Facing growing anger from residents and librarians over plans to lay off workers and implement tracking devices on materials, the Berkeley Public Library Board of Trustees has selected a veteran of local political battles to join its ranks. -more-
The Berkeley Federation of Teachers filed an unfair labor practice charge against the school district last week, demanding that the district hand over its master list of student addresses so the union could give parents its side of the ongoing labor stalemate. -more-
Thousands marched in San Francisco Saturday on the second anniversary of the war in Iraq, beating drums, chanting slogans and carrying signs to deliver a message to the Bush administration that U.S. aggression and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Haiti destabilizes the world and wastes tax dollars that should serve human needs. -more-
Gene Bernardi of Berkeleyans Organized for Library Defense said she was collecting signatures against automation of the library’s main branch in front of the main doors recently when she was ordered away from the library. -more-
Three hundred and fifty-seven local middle school girls, 50 adults and 130 volunteers showed up at the 29th annual Expanding Your Horizons math and science conference for girls, held on the Mills College campus, last Saturday. -more-
The 75-year-old woman whose throat was slashed with a butcher knife while walking outside the Berkeley Rose Garden last week said she is on her way to a full recovery. -more-
An alarming report on asthma in Berkeley and Oakland will be front and center at this Tuesday’s Berkeley City Council meeting -more-
PATONG BEACH, Phuket, Thailand—Some three months after the tsunami waves invaded its shores, Phuket’s most popular beaches are haunted by ghosts, locals say. -more-
In September I wrote a column about how my friend Corrie desperately wanted to buy a sweatshirt at San Francisco State University’s bookstore but she couldn’t find one that satisfied her sense of fashion. Well, I’m happy to report that after a long search she has finally found the gray, zippered hoodie she was looking for. -more-
In the wake of the flap over the Harvard president’s comments about women in science, the University of California Berkeley has thrown a spotlight on efforts by two of its own to explain why men still outnumber women on the tenure track of university faculties. -more-
Since the presidential election, Democrats have been challenged to go back to the basics, to remember their core values. As the process continues there is agreement on basic principles of social justice and on key ethical standards. For example, the vast majority of Democrats do not believe that the ends justify the means; unlike Republicans, they do not feel that it is okay to do anything to win. Because of these scruples, Democrats face a conundrum with regards to the tactical use of fear: How to talk to voters about the very real dangers facing America. The challenge for the Democratic leadership is to tell the truth about the perils America faces, and, yet, provide a message of hope, to reason with voters, not scare them. -more-
“History is written by winners... and the bad witch is old.” -more-
On a sunny afternoon last month, a vehicle struck resident John Wang while he walked in the crosswalk across Martin Luther King Jr. Way at Addison in Central Berkeley. Unconscious at the scene and requiring several days’ hospitalization, Mr. Wang lost weeks of work and is still in a neck brace. He continues in physical therapy in hopes that his neck fracture will heal. Meanwhile, with considerable pain in his shoulders, neck and back, he fears that arm numbness and paralysis are permanent. -more-
As a member of the Berkeley Unified School District community, I recently received a letter from Superintendent Michele Lawrence explaining the situation with teacher contract negotiations, facts about BUSD’s financial situation, and the proposed state budget as it relates to education. We were asked to contact the governor’s office to express our feelings about the proposed budget, so I did. -more-
Your recent article about the New Leaf Gallery’s move out of its Berkeley location unfairly puts the blame on “development pressures”. Not only did the article contain a number of inaccurate statements, but also the overall picture that you painted does not describe what is happening and leaves your readers with the wrong impression. As the architects working with Carl Lasagna, the property owner, we feel the need to respond. -more-
Berkeley didn’t always have a city-run Fire Department or professional police force. Back in the late 19th century, when the community was still a small town, volunteer fire companies and elected town marshals provided basic protection. -more-
I keep being reminded that the universe, as either the geneticist J. B. S. Haldane or the astronomer Arthur Eddington (or both) said, is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine. And I’m not talking about superstring theory or quantum weirdness here. This is about plain old biology, and the unexpected link between the eastern fox squirrels in my yard and the unfortunate George III of England. It’s not breaking news—the basic facts have been known for quite a while—but it’s just too strange to be left alone with. -more-
Responding to the engine failure of two city trucks last year, city leaders in January scrapped its two-year-old program to power its fleet of nearly 200 trucks entirely on a derivative of vegetable oil. -more-
Berkeley’s era of budget deficits could be over by 2009, City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the City Council Tuesday. But to get out of the red, which the city has been in since 2003, Kamlarz is proposing a litany of cuts this year to close an $8.9 million deficit. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School District settled a potentially embarrassing expulsion discrimination class action lawsuit this week, leaving Superintendent Michele Lawrence “pleased that we could reach an agreement” and plaintiffs’ representatives praising Lawrence and the district’s cooperation. -more-
After several weeks in which both sides maintained silence about contract mediation, the Berkeley Unified School District abruptly changed tactics this week, providing partial information on its latest offer to the Berkeley Federation of Teachers in an e-mail news release. -more-
Fifteen South Campus neighbors have won a $67,500 judgment against Le Chateau, a UC Berkeley student co-op they blame for years of strewn trash, late night noise and a plague of vermin. -more-
Patrick McCullough, the Oakland man who shot a 16-year-old boy in the arm during a fight outside his house last month, will not face criminal charges, Assistant District Attorney James Lee said Wednesday. -more-
Two young women slashed the throat of a 75-year-old Berkeley woman Wednesday evening as she and her husband strolled along Euclid Avenue past the Berkeley Rose Gardens. -more-
City officials have issued a formal call for a consultant to help reshape the streetscape and traffic flow around the Berkeley BART Plaza. -more-
Berkeley Unified School District Academic Performance Index (API) scores released this week by the California Department of Education contained “no surprises,” according to BUSD Superintendent Michele Lawrence, and show that district schools continue their placement in the mid-to-top level among California schools. -more-
California lawmakers took action against the genocide in Darfur Wednesday, aided by three East Bay teenagers who read written testimony submitted by U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee. -more-
Three new measures designed to control the spread of casinos took forward steps this week, including one federal law and two proposed amendments to the California Constitution. -more-
Berkeley’s program that allows city employees and residents to share city cars was named as one of 50 semifinalists for the Innovation in American Government Award. -more-
Major changes now being planned at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) include a major move off-campus and a step toward demolition of one of the facility’s major structure. -more-
When Alameda County progressives recently got wind of President Bush’s resubmission of seven federal judicial nominees previously rejected by the U.S. Senate for being too extreme, they did what many progressives all over the country did: They decided to party. -more-
A recent UnderCurrents column was linked in Mayor Jerry Brown’s new online blog (http://jerrybrown.typepad.com/), but do you think maybe this one was a mistake? -more-
While parked on Shattuck Avenue, sipping a latte and waiting for the Berkeley Public Library to open, I eyed two well-worn women as they ambled by, deep in conversation. One, with grayed-brown curls seeping out of her frayed knitted cap, clutched an overstuffed garbage bag to her side. She seemed quite intense as she spoke to her companion: “I think back in time to when things have disappeared and you’ve been drunk and you didn’t know you lost it…” -more-
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi didn’t wait for the result of the joint American-Italian probe into the killing of Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari, and the wounding of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, before announcing the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq. Combined with a hastily arranged Ukrainian departure and a planned Romanian retreat, Berlusconi’s announcement shatters the so-called Coalition of the Willing, rendering the Iraq occupation a de facto Anglo-American operation. -more-
Ann and Dean Metzger’s op-ed “Why UCB Should Follow the Lead Of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor” (Daily Planet, March 4-7) was very frustrating. It begins in the first two paragraphs by seeming to seek a middle ground in the present fight between the City of Berkeley and UC Berkeley by examining the relationship of Ann Arbor, Mich. to the University of Michigan (UM). After those two paragraphs though, the article takes a different tone, implying that UM bends over backwards for Ann Arbor and thereby implies that UCB should act likewise. Worse though than the articles faux-unbiased stance, is that it is based on a false premise. Namely that Ann Arbor and Berkeley are in similar situations. Having spent roughly four years living in both cities, I feel I am qualified to point out the failings in the Metzgers’ premise. -more-
Ann and Dean Metzger write in the March 4-7 Daily Planet that the University of Michigan has been “a partner in many capital improvement projects” in the city of Ann Arbor and that the University of California campus in Berkeley should follow Michigan’s lead. -more-
If you wanted to know what Jewish music sounds like, would you turn to a beatboxing hip-hop artist? An avant-garde string quartet? A master of ancient Middle Eastern musical traditions? -more-
Going into the foolsFURY Incubator/Shotgun Lab staging of Monster in the Dark is, in a number of ways, like walking in the dark. The publicity for the work-in-progress, playing Mondays and Tuesdays at the Ashby Stage, dwells on the theme, ‘what are you irrationally afraid of?’—and that the show is a work-in-progress, an exploration, and not much more than that. -more-
Poets David Gitin and Jack Marshall—both long involved with poetry in the Bay Area, and long acquainted with each other—will read their poems at 7:30 p.n. Monday, March 21 at Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue. -more-
Just as some city planners behave as though a brand new museum with no budget left for art, and a brand new library without librarians, are just fine, so some gardeners seem to think that a manicured garden without wildlife—often called pests—is also acceptable. This seems to be true of some environmentalists, too. -more-
It’s one thing to read statistics about the sorry state of education in California, but it’s another to talk to someone who’s in the trenches trying to cope with it. At a party this weekend I met a woman who’s bucking for sainthood as a teacher in the Los Angeles public school system. She’s an energetic, lively person, who’s successfully raised two kids of her own. At the age of 60, after a pleasant career which included a Ph. D. and a series of administrative jobs, she decided to “give something back” to society by resuming the school teaching career she’d given up at an early age. (She’s a red diaper baby—maybe that explains her desire to be socially significant.) -more-
This week, in honor of Women’s History Month, Berkeley’s Commission on the Status of Women recognized at its monthly meeting some “outstanding women in Berkeley who have contributed to making our community a better place to live,” in the words of the chair’s letter requesting nominations. One nice aspect of attending the event was getting a chance to put faces to people I’d previously known only as voicemail messages or e-mail addresses. In the audience as well as on the platform were many women who have been active in all sorts of important endeavors, and have told the Daily Planet about them. -more-
