Dante Green and his girlfriend Krystina Brown, both undergrads at Xavier University in New Orleans, evacuated to Atlanta just before Hurricane Katrina hit and jumped at the offer to come study at UC Berkeley when the waters rose around their campus. -more-
Plans for a downtown UC Berkeley museum complex moved to the forefront Tuesday when the university issued a call for a project design architect. -more-
An off-campus incident between a student and a UC Berkeley undergraduate advisor that led to explosive allegations of racist and sexist epithets against the student has a local activist organization calling for the firing of the employee and the UC officials conducting a review of the university’s initial response. -more-
Members of the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) Monday tackled everything from a nuclear accelerator building to UC Berkeley expansion plans. -more-
The popular and sometimes controversial watch commander of North Oakland’s PSA-2 beat is leaving his post for the department’s central office, leaving regretful North Oakland citizens behind. -more-
Forget blue states and red states. At the Berkeley City Council Tuesday, it was green signs versus orange signs. -more-
The School Board meeting on Wednesday night marked the end of the presidency of Nancy Riddle. The board passed a unanimous resolution honoring Nancy Riddle for her work. Riddle was described as a strong leader who ran meetings smoothly and calmly. -more-
Student attendance declines as students grow older, the Berkeley School Board learned last week. -more-
Berkeley police arrested five Berkeley High School students last Friday after a fight between two youths escalated into a large scale fracas. -more-
The Alameda County district attorney’s office Thursday refused to press murder charges against a 42-year-old former Berkeley man accused of killing his parents and sister. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
There is a moment in Jeffery Goldberg’s New Yorker profile of Brent Scowcroft, George Bush Senior’s former national security advisor, when the current administration’s combination of arrogance and cluelessness crystallize. Over dinner, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice tells Scowcroft that the “good news” from the Middle East is that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is pulling out of Gaza, the first step toward resolving the issue of a Palestinian state. -more-
Abraham Lincoln being my favorite U.S. president, I often follow his advice on unconstructive criticism: “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.” But two types of criticisms get my immediate attention. One is if someone accuses me of a factual error—my opinions are my opinions, but they ought to be based on the correct facts. The second is if I get called out of my name, which I do not appreciate. -more-
A review of the art exhibit, “Justice Matters”, sponsored by the Middle East Children’s Alliance was recently published in the Berkeley Daily Planet (Friday Dec. 2). The writer, Peter Selz, a man with a stellar reputation as an art historian, is an expert in German expressionism as well as many other areas. Unfortunately, in this case, he has stumbled into another world, one that depends not on truth but on propaganda, a world in which art is being misused to serve as a tool to spread hatred and justify violence. -more-
A small but vocal minority twists logic into a pretzel in its clamor for the death of Tookie Williams on Dec. 12. In contrast, the opposition to the execution stands upon a hierarchy of values and logic that digs deep into the positive side of America and repudiates the murderous side of our history. At the abolitionist base are folks, many of them religious, who believe that taking life, except in self-defense, is egregiously abhorrent. Because this view underpins the declared moral principles of civilization, when a cop kills someone who turns out to not have a weapon, the police plea is often that the officer thought the suspect was armed. That becomes the only acceptable public justification. -more-
The Christmas Revels celebrates the Winter Solstice—and its 20th anniversary—with songs, dances and stories of medieval England for 10 weekend matinee and evening shows, Dec. 9-18, at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Theater by Lake Merritt. -more-
Although I have a pretty strong stomach, there is nothing that will sour it as quickly as a beautiful old home that’s had all its wooden windows replaced with those awful aluminum jobs. This is called getting ferclampeted, which, in Yiddish, means “to find oil on your land and find yourself living in upscale digs you ought never to have occupied.” -more-
If you have a child on your gift list this year, and he or she looks susceptible, it’s time to pass on that benign garden bug. It doesn’t need to be missionary work to infect the kids around you (and you don’t get a toaster); just let them play in the mud with the right tools like the rest of us. -more-
Sucha Singh Banger had a hard summer, and life isn’t getting any easier for him. -more-
“Let’s all visit Berkeley for the first time,” Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) Chair Will Travis declared Saturday before a group set off on a downtown walking tour. -more-
The long-running saga of the Drayage is nearing an end with the sale of the West Berkeley building to the development firm Hudson McDonald expected to clear some time next month. -more-
We invite our readers to submit personal essays, short fiction, poetry and pictures for our annual Reader Contribution Holiday Issue. Selected submissions will be published in the Tuesday, Dec. 27 issue. Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18. Send us your material at holiday@berkeleydailyplanet.com or to 3023A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705. -more-
Army National Guard Specialist Katherine Jashinski announced her opposition to war and refused deployment to Iraq last month at Fort Benning, Ga. -more-
The Berkeley public scoping meeting on plans for new construction in and around Memorial Stadium will be held Thursday, and not Tuesday as reported in the Dec. 2 issue. -more-
Controversial Derby Street Field Also on Agenda -more-
PARIS—Karim Baïla unlocks the door of his silver VW Beetle and we cram in. We pull out of chic central Paris, headed for the low-income suburbs and public housing districts where thousands of cars had burned since the youth uprising began two weeks earlier. Karim is something of an anomaly. Born to illiterate Algerian parents, he is now one of few French Algerian reporters who make regular appearances on national TV. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
Lately we’ve been hearing from City Hall that when the council settled the city’s lawsuit against the university last May, it got UC to agree to buy more goods and services from Berkeley businesses. -more-
“Brown?” asked our friend Darren. “Why brown?” -more-
There are two options on how to construct the playing fields at East Campus. One option is to build an open-street field, which has been crafted by community meetings with the WLC architects. This plan includes a multi-purpose field, basketball courts, and most importantly, an open street. This field benefits sports teams at Berkeley High School like the lacrosse team, the field hockey team, the rugby team, the soccer team, and could be used by the baseball teams for infield and batting practice. -more-
I’m a parent of two children who Berkeley public school students. My youngest is a freshman at Berkeley High. I’ve supported a “field of dreams” at Derby Street from the beginning, 15 years ago, and have been involved with hundreds of like-minded families raising their children in Berkeley. A recent comment by Councilmember Linda Maio struck me as she responded to e-mails on this issue. She stated: -more-
I would like to clear up some misinformation I have read recently in the Daily Planet regarding the possibility of Derby Street closing and its effect on the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers’ Market. While it is true that the current proposed site for the Farmers’ Market in a closed-Derby Street scenario contains more square footage than currently occupied, the market’s needs are more complex than the physical space of asphalt given to us. -more-
To Daily Planet letter-writer Michaela Bowens: I’m sorry that someone has filled your head with lies about the Ecology Center position on playing fields for kids. We have always supported the development of a multi-use field at Derby Street. We find it appalling this site sat empty for so many years while it could have been used by both girls’ and boys’ soccer, rugby, field hockey, and lacrosse teams. We have participated at deep levels of planning and engagement to those ends. We believe that physical education and team sports in particular are critical components, along with nutritional education and access to fresh fruits and vegetables, in addressing Berkeley’s unacceptable health disparities and the national obesity crisis. We have done much in this arena to work with BUSD both in and out of the classroom. We are concerned that any changes at Derby Street fully accommodate the needs of the thousands of shoppers, dozens of vendors, food justice organizations, and restaurants that depend on the South Berkeley Farmers’ Market as a thriving community resource. As for your comments about us sending kids to war or jail, please keep the dialogue respectful, not irrational. In the future, before you go passing judgment and publishing misinformed opinion about the Ecology Center, please check your facts. -more-
Whether saddled with a case of the holiday blues or just tired of the usual Nutcracker-Christmas Carol-Child’s Christmas in Wales go-round and seeking something more offbeat for seasonal family entertainment, there’s a remedy: Send in the clowns. -more-
Anyone else remember the Firesign Theater’s record “Everything You Know is Wrong”? You get that feeling if you follow science at all closely. One day the earth is solid and stable; the next, the continents are whizzing around the mantle like bumper cars. You learn that the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, and then it turns out you just had one for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s what the historian of science Thomas Kuhn called the paradigm shift, and it just keeps happening. -more-
On Monday it will have been three years since the O’Malley family paid a few thousand dollars for the name and distribution boxes of the original version of the Berkeley Daily Planet. A few old Macs and some horrendous metal desks were thrown in gratis. -more-
So Gov. Schwarzenegger has hired Susan Kennedy, formerly a top aide to Gray Davis as cabinet secretary and deputy chief of staff, to be his own chief of staff. And in a little noticed corollary move, his wife and political confidant Maria Shriver has hired Daniel Zingale, another Davis deputy, to be her chief of staff. Sacramento is a pretty cozy place, isn’t it? Why are we not surprised? Well, for one thing, Justin DeFreitas did a prize-winning cartoon for this page, way back when, around the time of the recall election, which depicted Davis morphing into Schwarzenegger in the space of eight panels. We should just re-run that one reversed. As they say in France, plus ça change, plus la même chose: the more things change, the more they remain the same. -more-
