Minority activists of numerous descents took to heart the idiom “strength in numbers” Monday and joined together on the steps of Old City Hall to speak out against the rising incidence of hate crime. 

Having recently swayed San Francisco leaders to channel more city dollars into preventing and responding to acts of religious and racial hatred, the coalition representing five different ethnic advocacies is now urging the city of Berkeley to do the same. 

Their multi-racial campaign follows a rash of post-September 11 hate incidents in the Bay Area, including Berkeley where coalition members say the number of hate crimes over the past two years is on track to quadruple the historical average. 

A March incident in which letters with phony anthrax were mailed to Hispanic organizations and an April series of bomb threats to Jewish temples tally into the 15 hate crimes that have occurred in Berkeley over the past four months. 

Among the measures urged Monday by the multi-racial coalition are response training for police officers, teacher preparedness in schools and the creation of living-room discussion groups in Berkeley neighborhoods. 

“Everyone needs to buy in to creating a response together,” insisted Jill Tregor, executive director of Intergroup Clearinghouse and a co-founder of the coalition. She emphasized the importance of having anti-hate programs that would reach out to as much of the city as possible. 

While no specifics on how the city should proceed were laid out at Monday’s gathering, the activist pleas came just one day before Berkeley’s City Council is expected to consider a hate crime policy of its own authorship. 

Two proposals are on tonight’s council agenda. 

The first is sponsored by Councilmember Kriss Worthington and calls for the formation of a specialized police task force that would address hate crimes, much like exists in San Francisco and Oakland. 

The second proposal is sponsored by Mayor Shirley Dean and directs police to amend their schedules in order to prioritize prevention and investigation of hate crimes, though it stops short of creating an exclusive police unit. 

Worthington was on hand at Monday’s gathering where he drew fast support for his plan urging the separate crimes unit. 

While Worthington said the city can’t afford anything less, Dean, who has put crime-fighting at the forefront of her young re-election campaign, has said that an exclusive hate crime unit is beyond the city’s current financial means. 

Osama Qasem, president of the Bay Area chapter’s American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and a co-founder of the multiracial coalition, said that money spent fighting hate crime would pay for itself in other ways. 

“Keeping Berkeley’s reputation as a city of tolerance has a lot of economic value,” he noted. 

None of the hate-crime proposals has thus far identified a cost of implementation. 

Avoiding such details, the dozen or so activists at Monday’s gathering were staunch in their insistence that several minority groups be part of the effort to absolve hate. 

“The people who have been targeted have been a diversity of people,” said Mini Kahlon, representing the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, noting that uniting the various peoples would strengthen their political voice. 

The groups affirming the joint mission included the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, the Islamic Network Group, Chinese for Affirmative Action, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Intergroup Clearinghouse. 

Kahlon added that she would be pushing for more anti-crime programs in schools. “I think kids are getting hit particularly hard,” she said. 

She touted the Unlearning Hate program at Berkeley High School as a model for how other schools could use peer-counseling to address issues of race and religion. 

On hand with Councilmember Worthington was Councilmember Linda Maio who confirmed that the city was moving forward in its fight against hate crime. 

“What we’re engaged in is responding the way, I think, the community wants us to,” she said. 

City Council’s expected actions, in regard to hate crime, will be significant, Maio suggested, though she did not specify whether she favored creating a separate police unit or adding to existing police resources. 

Contact reporter at kurtis@berkeleydailyplanet.net

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. - Cal defeated Arizona State, 3-0, Sunday afternoon in the semifinals of the Women’s College World Series at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium to advance to its first-ever national championship game. It was also the Bears’ 55th win of the season, the most ever in the program’s 31-year existence.  

The Bears scored all three runs on one play in the bottom of the first inning. With two outs, runners ran on contact as freshman Jessica Pamanian’s dribbler to third was bare-handed by ASU’s Phelan Wright, who side-armed the throw off the mark to first. Freshman Kaleo Eldredge and junior Kristen Morley came in easily as right fielder Kristen Farber tried to field the ball off the fence along the first base line. Junior Jen Deering, who was pinch running for junior Veronica Nelson, crossed the plate when Farber attempted to throw out Pamanian at second.  

Senior pitcher Jocelyn Forest, who has pitched every game in the NCAA Tournament, threw her sixth one-hitter of the season and her 12th shutout of the year. In seven innings, she struck out four batters and walked none for her 34th complete game in 2002.  

Wright led off the top of the second inning with a bloop single to center field, but that’s all that the Sun Devils could muster. ASU had no other base runners after stranding Wright.  

Forest, who collected her personal-best 28th win of the season, didn’t dominate the Sun Devils’ lineup with strikeout after strikeout as she has done on many occasions this postseason, but instead, forced many batters into pop flies with a rise ball that jumped more than usual.  

Four different Bears collected hits on the day, including Eldredge (1-for-3), who is on a four-game hitting streak.  

Cal faces the winner of the second semifinal game between Florida State and Arizona. The Bears took two of three in the regular season from the 2001 defending national champion Wildcats, and won 1-0 against the Seminoles Friday.  

The national championship game is slated for Monday at 10:15 a.m., live on ESPN.

Historical Highlight 

On May 28, 1934, the Dionne quintuplets — Annette, Cecile, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne — were born to Elzire Dionne at the family farm in Ontario, Canada. 

On this date 

In 1533, England’s archbishop declared the marriage of King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn valid. 

In 1863, the first black regiment from the North left Boston to fight in the Civil War. 

In 1892, the Sierra Club was organized in San Francisco. 

In 1937, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington signaling that vehicular traffic could cross the just-opened Golden Gate Bridge in California. 

In 1937, Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Britain. 

In 1940, during World War II, the Belgian army surrendered to invading German forces. 

In 1972, the Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the English throne to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, died in Paris at age 77. 

In 1977, 165 people were killed when fire raced through the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky. 

In 1985, David Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, was abducted by pro-Iranian kidnappers (he was freed 17 months later). 

Ten years ago 

The United States offered $9 million in aid to victims of the fighting in former Yugoslavia. The House of Representatives voted to lift the government’s ban on using aborted fetuses for tissue transplantation research, but the tally fell short of a veto-proof majority. 

Five years ago 

In Denver, Timothy McVeigh’s attorneys rested their case in the Oklahoma City bombing trial. President Clinton paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan with a speech in the Netherlands in which he urged today’s leaders to revive economies in the former Soviet bloc. 

One year ago 

President Bush honored America’s veterans with the Memorial Day signing of legislation to construct a World War II monument on the National Mall. U.S. Rep. Joseph Moakley, D-Mass., died at age 74. 

Today’s Birthdays 

Actress Carroll Baker is 71. Actor John Karlen is 69. Basketball Hall-of-Famer Jerry West is 64. Singer Gladys Knight is 58. Singer Billy Vera is 58. Singer John Fogerty is 57. Country singer Gary Stewart is 57. Actress-director Sondra Locke is 55. Singer Roland Gift is 40. Actor Brandon Cruz (TV series “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”) is 40. Country singer Phil Vassar is 40. Rapper Chubb Rock is 34. Singer Kylie Minogue is 34. Actor Glenn Quinn (“Angel”) is 32. Actress Monica Keena is 23. Actor Joseph Cross is 16. 

To the Editor: 

I left south Vietnam in 1971. However, the last American soldier to die in that war was in 1976. I come to this wall often and always leave deeply disturbed as I watch my own reflection in the black marble, standing there reading the names: Euro American, Native American, Arab American, African American, Latino American, Asian American, and others all American.  

Panel after panel, tears still fall after all these years, my tears fall not just for these soldiers of an unfortunate war but for all men and women in uniform now poised in many countries and along many borders to fight for freedom.  

I cry also for the governments whose policies include war. While I was living in south Vietnam I learned a very important lesson: the Vietnamese always knew who to blame, not the American people, not the American soldier, but the American government.  

I cry today because the American people have not learned this lesson and are engaged in a process of hate-building directed against the people of many nations, rather than tackling tough issues of government reform.  

This lack of foresight will diminish our humanity as a nation, and in years to come we will only be remembered as warmongers.  

As I touch the stone and rub my fingers along the engravings I feel the anguish of each of these families and the families of people in uniform who die for the policies of their country not necessarily for freedom. 

Actually in 2002, I have trouble finding a war that is being fought for freedom, for oil, for religious pride, for land. but not for freedom.  

My tears get warmer in the Washington DC sun and I walk to the booth where veterans sell memorabilia.  

Looking for a particular bumper sticker my eyes fall on one that reads “ will go 10,000 miles to smoke out a camel.”  

I wipe my tears and move on knowing that I will be coming back to the wall for the rest of my life to pray, to reflect and to hope that maybe there will be peace sometime in the next seven generations and that all I can do is to work towards that goal every remaining, living day of my life.  

Boona Cheema 

Berkeley 

Wednesday, May 29

Paul Geremia 

Country Blues 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$15.50 advance, $16.50 at the door 

Thursday, May 30

Human Rights At Home and Abroad: A Strategy For Peace 

An educational forum to probe the relationship of the U.S. and the U.N. 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall of Humanity 

390 27th Street (between Broadway & Telegraph) 

Oakland 

Free 

Bob Dylan Song Night 

An evening of Dylan Songs revisited 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$12.50 advance, $13.50 at the door 

May 30- June 1

White Oak Dance Project 

Mikhail Baryshnikov & the White Oak Dance Project exploring the boundaries of modern dance. Three Berkeley performances.  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus  

Bancroft Way at Telegraph 

Tickets through Cal Performances 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

$36, $48, $62 and half-price to CAL students, $2 discount to others. 

Friday, May 31

Paramount Movie Classics-  

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, 1958 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature Film 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

$5 

Blue Riders of the Purple Sage 

Classic cowboy harmonies 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$16.50 advance, $17.50 at the door 

Saturday, June 1

50th anniversary of the Little Train at Tilden Regional Park 

Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas in Berkeley 

For more information, call 544-2200 

Sand Castle and Sand Sculpture Contest 

9 a.m. for participants registration 

9- 12 p.m. (Judging starts at noon) 

Crown Beach, Otis and Shore Line Drives 

Alameda 

For more information, call 521-6887 or 748-4565 

Free 

The Bluegrass Intentions 

Innovative traditionalists 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$16.50 advance, $17.50 at the door 

Sunday, June 2

Healing/Tibetan Yoga 

"Stimulating Healing and Renewal through Tibetan Yoga" 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

843-6812 

Free 

Ice Cream Social 

An annual school PTA fundraiser 

Rosa Parks Elementary School 

Noon to 4 p.m. 

Wednesday, May 29

Paul Geremia 

Country Blues 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$15.50 advance, $16.50 at the door 

Thursday, May 30

Human Rights At Home and Abroad: A Strategy For Peace 

An educational forum to probe the relationship of the U.S. and the U.N. 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall of Humanity 

390 27th Street (between Broadway & Telegraph) 

Oakland 

Free 

Bob Dylan Song Night 

An evening of Dylan Songs revisited 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$12.50 advance, $13.50 at the door 

May 30- June 1

White Oak Dance Project 

Mikhail Baryshnikov & the White Oak Dance Project exploring the boundaries of modern dance. Three Berkeley performances.  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus  

Bancroft Way at Telegraph 

Tickets through Cal Performances 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

$36, $48, $62 and half-price to CAL students, $2 discount to others. 

Friday, May 31

Paramount Movie Classics-  

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, 1958 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature Film 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

$5 

Blue Riders of the Purple Sage 

Classic cowboy harmonies 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$16.50 advance, $17.50 at the door 

Saturday, June 1

50th anniversary of the Little Train at Tilden Regional Park 

Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas in Berkeley 

For more information, call 544-2200 

Sand Castle and Sand Sculpture Contest 

9 a.m. for participants registration 

9- 12 p.m. (Judging starts at noon) 

Crown Beach, Otis and Shore Line Drives 

Alameda 

For more information, call 521-6887 or 748-4565 

Free 

The Bluegrass Intentions 

Innovative traditionalists 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$16.50 advance, $17.50 at the door 

Sunday, June 2

Healing/Tibetan Yoga 

"Stimulating Healing and Renewal through Tibetan Yoga" 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

843-6812 

Free 

Ice Cream Social 

An annual school PTA fundraiser 

Rosa Parks Elementary School 

Noon to 4 p.m. 

Free 

There is no Memorial Day parade through downtown Berkeley, but one local resident made sure people remembered there was a holiday to commemorate. 

Travis Ratliff, a UC Berkeley Student, did some errands around Shattuck and University Avenues Monday morning. His “Proud To Be American” hat and “We The People” shirt were regular attire, he insisted, but the 3’x5’ American flag he carried on a pole was for special occasions. 

“I believe in America,” said Ratliff, who has carried the flag through other cities on national holidays, but never before in Berkeley. 

“It’s been really great just walking around with the flag. I just passed a couple of homeless guys who started singing the national anthem when they saw me,” exclaimed Ratliff, who said that carrying the flag meant more to him since September 11. 

But Elsewhere in the city, Berkeleyans seemed more inclined to enjoy a day with friends and family, than flaunt their patriotism. 

“It’s nice to have a day off from school,” said Colin Epstein, a Berkeley High School Student. His sentiment was echoed by other students playing a baseball game in West Berkeley. 

At Ohlone Park, Pedro and Marrell Alvarez celebrated a rare day together with their toddler.  

“We are immigrants, and we don’t really celebrate this day at all except that it is a good opportunity to enjoy being together,” said Marrell, whose husband is a hotel worker, and often works on major holidays. 

Berkeleyans may not have been giving the usual answers about Memorial Day, but many enjoyed the traditional holiday activity. 

Barbecue grills at the Berkeley Marina and Aquatic Park were filled by late morning, forcing Jacy Lockhart and his friends to scramble to find an available spot. 

“We spent an hour and a half going from one park to another,” said Lockhart who finally found space at James Kenny Park. His barbecue was still being delayed, however, while he tried to contact four friends who had walked to the Marina to meet him.  

“Somewhere there are four guys wandering aimlessly looking for an open grill,” joked Lockhart. 

At Aquatic Park, several people enjoyed a pick-up game of frisbee golf, in which players try to throw the disc into a garbage bucket. Most of the players didn’t seem interested in the holiday.  

“I hope somebody cares, because I don’t, Nathan Smith said. 

One of his fellow players did care. Bob Mann served in the Marine Corps for three years in the 1980’s. “Today brings back a lot of memories,” said Mann who as a member of the Marine Corps honor guard, participated in memorial services for the corpses of 200 marines who had just been flown back after the soldiers were killed at their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.  

Despite Mann’s experience, he was not bothered by the Smith’s statement. “That’s why we were doing it, so you have the right to do what you want. Isn’t that the point,” Mann said. 

INDIANAPOLIS — Preening and playing to the cameras, Helio Castroneves enjoyed the spoils of winning the Indy 500. 

Plotting and refusing to abandon hope, runner-up Paul Tracy figured there’s still a chance he might be declared the real champion. 

It was Castroneves’ day Monday, however, after an Indy Racing League official rejected a protest filed by Tracy’s team and upheld the Brazilian’s disputed victory. 

League vice president of operations Brian Barnhart said there was no conclusive proof Tracy had pulled ahead of Castroneves by the time the yellow flag came out on the 199th lap of Sunday’s race. 

Issue closed? Not necessarily. 

Tracy’s team has five days to appeal. At the champion’s dinner Monday night, Tracy accepted the second-place award, but was talking as though he still has a chance at being named the winner. “I think the race might still be ongoing,” Tracy said.  

To the Editor: 

How absurd! The very idea! 

That was my reaction to the travesty of the attempt to chop up the UC Theatre into numerous units. 

Do they not realize what the personal and moral cost would be of obliterating this gem from the numerous landmarks of Berkeley? Granted, it is somewhat seedy to a degree, but that can be corrected with the right amounts of vision and foresight. Thank goodness for people like Steven Finacom (May 23)---Berkeley's planners could do far worse than considering his remarks. 

Dividing the UC into numerous---boxes---would not be any kind of smart "progress;" rather, it would simply be another sad chapter of the blandification of our society, which we hardly need more of.  

This would be especially ironic in Berkeley's case, for there is at least one Berkeley example of one former landmark theater that's now a sad ghost of what it once was---remember the UA (United Artists)? 

Garrett Murphy 

Oakland

Don Nunes didn’t know where he was going to sleep last night. As a truck driver making a stop in the Bay Area, his choices are severely limited. 

His options will dwindle even further, if the Berkeley City Council passes a proposed measure on Tuesday to install “No Overnight Parking” signs on University Avenue west of the freeway exchange. 

For truckers such as Nunes, that stretch of road, which splits portions of the proposed Eastshore State Park and is located right next to the Interstate 80 on-ramps, is an popular overnight spot. 

“This seems like a reasonable place,” said Nunes, who claimed he had never stayed overnight on the street. 

Councilmembers are expected to disagree with his assessment. Two are already on record stating that the makeshift truck stop is not appropriate on a city street next to a proposed state park. 

“I don’t think its a terrible problem, but it will be if we don’t nip it in the bud,” said Councilmember Betty Olds, who sponsored the measure.  

According to Olds, there are usually at least two or three trucks pulled to the side of the road every night. Often the trucker will deposit the container at a warehouse and park the truck cabin on the street. 

“I go to the Marina a couple of times a week, and the trucks look awful along University Avenue,” Olds said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington agreed with Olds, calling the sight of the truck cabins a blight. “I always feel so upset that all these gigantic trucks are ironically parked next to a sign that says ‘coming soon Eastshore State Park’.” 

Nunes understands the councilmembers’ position.  

“Some truckers abuse what is available,” said Nunes, who acknowledged that some of his cohorts occasionally leave their diesel engines running while they are pulled over to work their range and television.  

Berkeley would not be the first state to impose regulations inhibiting truckers from staying overnight on city streets. 

According to Nunes, during the last several years cities across the country have tightened overnight parking rules, but that restrictions in the Bay Area are particularly burdensome because there are no official sites to spend the night.  

“There aren’t too many stops around here,” said Nunes, who was considering parking his truck overnight at abandoned lot in Pleasanton. According to Nunes, if he didn’t choose the Pleasanton lot, the closest full service truck stop is near Modesto. 

Olds understood the drivers’ plight, but thinks the parking restrictions are necessary. “I do sort of feel sorry for them, but not so sorry that I want a bunch of truck cabs on University Avenue.” 

The measure is on the council’s consent calendar, and is expected to be approved. If it passes, Olds estimated that the “No Overnight Parking” signs could be in place within a week. 

SACRAMENTO — No matter what the Sacramento Kings believe, Kobe Bryant knows it’s more than luck keeping the Los Angeles Lakers on track for their third straight championship. 

With Robert Horry’s riveting 3-pointer at the buzzer in Game 4, the Lakers won 100-99 Sunday to even the Western Conference finals heading to Game 5 at Arco Arena on Tuesday night. 

The Kings, who blew a 24-point lead, were mystified and infuriated by the twist of fate that sent the loose ball straight toward Horry at the 3-point arc. 

If not for that bounce, the Kings said repeatedly, Los Angeles would be on the ropes in a series that’s living up to the expectations of those who think it will decide the NBA title. 

“I don’t think it matters whether they think it was a lucky shot or not,” Bryant said Monday. “I think it was a combination of skill and a little luck, which we earned because we worked to get back in the game.” 

That hard work — including Bryant’s physical defensive play after he was matched up with Kings point guard Mike Bibby — set the stage for a turn of momentum that could crumple the Kings. 

“It was a big shot, and it’ll always be remembered,” Kings guard Doug Christie said. “But it’s easier to forget in the playoffs. Plus, there’s only one day in between. We’ll get past it.” 

That’s easier said than done. The Kings spent Monday bolstering their collective mental state, which was sorely tested by Horry’s shot. Sacramento led for nearly 47 minutes, from the first three baskets until the moment Horry’s shot settled in the net. 

“It’s a recovery process from a loss like that,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “You have to deal with it, and however they deal with it is how they’re going to move on from there.” 

The outcome was another affirmation of the sense of destiny that follows any team with two championships. Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal both said they had no doubt Horry’s shot would fall — though neither superstar looked away from the hoop. 

Jackson was worried in the seconds preceding Horry’s shot. On the final possession, Bryant missed on a drive into the lane and O’Neal was short on a putback. Either shot would have tied the score. Then Vlade Divac blindly batted the ball to Horry. 

Destiny, Jackson knows, won’t take a team very far if its stars can’t come through in such situations. 

“Shaq could have been rushed or tired. I didn’t ask him,” Jackson said.  

To the Editor: 

Hanan Eisenman, a spokesperson of the UC Berkeley president's office has told the press that two U.C. students were dropped from the overseas study program after being arrested and detained by the Israeli army at a protest outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (they are still in Israeli custody). 

Bethlehem, some readers may recall, is not in Israel and Israel has no legal jurisdiction to arrest anyone there for protesting anything.  

Though the students were disenrolled for “violating University directives”, I wonder how Mr. Eisenman justifies to himself deserting these young people “for their own protection” in a time of great peril to them? Perhaps it is easier for him if he is a Zionist, or not a parent. Regardless, it is always a wonder to me that people like Mr. Eisenman are willing to take good money to act like fools while covering for the callousness of their bosses.  

Someday, I hope, humans will, as a species, grow beyond such betrayal and self-denigration. 

Marc Sapir 

Berkeley

RIVERSIDE — A University of California, Riverside student, who had been detained by Israel after trying to provide humanitarian aid to armed Palestinians during a church siege in Bethlehem, was back in the United States on Monday, his father said. 

Nauman Zaidi was released Sunday from an Israeli prison and deported to New York along with UC Berkeley student Robert O’Neill, 21, who had joined the 26-year-old Zaidi in Bethlehem. 

“We are naturally very happy,” Zaidi’s father, Nasim Zaidi, said Monday. “We supported the action he took. We are really proud of him.” 

Zaidi and O’Neill were among 10 activists removed from the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank on May 10 as the standoff between armed Palestinians and Israeli soldiers ended after 39 days.  

Zaidi and O’Neill had entered the church a month after the siege started.  

The activists were carrying food to 150 Palestinian militants and civilians, including clerics, in the church. 

Zaidi and four other Americans had been detained in Massiyahu Prison while they fought the terms of their deportation, the U.S. State Department said earlier this month. 

University officials said Zaidi, a biology student, broke rules banning students studying overseas from traveling to the West Bank for safety reasons. Zaidi and O’Neill had been studying at UC’s Cairo program when they went to the church. They have since been dropped from the program. 

The students have not been expelled and only will need to fill out some forms to gain readmission to their schools, said a UC spokesman. 

Students at UC Riverside last week described Zaidi as a hero and demanded he be allowed back into school. The elder Zaidi said university officials told him “they would be more than happy to take him back.” 

Nasim Zaidi added that his son could return to Cairo to finish a few weeks of religious studies at the American University. He expected his son to return to the family’s Rancho Cucamonga home in late June. 

To the Editor: 

Ms. Block appears to have gotten the mean edge of the Berkeley media 

censorship wedge. Sure, Susan Block, EdD., whose books and articles are in public libraries' collections, aren't the greatest production-wise (I recommend OXYGEN Network's Sue Johanson's Sunday Night Sex Show). The real irony is that B-TV has been airing and citizens apparently not objecting to the rampant sexism conveyed in the Isla Vista RAW material. Isla Vista is a community adjacent to Santa Barbara and the University of California, Santa Barbara; most inhabitants are affiliated with the University of California.  

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

Berkeley

BERKELEY — Officials at the University of California at Berkeley say they are  

pleased with preliminary enrollment numbers, which show that a record number of students have signed up to take summer courses. 

The university's summer session starts Tuesday. Figures collected so far indicate that nearly 40 percent of those enrolled will be students at UC universities, marking a record. 

The figure is based on enrollment data, which show that so far 9,000 students have signed up to participate in the five schooling sessions offered during the summer. On average, 25 percent of those who enroll in summer sessions are students from UC Berkeley or other UC schools. 

The numbers are encouraging, summer school officials say, because it could help meet the university's goals of providing education to the so-called “Tidal Wave II” students -- which will add as many as 60,000 students, a 40 percent increase, to the UC system by 2010. 

Officials say that summer session enrollment is one way that the school can offer services to more students while maintaining a manageable size and meeting enrollment caps reached in agreements with the city of Berkeley 

Officials say that a reason for the spike in summer enrollment may be that the state legislature once again has provided money that allows the university to waive the $325 dollar enrollment and lab fees for UC students.

ARCATA — Eric Striedieck’s team was making good time in the race when disaster struck — the 10-foot, human-powered sculpture they were piloting over Humboldt Bay sank, and they were overtaken by a 14-foot iguana. 

A bizarre, recurring bad dream? No, it’s the Kinetic Sculpture Race, Humboldt County’s wacky 34-year-old tradition of racing people-powered art. 

Racers in this raucous three-day, 38-mile event take months to design and craft their vehicles — most of which resemble pontoons strapped to a bicycle, topped with a papier-mache mascot. The creations must survive highway driving, sand dunes, mud flats and two water crossings — the ultimate challenge for many of the artistic contraptions. 

If they don’t make it, racers always can try for the next-best prize: best bribe. 

Striedieck’s team, the Bikin’ Fools, a group of mountain-biking friends from Calistoga, returned this Memorial Day weekend — one of 43 entries in the race, which begins in Arcata and ends in Ferndale, nearly 300 miles north of San Francisco. Racers were gearing up to complete the final leg Monday. 

It is, said Striedieck, a “grand exercise in serious frivolity. It provides a great escape from the heaviness of the world otherwise.” 

The first Kinetic Sculpture Race was held in 1969, when Ferndale artist and gallery owner Hobart Brown challenged a handful of artists to build and race mobile sculptures. Since then, Brown’s creation has inspired 11 other races in California, Maryland, Oregon and as far away as Australia and Poland, and brings in about $2 million annually to Humboldt County. 

In late 2001, Brown turned the day-to-day operations over to a nonprofit organization, the Humboldt Kinetic Association. The “Glorious Founder” remains involved as a consultant. 

SACRAMENTO — After vetoing workers’ compensation reforms for three years, Gov. Gray Davis this year declared the legislation long overdue and signed the labor-friendly bill into law. 

Why the change? 

Finally, Davis said, he received a reasonable compromise after the first, second and third measures would have cost businesses and insurers too much. 

This year, the fourth workers’ compensation bill he received was a reasonable compromise that benefits both workers and business had finally been reached, Davis said. 

While labor and business representatives agree the bill was a compromise, some political observers said the flip flop had more to do with Davis’ incremental approach to government and his uncanny ability to wring the most political dollars out of every player involved in an issue. 

“It’s an election year. Doesn’t this make him look like a good guy?” said Cher McIntyre, director of advocacy for San Francisco-based Consumer Action. “It’s pretty straightforward that Davis is going to do what’s politically expedient.” 

On the road to workers’ compensation reform, Davis collected more than $20 million in campaign contributions from labor unions, the insurance industry, attorneys groups and business interests that all have a stake in workers’ compensation costs. 

But labor’s $4 million in contributions didn’t seem to sway the governor, said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Council. 

“As an insider, I have to honestly say that it is remarkable how little money seems to influence his decisions,” Pulaski said. “That frustrates a lot of people who give money.” 

It also may make fund-raising easier for Davis, who avoids excluding any interest. 

Davis wouldn’t have won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination four years ago without union support, but when he reached office, labor leaders criticized him for ignoring their priorities. Each workers’ compensation veto came as “big disappointments,” said Pulaski. This year, Davis’ ability to reform workers’ compensation will certainly be touted as a reason for workers to re-elect him, he said. 

Like Pulaski, Stanley Zax, chairman of Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Zenith Insurance Co., the state’s fourth-largest provider of workers’ compensation insurance, said the $200,000 he’s given Davis during the past four years didn’t buy political influence, just an opportunity to be heard. 

“I don’t contribute to anybody who doesn’t come to my office and sit down and talk to me about different issues, but the governor makes his own decisions,” said Zax, who has donated more than $1 million to a variety of campaigns in California since 1998. “I never had a discussion with him about whether he should sign or not sign a workers’ compensation bill. Never.” 

Money just gives him a chance to share his ideas, Zax said. 

“There ain’t nobody I know who’s willing to come talk to me about public policy because my name is Stanley Zax and I’m just sitting here,” he said. “Obviously they want money for their campaign. I don’t find that but kind of the logical end result of our system.” 

Davis has repeatedly said that contributions help him run for office, but do nothing to influence his political decisions. 

Workers’ compensation laws ensure that employees who are hurt at work get a fixed amount of money to avoid lawsuit. The laws also provide benefits for dependents of workers hurt or killed on the job. 

Insurance companies and major employers in California had opposed the increases, arguing that they would cost them too much, while labor representatives said their workers needed to be assured of more money if hurt. 

For more than a decade, workers’ compensation has been a sore issue in state politics. In 1991, under Gov. Pete Wilson, workers’ compensation emerged as the sticking point in the prolonged budget debate with Wilson charging that the Legislature had been “corrupted” by campaign contributions over the issue. 

Fred Main, general counsel for the California Chamber of Commerce, said he was more surprised at Davis’ three years of vetoes than the signed law this spring. 

“Davis is a Democrat,” Main said. “Democrats are concerned about the impact of organized labor. Organized labor was a strong supporter for the change. The governor wants to make sure his base is strong for him.” 

The new reforms, which take effect on Jan. 1, 2003, will eventually pump an extra $2.5 billion into the statewide compensation system, raising maximum benefits for injured workers from today’s $490 a week to $602 next year and $840 in 2006. After 2006, automatic hikes would follow the state’s average wage increases. The bill also doubles death benefits to a maximum of $320,000. 

While the increases are significant, the bill only raises California from 49th to about 40th in the country in terms of the level of benefits. 

Doug Heller, an advocate at the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica, Calif., said Davis faced “severe embarrassment” this year if he vetoed it again because there was a serious threat of a ballot initiative. 

In addition, although opposed by the insurance industry, the reforms were structured in a way that they aren’t going to have a major financial impact on insurers or large businesses. 

“It was a palatable compromise for all parties,” said Nicole Mahrt, spokeswoman for the American Insurance Association. 

Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies, said Davis realizes he can raise as much money as he wants. 

“But to solidify his support, he needs labor,” Stern said. “These are people who get out the votes, and in an election year, votes are even more important than money.” 

LOS ANGELES — AIDS Healthcare Foundation, one of the largest providers of specialized care for HIV patients in the United States, said it will bar GlaxoSmithKline from marketing drugs at its outpatient sites to protest the company’s pricing policies. 

Although the British-based company offers reduced prices for AIDS drugs sold in the developing world, the foundation claims the drug manufacturer still charges twice as much as its competitors — an allegation GlaxoSmithKline counters by noting it makes no profits on those sales. 

By barring GlaxoSmithKline sales representatives from its physicians’ offices, the foundation hopes to block the main channel the company uses to inform doctors directly about new products. 

“Glaxo’s actions have put it outside the bounds of corporate responsibility,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the foundation that serves thousands of patients in California, New York and Florida. 

The cost to treat a single AIDS patient with a combination of Glaxo drugs is nearly $2,000 a year but easily could be cut to $500, according to Cesar Portillo, a foundation spokesman. He said increasing the availability of the drugs would go a long way to reducing the death toll from AIDS. 

Many pharmaceutical companies discount drugs in the developing world, and GlaxoSmithKline acknowledges that some generic AIDS drugs do sell in the developing world for half the price of its comparable products. 

But the company said it has reduced prices by as much as 90 percent and does not make money on AIDS medications is sells to the developing world. 

“You have to cover your basic costs of manufacturing,” spokeswoman Nancy Pekarek said. “You can’t just give it away for the long term. You have to ensure there’s going to be a stable supply.” 

Pekarek said she regretted the foundation’s move, but did not expect it will have any effect on the company’s sales force. 

GlaxoSmithKline charges $2 for a day’s supply of Combivir tablets, a combination of the drugs AZT and 3TC. A generic version costs about $1. In the United States the list price for Combivir is $17.23 a day, Pekarek said. 

The foundation said it also targeted GlaxoSmithKline for failing to make any major charitable donation to help people with AIDS in the developing world. 

Pekarek said the charge is false and that between 1992 and 2001 the company donated $55 million to groups that provide education, care and support to AIDS patients in some 50 developing countries. 

One of the world’s largest drug companies, GlaxoSmithKline produces prescription drugs such as the anti-depressant Paxil, and over-the-counter products, such as Aquafresh toothpaste. 

VACAVILLE — In a gleaming drug factory rising out of a California pasture, thousands of genetically engineered Chinese hamster cells multiply into the billions as they snake through 20 miles of pipes, tubes and giant brewers’ vats called “bioreactors.” 

Through a series of filters and chemical reactions, the human proteins created in these hamster ovary cells are sucked out, purified and turned into the blockbuster cancer drug Herceptin as well as two other protein-based therapies. 

Combined with another factory in South San Francisco, the new plant gives Genentech Inc., the ability to brew in about a month nearly 200,000 liters worth of hamster cells spliced with human genes. 

These hardy cells are the industry standard for manufacturing protein-based drugs because of their ability to multiply quickly. 

And nobody brews more cells than Genentech, which controls half the world’s bioreactor capacity. Its position is so dominant that Amgen Inc., the world’s largest biotech company, is leaning on No. 2 Genentech for manufacturing help. 

“That’s a great position to be in,” said David Ebersman, a Genentech senior vice president in charge of operations. 

Demand for the 30 protein-based drugs now on the market far outstrips the industry’s production capacity. And with a good portion of the 99 protein-based drugs now in late-stage human trials expected to hit the market soon, the shortage will get much worse before it gets any better. 

By 2005, the industry will need about four times the capacity it has now, predicts analyst David Molowa of J.P. Morgan Chase. He and other analysts aren’t optimistic that future demand will immediately be met. 

The expansion plans of a handful of companies, such as Cambridge, Mass.-based Biogen Inc., which is building a 120,000-liter plant in North Carolina, will still leave more demand than capacity, Molowa said. 

There simply are not enough of the large, brewery-like fermenters to go around. 

Some companies are exploring creative solutions, experimenting with growing the human proteins in tobacco and other plants, and in the milk of goats and cows. But any breakthroughs in these “transgenic” experiments are at least a decade away. 

SACRAMENTO — Proposed state budget cuts could leave local governments scrambling for cash to prevent slashing services, and some officials say raising the sales tax may be an unpleasant, but necessary, option. 

Officials in the San Francisco Bay area and across the state acknowledged that the local ability to tack on as much as a cent and a half of sales tax per dollar in some counties is the only way to boost revenues quickly on their own. 

For most urban counties, a sales tax hike could generate tens of millions of dollars a year. But even the slightest mention of such an increase raises hackles. 

“Increasing taxes during an economic downturn is one of the most damaging actions that California can take,” said Larry McCarthy, president of the California Taxpayers’ Association. “Tax and fee increases will only retard economic recovery.” 

Talk of a sales tax hike comes less than 18 months after the state cut the tax rate a quarter-cent in 2001 because it had built a huge budget surplus. 

The state had to reinstate a quarter-percent of its basic sales tax rate on Jan. 1, after reducing it for just a year. The rate automatically went down while the state’s budget surplus exceeded revenues by 3 percent but went back up amid the burgeoning deficit. 

The state imposes a basic, combined state and local sales tax of 7.25 percent on most retail transactions, such as purchases of clothing, household goods and cars. Of that, 5 percent goes to the state’s general fund, and the cities and counties divide the rest. 

Local elected officials in many counties and a few cities, with the approval of voters, have boosted the sales tax in small, varying increments to an average of about 8 percent statewide. But local officials can increase it further to a state-mandated cap of 8.75 percent in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and to 9 percent in San Francisco and 9.25 percent in San Mateo County, because of provisions tied to earlier sales-tax augmentation measures. 

“These are dire times,” said Alameda County Board of Supervisors President Scott Haggerty. “If anything on the magnitude of what we’re going through this year continues into the next fiscal year, then I think that’s when you’re forced to have to convince the voters that you need help.” 

Representatives of the California State Association of Counties and the California League of Cities said sales tax increases would bring in much more money than increases in governments’ other limited, fund-raising options, such as user fees and service charges. 

State and local revenues stem principally from taxes, such as those on corporate and personal income and on property, over which local governments have little or no control. 

“There’s not much else,” said Jean Korinke of the League of California Cities. “It’s (sales tax) one of the few sources of revenue that they (local officials and voters) could possibly impact directly.” 

And sales taxes are a substantial source of income, providing nearly 10 percent of county tax revenue and about a third of cities’ general-purpose tax funds, according to state tax and finance agencies. If each county in the state raised its sales tax a quarter of a cent, $1.2 billion would be generated for local governments. 

But any mention of a tax increase is like a declaration of war to business and taxpayer groups, already upset by the $2 billion in tobacco tax and vehicle license fee increases that Gov. Gray Davis has proposed to help close a $23.6 billion deficit in the $98.9 billion budget for 2002-03. 

WASHINGTON — The widespread detention of mostly Arabs and Muslims after the September terrorist attacks has hurt America’s ability to criticize human rights violations in other countries, Amnesty International charges in a report being released Tuesday. 

The annual report on worldwide human rights violations criticized the indefinite detainment of more than 1,100 individuals since the attacks in New York and Washington. 

The actions have been taken in an attempt to find links to terrorists, but eight months after the attacks only a handful of individuals have been charged with a crime. 

“Citizens around the world suffer the consequences when the U.S. defaults on its responsibility to promote human rights,” said William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA. 

Schulz said the actions of the U.S. government as part of its war on terrorism “provide a de facto green light for other nations to ignore fundamental human rights standards.” 

In addition to the detention of hundreds of Arabs in the United States, the human rights groups accused the Bush administration of “selective recognition” of the Geneva Convention which governs the treatment of prisoners in time of war. 

The group criticized the refusal of the Bush administration to classify the Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay as prisoners of war. It also scolded the administration for leaving open the possibility of bringing some of the Guantanamo prisoners before military tribunals. 

Separately, the report documented a decline in the number of countries that used the death penalty, from 40 countries in 1997 to 27 last year, including the United States. And the group also found a decrease in the number of nations using torture on prisoners, from 90 percent in 2000 to 73 percent last year. 

WASHINGTON — Broccoli and broccoli sprouts contain a chemical that kills the bacteria responsible for most stomach cancer, say researchers, confirming the dietary advice that moms have been handing out for years. 

In laboratory tests the chemical, sulforaphane, killed helicobacter pylori, a bacteria that causes stomach ulcers and often fatal stomach cancers. 

And the good news is there appears to be enough of it in broccoli sprouts and some varieties of broccoli to benefit people who eat the vegetables. 

“The levels at which we tested it ... are such that those could be achieved by eating broccoli or broccoli sprouts. It’s a reasonable level that we think would be reached in the stomach,” said Jed W. Fahey of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 

The findings are reported in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 

“I feel quite comfortable suggesting people eat more fruits and vegetables, specifically cruciferous vegetables, specifically broccoli,” Fahey said. “We know it’s safe and healthy ... we know sulforaphane is effective in protecting against cancers.” 

Dr. Paul Talalay, a co-researcher at Johns Hopkins, had previously reported sulforaphane is an effective anticancer agent and the new studies extended that work to the bacteria that causes stomach cancer and ulcers. In the lab, the scientists found that sulforaphane even killed helicobacter that was resistant to commonly used antibiotics. They also showed it can kill the bacterium whether it’s inside or outside cells. 

REDDING — After five hours traveling at night, four paraplegic climbers have gained 1,200 feet on Mount Shasta by using special handcranked machines. 

The machine, called a “Snowpod,” as well as a support team of more than a dozen people, should help the four reach the summit of the 14,162-foot mountain in four to five days. 

The climbers were at 8,100 feet Monday afternoon and hoped to reach 10,400 feet Tuesday. The team traveled at night so the snow would be firm enough for the Snowpods to carry the climbers. Snowpods climb about 200 feet every hour. 

The climbers include Pete Rieke, who invented the Snowpod; Salt Lake Paralympics silver medalist Muffy Davis; Mark Wellman, who in 1999 became the first paraplegic to scale El Capitan and Half Dome at Yosemite National Park using only his arms; and Keegan Reilly, who last year used a custom-built four-wheeled bicycle to summit Mount Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado. 

The University of California has offered to curtail mandatory overtime for its nurses and shift from a merit pay system to one based on seniority, marking a major shift in the contract squabble between the two sides. 

“The proposal we gave them represents significant movement on their priority items,” said UC spokesman Paul Schwartz. “The ball’s in their court.” 

UC made the offer, which also includes 19 to 25 percent pay increases over three years, but does not move on union demands for negotiated nurse-to-patient ratios, on Wednesday. 

The university made the proposal public Thursday afternoon, just as negotiations began. As of the Planet’s deadline Thursday night, there was no indication of an agreement and the union still planned to engage in a one-day strike May 29. 

The university is facing mounting political pressure to resolve the dispute.  

Twenty-four legislators submitted a letter to UC Monday morning asserting that “the registered nurses of the UC system are its backbone” and warning “if they are not treated fairly and leave their jobs, the whole system will be at risk.” 

“Legislators and elected officials, because of our relationship with the state, are clearly a key constituency,” acknowledged Schwartz. “But the bottom line is that we, first and foremost, are trying to get to a settlement that serves patients and serves employees.” 

Charles Idelson, spokesman for the California Nurses Association, which represents the 8,000 nurses at UC hospitals and student health care centers, trumpeted the university’s shift on merit pay. 

“There has been an historic breakthrough in the notorious merit structure,” said Idelson. “It took the power of 8,000 nurses threatening to strike to finally knock some sense into the university.” 

The union has long contended that the merit-based pay system – rooted in evaluations of employee performance – is subject to the arbitrary analysis of managers. They have called for the “step-based” model, embraced by the university Wednesday, that would pay nurses according to experience. 

Before this week university officials have defended merit pay, arguing that the system encourages quality care and keeps the UC hospitals competitive. 

“Taking the union’s stated priorities to heart, we reconsidered that,” said Schwartz. 

Schwartz added that the university will retain the right to make lump-sum payments to nurses, on top of their step pay, for quality service.  

Ideson said he was skeptical of the university’s proposal to require overtime only when a patient’s health may be at risk or in the event of an emergency. Idelson said the offer was filled with “significant loopholes.” 

“What constitutes an emergency is not some manager’s failure to plan properly,” he said. “An emergency is an earthquake.” 

Schwartz contended that the offer marked a significant movement toward the union, and said he expected the California Nurses Association to bargain in good faith.  

The university is holding fast on its refusal to set nurse-patient ratios in the contract. The state legislature recently mandated ratios and the California Department of Health is working on regulations that would set the actual figures. Schwartz said UC will wait on the state figures, which should be issued by July 2003, and will not agree to independent ratios in a labor contract. 

Donna Nicholas, a registered nurse at UC Berkeley’s student health center who serves on the negotiating team, said the union wants to lock down ratios in the contract because the hospital industry is working to “water down” the state ratios due out next year. “This has huge implications for the health of California residents,” Nicholas said. 

Schwartz said the university would consider a May 29 strike a violation of the state’s Higher Education Employee Relations Act since the union has not exhausted all negotiating options. UC plans to seek a temporary restraining order against the nurses to prevent the strike. 

“We disagree with their position,” Ideson responded. “In our interpretation, it is absolutely a legal strike.” 

The university may also sue the union for financial losses resulting from the strike, Schwartz said. The university has already begun to divert patients in preparation for May 29, he said, and may have to cancel some surgical procedures. “All of that adds up to a significant impact – on patients, on communities and on UC,” he said. 

Contact reporter: scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

I appreciated the story by Kurtis Alexander in the Tuesday May 21 Daily Planet regarding the actions of a neighborhood group in response to the death of a pedestrian in Berkeley. However, I wanted to point out an important error-Kurtis Alexander's story wrongly states "Bennett's death represents the first pedestrian fatality in Berkeley in nearly a decade..." 

At least one other pedestrian, Jayne Ash, was killed in Berkeley while crossing a street within the past ten years. Ms. Ash was crossing Shattuck Ave. at Hearst St. when she was struck by a cement pumping truck in March, 2001.  

I believe there was yet another pedestrian death on Shattuck Ave. at Virginia St. a few years earlier. And, this is not a comprehensive list! 

The City of Berkeley commissioned a report a few years ago that cites statistics- Berkeley has the highest rate of pedestrian and bicyclist injuries compared to similar-sized cities in CA!  

Lisa Pascopella, PhD, MPH 

Berkeley 

xIf you think Elvis Costello, the once kingpin of Punk and New Wave angst, has stifled his sharp tongue and rocking sensibilities in favor of just collaborating with the likes of Burt Bachrach and Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter only, think again. Costello proved beyond a doubt where his musical roots lay at a recent show at the Berkeley Community Theater. He showed the crowd that though his musical styles have expanded beyond the fast-paced, witty lyrics of his early career, his origins of being a great rock 'n' roll songwriter and a captivating performer are still perfectly intact. 

With his new band, The Imposters-which features half of the original Attractions, Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve, while replacing bassist Bruce Thomas in favor of Davey Faragher-the forty-seven-year-old Costello powered through an almost two-and-a-half-hour set of music. With more than 20 years of music to his credit, Costello chose some rarities that he hasn't played in a long time or never played in concert before. Songs such as “Beyond Belief,” “Man Out Of Time,” and “You Little Fool,” in which Costello remarked that he had never played on stage, were able to cause some actual gasps of happiness from the crowd.  

Other songs he hadn't played in years included “I Hope You're Happy Now,” “Clowntime Is Over” and “High Fidelity.” He even the did the obligatory classics such as “Pump It Up,” “Watching The Detectives” and “I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea.” 

Thankfully he left out “Alison” and “The Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoes,” which probably aggravated the fans who only came to hear him replay his first two albums. They forget that he has a vast selection of songs to choose from, many of which can spin circles around those two songs. Instead Costello brought out nuggets from the past, even reworking some of them-such as in the case of “Waiting Until The End Of The World” or the powerful “I Want You.” 

But even though those songs were tasty treats, the main highlights were the songs he played off his new album “When I Was Cruel.” From his opening tune “45,” which he last played acoustically at the Oakland Paramount on his last tour through the Bay Area, to the mesmerizing “15 Petals,” a love song that Costello says in a recent “Rolling Stone” interview “is about the way love picks you up and hurls you around room,” he was able to bring the audience up to date on what he thinks about love, his current age and rock 'n' roll. 

Speaking of rock 'n' roll, on one of his new songs, “Spooky Girlfriend,” Costello joked with the crowd that the song was a modern morality tale about a “showbiz weasel and his protege, who looks like a German porn star and likes color-coded credit cards with matching shoes . . . I think she's here tonight.” The song has lyrics that say “I want a girl to turn my screw/To wind my watch, to buckle my shoe/And if she won't her mother will do/But when she does as she's told/We'll all turn platinum and gold.”  

In this song, and in many others off his last few albums, Costello has been able to transform his voice into a working instrument. Where once he shouted and shoved as many lyrics into a song as he could, now he takes his time and lets his voice tell more of the stories he's trying to get across. Costello, dressed in a black suit and with his hair now receding and buzzed, sang most of the other songs off his new album, too, including the title track, “When I Was Cruel No. 2,” “Tart,” and the haunting “Radio Silence.” He left the crowd, which was made up people both young and those who looked like they've followed his career from the start and were even wearing ear plugs up in the balcony, with three encores. The opening band was the Boston-based quartet American Hi-Fi. The band, which is led by former Aimee Mann drummer Stacy Jones, played just over a half-hour set. They sounded like a cross between the bands Green Day, Oasis and with a little bit of Smashing Pumpkins mixed in. Their song “Another Perfect Day” is currently getting airplay on both radio and television.

Friday, May 2

Fiddle Down the FBI! 

Rally to Commemorate the 12th Anniversary of the car bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney and Celebrate the end of their federal civil rights trial against the FBI and Oakland Police Department. 

Noon 

Oakland Federal Building 

13th and Clay St., near 12th St BART stop 

Bring musical instruments 

663-6330, www.judibari.org 

Cherokee Artist: John Balloue 

paintings depict scenes from historic & contemporary Cherokee history, as well as pow-wow and spiritual images. 

Gathering Tribes 

1573 Solano Ave. 

528-9038 or www.gatheringtribes.com 

Saturday, May 25

Word Beat Reading Series 

All kinds of entertainers come together. Featuring Kera Abraham and Ruth Levitan 

7-9 p.m. 

458 Perkins at Grand, Oakland 

Free 

Alice Waters "Chez Panisse Fruit" book signing 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Children's Movies 

Pinnochio (in English) 

Shows at noon & 2 p.m. 

The Actor's Studio 

3521 Maybelle Ave. 

Oakland 

510-530-0551 

$3 

6th Annual Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival 

Everyone's welcome to participate in covering Solono's sidewalks with chalk art. Featuring refreshments and entertainment. Artist's chalk and a Polaroid of the finished work are available for a fee. To encourage early registration, a raffle for merchandise by local business will be held for the artists at noon.  

Registration at Peralta Park, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., 1561 Solano Ave. Berkeley. 

For more information: 510-527-5358, www.solanoave.org. 

Free 

Cain & Abel- 1st Annual Stop the Violence Gospel Festival 

In Memory of Children Killed by Senseless Violence 

St. Andrews Baptist Church Gospel Choir, Family in Unity Gospel Choir, Our lady of Lourdes’ Men Gospel Choir, Lorrain Taylor, Michael Nelson, Praise Dancers, Testimonials, Display of Homicide Quilt, presentation by Students of Malcolm X Academy, Sermon by Rev. Ishmael Burch Jr., LeDoursey’s “Gone But Not Forgotten” Sky, Ronald DeVoyce Blackburn’s From-the-Cradle-to-the- Grave memorial candles, The Homicide Names Banner and Holman “Bob” Turner’s photographs of parents at the graveside or location where their child was killed. 

Noon- 6 p.m. 

St. Andrews Baptist Church 

2565 Post Street (at Lyon) 

San Francisco 

415- 292-5157 or 415-346-6500 

Free- contributions and donations appreciated 

Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 

Chalking takes place on Saturday only. Viewing the artwork all week end. 

Chocolate Festival begins by picking up a chocolate menu from business on Solano Ave. flying a festival banner. Chocolates are available for purchase from merchants as you stroll. Professor Gizmo, a one-man -band on Saturday from 2-4 at Peralta park and Berkeley Police operation Kid-print will be set up for finger printing your kids to keep in a file at home. Dog Fashion Show on Sunday at Solano & Key Route at 2 p.m., all animals must pre-register at 236-0588. Pet adoptions in Peralta Park 11:30-2:30 p.m., Sunday. Solano Avenue Gift Certificate Raffle anytime from May 22-29. Winner drawn May 29. 

The entire length of Solano Avenue, Berkeley & Albany 

19th Annual Himalayan Fair 

Outdoor celebration of the great Mountain Cultures! Authentic Himalayan Art, craft, Music & Dance, exotic food & stage entertainment. Benefits Himalayan Grassroots projects. 

Sat. 10-7, Sun. 10-5:30 

Live Oak Park 

Shattuck & Berryman 

$5-$7 Donation 

unday, May 26

Prayer to Shakyamuni Buddha 

A traditional prayer and meditation  

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

843-6812 

Free 

Children's Movies 

Pinnochio (in Spanish) 

Shows at 1 & 3 p.m. 

The Actor's Studio 

3521 Maybelle Ave. 

Oakland 

510-530-0551 

$3 

19th Annual Himalayan Fair 

Outdoor celebration of the great Mountain Cultures! Authentic Himalayan Art, craft, Music & Dance, exotic food & stage entertainment. Benefits Himalayan Grassroots projects. 

Sat. 10-7, Sun. 10-5:30 

Live Oak Park 

Shattuck & Berryman 

$5-$7 Donation 

Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 

Chalking takes place on Saturday only. Viewing the artwork all week end. 

Chocolate Festival begins by picking up a chocolate menu from business on Solano Ave. flying a festival banner. Chocolates are available for purchase from merchants as you stroll. Professor Gizmo, a one-man -band on Saturday from 2-4 at Peralta park and Berkeley Police operation Kid-print will be set up for finger printing your kids to keep in a file at home. Dog Fashion Show on Sunday at Solano & Key Route at 2 p.m., all animals must pre-register at 236-0588. Pet adoptions in Peralta Park 11:30-2:30 p.m., Sunday. Solano Avenue Gift Certificate Raffle anytime from May 22-29. Winner drawn May 29. 

The entire length of Solano Avenue, Berkeley & Albany 

Wednesday, May 29

Paul Geremia 

Country Blues 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$15.50 advance, $16.50 at the door 

Thursday, May 30

Human Rights At Home and Abroad: A Strategy For Peace 

An educational forum to probe the relationship of the U.S. and the U.N. 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall of Humanity 

390 27th Street (between Broadway & Telegraph) 

Oakland 

Free 

Bob Dylan Song Night 

An evening of Dylan Songs revisited 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$12.50 advance, $13.50 at the door 

May 30- June 1

White Oak Dance Project 

Mikhail Baryshnikov & the White Oak Dance Project exploring the boundaries of modern dance. Three Berkeley performances.  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus  

Bancroft Way at Telegraph 

Tickets through Cal Performances 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

$36, $48, $62 and half-price to CAL students, $2 discount to others. 

Friday, May 31

Paramount Movie Classics-  

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, 1958 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature Film 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

$5 

Blue Riders of the Purple Sage 

Classic cowboy harmonies 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$16.50 advance, $17.50 at the door 

Saturday, June 1

50th anniversary of the Little Train at Tilden Regional Park 

Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas in Berkeley 

For more information, call 544-2200 

Sand Castle and Sand Sculpture Contest 

9 a.m. for participants registration 

9- 12 p.m. (Judging starts at noon) 

Crown Beach, Otis and Shore Line Drives 

Alameda 

For more information, call 521-6887 or 748-4565 

Free 

The Bluegrass Intentions 

Innovative traditionalists 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$16.50 advance, $17.50 at the door 

Sunday, June 2

Healing/Tibetan Yoga 

"Stimulating Healing and Renewal through Tibetan Yoga" 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

843-6812 

Free 

Ice Cream Social 

An annual school PTA fundraiser 

Includes a student talent show, auction, cake walk and field games 

Rosa Parks Elementary School 

Noon to 4 p.m. 

Free 

Diablo Symphony Orchestra 

Verdi Spectacular! 

Soloists: Lyric soprano Karen Anderson, soprano Aimee Puentes and tenor Min-sheng Yang. Conducted by Barbara Day Turner 

2 p.m. 

Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts 

1601 Civic Center at Locust Dr. 

Walnut Creek 

925-7469, website: www.dlrca.org 

Tickets $8, $15 and $18 

Casey Neill 

Celtic American folk roots 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$15.50 advance, $16.50 at the door

The Berkeley Unified School District revealed new budget figures and Superintendent Michele Lawrence warned that the district may carry a deficit into next year at the Board of Education meeting Wednesday night. 

In a separate development, Lawrence announced that the district will rush to apply for a nutrition grant that community activists, upset with the quality of school meals, have pushed feverishly. 

At the end of the night, a divided board passed a resolution opposing state legislation that would include curriculum and textbook issues in teacher contract negotiations. 

The deficit 

In March, when the district submitted a “second interim report” on the budget to the Alameda County Office of Education, it projected a $39,000 surplus for the current budget year, a $5.4 million deficit for 2002-2003 and a $13.2 million deficit for 2003-2004. 

Associate Superintendent Jerry Kurr presented new figures Wednesday night indicating that the surplus for the current budget year is closer to $1.1 million, in part because telephone and utilities costs were lower than expected. Kurr said the deficit for next year, including all the cuts the board has approved in recent months, is about $450,000. The projected deficit for 2003-2004 stands at roughly $4.4 million. 

Kurr warned that the figures are changing everyday. 

For instance the district just discovered that food service costs, paid out of a separate “cafeteria fund,” are bleeding into the general fund to the tune of $160,000. 

As a result, Kurr said, the numbers could go up or down before next week when the board is slated to approve the “third interim report” to the county. Final approval for next year’s budget is scheduled for June 26. 

Lawrence said she would prefer watch the numbers play out over the next few months before making final cuts to next year’s budget. 

“While we could probably press this much harder in the next couple of weeks to go after more cuts...I am loathe to do that,” Lawrence said. 

If next week’s figures still reveal a deficit and the district postpones further cuts for several months, the shortfall would carry into next year – casting doubt on county approval of the budget. 

Last year, the county disapproved of Berkeley’s budget and this fall assigned a financial adviser, the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, a state agency, to assist the district. 

But Lawrence said the county might still approve the budget this year if the district has a solid recovery plan in place and appears to be making progress on vital infrastructure changes, including conversion to a new data processing system. 

The existing system, officials have acknowledged, has prevented the district from keeping proper track of payroll and health care costs. 

Nutrition grant 

Community activists heavily criticized the quality of school meals Wednesday night and urged the district to apply for a state grant titled Linking Education, Activity and Food, or LEAF. 

“If you look at the food that is being served in the cafeteria now, it is not something I would allow in my house,” said activist Yolanda Huang, holding up sugary cereals and salty burritos served at some sites. “This is unconscionable.” 

Lawrence announced that the district will apply for the grant, directed at middle schools, which includes healthy food and exercise requirements. The program provides $250,000 per school site over the course of two years. Lawrence said if the district gets any money, it is unlikely to win funding for all three of its schools since the state will only provide about 10 grants statewide. 

The superintendent said she would use the grant to plan for better exercise of a nationally-renowned food policy, passed in 1999, that has not been properly implemented. 

State legislation 

A sharply divided school board voted 3-2 to pass a resolution offered by vice-president Joaquin Rivera opposing AB 2160. The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Jacki Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, would allow unions to bargain over the processes for selecting textbooks and developing curriculum. Currently, unions can only negotiate hours, wages and conditions of employment. 

“The collective bargaining process is, by nature, adversarial,” said Rivera, arguing that textbook and curriculum issues do not belong in that arena. 

School board President Shirley Issel seconded the argument and said unions would likely use the issues as bargaining chips. 

“I have to respectfully disagree,” said John Selawsky, arguing that negotiations don’t need to involve conflict. He added that the state and textbook makers have too much power over the books that get into the classroom and said the legislation would assure processes that involve teachers and parents. 

Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, said the district already does a good job of incorporating teachers and warned that support for the resolution would send a mixed message to instructors. 

“We strongly believe teachers should be active participants in all these processes,” Rivera responded. “The issue is not teacher participation. The issue is what is the proper forum for that participation.” 

To the Editor: 

If the community has any problems with the BUSD (Berkeley Unified School District) you better just sit back and wait .....and wait ...and wait...at least six months to a year for any action to occur.  

At least that’s the feeling that Berkeley school neighbors have who live in the vicinity of noisy, night-blasting, ventilation systems (Arts Magnet & Washington Schools). 

Neighbors who live directly across from the temporary building and ventilation system are subjected to constant, on and off, blasting noise throughout the night that can start as early as 1:30 a.m. and continue, on and off, until morning. 

One begins to wonder if anybody is really listening, when a problem goes unresolved over a six month period despite numerous pleadings before the BUSD at their public meetings.  

V. Peters 

Berkeley (Lincoln Street Neighbors to the Arts Magnet School) 

Solano Avenue sidewalks will explode with chocolate and colorful chalk artwork for three days during the Memorial Day holiday weekend at the Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival running May 25- 27. 

Stretching westward from The Alameda in Albany to San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley for one and a quarter miles the festival promises to be a feast for the eyes and sweet tooth as well as an economic shot in the arm for the area merchants. 

Solano Avenue will remain open to traffic. 

Amateur and professional artists will decorate sidewalk squares with chalk art drawings on Saturday only. Areas of the sidewalk will be assigned to children and adult artists. The registration area is scheduled to open at 9 a.m. at Peralta Park, near 1561 Solano Ave. Registration is free. 

Artists may bring their own chalk or purchase boxes of chalk for $4 when registering. All those who register Saturday before noon will be entered in a raffle to receive prizes such as tickets to an Oakland A’s game and gift certificates for merchandise at local stores. The two main events, the chalk artwork viewing and chocolate tasting will continue throughout the weekend.  

Other special events and activities will be interspersed between the artwork and shops offering chocolate delights. 

Look for Professor Gizmo, a comical one-man band scheduled to perform 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday in Peralta Park. Also on Saturday, the Berkeley Police will set up “Operation Kidprint” nearby to provide parents with their children’s fingerprints to keep on file at home. 

On Sunday at 2 p.m. the retailer Dogs By Dianne will host a Dog Fashion Show at the intersection of Solano Avenue and Key Route. All participants must pre-register by phoning 510/236-0588. Also on Sunday, the Berkeley Animal Care Services will offer pets for adoption between 11:30 and 2:30 p.m. at Peralta Park. Chair massages will be offered on Monday at the park. 

Besides the festival the neighborhood offers plenty of window-shopping and other leisure-time activities. Solano Avenue is home for more than 500 businesses, including 75 restaurants, 150 retail shops, two theaters and several small parks. 

“People should plan on about three hours to walk up and down both sides of the street with stops along the way to see the art and eat some chocolate,” says Lisa Bullwinkel, executive director of the Solano Avenue Association, the sponsor of the festival. 

Special chocolate menus will be available free at more than 30 businesses displaying festival pennants. Many retailers have commissioned professional artists to create logos outside shops in chalk for the festival. 

Taste bud tantalizing items to choose from on the menu include homemade variations of chocolate popcorn, flan, eclair, cheesecake, baklava, cream pie, fried banana and champagne truffles. Lollipops for children and erotic lollipops for adults will also be available. For beverages there will be chocolate smoothes and Frappucinos to consider. 

True chocolate lovers may have trouble leaving the festival. Eating chocolate to some is akin to nirvana. It’s difficult to find anyone who doesn’t like chocolate or who can name someone they know who doesn’t like it.  

Nationwide Americans spend about $8.6 billion and consume about 3.3 billion pounds of chocolate annually, according to figures from the Chocolate Manufacturers Association.  

Worldwide, the United States ranks ninth in chocolate consumption. By a 2-1 margin milk chocolate is preferred over dark chocolate, but taste preference for dark chocolate increases as people age. Among consumers 18 to 24, only 11% prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, while 37% of consumers 45 to 54 years old favor dark chocolate over milk chocolate. 

Despite its universal appeal few people understand why people like chocolate so much, except perhaps for those who’s love affair with chocolate is the most special --- the people who make chocolate for the rest of us to enjoy.  

“I’m obsessively passionate about chocolate,” says Kara Thompson, owner of Torme Chocolate at 1580 Solano Ave. She’s a confectioner who specializes in  

chocolate truffles “There’s something spiritual about it, and I really like being around it,” she says. 

Chocolate gives people a feeling of well-being. The effect varies with people because of the chemical complexity of chocolate. “Does chocolate give you a high, absolutely yes, Thompson says. It’s intoxicating when you smell it.” 

“If you’re a runner and ever experienced the runner’s high or fallen in love, you might be interested in knowing that some of the chemicals in chocolate  

raise the body’s serotonin levels in a similar way,” she says. 

With respect to health chocolate probably has more positive beneficial effects on the body than negative ones, according to Thompson. Nutritionally, chocolate contains minerals needed by the body, antioxidants and it has a neutral impact on the cholesterol levels. 

She believes any negative effects from chocolate are likely to be related to the quality and quantity of chocolate consumed and the junk added to mass-manufactured chocolate, she says. 

The Chocolate Manufacturers Association has conducted numerous studies and published extensive reports on chocolate consumption patterns and scientific data related to the effect chocolate has on health. 

• Chocolate is the number one food craved by women, while men crave pizza the most. Some scientists theorize that women crave chocolate  

because it contains magnesium, which may be related to menstrual cycles when women tend to increase their intake of sweets. 

• Per capita chocolate consumption is highest in Belgium, followed by Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, France, Sweden and then the United States. 

• Stearic acid the form of fat found in cocoa butter that’s used to make chocolate is unsaturated because it’s derived from plants, which is why  

chocolate doesn’t raise blood cholesterol levels. Chocolate melts in your mouth because the melting point of cocoa butter is just below human body  

temperature. 

• Chocolate contains polyphenol antioxidants, or flavonoids, which are believed to reduce the risk of heart attacks and counteract the damaging effects of free radical molecules in the body. The quantities of antioxidants found in chocolate are similar to amounts typically found in fruits and vegetables. Chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, contains more antioxidants than black tea, red wine, raisins and strawberries. 

• More than 300 chemicals are found in chocolate, including stimulants such as caffeine, theobromine and phenylethylamine, which is related to amphetamines. These stimulants increase the brain activity of brain chemicals. Chocolate also contains anandamide, which binds to the same brain cell receptors as tetrahydrocannabinol or THC found in marijuana. 

City Council considers new regulations as well 

Toyoko Yoshino has been serving Japanese food at the gateway of the UC campus, off Telegraph Avenue, for three decades. 

Her kitchen is a wheeled cart that loosely resembles a little house, minus the tires, one might find in the countryside of Okinawa. Yoshino offers more than 25 food items on her sidewalk menu, most which cost less than $5. Chicken teriyaki, she says, has been the most popular dish of her 30-year-old cuisine. 

New street vending policies in Berkeley, though, may have Yoshino scrambling up some changes to her time-honored food cart, if not to her recipes, to her location. 

“My cart has wheels. I can pack it up in a minute,” Yoshino said accommodatingly. 

Campus on the city’s list of vending spots, and city officials themselves have begun pushing for tighter regulation of food vendors within city limits. 

The impact will be no city-licensed vendors on the UC campus, at least for the short term as well as uncertainty about where city officials will allow future food vending on city lands. 

A city ordinance, approved by City Council in its first reading this week, puts the city manager’s office in charge of overseeing food vending policy, eliminating the current committee that governs vendors, and redefines the standards, fees, and licensing terms for street carts. 

Although the ordinance, put forth by the city manager’s office, was initially slated to cover the entire city, council voted by a narrow 5-4 vote to limit its scope to the two already-designated food vending sites on Bancroft Way, at the junctions of Telegraph Avenue and College Avenue. 

“I don’t want the ordinance to go citywide without getting neighborhood input,” said Councilmember Polly Armstrong, who authored the amended measure. Neighbors along Bancroft Way have already shared their input on the measure, she noted. 

Under the new ordinance, Yoshino’s food cart and those of her neighbors, which have shuffled between university and city property, could likely secure legal positions on the same sidewalk or merely shift to a nearby city sidewalk, according to the city’s Senior Management Analyst A. Robin Orden. 

But there is some question. 

“There are legal issues about how far from the university’s right of way we can permit vendors, if the university decides they want to wipe them out,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

Worthington explained that, since the city’s new ordinance doesn’t apply to other areas of the city, the only sites where vending can legally occur, once the ordinance takes effect, is along Bancroft, and legal challenges may jeopardize these sites. 

“There might be no vendors anywhere in Berkeley,” said Worthington, who opposed the change to the ordinance that narrowed its realm. 

Adoption of the new ordinance, as determined by council, would effectively abolish the current ordinance and the vending sites it establishes. 

Councilmember Armstrong, though, suggested that the city intends to expand the scope of the new ordinance, meaning adding more vending sites, once public input can be heard from neighborhoods where the ordinance is being considered. 

“I love the food carts and I patronize them regularly,” Armstrong said. 

The city is expected to consider final adoption of the new vending ordinance next month. At the university, officials remain in the process of deciding what food vending policy will be enacted on campus. 

Currently, there are only four food vendors operating on public right-of-ways in Berkeley. All of the vendors are along Bancroft Way. 

Contact reporter at kurtis@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Readers should know something civil libertarians and constitutional lawyers have known for years: obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment. This means that all laws regarding the dissemination and broadcast of obscene (read: pornographic or strongly sexually suggestive) are made on the municipal or state level.  

The censorship of the sex-realted program would not be an issue of First Amendment freedoms, it would only seek to limit access to prurient information not generally held as informative or socially acceptable by the general public. 

If the majority of citizens want to limit that access, then it should be done. We must stop calling every attempt to limit freedom a First Amendment issue, there is not freedom for pornography. 

John Parman 

Berkeley

LOS ANGELES — If you want to be among the first to own “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” you need to get to the store at an appropriate hour: midnight. 

The official domestic release date of the first “Harry Potter” film on videotape and DVD is Tuesday. Stores around the country plan to stay open late Monday night so they can start ringing up sales at midnight for last year’s top-grossing movie. 

Wal-Mart, Borders, Blockbuster, Kmart and other retailers plan to have select stores open late. Die-hard fans also turned out at midnight at bookstores for the release of the most recent book in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” and for midnight screenings of the film when it opened last fall. 

Some stores plan activities based on the tales of the boy sorcerer and his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, including costume parties and Harry Potter look-alike contests. 

Warner Bros. home video would not release figures on how many videos are being shipped, but the studio said pre-orders have been strong. The trade publication Video Business estimated “Sorcerer’s Stone” would sell 18 million to 20 million copies on VHS and DVD in North America. 

In Great Britain, where “Harry Potter” videos were released May 11, a record 1.25 million copies on videotape and DVD were sold in the first day. 

The film grossed $317 million domestically, ranking No. 7 on the all-time box-office list. Worldwide, “Sorcerer’s Stone” took in $960 million, second behind “Titanic.” 

The VHS and two-disc DVD set each contain a handful of deleted scenes. The DVD set also has games, a tour of Hogwarts and interviews with director Chris Columbus and his collaborators, who discuss their emphasis on remaining faithful to Rowling’s book and give a look ahead at the next film, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” due in theaters this November. 

All three Bay Area airports are expecting an especially heavy flow of travelers to pass through their terminals this Memorial Day weekend, perhaps the highest numbers since the Sept. 11 attacks traumatized American air travel. 

San Jose International Airport spokesman Steve Luckenbach said Thursday that he expects the facilities in Terminal A, which houses Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, “to be strained tremendously.” 

Luckenbach said passengers should allow for two hours of waiting time in the terminal, instead of the normal 90-minute advance arrival. But he said plenty of long-term and short-term parking will be available. 

Friday will be the heaviest air travel day, according to Luckenbach, but the spike in travel will continue until Tuesday. 

Luckenbach said the Memorial Day weekend traditionally runs just behind Thanksgiving and Christmas as the busiest travel days of the year. 

But he expects this weekend's numbers to be the highest since September. 

San Francisco International Airport spokesman Mike McCarron said that SFO will have a “big bump today” in traffic, as well as through the weekend, but that the airport will not be strained past capacity.  

McCarron said this weekend is not only the kickoff for summer travel, but also coincides with college students leaving school and heading home or on vacation. He expects Friday and Saturday to be the busiest SFO has been in a while.  

He said travelers should observe regular advance arrival times, 90 minutes to two hours for domestic flights and at least two hours for international flights.  

He also said there will be ample parking for all those using the airport. 

Oakland International Airport will be opening extra security checkpoints and scheduling more staff to speed security screening this weekend, which is expected to see 20 percent more travelers than usual, according to airport spokeswoman Jo Murray. 

Friday and Tuesday will see the heaviest traffic, with some 40,000 people moving through the airport. 

Murray said domestic passengers should arrive at the airport 90 minutes before their scheduled departure, two hours prior if their flight leaves before 9 a.m.  

Travelers on international flights should arrive three hours ahead of time.  

The parking lots at the Oakland airport are expected to be full over the weekend.

To the Editor: 

It was interesting to read your article about Ward Connerly's Racial Privacy Initiative, which he hopes to impose on California voters the way he left us with Proposition 209. This initiative would prohibit state and local governments from collecting racial and ethnic data and using this information. 

However, one government entity that would be exempt from collecting racial data is, ironically, law enforcement.  

While Ward Connerly claims that his initiative is about removing considerations based upon race and creating a “color-blind” society, it would still condone racial profiling.  

“Driving While Black” would still be a crime. 

Paul Hogarth 

Berkeley Rent 

Board Commissioner 

DETROIT — The Detroit Electronic Music Festival drew more than 1 million people in each of its first two years.  

This year, organizers are emphasizing a wider variety of performers — and wondering why techno, which is hugely popular in Europe, is less well-received in the United States. 

The lineup of nearly 70 performers represents a blend of urban music, and includes Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton and the Los Angeles-based hip-hop trio Dilated Peoples. The three-day festival starts Saturday. 

“What we’re seeing now is a combination between hip-hop music and electronic music, and I think the Detroit festival is capitalizing on that,” said M. Tye Comer, the editor of Mixer Magazine in New York, which focuses on DJ culture. 

“The roots of the music — the funk and the soul — the roots are all the same. ... It’s expanding to become a celebration of urban music as a whole.” 

Mike Grant, who sits on the festival’s seven-member artistic board, said, “I think that diversity is what keeps the festival fresh. No one likes to eat the same food everyday.” 

Detroit DJs Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May and Carl Craig are often credited with inventing the techno sound while spinning in Detroit clubs in the early 1980s.  

The sound really took off in Europe, however. 

When the Detroit techno group Inner City became popular in the early 1980s, for instance, most people assumed they were British, said Dan Sicko, 33, the author of “Techno Rebels,” a book about the musical movement that led to the festival. 

“The festival is like a reunion for the artists and the city that spawned it,” Sicko said. 

“The American media to some degree loves to focus on music that comes from abroad ... and I think for at least a decade Detroit was overlooked that way.” 

Saunderson, May and Craig were instrumental in getting the festival off the ground, but they won’t be performing this year because of a dispute with the organizers.  

Fans can still catch them performing at various parties after the festival wraps up each night. 

“The nightlife will be bright,” Saunderson said. “It’s not often you get all the Detroit talent together.” 

Sicko said this year’s festival is aimed at closing the gap between techno’s original, black, Detroit audience and the white kids who picked up on it later. 

Comer said George Clinton “expands the scope” of the event, which he called “one of the most important dance festivals America sees every year.” 

The festival bills itself as the world’s largest free music festival. It “draws ravers from all across the country,” Comer said. “It brings out families. It’s more than a party.” 

For performers such as Dilated Peoples’ DJ Babu, “This might be our biggest crowd ever.” 

A high pressure system along the mid-Atlantic coast brought sunny skies to much of the East on Thursday afternoon. 

Light showers fell on the east coast of Florida, with some areas reporting strong winds. 

The Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley were also windy as a cold front approached from the west. 

In the central states, an area of low pressure moved across northern Minnesota. A cold front extended from the low into the central Plains and moved little during the day. 

Clouds hung over Texas north to Wisconsin. Winds in the central Plains averaged 25 miles per hour with gusts over 40. 

A few light rain and snow showers were found across the Dakotas and Minnesota with temperatures in the 30s and 40s. In Iowa and Illinois, rain and a few thunderstorms moved through. Showers and thunderstorms also developed near the Red River in northern Texas and western Oklahoma. 

The West was mostly cloudy from northern Wyoming through Idaho and Montana. 

In the Pacific northwest, clouds gathered along the coasts of Washington and northern Oregon. California and the Desert Southwest were mostly clear and mild. 

Temperatures on Thursday afternoon in the Lower 48 states ranged from a low of 20 in Big Piney, Wyo., to a high of 93 in Wink, Texas. 

To the Editor:  

I am chagrined that a large majority of the Berkeley City Council has succumbed to the censorious pressures of some blue-nosed puritans and favors banning of "adult programming" from B-TV Channel 25 until after the midnight hour. 

This punishes those good folks who are comfortable with their sexuality and enjoy "The Susan Block Show" and Frank Moore's "Unlimited Possibilities" as being some kind of prurient social pariahs who deserve to be deprived of their sleeping hours in order to watch them.  

It is not the job of the City Council to act as an authoritarian censor or morals cop. It should remain the sole responsibility of parents to monitor what their kids can watch. 

I'm 76-years-old, a white ethnic male, and a great-grandfather to boot and thus might be stereotyped by some as a "social conservative". Not this dude!  

I've belonged to the ACLU for over 40 years 

and have supported our Constitutional free speech rights as long as I can remember. And this proposed censorship is a clear free speech violation. 

And, thank you, Kriss Worthington for your 

opposition to the measure and remembering that we live in Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement, and not Iran or some Bible Belt backwater. 

Harry Siitonen 

Berkeley  

Female genital mutilation is not usually the subject of stand-up comedy. But for African-born Sia Amma, humor has proved powerful and healing. Subjected to a clitorodectomy in her native Liberia when she was just nine years old, Amma has made the problem of female circumcision the central subject of a one-woman show. 

The actress attacks the issue immediately and audaciously in the opening seconds of "In Search of My Clitoris." Sweeping into the theater, she asks her audience, "Have you seen my clitoris? I’m sure it’s here somewhere."  

Over the next 90 minutes, the 34-yr-old Amma reflects on her journey from traditional African village girl to modern feminist and activist. Her poignant, provocative story is lightened with humorous anecdotes about her friends and family in Africa and the culture shock she underwent when she first came to America a decade ago. 

"I feel if I make fun of myself, no one can punish me, no one can condemn me," Amma explains. She also wants to convey the pride she feels in her culture, and not allow her Western audience to dismiss an entire culture because of the unsavory practice of female circumcision. Her bold and bawdy humor reminds listeners that they have their own hang-ups when it comes to sexuality. "You American have a clitoris and you don’t even know it!" she scolds.  

Next week, Amma appears at Berkeley’s La Pena Cultural Center in two performances to benefit Global Women Intact, a San Francisco organization dedicated to stopping the practice of female genital mutilation worldwide.  

Representing GWI, Amma travels frequently to Africa, where she speaks to women and girls about female circumcision—"teaching Clitoris 101," she says. In cultures where female anatomy is almost never discussed, such frankness is startling, but she makes no apologies. "I am saying that it’s part of a woman, it’s beautiful, and there’s nothing wrong with having a clitoris that drags on the ground," she says. "I want to take away the shame from the word ‘clitoris.’" 

This is a complete reversal for a woman who for years barely comprehended what had happened to her body. The topic was not discussed in her village. "Some of the languages I speak"—she knows four African languages—"don’t even have a word for clitoris," she explains. 

Her awareness began to change when Amma came to San Francisco, eventually enrolling as a student in intercultural communications at SFSU. She was humiliated during a doctor’s exam when the American physician commented on the unusual appearance of her genitalia. "I was completely horrified and embarrassed," she remembers.  

Hesitantly, Amma began to discuss her condition with female friends. "I had to go and buy books from Good Vibrations to see pictures of what a normal clitoris looks like." She discovered other women who also had been mutilated as girls. The idea of a performance began to grow. "Women started telling me their stories, and it just snowballed," she says. 

It started as a stand-up comedy routine, performed for just a few friends. Over the past year and a half, Amma developed and expanded the routine into a full-length play. This past year, with the assistance of director Joya Corey, she’s taken her show on the road, performing coast to coast, from Symphony Space in New York to the Northwest Actor’s Studio in Seattle. Reception has been enthusiastic. Reviewers have called the show "startling and provocative," drawing comparisons with Eve Ensler’s "The Vagina Monologues." 

For Amma, the play is important, but it’s only one part of her work to educate people about female circumcision. She speaks passionately and joyfully about her work in Africa. "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life," she says. 

Besides teaching courses on sex education in African schools and community organizations, Amma meets with tribal leaders to discuss ways of preserving a girl’s traditional rite of passage without performing mutilations. She directs her education efforts particularly at women, since mothers often pressure their daughters to undergo circumcision, and midwives often carry out the procedure as part of their livelihood. Instead, Amma encourages tribal women to produce crafts—jewelry, purses, and beadwork—which she brings back to the U.S. to sell, sending the money back to the village.  

"By working with women’s financial needs, you are taking on the problem [of female circumcision] at a very practical level," she says. "If you want to help somebody, you cannot go in and condemn them and expect them to listen to you." 

Woman to woman, person by person, Amma steadfastly pursues her mission. "My grandmother says when you educate a woman, you educate the world." 

In Search of My Clitoris  

May 30 & 31 at 8 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berkeley.  

Tickets $15. (510) 849-2568 or go to www.celebrateclitoris.com 

FBI agent allegedly switched allegiance to gangsters 

BOSTON — John J. Connolly Jr. was once known as the FBI agent who snagged gangster James “Whitey” Bulger to help in the FBI’s war against the mafia. 

Somewhere along the way, Connolly allowed himself to be corrupted by his prized informant and began protecting the thugs he was supposed to be investigating, a prosecutor told jurors in closing arguments of Connolly’s racketeering trial Thursday. 

Prosecutor John Durham outlined the allegations against Connolly, which range from taking bribes to tipping Bulger’s gang about informants who were later killed. The jury was to begin deliberations in the case on Friday. 

Connolly, 61, never took the stand. He pleaded innocent to racketeering and obstruction of justice charges and previously denied taking bribes. He also has said that everything he did was cleared by his superiors at the FBI, who used information provided by Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi to take down the New England mafia. 

His attorney, Tracy Miner, told jurors Thursday that Connolly was being targeted because the FBI needed a scapegoat after it was revealed during 1998 hearings that it had mishandled its top criminal informants, including Bulger. 

“The government ... needed a scapegoat for its problems, and who better than the informants’ handler,” Miner said. 

In his closing, Durham pointed to an FBI training video featuring Connolly, shown by the defense, as proof Connolly knew the agency rules. He didn’t follow them, Durham said, because he had switched allegiances. “He was playing for another team,” Durham said. 

The trial’s most distressing testimony involved leaks by Connolly to Bulger and Flemmi in which Connolly identified three men who were giving information to the FBI about Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang, Durham said. 

The three men were later killed by members of the gang, members testified. 

Durham went over in detail testimony from Kevin Weeks, Bulger’s right-hand man, who said that on Dec. 23, 1994, Connolly told him to warn Bulger, Flemmi and mafia boss Frank “Cadillac Frank” Salemme that indictments would be coming down against them soon. Bulger disappeared soon after and is still a fugitive. 

Connolly has denied tipping the men off to the indictment. 

Weeks also testified that he delivered $5,000 in cash from Bulger to Connolly. John Martorano, a confessed hitman for the Winter Hill Gang, testified that Bulger gave Connolly a two-carat diamond ring. 

“Your common sense tells you when you accept a thing of value when you are an FBI agent, you know you are compromised,” Durham said. 

Durham called Martorano’s testimony, in which he admitted to at least 20 murders, “clearly chilling.” 

He asked jurors to carefully consider testimony from Martorano, Weeks and Salemme. He acknowledged that all three were notorious criminals, but said each knew details they could not have known without getting them from a source in the FBI: Connolly. 

In addition to the criminal case against Connolly, the FBI or its agents are named in at least a half dozen civil lawsuits filed by the families of people killed or victimized by Bulger and his gang. One wrongful death lawsuit, filed by the family of Roger Wheeler, the owner of World Jai Alai who was gunned down in Tulsa, Okla., in 1981, claims the FBI allowed Bulger and Flemmi to murder with impunity. 

A congressional committee also has been investigating the Boston FBI’s handling of mob informants in the 1960s. 

xSAN JOSE — Attorneys for former motel handyman Cary Stayner, who has admitted in grotesque detail how he killed three Yosemite National Park tourists in 1999, will try to save his life by arguing to a jury he is mentally ill. 

Nearly a year and a half after originally pleading innocent to the tourists’ killings, Stayner switched the plea to innocent by reason of insanity Wednesday. That raised the possibility that, if convicted, he could face life in a mental institution rather than execution. 

His attorneys told Superior Court Judge Thomas Hastings that Stayner suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and an “unspecified psychosis.” 

Hastings explained to Stayner that if he is convicted, a jury would consider whether he was insane at the time of the killings or was clear-headed enough to know the difference between right and wrong. 

“Do you understand?” Hastings asked. 

“Yes,” Stayner said. 

Stayner, 40, already is serving life in federal prison for beheading Yosemite nature guide Joie Armstrong. He now faces state charges in the killings of Carole Sund, her daughter, Juli, and family friend Silvina Pelosso of Argentina, who had stayed at the motel outside Yosemite where Stayner worked. 

Stayner’s attorneys said their list of potential trial witnesses consists only of seven psychological experts, including at least one who would cite brain scans that indicate Stayner’s frontal lobe shows evidence of his purported mental illness. 

However, prosecutors — who plan to have Stayner examined by noted forensic psychologist Park Dietz — object to the use of the scans. 

Prosecutor George Williamson argued that the method in question, a positron emission tomography (PET) scan, is useful for discovering tumors, strokes, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but is not yet widely accepted in the diagnosis of mental illness. 

Stayner attorney Michael Burt countered that recent studies have shown some mental illnesses can be detected by PET scans, and that defense experts should be allowed to refer to them — but not completely rely on them — in their testimony. 

Hastings said he wanted to hear more from medical experts before deciding whether the PET scans can be used at trial. The issue could be taken up at a hearing after jury selection begins June 10. 

If a jury has to consider whether Stayner was sane enough to know right from wrong, prosecutors figure to use his own words against him. For example, Stayner told the FBI he was careful to clean up the women’s motel room, with tips he gleaned from a forensic science program on the Discovery Channel. 

Defense attorney Marcia Morrissey declined to comment outside court on how she would overcome such statements. Only minutes earlier, she had failed in yet another attempt to bar Stayner’s confessions from the trial. 

The judge ruled last month over defense objections that Stayner voluntarily admitted to FBI agents and a TV reporter that he killed Armstrong and the tourists. 

On Wednesday, Morrissey argued that the FBI agents did not have probable cause to arrest Stayner before he confessed. She also claimed Stayner’s original public defender was incompetent because he didn’t tell Stayner not to talk to journalists. 

On the first claim, Hastings ruled there was plenty of evidence to detain Stayner for questioning or to arrest him. Stayner’s car and its tire tracks were seen near where Armstrong’s body was found, for example. 

Hastings called the second argument a stretch. 

Once a jury is seated, testimony is expected to begin in mid-July and last two months. The case was moved to San Jose because of extensive publicity around Yosemite and in California’s Central Valley. 

xSAN BERNARDINO — A judge said Thursday that a board that has repeatedly denied Leslie Van Houten parole in two Manson Family murders has failed to give her any guidance on what she could do to make herself suitable for release. 

“If I were in Ms. Van Houten’s situation I wouldn’t have a clue what to do before the next hearing to prepare,” Superior Court Judge Bob N. Krug said during a hearing on Van Houten’s appeal of the parole board’s refusal to grant parole — 13 times so far. 

Krug said he would rule after further consideration. A ruling for Van Houten could affect cases beyond hers but would be certain to be appealed by the state. 

The graying Van Houten, 52, was convicted in the slayings of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca and was part of the Charles Manson cult that murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others in the summer of 1969 — one of California’s most notorious crimes. 

Her case has been seen as somewhat different than those of Manson, chief lieutenant Charles “Tex” Watson, and two other women, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkle, who participated in all seven murders. Van Houten’s initial conviction was overturned and a second trial ended in a hung jury. A third trial convicted her again. 

The judge said he compared the language of a parole board decision quoted in a landmark ruling with the language used by the board that denied Van Houten’s last bid for parole in June 2000 and found they were identical. 

“When I read the decision it sounded like they just read from a script,” he said. “It’s almost verbatim. ... Isn’t that a pro forma decision?” 

Van Houten’s attorney, Christie Webb, argued that the hearings had become “a sham” and that the board has never considered any of Van Houten’s efforts to improve herself but merely denies parole because of the nature of her crime. 

“If the state can use the crime without making a link to current dangerousness, they could go on for another 33 years, turning her sentence into life without the possibility of parole,” Webb said. 

She said the state is required to make a connection between the gravity of the crime and whether Van Houten would be a danger to society if released. 

All of the records, the attorney said, show that she would not be a danger. 

“She is not the person she was at age 19 when she participated in the crimes,” Webb said. “She has not taken drugs in three decades. She is much more of a leader than a follower in prison. ... And she has insight into how she could have participated in these crimes and how she can make amends.” 

Goat killer sought 

OAKLAND — Oakland police are looking for a gunman who killed a weed-eating goat in a park behind an elementary school. 

The goat was part of a herd hired to eat weeds and grass behind Howard Elementary School on Wednesday. A goat herder said he saw a man driving a white truck pull up, shoot the goat and drive off. 

“I think it’s cruel to shoot a defenseless animal. The goat was just there, eating grass, minding its own business,” said Oakland park ranger Keona Johnson. 

Oakland contracts a Davis company to keep 1,000 goats in the 75-acre park behind the school to trim dry vegetation that could catch fire during the hot summer months. 

No other goats were injured in the shooting. 

Bay deemed safe for fishing  

SAN FRANCISCO — Water quality regulators have relaxed restrictions on nickel and copper in San Francisco Bay, saying current levels haven’t appeared toxic enough to harm fish and other organisms. 

The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board loosened standards on the metals for waters south of the Dumbarton Bridge on Wednesday. But the new regulations must be approved by state and federal boards before going into effect said Wil Bruhns of the Water Quality Board. 

A group of studies paid for by the city of San Jose persuaded the board to change the standards. Tetra-Tech, the company that conducted the studies, found that levels of nickel and copper in southern portions of the Bay were significantly below national standards determined to be safe by the Environmental Protection Agency, Bruhns said. 

Copper and nickel both are toxic at certain levels. 

The move was applauded by municipal sewage treatment plants and Bay Area cities, who say meeting the current standards is costly. 

Bruhns said that the new regulations were approved along with a plan of action to control the metals if levels start to increase. 

Davis releases dollarsto Napa  

NAPA — Governor Gray Davis announced Thursday the release of millions of dollars to repair earthquake damage in Napa. 

Roughly $4.8 million in funds from the Office of Emergency Services will help fix the city’s largest auditorium in the Old Napa High School building, built in 1923, officials said. 

The 5.2 Napa earthquake of September 3, 2000 rocked the auditorium, bending some wall braces and pulling others apart. 

LONDON — Some types of rubber bullets used by police to restrain unruly protesters kill and maim too often to be considered a safe method of crowd control, new research concludes. 

Rubber-coated bullets are intended to inflict superficial painful injuries to deter rioters. But a study of their use by Israeli security forces has found police often fire from too close and aim poorly. Even when fired properly, it said, the bullets are so inaccurate that they can cause unintended injuries. 

The study, published this week in The Lancet medical journal, examined the effects of rubber-coated bullets used by the Israeli police force during riots by Israeli Arabs in northern and central Israel in early October 2000. 

Those bullets are in fact made of metal encased in a rubber shell, and are different from the original rubber bullets first used in 1970 by the British in Northern Ireland. 

The British rubber bullets were designed to be fired at the ground so that they would bounce up and hit the legs of demonstrators. They were replaced in 1989 in Northern Ireland by plastic ones because the rubber bullets were judged too dangerous. 

Other variations of rubber bullets are used in several countries, including the United States.  

These include rubber-coated metal bullets, rubber plugs, plastic bullets called baton rounds, and beanbag rounds — fabric beanbags about the size of a tea bag filled with lead pellets. 

Each type has a different effect on the human body under different circumstances. 

Mike McBride, editor of Jane’s Police and Security Equipment, said the Israeli findings have no bearing on other types of crowd control ammunition. 

“There are lots of different manufacturers out there making lots of different types of riot control projectiles,” McBride said. 

Baton rounds, or pure plastic bullets, are used in Northern Ireland today.  

They are lighter, faster and more accurate than their rubber predecessors, McBride said. 

“They’ve been used 166 times in Northern Ireland, twice in mainland Britain, and there have been no deaths associated with the use of those,” he said. 

In the United States, local police make their own decisions on what to use for crowd control, and methods vary across the country. 

Online company’s shares skyrocket by almost 12 percent after initial IPO 

SAN FRANCISCO – Investors gave a thumbs up to Thursday’s stock market debut of online DVD rental service Netflix Inc., whose shares rose by nearly 12 percent after the company’s successful initial public offering. 

The shares closed at $16.75 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, up from the IPO price of $15. The stock traded as high as $17.40 Thursday. 

The positive response represented another baby step for Internet companies as the once-thriving sector tries to regain investor confidence following the dot-com meltdown of the past two years. 

After showing virtually no interest in online businesses last year, Wall Street has embraced both Internet businesses that dared to test the stormy waters this year. 

Online payment provider PayPal Inc. went public in February at $13 per share and enjoyed a 55 percent gain on its first day of trading. PayPal’s shares have climbed even higher since then, closing at $25.50 Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. 

Although Netflix’s first-day pop wasn’t as dramatic as PayPal’s, the gains nevertheless were a heartening sign for the battered high-tech industry. 

“It looks like investors’ tolerance is growing a little bit,” said Kyle Huske, an analyst with IPO.com. “Any time you have a deal do well in any sector, it helps draw attention to the entire sector.” 

No one expects the success of the PayPal and Netflix IPOs to trigger a gold rush similar to the late 1990s, when hundreds of unprofitable Internet companies sold their stocks to the public. 

“There are still people out there who wake up screaming in the night when they hear the word ’dot com,’ ” said David Menlow, president of IPOfincancial.com. 

Still, the market is looking less hostile for the most prominent privately held Internet businesses. 

The changing sentiment encouraged online travel site Orbitz to file its IPO plans earlier this year, and the friendlier atmosphere is expected to eventually lure the popular search engine Google into the market. 

Both PayPal and Netflix enticed investors with their rapid growth and leadership in promising markets. 

Despite Netflix’s uninterrupted history of losses that totaled $141.8 million through March 31, investors are intrigued with the Los Gatos-based company’s prospects with households across the country embracing DVD players. 

Netflix has more than 600,000 subscribers, most of whom pay $19.95 per month to rent an unlimited number of DVDs from the company’s library of 11,500 titles. Subscribers are mailed up to three DVDs at a time after placing their orders online. 

“I felt like investors looked at our story for what it was,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive officer and founder, said Thursday. “Being an online company didn’t taint us, nor did it give us a halo.” 

The dot-com tag forced Netflix to scrap its previous IPO plans two years ago. 

The delay gave Netflix more time to build a formidable business. When Netflix first filed plans to go public in April 2000, the company had just 120,000 subscribers and 5.4 million U.S. households had DVD players, about one-fifth of the estimated 25 million households with the set-top players at the end of 2001. 

The rapid adoption of DVDs still hasn’t been enough to make money for Netflix. 

In its most recent quarter, Netflix lost $4.5 million on revenue of $30.5 million in the first quarter, an improvement from a loss of $20.6 million on revenue of $17.1 million at the same point last year. 

Hastings declined to predict when Netflix will make money. Merrill Lynch, the investment banker that spearheaded the Netflix IPO, expects the company to become profitable in the second quarter of next year. 

Netflix raised $82.5 million from the IPO, and will keep $74.7 million after paying fees and other expenses incurred in the offering, according to documents filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company will use $14.1 million to repay debts and then spend a substantial amount on promotions designed to attract even more subscribers through two-week free trials. 

If Netflix doesn’t become profitable “in a reasonable amount of time, investors will dump it pretty quickly,” Huske said.

WASHINGTON – A federal agency set up an “Enron Information Link” for people to report suspicious activities involving Enron or other companies that may have affected West Coast energy prices. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said a questionnaire is available by clicking on the Enron Information Link under the Customer Protection heading on the agency’s Web page at http://www.cftc.gov. 

The government is investigating whether now-bankrupt Enron Corp. or other energy companies manipulated the power market in California — where wholesale energy prices shot up tenfold during the crisis in 2000 and 2001. 

An Enron corporate document released recently described how the company’s traders sought to cash in on the state’s energy crisis using strategies named “Death Star,” “Ricochet,” “Fat Boy” and “Get Shorty.” 

The new questionnaire is to be used for reporting suspicious activities or transactions involving Enron or any other company that may have affected West Coast electricity or natural gas prices, or any other commodity, from January 2000 through Dec. 31, 2001. It can be transmitted electronically or by mail to the Division of Enforcement, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 140 Broadway, New York, New York 10005, or by fax to 646-746-9939. 

The CFTC said there are two other ways in which people can submit any relevant information: 

—Call the agency’s toll-free voice mailbox and leave a message at 866-616-1783. 

—Send an e-mail to enron(at)cftc.gov.

SAN FRANCISCO – Online travel service Orbitz will target footloose gays and lesbians under a marketing partnership announced Wednesday with Web portal Gay.com. 

Terms of the deal, which will include a gay-themed banner and pop-up ads, were not announced. 

The companies said gays and lesbians are seven times more likely than the average person to take six or more flights per year. 

Major airlines created Orbitz last June to sell tickets, lodging, car rentals and vacation packages. PlanetOut Partners USA Inc., which owns San Francisco-based Gay.com, said it has 4 million registered members. 

Chicago-based Orbitz, which says it is the third largest online travel site, filed papers Monday with government regulators for a $125 million initial public offering.

SACRAMENTO – Budget negotiators will consider boosting logging fees to help trim the state’s projected $23.6 billion budget shortfall, lawmakers decided Wednesday evening. 

An Assembly budget subcommittee deliberately approved a different proposed timber yield tax increase than was approved last week by its Senate counterpart. 

The effect is to send the issue to a budget conference committee made up of negotiators from the Assembly and Senate, said Assemblyman Fred Keeley, D-Boulder Creek, who proposed the move. 

The Senate subcommittee proposed the tax be increased by 4 percentage points, raising an estimated $21.5 million a year to fully cover the state’s cost of environmental reviews of logging plans, the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected. 

Timber owners currently pay a 3 percent yield tax, but just $174,000 goes to harvest reviews. 

Timber companies and the Department of Forestry object to the proposal, saying logging companies already pay other costs associated with the reviews.

SAN JOSE — Yahoo! Inc. said Thursday it plans to pull most of its online auction initiatives in Europe and instead promote eBay’s market-leading auction site there. 

Yahoo said Thursday that in six weeks, it will shut down auction services on five of its European Web sites: Britain and Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Under a marketing deal with eBay, Yahoo said it will feature advertisements touting eBay auction services there. 

Financial details of the multi-year agreement were not disclosed. 

Yahoo decided to close the auctions after a review last year of its business, Rob Solomon, senior vice president of Yahoo’s commerce division, said in an interview Thursday. In Europe, it is typically a distant third-place player. 

“We’re looking at businesses where we can grow and be most profitable,” he said. And in Europe, that means resources will be shifted to commerce initiatives such as Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Travel. 

Yahoo will continue to operate an auction site in Denmark, where it has had more success, Solomon said. 

Yahoo’s withdrawal is the latest indication of the stiff competition in the online auction world. 

In March, eBay pulled out of the Japanese market despite other efforts to expand in Asia. Even without charging user fees in Japan, eBay ranked a distant fourth in the market. Ebay has advertised on Yahoo’s European sites before, but the marketing pact is their first formal deal, Solomon said. 

TRUCHAS, N.M. — Hundreds of people left their homes Thursday as a fast-moving 6,000-acre wildfire threatened a small northern New Mexico town. 

“I cried on the way down,” said Jill Jaramillo, who grabbed her four young daughters, blankets and a change of clothes before leaving for an emergency shelter. “How can you make a choice of what to bring?” 

The fire in the Santa Fe National Forest exploded from 400 acres to 6,000 within hours, prompting the evacuation request. It was moving toward the east end of town, and was 1 1/2 miles from the nearest building as of 5 p.m., fire information officer Charles Jankiewicz said. 

There were no immediate reports of any damage in Truchas, less than 100 miles from the Colorado border. 

The fire began to spot Thursday afternoon, meaning embers flung in front of the blaze started new fires. 

“There’s no way we can put people in front of this fire,” Jankiewicz said. “It’s too dangerous. This fire is going where it wants.” Special fire engines were thundering into place around clusters of homes and other buildings, he said. 

Jaramillo said the fire would be a hardship for residents. 

“We are all just barely making it, and we don’t need this to happen to us,” she said. “You struggle so hard, and it could be gone in a minute — everything.” 

A towering ridge of smoke soared high, dominating the Santa Fe sky. 

The wind gusted up 40 mph earlier but was turning east and could blow the fire away from the towns by Friday, National Weather Service meteorologist Clay Anderson said. 

In Colorado, seven buildings at a youth campground and two summer homes burned Thursday near Deckers. The blaze was between 4,000 and 5,000 acres and 20 percent contained, Forest Service spokesman Pete Davis said. 

“The weather has been extremely cooperative so far and the predictions are it’s going to continue that way,” he said. “We’re very hopeful.” 

More than 100 students were evacuated from the youth camp late Tuesday as the fire raced north, and about 100 homes were threatened in the area surrounding Deckers, a popular fly-fishing spot on the South Platte River. 

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” said B.A. Claussen, who saw flames on his way to his cabin Tuesday night. “I grabbed the wine and the stamp collection and we loaded the good stuff in the Jeep.” 

Claussen donned a fire retardant suit to go with firefighters to check out his cabin and was relieved to find it barely singed Thursday. A neighbor’s home was destroyed, he said. 

At Colorado’s request, the Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed Thursday to pay 75 percent of the firefighting costs, agency spokesman Jim Chesnutt said. 

Several other fires were burning in the West. 

xLandmark cases brought by individual smokers against the tobacco industry, listing date, location, award, parties and status: 

— March: Portland, Ore., $150 million punitive, Schwarz v. Philip Morris. On appeal. (Reduced to $100 million by judge in May). 

— February: Kansas City, Kan., $196,000 compensatory, Burton v. RJR Tobacco and The American Tobacco Co. Punitive damage ruling pending. 

— June 2001: Los Angeles, $3 billion punitive, Boeken v. Philip Morris. On appeal. (Reduced to $100 million by judge in August 2001). 

— October 2000: Tampa, Fla., $200,000 compensatory, Jones v. RJR Tobacco. Overturned. 

— March 2000: San Francisco, $20 million punitive, Whiteley v. Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Corp. On appeal. 

— March 1999: Portland, Ore., $79.5 million punitive, Williams-Branch v. Philip Morris. On appeal. (Reduced to $32 million by judge). 

— February 1999: San Francisco, $50 million punitive. Henley v. Philip Morris. On appeal. (Reduced to $25 million by judge). 

— June 1998: Jacksonville, Fla., $552,000 compensatory and $450,000 punitive. Widdick v. Brown & Williamson. Overturned. 

— August 1996: Jacksonville, Fla., $750,000 compensatory. Carter v. Brown & Williamson. First and only tobacco payment: $1.1 million (including interest) in March 2001. 

Source: Tobacco Products Liability Project of Northeastern University; AP archives. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Two men who forced a bank manager to rob her own bank while they held her family hostage were convicted Thursday of armed bank robbery by extortion. 

Carlton V. Smith and Thomas A. Nichols had previously been convicted for their role in two similar bank heists in eastern Tennessee, and elements of the trial mirrored those presented to a Chattanooga jury in 1999. 

In Thursday’s case, the two men and a third, who prosecutors say masterminded the scheme he called “the love connection,” targeted Carolyn Pierce, a bank manager in Clarksville. 

Pierce endured an 18-hour siege of her home by the three men before she retrieved $851,000 from the bank. Her husband had been tied up and threatened with death, and their child was at home at the time, as were Pierce’s parents. 

The third man, Doug Daigle, later hanged himself in jail. He didn’t wear a mask, but his inside accomplice did, a man Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Deneke told jurors was Smith. Nichols was the outside lookout, Deneke said. 

Some of the evidence against the men was collected by the hostages. Pierce’s father, Leonard Beaudoin, a former military policeman, surreptitiously hid the cigarette butts left around the house by his captors. The cigarette butts yielded DNA evidence that pointed to Daigle and Smith. 

Carolyn Pierce also remembered seeing a black Mustang creeping toward the money drop after she left $851,000 there. Nichols was driving a black Mustang in East Tennessee when he was pulled over and ticketed by a police officer for running a stop sign. 

Prosecutors told jurors that Smith and Nichols couldn’t have afforded the Harley-Davidson motorcycles they bought in early 1997 before the bank heist. 

But Smith’s attorney, Carl Douglas Thoresen, said in his closing arguments the plentiful testimony about his client’s marijuana cultivation and said the cash could have come from his client’s illegal dealings. 

Hahn, Riordan speak out against plan to separate San Fernando Valley from second-biggest U.S. city 

LOS ANGELES – Battle lines were drawn Thursday in what may become a $10 million fight to decide if the San Fernando Valley will break away from the nation’s second-largest city. 

Current Mayor James Hahn, a Democrat, and former Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, joined forces a day after a local commission voted to put a secession measure on the Nov. 5 city ballot. 

A legal challenge to the measure had been considered a possibility, but at a City Hall news conference the mayor said he had no plans to sue. 

“We think we can win this battle at the polls,” he said. 

Secession advocates have said they expect to spend $3 million to $5 million. They also have talked about combining forces with secession advocates in Hollywood and the San Pedro harbor area. A decision on whether to place those breakup measures on the ballot will be made this month. 

Hahn and Riordan will be part of a privately funded campaign that hopes to raise $5 million, campaign consultant Bill Carrick said. 

Riordan, a multimillionaire businessman, pledged to walk precincts and to write “a good-sized check” for the anti-secession movement, although he didn’t provide a figure. 

“I’ll match what I made as mayor,” he joked. Riordan spent about $6.3 million of his own money for his two mayoral campaigns but accepted a salary of only $1 a year. 

Billionaire developer Eli Broad said he already had contributed $100,000 to the effort and would contribute more. Broad, who supported Hahn’s rival in the last election, said he and the mayor, along with Riordan, wealthy developer Ed Roski and former Secretary of State Warren Christopher met for breakfast and agreed that secession “would be God-awful for the city.” 

“I think we’ve got a great city and we’re gonna go out there and talk about how great our city is, and wage a very positive campaign,” he said. 

The anti-secession campaign will use TV and radio ads along with door-to-door contacts to reach “those people who are watching this from the sidelines,” Carrick said. 

The secession fight may overshadow the gubernatorial race because the issue is closer to home, he noted. 

The battle will be non-partisan and is “devoid of personalities,” Carrick said, predicting that the two sides will focus on information barrages rather than personal attacks. 

“The whole universe of voters (is) up for grabs,” he said. “People aren’t gonna make a choice because they’re Democrats or Republicans. They’re gonna make a choice on the issues.” 

A union representing 9,000 city garbage collectors, sewer workers, mechanics and other employees was planning a summer get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat the measure. 

“This is our top priority this year,” said Julie Butcher, general manager of Service Employees International Union Local 347. “Their jobs are endangered. There’s no guarantee that they’ll work in the new city. We’re talking a few thousands jobs.” 

The proposed schism would create a new city of 1.3 million on July 1, 2003. The remaining Los Angeles would have about 2.5 million residents. 

Secessionists claim too much of the valley’s taxes go to use elsewhere in the city. Hahn and Riordan argue that splitting the city probably would mean higher taxes and reduced services for everyone. 

“We share the goal of keeping Los Angeles united,” Hahn said. “Our strength has been our diversity, and to lose that diversity, to lose any part of this great city is like cutting off an arm or cutting off a leg.” 

“Breaking this city apart will not accomplish anything. It will only hurt our communities. It will detract from the greatest city in the world,” Riordan said.

SACRAMENTO – More than a third of California’s single women live in poverty, according to a report released Wednesday by the San Francisco-based Women’s Foundation. 

The report comes as Gov. Gray Davis is proposing to fill a $23.6 billion budget deficit with heavy cuts to health care and social service programs for the poor. 

“In terms of measuring economic health, with women being the thermometer, our findings indicate that California has a chronic flu,” Patti Chang, the foundation’s president, said at a Capitol news conference Wednesday. 

The foundation studied government statistics, previously published sources and conducted interviews. It’s report found that 37 percent of single women in California live below the federal poverty rate — compared with 25 percent nationwide. 

Women of color and older single women are the most likely to live in poverty, the foundation reported. 

California ranks 48th among states in the nation in the number of residents who own homes. Because of the growing gap between wages and rents, two-thirds of low-income people spend more than 70 percent of their income on housing, the report found. 

Women make up nearly half the state’s labor force but are concentrated in traditional low-income occupations such as services and administrative support, the report said. 

Recently released census figures show that despite the roaring economy of the 1990s, the percentage of California families living in poverty is growing.

Justice Department considering giving cops power to enforce immigration laws; Florida the first state to agree to idea 

SAN FRANCISCO – Daniel Rosas Romero waits among the knots of men who line the sidewalks of a bustling street, hoping each day for painting, moving, gardening or construction jobs. 

The day laborers — many of whom slipped into the United States undocumented — have established an uneasy relationship with local police, who don’t ask whether they are in the country legally. 

Romero fears that delicate balance could tip under a new proposal being considered by the Justice Department, which would allow local and state police to enforce immigration laws. 

The Justice Department has not provided details about the idea floated in a legal opinion written by its attorneys. The department says only that it “continues to explore all options to enforce immigration laws,” said spokesman Dan Nelson. 

As security concerns and immigration policy intersect after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, some states are considering similar initiatives. Supporters note INS agents are not usually patrolling the streets. But states’ officers are — and could limit the potential for terrorism by illegal immigrants, they say. 

The proposals are, however, raising questions and spreading fear throughout immigrant communities, where many worry they could be deported. 

“It would cause us as immigrants, no matter where we are, to be frightened,” said Romero, who came to the United States in search of work to pay for his teen-age son and daughter’s schooling in Mexico. 

“We’re not a problem. We can be a solution for this country” by doing work others are not willing to do, he said. Critics also believe the proposals could lead to racial profiling and discourage immigrants from reporting crimes to the police. 

Supporters say the Immigration and Naturalization Service, with 2,000 agents, lacks the staff to track suspected terrorists, much less an estimated 8 million illegal immigrants scattered throughout the country. Enlisting state and local authorities would create “a seamless web of protection against future threats,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. 

And Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police, notes that “by definition, if you are an illegal alien, you’re not supposed to be here.” 

In Florida, the state is hoping to reach a first-of-its-kind agreement with the Justice Department to give 35 law enforcement officers the authority to arrest illegal immigrants deemed threats to national security, said Jennifer McCord, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. 

South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon wants to pursue a similar agreement, under which the state’s law enforcement officers would be deputized as INS agents. 

But workers like Mathieu Beaucicot, who is in the United States on temporary visa, feel police will wind up pursuing them. 

“People working in fields picking this country’s oranges and tomatoes aren’t terrorists, and yet they’re the ones who would suffer the consequences for this change in policy,” said Beaucicot, who fled Haiti after a political coup and works in the tomato fields of southwest Florida. 

In Colorado, state legislators were considering a bill that would have authorized officers to enforce criminal violations of federal immigration laws. The bill was postponed indefinitely, but the idea has made many immigrants feel more vulnerable, said Jorge Rubalcaba, a day laborer in Aurora, Colo. 

Two months ago, he called the police when he heard a neighbor hitting his wife. If that happened, under the new proposal, “I think I would not tell them,” he said. 

“Everybody’s worried and has doubts,” said Rubalcaba, who moved to the United States from Mexico six years ago. “You can’t even go out and have fun. You aren’t free to go shopping, you can’t go to a park. The normal things of life you can’t do.” 

Police are split on the issue. Some say officers could assist an overwhelmed INS. Others believe doing so could jeopardize relationships with immigrant communities, and contend it’s not their role to take on immigration duties. 

Some cities, including San Francisco and Chicago, already have policies that generally prevent city officials from asking about people’s immigration status. Officials said they haven’t concluded how the Justice Department’s proposal would affect such policies. 

On the San Francisco sidewalk, Andres Barela and other laborers scan each passing car, hoping its occupants will stop and hire them. 

“Terrorists are not going to be here in the streets,” said Barela, who sends his earnings to his grandmother and uncles in Honduras. “We are just honest persons. We want to work, make money and have families.”

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – John Walker Lindh pleaded “please don’t kill me” as U.S. troops took the captured Taliban soldier to a U.S. military camp in Afghanistan, his defense lawyers said Thursday. 

A Marine accompanying the prisoner told Lindh to shut up, the lawyers said in a written motion. 

The defense team wants to subpoena the Marine, along with other U.S. military and civilian personnel who were in contact with the California-raised Lindh in Afghanistan and aboard Navy ships. 

Their aim is to find testimony and photographs that would demonstrate, at a June 17 hearing, that Lindh did not kill Americans and that he was questioned while imprisoned under inhumane conditions. 

The lawyers contend Lindh was bound in a metal container, sometimes naked in freezing weather, at the time he was questioned late last year. The government says Lindh waived his right to remain silent and have an attorney present. 

A Marine identified as USMC No. 11 “was present at Camp Rhino (in Afghanistan) at a critical time,” the motion said. “He observed Mr. Lindh’s conditions of incarceration and can testify as to his state of mind just prior to interrogation.” 

For example, the motion said, USMC No. 11 “reports that during the transport to the metal container at Camp Rhino, Lindh kept saying, ‘Please don’t kill me.”’ 

Lindh was interrogated at the camp and made statements the government is likely to use at trial. Jury selection is scheduled for Aug. 26. 

A government criminal complaint filed in January quoted Lindh as saying he learned in June 2001, while a Taliban military trainee, that alleged terror mastermind Osama bin Laden had sent people to the United States for suicide operations. 

The complaint also said Lindh and four other trainees met for about five minutes with bin Laden, who thanked them for participating in his holy war.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – John Walker Lindh pleaded “please don’t kill me” as U.S. troops took the captured Taliban soldier to a U.S. military camp in Afghanistan, his defense lawyers said Thursday. 

A Marine accompanying the prisoner told Lindh to shut up, the lawyers said in a written motion. 

The defense team wants to subpoena the Marine, along with other U.S. military and civilian personnel who were in contact with the California-raised Lindh in Afghanistan and aboard Navy ships. 

Their aim is to find testimony and photographs that would demonstrate, at a June 17 hearing, that Lindh did not kill Americans and that he was questioned while imprisoned under inhumane conditions. 

The lawyers contend Lindh was bound in a metal container, sometimes naked in freezing weather, at the time he was questioned late last year. The government says Lindh waived his right to remain silent and have an attorney present. 

A Marine identified as USMC No. 11 “was present at Camp Rhino (in Afghanistan) at a critical time,” the motion said. “He observed Mr. Lindh’s conditions of incarceration and can testify as to his state of mind just prior to interrogation.” 

For example, the motion said, USMC No. 11 “reports that during the transport to the metal container at Camp Rhino, Lindh kept saying, ‘Please don’t kill me.”’ 

Lindh was interrogated at the camp and made statements the government is likely to use at trial. Jury selection is scheduled for Aug. 26. 

A government criminal complaint filed in January quoted Lindh as saying he learned in June 2001, while a Taliban military trainee, that alleged terror mastermind Osama bin Laden had sent people to the United States for suicide operations. 

The complaint also said Lindh and four other trainees met for about five minutes with bin Laden, who thanked them for participating in his holy war.

SACRAMENTO – Pharmacies could sell hypodermic needles to adults without a doctor’s prescription under a bill approved Thursday by the state Senate. 

Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, said his legislation would cut down on the number of cases of HIV and other diseases caused by the sharing of needles among drug addicts. 

“I ask for an aye vote for life,” he said. 

But Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, said addicts would continue to share needles because “that’s part of the drug culture.” 

“This bill allows addicts who share needles to have more needles to share and there will only be a proliferation of disease,” he said. 

The bill would allow pharmacies to sell up to 30 hypodermic needles or syringes without a prescription to a person who is over 18. 

Current law allows public agencies to distribute clean needles as part of a needle exchange program. 

A 21-12 vote sent the bill to the Assembly.

WASHINGTON – Police and forensic experts worked Thursday to solve the mystery of how Chandra Levy died, with investigators saying most evidence points to murder. 

The Levy family pressed to have police classify the case a homicide, and Police Chief Charles Ramsey said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it were.” 

Indications in that direction include the former intern’s youth and fitness as well as the discovery of her remains beneath leaves and underbrush “off the beaten path” of Rock Creek Park, Ramsey said. 

But he said the case will remain simply a “death investigation” until Washington’s medical examiner makes a determination of the cause of death. 

The remains of Levy, 24, of Modesto, Calif., were found by a man walking his dog Wednesday morning. They were located on a steep slope and identified later in the day using dental records. 

Ramsey said Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., may be among the people investigators want to talk to again. 

Condit has acknowledged an affair with Levy, a police source says, but denies any involvement in her disappearance. Police interviewed him four times and repeatedly have said he is not a suspect. 

Police probably also will interview for a second time a man convicted of assaulting two joggers, Ramsey said. The attacks occurred in May and July last year in the same area of the park where Levy’s remains were found. 

Ramsey said investigators talked to the man months ago after U.S. Park Police alerted them to the arrest. “He said nothing to implicate himself with her, but then again we didn’t know she was in Rock Creek Park,” Ramsey said. He cautioned against calling the man a suspect. 

Both women were carrying portable radios and wearing headphones when they were attacked, according to a description of the cases provided by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. Police said they found a radio and headphones among Levy’s remains. She disappeared May 1, 2001 — two weeks before the first assault. 

Investigators resumed their search of the area Thursday, painstakingly sifting through dirt and leaves looking for blood, hairs, clothing fibers or other evidence that could help determine when and how Levy died. 

The items recovered with the skull and bones Wednesday included a jogging bra, tennis shoes, University of Southern California sweat shirt and other clothing. Levy, who had been a Bureau of Prisons intern in Washington, was a graduate student at USC. 

Ramsey would not say whether any evidence of foul play had been found. Terrance W. Gainer, the deputy police chief, said the skull was “not in pristine condition,” but he could not conclude whether the damage to it came before or after Levy died. 

Dr. Cyril Wecht, the county coroner in Pittsburgh, said an examination of the bones would quickly yield any indications whether Levy was shot, stabbed or beaten to death. “Those exams have been completed,” Wecht said, noting they typically take no more than a few hours. 

Strangulation, which often does not involve fracturing bones or cartilage, would be harder to determine, he said. 

He also said investigators are unlikely to find much physical evidence at the scene that would help them identify a potential killer, because such evidence probably deteriorated during 13 months outdoors. 

DNA analysis can take a couple of weeks to complete, he said.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, the man accused of butchering a 10-year-old boy here and feeding his remains to unsuspecting neighbors, was sentenced Thursday to 130 years in prison without parole for assaults on two other boys. 

State District Judge Kenneth Neill, citing Bar-Jonah’s extensive record of crimes against children, turned down a request from defense attorneys that Bar-Jonah be sent to the state psychiatric hospital instead of prison. 

Bar-Jonah showed no emotion and was quickly removed from the courtroom. 

Don Vernay, a defense attorney, said the sentence would be appealed. Attorneys already have said they would appeal the jury’s verdicts. 

Bar-Jonah’s sentence included 100 years for sexual assault, 10 years for aggravated kidnapping and 20 years for assault. Neill ordered that they run consecutively. 

The assault and sexual assault charges stem from a 1999 case involving two young boys who lived near Bar-Jonah. Investigators said Bar-Jonah sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy and strung the boy’s 8-year-old cousin by his neck with a pulley and rope to watch him choke. 

Both boys testified during Bar-Jonah’s jury trial in Butte. Neill had ordered the case moved to Butte because of publicity in Great Falls surrounding separate kidnapping and murder charges he faces in the 1996 disappearance of Zachary Ramsay. 

Bar-Jonah, 45, spent more than a decade in a Massachusetts mental hospital after one attack in that state in which authorities said he tried to kill two boys. Two years before that, he forced an 8-year-old boy into his car and choked him with his belt so badly that the boy was hospitalized.

Provisions to give teachers power over book and curriculum selection dropped 

SACRAMENTO – Teachers won’t get expanded powers during collective bargaining to influence the selection of textbooks after legislators Wednesday dropped those provisions from a hotly debated education bill. 

State lawmakers Wednesday dropped provisions in a hotly debated education bill that would have armed California’s teachers with power over textbook and curriculum selection. 

The Assembly Appropriations Committee voted to send an amended AB2160 to the Assembly. The new bill would create academic partnerships made up of schools’ trustees and teacher representatives, with provisions to ensure that local schools boards heed their advice. Parents would also be included. 

Written by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, AB2160 is one of two bills backed by the California Teachers Association and causing a huge rift between the state’s largest teachers union and Gov. Gray Davis, who has threatened to veto both bills. 

Although the CTA has supported Davis in the past, including giving his 1998 campaign about $2 million, it has been frustrated by the governor’s support of more tests for students and greater accountability for schools and teachers, said president Wayne Johnson. 

Goldberg’s bill on testing, AB2347, would eliminate most of the state’s testing system that is at the heart of Davis’ education reforms. The committee voted to send it to the Assembly. 

The bill would start testing in third, not second, grade, as well as eliminate monetary awards for teachers, staff or schools with improved test scores, Goldberg said, adding that scores are influenced by socio-economic forces beyond a teacher’s control. 

Many of these award programs, however, were already removed from next year’s budget as the state faces a $23.6 billion budget shortfall. The budget includes about $500 million in school reductions, including the governor’s pet performance awards program for schools and teachers whose students improve test scores. 

Johnson said the testing bill wouldn’t eliminate testing but would create a new test that actually measures what students are taught. A new test, however, has not yet been designed. 

Opposition has been growing against the bills, specifically the one dealing with collective bargaining. Last month, opponents created Californians for Public School Accountability, a coalition of business and school administrators groups. 

Opponents say the collective bargaining bill could cost taxpayers an extra $200 million, because the development of programs the bill would require would mean more spending would occur. 

Collective bargaining is a mandated cost reimbursed by the state. In the current fiscal year, the state will reimburse school districts $38.8 million for K-12 collective bargaining, according to Kevin Gordon, a spokesman for the California Association of School Business Officials. 

Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, wondered that if extra money was being spent on academic partnerships, if cuts would mean “cheaper books” would be bought. 

Goldberg, however, said the partnerships could take place when teachers are already on the time clock. 

Opponents, who said the bill would give teachers more power, weren’t placated by the amendments. The Association of California School Administrators and the California School Boards Association said they will not support the amended bill. 

Because many districts already allow teachers to have a say in choosing textbooks, Goldberg’s bill “will just create another layer of bureaucracy,” said Laura Jeffries, the ACSA’s legislative analyst. 

But teachers, Goldberg said, often leave the profession after a few years because they don’t have a voice. Her bill would give them one, she said

Oceanside Unified School District to pay more than $140,000  

and provide employees with annual sensitivity training 

OCEANSIDE – A high school teacher who claimed she was harassed and denied a promotion because she is a lesbian has settled her lawsuit against the Oceanside Unified School District. 

The district will pay Dawn Murray more than $140,000 and provide its employees with annual sensitivity training on issues of sexual orientation discrimination, the Lambda Legal advocacy group said Thursday. 

Murray also resigned as part of the settlement, the district’s lawyer Daniel Shinoff said. 

Murray, a biology teacher at the school for nearly 20 years and winner of national teaching awards, said she was denied a promotion to director of student activities and suffered ongoing harassment by her colleagues at the 2,000-student school north of San Diego. 

Colleagues accused her of having sexual encounters with another teacher on campus during school hours, she said, and her classroom was vandalized. While she told some colleagues she is gay, Murray complained that an unwelcome “outing” in front of staff opened her up to verbal attacks. 

Murray said she was threatened with disciplinary action when she complained. 

An appellate court ruled in April 2000 that Murray had the right to sue the district for discrimination under a 1999 amendment to the Fair Employment and Housing Act. The state Supreme Court upheld the ruling in August 2000. 

In a statement, Murray said she hoped the case would show other school districts “if they respond to harassment in an inappropriate way, we will stand up, the laws will protect us, and they will be made to stop.” 

“Young people learn from adult behavior, and it was important to wage this fight to show students all people have to be treated fairly,” she said. 

Shinoff said the district’s insurance carrier would pay the settlement deal. He said the district, however, continues to maintain that “anything that occurred was not the result of discrimination based on her sexual orientation.”

SAN FRANCISCO – A California inmate has no right to mail his sperm from prison to impregnate his wife, a divided federal appeals court ruled Thursday. 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in reversing its September decision, said inmates have no constitutional right to procreate. Ruling 6-5, the San Francisco-based court put a halt to inmate William Gerber’s plans to ship his sperm to his wife in Southern California. 

“A holding that the state of California must accommodate Gerber’s request to artificially inseminate his wife as a matter of constitutional right would be a radical and unprecedented interpretation of the Constitution,” Judge Barry G. Silverman wrote. 

Gerber’s effort to impregnate his wife got national attention last year when a three-judge panel of the same circuit said Gerber had a right to mail his sperm to his 46-year-old wife, Evelyn. 

Silverman, the lone dissent in that September opinion, said the majority’s opinion allowed Gerber “to procreate from prison via FedEx,” and added that the majority “does not accept the fact that there are certain downsides to being confined in prison.” 

The U.S. Supreme Court has said prisoners have a right to marry and be free from forced sterilization. But neither the high court nor any lower court has resolved circumstances presented in Gerber’s case, which reached the courts when the California Department of Corrections balked at Gerber’s proposal. 

“The close 6-5 decision is obviously very disappointing to the Gerbers, and disturbing to anyone troubled by a government that can dictate who may or may not have children,” said the Gerbers’ attorney, Teresa Zuber. 

Evelyn Gerber declined comment through her attorney. 

Still, a five-judge circuit minority said the prison is not harmed by a prisoner ejaculating in a cup and mailing it to his wife. 

Judge Alex Kozinski said the process neither compromises security nor places a strain on prison resources beyond that required to mail any other package. 

“The prison has no penological interest in what prisoners do with their seed once it’s spilt,” Kozinski wrote. “A specimen cup would seem to be no worse a receptacle, from the prison’s point of view, than any other.” 

He wrote that the majority’s rule could encourage curtailing prisoners’ rights. 

“Does the term imprisonment also implicitly abridge the right to speak? Or the right to own property? The right to marry? To practice a religion?” he asked. 

Gerber would be able to try to father a child the old-fashioned way if he was not serving a life term. 

For three decades, California inmates with good prison records have been granted almost unsupervised overnight visits with loved ones in prison cottages. Prisoner rights groups say conjugal visits foster good prison behavior. 

But in 1995, California banned conjugal visits for prisoners convicted of sex crimes, crimes carrying life sentences or violent crimes against family members or minors. 

Gerber is serving a life term in a state prison in Blythe for illegally discharging a firearm and making terrorist threats, and was sentenced under California’s three strikes law. 

The case is Gerber v. Hickman, 00-16494.

The Berkeley City Council unanimously voted to oppose the Racial Privacy Initiative Tuesday night, an initiative that would prohibit state and local governments from collecting or using information about race, ethnicity, color or national origin. 

The RPI, submitted by UC Regent Ward Connerly for the November ballot, proposes to phase out racial check-off boxes on state and local government forms by 2005, with exemptions for medical research and treatment, law enforcement and the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.  

"The fundamental question we have to ask ourselves is why would we not want to have access to information on these topics," said Councilmember Linda Maio. 

The City Council, along with other opponents of the initiative including the ACLU, the NAACP and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund claim that the RPI would damage efforts to monitor racial data and enforce anti-discrimination laws. 

“It would be detrimental to many different information gathering efforts used to address racial and ethnic inequalities,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

Worthington contends that if the initiative makes it to the November ballot, it would hide the discrimination and racism that currently exists by forcing people to debate issues without facts, documents or proof. 

Supporters of the initiative claim that the collection of racial and ethnic data is not reliable and represents a governmental obsession with race. According to Kevin Nguyen, Executive Director of the American Civil Rights Coalition, “the collection of racial data is a political exercise, not a scientific one. The information is not reliable. Information on race is devoid of standards and consistency.” 

Nguyen added that data collection does not solve problems but instead leads to confusion and inconsistencies. Supporters of the initiative claim that individuals from multi-racial backgrounds are forced to check off one box on surveys of race or ethnicity leading to inaccurate data.  

Nguyen also added that UC Berkeley's student newspaper The Daily Californian has decided to support the initiative. 

Councilmember Worthington cited the effect that the initiative could have on health issues. Because health campaigns often focus on community or ethnic specific issues, an elimination of ethnic and racial data would compromise the efforts of those campaigns, he said. 

“The other side says we should be colorblind and simply focus on merit, a wonderful idea if it worked in reality. The reality is racism still exists,” said Worthington. 

City Council plans to send letters of opposition to Gov. Gray Davis, state Assemblywoman Dion Aroner and state Senator Don Perata. The council is confident that Aroner and Perata will oppose the initiative and hopeful that Davis will also decide against the RPI as well. 

The initiative, proposed as a result of the lack of compliance with Proposition 209 according to Nguyen, is currently waiting for approval from the Secretary of State before it can legally be placed on the November ballot. 

According to the ACRC, nearly one million signatures have been collected from California voters in favor of placing the initiative on the ballot. 

Many opponents of the initiative claim the RPI could damage protections the data collection allows for members of ethnic minorities. Opponents of the initiative expressed a desire to evaluate individuals on a basis of merit and without regard to color as the RIP supports, but claimed that such evaluation is not possible in our modern, multi-ethnic, multi-racial society. 

“Connerly seems to want to say that everything is fine, that we don't need to do any more work on the topic of race but that's a self-delusion, a myth,” said Maio. 

Jim Hausken, a board member from the Berkeley-Albany-Richmond-Kensington chapter of the ACLU, believes that the initiative will hamstring many well-intentioned efforts to reduce discrimination. 

According to Hausken, the initiative claims that certain realities, such as figures on race and ethnicity, would be deemed unimportant. According to Hausken, such determinations are dangerous and parallel battles over censorship. 

Maio hopes that the topic will continue to produce a large amount of public discourse and hopes the city will plan future public forums on the issue. 

Today is Thursday, May 23, the 143rd day of 2002. There are 222 days left in the year. 

Highlight: 

On May 23, 1960, Israel announced it had captured former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. (Eichmann was tried in Israel, found guilty of crimes against humanity, and hanged in 1962.) 

On this date: 

In 1430, Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English. 

In 1533, the marriage of England’s King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void. 

In 1701, Capt. William Kidd was hanged in London after he was convicted of piracy and murder. 

In 1788, South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. 

In 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary in World War I. 

In 1934, bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death in a police ambush in Bienville Parish, La. 

In 1937, industrialist John D. Rockefeller died in Ormond Beach, Fla. 

In 1940, Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, the Pied Pipers and featured soloist Frank Sinatra recorded “I’ll Never Smile Again” in New York for RCA. 

In 1945, Nazi official Heinrich Himmler committed suicide while imprisoned in Luneburg, Germany. 

In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and former Attorney General John N. Mitchell in connection with their Watergate convictions. 

Ten years ago:  

The United States and four former Soviet republics signed an agreement in Lisbon, Portugal, to implement the START missile-reduction treaty that had been agreed to by the Soviet Union prior to its dissolution. 

Five years ago: The defense at the Oklahoma City bombing trial suffered an embarrassing setback when one of its own witnesses provided testimony potentially damaging to defendant Timothy McVeigh. The Senate decisively approved a carefully constructed deal to balance the budget and cut taxes. Iranians elected a moderate president, Mohammad Khatami, over hard-liners in the ruling Muslim clergy. 

One year ago:  

The Senate passed an 11-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut bill. 

Today’s Birthdays:  

Bandleader Artie Shaw is 92. Actress Betty Garrett is 83. Pianist Alicia de Larrocha is 79. Bluegrass singer Mac Wiseman is 77. Singer Rosemary Clooney is 74. Actor Nigel Davenport is 74. Actress Barbara Barrie is 71. Actress Joan Collins is 69. Actor Charles Kimbrough is 66. Rhythm-and-blues singer General Johnson (Chairmen of the Board) is 59. Actress Lauren Chapin is 57. Country singer Misty Morgan is 57. Country singer Judy Rodman is 51. Boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler is 50. Singer Luka Bloom is 47. Actor-comedian Drew Carey is 44. Country singer Shelley West is 44. Actor Linden Ashby is 42. Actress-model Karen Duffy is 41. Rock musician Phil Selway (Radiohead) is 35. Singer Lorenzo is 30. Singer Maxwell is 29. Singer Jewel is 28. Actor Adam Wylie is 18. 

- The Associated Press

To the Editor: 

No, a thousand times no, to the idea that the UC Theatre should be demolished and replaced with a small theater space and housing. 

How absurd is it that the City can invest literally millions of dollars in helping to build a new large theater space for one performing arts group (the Berkeley Repertory Theatre), then a few years later and literally next door, allow one of Berkeley’s pre-eminent and most historic large theaters to be demolished? 

What does Berkeley need to do to avoid this type of tragedy? First, inventory all the current and potential performing arts facilities in the city, both public and private. There are magnificent spaces that have literally been sitting vacant for years, particularly as many of Berkeley’s older clubs and churches have shrunk in membership and activities. Those spaces should live again in new institutional and performing arts use. 

Second, inventory all the facilities needs, current and projected, of performing arts groups in Berkeley. 

Third, compare the two lists to identify opportunities where unused spaces like the UC can be put back into use by performing arts groups that are crying out for suitable venues. Coordinate all relevant city offices and policy-making — Zoning, Planning, Economic Development, etc. — to help make this happen. 

Fourth, stop funding facilities construction for specific groups and, instead, fund the acquisition or construction of facilities. This would mean an end to direct loans or grants of public funds for construction of facilities like the Black Repertory Theatre and the Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater, that become the property of a particular arts organization and are solely used and controlled by a single group. 

Instead, the city would invest in performance spaces that could be shifted back and forth between user groups, depending on the need and demand in the arts community. This would ensure that spaces the city has helped create, like the Black Repertory Theatre building, don’t sit around underused. 

Fifth, examine how the city and the local arts community can work together to create a non-profit organization charged with the sole purpose of acquiring, developing, maintaining, and managing local arts facilities. 

Such an organization could be employed to purchase or lease underused buildings such as the UC Theater and match them up with, and re-lease them out to, arts groups like the Berkeley Symphony that have a clear need for space, but do not necessarily have the financial wherewithal, schedule, or organizational expertise to buy or manage a theater on their own. 

Berkeley has a vibrant performing arts community, a small but dedicated civic arts program and staff, enthusiastic audiences, and many facilities that can work well for the arts. 

It would be a terrible waste to let irreplaceable opportunities and historic spaces like the UC Theatre disappear because of a lack of will, cooperation, and coordination of resources. 

- Steven Finacom 

Berkeley

Thursday, May 23

The Crowden School 19th Annual Spring Concert in Berkeley 

7:30 p.m. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley 

Corner of Dana and Durant 

559-6910x110, www.thecrowdenschool.org 

John Reischman & the Jaybirds 

Mandolin virtuoso & red-hot bluegrass ensemble 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$15.50 advance, $16.50 at the door 

Friday, May 24

Jazz Night 

8 to ll p.m. 

The Bob Schoen Quintet; featuring vocalist Cheryl McBride and surprise guest. 

ACCI Gallery 

1652 Shattuck Avenue 

843-2527, www.accigallery.com 

Friday, May 31

Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter (with former Whiskytown member Paul Wandscher)  

headlines The Starry Plough 

9:30 p.m. - Bingo 

10:45 p.m. - Winfred Eye 

12:00 a.m. - Jesse Sykes 

3101 Shattuck Avenue 

841-2082 

$7 door 

Sunday, June 2

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

5:30 p.m. 

Zoe Vandermeer, Harpist (baroque triple harp) and Soprano will perform vocal and instrumental selections by Dowland, Byrd, Caccini, Frescobaldi, Rogniono, and others on both triple harp and italian spinet. 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Monday, June 3

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

3 p.m. 

Ensemble Ortega, featuring singer Elza van den Heever, instrumental and vocal works by Corelli, Stradella, Muffat, Rosenmiller, Frescobaldi, Gabrieli and Marini. 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Tuesday, June 4

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

3 p.m. 

The Amorous Nightingale, Soprano Twyla Whittaker - Baroque "birdsong" music by Bach, Rameau and Handel. Also performing are: Stephen Schultz (flute), David Wilson (violin), Jonathan Salzedo (harpsichord), and Paul Hale (cello). 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

WomenSing presents "Your Song: Director’s Cut" 

A spring concert retrospective by director David Morales 

3 p.m and 7 p.m. 

Valley Center for the Performing Arts, Holy Names College, Oakland 

(925) 943-SHOW 

$20 general/$18 students & seniors 

Wednesday, June 5

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

5:30 p.m. 

Franklin Lei, lute with Zoe Vandermeer, Soprano and triple harp perform music of John Dowland  

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Thursday, June 6

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

2 p.m. 

John Khori, forte-piano 

music of Beethoven, Muzio Clementi, J.L. Dussek and John Field, on his 1808 Broadwood Grand Forte - piano. 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Saturday, June 8

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

5:30 p.m. 

Richard Burdick, natural horn, Dora Burdick, piano with Carol Kessler, soprano playing Schubert and other music from the 1820’s 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Sunday, June 9

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

5:30 p.m. 

THE KING’S TRUMPETTS AND SHALMES, Robert Cronin, James Kafka, Chris Lanz, Alan Paul, and David Hogan Smith perform English and German music of the 16th century, performed on shawms, sackbuts, recorders, and crumhorns 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Thursday, June 13

Tihn, performing songs from his new CD, "Acoustic Rain" 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Avenue 

849-2568, info@lapena.org 

Richmond Art Center 

New Exhibitions 

Tuesday - Friday 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday Noon to 4:30 p.m. 

June 1 through August 17 

2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond 

620-6772, www.therichmondartcenter.org 

"The Suzuki Studio," showing with Pro-Arts East Bay Open Studio 

June 1, 2 and June 8, 9 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

2240 Grant Street (corner of Bancroft Way and Grant) 

849-1427 

"Fine Art 2002 - Oakland" 

Show celebrates Oakland’s 150th Anniversary 

August 17-18 

Jack London Square 

Fine Artists are invited to apply to the juried show by e-mailing pr@kstudios.net or call 707-426-2294 

"24th Annual Quilt Show" 

May 6 through June 8, Mon-Thu, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Fri-Sat, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

The show displays an eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary quilts  

North Berkeley Branch Library 

981-6250 

Free 

"For One Lousy Minute She Felt Like A Queen: A Visual Journal" 

May 19 through June 27 

Addison Street Window Gallery 

2018 Addison Street (between Shattuck and Milvia) 

Sponsored by the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission 

"New Work: Collage and mixed media on paper and on canvas," by artist Mitzi Trachtenberg 

Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Runs Saturday, May 18 through June 15. 

Barbara Anderson Gallery 

2243 Fifth Street 

848-3822 

"Images of Love & Courtship," Ledger Paintings by Michael Horse runs through September 15. Meet Native American artist, Horse, at the Gathering Tribes Gallery. 

July 13 and 14 

1573 Solano Avenue 

528-9038, www.gatheringtribes.com 

Variety Preview Room Art Opening 

Wine & cheese reception showcasing WPA (Works Progress Administration) muralist James Daugherty. Hosted by Variety, a children’s charity started in the depression when a baby was left in a Vaudeville Theatre with a note pinned to her, pleading for help. In this time of economic uncertainty and patriotism please join for viewing this special collection of WPA murals. 

Wednesday, May 22, 5 to 7 p.m. 

Variety Preview Room 

582 Market St. at Montgomery, San Francisco  

415-781-3894

Thursday, May 23

Secrets of Search Engine Marketing 

A workshop held by The Sustainable Business Alliance 

8:30 to 11:30 a.m. 

Holiday Inn Express 

1175 University Avenue 

451-4001 

Senior Men's Afternoon 

Gay senior men discussion group, 2nd & 4th Thursdays. 

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave. 

510-548-8283  

Free 

Fishbowl: "Everything you always wanted to know about the opposite sex but were afraid to ask" An opportunity to ask anonymous questions in a confidential and supportive environment. 

7:30 to 9:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St., Berkeley 

510-848-0237 X 127 

$8-$10 

Attic Conversions 

Seminar by architect Andus Brandt 

7 to 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St., Berkeley 

$35 

Friday, May 24

Fiddle Down the FBI! 

Rally to Commemorate the 12th Anniversary of the car bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney and Celebrate the end of their federal civil rights trial against the FBI and Oakland Police Department. 

Noon 

Oakland Federal Building 

13th and Clay St., near 12th St BART stop 

Bring musical instruments 

663-6330, www.judibari.org 

Cherokee Artist: John Balloue 

paintings depict scenes from historic & contemporary Cherokee history, as well as pow-wow and spiritual images. 

Gathering Tribes 

1573 Solano Ave. 

528-9038 or www.gatheringtribes.com 

Saturday, May 25 

Word Beat Reading Series 

All kinds of entertainers come together. Featuring Kera Abraham and Ruth Levitan 

7-9 p.m. 

458 Perkins at Grand, Oakland 

Free 

Alice Waters "Chez Panisse Fruit" book signing 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Children's Movies 

Pinnochio (in English) 

Shows at noon & 2 p.m. 

The Actor's Studio 

3521 Maybelle Ave. 

Oakland 

510-530-0551 

$3 

6th Annual Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival 

Everyone's welcome to participate in covering Solono's sidewalks with chalk art. Featuring refreshments and entertainment. Artist's chalk and a Polaroid of the finished work are available for a fee. To encourage early registration, a raffle for merchandise by local business will be held for the artists at noon.  

Registration at Peralta Park, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., 1561 Solano Ave. Berkeley. 

For more information: 510-527-5358, www.solanoave.org. 

Free 

Cain & Abel- 1st Annual Stop the Violence Gospel Festival 

In Memory of Children Killed by Senseless Violence 

St. Andrews Baptist Church Gospel Choir, Family in Unity Gospel Choir, Our lady of Lourdes’ Men Gospel Choir, Lorrain Taylor, Michael Nelson, Praise Dancers, Testimonials, Display of Homicide Quilt, presentation by Students of Malcolm X Academy, Sermon by Rev. Ishmael Burch Jr., LeDoursey’s “Gone But Not Forgotten” Sky, Ronald DeVoyce Blackburn’s From-the-Cradle-to-the- Grave memorial candles, The Homicide Names Banner and Holman “Bob” Turner’s photographs of parents at the graveside or location where their child was killed. 

Noon- 6 p.m. 

St. Andrews Baptist Church 

2565 Post Street (at Lyon) 

San Francisco 

415- 292-5157 or 415-346-6500 

Free- contributions and donations appreciated 

Saturday & Sunday, May 25 & 26

19th Annual Himalayan Fair 

Outdoor celebration of the great Mountain Cultures! Authentic Himalayan Art, craft, Music & Dance, exotic food & stage entertainment. Benefits Himalayan Grassroots projects. 

Sat. 10-7, Sun. 10-5:30 

Live Oak Park 

Shattuck & Berryman 

$5-$7 Donation 

Saturday through Monday, May 25-27

Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 

Chalking takes place on Saturday only. Viewing the artwork all week end. 

Chocolate Festival begins by picking up a chocolate menu from business on Solano Ave. flying a festival banner. Chocolates are available for purchase from merchants as you stroll. Professor Gizmo, a one-man -band on Saturday from 2-4 at Peralta park and Berkeley Police operation Kid-print will be set up for finger printing your kids to keep in a file at home. Dog Fashion Show on Sunday at Solano & Key Route at 2 p.m., all animals must pre-register at 236-0588. Pet adoptions in Peralta Park 11:30-2:30 p.m., Sunday. Solano Avenue Gift Certificate Raffle anytime from May 22-29. Winner drawn May 29. 

The entire length of Solano Avenue, Berkeley & Albany 

Sunday, May 26

Prayer to Shakyamuni Buddha 

A traditional prayer and meditation  

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Place 

843-6812 

Free 

Children's Movies 

Pinnochio (in Spanish) 

Shows at 1 & 3 p.m. 

The Actor's Studio 

3521 Maybelle Ave. 

Oakland 

510-530-0551 

$3 

Wednesday, May 29

Paul Geremia 

Country Blues 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$15.50 advance, $16.50 at the door 

Thursday, May 30

Human Rights At Home and Abroad: A Strategy For Peace 

An educational forum to probe the relationship of the U.S. and the U.N. 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall of Humanity 

390 27th Street (between Broadway & Telegraph) 

Oakland 

Free 

Bob Dylan Song Night 

An evening of Dylan Songs revisited 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$12.50 advance, $13.50 at the door

The Berkeley Yellowjackets scored in each of the first five innings, including a five-run fourth, and cruised to a 12-6 win over Antioch High in the first round of the North Coast Section 3A East Bay playoffs on Wednesday at Cal’s Evans Diamond. 

With the win, sixth-seeded Berkeley moves on to play No. 14 De La Salle in the second round on Saturday at Evans Diamond at 5 p.m. 

Six Berkeley (19-6) starters had at least two hits on Wednesday, with DeAndre Miller and Matt Toma pounding out three apiece, and the ’Jackets racked up six doubles among their 15 hits, their second-best output of the season. The only spots in the Berkeley lineup not to get a hit were the three and five slots, where Bennie Goldenberg, Jeremy LeBeau and Kory Hong combined to go 0-for-10. 

“The one thing we know about our team is that we can hit from top to bottom in the lineup,” Berkeley head coach Tim Moellering said. “You don’t need to look any farther than Jonathon Smith to see that.” 

Smith, an occasional starter who missed time due to academic issues this season, got the start in leftfield and rewarded Moellering with two hits and a walk, including a ringing double to left that chased Antioch (14-11) starter Mike Evers and started Berkeley’s fourth-inning rally that put the game out of reach. Frank Roe came on in relief for the Panthers and got two outs, but doubles by Miller and Toma plated two runs. Singles by Jason Moore and Clinton Calhoun, combined with two walks and an Antioch error, extended the rally until Roe was pulled and Andy Nasty got Lee Franklin to fly out to right with the bases loaded. 

While the ’Jackets were pounding the ball at the plate, starting pitcher Sean Souders was doing just enough to hold the Panthers down. Souders continued to have the control problems that plagued him in his last two regular-season appearances, but the junior lefthander battled through and walked only one batter in his five innings of work. 

“My release point has been inconsistent, but I was able to make the adjustment and get through it,” Souders said. “It’s easier when you’ve got a big lead, because you can just concentrate on throwing strikes.” 

Souders did give up six hits, but two double plays turned by his infielders helped him get out of jams. In fact, none of Souders’ three runs were earned, as his own error led to two Antioch runs in the third and a Moore throwaway from shortstop gave the Panthers another in the fifth. 

By that point, however, the ’Jackets were up 12-3, and Moellering had the luxury of removing Souders without using No. 2 man Cole Stipovich, who will start on Saturday. With a big lead, Moellering let Andre Sternberg give up three runs in the sixth before sophomore Matt Sylvester came on to finish things in the seventh. 

“We had three double plays that really helped our pitchers out,” Moellering said. “We played great defense today and just took care of business.” 

Meanwhile, Franklin, Miller and Toma were keying the Berkeley offense.Franklin and Miller got things started in the first inning with back-to-back singles, with an Antioch error moving them to second and third. Franklin scored on a wild pitch before Goldenberg brought in Miller with a sacrifice fly. Then in the following inning Franklin drove in Calhoun and Smith with a double down the leftfield line and Miller just missed hitting the ball out of the deepest part of the park, with Antioch centerfielder Aaron Gauthier making the catch with his back against the fence. 

MIller would hit two doubles before being pulled after the fifth inning, giving him three runs scored on the day. He said the offensive outburst wasn’t a surprise to him or his teammates. 

“We’re an offensive team, always have been since we were all on JV together,” Miller said. “Now we’ve got the pitching and the defense and we’re putting it all together.” 

The ’Jackets won’t get a chance at avenging their loss to Deer Valley in the NCS first round last season, as De La Salle upset the third-seeded Wolverines, 8-7, on Wednesday. But according to Toma, the ’Jacket don’t really care who they face at this point. 

“We just have to play good solid ball and we can beat anybody,” the senior slugger said. “I’m just having fun at this point. The pressure’s off for the first time this season.” 

With seven senior starters in the field and Stipovich on the hill, the Berkeley High senior prom on Saturday night might cause some worry about the team’s focus on the second-round game. But Moellering considers his seniors to be level-headed. 

“With some of the teams in the past that might be an issue,” he said. “But this class is focused all on baseball.”

Officials from the Berkeley Federation of Teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District say they hope to settle union claims of improper layoffs out of court, but a disagreement over seven “probationary status” teachers may get in the way. 

In related news the district, which suggested in April that it might offer teachers retirement incentives, has decided against the move. The incentives, union officials have argued, would “induce” older instructors to leave the system early – reducing the number of layoffs necessary. 

“We did an analysis and we found that, at this time, it doesn’t help the district to offer retirement incentives,” said Associate Superintendent for Administrative Services David Gomez. “We just didn’t see the cost benefits.” 

Layoff notices, issued in March, would be effective at the end of the school year. According to district figures, Berkeley Unified issued pink slips to 82 probationary teachers and 91 temporary teachers. The district has withdrawn most of the probationary notices at this point. 

BFT is currently challenging 45 layoffs, involving 38 temporary teachers and the seven probationary instructors in dispute. 

The seven instructors are among more than 30 probationary teachers who participated in layoff hearings in April, challenging district pink slips. Administrative law judge Jonathan Lew, who presided over the hearings, ruled May 7 that the district made errors determining teacher seniority in many cases. 

The district has now rescinded all but 14 of the layoff notices. The union claims that Berkeley Unified should rescind an additional seven. 

BFT President Barry Fike said the seven teachers in question have greater seniority than teachers who never received layoff notices or had their notices rescinded. In order to ensure the seniority rights of the seven teachers, he said, the district should withdraw their layoffs as well.  

But David Gomez, associate superintendent for administrative services, points to the Lew ruling and existing case law which dictate that a failure to properly handle a teacher with lesser seniority should not lead to a “domino effect.” 

For every teacher with lesser seniority who improperly retains a job, the case law suggests, a district only needs to rescind one notice for a teacher with greater seniority, not all pink slips for teachers with more service time.  

Because the district has already rescinded an adequate number of notices to correspond with its errors, the reasoning goes, it need not withdraw the seven pink slips in dispute. 

Gomez said the district is fairly confident of its legal standing on the matter, but will review the union’s concerns carefully. 

“We want to be fair to our employees,” he said. 

Fike said the union will wait and see to determine whether it will take the district to court over the seven probationary teachers. But if BFT does go to trial, he said, the union will challenge the “domino effect” rationale. 

The union is also arguing that 38 teachers deemed temporary by the district are actually probationary, throwing their layoffs into doubt. Gomez said he is in the process of reviewing the records of those teachers. 

Gomez added that, as the district’s budget picture clears up, there is a “very good possibility” that economic realities will allow the district to rescind more layoff notices in the near future, rendering moot some of the legal wrangling.

GREENVILLE, Mich. — The case of the missing raisin is closed. 

A 250-pound California Raisin lawn ornament was taken from a front yard Sunday, prompting its owners to file a police report and offer a $200, no-questions-asked reward. 

Tuesday night, two teen-agers returned the cement statue to Connie and Wally Harris, saying they had found it in the parking lot of Stanton High School. 

As promised, Harris said he asked no questions. 

Connie Harris said her husband bought the ornament about 13 years ago. They’ve kept it well-painted with a purple body, white hands and feet, black arms and legs, orange sunglasses, red lips, black eyelashes and a green base. 

“I’m just heartbroken over it,” Connie Harris had said. “It was very unique, and I’m a person who likes to be different.” 

She said she was surprised someone could have gotten away with the hefty statue. It was chained and padlocked to a base secured in the ground close to the house. 

“When we brought it home, it took three men to load,” she said. “The back end of our car almost dragged the pavement.” 

- The Associated Press

To the Editor: 

I have been interested to read, both in the Daily Planet and in other local papers, editorials and articles on the upcoming mayoral election between eight-year incumbent Shirley Dean and Tom Bates, husband of our previous mayor, Loni Hancock. I wish to offer my perspective. 

I’ve spent my whole life in Berkeley, excepting four years at UC Santa Cruz. I never became very aware of domestic Berkeley politics until recently – after all, last time I lived in this town, I couldn’t vote. It is very clear to me, however, that Shirley Dean must be doing something right. 

As I was growing up in the early 90s, Berkeley wasn’t doing very well. Downtown seemed increasingly dirty and run-down, there weren’t many new businesses opening, and some local cultural mainstays like the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival were moving elsewhere. When I came back from Santa Cruz, I was shocked – there were a few new buildings, new businesses, and the old ones were actually getting some attention. 

The renovated library is fantastic, I went to the Berkeley Rose Garden yesterday (which was wilting a few years ago) to see it in full bloom and beautiful, and I hear and read about projects in the works, like a real train station at the bottom of University Avenue and new tenants for the UC Theater, which make me very, very happy. 

Mayor Dean probably did not do all of these things herself, but the “Arts and Commerce” emphasis certainly doesn’t seem to be hurting Berkeley. 

- Gabriella Raymond 

Berkeley

City leaders have fast-tracked safety plans for the neighborhood where a 72-year-old nun was struck and killed by a car on Addison Street earlier this month. But central Berkeley residents are concerned that bureaucratic roadblocks may delay the safety process. 

“We haven’t been told when this is going to happen,” said Wendy Alfsen, secretary of the neighborhood group MAAGNA (McKinley, Addison, Allston, Grant Neighborhood Association). “We’re happy that council acted, but we’ve had frustrations about the city getting things done in the past.” 

Responding to the death of Christine Bennett, who was fatally hit after a 7:00 a.m. mass service at St. Joseph the Worker Church on May 7, City Council, this week, called for the swift implementation of traffic-calming measures. 

The types of measures – whether they are temporary concrete barriers or long-term traffic circles, or something else aimed to reduce traffic on residential streets – remains undecided. City traffic engineers say these details will determine how long it will take to implement a safety plan in the central Berkeley neighborhood. 

“To install something simple, it could be by the end of summer or early fall,” said Peter Hillier, assistant city manager for transportation. “For a comprehensive plan for that neighborhood, with the costs involved, it could take two to three years.” 

To the seeming dismay of MAAGNA residents, momentum appears to be behind a long-range plan. 

Hillier speculated that some residents may oppose a quick solution, like a concrete barrier, because it would merely push traffic from one street to another. A long term-plan would consider the entire neighborhood, he said. 

“The city is obligated to let everyone know what the proposals are [and get input],” he said. 

Transportation Commission Chair Richard Thomason, who addressed City Council Tuesday night, concurred. 

“I don’t want different devices to go up without any neighborhood process and analysis by staff,” Thomason said. 

He explained that temporary barriers or diverters, aimed to reduce traffic on Addison Street and Allston Way, would push commuters to Bancroft Way. 

“And they’ll be going by schools there,” he added. 

But MAAGNA members say time is critical, on Addison and Allston streets. 

If the city would have acted more quickly on long-promised plans there in the first place, the recent pedestrian death would have been avoided, Alfsen said. 

MAAGNA has threatened to stage “baby carriage brigades,” where people push strollers across streets to block traffic, if the city doesn’t begin implementing traffic-calming measures by the end of the year. 

“If the process doesn’t move forward quickly, we [MAAGNA] will take some action,” Alfsen said. 

City traffic engineers say their first step in addressing central Berkeley will be sending out mailings to about 1000 residents, letting them know of the city’s intentions. The mailing will outline three different plans, ranging in scope, which neighbors will be allowed to comment on. 

The amount of opposition will determine how quickly the city can move forward with traffic-calming measures, Hillier said. 

To the Editor: 

I have lived in Berkeley for 17 years. I was initially drawn to this city by the cultural richness and diversity to be found here, and have stayed to be a part of it. 

I am mystified and outraged, therefore, by the City Council's recommendation that an ordinance should be considered which would censor our public access station, Berkeley Community Media, Channel 25. 

In the first place, there is no need to censor the self-described "adult programming" on B-TV. 

The FCC has already established a "safe harbor" for this programming, which is 10 p.m. to 6 am. If this ordinance goes into effect, the programs would air after midnight, cutting off many viewers' access. There is no indication that this programming has been designated "obscene" or "patently offensive." 

Secondly, I am sure that Berkeley parents are smart enough to decide what their kids should watch, and need no one to decide this for them. This ordinance would slam the door in parents' faces, not allowing them to choose, or view the programs at all, in many cases. 

Programs such as Frank Moore's "Unlimited Possibilities" and "The Dr. Susan Block Show" are ground-breaking, stimulating shows that encourage community activism and education, and they are also fun! The proposed ordinance would limit the number of people who can watch these programs and others like them. It is not "rescheduling", as some have phrased it. It is censorship, plain and simple. 

- Teresa Cochran 

Berkeley

Approximately 100 Claremont food and beverage workers, spa workers and sympathizers braved the rain on Sunday to continue their fight against KSL Resorts Corporation, the spa’s parent company. 

The spa workers have been locked in a battle to force KSL to recognize their affiliation with Hotel Employees local 2850, while the food and beverage workers, established members of the union, have been without a contract since the beginning of the year. The crux of the difference betweent the union and KSL is that the union would like a card-check method (allowing workers to signify their desire to be part of the union simply by taking union cards), whereas KSL is demanding that the union be voted in by a voting procedure. Though KSL officials say the vote would be confidential, the union has countered that this procedure would allow for corporate intimidation, and would consequently influence the vote. 

Calling for a boycott of the hotel, the demonstrators marched around the adjacent sidewalks, while some spa workers offered free massages to locals passing by. 

The persistent rain diminished the demand for the massages, and thinned the ranks of demonstrators, but those in attendance remained steadfastly determined to fight on. 

“We hope they will come around and start recognizing us as a union, but we will keep doing whatever is necessary to make it happen.” said Marcia Pedrick a masseur with the hotel. 

For Pedrick, and many of the spa workers, access to health care benefits is the pivotal issue. The hotel only offers health care to spa employees who work 32-hours weeks. Unionized workers at the hotel receive benefits for working 20-hour weeks. According to Pedrick, 32 hours is an unreasonable threshold for massage therapists.  

“No one can do that much massage,” said Pedrick, who maintained that masseurs develop tendonitis and repetitive motion stress from working too many hours. 

Of the approximately 50 hotel masseurs, only three have health insurance, according Leslie Fitzgerald, an insured hotel masseur. The only option for the uninsured is to go through a hotel doctor, but according to Fitzgerald that is not a valid choice. “They don't take you at your word,” said Fitzgerald. 

The demonstration was geared toward mobilizing public support for the boycott campaign, started in April. Some picketing Claremont workers said they were aware of cancellations, but because most hotel guests book well in advance — and would lose their money if they canceled — the demonstrators claimed it was too early to say whether the boycott has been effective. 

Inside the luxury resort, guests interviewed said they were not aware of the labor strife. When informed of the boycott, most visitors didn't seem concerned. But Bob Rhoad, a frequent hotel patron, said it might affect his future choice of hotels. “I’m a strong supporter of labor, so I would have to take that into account next time,” said Road. 

Spa workers and union officials insist there is no plan for a strike. Many of the picketing workers are back at their jobs, in the peculiar situation of serving the clients who they are hoping will boycott the hotel. 

“Were not angry at the guests because a lot of people don't know about it [the boycott],” said Fitzgerald, who added that she feels better at work since the spa workers decided to organize. 

KSL owns numerous resort hotels, so acknowledging the unionization of the spa workers could have wide ranging implications for their business. 

There is little precedent for unionized spa workers, and both the union and the hotel chain know that if the Claremont workers succeed, many other hotel spa workers might decide to follow suit. 

“This is a key one we have to break,” said Curtis Perrott, a sympathizer and member of local 2580. “If they break, everyone else will get into line.” 

Claremont management did not return telephone calls, but did release a letter expressing disappointment in the union’s decision to demonstrate, and maintaining that management is bargaining in good faith. 

In the latest round of negotiations, the hotel offered food and beverage workers new concessions subsidizing 5 percent of rising HMO health insurance costs, according to union spokesperson Stephanie Ruby. But Ruby commented that management’s proposal would not match the projected increases in HMO costs, and was not acceptable. 

Union officials announced that a silent rally would be held outside hotel grounds on May 31. 

STATELINE, Nev. — An 18-year-old Stockton, Calif. woman has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges she concealed the birth of her son, who was found dead at a Stateline casino. 

Christina Ramirez gave birth in a restroom at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe early May 7, according to investigators, who said she dumped the baby in a sanitary napkin bin. 

Ramirez entered her plea before the start of a preliminary hearing Tuesday. She faces a maximum of one year in jail and $2,000 in fines for concealing the birth, a gross misdemeanor in Nevada. 

She is scheduled to appear May 30 for sentencing at Douglas County District Court and remains in jail on $25,000 bail. 

Preliminary autopsy results did not show the child was harmed. If further toxicology tests show the baby was alive before being abandoned, prosecutors could file additional charges, Deputy District Attorney Kristine Brown said. Defense attorney Derrick Lopez provided three letters to Judge Glasson written by a family member, teacher and a church member defending Ramirez’s character. Brown has said family members did not know Ramirez was pregnant. 

OAKLAND — Boarded up storefronts, corner liquor stores and rundown houses dominate west Oakland, where a gung-ho band of police officers known as “the Riders” were taken off the streets two years ago. 

Residents of the area say crime is as bad as ever since the police corruption scandal broke, derailing scores of prosecutions and leading to more than a dozen civil rights suits against the city. 

“There’s so much poverty, so many drugs. There’s an enormous problem to solve,” said Councilwoman Nancy Nadel, who has lived in the neighborhood for 21 years. “We’ve seen the same guys dealing drugs on the same corners for years.” 

Drug crimes dominated the shifts of Clarence “Chuck” Mabanag, Jude Siapno and Matthew Hornung, who allegedly beat suspects, filed false police reports and obstructed justice. All were fired; their trial begins on Tuesday. A fourth officer and the alleged ringleader, Frank Vazquez, is believed to have fled to Mexico. 

The four were turned in by Keith Batt, a rookie officer who told superiors he was shocked by their “stop and grab” tactics — randomly accosting suspects, handcuffing them and throwing them in patrol cars before questioning them. 

Batt, who left the department after speaking up, said “The Riders” routinely beat suspects and concocted police reports. Suspects alleged they planted drugs on innocent people. 

In response to the scandal, the Oakland Police Department set up a number of protections to ensure such aggressive tactics won’t happen again. 

Residents and business owners say officers are being more careful. 

“Officers have been more circumspect in the way they deal with non-crime events,” said Bob Tuck, owner of Atlas Heating and Air Conditioning Co., which has been based in west Oakland since 1916. “There’s not as much confrontation in those situations, but when there’s a crime happening they’re just as on top of it as they’ve always been.” 

Joshua Richardson, who claims one of the accused officers beat him up and left him near a freeway overpass, is among 115 people who have filed 17 civil rights suits against the city. 

“People feel freer now,” Richardson said. “Not a lot of people are saying they’re scared of the police.” 

Ellen Parkinson, who started the Oak Center Neighborhood Association in 1963, said “they’re very sensitive, more sensitive than they were.” 

The East Bay Regional Park District will pay $1.7 million for 276 acres of agricultural land in eastern Contra Costa County that will provide the Bay Area with improved access to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. 

At the board of directors meeting on Tuesday, district officials unanimously approved the acquisition of the land located in the Orwood Track area just north of the Discovery Bay community. “The park district's master plan is to acquire Delta access for public recreation purposes, so this action fits that goal perfectly,” park district spokesman Ned MacKay said Wednesday. “The land will be preserved as open space for public recreation since the population is growing in that area.

El CERRITO — A wayward squirrel got into a circuit breaker at a Pacific Gas and Electric substation, cutting power to 27,570 customers Wednesday. 

Residents in El Cerrito, North Berkeley and Richmond lost power at about 12:10 p.m. Power was restored by 3:04 p.m. 

“The squirrel was much worse for the wear, as was our equipment,” PG&E spokesman Jason Alderman said. 

The circuit breaker was seriously damaged when the squirrel’s body disrupted the flow of electricity. Animals getting mixed up in the power supply are one of the biggest causes of outages, Alderman said. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Screeners at San Francisco International airport who are not U.S. citizens will have until September to obtain citizenship. 

Officials at SFO announced Tuesday that federal officials had allowed airport officials to delay in switching to federal security screeners, buying time for 720 security personnel without citizenship. 

As part of the federal transportation security law, Congress requires that all screeners be federal employees and citizens by Nov. 19. Screener advocates have gotten help from Mayor Willie Brown and congressional representatives to apply for citizenship so they can keep their jobs. 

“I’m very interested in doing everything I can to work with all the screeners to make sure we provide them with every opportunity to meet the federal standards,” the airport’s federal security director, Edward Gomez, said. 

Airport officials hope to retain existing screeners because of their experience, an airport spokesman said. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Salvage workers will plunge into the ocean 17 miles southwest of the Golden Gate Bridge on Saturday to recover thousands of gallons of oil from a ship that sank in 1953. 

The rescue crew will operate from a 400-foot-long barge to remove oil from the SS Jacob Luckenbach, according to Richard Fairbanks of Titan Maritime, the company that will conduct the operation. 

The ship sits in 175 feet of water, and has been leaking oil for the past decade. The Coast Guard and state officials in February blamed the ship for mysterious oil slicks that have killed thousands of seabirds from Monterey Bay to Sonoma County. 

It is not the artists’ fault that they live on a fault, but an expensive retrofitting job, to the co-operative gallery located in the 1700 block of Shattuck, will be their problem.  

The space being rented by the Berkeley Art Co-op, the ACCI art gallery in North Berkeley, is faced with the formidable task of either meeting stringent retrofitting standards or clos down. 

The art gallery is a luminescent space, replete with sun flowing in through large windows, a skylight and color photographs and paintings on the wall. The room is accented by colorful tield mozaics, and in one one corner there is a puff of white mesh and lights — glowing and ethereal in the soft afternoon light. 

But behind that white-walled showroom lies the beginning of the co-ops problems — it is a dark, cramped passageway wich a crack zigzagging down the brick wall, cutting a crevasse from the high ceiling almost to the floor. 

“Everyone is afraid of this spot,” said Angela Livingston, artist and fundraising coordinator. Gaping holes showed where bricks had fallen. 

Pipes protruded from the ceiling. Cobwebs wove across the wall and nestled in corners. 

The cost to repair the 69-year-old building is inconceivable for many of the members.  

Livingston hesitated when asked how much the repairs would cost. The original estimate for the repairs was $250,000, but now the price tag is closer to $175,000, said Sarah Hunter, sales manager for the 

gallery. This is because the co-op has been allowed to delay making the building wheelchair-accessible, which is usually a city requirement if a business undergoes repairs. They will do that “at a later date,” said Mia Capodilupo, administrative manager. 

The earthquake issue, on the other hand, is not up for debate. The city is requiring that the co-op reinforces the walls, fixes the roof, and strengthens the building’s alignment. To help fund the repairs the co-op will have to rely heavily on donations, and to this end the artists have set up a non-profit foundation so that they will be tax-deductible. 

Until now the co-op has functioned as a normal business, so its income from contributions has been paltry ? usually less than $150 a month. 

“We should have done this a long time ago, because we don’t really make any money,” said Kirk McCarthy, one of the six co-op members who comprise the board of directors. 

Making a profit has never been the aim of the co-op, but its very survival is testimony to its success. It was born in 1957, a time when the original Berkeley Food Co-op was spawning dozens of smaller 

member-owned organizations. As the years passed and the co-op fervor cooled, the artists watched the other co-ops fall by the wayside, while their own group continued to flourish. 

“We were the only successful co-op left, and we were in a very good financial situation,” said Martha Whiteway, who managed the co-op for 25 years. “We ran a tight ship.” 

The closure of the Berkeley Food Co-op in 1988 signaled the end of an era, and now the art co-op is a relic of those idealistic times. 

“Co-ops are a dying breed in the Bay Area,” Hunter said. “Our co-op is really a treasure.” 

The key to the co-op’s survival is largely in the hands of the community, which seems to be willing to help. 

“People have responded really favorably ? they have wanted to participate,” Hunter said. “They want to keep this organization alive and going. It’s really brought people out of the woodwork.” 

But the question of whether pledges of support will lead to financial contributions remains unanswered. As it stands, the flow of donations remains a trickle. 

The members admit that they may be part of the problem: they simply don’t know how to get people to open their wallets. 

“We’re artists, we’re not good businesspeople. We don’t know how to raise money,” Livingston said. 

At the first of several monthly jazz evenings, attendance was so low that the gallery barely broke even. It was a blow to volunteers who had worked hard on the event. 

“I cried because I was exhausted and no-one showed up,” said Livingston. 

Other attempts at raising money have been just as tough. When the co-op raised the rents of the small business owners who work in the rooms upstairs, the tenants protested. 

The members themselves are bearing part of the financial burden, by donating art and a higher portion of the profits to the board of directors. Although they have been generous it is not easy. 

“We’ve hit them up a lot, and it’s difficult,” said McCarthy. 

Since its fate lies so heavily in the hands of the community, the co-op’s members are trying to remain optimistic. Though times are hard now, they want people to trust that the cracks in the wall will go but 

the art is here to stay. 

“Every day is a little bit better,” McCarthy said. “I want to be upbeat 

about it ? if you say ‘we’re going off the

LIVERMORE — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory officials today launched a program to give public safety officials access to state-of-the-art technology to battle chemical and biological threats. 

Lab spokeswoman Anne Stark said Seattle is the site of the pilot project, but lab officials plan to partner with cities around the nation interested in the "Local Integration of National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center with Cities'' program. 

“NARAC can predict any kind of release in the atmosphere, anywhere in the world,” Atmospheric Release Assessment Programs leader Don Ermak said yesterday, referring to the Livermore Lab-based National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center. Ermak said the program will involve a few days of initial training, along with periodic refresher practice with an easy computer program that cities can use to connect to the sophisticated center. He says the high-powered Livermore Lab center has been tapped in the past for such formidable and urgent problems as plotting the course atmospheric contaminants from the 1986 nuclear reactor explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine were likely to take through Earth's turbulent atmosphere. 

TULSA, Okla. — Williams Cos. told energy regulators Wednesday that some of its California trades resembled those allegedly made by Enron Corp., but were not designed to manipulate the state’s power market. 

“We emphatically denied that Williams participated in those types of strategies,” said Bill Hobbs, president of Williams’ energy trading division. “We disclosed some of our transactions that had similar characteristics but were done for entirely different purposes.” 

“There were few of these transactions and their volume was insignificant,” Hobbs said in a conference call with analysts. 

The filing sent Williams stock soaring. Shares closed up $1.71, or 10.7 percent, to $17.71 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. 

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on May 8 ordered Williams and other companies involved in the California energy market in 2000 and 2001 to disclose by Wednesday whether they engaged in questionable trades. Energy prices in California increased tenfold in those years. 

A FERC spokeswoman said the commission would not comment on Williams’ filing, which is part of a continuing investigation scheduled to end this summer. 

The commission began investigating possible price manipulation in California in February. The inquiry gained steam earlier this month when FERC received internal Enron documents outlining how the company allegedly misled state officials about trades to make more money during the state’s energy crunch. 

The memo from an Oct. 3 meeting said Enron traders coined colorful terms such as “Get Shorty,” “Fat Boy” and “Death Star” to describe different energy sales plans. 

In the filing, Tulsa-based Williams said it engaged in some transactions similar to “Get Shorty,” in which a trader agrees to provide auxiliary energy in the future beyond its current capability. The trader later buys the necessary energy on the real-time market at a lower price. 

Williams never made deals to provide power it didn’t have, but it did occasionally buy auxiliary power on the real-time market for reasons other than profiting from the price difference, the company said in the filing. 

Williams said it also engaged in trades sharing characteristics with “Fat Boy,” in which Enron allegedly withheld scheduled power service so it could instead sell the energy in the real-time market. 

While Williams also scheduled power service that did not meet any demand, it did so for legitimate reasons, the company said. Also, Williams said it didn’t deceive California officials, because it already had access to energy it could sell in the real-time marketplace. 

Williams said its scheduled, unused energy amounted to just four-tenths of a percent of its California transactions, and it sold only $1.9 million of scheduled energy on the real-time market in 2000 and 2001. 

“Throughout the time period, we closely monitored the evolving market and made every effort to participate in a way that was fair and legal,” chairman, president and chief executive officer Steve Malcolm said. “Williams does not have and it never has had strategies to engage in illegal or improper market behavior.” 

FERC has also given Williams and its rivals a May 31 deadline to disclose any “round-trip trading,” in which one company sells power to another and then simultaneously buys it back at the same price. 

The companies claim that no profit is generated, but trading volume and firm reputation is elevated. 

Williams on Monday joined four rivals in admitting to the legal trades. But Williams said “round-trip” trades made up less than 1 percent of its total volume the last two years and didn’t affect reported revenues.

SAN FRANCISCO — Gap, Inc.’s shares plunged 15 percent Wednesday amid investor worries the unexpected retirement of Millard “Mickey” Drexler as chief executive will hobble the already limping retailer. 

After informing Gap’s board of his plans Tuesday, Drexler tried to reassure investors Wednesday that his departure won’t hurt the San Francisco-based company’s effort to reverse a two-year sales slide. 

Saying he wouldn’t feel comfortable stepping down unless he was confident a turnaround was just around the corner, Drexler described his move as a vote of confidence in the company, rather than a distress signal. 

“I just feel good about what I see is happening,” Drexler, 57, said during a conference call with analysts. “I feel really comfortable with the team in place.” 

Drexler indicated he will stay on the job as long as it takes the Gap to find a replacement.

After a two-and-a-half-day visit, a five-member team from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges said Berkeley High School has made progress on communications and governance, but needs to improve on staff development and its approach to the “achievement gap” that separates white and Asian-American students from African-Americans and Latinos. 

District administrators said the WASC evaluation, delivered during an “exit report” Tuesday afternoon, was on target.  

“There wasn’t anything in this report I’d quarrel with,” said Superintendent Michele Lawrence. 

WASC is a Burlingame-based regional accrediting organization that has threatened to remove its seal of approval unless Berkeley High School makes progress in 11 problem areas first identified in 1999. 

The high school’s current accreditation runs through June. The team that visited this week will recommend that the WASC commission either terminate accreditation, or extend it by one, two or three years. The commission will meet June 24-25, review the recommendation, and issue a judgment. 

Hal Bush, who chaired the WASC visit team, indicated that the group will not recommend termination. But he declined to tip his hand on the length of the extension the group will suggest. 

The team arrived Sunday, meeting with high school administrators, parents and elected officials. On Monday and Tuesday, members attended a series of focus groups with staff and students and visited classrooms. 

Laura Brooke, a Stockton high school teacher on the WASC team, applauded the school for putting a new “shared governance” team in place, including teachers, department heads and administrators. 

She also commended BHS for improving communications through newsletters and an “e-tree” that distributes information via e-mail. But Chuck Gary, another WASC team member, said that some of the staff, students and parents the group interviewed felt that improvements needed to be made. 

“Communication must and will continue,” said Lawrence, in response to the critique. 

Brian Irvine, a Fremont High School teacher on the visit team, said the high school still lacks a comprehensive staff development plan. 

“We’ve made some really good progress this year,” responded BHS co-principal MaryAnn Valles. But she acknowledged that the school needs to coordinate and focus its staff development plan to have a marked impact on student success. 

Gary said a coordinated approach, starting with kindergarten teachers, is necessary to address the achievement gap. 

“The achievement gap starts before Berkeley High School,” Gary said. 

Lawrence said she will work with teachers this summer to put a “cohesive,” district-wide staff development plan in place. She suggested that the achievement gap could be the focus of that plan. 

Gary also urged the school to look more closely at research focused on intervention and instructional practices that have worked to address the gap across the country. But Miriam Stahl, chair of the visual and performing arts department, said the process has already begun.  

Gary added that BHS needs to develop concrete assessments for its programs so that it can better evaluate their success. 

“A lot of people recognize that,” said Dana Moran, an ethnic studies teacher at BHS, who argued that assessments are particularly important in an era of budget cutting, when programs are on the block. 

Moran said one problem is that the administration does not set aside time for teachers to develop assessments. 

“We’re not given institutional time to do that,” she said. “It’s nobody’s job.” 

Valles said the WASC criticism was “fair.” She said the BHS co-principals worked late into the night Monday when it became clear that assessment was a concern, developing new measures of success. 

Valles said the school will monitor the number of D’s and F’s that freshmen receive in math and English to assess the effectiveness of the BHS ninth-grade program, for instance, and evaluate absenteeism data to gauge the success of its attendance plan. 

Members of the WASC team said they were impressed with the high school’s commitment to reform. 

“We’d like to commend the administration for working hard,” said Brooke. 

“The school definitely has the capacity to make this action plan work,” added Irvine. 

The remarks came in stark contrast to a March 2001 WASC report that chided the high school for “spotty” progress. 

Now, Valles said, it’s a matter of continuing to push for change. 

“We’ve got to maintain the momentum,” she said.

Today is Wednesday, May 22, the 142nd day of 2002. There are 223 days left in the year. 

Highlight: 

On May 22, 1972, President Nixon began a visit to the Soviet Union, during which he and Kremlin leaders signed the SALT I arms limitation treaty. 

On this date: 

In 1761, the first life insurance policy in the United States was issued, in Philadelphia. 

In 1813, composer Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany. 

In 1868, the “Great Train Robbery” took place near Marshfield, Ind., as seven members of the Reno gang made off with $96,000 in loot. 

In 1900, The Associated Press (founded in 1848) was incorporated in New York as a non-profit news cooperative. 

In 1939, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini signed a “Pact of Steel” committing Germany and Italy to a military alliance. 

In 1947, the “Truman Doctrine” was enacted as Congress appropriated military and economic aid for Greece and Turkey. 

In 1969, the lunar module of Apollo 10 flew to within nine miles of the moon’s surface in a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing. 

In 1972, the island nation of Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka. 

In 1990, after years of conflict, pro-Western North Yemen and pro-Soviet South Yemen merged to form a single nation, the Republic of Yemen. 

In 1990, boxer Rocky Graziano died in New York at age 71. 

Ten years ago: After a reign lasting nearly 30 years, Johnny Carson hosted NBC’s “Tonight Show” for the last time, telling his audience, “I bid you a very heartfelt good night.” (Carson was succeeded by Jay Leno.) 

Five years ago:  

In a case that drew national attention, Kelly Flinn, the Air Force’s first female bomber pilot certified for combat, accepted a general discharge, thereby avoiding court-martial on charges of adultery, lying and disobeying an order. The defense began presenting its case in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh. 

One year ago:  

Ford Motor Co. said it planned to spend more than $2 billion to replace up to 13 million Firestone tires on its vehicles because of safety concerns. 

Today’s Birthdays:  

Movie reviewer Judith Crist is 80. Singer Charles Aznavour is 78. Actor Michael Constantine is 75. Conductor Peter Nero is 68. Actor-director Richard Benjamin is 64. Actor Frank Converse is 64. Actor Michael Sarrazin is 62. Former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw is 62. Actor Paul Winfield is 61. Actress Barbara Parkins is 60. Songwriter Bernie Taupin is 52. Actor Al Corley is 46. Singer Morrissey is 43. Country musician Dana Williams (Diamond Rio) is 41. Rock musician Jesse Valenzuela is 40. Rhythm-and-blues singer Johnny Gill (New Edition) is 36. Rock musician Dan Roberts (Crash Test Dummies) is 35. Model Naomi Campbell is 32. Actress Alison Eastwood is 30. Singer Donell Jones is 29. Actress A.J. Langer is 28. 

To the Editor: 

Low-density, low-height-limitation advocates sadly miss the point: If we are to improve the quality of life in Berkeley, we must reduce automobile traffic dramatically.  

This can only be done by providing housing in Berkeley for students, teachers, firefighters, and others who work in Berkeley.  

In-fill residential development scaled to its architectural context is the environmentally-sound way to provide housing and increase the viability of public transportation. People can live well without private cars if they're provided decent public transportation.  

- Charlene M. Woodcock 

Berkeley

Wednesday, May 22 

Yonder Mountain String Band  

Hard Chargin’ bluegrass 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$19.50 advance, $20.50 at the door 

Thursday, May 23 

The Crowden School 19th Annual Spring Concert in Berkeley 

7:30 p.m. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley 

Corner of Dana and Durant 

559-6910x110, www.thecrowdenschool.org 

John Reischman & the Jaybirds 

Mandolin virtuoso & red-hot bluegrass ensemble 

Doors 7:30, show 8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage  

1111 Addison St. 

510-548-1761 

$15.50 advance, $16.50 at door 

Friday, May 24 

Jazz Night 

8 to ll p.m. 

The Bob Schoen Quintet; featuring vocalist Cheryl McBride and surprise guest. 

ACCI Gallery 

1652 Shattuck Avenue 

843-2527, www.accigallery.com 

Friday, May 31 

Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter (with former Whiskytown member Paul Wandscher)  

headlines The Starry Plough 

9:30 p.m. - Bingo 

10:45 p.m. - Winfred Eye 

12:00 a.m. - Jesse Sykes 

3101 Shattuck Avenue 

841-2082 

$7 door 

Sunday, June 2 

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

5:30 p.m. 

Zoe Vandermeer, Harpist (baroque triple harp) and Soprano will perform vocal and instrumental selections by Dowland, Byrd, Caccini, Frescobaldi, Rogniono, and others on both triple harp and italian spinet. 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Monday, June 3 

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

3 p.m. 

Ensemble Ortega, featuring singer Elza van den Heever, instrumental and vocal works by Corelli, Stradella, Muffat, Rosenmiller, Frescobaldi, Gabrieli and Marini. 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Tuesday, June 4 

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

3 p.m. 

The Amorous Nightingale, Soprano Twyla Whittaker - Baroque "birdsong" music by Bach, Rameau and Handel. Also performing are: Stephen Schultz (flute), David Wilson (violin), Jonathan Salzedo (harpsichord), and Paul Hale (cello). 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

WomenSing presents "Your Song: Director’s Cut" 

A spring concert retrospective by director David Morales 

3 p.m and 7 p.m. 

Valley Center for the Performing Arts, Holy Names College, Oakland 

(925) 943-SHOW 

$20 general/$18 students & seniors 

Wednesday, June 5 

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

5:30 p.m. 

Franklin Lei, lute with Zoe Vandermeer, Soprano and triple harp perform music of John Dowland  

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Thursday, June 6 

Trinity Chamber Concerts Series 

2 p.m. 

John Khori, forte-piano 

music of Beethoven, Muzio Clementi, J.L. Dussek and John Field, on his 1808 Broadwood Grand Forte - piano. 

Trinity Chapel 

2320 Dana Street 

Suggested donation, $12 general, $5 for students, seniors or handicapped 

Richmond Art Center 

New Exhibitions 

Tuesday - Friday 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday Noon to 4:30 p.m. 

June 1 through August 17 

2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond 

620-6772, www.therichmondartcenter.org 

"The Suzuki Studio," showing with Pro-Arts East Bay Open Studio 

June 1, 2 and June 8, 9 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

2240 Grant Street (corner of Bancroft Way and Grant) 

849-1427 

"Fine Art 2002 - Oakland" 

Show celebrates Oakland’s 150th Anniversary 

August 17-18 

Jack London Square 

Fine Artists are invited to apply to the juried show by e-mailing pr@kstudios.net or call 707-426-2294 

"24th Annual Quilt Show" 

May 6 through June 8, Mon-Thu, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Fri-Sat, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

The show displays an eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary quilts  

North Berkeley Branch Library 

981-6250 

Free 

"For One Lousy Minute She Felt Like A Queen: A Visual Journal" 

May 19 through June 27 

Addison Street Window Gallery 

2018 Addison Street (between Shattuck and Milvia) 

Sponsored by the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission 

"New Work: Collage and mixed media on paper and on canvas," by artist Mitzi Trachtenberg 

Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Runs Saturday, May 18 through June 15. 

Barbara Anderson Gallery 

2243 Fifth Street 

848-3822 

"Images of Love & Courtship," Ledger Paintings by Michael Horse runs through September 15. Meet Native American artist, Horse, at the Gathering Tribes Gallery. 

July 13 and 14 

1573 Solano Avenue 

528-9038, www.gatheringtribes.com 

Variety Preview Room Art Opening 

Wine & cheese reception showcasing WPA (Works Progress Administration) muralist James Daugherty. Hosted by Variety, a children’s charity started in the depression when a baby was left in a Vaudeville Theatre with a note pinned to her, pleading for help. In this time of economic uncertainty and patriotism please join for viewing this special collection of WPA murals. 

Wednesday, May 22, 5 to 7 p.m. 

Variety Preview Room 

582 Market St. at Montgomery, San Francisco  

415-781-3894 

The Art History Museum of Berkeley 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 Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9, 2028 Ninth St., 841-4210, www.atelier9.com. 

Wednesday, May 23 

Toddler Storytime  

Baby Bounce and Toddler Tales continues through July on Wednesday evenings 

7 p.m.  

West Berkeley Library 

1125 University Avenue (near San Pablo) 

981-6270 

Monday, May 20

Build Your Dream-House for a Song 

(and own it free & clear in 5 years), author David Cook. 

7 to 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St., Berkeley 

$35 

Berkeley Gray Panthers 

Home owners meeting. Chuck Durrett of Co-Housing tells about his program. All welcome. 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Gray Panthers office 

1403 Addison St. (behind Andronico's on University) 

548-9696 

Tuesday, May 21

Fibromyalgia Support Group 

Herbal Alternatives and Drug Interactions for Fibromyalgia 

Noon to 2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center, Maffly Auditorium - Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way 

644-3273 

Free 

The Art of Practice with Tom Heimberg 

Violinist with the SF Opera, Tom offers an overview that applies to all instruments. 

Musicians Union Local 6 

116 Ninth St. at Mission 

San Francisco 

415-575-0777 

$10 and free to local 6 members 

Strawberry Tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Arthritis Month Special 

Herbal alternatives & drug interactions for Fibromyalgia. Dr. Anita Marshall, Pharm.D., l.Ac 

12 to 2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center 

Maffly Auditorium- Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way 

for more info: 644-3273 

Wednesday, May 22

Healthful Building materials 

Seminar by Darrel DeBoer 

7 to 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St., Berkeley 

$35 

Thursday, May 23

Secrets of Search Engine Marketing 

A workshop held by The Sustainable Business Alliance 

8:30 to 11:30 a.m. 

Holiday Inn Express 

1175 University Avenue 

451-4001 

Senior Men's Afternoon 

Gay senior men discussion group, 2nd & 4th Thursdays. 

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave. 

510-548-8283  

Free 

Fishbowl: “Everything you always wanted to know about the opposite sex but were afraid to ask” An opportunity to ask anonymous questions in a confidential and supportive environment. 

7:30 to 9:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St., Berkeley 

510-848-0237 X 127 

$8-$10 

Attic Conversions 

Seminar by architect Andus Brandt 

7 to 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St., Berkeley 

$35 

Friday, May 24

Fiddle Down the FBI! 

Rally to Commemorate the 12th Anniversary of the car bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney and Celebrate the end of their federal civil rights trial against the FBI and Oakland Police Department. 

Noon 

Oakland Federal Building 

13th and Clay St., near 12th St BART stop 

Bring musical instruments 

663-6330, www.judibari.org 

Cherokee Artist: John Balloue 

paintings depict scenes from historic & contemporary Cherokee history, as well as pow-wow and spiritual images. 

Gathering Tribes 

1573 Solano Ave. 

528-9038 or www.gatheringtribes.com 

Saturday, May 25

Word Beat Reading Series 

All kinds of entertainers come together. Featuring Kera Abraham and Ruth Levitan 

7-9 p.m. 

458 Perkins at Grand, Oakland 

Free 

Alice Waters “Chez Panisse Fruit” book signing 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Children's Movies 

Pinnochio (in English) 

Shows at noon & 2 p.m. 

The Actor's Studio 

3521 Maybelle Ave. 

Oakland 

510-530-0551 

$3 

6th Annual Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival 

Everyone's welcome to participate in covering Solono's sidewalks with chalk art. Featuring refreshments and entertainment. Artist's chalk and a Polaroid of the finished work are available for a fee. To encourage early registration, a raffle for merchandise by local business will be held for the artists at noon.  

Registration at Peralta Park, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., 1561 Solano Ave. Berkeley. 

For more information: 510-527-5358, www.solanoave.org. 

Free 

Cain & Abel- 1st Annual Stop the Violence Gospel Festival 

In Memory of Children Killed by Senseless Violence 

St. Andrews Baptist Church Gospel Choir, Family in Unity Gospel Choir, Our lady of Lourdes’ Men Gospel Choir, Lorrain Taylor, Michael Nelson, Praise Dancers, Testimonials, Display of Homicide Quilt, presentation by Students of Malcolm X Academy, Sermon by Rev. Ishmael Burch Jr., LeDoursey’s “Gone But Not Forgotten” Sky, Ronald DeVoyce Blackburn’s From-the-Cradle-to-the- Grave memorial candles, The Homicide Names Banner and Holman “Bob” Turner’s photographs of parents at the graveside or location where their child was killed. 

Noon- 6 p.m. 

St. Andrews Baptist Church 

2565 Post Street (at Lyon) 

San Francisco 

415- 292-5157 or 415-346-6500 

Free- contributions and donations appreciated 

Saturday & Sunday, May 25 & 26

19th Annual Himalayan Fair 

Outdoor celebration of the great Mountain Cultures! Authentic Himalayan Art, craft, Music & Dance, exotic food & stage entertainment. Benefits Himalayan Grassroots projects. 

Sat. 10-7, Sun. 10-5:30 

Live Oak Park 

Shattuck & Berryman 

$5-$7 Donation 

Saturday through Monday, May 25-27

Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 

Chalking takes place on Saturday only. Viewing the artwork all week end. 

Chocolate Festival begins by picking up a chocolate menu from business on Solano Ave. flying a festival banner. Chocolates are available for purchase from merchants as you stroll. Professor Gizmo, a one-man -band on Saturday from 2-4 at Peralta park and Berkeley Police operation Kid-print will be set up for finger printing your kids to keep in a file at home. Dog Fashion Show on Sunday at Solano & Key Route at 2 p.m., all animals must pre-register at 236-0588. Pet adoptions in Peralta Park 11:30-2:30 p.m., Sunday. Solano Avenue Gift Certificate Raffle anytime from May 22-29. Winner drawn May 29. 

The entire length of Solano Avenue, Berkeley & Albany.

Souders gets the start against Antioch 

Last year, the Berkeley High baseball team lost its last four regular season games, giving away the ACCAL title and dropping to the 16th and final seed in the North Coast Section playoffs, where they were summarily dismissed by Deer Valley fireballer Dan Denham. Denham is now one of the top pitching prospects in the Cleveland Indians farm system, but this year’s ’Jackets made sure they wouldn’t face any Denham-like forces early in the NCS this season by holding on to win the league championship. 

Berkeley (18-6) was given the No. 6 seed for the upcoming NCS 3A East Bay playoffs and face 11th-seeded Antioch High (14-10) today at Cal’s Evans Diamond, with the first pitch scheduled for 5 p.m. None of the current Berkeley players have won an NCS game, and last year’s finish left a bitter taste in most players’ mouths. 

“I think morale is much higher this year, knowing we don’t have to face Dan Denham,” senior Matt Toma said. “I definitely feel like this year we have a much better chance to move on from the first round.” 

Antioch doesn’t have an ace on the scale of the overpowering Denham (then again, who does?), but the ’Jackets know they’re in for a tough game. 

Much of the ’Jackets’ fortunes rest on the shoulders of junior Sean Souders, who will get the start on the mound against Antioch. The southpaw has become Berkeley’s ace this season, but his last two appearances resulted in losses. He was especially wild in his last start, a 5-4 loss to El Cerrito that put the ACCAL title in jeopardy. Souders said he wasn’t worried about his last start, just the next one. 

“This is the game that has the most meaning to the team,” Souders said. “I’ve been working in the bullpen focusing on throwing first-pitch strikes to get ahead of the hitter. Hopefully that will translate into the game.” 

Berkeley head coach Tim Moellering said he’s not worried about Souders. 

“I see no reason to expect him not to have his usual good stuff,” Moellering said. “One rough start doesn’t mean anything.” 

Moellering has limited knowledge of the Antioch offense, saying “they’re strong from top to bottom,” but he does know that Antioch likes to steal bases. Moellering will try and counter with Sam Geaney behind the plate, since regular starter Jeremy Riesenfeld is still tentative on throws after undergoing two shoulder surgeries last year. 

There was a certain attitude among the Berkeley players at their final practice on Tuesday afternoon, attributable to a perceived lack of respect from the NCS seeding committee and media pundits. The ’Jackets felt they deserved a higher seed after winning the ACCAL title and beating No. 1 California in the preseason. One Bay Area newspaper predicted a tough matchup for Antioch in the second round, all but assuming they would get past Berkeley. This for a team that finished a distant third in the Bay Valley Athletic League. 

“There’s a definite lack of respect coming our way,” Toma said. “The overall leagues out in the valley might be superior to the ACCAL, but in terms of our team’s talent level we should get the same respect as the teams from out there.” 

NOTES: Berkeley had six players named to the All-ACCAL teams, including two first-teamers. Souders and second baseman Lee Franklin were named to the first team, with Toma, outfielder Bennie Goldenberg and infielders DeAndre Miller and Jason Moore named second-teamers... The winner of the Berkeley-Antioch game will face the winner of the Deer Valley-De La Salle first-round matchup.

xGov. Gray Davis’s proposed education budget shouldn’t inflict much harm on the Berkeley Unified School District next year, according to one highly-placed district official. But concerns about health care costs, special education and mentoring programs at two Berkeley schools linger. 

“I don’t think the May revision will have a significant impact,” said Associate Superintendent for Business Jerry Kurr, referring to the budget document the governor released last week in an attempt to address a nearly $24 billion shortfall. 

But Kurr said state education funding may not keep pace with escalating health care premiums. The district is now projecting increases of 17.5 to 25 percent next year, he said.  

The governor, meanwhile, is proposing a roughly 1.9 percent cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for school district budgets. 

“A higher COLA certainly would help,” Kurr said. 

The federal government’s Department of Commerce sets the minimum COLA each year – 1.66 percent this time around. Davis has proposed a 1.66 COLA for some programs and a two percent increase for others, resulting in the aggregate 1.9 percent figure.  

Robert Manwaring, senior fiscal and policy analyst for the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which advises the legislature on the budget, said the adjustment should theoretically incorporate rising health care costs, but may lag behind the realities facing districts on the ground. 

The May Revise 

Gov. Davis made education a top priority in his May revision. While health and human services and county government sustained heavy hits, Davis held the line on education spending and transferred roughly $1.7 billion from this year’s school budget to the next in order to maintain the funding guarantees established by voters with passage of Proposition 98 in 1988. 

There was speculation before last week that the governor might ask the state legislature to suspend Proposition 98, which dedicates about 35 percent of the state’s general fund to schools. Instead, the governor has proposed a roughly $2 billion increase in education spending over the current year — with cuts in some areas and increases in others. 

Discretionary funding concerns 

“The budget generally avoids the kinds of reductions that hit local districts,” said Kevin Gordon, executive director of the California Association of School Business Officials, or CASBO. “(But) there are going to be some impacts if we don’t get some shifts within the budget.” 

Gordon raised particular concern about a proposed reduction of $200 million in discretionary funding for school districts statewide. He said districts have come to depend upon that funding. CASBO will push the legislature to shift the $200 million in cuts to new or expanded programs so local administrators will not feel the impact as strongly. 

A Senate budget committee voted Saturday to restore a portion of the discretionary funding and shift the cuts elsewhere. If those restorations survive the legislative process, some of Gordon’s concerns may be answered. 

But Kurr said that even if the discretionary cuts pass, they should not have a significant impact on next year’s Berkeley Unified School District budget. The district had already projected some of the cuts, he said, and does not qualify for some of the money in question anyhow, because of lofty local revenues. 

Special education 

The Davis plan would maintain special education funding at current levels next year. But part of the governor’s proposal involves cutting roughly $118 million in state funding and plugging in new federal dollars to make up the gap. 

The proposal does not sit well with Berkeley Board of Education member John Selawsky. 

“We’re supposed to be getting more this year because the federal funding is going up,” he said. 

Gordon said CASBO does not expect to restore the state funding this year, but is pushing legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Dickerson, R-Redding, and Senator Dede Alpert, D-Coronado, that would prevent the practice of substituting federal for state funding in the future. 

Berkeley Board of Education member Ted Schultz said ultimately the federal and state governments must provide full funding for costly special education programs that impinge heavily on districts’ general funds. 

A recent study by California School Services, Inc., a Sacramento consultant, found that special education spending “encroached” on the Berkeley Unified general fund to the tune of $4.5 million in 2000-2001, well above the statewide average. But the report noted that the costs of special education in the Bay Area tend to be higher than they are in other parts of the state. 

Mentoring 

Davis has proposed a $4.3 million cut to the Academic Volunteer and Mentor Service Program’s $10 million budget. The state program funds mentoring programs at over 300 school sites statewide, including Emerson Elementary School and Willard Middle School in Berkeley. 

Program officer Janet Lopez said the office will continue to fund mentoring programs in the midst of three-year grants. But if the Davis proposal passes, the state will not renew grants at schools like Emerson, which is just finishing its third year. It will also cut $1.2 million in one-year “phase-out” grants for schools like Willard that have completed six years of service. 

“We were pretty shocked,” said Monica Santos, coordinator of the Emerson program, describing her reaction to the news last week. She said she is scrambling for foundation money to keep the program going next year. 

Administrators, teachers and students at the school plan to write letters to the legislature urging protection of the program. Santos urged Berkeley residents to do the same and voiced hope that Berkeley businesses might provide financial support for the program. 

Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, said if the state is going to cut, it should start by eliminating the standardized testing system, which he labeled a “fiasco.”

To the Editor: 

Let me underscore Dan Peven's remarks about the inherent unfairness of the process by which the School Boards receives public commentary (5/21). 

On two seperate ocassions, I arrived early and filled out the appropriate cards, only to watch the director of the School Board, Shirley Issel, selectively choose cards of people to speak, while burying the cards of others whose views she does not agree with. Certainly, the School Board needs to adopt a fair process that values community input, not retain one that is politically motivated. The current process seems to be a clear violation of the Brown Act. 

- Michael Bauce 

Berkeley 

STANFORD – Cal’s representatives in the NCAA Women’s Tennis singles championship were eliminated Tuesday, as sophomore Raquel Kops-Jones and junior Christina Fusano both lost in the first round.  

Kops-Jones (27-17), who led her match 6-1, 1-1 going into the nearly-four hour rain delay Monday, was unable to hold on for the win, only managing two wins in the second set before going to a third-set tiebreaker.  

Fusano (25-10), the team captain, joined the 64-player draw at the last minute a fourth alternate. Narrowly dropping the first set, Fusano rallied strong in the second, winning 6-1 to force a third. However, after battling hard in the early portions of the third set, Lacelarie ultimately won the final two games to clinch her victory.  

While eliminated from singles, Kops-Jones will join Jody Scheldt Wednesday in their quest for the NCAA Doubles Championship.

xIf Berkeley can’t readily muster space for new sports fields within its city limits, maybe the city of Oakland can pinch hit. 

That’s what Berkeley leaders are hoping as they explore the possibility of turning the vacant Safeway site on Claremont Avenue in Oakland into a baseball diamond and soccer field. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Doug Fielding, chairperson of the Association of Sports Field Users, citing a city need for at least six more sports fields to meet the demand of local athletes. He noted that Berkeley currently has only 21 fields. 

The effort to assume control of the Safeway site in Oakland follows several public meetings on the ongoing development of the Eastshore State Park, along the Berkeley waterfront, where dozens of sports advocates have been pushing an agenda for playing fields along the bay. 

Their wishes, though, have met resistance from more environmentally-minded residents who want the waterfront to remain natural space for wildlife and outdoor enthusiasts. The California Department of Parks and Recreation, which will have final say over the bayfront park, wants the shoreline to remain undeveloped as well. 

“We definitely need playing fields for youth, but playing fields can be put anyplace if you’ve got the land... There’s only one waterfront, and it’s a very special area,” said Councilmember Dona Spring. 

Spring authored the request to explore the Oakland Safeway site for playing fields. Her request received unanimous support from City Council. 

However, some residents have expressed concern that Oakland may not be the best place for Berkeley sports fields.  

“I’m a little confused about why the city is looking at other cities when they have good sites here,” said Fielding. 

Others have voiced concern about the high volume of traffic on Claremont Street, and the safety implications, as well as the hefty price tag that may accompany the Safeway property. 

The lot is privately owned, and not known to be up for sale, according to city officials in Oakland. 

“But it’s a big sore thumb,” said Berkeley resident Kathryn Swift, a member of Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coalition and one of the first people advocating playing fields at the Oakland site. 

Swift added that the high volume of traffic on Claremont Street may be a good thing, vouching for the site’s accessibility to local athletes. 

Berkeley’s city manager’s office said it has already begun efforts to reach the owner of the Safeway site as well contact Oakland officials to inquire about joint appropriation of the land. 

“In many ways, the regional approach makes sense,” said Deputy City Manager Phil Kamlarz. “Kids don’t pay attention to city borders.” 

City staff, at an earlier request of City Council, is also looking into the possibility of buying land from Golden Gate Fields, on Eastshore Highway, and converting it to playing fields. 

Contact reporter at kurtis@berkeleydailyplanet.net

To the Editor: 

As a member of the Jewish peace camp, who knows that the Palestinians are the only potential peace partner, I’m glad to hear that a Palestinian leader came to Berkeley to talk about reforming his corrupt dictatorial regime. 

I just hope the words turn into action. 

We’ve been here before.  

After the Oslo accords in 1993, Israeli and American Jewish leadership successfully lobbied for the release of millions of dollars promised by Western governments to fund Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately, that money was diverted away from the people and local infrastructures that needed it; instead, it was pocketed by politicians, used to recruit suicide murderers and spent to promote hatred against Jews and Israel in schools and community centers. None of it was invested to create a popular foundation for peace, or to ease the misery of the poorest Palestinians. No wonder Arafat’s public is skeptical about the benefits of the peace process. 

Still I have to remain hopeful in the future good faith of the Palestinian leadership. Israel has no real alternative to the hope for prosperity among the Palestinian people, because that is the only long-term road to peace. So I embrace the Palestinians’ new public pronouncements about democracy and reform, and, to quote The Who, hope that "We Won’t Get Fooled Again.” 

-Mark Schickman 

Berkeley

Wednesday 

Baseball – Berkeley vs. Antioch (NCS playoff), 5 p.m. at Evans Diamond, Cal 

Friday 

Track & Field – NCS Meet of Champions qualifying, 1 p.m. at Edwards Stadium, Cal 

Sunday 

Track & Field – NCS Meet of Champions finals, 1 p.m. at Edwards Stadium, Cal

To the Editor: 

How long does it take to create Congressional legislation?  

Sometimes, it takes only a few months; often, years. Yet, just three days after 9/11, President Bush pushed a $15 billion airline bailout package through Congress.  

Now we learn that Bush was warned, at least as early as August, about Al Qaida's plans to hijack airplanes. And what did the White House do to prepare America for attack?  

They got legislation ready to transfer a fortune, “big time,” from our tax dollars to their corporate sponsors. 

Now, we also learn that this warning “represents a shift in the official version of events surrounding the attacks ...,” meaning that Bush looked straight at us and lied about what he knew prior to the attack, and what the administration was doing to protect us. This is a lie far more sinister than whether a previous president “knew that woman.” 

- Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

Desperate jury search 

SUNBURY, Pa. — Bread, milk, eggs ... and a court summons? 

Northumberland County was so desperate for female jurors that sheriff deputies subpoenaed dozens of women in grocery stores, gas stations and a high school. The sheriff even ordered his own wife and daughters to appear for jury duty. 

President Judge Robert Sacavage ordered Sheriff Charles Berkoski to round up 50 more women after a jury pool last week included some 140 men but only 10 women. 

Although there is no specific quota, court rules say juries must be representative of the community they serve. A predominantly male jury could open the door for defendants to appeal convictions, Sacavage said. 

So deputies approached women at stores, a fund-raiser and even Shikellamy High School, where mothers and daughters were preparing for the prom. Reluctant would-be jurors asked Wal-Mart employees if there was a back exit so they could avoid deputies, Berkoski said. 

The sheriff even looked to the women in his family. 

“I just said to my wife, ‘Congratulations! You’re on jury duty Monday.’ Hey, you have to be fair,” Berkoski said. “Of course, I’m probably not going to get any supper for two months.” 

Court administrator Larry Diorio said the gender imbalance was caused by a glitch in a computer program that generates random jury pools. He said the glitch will be corrected this week. 

Tossing the octopus  

DETROIT — Octopus tossing is a hallowed, if illicit, part of the playoff ritual for hockey’s Detroit Red Wings. 

On Tuesday night, the Wings’ sister team — the Detroit Tigers, which have the same owner — revived the custom in a promotion for the Red Wings. 

Before the Tigers’ baseball game against Cleveland at Comerica Park, the club staged a competition to see who could hurl an octopus the farthest. 

The winner, Tim Fogarty, won a limo ride to Joe Louis Arena, two tickets for Monday’s game between the Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche and a Zamboni ride, the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News said. 

The octopus has symbolized the Wings’ playoff runs since 1952, when a fan threw one on the ice during a game against Montreal. It used to take eight wins to capture the Stanley Cup; each of the octopus’s eight tentacles symbolized one victory. 

Today’s road to the Stanley Cup requires two octopuses — 16 victories. 

While the NHL officially frowns on tossing octopuses during games, the Red Wings have not been penalized for the practice. 

“Wings fans want to support their team in any way possible,” said Kevin Dean, an owner of Superior Fish in Royal Oak, Mich. He said the store normally sells three octopuses a day, “but during hockey season and especially now as the playoffs are getting deeper, we’re up to like 10 to 12.”  

To the Editor: 

I am writing to express disdain for the district attorney’s attempts to press on with charges against the arrested Students for Justice in Palestine. 

As a commission member, civic activist, and private citizen, I am aware of the occurrence of numerous serious crimes where Assistant District Attorney John Adams has made the decision not to file charges. It is unacceptable that the office of the DA remains so entirely out of step with the law enforcement priorities of our community, and it is also time that the district attorney be held accountable for the decision-making process that is used to concentrate public resources in filing and prosecuting cases. 

Many citizens are not aware of the arbitrary and subjective bottleneck that can exist in the office of a California district attorney: the DA functions autonomously and only answers to the desires of the community through the elective process. Complaints against the procedures and policies of the DA’s office will almost always fall on deaf ears at the California attorney general’s office because they hold fast to the notion that DA’s have to be sufficiently independent to reflect the priorities of a particular community. 

When the office of the district attorney uses that granted degree of autonomy to forward an agenda that is out of step with the desires of the community, the taxpayer community foots the bill. It is an educational exercise to sit down, pen in hand, and calculate what the law enforcement efforts surrounding the recent activism in Berkeley have cost the community in hard dollars; and then understand, almost intuitively, that criminal convictions for acts of political protest and civil disobedience in our community are not the results we desire from the very hard-earned tax money contributed by both businesses and individuals to our local law enforcement effort. 

Let’s not presume quite so much that our leaders know what they are doing; rather, we should watch the SJP proceedings with an eagle eye toward understanding just how well the district attorney, as well as the Superior Court, understand what expectations the great majority of Berkeley citizens have of them. Concentrating our criminal law enforcement resources on political protest and civil disobedience is, when reflected against the core values of our principled community, nothing less than a misuse of public funds. 

-Michael Minasian 

Berkeley 

BERKELEY — In a time of war, the University of California, Berkeley, is launching a center devoted to the study of inner peace. 

Funded by a $1 million gift, the Center for the Development of Peace and Well-being opened this month. The goal, says psychology professor Stephen Hinshaw, is to look at how people overcome conflict and adversity — rather than following the traditional model of studying people overwhelmed by them. 

“We’re very interested in how people achieve peace and well-being — not through a Pollyanna point of view, but through the act of coping with very real traumas,” said Hinshaw, who helped organize the center. 

Peace has been an elusive concept recently on campus, with students taking sides on the Middle East conflict. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have held a number of rallies, including one that ended with marchers taking over a classroom building during midterms. Police arrested 79 protesters. 

The demonstrators say they’ve been treated harshly for going against what they perceive as a pro-Israeli bias by university administrators and the media. 

Meanwhile, Jewish students say they have been the target of verbal attacks and harassment. 

“Here we have a classic example — the atmosphere on campus is a direct reflection of the atmosphere in the world,” Hinshaw said Tuesday. “This is exactly the kind of issue the center needs to be dealing with.” 

Hinshaw doesn’t claim the center will be able to solve the problems of the Middle East. But he sees the conflict on campus as centered on personal relationships. 

“There has to be an atmosphere of open communication. When there’s censorship or where there’s exclusion, that models the conflict that’s going on in the Middle East. We need to find ways to have dialogue and in a safe way,” he said. 

The money for the center comes from Thomas and Ruth Ann Hornaday, who attended Berkeley in the early 1960s. Thomas Hornaday, a Phoenix developer, traces his interest in peace research to his World War II upbringing as the child of two parents who valued peace. In his opinion, “Inner peace is universally desirable, and the experience of it should be an inalienable right of every human being.” 

The center was planned long before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 

“But I think we’ve seen since Sept. 11 people all across the country crying out for meaning and for a purpose in life and for ways of coping to combat the stark terror of attacks,” Hinshaw said. 

Do organizers worry the center will be stereotyped because it is located in a town that has a national reputation for navel-gazing? 

“Here we are at Berkeley, which has been the ‘touchy-feely’ capital for a while, and I don’t think we need to be defensive about it,” Hinshaw said. “I think we as a center need to be clear on what we’re doing, which is saying that the road to inner peace and well-being doesn’t neglect or doesn’t turn the other way from real conflict, real adversity. Surviving cancer, overcoming child abuse, ways of combating prejudice and stigma — all of these are topics under consideration for research at the center.” 

Hinshaw is a member of the center’s founding executive committee, along with Philip Cowan, director of Berkeley’s Institute of Human Development, and Dacher Keltner, an associate professor of psychology who is the center’s founding director. 

City Council 

Mayor Shirley Dean 

Phone: (510) 981-7100 

Linda Maio, District 1 

Phone: (510) 981-7110 

Margaret Breland, District 2 

Phone: (510) 981-7120 

Maudelle Shirek, District 3 

Phone: (510) 981-7130 

Dona Spring, District 4 

Phone: (510) 981-7140 

Miriam Hawley, District 5 

Phone: (510) 981-7150 

Betty Olds, District 6 

Phone: (510) 981-7160 

Kriss Worthington, District 7 

Phone: (510) 981-7170 

Polly Armstrong, District 8 

Phone: (510) 981-7180 

City of Berkeley 

2180 Milvia St. 

Berkeley, CA 94704 

e-mail addresses are: 

firstinitiallastname 

@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

(e.g. dspring@ci.berkeley.ca.us) 

School Board  

Shirley Issel, President 

Joaquin Rivera, Vice President 

Terry Doran, Director 

Ted Schultz, Director 

John Selawsky, Director 

Sarena Chandler, student director 

Berkeley Unified School District 

2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Berkeley, CA 94704 

Voicemail: (510) 644-6550 

BoardofEd@berkeley.k12.ca.us 

County  

Representatives  

Keith Carson  

Board of Supervisors Dist. 5 

1221 Oak Street, Oakland, 94612  

272-6695  

dist5@co.alameda.ca.us  

Darryl Moore, Peralta Community College District, Area 4 

333 E. 8th St. 

Oakland, 94606 

466-7200 

DMoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Jerome Wiggins, Alameda  

County Board of Education, Area 1 

313 W. Winton Ave 

Hayward, 94544-1198 

(510) 670-4145 

State  

Representatives  

Dion Aroner 

14th Assembly District 

918 Parker St., Suite A-13 

Berkeley, CA 94710 

Phone: (510) 540-3660 

State Capitol, Room 2163 

Sacramento, CA 95814 

Phone: (916) 319-2014 

dion.aroner@assembly.ca.gov 

Don Perata, 9th Senate District 

1515 Clay St., Suite 2202 

Oakland, CA 94612 

Phone: (510) 286-1333 

State Capitol, Room 4061 

Sacramento, CA 95814 

Phone: (916) 445-6577 

senator.perata@sen.ca.gov

BERKELEY — A Berkeley group concerned about a recent rash of racially-motivated hate crimes in the city honored Mayor Shirley Dean Tuesday for her efforts to bring the crimes to a quick halt. 

The Berkeley Task Force Fighting Hate Crimes was formed recently by residents responding to several incidents in the city targeting the Jewish, Hispanic, gay and black communities. 

In March, someone threw a brick through the front glass window of the Berkeley Hillel on Bancroft Way, just a couple of days before someone wrote an expletive targeting Jews at the center. 

Also that month, Hispanic organizations throughout the Bay Area — including several in Berkeley — received disparaging letters that contained anthrax threats, while the words “kill gays and blacks’’ were spray-painted on the side of a building. 

On April 4, the phrase “Kill Jews’’ was spray-painted on the side of a Sixth Street building, and the phrase “Palestinian blood on our hands’’ was found scrawled on a sidewalk. 

Soon after, Dean spoke out about the offensive acts and ordered all of the offending graffiti cleaned. She proposed that the city develop a comprehensive program to address hate crimes, focusing on prosecution and prevention. 

Dean asked that the Anti-Defamation League be enlisted to train police officers on all of aspects of hate crimes, and that certain officers be assigned to investigate hate crimes as their main priority. 

Dean also asked the city manager to take inventory of all hate crimes in the city and to compile a database of the incidents. 

“Without a clear expression of our community’s disgust at these aggressive and anonymous expressions of hate, and a rededication of the city’s available resources to exposing, preventing and eliminating them, we have abdicated our responsibility to protect the basic freedoms of all our residents,’’ Dean said. “What hurts one individual hurts us all.’’ 

Avi Rosenfeld, a coordinator with the anti-hate task force, said the mayor was the first public official to not only talk about the issue of hate crimes, but to propose specific actions to combat them. 

“She was the only person in public life to take official notice and to very clearly say how intolerable it is and how this problem has been addressed,’’ Rosenfeld said. 

For her actions, the group presented the mayor with an anti-hate button today and expressed appreciation for her response. 

“It was horrifying that in our Berkeley, the social fabric is being torn apart, and that what we consider the paradigm of a tolerant and pluralistic society is being torn down,’’ Rosenfeld said. 

Rosenfeld says the fledgling task force wants to help educate the public about the dangers of hate. The group is also considering whether it should press forward with plans to create a police crime unit in the city. 

Rosenfeld said the group is in the process of collecting data on hate crimes to see if such a unit would be beneficial to Berkeley. 

The group has a Web site at http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/fighthatecrimeberkeley.

SAN FRANCISCO — Developers who want a piece of a one-time military oasis may find themselves squeezed under a new plan for San Francisco’s last sprawl of prime real estate. 

The document lays out how the Presidio, a national park on a decommissioned Army base, plans to break even without selling out the property’s wraparound views of the Golden Gate Bridge and trails that arch through eucalyptus groves. 

Congress has mandated that the Presidio be economically self sufficient by 2013. 

Freshly turned mounds of dirt at the eastern gate show development is already underway. Lucasfilm Ltd. is building a 23-acre office and film production facility there for 2,500 workers. 

But Presidio officials insist their new vision constrains development. 

The 2,500-page plan was unveiled Tuesday, hours before Presidio officials scheduled a public comment session that was sure to generate a storm of opinions. 

In all, the plan would more than triple the employment base to 6,890 workers and add about 1,500 people to the current 2,250 residents. 

But open space would rise by 99 acres from the current 695 acres. And the total building space would fall from nearly 6 million square feet to 5.6 million square feet. 

The document updates a draft version Presidio officials released last summer. It tries to reconcile thousands of public comments from all 50 states — save North Dakota — that ranged from building an RV park to letting the space drift back to the sand dunes that Spanish soldiers first settled in 1776. 

“The public said, ’It’s a park, stupid,”’ said Craig Middleton, executive director of the Presidio Trust, which manages 1,168 acres of Presidio land. “If you really read the plan, you’ll recognize that the goal is to preserve the Presidio.” 

The best way to preserve it, Middleton said, is to occupy its barracks, warehouses, gymnasiums and commissary with tenants who will finance renovations and upkeep. 

In all, the plan expects the total investment to reach $588 million by 2030. 

Prior Presidio plans have drawn fire from preservationists, along with complaints that the trust ignores public input. The trust’s former executive director resigned in December amid allegations of financial mismanagement. 

Environmental groups have offered alternate plans for the space. 

“In some ways they may have been responsive,” said Donald Green, a member of the Presidio Committee of the Sierra Club who stressed that he has only heard sketch details of the plan. “It’s very important to the public that the Presidio have institutions that contribute to world peace, security and the environment.” 

Trust officials stressed their mandate to develop a series of public-use destinations. 

One example, Middleton said, is a plan to develop an exhibit at Building 640 — a nondescript corrugated metal warehouse where Japanese-Americans helped crack the Japanese code during World War II. Not far away, Middleton said, American commanders gave the order to ship more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps.

SACRAMENTO — A constitutional amendment to bolster California’s open government requirements passed its first test Tuesday, but supporters said it was still only a “semi-work in progress” that would be reshaped as it moves through the Legislature. 

“There’s some work left to be done on this important bill,” Tom Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said before the Senate Governmental Organization Committee approved the amendment, 8-0. 

The measure, by Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, would put into the constitution the stipulation that the public has a fundamental right to attend government meetings and inspect government records, with some exceptions. 

California has a series of open government laws already on the books, but supporters of the amendment say those statutes have been eroded over the years by court decisions and efforts by government officials to block access to records. 

Putting an open records, open meeting requirement in the constitution will strengthen those protections, they say. 

Among other things, amendment supporters cite state Supreme Court decisions that allow: 

— Public officials to withhold documents showing how they reached — and who influenced — their decisions. 

— Lower courts to bar future violations of open meeting laws but not to find that a previous meeting violated those requirements. Critics say the ruling weakens citizens’ ability to reverse decisions made during illegally closed meetings. 

“Specific decisions, we believe, have put a kind of body blow on the Public Records Act,” said Mel Opotowsky, former managing editor of The Press-Enterprise of Riverside. 

Opponents said the amendment was too loosely drafted and would jeopardize current exceptions to open records and open meeting requirements. 

“We’re thinking this is going to open the door to a lot of litigation, that every exemption is going to be challenged in a court of law,” said Amy Brown, a lobbyist for the League of California Cities. 

William Brieger, a representative of the attorney general’s office, said efforts to protect the names of crime witnesses or keep private conversations with a priest or rape counselor could be blocked by the amendment. 

“Reading the measure that’s currently drafted, it’s not clear what can be withheld at all,” he said. 

Lenny Goldberg, a lobbyist for the Privacy Rights Clearing House, suggested the Legislature should consider strengthening current open government laws instead of amending the constitution. 

“We have questions as to when you start getting to this level of detail why this should be a constitutional amendment,” he said. 

Opotowsky said the amendment would allow the Legislature to enact exceptions. “This is not something that is Ice Age freezing things as they are right now,” he said. 

The vote sent the measure to the Constitutional Amendments Committee.

SACRAMENTO — California grid officials asked state energy traders to buy unnecessary power at above-market rates, which the state later had to sell at a loss, a senator investigating California’s energy market said Tuesday. 

Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana, said the transaction amounts to the Independent System Operator manipulating the state’s energy market and he called for the resignation of ISO chief Terry Winter. 

In a transcript of a telephone call between the ISO and the state’s energy traders at the Department of Water Resources last November, ISO officials asked the state to buy more power than they need. 

Federal regulators had required generators to keep their plants operating at a minimum level, but ISO officials were concerned that some generators weren’t obeying that order, Dunn said. 

To compensate for that, the ISO asked DWR to schedule “fictitious load” to make it seem as if more energy was needed, said Dunn, chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market. 

Gregg Fishman, spokesman for the ISO, said officials there were investigating the transaction, but “they represent what appears to be standard industry practice.” 

The ISO is in a different situation than energy marketers and generators who have been accused of manipulating the state’s power market to increase profits, said Michael Kahn, chairman of ISO Board of Governors. 

“Our only job is to get reliability to this system at the least possible cost,” Kahn said. “Our activities were to ensure reliability.” 

Dunn said ISO asked the state to schedule these transactions on numerous occasions. He couldn’t say how much the state lost on those transactions. 

He said if the ISO was having problems with generators not responding to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s order, officials there should have made an emergency filing with the commission, not “adopted counter strategies.” 

An ISO resources coordinator was fired in April for contacting Enron in an attempt to influence bid prices offered in California’s electricity markets. 

ISO officials said the employee called the Enron trader last July 3 from the ISO control room. The conversation was recorded by Enron and a transcript was supplied to Dunn. 

SACRAMENTO — The legislative committee investigating a $95 million no-bid software contract asked for permission Tuesday to subpoena five top Oracle Corp. officials to testify. 

Assemblyman Dean Florez, D-Shafter, the chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, requested subpoenas for five Oracle employees involved in the negotiation of the contract, including Richard Polanco, Jr., the son of state Sen. Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles. 

The Joint Rules Committee heard testimony from Florez and an Oracle representative Tuesday. The 22-member committee has until Wednesday to complete the vote. If approved, the subpoenas could be issued as soon as next week, said an aide to Florez. 

Oracle lobbyist Jeffrey Leacox told the Rules Committee that the company would make those employees available for Florez’ staff to interview, but not for hearings. 

In a letter to the committee, Oracle Vice President Kenneth Glueck asked to instead send the senior executive responsible for the transaction. 

The audit committee began questioning some of the governor’s top aides Tuesday about the contract. The deal was billed as a way for the state to save at least $16 million — and potentially tens of millions more — through volume purchases and maintenance of database software. 

But the state auditor said last month the contract could end up costing the state up to $41 million more than if it had kept its previous software supply arrangements, a conclusion Oracle disputes. 

Three state departments — the Department of Finance, the Department of Information Technology and the Department of General Services — signed off on the contract May 31, 2001. The auditor said none of the departments had done an independent analysis of the project’s savings estimates, but relied on numbers provided by the vendor. 

Aileen Adams, secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency, the agency that oversees DGS, told the committee Tuesday that she understood that DOIT Director Elias Cortez had reviewed the figures. 

DOIT was the “engine driving the Oracle train,” Adams said. “Mr. Cortez indicated to me that he had checked out the numbers. I believed that this was a project being overseen by DOIT.” 

At a meeting on May 30, the day before the deadline for signing the contract, Adams requested additional that Finance officials conduct a financial review of the proposal, she told the committee. 

Adams said she explicitly told DGS Director Barry Keene that “he couldn’t move forward with it until it had Finance’s approval.” 

Keene resigned in April, while Cortez has been suspended by Gov. Gray Davis. 

Davis issued an executive order Monday requiring competitive bidding on most state contracts worth at least $100,000. 

Davis also said he would sign a bill he vetoed in 1999 banning technology consultants from advising the state on computer contracts and then bidding on the same contracts. 

Associated Press Writer Steve Lawrence contributed to this report. 

EMERYVILLE — American Indian groups hope to halt development of a sacred shellmound burial site to preserve the remains of some of the Bay Area’s first inhabitants. 

Last week, the city council heard from archaeological company URS Corp., which found 120 sets of human remains and thousands of other artifacts while sifting through 100 meters of soil at the site, which contains such items as discarded shells and plant and animal remains. 

“It was a sacred site and it was defiled by dancing halls and bars,” said Nancy Becker of Sacred Sites International. “We have to be sensitive to their feelings.” 

The top of the 2,700-year-old site first was removed in the late 1800s to build a dance hall and amusement park. A paint and pigment factory followed in 1924. The city council most recently approved the Bay Street project, a complex consisting of a retail, housing, hotel and entertainment facilities. 

Descendants of the Huchiun band of the Ohlone Indians were unsuccessful in their efforts to stop the project, and work crews discovered human remains in 1999. 

The project’s developer, Madison Marquette, has offered to build a memorial paying homage to the Ohlone people who once inhabited the area situated where the Temescal Creek flowed into the San Francisco Bay. Mayor Ruth Atkin also said 1 percent to 3 percent of the site will not be developed following a request from the state-assigned American Indian descendant in charge of overseeing the excavation. 

But American Indian descendants are not satisfied, and asked council members how they would feel if their ancestors’ cemeteries were dug up and then covered by a shopping center and other businesses. 

“The Ohlone people are always referred to in the past tense, but the Ohlone people are not extinct,” said Angela Apache-Davis of IPOC, Indian People Organized for Change. “It would be a great disservice to desecrate the Native American burial ground. It is cultural genocide, no other way to say it.” 

AUSTIN, Texas — Lady Bird Johnson was released from an Austin hospital Thursday, three weeks after suffering a mild stroke. 

The 89-year-old former first lady has made “a remarkable recovery,” said her daughter, Luci Baines Johnson. She said Johnson’s speaking and swallowing have improved each day. Johnson was taken to Seton Medical Center May 2 after she awoke from a nap at her home and had trouble speaking and swallowing medicine. 

MODESTO — The parents of Chandra Levy tried to avoid watching television Wednesday after word broke that a body was found in a Washington, D.C., park not far from their daughter’s apartment. 

But with a crowd of reporters massing on the sidewalk and a wall of satellite trucks lining their street, they couldn’t avoid the news. 

Their long-missing daughter was dead. 

Dr. Robert and Susan Levy remained grieving inside their one-story brick home throughout the last day of their 13-month ordeal. Outside, the yellow ribbons that have lined neighborhood trees and lamp posts for more than a year were tattered and faded. 

“Two parents have just received the most horrifying news they could ever receive,” family spokeswoman Judy Smith said outside the Levy home. “Certainly no parent would think they would ever bury their child. It’s usually the other way.” 

Washington Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said he told a family lawyer that dental records confirmed the identity of the remains. 

“This long road they’ve traveled has now come to an end. It’s the worst possible scenario for the family,” said Kelly Huston, the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s spokesman who frequently met with the Levys. 

Family friend Donna Raley, whose stepdaughter, Dena Raley McCluskey, disappeared in 1999, was at the Levy house Wednesday morning and left just before the remains were identified. 

She called the mood inside “rough.” 

“They held out so much hope, and they’ve been so strong. It’s just devastating to them,” said Raley, who co-founded of the Wings of Protection support group with Susan Levy. “The Levys are a very strong family.” 

At least 16 TV crews and dozens of reporters surrounded the Levys’ house in a replay of last summer, when Chandra’s disappearance — and her romantic links to the area’s longtime Democratic congressman, Gary Condit — gripped the nation in scandal. 

Condit, who lost re-election in the March primary after his political support crumbled, was in Washington on Wednesday. His offices referred all calls to his Los Angeles attorney, Mark Geragos. 

“Congressman Gary Condit and his family want to express their heartfelt sorrow and condolences to the Levy family,” the lawyer said. 

Geragos suggested Levy’s killing seems to parallel that of two other missing women in Washington, which could support Condit’s belief that a serial killer is responsible. He also suggested police had been derelict in their search of the park where the remains were found. 

“My feeling is that the police have a lot of explaining to do,” Geragos added. 

“If, as reported, she left with only her tennis shoes and her keys, and was going jogging, wouldn’t you look on the jogging trails?” he asked. “How do you miss somebody? It’s mind-boggling.” 

Ted and Donna Salmans, the Levys’ next-door neighbors for 16 years, said the Levys were a “class act” — and accused Condit of complicating the search for Chandra to the point that he has only himself to blame for voters tossing him out of office. 

“The way he handled this, Gary Condit is responsible for him being out of work,” Ted Salmans said. 

Neighbor Joanne Tittle, her eyes red and puffy from a day of crying, spoke warmly of Chandra, who used to hang out at her house. 

“My gut instinct was hopeful,” Tittle said. “I hoped she was in a foreign country or something.” 

Michael Levine, who helped raise $250,000 in reward money, said that at least the family has some resolution. “It’s a very, very, very sad, deeply disturbing final answer today,” Levine said.

Berkeley’s urbanity, Palma Soriano’s agriculture, and thousands of miles may serve to separate these two cities, but as of last week they have joined an increasing sisterhood despite the estrangement. 

The relationship became official Tuesday, May 14 when the Berkeley City Council passed the recommendation from the Peace and Justice Commission to make Palma Soriano a sister city — intended to add weight to a national grassroots movement to normalize U.S.-Cuban relations and striking a symbolic blow against the U.S.’s long-term policy of isolating the impoverished island nation. 

While the designation is symbolic for the city, the relationship will be cultivated by the sponsor group. 

The recommendation is sponsored by the local chapter of the U.S.-Cuba Sister City’s Association and has noted Palma Soriano for its similarities to Berkeley. Much like Berkeley, Palma Soriana is notable for its diversity, music and medical research. 

“While some think of the designation of sister cities as one-sided due to the huge resources of the U.S., we have much to learn through educational and cultural exchange,” said Rebecca Davis, chairperson of the sponsor group. “They have so much to teach us because of their huge strides in education, health care and the preservation of culture.” 

Davis says Palma Soriano is the birthplace of Charanga music and Berkeley boasts local performers of this orchestral-salsa. It is also a city with practitioners of traditional medicine, consequently it is a strong resource for herbal-medicine research.  

The group’s first project will be to work with Cubans on the reforestation of Cauto River in the Soriano region, and expects participation by Berkeley’s Ecology Center. Davis also hopes to start a pen-pal and eventual exchange between Cuban and Berkeley students. 

Berkeley is the third East Bay city to establish such a relationship with cities in Cuba’s Santiago province. Oakland sistered with the capital, Santiago de Cuba, in 2000 shortly after Richmond joined with the city of Regla. 

“There is a huge push right now among American cities to sister with Cuba and get beyond the embargo on a person-to-person level,” Davis says. “The embargo makes it nearly impossible to get aid through, but we hope to contribute humanitarian aid such as medicine, books, and an exchange of knowledge.” 

Other Californian cities, such as Santa Barbara and West Hollywood, are currently are currently seeking sisters in the Santiago province through the U.S.-Cuba Sister Cities’ Association. A spokesperson for the group says their ultimate goal in California is to make it a sister-state with Santiago province. Pennsylvania became the first sister state when it bonded with the Matanza province in March of 2001, through a unanimous vote by state legislature. 

Contact reporter: jamie@berkeleydailyplanet.net

SACRAMENTO – A former aide to Gov. Gray Davis says he was surprised when a computer company lobbyist gave him a $25,000 campaign contribution for the governor at a Sacramento bar. 

Arun Baheti told a legislative committee Wednesday he had no idea that lobbyist Ravi Mehta planned to give him the check when they met for drinks last year, although Mehta commented before their meeting about needing to get a check for an earlier fund-raising event to Davis’ campaign committee. 

“I was surprised that he handed it to me,” Baheti said. 

Mehta, whose clients include Oracle Corp., delivered the check from Oracle a few days after the Redwood Shores company signed a $95 million, no-bid contract with the state. Baheti said he forwarded the check to Davis’s campaign committee by Federal Express. 

The contract was initially billed as a way the state would save at least $16 million — and possibly as much as $111 million — through volume purchases and maintenance of database software. 

But the state auditor said last month that the deal would cost California up to $41 million more than if the state had kept its previous software supply arrangements, a conclusion Oracle disputes. 

Davis and Oracle have denied there was any link between the contribution and the contract, but the governor has returned the money and state and Oracle representatives are discussing how to rescind the deal. 

Baheti told the Joint Legislative Audit Committee that his meeting with Mehta was “just a general conversation over drinks. ... He was interested in some of the items in the (state) budget.” 

The committee is holding a series of hearings on the contract. 

Asked if he and Mehta talked about the contract, Baheti said, “I’m certain it had to come up.” 

Baheti said sometime after he sent the check to Davis’ campaign office, a campaign official — he couldn’t remember her full name — called and “expressed her displeasure in the fact that I had received and Fed Exed the check and strongly requested that I never do that again.” 

“She felt it was an error in judgment,” he said. “After listening to her side of the conversation, I agreed.” 

In response to repeated questions, Baheti said he couldn’t recall details of the meeting with Mehta, including the date, the restaurant or the dinner conversation. 

Sen. Steve Peace, D-San Diego, called Baheti’s inability to recall details of the meeting “beyond straining credulity.” 

Baheti was a Davis adviser on technology issues who resigned May 2 because of his role in the contract controversy. Davis aides said he was asked to resign because he violated a rule that bars administration officials from accepting campaign donations. 

“It was clear to me it was going to become an issue and a distraction to the administration,” Baheti said. “I felt the best thing I could do for everyone concerned was to resign.” 

Several committee members asked Baheti why it took so long for the governor’s chief of staff, Lynn Schenk, to ask him to resign. He said he didn’t know. 

As Davis’ director of e-government, Baheti said he had an open door policy and met often with representatives of high-tech firms interested in signing contracts with the state. 

He said he had a meeting with representatives of Oracle or Logicon Inc., an Oracle vendor, last May 23, shortly before the contract was signed. 

Baheti said he remembered having concerns or questions about the proposed contract and at a meeting with other state officials on May 24 expressed reservations about signing a no-bid software agreement with Logicon. 

“I didn’t understand how the state could enter into a sole-source agreement with a reseller of software, particularly given there were other resellers that earned their living selling Oracle products. 

“Any time there is a middleman involved it’s going to cost more money,” Baheti added. 

Officials at the meeting then decided to seek a contract directly with Oracle, he said.