Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, made it a priority to tour Berkeley’s student-run Edible Garden at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School Monday as part of a week-long tour of the United States, in part devoted to exploring environmental issues, such as organic farming. 

Led by Chez Panisse owner Alice Waters, whose foundation funds and helps guide the garden, the tour included a viewing of the one-acre project, which teaches students about nutrition, community and stewardship.  

The royal couple visited students demonstrating an outdoor wood-fire oven to prepare pizzas, using ingredients harvested from the garden. In the kitchen they met students preparing a harvest soup. As Camilla left, she carried bouquets of flowers also harvested from the garden.  

“I’m honored that he came,” Waters said. “His visit gives the garden real legitimacy.” 

Waters said she and the Prince of Wales have discussed the possibility of trying to implement a similar model in schools throughout his country. 

“That’s where this needs to go,” she said. 

In typical Berkeley fashion, the royal couple were met by several groups who lined the streets outside the school to protest various issues. About two dozen members of the Ethiopian community gathered with signs and chants protesting British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s support for Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whom they accused of election fraud and human rights violations. Police paced the roofs of the school, keeping a watchful eye on the crowd. 

Among the people who gathered across the street was Dewi Zarni, 6, a first-grader at Berkwood Hedge Elementary, who sat on her mom’s shoulders and held a sign covered with little bugs that read “Make Gardens Not War.” When asked why all the bugs, she said, “Because war really bugs me.” 

Next to her, Tammy Borchert wore a bear suit to protest what her organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, says is the inhumane killing of Canadian black bears that are used to make the hats for the Royal Guard. 

Many others, however, were just out to see royalty. Neighbors sat on their porches and drank coffee and camera flashes started popping as soon as the couple got out of their car.  

On their way out of the garden Charles and Camilla passed by nervous students who lined up to shake hands. As the couple walked down the line, the middle school band serenaded them with jazz tunes. 

“It was pretty cool,” said Austin Perkins, a seventh-grade drummer in the band. “I’ll probably be the only one in my family to ever play for the Prince of England.”

The enormous photo of the distinguished young African-American man—dressed for success, as the saying goes—has disappeared from the front of the hangar at the entrance to the Oakland International Airport, along with the inferences that his success was linked to the type of gin he drank. 

Its replacement billboard—featuring a bottle and glass of cognac—is scheduled to be gone in a few weeks too, when its contracted run ends, to be replaced by automobile ads. 

For the time being, at least, the City of Oakland has won the battle to keep from being the home of one of the more conspicuous outdoor liquor advertisements in the country. But at least one city official says there is no guarantee that the victory will be anything but temporary, and alcohol industry watchdogs say that Oakland is still relatively powerless to do much more about the liquor and beer billboards still existing in the city. 

The problem began some two months ago when the original gin ad—as long as a football field— appeared on the airport hangar, visible above the flat marshes and runways to anyone driving to Oakland’s airport. It hit a nerve in a city where both violence and the image of violence is a continuing problem, particularly alcohol-induced violence among young African-American men. 

“I don’t want the biggest sign in the world for alcohol in Oakland,” said City Councilmember Jane Brunner. 

Joan Kiley, founder and director of the Berkeley-based Alcohol Policy Network of Alameda County, said that the problem with such high-profile billboards targeting young people in communities of color is the obvious. 

“It creates an environment where this targeted community feels like drinking is the ‘thing to do,’” she said. “That becomes a public health issue. When you see the kind of health disparities that are present between the larger community and the African-American community in particular and communities of color in general, you realize that these are communities which don’t need more encouragement to do something that is unhealthy.” 

It’s also an issue of crime and violence prevention, she added. 

“How many urban youth are currently locked up because of crimes committed under the influence?” she asked. “And there are plenty of studies on the direct connection between alcohol consumption and violence against women. It’s an astounding number. The alcohol companies should be sensitive on these issues. But they have a different set of priorities than we do. Ours is public health. Theirs is sales.” 

Kiley praised Oakland’s billboard-prevention efforts, saying that the city’s billboard regulation ordinance is a model across the country. 

“It came to being a decade ago because of the hard work of community advocates, but also because a lot of far-thinking businesses got on board after they realized it was in their overall best interest to have a better business climate in the city fostered by a better city image,” she said. 

Billboards at the airport are regulated by the Board of Port Commissioners, a seven-member body nominated by the mayor and approved by the City Council. In September, when the hangar ad issue first surfaced, Brunner got the council to pass a resolution to begin negotiations with the port to turn over billboard regulation to the city. If those negotiations fail, the resolution authorizes the city to begin drafting an amendment to the general plan to allow the billboard regulation takeover by statute. 

But Brunner concedes that even with the city in control over billboard regulation, the city is powerless to stop alcohol billboards on airport hangars. 

“Legally, we can’t ban them,” Brunner said. “Oakland has a statute that prevents alcohol billboards in proximity to churches and schools, but that’s all we can do. It’s a First Amendment issue. What we have is the power of persuasion. We can encourage the owners of these locations not to put up alcohol billboards. And we’ll be able to know in advance when and where these billboards are planned. One of the problems is that they’re just springing up, without the council’s knowledge until someone sees them on the road.” 

Meanwhile Oakland—which alcohol industry watchdogs say has one of the more stringent anti-liquor billboard ordinances in the country—can still do little more to reduce the number of liquor billboards around the city. 

A driving trip north from the airport towards downtown Oakland on I-880 shows beer billboards most conspicuously clustered near the High Street exit, an area of nagging violence and prostitution problems in the city. A little further north on the freeway, a driver can easily see a beer ad on a city street near the entrance of Laney Community College. 

Laurie Lieber, director of media advocacy for the Marin Institute, an industry watchdog, said getting rid of existing liquor and beer billboards is a challenge. 

“Even in situations where the city has the power to stop these billboards from coming in, the existing billboards are often grandfathered into the law, so you can’t put them out,” she said. “That’s why we counsel cities to be very careful about what types of advertising they allow on their streets. It’s difficult to go back, sometimes, and correct a problem even if cities believe they have made a mistake.” 

Lieber agreed with Brunner that billboard regulation has become a free speech issue. 

“But the First Amendment is not an absolute right,” she said. “And considering the public health aspects of the problem, you’d like to think that these alcohol ads would be the equivalent of yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater. It’s advocating something that is not in the best interest of the public health. But in recent years, the courts have broadened the concept of freedom of speech from purely political speech to become a protection for commercial speech.” 

?

Rising construction prices and economic realities have forced a redesign of the planned upgrade to Berkeley’s landmark Shattuck Hotel, developer Roy Nee said Monday. 

Nee’s plans to renovate the hotel and bring it under the Westin label have been hailed by city officials, who are eager to see a highly respected hotel brand in the city center. 

His initial renovation plans were embraced by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, but the increase in construction costs and the dictates of Berkeley’s economy have forced him to find a new architect and a financial partner, Nee said. 

“We fundamentally redesigned different areas of the project,” said Nee. 

The changes were necessary because the plans by Elida Doldan Schujuman of Mill Valley proved uneconomical when Nee looked more closely at his potential clientele, he said. Nee abandoned her design and sought out JG Johnson Architects of Denver, Colo., one of the nation’s leading hotel design firms and the architects of recent major resort projects in Santa Barbara, Aspen, Colo., and San Diego. 

“The problem is that the Berkeley area has its pricing limits, which are lower than for areas that are tourism destinations,” he said. “The main demand driver is the University of California, which has set per diems, and they’re what control the economics.” 

The new firm is redesigning the mass of the structure along Allston Way west of Shattuck Avenue, transforming the proposed two-floor connector between the main hotel building and the U.S. Postal Annex into a five-story structure, while reducing the planned vertical extension of the postal annex from four floors to three—although a fourth floor remains an option, Nee said Monday. 

“This shifts the volume of the building and will make the project more economical,” he said, adding, “It will still be a Westin hotel.” 

The revised plans will have to be resubmitted to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), which has purview over the designs because the building is a designed Berkeley landmark. 

“I hope that delays in the city approval process haven’t spoiled the chances to restore the downtown’s most prominent landmark,” said Leslie Emmington, an LPC member. 

City Planning Director Dan Marks said the hotel restoration “is a very high priority for the city. It’s a very exciting project and a potential revenue source for the city. It’s a wonderful old hotel we’d like to see done.” 

Marks confirmed that the new design will have to go back to the LPC, “but I don’t see any problems as long as they continue with their proposal to enhance and restore the hotel.” 

While a new design will add some time to the approval process, “we were finished with that in any case. It’s not like we’ll be starting over from scratch,” Marks said. 

The Shattuck Hotel opened on Dec. 15, 1910, as a square structure at the corner of Shattuck and Allston. It proved so successful that an annex was added, filling out the rest of the block along Shattuck to Kittredge Street, making it the longest structure in Northern California at the time. 

The solid, fireproof construction was designed with the 1906 earthquake in mind and proved a great attraction. The structure was declared a city landmark on May 16, 1983. 

Nee said the redesign process has been under way for about a month. 

The revised plans will maintain the hotel’s flavor and feel, he said, while giving the project a decent chance of economic success.ô

From the far end of the pier, the newest addition to Richmond’s Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park seemed, as it hung suspended from the crane of a tug barge, like an odd-shaped child’s toy dredged out of the bay waters being held up and examined by a curious beachcomber. 

It was only when you realized that the little figures scuttling on the dock below it are not sandcrabs but construction workers that you began to realize the enormous scale of the Whirley Crane, a revolving boxcar sitting on massive legs as tall as a 10-story building. 

The numbers in the handout given to press at the dock entrance—Weight: 229,000 pounds. Boom length: 110 feet. Lifting capacity: 166,000 pounds—didn’t fully convey the size of the machine towering above the onlookers. 

The Whirley Crane got its name not because of the speed of its movement—it probably moved carefully and deliberately because a single error could cost several lives—but because the crane could turn a full 360 degrees, thus allowing the boom to achieve a speed of operation as it went about several tasks. 

Sixty years ago, workers—many of them women—used to sit in the turret at the top of the Whirley Crane, operating the controls that caused the 110 foot boom to lift and assemble and put into place the massive sheets of iron that eventually became the cruisers and battleships that sailed out into the Pacific and helped win the naval war for the United States. 

Since then, the crane has sat rusting and isolated and all but forgotten on a pier on the Richmond docks. The crane was eventually donated to the City of Richmond by its owner, the Levin-Richmond Terminal Corporation, after a coalition of Rosie the Riveter National Park organizers came up with the idea that the crane would be a valuable addition to the park. 

On Friday of last week a handful of female former shipyard workers—now in their 80s and 90s—joined with Naval personnel, Richmond city officials and workers, National Park Service officers, construction workers, and various dignitaries to watch one of the last remaining Whirley Cranes take the short but logistically complicated barge ride down the harbor waters from Shipyard Number 1 and get placed in a site for permanent viewing at Richmond’s Shipyard No. 3 next to the docked SS Red Oak Victory, one of the last of those World War II era warships. 

While Friday’s ceremony was limited to a selected few for safety purposes related to the move and placement of the Whirley Crane, a public installation ceremony is being planned within a few months. 

Visitors can already tour the gray-painted Red Oak Victory, which is slowly being restored as a living memorial to the World War II war effort. A Naval officer involved with the restoration project said that while the Red Oak will never put out to sea again, it will eventually be shipshape enough to take limited sails up and down the bay. 

Now, in addition to seeing the warship, dockside visitors will also be able to walk past and examine a living example of one of the type of construction cranes that built it and, therefore, begin to get a small look back into an era that seems to dwarf all present human accomplishment. 

A National Park spokesperson said that the Whirley Crane “appears to be operational,” and that if it is, visitors may one day be able to see the turret revolve its full 360 degrees as it did during the shipbuilding years. 

Rosie the Riveter Trust president and Richmond City Councilmember Tom Butt, who was out of town Friday, said in a statement that the installation was “an unprecedented collaboration to save the Whirley Crane for posterity, to remind us of the single-minded and Herculean effort the home front generation made over 60 years ago.” 

›

Berkeley’s on-again off-again Veterans’ Day observance is back on, thanks to the withdrawal of a controversial participant. 

Berkeley’s “Country Joe” McDonald, the organizer of the event, had invited Bill Mitchell, a co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, to speak at Friday’s event. Mitchell's son, Army Sgt. Michael Mitchell, was killed in action in Baghdad’s Sadr City on April 4, 2004—the same day and place that the group’s more famous co-founder Cindy Sheehan lost her son, Army Spec. Casey A. Sheehan. 

Mitchell’s invitation rankled members of the Berkeley chapter of Disabled American Veterans (DAV), which responded by pulling out of the event. 

Mayor Tom Bates said he had talked to Mitchell, who informed him he had withdrawn from the Berkeley event to attend another event the same day in Santa Monica in which participants will carry caskets to mark the deaths of soldiers killed in Iraq. 

“Here the emphasis will be on honoring our veterans more than on protesting the war,” Bates said. “It’s a time to honor the dead and put politics on the back burner.” 

The program will still address issues involving the veterans’ community, he said. “We will speak to some of their issues, especially those facing homeless vets,” Bates said. 

Mitchell’s withdrawal was greeted with relief by Ed Harper, president of DAV Chapter 25 in Berkeley. 

“Now we’ll be able to honor our veterans the way we should,” Harper said. 

The Veterans’ Day commemoration will begin at 11 a.m. Friday at Civic Center Park, located off Martin Luther King Jr. Way between the old and new City Hall buildings. If rain intervenes, events will move indoors to the Veterans Memorial Building at 1931 Center St. 

Berkeley’s Planning Commission and the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) will each hold hearings this week on the draft environmental impact report (EIR) on the proposed new Berkeley Bowl. 

The site, at the southwest corner of the intersection of Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue in West Berkeley, has generated opposition from those who fear problems from traffic and the expansion of commercial zoning in the area. 

Public comments will be considered by the staff for possible consideration and inclusion in a final EIR that must be prepared before the city can act on the project. 

The Planning Commission meeting starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1900 Hearst Ave. The ZAB meeting starts at 7 p.m. Thursday in City Council Chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

The Planning Commission will also consider a report from city Housing Director Steve Barton on the Alameda County-wide Homeless and Special Needs Housing Plan. 

ZAB will also hear two wireless phone antennae proposals and two food service permit issues, one to establish a carry-out food service store at 2948 College Ave. and the other to extend the hours of an existing quick-service restaurant at 2548 Bancroft Way. 

—

Rejected in San Francisco, then spurned in Berkeley, Spaceship Earth is headed south. 

“It’s about time it found a landing place,” its creator, Finno-American sculptor Eino, said Monday. 

The sculpture, a 350,000-pound blue Brazilian quartzite sphere studded with bronze islands and continents, will be installed at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. 

In San Francisco, public arts officials rejected the orb as too big and unfitting for its honoree—renowned environmentalist David Brower. Berkeley then considered finding a home for it, while the sculpture itself, never assembled, languished in a warehouse at the Presidio. 

As a friend of both the Berkeley-born David Brower and Brian Maxwell, the late PowerBar founder who commissioned the work, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates embraced the idea of placing the sculpture in Berkeley. He asked the Civic Arts Commission (CAC) to find it a home. 

The first hints of trouble came at the CAC, where then-Commissioner Bonnie Hughes made clear her bemusement with the rush to adopt what she considered an aesthetically dubious creation. 

Hughes, who opposed the controversial piece on aesthetic grounds, expressed her frustration in one sentence when describing the meeting last year when all but two of her fellow commissioners voted to accept the statue: “How would you like to have a 350,000-pound political football tossed in your lap?” 

Eino used virtually the same words Monday. “It’s a 356,000-pound football politicians are kicking around,” he said, “and its honoring a great man.” 

Some folks still didn’t seem to take to the thing, and while the CAC searched for possible sites, each selection in turn met with rejection. UC Berkeley didn’t want the thing, and neither did neighbors of city parks selected as possible sites. The East Bay Regional Parks District nixed any sites in Tilden Park as inappropriate. 

The Parks and Recreation Commission turned thumbs down on a proposal to locate the sculpture in Ohlone Park on July 25. Other rejected possibilities were Aquatic Park and the Berkeley Marina. 

Eino and Brower’s family objected to the Aquatic Park site because speeding traffic did not seem the most appropriate honor to the environmentalist. 

“One of (David Brower’s) requirements was that the sculpture not be placed next to traffic. I told the mayor, but I don’t think he heard me,” said Eino. “I was also concerned about placing it on landfill and in an area with no security.” 

CAC Vice Chair David Snippen agreed. “It seems rather inappropriate to install a sculpture dedicated to an environmentalist on top of a landfill,” he observed. 

By the time it was over, the CAC’s Public Arts Committee had considered more than 30 sites. 

With the final acceptable Berkeley site off the table, Eino remembered his visit two-and-a-half years ago to Kennesaw State University, located 20 miles north of Atlanta, Ga., where he said his works had been enthusiastically received. 

College officials there had no qualms about perching a statue of Brower atop the sculpture, an element that Berkeley had considered removing, thus restoring the work to the sculptor’s original intent—a design Brower himself had approved. 

Eino said the decision on a new location had been left up to him. “I went to the school two years ago to lecture, and they were really excited when I showed them slides” of the work in progress, he said. 

“They have a very good ecology program, and the students really want to honor David Brower properly,” Eino said. “They have a perfect location, with a forest behind and looking down over the campus. 

If all goes well, Spaceship Earth will be unveiled at its new and permanent home on Earth Day 2006.  

So Berkeley will just have to be content with a far larger monument, the five-story David Brower Center planned for construction at the corner of Oxford Street and Allston Way. 

Mayor Tom Bates said Monday that he was sad to see the sculpture go. 

“We just couldn’t find a place for it here in Berkeley,” he said. “It was a large globe, and hard to place. It’s too bad, but the Maxwell family felt it wasn’t welcome here. It’s unfortunate, but we have to move on.”

Rape attempt arrest 

Police have arrested a suspect in the attempted Oct. 28 rape of a 47-year-old woman in an alleyway in the 2000 block of Shattuck Avenue, said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

The 45-year-old suspect was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping for the purpose of a sex crime. 

Fracas busts 

A spat between a couple in the vicinity of Hearst Avenue and Sacramento Street early Thursday afternoon ended with both parties in custody. One was booked on suspicion of domestic partner abuse for landing a punch and the other was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon for escalating the fray with a broom handle. 

Rat pack attack 

Six youths aged between 14 and 16 robbed at 15-year-old of his cash near the corner of Regent and Oregon streets a few minutes before 5 p.m. Thursday, said Officer Okies. 

The gang remains at large. 

Kidnap and robbery 

Police are seeking the man who kidnapped a woman shortly before 8 a.m. Friday in an attempted robbery. 

Soon after the crime was reported, a Berkeley police officer stopped the car in question, and when the officer tried to question the driver, he sped off, striking the officer. 

The officer escaped with minor injuries, but the incident added yet another felony—assault with a deadly weapon—to the kidnapping charge facing the man. 

The victim was not in the car at the time of the stop, said Officer Okies, and she is currently in a safe location know to police, he said. 

“It doesn’t appear to be a random incident,” said the officer. “The parties were apparently known to each other.”›

To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit  

www.jfdefreitas.com To search for previous cartoons by date of publication, click on the Daily Planet Archive.

›

OREGON STREET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I applaud the efforts of Paul Rauber and 13 of his neighbors to rid their neighborhood once and for all of a drug house. 

With all due respect to Ms. Prichett, while it is certainly true that racism does still exist towards blacks in our society, and there are educationally and economically disadvantaged black youths in South Berkeley and a lot of other places, Paul Rauber and his neighbors have the right to live in a neighborhood free of all the elements a drug house brings on the scene. We have heard so much about the racism and the economic and educational disadvantage, but there is absolutely no reason for Mr. Rauber and his neighbors to have to wait for social solutions to their problem when they have obviously waited too long as it is! 

Frank Rivers 

Oakland 

• 

NIGHTMARE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am an active Berkeley Progressive, no more racist than the average white progressive, and one who has been generous in providing shelter to my homeless friends, black and white, throughout my tenure in Berkeley. I am flagrantly anti having to live near any house or liquor store where drug taking and drug sales can flourish. I have even become anti SSI government housing because of absentee landlords who let the rest of us deal with the addictive, drug-selling tenant and his multiple friends who come and go all night long. For those of you who have not lived near such a house as Mrs. Moore’s is reputed to be—and she is probably the best of women—you have not experienced one of the true nightmares of life in America. I recommend it and bring your fine progressive values, your hard work and your children—white, black, Latino, South East Asian—it won’t matter. You can participate with all of us in an ongoing hell, that feels too often like a war zone with the enemy close at hand instead of like a home in a time of peace. After seeing that we were serious about bringing a civil suit, our absentee landlord has reformed and no longer takes in SSI tenants. Which is a shame to be sure since most SSI tenants are also hard-working, good people such as ourselves. But what a difference a suit can make for the rest of us—no matter who owns the house. This is life in many parts of America—and minority peoples have to suffer this life far more than the average humanistically hearted well educated Berkeleyan. Does it sound as though I’m anti-white progressive? Oh, dear. 

Sara DeWitt 

• 

DEMOCRACY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We attempt to sell democracy to the world while we often ignore its values at home. Leo Stegman, Berkeley paralegal, who is attempting to aid Ms. Moore, points out that “the time, effort and energy put into this lawsuit would be better spent getting all the parties and relevant agencies together to find a common sense non-litigious solution.”  

He is correct in pointing out that forced litigation or even banishment is being used as a first step in this neighborhood dispute, rather than a last one, ignoring the available rational and moral democratic procedures of mediation. All parties in this encounter need to be heard. 

We teach our children non-violent solutions to conflict. Just as Rosa Parks taught the nation, conflict resolution can reach far beyond the “neighborhood,” and be the first step in reminding us again how democracy is supposed to work. 

Gerta Farber 

• 

PLEASE VOTE TODAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I hope that the Daily Planet will publish a front-page article today encouraging everyone to vote. Progressive areas such as Berkeley and Oakland need to have a high voter turnout in order to help defeat Gov. Schwarzenegger’s right-wing agenda. 

If you need to find your polling place, you can call the Alameda County Registrar of Voters at 272-6973, or you can enter your address and zip code on the League of Women Voter’s website at: www.smartvoter.org. 

If you want to read some online analysis, I recommend the Green Party’s or the Bay Guardian’s. (They both urge a no vote on Propositions 73 through 78, and a yes vote on Proposition 79. The Guardian recommends a “Yes” vote on Proposition 80 while the Green Party does not make an endorsement.) 

In any case please vote today—and help stop the Governator! 

Greg Jan 

Oakland 

• 

WHITE NOISE, WHITE PAPER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

According to the Daily Planet, Berkeley Community Media (BCM) is attempting to dramatize a possible existential threat to its being by intermittently broadcasting a state of nothingness. It is difficult to decide if this action represents nascent insanity in certain ideological quarters or is simply an expression of typical infantile petulance whenever a supposed entitlement is threatened. Granted the notion that the “corporate” or for profit media has a fundamental moral obligation to subsidize and facilitate the dissemination of a viewpoint whose avowed goal is the destruction of those same corporate media conglomerates fits nicely into the old pseudo-Marxist concept that “the capitalists will sell (donate?) the rope that hangs them.” 

However, it is surprising that a comrade in arms such as the Berkeley Daily Planet has apparently not yet thought fit to express its profound solidarity with BMC in its shared struggle against the monolithic corporate media. 

Imagine what a powerful statement it would make if the Daily Planet were to publish at a loss a full-length completely blank issue to underscore the snow job foisted on a gullible public by a corporate media beholden to the neo-con Bush/Schwarzenegger regimes! Imagine the awesome public symbolism of the blank white pages of a free newspaper representing all of the innumerable white lies obscuring the disastrous consequences of a government of billionaires, by billionaires and for billionaires only! The longer the Planet’s “whiteout” were to continue, the more blank issues that hit the newsstand, the greater the sacrifice for truth and accuracy in media.  

Finally, to counter the objection that using up so much blank newsprint would be too wasteful and environmentally irresponsible even for such an important symbolic statement as this, the Planet could perhaps find a way to produce these blank issues in sturdy perforated toilet tissue so that those who pick up an issue won’t let it go to waste (so to speak). Who knows, it may even find its way into a litter box or two as well as the hallowed Free Box at People’s Park where it would doubtless find many creative applications. 

Edna Spector 

• 

DOWNTOWN PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a fairly new repeat resident of Berkeley and am trying to get a sense of this wonderfully diverse city after all these years of being away. 

One of the most interesting events to occur in the recent past was the on-again, off-again lawsuit filed by the city against the University of California’s new downtown development plan. Later we learned of the settlement of the lawsuit after secret negotiations and no public input. 

This seems to be a very big deal to me, and yet there is very little public discourse on the subject. So, interested Berkeleyans should know that a forum is planned this month to give a platform to some of those who oppose the settlement to present their positions. The public is welcome to attend the free meeting at the Alternative High School Multi-Purpose Room on MLK Jr. Way, Monday evening, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. 

Corrine Goldstick 

• 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Marilyn Boucher’s commentary should be read and reflected on deeply by the members of the Board of Education. Marilyn’s assessment is accurate and the message of caution critical before yet another reform is approved. Stay the course, follow the site plan, and assess the effectiveness of the stated goals first. 

Most importantly, create resource periods for those students below proficiency, especially reading instruction. And please require teachers to use progress-reporting software so we parents can be properly informed. We cannot do right by our kids without knowing what is happening in the classroom. Help us do our jobs so we can make sure our kids are engaged and succeed before you add another useless class period called advisory period. 

Laura Menard 

• 

CLEAN WATER ACT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The biggest threat facing this country today is President Bush’s rollback of the Clean Water Act, which preserves clean water around the country. The president’s action will result in producing dirty water in the bays, canals, rivers, lakes and oceans due to actions by the oil, gas, and chemical companies who got permission from the president to do their business without any regard to that law. 

This president poses to be a moral person which he isn’t. A true moral president wouldn’t let water be polluted in favor of greed. People who are concerned about preserving clean water should fight every attempt by this president to roll-back further laws protecting it. 

Billy Trice, Jr. 

• 

A SOLUTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have what I believe to be a rather elegant solution to the continuing turmoil between the residents of Berkeley and its resident university. Under my proposal, all the residents (excluding those whom older residents deem “Berkeley babies” and “students”) of Berkeley assemble a committee, complete with a subsequent pro-protest, with the stated purpose to bring a special election to the city, a “Vote for Berkeley” if you will. Voting yes on such a ballot would authorize the city to completely raze its university’s campus, starting with that gaudy Barrows building and the dangerous Evans Hall. The law would further authorize the city to blow up any building the residents declare to be “of entertaining interest” and tickets sold to cover costs. Sather Tower could bring an absolute windfall to the cash-strapped city coffers. 

Of course, the city must then be renamed in order to fully erase the memory of its least grateful institution: I propose that a list be drawn together by concerned residents and the name be democratically elected by the same (Peaceland, Pottersville or Sequoia are all worthy contenders). Above all, this name must reflect the diverse opinions of this great city without offending anyone. “Castrated Neutrality and Inoffence” would therefore be our credo and written on civic structures of merit. Thus, citizens could simply point to our greatest monuments instead of speaking when confronted with an uncomfortable prejudiced statement. 

Once all the professors are sent packing and students ordered out of this newly minted land, the residents could then build at will upon the old campus grounds (fascist hamlet), perhaps a prodigious bust of a coffee cup, or an incessant “squeaky wheel” installation could accompany the “corporation-free tree.” 

Any attempt for outside revenue (i.e., tourists or right-wing fanatics as the city’s constitution would now refer to them) will be sharply curtailed. An Achillean picket wall, complete with slogans and bumper stickers would be built around the city to further discourage these fanatics from entering over the borders to see all the world-class stuff that our city has to offer, chiefly “odor.” 

With one single vote tally, we can live freely in unobtrusive peace, without supporting a tumerous [sic] center of education sapping away our valuable resources and destroying Berkeley’s way of life. 

Kyle Strom 

• 

ISRAEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’d like very much to start one of those back-and-forth battle of letters a la The Nation magazine in which people passionately respond to responses of responses, etc. Let’s start off: I’m truly persuaded that Jews deserve a homeland because throughout history they’ve been successfully butchered. There seems to be this unexplained thing about being a Jew, which historically puts them in jeopardy. Okay, the U.S. backed Israel during the Cold War with lots of money. Blame the U.S., not Israel. Jews are more reasonably paranoid about being in jeopardy than any other ethnic group in the history of civilization. Prove me wrong. Israel is the best answer to the holocaust of the last 2,000 years of rabid, lethal anti-Semitism. Even left-wing Jews must feel at least a little trickle of sympathy for the State of Israel, i.e., for their right to exist. Here’s an analogy: African Americans know that when the chips are down, white folks are going to start talk about “niggers” and how they are the problem; and by the same token, so-called white folks, when the chips are down, are going to start talking about “kikes,” and how they are the problem. Remember, Adolph did it.  

Robert Blau 

• 

CHAMBER’S PICKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a member of the Government Affairs Committee of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and a co-owner of a small business here, I share Andy Ross’ displeasure with the positions adopted by the chamber’s board on the ballot initiatives on the upcoming ballot. The Government Affairs Committee is charged with reviewing the ballot and making recommendations to the full chamber board. A small handful of chamber members participated in the meetings, which resulted mostly in “no recommendation” since there weren’t enough members present and voting to achieve a yes or no position. For those of us who don’t believe that the governor and the state Chamber of Commerce know what’s best for Berkeley, this was a frustrating experience that needs to change. 

The Government Affairs Committee meetings are open to any member of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce who will take the time to come and vote on recommendations to the full board. The board meetings are also open to all chamber members though only members of the board are eligible to vote on endorsements. So you don’t like the positions your Chamber of Commerce is taking? You can make a big stink without quitting the chamber. Come join me at a few meetings and make a big stink there. You’ll be in good company. 

Elisabeth Jewel 

AJE Partners 

• 

IRAQ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Why another op-ed piece? And Why from a women’s group? After all everyone in the U.S. already knows: Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11. American dead now total nearly 2,000. To quote Donald Rumsfeld, “The lethality, however, is up.” Many of our soldiers lack adequate equipment. Bush has been closing veterans’ hospitals and cutting benefits. We have no exit strategy. And as to U.S. support of a democratic constitution in Iraq: A former C.I.A. Middle East specialist, Reuel Marc Gerecht, said on “Meet the Press,” “I mean, women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.” 

Yes, everyone knows all this, but there are other facts not as well known.  

According to UNICEF, one in four Iraqi children under five years of age is chronically malnourished. One in eight children die before their fifth birthday.  

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. No one disputes that. There was no political freedom. But it’s also true that in 1970, the Iraqi constitution, under Hussein, declared all women and men equal before the law. Women in Iraq became among the most educated and professional in the entire region, and working outside the home became the norm. 

After the 1991 Gulf War and economic embargoes were applied, living conditions for women in Iraq began to deteriorate. The declining economy caused many women to lose their jobs and abandon their education. Girls and women today are now facing a major learning gap, and there has been a sharp decline in adult female literacy. 

The country is in chaos. Violence is increasing. Let’s bring our troops home before more die. 

Nancy Ward 

Oakland/East Bay 

National Organization for Women 

• 

CORRUPTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The news in today’s paper alone (Nov. 5) should be enough to show anyone that Bush’s administration is corrupt: politically, economically, and morally. 

Where millions of people rallied around us after 9/11, today, they are protesting against our president wherever he goes. 

Today, the U.N. International Advisory and Monitoring Board recommended that the U.S. (we taxpayers) should pay over $200 million to Iraq to compensate for price gouging and shoddy work performed by our vice president’s former employer, Halliburton, which received $7 billion of our tax money through no-bid contracts. 

Yesterday, it was revealed that the vice president initiated and encouraged the export of U.S. prisoners to torture chambers in other countries. Today, Cheney is working to exempt the CIA from anti-torture legislation. Americans who believe that we stand for high moral values are being denigrated by our own government. 

In today’s news, the president’s Supreme Court nominee is revealed to have opposed the special prosecutor who ultimately uncovered a previous administration’s wrongdoing: secretly selling weapons to Iran’s terrorist regime in order to support Contra terrorists in Central America. Also in today’s news, Bush’s nominee, Judge Alito, was discovered to have ruled in a mutual fund case in which he owned nearly $400,000 of the company’s funds. Can justice be any more corrupted? 

Finally, after ignoring the problem of global warming and cutting the funds for reinforcing New Orleans’ levees, the Bush administration wants the people of Louisiana, who suffered the loss of an entire city from Hurricane Katrina, to pay $3.7 billion to FEMA. 

Those conservatives who have honest integrity can no longer deny that Bush’s administration is rotten, and is rotting our country. 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

LONG’S DRUGS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Had you passed by early the other morning, you might have wondered why Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Sherlock Holmes were standing in front of the new Long’s Drug Store in Downtown Berkeley, scratching their heads. 

Previously, as the interior installation of the store at Shattuck and Bancroft progressed, passers-by were struck by the noticeably awkward layout of the store. Neighbors had watched the landlord install expensive, heavy, glass display windows only to see the interior of the drug store designed to turn its posterior or “rear end” to the street. 

Why in the world was the new store purposely presenting such an unsightly view to the public? Some serious sleuthing was needed, so Sherlock was called in. Well, he soon found that Long’s had wanted to cover the windows but the city, insisting on the adaptive reuse integrity of the historical landmark, required that their windows match those of the other shops in the building. 

But, still, how to explain the unsightly display featuring the derrieres of the staff? Sherlock decided it was a case for Sigmund and Karl, who are always eager to pay a visit to Berkeley. 

After the one early-morning consultation, Freud and Marx agreed that the explanation was embarrassingly obvious. That is to say, to act out their resentment of authority and flaunt their arrogant sense of capitalist entitlement, Long’s chose to use the bodies of the workers to expose their corporate backside to the city and the people of Berkeley. 

Who knew you could moon while fully clothed? 

Bonnie Hughes?

“The EIR [environmental impact report] is to demonstrate to an apprehensive citizenry that the agency has, in fact, analyzed and considered the ecological implications of its action.”  

—California Environmental Quality  

Act Guidelines, Section 15003.  

When I heard last spring that the Berkeley Planning Department had chosen Fehr & Peers consultants to do the transportation analysis for the environmental impact report [EIR] on the West Berkeley Bowl, I was dumbfounded.  

Fehr & Peers prepared the preliminary traffic study on the Bowl for the city. They estimated that the proposed 90,000-square-foot new Bowl would generate 38,950 new vehicle trips a week, and that those 38,950 new trips would not adversely affect the environment in any significant way. Just stick a stoplight and a count-down pedestrian signal and crosswalk at San Pablo and Heinz (the Bowl is proposed to go in at 920 Heinz Ave.), they said, and everything will be hunk dory. Based on that conclusion, the city’s planning staff issued a Mitigated Negative Declaration. Translated from the planners, that means: “No Environmental Impact Report Required.”  

Only after Fear & Peers’ data and analysis were subsequently challenged by an independent civil and traffic engineer hired by the West Berkeley Traffic and Safety Coalition (TASC) did the city’s planning department call for an EIR.  

I cheered that move. (Disclosure: I’m a member of TASC.) But I was bewildered by the choice of Fehr & Peers as the traffic consultants for the EIR. They’d bungled the preliminary analysis. Didn’t that raise major doubts about their competence?  

I posed this question to two environmental lawyers. To my surprise and consternation, they both said no, at least not as far as California courts are concerned.  

One of my legal advisers was Trent Orr, Counsel to Earthjustice (formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund). Emphasizing that he was addressing CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act] standards in general and not the case of the Berkeley Bowl, Mr. Orr said: “It’s very unlikely that the court would find any significance in the city’s using the same expert. So long as the individuals who worked on the EIR study are qualified traffic experts and addressed whatever issues were raised about the negative declaration study, CEQA law indicates that the city is entitled to rely on their conclusions.”  

But what authorizes the experts hired by the city is not only their professional credentials and their having addressed the environmental issues at hand. Their authority also derives from the very fact that they have been hired by the local authority that’s responsible for determining whether EIR should be certified and the associated project approved.  

In the face of a legal challenge to the substance of a certified EIR, California courts, citing the constitutional separation of powers as well as their own lack of environmental expertise, habitually defer to the local agency that certified the report and approved the project associated with it. Ruling in the 1990 case Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors, the California Supreme Court explained: “We may not substitute our judgment for that of the people and their local representatives.”  

Even if the challengers to a certified EIR put forward, say, a traffic study by a qualified expert that reaches the opposite conclusion to the study underlying the EIR; and even if the traffic study done by the challengers’ experts supports its contrary conclusion with lots of credible evidence; the courts will rule in favor of the agency that certified the EIR, assuming that the agency had employed a qualified traffic expert who addressed the issues at hand. “Lawsuits against EIRs,” said Trent Orr, “are generally only successful when the challenger can show that the agency failed to consider some significant impact altogether.”  

The California Supreme Court put it this way: “The court does not pass upon the correctness of an EIR’s environmental conclusions, but only determines if the EIR is sufficient as an informational document.” Sufficiency is evidenced by “adequacy, completeness, and a good-faith effort at full disclosure”—not correct conclusions.  

What, then, moved the city to reject the negative declaration on the Bowl and demand an EIR? The standards for challenging a negative declaration are much lower than those standards for challenging an EIR. If a negative declaration is challenged in court, and (again citing Mr. Orr) “the plaintiffs can show that there is any evidence that supports a fair argument that the project may have one or more significant environmental impacts,” the court will order “an EIR to be prepared before the project can be lawfully approved.”  

(I assume that the Berkeley planning staff looked at the critique of the Fehr & Peers analysis that was done by the independent traffic engineer hired by the West Berkeley Traffic and Safety Coalition, and realized that if the case went to trial, there was a good chance that the court would order the city to do an EIR on the Bowl.)  

But, Mr. Orr added, “Once the approval agency agrees, as they did with the Berkeley Bowl project, to prepare an EIR,” thereby “admit[ting] that the project does pose some potentially significant impacts[,] and examines those impacts, the standard of review is reversed to favor the agency that prepared the EIR.”  

So much for scientific objectivity and scrupulous expertise. According to the CEQA Deskbook, a standard reference on the subject, an EIR is “a Bridge between Science and Politics.” A better analogy, it seems, would be a bridge between Politics and Politics, especially when you consider that under CEQA, even when an EIR has concluded that a proposed development has the potential to wreak significant damage on the environment, that project can be approved by the lead agency on the basis of “overriding considerations”—for example, the need for more roads, more tax revenues or more housing.  

Though I believe that it’s always better to know what you’re up against, I hesitated to write this column, for fear that it would incline Berkeley citizens to give up on the EIR process. A cynical— or should I say, realistic—observer might conclude that Fehr & Peers didn’t bungle the preliminary traffic report after all. Instead, they arrived at the very conclusions that, they knew, the Bowl’s owners (who have paid for all the environmental studies on the project) and city staff expected.  

So why bother grappling with the mystifying and labyrinthine procedures mandated by the California Environmental Quality Act if it all comes down to political expediency?  

One reason EIRs are worth the effort is that they buy time—time for citizens to learn about the project, to educate others in the community, and if necessary to hire their own experts. Moreover, done with integrity, as they would be in a city with a conscientious planning and legal staff, EIRs can result in better, which is to say, more environmentally respectful development.  

The surest way to get a conscientious staff is to elect a mayor and council who demand integrity. “The EIR process,” says the State of California’s CEQA Guidelines, “will enable the public to determine the environmental and economic values of their elected and appointed officials[,] thus allowing for appropriate action come election day should a majority of the voters disagree.”  

Of course, by election time, it’s probably too late to improve or stop a particular project. But it’s not too late to take “appropriate action” at the ballot box. Berkeley’s next municipal election is in November 2006, a date we should all keep in mind when the Bowl and its EIR come before the city council early next year.  

“I brought my rap sheet,” he says. 

“What?” I ask. 

“I brought my rap sheet for you to see,” he answers. 

“I don’t want to see your rap sheet.” 

“But it’s important,” he says. “It is something you must know about me.” 

I watch him as he fumbles with the zippers on his scruffy backpack. He’s a very large man and his movements are clumsy. He breathes heavily as he bends forward, digging inside the bag. The chair he sits on appears too small to hold him. Hell, my entire dining room seems too small, as if the walls have suddenly collapsed in upon us. I feel hot, squeezed. 

“Here,” he says, looking up at me, leaning back in the too-small chair, smiling at his success at finding his papers. He opens a manila folder and offers its content to me. “Look carefully. You will see what I have done. It is important that you know.” 

I’ve never seen a rap sheet before. The papers he hands me are folded, stapled and paper clipped together, creased and wrinkled. I unfold them. It looks like a well-read manuscript printed on legal-size paper. As soon as my eyes hit the first page they begin to swim. 

“Too much information,” I say, handing the papers back to him. 

“I will show you,” he says kindly. He leans forward in the chair, takes the papers from me, and thumbs through them quickly. 

“Let me get my glasses,” he says. He reaches into the backpack again, and pulls out a pair of cheap, dime store bifocals. The frames are clunky and black. They magnify his eyes. 

“Look here,” he says, shuffling the papers again, pointing to the top of the second page with a soiled, thick finger. “Soliciting.” 

“Soliciting what?” I ask. 

“Drugs,” he says. 

“What kind of drugs?” 

“Cocaine, crack, weed. But it don’t matter. What matters is the date. See the date up here in the corner?” He taps the top left side of the page with his knuckle. 

I squint. 

“Nineteen-ninety-four,” he says. “Almost 10 years ago.” 

“Eleven,” I say. 

“Si,” he answers enthusiastically. “Eleven, exactly. A long time ago, don’t you think?” 

I shrug. “And the others?” 

“All a long time ago,” he says, flipping rapidly through the ragged sheets. 

“Two in 1995, one in 1996, three or four in 1997. Some for soliciting, some for public drunkenness, vagrancy, possession, pimping. And then.” 

He pauses. I wait. 

“And then no more,” he shouts triumphantly. “They finally put me in jail. I clean up. I go to rehab when I get out. Meetings every morning, every night, and sometimes in the afternoons. I get a job. I take care of sick people like your husband. I don’t do drugs no more. I’m clean.” 

He looks at me. I stare down at my hands, study the blue veins and brown spots. 

“I’m clean,” he repeats, staring straight ahead at some unknown space above my head. “And I’ve found Jesus, our lord and savior. He forgives me for all my mistakes. He say to me, come senor, make a new start. You can do this.” 

There is a momentary silence between us. 

“All right,” I say quietly. “Can you start tomorrow?” 

“Si,” he says. He smiles. “Tomorrow will be good.” 

I know that he knows I’m desperate for his help. 

“And don’t show me those rap sheets anymore,” I say, rising from my chair, trying to regain some control. “I don’t want to see or think about them ever again.” 

“Of course,” he says, shoving the papers back inside his bag. He follows me to the front door, past the hospital bed where my husband lies perfectly still, sleeping. Outside on the sidewalk we shake hands. 

“But I must tell you,” he says, swinging the backpack onto his left shoulder, “these papers I carry are of importance, you know? They are a record of where I’ve been, the bad things I done to myself, to other people, but also, they tell the story of what I’ve overcome. You see what I’m saying? There’s beauty in that, señorita.”n

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a female student at Berkeley High School. I am writing about my strong disapproval of Proposition 73. As I’m sure you know, Prop. 73 states that before an abortion can be given, a minor’s parents must be contacted and there must be a 48-hour lag period. In my opinion, this proposition is unfair, dangerous and very biased. No female wants her parents to know that she’s having sex, let along that she’s pregnant. 

Confidential abortions help many teenagers get out of an “unwanted” situation. I know three teens who have gotten abortions. When I confronted them about the idea of notifying their parents, they had this to say: “That’s crazy! My parents tell me all the time if I get pregnant I would be dead or kicked out.” 

Prop. 73 is dangerous because many teens will get illegal abortions or try to harm themselves to have a miscarriage. In addition, this is a biased proposition because parents are voting! And what parent do you know who’s gonna say they wouldn’t want to know if their child was getting an abortion. 

So basically Prop. 73 is very unfair to teens such as myself. I hope my letter will persuade your vote and many others. 

Tiara Swearington 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Proposition 73 is not subject to enough debate. By this I mean that there is not enough voter awareness of this controversial issue. Prop. 73 states that “a physician shall not perform an abortion upon a pregnant unemancipated minor until after the physician . . . has provided written notice to a parent or guardian . . . and a reflection period of at least 48 hours has elapsed.” 

This proposition raises many unanswered questions. For instance, what happens if a pregnant girl is too scared to have her parents find out that she’s having a baby and goes underground to get an abortion from unqualified people? Or maybe she is uncertain of her parents’ reaction and delays the abortion decision, making it more dangerous to have the operation as each day passes?  

These are just some of the questions raised by this proposition. The bottom line is, are we helping teenage girls with this proposition or are we merely putting them in more danger? The worst part about Prop. 73 is that not enough people know about it to think it through clearly; they are likely to vote yes just because it looks better on paper. 

As a student at Berkeley High School, I know that sometimes people make bad decisions. And when someone makes a wrong decision or is affected by someone else’s bad decision, should you help them, or make matters worse? 

Daron Lin 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a freshman at Berkeley High, and I am writing because I do not agree with Proposition 73. 

Proposition 73 states that in order for a girl under 18 to get an abortion, she must notify her parent/guardian 48 hours in advance. This proposition may sound like a good idea. Parents rightfully want to be involved in their teenager’s lives and to be included if there is a crisis, for example, an unplanned pregnancy. But you have to consider the girl’s safety. They may be afraid of being physically harmed or disowned. Girls who don’t tell their parents might even get back-alley abortions.  

This law isn’t helping anybody but the parents/guardians. Everybody under 18, who it actually affects, doesn’t have a say in it. All we can do is explain our thoughts on the situation and hope we sway enough voters in our favor. 

Ian Stewart 

›

My first admonition is given as a citizen looking for better governance—everyone should vote yes on 77, the redistricting initiative. Really, this is not a conservative/liberal issue. The Legislature is, as currently constituted, a total failure. It is unable to grapple with the problems of California. The main reason this is so is that competition for seats has been rendered moot by gerrymandering. This causes candidates of both parties to migrate to the extremes because the extreme groups of both parties’ bases choose the candidates. There is no penalty for stupid voting behavior by legislators. We need to change that. Both parties are guilty of this, and there is a lot of moaning and groaning from politicians about how this is bad for California. Bullshit. California desperately needs a better-functioning Legislature. Vote yes on this one even if you hate Arnold.  

Yes on Prop. 73: Waiting period for minors seeking abortion 

Abortion is not a pretty thing, though I am generally pro choice for adults. Minors are different. As a father I would like to be notified in such a case. It seems only common sense. I have to fill out umpteen forms at school to have Tylenol administered but she can get an abortion without telling me? Common sense—vote yes.  

Yes on Prop. 74: Teacher tenure  

I have thought about this for a good while. Millions of California’s poor school-age kids are caught in a cycle of poverty. A primary cause of that is poor schools. The quickest way to benefit millions of poor kids (listen up liberals—this is true) is to improve the schools—education is the key to success. The main block to this is not money. It is clear that throwing money at education does not really lead to much improvement in schools. Breaking the power of the teachers union to dictate working conditions, pay scales based on seniority, protecting bad teachers, work rules that prevent positive change etc., etc. The list goes on and on and is a small first step. Everyone else works in the marketplace, where if you screw up or you are lousy at your job there are consequences. Not if you are a teacher. It is more than reasonable that teachers wait an extended period to see if they are capable at their profession before earning tenure that other workers don’t get. Vote yes.  

Yes on Prop. 75: Paycheck protection  

This is the clearest conservative/liberal conflict on the ballot. Wise people can differ on this one. One thing is for sure: The public employee unions will eat California out of house and home. Government is an organized lobbying group for more government. Just look at the prison guards’ union—pathetic. How about the teachers, the nurses, etc., etc. The list is long and they all want more money from the state government. It is also true that many of these unions are ruled by liberal elites that are unresponsive not only to the public good but also to their own membership. Many members of these unions (like mine, I am a member of the Coalition of University Employees) are heavily leftist/liberal in orientation and don’t much care if a substantial portion of their membership doesn’t agree with this. I plan to vote yes, but I release all of you to vote as your conscience suggests.  

Yes on Prop. 76: State spending limits  

Look folks, California is broke. State government spends too much and can’t seem to control itself. Economic growth would be better stimulated by a state government that grew in size in a predictable way along with the growth of the state. There is no reason, in my view, that education should have first call on state funds. Education is important, very important, but so are other priorities. I think this vote should be obvious—vote yes.  

Yes on Prop. 77: Redistricting (see above) 

No on Props. 78 and 79: Discounts on drugs  

I am suspicious of both of these. Frankly, I find dueling propositions to be boring and suspicious and I tend to vote no on both. Prop. 79 seems the worse to me because it vests too much power in state bureaucrats. No matter how much people may believe that the government can do anything it wants, in fact the State of California can’t manipulate and go against markets for very long and be successful. If I were to vote yes on one it would be 78. However, California is broke and can’t afford to subsidize drugs or create a new state bureaucracy. Vote no on both.  

No on Prop. 80: Electric regulation  

More state regulation of the electric industry is not going to help California. The State of California is not going to create cheaper electricity by fiat or by burdensome regulation. We need more power plants, period. We need more gas power, we need more solar power and we may even need more nuclear power. Let’s start building some new plants. What we don’t need is state government trying to remove more and more of the influence of the marketplace from the electrical business. The State of California can’t do much right and I can just bet that it will not be able to “solve” the electrical problem by more regulation. Yes, the old regulation scheme was flawed; let’s fix it not over regulate it. Flogging the dead horse of Enron will not solve our problems. Californians want power up the ying yang, but they don’t want power plants. It don’t work that way. Vote no. 

Berkeley resident Alan Swain holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.  

Ideology does count. What is the common thread running through our nation’s current war on terror (see Iraq) and the efforts of a neighborhood (see Oregon Street) to rid itself of undesirables? An ideology drummed into us from those that write the script and produce the show says that our problems stem from evil people (see others) that look and act different, that don’t follow the rules, and that act contrary to our standards. These evil doers should be controlled or eliminated by force or violence. This ideology is the basic tool, used by the directors of this show to contain and control popular discontent during periods of severe public service cutbacks while increasing spending for the military, the police, and the prison system. The current administration used the 9/11 tragedy to round up a posse and go take out a dictator they did not like and who stood on some prime real estate. We need to do something to protect our homeland we were told. Get the evil doers. It’s simple and direct, black and white, American as apple pie. Don’t be detracted by complexity and nuance. It just enables the evil doers. We went along because we were hysterical. Now we are more than a little embarrassed and confused by a very complex Iraqi intervention. It doesn’t work in Iraq and it won’t work in Berkeley. 

The same dynamic can be seen working right here at home. Our lives, our families, and our homes are under attack by people who look and act different and who don’t follow the rules. To get rid of this scourge we are told to form neighborhood groups (see posse) and to work closely with the police and the courts, two well-funded institutions these days. If this would curtail drug activity in our neighborhoods then, as Paul Rauber says, “I think we’d all be pretty damn happy.” Not all of us would be happy, Paul. For starters the many relatives and friends of Lenora Moore would have even fewer resources to work with. Are they all drug dealers? Or is it guilt by association? I suspect the ripple effect would be widespread. Possibly even more folks would be forced into illegal activities to avoid abject poverty. Many would go to poorer and less organized neighborhoods to ply their trade. I know a neighborhood in West Oakland where they could feel at home. If only the folks on Oregon Street could put up a gate to keep out the undesirables from filtering back in. How do we tell the good ones from the evil ones? This is a policy that works successfully in Blackhawk.  

It is shameful that otherwise good-hearted and energetic people are forced to organize against poor people with little or no resources to maintain a decent quality of life. We must come up with a better ideology or script. Let’s fantasize for a minute, shall we? We can imagine that we are all in the same cramped boat. The boat has a leak and is sinking slowly. What do we do? Do we turn on each other and throw the weakest out of the boat to raise the boat or do we work together to fix the leak? We are trapped by circumstances to treat each other as fellow human beings deserving of respect, courtesy, and compassion. We don’t throw people overboard for breaking the rules. We deal with the problems with compassion. We form a network of informal social connections with each other to monitor and modify personal behavior and to direct resources to problems. This is how compassionate people deal with each other. This is how a neighborhood could become a community, not just a collection of properties.  

We are all just a few paychecks and emergencies away from being flat broke. We could organize to get more resources into our neighborhoods (not just a police presence). We must organize and work together for more and better affordable education, health care, recreational opportunities and good-paying jobs that would provide the improved options denied to people who resort to illegal activities to survive. This would raise the boat for everyone. This fight would be very difficult because the folks who write the script and create the ideology of individualism, privatization, and militarism would and do fight us at every level. This would be the good fight. I think we’d all be pretty damned happy if that was successful. 

Bill Hamilton is a Berkeley resident. 

3

America’s favorite comic pairing, Dick ‘n Dubya, is returning to Berkeley, with the promise that they’ll take all questions from all comers. 

Their act will grace the stage of the city’s newest theater, The Marsh Berkeley, starting Thursday and running through Nov. 20 on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday evenings starting at 7 p.m. 

“It worked out perfectly. The show is wildly funny and we had had a window to bring them here,” said Marsh founder Stephanie Weisman. 

With two San Francisco Mime Troupe veterans starring as Berkeley’s least favorite dynamic duo, The Dick ‘N Dubya Show centers on a plot by the pair to infiltrate communities of a progressive bent until they’ve managed to convert every single American to the Grand Old Party. 

Ed Holmes, a 19-year veteran of the mime troupe, plays George Bush the Younger, while eight-year veteran Amos Glick plays Dick Cheney. 

The two have been offering their interpretations of president and vice president in San Francisco Mime Troupe shows, and in this show, they are directed by Bill Allard, a founding member of another noted Bay Area theatrical troupe, Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater. 

In an unusual twist, Dubya decides to write his own speeches, as Dick offers his guidance—and just a little bit more. 

While the real Dick ‘n Dubya have been somewhat reluctant to subject themselves to intense grillings by the press, this pair will be more open, the audience filling in for the Fourth Estate. 

What’s more, they’ll get the fumble-mouthed Texan and the wild man of Wyoming engaged in song and dance. 

Performances will be held the in The Marsh Berkeley in the Gaia Arts Center, in the Gaia Building, 2118 Allston Way. Thursday tickets are $10, and those for the Saturday and Sunday shows are on a sliding scale of $15 to $22. For tickets, call (800) 838-3006 or see www.themarsh.org. 

w

TUESDAY, NOV. 8 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theater Lab, “Cry Don’t Cry” Tues.-Thurs. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Nov. 17. Tickets are $10. 841-6500.  

FILM 

Alternative Visions “The Pittsburgh Trilogy” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Mark Crispin Miller discusses “Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stoop Them)” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Patrick Lane discusses his emergence from a lifetime of alcohol and drug addiction in “What the Stones Remember” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Whole Note Poetry with Julia Vinograd and Debra Khattab at 7 p.m. at The Beanery, 2925 College Ave. 549-9093. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alam Khan, classical music of North India, at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $20. 525-5211. 

Creole Belles with Andrew Carriere at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

David Jeffrey Jazz Function at 8:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Steve Young at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and singer’s open mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9 

THEATER 

Propeller, “The Winter’s Tale” Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988.  

FILM 

Cine Documental “Madrid” and “Robinson Carusoe Island” at 7 p.m. at the CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. 

The Unofficial Histories of Péter Forgács “Wittgenstein Tratacus and Meanwhile Somewhere” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts, Bernard Maybeck’s Pan Pacific International Exposition masterpiece with Hans Baldauf, Chairman of the Board of the Maybeck Foundation, at 8 p.m. at the The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $12, $8 for members. 843-8982. 

Cultural Diversity Authors’ Night with readings by Deborah Santana, Gail Tsukiyama and Denise Sherer Jacobson at 6:30 p.m. at Nile Hall, Preservation Park, Oakland. Benefit for Center for Independent Living. Tickets are $100. 841-4776, ext. 153. 

Vikram Seth reads from his new memoir “Two Lives” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082  

Café Poetry hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Ashkan Ghafouri, Aryan Rahmanian, Fares Hedayati, Persian classical music. Lecture and demonstration at 7 p.m., performance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054.  

Calvin Keys Trio Invitational Jam at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra Sensual at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Jazz Mafia Unit at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Eric & Suzy Thompson, Jody Stecher & Kate Breslin and others in a fundariser for the Halleck Creek Riding Club for the Disabled at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

THURSDAY, NOV. 10 

THEATER 

“Dick ‘N Dubya Show: A Republican Cabaret” Thurs., Sat and Sun. at The Narsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way, through Nov. 20. Tickets are $10-$22. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine” An evening with Hilton Obenzinger at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893.  

Gallery Talk with Artists frm Day of the Dead Exhibition at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200.  

“Looking for Hope” Photography by Matt O’Brien. Lecture by the artist at 7 p.m. at North Gate Hall, UC Campus. www.asucartstudio.org  

“Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco” guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808. 

FILM 

Selling Democracy: Films of the Marchall Plan, 1948-53 “Program Two: Help Is On the Way” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

"The Greater Circulation” by Antero Alli at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand, 416 25th St., at Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $8-$12. 444-7263. www.verticalpool.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Gallery Talk with Artists from Day of the Dead Exhibition at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Awareness Up! Spoken word and hip hop to celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

Parthenon West Review Poetry Reading with Donna de la Perriere, Claudia MonPere, Joyce Jenkins, and Richard Silberg at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Jane Ganahl describes “Single Women of a Certain Age: Women Writers on the Unmarried Midlife” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Further with Hip Hop” dicsussion with Adam Mansbach and Scottt Poulson-Bryant, author of “Hung” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

James Magnuson reads from his latest novel, “The Hounds of Winter” at 7 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway’s, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Word Beat Reading Series with Selene Steese and Christina Hutchins at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Terry Hilliard Jazz Trio at 12:15 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, Kittredge at Shattuck. 981-6241.  

Kairos Youth Choir “There WIll Be Music” at 6 p.m. at Calvary Church, 1940 Virginia St. at Milvia. Donations benefit hurricane relief.  

Amy Rigby at 9 p.m. at Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave., Albany. Cost is $8. 524-9220.  

Liz Carroll & John Doyle at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Debbie Poryes Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is. $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

8 x 8 x 8 at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Danny Caron Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Selector, lap-top funk, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 11 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley ”Six Degrees of Separation” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. through Nov. 19. Tickets are $10. 649-5999. wwwaeofberkeley.org 

Aurora Theatre “Marius” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Dec. 18. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Backstage Productions “All in the Timing” at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 p.m. and Sun. at 7 p.m., through Nov. 20, at Choral Rehearsal Hall, Cesar Chavez Student Center, UC Campus. Tickets are $6-$8. 642-3880. 

Berkeley Rep “Brundibár” A musical fable staged by Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak at the Roda Theater through Dec. 28. Ticekts are $15-$64. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group “Dance with my Father Again” a musical biography of Luther Vandross. Gala at 7 p.m. Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 4. Tickets are $7-$15. 652-2120. 

Central Works “Achilles & Patroklos” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at The Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through Nov. 20. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. centralworks.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Noises Off” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through Dec. 10. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theatre “Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)” Thurs. through Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “Dear World” Jerry Herman’s musical, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 17 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Propeller, “The Winter’s Tale” Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

UC Dept. of Theater, “Harvest” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Durham Studio Theater, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14. 642-9925. 

Youth Musical Theater Company “Sweeney Todd” Thurs.-Sat. at 7:30 p.m. at Longefellow Middle School Auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $12, $6 students. 595-5514. 

FILM 

The Battles of Sam Peckinpah “Major Dundee” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robert Fisk introduces his new book, “The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East” at 7 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $25, no one turned away. Benefits Middle East Children’s Alliance. 548-0542. www.mecaforpeace.org 

George Packer reads from his book on the American occupation of Iraq “The Assassins’ Gate” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Country Joe McDonald in a Katrina Relief Benefit Concert with others at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita. Tickets are $25 available from www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2530 

Mills College Repertory Dance Company “Primitive Mysteries” by Martha Graham at 8 p.m. at Lisser Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Tickets are $10-$15. 430-2175. 

Garrett McLean, violin, Gabriel Trop, ‘cello, Inning Chen, piano at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 29112 Claremont Ave. Cost is $12. 848-1228. 

Hecho in Claifas Annual Festival with Casique y Congo at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568.  

Barbara Dane & Hot Five Jazz Band at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Dahveed Behroozi Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373.  

Broun Fellinis at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Youssou N’Dour at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$8. 548-1159.  

Baga Bae with drum circle, African dance and chants at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Acoustic Son at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Duck Baker & Jamie Findlay at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

DJ & Brook, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

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

Kalmex & The Riff Merchants at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 12 

CHILDREN 

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Gerry Tenney at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

THEATER 

Woman’s Will “Happy End” by Bertolt Brecht, Sat. at 7 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Luka’s Lounge, 2221 Broadway at Grand Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$25. 420-0813.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Lost and Found: A Tribute to Animal Rescue” oil, watercolors and mixed media by Debbie Claussen. Reception at 7 p.m. at 4th Street Studio, 1717D 4th St. 527-0600. 

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “Winter Camillia” at 5 p.m., “Public Manners: Sightseeing in Tokyo” at 7 p.m. “The Water Magician” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

“Ballets Russes” with filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine at Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas, 2230 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $9.50. 415-267-4893. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Visible and Invisible Drawings” an evening of storytelling with Ira Glass and Chris Ware at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20-$32. 642-9988.  

Marianne Villanueva reads from her short story collection, “Mayor of the Roses” at 4 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

Synergy Women’s Open Mic at 3 p.m. at Lakeview Branch, Oakland Public Library, 550 El Embarcadero. 632-7548. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alameda Civic Light Opera “Broadway’s Greatest Moments 2” at 8 p.m. at Kofman Auditorium, 2200 Central Ave., Alameda. Tickets are $25. 864-2256. www.avlo.com 

Baguette Quartette, Parisian café music, at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s, 1501 Washington Ave., Albany. Tickets are $12-$15. 528-3723.  

Borodin Quartet, music of Russian masters at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Dana at Durant. Tickets are $42. 642-9988.  

Rusalka Cycle “Songs Between the Worlds” at 8 p.m. at the Malonga Casquelord Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. Tickets are $20-$26. 925-798-1300. www.kitka.org 

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra Opening Concert at 8 p.m. at Valley Center for the Performing Arts Holy Names University, Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. 849-9776.  

Mills College Repertory Dance Company “Primitive Mysteries” by Martha Graham at 2 and 8 p.m. at Lisser Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Tickets are $10-$15. 430-2175. 

Keith Terry’s Hoterry Englecrest at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Quijerema at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Fourtet with Julian Pollack, pianist and Berkeley High student at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Dick Whittington with guest Andrew Speight at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373.  

Hecho in Claifas Annual Festival with Las Manas, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568.  

Co-Opted V with Why Are Boys Always Like This? John Howland, BublRap and N8 at 7:30 p.m. at Fish House Co-op, 1808 Bancroft Way. 914-0103. 

Richard Green and the Brothers Barton at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Brother Resistance with Junglz Apart at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Reverand Rabia and Dave Brownell at 7 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Stevie Harris and Splintered Tree at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

She Mob, Bleu Canadians at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

BornDead, Regulations, Grey Skull at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 13 

THEATER 

Milbre Burch “Seasonal Stories from Around the World” at 4 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10 adults, $5 children. 925-798-1300. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Mapping the Soul of the City” Landcapes in charcoal and silverpoint by Christopher Castle. Reception for the artist at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

“Mestizo Exhibition: How Women are Presented in Our Society” Paintings by Eduardo Diaz and Carlos Granillo. Reception at 6 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568. 

“Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco” guided tour at 1 p.m. and panel discussion at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808. 

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “The Lady and the Beard” at 7:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Huston Smith in conversation with Native Americans on religious freedom at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Poetry Flash with Jack and Adell Foley and Robert Sward at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Community Women’s Orchestra at 4 p.m. at Zion Lutheran Church, 5201 Park Blvd., Piedmont. Donation $5-$10, children free. 848-2268. 

Rusalka Cycle “Songs Between the Worlds” at 2 p.m. at the Malonga Casquelord Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. Tickets are $20-$26. 925-798-1300. www.kitka.org 

Jonathan Lemalu, baritone, at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $42, available from 642-9988.  

Gordon Bok at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Falso Baiano Trio Brasil at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Rhonda Benin and Soulful Strut at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazz 

school. Cost is $15. 845-5373.  

Bandworks at 2 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 525-5054.  

Jack Irving at 10 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Animosity, Time for Living at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

?

After following a trail of footnotes, I can tell you this much about the last victim of a grizzly bear attack in Berkeley: he was killed sometime in the 1860s in Strawberry Canyon, and a woman named Mrs. Parsons, the aunt of a Frank Armstrong who worked for the Schmidt family, made his shroud. 

I know a bit more about the first grizzly killed by a European in our area. As recorded by Father Juan Crespi in 1772, it was shot by Spanish soldiers on the banks of Strawberry Creek near the west side of what is now the UC campus to provide meat for an exploring party from Monterey. Monterey was where European and grizzly first met, in 1602; the chronicler of Vizcaino’s expedition saw the bears feeding on a beached whale. 

The coming of the Spanish disrupted a long equilibrium between grizzlies and humans. Native Californians regarded the great beasts with a mixture of respect and fear, attributing their powers to shape-shifting werebears and malign “bear doctors.” The Indians hunted grizzlies for their pelts and claws (for ceremonial use), and sometimes for food, although grizzly meat was taboo for the Yurok, Maidu, Pomo, and other groups. But they didn’t make much of a dent in the bears’ numbers. 

Despite the increase in human firepower, the Spanish and Mexican years were a good time to be a California grizzly. The abundance of livestock, especially the cattle whose carcasses were discarded after being stripped of hides and fat, fueled an ursine population explosion. By the time of the Gold Rush, grizzlies were turning up in all kinds of inconvenient places. There was no room for them in the new California, and they were shot, trapped, and poisoned to extinction. The last grizzly in Alameda County was killed in 1866; I haven’t been able to determine where. Some hung on into the twentieth century in the Santa Ana Mountains and the southern Sierra, with the last credible sightings in Sequoia National Park in 1924. 

What started me thinking about the fate of the California grizzly, and led me to read Tracy Storer and Lloyd Tevis’s 1955 book, was a recent manifesto by a group of biologists and environmentalists—big guns like Paul Martin, Michael Soule, Dave Foreman—published in Nature. It was a call for the re-wilding of the American West, the reintroduction of the megafauna we lost 13,000 years ago, or their next of kin—restoration ecology on the grand scale. Martin was the author of the Pleistocene Overkill theory, positing that the mammoths, ground sloths, and their contemporaries were killed off by Paleoindian hunters, and he feels our species has an ethical responsibility for redress. 

That could involve introducing African lions, Bactrian camels, and Asian wild asses, near relations of extinct North American species; maybe even cheetahs (although the North American cheetah was closer to the mountain lion than to the living African and Asian cheetah), and African and Asian elephants to replace the ecoystem services once provided by mammoths and mastodons.  

Martin and his co-authors had the Great Plains in mind for their Pleistocene Park. But California has its own lost megafauna, with one major player that was around a lot later than the Pleistocene. Why not bring back the grizzly? 

Apart from the obvious qualms about having another dangerous carnivore—omnivore would be more accurate, given grizzlies’ fondness for acorns and bulbs—next door, you might object that there’s no California grizzly gene pool left, and bears from Yellowstone wouldn’t be quite the same. Recent genetic studies, though, suggest that’s not the case. 

In Susan Snyder’s Bear in Mind, a splendid book from Heyday, along with the photographs of Seth Kinman’s grizzly-bear chair and the grizzly effigy made of prunes, there’s a map drawn by the early-20th-century biologist C. Hart Merriam. It shows the former ranges of what Merriam regarded as the state’s seven species of grizzly. The ones in the East Bay would have been Ursus colusus, which also inhabited the Sacramento Valley; then there was U. mendocinensis north of the Golden Gate and U. californicus south of it, and the four others. 

Taxonomists—biologists who name and classify organisms—come in two flavors: lumpers and splitters. Lumpers draw the boundaries of species and other units broadly, splitters narrowly. C. Hart Merriam was the king of the splitters. Based on variations in teeth, claws, and pelt, he recognized 84 species of grizzly and brown bears in North America. That’s full species, as in Homo sapiens. Later authors boiled this down considerably, uniting all the big brown bears in Europe and America into Ursus arctos and relegating the grizzlies to the subspecies U. arctos horribilis. 

More recently still, biologists at the University of Utah and the University of Alaska looked at the genetic structure of North American brown and grizzly bears by comparing mitochondrial DNA, the stuff we all inherit from our mothers: a favorite research tool because it doesn’t get reshuffled by sex like the rest of the genome, has a high mutation rate, and is invisible to natural selection. This group came up with four lineages of bears. The most distinctive was found only on the Admiralty Islands off the southern Alaskan coast; two others had wider ranges in mainland Alaska and northern Canada. The fourth lineage, or clade, included all the grizzlies from southern British Columbia down to Yellowstone. The oldest grizzly/brown bear fossils in the New World date to 50,000-70,000 years ago, but the four clades seem to have diverged between 245,000-700,000 years ago when the ancestral population still lived in Asia. Although only living bears were sampled, the extirpated California bears would have been part of Clade IV.  

So the California grizzly has gone from being a complex of seven species to a local population of a subspecies—maybe not even what would be considered an Evolutionary Significant Unit; no sturdier or more golden than other North American bears. Which means that Yellowstone or Glacier Park bears would make fine surrogates, if anyone is interested in bringing some in to, say, the Hamilton Range or the Carrizo Plain. Never mind the Great Plains: re-wilding begins at home. Probably not in Strawberry Canyon, though.

TUESDAY, NOV. 8 

Remember to Vote Today For information regarding Polling Place locations please call 663-VOTE (8683). www.smartvoter.org/ca/state/  

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the shorebirds here for the winter. Binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. 981-5300. 

Introduction to Voting for Children from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $6 for children, $5 for adult. 647-1111. 

“A Climbing Life Reexamined” with David Roberts at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Glaciers and the California Waterscape” with Prof. Kurt Cuffey at 5:30 p.m. at Goldman School of Public Policy, Room 150, 2607 Hearst. 642-2666. 

“Engineering Communism,” spies, Silicon Valley, and modern intelligence failures with author Steven Usdin at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $5. 415-850-5431. 

Guitars in the Classroom Free guitar and music lessons for teachers at 7:30 p.m. at 2304 McKinley Ave. 848-9463. www.guitarsintheclassroom.com 

Michael Oren, fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, on current complexities of the Middle East at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Hillel Auditorium, 2736 Bancroft Way. www.berkeleyhillel.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Introduction to Buddhist Meditation at 7 p.m. at the Dzalandhara Buddhist Center in Berkeley. Cost is $7-$10. Call for directions. 559-8183.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9 

The Hungry Owl Project Fundraiser with dinner and speaker Allen Fish, Director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, at 6:30 p.m. at the Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross. Tickets are $40, reservations recommended. 415-454-4587. www.hungryowl.org 

Save The Bay Native Planting Day from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Shoreline, Oakland. Gloves, tools and snacks provided. 452-9261, ext. 109.  

Choosing Infant Care A workshop on the options at 10 a.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Babies welcome. Registration required. 658-7353.  

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation at 10 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed 594-5165. 

“Higher Ground” An action documentary film on skiiing and snowboarding at 8 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets available at REI. 

“Chavez: Venezuela and the New Latin America” A documentary interview filmed in 2004, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. 393-5685. 

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

“Supporting Cast or Supporting Caste: Minor Characters in Biblical Narrative” with Prof. GIna Hens-Piazza at 7 p.m. in the Chapel, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 649-2440. 

“In the Footsteps of Jewish Fusgeyers” with Jill Culiner, brown bag lunch at noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Wear comfortable shoes. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley BART Station. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, NOV. 10 

Stephen Hawking “New Perspectives on the Origin of the Universe” at 8 p.m. at the Paramount Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $35-$125, available from 625-TIXS. www.ticketmaster.com 

Human Rights Watch Panel DIscussion with honorees Omid Memarian from Iran, Salih Mahmoud Osman from Sudan and Beatrice Were from Uganda at noon at the School of Journalism Library, North Gate Hall, UC Campus.  

“EcoNest: Creating Sustainable Sanctuaries of Clay, Straw, And Timber” at 7:30 p.m. at Builders Booksource, 1817 Fourth St., 845-6874. 

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers meets at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. Stu Stewart will speak on fly fishing in the lakes and streams of the Mt. Lassen area. 547-8629. 

Herbs and Remedies to Counteract Overeating at 5 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200.  

“Ways to Lower Your Blood Pressure” with the Hypertension Work Group of the South and West Berkeley Health Forum at 6 p.m. at St. Paul A.M.E. Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. 981-4131. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. 981-5300. 

Headaches and Heartaches Learn about the relationship between physical and emotional pain at 5:30 p.m. at Phamaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Red Cross Mobile Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1706 Shattuck Ave. To make an appointment call 1-800-448-3543.  

“Detained at Angel Island: Stories, True Stories and Statistics” at 1:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Got a Book That Needs Publishing?” Panel discussion with book editors at 7 p.m. at the Journalism Library, corner of Hearst and Euclid, UC Campus. Sponsored by the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Cost is $5. RSVP to 530-6699. 

LGBT Family Night with Family Fun Zone and meetings with national leaders at 7 p.m. at Oakland Marriott City Center. 415-981-1960. 

Little Readers and Friends Night with storyteller Ayodele, at 5 p.m. at at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Free 647-1111. 

East Bay Mac User Group meets to discuss mail clients for OS X at 6 p.m. at Free Expression College for Digital Arts, 6601 Shellmound, Emeryville. http://ebmug.org 

World Affairs/Politics Group for people 60 years and older meets at 3:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $2.50. 524-9122. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 11 

Veterans Day Celebration at 11 a.m. at Civic Center Park on Martic Luther King Jr. Way. 

Veterans Day “Prayer for World Peace” at 11 a.m. at Berkeley Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 3100 Telegraph Ave., two blocks south of Ashby. 848-8821. 

Veterans Day Celebration with a tea dance and dinner at 5 p.m. on the Red Oak Victory Ship, Berth #6, Richmond Harbor. Cost is $20. 222-9200. 

Bruce Babbitt on “National Land Use Policy” at 1 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Katrina Relief Benefit Concert with Country Joe McDonald and others at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita. Tickets are $25 available from www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2530 

“Food is Love Made Visible” Benefit Harvest Dance at 5 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd, Kensington. Bring your weight in food or in dollars, at least $10. All proceeds benefit local food banks. www.uucb.org 

Womansong Circle Participatory singing for women at 6:45 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way, at Dana. Suggested donation $10-$20. 525-7082. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m.  

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 548-6310. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 12 

Berkeley Historical Society Tour of the Ashby Arts District with Justin Katz of Epic Arts, Patrick Dooley of Shotgun Players and Kules Kilot of Lacis Museum of Lace from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0181.  

Upper Rockridge Hill Walk with the Berkeley Path Wanderers Assn. Explore elegant staircases, panoramic views, and see traditional homes as well as eclectic, post-1991-firestorm new ones. Meet at 10 a.m. at the SE corner of Rockridge Boulevard and Broadway, by the white pillars. Free; wear comfortable walking shoes and bring water and snack for this hilly walk. 848-9358. www.berkeleypaths.org 

People’s Park Free Box Fashion Show and Concert from noon to 4:30 p.m. at People’s Park. Wear your Free Box finest! 

“Bats Ain’t Bad” Learn about bats and how important they are, from 3 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. For ages 8 to 12. Cost is $3, registration required. 636-1684. 

“Trees in the Garden and Landscape” A workshop from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Bring photos or sketches related to tree or site questions, and a bag lunch. Cost is $10-$15. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Vegetarian Thanksgiving Cooking Class, using local in-season, organic ingredients, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. at Castro. Cost is $40, registration required. 531-26655.  

“Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico” with Dr. Anthony Aveni at 6 p.m. at Chabot Space & Science Center. Tickets are $8. 336-7373.  

Childbirth Preparation Intensive with Constance Williams, doula, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., also on Nov. 19 and Dec. 3, at Birthways, 570 14th St., Oakland. Cost is $160-$180 per couple. 869-2729.  

NorCal High School Mountain Bike League Benefit Dinner at 7 p.m. on Treasure Island. Guest speaker is Andy Hampsten. For details call 325-6502. www.norcalmtb.org/spon/dinner2005.htm  

“Patriarchies: A Global Perspective on Women’s Oppression” with the Suppressed Histories Archives at 7:30 p.m. at Change Makers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $10-$20. 665-3689. www.suppressedhistories.net 

Boost Your Immune System Learn how to test the state of your adreanal glands and restore energy at 4 p.m. at Phamaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

Softball Clinic for girls in grades 2-9, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Grove/Russell field, Martin Luther King Jr Way and Russell St. Free. Registration required. clinics@abgsl.org, www.abgsl.org 

Protest Rally at Berkeley Honda Shattuck and Parker every Thurs. at 4:30 to 6 p.m. and Sat. from 1 to 2 p.m. until the labor dispute is settled.  

Historical and Botanical Tour of Chapel of the Chimes, a Julia Morgan landmark, at 10 a.m. at 4499 Piedmont Ave. at Pleasant Valley. Reservations required 228-3207.  

SUNDAY, NOV. 13 

Fabulous Fall Discover leaves and other natural clues of the season from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Especially for ages 5 to 10. Dress for rain and mud. 525-2233. 

“Autumn in Asia” A tour of Asian plants with Elaine Sedlack at 10 a.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $8-$12. Registration required. 643-2937. 

Celebration in Honor of Madeline Duckles, peace and social justice activist, at 2 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. RSVP to 665-5459. 

“Is Wal-Mart Really That Bad?” with a screening of the new documentary by Robert Greenwald at 5 p.m., at the Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., at Alcatraz. Sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County. 

“A Most Unlikely Hero” film screening and discussion with director Steve Okino on the racial injustices faced by Bruce Yamashita while enrolled in the Marine Corp officer training school, at 2 p.m. at 22 Warren Hall, UC Campus. 520-7726. 

“Cloning and Stem Cell Research: Theological and Ethical Issues” with Dr. Ted Peters at 11:30 a.m. at First Congregational Chuch, 2345 Channing Way. 845-4145. 

Cambodian Dinner, slideshow and talk at 5:30 p.m. at 1924 Cedar St. to benefit humanitarian projects in Cambodia. Cost is $10-$25. 925-295-0791. www.friendshipwithcambodia.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

“The Adventures of Milo and Otis” Family Film Sunday Series at 11 a.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $5 at the door.  

“The New American Cooking” with author Joan Nathan at 7 p.m. at Congregation Netivot Shalom, 1316 University Ave. Cost is $15. 524-7867.  

“Merchant of Venice” at 2 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237. 

MONDAY, NOV. 14 

“Between Reality and Wishful Thinking: The University as a Neighbor” A free public forum on UC’s impact on the city of Berkeley at 7 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room, Berkeley Alternative High School, corner of Derby and MLK, Jr. Way. 528-8345. 

“Don’t Be Six Feet Under WIthout a Plan” Learn about creating a living will, powers of attorney and end of life services at 6 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave at Pleasant Valley Rd. 562-9431. 

“The Search for Dark Energy in the Accelerating Universe” with Prof Saul Perlmutter at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Rep Theater, 2025 Addison St. 486-7292. 

Sing-A-Long from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

Beginning Bridge Lessons at 11:10 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $1. 524-9122.  

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, NOV. 15 

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the shorebirds here for the winter. Binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Garden Club “Careful Gardening Means Care for the Earth” with Christopher Shein, permaculture instructor at Merritt College, at 1 p.m. at Epworth Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. 527-5641. 

“High School Dropout Rate Crisis” with Assemblymember Loni Hancock at 9:30 a.m. at Richmond High School Little Theater, 1250 23rd St., Richmond. 559-1406. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. 981-5300. 

University Press Books Book Party celebrating a new book by Roger Hahn at 5:30 p.m. at 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

“Wal-Mart: The High Cost of a Low Price” a film by Robert Greenwald at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña, 3501 Shattuck Ave.. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Darfur, Sudan: The Violence Continues; How Long Can We Ignore?” A panel discussion and slideshow lecture, at 8:30 p.m. at Booth Auditorium Boalt Hall, UC Campus. 220-8481. 

Choosing Infant Care A workshop at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Babies welcome. Registration required. 658-7353.  

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation at 6 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. 594-5165. 

“Weight-Loss Surgery: Is It For You?” at 6 p.m. at Alta Bates Summit Health Education Center, 400 Hawthorne Ave., Oakland. Free, registration required 869-8972. 

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group meets to discuss “Travel, Surveying the Empire” from 7 to 9 p.m. in a private home. Call for details 527-1022. 

“Ministry in the Eye of Disaster” at 7:30 p.m. in the Tuscan Common Room, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, 2451 Ridge Rd. Cost is $10-$15. to register call 204-0720. 

“Nutrition for Wellness and Harmony” Part of “Healing Therapies for Pain and Energy” at noon at Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus of Alta Bates, 2001 Dwight Way. 644-3273. 

Free Small Business Class on Opening a Restaurant at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, Community Room, 2090 Kittredge St. Registration required. 981-6148. www.sfscore.com 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426.  

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed. Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. at South Berkeley Senior Center., Jackie Y. Griffin, 981-6195.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti, 981-6740.  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Kristin Tehrani, 981-5356.  

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400.  

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. ›

The Alameda City Council continued this week to move forward with a $23.7 million multi-faceted project that would restore the long-abandoned 77-year-old Art Deco Alameda Theater in the heart of the city’s downtown, as well as building an adjoining seven-screen cineplex and an adjacent six-story parking garage. 

At Tuesday’s council meeting, after two rancorous back-to-back public hearings that featured close to 80 speakers and continued until after midnight, the council decided by identical 3-1-1 v otes to accept revised designs for the cineplex and adjoining parking garage and to reject an appeal to the city Planning Board’s approval of use permits. 

Santa Rosa developer Kyle Conner has been brought in by the city to restore the theater and build t he cineplex, but title to the property itself will remain with the city. City officials and downtown business leaders hope that the restoration and added public parking will help revive the city’s Park Street area. 

In the early hours of Wednesday morning after the latest round in the Alameda Theater Project wars, Conner appeared drained and apprehensive of the next battle, while opponents of the project seemed upbeat. 

Asked what his next steps would following two separate council votes at Tuesday’s publ ic hearings to move the Historic Alameda Theater Project forward, an exhausted Conner said, “We really have to see what happens with this next thing.” 

And after Citizens For A Megaplex Free Alameda leader Valeria Ruma said, “The council vote was not tota lly unexpected so we don’t consider this a setback.” She told supporters, “Now it’s on to the next step.” 

Both sides were talking about a pending CEQA lawsuit filed early last month by the citizens’ group in Superior Court, asking the court to order an e nvironmental impact report for the project. The city has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit complaint. 

If the court rules that the project can move forward without an EIR, Conner said that he expects to submit construction drawings to the city’s Bui lding Department in four to six months for approval. 

Mayor Beverly Johnson held the hearings without a break “so that speakers will be able to talk at a reasonable time.” 

Councilmember Tony Daysog cast both no votes, while Councilmember Doug deHaan abst ained both times. Daysog said that while he supported restoration of the theater, he continued to be concerned that the city was not recouping enough money from the project. 

Project proponents said the project had been studied enough and urged the council to move the project forward, while opponents argued that the council should put a halt to the project while considering alternate plans. 

Several charges by speakers from both sides reflected some of the bitterness of the continuing months-long battle. One proponent said that a citizen lawsuit filed against the project “smacks to me of blackmail; that’s not appropriate” while an opponent accused councilmembers of “already having your hearts set. I’m disgusted with you. I truly suspect corruption.” 

John Spangler, a project opponent, said, “I’m really sad tonight. I have friends on both sides of this issue. There have been a lot of words said in anger that should not have been said. I don’t think we want a divided body politic, but we have one.” 

Unlike an August City Council hearing , where close to 100 people spoke and opposition speakers outnumbered proponents 7 to 1, opinion for and against the cineplex/garage project at Tuesday’s hearing was more evenly divided. 

While there is almost universa l support in Alameda for restoration of the theater, opposition from the grassroots Citizens For A Megaplex Free Alameda group has emerged in recent months to oppose both the cineplex portion of the project and the parking garage. 

Last summer, organizati on leaders said they had collected more than 3,000 citizen signatures in opposition to the cineplex and parking garage. Robert Gavrich, one of the two organization leaders who filed an appeal to the Planning Board’s use permit approvals, said Tuesday, “Ou r numbers are growing every week. We’re not going to stop.” 

Despite the heated rhetoric by some on each side, there are signs that the two sides are inching closer to each other. 

In response to opposition complaints about the portions of the project’s e xterior design—last August, Councilmember deHaan called the parking structure “butt-ugly”—the council has called in Oakland architects Komorous-Towey, specialists in art-deco restoration work and a firm that participated in the restoration of San Francisco’s City Hall. 

Komorous-Towey’s proposed changes to the exterior cineplex and parking garage design—which council approved on Tuesday night—won praise even from many speakers who oppose the overall project. 

Roma said that while the new design “does not really change the size and massing of the garage, I want to complement the architect. This is a vast improvement.” 

Kevin Frederick, an opponent to the project who said he coined the “butt-ugly” description of the proposed parking garage that deHaan later repeated, said that the “current design is way better than the previous design” and said that he was glad that the city had gotten rid of the previous project architect, whom Frederick called “a hack.” 

Praise for Komorous-Towey’s changes were echo ed by project proponents. Vice Mayor Marie Gilmore, who voted to move the project forward last August and again this week, said that she was “particularly pleased with the way the parking garage came out. We got a lot more of what we wanted, and we knew w e wanted it when we saw” what KTA had proposed. 

Citizens for a Megaplex-Free Alameda (CMFA) have also produced an alternate development plan which they say will meet the city’s goals for the restoration of the Alameda Theater as well as deal with opposit ion complaints about the approved project plan. 

CMFA’s plan would cut the number of screens in the project from seven to five, add a town plaza and other amenities, and move the parking garage to another nearby location which the group calls more appropr iate. CMFA speakers asked the council to consider their proposal. 

CMFA member Alice Ray said in a statement, “I see the alternative we are presenting as one of several that could all fit the constraints of this project. I’d be happy to support not just t his configuration but others that meet the same criteria.” 

›

Berkeley Court Commissioner John Rantzman heard several hours of testimony from neighbors of a South Berkeley homeowner on Thursday describing the personal and economic damages they claim they have suffered living near what they say police call “the most notorious house in Berkeley.” 

“I’m a prisoner in my own house,” community college teacher Monica Bosson, who lives three doors from the Oregon Street home owned by 75-year-old Lenora Moore, told the court. Bosson said she has watched numerous drug deals in the Moore house. 

“I can’t garden in my front yard, and I love to garden. I’ve found needles, drug baggies, condoms, and liquor bottles in my front yard. I’ve been the victim of a home invasion,” she said. “People walk by and urinate in my yard. Lenora Moore not only does not stop this activity, her acquiescence condones the actions that are going on through her house.” 

Fifteen neighbors of Moore have filed suit in Small Claims Court in Berkeley claiming that Moore’s house is a hub of South Berkeley drug dealing by Moore’s children and grandchildren. The neighbors are asking $5,000 in damages apiece. 

There have been no allegations from neighbors that Moore herself is involved in the drug dealing. But with several of Moore’s children having been convicted of drug dealing offenses, the neighbors are alleging that Moore either will not or cannot prevent her offspring from using the house for illegal activities. 

Moore, who has seven children, 37 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren, lives in the Oregon Street house with her disabled husband, two of the grandchildren, and a live-in attendant who takes care of her husband. She works at the West Oakland Senior Center. 

Thursday’s session was the second half-day of testimony in the case, and Commissioner Rantzman set a third session for Nov. 28. Testimony is expected at that time by Taj Johns, Neighborhood Services Liaison for the City of Berkeley, concerning the history of her office’s intervention at Moore’s house. 

Activity in the courtroom showed the unusual amount of interest in a small claims case. Former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, who has continued her interest in Berkeley political and neighborhood activities, was there. Plaintiffs were assisted in preparing their filings and court case by the Oakland-based nonprofit organization Neighborhood Solutions, although one of the plaintiffs, Paul Rauber, is presenting the case in court. Moore is being represented in court by Berkeley paralegal Leo Stegman. 

Ms. Moore testified briefly on Thursday. Asked by Stegman what she felt about drugs, Moore said, “I feel very bad about drugs. I don’t like them. I don’t use them. I’m against anyone around me using them.” 

She said that she has never seen anybody selling drugs on her property. And when Stegman asked if she had confronted anyone “hanging out, playing loud music, screaming or shouting” on her property, Moore answered, “Yes. I’ve chased them away. I’ve told them to get away from the front of my house.” 

With plaintiffs having presented their case at the first hearing last month on allegations of drug activity coming out of the Moore house, Commissioner Rantzman limited their testimony on Thursday to the damages they claim they have suffered. Plantiffs gave two hours of allegations of slashed tires, stalking and surveillance by what they called “associates of Ms. Moore,” burglaries, violence, speeding, loud noise, calls to the hospital to pick up people with drug overdoses, and other activities associated with drug trafficking and drug use. 

Rauber said, “My 2-year old daughter found a hypodermic needle while we were working in the yard. She held it up and asked me, ‘What’s this, Daddy?’” Pausing, his voice breaking up, Rauber asked, “What kind of father am I to raise my child in an environment like this?” 

Suzanne Baptiste described the social and political toll that South Berkeley drug activity has taken on her. 

“I used to be the stereotypical Berkeley liberal,” Baptiste said. “I believed that drugs should be legalized. I’ve been to Amsterdam. But I now know without a shadow of a doubt that drugs bring violence. I don’t like the change that has come over me. I’ve become harder and less compassionate. I now believe in the three strikes law. And though I’m not proud of it, I’ve learned to use a firearm.” 

Baptiste did not put all of the blame on Moore, however, saying that she was “extremely disappointed in the city of Berkeley” for not addressing neighbors’ concerns about the South Berkeley drug problems. 

“Berkeley is culpable,” she said. “The city has let us down.” 

Offering rebuttal after each plaintiff’s testimony, Stegman did not refute their allegations of drug-related activity, but repeatedly argued that the plaintiffs had not tied much of that activity to Moore’s house. 

“They want to blame this one lady for all the crime in Berkeley,” he said. At one point, when a plaintiff said that one of Moore’s grandchildren had assaulted her child, Stegman said that “small claims court is not the place to handle fights between children.” 

At another point, Stegman accused the plaintiffs of racism against the African-American Moore. Reacting to a plaintiff’s remark about the diversity in their South Berkeley neighborhood, Stegman retorted, “What they really want in the neighborhood is for everybody to be the same color and do the same thing. That’s not diversity. The plaintiffs are all the same culture and almost all the same color.” 

Before Commissioner Rantzman cut him off, Stegman said, “It just sickens me, this psuedo-diversity. It’s phony, a fake, and a fraud.”›

Seacology, a Berkeley nonprofit dedicated to saving the imperiled ecologies of islands and coral reefs around the world, racked up another honor this week. 

The Achievement in Innovation Award came from the California Association of Nonprofits, which hailed the organization’s unique relief efforts in response to the Dec. 29, 2004, tsunami that devastated communities in Southeast Asia and along the shores of the Indian Ocean. 

The honor was presented at the association’s annual meeting in San Francisco. 

“We set up a very unusual program,” said Seacology Executive Director Dune Silverstein. “One hundred percent of the donations we received went for relief. Seacology didn’t keep one penny.” 

Because major charities and relief efforts were dealing with the immediate needs of survivors, Silverstein said Seacology concentrated on longer-term issues, focusing their efforts on four villages. 

“We asked them, ‘What do you need?,’” he recalled. “For a village in the Andaman Islands, the answer was 20 chickens and one goat for each family.” 

The animals not only met the villagers’ needs for sustenance, but they also provided a source of revenue. 

“Sadly,” Silverstein said, “many organizations don’t listen to the wishes of the people.” 

Another village asked for replacements for fishing gear that had been swept away by the massive quake-generated wave; another asked for boats. 

“We worked with trusted village leaders so we knew we would have significant impacts, rather than spreading our efforts over hundreds of thousands,” Silverstein said. 

Seacology raised $261,716 for tsunami relief efforts, and every donor, regardless of the size of her or his gift, received a detailed account of how the money was spent, along with photographs. 

Seacology’s goal is to save the environments in and around the earth’s islands. 

“Islands contain some of the world’s most endangered ecosystems,” Silverstein said. “You hear a lot about endangered rain forests in the Amazon and in Africa, but well over 50 percent of the total species extinctions—and 90 percent for birds and reptiles—have occurred in the islands. People think of islands as isolated, but with global warming, acid rains and other factor, they are no longer isolated the way they once were.” 

To save the vanishing ecologies of the world’s islands, Seacology’s staff meets with villagers to learn their needs and then agrees to provide them—if the villagers agree to set up a preserve on the island or in the coral reefs near the shoreline. 

In the organization’s 12 years, it has managed to create reserves totaling 1.7 million acres. The group has only five staff members in the Berkeley headquarters and several part-time staffers scattered throughout the world. Seacology accomplishes all this with a modest budget of about $1.2 million a year. 

“In the developing world,” Silverstein explains, “a little money goes a long way.” 

Seacology’s efforts and methods have won high praise. A 2002 article in Pacific Magazine on the organization carried the subheadline, “American NGO Seacology Shuns Environmental Colonialism.” 

Its advisory board includes some of the greatest luminaries in the scientific world, including noted author Jared Diamond, Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson, Thomas Elmqvist, scientific research director of the Swedish Biodiversity Center, and John Ogden, director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography. 

Dr. Paul Cox holds a special place on the advisory panel as the founder of Seacology. 

A specialist in island botany and the ethnobotany of island cultures, Cox has won numerous awards and currently serves as Executive Director of the Institute for Ethnobotany of the congressionally chartered National Tropical Botanical Garden, which is based in Hawaii and Florida. 

He was named a “Hero of Medicine” by Time magazine in 1997 and is a recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize. 

Silverstein was serving as executive director of the San Francisco-based Goldman Environmental Fund, when Cox won the award for his work in saving the rain forest in Samoa, inspiring Cox’s later move to Seacology when it gained an office and full-time staff in Berkeley. 

It takes only a few seconds’ conversation with Silverstein to catch his infectious enthusiasm for Seacology’s work. 

Unlike many environmental groups, Seacology does not offer memberships, which eliminates some financial burden. 

The group’s operating style has won the highest four star rating from Charity Navigator, the leading reference base on nonprofits relied on by contributors who want to see that their dollars are well spent. 

From a modest office at 2009 Hopkins St., a small Seacology staff is making a big effort to save a vanishing but critical part of the world’s ecosytem.

A demonstration outside the gates of Richmond’s ChevronTexaco refinery Tuesday morning ended in a massive police turnout, two arrests and conflicting reports about what happened. 

Even Lt. Mark Gagan, spokesperson for the Richmond Police Department, wasn’t quite sure who did what to whom. Dean O’Hair, spokesperson for the refinery, said he wasn’t sure either. 

“The more time goes by, the less I know,” O’Hair said. “We do know there were some picketers and the Richmond police worked to keep the roadway clear.” 

Conflicting news accounts haven’t helped, including one that described the event as a “melee,” a label strongly disputed by two union members interviewed for this story. 

The pickets, including both union members and community activists, were protesting the arrival of a large contingent of out-of-state workers, many non-union, who had arrived at the refinery as part of a major maintenance program. 

At least 30 police cars were on hand at one point during the morning, including officers from Albany, El Cerrito and the California Highway Patrol. 

Greg Feere, president of the Contra Costa Building and Trades Council, said he witnessed the arrest of Tom Baca, president of Local 549 of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers. 

“Tom had been in the hospital for kidney stones and he’d had four units of blood, and I asked him what he was doing out here. He was there only 10 or 15 minutes, and he said he didn’t feel good and was going home,” Feere said. 

Baca’s car was on the other side of Richmond Parkway, and when he started to cross with the green light and the walk light, Feere said, a cop told him he couldn’t cross. 

“The cop said he’d arrest him, but he said he had to go home and started to cross,” Feere said. “The cop told him ‘Fuck you,’ and when he started to cross, he was arrested. It was totally outrageous.” 

Lt. Gagan said Baca was charged with section 148 of the California Penal code, which covers “obstructing, resisting and delaying an officer” in the performance of his or her duties. 

The second suspect was arrested on suspicion of vandalism, possibly from an incident where an arriving contract worker swung at a picketer who Feere said “may have brushed his car, and the picketer allegedly booted his car” in return. 

Feere’s account was corroborated by another member of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 342 who also witnessed Baca’s arrest. 

Don Gosney, vice president of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 342, said his members are angry that the oil giant was bringing in non-union contract workers, many from Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, to do work that Contra Costa County union members could do just as well or better. 

“The only qualification they have is that they’re willing to work for a lot less money and do whatever the company tells them to do,” Gosney said. 

O’Hair disagreed. “What we want and what elected officials and members of the community want, is that we hire the right workers,” he said.  

“We have hired both local and out of state workers, and the companies that do this kind of work are concentrated where a lot of the facilities are, which is along the Gulf Coast,” he said. “Our preference is to hire locally, but sometimes we can’t.” 

Feere charged that the contract employees are paid between $7.50 and $21 an hour, lower than union wage scales. Contract workers also don’t receive pension and health care benefits, Feere said, “so if anything happens to them, they have to go to county facilities, and we taxpayers end up paying for it.” 

Union members and community activists charge that Sgt. Joe Silva aggravated an already tense situation by his conduct on the scene, including his arrest of Baca. 

Andres Soto, a Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) activist and one-time City Council candidate, encouraged union members to make complaints to the Richmond Police Commission. 

City Council and RPA member Gayle McLaughlin also voiced her disapproval of Silva, who ordered that the cars of protesters be ticketed and towed. 

McLaughlin said she first learned of the planned picket over the weekend, when she received a flyer from a group calling itself the Concerned Citizens of West Contra Costa County, which had called for the demonstration to protest “the outsourcing of 1,000 local jobs to non-union, out-of-state, out-of-area workers.” 

The protest began before 6 a.m., and after the demonstrators dispersed, officers were back for the evening shift change, but no demonstrators appeared. They were back again Wednesday morning, but again, all was quiet. 

The refinery is both Richmond’s largest employer and the focus of many residents’ concerns and fears.Ã

A juvenile court judge today referred a 17-year-old Oakland girl who admitted stabbing a 75-year-old woman at the Berkeley Rose Garden in March to a California Youth Authority facility for evaluation. 

Alameda County Juvenile Court Referee Mark Kliszewski said the girl, who was dressed in light red jail clothes at her court appearance today, “won’t be in any danger’’ during the 90-day evaluation at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility for Girls in Camarillo. 

Kliszewski said he also believes that sending her to the CYA “is the safest way’’ to get her to the Porterville Development Hospital, a state facility that prosecutor Walter Jackson and defense attorney Cliff Blakely agreed is the best institution for her so she can get treatment for her mental health problems. 

The girl is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 22 to be sentenced. 

Blakely objected to the girl being sent to the CYA, even for just an evaluation, calling such as placement “inappropriate and unlawful.’’ 

Blakely said that because of ongoing litigation against the agency, the CYA has an internal order dating back to 2003 requiring it to reject minors with mental health problems and a San Francisco Superior Court judge also has barred it from taking such youths. 

After the hearing, Blakely said, “I’m worried about my client and her stability’’ because she’ll be disrupted by being removed from the Alameda County Juvenile Hall in San Leandro, which he said has been a calming environment for her, and transferred to Camarillo. 

Blakely said he thinks it would be better for the girl to be evaluated by a regional center, while still housed at juvenile hall, and then sent to the Porterville Development Hospital. 

Placing the girl has been difficult because her most recent test showed she has an IQ of 55 and many mental health facilities won’t take people who have an IQ below 70. 

However, Blakely said he believes the girl’s results were skewed because she was “extremely psychotic’’ at the time of the test. He said she currently is on medication and is more stable now. 

On Sept. 6, the girl pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon for the March 16 stabbing incident, which shocked North Berkeley residents. 

The girl admitted to grabbing the elderly woman, who was walking with her husband in the 1200 block of Euclid Avenue in Berkeley about 6:30 p.m., and slashing the woman’s throat from behind with a kitchen knife. 

The victim was able to recover from her wounds. 

Several weeks after the stabbing incident, Hamaseh Kianfar, 30, an Alameda County Juvenile Hall guidance counselor who had worked with the girl in the past, was charged with being an accessory to attempted murder for allegedly being with the girl at the time of the attack, driving her from the scene and failing to report the incident to police. 

Kianfar, who resigned from her job shortly after she was charged, is scheduled to return to Alameda County Superior Court on Nov. 18 for a pretrial hearing. 

—Bay City News›

The board of directors of the East Bay Regional Park District has postponed an eminent domain action on 238 acres along the Richmond shoreline in order to allow all the parties the chance to attempt to work out an agreement. 

Board members heard 22 speakers at a public hearing on the Breuner Marsh property Tuesday afternoon before voting to defer any action for at least 30 days. 

The property owners, with the support of the Richmond City Council, want to develop a mix of 1,000 residential units and retail development on the site, along with a transit station. But at the request of a coalition of Richmond residents and environmental preservationists who say they want to preserve the area as an open space wetlands habitat, park district staff recommended that the park district acquire the property through eminent domain and add it to the adjacent Point Pinole Park. 

The Richmond City Council then authorized city staff to challenge the park district’s eminent domain action in court if the district board authorized the proposal. 

Representatives of the park district, the City of Richmond, the property owner, and the property manager are expected to meet over the next month to see if a compromise can be reached. 

—

“I’ll tell you why I am a fundamentalist Muslim,” said a Sri Lankan city council member named—I kid you not—A. Marika. “When you are grading a grammar test, if the student writes, ‘I will get a apple from the store,’ will you grade it correct or incorrect? The meaning is clear; is it correct or not?” 

Thus began one of the more interesting conversations I had at the Sixth World Conference of Mayors for Peace in Hiroshima, Japan, where I was privileged to represent Berkeley at the behest of Mayor Tom Bates. In coming weeks, planning meetings will begin for the many cooperative ventures hatched at that conference, including sending a Berkeley delegation as part of the cities contingent to the World Peace Conference in Vancouver next June. 

Mr. Marika told me that those who engage in terrorism under the guise of Muslim fundamentalism are not acting as true Muslims, but rather misusing Islam to promote political agendas. He attaches great importance to nonviolence—and to a nuclear-free future. 

The depth of that commitment may be deduced from a few striking facts. The 35 delegates (plus interpreters) from Sri Lanka constituted by far the largest representation from one country, other than Japan. To attend the conference, Mr. Marika and the others each spent enough money to buy a small home in Sri Lanka. 

Activists follow our lead 

During the three-day conference held Aug. 4-6 (ending on the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing), I was struck by the degree to which delegates throughout the world were interested in the leadership provided by a small, faraway city called Berkeley, Calif. 

On previous trips to Japan, I learned that peace activists in the Land of the Rising Sun are inspired by Berkeley’s leadership on global-justice issues. This was reinforced during an international peace conference near Tokyo July 30-31, at which Berkeley was asked to help lead a new movement to declare war-free cities around the world, inspired in part by the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act. Peace-and-justice leaders from Japan, Iraq, the Philippines, England, Switzerland, and Mexico expressed interest in Berkeley’s activist heritage and ways to work together in the future. I also spoke in Hiroshima, Sakai (Berkeley’s sister city), and Nishinomiya (near Osaka) at meetings where activists watched a documentary about Berkeley’s activism and discussed ways to apply the “Berkeley model” in their communities. 

On this, my fourth visit to Japan, I was unsurprised (but still awed) at Berkeley’s status as a touchstone for such activists. But I did not know what to expect at Mayors for Peace. This was an assemblage of government representatives, not grassroots activists; and they came from throughout the world, not just the progressive “hot-spots” represented at gatherings I’d previously attended. 

Cities also look to Berkeley 

What I found was this: Berkeley is looked to as a leader in the burgeoning movement of local governments acting on global issues. Consider: 

• With citizens and their local representatives increasingly frustrated by the destructive policies of their national governments (often at the behest of the current U.S. administration), Mayors for Peace has more than doubled in membership since its last world conference four years ago. It now includes more than 1,000 cities working to get rid of nuclear weapons. 

Participant after participant spoke about why it’s appropriate and necessary for localities to address global concerns. 

“It is on cities that nuclear bombs will fall, not governments,” said Mayor Garry Moore of Christchurch, New Zealand, whose interest in Berkeley led him to visit our city and have dinner with Mayor Bates and Assemblymember Hancock earlier this year. Mayors, he said, must protect their cities’ residents—including from the nuclear threat. Mayor Moore said it is possible and necessary “to be both idealistic and pragmatic at the same time.” 

• After my brief presentation about the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act, delegates from numerous cities approached me seeking assistance to develop similar policies for their communities. 

• In subsequent conference sessions, various delegates cited the Berkeley model as one to follow. A Massachusetts delegate particularly focused on the Berkeley-led South Africa boycott. 

• With an expected 20,000 participants, next year’s World Peace Forum in Vancouver, Canada will be the largest event of its kind to date, and will feature substantial participation from local governments. As Berkeley’s representative, I was lobbied heavily to participate in a meeting to organize local-government involvement in the forum. 

• On another issue, Berkeley was recently asked to join a global coalition of cities working to eliminate the death penalty worldwide, initiated by European cities impatient with national governments’ inaction. The Peace and Justice Commission’s recommendation to join the coalition is pending before the City Council. 

Clearly, the Berkeley model of thinking globally and acting locally is mushrooming worldwide. 

A responsibility to lead 

With so much admiration for Berkeley shown by Mayors for Peace delegates, I naturally felt great pride in the activist heritage of our town. I also felt a sense of responsibility, because such a reputation creates an opportunity—and therefore a duty—to lead. We owe it to our history; we owe it to our future. 

In a world threatened with nuclear annihilation, terrorism, grave social disparities, injustices against almost every social group, and environmental destruction, we do not have the luxury of parochialism. Having been handed the bat and ball, we must step up to the plate. 

As if to underscore that point, just as I was writing the preceding paragraph an e-mail message arrived from Namiho Nagata, who is running for City Council in the city of Kobe. “I will try to become a council member of Kobe city, and make a peace-loving city like Berkeley from my community,” she wrote. 

Can cities really help rid the world of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction? To the naysayer, we can point to our own city’s legacy. Was it “pie-in-the-sky” idealism to expect that apartheid could be brought down largely by a boycott started in a small California city? Was it “wishful thinking” for UC Berkeley protesters to believe their Free Speech Movement could break the shackles of censorship on campuses throughout the country? 

More than once, global challenges have been successfully confronted by innovative, effective action emanating from our small town. Ending the nuclear arms race may be a bigger challenge than campus free speech or ending apartheid, but we begin with a head-start over those earlier victorious efforts: A global movement is already in place, involving the elected leaders of more than 1,000 cities and coordinated by the politically astute Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima. We’ve shown ‘em before that the pessimists can be wrong. Let’s sock it to ‘em once again!  

Steve Freedkin is chairperson of the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission and publisher of ProgressivePortal.org. 

›

If you see nothing on the screen but snow when you turn on a Berkeley Community Media (BCM) TV channel Monday, it’s not the fault of your television: It’s a protest. 

Operation Snowstorm has been organized by local community access stations around the country to protest a federal government proposal to stop requiring that cable television providers offer public and local governments access to airwaves. 

BCM Executive Director Brian Scott said, “It’s an action of solidarity with the Alliance for Community Media, a nationwide organization which is challenging the huge lobbying efforts by corporate media like Comcast, TimeWarner and SBC that are taking over the airwaves.” 

While most community stations are limiting their efforts to a series of short snowstorms on Nov. 7, BCM members are working on something more elaborate, Scott said. 

“We want to leave some power in the hands of the community,” he said. “We’re working on a series of spots that will explain what’s going on.” 

In Berkeley and other cities, Scott said, Comcast TV is trying to get out of their contracts which require some public and educational TV. Berkeley’s 15-year Comcast contract expires in 2006. 

“If there’s no voice for the people, all you’ll have is what the corporate media want you to believe, while with public access television, people can tell the truth and the station won’t have to fear losing advertising dollars,” Scott said. 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington said he supports the protest. 

“It’s a national issue, and I’m glad to see Berkeley people are getting so involved,” he said.  

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PROGRESSIVES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Supporters of Lenora Moore call themselves “progressive.” They don’t seem to realize that their attitude has caused the declining of progressivism during the last few decades.  

If “progressives” support policies that perpetuate crime, drug-dealing, and unsafe neighborhoods, then most Americans will vote for conservatives.  

Andrea Prichett says we should look for the root causes or systemic causes of drug dealing in south Berkeley. I suggest that one of those root causes is her own “progressive” belief that people not responsible for their own behavior, that their problems are the fault of the system.  

Only in Berkeley! In other cities where people have used small claims court to free their neighborhoods from drug dealer, I have not heard about “progressives” trying to keep the drug dealers in the neighborhood. Let’s hope this news does not get out of Berkeley, because it will just provide more ammunition for conservatives.  

Charles Siegel 

• 

RAUBER AND CRITICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It boggles the mind. 

Liberal journalist Paul Rauber is lead plaintiff in a civil suit against a neighbor, Lenora Moore, suing her for damages related to the criminal behavior (of her relatives and others) in their neighborhood. 

The critics of this lawsuit charge that Rauber and company are trying to force Moore out of her home and that their logic is one of collective punishment. In his most recent letter to the editor, Rauber offers his rebuttal. 

Rauber claims that it is false that the stated intent of the lawsuit is to force Moore to sell her property. “Before we filed our suit, we told her that if she would sell her house and leave the neighborhood, we would drop the action,” he explains. Well then. 

Likewise, Rauber bristles at the suggestion that Moore is not to blame for crime in the neighborhood. Despite his best efforts to report crimes to the authorities, he says nothing has changed, “largely because the Alameda County district attorney doesn’t take the matter seriously”. Well then. 

Am I crazy, or does Rauber actually agree with his critics? 

Christopher Cantor 

• 

INTOLERANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I feel the need to respond to Laura Menard’s letter (“Lies and Intolerance”), in which she advocates the censure of a local teacher, simply for expressing views that differ from her own. 

Ms. Menard, I have lived here in the Bay Area for all 23 years. I consider Berkeley my second home. I often think about how lucky I am to live in an urban place spread with a wonderful feast of opinions and views. These range from conservative to liberal to anarchist-radical, and each one adds richness and texture to our home. 

If Ms. Prichett is fired or disciplined solely for her political opinions, what does that say about our community as a feast of views that can exist side by side? What will happen to other teachers who hold strong opinions? Will the next generation of young learners have the chance to taste a variety of beliefs including, but not limited to, those on the left? Or will our young people face a sparse, meager political table? 

For the sake of our Bay Area, and our world, I hope not. 

Alexis Johnson 

Oakland 

• 

TRUE CORRUPTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Aren’t Andrea Prichett and Paul Rauber both overlooking the true corruption in this debate? Would moving all the South-Berkeley “criminal-aiding-grandmas” to other neighborhoods be a rational solution? Even incarcerating all the guilty would only waste more scarce millions by providing employment for increased law enforcement.  

Pritchett speaks of recognizing “the systemic causes of drug addiction, crime, and poverty.” This is not rocket science; those who are benefiting from our ignorant outdated drug laws are the true criminals. Those who have apparently given up any hope of using our wasted millions for vitally needed education, jobs, housing, etc., are continuing a seemingly endless unproductive debate about the wrong crimes! 

Gerta Farber 

• 

LOSS OF COMPASSION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The loss of compassion is so saddening. As I read Paul Rauber’s rationalizations for his lawsuit against Ms. Moore, my heart sinks to think that his way of thinking can possibly be popular. I know it is not nice to find paraphernalia of see someone urinating in the neighborhood but compare that level of suffering to some of your neighbor’s problems; not having resources for their family to have a proper home, lack of access to decent jobs, discrimination, mental and physical illnesses and no available treatment. Please, can’t you see the bigger picture? It is immoral to persecute those of your community suffering from the lack of abundance you have. Attacking the victims is easier than finding the solutions. But it is wrong. 

Cyndi Johnson 

• 

AVIAN FLU 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The current fuss about the avian flu is all about fear and ignorance. Whenever we’re fearful and ignorant, we do crazy things.  Perhaps some well-meaning politician will soon declare a “war on the flu.” A war destined to be lost, no doubt, much like the wars on cancer, AIDS, poverty, etc. have all been lost years ago (although the money continues to flow). We need to change the way we think. 

     What the politicians don’t know (and the media won’t tell you) is that germs are a natural part of life. Their very important job is to attack weak organisms. We are not all at risk as has been reported by the government and the media. If your condition is weak, you are at risk. If it is strong, you are not. The problem is that next to no one in the modern world is willing to change dietary habits, lifestyle or spiritual condition. We’d rather pop magic pills and take magic shots. The avian flu is our karma. 

Michael Bauce 

• 

NEW TIMES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s insistence that New Times papers “toe the establishment line” and sully the legacy of I.F. Stone sure got our number. In September, for example, the East Bay Express was the first newspaper in the country to report that American soldiers were trading pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses for pornography. I’d like to thank Patrick Kennedy and Chevrontexaco CEO David O’Reilly for tipping us off to the story. I can’t figure out just how their business interests were advanced by the piece, but who am I to argue? The next three columns are all yours, fellas—just tell me what to write. 

Chris Thompson 

• 

P&J COMMISSION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is my belief that the conservative members of the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission are actively attempting to undermine and obstruct the work of that commission which deals with local, national and international issues. 

This appears to be in retaliation to the successful majority vote of that commission recommending that the U.S. government conduct an investigation into the tragic killing of Rachel Corrie in Palestine by an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer. 

Like it or not, we do not live in a political, economic, or social vacuum. The City of Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission has long been an important voice in the community for connection of conscience and action to this greater perspective. 

To this end, I believe it is our responsibility to investigate, condemn, and protest against actions committed by our government or by another directly or indirectly with the aid of our government and/or our citizenry. We must not tolerate any attack on our First Amendment right to free speech. Support the Peace and Justice Commission by notifying your councilmember and requesting that the obstructionist members of that commission either stop their behavior or step down. 

Chris Walter 

• 

EXECUTE DYLESKI 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Yes. If a person murders another person in cold blood he must be executed also. The Bible says, “An eye for an eye.” 

But, if Scott is old enough to be tried as an adult why can’t he vote, buy cigarettes, consent to sex with an adult, sign a legal contract, buy beer, get married, etc. 

If Scott is old enough to murder a human and old enough to be executed as an adult then let’s give adult status to all 16-year-old Americans. 

My parents brought me here in 1942 from Louisiana. I was 12 years old. I worked in a little grocery store. I went to Roosevelt Jr. High School with white kids for the first time. When I turned 14 I got a license to drive. Now we consider 12- and 14-year-old kids as babies. They are not babies. Sixteen-year-old Scott murdered a woman. Other 16-year-olds in Richmond and Oakland murder people. They are adults. Treat them like adults and they will act like adults. Give them adult privileges, responsibilities, and most of all, if they break the law, they must suffer adult penalties. 

Ella Jensen 

El Cerrito 

• 

NEEDS VALIDATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Since letter-writer Joanna Graham is so eager to share Israeli/Palestinian “information” in these pages, she needs to provide specific background material to be taken seriously. Namely: Education? Professional background? On-the-ground experience in the region? Where? When? Duration? 

Without validation, we can only assume she is simply venting. 

Rhoda Levinson 

• 

PROP. 73 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Proposition 73 would require parental notification before a teen can have an abortion. There is a provision for a cumbersome, time-consuming judicial waiver. 

Most teens do tell their parents. Some don’t because they are afraid of being beaten up and thrown out of the house. This has happened. 

The California Constitution today defines abortion as “medical treatment intended to induce the termination of a pregnancy.” Prop. 73 will define abortion as “causing the death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born.” Who can doubt that 73 is just one more step toward outlawing all abortions? 

Prop 73. will require judges to submit reports of the number of judicial waivers they grant each year. Judges are not required to keep records of any other kind of decisions they make. Obviously these records will be used in the judges’ reelection campaigns. 

Prop. 73 will require doctors to notify the California Department of Health of the number of abortions performed each year. They will have to supply details. 

The University of California at San Francisco recently did a study of states that have parental notification laws. They concluded that, “research suggests that parental notification can have the negative consequence of putting adolescents’ health at risk by delaying and otherwise complicating access to care.” 

The American Medical Association, California Nurses’ Association, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, the National Organization for Women, the American Association of University Women, and American Civil Liberties Union urge to vote no on Proposition 73. 

Nancy Ward 

• 

COMPASSION DEFICIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We’re all entitled to our opinions. What some consider tough-minded common sense, others might find vicious and mean-spirited. I read a letter from a Mr. Rockett, commenting on the lady who gave birth in the BART stairwell. He asserted that he was not “culturally insensitive,” since he did no indicate the race of the mother. We are to believe that he didn’t notice that the woman on the front page was dark skinned and of African descent. He was outraged that tax-payers are paying for the premature triplets, who are presumably living-it-up in the neonatal ICU at Alta Bates. Would he prefer the infants be left on the steps to expire and be swept away with the trash? He indignantly demands to know where the father is. That it’s none of his business never occurs to him. He notices that the woman’s other children are not in her custody, and that she has a social worker. Mr. Rockett’s clear implication is that this sort of person has no business having children. Mr. Rockett no doubt fancies himself a man-of-the-world, one who clearly knows what’s what and how people should behave. Things like this could never happen to superior beings like him. One thing he doesn’t know is what chain of sorrowful events led Mrs. Lewis to be in her present circumstances. She obviously loves her babies and is most likely torn up by being away from the other children. He thinks he knows, but he doesn’t. He has pre-judged her. Pre-judgment being prejudice. Mr. Rockett admits to being confused, so I hesitate to brand him with the name of “bigot,” even though prejudice and bigotry are often used interchangeably. At the least, he has a serious compassion deficit. When he thinks: “Follow the Money,” he would be better off thinking: “What the World Needs Now, Is Love, Sweet Love.” 

Barbara Henninger

Bangkok, Thailand—Traveling through South East Asia, the rapid pace of development confronted us everywhere: once remote Laotian villages now have electricity, clean water, and public schools; small Cambodian towns, where Mercedes sedans share the road with Vespas and water buffalo, support Internet cafes; and tourists and goods cross borders with unparalleled ease. Yet, lurking behind this progress are disturbing problems: many of our trading partners are democracies in name only, horrendous damage is being done to the environment, and women are treated as chattel—denied basic human rights. 

There’s a tendency for Westerners to be judgmental of others on the subject of women’s rights. But the truth is that while democracy is an old concept in the West, the notion that women are equal to men and deserve the same rights is new. American women gained the right to vote in 1920; nonetheless they remain second-class citizens in terms of equal pay for equal work and other important social parameters. 

Given the reality in the United States, it’s not surprising that women in Asia are struggling for their rights even while the male leaders of their countries boast of the progress of their emerging democracies. In every country we visited women spoke of their repression. The most horrendous stories came from Burma where ethnic women are thrown off their ancestral lands and subjected to gang rape by the military. But in all the countries, we heard tales of sex trafficking of women and differential access to healthcare, education, and the ballot; 45 percent of Cambodian women are illiterate compared to twenty percent of the men. 

What is surprising is that there is no moral leadership from the Buddhist church in these countries. While the population is overwhelmingly Theravada Buddhist, and there are active temples in each town, one never hears of Buddhist leaders taking a stance in favor of equal rights for women—or democracy, for that matter. 

Towards the end of our tour, we met with the International Women’s Partnership for Peace and Justice, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Their charismatic leader, Ouyporn Khuankaew, has an analytic framework linking spirituality, feminism, and democratic social development. 

She pointed out that throughout South East Asia, Buddhism is rigidly segregated and male monks control the positions of power. Wherever women are permitted to become novices and monks, they are relegated to servile positions. Even Buddhist theology is turned against women. Ouyporn noted that when wives complain to monks about spousal abuse, they are counseled to meditate on this, told that it is most likely their fault—part of their “karma.” The Buddhist church supports the patriarchy and, thereby, is complicit in the suppression of women throughout the region. 

If this sounds familiar, it’s because there’s a similar pattern in the United States. One of the prime objectives of the American conservative movement has been to diminish the rights of women. When the Bush administration reduces federal entitlements, such as healthcare, this has a differential impact on women, and their children. When Republicans seek to eliminate the right of women to obtain confidential medical advice, the GOP has the strong support of the male leadership of the conservative Christian church. 

In traditional values’ Christianity, women are taught to be subordinate to their husbands, trained to see themselves as second-class citizens with restricted rights. Given what’s happened in America, as a result of the conservative onslaught, it’s not surprising to find globalization in South East Asia trampling on the rights of women. 

In George W. Bush’s second inaugural address he declared that the United States has a responsibility to spread democracy around the world, “The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies’ defeat … one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.” 

Bush assured Americans that one of the key aspects of our democracy initiative would be equal rights for women. Yet, the reality is that during his administration, women’s rights have been set back across the globe. Iraq and Afghanistan are prime examples: fundamentalists now control vast stretches of both countries, and where they do, Islamic law prevails. Sharia views women as second-class citizens who cannot hold elected office, must observe a strict dress code, and can be beaten by men if they appear immodest. There is a conservative tsunami washing away women’s rights and, at the same time, undermining democracy. 

When conservatives, such as President Bush, speak of democracy they don’t mean “social democracy,” where there is respect for the individual, equality, and the notion that the people are the ultimate source of political power, but instead “trade democracy,” the creation of the global marketplace. Worldwide advocacy of trade democracy explains why so many emerging democracies are, in reality, plutocracies—forms of government that contain some elements of democracy but where, ultimately, the wealthy rule. The conservative support for globalization explains why Asian countries have made amazing progress in many areas, but not in terms of support for the rights of women. 

The crux of the problem is that conservatives disagree with the concept that women deserve the same rights as men. Progressives must respond that without guarantees for the human rights of women there is not true democracy, that human rights for everyone is what the founders meant by the phrase, “liberty and justice for all.”  

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously remarked, “No one is free, until everyone is free.” Globalization may eventually prove to be a good thing, but it is not a substitute for real democracy, where men and women have equal rights. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.f

Suppose you heard the news that there were, say, 30 arrests at last weekend’s Dias De Los Muertos celebration in Oakland’s Fruitvale District. There weren’t actually 30 arrests at last weekend’s Dias De Los Muertos celebration, not even any reports of the kinds of problems that might lead to such arrests, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s pretend that there were. 

How long do you think it would take before local newspapers, television reporters, Oakland City Councilmembers, somebody in the mayor’s office, and various community leaders would call for something to be done—either severe police restrictions on the event, or outright closing it down? 

But let’s not limit the speculation to the Latino-based Los Muertos. Oakland police have been more than eager to try to shut down any Oakland gatherings where there was even the potential for trouble, much less actual arrests. So you would be willing to bet—wouldn’t you?—that an ongoing event that regularly had more than 30 arrests each time it took place would have little, if any, chance of continuing its run in the City of Oakland. 

The clever ones amongst you are already saying “not necessarily,” even if you don’t know where we’re actually going with this. 

Anyways, we learned last week that there is an ongoing Oakland event that regularly gets away with more than 30 arrests each time it is held, with politicians, police, and the press well aware of the situation, but turning a blind eye. 

In an Oct. 27 column entitled “Are Rowdy Fans Sinking Raiders?,” San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius reveals that according to Oakland Police Lt. David Kozicki, the OPD “was probably making 70 arrests per game in years past” at Oakland Raiders games. Mr. Neivus contends that “things are looking up,” however, since the lieutenant says that “now we are down to half of that.” Half of 70 arrests per game is 35 arrests per game, by my unofficial count. 

The issue is being noticed by more people than Mr. Nevius. 

After 38 people were arrested at the Raiders-Chiefs game in Oakland in September—compared to only three people arrested at a Chiefs-Jets game earlier in the month in Kansas City—reporter Greg Reeves of the Kansas City Star said that OPD Special Events Coordinator Sgt. Tom Hogenmiller told him the problem comes from what Hogenmiller called “one-game wonders that show up and think that to be a Raider fan you’re supposed to act crazy and disrupt other people’s enjoyment. … These are the [people] that come and think they can get stupid. Drink too much. They just act like idiots. Those are the ones that seem to eventually get in trouble.” 

The arrests are so commonplace that they have even become running jokes among the Raider fans. In speculating in advance how the Raiders would fare—on the field—against the Chiefs in that same September game, the writer of the Raiders Blog in the Contra Costa Times asked, rhetorically, “Can the Raiders sustain their high-octane offense over a full game this week? Will Chiefs quarterback Trent Green get so much as a grass stain on his jersey? Will the Raiders secondary commit more penalties than it makes tackles? Will the first arrest of the evening come in the Black Hole or in the Kansas City backfield? [my emphasis added].” 

(For those of you who don’t follow these things, the “Black Hole” is what Raider fans call the part of the stadium where the most outrageously-dressed fans set up camp during the games. It’s important to note, however, that while Black Hole participants tend to dress up in violent-looking costumes, make a lot of noise, and get the attention of the television cameras, the drunken rowdiness at the stadium is not centered there, but in other parts of the stadium.) 

I am not certain if any statistics are kept, or disseminated, on exactly what types of offenses lead to these Raider game arrests. My guess is that no small number of them are for public drunkenness. But there have also been well-publicized incidents in the past of violent assaults on property and on the fans of other teams (Nevius himself recounts the time his own car was vandalized at a game). And, in fact, it is the threat of assaults that has led Oakland Raiders fans to get a reputation around the league and around the nation for celebrating the thug life. 

During a national broadcast back east of a Raider game at the Coliseum some years ago, an announcer said that a player was probably going to be assessed a $50 fine by the league for throwing the ball up into the stands during a touchdown celebration. “Heck, for $50, I’d go up in the stands and get the ball back myself!” the second announcer laughed. The first announcer paused a moment, thought about it, and said evenly “Not in those stands.” 

That was during the years when the Raiders were first here, before they moved to Los Angeles, and during the period when ticket prices were low enough that many of the fans at the game were actually from Oakland. But since the Raiders returned from Los Angeles 10 years ago, game prices consistently rank in the top three in the league. In 1993, those prices averaged more than $60 apiece, more than a notion for lots of folks in the Fruitvale or West Oakland. And so these days, my guess is that fans actually attending Raider games are more likely to be from the more affluent areas outside of the city—Livermore, Concord, Pleasanton, Hayward, and so forth. A few years ago, Oakland had a rash of people coming in from just such areas dumping truckloads of trash on our streets and in convenient alleyways, presumably using the “moral” justification of the movie gangster Zaluchi, who told his fellow Mafia dons in the Godfather that he intended to keep the drug traffic out of his own neighborhood and restrict it to “the dark people—the colored. They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.” 

I’m only guessing, but maybe some Raider fans from outside of the city think it’s OK to come to Oakland and act up at a Raider game—get drunk and assault people, for example—because, after all, that’s what people do in Oakland. Isn’t it? But since we aren’t being told where the arrestees are coming from, we don’t know if this is one of the causes of the problem. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Nevius of the Chronicle says that after all these years, the Oakland Raiders management is finally getting the message. Lt. Kozicki, whose duties include both coordinating Coliseum security and suppressing Oakland’s sideshows, interestingly enough, told him that “recently the Raider management has been taking an active role in fan behavior,” And Mr. Nevius quotes Alameda County Board of Supervisors chairperson Gail Steele as saying “I think it is an issue and I think the Raiders are concerned about it. I know for a fact that they are trying to work on it.’’ 

Does that mean that in order to discourage excessive drinking at the Coliseum, Oakland police are going to begin to make “Operation Impact”-type stops of “random” vehicles leaving the Coliseum on game day and make all of the occupants get out while they check everybody’s ID, smell breaths, and do a visual check on the seats and floorboards for anything that they can charge somebody with? Or is that only allowed while stopping young African-Americans and Latinos along the International Boulevard and MacArthur Boulevard corridors? 

In any event, it is interesting to wonder if this type of activity-widespread arrests happening regularly at an ongoing public event-would be tolerated in Oakland so long for any other group than people attending Oakland Raiders games. And if it wouldn’t, then why has it been tolerated for the Raiders? 

Mysterious attack 

Berkeley police are asking for the public to help them learn more about the assault of a woman who knocked on a door in the 1100 block of Delaware Street about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, bearing the marks of a severe beating. 

Berkeley Police Spokesperson Officer Joe Okies said the woman asked the resident for help. She was rushed to a local hospital, where her condition prevents her from helping in the investigation. 

“At this point, we can’t confirm where the crime took place,” said Okies. 

Officers also don’t know if a sexual assault was involved. 

Anyone with information is requested to contact the department by e-mail at police@ci.berkeley.ca.us or by phone at 981-5900. 

Multiple bandits 

Four robbers, one of them armed with a pistol, robbed a 25-year-old woman of her backpack in the 1800 block of Francisco Street at 7:23 p.m. on Halloween. 

Three juveniles were arrested after they robbed a 19-year-old woman in the 2500 block of Regent Street at about the same time. 

Laptop larceny 

Folks at the Publishers Group West office at 1700 Fourth St. called police Wednesday afternoon to report that someone had made off with at least three laptop computers in recent weeks. 

Wednesday robberies 

A strong-arm bandit robbed a 62-year-old woman of her purse at about 5:20 p.m. in the 1800 block of Rose Street. 

A muscular bandit punched a 36-year-old woman in the 2200 block of McGee Avenue at 10:55 p.m., grabbing her purse and contents, which he subsequently dropped while fleeing down Bancroft Way. They were restored, intact, to the owner. 

At the same time, two men, one packing a gun, robbed a man of his cash and credit cards in the 2500 block of Hillegass Avenue.

In the mid 1970s, the Supreme Court extended First Amendment Constitutional protection to the corporate financing of elections. Since that historic decision, corporations have virtually taken over the electoral process. Unlike individuals and other groups, corporations are able to amass huge concentrations of shareholder wealth and have demonstrated a willingness to spend it within the political system to ensure that they are able to pursue their self-interests (i.e.: profits and returns for investors) without interference.  

It is no coincidence that while the influence that corporations have on politics has risen sharply over the last 30 years, there has been a corresponding decline in workers’ real wages, retirement security, and access to quality, affordable health care. After all, corporations rightly see employee compensation as a cost, and costs must be cut in order to ensure greater profits. Corporations have been enormously successful, for example, at beating back modest attempts by workers to gain a living wage, to protect their pensions, and to legislate that corporations bear a greater share of employee healthcare costs.  

Labor unions, the collective political voice of the working class, have largely been rendered obsolete by the corporation’s rise to dominance over the last 30 years. Corporations outspend unions 24 to 1 in terms of political contributions. Union membership has declined from 25 percent of the U.S. work force in the late ‘70s to about 12 percent today.  

In the public sector, however, labor unions are more prominent and workers are therefore compensated more humanely. For example, here in California, public employee unions recently defeated a fierce and well-funded campaign by the governor and by corporations in California to privatize workers’ pensions.  

Apparently, the modest gains made by California’s public sector workers are unacceptable to the corporations that dominate California’s economy. Their response is Proposition 75, and their aim is clear: public employees must be made to shut up once and for all so that they are rendered incapable of fighting back against the corporate takeover of California politics. 

The initiative would prohibit public employee unions in California from spending union dues on political donations without the explicit consent of members. The initiative would have the obvious effect of forcing unions to divert resources away from political action and toward the heavy administrative procedures mandated by Prop. 75. Proponents of 75 state that they are fighting on behalf of public sector workers. This claim is dubious at best, given that the major funding for the initiative has come from a group calling itself the Small Business Action Committee. Turns out that by “small,” this Committee must mean “huge,” as nearly all of their funding in 2004 came from major corporations and executives, including Ameriquest, the former GAP Chairman Donald Fisher, Phillip Morris, and PG&E. 

Vote no on 75 and stop the corporate hijacking of California’s political system. 

Michael Marchant is a social worker and union member living in Albany. 

Four years ago many Berkeleyans were involved in a passionate debate over a proposal to divide Berkeley High entirely into small schools. The School Board eventually resolved that controversy by adopting a compromise plan which called for a Berkeley High School with half its students in small schools and half its students in a large, comprehensive school. 

This fall a proposal is working its way quickly and quietly through BHS which, if approved by the School Board, would effectively render that compromise null and void. While the label “comprehensive high school” would remain, every student considered a comprehensive high school student (by virtue of not being enrolled in a “small school”) would be enrolled in one of two “small learning community” programs—Academic Choice or a new International High School (IHS) program. IHS would start next year as a program for 9th and 10th grade and add a grade each year until it becomes a four-year program, offering International Baccalaureate (IB) as an option in the 11th and 12th grades. Since this proposal was instituted by BHS’s powerful and popular principal, Jim Slemp, there is a widespread assumption at the high school that it will be approved. 

Under the proposed new configuration for the high school, students will be assigned to one of the small schools, Academic Choice or International High School using the same lottery system as was used to assign students for the current year. IHS will simply replace “large school” as one of the choices. Students enrolled in International High School would take three classes within the program each semester, plus they will be required to take a world language of their choice all four years. This compares to Academic Choice where students take two classes within the program each semester and small schools where students take four to six classes within their school.  

This year, programs and schools were required, via the lottery, to match the diversity of the school as a whole in 9th and 10th grade, but 11th and 12th grade students were allowed to continue wherever they were. After two more years, however, the administration has said it intends to maintain matching diversity in all schools and programs at all grade levels. This implies that a student won’t be able to transfer out of a school or program unless there is an opening for students of their diversity category in the school or program they want to join. I fear that students’ ability to change programs could be very limited. 

Imagine a college where every freshman is required to declare a major from among only half a dozen choices, with little possibility of changing it if it doesn’t suit. Then imagine that those students are only 13 years old and, to top it off, that they may have to accept a major that is their second or third choice. Would anyone apply to such a school? BHS could become that school. The variety of choices which were once the hallmark of BHS and which were a large part of what people valued in the comprehensive school would be gone. What a shame. 

There is no question that International Baccalaureate is a high quality, rigorous academic program. Although lately it seems to have become something of an educational flavor-of-the-month (much as small school reform was four years ago) it has a long established, internationally recognized reputation. However, Berkeley High already has a vigorous Advanced Placement program (open not just to Academic Choice students, but to everyone except some students whose small school won’t let them passport out). The needs of students who are ready to do college level work while still in high school are being met (at least in 11th and 12th grade). It is the needs of the many students who are failing at Berkeley High that should be our primary focus. The IHS proposal does nothing to specify how its 9th and 10th grade program would better help those students to succeed. Taking IB tests would be optional for IHS juniors and seniors, which would very possibly produce a two tier International High school with the same achievement gap that our entire educational system currently suffers from.  

The IHS proposal seems to be geared to overcome the disappointment of students who requested Academic Choice or a small school but were placed by lottery selection in the general comprehensive school. Although the lottery has accomplished its very desirable goal of making all programs and schools equally diverse, it has forced our academic programs to compete with each other and turned school choice into a popularity contest. There will always be losers in such a contest. Next year the outcry may come from Academic Choice parents who wanted their kids in IHS, or perhaps the small schools—once the darlings of Berkeley High—will become the place where the “leftovers” are placed. The small schools are already struggling against the misperception in some minds that they aren’t college prep programs. Creating a “comprehensive” school where everyone is in a program that can (but doesn’t necessarily) lead either to IB or AP won’t help small schools.  

For every action to change things at BHS there is a reaction. When will we learn to anticipate the fallout from the endless, countless changes made at BHS? We have a multi-year action plan to raise academic achievement while eliminating the achievement gap. When Berkeley High’s accreditation was reviewed last spring, that plan earned our school WASC’s highest level of approval. Nowhere does that plan propose converting the remainder of the comprehensive high school into another small learning community or to an International High School. Can’t we stay the course even one year and follow through with our laboriously laid plans? Must we always be pulling in some new thing that will suck away attention and resources from solving the basic, long term problems at BHS? 

Whereas the small school RFAs (request for authorization) and the Academic Choice program proposal previously approved by the School Board were lengthy, detailed documents written by large committees of teachers, parents and students over a period of time, the International High School (IHS) proposal is a four page document written by Jim Slemp. An IHS design committee with members from the various stakeholder groups has now been appointed, but Principal Slemp says he does not anticipate that the proposal will change much before being presented to the school board in January. The devil is in the details as they say. I implore the community and the Board of Education to take a long, hard look before leaping off in yet another direction at Berkeley High. 

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This Tuesday, Californians will vote on a ballot measure that, if approved, will place some teenagers in “serious jeopardy.” 

That’s how Natalie LeBlanc, the legislative coordinator for NARAL Pro-Choice California, describes Proposition 73. Proposition 73, which requires physicians to notify a parent 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor, poses a threat to the health and safety of young women under the age of eighteen. 

Although most teenagers involve their parents in a decision to have an abortion, many teenagers can’t tell their parents for fear of disappointing them or being abused. If Proposition 73 is passed, these young women will have very limited options, such as navigating a complicated judicial bypass system or seeking an illegal abortion. 

Proposition 73 does allow teenagers to petition the court for a waiver of parental notification; however, it’s often difficult for teenagers to go to court. LeBlanc points out that the teenagers who most need a waiver from the court—those who come from abusive families or who can’t communicate with their parents—are frequently the least prepared to go to court, as they may be feeling scared and alone, and often lack a support network. 

Because of the difficulties of obtaining a waiver by going to court, many teenagers will seek illegal abortions. These abortions are much more dangerous than legal abortions done in clinics by doctors. Before Roe v. Wade guaranteed abortions for adult women, hundreds (if not thousands) of American women died each year from these “back-alley abortions.” For young women who are unable to discuss their pregnancy with their parents or obtain a judicial bypass, the passage of Proposition 73 would mean a return to the days of these dangerous and often deadly illegal abortions. 

In an ideal world, parents should be involved in their daughters’ lives and teenagers should be able to talk to parents about important decisions such as having an abortion. However, many teenagers are unable to talk to their parents about such an issue and may suffer serious medical complications or even death from illegal abortions if Proposition 73 is passed. Even though parents should be able to know what is happening in their teenagers’ lives, is this right to know really more important than the life of a teenage girl? 

Elizabeth Hopper is a senior at Bentley School in Lafayette. b

When Beverly Hill chanced to open mail from the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce 10 days ago, she saw red—as in red state. The owner of Rainbo Graphix, just over the city line in Emeryville, she had been a proud member of the Berkeley Chamber for years. Knowing Berkeley, she took it for granted that the chamber, if it took political positions, would be as liberal as the whole city is. That’s not what she found.  

Instead, in the flyer she received, the chamber went down the line in support of the Schwarzenegger positions in Tuesday’s election. With no position on the anti-abortion Prop. 73, the Chamber endorsed 74 through 78, and was only against the two liberal initiatives, 79 and 80. Hill had seen enough. By return mail she sent a scathing letter to the Chamber, resigning her membership.  

Hill didn’t stop there. She e-mailed fellow members of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, which has been actively campaigning against 73 to 78 and for 79 and 80. The club has been putting most available energy into precinct walking, but Hill and I started studying the Chamber and then contacting members.  

The Chamber’s members are a motley crew, as might be expected of Berkeley. In its top-ranked “Platinum Level of its Chairman’s Circle” are just three organizations: the pharmaceutical giant Bayer, the University of California and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (The latter two, as taxpayer-supported institutions shouldn’t be taking political stands at all.) Far down the list, are the businesses most of us think of as such—places like Cody’s Books, Saul’s Deli, Picante Restaurant and Chez Panisse, as well as this paper, among others.  

So how did the chamber end up with the positions they took? According to Roland Peterson, head of the Government Affairs Committee of the Chamber, his committee met twice and finally voted for a mix of endorsements far different from the final ones. He says the Chamber only takes positions on measures it believes will affect businesses. When asked how that justifies taking a stand on Prop. 75, the measure to force public employee unions to get signatures allowing political expenditures from each member, he refused to comment. Anyway, the committee’s endorsements then went to the board of directors, heavily tilted towards big business, who then voted “something like 7 to 5” to support the full Schwarzenegger agenda.  

Small business owners in Berkeley tend to be too busy to have much time for politics. Still, Andy Ross of Cody’s took time out from opening his new San Francisco store to send a message to the Chamber’s CEO, Rachel Rupert. “I am loath to send this e-mail. But I must,” he began. 

“Apparently the chamber has endorsed a number of the state propositions that I feel are simply vehicles of the Republican party to score points against the Democrats,” Ross wrote. “I am sure that the membership would not support these propositions. I also have been getting flack from my customers for being a member of an organization with this kind of political agenda. In this instance, I would have to agree with my customers. ... the chamber’s position seems to be needlessly provocative.” 

Ross concluded, “I really don’t want to make a big stink and resign from the chamber. But I feel the chamber would be best served by changing their position on these issues to ‘neutral.’” 

Other businesses are likely to weigh in over the next few days.  

Michael H. Goldhaber is a member of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club. 

FRIDAY, NOV. 4 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley ”Six Degrees of Separation” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. through Nov. 19. Tickets are $10. 649-5999.  

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Berkeley Rep “Finn in the Underworld” opens at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage and runs to Nov. 6. Tickets are $43-$59. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Central Works “Achilles & Patroklos” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at The Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through Nov. 20. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381.  

Impact Theatre “Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake)” Thurs. through Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468.  

Masquers Playhouse “Dear World” Jerry Herman’s musical, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 17 at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Youth Musical Theater Company “Sweeney Todd” Fri. and Sat. at 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m., also Nov. 10-12 at 7:30 p.m. at Longefellow Middle School Auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $12, $6 students. 595-5514. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Oaktown: Art About Oakland and Our Communities” Reception at 7 p.m. at Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. 420-7900.  

Clint Imboden “6 x 6” six projects spanning six years. Reception at 6 p.m. at Lobot Gallery, 1800 Campbell St., Oakland. www.lobotgallery.com 

FILM 

The Battles of Sam Peckinpah “Ride the High Country” at 7 p.m., “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” at 9 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poems and Songs to the Dead with Cedric Brown, Barbara Heredia, Leticia Hernandez and others at 8 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200.  

Mary Roach reads from “Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

University Chorus and Chamber Chorus at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. 642-9988.  

Vera Breheda, piano, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $12-$15. 848-1228. www.giorgigallery.com 

Stone-Zimmerman Duo at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15. 701-1787. 

Moh Alileche & Danse Maghreb at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

E.W. Wainwright’s African Roots of Jazz at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

De Rompe y Raja, Afro-Peruvian, at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Dre & Meghan Baker at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Houston Jones at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Battlefield Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Tressa Armstrong, vocals, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Kirk Keeler & Cowpokes for Peace at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344.  

Bitches Brew at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

“... and Words by Barry Warren” a vocal jazz concert at at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Shotgun Wedding Quintet, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Battleship, Vholtz, Rubber O Cement, Sixes at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 5 

CHILDREN 

Bonnie Lockhart & Fran Avni at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBTIONS 

“The Art of Metal” Jewelry, sculpture, and tableware by 73 California artists. Reception at 1 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St.  

“Tinta Bella” color photographs by Jenna Zabin. Reception at 5 p.m. at Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St. 644-1400. 

“Looking Glass” with works by Sydei SmithJordan, Zoe Martell, Susan Sarti and others. Reception at 6 p.m. at a Fusao Studios, 646 Kennedy St., Suite 108, Oakland.  

Mary Roehm, new work in wood fired porcelain. Reception at 5 p.m. at Trax Gallery, 1812 5th St. 540-8729.  

THEATER 

Beijing People’s Art Theater, “The Teahouse” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988.  

Woman’s Will “Happy End” by Bertolt Brecht, Sat. at 7 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Luka’s Lounge, 2221 Broadway at Grand Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$25. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

“The Arab-Israeli Cookbook” a play by Robin Soans at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $22. 848-0237.  

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “Souls on the Road” at 6 p.m. and “The Golden Bullet” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu  

“NBT Never Been Thawed” with co-writers Sean Anders and John Morris at Landmark’s Act 1&2, 2128 Center St. Tickets are $9.25. 464-5980. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bay Area Poets Coalition Annual Contest and Poetry Reading from 3 to 5 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, dining hall, 1320 Addison St. 527-9905.  

Al Franken reads from his new book “Truth (with Jokes)” at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $5 with purchase of the book at Cody’s. 845-7852.  

Poetry Flash with Denise Duhamel and Virgil Suárez at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE  

Harvest of Song with new works by Peter Josheff, Allen Shearer and Mark Secosh at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Pre-concert discussion at 6:30 p.m. Cost is $9-$10. 527-5059. 

Wildcat Viols performs England’s greatest masters of song at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

Voices Lesbian Choral Ensemble at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15.  

The Meeting House Strings benefit concert for the Friends Committee on Legislation at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Friends Meeting House, corner of Walnut and Vine. Donation $5.  

Sorelle, women’s vocal ensemble, performs Handel’s “Dixit Dominus” with the Gentlemen of the Pacific Boychoir at 8 p.m. at Lake Park Methodist Church, 281 Santa Clara Ave., Oakland. Donation $10-$12. www.sorelle.org 

Marian Anderson String Quartet at 7:30 p.m. at Calvin Simmons Theater, 10 Tenth St. Tickets are $25-$40. 601-7919.  

Berkeley Saxaphone Quartet at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864.  

University Chorus and Chamber Chorus at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. 642-9988.  

SambaDá Lecture and demonstration at 8 p.m., performance at 9:15 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Rhonda Benin and Soulful Strut at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Cas Lucas Acoustic Series at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts Center, 1923 Ashby Ave. www.epic 

arts.org 

Braziu at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159.  

Somethingfour at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Carolyn Chiung Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Samantha Raven & Friends at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Reilly & Maloney at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Kasey Knudsen Sextet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Orishas, Cuban hip-hop, at 9 p.m. at Sweets Ballroom, 1933 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $23-$28. Sponsored by La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568.  

Elijah Henry & Keren at 7 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Turn Me On Dead Man, The Radishes at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Arlington Houston at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Deadfall, Knife Fight at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 6 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine” A exhibition of works by fourteen Palestinian and American artists. Reception at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco” guided tour at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-0808. 

THEATER 

Beijing People’s Art Theater, “The Teahouse” at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “Eternal Heart” at 3:30 p.m. and “Rebirth of the Capital” at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Senator Barbara Boxer introduces her debut novel, “A Time to Run” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Reading with Shanna Compton and Jennifer L. Knox at 8 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Harvest of Song with new works by Peter Josheff, Allen Shearer and Mark Secosh at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Pre-concert discussion at 6:30 p.m. Cost is $9-$10. 527-5059. 

Sorelle, women’s vocal ensemble, performs Handel’s “Dixit Dominus” with the Gentlemen of the Pacific Boychoir at 2 p.m. at Lake Park Methodist Church, 281 Santa Clara Ave., Oakland. Donation $10-$12. www.sorelle.org 

Carol Alban, flute, at 3:30 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Donation $10 and up. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to displaced hurricane Katrina victims now living in Oakland. 595-9009. 

Quartet San Francisco at 4 p.m. at Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. at Sacramento. Tickets are $12, free for chidren. 559-6910.  

Christopher Taylor performs Ligeti’s complete piano etudes at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32. 642-9988. 

Emeryville Taiko at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $12, $10 for children. 925-798-1300. 

Twang Cafe, acoustic and Americana, at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Jesse Engel Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Alexa Weber Morales at 6:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $20. Benefit for Melrose Elementary School. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mark Levine Trio at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Lucy Kaplansky & Richard Shindell at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761.  

Jared Karol and Nate Cooper at 10 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MONDAY, NOV. 7 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jung Chang and John Halliday on “Mao: The Unknow Story” in conversation with Orville Schell, at 7 p.m. at Anderson Auditorium, Haas School of Business, UC Campus. 845-7852.  

Greg Critser, Clara Jeffrey and Julia Whitty discuss “Generation Rx: You’ll Never Feel the Same About the Pills You Take” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Co-sponsored with Mother Jones magazine. 845-7852. www.cody’sbooks.com 

Poetry Express with Sandra Gey and Leah Steinberg at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

Actors Reading Writers: “The Thanksgiving Visitor” by Truman Capote at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., includes book exchange, bring a book, take a book. 845-8542, ext. 376. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

SF Contemporary Music Players, with Kathleen Rowland, soprano, at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. tickets are $3-$10. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

“The Fools of Prophecy” from Israel, at 8 p.m. at Pauley Ballroom, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$25. www.ticketweb.com/hillel 

UC Jazz Ensembles at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, NOV. 8 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theater Lab, “Cry Don’t Cry” Tues.-Thurs. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Nov. 17. Tickets are $10. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “The Pittsburgh Trilogy” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Mark Crispin Miller discusses “Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stoop Them)” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Patrick Lane discusses his emergence from a lifetime of alcohol and drug addiction in “What the Stones Remember” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Whole Note Poetry with Julia Vinograd and Debra Khattab at 7 p.m. at The Beanery, 2925 College Ave. 549-9093. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Steve Young at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Alam Khan, classical music of North India, at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $20. 525-5211. 

Creole Belles with Andrew Carriere at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

David Jeffrey Jazz Function at 8:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and singer’s open mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9 

THEATER 

Propeller, “The Winter’s Tale” Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988.  

FILM 

Cine Documental “Madrid” and “Robinson Carusoe Island” at 7 p.m. at the CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. 

The Unofficial Histories of Péter Forgács “Wittgenstein Tratacus and Meanwhile Somewhere” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts, Bernard Maybeck’s Pan Pacific International Exposition masterpiece with Hans Baldauf, Chairman of the Board of the Maybeck Foundation, at 8 p.m. at the The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $12, $8 for members. 843-8982. 

Cultural Diversity Authors’ Night with readings by Deborah Santana, Gail Tsukiyama and Denise Sherer Jacobson at 6:30 p.m. at Nile Hall, Preservation Park, Oakland. Benefit for Center for Independent Living. Tickets are $100. 841-4776, ext. 153. 

Vikram Seth reads from his new memoir “Two Lives” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082  

Café Poetry hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Ashkan Ghafouri, Aryan Rahmanian, Fares Hedayati, Persian classical music. Lecture and demonstration at 7 p.m., performance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Calvin Keys Trio Invitational Jam at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra Sensual at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Jazz Mafia Unit at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Eric & Suzy Thompson, Jody Stecher & Kate Breslin and others in a fundariser for the Halleck Creek Riding Club for the Disabled at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org

Where has the time gone? Late summer wildflowers have morphed into sere grasses and again into autumn foliage greedily drinking in the first rains as we head for the final Challenge hike. It’s worthy of a graduation jaunt and a good test of skills acquired since June. Trails will lead through two parks, so be prepared to look for signposts and carefully follow directions. On this trek the Challenge booklet is a must. 

Before beginning, reflect on the land we’ve hiked. With 65 regional parks encompassing a myriad of habitats at our fingertips, this is a good time to consider the concept of stewardship; to be keepers of nature as responsible caretakers of natural resources for ourselves and for future generations. This is the purpose of the park district a nd one that should be embraced by each one of us, every time we step onto park land. 

Considering all the pleasures open space and wildlife provide, it’s easy to take the next step and consider how one can give back in kind. On each Challenge hike, I’ve n oticed and described areas where additional work is needed. With reduced resources, park staff alone can’t solve many environmental “problems.” Here we can contribute, as trail or wildlife volunteers.  

Like the painting of the Golden Gate Bridge, maintenance is an ongoing endeavor, curtailing growth of vegetation and erosion. Trail volunteers contribute time, supplies or both to improve trails, create new ones and ensure the safety of visitors. They gain by increasing their knowledge of conservation and stewardship. If working with large pipes and pruning shears or building retaining walls and causeways sounds worthwhile, the trail volunteers welcome your help. 

Wildlife volunteers work toward improving the habitat and quality of life for birds and wildl ife through conservation and resource management projects. Members are trained and participate first hand in important field research. Monitoring riparian songbirds, wetland nesting birds, quail and grassland reptiles provide vital data to the preservatio n of these species. 

Restoring pond habitat for California’s red-legged frog by increasing native flora and removing bullfrogs or studying the range of common lizards in grassland areas in relation to the density of grass cover are two projects undertaken this year. Open to all ages, the experiences gained are priceless. 

The Trails Challenge hikes have provided their own accomplishments. Hoofing over 20 miles through nine parks, enjoying time outdoors, exercising, communing with nature and hopefully, cha nging outlooks, one can’t help being awed by the natural resources around us and the importance of their preservation. Hopefully that awe will extend to falling into the rhythm of taking time to appreciate the outdoors. 

While the official Challenge period may be coming to an end, maintain your commitment. Other parks and open space preserves await you during crisp fall, cold winter and rainy spring days. Enjoy them all.  

Trails Challenge No. 7: Sibley Volcanic Preserve to Huckleberry Botanical Regional Preserve: 6.5 miles, rated moderate. 

Sibley’s rich geologic history and Huckleberry’s diverse botanicals are both visited during this outing that follows the ridge, descends to a creek and rises again onto a nature trail before looping back to the starti ng point. Having written about Huckleberry last spring, I’ll focus on Sibley Volcanic Preserve. 

Once home to volcanoes, Sibley is one of the park district’s original properties, dedicated as a preserve in 1936. Over the last 10 million years the land com prising the Berkeley hills underwent action resembling a roller coaster, experiencing uplifting, folding and tilting. One of the highest peaks in this area, Round Top, was created during this process. Through erosion and folding, volcanic dikes, mud and l ava flows tell the story of Sibley’s geologic past. With wide, open paths and far reaching views of Mt. Diablo and the Las Trampas hills, Sibley’s 660-acres effortlessly increase our geological knowledge while providing an engaging tramp. 

My hike began a t Sibley’s Visitor Center, an open pavilion of stone and wood, where three Interpretive Panels offered an introduction to the diverse plant communities within the park and to its tumultuous past: the survival of land under transition. Before me was an artist’s palette of plant communities: grassland, brushland, mixed broadleaf woodland and conifer forest; home to coast live oak, bay laurel, madrone, Monterey pine, buckeye, big leaf maple, eucalyptus, coyote bush, wild currant, snow berry and huckleberry. A diversity of habitats is matched by a diversity of animals, many utilizing the quarries and natural rock outcrops to soak up the warmth of the sun or nestle in rocky dens. 

The richness of vegetation greeted me as soon as my feet hit the trail. I breathed in air that was clean and crisp, refreshed by recent rains as was the foliage bordering the trail. I felt a deep sense of seasonal change and the cycle of life, from deciduous plants discarding leaves to reveal the symmetry and hues of their framework to small pine seedlings emerging above thick leaf litter. 

Through verdant greens I saw glistening white berries, the bright red of poison oak, the tiny white buds and flowers on coyote bush and the brightness of new eucalyptus leaves. Happy bird song abounded while gentle drops of water were bounced off foliage by the slight breeze. The rain had stopped but a deep mist remained creating its own mood. Though a challenge to photography it was a wonderful climate for walking. 

With park pamphlet in hand, I took a detour off the Challenge hike to the Round Top loop to follow the self-guided tour. Round Top volcano’s interior and layers of tuff-breccias were visible at the former quarry pit. Other signposts signaled redbeds, red streaks and layers of oxidized iron and good fossil sources, and massive sandstone blocks left over from the Age of Dinosaurs. Lessons in geology were almost overshadowed by the wealth of flora. Tall summer grasses beaten down, as though recently bedded by a brontosaurus, formed intri guing patterns and sepia hues. Spider webs were gauzily delineated by clinging moisture. Ready for the upcoming holidays, a red-leafed tree was bedecked in green lichen. 

Retracing my steps I accessed Skyline Trail leading to Huckleberry Preserve. The wor ld seemed to change to one of far-reaching pines, bay laurel and oak. Where Sibley’s greens were muted, here brightness prevailed. Foliage greens contrasted with the deep russet of pine and leaf litter, coating trunks and like confetti under my feet. 

Nat ure’s power was evident on each trail. On Round Top, blasted rocks were embedded in the dirt trail; here, a network of gnarled exposed roots, supporting and giving life, formed an integral part of the path. 

The trail soon narrowed as it snaked a steep d escent into the canyon. Magnificent oaks spread tentacle-like branches above the trail, their trunks tinted green. Plush moss blanketed boulders. Moisture scented the air, gladdened the banana slug at my feet and coated the shiny leaves of coast huckleber ry as it led me the canyon’s floor. Here the waters of Huckleberry Creek encouraged my final challenge up to Huckleberry Preserve and the remainder of my hike.  

›s

FRIDAY, NOV. 4 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Al Young, the California Poet Laureate on “Creativity is Human Survival: A Poet’s View” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

Benefit with Dolores Huerta, United Farmworkers at 7:30 p.m., at St Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison. Donation $10. To benefit School of the Americas Watch. 597-0171. 

Latinos in Baseball with Tito Fuentes and Diego Segui at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage” with author Heather Rogers at AK Press, 674A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

Asian Business Association Benefit Fashion/Variety Show at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$12.  

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 5 

Morning Chores at the Little Farm Feed the animals, collect the eggs, and do other chores at 9 a.m. at Tilden Little Farm, Tilden Park. Dress to get dirty. 525-2233. 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7-12 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Bay Nature Hike: Point Pinole Regional Shoreline covering about four miles to see wildlife and learn th elocal history. Begins at 10 a.m. Wear sturdy shoes and bring a hat, sunscreen, water, lunch, and snacks. RSVP to 528-8550. hikes@baynature.com 

Sick Plant Clinic UC plant pathologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants from 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

“Preparing Your Garden for Winter” at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Al Franken “The Truth (with Jokes)” at 7:30 p.m.. at Berkeley Community Theater, 1930 Allston Way on the Berkeley High Campus. Cost is $12, or $5 with pre-purchase of the book from Cody’s. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Build Cross-Class Alliances” with Betsy Leondar-Wright on how to build stronger movements for social change, at 2 p.m. at the Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. Cost is $5-$25. To register email simcha3@msn.com, www.classmatters.org 

Berkeley Digital Media Conference on the emergence and implications of the digital lifestyle at the Haas School of Business, UC Campus. Cost is $60 for students, $125 for general admission. 642-0342. 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class on Basic Personal Preparedness from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at West Berkeley Senior Center. To sign up call 981-5506.  

Global Warming Summit with workshops and panel discussions for high school and college students on the UC Campus. For information see www.energyaction.net/casummit 

“The Big Bang” with author Simon Singh at 7 p.m. at Chabot Space & Science Center. Tickets are $7. 336-7373. www.chabotspace.org 

“Latest Theories About the Universe” Theoretical Physics Made Easy from 1 to 5 p.m. at Lawrence Hall of Science. Tickets are $80 available from www.ticketweb.com 

Anahat Second Annual South Asian Acappella Competition at 6:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$20.  

East Bay Atheists Berkeley Meeting with Dr. Anthony Somkin on the nature of death at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd floor Meeting Room. 222-7580. 

Travel Tips for Alaska A day-long workshop beginnning at 8:30 a.m. at Vista Community College, 2020 Milvia St. 981-2931. www.peralta.cc.ca.us 

Healthy Oakland Health Fair with food, music, children’s activities, social services booths, and health screenings from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the East Oakland Deliverance Center, 7425 International Blvd. www.blackwallstreet.org 

Karamu: A Pan-African Celebration with food, music and artisans, from 5 to 9 p.m. at 338 Ninth St., Oakland. Tickets are $40. 435-5074. 

Anime Convention with vendors, contests and original artwork from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. in the Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, UC Campus. Cost is $15, children 8 and under $8. amimage.berkeley.edu 

Sample Dance Classes at The Beat including tap, tango, jazz, salsa, samba, zydeco, belly dance, ballet, from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2560 9th St. 548-5348. www.the-beat.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Flower Essence Therapy for Animals at 3 p.m. at Rabbitears, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Donation $20. 525-6155. www.rabbitears.org 

Heal Your Back and Straighten Your Spine at 10 a.m. at Phamaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 6 

Watershed Hike to explore Wildcat Creek. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the Nature Center, Tilden Park. Bring lunch and drink. Dress for rain and mud. Hike is about 3 miles. 525-2233. 

Conversations with Nature A journal and art workshop at 2 p.m. at Change Makers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. RSVP to wolfbird7@sbcglobal.net 

Daniel Ellsberg on “National Security Whistle-Blowing: Ethics and Law” at noon at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Sponsored by the ACLU. 

Native Plants and Peoples Tour with demonstrations and hands-on experiences from noon to 3 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

Haiku and You Make a recycled journal and be inspired to write some haiku poetry from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. For ages 10 and up. 525-2233. 

Gumbo by the Bay at Sunset An afternoon of food, art and music from 3 to 6 p.m. at Western Drive, Pt. Richmond. Cost is $50-$75. Benefits ArtsChange. 231-1348. www.artschange.org 

Flu and Pneumonia Shots from 1 to 5 p.m. at Phamaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. Cost is $25 and $35. 527-8929. 

Free Entree for Veterans, in appreciation for their service to our country, at Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto, 1919 Fourth St. 845-7771. 

Integrative Medicine and Alternative Health Conference with speakers and workshops from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. Free. www.studentsforintegrativemedicine.info 

UC Berkeley Folkdancers Reunion at 1:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Ancient Malta: Crossroads of Mediterranean Cultures” at 1 p.m. in Room 101, Archeological Research Facility, UC Campus. 415-338-1537. 

Circus Arts in the Schools with acrobats, clowns, jugglers and musicians at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. at Kofman Auditorium, 2200 Central Ave., Alameda. 510-4636. 

Meet Rescued Rats available for adoption and learn about their care and feeding at 2:30 p.m. at Rabbitears, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. www.rabbitears.org 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

“Esoteric Energy Work from Around the World” with Irving Feurst, at 10 a.m. at International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Breath workshop follows. 245-3737, ext. 7. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

MONDAY, NOV. 7 

Sacred Site Shellmound Peace Walk beginning in Vallejo and ending at the Emeryville Huchiun Shellmound on Nov. 25. For information call 453-9002. shellmoundwalk@yahoo.com 

“Mao: The Unknown Story” a conversations with authors Hung Chang and Jon Halliday with Orville Schell, Dean of the Grad. School of Journalism, at 7 p.m. in Anderson Auditorium, Haas School of Business, UC Campus. http://ieas.berkeley.edu 

“About GMOs” Prof. Ignacio Chapela will speak on the introduction of genetically-modified organisms into our food supply at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. at Arch. 843-8724. 

Positive Parenting A six-week class on raising healthy, competent children, at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. 658-7353.  

“Greek Hate: Athenian War Propaganda and the Persians” The W. Kendrick Pritchett Lecture with Maureen Miller, Univ. of Sydney at 8 p.m. in the Alumni House, UC Campus. 415-338-1537. 

Tour of the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, including access to selections from the GTU’s collection of rare books, at 5 p.m. at 2400 Ridge Rd. Reservations required. 649-2420. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, NOV. 8 

Remember to Vote Today For information regarding polling place locations please call 663-VOTE (8683). www.smartvoter.org/ca/state/  

Birdwalk on the MLK Shoreline from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to see the shorebirds here for the winter. Binoculars available for loan. 525-2233. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. For information call 981-5300. 

Introduction to Voting for Children from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $6 for children, $5 for adult. 647-1111. 

“A Climbing Life Reexamined” with David Roberts at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Glaciers and the California Waterscape” with Prof. Kurt Cuffey at 5:30 p.m. at Goldman School of Public Policy, Room 150, 2607 Hearst. 642-2666. 

“Engineering Communism,” spies, Silicon Valley, and modern intelligence failures with author Steven Usdin at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $5. 415-850-5431. 

Guitars in the Classroom Free guitar and music lessons for teachers at 7:30 p.m. at 2304 McKinley Ave. 848-9463. www.guitarsintheclassroom.com 

Michael Oren, fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, on current complexities of the modern Middle East at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Hillel Auditorium, 2736 Bancroft Way. www.berkeleyhillel.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Introduction to Buddhist Meditation at 7 p.m. at the Dzalandhara Buddhist Center in Berkeley. Cost is $7-$10. Call for directions. 559-8183. www.kadampas.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9 

The Hungry Owl Project Fundraiser with dinner and speaker Allen Fish, Director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, at 6:30 p.m. at the Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross. Tickets are $40, reservations recommended. 415-454-4587. www.hungryowl.org 

Save The Bay Native Planting Day from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland. Gloves, tools and snacks provided. 452-9261, ext. 109. www.savesfbay.org 

Choosing Infant Care A workshop on the options at 10 a.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. Babies welcome. Registration required. 658-7353.  

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation at 10 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed 594-5165. 

“Higher Ground” An action documentary film on skiiing and snowboarding at 8 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets available at REI. 

“Chavez: Venezuela and the New Latin America” A documentary interview filmed in 2004, at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. 393-5685. 

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 16. 

“Supporting Cast or Supporting Caste: Minor Characters in Biblical Narrative” with Prof. GIna Hens-Piazza at 7 p.m. in the Chapel, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 649-2440. 

“In the Footsteps of Jewish Fusgeyers” with Jill Culiner, brown bag lunch at noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237. 

THURSDAY, NOV. 10 

Stephen Hawking “New Perspectives on the Origin of the Universe” at 8 p.m. at the Paramount Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $35-$125, available from 625-TIXS. www.ticketmaster.com 

Human Rights Watch Panel DIscussion with honorees Omid Memarian from Iran, Salih Mahmoud Osman from Sudan and Beatrice Were from Uganda at noon at the School of Journalism Library, North Gate Hall, UC Campus.  

“EcoNest: Creating Sustainable Sanctuaries of Clay, Straw, And Timber” at 7:30 p.m. at Builders Booksource, 1817 Fourth St., 845-6874. 

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers meets at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. Stu Stewart will speak on fly fishing in the lakes and streams of the Mt. Lassen area. 547-8629. 

Herbs and Remedies to Counteract Overeating at 5 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200.  

“Ways to Lower Your Blood Pressure” with the Hypertension Work Group of the South and West Berkeley Health Forum at 6 p.m. at St. Paul A.M.E. Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. 981-4131. 

Flu Shots for Berkeley Residents age 60 or over or “high-risk” from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, 830 University Ave. 981-5300. 

Headaches and Heartaches Learn about the relationship between physical and emotional pain at 5:30 p.m. at Phamaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Red Cross Mobile Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1706 Shattuck Ave. To make an appointment call 1-800-448-3543.  

“Detained at Angel Island: Stories, True Stories and Statistics” at 1:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Got a Book That Needs Publishing?” Panel discussion with book editors at 7 p.m. at the Journalism Library, corner of Hearst and Euclid, UC Campus. Sponsored by the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Cost is $5. RSVP to 530-6699. 

LGBT Family Night with Family Fun Zone and meetings with national leaders at 7 p.m. at Oakland Marriott City Center. 415-981-1960. 

Little Readers and Friends Night with storyteller Ayodele, at 5 p.m. at at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. Free 647-1111. 

East Bay Mac User Group meets to discuss mail clients for OS X at 6 p.m. at Free Expression College for Digital Arts, 6601 Shellmound, Emeryville. http://ebmug.org 

World Affairs/Politics Group for people 60 years and older meets at 3:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Cost is $2.50, includes refreshments. 524-9122. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Creeks Task Force meets Mon. Nov. 7, at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Erin Dando, 981-7410.  

Council Agenda Committee meets Tues. Nov. 7, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419.  

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Nov. 7, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510.  

Youth Commission meets Mon., Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670.  

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426.  

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed. Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. at South Berkeley Senior Center., Jackie Y. Griffin, 981-6195.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Nov. 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti, 981-6740.  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Kristin Tehrani, 981-5356.  

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400.  

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. ?

The second-highest ranking University of California official resigned suddenly Friday amid allegations of favoritism in hiring and possible conflicts of interest. 

Now, the university’s lawyers and auditors are investigating what role Provost M.R.C. “Marci” Greenwood, may have had in hiring her son for an internship at UC Merced. Investigators are also looking into Greenwood’s promotion of friend and veteran biology professor Lynda Goff to an executive position within the UC system, according to a statement released by UC Chancellor Robert Dynes late on Friday.  

Goff was vice provost at UC Santa Cruz when Greenwood tapped her for position at UC headquarters to design the new California Teach program, a UC initiative to increase the number of credentialed K-12 science and mathematics teachers. The two had worked alongside each other during Greenwood’s eight-year tenure as chancellor of UC Santa Cruz.  

The investigation, sparked by inquiries by the San Francisco Chronicle into the women’s financial relationship, revealed that Greenwood and Goff owned rental property together at the time of Goff’s promotion, said Dynes in his statement. 

“It appears that Provost Greenwood may have been involved in Dr. Goff’s hiring to a greater extent than was appropriate given that her business investment with Dr. Goff had not been properly and fully resolved in accordance with conflict of interest requirements,” said Dynes. 

Greenwood did not return calls for comment, and Goff’s office declined to comment further on the resignation. 

“It seems like there’s more than meets the eye here,” said Chris Krohn, the former mayor of Santa Cruz who met with Greenwood every two months while she was a chancellor. “She doesn’t resign over something like this.” 

Krohn said Greenwood was not considered a dishonest person within the tight-knit Santa Cruz community, and the resignation came as a shock, “to put it mildly,” he said.  

Greenwood’s absence at Friday’s installation ceremony for the new Santa Cruz chancellor, Denice Denton, was widely noted, said Krohn. 

A second high ranking administrator, Vice President for Student Affairs Vincent Doby, was placed on paid leave pending an investigation into whether he inappropriately helped Greenwood’s son, James Greenwood, secure an internship last August.  

UC spokesman Brad Hayward described the $45,000-a-year senior intern position as being for mid-career professionals interested in a career in student affairs.  

The close scrutiny of Greenwood’s hiring also comes after a Chronicle request for information filed on Oct. 25, according to published reports. UC did not respond to either of the inquiries until after Greenwood’s resignation was announced Friday, the Chronicle reported. 

Top UC officials moved quickly to minimize the damage, temporarily assigning executive vice provost Wyatt “Rory” Hume to step in for both Greenwood and Doby until a replacement can be found. Hume is a former executive vice chancellor at UCLA and president of the University of South Wales in Australia. 

Though Greenwood’s resignation was effective immediately, Hayward said that the investigation will move forward. A tenured biology professor, Greenwood may return to teaching within the UC system, Hayward said.  

Greenwood had resigned in order to return to her academic work, said Dynes in his statement. Hayward would not comment on whether Greenwood had tendered her resignation voluntarily. 

“The change in leadership shouldn’t be dragged out, especially when there are questions about the impropriety on behalf of the official,” said Patricia Sullivan, director of the Center on Education Policy. 

Public scandals within university administration, said Sullivan, can have a ripple effect on other areas of the school. It can color the community’s view of the institution and may also have an impact on student enrollment. 

The UC Board of Regents drew sharp criticism recently after they suggested using private donations to augment top administrators’ salaries. A study conducted by the board found that UC administrators’ salaries are lower than at comparable private institutions.  

“Any parent that is going to write that huge check wants to make sure that the university can run itself,” Sullivan said. 

Dynes, however, was careful not to cast the specter of controversy over others within the statewide UC system, especially Goff who now heads up the multi-million dollar science and math teacher-training program which she designed. 

Goff was named director of California Teach in late August, after an executive search committee unanimously recommended her for the position, according to an earlier UC statement. 

As director, Goff earns $192,100 a year. 

“This in no way reflects on Dr. Goff, her credentials, or the terms and conditions of her appointment,” Dynes said. “This involves only the appropriateness of Provost Greenwood’s role in her hiring.” 

Dynes stressed that there was “no presumption of wrongdoing” on the part of either Doby or James Greenwood, adding that Greenwood is “reportedly making a valuable contribution.” 

Doby, who had worked at UCLA for 30 years before being promoted to UC headquarters, is well known for his efforts to increase educational opportunities for students of diverse backgrounds. In 1986, he co-founded the Young Black Scholars program, a college prep program for black high school students. 

Thanks to the dogged work of the fearless Martin Snapp, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain’s embedded reporter who is a member of Berkeley’s Veterans’ Day Committee, you can now read about the latest permutation of the city’s Nov. 11 observance in the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, the West County Times, the Berkeley Voice and the East Bay Daily Snooze, and perhaps in many more of the chain’s saturation coverage outlets in the Bay Area. Tuesday’s bottom line, if we think the Merc’s story was the end of the tale: Bill Mitchell, co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, has decided to skip the Berkeley event in favor of a Santa Monica one, and that means the local Disabled American Veterans are back in the line-up.  

First, the instant replay: Country Joe McDonald and Mayor Shirley Dean organized the current form of commemoration eight or nine years ago. Country Joe, a counter-culture icon in the ‘60s, looked to some observers like he was doing penance for his youthful, shall we say, intemperate attitude to conventional patriotism. He recruited a dream team of politicians and veterans to join him, and it became an official city event in 2003 or thereabouts. But this year the committee noisily split over the invitation to Mitchell, whose son died in Iraq, to take part in the program. After a lot of sturm und drang, duly chronicled by the embedded Snapp, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, himself a veteran who resigned his captain’s commission because of the Vietnam War, brokered a short-lived “compromise” which had Mitchell speaking, but with promises not to offend. It wasn’t good enough for the DAV, who bailed. And evidently it wasn’t great for Mitchell either, since now he’s bailed too. 

Really, you can’t follow the players without a scorecard, or at least without your own embedded reporter, which the Daily Planet doesn’t approve of and can’t afford. But it’s only Nov. 4, and things could still change in the next week. For example, new Berkeley resident Cindy Sheehan, the co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, might be asked to speak, prompting still others to pull out.  

This interval gives the rest of us who aren’t committee members time to step back and think about what this seriously over-hyped event is, where it came from and where it should be going. First of all, when I was a child, we didn’t have Veterans’ Day at all. What we had was Armistice Day. They still have it in other countries, like Britain. A two-minute silence is observed at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month because this is when World War I came to end in 1918. It is a celebration of peace, not of war. 

In this country in my childhood Armistice Day was a solemn occasion on which to reflect on the horrors of war. It was not about the heroism of fighters, but a somber reflection on the tragedy of the loss of so many lives, which happened on an unprecedented scale in the First World War. Pacifists and veterans alike could take part in good conscience. 

The day was taken over in 1954 by the superpatriotism of the Eisenhower era and turned into Veterans’ Day. Rah-rah trappings like parades were added over time. Those of us who are neither absolute pacifists nor knee-jerk patriots have been pushed aside in the last 50 years in favor of the idea that any veteran is worth celebrating, no matter what war he or she fought in.  

Many of us who were around for America’s most unpopular war don’t share that attitude. Not everyone who fought in every war regardless of the cause or consequences is equally deserving of honor. The reason that we fought so hard to stop the Vietnam War is that we knew that a lot of unwilling young men were being sucked into it, and we wanted to bring them home. We’re sorry we couldn’t stop the war sooner so that they didn’t have to serve at all.  

Bravery comes in many forms. We’d also like to honor people like the brother of a friend of mine, a draftee who went out by himself on a lonely California beach one night and broke his own hand with a sledgehammer because he didn’t want to be sent to Asia to kill guys that he had nothing against. That’s a brave man—he later became a firefighter. And there were many more of the same caliber who refused to kill for a cause they couldn’t support, and who suffered all kinds of penalties for it.  

We’d like to commemorate the inadvertent victims of wars as well, like the African-American kids from the South who had no idea what they were getting into in the Army, and who died without ever experiencing the benefits of being American citizens because of segregation. We want to remember Berkeley’s Women for Peace, many of whom have now left us, including Country Joe’s mother Florence. These brave women started questioning what was going on in Vietnam in the early ‘60s. 

World War II is the war that keeps many of us from adopting absolute pacifism. It’s hard to know how Hitler could have been stopped without military action. But the World War II veterans that were around when I was a child didn’t boast of their exploits and weren’t eager to celebrate their war experience. My father told many stories about the interesting places he visited and the people he met, but none about how much he enjoyed combat.  

The unseemly squabble that is now taking place in Berkeley honors neither veterans nor the equally honorable patriots who refuse to support the wrong wars. It’s time to call the whole thing off and return to what Armistice Day was originally intended to be: dignified mourning for the loss of life in war, of combatants and non-combatants alike, and sober reflection on how to avoid it in the future. The people of Berkeley should liberate the event from the high school pep bands, the self-appointed committees and the posturing politicians. Next Friday, let’s gather on the steps of old City Hall on our own as true and thoughtful patriots, at 11 a.m. on 11-11-05, for two minutes of silence. And that’s all.