Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s award of exclusive Bay Area casino gaming rights to Casino San Pablo gives a multi-million-dollar plum to a project launched by a three-time GOP contender for the Philadelphia mayoralty and backed by the GOP operative who stage-managed the “Brooks Brothers Riot” during the 2000 Florida presidential recount. -more-

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For too many Berkeley public school children X+Y=? -more-

Three Berkeley High students have joined a class action lawsuit alleging that school district officials violated their civil rights when they expelled them without a state-mandated hearing. -more-

The United States Department of Agriculture is proposing to cut funding for school gardens, farmers’ markets, and other programs that seek to expand low-income communities’ access to fresh fruits and vegetables and promote holistic nutrition as a way to prevent chronic disease. -more-

Since the West Nile virus arrived in town, Berkeley residents haven’t stepped lightly over freestanding puddles, favored breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the disease. So it’s odd that some of the most persistent puddles in town are being pr oduced by the Alta Bates Medical Center. -more-

Brad Seligman and the Berkeley-based Impact Fund are at it again. Only two months after winning a decision that created the largest class action lawsuit of all time in a case against Wal-Mart, Seligman helped file a lawsuit in a Federal District court Tuesday against the warehouse giant Costco Wholesale Corp., alleging sexual discrimination against female employees. -more-

Looked for Strange, Found Badges -more-

Responding to appeals by local merchants and the West Berkeley Association of Industrial Companies, as reported in the Daily Planet in early July, the city’s Public Works Department and its Office of Transportation have implemented changes in striping, signage and signalization at Ninth Street and Ashby Avenue and at Seventh and Murray streets. City staff have reinstated the “Keep Clear” sign that was formerly painted on Seventh just west of Murray. At Ashby and Ninth they’ve restriped the westbound lanes and removed the left turn prohibition sign. According to traffic engineer Hamid Mostowfi, the signal at Ashby and Ninth will be turned on by Sept. 3. This will all come as a surprise to the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported on Thursday that the work had not yet begun. -more-

A large majority of the candidates running in a crowded field for the Richmond City Council agree that fiscal accountability and responsible financial management will be important issues in the upcoming Nov. 2 election. That was the result of a survey of candidate websites and campaign statements, as well as unofficial polling done this week by the Berkeley Daily Planet. -more-

In a page three article in the New York Times last Saturday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is said to have “rankled Washington with his leftist agenda and authoritarian impulse,” and “provoked controversy through his coziness with dictators like Mr. Castro, Saddam Hussein, and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.” -more-

As the presidential campaign settles down into that crucial back-stretch period, progressive commentators continue to argue that Sen. John Kerry needs to explicitly articulate an Iraq exit strategy. -more-

After decades of living in Berkeley, I have come to the conclusion that the dominant political forces in this town are sufficiently entrenched that significant change in the short term is unlikely. Their view of the world, somewhere between left-of-center and way-left-of-center, does not consume everyone in Berkeley, but it is sufficiently widespread that the current flavor of local governance will probably endure for the foreseeable future. As the rest of the country has gone decidedly, if fitfully, to the right, Berkeley has stayed with its basic 1960s mentality. Almost certainly Berkeley has attracted those who find it conducive to their own political proclivities and repelled those who feel otherwise, thereby reinforcing itself as a the nation’s citadel of collectivist wisdom. -more-

Coming up on Aug. 26, I am reminded of 30 years ago. In 1974 the Wisconsin Commission on the Status of Women inaugurated a series of regional conferences to examine the status of the homemaker, and Oakland resident Tish Sommers coined the term “displaced homemaker” to describe the “middle-aged woman forcibly exiled” from her role as wife and mother, struggling to find a place in the job market. The Mexican American Women’s Association was founded. A study by Cherokee/Choctaw physician Constance Uri exposed widespread use of sterilization of Native American women and led to the 1977 revision of DHEW’s guidelines on sterilization. Congresswoman Bella Abzug’s bill to designate Aug. 26 Women’s Equality Day in honor of the adoption of the Suffrage Amendment became law. The Civil Rights Act was amended to prohibit sex discrimination in housing financing, sale or rental or in provision of brokerage services. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act became law after Abzug, Margaret Heckler and Lenor Sullivan fought for it in the House; later, “Battling Bella” led a delegation of women members of Congress to protest unsatisfactory implementation regulations, and they were revised. The first woman state governor to be elected in her own right—Ella Grasso—was elected governor of Connecticut. I remember well all of these events and more that year, as well as defeats and losses of women’s lives and careers. -more-

TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT -more-

If you’re not from around here, you may be encountering an unusual number of Unidentified Flying Objects: birds that look different from the ones you’re accustomed to seeing at home, and behave differently. Here are a few you’re likely to notice on campus or around town. -more-

When urban life begins to get to you, the Bay Area offers a wealth of refuges. Thanks to enlightened planning, our cities are surrounded by a greenbelt of regional, state, and national parkland: wonderful places for photography, hiking, birding, botanizing, whale-watching, and general communing with nature. -more-

Ten ubiquitous animals you may have thought were native Northern Californians: -more-

Let’s face it, going to a four-year university is stressful. Most of the time the adrenaline rush seems to keep one on one’s toes, enabling one to nail a good grade and giving one a sense of making a start at something important. Perhaps working for a degree will lead to a cure for cancer or a Nobel prize. At the very least, it’s an opportunity to make life-long friendships. -more-

Ten plants you may have thought were native Northern Californians: -more-

This is a story about cheeses and a 35-year-old store that sells them. It’s about a burgeoning alternative gourmet ghetto in a less than affluent part of west Berkeley. And it’s about an immigrant family that has established a niche for itself and become, if not totally Americanized, decidedly Berkeleyized. -more-

One of the chief pleasures of living here is playing tour guide. Over the years I’ve lined up a few: The Food Tour (North Berkeley, the Farmer’s Markets when possible, Market Hall in Rockridge, whatever sort of restaurant they don’t have at home) and the Book Tour (Cody’s, Moe’s, Shakespeare, University Press, Pegasus, Black Oak, whatever specialty stores tickle their fancy) and the Architecture Tour (assorted Maybecks, Eugene Tsui’s “Fish House” (more aptly, “Tardigrade House,” officially “Ojo del Sol”) on Matthews Street). There’s even the Sex Tour: take them to Good Vibrations and then send them to North Beach or Castro, depending on their tastes. Sometimes I’ll stoop to the Tourist Tour, including Fisherman’s Wharf and the Alcatraz boat. -more-

So I was sitting at the café engaged in my daily matudinal session of pseudointellectual combat when, as it often will, the question arose: “Is there a God”? -more-

Reprinted with permission from The Cheese Board Collective Works: Bread, Pastry, Cheese, Pizza by the Cheese Board Collective. Copyright 2003, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley. -more-

This town is full of establishments that sell things you never knew you needed. Here’s a personal selection. -more-

Saxophonist John Tchicai’s life might be viewed as an example of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny. Jazz was born in the United States when the descendants of African natives were confronted by the instruments and harmonies of European music. By brushing that music against the grain they found the blue notes between the well-tempered notes, the rhythmic swing that hovered uncertainly, mysteriously, doubtfully around the strict metrical structures. The Middle Passage was both disruptive and quickening so that “nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.” -more-

Unlike iconic destinations such as San Francisco, New York or London where the shelves of bookstores and gift shops sag under the weight of tourist fare, Berkeley has been the subject of relatively few pictorial books. -more-

San Francisco has Mark Twain; Oakland has Jack London. Berkeley has had its share of literary lights as well. Some—George R. Stewart, who memorably destroyed the town in Earth Abides; Robert Hass, Maxine Hong Kingston, Josephine Miles, Ishmael Reed—had, or have, university connections. The town has also been hospitable to Beat poets, speculative-fiction writers, and other non-Establishment types. Heyday Books has an entire anthology (Berkeley! A Literary Tribute) of fiction, poetry and memoir set in Berkeley, with contributors running the gamut from John Kenneth Galbraith to Thomas Pynchon. -more-

Something living in that soulless dorm room, the weird-shaped nook the landlord calls a bedroom, or that gorgeous Craftsman that was such a find you can hardly believe it—that’s what makes it something better than a box to sleep in. Plants are easier than puppies. You have a brown thumb? No worries. The dirty little secret of having a green thumb is that most of us had to murder a lot of plants along the way. -more-

The dog days of summer leading into fall and the return to school don’t spell the end of outdoor activities. In Berkeley’s Mediterranean climate, you’ll find the warmth of the air, the stir of the breeze and the angle of the light calling you to come out and play. -more-

Tilden Regional Park, entrances off Wildcat Canyon Road and Grizzly Peak Boulevard. 562-PARK. -more-

FRIDAY, AUGUST 20 -more-

FRIDAY, AUGUST 20 -more-

Saxophonist John Tchicai, will perform with guitarist Mark Oi and drummer Matt Marucci, appears at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21 at Palms, 13 Main St., downtown Winters. Opening act: Nebula Quartet and the Ross Hammond Unit. $10. (530) 795-1825. -more-