New Orleans native Victor Lewis sat in an Oakland hotel lobby Sunday afternoon wondering when he would finally catch a break. His post-Hurricane Katrina westward migration began with five grim nights in the New Orleans Superdome, followed by 20 days shelter in Dallas’ Reunion Arena, four nights sleeping on Dallas streets, and finally a bus ride to Oakland, and a Red Cross-subsidized hotel room a few blocks from Jack London Square. In less than two weeks, he may be forced to move his few belongings again.  

“Man, I’m so tired,” he said, clutching a container of donated pastries. “I’ve been sawing plenty of wood, but the blade has gotten dull.”  

The clock is ticking for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina living in 116 East Bay hotel rooms with a Dec. 1 FEMA deadline approaching that will end the direct payment program subsidizing their transitional accommodations. FEMA officials have said they are working closely with state and local officials to avoid a shelter crisis for the 150,000 evacuees who still live in hotel rooms nationwide, but local health and human service workers are bracing for a crunch of homelessness.  

Lewis, who taught black history and coached football at New Orleans high schools, says he might move to a nearby freeway underpass if he cannot find an affordable apartment by the end of the month. 

“Looks like I’m back behind the eight ball,” he said.  

Local social workers and charity organizations are scrambling to place evacuees, following the sudden announcement of the deadline. David Wee, head of Crisis and Specialized Services for the City of Berkeley, said 110 evacuees have sought housing assistance in Berkeley, and about a third are currently living in local hotels. The FEMA statement, issued Nov. 15, announcing the coming deadline surprised Wee who thought the city had until later in December to help evacuees secure more permanent housing.  

“We really do not have much time until these people will have to pay their own hotel bills or face homelessness during the holidays,” said Wee. “I hope that FEMA reconsiders and extends this deadline.” 

Jean Baker, spokesperson for the California FEMA regional office, said the decision serves the goal of helping evacuees become self-reliant and regain normalcy in their lives. 

“This is part of an ongoing process of moving people from interim to long-term housing and helping them get back on their feet,” she said. “We are making every effort to get all the evacuees in long-term housing by Dec. 1.” 

But local housing advocates caution that in the East Bay’s tight rental market, the proposed FEMA package of $2,350 to cover the first three months of rent is insufficient. 

Eden Information and Referral, a non-profit clearinghouse for emergency and low-cost housing for Alameda County, has identified 135 rental units with landlords willing to lower rents for evacuees. But while a landlord might lower the rent of an apartment from $1,500 to $900, said Eden spokesperson Ollie Arnold, that is still too expensive given the resources made available through FEMA.  

The Red Cross, which still has 691 open Katrina cases in Alameda County, is gearing up for an influx of housing seekers. 

“We are very concerned about all the people that might fall through the cracks,” said Greg Smith, of the Bay Area Chapter. 

FEMA is partnering with the Red Cross and community-based housing resource centers in a massive outreach campaign, said Baker. She urged evacuees to call FEMA’s assistance line, 1-800-762-8740. 

But the staff of Berkeley’s Hurricane Katrina Resource Center, which opened Sept. 16 to provide case management to families and individuals fleeing the Gulf Coast, has reported tremendous difficulty getting through to FEMA.  

“The last two or three weeks, it’s been virtually impossible to talk to a live person at FEMA,” said Spence Casey, of the Berkeley Hurricane Resource Center. 

Several evacuees who have still not received their “bridge fund,” the $2,000 immediate relief amount, as well as coordinate health services, employment, and referrals to permanent housing. Berkeley is tapped out of affordable housing and placing all his cases in the next two weeks will be impossible, Casey said.  

“This crisis has been so unpredictable, but with this deadline, the results are very predictable,” he said. “This could be another man-made disaster that follows the natural one, but it can be mitigated by an extension of this deadline.” 

“We are already stretched to the limits by the issue of homelessness in the region,” said Julie Sinai, senior aide to Mayor Tom Bates. “There is no concrete plan on the table to solve this problem with the Katrina evacuees, but it should not be left to local responsibility. The feds really need to come through with the proper resources and timeline.” 

Rep. Barbara Lee’s office confirmed that she is heading up a California delegation that will issue a plea this week to President Bush to postpone the FEMA hotel compensation deadline. 

“I’ve practically given up, but I think that’s what they’re banking on,” said Lewis in his hotel near Jack London Square. “It’s simply amazing to me that they would put us back out in the street.”›

Complaints about alcohol sales and possible city code violations have raised new questions about the Gaia Building, the tallest structure built in downtown Berkeley in recent years. 

At the very least, developer Patrick Kennedy, whose Panoramic Interests built and owns the structure at 2116-2120 Allston Way, will have to apply for a modification of the city use permit issued before construction began. 

On a broader policy level, the latest developments at the Gaia Building raise new questions about the bonuses that allow developers to erect structures larger than city codes and plans would otherwise allow.  

The problems surfaced after Anna De Leon, proprietor of Anna’s Jazz Island, a jazz club on the building’s first floor, contacted state and city officials to raise objections to a series of events at the building. 

According to the use permit on file with the city, said Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin, one room on the mezzanine level should have been reserved for an administrator’s office, and two more rooms were supposed to be used for literary events by the Gaia Bookstore, which was slated to be the original tenant. But instead the mezzanine is now used by a commercial food service, Glass Onion Catering, for various group events. Glass Onion also leases a section of the first floor where San Francisco’s The Marsh theater group has recently staged some productions. 

“We told Mr. Kennedy he needs to go to ZAB to amend his use permit. He needs to tell us exactly how he intends to use that area, and that needs to be reflected in his use permit,” said Cosin on learning of the discrepancy after De Leon raised her protest. “We have never approved a catering use in that area.” 

The ZAB Kennedy will face is a different body from the one that approved his original plans. The board’s nine current members are taking a much harder look at the bonuses that have allowed buildings to grow more massive and taller than would otherwise be allowed by city plans and codes. 

“We’ll have a lot of questions,” said ZAB member David Blake. 

Dinner, drinks, fires 

What triggered De Leon’s letters was the announcement that The Marsh intended to serve wine and other refreshments before and after their performances, with Glass Onion doing the catering. 

The jazz club owner said she raised objections with Kennedy, in part because she thought she had an agreement with him that her club would have the exclusive right to serve alcoholic beverages for cultural events in the building, including those in the Gaia Cultural Center, as the ground floor theater and upstairs spaces are now called. 

De Leon also complained to the state bureau of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) after a woman holding a glass of wine she’d been served at a theater event walked into Anna’s on Aug. 26. 

Karyn Nielsen, supervising investigator for licensing with the ABC’s Oakland office, said she investigated de Leon’s complaint and discovered that the theater had not asked for or received the kind of one-day special liquor sales license often granted to non-profit organizations for fund-raising events. 

“They were supposed to get permission from the police department and they didn’t,” she said. 

As a result, Nielsen said, she sent the theater a letter notifying them that they could not obtain one-day licenses for any events held in the building.  

De Leon also asked city officials if the theater and mezzanine areas met fire safety and disability access codes. Fire Marshal Gil Dong, who met with Kennedy and toured the areas in question, concluded that while the building itself met all the relevant codes, group events in the mezzanine still required the presence of a fire department official unless gatherings there were officially approved by ZAB. 

“The intended use was not included in the plans, which call for offices with a maximum occupancy load of 21. When it’s changed to a dining hall, we need to have occupancy numbers to determine the exiting requirements” in case of an emergency, said Dong. 

Bonuses and buildings 

The Gaia Building got to be as tall as it is in part because developer Patrick Kennedy took advantage of a section of city code that allowed developers to qualify for more size than would otherwise be allowed in exchange for providing space for otherwise undefined cultural uses. 

The so-called cultural density bonus, combined with another bonus that allows for increased size in exchange for providing reduced rent “inclusionary” units for lower-income tenants, allowed the Allston Way structure to rise above the five-floor limit codes called for in the downtown area. 

But the ground floor and mezzanine levels of the building stood empty long after tenants had filled the apartment spaces in the floors above. 

Gaia Books, a small New Age bookstore in Kensington, was looking for new quarters and agreed to act as the cultural tenant when Kennedy proposed the building. The store gave the building its name, and its promised presence sold ZAB and city councilmembers on the height. But by the time the new building opened, the store had gone out of business. 

A succession of prospective tenants looked at the stark, unfinished interiors and found they couldn’t afford the substantial costs required to ready the space for occupancy. 

Finally, Kennedy invited de Leon, who operated Anna’s Jazz Cafe in a building he had constructed on University Avenue, to move in. She closed the restaurant in February 2003, hoping to be opening in her new quarters in a few months. 

But delays, including negotiations over the transfer of her liquor license, delayed the opening for 13 months until May of this year. 

While many in the arts community thought that “cultural space” should mean that tenants would be non-profits, city code specified only cultural use, not corporate structure, which still rankles City Councilmember Dona Spring, who had supported Kennedy’s plans. 

Two years ago, Spring tried to change the bonus law to restrict its application to non-profit cultural institutions, “but the Mayor resisted,” she said. 

And while Spring said she likes de Leon and her club, “What’s the difference between what she’s doing and a microbrewery that has music? We have lots of bars with music, and what makes that a cultural use? But it was approved by the ZAB and it’s done now.” 

“There was never a requirement that the entire area” of the bonus space “would be restricted to non-profit use,” Cosin said. “We did require that the theater be in use at least 30 percent of the month, with a requirement of 15 days per month for cultural use of the remainder of the ground floor and mezzanine.” 

Developer Kennedy dismissed the incident as a dispute between tenants. 

“It’s more growing pains than anything else,” he said. 

As for De Leon, he said, “I believe there’s some confusion.” 

De Leon, in turn, points to a letter signed by city Planning Manager Mark Rhoades in June 2003, allowing her club “to serve all permitted food and beverages to all entities in the cultural center ... both on the main floor and the mezzanine. These spaces will not be used for cooking or be part of the cooking or bar facility in any formal sense, but food and alcoholic beverages may be brought to and consumed in the theater and mezzanine spaces.” 

Spring says the whole affair leaves a bad taste, especially about the city’s application of the cultural bonus. “All it’s resulted in is bad buildings and bad feelings,” she said. And, she says, community members are talking about dealing away with the cultural bonus altogether..›

Demonstrators crowded the narrow street leading to the east entrance to San Quentin Prison on Saturday morning to demand clemency for convicted murderer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley “Tookie” Williams. 

Both police representatives and rally organizers unofficially estimated the size of the crowd at about a thousand people. 

One veteran anti-death penalty advocate said that it was the largest anti-death penalty rally he had seen this far from the scheduled execution date. Williams is scheduled to be executed in San Quentin’s death chamber on Dec. 13. His legal appeals have run out, and he has submitted a petition for clemency to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

The 51-year-old Williams is the co-founder of the Crips African-American street gang which fought years of bloody warfare with the rival Bloods during the 1970s and ’80s. In 1981 he was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1979 murders of a convenience store clerk and two motel owners and their daughter during separate robberies. Williams continues to maintain that he was innocent of those crimes. In the last 10 years, he has renounced gang violence and has spent much of his time in his Death Row cell working to turn inner-city youth to positive directions. 

While a handful of San Quentin guards watched from the prison gates a hundred yards away, demonstrators listened to speeches by students, community and prison activists, and religious leaders. The rally was highlighted by a brief, soft-spoken appearance by rapper Snoop Dogg, who spoke wearing a white “Save Tookie.org” T-shirt. 

Demonstrators holding banners proclaiming “Free Tookie!” entered the rally area at the prison entrance to the beat of Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” blaring from loudspeakers. Members of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam were spread throughout the crowd, and Highway Patrol officers and Marin County Sheriff’s Deputies watched the roadway leading up to the prison. A Highway Patrol helicopter circled the air above the demonstration. 

The rally went smoothly, with no incidents and no confrontations. 

Snoop Dogg, once a member of the Los Angeles street gang co-founded by Williams and known in his early years as one of the main promoters of the “gangsta rap,” has recently been cited for his positive youth work, including sponsoring a Southern California youth football team. 

The rapper called Williams an “inspirator” whose life of reform in the last decade “showed me that I should be contacting kids with a positive message. He inspired me, and I inspire millions, so you see what kind of effect he has.” 

Directing his closing remarks to Williams, who is inside San Quentin Prison on Death Row, Dogg said, “We love you, Stanley. Keep your head up, OG.” 

During the rally, Barbara Becnel, the Richmond community activist who has spent the past several years working on Williams’ legal appeals, told the crowd, “Saving Stan’s life saves lives. He has already saved tens of thousands of young people’s lives by inspiring them through his teachings. If we don’t want to save his life, it means we don’t want to save the lives of those tens of thousands of youths. That’s an immoral position.” 

Appealing directly to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Becnel said, “I have to believe that the governor is a moral man and will do the moral thing.” 

Minister Tony Muhammad of Los Angeles, a representative of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam organization, said, “The Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams I know is a redeemed man. It’s not how you start in life, but how you finish. Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams can be more of a help alive to people in the streets of LA, Chicago, New York, England.” 

Vicky Linsey, a representative of the Los Angeles-based Cry No More organization made up of mothers of victims of street violence, said that she “grew up in the ’60s and ’70s in Los Angeles. I know all about the Crips and the Bloods. I was there. A lot of the members of our organization find it hard to support Tookie Williams.... If there is an ounce of doubt about his guilt, we can’t kill him. Not for his wonderful book. Not for the movie about his life or the Nobel Peace nomination. But because there is doubt.” 

Willams is the author of several children’s books as well the memoir “Blue Rage, Black Redemption,” which chronicles his path from gang organizer to Death Row resident and peace activist (“blue” represents the color associated with the Crips gang). He was the subject of the 2003 made-for-television movie “Redemption” starring Jaimie Foxx, who played Williams in the movie. 

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Among the kids playing basketball, the folks bringing food, the gardeners, the chess players and the homeless people who all fill some sort of niche in their lives in People’s Park, there’s been another creature hanging out there—a wild turkey. 

I first saw her when I stopped by the park almost two weeks ago. (It was determined by someone who seemed knowledgeable about turkeys that it was a female.) Alan, a homeless man who often rests there during the day, pointed her out to me. 

“We have to do something,” he said urgently, worrying that some hungry predator—human or otherwise—would hurt her. My first thought, admittedly not a very compassionate one, was that if turkeys are supposed to be so smart, what possessed this one to wander into town just two weeks before Thanksgiving. Then I went for my camera.  

The turkey hung around the park until some time on Saturday when crowds, noise and specifically one uncouth individual scared her off. The regular park denizens were sad that she was gone. Wednesday she was back and as I write this she’s still there. 

To many of the park regulars she is just another lonely soul finding temporary sustenance from the nearness of other creatures. Jessica declared that she “liked having a turkey in the Park.” She had grown up in the country where her family raised turkeys and other livestock. She gave the turkey some crusts of bread and observed that other people had also seen to it that the bird got food.  

Jerry, not to be accused of being sentimental, quipped, “Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of turkeys in People’s Park but this is the first one with feathers.” 

Deborah was inspired to weave all sorts of stories around its appearance. “Maybe it’s telling us all to be vegetarians for Thanksgiving,” she said. Deborah herself isn’t a vegetarian now but that could change, she said. 

“Or,” she declared, “this could be the reincarnation of somebody important to the park, maybe Mario Savio.” Or since it’s a female, “how about Rosebud,” she suggested tentatively.  

Even Devin Woolridge, long-time park supervisor who has seen just about everything that could go on in the park, was surprised and delighted to see the bird. At Alan’s urging to do something to protect her, he phoned Berkeley animal control. 

Well, it seems that wild turkeys periodically show up in areas of north Berkeley , and there’s no reason to try to capture them unless they’re threatened. There’s a “gaggle of them up near the Greek theater,” an animal control officer told me in a subsequent conversation. 

“If he’s being fed and cared for, then he’s smart,” she said. “He’s just hanging out where the pickings are good.” She assured me that “we’ve never picked up a diseased turkey in the city of Berkeley.” 

My research took me to the website of the NWTF, the National Wild Turkey Federation. There are 7 million wild turkeys in the United States and 3 million turkey hunters. I hope none of them are in Berkeley. 

Julie Burkhart at the Lindsey Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek turned out to be a font of information. She has studied them intensely and was happy to give me a detailed description of their habits and lifestyle. 

In the spring, during mating season, large numbers of the birds will gather, but for most of the year the males go off together into the hills and the females stay around for a while after the babies are hatched, then they tend to disperse. So it’s not very surprising to find a lone female and, Julie says, as long as she’s getting food and water she’s likely to stay. 

She shouldn’t be fed bread, she warns. As a matter of fact, Julie says, it’s probably best not to feed her at all. Grain and small insects are the turkeys’ normal diet. 

Julie talked about some interesting research that has been done on the behavior of the wild turkeys. They have been found to have “an incredible social structure.” Turkeys might be found together in large or small groups and then go off in different directions for a time. When they get together again, according to the studies done on them, they all remember each other. 

And she described how hens will adopt orphan chicks and raise them. She emphasized that wild turkeys are “a totally different animal than the turkeys we put on our thanksgiving table. . . . They’re smart. They’re very good at being turkeys.” 

As for the little turkey in People’s Park, it’s pretty clear she isn’t going to end up on anybody’s dinner table. Besides the fact that she’s small and she’s smart, most of the park folks like having her around. 

“More power to her,” says Daniel, and others agree that it’s only right that she is free to roam. Park supervisor Devin observes that “sometimes we get so far removed from nature, it’s good to have a bit of it here.”Ü

Smiling and brimming with upbeat assessments, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau last week gave the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce rosy views of the future of town and gown cooperation. 

Chamber members gathered last Tuesday at the Doubletree Hotel in the Berkeley Marina to hear the pair discuss crucial issues facing the city and the university. 

The discussions, in which Bates and Birgeneau were given equal time, centered on the university’s controversial Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) for 2020, economic development opportunities in the city, physical development of downtown Berkeley and the opportunities for city and university partnership in youth programs. 

“The city and the university have faced some challenges around the LRDP,” said Bates. “They (UC Berkeley) have a lot of freedom to do anything they want.” 

The LRDP’s provisions calling for more than a million square feet of development within the city limits, most in downtown Berkeley, sparked a city lawsuit against the university and a settlement calling for a joint approach to development. 

“In spite of what you may have heard from the press, discussions with the city and the mayor have been open, friendly and fair,” said Birgeneau. “We have to work hard on both sides toward a compromise.” 

While acknowledging that the university is a major factor in shaping the city, Bates defined one of the key issues for Berkeley: “Are we being justly compensated for the services we provide” to the university, including police, fire and other services funded by taxpayers, as well as for the costs of traffic congestion arising from the 40,000 commuters who come to the university daily? 

With 16,000 full-time employees, the university is Berkeley’s largest employer, Birgeneau said, and the presence of the university also attracts other businesses to the city—most recently the Yahoo center. 

Bates agreed, adding that the university also creates environmentally-friendly business. 

The mayor said he was pleased that the university has agreed to provide the city with a “heads up on new products coming down the line so we can look at available office space in the city to keep them in town.” 

Bates said he was enthusiastic about public and private partnerships that would keep new business on the property tax rolls—in contrast to university-only programs that are tax-exempt. 

Both officials also noted that plans for a university-endorsed private hotel at the northeast corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street remain a possibility, as does an expanded museum complex and convention center in the same area bounded by Shattuck on the west, Oxford Street on the east, Center Street on the south and University Avenue on the north. 

If built, the hotel would remain on the tax rolls, and generate property, sales and room occupancy taxes for the city, Bates said. 

Birgeneau said the university is negotiating with the same developer who built a similar university-supported complex in Cambridge, Mass. while he served as Dean of Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Both officials offered their praises of the joint planning process that will create a new Downtown Area Plan. 

“Ultimately, this plan by the citizens and staff will go to the Planning Commission,” and will be “heard to death” before its final adoption, said Bates. “I don’t think we’re going to have a problem. I hope not. I think our downtown will be so wonderful when we get through,” creating a “gateway edge of really exciting world class buildings, green buildings.” 

When it came time for questions and answers, one audience member asked the officials to comment on panhandling on Telegraph Avenue and the People’s Park Free Box. 

Bates said the panhandling issue would be best resolved by a commitment from the state and federal governments to provide adequate detox facilities,  

housing and support services for those in need. 

Birgeneau said he encountered the same problems while he was serving as president at the University of Toronto. 

“One third were not getting proper medical care, one third were drug addicts, and one third were genuinely poor and had fallen through the cracks,” he said. “There is not a simple solution.” 

When another audience member asked about a commitment from the university to buy from local merchants, Birgeneau said he was limited by the UC Board of Regents’ Strategic Sourcing Initiative, which dictates that campuses must buy in the most efficient manner. 

“The question is, how can local merchants compete?” Birgeneau said.h

For the third time in as many months, UC Police have torn down the freebox at People’s Park. 

Volunteers erected a new steel free exchange bin on Nov. 12 after police dismantled a temporary structure to replace one damaged by fire earlier this year. Despite warnings from university officials that they would not allow a new freebox at the park, supporters were hopeful that the new box would last.  

But those hopes were dashed as police entered the park under the cover of darkness early Wednesday morning to dismantle the eight-by-four foot metal structure.  

“The freebox is probably one of the noblest and coolest ideas the city of Berkeley ever had,” said Dan McMullan, a volunteer with Friends of People’s Park, an organization that has championed for the freebox. “We could be spending more time on helping people who really need help. It’s a big waste of energy. They’re just sucking up our resources.” 

UC officials said they see it differently.  

“The box has more symbolic value than meeting a true need,” said Irene Hegarty, director of community relations for the university. “We can come up with better ways of getting clothing to the homeless.” 

According to Hegarty, clothes from the freebox end up strewn about the park and that university employees are left with the clean up. “It’s expensive and time consuming,” she said.  

But supporters like McMullan point out the success of the freebox idea in other locations around Berkeley, and say the university is not being honest about its intentions. 

“The university doesn’t want students to mix with what they consider poor people,” suggested McMullan, who said the freebox serves as an important gathering spot for many different kinds of people. 

Others agreed, including Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district includes People’s Park. 

“I don’t know why they’re spending so much time and effort being antagonistic with the community,” said Worthington. “Coordinating with community members would have better results.” 

Worthington also complained about the university’s secretive way of dealing with park issues, citing their predawn raid on the freebox, the decision to cancel the park’s advisory board last year and the recent unannounced removal of two trees at the park.  

While the university has decided to reinstate the advisory board next month, observers say they’re concerned that the university will try to stack the board with appointees friendly to their positions.  

Hegarty responded to the criticism by saying she has reached out to park advocates on “three to four” occasions. “Whether we can find common ground, I don’t know, but I have offered to set up a meeting so we can talk about it,” she said. 

Even were there to be such a meeting, Hegarty said that the freebox was a “violation of the university’s rules that govern People’s Park,” adding, “There is no ambiguity about the rules. You need a permit to build any permanent structure.”  

She also said freebox advocates were given notice of the university’s intentions. 

“Police warned them that if they continued to build it would get taken out,” Hegarty said. “How long will that go on, I have no idea.” 

For their part, park advocates have vowed to reconstruct the freebox each time the university takes it down. Friends of People’s Park volunteers are also planning a variety of events to raise interest in their cause, including a freebox poetry contest and a competition to see who can build a freebox that lasts the longest. 

“People’s Park has been there for 37 years, the current chancellor for two,” quipped McMullan. “We’ll outlast them. We have more energy and we care more.”›

Police are seeking clues in the mysterious Nov. 10 disappearance of a 23-year-old Berkeley man who left home that morning to drive a friend to work and hasn’t been seen since. 

Wallace Richards was driving another friend’s Mercedes Benz, which turned in San Lorenzo up five days after he vanished, said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

“At this point, we are handling the matter as a missing persons case, though we treat all such cases as potential criminal cases,” Okies said. 

Neither the recovered car or other leads have turned up evidence of a criminal act, the officer added. 

Wallace is an African American with a medium complexion who is 6’3” tall and weighs about 235 pounds, according to the website wallacerichards.com, which is posting information about the disappearance. 

Friends and family members told police that Wallace met with friends in Pinole before a trip to San Francisco. He planned to return to the East Bay afterwards, they said. 

“He’s a great person, very caring and very giving,” said Paul Rose, Richards’ best friend and the creator of the website. 

When last seen, Richards was wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a lightweight Hunter Green Northface jacket and driving the golden 2002 Mercedes Benz C240 which was recovered near the corner of Embers Way and Hesperian Boulevard in San Lorenzo. 

Anyone with information is requested to call Berkeley Police at 981-5900 or e-mail the department at police@ci.berkeley.ca.us. Information may be provided anonymously.m

Transportation commissioners voted Thursday night to raise the cost of evening parking at the Oxford Street lot and extend the time limits on the new pay and display meters downtown to 90 minutes. 

The final decision on both actions rests with the City Council, which Assistant City Manager for Transportation Peter Hillier said will probably take up the issues at its Feb. 21 meeting. 

The Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA) raised the issue of extending the time cars could park at the city’s new “pay and display” meters downtown, which have so far managed to avoid the best efforts of the Berkeley saboteurs who kept so many of the older meters out of action. 

While a maximum limit of two hours had been suggested, DBA Executive Director Deborah Badhia took no formal position on the length of the extension, and commissioners opted for 90 minutes. 

Commission chair Rob Wrenn had proposed hiking the $2 after 5 p.m. fee for parking at the Oxford Street lot to the $5 charged at the city’s Center Street garage. 

He said the Oxford lot rate had simply been overlooked when the commission voter to raise the fee at Center Street. 

Commissioners approved the 90-minute meter time only in the downtown area, and not for other areas where the new meters are being installed. 

While city staff can extend meter time limits in limited areas, such as along a single city block, extensions over a broader area require approval by the commission and City Council, Wrenn said. 

Hiller said that extending the meter time limit to 90 minutes seemed more in keeping with the changed nature of downtown businesses. 

Wrenn said the increasing numbers of restaurants in the downtown also played a role in the call for extending the limits.a

The walking tour of the area to be included in the new Downtown Area Plan will be held Dec. 3, and not Nov. 26 as reported in Friday’s Daily Planet. 

Members of the public are welcome to join members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, who will gather at the Aurora Theater at 2081 Addison St. before the downtown tour begins at 9 a.m.

Pizza guy robbed 

A strong-arm bandit robbed a pizza delivery person of cash and a pie as he was attempting a delivery near the corner of Alcatraz Avenue and Idaho Street just before 1 a.m. last Monday. 

Strong-arm pair 

A caller told Berkeley police at 5:37 p.m. last Monday that two bandits in their late teens had just robbed a pedestrian on Shattuck Avenue just outside the Shattuck Cinemas. 

The robbers were last seen fleeing into the gym area of the Berkeley High School campus, said Officer Okies. 

Masked rat pack 

A gang consisting of at least eight teenagers wearing hockey and ski masks attempted to rob a 39-year-old man of his bike and backpack near the corner of Prince and Ellis streets just after 6 p.m. last Monday. They also tried to rob two others, but may have been scared off when neighbors noted the attack. 

Tall armed robbers 

Two men, one 6’2” tall and the other 6’11”, both about 20 years of age, robbed a pedestrian of his wallet near the corner of Francisco and Chestnut streets at about 6:20 p.m. the same evening. 

They were last seen running eastbound on Francisco Street, said Officer Okies. 

Tall carjacker 

A 6’4” bandit weighting about 240 pounds staged the strong-arm carjacking of a blue Kia driving by a 27-year-old man near the corner of Fifth Street and Hearst Avenue just before 8 p.m. Monday evening. 

Armed duo 

Two men in their early 20s robbed a 24-year-old woman and a 21-year old man in the 1500 block of Prince Street just before 12:45 a.m. last Tuesday, said Officer Okies. 

The duo made off with a cell phone and a wallet. 

Wallet stolen 

Two strong-arm robbers in their teens robbed a man of his wallet in the 2100 block of Oxford Street at 2:15 p.m. last Tuesday. 

Ice pick carjack 

Two men, one wielding an ice pick, approached a 25-year-old man in his Saab sedan in the 600 block of Bancroft Way just after 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and forced him to hand over his vehicle. 

Alert caller 

A citizen called police at 4:15 a.m. Wednesday to report that a man was attempting to steal a car in the 2900 block of Garber Street. 

Equipped with a description of the stolen vehicle, officers were able to stop the car near People’s Park on Dwight Way and apprehend the 29-year-old driver, who turned out to be holding computer equipment stolen in a home burglary. 

Hoodie heisters 

Two robbers, both clad in dark hooded sweatshirts, approached a 22-year-old woman from behind as she was walking along the 2800 block of Ellsworth Street Wednesday morning and robbed her of her canvas shoulder bag. 

Masked rat pack redux 

Police arrested five juveniles wearing hockey masks who robbed a man in the 3100 block of Shattuck Avenue at 7:41 p.m. Wednesday. 

In addition to robbery charges, they were also booked on suspicion of harassment based on race, religion or sexual orientation. 

Officer Okies said the suspects may include some of the same crew who staged the botched rat pack robbery two days earlier.

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.



DRUG HOUSE 

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 

• 

ANOTHER VIEW 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Maybe Paul Rauber should sell his house and move. Just a thought. 

Annie Kassof 

• 

HALFWAY HOUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet 

A major point that has been overlooked in all the arguments about the Moores and their neighbors is this: When someone who has been using drugs decides it’s time to get clean and live a healthy, productive life one of the first requirements is that (s)he avoid all association with the friends and family they did drugs with. The same holds true for ex-convicts. If anyone is serious about going straight it is vitally important to give up all associations with those who are still criminals. 

So why are we encouraging the Moores to run an open house for ex-convicts and ex addicts? Are they really trying to run a halfway house for these people? 

If so, then let them register as such and follow all the rules set down, including establishing 12 step programs and job retraining. If not then close the house down.  

The rest of us who are working, paying taxes to the City of Berkeley and obeying the law want to live in peace in our neighborhood. 

Joan Modzelewski 

• 

A JUST SOCIETY 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Larry Hendel of the SEIU (“Time to Kick Butt,” Nov. 16) has it right when he says the Democrats “suck at the same corporate teat for campaign funds as the Republicans,” and therefore, remain unable to move forward on a meaningful agenda for working people. Now that we have managed to fend off the latest corporate attacks that Schwarzenegger enabled, let’s not fall back into the same trap that we just came out of. Labor unions must break away from the corporate two-party system in a hurry. 

As a nurse activist who sees how piecemeal reforms championed by Democrats have let millions of Californians fall through the cracks of health care “system,” I believe the hope for the future of working class America lies in the building of independent political organizations like the Green Party. We simply cannot be satisfied to wait for corporate politicians to dole out crumbs so we can thank them for not starving us. 

We need proportional representation or at least instant run-off voting, public financing of political campaigns, single-payer healthcare, and a reinvigorated economy based on social and ecological justice principles. Labor leaders should unite around these principles and join with the Greens to build a livable, just society for the next generation. 

Kevin Reilly, RN 

Oakland 

• 

DERBY STREET FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Responding to Terry Doran’s Nov. 15 piece, he states that the costs for closing Derby Street and building a “big-league baseball field” for the boys varsity baseball team will be $2.7 million, despite the fact that at our Oct. 5 School Board meeting, BUSD staff clearly stated that estimate does not include soft costs (planning, architectural expenses, permitting, and a contingency fund, which typically run 30-40 percent of construction fees), fencing, buffer zones, landscaping, and any future as yet unknown costs of mitigating the closed-Derby project. Not to mention ongoing and unestimated, very expensive maintenance costs for a baseball field versus a turf field available for soccer, softball, baseball practice, rugby, lacrosse, and other turf sports, which all could share an open-Derby plan. 

BUSD has barely enough to embark upon an open-Derby Street playing field right now. A closed-Derby project will cost BUSD and the city between $4 and $6 million. Those costs will only increase over time. We could have a multi-use playing field, with an open-Derby project, by 2007 if we decided to do that right now. Instead, with uncertain funding and a complicated street closure nothing will be done for years. 

The Berkeley School Board has worked diligently over the past four years to rebuild our financial and operational systems, our integrity, and our reputation. It disappoints me that a Board member would quote and publicize financial projections that are not accurate, nor what staff has reported to us. Whatever the merits of a closed-Derby project might be, the community and our citizens deserve to know the real costs, the sources of any funding, and what they can expect in return.  

John Selawsky 

Director, Berkeley School Board 

• 

THE PARTY OF FDR 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Bob Burnett ignores history in his Nov. 18 romantic reference to “the party of FDR” as a contrast to the current liar in the White House.  

Readers of Eric Alterman’s exhaustively footnoted When Presidents Lie know: 

At Yalta, FDR gave Stalin carte blanche to control Eastern Europe, and didn’t even tell his own vice president (Truman) about it. Harriman lied to Truman about it. (When we got the bomb, Truman started the tradition of “We’re strong enough to blow off our allies.”) 

JFK lied to the public about the secret deal that helped end the Cuban missile crisis. RFK lied about his personal role in brokering that deal when he came out as a Vietnam hawk. The truth could have been acknowledged as proof of U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation towards peace. The lie led to the ouster of Khrushchev and the arms race. 

JFK’s team spoke out about the government’s right to lie. 

LBJ and Robert McNamara lied consistently about Vietnam. This not only destroyed the nation’s faith in the presidency and the press, but led to a “we-can-get-away-with it” White House that gave us Watergate and Iran/Contra. 

(The book also covers Reagan’s lying, and refers to the current occupant as caretaker of “the post-truth presidency”.) 

Jimmy Carter was criticized for his honesty. He was also the least effective full-term president of the last 70 years. 

David Altschul 

• 

PRESIDENT BUSH 

Editors, Daily Planet 

Bush has called on China to be more tolerant of dissidents, while at the same time his administration labels any opposition to Bush’s policies in Iraq as unpatriotic. 

Bush attends church in Beijing and calls on China to be more open to religion. Could Christianity (and/or Islam) bring peace to Iraq? Has this even been tried? Ideology sure hasn’t worked. 

Bush says that a quick withdrawal from Iraq now would hand the country over to the suicide bombers. I remember, during Vietnam, when protesting monks burned themselves alive. What stopped those suicides? 

Can’t any of Bush’s advisors find a “faith-based initiative” which could make the insurgents want to stay alive and build a peaceful and prosperous Iraq? Or are the insurgents in despair, too sure that the new Iraq will remain a puppet, supplying the US with cheap oil? 

Steve Geller 

I got my first personal impression of UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau last Tuesday, when he and Mayor Bates were the featured speakers at the City Lunch sponsored by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Up to then, I’d only encountered Robert Birgeneau in print—through quotes in many newspaper articles, and through the admirable speech he delivered when he was inaugurated as the campus’s ninth chancellor last April. I was curious to see how he and the mayor would address their announced theme, “The City and the University Partnership for Berkeley’s Future.” 

I left the Doubletree Hotel thinking that the newly arrived head of UC Berkeley, a Canadian no less, grasps this city’s distinctive character better than the mayor who’s lived here for over half a century.  

Up on the dais with Bates, Birgeneau told how on Nov. 12, the day of the Cal-USC football game, he and his party had showed up at Downtown Restaurant around supper time without a reservation. They couldn’t get a table, even though, he said, “I think they knew that I was the chancellor at UC.” He sounded bemused, not resentful. I liked him better for that.  

But what I liked even more was the behavior of the Downtown Restaurant staff. In honoring their commitments to those who’d called ahead, they said, in effect: We have our democratic principles and procedures, and we’re going to hold to them, even if it means disappointing a powerful individual. To cite Mayor Bates’ campaign slogan, that’s Berkeley at its best.  

Unfortunately, in his three years in office, the mayor has mainly honored Berkeley’s democratic principles and procedures in the breach. He truckles to power like a moth drawn to flame. The most egregious result of this toadying is the Bates-brokered May 2005 agreement that settled the city’s lawsuit over the university’s latest Long-Range Development Plan. As a friend remarked after reading the document, if you didn’t know otherwise, you’d think that the university had sued the city, because the city made all the concessions.  

“As far as I know,” Tom Bates told the 80-odd Chamber lunchers, “there’s not one city in the United States that has planned together for the expansion of their university, and I’ve talked to a lot of mayors. But we’re doing it.”  

He needs to talk to some more mayors. As documented in the 2005 book The University as Urban Developer, numerous cities have worked with the expanding institutions of higher education in their midst. On the other hand, no other city I know of has agreed to terms like the ones in the 2020 LRDP settlement, and for good reason: Municipal officials who took their oaths of office seriously would never surrender their town’s legal authority to regulate development, including private development, within its boundaries—which is the gist of the May 2005 agreement.  

To be sure, Chancellor Birgeneau also signed the settlement agreement. But his primary obligation is to the UC regents, not the public. Unlike the city, the university gave up none of its own legal prerogatives. Indeed, the agreement explicitly states: “The Regents will reserve their autonomy from local land use regulation.”  

Yet to hear Tom Bates at the lunch, the agreement was all gain for the city. It couldn’t be otherwise, given the mayor’s perspective, from which poor little Berkeley appears as a supplicant to UC. “What’s made Berkeley great and will continue to make Berkeley great,” Bates told his listeners, “is the innovation and creativity in our community. A lot of that innovation and creativity are due to the university.” True enough, and it befits the city’s mayor to say so. 

But a mayor who saw Berkeley as more than an appendage to the eminent local university would also pay tribute to the community’s indigenous (if you will) achievements and institutions, manifest in its vibrant political life, numerous environmental and human services organizations, rich artisanal and artistic sector, numerous one-of-a-kind shops and diverse light industrial enterprises, which produce “world-class” (the mayor’s favorite adjective) products ranging from chocolate to harpsichords to pharmaceuticals. None of these got even a nod from Tom Bates. Nor did the mayor allude to Berkeley’s extraordinary physical charms—its superb location, fine residential neighborhoods, lovely gardens and distinguished architecture.  

Instead, it was Chancellor Birgeneau who lauded Berkeley’s “beautiful setting” and “livability.” “The quality of life in the city of Berkeley,” he said, “matters to the university as much as it does to the citizens of Berkeley.” That’s because the campus’s ability to attract top-notch personnel depends in part on the city’s appeal. “If we don’t have Berkeley as a flourishing urban community,” the chancellor explained, prospective faculty members who are being offered 25 percent higher salaries at private schools such as Stanford and Harvard will “go elsewhere.”  

The irony, of course, is that the greatest threat to the city’s quality of life is the massive expansion—the 2.2. million new square feet, more than in the entire Empire State Building, with 1.1 million of those feet slated for somewhere in downtown—contemplated in UC’s 2020 Long-Range Development Plan and its environmental impact report.  

Mayor Bates put it well at the Feb. 23 press conference announcing the city’s lawsuit against UC. “The university,” he said, “asked us to sign the equivalent of blank check that would allow it to build wherever, whenever, and however it would like. The lawsuit firmly states that we are not signing anything until we know what we are buying.”  

But when the mayor and five councilmembers voted to settle the lawsuit, they agreed to sign the same blank check they’d spurned three months earlier. The LRDP and its environmental impact report read in May exactly as they did in February. Nevertheless, in mind-boggling fashion, the Bates-led council reversed course and effectively endorsed the university’s plans. At the same time, they abandoned their demand that the tax-exempt university fairly compensate the city for police, fire and sewer services, thereby further burdening those of us who do pay taxes.  

I don’t have room to detail the ways in which the settlement agreement compromises Berkeley’s welfare and independence. (For a succinct and comprehensive critique, see Anne Wagley’s essay, “Mayor Bates Drops the Ball,” in the June 24, 2005 issue of the Daily Planet. ) But in the context of the Chamber lunch, one item that has major implications for Berkeley businesses deserves immediate attention: local procurement.  

The new town and gown partnership, Bates said, will lead to “more local purchasing.” Maybe so. But the relevant language of the settlement agreement is not reassuring. Section V.C. states that the campus will “[d]evelop and implement within a reasonable time a local-purchasing program for prioritizing the purchase of goods and services in Berkeley, to the extent feasible.” As you might guess, the operative words are “to the extent feasible.” Like the other “Additional Joint Initiatives” in the agreement, this one ties campus participation to “existing law and UC practices.” In other words, the Bates council underwrote the university’s right to do as it pleases.  

To get an idea of how existing UC practices are already affecting the purchase of goods and services in Berkeley, consider the Sept. 28, 2005 letter sent to Associate Vice Chancellor Ron Coley by Gary Shows, the longtime owner of ALKO Office Supply. Shows wonders why UC Berkeley has been “actively encouraging, and in some case insisting that UCB Departments (our customers) buy supplies from Office Max instead of us” [emphasis in original]. The university, Shows writes, is ALKO’s “most important customer. We maintain a special low price list that we tailor to UC[,] and constantly work on how we can remain competitive and do a better job for this customer.” UC has been buying from ALKO for decades. Last week Shows told me that “some departments at UC have begged to be able to buy” from ALKO, citing the store’s special services to them. “There’s all this talk about supporting small business” he said, “but it’s all talk, even in a liberal town.”  

City officials should walk the talk. But it looks as if the settlement agreement requires them to acquiesce in UC’s practices, and not just with respect to the purchase of office supplies. This is the reality of the “new era” of town and gown relations that Tom Bates has been puffing since last May. Anyone who prizes Berkeley’s integrity should demand that the city withdraw from the May agreement and seek a relationship that benefits both UC and the larger community.  

X

This semester at San Francisco State, I’m taking classes with several excellent, talented instructors. Nona Caspers is the recipient of the 2005 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction. Toni Mirosevitch is the author of Queer Street and My Oblique Strategies, winner of the 2005 Frank O’Hara Chapbook Award. Michelle Carter’s play, Ted Kaczinski Killed People With Bombs, has won a slew of prestigious prizes including a 2003 Pen Award, a commission from the Mark Taper Forum, and a 2005 residency for the playwright at London’s Donmar Warehouse. 

Additionally, I’m enrolled in a playwriting workshop with Roy Conboy, Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at SFSU and head of the graduate playwriting program. If this isn’t enough, Roy is currently performing in his solo show, Drive My Coche, at the Black Box Theatre, El Teatro de la Esperanza on 16th Street in the Mission. 

The Black Box Theatre is a small, square, black room three flights up a narrow staircase in the building that is also home to Theatre Rhinoceros. The Drive My Coche set is decorated with flowers, candles, and graffiti. At curtain time, Roy strides to center stage in flannel shirt and jeans, a guitar draped around his neck, his shoulder length hair appropriate for the story that is about to unfold. 

Conboy starts with a song about a man lost in a fog-shrouded San Francisco evening who suddenly finds himself transported back to Los Angeles, circa 1970. No longer a family guy driving a KIA, he is an 18-year-old Chicano, a college dropout who has lost his way, and his student deferment. He is nervously counting down the days before his draft board hearing. While working as a busboy, cruising with his on again-off-again girlfriend in his tricked out Chevy, experimenting with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, the Vietnam War moves from backdrop to foreground as combat intensifies, napalm shipments increase, and the body counts escalate. 

Originally created and performed in 1999 at San Francisco’s Tu Solo Tu Festival, and again at the New Works Festival in Los Angeles, and Teatro Vision de San Jose, this one-man show combines music, poetry, and movement, and is just as relevant today as it was pre-9/11. Conboy is regarded as one of the leading Chicano playwrights in the country, but Drive My Coche, though set within the Los Angeles Hispanic community, explores universal and everyday themes of unrequited love, violence, and highway driving. That wars are instigated by the rich and powerful, but fought by the young and disenfranchised may be familiar and recurring subject matter, but it is, regrettably, current and needs to be kept in the forefront of public conscious. One leaves the theater mindful of this premise, cognizant of how history repeats itself. 

Several of my creative writing classmates were at the production last Friday night. Just minutes before curtain call, one of them received a cell phone message from her mother, informing her that the U.S. Congress was still in session, heatedly debating the pros and cons of troop withdrawal from Iraq. 

After Roy’s performance, we reconnoitered to discuss the play, the Congressional debates, and to decide where to go next. Several younger, more energetic individuals rushed off for a late night performance by The Funky Meters at the Fillmore, but I took a solo BART ride home, lost in memories of 1970, hoping, as I hoped then, that the war would end soon, the troops would come home safe, and peace would be given another chance. 

Subconsciously, a decade-appropriate soundtrack played in my head, including 

a tune from the show: “Baby You Can Drive My Car,” or as Roy sang it, “Baby You Can Drive My Coche.” 

Roy Conboy performs Drive My Coche at 8 p.m. Dec. 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, and 17 at the Black Box Theatre, El Teatro de la Esperanza, 2940 16th St. (at Capp Street), San Francisco. $15 general/$12 students, seniors, and groups. Online ticket sales at www.ticketweb.com or by phone: (415) 240-9594. For more information see www.collegeofcreativearts.org.

So the lord sent down the rainbow sign, no more water the fire next time.  

—Langston Hughes 

People of color have been talking for years of the inequalities and injustice in the United States, but mainstream America constantly counters with “You’re just paranoid.” They say slavery was in the past and racism hardly exists anymore. Their forefathers were poor, came from Europe and made a good life for themselves and families through hard work! They never take in to account that our U.S government legalized and supported discrimination against people of color, and separate but equal was the law of the land.  

But I’m paranoid! 

We’ve been telling people for years that there can be no peace without justice. The struggle is not just about race, class, sex and color, but mainly the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Remember Enron, World Com and especially those preachers like Jimmy Swaggert and Jim Baker spouting the scriptures, ripping off poor folks and pocketing the money.  

A black man was sodomized with a two-foot broomstick by members of the New York Police Department for no apparent reason, and another shot 42 times. What crime did they commit? Have you ever heard of a person of color accidentally shooting a police officer and getting off?! But there have been hundreds of people accidentally shot by the police with no consequence. I wonder how many of them were wealthy. Listen up people! 

But I guess I’m just paranoid! 

The levees break, the houses shake, the whole damn thing is a big mistake! 

Mistake? The Army Corp of Engineers predicted years ago it could happen, but there was no money. Would it have made a difference if it was Hollywood or Crawford, Texas below sea level? Recently, during images of the water this time, the news media portrayed black folks looting while white folks salvaged food. How about showing the looting when thousands of homeowners and businesses turn in inflated insurance claims? 

But I’m paranoid! 

A radio talk show host said, “Why should millions of our tax dollars be wasted repairing homes destroyed by an act of nature? Maybe they shouldn’t be living there!” How about the billions of taxpayer dollars we spend blowing up houses in other countries? Meanwhile, rich people’s homes outside of Los Angeles are threatened by the fire this time. I wonder how many of them will have to stay in a homeless shelter! 

Finally, William Bennett, who supposedly represents the American mainstream, the “moral majority,” says, “You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” He says his words were misconstrued. He was merely musing about a hypothetical argument. Who even thinks like that?! 

Paranoid? I’m mad as hell! 

We’ve been talking forever about the injustice around us. What will it finally take for America to take heed? Maybe they are listening, but their favorite TV show is on, their iPod is blasting and they really won’t care until the fire next time!  

Winston Burton is a Berkeley resident.  

.

The environmental impact report (EIR) procedure is far from perfect (see “West Berkeley Bowl EIR Conceals the Truth,” Daily Planet, Nov. 18), but the beauty of this legal process is that it permits the public to examine potential impacts of a development prior to its approval. 

The 173-unit housing project at 700 University Ave., proposed to replace the beloved Brennan’s and Celia’s buildings, is undergoing environmental analysis for an EIR. Investigation by the public has revealed many interesting aspects of this site. I am now convinced this might be the most preposterous place in town to put a big block of housing. 

With subterranean parking in the plans, 700 University appears to be right over an historic creek bed. Archival newspapers report that this area flooded each winter in the early days of Berkeley, with water up to five feet deep. Creek experts tell me that under the thin layer of asphalt, the site may qualify as wetlands.  

The proposed project is in a seismic liquefaction hazard zone, as is much of West Berkeley. Given the area’s origin as a marshland, I wonder how the builders will satisfy the state’s stringent seismic safety standards—or even if they can. 

Underground jet fuel lines reside in the railroad right-of-way a few feet from the property line shared by this proposed “luxury” condo-apartment block. Fuel pipelines were originally placed in such locations partly because housing was not built right next to the railroads, for a host of reasons which are obvious to those of us not employed in the “planning” or development fields.  

The owner of the pipelines is the Kinder Morgan Company, formed in 1997 by Richard Kinder and Bill Morgan, former executives of Enron. In August, the company received an order from the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to review its operating procedures because of the 44 pipeline accidents in its West Coast operations since January 2003, including the fatal explosion in Walnut Creek a year ago. 

These issues are coming to light only because 700 University Ave. was required to undergo analysis for an EIR, mandated by state law whenever a project may have a significant impact on the environment. Except for this proposal, Berkeley’s condo-rental boom has been virtually EIR-free. 

The nine-story Seagate project—I think its new name is “Arpeggio of Emeryville-in-Berkeley”—was deemed by city planning staff and the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) to have no significant impact on the environment, even though maps show that it, too, may be over a creek. The builders might be in for a big surprise while executing their three stories of underground parking. 

At 2700 San Pablo Ave., a project was approved by ZAB as four stories of rentals, without an EIR, extending up to a property line shared with a modest single-family home. Neighbors sued. The judge ruled in favor of the city, because charter cities can pretty much make it up as they go along. The land was sold, at a profit to the original owner and permit applicant (Patrick Kennedy), with the zoning approvals as part of the package. The project then morphed into five stories of condos—with a smattering of lofts—which just happens to reduce the requirement for “inclusionary” (supposedly affordable) units.  

Taller than allowed by the Zoning Code, the new project should have gone back to ZAB for a fresh new set of approvals, but was not required to. The new architect for the new project changed its design significantly, to the further detriment of the neighbors. It is a different project, and should receive zoning review as such. 

The pro-construction bias of our Planning and Development Department would be laughable if not for its devastating impact on real people. The small home next to 2700 San Pablo is owned by an artist who needs the light which will be stolen by a wall of concrete. Phony “live-work” condos are sprouting everywhere, with the obligatory “granite kitchens”, even as it becomes obvious that the house party is almost over. 

The mother of all housing bubbles, fed by a long spell of low interest rates and a lending industry gone mad, has begun to deflate. In a rising market, developers go into a feeding frenzy (see Emeryville). In a falling market, condos generally fall harder than real houses (I don’t want to hear any whining from developers who get caught with their condos down). In the meantime, each big box of environmental impact working its way through Berkeley’s “planning” process deserves the public scrutiny afforded by an EIR. 

Gale Garcia is a long-time Berkeley resident. 

The unrest in France provides us with the opportunity, even the necessity, to think about our world in some new ways. While the various sociological analyses about poverty and racism are important, a longer view may tell us even more. What happens when we hit the “zoom out” key and, instead of a perspective spanning a few years, or even decades, we look over a period of centuries? 

Before the era of colonialism and industrialization, there were no great disparities of wealth between the various regions of the world. The disparities were more local, limited by the reach of armies that brought wealth and slaves back to the center of the empire. With the colonial era, this process of uneven distribution the world’s wealth accelerated greatly. The colonial powers were able to extend their reach to far off lands, and to invest the stolen natural resources, wealth and labor in industrial and technological development, which in turn made a further projection of power possible. This is the process through which, at the cost of millions of lives and through centuries of cruelty and misery, the developed world came to be developed and the underdeveloped world came to be underdeveloped. 

This process, of course is not yet finished. The United States and Great Britain have been asserting their power over the entire Islamic world for well over a century, claiming its resources as their own. The continued attempt to colonize these countries is actively underway today. Today, much of the world’s wealth is concentrated in the banks, stock markets and infrastructure of just a few countries. This extremely unbalanced state of affairs was created by and is maintained by equally extreme coercive measures. 

By any objective standards, the actions of the colonial countries were colossal crimes. Murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, and genocide on grand scales. It was a deeply embedded racism that blinded people to the criminality of all this and that continues to do so. The very same Americans who would take up arms in an instant if a foreign army were to intrude upon our land, can’t fathom why the Iraqis are fighting us. How to explain this other than through some modern version of the “white man’s burden”? The idea that somehow darker skinned people are destined to be governed by light skinned people who of course are acting only in the utmost magnanimity in the interests of higher civilization. 

Perhaps history has laws, much like the laws of thermodynamics or gravity. Maybe simple ideas like “water seeks its own level”, or “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” apply to history as well. What we need to look at is the massive state of planetary imbalance, of disequilibreum brought about in this colonial era. The division of the world into developed and undeveloped isn’t just a static fact, a simple reality: it is a continuing dynamic brought about by extreme force. Paralleling this unequal development is a racism of unequal humanity. Is it possible for such a state of imbalance to simply continue indefinitely? Apparently not. Just like a dam that needs to be continually reinforced in order to hold back the growing buildup of water behind it, the centers of power are having to invest ever more money into the coercive machinery necessary to hold in place the monumental imbalances they have created.  

This is what all well-meaning people need to think about when we ponder the motives of these young people in France. Short term amelioration will not solve the problem, in France or anywhere else. We have to consider the health of the planet as a whole. If the well-being of some depends on the non-well-being of the many, sooner of later something will give way and there will be no well-being at all. This is why these few days of unrest call upon us to search for a new planetary model for this human family. 

Carl Shames is a Kensington resident.

A few weeks ago I called the City of Berkeley about a mattress illegally dumped in front of my apartment, which was promptly removed within eight hours. In late October Berkeley fixed another problem after neighbors complained—the city’s Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) declared Dwight Way Liquors a public nuisance and ordered its closure (‘Liquor Store Declared Public Nuisance, Ordered to Close,” Daily Planet, Nov. 1). Cited for 32 violations, this alcohol outlet was disciplined for operating after hours, selling alcohol to intoxicated persons, public drinking by minors, excessive littering, prostitution, vandalism, illegal drug activity, noise, the harassment of passersby, double-parking, and loitering.  

Only this time, the problem wasn’t fixed in a day. Resident complaints to police, city council members, and other city employees began at least four years ago. By some resident accounts, neighbors contacted the city about this problem as early as 1997. In addition to the calls, written complaint forms were submitted to the city no fewer than four times between the summer of 2001 and the present. Had the residents’ calls been about mattresses, hundreds of them would have been removed in the time it took for decisive legal action to be taken against this store. 

Dwight Way Liquors is not unique in fostering havoc in south Berkeley neighborhoods. Black and White Liquors’ night clerk was recently arrested for buying stolen liquor, and a cache of illegal weapons was found in the apartment above the store. On Oct. 27, 2001 (the four-year anniversary of last week’s vote), ZAB voted for strict regulations of Brother’s Liquor, which had been a neighborhood magnet for criminal activity for years. Within the six-month period prior to this vote, police had received 200 calls from residents, and arrests were made at or near the store for drug-dealing, public drunkenness, and creating a disturbance. According to some residents, regular calls to the police that began in 1992 were stepped up 1999 along with petitions and at least 150 complaints to council members, police, and the mayor. During this period retaliatory behavior was not uncommon; one resident’s garden was ruined. 

In addition to attracting problem behaviors, these businesses have in common their close proximity to other liquor stores. Dwight Way Liquors, for example, lies across the street from another alcohol outlet on Sacramento Avenue at Ashby. Walk southward down the street and you’ll count about ten liquor stores before reaching Alcatraz Avenue.  

Studies show that high concentrations of alcohol outlets are related to high rates of assaultive violence, violent crime, accidents, drunk driving, traffic crashes, and other problems. Nationwide, liquor stores are overly concentrated in lower-income, predominately African American communities which bear a disproportionate burden of problems that come with the proliferation of these businesses. The high density of alcohol outlets in these neighborhoods is a symptom of economic decline, and the problems that accumulate around these outlets exacerbate this decline. According to Oakland’s Prevention Institute, easy access to alcohol provided at high-density alcohol outlets can result in increased alcohol consumption, often leading to problem behaviors. “Problem” alcohol outlets directly or indirectly contribute to social disorganization and residential instability. 

It is not “pro-business” to allow the continued operation of liquor stores that attract criminal behavior. The disturbances associated with these public nuisances can create blight, cause people to move away, make areas less attractive to new businesses. Beaten down by the seemingly futile quest to transform their neighborhood into a safer, healthier place to live, four ex-neighbors of Dwight Way Liquors have moved away since 2003. The exodus continues. Four others who were around for last week’s vote expect to leave the neighborhood within the next two years. Despite the order of closure, residents express scant optimism that Dwight Way Liquors will close anytime soon. On the day that I write this, the store is still selling alcohol. 

To be fair, the City of Berkeley is making a concerted effort with limited resources to maneuver through a Byzantine web of state and local zoning, business use, and nuisance abatement laws to go after problem alcohol outlets and help residents take back their communities. However, the city currently relies on a resident-driven complaint system which seems to require an avalanche of calls to police and others before decisive disciplinary actions are taken and enforced.  

It’s time for the city to move away from a complaint-driven process to a proactive regulation, monitoring, and enforcement framework for dealing with these public nuisances. The city council should adopt a streamlined policy using zoning law to regulate alcohol retailers. The policy would require alcohol outlets to operate under transparent and enforceable operating standards that businesses and residents can easily understand. A unit comprised of police and other government staff should be solely dedicated to enforce this policy. Rather than relying on community members as complaint-generators, the process would include an active role for residents in the decision-making and enforcement process. This proposed regulation would provide for the assessment of annual fees to alcohol retailers to fund enforcement, outreach, education, and monitoring activities. Overall, this policy would allow the city to move more quickly to discipline problem alcohol outlets. 

The next time a resident places a call to the city about alcohol outlet sales to minors or other liquor store-related public disturbances, we cannot afford to wait another decade for the city to take definitive, substantive disciplinary action. It’s now time for the Berkeley City Council to put a comprehensive policy in place that effectively disciplines alcohol outlets that are public nuisances. Let’s turn the vision of living in a peaceful, safe, and healthy neighborhood into a reality for each and every Berkeley resident.  

Robin Dean is a Berkeley resident and candidate for a master’s degree in Public Health at UC Berkeley. 

After 25 years of community pressure to stop polluting Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito and Kensington neighborhoods, Pacific Steel Casting is finally planning to take steps to curb its levels of emissions. We appreciate the recent announcement that Pacific Steel will take additional steps to reduce toxic air pollution from its West Berkeley plant but more needs to be done. 

A long-standing source of community complaints, Pacific Steel Casting is a remnant of Berkeley’s industrial past. Operating for over 74 years, Pacific Steel Casting is one of the last remaining steel foundries on the West Coast. When it was built, Berkeley’s Oceanview neighborhood was a manufacturing district but today the area is undergoing rapid change as old industrial buildings are converted to residential housing and artist studios. Despite these demographic changes, PSC operates today as if the environmental protection revolution of the 1970s never occurred, with one of its three casting facilities operating WITHOUT pollution abatement equipment. That it has been a source of irritation to its neighbors is understandable. 

By its own admission, Pacific Steel releases some serious pollutants including manganese, nickel, formaldehyde, benzene, and phenol, chemicals that are both known and suspected carcinogens as well responsible for adverse neurological, respiratory, and reproductive health effects. Reducing or eliminating these emissions is a matter of extreme importance. 

Until PSC’s recent announcement, the reduction of these toxic emissions awaited the results of a health risk assessment (HRA) required by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). Citizens were dubious that the HRA would have much of an effect since risk assessment is historically associated with regulatory inaction. For example, in over three decades since the passage of a federal law to control the thousands of toxic chemicals manufactured in the U.S., only a handful have been regulated.  

So, it made sense for PSC to take common-sense steps now to address the problem, among them: 

• Improving general housekeeping, such as closing factory doors during production hours, and training employees in these procedures. 

• Substituting less toxic chemicals for more toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing process. 

• Re-engineering manufacturing processes to reduce waste and pollution. 

• Installing pollution control equipment on parts of the plant not currently controlled. 

• Making sure existing equipment is operating properly. 

None of these are exotic or unreasonable steps in light of the high number of complaints about PSC. In fact, they are considered best management practices by industry because they not only result in better community relations, but also improve the bottom line by making operations more efficient and reducing the potential liabilities associated with worker and community exposure to toxic chemicals. 

Let’s look at the specifics: 

First, PSC is improving its housekeeping by closing doors on one of its facilities. While this is a step in the right direction, PSC should be required to close all of its doors while operating. Continuing to keep some doors open allows the wind to carry out pollutants before they can be captured by pollution control equipment. 

Second, ventilation fans will be shut down after hours. While this will reduce the release of pollutants into the environment, it does not reduce the pollutants themselves. Eventually, they will be released if not controlled. Turning off fans only delays the release of the pollutants to the time when the fans are turned on. 

Third, bringing additional fresh air into the facility also does little to solve the problem. In the 1970s environmentalists used to say “dilution is not the solution.” The solution is ending the pollution in the first place, period. 

Fourth, training employees on these new housekeeping procedures is good. Employees also need to be held accountable for implementing them consistently. 

Fifth, installing an “odor neutralizer” could be a good thing or it could be cosmetic. If it involves perfuming pollutants, then it should not be allowed. If it involves reducing pollutants, then that’s good. BAAQMD should make sure it’s the latter. 

Sixth, testing alternative, less toxic chemicals to use in the manufacturing process is good. However, PSC shouldn’t give up due to initial disappointing results. It should continue to look at less toxic alternatives. “Green Chemistry” is a booming field; in fact, a recent Noble Prize went to three green chemists. 

Finally, installing pollution control equipment on parts of the plant currently without them is long overdue and a significant step in the right direction. It is unclear, however, whether this equipment will only reduce odors or reduce particulate emissions as well. As anyone who lives in West Berkeley or the other affected communities knows, a grimy dust settles on everything left outside. Particulates are a culprit in asthma and other respiratory disorders. Efforts need to be undertaken to also reduce particulate emissions. 

As its recent announcement indicates, PSC can be a better neighbor. After all, among its clients are you and I—the taxpayers of California—who are paying PSC to cast parts for the Bay Bridge retrofit. We deserve a good neighbor in exchange. PSC should continue working with BAAQMD to identify further steps it can take to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment. 

Peter F. Guerrero is a member of the West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs, a community group seeking to clean up Pacific Steel. 

With a fine mural of Marseilles’s Vieux Port as backdrop for César’s airy cafe right down on the quais—Greg Dunham’s set—the players are positioned to begin their round of Provençal comedy and passion. 

Marius is leaning on the bar, listening to a solitary pair of customers talk. A sailor and a girl grapple, then clinch outside, where Fanny and Honorine set up their shellfish pushcart. Fanny is posing in vain to attract Marius’ glance. As the noonday siren is wailing over the docks, ferry captain Escartefigue at his table sounds his bosun’s pipe to rouse Cesar, stretched out on a bench with a bar towel over his face.  

Thus is introduced the ménage—with highly visible attitudes—of this very public house that will see daily business with its comings and goings, and the greater arrivals and departures of commerce afloat, scene of Marcel Pagnol’s first great signature play from the late ‘20s, Marius, now playing at the Aurora, in a new translation—the first in 70 years—by Jack Rogow. 

Pagnol came along after decades of revivalism of Provençal language and culture, an identity once so separate from the Northern French that the young Jean Racine remarked, in the 17th century while on a trip to the Midi, he had difficulty understanding people’s talk by the time he arrived in Lyons, and when he arrived in Marseilles, couldn’t comprehend a word. 

Marius was written in French, not Provençal, but Pierre Fresnay, who first essayed the title role, spent a few weeks tending bar in Marseilles to understand his character’s work—and to learn the tactile Marsellais patois of the dialogue. 

And it’s in the thick of it, the rapid-fire counterpoint of everybody talking at once about the latest news or personal tragedy, or arguing over a card game, that Rogow’s translation proves itself, sleek and colloquially American enough to handle the riotous exchanges, yet supple in its allowance of the idiomatic gem brought over by sleight of hand into English. 

“When the idiots dance, you won’t be playing in the orchestra,” César expounds to Marius, or, in comparing him to his sedentary uncle Emile, “He didn’t like to go out in the sun and drag his shadow around.” 

After the traditionalism of the Provençal revival, Marius sports clean, modern lines in its racy speech and in the strange poetry of its treatment of what seems at first just a loose rendition of a Boulevard comedy about a love triangle set among working people rather than comic bohemians. Fanny loves Marius, who in turn has cared for her since childhood, but Marius is passionately in love with the sea, with the call of distance. 

He says, “I long for Elsewhere.” 

Feigning an affair with an older woman, Marius is able to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes for awhile, but not Fanny’s. And it’s her despair over Marius’ conflicting temptation that makes her initiative to turn over the cart at her moment of triumph. 

Director Tom Ross presides over a very capable cast, with troupers like Robert Ernst as César (whose nuanced exits are a delight) and George Maguire as the vain, well-to-do widower Panisse (declared an old cuckold, but “There’re no cuckolds in heaven; the horns get in the way of the halos!”). 

These actors understand the humor of their characters very well, and the scenes of contention between Cesar and Panisse, and Marius with Panisse, are very funny as well as touching. The young lovers are well-portrayed by Daniel Hart Donoghue and Jessa Brie Berkner, especially Berkner’s body language as the still-teenaged Fanny playing the coquette a little uneasily, aiming at Marius’ attention and getting that of the old widower instead. 

Jordan Lund makes a florid, impressive Captain Escartefigue. And the principals are ably supported by two players who each juggle dual roles. 

“I’m saying that I have nothing to say,” sputters César to jibes from all as he sets out to see his mistress secretly, or so he thinks. Life’s little ongoing melodramas are burlesqued with charm in Marius, but its real dilemmas and elemental passions are seen in their harrowing immediacy. “Honor’s like a match,” says César to his son, “You can only use it once.” 

Marcel Pagnol’s characters in Marius are, of course, the inspiration for Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse and Cesar, as well as Café Fanny. 

His great trilogy—Marius, Fanny and César—has also been a favorite bill for Berkeley audiences in the cinema. Pagnol quickly took the director’s chair, founding his own studio to commit his plays to celluloid, almost as soon as there were talkies for his dialogue with all its flavor. Cesar was made as a film before it was rewritten for the stage. 

In the ‘80s, Claude Berri’s movie adaptations of Pagnol, Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, were big hits here, a decade after the author’s death. Whether on stage, screen or the page, Pagnol, along with Jean Giono, served as introduction to the Midi for Anglophones before M. F. K. Fisher’s charming memoirs of Marseilles and Aix—and all their successors and the knock-offs that have followed ever since. 

Aurora Theatre presents Marius at 8 p.m. Wednesday.-Saturdays and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday. 2081 Addison St. thought Dec. 18. Tickets $28-$45. 843-4822. 

Photograph by David Allen:  

Jessa Brie Berkner and Daniel Hart Donoghue star in Marius.v

TUESDAY, NOV. 22 

CHILDREN 

Flute Sweets & Tickletoons “I Hopped Out of Bed and Jumped for Joy” An evening of songs and stories at 7 p,.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “Group Hallucinations: Anger, Jacobs, Snow” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Harrington explains “The Challenge to Power: Money, Investing and Democracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. 

Ellen Hoffmaan with Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Crooked Still at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with Lenora Mathias, flute, at noon at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555.  

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

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

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lessons at 7 p.m. Cost is $7. 525-5054.  

La Verdad, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

THEATER 

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.  

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. Fr. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 4. Tickets are $7-$15. 652-2120. 

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.  

Splash Circus “The Snow Queen” Fri. at 7 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

ACCI Gallery Holiday Exhibition opens with works by over 100 people at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Holiday Art Show with works by Rik Olson, Soo Noga, Julian Shaw and Mylette Welch at Nexus Gallery, 2701 Eighth St., from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Nov. 29. 

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

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Provence “Harvest” at 7 p.m., “The Baker’s Wife” at 9:25 p.m. at 9:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yaelisa with Caminos Flamencos Dance Company at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Gery Tinkelenberg and Deborah Crooks at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344. 

Propagandhi, Greg MacPherson at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Inspector Double Negative, funk, hip hop, soul at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Du Uy Quintet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 26 

THEATER 

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

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts” at 5:20 p.m., “Wife! Be Like a Rose” at 7:30 p.m. and “Kageroza” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ibdaa Dance Troupe from Palestine with Loco Bloco and Melanie DeMore at 7 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $25. www.mecaforpeace.org/IbdaaNational.html 

Hal Stein Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Aux Cajunals at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

The Mixers at 10 p.m. at The Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 524-9220.  

Naughty by Nature at 9 p.m. at @17th, 510 17th St., Oakland. www.at17th.com 

Mario DeSio, Jessie Turner & Kenny Dinkin at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Don’t Look Back at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yaelisa with Caminos Flamencos Dance Company at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Allene’s B-day Bash, The Biddy & Buddy Show at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Will Bernard and Motherbug at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Iron Lung, Reagan SS, Hostile Takeover at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 27 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Provence “Angele” at 2 p.m. and Taisho Chic on Screen “Women of Tokyo” at 5 p.m., “Foghorn” at 6:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Island Literary Series with poets Maria Espinosa and Adam David Miller at 3 p.,m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $2-$4. 841-JAZZ.  

Poetry Flash with Anne Coray and Naomi Ruth Lowinsky at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Michael Golds & Misturada at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Golden Gate Bellringers Holiday bell ringing concert at 1 p.m. at C’era Una Volta, 1332 Park St., Alameda 

“Back to the Land” A benefit for City Slicker Farms, backyard organic gardens in West Oakland, with music by Sweet Briar, Joel Robinow and Texas Ben, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph Ave. Donation $5-$15. 763-4241. 

Helping Hands Benefit for Musicians in Need at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$8.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MONDAY, NOV. 28 

FILM 

Special Screening: Focus Features Presentation at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon in Pen West’s annual Freedom to Write evening at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Paul Pierson explains “Off Center: The Republican Revolution & the Erosion of American Democracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com  

Poetry Express Theme Night: Erotic Poetry at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

West Coast Songwriters Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5.50. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

TUESDAY, NOV. 29 

CHILDREN 

First Stage Children’s Theater “The Great Book Conspiracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $5 at the door. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: Re(collections): Three Short Films at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeffrey Schnapp describes “Revolutionary Tides: The Art of the Political Poster 1914-1989” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffmaan with Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Drew Emmitt Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Larry Vuckovich, solo jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.›

When conservationists talk about biodiversity hotspots, the association is usually with remote, exotic places: Madagascar, Yunnan, the tepuis of Venezuela, the Western Ghats of India. That’s not always the case, though; in fact, we live in one. The biodiversity of California is astounding. An island on the land, cordoned off from the rest of North America by mountains and deserts, our state is full of plants and animals that have gone their own evolutionary ways. Of a total of 5,500 California species, just over a quarter occur nowhere else in the world. 

“Hotspots: California on the Edge,” which opened last weekend at the California Academy of Science’s temporary quarters on Howard Street in San Francisco, is a fitting celebration of these unique species and natural communities. The exhibit spotlights six regions and/or habitats: Mediterranean shrublands, coast redwood forest, Central Valley vernal pools, the High Sierra, the volcanoes of the Cascades, the Klamath-Siskiyou wilderness. They could easily have doubled that without exhausting the possibilities. 

Designed and curated in-house, “Hotspots” combines specimens from the Academy’s collection, live plants and animals, and multi-media. The exhibit space is dominated by a huge fire-scarred manzanita, emblematic of the chaparral that evolved with and is renewed by fire. Each area has a “hotspot tower” showcasing an endangered organism and a “collection wall” with animals and artifacts from the museum’s vaults. 

“It’s an exhibit for all the senses,” says the museum’s Roberta Brett. You can smell the essence of native sage plants (both Salvia and Artemisia), handle the skull of a California grizzly or a chunk of volcanic rock from Lassen, take a virtual-reality tour of a redwood grove. Images of the changing seasons at Jepson Prairie are projected on a giant screen, and videos show the belching mudpots of Bumpass Hell. Monarch, the badly-stuffed California grizzly who was once the star of Woodward’s Gardens, has been brought out of storage for the occasion. An ammonite the size of a truck tire represents the region’s rich fossil history.  

There’s a focus not just on species, but on communities and interactions. A Clark’s nutcracker perches above a typical winter’s cache of 32,000 pine nuts; nutcrackers and whitebark pines have co-evolved a seed-dispersal system that benefits both bird and tree. The life of a small native bee revolves around a single vernal-pool wildflower. Two hundred species of butterfly depend on specific Mediterranean-shrubland plants.  

The living exhibits provide glimpses into natural worlds most of us will never encounter. 

There’s a garden of insectivorous cobra lilies from the bogs of the Klamath country, a couple of mountain yellow-legged frogs (which reputedly smell of garlic), a gaudy California tiger salamander. A vernal pool tadpole shrimp, looking for all the world like a tiny trilobite, bumbles along the bottom of an aquarium; in the wild, it waits out the dry season in a cyst buried in the mud. Nebria beetles, nocturnal foragers on alpine snowfields, are housed in a modified wine refrigerator. The redwood region is represented by our state mollusk, the banana slug. (California’s state rock, mineral, gem, and soil series are also on display). 

Then there are the Jerusalem crickets, alarming-looking insects that you may have seen in your garden. 

“It’s the most queried insect in our entomology department,” says Roberta Brett. “People find them and they’re either fascinated or repulsed by them.” 

Seven California species are currently recognized, but Academy research associate David Weissman believes there may be as many as 50, distinguished by the drumming patterns they use to attract mates. You can hear samples of five cricket drumrolls. The courtship of Jerusalem crickets often ends with the female devouring the male, mantis-style. 

The academy has a series of special “Hotspots” events and programs planned through next summer. Pomo-Miwok basketmakers Julia and Lucy Parker were on hand for the opening to demonstrate traditional uses of sedge, soaproot, and other native plant materials. Artist-naturalist Jack Laws will be an ongoing part of the exhibit, working on his forthcoming field guide to everything in the Sierra and giving classes in scientific illustration. Brett says wine and food tastings (featuring produce from the Berkeley Bowl) are planned. The bookstore has a fine selection of California natural history books available, including titles from Berkeley’s Heyday Books.  

Academy Executive Director Patick Kociolek sees the exhibit as “a way to open up Californians’ eyes” to the extraordinary biodiversity all around them, and to provoke action to save what’s left of it. It also highlights the work of Academy scientists—like ornithologist Jack Dumbacher, who’s studying competition between the endangered spotted owl and the barred owl, a newcomer to the West Coast—in documenting the diversity of California habitats. Jack Laws describes what he’s after with his field guide: “I want to help people love what they see and become better stewards.” 

“Hotspots” serves that goal admirably. 

Photograph by Joe Eaton: 

An exhibit in “Hotspots” at the California Academy of Science in San Francisco, celebrating California’s unique species and natural communities..

TUESDAY, NOV. 22 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds, who may be accompanied by an adult. We will hunt for spiders if the weatheris nice, if not we’ll learn about the water cycle, from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

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

“Becoming Hevajra” An overview of the meditative and ritual practice with Prof. Harunaga Isaacson, Univ. of Penn. at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 6th flr., 2223 Fulton St. 643-6492. 

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. 

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 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 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also, Mon. noon to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

“Ask the Social Worker” free consultations for older adults and their families from 10 a.m. to noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. To schedule an appointment call 558-7800, ext. 716. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 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. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23 

“Chavez, Venezuela and the New Latin America” A documentary at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 393-5685. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Healthy Eating Habits A seminar with hypnosis at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 465-2524. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Sing your Way Home A free sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. every Wed. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Prose Writer’s Workshop An ongoing group made up of friendly writers who are serious about our craft. All levels welcome. At 7 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Stitch ‘n Bitch Bring your knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts from 6 to 9 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, NOV. 24 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

East Bay Food Not Bombs Give Thanks Vegetarian Potluck Feast from 6 to 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Free. Please bring donations and a vegetarian dish to share. 658-9178. 

Vegan Potluck at 4:30 p.m. Bring vegan (no eggs or dairy) food to share. For location and to RSVP, call 562-9934.  

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

Demonstration at “The Dead Mall,” Bay Street Emeryville built on the Ohlone burial ground, from noon to 6 p.m. 841-8562. 

“Native Americans and Thanksgiving” with Zachary Running Wolf and Thunder at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $10. 528-5403.  

Three Beats for Nothing sings early music for fun and practice at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863. 

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. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, NOV. 26 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Women of Color Arts and Crafts Show from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at La Penna Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

“Playing With Fire” Berkeley Potters Guild Holiday Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 731 Jones St. at Fourth St. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For a map of locations see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Spirit Walking Aqua Chi (TM) A gentle water exercise class at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $3.50 per session. 526-0312. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 27 

Turkey “Trot” Come to the Little Farm in Tilden Park at 1 p.m. to see the resident turkeys, then enjoy a brisk walk to explore seasonal changes. 525-2233. 

“Back to the Land” A benefit for City Slicker Farms, backyard organic gardens in West Oakland, with music by Sweet Briar, Joel Robinow and Texas Ben, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Mama Buzz Cafe, 2318 Telegraph Ave. Donation $5-$15. 763-4241. 

“Mayan Women Speak Out” Members of the Jolom Mayaetik Mayan weavers cooperative from Chiapas, Mexico will show slides and discuss the work of the cooperative and the challenges that face indigenous women in Mexico, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. 

Bay Area Vintage Base Ball League Meet members of the League, and learn the rules and customs of the games as it was played in Oakland in 1886, at noon at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

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. 28 

“When Bodies Remember: Surviving in South Africa” Colloquium at noon in the Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-3391. 

Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon in Pen West’s annual Freedom to Write evening at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Kensington Library Book Club meets to discuss Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is Illuminated” at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 534-3043.  

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. 

Critical Viewing An ongoing group to examine the art/craft(iness) of short films and television at 1 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Free. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

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

TUESDAY, NOV. 29 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join us on a series of monthly excursions exploring our Regional Parks. Meets at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area. For information and to register call 525-2233.  

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

Women’s Snowshoe Workshop, covering all the essentials for getting started in the sport, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

20th Anniversary of Star Alliance at 5:30 p.m. at Taste of the Himalayas, 1700 Shattuck Ave. With food, music, traditional Nepalese youth dancing, and a Sing-A-Long. Tickets are $20 at the door. 848-1818. 

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. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

“AIDS and the Mbeki Controversy” at 3:30 p.m. at 155 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-3391. 

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. 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also, Mon. noon to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

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. Judy Kuften, gerontologist, will speak on issues in aging. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

“Ask the Social Worker” free consultations for older adults and their families from 10 a.m. to noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. To schedule an appointment call 558-7800, ext. 716. 

ONGOING 

We Give Thanks Month Dine at a participating restaurant, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Berkeley Food and Housing. Restaurants include Bendean, Poulet, Rose Garden Inn, La Note, Skates on the Bay and Oliveto’s. www.bfhp.org 

Warm Coat Drive Donate a coat for distribution in the community, at Bay St., Emeryville. Sponsored by the Girl Scouts. www.onewarmcoat.org 

Albany Berkeley Girls Softball League is looking for girls in grades 1-9 to play softball. Season runs March 4-June 3. To register, email registrar@abgsl.org or call 869-4277. Early Bird registration ends Dec. 31. Registration closes Feb. 1. Scholarships available. www.abgsl.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Nov. 28, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900.www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Solid Waste Management Commission Mon., Nov. 28, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Tania Levy, 981-6368. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste 

City Council meets Tues., Nov. 29 at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

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Regents Give 3 Percent Raise to Top UC Brass 

Higher fees will hit University of California students for the fifth year in a row as the Board of Regents voted Wednesday to increase costs by as much as 10 percent. The board also voted Thursday to increase salaries of hundreds of top university administrators by about 3 percent. 

  The unusual move to approve a UC budget in November, two months before the governor releases his proposed state budget in January, followed an accord the regents made in 2004 with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That deal, in which regents agreed to a lower level of UC funding in exchange for no further cuts, was made at the height of Schwarzenegger’s power despite protests from the UC students’ association (UCSA). 

  State Assembly speaker and UC regent Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles) proposed on Thursday to postpone the vote until January in hopes of garnering more state funding. Núñez’s proposal, along with one from Regent George Marcus to eliminate graduate student fee increases, was overturned. The regents approved the budget 17-2.  

  The student fee hikes will bring resident undergraduate tuition costs to about $7,300, roughly an 80 percent increase since 2001-2002. Tuition will increase by 10 percent for in-state graduate academic students, 8 percent for instate undergraduates, and 5 percent for graduate professional students.  

  The budget includes the provision that if the legislature can work to fill UC’s funding gaps in the January state budget, the fee hikes will not go forward. Núñez said he would commit to that effort. 

  “We will work to discuss the budget with the governor and Don Perata (D-East Bay) to ensure this fee hike doesn’t happen,” said Richard Stapler, a spokesman for Núñez. 

  UCSA president Anu Joshi pledged to work with Núñez to prevent the fee hikes. 

  “UC can find the money to fill the budget gap. It’s ridiculous that undergraduate fees have gone up so much, especially with all of this information coming out about executive salaries,” said Joshi, referring to recent revelations about hidden compensation to top university brass. 

  “It’s not that we think they shouldn’t make that much, it’s just that we shouldn’t have our fees raised to pay for it,” she said. “They need to be honest about why they’re raising fees.” 

  Many regents, including ex-officio regent and UC president Robert Dynes, expressed some regret at raising fees but said funding levels at UC are simply too low to maintain its competitive academics.  

  “We still have serious ongoing funding gaps—relating to the student-faculty ratio; relating to salaries, which are now significantly behind the market for both faculty and staff; and relating to the libraries, technology, and other infrastructure that support the academic enterprise,” Dynes said.  

  “Make no mistake: This university’s quality, and the magnitude of this university’s contribution to California, are still at risk today,” he added. 

  Citing the need to bring salaries for top university officials up to national standards, the regents approved “annual merit” increases averaging about 3 percent. Dynes’ salary will increase from $395,000 to $405,000; Senior Vice President Joseph P. Mullinix’s salary will rise from $350,000 to $358,000, and Senior Vice President Bruce Darling’s pay will from $269,000 to $275,700.  

  Theses figures still lag behind those of officials at other top public universities, UC representatives said. Mary Sue Coleman, of the University of Michigan system, will make $724,604; fifty-three of 139 presidents surveyed by the Chronicle of Higher education will receive at least $400,000 in total compensation. 

But for many students, those numbers may not mean much. 

“This is definitely rough because my family gets stuck paying more for my tuition every year,” said UC-Berkeley sophomore Charles Banh, a biology major from Los Angeles who may be joined at Cal next year by his younger brother. 

“For my parents, that’s a burden times two,” he said. “Most of all, I think people get frustrated because they don’t really know why the fees are going up. I’m sure there’s a good reason but we’re all in the dark about it.” 

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Labor and student activists held a series of on-campus demonstrations at the UC Berkeley this week coinciding with the two-day meeting of the UC Board of Regents on the Clark Kerr campus. 

But with distractions ranging from the Cal-Stanford Big Game Week celebrations to Laotian Awareness Day folk dancers to the unseasonably warm fall weather, demonstrators found it hard to get the attention of most UC students. 

On Wednesday, the Coalition of Union Employees (CUE) held an hour-long noontime Sproul Plaza rally protesting low wages for UC workers. On Thursday morning, students organized by the statewide Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) marched up the hill from Sproul Plaza to Clark Kerr and held a morning demonstration on the lawn outside the regents meeting to protest the regents’ decision to raise university student fees. 

While the Clark Kerr protest was going on, a group of high school students organized by the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) led a march through the UC campus to the steps of Haviland Hall to call for the firing of an UC Berkeley undergraduate advisor accused of using racist and sexist language against a UC student. 

At the Clark Kerr demonstration, while most protesters held up banners stapled to sticks, one creative student carried a loose cardboard sign with the notation “Sold The Stick For This Sign To Pay For My Tuition.” 

Inside their meeting at Clark Kerr, regents approved stiff fee increases for both undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students. 

The CUE rally on Wednesday featured a pig motif, with demonstrators rattling pink plastic piggy banks, a paper maché pig head with dollar bills dripping from its mouth to symbolize the UC administration, and signs with winged pigs reading “When Pigs Can Fly UC Labor Relations Will Never Lie.” 

Many students seemed oblivious to the rally, however, walking through the demonstrators as they marched in a circle in front of Sather Gate. 

Four years ago, affirmative action demonstrations involving high school students devolved into incidents of violence and vandalism along Telegraph Avenue, and Berkeley police officers were on prominent display during Thursday’s BAMN activities on the main campus. 

Officers on foot and on bicycles congregated at the Telegraph Avenue entrance to the campus, and officers on bicycles—as well as an officer on foot operating a \ the BAMN demonstrators as they marched through the campus. There were no reported incidents.t

Richmond’s largest employer may soon have more eyes looking over its shoulder after the City Council voted to repeal an ordinance that since 1992 has allowed Chevron to inspect its own projects with little independent oversight.  

In its previous arrangement with Richmond, Chevron was allowed to appoint its own, city-approved inspector and was only subject to occasional audits by the city building official. Proponents say the inspection program was the easiest way of inspecting the scores of routine projects generated by the complex industrial giant. 

Chevron currently employs Black and Veatch, a Kansas-based engineering firm, to conduct its inspections. “These are qualified engineers that know the refinery business,” testified city building official Fred Clement. 

But critics contend that in the arrangement with Chevron, city auditors would only get around to reviewing projects after construction had started, or in some cases, had already been completed. The lack of oversight, they say, allowed the company to evade labor, environmental and zoning regulations. 

“What’s the point of them looking at the work after the city signs off?” said Councilmember Maria Viramontes, one of four co-sponsors for the repeal measure. “Let’s put this old idea aside and figure out where to go from here.” 

Since the self-inspection program began few violations have been cited. Earlier this year, however, the Contra Costa Building and Trades Council began an independent investigation into possible labor violations at Chevron.  

“Because the city hasn’t known when a project has begun, Chevron often brings in their own labor force and circumvents the city’s labor code,” said Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin, another sponsor of the repeal. 

A more thorough investigation showed that in many cases the city reviewed projects only after construction had been started.  

“Chevron issues permits to itself. It then proceeds to inspect itself. The city learns after the project is complete—sometimes two or three years later. As a result the community never gets an opportunity to weigh in,” said Richard Drury, an attorney for Adams Broadwell Joseph & Cardozo, a law firm that worked with the trades council to obtain project-related documents from Chevron.  

The council chambers were packed on Tuesday night as dozens of community members turned out to support the self-inspection repeal. Many took turns voicing their opinion to the commission. Among those were a group of labor supporters, several of whom stood at the back of the council chambers holding seven-foot high banners critical of Chevron. 

“We who live two blocks away from the place can’t even get a job there. Something is wrong with that,” said Antwon Cloird, a Richmond worker and union representative from Local 324. 

Others also expressed concerns over environmental protections. McLaughlin cited Chevron’s failure to adhere to the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, which requires the developer of any significant project to study its effects on the environment. 

“Chevron has not had projects go through a CEQA review in 13 years,” said McLaughlin. 

Chevron External Affairs Manager Dean O’Hair defended his employer, arguing that the self-inspection program was not unusual—though Chevron is the only oil refiner in Contra Costa County allowed the privilege.  

“Whatever the program, we’ll do what we’ve always done,” he said, his comment eliciting snickers from the heavily pro-repeal audience in attendance. 

Responding to the possibility of repeal, O’Hair issued a warning to the council, saying, “Regardless of the outcome of the city’s decision, I hope each of you understands the consequences and ramifications.” 

The council’s vote was unanimous despite the warning, and the fact that several on the council have received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Chevron. The council called on their staff to draft a new ordinance that would officially repeal the 13-year-old self-inspection ordinance. It will likely be introduced before the end of this year. 

Earlier in the evening, a Chevron representative made a $100,000 donation toward the city’s troubled public library system. While Richmond’s mayor accepted the money, the gesture was met with cynicism by several others. 

“Chevron made $3.2 billion in profit this quarter,” said Andres Soto, a Richmond community activist. “I think they could shave off a few more crumbs and get the entire library system up and running.” 

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The City Council this week grappled with the debate over installing electronic identification devices in public library books. 

The council on Tuesday had two proposals before them regarding the RFIDs, as the devices are known, one from Councilmember Kriss Worthington and the other from Councilmember Dona Spring. The discussion opened with Spring moving for adoption of her proposal, and then Worthington immediately seconded her motion. 

Spring’s proposal called on City Manager Phil Kamlarz to send a letter to library Director Jackie Griffen and the Library Board of Trustees to respond to letters from the Service Employees International Union Local 535, which represents library staff, seeking answers about the costs of installing the technology, service impacts on the public and whether the RFID technology serves the interests of the public. 

The proposal also directed the city attorney to look into the RFID installation contract.  

After Worthington seconded Spring’s motion, Councilmember Gordon Wozniak offered a proposal of his own to have the matter studied further that would have delayed any action on the issue by six months to a year. 

Wozniak also called for the council “to reaffirm that the work of the library board should be to return to the level of services offered before November 2004,” packaging that with his other suggestions as a substitute motion. 

After considerable by-play and a series of testy exchanges, notably between Worthington and Mayor Tom Bates, the board agreed to call for the restoration of services to the level before last year’s cuts. 

Councilmember Linda Maio offered the final compromise: Refer the labor management issues to a joint committee of library staff and management. 

“People want to believe it is settled and benign, but I’m not all of that mind,” said Councilmember Max Anderson. 

Other action 

• On a split vote, councilmembers approved the first reading of legislation that would extend Ellis Act protection for all tentants evicted by landlords seeking to take a rental property off the market. 

Currently, Berkeley requires landlords to pay $7,000 in relocation fees for elderly, disabled and low-income tenants. The new measures provides a basic payment of $4,500 for all tenants to help with relocation, with an additional $2,500 available to units with low-income, disabled and senior tenants. The low-income payment would be shared by all occupants of the unit, but the disabled and senior payments would be divided up only among the disabled and/or senior tenants. 

• The council overturned a Zoning Adjustments Board decision denying an appeal by neighbors who had protested their approval of plans to demolish a small single-floor house at 1532 Martin Luther King Jr. Way and its replacement by a two-unit apartment and a cottage at the rear of the lot. 

Residents, many carrying signs, complained that the house would overshadow neighbors—especially the home of Emily Rogers. Rogers said she would be cast fully into shadow during parts of the year. Other neighbors raised privacy and drainage issues. 

On an unanimous vote, the City Council agreed to grant them a hearing. 

• The council denied an appeal of a ZAB decision to allow a small addition to a home at 2235 Derby St., but city staff promised that all construction debris from the project would be covered. 

• The council overturned a decision by the Landmarks Preservation Commission designating an early 20th Century Victorian at 2901 Otis St. as a structure of merit, one of the city’s two historic resource designations. 

Councilmembers also ap-proved construction plans by developers Eric Geleynse, Xin Jin and Danny Tran to raise a three-story, three-unit condo project on the site—although a neighbor who opposes the project has made an offer on the property which could render the construction issue moot.

With its roster finally decided Thursday, the advisory group that will work with city and UC Berkeley officials on a new downtown plan is ready for its first session Monday night. 

The meeting of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, which begins at 7 p.m. with the swearing in of the panel’s 21 members, will be held in the General Purpose Room of the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave., at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

The Planning Commission elected three of its own members and each city councilmember named two, with Councilmember Kriss Worthington naming his two appointments Thursday afternoon—Patti Dacey and Jesse Arreguin. 

A member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, Dacey also serves on the city Public Works Commission and the LeConte Neighborhood Association Board of Directors. 

“She also served on the board of directors of Berkeley Tenants’ Union number seven back when we had tenants’ unions,” said Worthington. 

His second pick was Arreguin, who bridges the town/gown gap by serving as a Berkeley Rent Board commissioner, as a city housing commissioner and is a UC Berkeley student. 

Mayor Tom Bates appointed the chair, Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) Executive Director Will Travis.  

The Downtown Area Plan was mandated by the settlement of the city’s lawsuit against the university, filed after the school revealed its Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), for 2020. 

Matt Taecker, a planner hired just to work on the plan, said he looks forward the meeting. 

“We’re ready to bring people up to speed, and I think we’re going to have a good meeting,” he said. 

The agenda, which is available on the committee’s website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/dapac, allows three-and-a-half hours for the initial session. 

After a presentation by Taecker and other city staff, the meeting will feature a 45-minute public comment period, followed by a discussion of the existing downtown plan and an overview of the tasks ahead for the commission. 

Taecker said the committee will take a walking tour, with the public invited, through the planning area from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 26. Details will be posted on the city’s website. 

The committee is charged with completing its work by November 2007. The resulting plan, after more work by city and university planners, must be presented to the City Council by May 25, 2009. 

Two lawsuits challenging the settlement—and therefore the legitimacy of the planning process—are now pending further action in the courts. o

In a repudiation by a majority of its members, the Peralta College District Board of Trustees voted 5-1-1 Tuesday night on a modified resolution to censure board member Marcie Hodge for “behavior that is out of compliance with the laws and regulations governing trustee conduct and the established policies of the Peralta Community College District.” 

The only no vote was from Hodge herself. Trustee Nicky González Yuen abstained. 

The censure resolution was sparked by a contentious Sept. 13 trustee meeting and an Oct. 18 Laney College Faculty Senate meeting in which Hodge called for the abolition of the district’s controversial International Education Department. But the resolution also included long-simmering grievances by fellow trustees that Hodge “is deficient in fulfulling her responsibilities as a trustee.” 

The amended resolution was slightly toned down from the original version that appeared in the board packet, with allegations of Hodge’s “uncouth verbal outbursts,” for example, changed to “uncivil verbal outbursts.” But the substance of the resolution’s charges remained the same, including charges that Hodge is “often substantially late for board meetings and workshops, has never attended the board committee meetings to which she has been assigned as a specific part of her board obligations, and is frequently absent from the workshops and general sessions at state and national conferences that she attends at taxpayer expense.” 

In a written statement read before the vote, Hodge did not answer any of the specific charges in the censure resolution, but instead characterized the resolution as an attempt to silence her on the International Education Department issue. 

In the statement, Hodge said that she was “shocked and disappointed that some members of this board would consider censuring me for fighting to curb abuse in Peralta’s Office of International & Global Education.” 

Saying that the department “has been the source of problems, public criticism and abuse for many years,” she noted that “as of today, the administration can provide no credible data to show that the office has recruited any of the foreign students attending one of our community colleges.” 

Directing her remarks to fellow trustees, Hodge said that “while investigating this department, I have been met with resistance and hostility from some of those sitting in this room. Trustees: you are on the wrong side of this issue.” 

Hodge originally said that she wanted the International Education Department abolished because of allegations of mismanagement and lack of accountability. She has since said that she would support the continuation of the department if it were reorganized and made more accountable. 

During her presentation, Hodge held up a packet of what she said was “several hundred cards” she said she had received in support of her position on the International Education Department. 

In addition, a handful of public speakers spoke against the censure motion, including her brother, former Oakland school board member Jason Hodge, her sister, and her mother. 

Jason Hodge asked trustees to “reject this frivolous, personal and unprofessional resolution,” which he said “look like retaliation” for his sister’s request for investigation of the International Education Department. 

“I wish you would become as excited about investigating the sinister things that are going on in the bowels of this organization,” he said. 

Trustees voted on the censure measure without comment and none would speak on the record for this article, saying they feared an outburst from Hodge. 

At the Sept. 13 meeting, Hodge refused to stop speaking when ruled out of order several times by Board President Bill Riley. 

Four days before that Sept. 13 meeting, the district hired a new Vice Chancellor for Educational Services—Margaret Haig—whose duties include supervising the International Education Department and its director, Jacob Ng. At the meeting, Haig said that she had initiated a review of the International Education Department. She is scheduled to report back the results of that review to trustees in January. 

One trustee said following the meeting that the board was waiting to see the report before deciding whether any action would be needed. 

Peralta Federation of Teachers President Michael Mills said his organization is cooperating with Haig’s review of the International Education Department. 

“We believe it’s a positive step for the district,” Mills said. 

This is an almost entirely new board since the time when the International Education Department came under attack in the media and by the Alameda Civil Grand Jury for sending the former Chancellor—Ron Temple—and several trustees on expensive international trips. 

Linda Handy was elected three years ago in part because of a backlash over Temple’s involvement in the International Education Department scandal, and four new trustees—Bill Withrow, Cy Gulassa, Yuen, and Hodge—were elected last November after incumbent trustees chose not to run for re-election for various reasons. 

The new board has established a track record for establishing fiscal and program accountability in the district. New checks and balances include requiring the district’s fiscal manager and general counsel to sign off on most contracts before the come to the board, keeping a running accounting of the district’s bond expenditures, and hiring an inspector general to report directly to trustees on district problems. 

In addition, trustees have increased scrutiny over construction cost overruns—particularly those involved with the Vista College construction project in Berkeley—and over the district’s Internet Technology Department, which is currently in the midst of a massive phase-over to a new Internet administrative system.o

Many who came to see controversial Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo on a panel Monday night, also came to be seen. 

Yoo was welcomed to the discussion billed as “American Foreign Policy, War and the Constitution” with signs, banners and T-shirts that read: “Torture is never OK,” “Shame on Yoo,” “Don’t Kill Democracy,” and “Hey Yoo, Stop Torture.” 

Two hooded men dressed as prisoners and another who looked like their jailer and torturer were among the crowd.  

Yoo is well-known for a memo he wrote as a Department of Justice aide in 2002, arguing that fighters captured by U.S. troops in Afghanistan are not covered by the Geneva Conventions, which are treaties that embody laws of war and make mistreatment of prisoners of war illegal. 

With Yoo on the panel sponsored by Black Oak Books and the Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center was moderator Jeffrey Brand, dean of the University of San Francisco Law School, Gordon Silverstein, political science professor at UC Berkeley and Peter Irons, political science professor at UC San Diego. A participant in Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, Irons is best known for his role in the 1983 overturning of the conviction of Fred Korematsu, the Japanese-American man who refused orders to go to an internment camp during World War II.  

Early in the discussion, Irons drew audience applause when he put a personal face on U.S. foreign policy. 

“I’m probably the only person on this panel, who has been threatened with death by sadistic prison guards, and shackled hand and foot and around the waist and paraded in front of … crowds by shotgun-wielding guards because I refused to take part in war,” he said. 

Yoo kept to the role of theoretician, laying out his position on the Geneva Conventions. Treaties are made between nations, he said. 

“Al Qaeda is not a nation,” Yoo said. “It has not signed a treaty. In fact, there’s a specific provision in the Geneva Conventions that says even if you haven’t signed the treaty, you can unilaterally declare it. Al Qaeda has never invoked this provision. They have no desire to obey the laws of war.” 

And so the rules of war as stated in the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al Qaeda, he said. 

Further, Yoo argued that to protect national security, there may be times when interrogators need to go beyond the constraints of the Geneva Conventions. For example, when the No. 3 man in al Qaeda was captured, it would be important to extract information from him. 

“If there was one person who knew what the coming attacks on the United States would be, it’s this fellow,” he said. “I’m not saying we ought to torture him, although there are people who do. What I am (asking) is: is the United States limited to the Geneva Conventions in interrogations even though it’s not legally required?”  

The audience gave Yoo a unanimous: “Yes!” 

Irons countered with a case recently in the headlines where a U.S. prisoner was hung upside down and beaten until he died. 

“The man who conducted this homicidal torture is known to the Justice Department and I can guarantee you that under this administration, absolutely nothing will be done to prosecute him,” Irons said. 

Underscoring that the military does not want to abrogate laws precluding torture, Silverstein addressed the question of precedent. 

“Once the United States is seen as a nation that picks and chooses when it will and will not observe these accords, other nations will feel more easily like they can do the same,” he said. 

There are, however, times that the need for intelligence prevails, Yoo argued. “What the military has to balance is, as you said, the precedent, versus getting the information that’s going to prevent a 9/11 attack. I think that’s a policy-maker’s decision.” 

Much of the exchange revolved around the question of which branch of government makes the decision to go to war—Congress, the president or the courts. 

“The framers were crystal clear: Congress has the power to declare war,” Irons said, noting that since Truman’s presidency, the United States has gone into war, both small wars like invasion of Grenada and bigger wars like today’s Iraq War, “without any constitutional sanction.” 

Yoo argued that one should look at how the balance of power works on a practical level. The United States has gone to war 130 times and there have been only five declarations of war, he noted. So, in practice, Congress does not, in fact, necessarily declare war.  

But Congress does hold the ultimate authority, the power of the purse. Congress can stop war by withholding appropriations. 

“Funding is the ultimate check,” Yoo said, chiding legislators for refusing “to take political responsibility about something which is uncertain, that could be very popular or very unpopular. They must be re-elected every two years. They’re more than happy to let the president take responsibility or to take blame.” 

The argument can be extended to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, he said. 

“If Congress did not want Guantanamo Bay to exist, it could simply defund Guantanamo Bay.” 

Oakland attorney Walter Riley, who was among those listening to what Yoo had to say, said, “John Yoo doesn’t discuss constitutional law.” 

Yoo’s assertion that the president can do what he wants until Congress stops him with the power of the purse is not a constitutional argument, Riley said. “It’s a political argument.”t

The photographer of the persimmons on the back page of the Nov. 15 issue was misidentified. Joni Diserens took the photograph.

On Wednesday night, the Berkeley school board voted to proclaim Dec. 1 as Rosa Parks Day. During the public comment period, Rosa Parks Elementary School students lined up to speak in favor of the honor. 

“I am proud to be a Rosa Parks student,” said one student. “Rosa Parks deserves our respect and we need to show that we still have her in our hearts.”  

The board agreed. 

“Rosa Parks was one of my heroes,” said Shirley Issel, a member of the board. “She is a lesson to all of our students.” 

Following the public comment period and comments from the directors, the board voted unanimously to approve the consent calendar, thereby passing the measure to proclaim Dec. 1 as Rosa Parks Day. 

California standard tests report 

The majority of the board meeting was spent on looking at student achievement data from the standardized tests, such as the CAT 6 and the California High School Exit Exam (CASHEE). There was comprehensive data on English-Language Arts and Mathematics, some of which compared the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) to the state in general. 

MPR associates, the company that administered the study, found that while Berkeley students had a higher proficiency level than the state as a whole, the gap between the two was narrowing. MPR also concluded that the BUSD has “large and persistent achievement gaps in student sub-populations.” 

For example, students with disabilities (in the Berkeley High class of 2006) had only a 30 percent pass rate on the CASHEE. Another test that spiked controversy was the California English Language Development Test (CELDT). 

“Children who speak a language other than English at home are required to take the initial CELDT,” said MPR associate Robin Henke. The results found that only 3 to 4 percent of BUSD students took the initial CELDT. 

“It’s kind of surprising,” said school board President Nancy Riddle. 

Some board members were unhappy with the results and felt that others were taking the results too lightly. 

“This is a shocking report and we just can’t ignore this,” Issel said. “I just have to point out that only 22 percent of African-Americans in high school score proficient on English-Language Arts and only 5 percent of African-Americans score proficient in Math. The trends are down. If it were up to me, I’d declare a public health emergency.” 

Board Vice President Terry Doran responded, “I look at this data with skepticism. MPR told us also that many students look at some of the tests as ‘low-stakes’ tests.” 

In the end, everyone agreed that they needed to do more things in order to close the achievement gap. 

Youth Commission appointments 

Prior to the regular board meeting, the school board completed interviewing for candidates to fill two spots in the Berkeley Youth Commission. One position was an appointment by School Board Director Joaquin Rivera, and the other was a board-at-large position. 

On Tuesday, Rivera announced that he selected Calvin Young, a sophomore, to fill his position. The board choose Sophie Bridgers, a senior, to fill the at-large position. 

Rio Bauce is a Berkeley High sophomore. He can be reached at baucer@gmail.com.

Soya and her volunteer tutor were getting together recently for one of their regular meetings at the West Branch library on University Avenue. Soya, who has an infant daughter, was born and raised in Nepal and came to the United States in 1998. 

Although she speaks English, she wanted to improve her reading and writing skills. A friend told her about the Berkeley Public Library’s Adult Literacy Program called Berkeley Reads. After an interview and a reading assessment with the program director, Linda Sakamoto-Jahnke, she was assigned a qualified tutor. 

Her tutor came to the program originally because she needed to fulfill 40 hours of community service. She has since completed the requirement but finds being a tutor so rewarding that she has volunteered to continue. She’s helping Soya attain her short-term goals of being able to “read newspapers and books and understand what they mean, and to write letters to family and friends.” 

At present, Soya works for a family caring for their children. Her longer-term goal is to enter a nursing program. 

“We have over 100 trained volunteer tutors who work one-on-one with our students,” Sakamoto-Jahnke said. “What we’re looking for in a volunteer is enthusiasm, flexibility, a willingness to go with the flow” 

Sakamoto-Jahnke recently come back to her home town library after 10 years running a literacy program for another East Bay library. She said she is delighted to now be with a public library that funds most of the literacy program.  

Next to the office is a spacious community room which houses the Berkeley Reads computer lab that provides instructional software to help students improve both their literacy and computer skills. Though the Berkeley Reads program is headquartered at the West Branch, Linda wants to expand its visibility throughout the library system and into the community. 

“We’re serving adults who test at eighth-grade or below in reading skills,” Sakamoto-Jahnke said. “Some students need to understand the DMV pamphlet so they can get a driver’s license. Others want read and write well enough to able to apply for a job or write a good resume. Parents want to read to their young children and later be able to help them with their home work.” 

“Though the relationship between tutor and student is certainly the heart of the Berkeley Reads program, we’re committed to reaching adults of various ages, abilities, and with a wide range of needs,” Sakamoto-Jahnke added. 

Consider a recent week in the life of the Berkeley Reads Program: 

Monday: A volunteer at the Women’s Shelter spoke about setting up a workshop. The volunteer brought along some free books for the kids so they would have one for a bedtime story. 

Tuesday: A staff member held an outreach meeting at the Berkeley Options program housed in the downtown Veterans’ Building. A small group of homeless people, some with substance abuse problems, discussed some of their literacy needs. 

Wednesday: A local real estate broker came in during the morning to the West Branch to make a donation to Berkeley Reads, telling a staff member that his new assistant was a graduate of the program. In the afternoon, a small group of students met at the community room to focus on a specific literacy skill. 

Thursday: The staff conducted a tutor-training workshop—one of four offered each year for volunteers—all of whom are required to be over 18 and have a high school diploma. 

Friday: Linda, with her assistant, Sherry, put aside some of the day to write grant proposals for some special projects. William, a recent applicant who served in the Army for 12 years and now has a two-year-old daughter, dropped by hoping he will soon be matched with a tutor. 

Saturday: Berkeley Reads held one of the family literacy events with a well-know story teller. After snacks, the kids selected some of the free books to take home to help build their personal library. (This is one of several literacy programs the Friends of the Library helps fund.) 

And every day of the week, somewhere—maybe on a park bench, at a coffee shop, at the local library or even at a BART station—a dedicated tutor and a dedicated student are working together. 

For more information about Berkeley Reads Adult and Family Literacy Program, call 981-6299 or e-mail berkeleyreads@berkeleypubliclibrary.org. You can visit the program office at the Berkeley Public Library West Branch, 1125 University Ave., during library hours. 

Phila Rogers is a board member of Friends of the Berkeley Public Library. 

Soft story collapse 

The occupant of a home at 1519 Oregon St. got a first-hand lesson in the dangers of soft-story housing at 11:30 Sunday evening when somebody dropped the house out from under him. 

The second floor resident, who lives above a garage and workspace, managed to escape the incident unharmed, said Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth. 

Soft story buildings—structures with housing above open spaces like garages—lack sufficient support to make them earthquake worthy. The city is currently considering legislation about what steps to take to make owners of such properties render them safer for residents. 

“A bearing wall that was being worked on collapsed,” said Orth. The construction had been undertaken without a building permit, he added. 

When the building collapsed, the remains lay against the side of a neighboring residence, causing the fire department to red tag both structures, with the fate of the neighboring house pending an evaluation of possible structural damage caused by the collapse. 

The collapse did remove at least one unit from the city’s list of soft story buildings. 

Cycle goof 

Rule number one for motorcyclists: Don’t park it in a closed space near a gas water heater. 

The occupant of a residence in the 1600 block of Kains Street learned the lesson the hard way Sunday afternoon when gas fumes from the two-wheeler made contact with the flames from the nearby basement water heater. 

Firefighters quickly contained the fire, limiting the structural damage to $10,000 and damage to the contents—including the cycle—estimated at $5,000.

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.

ENOUGH REDUX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We’ve had enough! It’s time our neighborhood stood up for our quality of life. It’s not fair that one house with far too much emotion about global-local pollution issues can continue to erode our health and peace every single day. We are captive in our houses to their vocalized ramblings, their pamphleting of our sport utility vehicles, and their crass demonstrative behavior in our city’s newspaper. Their loud anti-automobile aggression wakes us up with their noise at all hours of the day. Nana wants to be able to have a nice afternoon nap without a protester on the front walk. Their noise and placard pollution ends up in our yards and in our gardens, and their signs and organizing are eyesores that take up public space. Enough is enough. Our health and happiness are threatened. Our children are greatly endangered whenever they play in the neighborhood. It’s just not fair! The activities of this family threaten the very peace and stability of the country and the planet. 

We know the family has been in the house a long time and no one believes the grandmother is a protest singer (she only complains about having to do the composting) but she seems to have no control over her children who are obviously unable to connect with just going over the road and politely talking to their neighbors about their transportation choices. We demand that this mindless protesting in our neighborhood stop or we will sue! We cannot tolerate this kind of behavior in Berkeley. No longer shall these thoughtless activities of individuals be allowed to disrupt life for the rest of us. 

Join Polite Conversation Please (PCP). 

John Parman 

• 

SOLANO CONDOS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Solano Avenue Safeway condos. Wow! What a great idea. Better yet, Albany should request/demand, as part of the project, a public open space/ park along Solano so all people can play in it. 

Richard Splenda 

• 

WORLD CAN’T WAIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I find it fascinating that Rio Bauce’s Nov. 11 article “BHS Students Rally Against Bush” manages to spend an entire column describing the “World Can’t Wait” movement without mentioning that it is a Maoist group calling for a worldwide Communist revolution. Or perhaps Rio—obviously an intelligent 10th-grader—wasn’t aware of this fact? If so, he has the excuse of youth. But no such excuses can be made for Principal Jim Slemp and the teachers at Berkeley High School who encouraged their students to join a Maoist cult in the name of hip political correctness.  

Imagine the outcry if a high school principal allowed his students to ditch school en masse to attend a Ku Klux Klan rally, accompanied and encouraged by teachers who agreed with the KKK’s message. Yet the Revolutionary Communist Party—the group that organized the World Can’t Wait rally—justifies the murder of tens of million Chinese, glamorizes the most brutal dictator since World War II, and functions essentially as a Communist brainwash cult with calls for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and the entire capitalist system, to be replaced by a global “Cultural Revolution” to extinguish the middle class. And Principal Slemp has no problem allowing the Communist teachers on staff at Berkeley High leading his students into this maelstrom of political psychosis.  

Where is the outrage? Oh right, this is Berkeley, where we just love Chairman Mao. 

Rio Bauce and the other students can be morally excused, due to their age and ignorance of history. Principal Slemp and the teachers he helped have no such excuses, and should be fired immediately. 

Aileen Duroc 

• 

DERBY STREET FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

TJ Wagner wrote a letter to the editor regarding closing Derby. His letter contained a number of common misperceptions about the project. First, while the Berkeley High Baseball team is a primary beneficiary of closing Derby, pulling BHS out of San Pablo Park will allow the COB to annually provide about 7500 hours of neighborhood after school recreation to the mostly low income children who live around the park. Had the Berkeley City Council acted upon this project when it first came before them about six years ago by now we would have provided over 35,000 hours of after school recreation for these children. Second, the Farmer’s Market would suffer no negative impacts. In fact the physical facility proposed for them at the closed Derby site is larger and has superior 

visibility to the space they now occupy. The construction can be done so the Farmers’ Market will have a new space prior to the destruction of their old space. Third, the reason why the Hearst Street area is so underutilized is that the neighbors surrounding this park has been VERY vocal about limiting its use by organized sports. The field users have been asked by them and the Parks Department to minimize organized use of this field so that it can be made available for the very neighborhood pick-up games that TJ Wagner supports. Finally, BUSD has no means of transporting its athletes to daily practices. To suggest that the community is better served by not building a field that is within walking distance of the school in favor of continuing to have these students pile into their fossil fuel gobblers, and drive even further to get to Gilman, is counter to the fairly clearly defined environmental traffic reduction mantra that is oft heard.  

Doug Fielding 

Chairperson, Association of Sports Field Users 

• 

MORE ON DERBY FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I found Terry Doran’s Nov. 15 commentary “We Want It For The Kids” both laudable and appalling at the same time. While I do admire Mr. Doran for many of his stances and his consistent support for youth, I feel that his commentary is not factual and that it misleads the common, well-educated Berkeley resident. 

First let me say that Mayor Bates’ office has promised that the Gilman Street fields can be used by the Berkeley High Baseball Teams. They further said that the varsity baseball team should contact their office to schedule pricing and practice times. This is a regulation size baseball field. Berkeley has poured so much money into this, so why not utilize it for our baseball team, rather than say that we want more and more and more? 

Let me further say that the headline presented in this commentary was disrespectful to myself. I am a kid. I go to Berkeley High. And let me tell you, I have been fighting this field for years—I held a sign at the School Board meeting seven years ago to protest this and I will fight against it now. I don’t think Mr. Doran, nor other proponents (who mostly live outside of the community), know of the impacts of the field, probably because they won’t have to deal with the impacts. They won’t have to live with the litter, they won’t have to live with the noise, they won’t have to live with the overcrowding of our neighborhood, they won’t have to live with the Farmers’ Market being severed (several farmers have said that they wouldn’t come back if they were relocated). I just don’t understand the hysteria regarding closing Derby Street, when our neighborhood has bent over backwards for everyone...Not to much mention that the money to build this field isn’t here. I would actually like to have a field at Derby, so I the neighborhood kids could use it as well. I hope that the City Council heeds the word of the people and not the special interests. Build a multi-purpose field now! 

Rio Bauce 

• 

THE WORKING CLASS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Larry Hendel of the SEIU (Nov. 16, “Time to Kick Butt”) has it right when he says the Democrats “suck at the same corporate teat for campaign funds as the Republicans,” and therefore, remain unable to move forward on a meaningful agenda for working people. Now that we have managed to fend off the latest corporate attacks that Schwarzenegger enabled, let’s not fall back into the same trap that we just came out of. Labor unions must break away from the corporate two-party system in a hurry. 

As a nurse activist who sees how piecemeal reforms championed by Democrats have let millions of Californians fall through the cracks of health care “system,” I believe the hope for the future of working class America lies in the building of independent political organizations like the Green Party. We simply cannot be satisfied to wait for corporate politicians to dole out crumbs so we can thank them for not starving us. 

We need proportional representation or at least instant run-off voting, public financing of political campaigns, single payer healthcare, and a reinvigorated economy based on social and ecological justice principles. Labor leaders should unite around these principles and join with the Greens to build a livable, just society for the next generation. 

Kevin Reilly, RN 

Oakland 

• 

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I had the unfortunate experience of having to go before the Berkeley City Council, this time on a Zoning Adjustments Board appeal. The Council rubber stamped a phony ZAB decision, which had typically lied about the facts and the law. The councilmembers lied about the facts and the law, except for Dona Spring, who spoke up on my behalf. Had I not been afflicted with a life-threatening illness, I am sure none of them would have departed at all from their typical cold-hearted bureaucratic treatment. Even in spite of my condition, we got the usual bureaucratic put-down from the few other councilmembers who even bothered to comment and from the city manager. Lots of promises were made that are probably not legally binding. What was legally binding was the staff recommendation, which was a pack of lies. 

I don’t feel like a free man—I feel like a slave to the whims of dictators. So, what is wrong with this society? In my opinion it is endemic to America, but concentrated at grass-root levels like the City of Berkeley. The problem is that the emphasis is on politics, rather than law. Supposedly, we are a nation of laws, but that is not my actual experience. I suppose the adage is true enough when laws are being applied cold-heartedly in the interest of big business or big groups that have political clout. But the individual person will never find that to be true. He will find his fate controlled by forces that render his rights under the law and in a democracy of no effect, or in point of fact virtually non-existent.  

The two-party political system was meant to introduce adversarial controversy into the business of making and administering laws. But the emphasis was still meant to be on the laws and not on the politics. The politics were meant to be a means to an end, not an end in itself. I maintain that democracy in America is deeply flawed, and not just because it is perverted by capitalism. It is deeply flawed in and of itself, because there is nothing to assure that politics will not overwhelm and minimize or even annihilate individual rights under the law. The courts are not adequate to this task, because the legislative and administrative bodies can become too politically dominated, until the courts themselves succumb to the political pressures. These problems would continue and be exacerbated by any transition to socialism or communism, as we have seen in the societies which have attempted the transition. Socialist societies quickly revert to state capitalism and fascism. That is now the fate of the so-called People’s Republic of Berkeley. 

Peter Mutnick?

In 1980, Johnny Lee had a crossover hit with “Lookin’ for Love (In All the Wrong Places).” Democrats would do well to remember the first verse, 

“I’ve spent a lifetime looking for you… 

Playing a fools game, hoping to win 

Telling those sweet lies and losing again.” 

For many of us, it has been a lifetime since the Dems presented voters with a solid alternative to the Republicans. Heading for 2006, the party of FDR needs to take a clear position on Iraq, to quit “playing a fools game, hoping to win.” 

The latest CNN polls carried encouraging news for the party. Fifty-four percent of responders indicated that they would support any congressional candidate that opposes President Bush. The problem, of course, is that it’s not always clear that a particular Democrat opposes Bush, particularly when the subject is Iraq. Because of the Dems ambivalence about the occupation, the electorate remains wary of the party. The public seems to understand what the GOP stands for—strong defense, free markets, lower taxes, small government, and family values—but are confused about the core principles of the Democrats. 

In the 2004 presidential election, the electorate didn’t see much difference between the Iraq policy of George Bush and that of John Kerry. In January, Time columnist Joe Klein observed that Kerry didn’t bring up Bush’s authorization of the torture seen at Abu Ghraib, because he was afraid that if he did, the Republicans would paint him as being weak on the war on terrorism. 

For similar reasons, Kerry didn’t take advantage of obvious problems with Bush’s war: failure to find WMDs, manipulation of intelligence data before the Congressional authorization, loss of focus on Al Qaeda, to name only a few. 

The timidity of the Democrat’s presidential candidate is symptomatic of a deeper problem in the party: the obsession with short-term results. In this sense, the Dems adopted the Republican morality that winning justifies the means. Beginning in the Clinton era, Democratic leaders focused on tactics rather than elaboration of the party’s unifying principles. The “Clintonista” wing of the party continues to exert great influence and, as a result, the Dems lack a distinct morality and a clear strategy. 

To form a coherent position on Iraq, Democrats would do well to ponder principles that differentiate them from the GOP. Three come to mind: telling the truth, defending the United States, and restoring national honor. 

One of the most obvious problems with the war in Iraq is that its justification relied upon misrepresentations and outright lies by President Bush and his representatives. The administration manufactured a case for the invasion so that Republicans would have a winning issue in the 2002 congressional elections. 

While this stands as a particularly egregious example of GOP immorality, it also signals their vulnerability: the electorate no longer trusts them because they are seen as liars—a recent Washington Post poll indicates that Americans feel the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined under the Bush administration. Therefore, one principle that Democrats can use to differentiate themselves is honesty. They should cease their doubletalk about fighting a smarter war in Iraq, “establishing milestones,” and begin telling the truth: the occupation is a quagmire, a moral black hole. We should withdraw our troops. 

The public clings to the perception that Republicans are better on defense. The irony is that the Bush administration has based our homeland security on a devil’s bargain, betting everything on a flawed strategy, “We are fighting these terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to face them in our own cities.” The Oct. 26 report, “Combating Catastrophic Terror,” repudiates this notion and argues that Bush has systematically weakened America. The report asserts that Democrats actually have the best principles and ideas for defending the homeland, for example, serious preparation for an attack. 

Finally, there is the honor of the United States. A few months ago, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told a French reporter that America was “the most hated nation” in the Middle East. As a result of the Bush strategy for the war on terror, the worldwide esteem of the U.S. has been ravished. During the war in Iraq, America has used banned weapons, torture, and death squads; all of these actions have defiled our reputation, sullied our image as the “shining beacon on the hill.” Democrats should take the position that to regain our national honor we must end the bloody occupation, and rethink the war on terror. 

It’s hard to represent honor, truth, and real security, until you convince voters that you value integrity, an adherence to a strict code of ethics. The Democratic leadership must represent integrity. This is what attracted voters to the Dean campaign in 2004; Howard may be rough around the edges but he has integrity. Observing a well-defined morality means that Democrats quit being wishy-washy about Iraq and separate themselves from Clinton-era ethics where winning was all that mattered. 

Dems must cease, “Playing a fools game, hoping to win, telling those sweet lies and losing again.” To distinguish themselves from Republicans, Democrats have to adopt a set of moral principles, and then apply them to Iraq, and America’s other problems. 

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

When a powerful politician voluntarily agrees to give up power, watch your back. When a powerful politician voluntarily agrees to give up power immediately after a smashing political victory, watch your back while keeping your hand firmly on your most important possessions (you decide which possessions you consider the most important). While there are rare instances when politicians voluntarily give up power, they are so rare that one has to treat each such occurrence with extreme skepticism. 

And, so, I am skeptical when I hear reports that our own State Senator Don Perata, the Senate Democratic leader, has announced that he will work with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to remove the responsibility of legislative redistricting from the state Legislature and put it in the hands of something Mr. Perata is calling an “independent commission.” (Independent from whom, one asks.) House Speaker Fabian Nuñez has also expressed interest in the idea. My skepticism rises because both Mr. Perata’s and Mr. Nuñez’s willingness to advance this issue comes immediately after California voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 77, the initiative that would have put redistricting in the hands of a panel of three retired judges. Why do California’s top Democratic legislative leaders want to even consider taking redistricting out of the Legislature’s hands, now that the public pressure to do so has eased off? 

For most citizens, going through the legislative redistricting process is like taking our car to an auto mechanic. We know we’re getting screwed. We’re just not sure exactly how. 

This is a complicated subject, too much to explain in a short column, so let’s just share some preliminary thoughts. 

In Oakland, as a good example, there are seven city councilmembers elected from what is called “single member districts” (that is, one councilmember is elected for each district). (There’s also an eighth councilmember elected by all of the voters in the city.) By federal and state law and numerous judicial decisions, each one of these councilmember districts must represent roughly the same number of citizens. Therefore, at its very basic stages, the drawing of district lines is relatively simple. All you have to do is find out the total population of Oakland and divide that number by seven (for the purposes of this discussion, let’s say Oakland has a population of 450,000; that means each district must have a little over 64,000 people in it). To draw those seven 64,000-person council districts from scratch, you would take a map which includes population figures, start somewhere-say, at the Berkeley border-and draw a line around a geographic that includes 64,000 people, and name that council District 1. Then you’d move to the next portion of the map, draw a line around the next group of 64,000 people, and so on, until you complete the seven districts. 

If that was all there was to it, you could get the average high school class to draw council districts, state legislative districts, and Congressional districts, and be done with it. But drawing representative districts is a political process—it is, in fact, the very essence of the political process, since it involves how we are politically represented—so it is impossible to keep politics out of it. Keep that thought in mind, always, or you won’t be able to understand any of the things that happen during this exercise. 

When Oakland went to a single-member district system in electing seven of its councilmembers, the people who were drawing the districts made certain political decisions in how those districts were drawn that have an enormous effect on representation on Oakland’s City Council that go far beyond the interests of any single city councilmember. 

You can easily see the course of this decision if you look at an Oakland council district map and concentrate on the last three districts running to the southeast, Districts 5, 6, and 7 (for clarification purposes we’ll identify these as the districts currently represented by councilmembers Ignacio De La Fuente, Desley Brooks, and Larry Reid; the drawing of these districts lines, however, occurred long before any of these people got into office). 

These three districts all run roughly east to west (or hills to estuary) as they go from the downtown area to the San Leandro border. That means that each of these districts take in a portion of the hills, the foothills, and the flatlands. Oaklanders have voted in these districts for so long, that many people think this is the natural way for them to be drawn, the only way for them to be drawn, in fact, and cannot imagine them being drawn in any other way. 

I wasn’t around when these district lines were being drawn, but you can imagine people at the time arguing that drawing these districts in this way would mean that each of the three councilmembers—Districts 5, 6, and 7—would have to represent a cross-section of racial and economic neighborhoods (the hills tend to be whiter and richer, with neighborhoods getting darker and poorer as you drop down into the flatlands), and that would make for more representative government in the city. In theory, it means that each of these three councilmembers has to pay at least some attention to each of these three completely different types of neighborhoods. 

(There’s an argument to be made that under this configuration, the hills actually end up getting better representation in Oakland because of their wealth and racial makeup and better organization, but that’s a discussion for another day. For now, let’s just stick with the theory.) 

It’s actually pretty easy to imagine a completely different way of drawing the last three Oakland City Council lines that would end up with a completely different makeup of the City Council. Instead of drawing the lines of the three southeastern districts hills-to-estuary, suppose you decided to draw them east to west, that is, Lake Merritt-to-San Leandro? Drawing the districts that way, you would end up with one long district at the top roughly representing the hills, a second one representing a long foothill area with, say, MacArthur or Foothill boulevards running through its heart, and a third one representing the flatlands with International Boulevard at its core. 

Drawing Oakland’s City Council district lines in this way would completely change the makeup of the City Council. Would it make it a better council? I’m not arguing that point one way or the other, right now. But it would make it different type of council. And that would be the case, regardless of who was elected to represent those newly-drawn City Council districts. In fact, it would determine who could even run for those council districts, and who could not. 

The discussion around the recently defeated Proposition 77—and the discussion around the infamous mid-census redrawing of the Texas Congressional districts—all focused on the issue of whether district lines benefit Democrats over Republicans, or vice versa. 

In fact, the decision on where district lines are drawn is far more important than that—it’s a decision on which communities get represented, which economic interests get represented, which races get represented, and which ones do not. 

So far, recently, it’s conservatives and Republicans in California who have been making the most noise on this issue. It’s time for people who call themselves progressives to start paying more attention, particularly with Mr. Perata and Mr. Nuñez on board this train. 

More on this subject, later. 

Dismissing the alternative of a reduced size store that would reduce the impacts on the neighborhood, the West Bowl EIR currently before the planning commission states that a store smaller than the proposed 91,060-square-foot megastore (54,735 square feet of groceries, 28,805 square feet of storage, 4,120 square feet of office space) would not fulfill the applicant’s intent of “a full service supermarket,” and that the applicant’s original proposal of a 65,815-square-foot development consisting of a 26,625-square-foot marketplace, 5,330-square-foot corner store, 5,050-square-foot office, and 28,810-square-foot warehouse “was not intended to be a full service supermarket” (Page VI-17). By that standard, there are no “full service supermarkets” in Berkeley. The average of all existing Berkeley supermarkets is 30,297 square feet (including storage and office). The Andronico’s on University Avenue is 26,000 square feet; the Safeway on Shattuck and Rose is 28,763 square feet; the Andronico’s on Solano is 23,200 square feet; the Andronico’s on Shattuck and Cedar is 36,200 square feet; Whole Foods on Telegraph and Ashby is 28,000 square feet; the Andronico’s on Telegraph is 27,700 square feet; the existing Berkeley Bowl is 42,150 square feet, the largest supermarket in Berkeley. But the applicant claims that anything less than his proposed megastore is not “a full service supermarket,” and the EIR blithely supports this absurdity. This is but one example of the attitude that infuses every page of the EIR. The distinguished experts seem to think that their job is not to present an impartial analysis, but to spin cherry-picked nuggets of data to reach foregone conclusions in support of a project that is consistent with neither the General Plan nor the West Berkeley Plan. I will leave it for others to detail the numerous inadequacies and tendentious excesses of the document. 

I urge Berkeleyans to not be blinded by the thick reams of verbiage and spinning statistics. Instead, I urge you to go to the site yourselves and visualize the impacts that 50,000 cars per week will have on the neighborhood. Believe your own eyes. 

Look at the larger picture, and take it into consideration. The West Bowl is not a stand-alone project, but an anchor in an attempt to change the entire west Ashby corridor to retail. The very fact that the applicant is asking for a zoning change rather than a variance is tied to his knowledge that the mayor is pushing to dismantle the industrial zones on Ashby and Gilman. 

The precedent of zoning changes to accommodate this project will have far-reaching effects, and encourage further rezoning.  

Rezoning industrial land to commercial undercuts the West Berkeley Plan. One of the Plan’s central policies is to maintain the integrity of the industrial zones, because industries provide numerous unique benefits to the entire city. The stability of all of West Berkeley hinges on the industrial zones. Without industrial zoning protections, industries, artisans, artists, industrial suppliers, and lower-income residents would be pushed out of the area by retail, office and upscale housing, which generate greater rents and profits. 

West Berkeley plays a key role in maintaining diversity in the city. Rezoning the industrial zones to commercial will take the lid off rental values. It will diminish the ethnic and economic diversity in all the adjoining residential districts. Drive industry, artisans and working artists out of West Berkeley and they are driven out of the city. There is no other place for them to go. Drive lower income residents out of West Berkeley, and they are driven out of the city. Does Berkeley want to stop being a real city, and become just an oversized college bedroom town? Berkeley has a history of fighting for social justice, not pushing diversity beyond city limits. 

The plan recognizes that West Berkeley is not a blighted area, but a successful and unique community. While other cities were dismantling their industrial zones over the last two decades, Berkeley held fast to ours, and thus maintained economic stability while other cities’ economies staggered when the dot-com bubble burst. Now much of America is starting to become aware of the long-term consequences of becoming a nation that manufactures nothing. We are already far out of balance. America’s largest manufacturing export today is weaponry. The continuing export and globalization of American manufacturing is leading to an unsustainable society, with an increasingly marginalized and impoverished working and middle class. 

But Berkeley is still doing a lot better than much of the country, because we still have industries here. As the American people become aware of this growing crisis, Berkeley has a unique opportunity to be in the forefront of the greening and renewal of American industry. 

The West Berkeley Plan was written with the participation and unanimous approval of the stakeholders, the people in the affected area. It represents their voice. So when the mayor said, “The West Berkeley Plan took 10 years, and I don’t have time for another West Berkeley Plan,” what he was really saying was that he doesn’t want to hear the voices of the affected people, because he is afraid they will be saying something that conflicts with his ambitions.  

While the distinguished experts in the EIR insist that the proposed West Bowl “would not result in any significant or unavoidable impacts,” an unbiased study would conclude the opposite. The West Berkeley Plan prioritizes the maintenance of industry and clearly states that development in West Berkeley should take place on a scale and in a manner that will not have serious harmful impacts on other existing uses. The West Bowl as proposed does not meet that criteria. Let Emeryville and Albany keep their shopping malls. We should treat our industrial zone as an irreplaceable environment that we plan to pass on to our grandchildren.  

I urge the planning commissioners, city council and city staff to refuse to do the developers’ bidding, to refuse to lead the charge to dismantle the industrial zones. I urge you instead to protect the quality of life of our entire city by supporting the integrity, maintenance, and improvement of the West Berkeley industrial zones. I urge the planning commission to expose the EIR for what it really is, to deny the zoning change, and send the applicant to ZAB to request a variance. 

John Curl has owned a West Berkeley woodworking business since 1973. He is a former member of the original West Berkeley Plan Committee and a former member of the Berkeley Planning Commission. 

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Battle lines are being drawn in what may prove to be an epic conflict—one that pits small-town Albany against a wealthy and powerful developer from LA. 

Across the nation, malls of various designs have taken root, devastating small business districts, changing the character of cities large and small, and exercising an unchecked political and economic influence, one that threatens our nation's democracy. 

Caruso Affiliated is the latest incarnation of this trend with one difference: Their projects create “new downtowns,” and are known for their attention to style and detail. Yet a mall is a mall, regardless of whether it is elegant or poorly planned. The impact they have is the same—small businesses get battered, cities lose their charm and identity, and political power—even on the local level—is dominated 

by big money. 

Supporters of the Caruso mall contend “there is no retail to speak of in Albany,” suggesting the existing small business district be abandoned and converted into one that is “service-industry oriented.” 

The fact is there are over 65 retailers on San Pablo and Solano Avenues in Albany, most of them independently-owned-and-operated. There are also 64 restaurants in town, the vast majority family-owned. 

If an L.A. mall was built beside the Bay, what would happen to those businesses? Most would be hurt, many may be closed and boarded up. 

Consider this: When El Cerrito Plaza was completed three years ago, most merchants in Albany experienced an immediate drop in business. Retailers and restaurants also felt a dramatic decline in sales after Bay Street in Emeryville opened their doors. The only thing that has kept small businesses alive is Albany's small town ambiance and the fact that small merchants and restaurateurs offer unique merchandise, creative cuisine and personal service not available elsewhere. 

Rick Caruso and his spokesman, Matt Middlebrook, have asserted that wherever they built “town centers,” such as “the Grove” in L.A., businesses within a five mile radius have prospered. 

It defies logic to believe an upscale theme-park mall built beside Golden Gate Fields would have a positive impact on small companies in the East Bay. How could small business districts possibly compete with a corporate mall that would have a million dollar view of the bay, unlimited parking, and firms that have multi-million dollar advertising budgets? 

When there was a measure on the ballot in Glendale, California, to prevent Mr. Caruso from building a mall there, his firm spent $1.8 million to defeat it. How much will they spend to get their way in Albany? 

One cannot help but also be concerned about the potential impact an LA-size mall would have on the Bay, the wetlands, and on traffic on I-80 and the San Pablo Avenue corridor, already experiencing gridlock. 

That being said, Albany would not be Albany without Golden Gate Fields. In the past it has contributed to community organizations and provided the largest source of local tax revenue. Small businesses have also supported community organizations in town, and pay more than their fair share of taxes. And unlike big corporations, mom-and-pop shops spend their earnings locally. 

There are alternatives to the Caruso plan, one being a hotel and conference center built along the scale of the Doubletree in the Berkeley Marina. The remaining property, as much as 30 acres currently blacktop, could become a park. 

Cities receive 100 percent of hotel taxes compared to one percent of sales tax. Golden Gate Fields would benefit from such a development, as would the city. Tourists and horse racing aficionados would have plenty of reasons to shop and dine at local small businesses. 

Many believe big corporations cannot be stopped and that the Caruso plan is a “done deal.” That simply is not the case. We can—we must—prevent the East Bay from becoming another L.A. To do so we must seize the reins of our democracy and demonstrate that when citizens speak up and get organized, it is the people who talk and big money that walks. 

James Carter is the former executive director of the Albany Chamber of Commerce. 

I am not sure what the final accounting will be, but I have seen credible reports that the special election that most Californians didn’t want cost upwards of $300 million, about $50 million that the state spent putting on the show and at least $250 million in private money for or against the propositions. Not one child got educated, not one person received health care, not one solar roof was installed—in short, no services were provided by this incredible waste of money. 

And we have the 2006 gubernatorial and legislative shopping sprees to look forward to. In 2002, Gray Davis spent almost $78 million on his gubernatorial campaign, setting a new record for the most ever spent by a candidate in a non-presidential campaign. It looks like that record has now been broken by billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, who spent $100 million of his own money on his re-elec-tion campaign for Mayor of New York, but I feel confident that California will regain the record for most dollars down the drain once the 2006 campaign really gets underway. 

When Schwarzenegger complained that deep-pocketed special interests controlled California poli-tics, his message resonated with a lot of people, which enabled him oust Davis in the recall elec-tion, but now Schwarzenegger has shown that he can raise money with the best of them, so the problem is worse than ever. Candidates, unless they are rich themselves, need rich donors to finance their election campaigns, and then they are accountable to the interests who “brung them.” This explains why normal Californians don’t get support for the kinds of things they want from Sacramento—access to health care, public transportation, reduced emissions, quality education, investment in our crumbling infrastructure. The energy companies, big ag, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, insurance, real estate developers don’t want what your average Californian wants, and they are the ones who fund the lawmakers’ campaigns. 

It doesn’t have to be this way, and in fact it isn’t this way in Arizona and Maine, two states that have full public funding for election campaigns for statewide and legislative offices. The buzz word for a system of full public financing for election campaigns is Clean Money. In 1996, Maine became the first state ever to pass Clean Money for candidates for state office and now, almost 80 percent of the Maine state legislature consists of representatives who ran “clean.” In Arizona in 2002, 10 out of 11 of Arizona’s statewide offices are held by candidates who ran “clean.” Maine and Arizona have balanced budgets. They have more seats being contested, compared to the days before they had Clean Money, and they have more women and minorities running for office. Maine recently passed a version of universal health care, which had been impossible before Clean Money reduced the influence of the insurance lobby. 

Our own Assemblywoman Loni Hancock has introduced a Clean Money bill into the California State Assembly—AB 583—which will be voted in this January. Hancock’s bill is modeled on the Maine and Arizona systems, and this is how it works. To qualify for public funding, candidates must show a broad base of support by gathering a specified number of $5 contributions and signatures from residents in the district they are running in, agree to strict spending limits, and forego any private campaign funding. The number of signatures depends on the office, from 500 for an Assembly seat up to 25,000 for governor. The system is voluntary; in other words a candidate can choose to run with public financing or not. In cases where non-participating (unclean) candidates or attack ads by outside groups exceed Clean Money expenditure limits, the state provides ample additional public funds to Clean Money candidates so they can respond immediately. 

There are Clean Money campaigns in just about every state, and a lot of cities are adopting Clean Money for municipal elections. Portland, Oregon and Albuquerque, New Mexico have Clean Money, and just this week, by a unanimous 11-0 vote, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution instructing the city’s chief legislative analyst to generate a Clean Money proposal for the City of Los Angeles. 

Lest you still be basking in the defeat of the propositions last week and thinking that private campaign financing isn’t always so bad, keep in mind that working people aren’t going to be able to keep up the level of campaign funding that we just witnessed. In the long run, unions will never be able to outspend the corporations, and in fact they rarely do. Private campaign financing is just a bad system that makes elected officials accountable to corporate donors instead of to the voters. Let’s replace it with Clean Money and then we will start to see some real progress in Sacramento. 

Lynn Davidson is a Berkeley resident and a volunteer with the California Clean Money Campaign. For more information about Clean Money, see www.caclean.org. 

The conflict in Palestine and Israel is surely one of the best documented in human history. Every twist and turn in the struggle has been recorded and analyzed in scores of books, articles, websites, and films.  

The problem is that hardly any of this information, except what the corporate media choose to present, gets to the average American. 

In Berkeley, however, that’s no longer completely true. Since late last month Berkeley Community Media has been running a series of top-notch documentary films that offer a critical perspective on Israeli policy, and a sympathetic look at the travails of the Palestinians, on B-TV Channel 28, one of the two local public-access television channels the non-profit group operates. For those who have Internet access but no cable subscription, the shows are also streamed from the Berkeley Community Media website, www.betv.org.  

Among the movies in the series scheduled to run this weekend are: 

• Palestine Is Still the Issue, an overview of the conflict by the award-winning Australian-British journalist John Pilger. (Next showing: Saturday, Nov. 19, at 7 a.m.) 

• Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, an analysis of the way the mainstream media typically distort the issues, by the Media Education Foundation. (Saturday, Nov. 19, at 5:40 a.m.) 

• Wall of Shame, a 2003 look at the wall Israel is building through the West Bank (Friday, Nov. 18, at 7:30 p.m.) 

Other titles shown previously include the acclaimed Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire; The Loss of Liberty, a recent look back at the 1967 attack by Israeli forces on the U.S. Navy ship Liberty; and interviews with Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, historian Ilan Pappe, and UCSF Professor Jess Ghannam, a leader of the Bay Area’s Palestinian-American community.  

In addition, Ch. 28 is currently showing extras from the DVD versions of Hijacking Catastrophe and Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, including extended interviews with Noam Chomsky, Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi, Village Voice journalist Alisa Solomon, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and British author and Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk. 

For complete scheduling information, go to www.betv.org, click on the “B-TV 28” link, then on “Schedule.” Unfortunately, there’s no weekly programming grid; click on the calendar to get the schedules for upcoming days.  

The showing of these films on public-access TV is an outgrowth of a grass-roots movement that began in 2003 to get KQED-TV to air Palestine Is Still The Issue. Despite a sustained pressure campaign that included such innovative tactics as projecting the film on the outside wall of the station’s San Francisco headquarters, KQED executives have steadfastly refused to show the Pilger film, but as a sort of consolation prize they did run Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land in 2004. (For more on the campaign, see www.palkqed.com.) 

In the wake of that semi-success, one of the campaign’s leaders, Fred Shepherd of Global Information Services in San Anselmo, came up with the idea of assembling a series of films on Palestine and related issues that could be shown on public-access TV channels. He has so far collected 11 films that can be broadcast without paying fees (thanks in some cases to special permissions Shepherd secured from the producers).  

I submitted the full set on DVD to Berkeley Community Media, which has done a great job getting them on the air. Meanwhile, Shepherd and other activists have arranged to get them shown on public-access channels in other communities, including San Francisco, South Marin County, Novato, and Oahu. 

Getting movies like these shown occasionally on public-access TV is no substitute for what we really need: media that would routinely tell the truth about what’s going on in Palestine, Iraq, Haiti, and other world trouble spots. But given the increasing corporate control of the mainstream media, it’s remarkable that it’s at all possible for ordinary citizens to get critical perspectives on the air at all. In that sense, my hat is off to Berkeley Community Media, and I hope many Daily Planet readers will take advantage of the rare opportunity the group is currently offering to learn more about the Middle East. 

(If you’d prefer to obtain the films on DVD, for your own use or to send to a friend who will submit them to a public-access station in another community, contact Shepherd at altencon@aol.com or 415 459-8738. Individual titles cost $15 to $25, and the full set is available for $159.) 

Former San Francisco Chronicle reporter Henry Norr has spent three and a half months in Palestine over the last three years..

Why the hell is Berkeley Citizens Action siding with the drug dealers in my South Berkeley neighborhood? Speaking on behalf of the BCA Steering Committee, Linda Olivenbaum (Commentary, Nov. 11) endorses the charges of racism leveled against me and 13 of my neighbors who are suing a local drug house in small claims court and chastises us for pursing “narrow, short-sighted solutions.” Our problem, BCA suggests, is that “when newer, often white and more affluent residents moved in as gentrification has proceeded” they neglected to notice “what’s going on around them and to acknowledge the dynamics and strengths of the existing community.” 

I love it when self-styled “progressives” who don’t live next to crack houses talk about drug-dealing and the attendant violence as though it were just part of African-American culture—like Juneteenth, maybe, except that it goes on all year. Here’s a heads up to BCA: No one here in South Berkeley not involved in the drug trade is ready to acknowledge drug-dealing as part of the “dynamics and strengths” of our community. The drug culture has torn this neighborhood apart for decades, ruining the lives of countless kids. The notion that drugs are “just life in the ’hood” is a large part of the reason why those lives continue to be ruined.  

A vivid example of this attitude was on exhibit last Tuesday, when pwog scold Bill Hamilton wouldn’t even grant that it would be a good thing if our suit succeeded in curtailing the dealing in our neighborhood. Why? Because then “the many relatives and friends of Lenora Moore would have even fewer resources to work with.” So here’s the progressive solution to our dilemma: We’re supposed to allow drugs to be openly dealt in front of our homes and teach our kids to step around the dirty needles and used condoms and crack baggies, just so as to provide gainful employment for drug dealers. If there are further difficulties, Hamilton suggests we “form a network of informal social connections with each other to monitor and modify personal behavior and direct resources to problems.” Only in a very special sort of fantasy land does this pass for a practical solution to dealing with drug dealers with semi-automatic pistols. No thanks, I’ll just take my chances in court.  

I want to say something about that court case that a lot of people who know better are pretending not to understand. We are asking for monetary damages for the fear and suffering that persistent drug dealing at 1610 Oregon Street has caused us. We don’t know if we will win. We have presented our evidence, the defendant has presented hers, and Commissioner John Rantzman will decide. If he decides for us, the defendant can appeal to Superior Court. There is no coercion involved, let alone the “force or violence” suggested by Hamilton. We are taking this approach because we have tried everything else. We will succeed or fail based on the law, not (thank God) on what our patronizing Berkeley betters have to say about it. 

It doesn’t have to be this way, you know. On Oct. 24, Oakland announced the conclusion to a very similar situation:  

“Oakland City Attorney John Russo and City Council President Igancio De La Fuente said today that a family of drug dealers has agreed to sell a house that they say has terrorized a Fruitvale District neighborhood for 20 years. . . .Russo and De La Fuente said Ruby Harris, whom they described as the matriarch of a drug-dealing family, agreed in a settlement filed in Alameda County Superior Court today to sell her home in the 3000 block of School Street and move out by Dec. 20. 

“In its lawsuit, the city attorney's office alleged that Harris ‘allowed her home to be a drug nuisance, permitting the unlawful use, sale, storage and manufacturing of controlled substances since at least 1987.’ 

“Russo and De La Fuente said the city has tried for years to get Harris to control the behavior of her children and grandchildren through signed settlements, but Harris’ family members have violated the agreements. . .[N]ow the Harris Family, in order to stave off hundreds of thousands of dollars in public nuisance fines from the city, will have to move out and the residents will be able to take back control of their street.” 

Why can’t we do that? Berkeley citizens might well ask. And for a good start, my many friends in Berkeley Citizens Action might well ask their leadership why it is participating in smearing good people who are only trying to rid their neighborhood of a notorious source of drugs and violence.  

Paul Rauber is an editor at Sierra Magazine and a former columnist for East Bay Express.

The Prometheus Symphony Orchestra is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. This remarkable musical institution began as an outgrowth of Randy Hunt’s choral music program at Merritt College—when it was still downtown on “Grove Street” in Oakland. Randy needed instrumentalists to perform with his singers, for scenes from operas, oratorios, and such. He turned the orchestra into a Merritt College class, where he was on the music faculty, and began a rigorous performance schedule. A showman at heart, he not only presented concerts but also involved the orchestra in a number of exciting performance adventures.  

Notable in those early years was a collaboration with the Oakland Ballet, which is also celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year. Working with dancer and company founder, Ron Guidi, the group played for ballet performances of Hansel and Gretel, and Faure’s Requiem, in what is now Calvin Simmons Auditorium, and with the San Francisco Lamplighters as the pit orchestra for Oakland performances of Die Fliedermaus. Deciding that “Merritt College Orchestra” sounded a little pedestrian, Randy chose the name Prometheus Symphony Orchestra. The Greek god Prometheus, best known in mythology as the creator of fire was also the god of music. 

International award-winning pianist Roy Bogas, who had recently performed as concerto soloist was appointed conductor for the orchestra in 1972. The late Sally Kell, principal cellist with the Oakland Symphony, took the podium for the next few years, and brought with her a new level of musical excellence. She continued the operatic tradition, and Prometheus participated in a fully staged production of Poulenc’s Dialogue of the Carmelites.” The group even went on tour to Berkeley, San Rafael and as far as Monterey. It also played in the pit for the Berkeley Ballet’s Nutcracker. 

Prometheus matured with a regular five-concert season in the dozen years that Jonathan Khuner held the baton (1980-1991). Under his tutelage, the orchestra benefited not only from performing some of the most demanding symphonic literature but also from Jonathan’s associations in the opera world and the remarkable singers he invited to perform. He was, and still is, on the staff of the San Francisco Opera and he currently conducts the Berkeley Opera. Semi-staged productions of Chabrier’s Etoile, Weber-Mahler’s Die Drei Pintos and performances of arias from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Verdi’s Otello were highlights of those years. The orchestra also took on master works such as Mahler’s 1st Symphony, Brahms’ 4th and Bruckner’s 8th. 

With Jonathan came his remarkable father, violinist Felix Khuner, who modestly sat in the back of the violin or viola sections, and on occasion could be heard to hum the part of an absent wind player during rehearsals. He played with the orchestra into his 90s. The annual Felix Khuner Concerto Competition for young musicians (18 and under) is a highlight of the Prometheus season, with one or two superbly talented young people performing each year since 1991. Several have gone on to careers as professional musicians (and at least one conductor, Jack Bailey,) and they thank Prometheus for the experience of playing with a full orchestra to a live audience.  

Prometheus arrived at its 30-year celebration during a six year association with the noted young Bay Area conductor, George Thomson, who is well known to Bay Area music lovers as Associate Conductor of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and former conductor of the “new music” group Earplay. George expanded the group’s repertoire and appreciation of contemporary works. During his tenure, Prometheus was happy to be able to reestablish its association with Merritt College, which is now its permanent rehearsal site. 

Each of these conductors is a remarkably gifted musician, and the members of Prometheus learned much from their direction. Good fortune again prevailed when Eric Hansen took up the baton in 1997. A lecturer at UC Berkeley and East Bay (Hayward) State University and a guest conductor with leading regional orchestras around the nation, Eric has brought to the Prometheus a superb balance of his own extraordinary musicianship, patience with the foibles of tired musicians with day jobs, and a natural talent as a teacher. He is a treasure trove of knowledge about music history and theory, to the great benefit of musicians and audience alike. The orchestra has grown in many ways under this leadership. Eric and his father had both played with Prometheus in earlier years. 

Under Hansen’s baton the orchestra has performed over 100 demanding works, covering the complete range of compositional styles from Bach. Mozart and Vivaldi through several of the Beethoven Symphonies to the Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, and most of the major composers in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, works from Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Mahler, Elgar , Shostakovich, Stravinski and Hindemith. A 1992 composition from the East Bay’s own Peter Josheff currently takes the prize for “most recent venture into contemporary music.”  

Little did the motley crew of musicians that Randolph Hunt gathered together in 1965 know that they were starting a musical institution that would be thriving some 40 years later. One of that original group—hornist Akos Vass—is still on the Prometheus roster, as is bassoonist Bonnie Bogue who joined in 1966. Many others can claim membership of 20 years or more. Players come from all walks of life—teachers, office workers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, computer scientists, professors, homemakers, university students, parents with young children and more than a few grandparents. All of them put aside every Monday night to come to practice, sometimes struggling to meet the demands of the great composers yet always rejoicing in the experience. 

A birthday performance for the Prometheus Symphony Orchestra is planned for on Sunday, Nov. 20 at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 116 Montecito Ave., Oakland. The concert will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with guest performers Robin Hansen, violin, and Anna Kruger, viola. Admission is free and donations are accepted.

FRIDAY, NOV. 18 

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.  

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.  

Backstage Productions “All in the Timing” at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. 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. Fri. and 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.  

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.  

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 

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. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Gift of Art” Reception for the artists at 6 p.m. at the Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809D Fourth St. 549-1018. 

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival “Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano” at 9 p.m. La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Battles of Sam Peckinpah “The Wild Bunch”at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” at 6:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets and book can be purchased in advance from Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Selling Democracy: Films of the Marshall Plan, 1948-53 Symposium on Productivity and Propaganda in the Service of American Foreign Policy at 2 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony performs works by Mussorgsky, Galinso and Rachmaninoff at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Pre-concert talk at 7:05 p.m. Tickets are $15-$60. 625-8497.  

San Francisco City Chorus and Vox Dilecti “An Evening of Vaughan Williams” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $13-$20. 415-701-7664.  

Mazula Woodwind Quintet at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $10. 848-1228.  

Akira Tana Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Eric Swinderman Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ.  

Nevile Staples, Chris Murray, The Soul Captives, Monkey, ska, rock at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054.  

Blame Sally at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Roy Rogers & Norton Buffalo at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Bobbe Norris & Larry Dunlap Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Lauren Murphy and Rupa Marya at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Spaceheater, John Schott’s Dream Kitchen at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Shadowboxer, Lobstrosities, K.B.H. at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

40 Watt Hype, world music, dub, rock, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Swoop Unit at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Val Esway’s Acoustic Onslaught Series at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10.  

SATURDAY, NOV. 19 

CHILDREN 

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

Phillipe Ames introduces “Meow Said the Mouse” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Enrique Martinez Celaya: Works on Paper opens at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. Slide show and discussion with the artist at 11 a.m. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

THEATER 

“Dick ‘N Dubya Show: A Republican Cabaret” Sat and Sun. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way. Tickets are $10-$22. 800-838-3006.  

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

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “The Neighbor’s Wife and Mine” at 5 p.m., “Our Neighbor, Miss Yea” at 6:30 p.m. and “Zigeuner 

weisen” at 8:10 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 

Adam Phillips explores sanity in “Going Sane: Maps of Happiness” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Ika Hügel-Marshall describes “Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany” at 4 p.m. at Hand to Hand, 5680 San Pablo Ave. 430-2673. 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mic Series “Peace Jungle Story Swap” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trinity Chamber Concerts, Jason Emanuel Britton, cabaret singer, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. http:// 

trinitychamberconcerts.com  

“Dancin’ with a Piano” with Bryan Baker, piano, Rod Lowe, tenor, and Deborah Schmidt, flute, at 8 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $15-$50. 525-0302.  

“Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans” with the Berkeley Broadway Singers at 8 p.m. at St. Ambrose Church, 1145 Gilman St. Free, but donations will be sent to MusiCares Hurricane Relief Fund. 604-5732. www. 

berkeleybroadwaysingers.org 

Oakland Chamber Ensemble “I’m Talking to You” at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$17. 595-4691. 

Andy Cohen, acoustic blues and roots, at 7:30 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Tickets are $10. 237-1960. 

Billy Mintz, Grossman-Vlatkovich Duo at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15. 652-7914. 

Moment’s Notice A salon for improvised music, dance and theater at 8 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 Eighth St. Cost is $8-$10. 415-831-5592. 

Gaucho at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473.  

Pillows, Persephone’s Bees, Jason of Papercuts at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Robin Gregory & Bill Bell Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. 

Jamie Laval & Hans York at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

La Lesbian Karen Williams, comedy, at 9 p.m. at at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568.  

Evolutionary Patterns and the Lonely Owl, interactive dance, music and video at 7:30 p.m. at Mad Horse Loft, 2200 Adleine St., Ste. 125. Donation $5-$10. 535-2504.  

Madeline Eastman at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Kotoja, Afrobeat at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Josh Workman Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Renée Asteria and Daryl Scairiot at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Urban Monks at 7 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Persephone’s Bees, Pillows at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Famous Last Words at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Harold Ray, King Kahn BBQ Show Riff Randells at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Skip Hop at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, NOV. 20 

THEATER 

“Tellabration” National storytelling event hosted by Stagebridge at 3 p.m. at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. at 27th, Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. 444-4755.  

EXHIBTIONS 

Art in Progress Open Studios and Group Exhibition in the landmark Durkee Spice Building. Painting, photography, archival prints, sculpture, mixed media from 2 to 5 p.m. at 800 Heinz Ave. 845-0707. 

MATRIX 219 Wilhelm Sasnal new works by the Polish artist opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Artists talk at 4 p.m. 642-0808. 

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

FILM 

Taisho Chic on Screen “Castle of Wind and Clouds” at 5 p.m. “Walk Cheerfully” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

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.  

Poems Against War at 3 p.m. in the Morrison Library, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Architecture Dept. 

Bill Mayer and Larry Felson, local poets, read at 8 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Poetry Flash with F. D. Reeve and Madeline Tiger at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans” with the Berkeley Broadway Singers at 4 p.m. at St. Augustine’s Church, 400 Alcatraz Ave. Free, but donations will be sent to MusiCares Hurricane Relief Fund. 604-5732.  

Volti and soprano Christine Brandes in “No More to Hide: An American Wedding Cantata” at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft. Tickets are $15-$20. 415-771-3352.  

Prometheus Symphony, 40th Anniversary Concert at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito St., Oakland. Free, donations requested. 415-864-2151. 

Deborah Voigt, soprano, at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68, available from 642-9988.  

Contra Costra Chorale with New Millennium Strings at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $5-$10. 524-1861. www.ccchorale.org 

University Wind Ensemble at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Organ Music for Four Hands with Paul Tegels and Dana Robinson at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $5-$15. 845-8630. 

Juanita Ulloa and the Picante Ensemble at 2 p.m. at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Mountain Blvd. at Keller, Oakland. Admission by donation. 635-4949. 

Carlos Olioveira & Brazilian Origins at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Tsygankov & Shevchenko at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

T-Rex Elite, Panda, Hunazee, Burmese Crowd, rock, teen bands at 3 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054.  

Echo Beach, jazz, at 10 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Shook Ones, Ceremony at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, NOV. 21 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jerome Karabel introduces “The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale and Princeton” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express with Juan Sequiera at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. tickets are $3-$10. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Harry Manx at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

TUESDAY, NOV. 22 

CHILDREN 

Flute Sweets & Tickletoons “I Hopped Out of Bed and Jumped for Joy” An evening of songs and stories at 7 p,.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “Group Hallucinations: Anger, Jacobs, Snow” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Harrington explains “The Challenge to Power: Money, Investing and Democracy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. 

Ellen Hoffmaan with Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Crooked Still at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with Lenora Mathias, flute, at noon at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555.  

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

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

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lessons at 7 p.m. Cost is $7. 525-5054.  

La Verdad, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

THEATER 

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  

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. Fr. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Dec. 4. Tickets are $7-$15. 652-2120. 

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 

Splash Circus “The Snow Queen” Fri. at 7 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

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 

EXHIBITIONS 

ACCI Gallery Holiday Exhibition opens with works by over 100 people at 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Holiday Art Show with works by Rik Olson, Soo Noga, Julian Shaw and Mylette Welch at Nexus Gallery, 2701 Eighth St., from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Nov. 29. 

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

FILM 

Marcel Pagnol’s Provence “Harvest” at 7 p.m., “The Baker’s Wife” at 9:25 p.m. at 9:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skilet Lickers at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yaelisa with Caminos Flamencos Dance Company at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Gery Tinkelenberg and Deborah Crooks at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Propagandhi, Greg MacPherson at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Inspector Double Negative, funk, hip hop, soul at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Du Uy Quintet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277.?

FRIDAY, NOV. 18 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Norm J. Szydlowski, Refinery Division, Chevron Corp., on “Iraq Reflections” 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.  

“Taking on Bush’s Wars at Home and Abroad” with Cindy Sheehan, Peter Camejo and others at 7 p.m. in Room 2050, Valley Life Sciences Bldg., UC Campus. Cost is $10. Sponsored by Berkeley Stop the War Coalition. 

“Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” documentary screening and conversation at 8 p.m. at The Living Room, 3230 Adeline St. RSVP to livingroomgallery@gmail.com 

“Target Market” with psychologist Allen Kanner and market researcher Nick Russell about how corporations target youth at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Donation $10. 528-5403. 

“Black Against Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Black Panther Party” with Prof. Waldo Martin and UCLA graduate student Joshua Bloom at 6 p.m. at Free Speech Movement Café at Moffitt Library, UC Campus. 642-0813. 

“German-Jewish Relations: A German Perspective” with Rolf Schütte, Consul General of Germany at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Bth El, 1301 Oxford St. 848-3988. 

“Lessons in Confronting the End of Life” with Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt at 7:15 p.m. at Beth Jacob Congregation, 3778 Park Blvd., Oakland. 482-1147. 

Wellness Open House Complimentary consultations and healing sessions in exchange for non-perishable food donations to benefit Berkeley Food and Housing Project, at 6:30 p.m. at 828 San Pablo Ave., Suite 115, Albany. 526-1559. 

Three Beats for Nothing sings early music for fun and practice at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, NOV. 19 

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. 

Fall Planting for the Wild Things Join us for a morning of planting to restore a marsh, and provide food and shelter for birds and other animals that live along the edges of San Francisco Bay in Pt. Richmond. From 9 a.m. to noon, followed by a naturalist’s talk at 1 p.m. To register and receive directions or for more information, email Bayshorestewards@thewatershedproject.org or call 665-3689.  

Help Save the Bay Plant Native Seedlings from 9 a.m. to noon at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline. Gloves, tools and snacks provided. 452-9261, ext. 109. www.savesfbay.org 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meets at 9:15 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Sproul Conference Room, 1st Floor, 2727 College Ave. www.berkeleycna.com 

Asthma and Avian Flu Town Hall Meeting from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the West Oakland Library, 1801 Adeline St. at 18th St. Free. Sponored by the Alta Batess Ethnic Health Institute. 869-8224. 

“Green Jobs - Not Jails” A youth training program, for ages 16 - 25, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Ella Baker Center, 344 40th St. Oakland. Free. 415-577-3530. www. 

reclaimthefuture.org/training 

BHS Communication Arts and Sciences Calendar Sale Wall, desk and enagement calendars on a variety of topics for only $5, from noon to 2 p.m., also on Sun. at 2310 Valley St., 3 blocks west of Sacramento St., off Channing Way. 843-2780. 

“The House on Mango Street” Community Reading with The Mixed Bag Storytellers, Mayor Tom Bates and Darryl Moore at 11 a.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis. 981-5180. 

“Walking in Two Worlds: Black Native Americans,” with Rafael Jesús González, essayist from El Corazón de la Muerte, dancing by Medicine Warriors Dance Troupe, drumming by All Nations Singers and music by Abdi Jibril and Balafo, at 1 p.m. at Oakland Main Public Library, West Auditorium, 125 14th St., Oakland. 

“The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East” with Robert Fisk 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 

California Writers Club meets to discuss “The Rewards of Fellowship” with Ann Parker, Ginger Wadsworth, and Laurel Anne Hill at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square, Oakland. 482-0265. www.berkeleywritersclub.org  

Holiday Craft Market with jewelry and beads, hand-crafted leather goods, ceramics, and gourmet chocolates from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Cost is $3. All proceeds benefit Magical Acts. 

Friends of the Albany Library Special Book Sale with rare and collectible books and records, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Mandala Drawing A workshop from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Bring a bag lunch and something to share. Cost is $35. To register call 525-8879. 

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. Registraion required. clinics@abgsl.org, www.abgsl.org 

Flu and Pneumonia Shots from noon to 4 p.m. at Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. Cost is $25 and $35. 527-8929. 

Holiday Baking for Your Pet at 3 p.m. at Rabbitears, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Donation $20.525-6155.  

SUNDAY, NOV. 20 

Salamander Hike Enjoy wet habitats on a search for slow moving amphibians at 9 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tiden Park. 525-2233. 

Eat More Chocolate! Learn the natural history and health benefits of this amazing bean at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $12-$14. Registration required. 636-1684. 

School of the Americas Watch Candlelight Vigil at sunset on the steps of St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Bring a candle. Sponsored by the Fr. Bill O’Donnell Social Justice Committee of St. Joseph the Worker.  

Santa Paws & Holiday Photos Benefit for the East Bay Humane Society from noon to 4 p.m. at Holistic Hound, 1510 Walnut St. Photos cost $25. Call for an appointment 843-2133. 

Arts and Crafts Bazaar from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Congregation Beth Israel, 1630 Bancroft Way. Works by local artisans as well as entertainment for children. 

The Globalization of Baseball with Jules Tygiel and Amaury Pi-Gonzalez at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Benefit for Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters with a concert by Dana Lyons, silent auction and refreshments, at 6 p.m. at Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. 548-3113. www.HeadwatersPreserve.org 

Family Explorations: Ghost Memories at noon p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Tenth and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Carving Your Thanksgiving Dinosaur” Learn how your bird is related to dinosaurs at 2 p.m. at Lawrence Hall of Science. Free with museum admission. 643-8980. 

Berkeley Cybersalon “Just Say No to Microsoft” with author Tony Bove at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St.Cost is $5-$10. www.hillsideclub.org  

Berkeley Biodiesel Collective Harvest Mixer with presentations, demonstrations, dancing to live music, eco-ed activities for children and more from 5 to 9 p.m. La Peña. 849-2568.  

“British Literature and the Torah” with Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt at 7 p.m. at Beth Jacob Congregation, 3778 Park Blvd., Oakland. 482-1147. 

“Hebrew: the Ideal Programming Language” with Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh on Kabbalah and computer science at 8 p.m. at MLK Student Union, Tilden Room, UC Campus. Donation $18. Reservations appreciated 540-5824. 

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

MONDAY, NOV. 21 

“Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” A screening of Robert Greenwald’s new documentary, with Rep. Barbara Lee, Global Exchange and Media Alliance at 6 p.m. at the Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $15. 415-255-7296. 

Women of Africa “Love, Labor Loss” a documentary on obstetric fistula, the severe childbirth injury, followed by panel discussion, at 6 p.m. at Maxwells Restaurant & Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakland. Free. 868-1711. www.wafrica.org 

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. 

School Boardmember John Selawsky will hold a community meeting at 6 p.m. the Berkeley Main Library, 3rd floor meeting room. 848-0305.  

Satsang with Pamela Wilson, meditative inquiry and dharma talk at 7:30 pm at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Donation of $15, no one turned away. 295-9794.  

TUESDAY, NOV. 22 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds, who may be accompanied by an adult. We will hunt for spiders if the weatheris nice, if not we’ll learn about the water cycle, from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

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

“Becoming Hevajra” An overview of the meditative and ritual practice with Prof. Harunaga Isaacson, Univ. of Penn. at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 6th flr., 2223 Fulton St. 643-6492. 

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. 

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 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 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also, Mon. noon to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

“Ask the Social Worker” free consultations for older adults and their families from 10 a.m. to noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. To schedule an appointment call 558-7800, ext. 716. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. 

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. 23 

“Chavez, Venezuela and the New Latin America” A documentary at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 393-5685. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Action St. 841-2174.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Healthy Eating Habits A seminar with hypnosis at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 465-2524. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Sing your Way Home A free sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. every Wed. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Prose Writer’s Workshop An ongoing group made up of friendly writers who are serious about our craft. All levels welcome. At 7 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Stitch ‘n Bitch Bring your knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts from 6 to 9 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, NOV. 24 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

East Bay Food Not Bombs Give Thanks Vegetarian Potluck Feast from 6 to 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Free. Please bring donations and a vegetarian dish to share. 658-9178. 

Vegan Potluck at 4:30 p.m. Bring vegan (no eggs or dairy) food to share. For location and to RSVP, call 562-9934.  

FRIDAY, NOV. 25 

Demonstration at “The Dead Mall,” Bay Street Emeryville built on the Ohlone burial ground, from noon to 6 p.m. 841-8562. 

“Native Americans and Thanksgiving” with Zachary Running Wolf and Thunder at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $10. 528-5403.  

Three Beats for Nothing sings early music for fun and practice at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 655-8863. 

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. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, NOV. 26 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Women of Color Arts and Crafts Show from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at La Penna Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

“Playing With Fire” Berkeley Potters Guild Holiday Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 731 Jones St. at Fourth St. www.berkeleypotters.com 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For a map of locations see www.berkeleyartisans.com 

Spirit Walking Aqua Chi (TM) A gentle water exercise class at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley High Warm Pool. Cost is $3.50 per session. 526-0312. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552 

ONGOING 

We Give Thanks Month Dine at a participating restaurant, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Berkeley Food and Housing. Restaurants include Bendean, Poulet, Rose Garden Inn, La Note, Skates on the Bay and Oliveto’s. www.bfhp.org 

Warm Coat Drive Donate a coat for distribution in the community, at Bay St., Emeryville. Sponsored by the Girl Scouts. www.onewarmcoat.org 

Albany Berkeley Girls Softball League is looking for girls in grades 1-9 to play softball. Season runs March 4-June 3. To register, email registrar@abgsl.org or call 869-4277. Early Bird registration ends Dec. 31. Registration closes Feb. 1. Scholarships available. www.abgsl.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Nov. 21, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon., Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Creeks Task Force meets Mon. Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Erin Dando, 981-7410. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/planning/landuse/Creeks/default.html 

Downtown Area Plan Committee meets Mon. Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7410.?

During inspections, I often hear people refer to old houses as having “good bones.” This is such a trigger for me that I have to duct tape my mouth shut to keep from launching into a day-long lecture on what’s good AND bad about old houses. Luckily for me, there’s no duct tape on my keyboard so I can rant all day. Or as long as space permits, anyway. 

The problem with the notion of good bones, to draw a further anatomical analogy, is that it lacks any discussion of the viscera. The bloodstream, neurology or fascia that flesh out, protect and inhabit this skeletal system. Also, the notion that old houses have good bones, presumably the framing or wooden members, is often wrong. This is untrue often enough to fairly state that not all older houses have good bones. Also, it is unreasonable to assume, by contrast, that newer houses are lacking in a decent skeletal system. 

To widen the attack on this notion, I think we have to examine assumption behind the term “good bones,” which is, I believe, that old houses are better built—that they used better materials and that they were built with more care and by persons with better knowledge of construction. 

This is true just enough of the time and in enough areas of the trades that the notion has never been fully debunked. But let’s break it down, take it by domain and see if we can inject some sense into where this old husband’s tale comes from and to what degree it may be true. 

If we take a typical house from, say, 1915, and another typical house from 1975 and compare them, we will certainly find that the older house is fairly well-framed. Often these older houses used very good lumber, which seems not to be as prevalent in the modern house. Wooden members have gotten smaller, for given dimensions over the last century (2x4s are now 1-1/2” x 3-1/2”) and the quality of the wood used has diminished somewhat. However, a house from 1915, in many areas, would have used smaller pieces of wood as well as having spaced them further apart.  

A roof framing from 1915 would typically have been made up of 2x4s spaced about three feet apart. While the wood used may have been of good quality, this framing can’t compete with the 1975 house which will probably have 2x6s spaced about two feet apart. The latter framing is stronger by any objective standard.  

One thing that will almost certainly bear in the favor of the older house will be the quality of the nailing. Nails were often of larger sizes, were generally better installed (yes, those carpenters pounded them all in by hand with huge hammers and powerful triceps—even the little guys) and more were put in at each joint. Again, this is not consistent but it is often true. 

I remember reading a story about a development in Florida built in 1970s which, when hit by a hurricane, pancaked. These houses just fell to pieces. Forensics done in the aftermath of the tragedy showed that only a small fraction of the mandated nailing had been done and that this was clearly the reason for the widespread failures. Images of tight budgets, poor inspections and framers under the influence come to mind, although proof of the particulars is hard to come by. Nonetheless, the general notion of cheapness as an element of late 20th century construction clearly fits. 

Before moving on from the issue of framing in a comparison of our 1915 vs. 1975 houses, I do think it’s worthwhile to point out that that the floors and walls of both houses are quite similar but do favor the older house much of the time. The place where the framing differences really manifest themselves are in those areas that we think of as being of seismic relevance. The very bottom part of the framing in the older house does not have the interconnectedness of the modern house. For some odd reason, builders and building designers were not thinking about how houses fail during earthquakes even 20 years after the great San Francisco quake.  

Another 60 years passed before significant measures were taken to change the way houses respond to earthquakes. These changes have to do with bolting of houses to foundations, the nailing of exterior cladding and the way in which various parts of the house are attached to one another.  

This is one of those areas where I tend to say that the bones of the older house really aren’t that good. Well, the bones may be good but the tendons and ligaments are lousy. Even though houses built since the 1960s show increasing signs of cheapness, ignorance and lack of integrity, the technologies have advanced and houses are better for them. I would never trade in a 1975 reinforced concrete foundation for the soluble brick foundation of 1915 and were I to buy one of those glorious painted ladies, would make the replacement of the foundation my first task. 

As is so often true, this subject deserves 10 times the space of this column, but let me finish briefly with a few other areas of comparison.  

Electrical wiring is so much better today than in 1915 that it’s hardly worth discussing. Many safety features have been added as well as pure utility in the form of lighting, zillions of outlets and safety features like the GFCI. 

Heating has advanced greatly as well with the advent of insulation and thermal windows. Plumbing systems are no longer corroded steel with their advanced cases of arteriole sclerosis. If you’ve ever showered in an older house when someone flushed the toilet, you know what I mean. Modern copper piping is a small wonder and no matter how marvelous that old Victorian is, until you upgrade the plumbing, your wife will continue to threaten divorce. 

I’ll answer the question that I’m sure at least some of you are asking yourselves at this point by saying that I live in a 1922 house. The foundation has been replaced, as has the wiring, plumbing and heating. This is my personal answer to the dilemma of old vs. new. I don’t care for most newer houses I see. The architecture and lack of detailing often leave me cold and I’m never sure which room I’m in. I can’t tell the foyer from the laundry room. On the other hand, an old house without modern upgrades is a daily trial. 

So I suggest a new version of an old ditty: Good Bones, Good Heat, Good Pipes, That’s Sweet. 

I went down to the East Bay Nursery 

I saw the tchotchkes there 

Hangin’ from the walls and ceiling 

Christmas madness everywhere 

I’ll indulge in a clichéd, complaining rhetorical question: Did the big Christmas sales slam always start this early? No, you can’t fool me; I’m so old I remember when merchants were somehow honor-bound to hold off until about Thanksgiving.  

OK, that’s out of the way. Now for East Bay Nursery’s annual holiday ornament extravaganza. There are whole shops given over to Christmas, and probably somewhere there’s a megastore with acres and acres of this glitz. But somehow this one’s more concentrated, more intense. Maybe it’s because the whole thing is crammed into the small indoor shop section of a good-sized city nursery, a place otherwise given over to orderly rows of live green things.  

When you’ve been fondling plants, sticking your fingers in the soil, picking up gallon cans to look for rootlets and all, and then walk into this little gilt-and-glass fantasy, you can get to feeling a bit grubby. (I felt that way once when accidentally sharing a hotel with the Mrs. America pageant. Mother of pearl, those tootsies had four-hour makeup seminars.) There’s that urge to put your hands behind your back—and eventually another urge, for a dose of insulin. 

Still, this year’s crop has nothing musical, nothing spinning giddily and tinkling out that odious Drummer Boy thing. There are the assorted birds, beasts, pastries, Santas and other folks, angels, abstractions, at least one gator and one accordion, and, oddly, a very Hallowe’enish black bat on a purple globe. Somewhere in Berkeley there’s a person who needs this for their tree, no doubt. 

Most of the year, I think of East Bay Nursery, generic name and all, as the Andronico’s of local nurseries. It’s a family affair a couple of generations deep; it’s also the find-everything supermarket. When it’s early in the morning you can count on running into a pro landscaper or two on their way to a client’s, picking up a six-pack of annuals and a dozen eggplant starts, chatting up the staff and vice-versa.  

It’s got those rows and rows of goods, too, like a supermarket, all the better to maneuver your market-type cart through. Sometimes you can even find food, if you were to shoplift—or buy the whole tree in the back row just for the figs it’s bearing. It’s a good way to be sure you have a fertile tree and you know what kind of fig it will give you, what the heck.  

This is one of the few places I know where you can still buy a Schinus molle, the “California” peppertree that’s been around, allegedly, since the Mission days and now is being hit so hard by disease. There’s also space for little obsessions and innovations, like the grand slam of sages that starred here a few years ago, or those odd-colored foliage plants arranged in geometric patterns.  

The place is far from boring, and between the live goods and the pots and tools—always something different—it’s the place for one-stop shopping.  

East Bay Nursery 

2332 San Pablo Ave. 

Berkeley 

845-6490 

8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday 

Closed Sundays and Mondays 

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Thanksgiving is upon us, and the traditional jocular soft news press releases about the president’s annual pardoning of a turkey are being prepared for distribution. Particularly with the current president, believed by many to be the real turkey, the subject lends itself to a lot of levity in the media, but this year a serious story about a human facing death at the hands of fellow humans has dominated the news instead. 

The state of California plans to kill a man in cold blood on Dec. 13. It won’t be self-defense, because the man is safely locked up, so he poses no threat to anyone. War is not the excuse—here in California we’re still a civil society, at peace at home if not abroad. And it’s well established that capital punishment does not reduce the murder rate. It’s not even certain that vengeance is involved in this case, since the man whom the state plans to kill denies having killed the victims, but for the purposes of this discussion let’s say that murders took place, he’s a likely suspect, and a jury convicted him. Stanley Tookie Williams freely admits that he has committed many crimes, if not the ones for which he faces being killed. So retribution is the last remaining putative justification for killing him. 

Most of the world now believes that government-sponsored retributive killing is morally wrong, even in cases where the criminal does not admit guilt or show remorse. The United States, as one of the last bastions of capital punishment, is regarded with horror by most of what is commonly called the civilized world, as well as most of the rest of the world, countries which have shown themselves to be more civilized than we are by renouncing the death penalty. 

Last week we saw the San Francisco Opera’s production of Beethoven’s Fidelio, an uplifting saga about a prisoner who escapes execution at the last minute through the heroism of his wife and the timely arrival of a government minister who saves him. It’s especially relevant at a time when Americans are learning about all the jailing and torture being done in our name. 

The jailer, Rocco, is a good-humored man of the people who reluctantly agrees to dig the grave for a man he’s come to know and like, but refuses to do the actual killing himself. The part was played by a singer named Arthur Woodley, who has a gorgeous voice and is also a fine actor. Rocco’s ambivalence is sometimes played for laughs, but Woodley managed to humanize Rocco’s moral dilemma effectively with no slapstick.  

Over the weekend we were lucky to be invited to a party where we got a chance to meet Arthur Woodley in person. We talked about how he got where he is today. He told us that he’d been raised in the South Bronx in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, back when it was considered a trackless wasteland. “But we had programs,” he said, all kinds of programs, the noble endeavors that grew out of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda. As a black youth, he was supposed to be headed for trouble, but instead he was drawn first into theater and then into music, and he hasn’t looked back. He mentioned in particular the South Bronx Community Theater as a home away from home for a kid looking for excitement.  

Someone in one of his programs steered him to the city of Bologna, in Italy, at that time run by Communists who believed in government support for the arts, and he spent ten years getting his musical training at the conservatory there. When he came back to the United States, he expected to step right on to the opera stage, but he learned that parts for African-American singers were still few and far between. He spent a few years at the Dance Theater of Harlem, where the legendary Arthur Mitchell insisted that everyone learn to dance and act. Now he’s finally gotten to be a regular on the opera circuit, one of the increasingly small number of singers who fly around the world to take roles in major opera houses.  

Arthur Woodley is about the same age as Tookie Williams, or perhaps a bit older. The programs he remembers so fondly and his gift for singing put him on a different path. For Williams then, and for most of today’s kids in the South Bronx, in California and in the rest of the U.S., there were and are no such programs.  

This is not to excuse murder, if indeed Williams did commit murder, but we all share responsibility for a society that is now geared to produce more criminals like Williams than educated and productive citizens like Woodley. And killing Williams won’t change that. It will be nothing more than another murder, this one state-sponsored. 

Like the government minister in Fidelio, Arnold Schwarzenegger has it in his power to prevent a death. Like the jailer Rocco, he probably believes in his heart that state killing is morally wrong. His wife Maria Shriver certainly knows this, and perhaps she has some influence over him. They both claim to be Catholics, educated as such and now church-going. The teaching of the church they profess to believe in is clear: Capital punishment is wrong.  

They might ponder an e-mail which my cousin forwarded to me this morning. It was written by William J. Phelan, an ex-Jesuit seminarian, after he took part in the recent protest at the School of the Americas, which has trained hundreds of jailers, torturers and killers: 

I realized that I am proud to have been educated in Catholic schools (kindergarten through 1st year of graduate school) and to find that the lessons learned stay with me.  

And I was almost tearful remembering that commitment to social justice was the way I was brought up in the Catholic faith. It was a major emphasis at LeMoyne, and at Fordham, but I also remember it from high school. This was the church I knew and loved—a radical caring for the downtrodden, the poor, the vulnerable, for working families. But this was before the church took that all-consuming, energy-sapping, money-draining detour into matters reproductive, or non-reproductive. (Jesus, as you know, said nothing about abortion, birth control, homosexuality or heterosexuality, but had plenty to say about loving one’s neighbor and one’s enemy, and about social justice.)  

“Who would Jesus bomb?” said one bumper sticker I saw. Another said: “When Jesus said ‘Love your enemies,’ he probably meant not to kill them.” Pro-life is not limited to fetal life for some Catholics. 

Something for Arnold and Maria to think about when they go to church this week. And they should catch the last production of Fidelio over the weekend too. 

The theme of the week’s news is lying. President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have now shamelessly adopted the Big Lie technique perfected by Nazi propagandists. They have jointly and severally repeated not once but often their latest Big Lie, that they didn’t tell Congress earlier Big Lies in order to coerce a yes vote on going into Iraq. Senator Reid is calling them on it, though I haven’t yet seen Reid quoted as using the L-word, possibly because American politics tends toward genteel euphemisms. The British, who can be seen in parliamentary debate on late-night TV, have no such scruples. Tony Blair has been called a liar by members of his own party, by the British press, and by British bloggers, one of whom branded a particular Blair statement as “utter bollocks.” In fact, a Google search on “bush liar” or “blair liar” produces many charges against each of them.  

On the state level, the discussion about who authorized a big relocation payment for UC provost M.R.C. Greenwood has produced a good crop of charges and counter-charges. Former regent Velma Montoya has a letter in Thursday’s San Francisco Chronicle which stops just short of applying the L-word to UC’s president: “In his current distortion of the facts in an attempt to avoid responsibility for this unwise appointment, President Dynes has exposed his even more serious misrepresentation of the facts to the UC Board of Regents at the time of the Greenwood appointment. “  

“Distortion of the facts” and “serious misrepresentation” seem to have become part and parcel of public life these days. It happens all the time in Berkeley—one local official is called “Pinocchio” by his fans because he has the bad habit of “misrepresenting” and “distorting” even trivial, inconsequential and easily checked items of fact in public meetings.  

Lying has always been part of public discourse. What’s changed is that now it’s possible to fact-check almost any statement quickly. There will be a video-tape or an e-mail to document what was actually said, and there will be an ardent blogger to report the results of checking the facts, and perhaps even a conventional (“MSM” in bloggerspeak) media outlet willing to out a liar. That’s not to say that rapid-fire electronic information transmission doesn’t produce its own share of distortions, misrepresentations, untruths and outright lies, of course, compounded by acceleration of dissemination.  

“What is truth?” That’s Pontius Pilate’s cynical question to Jesus Christ, posed right before pronouncing a death sentence. It has provided fodder for centuries of theological and philosophical discussion, with still no obvious conclusion. Are candidates telling the truth when they promise to cut taxes and increase services? Are they lying to the electorate? Does it change things if they’re lying to themselves as well? Political puffery has always been winked at, but is puffery on the part of non-elected officials more serious? Is it worse for Scooter Libby to lie under oath while he’s feeding at the public trough than it is for George Bush to lie in his infrequent press conferences? Is it worse for Bill Clinton to lie about adultery than for Bush to lie about weapons of mass destruction?  

In the face of all this outright lying, the job of the media becomes even more confusing. Is it enough simply to report what was said by the person in authority, or must the responsible reporter take it one step further and independently check the truthfulness of the statement? And if the conscientious journalist is supposed to go beyond mindless acceptance of statements from officials, whether made in press releases or off-the-record, how is this to be done? It’s difficult, it’s expensive, and sometimes it’s not possible even with the best efforts. So if a reporter suspects that someone is spinning him or her, is the remedy just not to publish the spin? These are all questions that Bob Woodward should be asking himself right about now. Or that he should have asked himself in mid-June when he first got wind of the Valerie Wilson spin story. His answers will be interesting. 

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