by Wavy Gravy and his wife. $10 - $20 Ashkenaz 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

“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 

“Cymbeline” June 2 through June 24, Tues. - Thur. 7:30 p.m., Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sun. 4 p.m. Opening of the California Shakespeare Festival features one of Shakespeare’s first romances, directed by Daniel Fish. $12 - $146. Bruns Memorial Amphitheater off Highway 24 at the Shakespeare Festival Way/Gateway Exit. 548-9666 or www.calshakes.org 

“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 traveled to Laramie, Wyo., after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepherd. The play is about the community and the impact Shaper’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 June 1: 7:30 Reason, Debate, and a Tale; June 2: 7:00 A River Called Trash; June 3: 5:30 Ruslan and Ludmila. Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way 642-1412 

“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. 

Nomad Videofilm Festival 2001 June 1 10:40p.m. featuring world premieres from four S.F. Bay Area mediamakers: “Roadkill” by Antero Alli, “Forest” by Farhad J. Parsa “Visit” by Jesse Miller, B, “Fell Apart” by Doan La Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640, pix & details: http://www.verticalpool.com/nomad.htl 

“TRAGOS: A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt” an Antero Alli film June 2, 10:40pm Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640 

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 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 and 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) 

“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 Berkeley in this 10 year period. Thursday through Saturday, 1 - 4 p.m. Berkeley 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 31: Michael Pollan talks about “The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World”  

“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  

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. 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

In this area few men’s mere presence has impacted the public image of African American lawyers, as did the late State Appellate Court Justice Clinton White. An Oakland resident, and native of Sacramento, he was the voice of the African American legal community, long before he became first an Alameda County Superior Court Judge in 1977 and later a State Appellate Court Justice. Although, others were fighting aggressively for racial equality within the judicial system, no one fought for African Americans like he did. In the tradition of national civil rights lawyers, like Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall and William Hastie, Clint White, as he was known before becoming a judge, viewed the law as an instrument to achieve social justice. In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, he was the consummate lonely warrior representing African Americans in courtrooms where the odds were perpetually stacked against them. 

For decades Clint White was a strident voice for African Americans in the criminal justice system. He offered a unique form of social commentary explaining to jurors or to anyone who would listen that the criminal justice system was biased against African Americans and that African Americans were entitled to justice free of racism and bigotry. Before it was fashionable, he strenuously railed against the process that allowed for the exclusion of blacks from juries. By the sheer force of his personality and superb lawyering skills he demanded that African American attorneys be treated with respect and above all he aggressively challenged racist assumptions that contaminated the entire judicial system, including prosecutors, judges, police officers and even defense attorneys. 

As a physically imposing and proud man with a rich baritone voice, he demanded respect for himself and his clients. As such he, more than any lawyer of his generation, changed the perception of African American lawyers. During a time when the radio and television minstrel show, Amos and Andy depicted African American lawyers, as shallow, footshuffling, and unprepared, Clint White was the antithesis of that image. His cross-examination was legendary and his fund of knowledge about the plight of African Americans was a daily history lesson. For every aspiring lawyer, myself included, he was the model, the personification of an African American lawyer. He taught us that as the best and brightest each case presents a unique opportunity to educate and challenge. He was the classic life long teacher without a classroom and his legacy will be the hundreds among us who listened and who are committed to keeping his faith by fighting for social justice. 

So as the African American community mourns the passing of this courtroom giant and social engineer those beyond the black community should know that aside from the Martin Luther Kings or Malcolm Xs, there were others of their generation who also felt the pain of discrimination and used their professional skills to bring about social change. Clint White was such a man and because of his commitment and life long contributions, the judicial system in Northern California has been enriched and the image of African American lawyers has changed for the good, forever. 

Oakland civil rights lawyer John Burris is author of “Blue vs. Blue: Let’s End the Conflict Between Cops and Minorities,” 1999, St. Martin’s Press. 

Thursday, May 31

Backpacking in Northern Calif.  

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  

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  

Friday, June 1

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 

“Rumi: Mystic and Romantic  

Love, Stories of Masnavi” 

5 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Free public talk by Professor Andrew Vidich. Childcare and vegetarian food provided. 

707-226-7703 

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 Intake process required. Meeting Fridays through August 17. $8 - $35 sliding scale per session Call 548-8283 x534 or x522 

Board of Library  

Trustees Special Meeting 

12 noon 

Department of Human Resources 

Bay Laurel Room 

2180 Milvia, 1st floor 

Regular meeting with public comments followed by closed interview session for the Director of Library Services position. 

City Commons Club,  

Luncheon and Speaker 

11:15 a.m. 

Berkeley City Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

This week featuring Joe Garrett, speaking on “Survival in the Banking Wars.” Lunch served at 11:45 for $11-$12.25. Come at 12:30 to hear the speaker only for $1, students free. Reservations required for three or more. 

848-3533 

Saturday, June 2

Car Seat Safety Clinic 

10:00 a.m. 

Kittredge St. Parking Garage, second level 

The Berkeley Police Department will demonstrate proper techniques for car seat installation and use, and offer safety checks and tips. Free. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 548-3333 

Family Storytime  

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Main Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Storyteller Olga Loya tells tales from around the world. Geared for children three to eight and their parents. Free  

649-3964 

Commission On Disability  

Hearings 

1 - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St. 

Open forum, opportunity for public to present ideas and concerns about barriers for people with disabilities and accessibility of City facilities. Public comment on Berkeley’s proposed “Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan.” Will continue on June 13. 

981-6342 

Longfellow Middle School’s  

Outdoor Arts Festival 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Longfellow Courtyard 

1500 Derby St. 

Live music performances, silent auction of student and community art, BBQ and bake sale. Talent showcase and awards ceremony from 2 - 3 p.m. Free admission, open to the public. 665-1980 

Birdwatching Walk  

and Breakfast 

8 a.m. 

Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

This is the time of year when the greatest variety of birds can be found in the Garden, including some rare species. $25, limited space, call to reserve. 643-2755 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Walking Tour 

10 a.m. - noon 

Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

Tour of Thousand Oaks School and neighborhood. $5 - $10, reservations required. 

848-0181  

Pasta and Opera 

7 p.m. 

2924 Ashby Ave. 

Presented by Chamber Arts House. By donation. 

Sunday, June 3

Rosa Parks Spring  

Celebration and Fund-raiser 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Rosa Parks 

920 Allston Way 

Silent auction, quilt raffle, cake walk and field events. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics  

11 a.m. - Noon  

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn how to adjust front and rear derailleurs from one of REI’s bike technicians. All you need to bring is your bike. Free  

527-4140 

Healing Through Tibetan  

Yoga 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Slow movements of Kum Nye encourage self-healing and deeper spiritual dimensions in experience. Demonstrated and discussed by Jack van der Meulen. Free and open to the public. 

843-6812 

Family Day at Magnes  

Museum 

12:30 - 3 p.m. 

2911 Russell St. 

A celebration of cultural heritage, the day is co-sponsored by the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society. Free admission. 

www.magnesmuseum.org 

Dedication of TROTH 

2 - 4:30 p.m. 

Northside Community Art Garden 

On Northside St. 1 block N. of Hopkins 

TROTH, a special earth wall toolshed and product of nearly 3 years of volunteer labor, will be dedicated today. This “cob” building was created from 50 years of soil, and is the newest of many local works which showcase art and eco-technology. Potluck meal and words from gardeners, City representatives and BART. 

841-3757 

Monday, June 4 

“Boys Will Be Men” 

6:45 p.m. 

Longfellow Theater 

1500 Derby St. 

Special Father’s Day showing of the acclaimed documentary for Berkeley teen’s and their families. Introduced by Tom Weidlinger, followed by audience discussion. Free. 

849-2683 

www.berkeleypta.org 

Tuesday, June 5 

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. 

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 

Intelligent Conversation  

7 - 9 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

A discussion group open to all, regardless of age, religion, viewpoint, etc. This time the discussion topic is open and will follow the conversation. Informally led by Robert Berend, who founded similar groups in L.A., Menlo Park, and Prague. Bring light snacks/drinks to share. Free  

527-5332 

Bike for a Better City Action Meeting 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

1356 Rose St. 

www.bfbc.org 

Wednesday, June 6 

Fishbowl: “Everything you always wanted to know about the opposite sex but were afraid to ask” 

7 p.m.. to 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. 

Find out what the other half really thinks! The Fishbowl is an interesting way to anonymously ask those burning questions. $8 for BRJCC members, $10 for general public. 848-0237 x127. 

Thursday, June 7  

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 

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 

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 session will be a community meeting.  

654-5486 

Skin Cancer Screening Clinic 

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center 

Summit Campus  

2450 Ashby Ave. 

Markstein Cancer Education Center 

Skin cancer screenings are offered only to people who, due to limited or no health insurance, would be able to have a suspicious mole or other skin changes examined. Appointments are required.  

869-8833 

Summer Noon Concerts 2001 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza 

Shattuck at Center St. 

Weekly summer concert series. This week Advanced Jazz Workshop under direction of Mike Zilber. 

Friday, June 8  

Strong Women - The Arts, Herstory and Literature 

1:15 - 3:15 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 cultural studies course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

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 

Backpacking Essentials 

7 p.m. 

REI 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Review the fundamental how-tos of selecting gear for a weekend backpacking trip. Free 

527-4140 

City Commons Club, Luncheon and Speaker 

11:45 a.m. 

Berkeley City Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

This week featuring Doris Sloan, Ph.D., on “Treasures Along the Silk Road Oases.” Come early for social hour. Lunch at 11:45 for $11-$12.25. Come at 12:30 to hear the speaker only for $1, students free. Reservations required for three or more. 

848-3533 

Saturday, June 9 

Live Oak Park Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Celebrates original crafts, international diversity, and community life. One hundred artists and craftsmakers display their work, with live performances and a variety of food. Free admission.  

Call 986-9337 

The Bite of REI 2001 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

REI 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Taste some of the best, lightweight backpacking food and energy snacks available. At 1 p.m. Rick Greenspan and Hal Kahn with demonstrate how to turn your outdoor trips into gourmet adventures. Free 

527-4140 

La Pena 26th Anniversary  

Benefit to Honor Dolores Huerta 

7 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Music performances, slide show and raffle in honor of special guest Doloras Huerta, farm worker’s and women’s rights advocate. Huerta worked with Cesar Chavez to establish and lead the National Farm Workers Association in the 1960’s, and has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of farm workers for decades. Proceeds will go to La Pena and Huerta’s medical expenses. $20 - $25. 

849-2568 www.lapena.org 

Sunday, June 10 

Counteracting Negative Emotions 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Exercises presented by Sylvia Gretchen, Dean of Nyingma Studies. Free and open to the public. 

843-681 

Live Oak Park Fair 

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

One hundred artists and craftsmakers display their work, with live entertainment and food. Free admission.  

Call 986-9337 

“Kindertransport: A Personal Account” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. 

Hear the moving story Ralph Samuel, who escaped Nazi Germany as the age of eight. Samuel was one of an estimated 10,000 children who were rescued through the efforts of the Kindertransport operation. $4 BRJCC members, $5 for general public. Admission includes brunch. 848-0237. 

Monday, May 21, came as a rude awakening to fire department personnel throughout Northern California. 

State wildfire experts had been keeping a nervous eye on the unseasonably dry, warm and windy weather for weeks, but it was on that particular Monday that indicators took a dramatic turn for the worst, said Berkeley Assistant Fire Chief David Orth. 

Officials at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection responded first by moving up the beginning of fire season from June 4 to May 28. Then they apparently took a deep breath, looked back out the window, and found the nervousness had not gone away.  

The 2001 fire season was declared officially open the very next day. 

In addition to heightened alertness, the opening of fire season means the dedication of more resources to fire fighting. The CDF goes on a spending spree, signing contracts for everything from helicopter pilots to Port-A-Potties. Under mutual aid agreements in effect during fire season, multiple fire-fighting agencies will respond at the first sign of smoke in a wildfire zone. 

Why all the concern? 

According to National Weather Service Meteorologist Shane Snyder,18 inches of rain have been recorded in the Oakland area since last July – only a few inches below the average for this time of year. But the rains came early, and things have been unseasonable warm and dry since them, said Orth and others. 

In other words, Star Thistle, Queen Anne’s Lace and other plants that blanket steep hillsides from Richmond to Oakland had ample water to grow tall and bushy before drying out into the combustible skeletons that California’s veteran fire fighters know all too well. 

“We have seen weeds two to three times as high as last year,” said Orth, a veteran of the 1991 wildfire that devoured 3,000 homes in Oakland and Berkeley. “Some of the material is as dry now as it was in June of last year.” 

Last year was a comparative light year for forest fires in California. According to CDF statistics, fires consumed 72,718 acres and caused about $30 million in damages in 2000, compared to an average of 157,868 acres and $80 million in damages per year, averaged over the previous five years. 

Orth said things have already reached an alarming level this year. 

“Our critical time has started, which is really new for us,” Orth said, explaining conditions typically don’t reach a critical level until September. “June is usually pretty foggy for us. I don’t think that’s going to happen.” 

Wednesday was a particularly bad day. As temperatures soared into the 90s by mid-afternoon, a hot, dry wind began blowing from the east – the same kind of wind that made the 1991 fire burn down hill, towards homes, faster than it burned up hill. By 3 p.m. the wind was gusting up to 35 mph, sucking out what little moisture was left in the hillsides. 

Had Orth been at home, he would have heard his back door begin to rattle. 

“That’s one of my indicators,” Orth said. 

But Orth was watching other indicators on Wednesday, such as the one that measures what fire experts call “fuel moisture.” This is measured by fastening a piece of wood to a springed scale up in the Oakland hills. As the moisture evaporates from the wood, the change in weight is translated into a “fuel moisture” reading. Wood with 28 percent moisture will not burn at all. Wood with anything below 5 percent moisture is a spark away from spontaneous combustion. 

“Anything below five and I want to take a vacation and get out of here,” Orth joked. 

By 3 p.m. Wednesday, the “fuel moisture” level in the Oakland hills had hit 4 percent. Orth expected it to be at 3 percent by the end of the day. 

“The only good thing is that it’s just started,” Orth said of the low moisture levels. “If we had three days of this, I think we’d be in real trouble.” 

Snyder called Wednesday’s heat “just a quick spike up” in temperatures. The wind should begin to come in from the Bay today, Snyder said, holding temperature in the mid-eighties and bumping up the humidity level. By Friday, Snyder forecast a stiff ocean breeze would push temperatures down into the mid-seventies. 

But, even then, the risk will be far from over. 

“Everybody is concerned,” said City Councilmember Betty Olds, whose hilly northeast Berkeley district lies almost completely in what fire fighters call the “threat zone.” 

Olds said city programs are in place to help reduce the fire risk. The city distributes large, green waste bins to anyone who requests them, so hill residents can keep their property clear of combustible debris during the fire season. In the second week of June, the city’s so-called “chipper crew” will begin making the rounds in the hills every couple of weeks, helping interested residents cut back vegetation around their homes. 

The only problem with these programs, said Olds, is that they depend on citizens taking an active role – something not all hills residents may be inclined to do. 

“It’s the fact that people have forgotten,” Olds said. “They’re not as alert as they were a few years after that terrible fire (the 1991 fire).” 

City fire officials have already begun their own efforts at cutting back vegetation in critical areas. Hundreds of goats have been deposited at various hillside locations and left to feast on the overgrown brush plants. 

“They just munch and munch and munch and eat about everything,” Orth said.  

By June, Orth said the goats should have gobbled up enough plant life to clear a strip 200 to 300 feet wide along the eastern edge of Wildcat Canyon Road. The cleared area will act as a barrier to stop fires that begin in Tilden Region Park from spreading into the city, he said. 

But perhaps the most effective tool for Berkeley fire fighters, Orth said, is the partnership between Berkeley Fire Department and other fire fighting agencies that takes affect during fire season. This partnership, initiated in the wake of the 1991 fire, ensures a massive response to any fire that occurs inside the “threat zone” during the fire season. If there is so much as a report of car burning on the side of the road in the Berkeley hills, as many as 22 fire trucks from 5 different agencies could be en route within minutes, Orth said. 

“If we do this and we’re ready, we’re able to contain a lot of these fires,” Orth said. 

“If it’s a car fire and it’s into the trees and bushes and it’s starting to spread up to a house, then you’re going to want all those 22 units,” he added. 

Save nature at 1301 Oxford 

Editor: 

The contributions of Beth El members to the youth, elders and people in need in our community are many and commendable, but what has this to do with paving an oak woodland in the Codornices Creek corridor, and driving hundreds of cars into a neighborhood searching for parking? 

There must be Beth El members, maybe their children, who would be thrilled to see steelhead trout swimming up the creek, to see owls perched in the oaks, to walk down Berryman Path and not see rows of parked cars.  

The natural beauty of 1301 Oxford can be preserved and enhanced by undergrounding the proposed parking and locating the access road south of the creek corridor. 

The degradation of the Oxford/Rose/Spruce neighborhood by traffic congestion will be avoided by Beth El’s commitment to a fuel cell-powered electric shuttle service for congregation members who cannot reach the synagogue on foot, and who will feel fortunate to have transportation when in a few years gasoline will cost $5 a gallon. 

Allowing Codornices Creek to be daylighted on Beth El’s property, allowing the oaks and bay trees to grow without the threat of being cut down, and minimizing traffic congestion and pollution would then be even more contributions by Beth El members to our community. 

Sheila Andres 

Berkeley 

Night games waste energy 

Editor: 

The Stadium Light issue really isn’t between permanent and temporary lights, but why is CAL or any school in California scheduling any outdoor athletic event at night?  

Given the energy crisis, free sunshine is about the only incentive California has to offer a broadcaster. High energy costs, coupled with potential blackouts should send Fox and other broadcasters and their revenue off to other states. 

John Cecil 

Berkeley 

Marines on bikes 

Editor: 

The Viet Cong never had a tank on the ground, a helicopter in the air, an aircraft at sea; all they had were bicycles, yet they won the war.  

If Bush wants to win the next war, get some bikes. 

Yea! 

George Kauffman 

Berkeley

First-ever event unlike usual State of City talk 

The first-ever People’s State of the City Address served up good food, good music and plenty of ideas for the city’s future.  

In contrast to a traditional State of the City Address that usually reflects a chief executive’s vision, organizers, which included Councilmembers Margaret Breland and Kriss Worthington as well as Rent Stabilization Board Chair Max Anderson, sought to “offer a ‘peoples’ State of the City Address, expressing many snapshots arranged in a collage of voices, reflecting a kaleidoscope of opinions and visions for the near future,” according to the event program. 

About 200 people attended the event, which featured more than a dozen speakers who addressed a comprehensive array of issues including energy, housing, disabilities and racial diversity. While the subject matter covered the most serious issues facing the city, the event wasn’t without a sense of fun and celebration. 

Organizers provided a spread of Latin, Middle Eastern, African and vegetarian food and, between brief speeches, the audience was entertained by the sounds of local jazz singer Gwen Avery and the debut of The Nancys, a group made up of women named Nancy, which included former Councilmember Nancy Skinner, former Zoning Adjustments Board Chair Nancy Carleton, Public Works Commissioner Nancy Holland and former Arts Commissioner Nancy Gorrell. 

“I thought it was fun and very informative,” event host Worthington said on Wednesday. “There were lots of interesting ideas and the compelling memory of the night is the interplay of all these issues.” 

The event was inspired by Mayor Shirley Dean’s State of the City Address on May 1, Worthington said.  

Dean, who leads the moderate council faction – organizers are part of the progressive council majority – said on Wednesday that she would like to withhold comment on the ideas presented until she had time to review a tape of the event.  

Councilmember Dona Spring presented an energy plan that called for putting a bond measure on the 2002 ballot that would raise funds to pay for every home and apartment building to become energy independent by installing photovoltaic panels. Spring estimated the cost per household would be $28,000. (A recent report from the mayor’s office estimated the cost to be closer to $10,000, or even less with state energy rebates.) 

“The City of San Francisco is floating a bond measure to raise funds to solarize municipal buildings. Berkeley would be the first city to float a bond measure to solarize all of our residential structures,” she said. “This will free Berkeley forever from the tyranny of the price gouging energy companies.” 

Among a variety of suggestions for a sustainable energy plan, energy advocate Cynthia Wooten Cohen called for reducing energy use by providing low-voltage, fluorescent light bulbs to every resident who requests them. 

UC Berkeley student activist Howard Chong called for more state funding for student housing. “We have a housing crisis,” he said. “Seven percent of students, according to a ASUC survey, have ‘couch surfed’ and over one-half of a student’s income goes toward rent alone.”  

Chong criticized the university for not originally creating housing in its multi-million dollar Underhill Project that included a parking garage and dining hall but no housing until students “camped out on the chancellor’s lawn” and “the press shamed the university, only then did housing get added to the Underhill Area Project.” 

He then called for the university to work with students in solving the problem. “I challenge the university to open up its books and doors and include students and community members in the decision-making process,” Chong said.  

Commission on Disability Vice Chair Karen Craig said that Berkeley has fallen behind Oakland and San Francisco in meeting the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, approved in 199. Craig said the disabled community would like to see a Department of Disability created that would oversee disabled projects including building accessibility, transportation and traffic safety issues. 

Other speakers included School Board President Terry Doran who promoted “small learning communities” at Berkeley High School, which he said would counter a sense of isolation among students.  

Former Councilmember Nancy Skinner praised Berkeley residents for achieving the goal of reducing garbage and waste to 50 percent of what it was 10 years ago. She then challenged residents to stop generating the remaining 50 percent. 

Bicycle Boulevard Coordinator Sarah Syed suggested the city start an employee alternate transportation incentive program that would inspire businesses to do the same.  

“Our city should lead by example and launch an employee-incentive program, like the city of Alameda, which gives its employees $2.50 per day for using non-automobile commute options.” 

The Nancy’s were invited out for an encore performance. They were joined by Rent Stabilization Board member Paul Hogarth who led the audience in a few verses of “We shall not be moved” to end the evening. 

Worthington said he had received a lot of positive feedback from people who attended the event. He added it was a lot of work to put together and he wasn’t sure if there would be a People’s State of the City next year.  

“The return of The Nancys was my favorite part,” he said. “That was some of the most fun of the whole evening.” 

Syed said she enjoyed the event. “I thought it was really positive,” she said. “It’s nice to hear from a variety of people about what the real state of the city is. I hope it happens next year.” 

The School Board wanted to do things right.  

So its five members, its student representative and six community people, including union leaders, a school administrator, the PTA president and a Peralta Community College Board member, took a trip to Los Angeles County to interview those who had worked with Michele Lawrence, the top candidate for the superintendent post. The board announced Lawrence’s appointment on Tuesday. 

In the process, the board left the public out of the loop. 

And probably violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law – though First Amendment Coalition Executive Director Kent Pollack said he thought any court would say the violations were of a minor, technical nature. 

Thirty-seven year Berkeley resident Peter Sussman, former chair of the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and former head of the chapter’s Freedom of Information Subcommittee, argued that the technical nature of the infraction was less important than the board’s violation of the spirit of the Brown Act.  

When the public is ignored, “it can lead to lack of trust and even cynicism,” Sussman said. Signaling out a group of Berkeley High parents who have stepped forward to create a new program for their failing children, Sussman said this is a particularly critical time for the school board to extend an invitation to participate to the broad school community.  

“The biggest problem in our schools is the lack of buy in and the lack of participation,” said Sussman, whose children went through Berkeley’s public schools. By the time the public has a chance to comment on the superintendent’s appointment, “it’s a fete accompli,” he said. 

The violation 

The Brown Act says it is OK for an elected body to schedule a visit to a place outside its district for personnel reasons. So there was no problem with the board decision to go to Paramount, in Los Angeles County, to check out the new superintendent’s references first hand.  

The Brown Act requires the agenda to be properly noticed to newspapers and the public.  

Generally, Board of Education agendas are posted in the school administration building and sent to individuals, groups and newspapers who have requested notice of meetings. 

Interim superintendent secretary, Queen Graham said agendas for the trip, described as a closed session meeting, were simply posted, but not mailed, due to time constraints. 

Ralph Stern, the district’s legal counsel told the Daily Planet that a Brown Act violation could be claimed only if there was no agenda mailed to those for whom a written request was on file. 

Catch 22. 

The school district does not keep a record of those who have requested agendas in writing. Original requests are thrown away when they are placed on a master list, Graham said. So, for example, one could not prove conclusively that a particular newspaper had made a written request for an agenda. 

In addition to a problem with meeting notification, there was no provision for public comment before the executive session, as required by the Brown Act. The agenda that was posted at the building and faxed on request Wednesday to the Daily Planet says that “The meeting will be called to order by the presiding officer at 7 a.m. and immediately recess to closed session.” 

It would have been impossible for the board to allow public comment, even if the agenda had allowed for one, as the body was on an airplane headed to L.A. at 7 a.m. 

And the place of the “closed session” meeting was vague. After the roll call, the board members were to “Recess to closed session – Board Conference Room.” The address of the closed session was not given because, according to Stern, the group broke up and talked to people in a number of locations. The only location given on the agenda was Los Angeles County and not Paramount, in L.A. County, where the meetings took place. 

The district tries 

School Director Ted Schultz said the district tries to follow open meeting requirements. “We’re very conscious of the Brown Act,” he said. At the same time, he said, it is constricting. Hiring a superintendent needs to be done quietly, because, if the person who was being investigated were not selected after all, the public knowledge could affect the candidate’s status in her district. “We tried to be as open as possible and to protect the confidentiality of the applicant,” he said. 

School Director Joaquin Rivera said there was no attempt at secrecy. Had anyone asked, the questioner would have been told about the trip, he said. Still, he said, “at that point, the intent was, we did not want people to know who that person (the top candidate) was.” 

Both School Director Shirley Issel and Interim Superintendent Steve Goldstone said they thought the agendas had been mailed out. (Had they been put in the U.S. mail, they would probably have reached their destinations, after the day-long excursion.) “I don’t think there was any conscious effort not to inform you,” he said. 

Berkeley Federation of Teachers President Barry Fike, who went on the trip, however, had another view. “I was told no one was supposed to know about the trip,” he said, adding that he was unaware until he got on the plane that the full board would be going. 

Like the other board members, School Board Director John Selawsky said he was not aware that notices had not been sent to the press and public. “I think all meetings should be noticed consistently,” he said. 

Asked whether he thought it would have hurt negotiations with the future superintendent, had a Daily Planet reporter known about the trip and gone along, Selawsky said, to the contrary: “It would have been good for the community.”

SAN FRANCISCO — MarketWatch.com Inc. announced Wednesday it is laying off about 15 percent of its work force, making the popular online business news site the latest media outlet to shrivel in the face of an advertising slump. 

MarketWatch’s cutbacks translate into the loss of about 40 jobs from its 250-employee payroll. The layoffs, coupled with other expense reductions, will save the company about $9 million annually. 

In trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, MarketWatch’s shares fell 14 cents to close at $2.76, well below its January 1999 initial public offering price of $17. The stock peaked at $130 shortly after its IPO. 

Like many other Internet companies, San Francisco-based MarketWatch is struggling to become profitable at the same time that its main revenue source – advertising – is drying up. 

Advertising accounted for 65 percent of MarketWatch’s $54 million in revenue last year. After losing $91 million in 2000, MarketWatch opened the first quarter of this year with a $20 million loss as the company’s advertising revenue plunged by 41 percent from the prior year. 

“As painful as this process is, we believe that we will emerge stronger and more agile to meet the challenges this market presents,” MarketWatch CEO Larry Kramer said. Kramer reiterated the company’s goal of breaking even by the end of this year. 

Even highly profitable media giants, ranging from newspaper companies to TV networks, are jettisoning workers to offset the loss of advertising from once-flush dot-com start-ups and free-spending technology companies that fed on the Internet boom. 

The wide-ranging media cutbacks have raised concerns that news coverage will suffer, a worry that may also hound MarketWatch as it battles in the highly competitive field of online journalism. 

“Clearly, they are not going to be able to do as much as they have in the past,” said industry analyst Michael Legg of Jefferies & Co. “They are going to have to focus on the key components of the business.” 

Kramer said MarketWatch remained committed to high-quality journalism. About 85 of MarketWatch’s employees cover the news. 

Although MarketWatch is relatively small, the company quickly established a high profile by hiring well-known market commentators and capitalizing on its ties to CBS. 

In addition to owning a 34 percent stake in MarketWatch, CBS has provided the Web site with free advertising and programming space on its television and radio stations. Through Dec. 31, CBS had provided MarketWatch with advertising valued at $38.5 million. MarketWatch will receive an additional $21.5 million in advertising from CBS through May 2002. 

——— 

On The Net: 

http://www.marketwatch.com 

After a four-month, nationwide search that yielded 22 candidates, the Berkeley Board of Education announced Tuesday it has found its new superintendent. 

Michele Barraza Lawrence, 53, Superintendent of the Paramount Unified School District in Los Angeles County for the last 10 years, will become Berkeley’s new superintendent of schools effective July 16. She will be paid $185,000 annually during her four-year contract. 

In interviews with four finalist on May 10, Lawrence simply came out “head and shoulders” above the competition, said Berkeley Board of Education President Terry Doran. 

“She connected with (all the board members) on a personal level. And we are very different people,” Doran said. “So that leads us to believe that she will connect with this community.” 

The board followed up a second interview with Lawrence by paying a day-long visit to the Paramount school district, near Long Beach, last Wednesday. A select group of Berkeley school administrators, union representatives and other community leaders accompanied the board on the trip, interviewing their counterparts in the Paramount district and visiting various schools. 

“I’ve never seen such an orderly place,” said Berkeley PTA Council President Mark Coplan.  

Although the district is nearly twice as large as Berkeley, with 17,500 students, Coplan said the overriding sense of community and shared purpose made it feel like there were 3,000 students. 

Coplan and others acknowledged that the Paramount students are drawn from a more racially and economically homogenous community than Berkeley. Whereas Berkeley’s students are nearly one-third African American, one-third white and one-third other races, the Paramount district is nearly 80 percent Hispanic, with African Americans accounting for roughly 15 percent of the student population and whites less that 5 percent.  

Whereas Berkeley is clearly divided into affluent and less affluent communities, the Paramount area is home to mostly middle and working-class families. 

Leadership comes more easily in a homogenous community than it will in Berkeley, said Berkeley School Board Student Director Niles Xi’an Lichtenstein. 

“She definitely had control over her district,” Lichtenstein said. “But it seemed like the people down in that district were more ready to be led.” 

Coplan said, “Berkeley is going to be a totally new experience for her. But there wasn’t a person we talked to who didn’t praise her.”  

Despite the differences between the two communities, Lawrence has dealt successfully with many of the problems facing Berkeley schools as superintendent of the Paramount district, said Doran and others. During her leadership the district raised test scores and graduation rates, reduced violence and truancy and dramatically increased parent involvement in school life by building up Parent Teacher Association organizations nearly from the ground level. 

“All the things that we really want to have happen in Berkeley,” Lawrence dealt with successfully at Paramount, Doran said. 

Many who visited the Paramount district last week said they were impressed with the smooth operation of the district’s administrative office, something they said Paramount employees attributed to Lawrence’s leadership.  

School Board Vice President Shirley Issel said the Paramount district offered a glimpse of “what a functioning district looks like” to Berkeley school leaders often frustrated by their own central office’s apparent lack of organization. 

“We were looking for someone who had created that; who had an internal standard that she could bring the district to,” Issel said. 

Also significant to many was Lawrence’s depth of experience with high schools, an area of particular concern in Berkeley, where Berkeley High’s problems with truancy, violence and an academic achievement gap have endangered its accreditation as a secondary school.  

During her career, Lawrence has worked at more than half a dozen high schools, as an art teacher, councilor and principal. As superintendent, she oversaw a reform process at the Paramount High school which lead to its being accredited for a six year term instead of a three year term. 

Short term accreditations are granted when a school is perceived as having unresolved issues that require heightened vigilance. Last spring the Western Association of Schools and Colleges granted Berkeley High a one year accreditation. 

Issel said board members were impressed by Lawrence’s answers to questions about Berkeley High’s accreditation problem. 

“She conveyed confidence that, with a tremendous amount of hard work starting right now, we could...get ourselves accredited,” Issel said. 

In an interview Tuesday, Lawrence said she is proud of her work to set higher standards for student achievement in Paramount schools. In a district with math and reading test scores are well below the state average, Lawrence said she “instilled in the community a belief system that minorities can in fact achieve at high levels.” 

“When we talk about the achievement gap, it’s all my district’s students and the rest of the world,” Lawrence said, pointing the fact that 67 percent of students in the Paramount district speak English as a second language. 

Through a collaboration involving parent, teachers, union leaders and business leaders, Lawrence reformed the district’s curriculum to make it more challenging to all students. Basic math classes were replaced with a three-year algebra curriculum beginning for all students in the sixth grade. Biology and geometry were made mandatory for all ninth graders. Advanced Placement offerings were expanded. 

“The things that will improve the achievement gap more than anything else is effective teaching,” Lawrence said. “The system has to work in harmony and get behind what’s going on in the classroom.” 

Lawrence said she was looking forward to working in a high-profile district such as Berkeley, where educators have an opportunity to lead the way for the rest of the nation with reforms.  

As for the move to Berkeley, Lawrence, who has lived her whole life within a 20-mile radius of Paramount, admitted that she was a little nervous. 

“I know absolutely no one up there,” she said.

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  

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  

Friday, June 1

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 

“Rumi: Mystic and Romantic  

Love, Stories of Masnavi” 

5 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Free public talk by Professor Andrew Vidich. Childcare and vegetarian food provided. 

707-226-7703 

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, June 2

Car Seat Safety Clinic 

10:00 a.m. 

Kittredge St. Parking Garage, second level 

The Berkeley Police Department will demonstrate proper techniques for car seat installation and use, and offer safety checks and tips. Families are welcome to visit the Habitot Children’s Museum located across the street from the garage. Free. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

www.cal-sailing.org  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 548-3333 

Family Storytime  

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Main Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Storyteller Olga Loya tells tales from around the world. Geared for children three to eight and their parents. Free 649-3964 

Commission  

On Disability Hearings 

1 - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St. 

Open forum, opportunity for public to present ideas and concerns about barriers for people with disabilities and accessibility of City facilities. Public comment on Berkeley’s proposed “Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan.” Will continue June 13. 

981-6342 

Longfellow Middle School’s  

Outdoor Arts Festival 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Longfellow Courtyard 

1500 Derby St. 

Live music performances, silent auction of student and community art, BBQ and bake sale. Talent showcase and awards ceremony from 2 - 3 p.m. Free admission, open to the public. 

665-1980 

Birdwatching Walk and  

Breakfast 

8 a.m. 

Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

This is the time of year when the greatest variety of birds can be found in the Garden, including some rare species. Join Chris Carmichael and Dennis Wolff for breakfast and a walk. $25, limited space, call to reserve. 

643-2755 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Walking Tour 

10 a.m. - noon 

Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

Tour of Thousand Oaks School and neighborhood. $5 - $10, reservations required. 

848-0181  

Pasta and Opera 

7 p.m. 

2924 Ashby Ave. 

Presented by Chamber Arts House. By donation. 

Sunday, June 3

Rosa Parks Spring  

Celebration and Fund-raiser 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Rosa Parks 

920 Allston Way 

Silent auction, quilt raffle, cake walk and field events. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics  

11 a.m. - Noon  

Recreational Equipment, Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Learn how to adjust front and rear derailleurs from one of REI’s bike technicians. All you need to bring is your bike. Free 527-4140 

Healing Through  

Tibetan Yoga 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

Slow movements of Kum Nye encourage self-healing and deeper spiritual dimensions in experience. Demonstrated and discussed by Jack van der Meulen. Free and open to the public. 843-6812 

Tuesday, June 5

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 531-8664 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2 - 7 p.m. 

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 

Intelligent Conversation  

7 - 9 p.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

A discussion group open to all, regardless of age, religion, viewpoint, etc. This time the discussion topic is open and will follow the conversation. Informally led by Robert Berend, who founded similar groups in L.A., Menlo Park, and Prague. Bring light snacks/drinks to share. Free  

527-5332 

— compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

The Daily Planet omitted the letter writer’s name when it published “Playing that density song” on May 29. We are reprinting it with the author’s name – ed.  

Playing that density song  

Editor: 

Another day, another soliloquy from Richard Register. Another moving tribute to the glories of density and the energy-consumptive dangers of sprawl. 

I especially loved the timing of the most recent hymn to “diverse pedestrian and transit centers.” It was printed the day after a Zoning Adjustments Board public hearing on taking a retail space right at the corner of San Pablo and University and converting it to office space, which requires a variance. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board voted for it, with one no vote and one abstention. Thirty-five of the merchants who own businesses at or near the corner of University and San Pablo signed a petition opposing the office space, because if you take a chunk out of the retail potential of a commercial area, the whole district gets the hit. People want to shop in a place where they can buy tuna, get their shoes fixed, grab a video, and pick up shoelaces without driving all over town. 

The residents who signed the petition are the hard-pressed people living in perhaps the last honest neighborhood in Berkeley, and perhaps the oldest.  

The area along San Pablo Avenue used to be a favorite drive decades ago because of its tree-lined views and pedestrian bustle, the place where retail, industry, and residential uses dovetailed and the rail lines brought everything and everyone together. 

We recently lost our pharmacy, our shoe store, and our stationary store. One of our best antiques stores is about to have to leave, and would have loved the visibility of the retail space.  

The two non-profits who may move in if the appeal fails are undoubtedly groups which give valuable service to the Berkeley community, but are in no way capable of generating the walking trade and filling the daily needs of an ever more dense “traffic corridor” constantly taking the weight of the large, dense housing developments which no one seems to care are only geared for the $30,000-and-over crowd. 

Where was Richard Register and the Ecocity Builders when this latest small-scale assault on the potential for a pedestrian-serving neighborhood came down? Where were the consultants who gave us the crayons for our moment of participation during the University Avenue Strategic Plan workshops? The Green Party?  

Somehow the crew that warbles for density is never around when the variances are handed out that reduce the liveability of the neighborhood, that piece by piece, shot by shot, reduce it to scrap. 

The chains move in, the Mom and Pops move out, or sell out to chains. I listened to two representatives from the non-profit groups argue that they just couldn’t find anywhere else to move. I work in a non-profit, too, in a loft in the back of a showroom right next to a Bart Station which has two empty spaces which rent for less than the retail space in question. Office space is going wanting all over town. 

The people in our neighborhood have a smaller chance today of the ice-cream store, the shoe repair shop, the gift shop, and the bookstore. But count on it, in another few weeks or so, you’ll hear that density song again.  

Everybody’s playing it. 

Carol Denney 

Berkeley 

Beth El’s good deeds relevant to zoning 

Editor: 

In his second letter to Daily Planet in the past two weeks against Congregation Beth El’s building project, Phillip Price says he can’t understand why Beth El’s contributions to the community should be part of the discussion about building a new synagogue. 

I can’t figure out why this puzzles him. 

If his proposed new neighbor on Oxford Street were an organization that does NOT contribute greatly to the community – or that some people believe does not contribute to the community – that would certainly be a central issue in the discussion.  

The fact that Beth El is devoted to doing good deeds or “mitzvot” is just as relevant, because that makes it exactly the kind of place Berkeley’s zoning laws welcome into residential neighborhoods. 

Mr. Price alleges that alternate building sites have been suggested to the congregation. As far as I know, there have been only two references to alternate sites.  

One was in the Environmental Impact Report on the building plan, which found no appropriate alternate sites in Berkeley. The other was a statement – some might call it a demand - by a speaker at one of many hearings on the project suggesting that this long-time Berkeley congregation should move out of town, possibly to El Cerrito. 

Mr. Price, no one supporting Beth El has ever accused opponents of the project of being “bad.” Obviously, there are good people on both sides of this issue. But there are clear and substantial differences in perspective.  

Beth El’s perspective is that it can build a beautiful future landmark appropriate to the neighborhood while at the same time preserving Codornices Creek and other natural features of the site. The Environmental Impact Report on the project, the Zoning Adjustments Board, and hundreds of Berkeley citizens, including some neighbors of the site, agree with this perspective. 

David Golner 

Berkeley 

Council should demand changes to Beth El plans 

The following is part of a letter sent to the city council on the question of 1301 Oxford St. 

This letter is to urge you to vote against accepting the Beth El plans as they now are. 

After almost a year and a half of writing letters, emails and attending meetings, I feel that my and other neighbors’ concerns have been barely acknowledged in this situation: namely the too-large building proposed, parking, traffic safety and the covered creek. 

I have lived on Summer Street for 31 years. I know very well the ebb and flow of the traffic in this area. I am also well acquainted with Temple Beth El. My children attended camp Keetov. I have attended bar and bat mitzvahs at the temple. Many of my friends and acquaintances are members of Congregation Beth El.  

I have nothing personally against the temple nor the people who attend it. But I do object to such a large building with such a large congregation in that space and in this neighborhood. I have no evidence that any good faith measures were made to look for other possible sites.  

There is still no real regard as to the impact on the neighborhood of 250 plus people coming to temple on Friday evenings and for high holidays (more people then) and bar and bat-mitzvahs. 

Although there are clearly many improvements to the proposed building plan which deal with noise, parking problems etc, there simply is not enough parking in this area to accommodate that many people. Many of us in the immediate surrounding neighborhood do not have garages, let alone driveways, due to the slippage and earth movement under our streets. 

Here are my specific concerns and suggestions: 

• The building planned is simply too large for the space and the neighborhood.  

• If the driveway were built at the south end of the property many problems with the current design could be solved. 

• Provide a shuttle for both religious and non-religious events. 

Mary Ann Brewin 

Berkeley 

Letters to the Editor 

Berkeley Daily Planet 

Dear Editor: 

The contributions of Beth El members to the youth, elders and people in need in our community are many and commendable, but what has this to do with paving an oak woodland in the Codornices Creek corridor, and driving hundreds of cars into a neighborhood searching for parking ? 

There must be Beth El members, maybe their children, who would be thrilled to see steelhead trout swimming up the creek, to see owls perched in the oaks, to walk down Berryman Path and not see rows of parked cars. The natural beauty of 1301 Oxford can be preserved and enhanced by undergrounding the proposed parking and locating the access road south of the creek corridor. 

The degradation of the Oxford/Rose/Spruce neighborhood by traffic congestion will be avoided by Beth El’s commitment to a fuel cell-powered electric shuttle service for congregation members who cannot reach the synagogue on foot, and who will feel fortunate to have transportation when in a few years gasoline will cost $5 a gallon. 

Allowing Codornices Creek to be daylighted on Beth El’s property, allowing the oaks and bay trees to grow without the threat of being cut down, and minimizing traffic congestion and pollution would then be even more contributions by Beth El members to our community. 

Sheila Andres 

Berkeley 

Editor: 

The Stadium Light issue really isn’t between permanent and temporary lights, but why is CAL or any school in California scheduling any outdoor athletic event at night?  

Given the Energy crisis, free sunshine is about the only incentive California has to offer a broadcaster. High energy costs, coupled with potential blackouts should send Fox and other broadcasters and their revenue off to other states. 

John Cecil 

Berkeley 

Editor: 

As a near-daily user of Berryman Path, a former member of Beth El temple, and a frequent creek cleanup participant, it seems to me that there’s a compromise solution to the Beth El / Codornices Creek controversy. It relies on the historical accident of Berryman Path being legally a street. Because of this, the path’s slice of land is unusually wide - 20 feet, while most of Berkeley’s paths are more like 10 or 5 feet. According to project maps (Alternative Parking 1 and 2), Beth El’s proposed parking and drive-through area just barely overlaps the 60-foot-wide creek corridor. So, my 

proposed compromise: The city deeds over Berryman Path to Beth El. Beth El moves the parking area 20 feet north, daylights the creek, builds a 5-foot-wide walking and biking path next to the creek, and gives the city a permanent easement for public use of the new path. 

Beth El would still have to make some other changes in their plan, for instance moving the fenced perimeter and building at least one pedestrian bridge over the creek. However they would be getting a large chunk of extra land for their trouble, which seems like a good deal. Also, this idea doesn’t solve any of the non-creek-related objections to the project, but my impression is that those objections are secondary and Beth El has already done a reasonable job of addressing them. 

I hope all involved parties will consider this idea seriously. 

Jef Poskanzer

A man undergoes brain surgery and experiences a transformation of his life in the quirky and well-performed, but otherwise surprisingly bland 1998 opera “A New Brain,” which Shotgun Players opened Saturday as its latest show at Julian Morgan Theater in Berkeley. 

The play is Shotgun’s first presentation ever of a musical show. “A New Brain” is a substitute for the previously scheduled hip-hop play “One Size Fits All,” which fell through at the eleventh hour. 

The current production of “A New Brain” was originally staged as a student theater project on the UC Berkeley campus for three weekends in March. The show is well performed by a cast of largely current and former Cal students. 

“A New Brain” was originally produced at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1998, with music and lyrics by William Finn, and a book co-authored by Finn and James Lapine. Lapine is best known for his co-authorship of Stephen Sondheim’s dark fairy tale musical “Into the Woods.” 

In “A New Brain,” songwriter Gordon Schwinn (Jeffrey Meanza) cooks up ditties for a children’s television show that he hates, worrying that his life and talent are passing him by at the expense of his more important artistic work. Then an illness sends him suddenly into a medical facility for brain surgery. 

Most of the opera is set in a hospital. The style is sort of a song and dance fantasy variety show. From his hospital bed, Gordon catalogues his fears, memories and fantasies as friends and hospital staff bounce back their own concerns to him and others. 

“A New Brain” is filled with odd, quirky touches, such as Gordon’s boyfriend Roger (Austin Ku) showing up very late and singing a ballad “I’d Rather Be Sailing.” But in general, the Finn/Lapine story is unfocused, with many subplots from the secondary characters going on at the same time as Gordon’s ailment. 

In fact, the character of Gordon is one of the play’s big weaknesses. Gordon suffers from the boring-and-ineffectual-hero syndrome of many contemporary plays and novels, and there is just not enough going on at the center of his story. 

Most of Gordon’s time on stage is a waiting game during his hospital stay, without strong or distinctive dramatic story points. In fact, the secondary characters in the play, who have their own stories, are frequently more interesting people than Gordon. 

Swishy male nurse Richard (Malcolm Darrell), for example, sings of being poor, unsuccessful and fat, in a song that segues into Gordon’s similar fear that he has no real artistic talent. Later in “Eating Myself Up Alive,” Richard expresses his fears of obesity. 

Hillary Kaye is a presence as Gordon’s brassy and controlling, but compassionate mother. She sings a wonderful ballad “The Music Still Plays On,” about the lost love that still lingers in her heart for her irresponsible former husband. 

Kaitlin L’Italien appears from time to time as a street person seeking change, romance, and free existential therapy clients. David Neufeld is a sinister brain surgeon, off to see the musical “Chicago” with his kids, as relaxation before surgery. 

Enver Gjokaj displays a lot of physical performance talent as the obnoxious, sadistic clown and children’s television host Mr. Bungee, although this character seems familiar in an era of Krusty the Clown from “The Simpsons,” or even Chuckles from “A Thousand Clowns.” 

Overall, this is a talented bunch of youthful performers – a solid testimony to Cal’s theater program. The play is very well staged by director Yuval Sharon, with crisp singing and dancing. I guess the play’s theme is to try and understand the brain of a perhaps untalented man who wants to write art, but who does commerce instead. But for me there is very little in the way of new ideas or fresh characters brought to the task in this script. 

And one question I kept asking myself as the medical procedures got more and more complex: Where the heck did Gordon get his great health insurance? 

Planet theater reviewer John Angell Grant has written for “American Theatre,” “Backstage West,” “Callboard,” and many other publications. E-mail him at jagplays@yahoo.com

The 86-year-old Claremont Hotel Resort and Spa, among the most majestic buildings in the Bay Area, was nominated for historical landmarking this month, causing surprise among many who automatically assumed it was already a landmark. 

The Claremont Application Committee, a subcommittee of Berkeley-Oakland Neighbors of the Claremont, submitted the 26-page nomination document, along with 44 photos and graphics to the Oakland Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board on May 14, which began the process of making the Claremont an Oakland landmark.  

The CAC also submitted a petition signed by 650 local residents who support the landmarking.  

The 279-room Claremont Hotel is nestled in the foothills at the mouth of Claremont Canyon in Oakland immediately adjacent to Berkeley. The mostly Tudor Revival-styled hotel also boasts a newly remodeled resort and spa. 

“This is a wonderful opportunity for the people of the East Bay to landmark a very important building,” said committee Chairman Wendy Markel. “It will be nominated for the state and federal register as well.” 

Markel said the effort to nominate the building began when a group of neighbors heard of plans to expand the hotel. The KSL Resort Corp., a billion dollar luxury resort chain, which bought the hotel three years ago for $88 million, announced plans last August to expand the resort by 86 guest units, 75 time-share villas and a three-story parking garage. 

Another controversial proposal for a $15 million-overhaul of the Lake Chabot Municipal Golf Course was called off in April because of the softening of the economy, according to a prepared statement by KSL Vice President Gary Beasley.  

“There is a connection between the landmarking effort and the hotel’s plan to expand,” said Markel. “The landmarking of the hotel won’t preempt any expansion but it would create another step before any expansion approved.” 

Markel said many of the neighbors involved in BONC were surprised when they found out the hotel did not have local, state or federal landmark status. 

“The City of Oakland has given it an A1 rating as a historically significant building but it has no official status as a landmark,” she said.  

Vice President and general manager of the hotel, Ted Axe, said he shared the same amazement as the hotel’s neighbors about the hotel’s lack of historical status. 

“We’re very supportive of the effort and we’re looking forward to working with BONC,” he said. 

He said the plans to develop on the 22-acre site are currently on hold. “The economy is softening and hotel occupancy is down nationwide,” he said. “The fact is we just don’t know what we’re going to do.” 

The Oakland Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board will hold a meeting on the nomination on June 11 and is expected to make a decision on July 9. If the advisory board approves the nomination the matter will then go to the Oakland Planning Commission, which will make a recommendation to the Oakland City Council. 

The nomination document, which took six months to complete, is available for viewing at Berkeley’s Claremont Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave., the Oakland Public Library History Room and the Rockridge and Montclair libraries. 

For more information about the landmarking process go to www.saveclaremont.org.

OAKLAND – House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Missouri, joined congressional representatives from the Bay Area Tuesday at the Ron Dellums Federal Building to take a hard look at the energy crisis in a forum not lacking in commentary on the president’s arrival in California the same day. 

U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland; Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma; Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek; and Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco heard from advocates for various groups particularly affected by the crisis, then listened to those who had ideas on its solution. The congressional delegation had ideas of its own on immediate answers. 

“We know that price caps are an immediate solution to this problem. That is what we have all embraced and are suggesting and insisting on,” Lee said.“Our leader, Congressman Dick Gephardt, met with our delegation and embraced our strategy immediately, because he knew that our delegation was suggesting the most realistic, the most practical and the most visionary solution to California’s energy crisis.” 

Gephardt affirmed the need for price caps, on which Gov. Gray Davis is also insisting.  

“Your entire delegation on the Democratic side and some Republicans are fighting to try to bring about a price cap on wholesale electric prices now as a temporary and important answer to this problem,” Gephardt said. 

“From what I understand California paid a year ago about $7 billion for energy. If these prices that you’re facing now – and are likely to face in the next year – keep going up, you will be spending in the next year about $70 billion for energy.  

“That is a 10 (fold) increase in the price of energy (and) will devastate the economy of California Washington and Oregon. And I predict that other places in the country are going to face these kinds of increases.” 

“I am glad that President Bush is making his first trip to California of his presidency today,” Gephardt said. “Many people believe that he wrote off the state of California. He has a chance to finally take action to stop electricity price gouging and give people real relief from soaring electricity bills.”  

Gephardt urged Bush to make good on his campaign promises and put pressure on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase sales of petroleum. 

“In two weeks OPEC meets again. I hope President Bush follows through on his campaign rhetoric and calls OPEC to reverse the 3 million barrels-a-day production cuts they have announced since November of last year,” Gephardt said. 

Advocates of those for whom the energy crisis has been particularly difficult had much to tell the public officials. 

Ethel Long Scott, executive director of the Women’s Economic Agenda Project, a nonprofit organization assisting low-income women to achieve a livable wage, said price gouging is complicating the lives of many low-income citizens so profoundly, there often seems no right decision to make. 

“(Low-income families) suffer because they’re forced to make impossible choices,” Long Scott said. “Do I pay this exorbitant energy bill, or pay the rent? Do I pay this exorbitant energy bill, or buy food? Do I pay this exorbitant energy bill, or buy medicine or books for our children?” 

Out of these questions, Long Scott found her own to pose to the congressional representatives present.  

“Will you recommend a real cure?” she asked. “By that I mean, a move to take over the power plants in the name of the little people who can afford nothing less?”  

Francie Moeller, president of Americans with Disabilities Act Compliance Services, spoke on behalf of the disabled, and posed equally difficult questions. 

“Unlike some other people, when the energy crisis hit, many, many disabled lives were being put at risk on a daily basis. Every time there is a power outage we are risking lives. We’ve had people who’ve been cut off while they were on ventilators, while they were on oxygen machines, while they were on dialysis machines.” 

And these are the life-endangering issues, Moeller said.What about the other problems that are only supremely inconvenient? What happens, she asked, when 

someone in a wheelchair exits a BART train and hears on the loud-speaker that no elevators are working?  

Mary Frances Calan, superintendent of the Pleasanton Unified School District, talked about how the crisis affects schools. 

The energy costs of the Pleasanton district have doubled in three years, and if that additional money were returned to its budget, Calan said, every school in the district could have a half-time fully-credentialed librarian and an additional half-time counselor as well as a total of 9,000 more textbooks and 23,000 additional library books for the entire district. 

“I’ve put this in dollars and cents,” Calan said, “because I think that’s probably a clearer way of explaining it, but I am not even touching on the safety issues and the learning environment.”  

During the second part of the forum, speakers sought to give answers. 

Mark Levine, director of Environmental Technologies at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, emphasized the importance of this intention. 

“I’m really interested in talking about solutions,” Levine said. “It’s hard living in California, hearing only about the problems all the time.” 

Levine pointed to the Web site the Berkeley Lab has put together to help make the U.S. Department of Energy’s “20-20 Plan” a reality for all Californians. The web address is: http://savepower.lbl.gov. 

The DOE’s 20-20 Plan says that any Californian who succeeds in saving 20 percent of the energy used the previous year in a given household will receive an additional 20 percent rebate. 

“For 20 percent savings you get 40 percent,” Levine said. 

Levine also introduced several products developed by the Berkeley Lab, such as a compact fluorescent lamp and windows that will help decrease energy use. 

Gephardt talked mostly about a political solution, pushing for the passage of a bill moving through congressional committees that would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to set price caps. 

“I think at the end of the day, the President and FERC have to do this in the name of common sense,” Gephardt said, “to help the people of the West Coast, and to avert what will be not only be an electric crisis, but will ultimately be an economic crisis throughout the United States.” 

Bay City News contributed to this report.

Pat Graef of Acton Street in Berkeley won $250 last week in the Cash for Trash Contest. She was very pleased to win but admittedly would have preferred the previous week’s prize of $2,700.  

A diligent recycler, she was familiar with the contest but hadn't read the details carefully. So she was surprised to hear that the prize was cumulative and that last week's prizewinners, the Falck-Fountain family of South West Berkeley, won $2,700. That large detail aside, she was very happy to be a contestant – “Participating in the contest gave me the information I needed to confirm I am recycling right.”  

Not only is she recycling right, she is doing a great job! Not one recyclable was found in her 13-gallon trash cart - just film plastic, tissue and food waste. For when she has more then 13 gallons of trash or items that she can't recycle or reuse, she keeps prepaid trash bags from the City on hand.  

The Ecology Center Curbside Program, the City of Berkeley Plant Debris program, Bay Area Creative Reuse, and Goodwill are the recycling programs she uses regularly. A Bank of America consulting system engineer who telecommutes a few days a week, she also recycles at work and when ever possible uses her own containers for deli take-out and cloth bags for shopping and other errands. 

The Cash for Trash Contest is an outreach project of the Ecology Center and the City of Berkeley, funded by the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board.  

Since February, we have awarded $3,900 to Berkeley residents for recycling well, and have another $2,600 to distribute before the contest ends in mid-July. Limited to Berkeley residents, employees of sponsoring organizations are not eligible nor are building of 10 units or more. 

For official rules and more information visit www.ecologycenter.org. or call the Ecology Center Recycling Hotline at 527-5555

OAKLAND – The debate over the last medical waste incinerator in California, the Integrated Environmental Systems plant in Oakland goes on, as high school students from a Catholic high school in Hayward march and rally at the site Tuesday afternoon. 

Students from the Moreau Catholic High School were joined by priests, environmentalists, community activists, parents and supporters at a march that began at the Fruitvale BART station and progressed up International Boulevard toward the incinerator, which is in Oakland's Fruitvale District.  

The group is still at the site this afternoon. 

The students are holding a prayer service to express their solidarity with all of the students who live near the site, who they claim are being exposed to toxins such as dioxin.  

Their purpose is to get IES management to stop incinerating at the site, and opt instead for safer technology. 

The East Oakland site has  

been the target of many  

similar marches. 

IES representatives say their facility does not emit the pollutants, and that it operates at levels that are above regulatory standards.  

They say that the facility also employs other disposal methods, but that state law requires certain items to be incinerated. 

Last month, IES official and community activists seemed to be on the verge of reaching a compromise, being worked out by Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, to reduce incineration at the plant. 

The negotiations stalled, however, and De La Fuente stepped away, saying he would only continue as mediator if both sides were willing to give some ground on their positions to reach an accord. 

SAN FRANCISCO — A gay psychiatrist owes the U.S. Air Force more than $71,000 for his top-notch education because he failed to fulfill his active duty obligation, a judge has ruled. 

In a decision made public Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said John Hensala, a former U.S. Air Force captain, should be required to pay back the government because he voluntarily came out as gay and should have known the consequences of violating the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. 

”(Hensala) presumably understood that the Air Force would follow its own rules and what the likely consequences of his acts would be,” Alsup wrote. “It is not unreasonable to infer that one intends the probable and foreseeable consequences of deliberate conduct.” 

Hensala, 36, a San Francisco psychiatrist in private practice who sued last May, said he shouldn’t have to repay the money because he wanted to serve, but the Air Force refused to let him because he announced he was gay. 

Hensala was honorably discharged after telling his superiors in 1994 that he’s gay. He claimed he wanted to serve honestly and had no reason to believe he would be automatically discharged after his announcement. 

The Air Force contended Hensala announced he was gay simply to avoid active duty military service. 

“I came out to them for my mental health and well being as a human being, not for any other reason. And I wanted to serve openly,” Hensala said Tuesday afternoon. “As a psychiatrist, I couldn’t in good conscience serve in the closet. My job is to help people live more honestly.” 

The government paid for Hensala’s education at Northwestern University’s medical school under a program that required four years of active duty military service after graduation. He put off that service twice — during a three-year residency at Yale, and a two-year fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco. 

In December 1994, the Air Force reminded Hensala his military service would begin the following year. Days later, Hensala announced he was gay. 

The judge agreed his timing may have been suspect. 

Although Alsup acknowledged that Hensala was never directly asked whether he knew discharge was imminent after he came out as gay, “There is still substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that plaintiff made the declarations for the purpose of seeking separation,” the judge said. 

Hensala’s lawyer, Clyde Wadsworth, said he planned to appeal Alsup’s decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

“We are deeply disappointed with the court’s order,” he said. “We think that it’s simply wrong.” 

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said his office had not yet seen the decision and refused to comment. 

LOS ANGELES — The white abalone, a tasty Southern California mollusk whose numbers have dropped from the millions in the 1970s to perhaps a few thousand, officially became an endangered species Tuesday. 

The listing by the National Marine Fisheries Service will not affect fishermen because the state has banned taking the species since 1996. But environmentalists are hopeful the decision will bring in more funding to help the abalone’s numbers rebound. 

The decision means federal agencies must act to help keep the white abalone from going extinct, but it may be too late to save it, said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental group that filed a petition asking for the listing in 1999. 

“Twenty years ago if this thing been listed, our options for saving it would’ve been much better,” Suckling said. “At this point, I am not at all optimistic we can pull these things back from the brink.” 

Shellfishermen around the Channel Islands, off the coast near Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, began diving for white abalone in the late 1960s. Commercial landings of the species peaked at more than 144,000 pounds – or about 86,000 abalone – in 1972. But harvesting of the mollusk collapsed just a few years later – in 1978, commercial divers hauled in less than 5,000 pounds. 

Studies once estimated the white abalone population at about 2 million, with one estimate as high as 4 million. Now the NMFS estimates the population at about 1,600 to 2,500. 

“Lots of them were taken, and now the density of animals in the wild is extremely low,” said NMFS fisheries biologist Craig Wingert. 

With abalone thinly scattered along the coast, it’s extremely hard for them to reproduce. It becomes very difficult for sperm released by a male mollusk to reach eggs if the male is more than a yard or two from a female. 

NMFS is looking at two options for recovery: breeding abalone in a lab and releasing them, or moving wild abalone closer to each other to improve their chances of reproducing. 

A multiagency team focused on restoring the abalone announced last month that it successfully spawned the species in a lab, creating more than 6 million eggs. In three to four years, the Abalone Restoration Consortium plans to begin releasing about 10,000 adult abalone a year into the ocean. 

NMFS declined to declare critical habitat for the abalone, saying it could actually hurt the species’ prospects because poachers would know where the mollusk could most likely be found. The Center for Biological Diversity – which has often sued to establish critical habitat for endangered species – had requested such a designation, but Suckling said this is “most certainly not a clear-cut case” in which critical habitat is necessary. 

The listing was the first of a marine mollusk, but probably won’t be the last. The black abalone, another California species, is on NMFS’s list of endangered species candidates, and Suckling said his Tucson, Ariz.-based center plans to ask for a listing of that species as well. 

A federal appeals court declined Tuesday to order federal energy regulators to cap wholesale electricity prices. 

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came hours before California Gov. Gray Davis urged President Bush in a meeting to cap wholesale power costs, which have been spiraling out of control. The president refused. 

The panel, in a brief statement, said last week’s appeal by state Senate President John Burton and state Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg does not warrant “intervention of this court.” 

The lawmakers, both Democrats, were joined by the city of Oakland in their appeal to the 9th Circuit. 

“The citizens of California are suffering immediate irreparable harm as a result of FERC’s abrogation of its duty to establish just and reasonable rates for electricity,” they wrote to the 9th Circuit. 

The lawmakers said California’s looming threat of continued blackouts “are an imminent threat to the health, welfare and safety of every California citizen.” 

Davis and Hertzberg said they would study the ruling with their attorneys before deciding whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The suit came after more than a year of wholesale power prices reaching historically high levels. In December, prices in California reached $200 per megawatt hour – and they have skyrocketed to as much as $1,900 per megawatt hour during peak times since then. 

The Bush administration ardently opposes price caps and President Bush has declined Davis’ requests to urge FERC to impose strict caps. 

Vice President Dick Cheney, chief architect of the administration’s energy plan, has said capping prices would not increase energy supplies or reduce demand. 

“We get politicians who want to go out and blame somebody and allege there is some kind of conspiracy ... instead of dealing with the real issues,” Cheney has said. 

Cheney criticized Davis, a Democrat, for what he called a “harebrained scheme” to use the state’s budget surplus to buy power because California’s two largest utilities face enormous financial problems. 

For the short term, the Bush administration has approved Davis’ request to expedite permits for new power plants and has ordered federal facilities in California to reduce energy consumption 10 percent this summer. 

Sacramento and the White House appear locked in a high-voltage war of rhetoric over energy policies. There is broad bipartisan dissatisfaction in Sacramento with Washington’s response to California’s energy crisis — the result of its own 1996 deregulation rules. 

Last month FERC did order a one-year cap on electricity sold into California during power emergencies, when power reserves fall below 7 1/2 percent. The agency did not set a price and also required the state to join a regional transmission organization, which could limit California’s ability to control its own power grid. 

Davis called the plan a “Trojan horse,” and state power regulators dismissed the cap as inadequate, saying it would profit power generators at ratepayers’ expense. 

In addition, Davis and state lawmakers sharply criticized FERC for considering requiring the state’s power grid operator to add a surcharge on power sales to pay generators the money they are owed by the state’s two large financially strapped utilities. 

NO AGREEMENT 

LOS ANGELES — Gov. Gray Davis said Tuesday he and President Bush have a fundamental disagreement over whether California is entitled to energy price relief. 

“My view is I think we are entitled to relief as a matter of law,” Davis told reporters at the Century Plaza Hotel minutes after meeting with Bush. 

Davis said he told Bush he intends to do everything, including suing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to bring price relief to California. 

“I said, ’Mr. President, you understand I have to do everything in my power to seek relief for the people of this state. You would do the same thing if you were in my position,’ and he agreed,” Davis said. 

“And among the things I am going to have to do are sue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ... and pursue every avenue in the Congress,” he said. 

Davis said the meeting was cordial and that Bush listened as he presented his side, but would not agree to price controls. 

“He believes it reduces abilities to conserve and discourages investment,” Davis said. 

But the governor said he showed Bush a chart from the U.S. Energy Department that showed the state ranked No. 1 in energy conservation. 

“Obviously it’s not going to have any negative effect on our ability to conserve,” he said. 

Davis said he pointed out to Bush that California had received applications for at least 12 power plants when there were price caps. 

“So certainly the investors of those plants thought they could get a very attractive return when we had the price cap,” he said. 

The governor said the state has made its price request to the FERC and now must wait for its official response before actually going to court. 

Davis said the president told him he will send FERC member Pat Wood to investigate claims of market manipulation. 

“The good news is the president is distressed to learn that the price of natural gas — Texas natural gas — in New York is roughly $5 per British Thermal Unit and $14 to $15 out here.” 

Davis said he warned Bush that the energy crisis could push the state into a recession and “bring down the rest of the country.” 

SACRAMENTO — The state Senate voted Tuesday to require health officials to set drinking water limits for chromium-6, the substance that gained notoriety in the Julia Roberts film “Erin Brockovich.” 

The bill, by Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, would require the state Department of Health Services to set a maximum allowable limit for chromium-6 in drinking water by Jan. 1, 2004. 

Chromium is a natural element that has two basic forms: chromium-3, an essential nutrient, and chromium-6, a carcinogen when inhaled. 

Public health agencies have not yet determined if chromium-6 is a carcinogen when ingested, but the Department of Health Services and Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment announced in March that they would evaluate whether chromium-6 should be regulated as a drinking water contaminant. 

The Senate voted 23-7, without debate, to send the Ortiz bill to the Assembly. 

“Erin Brockovich” is based on a 1996 case in which residents of the California desert town of Hinkley won a $333 million settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric when the utility company’s tanks leaked high concentrations of chromium 6 into ground water.  

Roberts won an Oscar for her portrayal of a law firm assistant who curiosity about illnesses in Hinkley led to the settlement.

SUSANVILLE— A raging 4,100-acre forest fire forced evacuations of 60 homes and a hospital, coating the town of Susanville with dark soot and giving firefighters an unwelcome taste of what could be ahead this summer. 

“This is the closest I’ve seen a fire to Susanville in my life,” said Bob Garate, 45, a former firefighter whose home was threatened by the blaze. “I haven’t seen dry conditions like this since 1977. We’re in for a long, hard summer.” 

The fire, which had burned to the city limits and was within a quarter-mile of an RV park, was one of several burning Tuesday in the region. Susanville, with a population of 17,500, is located about 80 miles northwest of Reno, Nev. 

Firefighters battled a 6,500-acre wildland blaze near Pyramid Lake, about 40 miles north of Reno. And there was a fire about 250 miles southwest of Susanville in the Mendocino National Forest, where 145 acres have been scorched. That one was expected to be extinguished by Thursday, said forest spokeswoman Phebe Brown. 

In New Mexico, firefighters braced for hot, dry, windy weather in their battle against a blaze that has scorched about 1,400 acres of the Guadalupe Mountains in an unpopulated area of the Lincoln National Forest. 

At a Denver news conference Tuesday, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the summer is shaping up as one of the worst in decades for wildfire potential. 

“This is the second-driest year in the last 100 years in the Pacific Northwest,” she said, adding that millions of federal acres need to be cleared of underbrush. 

Last year was the worst for fires in a half-century, with 93,000 wildfires damaging 7.3 million acres. 

The Susanville blaze started about seven miles west of town Sunday on private timberland after being sparked by a man shooting targets in the woods, said state Dept. of Forestry spokeswoman Wendy McIntosh. The man, whose name was not released, was cited for causing a fire and letting it escape. 

“This is an August fire in May, and you have to wonder where it’s going to go from here. It could be a long, expensive summer,” said fire information officer Steve Harcourt. 

“These people are fortunate because this fire happened early in the summer when there were adequate resources to fight it. The calvary may not be able to be there later this summer when there are too many fires.” 

Fire officials said the blaze was about 35 percent contained. About 1,300 firefighters tried to slow the flames’ advance using fire engines and bulldozers to build a fire line. Seven air tankers and a dozen helicopters also were used. 

“We’re making good progress, but the threat to Susanville is not over,” said fire information officer Steve Gasaway. “We’re still worried about high winds and what they could do to the fire.” 

Two firefighters were injured while battling the blaze, including one with a possible broken arm. 

The fire skirted eight homes, coming as close as 30 feet to some of them. About 140 residents were evacuated, but were allowed to return to their homes late Tuesday morning. 

Lassen Community Hospital had to evacuate 25 patients Monday night when the fire burned with a quarter mile of the facility, said Laura Lang, executive assistant at the 59-bed hospital. 

“We had quite a few embers blowing this way and the smoke was very thick. For health reasons, and just to calm the patients, we evacuated them,” Lang said. 

McIntosh said two Susanville-area residents suffered minor injuries, but no structures had been damaged or destroyed. 

Residents in the area are accustomed to fires, but this one was too close for comfort, said Dan Merritt of the Susanville Interagency Fire Center. 

“It’s not uncommon for there to be forest fires in the area, but this is the closest it’s come to town in the 35 years since I’ve been here,” Merritt said. “It’s also the earliest we’ve had a major forest fire in those 35 years.” 

Evacuees were asked to check in at Lassen High School. By 10 p.m. Monday, 15 people had arrived at the school to spend the night on cots. Roger Bailey and his wife, Jean, took refuge there after they were forced to evacuate their home. 

“It was real smoky and scary,” Roger Bailey said. “I had tears on my cheeks. It’s home.” 

Cars traveling Susanville’s streets had to use headlights to cut through the thick soot and smoke in the air. Elementary, junior high and high schools in Susanville were closed Tuesday due to concerns about air quality. 

PALO ALTO — After nearly a decade of development and two years of delays, Intel Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday launched the first in a new generation of microprocessors they hope will dominate the next era of computing. 

The Itanium processor, developed by both companies, is designed for workstations and servers – machines that power Web sites, sift through data and run scientific applications. 

As prices in its core PC business slide, Intel hopes Itanium will capture a slice of the high-end server and workstation market dominated by Sun Microsystems Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. 

“This launch is not just important to us, it’s critical,” said Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Architecture Group. 

In a launch subdued in comparison to desktop processor introductions, Intel and Hewlett-Packard officials unveiled HP’s first broadly available Itanium machines Tuesday. Prices start at $7,000. 

Dell, Compaq, IBM, Silicon Graphics Inc. also announced their first Itanium-based systems. All are expected to be available in June. In all, 25 computer makers are expected to offer more than 35 models this year. 

The chips, which range in price from $1,177 to $4,227, are available at speeds of 733 megahertz and 800 MHz. 

Some analysts, however, do not expect strong demand for machines based on the processor until Intel introduces the chip’s second generation, code-named McKinley, later this year. 

“I didn’t think Itanium was going to be spectacular at launch because of the fact that essentially it’s a beta product for McKinley,” said Eric Ross, an analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners. 

Intel spokesman Bill Kircos said faster and cheaper chips are always in the pipeline, and that it would not make sense to hold back a launch because something better will be available in the future. 

The new processor, code-named Merced, processes information in 64-bit chunks, twice the rate of today’s PCs. As a result, the entire core, including software and secondary chips, had to be redesigned. 

The processor’s development dates to the early 1990s, when HP and Intel started an alliance to develop advanced technologies. The alliance officially was announced in June 1994. 

At the time, Intel engineers could see the limitations in their 32-bit processors that dominate the PC and low-end server markets. While adequate for personal computers, the architecture was not expected to keep pace with demands in future, high-end applications. 

HP officials also were looking for partners in developing a next-generation architecture for their own systems. The company previously built its own processors. Under the deal, Intel and HP co-invented the new architecture, and Intel is producing the actual processors and is selling them to both HP and other computer makers. 

HP said its products would benefit from the company’s intimate knowledge of the processor’s design. Executives refused to disclose whether HP will pay less or receive other benefits from the collaboration. 

In 1998, Intel said it would not meet the planned late 1999 launch date. Last year, the world’s largest chipmaker announced yet another delay so that the processor could undergo further testing. 

In the meantime, Sun Microsystems Inc. was able to get a leg up, introducing the second generation of its 64-bit processor last year. 

Michael Lehman, Sun’s chief financial officer, said the Itanium launch offered no new revelations. 

“There is nothing in that announcement that anybody hadn’t been talking about for months, if not years,” he said. “There’s no news there.” 

Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. also announced plans for a 64-bit architecture, which would extend the existing 32-bit architecture. Analysts believe AMD is focusing more on high-end PCs than servers. 

Despite the delays, Intel’s offering will create serious competition, analysts said. 

“Intel has not had a product, and all of a sudden they have a product,” Ross said. “It’s essentially going from not-quite-zero competitors to one strong competitor. Intel is not to be trifled with.” 

———— 

On the Net: 

Intel: http://www.intel.com 

HP: http://www.hp.com 

NEW YORK — Merger talks between French telecommunications giant Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. were called off Tuesday after intense negotiations over the long holiday weekend failed to produce an agreement. 

In a statement, both companies announced that the negotiations in Paris had failed, but did not explain why talks were ended. 

A source close to the negotiations said issues over corporate governance and management of the combined company were the main roadblocks preventing a deal. 

A merger, with an estimated value of as much as $32 billion, would have marked one of the largest combinations of a U.S. technology group with a European company. 

But Lucent officials balked because they did not believe that Alcatel was treating the deal as a merger of equals and acted as though the French firm were buying Lucent. 

Analysts had said the new company would have a work force of more than 200,000 but would probably have had to cut 20,000 to 30,000 jobs to reduce costs. 

Most job cuts resulting from the merger would probably have occurred in the United States, where the companies have the most overlapping operations, analyst Sean Faughnan of Goldman, Sachs & Co. wrote in a research note to clients. 

Since January, financially plagued Lucent has announced plans to reduce its work force by up to 16,000 jobs as it streamlines operations and sells off some of its factories. 

Analyst Steven Koffler of First Union Securities said Lucent faces an uncertain future without the backing Alcatel would have provided. 

“This is going to be tough because of a lot of internal problems they’re having and because of the state of the industry right now,” he said. 

Lucent, which was spun off from AT&T Corp. in 1996, is among the most widely held stocks in America. Lucent predecessor Bell Labs has been a wellspring of innovation over the years, with a role in developing the transistor, the laser and superconductors. 

But Lucent has fallen on hard times amid a string of strategic missteps and profit disappointments that led to the ouster of chief executive Richard McGinn and a major restructuring. The company’s shares are hovering at about one-tenth of their all-time high, hit in late 1999. 

Analysts said that a deal by Alcatel, which chief executive Serge Tchuruk has built into a diversified maker of cell phones, high-speed telecommunications equipment and Internet switches, would have made it a major player in the U.S. market. 

More than half of Alcatel’s sales are in Europe, while 23 percent of its revenue comes from the United States. 

In trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange, Lucent shares were down 11.5 percent, or $1.08, to close at $8.32 a share, while Alcatel’s U.S. shares were down 70 cents, or 2.5 percent, at $27.41. 

In extended trading Lucent shares rose 3.4 percent, or 28 cents, at $8.60 a share, while Alcatel’s U.S. shares were up $1.79, or 6.5 percent, at $29.20. 

On the Net: 

http://www.lucent.com 

http://www.alcatel.com

NEW YORK — Technology stocks fell for a second straight session Tuesday as investors, unconvinced that the sector will recover by year’s end, cashed in profits from the market’s big spring rally. 

Blue chips fared better, eking out a small gain as Wall Street shifted its focus to industrial and pharmaceutical issues. 

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 33.77 at 11,039.14, recovering from a brief dip below 11,000 during the session. 

Broader stock indicators fell. The Nasdaq composite index was down 75.49 at 2,175.54, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 9.96 to 1,267.93. 

The pullback following the recent runup in stock prices reflected concerns that earnings still aren’t likely to improve in the near term, analysts said. But with trading light as many people extended their holiday weekends, activity on Wall Street was largely a sign of profit-taking. 

“The truth of the matter is you’re not going to see any positive signs for another three or four months,” said Charles White, portfolio manager at Avatar Associates. 

“But I would hesitate to place any real significance on the price action today, just based on the fact that it’s happening in very low volume and very thin trade,” he said. 

Selling was spread across the technology sector, but earnings news was paramount. 

Sun Microsystems fell $1.80, to close at $18.67 in trading Tuesday. In extended trading, shares lost another $1.16, to finish at $17.51, after the company warned that fourth-quarter results would fall below already reduced expectations. 

The bad news – and anticipation leading up to Sun’s announcement – gave investors more incentive to sell tech issues. Intel fell 22 cents to end at $27.63 in the after-hours session, compounding a $1.25 loss in regular trading. 

EMC also fell, down 59 cents to $33.40 by the end of extended trading Tuesday, on top of a $3.11 loss in the regular session on news the company plans 1,100 job cuts. 

Blue chips were boosted by gains in Merck, up $1.79 at $74.39, and DuPont, which rose $1.20 to $46.82. 

Ongoing speculation about a merger between Lucent and Alcatel sent Lucent down $1.08 to $8.32, while Alcatel slid 70 cents to $27.41.  

After regular trading ended, the companies said the merger talks had been terminated, but provided no other details. The decision sent both companies’ stocks higher in the extended session, with Lucent rising 28 cents and Alcatel picking up $1.79. 

“I think this is just a pause that will refresh later on for the market,” said Steven Goldman, market strategist at Weeden & Co. “The overall market is holding up quite well.” 

— The Associated Press 

Investors also were digesting two reports Tuesday focusing on the role of consumers in the economy. 

The Commerce Department reported consumer spending rose by 0.4 percent in April, its biggest increase since January, but showed a reduction in spending on big-ticket items such as cars. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all economic activity and has been a main pillar supporting the country’s economy. 

A second report showed consumer confidence bounced back in May after a sharp decline in April, underscoring increased optimism about jobs and the future of the U.S. economy. The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index rose to a greater than expected 115.5 from a revised 109.9 in April. Analysts were expecting a reading of 112. 

Declining issues outnumbered advancers 8 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.24 billion shares, up from 991.22 million in Friday’s pre-holiday trading. 

The Russell 2000 index was down 6.25 at 502.37. 

Overseas, stocks were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.26 percent. Germany’s DAX index was down 1.55 percent, Britain’s FT-SE 100 was down 0.44 percent, and France’s CAC-40 was down 1.14 percent. 

——— 

On the Net: 

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

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

Although he professes to love his job, Berkeley High School Principal Frank Lynch happens to be something of an expert on why one should never become a high school principal. 

He’s spent the last four years interviewing principals and superintendents around Northern California, completing a doctoral dissertation at the University of Santa Barbara entitled: “The Shortage of Qualified Candidates for the Position of High School Principal.” 

He wanted to find out why the pool of applicants for high school principal jobs is drying up as precipitously as a southern California reservoir in a draught year.  

There’s talk of the looming principal shortage all over the country these days. Berkeley Unified School District Interim Superintendent Stephen Goldstone remembers competing against nearly 100 candidates when he applied for his first principal job in 1973. Today, he said, there might be total of 10 Berkeley High itself has burned through half a dozen principals in the last decade. The lack of leadership has left a power vacuum that Lynch walked into when he took the reins last August. 

As Berkeley High Parent, Teacher and Student Association President Kristin Shepherd put it: “Essentially, we’ve had a large business without supervision.” 

In other words, if being a high school principal is tough everywhere, there is reason to doubt whether being principal of Berkeley High is even in the realm of the possible. 

When he’s lucky, Lynch’s day will end at 6 p.m. But, with meetings, many days drag on to 8 p.m., or even to midnight. Throw in a five-hour commitment on Saturday – say, a community meeting on school reform, or the senior prom – and you’re up to roughly an 80-hour week. 

Wednesday last week was a fairly typical day. Lynch returned phone calls between 6 and 6:45 a.m., then met with teachers for the next hour or so. At 8 a.m. he was off to the weekly meeting of Berkeley High department heads. Here he heard one staff member after another describe the difficulties caused by the latest round of budget cuts and responded to each in crisp, efficient sentences. 

To the question of what would happen without an on-campus suspension program next year (Berkeley high has used the system for years as a way to take disruptive students out of the classroom without having to expel them from school), Lynch said: “It was either giving up two assistant principals or giving up something else. We’ll brainstorm. We’ll come up with a solution, because we are highly intelligent human beings.” 

Lynch has budgeted for three assistant principals, although he estimates it would take twice that number to really handle the daily workload. 

To worries that some department heads would lose the free periods they have had to evaluate teachers under the new budget cuts, Lynch responded: 

“There’s no other way to do it. I respect where you guys are coming from (but) when they made those budget cuts… those budget cuts are real budget cuts. And my job is to live with it.” 

Lynch spends the better part of every day listening to teachers, parents, students and others asking for things that in all likelihood he is unable to provide. In this highly political town where countless constituents believe they have a stake in how the high school is run, the flow of outside commentary is almost unending. 

“The larger the environment you work in, the more stressful it becomes,” Lynch said. “With more constituents, it goes up geometrically.” 

And yet, those who work with Lynch day to day say he has yet to lose his cool. 

“He’s accessible, nice, sane…he listens,” said Charna Ball, who teaches Adaptive Physical Education at Berkeley High. “I’ve been here a long time and that’s the first time I can say that about a principal.” 

Berkeley is “The most political place on earth,” said Vice Principal Mike Hassett. “Everybody’s got an issue. No one knows how to compromise.”  

But, said Hassett, Lynch makes navigating Berkeley’s turbulent political waters look like a walk in the park. “He’s a gentleman,” Hassett said. “He always maintains his demeanor.” 

Lynch said he came into the principal job “with his eyes open.” Through his dissertation research, he had known exactly what to expect, and he was ready. The job of a principal, he said, is to maintain “calm in the midst of chaos.” 

“People say, ‘Get emotional, get angry.’ But once you get in an emotional state you can no longer conduct business,” Lynch said. 

Instead of pleading with principals for emotion, people need to understand the incredible challenges principals are up against and find ways to give them more support, Lynch said. 

Shepherd, for one, said she is ready to do whatever she can to help Lynch. If political pressures mount uncontrollably, she said, Berkeley High runs the risk of losing yet another principal. And at a time when the school’s very certification as a secondary institution is in question, due to a number of highly publicized failings, Shepherd said that’s a risk the Berkeley community cannot afford to take. 

“He’ been listening to us all year,” Shepherd said. “Now it’s time for us to listen to him.” 

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.  

848-6254  

2001 West Coast Economic  

Human Rights Hearings 

5:30 - 9 p.m. 

First Congregational Church of Oakland 

27th and Harrison, Oakland 

Join State and U.S. Congress members and local policy makers at a special dinner to highlight the issue of economic human rights. Testimonials from people in poverty will be presented as part of this effort to push economic human rights to the front of a national policy agenda. Free to the public. 

649-1930 

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  

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  

Friday, June 1

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 

“Rumi: Mystic and Romantic  

Love, Stories of Masnavi” 

5 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Free public talk by Professor Andrew Vidich. Childcare and vegetarian food provided. 

707-226-7703 

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, June 2

Car Seat Safety Clinic 

10:00 a.m. 

Kittredge St. Parking Garage, second level 

The Berkeley Police Department will demonstrate proper techniques for car seat installation and use, and offer safety checks and tips. Families are welcome to visit the Habitot Children’s Museum located across the street from the garage. Free. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Family Storytime  

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Main Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Storyteller Olga Loya tells tales from around the world. Geared for children three to eight and their parents. Free  

649-3964 

Commission On Disability  

Hearings 

1 - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St. 

Open forum, opportunity for public to present ideas and concerns about barriers for people with disabilities and accessibility of City facilities. Public comment on Berkeley’s proposed “Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan.” Will continue on June 13. 

981-6342 

Longfellow Middle School’s  

Outdoor Arts Festival 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Longfellow Courtyard 

1500 Derby St. 

Live music performances, silent auction of student and community art, BBQ and bake sale. Talent showcase and awards ceremony from 2 - 3 p.m. Free admission, open to the public. 

665-1980 

Birdwatching Walk and  

Breakfast 

8 a.m. 

Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

This is the time of year when the greatest variety of birds can be found in the Garden, including some rare species. Join Chris Carmichael and Dennis Wolff for breakfast and a walk. $25, limited space, call to reserve. 

643-2755 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Walking Tour 

10 a.m. - noon 

Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

1150 Virginia St. 

Tour of Thousand Oaks School and neighborhood. $5 - $10, reservations required. 

848-0181  

Pasta and Opera 

7 p.m. 

2924 Ashby Ave. 

Presented by Chamber Arts House. By donation. 

Sunday, June 3

Rosa Parks Spring  

Celebration and Fundraiser 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Rosa Parks 

920 Allston Way 

Silent auction, quilt raffle, cake walk and field events. 

Compiled by Sabrina Forkish

Real safety issues at BHS  

Editor: 

Thursday, the entire student body and staff at Berkeley high school was evacuated because of a gas leak. Several students were dizzy and on the verge of passing out. With no clear drills for the campus, rife with construction and without well-known procedures for evacuation, the gas leak revealed the larger problems at BHS. Lack of communication to begin a coordinated evacuation, and lack of a cohesive safety plan in the event of an emergency.  

There have been no fire drills to prepare students for an evacuation in the event of an emergency since construction began, which is a glaring omission considering that some of the exits to the C building are now inaccessible due to construction fencing and cannot be used as a safety route. 

In addition to creating new hazards for students, the crews are exacerbating the problems they create by not taking into consideration the effects of their accidents. Without a place for students in the buildings nearest to the construction to go, another gas leak, or fire produced by the construction crews could cause the death or injury of hundreds of students in the C building. We urge the school administration to look into this for the safety of all students. 

Josh Parr 

Berkeley 

Involve people in planning 

Editor: 

Members of our all Berkeley coalition and I, involved in trying to get a meaningful ordinance regulating RF radiation emitting antennas in Berkeley are in full agreement with Steve Wollmer’s characterization of Current Planning staff as doing "shoddy work," and being "incompetent…or prejudiced." In our case many would also characterize the performance of city staff as power grabbing in the interest of serving the cellular industry in a “sweetheart” arrangement which ill serves the citizens of Berkeley.  

A moratorium was adopted in February by the City Council for the purpose of drafting an ordinance. Vivian Kahn, the Planning and Development Interim Deputy Director, who impresses me as running the show, produced a draft for the Planning Commission meeting on May 30th.  

Interested citizens were excluded from the drafting process regardless of numerous requests for inclusion. Reading the draft one can understand a wish to exclude the people who must live with it, should it be adopted. Kahn’s draft is largely based on a rhapsodized paean to the cellular industry, and puts full power to scatter radiation emitting antennas wherever city staff, toadying to their favored powerful industry interlocutors, may wish to place them.  

The draft is a travesty of regulation. It is so full of holes and failure to protect our citizens that questions arise about what those promoting it are up to. This draft is written and in many cases would be administered by staff not even living in Berkeley but trying to tell citizens how to live here. 

We discovered that a few years ago a special exemption for RF emitting antennas had been somehow added to the existing zoning ordinance, which removes controls on antennas provided by required public hearings.  

Why has this industry been exempted from an ordinance designed to protect the character of residential neighborhoods? How did this exemption become law without the neighborhood being informed? Do we need a sunshine ordinance in this city. You bet we do. Rot producing organisms do not survive well in sunlight and this city is swimming in bureaucratic manipulation and rot. 

Leonard Schwartzburd 

Berkeley 

Beth El is a religious institution 

Editor: 

Thanks to Daniel McLoughlin for graciously acknowledging the "good works performed by the Congregation (Beth El) and by many of its individual members" – and thanks, too, to Mr. McLoughlin for the civil, even generous, tone of his letter to the Daily Planet, May 14-15. 

He asks whether other residential neighborhoods have churches or other institutions the size of Beth El’s proposed building. The answer is that Berkeley neighborhoods throughout the city integrate many similar sized or larger buildings. Some, like St. Mary Magdalen Church, are just a few blocks away from Beth El’s new site. 

It’s also worth noting that Beth El is building a synagogue, not a commercial facility. The kitchen in the new building will be only two hundred square feet larger than the current cramped kitchen that the congregation outgrew decades ago. The planned Social Hall is about the same size as the current social hall and sanctuary combined. These rooms are often used as single space for celebrations of religious events now, something that will not happen in the new building because the seats in the sanctuary will be fixed. 

To correct another misconception, the facilities will not be rented to any outside groups. They will be used only by members for events such as Jewish holidays, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and weddings. 

Many members now celebrate their life cycle events at the synagogue, and it is possible more will do so at the new site. However, the much larger space on Oxford Street, along with the setbacks, the inward facing orientation of the buildings and the increased parking will cause considerably less impact on the neighborhood than occurs at the current site just two blocks away. 

Thom Seaton 

Berkeley 

Playing that density song 

Editor: 

Another day, another soliloquy from Richard Register. Another moving tribute to the glories of density and the energy-consumptive dangers of sprawl. 

I especially loved the timing of the most recent hymn to “diverse pedestrian and transit centers." It was printed in the Berkeley Voice the day after a Zoning Adjustments Board public hearing on taking a retail space right at the corner of San Pablo and University and converting it to office space, which requires a variance. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board voted for it, with one no vote and one abstention. Thirty-five of the merchants who own businesses at or near the corner of University and San Pablo signed a petition opposing the office space, because if you take a chunk out of the retail potential of a commercial area, the whole district gets the hit. People want to shop in a place where they can buy tuna, get their shoes fixed, grab a video, and pick up shoelaces without driving all over town. 

The residents who signed the petition are the hard-pressed people living in perhaps the last honest neighborhood in Berkeley, and perhaps the oldest.  

The area along San Pablo Avenue used to be a favorite drive decades ago because of its tree-lined views and pedestrian bustle, the place where retail, industry, and residential uses dovetailed and the rail lines brought everything and everyone together. We recently lost our pharmacy, our shoe store, and our stationary store.  

One of our best antiques stores is about to have to leave, and would have loved the visibility of the retail space. The two non-profits who may move in if the appeal fails are undoubtedly groups which give valuable service to the Berkeley community, but are in no way capable of generating the walking trade and filling the daily needs of an ever more dense “traffic corridor" constantly taking the weight of the large, dense housing developments which no one seems to care are only geared for the $30,000-and-over crowd. 

Where was Richard Register and the Ecocity Builders when this latest small-scale assault on the potential for a pedestrian-serving neighborhood came down? Where were the consultants who gave us the crayons for our moment of participation during the University Avenue Strategic Plan workshops? The Green Party? Somehow the crew that warbles for density is never around when the variances are handed out that reduce the liveability of the neighborhood, that piece by piece, shot by shot, reduce it to scrap. 

Carol Denney 

Berkeley 

B  

The chains move in, the Mom and Pops move out, or sell out to chains. I  

listened to two representatives from the non-profit groups argue that they  

just couldn't find anywhere else to move. I work in a non-profit, too, in a  

loft in the back of a showroom right next to a Bart Station which has two  

empty spaces which rent for less than the retail space in question. Office  

space is going wanting all over town. 

The people in our neighborhood have a smaller chance today of the ice-cream  

store, the shoe repair shop, the gift shop, and the bookstore. But count on  

it, in another few weeks or so, you'll hear that density song again.  

Everybody's playing it. 

(Carol Denney is a local musician and community activist.) 

Carol Denney MSL, 1970 San Pablo Ave #4, Berkeley, Ca 94702 

(510) 548-1512 cdenney@igc.org 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, 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. $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 $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. “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 year membership. All ages. June 1: Alkaline Trio, Hotrod Circuit, No Motiv, Dashboard Confessional, Bluejacket; June 2: El Dopa, Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shadow People, Ludicra, Ballast; June 8: The Enemies, Pitch Black, The Fleshies, Supersift, Texas Thieves; June 9: Groovie Ghoulies, The Influents, Red Planet, Mallrats, Goat Shanty. 525-9926  

Ashkenaz May 26: Caribbean All Stars; 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. 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. May 31: Freight 33rd Anniversary Concert Series: Bob Dylan Song Night and others; June 1: The Riders of the Purple Sage; June 2: Rebecca Riots; June 3: Hurricane Sam; June 6: Freight 33rd Anniversary concert series with Leni Stern, Jenna Mammina, Jill Cohn, Pig Iron. 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter All shows at 8 p.m. May 29: The Lost Trio; May 30: Zambambazo; June 1: New Monsoon; June 2: Avi Bortnick Group 2181 Shattuck Ave 843-8277  

La Peña Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 or www.lapena.org  

The Bill Horvitz Band and the Adam Levy Threesome June 1, 8 p.m. TUVA Space 3192 Adeline  

TEMPO: The Berkeley Festival of Contemporary Performances. All performances begin at 8 p.m. June 1: Steve Coleman and Five Elements; June 2: Roscoe Mitchell with George Lewis, David Wessel and Thomas Buckner. $15 Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus www.tempofestival.org 

Empyrean Ensemble June 2, 8 p.m. Final concert of the season, featuring soprano Susan Narucki in the world premiere of Mario Davidovsky’s “Cantiones Sine Textu,” as well as works by other composers. 7 p.m. panel discussion with the composers. $14 - $18 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave 925-798-1300  

Berkeley High Jazz Combo June 3, 4:30 p.m. $6 - $12. Jazzschool/La Note 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Schubert Festival June 3, 4 p.m. Mini-Schubert Festival as part of the Sundays at Four Chamber Music series. Will feature Schubert’s Trout Quintet, String Trio, and more. $10 Crowden School 1475 Rose St. 559-6910 www.thecrowdenschool.org 

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

“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 Pharaoh’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 

AfroSolo Theatre Company May 31, 7:30 p.m. Theater, dance, spoken word and poetry. $5 - $10 La Pena 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 

Camp Winnarainbow Benefit Boogie June 3, 7 p.m. Featuring The Flying Other Brothers with Pete Sears and Greg Anton, David Gans, Wavy Gravy and surprise guests. Camp Winnarainbow is a multicultural circus and performing arts camp founded by Wavy Gravy and his wife. $10 - $20 Ashkenaz 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

“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 

“Cymbeline” June 2 through June 24, Tues. - Thur. 7:30 p.m., Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sun. 4 p.m. Opening of the California Shakespeare Festival features one of Shakespeare’s first romances, directed by Daniel Fish. $12 - $146. Bruns Memorial Amphitheater off Highway 24 at the Shakespeare Festival Way/Gateway Exit. 548-9666 or www.calshakes.org 

“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 traveled to Laramie, Wyo., after the murder of openly gay student Matthew Shepherd. The play is about the community and the impact Shaper’s death had on its members. $10 - $50. The Roda Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

Films 

Pacific Film Archive May 29: 7:30 Society of the Spectacle; May 30: 7:30 Musical Concrete; June 1: 7:30 Reason, Debate, and a Tale; June 2: 7:00 A River Called Trash; June 3: 5:30 Ruslan and Ludmila. Pacific Film Archive Theater 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“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. 

Nomad Videofilm Festival 2001 June 1 10:40p.m. featuring world premieres from four S.F. Bay Area mediamakers: “Roadkill” by Antero Alli, “Forest” by Farhad J. Parsa “Visit” by Jesse Miller, B, “Fell Apart” by Doan La Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640, pix & details: http://www.verticalpool.com/nomad.html 

“TRAGOS: A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt” an Antero Alli film June 2, 10:40pm Fine Arts Cinema, 2541 Shattuck Ave. $7 (510) 848-1143/464-4640, pix & details: http://www.verticalpool.com/tragos.html 

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 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 and 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 

“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 Berkeley in this 10 year period. Thursday through Saturday, 1 - 4 p.m. Berkeley 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 29: David Harris talks about “Shooting the Moon: The True Story of An American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever”; May 30: Bill Russell signs copies of “Russell Rules: 11 Lessons on Leadership From the Twentieth century’s Greatest Winner”; May 31: Michael Pollan talks about “The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World”  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 All events at 7:30 p.m. unless noted otherwise 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 31: Connie Post with host Louis Cuneo Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

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. 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. 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 

Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived. 

Frank Lloyd Wright 

The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association presented awards to property owners Thursday night, saluting what association members said was the extra time and expense honorees spent to maintain the city’s wealth of historic architecture.  

About 150 people attended the ceremonies at Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto, according to event organizers. The evening included remarks from Berkeley historical author and publisher Malcolm Margolin. 

“I think the value of the awards presentation is not only the recognition of those who have accomplished such extraordinary things in preservation, but they also serve as inspiration for those who are considering plunging into similar projects,” said Awards Committee member Mary Lee Noonan. 

The Awards Committee selected 16 buildings for awards and special commendations from a field of over 30 nominations. The buildings were judged according to how well architectural detail was maintained and incorporated into refurbishing, upgrading and retrofitting that took place in the last year. 

The awards spanned the gambit of Berkeley architecture from single family homes on the west side of town to the recent $35 million remodel and retrofit of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center, which was commemorated this month. 

The Awards Committee consisted Susan Chase, Jeannie de Vries, Jane Edgington, Richard Ehrenberger and Noonan, all of whom have backgrounds in architecture.  

Alvin K. Ludwig and Dorothy Duff Brown, owners of a house, received a Preservation Award for restoring the 82-year-old home, built by Carl Ericsson. 

“We salute, in particular, the glowing beauty of the interior where the gracious spaces of the living room, dinning room and library are filled with light and the warmth of the perfectly restored paneling.” Noonan wrote in her presentation speech. “(The remodel) is clearly a labor of love.” 

Noonan said the owners did most of the work themselves. One project was transforming a 1950s’ sandstone fireplace with clinker bricks, which were salvaged in the restoration of the chimney. They “restored the interior and exterior themselves, patiently removing layers of paint from the paneling, reusing materials wherever possible, rehabilitating every detail with infinite care.” 

A larger restoration project that received recognition was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center at 2180 Milvia St. The original Art Deco building, designed by James Plachek in 1938, underwent a major retrofit and remodel that adapted the stylized interiors to the needs of modern city employees.  

“A revered landmark has been given a new lease on life,” Noonan wrote. “The city has demonstrated its commitment to the value of preserving Berkeley’s distinctive architectural fabric.” 

Department of Public Works Director Rene Cardinaux said he was delighted to be a part of bringing an older building into the modern era in a way that preservationists could be happy with. “I was also very glad to be able to thank the BAHA for all their help during the remodel and all their efforts to save the building when there were a lot of people in town that wanted to tear it down,” he said. 

The following is a list of 2001 BAHA Preservation Awards. 

Awards: 

1. West Gate, on the UC Berkeley campus 

2. McDuffie Garden at 10 Roble Road. 

3. Sharffen Berger Chocolate Company at 914 Heinz Ave. 

4. Beckett’s Irish Pub and Restaurant at 2271 Shattuck Ave. 

5. A Craftsman home at 2928 Ellis St. 

6. A Victorian home at 3009 Elllis St. 

7. Carl Ericsson House at 1625 Jaynes St. 

8. Henry C. Reid House on Mendocino Road 

9. Kennedy-Carter House at 1314 Arch St. 

10. The Underhill Sproul House. 

Special Commendations: 

1. Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto, 1919 4th St. 

2. Library Hall and West Hall at 2016 7th St. 

3. Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center 2180 Milvia St. 

4. John Galen Howard House at 1401 LeRoy Ave. 

5. Maybeck Cottage at 1 Maybeck Twin Drive. 

6. The Garber Street Garage at 2746 Garber St. 

As Berkeley’s Vista Community College prepares to break ground on a state-of-the-art building this year, the Peralta Community College District has announced the appointment of a new president for the school. 

After a local, state and nationwide search, a search committee made up of students, faculty and community members chose John Garmon, executive dean of the Florida Community College Jacksonville campus, to become the new president of Vista.  

The Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees announced the selection at its May 22 meeting. 

“Garmon has extensive experience in pretty much all levels of community college administration,” said Peralta Community College District spokesperson Jeffrey Heyman Friday. 

Heyman said Garmon will have his work cut out for him as Vista College, until now operated out of rented space in community centers in Berkeley and on the UC Berkeley campus. Vista “enters a completely new phase in its existence” with the construction of the new building, Heyman said. 

The 145,000 square-foot building, scheduled to go up at 2050 Center Street in downtown Berkeley beginning this year, represents $35 million of a $153 million Excellence in Education bond measure passed overwhelmingly by East Bay voters last year. 

Heyman said the new building will help expand popular programs in biotechnology, computer science, multimedia and information technology at Vista, which has approximately 3,500 students today and is the fastest growing of the Peralta Community College District’s four campuses. 

Annie Quan Lee, who will celebrate her 100th birthday June 5 reminisced recently with visitors at the Berkeley rest home where she lives. Lee was born in 1901 in San Francisco. She said she was the oldest of 14 children born to her parents, who had immigrated from Canton province in China. “They called me Sister One,” she recalled. After the 1906 earthquake, Lee’s family moved temporarily to Oakland, where she said she saw the first black person she had ever seen. The family later moved back to San Francisco’s Chinatown, where Lee attended elementary and middle school and later worked as a bank teller. She has a lifelong love of music: “I love to sing,” she said. “I was a soprano in school.” She then sang the first verse of “Jesus Loves Me.” 

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The Berkeley Fire Department announced last week that it is gearing up for an early fire season and recommends property owners establish a 30-foot safety zone around their homes and structures by doing the following:  

• Clearing flammable vegetation around structures. Hillsides should be cleared between 100-200 feet, because flames travel faster and hotter up slope.  

• Removing vines from the walls of homes.  

• Moving shrubs and other landscaping away from the sides of the house.  

• Pruning branches and shrubs within 10 feet of chimneys and stovepipes.  

• Trimming tree branches so that leaves or needles are at least 8’ from the ground.  

• Thinning a 10-foot space between tree crowns.  

• Replacing highly flammable vegetation such as pine, eucalyptus, juniper and fire trees with lower growing, less flammable species.  

• Clearing the area of leaves, brush, pinecones and dead limbs. and fallen trees.

“P Is for Peril” in Sue Grafton’s latest alphabet mystery, but “P” plays a pivotal part in other new mysteries, too. 

“P” stands for Peters, as in Elizabeth Peters, who has a new whodunit; for the latest “Prey” novel by John Sandford; and for “pseudonym,” as in Rosamond Smith — aka Joyce Carol Oates — author of a new thriller. 

The books are among the latest hardcover novels of mystery and suspense. 

Private eye Kinsey Millhone is put into a particularly perplexing and precarious predicament in “P Is for Peril” (Putnam), No. 16 in the series featuring the Southern California sleuth. 

She’s looking for the highly respected administrator of a nursing home who has been missing for nine weeks. The police can’t find him so Fiona, his former wife, seeks Millhone’s help. Everyone has a theory. Fiona thinks her ex has run away from his new wife, Crystal, who thinks he’s dead. His colleagues think he has been kidnapped. And his daughter, after consulting a psychic, thinks he’s trapped in an unspecified “dark place.” (On sale June 4.) 

In “Lord of the Silent” (Morrow), Elizabeth Peters offers a 13th mystery starring Amelia Peabody, the intrepid and resourceful English archaeologist and amateur crime-solver. 

It’s autumn of 1915 and the world is at war when Amelia and family arrive in Egypt for their annual archaeological dig. Amelia is doing her best to keep son Ramses from being pressed into service by the War Office, but other concerns soon loom: One is the all-too-fresh corpse unearthed in an ancient tomb. Before it’s over, there are more bodies, an assault and a kidnapping. 

James Qatar is the latest villain tormenting erstwhile Minneapolis police investigator Lucas Davenport, in “Chosen Prey” (Putnam), Sandford’s 13th “Prey” book. 

Qatar is a suave professor of art history who is also a writer, thief and murderer. His hobby is to secretly take photos of women who have angered him and turn them into pornographic pictures, which he anonymously mails to the women. One day, his displeasure goes too far, so he just has to kill the woman. Unexpectedly, he enjoys it — so he does it again and again. 

The psychological thriller “The Barrens” (Carroll & Graf) is the eighth book Oates has written as Rosamond Smith. 

When Matt McBride was in high school, the body of a teen girl Matt knew slightly was found in New Jersey’s desolate Pine Barrens. For some reason, Matt had always felt a sense of guilt about the murder, as if he could have prevented it. Now, 20 years later, a local artist named Duana Zwolle has disappeared. Matt knew her, too — slightly better than the married man cares to admit. Since Matt’s name appears throughout her diary, the police want to question him. 

Other new mysteries include: 

—“Warrior Class” (Putnam) by Dale Brown. A U.S. Air Force general locks horns with the Russian army when it invades several countries to build an oil pipeline. 

—“Dead Hand” (Forge) by Harold Coyle. An asteroid crashes into Siberia, threatening to set off a Cold War-era nuclear device stored there. 

—“A Finer End” (Bantam) by Deborah Crombie. Scotland Yard officers Kincaid and James investigate when an ancient document leads to a violent attack. 

—“The Blue Nowhere” (Simon & Schuster) by Jeffery Deaver. A computer hacker lures his victims to their deaths. 

—“The Cold Six Thousand” (Knopf) by James Ellroy. A Las Vegas police officer unwittingly becomes involved in a cover-up conspiracy surrounding JFK’s assassination.

PLEASANTON – Not every high-tech company is filled with anguish and anxiety these days. 

Business software maker PeopleSoft Inc. stands out in contrast to the devastation that has wiped out so many Silicon Valley fortunes. 

PeopleSoft is among a handful of tech companies that exceeded Wall Street’s profit expectations in the first quarter. Its stock has tripled in the past year, creating $8.4 billion in paper wealth at a time when the technology-driven Nasdaq Stock Composite plunged by 31 percent. 

Craig Conway, chief executive of the Pleasanton-based company, isn’t taking time to savor the view. 

Conway is also doing everything he can to prevent PeopleSoft’s 8,000 employees from growing complacent and reverting to the fun-loving, fraternity house atmosphere that once infused the company, house band and all. 

“For company that is doing as well as we are, you would expect to see a little more jubilation, but you don’t,” Conway said. “In part, that’s because my personality is very paranoid. I’m not on medication but I’m very respectful of the competition. We need to wake up every morning believing that someone could catch us if we are not on our toes and on top of our game.” 

Conway, 46, is raising the stakes in Las Vegas on June 4 when he will unveil a new generation of “customer relationship management,” or CRM, software designed to cash in on the rapidly growing demand for products that help businesses use computers to expand and manage their markets. 

PeopleSoft hasn’t made much of a dent in the CRM market since spending $600 million to buy Vantive Corp. 17 months ago, but Conway believes the new product will take because it runs entirely on the Internet, where customers, employees and suppliers can easily access information. 

The company budgeted $30 million to promote the CRM product — about twice as much as it spent advertising a suite of other administrative applications that helped elevate PeopleSoft above other competitors during the past year. 

PeopleSoft is thus taking on the undisputed leader of CRM, San Mateo-based Siebel Systems — a company that is “laps ahead of the competition,” says industry analyst Craig Wood of Merrill Lynch. Both big and small companies have tried to challenge Siebel in this booming software niche, but none have succeeded so far. 

Conway, who worked with Siebel Systems CEO Tom Siebel while both were executives at Oracle Corp. in the 1980s, doesn’t sound intimidated. 

“To challenge someone, you can’t just catch them, you have to pass them and that’s what we do with this product,” he said. “We don’t think we are going to put Siebel out of business, but we do think we will take several points of market share away from them.” 

Siebel Systems executives say PeopleSoft’s CRM software doesn’t break any new ground. What’s more, Siebel Systems views PeopleSoft’s invasion as an opportunity to sell its own software to the roughly 1,000 businesses that use Vantive’s package. 

Switching to PeopleSoft’s next-generation product will require companies to spend more money and tinker with the systems — a combination Siebel Systems believes will make Vantive users more amenable to switching to a different vendor. 

“We see a lot of Vantive customers in our sales pipeline now,” said David Schmaier, Siebel’s executive vice president of products. “So far, (PeopleSoft’s new CRM product) has only helped, not hurt our business.” 

Like PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems’ profit beat stock market expectations during the first quarter. But Siebel Systems had to lay off 800 employees last month — 10 percent of its work force — and its shares have been trading for roughly the same price as a year ago. 

“PeopleSoft was forced to re-examine itself long before dot-coms were forced to re-examine themselves,” said Conway, who made changing the corporate culture a top priority after he took over as CEO in the spring of 1999. 

Before joining PeopleSoft, Conway ran an interactive broadcast network called One Touch Systems, but it was his eight years as an Oracle executive vice president that won him the job. PeopleSoft’s board wanted a veteran leader with previous experience in the technology industry’s ups and downs. 

Until Conway’s arrival, PeopleSoft had pioneered the festive office atmosphere that became fashionable with the rise of the Internet. The company provided free food and drinks, welcomed pets at the office and encouraged Hawaiian attire. 

Founder David A. Duffield, known as “DAD” within the company, even bought instruments and sound equipment for a company band called “The Raving Daves.” 

PeopleSoft’s performance only added to the merriment. Sales of its human resources software seemed to grow by leaps and bounds each year and by April 1998, the stock peaked at $55.94 — a price that PeopleSoft hasn’t been able to reach again. 

The frolicking culture didn’t help later that year when bugs began to show in some PeopleSoft products and corporate customers scaled back orders while focusing on getting their computer systems to recognize the Year 2000. 

Many employees are less enamored with Conway. Some who grew rich from PeopleSoft’s early success didn’t stick around for the turnaround. Others still grumble about Conway’s no-nonsense approach, even though he has pumped value into once-worthless stock options held by most employees. 

Conway, whose PeopleSoft stake is worth $50 million, isn’t about to change a formula that has restored the company’s luster among customers and investors. 

“A year ago, when I talked about the things that we were going to do, I saw a lot of smirks and rolling of the eyes,” Conway said. “Now everyone is listening very closely.”

Berkeley’s summer personality takes over this week after dormitories have shut down, “fraternity row” parties have ceased, and thousands of students have returned home — many of them, for the last time.  

The Mr. Hyde school-year season —with its youthful activity and unpredictability — changes into Dr. Jekyll’s summer respite. 

For businesses surrounding the UC Berkeley campus, summer is when the money leaves. Many stores cut their hours to compensate for the reduction in student traffic. Students “make” Telegraph Avenue. Now they say it’s quiet and vacant.  

But for many of Telegraph Avenue street vendors, summer is when all the activity begins. Summer means warm, dry weather and street parking for money-laden tourists.  

Some earn the majority of their income during the summer. Other fair-weather vendors migrate to Berkeley only during these lucrative months. 

“I do great in the summer,” said Philip Rowntree, while braiding a beaded jewelry necklace. “I try and work seven days a week. Come June, I love it.” 

He said that he earns 50 percent of his yearly income during the summer. 

Some street vendors are unaffected by the changing demographic. Students and tourists replace each other. It also depends on what they’re selling.  

For Linda Hall, who has been selling on Telegraph Avenue for more than 25 years, it’s a seasonal business. Sales drop from January to May, she said. When students leave during the summer, Hall said sales pick up and peak.  

Many of the vendors anticipate the summer knowing that their sales will go up.  

“Students are not that good for us anyway because they don’t have that much money,” Hall said. “You can’t count on them. We have to count on their parents.” 

Vendors say that money is not the only factor. They are affected by student grumpiness and worries. Vendors say they can feel when mid-terms and finals are on students’ minds through the general atmosphere and lower sales.  

Even if students do buy from the street vendors, they aren’t big spenders. According to Rowntree, students usually buy one item. Tourists buy two or three for their friends.  

Ted Wojack, who has been vending for 28 years, said that tourists will buy these items as souvenirs.  

“They think of tie-dye as a part of Berkeley,” he said.  

While he spoke, obvious out-of-towners considered a psychedelic blue and white T-shirt with “Berkeley” written on it.  

However, the business is also dependent on the weather. Weeks when Berkeley continues raining are horrible for street vendors who must either stay inside, or shelter their displays with tarps or plastic covers. Summer is when they can recover those losses.  

But despite the better season and more sales, none of the vendors dislike the students. Wojack earns most of his money from summer tourists, but the school year has its advantages as well. 

“It’s great when the students are here,” Wojack said. “It’s exciting.” 

Monday, May 28

Shavuot Ice Cream Party 

11 a.m. 

Berkeley Hillel 

2736 Bancroft Way 

Come 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.  

848-6254  

2001 West Coast Economic  

Human Rights Hearings 

5:30 - 9 p.m. 

First Congregational Church of Oakland 

27th and Harrison, Oakland 

Join State and U.S. Congress members and local policy makers at a special dinner to highlight the issue of economic human rights. Testimonials from people in poverty will be presented as part of this effort to push economic human rights to the front of a national policy agenda. Free and open to the public. 

649-1930 

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  

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  

Friday, June 1

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 

“Rumi: Mystic and Romantic  

Love, Stories of Masnavi” 

5 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Free public talk by Professor Andrew Vidich. Childcare and vegetarian food provided. 

707-226-7703 

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.  

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, June 2

Car Seat Safety Clinic 

10:00 a.m. 

Kittredge St. Parking Garage, second level 

The Berkeley Police Department will demonstrate proper techniques for car seat installation and use, and offer safety checks and tips. Families are welcome to visit the Habitot Children’s Museum located across the street from the garage. Free. 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanied by an adult. 

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Family Storytime  

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Main Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Storyteller Olga Loya tells tales from around the world. Geared for children three to eight and their parents. Free  

649-3964 

Commission On Disability  

Hearings 

1 - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St. 

Open forum, opportunity for public to present ideas and concerns about barriers for people with disabilities and accessibility of City facilities. Public comment on Berkeley’s proposed “Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan.” Will continue on June 13. 

981-6342 

Longfellow Middle School’s  

Outdoor Arts Festival 

Noon - 4 p.m. 

Longfellow Courtyard 

1500 Derby St. 

Live music performances, silent auction of student and community art, BBQ and bake sale. Talent showcase and awards ceremony from 2 - 3 p.m. Free admission, open to the public. 

665-1980 

Birdwatching Walk and  

Breakfast 

8 a.m. 

Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

This is the time of year when the greatest variety of birds can be found in the Garden, including some rare species. Join Chris Carmichael and Dennis Wolff for breakfast and a walk. $25, limited space, call to reserve. 

643-2755 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Walking Tour 

10 a.m. - noon 

Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

1150 Virginia St. 

Tour of Thousand Oaks School and neighborhood. $5 - $10, reservations required. 

848-0181  

— Compiled by  

Sabrina Forkish 

Estate tax is killing family owned business 

Editor: 

Bill Gates Sr. is wrong about The estate tax. He is a lawyer and lawyers consider form more important than substance. He said that family farms are not affected by the estate tax. This is an outright lie. Family farms have been devastated. Lawyers have no clue how a family a family business works. All of us American work and produce food, housing, products, services, etc. and lawyers feed off of our hard work. 

Since 1960 we have lost 80 percent of American larger family businesses because of the estate taxes. All we have now are big stores like Costco, Target, Albertson’s, Safeway, WalMart, etc. Local factories have been liquidated or sold to big corporations because of estate taxes after death or sold out before death in order to avoid estate taxes. The big corporations then manufacture the goods off shore. 

A very small minority of estates have been affected by the estate tax, 1.5- to 2-percent of the estates after death and about 2- to 2.5 percent of estates before death each year, but this adds up to 80 percent of our larger local family businesses since 1960. 

This is communism. Stalin did this in order to keep central control. Lawyers do it because they collect money from everybody. Now we have central control by big corporations and big government. This is not good and it is all because of the estate tax. We must have local family business control. Lawyers and big business corporations do not prosper with local control. 

Here is a scenario of what happens to a larger local family business. A father and mother start a small business 50 years ago. Their supermarket keeps growing because of hard work. The son and daughter start working there when they are small. The whole family works very hard. They keep enlarging the store. Eventually they buy 10 acres, build a big store and build a small shopping center around the store with six small rented stores. The business that started with nothing is now worth $9 million. The father dies. His estate is worth $4.5 million. The exemption is $.7 million. The family must pay 55 percent of the $3.8 million, or $2 million. They mortgage everything and pay the $2 million estate tax. Next year the mother dies. Another $2 million is due. What do they do? They sell out to Albertson’s. 

During the last 40 years, because of the estate tax, the big corporations have changed the ratio of personal income tax to corporation tax. In 1960 the corporation tax and personal income tax was about the same. Last year the corporation tax was $200 billion and the personal income tax was $1 trillion. Lawyers like Gates and the big corporations are underpaying their tax by $800 billion each year. Lawyers and Microsoft pay little or no tax because of trusts and tax law manipulation. This is all because we have allowed the estate tax to destroy our larger local family businesses who pay their full taxes. Last year, the estate tax and the gift tax combined was only $29 billion. This is nothing! 

If we could resurrect all of the large family owned community businesses that the estate tax has killed, we would be collecting an extra $250 billion per year. This is more than all the large corporations, who are cheating us out of $800 billion per year, are now paying us with the $200 billion we now collect from them. Stop the estate tax. The estate tax is a freedom killer!  

Mike Vukelich 

El Sobrante 

California’s  

doctor shortage is a crisis too 

Editor: 

The time has arrived when health care consumers truly reap what has been sown, regardless of whom you blame for planting the seeds. Medical doctors have been leaving Bay Area and California hospital staffs faster than they are joining — the average age of internists and family practitioners at community hospitals in this area rises every year. Those physicians who stay in practice here have little or no success in recruiting new associates to join them after the recruits consider their medical school loan balances, the high cost of living and housing in the Bay Area, and the fact that they can earn a much higher salary almost anywhere else in the country. 

So, the doctors who remain try to be creative in order to stay in practice. 

But I do not believe patients will be pleased with the latest innovation in medical care: Hospitalists! Within a few days at Berkeley’s Alta Bates Medical Center, where I have been practicing with an excellent record for over 25 years, my colleagues and I will no longer be able to deliver medical care to the vast majority of our hospitalized patients. Not because of the quality of care we deliver, not because we are too busy to go to the hospital, but because the hospitalist (who works only in the hospital, renders no continuing medical care, and goes home at the end of his or her shift) might be able to see our patients a little earlier in the day. That earlier visit might result in a slightly earlier discharge from the hospital, and that might save some money!  

Never mind the comfort most patients derive from continuing care by their long-time physicians. Never mind the complications that might be prevented by having the physician who already knows the patient actually care for the hospitalized patient. Never mind how much harder it will be to recruit new doctors when they find out we only want them to do half the doctor’s job. Continuity of care might be great for patient health, but let’s get real here. It’s not cost efficient! 

California has decided to spend more money to make up for the power shortage. What about the current and worsening doctor shortage? 

Stephen J. Whitgob, M.D. 

Berkeley 

If you don’t like the power crisis — then revolt! 

Editor: 

As our electricity rates keep going up, the price of natural gas keeps increasing, the cost of gasoline keeps rising, and pretty soon all the manufacturer will begin raising their prices because their fuel cost are going up, some people will complain about “overcharging” and “price-gouging.” But this is unfair. What we are seeing is only the normal workings of a profit-oriented economy, in which every business exercises its God-given right to maximize its profits by any means. 

The morality of this system, whose generic name is “capitalism,” is based on greed, although it is supported by all major religions. 

The basic idea is that it is fitting and proper and desirable that a small, elite portion of the population should live in luxury and enjoy great wealth and power by appropriating the major share of everything produced by the rest of us. 

But this is not the only way things can be organized. And if enough people get really fed up with what the system is doing to us, we can always exercise our constitutional right to change it. 

Or our revolutionary right to overthrow it. 

Marion Syrek 

Oakland

Girls finish 2nd; BHS’s Brooks pulls big upset in 400 dash 

On Saturday afternoon, Jay Lawson walked around Edwards Stadium with a huge grin on his face. He had just finished watching several outstanding performances from his St. Mary’s track & field athletes, culminating in a North Coast Section team title for the boys, a narrow second-place finish for the girls, and a boatload of personal bests. 

“I’m just ecstatic about how we ran today,” he said. “This is just about the best-case scenario for us.” 

The boys won the title going away with 70 points. James Logan finished second with 46, but gained a measure of revenge by winning the girls’ side, edging the Panthers 84-82. St. Mary’s won a duel meet with Logan by one point earlier this year. 

Saturday’s Meet of Champions in Berkeley was the final step before the CIF state championship meet this weekend, with the top finishers in each event qualifying to head up to Sacramento. As Lawson looked down a list of qualifiers, his smile got even bigger. 

“We qualified just about everyone we possibly could have,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “Everyone we had did as well as we thought was possible, or even better.” 

Leading the way for the Panthers was Halihl Guy. The senior won both hurdles races, setting personal bests in each and a new North Coast record in the 300-meter low hurdles with a 37.79. Guy also ran the anchor legs for both of the St. Mary’s winning relay teams. 

“I set a goal to win both hurdles when I was a freshman, and I finally did it,” Guy said. “I’m running better than I ever have in my life right now.” 

Guy, who said he will likely sign with Washington State this week, cruised to easy victories in his final three events. His only real challenge of the day came in the 110-meter high hurdles, as James Logan’s Nate Robinson took an early lead. But Guy came roaring back down the stretch to take first place, and the rest of the day was cake. He was handed large leads in both relays, and took the lead by the second hurdle in the 300-meter event before winning by nearly two full seconds. 

“I think Halihl will run bigger at the state meet with more competition,” Lawson said. “It’s a lot different if you have someone running next to you the whole way.” 

Guy will be joined at the state meet in the 110 hurdles by teammate Jason Bolden-Anderson, who finished fourth. St. Mary’s Solomon Welch also qualified, but Lawson said he won’t run in Sacramento. 

Kamaiya Warren was another St. Mary’s athlete who dominated the field, shaking off the disappointment of failing to qualify in the discus by putting all of her energy into the shot put. Warren won the event with a throw of 44 feet, 9.25 inches, four feet farther than her nearest competitor. 

“It’s been really hard to put the discus behind me,” Warren said. “But now I’m concentrating on the shot put, so at least I did well in that today.” 

Had Warren placed in the discus, the Panthers could have swept the team titles. But the girls wouldn’t even have been close if not for Bridget Duffy, who ran both the 1,600 and 3,200. After finishing second in the shorter race, Duffy was urged by her coaches to run in the 3,200 for team points. 

“I wasn’t going to run both races, but my coach wanted me to try and get a personal record, as well as get the team some more points,” Duffy said. 

Duffy finished the longer race in 10:49, achieving both goals. She had never broken 11 minutes in the event before, and she out-kicked Head-Royce’s Clara Horowitz to take second place. Duffy finished both races behind winner Sarah Bei of Montgomery, who is one of the best long-distance runners in the country. 

“It’s great to run against her, because she’s the best,” Duffy said of her rival. “You know the closer you get to her, the better you are.” 

The meet got an unexpected jolt from Berkeley’s Stephan Brooks in the 400. Brooks, who didn’t qualify at the regional meet, got a spot at the MOC when teammate Anthony Washington scratched from the event with an injury. Brooks took advantage, coming from third place to the front in the last 100 meters to win in 49.33 seconds. 

“I didn’t really think I had a chance to win today, but I saw the other runners die in the last 50 yards,” Brooks said. “I was surprised I had so much energy left. I’m just glad I had the chance to run.”

Megan Black performs a Kathak dance accompanied by Ross Kent and Paul Sihon during the Himalayan Fair yesterday at Live Oak Park. The performance was part of the two-day festival, now in its 18th year. The fair usually takes place the weekend before Memorial Day, but dance organizer Katherine Kunhiraman said it was delayed because of the Dalai Lama’s recent visit. “We offered a thing to do on Memorial Day weekend rather than just a beer party,”  

Kunhiraman said. “A lot of people just wander into it who know nothing about India and they come away just smitten by how diverse and intricate the art forms are.”

Cal’s run through the NCAA Regionals came to an end Saturday night as the Bears were defeated by VCU, 11-2. The loss eliminated the Bears from the Southeast Regional at Alex Box Stadium.  

The start of Saturday’s final game was delayed almost two hours due to rain and lightning around Baton Rouge. The aftermath left a muggy, still air on the field of play.  

After enjoying solid pitching and potent hitting in the first two games of the series, the Bears were abandoned by both in Saturday night’s game. Starter Brian Montalbo (4-1) surrendered five runs on four hits in just two and two-thirds of an inning. More importantly, the freshman walked four batters and threw two wild pitches in his time on the mound.  

The game began with much promise for the Bears when Rob Meyer crushed a Marc Fisher fastball over the leftfield bleachers with two out in the first. Meyer’s blast staked the Bears to a 1-0 lead, and it seemed that the Bears would continue their momentum from their victory over Minnesota earlier that morning.  

Montalbo, however, could not find the strike zone, and the Rams took advantage. VCU tied the score in the second and broke the game open in the third.  

Montalbo, after loading the bases on two walks and a single, surrendered a bases-loaded single to Danny Lopaze, plating two runs and giving VCU the 3-1 lead. Kevin Elrod then tripled in two more off of reliever Andrew Sproul, pushing the lead to 5-1 and further dimming Cal’s hopes. Even freshman closer Matt Brown, brought in to stop the VCU attack, could not find the strike zone: Brown surrendered three more runs in the fourth, a rally keyed by his walking the bases loaded. Cal pitchers walked nine batters on the evening; seven of those baserunners came around to score. 

Meanwhile, the Bears’ normally strong offense was non-existent against Fisher and the Rams. Fisher set a new career-high with 14 strikeouts, while pitching a complete game for the Rams. The Bears finish their season 34-25 on the season; VCU goes on to face LSU in the championship game.  

The season finale was in direct contrast to Cal’s first game of the day. Meyer smashed two home runs and drove in four as the Bears defeated Minnesota, 9-3, in the NCAA Southeast Regional in Baton Rouge. Hoover also homered and drove in four. 

The Bears got their offense rolling early against Minnesota (39-21). Ben Conley led off with a walk against Gopher starter Ben Birk (2-3). After Conor Jackson struck out, Meyer lifted a Birk fastball over the right field fence for a 2-0 Bears lead.  

“I sliced it, and it just got up in the wind,” said Meyer.  

The Bears were not finished in the first. With two outs, Carson White singled up the middle, ending the day for Birk and setting the stage for Hoover. Hoover then smashed a C.J. Woodrow fastball over the center field fence for a two-run homerun, giving Cal the 4-0 lead.  

Bears’ lefty Jason Dennis (5-3) allowed a two-run homerun to Gopher first baseman Josh Holthaus in the bottom of the first, then settled in to blank the Gophers for the next four innings. David Cash finished the final three and two-thirds innings for his fourth save. 

The Bears pounded Gopher pitching for 16 hits on the afternoon; their second double-digit hit total of the regionals. 

For the tournament, Brian Horwitz collected seven hits in the regional. Rob Meyer made a strong bid for the all-region team; he finished with 6 hits in 12 at-bats, pounding three homeruns and driving in seven. John Baker had five hits in the regional; he ends the season on a 12-game hit streak.

Last week, the State Water Resources Control Board awarded a $200,000 grant to the Urban Creeks Council to restore fish habitat in Codornices Creek — described by many as one of Berkeley’s most precious natural treasures. 

The creek is more than four miles long, and runs from the Berkeley hills through Codornices Park, the Rose Garden, Live Oak Park, and Harrison Park all the way to the San Francisco Bay. The lower part of Codornices Creek is Albany’s southern border. 

During the rapid development of the last century, many of Berkeley’s creeks were buried in culverts to provide space on which to build. Having survived with only five significant underground sections, Codornices Creek is considered the most free flowing of the city’s natural streams. It is also a delicate spawning and rearing habitat for endangered Steelhead. 

Disrupted streams have reduced the region’s Steelhead population so much in recent years that the National Marine Fisheries Services has listed the fish as an endangered species. Regulations have been developed to protect its “critical habitat,” which includes Alameda County. For more than 15 years, volunteers have worked to restore habitat in Codornices Creek, carefully tending the surrounding environment. Local fish scientists say the efforts have paid off. 

In March of last year, members of the citizens’ group Friends of Five Creeks, along with UC Berkeley biologist Tom Dudley, officially confirmed what many locals had already suspected — the presence of young Oncorhynchus mykiss, or Steelhead, in Codornices Creek. In the “fingerling stage” of youth, the fish is indistinguishable from a Rainbow Trout. Only if it goes to sea and returns will it become a Steelhead. 

The Proposition 13-funded grant, approved last Monday, will begin the “Codornices Creek Watershed Restoration Action Plan” as well as facilitating a comprehensive assessment of the creek’s Steelhead habitat to restore it to full health. Proposition 13, passed by voters in March 2000, authorized the state to sell $1.97 in general obligation bonds for water quality and reliability projects throughout California. The local grant will be used for a publicity campaign, preliminary engineering and cost estimates, water sample analysis and compensation for the many people involved with the project. Partners will include the Urban Creeks Council, local water quality restoration expert Bob Coats, Sausalito-based fish scientist Bill Kier, and researchers from UC Berkeley’s Department of Integrative Biology. 

Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, a creek restoration advocate, approved of last week’s announcement.  

“I’m pleased to see these funds flowing to such a vital project in our community,” Aroner said. “Congratulations to the Urban Creeks Council for the opportunity to continue their good work in restoring creeks to their natural beauty and providing urban environments where wildlife and humans can co-exist and flourish.” 

In that regard, the project represents an unusual test case and carries high hopes for its participants. 

“If these guys can pull this off, maybe we can get a model,” he said. “There’s a lot of wilderness models. We’re very short on how to do it in the urban settings.” 

Kier, who was born in Berkeley and has 40 years of fish barrier modification experience, recalled the creek’s history.  

“It has, in its day, literally been a sewer. When I was a kid and you used to drive by, you would instinctively roll up your windows,” he said. “A self-sustaining population of Steelhead? That excites me ... being right in the middle of a highly developed urban area.” 

Though pollution is no longer so severe, it remains one of many variables in the health of this sensitive ecosystem. An accessible migration path requires the shade overhanging vegetation provides, cooler water temperatures, deep pools, freedom from disturbance, and, of course, good quality water. Necessary intervention might include curtailing erosion, remediating extra water from heavy storms, reshaping portions of the creek bed to make it more maneuverable for the fish and “daylighting” the creek’s remaining underground sections — a task the city has endorsed. 

“Outreach is going to be a huge component of it,” Kier said. “Making sure people know all about the project all the time. We want them to be comfortable with what we’re trying to do here. The landowners hold the hammer. They’re the ones that are going to let us into their back yards or not.” 

Some new residents have appealed to Friends of Five Creeks for guidance shortly after moving in, according to Susan Schwartz, the organization’s president.  

“Many homeowners have been doing a wonderful job of keeping the creek,” Schwartz said. 

Schwartz hopes for an eventual creek-side trail, linking Tilden Regional Park with the bay. Schwartz cited a recommendation of Frederick Law Olmstead, the so-called “father of landscape architecture,” whose credentials as an expert in balancing urban and natural environments can be found in some of the nation’s most famous landscapes, including New York’s Central Park and the UC Berkeley campus. 

But first things first. The grant agreement will be signed this summer. Kier said $200,000 was the maximum amount, and that this project was rated very high.  

“We got cash and we got experts,” he said. “Codornices Creek is going to have its day.”

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – Hours after eliminating the Michigan Wolverines from the Women’s College World Series, 5-2, the California Golden Bears were themselves eliminated by their Pac-10 rival the Stanford Cardinal, 1-0, at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium Saturday night.  

Senior Nicole DiSalvio and junior Jocelyn Forest combined to one-hit the Cardinal, but DiSalvio came away with the loss, as the Bears finished the 2001 season with a school-record 54 wins with only 18 losses. Stanford advances to take on the top-ranked Arizona Wildcats tomorrow at noon.  

Cal threatened to take the early lead in the first after it strung together a walk and two singles to load the bases, but a two-out ground out to second by sophomore Eryn Manahan ended the rally.  

The Cardinal took the lead for good in its half of the second. With Jessica Draemel on second after pinch running for Jessica Alliseter and advancing on a sacrifice bunt, Michelle Thiry grounded a ball with two outs to senior Paige Bowie at shortstop. Bowie failed to come up with the ball, allowing Draemel to score, giving Stanford the only run it would need.  

Sophomore Veronica Nelson singled to left center in the fourth and senior Amber Phillips got a base hit in the fifth, but the Bears could not put anything else together to pose a threat.  

Junior Candace Harper and Manahan had to only other hits for the Bears.  

DiSalvio gave up a leadoff single to Robin Walker in the first inning and went the next 2 1/3 innings of no-hit ball while allowing two walks. She took the unfortunate loss, ending the year with an impressive 21-8 record. Forest came in in the third with a runner on first and allowed just one runner to reach base on a fielder’s choice the rest of the game. She finished the game with four strikeouts.  

Stanford’s Dana Sorensen earned the win to improve to 27-5 after pitching the first five innings of four-hit softball. She struck out three and walked one.

Hubcap shooter gets 40 years in prison 

OAKLAND – An Oakland man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for shooting and killing a man for swiping the hubcaps off his car. 

Quincy Darnell Robertson was convicted of killing Khinde Riley two days before Christmas in December 1998. Another man, Ricky Harris, was hit in the foot with a bullet while trying to escape. 

Prosecutor Jim Panetta had offered Robertson a plea bargain for 25 years in jail, but Robertson opted for a trial. 

Robertson’s attorney argued he did not mean to hurt anyone, but he instead fired the gun to scare the men away from his car. 

Robertson is considering appealing his conviction. 

Oakland skydiver plummets to death  

LODI – A veteran skydiver died after jumping out of an airplane with a group of friends. 

Dan Scary, 52, of Oakland may have experienced a health problem while in the air Saturday. He and others were forming a circle, and Scary was holding a friend’s wrist when his grip reportedly got weaker, said San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Sgt. Joe Herrera. 

Scary’s parachute opened correctly, but it was unknown whether he was able to control it. He landed between some trees in a private back yard near Lodi and was pronounced dead at UC Davis Medical Center, Herrera said. 

Scary had a history of hypertension and diabetes. 

Californians could keep cars in driveway 

SAN FRANCISCO – A new poll says Californians plan to leave their cars parked if gas prices continue to swell. 

A Field Poll released Sunday found that 36 percent say they’ll be forced to reduce the driving a lot, while 33 percent say they’ll cut it some. 

But that doesn’t mean Californians are practicing what they’re preaching: The American Automobile Association says they’ll be more motorists on the road this Memorial Day weekend, than last year. All that despite soaring prices at the pump. 

AAA estimates that 4.2 million Californians are on the road this weekend. 

The poll says that 76 percent polled found the current gas situation very serious. That number jumped to 86 percent if gas prices were to rise to three dollars or more a gallon this summer. 

Health workers using chickens to find ills 

SAN JOSE – Public health workers are preparing to test for diseases transmitted by mosquitoes by monitoring birds. 

Sentinel chickens are put out in many California counties and are regularly tested for diseases, such as West Vile virus, St. Louis encephalitis and Western equine encephalomyelitis. There have been no reports of these diseases this year. 

“If West Nile gets here, our sentinel system is going to know about it very quickly,” said epidemiologist William C. Reeves, a former dean of the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. 

The virus is carried by wild birds, which can be bitten by mosquitoes and later transmitted to humans. The disease can be mild, but in some cases has caused a fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. 

The first American case of West Nile virus was seen in New York in 1999. Since then, it has been detected as far north as New Hampshire and as far south as North Carolina. 

Fire damages Stanford 

STANFORD – An early morning fire Saturday caused extensive damage to a building on the campus of Stanford University. 

The fire broke out about 1 a.m. in the Career Planning and Placement Center. Firefighters from about 10 departments responded and had the blaze under control by 3 a.m., said Stanford Police Dept. Sgt. David Lee. 

There were no injuries reported and the fire was contained to one building. Officials say the incident is under investigation, and an estimate for the amount of damage was not available. About half of the one-story building was damaged, Lee said. 

Suspects accused of stealing from Caltrain vending machines 

REDWOOD CITY – Two men have been arrested on suspicion of stealing about $6,000 from Caltrain ticket vending machines. 

Yomo Kenyatta Shaw of San Francisco and Ronald Kieth Lejender of Oakland were arrested after police spotted them scoping out a ticket machine at the Hayward Park Caltrain station. 

They didn’t take anything from the machine, but police followed them and pulled them over. The police searched their car and found pry bars and other tools inside. 

Victims families put experience to use 

EUREKA – Family members of those slain near Yosemite National Park in 1999 are using the skills they learned during the tragedy to help the parents of a Modesto intern missing from her Washington, D.C. apartment. 

Francis and Carole Carrington’s daughter, granddaughter and family friend were found murdered a month after they disappeared while vacationing near the park. Former motel handyman Cary Stayner confessed to murdering them in July 1999. 

But the Carringtons learned a lot of skills from that ordeal. The couple recently flew to Washington, D.C. to help the parents of 24-year-old Chandra Levy in their search. The woman disappeared April 30.

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Eternal flames honoring veterans across California are burning through money these days as the price of natural gas soars during the state’s energy crisis. 

A number of veterans groups are worried that the flames will be dimmed to save money, even though cemetery and city officials mostly shrug off the increasing costs. 

Compared to last year, it costs twice as much to fuel the flame at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, a mortuary and crematory in this military town on the outskirts of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. 

“It is a tremendous expense,” said mortuary manager Ralph Gault. 

The facility’s gas bill, which includes the cost of running the crematory, jumped from about $2,400 in March 2000 to nearly $4,800 last March. Eternal Hills explored raising prices to help pay energy bills but backed off when federal regulators said a surcharge could not be applied. 

General manager George Hubbard said it still is a small price to pay for the flame, which is surrounded by flags and granite slabs bearing the names of local veterans from all branches of the military. 

“It’s something I feel you do no matter what,” he said. “So the flame costs more. We eat it.” 

California is seeing some of the nation’s highest natural gas prices this year. The state’s electricity shortage has forced natural gas-fired power plants to run full blast to keep the lights on. 

Gas prices are up around the country. But at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, there has not been a significant increase in the $200 monthly cost of running the eternal flame that burns at the grave of President John F. Kennedy, said Barbara Owens, spokeswoman for the cemetery. 

Washington Gas Co. said the cemetery is charged a fixed rate and uses the same amount of gas each month. 

By comparison, it costs about $800 a month to fuel the eternal flame at a soldier’s monument in Pico Rivera, 10 miles southeast of Los Angeles. 

The cost has more than doubled from a year ago, said Dale Sampson, president of the Pico Rivera Veterans Council. Local veterans split the cost with the city. 

No one has threatened to shut off the flame, but Sampson is concerned that the hours it burns might be cut back to save money. 

“It should be lit every day, because they fought every day,” said Sampson, who served in the Air Force in the early 1960s. 

Sampson has asked the city to follow the lead of nearby communities La Mirada and Montebello and pick up the entire cost of the eternal flame. 

However, the Pico Rivera City Council will only assume the cost if the flame is lowered or burns only on certain days, said Councilman Gregory Salcido. 

Salcido said he was on the “lonely side” of a 4-1 vote against picking up the full tab and is trying to line up corporate sponsors to help. 

La Mirada City Manager Greg Sloan said he would rather cut city spending on dinners, meetings and junkets than dim the flame that has burned for more than 20 years in an alcove near City Hall in honor of local residents who died in combat. 

“We do not care about the gas costs,” Sloan said. “There were a lot of La Mirada residents that were killed, and it’s a way of remembering their names and thanking their families and keeping the names in our hearts.” 

WASHINGTON – Presidential candidate George W. Bush prided himself on visiting California at least once a month in the heat of last year’s campaign. As president he has waited more than four months to visit the largest state. 

Bush lost California decisively in November, and it remains hostile territory. When he returns to the Democratic stronghold Monday night, he will face protests, negative TV and radio ads, polls questioning his leadership, and an electricity crisis for which his energy strategy offers little relief. 

He will meet Tuesday with Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, who has relentlessly attacked him for not capping wholesale power prices — and will almost certainly resume doing so when Bush again refuses. 

Bush is seeking to highlight his engagement in the energy issue at a time when most Californians disapprove of his approach. 

A Field Poll released last week showed 54 percent of Californians rated Bush’s handling of the state’s energy situation as poor or very poor; 38 percent viewed Davis that way. 

“He could go a long way toward diminishing the hostility in California toward his administration on the energy issue,” said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. 

“But that requires he do something other than schmooze people,” Cain said. “There’s got to be some sort of special action on the part of the government.” Specifically, he must grant the price caps, he said. 

Vice President Dick Cheney again rejected such limits on Friday. “We think that’s a mistake,” he said. 

As it happens, Bush’s Tuesday appearances coincide with the start of limited new price caps in California. The independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission capped wholesale prices when electricity reserves fall below 7.5 percent in the state — a step Davis called inadequate, and Bush opposed. 

Bush will emphasize other means of addressing the crisis, visiting the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, on Tuesday to remind listeners of his order that military facilities in the state cut peak-hour usage by one-tenth. 

After delivering a trade speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Bush will host a roundtable of business leaders and entrepreneurs. On the agenda will be high-tech answers to the energy problem, such as electronic meters that help consumers and businesses track their power consumption. 

The meeting with Davis carries considerable risks for Bush, but Bush advisers said they concluded that drawing criticism from Davis would be less damaging than refusing to meet altogether. 

The meeting also helps Bush bolster his bipartisan image, which was tarnished by the defection from the GOP of Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont. 

White House aides scrambled last week to avert a scenario in which Davis is left to level fresh, unanswered assaults on Bush after the meeting. 

“He could become a foil for Davis, and Davis needs it,” said Samuel Kernell, a scholar on the presidency at the University of California, San Diego. 

Countering Davis is particularly urgent because the Bush administration views Davis as a potential White House contender in 2004. 

Wednesday, Bush looks to underline his commitment to the environment with a trip to Sequoia National Park, home to some of the world’s largest trees. 

He’ll point to his plan to spend the full amount of money that Congress authorizes for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was created in 1965 to buy federal and state lands with revenues from offshore oil and gas production in federal waters. 

Congress has rarely appropriated the full $900 million authorized for it annually since 1978. Just $90.3 million was appropriated in 2001 for state grants. 

President Clinton had visited California twice by this point in his presidency, but his broader strategy mirrored Bush’s: He was shoring up critical base states, just as Bush has done with early visits to states he won last year. Bush has visited 28 states, most of which he carried in November. 

Clinton won California twice; Bush lost it by 12 points last year to Al Gore.

EL CERRITO – Hers weighs 650 pounds, his weighs 1,300 pounds, but when it comes to a competition between two giant balls of bras, does size really matter? 

San Francisco Bay area artists Emily Duffy and Ron Nicolino are more concerned with copyrights than cup size and cleavage. They’ve each retained lawyers and traded threatening letters as they brawl over who owns the concept. 

Meanwhile, their balls keep growing — huge spheres of lace, silk, padding and underwire bras of all colors, shapes and sizes. 

Nicolino — he wants to be known only as Nicolino — has used 14,000 bras from an abandoned project to hook them across the Grand Canyon. Now he’s pulling his ball to Los Angeles behind his 1963 flamingo pink Cadillac, looking for someone to sponsor a worldwide tour and eventually, a showcase where people can continue to build the ball by hooking on their own bras. 

“I think it’s a major important part of American art,” Nicolino said while displaying the 5-foot-wide “Big Giant Bra Ball” in San Francisco. “It’s making commentary as it’s driving along. It’s about making dialogue about body image.” 

Duffy, who says Nicolino stole her idea, says his roadside attraction is really about exploiting women. 

“The only reason I’m doing this is that I just don’t want it to be another case of a man getting one over on a woman,” Duffy said. 

Both balls keep growing, through spontaneous donation. 

Sandy Brychta of San Francisco marched right up to Nicolino’s ball at Pier 23, unbuttoned her jacket and stripped off a lacy beige number. She hooked it on, then walked off with her head held high. 

“They dared me, and I have been known as a person who accepts a challenge,” Brychta said, laughing with her friends. “This is probably the only way anyone’s going to see my bra since I don’t have a man in my life.” 

Nicolino, of Point Richmond, acknowledges that Duffy came up with the idea. He says they were going to collaborate, but he dropped her when she proposed using only some of the bras and sealing them with silicone, which he sees as demoralizing to women. 

Duffy, of El Cerrito, says Nicolino has got it all wrong. 

After he publicly offered to give the bras away last fall, she agreed to take some to decorate her Vain Van, a minivan festooned with black bras, Barbie doll busts, high-heeled shoes, curlers and a pink steering wheel that says “Princess.” 

When he told her to take all or nothing, Duffy proposed the bra ball idea. Shortly thereafter, he said he wanted to do the project alone. 

In protest, Duffy quickly sent for a copyright and launched a mass e-mail to her women friends, requesting their bras to build her own “BraBall.” 

Now it’s 5,850 bras thick and about 3 1/2 feet in diameter. There are well-worn bras from prostitutes, milk-stained nursing bras, furry bras and plain ones of all sizes, from training bras on up to 44PS (each cup seems big enough to double as a hat.) 

Both conceptual artists seem to have a thing for women’s underwear. Duffy, a former fashion designer, has created a series of collages and prints involving bras and thongs. Nicolino once used bras in a replica of the Statue of Liberty. 

As an incest survivor, Duffy sees herself as a strong feminist, but she never expected her e-mail would link thousands of other angry women’s bra straps together worldwide. She eventually wants to show the sculpture in galleries and donate it to a permanent home in a museum or the lobby of a women’s nonprofit organization. 

“It’s a monument to the average American woman who is so strong, and yet no one talks about that,” Duffy said. “She is solid in a very dense way — the way the ball is. Women hold this world together.” 

Duffy’s e-mail, which is still being forwarded, often prompts letters of support from the bra-senders, which include men, too, some of whom have lost family members to breast cancer. 

But no men, not even Duffy’s husband, are allowed to work on her BraBall. 

“For centuries, men have been using women’s bodies to make art,” she said. “This is a monument to us.”

SAN DIEGO – Joan Conrad wasn’t going to let blackouts stop her and 13 high school seniors in her charge from seeing California. 

“I was ready to bring a flashlight,” the Illinois resident said at Lindbergh Field as she rounded up teen-agers for the flight home after an eight-day tour. 

But, Conrad added, if the trip had come in summer she might have chosen a destination with a more stable power supply. 

“It did give me a second thought,” she said. 

Such sentiments have California tourism officials worrying about the impact on the $75.4 billion industry. 

“California’s energy crisis hangs over the state’s tourism industry like a dark cloud,” according to a report from the California Chamber of Commerce. 

“Our business is gravely threatened by the specter of rolling blackouts and unreliable energy supplies,” said Samuel Woodfin, who operates Woodfin Suite Hotels, a national chain with properties in seven California cities. “The effect on our state’s business environment will be devastating — starting this summer.” 

Hotels are already seeing a drop in business. 

A survey of 4,400 California hotels by Smith Travel Research indicated that occupancy rates dropped 2.7 percent in March, the latest month for which figures were available. The San Francisco area has seen the steepest decline, falling 11.2 percent during the first three months of this year. 

However Laurie Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, attributed the decline to the softening high-tech economy in Silicon Valley. It follows a banner year that she described as “kind of a 100-year flood in terms of tourism.” 

Of 164 small hotels and chains surveyed by the California Lodging Industry Association, 28 percent said they already have lost business due to the power crisis and concerns about blackouts, said Rick Lawrance, the organization’s president. 

Almost all hotels surveyed said their electricity costs had increased an average of 50 percent and now account for 10 percent of total operating costs. Many hotels have added fees ranging from $1 to $4 to nightly room rates to help cover those costs. 

Theme parks are also feeling the heat. 

Disneyland, Sea World and Universal Studios Hollywood — the state’s top three attractions with a combined 22.7 million visits last year — all face threats of power outages this summer, according to representatives of those parks and power officials. 

Like most hotels, they insist that safety procedures and backup generators will ensure the safety of visitors. The parks would likely get a warning from power providers before blackouts begin, and signs would go up alerting visitors about ride closures and other problems, tourism officials said. 

Disneyland, the state’s No. 1 attraction, draws its power from Anaheim’s municipal utility, which has a more stable supply than Southern California Edison, according to Chula Castano-Lenahan, a Disneyland spokeswoman. 

For the first time in five years, Disneyland will be hosting its Electrical Parade. But the illuminated nighttime extravaganza will draw its energy from rechargeable batteries. 

Meanwhile, lobbyists for Universal are trying to have the theme park added to state legislation that would allow it to draw electricity from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which doesn’t expect to be plagued by outages this summer. Edison is Universal’s current supplier. 

In exchange for immunity from blackouts, Paramount’s Great America amusement park in Santa Clara will voluntarily reduce power by up to 10 percent when asked by its utility, Silicon Valley Power. Under the plan, rides will remain open but the park will shut off decorative fountains and lighting along with some air conditioning. 

“We consider ourselves extremely fortunate,” said Timothy Chanaud, a park spokesman. “That peace of mind we can offer guests is really exceptional.”

NEWPORT BEACH – State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Saturday he favors making public the details of power contracts the state has negotiated in secret with generators. 

“In my mind at least, and as a matter of philosophy, the expenditures are so extraordinary, the issues are so important, that the contracts, I think, need to be made public,” he said at the annual meeting of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. 

The remarks came amid criticisms from Republicans and journalists who disagree with Gov. Gray Davis’ refusal thus far to release the price the state is paying for long-term contracts with power generators and wholesalers. Davis has announced the signing of contracts with the California Department of Water Resources, which is spending billions each month buying power for the state’s cash-strapped utilities. 

The Associated Press and several newspapers sued Davis, saying his refusal to release details of the state’s electricity purchases violates the California Public Records Act. The lawsuit says Davis’ refusal to make public details of the power contracts means the public cannot determine if the state is doing a good job in spending billions in tax dollars. 

As the state’s attorney general, Lockyer is required to defend the state in that lawsuit. Lockyer said Saturday his duty is to represent his client, in this case the state, regardless of his own opinion. 

Davis has said he needs to keep the details secret to protect future negotiations. 

There have been some disagreements among the governor’s advisers, including himself, Lockyer said, as to how long Davis is entitled to keep the contracts secret. 

“The law allows for temporary nondisclosure when there would be public injury that is substantial,” Lockyer said. “The governor’s energy advisers claim that when contracts haven’t been signed or fully executed, that the company might withdraw or change their demands if they knew what their competitors were getting and that it would affect the costs of the power contracts in the future. 

“I think that’s a legitimate claim. The problem is balancing that against the public interest in knowing how the money is being spent, whether it is prudent. The law allows for that balancing. It doesn’t allow it for a long time.” 

“We’ve explained he may have some short-term ability to keep them secret, but he can’t for very much longer,” Lockyer said. 

Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio said he didn’t know what Lockyer was referring to when he said some of the governor’s advisors had disagreed with Davis’ decision. The governor had planned to release details of the contracts six months after they were signed, which means details on some will be released soon, Maviglio said.

SAN FRANCISCO — A 200-pound black bear crashed through a glass door and was holed up in a Hertz rental store in Salinas for 4.5 hours Friday before police officers closed off the street, surrounded the building and tranquilized the animal. 

“We put up this big wrought iron fence eight feet high. The idea was to keep people out, but that sucker just jumped up on that thing and took about two seconds to just scale it,” said Quetzal Grimm, Hertz Equipment Rental branch manager. “He fell on the ground and then just bolted through one of the bottom panes of our doors.” 

Grimm said the bear was not injured and was eventually found hiding beneath some doors leaning against a wall. 

The sedated bear was carried from the store and taken by state Department of Fish and Game officials to be released into the wild. 

Grimm said the glass door was the only thing damaged during the ordeal. 

“He’s like the original Gentle Ben,” Grimm said. “It was amazing, and you can’t even say anything about it. It’s like, ’There’s a bear in your office!’ ” 

Salinas Police Sgt. Roger Milligan said everyone involved took extra precautions not to harm the bear, following an incident last week where another black bear climbed a tree in downtown Carmel.  

That bear fell 70 feet to its death after being shot with a tranquilizer dart. The bear suffered a ruptured liver, abdominal bleeding, broken ribs and a torn lung in the fall. 

Milligan said Friday’s incident was a first in his 27 years with the department. 

“I’ve had to deal with cows and steers and cattle, but not bears,” he said.

SAN FRANCISCO — In a blow to the logging industry, a federal appeals panel blocked the harvest of thousands of acres of old-growth forest in southwestern Oregon, ruling Thursday the federal government did not adequately address the plight of protected salmon. 

The sweeping decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also may halt the proposed logging of hundreds of thousands of acres throughout California, Oregon and Washington state – all idled pending the panel’s ruling. 

“This is a victory for salmon,” said Patti Goldman, of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, which sued the government on behalf of a host of environmental and fishing groups. 

In the Oregon case, the three-judge appellate panel said the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to adequately consider the harm logging would have on endangered salmon runs on 20 of 23 Umpqua National Forest and Bureau of Land Management parcels in the Umpqua River Basin around Roseburg, Ore. 

The basin, comprising those lands draining into the Umpqua River, is home to Umpqua cutthroat trout and threatened runs of Oregon Coast coho salmon that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. 

The suit contended endangered Oregon salmon runs, which have been dwindling and have forced thousands of fisherman out of work, would be harmed by proposed logging from Douglas Timber Operators, a consortium of logging companies. 

While fishing concerns heralded the ruling, logging interests said Thursday’s decision may doom harvesting federal lands throughout the West. 

Mark Rutzick, Douglas Timber Operators’ attorney in Portland, said the court’s ruling may have created standards “that are impossible to meet.” The timber companies, he said, may ask the appeals panel to reconsider its decision or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. 

Even so, the federal government said it intends to have the acreage in question logged, but first must figure out how to satisfy the courts. 

“We can’t move ahead with these timber sales yet,” said Rex Holloway, a National Forest Service spokesman in Seattle. 

Bob Dick, of the American Forest Resource Council in Olympia, Wash., which represents a variety of logging companies in the West, said the “environmental community will be satisfied with nothing less than zero harvesting.” 

He noted that 40 percent of the nation’s wood supplies are imported from countries with minimal or no environmental standards. 

“Some people think we are cutting down trees for the perverse act of cutting down trees,” he said. “We’re not meeting demand in this country.” 

Douglas Timber Operators’ case stems from 1999, when U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein of Seattle ordered the timber sales halted until the government could show that fish would not be harmed and the sales complied with the Clinton administration’s 1994 Northwest Forest Plan and the Endangered Species Act. 

The Oregon case has wide-ranging implications for hundreds of thousands of acres the federal government has slated for logging in California, Washington state and other parts of Oregon. 

The same federal judge who blocked the Umpqua River Basin logging also blocked logging on 170 parcels the government designated throughout the West. Judge Rothstein stopped logging in those states in December on the same grounds as she did for the Umpqua River Basin sites around Roseburg. 

Under federal law, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management were required to get a “biological opinion” from the fisheries service before proceeding with any logging plans in the Umpqua River basin, where fish runs have dipped into single digits in some years. 

The appeals court, in agreeing with Rothstein, said the opinions did not address short-term effects on salmon, which run from the ocean to rivers to spawn, and the cumulative effects of all the proposed logging combined. 

The panel said the government’s studies did not meet guidelines set out in Clinton’s forest plan. That plan, in response to the federal listing of the northern spotted owl, is aimed at balancing the demand for timber from public lands with the need to protect habitat for dwindling populations of fish and wildlife. 

The plan covered 24.5 million acres of federal forest lands throughout the range of the spotted owl and reduced logging in Northwest forests by about 80 percent from levels of the 1980s. 

The fisheries service issued biological opinions that logging in Oregon’s Umpqua River Basin, which resides within the northern spotted owl’s range, was not likely to jeopardize the cutthroat trout and the Oregon Coast coho salmon. 

The appeals panel found that the government provided no scientific evidence to support its conclusion that new growth in logged areas would adequately offset the degradation caused by the logging projects to ensure the continued existence of the fish in question. 

The court said that the government failed to consider short-term impacts and instead relied on the premise that the area would be restored in a decade. The government’s studies said the logging ultimately would not affect anadromous fish, which migrate from the ocean to rivers to spawn. 

“This generous time frame ignores the life cycle and migration cycle of anadromous fish,” the court said. “In 10 years, a badly degraded habitat will likely result in the total extinction of the subspecies that formerly returned to a particular creek for spawning.” 

Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association Inc., a plaintiff in the suit, said the decision could help restore salmon stocks and eventually bring work to thousands who have lost their jobs. 

“They were just assuming the fish would survive. You can’t do that,” Spain said. 

Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle, said he had just received the ruling and could not comment extensively. 

“Obviously, we will do what the court tells us to do,” Gorman said. “It did seem to think we should have taken short-term effects on salmon habitat into greater consideration.” 

The case is Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association Inc. v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 99-36027. 

LAFAYETTE – Contra Costa County health officials are completed a second day of clinic care and education Tuesday after an adult chaperone on a weekend camping trip was hospitalized with meningitis. 

Contra Costa County communicable diseases program manager Sirlura Taylor said county public health director Wendel Brunner and county health services director William Walker were both out talking to worried parents and children at Lafayette and Burton Valley elementary schools today. 

In addition, the officials scheduled a clinic at Lafayette to dispense prophylactic antibiotics until noon. 

Taylor said the antibiotics are being provided to anyone who had contact with the unidentified man, who has been hospitalized for meningococcal meningitis at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. Taylor said county health officials found out about the problem with the camping trip involving about 120 students in a call from the state health department Sunday night. 

She said school officials immediately began calling parents with children on the trip to let them know about the clinics Monday and today. 

Taylor said the disease is not a highly communicable one. 

“It's not like measles or chicken pox, which is highly airborne and infectious,” Taylor said. “Meningococcal disease is spread by direct contact, eating out of same plate, drinking out of same glass.” 

She said the reports of the disease this year have been widely publicized, however, even though its incidence is not particularly high this year 

“It's been in the media a lot,” she said. “Actually Contra Costa County has not had as many cases this year as last year.”

Gearing up for rolling blackouts, people are trying to save power by shutting down appliances 

OAKLAND – Paul Goettlich’s condo in the Oakland hills features vaulted ceilings and skylights, a sweeping view of San Francisco’s bay and state-of-the-art appliances. 

With the power crisis in full tilt, his dryer sits unused while he hangs clothes, sheets and towels on a wooden rack in the garage. 

“Maybe somebody doesn’t want to see somebody else’s underwear or bras hanging out,” Goettlich says. “But, hey, that’s life.” 

As the state gears up for rolling blackouts and hefty energy bills this summer, many Californians are changing their habits. The result: Surging sales of everything from low-energy light bulbs to fans to evaporative coolers that blow misty air. 

The Orchard Supply Hardware store a few miles down the road from Goettlich’s condo is having a hard time keeping clotheslines and retractable drying racks in stock. 

At the The Home Depot store in Colma, about 10 miles south of San Francisco, energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs are hot sellers, along with a $40 device called a Power Planner that’s said to cut energy use by appliances like refrigerators. 

At the Wal-Mart in the Southern California suburb of Brea, customers are buying blackout supplies along with fans and low-energy light bulbs. Flashlights, camping lanterns and oil lamps also are popular, according to manager Rebecca Smith. 

“We’ve quadrupled our fan sales this year, and it’s not even summer,” Smith said. “It doesn’t seem to matter what kind. People are buying all of them.” 

The rolling blackouts are proving a retail bonanza for some out-of-state companies, like St. Louis-based Emerson, which is selling twice as many ceiling fans in California than in any other state. 

“They’re energy efficient and use less electricity than a 100-watt bulb,” explains Emerson spokesman Walt Sharp. “They can make a room feel about seven degrees cooler without air conditioning by circulating the air. They can save up to 40 percent when used with air conditioning.” 

Industrial-sized floor fans — used in manufacturing areas and large warehouses — also are a hot commodity in California, he said. 

At Walnut-based Lights of America, sales of energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs have increased 700 percent since last year. And with state rebates and incentives for consumers to switch to the new bulbs, sales are expected to continue soaring, said Brian Halliwell, vice president of marketing sales. 

Most bulbs average from $6 to $10, with 50-watt compact fluorescent bulbs providing the same amount of light as 300-watt halogens, Halliwell said. 

The bulbs do, however, have a noticeable blue tinge, compared to most regular incandescent bulbs, said Bob Aldrich of the California Energy Commission. But the color can be changed or softened by using different lamp shades, he said. 

“Just about any light use that’s out there will take a compact fluorescent light,” Aldrich said. “People should be more worried about saving energy.” 

Shopping the light bulb display at The Home Depot in Colma, customer Linda Shintaku said she’s exploring all her options for conserving energy this summer. 

“We lowered the thermostat, and we’re trying not to turn lights on in rooms we’re not in,” Shintaku said. “I try to wash clothes at night during low-peak hours.” 

Energy experts note that homeowners can make the biggest dent in their power bills by switching to more efficient models of major appliances. 

But despite the advice and an array of rebate programs, Home Depot manager Jeff Benefield says consumers aren’t yet flocking in to replace energy-sucking appliances like refrigerators and dishwashers. People who are in the market for big appliances ask about Energy Star ratings, which bring rebates of up to $75, he noted. 

The new vogue for conservation has some ecology-conscious Californians shaking their heads. Berkeley resident Leona Benten has been hanging her clothes outside to dry long before the power crisis came along and she’s hoping the energy crisis will push others to change their habits and their attitudes. 

“It takes like two minutes,” Benten said. “I think that people have succumbed to incredible amounts of advertisements, and if it’s mechanized, it’s better.”

BELL GARDENS — Hundreds of people gathered Saturday for the unveiling of a new veterans memorial — a statue honoring 39 Hispanic Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. 

The statue is flanked by two obelisks to be engraved with the names of all 3,436 medal recipients. 

“We enjoy the blessing of peace because of the ongoing sacrifice of millions of veterans,” Mayor Ramiro Morales said during the Memorial Day weekend tribute. “Today we are honoring the courage and patriotism of Congressional Medal of Honor recipients.” 

The statue is believed to be the only existing memorial to any specific ethnic or racial group among medal recipients. Another memorial to Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients, to be placed in downtown Los Angeles, is in the planning stages. 

“Hispanic Americans played an important role in the defense of our country,” Morales said. “The Hispanic American Veterans Memorial is long overdue.” 

According to U.S. Census figures, 93 percent of residents in the city 18 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles are Hispanic. 

More than 500 spectators lined the streets surrounding the memorial waving American flags as the monument was unveiled. 

Designed by Peruvian sculptor Alfredo Osorio, the statue features an angel holding a laurel wreath skyward while cradling a wounded soldier. 

“There are those few, in the face of extreme danger, who will step up and be guided by the angels,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca told the spectators. “And they will do tremendously heroic deeds.”