With no end in sight to either the impasse in contract negotiations or the ongoing work-to-rule action, Berkeley teachers held an hour long demonstration in front of the Berkeley Unified School Administration Building Tuesday afternoon. -more-
Eight years ago, in an act that Willard Middle School Vice Principal Thomas Orput calls a “total fiasco,” the Berkeley Unified School District painted over the Telegraph Avenue mural on the school gymnasium’s outside wall without contacting the artists. -more-
When is the sale of a building not a sale, at least for property tax reasons? -more-
Sequoia has beaten out second-place Ohlone and six other alternatives for the chance to replace the name of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, according to the results of a school-wide vote. -more-
Prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and Iraq have been hooded, isolated, humiliated, injured, made to feel hopeless and close to death. Mark Danner, UC Berkeley journalism professor, says such treatment is systemic, a flagrant violation of rules of war and morality and the fault of “policy makers in the department of justice, policy makers including Professor (John) Yoo, policy makers in the Department of Defense (and) policy makers in the White House.” -more-
After Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Board decided to raise landlord fees by 13 percent, the city’s leading landlord association is threatening to once again file suit. -more-
As long-running battles continue over two highly contaminated South Richmond sites—one owned by UC Berkeley—two new questions have surfaced: -more-
Back in February, Ashawn Walker was smoking cigarettes, guzzling down soda, eating junk food and unbeknownst to her, two months pregnant. Now, with the help of a Berkeley program for African American moms-to-be, she’s drinking water, eating fruit, and keeping her distance from nicotine. -more-
Reports of an imminent soft landing for South Berkeley’s “Flying Cottage” have been greatly exaggerated, says Dave Blake. -more-
Berkeley Police are investigating a Wednesday night fire at the Congregation Beth El building site as a possible hate crime, said police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. -more-
With a draft plan in hand for the cleanup of contaminated soil and groundwater at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is calling for public input on the proposal. -more-
In recent weeks both the San Francisco Chronicle and this newspaper have featured essays and letters lambasting the “arrogance” of UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s efforts to affirm the value of diversity, castigating black leaders and parenting skills a nd accusing blacks of using the “victim card” instead of acting more like Asians. And just how do Asians behave? -more-
Sorry to continue to be a bother about this, but I continue to be puzzled over the details of how Oakland’s schools got taken over by the state, and what needs to be done to get the schools back in Oakland’s hands. -more-
Tim O’Brien was 21 years old when he was sent to fight in Vietnam. More than two decades later, he wrote the literary masterpiece The Things They Carried. The book describes a handful of soldiers in Vietnam, and the things they carried—a girlfriend’s panties, a Cherokee hunting hatchet, comic books, illustrated bibles, dope, cigarettes, condoms, photographs, chewing gum and so forth. For years, O’Brien carried inside him the things his fellow soldiers carried, before setting them down on the page. -more-
I was sorry to read the public meeting of the Library Board of Trustees last Wednesday characterized as resembling a “high school pep rally.” I have attended public meetings when important issues that meant a great deal to the attendees, and this one was another good example of democracy in action. (In San Francisco Public Library during the fees for computer service fracas, in Oakland, when a Military Academy was foisted on the city despite the standing room only meetings and negative votes by Boards of Education of Oakland and Alameda County). The Berkeley Public Library Board of Trustees President, Laura Anderson quietly, but firmly determined that everyone who wanted to speak, would do so. Surely there were outcries, clapping and some booing, but all were heard. It was the substance, the sharing of information and concerns, the search for solutions that mattered more than the formal manners that often suppress what needs to be aired. -more-
The City Council voted 5-4 to burn the West Berkeley Plan. It wasn’t worded like that, of course. On April 19, they approved funding to begin an “incremental” evaluation of the Plan by studying changing the zoning of Ashby and Gilman west of San Pablo from industrial to commercial, to bring in more sales tax revenue from regional retail. -more-
I would like to comment on the announcement of the publication of The Frontlines of Social Change: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (Daily Planet, April 26-28). Not having read the book, I cannot say anything about its contents, but the subject of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War deserves something more than the glowing pro-Stalinist whitewash usually presented in such volumes—and in Brenneman’s puff piece. -more-
Angela Davis came back home to Berkeley for her birthday. No, not that Angela Davis, but her niece, Angela Eisa Davis, known as Eisa to her family, fans and friends. The former Berkeley High School graduate, class of 1988, left Berkeley for a degree at Harvard followed by an master’s of fine arts from the Actors Studio Drama School, in Manhattan. -more-
The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Musical Director Kent Nagano, will present the world premiere of Manzanar—An American Story, a semi-staged oratorio for orchestra, chorus and narrators, on Tuesday May 10 at Zellerbach Hall. -more-
A Berkeley-based bike messenger cooperative appears to be the latest organization to suffer from Berkeley’s budgetary woes. -more-
They came. They saw. They scoffed. -more-
After two hung juries punctuated by appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court, the third “pepper spray trial” finally brought resolution, with a victory of sorts, for the plaintiffs. -more-
South Berkeley’s “Flying Cottage,” the controversial three-story pop-up at 3045 Shattuck Ave., seems to be headed for a soft landing—with only a question of parking yet to be decided. -more-
Electro-shock, unmuzzled dogs, extreme temperatures, sexual humiliation, sodomy—U.S. torture didn’t begin or end with the abuse portrayed in shocking photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib one year ago, nor has U.S. torture been restricted to prisons on foreign soil, according to speakers at Thursday’s Teach-in on Torture, sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies, Asian Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies departments. -more-
For those whose exposure to hip hop and rap is the occasional video seen while flipping channels, or a gold-toothed face on a magazine at the supermarket checkout counter, the scene at Laney College this weekend would have been unrecognizable. Two rap legends showed up at the third annual Malcolm X Consciousness Conference with no entourages in sight, and an emphasis on think-think rather than bling-bling. -more-
Barring further appeals, the long-running battle that has pitted neighbors against would-be neighbors in a contest over views from the Berkeley hills has come to an end. -more-
Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany death camps, Berkeley will hold its third annual ceremony Friday to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day. -more-
A Berkeley police lieutenant who ordered officers to ticket motorists who honked in support of a late night union rally last summer did not abuse his discretion, a three-member panel of the Police Review Commission ruled Thursday. -more-
Just months before its new synagogue is set to debut, another rift has opened between Berkeley’s largest Jewish congregation and its soon-to-be neighbors. -more-
A participant in last Tuesday’s rally of City of Berkeley union employees has informed the Daily Planet that some employees attended during their regular break time, and that her division staggered attendance in order to keep their desks covered. -more-
If you are a Monty Python fan, you will remember the famous restaurant scene from The Meaning of Life. In it a fawning waiter begs his grossly over-weight client, who has just finished a meal of obscene proportions, to have “just one thin mint.” The diner’s gut is already strained to the breaking point, and when he finally ingests the mint, his body explodes. -more-
Ralph needed a shower chair. The old one we’d purchased five years ago was broken. A wheel had fallen off and a metal support rod snapped. I had to get a new one ASAP. -more-
Electrical Blaze Damages Church -more-
In all of the arguing of which cuts to make and which projects to fund, it’s easy to lose sight of the long-range effects of cuts in service and in the commissions which oversee them. -more-
Last week the Daily Planet published an article by Zelda Bronstein regarding parking in Downtown Berkeley. Unlike Ms. Bronstein I am a resident of the downtown and I have worked downtown for the past nine years. -more-
“Nazis are bad; nuns are good.” That was my friend’s synopsis of The Sound of Music. The sentence could just as easily summarize much of the popular -more-
Is the Diebold Corporation, famous for hackable, paperless voting machines, trying to strangle election reform in Berkeley? Or are they merely greedy, lazy and incompetent? -more-
To a packed audience that over flowed into the corridors of an embarrassingly small venue, Antanas Mockus, the innovative two-term mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, spoke April 15 at the conference on “Violence and the Americas,” hosted by the Center for Latin American Studies. His talk on “Law Enforcement and Citizenship Building” focused largely on enlisting collective social disapproval and participatory stake holding—instead of legal penalties—to help shape civic behavior. While obviously proud of the reduction in violence experienced in the unruly capital city during his tenure, the ever humble and self-mocking former mayor gave only a hint of how his creative strategies have empowered Bogotá’s 7 million inhabitants—and how these ideas might be applied to beleaguered urban areas here in the US. -more-
LONDON—As U.S. and British forces entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and the Saddam Hussein regime crumbled, those who had been driven underground by Hussein’s rule began to breathe again. From Syria, Britain, Scandinavia and elsewhere, exiled trade union radicals began to make the long journey home. -more-
“The plain fact is that we are members one of another and that we are not living in accordance with the nature of things—That is, we are not living in accordance with the facts, if we think only our own thoughts, and sit nowhere ever except upon the lonesome throne of our own outlook,” University of California President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, told Berkeley students in 1907. -more-
The Eastenders Repertory Company is back on the boards in the East Bay at the Ashby Stage, after producing last year’s One Hundred Years of Political Theater at the Eureka Theater across the Bridge, with the premiere of WWJD? Some Good Old Medieval Morality Play Motor Oil, by San Jose playwright Scott Munson, running alternately with Eastenders Founding Artistic Director Charles Polly’s new play, A Knight’s Escape. -more-
Participants in a UC Berkeley “Words and Music” seminar led by composer William Bolcom, visiting Ernest Bloch lecturer in music, and poet (and UC professor) Robert Hass will present performances of their completed projects of what Bolcom has referred to as “the way words and music marry” in a Wed. May 4 afternoon reading and workshop, 2-5 p.m. at the recital hall in Morrison 125, and in a recital setting, incorporating more material (including electronic media), 8 p.m. Sat. May 14 at Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT), 1750 Arch St. The performances are open to the public; admission is free. -more-
Walking across the UC campus in mid-April, I noticed a couple of cliff swallows orbiting Hertz Hall and spotted a jug-shaped mud nest under the building’s eaves. I seem to recall a long-running battle between the swallows and the university’s maintenance crews which involved blasting the nests away with hoses. But the persistent birds keep coming back. -more-
Wild rumors that the City of Berkeley is about to sell its citizens down the river have been sweeping the city ever since the University of California opened the discussion of what its future plans for growth might be. We’ve had anguished voicemail messages from citizens who’ve picked up crumbs of information ever since last fall. Neither the much trumpeted City of Berkeley lawsuit challenging U.C.’s environmental impact report on its latest Long Range Development Plan nor the city’s threats that it would finally begin to collect sewer and parking fees from the university assuaged these anxieties. -more-
Facing a $30 million deficit, BART is considering charging passengers up to $5 a day for parking, and the stations most likely to see parking fees are in Berkeley and Oakland. -more-
