The Berkeley Public Library is facing a budget deficit that could result in reduced hours of service, staffing cuts and outdated library resources. 

Library officials are scrambling to avoid the cuts by asking City Council to increase the library parcel tax and consider putting a bond measure on the ballot in 2004. 

Without additional taxes, the library will face a shortfall of nearly $2 million by fiscal year 2004-2005 — about 20 percent of its overall budget. Unless additional resources can be found, the shortfall would force Central Library to shave off nine service hours a week and would reduce hours at the four branches by 14 hours a week starting in September. The library already has implemented a hiring freeze for non-essential jobs. 

In addition, starting in July, the materials budget, which updates books, CDs and videos, will be cut in half, according to library Director Jackie Griffin. 

“As the budget stands right now, it’s like a puzzle,” she said. “How do you maintain materials and keep staff when you don’t have enough money to do either?” 

Griffin has requested that City Council raise the Library Parcel Tax by 36 percent, which she said would eliminate the budget deficit and stabilize the library for many years to come. 

“I think there are positives about it because in bad economic times, the library is used more than any other time,” Griffin said. “You can always go to the library to borrow a book or take out a video for your kids.” 

The council has authority under the Library Relief Act of 1988 to increase the parcel tax according to either the Consumer Price Index or the Personal Income Growth Index. The council has, in the past, adjusted the parcel tax to meet the CPI, but never the Personal Income Growth Index, which would have amounted to 36 percent over the past 14 years. 

Under such a parcel tax increase, an owner of a 1,600-square-foot house would pay $65 more in property taxes, according to the Berkeley library’s calculations. 

According to Cisco DeVries, Mayor Tom Bates’ chief of staff, the mayor wants to help but is concerned a retroactive tax hike may be illegal. 

City Councilmember Gordon Wozniack said whether or not the retroactive tax hike was permitted, he was uncomfortable with the idea. 

“I find it a little like changing the score after the game is over,” he said.  

According to Griffin, the other possibility is putting a bond measure on the ballot in 2004. However, she said it could hurt the library’s stock of books, CDs and videos, if that was the case. 

“We couldn’t go back and buy all the materials we didn’t because of lack of money,” she said. “It would be like putting a Band-Aid over a hole that will exist forever.” 

The council will consider the budget issues during its overall budget discussions and two scheduled public hearings that will take place in City Council Chambers prior to final approval of the city’s budget on July 30.

TUESDAY, APRIL 22 

We’re Getting There: Transportation and the Environment in Berkeley, with Matt Nichols, of the City of Berkeley Transportation Office, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. For reservations call 981-5435. 

energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

“My Life as an Unabashed Liberal,” lecture by Stephanie Salter, columnist and reporter for the SF Chronicle, on the role of liberalism in American politics, at 7:30 p.m., College Preparatory High School at 6100 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $10. Call Bruce H. Feingold at 925-945-1315 for information. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 525-3565.  

www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Lawyers in the Library at 6 p.m. at the West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

Gaia Sculpture Unveiling. Four Architectural Sculptures celebrating Earth Day, will be unveiled at 5:30 p.m. at the Gaia building, 2116 Allston Way, by Khalil Bendib, sculptor, and Patrick Kennedy, owner, Panoramic Interests. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 

Cesar Chavez Breakfast & Award Ceremony, hosted by the East Bay Cesar Chavez Committee of the United Farm Workers, celebrating the new Cesar Chavez postage stamp and honoring leaders with Legacy Awards, will be held 8 - 10 a.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $25. 525-5054.  www.ashkenaz.com 

Ira Glass, host and founder of the NPR program, This American Life, will speak at  

8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC campus. Tickets are $18, $22, $28. 642-9988. 

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Peace Spirals: Somatic Expressive Dialogs for peace, community and mindful action, with Jamie McHugh, RMT and guests, 7 - 9 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck at Cedar. Please RSVP to peacespirals@aol.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. $90 cash prizes. Cost is $7 at the door, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. 

Community Dances in Berkeley, traditional English and American dances, 8 p.m. every Wednesday, $9; 7 p.m. first Sunday, $10. Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St., 233-5065. www.bacds.org 

THURSDAY, APRIL 24 

Town Hall Meeting on 

neighborhood disaster resistance and community sustainability, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the San Pablo Park Community Center, 2800 Park St. For information, call Carol Lopes 981-5514. 

Take Back the Night March against rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence in our community. Come hear speakers, enjoy live music, browse the resource fair and share your thoughts at the open mike. Rally at 4:30 p.m. on the UC Campus at Upper Sproul Plaza rain or shine. Contact information: Danna Yaniv at 204-9139. dyaniv@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder Physicians for Social Responsibility and founder Nuclear Policy Research Institute, will speak on “The New Nuclear Danger — George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex” at 7 p.m. in the Chevron Auditorium, International House, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Chancellor’s Office, co-sponsored by Depts. of Public Policy, Public Health and the World Affairs Council. 642-4670. kander@socrates.berkeley.edu 

Bicycle Touring Information at 7:30 p.m., free lecture covering tools, routes, camping and more, at The Missing Link, 1988 Shattuck Ave. 843-7471.  

Job Search 101, an interactive workshop on strategies to jump start your job search. 1:30 - 5 p.m. Cost is $35 for YWCA members, $45 for non-members. Preregistration required. For information call 848-6370. YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 

548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue gathers at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome. 496-6000, ext.135. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship www.bpf.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon, Francis U. Macy 

Co-Director, Center for Safe Energy, on the “The Growing Environmental Movement in Russia.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations 526-2925, 665-9020. 

The War at Home: Organizing for Social and Economic Justice, conference at UC Berkeley on the war economy and how it affects us all. Workshops from Friday evening through Sunday. Sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America. Cost is $20 - $50 in advance, $35 - $65 at the door. Registration opens at 5 p.m., room 2050, Valley Life Science Bldg., UC Campus. For information on registration and location, call 415-789-8497 or 

www.dsausa.org/lowwage 

7th Annual Charles T. Travers Ethics Conference: US Chemical Warfare: The Tragedy of Agent Orange 

with speakers Gerald Nicosia and Fred Wilcox, at 6 p.m. in the Free Speech Cafe, Moffitt Library, UC Campus. 642-1056. lcushing@library.berkeley.edu 

“War is a Coward’s Escape from the Problems of Peace,” a lecture by William Sloane Coffin, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, on Dana between Durant and Channing. $5 suggested donation. 

Citizenship, Education and Public Accountability, a one-day conference exploring the idea of responsible citizenship and the role of citizens in shaping public policy. Lipman Room 8th Floor of Barrows Hall, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. http://ethics.berkeley.edu/conference/conference.html  

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 

Berkeley Bay Festival at the Marina from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

The theme is environmental education and the bay. A free event for all ages. Workshops, walks, canoeing class, bike rides. Build a solar cooker, explore the new pedestrian I-80 overpass and the Bay Trail and check out the Shorebird Nature Center’s straw bale building currently being built. 644-8623. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/marina/marinaexp/bayfest.html.  

Spring Plant Sale at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call 643-2755 for directions.  

Kids’ Garden Club: Butterflies at 2 p.m. in the Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours, “Berkeley Verses: Exploring the Cal Campus and Its Poems,” led by Steve Finacom. $5 members, $10 non-members. For reservations call 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc 

Small Press Distribution Open House. The only non-profit literary book distributor celebrates its 34th anniversary with readings, browsing and food and drink, noon - 4 p.m. at its warehouse, 1341 7th St., off Gilman. 524-1668 ext. 305 or www.spdbooks.org 

The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors will hold a GI Volunteer Training from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 630 20th St., Suite 302, Oakland. We will be training military counselors to take calls from GIs and provide information on how to obtain a discharge or file a grievance. For more information call 465-1617. 

Hitchhikers’ Rally, a benefit performance and pot luck for KPFA’s radio drama/documentary series “Hitchhiking off the Map,” at 7 p.m. at the Tea Party House in the Lake Merritt area of Oakland. Donation requested. Call 800-357-6016 for reservations and location details. 

Book Sale to raise funds for sending books to Sori Primary and Sori Secondary, in Sori, Kenya, 10 a.m - 5 p.m. Also on the 27th. 3000 books, including the inventory of a closed used bookstore; quality books at garage sale prices. 1261 Campus Dr., (Go up Cedar to top, left on LaLoma, left on Glendale, left on Campus) 

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 

The Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland, at 8 a.m. For information call 544-8918. 

People’s Park 34th Anniversary Peace Party and Concert. Celebrate the history of People’s Park with host Wavy Gravy, speakers Rep. Barbara Lee, David Hilliard, Ed Rosenthal, Michael Delacour and others. Music by Clan Dyken, Big Brutha Soul, Carol Denney, Country Joe and more. For information 390-0830. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Citizens Budget Review Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Phil Kamlarz, 981-7006. http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/budget/default.htm 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/civicarts/default.htm  

Energy Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo 981-5434. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy/default.htm  

Mental Health Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the Mental Health Clinic, 2640 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Harvey Turek, 981-5213.  

Planning Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/planning/default.htm  

Police Review Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Barbara Attard, 981-4950.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview/default.htm 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley/default.htm  

Zoning Adjustments Board 

meets Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. at City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning/default.htm  

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Monday, April 28, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Deborah Chernin, 981-6715. 

Solid Waste Management Commission meets Monday, April 28, at 7 p.m. at the Transfer Station, 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste/default.htm  

School Board meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. Queen Graham 644-8764 or Mark Coplan 644-6320. 

For those of us who have a less than impressive background in mathematics, Aurora Theater Company’s world premier of Ira Hauptman’s “Partition” may seem a bizarre selection — perhaps even off-putting. Wrong. Very wrong indeed. This is one terrific theater evening. Despite the odd title (it’s a mathematical concept) and a plot based on the true story of a couple of early 20th century mathematical geniuses, it’s a play which grabs you from the beginning and takes you through an often funny, but moving and deeply human experience. 

Rahul Gupta plays Ramanujan, a largely self-taught clerk in India who, in 1913, wrote letters full of his mathematical theorems to three famous British mathematicians. Two threw the letters away unopened. The third, Cambridge professor G. H. Hardy (here played by a marvelously constrained David Arrow), concluded that the results “must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them.” 

While it may not be startling that Aurora has cast a group of highly talented actors, it seems little less than miraculous that they were able to locate an actor as gifted as Gupta, who is of Indian heritage to boot. His portrayal of the naive mathematical genius, Ramanujan, is so warm and so complete that one longs to see him in another role to find out if what he has created here is indeed nothing but acting. 

Through Hardy’s intervention Ramanujan was brought to Cambridge, a world so alien that it might as well have been Mars. What Hardy could not have expected was the fact that — at least in this play — in addition to extraordinary differences in cultural behaviors, the two men embodied extremes in basic thought processes. The intensely reserved and totally left-brained Hardy’s attempts to corral Ramanujan’s intuitive approaches to behavior, as well as to mathematics, are at once both amusing and doomed. Eventually those efforts lead to a rupture between the two men from which they both suffer great pain. 

The relationship between these two men, who could not possibly have been more different, is mitigated by the presence of a professor of humanities, Billington, superbly embodied by award-winning actor Chris Ayles. It is Billington who comprehends the human cost in Ramanujan’s eagerness to please Hardy, as well as the danger to the foreigner’s health in his obsession with work. Billington sums up the relationship when he says to Hardy: “You’re raising a child.” 

Perhaps an even greater leavening force in the initial parts of the play are the appearances of the Indian goddess, Namagiri. She, of course, is seen only by Ramanujan, in his prayers or dreams. Played by the lovely young Rachel Rajput, Namagiri is amusingly maternal in her relationship with Ramanujan. There are delightful scenes between them in which she scolds him for neglecting his health, cooks dinner and shows him how to fold his blankets. As the play darkens, she tries to save him from the obsessive work she says is killing him, but finally chooses to leave. 

Another supernatural force at work is the malicious ghost of the 17th century French mathematician, Fermat, (Julian Lopez-Morillas), best remembered for his “last theorem.” After a lifetime of perfectly proven theorems, Fermat has tormented generations of mathematicians by leaving one unfinished with a marginal note that he had a “perfectly charming” proof of the theorem — only there wasn’t enough room to write it down. In the play, he first announces that the whole thing was a scam, and later claims that he’s just forgotten the answer.  

It is the question of Fermat’s theorem that becomes Ramanujan’s last obsession. He is fascinated with the problem and despite the anguish and objections of Billington, of his goddess, even of Hardy, he works. Knowing the potential cost to himself, he works. 

As the audience left, one woman remarked: “I think every professor at Berkeley ought to be required to come here. I’m going to bring my husband if I have to drag him in chains.”

TUESDAY, APRIL 22 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Decay of Fiction at 7 p.m. and Comandante at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Gerald Nachman reads from 

“Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Robert Kaplan reads from his new book, “The Art of the Infinite: The Pleasures of Mathematics,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Nik C. Colyer reads from “Channeling Biker Bob Lover’s Embrace” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bandworks performs at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 

525-5054.  www.ashkenaz.com 

Maeve Donnelly with Steve Baughman, Irish fiddler and guitar accompanist, perform at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 

FILM 

Film 50 showing Do the Right Thing at 3 p.m. (sold out). S.F. International Film Festival showing Too Young to Die at 7 p.m. and The Man of the Year at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Azar Nafisi reflects on her novel, “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Berthold Madhukarson Thompson reads from “Odyssey of Enlightenment” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Noon Concert 

The UC Department of Music Gamelan Ensemble, Gamelan Sari Raras, directed by Heri Puranto, performs in a free concert at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Doors open at 11:55 a.m. 642-4864.  

http://music.berkeley.edu 

Bandworks performs at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Rory Block performs country blues and tradition-based originals at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

THEATER 

Stagebridge and Berkeley Adult School present a lively original comedy, “Senior Moments,” by James Keller at 2 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Ticket information and reservations available by calling 444-4755.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 24 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing Doing Time at 7 p.m. and Our Times at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Carolyn Merchant, chancellor’s professor of environmental history, philosophy and ethics at UC Berkeley, will discuss her new book, “Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Patrizia Chen will talk about growing up in Livorno, Italy, after WWII and her new book, “Rosemary and Bitter Oranges: Growing Up in a Tuscan Kitchen,” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Poets Gone Wild with Adele Foley, Gary Young and Morton Marcus at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

THEATER 

Stagebridge and Berkeley Adult School present a lively original comedy, “Senior Moments,” by James Keller at 2 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Ticket information and reservations are available by calling 444-4755.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

UC Jazz at Noon free concert on Lower Sproul Plaza. 

Youssou N’Dour performs, mixing elements of Senegal’s traditional percussion and soulful vocals with Afro-Cuban rhythms and strains of American jazz and funk, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC campus. Tickets are $20, $30, $40. 642-9988. 

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Planet Grooves with DJ Omar perform at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Spank, DJs: Solarz from Groove Conflux perform Hip Hop R&B House at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Bryan Bowers, autoharp hall-of-famer, performs at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Judith-Kate Friedman pre-sents an evening of music and poetry with Evelie Pasch, Avotcja, Raymand Nat Turner of Upsurge!, Edie Hartshorne, Doug von Koss and more, in a benefit for Songwriters Works elders and youth songwriting projects at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Reserved seating ($18 - $36 sliding scale) available through www.songwritingworks.org or 548-3655. General admission is $12, $10 seniors and students. 849-2568.   www.lapena.org 

Kris Delmhorst, Hot Buttered Rum String Band perform at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 

CHILDREN 

Harold and the Purple Crayon Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Century of the Self (Parts 3 and 4) at 4 p.m. Cry Woman at 7 p.m. and Marooned in Iraq at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

The Handmaid’s Tale, fundamentalist Christians take over the U.S. and aren’t nice to women, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, at 8 p.m. at The Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Kathy Harrison reads from her memoir, “Another Place at the Table,” about being a foster mother, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. A Cody’s evening for parents and teachers. 559-9500. 

www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Noon Concert 

Robert Kraig, violin, Rachel Teukolsky, violin, Eric Hsieh, viola, Hannah Hyon, cello perform Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1, op.7 in a free concert at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Doors open at 11:55 a.m. 642-4864.  

http://music.berkeley.edu 

Friday Afternoon Hang, an afternoon of free jazz with the Brubeck Institute Quintet, from 5 - 7 p.m. at the Jazzschool. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Berkeley Opera performs Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $38 adults, $33 seniors over 65, $16 children under 18, $10 students. 925-798-1300. 

www.juliamorgan.org 

Trinity Chamber Concerts 

Divertissements with the Collegium Musicum, Kate Van Orden & Anthony Martin, music directors. Music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and his enemies, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Suggested donation of $12 general, $8 students, seniors or disabled. 549-3864. 

University Dance Theater, directed by Marni Thomas Wood, presents their annual performance at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8 - $14 available from 866-468-3399. For information contact 642-9925. genturc@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Lavay Smith & her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna, at 8 p.m. with a show at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.    

www.ashkenaz.com 

Orixa, Otis Goodnight & the Defenestrators, Dubphonics 

perform Rock, New Soul, Hip Hop at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Charlie King and Karen Brandow, extraordinary songs of ordinary people, at 7:30 p.m. in the Community Room of Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. Cost is $10-$25 sliding scale. 548-1645.  

Gabriel Yacoub, French folk fusion innovator performs at  

8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

John Foster, guitar and Zanzylum perform at the Jazz House, 3192 Adeline St. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show at 8 p.m. Minimum $10. 655-9755. 

Georges Lammam Ensemble 

performs music from Egypt, Iraq and Saudia Arabia to benefit Friends of Deir Ibzia Summer Camp in Palestine, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.   www.lapena.org 

Danny Caron, Brenda Boykin and Friends perform at 9:30 p.m. at downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

The People, Sol Americana, Mister Q perform at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 

Holy Molar, Ex-Models, Scare Tactics, Cold Shoulder, City to City perform at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 

CHILDREN 

Bonnie Lockhart presents a  

morning of sing-along, play-along, move-along songs and music games, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $3 children, $4 adults. 849-2568.  www.lapena.org 

Dance Jammies, a multi-generational event presented by Orches, a nonprofit dance/art organization from 6 - 9:30 p.m. at 2525 8th St. 

Reservations advised. 832-3835. orches@earthlink.net 

Crowden Community Music Day, with concerts, instrument petting zoo, instrument workshops and more from noon to 5 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. 559-6910. www.thecrowdenschool.org 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing Lost Boys of Sudan at 2 p.m., My Terrorist and For My Children at 4:15 p.m., Waiting for Happiness at 7 p.m. and Dark Side of the Heart 2 at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Crop Circles: Quest for Truth, a documentary video will be shown with presenters F. Bogzaran and Michael Miley from 2 - 4:30 p.m. at 1744 University Ave. 845-1767. 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Annual Open Mike Poetry Reading takes place from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Allen Ginsberg Memorial Poetry Garden, Berkeley Arts Magnet at John Greenleaf Whittier Elementary School, Milvia and Lincoln Sts. This year’s themes are Peace, War and Humanity. Come read a poem or two, written by you or a favorite author. For more information or to help, contact Steve Rosenbaum at 644-3971 or srosenba@socrates.berkeley.edu. 

Reese Erlich, co-author with Norman Soloman, will discuss their book, “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You,” at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, Cedar and Bonita. Sponsored by the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica. 669-1842. les@ix.netcom.com 

Robert Stone reads from “Bay of Souls” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Marco Marson reads from “Thinking Naked” at 2:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera performs 

Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $38 adults, $33 seniors over 65, $16 children under 18, $10 students, from 925-798-1300. 

www.juliamorgan.org 

En Pointe Youth Dance Company, middle and high school dancers perform The Little Match Girl and Falling Notes at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. at 3 and 8 p.m. Tickets $5. For information e-mail enpointedance@yahoo.com 

Young People’s Chamber Orchestra, directed by Rem Djemilev, performs at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. 

Trinity Chamber Concerts presents Solstice, a female vocal ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Donation suggested $12 general, $8 students, seniors or disabled. 549-3864. 

Roy Haynes’ Birds of a Feather, a tribute to Charlie Parker, with Kenny Garrett, alto saxophone, Nicholas Payton, trumpet, Christian McBride, bass, Dave Kikoski, piano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20, $30, $42. 642-9988.  

Tom Rigney & Flambeau, 

Cajun dance lesson with Patti Whitehurst at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m. Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

View From Here, Hyim, Charles Copper Quartet perform Groove, Urban Folk Rock, Jazz Hip Hop at 9:30 p.m. Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Anton Schwartz Quartet performs at 9:30 p.m. at downtown. 649-3810.  

www.downtownrestaurant.com 

Barry & Alice Oliver perform traditional and contemporary folk at 8 p.m., at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 advance, $17.50 door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

AT THE THEATER 

“28 Very Short Scenes About Love,” an ensemble performance conceived and directed by Linda Carr, Berkeley High School Performing Arts Chair. April 4 - 26. Fri., Sat. 8 p.m. $15. Noh Space, 2840 Mariposa St., SF 415-621-7078. 

www.28shortscenes.com 

www.theaterofyugen.org 

Aurora Theater Company presents “Partition,” written by Ira Hauptman, directed by Barbara Oliver. April 17- May 18. Wed. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. $32-$34. 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. www.auroratheater.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater 

presents “Surface Transit,” 

written and performed by Sarah Jones, directed by Tony Taccone. April 18 - May 18. Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, (888) 4BRTTIX  

www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group performs “Mulatto,” by Langston Hughes. April 11 - April 27. Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. and Sun. 2:30 and 5 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance, $17 at the door. 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120. www.berkeleyrepertorygroup.org 

Shotgun Players present “Vampires,” by Harry Kondoleon, directed by Joanie McBrien. April 12 - May 10. La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid at Hearst.

THANK HEAVEN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank Heaven! 

Mayor Tom Bates heads the most pro-development Berkeley City Council ever, and during his short tenure has ushered in procedures which control and limit democratic process. With the Rules Committee, proposed condensation of commissions and Mayor's Permit Streamlining Task Force, the council is redesigning Berkeley for the benefit of their political machine and not for the well-being of the people who live here. 

I make up songs sometimes when I’m working in my garden. My latest is timely and the melody is from the show tune “Thank Heaven!”: 

Thank heaven, for council recess! 

Those recesses get longer every year! 

Thank heaven, for council recess! 

The stress is so much less when they’re not here. 

Those plans to build the Flatlands to the hilt 

They’re even planning buildings where there’s buildings built, 

Thank heaven, thank heaven, thank heaven! 

Thank heaven, for council recess! 

If you’ve noticed City Council meetings end earlier recently, and you thought that was an improvement, think again. Special budget sessions of the council occur at 5 p.m., hours before the regular televised council meetings at 7. This makes it very difficult for citizens to “follow the money” unless they have a computer with “video streaming” and they know what to watch and when. 

So I say, thank heaven the council is on a five-week-long spring recess! 

Merrilie Mitchell 

• 

PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Neighborhood residents are right to say the city should reject the plan to remove parking from the west side of San Pablo between Delaware and University during peak hours “to improve traffic flow and capacity.” 

This plan almost seems as if it is calculated to hurt Berkeley. It makes it easier for people to drive to Emeryville to go shopping, and it makes the University/San Pablo neighborhood a less attractive place to shop. 

Experience shows that the improvement in traffic flow will only be temporary. Within a few years, traffic will increase to fill the added capacity -- for example, because more people will drive out of Berkeley to shop.  

Experience also shows that this plan will hurt businesses in this neighborhood. Their customers use this parking. Even more important, this parking is necessary to create a pedestrian-friendly environment. New Urbanist planners have shown that removing on-street parking makes the sidewalks much less comfortable for pedestrians, because it speeds up traffic and because the traffic is right next to the sidewalk. Parked cars make the sidewalk feel safer by acting as a buffer between traffic and pedestrians.  

It is surprising that Berkeley is considering this plan when other cities are doing just the opposite: restoring on-street parking to help revive neighborhoods.  

Walter Kulash, the traffic engineer of Winter Park, Fla., turned that city’s main street from a failing suburban strip mall into a popular shopping street by adding on-street parking and by changing the zoning to require new buildings to face the sidewalk. Other New Urbanist planners and traffic engineers are doing the same thing, and they agree that restoring on-street parking is a key to reviving shopping streets.  

Can it be that Berkeley’s traffic engineers are ignorant of the new thinking in their own profession?  

The University/San Pablo commercial neighborhood is beginning to revive, but it still has many vacant storefronts and one vacant, undeveloped lot. Removing parking for even a couple of hours a day could end this neighborhood’s revival.  

Let’s not sacrifice this neighborhood to the sort of 1950’s traffic engineering that is totally discredited today.  

Charles Siegel 

• 

TOO PC 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Napa Valley Wine must have a lasting and enduring mental effect on you people in California. Although a local issue, I believe that everyone should remember one point about Thomas Jefferson. 

If Jefferson wasn’t around at the time of our country’s founding, you probably would not have the right even to think of taking his name off that school. Judge him not by our time and standards, but by his time and his accomplishments overall. 

I guess trade schools named after Ottmar Mergenthal should be renamed because he is of German ancestry and we wouldn’t want to offend anyone affected by World War II. Even though he lived decades before this and was an American citizen as well. 

I am just sick and tired or all this Political Correctness Garbage. 

 Bill Metzger 

Baltimore, Md.   

• 

NOT RELEVANT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please inform Marguerite Hughes that she needs to find something to do other than to rally behind changing the name of this school. Thomas Jefferson’s owning slaves is as relevant as her depiction of herself as an African American. Neither of these points makes a difference in the history that this man has left behind him. 

Shame on her and on the others who put themselves into relations with those who were held in slavery. One should not judge us by the sins of our fathers — especially a founding father. Find something better to do that is cost effective and not so selfish. 

 R. Klein 

Seattle, Wash. 

• 

DEBATING HISTORY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If the Jefferson School community (what is that, exactly?) and the school board feel that a change of the school’s name would help the children, then so be it. It is ironic (or maybe it’s appropriate) that the change is proposed for a school known for the inclusion and support of all its students and named after a man who sowed the seeds of destruction of his own society, a man who helped start in motion our ever-widening sense of what human dignity means. 

In any case, this is just part of a larger, ongoing debate over how to see and teach history, how to open it up for our children without dumbing it down. It’s an important debate and a natural one for a progressive city. But we need to find a better forum to talk about these things above and beyond the latest flap over curriculum, particular teachers or school names. The way it is now, we end up divided and exhausted, each side whispering about the other side’s perfidy. We can do better. They’re watching us. 

James Day 

• 

STAND STRONG 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If the Democrats agree the 2000 presidential election was stolen, as Maureen Farrell states (Letters to the Editor, April 15-17), and Gore won by more than 500,000 votes, why remain silent? Why wasn’t the Supreme Court decision challenged by Democratic Party lawyers? 

Also, I don’t understand Farrell’s statement that the Dems and Greens should reconcile.  They never conciliated in the first place. The Dems never came to the Greens at any point during the election to offer the Greens anything for their votes. Silence is all we get from the Dems on progressive issues raised by the Greens. Instead, the Dems attempted to attract more Republican votes with a centrist platform. Maybe they will reconsider next time around.  

The Republicans have hijacked our democratic system and they are flying it into the towers of civil rights and legality. Unless the Democrats can stand up strong to this gang of terrorists, they will steal the next election just like they stole the last one. 

In the meantime, I am sticking with the Greens.  

Andre Hicks 

• 

SAVE A TREE 

Editors, Daily Planet:                                                        

The following letter was addressed to Mayor Tom Bates, the Berkeley City Council and the Berkeley School Board: 

I watched with dismay as many trees were cut down to make room for the new Berkeley High School building. Only one on the building’s street perimeter — a good sized oak on Allston just west of Shattuck — was saved, and for well over a year I’ve been concerned about how construction methods have threatened to doom it. 

During grading in an early phase of construction, extra soil was mounded around the lower trunk instead of being hauled away. The contractor may not have been aware that a mature tree cannot tolerate having its soil level significantly altered: This change will almost certainly lead to an untimely decline and likely an early death. 

Now recent construction beneath and around the tree has further and dramatically worsened its prospects for survival.  

For your information, I am not an arborist, but had a landscaping business for 14 years and have an advanced degree in ecological horticulture. 

But first, someone with authority has to decide it is worthwhile to save the tree. I hope you agree that it is. I would welcome your ideas on how to proceed, as well as the opportunity to talk about it, by phone or in person, or even to visit the site with anyone concerned, including the contractor or a school district oversight officer. 

Donna Mickleson 

The Berkeley Daily Planet encourages Letters to the Editor. Please send them to opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com, or by mail to 3023A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705.

Berkeley ferry service moved one step closer to reality last week when state Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland) released his long-awaited plan to fund a host of local transit projects with a $1 toll hike on seven Bay Area bridges, including the Bay Bridge. 

The plan, which must win approval from the legislature and Bay Area voters, would increase tolls from $2 to $3 in July 2004, pouring money into two new ferry routes — one connecting South San Francisco to San Francisco, and the other running between San Francisco and a terminal in either Berkeley or Albany. 

The proposal would expand the commuter ferries serving San Francisco to seven lines. Ferries now dock in Oakland, Vallejo, Sausalito, Tiburon and Larkspur. 

Local ferry supporters hailed Berkeley’s inclusion in the Perata plan, conjuring images of wind-swept jaunts across the bay. But opponents raised environmental concerns about the proposal and said the millions set aside for ferries would be better spent on inner-city bus service that would serve more people. 

“Ferry service is really for upper-income people to enjoy — the ones who can afford to buy the $3 glass of wine and sit in the fantail of the ferry,” said Norman La Force of the Sierra Club. 

Linda Perry of the Berkeley Ferry Committee, a local advocacy group, called ferries “the people’s yacht,” noting that the state has pledged to keep fares on par with the price of a BART ticket from Berkeley to San Francisco, which currently costs about $3. 

“This is about increased options,” she said. “It’s not going to be elitist.” 

The Perata bill would set aside $79 million to pay for eight new vessels and a makeover of the San Francisco terminal. The legislation also would provide $12.6 million annually to operate the new ferry routes.  

The Perata package, which also would strengthen BART’s Transbay Tube and boost AC Transit service on Telegraph Avenue, has widespread support from highway and public transit advocates. Perata announced last week that a recent poll showed two in three Bay Area voters backed the plan. 

The bill, which must be approved by a majority of voters, is scheduled for the March 2004 ballot. 

If the bill passes, the San Francisco Bay Water Transit Authority would conduct studies on several possible terminal sites in Berkeley and Albany. The top contender is the Berkeley Marina, with construction proposed for 2009 and service to begin in 2010. The city would have to pay the $12 million terminal price tag. 

Some elected officials have raised concerns about the economic viability of a new ferry route, given the recent collapse of Richmond ferry service, and the environmental impact of hundreds of cars pouring into the marina, which abuts the new Eastshore State Park. 

“The average person — if you say ‘ferries’ — they think only of the positives,” said City Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “But environmentally and financially, they have not proven to be very positive.” 

La Force, of the Sierra Club, said the 600-spot parking lot that a terminal would require would be ugly and counterproductive to the supposed environmental benefits of the ferry. 

“We don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate to build parking lots for cars to drive down to the ferry when we should be working to get people out of their cars,” he said. 

Ferry advocates argued that driving to the terminal and taking a 22-minute boat trip would create less traffic and pollution than driving across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. 

Heidi Machen, spokesman for the Water Transit Authority, added that the city could reduce fares or provide priority seating for commuters who take public transit to the terminal. 

Still, La Force said the money allocated to ferries in the Perata bill would be better spent increasing BART or express bus service. 

“You’re foisting on people a high-cost system that’s not going to carry a lot of people,” he said.  

Ferry supporters argued that ferries will draw commuters who might not be willing to take a bus.  

“We want people to use mass transit,” said Ezra Rapport, a Perata aide. “We’re looking to be practical.” 

The Perata bill funds just two of the seven new ferry routes the Water Transit Authority has proposed. Machen said the agency will seek additional county and federal money to fully fund a 10-year, $646 million plan that would include service to Treasure Island, Hercules-Rodeo, Richmond, Martinez-Antioch-Pittsburg and Redwood City. 

Perry, of the Berkeley Ferry Committee, said commuter boats will be more than a way to get people to work: “It’s a way to get people out on the water and connected to this Bay that is such an important part of our lives. Their time has come.”

If U.S. leaders wish to avoid making a costly mess of their adventure in Iraq, they should do two things right away: First, ignore the intellectual pay-per-view service from prominent Anglo-American Orientalist scholars, and second, get to know a Middle Eastern port. 

Seaports and inland port cities have always been the place where Middle Eastern cultures thrived. An irony of the Anglo-American attack on Iraq, code-named “Operation Freedom,” is that the earliest documented use of the word freedom comes from the second millennium B.C. Iraq — ancient Mesopotamia. 

Scholars like Patricia Springborg have documented how ancient values of what she calls “the Oriental Prince” — commercial contract rights, state-individual relations and many others — were born and bred in the ancient Middle East and spread to influence Greece and Rome, Byzantium, the Islamic realm and finally Renaissance Europe and the modern Western world. 

People in the Middle East, especially in port cities, have played by the same rules for the past 5,000 years, constantly establishing new power relationships that define people’s lives and nations’ conditions. Now that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his troops have, as expected, successfully attacked, liberated, conquered Iraq, they must negotiate with all sorts of people whom mainstream America might casually refer to as “Middle Eastern-looking types.” 

In ancient times and modern, the port city — including sea and inland ports bordering vast deserts, such as Baghdad, Damascus, Apeppo, Amman, Jeddah and Cairo — has always excelled at two things: making the commercial deal and calmly absorbing the incoming impulses, values and interests of powers from afar, even when carried on the wings of conquering armies. 

American media informs us that Rumsfeld has been reading about Roman conquests and their consequences. Here’s a footnote for him to ponder: In the second century A.D., at the Greco-Roman city of Jerash in Jordan, along the southeastern frontier of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, the Romans used their immense power to make the locals “modern.” Rome introduced the concept of the representative city council. Still inscribed on the seats of the North Theater, where the council met, are the names of the representatives in the city-state of Gerasa (Jerash). 

It would appear that Rome achieved its purpose to modernize and civilize the locals, by giving them a quasi-representative government in a Roman-style institution. But look closely and you find that in this ancient desert port town, the inscribed names represent the local Arab and Semitic tribes that formed Gerasa’s indigenous demography, economy, social system and power structure. Rome wanted to give our ancient counterparts a city council, and our Middle Eastern-looking counterparts ended up turning it into an Oriental confederal tribal assembly. 

Similar things happen today: most modern Arab parliaments that copied European models have been turned into tribal or religious jamborees, reflecting the strongest indigenous Middle Eastern forces of identity and 

power. 

That’s what happens in ports, especially our ports that have operated without interruption since the start of human civilization. People make deals. Middle Eastern-looking types are very good at negotiating relationships with powerful foreign army commanders, making them feel at home, even wanted. The locals show little resistance in the face of impressive foreign power, bending just enough to make the system work, and perhaps making a buck or a dinar in the process. 

“Yesiree, General Franks, I’d love to have my own parliament and free press, thank you very much. Excuse me for a moment, though, while I round up some of my cousins to run these nifty new institutions you’re leaving us before you return home. Yes, of course they speak very good English. Yes, we’d love to learn to play softball. And by the way, we’ll need a few million dollars a week to, well, to secure the perimeter, just like we learned from you as we became free and modern. Please have that check transferred to my account every two weeks. Thank you, General. Another cup of tea?” 

The monumental exercise of American military power we have just witnessed in the desert and the air will now be replaced by a very different human power relationship: urban wiliness. Deals will be made, and made again. Money will change hands. Individuals and groups will compete for power. A new parliament will be formed. The tribes will get their checks every two weeks. The British and Americans have already started appointing tribal leaders and traffic cops. 

The port never sleeps. It hasn’t since the middle of the fourth millennium B.C. Keep your eye on Mesopotamia. 

Rami G. Khouri is a political scientist and executive editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon.

The death rate for Alameda County residents is declining, but disparities in health based on race persist, with African-Americans ailing and dying at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, according to a recently released report discussed Monday by Alameda County health officials and community group representatives. 

“It is very clear that the African-American community has a health crisis,” said Woody Carter, executive director of the Bay Area Black United Fund, at a Monday press conference on the report’s findings. 

The Alameda County Health Status Report 2003 shows that African-Americans in the county, like blacks nationwide, suffer disproportionately from poor health. African-Americans in the county have the highest rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, homicide, AIDS, chlamydia, asthma, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and prostate cancer. It also showed that black children are less likely to get immunizations. 

The death rate is an age-adjusted calculation of the ratio of deaths in a given population. According to the new report, there were 709 deaths per 100,000 people in Alameda County during 2000, a decrease from 916 deaths 10 years earlier. In 2000, there were 1,156 deaths per 100,000 African-Americans in the county. 

The 2003 report comes three years after the county released a similar study on health trends. The previous report, which brought to light the deterioration of African-American health between 1990 and 2000, touched off a county-wide effort to address the reasons for the disparity between African-Americans and other groups. Since then, government officials and community-based groups have worked together to develop strategies to address the problem, including convening the first annual African-American Health Summit and holding four community public health forums to educate the community about health dangers and gather solutions to the problem. 

Berkeley has similar disparities. A 2001 report showed that the death rate was nearly three times greater for African-Americans than for whites, compared to 1.5 times greater for blacks nationwide and in Oakland. 

That year the death rate in Berkeley was 381. Among the city’s African-American population the death rate was 944. 

Poki Namkung, director of the Berkeley Health Department, said that health inequities might be greater in Berkeley than in Oakland due to economic conditions.  

“We don’t have a large professional African-American middle class in Berkeley” as in Oakland, she said.  

In response to these disparities, which captured the attention of health advocates in Berkeley after the release of a similar report in 1999, local officials developed “community teams” that meet with individuals and families in their homes to encourage them to adopt more healthy lifestyles.  

The city is also tackling the high incidence of low birth rate among African-Americans. The rate of low birth weight among African-American babies recently fell from four times that of white babies to just three times. Namkung credits two state-funded programs: one conducts outreach at fairs and churches urging women to quit smoking and improve their diet, and the other deals with substance abuse problems. Another program aimed at the problem provides pregnant women with a support group that allows them to meet with a midwife. 

The preventative approach to the health crisis is also being adopted at the county level. Arnold Perkins, director of the Alameda County Health Department, said it’s clear that inequality in economic and educational opportunity is the cause of the health disparity and that increasing access to health care should be a priority. He said some of the most effective solutions to the problems can be implemented with little or no money. 

“If we change our diet and exercise it makes a major difference,” he said. “We are not asking you to expend any additional dollars. What we’re talking about is changing our lifestyle.” 

Perkins said the county, in partnership with community groups, will launch a campaign in the fall that aims to encourage physical fitness and nutrition. 

Carter said focusing on preventative strategies empowers individuals to take their health into their own hands, which is especially needed at a time of budgetary constraints. 

David Scharfenberg contributed to this article.

While our news is flooded with discussion of war, dangerous attacks on our safeguards for clean air, clean water and public lands are under way and receiving unacceptably scarce news coverage. Let it be known that the environment is being threatened by the current administration. We are in a state of orange alert on the environment. 

In the early 1970s, environmental protection policies were strengthened as the environmental movement was supported and encouraged by the administrations in office. 

Laws limiting industrial pollution to air and water, such as the national Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act, were put in place to protect public health and the environment, and millions of acres of wilderness were legally protected from logging. 

Since Bush has taken office, environmental issues not only have been neglected, but the administration has been weakening previously established environmental protection policies. Never before has an administration so blatantly favored corporate over public interests.  

The Clean Air Act’s New Source Review (NSR) program requires old coal- and oil-burning power plants — which emit 10 times more pollution than modern power plants — to install state-of the-art pollution controls whenever they make major pollution-increasing additions. The administration today has been persuaded by oil, coal and utility lobbyists to propose a weakening of the NSR that would endanger public health and environmental cycles. 

Another issue being debated is the protection of public lands. Thirty years of study, two years of rule making and 600 public hearings went into the construction of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that would shield 58.5 million acres of wild forests from most logging and road building. The Bush administration has listened to the timber, oil and gas industries, and the rule is again open for alterations. Though 2.2 million people have voiced support for the roadless rule, it is the corporations to whom the administration is heeding. 

Our water is also under attack. The national Safe Drinking Water Act was altered in March, raising the legal level of arsenic allowed in public drinking water. 

In all of these cases, the interests of industries have been favored; companies are permitted to discharge more pollutants, and their responsibilities to clean up after themselves are loosened. These propositions make up Bush’s environmental policy. 

Let’s look at the effects of these alterations. Soot and smog pollution from industries is already responsible for tens of thousands of asthma attacks every year and the destruction of wilderness through acid rain. The weakening of the NSR would cause unacceptable increases in death and disease, and environmental damage. Our national forests would be drastically reduced in size if changes to the Roadless Conservation Rule are passed. And allowing more toxins to remain in drinking water by rolling back on the Safe Drinking Water Act threatens public health and safety. 

This administration’s obvious ties to corporate leaders are giving companies dangerously powerful influence in policy making. Since it is our air, water and wildlife at stake, it is imperative we voice our opinions on these issues and urge the administration to protect the American people and environment instead of listening to corporate lobbyists. 

April 22 is Earth Day, a national holiday created in 1970 as a day of celebration for our environment. This year’s goals will be to defend our environmental protection policies by informing the public and helping people to voice their opinions. On the UC Berkeley campus from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and at the Crossroads Dining Facility from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., there will be Earth Day events such as Eco-Chats with professors, letter-writing and chances to learn more about environmental issues. 

Now is the time to get involved. Let’s speak up for public interests and demand protection of our environment. 

Julia Beers is a UC Berkeley freshman and CalPIRG member.

The nearly 20-year battle over the identity of West Berkeley likely will flare up again Wednesday night when the Planning Commission considers setting a public hearing on zoning protections for light manufacturing, artist studios and artisan work shops.  

The commission will consider holding a public hearing on a subcommittee report that calls for increased restrictions on office conversions and a reassertion of zoning protections for light manufacturing and arts- and craft-oriented businesses.  

The West Berkeley Multiple Use Light Industrial district, or the MU-LI, is characterized by former manufacturing facilities now converted into workshops and studios. 

The area has a wide diversity of uses but is most known for artisan businesses such as cabinet makers, printers, glass blowers, fabric printers and jewelry makers.  

The issue has long divided both the Planning Commission and the City Council. 

Proponents of restricting offices say the district is in danger of losing good jobs and a vibrant cultural tradition. 

Opponents argue that the restrictions are too severe and don’t allow flexibility for future economic development.  

“This is coming to us again simply to keep offices out,” said City Councilmember Miriam Hawley. “It’s silly because nobody wants to develop offices now anyway because of the poor economy. Although it would be nice to have that option in the future should light industry leave the city.” 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington argued that the West Berkeley artists and artisans are a vulnerable group and easily could be forced out by developers who see large profits in converting light industrial space into offices.  

He added that manufacturing jobs have grown in the district. 

“I am very much in support of protecting manufacturing jobs and passionately supportive of protecting artists and artisans,” he said. “Artists contribute enormously to the cultural vibrancy of Berkeley and they are an important element of what makes Berkeley a fascinating and unusual place.” 

In 2001, the commission, after a bitter process, recommended that City Council approve a temporary moratorium on office development in the district. The council, after months of consideration and requests for clarification from the divided Planning Commission, enacted on June 12 a one-year moratorium by a narrow margin over the objections of the city manager.  

The moratorium expired last December. A Planning Commission subcommittee compiled a report that calls for more permanent restrictions on office development. 

Planning Commissioner Susan Wengraf said she wants a report from the Planning Commission before a public hearing.  

“I think it’s a very disorganized and confusing report,” she said. “We need some data and we certainly need to hear from all the stake holders, property owners and the unions.” 

Commissioner Zelda Bronstein disagreed. “This is a 15-page report with nearly 70 pages of supporting addendums,” she said. “This report is certainly ready and the best way to hear from all the stake holders is to hold a public hearing.” 

The Planning Commission meeting will be held at the North Berkeley Senior Center Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m.

The Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County will host an open house on Sunday, April 27, from noon to 5 p.m. Susan Parker, writer-in-residence at the center in 2001, offers a preview of the event. 

Head north over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and then turn south onto Interstate 101. Get off at the last exit before the Golden Gate Bridge and make a sharp left. It looks as if you’re about to get back on 101, but just before the entrance veer right and go up a very steep hill. You are entering the Headlands, a magnificent part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area located just across the bay from San Francisco. 

The view as you drive up the road, clinging to the vertical cliffs, is spectacular. On clear days you can see all the way to Mt. Diablo and Mt. Hamilton. On foggy afternoons, of which there are many, you can barely distinguish the road in front of you. Drive slowly and cautiously. This is a windy, treacherous route. At the crest of the hill the road narrows. You’ll pass by many old military installations and crumbling bunkers, remnants of the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, and the Cold War. Go as far west as you can to the final lookout. When it is sunny you can see south to Pacifica, north to Pt. Reyes, west to the Farallon Islands and beyond. If it’s thick with mist, you’ll hear the mournful call of the foghorns.  

Head back down the road and park in the Point Bonita’s pullout. Hike down the trail. You will be surrounded by sharp drop-offs on either side, but don’t be alarmed. The scenery only gets more magnificent as you continue along the path, through the narrow, damp tunnel and out to the suspension bridge that leads to the historic lighthouse. When you’ve had enough, indicated by goose bumps on your flesh resulting from the awesome view or swirling fog, tramp back up the trail and continue on the road, past the decommissioned Nike installation, now turned into a YMCA camp. You’ll come to a pristine white chapel, set among the eucalyptus and pine, which has been converted into a fine little museum. After your visit (admission is free), turn right toward Headlands Center for the Arts. You have reached our final destination.  

Headlands Center for the Arts is a sanctuary for artists from around the world. Run as a nonprofit out of buildings once owned and occupied by the United States Army, the center hosts practitioners of many disciplines. Dancers, writers, poets, filmmakers, photographers, composers, musicians, performance and installation artists use the old barracks, gymnasium and officers’ quarters as studios.  

Three years ago I had the pleasure of staying at this facility. It was a wonderful, exciting experience. And it was an especially poignant place to be during the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The Headlands Center for the Arts is literally a bastion of military defense turned into a place of creativity and healing. Not to get all fuzzy and warm, but can you think of a more meaningful venue in which to promote art, beauty and inspiration, than in a site once occupied by the United States Armed Forces? 

While in residence I met an environmentalist who was creating bird sanctuaries out of old gun batteries, a designer who made a giant tea cozy-like cover for a now defunct Nike missile, an installation artist building alternative housing for the homeless, a carpenter making dance floors on abandoned fuel storage structures. Someone was counting hawks as they flew by on their migration to South America, a performer was constructing a moveable cart in which to bring street music to the Tenderloin, a sculptor was creating a piece that blended with the waves and tides at nearby Rodeo Beach. 

On Sunday, April 27, from noon to 5 p.m., the Headlands Center for the Arts is hosting an open house. Drop by. You will be amazed, inspired and moved by what can be accomplished when people think thoughtfully and creatively in a backdrop once used as a place to prepare and guard against war.

The Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble has earned international recognition over the past few summers touring European music festivals. 

The band was named best high school jazz band in the country at the Monterey Jazz Festival earlier this month. Rafa Postel, who plays the trumpet, and Soren Godberson, who plays guitar, also picked up best soloist awards at the festival.  

The band is gearing up for a fund-raiser brunch on April 27 at H’s Lordships on the Berkeley Marina from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Proceeds will help with the band’s expenses to travel to scheduled appearances at jazz festivals in Vienne, France and Montreux, Switzerland, this summer. 

Representatives from the Vienne Jazz Festival invited the band after hearing its performance in Monterey on April 5. The band is returning to Montreux for the third year. The band’s relationship with the Switzerland festival began five years ago when Bill Lutt, a former Berkeley High student and current president of World Projects International, a musician travel agency, suggested that the band submit an audition tape. 

While at these international jazz festivals, the Berkeley High jazz musicians will rub elbows with some of the biggest names in jazz and hear some of the greats perform live. 

The ensemble’s Parent Support Group handles much of the organizing and planning. Many of the parents praised band director Charles Hamilton, leader of the program for 21 years, for the ensemble’s continued success. 

Larry Kelp, a band parent, said Hamilton’s choice of repertoire was a large factor in the recognition at various competitions. 

“He lets the students excel as individuals instead of telling them what to do,” Kelp said. 

For details, contact Lori Ferguson at (510) 527-8245. 

Attempted golf cart theft 

On Friday night, a security guard on the grounds of Bayer corporation in west Berkeley noticed a young man behind the wheel of a golf cart maintenance vehicle. When the guard questioned the driver, he said that he was helping his father, who he claimed was a Bayer maintenance employee.  

The guard was suspicious and watched the young man drive to the west side of the complex where four other youths jumped on. The guard, now accompanied by another guard, pursued the cart west on Bancroft Street until the boys jumped off the cart and ran on foot.  

The guard was able to tackle two of the suspects, both of whom were under 18 and both of whom live in the Berkeley hills.  

Dropped gun 

On Saturday Drug Task Force (DTF) officers recognized a 26-year-old Berkeley resident who was wanted on felony warrants. The suspect saw the officers and began to run. As one of the DTF officers pursued the suspect, a large silver-and-black revolver fell out of his clothing.  

The officer retrieved the gun and continued the pursuit. Later, a group of officers arrested the suspect after finding him curled up underneath a deck.  

The suspect was in possession of seven rocks of cocaine and marijuana. He was booked on five felony charges and one misdemeanor.

BART travels to airport in June 

After decades of planning and months of delays, BART announced last week that it will open its extension to the San Francisco Airport on June 22. 

Local commuters, who will pay $5.15 to reach SFO from the Downtown Berkeley BART station, have heard announcements like this before. 

In 1997, when BART broke ground on the extension, which includes four new stations on the Peninsula, officials predicted the trains would roll south by the end of 2001. But construction delays, caused in part by a couple of endangered snakes, pushed the date back to late fall 2002. 

BART officials have postponed the start date twice since then. But with construction finally completed and only tests remaining, they insist the June 22 date is a firm one. 

The extension, which departs from the current southern terminus at Colma, includes stops in South San Francisco, San Bruno, at the airport, and in Millbrae. 

BART commuters will be able to hook up with Caltrans at the Millbrae station and travel further south along the Peninsula.  

Professor wins fellowship 

UC Berkeley geography professor Michael Watts, who is researching oil, politics and violence in Nigeria, was named a Guggenheim fellow earlier this month. 

Watts, who declined to discuss how much money he won, said he will use his fellowship dollars to travel to Nigeria and complete a book on crude oil in the West African nation. 

“At this moment in history, in which oil and war appear daily on the front pages of every newspaper around the world, it is critically important to fully understand the long and bloody history of oil and its fundamental relation to imperialism and the making of the modern world,” he said. 

Watts is focusing on the political and environmental history of the Niger Delta, which has produced $300 billion in oil revenues since 1958 but remains largely ungovernable because of conflict between local ethnic groups, the government and oil companies. 

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, established in 1925, provides fellowships for professionals in all fields but the performing arts. This year the foundation selected 184 winners from a field of 3,200 applicants and awarded a total of $6.7 million. 

County looks to build green 

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors is moving toward adoption of a “green building” ordinance which would require environmentally friendly construction of county buildings. 

The ordinance, sponsored by Supervisor Keith Carson, requires contractors to demonstrate that 50 percent of construction waste would be re-used or recycled. The bill also calls for public buildings to meet environmental standards, set out by the U.S. Green Building Council, on water conservation, energy conservation and indoor air quality. 

Final adoption, expected next Tuesday, could increase construction costs in the short term, but county officials predict long-term savings. 

“The county’s investment in green building will result in significant savings in building operation, maintenance and improved indoor air quality,” said Wendy Sommer, senior program manager for the Alameda County Waste Management Authority. “In the long run, this ordinance will save taxpayer money.” 

—David Scharfenberg

For the last two years I’ve been watching the woman across the street plant and replant her garden every couple of months. It’s about 50 feet long and eight feet wide and has gone through so many iterations — from Japanese to xeriscape to tasty herbs — that she now has to truck in fresh soil every time she changes her mind. 

The poor lady spends hours out there; as far as I can tell she doesn’t have a job and she can’t possibly have time for any friends with all of that potting and repotting. The one constant is that she’s losing her battle against weeds, and losing it decisively. Shock and awe after every rain. 

And I have to admit that I’m rooting for the enemy. Her most troublesome weed is that little oxalis flower that dominates the median strips and side lots of Berkeley. These little flowers team up into great splashy swarms of yellow. It’s colorful, non-spiny and requires no care whatsoever. Who says it has to be a weed? In the front yard across the street I’d much prefer a sea of yellow to the standard detritus of a garden undergoing renovation. 

I, for one, am firmly in favor of disorder when it comes to plants. Don’t get me wrong, I love a nice garden. Or rather, I love it when my neighbors have gardens that I can appreciate through my window without actually having to waste a perfectly good Sunday in the pursuit of mulch. But for my money, there’s nothing as enjoyable as a good weed-infested, overgrown, vine-creeping patch of chaos. 

Now here’s my dirty secret: not only do I love weeds, but I feel downright friendly toward invasive species. Bring me your vibrant, your strong, your huddled masses yearning to drop seed! Plants are just plants, they don’t spend much time on nostalgia or morality. It’s the gardeners who do all of the hand wringing over whether a certain bit of green is supposed to be there. 

Around here native plants are like the Holy Grail, like fragile little movie stars that we have to coax and coddle so they’ll take up residence in our neighborhoods and we can bask in the sheer plantness of them. There’s this belief in Berkeley that if we can just get back to how vegetation used to be, then somehow everything will be all right. 

A lot of my friends are plant biologists and they spend hours decrying the eucalyptus invasion. But I can’t help myself; I grew up here and I’ve always loved the smell of those trees and the way they filter the late afternoon light on the fire trail above Strawberry Canyon.  

I didn’t even know I was supposed to hate them until I was well into my twenties. True, it’s always nice to have a new (and hopeless) problem to be miffed about, but would Berkeley really be Berkeley without eucalyptus? 

If you’d never seen them before, you’d have to admit that yellow star-thistles have their own amazing architecture, those soft yellow petals cheek-to-jowl with malevolent spike-balls that would make a gladiator proud. And the smell of wild fennel? A kid couldn’t ask for more than to have entire hillsides smell like licorice. 

There’s no such thing as native vegetation. Everything came from somewhere and it’s on the way to someplace else, just like most of us. A friend of mine who works for The Nature Conservancy went to a grade-school in Oakland to give her standard lecture on the evils of invasive species. She told me she didn’t have the heart to finish when she saw the looks on the faces of all the immigrant kids in the back row. Just a bunch of weeds. 

I’ve always found it amusing that a university town that prides itself on being on the cutting edge of social change is so up in arms about the creeping evil of vegetable progress. At some point the local powers-that-be decided that it was time to freeze history. Molten Big-Bang plasma isn’t quite the look we’re going for, but oak woodlands will do just fine. The artichoke thistle has to go, but the two-bedroom bungalow is swell. People wax nostalgic over the good old days, when buffalo thundered down Interstate 80 and cougars dragged small children off the playgrounds at the Montessori. I’m pretty content to sit back and let nature run its course. Naturally. Of course it’s also possible that I’m just covering for the fact that I don’t look good in a loincloth. 

Zac Unger is a Berkeley resident and an Oakland firefighter.

It was almost 11 a.m. on Wednesday and Tony Lacayo, seated in a van on Hearst Avenue, hadn’t received a single call from someone needing workers. 

“It is slow,” said Lacayo, program assistant for a new, city-funded program that matches local residents and contractors with the roughly 150, mostly Hispanic day laborers who line up on Hearst Avenue every day seeking work. 

Lacayo takes down the names and skills of the men who line the street looking for work every day. He then waits for calls from local residents and businesses looking for help. Lacayo said that the men generally find a day job by around 10 a.m., or not at all.  

“Last year, I’d just get off from one job, wait a little bit, and get another one,” said Angel Martinez, a laborer from Mexico. “Now, the economy is real bad.”  

A sluggish economy has placed limits on what the program, operated by the nonprofit, Berkeley-based Multicultural Institute, has been able to accomplish.  

“You’re going to have more people looking for work and you’re going to have less people looking for workers,” said Delfina Geiken, the city’s employment programs administrator. 

But the institute, which has been on Hearst Street since December, is forging ahead. Lacayo and his colleagues are setting up day jobs when they can, providing laborers with English and high school equivalency courses and serving as mediators between the workers and local business owners and residents who, in many cases, are less than thrilled with their presence. 

The program marks the latest attempt to deal with a phenomenon that dates back to the mid-1980s, when workers began congregating around Truitt & White Lumber Co., on Hearst Avenue and 2nd Street, seeking short-term work from contractors driving in and out of the lumberyard. 

The city has attempted to centralize the workers around Truitt & White and keep them away from residential areas, an effort which has faltered. One morning this week, laborers were standing on the sidewalk as far away as 7th Street, trying to catch potential employers before they made their way down toward the lumberyard. Geiken said there isn’t much the city can do to. 

“They’re not doing anything intrinsically wrong,” she said. “It’s a First Amendment issue.” 

Geiken said the city is often caught between respecting the rights of workers, most of them law abiding and peaceful, and listening to the concerns of residents and business people. 

“It’s a very difficult situation,” she said. “You’re trying to address the concerns of a lot of different stakeholders with different interests. But I think it’s a compassionate approach and I think it’s practical.” 

“The whole idea is to have people congregate in a central way and at the same time find out what’s happening with them personally and help out,” said City Councilmember Linda Maio. 

Father Rigoberto Calocarivas, executive director of the Multicultural Institute, said cultural sensitivity is necessary if the program is to succeed. 

“It’s of incredible value,” he said, noting that the Institute has brought an intimate knowledge of Latin American culture to the table. 

Berkeley’s streetside approach marks a departure from that of neighboring cities like Oakland and Concord, which have established day labor halls, attempting to draw workers indoors.  

Geiken said labor halls are expensive and meet with marginal success attracting workers who want to be out and about, making first contact with employers. 

But for the workers, most of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America, the nuances of day laborer programs are less important than getting jobs. And these days, they say, they’re lucky if they get picked up two or three times per week. 

Local business owners and residents raised concerns about loitering workers from the start, but the complaints intensified in the early-1990s with the development of the upscale 4th Street shopping area, which intersects with Hearst Avenue. 

Business owners said the workers were driving away customers and some locals complained about public urination, drug deals and heckling. But day laborer advocates said the vast majority of the workers were law-abiding and argued that panhandlers and drug dealers, with no interest in working, were to blame for most of the problems. 

City officials said they have made progress in recent months. An increased police presence, according to city officials, has helped to drive out the drug dealers and two city-owned portable toilets have eased the public urination problem.

More than a hundred adults and uncountable children braved the elements to attend the 11th Annual Youth Arts Festival at the Berkeley Arts Center at 1275 Walnut St. in north Berkeley Wednesday evening. 

Robbin Henderson, director of the center, said the wet weather diminished the turnout substantially, but that wasn’t evident in the enthusiasm and excitement of the throng of Berkeley parents, students, families, teachers and friends in attendance.  

“We’ve been doing Youth Arts Festival for 11 years,” Henderson said. "All the work, all the performers are from the Berkeley public schools, grades K through 8. There are over 1,000 pieces of art in this show and it represents every K through 8 school in the district.” 

The show runs until May 11. 

“The best thing about this show is seeing the look in every kid's face as they come in and they see their artwork hanging in the gallery,” said Sharon Badillo, Youth Arts Festival curator and program coordinator for Berkeley Art Center. “You see that over and over again. It not only happens with the kids but the parents also feel great. And the teachers feel validated. You can’t walk into the exhibit without feeling great.” 

Catherine Betts, mother of Oliver, a kindergarten student at Jefferson, said, “I think it's fantastic that people make the effort to do these sorts of things. [The kids] love seeing their work on show,” said Betts. “It validates them. Art has a very important place in the schools. That's why events like this are so important, to reinforce that.”  

Her son, a shy and sweet-voiced five-year-old, squirmed with pleasure at the attention he was getting. Oliver is a student in Anna Wong’s Chinese bicultural kindergarten class at Jefferson School.  

“The Chinese Bicultural Program is where children have opportunities to learn about the Chinese culture. They learn to sing and write and count and speak in Chinese. Even to read some basic Chinese characters," said Wong. "The class is very diverse. We get a mixture of different cultures. We get Latino, African-American, Caucasian and of course we get Asians. The children feel really good about it and it inspires them to learn more about their own native language and their own culture." 

Another teacher, Lucy Ames, who teaches Visual Arts for K-6 students at Berkeley Arts Magnet at Whittier, explained the importance of arts programming and events like the festival. 

“The classic argument for teaching art is because it helps the kids in other areas, but that's not really the argument I like to use," said Ames. "Art is part of life and it makes the kids’ lives full. Adults are amazed by what the kids can do because so many adults are not connected to their own creativity. When they see it, they just can’t believe it. So one of the messages of a show like this is not to underestimate what kids can do. Art is a way for some kids to express what they really can't express in other ways. Not every project is going to suit every student but there are times when you can see the kids just making connections. I had a student say to me the other day, ‘Hey I never knew I was good at this until I just did it!’ I'm really glad he found that out." 

Max Miller, a 10-year-old fifth grader from Washington School, wasn't showing any of his work in this year's festival but he still attended the opening and recalled exhibiting his own art in prior years. 

"I did it in kindergarten, first grade and fourth grade," said Miller. "I like art. It's pretty cool. The art classes at my school are fun." 

When asked if the arts programs should be cut because of the current budget crisis, Max replied with an empathic “No!”  

“I like clay best. You get to mold it with your hands and I like doing things with my hands,” Miller said. “My friend Charles, he likes clay a lot, too. My favorite thing working with clay is to make made-up creatures. You get to invent them yourself and you get to make them look funny or cool or scary.” 

Also in attendance was John Selawsky, vice president of the Berkeley Unified School District Board of Education, and his wife, Pam Webster. 

“It’s just amazing that there's this kind of talent in the schools,” Webster said. “I don't know if it’s just me, but more than once it's brought tears to my eyes just looking at this work.” 

When asked to comment on the layoff notices that recently went out to approximately 200 BSUD staff, including most art and music teachers, Selawsky pointed out the difficulty the district faces.  

“We need more money from the state. The state's been under-funding us since Prop 13, especially the arts," Selawsky said. "Anything that's considered a luxury, arts, music, libraries, any of that stuff has been under-funded for 20 or 30 years now.”

CESAR CHAVEZ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read recently in the Berkeley Daily Planet that the city is considering renaming a Berkeley street in honor of Cesar Chavez. While I greatly respect the accomplishments of Cesar Chavez, and believe that he is certainly a figure worth honoring, I would have to take issue with the idea that Berkeley should name a street after him. 

I believe that if we are going to assign new names for our streets, they should reflect the unique history of Berkeley. Although most Berkeley citizens likely agree that Cesar Chavez was an extraordinary labor organizer and human being, he has no unique ties to Berkeley. 

Our City has an exceedingly rich history of public figures that could be honored by having streets named after them. How about “Glenn Seaborg Blvd.” to honor the internationally known outstanding scientist, educator and Nobel Prize winner? Or “David Brower Street,” to honor one of the worlds best known and accomplished environmentalists? Or “Malvina Reynolds Way,” to honor the celebrated activist folk singer and song writer who immortalized the “Ticky, 

tacky ... little boxes on the hillside?” Or even “Joseph Charles Street”, to honor the famous “waving man of Berkeley” who brought joy and a smile to countless thousands of Berkeley residents? 

The idea of renaming a Berkeley street for Cesar Chavez shows a real lack of imagination on the part of city leadership. If there is a real desire to rename our streets, at least we should use the opportunity to celebrate the leaders, activists, scientists, and celebrities who called Berkeley their home. 

Joel Myerson 

• 

WHY INACTION? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The following letter originally was submitted to The New York Times in response to the front page article on April 12, “In Baghdad, Free of Hussein, a Day of Mayhem”: 

Why have U.S. troops done so little to stop the widespread looting and chaos in Iraq’s cities? Perhaps their inaction is part of the Pentagon’s brilliant war plan. After all, once Iraqis get a taste of such anarchy they’ll be happy to welcome whatever puppet government the U.S. installs, as long as it restores law and order. And Iraqis will not soon demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from their country. 

Martin Schiffenbauer 

• 

RAW DEAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The confusion around BUSD’s current budget and the one for the coming year is great. We, Beebo Turman and Bobbie Dunston, don't understand why the top-level administration staff have such high salaries, while asking for teacher lay-offs and staff reduction of hours.  

In San Francisco, the Superintendent has announced she’s taking a pay cut because of their fiscal crisis. Why isn’t the same thing appropriate in our district? Why do we need a third associate superintendent, at $155,000 a year? 

When Laney College faculty members were told they had to reduce classes by 10 percent to accommodate their budget deficit, one department head said he would be happy to do that if the administration also agreed to cut their costs by 10 percent. 

The teachers, custodians, food service workers, maintenance workers, after school care workers, and other staff members put in long hours with the students, making sure that no child is left behind in the "learning ladder." It has yet to be explained exactly what are the "administrative increases of about $400,000" that the district says will be part of next year's budget.  

Fresno and San Francisco school districts have shown that there can be significant savings from administrative expenditures. Berkeley has only announced teacher and certified staff cuts. 

If there are some good reasons for increases in administrative costs and salaries, then BUSD should explain them fully. If the district has a plan to reinstate teachers and staff when times are financially better, then we haven't heard of it. Until then, we feel irate that the teachers and staff are getting a raw deal, and are not being treated in a fair and honorable manner. 

Beebo Turman, School and Community Garden Organizer 

Bobbie Dunston, Food Service Satellite Operator 

• 

MAYOR BATES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his article, “Bates Gets Mixed Reviews In New Role as Mayor” (April 11), David Scharfenberg distorted my position on the matter. 

I explicitly requested of Mr. Scharfenberg that if he gave my criticisms regarding Tom Bates as mayor that he also balance it and give my praise for him as well. The article unfortunately gave only criticisms and none of the many positive things that I said about Mayor Bates in the interview. If I am a "leading critic" of Bates, then he is in good shape because I appreciate the overall job he has been doing as mayor.  

Mr. Bates ran for office because hundreds of people in the community, including myself, asked him to serve. Now Bates is doing this sometimes thankless and difficult job without financial remuneration, and he has dedicated his mayoral pay to hiring a school district liaison so that his office can work to increase opportunities for Berkeley’s youth.  

I also pointed out that Bates’ years of legislative experience working with elected and community leaders is proving to be very helpful to Berkeley in these tough legislative times. He pulled off a remarkable feat just before getting elected by forging a compromise between environmentalists and playing field advocates at our East Shore State Park. The compromise was to locate playing fields on the North Basin Strip and to leave the Albany plateau as open space. He then had the political moxie and connections to secure the funding in Sacramento to purchase the property. 

In addition, Mayor Bates’ recent votes on two land use matters pertaining to 1155 Hearst St. and for an EIR on the Seminary project on Benvenue Avenue, demonstrate that he can be sensitive to neighborhood concerns. I also relayed to Mr. Scharfenberg that I have been receiving reports that the mayor’s streamlining permitting task force has been more balanced in its approach and is not just pro-development. (Perhaps a major difficulty with his article is that Mr. Scharfenberg did his main interview with me so many weeks ago that the quotes he used were not current or in context.) 

Despite my few differences with Mayor Bates, I think we are fortunate that he is willing to sacrifice his time and energy for service to our community. 

Dona Spring 

City Councilmember 

• 

SJP CRITICISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am still reeling with laughter several hours after reading Henry Hart's condemnation of the UCB Jewish students' protest at a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) rally on April 9. Mr. Hart termed the Jewish students' relatively low key protest “vulgar” and voiced his hope to “see a respectful enrivonment thrive here in the East Bay and especially at the university.” Alas, in his defense of free speech and the SJP, Mr. Hart is the “pot calling the kettle," for no group in Berkeley has abrogated free speech with greater virulence than his friends in the SJP. 

Remember, dozens of SJP members were cited by the university for disrupting classrooms. Moreover, the SJP last year shouted epithets at Jewish students commemorating the Holocaust in Sproul Plaza. For many in the SJP, said commemoration of the vilest tragedy experienced by any ethnic group smacked of little more than a joke and they treated it as such. Finally, think back to two years ago when members of the SJP blocked the doors to Berkeley Community Theater, keeping those who wanted to hear Benjamin Netanyahu from entering the building. The pro-Palestinian demonstrators were so threatening that the police felt compelled to cancel the former Israeli Prime Minister’s speech. 

Reflective of democratic Israel, Jewish students at UCB have never kept demonstrations nor speakers hostile to Israel from expressing themselves.  

Alas, the same could not be said for the SJP, whose actions in torpedoing free speech, to say nothing of the very process of education at UCB, echo in full measure the repressive regime of their champion, Yassir Arafat. 

Daniel C. Spitzer 

The Planet encourages Letters to the Editor. Send them to opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com, or to 3023A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA, 94705. Include address and phone number. 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Century of the Self (Parts 1 and 2) at 4 p.m., Blissfully Yours at 7 p.m., and Infernal Affairs at 9:45 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

The Anarchists, directed by Yu Young-Sik, in Korean with English subtitles. Action film in historical setting of anti-Imperial movement during Japanese occupation. 8 p.m. at The Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

A. J. Albany reads from “Low Down: Junk, Jazz and Other Fairy tales from Childhood,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Noon Concert 

Cathy Olsen, flute, Brian Christian, piano perform works by Dutilleux, Ibert, Roussel, Messiaen, Boulanger, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Concert is free, doors open at 11:55 a.m. 642-4864. 

http://music.berkeley.edu 

Friday Afternoon Hang with the Brubeck Institute Quintet from 5 - 7 p.m. at the  

jazzschool. 845-5373.  

www.jazzschool.com 

Berkeley High Jazz Lab Band Spring Concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theatre. $8 for adults, $5 students and children. 527-8245 or e-mail lorij54@aol.com. 

Bernard Gilbert, singer/songwriter of topical and satirical songs, at 7:30 p.m. at the Fellowship Cafe, 1924 Cedar St. A donation of $5 - $10 is requested. 540-0898. 

Djialy Kunda Kouyate, a Senegalese dance and music ensemble performs at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Servants, Autopunch, Alive for Awhile, rock music at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Tres Almas performs at 9:30 p.m., at downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

Patty Larkin, a leading contemporary singer and songwriter, performs at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House, Cost is $18.50 in advance, $19.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mingus Amungus with special guest Pete Escovedo, panel at 7:30 p.m., with performance at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 849-2568. 

Dick Hindman/Seward McCain/Colin Bailey at 8 p.m. the Jazzschool. Cost is $12, $15, $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

A Good Friday for Bach, with Findlay Cockrell performing on the fortepiano, at 8 p.m. at MusicSources, 1000 The Alameda. Admission by donation. 528-1685. 

Henri-Pierre Koubaka performs West African folk music at 7 p.m. at Starbucks Coffeehouse, 2128 Oxford St. at Center. 486-1840.  

Smelly Kelly’s Plain High Drifters, Yard Sale, Neighborly Deeds perform at  

9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. 

Groovie Ghoulies, The Apers, Short Round, The Mall Rats, The Minds perform at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Kids on the Block Puppet Show, promoting acceptance and understanding of physical and cultural differences at 2 p.m. at the Hall of Health, 

2230 Shattuck Ave. (lower level). Suggested donation $3, children under 3 free. 549-1564. 

Los Mapaches, a Latin American children’s ensemble performs at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $3 for children, $4 for adults. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

S.F. International Film Festival showing Swing at 2 p.m., The Trilogy I: On the Run at 4:15 p.m., The Trilogy II: An Amazing Couple at 7 p.m. and Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Zero Patience, cult activist surrealistic musical about HIV/AIDS. Presented by NEED, Berkeley’s needle exchange project at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

Let’s Face It: Women explore their aging faces, a documentary featuring seven Berkeley midlife women talking about their ambivalence, vanity, anxiety, and joy. Screened at 2:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. For more information call 526-5075. 

African Music and Dance Ensemble, under the direction of C. K. Ladzekpo, performs traditional dances and drumming of West and Central Africa at 8 p.m., Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $2 - $8. 642 - 9988. 

Reggae Angels, Native Elements, One Groove and DJ Jah Light Music, perform at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Crown City Rockers, Lunar Heights, Feenom Circle, Mavrik perform Hip Hop at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Post Junk Trio performs at 9:30 p.m., at downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

Reilly & Maloney perform  

contemporary folk at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $18.50 in advance, $19.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ira Marlowe, singer, songwriter in a free concert at the Jazz House, 3192 Adeline St. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show at 8 p.m. 655-9755. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Pr. Rajeev Taranath in Concert at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts,  

2640 College Ave. Cost is $22 for adults, $18 for students, seniors, 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Collective Soul presents The Basics, Deuce Eclipse, & The Attik with special guests ISIS in performance at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

High Water Rising, Noelle Hampton, Meriwether perform at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. 

Plan 9 (5th anniversary), Lo Fi Neisans, Punk Rock Orchestra, Find Him & Kill Him, Doppleganger perform at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

S.F. International Film Festival showing He Who Must Die at 1:30 p.m., The Day I Will Never Forget at 4 p.m., Untouched by the West at 6:15 p.m. and The Trilogy III: After Life at 8:45 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry Flash with Katy Lederer and Albert Flynn DeSilver at 7:30 p.m. at Cody's Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. $2 donation. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Lama Palzang and Pema Gellek speak on “Visualization and the Tibetan Tradition” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Place 

843-6812. 

www.NyingmaInstitute.com 

World Drum Clinic, hands-on African drumming clinic, at the Jazz House, 3192 Adeline St., at 10:45 a.m. Beginners: 11 a.m., Experienced: 12:30 p.m. Cost: $15 - $25. Pre-registration is encouraged. To register, contact Matthew Winkelstein at 415-356-8593 or 510-533-5111. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Wake the Dead performs dance music, mixing traditional Celtic jigs and reels with Grateful Dead songs, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $14. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Nigerian Brothers perform traditional folk music from West Africa at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Gail Brand with Morgan Gunerman from London and Biggi Vinkeloe from Sweden perform improvisation and avant garde jazz at the Jazz House, 3192 Adeline St. Doors open at 7:45 p.m., show at 8:15 p.m. Minimum $10. 655-9755. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Berkeley High School Jazz Combo performs at 2 p.m. at 

Starbucks Coffeehouse, 2128 Oxford St. 486-1840. 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Death of Klinghoffer at 7 p.m. and Eat, Sleep, No Woman at 9:45 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Robert W. Fuller reads from “Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Wes “Scoop” Nisker reads from “The Big Bang, the Buddha, and the Baby Boom” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

All Star Jam, featuring The Steve Gannon Band & Mz. Dee, at 9:30 p.m., at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $4. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Decay of Fiction at 7 p.m. and Comandante at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Gerald Nachman reads from 

“Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Robert Kaplan reads from his new book, “The Art of the Infinite: The Pleasures of Mathematics,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Nik C. Colyer reads from “Channeling Biker Bob Lover’s Embrace” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble concert and benefit brunch at H’s Lordships on the Berkeley Marina, at 11 a.m. Tickets are $30 for adults and $18 for children and are available from Lori Ferguson 527-8245 or Lorij@aol.com. 

Bandworks performs at 7:30 p.m., at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 

525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Maeve Donnelly with Steve Baughman, Irish fiddler and guitar accompanist perform at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Film 50 showing Do the Right Thing at 3 p.m. (sold out). S.F. International Film Festival showing To Young to Die at 7 p.m. and The Man of the Year at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Azar Nafisi reflects on her novel, “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Berthold Madhukarson Thompson reads from “Odyssey of Enlightenment” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

Cesar Chavez Breakfast & Award Ceremony hosted by the East Bay Cesar Chavez Committee of the United Farm Workers, celebrating the new Cesar Chavez postage stamp, and honoring leaders with Legacy Awards will be held 8 - 10 a.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $25. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Noon Concert 

The UC Department of Music Gamelan Ensemble, Gamelan Sari Raras, directed by Heri Puranto, performs in a free concert at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Doors open at 11:55 a.m. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Bandworks performs at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Rory Block performs country blues and tradition-based originals at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 

548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

“28 Very Short Scenes About Love” 

An ensemble performance conceived and directed by Linda Carr, Berkeley High School Performing Arts Chair. April 4 - 26. Fri., Sat. 8p.m. $15. Noh Space, 2840 Mariposa Street, SF 415-621-7078. 

www.28shortscenes.com 

www.theaterofyugen.org 

Aurora Theater Company 

“Partition” 

Written by Ira Hauptman, directed by Barbara Oliver. 

April 17- May 18. Wed. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. $32-$34. 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. www.auroratheater.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater 

“Surface Transit” 

Written and performed by Sarah Jones, directed by Tony Taccone. April 18 - May 18 

Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, (888) 4BRTTIX  

www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group 

“Mulatto” 

by Langston Hughes. April 11 - April 27. Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance, $17 at the door. 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120. www.berkeleyrepertorygroup.org 

Shotgun Players 

“Vampires” 

By Harry Kondoleon, directed by Joanie McBrien. April 12 - May 10. La Val’s Subterranean 

1834 Euclid at Hearst. 

www.shotgunplayers.com 

Please send information two weeks in advanc to calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.com or phone 841-5600. 

Under pressure from activists this week, Emeryville pulled out of a high-profile legal fight pitting over 200 American cities against disability rights advocates in a battle over sidewalk accessibility. 

Emeryville Mayor Ken Bukowski announced the decision outside City Hall Tuesday night, as a dozen wheelchair-bound activists, many of them from Berkeley, prepared to protest at a City Council meeting. 

The conflict is rooted in the case of Barden v. Sacramento, brought by the Oakland-based Disability Rights Advocates in 1999, which may be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.  

The plaintiff insists that local governments must clear any obstructions, including poles, benches or broken cement, that prevent the disabled from moving down sidewalks. 

But Sacramento, backed by over 200 cities and counties across the country, argued that the Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA, which requires public entities to provide access to all of their “services, programs or activities,” does not apply to sidewalks. 

In June 2002 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing a lower court decision, ruled that the ADA applies to all basic government services, including public sidewalks. Sacramento has appealed to the Supreme Court, which has not yet decided whether to consider the case. 

The chief concern among local governments siding with Sacramento is that removing poles and fixing hundreds of sidewalk panels will be extraordinarily expensive. 

“If we had the money, of course we would want our facilities to be accessible to all the people in our communities,” said JoAnn Speers, general counsel for the League of California Cities, which authored an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief backing Sacramento. “But this is an example of a higher level of government, in this case the federal government, saying ‘cities you need to do this, but there is no funding.’”  

A handful of municipalities, including Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco, have sided with the activists. But several major cities around the country, like New York City, Boston, MA and Dallas, Tex., have filed amicus briefs backing Sacramento. And scores of California cities, including Albany and Alameda, have signed onto the league’s amicus brief, supporting Sacramento’s appeal. 

Before Tuesday, Emeryville was one of those cities. But the Emeryville City Council, after a closed session, decided to withdraw. 

“It is too bad that we couldn’t have [done] this sooner,” said City Councilmember Richard Kassis, arguing that Emeryville had taken a “step backward” in supporting Sacramento. 

Activists, who had blasted the city in interviews prior to the meeting, said they were happy with the change of heart. 

“We’re just really pleased with their decision and we hope Albany and Alameda will follow suit,” said Jan Barrett, executive director of the Berkeley-based Center for Independent Living. 

Albany City Attorney Robert Zweben said he plans to meet with activists next week to discuss the issue, but still believes that sidewalks may not constitute a government “program,” covered by the ADA. 

Emeryville is not the first city to buckle under pressure from activists. At least 10 cities and counties in California, including San Diego, San Rafael and Mill Valley, have removed their names from the league’s brief. 

Speers, of the League of California Cities, said it was difficult to know how the Supreme Court will view the withdrawals. But in end, she said, the league’s legal arguments are strong and should carry weight with the court. 

Emeryville’s dance with the sidewalk issue has been a particularly odd one. In the fall of 2001, the city settled a suit on the matter and spent $1.5 million removing sidewalk obstacles, according to City Attorney Michael Biddle. 

Nonetheless, when Sacramento went to trial last summer in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Emeryville signed an amicus brief supporting the state’s capital. Last fall, after Sacramento lost in the Ninth Circuit, Emeryville signed a second amicus brief supporting the Supreme Court appeal. 

Biddle explains that Emeryville, as a small city, could afford to fix its sidewalks. But larger cities, he said, will face a tremendous economic burden in a time of severe budget deficits. 

“This potential ruling could really be a hardship for cities, not only in California, but throughout the country,” Biddle said. 

Melissa Kasnitz, staff attorney for Disability Rights Advocates, which filed the Emeryville and Sacramento suits, says the Ninth Circuit ruling, if it stands, need not break the bank. 

A clause in the ADA which prevents cities from incurring an “undue” financial burden will allow municipalities to spread out sidewalk improvements over many years, she said. 

“It won’t all happen overnight,” she said, arguing that cities only need to take “reasonable steps over time.” 

In the end, Kasnitz said, cities that support Sacramento’s position are sending the wrong message. 

“These cities have made a political statement that they don’t care about the safety of people with disabilities or their ability to participate in everyday activities,” she said.

Former news director at the old Jive 95 radio station, KSAN, and later at KFOG, Wes “Scoop” Nisker, will speak at Cody’s Books on Telegraph Avenue Monday evening to discuss his new book, “Big Bang, The Buddha and The Baby Boom: The Spiritual Experiments of My Generation.” 

Nisker, a resident of the Berkeley area for the past 30 years, is the mind behind the line: “If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.” These days, the news that this former alternative media trailblazer is making focuses more on the reflective and the spiritual than the politically radical.  

Nisker described his book as, “An attempt to try to understand the experience for each generation, not just the baby boomers, but everyone born in the last 50 years.” He is also the author of “The Essential Crazy Wisdom” and “Buddha’s Nature.”  

Nisker’s new book is concerned with the various “New Age” and Eastern-influenced spiritual pursuits of contemporary Americans, and the ways in which they have rejected, or chosen not to follow, the traditions of organized Western religion.  

“Part of what I was doing in this book was tracing my own story, my own confusion, my own spiritual search, my own political search, through this very strange transitional era we’ve been going through and trying to understand our experience and defend it to a certain extent,” Nisker said. 

“We feel like we’re cut off from nature, we feel cut off from community,” he said, “and I think a lot of our searching is to find new connections. … for a sense of feeling a part of something larger than ourselves. There’s an imbalance; we’re living in a culture that is really out of harmony with the biosphere and what it means and there has to be some changes.” 

Nisker is a Buddhist meditation leader who has met the Dalai Lama. He explained the religion’s appeal to boomers. “It emphasizes being present, open-hearted … it leads to breaking out of this individual self-drama which is so focused on in our culture. It doesn’t require a different belief. It really offers a way to feel your connection to experience directly; in your own way, in your own breath. You really feel less separate and less isolated.” 

A native of Nebraska, Nisker has nothing but praise for his adopted hometown. Calling Berkeley “a suburb with its own culture” and “one of the great places on the planet,” he believes that many natural factors have contributed to Berkeley’s reputation as an epicenter for people to explore non-traditional spiritual paths.  

“Here we are as far away as we can get from the centers of power in America — Washington and New York — and as far away as you can get from the old European traditions geographically,” he said. “And the fact that nature is so powerful here, it really calls people to pay attention to it.”

The stated purpose of the war in Iraq was to defend the United States from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Thus far no weapons have been found. Moreover, according to United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix and two top Iraqi scientists who have given themselves up, there are none of any significance to be found. 

Hans Blix has not been interviewed in the American media since the war began March 19. However, he gave an extensive interview to the Spanish newspaper El País on April 9 in which he made it clear that the United States' claim that intelligence sources had proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was doubtful at best. 

Blix pointed out that U.S. intelligence services seemed to be collecting military reconnaissance information rather than evidence of weapons of mass destruction. This made it necessary for Blix to strictly delimit his activities to protect the integrity of the inspections process. 

"The intelligence agents seemed to be collecting data that later were used to attack Iraqi military objectives," Blix said. "Therefore, when I was charged with the inspection effort, it was necessary to clarify the point: we would be an independent body. We would be able to receive information from the intelligence services. But this process would be a 'one way street.' The intelligence services would contribute their data, and we would perform the verification of that data. I always told them that we were not going to "reward" them with new data collected by us. 

"The greatest prize for those intelligence services and their governments would be for us to find those weapons of mass destruction.... For example, to give them an idea whether the sources that had provided the information were valid or not. But that was all. This attitude did not please them." 

Blix felt that this arrangement was justified because U.S. intelligence services could not be trusted to tell the truth about their information. U.S. intelligence about Iraqi atomic weapons development and mobile laboratories had proved false. 

"Consider the case of the production of contracts for a presumed Iraqi purchase of enriched uranium from Níger," Blix said. "This was a crude lie. All false. The information was provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency (OIEA) by the U.S. intelligence services. As for the mobile laboratories, in attempting to verify the data that was passed on to us by the Americans, we only found some trucks dedicated to the processing and control of seeds for agriculture." 

Blix goes on to point out that once the Iraqis began to cooperate, after he delivered a rebuke to them at the United Nations on Jan. 27, Americans became increasingly upset and started to criticize him. Finally, as the weather began to heat up and threaten the military operation, the United States completely lost patience in the inspection process and abandoned it. 

When asked if he believed that weapons of mass destruction exist in Iraq, Blix expressed cautious doubts. "I originally thought that the Americans began the war believing that they existed. Now, I believe less in that possibility. But, I do not know." 

Blix's doubts seem to be confirmed by recent scientists who have turned themselves in to U.S. troops. In Baghdad, Lt. General Amir al-Saadi, a special adviser who oversaw Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, turned himself in. In an interview with the German television network ZDF, he insisted Iraq had no chemical or biological weapons and that there had been no justification for an attack on his country. 

If no weapons of mass destruction are found, the war in Iraq will mark the second failed military mission since Sept. 11. The first was the invasion of Afghanistan, ostensibly to destroy the Al Qaeda network and capture Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. 

It is perhaps for this reason that the White House has been so adept at converting both the Afghanistan and Iraqi conflicts into "wars of liberation." This redefinition of their original purpose may play well with the American public, but it is causing the United States to lose all credibility with Middle Easterners, who see "liberation" as a well-worn code term for "conquest," and the search for weapons of mass destruction as mere pretext for the extension of American hegemony over the region. 

Beeman is director of Middle East Studies at Brown University. He is author of "Language, Status and Power in Iran," and two forthcoming books: "Double Demons: Cultural Impediments to U.S.-Iranian Understanding," and "Iraq: State in Search of a Nation."

Despite stiff warnings from the Department of State, and increasingly hostile rhetoric from the Bush Administration, a group of city employees and a former city council member leave for Iran today to deliver 1,200 badly needed wheelchairs. 

“I’ve had to defend this trip to a million friends and family members who tell me I’m out of my mind,” said former Council Member Polly Armstrong. “But the more I learn about Iran, the more I come to believe it’s an acceptable risk. I’ve been told the Iranians are some of the most hospitable people in the world.” 

Armstrong will travel with 15 people who are making the humanitarian trip to Iran on behalf of the Wheelchair Foundation, a Danville-based nonprofit that has delivered 130,000 wheelchairs to over 100 countries.  

The need for wheelchairs in Iran is great. Niloofar M. Nouri, president of the Berkeley-based Persian Center, estimates as much as five percent of the population, or 3.5 million people, need wheelchairs. Inaccessibility to medical facilities and poor nutrition are contributing factors to the overwhelming need for wheelchairs in Iran, according to a Persian Center press release, 

There are also thousands who were left disabled from the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. 

Armstrong will travel with three city of Berkeley employees — Neighborhood Liaison Michael Caplan, Electronic Government Manager Donna LaSala and Geographic Information Systems Manager Pat DeTemple, who is making his second trip to Iran. 

DeTemple, reflecting on his trip last year, said he intends to be cautious but is not unduly worried.  

“The experience I had last time was so positive,” he said. “The Iranians were extremely friendly toward us, everybody from school kids to soldiers approached us to practice their English and there was pretty much nothing else but smiles.” 

The city is not sponsoring the trip and the city employees are traveling on their own vacation time and with their own money. 

The Berkeley contingent will distribute 600 of the wheelchairs at community centers in the capital city of Tehran and in the southeastern city of Kerman. The Red Crescent, the Middle East’s version of the Red Cross, will deliver the remaining 600. 

Thousands of disabled Iranians don’t have access to wheelchairs. The wheelchairs, which are made in China at about $150 a piece, will give them a new chance at independence, Armstrong said.  

Berkeley developer and philanthropist Soheyl Modarressi has organized the fundraising for and delivery of nearly 1,600 wheel chairs to Iran. Modarressi also organized the travel for those who volunteer to deliver the wheelchairs. 

Besides delivering the wheelchairs, the group will travel as tourists to the Caspian Sea in northern Iran and to Shiraz near the Persian Gulf in southwestern part of the country.  

“The more we talk about this trip the ever more excited I am to go,” Armstrong said. “I’m anxious to learn more about Iran, of which I know so painfully little, and eager to see through my own eyes the things I’ve been reading about.” 

However, Due to the military action and current American occupation of neighboring Iraq, the U.S. Department of State has posted a strong warning against travel anywhere in the Middle East. 

“The threat to U.S. citizens in the Middle East includes the risk of attacks by terrorist groups, including to those with links to Al-Qaeda,” according to the U.S. State Department warning. “Terrorist actions may include suicide operations, bombings or kidnappings.” 

The State Department posted a specific warning against travel in Iran in February, 2002. There has been no U.S. Embassy in Iran since the 1979 hostage crisis in which 54 American Embassy workers were captured and held for 444 days. 

More recently President George W. Bush called Iran a member of the “axis of evil” along with North Korea and Iraq during a state of the union address in January, 2002. The Bush Administration’s rhetoric towards Syria and Iran, both of which border Iraq, has been increasingly hostile in recent days.  

“We do not encourage travel to Iran,” said Department of State Spokesperson Stuart Patt. “We do not have an embassy in Iran so certainly anybody traveling there is unprotected.”

As individuals struggle with personal finances and businesses ponder their bottom lines, state and local governments face budget deficits of historic proportions. Over seven million Californians, about one in five, have no health insurance whatsoever. Many others are underinsured. Hospitals and health plans are closing and merging, making access to health care more difficult. The cost of health care continues to explode. 

There are currently three bills in the State Legislature that would solve these problems to varying degrees. I am a co-author of Senator Sheila Kuehl’s Healthcare for All Californians Act (SB 921), which would create a single-payer system for all California residents without any new spending. It would mean any one of us could walk into the physician’s office of our choice and be covered for more complete services than most HMO plans presently cover, including medical, mental health, dental, vision and emergency care. Health education and preventive care would reduce incidence of illness and alleviate the overwhelming burden on our overcrowded emergency rooms. 

A non-partisan study “Health Care Options Project,” (www.healthcareoptions.ca.gov) done by California’s Department of Health and Human Services, concluded that a single-payer program is the most effective and least expensive way to provide quality care to every Californian.  

A single-payer plan would provide more health care for less cost because it saves billions of dollars by reducing overhead. Current health insurance systems lose between 13-30 percent of their dollars on administration and billing costs; the simplified single-payer system would reduce overhead to less than 5 percent. As the Nation’s largest state and the world’s fifth largest economy, California’s bulk buying power is significant. The state can negotiate reduced prices for prescription drugs, medical equipment and other products.  

SB 921’s single-payer plan would be financed by small taxes on payrolls, unearned income, tobacco and alcohol. Payroll taxes for this plan would be significantly less than current employer and employee expenses for health insurance. In fact, the Health Care Options Project estimates that employers that currently offer health benefits will save an average of $1,000 per year for each employee. 

Our state’s economy stands to benefit enormously from a single-payer system. 

One of the most compelling arguments for the Healthcare for All Californians Act is access to reproductive services. “Choice” means nothing to women who cannot afford prenatal and infant health care, birth control or abortion. This is the only legislation ever introduced in California that would ensure that all low-income women have high quality health care with genuine access to reproductive choices. 

The other two health insurance bills currently in the legislature are well intentioned but less far-reaching. SB 2 (Senator Burton) does not cover people who are self-employed, unemployed or seasonal workers. AB 30 (Assemblyman Richman) does not cover the unemployed or protect those of us fortunate enough to have jobs from the unnecessary costs of their emergency room visits for routine care. 

Most importantly, these three bills will stimulate debate on serious healthcare reform for the first time in my political memory. The time to address the health crises is now. I hope you will join me in advocating for SB 921. For more information, please email me at Assemblymember.Hancock@assembly.ca.gov or call my office at (510) 559-1406. 

Loni Hancock is the state assemblywoman for Berkeley. 

For most of her life Alanna Baeks, a junior at Berkeley High School, has been told all she needed to do to get her diploma is accumulate the necessary course credits and eke out a C-minus average. Now she isn’t sure she’ll graduate, even though she’s taking the required classes and making reasonable grades.  

That’s because Baeks, like thousands of students statewide, has not passed the exit exam required as part of Gov. Gray Davis’ 1999 education reform bill. The class of 2004 began taking the test in 10th grade and will be given seven attempts to pass. 

Baeks said she passed the English portion of the test, but was 15 points shy of passing the math section. She’ll get another crack at it, but still questions the fairness of the new system.  

“What if you get straight As and flunk the test? Do you still not graduate? And what about people in special ed — do they not have to take it? If so, I’m signing up for special ed next year,” she said. 

She might not have to go to such an extreme. A bill proposed by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) would eliminate the state exit exam requirement and leave it to school districts to decide whether they want to use the test as a criterion for graduation. 

Hancock’s bill passed out of the Education Committee in mid-March and is slated to go before the Appropriations Committee in early May. 

Proponents of the bill, which is being sponsored by the California Teachers Association, say the exit exam unfairly punishes students for inequalities in the educational system. 

“We shouldn’t be holding those students who are the most vulnerable accountable for the fact that they’ve been given an inadequate education,” said Deborah Palmer, a former teacher at Berkeley’s Rosa Parks Elementary School and a doctorate student in education at UC Berkeley. “We should hold the governor accountable for not providing the schools with highly trained teachers in high-poverty areas.” 

Emily Hobson, a researcher for Californians for Justice, an organization dedicated to education reform, says the problem of underfunded, low-income schools is even more of a problem during the current budget crisis.  

“This is particularly true now during this budget crisis when a lot of funding to schools is being cut,” she said. 

She added that it’s also unfair to special education students and those learning English as a second language. 

Past test results reveal disparities along ethnic and racial lines. In 2002, 32 percent of students statewide passed the math portion of the test. Only 20 percent of African Americans and 22 percent of Latinos passed the math portion.One group that has lobbied against Hancock’s bill is the California Republican Women, who advocate for tough standard-based means to improving schools. 

Another defender is the governor’s Education Secretary Kerry Mazonni. Although the secretary’s office has not taken an official position on the bill, a spokesman for Mazonni said the bill’s proponents are misguided and the exam requirement has led to increased focus on achievement. She said eliminating the state mandate and giving local districts the freedom to make the exam optional would weaken test results and make it harder to use the data to measure success.  

“It does students no favor to hand them a diploma if they are not equipped to succeed at community college or vocational school, let alone at a university,” said spokesman Ann Bancroft. 

Bancroft also disputed claims that low-performing schools lack the resources to adequately educate students, citing the governor’s $9.6 million increase in education spending over the last four years.  

Another portion of Hancock’s bill would exempt second-graders from taking the STAR (Standardized Testing and Reporting Program) test, an exam that students in grades two through 11 are required to take to measure student achievement and gauge school competency. The bill also would remove the provisions in the 1999 law that allows states to reward and sanction schools based on their students’ performances on the STAR exam.

Write a letter of support to State Senator Sheila Kuhl for SB 921—Health Care for All Californians Act, scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Insurance Committee, at 9 AM on April 30. The more letters of support she receives, the better the chances of the bill passing. Local co-sponsors are Don Perata, Wilma Chen and Loni Hancock. 

SB 921 would provide health insurance coverage to all Californians (including the unemployed) through a single public insurance plan designed to simplify administrative, financial and purchasing costs through statewide health planning. Coverage would include all care prescribed by a patient’s healthcare provider that meets acceptable standards of care and practice, including medical, mental health, surgical, podiatric inpatient and outpatient services, diagnostic testing, prescription drugs, medical equipment, dental, vision, chiropractic care, acupuncture, etc. Patients would choose their own providers. The plan involves no new spending.  

More detailed information is available on the web at www.votehealth.net and www.healthcareforall.org 

A simple letter expressing your support for the bill is all that’s needed. Please fax your letter to 916-324-4823 or mail it to: Senator Sheila Kuehl, State Capitol. Room 4032; Sacramento, CA 95814. Letters should be sent before April 30. If you are an organization, we would appreciate that it be on letterhead. 

Thank you for your support. 

Josephine Arasteh is with Vote Health, an Oakland-based organization.

Local scholars met this week to discuss the antiquities looting in Iraq, calling it a devastating blow to the world’s cultural heritage. 

Attendees of the teach-in viewed slides of towns, buildings, sculptures, jewelry and other artifacts from the land once called Mesopotamia, a civilization dating back to 8,000 B.C. that is believed to have given rise to the first cities, written language, codified laws and elaborate religious beliefs. 

Seventy people came to the forum in UC Berkeley’s archaeological research facility. 

Much of the destruction of this civilization’s remnants began in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, but archaeologists who have explored Iraq are saying that the latest events — the looting of the Iraq Museum on April 9 and 10 and the looting and burning of two libraries in Baghdad on Tuesday — have caused the most damage to the country’s antiquities. 

Among the lost artifacts are a three-foot carved vase dating back to 3200 B.C. and a headless statue of a Sumerian king. It is unclear what other sites have been ravaged by the U.S. bombing campaign. 

Scholars have blasted the U.S. government for its failure to protect the cities, saying experts had warned the Department of Defense months before the war that Iraq’s antiquities would be targets of looting.  

Wednesday’s teach-in at UC Berkeley roughly coincided with a meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in Paris. About 30 experts meeting in France issued a statement saying the group was “deeply shocked by the extensive damage to ... the cultural heritage of Iraq,” and calling upon the coalition forces to uphold the 1954 Hague Convention, which requires that invading countries protect cultural property during war. 

Marian Feldman, an assistant professor of Near Eastern Art at U.C. Berkeley, began studying Mesopotamian art in the late 1980’s. Because of the 1991 Gulf War and the ongoing political situation in Iraq, she has never been able to visit the place she has dedicated her life to studying. 

“There is a whole generation of us who have been trained without ever being able to go into this country,” she said. “This type of loss is felt very deeply by us.” 

David Stronach, professor of Near Eastern Studies, showed photos depicting objects that were probably lost in the looting of the National Museum of Iraq.  

Nicolaas Veldhuis, assistant professor of Assyriology, touched on ancient Iraq’s literary tradition and on the first written language, which many scholars believe was invented about 6,000 years ago in the Sumerian civilization, located in Southern Iraq. The Sumerians are thought to have produced the oldest book, the Epic of Gilgamesh. That book, and the written word, Veldhuis said, is “the everlasting gift of Iraq to humanity.” 

He added that many of the clay tablets containing that early literature were stored at the museum and are probably gone.  

Some audience members said they wanted the scholars to take a tougher stand on the matter.  

Laura Nader, a professor of Anthropology, called the Archaeological Institute of America’s statement on the issue of the looting insipid, and took issue with Stronach’s characterization of the U.S. response as mere indifference. “I think it’s more than indifference,” Nader said, adding that the U.S. government knew about the threat to the sites and did nothing to protect them. “The U.S. government should pay for the return” of the lost items, she said. 

Feldman said it was still too early to know exactly where to lay blame for the loss, but she said, “It was preventable it was avoidable. We’re all so heartbroken by this.”

Bates Award 

Mayor Tom Bates was given the dubious honor of a Jefferson Muzzle Award last week for trashing nearly 1,000 copies of the UC Berkeley student newspaper the Daily Californian last November. 

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, a Virginia-based nonprofit that monitors free speech issues, gives out 10 Muzzles annually to those who apparently have forgotten Jefferson’s admonition that freedom of speech “cannot be limited without being lost.” 

Bates, a former state assemblyman, known for his progressive record on human rights, the environment and civil rights, received the award for throwing out the papers one day before the Nov. 5 election. The issue carried the Daily Californian’s editorial endorsement of his opponent, incumbent Mayor Shirley Dean. The following day, Bates won with 56 percent of the vote compared to Dean’s 42 percent. 

After first denying responsibility, Bates admitted his involvement and made a public apology prior to presiding over his first City Council meeting. 

Other recipients of this year’s Muzzles include United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, the 107th United States Congress and the North Carolina House of Representatives. 

Berkeley Second Most Livable 

The American Foundation for the Blind has named Berkeley the second most livable city in the country for the visually impaired.  

First place went to Charlotte, N.C., and third to Kalamazoo, Mich. Fourth was New York City.  

Visually impaired residents from 116 cities responded to surveys about local conditions. The foundation rated each city for pedestrian safety, transportation, employment opportunities and access to cultural venues. 

Berkeley’s state school for the blind opened in 1896. Berkeley is also home to the Center for Independent Living (CIL), which was the first nonprofit of its kind when it opened over 30 years ago.  

Class of 2007 

UC Berkeley officials have announced that 8,679 students have been admitted to the fall 2003 freshman class. Of that number, the university expects to enroll about 3,800, roughly the same number as last year. 

Students were selected from a record 36,920 applicants, which officials say underscores that demand for admissions to the UC Berkeley is greater than ever. 

Of the 8,679 admitted, 88 percent are California residents. There was a slight increase in Latino students from 12.1 percent to 12.2 percent, and a decrease in new black students to 3.5 percent from 3.7 percent. Asian Americans represent 40 percent of new students, slightly higher than last year, and white students comprise 32.9 percent of new admissions, down from 33.9 percent last year. 

Women represent 56.3 percent of the incoming class, up from last year’s 55.6 percent. 

—John Geluardi

Sather Gate suicide 

A 21-year-old UC student took his own life early Thursday morning by jumping from the roof of the Sather Gate Garage.  

Police discovered the student in a small courtyard inside the parking structure after a caller reported seeing a body there around 5:30 a.m.  

According to police, the student’s backpack, sweatshirt and keys were found near the edge of the sixth floor roof of the parking structure. Police said the student left numerous letters to friends and family members explaining that he had intended to end his life. 

Robbery on Acton 

A 47-year-old Pleasant Hill man was walking north on Acton Street near Oregon Street just before midnight when a man walking in the opposite direction suddenly grabbed his shirt, produced a large knife and said “break yourself,” which is a common street term meaning don’t resist and hand over your valuables.  

The victim began to wrestle with the suspect and attempted to grab the knife, according to police. The victim then threw some cash to the ground, which the suspect picked up and fled.  

The victim went to the home of a friend who lives nearby and was driven to Alta Bates Hospital where he was treated for cuts to his hand, shoulder and chest. 

Hashish? 

On Wednesday about 6 p.m., a Berkeley resident from the 1600 block of Tacoma Street called police and said she had received two envelopes in the mail from Pakistan.  

She called police after opening one of the envelopes and finding a substance she believed was hashish. When officers arrived they noted that the address was correct on the envelopes but the addressee was not. The return address was that of a doctor in Islamabad, Pakistan. 

They further examined the contents of the opened envelope and discovered a flat, brownish green substance that looked like hashish but had no distinguishing odor.  

Following potential terrorist protocol, the officer sealed the envelopes and took them to a nearby fire station. It remained unclear what the exact nature of the substance was.

If there’s a favorite city program you want to save from next year’s looming budget cuts, the best way to do it is to start making noise, and lots of it, according to the League of Women Voters. 

And the time to holler at elected officials and city staff about next year’s budget is now. 

The league sponsored a meeting Thursday night at the Berkeley Public Library designed to educate citizens on the budget process. About two dozen community members attended the meeting. 

According to Eloise Bodine, program vice president for the League of Women Voters, the City Manager’s Office is currently drafting next year’s budget with an eye for making up a $4.7 million deficit.  

Countermeasures include sharply raising parking fines and cutting programs. And according to the city’s bean counters, no program is sacred. Library funds, police and fire services, street lighting and the paramedic fund will all likely be cut.  

The city manager will present a draft budget to City Council May 13. A public hearing will follow on May 20. The Council is scheduled to adopt the budget on June 24. 

The only question is how much, and that’s exactly where citizen participation can have an impact. 

“It’s important to participate while the budget is being drafted,” Bodine said, “because it’s very hard to get things changed once the draft budget is completed.” 

The League has scheduled a series of meetings to present county and city budget information to residents and offer direction in civic participation.  

The League invited the City Manager Weldon Rucker and Budget Manage Paul Navazio to make a presentation to the public at the Central Library on Thursday.  

The presentation was similar to the one made to the City Council on April 8. But according to Bodine, it was intended to be more informal and designed for the general public.  

“It’s being held in the library instead of the City Council Chambers, which more comfortable for many people and it was publicized differently for a different audience,” Bodine said on Wednesday.  

An informal question and answered period followed the presentation for the audience.  

The league will hold a follow up meeting on April 23rd to discuss how to take action on specific budget items.  

She said that citizen participation and voting has fallen off in recent years and part of the problem is many people are unaware of government processes and have an underlying feeling that participation doesn’t matter.  

“One way to get more people to participate is simply letting them know how to do it,” Bodine said. “Also, knowing that the City Council members will actually listen to you and that you can influence their decisions encourages people to participate more.” 

Rucker said that the budget process has been open to more people this year than any year before. 

“Having meetings like this is part of our effort to get the community involved,” he said. “As we develop the budget we will seek more community input.” It’s an ongoing process and I haven’t made up my mind yet on the draft budget.” 

Rucker told the crowd Thursday that the best way to participate is to go to public hearings, contact city council members or call his office. 

City Council meetings can be viewed on cable TV and audio tapes are available for all meetings at the City Clerk’s Office. In addition, the City of Berkeley’s Web site (www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/) has a wealth of information about elections, city meeting and city departments.  

“You have to inform yourself,” she said, “and the reference desk at the public library can be a great resource.” 

Bodine said the next step is to find out who the decision makers are.  

“For example, if you’re interested in library issues, the Library Board of Trustees is where you start,” she said. “And you simply find out who they are and make yourself known to them.” 

The best way to influence city decisions, Bodine said, is to join an organization that has similar interests as yours.  

She said another way to have influence is to have your City Council member appoint you to one of the city’s 49 commissions or boards.  

For more information about the April 23 follow up meeting, call (510) 843-8824.

The Wheelchair Foundation was established in 2000 by Bay Area philanthropist Kenneth E. Behring. The goal of the organization is to provide wheelchairs to as many of the estimated 130 million people who need them worldwide. 

Behring, a real estate developer and former owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team, contributed $15 million to the organization and will match any donation of $75 to purchase a $150 wheelchair. 

The foundation has delivered 130,000 wheelchairs to over 100 countries and aims to deliver 5 million wheelchairs in the next five years. 

In Berkeley, a great deal of fund raising for the Wheelchair Foundation has been organized by Iranian developer Soheyl Modarressi, who is the president of Oxford Development and founder of the Persian Center.  

Modarressi has helped raised enough money to send nearly 1,600 wheelchairs to Iran, where the need is great, largely due to that country’s 10-year war with Iraq in the 1980s. 

For more information about the Wheelchair Foundation call (877) 378-3839 or visit their Web site at www.wheelchairfoundation.org.

My editor suggests that a subtext of desperation in my previous columns might be getting a tad repetitious; that any dwelling on our parlous circumstances (War! Coup! Aging!) is perhaps a trifle tiresome. 

So today, let’s talk about crime, instead. 

Even better, crime and celebrity. I speak, of course, of the recent theft of Sean Penn’s fully loaded muscle car from the streets of our fair city. (The vehicle, sans firepower, was recovered in Richmond.) 

So how should a card-carrying Berkeleyan react? Shock at Mr. Penn’s evident penchant for, and I use the technical term here, packing heat? Consternation that he can be both passionately anti-war and pro-gun? Dismay over the sorry state of our public transit system? And what was that Madonna thing all about? 

Whatever your response, I believe we can all agree on the excellent taste the star displayed in choosing to lunch at Venus, a hip Shattuck Avenue restaurant within calling distance of the city’s theater district. Venus serves up the sort of inventive fare that can please even the most jaded palate. 

“I’ve always been anti-microwave, anti-hormone, anti-chemical, just sensitive to quality,” says Amy Murray, Venus’ autodidact chef and co-owner (along with David Korman). “I like to use extremely fresh, organic ingredients. For instance, we use freshly-dug organic potatoes from Bolinas. No storage at all, just straight from the ground to our kitchen.”  

Amy’s menus often reflect her five-year sojourn in Asia. (She’s the only person I’ve ever met who can speak knowledgeably, even lyrically, about Sri Lankan cuisine.) The Indian Brunch dish served on weekends is a case in point. Delicious curried carrot-zucchini-parsnip pancakes are accompanied by mango aioli, handmade chapati, banana raita and eggs scrambled with chiles, tomato and cilantro.  

The Asian influence runs deeper than the occasional choice of ingredient. “I was very impressed by the Japanese reverence for food,” Amy says.  

That kind of respect is evident in the treatment of the pork in a recent carnitas sandwich. Niman Ranch meat was marinated in a spicy Cuban mix for 24 hours, then slowly roasted for 14 more hours, producing a meltingly tender and tasty filling.  

I have a weakness for brunch and, luckily, so does Amy. 

“I love brunch,” she confesses, and it shows. Airy lemon ricotta hotcakes, served with housemade lemon curd and fresh blackberry syrup, are simply exquisite. And it’s definitely worth going off your low-carb diet to indulge in a thick Belgian waffle from Venus’ antique waffle iron, topped with winter fruit in almond syrup. The omelettes are all superb, too; I keep returning to the Omelette Royale, with applewood bacon, Vermont cheddar, chipotle crema, avocado, tomato and scallion. The housemade biscuits and muffins are especially good, also. 

Venus is a perfect place to dine if you’re catching a downtown movie. You can choose something as light as an autumn salad with arugula, endive, pralined walnuts, pears and blue cheese, or more hearty fare like pan-seared medallions of beef tenderloin with peppercorn sauce, shitake mushrooms, broccoli, and mashed yellow Finn potatoes. Leave room for dessert. One evening, when all the stars were aligned just right, I had a panna cotta with candied exotic fruits that was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. 

I’ve been asked to note the unusual attractiveness of the young waitstaff, especially the tall dude with smoldering blue eyes. So noted. They certainly add to Venus’ lively, relaxed, fun atmosphere. 

Amy offers us the recipe for one of Venus’s flavorful soups, made from seasonal ingredients with very little fat. 

Venus is located at 2327 Shattuck Ave. Hours are 8 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. daily, with dinner served Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 9:30 p.m. The telephone number is 540-5950.

Due to concerns about severe acute respiratory syndrome, the University of California has suspended education abroad programs to Beijing, China, and ordered students already there to return home immediately. 

Professor John Marcum, director for of the UC's EAP programs announced Thursday the temporary halt to foreign exchange studies at Peking University and Beijing Normal University. 

To date, SARS has claimed more than 100 lives, and UC officials said there are confirmed cases at Peking University and in the surrounding neighborhoods. 

UC officials are expected to issue a decision by May 10 as to whether study abroad programs to Beijing can resume for the upcoming summer session. 

“UC is monitoring events closely and is in constant contact with EAP staff abroad as well as with the U.S. State Department, local U.S. embassies and host institutions abroad. UC will continue to provide regular updates and recommendations about specific regional safety concerns,” Marcum said. 

Health conditions in other Asian countries are being closely monitored, but Marcum said UC programs in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam remain open at this time. 

—Bay City News Service

I was on my way home from school (fourth grade?) when this treeful of dapper little birds stopped me in my tracks. I’d never seen anything like them: backswept crests, black masks, subtly colored brown and yellow plumage with vivid red markings on their wings. They were carrying on in high-pitched sibilant voices, ignoring me completely. 

They were cedar waxwings, and they’d probably been on a berry binge. That was years ago in Arkansas, but they’re Bay Area regulars as well, arriving in September and hanging around until May or June before flying to Humboldt County and points north to nest. They’re fond of their berries: they visit the juniper in front of my house and the pyracanthas, and will feed on mistletoe, madrone and peppertree fruits. Sometimes they overdo it, gorging themselves into a stupor on fermented fruit; mass deaths from ethanol poisoning have been documented. 

Berries are important in their social lives. Courting pairs will ceremoniously pass a berry back and forth, and there are unsubstantiated reports of a whole line of birds doing this. 

The waxwing’s diet may be responsible for the color of the wax on the wings. Unique among birds, the three species of waxwings — our cedar, the far northern Bohemian and the Japanese — have flattened waxy tips on some of their flight feathers. Chemists have determined that the color comes from the pigment astaxanthin, similar to the substance that makes flamingos pink, but as far as I know they haven’t traced the metabolic pathway from food to feather. 

Why red wax, though? In many birds, brightly colored plumage is explained as a product of sexual selection, Darwin’s other Big Idea, propounded in The Descent of Man. Female birds are supposed to be attracted to colorful males. Selective mating spreads the gene coding for bright feathers in males and for the female preference for brighter males through the population. Give this enough generations and you get baroque extravagances like the peacock’s tail or the plumes of the birds of paradise. 

It’s not just about esthetics. There’s evidence that females use the hue of a male’s plumage — or the complexity of his song, or the vigor of his dance routines — to assess his general health. Brighter males have been found to have fewer parasites, and it may be that only the fittest can schlep all their adornments around without getting nailed by a predator. Anyway, the idea is that more colorful males are the best potential mates. 

That doesn’t work for waxwings, though, since both sexes have red waxy feather-tips. Their function stumped ornithologists for years. Alexander Wilson, Audubon’s contemporary and rival, wrote in 1832 the tips preserved the feathers “from being broken and worn away by the almost constant fluttering of the bird among thick branches of the cedar.” Nice try, but there’s no empirical support for the idea. 

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Canadian biologists James Mountjoy and Raleigh Robertson came up with a more plausible explanation. Bird banders, who logged the age and sex of every bird they handled, had been aware that older waxwings had more wax-tipped feathers than younger ones. Looking at the birds’ mating patterns, Mountjoy and Robertson discovered that May-December relationships are rare among waxwings: older birds pair up with older birds. They also found older pairs nested earlier and fledged more chicks than younger pairs. 

So the wax may allow waxwings to select experienced, competent mates, good at the all-important business of producing more waxwings. The wax seems to be a badge not of vigor but of maturity, the avian equivalent of that touch of gray. 

Joe Eaton lives in Berkeley. He’s nature editor at Faultline Magazine (http://www.faultline.org) and writes a column for Terrain, the Ecology Center’s quarterly.

Since 1966, Essex Street in south Berkeley has been home to Bruce Arnold and his phantasmagoric, multicultural front yard sculptures. 

On the left side of his front walk is an architectural water feature composed of an eclectic collection of flags, dolls, swans, whirligigs and whatnots all anchored by a shallow grate covered wishing well. On the right, in the middle of his front lawn Arnold has created the "Mother of the World" a spraying water fountain and aggregation of painted stones, branches and crockery overseen by a Black Santa Claus.  

The 91-year-old self-taught artist has been on his own since he was 15. He came to California during World War II to work in the Alameda shipyards.  

"I left Arkansas to come to California in 1942, February the 15th," Arnold said. "I worked on the ships, repaired the ships, everything. It was tough then. I worked night and day, 12 hours, 24 hours a day. Every ship you name I worked it. Oh man. I was so good they'd tell me, 'Hot sheet! Hot job coming in. You got to stay overnight and work.' I said, 'Okay.' 

His garden sculptures are kept tidy and are a matter of pride to Arnold, but politics is his passion. "My daddy was a Democrat," Arnold said. "I been active in Democratic Party all my life. Won’t vote nothing but Democrat." Inside his house there are about a dozen signed photographs from former President Clinton and his wife Hillary. Arnold has no love for President Bush. 

"You know why, 'cause Bush took it. That wasn't right," Arnold said. Pointing to a picture of Al Gore he continued. "See Gore. He won this election. Bush, he went to the Supreme Court. Bush didn't steal it, He just took it. He has money. He bought it. He knows the people. Gore didn't follow Clinton. Clinton teach him but he didn't follow. I believe his wife's gonna run next time. I'd vote her." 

Arnold puts his money behind his beliefs and donates regularly to the Democratic Party. "Sure I do. I'm a Democrat. Why shouldn't I help them? They're there for me. I'm not a rich man but I need to help them Every cent is a help, you know? A vote helps them more better than any money." 

Berkeley politics play an important part in Arnold's life as well. He proudly announces that Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates is a friend.  

"I know Tom. I helped him win this race. He's been in my house. He did a favor for me. I needed some help and he sent some help over for me to go to the doctor. He know me. Tom Bates know me." 

More than supporting just the personalities of politics, while Arnold is proud he's never been arrested, he supports those whose who are speaking out against the war.  

"They doing a good job," Arnold said. "Protest against the war, that's a good job. Somebody got’s to speak up for what's right. They got to let the people know what they want, what they don't want. What you going to keep yourself hid for? Nobody's going to know nothing about it if you keep yourself hid." 

Women in Black Vigil, held every Friday from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph.  

wibberkeley@yahoo.com 

548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, Fridays at noon in Berkeley. Gather on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome. 496-6000, ext.135. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, www.bpf.org. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon Series: Robert Haas, Former Poet Laureate of the United States. Luncheon 11:45 a.m. $11.50-$12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations 526-2925, 665-9020. 

John Zerzan will speak on the Pathology of Civilization in the context of the deepening crisis we face. “Surplus,” a new film by Erik Gandini, will be shown first. It is a 52-minute critique of consumer society. At 7 p.m. at The Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. Cost is $5-$10 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds.  

548-3402.  

Berkeley Earth Day, live music including Wild Mango; Climbing Wall; Kid’s Eco-Art making area with East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse; Vegetarian food and beer, craft and community booths; Berkeley Farmers’ Market Family Farm Day with bike hayrides, baby goats, wool spinning, observational beehive, Bay Area Seed Interchange Library and much more, at Civic Center Park 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Volunteers needed, call 530-2105. For information call 654-6346. 

Berkeley Association of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) monthly meeting 3rd Saturday of every month. at 9:15 a.m. in the Fireside Room, St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 587-3257. 

www.berkeleycna.com 

Healing Our Community through Positive Change, a conference sponsored by the Parent Resource Center of Berkeley High. Topics include Parent/Teen Communication, Kids and the Law, How to Pay for College, Depression, Understanding Cultural Differences, among others. Held at Berkeley Alternative High School, 2701 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free admission, all welcome. For more information call the BHS Parent Resource Center at 644-8524. 

UC Berkeley Chinese Martial Arts Tournament in the Haas Pavilion on the UC Campus, beginning at 8:45 a.m. and continuing throughout the day. Admission $7, children under 5 free. For information call 642-3268 or www.calwushu.com. 

California Native Plants Sale 

Bring cardboard boxes, if possible, to carry purchases, and an umbrella if it rains. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Wildcat Canyon Rd. & South Park Dr., in Tilden Park. Free admission. 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 841-8732.  

www.nativeplants.org 

Springtime in Tilden Outing Join the Greenbelt Alliance for a moderately challenging walk to Grizzly and Vollmer peaks in Tilden Park above Berkeley. We will traverse high ridges with panoramic vistas and explore human impacts on native plant systems. 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Meet at the parking lot on the south side of Golf Course Drive just east of Grizzly Peak Blvd. 415-255-3233.  

www.greenbelt.org 

Free real estate seminar, hosted by Charles Patton and Eric Jackson, from 10 a.m. - noon. Held third Saturday of every month. 3362 Adeline. RSVP at 472-0197.  

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk, facilitated by Berkeley Singer/Songwriter/Activist Margie Adam, begins at 2 p.m. at the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd. Free and open to all. Sponsored by the Avalon Project. 528-8193. 

The Center on Politics Presents: Bush at War: The Annual Review of the Presidency, from 7-9 p.m., 155 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. Panelists include: Eleanor Clift, Newsweek; Richard Berke, The New York Times; Nelson Polsby, UC Berkeley; and Dean Michael Nacht, The Goldman School of Public Policy. Co-sponsored by The Institute of Governmental Studies and UC Extension. 642-4608. 

www.igs.berkeley.edu 

Meeting of those injured at the Port of Oakland April 7 demonstration, at 499 14th St., Suite 220, Oakland, CA. (Offices of Siegel & Yee), in Oakland City Center Square; near 12th St. BART station. We will discuss a legal response to police violence of that day, and collect information from the injured and witnesses. Also, we need photographs and video of injuries and police behavior from that day. Whether or not you can make the meeting, if you were injured or witnessed specific inappropriate police behavior, please call or write. 

Contact: Rachel Lederman, 

415-282-9300, 

rlederman@2momslaw.com. 

Living Peacefully in a Time of Turmoil. The Center for the Development of Peace and Well-being at UC Berkeley, presents a discussion about uncertainty, resilience and compassion in the face of conflict with James Donahue, President and Professor of Ethics, Graduate Theological Union; Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley; and Meg Zweiback, RN, MPH, Associate Clinical Professor of Nursing, UCSF, from 7 - 9 p.m. at Evans Hall, Room 10, UC Campus. 643-7944 or cph@pa.urel.berkeley.edu 

We’re Getting There: Transportation and the Environment in Berkeley, with Matt Nichols, of the City of Berkeley Transportation Office, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. For reservations call 981-5435. energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

“My Life as an Unabashed Liberal,” lecture by Stephanie Salter, columnist and reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, on the role of liberalism in the current climate of American politics, at 7:30 p.m., College Preparatory High School at 6100 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $10. Call Bruce H. Feingold at 925-945-1315 for information. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 525-3565.  

www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Lawyers in the Library at 6 p.m. at the West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

Gaia Sculpture Unveiling. Four Architectural Sculptures celebrating Earth Day will be unveiled at 5:30 p.m., at the Gaia building, 2116 Allston Way, by Khalil Bendib, sculptor, and Patrick Kennedy, owner, Panoramic Interests. 

Ira Glass, host and founder of the NPR program, This American Life, will speak at  

8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC campus. Tickets are $18, $22, $28. 642-9988. 

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Peace Spirals: Somatic Expressive Dialogs for peace, community and mindful action, with Jamie McHugh, RMT and guests, 7-9 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck at Cedar. Please RSVP to peacespirals@aol.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam, Wednesdays, with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. $90 cash prizes. Cost is $7 at the door, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. 

Community Dances in Berkeley, traditional English & American Dances 8 p.m. every Wednesday, $9. Held also at 7 p.m. first Sunday, $10. Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St., 233-5065.  

www.bacds.org 

Take Back the Night March against rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence in our community. Come hear our speakers, enjoy live music, browse the resource fair, and share your thoughts at the open mike. Rally at 4:30 p.m. on the UC Campus at Upper Sproul Plaza rain or shine. Contact information: Danna Yaniv at 204-9139. dyaniv@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder, Physicians for Social Responsibility and founder, Nuclear Policy Research Institute, will speak on “The New Nuclear Danger - George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex,” at 7 p.m. in the Chevron Auditorium, International House, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Chancellor's Office, co-sponsored by Depts of Public Policy, Public Health and the World Affairs Council. 642-4670. 

kander@socrates.berkeley.edu 

Bicycle Touring Information at 7:30 p.m., free lecture covering tools, routes, camping, and more, at The Missing Link, 1988 Shattuck Ave., 843-7471.  

Job Search 101, an interactive  

workshop on strategies to jumpstart your job search. 1:30-5 p.m. Cost is $35 for YWCA members, $45 for non-members. Preregistration required. For information call 848-6370. YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way. 

Activist Skill Class: Practical Skills for Difficult Times. Learn tactics and strategies of activism with Karen Pickett and Phil Klasky. Classes offered through Merritt College, Tuesday evenings and Saturdays, beginning April 29 through May 24. To register call 548-2220 ext. 233. 

The Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Cooking and Baking Classes, offered by The Bread Project in conjunction with Berkeley Adult School. Contact Lucie Buchbinder at 644-1713 for more information. 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/civicarts/default.htm  

Citizen’s Budget Review Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Phil Kamlarz, 981-7006, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/budget/default.htm  

Energy Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, from 6:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy/default.htm  

Mental Health Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Harvey Turek, 981-5213.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/mentalhealth/default.htm  

Planning Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/planning/default.htm  

Police Review Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Barbara Attard, 981-4950. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview/default.htm 

Zoning Adjustments Board 

meets Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. at the City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning/default.htm  

School Board meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. Queen Graham 644-8764 or Mark Coplan 644-6320.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries public transportation was built by private entrepreneurs with the anticipation of future development and population growth.  

Only three years after the University of California opened its first campus in Berkeley in 1873, Francis Kittredge Shattuck and James Barker convinced Leland Stanford to lay a spur track of his Central Pacific Railroad (in 1885 the Southern Pacific) into central Berkeley.  

Shattuck not only anticipated future population growth, but positioned himself to direct and take economic advantage of that growth. In 1876 the University of California had only been open for three years and had a student body of 310 and a teaching staff of 38. Hardly enough total population to justify the capital outlay of building a rail line. 

Although Berkeley’s first electric streetcar lines were operating in 1891, there were still many old fashioned horse drawn trolleys and steam driven railcars on four different sized tracts. In 1893, Francis Marion “Borax” Smith (famous for his “20 Mule Team” borax products), inspired by C. P. Huntington who successfully held a monopoly on the interurban streetcar lines in Los Angeles, began to purchase all the private streetcar lines in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  

By 1903 Smith had unified and modernized these companies and then expanded them into a coordinated transit system that eventually included ferries and was called the Key System. The AC Transit System that today operates in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, established by voters in 1960, is the legacy of the Key System, as is Key Route Boulevard that traverses Albany and El Cerrito.  

As Smith was creating his transit system, he also was buying large tracts of farm and ranch lands through his Realty Syndicate for subdivision and development. He also partnered with various developers and created a network of companies.  

When the Key System streetcars began running on College Avenue in 1903, the farm land along the route was subdivided for housing and small commercial districts. The Arlington Line was extended to Kensington in 1912, opening up that grazing area for development. Buses began to replace streetcars in Berkeley as early as 1921, but the trains continued to run until the late 1940s.  

The Bay Area Electric Railroad Association was formed in 1946 to preserve and interpret the history of electric railroads. At the Western Railway Museum and Archive Center at Rio Vista Junction in Solano County (www.wrm.org) a visitor not only can see historic electric streetcars, but also take a ride on them.  

Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny is the author of “Berkeley Landmarks” and writes this column in conjunction with the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.

A few weeks after 9/11, I hung an American flag in the upstairs bedroom window of our home. It stayed there for almost 16 months, fading in the sunlight that faces Dover Street.  

It hadn’t been my idea to hang it. My brother-in-law came to visit my husband and me and he was appalled to see that no one on our street displayed the flag. Apparently, everyone in his San Diego neighborhood was flying the Red, White and Blue. I had never known him to be the least bit patriotic but he had covered the rear window of his truck with a plastic United States flag. He suggested we do something similar.  

I said “okay.” I’m not a person of strong opinions and it has taken me years of self-analysis to come to the (now obvious) conclusion that I am a people-pleaser, bordering on obsessiveness. I didn’t buy a truck to please my brother-in-law, but I did run out and purchase a small cloth flag, perfect for our upstairs window.  

Then came the winds of war. “Get Out of Iraq” signs cropped up in nearby neighborhoods, though very few hung in mine. In January of this year, friends flew in from Wisconsin to participate in the San Francisco peace march. I joined them and walked with the crowds. My friends were exhilarated. I was less pleased. I felt like I was in an anti-war version of the Bay to Breakers. While my friends stayed for the Civic Center speeches I hopped on BART and hurried home. I had my pajamas on by 6 p.m. Anti-war activities can be exhausting. 

Before my guests returned to Madison, they were adamant that I take down the American flag in my window and replace it with a “Stop the War Now” poster. I complied. It seemed the right thing to do. 

But then, last week, I finally did what really needed to be done. I threw out last year’s pumpkins. They’d been sitting on either side of my front door since mid-October and they’d grown dimpled and soft. They were rotten throughout and I had a difficult time carrying them to the compost box. I had thought that someone would steal them from my front porch and smash them in the street. But the kids in my neighborhood are either not that bad, or on to bigger, badder or better things.  

It felt good to toss the slimy pumpkins into the black plastic compost box that I’d gotten from the county. It was a cause I could really get behind.  

Independence Day is now just a few months away and I have some decisions to make. I can take the anti-war poster down or leave it up. I can buy another American flag or two and hang them in my windows or stick them in the garden. I can tie yellow ribbons around my spindly front yard trees, put up a banner that says “Bring Our Troops Home” or I can do nothing.  

I’m giving this a lot of thought and none of the above appears to be the best course of action for me. I’m contemplating another plan, and although it’s not original, it fits with my point of view. Every day, while I walk my dog, I’ll pick up the trash that clutters the sidewalks and clogs the street gutters. It’s not an activity that is going to stop a war or bring our boys back to United States soil, but it will help the neighborhood, and that’s a cause I can support. And come October I’ll buy two firm plump pumpkins to grace each side of my front door. By then I hope the war in Iraq will actually be over, our troops will be home, Dover Street will be a little bit cleaner, and the candles in my pumpkins will stand not just for peace, but for welcome, too. 

Susan Parker lives in Oakland near the Berkeley border. She is the author of the book “Tumbling After,” a memoir published last year by Crown Publishing.